World-Building Artist Interview: Gassler's Art and Aurora

A while back I introduced an intended series of posts focused on the art of world-building. The idea was the promote speculative fiction, science or fantasy fiction, through artists as opposed to writers. I’ve always been more attached to aesthetics of visual art rather than the rhetorics of literature and having been a member of the Deviant Art for several years I thought it made the most sense to focus attention upon members of that community. Andrea Claudio Gassler, otherwise known on his profile as JuniorWoodchuck, is one such member I have been fortunate enough to converse with regarding his artwork and world-building on several occasions. What follows is a Q&A between us regarding such subject matter. His impressive portfolio encompasses everything from speculative xenobiology (including fan art for Snaiad), post-humanity, and Martian and future zoology. Check out his amazing artwork, especially his Aurora world-building project! 

What are your general interests as an artist? Is there a particular genre or medium you are most attracted to? 

Most of my pictures so far are either pencil or ballpoint line-art just because it’s an easy way to quickly put ideas down on paper and mistakes can be fixed quite easily. In the last couple of months, especially with the start of my new future biology project, I started to add more details and shade my pencil drawings as I grew quite dissatisfied with just the simple line work. It’s a way for me to visually convey more information about the organisms as well as add some more value to my own art.

In addition to that, I recently bought a Wacom tablet, on which I am trying to experiment with digital art and different techniques as often as possible as it’s something I want to explore further and maybe even fully transition to colored digital art. This is also mainly because I want my art to look more professional and realistic to properly illustrate what it is I see in my mind. The problem with that is just that I can be quite impatient, especially with myself, so I often get a bit discouraged when something takes too long.

Were there any particular works of art (including literature, television, film, or video-games) or artists themselves that were major sources of inspiration for your own art?

I grew up in a pretty artistic family of designers, artists, architects and photographers so drawing came quite naturally to me. As I have always had a vivid imagination, those imaginary creatures just came to me for as long as I can remember.

My first introduction to speculative biology and what really got me started in it, was Dougal Dixon’s fantastic "After Man". There was a copy of it in a local library and it was usually the only book I borrowed. I must have read through it hundreds of times and memorized all the different animals and how they came to be like that. His works did not really influence me on an artistic level though but more just in the way I approach speculative biology.

Terryl Whitlatch, particularly the work she did for the Star Wars movies, is one of the main and earliest influences on my art. After that, Wayne Barlowe and C.M. Kosemen have also greatly influenced me not only with their art but also their xenobiology projects Darwin IV and Snaiad. And of course, all the other great artists on DeviantArt have inspired and influenced me quite a bit ever since I joined the site.

Do you have a particular process you follow when designing your creatures?

When I start drawing, I usually have a pretty clear mental picture of how I want my design to look like. I then start with a very light sketchy outline to define the creatures proportions, how it is positioned and posed. I refine this outline until I’m happy with it before making the lines stronger or inking them, adding details and maybe some shading. This process is pretty much the same no matter the medium.

For your art that has a narrative attached, what is its relationship to your art typically? Do you have an idea in mind and build a creature around it or do you find the narrative forming around the creature?

That really depends to be honest. Sometimes I come up with an idea of how I want a creature to behave, what traits I want it to have, what niche it fills in its biosphere and other things like that and then model the creatures' designs around these ideas. Other times, it’s the other way around. I sketch some creatures until I have something I’m happy with and then create a narrative around the design. With Aurora, it usually started out with a very basic idea that I then translate into a design around which I create a narrative. Oftentimes, the design and the narrative develop and evolve hand in hand.

What is the importance of narrative to your artwork? Do you merely see it as a context to help your audience interpret your art? Or is the narrative a form of art in itself to you?

The main focus usually lies on the designs with just a few lines of description to convey the information that would not be evident otherwise. Mainly just so the viewers can get a rough idea of what they’re seeing. That does not necessarily mean that I place less importance on the narrative but I often struggle a bit with finding the right words in English. I do however have some upcoming projects where the narrative and art go hand in hand and even some purely text-based ones… So I certainly do think that the narrative in itself can be its own form of art and it’s able to bring across ideas that could not be depicted otherwise.


For your worldbuilding projects, such as "Aurora", do you find yourself coming up with a world first and populating it with creature art or is the world an afterthought to organize artwork you have already generated independently?

Well, Aurora is a bit different from most of my other worldbuilding projects…

My first xenobiology project ever has been about the organisms that inhabited a cold and barren Mars before an asteroid wiped them all out. All my other xenobiology projects since then have basically been alterations of that initial project and though the names of the planets have changed a few times, the features are usually pretty similar - cold, dry, and rather barren.

With my first few worldbuilding projects, I have been playing a lot of attention to biological accuracy, trying to make my designs look as plausible as possible. This was especially problematic for my xenobiology projects as the only reference I had was Terran wildlife. Because of that, all my designs turned out looking rather mundane and unimaginative - in my eyes at least. For a long time, I struggled to come up with something I was happy with until I decided to throw all logic out the window and just create something that looks cool. That’s how Aurora came to be…

That project is also different because I usually just created a creature and then kept it like that forever. The designs of Auroran animals are in a constant state of flux because I usually create them without too much attention to similarity. I then modify their designs depending on relation to other groups or just because I grew tired with it.
Had I not done that they’d still look like pudgy cone-heads or weird mosquito-horses.


What is the relationship you see between yourself, your worldbuilding and your audience community? Are the worlds an artist creates something "owned" within their own imagination or is it something open to an audience to populate with their own creations? 

