Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Fišerová Kristýna

The female characters in the fantasy world in A song of ice and fire by George R. R. Martin

Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph. D.

2014

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

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Author‟s signature Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Page 1

Chapter 2 History of fantasy literature Page 3

Chapter 3 Literature survey

Overview of the female heroines in fantasy Page 8

Tolkien and pre-Tolkien era Page 8

Tolkien-esque fantasy Page 11

Later 20th century Page 16

Chapter 4 Literary analysis

Females of A Song of Ice and Fire Page 26

The daughters - Arya and Sansa Page 28

The mothers – Cersei and Catelyn Page 33

The warriors – Brienne, Ygritte, and Asha Page 38

Daenerys and the rest of the women Page 42

A Song of Ice and Fire and feminism Page 46

Chapter 5 Conclusion Page 51

Bibliography Page 52

Summary Page 56

Resumé Page 57

1 Introduction

This diploma thesis deals with the development of the female characters in fantasy genre with the focus on the series A Song of Ice and Fire. A Song of

Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin (*1948) is a critically acclaimed epic fantasy series that has become a bestseller. Martin set his books in Medieval age, into a feudal society when men held the power in their hands, ruled the kingdoms, became knights, went into the wars, while the women, wives and daughters, stayed home, taking care of the children and households while waiting for their husbands. The series is still incomplete, to this day it consists of five books and

Martin plans to write at least two more; and the number of characters is growing alongside the number of the books.

The series is written in the points of view of many characters of various ages and social statuses, male and female, ranging from a young nine-year-old noble girl to grown-up male ex-smuggler. Martin presents readers with not one- dimensional characters but well-rounded people, with whom one can sympathize, encourage or strongly dislike them. And amongst the whole variety of characters one finds a great number of female ones who do not just sit home but prove again and again that a woman in the fantasy genre is not only the pretty accessory to a man, but can be just as engaging, powerful and successful as any man.

In the present work I will try to offer a brief overview of the history of the fantasy genre alongside the development of heroines. The central aim of my thesis is to analyse protagonists of several fantasy novels and compare

1 them with the female characters of A Song of Ice and Fire. I will try to prove that females are not limited to the stereotypical gender roles seen so often in fantasy literature and that George R. R. Martin is one of the authors whose heroines can be considered feminist and who depicts the way society expects the women to act and treats any woman who oversteps this boundary, e.g., with harshness, cruelty or derision.

There have been many literary critics who have been interested in feminism in the fantasy genre. However, the majority of the criticism has been directed at the well-known works of authors such as John R. R. Tolkien, C. S.

Lewis or Joanne K. Rowling. Concerning the works which do not have such popularity outside the readers of fantasy, I had to depend on Internet sources.

All the used sources are listed in the bibliography.

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2 History of fantasy literature

Fantasy is fiction about the unlike, bizarre and impossible. Fantasy as a genre has not existed too long but its themes and basic elements – fantastic elements, brave protagonists, and various monsters - can be traced back to the ancient times, from famous Greek epic poems to the well-known legend about

King Arthur and One Thousand and One Nights. Reading fantasy, a reader escapes into another, alternative world from the real one, forgetting his or her daily worries and immersing themselves in heroic adventures of the protagonists. They do not have to worry about paying the bills, a stressful job or an ever-demanding family; suddenly they are part of the world where people live by different set of rules and other things are valued. But aside from the magical elements, fantasy worlds are not so much different from the real one that a person would find himself or herself uncomfortable and lost; fantasy based on medieval age, which has been the most common setting, includes more often than not sexism, which was in those times an status quo, and the gender inequality reflected in the fantasy books has been possibly relatable over the years.

Fantasy literature has been part of every one‟s lives, most notably as fairy tales which children love to listen to or watch; the common misconception that fantasy is for children or that fantasy has been deemed as childish, can stem from this reasoning. As Manlove argues, “There is arguably no difference in status between the child and the adult; only ignorance separates them. To a greater or lesser extent we are still children, only with different ends in view”

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(8), adults are not so different from children, their worldview is only based on more experiences; moreover, not every adult behaves maturely and every child immaturely. The childish infatuation with fairy tales and the topic of the fight between good versus evil remains in some shape and form in every one, and though he or she reads another genre, the concept of morality can be found in any book - a person trying to overcome their or another‟s vices or a defeat of evil, whether in crime, horror or western. The stories about Cinderella, Little

Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel are integral part of every one‟s childhood and no one really forget names such as the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian

Andersen. Later, these fairy tales are revisited over and over in different forms and retold to younger generations and they shape every child‟s view of the world. Fantasy elements have been also featured in other works of literature, such as folklore and myths, and “many scholars of fantasy claimed the genre as a primary form of literature by linking it to the oldest forms of human storytelling” (Mandala, 7). Fantasy genre has been disregarded and ignored, generally seen as a genre primary aimed at children (Mandala, 10) and, as Hunt and Lenz claim, there have been three main opinions towards this genre –

“formulaic, childish, and escapist” (9) and some people may still see this genre as inferior to other genres in terms of quality with the stereotypical characters who lack any depth (Mandala 120). Nonetheless, with the publication of The

Hobbit in 1937 by John R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) and subsequently the trilogy

The Lord of the Rings, the attitude towards the genre has changed and as a result the demand for fantasy, in particular the epic fantasy, has increased.

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But there were other fantasy authors before Tolkien, now mostly overshadowed by more successful authors of later times. The very first ones who influenced fantasy writers such as C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) or Tolkien were

George MacDonald (1824-1905), a writer of fairy tales such as The Light

Princess or The Princess and the Goblin, William Morris (1834-1896), an author of The Wood Beyond the World and The Well at the World‟s End, which are both considered classic fantasy as well as The King of Elfland‟s Daughter by

Lord Dunsany (1878 – 1957). Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), MacDonald‟s pupil, wrote in 1865 a novel Alice‟s adventures in Wonderland which impacted the children fantasy with its young heroine suddenly appearing in a secondary world abundant with fantastic and bizarre elements. Another successful children‟s novel with a young heroine was published in 1900, The Wonderful wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, and two years later J. M. Barrie created Peter

Pan, a never growing up boy living in Neverland, starring in many of his plays and novels; the end of the nineteenth century also saw the publication of Bram

Stoker‟s Dracula, a horror novel with fantastic elements. In the early thirties in twentieth century were published in a first fantasy magazine Weird Tales

Robert E. Howard‟s stories about Conan the Barbarian, which have influenced a many author writing a sword and sorcery genre.

Tolkien‟s trilogy has undoubtedly impacted the fantasy genre; the story depicts adventures of an entire group - not an individual as was usual till this publication - who has to face the obstacles. Tolkien brought up a new concept of a whole group travelling across the medieval-like world in order to save it.

His work has become a success, has been critically acclaimed and widely sought

5 up by readers, and as a result, the publishers had started to look for other fantasy writers, preferably ones writing trilogies (Blackwelder et al 307) who would follow in his steps, e.g. Terry Brooks, Robin Hobb, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many others. In 1977, Terry Brooks‟ trilogy Sword of Shannara showed that even fantasy literature can become a bestseller and after his success other authors followed in his footsteps – as well as Tolkien‟s; this era has brought a wave of writers of second-rate fantasy that was generally uninspiring and brought nothing new, but also authors who tried to be new and innovative.

Martin‟s work, like Tolkien‟s, also impacted the fantasy genre and inspired new authors, e.g., Scott Lynch, Steven Erickson, Joe Abercrombie, R.

Scott Bakker or Mark Lawrence, to write more dark and gritty fantasy with the viewpoints of several protagonists and with the focus not only on the heroic deeds of the heroes, but also on politics and the wars between noble houses who want power in order to secure their positions. Martin has admitted in an interview with Poniewozik that he has been influenced by Tolkien too, but has decided not to imitate him as many others and instead addressed many issues which he has always seen problematic, such as arranged marriage where both involved fall in love with each other, the general romantic view of the medieval world, etc. Martin does not focus on the conflict between good versus evil, instead he portrays his characters in different shades of grey; there is rarely a character in his works who is truly evil.

In 1997 was published a first book of Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling which became instantly a bestseller and with it came back the focus on

6 individuals having adventures instead the group, along with a new type of a hero, oft a child or a female. This decade has also brought a new kind of setting, Tolkien-esque fantasy, which was set into completely alternative world, was altered into ours although to the most people invisible, “these are set in fantasy worlds that have little relation to our own [. . .] here we are in „bubble‟ worlds that only magical gates from our world can reach. In such worlds one can ignore the problems of the everyday life of this one, and can present evils and difficulties of a more fantastic character to be surmounted. This is why these books stand on their own in their decade: they simply do not engage with it. The irony is that this has made them enormously popular” (Manlove, 180).

