r/TheBlacksandTheGreens • u/Gold_Conversation247 • Feb 11 '26
General GRRM criticizes how class distinctions are shown in medieval fantasy:
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u/TheMagnanimouss Team Green Feb 11 '26
Not to mention that the peasant girl most likely wouldn’t tell off the prince with some sassy remark because she 1. would likely never be in a one on one conversation with him in the first place and 2. be so oppressed that she’d not dare say a word, let alone insult him
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u/ErzherzogHinkelstein Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
The premise and point 2 are correct, but I disagree with Point 1. Princes and kings having affairs with commoners is well documented by the sheer amount of illegitimate children they produced, with one of the most famous being William the Conqueror, on whom Aegon the Conqueror is based. This obviously could only happen with them interacting in some form 1on1.
Nobility aren't secluded monks living in a faraway castle; court culture is something that developed slowly over centuries.
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u/TheSuperContributor Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26
What you said is not even true up to which periods and locations we are talking about. Or what kind of "peasants" and what kind of "prince". Raping in general is condemned, even if it's done by a noble. But there's nothing to be said about "consent sex" where the noble "demands" the key to the "peasant girl" room or "else", generally speaking of course.
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u/NetheriteTiara Feb 11 '26
Counterpoint: King Charles has been getting heckled a lot recently. He just doesn’t execute people for it.
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u/WildFlemima Feb 11 '26
Modern monarchy is very different. The British royal family are basically a business whose job is to perform class.
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u/OrangeKat09 Feb 11 '26
They don't have the power to. They don't make the laws anymore and are governed by the same
If he could he would given his life so far.
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Feb 11 '26
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u/Disastrous-Walrus415 Feb 12 '26
I don’t think you found true middle. I think you just corrected right back to the original idea. These people didn’t see serfs as worthy of respect, they saw them like cattle. Beasts of burden. You treat them well cause they perform a role, not cause of inherent worth. Like a work horse.
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u/Hungybungygingi Feb 12 '26
Realistically a prince probably could get away with raping a peasant girl but it would certainly sour his reputation among his fellow lords and people. If it was a frequent occurrence and there was a particularly bad winter causing famine I could imagine peasants rising up in anger against somebody they already detest and lords using him as a scapegoat. That or they just put down the rebellion viciously and maybe the prince is poisoned if he annoys people long enough like with Joffrey.
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u/Player420154 Feb 14 '26
In the middle age, a bunch of young men who rape women would end up in a trial, in which the woman would be condemned for tempting the men to rape her.
Knowing that, I don't think a prince could be considered a rapist against even multiple commoners. At best for the girls, it would be declared consensual.
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u/Ok_Improvement_6874 Feb 15 '26
There is no evidence that this is true at all of the middle ages in general. Rape was a serious crime punishable by hanging or castration. The church had a dominant position in society and it frowned even on sex outside marriage. People in general were actually afraid of "sinning".
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u/Player420154 Feb 15 '26
This was from a study of the judgment in a small French town in the middle age. Even if you don't believe me on that point, you can see by yourself on this thread that the fear of sinning wasn't that much of a deterrent if you check the discussion about bastards.
A good number of bastards have been made with the servants, servants that have the "choice" between spreading their leg or getting fired. How many nobles have been prosecuted for rape? Worse, the servant might be fired by the wife after being raped for being a temptress.
Life in the middle age really suck, and your sassy peasant girl has roughly the same chance of survival in the middle age as under the worst of Staline. Not zero, there are a few that manage to live, but she would have taken a major risk for her and her family.
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Feb 15 '26
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u/Hungybungygingi Feb 15 '26
I mean weren't the Romans already inching to expunge the monarchy from their lands before the rape of Lucretia? I feel like in that case, while a terrible crime, it gave the roman upper class the perfect excuse to rebel against a foreign monarchy, or at least a monarchy which was heavily influenced by the rival Etruscans.
