#misogyny in asoiaf

[spacerockfloater]

The “the whole theme of Fire and Blood is about how bad misogyny is!” rhetoric actually makes me laugh, because not only is GRRM himself one of the most misogynistic fantasy writers out there, but his lack of understanding when it comes to one of the fundamental ideas of feminism, which is that all women deserve respect, is evident when you look at the type of women who are uplifted in his work:

1. Beautiful preteen girls who get sexually/ physically abused (Sansa, Daenerys, Shireen)

2. Virginal girls who swear off men and their traditional roles (Arya, Brienne)

3. Dutiful mothers (Catelyn)

And that’s it. A woman is valued in his story only when she is either pretty and young and pure but suffers for it, a virgin that renounces sex completely or has children. Every other single female character is treated like absolute garbage and ridiculed for her weight, age, sex drive, ambition, beliefs etc.

This man is a textbook misogynist. And you know that because his favourite characters are Jon Snow, a byronic hero, and Daemon Targaryen, a controversial deuteragonist. His male characters are part of a spectrum and he adds nuance to all of them by making them complicated, morally challenged yet still somehow superior, macho men with hard abs. They all make difficult decisions that are based on their trauma/ experiences and personal values/ ambitions, they’re all multidimensional beings that can’t be described as purely good or evil, but! The women in his works are helpless little creatures that stuff just keeps happening to them and he praises them depending on if their reactions to these situations appeal to the male fantasy and ideal of what a good woman should be, but punishes them when they make decisions for themselves. In his work, men are proactive, but women are reactive.

Both Rhaenyra and Alicent are evil caricatures. An evil stepmom, a spoiled bratty daughter. He never meant for his story to make us think “wow! patriarchy is bad!”, even if we obviously thought it anyway and it’s true. All he wanted was to tell a shocking story full of badass men doing badass things.

[jonsahater4live]

so, i know its really bad what im about to say, but smoetimes i just like to imagine a reality in wich catelyn becomes like a mom for jon and theon. and then i feel bad because its fine that catelyn doesn’t like two children who she didn’t wanted and no one asked for her consent with them, and that she doesn’t even mistreats them she just leaves them alone as good as she can, but then i feel so bad for these two motherless babys and how nice it would be if they were one happy family, and then im just sad because i want them to be happy but not under the stake of ‘if catelyn was a better person and not just some heartless bitch’ because catelyn is a great mom to her children and she has to much hate deeply rooted into misogyny

[lizzie-queenofmeigas]

Your previous ask is really interesting because if Daenerys had chosen to do nothing and either join the Dosh Khaleen or die the same people who hate her for avenging her son would write fanfics about how she deserved better and how she should have fight back (ex: Helaena and Elia). Revenge seems to only be a good thing if given to a character within a purely fanon perspective after the female character has already proven they are too pure, selfless, tragic, and passive to ask for revenge.

If Daenerys died in childbirth or at the end of AGOT, or remained trapped and powerless and purely victim, she’d be a fan favorite of the soft feminity club.

This is just another example of misogyny within fandoms. They love women who don't challenge the status quo, women who are just quiet and kind and pretty. The moment a female character speaks out of turn they hate on her.

The worst part is that many of this people are women. Literally just a proof of their internalized misogyny.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Arya being masculinized, adultified, and having her trauma ignored because people think she's "too strong" to be a victim is such a core experience for young girls of color

[rhaenin-time]

Hot take that was a cold take before HotD but one of the main reasons behind emphasizing Daemon as "morally grey" is so when Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron far surpass him in atrocities you can comfortably say, "Oh. These are the baddies."