The high fantasy is one of the sub-genres of fantasy – alongside science- fiction, low, urban, gothic or romantic fantasy and others - and has been from

Tolkien one of the most popular in its genre. The attention to epic fantasy has been brought back thanks to the movie adaptions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which has started the adaptations of other books of the same genre, and the recent TV series The Game of Thrones based on the series A Song of

Ice and Fire has attracted even the non-fans of the fantasy genre. The writers have started to explore the fantasy more behind the boundaries which are typical for the genre, there are new concepts of magic, and the stories are not confined only to medieval setting.

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3 Overview of the female heroines in fantasy

Literature works, one could argue, are a mirror to the society. Therefore, the females in literature are representation of the women in society and have to be accordingly treated. The heroines in literature texts provide us with the role models suggesting the right and legitimate behaviour, goals and aspirations

(Barry 122) and fantasy works are no exceptions. However, the females in fantasy have been for a long time cast aside, were unappealing, uninspiring and often stereotyped. It was boys and men who turned into heroes and saviours and women were the damsels in distress; but the readers of this genre could witness the ways their roles have been gradually changing, how the fantasy women have been empowered and become the role models which females can embrace. Nonetheless, the female protagonists are still minority - though no more a rarity.

Tolkien and pre-Tolkien era

The protagonists of fantasy literature have been generally males, who venture on their heroic journey to save the world (Hunt and Lenz 3) and women have played only the secondary characters. The prominent figure in this genre has been from the publication of The Hobbit John R. R. Tolkien whose works have inspired others and led to many imitations of The Lord of the Rings

(Hunt and Lenz 20). Unfortunately, Tolkien‟s The Hobbit and the trilogy do not include many females; The Hobbit is solely the tale of adventure of males of different races without any woman and the Fellowship as well. In both works it is men who form a group which travel to the unknown places in order to defeat

8 the evil lord and while in The Hobbit the group consists of a hobbit and a wizard helping several dwarves kill the dragon who stole their home and riches, in The Lord of the Rings the group is much more colourful and united by their fear of Sauron, the Dark Lord, and their objective to not let him enslave Middle- earth. While The Hobbit does not feature any secondary female characters, The

Lord of the Rings in this aspect fares better. However, aside from Galadriel,

Arwen and Éowyn, there are only brief mentions of few other women, such as

Dís, a dwarf woman, Entwives and female Hobbits, Ros (who is nothing but a love interest) and Lobelia, who is portrayed as greedy and envious, yearning for

Bilbo‟s home but when their village is taken over by Saruman, she fights back.

The roles of the women are merely supportive, Arwen is not much more than

Aragorn‟s love interest; Tolkien inserted her into the story when he was almost finished for the sole purpose to have an ideal queen for Aragorn (Blackwelder et al 318). Éowyn, who defies the typical gender roles and complains that a woman‟s place is in the house, minding it for men (The Return of the King

1027), has to pretend to be a man to be able to fight and although she proves that she is as tough and capable as any man, in the end she meets Faramir and throws away her identity as a warrior and takes the role of the stereotypical woman - married. The Silmarillion, a compilation of stories about history of

Middle-earth published posthumously by Tolkien‟s son, presents a reader with several women of various degrees of importance; there are the powerful female

Valar, the first beings in Arda, the setting of Tolkien‟s works, women defying their families when they fall in love with someone of lesser status and mothers protecting – or trying to protect - their families. Nevertheless, in The Silmarrion

9 and The Lord of the Rings many a woman frequently renounces her power and immortality for the love of a man. Tolkien‟s women mirror the situation of the women of the first half of the twentieth century when he was writing the trilogy; while they gained voting rights thanks to the first-wave feminism which began in 19th century and lasted to early 20th century, other issues – such as domestic restrictions or workplace discrimination, still have not been addressed.

Thus, the women in Tolkien‟s works stay at home just as the women in early twentieth century and there is few rare cases when they do not conform to those roles.

As was aforementioned, there have been many authors writing fantasy books before Tolkien but the heroines of these books reflected their era;

Stoker‟s Dracula with the Victorian women which were accordingly depicted – the pure and loyal females, whose place was in home, the only acceptable career for them was a marriage and amongst the desirable traits were innocence and virtuosity, against the seductive and evil ones whose behaviour is not acceptable by the society in Victorian era. In Conan the Barbarian there is many damsels in mistress whom he has to save or protect and who are inevitably attracted to the main hero and fall in love with him, and those few who do not hide behind Conan‟s back but fight alongside him are largely objectified and sexualized; and then there were the curious and cheerful princesses of MacDonald who aided the heroes, and the equally curious little girls who keep on exploring the new fantastical world, Alice in Alice in

Wonderland and Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The series The

Chronicles of Narnia, with its first volume published in 1950, by C. S. Lewis,

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Tolkien‟s friend, is in many aspects similar to work of Tolkien as the novel depicts a tale about a group who has to defeat evil in a medieval-like world; however, Lewis does not leave out the women as his travelling group consists of siblings, brothers and sisters. In the series star several young females – e.g., sweet, kind and courageous Lucy, the youngest sibling of the four protagonists, who has to stand up for her beliefs when no one believes her, Gill who fights alongside the boys, Aravis who tries to escape from the arranged marriage and overall “girls are consistently strong, respected and wholly themselves. The presence of kings, princes and older brothers never reduces the girls in any way. Their personal flaws are individual to them, not the result of their sex or their age” (Zettel 186). But in the series is also Lucy‟s older sister Susan who, because of her newly-found interests in boys and make-up loses the ability to return into Narnia, and the witches, though powerful villains, without „even a cursory examination of character. The witches simply want to usurp power in

Narnia, which must be wrong” (Zettel 185); there is none other women in important positions. The females of this era generally conform to the associated gender roles and accept them and in the opposite case they often change their minds or die.

Tolkien-esque fantasy

After Tolkien‟s successful trilogy, the publishers had started to look for other fantasy writers, preferably ones writing trilogies (Blackwelder et al 307) who would follow in his steps, e.g. Robin Hobb, Ursula K. Le Guin and others.

The basic premise was in all of the books same – an individual or a group

11 travelling the world to save it; seldom was the protagonist a woman. The series

Pern: Harper Halls by Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011), its first volume published in

1968, has as the protagonists females in a world where dragons bond with humans and the female dragons have become a rarity; the heroines are brave and self-sufficient, and though the roles of women are crucial, men treat them as inferior, look down on them and use them and the women do not find this mistreatment degrading. In Terry Brooks‟ Shannara series or Hobb‟s The Realm of the Elderlings can be found plenty of women – as secondary characters, beautiful women who need to be protected; and while Robert Jordan‟s Wheel of

Time has female characters which are not stereotypical and weak and who have their own adventures, they are also, as the author of an article Fantasy of excess: rant on Jordan and Gooodkind insists, sexualized and they become in the course of the books indistinguishable from each other. The female characters in Magician (1982), a story about a young male lead studying to become an magician, by Raymond E. Feist (*1945) are also few, do not have very deep personality and are of no true importance to the story.

Le Guin (*1929), who has written the series The Earthsea Cycle, whose protagonist is a man and the setting of the world in her books is patriarchal, said, “My Earthsea trilogy is part of this male tradition - that is why I had to write this fourth volume. Because I changed. I had to show the other side”

(Hunt and Lenz 69). The first and third instalments are the typical fantasy adventures of male heroes, in the second and fourth Le Guin focuses on females and feminist issues. The first part of her original trilogy, A Wizard of

Earthsea published in 1968, describes the adventures of Ged, an aspiring

12 wizard in a world where magic for anything important can be wielded only by men and where women‟s magic is considered weak and wicked (The Earthsea

Quartet 16). Ged is admitted to The school of wizards which teaches only boys and where are no female teachers. The second one, The Tombs of Atuan, changes its narrative and the main protagonist to Tenar; there remain only a few connections to the previous book. Tenar is a young priestess who was taken from her family, raised in a temple to become a Priestess for the rest of her life, never has been behind its vicinity and is kept out of contact with anyone but other priestesses and eunuchs. She meets Ged by a chance when he gets captured in the tombs and together they manage escape from Atuan, away from Tenar‟s lifelong enslavement, but it is not before Tenar loses her power. The third one and originally last, The Farthest Shore, is again about

Ged‟s adventures, and without many connections to The Tombs of Atuan.

In 1990 was released Tehanu, the fourth instalment. Le Guin does not focus on the fantasy elements but rather on an ordinary life of Tenar taking care of Ged and Tehanu and on Tenar‟s musing about the world. Tehanu is a girl who was abused and deformed by fire and Ged was brought up to Tenar after he lost all his magic. Tenar comments how in Atuan “men had given her power, men had shared their power with her. Women looked at her from outside, sometimes rivalrous, often with a trace of ridicule” (The Earthsea

Quartet 509) and that after her escape she got married and started “doing what a woman should do: bed, breed, bake, cook, clean, spin, sew, serve. A good woman. They approved of her” (The Earthsea Quartet 509). She is a part of the society afterwards she has undertaken the socially accepted gender role. Le

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Guin also directly addresses the issue of difference between wizards and witches when only males can study magery and a female wizard has been unheard-of (The Earthsea Quartet 511).

