Rant and Rave without Repercussions - Includes Season 6 Spoilers Part 2

[Le Cygne]

9 minutes ago, LazyBazooka said:

It's already much worse and more stoopid than season 5.

Sansa more afraid of water and than getting raped?

Truth. It just gets stoopider and stoopider.

[Ser Quork]

7 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Yup... In S1 She hoped Robb would give her Joffrey's head as a present. I'd say Sansa has thirst for vengeance against those who hurt her family without being personally raped over it.

Exactly. Yesterday and before we had a great exchange on how both GRRM and D&D handle horror. Torture, killing, slaughter and rape are all horrific acts, but there are various ways how to show/tell it. GRRM portrays the horrific in a completely different way than D&D, and not just because of the difference in medium. And there is a gargantuan difference on how both deal with the fallout of the horror with their characters. I wouldn't trust D&D to handle the horror of rape in any character's plot - minor or major, female or male. There are several explicit rape victims iirc in the books, and it is a theme that surfaces in almost every POV of the main characters in the books. George carefully gives us each time a different gaze on it, and actually incorporates the concept, the fear, the witnessing, the preventing as well as the backlash and payback for rape:

1. Dany tries to create an army to conquer Westeros that would not rape women.
2. Arya's fear of rape is a constant in aCoK, and her experience as a witness of it disgusts her so much that it's a sure thing that gets anybody on her death list. In fact, while Arya's official reason to the Kindly Man and self-avowed one for killing Dareon is desertion, she offs him the night she studies him meticulously hanging around the Widow's young daughter. She's clearly disgusted by this singer's fondness for young girls and his lies to charm them. The show also puts this in Arya's arc with Meryn Trant, but it's way over the top, as was the murder.
3. In Jaime we have a male witness, so disgusted by it that he attempts to prevent it - with Brienne and later with Pia. There's a reason why he installs the Pious Knight as a steward of HH. He tries to save the women from being raped. For the show to have him rape Cersei they're basically given him Tyrion's part.
4. In Tyrion's arc we actually have a male offender, who arguably was in forgiving circumstances at least with Tysha. Nonetheless he's disgusted with himself over it, as he is for desiring Sansa sexually while she's still a child. It's the subtextual guilt over it that eats away at his soul. The show does not portray any of that. Nope, instead he's the guy who did not even desire Sansa sexually yet at his wedding night.  
5. While we do not actually witness Theon rape a woman, he sure was hellbent in showing he did not care about pleasing them, and enjoyed degrading them in some way. He's not that far off from the same path as Shagwell, Victarion and Raff the Sweetling. He also speaks of salt wives in a glorified manner. But then he becomes the object of torture by Ramsay, and when confronted with the mistreatment and rape of Jeyne Poole he for the first time recognizes her as a person with her own value, because she's a person, not because she's important (although he still thinks in an almost misogynistic way of washerwomen and the spearwives), not because she's a Stark and he has to make amends with the Starks. We hardly witness the rapes of Jeyne Poole directly, but we do witness the impact on her through Theon's eyes. And it is heart wrenching. Exactly, because Jeyne Poole is overall an insignifcant character the horror of her torture and rape achieves a completely empathic response from the reader. She is the n1 tragic character mentioned in book forum threads when asked - who is the most tragic character. Because GRRM put the rape spotlight on an unimportant charachter as Jeyne Poole he totally sidelined the "shock" argument. What happened to Jeyne Poole is vile, but it clearly was not written for shock, titilation, and exposition. 

Great post.

5 minutes ago, HairGrowsBack said:

Our savior Dillane strikes again :

 

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a790111/game-of-thrones-star-stephen-dillane-doesnt-miss-playing-stannis/

 

4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Except if he had read the books then they would have killed him off even ealier, aka Selmy.

And it really wouldn't have helped because he was playing Stanley Barton, not Stannis "No more burnings. Pray Harder (and put my daughter on the Iron Throne)" Baratheon.  Sheesh, I'm not even a StanFan but what they did still riles me.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Yes! The 2 shadows: someone without a helmet and armor, and a gigantic someone with a helmet, and the little man shoving a sword into the other one. It's immediately followed by someone with a poor fellow robe and marking in his forehead and FrankenGregor's hed turning to look at the pesky fly that stabbed him. Much later, we see that same poor fellow's head being lifted by FrankenGregor by the scalp, and then a shot of a hand (with the poor fellow robe as sleeve) on the floor in a pool of blood. In the background you see a lot of onlookers standing around.

