When my friend Mat sent me this article, I was immediately struck by it. Mat is a gifted writer (find him on Goodreads) and long time fan of George R.R. Martin and Game of Thrones.  Perhaps it was current events like the shooting in Isla Vista and too many others, but Mat was struck by something in GoT – something that once pointed out, glares at us uncomfortably.  What is the connection between everyday sexism and media depictions of women?

I have an admission to make: in the wake of Isla Vista, as disturbed as I was by that young man’s murderous actions, I wasn’t sure what to make of the #YesEveryWoman movement. It’s not that I was against it – I wasn’t. I just wasn’t sure how to feel about it as a man. Leave it to a silly television show on Sunday night to clear my eyes.

In a Grantland article from 2013, Game of Thrones showrunner David Benioff proudly fended off any deep, thematical analysis of the popular series by quipping: “themes are for eighth grade book reports.” Perhaps he’s right, he is David Benioff after all. But that is precisely the problem.

I should probably start by saying that up until recently I’ve been a huge fan of Game of Thrones, and I am still, to this day, an admirer of George R.R. Martin. He’s a literary idol, and has a history of treating his fans with openness and respect. On top of that, his work has everything a fantasy lover could want in a series – whether the books or the show – action, romance (or at least sex), intrigue, dragons, and a touch of magic. That being said, I have, of late, run into the same problem with the show that I ran into with the books, which hit me at the end of Storm of Swords and the beginning of Feast for Crows. The grim message, written as much in black and white (and bloody red) as in subtext, deeply troubles me – to the point that I’ve lost sleep more than once. That message is this: The world is forever a shitty place – especially for all women any good men.

Before I’m ripped to shreds as one of those fools who can’t handle a solid dose of reality, or am filled with the childish need to have all my books, film, music, and TV sanitized with a septic Disney brush, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, great storytelling, in any form, must contain elements of darkness and dread, like that layer of grain over an image that makes 35 mm film look so much more like life than any digital camera can. Our eyes and our minds crave some level of dreary realism. Heroes without flaws are no more than false idols, and champions who never fail do not exist. Even the ancient storytellers in Greece knew that.

The issue is not with the idea that Westeros, meant to be a dim reflection of our own imperfect world, is a shitty place, because ours often is, but that it is a seemingly unalterable shitty place, founded on the fatalistic acceptance that “good people” must be perfect, or they will be destroyed, and that life is worse for anyone with any morals beyond survival of the fittest, and that being doubly true for anyone born a woman.

This theme is played out again and again in both the books and the series, that “the forces of good” – those fighting for freedom, justice, peace, or honor, do not simply learn or suffer for their mistakes, they are gruesomely and finally savaged for them, punished to a degree beyond edification, to ultimate destruction. Ned Stark gave in and admitted false guilt to treason, and was beheaded. Robb Stark married for love and broke a promise, and was forced to watch his wife’s pregnant belly stabbed repeatedly before being killed by the host who had sworn his safety. Catelyn Stark released Jamie Lannister against her son’s orders, and then watched that son die before having her own throat cut. Prince Oberin, lusty and arrogant though he was, is portrayed as a tolerant, just man, judging not on sexuality or dwarfism, in love with his paramour, willing to champion the weak, has his head crushed in while the Mountain gloats about raping Oberin’s sister, killing her children, and crushing her head as well, all for a brief lapse of hubris.

The wicked, meanwhile, Tywin Lannister, Cersei, Walder Frey, Roose Bolton, and his bastard, Ramsay, seem capable of living free of tactical error, or of somehow overcoming mistakes or strokes of bad luck with even more unbelievably good luck. Their help shows up at the right time, their enemies falter at the finish, and their lies and plans are as impenetrable as midnight. Perhaps there is some truth in this, as individuals with no moral compass, or a very shaky one at best, will so ruthlessly fight for their own survival at the expense of others that they have a better chance of winning it. But luck or fortune, if it really is luck or fortune, is an even coin toss – just not in Westeros.

But worse than even this grim theme, is the disturbing acceptance that women are destined to endure sexual violence at some point in their lives, and that the only power they will ever have in this world is sexual power. This was never clearer than in Sansa Stark’s story, so visibly apparent in the fourth season of the TV series. After enduring all manner of shame at the hands of Joffrey, Sansa finally emerges from the cocoon of childhood an “empowered” woman – baring the ample cleavage and knowing gaze to show it. She has grasped Littlefinger’s desire for her body with both hands and is finally ready to use it as weapon to her advantage. But even for Daenerys Stormborn, perhaps the most successful of the story’s heroes or heroines, her first battles were lost and later won on the bed of Khal Drago, and in her eventual victory, she uses the power of her beauty to command one of her loyal warriors strip and perform for her before sending him off to battle. We see little of Daenerys’s tactical or political ability beyond her possession of dragons – as the mother of dragons, her sons giving her the true power.

Does any of this even matter? I mean, it’s just entertainment right? And I’m probably beginning to sound like some street preacher bemoaning the evils of Hollywood. But as David Benioff said, themes are for eighth grade book reports – precisely because themes and messages, consciously or subconsciously, inform the audience of a worldview, and more easily so in the impressionable minds of the young. And this worldview posits that survival is easier (and perhaps even more rewarding) for the wicked than the good, and that mistakes for good people are infinitely more costly than for the evil, and that women must either take up their sexuality as a weapon or suffer at the other end of it. There is seemingly no hope in this message that the world can become a different place – a better place. And that is where I believe the message has gone wrong.

Admittedly, women do suffer violent acts more than men in this world, and a good heart and good intentions do not shield anyone from bad luck, misfortune, or death. And when change comes, it comes at an agonizingly slow pace, still leaving this world far from a perfect place it its wake. But here is the crux of the matter: change at a personal and world scale is possible – and our history, the history upon which Westeros is supposedly based, proves it. If we traveled back in time and asked any slave in any country one thousand years ago if ever would come a day when the civilized world, as one, would outlaw the construct of one human owning another, surely he would have laughed sadly in your face. If you would have asked a same-sex couple, even only fifty years ago, if ever they could marry under the law, and live openly, they would surely have doubted – but they would have been wrong, and growing more wrong by the vote. All these changes happened because good people did not give up, they fought on – and they won.

Yes, we need grit in our storytelling, and yes, we all need a dose of reality from time to time, and yes, there are no perfect people in the world, not even among the heroes, but if we’re going to change the real world, which is unbelievably hard to do, we should probably start in our fictional ones, which is so much easier. We cannot accept the idea, or teach our young women and our young men to accept the idea, that women are either and only sexual victims or dominatrices, or that this world is so unbelievably hopeless that we promote a “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em mentality.

So what am I asking for? Just this: the story isn’t written yet, in either Westeros or on Earth, so why not add at least a little light? I don’t believe pioneers, scientists, or explorers took the first footsteps into a new world. Rather, those first steps were taken in the imagination; by eighth graders writing their book reports, and it is storytellers and their themes that led the way.

Sorry it took me so long. But I know how I feel now. #YesAllWomen

Find out more about James Matlack Raney on his website.