#asoiaf masculinity

[horizon-verizon]

I don’t know if this is only my impression, but in my opinion, people started questioning Daemon’s status as a grey character only when HOTD worked very hard to villanize him (like having him straight up murder Rhea Royce while in the books he was still in the Stepstones and she very unambiguously had a riding accident).

Book!Daemon really is no worse than Jaime “I pushed a child out of the window and never once felt remorse over it and raped my sister in front of our dead son” or Oberyn “I beat women, drove them to suicide, steal their children and have sex with teenagers.” 

I remember that before HOTD started airing, show runners were bragging about how HOTD won’t have gratuitous violence against women the way GOT was accused of having. My immediate reaction was “press X to doubt” and I really hate being vindicated: Aemma being butchered, Alicent being an abused child bride, Daemon murdering his wife and then chocking Rhaenyra, Larys assaulting Alicent... and none of this was in the book. Like, what was the point outside of Condal and Sapochnik having this massive hate boner for Daemon ?

Jaime didn't rape Cersei in that scene canonically, but yes Daemon is that sort of man/character, this suave, charismatic, action-oriented, extremely loyal, highly martially skilled bulwark of his claimed group. This character doesn't really have to a be a down on his luck sort of "bad boy" (Oberon has had the best of luck really, he has very little to no family drama other than Elia's murder and Obara's mother, and it's really the first that is a tragedy against him form an external agent rather than Viserys befuddling Daemon or Tywin making his "love" for Jaime so obviously conditional).

Once again, Daemon and certainly none of the men we listed are good men nor feminists, and they all displayed misogyny or traumatize relatives that makes one want to grip their necks until they choke out. But we certainly didn't need to make up lies abt Daemon to make Rhaenyra seem better; why do women seem "better" only after they are abused & unable or don't choose to try to "punish" the man while they have the political chance to after all the examples of Targ women before her not having similar conditions but still always trying (sometimes succeeding) to push back or avenge themselves on a man (Rhaena-Rogar)?!

And again, this is a thing not to victim blame but to point out that it is a trend established in HotD for women to get even MORE and not-canon abuse form their male partners BEFORE we even get to Daemon choking Rhaenyra out, so we can safely assume this is how the writers are characterizing their female characters.

I think the point, therefore, is to sell through whitewashing, or really declawing feminism & reversing it through making/banking on the idea of "women-are-natural peacemakers/men are natural chaos makers and women need to keep men in check". Which still makes the value of women male-centered under the guise of infantilizing men, which makes men less accountable for their own actions. Daemon is one of the more brashly violent men and is a prime male character in this event AND he's a Targ, so there's also the element of Targ-antis being very popular in the fandom who Condal wishes to write the story toward (Targs are violent colonizers, yada, yada)...again for $ and a misunderstanding of feminism or a desire to show off how much he "gets it" and we are the ones who don't really.

Repackaged benevolent sexism to sell to the masses who don't really understand these concepts. Honestly, this show is insufferable marketing of a story with strong performances more than a story/"adaptation" of the original. And part of why he's maybe so insistent on making his "own" story from the story he still claims he is "faithfully" adapting is that apparently today's media industry has execs push for more sequels, prequels, etc. of things and writers who want to write original stuff can't and thus try to make adaptions "theirs" from that deprivation. Maybe Condal falls under this category, or maybe he simply is trying to capitalize on this consumerist nonsense. It it what it is.

[death-of-cats]

the Lannister twins insisting to themselves that they are the same person in two bodies, Jaime and Cersei both thinking that they’d be each other if their genders were swapped, all this despite their very different personalities, the divergence invisible to each other but obvious from the outside. meanwhile Asha and Theon are basically the same person but don’t know each other well enough to realize it.

