How would you rate episode 407?

[rmholt]

Mel was exposed for 5 minutes, while with Daario if you blinked twice you'd have missed it.

That's why I got the PAUSE FOR NICE ASS feature on DISH

[rmholt]

Same here, he 's actually said that before in a previous episode, but it didn't make it any less funny.

I thought it made it more funny! That character is such a goofball. I bet Brienne appreciates the much more laconic Pod a bit more.

[Count Balerion]

Episode 7: I initially voted 9, but upon reflection took it down to 8; perhaps it should be 8.5. All the

scenes with Tyrion were excellent, not only because of PD, but also thanks to NCW, PP, and the chap who

plays Bronn. Sansa was also excellent, and the scenery looked lovely as well. It did seem a tad short, and

I missed certain things from the book. I think Robin was handled decently, at first trying to help Sansa,

then accidentally messing up, then throwing a temper tantrum and smashing the castle. Some of the

changes seemed harmless, but also unnecessary. Of the other segments, the only ones I disliked were

Mountain, Daenerys/Daario, and Mel; at least these were mercifully short, though. Nice to see Ser Jorah

allowed to do something. Brienne was pretty good, but I wondered why she couldn't figure out for herself

that asking after Sansa by name might not be the best idea.

[Davrum]

1) Not from Bordeaux, just the boring USA. I'm not saying I like or want general public nudity -- far from it, in fact. But not because I'm a prude, just because I don't really want to see want to see that much of most people I meet. The % of attractive people in tv shows is much different than the % of attractive people in real life. Also, body odor not a big plus for me.

To be honest, I do think that there are fewer situations for bare female T than bare male T, but for practical reasons -- I'm assuming there's a reason why there are sports bras in addition to regular bras and bikini tops. Also, notice that the cup size of female actors chosen to do nude scenes doesn't seem to reflect the general population. While in the long run *more* ubiquitous female T on tv would likely correct for that, I don't see an industry which cancels shows mid-season and doesn't like to renew more than a year at a time as one that makes long term investments.

2) I'm not interested in getting as graphical as necessary to debate the technical issues, but you're so wrong it isn't funny. As far as equality goes, I don't want equality, I want quality. The answer to gratuitous beaver shots is not "just add sausage".

1) It's a little ironic that you think there are fewer situations for bare female T than bare male T for practical reasons when GoT has shown so much more of the former. I don't know if we're going to see eye to eye on this, but the show's imbalance in terms of male gaze vs female gaze is stark.

Also, I've noticed GoT has displayed cup sizes of all shapes and ... sizes. Not every bare-chested girl we've seen on the show would need our modern bra technology when it came time to cover up again. Also notice HBO's continually successful Girls, which makes a point of having larger girls exposed. HBO may not be doing it 100% right with their shows, but fair credit to them, they could definitely be doing worse.

2) No, Kristian Nairn has described the "technical issues" graphically enough for the both of us. You're right of course that the answer to gratuitous beaver shots is not "just add sausage". It's "just add a hollow sausage sewn onto a thong". It is, like I said, not a big deal at all for skilled filmmakers. We're talking about 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of the budget here. It's almost less than nothing. Its effect on the quality of the overall production (assuming we, for some weird reason, ignore the fact that equality is one of the greatest qualities of all) is so small it's not worth remarking on. I'm so right it's hilarious.

[ground_control]

1) It's a little ironic that you think there are fewer situations for bare female T than bare male T for practical reasons when GoT has shown so much more of the former. I don't know if we're going to see eye to eye on this, but the show's imbalance in terms of male gaze vs female gaze is stark.

Also, I've noticed GoT has displayed cup sizes of all shapes and ... sizes. Not every bare-chested girl we've seen on the show would need our modern bra technology when it came time to cover up again. Also notice HBO's continually successful Girls, which makes a point of having larger girls exposed. HBO may not be doing it 100% right with their shows, but fair credit to them, they could definitely be doing worse.

