“Khaleesi,” whispered Irri, “you must not touch the dead man. It is bad luck to touch the dead.”
“Unless you have killed them yourself.” Jhiqui was bigger-boned than Irri, with wide hips and heavy breasts. “It is known.”This is the one thing I cannot fucking stand in asoiaf. I will never praise GRRM’s writing simply for how he treats the female characters so sexually. THERE IS NO REASON FOR HIM TO DESCRIBE JHIQUI OR HER BREASTS. THIS IS THE FIFTH BOOK! SHE IS IN ALL FIVE! WE KNOW WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE! WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HER BREASTS AND COMPARING HER TO IRRI WHEN NOTHING ABOUT IRRI’S APPEARANCE WAS EVER SAID?
He does this with every single female character it feels like. All of them are sexualized without needing to be. It doesn’t add to the plot or what is going on in the moment. We don’t need to know that Jhiqui has larger breasts than Irri. Not in the FIFTH FUCKING BOOK. Out of nowhere. Where it doesn’t make sense. That entire sentence is so fucking out of place.
We don’t need to know about Dany’s masturbating habits. We really don’t. She is 13/14 in these books. I do not want to read about a child masturbating. It adds nothing to the story.
Not once are ANY of the males sexualized the same way the females are. We don’t hear about how Jon Snow jerks off when he can’t fall asleep, or how Jaime must learn to wank with his left hand now. At one point Dany contemplates the way her breasts move beneath her clothes? What… the… that is so weird to me. Where is the paragraph of Davos thinking about how his leather pants feel against his balls?
Out of nowhere Cersei starts finger fucking one of her female friends, decides she doesn’t like it, BUT DOES IT MORE THAN ONCE? It added nothing to her character or the plot. So. Unnecessary. And trust me, I would love a good lesbian character in these books.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the books, as problematic as GRRM’s writing is. The female characters are all so fantastic when they aren’t being described as sexual objects. It bothers me a lot and pulls me out of the story every time this happens. Maybe if the male characters were getting the same treatment, but they’re not. It’s pointless and unfair.Kate Elliot calls this “Omniscient Breasts” and wrote a good piece about it last year. Basically, tons of male authors writing from ostensibly female POVs are still writing with a male gaze. Hell, even female authors will do it, because we tend to follow the examples of other writers.
It’s really disappointing to me in Martin’s books BECAUSE his female characters are generally so great, but it’s pretty much a textbook example of something that is really common.
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existentialcrisisfactory: amypond: “Khaleesi,” whispered Irri, “you must not touch the dead man....
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