Stephen King (*1947), a well-known author of horror and suspense, published in 1982 The Gunslinger, the first instalment of the epic fantasy series

The Dark Tower, a story of Roland of Gilead and his quest to find Dark Tower.

In introduction to The Gunslinger King admits that he was inspired by Tolkien and his fantasy series were “like most long fantasy tales written by men and women of my generation [. . .] were born out of Tolkien‟s” (The Gunslinger IX).

One can find some Tolkien-esque elements in King‟s fantasy series, such as a company of heroes on a quest and alternative world, but King has set his world not into medieval one but in western-like where the heroes needs guns instead of swords and crossbows. In the second instalment of the series, The Drawing of the Three, Roland searches for companions in our world and is led to a woman, Susannah Dean. Susannah as a child suffered head injury which left her with two personalities, Odetta and Detta, who are not aware of each other.

Odetta is a kind, successful woman involved in civil right activism while Detta is cunning, resourceful and psychotic murderer; in Roland‟s world, Odetta presents the trope of a damsel in distress when she cannot take care of herself and is dependent on others but Detta has to be bound to her wheelchair so she would not attack the group. These two opposite personalities are finally forced to emerge into one, Susannah, balancing their weak and strong points together. In this African-American disabled heroine with severed legs and suffering apparent schizophrenia King has created tough and unique character.

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In the case of the main heroes not being a Tolkien-esque group, majority of the authors had as their protagonist a single man, many of them inspired by

Howard‟s Conan, who would during his adventure meet and save young and beautiful princess; such as Michael Moorcock (*1939) with his Elric series and

The Sword Trilogy. Both series feature the adventures of male heroes with a minimum of female secondary characters that were there only to advance the plot so the hero can continue his quest. Similarly, Roger Zelazny (1937-1995) has in his series The Chronicles of Amber a male lead with amnesia travelling through dimensions to Amber and who is determined to save this realm from his brother; for the majority of the books the females have the roles alike to those of the Moorcock or are considered useless. In the same vein continue other similar works of such authors as Andre Norton, a male pseudonym for

Alice Mary Norton (1912-2005), or Fritz Leiber (1910-1992).

A worth-mentioned heroine among these individual protagonists is

Paksenarrion Dorthandsdotter, a protagonist of a trilogy The Deed of

Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon (*1945), which first volume, Sheepfarmer‟s

Daughter was published in 1988. In its core, it is the typical story of somebody who came from common backgrounds to a famed and glorified hero but here the protagonist is a young woman, Paks. She runs away from her home before she is forced to get married and joins the ranks of the mercenaries in order to fight evil and to chase her dreams to become a warrior so she can protect others. In Moon‟s setting, the women are not excluded from fighting, they can train and lead as any man and are not belittled; this setting is rather realistic as there were female knights and female orders since the Middle Ages, e.g., the

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Order of the Hatchet and the Order of the Glorious Saint Mary, who, as Zoltack claims, “all fought for what they believed in, whether it was freedom or their children‟s inheritance or for the good of an entire nation”. Paks is hard-working, honest and loyal, though not overly clever; unusually for fantasy, she does not have any romantic interest in the course of the whole trilogy. What is also uncommon is the issue of rape and the way Moon deals with it unlike other fantasy books where the soldiers can rape women without any repercussions.

After a soldier attempts to rape Paks, others discover that something is wrong when they are both bruised and beaten, they are brought to a trial and the soldier is, in the end, punished.

Later 20th century

Terry Pratchett (*1948), a prolific author known for his satire and comical works, published his first fantasy novel in 1971, has been writing successfully since then and collaborated with other fantasy writers such as Neil

Gaiman (*1960) or Stephen Baxter (*1957). A decade later he published The

Colour of Magic, a first book in his Discworld series, which now consists of almost forty books. This series does not consist of books which have to be read in order; rather, each is self-contained story – one deals with vampires, another book parodies Shakespeare, another Phantom of the Opera, etc - and with many recurring characters. The women in his works have also developed; at the beginning of his career they were generally only caricatures, in the first novels there is only a few of them and have very little to do and when they do appear, Pratchett describes them as scarcely-clad young beautiful women.

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While in The Colour of Magic were not any major female protagonist and the purpose of those who appeared was to chase the main heroes either to punish them for various reasons or to entice them to marry her, Pratchett‟s second novel, The Light Fantastic, has a female heroine, Bethan. The protagonists find

Bethan moments before she is to be sacrificed and attempt to save her for which she scolds them. Nevertheless, she comes with them on their journey and falls in love with another companion of the protagonists who is decades older than her, takes care of him whenever he needs and shows that she can be dependable and helpful, however in the duration of the book she does not get any real depth.

In 1987, Pratchett wrote the third Discovery novel, Equal Rites in which he decided to explore the differences between wizards and witches. Equal Rites is the first book in which appears Granny Weatherwax, a powerful, respected and feared witch who is on par even with the Archchancellor, a male wizard. In

Pratchett‟s work, the difference between wizards and witches is depicted similarly to the works of different authors in the fantasy genre, such as Le Guin who briefly addressed the same issue in Tehanu; wise and powerful wizards have always been associated with the higher levels of magic, they have been the only ones who could study and master the magic while the poor and dirty witches only dipped in it and were usually portrayed as outcasts of the society.

The story of Equal Rites begins with birth of the eight son of an eight son and a hurried wizard by mistake passes his magic to this new-born baby without checking its sex, thus making a first female wizard. When the child, Esk, gets older, she learns witchcraft from Granny but Esk yearns for more difficult and

17 complex spells and so she sets out to the Unseen University where young wizards learn and study their crafts. However, the whole concept of a female wizard is absurd and ridiculous to any wizard she meets and her request is upon her arrival turned down. In the end, it is thanks to Granny, who comes to help her and shows that being witch does not necessary means being inferior in the arts of magic to the wizards, that Esk is accepted to the Unseen University.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is one of the major characters reappearing in

Pratchett‟s works. At the beginning of Equal Rites she presents the infant to the wizard coming to pass his magic and magic staff and neither the wizard nor the child‟s father listen when she tries to warn them, dismissing her for she is a witch. After realizing the mistake, the father asks for her help but Granny is convinced that “female wizards aren‟t right [. . .] it‟s the wrong kind of magic for women, is wizard magic” (Equal Rites 21) and advises him to forget the whole thing; it is several years later when she rethinks her decision. Granny is highly regarded in the kingdom Lancre, in which she resides, and everywhere she comes; she is the head of the small coven and its other witches, Magrat,

Nanny Ogg and later Agnes, look up to her as the one most experienced and when in need, they come to her. Granny is confident in her abilities as a witch, stubborn, resourceful and good even though not always nice to those around her. She, alongside the rest of the witches in Discworld series, is not the typical fantasy heroine; she is no young beautiful dame in need of rescuing who would afterwards reward the hero, on the contrary, she is a spinster who rescues herself.

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All the above-mentioned witches of Granny‟s coven are strong individuals, each in their own way who also defy the roles of the stereotypical heroines and are no dames in distress. They represent the triad: the maid, the mother and the crone and the roles are interchangeable; however, none of them would willingly acknowledge that they could represent the last one.

Magrat Garlick, the youngest of the original trial, tries to be the proper witch who adheres to many of the superstitions about witches. Nanny is kind and likeable person, with several children and so many grandchildren that she has problems remembering their names but whom she commands to help her when in need. The last witch of the coven is Agnes Nitt, an overweight girl who is

“generally in two minds about anything” (Carpe Jugulum 17) as she suffers from personality disorder. Her alter ego calls herself Perdita X and she is the thin girl from the saying “that inside a fat girl as a thin girl and a lot of chocolate” (Carpe Jugulum 18); Perdita is more sarcastic and bold while Agnes is kind-hearted and they are not fond of each other. All of the witches are self- reliant and independent on any man and are the main protagonists of many of

Pratchett‟s books where they save their kingdom or the world.

