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Painting Cersei as the "Victim" (Book Spoilers)


Whipsy

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What I find particularly annoying about NCW's interview is that, yes I get he can't throw his employers under the bus, but acting all butthurt because people didn't get the scene and the show was trying to convey something different isn't exactly the way to go. Regardless of what they were trying to achieve with that scene they didn't get their point across with the audience, as the vast majority (and not just fans complaining for the sake of it, major publications and critics) interpreted it differently. Now, whose fault is it if not the team behind it, that failed to convey what they meant to?



And no to the village being slaughtered and the boy being told about his parents being eaten etc as comparable at all. To even suggest means to completely miss the point of why that sort of gratuitous sexual violence is damaging in the first place. I don't expect NCW to condemn it because it's his job and he's supposed to stand by it, but he should take his own advice and not talk about it.


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I don't think he's "butthurt". He's bothered that their efforts to convey a certain thing failed, and obviously that reflects poorly on their craft, on the direction and editing and writing, and ultimately on the executive producers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his explaining what they intended, and noting that when there's a "payoff" later this season, it's going to be a payoff based on their intention and not a popular reading of the scene.



Art is not a democracy, and in any case, the episodes are all in the can. They are not capable of reshooting anything last minute to try and align it with popular opinion, so popular opinion is going to have to get used to the idea that the scene was a poorly-handled depiction of something complex rather than a brutally honest depiction of rape.


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I don't think he's "butthurt". He's bothered that their efforts to convey a certain thing failed, and obviously that reflects poorly on their craft, on the direction and editing and writing, and ultimately on the executive producers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his explaining what they intended, and noting that when there's a "payoff" later this season, it's going to be a payoff based on their intention and not a popular reading of the scene.

Art is not a democracy, and in any case, the episodes are all in the can. They are not capable of reshooting anything last minute to try and align it with popular opinion, so popular opinion is going to have to get used to the idea that the scene was a poorly-handled depiction of something complex rather than a brutally honest depiction of rape.

Yeah but the reason why it didn't come across the way they meant to it's on them, so I understand it might be hard to admit a failure, but I don't think they should be bothered as in frustrated with the audience who didn't get it. Maybe my impression is wrong, but it seems to me that all of them are approaching it as "you got it wrong" as opposed to "we did it wrong". Hopefully there actually is a payoff, so maybe it will make sense in context.

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Now, I don't want to start another Jaime the Rapist thread as I am sure that has been beaten to death by this point but I do want to discuss why D&D continuously cast Cersei in a kinder light. I understand that they do the same thing with Tyrion's character but it seems more jarring to me with Cersei since for the most part she is described as rather villainous. First there was her conversation with Robert about "Loving him even after they lost their first child". What a load. And then her boo-hooing over her child's insanity and having Joffery order the killing of the bastards instead and now this rape thing. Will they continue to try to make the audience feel sorry for her even as the story progresses?

Theyve given almost all her evil deeds to Joffrey, she had a decent relationship with Tyrion at times, she cried about losing a child she had with Robert, she supposedly loved Robert at one time as opposed to hating him for not being Rhaegar even, she seemed to be troubled by Joffrey behavior in the show while always making excuses for him in the books, and Jamie raped her. lol, it never ends. They whitewash her more than anything else, its really annoying.

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The thing that bugs me about the show's portrayal of Cersei is that by stripping her nastier behaviors, they've also stripped a lot of her agency -- her ability and willingness to try to be a real force and make things go her way. Yes, this works out badly in the books because she's not a good person and she's not all that bright, but at least she's a mover and shaker. Show!Cersei is far more passive and wounded and generally weaker.

This is no insult to LH who I enjoy, but just to the portrayal of Cersei as some kind of victim. In the book, Cersei was apparently born a psychopath who killed her playmate at age 10 years old because she didn't like her playmate crushing on her brother....that is not a sympathetic person. But women can be evil psychopaths too, why not? A world that has Gregor Clegane and Ramsay Snow has room for Cersei Lannister as well. Is the idea that women can't be powerful and evil or something?

The same thing goes for Shae. In the book she's a scheming golddigger without loyalty. Women like that exist, so why shouldn't Shae be one of them?

