George R.R. Martin‘s appearance this week at the Edinburgh International Book Festival set off a great deal of discussion on the subject of gay characters in his A Song of Ice and Fire novels, and the possibility of love scenes.
Today, the author appeared on a Channel 4 news program in the UK, elaborating on his comments at the festival, while reiterating the limitations of his chosen point-of-view structure.
I do have gay characters. That was something that was very important to me to do when I began this series back in 1991 because at that time, there were very few gay characters in epic fantasy and I wanted to reflect that segment of the population. You know, gay people enjoy epic fantasy too and gay people are an important part of our world and any imaginary fantasy worlds. So I include some pretty important, and I think, heroic gay characters but they weren’t viewpoint characters and since I use a strict third-person viewpoint structure, the gay sex scenes took place off-stage. But who knows if that’ll be true for the last two books. We’ll have to see where the story leads me.
Martin also talked about what type of finish fans could expect from the series, down the road. As in the past, he teased “a bittersweet ending.” He explains his intentions with a comparison to his inspiration- Lord of the Rings.
I think there’s going to be a bittersweet ending. I’ve always taken my influence from J.R.R. Tolkien and if you’ve read Lord of the Rings, Sauron is defeated and the ring is destroyed in the end but it’s not a happy, happy ending. There’s a real sense of things lost too, and I found that very powerful, and very moving. So I think my ending will also have a bittersweet tone, I hope, if I can bring that off the way I want.
Check out the complete interview below for discussion of George’s latest ASOIAF project, The World of Ice and Fire, and more.
I am not gay or anything, but I sure wouldn’t mind playing with Theon’s kraken-in-the-box.
Mine is the Furry,
Well that’s just common sense.
HeteroFan,
I,thankfully, can’t see you being here long so I’ll wish you luck in life before you go.
HeteroFan,
LET’S FUCK! Provided you are a dude. I mean, I’m straight and everything, but I like a challenge.
Mine is the Furry,
I saw him first.
Cumsprite,
No way, Spunky. The natural order of time stamped posts proves otherwise. Male or female, that ass is mine.
Edit: tommen.
HeteroFan,
No @ Hetero Fan, being an asshole is a disorder and you chose to be an assholes & its assholes like you that still rule the world
It looks like Cumsprite and Furry have the situation under control…nothing like out-trolling the troll (and I mean that as a compliment!).
Hahaha…
Mine is the Furry,
Bullshit. I typed more characters. That the time stamp dicked me over is of no matter, I thought of the sweet, sweet buttsecks with Heterofan first. Besides, you just said you were gay for them, not that you wanted to feel and experience them completely, to share warmth and love in a time of loneliness and uncertainty.
Tell you what, I am a power bottom, you strike me as a submissive top: let’s allow Heterofan decide whose embrace keeps the shadows away.
Much better to have sex with men, girls are so gay.
Why don’t y’all just compromise, and offer Heterofan a 3-some.
Cumsprite,
Listen here girlfriend, you can always type minimal and then edit your post. My flair wins. Bitchslap.
Cumsprite,
I fucking love this site! 😀
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
Now you’re talking. Let me get my anal scrub.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In terms of the topic, thanks for posting the GRRM interview!
Well, it’s not working. I just decided to turn lesbian. But then I thought of penis and got excited. I’m disappointed. Maybe Heterofan can tell me what I’m doing wrong.
EDIT: Never mind. Fury took cleaned up the nonsense 🙂
So does this mean people decided to become autistic too?
He talks about the all-hetero POV characters as if that’s a circumstance outside his control. He’s the author! If there are no gay POV characters it is because he decided not to write from the perspective of any gay characters. It’s not really an excuse.
Yes. Walmart sucks.
Only when we choose to be.
There is a gay POV character, starting in Dance. He just hasn’t had a sex scene. So, the series has both implied gay sex and gay POV characters. It just hasn’t had a gay POV character having gay sex in their POV chapter.
Hodor Targaryen,
He doesn’t need an “excuse”. He’s not trying to “excuse” himself. He’s just answering a question people have put to him.
Always supporting the bottom.
Mine is the Furry,
I’m sorry. What was that about a timestamp again?
#pwned
On topic: assuming Martin wasn’t speaking out of his queso-extruder again, I like the way he addressed the issue. Props for that. Finish the book.
Doesn’t look like Hetty is coming back.
Think you folks have overloaded his/her wankbank so they’re probably having to take care of that.
The DarkStar is Obryen Martell’s secret lover
Yes I said that 🙂
I hear you can get it on mail order now.
Can’t wait for the Darkstar POV chapters.
Gerold
” me and my red viper used to meet behind this red mountain every fortnight ” you are a Darkstar of the night” my viper prince would call me .