Lynn Flewelling (*1958), a female author who started to write in the nineties, has also chosen not so usual protagonists and deals with gender issues. She is the author of and several short stories and two series, the

Nightrunner and Tamír Triad; the protagonists of the former series are two males who are both bisexual and Tamír Triad, which is set in the same world but hundreds years before the Nightrunner, has a female heroine who is for her own protection magically disguised as a boy. She states in an interview with

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Brusso “how bored [she] was by the standard fantasy heroes of the day” who were “big, brawny, deadpan sword-slingers” and for that reason she decided to create a different kind of male heroes in Nightrunner. In Tamír Triad Flewelling deals with gender identity; the protagonist, a male named Tobin, suddenly discoverers that he was born as a girl, but her brother was killed so Tobin could be saved by taking on his form, survive and eventually become a queen. He is raised to be a warrior, trained to fight with a sword, to command others and is dissuaded when he shows an interest in dolls. When Tobin learns the truth, he is scared and afraid of the change of his body and does not immediately stop to think of himself as a boy, but starts to notice the differences between himself and other boys – he has a smaller frame, is more sensitive than others and has developed feelings for his friend; he also cannot confide in anyone for threat of endangering them, the few people that know his secret are far away and he cannot share his burden with anyone else. When she regains her true form, her behaviour does not change, she is still sensitive and kind, fights in battles and leads others, but has problems with adjusting to her new body. Tobin, who renames herself as Tamír, is not the only female character who fights for her freedom; the story takes a place in a world where women used to fight alongside men but when a new king forbid this practice, they were forced to stay at home and become regular housewives. There are also young women who would like to fight like the women used to and try to find the opportunities to learn the skills and prove themselves. Unfortunately, in the final volume of the trilogy, they do not have enough room for the development and are shunned aside in favour of many male second characters; so are the female

20 wizards who played big roles in previous two books and changed Tamír‟s sex and guided her. The only other important woman in the last instalment is a distant relative to Tamír, Talia, who is hold as a captive from her childhood and has been brought up as a submissive, helpless and dependant individual who is being taken advantage of due to her royal blood.

At the end of the twentieth century was published the first book, A Game of Thrones, of the series A Song of Ice and Fire by Martin with its diversity of characters, where no one is portrayed completely white or black but in various shades of grey; and many of them are capable women. As mentioned, many authors have been influenced by this series and have started to write more gruesome and “realistic” fantasy; with this wave of new type of fantasy came also different kinds of characters – males as well as females. They are not portrayed so white, but have many flaws and virtues, often times dark past, they lie, betray and kill; however, they manage to save the world at the same time. Men are still dominant as the protagonists but women, with the same traits as men, are not a rarity anymore. Broken Empire, a grim trilogy by Mark

Lawrence (*1968) is a tale about a boy without a moral compass, who is willing to do anything to become an emperor, be it stealing, murder or slaughter.

Despite having a male protagonist who is surrounded by male companions, the series has several strong female characters. Queen Miana, only a child in the first volume who does not hesitate to sacrifice her soldiers in order to defend her castle, Lesha, a strong and brave warrior who is not afraid to guide the protagonists into the lands which are avoided by many, or Chella, a necromancer, a complex character fighting her own humanity. In spite of the

21 fact that the trilogy has independent and strong women, the females here are often sexualized, victims of rape or work as whores and when they are none of the aforementioned, they are presented as pure and innocent. In another similarly gritty trilogy, The First Law by Joe Abercrombie (*1974), where the author depicts the lives of several individuals who are pivotal in saving their kingdom, can also be found capable women. Ferro, a runaway slave, fighter and archer who has on her mind nothing but a revenge, a practical Vitari, another fighter who does shy away from torture but is also a mother protecting her children, Ardee, the love interest of one of the protagonist, a beautiful young woman who has tendency to drink alcohol and is disgusted by the society or Carlot dan Eider, an intelligent and beautiful woman who obtained her position as a merchant thanks to the marriage but became the best one due to her own skills and wits.

One of the most popular and successful fantasy works of this century is the series Harry Potter by Joanne K. Rowling (*1965) and its female protagonist, Hermione Granger, has been a topic of many feminist essays since then; yet in Harry Potter, a story about a coming-of-age of a main protagonist, after whose name the series is named, and his fight against Voldemort, the main villain, is more females who are not impassive but fight for what they want. Hermione is in the first book presented as an annoying worm-book without any friends but in the course of the whole series the readers witness her grown into someone without whose help and guide Harry would not survive. Her role is not just that of a love interest or someone to advance the plot so the boys can save the day; she develops alongside Harry and Ron, their

22 friend, and is essential in majority of the dangerous situations they have got involved. Moreover, one could argue that many masculine traits of Hermione,

Harry or Ron are gender swapped; Hermione is the one who stays rational and logical when they are under stress and does not start to panic, seldom behaves emotionally, while on the contrary Harry “is non-violent, non-aggressive, emotional, caring, and vulnerable” (Nikolajeva 231).

Hermione is not the only strong female character in Potter series and as

Bell argues, “the Magical society also does away with the oft-promoted stereotype that women are naturally peace-loving, nurturing, good souls” (38),

Rowling has written several badass women such as Professor Minerva

McGonagall, Ron‟s mother Molly Weasley, Bellatrix Lestrange or Ginny Weasley.

None of them has any significant role challenging the gender stereotypes until the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but they are presented as mother figures or love interests, and when they are put in positions and situations where they could confront the stereotypes, they are always surpassed by their male classmates – Harry and Cho Chang, his love interest, play on the same position in Quidditch, a competitive sport between two teams, but it is Cho who trails Harry in a match in the third book so she can catch the Golden Snitch and practically win the game. In the fourth instalment, The Goblet of Fire, there is four students competing in a Triwizard

Tournament and while one of them is a female representative, she is always the last one completing the task or withdrawing from the competition altogether. In the later books, the women are much more pivotal not only in moving the story forward; their positions in Quidditch are suddenly of more

23 importance for the game, they are important members in the various organizations against Lord Voldemort, and as Voldemort‟s allies as well, they are suddenly crucial in the Harry‟s quest to defeat Voldemort.

Brandon Sanderson (*1975) published his excellent debut work Elantris in 2005 and in the following year the first volume of his trilogy Mistborn. Both provide a new take on the fantasy genre; there is a minimum of swords and knights and no usual magic and wizards. In Mistborn people are able to control metal to use them in different ways, e.g., to push and pull on the objects which contain metal or influence the mood of others. Elantris was the capital where lived Elantrians, humans with magical abilities which were not innate but bestowed upon by Shaod, and who suddenly become sick instead of demigods; and Sanderson continues to create new magical systems for every new work. In

Elantris, Sanderson changes the view of point between three protagonists and one of them is a woman. Generally, women are considered more emotive and men more logical, but in Elantris Sanderson plays with this common perception.

The heroine of Elantris, princess Sarene, is sent to the capital Elantris of kingdom Arelon to unite her kingdom with Arelon by her marriage with its prince but upon her arrival she learns that she has become a widow before she could marry him thanks to their customs. She immediately senses that something is amiss. Sarene is used to be involved in politics and learned fencing but in her new home she is greeted by its king and dismissed with words to a servant “to keep her occupied. Embroidery or whatever else it is to entertains you women” (Elantris 22). Sarene decides to prove that women are not in any way inferior to men and can be politically astute, and starts to

24 secretly train any willing woman who is interested in fighting. Radeon, her allegedly deceased husband, on the other exhibits the characteristics generally associated with women for he is described as a gentle, kind, caring and empathic person. In Feminism and tea the author, however, argues that Sarene does not challenge the gender roles of women but assumes those of men and so does Raoden, but admits that later in the book Sarene yearns for love and attempts to change her cynical behaviour - but not fundamentally. Similarly,

Sanderson in his trilogy The Mistborn series provides the reader with viewpoints of several characters and once more one of them is a strong female and the main protagonists are in many aspects of the characteristics alike to the protagonists of Elantris.

Other work which tries to push the limits of fantasy genre is the trilogy

The Outcast Chronicles by Rowena Cory Daniells (*1958). The setting of her books is partly put into a medieval-like world with its associated hierarchy and patriarchy, but Daniells also created society of human-like beings T‟En in which she focuses on gender politics. T‟En are divided into two groups – sisterhoods and brotherhoods. Only the sisterhoods can raise the children until they reach their adulthood when the boys are returned back to some brotherhood due to the fact that everyone strongly believes that female and male adult‟s gifts – their mental abilities to interact with empyrean plane – will inevitably clash and lead to dangerous situations as the male gifts can taint the female ones. The females, who are in minority, also possess stronger gifts than men who fear them and plot to change the laws of their society; at the same time, their whole race faces the distrust and hate from the rest of the world.

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4 Females of A Song of Ice and Fire

A Song of Ice and Fire is a high fantasy series, though at the beginning it was low fantasy series as it included very little of magic, depicting struggles and fights amongst several Houses for the Iron Throne as they all want more power and influence. It takes places on fictional continent Westeros, which strongly resembles Medieval Europe, in the Seven Kingdoms and in lands behind the

Wall, which was built to protect Westeros from its northern folk and various dangerous inhabitants, and on a continent Essos that is more exotic – it has great grasslands, wastelands and diverse cultures. The first book of the series,

The Game of Thrones, focuses on Houses Lannister and Stark in Westeros and on Daenerys Targaryen in Essos; other Houses, which do not have significant roles in this volume, become more important in the next instalments.

The Game of Thrones follows Eddark Stark and his two daughters to the capital, King‟s Landing, where he comes to help the King Robert Baratheon, becomes new Hand of the King and investigates the death of previous Hand.

