I don’t disagree that some of the scenes are out of pocket, but I think the Varys dialogue serves an obvious purpose in context. He is trying to convince Tyrion to be sensible and NOT bring his mistress into the Red Keep. As a keen observer and in an attempt to talk Tyrion out of it, he is appealing to his weakness- his sexual and masculine insecurity- with this graphic and imaginative description. Great analysis in this video, but I wanted to share my interpretation of the scene and why I don’t think it’s out of character.
Very good point! I admit I didn't think of that - but maybe there's a chance i might have if the "out of pocket" occurrences weren't so frequent in the books. Random Raunchy Break (TM) is something that's so un-unique to Varys that I would've had difficulty reading it as characterisation - especially because he's the type to manipulate people subtly, with gossip and fake sweetness. Openly provoking someone... i don't know. I don't remember him doing something like that at any other point, either. If this stunt were a more regular thing for him and also more isolated to him specifically, I would've given it a pass - but as it is, it felt odd to me personally. (And, being fully honest, the passage also serves uniquely well as an introduction for the chapter, since it's representatively fucked up but not explicitly sexual language, which is something I've tried to be careful with. But if I'd really read that dialogue differently, I wouldn't have used it.) But yeah, that's an interpretation that went totally over my head. Thank you for sharing :)
I was going to type this but you said it better than I could. Varys to me reads as someone who is very good at reading another person's insecurities and being able to play on them in the most effective way. Being coy and sly about it would not have worked as well as bluntly making Tyrion imagine what would happen to Shae. I think alot of the "out of pocket" parts just seem to unfortunately miss alot of the character and story context those scenes are trying to impart. This and the Theon part stuck out especially. However, as a gay man I definitely agree that female characters definitely seem to do things "boobily with their boobs" alot and while gay boys exist, they don't kiss 😅
@@1eoso1e You do have this one excerpt from Tyrion XII from ADWD: "Bokkoko was kissing his lover shamelessly, kneading the boy's buttocks with one huge hand, the other tangled in his hair."
My issue with this, is when you analyse the themes of George's work as a whole, you will learn he is a vehemently left wing feminist. His potrayals of SA are done as to show the horiffic nature of the characters. When a favourite like Tryrion commits these horrendous acts, that is done to show how awful of a person he has become after killing his father and finding out about his first love. The opposite to assuming its okay because a favourite character is doing it
I mean in the interview about what he thought about the South Park episode he admitted that he hadn't seen it because he was a fan of the show and felt a bit nervous about how they show portrayed him. But the one thing he knew about it was that the version of him in the show was obsessed with weiners. Which he was puzzled by, and admitted that if they had gone after him for being obssessed with boobies, that would have been something he couldn't have denied. Also I think it is fully possible to be left wing, want women to have all the same rights that men do, and also be a big fan of boobs. If anything shouldn't a feminist be more in favor of boobs? Aren't feminists the ones who will have marches regarding FreeTheNipple?
@@dcworld4349Left wing = sex negative is kind of a new thing. A critical mass of people complained about objectified female video game characters etc and the narrative emerged that sex negativity was a left wing position. But when I was in a kid in the 90s/00s it was conservatives who complained about sex in the media from a “family values” perspective. Now they seem to be more for it from an anti-SJW perspective
@@TheJadedJames I feel like the further left you go, you find more and more purity testing until you get a bunch of tiny groups that will lump other leftist into the same category as fascists in terms of moral failings for disagreeing one one or two key issues. I think this might also apply to critique of art in this case. GRRM is clearly a feminist and a leftist broadly speaking but somehow he will get attacked for being a racist misogynist from one side while getting called a woke libtard from the other. Theres no winning everyone it seems😂
it’s nice to see actually good criticism of the game of thrones franchise, not just the show but also the books. I know it’s a classic or whatever but just because it is doesn’t mean it doesn’t still deserve criticism
criticism is well and good (theres been a lot of criticism about the books for a long time if youre part of the fandom) but from what i can see so far these are pretty shitty criticisms
Women, whether attracted to other women or not, do very often look at and assess other women's bodies. It's a testament to the power of patriarchy and the internationalized male gaze. You may not do this yourself, but from my own experience of observing people and being observed, women's bodies are on display (even bodies that aren't conventionally young/thin/attractive). I only found myself grossed out by GRRM's tendency to oversexualize teenage characters, especially girls. But as far as a wide range of characters noticing female breasts? That shit is accurate.
I LOVE George’s work, I think he is truly one of the most nuanced writer out there atm, but I am very glad to see genuine criticism beyond the typical misogyny I tend to see among fans. Great video!
this video was very well put together, but i don’t think that you had a lot to say. pointing to deliberately placed examples of messed-up people doing bad things (i.e. theon and the captains daughter) and declaring them purposeless does not actually render them purposeless. theon’s return to the iron islands is a crash course in ‘what is wrong with theon’ including the whole thing with asha (which she egged on, btw. she absolutely could have said something, and he was pissed when he found out), his treatment of the captains daughter, and his refusal to go see his mother are all a demonstration of his antagonistic relationship with women. this is later subverted when it’s revealed that kyra tried to save him and he does actually save jeyne. it’s only ‘out of pocket’ out of context. also, it’s just sort of ridiculous to expect members of a feudalistic medieval society to think and behave like people you would know today. depiction is not endorsement, full stop. i’m just beginning to think that some of you people don’t like stories or things happening in them.
I find it very odd when people, even fans in theories, claim to the purpose of something without the series being finished. Imagine not reading the end of LOTR and debating what's the purpose of Gollum. Maybe you can infer the purpose in part, but that's just your best guess based on an incomplete picture, so maybe temper your arguments. Imagine talking about the purpose of Theon before A Dance With Dragons.
@@minimumviableplayer1402that's an easy way to hide because we both know this series is never getting finished by the original author. Which means, by your logic, nobody will ever be allowed to analyze it. What you say is true in most cases where there is a reasonable expectation that a series will get finished. But in this case an exception must be made.
@@ShadowDogProduction I didn't say you can't analyze it, I said you can't claim to know the purpose of a character/plot point without looking at the whole work. The reason you don't get the whole work doesn't change the fact you don't get the whole work. Can you claim the purpose of Jon Snow dying is because the author wants to say it's useless to try save thousands if you are against the status quo? The text is right there, but it just happens we have additional context implying there is a lot more to it. What about the context we don't have on dozen other cases?
Your critiques about the gratuitous amount of “night time” descriptions are apt and actually quite enlightening for somebody who hasn’t viewed them in that way. As for the latter critiques of the Dothraki and the Free Folk while yes they strike at the heart of the “historical accuracy” defense I find them to be nitpicky and not of major consequence. particularly about the Dornish characters since there are other dornish female characters that do not fit your portrayal.
28:25 - The scene is from Theon's POV, it shows how disgusting he is and asks the reader: "Can you follow this person's journey?" It makes his eventual redemption more powerful. To your credit - it has the "word choice" problem and doesn't serve developing the girl as a person at all, but I think that was the point, that's how Theon looks at her.
Finally I found a critique of George's writing of the series that doesnt go just about the show been bad, and also been true analysis and not just pointing out the 'problematic' without nuance. It feels like because the series failed so bad, we kind put the author in a pedestal and we think that he's the embodiment of good writing while the show is the contrary. Also is very difficult to find literary analysis about the series in this platform because all i found is just a whole lot of theories of who is a secret targaryen or some shit.
great essay! watched the whole thing and then went down to the comment section, to check out how people are liking this underappreciated video... looks like only a minority of commenters really watched it
@@JPanettieri i dont get your point. you're saying that it's okay that people aren't paying attention to the video and leaving nonsensical comments because the video is not relevant? and then you proceed to criticize the author while not having watched the whole video? you're also ignoring the fact that the author is not just uncomfortable with the sexual content, there's more to that. if you pay attention, you'll notice that she dissects very specific scenes, not every other sex scene
@@JPanettieri LMAO says the guy who brings "i have an engish BA" to the table? While he replies to comments under a video he DIDN'T FINISH? So as to not waste his "valuable time"??? 🤣🤣Get over yourself
@@JPanettieri (Not too short to be a pick me ig - also, I have a BA in English too, you aint special and sure as hell not more qualified, but okay:) 1. its a critique of the five books in ASOIAF he published, not Dunk and Egg. You can't possibly conclude that not having read those stories invalidates your judgement in any way. Like what? Your literary analysis of Hamlet is unmade by the fact you haven't read Midsummer Night's Dream? Are you listening to yourself??? 2. Greek Mythology is an ancient, collective storytelling format that was adapted by people writing it down. Sure, it would be dishonest to leave the SA out if you wrote about it now, but comparing it to a modern fantasy book series written by 1 (one) guy is quite possibly the most desperate, imbecilic argument I've heard on the entirety of internet - and that's competing with your previous points. It's literally making me retroactively wonder why I'm replying to you. Go find Martin, tell him you want his dick in your mouth and stop whining about not finishing things you find uninteresting while also whining about someone else not reading something they found uninteresting
@@joyachillPlease read this __George RR Martin in feminist. The prince that was promised or choosen one deneris is a girl . All the worldbuilding comes from world of ice and fire which is written by westorosi maisters. The are biased about other culture. It was intended because our historians are like that. You make good comment but lets not forget grrm is a man. Any fiction written by women can't write boys properly too. Harry potter is a great example.
Brilliant video. I always had a problem with Martin portraying his writing as "honest", historically "accurate", and "uncomfortable commentary"... I never got past Storm of swords, but personally reading Martin always felt like a meandering through a series of red flags.
"Blame the writer, not your fragility" is the same argument used by Muslims when someone insults Mohhamed. By the same logic, Charlie Hebdo writers had it coming
I... see your angle? But I do feel there might be a line *somewhere* between a mislike of having your criticisms of a book series shut down on account of how other people view your emotional capacity and, uh, terrorism.
