#cause she's a fully realized character who isn't limited by the constraints of tradfem or 90s tomboy cliches | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

arte072 · 2 years ago

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you ever think about how the asoiaf fandom will go on and on about Arya’s “traditionally masculine” journey and then you read her chapters and it’s like

being criticized by adult women for not sufficiently excelling in useless gender roles

getting a puppy!! 🐶

losing the puppy 😿

picking flowers for her dad 💐🥰

being victim blamed for the actions of a guy 😑

being bullied for her appearance 😞

becomes homeless

takes care of a bunch of kids

gets engaged to men she doesn’t know

becomes a prisoner of war

forced to cook and clean under extremely violent and abusive circumstances

witnessing and experiencing war crimes

female rage 🤬😡💢👿

gets a crush on a boy with shaggy hair and blue eyes~~ 😳💙🔨

talks to god 🌲

gets kidnapped by a loser 🙄🔥

worry that her mother will reject her for getting dirty 😭

gets depression

learns blood magic

becomes an academic 🏫🎓🤓

becomes a theater kid 🎭

awakening the magic from within ✨🐺🌕🌙✨

if all of these are inherently masculine then I do wonder what is considered acceptably “feminine” in these people’s eyes. crying in a dress? because she does that too... but y’know this fandom and their desperation to separate Arya from her girlhood lol

#arya stark #house stark #though to be very clear #arya's story transcends gender boundaries #cause she's a fully realized character who isn't limited by the constraints of tradfem or 90s tomboy cliches #asoiaf

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sad-endings-suck · 2 years ago

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Arya:

Insists women are just as important as men, and should have the right to bear their crest even when they marry into another house.

Adopts and protects an even younger little girl, opposing a group of boys to do so.

Befriends sex workers.

Avenges SA victims.

Is only ever opposed to wearing a dress on one occasion, because A) the dress in question was ugly (not liking a dress because it’s ugly has got to be one of the most “girly” things ever), and B) she was treated differently by the brotherhood on the basis of her gender when she wore a dress because they were reminded she was a girl.

Her celebrity heroes are actually all heroines.

One of which is Nymeria, a warrior princess that pathed the way for equal inheritance among lords and ladies in Dorne.

Wenda the White Fawn, and outlaw queen who famously attacked, kidnapped, and branded men of high birth with her own personal brand before ransoming them for coin.

And (show only I believe) Visenya, a legendary Queen that notoriously did not give a fuck about gender roles.

Notice how Arya doesn’t idealize Aemon the Dragonknight or Ser Arthur Dayne. She has heroines, not heroes. She bosses around almost every guy she meets and tells them what’s what, but she doesn’t boss around other girls. She has way more beef with men than women.

But yeah, she totally fits into the “not like other girls” trope. Yeah totally. 🙄

Some people just can’t understand nuance or the idea that feminine and masculine are ideas with broad meaning, not literal things with laws and rules. Wearing dresses and cooking doesn’t inherently = feminine. And adventuring and wearing pants does not explicitly = masculine.