On paedophilia and moral relativism

[mormont]

There was mideveal birth control methods. I had to actually read the primary sources on that one. Some of the things would not hold up to modern standards (things like positioning and position/tying of testicles) but there were also more reliable things as well.

You may be right. But first, I'll bet you £1,000 GRRM hadn't read those sources and didn't know this when he created 'moon tea'. And second, it doesn't really change my point, which is that these aren't historical novels, and that GRRM can and does change things to be different from real-life medieval times (as well as picking and choosing from different historical eras). Marriages at the age of 12 exist in Westeros because GRRM chose to have that as part of the setting.

[Frey Pentos]

This argument doesn't work, I'm afraid. Westeros is not a real-life pre-industrial society. It's a fictional world written by a modern author for a modern audience. As such, we're perfectly entitled to look at it and ask questions about it from a modern standpoint.

This is especially so when we consider that GRRM already took the decision to remove or ameliorate several aspects of real medieval life by, for example, creating a method of reliable birth control (moon tea), providing better healthcare than existed in comparable periods of history (the maesters), and 'powering up' swords against armour (Valyrian steel). He could just as easily have created a law that defined a minimum age of sexual consent or marriage: in fact it would have been quite easy. Simply make it an article of the Faith that was passed into law by a previous king.

So it's perfectly legitimate to ask why he chose not to do so. I think the answer is simply that the moral questions thrown up by the practice of dynastic marriage to those we would consider 'underage' interested him and were something he wanted to write about. But whether or not you agree with that, the point is it's perfectly legitimate for people to wonder about and question this authorial choice, and to defend it by saying 'well, it happened in real life' is at best an incomplete answer, at worst missing the point.

I totally disagree with this. Not only are you wrong about medieval medicine and it practitioners, you completely fail to understand how anachronistic Westeros having an arbitrary, contemporary Western age of sexual consent would be. Why should GRRM compromise his vision just to satisfy those people that want to engage in presentism? ASOIAF is fiction but still has to ring true to be good.

[StarkWhite]

Japan, at least in my opinion, is not really a Western country. And European countries where 14 is the age of consent tend to be Central/Eastern Europe (with the exception of Spain, which is 13 IIRC). So also, not really Western countries.

That leaves us with a handful of irregular US states vs the majority of US states, the UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, all of which I consider a stronger representation of "the West". So yeah, generally in the West, you need to be 16 to consent to sex.

"So that it fits more conveniently for my argument"

Lawl

[Frey Pentos]

You may be right. But first, I'll bet you £1,000 GRRM hadn't read those sources and didn't know this when he created 'moon tea'. And second, it doesn't really change my point, which is that these aren't historical novels, and that GRRM can and does change things to be different from real-life medieval times (as well as picking and choosing from different historical eras). Marriages at the age of 12 exist in Westeros because GRRM chose to have that as part of the setting.

Would you like the slaves to all be making minimum wage and treated with dignity as well.

[David Selig]

I totally disagree with this. Not only are you wrong about medieval medicine and it practitioners, you completely fail to understand how anachronistic Westeros having an arbitrary, contemporary Western age of sexual consent would be. Why should GRRM compromise his vision just to satisfy those people that want to engage in presentism? ASOIAF is fiction but still has to ring true to be good.

ASOIF is a fantasy novel set in an alternative world, not a historical novel. It can't be anachronistic.

[Frey Pentos]

ASOIF is a fantasy novel set in an alternative world, not a historical novel. It can't be anachronistic.

It's an alternative world that draws on real human history for it's feeling of authenticity. The internal rules of the world have to make sense, even though it is a fantasy.

[StarkWhite]

It's an alternative world that draws on real human history for it's feeling of authenticity. The internal rules of the world have to make sense, even though it is a fantasy.

They do work. Don't be so squeamish. It's fiction.

[Frey Pentos]

They do work. Don't be so squeamish. It's fiction.

I know they work. Because GRRM is true to the levels of civilisation he describes. If he tried to dilute that and impose modern values and beliefs...it wouldn't work.

[mormont]

I totally disagree with this.Not only are you wrong about medieval medicine and it practitioners, you completely fail to understand how anachronistic Westeros having an arbitrary, contemporary Western age of sexual consent would be. Why should GRRM compromise his vision just to satisfy those people that want to engage in presentism? ASOIAF is fiction but still has to ring true to be good.

You've missed my point, by some margin.