@@joyachill You can argue that the women in ASOIAF are poorly written , but their place in society and how they're treated is extremely historically accurate, particularly in Westeros (which is inspired by medieval Britain). Yes, they're treated like cattle or like possessions and that's horrendous, but it's exactly how our society used to work and GRRM is merely reflecting that. Plus, Westeros is a shithole where almost no one is happy
@@GruntoSkunko Nope, I didn't say that. I said that arguing that GRRM writes bad women is a valid argument (even though I personally don't think that), but saying that he's morally bad because of the situations he puts women in, is not a good argument because it's historically accurate and therefore realistic for the setting
Please read this __George RR Martin in feminist. The prince that was promised or choosen one deneris is a girl . All the worldbuilding comes from world of ice and fire which is written by westorosi maisters. The are biased about other culture. It was intended because our historians are like that. You make good comment but lets not forget grrm is a man. Any fiction written by women can't write boys properly too. Harry potter is a great example.
Ok so I have seen a couple weird comments relating to like "fragility" and all these stupid anti-sjw type notions and wanna make it very clear that I dont agree with them at all and would rather distance myself from them. That being said I think the criticism is very poor in many many places, the out of pocket section sticks out to me especially because reading those scenes I think they basically all have perfectly understandable reasons for being in there, some in fact praise worthy as for how they manage to show something fundamental to a character at a given point in time (Theon and his "salt wife" being the main example imo because everything from his disgusting treatment of her to the stories refusal to name her act as both an insight into theons horrible relationship with women (which is important for how he really losees so much of what makes him that misogynist high born) as well as an insight into iron island culture and treatment of women). I see a lot of people compliment the criticism but it seems to come from a place of being starved of any criticism rather than actual quality because you seem to largely misunderstand many of the scenes and reasoning. i would not accuse you of this because i do not know you and have no reason to think youd do something like this, but a lot of the criticism could be seen as you simply reading through the books looking for instances of weird description rather than an organic noticing of it in a work you appreciate (which it honestly doesnt seem like you do by how you talk about the difficult of reading the books, this criticism would be much stronger from a perspective of someone who actually likes the books and surrounding work (namely dunk and egg)). I am obviously wording this quite harshly but I do think there is serious reason to analyse how authors overuse rape and then just handwave it as being accurate (asoiaf is not the worst offender but I can imagine a reasonable mind wanting less of it, whereas a series like berserk almost lavishes in the abuse of women (especially very young women and girls)) and i am glad youre aware of that too. You missed the mark on this one but i absolutely mean no hate and just wish the criticism could be improved.
As someone who likes the books, I agree in some ways with the video, like yeah, Grrm is a dirty old nerd who lives his sex fantasies through asoiaf and some descriptions are unnecesary, but it doesn't hurt the story as much as portrayed in the video imo
@@GruntoSkunko of course that's true but there is a big difference in honestly portraying rape and indulging in the portrayal which is the criticism many have of grrm but i personally feels those scenes or rape or sexual assault are for a specific purpose
Re: boobs discourse - I had to laugh hearing you describe this in Martin. The first thing I thought of is that Martin was born in 1948 USA - he grew up in a boob-obsessed culture if ever there was one. While Martin is a very competent writer, he's not a Nabokov; he is not engaged in minute analysis of every word choice and of his own potential limitations, at least not beyond a certain point. So Martin relying excessively on boob talk is simply a reflection of American cultural obsessions. And yes, it is a defect in the writing. Martin means well, I think, but clearly he has limitations and some attitudes about women that are at best questionable. I think an interesting discussion could be had about why this is now something that seems weird to many readers. I suspect that twenty years ago it either would not have been noticed, or if noticed, it would not have been discussed. Well... not by men anyway. Of course I could be wrong about much of the above. I'm still watching the video, and now I'm afraid you're going to be getting into some much uglier writing habits Martin may have.
43:16 I agree with everything you said so far, but its not out realm of possibility that young Denerys would still feel this way about Drogo after his death. It happens in real life statutory abuse cases plenty of times so I don't see why it wouldn't happen here too. Besides kids are guided from adults to tell them whats right and wrong and if there was no one around her to tell her what happened with Drogo was wrong, then she most likely wouldn't see anything wrong in it either
This is a really great video. Martin's writing turns out to be so much worse than I expected - these books have been on my TBR list for years (I've fondly supposed the series would get finished soon). Now I'm a lot less interested in reading them. Your descriptions of Martin's writing shows how it reflects in a completely uncritical way the odd mix of superficial feminism, sexual "liberation," and deeper misogyny that has characterized so much popular entertainment since the 80s. It's sad, but also infuriating. But at least I've discovered a great new (to me) video essayist of the same caliber as LadyKnighttheBrave and Shannon Strucci - the level of insight in this video is really impressive. I'm ready to hear you on any topic you choose to discuss. And Tasha Suri's books are calling my name. So thanks a lot!
If you haven't read the books yet I personally would still absolutely recommend them. I agree with some of the points in this video for sure but the entirety of what was discussed in it amounts to around ten pages of a 5000 page series. He doesn't write women perfectly because he isn't one but I think he has still managed to write phenomenally human women characters for the 99.9% of their page time that isn't a "nighttime" scene. If you are a fan of fantasy and a fan of great women characters then please don't let this video dissuade you from giving the books a shot. I liked the video but to someone who hasn't read the books I can imagine it gives the impression that the whole thing is a misogynist perv fest or something but that is simply not the case. If you follow the link she posted in the description it'll bring you to all of the questionable quotes from the entire series and as you can imagine there is much more to A Song Of Ice And Fire than those 10 pages
The analysis is imperfect and has many misleading points. It is also fucking awesome. One day it will be strange to think that I was one of the first 800 subscribers. Slightly discouraging to know that you can have such amazing videos and yet relatively few subscribers but it will probably change soon
This perfectly encompasses my experience rereading the books. So much random fetishization, sexualization, sexual/domestic violence, racism, ableism, noble savage and orientalist shit, and the few women's perspectives are dripping with misogyny. You're processing the latest betrayal and anticipating major plot beats then BAM gross old man fantasy w/ authorial endorsement which breaks immersion and completely kills the tension/pace. Depictions of violence in fiction have less of an impact the more you bombard the reader with them; especially when the emotional aftermath is skipped over, the POV character is almost always the perpetrator, and the main story isn't affected. There's a difference between exploring dark themes and the experiences of victims, and just using them as grimdark sauce/conflict for a male character to react to/obvious fap material. All the thin excuses about 'historical accuracy' fall apart when you actually do your research. I tend to side eye men who vehemently insist on graphic violent misogyny being included in fiction for the sake of accuracy; they love the idea of women being treated like shit because they get to feel like heroes for not being overtly abusive (and a lot of abusers actually think like this.)
As a woman i have the opposite experience with the books. Yeah, there are instances of men writing women cringe where characters randomly acknowledge their boobs. However, the sexualisation mostly happens from the perspective of characters who have been taught to sexualise or been evidently sexualised. I never see Catelyn sexualising herself or anyone for example, while Cersei does it the entire time because to her, beauty and being sexully desirable is one of the most important things. She is a prime example of internalised misogyny, a very good one at that. Sansa never sexualises herself, but Tyrion who is very clearly set up as not having healthy relationships towards women does. Dany views herself sexually because Viserys has done it ever since she was little. She was always used by him as a breeder. So it makes sense for her to have another perception of herself than Sansa does around her age. Ned never thinks of girls or women in sexual ways, nor does Davos if I remember correctly. Besides that I don't see breast descriptions as inherently sexual. Brienne ackowledging an old woman's breast is not really out of the ordinary. I notice breasts all of the time, and? Doesn't mean i see the women whose breasts I notice as objects. Women's perspectives are dripping with misogyny? Misogyny from their side or the author's side? I would like that elaborated. If it is stuff like Catelyn thinking about how unfortunate it is to be ugly as a woman then this in my opinion really isn't valid critique when it very clearly serves as a critique point of patriarchy. Pretty privilege is real and it is not depicted as a good thing. Brienne is doing God's work out there but because she is not pretty and a woman she constantly gets discredited.
@@justarandomgirlvx3578 Thanks I totally agree, and you saved me from having to write this comment lol. I agree with the video that there are a few instances of weird wording but to say that that's all the series is is insane. I honestly have trouble believing that @strigiformthunderstorm actually read the books if that's the conclusion they came to. Ableism? I don't think I've ever read a book with so many disabled POV characters in it. "the few women's perspectives are dripping with misogyny"😂😂😂At this point I can only laugh. Few women POVs? Really?
10/10 great vid, I hope it gets more visibility because the editing, use of references, jokes, and pacing was on point. Whats frusting about GRR is that the world of asoiaf is so rich and cool but then a shoehorned night time scene will happen and it grinds everything to a halt with the weird tone and focus on women's bodies. its a shame. I loved you talking about the gays too. the lack of anything substantial for them in the books is TRAGIC
most of the video is really awesome and I have no problem with I like the conversation and your presentation BbBbuuut I will put down here things that I THINK might justify at least some of that stuff even tho I still agree with most of what you said even if not completely -i think the women with either theon or victarion not being named is a deliberate choice, both those character barely think of her as a human, and the chapters being written from their POVs, they mostly likely don't know what these characters are called they are just objects for their pleasure, so while this IS objectifying it's objectifying that makes sense because it paints an image of the character and who they are -I also believe that a POV chapter for renly would have been AWESOME but If I remember right *and correct me if I'm wrong I read those books years ago* martin started writing the random pov chapters starting from book 4 after renly died so I think he changed her structure after book 3 and allowed himself to not be so strict to specific povs, except the prologues and epilogues as much as I regret never being in the pov of renly *and no not for freaky sex time but rather his really interesting character and wanting to see things from his pov* I understand that at the time it was kind of against the structure he had for the books in which he decided to change LATER also correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't damphair describe a violent assault scene with his brother euron ? does that count :"D also I'm very sorry to say this since I like the video but the whole summer isle stuff was where you lost me that was just .. yapping :D I'm sorry :D like also the whole thing about wilding culture does kind of prove that maybe at some point you starting reading to "gather points for the video" rather than to see the point of what's being presented because you're saying that basically no stable society can ever function with these wildling beliefs but GUESS WHAT the free folk have never been stable and always fought each other that something that is ALWAYS brought , they only recently started to unite, and the ygritte scene , well, that's at a time where jon snow is starting to like some of the ideas of the free folk but then this particular idea slaps him in the face, it's not martin presenting a "lmao kill your abuser" solution, it's a showcase of how dumb the free folk's society can be and how unstructuredit is , almost to the point where jon snow understand why the southern kingdoms call them "savages"
Of course the first nighttime Dany's scene was a violation of her and this whole relationship was abusive by modern standards (but not by Dothraki's). That's how it is portrayed in the show too. The thing is, Dany couldn't really rebel against it at the time (her gaining power, authority and hardening herself is part of her arc) she was literally sold as a slave in exchange for the army. She's grown attached for her captor, as it happens in abusive relationships and that's the part of her tragedy.