This is a start 🙂
He is also a POV character. I actually expect more in #TWoW for him and who knows if we won’t get a love scene.
Of the Night,
Sure you do. Besides getting a gay POV, Martin will finally publish your memoirs! I always found it weird that out of all the Daynes, Ser Arthur Dayne #SwordOfTheMorning is the only male in your House everyone remembers?! It’s a sacrilege, I tell ya! 😉
Edit: I don’t know what happened with the spoiler tags. They don’t seem to work anymore. If any mod can put fix it, I’d greatly appreciate it.
I think Martin, when he talks about the lack of gay POV characters, is more acknowledging that we haven’t seen any in the show. And the character in the books, while he struck me as gay, loads of people had no idea he was supposed to be gay because his feelings were barely touched upon, and it took GRRM confirming it for people to stop arguing about it. We still may not see that character in the show- we haven’t had any casting info about him yet.
Strider,
Never really got the impression Jon Conn was gay. There’s not really any concrete evidence to suggest one way or the other as far as I’m aware. I think some of the stuff people point to as evidence he is homosexual is written deliberately vague. It’s not impossible for a human being to love and have a deep affection for someone they don’t want to sleep with!
The characters that I picked up on being homosexual were Loras, Renly, Blackfish and Lyn Corbray (although the hints are he’s a peadophile). Some like Oberyn seem to be bisexual and others hard to tell whether they’re bisexual through sexual attraction or a power thing ( Cersei, Dany, Yezzan zo Qaggaz.). Plus others like Tanya Merryweather and Silk may not be bi or gay but do what they need to do to further their ambitions or survive.
To be honest, someone’s sexuality for me is the least interesting thing about them. I don’t think GRRM has to be explicit in “outing” characters. If their relationships or sex lives play a part in the story then I’m sure they’ll be included.
Lady nym,
Not a bad start. Perhaps a slight change to… “my prince would call me as I reached for his red viper.
Strider,
Sacrilege indeed.
Sue the Fury,
He’ll be in the show. I’m basing this purely on wishful thinking, but I’m still confident.
TheTouchOfFrost,
And I don’t think I was the only one either who thought the same. As a matter of fact Martin was asked at a signing about this and he confirmed that
Martin doesn’t like to be explicit in anything, really; it’s one of the best parts of his writing IMO.
“Q: Is a certain POV character in ADWD gay?
A: “I can’t answer without spoiling, but if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, then yes.” George mentioned that there are gay characters in ASOIAF. He mentioned Loras & Renly, saying that he included “what I thought were subtle but clear hints. HBO was not subtle about it.”‘
http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/5457/
TheTouchOfFrost,
The Blackfish is gay? Didn’t pick up on that at all. You forgot Xaro Xhoan Daxos btw, but he’s quite obvious.
Damned time zone, I would have loved to get in on this. In any case, nice work guys!
Alan,
Until he names them directly then I’m not going to take anything as confirmed! Knowing how George likes to swerve people then I could quite easily see it being Arianne , Selmy or someone else more unexpected! Not that it really matters what sexuality the character has as long as they’re interesting. Be nice to see more relationships in George’s brutal world built around more than the desire to f*ck someone but I guess that’s the nature of the beast!
Lollius Palicanus,
It took him as being gay as he turned down a good marriage proposal and appeared to be shunned to by his family because of it. Plus the nickname Blackfish seems pretty harsh if he just didn’t want to marry one person! Although I guess he could just not want to get married! Yet another reason why the honourable Tulleys are the worst family in the series!
Oh yeeah Xaro sounds like he’d do anything with a pulse…and perhaps some things without!
Lollius Palicanus,
The Blackfish takes man meat in his trouthole. It is known.
EDIT: Actually, he may be asexual. Either way, his one eyed fish doesn’t rise to the occasion of T&A.
I missed any sexual significance in that when I read ADWD. Somehow I always imagined Oberyn would be out in the open about any dalliances he had. He just had that air about him of not caring what other people thought, so I just didn’t imagine him having a clandestine relationship. However I quite often read references to things by other posters that I didn’t pick up on when reading the books.
Can’t believe there are so many childish comments. What kind of person responds like this? It’s like they just learned the words “gay” and “sex” and “butt,” and want to use it as many times as possible, each time with a little snicker as they clack away on their keyboard.
In their mom’s basement. With Cheeto’s stained fingers.
Well, we all know the people who are most bothered by gay and lesbian people are the ones who are secretly closeted.
LOL
Have fun!
Hollyoak,
As far as I can see only one person here showed that kind of ignorance and their comments were deleted. If you’re referring to Mine is the Furry and Cumsprite, I’ll assure you that neither live in their mother’s basements. And I’ll bookend this with dicks and butts.