My point is that the author's 'vision' is entirely open to discussion. Everything that he includes or excludes is a choice, and it's fine to discuss those choices. As this is a fantasy, the issue of 'authenticity' is also about choice. There are numerous things about the world of Westeros that are 'anachronistic': in fact, it's such a mix that it's impossible for us to say what real-world time period it's closest to. Bits and pieces from across four centuries and more are present, all at the same time.

As for internal consistency, I'll let you into a little secret: the world of Westeros doesn't really work. ;) The economics, the social structures, the geography, the languages, the politics - it all breaks down if you stop and look closely. The existence of a law saying that marriage was only legal after age 16 would be no more absurd than the existence of a language that spans an entire continent such that a Dornishman can talk to a wildling and be mutually understood!

[Winter's Knight]

It's an alternative world that draws on real human history for it's feeling of authenticity. The internal rules of the world have to make sense, even though it is a fantasy.

They don't make sense though-the presence of a common language for instance, sans dialects, local mutations etc in a country as large as Westoros for instance.

[winterbird]

You may be right. But first, I'll bet you £1,000 GRRM hadn't read those sources and didn't know this when he created 'moon tea'. And second, it doesn't really change my point, which is that these aren't historical novels, and that GRRM can and does change things to be different from real-life medieval times (as well as picking and choosing from different historical eras). Marriages at the age of 12 exist in Westeros because GRRM chose to have that as part of the setting.

Technically we've seen toddlers married in this series yes. And it goes back with the rest of what I was saying. Why would the men who make the rules create laws to stop children from wedding? Women are for securing alliances. There are no women's rights or children's rights. You are first subject to the rules of your father and then the rules of your husband. There would be no reason for the men to make laws to stop women from marrying young when it was working for them. As long as the men were making the rules, the men decide what's what. And the men seem to like marrying off women early to secure alliances and titles. Having GRRM create a law that prevents marriage for a woman under 16 would not be consistent with the society we see in Westeros.

The only one who might appreciate that sort of a law is Dany since she seems to speak out for the repressed and decides to rule herself and not as a consort as a man. Cersei herself wouldn't care because she is terribly severe on her own sex and things all other women are weak.

[LuisDantas]

Sansa vs Littlefinger is all kinds of weird though, but not because ofz her age per se, but rather because Petyr pretends to be her dad and actually does view her as a daughter he could have had with Cat.

That too, but mainly because Sansa has no desire whatsoever to reciprocate.

[Frey Pentos]

You've missed my point, by some margin.

My point is that the author's 'vision' is entirely open to discussion. Everything that he includes or excludes is a choice, and it's fine to discuss those choices. As this is a fantasy, the issue of 'authenticity' is also about choice. There are numerous things about the world of Westeros that are 'anachronistic': in fact, it's such a mix that it's impossible for us to say what real-world time period it's closest to. Bits and pieces from across four centuries and more are present, all at the same time.

As for internal consistency, I'll let you into a little secret: the world of Westeros doesn't really work. ;) The economics, the social structures, the geography, the languages, the politics - it all breaks down if you stop and look closely. The existence of a law saying that marriage was only legal after age 16 would be no more absurd than the existence of a language that spans an entire continent such that a Dornishman can talk to a wildling and be mutually understood!

The only logical reason for Westeros having a modern age of consent would be the author either being afraid of causing offence or trying to make some anachronistic contemporary point about paedophilia. It just wouldn't ring true imo. As for bits and pieces of four centuries...we live in a world which contains cultures that still use blowpipes and arrows and others that have nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire planet.

[Sevumar]

I notice people reacting very strongly to "underage sex" in westeros. On the Robert-hating thread "having sex with minors" is added to his crimes. Also I was just reading a thread where someone threatened to "alert the authorities" over some comment about a characters' beauty.

So I guess littlefinger lusting after Sansa is meant to be gross, but someone bedding "a woman grown and flowered" is not.

It's worth noting that although people often use "pedophilia" as shorthand for sex with/attraction to any underage person, the term really only means a sexual interest in prepubescent youths.

That doesn't make it less icky for some posters, but calling attractions to people in their mid-teens who are adults by their society's standards "pedophilia" is incorrect.

[LuisDantas]

In Braavos there must be men/visiting sailors that like them young because Merry charges more for a 14 year old Lanna.

Paedophiles (or hebephiles, ephebophiles or whatever) exist in much any society. It is the form and degree of acceptance of their indulging the attraction that varies. While interesting, that detail hints not so much that Braavos embraces those chronophilies as that Braavos isn't big on protecting the rights of young girls, or perhaps that Arya is circulating among shady circles indeed.