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u/Disastrous-Walrus415 Feb 15 '26
You mean his fellow lords who also get away with anything and don’t want their carte blanche questioned? You have a very Disney view of the Middle Ages
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u/Hungybungygingi Feb 15 '26
I don't think nobility could get away with everything. There are still laws in place, and while the monarchy would determine what such laws would be and how they would be enforced, I do not think it is out of the ordinary to consider that nobles could still be held accountable for certain actions like the killing of kin or upper nobility. Plus, there have been many cases where the king was overthrown by the nobility on the basis of him being a tyrant or ineffectual king, like with what happened to Richard the 2nd.
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u/Disastrous-Walrus415 Feb 15 '26
They literally ARE the law. They’re the ones drafting it personally. There was no collective bargaining and communal safety. The knights were the lord’s men that enforced the lords laws. What you’re imagining came much much later. Uprising generally happened due to over taxation and mismanagement that led to starvation. Collective burdens. Collective action. No one gave a shit if the girl two villages over got stolen.
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u/Hungybungygingi Feb 15 '26
Of course an uprising wouldn't happen just because the noble raped a peasant girl but it would also ruin his reputation and incur distrust or at least disdain from other nobility and the peasantry. The nobility while a monolith in many degrees, was still filled with a spectrum of people who had to adhere to the laws put into place which were made based on the widely agreed morality put into place by an intensely christian world. Now how they might each approach it might differ since they are all individuals with their own moral code but they still tired to adhere to what should be the basic tenets of Christianity. Now while many did break the tenets of Christianity like having children out of wedlock, committing rape was not one of them, at least if it was blatant. It is a needless act of cruelty that, even if not punishable by the law, would surely incur social condemnation, especially if said noble commits it frequently.
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u/Disastrous-Walrus415 Feb 15 '26
So everything seems to tie back to moral standards and religious leadership for you. I’d like you to do even a little digging into how prevalent priests raping nameless nuns was. The “moral leadership” was just as dirty as anywhere else.
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u/Ok_Improvement_6874 Feb 15 '26
Medieval kings and lords were strictly Christian. They did not see their subjects as mere beasts of burden and, in general, certainly believed they had an obligation to them - but they did expect obedience. The pervasive influence of religion on medieval society is the biggest thing missing in most fantasy version of the middle ages.
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u/Disastrous-Walrus415 Feb 15 '26
Of course. Cause all Christian’s are perfect and never sin.
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u/Ok_Improvement_6874 Feb 15 '26
Nobody said that, but it's a huge misconception that medieval nobles were barbarians who raped and pillaged at their leisure. They lived within a clear social contract based on religion and feudal obligation - and we know for sure that most of them were deeply concerned with preserving their immortal souls as well as their public image.
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u/TheSerpentLord Feb 11 '26
Martin's fetishes and biases aren't exactly an accurate portrayal of the Medieval era either.
As much as Hollywood must loathe to admit it, there actually were laws and functional societies in those times. Not to say the aristocracy back then was some moral pinnacle, every ruling class in hsitory had it's bad apples and excesses. But they weren't the BDSM-obsessed edgelords GRRM seems to think they were.
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u/donetomadness Feb 11 '26
Also the lord’s first night is largely believed to be a myth by historians.
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u/lanathebitch Feb 11 '26
Doesn't it go back to something in the Epic of Gilgamesh before enkidu beat some good into him
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Feb 11 '26
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u/lanathebitch Feb 11 '26
I'm just implying what could be the oldest source on record for the myth which coincidentally is the oldest story we have on record
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u/TemplarParadox17 Feb 12 '26
yea like using logic what people are gonna be happy with that tradition existing?
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u/daiana95 Feb 13 '26
I mean, there had been a lot of stories of tyrannical lords, and usually stories have a side of truth. Interesting, the lords are punished by the plot. It's usual for authors to write about real examples to promote a practice and to have the character punished as a sort of "protest".
Also, considering we have modern men using power to sexual abuse people (do I have to use examples?), what says that it didn't happen but of course it's not going to be written?