Aurora as well as most of my other projects are very much an extension of myself and my imagination. It’s a way to process my thoughts, ideas and emotions. They are all worlds I have experienced in one way or another, be it through dreams, reveries or through the themes I cover in them. In addition to that, they are all just worlds or stories I want to experience and since they don’t yet exist, I have to create them myself.

I like to be the owner of my projects and I’m usually quite protective of my designs. On one hand, it is because they are all very personal to me but also so I have total control over them and can take them where I want them to go. Some sort of audience participation, in which I allow them to create their own flora and fauna is planned for the future - albeit only for a limited time.

I did start a rather fantastical collaborative project with my friend and fellow DeviantArtist Ryan Bowers. We were hoping people would take an interest in it and populate it with their own creations but due to our other projects, we weren’t really able to get it off the ground. It now lay dormant for quite some time before we decided to call it quits. There might be more collaborative projects in the future but for now, I want to focus more on my personal projects.


What do you want your audience, particularly other artists, to take away from your own artwork? Do you hope that they want to contribute to your worldbuilding, start their own projects, come away with some appreciation of the world around them, etc.?

I’m hoping to fill my audience with the same sense of wonder and awe I experienced when I discovered Snaiad, Darwin IV and all the amazing projects that can be found on DeviantArt and hopefully motivate them to start their own projects.


What is the value you see for yourself in your speculative and fantastical form of art? Is there a motivating purpose to worldbuilding and designing imaginary creatures and giving them explanatory narratives beyond the pleasure of exercising one's imagination? 

I’m not quite sure… I have never really thought about it before. It was just something I did because I enjoyed it. In some way, art has been a way for me to escape my sometimes unpleasant reality to a safe place over which I have total control.

I do think that coming up with these alien worlds can give you a deeper understanding and appreciation for your own one as you hear a lot about it by researching and by adjusting the different adaptions and laws of our world to fit your own. In a way, it’s a form of learning about our Earth by proxy.


Do you have any ideal, long-term goal for your artistic worldbuilding? Do you hope to organize it into a work of literature or website or is it merely for spontaneous pleasure and inspiration

Even though there is not that much of it online, I have tons of concepts for Aurora at home. I have been working on it for quite some time now and I feel like I have come to a point, where I’d feel comfortable with it coming to a conclusion.
But because I still have so many pieces and information, I have not yet published it and because it has been with me for such a long time, I’d feel bad just letting it die like that. Because it has been, and still is, such a big process and my biggest project so far, I do want to give it a proper ending.

So what I’m planning on doing is creating entirely new, digital illustrations and compiling them all together with informative texts on the flora, fauna, the planet itself and many other aspects of life on Aurora and turning it all into a pseudo-scientific book along the lines of Expedition or After Man. That would also be where the audience participation would come into play. My viewers would be able to take part in form of a contest to get their creations featured in it as well as maybe a physical copy of the book.

As of now, I’m not quite sure yet what I’ll do with it once I have created this book. Maybe I’ll actually try to get it published, maybe I’ll just have some copies printed for myself and friends (and maybe everybody willing to pay for it to cover my expenses) or I’ll just put it up on the internet as an e-book. Although it sounds like I have pretty well-defined immediate plans for it, it will still take a long time until it will actually become reality.

At the moment, I’m taking a break from Aurora to focus on my future biology project as well as on writing a novel and a (web-) comic and to improve on my digital art until I can do it justice and properly depict all the organisms. As I’ll also start studying soon, I don’t yet know how much time I’ll actually have to work on any of it so I really cannot tell when it’ll happen.

Sansa Stark, Victimization and Sexual Violence in Game of Thrones (Part V)

Note: This is a multi-part revision of a previous essay of the same title. Each part is linked below
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Trigger Warning: This contains frequent discussion of sexual assault, particularly rape


          A great deal of the appeal of Game of Thrones lies in its unpredictable manipulations of our expectations for how a generic fantasy narrative should unfold. Some critics have complained about Sansa’s rape precisely because it was a predictable outcome for her and Ramsay. Such criticism simplifies the specific and ironic way in which the series is unpredictable; the violence of Game of Thrones is ironically shocking precisely because of its pragmatic logic.This contradicts our expectations that fantasy should simply fulfill our wishes and wonder for escapist entertainment. The violence of the series traumatizes us, not because it is so inconsistent with the logic of its own world, but because we expect that logic to confirm to our predefined schemas of what a typical fantasy narrative should be.  We have come to expect that fantasy stories provide us with a perfect hero who can evade harm simply by virtue of being a virtuous character we are invested in. That does not make for a realistic fantasy, but merely serves to satisfy our own simplistic moral narratives. 

  

The death of the noble Ned Stark makes perfect, if not horrific, sense within his world’s logic. But we rarely take the logic of a fantasy world seriously; instead we impose a secure narrative of moral purity, simplicity and the guarantee of a good victory. Yet despite the ruthless pragmatism that placed Sansa in the hands of Ramsay, one can still hope that she will escape this situation much as she did with Joffrey, not merely as a survivor but as a victor. Such hope is legitimate since in Game of Thrones violence only begets further violence and eventually the cruel must suffer the consequences of their actions. The violence of Game of Thrones is not gratuitous but is logical given its semi-feudal pseudo-medieval setting, and it is from this same logic that the guarantee of satisfying retribution emerges. Mere goodness or adoration does not guarantee one’s success or well-being in the real world. There is nothing wrong with such narratives so long as we understand them to be edifying entertainment fantasies. Game of Thrones strives to be something more and it needs to be appreciated on its own terms. If a critic cannot do so, they need not watch the show.         

