Musing before A Dance with Dragons

[breakinglight11]

 

I bought A Dance with Dragons for Kindle on my iPad the day it came out. I haven't had time to read much of it, but I'm very much looking forward to it. I confess I'm a little apprehensive, as most of the characters I've thus far liked less or been less interested in (Jon Snow, Arya, Daenerys) are this book's POV characters. Jon feels too cliche to me, Arya's been on a downward spiral into becoming a murder-machine non-person, and Daenerys I started liking in the first book but after that was annoyed by. At least Tyrion, my favorite character, comes back. Read no further if you want to avoid spoilers.

A quick aside on Daenerys, since she's everybody's favorite except mine. (Oh, how often it turns out that way.) I thought she started out really cool in A Game of Thrones. I liked her arc of being thrown into this totally alien world of the Dothraki but ends up finding her place in it and growing. But she is jam-packed with Mary Sue qualities and by the next book they started to get to me. She's young and gorgeous, of course with silver hair and purple eyes, and despite having no education in any kind of leadership or statecraft she is spontaneously able to lead and inspire and wage a war with a reasonable degree of progress. I also dislike that she has never once stopped to examine the notion that she takes for granted, that of course she should storm into Westeros and and take over its rule. Um... why must you do this? What do you expect to make better? Yeah, it sucks that the ruling family you came from was murdered, but your granddad the king was a MADMAN and a TERRIBLE RULER, and to a certain extent kind of brought his death on himself. You also know nothing about ruling (except what you magically develop because you're a Mary Sue.) Besides a slavish devotion to the idea of birthright, a notion my modern, meritocratic mind resists, why should thousands of people die and all those nations be plunged into war to put a pretty crown atop your uniquely-colored locks? She has no answer, because she's never bothered to think about it. Bugs me.

Anyway. It also gets me thinking about my personal pet issues that the series put into my mind. Shortly after I first started reading the idea occurred to me that Lyanna and Rhaegar might be Jon Snow's true parents, a theory that apparently many fans have had independently of each other. I have become quite attached to the idea, as I've never quite bought into the notion that siring a bastard would be in Ned Stark's character. But if this is in fact true, then it makes me very angry with Ned. I've gone off on this to some friends before. I imagine what he did would have been to promise Lyanna that he would never tell anyone the baby's true parentage, which because he's Ned he held to the letter. But him not telling Catelyn really burns me. A woman shares your life, raises your children, and loves and supports you in any way, and you don't let her be the one person in on the family secret that otherwise causes her enormous pain? Catelyn had to live every day thinking the man she loved fathered a child on another woman during their marriage, suffering a great deal for it in addition to causing Jon (through no fault of his own) a lot of pain because she couldn't manage to treat him with any love. If Eddard had been willing to just bring his wife into the secret-- "We have to pretend he's my bastard to keep him safe and because I promised Lyanna!" --I'm sure Catelyn would have completely understood and kept the secret with him. She then would have been able to love Jon and treat him properly. But no, yet again the devoted woman suffers so men can keep their manly standards. Her pain was less important than the letter of an oath made to a dead woman. Every man I've spoken to about this understands Ned's point of view. Every women I've spoken to about it is appalled. 

The other thing that dug its way into my brain was the events leading up to the death of Tywin. I felt like his sleeping with Shae was really out of character. It struck me as so petty, an act that could have no meaning except to hurt Tyrion, and while Tywin has so many other negative qualities, that is not one I would have assigned to him. Because he did at least seem strong, with standards, and that seemed beneath him. I was really fascinated by his character, and had sort of framed him in my mind as a tactician of ruthless practicality, with the need to protect the image and status of his house so fiercely that it factored into everything he did. Nothing in the world mattered to him so much as that. I get that he has issues with Tyrion, most of them rooted in the fact that a crass dwarf son doesn't fit in with the shining House Lannister image he wants to build. But I didn't see him as being so small and base as to take pleasure from hurting Tyrion. And come on, there are enough whores in the world that to sleep with the one his son had developed affection for could only be as a way to hurt him. Yeah, maybe he never expected Tyrion to find out, but even so, why her in particular? He had no attachment to her, and as I said there is no shortage of whores in that world. And yes, I know he'd hurt Tyrion in other ways before this-- the Tysha incident being the huge one --but it was always in the service of protecting the Lannister image; the pain to Tyrion was incidental, it was never the point. It wasn't that he intended for his son to suffer, per se, it's just that suffering was part of the means to his much more important end. There was literally no reason to use Shae except to cause Tyrion pain. And I would have thought he was above torturing someone just for its own sake. Perhaps it's due to my personal biases, but I tend to think that truly strong people, regardless of whether they are good or evil, are not petty, or at least to do allow their feelings of pettiness to express.
 

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_andre_/]

I'm surprised to hear you say Daenerys is everyone's favorite but yours, because out of all my friends I've discussed the books with she's been the overwhelming least favorite (sometimes tied with Jon Snow). Getting to a Daenerys chapter has often been how I managed to put the book down at night and go to sleep.

[offside7.livejournal.com]

I also hear that Dany and Jon are frequently the least popular POV characters, but I have to say (while still being careful to avoid spoilers) that though I liked them the least when I started the series, I have come to like them a lot more, and respect both of more, even though they both still have qualities that irritate me. Dany never questions her own right to rule. The other thing about her that really irks me is how many people, herself included, seem to think of her as capable and experienced and a survivor, when most of what she has was provided to her by stronger men and luck. Eventually, she starts doing things to her own credit, but for a long while, I thought she was receiving way more credit than was due.

As for Ned, if he lied, then I agree that he single minded devotion to the letter of his oath, rather than the spirit, proves his sense of honor and duty is flawed. What he does to Catelyn (and in turn, to Jon Snow) was pretty terrible, but it's something I like about the series. Not even one of the best of the "good guys" (as much as this series has good guys) is perfect. And if he didn't lie, well... he's still flawed.

As for Tywin, I think he has always taken pleasure from spiting Tyrion. What he did with Tysha doesn't strike me as ruthless practicality. I think one of the reasons he truly hates Tyrion's whoring is because he is guilty of whoring himself. He hates the flaws he sees mirrored in Tyrion (and hates the idea of Tyrion being himself "writ small") and probably wants to seem too harsh on the sin of whoring to allow anyone to suspect him of his own guilt. I think Tywin didn't sleep with Shae to hurt Tyrion. I think he just saw a whore he wanted.

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree completely with you. Jon bores the crap out of me and both Arya and Daenerys seem to be Mary Sues, and neither of them is actually an admirable human being to top it off. At least if their non-admirable qualities were causing them to succeed they'd fit in with the rest of the world, but they mostly just get by through happenstance and charity. I like the Song of Ice and Fire when it's less obvious which characters are plot-safe. Unfortunately at this point, beyond their obvious favored status, so many words have been invested in them and them alone that they need to have a point.

[valleyviolet.livejournal.com]

"murder-machine non-person" is an excellent phrase.