Sure, GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire may not be for everyone. The dark and gritty style and tone will never make the series a unanimous crowd pleaser. All in all, it's understandable.
And yet, I don't think I've ever read a more vitriolic review than the one posted recently on Tiger Beatdown. Here's a teaser:
George R. R. Martin is creepy. He is creepy because he writes racist shit. He is creepy because he writes sexist shit. He is creepy, primarily, because of his TWENTY THOUSAND MILLION GRATUITOUS RAPE AND/OR MOLESTATION AND/OR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SCENES. And I could write a post about those, to be sure. But you know what would be easier? I could just count them. One by one by one.
[...]
If you are an unmarried woman, it is 100% certain that you will be raped or experience attempted rape (4/6: Arya, Sansa, Daenerys, Brienne). If you are married or engaged, there is a 75% chance that your husband or fiancee will beat or sexually assault you (3/4: Sansa, Cersei, Daenerys). If you are an adult woman who exercises authority, you will be killed (Catelyn) or imprisoned (Cersei), because your attempts to exercise said power will backfire (Catelyn, Cersei). If you are a child who exercises authority, you will not be killed or imprisoned, and will be seen as competent (Daenerys). It helps if your subjects are cultural Others, in which case your superiority is assumed (Daenerys). As with all female children, however, you will be sexually assaulted (Arya, Sansa, Daenerys). If you have a traditionally male role, with traditionally male skills, you will merely be threatened with rape (Brienne, Arya); if you are traditionally feminine, or occupy a traditionally feminine role, attempts to sexually assault or beat you will be successful (Sansa, Cersei, Daenerys). If you are the rare character who is an adult, occupies a position of authority, exercises power, and has not been sexually assaulted or beaten by her partner (Catelyn), don’t worry: You’re not getting out of this story alive.
Follow this link to read the whole piece. And believe me, it's worth it. A more bitter and scathing review you likely won't find elsewhere.
30 commentaires:
Oh, someone please hand her the Sword of Truth series.
I'm personally curious how she managed to write such a long, highly biased and inaccurate criticism of the series when it's painfully obvious that she cannot read with any level of comprehension.
Martin does a great job of mirroring the depravity and vulnerability suffered by all in our admittedly patriarchal medieval era. Yes this likely played out in certain awful and patterned ways around gender, age and ethnicity. It was a poo sammy. The critique saddens me in that it seems to spring from a place unaware of the historical times Martin parallels and fails to recognize that it is aimed at the photographer (realist author) instead of the contents of the photo.
the guy is just right, what can i say ?
still, the first 3 books are great to read.
the next 2 didn't bother with yet.
Or a black eye
or some dirty dishes
So she's complaining that George R.R. Martin wrote a quasi-medieval setting that actually resembles medieval times in social attitudes. She wants her fantasy stories to be straight-up fairy tales, apparently.
Cause-chasers will always find something in anything. Shrug.
Oh, someone please hand her the Sword of Truth series.
Haha! I was thinking exactly the same thing. But on the other hand, it seems to be written by a prude objectivist who already knows "the truth" about things.
lol, wow! someone has a lot of time on their hands ;) I do have a colleague at work who refuses to read the series based on the under age 'issues' he encountered in the first book - and he's a massive fantasy fan...but hey, takes all sorts. To each their own, etc.
I've the impression this is written by a self-appointed PC policeman, who does nothing but count the number of violent scenes against women and ignores the context and worldbuilding. The point here is that this invented world is a rough one for women? And not for men? A guy like me would probably aim to be a maester but wind up murdered like most of them do. Even as a bulging warrior there's little guarantee I'd reach old age. Fun place to read about, glad I don't live there.
I have no problem with her opinion per se. I love the books, but hey, she's entitled to her own opinion, even though she chose to express it in a vitriolic and somewhat unwholesome manner. And fuck it. It' the internet.