Also because she associates it with the first amount of personal agency shes ever had. Through becoming Khaleesi she becomes free of her brother. I also agree though that obviously the marriage is disgusting and I don't think George was trying to make it seem otherwise by not having Dany have lasting trauma from it.
I agree that sometimes the word choice is kinda weird in some of these examples, but I think its worth noting that in the compilation of quotes you linked makes up maybe 10 pages in a 5000 page series. Also a lot of the examples you have I think are consistent with the POV character. For example the Theon scene is something I hate to read honestly but it does introduce Theons character very well as an absolute dirt-bag misogynist and that's the point. Unfortunately nighttime violence does exist and I think whenever its used it is exclusively to make you hate the character involved. There are also a lot of immoral circumstances that I think are normalized in the books purposefully to draw attention to how shitty the patriarchy they are living in is. Overall my main point though is just that I don't think George writes women perfectly because he isn't a woman. Characters like Sam will be easier to write for him because they have so much in common, but like everyone, George can only draw from his own life experience. I appreciate that George does write characters outside of his experience to the point we have POV characters of almost every gender, age, morality and able-ness. As you've pointed out sometimes that means that its not quite right but overall I think he does much more good than bad by having so many strong and nuanced female characters. Obviously the topic of the video is how he talks about nighttime activities and I enjoyed your take but to me it feels like making a mountain of a molehill when you look at the entirety of the series and especially when looking at how little these perspectives are explored in other works of fantasy. At the end of the day George is definitely a feminist and although the series most likely does appeal more to men than women hes certainly not a misogynist. It feels like there are much worse authors and artists out there that should be criticized before getting to GRRM. It reminds me a bit of how left wingers will be harsher when purity testing their own side if they fail to meet one criteria instead of focusing on their common enemy so to speak. (Also ps I don't understand your take on wildling culture. They are not really societies, Its basically pure anarchy out there and all the little tribes are often in conflict. The culture of stealing women is just de-facto from the complete absence of law and the harsh way of life. You also make it sound like George is endorsing this practice which he certainly isn't.🤷♂)
That supposed symbolism is weird for me not only for the sexual things, but because is using a stereotype that the series was fighting againts with the characterization of Tyrion (or atleast first 3 books Tyrion). We were showing that short people are not this embodiment of diabolical and perverted creatures through the nuance of his character, who is flawed but not pure evil, and yet we are showed this sequence when they use this image in exactly this stereotyped way. Is kind of contradictory
I love good criticism and this brings up a lot of good points. I think it's more then fair to criticize GRRM about some of his writing choices, particularly when he hides behind "historical accuracy" when that's not true. Like, why are girls being wed, having sex and kids as young as 13 and its presented as pretty normal when that is not historically accurate. Yes some noble girls were wed young, but they were not expected to have sex or kids until 16-18 at least. The times girls as young as Dany had kids it was not looked at favorably because they knew it would effect her ability to have more children later in life. We know about those girls because it was a notable outlier worth writing about. Why do these characters have to be so young? The show aged them up a few years and nothing really changed. The same goes for the Dothraki. GRRM doesn't take any time to really develop his non-European inspired cultures, seemingly basing them on outdated, racist stereotypes. And in the case of the Dothraki I don't really understand why he made them so bad when they are Dany's allies and she still seems hung up on Drogo. Like their culture can still throw up road blocks for her, but I just don't get why GRRM literally doesn't give them any positive qualities besides maybe undying loyalty of the blood riders. :/ it's just sad cuz it would have been a great opportunity to showcase how people in westeros viewed the Dothraki as violent, awful, barbaric people, but see they're more complex then that. Same goes for the people beyond the wall. Instead they are just pretty much one dimensional, racist stereotypes.
The Dothraki are based on the mongol empire. I'm pretty sure they were not that great lol. I agree that the the argument of historical accuracy is nonsensical because the books are fantasy. I think people are usually just referring to how grounded and internally consistent the world-building is, but yeah its certainly not historically accurate. Its just that he took inspiration from some parts of history to write his fantasy series.
I personally think theres some kind of contractual problem going on somewhere because it's almost impossible to believe he's not done with these last two books.
1:24 The question about the inspiration for George's love temples made me recall a Vice documentary about something similar in India I saw a few years ago. Of course I cannot say if that was his inspiration. Vice documentary: Prostitutes of God (Documentary) Link: th-cam.com/video/2GFaN9-1iz0/w-d-xo.html
I always associated the Summer Islands and their culture with Cyprus and the cult of Aphrodite, I don’t know if there is any concrete proof for ritual prostitution when it comes to the worship of Aphrodite, but it seems like an apt basis for the Summer Islands, if any.
we also see the summer isles almost exclusively through the perspective of westerosi who have never seen or been there and only have a very few brief interactions with summer islanders, its fairly accurate to how a lot of white western countries viewed these far off countries in the past
As someone who did open the book, I can only advise to never read Game of Thrones (the first novel) immediately after The Dragonbone Chair (the book it is directly inspired by - both according to George, and very evident). The main issue I have with the series - regardless of iteration, or format, or even "gore, sex and nudity", is the perspective: literally everyone who gets to tell their story is part of the ruling class. This is, at the very least, not relatable (and thus, to me, not engaging). It is like Dune set in fantasy Britain.
Pretty fair, but I personally can excuse it because the whole "history is written from the perspective of the ruling class" is pretty realistic for our world, too. Hell, the majority of works of classic literature are like this, too. For every 1 Szewczenko or Douglass we have 10 Tolstoys or 20 Byrons (status wise, not talent wise).
@@ІлляВетров-й2д This is, however, incorrect to apply to a contemporary author explicitly striving for authenticity. Even Tolstoy (and his other aristocratic contemporaries) were often including working class characters as they understood them - even as narrators. George Martin - and his predecessor, Frank Herbert - exclude non-ruling-class people from stories they tell entirely, which is definitely a choice considering the amount of words they put on the page.
@@user-df5nb8zy7e yeah, I totally agree, don't get me wrong. It is just that I can do this mental gymnastics to excuse Martin "forgetting" to include any non-noble characters as POVs.
@@ІлляВетров-й2д My criticism comes - in particular - from the fact of reading the very book that inspired him (by his own admission) to try writing fantasy on the whole - as well as this specific novel. And that book - while centering the main conflict around a feudal squabble between the main castle and the one in the north, - tells that story primarily from a non-noble perspective. It has dragons. It has magic swords. It has non-human species - and characters from those. I don't think it would be fair to consider Martin's story "fantasy" - while it lacks all that for the most part.
You keep bouncing back and forth between wanting characters to be described and not whenever it's convenient for you. Why isn't the Captain's daughter or victarions woman described even though she only appears for a few pages of the book and doesn't really impact the story? Why is this member of the night's watch described when he serves almost no purpose to the overall story and dies in a few pages? Why is SA described in the chapter featuring a wildling when it's been established that's a part of their culture repeatedly?
@@LavionLockwood True, but 99% of this video is still just cherry picking without giving any context or background of each individual event under the guise of it being too risque for TH-cam
@@LavionLockwood yeah you might say these passages were intentionally picked (like cherries) from a slew of other information that was intentionally excluded, like how different cultures in the world view and treat women and how the perception of these events might be skewed as a result of it, all strung together to reinforce their point.
The bran description are definitely weird but I think theyre an honest representation of that really fucking weird stage as a boy where suddenly women start to seem something notably different.
Parts of the fandom... It's unfortunately inevitable when a fandom gets this big I think. For the most part I think the readers are picking up what George is putting down and are not stupid enough to idealize all the messed up stuff that goes on in Westeros, but there are always a few bad apples😭
@@gabraham9509 Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have a healthy fandom. Of course there are "bad apples", but not like the ASOIAF fandom. There are a lot of incel men and a lot of dumb girls who haven't even read the books and want to give their shit opinion. Nowadays, I even hope not to make friends with ASOIAF fans.
@@gabraham9509 Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have a healthy fandom. Of course there are "bad apples", but not like the ASOIAF fandom. There are a lot of incel men and a lot of dumb girls who haven't even read the books and want to give their opinion. Nowadays, I even hope not to make friends with ASOIAF fans.
@@savelala Well, I'm sorry that that's your experience with the fandom. All the people I know who are fans are great people. I think it probably all comes down to personal experience, because like I said you will find shitty people in every corner of the world unfortunately. All three fandoms you mentioned as shinning examples all have their problems within those communities. All three have had controversies from parts of the fandom thinking there are problems in the stories related to lack of race/gender/orientation diversity, and other sections of the fandoms having angry anti-woke reactions towards those sentiments. I don't think its an ASOIAF problem, Its a cultural problem from having a more and more polarized population.
@@gabraham9509 All the fandoms I mentioned are good fandoms. As you said, there are controversies about diversity. But Asoiaf is not known for having diversity either. Besides, there are many things wrong with this book. Even though it was written about a medieval time, I don't need to read Daenerys' disgusting chapters in detail. So, it is a consensus that all the stories mentioned have problems. But I was talking about the fandom in question. And the Asoiaf fandom is made up of incel men and ridiculous girls who find Daemon and Rhaenyra romantic, for example. Not all the people are like this, but unfortunately most are toxic and problematic. Not to mention the cyberbullying that Criston Cole's actor received as well. These are just small examples of how problematic this fandom is.
