Martin does write characters with depth, and he creates some very strong women (Cersei, Asha, Osha, and Catelyn are several good examples), but he also has a nasty habit of peppering A Song of Ice and Fire with numerous (I counted 25 in the first book alone) scenes where women are cavalierly beaten, raped, and psychologically dominated. Yes, the men are beheaded, tortured, and faced with a menagerie of macabre ends, but very rarely does Martin inflict upon his male characters the level of powerlessness that afflicts nearly all of the females. The females die as horribly as the males, but they are generally raped first.

Ultimately, arguing how good or bad the representations of Martin’s female characters are is a red herring. I would raise a more pertinent question: How does adventuring in this particular universe make us feel about the association between rape and power? How many times are females active participants in the action, and how many times are they passive objects, subject to the (often twisted) wills of Westeros’s male denizens? I got through two books before I grew weary of the latter.