#anti grrm

[edennill]

GRRM may write more women than Tolkien, but as a woman I would feel much safer in Tolkien's world, and around the author himself

[spacerockfloater]

“The Targaryens/ Valyrians are not white supremacists and can’t be compared to European Colonisers!”

Oh? My bad then. I must have them confused with some other white folks who thought their appearance made them superior, brought whole continents to heel, exploited the lands of others for their own greed, destroyed whole civilizations and enslaved vulnerable people who unfortunately lacked the advanced weapons of mass destruction they possessed.

“Well, the Andals and the First Men were also colonisers, so they deserved it!”

No way! Are you actually telling me that every race has a history of violence because human nature itself is corrupt and we’re no better than animals fighting for their place on this earth? That’s so crazy and original. By the way, are you saying that people deserved to get colonised and enslaved because they were fighting other people in order to survive? Are you suggesting these “savages” should have been contained by the righteous white folks who came there to better their lives? Not to mention that the Andals and the First Men came to Westeros 12,000 and 6,000 years ago respectively, while the Targaryens attacked Westeros barely 130 years ago (literally just 3 - 4 generations) from the Dance of the Dragons? So are you comparing the morality of the people who migrated here, who were so primitive that barely even possessed weapons of steel, with that of the most advanced civilization ever built in the ASOIAF universe? That’s so interesting! It’s almost as if the Andals and the First Men didn’t know any better until it was too late and were trying to find a land that could accommodate their millions of people, so they were essentially fighting for survival, whereas the Targaryens who came from a race that had evolved philosophically, politically, academically and technologically wise, possessed enough wealth and land to sustain their little family, yet still chose to go to war against the land that nurtured them out of pure greed! Hmmm. Do you also believe that the Greeks had it coming when they were enslaved by the Ottomans and should just let go of the past because it’s been so long since they regained their freedom (barely 200 years ago btw, after 4 centuries of slavery), because their Ancient Ancestral Tribes migrated to Greece and conquered the land 3,500 years ago, a little after the age of bronze? No? Then you might see why that kind thinking is flawed.

Stop defending these inbred bastards with your full chest. We get it. They look badass. We all have a fave war criminal but all of the Targs need to be put to the sword, along with their fucking lizards. Purposely denying the parallels between the Targaryens/ Valyrians and the Colonisers/ Conquerors of our world screams white saviour complex.

[venusintheblindspots-blog]

And to add more on my previous post, all of the main female characters (with the exception of Arianne Martell) in the main series of ASOIAF are representations of white femininity.

Every single one.

And that is because they are literally white. It doesn’t make them bad characters or anything.

I’ve talked about it before hand, but anytime George is writing a character of color, especially a black woman, he uses racist stereotypes and imagery. Every time.

There’s a reason why Dorne and the Summer Isles are sexually liberated, and why the Dothraki are portrayed as vicious ‘savages’ with hardly any redeeming values to their culture.

There’s a reason why Arianne’s exposure to sex and intimacy at ten years old is not framed the same way as say, Sansa’s.

There’s a reason why Chataya and her daughter are brutalized and reminiscent of the Jezebel trope.

[katshuya]

No matter what George does. No matter if he twisted it into "Elia was ok and never felt humiliated nor used, and the Martells didn't mind what Rhaegar did" or if George decided never to talk about Elia. R x L will always be disgusting and not a tragic love story.

Any sane human being can see that.

Even in a creepy scenario where she was ok with it OR one where she didn't love Rhaegar, he will always be to blame, and he still used her.

That's why the R x L stans always try to either ignore her existence or reduce it into nothing and her into some kind of supernatural alien human that is ok with everything dirty done to her.

Because they know their oh so tragic, self insert true love story will always seem disgusting because of Elia's existence in the story.

No amount of excuses or fanarts will ever change this truth. No matter which characters George will make accepting and supporting of them (Ned, Arthur, Oberyn, Doran, Ashara, Lewyn and even Elia herself....ect). Why? Because it's unrealistic.

