Game of Thrones has caused quite a bit of controversy this season, with some particularly brutal scenes of violence against women. Not that shocking scenes of women being raped and murdered is new for the show: its been this way since season one.
However, there does seem to be a sense that some fans are simply saying "enough is enough." After all, watching characters fans have grown up with being treated in such terrible ways isn't exactly fun.
Author George R. R. Martin, the creator of the book series upon which HBO's Game of Thrones is based, is usually quiet about these types of things but is now speaking up to address those who are offended by how his fantasy world treats its women. Speaking with EW, Martin offers an explanation he has given multiple times before in various forms.
"The books reflect a patriarchal society based on the Middle Ages," Martin tells the site. "The Middle Ages were not a time of sexual egalitarianism. It was very classist, dividing people into three classes. And they had strong ideas about the roles of women. One of the charges against Joan of Arc that got her burned at the stake was that she wore men's clothing — that was not a small thing. There were, of course, some strong and competent women. It still doesn't change the nature of the society."
Martin pulls much of his inspiration from actual historical events for his fantasy series. In that way, the roles of women in Westeros and the world at large in Martin's fantasy universe make sense. Some fans take issue with the "fantasy" portion, however. If it is fantasy, they say, filled with dragons and magic and monsters, why is it so difficult to imagine a society where women aren't mistreated? Martin has an answer for that, too.
"Just because you put in dragons doesn't mean you can put in anything you want," he says. "If pigs could fly, then that's your book. But that doesn't mean you also want people walking on their hands instead of their feet. If you're going to do [a fantasy element], it's best to only do one of them, or a few. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the ‘Disneyland Middle Ages' — there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn't want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned."
In regards to rape and sexual violence specifically, Martin says he would be dishonest if he were to omit such heinous acts from his work.
"I'm writing about war, which [is] what almost all epic fantasy is about," Martin says. "But if you're going to write about war, and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don't portray [sexual violence], then there's something fundamentally dishonest about that. Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It's not a strong testament to the human race, but I don't think we should pretend it doesn't exist."
Don't expect terrible things to stop happening anytime soon. Whether it is surviving a White Walker invasion from the North or the very real horrors of sexual violence, Martin's world is definitely one we don't want to live in ... but we wouldn't have it any other way.
Be sure to follow T-Lounge on Twitter and visit our Facebook page.