2) No, Kristian Nairn has described the "technical issues" graphically enough for the both of us. You're right of course that the answer to gratuitous beaver shots is not "just add sausage". It's "just add a hollow sausage sewn onto a thong". It is, like I said, not a big deal at all for skilled filmmakers. We're talking about 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of the budget here. It's almost less than nothing. Its effect on the quality of the overall production (assuming we, for some weird reason, ignore the fact that equality is one of the greatest qualities of all) is so small it's not worth remarking on. I'm so right it's hilarious.

1) I was talking about real life -- you were discussing where I live, so I was responding with my opinion about real-world nudity. As far as the show goes, I think HBO goes overboard with both male and female T (not sure why the Mountain or Ramsay had to be topless in their last scenes, for example).

1a) I was commenting about tv nudity in general, not saying HBO/GOT is specifically bad, But to be honest, I can't think of any flat chested females in GOT, so I'm not sure what you mean by "all cup sizes".

2) I have no clue what you are talking about re:Kristian Nairn (all I know is that he's a gay DJ that plays Hodor). If you don't understand how men and women are different "down below", and that there are different rules about what can be shown in order for a show to get a specific rating, that's all you -- as I said, I'm not going to get technical here. But GOT is not a porno, so there are most definitely more restrictions on full frontal male nudity than full frontal female nudity, and (since GOT isn't a porno) it's really not worth spending the time/money to shove sausage in people's faces. IMO, if there's an "equality issue", I'm ok with NO crotch shots, male or female.

[FalseKnight]

Jorah saved that scene with Dany, I agree.

I don't know what's up with Dany, her acting imo has gotten noticably worse since getting to Meereen.

It's like Emilia has read the books and knows she is supposed to get more unlikable? lol

This and I'm surprised it took this long.

[FalseKnight]

That could be true, but you can do a sex scene and have her covered. Her sexiest love scene was when she was married to Khal Drogo and Emilia Clarke was fully clothed. So I'm not completely buying that they didn't do the scene due to that reason. I can't help but think that it's moreso that EC and whatever his name is that's playing Daario couldn't sell it. I just think a love scene of those two would be really awkward. At the least, they could have shown them kissing. but they didn't. Why? Either they couldn't sell it or they don't like consensual sex scenes on this show.

I don't understand why the show is so adamant about showing sex in such negative scenarios almost exclusively. Really, the only really nice sex scene was Ygritte/Jon and that one time with Dany/Drogo. But they sure love all the rape and prostitute sex scenes. And speaking of Dany/Drogo, they even made that first one into a rape. Ugg.

Did you miss Robb and Talisa?

[The Anti-Targ]

Great episode. Getting bored with the Dany plotline, much as I did with the books. Clearly they'll be needing to bring some TWoW story into the next season, or they'll have to make stuff up to tread water until S6.

[Davrum]

1) I was talking about real life -- you were discussing where I live, so I was responding with my opinion about real-world nudity. As far as the show goes, I think HBO goes overboard with both male and female T (not sure why the Mountain or Ramsay had to be topless in their last scenes, for example).

1a) I was commenting about tv nudity in general, not saying HBO/GOT is specifically bad, But to be honest, I can't think of any flat chested females in GOT, so I'm not sure what you mean by "all cup sizes".

2) I have no clue what you are talking about re:Kristian Nairn (all I know is that he's a gay DJ that plays Hodor). If you don't understand how men and women are different "down below", and that there are different rules about what can be shown in order for a show to get a specific rating, that's all you -- as I said, I'm not going to get technical here. But GOT is not a porno, so there are most definitely more restrictions on full frontal male nudity than full frontal female nudity, and (since GOT isn't a porno) it's really not worth spending the time/money to shove sausage in people's faces. IMO, if there's an "equality issue", I'm ok with NO crotch shots, male or female.

1) No, I know , when I said it was ironic I didn't mean you were contradicting yourself, just that it was ironic. In real life, just as in medieval times I guess, we're much more likely to see bare manchest, whereas in GoT we're much more likely to see ladychest.

