If there’s anything A Song of Ice and Fire (and Game of Thrones) have, it’s a lot of
characters. Enough to justify 25+ page appendices at the end of each book, and
infographics across the internet for show-viewers.
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| I wonder if GRRM has a wall of his house devoted to keeping track of this stuff. |
Thus, both series include a
range of female characters (though the narrative treatment of the women
arguably doesn’t vary that much), fitting many roles familiar to us as so-called
‘strong female characters’ (I’m setting the critiques of that idea and those
portrayals aside for the sake of this post).
Among the women in the series
are many fan favorites and favorites-to-hate, like Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei
Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, and Arya Stark. Daenerys and Cersei mirror one
another in their use of marriage and childbearing to claim power in their own
right—Daenerys as khaleesi of what
will become her own (small) khalasar,
and Cersei becoming Queen Regent over Joffrey, followed by Tommen. Brienne and
Arya take the opposing route: rather than using their femininity to work around
men, they forego it instead, dressing masculinely and learning skills only
taught to men (fighting, swordplay, survival skills, etc.)
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| Game of Thrones, more like Game of "Who's that again?" |
These are all larger-than-life women
(and girls) who openly defy their societies in ways we recognize and love
today, because the ways they claim agency are familiar tropes to modern audiences.
They remind us of the Katniss Everdeens, Hermione Graingers, and Blue Sergeants
of the modern book-to-movie machine. Because of the Westerosi and Dothraki societies
they inhabit, they may not hold power in the way a man could, but they do hold agency over themselves in ways
many of their fellow female characters cannot.
But, despite these characters’
popularity and their compelling narratives, the texts we’ve read so far—Chaucer’s
The Man of Law’s Tale and the Encomium Emmae Reginae—don’t lead me to
believe that these larger-than-life, openly defiant, openly powerful women were
common in the actual medieval era. Instead, I think the characters audiences
tend to overlook are the more realistic representations of female power in a
medieval patriarchal structure. Particularly Catelyn and Sansa Stark.
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| Hard to believe there was a time when things didn't suck for the Starks. |
In a 2012 interview, George R.
R. Martin was asked why he kept coming back to ASOIAF. His response was—shockingly—long-winded, but within it, he
discussed Sansa, saying,
“So many of the people dislike her because they are just like her—they cannot understand characters who do not fit into predetermined roles. Women in fantasy are allowed to be strong in only a few ways—evil seductress, tomboy lady knight, etc.—and it frustrates so many readers that Sansa develops her strength not by rejecting her courtesy or her traditional femininity, but my making those things into armor… Once Sansa’s [personal narrative] has been torn down, has been eradicated completely, her only narrative, if you can call it that, is a will to survive. By the end of A Feast for Crows, she’s seeing her world more clearly than almost anyone else, even if she’s basically powerless to do anything about it.”
Now, I wouldn’t say that she’s
powerless, as both Emma and Custance
were not completely powerless. I argue instead that their defiance can only
work within the power structures in which they live. For example, Emma’s
contract with Cnut, giving their songs inheritance of his English throne before
his elder sons is similar to Catelyn’s working as negotiator for Robb (in his
capacity as King of the North) to Renly Baratheon and the Freys. Custance and
Sansa also follow similar paths, namely, being sent to marry men without regard
to their own will. And they each go through with it as part of their duty, as
made evident when Custance (sorrowfully) prepares herself to leave Rome (lines
264-271), and when Sansa is forced into marrying Tyrion. They then both manage
to defy the systems in their own ways, without wild disobedience, but rather
spirituality and courtesy—Custance remains a Christian, and Sansa refuses to
kneel for Tyrion Lannister at their wedding.
Basically, in these kinds of
distinctly patriarchal systems, women are bargaining chips, and from a woman’s position
in their society, even a royal position, little could be done to change it. And
while I, like many others, enjoy the narratives of women who openly defy that
positioning, characters like Cersei and Brienne remind me of a quote from
American Gangster: “the loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room.”
Because, by claiming their own power through defiance, they make one major
mistake: they make noise. And in a world where women are kept quiet, making
noise makes them fast targets. On the other hand, those who defy quietly,
cleverly, and with courtesy—characters like Emma and Sansa—retain more freedom
than their louder counterparts.
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| Until they become vengeance-seeking Zombies, anyway. |
Your post was very interesting to look into the ways we project our modern ideals on these medieval women characters. I do think it is true that we inherently think that a female character like Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, or Ayra Stark are stronger or more powerful because they are rebellious and defiant. But this line of thinking goes along with the idea that stereotypically feminine qualities are somehow less than masculine qualities. Sansa Stark and Catelyn Stark fulfill more traditional roles but use these roles to keep themselves alive, the same way the other female characters are using their freewill and defiance to stay alive.
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