Rant and Rave without Repercussions [S7 Leaks Edition]

[The Dragon Demands]

While I appreciate Daenerys, they kind of present her as exceptional.

Moreover, (and I talk about this in my third video), I think it's wrong that they don't just how minor female lords as recurring secondary characters. 

Direct comparison to Star Wars:  Yeah we had Leia in the original trilogy, but they avoided having background female commanders and Starfighter pilots?  Sequel Trilogy addressed that by actually having background pilots who are women. 

Even Olenna, to an extent....I fear they're trying to show as utterly exceptional.

No one can say Ellaria & The Sand Snakes are "female empowerment" with a straight face.

But I digress...

[dsug]

6 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

While I appreciate Daenerys, they kind of present her as exceptional.

Moreover, (and I talk about this in my third video), I think it's wrong that they don't just how minor female lords as recurring secondary characters. 

Direct comparison to Star Wars:  Yeah we had Leia in the original trilogy, but they avoided having background female commanders and Starfighter pilots?  Sequel Trilogy addressed that by actually having background pilots who are women. 

Even Olenna, to an extent....I fear they're trying to show as utterly exceptional.

No one can say Ellaria & The Sand Snakes are "female empowerment" with a straight face.

But I digress...

to be fair, they don't show any lords as recurring secondary characters, male or female. 

But as for women in positions of authority, we have/had:

• Cersei Lannister, Queen on the Iron Throne
• Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of Mereen, claimant to the Iron Throne
• Ellaria Sand, ruler of Dorne
• Lyanna Mormont, Lady of Bear Island
• Olenna Tyrell, Lady of House Tyrell
• Margaery Tyrell, Queen Consort, protege to her grandmother
• Sansa Stark, Princess of the North
• Yara Greyjoy, claimant to the Salt Throne
• Catelyn Stark, advisor to King Robb Stark
• Talisa Stark, Queen of the North
• Lysa Arryn, Lady of the Vale
• Melisandre, second only to Stannis Baratheon

While I understand your point, I don't think it's fair to say female rulers are a huge abnormality and threat to the status quo anymore, on the show or in westeros itself. I agree that we don't see many female commanders, but I think we could write that off as an military thing, i.e. women didn't fight in armies so they wouldn't command them either. But even then, we have our fair share of warrior women:

• Brienne of Tarth
• Arya Stark
• Yara Greyjoy
• Meera Reed
• Ygritte
• All three Sand Snakes

And even then I'm sure I'm forgetting some..

As for the sand snake, empowerment thing, I don't think empowerment on it's own implies any kind of morality or kindness. Empowerment is merely the authority or conviction to do something, to achieve a goal. And achieve her goal Ellaria certainly did. I'm obviously not condoning bloody rebellion, but she had a goal and had the power to achieve it. Empowered woman =/= role model. I don't think anyone's looking to game of thrones for role models, so the show should have no obligation to inspire people, per se.

As in the example of the Sand Snakes, they are merely depicting a woman who takes things into her own hands when she is displeased with the ruler of her land. No positive or negative connotation to that story. Those are for the reader to impress upon the show themselves. I don't know if you are active on twitter, but i am, and the reaction to the dornish storyline was not nearly as overwhelmingly negative as we like to make out here. The GA was probably half against ellaria, and half pro-ellaria. Some people took it as girl power, and some took it as murder. We all leaned heavily on the latter, but a lot of viewers were actually into it, and saw it as interesting female empowerment.

[Queen of Procrastination]

1 hour ago, dsug said:

to be fair, they don't show any lords as recurring secondary characters, male or female. 

 

Greatjon Umber, Walder Frey, Edmure Tully, Roose Bolton, Balon Greyjoy, Rickard Karstark.... If we include Season 6 also Smalljon Umber, Harald Karstark and Robert Glover. 

I guess @The Dragon Demands can explain this in more detail, because he talks about this at lenght in the third video, but I'll try to give a short summary. 

He talks about official heads of houses (not women in a position of authority in general) and we didn't have many female heads of houses. Before the Season 6 finale Ollena wasn't the head of House Tyrel that was still Mace. The only female heads of houses before season 6  were Daenerys, Lady Mormont and Lady Waynwood. The last two only appeared in one episode each. Okay the books have a patriachal society, but by the end of ADWD we have female heads of houses in every region of Westeros except for the Iron Islands. 

Okay they can't give us all the houses we have in the books, but they can show female background characters when we have something like an assembly of lords. They could just put a female extra in the scene. 