1:27 That is totally not where weddings come from. A wife is not considered property and was not considered property anywhere that I can think off, thats why a husband has obligations to his wife. You usually do not have any obligations to your mere property. Marriage was created to protect women's rights, such as preventing the men they were involved with to just ditch them and run away. And thats it why you want a big weeding as well. Because the weeding symbolizes the full commitment of your partner to you, something he cant just run away from. Commitment is a very important issue to women down to an instinctual level. Thats why women are generally hesitant to get sexual too soon, despite being more sexual than men. It is why women love weddings in general, while men don't care as much for them.
A wedding does not come from what you discribe either. It was the longest time in history a contract made between two families (most of the time ruled by a father figure). The women was given away together with gifts like land or money into another family to built a bond between both families. There was never a romantic component, it was always about status and property of a family. So cheating on your wife was an insult to your own family, but cheating on your husband was a direct violation of the contract your parents made. There is a Big difference.
@@triloization I never said it was about romance. I only ever said that it was not about owning women as property. Women that were property were the slaves, wives were obviously NOT in the same category
1:26:17 I will say I know that my pops told me that this was the old ranchers culture out at his grandpa’s land and town in a remote part of Mexico. They would get married by just taking the girl and running 🤷♂️ I guess. It feels more like eloping the way he described it, but it made the old cultural picture of a farmer always ready with his shotgun to protect his daughter make sense lol. And it was just family’s in the area. I guess the heads of the households would also ceremonially go and make it right with that other family of the community coming to see what they can offer as dowery. Very goofy lol but I guess that’s one perspective to share 🤷♂️ and that’s recent in the grand scheme! Maybe something to do with old indigenous culture survivals still around in some form. Cause yeah the only other time I’ve heard of something like this is in the Bible in the book of Judges with daughters being stolen to be married across enemy lines.
I really like the way you do use words like nighttime violence, it really makes it a bit more objective and less judgemental while engaging with the overt use of nighttime violence and the hypocricy of same sex bedtime in the story? Or how implications shown are probaly the most important part to show of nighttime violence in behaviour, trauma, reactions, whatever? Even reacting not bothered is alone a statement.if intentional. And damn that the unnessesary erotical lense of most chaaracters, yes some can be just super horny, but all is , an issue. Also impliucatios are important?! Also essos people calling westerosian prude is as effective as , night time activities always, some , nice, but a cultural clash can and should be shown in implications? Herodotus of course, and while it seems there seemed to be a divine sex positivity in that, it could be just a rite done, they could be valued if you have sacret priest, duties, which if the epos of gilgamesh has any implication existed somehow, but thats not a marriage market. that just means that there probably were sex positive priest acts that were seen as sacred somehow. Probnably, i know its a myth so who knows, but implications?
the only "horny" perspectives are theon, arianne, tyrion, cersei, maybe Jaime. Cat, Ned, Sansa, Davos, Barristan, Brienne, Sam, Jon, Arya, Bran, Quentyn etc. are not horny perspectives all except in sex scenes if they have one.
Great video essay and i enjoy how complex you built up your points. I love the world of ASIOF and its rare that i get this invested in a fake history of a place that never existed and i especially appreciate seeing critiques of this, as a woc (specifically amazigh) the mix match of Dorne in the fandom as well drives me nutso when Nymeria is direct copy of Tariq Ibn Zyad and his 1000 ships so Dorne heavily borrows from Al Andalous and the Maghreb but also falls into the trap of Orientalism
I personally think these criticisms are fair, thoughtful, and realistic. I have been a fan of this series for years and have constantly found myself with the same thoughts and never been able to or had the time to create a thought out response. It frustrates me. I think Martin is good at character writing, and has some very captivating ideas and his descriptions and attention to detail can be very beautiful and thought provoking. However I have, for a long time, found myself disgusted by the way he writes women’s bodies. As a victim of … “night time violence” myself, I wish that there was realistic reactions to it from the victims in the story, that could build their characters and influence their choices. His exotic ideas of foreigners I view as disturbing as well. I also deeply enjoyed that essay series about the Dothraki, it was so well thought out and informed. I struggle to find deep meaning in the story and the characters journeys in the face of these issues. It rips me out of the narrative.
Great job with the video! However, I do want to point out one thing. There is a scene in ADWD that shows explicit male homosexuality. In Tyrion XII, we have the following excerpt: "Bokkoko was kissing his lover shamelessly, kneading the boy's buttocks with one huge hand, the other tangled in his hair." Not exactly Cersei with Taena, but still it shows that Martin is not always ambiguous with the male homosexuality. Other than that, great video and I really enjoyed your POV. I hope you make more analysis' of ASOIAF.
Yh i understand why ppl don't like the books bc of depictions of sa and its effects. As a survivor it puts me off rereading the books. I think it would be better reworked bc it would last longer in the fantasy mythology, instead of slightly diminishing his standing like how we see tolkien and the orcs now (oof). In improving his book he would probably be one of a few to live long enough to actually action his growth and to stand up to centuries of scrutiny
@@johnnyblaze8049 I agree, but if we were to scrutinize his work with the same intensity as George's often is, I'm sure you could write essays about the lack of diversity and lack of female characters. At the end of the day not every book is for everyone and that's totally fine. I just get annoyed when people make moral arguments for why a book should be different. Art is subjective and rather than tearing something down when you have a better idea then you should get to writing your own book lol
Yup. Pointless love scenes in books are the same as their counterparts in movies. If I wanted to see boom boom I would go to the hub...progress the story and save us the 5mins of c-class lovemaking. After watching a bigger part of your video, I can say with certainty that Martin has a very bad understanding of human nature. The fact that he is so successful proves that modern society has also a very bad understanding of human nature. Surprise? Read Anna Karenina and how excellent was the description of a woman's feelings when she cheats on her husband. Nothing compared to Martin's trash pron. GoT is a testament to the moral collapse of western culture. It has very shallow understanding of human nature.
You don't have to hold the mic in your hand like that. They are sophisticated pieces of equipment, they will pick up your voice if properly set up. Though I always advise the younger generation to stay nice and complacent.
Tbh while i Like a Song of ice and fire, and while i See the sheer amount of Casual (and Not so Casual) misogyny in the books as inherent to the world building... The "historical accuracy" defense Always makes me laugh. Essentially, Martin has built a world where partriarchal structures are so entrenched, that the constant violence against women barely Registers to the characters. Hence the unholy amounts of it. Women are reduced to Ornaments and mothers. Hence the Obsession with boobs. However, THIS IS A FANTASY NOVEL, GEORGE. what historical accuracy? This is your fever dream. If you wanted to, you could Imagine a world that is Not so obsessed with violence against women. You Just either choose Not to do it or you are incapable of it. And i suspect it's the latter, hence His View of less gory war depictions as "dishonest". The man simply cannot treat a Story as dealing in more complex themes via the Filter of Fantasy. He reads Tolkien and somehow goes "this war isnt realistic" when lotr isnt about realism. At the end of the day, Martin is Just a Bit of an edgelord and Not really able to say much more than "reality horrible. Look how real i am".
Yeah the use of historical accuracy in this context is wrong, I agree. I think what he's doing though is accurately identifying true problems in our reality and our history like patriarchy, racism, war and "night-time violence", and then turns it up to 11 in his fantasy series to shine a light on those problems and it makes the heroism required to fight them all the greater. Personally I love these books and although we should point out its flaws and not everyone has to love them as much as I do, I feel like people sometimes completely mis-characterize George and miss the point of the story he's writing. There is a lot of Misogyny in the books but George himself certainly isn't one and i think its sad that people are so quick to throw allies under the bus for little nitpicks. :(
I don’t disagree that some of the scenes are out of pocket, but I think the Varys dialogue serves an obvious purpose in context. He is trying to convince Tyrion to be sensible and NOT bring his mistress into the Red Keep. As a keen observer and in an attempt to talk Tyrion out of it, he is appealing to his weakness- his sexual and masculine insecurity- with this graphic and imaginative description.
Great analysis in this video, but I wanted to share my interpretation of the scene and why I don’t think it’s out of character.
Very good point! I admit I didn't think of that - but maybe there's a chance i might have if the "out of pocket" occurrences weren't so frequent in the books.
Random Raunchy Break (TM) is something that's so un-unique to Varys that I would've had difficulty reading it as characterisation - especially because he's the type to manipulate people subtly, with gossip and fake sweetness. Openly provoking someone... i don't know. I don't remember him doing something like that at any other point, either.
If this stunt were a more regular thing for him and also more isolated to him specifically, I would've given it a pass - but as it is, it felt odd to me personally.
(And, being fully honest, the passage also serves uniquely well as an introduction for the chapter, since it's representatively fucked up but not explicitly sexual language, which is something I've tried to be careful with. But if I'd really read that dialogue differently, I wouldn't have used it.)
But yeah, that's an interpretation that went totally over my head. Thank you for sharing
:)
I was going to type this but you said it better than I could. Varys to me reads as someone who is very good at reading another person's insecurities and being able to play on them in the most effective way. Being coy and sly about it would not have worked as well as bluntly making Tyrion imagine what would happen to Shae. I think alot of the "out of pocket" parts just seem to unfortunately miss alot of the character and story context those scenes are trying to impart. This and the Theon part stuck out especially.
However, as a gay man I definitely agree that female characters definitely seem to do things "boobily with their boobs" alot and while gay boys exist, they don't kiss 😅
@@1eoso1e You do have this one excerpt from Tyrion XII from ADWD:
"Bokkoko was kissing his lover shamelessly, kneading the boy's buttocks with one huge hand, the other tangled in his hair."
@@lprince1296 ngl... that single line has made me want to re-read the whole series 😂
@@lprince1296 This is actually brilliant lol - but unfortunately not fully canon yet as it seems to be from a sample chapter of WoW, not aDwD
George grew up in the 50s and 60s in low income projects in NJ. His best friend was a pet turtle. Who knows what that does to your brain.
