Oh, I definitely understand that part of it, and I agree that one of GRRM's strengths is his ability to create women who are strong and opinionated and interesting in different ways within a framework that's very sexist. (Side note: a couple of years ago I emailed a lesser author on this very point, saying that I enjoyed his book and his post-apocalyptic universe, but I didn't understand why all of his female characters did nothing but have sex and make food. I argued that within an oppressive framework, women could still be interesting and move the plot. His condescending response was basically that I clearly had had too much schoolin' to wrap my female brain around the concept of a male-dominated world. Yeah, never read that guy again.)
I just feel like GRRM has female characters who get, y'know, lines, and female characters who get raped. He ends up dehumanizing the rape victims in his universe in favor of using rape to say something about his male characters. In most case, a big graphic description of rape in the books is shorthand for "here's an awful character." There are half a dozen rapes either described or recounted in the books, I can actually think of only one situation where the victim is someone we even see again afterward. And her reaction isn't the important part (in fact she doesn't even speak that I can remember) - she's just treated as some damaged goods they need to sell off. (Without being too spoilery, can I complain about overuse of the phrase "half a hundred times" with regard to this subplot?)
To be fair, there's also a character for whom the threat of rape looms over her head pretty well constantly, and it ends up motivating her somewhat, which is probably the platonic ideal of how what you're describing can be deployed effectively and with sensitivity, but since she hasn't appeared on the show yet, I won't go into super details there.
I don't know, I guess it's that GRRM's treatment of it is that it's a real fact of his universe, but instead of his female characters confronting it, it's generally used as an establishing shot where the victims are just scenery, and almost always it's used to say something about men rather than women.
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Date: 2012-04-10 06:38 pm (UTC)I just feel like GRRM has female characters who get, y'know, lines, and female characters who get raped. He ends up dehumanizing the rape victims in his universe in favor of using rape to say something about his male characters. In most case, a big graphic description of rape in the books is shorthand for "here's an awful character." There are half a dozen rapes either described or recounted in the books, I can actually think of only one situation where the victim is someone we even see again afterward. And her reaction isn't the important part (in fact she doesn't even speak that I can remember) - she's just treated as some damaged goods they need to sell off. (Without being too spoilery, can I complain about overuse of the phrase "half a hundred times" with regard to this subplot?)
To be fair, there's also a character for whom the threat of rape looms over her head pretty well constantly, and it ends up motivating her somewhat, which is probably the platonic ideal of how what you're describing can be deployed effectively and with sensitivity, but since she hasn't appeared on the show yet, I won't go into super details there.
I don't know, I guess it's that GRRM's treatment of it is that it's a real fact of his universe, but instead of his female characters confronting it, it's generally used as an establishing shot where the victims are just scenery, and almost always it's used to say something about men rather than women.
Sorry about the epic comment!