AFFC #3: Writing and Women that Waste My Time
Okay, a short compliment, which is about the only compliment I can muster these days when it comes to "that guy." You know, I have on occasion been known to remark that there are parts of AFFC that demonstrate some of the best writing GRRM has ever done. Yes, I’m serious. For example, the first couple pages of Cat of the Canals are great; they flow nicely, they give you only necessary information, and they keep the story moving forward.
Unfortunately, these brief glimpses of actual quality are overshadowed by pages and pages of mind-rotting effluvia. For instance, the fight between Brienne and Shagwell helps to demonstrate one of the many instances in which George cannot simply get to the point. We get writing like this (a quick paraphrase taken from the audiobook...forgive me if it isn't verbatim) in Brienne's fight with Shagwell:
Her sword was alive in her hands. The blade was a blur. She had never been so fast.
We get it. She’s fast. You know why we get it? Each of these three sentences says the exact same thing. And this is what I mean when I’m talking about moving things forward. Don’t use three sentences where one will do. In fact, I would argue that in a case like this, using three sentences to tell me how fast someone is with a sword actually makes them seem slower. Pick one, then have the dude’s head come off, and that will show me how fast she is. Syntax, George. It’s all about diction and syntax. Read some Raymond Carver and learn a thing or two.
Speaking of Brienne, I want to talk a little bit about the ladies of ASOIAF, because a thought has been twirling about my meth-addled brain for quite some time. No, it’s not a threesome between me, Arianne Martell, and Melisandre. (It would be a little creepy at times, and I am sure I would have night terrors for the rest of my life, but it would be totally worth it. You know this.) Nor is it a relative ranking of all the women of ASOIAF according to breast size (Mirri Maaz-Duur, you are the winner!). Rather, I would like to talk about the stock tomboy character, or characters, if you will.
I would argue that we have three major tomboy characters in ASOIAF: Arya Stark, Brienne of Tarth, and Asha Greyjoy. Maybe Cersei, if you want to look at her in that way, but I would disagree. More on her later. We get inside the head of Arya fairly regularly, for obvious reasons. Arya gives us a unique viewpoint since she is young and has a lot to learn, so skills and experiences are new to her. And of course, her being one of the Stark clan, we can hopefully assume (although assumptions are dangerous things to do with ASOIAF these days) that her plotline is at least somewhat important. (The jury is still out on some of those kids. Bran, Rickon, I'm looking at you, bitches.) We get inside Brienne’s head for a bit, and Asha’s less so. However, after going through AFFC for hopefully the last time, I’m pretty convinced that Brienne and Asha Greyjoy are, for all intents and purposes, the same character.
I know, I know, Asha is much cooler than Brienne. Or at least somewhat hotter. And of course, they both come from different parts of Westeros, different families, etc., etc., etc. But from what I can tell, GRRM basically created one character and put her in two different environments, one of which is moderately supportive, the other of which is…not so much. But Brienne is a woman who does un-womanly things in a man’s world. She is big, awkward, and fugly. She kicks dude’s asses, so a handful of them respect her, but only begrudgingly.
Then there’s Asha. She is a woman who does un-womanly things in a man’s world. However, we are led to believe that she is sort of hot - at least enough to get Theon’s blood going - so the men let her take charge a little bit more easily than the men around Brienne do. She kicks dude’s asses, but with a ship instead of a sword. However, when it comes to taking the lead, men reject her all the same.
So really, women who can fight, can’t get no respect. Rodney, the ladies of Westeros feel your pain.
Then there’s the emotional strength of these characters, and when put side by side, they are pretty much foils for one another, albeit stereotyped ones. Brienne gets weepy all the time, just like the awkward fat girl who sat next to you in Chemistry, because no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t lose the weight. Brienne’s counterpart, of course, is Asha, who is boastful and sassy and emotionally wicked. In fact, Asha is, in a lot of ways, one of the very few emotionally strong women in the book. Of course, this emotional strength is pretty much only manifested in her quick tongue and ability to sass the boys, much like Cersei…and Arianne Martell…and the Queen of Thorns…and that chick whose name I forget who shows up at the Vale to petition Petyr with the other lords...and almost every other female character who appears strong on the surface. Then, of course, we get them out of the public eye, into a one on one conversation, and they reveal all their wimpy womanly desires and needs and fears. Cersei does it every time we get in her head (If I were a man they wouldn’t talk to me that way! They wouldn't make me stay home if I were a man! If I had a cock, then they would serve me Jell-O before Jaime!), and Asha does it when she has to beg Victarion for his support in the kingsmoot.
It seems like the only way for a woman to look strong and stay strong is to keep the readers out of her head and/or her private life, because if we get privy to those thoughts, it turns out they need men just as badly as all the other stereotyped women in these sorts of books do. Daenerys is strong at this point in the series; unfortunately, she only got that way after the man she was mooning over, and the son she was relying on, both went to the great horsey meadow in the sky, where they will jingle their hair-bells and bang angelic virgins in the Dothraki fashion for eternity. As much as I find Daenerys annoying, I will give the character this much credit: she maintains power without always relying on sex to manipulate men, which is more than can be said for most of the other women in the book under the age of 50.
And don’t get me started on Catelyn. Seriously, she should go die. Again.
On a side note, what the fuck is up with the kingsmoot? I’m getting lessons in election processes now? Fucking kill me.
So we have two women, both trained in the arts of war, both struggling to prove themselves, and both ultimately failing at that task. We could add Cersei in there, if we wanted to consider her political machinations (or attempted machinations) as nonviolent versions of the battles that these two women endure. I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe I’m not going anywhere. All I’m saying is, it seems to me that one of these characters is unnecessary, if they are both going to serve the same (useless) function.
Oh wait that’s right, I forgot one more point - both Asha and Brienne have plotlines that seem, at this point, at least, to be completely pointless.