TheTouchOfFrost,
I’ve read the comments here and I don’t see anyone who thinks that sexuality is the deciding factor in judging a character and liking it or hating it. (well, maybe with the exception of Hetty 😛 ) Like you I believe a character is interesting because of how it is written. The sexuality became a topic because of the thread article, that’s all.
Hollyoak,
Sometimes the only way to answer a comment like Heterofan’s (one is gay by deciding to be, gay people are nice but they think they are ruling the world, gay is like autism etc) is by trolling. Those comments were designed for a purpose and they reached their mark lol.
Alan,
This is the transcript of the person who asked the question. In their version, they actually specify
It’s quite a bit longer than Westeros’s brief clip of George’s answer.
http://thetopofthecity.tumblr.com/post/17852512013/here-is-the-transcript-i-took-down-myself-at-the-event
Or he had no interest in the people he was supposed to marry, individually, instead of as a gender. I’m not saying he isn’t gay or asexual, but he simply could have preferred someone else to the match.
Or maybe he just wanted to be a lifelong bachelor.
Thanks, Sue! Well, there you go, Touch of Frost, confirmed — but read it, it’s actually a really great short read on Martin’s POV.
I think he would say, and I’d agree, most of the relationships in the novel are not romantic/sexual, and it seems apparent for me that while the character in question is gay, the reason why it is not brought to the forefront/not always explicitly laid out is specifically because there is plenty more to a character than sexual orientation. Which I think you’d agree with.
Strider,
It’s a pretty mature and civilised community here so I would be surprised to find attitudes of intolerance. Hetty appears to have been an account created purely for trolling and has been dealt with accordingly (both officially and via mob justice…which nearly turned into virtual group sex).
If it turns out
What I agree there is more to a person than sexual orientation, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained in never making it clear in the books that a character is gay or bi. I’m not saying we really need an explicit sex scene. I mean, I would have preferred GRRM outright acknowledging
Making everything coded seems just a little bit like him taking the safe way out, if perhaps unconsciously.
Alan,
I don’t think GRRM will write a pointless detail like that. Either the Blackfish has a common girl he loves on the side (and this doesn’t seem to be the case, there’s been no hints toward it) or he simply isn’t interested in women. He was given many options and refused them, and he didn’t go looking himself either.
I think gay/asexual is very likely.
Alan,
I guess he may not have written explicitily gay characters or scenes as there was no need for them? To be honest I think I prefer that as it treats sexuality as part of a character and not what defines them. I’m sure if there’s need for a gay sex scene George will have a go at writing one. Maybe he’s not confident about how to write a gay sex scene as he hasn’t got any life experience to draw on for it, so may be worried it would come off a bit tacky?
I’d hate the show to follow True Blood and certain other show’s leads where they just put f*cking in for the sake of it. I think they’ve used sex and sexuality pretty well so far in the show ( with a couple of exception in my own personal opinion) and I have no reason to think they won’t continue to do so.
I agree about the coding, it gets a bit Dumbledore.
I can’t think of a lot of subtext for the women. Possibly comes out of most of the evidence of male character’s sexualities being down to rumor or things like never having married. In a sexist society women’s sexualities are often invisible or considered irrelevant.
I feel like Natalie Dormer is playing a gay Margery on the show, but there’s nothing there in the books besides a comment by Cersei which I’ve seen also taken as being about incest. The book characters I can think of are Ellaria, probably Taena and possibly Nymeria too – there’s a line about her being in bed with a girl/some girls somewhere, but that’s so tenuous when everyone’s sharing beds with their friends (that’s the invisibility thing again though, I’m sure there are more than a few women in Westeros who’ve been living with their ‘cousins’ for years). Are there more I’ve missed?
It’s interesting that there actually are sexual encounters between women in the books but they have no romantic element, and almost no sexual element, just a weird power dynamic and an opportunity.
Myrish Swamp,
Thinking about it…there’s very few sexual encounters in the book that don’t have some sort of power or business dynamic. Off the top of my head, Jaime and Cersei (and that shifts),Ned and Catlyn, Robb and his missus(pick which one you prefer!), Oberyn and Ellaria and Loras and Renly. May be more, but I can’t think of any others at present.
Don’t laugh at me but I always thought the Flower twins are boys 🙁 I felt very stupid when I read your comments about them ….
Don’t laugh at me but I always thought the Folower twins are boys 🙁 I felt very stupid when I read your comments about them ….
TheTouchOfFrost,
That’s true, but I meant more in that being all there is. Apart from maybe Taena I don’t think that any of them had sex even partially because they were sexually or romantically attracted to the other woman.