He discovers that Robert‟s heirs with Cersei, his wife, are illegitimate for they were born out of incest and this discovery quickly spirals into a civil war in

Westeros after Eddard advices Cersei to leave the capital as he plans to report it to the King, but is betrayed and publicly executed. The other main storyline follows Jon Snow, Eddard‟s bastard son, to the Wall where he faces the threat of Others, nonhuman beings whose only weakness is fire or weapons made of dragonglass, and another focuses on Daenerys in Essos where she slowly rises

26 from a scared girl to confident ruler who wants to reclaim the Iron Thrones and retake what is rightfully hers.

The majority of the series takes place in Westeros, in feudal and patriarchal society akin to medieval society of Europe. This setting has been one of the fantasy tropes popularized by Tolkien and used by authors writing before him, e.g. William Morris or George MacDonald, and imitated by many writing after him. Medieval period was a time when everyone, both peasants and lords, had a hard life and women had very little rights, only few of them worked and what they could do was dictated by society. The peasant women‟s priority was their family, caring for their children and husband, looking after their households and working in the fields along with their husbands without any hope of mobility both social and geographical. And though aristocratic women were powerful in the early Middle Ages, they lost majority of their power in the late Middle Ages and exercised power through their husbands. The highborn women – men as well - were also forced into arranged marriage for political purposes in an early age; peasant girls were, on the other hand, would get married later as their marriage would deprive their families of a worker.

Westeros in A Song of Ice and Fire is based on these characterizations and does not deviate from them; the female protagonists of the series are generally aristocratic women who have to abide the rules which are enforced on them.

Some of the women conform to them, some resist them openly and others are more devious and oppose society in more roundabout ways.

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The daughters - Arya and Sansa

Eddard (Ned) Stark, one of the main protagonists of the first volume, is a father of two daughters, twelve-year-old Sansa and ten-year-old Arya, who cannot be any more different from each other but at the same time are very similar. Arya, one of the fan-favourite characters, defies the stereotypes of growing girls; she loathes anything remotely ladylike, such as learning singing, dancing or needlework, putting on pretty dresses and behaving as a proper young noble lady. She rather trains with a sword or a crossbow, does not mind being dirty while playing with the boys of a lower status and as a result getting scratches and bruises, and often gets mistaken for a boy by strangers visiting her father. The other girls shuns her for her strange behaviour, acting as a boy and see her as an outcast, often times she finds solace with her older half- brother, Jon Snow, who is not completely accepted to the Stark family due to his lineage as a bastard son and therefore also outsider. Her relationship with him is more solid than that with her other true siblings; Jon entirely supports her pastimes and comforts her when she is troubled, and Arya defends him against any insults. It is Jon who truly understands her and before parting ways he gives her a sword, knowing that she would appreciate it more than anything girlish.

Arya is strong-willed, stubborn, quick-witted, resourceful and independent from the first book and despite of the hardship and tragedy she encounters later, she maintains these characteristics. From Arya and Sansa is expected nothing else but an arranged marriage later in their teenage years, as

28 has been customary in the Middle Ages, and, in the best case, to become a wife of an heir of other house, take care of the new household, provide her husband an heir. However, Arya clearly express her dislike to this idea as that is not her but her sister Sansa (A Game of Thrones 256); she would be satisfied if she could continue with her current way of life, behaving as a boy. She manages to persuade her father to hire a sword master, Syrio Forel, to teach her to fight and pursues her goal without giving up, taking his lessons to heart and constantly strives to improve herself, enjoying this training no matter how difficult and harsh it becomes.

But this sort of interests would not be generally permitted in a feudal society and children would be taught only that which would be considered as proper. Nevertheless, thanks to open-mindedness of Arya‟s parents, she is allowed to overcome the gender limitations and pursue her interests and free will unlike other major character of the series, Samwell Tarly. Sam is part of the

Night‟s Watch and a friend of Jon Snow. Samwell is introduced as a weak, overweight coward, an easy target to any bully. In his childhood he was interested in pastimes considered to be female – singing, dancing and reading and the sight of blood had made him grew ill (A Game of Thrones 268). This was, nonetheless, stopped by his father who forced him to forsake this so- called foolishness and made him to take on others pastimes, more suitable for boys. While Arya due to the stance of her parents towards her interests bloomed and grew into confident girl, Sam started to lose his self-confidence and belittled himself at any opportunity.

29

During Ned‟s arrest and slaughter of his men and servant, Arya manages to elude the guards and escape from the castle using the skills and advices which she gained in the sword lessons from Syrio. The girl is desperate to get away and into safety, feeling lost, scared and betrayed and when a boy, not very older than her, tries to stop her and threatens her, Arya stabs and kills him without thinking. She is alone and has to take care of her primary needs, finding food, shelter and security, and she does not wish for anything else but to return to her family. But even that is taken away from her when the new king beheads her father and a man from Night‟s Watch helps her to escape from the capital, promising that she will be escorted to the rest of her family back in their stronghold in remote part in the kingdom. She is forced to disguise herself as a boy in a group of new recruits for Night‟s Watch, and no one doubts her gender because of her personality, her ability to fight and not shying away from gruesome things. Because of her small build, she is immediately picked on by some boys but she quickly establishes that she is not to be bullied.

Arya and the group of recruits are on their way attacked and taken as

Lannister‟s captives to their cursed stronghold. Arya manages to quickly adapt to every change she is thrown in and now acts as a servant girl, “no one is a better example of harmonizing with one‟s surroundings than Arya [. . .] she learns to accept her situation for what it is, and thereby to do what is required”

(Irwin and Jacoby 242).

After she escapes from the stronghold with her friends, Arya tries to find her way back home through the wilderness while leading the boys, they are again taken captives by Brotherhood Without Banners, the outlaws. On their

30 journey, Brotherhood visits Lady of the Leaves for information and when she learns of Arya‟s gender, Lady insists on Arya donning a dress, talks with her about dancing and needlework and tries to make her a proper lady which Arya does not appreciate, she prefers the company of men, learning new skills in fighting. When she attempts to flee from them, Arya is captured by Lannisters‟ former warrior Hound who decides to bring her to Catelyn Stark, her mother, for ransom. Upon finding her family dead, they set up on journey to find her other remaining relative and during their travelling Hound is wounded in a fight;

Arya leaves him to die and boards the ship to Braavos, a city across the Narrow

Sea. There she begins training in arts of lying and killing in a guild the Faceless men, under the guidance of the Kindly Man. Arya‟s initial attempts to return to her family turns into thoughts of nothing but a vengeance and she shows her willingness to learn and improve in anything that could help her in doing so, throwing away her identity or enduring temporary blindness. It is never her gender holding her back but she sees as her weakness her own incompetence and inexperience.

Arya‟s older sister, Sansa is the archetype of young women, the so-called

Maiden, naïve and pure girl, someone who is easily exploited; she was raised to be a proper lady and was expected to behave a certain way, be pretty, obedient and feminine, and from her childhood she eagerly awaits the day when she gets betrothed and married to some handsome youth and become a true lady like her mother. She loves the tales about chivalry, the knights saving the damsels in distress, in which she believes and all the things which her sister dislikes; when she meets young prince Joffrey Lannister she becomes the

31 stereotypical infatuated teenage girl though she is more in love with idea itself: she does “not really know Joffrey yet, but she was already in love with him. He was all she ever dreamt her prince should be” (A Game of Thrones 140); later, when she is betrothed to him and comes to the capital with her father and

Arya, she could not be happier – her dreams are coming true.

But all her dreams and illusions about chivalry and knights begin to shatter not long after the arrival to the capital. When Ned learns the truth of the death of the previous Hand and refuses to acknowledge Joffrey as a new king after the sudden death of Robert, the previous king, Eddard is proclaimed a traitor and imprisoned. Sansa, still believing in her fiancée‟s goodness, begs for a mercy and forgiveness for her father, Joffrey opts to behead him as an act of mercy in spite the advice of his mother “for the women are all weak” (A

Game of Thrones 749) and the traitors should be punished accordingly. Sansa is taken as a hostage, still remaining to-be-queen. Suddenly she is all alone, in an environment where she cannot trust anyone and is disillusioned with everything she has ever believed in. Sansa‟s story, where she is beaten by the very men whom she has believed to protect the innocent and abused by the new young king, turns around the well-known tropes, e.g., living happily ever after with a prince or a knight saving the damsel in distress.

Sansa, similarly to Arya, has to learn how to survive in territory full with enemies, in her case by donning the armour of courtesy; she does not stop being polite and nice to those around her in spite of the mistreatment and abuse. Initially innocent and naïve girl proves that she is not so fragile as she

32 seemed; she never breaks down. Sansa knows that in order to escape, she has no choice but to rely on others, but her hopes are always squashed; her betrothal to Joffrey comes at the end by his betrothal to Margaery Tyrell, whose family plans to help Sansa to escape Lannisters‟ clutches by her marriage to their heir so the Tyrells can take the advantage of her heritage. However, this plan is discovered and Sansa is forced to marry Tyrion Lannister, Joffrey‟s uncle, and the sudden wedding is nothing like what she has been looking forward. Shortly after her marriage, she is whisked away by a fool Dantos, former knight and drunkard, on Littlefinger‟s orders. Littlefinger, a master of coin and a member of the king‟s council, has been always infatuated with

Sansa‟s mother, but it is her sister Lysa who has feelings for him. Sansa is brought to Lysa‟s home and has to start to pretend to be someone else and lie to survive, just as Arya.

