i’m genuinely surprised that more people aren’t talking about the feminization of asher forrester. i’ve always found it fascinating that the game ( and even the fandom, to some degree, though i doubt this is deliberate ) is consistently framing him with a womanly/fem lens despite asher not being what one would necessarily call feminine. one of the bigger themes, if not the biggest theme in asoiaf, is systematic oppression. grrm is very intentional about choosing pov characters that are disenfranchised to some degree by the patriarchal society of westeros, and we see a similar framing in the choice of pov’s for ttgot. ethan, who is a child and does not adhere to traditional tenets of manliness, as he has no interest in fighting and is seen as weak by many. gared, who is lowborn and repeatedly mocked for such a thing — and it’s hard to ignore potential lack of adherence to the patriarchy considering how many pointed comments about homosexuality are made about him by his peers. mira, who is a woman, and i doubt much more needs to be said about that. rodrik, who was once the perfect picture of a man: being able-bodied, good at fighting, noble-born, well-respected, and seemingly heterosexual. but when he sustains his injuries at the red wedding, he is permanently cast out to the dregs of society and disrespected. and then there’s asher, who is by all accounts an “acceptable” man by westerosi standards ( and i wouldn’t really count the exile against him, since it was not imposed necessarily by the starks but presented more as a fleeing to essos for safety ). but despite this, the narrative treats him more similarly to mira than they do to his male counterparts.
for one thing, asher is repeatedly sexualized by men, in a way reminiscent of gared’s treatment by the hands of men, but much more violent. while gared is teased for rising to the station of ranger because of favours from men ( and yes, this is classism! ), asher’s comments are much more leering in nature. in what is perhaps the most sexually explicit moment in the game, bloodsong leers at asher before their fight in episode five.
and while this line could be dismissed as the game coding bloodsong as queer, or perhaps trying to showcase how different things are in the context of slavery / a different country, or even just xenophobic writing given bloodsong’s nonwhiteness, i find it interesting that other characters also echo this sentiment about asher. asher himself compares his looks to those of women when he compares himself to daenerys in an attempt to flirt with her, and displays much vanity in general: caring more about his looks than any other character in game as he repeatedly remarks upon his own handsomeness or sex appeal. besides asher’s own comments or beliefs, you also have the whitehills honing in on his looks as well. in a deleted voice line, harys tells rodrik : “but your head isn’t as pretty as your brother’s” — again, using very feminine language to refer to asher. and while ludd isn’t using as feminine of a word, he still pointedly makes a comment about asher’s looks by saying he looks better dead than alive.
later, gryff makes a point of mentioning asher’s sexual activity while in essos and shames him for his perceived whorishness, saying that one woman won’t satisfy him now, and that he’d do anything “for the right price.”
it’s a very sexual approach to dealing with asher, and while it’s tempting to say that this is because of asher’s affair with gwyn, this still doesn’t sit quite right. the wording of this is too peculiar. gryff is far more interested in asher’s tainted purity than he is about anything else. he starts off as one might expect, denouncing asher’s character as a sellsword and raper, but then he quickly pivots to talking about gwyn’s inability to please a man who must have had so many other women. why would he care about asher’s pleasure, or if gwyn would satisfy him? and while gryff might be mocking asher here due to his past history of whoring as a teenager, it is still a remarkably feminine sort of heckling. in westeros, and even in our current society, men do not face the level of scrutiny that women do for their sexual activity. for many men, it is considered a good thing to be sexually active and to have lots of women. certainly in westeros, it is considered the norm for men to sleep around with whores. robert baratheon and tom sevenstrings have comments made about their whoring, yes, but far harsher mockery is made of stannis, for example, for not having enough sex ( and for disliking it ). even ned is viewed as strange for abstaining from whoring due to his honour. it just wouldn’t be done this way. if the whitehills viewed asher strictly as just some raper, or if they misliked how often he laid with women, then they’d likely just cut off his manhood and call it a day. they wouldn’t be calling him pretty or lamenting at how “damaged” he is as a sexual object for gwyn. even gwyn treats asher as more of a submissive object than her future lord husband. when she’s trying to convince him to wed her willingly and to call off his plan against ludd, she holds his hand between her own, a subversion of more traditional gender norms. the betrothal between rodrik and elaena is portrayed in a much different way. elaena is constantly the one who is being courted, with rodrik attempting to win her favour and to convince her father to allow them to wed. by contrast, asher’s marriage to gwyn is presented as him selling his body to the whitehills to give them a claim to ironrath, only for him to be killed once he produces a male heir for them. again, the parallels write themselves far closer to mira’s story than rodrik’s. @asherforrester has discussed the parallels between mira’s and asher’s marriage plotlines in more detail in this post, complete with screenshots from the game, so please check it out, as i’ve really glossed over it in this post.