When Jon is made KitN Lyanna and Sansa are the only two women in the room. In ADWD we have several Northern Houses that have female heads of the House: Cerwyn, Mormont, Dustin, Tallhart and House Flint of Widow's Watch. 

Apart from Lyanna they could just have put a few female extras into the scene instead of only male ones. Lady Cerwyn even got gender-swapped. Which was completely unnecessary. 

When Tyrion greets Oberyn's party that arrives in KL, we see an all-male group. The only member of the group who speaks is apparently Lord Blackmont, but in the books this house is also lead by a woman. Why gender-swap it?? Furthermore, They could just have shown us one or two women im the group. Especially with Dorne having equal primogeniture. Something that the show also excluded....

 

[Blue-Eyed Wolf]

7 hours ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

Especially with Dorne having equal primogeniture. Something that the show also excluded....

This would have been something very easy and quick to show.  Just have a character mention it.  Boom, done.  Dorne is depicted then as an interesting place that is unique in the seven kingdoms for it's more egalitarian laws and customs.  The thing about Dorne is that explodes that whole excuse that women were treated badly because no one at the time knew any better.  If you have that excuse propping up the show's depiction of women's treatment and also women as leaders, it gives the show the excuse not to explore those issues with any depth.  If there's no clear example of a large group of people that do indeed know better, you don't have to explore the patriarchal reasons why the rest of the world doesn't practice that.  They can shrug their shoulders and claim it's just primitive ignorance that will eventually work itself out somehow.  

The thing is you don't need to spend lots of screen time spelling this stuff out either.  There's plenty of room in the overall story to have characters do and say things that challenge or explore those notions without disrupting the flow.  In fact, it would show great depth and skill of writing and the audience will get it.  Instead.... we get the faux feminism of "bad p----."  Martial skill or use of violence is not what I'm describing as faux feminism.  It's using it to claim the show has feminist ideals in the most superficial way possible, while simultaneously showing no skill or depth at handling arcs that would be actually great for exploring those ideals it claims to have.  I could totally be on board with the Sand Snakes assassinating Doran, if it was handled in a smart, sensible -- okay at least believable -- way.  The fact is the Sand Snakes are written in an extremely shallow, one-dimensional way is evidence that they didn't really care about writing a good story of female ascension to power, whether it be by good means or bad.  

They are claiming kind of the same thing with Sansa's "arc."  They want to just slap a sticker on it.  You can paint stripes on a toad, it doesn't make it a tiger to paraphrase.  And they don't have an excuse for it because the source material is a gold mine for exploring all these things with depth and intellegence, whether they are villains or heroes or in between.  My God, they don't even have to strain themselves to think of a plot line because they already exist.  We don't have a depiction of a woman rising to power because she actually deserves it by being intelligent, politically savvy, having strong leadership skills and/or a better vision for the future.  Even Dany, who I like alot, relies mostly on blood and fire and Targaryen entitlement as reasons for deserving power.  She's much more complicated than that and it's fine to depict that as part of her grappling with use of force in governance, but I think the show is leaning toward a might makes right mentality.  

Here's the thing though... the show pats itself on the back for depicting what they call feminist taking charge, but if the spoilers can tell us anything, they are also setting up these women to be punished severely (probably sexually) for doing so.  

***I'm sorry, I know I followed up in a way that wasn't totally related to what you were talking about.  Your last line in the quote was what got me going and I agreed with everything you said.          

 

[TepidHands]

2 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

 You can paint stripes on a toad, it doesn't make it a tiger to paraphrase.  

This is awesome.  I'm stealing it.

 

[Queen of Procrastination]

2 hours ago, Blue-Eyed Wolf said:

Snipped for lenght 

***I'm sorry, I know I followed up in a way that wasn't totally related to what you were talking about.  Your last line in the quote was what got me going and I agreed with everything you said.          

 

No need to apologise, because 

I agree with everything you wrote. 

And yes they could just have a character mention that Dorne practices equal primogeniture. I accept that some things have to be changed for TV due to time constraints, costs or because some which works fine in the books, but none of these reasons apply for excluding the equal primogeniture thing. Same goes for not having female rulers in the background. It can be easily done and there are no additional costs involved. 

[Chebyshov]

2 hours ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

No need to apologise, because 

I agree with everything you wrote. 