One may object to most of these counter-criticisms that they over identify the fiction rape of the character Sansa with the actual rape of real people. In criticizing the event of Sansa’s rape, one is not only commenting on a fictional account of a real phenomenon.  When one claims that the event should not have been depicted to the audience or that Sansa should have exercised more agency, one is not making corresponding demands that actual rapes be ignored or that rape victims should be expected to do more to avoid sexual assault. Despite the reasonableness of this retort, I think it misunderstands the project of Game of Thrones and realist fiction in general. Of course Sansa is a fictional character and of course the series she is a character of is a fantasy while rape is a troubling reality.  But Game of Thrones is a realistic portrayal of fantasy, critiquing the genre as if it was real and as such Sansa should be related to as if she were a real person.

In realistic fiction, we relate to the characters as if they were people not merely ideas or archetypes. The latter is the sort of literature which  pre-fantasy fables belongs to, the narrative being determined by moral ideology rather than the personal psychology of its characters. When one criticizes the rape of Sansa they are not merely criticizing the way in which Sansa was written but are criticizing her as a fictional person, as if she were a real person. By extension they are criticizing (unintentionally) any real person in circumstances similar to hers who do not live up to the same unrealistic standards imposed upon them by a judgmental audience. One can plainly assert that rape is not necessary to fantasy fiction and they would be right. There are enough fantasy stories without it that are worthy of our attention.  But rape was a necessary part of a woman’s life in much of the medieval worlds that these fantasy stories romanticize. To the extent that Game of Thrones is a realistic fantasy criticism of the patriarchal romanticism within its own genre, it is necessary to confront the issue of rape. 

          Nothing is necessary as a narrative device, and fictional narratives themselves, especially fantastical ones such as Game of Thrones, are not necessary either. If you don’t like the grim realism of Game of Thrones or A Song of Ice and Fire, don’t watch and read respectively. If you don’t like the fantasy genre in general, don’t immerse yourself in it. If you are going to criticize any of it, ensure that you have good arguments that are sound and actually support the perspective you purport to represent. Unfortunately, much of the seemingly feminist arguments against this scene are not reasonable, and actually appear to undermine the feminism they speak for. Looked at in the wider context of what a Game of Thrones and Sansa in particular are subverting in the fictional genre of fantasy, these criticisms can unfortunately themselves be construed as sexist and patriarchal.

          What began as criticism of sexism inherent in Game of Thrones ironically turned out to be the revelation of sexism implicit in such criticism. The patriarchy certainly works in strange ways. This is not to suggest that the approach Game of Thrones takes to misogyny in fantasy is superior to that taken in works such as Mad Max, but it is merely a defense that the former is not inferior to the latter. One operates through the hero and the other the victim, but both narratives are essential to confront misogyny. If we refuse to recognize and represent victimization, whether in fantasy or reality, we alienate those that suffer sexual abuse. Such abandonment is antithetical to feminism, where the voice of every woman deserves to be witnessed, especially the victims of male domination.

Sansa Stark, Victimization and Sexual Violence in Game of Thrones (Part IV)

Note: This is a multi-part revision of a previous essay of the same title. Each part is linked below
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Trigger Warning: This contains frequent discussion of sexual assault, particularly rape

          One may accept that Sansa’s rape was permissible or even necessary while arguing that its depiction was not. Perhaps Sansa could have simply admitted to Theon that Ramsay rapes her every night in the same way that she broke down before him in the following episode and thereby the audience would be spared the representation of the violent act itself. This argument overreaches however since it ignores the way in which the rape could be referenced through the reaction of Theon’s in the immediate presence of the act without showing the act itself. The rape itself was not depicted for the audience, only Theon’s reaction to it (and the sign of Sansa suffering it), and it was his horrific recognition which was important for the audience to witness. The audience had to see that Theon saw her suffering for its full thematic effect and could not rely upon his reaction to a confession thereafter. 

          Tactfully the rape itself occurred off-screen, only being represented through the horror upon Theon’s face and the whimpers made by Sansa. Simply because the rape of Sansa affected more than one person does not mean that it was not about Sansa and was instead about Theon. Even if Theon recovers his courage and finally confronts Ramsay for all that he has done to Theon and Sansa, there is no reason to reduce this scene to a function of that character development. Simply because the camera focused upon Theon’s contorted and horrified face does not mean the scene was primarily about him. The scene may visually focus on Theon’s face, but it also provides the auditory suffering of Sansa as she moans and cries in discomfort. The suffering of each person is represented but done in such a way that does not dehumanize or sensationalize the ordeal of Sansa. Had the camera focused upon Sansa, or worse still, Ramsay, there would be guaranteed criticism that the scene was a spectacle of sexual violence seen through the predatory perspective of the male gaze. 

          Instead said male gaze was turned back upon itself. Theon is made witness to the dehumanization of women by the institutional powers he is literally in subservience to, and the audience is made witness to this realization in turn. His is the male gaze come to realize its complacency with the degradation of women, idly watching as unfolds before him.Theon is a perfect representation of the self-destructive patriarchy within the world of Game of Thrones. Theon hoped to impress his true father, Balon Greyjoy, by betraying the Stark house, besieging Winterfell and then boasted of killing Sansa’s youngest brothers. For this he was humiliated, tortured and ultimately castrated by Ramsay. Theon’s quest to assert his masculinity only resolved to deprive him of it. But the show focused upon Theon’s face not for the audience to empathize with his suffering, but for the audience to recognize our compassion for Sansa in his own face. And our outrage at Theon for doing nothing to protect Sansa should be turned back upon ourselves to confront the ways in which we never confront the rape culture we are horrified for having witnessed. Rather than reducing the suffering of Sansa into a titillating spectacle, the scene is turned into a torturous spectacle of patriarchal hypocrisy.    

