[Exit, Pursued By A Sloth]

On Shae (And Bronn)

ladymacbethbitches:

(I don’t think this is very good. I have many feelings and I’m not sure if they all came across.)

I find it incredibly troubling that Bronn is adored by fandom whereas Shae is almost universally reviled. (It’s probably something to do with ASOIAF fandom’s hatred of women, particularly feminine and sexual women. And hey, Shae’s a prostitute; she never stood a chance.)

Shae and Bronn are an exercise in parallels - Shae is a woman who works her way through the Westerosi power structure using her femininity, and Bronn is a man who works is way into power using his masculinity - and Shae is an excellent example of Tyrion Lannister’s misogyny, and how any Westerosi women that take control of their lives using their sexual prowess are absolutely loathed.

Tyrion acquires Shae and Bronn in his adventures in AGOT. What’s interesting about their parallels here is that they are both extremely working-class people that are using the weapons best available to them in their society in order to survive and better their positions; for Bronn, the man, this is his sword - his masculinity - and for Shae, the woman, this is her sexuality - her femininity.

When Tyrion first hires them each of them instantly make it clear that neither of them are in this for any sort of personal relationship; all they want is Tyrion’s gold. Tyrion at first is totally okay with this; he doesn’t expect to lose his money at any time soon.

Bronn and Shae are often at Tyrion’s side throughout the next couple of books, giving him advice and generally extorting money out of him. Bronn works his way up to captain of the guards, and becomes a knight, and Shae charms jewels and silks and a job and a home out of him. She does this cleverly too; she acts in a childish way so that Tyrion and the readers think she is being indulgent and shallow, and don’t realise what a threat a servant girl with a great deal of wealth can be. A lot of people think Shae asking for gifts like jewels and nice clothes is stupid of her; they’re missing the point, eg, she can use them to command high status amongst the other servants, or she can sell them.

However, Tyrion forgets about Shae’s words about being there for the money, because Shae’s power is all bound up in her performance. Shae’s power is about trickery and pretending to be innocent and keeping Tyrion in a position where he thinks he’s in power. This proves to be fatal, because Tyrion can’t understand feminine power, and he can’t fathom a woman outwitting him. Whereas Bronn, whose power is based around his weapons and ferocity and muscles, is less of a threat to Tyrion - who cannot bear the idea of Shae outwitting him. Shae’s power is hidden, Bronn’s is power is clear and present. (Really, on the whole, ASOIAF is all about feminine power versus masculine power, and how feminine powers of words and trickery are more effective than masculine powers of swords and fighting.)

(Shae has her own long-term-plan for power; when she sees Ellaria Sand, she wistfully comments to Sansa about how she was a whore who became a near princess. It’s clear what Shae wants to achieve in her life here. (Remember, Ellaria has power. Oberyn treats her as an equal, Doran asks her opinion.) It’s easy to overlook, because it’s in Sansa’s POV and obviously she has no idea who Shae really is.)

But where the differences and double-standards between masculine and feminine power really come into play is in Tyrion’s downfall. Bronn and Shae both betray him. There’s no getting around that. Bronn betrays him as well. Bronn and Tyrion’s relationship is not based around some pally-bromance. (Here’s where I don’t understand the Bronn stans; if you like Bronn using any weapons at his disposal to fight his way into power, and being utterly without morals, then why don’t you like Shae?)

Bronn abandons Tyrion with his masculine powers; he is given a submissive young wife and a manly position at court. Tyrion commends him for this; he tells him “well done” and to go on his way, and is somewhat proud that Bronn has used his masculinity to succeed sexually and economically. (True, Tyrion doesn’t have a masculine body, but he has a very masculine attitude towards women sexually, and it’s completely in character for him to appreciate Bronn sexually dominating Lollys.)

Shae abandons Tyrion through her feminine powers; she tricks him into trusting her, then when he’s arrested and can no longer help her in her ascent to power, she leaves him for Cersei’s promises of jewels and money and her own house in King’s Landing and a knight to marry her. (Cersei later retracts on her promise, true, but Shae doesn’t have the luxury of being able to defend herself with a sword, and if her mistress is missing and her master is arrested, she’s very likely to be kept in a cell and tortured for information as well. She has no choice other than to work with Cersei.)

Tyrion is furious with Shae. He murders her for it. How dare she testify against him? How dare she manipulate him? How dare she lie to him and trick him and outwit him? (Despite the fact that he uses these exact tricks to survive himself… but when a woman does it, it’s apparently treacherous. Tyrion’s misogyny is damn clear here. Despite all Tyrion’s waxing lyrical about how his dwarfism means he has to abandon masculine powers and embrace other strategies, he fails to understand that women must do this too, that this is a traditionally feminine power zone.)

And Tyrion’s treatment of Bronn and Shae is symbolic of exactly how Westeros interprets masculine and feminine power. Masculine Power = Admirable. Feminine Power = Disgusting And Should Be Murdered.

Bronn becomes a lordling, and is a thorn in Cersei and the court party’s side. Shae is dead and unburied and only Cersei remembers her name.

Sadly, ASOIAF fandom, as usual, fails to pick up the irony here, and all we’re left with is statements like “Bronn is such a badass!” and “I hate Shae; how could she betray Tyrion; the slut!”

THIS. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS POST IS FLAWLESS.

Tyrion accepts Bronn’s betrayal and sends him off with a fistbump, but Shae’s enrages him and sends her off with a murdering.

Cersei was right when she said Tyrion suffered from the disease of wanting to be loved, and whenever he thinks he isn’t loved by a woman he reacts with extreme violence and hate. And his ‘Dwarf Issues’ always contributes to an overreaction to even the slightest indication that a woman may be betraying him. He doesn’t think he can be loved by a woman, so he’s always eager to grab onto the notion that his woman has betrayed him, is laughing at him. Like he’s eager for the pain.

When he was told Tysha was a whore using him, he participated in her gang-rape and discarded her. Which he never even felt remorse for until after he found out she wasn’t really a whore (as if that should have even mattered). He never even bothered to consider how much of a whore she really could have been if she was a virgin when they met. And even if she was a whore, how that merited her treatment.

He has such little regard for Sansa, that he is actually under the delusion that she might one day warm to him and accept him as her husband. Which is the real reason he didn’t rape her the night of their wedding, not out of some sense of honour. It’s his sickness of needing to be loved, he thinks Sansa is so simple that if he’s just nice to her, one day she’ll love him. Him, whom she was forced to marry, one of the Lannisters who helped to murder both her parents and elder brother and possibly her little sister, who’ve kept her prisoner, abused and degraded her. She’ll happily join their little lion pride one day.

He feels contempt and rage towards Sansa for supposedly ‘betraying her marriage vows’ by abandoning him the night of Joffrey’s murder, when he betrayed his own marriage vows by gang-raping his wife. Regardless if she was a whore or not, he still made the vows, but they meant nothing to him in face of Tysha’s supposed perfidy.

I know Tywin was an asshole to him, and Tyrion is sympathetic and charming at times, but that hardly makes up for what he’s done, and his complete lack of selfawareness of his own unpleasantness and crimes. He’s far uglier on the inside that he is on the outside. Which is just bleakly ironic for a man who thinks what he has on the inside are his only assets.