joannalannister:

George R.R. Martin for Time Magazine, July 13th, 2017

TIME: Your female characters stick out for their strength and complexity, but their treatment at the hands of male characters, often becoming victims of sexual violence, has raised umbrage over the years. Has that reaction surprised you?

GRRM: Yes, it has, actually. And I take issue with some of it. I don’t think the criticisms are true or apt. I know everyone has a right to their own opinion but… whatever. I’m writing a war story, essentially — the Wars of the Roses. The Hundred Years’ War. They have “war” right in the title of each of my inspirations here. And when I read history books, rape is a part of all these wars. There’s never been a war where it wasn’t, and that includes wars that are going on today. It just seems to me that there’s something fundamentally dishonest if you write a war story and you leave that out.

[source]

I feel very frustrated when GRRM attributes all of the sexual violence in the books to war, because there are so many examples in the books of sexual violence that wasn’t the result of a war. 

There was no war happening in Westeros when Tysha was gang raped. Cersei was raped by her own abusive husband, Robert. Tyrion raped Sunset Girl in a brothel, not on a battlefield. Rhaella was raped by her own husband, while under the “protection” of the Kingsguard. Drogo didn’t rape Dany on their wedding night, but he raped her on the nights that followed (and it’s really weird to me how GRRM never addresses this, and by “weird” I mean “not weird at all”). Donella Hornwood and Jeyne Poole were raped by Ramsay. There are more. And that’s just the women; let’s talk about Tyrion and Theon and Petyr.

Here’s a list of rapes in the books, and a lot of them don’t occur as a result of war. Just going by the numbers, the books have a higher rape count than the show. 

I would really like an interviewer to bring this up. GRRM’s been asked this question before and he gives this same answer, but no one ever asks the follow up question, “What about all the rapes in the books that can’t be explained by war?”

What about Tysha, George? We hear about her gang rape in book 1, but you didn’t even bother to give her a name until book 2. What about that, George?

Where are the journalists asking these questions?