My issue with this, is when you analyse the themes of George's work as a whole, you will learn he is a vehemently left wing feminist.
His potrayals of SA are done as to show the horiffic nature of the characters.
When a favourite like Tryrion commits these horrendous acts, that is done to show how awful of a person he has become after killing his father and finding out about his first love. The opposite to assuming its okay because a favourite character is doing it
I mean in the interview about what he thought about the South Park episode he admitted that he hadn't seen it because he was a fan of the show and felt a bit nervous about how they show portrayed him. But the one thing he knew about it was that the version of him in the show was obsessed with weiners. Which he was puzzled by, and admitted that if they had gone after him for being obssessed with boobies, that would have been something he couldn't have denied.
Also I think it is fully possible to be left wing, want women to have all the same rights that men do, and also be a big fan of boobs. If anything shouldn't a feminist be more in favor of boobs? Aren't feminists the ones who will have marches regarding FreeTheNipple?
@@dcworld4349Left wing = sex negative is kind of a new thing.
A critical mass of people complained about objectified female video game characters etc and the narrative emerged that sex negativity was a left wing position. But when I was in a kid in the 90s/00s it was conservatives who complained about sex in the media from a “family values” perspective. Now they seem to be more for it from an anti-SJW perspective
@@TheJadedJames I feel like the further left you go, you find more and more purity testing until you get a bunch of tiny groups that will lump other leftist into the same category as fascists in terms of moral failings for disagreeing one one or two key issues. I think this might also apply to critique of art in this case. GRRM is clearly a feminist and a leftist broadly speaking but somehow he will get attacked for being a racist misogynist from one side while getting called a woke libtard from the other. Theres no winning everyone it seems😂
How can we be sure he means it that way? He seems to be getting off to Shay, mentioning her in weird ways in interviews its icky
it’s nice to see actually good criticism of the game of thrones franchise, not just the show but also the books. I know it’s a classic or whatever but just because it is doesn’t mean it doesn’t still deserve criticism
criticism is well and good (theres been a lot of criticism about the books for a long time if youre part of the fandom) but from what i can see so far these are pretty shitty criticisms
@@JPanettieri dude the point of the video was literally things that are objectively bad writing stop being a clown
Women, whether attracted to other women or not, do very often look at and assess other women's bodies. It's a testament to the power of patriarchy and the internationalized male gaze. You may not do this yourself, but from my own experience of observing people and being observed, women's bodies are on display (even bodies that aren't conventionally young/thin/attractive). I only found myself grossed out by GRRM's tendency to oversexualize teenage characters, especially girls. But as far as a wide range of characters noticing female breasts? That shit is accurate.
I LOVE George’s work, I think he is truly one of the most nuanced writer out there atm, but I am very glad to see genuine criticism beyond the typical misogyny I tend to see among fans. Great video!
I'm listening to the full audio book and I'm blown away. He should be called George the quill master. Just brilliant stuff. 👏
Alot of people think ab boobs. Also brienne was definitely thinking about them, because of her lack there of.
this video was very well put together, but i don’t think that you had a lot to say. pointing to deliberately placed examples of messed-up people doing bad things (i.e. theon and the captains daughter) and declaring them purposeless does not actually render them purposeless. theon’s return to the iron islands is a crash course in ‘what is wrong with theon’ including the whole thing with asha (which she egged on, btw. she absolutely could have said something, and he was pissed when he found out), his treatment of the captains daughter, and his refusal to go see his mother are all a demonstration of his antagonistic relationship with women. this is later subverted when it’s revealed that kyra tried to save him and he does actually save jeyne. it’s only ‘out of pocket’ out of context. also, it’s just sort of ridiculous to expect members of a feudalistic medieval society to think and behave like people you would know today. depiction is not endorsement, full stop. i’m just beginning to think that some of you people don’t like stories or things happening in them.
I find it very odd when people, even fans in theories, claim to the purpose of something without the series being finished. Imagine not reading the end of LOTR and debating what's the purpose of Gollum. Maybe you can infer the purpose in part, but that's just your best guess based on an incomplete picture, so maybe temper your arguments.
Imagine talking about the purpose of Theon before A Dance With Dragons.
Well said, I was thinking the same.
Not to mention, Theon has more than likely gotten his dick cut off later on.
@@minimumviableplayer1402that's an easy way to hide because we both know this series is never getting finished by the original author. Which means, by your logic, nobody will ever be allowed to analyze it. What you say is true in most cases where there is a reasonable expectation that a series will get finished. But in this case an exception must be made.
@@ShadowDogProduction I didn't say you can't analyze it, I said you can't claim to know the purpose of a character/plot point without looking at the whole work. The reason you don't get the whole work doesn't change the fact you don't get the whole work. Can you claim the purpose of Jon Snow dying is because the author wants to say it's useless to try save thousands if you are against the status quo? The text is right there, but it just happens we have additional context implying there is a lot more to it. What about the context we don't have on dozen other cases?
Your critiques about the gratuitous amount of “night time” descriptions are apt and actually quite enlightening for somebody who hasn’t viewed them in that way. As for the latter critiques of the Dothraki and the Free Folk while yes they strike at the heart of the “historical accuracy” defense I find them to be nitpicky and not of major consequence. particularly about the Dornish characters since there are other dornish female characters that do not fit your portrayal.
28:25 - The scene is from Theon's POV, it shows how disgusting he is and asks the reader: "Can you follow this person's journey?" It makes his eventual redemption more powerful. To your credit - it has the "word choice" problem and doesn't serve developing the girl as a person at all, but I think that was the point, that's how Theon looks at her.
i dont agree with all your stances but i didnt feel the almost 2 hours pass, it was interesting, hope you do more.
I was gonna watch this but after reading the comments im good
The start of the video I knew I was going to subscribe when you answered “yeah, but also-“
Finally I found a critique of George's writing of the series that doesnt go just about the show been bad, and also been true analysis and not just pointing out the 'problematic' without nuance. It feels like because the series failed so bad, we kind put the author in a pedestal and we think that he's the embodiment of good writing while the show is the contrary.
Also is very difficult to find literary analysis about the series in this platform because all i found is just a whole lot of theories of who is a secret targaryen or some shit.
great essay! watched the whole thing and then went down to the comment section, to check out how people are liking this underappreciated video...
looks like only a minority of commenters really watched it
@@JPanettieri i dont get your point. you're saying that it's okay that people aren't paying attention to the video and leaving nonsensical comments because the video is not relevant? and then you proceed to criticize the author while not having watched the whole video?
you're also ignoring the fact that the author is not just uncomfortable with the sexual content, there's more to that. if you pay attention, you'll notice that she dissects very specific scenes, not every other sex scene
@@JPanettieri LMAO says the guy who brings "i have an engish BA" to the table? While he replies to comments under a video he DIDN'T FINISH? So as to not waste his "valuable time"??? 🤣🤣Get over yourself
@@JPanettieri you are actually fully joking
@@JPanettieri (Not too short to be a pick me ig - also, I have a BA in English too, you aint special and sure as hell not more qualified, but okay:)
1. its a critique of the five books in ASOIAF he published, not Dunk and Egg. You can't possibly conclude that not having read those stories invalidates your judgement in any way. Like what? Your literary analysis of Hamlet is unmade by the fact you haven't read Midsummer Night's Dream? Are you listening to yourself???
2. Greek Mythology is an ancient, collective storytelling format that was adapted by people writing it down. Sure, it would be dishonest to leave the SA out if you wrote about it now, but comparing it to a modern fantasy book series written by 1 (one) guy is quite possibly the most desperate, imbecilic argument I've heard on the entirety of internet - and that's competing with your previous points.
It's literally making me retroactively wonder why I'm replying to you. Go find Martin, tell him you want his dick in your mouth and stop whining about not finishing things you find uninteresting while also whining about someone else not reading something they found uninteresting
This is a super long video!
I'm glad you noticed 💕💅 (I'm never doing this ever again)
Valid @@joyachill
@@joyachillPlease read this __George RR Martin in feminist. The prince that was promised or choosen one deneris is a girl . All the worldbuilding comes from world of ice and fire which is written by westorosi maisters. The are biased about other culture. It was intended because our historians are like that. You make good comment but lets not forget grrm is a man. Any fiction written by women can't write boys properly too. Harry potter is a great example.
@@GodKing-sj3lzharry potter is a infant and ya books. ASOIAF is a adult books. So jk rowling did not write sexual scenes about characters.
Brilliant video. I always had a problem with Martin portraying his writing as "honest", historically "accurate", and "uncomfortable commentary"... I never got past Storm of swords, but personally reading Martin always felt like a meandering through a series of red flags.
@@GruntoSkunko i know you dont but what do i have
"Blame the writer, not your fragility" is the same argument used by Muslims when someone insults Mohhamed. By the same logic, Charlie Hebdo writers had it coming
By Muslims?
Does the KKK stand for all Christians?
I... see your angle? But I do feel there might be a line *somewhere* between a mislike of having your criticisms of a book series shut down on account of how other people view your emotional capacity and, uh, terrorism.
@@joyachill You can argue that the women in ASOIAF are poorly written , but their place in society and how they're treated is extremely historically accurate, particularly in Westeros (which is inspired by medieval Britain). Yes, they're treated like cattle or like possessions and that's horrendous, but it's exactly how our society used to work and GRRM is merely reflecting that. Plus, Westeros is a shithole where almost no one is happy
@@loladas9 apples and oranges.
@@GruntoSkunko Nope, I didn't say that. I said that arguing that GRRM writes bad women is a valid argument (even though I personally don't think that), but saying that he's morally bad because of the situations he puts women in, is not a good argument because it's historically accurate and therefore realistic for the setting
Thank you Jesus Christ I have been waiting for this.
Please read this __George RR Martin in feminist. The prince that was promised or choosen one deneris is a girl . All the worldbuilding comes from world of ice and fire which is written by westorosi maisters. The are biased about other culture. It was intended because our historians are like that. You make good comment but lets not forget grrm is a man. Any fiction written by women can't write boys properly too. Harry potter is a great example.
