#because the rest of the show was a lot of manly fist fights and masculine sword fights and wow I’m such a big strong man | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thesultrybraavosibard · 2 years ago

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There is a lot wrong with your assessment, and this is coming from a Jon stan.

you will never catch me putting Arya down to defend anyone lmao Arya stans PLEASE stop projecting. ya girl would never bully a (fictional) child but she will start bullying dumbasses who keep coming at her with shit like this

You literally, in another post, boiled her down to being a "girlboss character" and found it sus that people liked said "girlboss characters." I fail to see how she is a girlboss character, let alone a NLOG type.

Not Like Other Girls types believe that they are superior to others because they can do something most girls cannot. This does not apply to Arya, at least her book version. As someone who prefers the books to the show, I'll be supplying quotes here.

Like this one:

"The Lannisters are proud," Jon observed. "You'd think the royal sigil would be sufficient, but no. He makes his mother's House equal in honor to the king's."

"The woman is important too!" Arya protested. (Arya I, AGoT)

(Warning: rape TW):

Not to mention that she named Chiswyck to Jaqen after she overheard him joking about a gang rape he and the Mountain's men participated in over a innkeeper's daughter, Layna.

The girl was done fighting by the time I had her, maybe she'd decided she liked it after all, though to tell the truth I wouldn't have minded a little wiggling. And now here's the best bit...when it's all done, Ser tells the old man that he wants his change. The girl wasn't worth a silver, he says...and damned if that old man didn't fetch a fistful of coppers, beg m'lord's pardon, and thank him for the custom!"

The men all roared, none louder than Chiswyck himself, who laughed so hard at his own story that snot dribbled from his nose down into his scraggy grey beard. Arya stood in the shadows of the stairwell and watched him. She crept back down to the cellars without saying a word. (Arya VII, ACoK)

You call her "manly" because she picks up a sword but she doesn't like being called a boy and she's pretty firmly rooted in her identity as a girl.

"The steel must be part of your arm," the bald man told her. "Can you drop part of your arm? No. Nine years Syrio Forel was first sword to the Sealord of Braavos, he knows these things. Listen to him, boy."

It was the third time he had called her "boy." "I'm a girl," Arya objected. (Arya II, AGoT)

"Yoren, as it please m'lord. My pardons for the hour." He bowed to Arya. "And this must be your son. He has your look."

"I'm a girl," Arya said, exasperated. If the old man was down from the Wall, he must have come by way of Winterfell. "Do you know my brothers?" she asked excitedly. (Arya III, AGoT)

...

It's funny that you say that, because that's all you boil Sansa down to. You like that she's feminine and call characters who can pick up a sword "manly" and "seen as cool by misogynists," (when that is not the logic of a misogynist. Women like Arya and Brienne enjoy swordplay. That makes them "masculine." So what misogynists do you know that want women in a position where they can have power for themselves?)

This is no different to the people who like Sansa because she "suffers with grace." There is no graceful suffering, there is only suffering.

You ignore that Sansa has wished Arya be reprimanded for retrieving flowers for Ned and dirtying her dress, wishing Arya had died because she threw an orange at her and ruined her dress, for thinking that Arya was a bastard because she didn't look like the rest of the Stark children. Their relationship is antagonistic because that is how George deliberately portrayed them, and that is why people have opposition to Sansa. It is not because of femininity or perceived lack thereof.

I like her because she is clever and resourceful and kind. Yes she has her flaws and yes she sometimes does things that are not "good".... but she's also a very young girl, and since she's so naive and hopeful the bad people in her life choose to use those traits against her to manipulate her. I don't see how being a naive little girl is a strike against a character so that's why I think it's so bizarre why Sansa gets so much hate specifically lmao.

