I really like the Song of Ice and Fire series, so I want to try and defend it somewhat. Unfortunately, it's been a couple years or so since I read the first book, I don't currently have a copy with me, and my memory is utter crap, so please forgive me if I'm off base.

I think the chapter you're talking about must have been from Daenerys' point of view, and if so, that would've been the scene where she was being dressed up in a slinky dress by her creepy older brother so she could be presented to a barbarian warlord as his bride for the purpose of forging a political alliance between said creepy brother and said barbarian warlord (who actually turns out to be a fairly decent guy, for the record). Daenerys is a very young woman in this scene. She's new to the world of having boobs, and also new to the world of having them shown off to some guy for the benefit of some other guy. She has every reason to be thinking about her boobs and what they mean for her future.

Daenerys goes on to take charge of her life and completely kick everyone's ass from here to next week. I love her. She's one of my favorite characters in the series.

That said, there IS plenty to discuss when it comes to how G.R.R.M. writes his women in general. It's not that there aren't plenty of tough, ass-kicking ladies with their own voices and agendas; it's more that nothing good ever happens to them (or really anyone else, because G.R.R.M. enjoys the taste of our pathetic tears). It's a particularly grim one of those medieval-ish societies where lots of the women have been/are being passed around for political or just plain carnal reasons, and G.R.R.M. does not shy from writing about unpleasant things that maybe some readers would shy from reading about. However, it's what the women manage to achieve in spite of living in such a crappy, depressing world that makes them great, IMO. Consider looking past the boobs and giving the series another shot. {= )

~Neshomeh

I think one of the reasons the author kind of put her in the likable category is because she's measuring the fans responses to the book and her character. In the series itself she may be considered "unlikable" but most of us readers fall instantly in love with her is because of her sense of independence, her intelligence and her wit--moreover how she manages to defy the expectations of her society while constantly having to live in said society.

A lot of women identify with her which is why she's considered to be one of the most iconic heroines in literature. What OP might be saying is that we like characters we identify with and from that sense of identity we create a list of criteria. Unlikable female characters step outside of that criteria and into unfamiliar territory. Sometimes they react in off ways that put us at odds with those expectations. I actually know a character like this myself and at one point, I made the mistake of calling her a Mary Sue because of it.

She had a tendency to react in extremes--very emotionally unstable. She was really strong; strong enough to cross that line of "Badass but not too badass because that's threatening". She wasn't a badly written character by a longshot but because she stepped outside of that paradigm I unwittingly created, I just didn't want to like her.

What I kinda took from the essay is that being a "likable" female character is about conforming to those expectations readers have. Lizzie is likable because she's balanced and she straddles the lines the author mentioned:

"Nice, but not too nice.Badass, but not too badass, because that’s threatening.Strong, but ultimately pliable."

That's not a bad thing by any means but some people in this world are just so...out there. Characters too. They don't just cross the line--they take leaps and bounds straight on over it. Like, they're there own plane of existence and quite possibly--very alien, very off-putting for the rest of us. Like Sherlock. Except the fandom of BBC Sherlock is absolutely enthralled with his character, though it begs the question; would that still be true if Sherlock was a woman instead of a man? What are the chances that if Sherlock was in fact a woman, she would fall under that list of "unlikable" female characters?

I like to write about female characters that think and react in extremes--I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be but its just a lot of fun to write them. I think what OP is trying to say is that these kinds of characters are just as important as the "likable" characters and that their stories need to be told as well.

Personally, I've never really noticed that with men, though I've never been looking. Also, my reading pool is somewhat limited; until recently I've only ever read books whose authors are currently dead.

My brother once told me, "It's hard for us [men] to see a woman as anything other than an object for sex." (He is rather fond of the Honor Harrington series.) I can see how this would stand in the way of a male author to write a believable female character. But I think it works the other way too. I have a great deal of difficulty writing believable male characters because I have trouble seeing past how they physically look. (Though I've never really dedicated any time to them thinking about their personal bits. I don't spend any time to speak of doing that, so I assume they don't either.)

And then, of course, there's the other end of the whole spectrum. In my original fiction, there are two female characters who fall into the "traditional gender role" of staying at home waiting for the men to return and prepping bandages. I'm absolutely terrified that I'll get put down for writing female characters into a traditional gender role (I've already heard it from a couple people).

The point of that is that many people are as adverse to people daring to put females in a traditional gender role as a non-traditional one. No matter what you end up doing, there are gonna be some people who are gonna hate it. (How do you think the LotR movies' popularity would have been affected if Arwen had stayed in Rivendell and made Aragorn a flag like she did in the book instead of riding out to save Frodo?)

As for the idea that feminine roles are self-effacing, I don't agree with that at all. People may not notice, but that doesn't reduce the importance of the roles. Take my example of bandage prepping. All the men go out to a battle and the women go too to put more female characters in non-traditional gender roles. Battles being what they are, there are lots of injuries. After the battle, everyone goes home, and there is no medical care ready to go for all the critically injured people who are bleeding to death because no one stayed to do this important task. (Heaven forbid the men should stay, but that's beside the point. Someone needs to do it.)