Ok so I have seen a couple weird comments relating to like "fragility" and all these stupid anti-sjw type notions and wanna make it very clear that I dont agree with them at all and would rather distance myself from them. That being said I think the criticism is very poor in many many places, the out of pocket section sticks out to me especially because reading those scenes I think they basically all have perfectly understandable reasons for being in there, some in fact praise worthy as for how they manage to show something fundamental to a character at a given point in time (Theon and his "salt wife" being the main example imo because everything from his disgusting treatment of her to the stories refusal to name her act as both an insight into theons horrible relationship with women (which is important for how he really losees so much of what makes him that misogynist high born) as well as an insight into iron island culture and treatment of women). I see a lot of people compliment the criticism but it seems to come from a place of being starved of any criticism rather than actual quality because you seem to largely misunderstand many of the scenes and reasoning. i would not accuse you of this because i do not know you and have no reason to think youd do something like this, but a lot of the criticism could be seen as you simply reading through the books looking for instances of weird description rather than an organic noticing of it in a work you appreciate (which it honestly doesnt seem like you do by how you talk about the difficult of reading the books, this criticism would be much stronger from a perspective of someone who actually likes the books and surrounding work (namely dunk and egg)).
I am obviously wording this quite harshly but I do think there is serious reason to analyse how authors overuse rape and then just handwave it as being accurate (asoiaf is not the worst offender but I can imagine a reasonable mind wanting less of it, whereas a series like berserk almost lavishes in the abuse of women (especially very young women and girls)) and i am glad youre aware of that too. You missed the mark on this one but i absolutely mean no hate and just wish the criticism could be improved.
As someone who likes the books, I agree in some ways with the video, like yeah, Grrm is a dirty old nerd who lives his sex fantasies through asoiaf and some descriptions are unnecesary, but it doesn't hurt the story as much as portrayed in the video imo
@@GruntoSkunko of course that's true but there is a big difference in honestly portraying rape and indulging in the portrayal which is the criticism many have of grrm but i personally feels those scenes or rape or sexual assault are for a specific purpose
Re: boobs discourse - I had to laugh hearing you describe this in Martin. The first thing I thought of is that Martin was born in 1948 USA - he grew up in a boob-obsessed culture if ever there was one. While Martin is a very competent writer, he's not a Nabokov; he is not engaged in minute analysis of every word choice and of his own potential limitations, at least not beyond a certain point. So Martin relying excessively on boob talk is simply a reflection of American cultural obsessions. And yes, it is a defect in the writing. Martin means well, I think, but clearly he has limitations and some attitudes about women that are at best questionable. I think an interesting discussion could be had about why this is now something that seems weird to many readers. I suspect that twenty years ago it either would not have been noticed, or if noticed, it would not have been discussed. Well... not by men anyway.
Of course I could be wrong about much of the above. I'm still watching the video, and now I'm afraid you're going to be getting into some much uglier writing habits Martin may have.
This is a fantastic vid, keep it up!
43:16 I agree with everything you said so far, but its not out realm of possibility that young Denerys would still feel this way about Drogo after his death. It happens in real life statutory abuse cases plenty of times so I don't see why it wouldn't happen here too. Besides kids are guided from adults to tell them whats right and wrong and if there was no one around her to tell her what happened with Drogo was wrong, then she most likely wouldn't see anything wrong in it either
@@GruntoSkunkopathetic bait
@@GruntoSkunko Steven Molyneux, please log off
I'm sorry, but this idea that women are less likely or able to enjoy female sexualization seems a bit of a stretch to me.
I am liking and commenting as an ASOIAF fan and to show appreciation for thoughtful videos on (currently) small channels
This is a really great video. Martin's writing turns out to be so much worse than I expected - these books have been on my TBR list for years (I've fondly supposed the series would get finished soon). Now I'm a lot less interested in reading them. Your descriptions of Martin's writing shows how it reflects in a completely uncritical way the odd mix of superficial feminism, sexual "liberation," and deeper misogyny that has characterized so much popular entertainment since the 80s. It's sad, but also infuriating.
But at least I've discovered a great new (to me) video essayist of the same caliber as LadyKnighttheBrave and Shannon Strucci - the level of insight in this video is really impressive. I'm ready to hear you on any topic you choose to discuss. And Tasha Suri's books are calling my name. So thanks a lot!
If you haven't read the books yet I personally would still absolutely recommend them. I agree with some of the points in this video for sure but the entirety of what was discussed in it amounts to around ten pages of a 5000 page series. He doesn't write women perfectly because he isn't one but I think he has still managed to write phenomenally human women characters for the 99.9% of their page time that isn't a "nighttime" scene. If you are a fan of fantasy and a fan of great women characters then please don't let this video dissuade you from giving the books a shot. I liked the video but to someone who hasn't read the books I can imagine it gives the impression that the whole thing is a misogynist perv fest or something but that is simply not the case. If you follow the link she posted in the description it'll bring you to all of the questionable quotes from the entire series and as you can imagine there is much more to A Song Of Ice And Fire than those 10 pages
The analysis is imperfect and has many misleading points. It is also fucking awesome. One day it will be strange to think that I was one of the first 800 subscribers.
Slightly discouraging to know that you can have such amazing videos and yet relatively few subscribers but it will probably change soon
This perfectly encompasses my experience rereading the books. So much random fetishization, sexualization, sexual/domestic violence, racism, ableism, noble savage and orientalist shit, and the few women's perspectives are dripping with misogyny. You're processing the latest betrayal and anticipating major plot beats then BAM gross old man fantasy w/ authorial endorsement which breaks immersion and completely kills the tension/pace. Depictions of violence in fiction have less of an impact the more you bombard the reader with them; especially when the emotional aftermath is skipped over, the POV character is almost always the perpetrator, and the main story isn't affected.
There's a difference between exploring dark themes and the experiences of victims, and just using them as grimdark sauce/conflict for a male character to react to/obvious fap material. All the thin excuses about 'historical accuracy' fall apart when you actually do your research. I tend to side eye men who vehemently insist on graphic violent misogyny being included in fiction for the sake of accuracy; they love the idea of women being treated like shit because they get to feel like heroes for not being overtly abusive (and a lot of abusers actually think like this.)
Racism and ableism TOO! Oh my!
Perhaps a lot of the story has flown over your little head?
As a woman i have the opposite experience with the books. Yeah, there are instances of men writing women cringe where characters randomly acknowledge their boobs. However, the sexualisation mostly happens from the perspective of characters who have been taught to sexualise or been evidently sexualised. I never see Catelyn sexualising herself or anyone for example, while Cersei does it the entire time because to her, beauty and being sexully desirable is one of the most important things. She is a prime example of internalised misogyny, a very good one at that. Sansa never sexualises herself, but Tyrion who is very clearly set up as not having healthy relationships towards women does. Dany views herself sexually because Viserys has done it ever since she was little. She was always used by him as a breeder. So it makes sense for her to have another perception of herself than Sansa does around her age. Ned never thinks of girls or women in sexual ways, nor does Davos if I remember correctly. Besides that I don't see breast descriptions as inherently sexual. Brienne ackowledging an old woman's breast is not really out of the ordinary. I notice breasts all of the time, and? Doesn't mean i see the women whose breasts I notice as objects. Women's perspectives are dripping with misogyny? Misogyny from their side or the author's side? I would like that elaborated. If it is stuff like Catelyn thinking about how unfortunate it is to be ugly as a woman then this in my opinion really isn't valid critique when it very clearly serves as a critique point of patriarchy. Pretty privilege is real and it is not depicted as a good thing. Brienne is doing God's work out there but because she is not pretty and a woman she constantly gets discredited.
@@justarandomgirlvx3578 Thanks I totally agree, and you saved me from having to write this comment lol. I agree with the video that there are a few instances of weird wording but to say that that's all the series is is insane. I honestly have trouble believing that
@strigiformthunderstorm actually read the books if that's the conclusion they came to. Ableism? I don't think I've ever read a book with so many disabled POV characters in it.
"the few women's perspectives are dripping with misogyny"😂😂😂At this point I can only laugh. Few women POVs? Really?
yo, 600 subs and 200 views? crazy, this girl gonna be something lol
10/10 great vid, I hope it gets more visibility because the editing, use of references, jokes, and pacing was on point.
Whats frusting about GRR is that the world of asoiaf is so rich and cool but then a shoehorned night time scene will happen and it grinds everything to a halt with the weird tone and focus on women's bodies. its a shame.
I loved you talking about the gays too. the lack of anything substantial for them in the books is TRAGIC
Thank god and George Martin there's no gay sex scenes in ASOIAF
@@marcelm7706Yeah thats valid I agree. Rather not have it done than done poorly
most of the video is really awesome and I have no problem with I like the conversation and your presentation BbBbuuut I will put down here things that I THINK might justify at least some of that stuff even tho I still agree with most of what you said even if not completely
-i think the women with either theon or victarion not being named is a deliberate choice, both those character barely think of her as a human, and the chapters being written from their POVs, they mostly likely don't know what these characters are called they are just objects for their pleasure, so while this IS objectifying it's objectifying that makes sense because it paints an image of the character and who they are
-I also believe that a POV chapter for renly would have been AWESOME but If I remember right *and correct me if I'm wrong I read those books years ago* martin started writing the random pov chapters starting from book 4 after renly died so I think he changed her structure after book 3 and allowed himself to not be so strict to specific povs, except the prologues and epilogues
as much as I regret never being in the pov of renly *and no not for freaky sex time but rather his really interesting character and wanting to see things from his pov* I understand that at the time it was kind of against the structure he had for the books in which he decided to change LATER
also correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't damphair describe a violent assault scene with his brother euron ? does that count :"D
also I'm very sorry to say this since I like the video but the whole summer isle stuff was where you lost me that was just .. yapping :D I'm sorry :D
like also the whole thing about wilding culture does kind of prove that maybe at some point you starting reading to "gather points for the video" rather than to see the point of what's being presented because you're saying that basically no stable society can ever function with these wildling beliefs but GUESS WHAT the free folk have never been stable and always fought each other that something that is ALWAYS brought , they only recently started to unite, and the ygritte scene , well, that's at a time where jon snow is starting to like some of the ideas of the free folk but then this particular idea slaps him in the face, it's not martin presenting a "lmao kill your abuser" solution, it's a showcase of how dumb the free folk's society can be and how unstructuredit is , almost to the point where jon snow understand why the southern kingdoms call them "savages"
I died the first time he used the word dugs, i wondered if the editor told him he said breast too often
I won’t be able to see this video till I’m done seeing the show 😂😔
Of course the first nighttime Dany's scene was a violation of her and this whole relationship was abusive by modern standards (but not by Dothraki's). That's how it is portrayed in the show too. The thing is, Dany couldn't really rebel against it at the time (her gaining power, authority and hardening herself is part of her arc) she was literally sold as a slave in exchange for the army. She's grown attached for her captor, as it happens in abusive relationships and that's the part of her tragedy.