Even if R and L's were running away from Aerys, then suddenly *accidentally* saw a prophecy or fell in love.

OR Even if George made it that Rhaegar wouldn't have left her if she had been able to give him another child. It doesn't change that he abandoned her and their children in the worst way possible with no protection against Aerys and his loyal kingsguard. And even then, it's hard to believe she'd accept just because he told her : Hey, I see in my dreams that I have to have 3 children or we all die. Like, what is this? She almost died for that, no thanks to you and your one after another impregnation.

It's disgusting and not well-written at all.

That's just the plain truth.

That's why a huge part of the fandom dislikes it. Not because they "didn't read the books" or "they lack critical thinking".

It's actually because they know how to think instead of inserting themselves as not like other girls girl and shipping themselves with terrible husband and father, charismatic depressed prince charming.

Poor Rhaegar had a sense of doom following him and knew he'd die soon so Elia let him be? That's very idiotic.

No. Elia being fine with annulment or polygamy isn't normal unless she is forced to. And you know it.

[meanderingstar]

the way Daenerys treats Irri in the books is incredibly disturbing and I hate how it's overlooked by both the narrative and the majority of the fandom.

Daenerys uses Irri for sex at least twice over the course of the story, once in Storm and once in Dance. I really, truly cannot overstate how horrific the power imbalance between them is: Daenerys is her khaleesi, her queen and her employer; Irri was formerly a slave in her service and is now her maid with absolutely nowhere else to go. She has evidently been conditioned to believe that displaying absolute obedience to her higher-ups, including sexual services, is her "duty", which Daenerys recognizes and still actively exploits for her own pleasure. This is also why consent between them is utterly impossible – contrary to some asoiaf blogs who claim that consent was not a major issue in this situation (lol) or that Irri freely consented, Irri’s conditioning means that she will never be able to freely consent to someone like Daenerys, who is her employer and holds absolute power over her. Daenerys herself acknowledges this and feels guilty (damning in itself), but ends up using her in such a manner anyway, despite explicitly recognizing that Irri's kisses "tasted of duty" and nothing more.

What makes this even worse is that despite using her in this way in Storm, Daenerys has no issue saying that Irri and Jhiqui (who are her age and have had the same, if not worse, experiences than she has) are "only girls" in comparison to her. She also dismisses their (pretty sensible, imo?) concern about her touching sick and dead people by calling them "utter fools" and saying the Dothraki were only wise when it came to horses. She says all this AFTER sleeping with Irri, which makes it twice as bad - Daenerys considers her a little girl and a fool when it comes to advising her, but still finds it perfectly fine to use her for sex? This condescension extends to their sexual relationship as well, where Daenerys refers to Irri as "the maid", "her handmaid" and "the Dothraki girl" as she has sex with her. It's patronizing, disrespectful and exploitative at best, outright dehumanizing at worst.

While I highly doubt this was Grrm's intention, Daenerys's dynamic with Irri is clearly reminiscent of the horrific way Cersei uses Taena Merryweather. Dany is obviously not as vicious with Irri as Cersei was with Taena but that really doesn't change the fact that she was still a queen exploiting her employee's obedience and conditioned sense of "duty" for her own pleasure, made even worse by the fact that Irri, as a servant and former slave with no family, no connections and nowhere else to go, was 10x more vulnerable than Taena was and certainly more dependent on Dany. It's bizarre how Cersei's treatment of Taena is recognized as fucked up by most of the fandom but Daenerys's treatment of Irri is not, even though the power imbalance between them is infinitely worse. (also: Grrm writing about TWO white queens using their brown maids/ladies-in-waiting for sex is flat-out racist. I'm also extremely uncomfortable with how both wlw interactions are dubiously consensual at best and arguably revolve around Cersei/Dany's relationships with men to some extent: Cersei uses Taena to reenact her trauma by Robert, and Dany not only "pretended it was Drogo holding her...only somehow his face kept turning into Daario's" when she was having sex with Irri, but also explicitly states that "it was Daario she wanted, or perhaps Drogo, not Irri").