The mothers – Cersei and Catelyn

In A Song of Ice and Fire are also several women who have important roles as mothers. One of them is Catelyn Stark, Ned‟s wife, however, her character is primary defined by her family and the actions she takes revolve always around the good of her children. Nevertheless, Catelyn is not just a vulnerable lady as she proves when she fights the murderer who was hired to kill her son Bran who was unconscious since his suspicious fall from the walls of their stronghold during the visit of the royal family and entourage; when she finds a clue about this possible killer, she sets out into the capital to find the truth; misleads anyone who would follow her trails after she has taken into

33 custody Tyrion Lannister, brother of Cersei and the accused attempted killer; acts as an advisor and an envoy to her other son, Robb, who became the King in the North. She is losing bit by bit her family, everyone she loves and wants to weep for them, but despite that she does not stop, instead tries to find and protect the ones who still live in whichever way she can and risks everything in doing so. When she tries to rationally persuade her son and his council to make a peace and forget vengeance, she is scolded with the words “women do not understand these things” and “a man has a need for vengeance” (A Game of

Thrones 795), that answering with violence, though possibly easier, is better than finding an alternative way; however, later Catelyn admits that she would like to revenge her family herself. Cat certainly conforms to the role of the stereotypical mother who takes care of children and household, but in a dire need she does not hesitate to do the necessary and demonstrates that she is no frail lady.

Cersei Lannister, the queen and mother of Joffrey, is another example of mother who would do anything for well-being of her children. She sees the throne as a mean to achieve a power and security and tries to eliminate every threat in her way. If Ned is the protagonist of the first book, then one could see

Cersei as the main villain. Ned, because of his honour and naivety, tells her that he knows all her children were born of incest and to take them and leave immediately; Cersei instead finds how to strip him of his position. When she persuades Joffrey to spare Ned‟s life, she does not do it for mercy; she knows what far-reaching consequences it will have (Irwin and Jacoby 91) and tries to prevent them. She is ruthless in pursuing the well-being of her children and

34 does not shy away from indirectly murdering her husband, whom she deems as a worthless king, so she can put her son on the Iron throne.

Cersei grew up surrounded by powerful men but, despite her ambitions, would never achieve their positions in a patriarchal society due to her gender.

She sees most of men as incompetent and is convinced that manhood is on many men wasted but is at the same time envious of them; she “would rather fight and face enemy than just sit” (A Clash of Kings 618) and wait for the results of any fight or battle. She was raised up alongside her younger twin

Jaime and in their childhood they were inseparable, sometimes pretending to be each other, donning the clothes of the other sibling which always lead to a change of attitudes of other people and “she was always startled by how differently men treated her when they thought that she was Jaime. Even Lord

Tywin himself…” (A Feast for Crows 301). When she starts to study and learn other things than her brother, Cersei is not able to comprehend why would they do so when she and Jaime are, after all, so similar.

She never stops trying to impress her father but never accomplishes his approval for he is “a proud-noble father who discounts her achievement because of a handicap - in her case, being a daughter” (Poniewozik, Dead Tree

Alert). Cersei takes upon herself the very same goals and interests as those of her father as well as his many masculine attributes; her mother died after giving birth to her younger brother Tyrion, and hence Cersei was bereft of a female role model and growing up in presence of her powerful father and talented brother Jaime she identified with them. For this reason she wants to

35 be a part of the political world, to decide her own fate, but is only an unfortunate victim of the age she lives in and despite being intelligent, ambitious and resourceful, she is limited by her gender. She would also be the heir of House Lannister, were it not for the Westeroi custom when only the oldest male son can inherit the family estate; because of this, Cersei resents the patriarchy and its limits. However, she never loses her femininity. She embraces her sexuality and her children are the only people she truly loves. There is constant dichotomy between her feminist ideals and her masculinity identity as she constantly wishes she was born a man and this leads to her bitterness and resentment. Nonetheless, she never gives up and starts to manipulate her surroundings, men in particular, using any means in her disposal; “she is willing to lie, seduce, manipulate, and even murder her own husband in her quest for power, pleasure, and happiness. And by many external measures of happiness, she is successful. She has risen to power as the queen. She secures a powerful place in the kingdom for her children. She lives a life of luxury” (Irwin and

Jacoby 67). She uses the mistreatment of women to her advantage and turns it into a weapon against the patriarchal society.

Cersei is dismissed by many fans of books and TV show alike as nothing but a whore using men without any scruples; though she is certainly not faithful to her husband, one can hardly find in the whole series many married men who do not stray from their marriages. Her husband is famous for his numerous conquests, her younger brother Tyrion frequently visits brothels and even man like Davos, married ex-smuggler with several children, honest and loyal man, has “salt-wives”, mistresses on different islands. But it is Cersei who is punished

36 and humiliated for her deeds while nobody is surprised or shocked by the same behaviour of men; on the contrary, they are regarded as honourable and virtuous men when they stay faithful. To those situations can be applied the double standard (according to Meriam-Webster dictionary a situation in which two people, groups, etc., are treated very differently from each other in a way that is unfair to one of them) which has not ceased to exist even nowadays.

One could argue that whilst the men in the series behaves this way in order to satisfy themselves, Cersei uses her sex as a mean to achieve her goals. She has known from the childhood that she was to be used to expand the wealth of her family, to provide connection to another strong house and unite them, and if needed, she would be married even against her will, thus ending married to a man who would never love her and whom she would start to detest. Not having many other options to achieve her goals and being constantly reminded that as a woman she is inferior to men, she uses her gender, beauty and apparent weakness of almost any man for women own gain.

Cersei is also paranoid; when she sees Tyrion, her own family, as a possible threat, she orders one of the knights to kill him during the oncoming battle. After becoming the Queen Regent and the loss of her children, she starts to doubt and fear anyone in her vicinity, finding enemies everywhere, killing anyone she deems as a threat and, in the end, finds herself without any friend or allies and is utterly humiliated. She is not a good ruler as she thinks, undermines her rule by her decisions and one can hardly describe her as a good person, but her personality is moulded by the world she lives in and regardless what she achieves, she is constantly reminded that she, as a

37 woman, will never be good enough. But whilst there are many opportunities for power-hungry men, the opportunities for women are limited; there is no place for them in King‟s council or in any other positions holding great responsibility.

Thus Cersei, one of the influential and powerful Lannisters, finds out that there is only one possible position for a woman – that of a Queen. Therefore, a major part of her paranoia stems from fear of usurping this position and power by another woman and sees them as competitors and not possible allies.

The warriors – Brienne, Ygritte, and Asha

George R. R. Martin is infamous for his merciless killing of the characters and constantly creating new ones. Thus, there are other women who appear for the first time in the second volume or later and despite being so different from each other, majority of them have one similarity - none of them is a damsel in distress but they are female characters with depth and an agency who have to overcome the obstacles when they overstep the roles which are expected from them and are often belittled when they strive for things that are normally associated with men; many of a man is of an opinion that “the gods made men to fight, and women to bear children. A woman‟s war is in the birthing bed” (A

Feast for Crows 283) and the female warriors are not taken seriously.

In The Clash of Kings, the second volume of the series, is introduced

Brienne of Tarth. She has decided to take an unusual path as a female knight in this patriarchal world and is one of the few rare knights who uphold moral codes; in her and Sansa‟s stories Martin deconstructs the idea of chivalry. There are many knights in the series but few of them are personifications of good;

38 rather, many of them relish drinking, killing and rape. There is the violent and mad Gregor Clegane, his brother Sandor, bitter and disillusioned, Dontos

Hollard, a drunkard, Lancel Lannister, a coward, Jaime Lannister, who was introduced as a man who is in relationship with his sister and who would push children out of the window to protect this secret, Loras Tyrell who would be the typical knight in shining armour from a fairy tale but has as his lover a man, and many others. There are only few true knights and Brienne is one of them despite her gender. But she is constantly teased and ridiculed by men, reminded that as a woman her place is not between warriors but at home with the children, she is looked down on her abilities at wielding the swords before they see her fight; Brienne, however, struggles and fights against prejudices and does not give up any of her ambitions nor loses her integrity.