Why do people not give "she is a young girl" point to Arya, who has been through a lot of shit herself? Being caned until she bled, starving to the point where she had to eat bugs and worms, being constantly threatened with torture at Harrenhal? Instead they only use this for Sansa to describe her naïveté. But I don't really see her as being naïve; she knows what she's doing. When she went to Cersei with Ned's plans, she thinks this:

"It was for love," Sansa said in a rush. "Father wouldn't even give me leave to say farewell." She was the good girl, the obedient girl, but she had felt as wicked as Arya that morning, sneaking away from Septa Mordane, defying her lord father. She had never done anything so willful before, and she would never have done it then if she hadn't loved Joffrey as much as she did. (Sansa IV, AGoT)

This is the thought of a guilty party, someone who knows that what they are doing is wrong, yet does it anyway. That's why she said she had done a wilful thing, and felt "wicked."

Even George said she had a part to play in Ned's demise:

REGARDING SANSA

Your question re Sansa...

The way I see it, it is not a case of all or nothing. No single person is to blame for Ned's downfall. Sansa played a role, certainly, but it would be unfair to put all the blame on her. But it would also be unfair to exonerate her. She was not privy to all of Ned's plans regarding Stannis, the gold cloaks, etc... but she knew more than just that her father planned to spirit her and Arya away from King's Landing. She knew when they were to leave, on what ship, how many men would be in their escort, who would have the command, where Arya was that morning, etc... all of which was useful to Cersei in planning and timing her move.

[Source]

her dad gets a pass for being naive and being played like a fiddle, and the worst you'll hear about him was "trusting Littlefinger was stupid" but Sansa? no for some reason this literal child is worthy of hate because adults are tricking her and she doesn't know better

She definitely knows better, and Ned gets quite a bit of shit from the fandom for his actions. Whataboutisms serve no purpose here.

I hate this so much. Why does she need to be stunningly beautiful at all? Narratively speaking, George is going to make her Lyanna 2.0, with similar ideals but especially looks:

"Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her."

"Lyanna was beautiful," Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. (Arya II, AGoT)

Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. (Bran III, ADwD)

We are learning what kind of person Lyanna was through Arya's chapters. They share the same looks, but no one is saying that Arya or Lyanna have to be the prettiest. Arya has low self esteem as a result of Sansa and Jeyne Poole's bullying. She simply is not as ugly as she thinks.

They are pretty by Northern standards, not southron standards. This is why Arya lived in Sansa's shadow, likely in the same way Alysanne lived in Rhaena's shadow.

Cersei could have given the prince the sons he wanted, lions with purple eyes and silver manes…and with such a wife, Rhaegar might never have looked twice at Lyanna Stark. The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled, though however bright a torch might burn it could never match the rising sun. (Epilogue, ADwD)

Moreover, what exactly constitutes as femininity?

What is it? Is it just about being able to sing songs and look pretty or is it how people view femininity today, by cooking?

She got along well enough with the cook. Umma would slap a knife into her hand and point at an onion, and Arya would chop it. Umma would shove her toward a mound of dough, and Arya would knead it until the cook said stop (stop was the first Braavosi word she learned). Umma would hand her a fish, and Arya would bone it and fillet it and roll it in the nuts the cook was crushing. (Arya II, AFfC)

It is cleaning?

Weese used Arya to run messages, draw water, and fetch food, and sometimes to serve at table in the Barracks Hall above the armory, where the men-at-arms took their meals. But most of her work was cleaning. The ground floor of the Wailing Tower was given over to storerooms and granaries, and two floors above housed part of the garrison, but the upper stories had not been occupied for eighty years. Now Lord Tywin had commanded that they be made fit for habitation again. There were floors to be scrubbed, grime to be washed off windows, broken chairs and rotted beds to be carried off. (Arya VII, ACoK)

She had other tasks besides helping Umma. She swept the temple floors; she served and poured at meals; she sorted piles of dead men's clothing, emptied their purses, and counted out stacks of queer coins. (Arya II, AFfC)

Is it having the mind for figures to run a household?

It hurt that the one thing Arya could do better than her sister was ride a horse. Well, that and manage a household. Sansa had never had much of a head for figures. If she did marry Prince Joff, Arya hoped for his sake that he had a good steward. (Arya I, AGoT)

Does Sansa do any of those things in the books?

generally when characters go thru that change you can expect an author to girlify the shit out of them and to me that would be doing Arya specifically a great disservice. I do not want her to grow up to find out she actually was just as girly as her sister the entire time but she "didn't know it" lmao that shit is insulting.