Certainly, Daenerys and Irri's dynamic is part and parcel of Grrm's fucked notion of consent and piss-poor writing of wlw relationships (both of which he should be called out for far more than he is, btw), but it doesn't change the fact that in-universe, these are Daenerys's textual actions. Grrm seems to believe that Drogo didn't rape Daenerys (a 13 year old who was forced into marriage) on their wedding night because she said "yes", just like he seems to believe that Jaime didn't coerce Cersei to have sex with him over their own son's dead body because she eventually responded to Jaime's advances, but I clearly recognize them as rape and coercion. The same logic and same standards apply to Daenerys and the way she uses and exploits Irri and she should be judged accordingly.

[chaosandstardust]

The way that the ASOIAF fandom gaslights itself should be studied. Every once in a while I see posts from people going "I believe it's coming" or "maybe he's already written everything he just doesn't want to face backlash so he's gonna wait until he's dead then release it" or "guys obviously he's rewriting everything." I'm so serious, the faith that some of you have is kinda incredible. Give me some of it. 🫡

(The reason they will never be finished is because grrm doesn't know how to stop adding shit and as a result it's made it impossible to finish; you can't wrap up a million strings in two books, it's not possible, and the way he writes he'd add 10 million more in the process making it even more impossible. And he makes way more money doing TV.)

[idontreallyknow26]

We stan Criston for respecting sex workers and being the only feminist man in probably the entirety of GOT

And we hate Daemon for constantly making misogynistic remarks about any woman, generally his wives, that he doesn't like, emotionally neglecting his second wife, grooming Rhaenyra, cheating on Rhaenyra, neglecting his children, committing treason every other sentence, and that's not even half of it.

[alsethwisson]

If I was to choose single most f-ed up thing in Asoiaf, it would be whole thing about Danny Flint song. I have taken folklore studies, I know European folklore(s) well enough to confidently say: it’s total bullshit and pure rapexploitation on author’s part.

Folklore has its universal rules, universal narratives it uses to weave songs and stories. A woman pretending to be a man is one of those, and not once does it end with rape, much less gang rape. It has four possible outcomes: never discovered, discovered and rewarded, dead on discovery (usually via birth) or discovered and killed. Usually the latter is framed as defiance on her part - she goads her killer, shaming him and emasculating, and he is the villain of the story, a weakling unable to bear being bested by a woman.

If we play by the rules of folklore logic, Danny Flint would end either with her made single female lord-commander, or her killer being exposed and punished and she hailed as a hero.

Rape is never the endgame in folklore. It is only used either passingly in historical songs among other enemy atrocities, or as a starting point of revenge ballads. Never. and I can’t stress it enough, is rape used as comeuppance for a woman. Death is.

You can say “oh, but the song is not about rape, rape is what really happened”, but nope, the song is source material for those talking about this story. Just another grrm’s rapexploitation moment. Not the first, neither the last.

[catofoldstones]

WHY is there so much rape in ASOIAF? Hmm? Why did Lollys have to suffer so much? What’s the point of the black knights raping Craster’s daughter? Knights my ass. Like literally how does that push the story forward? HOW does that fulfill any theme in the books?

Fuck that. How does describing Sansa’s body like that serve any purpose, with grown men staring at her like that? Is this how he wants to portray girlhood and growing up? How does Dany being assaulted by Jorah and not having any power over it serve? It’s not even a commentary on no matter how powerful a woman (who’s literally just a girl right now) becomes she’s still susceptible to gendered violence. Also what does it say when you still want a powerful woman (🙄) get assaulted by her subordinate nonetheless?

What the fuck, George.

[tlaquetzqui]

George Rape-Rape’s thing about “oh Tolkien could afford to spend decades working out Elvish” is fucking ironic now that it’s been 12 years since A Dance with Dragons. You could’ve just said “Tolkien was a linguist and I’m not” and nobody would hold it against you. But you had to pretend he had advantages over you, which he absolutely did not, other than talent and not being a piece of shit.

