A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

[JBI]

I saw that you wanted to address it, so I will put it simply. I find parts of the text reprehensible, Drkshadow thinks differently, we'll have to agree to disagree, or some other such. In truth, I don't have a text in front of me, so I cannot use quotes, so it becomes a game of mere speculation, and memory digging.

Like Drkshadow said, it is a perspective novel, a technique vaguely borrowed from, I would think, Faulkner, with a different narrator on each chapter, though with the absence of the interior monologue in favor of a highly focalised third person rendition.

The one, perhaps most disgusting scene I remember reading, before putting down the book, was one about some fellow named Greyjoy (the son of some rebel island guy) misoginystically taking advantage of a barely teenage peasant girl on some boat trip, before abandoning her, and ridiculing her.

The attitude without consequence that such a scene produces I find horrifying. Textually, the scene was not plot relevant, and only an indulgence into the setting, which is despicable. There was no need for the scene thematically. No need for the scene for plot development, or any other such reasons. And in truth, after that, the narrative tried to show the character as sympathetic, rather than condemning him, which I found utterly disgusting.

[Bluebeard]

First, you critique the series for a lack of realism. Then, you condemn it for portraying a sympathetic side to an otherwise villainous character. This is really the paradox of your criticisms, JBI: an expectation of fantasy and ultimatum of realism.

The fantasy world the GRRM depicts is not something wondrous and glorious. GRRM's intent, in creating such a world, is not to liberate his suppressed misogyny, but to indulge in--what boils down to--a cage match between a variety of characters. It's genre fiction, pulp stuff; all the writer and the reader are attempting to accomplish here is that indulgence. One could argue that this is not in the character development, but the sexual grotesquerie. This argument falls apart, though, when we are faced with a strong cast of dominant female characters who pummel men into submission, leaving the pervert-critic to conclude that GRRM is a sadomasochistic nutjob with violent sexual ambivalence. It sounds good, and I'm sure Freud would hop around in glee, but it just isn't supported by the text.

I enjoy it quite a bit, along with plenty of others, because it has good characters. It's not Literature: it's literature. Fun. One of the few fantasy series, in my opinion, that overrides its bad prose with genuine entertainment. But LeGuin, Kay, Peake and the others are better, more rewarding reads, definitely.

[JBI]

Bluebeard, you wouldn't happen to be some alias of another poster, would you?

The point is, it is a removed setting. If an author needs to create a setting where women get raped in order to indulge in his cage match then the world for that is a misogynist. Sorry, unless you happen to be George R. R. Martin, in which case it is against the rules for me to accuse you of anything.

As you said it, all the author and the reader are trying to do is indulgence. On those grounds, I see my point accentuated, that the reader and the author are indulging in a misogynist vision as a means of carrying out some sort of perverse fantasy.

[Bluebeard]

Bluebeard, you wouldn't happen to be some alias of another poster, would you?

Nope, just a lurker.

The point is, it is a removed setting. If an author needs to create a setting where women get raped in order to indulge in his cage match then the world for that is a misogynist. Sorry, unless you happen to be George R. R. Martin, in which case it is against the rules for me to accuse you of anything.

As you said it, all the author and the reader are trying to do is indulgence. On those grounds, I see my point accentuated, that the reader and the author are indulging in a misogynist vision as a means of carrying out some sort of perverse fantasy.

Sex is really not the political arena that cultural critics seem to think it is. It's an act where biological imperative takes over, not the intellectual makeup of a writer's mind. What you're arguing now is that Martin's sexual fantasy revolves around the degradation of and indifference towards women, and I'll say it probably is. The mistake would be in muddling that sexual fantasy with intellectual (metasexual, if that's even possible) fantasy, which isn't warranted. Now I think you'd argue that the mere expression of this sexual fantasy is unacceptable, but Martin exalts no one, indicts no one. He's somewhat similar to Camus, in that sense (though he couldn't dream of coming close): not so much a concern with the ethics or morality of a character's actions, but a persistent query into that character's nature, choices, metamorphoses.

