• Went rooting for some titles on the theory of fantasy and fantasy literature in general in the Hunter stacks. Found some titles that could prove to be useful, and am excited to go through them!
  
• Reached out again to Professor Dow Robbins about being my advisor.
• Meditated on my intended audience. While I can expect a good amount of people to be familiar in some way with the modern popular works of fantasy (Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, HBO’s Game of Thrones, etc), I obviously can’t expect them to be familiar with the history of the genre. I’d like to make my thesis as accessible to as many people as possible, so one of my projects is to try not to get lost in the more esoteric aspects of my topic. My big concern is being able to accurately explain the complexities of the storylines and characters without getting lost or leaving anything important out.

ETA: The printer at MHC wasn’t working, so here’s the “crisp paragraph” that was due today!

For my thesis, I would like to investigate the depictions of women and power in the Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin. I will first present a brief history and survey of the fantasy genre, as well as a selection of notable female characters and character tropes in the genre. I will then place the Ice and Fire novels within this context, (hopefully) demonstrating why Martin’s women and works are so important and progressive within the fantasy tradition. I will follow the character arcs of several female characters rather than on all of them, as there are too many to count. I will also touch upon the HBO adaptation of the novels, Game of Thrones,  and examine its own representations of gender and power. I will need to examine film theory and the process of adaptation for this component of my paper.

I am still working on the “so what?” of my paper – Martin has powerful and diverse women in his universe–so what? I’m thinking about delving into one of the functions of fantasy as a critique of the real world, and connecting the diversity of Martin’s women to the importance of women and power in the real world.

Some titles I am perusing at the moment mostly deal with the theory, function, and history of the fantasy genre:

• The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature by Brian Attebery
• Merlin’s Daughters by Charlotte Spivack
• Bridges to Fantasy by Eric S. Rabkin
• Other Worlds” The Fantasy Genre by John Timmerman