Tolkien didn’t sit around with his thumb up his ass for three US election cycles while people mailed razor blades to his editor and gave one-star reviews to other fantasy writers’ first installments just for not being the concluding installments. You did, George.

[seventhofcrows]

George R.R Martin: Hey. I'm not finishing Game of Thrones.

Patrick Rothfuss: Hey. I'm also not finishing the Kingkiller Chronicles.

Me: Is anyone here about to complete their series anymore?

Brandon Sanderson: Releases Wind and Truth silently in the corner

[ai-megurine]

I hate GRRM so fucking much.

[persephone411]

Ok we know that G.R.R Martin was heavily “inspired” by European history when he wrote Game of thrones (ex. The Wall being the Hadrianswall in North England), the different families representing the different Countries of Europe ect, the list could go on and on)

But one of his least creative things have to be the wonders made by men , where he practically just copied the seven world wonders (ancient and modern)

Example:

The Great pyramids of Ghis = the pyramids of Gizeh

The Titan of Braavos = the Coloss of Rhodos (even the clothes of the Braavos are greek,plus the stance is practically identical)

The Wall= The Chinese Wall (one of the wonders of the modern world)

The Hightower castle was also in consideration, which is basically the lighthouse of Alexandria

At this point it not inspiration anymore, it’s just lazy and uncreative copying

[katshuya]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is astonished with the very clever arguments and discussions Rhaelya's supporters write and the oh so-called neutrals who are just TOO LOGICAL to blame Rhaegar. He is just a grey character, and we just lack criticism.

How? Well!

Rhaegar isn't to blame because in a dream, he and other kingsguard said it was Jaime's fault. You see how logical it is? The author hints it, so it's the logic truth.

Jaime is the real reason why Elia and her children are dead because he was a kingsguard and being the single sole protector of Elia and her children against his father's army means nothing. Apparently, he can hold them all off with a single command.

Dragonstone is very safe from Aerys even though he is the king, and with single command, they could be brought to him.

Rhaegar took all kingsguard to the Trident because it was war. And in war, you need to win, so you take every knight to assure your winning and leave your family guarded with a single knight who is also under pressure of obeying the king and even if he didn't he is still outnumbered and could be killed or held off.

We can't blame Rhaegar for abandoning them in kingslanding. Why? Because he thought he was going to win! He had a plan. You see?!

And we can't blame him for the rebellion. Why? Because in a different scenario in my mind, it could have been sparked by someone else in different ways! So we can't blame the people responsible for the original scenario.

Anything George says or thinks is the right and logical one, and we can't criticize it for being ridiculous. Because the writer is always right about what he writes. I mean, so what if he thinks dany x drogo was hella sexy? We should think it so, too!

Daemon killing his wife is grey morality.

And many other things, he says, but let's not get into that for now.

So yes. If George says something is logical, then it's logical.

It's very natural for Elia not to feel sad or humiliated when Rhaegar goes to another girl, especially after endangering her life to give him the prophecy children one after another. Her PaLAtOnIC feelings toward him made her ready to risk her life in that certain way. One after another when she had delicate health. She endangered herself with no rest between pregnancies because of these PALATONIC feelings! She wanted to be queen, which is what made her do that, too. There is absolutely no way for her to be hurt. That's just ilogical. Especially for a Dornish.

I read a post from a proclaimed neutral, and oh my god. I just don't understand the ability of these people to write these posts and not feel embarrassed with how logical and unbiased they are.

Let me tell you something. Someone who claims logic will not say Rhaegar never hurt Elia with Lyanna and/or she was totally fine with it.

That's a covered lie. They just like Rhaegar way more than Elia. Not necessary a stan. Simply like him and want others to believe in that supposed logic.

[mneiai]

The problem with romanticizing Rhaegar/Lyanna is the way they ended means any romance there might have been was dead.

Either Rhaegar, or Lyanna, or both of them were monsters.