          The focus upon Theon’s reaction to Sansa’s rape highlighting that the effects of rape extend beyond the immediate victim but are also internalized by those aware of it. Sexual violence affects all of society and in patriarchal ones it is particular poisonous to men who perceive themselves to be in a position to judge the very violence they are complicit in. Theon, despite his betrayal of House Stark, was a pseudo-brother to Sansa and having no particular ill will towards her would be particularly traumatized by her rape; Ramsay, knowing this, used it to great sadistic effect in order to humiliate and emasculate Theon further. A major recurrent theme throughout both series is bearing witness to and accepting that one’s society is unjust (to women) and accepting that fantasies derive their narratives from the history and mythology of such societies. To completely absolve one’s self from witnessing the rape would be a betrayal of the ethical deconstruction of the fantasy genre. To ignore such depictions is to assume that rape is less awful if not seen by others, and it is precisely in the interest of patriarchal societies and the fantasy narratives they reinforce to conceal the reality of rape culture they have responsibility for.

          Rape is not merely a grim fantasy in the same way that knights, dragons or White Walkers are but is a horrific reality that women live in fear of and often suffer. Certainly, such a sensitive issue like rape should not be trivialized into a narrative device or sensationalized into a sexual spectacle for the male gaze.  Fictional accounts of rape, in fantastical worlds or not, should be done with visceral impact that does not ignore the lasting emotional impact of the event. But imposing ad-hoc restrictions on how rape is represented to ensure that it is “meaningful” to the story or “empowering” to the person who suffers it is not only unrealistic but is also uncomfortable considering the issue. Rape intrudes into the narrative of one’s life and literally so into one’s bodily person in order to deprive them of power. If it is to be represented in fiction it should remain true to the horror of that experience and not made to conform to comforting or empowering narratives.

          There is nothing wrong with stories of women avoiding rape or overpowering the attackers or of stories that do not feature rape at all. Those stories provide examples of empowered women who are more than victims of sexual assault and it needs to be seen that a woman is capable of such courage when confronted with sexual violence. But it is equally important not to ignore stories where women are raped routinely by men with little power over to resist. The discomfort we male feel over such narratives may only serve to highlight to privilege we have of being so far removed from such a world and our lack of empathy for those who live such fiction as a reality. Although we certainly need heroines to confront the patriarchy, we also need to recognize that it is equally harmful to demand of women that they be a triumphant hero in situations of sexual assault and abuse. We certainly should hope that women prevail in such circumstances and ought to strive to ensure that such circumstances never emerge to begin with, but insofar as they do it is equally important to represent the nobility of the victim as it is the nobility of the victor. 

I think Sana represents precisely what is lacking in so much of fantasy fiction: the noble victim.  Bearing one’s suffering in silence is not an ideal women should strive for, but rather it is a reaction to abuse that the audiences need to strive to accept.  Both heroism and victimhood are possible when confronted with rape and it is not our place as audience to a rape, fictional or real, to judge the victim for failing to live up to our expectation that they be a hero.  The irony is that for Sana herself, the noble victim is an ideal, or at least the best a woman can do in her circumstances.  Yet faulting for her this fails to recognize the way in which the ideology of patriarchy has informed her self-image. And blaming HBO or George RR Martin for writing such a character in their respective series is a failure to realize that their representation is a criticism of the way such misogynistic ideology operates, not an endorsement of it.   

Demanding that Sansa be protected from sexual violence for the sake of the plot is to impose upon the narrative a moral order which the show is continually subverting.  Traditional fantasy worlds are defined by a moral order that ensures the heroes are victorious and the villains are vanquished, and each is easily identifiable for the audience. It is a world where only the wicked are punished and if the good suffer, it is for the sake of some higher purpose the narrative provides them with. This ideology extends beyond the fictional worlds of fantasy, intruding into our own moral judgments ; the belief in a moral purpose to the world ironically justifies moral atrocities the world over for the sake of preserving that sacred narrative or bringing it closer to its culmination.  

Ironically the very desire the shield Sansa and the fantasy genre recognition of sexual abuse is the very sort of romanticized narrative which rendered Sansa so subservient to said abuses in the first place. She was shielded from the violence of the world most of her life, raised to believe in the nobility of knights and lords and to serve them as a kind and passive lady; but this is a fantasy in denial of the depravity of most knights and lords Sansa suffers through. This is not to say that fantastic narratives of female empowerment only serve to disempower women. But the lack of narratives honestly portraying the possibility of degradation and instead insisting upon a perfect world for perfect heroes does leave us unable to confront evil when it penetrates this illusion. Such evil is inevitable but emerges unexpectedly and Game of Thrones manages this balance well.       

Sansa Stark, Victimization and Sexual Violence in Game of Thrones (Part III)

Note: This is a multi-part revision of a previous essay of the same title. Each part is linked below
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Trigger Warning: This contains frequent discussion of sexual assault, particularly rape


          Rather strange is the unprecedented criticism of the show following Sansa’s rape despite sexual violence being a recurrent trauma in both the books and the television show narratives. Daenerys Targaryen was raped Khal Drogo following her wedding and Cersei Lannister was sexually assaulted by her twin brother Jaime Lannister following the death of their son Joffrey, a product of their longstanding incestuous relations. Less outspoken is the outrage when minor characters of equally minor social class (mostly whores) are raped or butchered for the amusement of men. Recall Joffrey forcing prostitutes to torture each other or the prostitute Ros he murdered with his crossbow or the women Ramsay hunted and slaughtered in the forest or Tyrion Lannister murdering Shae for betraying him by sleeping with another woman, his father Tywin.

