Decanted

Martin on his female characters

• Facebook question for GRRM: What was your intent in providing such female characters of strength in a genre that typically reduces them to witches, wives, and whores?
• George R. R. Martin: To be fair, I have my share of witches, wives, and whores. But I try to make them fully fleshed out human witches, wives, and whores. It all goes back to what I said earlier about common humanity. It seems strange that I have to say this, as a sort of weirdly radical statement, but women are people and they are driven by the same desires that drive men, I think. A desire for respect and power, a desire to protect your children. Greed for money, for acclaim, everyone wants to be loved. It is all common humanity. I just try to write my female characters as I write my males characters. I do take into account it is a very patriarchal society. They are limited to certain roles, some of them fit comfortably within the roles their Westerosi society assigned them. And some of them cannot fit comfortably into those roles, and therefore encounter a certain amount of rejection, or tension, or ridicule as they try to pursue their own dreams or as they frustrate their own dreams. All this is great, all this is conflict, it is character tension, it is what story is all about, the human heart in conflict with itself once again. One of the things that pleases me to no end is that I have so many female readers. They do write me, all the time, that they do like my female characters, and I am very pleased with it.