Game of Thrones and Boooooooobs

I think it is fair to say, among all of us who have read the two Game of Thrones books for this class, that George R.R. Martin has a bit of a fascination with the female body. Some might say, “Well yeah, he’s a straight guy,” and while that simplistic answer holds some merit, mister Martin goes a little overboard in some of his descriptions of women characters in his books, especially in regards to their breasts.

Virtually every description of a female character within A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings mentions their breasts in some way, often to the point of being quite ludicrous. Consider, for example, the description of Davos’s wife Marya. In the scene where we first hear her described, Davos had just been told the tragic tale of Azor Ahai and the forging of Lightbringer, which was weird enough considering the hero told his wife to “bare her breast,” which we all know means “take off your top” in Martin-speak after reading book one. Yet Davos, while ruminating about whether he would do what Azor Ahai did to forge a sword like Lightbringer has his wife described by Martin as “a good-natured plump woman with sagging breasts and a kindly smile.” And make no mistake, this is Martin describing her, not Davos since the text is neither spoken nor thought. Do we really need to know about every women’s boobs in this series?

Strangely, as far as I have read, the only woman who has yet to have who breasts described is Cersei Lannister. This seems rather odd given that everyone describes her as beautiful, yet every other pretty woman or girl is usually described “boobs first” if you will. Daenerys suffers this the worst as everything that happens to this teenager’s body somehow always affects her mammary glands. Whenever she is bathing, running, horse riding, or even getting roasted alive in a fire, her breasts are always on full display in the writing.

One might try to defend Martin by showing how many times he mentions a male character’s penis, but the difference here is a matter of prevalence. Martin never describes a man in regards to the size of his member unless it is in a sex scene or the man in a eunuch, which many people seem to be able to magically discern at points. However, even taking those instances into account, I would wager a hefty sum that the books mention breasts and their synonyms far more often than they do manhoods.

But what does this all mean about Martin himself. Is he nothing more than a sexist pervert leering at women vicariously through his characters? Not exactly. I would likely say he is not an intentional sexist given his large cast of strong and developed female characters. However, to me, this reads as part of the barbaric stereotypical understanding of the medieval taken to the extreme. Martin doesn’t seem to do anything in half measures in these books and that definitely shows in two ways. The first way is armor. I mean seriously why do all these people have gems and soft precious metals inlaid into their battle gear. That is the chivalric element of the medieval to the extreme.

Meanwhile, this oversexualization of women reads as an attempt to capture an extreme sense of medieval barbarism by crossing into taboos of our current society. I am not at all saying this excuses him, but it is important to criticize an element of a work correctly and identify why it is there and where it came from in the first place.

Just an ending quote about the books by my cousin cause I think it really sums up my issues with the series, “It reads like an erotic fantasy novel pretending not to be. If Martin admitted to just wanting to write erotic fiction with lots of lore, I’d respect him more cause he’d at least be honest about it.”

--Brian Lazarow