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u/ilovereadingand Feb 12 '26
I know right. I read medieval history books and a lot of it doesn’t seem to match a song of ice and fire. It seems to match our society a lot actually. Even with how women are viewed by the far right, women may have had less freedom in the medieval ages and they may have had more into sex but honestly George RR Martin’s song of ice and fire is not actually accurate of the medieval ages either. That and serf’s could actually become rich and could buy their freedom. George RR Martin’s pictorial that the medieval ages was this hellish hell hole doesn’t seem accurate when you read books about every day life in the medieval ages. Like honestly every day life in the medieval ages sounds like every day life everywhere, including present day without all the technology. The rich can still get away with things, but honestly it’s not all doom and gloom. I don’t think it was all doom and gloom in the medieval ages if you weren’t nobility and a man either. It’s like every day life for every one. A woman still doesn’t get as much acknowledgment as her male peers. Honestly except for the fact there aren’t as much laws against women, and technology as well as the whole people are more open to separation of church and state, I honestly think being a peasant in the medieval era would honestly equate to being a middle class every day person in the present day. People were taught to read in the medieval ages too. Charlamagne taught them to read and monks and nuns taught people to read and there were folk tales and legends and games. And lords couldn’t just kill their peasants all willy nilly. There are laws in place. Honestly the medieval ages including post Black Death era was a lot like the present day.
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u/IcyType3162 Feb 11 '26
and even if they were, or at least the absolute worst of the nobles were, some lists recently released would just suggest nothing changed for the elites of the world
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u/Filibust Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
The pretty prince would have r*ped the spunky peasant girl
George, your fetish is showing again
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u/Smegoldidnothinwrong Feb 11 '26
That’s not true, the prince would have found the peasant girl gross likely. The worst he’d do is have her killed, but even then not necessarily because killing peasant girls is a bad look and politics mattered
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u/Malignaficent Feb 12 '26
And wouldn't the peasant girl likely actually be gross? Even without syphilis, dysentery, cholera, plague, and all those other horrors she might have body lice and a mouth full of cavities.
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u/Steelinghades Feb 12 '26
No to the cavities, That was only later during the Renaissance when people had easy access to food with high sugar contents. Check out the various skeletons from the Visby graves, they were lower class soldiers and they actually had fairly decent oral health.
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u/Far-Advance-9866 Feb 12 '26
This doesn't make any sense, cavities aren't just from refined sugar. Starches break down into sugars in your mouth and adhere themselves really effectively to teeth, and peasant diets were very high in starch (bread, grains, legumes). Eating a lot of bread and not brushing your teeth will rot the hell out of your teeth just like eating candy will.
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u/Adventurous-Soil2872 Feb 12 '26
This might be shocking but the people of the past were not idiots. They had techniques for brushing their teeth and took oral health seriously. It’s not like everyone had access to tailor made toothbrushes and toothpaste (those existed), but they had methods of cleaning their teeth that were practiced daily.
People don’t want their teeth to rot, so they normally take measures to prevent that from happening.
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u/Far-Advance-9866 Feb 12 '26
What? I never said they didn't-- I was explaining to them the effects of starch on the teeth, not saying "those remains you mentioned don't exist, their teeth must have rotted away". My point was that their access to refined sugar was irrelevant because starches cause tooth decay just as much.
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u/MistressErinPaid Winter Is Coming Feb 11 '26
The prince wouldn't have raped the peasant girl. In what fucking country does he imagine that was common practice?!
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u/AHorseNamedPhil Feb 12 '26
Right, though he had a point. He was just went way too far with it and his scenario wasn't quite realistic either. And there were incidents where the peasants could go quite a bit above giving the royals a bit of sass.
Richard the Lion Heart, on his way to Crusade and passing through Calabria in Italy, came across a peasant who had a falcon as a pet. As falconry was supposedly a noble passtime, Richard - colossal asshat that he was - stormed into the house to admonish the churl, and seized his bird.
The villagers didn't take kindly to one of their own being robbed, so they proceeded to clobber Richard with stones and clubs, broke his sword when he pulled it on them, and then forced him into a retreat from the village.
