Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.
Today’s entry is Part 33 of A Dance With Dragons, in which we cover Chapter 55 (“The Queensguard”) and Chapter 56 (“The Iron Suitor”).
Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.
And now, the post!
Chapter 55: The Queensguard
What Happens
Reznak explains to Ser Barristan that Hizdahr would prefer that his own men guard him, and he was the queen’s man. Barristan refuses to believe that Daenerys is dead, but many do, and Hizdahr is systematically removing her people from their positions and replacing them with his own pit fighters. Barristan thinks on how the Unsullied have refused to serve anyone but their mother, and knows that Hizdahr cannot rely on the Brazen Beasts to be loyal to him over the Shavepate. He is amused that Hizdahr is at least smart enough to keep Barristan as the army’s commander. Barristan agrees without quibbling and leaves.
He climbs up to the queen’s old chambers, now empty save for Missandei, and reflects on the strange direction of his life, and thinks that he has failed Daenerys, just as he’d failed her father and brother and even Robert. He berates himself for not stopping her in the arena. He’d later learned that once out of the pit, Drogon had responded to attacks on him with flame, killing over two hundred and wounding many others, and then flew north and disappeared. Some thought Daenerys had fallen or been eaten, but Barristan is sure that she was riding the dragon. He muses aloud that she might have gone home, but Missandei appears and says she would not have left without them.
Missandei tells Barristan that the Shavepate wants to meet with him. Barristan thinks Skahaz is taking a huge risk coming here when Hizdahr so greatly dislikes him, and thinks this meeting stinks of the game of thrones, a thing he hates, but tells Missandei he will go. He reassures her that he will find Dany, but it rings hollow to him. He thinks of his failures of all those other kings, and refuses to believe she is dead. He goes to train the young men he is grooming to take over the Queensguard after him, determined that Dany will have worthy knights to guard her. That evening he goes to meet with Skahaz in nondescript clothing, wary that it might be a trap. He tells himself his loyalty must be to his queen’s consort, but he is not convinced that is actually true, since Dany had never specifically commanded it of him.
Skahaz tells Barristan that he has the man who poisoned the honeyed locusts, and that the Sons of the Harpy had forced him to do it, with Hizdahr behind it all. Hizdahr’s peace was a sham, he says, and abandoned now that Daenerys is gone and Yurkhaz is dead. He also reveals that the Volantenes are sending a fleet, and Hizdahr, the Yunkai’i, the Sons of the Harpy, and Reznak will let them into the city to re-enslave all the ones Dany had set free. Skahaz says they cannot wait for Daenerys; they must break the Yunkai’i before the Volantenes arrive. He has his Brazen Beasts and the other companies who have no love for Hizdahr, but they need the Unsullied. He asks Barristan to speak to Grey Worm for them.
Barristan protests that they cannot break the peace without Dany’s permission, and Skahaz asks, what if she is dead, and points out that she would want them to protect her children. Struggling with his loyalties, Barristan demands that no move be made against Hizdahr until there is proof he was behind the assassination attempt. Skahaz agrees, and adds that once there is proof, he will kill Hizdahr (messily) himself.
No, the old knight thought. If Hizdahr conspired at my queen’s death, I will see to him myself, but his death will be swift and clean. The gods of Westeros were far away, yet Ser Barristan Selmy paused for a moment to say a silent prayer, asking the Crone to light his way to wisdom. For the children, he told himself. For the city. For my queen.
“I will talk to Grey Worm,” he said.
Commentary
Well, that is not what I expected.
Not about Hizdahr, because that was absolutely what I expected, the slimy little git. No, I mean that of all the things I thought might happen after Dany rode her dragon, straight-up disappearing was honestly not one of them. (Yes, I know I said I wanted her to be all “Screw you guys” and fly off into the sunset, but I didn’t think she’d actually do it!)
So wherrrrrre did she go? I, like Ser Barristan, refuse to consider the possibility that she is not in control of her dragon, so logically that means she, and not Drogon, decided where they fucked off to. Right? Right.
The problem with that, of course, is just what Missandei said: everyone and their dog and their dog’s army has been trying to pry Dany out of Meereen with a crowbar for like three books now, and she has refused to budge. So for her to suddenly be all “Later, taters!” and, well, fuck off into the sunset, seems very out of character for her. Fucking off into the sunset after flash-frying a couple hundred innocent bystanders, too, lest we forget, which also seems like something she would generally be against.
Well, maybe Dany doesn’t have control of just that part of it. Just because she was at the helm doesn’t mean she was also manning the cannons. So to speak.
Or maybe dragon-riding is so full of sexual innuendo delirious-making that she has temporarily lost her mind with the amazing euphoria of it all, and once she’s come down off her dragon high (heh) and done the ASOIAF equivalent of waking up hungover in Vegas married to a stripper with a tiger in the bathroom, she’ll be all “oh, yeah, I was queen of something, I should get back to that” and come on back. MAYBE.