Brienne has been often mistaken for a man and always taunted and mocked for her visage by those who know her sex as she is described with the words “the huge freckled hands, the wide flat face, the thrust of her teeth. Out of armor, her body seemed ungainly, broad of hip and thick of limb, with hunched muscular shoulders but no bosom to speak of. And it was clear from every action that Brienne knew it, and suffered from it” (The Clash of Kings

255). As the only child and heir to Tarth, she is a subject of several courting but she would accept only if some of them would defeat her in a single combat; thinking that as a woman, Brienne does not have a chance and therefore underestimating her, they all lose to her. After an abundance of men who would marry her only for the riches of her House while mocking her behind her back, calling her sarcastically Brienne the Beauty, she meets Renly Baratheon

39 who does not laugh at her but treats her kindly as he would any other lady and

Brienne chooses to follow him and fight for him. At his camp she proves in a melee that a woman can defeat a man and after she wins, she is granted her only wish, to become one of the Rainbow guards who protect Renly, and his easy acceptance is met with disbelief from every one present.

Brienne is depicted as a loyal, stubborn and honest, and she admits that she does not sees herself as a mother, but a warrior (A Clash of Kings 410), and bears a great similarity to another tall female warrior from the trilogy of

Elizabeth Moon, the protagonist Paksenarrion, in their behaviour and many of their opinions; but Brienne is also shy and distant as a result of the constant bullying. Upon witnessing the murder of Renly before her very eyes, Brienne swears that she will avenge him; however, she has to immediately escape together with Catelyn Stark, who was the only other witness when he died, as they are accused of his murder and she enters Catelyn‟s service. In their relationship and interactions, Martin shows the difference between two women who use different means and ways, but neither of them is shown as inferior; they are both strong and courageous and respect each other.

Catelyn entrusts Brienne with the secret exchange of Robb‟s captive,

Jaime, for her daughters and to protect him on their way to King‟s Landing and, on their journey back, do the same with the girls, and Brienne is determined not to disappoint her. Jaime is at first sight the stereotypical knight, handsome, tall, capable and fearsome fighter who has been a knight from his teenage years and the youngest Kingsguard, for many years admired by many, but is

40 also well-known as Kingslayer who broke his vows and killed the previous mad king. At first these two cannot stand each other, verbally fight and insult each other at every opportunity and Jaime is genuinely surprised when they fight and he learns how strong she is; but because of Brienne‟s behaviour and her determination to keep the oath to Catelyn, Jaime remembers the knight‟s vows and their honour that he had become disillusioned with over the years and slowly comes to respects her. When they are captured and Jaime loses his sword hand, thus losing as well all his determination and will to continue to live, it is Brienne who reminds him that many people have lost much more important things in the wars and still struggle to live and he thanks her with words “you protected me as well as any man could have, and better than most” (A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow 535). Brienne is as a female pitted against the male knights, showing that honour and morality is not just a domain of the men and that a knight who adheres most to the moral codes of knighthood and its vows could be a woman. In Brienne, Martin rejects the traditional gender roles and defies the common associations with chivalry.

Asha Greyjoy, the heir to another newly self-proclaimed king, is respected as a commander of her own ship and a great warrior. She grew up as the only remaining child of an overthrown lord who wished for the lost glory and grasped for it at first opportunity, proclaiming himself a king. Asha does not lose her position even after the return of her brother Theon, she is the one who is entrusted by their father with more important battles. When her father dies,

Asha tries to convince others of her competence as a possible queen when there has never been a female ruler but fails as majority of the men cannot

41 accept a woman or dismiss the very notion as ridiculous and instead is advised to “go back to [her] dolls [. . .] leave the winning of wars to warriors” (A Feast for Crowns 329); she wants adventures, not to take care of children.

Ygritte is another skilful warrior amongst the wildlings living behind the

Wall where the women are not looked down as someone inferior. The whole society behind the Wall is more equal than that of Westeros where women do not have a chance of choosing their husbands nor their future; here, the women are free and independent. She is introduced when she is captured with other wildlings by the Night‟s Watch and does not show fear even when she is to be beheaded. It is Ygritte who directly pursues Jon over and over and is not afraid to show what she wants and express what she feels, and it is thanks to her that Jon survives and is accepted as one of the wildlings. Her relationship with Jon is in contrast to the majority of the relationships in the series; they both were willing partners who chose to enter this affair and were not forced to by their families as many others.

Daenerys and the rest of the women

Across the Narrow Sea on another continent, far from the Seven

Kingdoms, is Daenerys, at the beginning of the series depicted as nothing but a scared and lonely girl. She grew up with her older brother Viserys, together expelled from the Seven Kingdoms where they lost all their family to an uprising and slaughter when she was an infant. Viserys yearns for return back to their homeland and for the Iron throne which he sees as rightfully his as he is the last male descendant of the royal house Targaryen, but Dany, not remembering

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Westeros, is satisfied with their current home. In order to get an army and means for this purpose, Viserys sells Daenerys to Khal Drogo, a leader of big

Khalasar, people who do not have home, as they constantly travel on their horses, and who live for the thrill of the battles. Viserys does not see Dany as anything but his property and therefore his to do anything he wants. House

Targaryen was known for the common custom of marriage between sisters and brothers to preserve their lineage pure and therefore Dany has always assumed that she would have to one day marry her own brother as well, never to be able to escape from him and gain freedom. The marriage with Khal Drogo is arranged behind her back and she meets him for the first time when she is presented to him shortly before the wedding, so he can agree to this trade in the case he is satisfied with her; Daenerys is scared of the wedding and tries to oppose it but nobody is willing to listen to her and help. Dany is treated as nothing but goods from every male she encounters, moreover, she is unable to defend herself as she cannot comprehend that she could be possibly treated in another way.

Thus, Daenerys is thrust into completely different society and culture where violence is a common part of everybody‟s lives and where rape after conquering an enemy village is viewed as normal, something that men have the right to do. However, thanks to the forced marriage Dany distances herself from her brother and finds a place amidst her new family. Daenerys founds herself a home, a place where she feels safe and happy. She learns the

Dothraki language and integrates into this wild society, learns to recognize her own worth and subsequently becomes confident, and finally for the first time

43 defies her brother. She accepts their customs and when she learns that she is pregnant, to prove that her unborn son is going to be a strong warrior, she does not hesitate to undergo their ceremony of eating the raw horse heart.

When Viserys threatens to kill her unborn son, she stops protecting him and lets Drogo crown him as was part of their deal, with melted gold all over his head. Dany slowly takes her own life into her hands. The crucial moment of her growth is the sacrifice of her unborn son to save her husband, and not long after that smothering Drogo, who, despite the sacrifice, is now nothing but a hollow shell. Daenerys becomes the sole leader of the Khalasar even though it has been unheard to have a female as a leader and decides to retake the Iron throne of Seven Kingdoms on her own terms. However, she needs ships and army to get to Westeros and win the throne and in order to get them, she travels to the Free Cities where she discovers the dreadful conditions of the lives of slaves and the way they are treated. She uses greediness of their master to free them and before the return to Westeros, she decides to free the slaves, conquer the cities and rule them. Daenerys grows from scared girl who was used to promote agendas of others to confident, compassionate and independent leader.

In the third volume, A Storm of Swords, the House of Tyrell is introduced with their arrival to the capital. Lady Olenna Tyrell, nicknamed the Queen of

Thorns, an old woman who is “just the littlest bit of thing” (A Storm of Swords

1: Steel and Snow 87) and does not seem dangerous at all; but she is the head of the House of Tyrell, clever and manipulative, and of clear conviction that men would do better if they “put down their swords and listen to their mothers”

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(A Storm of Sword 1: Steel and Snow 90), and always carefully planning to advance their family through the ways that would not have to include violence and gain powerful position. Her granddaughter Margaery, a beautiful and intelligent young woman, who has married in the course of books three men of status and power – Renly Baratheon, who was uninterested in women, Joffrey, a cruel and sadistic teenage boy, and later his younger brother Tommen, still ja child. However, Martin has not written any chapters from her viewpoint and thus a reader cannot truly understand this character but only second-guess from the point of views of others; while Sansa sees her as kind, friendly and helpful, according to Cersei, Margaery is deceitful and aspiring to usurp her role as the queen.

There are many others, major and minor, strong females in A Song of

Ice and Fire. A beautiful mysterious sorceress Melisandre who has control over

Stannis, a brother of deceased Robert, who follows her every advice and whose decisions she can sway, she has more influence over him than his wife. She strongly believes in her true God and is not afraid to do anything to make hero of Stannis, be it seducing, killing or sacrificing anyone to achieve that what she sees in her flames; she is no passive adviser. When Stannis marches into a battle, Melisandre stands by his side to support him despite the danger. The

Dorne, one of the kingdoms of Westeros, is known for its skilful female warriors, notably the Sand Snakes, sisters of various skills, and their cousin

Princess Arianne, and is a place where a firstborn female child can be an heir; women warriors from of Bear Island; Missandei, an intelligent ten year old child with a talent for languages whom Daenerys takes under her protection;

45 wildling women such as Gilly and Val who were made to exchange their children in order for them to survive and leave their side, or Osha, tall and tough wildling, who fled from behind the Wall knowing its surfacing danger and who quickly adapts to the new situations so that she can take advantages of them, and others.