Also because she associates it with the first amount of personal agency shes ever had. Through becoming Khaleesi she becomes free of her brother. I also agree though that obviously the marriage is disgusting and I don't think George was trying to make it seem otherwise by not having Dany have lasting trauma from it.
2:52 The more she drank the more she...
I agree that sometimes the word choice is kinda weird in some of these examples, but I think its worth noting that in the compilation of quotes you linked makes up maybe 10 pages in a 5000 page series.
Also a lot of the examples you have I think are consistent with the POV character. For example the Theon scene is something I hate to read honestly but it does introduce Theons character very well as an absolute dirt-bag misogynist and that's the point. Unfortunately nighttime violence does exist and I think whenever its used it is exclusively to make you hate the character involved. There are also a lot of immoral circumstances that I think are normalized in the books purposefully to draw attention to how shitty the patriarchy they are living in is.
Overall my main point though is just that I don't think George writes women perfectly because he isn't a woman. Characters like Sam will be easier to write for him because they have so much in common, but like everyone, George can only draw from his own life experience. I appreciate that George does write characters outside of his experience to the point we have POV characters of almost every gender, age, morality and able-ness. As you've pointed out sometimes that means that its not quite right but overall I think he does much more good than bad by having so many strong and nuanced female characters. Obviously the topic of the video is how he talks about nighttime activities and I enjoyed your take but to me it feels like making a mountain of a molehill when you look at the entirety of the series and especially when looking at how little these perspectives are explored in other works of fantasy.
At the end of the day George is definitely a feminist and although the series most likely does appeal more to men than women hes certainly not a misogynist. It feels like there are much worse authors and artists out there that should be criticized before getting to GRRM. It reminds me a bit of how left wingers will be harsher when purity testing their own side if they fail to meet one criteria instead of focusing on their common enemy so to speak.
(Also ps I don't understand your take on wildling culture. They are not really societies, Its basically pure anarchy out there and all the little tribes are often in conflict. The culture of stealing women is just de-facto from the complete absence of law and the harsh way of life. You also make it sound like George is endorsing this practice which he certainly isn't.🤷♂)
The visions of the dwarves, and the Lady in the House of the undying, is literally just great symbolism
dwarf gangabg is symbolism where you come from?
lol how
@@animaker3627 its shows how the 5 kings and their army are ravaging the country and the small folk. Its not that hard.
@@LavionLockwoodit’s actually really obvious and not subtle at all maybe you should read it again 🙌
That supposed symbolism is weird for me not only for the sexual things, but because is using a stereotype that the series was fighting againts with the characterization of Tyrion (or atleast first 3 books Tyrion). We were showing that short people are not this embodiment of diabolical and perverted creatures through the nuance of his character, who is flawed but not pure evil, and yet we are showed this sequence when they use this image in exactly this stereotyped way. Is kind of contradictory
Need you to do a video like this on Song of Achilles and the depiction of women and queer relationships there 😭
I mean, historically, war does turn people into fucking monsters
i just wanna say that im so glad I found your channel, youre based af, articulate and vulgar af.
looking forward to your new videos.
I love good criticism and this brings up a lot of good points.
I think it's more then fair to criticize GRRM about some of his writing choices, particularly when he hides behind "historical accuracy" when that's not true.
Like, why are girls being wed, having sex and kids as young as 13 and its presented as pretty normal when that is not historically accurate. Yes some noble girls were wed young, but they were not expected to have sex or kids until 16-18 at least. The times girls as young as Dany had kids it was not looked at favorably because they knew it would effect her ability to have more children later in life. We know about those girls because it was a notable outlier worth writing about. Why do these characters have to be so young? The show aged them up a few years and nothing really changed.
The same goes for the Dothraki. GRRM doesn't take any time to really develop his non-European inspired cultures, seemingly basing them on outdated, racist stereotypes. And in the case of the Dothraki I don't really understand why he made them so bad when they are Dany's allies and she still seems hung up on Drogo. Like their culture can still throw up road blocks for her, but I just don't get why GRRM literally doesn't give them any positive qualities besides maybe undying loyalty of the blood riders. :/ it's just sad cuz it would have been a great opportunity to showcase how people in westeros viewed the Dothraki as violent, awful, barbaric people, but see they're more complex then that. Same goes for the people beyond the wall.
Instead they are just pretty much one dimensional, racist stereotypes.
The Dothraki are based on the mongol empire. I'm pretty sure they were not that great lol. I agree that the the argument of historical accuracy is nonsensical because the books are fantasy. I think people are usually just referring to how grounded and internally consistent the world-building is, but yeah its certainly not historically accurate. Its just that he took inspiration from some parts of history to write his fantasy series.
I personally think theres some kind of contractual problem going on somewhere because it's almost impossible to believe he's not done with these last two books.
1:24 The question about the inspiration for George's love temples made me recall a Vice documentary about something similar in India I saw a few years ago. Of course I cannot say if that was his inspiration.
Vice documentary: Prostitutes of God (Documentary)
Link: th-cam.com/video/2GFaN9-1iz0/w-d-xo.html
I always associated the Summer Islands and their culture with Cyprus and the cult of Aphrodite, I don’t know if there is any concrete proof for ritual prostitution when it comes to the worship of Aphrodite, but it seems like an apt basis for the Summer Islands, if any.
we also see the summer isles almost exclusively through the perspective of westerosi who have never seen or been there and only have a very few brief interactions with summer islanders, its fairly accurate to how a lot of white western countries viewed these far off countries in the past
@@crw1367 true but isnt the brother lady a summer islander? like thats a first hand acount right there
@@rinron-p3j the brother lady?
@@crw1367 the brothel lady sorry
As someone who did open the book, I can only advise to never read Game of Thrones (the first novel) immediately after The Dragonbone Chair (the book it is directly inspired by - both according to George, and very evident).
The main issue I have with the series - regardless of iteration, or format, or even "gore, sex and nudity", is the perspective: literally everyone who gets to tell their story is part of the ruling class. This is, at the very least, not relatable (and thus, to me, not engaging). It is like Dune set in fantasy Britain.
Pretty fair, but I personally can excuse it because the whole "history is written from the perspective of the ruling class" is pretty realistic for our world, too. Hell, the majority of works of classic literature are like this, too. For every 1 Szewczenko or Douglass we have 10 Tolstoys or 20 Byrons (status wise, not talent wise).
@@ІлляВетров-й2д This is, however, incorrect to apply to a contemporary author explicitly striving for authenticity.
Even Tolstoy (and his other aristocratic contemporaries) were often including working class characters as they understood them - even as narrators.
George Martin - and his predecessor, Frank Herbert - exclude non-ruling-class people from stories they tell entirely, which is definitely a choice considering the amount of words they put on the page.
@@user-df5nb8zy7e yeah, I totally agree, don't get me wrong. It is just that I can do this mental gymnastics to excuse Martin "forgetting" to include any non-noble characters as POVs.
@@ІлляВетров-й2д My criticism comes - in particular - from the fact of reading the very book that inspired him (by his own admission) to try writing fantasy on the whole - as well as this specific novel.
And that book - while centering the main conflict around a feudal squabble between the main castle and the one in the north, - tells that story primarily from a non-noble perspective.
It has dragons. It has magic swords. It has non-human species - and characters from those.
I don't think it would be fair to consider Martin's story "fantasy" - while it lacks all that for the most part.
@@user-df5nb8zy7e btw, I have never heard of Tad Williams, but his works do sound interesting - thank you.
You keep bouncing back and forth between wanting characters to be described and not whenever it's convenient for you. Why isn't the Captain's daughter or victarions woman described even though she only appears for a few pages of the book and doesn't really impact the story? Why is this member of the night's watch described when he serves almost no purpose to the overall story and dies in a few pages? Why is SA described in the chapter featuring a wildling when it's been established that's a part of their culture repeatedly?
i think the complant was constantly describing tits mike
i think its the descriptions of the jiggly stuff she takes issue with consistently mike
@@LavionLockwood True, but 99% of this video is still just cherry picking without giving any context or background of each individual event under the guise of it being too risque for TH-cam
@@mikehastings93 oh lol my bad i thought she literally linked to a google doc she individually copied book passages into
@@LavionLockwood yeah you might say these passages were intentionally picked (like cherries) from a slew of other information that was intentionally excluded, like how different cultures in the world view and treat women and how the perception of these events might be skewed as a result of it, all strung together to reinforce their point.
The bran description are definitely weird but I think theyre an honest representation of that really fucking weird stage as a boy where suddenly women start to seem something notably different.
lol very true but when i read it i wondered how he saw through the scale mail
I mean Sleeveless Jerking sounds like Bran is understanding what he is seeing 🧐 to me
In my opinion, the problem is not the books and yes the fandom.