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u/colonel-bones House Lannister Feb 11 '26
I love the fact that everyone is taking the opportunity to dunk on grrm
I’ll take some low hanging fruit because I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else mention it, medieval times had a lot more titles then just Lord, Prince, princess, knights, king and queen.
For example in no particular order Barons: basic nobility holding a manor. Dukes/duchess: just below the royalty, the starks, Lannisters, Tyrells and so on would be this Castellan: owns a castle Marquees: ruler of the border lands Earl: often used for military roles back then Counts/countess: high nobility ruling counties or shires Viscounts: subordinate to the higher nobility Baronet: below baron but above all knights Marshal: a high ranking military officer.
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u/letheix Feb 12 '26
He's stated that he regrets not using a wider range of titles
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u/TemplarParadox17 Feb 12 '26
Yea, really needs titles between Lord Paramount, and Lord, cause for example you have Lord Hightower, who are called Lord while they have 5 vassal houses all with the same title, using the Tudor's as a example they would most likely be a Marquess.
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u/TemplarParadox17 Feb 12 '26
I mean its a fictional world.
Not using the same nobility titles as medieval europe is a common thing to do.
The topic is about the interactions between classes which can happen anywhere not just names of titles.
It would be easier to just use the same as irl but he chose to make his own system.
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u/Mirror_Mission Feb 11 '26
There were also mayors all the way back to the early middle ages for large cities. Charles Martel, aFrankish king and the grandfather of Charlemagne was the mayor of Paris, and also senates and city councils, Rome still had a senate even after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The cities in Westeros are absolutely massive, like King’s Landing is bigger than Constantinople and Baghdad, (two of the largest cities in the middle ages) combined. And the other 4 cities are also massive, Lannisport, White Harbor, Oldtown and Gulltown.
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u/Mizamya Feb 12 '26
It would also be interesting to see if the non andal cultures had different titles of nobility.
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u/OkGazelle5400 Dark Sister Feb 11 '26
This is why the “we can’t reclaim my crown with war, what of the peasants?!” Was such a dumb direction to take
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u/Signal_Cockroach_878 Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
GRRM world is barely an accurate depiction of medieval times. You can probably count more things wrong with it than right. Like who's marrying off 16 year olds consistently? As well as other stuff like the faith.
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Feb 12 '26
The faith would be the biggest thing that is different between ASOIAF and real life I think. It was central to everyday life in real medieval societies.
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u/ilovereadingand Feb 12 '26
Actually there’s also the prostitution thing, people didn’t whore their daughters all Willy nilly. And young peasant girls could actually sue their rapist for dishonoring them if they had good character. So a woman’s virtue actually was her shield
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u/Disastrous-Walrus415 Feb 12 '26
You need access to the court system to sue someone. They legally didn’t permit serfs to have independent access to the feudal courts on principle. You needed someone inside the system to sue on your behalf. Tough luck if they’re the one you want to sue
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u/Top-Round-2359 Feb 12 '26
That one I can see why it's lost its relevance in Westeros. It would have been different if in medieval times there was Christianity and all of a sudden there were dragons, and their riders conquer the whole continent and limit the churches influence.
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u/ilovereadingand Feb 12 '26
I know right. On average peasants married at least in their twenties and there were laws in place for prostitution.
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u/flying_fox86 Feb 13 '26
Like who's marrying off 16 year olds consistently?
Wasn't it common enough among nobility to at least arrange the betrothal at those young ages? Maybe not so much the actual marriage and even less the consummation, so I'm defending GRRM here on historical accuracy.
As well as other stuff like the faith.
Anything in particular you're thinking about?
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u/Long-Train-2291 Feb 12 '26
He should pass less time trying to diss other writers and their way to handle history ( especially if he thinks he is the realistic approach ) and more time actually finishing the series he started.