there’s another interesting parallel between asher’s and mira’s deaths. while mira’s death is not nearly as gruesome as asher’s, it’s still important to note that her execution is a public spectacle, much like asher’s is. she is dragged to the block, where people can watch for entertainment or for vindication. sera can throw things at mira and morgryn can sneer at her. anyone can say anything they like to her and about her and she is powerless to stop it. meanwhile, the whitehills have asher’s corpse, and they are able to defile it and destroy it to their heart’s content. gryff laughs and says, “you should’ve seen the rest of him! or what’s left after we fed it to the dogs!” this was no mere beheading. we’ve already seen how much of a thrill the whitehills get from triumphing over the forresters and humiliating them, but there’s a certain loss of autonomy here, a very specific sexual thrill of being able to do horrible things to a pretty limp body. by contrast, rodrik’s body is returned to ironrath unharmed save for the wounds he died from. it’s much more noble, and rodrik is treated as befitting his station. and while this could be because of ludd’s perceived fear of asher’s reaction, he similarly calls for rodrik to present himself for execution in rodrik’s route: once more acknowledging his station and at least offering a cleaner death.
meanwhile, asher’s fate reminds me far more of how women are treated in the war of the five kings. while arya stays at harrenhal, she documents the way that women are treated by the northern knights, most notably those women who were either seducing or being raped by lannister soldiers.
And as lords and ladies never notice the little grey mice under their feet, Arya heard all sorts of secrets just by keeping her ears open as she went about her duties. Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way through every knight in the castle.
ARYA VII. A CLASH OF KINGS.
The cook was spared (some said because he'd made the weasel soup), but stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who'd shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.
ARYA X. A CLASH OF KINGS.
regardless of pia’s reasons for laying with lannisters, whether she was forced or felt compelled to seek out some kind of safety in the men occupying harrenhal, her fate remains the same. she still ends her story being strung up naked and shaved for the northmen to do as they please with her.
A thin grey finger crooked them on. It was rising from the south bank several miles on, twisting and curling. Below, Jaime made out the smouldering remains of a large building, and a live oak full of dead women. The crows had scarcely started on their corpses. The thin ropes cut deeply into the soft flesh of their throats, and when the wind blew they twisted and swayed. "This was not chivalrously done," said Brienne when they were close enough to see it clearly. "No true knight would condone such wanton butchery." ( ... ) The wench was staring up at one of the dead women. Jaime shuffled closer with small stutter steps, the only kind the foot-long chain permitted. When he saw the crude sign hung about the neck of the highest corpse, he smiled. "They Lay With Lions," he read. "Oh, yes, woman, this was most unchivalrously done . . . but by your side, not mine. I wonder who they were, these women?"
JAMIE I. A STORM OF SWORDS.
the northmen intentionally display the bodies of the women who have slept with the enemy. the whitehills intentionally have ryon hold the pike that houses asher’s head. the northmen strip away any part of the identities of these women besides their sexual activity ( “i wonder who they were, these women?” ). asher is stripped of all personhood besides his affair with gwyn, which is done by both the whitehills and the forresters. the bodies of these women are objectified and made a spectacle of even after their death. asher’s body is objectified and used to taunt the forresters, repeatedly called a trophy and treated as some sacred prize. i think this framing of asher as a woman, but more specifically as an object for others to use and discard as they please, is something that has been consciously or subconsciously repeated in popular fanworks and in general fandom discussion. for example, i’ve seen people argue for killing asher in episode five because his only purpose was to prop rodrik up, to bring him an army, and that his individual life pales in comparison to the legacy of lord forrester. i’ve seen asher portrayed as a liability to his house, and only a liability, due to his past with gwyn and his rather reckless, impulsive, and emotional decision-making. even in the widely-known ttgot s2 au, gryff uses asher’s decomposing head as a prop for sexual violence, further objectifying him and removing any agency he had as a human, and i have seen little to no arguments about this treatment being unfair or cruel or demeaning to asher’s memory. again, asher is used in this fanwork as an object to prop up another man — in this case, to show how far gryff has fallen. as a latecomer to this fandom, it astounds me that such a thorough feminization of a character is analyzed so little. but it’s all so clear to me when i look at him and his story.