And yes they could just have a character mention that Dorne practices equal primogeniture. I accept that some things have to be changed for TV due to time constraints, costs or because some which works fine in the books, but none of these reasons apply for excluding the equal primogeniture thing. Same goes for not having female rulers in the background. It can be easily done and there are no additional costs involved. 

Exactly. We could have had Lady Blackmont, instead of this doofus back in Season 4. What's disturbing for that choice in particular is that they either had a conversation where they decided to change her gender as a conscious alternation to ASOS, or they just assumed everyone Oberyn brought to King's Landing was a Lord. Neither look is too flattering.

But hey, it's in extraneous material, so mission accomplished.

 

[TepidHands]

What do we know of the Dornish in the show? They're vengeful, despise weakness, and all they want to do is fight and fuck, fuck and fight. 

They're the Klingons of Westeros. Only without honor.

 

[Meera of Tarth]

5 minutes ago, TepidHands said:

What do we know of the Dornish in the show? They're vengeful, despise weakness, and all they want to do is fight and fuck, fuck and fight. 

They're the Klingons of Westeros. Only without honor.

 

F, F and KINSLAYing

[Vaith]

40 minutes ago, Chebyshov said:

Exactly. We could have had Lady Blackmont, instead of this doofus back in Season 4. What's disturbing for that choice in particular is that they either had a conversation where they decided to change her gender as a conscious alternation to ASOS, or they just assumed everyone Oberyn brought to King's Landing was a Lord. Neither look is too flattering.

But hey, it's in extraneous material, so mission accomplished.

 

Yeah, the "Women on Top" message somehow becomes more poignant (in regard to how anti-feminist it actually is) when, weirdly, all the canon ruling ladies seem to be gone.

Since the DVD bonus material seems to be written by booksnobs (or semi-booksnobs, apparently there was a weird video where they claimed that the Starks were sworn to the Ryswells at one point), and, like, nobody watches them except people who are quite into the series, a casual viewer can watch the Sand Fakes' coup and come away with the impression that the only way women *can* get power in Dorne is to commit regicide/kinslaying and stage a coup (I wonder what "Lord Blackmont" thinks of Princess Faullaria though).

We can't have an elderly, widowed Lady Oakheart in Renly's retinue (though, budget, whatever,) or a little Lady Alysanne Bulwer in Margaery's retinue. The only way Reach ladies can gain power is through sex (/statutory rape), except if you're an old lady, in which case, you gain control of Highgarden through sassiness.. or maybe Olenna has such a good reputation as a rude negotiator they chose to have her over her daughters or Garth the Gross?

In the north, we can't have a Lady Flint casually mentioned, and let's just scrap the Cerwyns, the Manderly granddaughters, and Alys (though according to the leaks Alys may exist)? Like, sure, maybe you could cut down some plots and characters, but as you often say Chebs, it's the pattern that matters, and these microcosms matter. Otherwise you have Lyanna who exists so her age and gender can be comedic. I can't even figure out what the weird implications are of her pretending Sansa of the many personalities exist (though I'm looking forward to your meta about that in a few months).

In regard to the season 7 leaks, it's really confusing what the message will be. So Yara and Ellaria are "bad" women and will get punished? Seems strange if they acknowledge the implications of Yara in Volantis, but IIRC only Ellaria and Tyene get sexually humiliated. So... D&D are reading the Walk as superficially as possible? Like, we felt for Carol, but... she's Carol. I seriously think we'll be supposed to revel in the humiliation of these murderers, and that we won't feel that no matter how bad someone's crimes are, they shouldn't be punished in a specifically gendered way... or maybe it'll show how EVHUL Euron is because he's worse than the fakes? (Though anyone who believes in Euron being as sinister as he appears to be in the books is kidding themselves). And then there's the weird Cersei/Dany rivalry... I guess it's supposed to be an empowering battle where the two leaders are both women, but the Madonna/Whore imagery is just too apparent.

[The Dragon Demands]

.....Lady of Whisperers and others already gave a better reply to this, but this is what I wrote up:

Greatjon Umber, Roose Bolton, Rickard Karstark, Yohn Royce, Gregor Clegane, several other recurring background characters. 

 

.....claiming there weren't any recurring secondary lord characters when we have the example of Rickard Karstark fairly prominently? 

 

They cut out background female political rulers who *inherited the position in their own right*.  Though even if we include regents... By focusing only on the Great Houses they treat it as a social abnormality, the "Leia in Star Wars" effect, Smurfette Principle. 