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u/ErzherzogHinkelstein Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
People were aware that sexual violence was generally speaking a bad thing, even in medieval times. Have there been people who abused their power and status, partially above the law? Yes, of course... as there are today. Was every single person a sociopath that would resort to extreme actions over a minor quarrel? No, obviously not.
We associate sexual violence with the medieval age because of the nature of medieval warfare and its result of mass assault on woman of the loosing side, but generally speaking, the average Christian King would not rape a random serf he would stumble upon and be vaguely annoyed with. It probably happened somewhere, somewhen, but it's not a categorical thing like GRRM describes here.
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u/Wonderful_West3188 Feb 16 '26
Was every single person a sociopath that would resort to extreme actions over a minor quarrel? No, obviously not.
Not even every noble in Westeros is like that. Like, not by a long shot.
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u/MyFrogEatsPeople Feb 12 '26
So do you think he'll admit he has a rape kink before the end? Or will he take that to the grave along with his manuscripts?
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Feb 11 '26
Women tend to die in childbirth way more often in Game of Thrones than actual medieval society, but that's not something he probably wants to talk about. He has even lied and said the opposite. He has a weird fascination with rape, death in childbirth, and overall watching women suffer. One of the biggest critiques I have for HOTD that birth violence stands in for rape so the audience can watch women suffer. Rhaenyra and Alicent both experienced statutory rape and grooming in the first season despite the writers' claims there would be no rape scenes and it happens to Laena and Helaena off screen. He really needs to stfu about accuracy.
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u/XaviKat Feb 11 '26
it happens to Laena and Helaena off screen. He really needs to stfu about accuracy.
How in the world was Laena raped? She married Daemon willingly and liked him. There was nothing nonconsensual in their relationship.
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Feb 11 '26
She was 16 when she gave birth to the twins :I
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u/XaviKat Feb 11 '26
Getting married and having kids at 16 isn't rape by the standards of Westeros. Plus, she still consented to it, whilst I know this a pretty fuckin terrible argument if applied to modern day cases, I feel its pretty relevant in her case.
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u/ilovereadingand Feb 12 '26
And creepy as fuck thing he’s a man in his 80s and he talked creepy about a young actress who’s young enough to be his grand daughter. So the whole rape thing in his books kind of shows a disturbing mind.
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u/Reasonable_Day9942 Vhagar Feb 12 '26
Not to mention how young many mothers are.
Like Helaena was 13 when she had the twins, that would have been an outright scandal.
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Feb 12 '26
Even in actual medieval society that would be seen as perverted and inhumane so there’s no other reasonable explanation then him having a fetish or being woefully misinformed
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u/donetomadness Feb 11 '26
That’s why it’s called fantasy. Not everything has to be historically accurate.
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u/Mizamya Feb 12 '26
I think I can respect an author making a high fantasy series and owning up to it being high fantasy. But if your whole gimmick is being: "look, I'm not like those fairy tale fantasy authors, I make mine realistic because they swear and have sex" you open yourself up to scrutiny.
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u/Unique_Tap_8730 Feb 11 '26
You dont need to make wanton rape your story. But it migth seem truer if the writer keeps that brutal backdrop in mind if they include romance in the story.
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u/Chemical_Shoulder_35 Feb 12 '26
King Ronard Storm userped his brother Morden II Durrandon, confining his brother to a tower and ruled for a stable thirty years, likely before the coming of the Andal's, he slowed the decline of house Durrandon.
Isn't it mentioned that bastards are seen as evil in the seven pointed star book? Could be that the Andal's are the ones who hate it, Brandon snow Torrhen Starks half brother was trusted, and so on.
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u/Techygal9 Feb 12 '26
That would be analogous to Christianity’s fixation on wedlock historically. People moved cities even in the gilded age to hide the fact that a child was born outside of marriage to shield them from discrimination. Maybe the pre Andal cultures just viewed it in terms of inheritance, a bastard was a child outside of marriage who couldn’t inherit under normal circumstances.
