#thus the sexism we see isnt meant to be malicous or meant to be mean its just the way things are

[rise-my-angel]

I think what's great about how you depict women is that it's a discussion and not just telling us about the condition of living in such a patriarchal environment. My best example would be when you show the reader interacting with Cersei. Like in the recent chapter, I was beginning to see where a lot of readers more subtle trauma was coming from through her talking to Cersei. Hope this makes sense.

This honestly took me a bit to answer, because it genuinely made me think for a bit. I was writing my newest chapter and part of me was worried, "Is my writing actually sexist? Are they right?" Then you sent me this and it sort of put it into better perspective.

My issue with a lot of asoiaf reader/oc fics, tends to be that there is a need to copy the Talisa effect. We all know the issues with their feudal society and how it doesn't match todays progressive views. But Talisa was a mouthpiece created by the writers to try and over compensate when the books had no need for it. Grrm did not write "anti war" or "anti sexism" or "anti monarchy" characters. He wrote people. Just normal people who we see not the structure of the society explained to us, but we understand HOW that society effects people in the way it has influenced certain characters.

We do not need a character to tell Robb that war is wrong, beacuse Arya's entire point of view in the books is to showcase that damage of war. She is out in the world on the run and she is never not surrounded by the damage of war. We don't need to be told it's bad, we see the starvation and desolation the realm is in during a Feast for Crows just by way of how poor, hungry, and desperate everyone is.

But I hated that fics, and now hotd, tended to write women just like Talisa. Overcompensating for what progressive modern views disagree with. I wanted a reader who does not just act as a relatable protagonist. I wanted her to exist in the world she lives in.

A highborn girl, raised in the royal family. She would not grow up with the freedom to question this, or doubt the system or her role. But there are cracks. Hints that it isn't as easy as she's been led to believe, and while Cersei is trying to be genuine, all it does is reinforce the opposite extreme. That now everything you learned is a lie, and your role is not just to serve, but now to suffer.

There's no inbetween. But too you were never raised to blame someone for it. She wasn't comfortable with Roberts infidelity beacuse she was an outsider. But now, Cersei has told her that her marriage with Robert is the inevitable for women like them, and now that you are coming to a similar stage with Jon, do you realize that you should have long since prepared yourself. You don't blame Jon for whatever cheating he would potentially commit, you blame yourself for thinking that you were different enough that it would not happen.

I never wanted her role as a woman in the series to be a statement, or to challenge the status quo. The reader's womanhood is not a bigger message, it's simply about one woman's journey with her place in the world. And I simply never wanted to make it seem black and white or feel easy to overcome.

Neither Sansa nor Arya's opposite journeys in regard to their own womanhood and femininity are easy, and I asked myself, so what does the middle look like?

And the answer, is that the middle is no less complicated.