If I say Cersei’s writing in GOT was more misogynistic than George’s… she is almost as bad as Alicent and Rhaenyra and their glazefication in HoTD. Everytime I see someone defending her show characterization I roll my eyes.
D&D never understood that Cersei is both irredeemable and a victim. That she suffered on the account of her womanhood and also perpetrated violence and cruelty using that as justification. That she was abused and she is an abuser. George asks you to engage with the fact that what Cersei went through wasn’t justified regardless of her being a terrible person, because her being a terrible person had nothing to do with the gendered violence she was a victim of. And that she’s still a terrible person and what she went through doesn’t justify what she does because other female characters also go through similar (sometimes worse) trauma and don’t perpetuate the cruelty and violence she does to others.
All D&D did was justify Cersei’s actions as “deep down she is a mother and she only turned out this cruel because she suffered” and either erased some of her worse crimes or attributed them to other (male) characters. Similar to what Ryan does with Rhaenyra and Alicent (he’s just more obvious about it).
Women in media are often not allowed to be bad without some sort of justification behind it that victimizes them and excuses them. It’s disguised as some sort of feminist writing when in truth is just a misogynistic idea of what feminist writing looks like.
It’s the other facet of the “strong female character that needs no man” and “she’s not like other girls because she hates girly things” and “she’s just a mother that’s why she’s doing what she’s doing” and “she needs to suffer through all this violence so she comes out of it as a better person and she’s so thankful for that actually” that GOT suffered from, stripping away its female characters of all nuance. HoTD does the same.
George has many faults in his writing, but he’s leagues ahead in how he writes his female characters and none of his TV work adaptations so far were able to capture that.