A Song of Ice and Fire and feminism

A Song of Ice and Fire features a variety of complex and well-rounded female characters. Moreover, they are not just one type of woman, but diverse characters who are not just the archetypes and female fantasy tropes; though it sometimes could seem so. The most common female character tropes are the

Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, but they can be further divided into the

“good” and “bad girls” where the above mention trio present the “good girls” against the “bad girl” Whore, who is put into the contrast with the

Mother/Madonna. While some females of A Song of Ice and Fire could fall into these tropes, there would be only few who would not blurred the lines between them; and some would not fall into any of these. However, there are also more elaborate archetypes. One of the archetypes by tvtropes.org also divides the archetypes into the heroic and villainous categories which have more sub- archetypes. Sansa in the beginning of the series is the prototype of the Maiden but she gradually loses her naivety and faith in others; Arya who has characteristics of two stereotypes, the Father‟s Daughter and the Amazon.

While Catelyn is the embodiment of the Matriarch for her commitment to her family, she is also the Nurturer as she is defined by caring for others, for her

46 children. Cersei would be described even by more labels, both “good” and

“bad”, almost every heroic archetype could be applied to Daenerys and Brienne would not fall into one category but could be also described many of the labels.

The series‟ heroines are not one-dimensional, simplified or overused characters, who could be easily labelled, on the contrary, they all have different personalities and traits and feel like real persons with whom a reader can sympathise and identify.

Unfortunately, while the series has so many feminist heroines who are active players of the game and capable of overcoming innumerable hurdles in their lives, A Song if Ice and Fire is not feminis; all the women are oppressed, they have to struggle and are limited by the boundaries set by the society typical for many a book of the fantasy genre. They all are affected by the patriarchal society they live in, when women were considered inferior to men in many areas, and when the female protagonists do try to partake in events which are not generally associated with women and challenge and question the gender roles, they are ushered away or are objects of mockery and ridicule.

Brienne becomes a knight instead of finding a husband and is constantly mocked by people who find a female knight unacceptable; Catelyn is directly told there is no place for her – for women – in strategic meeting and similarly

Asha Greyjoy, a great strategist, is dismissed at the Moot; and Cersei has always condemned her sex for its restrictions. Overall, there is no equality between males and females in this aspects for the women were found to be

“too enmeshed in emotion to be reasonable [thus] excluded from the games of politics, law, and war” (Irwin and Jacoby 254).

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In addition, many of the women who are viewed as strong and capable have as their mentors men. Daenerys needs Ser Jorah, Ser Barristan Selmy and other men to advise her, help her with strategies and teach how to rule; Arya learns how to fight and defend herself from various teachers – but none of them are females; Sansa becomes a protégé of Littlefinger and begins master the game of thrones and Cersei has been trying to imitate her father all her life.

They all are competent women but it seems that Martin is suggesting only males can teach females to fight or rule as the only exception is Margaery, who is guided by her grandmother, the Queen of Thorns. The personalities of many women are also shaped primarily by their fathers; Cersei is mirror to her father, cold and cunning, while Catelyn‟s justness and fairness is inherited from hers;

Sansa‟s initial naivety is also one of Ned‟s attributes and Sand Snakes are prone to anger and violence as was their father. While it is mothers who take care of their children, it is their fathers who have more influence over them; the only exception is, once again, the Queen of Thorns and Margaery.

A Song of Ice and Fire is also gritty and gruesome fantasy, full of violence, murder and slaughter. Due to the biological differences between male and female body and the assumption that men are physically strong while women are weak, violence is associated with masculinity. Violence is in fantasy common in forms of various combats, battles and wars, and these are all usually male-dominated; but the series‟ women are no less violent than men.

All wildlings fight alongside each other completely disregarding sex; Sand

Snakes‟ wish for revenge is as much as strong as their father‟s; Arya becomes accustomed to killing fairly quickly and does so without any remorse;

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Melisandre is willing to sacrifice anybody in order to reach her goals and even virtuous woman as Catelyn kills to protect her family. Moreover, the fact that they engage directly in a combat does not diminish their femininity; Sand

Snakes, Ygritte or Asha are all capable warriors without abandoning femininity and are defined by their sexuality as well. In contrast, there is Arya, who in pursuing her revenge denies many times her gender, or Brienne who is generally not associated with any feminine traits. Women in Martin‟s work are not excluded from the violent acts and sometimes they are more blood-thirsty than men; furthermore, by engaging in these acts they do not necessary reject their gender roles and accept the masculine ones.

Another way to see if any fantasy work – and any fiction in general – may be considered feminist is to pass the Bechdel Test, which by applying shows how often women are marginalized. The Bechdel Test requires three rules which all have to be fulfilled. The work has to feature at least two named females who talk to each other about something else but a man. A Song of Ice and Fire has several female protagonist and many secondary characters who do talk to each other about various topics. The striking examples are the conversations between Catelyn Stark and Brienne when they discuss children or revenge, the teasing between Arya and Sansa, Cersei and her female friend‟s visit to the wood witch or the clashes between Margaery and Cersei; there are various interactions and connections between them, they are families, friends and enemies. However, passing the Bechdel Test does not automatically mean the work has to be feminist – as is the case with A Song of Ice and Fire.

Fantasy works generally do not pass this test as the number of the women is

49 often low and they do not interact; for instance neither Hobbit nor The Lord of the Rings by John R. R. Tolkien or Conan the Barbarian would fulfil all the requirements, Moorcock‟s or Feist‟s series as well and neither does The First

Law by Abercrombie whose otherwise capable heroines almost never meet and when they do, there is no conversation between them.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, the roles of heroines of fantasy literature have been evolving and the females are slowly finding their place as the equals to male protagonists, disregarding the gender roles in which they have been typically cast. The majority of the leads have been men, however, it has not been a rarity in case being it a woman and the number of active female characters has been increasing over the decades; furthermore, nowadays due to imitating of

Martin‟s multiple viewpoints, there are capable women even in the books with the predominance of male protagonists. At present, George R. R. Martin is not the only author of this genre whose works have as one of the protagonists a strong female, but he is undoubtedly the author who presents us with so many women, so vastly different in character and behaviour from each other, yet strong and still believable. They are complex, well-rounded and fleshed out, they kick some ass, they struggle, fail and fight back. Nevertheless, the series A

Song of Ice and Fire is not feminist with its setting where women are often common victims of abuse and rape, and the gender roles which are firmly established; though, as has been shown, several women – and men - have challenged this. Many other fantasy books of various authors, both male and female, which are set into the medieval world with its sexism as a status quo, have the similar problem, however, there have been authors who have decided to use this setting but at the same time have chosen not to be limited by its sexism such as Elizabeth Moon, Lynn Flewelling or Rowena Cory Daniells.

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Summary

This thesis deals with the depictions of females as heroines of fantasy literature and while its focus is mainly on the series by George R. R. Martin, A

Song of Ice and Fire, it also offers a brief overview of the development of fantasy genre and the treatment of the female protagonists. In the first chapter, the thesis concisely delves into the fantasy works, from the earliest works by Robert E. Howard‟s Conan the Cimmerian, John R. R. Tolkien‟s trilogy

The Lord of the Rings and Ursula K. Le Guin‟s The Earthsea Cycle to Terry

Pratchett‟s series Discworld or Sanderson‟s works, and concentrates on the progress of the portrayal of women. The second chapter analyses the many heroines of A Song of Ice and Fire to prove that the females of this series do not fall into the stereotypical gender roles of fantasy genre, such as the beautiful damsels in distress or good or evil witches, and that women as the protagonists are not inferior to the males in any way.

Key words: fantasy literature, pop culture, female protagonists, George R. R.

Martin, gender, John R. R. Tolkien, feminism

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Resumé

Ve své diplomové práce jsem se zaměřila na ženské hrdinky ve fantasy, především na postavy fantasy série Píseň ledu a ohně napsané Georgem R. R.

Martinem, a pokusila se dokázat, že jejich pojetí v tomto žánru prošlo vývojem.

V první kapitole jsem se snažila stručně popsat vývoj fantasy, od prvních děl s fantaskními prvky přes autory, kteří jsou dnes uznávaní jako spisovatelé prvních fantasy děl, až do současné doby. V druhé části jsem se věnovala několika vybraným dílům významných představitelů tohoto žánru, například Robertu E.

Howardovi, trilogiím Johna R. R. Tolkiena či Ursuly K. Le Guin a sérii Terryho

Pratchetta, a pokusila se analyzovat jejich protagonistky. V poslední kapitole jsem se zaměřila na hrdinky série Písně ledu a ohně a snažila jsem se o jejich podrobnější analýzu s cílem dokázat, že ženy ve fantasy už nejsou pouhými stereotypy, jejichž jediné role jsou ty sekundární, ale i ony mohou být hlavními postavami s osobnostmi, které mají klady i nedostatky.

Klíčová slova: fantasy literatura, pop kultura, ženské hrdinky, George R. R.

Martin, John R. R. Tolkien, gender, feminismus

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