Or, I don’t know. Girl could be anywhere. She better not be dead, is all I’m saying.
But anyway, OMG you guys! It turns out Hizdahr is a lying duplicitous usurping shitbag who tried to murder his wife and queen, all while planning to completely undo all her efforts towards peace and social change! Gasp! Let’s all take the appropriate length of pause needed to take in this shocking news okay got it yeah no really.
Bluh. I would congratulate myself on calling it forever ago, but really, the writing was on the wall for this one. I am pleased I was right about the honeyed locusts, though.
And poor Mr. Selmy and his regrets. (Mr. Selmy and the Regrets will be the name of my next Counting Crows cover band.)
If he had not gone into Duskendale to rescue Aerys from Lord Darklyn’s dungeons, the king might well have died there as Tywin Lannister sacked the town. Then Prince Rhaegar would have ascended the Iron Throne, mayhaps to heal the realm. Duskendale had been his finest hour, yet the memory tasted bitter on his tongue.
Yeah, that one’s gotta sting a little.
There’s a certain amount of irony in the unwitting similarity between Barristan’s regrets and Jaime’s over their respective careers in the Kingsguard. The irony being that Jaime’s regrets are over how he broke his vows, while Barristan’s regrets are over how he didn’t, but both amounted to the same kind of regret in the end – that their actions ultimately led to a worse result instead of a better one. Bummer, ain’t it.
Well, I sure hope technically breaking your vows at this late stage goes better for you, Mr. Selmy! I kind of highly doubt it, because this is such an impending trainwreck it’s not even funny, but nevertheless I am totally rooting for you, man! Take down the shitbag! Smash the slavers! Fight the man! Whoo!
Chapter 56: The Iron Suitor
What Happens
Victarion Greyjoy is furious that barely over half of the fleet he started out with has made it to the rendezvous point at the Isle of Cedars. Ralf the Limper says it was storms, and opines that they’ve been cursed by Euron. Victarion slaps him around for saying it, but secretly wonders if he is right. He gives orders for the fleet to make ready to depart the next day anyway, as he knows he must beat the Volantene fleet to Meereen, and is determined he will not give up his prize.
Grousing about how much he hates everything, he goes below and rambles at the dusky woman about his plans to kidnap Daenerys from Meereen while she unwraps his hand, where the wound given him by Ser Serry is deeply infected and gangrenous. Maester Kerwin, a captive from the Stepstones who Victarion disdains as weak and girlish and who has been gangraped by the crew, comes in to look at the wound. Kerwin tells him that the wound is getting worse and his hand may need to be amputated. Victarion tells him he will kill him first, so Kerwin only slices the wound to let out the pus. It is disgusting. After, Victarion reflects on how he had gotten the wound and how he had been so sure it was of no moment until it wouldn’t heal, and begins raving at the dusky woman about conspiracy theories that maybe he was being poisoned, until he gets word that one of his captains has “fished a wizard from the sea”.
He goes up to find a monstrous black-skinned man called Moqorro, who claims he survived ten days in the sea before being rescued, which Victarion scoffs at. Moqorro says he is a priest of R’hllor, and the others begin clamoring to kill him before he brings down curses upon them, but Moqorro seems unafraid. Victarion wants to know why they called him a wizard, and the Vole says he knows things he shouldn’t, and that he’d told the Vole that if he didn’t bring the priest here, that Victarion would die. At that moment Victarion’s hand throbs so badly that he stumbles. The men immediately assume Moqorro has cursed Victarion and start yelling to kill him, but Victarion shuts them up and takes the priest to his cabin.
The dusky woman hisses at Moqorro, and Victarion backhands her. Moqorro tells him his death is here in his hand. He says he has seen Victarion in his nightfires, “striding through the flames stern and fierce, your great axe dripping blood, blind to the tentacles that grasp you at wrist and neck and ankle, the black strings that make you dance.” Moqorro tells him he can heal the wound with fire, but it will cause great pain. Victarion says he laughs at pain, but warns the priest he will kill him if he is lying.
The iron captain was not seen again that day, but as the hours passed the crew of his Iron Victory reported hearing the sound of wild laughter coming from the captain’s cabin, laughter deep and dark and mad, and when Longwater Pyke and Wulfe One-Eye tried the cabin door they found it barred. Later singing was heard, a strange high wailing song in a tongue the maester said was High Valyrian. That was when the monkeys left the ship, screeching as they leapt into the water.
Come sunset, as the sea turned black as ink and the swollen sun tinted the sky a deep and bloody red, Victarion came back on deck. He was naked from the waist up, his left arm blood to the elbow. As his crew gathered, whispering and trading glances, he raised a charred and blackened hand. Wisps of dark smoke rose from his fingers as he pointed at the maester. “That one. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, and the winds will favor us all the way to Meereen.” Moqorro had seen that in his fires. He had seen the wench wed too, but what of it? She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow.
