‘Game of Thrones’ Writer George R.R. Martin Speaks on Women in ‘Song of Fire & Ice’ Book Series

This week George R.R. Martin offered Entertainment Weekly his take on the violence against women in his Song of Ice and Fire books. In the interview, Martin speaks about his series, and not the HBO show. In the argument, Martin says the patriarchal building blocks from the middle ages are the reason for this. Westeros and Essos are a reflection of those societies.

According to Martin, the middle ages were not a time of "sexual egalitarianism":

"The books reflect a patriarchal society based on the Middle Ages", Martin told EW. "The Middle Ages were not a time of sexual egalitarianism...and they had strong ideas about the roles of women. One of the charges against Joan of Arc that got her burned at the stake was that she wore men's clothing—that was not a small thing. There were, of course, some strong and competent women. It still doesn't change the nature of the society. And if you look at the books, my heroes and viewpoint characters are all misfits."

One of the critiques against Martin's "history" argument is that while his books are historical, they also feature dragons and white walkers. The EW interviewer asked Martin if the "history" argument "falls short" because of this. To which Martin says that while his books do have a few dragons, he wanted to show a different side of the Middle Ages that isn't the stereotypical "Disneyland" depiction we've seen in recent years. He wanted to show everything passed the "knights in shining armor" archetype and get into how those particular societies functioned.

Martin then got into war and talked about the brutality of it. According to him, violence against everyone – including women – is something that happens during these brutal battles.

"But if you're going to write about war, and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don't portray [sexual violence], then there's something fundamentally dishonest about that," Martin said. "Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It's not a strong testament to the human race, but I don't think we should pretend it doesn't exist."