REVIEW: A Dance With Dragons

[pinkpolarity]

Haven't posted anywhere in a million years, hopefully this will change.

Warning: Some of this is spoilery.

I like GRRM for his systematic demolishing of fantasy tropes that really, when you think about it (if you think about it) don't make a lot of sense. This remains, IMO, this book's best strength.

Comments

[pinkpolarity]

Thank you!

Melisandre was such a delightful surprise, and like Jaime, she was high on my "impossible to redeem" list. What I really wonder is who Azor Ahai Reborn is going to be, because it certainly isn't Stannis. (And it had better damn well be someone, too much ink for a red herring!) I was struck by the the way she described the Other (R'hllor's opposite number), because the description sounded a lot like the way Bran's mentor's greenseat is described. I'm not good at theories, but it had me curious.

What I meant by the lampshading is that now characters are commenting on the misogyny of the world in-text in a way they, to what I can recall, really hadn't before. I know when I read the other books I was wondering what GRRM himself thought about all of this-- the whole yes, it's *somewhat* realistic, but it's still a fantasy world and not historical fiction. He chose to make his world this way, what does that mean? (Because as much as I'd love to give an author the benefit of the doubt, how many instances have there been of skeevy things in SFF where the author not only wasn't writing an intentional subversion, but outright approved of the skeeviness?) I also think historical or history-inspired novels have a line to walk about *isms-- too much in-universe awareness of it and it's anachronistic (like the ubiquitous Regency-set novel with a heroine who spouts perfect 21st century morality), too little and you start wondering if the author intends to glorify it.

But here there were a bunch of in-universe comments about it. The washerwomen Wildlings who infiltrated Winterfell saying something like "how could it be *us*? We're women, nothing but teats and cunny"; and Asha Greyjoy's comment about the knight who kept calling her "cunt", something like "there's that word again. They go right for that to insult you, yet it's the only part of a woman they value". Even Cersei's "walk of shame" felt like GRRM taking some of the most awful misogynistic fanboy fantasies of how to punish Cersei and rubbing their nose in the shit of it. Cersei's thoughts of how her grandfather's mistress "handled it wrong" and how she was going to be the better woman, only to end the same way-- because misogyny harms women, strong women, weak women, proud women, all women. And in the same chapter, Cersei noticing how many times "whore" was yelled at her by another woman, for a good in-text bit on how misogyny turns women against women. It was made pretty clear in the text that this aspect of Westeros is an evil thing, and that both author and (at least some) characters realize it.

I think overall there was a lot of lampshade-hanging about a lot of things wrong with Westeros in this book. The scene with Jaime and his band seeking shelter in that village where the villagers refused to come out of hiding was another example, lampshading the treatment of smallfolk by the various claimants of the title of "king". Hell, I couldn't help but think of the invasion of Iraq with the entire Meereen mess, and the subversion of the "all you need is a honky" trope. She thought she was doing good and thought "doing good" by invasion and conquest a simple thing, only to find ruling much harder than conquering, especially of a people you don't understand and who don't really want you there.