A note on something I said above; I'm not saying no men can write believable females: C.S. Lewis, after all, was a man, and I immediately related to all his females. I think they were believable characters with realistic problems.

Are there any examples of male people calling a female writer's female character a Mary Sue? 'Cause in my (admittedly limited) experience, this is done just as often by women (often to provide some justification to separate her from her love interest). Rose Tyler from Doctor Who has often been called a Mary Sue. The only times I've ever seen it is when fangirls are trying to get their OC close to the Doctor, which they accomplish by bashing Rose.

I'd like to correct something I said in my earlier post. I said that Elizabeth Bennet doesn't fall into the "perfect little Miss Perfect" category, and claimed the writer defined her "likable" characters like that. Upon further reflection, I have determined that this is inaccurate. She defined her "likable" characters as "unobjectionable." Raise your hand if you found anything Elizabeth Bennet did objectionable? *Entire cast of Pride and Prejudice raises hands along with me.* My point stands; she's not "likable."

I still hold out that the solution to all this is not to lower the standard for women, but raise it for men. Certainly we should change our attitudes somewhat, given what you said about "female characters are often derided if they act on these emotions, are flawed in any way or if their behavior is assertive... while they're at the same time derided if they cry, display any sort of fear, or react in a human manner." Of course we all have to understand that women are people, and hopefully female character should emulate that. I would even go so far as to say that the standard should be changed (not lowered, changed). But instead of just as a society accept women acting on emotions like anger and jealousy, wouldn't it be better to expect men not to, since very few results of these emotions are good? I mean, imagine a world where no one acted out of jealousy. I don't think we could ever achieve it, but we could try. And maybe lowering the standards for women wasn't the author's intent at all and I'm just reading that into it. I apologize if I am.

And if it's a matter of men's female characters being valued over women's, well, the only thing we can really do about that is teach as many people as we can to view characters as objectively as they can. Anyone with the first lick of sense will realize that if a female character spends an entire chapter thinking about her boobs, she has a long way to go as a character.

Anyway, this is all very superfluous. I meant I saw your point about the vocabulary thing. The writer of the essay seems to have a solid enough grasp of what she's talking about (as solid as mine, anyway), but she could have chosen better words to say it than "likable" and "unlikable." Someone pointed out that "likable" characters tend to be boring. Thus, by default we all like the "unlikable" characters better. Perhaps "societally pleasing" and "non-traditional" should have been used, or something to that effect. And of course, I'm not dictating what anyone should believe on the topic. She's welcome to views that are different than mine.

On the author's original spectrum, she does avoid conformity (she runs away because she'd rather not get married,) and she's allowed to have a temper and even to make enormous mistakes in the story. On the other hand, the girls in Narnia are all judged solely by whether or not they become devoted believers in Aslan, and she gets converted hard.

Obviously, Aravis is no where near Lucy's incorruptible pure pureness, but she doesn't get the same engineered failure that Susan does just for going out and trying new things, and I'd say she falls closer to the author's original definition of "unlikeable," since she's got a temper and an opinion and isn't afraid of voicing either.

Actually, there's a whole class of heroines - Aravis, Eilonwy, most of Lloyd Alexander's other heroines, Lyra Belaqua, Meggie Folchart from Inkheart - who represent a paradigm that we don't see as often with adult heroines. They get to have flaws and short tempers and make mistakes and win arguments and fights against their male friends, and save their brothers and fathers and friends, because they're young, and they don't yet represent any idea of the ideal woman. Their tempers are often seen as something that they will need to grow out of, or moderate to some degree, but since they're at their oldest in their early teens, they don't automatically get disapproved of by the author or readers for not being demure and self-effacing.

That may well be true... but it's the central thesis of her (?assuming from the 'claire legrand' name) argument. Quote:

'for my purposes here, I’ll define a “likable heroine” as one who is unobjectionable.'

Or in other words:

'I will define 'likeable' as 'boring', then list some characters who are not boring and claim that they are unlikeable and that you should like them'. The problem here is that she never made the connection that people don't like them. I'm not saying that her argument is necessarily wrong, nor that it's right - she's discussed two issues and failed to link them.

For my part, I preferred Graceling over Fire.

Oh, also:

'And, I would add, these parameters seldom exist for heroes, who enjoy the limitless freedoms of full personhood, flaws and all, for which they are seldom deemed “unlikable” but rather lauded.'

I also preferred Hermione Granger over both the 'likeable' (ie, uncomplex) child Anakin Skywalker and the 'unlikeable' (ie, complex) adult Anakin Skywalker (as portrayed in the films). So yeah, that's me.

hS

Though I think the reason for the false-equivalency may have been OP parroting some of the collective climate in fandom towards certain "unlikable" female characters. Sansa from Game of Thrones comes to mind. She gets so much hate for being "weak" "stupid" "whiny" and "childish". It bothers me because people forget that she's only 14. She is a child trying to navigate in an unforgiving world full of adults who seek to use her for their own gain.

I personally think Sansa is a great character in a wonderfully human way and I've never really understood the weird trend on sites like tumblr where characters like her that are "too emotional" are detestable female characters.