Game of Thrones: Ready, Willing, and Ableism

Kristin Devine

Kristin has humbly retired as Ordinary Times' friendly neighborhood political whipping girl to focus on culture and gender issues. She lives in a wildlife refuge in rural Washington state with too many children and way too many animals. There's also a blog which most people would very much disapprove of https://atomicfeminist.com/

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6 Responses

  1. One of the firs guest posts I wrote for OG (OT at the time) was about the Spanish Habsburgs.Report

  2. InMD says:

    Good post Kristin. One of my favorite series is The Warlord Chronicles. A major part of the actual realism is the way the piece handles a world of hare-lips, goiters, disfigurements, lost teeth and untreated mental illness that were a regular part of the world in the 5th century. Rather than something shocking it’s treated by the characters as an at times unfortunate but unsurprising, typical part of the landscape.Report

  3. North says:

    I would like to hoist the ragged R.R. Martin banner and ride out to mount a very mild defense of George regarding the Willas Tyrell matter.

    It is true that Martin does write about Willas Tyrell in an extremely denigrating matter that describes him as nearly subhuman. It is important, however, to keep in mind that all of the books are written from character points of view and when Martin writes this way about Willas Tyrell these sentiments are coming from the mind and mouth of one Cersei Lannister. When Willas Tyrell is written about from other points of view, that of his family or that of our girl Sansa Stark, he’s described very favorably. The Tyrells speak of Willas as kind, creative and thoughtful and Sansa views the prospect of marrying him not as a horror but as a desperately hoped for balm.

    Book Cersei, unlike TV show Cersei, is portrayed a -lot- less sympathetically and as a -LOT- less clever than TV show Cersei. Her view of Willas is just of a type with her general elitist and dimly stupid view of most of the world. I would submit that Martin uses Cersei’s attitude of Willas not to cast Willas Tyrell in a bad light but to cast Cersei Lannister in a bad light for having that attitude towards him. It also bears noting that when Cersei says the vile things she does about Willas it’s as part of her ongoing campaign to not be married off again at her Fathers’ orders- so she’s not exactly trying to be charitable to Willas at this point either.

    Setting aside what is, really, just a quibble I quite enjoyed the article- well done.Report

  4. blake says:

    Damn, good stuff, atomick! As in damn, good and damn good.

    It’s one of my pet peeves, but I never noticed it here. (Granted, I bailed on GOT in season 4.) We’re literally swimming in these bizarre notions that we’re the most tolerant people of all time, while we’re also incarnations of Shallow Hal.

    My only defense of the writers in this case might be that Dinklage is himself so awesome, they probably wanted to ride that charisma. It’s cheap but I imagine fairly irresistible.

    I remember when I saw “Station Agent” back in 2003, I thought, “Damn, this guy’s so good, it’s a shame we’ll never see him again.” So glad to be wrong about that!Report