[catofoldstones]

The fact that the episode where Arya assists Tywin and famously says “most girls are stupid” corresponds directly with the chapter in the books where she overhears Chiswyck laughing about how the mountain and his lackeys (him included) gang-raped a 13 year old child, and this harrows and angers Arya so much that she adds all of these people to her prayer kill list and uses her one of her three precious death-wishes with Jaqen H’ghar is the reason I will be personally beating the bloody shit out of d&d.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Mad Queen Misogyny

All the mad queen Dany takes, from both D&D and the audience, are just plain misogyny. They are literally just repeats of common misogynistic ideas. D&D have given a few reasons for why they wrote the mad queen ending for Dany, and all of them are the same old misogynistic tropes of fantasy and mythology.

The Mad Queen:

I'm going to start this off by going into how the mad queen trope itself is rooted in misogyny. This is one of the oldest tropes in fantasy/fairytales. Whether it's Snow White's evil step mother or the Queen of Hearts, literature is riddled with mad queens.

The idea of the mad queen is informed by the desires of men to keep women out of power. Yes there are historical women who were horrible people and unstable when in power. However, those examples are not enough to justify the amount of times the trope occurs, especially since some of the examples occur after many stories have already been written (ie, Mary I and medieval fairytales). These fictional women were written as cautionary tales of what happens when a woman is placed in power.

By writing the mad queen Dany arc in GOT, D&D are perpetuating an old trope rather than "subverting" anything as they claim. The most powerful woman in the world turning out to be a war mongering and mass murdering tyrant isn't subversive in any way. The only reason it was surprising was because it came out of nowhere narratively.

ASOIAF fans who constantly try to justify this turn for Dany's book character are attempting to do the same thing D&D did. They want to employ an ancient trope to justify their dislike for her in name of being "subversive".

The Violent Woman:

A trope that stretches back all the way to the Ancient Greeks is that of the angry, homicidal woman in power. From Hera to Medea, the myths are full of women who commit atrocities simply because of anger. This trope isn't just about avenging a slight or retribution on the guilty; it's about a woman taking out her anger on innocent parties.

Daenerys has fallen into the role of the avenger many times throughout both the show and and book. She killed Mirri Maz Duur for the murder of her son and husband. She killed the Undying for attempting to trap/kill her. She kills Kraznys mo Nakloz and many other slavers for the atrocities they commit constantly on the people they enslaved.

In the show, she imprisoned Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Doreah in a vault for killing Irri and helping the warlocks steal her children. She killed the Khals who threatened to rape her. She kills the Tarleys for rebelling against the Tyrells, thus getting them killed, and refusing to bend the knee.

Every time Dany killed up until season eight, it was purely because those she killed harmed her or her allies/children. That is why none of her past kills justify her burning KL. The people of KL did nothing to her; it's not an established part of her character to harm innocents out of anger. She even outright condemns the killing of innocents in earlier seasons.

The inconsistencies show how D&D chose to blatantly ignore the complexities of Dany's character in favor of a sexist trope. They perpetuated the idea that a woman in power who is angered will ultimately commit injustice and atrocities.

Dany antis in the ASOIAF fandom are no different from D&D. A common argument used by Dany and Targaryen antis is that they are bound to be corrupt and tyrannical because they have dragons. Essentially saying that Dany was doomed to be the villain the moment she hatched her children.

They point to her dragons' existence and her conquest in Essos as reasons for her "villain arc", despite the fact that none of her actions reflect the things they claim. Dany is simply being condemned for being a woman with power; it's expected of her to be a tyrant for those reasons alone.

The Woman Scorned:

This reasoning given by D&D in a behind the episode interview is probably the excuse that I hate the most. They said that one of the reasons for Dany's descent into madness was because Jon Snow refused to kiss her back once he found out they were aunt and nephew. This is an insanely misogynistic trope.

Used time and again by writers (mostly male), this trope is about a woman who becomes an antagonist due to rejection, unrequited love, or betrayal from a lover. In the case of Dany and GOT, it's Jon refusing to continue their romantic relationship.