[daenystheedreamer]

dont like when people try to masculinise/feminise targ names when genderbending cos valyrian names are already gendered based purely on vibes. daenys and rhaenys are feminine but aenys is masculine, and its not the prefix because daeron and rhaegar are masc but aerea is feminine. viserys jaehaerys aerys are masc but naerys daenerys are fem. yeah -a names tend to be fem and -on tend to be masc but even these have weird extras, like -ar names are masc despite similarity to -a. feminine non -ys names tend to end in -a but then there’s gael. basically a girl can be daemon and a boy can be rhaenyra

[visenyaism]

rhaenyra in the afterlife watching her great-grandson boldly and correctly declare that it’s actually totally fine for a bastard to sit the iron throne as long as they are cool

[chaosordoffl]

Crazy how Targ/Valyrian names can sound feminine or masculine because of their association with a character

[jonquilspool]

[stands on my soapbox]

i think margaery tyrell's hyperfeminine performance (which is clearly crafted carefully to use the prejudices of the hypersexist feudal system they're in) is equally as interesting a gender performance as hypermasculine performances like brienne and daecy but is overlooked because for "some reason" hyperfemininity isn't seen as a gender performance, just as "gender."

[no one is looking. i step off my soapbox]

[tyriongirl]

Controversial statement but i do think there's an aspect of womb envy in Jaime's relationship to both Cersei herself, and the idea of Cersei. The fact she can create, and has created, life, and he can only cause death. They have created life together but he has no part in them and can never truly have, but she also created death for them (Robert's babies, Robert himself) which he never could. The fact he wants to kill Robert so many times but never gets to, but she does. The fact he means to kill bran but never gets to. There's something there

[befooremoonrisee]

rip stannis baratheon, you would've loved late stage capitalism

[snake-berry]

Brienne of Tarth

ughh idk if im satisfied with how i drew this but there is a softness in her big blue eyes that i like

requests for my asoiaf portrait series r still open btw ;) i already have another portrait in the works rn bc im feeling semi motivated so yay

[ser-zoras]

jaime is so gender in a way that makes sense. like he is a dude who is totally comfortable with being a dude. he could be the younger more beautiful queen if he wanted to but even then he would be doing it in a very man way. he crossdressed his way through childhood but he doesnt really care. despite all of his problems and his flaws, he knows how his gender works and nothing's really a threat to it.

CERSEI, meanwhile, is so gender in a way that is so deeply confusing i get a headache every time i think about it.

[fromtheseventhhell]

hi! I’m a new fan of asoiaf (and Arya obvi lol) and I love ur blog <3 there’s a popularish post on this site that basically talks abt how the comparison between Arya and Lyanna is meant to convey that they were both tomboys and not that Arya is actually really pretty and I generally agree bc obviously yeah but it seemed kinda weird that like so many of the ppl reblogging that post were like either huge Sansa stans or were hellbent on telling others that Arya is NOT pretty which… I feel like is also missing the point?? Idk if you know which post I’m referring to, but either way I was wondering if that’s like a general fandom opinion that Arya is meant to be this conventionally unattractive person that doesn’t have looks really tied to their stories (kinda like Brienne)? Or if this is just something you’d see on tumblr cause I’ve heard the fandom here is a bit different than on like Reddit or twitter

I can take a guess at which post you're referencing and yes, it is a generally accepted idea that Arya isn't meant to be pretty. I don't think that's specific to Tumblr either, I've seen people on tiktok/reddit/twitter/etc. argue the same. While I do think there's a point to be made about Lyanna's memory being romanticized, I disagree that the conclusion should be that Lyanna and Arya aren't meant to be pretty. The idea that personality and looks aren't dependent on each other seems to be a difficult one for this fandom to grasp, so they treat Lyanna being pretty and her being a tomboy as mutually exclusive when they can (and do) coexist. There would be no point in Arya and Lyanna being referenced as pretty as many times as they are (several times for each of them) if that wasn't the case. "Missing the point" is a great way of describing it because this take is dependent on ignoring what's written in the books. As usual, I think this links back to fandom's inability to comprehend female characters that don't neatly fit into flat archetypes and their placing value on beauty and not wanting said value associated with the wrong "type" of characters. Arya and Lyanna being pretty and wild/non-conforming seems to be a little bit beyond fandom's processing capabilities.

