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My problem with aSoIaF... fionwe1987 Send a noteboard - 20/12/2011 05:16:42 AM
What I find objectionable is not so much the existence of violence and rape, and even the portrayal is mostly fine, if sometimes excessive... what irritates me is that Martin seems to think we should accept the level of misogyny we see in his world simply because his world is a reflection of Middle Ages Europe. In the text, there is no explanation for why thousands of years of association with the Rhoynish, and hundreds of years of having them as a part of the Seven Kingdoms did not lead to greater freedoms for women. The Church stand in, the Sept, seems to have a very male-only bent, but with the religion of the Seven being so different from Christianity in some fundamentals, we're left wondering why this is so.

So, while Martin's portrayal of individual women in a misogynistic setting is really excellent, his explanation for that setting itself is not. It seems to assume that misogyny would be a natural outcome of a world similar to the Middle Ages, when the fact is that several factors went into making the Middle Ages as anti-women as they were. I don't know if this is a reflection of the author's own view of women, but it certainly is a failure of world building that I don't see criticized enough.
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Violence, rape, and agency in the "gritty fantasies" - 17/12/2011 01:36:54 PM 1661 Views
Hm, ok. - 17/12/2011 10:51:21 PM 1072 Views
I think we largely agree - 17/12/2011 11:23:00 PM 967 Views
Re: Hm, ok. - 26/12/2011 01:08:14 AM 961 Views
Martin, Goodkind... - 18/12/2011 01:58:33 PM 975 Views
More than just those - 18/12/2011 08:15:27 PM 900 Views
Re: More than just those - 26/12/2011 01:13:21 AM 833 Views
Re: Martin, Goodkind... - 26/12/2011 01:11:12 AM 855 Views
On more of a "meta" level, what makes a fantasy story "gritty" in the first place? - 19/12/2011 02:58:57 PM 851 Views
There has to be something more, though. - 19/12/2011 03:47:56 PM 1006 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though. - 19/12/2011 05:29:30 PM 878 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though. - 19/12/2011 09:06:14 PM 861 Views
I agree about Martin - haven't read enough Bakker to judge. - 19/12/2011 09:56:17 PM 911 Views
My problem with aSoIaF... - 20/12/2011 05:16:42 AM 901 Views
The Rhoynish influence pretty much ends in Dorne. - 20/12/2011 06:15:54 AM 883 Views
And that makes sense? - 20/12/2011 08:54:16 AM 969 Views
Yes and no. - 20/12/2011 03:10:54 PM 1009 Views
Re: Yes and no. - 26/12/2011 03:12:01 AM 864 Views
Re: And that makes sense? - 18/05/2012 01:42:52 AM 937 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though. - 20/12/2011 12:21:39 PM 819 Views
That's a question for each reader to answer then. - 20/12/2011 03:20:39 PM 722 Views
You appear to have not understood my point. - 20/12/2011 05:59:07 PM 769 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though. - 26/12/2011 03:14:04 AM 787 Views
Re: There has to be something more, though. - 26/12/2011 03:01:34 AM 808 Views
That's my general take as well - 20/12/2011 07:15:51 AM 796 Views
I like violence *NM* - 20/12/2011 07:51:39 PM 346 Views
Re: Violence, rape, and agency in the "gritty fantasies" - 25/12/2011 11:52:41 PM 996 Views

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