I apologize for my blog. It's a multi-fandom blog, kind of an eclectic & chaotic mix of things, not unlike my mind.
Ghosts don't haunt us. That's not how it works. They're present among us because we won't let go of them. - Sue Grafton
now you’re gonna fuckin suck it up and marry that girl or i’ll punch you in the double standard so hard that they’ll write a goddamned song about it
i really, really dislike the trope in fiction that only the assholes, the bullies, and the “villains” can be homophobic. (this goes for any hateful -ism, really, but given that it was prompted by homophobia i’m going to run with that.)
homophobia would be much easier to dismiss if it only came from the douchebags of the population; if everyone ~good~ looked down on it, defended against it; if the line was clear between good person (accepting) and bad person (hateful). that’s not to say it wouldn’t still be hurtful, but there would be that support there of it’s only the assholes, it’s only the assholes.
unfortunately, what makes those comments hurt is that they more often come from people you love, people you’re friends with, people whose opinions you generally respect - your mom, your friend, your coworker, your teacher… hearing a kid in the hallway call someone a dyke might make me flinch, but it was hearing my grandma say it that made me cry.
it’s that discordance - that people who are otherwise very nice, caring, and intelligent can still have ignorant, hateful opinions - that is lost in a lot of fiction. it’s lazy writing, and - it feels to me - defensive. by designating prejudice only to the villains of the piece, the writers both distance themselves (only assholes! not us!) and erase actual experience. you’re not doing a service to us by creating a world where homophobia is only ever wielded by villains; all you’re doing is reducing an experience you’ve likely never had to flat, simplified flaw.
this post and those tags just reminded me—i was debating making a separate post about this, but we sort of talked about what’s going on with loras’ character on fatpinkcast.
and it’s apparent that not only is there aggressive homophobia inserted into the narrative, but the show itself is supporting casual/microaggressive homophobia. for example, making loras’ sexuality a joke, having people constantly drop snarky comments about him (even his grandmother), having him being the only man to take a significant interest in fashion because hey…that’s just a gay trait and it’s totally indicative of how all gay men are etc. the big problem here is that people are so invested in either critiquing or laughing off how ridiculous over-the-top homophobic joffrey and tywin are, that they’re ignoring how all these little japes also contribute to homophobia.
the show keeps using loras as a punchline for all these really juvenile jokes. he’s being increasingly caricatured in the narrative and it’s being done in a very insidious way. i suspect the writers think their jabs are clever, just like they think their not-so-subtle, “most girls are stupid,” “you’re a cunt,” “dumb girls in silk dresses,” “what are you a bloody woman,” “you don’t like that woman because you’re a girl,” lines are clever. in reality, it’s all just really lazy and oppressive writing that doesn’t actually subvert homophobia or sexism in any way, but subtlety perpetuates it.
They call him the young wolf. They say he rides into battle on the back of giant direwolf. They say he can turn into a wolf himself when he wants. They say he can’t be killed.
[Braavos] At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell.
Just need to say something (though I’m hardly a Stannis expert):
When people say Stannis puts the needs of the realm before himself, they’re talking about the time he was the only person who responded to the Night’s Watch’s pleas for help to fight the White Walkers. (Maybe not everyone has read that far in the books, but uh if you haven’t it might be wise to put your judgments of characters aside until you have. Or at least put them out of the tags.)
Robb Stark ignored those pleas. Balon Greyjoy ignored them. Joffrey ignored them. Renly ignored them (or probably would have, if it got to him before he died. I don’t think he was alive when they sent those letters so idk). Dany might have ignored them too? We don’t really know, she wasn’t in Westeros at the time.
The point here is that Stannis is the only one to recognize that the realm is in serious danger from the Others, and that the War of the Five Kings won’t mean shit if everyone is a blue-eyed zombie.
Did he make selfish choices before that? Sure. Did he make mistakes? Sure.
But none of those things negate the fact that he’s the only one who is able to put their stupid war aside and deal with a real problem.
Not to mention the fact that he’s really the only one of the people fighting over the throne who wants it not because he wants it, but because he believes in the law and the law says it’s his, so he has to fight for it whether he wants to or not.
Balon, Joffrey, Renly, probably even Dany to some degree although I think she thinks she has to fight over the throne because it’s her birthright - they all want power for power. Even Robb Stark is fighting a war over vengeance, not for the good of the realm.
So it’s actually not “bullshit” to say he’s the only one who cares about Westeros, because when the biggest actual threat to Westeros in thousands of years is brought to his attention, he’s the only one who actually bothers to do a goddamn thing about it.
hi i am kingslayer
i am good at sword
so good at sword
sword
He did not want to think about anything that had happened before he knew his name. There were things too hurtful to remember, thoughts almost as painful as Ramsay’s flaying knife