Commentary
Aw, Moqorro, why you gots to be like that?
I’m impressed and… glad-ish, I guess, that you survived the wreck of whatever Tyrion’s ship was called, but did you have to save Captain Manpain from a rotting gangrene death? I was getting all excited about his very unpleasant end there for a minute, and then you go and RUIN MY FUN. I shall need to sulk about this.
Serry, that had been his name. A knight, and heir to Southshield. I killed him, but he stabs at me from beyond the grave. From the hot heart of whatever hell I sent him to, he thrusts his steel into my hand and twists.
How very Captain Ahab of him. Too bad he also failed to get rid of his white whale. Boo!
But maybe it won’t matter, because Victarion’s plan to kidnap/marry Dany seems absolutely looney tunes to me. I mean, even assuming he beats the Volantene fleet to Meereen, aren’t there like six million other ships from the Pro-Slavery Coalition (dba Fuckbarge Douchecanoes Inc.) already docked there? So he’s going to, what, do a smash and grab on an entire city, while it’s being technically besieged? I am beboggled.
However, I am now also much more glad than I was a minute ago about Dany and Drogon fucking off into the hypothetical sunset at this particular juncture. Because it will be funny as hell if Victarion fights alllll the way to the castle beyond the goblin city, only to find there’s nothing there.
I don’t think it’ll fall out that way, of course. But it would, nevertheless, be very funny. (Even funnier than his monkey infestation, which was hilarious. The monkey shit rain was the best.)
Unfortunately, I foresee (ha ha) that Moqorro will probably also throw a wrench into my fun on that score as well. Frickin’ red priests, y’all. When will they stop plaguing me? I ask you!
The second-to-last paragraph of this chapter (quoted above) raised my eyebrows because it is one of the only times (that I can recall) that Martin has completely broken his rule about sticking strictly to tight 3rd person points of view. Just for that one paragraph, you see, he breaks into omniscient 3rd person, meaning that we get to see what everyone is thinking/feeling, rather than just what Victarion (the POV character for this chapter) is thinking/feeling. Tsk, tsk, sir! I guess he decided there was no other way to make that segue work, but it was very naughty of him, authorially speaking.
[…] Ravenfeeder and Iron Kiss. But the day before and the day before there had been nothing, and only Headless Jeyne and Fear before that, then two more days of empty seas and cloudless skies after Ralf the Limper appeared with the remnants of his squadron. Lord Quellon, White Widow, Lamentation, Woe, Leviathan, Iron Lady, Reaper’s Wind, and Warhammer, with six more ships behind, two of them storm-wracked and under tow.
My next drinking game will be “Ironborn Ship or Thrash Metal Band?”, and everyone will get alcohol poisoning.
On the day the Doom came to Valyria, it was said, a wall of water three hundred feet high had descended on the island, drowning hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, leaving none to tell the tale but some fisherfolk who had been at sea and a handful of Velosi spearmen posted in a stout stone tower on the island’s highest hill, who had seen the hills and valleys beneath them turn into a raging sea.
Dude, was there a type of natural disaster that didn’t happen to Valyria on Doom Day? Were there also tornados? Sharknados? Smog? I mean, damn.
And that’s what it is, O My Peeps! Have a weekend, and I’ll see you next Thursday!
When I first read Victarion’s description of Moqorro as being “blacker than black” (I’m paraphrasing), I was immediately reminded of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which featured an island in the Antarctic inhabited by natives described as having European physiques, but literally pitch-black skin (as opposed to the brown-ish of sub-Saharan Africans). So, props to GRRM for a probably unintentional nod to Edgar Allan Poe.
Also, Victarion has an overall terrible personality, but there’s something damned awesome about his having a Hellboy hand now.
Leigh, possibly the only other instance of Martin breaking 3rd limited was back in book 1, when Mirri Maaz Duur was performing black (or red?) magic to save Drogo’s life while Dany was giving birth in the same tent. So I think it’s more of a stylistic choice he goes to when magic is afoot and his POV character is directly involved. He really wants to preserve that air of mystery.
10 days at sea, floating on some wood…no mortal human survives that Leigh, welcome to my Loony theory that Moqorro, and Mel, are both Undead in the same way Beric is. It would make a lovely parallel to the Ironborn drowning ceremony to have the higher level priests killed and resurrected, it would be a religious experience and think on their zeal…and see Brother’s Without Banners. If you see someone raised from the dead, or if you are the one raised, think how much faith that would give you…
Yep.
I guess we can figure out what happened to Euron’s “missing” eye: he suffered a sharp poke to the eyeball before having it healed back by a red priest(ess). Now he needs to wear the eyepatch for the same reason that Scott Summers wears sunglasses.