          It is worth considering whether the difference in disgust over such misogyny appears to reflect difference in class privilege with higher regard being afforded to noble women. The rape and slaughter of poor whores seems to be as complacently accepting in the real world as it is the fantasy world as a consequence of their frowned-upon lifestyle. It is troubling that some have suggested that the rape scene would have been less traumatic if it occurred to the less important (in terms of both narrative and social position) character Jeyne Poole, rather than Sansa, as if rape is only particularly traumatic when it involves characters of high class and narrative importance. Here the audience appears less concerned with the traumatic event of rape itself and more distracted by whether the individual suffering the trauma is someone they feel invested in.

          Criticisms to the contrary, the rape made perfect sense in the narrative since the legitimacy of the Bolton house as Wardens of the North depends upon an expedient marriage. The family with the greatest Northern legitimacy is the Stark family of whom Sansa Stark is the only known remaining daughter. By agreeing to marriage with Ramsay it was certain Sansa would have to have sex with him, given that the purpose of marriage is to produce an heir of the unified households. And given the personality of the man she married, it was likely that such sex would not be pleasant or consensual for her. Ramsay, sadistic bastard that he is (pun intended), has an apparent preference for sex done out of dominance rather than pleasure. Or stated otherwise, the pleasure Ramsay derives from sex is not from the sex itself but the way it can be used as a way to dominate and dehumanize women against their will and manipulate them to his own. Ever eager to humiliate Theon further, it is unsurprising that Ramsay forced Theon to witness the violation of Sansa. This should not be interpreted to mean that Sansa’s rape was meaningful but merely that it was predictable. Sansa’s rape is not necessary to the story (is any event truly necessary to a narrative?), but it is a legitimate possibility given the world in which her story unfolds.

          Further criticizing the scene for not providing the audience with new plot or character information is not only false but misunderstands that relationship people and events have to one another and the overall narrative. Yes, we did not need that scene to understand that Ramsay is a sadistic bastard but that event occurred precisely because he is exactly one. And although the audience may be aware of Ramsay’s depravity, Sansa is not. That scene provided the audience with recognition that she was made aware of the extent of his cruelty. It also provided Theon an opportunity to be challenged out of his own submission by witnessing a loved one suffering similar humiliation and submission. Having been raped by Ramsay, and Theon having witnessed it, they are bound together: the former through the hope of revenge and the latter through redemption. The rape, being consistent with all the characters involved, provides us with no new information on them. Rather characters were brought together so that they would be provided with new knowledge of one another’s suffering and unite to end it. This is not a justification for the rape, since I think such narrative justifications are problematic, but it does serve to correct the criticism that the rape provided no new information to the characters or the audience. 

          

          The worst criticism of Sansa’s rape is that it she should have shown more agency during the ordeal. Sana did not cower before the idle threats of Myranda, Ramsay Bolton’s lover, but cried and whimpered through the ordeal of Ramsay raping her. The scene is being criticized because Sansa did not resist the rape or consent to it in order to nullify its violation of her person. This is a sexist critique which reflects the belief that being a victim of sexual violence means you lacked the agency (strength, i.e. masculinity) to resist the assault on your person. Criticizing the rape of Sansa in this way implies that her weakness is a failing which made her rape possible, which is blatant victim-blaming and sexist. Such argumentation assumes that the victim of sexual assault is responsible for it since they did not resist it enough or prepare against it enough.

          It is not uncommon for victims of sexual assault to feel as though they are unable to resist their attacker. And it may be true that they could not escape the situation, or it may not. Either way it is not the place of someone else, who did not suffer the ordeal themselves, to judge the victim for not acting according to what was expected of them. Otherwise empowered and self-confident women may panic under the traumatizing experience of a sexual assault. To suggest that there is something that they should have done to prevent their rape is to further violate the victim, not protect them. The victim may them internalize such failings, interpreting the rape as what they deserved for being unable to resist it.

          This criticism then is the most shameful betrayal of feminism and solidarity with victims of patriarchal violence. This scene is a realistic, if not horrific, portrayal of sexual assault. And it is all the more disturbing that Sansa, a person the audience was invested in and believed to be rising in power, was violated in such a way. As Game of Thrones repeatedly reminds us, power and virtue are not secure protection against violence but are likely to attract it. However, this does not imply that the victims of such violence are themselves responsible for it. Nor does it imply that the show is at fault for depicting the reality of rape culture many of us would chose to ignore or, worse yet, contribute to. The show should not be faulted for depicting violence realistically, but one should be motivated to uncover and fault those aspects of society which contribute towards misogyny and sexual violence such as rape.

          Rape does not necessarily entail a radical, let alone positive, transformation in one’s character. It is a deep disturbance to one’s positive character development. And the expectation that it elicit a positive transformation is itself deeply disturbing. If there was a necessary relationship between rape and character development then it would be morally justified if not required, to rape women. That is precisely the kind of horrific reasoning a patriarchal society like the one Sansa lives under would exhibit and is precisely the kind of society that Game of Thrones is criticizing. The expectation that rape conform to a meaningful, coherent narrative is absurd. Retroactively imposing meaning upon a rape entails that it was necessitated by the events which preceded it, highlighting the inescapability of it given the choices that one made and therefore one’s ultimate responsibility for their own rape. This amounts to blaming the victim for their own rape which is precisely the kind of narrative patriarchy provides in order to exculpate itself for the responsibility it bears for the pervasiveness of rape culture.