I'm trying hard here to find a single portrayal in the show of a woman who's just a bad person, and I'm failing. It kind of feels to me like what they call "positive sexism", which is the habit some men have of restricting women's choices on the grounds that women are "pure and noble creatures who must be protected from all the evils of the world because they are inherently better beings than men." That's hogwash. Women aren't better than -- or worse than -- men. They have, or should have, all the choices of behavior and personality that men have, including the bad ones.

Cersei in the book was a woman who decided she wasn't going to have Robert's kids, and she took action to make sure that didn't happen. Show!Cersei apparently tried to be a good wife but was blocked in this by Robert's inability to love any woman who wasn't Lyanna. Cersei in the book was a woman who slaughtered the children of other women because her husband had cheated on her with them -- she wanted revenge and by God she got it, even if innocents died. Book Cersei is evil and she is active. Show Cersei is just kind of ...sigh...passive and pathetic.

I couldnt agree more with this post. The only woman portrayed in a negative light is Selyse imo, though that is mainly because D&d go absolutely out of their way to make Stannis look bad.

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I couldnt agree more with this post. The only woman portrayed in a negative light is Selyse imo, though that is mainly because D&d go absolutely out of their way to make Stannis look bad.

Seriously? Cersei is not portrayed in a negative light? That is so beyond bonkers.

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I have to say I really don't get the discussion in this thread.



Of course in today's day and age, any scene that played out like this one would be considered rape, period. But in this setting, among these characters, I would assume that if Cersei felt she was being raped she would have and could have reacted far differently and put up much more resistance. To me there was nothing in the scene to suggest, that she had a problem with the situation apart from the impropriety of the setting and to me this is a perfect reconstruction on screen of what was described in the book. I don't see how anyone could understand this to make Cersei more victim and less evil in any way. Au contraire, I think it makes her more evil, because eventually it seems like she does give in and enjoy it, thus eventually letting her lust become stronger than her wish to display piety before the body of her beloved dead son. And remember, in the show this was her only redeeming quality, her love for her children. Show-Cersei has no reason to hate Tyrion but the fact that her mother died upon his birth, he's an ass to her in general and he sent off Myrcella to Dorne. I think the Valonquar prophecy in the books gives Cersei much more of an excuse for her actions and makes her much more understandable. Which is why I don't understand they never mentioned it in the show. Here her only excuse is the fact that she's had it tough with Tywin and Robert and men in general, always having to obey.


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I have to say I really don't get the discussion in this thread.

Of course in today's day and age, any scene that played out like this one would be considered rape, period. But in this setting, among these characters, I would assume that if Cersei felt she was being raped she would have and could have reacted far differently and put up much more resistance. To me there was nothing in the scene to suggest, that she had a problem with the situation apart from the impropriety of the setting and to me this is a perfect reconstruction on screen of what was described in the book. I don't see how anyone could understand this to make Cersei more victim and less evil in any way. Au contraire, I think it makes her more evil, because eventually it seems like she does give in and enjoy it, thus eventually letting her lust become stronger than her wish to display piety before the body of her beloved dead son. And remember, in the show this was her only redeeming quality, her love for her children. Show-Cersei has no reason to hate Tyrion but the fact that her mother died upon his birth, he's an ass to her in general and he sent off Myrcella to Dorne. I think the Valonquar prophecy in the books gives Cersei much more of an excuse for her actions and makes her much more understandable. Which is why I don't understand they never mentioned it in the show. Here her only excuse is the fact that she's had it tough with Tywin and Robert and men in general, always having to obey.

The Jaime rape thing is definitely not the main topic of this thread. The reason I started it was the several other examples the show has already given of white-washing the character. The Jaime scene just tied in with that. As to it being rape, I don't think whether it is or not is the point. The director has already confirmed it as consensual and since the creators run the show if they say it was then it will be. The problem is the fact that the majority of people thought it was rape due to unclear editing/writing, whether you did or not, and that does change the way people, especially the unsullied, view Cersei. Still though, this thread wasn't supposed to be another discussion of that. I said that in the first line.