[your-fave-is-trans-gender]

JON SNOW from A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE/A GAME OF THRONES is trans/transmasc!

[leulah]

Gender Roles in the ASOIAF Fandom

There is a lot of discourse going around about female roles and femininity in ASOIAF and how certain characters are less than for fitting into traditional ideas about gender roles in the series. And while there are so many things fucked about this discussion of "who is the better victim of misogyny", I also think a lot of people are missing the point entirely.

I see a lot of accounts saying that it is backwards or "tradwife" to defend certain female characters because they quote "uphold the patriarchy", and defending them is regressive because it is what is viewed as the expectation and standard in the real world for real women- which is true it is the expectation. But it is a very black and white view on a very complex problem to just write off all "soft female" characters as misogynistic because they fit into this real world standard. This discussion runs a lot deeper than "feminine good/masculine bad", because at the end of the day female roles are still viewed as being lower than male roles in society. In the eyes of the patriarchy being masculine is always better because it's about power and control, and in order to have this power women and femininity have to be viewed as beneath them. You can see this when men get emasculated because their partner makes more money than them, or they make fun of girly things- these gender roles are less about "promoting femininity" than it is about promoting a power dynamic.

That is why are characters who are more masculine and don't fall into these expectations of gender roles like Dany or Arya, are generally viewed better in the larger fandom space than those that do. It is because being masculine is always viewed as being better than being feminine, and in a fictional world where these women in power pose no actual threat to real men's masculinity they are viewed as being stronger and better people. Being masculine makes these women more worthy of respect in the eyes of the fandom. This is also similar to how when discussing history people often say: "Look women were also warriors! They're important too," as if a woman's worth only comes from her proximity to masculinity, and the women who were just mothers and wives and weavers are unworthy of our admiration and respect. Even though it is true that real society promotes and expects women to fit into a traditional female role, being masculine is still viewed as superior to being feminine.

By contrast, female characters in ASOIAF like Catelyn and Sansa who do not fall into this warrior women archetype are often berated and hated by the fandom. On one side, because they are viewed as weak and by being traditionally feminine they are seen as "upholding the patriarchy" in Westeros- disregarding the fact they are victims of it as well. But on the other hand, a lot of the complaints about Cat and Sansa come from men who feel as though they threaten men's power in the series. A common complaint about Catelyn is that she undermined and questioned Robb's power- because how dare she have a say in what happens to her family. Sansa the eleven year old is often criticized for "betraying Ned" by going to Cersei and writing the letter, with people often saying its her fault for the war and not the various adults and men in power. If a male character like Jon or Ned questions or goes against those in power it is seen as necessary and strategic, but when a female character takes any action or autonomy in their own narrative, it is viewed as a threat.

And of course there is more nuance to this, because not everyone does like the characters who break out of gender expectations, and these women in power are still viewed as a threat when their story intertwines with men. Daenerys gets respect insofar as she is not a threat to other main male characters, but the second she stands in the way of Jon's supposed claim or being Azor Ahai, she is discarded by the fandom and must be sacrificed as "the Nissa Nissa for Jon's heroic storyline". These women in masculine roles are celebrated in the fandom space, but when they too begin to question male authority their support crumbles under the same misogyny the feminine characters face.

There are many reasons why someone would prefer the female characters that fight and break out of gender roles over ones that are more traditional, but if your reaction to femininity is one of weakness and worthlessness I think you need to do some self reflection on your relationship to women. Yes, the "let women be soft" argument is reductive due to irl expectations, but that doesn't make feminine women deserving of your hate and harassment. Fiction is not reality, and people don't have the same expectations and reactions between them, and trying to boil down a complex discussion on power dynamics and gender roles in the series to "feminine bad" is reductive and not at all the message. Both sets of women deserve respect and both suffer under the rules and traditions in their world, but you have to remember there is no "better victim". There is no winner under the patriarchy.