Well, I like it, though I don't find misogynistic sex appealing. I just find it's place within the narrative, and you don't--but that's fine too. It's pulp.

[Drkshadow03]

Considering we've been talking about rape and the sexual depiction in Martin's work and fantasy as a removed setting (which technically only applies to 2nd world fantasies, by the way), I found this to be an interesting post on the topic that intersects quite well between some of what JBI said and some of what I said: Treatment of Modern Themes in Epic Fantasy.

I thought some people might be interested in reading it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Holy crap, a lot has been posted since I last checked this thread. I don't have time now, but I will read it all and comment.

[Jozanny]

Considering we've been talking about rape and the sexual depiction in Martin's work and fantasy as a removed setting (which technically only applies to 2nd world fantasies, by the way), I found this to be an interesting post on the topic that intersects quite well between some of what JBI said and some of what I said: Treatment of Modern Themes in Epic Fantasy.

I thought some people might be interested in reading it.

Well, I read it Drk, and I really don't read enough fantasy literature to nit pick over these pc caveats, but methinks it is a case of a rather tired genre taking itself way too seriously, and, his sexual fantasies aside, there is nothing in Martin's work to draw my interest:

Animal identification dream--been there, done that, and have read much better texts about human affinity to the totem.

Protagonist with pet as supporting character, ditto, too many times to repeat

And to peruse tripe sentences like "Men will be men and women women, and these were the only women to be found in a thousand leagues..."

Cheap hyperbole. There is no reason why fantasy writers cannot put realism within the fantasy to use, and sweat, and really work at it, like real writers do, and put out a quality product. You're an intelligent critic, Drk, and I respect many of your counter-points, but so much of fantasy is just too over the top to be anything but trivial. The Legend of The Seeker, Disney's first effort at syndication, is visually interesting, with a script so conventionally overwrought it is not even amusingly bad, and the choreography is terrible, cheaply repetitive. The last few episodes have slightly better story lines, but geez, I wonder why I can't join the screen writers guild, as we, the writers ourselves, seem virtually unnecessary in terms of what we bring to our craft.

[JBI]

Well, I read it Drk, and I really don't read enough fantasy literature to nit pick over these pc caveats, but methinks it is a case of a rather tired genre taking itself way too seriously, and, his sexual fantasies aside, there is nothing in Martin's work to draw my interest:

Animal identification dream--been there, done that, and have read much better texts about human affinity to the totem.

Protagonist with pet as supporting character, ditto, too many times to repeat

And to peruse tripe sentences like "Men will be men and women women, and these were the only women to be found in a thousand leagues..."

Cheap hyperbole. There is no reason why fantasy writers cannot put realism within the fantasy to use, and sweat, and really work at it, like real writers do, and put out a quality product. You're an intelligent critic, Drk, and I respect many of your counter-points, but so much of fantasy is just too over the top to be anything but trivial. The Legend of The Seeker, Disney's first effort at syndication, is visually interesting, with a script so conventionally overwrought it is not even amusingly bad, and the choreography is terrible, cheaply repetitive. The last few episodes have slightly better story lines, but geez, I wonder why I can't join the screen writers guild, as we, the writers ourselves, seem virtually unnecessary in terms of what we bring to our craft.

I wonder, is the television series worse than the primary text? From what I remember, Goodkind is perhaps a worse of a rapist than Martin, in fact definitely, where, I think he has down right sado-masochistic tendencies, and an obsession with raping women.

Say whatever you will about Martin, on Goodkind I know I'm right.

[mortalterror]

Here's to politically correct language and the sanitization of our thought. It takes real courage, especially in these times, to stand up for what's right. Slavery, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and rape are all wrong and if nobody wrote about them, like, how would anybody know? It's not pandering at all to speak up and say that if you'd been alive seventy years ago when the Holocaust was happening, by golly, you'd a been again' it. And if you didn't say that, I guess everybody would just assume you were for all of those things. I know I would.

