(no subject)

[chocolatepot]

I hate it when you find an excellent post defending Sansa and then read the comments and there are dozens of people protesting that she really is the worst character in the books. And TBH I'll give them the benefit of the doubt when they say they don't hate her for being feminine, it's because she lied etc. ... but I can't help but think that if she were a young boy or a young tomboy like Arya and made the same pretty small mistakes (compared to, say, Ned's) they'd have a lot more sympathy and perspective. Esp. when it's hashed out in the comments that her naïveté is part of her traditional femininity, so people start saying they don't hate her for being naive but for "trusting the wrong people" and so on.

Ladylike manners are not looked down by the readers, like Catelyn Stark, she is truly a lady and when she needs to be she can also lead and make decisions. So your point is irrelevant.

Lol yes, nobody hates Catelyn so that's totally invalid.

oh my god there's one commenter called "critical thought" that manages to miss the fact that that article, called "In Defense of Sansa Stark" is actually in defense of Sansa Stark

Comments

[lliira]

So last night I was watching the last sfdebris.com video (this connects eventually). He hates Janeway a lot, because Janeway... well, she's written as a tyrant who does completely off-the-wall things, and we're supposed to love her and think her bad decisions are good ones. However, he liked this particular episode. And I really liked what he said at the end: he defended Janeway for falling in love and getting her heart broken, which is the kind of thing female characters get lambasted for on the internet all the time. Like, it's okay for a female character to make mistakes that are traditionally masculine ones, like punching people whom they shouldn't punch, but not okay to make mistakes that are traditionally feminine ones, like being indecisive or getting their hearts broken.

It's just the same old song, dressed up slightly differently. Male characters are allowed to be human; female characters aren't.

[chocolatepot]

Yes, pretty much. I mean, what I think is most notable about the Song of Ice and Fire series is that just about every single character causes bad things to happen, either accidentally/incidentally or on purpose. The make-mistakes crowd is pretty much all seen as tragic and human, because they've made understandable or sympathetic bad choices ... except for a couple. Who happen to be girls/women. Because somehow when they make mistakes, it's emblematic of irredeemable character flaws, and no amount of suffering can save them from disdain.