Important Female Characters that have been cut out of Game of Thrones
Arianne Martell: The female heir to Dorne who demands recognition and acknowledgement and refuses to be passed over.
“You will not rob me of my birthright!”
Wylla Manderly: Grandaughter of Wyman Manderly, insults the Freys in front of a hall full of people and refuses to be married off. And she has green hair which is pretty sick.
“He was our king! He was brave and good, and the Freys murdered him. If Lord Stannis will avenge him, we should join Lord Stannis”
Val: Sister of mance Rayder’s wife Dalla (who has also been cut) said to be extremely beautiful yet is fiercely independent and strong.
“I am no southron lady but a woman of the free folk. I know the forest better than all your black cloaked rangers. It holds no ghosts for me.”
Mya Stone: One of Robert Baratheon’s bastards, lives in the vale and is in charge of helping people up to the Eyrie.
“Men come and go. They lie, or die, or leave you. A mountain is not a man, though, and stone is a mountain’s daughter. I trust my father, and I trust my mules. I won’t fall.”
Lady Stoneheart: *spoiler alert or not really because she won’t be in the show* Catelyn Stark resurrected seeking revenge on the Frey’s and leading the Brotherhood without banners (there’s your revenge plot D&D)
“She don’t speak. You bloody bastards cut her throat too deep for that. But she remembers.”
Asha Greyjoy: not to be confused with whoever “Yara” Greyjoy is, Asha does not believe in flippantly calling people “cunts” and is not scared of dogs.
“My mother raised me to be bold”
Alysane Mormont: Fights with Stannis’ army and guards Asha when she is captured (oops not really spoilers again) and don’t tell me that they don’t become best friends because they do.
“Mormont women are skinchangers. We turn into bears and find mates in the woods.”
Barbrey Dustin: The widow of Lord Dustin, hates the Starks because she blames Ned for the death of her husband. She is cunning, intelligent and one of Roose Bolton’s biggest supporters in Winterfell (but you know in the show no northern lords are in Winterfell because logic)
”The bride weeps … Dressing her in grey and white serves no good if the girl is left to sob. The Freys might not care, but the northmen … they fear the Dreadfort, but they love the Starks.“
All these women are unique, different and complicated, even though some of them do not fit into d&d’s “strong women” or “sexually empowered” archetypes they are important and interesting parts of the story. All of these amazing characters were axed in favor of a storyline depicting a violent rape and that is truly unforgivable and disgusting.
Mostly a good post except for the last part. They weren’t cut “specifically to make room for Sansa’s rape storyline”, they were cut because D&D are hacks who can’t even keep track of most of the characters they keep in. Also it’s funny that you say that but leave out Jeyne Poole.
Yeah I agree that D&D are really just bad writers who simply couldn’t be bothered to fit these important ladies into their story. I understand that they weren’t cut “specifically” to make room for Sansa’s Winterfell storyline, the point I was trying to make is that by excluding these women and depicting a violent rape against an important main character is that it shows where D&Ds priorities lie and illustrates the way they like to portray women in the show.
I also would like to defend my exclusion of Jeyne Poole on this list. While her story is one that is very interesting an nunanced, it is one that is characterisized by sexual violence and torment. As I understand the show must get rid of certain plot lines, I think that this one (Ramsay raping either Sansa or jeyne) should have been first on the chopping block. While I think GRRM does an admirable job of depicting Jeyne (and also Theon’s) trauma in the book, I think this particular storyline is not one that would translate well to screen (and did not as we saw). I just don’t think simply swapping Sansa for Jeyne in the show would have been any better as we have seen D&D are incapable of handling sexual violence in any nuanced way.
At the end of the day, D&D are just horrible writers who have butchered ASOIAF in their “critically acclaimed” show. I wrote this post originally midway through season 5 and things have only gotten worse. Obviously, the show has many problems beyond cutting important female characters, all stemming from the fact that D&D are most certainly hacks. They have butchered all of the storylines from the book and destroyed all of the most important characters into inconsistent caricatures of themselves. But I think many problems in the show stem from D&D’s particular inability to portray complex female characters.