[JBI]

It is not about writing about them, it is about how you write about them. If a text is creating an opportunity for escapism into a world where women are marginalized to the extreme, what impact does that have on readers? Are they going to think higher of women? Be unchanged? or think less of women?

I don't mind the idea of historical realism, but the text is detached from reality to the point that it seems to deliberately portray sex in this regard for the pure relish of it, which I find disgusting, to say the least.

Why can't, for instance, fantasy literature offer a positive construction rather than a negative one? Is the anxiety of influence on fantasy literature that intense that one needs to rape women to seem original?

I understand about talking about these things - many, for instance, rape victims and holocaust survivors have written about personal experiences, but that is different. The tone is different, the style is different, and overall the text means in a completely different way.

The fact that fantasy fiction gets away with these things is rather puzzling as well. You have a stereotypical genre, which stereotypes and degrades women to the extreme, and its excuse for going unscathed by criticism is a) it's mediocre pulp fiction, so who will bother, and b) it's not set in our world, therefore it is acceptable.

Those points are both silly. Since the 80s, and to a lesser extent since Tolkien, fantasy literature has been one of the most dominant popular-fiction forms, in terms of sales figures, and fanbase. To ignore the social implications of such texts now would be, I would think, impossible, given their range of appeal.

[Drkshadow03]

I wonder, is the television series worse than the primary text? From what I remember, Goodkind is perhaps a worse of a rapist than Martin, in fact definitely, where, I think he has down right sado-masochistic tendencies, and an obsession with raping women.

Say whatever you will about Martin, on Goodkind I know I'm right.

Ditto. Something we can agree on for a change. I hated the one book I read of The Sword of Truth Series!

[Jozanny]

Right mortal--fantasy teaches modern readers how lucky they are, and the overeducated have no right to show it up as crass, which it is, barring LOR, because there, the enticement of evil is taken seriously, and the novels do have ideas about justice, righteousness, and the cost of selling out to the demonic--but we can't say Martin is tasteless, since that would be an offense to the moral code of his readers.

[Bluebeard]

JBI, actually, hit the nail right on the head when he mentioned the anxiety of influence. The entire modern practice of fantasy writing seems to be distancing itself from the color of Zelazny and Eddison's tradition and creating bleak environments to challenge its characters with. The marginalization and violence therein really is just part of that atmosphere.

[Drkshadow03]

I was searching the internet and found this excellent review of the entire Song of Ice and Fire Series that has been published so far: Link.

I also liked this review because this guy seems to notice exactly what I do in the series. He gets at the core theme dominating the story, which is essentially power and its abuse. Not to mention he offers a nice checklist at the end that I thought was creative for a review: Link.

I also find it a tad ironic that for all the comments about what genre fans do and don't like, they have the same exact debates we've all been having (is the sex in the series too gratuitous? Is the medieval society accurate enough?): link.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse (pardon the cliche), but the librarian in me wanted to offer some more resources so those considering the series have a lot of different viewpoints.

[JBI]

I think it key to note, that all the reviews you posted were written by men, most of whom have a natural bias, being that they are all fans, and therefore aren't writing their perspective of the specific from a very objective perspective. Those reviews aren't scholarly in the least, and Martin's world isn't as accurate as they pretend, given the nature of the source material he used, according to his website:

THE MEDIEVAL SOLDIER Gerry Embleton & John Howe
A DISTANT MIRROR Barbara Tuchman
MEDIEVAL SWORDMANSHIP John Clements
THE MEDIEVAL WARFARE SOURCE BOOK David Nicolle
LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL CASTLE and LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL CITY, both by Joseph and Frances Gies
THE DICTIONARY OF HERALDRY by Joseph Foster
TOURNAMENTS by Richard Barber & Juliet Barker
GREAT CITIES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD by L. Sprague de Camp
THE CHRONICLES OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, AND OTHER PLACES ADJOINING, by Sir Jean Froissart

Hardly the most scholarly books, of course, most of which based on old documents, or old ways of approaching history.