 Absurd is the assumption that Sansa could immediately escape her circumstances. How can she run from or fight off Ramsay when she is in a massive castle surrounded by men loyal to his sadistic whim? As a woman, society as a whole believes her to be Ramsay’s property through marriage and therefore he is entitled to do with her as she pleases and if she ran she would be returned to him. As a person, Sansa is apparently psychologically incapable of violence as she was incapable of pushing Joffrey to his death even after being showed the severed heads of her slain father and septa. A stereotyped feminine passivity has been imposed upon her personality through her upbringing, ingraining in her the expectation that women should be subservient to men. To expect that Sansa would be capable of overcoming this internalized ideology within her and the men that enforce it is inexplicable. Daenarys, Arya and Brienne have only managed to do through a combination of being supported by, mistaken as, and forced to take the role of men. They have not managed to overcome patriarchy but have rather conformed to and internalized the masculine instead of the feminine aspect of the binary hierarchy.           

It is simply disturbing to hear some critics think it better that Sana desire to or at least feign the desire to have sex with Ramsay simply so she does not appear to be a victim. Ramsay is monstrously evil, arguably more so than Joffrey ever was or could have been. Having just escaped from Joffrey, it is inconceivable that Sansa would want to then be intimate with a man who rivals him in evil. Were Sansa merely feigned consent for the purpose of revenge against Ramsay and his family, it would be grossly inconsistent with her character development no matter how much agency she may have developed recently. Sansa is a young virgin entirely inexperienced and uncomfortable with sex so it is unlikely that she would be enthusiastic on the night of her arranged wedding, no matter the man. To suggest that Sansa (appear) to want Ramsay is abusive of her character and suggestive that women should consent to their rapists. Are we so unable to empathize with the suffering of a female character that we can only stomach it if they turn it to their advantage? Are we so anxious to see women victimized that we can only conceive of them as Machiavellian manipulators, selling their virginity to murderers to avenge their fallen family?

Sansa Stark, Victimization and Sexual Violence in Game of Thrones (Part II)

Note: This is a multi-part revision of a previous essay of the same title. Each part is linked below
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Trigger Warning: This contains frequent discussion of sexual assault, particularly rape

          Critics have claimed that the rape of Sansa Stark was a gratuitous example of sexual violence. Certainly I found the scene to be discomforting and disgusting without feeling that it was gratuitous.  Outrage is an appropriate emotional reaction to the sexual assault of Sansa.  No person deserves such violation. But gratuitous means unwarranted, and I think people are using this to simply express their discomfort or disgust.  The former is an emotional assertion while the latter is an intellectual criticism.  A criticism that I believe is itself gratuitous in nature. It is undeniable that Game of Thrones has often made the patriarchal sexual violence of the books more simplistic and sensational.  But to the credit of HBO, the rape of Sansa was in fact significantly less horrific than the parallel scene adapted from the books.  In the books, it is instead Sansa’s friend Jeyne Poole who is raped by Ramsay Bolton, who believes her to be Sansa’s sister Arya.  Horrifically, Theon is not merely forced to watch the rape but is made to participate in it: he is threatened by Ramsay with the removal of his fingers if he does not perform cunnilingus on Jeyne so that she is wet by the time that Ramsay undresses.           

What is strange is that independently the books or show are praised for defying the genre conventions of fantasy, yet the show is criticized when it defies the books, even if such defiance is consistent with the appraised subversions of traditional fantasy. When Martin writes a noble character as being tortured, executed or raped it is (more often) praised as a grimly realistic subversion of the typical heroic romanticism of the fantasy genre.  But when the show does the same to a character who does not suffer the same fate in the books, it is criticized for exercising gratuitous violence.  Martin’s series is engrossing and disturbing because of the way in which it defies our moral certainty in the narrative and if the television adaptation is to possess the same appeal it must be allowed to deviate at times from the source material of the books. Otherwise anyone familiar with the particulars of the books will remain unsurprised by the events that transpire in the television show.

If one is willing to grant that the books are entitled to torture our most beloved characters against our tired expectations of heroic fantasy, one has to grant to same license to the show in equal measure.  I despised having Sansa dehumanized by yet another sadistic man but I accepted it with the same resignation as I did the death of Ned Stark or Oberyn Martell.  Despite the horror of each of their deaths, their deaths remained consistent with the logic of the violent world they inhabit.  The rape of Sansa is no different in it's conforming to the logic of the world and the tone and theme of the story.  The fact that it deviates from the books is inconsequential and it is inconsistent to insist that only the books are permitted to make us despair in such genre-defiant fashion.  A, if not the, central theme of each series is the cruel subversion of heroic fantasy and the way in which such fantasy reinforces and justifies very real cruelties such as war, torture and rape.  One must come to accept that the show is just as justified as exploring and exposing this relationship as the book is, even when it extends beyond what the books consider.            

In most traditional fantasy stories it is easy for the audience to identify and identify with the hero of the narrative and therefore remain confident that by virtue of such attachment they will be immune from defeat or destruction. Since it is their story and they are our hero, we assume that however perilous their journey, they will prevail.  Yet the multiple perspectives of Game of Thrones and their conflicting moral imperatives makes it nearly impossible for the audience to identify definite heroes who are ensured to survive the entire story. If anything, one can only be sure that they will not survive it, at least regarding those apparent heroes that conform to the traditional moral ideals of honor, courage and duty of their feudal and patriarchal society. The moral complexity and contradictions of the narrative also make it difficult for the audience to identify with the supposed heroes since they contain as much vice as they do virtue.             

Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire are deconstructions of the traditional fantasy narrative and criticisms of the patriarchal feudal society that such fantasies romanticize.  It would be dishonest to attempt to depict such misogyny while in denial that rape is a fundamental part of that system.  Such insincerity is exactly the sort of romanticism which each series confronts in its respective media. Sexual violence is represented in the fictional world as much as it is present in our world, precisely because the former was produced to dramatize the reality implicit in the fantasy genre. Artistic representation is not (merely) an appeal to one’s intellectual comprehension of phenomenon. It is also an emotional stimulation and ethical reflection.  We need not witness an incidence of rape to comprehend that it is morally abominable.  But its depiction may arouse our emotions to reflect on the way in which misogyny is ignored and romanticized in both our entertainment fantasies and our political and economic realities.  

Sansa Stark, Victimization and Sexual Violence in Game of Thrones (Part I)

Note: This is a multi-part revision of a previous essay of the same title. Each part is linked below
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

Trigger Warning: This contains frequent discussion of sexual assault, particularly rape


          I watched the controversial sixth episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones’ fifth season, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” in the wake of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. This was unfortunate. I still consider that episode my least favorite in the season (and possibly entire show) so far. I am still disappointed over the way the Dorne plot, particularly the inept Sand Snakes, are being handled this season and in that episode in particular. But initially my primary reason for being upset over that episode was the ending: the rape of Sansa Stark on his wedding night to Ramsay Bolton as Theon Greyjoy, her pseudo-brother, was forced to watch on in abject horror.

          Continual criticism such has been laid upon this scene and at first much of it resonated with me. It appeared to be another example of casual sexual violence visited upon a female character without narrative necessity. It has been over two weeks since I watched that episode and I have spent that time thinking about the critiques written about it. I have come to the conclusion that the majority of said criticism misunderstands both the purpose of the show and the person of Sansa.  Far more problematic however, is the revelation that the most apparently feminist criticisms of that scene internalize the very thing they speak against: a patronizing perspective towards female victims of sexual violence.  Although such criticisms appear concerned for Sansa, they presuppose reducing her personality into an explicit character-function of a predefined narrative to give “meaning” to her humiliating rape.  In what follows I will outline the common criticisms of that scene and investigate their unsettling and contradictory consequences. Several articles have already led the ground-work for this critique, such as Daniel Finkle on Patheos , Amanda Marcotte on Raw Story, or Kate Polak at The Hooded Utilitarian, each of which I strongly recommend you read independently and in their entirety.  

Game of Thrones, like the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin upon which it is based, subverts and critiques the tropes that have defined and confined the fantasy fiction genre.  In a more generic fantasy narrative, one would expect the noble Stark house to not only survive but to triumph over their foes.  The family patriarch, Ned Stark, should be ensured victory by his traditional virtues of loyalty, chivalry and honor.  Instead, his virtuousity results in not only his death but the death of his avenging eldest son, Robb Stark, who follows the same code of honor as his father.  This is a realist critique of the fantasy genre and the violent patriarchal societies routinely romanticized within its canon.  It ruthlessly exposes the self-destructive tendency of patriarchy and the hypocrisy of chivalry where men slaughter one another for the honor of their House and then rape women in order to ensure the lineage of the House, so the cycle of violence can sustain itself.

Fans of traditional fantasy fiction have come to expect from the narratives that their heroes will be triumphant in the face of adversity. They are confident that the damsel in distress will be rescued at the last minute by the daring hero.  This is not only a genre cliché but it is an escape into wish-fulfillment. Game of Thrones is an explicitly anti-escapist fantasy.  Through realistic, it offers the critical subversion of the wish-fulfilling tendencies of the fantasy.  Since fantasy fiction has a tendency towards romantic depictions of medieval feudal patriarchies, the realism of Game of Thrones requires that the violence, especially the sexism, of such a societies to be represented.  The token dragons, giants and magic of the fantasy genre appear within the series but there do not exist within a world free from the moral, political or economical conflicts which define our real experiences. The series is a reminder to the fantasy genre audience that one can never truly escape from the historical problems of reality since fantasy worlds are derived from our very history; if we want to take the fantasy world seriously, we need to seriously consider the ethical problems of that world which parallel our own.  Fantasy is not simply an escape from history into fiction but also provides a confrontation with history through fiction. In respect to this essay, the history of interest is of patriarchal sexual violence. 

Five Forms of Racial Representation in Speculative Fiction

A while back The Atlantic ran an interesting article written by Noah Berlatsky of the comics-and-culture website, The Hooded Utilitarian. Titled “Star Wars and the FourWays Science Fiction Handles Race”, Berlatsky categorizes four aesthetic strategies science fiction utilizes to represent race: the metaphorical, token, diversity, and direct. No strategy is inherently superior to any other in his opinion as each offers a unique perspective on race and can be utilized well or poorly depending upon the skill of how it is used to represent racial identity. Though the article is framed around science fiction, I believe that it is equally applicable to fantasy fiction as well. Furthermore, I feel that Berlatsky overlooked a fifth way for speculative fiction to imagine race: alternative representation. This is especially relevant to the alterity of the fantasy genre which is often set in alternative, secondary worlds with their own histories and therefore our inherited racial categories, and the burdens of their associated stereotypes need not be an essential aspect of the world-building project.