Parts of the fandom... It's unfortunately inevitable when a fandom gets this big I think. For the most part I think the readers are picking up what George is putting down and are not stupid enough to idealize all the messed up stuff that goes on in Westeros, but there are always a few bad apples😭
@@gabraham9509 Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have a healthy fandom. Of course there are "bad apples", but not like the ASOIAF fandom. There are a lot of incel men and a lot of dumb girls who haven't even read the books and want to give their shit opinion. Nowadays, I even hope not to make friends with ASOIAF fans.
@@gabraham9509 Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have a healthy fandom. Of course there are "bad apples", but not like the ASOIAF fandom. There are a lot of incel men and a lot of dumb girls who haven't even read the books and want to give their opinion. Nowadays, I even hope not to make friends with ASOIAF fans.
@@savelala Well, I'm sorry that that's your experience with the fandom. All the people I know who are fans are great people. I think it probably all comes down to personal experience, because like I said you will find shitty people in every corner of the world unfortunately.
All three fandoms you mentioned as shinning examples all have their problems within those communities. All three have had controversies from parts of the fandom thinking there are problems in the stories related to lack of race/gender/orientation diversity, and other sections of the fandoms having angry anti-woke reactions towards those sentiments. I don't think its an ASOIAF problem, Its a cultural problem from having a more and more polarized population.
@@gabraham9509 All the fandoms I mentioned are good fandoms. As you said, there are controversies about diversity. But Asoiaf is not known for having diversity either. Besides, there are many things wrong with this book. Even though it was written about a medieval time, I don't need to read Daenerys' disgusting chapters in detail. So, it is a consensus that all the stories mentioned have problems. But I was talking about the fandom in question. And the Asoiaf fandom is made up of incel men and ridiculous girls who find Daemon and Rhaenyra romantic, for example. Not all the people are like this, but unfortunately most are toxic and problematic. Not to mention the cyberbullying that Criston Cole's actor received as well. These are just small examples of how problematic this fandom is.
1:27 That is totally not where weddings come from. A wife is not considered property and was not considered property anywhere that I can think off, thats why a husband has obligations to his wife. You usually do not have any obligations to your mere property. Marriage was created to protect women's rights, such as preventing the men they were involved with to just ditch them and run away. And thats it why you want a big weeding as well. Because the weeding symbolizes the full commitment of your partner to you, something he cant just run away from. Commitment is a very important issue to women down to an instinctual level. Thats why women are generally hesitant to get sexual too soon, despite being more sexual than men. It is why women love weddings in general, while men don't care as much for them.
A wedding does not come from what you discribe either. It was the longest time in history a contract made between two families (most of the time ruled by a father figure). The women was given away together with gifts like land or money into another family to built a bond between both families. There was never a romantic component, it was always about status and property of a family. So cheating on your wife was an insult to your own family, but cheating on your husband was a direct violation of the contract your parents made. There is a Big difference.
@@triloization I never said it was about romance. I only ever said that it was not about owning women as property. Women that were property were the slaves, wives were obviously NOT in the same category
Excellent analysis. You're gonna go far
you're actually wrong about the bride kidnapping custom. please, look into west asia.
1:26:17 I will say I know that my pops told me that this was the old ranchers culture out at his grandpa’s land and town in a remote part of Mexico. They would get married by just taking the girl and running 🤷♂️ I guess. It feels more like eloping the way he described it, but it made the old cultural picture of a farmer always ready with his shotgun to protect his daughter make sense lol. And it was just family’s in the area. I guess the heads of the households would also ceremonially go and make it right with that other family of the community coming to see what they can offer as dowery. Very goofy lol but I guess that’s one perspective to share 🤷♂️ and that’s recent in the grand scheme! Maybe something to do with old indigenous culture survivals still around in some form. Cause yeah the only other time I’ve heard of something like this is in the Bible in the book of Judges with daughters being stolen to be married across enemy lines.
I really like the way you do use words like nighttime violence, it really makes it a bit more objective and less judgemental while engaging with the overt use of nighttime violence and the hypocricy of same sex bedtime in the story?
Or how implications shown are probaly the most important part to show of nighttime violence in behaviour, trauma, reactions, whatever? Even reacting not bothered is alone a statement.if intentional.
And damn that the unnessesary erotical lense of most chaaracters, yes some can be just super horny, but all is , an issue. Also impliucatios are important?! Also essos people calling westerosian prude is as effective as , night time activities always, some , nice, but a cultural clash can and should be shown in implications?
Herodotus of course, and while it seems there seemed to be a divine sex positivity in that, it could be just a rite done, they could be valued if you have sacret priest, duties, which if the epos of gilgamesh has any implication existed somehow,
but thats not a marriage market. that just means that there probably were sex positive priest acts that were seen as sacred somehow. Probnably, i know its a myth so who knows, but implications?
the only "horny" perspectives are theon, arianne, tyrion, cersei, maybe Jaime. Cat, Ned, Sansa, Davos, Barristan, Brienne, Sam, Jon, Arya, Bran, Quentyn etc. are not horny perspectives all except in sex scenes if they have one.
Great video essay and i enjoy how complex you built up your points. I love the world of ASIOF and its rare that i get this invested in a fake history of a place that never existed and i especially appreciate seeing critiques of this, as a woc (specifically amazigh) the mix match of Dorne in the fandom as well drives me nutso when Nymeria is direct copy of Tariq Ibn Zyad and his 1000 ships so Dorne heavily borrows from Al Andalous and the Maghreb but also falls into the trap of Orientalism
Surprisingly thoughtful
Nice sword ⚔️ is that dark sister 🧐 if not that's a impressive replica
I personally think these criticisms are fair, thoughtful, and realistic. I have been a fan of this series for years and have constantly found myself with the same thoughts and never been able to or had the time to create a thought out response. It frustrates me. I think Martin is good at character writing, and has some very captivating ideas and his descriptions and attention to detail can be very beautiful and thought provoking. However I have, for a long time, found myself disgusted by the way he writes women’s bodies. As a victim of … “night time violence” myself, I wish that there was realistic reactions to it from the victims in the story, that could build their characters and influence their choices. His exotic ideas of foreigners I view as disturbing as well. I also deeply enjoyed that essay series about the Dothraki, it was so well thought out and informed. I struggle to find deep meaning in the story and the characters journeys in the face of these issues. It rips me out of the narrative.
@@GruntoSkunko just did and it helped. Thank you❤️
you should make part 2 discussing berserk
Great job with the video! However, I do want to point out one thing. There is a scene in ADWD that shows explicit male homosexuality. In Tyrion XII, we have the following excerpt:
"Bokkoko was kissing his lover shamelessly, kneading the boy's buttocks with one huge hand, the other tangled in his hair."
Not exactly Cersei with Taena, but still it shows that Martin is not always ambiguous with the male homosexuality.
Other than that, great video and I really enjoyed your POV. I hope you make more analysis' of ASOIAF.
Yh i understand why ppl don't like the books bc of depictions of sa and its effects. As a survivor it puts me off rereading the books. I think it would be better reworked bc it would last longer in the fantasy mythology, instead of slightly diminishing his standing like how we see tolkien and the orcs now (oof). In improving his book he would probably be one of a few to live long enough to actually action his growth and to stand up to centuries of scrutiny
Maybe you could give George RR Martin some writing lessons?
orcs are not the most problematic thing tolkien wrote about lol. not to say he was particularly problematic cus he really wasn’t
@@johnnyblaze8049 I agree, but if we were to scrutinize his work with the same intensity as George's often is, I'm sure you could write essays about the lack of diversity and lack of female characters. At the end of the day not every book is for everyone and that's totally fine. I just get annoyed when people make moral arguments for why a book should be different. Art is subjective and rather than tearing something down when you have a better idea then you should get to writing your own book lol
ur options are based and you are slay gurl boss queen.
Yup. Pointless love scenes in books are the same as their counterparts in movies. If I wanted to see boom boom I would go to the hub...progress the story and save us the 5mins of c-class lovemaking.
After watching a bigger part of your video, I can say with certainty that Martin has a very bad understanding of human nature. The fact that he is so successful proves that modern society has also a very bad understanding of human nature. Surprise?
Read Anna Karenina and how excellent was the description of a woman's feelings when she cheats on her husband. Nothing compared to Martin's trash pron.
GoT is a testament to the moral collapse of western culture. It has very shallow understanding of human nature.
You don't have to hold the mic in your hand like that. They are sophisticated pieces of equipment, they will pick up your voice if properly set up. Though I always advise the younger generation to stay nice and complacent.
if you're boring just say that
@@themaskedhatter sitting in front of the screen holding a microphone is your idea of fun? I feel bad for you.
Tbh while i Like a Song of ice and fire, and while i See the sheer amount of Casual (and Not so Casual) misogyny in the books as inherent to the world building... The "historical accuracy" defense Always makes me laugh.
Essentially, Martin has built a world where partriarchal structures are so entrenched, that the constant violence against women barely Registers to the characters. Hence the unholy amounts of it. Women are reduced to Ornaments and mothers. Hence the Obsession with boobs. However, THIS IS A FANTASY NOVEL, GEORGE. what historical accuracy? This is your fever dream. If you wanted to, you could Imagine a world that is Not so obsessed with violence against women. You Just either choose Not to do it or you are incapable of it.
And i suspect it's the latter, hence His View of less gory war depictions as "dishonest". The man simply cannot treat a Story as dealing in more complex themes via the Filter of Fantasy. He reads Tolkien and somehow goes "this war isnt realistic" when lotr isnt about realism. At the end of the day, Martin is Just a Bit of an edgelord and Not really able to say much more than "reality horrible. Look how real i am".
Yeah the use of historical accuracy in this context is wrong, I agree. I think what he's doing though is accurately identifying true problems in our reality and our history like patriarchy, racism, war and "night-time violence", and then turns it up to 11 in his fantasy series to shine a light on those problems and it makes the heroism required to fight them all the greater. Personally I love these books and although we should point out its flaws and not everyone has to love them as much as I do, I feel like people sometimes completely mis-characterize George and miss the point of the story he's writing. There is a lot of Misogyny in the books but George himself certainly isn't one and i think its sad that people are so quick to throw allies under the bus for little nitpicks. :(
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