Also, I have to disagree about Cersei fighting more if she was being raped. They were in a place where someone could easily walk in and putting up more of a fight would call attention. I don't think Cersei, even if she was being truly raped, would dare call undue attention to the possibility of relations between her and Jaime. Would not be worth the risk. She'd endure and wait until after to exact revenge. That's just her.

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Deleted scene from Episode 4:

CERSEI: You know, Jaime, what you did to me at Joffrey's funeral was wrong.

JAIME: I'm sorry, sis. I just got carried away.

CERSEI: People look up to you. You are a role model for the children of the Seven Kingdoms.

JAIME: I feel very bad about it.

CERSEI: When a woman says no, it means no.

JAIME: What can I do to make it up to you?

CERSEI: I want you to hunt down Sansa Stark and bring back her head. And no more raping.

JAIME: Done. Sis, you're the greatest.

(They hug).

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I don¨'t see the problem. Why is everyone (NOT Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) so butthurt about the "rape" scene? Just like he said: later in the same episode, there's a scene where a whole village gets butchered and a little boy gets told that his dead mama and papa are going to get eaten.



How is a "rape" (and to that, a rape commited by one lover against/to another) any worse than butchering a village and then eating the only surviving kid's parents?




And LOL at NCW spoiling Jaime:


"His sister wants that he kills his brother and his father"



Uhm ... what?


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I don¨'t see the problem. Why is everyone (NOT Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) so butthurt about the "rape" scene? Just like he said: later in the same episode, there's a scene where a whole village gets butchered and a little boy gets told that his dead mama and papa are going to get eaten.

How is a "rape" (and to that, a rape commited by one lover against/to another) any worse than butchering a village and then eating the only surviving kid's parents?

I don't get why a few people (just a few, mind you) don't understand the difference between:

1) An act everyone agrees is wrong and terrible, like slaughter and cannibalism

2) An act like rape whose exact definition is very much a topic of current debate.

Please get this through your heads, people who are clueless:

Something that everyone agrees is wrong (or right) will not cause a controversy. No one disagrees about slaughter and cannibalism being bad. There is no discussion to be had.

Something that people have different opinions on will cause a controversy, particularly when the issue is "Was that really a rape or not?" which is very much a matter of current vigorous debate.

People who think that for some reason slaughter and cannibalism should be more controversial than rape are ....well, I don't want to be insulting. Let's just say they are uninformed, as in "live under rocks with no mass media."

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I don't get why a few people (just a few, mind you) don't understand the difference between:

1) An act everyone agrees is wrong and terrible, like slaughter and cannibalism

2) An act like rape whose exact definition is very much a topic of current debate.

Please get this through your heads, people who are clueless:

Something that everyone agrees is wrong (or right) will not cause a controversy. No one disagrees about slaughter and cannibalism being bad. There is no discussion to be had.

Something that people have different opinions on will cause a controversy, particularly when the issue is "Was that really a rape or not?" which is very much a matter of current vigorous debate.

People who think that for some reason slaughter and cannibalism should be more controversial than rape are ....well, I don't want to be insulting. Let's just say they are uninformed, as in "live under rocks with no mass media."

Fantastic, friend. Well said.

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I think everyone would like to kick Jaime in the balls. And even Cersei might even get a cheer from fans if she did it.

But wanting your brother to kill your other brother (who you know loves him dearly) isn't an evil act? And without even having any evidence? That's way beyond being human/emotional. It's plain horrible.

As well as ordering Lady killed she's been tormenting Sansa since the begining and slags off Tyrion at every opportunity and wishes him dead even before Joffrey died. She almost certainly killed her husband. And she has no problem with her son torturing and killing people. Plus she gives all wedding leftovers to the dogs rather than the starving poor just because she wants to trump Marg, who I seem to remember Cersei also delivered a thinly veiled threat of murder a little while back! And she's going to have a big hand in whatever nasty way the Shae plot plays out.

I just don't see where in all this they have shown anything likeable about her at all. Except that one time where she almost mercy kills her son! Given that is the nicest thiing she has done for anyone, I think it sums her up perfectly!

Oh, I just saw you replied to my post now.

