There will be spoilers here but seriously...catch up and watch the episodes we can't all wait for you.
The Last of the Starks, the fourth episode of the eighth and final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, was another shift for the series as we come to the final two episodes. In it there was a lot of post-Night King threat set ups for the coming end. For many the show has already jumped the shark as the build up to the attack of the dead ended with such an abrupt event (Arya killing the Night King and the dead just crumbling) that people feel everything else will be anti-climactic. I will note here that many rushed to attack the show runners for having Arya kill the Night King calling her a Mary Sue, a term I had to look up. It refers to a female character who suddenly becomes a hero without flaws. This is often an attack on a competent woman who acts in a way that seems to grow out of no-where. (Rey's talent with a lightsaber for example). However Arya was a well-trained assassin who had already managed to kill and entire house so........ But to my point.
In this episode we see Sansa Stark, the lady of Winterfell, tell the Hound that she would still be the meek little girl of season one if she hadn't been, traded like chattel in two marriages, one from a family that caused the death of her father, her dire wolf, her brothers and mother. Been manipulated by a man who claimed to love her but killed her aunt, sold her to a sadist and basically used her for his own purposes. And of course that she was brutally raped and tortured by the Ramsey Bolton, who she was forced to marry. She said that is what made her strong.
Well, Twitter had none of that. Women all over Twitter, in real time were outraged. How could this be a line that Sansa would utter? Yes we are all the culmination of our experiences but survivors of rape have told us that we have to stop pretending that rape and abuse make women stronger. They are survivors because they were already strong and endured.
The point is that in the writers' room a woman could have pointed this out. (That and the fact that a couple times in bed with Jaime turned Brianne into a puddle when he was leaving). And this is an argument for diversity in many places. You see a perspective of a woman, who can see that her strength doesn't come from what men do to her but from her ability to endure and conquer could change the narrative. That doesn't mean experience doesn't play a role, it is just not a total external thing. This simple change could be a big difference.
Too often we here that diversity is about political correctness. If a white man is best for the job then he should get it. What is missing is asking what "best for the job" truly means. Having a voice who sees the world with different eyes can in the long run be better than a more educated person who thinks exactly as everyone else. Once in her past, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor said ""I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life,". She was trying to inspire young students but the point is that life experience does influence how you see the world. That is true in court cases, boards of directors and of course television writing. Letting someone in whose background is radically or even slightly different than your own can easily help you see the things you can't see. It isn't that you choose not to, but that you don't focus on what you see as important. To be truly honest here I didn't see Sansa's speech as problematic until the first rape survivor tweet said something about it. When the 10th came through I realized I needed to rewatch what she said and rethink my own biases. It is a difficult thing to look beyond your own bias and so we seek others to point them out. If Game of Thrones, a college campus, a corporate board or Presidential cabinet want to see more of the world in front of them, engaging people who are different in a lot ways, but especially experiences, is important. So when someone tells you it is unfair, politically correct, or somehow racist, sexist etc. to engage diversity tell them simply, we only have a limited way to see the world, diversity brings in colors we don't normally see, shows them to us and helps us find a way to understand them. Diversity gives us a super power and we are all worthy of that.
The Last of the Starks, the fourth episode of the eighth and final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, was another shift for the series as we come to the final two episodes. In it there was a lot of post-Night King threat set ups for the coming end. For many the show has already jumped the shark as the build up to the attack of the dead ended with such an abrupt event (Arya killing the Night King and the dead just crumbling) that people feel everything else will be anti-climactic. I will note here that many rushed to attack the show runners for having Arya kill the Night King calling her a Mary Sue, a term I had to look up. It refers to a female character who suddenly becomes a hero without flaws. This is often an attack on a competent woman who acts in a way that seems to grow out of no-where. (Rey's talent with a lightsaber for example). However Arya was a well-trained assassin who had already managed to kill and entire house so........ But to my point.
In this episode we see Sansa Stark, the lady of Winterfell, tell the Hound that she would still be the meek little girl of season one if she hadn't been, traded like chattel in two marriages, one from a family that caused the death of her father, her dire wolf, her brothers and mother. Been manipulated by a man who claimed to love her but killed her aunt, sold her to a sadist and basically used her for his own purposes. And of course that she was brutally raped and tortured by the Ramsey Bolton, who she was forced to marry. She said that is what made her strong.
Well, Twitter had none of that. Women all over Twitter, in real time were outraged. How could this be a line that Sansa would utter? Yes we are all the culmination of our experiences but survivors of rape have told us that we have to stop pretending that rape and abuse make women stronger. They are survivors because they were already strong and endured.
The point is that in the writers' room a woman could have pointed this out. (That and the fact that a couple times in bed with Jaime turned Brianne into a puddle when he was leaving). And this is an argument for diversity in many places. You see a perspective of a woman, who can see that her strength doesn't come from what men do to her but from her ability to endure and conquer could change the narrative. That doesn't mean experience doesn't play a role, it is just not a total external thing. This simple change could be a big difference.
Too often we here that diversity is about political correctness. If a white man is best for the job then he should get it. What is missing is asking what "best for the job" truly means. Having a voice who sees the world with different eyes can in the long run be better than a more educated person who thinks exactly as everyone else. Once in her past, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor said ""I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life,". She was trying to inspire young students but the point is that life experience does influence how you see the world. That is true in court cases, boards of directors and of course television writing. Letting someone in whose background is radically or even slightly different than your own can easily help you see the things you can't see. It isn't that you choose not to, but that you don't focus on what you see as important. To be truly honest here I didn't see Sansa's speech as problematic until the first rape survivor tweet said something about it. When the 10th came through I realized I needed to rewatch what she said and rethink my own biases. It is a difficult thing to look beyond your own bias and so we seek others to point them out. If Game of Thrones, a college campus, a corporate board or Presidential cabinet want to see more of the world in front of them, engaging people who are different in a lot ways, but especially experiences, is important. So when someone tells you it is unfair, politically correct, or somehow racist, sexist etc. to engage diversity tell them simply, we only have a limited way to see the world, diversity brings in colors we don't normally see, shows them to us and helps us find a way to understand them. Diversity gives us a super power and we are all worthy of that.
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