 

*Cersei is indeed a Regent earlier in the series...and screws up so badly she isn't seen as competent.  And she usurps the throne by just seizing it without claim.
*Daenerys, claiming to the Iron Throne.
*...you can't seriously consider Ellaria Sand to be a positive representation of female political leaders.  At the least, it's not an example of inheritance or regency; we're talking about "evidence of social norms".
*Lyanna Mormont - literally the only recurring female ruler of a vassal House.
*Sansa Stark is not presented as a political leader on the show.  Nor have they particularly shown her effectively exercising these rights.
*....Catelyn Stark's political agency was gutted on the TV show.  Either way, she was an advisor but not a ruler or regent.

*....you count Talisa, a *Consort* who did absolutely nothing political?

*Lysa Arryn is indeed regent of the Vale, albeit an unstable one.

*....Melisandre is an advisor, not an inherited position.
 

I think you misunderstood the question:  it's "do they present that female inheritance is commonplace and normal in their social structure?"

In the novels, at least one female ruler is in every region of the Seven Kingdoms (except the Iron Islands), Dorne has quite a few.

Catelyn, Talisa, and Melisandre wouldn't go in such a list; they didn't inherit anything and were never regents. 

Either way, my point has been "why not have multiple female lords in crowd shots of assembled leaders, just as background extras?"-- Similar to how Star Wars kind of needed to show female X-Wing pilots in the background. 

Yes there are warrior women, but I'm talking about political leaders.
 

This veers into the trope of "Strong Women".....when bad writers literally make female superheroes "strong", physically strong, but then don't have them actually do anything in the plot. 
 

Brienne is not a politician, no matter how good of a fighter she is.  The focus is on political power.
 

You can't cite the Sand Snakes and Ellaria as remotely serious.  "Female empowerment"?  You're not helping your case by citing them. 

Good responses by all else in the thread, though, you answered this pretty thoroughly already. 

[The Dragon Demands]

@Vaith
(sheepish grin)
 

On the wiki, we can't get enough of those.  Written by Dave Hill, not D&D, they're full of book snobbery.  Even points out "Dorne has equal primogeniture"...
 

...but yeah, millions of people who watch the show don't watch those.  A bare pittance, a band-aid he tried to put on it to make up for D&D's failure.  I mean the wiki uses it as an excuse to point this out but it was *mentioned in passing* basically.
 

Oh the Season 6 Sansa Histories & Lore has her say that the Starks were once subject to the Dustins, not the Ryswells, but they later rebelled -- this actually isn't that crazy, but just seems like they read into a line from the World book a bit much.  House Dustin of Barrowton descends from the First King of the First Men...if there actually was one.  This is semi-legend/outright legendary stuff from *before the Long Night* or slightly after it.  But the legend is that the First King ruled all the First Men (or at least all of them in the North) from Barrowton, and claimed dominion over all the others, such as the Starks.  Then the Starks fought the "Thousand Year War" against them (closer to 200 years, actually).

 

And I guess it's kind of...*implied*, that the Dustins thus ruled over all of the North, including the Starks, who were their vassals?  I can see how Dave Hill might think that.  I didn't.  I mean I interpreted it as "the Dustins *claimed* hegemony over all the other Houses including the Starks" -- but whether this was just an empty boast is unclear (hey, Aegon I claimed to be King of the Rhoynar, that didn't make it so!)  But no, I wouldn't fault Hill for that line, the quote from the World book was vague. 

[dsug]

@The Dragon Demands i appreciate the response, but not the condescension.

as to your question, female inheritance is not commonplace in the books or the show. yes, the books include one or two token female heads of house in most regions, to get name-dropped and then forgotten forever.  save for the few northern lords already mentioned (although walder frey and the boltons are far from secondary characters), there are no real lords or ladies of any importance mentioned on the show. Yes, they had a male extra stand there for a scene when it was a woman in the books, and no i don't know their reasoning behind it, but I don't know of any real female-to-male genderswapping with characters.

besides, personally i think it's cooler to see someone, woman or not, achieve a position for themselves (i.e. melisandre) rather than being handed one by their father (i.e. lyanna). i agree there could be more equality amongst the nobility, extras or otherwise*, but i don't agree with the sentiment that seeing women inherit their father's titles is a great feminist thing as some do. 

*as for the extras, i will say that in the king in the north scene, the only two women i saw in the room where sansa and lyanna. not great. however, this scene was between two other huge scenes down in king's landing, both of which also heavily featured extras. the sept and cersei's coronation both had male and female extras everywhere, so i think that's worth stating.

