Game of Bones and the Fraternity of the Ring

SPOILER ALERT for Game of Thrones

I was surprised when a number of women, from 20 to 50-somethings, told me they liked Game of Thrones.  Guess I had stereotyped them, thinking all the seemingly gratuitous female nudity and sex scenes (prompting one blogger, Jane Dough, to suggest renaming the show "Game of Bones"), would be a turn-off.  And I had assumed that this sword and sorcery fantasy would be far more appealing to males than females.

This may be true for the books.  According to Barna, just 3% of Americans have read one or more of the GoT novels, and males account for 2/3 of the readership.  This balance is quite different for those watching the HBO series.  15% have watched it, again according to Barna, and Wired reports that women make up 42% of viewers, and 1/2 of social media activity.

Data from the 3rd season.
From http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/06/women-game-of-thrones/

Why shouldn't this be surprising?  Writing for the Persephone Magazine, Elfity ("Shocker (Not): Women Like Game of Thrones") recognizes the patriarchy and misogyny in the stories, but says, with a tad of condescension, that

those of us with higher-level thinking skills can see it for what it is. The payoff, of course, is that we get to see amazing feminist characters like Daenerys Targaryen, Arya Stark, and Brienne of Tarth do amazing feminist things.

Arya Stark

Women can watch the show just because it's good story-telling, but they can also use the show as an occasion to talk about feminist issues, and to appreciate GoT's "nuances of gender relations."

Elizabeth Muhall at Literati.com doesn't buy this argument ("The fans doth protest too much, methinks: Is Game of Thrones Really Feminist?").  Sure, the female characters are complex, nuanced, but that on its own doesn't give the show a feminist bent.  And, she notes, "[f]or every female character demonstrating power there seems to be an accompanying weakness."  Arya's a "badass," but still has to pass herself as a boy for a time, and is a child, limiting her power. Brienne can beat up men, but joined Renly's guard because she had a massive crush on him (and, ironically, he's gay).  As for Daenerys,

Her demonstrations of power are almost always balanced out by observations about her nubile body and general boob-havingness.  Cracked writer David Wong notes how Martin, writing from Daenerys’ perspective, somehow manages to bring her breasts into the scenario...

Catelyn Stark

The HBO series does the same, though we could guess that there are women who don't mind seeing all the beautiful bodies in GoT and the steamy sex.  I think a problem here, or a question, is what do fans and critics of GoT mean when they say feminist?  Jane Dough gave higher marks on her "Feminist Leadership Board"(based on the 3rd season)  to Catelyn Stark for consulting with her son on military matters, for keeping him check, though then adds points for how well Michelle Fairley played her role (?).  She knocks Daenerys for her obvious attraction to a new military ally, Daario, and Ygritte for getting dumped by Jon Snow.

Catelyn's final (?) scene was incredible.  But it was a confirmation of her son's military plans that ends up in a horrific trap.  And what was she reduced to?  A final, awful scream, and killing Waldor Frey's wife--another error.  She thought misogynistic Lord Frey would actually care enough about her to stop the massacre? (and we could note that her mother instinct produced another huge error--letting Jaime go back to King's Landing with Brienne, without telling her son, in order to get her daughters back...).

So what's a feminist?  Smart, capable mothers?  Women who don't fall for beautiful men who are likely to betray them?  But for others the feminist point in GoT, particularly the HBO series, is that women can play the "game of thrones" just as well as men , and other examples of women doing what is usually reserved for men--mainly warrior stuff (see, for example, Kate Arthur's "9 Ways 'Game of Thrones' Is Actually Feminist" who adds that the HBO version gets points for having far fewer rapes than the novels--high praise...).

Brienne of Tarth

So GoT is feminist because women can be as politically devious and deadly at arms as men?  I don't know.  I'm thinking that rather than mine GoT for feminist gems--especially when there's confusion about those gems look like--we can appreciate the show for provoking a useful discussion of gender roles (as Elfity suggests)--though there's been far more talk of women than men.  There's not been much gender-bending among male characters, except for perhaps the short-lived King Renly and his boyfriend, Loras Tyrell--one of the best fighters in Westoros (though Brienne defeats him).  Robb Stark perhaps is another.  He appreciates the strong women around, like his mother, Catelyn, and his wife, Talisa Maeger.  Maybe Sam Tarney's another--but he's an old trope, the ungainly coward who proves himself by living off his wits rather than non-existent brawn.  Tyrion might be another, but he's actually just channeling the fantasy of geeks everywhere (including, I suspect, George R.R. Martin) that unlovely boys who grow up suffering pranks, name-calling, and worse, turn out to get the beautiful women, out-smart everyone, and even save the city.

There are far more prominent female characters in GoT than LOTR of course, but the latter has far less objectification of and violence against women.  There are few memorable women, though, such as Éowyn, the warrior niece of the king of Rohan, and Galadriel, one of the most powerful elves in Middle Earth and leader of the Galadrim along with her mate, Celeborn.  For Cath Eliot

"...Éowyn is up there with all the best kick-ass feminist heroes.  She's brave, she's rebellious, and most importantly of all, she's gender non-conformist. In fact, it's her refusal to bow to patriarchal conditioning and accept her designated gender role that ultimately saves the day."

Éowyn Takes on the Lord of the Nazgul
By Craig J. Spearing

Well, this is true to a point.  She does kill the Nazgul king, but she gets into that battle by disguising herself as a man (which Tolkien needs as set-up for the surprise).  And how does Tolkien end her part of the story?  She gives up the sword and shield, and her huge crush on the unattainable Aragorn, and marries herself off to Faramir.  Pretty conventional.

Galadriel is a remarkable character, but except for the time the Fellowship hangs out in Lothlorien, she just doesn't get to make many appearances.  LOTR is a thoroughly "man's world, woman's place" universe, to use Elizabeth Janeway's phrase.  Overwhelmingly, men are the politicians, the business owners, the intellectuals, the artists, the workers, the killers (except for Shelob, a female spider--there's gender equality for you!).  And there are a lot of absent females--the Ents lost their Entwives, and who in the world is reproducing the dwarves, or the constantly "multiplying orcs?"

Peter Jackson seemed to flirt with the idea of making Aragorn's love interest, the elven Arwen, a notable female character.  The screenwriters put in her place of a male, Glorfindel, and we get one of the best scenes in the movie, her flight to the ford of Bruinen with Frodo, where she takes on all nine of the Nazgul.  But over the next two movies, she's turned into a simpering, sad woman who has a difficult time standing up to dad (though she's an adult several times over), and who can only envision her life married to Aragorn and having his baby.  Again, pretty conventional.

But male characters in LOTR, mainly the hobbits, whom Tolkien clearly loves, show us something that GoT does not do with its men (except for maybe, just maybe, the Stark men)--the ability to show affection toward one another, to weep, to do stereotypically unmanly things without worrying about losing their manliness.  Jackson doesn't mess with that in his version of LOTR.