Thanks for another great read, Leigh.
The Barristan chapter mostly makes my head hurt. We are now truly deep into what is termed the “Meereenese knot”, as it’s known among fandom. Was Hizdahr truly behind the poisoning attempt? On first read I assumed so, but I don’t necessarily trust the Shavespate, either. The whole tangle of alliances and enmities in that city is cray-cray, and Barristan truly is out of his depth in this situation.
The Victorian chapter is more straightforward, and while I rarely enjoy reading about the Ironborn there are some pretty great moments in this chapter (and yes, the monkey poo is obviously my favorite, forever and ever). Moqorro turns out to be pretty badass, perhaps as formidable as Meliandre or even more so, considering what he has survived already and what he is willing to do to reach Dany, who he believes is Azor Ahai. Plus, he seems to be better than Meli at interpreting his visions in the flames, because that foreknowledge of Victorian’s gangrene was damn impressive. Too bad he’s using it to help out “Captain Manpain”, as you put it.
Aw, man, I *heart* me some Ser Barristan, one of the few characters in the whole saga that I feel like I can more or less wholeheartedly get behind and root for. Good choice making him a POV character for the latter segment of this book, sez I.
Nice catch on the change in POV. Greatly entertaining post today, per usual. It makes my Thursday. Thanks, Leigh.
Thank you, Victarion but our princess is in another castle.
This chapter is where I started to find Victarion to be a lot fun. He’s still an awful, awful person, but there’s a lot less brooding and a lot more stuff worthy of a heavy metal album cover. Magic fire hand woo!
Re-hi Moqorro! I’m really glad you remembered him, because if you had been all like, “who’s this guy, should I know?” it would have been really hard (and painful) to bite our collective tongues. But it was a long time ago (at this pace) so I really couldn’t have blamed you for forgetting him either.
I’m surprised there wasn’t anything from Leigh about Victarion’s idea of “justice” for a rape victim. Maybe it didn’t register given his general horribleness.
I’m really curious about the interaction of the various religions in Westeros. The only religions we’ve seen exercise any real supernatural power are those of the Old Gods and R’hllor. It seems hard to believe that the Faith of the Seven could’ve remained dominant for so long without any “miracles” in the face of other magic. Then again, the Andals defeated the COTF and cut down the weirwoods in every region except the North, so maybe that was proof enough. Still, I wonder if the Faith will have a hard time holding onto worshippers with R’hllor (apparently) doing big things.
@11: Does the Faith of the Seven have its own version of Azor Ahai? If not, and given the whole deal with AA being reborn to fight the returning Others (whose collective existence is pretty much a neon sign for the existence of the Great Other and his fiery counterpart), I have the feeling that a hell of a lot of septons and septas are going to be out of a job, converted, or dead, by the time the next Long Night is over.
@11:
On raped Maester: Victarion has victim blaming as an explicit belief. Everything is the fault of whoever it happens to. Even among the rotten characters in Game of Thrones he stands out.
On religions: My understanding is that the actual magic only started when the Dragons were reborn. Before that they were mostly smoke and mirrors. Ergo the Seven’s vaguely sane teachings could overcome the lovecraftian nonsense everyone else was putting out.
@12 – Good point. I don’t know of any Azor Azhai figure in the Faith, unless “The Prince(ss) Who Was Promised” originated from the Faith. Your question also goes to my confusion about the extent of the previous Long Night and the extent of the threat from the Others. Did it affect the Summer Isles, Sothyros, or Essos? Asshai seems to have some knowledge based on Melisandre, but I think that’s the only instance we have of someone outside Westeros knowing anything about the Others or the Long Night.
Wonder if anyone else thinks that “Ralf the Limper” is a shout-out to Grog Cook’s series on The Black Company?
I really think you need to look a bit harder at the recent events in Meereen. Think. Doesn’t it seem a little too obvious, a little too simple? When you finish the read, I would recommend the Meereenese Blot, a website with a series of essays on the various story arcs in A Feast for Crows and a Dance of Dragons. He goes into depth with the sentiment I express, and I must say, he convinced me. The very case you mentioned, the poisoned locusts, are the frame for his first essay. I believe they don’t contain spoilers for The Winds of Winter, apart from a single, vaguely foreshadowing quote at the end of the last essay. Please consider it, it really is an eyeopener.
@2 When did the narration shifted to omniscient with Dany and MMD? I’ve checked it now and I believe all we see about Mirri is what Dany sees herself.
It seemed to me that there was another spot in Barristan’s chapter where GRRM switched gears in his writing: when Barristan starts thinking about the “Deployment of the White Cloaks” from Ye Olde Kingsguard Manual. That was odd, as if the writer were trying to make a point.