[The Dragon Demands]

I have dispensed with the pleasantries because I am here to put the TV show back on task. 
 

Statistically, while not necessarily "major characters" in the fictional narrative, at least one female ruler is present in each of the Seven Kingdoms....compared to NONE in the TV show for most regions.  Which is a fairly big difference.
 

Second...as others have noted...this would require little effort to fix.  WHY NOT just put a few female rulers in the background of the Jon Snow King in the North scene, who don't even have speaking lines?  This gives a false impression that female rulers *never* happen. 

....what "position" did Melisandre achieve "on her own"?

Women inheriting titles from their parents means that female political rulers are commonplace, or at least common enough to not be utterly exceptional; this drastically affects their perception of gender and behavior.

Entire medieval history books and journal articles are devoted to figuring out "how common was female inheritance?  Was this truly a 100% patriarchial society?"

 

....you seriously think Ellaria randomly seizing power over Dorne in a coup (which is...implausible and ridiculous)....was more positive than showing Jonelle Cerwyn inheriting rule in her own right?

 

....the women in the crowd at the royal court as presented only as handmaidens or wives of courtiers.  No, they didn't "heavily feature extras". 

 

Which ones were obviously presented as "Lords"?  Post a screenshot.

We could have had Jonelle Cerwyn in a non-speaking role, wearing clothing *with the Cerwyn sigil on it*.

 

That seems counter-productive, and doubling down on Ellaria is getting kind of embarrassing, and isn't really winning over opinions from the other posters.
 

Quote

Yes, they had a male extra stand there for a scene when it was a woman in the books, and no i don't know their reasoning behind it, but I don't know of any real female-to-male genderswapping with characters.

 
Pay attention.

*Larra Blackmont to Lord Blackmont (role with speaking lines)
*Jonelle Cerwyn ignored, Cley Cerwyn still alive (role with speaking lines)
*Tanda Stokeworth - nearly so, though fixed in Season 5.
*Oberyn's mother - nearly so, though fixed in Season 5.

Define "real genderswapping".  Speaking roles are gender-swapping, particularly when we're left *grasping at straws* for female political leaders beyond the main characters.

[The Dragon Demands]

To get back on topic:  I think they only put Ellaria in the Season 6 stuff (that set photos confirm) because they want to use Indira Varma more.  "Good", "evil", such value judgements don't apply.  They didn't think Ellaria was "good" or "bad" when she killed Myrcella in Season 5 -- they were just playing favorites and re-writing the plot to show her off.  It *has no* intended thematic meaning, which is kind of worse than having thematic meaning I disagree with.

Tangent:

For convention purposes such as next NYCC, does anyone here even remotely live near the NYC area?

[dsug]

why do you keep changing your post? I have the original right here http://imgur.com/eCpaoZ2 . Repeatedly changing a post to hide things you know the mods would be very interested in seeing seems counter-productive, and doubling down on the condescension is getting kind of embarrassing, and isn't really winning over opinions from other posters. 

[The Dragon Demands]

....I edited it to cut out parts I didn't want in it, and thought I did so before you read it.

At any rate, Talisa and Ellaria aren't "female empowerment" on the show.   I don't think others in the thread think so either.

Show me a screencap of women in the crowd at Cersei's coronation who obviously appeared to be faction leaders, i.e. by sigils on their clothing or something.

[Queen of Procrastination]

17 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

At any rate, Talisa and Ellaria aren't "female empowerment" on the show.   I don't think others in the thread think so either.

 

No, they aren't. Are there actually any characters who can be defined as good feminist characters on the show? Good not meaning morally good, but characters who represent feminism and female empowerment in a good way?

Maybe inadvertedly Carol in Season 5, but I can't come up with any others. Definetely not among the main characters. 

[Meera of Tarth]

3 minutes ago, Lady of Whisperers said:

No, they aren't. Are there actually any characters who can be defined as good feminist characters on the show? Good not meaning morally good, but characters who represent feminism and female empowerment in a good way?

Maybe inadvertedly Carol in Season 5, but I can't come up with any others. Definetely not among the main characters. 

There's Meera, I hope they don't touch her!

[Meera of Tarth]

As for Meera......I've stated it several times, but I've just remembered again what is she supposed to do next season: nothing. The heir of house Reed, just leaving Winterfell and Bran.

PS: I hope it's fake. It's horrible.