The Abject In A Song Of Ice And Fire And Game Of Thrones.

The Abject in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones.

The abject status of Tyrion Lannister in his relationship with his father and sister (Cersei and Tywin).

His physical appearance is frequently used by his family to belittle and humiliate him. Tywin, in particular, is disdainful of Tyrion's physical disability and sees him as a stain on the Lannister family's reputation and his own personal curse.  He blames him for the death of his mother in childbirth, even though Tyrion is the only one that is completely blameless.  He did not ask to be brought into the world.  In one scene in A Clash of Kings, Tywin tells Tyrion, "You are an ill-made, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning." This shows how Tyrion's abject status is linked to his physical deformity, as well as his position within the Lannister family.

Cersei also uses Tyrion's abject status to undermine him, portraying him as weak and powerless. In A Storm of Swords, Cersei says of Tyrion, "He is a dwarf, a stunted twisted little monkey who's no fit consort for a queen." Cersei's use of animalistic language here further emphasizes Tyrion's abject status, as she portrays him as subhuman and less than fully human by representing him as a monkey.  This is similar to her father’s treatment of Tyrion in calling him a “creature.”  

Despite his family's efforts to marginalize and exclude him, Tyrion is a character who refuses to be defined by his abject status. He is highly intelligent and resourceful, and often uses his wit and cunning to outmaneuver his enemies. In A Clash of Kings, and on the show Game of Thrones in the Battle of the Blackwater, for example, he manages to repel an attack on King's Landing by using a hidden cache of wildfire to destroy a large portion of Stannis Baratheon's fleet.

By representing Tyrion as abject, Martin is able to highlight the often cruel and arbitrary nature of social hierarchies. Tyrion's exclusion from society is not based on anything he has done, but rather on factors outside of his control, such as his physical appearance and his family background. This serves as a critique of the unjust nature of social systems and the way in which they marginalize and exclude certain groups of people.

By portraying Tyrion as both abject and heroic, Martin is able to challenge the dominant narratives of heroism and villainy in fantasy literature. Instead of being a typical hero who embodies strength and perfection, Tyrion is a flawed and vulnerable character who is forced to navigate a hostile world in order to survive. Through his character, Martin is able to explore the complexities of power, politics, and identity, and to challenge readers' assumptions about what it means to be a hero or a villain.

Further Reading:

Young, J. R. (2021). Useful little men: George R. R. Martin's dwarfs as grotesque realists. Mythlore, 39(137), 77-95,77A

Felluga, D. (2011) "Modules on Kristeva: On the Abject." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory.  Purdue U.

This is important. Support the Strike.  The Writers are in need of our support. 

I was on a plane this weekend, and I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me about an upcoming writer’s strike. “Do you really think you’re mistreated?” she asked me.

That’s not the issue at stake here. Let me tell you a little something about “minirooms.”

Minirooms are a way of television writing that is becoming more common. Basically, the studio will hire a small group of writers, 3-6 or so, and employ them for just a few weeks. In those few weeks (six weeks seem to be common), they have to hurriedly figure out as much about the show as they can – characters, plots, outlines for episodes. Then at the end of the six weeks, all the writers are fired except for the showrunner, who has to write the entire series themselves based on the outlines.

This is not a widespread practice, but it has become more common over the past couple of years. Studios like it because instead of paying for a full room for the full length of the show, they just pay a handful of writers for a fraction of the show. It’s not a huge problem now, but the WGA only gets the chance to make rules every three years – if we let this go for another three years and it becomes the norm? That would be DEVASTATING for the tv writing profession.

Do I feel like I’m mistreated? No. I LOVE my job! But in a world of minirooms, there is no place for someone like me – a mid-level writer who makes a decent living working on someone else’s show (I’d like to be a showrunner someday, but for now I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and my husband and I are trying to start a family so I like not being support rather than the leader for now). In a miniroom, there are only two levels – the handful of glorified idea people who are already scrambling to find their next show because you can’t make a decent living off of one six-week job (and since there are fewer people per room, there are fewer jobs overall, even at the six-week amount), and the overworked, stressed as fuck showrunner who is going to have to write the entire thing themselves. Besides being bad for me making a living, I also just think it’s plain bad for television as an art form – what I like about TV is how adaptable it is, how a whole group of people come together to tell a story better than what any of them could do on their own. Plus the showrunner can’t do their best work under all of that pressure, episode after episode, back to back. Minirooms just…fucking suck.

The WGA is proposing two things to fix this – a rule that writers have to be employed for the entire show, and a rule tying the number of writers in the room to the number of episodes you have per season. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the way shows have run since the advent of television. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has become a new thing. It’s exploitative. It squeezes out everyone except showrunners and people who have the financial means to work only a few months a year. It makes television worse. And that is the issue in this strike that means everything to me, and that is why I voted yes on the strike authorization vote.

I locked my stories but this is an issue that is concerning.

(link to article)

(link to tweet)

Okay, this is hilarious.  

AITA for being annoyed my client/host threw my only mirror out of a window?

I (22M) am a solicitor and currently staying at a client’s castle in Transylvania. As I was shaving this morning my client (??M) grabbed my mirror, got mad at me for bleeding, called the mirror a “foul bauble of man’s vanity” and threw it out of the castle window. I was annoyed and was going to say something but then I noticed he was making my bed even though he says he has servants(?? I have yet to see one)

Edit: is it strange that I didn’t see his reflection in the mirror??

More or less...we welcome our new overlords..in that case. 

“When the Old Gods returned, they were surprised how easy it was to amass an army of followers. Turned out all they had to do was offer fair wages and good benefits, with reasonable deadlines and working conditions”

A Song of Ice and Fire, is that you?

Tall and gentle x Tiny and vicious

Protective x Completely reckless

Grumpy x Sunshine

Ship Dynamics

Tall and gentle x Tiny and vicious

Overly ambitious x Not ambitious at all

Competitive x Competitive

Grumpy x Sunshine

Very affectionate x Doesn't like showing their affection

Touchy-feely x Not the most comfortable with touching

Book smart × Street smart

Cat person x Dog person

Extrovert x Introvert

Silly x Always serious

Troublemaker x Goody two-shoes

Super flirty x Very stoic in their affections

Naiv x Always suspicious of people

Dumbass × Dumbass

Life of the party x Wants to stay home

Very flirty x Gets so flustered

Protective x Completely reckless

Super optimistic x Pessimistic

Very competitive x Just happy to be here

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! And check out my Instagram! 🥰