BIB: I don't think it's horrible because she's grieving her son, and she does think Tyrion did it. It's not a nice thing to say that she wants him and Sansa dead obviously, but I don't believe it's that hard to imagine that a grieving mother would want to have killed the people who killed her child. I think it's human, and I've seen it in real life as well with a friend of my family who lost her son in a drunk driving accident (the other driver was drunk and got away with nothing). Some of the things she said about the guy who killed her son were not that dissimilar to Cersei, she wasn't asking for a head, but she certainly didn't wish him well.

I think that while in the show Cersei has done some not very nice stuff, she's done nothing too terrible. Tormenting Sansa was bad, but in season 3 she stopped and was somewhat concerned about Sansa (opposite of the books, where she threatens her and seems to really enjoy dragging her to get married to Tyrion), and while I loved 4x02 Cersei because she was restless in a similar way to her book counterpart, giving the food to the dogs wasn't necessarily "evil" just a bad decision based on the desire to outdo Margaery.

As I said other times, I hope they're now done with making her a woobie and let her be the fury she is in the books. I loved her chapters in affc where she tries to rule and seems so smug, yet it's all crumbling and she can't see it. I hope they get there in the show (and she needs her posse of assholes she surrounds herself with, we need Taena and the Kettleblacks, call them with a different name I don't care, but she needs those interactions!), the only issue is that since she hasn't been shown to be as power hungry as in the books, I'm not sure it will have the same impact. And I would like to stretch that I don't see the fact she's power hungry as a negative trait at all, so it really does bug me they got rid of this element, which is the strongest drive to her in the books... even more than her children.

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Oh, FFS, who really thinks that Cersei has been painted as a 'victim' here? She had just asked her brother to kill her other brother without a trial or any evidence- people seem to be forgetting that. In the last episode, she ask Jaime to bring her Sansa's head. She's a selfish, terrible person and the show isn't making her look 'better', rape or not.


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Oh, FFS, who really thinks that Cersei has been painted as a 'victim' here? She had just asked her brother to kill her other brother without a trial or any evidence- people seem to be forgetting that. In the last episode, she ask Jaime to bring her Sansa's head. She's a selfish, terrible person and the show isn't making her look 'better', rape or not.

I think the post above yours addressed this. I'm inclined to agree with them. To answer your first question, a lot of people. Doesn't mean you have to agree.

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...



I think that while in the show Cersei has done some not very nice stuff, she's done nothing too terrible.


...






I agree with some of what you say. Although wishing death on someone you think killed your son without evidence could be more easily forgiven if she didn't have the power to actually make it happen.



Maybe I'm misremembering show canon - but didn't she plan (and ultimately succedd in) the killing of her husband?



She definitely threatened to kill Marg if she stepped out of line.



Even if you put those aside, it's the vindictiveness and spitefullness of even her smallest actions (like the food tothe dogs) that make her such a great villain. They have nailed this in the show imo, and I think that's much more important than whether she did or didn't kill Robert's bastards for instance.



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Re Her 'relationship' (or lack thereof) to Rheagar, if I recall correctly is barely mentioned in the show, so that could well explain why they attributed that initial affection to Robert in the the show. Whilst I agree there are significant differences between bookCersei and ShowCersei I think I get why they were do and I do think in some cases these changes are as much about how influencing how we percieve the characters around her (or rather how the show runners want us to percieve them). Her interaction with Robert has a humanising affect on him as well as her and given the more limited scope of the show manages to convey a significant amount about the Leanna back story (ie why he went to war) in a very condensed way. It also made both Robert and Cersei seem more nuanced. I genuinly believed in that scene that this was a couple that had essentially been waging Cold War on each other for years and were having a moment of recognition about how they got there. It might fudge it a bit but I still feel it captures the essence of their marriage in that sense. A lot of Cersei's complexity in the book would have been tough to convey on screen and the changes for screen mean that she veers away from one dimensional cartoon villain which is always a possibility when you try and convey someone as unpleasant as Cersei on screen. I also think because they aged Joffery up in the show, by transferring a lot of her misdeeds to him they were more able to put across his character and by making even Cersei appalled by much of it, it had the desired effect I feel.

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