What do you mean by girlify the shit out of Arya? What makes her more or less girly than Sansa?

Here are a couple of my favourite passages:

Arya's love of flowers:

"I hate riding," Sansa said fervently. "All it does is get you soiled and dusty and sore."

Arya shrugged. "Hold still," she snapped at Nymeria, "I'm not hurting you." Then to Sansa she said, "When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion." (Sansa I, AGoT)

...

Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.

None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse. (Sansa I, AGoT)

Watching after a young girl while being hunted and starving herself:

"He's going to die, and the sooner he does it, the better for the rest of us. We should just leave him, like he says. If it was you or me hurt, you know he'd leave us." They scrambled down a steep cut and up the other side, using roots for handholds. "I'm sick of carrying him, and I'm sick of all his talk about yielding too. If he could stand up, I'd knock his teeth in. Lommy's no use to anyone. That crying girl's no use either."

"You leave Weasel alone, she's just scared and hungry is all." Arya glanced back, but the girl was not following for once. (Arya V, ACoK)

Directing business to women:

"Aye, that's good," another sailor said, "but what Wat was really wanting was a woman."

"The best whores are at the Happy Port, down by where the mummers' Ship is moored." She pointed. Some of the dockside whores were vicious, and sailors fresh from the sea never knew which ones. S'vrone was the worst. Everyone said she had robbed and killed a dozen men, rolling the bodies into the canals to feed the eels. The Drunken Daughter could be sweet when sober, but not with wine in her. And Canker Jeyne was really a man. "Ask for Merry. Meralyn is her true name, but everyone calls her Merry, and she is." (Cat of the Canals, AFfC)

Sharing food with Sam after defending him from a couple Braavosi robbers:

"Are you truly in the Night's Watch? I never saw a black brother like you before." The girl gestured at the barrow. "You can have the last clams if you want. It's dark, no one will buy them now. Are you sailing to the Wall?"

"To Oldtown." Sam took one of the baked clams and wolfed it down. "We're between ships." The clam was good. He ate another. (Samwell III, AFfC)

I also would love if she doesn't go down this particular route because of ships, either, I don't want Gendry or whoever to suddenly realized he loved Arya as a woman all along it was only that her own lack of femininity was holding her back from being truly lovable lmao. GRRM has already shown us he thinks a male character can fall in love with a woman who isn't conventionally attractive so why should Arya be any different?

Gendry had a crush on/a teasing relationship with Arya for a while. This is why he is still at the inn at the crossroads; he is waiting for her return. Again, you speak of the lack of femininity and how it makes someone less lovable for it. So again I ask, what constitutes as femininity?

Where did Arya say that she doesn't feel like she fits in doing feminine things? She can barely do them because she is left-handed. The advantage is with swordplay; writing and needlework is hard for fellow lefties, especially during those times.

People, and by extension, characters, can be more than one thing. They can excel at and participate in activities that fall outside their society's gender roles and still be a girl. They can appreciate other women, including traditionally feminine women, and still be a girl.

She finds Sansa "obnoxious" because Sansa bullied her. Additionally, in all the times Arya extends the metaphorical olive branch to Sansa, she is met with cruelty. Is that actually obnoxiousness or is it merely protection for oneself?

A couple examples of what I mean:

Arya raised her eyes. "I'm sorry, Father. I was wrong and I beg my sweet sister's forgiveness."

Sansa was so startled that for a moment she was speechless. Finally she found her voice. "What about my dress?"

"Maybe…I could wash it," Arya said doubtfully.

"Washing won't do any good," Sansa said. "Not if you scrubbed all day and all night. The silk is ruined."

"Then I'll…make you a new one," Arya said.

Sansa threw back her head in disdain. "You? You couldn't sew a dress fit to clean the pigsties."

