If the sexist Nissa Nissa plot is Dany’s true fate then that will be the final nail in the coffin as far as my investment in ASOIAF. Not here for women being fridged to bring about a better tomorrow. Willing participant or not. Just let them live for once.
So this as good a time as any for me to go on about how I feel about Dany being the Nissa Nissa, the Azor Ahai theory in general, and how Fantasy feels about blood sacrifice.
First, I think we need to accept that the Azor Ahai theory needs to be valid. Long before S8 pissed all over our hopes and dreams for a valid conclusion to the series, there has been evidence that Jon would need to kill Dany to awaken Lightbringer. The Azor Ahai mythos was introduced in A Clash of Kings for a reason. George showed us Stannis, a man willing to sacrifice others so that he could be the hero, for a reason. He showed us Daenerys, a woman who constantly put others before herself, who metaphorically pulled out her heart to offer to the world time and time again, for a reason.
George is saying that if you want to be the hero, it has to be YOUR heart on the sacrificial board. There is narrative foundation, thematic foundation, for this to happen. It is not going to come out of left field. We are going to be prepared for this.
And it is Daenerys’ choice. After Westeros rejects her in favor of Fake Aegon, after she accidentally sets off the wildfire caches and unleashes the green apocalypse in King’s Landing, Dany will feel she will have nothing. Essos will reject her, Westeros will reject her, she will never find her home. But Jon will still have his family. He will still have a place in Westeros.
It will be an argument. It will not be a one-sided thing. But ultimately, Jon will pierce Dany’s chest with Lightbringer, and with that flaming sword glowing hot in his chest, he will end the Others once and for all.
Is this an instance in which a woman is being killed so that a man can save the world? Yes. Is this a twist on conventions in that the woman is choosing to have the deed performed on her, that it is HER choice? Yes. Is that an improvement? Yes.
But better does not mean it is good. We are still seeing a woman being murdered in fiction so that a man can feel bad about saving the world. And that is not okay.We should be doing better than that. We should be telling better stories than that.
But secondly, this is not necessarily new territory for George. He simultaneously creates complex female characters while still writing female characters that are designed specifically to be fridged for a male character’s complex motivations. The Three Heads of the Dragon (Jon, Dany, Tyrion) all lost their mothers due to childbirth. This contributes to their sense of isolation and status as an underdog. But that is also three times now that a woman needed to die in childbirth for three of the heroes to come into existence.
We know nothing about Lyarra Stark, except that she was wed to Rickard Stark, and was mother to Brandon, Eddard, Benjen and Lyanna. She probably died after giving birth to Lyanna.
We know nothing about Cassana Estermont, except that she was the mother of Robert, Stannis and Renly, and that she died with her husband on their return journey to Storm’s End in Shipbreaker’s Bay. We don’t know what she said to her sons, how she was a mother to them, what she believed in, how she clashed with her husband, how she loved her husband, what sort of pressures she experienced as being wife of a Lord Paramount…nothing. All we know is that her death (and she is grouped with her husband here, whose character is slightly expanded upon in AWOIAF) is what turns Stannis into a bitter atheist.
If Dany has to become Nissa Nissa, then that is the fourth time that a woman had to die a terrible death for the world to be saved. That is a blood sacrifice. What kind of world is the world of ice and fire that requires a blood sacrifice for it to be saved?
We can see where George is going with this. Westeros will reject Dany in favor of a pretender. That is tragic. Westeros will reject her because her she is a Targaryen. That is tragic. We the readers will wonder what kind of queen she would have been. That is tragic. We the readers would think that Westeros lost a shining reign comparable to Jaehaerys and Alysayne. That is tragic. By itself, that is fine. That is a Shakesperean tragedy that will just tear out your heart.
In isolation.
But when we look at it in the greater context of ASOIAF - all of the childbirth deaths, all of the women who just have no personality save being the mothers of tragic male heroes, the unnamed Princess of Dorne, all of the examples of sexual violence, we can only respond with “Yikes”.
We have to be asking ourselves why a woman needs to die. Why does there need to be a death sacrifice. Why we seem to obsessed with the loss of a life to validate a bittersweet ending, because otherwise it will be unearned.
And this is where I think George’s generational gap comes into play. If ASOIAF was finished twenty, fifteen, or even ten years ago, I don’t think this ending would be quite as criticized. But the modern audience is the most narratively intelligent audience in history, and readers are only going to get smarter. The internet has allowed so many resources to be read and studied and examined that we can see the historical ancestor to tropes. It all started with Hero With a Thousand Faces, and we have only gotten smarter since then.
George is trying to fix a sexist trope. “The woman has to die.” George is saying “The woman should be the one to choose.” We are saying why does a woman have to die, period. Why does anyone have to die, period. Why is a sacrifice of a life needed to save a Fantasy world? Why is he trying to fix a sexist trope instead of just throwing it into a furnace?
Fantasy has always had an issue with sacrifice. With the exception of The Lord of the Rings, Fantasy literature has almost always said “If you want to save the world, and if you want that saving to hurt, someone has to die, preferably a woman.” It all started with Elfstones of Shanarra, and things have not gotten better since then.
But we as readers should sure as hell be demanding better.
I mean, the idea of a willing blood sacrifice to save the world isn’t really first rooted in modern fantasy though right? It strikes me as springing from christian theology - one man willingly gives up his life as a “living sacrifice” to save the world. In Christian theology, the Christ is literally a blood sacrifice to save mankind. It’s fascinating, however, that in transplanting this idea into a fantasy setting, the sacrifice becomes a woman, and the one who kills her becomes a hero. The Christ is certainly a heroic (actually divine) figure in Christian theology, but the killers aren’t all even really named and they certainly aren’t considered heroes. So in making the sacrificial offering a woman, she suddenly has to, at best, share her heroism with her killer. At worst, she becomes an evil object and all the focus turns to the “agony” of her killer.
I also find it interesting that Tolkien, a devout Catholic writing in the early 20th century, didn’t feel the need to have Arwen or Rosie Cotton jump into a volcano so the Ring could be destroyed, but we apparently find it necessary now.
I was trying to focus more on Fantasy literature, but if we want to go into the religious and the mythological…
I wouldn’t start with Christianity. I would start with Norse mythology. In order for Odin to gain wisdom, he had to cut out his eye and impale himself to Yggdrasil, the tree of life. He had to experience immense pain and suffering in order for him to gain knowledge.
But you are very much correct in that Tolkien, a very Catholic Catholic, didn’t see the need for a sacrifice in order for LOTR to have a bittersweet ending. Jesus died in order to save the soul of the world - and yet Tolkien did not think something comparable was necessary.
The reason why I think Fantasy has gone for “a heroic male sacrificing a woman to save the world” has less to do with Tolkien, and more to do with the Imperialistic heritage of it. Fantasy draws alot from mythology. but not just ancient mythology, but Arthurian. A great deal of mythology are stories that are designed to say “our culture is the right way”. And a great deal of cultures in the ancient era, and even lingering to today, were bigoted.
There is a direct link between how goddamn white Fantasy is, and how deeply rooted Fantasy is in European mythology.
I will say that, at least in this regard, Fantasy is improving. More and more people of color are writing Fantasy, and as a result, the brushes painting the Fantasy landscape of today are more lush and diverse. We are having better representation.
Now, do we still have people saying “You can’t have black people in my dragon story!”? Sure, mostly because they grew up with the all white Fantasy worlds and they find change to be strange and confusing. As does anyone. But the benefit of the modern world, connected by the internet as it is, is that perspectives are expanding. More voices are filtering into the debate.
And that just makes it easier for storytellers to see how they can do better.