Well, gee, Vicky, seems like you answered your own question there. Who’s been binding your wound with linen and is either a craven, a woman, or a Dornishman?
Tyler Soze, I think the Prince who was Promised thing is Valyrian is Aemon talked about how an error crept from translation so the Prince might be a Princess.
I love Barristan and the insight he provides to the court of Aerys II. I am always fascinated by older events that could have bearing on future and Barriatan might still have more to offer about that era.
My first thought is you were referring to the “Pro-Slavery Cotillion….” I like that better. Yes, Victarion is a huge, hairy piece of work. Ugh.
Barristan is put in a tough position. Should be supportive of Hizdahr, doesn’t know if he should trust Shavepate (who could be lying to him about Hizdahar’s culpability). Of course, Hizdahr immediately replacing Dany’s men before she is even confirmed dead is not helpful to his case for innocense.
Really really nice point picking up on the Jaime/Barristan parallels. Truly striking.
Smog? or Smaug? Heh.
Re: smog
kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the waaaabit….
I see what Leigh did there.
Leigh, I always thought the Doom was a Yellowstone-esque caldera going. An eruption that large would cause an earthquake, and being on the coast, it would cause a tsunami. So my reading wasn’t that Valyria wasn’t hit by the wave, but the surrounding isles were.
I will second what others have said, that it is far from universally accepted/understood that Hizdahr was duplicitous.
Whoohoo, fun with Victarion & Crew on the bad ship Rapeytime!
Ugh.
If Maester Kerwin had used the dagger Vic gave him, and managed yo injure someone in self-defense, he might have been punished forthat. He was probably doomed, anyway. Why would a brother of Urrigon Greyjoy trust a maester?
This is also where Vic feels “shamed” by having to pay money for food and water in Volantis. He takes the “iron price or nothing” mindset to an extreme.
@16 And then you can read Attawell’s “Labratory of Politics” series to show how misguided the Myreneese Blot is about the whole thing. :]
http://towerofthehand.com/blog/2015/02/01-laboratory-of-politics-part-vi/index.html
@12: I’ve never seen the existence of Others as evidence of a Great Other’s existence. They could be doing their own thing without direction from a higher power. Or not.
Tabbyfl55 @22:
I wondered if anyone would catch that reference. Internet cookie for you!
On this week’s Star Trek post I saw this little comment that caught my attention:
“I just realized “Return of the Archons” bears some similarities to a Twilight Zone episode called “The Old Man in the Cave.” The all powerful computer was on a lot of minds in the ’60s, I guess.
By the way, has Tor.com ever done a TZ retrospective? If not, maybe after Trek…?”
And this got me to thinking….. actually, I’ve had this idea for quite some time but I wasn’t sure if it was the right time to broach it.
Leigh, what do you think if, when you’re done with this Read, you do Leigh Watches The Twilight Zone? You could do, not only the original series, but also the two revivals and the movie.(Incidentally, I’ve always considered the 1980s series as seasons 6-8 of The Twilight Zone and the 2002 series as season 9, and I would really appreciate it if you’d do the same.) Furthermore, in the best tradition of Mark Watches, you could film yourself as you watch the show along, so we can experience your first-time reactions.
Or, if not, you could also do Leigh Watches Supernatural, although since that show is still ongoing, I have my reserves.
Or how about Leigh Reads Christopher Paolini?!
All of these are my proposals, is all I’m saying.
And finally, my craziest proposal is this: Leigh Listens Pink Floyd! Assuming you’ve never heard anything by them, the concept is that you sit down to listen to one PF album per day and do a song-by-song review, where, when one track ends, you pause the record and write what you thought before resuming, and in the end you say what you thought of the album as a whole. You could even tape yourself here too! Since there’s a good possibility you wouldn’t post that in this site, you could tell us where we can see it. If not with PF, you could do it with another band. (Disclaimer: this last paragraph was not a completely serious proposal.)
And now I see Tyrion in MC-Hammer-pants and a polka-dotted hat standing before a completely exhausted, ragged Victarion and being like “I’m sorry, Victarion, but your princess is in another city”.
If that scene doesn’t happen in The Winds of Winter, I shall be bitterly disappointed…
Notably, Kerwin was “used as a woman.” While this phrase is awful in its own way — implying that rape is the proper “use” for a woman, it indicates that although not all of the men were necessarily heterosexual, this was not an act of unrestrained romantic desire, but a brutal way of saying “We don’t consider you a man. We are men, and can ccontrol and hurt you however we choose
@26, I haven’t had a chance to delve too much into that link, but let me just say that I think the author over emphasizes how much from history Martin is drawing on. Like, yes, the story is loosely based on a few people and events from the War of the Roses. Plus, while I agree that Dany is more Essosi that Westerosi, his analogy about a Roman conquering Rome 300 years later is off timewise to me. The Doom was a hundred years prior to Aegon’s Landing.