...

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm.

"Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!" She wrenched away from her sister's hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her. (Sansa III, AGoT)

not a wannabe anything. all of those things make her a girl who feels like she doesn't fit in with other girls doing girly things, not a "man wannabe."

You said in a different post that Arya was manly because she wields a sword.

I appreciate that GRRM can write a character like this and ALSO write characters like Sansa or Catelyn or Arianne, who are all feminine and more interested in their roles as women but who are not scorned in their own narratives because of it. that's still a rare thing in fantasy novels written by men

So what was the point of your entire post? Either she's feminine or she's not. You're contradicting yourself because you have stated before that she was a manly character and not feminine at all. You even said this:

I don't want Gendry or whoever to suddenly realized he loved Arya as a woman all along it was only that her own lack of femininity was holding her back from being truly lovable lmao.

What are you even implying here?

Again, your whole posts for the past few days were about how she wasn't, how she was manly because she likes swordplay, and you get upset because people don't like what you're saying? You are ranting on a public website/app.

why does it matter if Arya is feminine or not? because of fan interactions? girly-qs get outside and talk to normal people lmao. if some idiot online is blasting Arya because she's not feminine just don't interact with them lmao. like you guys are the ones making this a problem and you're making yourselves angry over a fictional character lmao please grow up

What do you gain by calling yourself an idiot and why, pray tell, are you getting upset over a fictional character?

That is your prerogative. I like Tyrion and Jon because they are flawed; that's what makes them so human. As a Jon stan, I like that he made missteps and was unbending about how the Night's Watch should be run. Another misstep was him pushing away his friends and sending them elsewhere, but I, too, get why he did it. While it sucks that his ADwD decisions led to his death, I understand why he did them, and I also understand why Bowen and co killed him. What are your favourite flaws of Sansa's?

my problem is people holding the female characters under intense scrutiny and using their flaws to bash the shit out of them, while the male characters are allowed to just be flawed characters. my problem is that in order for a female character to be worth defending you have to say "oh she's breaking down barriers" like what?? none of the men in this series is ever dismissed because he's not out there "breaking down barriers",

I love Jon partially because he is breaking down barriers, though. He:

-broke a thousands-year tradition by having free folk and women at the Wall.

-broke Night's Watch neutrality for who he thinks is Arya.

-hosts a king—Stannis—at Castle Black.

-orchestrated a wedding between Sigorn and Alys Karstark.

-joined the political northern plot by telling Stannis to ally with the mountain clans.

-singlehandedly negotiated a loan from the Iron Bank.

why should it be different for the women? that is the attitude I was criticizing in the first place and absolute dumbfucks were the ones who read my shit post as "oh you just don't like women who do what women aren't supposed to be doing" you literally know nothing about me?? Brienne is my favorite character in the entire series so don't come at me with that bullshit

I don't know about you because I don't care to know about you. I'm just responding to your posts and what you say in them. From what I've read, you simply do not understand the purpose of Arya's character. Arya isn't opposing the rigidity of the Westerosi societal roles for women because she is not feminine, but because she wants to have a choice in how to be her own person. She is still a young lady. She has never wanted to be anything but a girl, nor does she have shame in being one. George has this to say about Arya:

Was there anyone in your life who might’ve served as an inspiration for Arya?

I can’t say there’s any one specific model, but a lot of the women I’ve known over the years have had aspects of Arya with them. Especially some of the women I knew when I was a young man back in the ’60s and ’70s, you know — the decade of the sexual revolution and the feminist movement. I knew a lot of young women who weren’t buying into the, “Oh, I have to find a husband and be a housewife.”

[Source]

This is not dissimilar to Sam.

Sam is ridiculed and stigmatized by his father because he neither fits the ideal physical or the standards in general for a typical Westerosi highborn man. Sam notably has a soft heart. He loves kittens, he loves to eat, loves books and reading, loves songs. Blood makes him queasy and he hates fighting, hates hunting.