1a) It's understandable if you can't remember every ladychest GoT has displayed, since there have been about three thousand of them and that's a lot of them to remember, but one that springs immediately to mind is in the scene in which we first meet Pedro Pascal's Oberyn, casting his eye over a few of Baelish's girls. The first girl he undresses for her full fontal (the one Ellaria rejects as too timid) is barely even an A-cup.

2) Wait ... men and women are different "down below"? :blushing:

Actually I brought up Kristian Nairn because there's a video of him online describing the exact "technical issue" you seemed to be eluding to. Now I realise when you said "technical issue" you really meant "regulatory issue". But no, as far as I know there are no "different rules about what can be shown in order for a show to get a specific rating". This is HBO. HBO is premium cable and is not regulated by the FCC. They can do what they want. They can show sausage in GoT if they want. The proof of that is that they have indeed shown sausage in GoT more than once. If these mysterious "different rules" you speak of actually exist then how has GoT already shown full frontal male nudity more than once?

[HelenaExMachina]

^Pretty sure we have seen both Theon and Olyvar (The Oberyn Orgy scene) full frontal, however briefly

[7th-key]

I got the impression, from some DVD/nside the ep/whatever commentaries, that CGI or/and prosthetics are used for the crotches of either sexes.

Anyway, I found Season 1 to be the most homogeneous. For example Tyrion (with prostitutes) and Jaime (with Cersei) showed at least some hint of legs. Then you had Robb, Theon and Jon bare chested getting groomed. Theon was fully naked with Roz and the ship woman, but I think they showed the appendage only with the former. Hodor in the woods - not exactly an eye candy, but bizarre and at the same time natural . Of curse Drogo's backside made up for that.

Then it felt like the show fell more and more into scenes with men topless at best and women stripping down to all levels (and positions). First wtf instance: dressed-up-to-coat Stannis with totally-naked Melisandre.

[The Killer Snark]

I hate the use of prosthetics in nude scenes. It is totally disingenuous, and cheating. People should either be nude or not, or there's no draw to it. Wearing a merkin to cover your pudenda or a giant fake penis as self-flattery, as an actor or actress, is not daring. It's only nudity, people; it can be a beautiful thing. I admire Scarlett Johansson for going fully and naturally nude in Under the Skin. She looked fantastic. I don't think the female actresses in GoT are wearing merkins, though. I suspect some of the actresses did this in Spartacus, which also used prosthetic schlongs.

Edited May 23, 2014 by The Killer Snark

[boojam]

I hate the use of prosthetics in nude scenes. It is totally disingenuous, and cheating. People should either be nude or not, or there's no draw to it. Wearing a merkin to cover your pudenda or a giant fake penis as self-flattery, as an actor or actress, is not daring. It's only nudity, people; it can be a beautiful thing. I admire Scarlett Johansson for going fully and naturally nude in Under the Skin. She looked fantastic. I don't think the female actresses in GoT are wearing merkins, though. I suspect some of the actresses did this in Spartacus, which also used prosthetic schlongs.

They did use merkins in Spartacus, which is puzzling, all actresses shave themselves theses days?

I can hardly believe that.

[Ran]

It's the double standard that there's something more shocking in showing the vulva than there is in the (unerect) penis (first season featured non-prosthetic male genitals). Hence merkins on the ladies.

I recall an interview with Steven DeKnight with several of the actors -- male and female -- and they were asked something about Roman grooming, and so DeKnight explained how the evidence suggests Romans depilated, so the male actors who had nude scenes shaved... and then the ladies asked, well, wait, why do we have to wear these huge merkins? And DeKnight said something along the lines of it being "another conversation entirely".

GoT certainly has gone almost entirely without merkins, for whatever reasons that may be.

[ground_control]

1a) It's understandable if you can't remember every ladychest GoT has displayed, since there have been about three thousand of them and that's a lot of them to remember, but one that springs immediately to mind is in the scene in which we first meet Pedro Pascal's Oberyn, casting his eye over a few of Baelish's girls. The first girl he undresses for her full fontal (the one Ellaria rejects as too timid) is barely even an A-cup.