[daenystheedreamer]

gender grotesquerie. asoiaf auth. gurm martin..... brienne the beauty. the bear and the maiden fair. cersei if only i bore the sword and jaime the dress. cersei essentially roleplaying robert during her sexual encounter with taena in explicitly violent terms, but through which she finds empowerment. ironborn masculinity and femininity in explicitly domineering terms. theon may be a man but he’s bedecked like a whore he has whored himself for the starks he is bent over he is on his knees he is not a man. asha who wields her axe, her husband, more a son than theon. asha who fucks qarl the maid prettier than a girl. theon who has been literally emasculated yet he’s theon greyjoy my name is theon. theon driven by his lusts defined by his lusts. theon and kyra, theon and ramsay. killed the miller’s wife’s sons, was probably a boy himself. maegor 13 years old married off to a woman double his age praised for his prowess. jon who should have been visenya. rhaenyra. arya. anyway.

[visenyaism]

Genuine question, why do so many people say that Theon has genderqueer or just bi vibes. In my reading I just saw him as an insecure masc cishet man, he never shows any interest in a single man (unlike say, Sansa or Jaime where you can point out the lines where they think weirdly intently about chars of their own gender. Or with Sam there's all this motifing and the repetition that he deep down doesn't want to live by "men's rules", that's not what he's cut out for). I've met Theon-ish boys; all incredibly cishet AFAIK. He dresses nicely but that's not... a gay thing. Especially not in universe.

Is it just the themes? The constant theme of emasculation + Asha taking his place as son + his thing w Ramsey? Because that's a stretch to say the least IMO.

i read it and i knew. but i don’t know how to explain it to you. so i think your best bet is to read it again and pray that it will be revealed to you also

[ladylollys]

“...This cursed heat had half the city in a fever to start, and now with all these visitors … last night we had a drowning, a tavern riot, three knife fights, a rape, two fires, robberies beyond count, and a drunken horse race down the Street of the Sisters. The night before a woman's head was found in the Great Sept, floating in the rainbow pool. No one seems to know how it got there or who it belongs to."

"How dreadful," Varys said with a shudder.

—Eddard VI, A Game of Thrones

See, this is what I love so much about Varys. The swooning, back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead, elaborately fastidious reaction to violence — coming from someone who has both personally survived and personally committed atrocities on this level before. No one would believe this of him if he wasn’t a eunuch, and he knows it, and it’s so fun.

And that’s part of why Tyrion and Varys are so much on the same wavelength when they meet, isn’t it? Like Tyrion, Varys is constantly treated by other men as something to project their own anxieties about masculinity onto. And like Tyrion, he is able to draw on that persona when it suits his purposes. 

This is something they share: the clever, almost self-parodic way they perform the stereotypes other people impose on them. I think Varys treats his own femininity like a private joke he has with himself, a way of mocking the assumption that a eunuch has to be feminine (and therefore weak, untrustworthy, etc). He doesn’t have to be feminine, he chooses to act like he is, in ways that are convenient to him. That’s fucking funny!

And this particular scene is my favorite example of it, because it’s a clear example of one of the smaller ways that Varys is able to make his persona work for him. Varys’ overacted dismay is a really obvious mockery not just of his own reputation, but of the fact that no one else on the Small Council gives a shit about the tourney-related unrest in King’s Landing either. They’re just in it to see how much they can squeeze out of the Hand’s Tourney for their own ends, and everyone knows it, but they have to pretend to care. Varys can mock them for it pretty openly, and no one else in the room will pay enough attention to get the joke. Because eunuchs are just like that, right?

Varys might not be a great person, morally, but god he’s such a great character. The more attention I pay to him, the more there is to see, you know?