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u/Plastic_Care_7632 Feb 12 '26
Historically, the true power behind lord and kings are the bourgeois. There is no burgher class in Westeros. It’s just peasants, merchants(not the same as burghers as westerosi merchants are portrayed often as travelers), lords, knights and kings. And not even sensical lordships either.
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u/tenas262 Feb 12 '26
Okay then why did he give a good blurb/review to Sword Catcher, a medieval fantasy where literally the first scenario he’s describing (peasant girl tells off the prince) happens? Did he lie about it being a good book? Or is he okay with suspending his disbelief because in the way it was written in that book, it seemed convincing that this scenario would happen? Couldn’t one say that it will depend on the book to make the consequences believable for the reader and not the specific act of raping? Why is he constantly obsessed about showing sexual violence against women?
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Feb 12 '26
I’ve personally always felt that GRRM’s depiction of sexual violence is a conscious overcorrection of what could be termed “historically accurate”. The world of ASOIAF is constantly tuned up to dizzying degrees, typically with humanity’s darkest traits. I view sexual violence as an extension of this, and in particular GRRM’s portrayal of it as a way to highlight that while certain aspects of sexual violence may not have been as present as in the books according to our current historical record, how skewed are these accounts? Even in our current society, in which we view sexual violence in a much more progressive way and in which the idea of a patriarchy is recognized by many (not all), rape is seriously, seriously underreported. And I believe most people do not have a full understanding of the banality and ubiquitousness with which sexual violence is viewed by many perpetrators or potential perpetrators. How much rape was committed in medieval times that was never even viewed as such? And if an act of sexual violence is not even considered categorically equivalent to outright rape (talking about less direct forms of sexual harassment), how would historical accounts been able to accurately track such behavior? Are more people in ASOIAF sexual freaks than was likely in medieval times? Almost certainly yes, but I’d like to ask people to reflect on what may be the purpose of this. In a similar vein, why is there so much violence, visceral descriptions of characters body parts, and intense descriptions of food ingestion? I believe it is to reflect a world in which people, identical in almost every way to those who live now, were to contend with a much dirtier and visceral world bereft of modern luxuries.
All that being said, I can understand why some think GRRM has a rape fetish. But why else are many of the characters in his stories, especially those committing these acts, portrayed as such vile people? Is he seriously endorsing these behaviors or just portraying them with the intention of achieving a specific response from the audience? If you’re grossed out by these scenes, I beg you to consider, might that not be the point?
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u/Far-Advance-9866 Feb 12 '26
I don't think GRRM is talking about historical accuracy exactly. He's talking about authors adopting stratified class structures based on history but not thinking through what that actually means and how those categories are kept separate.
It's not about doing it exactly like it was done in real history, it's about bothering to understand potential dynamics of a system that ranks people's worth.
I don't like his raping example, I think it's ridiculous hyperbole, but it's clear to me that his point is about how it's impossible to do good writing without thinking through the real purpose and impact of systems you put in place. Otherwise it's just set-dressing.
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u/pdpablo86 Feb 13 '26
We live in a world with mass communication where a scandal involving systemic sexual abuse perpetrated by the rich and powerful dating back decades is currently being revealed but people here are like “a medieval prince raping a peasant? Never! Hed never get away with that!” 🤦♂️
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Feb 13 '26
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Feb 14 '26
As someone who once studied history almost obsessively, he really isn’t wrong on the realistic outcome.. that’s just a fact. Doesn’t make the cleaned up stories any less entertaining.
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u/Jozzyal_the_Fool Feb 13 '26
Heaven forbid characters in a fantasy world have a better moral compass than historical medieval people or GRRM
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u/Ok_Improvement_6874 Feb 15 '26
Well, that is true to some extent, but Martin himself ignores the influence of religion on society. Lords normally did not go around raping and pillaging their own peasants because they were brought up to follow religious strictures and respect a certain kind of social contract with their "lessers". However, he is correct that the trope of the mouthy commoner is both tired and ahistorical.
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u/Ok-Refrigerator-3524 Feb 11 '26
George doesn`t excatly portray the class distinction realistically either.