For some reason, this is seen as a breaking point for Dany. A woman who has endured poverty, homelessness, sexual slavery, a traumatic miscarriage and death of a spouse/protector, and the stresses of war was broken by a man refusing to kiss her. Doesn't that sound fucking stupid? Well that's because it is.

Dany has never felt entitled to people's love (with the exception of shitty writing from D&D) let alone someone's sexual/romantic reciprocation. It's out of character and flat out insulting to women to believe that is enough to make Dany into a mass murdering tyrant.

Once again, there are members of the fandom who espouse this reasoning into their own theories and metas. Jonsas especially are guilty of this; some claiming that Jon's rejection of Dany in favor of Sansa will be a catalyst for the "mad queen".

An offshoot of this thinking, is the idea that Dany went/will go mad because she was rejected by the realm.

In the show, the Northmen are dismissive or outright hostile to Dany when she arrives (even after she saves them). Due to this rejection by the Westerosi people, Dany decides "let it be fear" and chooses to burn KL to the ground.

Once again, this idea isn't grounded in her past actions at all. Dany has always known she needs to earn people's love and respect as a ruler, why should she change her mind the moment she steps onto Westerosi soil? The answer is simple: she's a woman, so she can't possibly be able to deal with rejection.

Fans theorize constantly that Dany is going to go mad and destroy KL and Westeros because the people will definitely reject her in favor of Young Griff/Jon Snow/any other king they can think of. This theory is simply clinging to misogynistic ideas about women and it's disgusting in every iteration (it also dismisses the fact that there are people in Westeros excited about the idea of Dany and her dragons in the books but that's a different post).

The Woman Bereft:

This argument is probably the least outright in its misogyny. The idea that a woman who has lost everything will lose her mind isn't a new one and it can be played in a non-sexist way. However, GOT played it completely in the sexist roots of the trope.

Throughout seasons seven and eight, Dany loses basically everything. All but one of her children, her closest advisor and best friend Missandei, Ser Jorah, a massive chunk of her army, her other advisors, most of her allies, and is rejected by Westeros and Jon. That's a lot of loss to endure.

However, Dany has endured severe loss before and never reacted by murdering a city full of innocents. Again, this decision and descent isn't backed up by anything else in her storyline.

The sexism of this idea, that loss produces mad women, is that it's rarely applied to men in the same situations. For example: Tyrion lost everything he cared about, yet he's never written by D&D to be in danger of becoming a mass murderer. He even outright says he wishes he'd poisoned the whole court, but is never portrayed as a mad man by D&D or fans.

Dany is expected to go insane after enduring loss because she's a woman. She's perceived as being fundamentally weaker, mentally as well as physically, so she must be more vulnerable to madness than the male characters.

The Foreign Seductress:

The idea of the foreign seductress is a xenophobic and racist stereotype. For Dany, her antis use the instances of her exercising sexual autonomy and her life in Essos as fodder for this disparaging trope.

In the books and the show, Dany pursues sexual and romantic relationships outside of marriage. This is something that doesn't fall in line with the medieval setting of the world. In Westeros and Essos, it's common for men to do that, but not women, due to systematic misogyny. Because of this, Dany's antis often feel free to argue that because she doesn't act "pure", she is wrong and evil. Dany's bound to become a villain because she isn't a chaste and "good" woman.

In the same way, Dany is painted as wrong for wanting to take her family's throne purely because she wasn't raised in Westeros. She's perceived as a foreign invader by both her antis and D&D.

D&D wrote many scenes of outright xenophobia from the Northmen, Sansa, and Arya towards Dany and her forces without ever condemning those ideas. In fact, they justify them by writing the mad queen ending. The fact that Dany isn't "one of them" is used as an excuse for her descent.

Dany antis also employ this rhetoric, especially when people compare Dany's conquest for the IT to the Starks' desire to retake Winterfell. It's good for the Starks to want to retake their throne because they were raised in Winterfell, but Dany has no right to her ancestral home because she wasn't raised in Westeros.