A lot of the heterosexual couples are married, and most of the marriages are arranged, so almost all have some kind of business aspect. When it comes to the couples I can think of there’s quite a range, there are the really awful political marriages – Ramsey and Lady Hornwood, Ramsey and
Robert and Cersei, the indifferent ones – (book) Stannis and Selyse, and the ones who take it beyond that and at least enjoy having sex with each other – Ned and Cat, Roose and Fat Walda. Most of them we can’t really place, it’s hard to say unless you hear from them in the text. I can’t think of many Westerosi love marriages, Tywin and Joanna, Doran and Mellario, Davos and Marya (I think) but we don’t actually see any of them together, there are a few more amongst the Wildlings, Mance and Dalla, and Osha was married too (show only? I can’t remember).
There are more non-married couples who have have an uneven power dynamic because of their situations but who are both attracted to each other – Dany and Daario, Jon and Ygritte. Then, besides the other ones you already mentioned, Sam and Gilly, Arianne and Arys, Asha and that guy, and then in the show there’s also (although they’ve only had a romance thing) Grey Worm and Missandei.
Sorry, that got a bit long, Stannis and Melisandre fit in somewhere too but I’m not at all sure where.
Lady nym,
When I read your comment I had to go back and check that they actually were women in the books, so not at all!
Myrish Swamp,
Taena is an interesting one as I saw her being more of a social climber which is why she went with Cersei. But there may have been a general attraction between the two, I just feel the power context overshadowed that significantly.
Not sure Roose enjoys sex/being married to Fat Walda. He just wanted her weight in silver and actively burns letters she sends him when away and doesn’t reply! The other ones you mentioned do seem to feature genuine affection with perhaps the Tywin/Joanna one being questionable as there are rumours she took the Mad King to bed ( Jaime and Cersei could be Targs!) and this was one of many reasons for the hatred between he and Tywin. I like the opposite dynamic with Genna Lannister and Merret ( I think) Frey. Where she (the one fat Lannister!) was married to him in a poor match yet she has completely taken over the marriage and made it work for her. Hope her role is expanded more in future books as I think she’s a great character.
Sam and GIlly is a good one, although I think initially Gilly just saw Sam as an escape route. Missandei and Greyworm I try and forget about as I think it’s a stupid plotline in the show and I prefer the book’s ‘little scribe’ to the dull show incarnation.
Stannis and Melisandre appears to be a purely pragmatic relationship. He needs her to achieve what he wants and vice versa. The sex in itself is just a by product of this.
In the book the Myrcella/Trystane pairing seems to be quite genuine even thought they’re still just kids. I sense the show is going to destroy that bit of happiness though!
Something I hadn’t really through, and something that I’ve contradicted myself with a bit, is some of my reasoning for Margaery being attracted to women. In the show she flirts with Joffrey, but clearly has no attraction towards him. She also flirts with Sansa and Brienne, since she’s unlikely to be forming marriage alliances with either of them anytime soon I figured this had to be because of genuine attraction, but there can still be political motivations for pursuing same-sex relationships (or just flirting), its all just less open. I’m standing by it because I want it to be true and because there’s also the very blatant “Pretty girls!” and the look she gives the woman walking past them in this scene.
Oh, I don’t think anyone’s mentioned Wyllas Tyrell and Oberyn either. It must be a family thing.
TheTouchOfFrost,
Same with Taena, I definitely think she was a social climber, and that that was her main motivation, I just didn’t want to completely dismiss the possibility that she also had some attraction to Cersei (because, whilst not in real life actually that indicative, GRRM did put in a few lines about her, erm, swampiness).
This is what I was going from on Fat Walda and Roose’s relationship:
Myrish Swamp,
My impression of Margaery from the books is that she was straight but acts more on her ambitions than attractions. I think her flirtations with women (which I didn’t really notice) are just playfulness and affectionate ( false or genuine) but not sexual. Wouldn’t surprise me if she was bisexual but I personally don’t see it. The nature of her relationship with Loras is still quite questionable. There’s a few hints that they share more than a normal sibling relationship.
I saw Oberyn and Willas as just being friends. Found it quite a heart-warming that they struck up a friendship despite Oberyn being indirectly responsible for Willas being crippled.Again, I’d like to think that not every relationship has to be based on f*cking in the universe the characters inhabit!
She may have grown on him but I think that that quote was designed to show just how cold Roose is. He goes on to say Ramsay would kill any children he had with her and he’d be glad of it as child-lords are the bane of any house. I think this may be a hunt that Rickon comes back to defeat him and prove those words to be false!
In Support of Bliss’ s great question…
This kind of thinking frightens the fuck-outta-me. I have an autistic child and i have many gay loved ones.
Shakes me to the core that people are this ignorant at this day and age.
As to the article, i hope GRRM continues to paint his colorful (rainbow guard included) world with as much BEAUTY and diversity in his characters as he can.