I think it's the trial. Here's my guess: some fanatic poor fellow believes that justice is on his side and that he'll win the the trial by battle, because God is on his side. A type of a David-Goliath thing, except of course Goliath wins.

There might be a high chance though that another warrior steps in the "arena"... and it's an introduction to Cleganebowl (a concept I'm not a fan btw).

No, there is clearly the shadow of the iron throne, and the guy being stabbed has a crown on his head.

[Cas Stark]

That's part of what causes the need to rant.  Because with just a little more attention to the script and the actors it could be a truly great show.

You saw the real Stannis every once in a while, peep through the script that turned him into a patsy.  Just like you saw the real Cersei before she went full Carol....somehow Charles Dance managed to embody Tywin without reading the books...

But, more and more when the actors really hit a note of resonance, it's a fluke, nothing brought on by the script or the direction, it's just the actor's instinct, like it was apparently with Dillane, who was a great Stannis, except that the show forced him to do a lot of things that Stannis would never do.

[sweetsunray]

6 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

No, there is clearly the shadow of the iron throne, and the guy being stabbed has a crown on his head.

I read comments of people speculating it was a crown. It looked like a KG helmet to me (the KG lannister helmet version) before and after. Watched it several times. It's the poor fellow stabbing FrankenGregor only to discover the monster can't be killed. The fight seems to take place in the throne room.

[Dolorous Gabe]

17 minutes ago, HairGrowsBack said:

Our savior Dillane strikes again :

 

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a790111/game-of-thrones-star-stephen-dillane-doesnt-miss-playing-stannis/

Someone should just give him the preview Theon chapter from TWOW. I bet that would interest him.

[sweetsunray]

7 minutes ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

Someone should just give him the preview Theon chapter from TWOW. I bet that would interest him.

Well the prologue, some Davos chapters, a Catelyn chapter, Jon chapters, Asha chapters and Theon's of tWoW. But especially Asha's and Theon's chapters that include Stannis would be an eye-opener to him, as would Catelyn's chapter when Stannis and Renly have a parlay.

[Ser Quork]

18 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

That's part of what causes the need to rant.  Because with just a little more attention to the script and the actors it could be a truly great show.

You saw the real Stannis every once in a while, peep through the script that turned him into a patsy.  Just like you saw the real Cersei before she went full Carol....somehow Charles Dance managed to embody Tywin without reading the books...

But, more and more when the actors really hit a note of resonance, it's a fluke, nothing brought on by the script or the direction, it's just the actor's instinct, like it was apparently with Dillane, who was a great Stannis, except that the show forced him to do a lot of things that Stannis would never do.

Quite - the Tarth Gaze, Arya looking at Needle (and clearly not seeing Revenge) and so on.

10 minutes ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

Someone should just give him the preview Theon chapter from TWOW. I bet that would interest him.

So much in there.  (I don't deny it'll probably all go to hell in a handcart for Stannis in TWOW, but we all know it will be logical, consistent and amazingly told come that time.)

[TepidHands]

25 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

4. In Tyrion's arc we actually have a male offender, who arguably was in forgiving circumstances at least with Tysha. Nonetheless he's disgusted with himself over it, as he is for desiring Sansa sexually while she's still a child. It's the subtextual guilt over it that eats away at his soul. The show does not portray any of that. Nope, instead he's the guy who did not even desire Sansa sexually yet at his wedding night.  

In fact, in show, when Tyrion tells the tale to Shae and Bronn in their drinking game: 

Quote

First, my father had Jaime tell me the truth. The girl was a whore, you see. Jaime had arranged the whole thing, the road, the rapers ... all of it. He thought it was time I had a woman. After my brother confessed, my father brought in my wife and gave her to his guards. He paid her well ... a silver for each man. How many whores command that kind of price? He brought me into the barracks and made me watch. By the end, she had so much silver that the coins were slipping through her fingers.

Already the whitewashing begins of his character. Instead of raping her himself, and paying her a gold dragon "because Lannisters are worth more," he simply has to watch her degradation. 

And at the end of Season 4, when Jaime lets Tyrion go, where is the reckoning? Where is the truth? Jaime doesn't tell Tyrion the truth about his wife. Tyrion doesn't kill his father for the horror visited on Tysha, and the horror visited on his teenage self (16 in the show, *13* in the books). Cersei's not slept with a single Kettleblack, nor with Moon Boy for all we know, so Tyrion doesn't have a truth to tell Jaime about his lover/sister. Tyrion doesn't tell Jaime the lie that he killed Joffrey, and has no motivation to go to the Tower of the Hand, because he apparently no longer remembers Tysha. 