However, this idea is never applied to Young Griff, who was also not raised in Westeros. Despite this, people will talk about how excited they are for his story and how sad it is that he's totally going to be murdered by his evil aunt. Once again a double standard is applied to Dany.

All this is because Dany is a woman who refuses to conform to patriarchal standards and was raised in a foreign country.

Never Good Enough:

Dany antis and D&D thrive on applying a different set of standards to Dany than other characters. They do this an a way that's reminiscent of the double standards set for women even today.

No matter what Dany does, it's never good enough for them. She dealt with Viserys and his death in the wrong way. She didn't protect her people in the right way. She tried to abolish slavery in the wrong way. She saved the goddamn world wrong. Like nothing Dany does is right in their eyes.

In their minds, Dany should've died in AGOT being a perfectly passive woman. She refused to submit to those (men) around her, and for that they punish her.

She's wrong for fighting the slavers, she's wrong for trying to avenge murdered children, she's evil for killing to protect herself. D&D used each of her actions throughout the show that they seemed too aggressive as justification for what they wrote. Dany's antis do the exact same thing in their theories.

The mad queen Dany theory is rooted completely in misogyny. It has no true justification in the narrative and every argument conjured up is just as sexist as the trope they want to perpetuate.

[ilynpilled]

ik this is corny but yk i am truly glad for asoiaf and how it undoubtedly impacted my relationship to attractiveness and ugliness when i was a teen. like i dont think i was that bad about it to begin with but cmon lmao with the world you are in it is hard not putting so much damn value to beauty even inadvertently. characters (among many others) like brienne and even the romances like jb are meaningful fr especially when you are younger

[horizon-verizon]

The idea that Stannis is more flexible than Daenerys is so hilarious. Stannis cuts off the knuckles of a man who saved his life because he broke the law meanwhile Daenerys can’t even execute Jorah for betraying her.

It's always something with these people. Dany is supposedly the least "inflexible"

When she hangs back on violently hunting down Harpies for the safety of her people...Stannis is set to kill his own daughter in total subservience to his own desires and pretence of faith, plus what you mention w/Davos. He is one of the least adaptive and humorless people in this entire franchise...Tywin is more flexible & enjoyable than this guy. Fuck them, for real.

[lagosbratzdoll]

This is a very very unfinished thought but I've been thinking a lot as I reread the books about how the women of House of the Dragon don't really get catharsis and how that'll likely be worse in S2. Say what you want about asoiaf but a number of named women there experience catharsis.

They kill their abusers (Lysa, Cersei, Dany). They regain some agency after a violation (Lysa, Cersei, Lady Stoneheart, Dany), and they refuse to forgive the people complicit in their subjugation (Lysa, Cersei, Dany, Lady Stoneheart, Jeyne Westerling).

Obviously, three or four isn't enough in such an expansive cast of characters but the point remains that they claw back their autonomy however they have to. They're allowed to be angry, bitter, unforgiving and cruel to their abusers in a way women in House of the Dragon just aren't allowed. They're allowed grief, grief that is violent and destructive.

The women of House of the Dragon don't get angry. They stand around and stare plaintively at the camera, they cry prettily, and they plead for peace and non-violence. They suffer and suffer and suffer and there's no relief.

[visenyaism]

What do you think of Mysaria from the book?

so imagine if there was a book with varys in it. but it was written exclusively from the perspective of his most racist opps who depict him as a scheming evil foreigner evil advisor and he never got to speak for himself like he does in the main series where he’s clearly aware of that narrative and working it to his advantage. but this time instead of being a eunuch and facing misogyny and discrimination for that the varys of this book is a sex worker and faces extreme misogyny both within the narrative and by the narrators themselves. and then dies in a hypersexualized humiliation ritual and that’s that. if you’re thinking wow that sounds like it would not be enjoyable to read you would be correct