Hey, a cookie I won’t be deleting!
“What’s Opera Doc?” is very near and dear to me. : )
Even though it’s ASOIAF, I doubt Drogon ate Dany. But he was never tamed, so there’s no reason to think Dany has any say about where she’s going. In fact, considering Martin’s fondness for subverting fantasy and fairy tales tropes, I’d say that Drogon took her to a remote tower where she will wait for a brave knight to rescue her. And the brave knight will be Victarion, because Martin hates his characters as much as his readers.
@34: I think you’re confusing Martin with Benioff and Weiss.
@34
To date GRRM hasn’t killed any of his readers (that we know of), so I think we’re still ahead in that particular popularity contest…
Yeah, that paragraph you mentioned was one of the few times I was totally thrown out of the story by Martin’s writing. Very sloppy of both GRRM and his editor. I know some people don’t mind that kind of thing and others don’t even notice slips like that but it really bugs me. That’s one of the reasons I couldn’t finish TMBotF, Erikson breaks out of his limited third person POVs into Omni way too much for my liking (along with changing character POVs mid paragraph, ugh). I’ve found that the more I read first person and Limited third person POVs the more I dislike omniscient POVs as a whole. YMMV of course.
@@@@@ Leigh & TabbyfI55:
“Oh mighty hunter twill be quite a task, how will you do it might I inquire to ask?” “I will do it with my spear and magic helmet!” “Spear and magic helmet?” “Spear and magic helmet!” “(in best sarcastic Bugs Bunny voice) Magic helmet…” :)
@36, WELL, there was this time, Martin held a contest for his charity, a wolf rescue, and whoever donated the most, Martin would create a minor character based on them AND kill them off. Does that count? It hasn’t happened YET, that’s supposed to be in Winds of Winter.
Owlay @29:
All of your suggestions are both hilarious and interesting. I’ll keep them in mind. Maybe not the Pink Floyd one. Heh.
@11 Am I the only one who thinks the gang rape would’ve definitely been mentioned/explored in her commentary if it was a woman instead of a man?
@@@@@ 40 – Actually, no you’re not. At least #31 mentioned it though, so there’s that. It’s not so much really about what happens to a fictional character though, it’s more a reflection of the author and their assumptions of what it takes to keep an audience reading.
Wow! Well I finally caught up once I decided to commit. There’s a lot I’ve wished I could say while reading both Leigh’s posts and the comments and finally I can! So without further ado…
@31 Rape is always about power and control. It is why this series’ depiction of rape is extremely unrealistic and one-sided in regards to the women. It is completely baffling to me that Theon wasn’t raped by Ramsay for instance. GRRM tends to present it as more intertwined with male sexual urges… which is both a common and damaging misconception, especially regarding oft-overlooked male rape victims (in real life and fiction).
@40 I thought Leigh would comment more on it as well, but I think she is having a bit of a burnout in this series re: sexual assault. I don’t blame her :(
And going back a bit to the Queensguard/Dany part, this chapter feels to me like it belongs in the next book. Mostly because of the cliffhanger ending of Dany’s last POV but also because it sets a fresh set of events into motion that seem more appropriate to start off another novel. Maybe it will all be wrapped up faster than I think?
@42: It is completely baffling to me that Theon wasn’t raped by Ramsay for instance.
Well, not sexually (that we know of), but I wouldn’t go that far.
@42 and 43: Well, if you define rape as ‘inserting unwanted objects into the body as a form of torture and/or humiliation and/or display of dominance’ he was most definitely raped. Many times. Also, the scene with the ‘consummation’ was rape, of Theon and Jeyne both as neither consented even remotely. (Even under westerosi ‘law’ I’m pretty sure that was rape.)
@42 Obviously there aren’t as many cases of male rape as female, and it would not be a very believable depiction of that world if there were the same number of both cases, but your assumption is definitely wrong – and also I don’t think you can assume Theon wasn’t raped by Ramsay, there is a lot of things Ramsay did to him and we weren’t explicitly told about many of them.
1. As others already pointed out, Theon was as well raped as Jeyne on the wedding night.
2. Lysa raped Littlefinger.
3. Ygritte has been blackmailing Jon into sleeping with her at the time he didn’t want to (of course it’s not rape by the westerosi standards, but many cases of female rape aren’t either)
4. Kerwin’s case
5. (roll over for something Leigh has missed) Euron sexually abused and possibly raped Aeron in childhood
And I must say I agree with @40 that I find it a little sad Leigh is so much about equality, yet only elaborates about all the female cases while paying little to no attention to these cases of male rape, subconsciously (I’m sure, because of course I don’t accuse her of any ill will :) ) not finding them being “details” important enough to either elaborate or (depending on the case) mention anything about them at all in her commentaries.
