ASoIaF Meta: Have Mercy
Dec. 21st, 2018 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuranaRepost from tumblr
This discusses the Mercy spoiler chapter for Winds of Winter, so obviously spoiler warnings for everything.
So my prediction for the coming books is, that if she comes back to Westeros she will not only be a cold blooded killer, but a danger to what is left of her family and will probably have to die. That is of course completely horrible and not fair at all and it breaks my heart, but considering the books we are reading, that is probably what is going to happen. I hope it won’t. I really really hope I’m wrong on this.
This is what I wrote some time ago, before I got to read the Mercy spoiler chapter from Marin’s site. Oh man do I hate it to be right…
So let’s discuss what happens here: An eleven year old girl (maybe twelve as we don’t know how long after her last chapter in ADwD this takes place) uses promises of sex to lure an adult male into a secluded place and coldly murder him.
But wait there is more: She currently trains to become an assassin.
But wait there is more: This is not the first time she did something like that (we did not see how she killed Dareon on AFfC, but murder him she did).
This should be deeply disturbing to us. At least I read it that way. Because just as all the other horrifying things in these books, the murder and rape and torture, the callousness with which the lives of the small folk are thrown away, the misogyny, one thing should be absolutely clear by now: This is not a great adventure and violence only brings about more violence. Nowhere does this become more clear than in Septon Meribald’s speech about the broken men and the cost of war in AFfC. And yet, people cheer about Arya killing Raff.
Maybe it is because we have become so conditioned by storytelling that, when the hero gets revenge on the bad guy, we think we are supposed to be cheering. Because heroes are supposed to kill the bad guys, right? That’s how it works. And of course Raff deserves to die. He is probably one of the worst characters in a book series that is teeming with rapists and murderers. But the point is, Arya is not the one who should be doing this. An eleven year old girl should be not the one, who has to kill the monster, so the good guys win. Similar Dareon would have been sentenced to death for desertion in Westeros, but again Arya should not be the one who carries that out.
We can see a progression here from Arya witnessing murder and the horrors of war, to killing in self-defense, to her murdering in cold blood to get revenge. And people call her a badass and think that this is so great. I just don’t know what to say to this, except no, no way. This can’t be what Martin wants us to take away from this. Or, if it is, than I have been wasting my time with these books. Because then, all the critics, who call this violent, misogynistic garbage that does horrible things to it’s characters for shock value, are right.
This discusses the Mercy spoiler chapter for Winds of Winter, so obviously spoiler warnings for everything.
So my prediction for the coming books is, that if she comes back to Westeros she will not only be a cold blooded killer, but a danger to what is left of her family and will probably have to die. That is of course completely horrible and not fair at all and it breaks my heart, but considering the books we are reading, that is probably what is going to happen. I hope it won’t. I really really hope I’m wrong on this.
This is what I wrote some time ago, before I got to read the Mercy spoiler chapter from Marin’s site. Oh man do I hate it to be right…
So let’s discuss what happens here: An eleven year old girl (maybe twelve as we don’t know how long after her last chapter in ADwD this takes place) uses promises of sex to lure an adult male into a secluded place and coldly murder him.
But wait there is more: She currently trains to become an assassin.
But wait there is more: This is not the first time she did something like that (we did not see how she killed Dareon on AFfC, but murder him she did).
This should be deeply disturbing to us. At least I read it that way. Because just as all the other horrifying things in these books, the murder and rape and torture, the callousness with which the lives of the small folk are thrown away, the misogyny, one thing should be absolutely clear by now: This is not a great adventure and violence only brings about more violence. Nowhere does this become more clear than in Septon Meribald’s speech about the broken men and the cost of war in AFfC. And yet, people cheer about Arya killing Raff.
Maybe it is because we have become so conditioned by storytelling that, when the hero gets revenge on the bad guy, we think we are supposed to be cheering. Because heroes are supposed to kill the bad guys, right? That’s how it works. And of course Raff deserves to die. He is probably one of the worst characters in a book series that is teeming with rapists and murderers. But the point is, Arya is not the one who should be doing this. An eleven year old girl should be not the one, who has to kill the monster, so the good guys win. Similar Dareon would have been sentenced to death for desertion in Westeros, but again Arya should not be the one who carries that out.
We can see a progression here from Arya witnessing murder and the horrors of war, to killing in self-defense, to her murdering in cold blood to get revenge. And people call her a badass and think that this is so great. I just don’t know what to say to this, except no, no way. This can’t be what Martin wants us to take away from this. Or, if it is, than I have been wasting my time with these books. Because then, all the critics, who call this violent, misogynistic garbage that does horrible things to it’s characters for shock value, are right.