            

The first method of racial representation is the metaphorical. Fantastical and alien species serve as the alternatives to the recognizable categories of racial identification. That these species are often referred to as “races” despite them being simultaneously identified as non (if not sub) human reflects speculative fiction’s pervasive problem with recognizing race authentically. By appropriating the term “race” into the discussion of non-human species, speculative fiction risks the identification of racial minorities with inhuman monsters which is exactly what racists do when they dehumanize minorities as of another species (calling them “apes” for example). This opens a dangerous space for speculative fiction to indulge in racial stereotypes without obviously having to own it. Even if the metaphorical “races” are relatively inoffensive, there is the problem that they are still structured according to homogenous racial stereotypes. If an alien species is supposed to be a metaphor for race, it must be ensured that there is recognizable diversity within the race and not merely amongst races. Speculative fiction is fond of indulging in word-building with a plurality of different racial species but each is only ever considered as a monolith with established stereotypes This is especially relevant to role-playing games based upon speculative fiction where racial categories are associated with stereotyped attribute statistics such that particular races are inherently stronger or smarter than other archetypes. For these reasons, the metaphorical approach, while not necessarily worse than any of the other methods is certainly the most challenging as it is likely to misrepresent race in such a way that would justifiably offend minorities.

Token racial identity is the second method by which speculative fiction represents race. Unlike the metaphorical technique, the racial identity is literal but similar enough to the metaphorical in that race is obscured from being anything but nominally depicted. Token representation ensures that minority races are included but their status as racial minorities is not an element relevant to the narrative. It is racial without any apparent social implications between characters. Such racial recognition is literally only skin-deep, serving more to describe the appearance of characters as opposed to defining their experience as a people. This approach often provides more detail than the metaphorical approach but does not ensure more depth. If anything it may prove even more evasive. For while a fantastical substitute may not take race literally, it may nevertheless explore the consequences of race and racism to a greater extent through metaphorical parallels. The token approach may be representative of post-racial societies of the future or alternative worlds and histories, but if this is the case then it should be the burden of the narrative to make the argument for such a setting. Speculative fiction isn’t merely about exploring imagined worlds but in explaining them. Our society is not colorblind, no matter how much some may claim to the contrary. So if such a world is written into existence, the burden is upon the good author to explain what differences between our world and the speculative world made possible to see race as irrelevant.         

Diversity in speculative fiction is the third method of racial representation. Instead of the narrative being dominated by white or pseudo-white people by default, the setting imagines a racial minority as the focus of the narrative. White (analogues) may not feature into the setting at all. Diversity goes beyond the strategy of token representation, by making the narrative about minorities rather than merely including them. The advantage of such an approach is that it puts minorities in a position of power that they may not otherwise possess outside of such speculative fiction. But at the same time the narrative may risk the accusation of being socially escapist for refusing the recognize the struggle of minorities as minorities. The narrative may lose its appeal for those with more immediate concerns over confronting racial inequality rather than imagining an escape from it. A further danger is that by placing the focus on racial minorities, extra attention is devoted to them and therefore it is essential that they be represented authentically according to the concerns of that community. Simply imagining a fantasy setting in Asia world does not guarantee that it will be without offensive Orientalist stereotypes. And as with the metaphorical method, it is irrelevant whether such stereotypes are derogatory or not since any stereotype creates an artificial constraint around a community’s capacity for self-expression and determination. Because of these concerns, diversity-focused fantasy settings is best conducted by those writing within their own community or consulting with authorities in a community.

The fourth approach to speculative fiction’s racial representation is to do so directly and explicitly. Regardless of whether the narrative is situated within an alternative time period or world altogether, the way in which race is discussed reflects contemporary concerns over racial identity and equality. If the circumstances and characterization of races is not identical to the present then it is at least continuous with it, possessing a narrative bridge between the present and its speculative alternative. In either case, the world-building is in continuous and transparent dialogue with concerns for racial identity and (in)justice. It neither approaches race through the surrogate of misleading metaphorical categories nor does it represent race as merely another feature of the world-building itself. The concern with direct representations refuses to speculate alternative possibilities of race and responses to it. By focusing on relevance to contemporary politics, the narrative may ignore the imaginative potential of speculative fiction to redefine those debates with new concepts, categories and experiences. Speculative fiction reaches its full potential when it isn’t simply determined by the present but is in constant dialogue with it, offering a different perspective on familiar and relevant phenomenon.       

The alternative approach is the fifth means by which speculative fiction can depict race that I felt that Berlatsky overlooked. It’s not simply reducible to one of the other four methods because it takes race literally but differentiates it from our familiar historical racial categories. As with the previous three strategies, alternative approaches take racial identity literally but like metaphorical techniques, they represent a divergence with a recognizable reality. Instead, fictional racial identities stand as substitutes for real racial membership. This isn’t the same as equating race with species as in the metaphorical approach but drawing distinctions between race along different lines. This allows for more detailed discussion of race than the metaphorical or token approach without having to make an apparent connection to real races or racism as necessitated by the direct method. There must be considerable differentiation between fictional and historical races in the alternative approach otherwise there is the concern that it will be legitimately identified as guilty of cultural appropriation and exploitation. Diverse cultural elements may be combined into a purely fictional culture, but it must be done carefully. If an alternative culture is going to appear similar to the stereotype of its historical inspiration, there must be adequate explanation for the familiarity. If not, it risks reducing minorities to a means of supplying an exotic and alien element of speculative fiction. The idea is to use an alien culture to familiarize the audience with racial diversity, not to alienate a familiar culture.  

There are a variety of methods available for speculative fiction to appreciate and interrogate racial differences ranging from the metaphorical to substitutionary and confrontational. But each of these methodologies must respect both the authenticity and disparity of racial identities. One must consider not only what is being represented, but how it is being differentiated from the ideological status quo. Speculative fiction imagines alternatives to our world but should remain in dialogue with this world because it is written and read within this world. Whether imagining an alternative history or another world altogether, speculative fiction remains interested in and appreciative of difference. When those differences are superficial and repeat contemporary injustices, the narrative is read not only as a failed exercise of the genre’s imaginative potential but also its ethical imperative to celebrate difference.