I don't think we have enough to go on to say that this is any different from Westeros. After all, we know that the pot shops of Flea Bottom accept human meat to make the Brown. Odds are that some whorehouses offer 14-year olders as well. How clandestine they are is anyone's guess, as it was in Braavos as well.

[Garlan Marius]

You may be right. But first, I'll bet you £1,000 GRRM hadn't read those sources and didn't know this when he created 'moon tea'.

Moon tea is clearly inspired by silphium, which is anachronistic to the Middle Ages, but is a relatively well-known historical plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium

[LuisDantas]

Could not agree with the poster anymore! GRRM was taking in medieval society into thought! the idea of 18 being the age of adulthood is purely a western and mainly an American ideology! If anyone has ever been to Brazil, there adulthood is still usually marked by puberty, meaning there is ZERO stigmas about a 15 or 16 year old having casual sex because they are an ADULT!

That is something of an exageration. Legal age in Brazil is still 18, and while the teenagers are often very sexually active, social acceptance is irregular at best.

[ARYa_Nym]

Paedophiles (or hebephiles, ephebophiles or whatever) exist in much any society. It is the form and degree of acceptance of their indulging the attraction that varies. While interesting, that detail hints not so much that Braavos embraces those chronophilies as that Braavos isn't big on protecting the rights of young girls, or perhaps that Arya is circulating among shady circles indeed.

I don't think we have enough to go on to say that this is any different from Westeros. After all, we know that the pot shops of Flea Bottom accept human meat to make the Brown. Odds are that some whorehouses offer 14-year olders as well. How clandestine they are is anyone's guess, as it was in Braavos as well.

Well we know that Jeyne Poole was "trained" whatever that entailed. & Barra's mother was Lana's age.

As for non prostitutes there are the mermaids but I'm not sure if they do anything sexual or if they are just there to aid the Merling Queen courtesan. I don't know what the acceptable age there is.

"...the Merling Queen was never seen without her Mermaids, four young maidens in the blush of their first flowering who held her train and did her hair."

"The Merling Queen has chosen a new Mermaid to take the place of the one that drowned. She is the daughter of a Prestayn serving maid, thirteen and penniless, but lovely." "So are they all, at the beginning," said the priest."

[LuisDantas]

Moon tea is clearly inspired by silphium, which is anachronistic to the Middle Ages, but is a relatively well-known historical plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium

According to this SSM, "it's real enough".

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/A_Myriad_of_Questions/

[mormont]

The only logical reason for Westeros having a modern age of consent would be the author either being afraid of causing offence or trying to make some anachronistic contemporary point about paedophilia.

These would be reasons for an author to make that choice, yes. But the point is, it would be a choice.

Or to put it another way: if you're writing history, you have no choice but to include marriages such as those we're talking about, because they reallly happened. Leave them out, and you're not writing history any more.

But fantasy writers aren't writing history to start with - not even if their setting is inspired by history. Everything they include or leave out is a choice. There really isn't anything they have to include. Even when it comes to 'authenticity', the degree of authenticity is a choice: the things the author thinks he should include to create authenticity, are choices.

And, as I say, you can see plenty of evidence of this in ASoIaF. There's much in Westeros that is unrealistic, incredible, fantastic, and yes, anachronistic, to the point where tying the setting down to anything more specific than 'vaguely like the late-medieval period in tone' is impossible. Lots of these things were included to make the story more interesting, or to make it easier to write, or because the author just liked it that way - and lots were included specifically because the series is fantasy and not history.

So: if you think that GRRM included these elements in order to lend 'authenticity', then we agree that he has made a choice to do so. The question then becomes, 'why is this element crucial to authenticity?' And also 'what do we mean by 'authenticity' here?'

This is the difference between history and fiction. In history, it's perfectly legitimate to say 'this is how it really was' and even defend the laws and customs of the time as being a product of their time. In fantasy, it makes little sense to say these things, because someone made them that way. Instead, we have to ask, 'why did the author do that?' Saying 'to make it feel authentic' is an answer, but it's a partial answer. Why that bit of 'authenticity' if another bit was changed? Why does the setting not ring true without underage marriage, but it does ring true with language barriers minimised or removed?

It's always possible to answer these questions, of course, but if you stop before answering them, you haven't really got much of an argument IMO.

Anyway, this is a bit of a digression. :)