In the Night's Watch, Jon argues for Sam's value and proposes an alternative role for him. He won't be a great fighter by any measure, but he'll be perfect for serving Maester Aemon:

"[...]A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people."

Maester Aemon smiled. "And so?"

"The Night's Watch needs all sorts too. Why else have rangers and stewards and builders? Lord Randyll couldn't make Sam a warrior, and Ser Alliser won't either. You can't hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn't mean tin is useless. Why shouldn't Sam be a steward?" (Jon V, AGoT)

Sam, too, needs choices that fall outside of restrictive and harmful gender norms and roles.

I still stand by the post that prompted this reply, why does Arya specifically need to be defended as a feminine character? Why do you think Sansa stans ONLY like Sansa because she's feminine? I certainly don't. I like her because she is clever and resourceful and kind. Yes she has her flaws and yes she sometimes does things that are not "good".... but she's also a very young girl, and since she's so naive and hopeful the bad people in her life choose to use those traits against her to manipulate her. I don't see how being a naive little girl is a strike against a character so that's why I think it's so bizarre why Sansa gets so much hate specifically lmao. her dad gets a pass for being naive and being played like a fiddle, and the worst you'll hear about him was "trusting Littlefinger was stupid" but Sansa? no for some reason this literal child is worthy of hate because adults are tricking her and she doesn't know better

Arya is eleven years old as of the latest published book, I do not expect her to be this sparkling feminine queen and I honestly hope GRRM does better than reveal Arya was Stunningly Beautiful and Feminine All Along in a future book lmao. generally when characters go thru that change you can expect an author to girlify the shit out of them and to me that would be doing Arya specifically a great disservice. I do not want her to grow up to find out she actually was just as girly as her sister the entire time but she "didn't know it" lmao that shit is insulting. I also would love if she doesn't go down this particular route because of ships, either, I don't want Gendry or whoever to suddenly realized he loved Arya as a woman all along it was only that her own lack of femininity was holding her back from being truly lovable lmao. GRRM has already shown us he thinks a male character can fall in love with a woman who isn't conventionally attractive so why should Arya be any different?

what about acknowledging that she is a tomboy is saying Arya is a "man wannabe"? she is herself, a girl who happens to like doing the same things as her brothers (which is normal for a girl her age) and who finds her sister obnoxious (which is also normal for a girl her age) and who doesn't feel like she fits in doing "feminine" things (also very very normal for a girl her age and relatable to a lot of girls and grown women), not a wannabe anything. all of those things make her a girl who feels like she doesn't fit in with other girls doing girly things, not a "man wannabe." I appreciate that GRRM can write a character like this and ALSO write characters like Sansa or Catelyn or Arianne, who are all feminine and more interested in their roles as women but who are not scorned in their own narratives because of it. that's still a rare thing in fantasy novels written by men

I honestly did not care one way or another that Arya wasn't feminine until I discovered that people genuinely believe that's a thing that needed defending, like the screenshotted comment goes way over my head still. why does it matter if Arya is feminine or not? because of fan interactions? girly-qs get outside and talk to normal people lmao. if some idiot online is blasting Arya because she's not feminine just don't interact with them lmao. like you guys are the ones making this a problem and you're making yourselves angry over a fictional character lmao please grow up

it is still annoying that the female characters of this series are held to a different standard than the male ones. Sansa and Catelyn are given shit for making bad decisions and being "boring" but Tyrion and Jon are beloved in spite of the fact that they also make very bad decisions and parts of their arcs are also very boring lmao. my problem is people holding the female characters under intense scrutiny and using their flaws to bash the shit out of them, while the male characters are allowed to just be flawed characters. my problem is that in order for a female character to be worth defending you have to say "oh she's breaking down barriers" like what?? none of the men in this series is ever dismissed because he's not out there "breaking down barriers", why should it be different for the women? that is the attitude I was criticizing in the first place and absolute dumbfucks were the ones who read my shit post as "oh you just don't like women who do what women aren't supposed to be doing" you literally know nothing about me?? Brienne is my favorite character in the entire series so don't come at me with that bullshit

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