I do have a problem here, and that is the sheep mentality. Some of those comments on her blog make me wonder if people think on their own. This 'I didn't read the books, but thank you for the review, now I won't' is biased and asinine, especially considering the discourse of this review.
She/he is an extremist who can't look past his/her own fogged mirror.
I read the whole review(phew!). I like ASOIAF...like it a whole lot. But there was something in the review I found myself agreeing to. I think you have a right to take things out of context and study it solely.
There are some rather disturbing scenes in the books.
Right from the start, I found the whole Daenerys-Drogo thing creepy.
Anyway, just my opinion.
I'm still on A Storm of Swords, so I stopped reading this when I saw spoilers, but this person is nuts. There's plenty of cruel brilliance in Ice and Fire, but it's FICTION.
Might want to add some sort of spoiler alert for Catelyn.
Mind you, if someone hasn't read the series and is reading this blog, it might be their own fault.
Ha, she is an Epic Troll :)
Using her "pick certain elements and ignore everything else" technique, you could also make reviews like:
"George R.R. Martin hates bearded men!", or
"George R.R. Martin condones witchcraft!"
etc, etc.
Pat's right--it's a great rant. I don't remember being struck by that when I read GRRM, but it has been many years--I stopped reading
when I realized he was going down the Jordan route. "Fool me once..."
i don't think that she is so far off in her criticism. specifically in the unbalanced nature that GRRM is using rape/violence towards women. sure it happened in midieval times, and today. but he doesn't portray any female leads (in the books that her review considers, 1-4) who aren't raped/otherwise assaulted.
Why does EVERYTHING have to have some "creepy" motive behind it these days? The word creepy gets tossed around ALOT especially online and it is not always warranted.
she does seem pretty ridiculous with this review...
I won't pretend to know specific number, but if the oft-quoted "current" figure is that 1 out of 3 women will experience some form of sexual assault in their lifetime, using what we know of the medieval era, is it such a far cry to extrapolate an utterly appalling assault rate for those olden days? 4 of 6 characters, or two out of three women seems like an entirely plausible number for that era, regardless of social position or standing.
Some of the other comments within her review are more telling... the accusation of racism, for example. One can only hope she never delves into a book about the civil war.
Heh. I skimmed her review but read nearly all the comments (which I tend to find a lot more interesting)
She has a very tight rein on the replies she allows, doesn't she? :)
While she has her views and is welcome to them I'm glad I don't know her personally.
Ramah.
Obviously, she needs to read Bakker
Yeah, get her to read some Bakker or Morgan.
ASOIAF is tame by the standards of books I like to read.
Hell even Donaldson starts off his grand epic with a rape. Psshht move on.
Weird.
I don't care fo rthe books either, but them are some stupid reasons there...
And if Martin had written a story where none of the villains ever threatened women sexually, writers like this would gripe about "ignoring women's plight" or "sanitizing the patriarchy".
After a while, you learn to recognize the invisible cat logic: both the presence and absence of evidence is indicated as evidence.
I'm wondering why some of the criticisms aimed at that blog post seem to reduce the issues it raises down to a matter of yes/no, 1/0, without regard to the concept of "loyal criticism." One can be both a fan of a work while still feeling discomfited by, or even dislike, certain aspects about that work.
Meh, she should go read The Wheel of Time Series where all the women behave like the sun shine outta their ass and men are just bumbling dim-wits that get in the way of more intelligent women. I'm sure she would like that. What she does not realize is that GRRM brought more realism to the fantasy genre. People were getting tired of the whole fairy tale that was called fantasy,at least I was.
I'm noticing a lot of Game of Thrones fans just outright attacking this person. But honestly, the show does have a lot of gratuitous rape scenes. If George R.R. Martin is so wonderful at depicting women's struggles during the medieval era, why is the experience never told from a female perspective? The rape is presented in a pornographic way from the point of view of a man. I feel bad for any actual rape victims watching the show.
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