[Neptunium]

About Sansa and the water:

This might be just my ignorance as someone who comes from a much warmer climate, but wouldn't stepping into cold water in that climate be a very quick way to lose a limb if you don't go back inside quickly? Stepping into the water wouldn't be the smartest thing to do if you're on the run.

[Cas Stark]

Just now, Neptunium said:

About Sansa and the water:

This might be just my ignorance as someone who comes from a much warmer climate, but wouldn't stepping into cold water in that climate be a very quick way to lose a limb if you don't go back inside quickly? Stepping into the water wouldn't be the smartest thing to do if you're on the run.

If the alternative is getting caught by her husband, I would think losing a limb is the least of her worries.  

[sarah.jenice]

1 hour ago, LazyBazooka said:

Yep, Sansa runs slower than Theon (whose had several toes removed) and is more scared of water than the thought of being recaptured and raped again ("Oh god! Not the bees water!). I guess that empowerment juice doesn't kick in until later.

Now I know what this show needs...Nicholas Cage! 

I thought the music was riveting though. They can really write a good chase scene score. 

[Dolorous Gabe]

8 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Well the prologue, some Davos chapters, a Catelyn chapter, Jon chapters, Asha chapters and Theon's of tWoW. But especially Asha's and Theon's chapters that include Stannis would be an eye-opener to him, as would Catelyn's chapter when Stannis and Renly have a parlay.

Oh without a doubt. Dillane is absolutely right to wonder what the point of his story essentially was. They simply failed to capture his complexity and his eventual downfall ultimately leaves no discernible imprint on the wider scope of the story to suggest there was any point in following his part of the story at all. The unsullied I know simply couldn't fathom why Davos is so loyal to him. In and of itself, the idea to make Mel a kind of bad angel whispering in his ear and Davos a kind of good angel whispering in his other ear was quite a smart one. However, neither did they pull off the Davos side of the equation well enough, nor does it do reasonable service to the complexities of Davos and Melisandre themselves, particularly Davos, whose story it was supposed to be.

15 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

So much in there.  (I don't deny it'll probably all go to hell in a handcart for Stannis in TWOW, but we all know it will be logical, consistent and amazingly told come that time.)

Yes, undoubtedly. I can't wait to read how Stannis' story eventually unfolds in the books. It will likely be everything the show wanted to make it but failed miserably on every count.

[LazyBazooka]

9 minutes ago, sarah.jenice said:

Now I know what this show needs...Nicholas Cage! 

I thought the music was riveting though. They can really write a good chase scene score. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what Ramin Djawadi cooks up this year, although the score won't be released until the season is almost over

[sweetsunray]

Observation, or better lack of of it: the Davos scene with the NW readying for the fight with the mutineers breaking down the door... None of those guys looked like Edd. So, last year they didn't give him any lines anymore, and hardly was called by name (if ever in S5) by Jon (I'm not going to watch S5 to check it anymore), and now he's become invisible as well?

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, HairGrowsBack said:

Our savior Dillane strikes again :

 

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a790111/game-of-thrones-star-stephen-dillane-doesnt-miss-playing-stannis/

 

[Joseph Nobles]

Edd was at Hardhome. He's not in the door confrontation, so he must be either dead (hope not) or doing something else - my guess would be dealing with the Wildlings.

[Rhollo]

1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

The new dress she is wearing doesn't have cleavage. So she's not nearly as empowered as she might have been.

(Wonder who embroidered the new dress? Obviously someone who doesn't have a leash with a mini Needle, because that other kind of sewing is for "idiot" girls.)

Maybe she rips the front off - Janet Jackson Nipplegate-Style - while riding into battle. And then we get a "Ohn no, empowerment, we're fucked" reaction shot from Ramsay.

[Le Cygne]

39 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

If the alternative is getting caught by her husband, I would think losing a limb is the least of her worries.  

Yep, and this is a story. There are degrees of fear. You can't present someone as not afraid of rape but afraid of water, it's absurd, and you will be challenged.

They can't just cherry pick "realism" when it suits them, they wanted her to be raped, and downplayed whatever would make that not happen, like the presence of a functional brain. Nothing about that was realistic at all, including taunting the rapist.

Now they want her to be a damsel in distress, hunted by the rapist, and they play that up. And right after this, they want her to be empowered (the reviews all hinted she is no longer suffering, and the actor calls her a "boss ass bitch" and so on). Just no.

[Le Cygne]

I don't care for the music, it's over the top. Melodramatic. I like what Bear McCreary does on his shows far better.