Either Lyanna ignored that her father and eldest brother were tortured to death, that Aerys called for the heads of her other brothers (and therefore more or less the complete destruction of House Stark), and that her one brother had been forced into war and the other was without family in Winterfell, something she could mitigate by reappearing alongside Rhaegar (perhaps even with Rhaegar finally calling for that Great Council). Which, even by our standards is pretty fucked but especially by Westerosi ones.

Or Rhaegar either hid everything that was happening from Lyanna, including that their disappearance helped to get her father and brother killed which sparked a war and that she was being used as something of a rallying cry, or he told her and then kept her captive, despite what would have been a highly distressed state and the implied lack of medical experts for her pregnancy.

Or they both were so caught up in prophecies or whatever they didn't care how many people died (or even needed people to die for the prophecy).

It's all well and good to say that they were in love (not that Mr Already-Wrote-A-Girl-Falling-For-Her-Rapist should ever be taken as an authority on love even in his own writing, because he's continually shown not to understand how relationship based trauma actually works to the point his successes have started to seem like coincidences), but there's no real way they could have been in some sort of sweet, meaningful love at the end. One or both had to be doing something horrible, no matter what gets put in fanfics.

(And, let's be honest, it's probably not the teenage girl, so stop it with the Lyanna hate on this post, you weirdo misogynists.)

[aegor-bamfsteel]

Do you think that there were chances to rebel against slavery in Slavers Bay?

Not only do I know there were, but the slaving societies that GRRM has written are so overinflated they should’ve been history long before Dány’s war.

The societies of Slaver’s Bay (and the Free Cities) are without a doubt slaving societies. A “slaving society” as described by influential historian Moses I Finley, is different from a “society with slaves” (which were most of ancient societies) where slavery was a small aspect of social/economic life; a slaving society had at least 20% slaves, there’s enough of them to create a cultural impact, and they’re an essential part of the economy. In Finley’s model, there are only 5 slaving societies in (Western) history: Greece, Rome, colonial US South, Caribbean, and Brazil. GRRM makes it clear that without slavery, Slaver’s Bay would collapse economically (as would the Free Cities further west). He provides comically high numbers of slaves in some of the Free Cities (slave to free are 3:1 in Lys, Myr, Tyrosh; and 5:1 in Volantis), but we hear of only a few slave rebellions in them (when the Doom of Valyria happened and they killed all the dragons surviving except the Targs’) until Dány, but why? In slaving societies, the threat of violence for rebelling was institutional and severe…but every one of those 5 had multiple examples of slave uprisings. And in some cases where the slaves outnumbered the elites by that level of magnitude, they were successful. The helots of Messenia took advantage of an earthquake and Thebes’ invasion of Sparta to revolt and eventually rebuild their old city, while the enslaved people of Haiti took advantage of the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars to win their independence. It stands to reason as a hub of slavery that Slaver’s Bay has an enslaved population close to that of the Free Cities, but there’s never any uprising mentioned until Dány comes? Even though we know that natural disasters and institutional warfare took place in that area. And don’t tell me the magical Unsullied just prevented all rebellions forever; the Spartans were allegedly the best warriors in Ancient Greece, whole kingdoms couldn’t win against Roman consular armies, the French army defeated practically most of Europe during the Revolutionary/Napoleonic period…but there were slave rebellions that managed to beat all of them, even if temporarily (poor Spartacus). But we’re just supposed to assume that after the fall of Valyria—which TWOIAF did tell us coincided with slave rebellions against the dragonlords—absolutely none of these cities achieved any sort of lasting freedom for its enslaved people? Even when the source of the Valyrian might, the dragons, was gone and the elite could no longer rely on that violence to keep the population in line? They were all just suffering and waiting for a savior for centuries, despite being most of the city’s population (including much of the army) and there being only some backup for the elite? The USA had to outlaw educating enslaved people for fear of rebellion, but there were still uprisings; meanwhile, in Essos there’s no ban on education, but we hear of none in Slaver’s Bay? It’s absolute nonsense historically, and only serves to make the slavers look super evil and Dány to look more like an apparent hero; the byproduct is that the enslaved people are robbed of the spirit, agency, and solidarity that they had in real life.