9. The Emphasis On Violence As An Indicator Of Strength
The implication that you have to be in some way a tyrannical murderer to be considered strong, especially for the women is one of Game Of Thrones greatest weaknesses. Yes, Game of Thrones is meant to be a bleak world where a lot of the time you have to kill to survive, but the respective arcs of Arya and Sansa only prove how the showrunners seem to prefer the murderous psychopath route. Arya and Sansa are sisters who have gone through considerable torturous times, but have dealt with it in very different ways. Arya has decided to go down the route of killing anyone who's on her list, whilst Sansa tends to simply let terrible things happen to her without much of a fight. Sansa is seen as weak and passive whilst Arya is the strong one, taking hold of her own destiny: there has generally been a lot of love towards Arya, and not so much towards Sansa. But that's not really true, is it? Who is the stronger character really? Yes, Sansa can get manipulated and walked over, but at the end of the day she has come out of it all still pretty much the same person, while Arya, on the other hand, is just a cold-hearted psycho killer with very little empathy left. It's not just confined to those two characters, though. Daenerys also is seemingly defined more than anything by her ruthless blood lust for anyone who disagrees with her. Is that really actual strength of character?
