(no subject)
Some or many of you may have noticed the revival of the cultural appreciation debate following a post at Elizabeth Bear's Lj. It strikes me that the points of relevance to ASOIAF are several.
Gender
I have stated on several occasions that I believe Catelyn Stark to be the best-realized woman in any SFF book written by a man, and my opinion has not changed. I don't want to reiterate my post on ASOIAF gender issues from late 2007 so won't dwell on this. However - lack of female gaze; lack of useful female agency outwith what one would expect in the setting (not all woman regents were semi-psychotic, thank you, Lysa); some distinct problems about female sexuality; presence of more women than would seem "necessary" whose only function is to suffer due to their sexual agency...
Race
The Summer Islanders are for the most part exoticised and sexualised; the Dothraki are for the most part cardboard cut-outs; the people from the Free Cities and the Ghiscari area are barely more so. Practically all the non-white characters feel like less work was put into them than into white characters of comparable plot significance. Maybe this will change in ADWD with more story set in the East, or in TWOW when we return to Sarella; speculating seems pointless.
Sexuality
OK, hands up who noticed Renly/Loras on first read? Count one slashgirl of long standing here who didn't. Dany and Cersei's experimentation with lesbianism seems, thus far, to be nothing more than titillation aimed at male readers masked in the latter case behind character degeneration, rather than a genuine attempt to portray non-hetero female sexuality. By far the best stab at a departure from heteronormativity in ASOIAF comes in the form of Oberyn Martell, whose page-time is sadly limited.
Normally speaking I'd make grandiose pronouncements on the lack of culturally aware white writers and writers of colour, particularly female writers of colour: ignoring the argument that the aforementioned may compete rather than complement each other, in this case we're still dealing with a discrete series, one of which we're all quite fond, warts and all. How much does ASOIAF suffer, as a whole, from its white-straight-male default setting? It strikes me that it does so not more than most fantasy, less than some. But as misstopia and scriva were saying earlier, ASOIAF isn't as groundbreaking as it looks, partly because it doesn't address these issues, partly because a segment of the fanbase addresses them even less than the text.
Gender
I have stated on several occasions that I believe Catelyn Stark to be the best-realized woman in any SFF book written by a man, and my opinion has not changed. I don't want to reiterate my post on ASOIAF gender issues from late 2007 so won't dwell on this. However - lack of female gaze; lack of useful female agency outwith what one would expect in the setting (not all woman regents were semi-psychotic, thank you, Lysa); some distinct problems about female sexuality; presence of more women than would seem "necessary" whose only function is to suffer due to their sexual agency...
Race
The Summer Islanders are for the most part exoticised and sexualised; the Dothraki are for the most part cardboard cut-outs; the people from the Free Cities and the Ghiscari area are barely more so. Practically all the non-white characters feel like less work was put into them than into white characters of comparable plot significance. Maybe this will change in ADWD with more story set in the East, or in TWOW when we return to Sarella; speculating seems pointless.
Sexuality
OK, hands up who noticed Renly/Loras on first read? Count one slashgirl of long standing here who didn't. Dany and Cersei's experimentation with lesbianism seems, thus far, to be nothing more than titillation aimed at male readers masked in the latter case behind character degeneration, rather than a genuine attempt to portray non-hetero female sexuality. By far the best stab at a departure from heteronormativity in ASOIAF comes in the form of Oberyn Martell, whose page-time is sadly limited.
Normally speaking I'd make grandiose pronouncements on the lack of culturally aware white writers and writers of colour, particularly female writers of colour: ignoring the argument that the aforementioned may compete rather than complement each other, in this case we're still dealing with a discrete series, one of which we're all quite fond, warts and all. How much does ASOIAF suffer, as a whole, from its white-straight-male default setting? It strikes me that it does so not more than most fantasy, less than some. But as misstopia and scriva were saying earlier, ASOIAF isn't as groundbreaking as it looks, partly because it doesn't address these issues, partly because a segment of the fanbase addresses them even less than the text.