@45. I’m pretty sure Leigh did bring up the male rape when discussing ygritte and jon…….so you can’t say she never talked about the issue
@46 I can’t and I didn’t. “Either elaborate or (depending on the case) mention anything” is definitely contradictory to “never talked”, isn’t it? :D Specifically, out of points above, she only brought Ygritte’s case, though the tone of it was “Wow, girl just totally blackmailed Jon into sleeping with her. That’s… a lot. I’m kind of impressed and appalled at the same time.”
From what I cursorily see she didn’t mention anything at all about Littlefinger’s rape, wedding night’s commentary was only about Jeyne’s rape (Theon’s rape was not mentioned and he was being brought mostly in the context that she’s disappointed he didn’t rescue her from it) and Kerwin’s case was not mentioned. So 1 out of the 4 instances of male rape (I don’t include number 5 because she missed it so obviously she can’t discuss it), the only one rather not harmful, was addressed in a short paragraph in a rather playful tone* and the other 3 were not addressed at all. I think it makes “either elaborate or (depending on the case) mention anything” something I can say.
* something makes me wonder if the tone would be the same if a male character blackmailed his girlfriend into losing her virginity to him earlier than she wanted to? Maybe that’s the case that Jon is a POV here, so we see he’s not upset about that, but for some reason I think even with the female POV in the same situation the reaction would be a a bit different…
There have been other mentions of male rape throughout the series.
Lyn Corbray’s preference for small boys is an example, mentioned as far back as A Game of Thrones. And now Littlefinger will supply him forever with what he wishes.
One of the Brave Companions was Septon Utt (mentioned in A Clash of Kings). He molested little boys, and for that he was hanged by the Brotherhood without Banners.
Also, Illyrio offered a boy to Tyrion in the beginning of ADwD.
When did Lysa rape Littlefinger? I know that she was pretty insistent about the wedding, but he was planning to wed her anyway and seemed to be a willing participant in the bedding and subsequent wedding night.
I don’t have the books to hand at the moment, so I may be missing something.
@50, When he was all beat up after his duel with Brandon Stark, Lysa pretended to be Catelyn. Consent through coercion is rape.
@45 I’m not saying that GRRM should be aiming to hit a 1:1 ratio, but it’s certainly far more one-sided then it is in real life. “Believable” is a very relative term here. I suggest reading the article “The Rape of Men: The Darkest Secret of War”. I have serious doubts that Westeros would actually improve upon the real world in this regard.
I’m not convinced about the Lysa/Littlefinger incident because it seemed to me that he knew who she was… I felt it played more like he was settling for the closest thing he could get to Catelyn.
As for the other moments, yes I agree that male rape is present in the books but it is not present in “believable” amounts- unless your belief is that men are raped far less than women even in wartime or all-male institutions e.g. the Wall- and where it is present it is mostly hidden between the lines. Yes I would agree that the Ramsay/Jeyen/Theon incident was rape, but we have been in Theon’s head for how long and it’s not until a woman is present that the details of sexual assault ratchet up dramatically and unambiguously. Kerwin’s gang rape gets how many lines and details as compared to Mirri Maz Duur or the woman in the story that Arya overhears? It’s very clear that in terms of obviousness and detail, the rape of women gets more attention in ASOIAF.
I’m not saying “I WANT MORE MALE RAPE NAO”. I just want to point out that this there is, intentionally or unintentionally, a discrepancy in how GRRM treats and describes rape between his male and female characters that is not realistic.
@48, 49
If we are counting side mentions of rape it’s still heavily (even more heavily) weighing in on the female side. Also, is there some reason why GRRM subscribes to the “priests like little boys” stereotype? It just seemed too on-the-nose.
@52 – I read the Lysa/Littlefinger incident after the duel the same way you did. He intentionally settled for faux-Cat and let the wrong name slip out. Same as Robert did on his wedding night with Cersei.
Littlefinger tells Sansa that her mother (Catelyn) gave him a present a woman can give only to one man, meaning, IMO, her maidenhead. But from what we have seem from Cat’s POV, she never slpet with LF. LF either doesn’t know that the woman he slept with that night was Lysa or he lied to Sansa at that time. My impression was that it was the first case.
@54 – That’s certainly a legit reading. Given that Littlefinger’s lips were moving, I figured he was lying.
@52 I think you’re mistaking “what is true in the depicted world” and “what is depicted in the novel”. There is a very specific reason why in our world (also in the wartime) male rape seems much less common than it truly is – that reason is that in most cases the rapist is not going to boast about that and quite likely even mention it.