[franzkafkagf]

i honestly think helaena will have to choose between jaehaera and jaehaerys in the show instead of maelor and jaehaerys. and i'd love it. why do i think so?

maelor seems to not (yet) exist in the show

the writers want to highlight the role of women and girls within feudal society, they're really adamant about that; this is the perfect opportunity to do that

b&c will make her choose between her twins. between her daughter and her son. helaena will choose her daughter. she'll agonize over it, of course. offering herself to be killed instead.

but she will choose her daughter, eventually.

she will choose her daughter to die because she isn't a son. only a son can take the throne, right? this is what is expected of her as queen, right? a daughter is worth less, right?

"a son for a son"

the boy was dead from the very beginning. b&c knew, they went there with a clear task. rob aegon of his heir. who cares about a daughter?

but they still made her choose. they still made helaena play that sick charade. they still made her look at her daughter and choose her to die.

"did you hear that, girl? your mother wants you dead."

helaena will go sick with grief. how can she ever look at her daughter again, knowing she chose her to die? she's just another cog in the machine.

alicent was there. she was there. she saw it happen. maybe, secretly, she hoped they'd take jaehaera too.

aegon's only son is dead. his heir. his heir is dead. he is a king without a son. like his father. he is left with a daughter. worth less than a son. less less less.

he cannot name her heir, can he? no. never.

and what of the girl? what of jaehaera? how will she grieve (her twin, her innocence, her family)? she knows her life is lesser than her brother's. was lesser.

jaehaera never cried when she fell, nor did she giggle when happy.

[lizzie-queenofmeigas]

Daenerys is the ONLY major character that GRRM considered making Black. The ONLY yt character that in-universe got mistaken for a brown-skinned ethnicity. She wants to be at the same level as her people yet she’s the only one who gets called a yt devilish nazi by yt pseudo-intellectuals.

People are not obligated to like Daenerys at all, but don’t try to frame your “this refugee teenage girl and her army of savage Dothraki and Unsullied don’t belong to the peaceful civilized Westeros” take as a groundbreaking progressive take. Daenerys’ haters have this violently racist and dehumanizing view on Daenerys’ people as a dangerous group of brown savages threatening the safety of white nobility. Calls Daenerys a racist blood purist then say “what’s Daenerys’ plan to incorporate these animalistic savages into civilized Westerosi way of life.”

The Dany haters have a strong mix of misogyny, racism and xenophobia in their beliefs and their arguements. Is honestly so disgusting. The worst thing is that they really don't seem to realize this, because is incredibly normalize it to them. Either that or they just don't care, which is worse.

[fromtheseventhhell]

"I've never seen such anger in a girl" and it's literally just a nine-year-old being quiet after an upsetting event, Arya really experiencing the universal girlhood experience of having your emotions policed for not responding in the "right" way

[silmarillaure]

If you like Daemon despite him supporting Rhaenys getting robbed of her rights in favor of Viserys, you really have no right to judge Helaena of all people for sticking with her mother and brothers.

And heck, you actually shouldn’t speak on Alicent or her sons either because your fave is just as bad. A lot of you prove time and time again that you’re ok with misogyny towards women who aren’t Rhaenyra.

[mummer]

i see the term gender horror used alot in certain parts of asoiaf fandom and i dont think i fully get it like sure theres def a rigid and violently enforced structure to gender and sexual violence is both ubiquitous and a currency but is it just those things or is there something beyond i feel like its not clicking for me

honestly im p sure it is just those things lol you got it. i think asoiaf does take the violent structure of gender and commits to exploring it to its most remote extremes, so you get stuff like sam being chained up and bathed in blood or gilly being forced into marriage with her father or however many other examples of gendering as an abusive practice (as requiring you to either do violence (masculinity) or bear violence (femininity) to participate in society). which i think is where the horror part comes from, the extremity of it? the no-holds-barred dont-look-away blood-under-everything structural inescapability of it. idk that’s how i view it at least