2) Wait ... men and women are different "down below"? :blushing:

Actually I brought up Kristian Nairn because there's a video of him online describing the exact "technical issue" you seemed to be eluding to. Now I realise when you said "technical issue" you really meant "regulatory issue". But no, as far as I know there are no "different rules about what can be shown in order for a show to get a specific rating". This is HBO. HBO is premium cable and is not regulated by the FCC. They can do what they want. They can show sausage in GoT if they want. The proof of that is that they have indeed shown sausage in GoT more than once. If these mysterious "different rules" you speak of actually exist then how has GoT already shown full frontal male nudity more than once?

1a) I checked out that scene, good catch. And as I said, I wasn't criticizing HBO or GOT specifically, I was just thinking out loud that there are non-prudish reasons to be concerned with how nudity is handled.

2) Yeah, I can be a bit snarky at times :) FYI, I know that HBO has included full frontal male nudity before. You are correct, one of my concerns is that the costs of regulatory compliance would outweigh the benefits. FYI, the FCC most definitely does regulate cable tv. A lot of the regulations are different than for over-the-air broadcasts, but one thing that cable (premium or otherwise) shares with "regular" tv is the ratings system. My understanding is that the TV-MA (what GOT is) is like an MPAA (movie) 'R' rating, which is more restrictive than the MPAA NC-17 rating (which replaced the older 'X' designation for porn).

Anyway, my point wasn't that HBO isn't allowed to show certain things, just that the cost to add them is greater than zero, which is (at most) the value I receive from full frontal male or female nudity in GOT. So as long as you can admit that the cost is greater than zero (which you did seem to earlier), there's probably no point arguing what that cost is, we're just two viewers disagreeing about how important something is to a scene.

BTW, if you have a link to the Nairn video, I'd be interested to hear what he has to say on the matter -- I googled and saw several various clips from him, but if there was one where he goes into detail, I'd like to check it out.

[Sun]

A 7.

A good episode that failed to move me. Nothing to write home about.

[7th-key]

It's the double standard that there's something more shocking in showing the vulva than there is in the (unerect) penis (first season featured non-prosthetic male genitals). Hence merkins on the ladies.

[...]

GoT certainly has gone almost entirely without merkins, for whatever reasons that may be.

Because I would guess the women wear panties and the the rest is added in post production retouching. Perfectly discrete pubic mounds. Looked quite like it, for example in the "Blackwater" Tavern scene with Bronn.

[7th-key]

I hate the use of prosthetics in nude scenes. It is totally disingenuous, and cheating. People should either be nude or not, or there's no draw to it. Wearing a merkin to cover your pudenda or a giant fake penis as self-flattery, as an actor or actress, is not daring. It's only nudity, people; it can be a beautiful thing. I admire Scarlett Johansson for going fully and naturally nude in Under the Skin. She looked fantastic. I don't think the female actresses in GoT are wearing merkins, though. I suspect some of the actresses did this in Spartacus, which also used prosthetic schlongs.

I don't find the purpose of nudity to display the actor/actress' assets but to make a scene more organic. In a rational world nudity shouldn't be a issue - besides, if it's a natural thing it shouldn't be that daring for the actors.

Going natural is surely sensible for independent or realistic films, where already one can see actors with a common or simpler level of attractiveness.

In regard to GoT, in an era where every frame is passed through some kind of SFX/retouching, where there's costuming , wigging, hours of make up, etc, demanding the genuineness of the actors/actresses' private junks is unnecessary.

[HelenaExMachina]

I don't find the purpose of nudity to display the actor/actress' assets but to make a scene more organic. In a rational world nudity shouldn't be a issue - besides, if it's a natural thing it shouldn't be that daring for the actors

I think Carice (Mel) is a good example of this. I am.sure ai have read an interview where she thinks of nudity as natural and isnt embarassed by it

[FalseKnight]

I think Carice (Mel) is a good example of this. I am.sure ai have read an interview where she thinks of nudity as natural and isnt embarassed by it

I read an interview like that, but I think she doesn't mind nudity if it serves the plot. She's gone nude a lot, but it's never like whores in the brothel.