And that’s exactly the case of the examples you’ve brought – you compare the male rape cases with the story Arya overheard. The answer is: if such a story happened to a man (and surely some more or less similar stories have happened), Arya would have never overheard it. Because what she overhears is the soldiers boasting about that rape, telling stories. For all we know they may’ve done something similar to a male, but in almost all cases they wouldn’t tell their random colleagues the stories about that. It is wrong if you read that scene and (comparing with the other scenes) you assume this tells you anything about “how likely it is to get raped in the war-torn Riverlands as male and female”, it tells you only “how likely it is to overhear someone boasting about raping a male and a female”.
And the same goes for your second example, Mirri. I’m sure some Dothraki like to rape boys, but many of them probably simply wait till these boys are their slaves instead of doing it on full display like with Mirri. Of course, it’s certainly possible the Dothraki have an other view on these matters, but I don’t recall anything in the text that would’ve suggested it.
So that’s the case: you claim the story is unrealistic and to make this point you take the instances of female and male rape (which are, obviously, rarely from the POV of victim, we don’t have that many POVs ;) – in majority of cases they are seen by a different person or only heard about) and compare it with the actual truth about rape like depicted in the article (yes, good article that was, thanks). It is immensely wrong – compare the perceived amount of male/female rape in the story with the perceived amount of male/female rape in the real world. None of these characters is writing an article for which they have to examine the real rape cases, what you see is only what they see, i.e. you see what the perceived amount of rape is in this world. And if the world is “realistic” in this regard you should encounter the similar ratio of the two cases in the novel as the perception of them is in the real world (better “real world of 15th century”) for someone not having the advantage of having the true data. I think that’s exactly the ratio we see in the series.
[side notes: Lysa: I also read it like @54, as much a liar as Littlefinger is I would find it very out of character if he boasted about bedding both Tully sisters if he knew the truth. He is as much not about having others envy his advantages as anyone can be.
Theon: I don’t think you can assume there were no sexual assaults on Theon, only when he isn’t a POV. When he is a POV the attack is focused on Jeyne and Theon is only a pawn, so no wonder it’s Jeyne’s who “triggers” the scene.
Priests: I have also been wondering why GRRM puts so much of “priests like little boys” stereotype, it didn’t really seem justified by its uses in the story. ]
The Wall should be endemic with male rape. It’s not only a prison like setting, where male rape is most common, it’s a military setting, which is where it is second most common.
@56 – All good points. It certainly seems that GRRM has his biases/tunnel vision when it comes to this topic that causes him to focus on abuse by priests and male-on-female assaults. I suppose that Lyn Corbray is the exception that proves the rule.
@57 – Interesting isn’t it, that the only explicitly recounted rape at the Wall was of a girl who pretended to be male to take the black.
@52 I am initially inclined to agree with you but ultimately I feel that argument doesn’t hold water. Yes, the story does not go into POVs that explore male rape… because GRRM chooses not to. The author writes the narrative and explores the theme, not the reverse (even if authors talk about the characters driving the story, they are not actual autonomous beings guiding the pen). GRRM is choosing not to show male rape POVs or POVs that are a witness to it. And if he was trying to deliberately depict how male rape is swept under the rug, do you think he’d do that by… sweeping it under the rug? Female rape comes up time and time again because such actions drive many of the women’s character decisions and plot points. Could there really not be a single male character in the story who is in the same situation? Or perhaps a male character who witnesses such an event and feels sickened etc. I mean, why should we only talk about Theon? Samwell’s story and POV are near perfect situations for it. I remember thinking it was all but assured his “hazing” trials would include something along those lines. What’s to stop Jon from witnessing Sam being raped and either stepping in or turning away (either of which would be ripe for dramatic situations and turnarounds). Yet, rape in this novel still remains a thing to drive women’s motivations and behaviors, not men’s.
This isn’t an area I can really claim any type of expertise/research in (in fact, I can’t say I was aware of any disparity in the way male/female rape is discussed as related to real life until somebody brought up) but at least in terms of Leigh’s reaction – in the WoT reread she does spend a considerable amount of time discussing the Tywin/Mat relationship (which IS held by many to be a case of male rape, despite it being mostly played for laughs).
Aerona@31 – very astute summation. Although I don’t know that rape is really ever about unrestrained romantic desire (although I can believe that a person will TELL themselves that it is, but ultimately they feel so entitled to who they desire, so it still goes back to the power/control/not valuing another person’s agency).
As for other male characters…in truth, I’ve often felt Tyrion was raped when he was forced to finish off Tysha’s assualt. I know there is some debate there, as to whether it makes him a rapist or not, and how much responsibility he should have had to stop it or say no to his father (and I don’t really have an answer to that) but…I think in at least some way he was victimized (even if it wasn’t anywhere near as much as Tysha)
Yeah the POV thing is just because, let’s face it, Victarion doesn’t know what is going on, he’s so high on magic powder or whatever. That paragraph might well be his surmise of what it would have seemed like to the crew. Plus he probably had emotions, and loss of control during that time, that a guy like Victarion wouldn’t want to dwell on.