The other controversial scene (spoilers)

[Chebyshov]

Yeah, I mean Mercy was clearly supposed to disturb us because of the means Arya used and her total blase attitude towards it, which was punctuated by the meta backdrop of the play and Mercy's rape and how she's like, skipping around and joking about it. But the focus of that chapter was not on Raff's pedophilia at all, but on Arya's pscyhe and the way in which her development and exacting of revenge is both a reclamation of her identity as well as being full of moral ambiguity. And truthfully Martin really pushed the envelope with this chapter. It can't have been easy to write, but it was outright disquieting to read. Which I'm sure was the point, and given his track record and his deft touch at how he handles characterizations and themes, I give him the benefit of the doubt and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

The issue in the show is that it became the focus. And like everything else they amped it up to 11. We didn't need it to go on that long, and it did to just be shocking. It also made the focus all about how much Trant "deserves" it, rather than like, anything to do with Arya herself. Oh okay, she's going to use vaguely similar means to kill him like in Mercy? Well the means were kind of plopped down into her lap, weren't they. But yeah, it's more about the focus, and like. It's a pattern. It's a pattern with this show to sensationalize rape and sexual abuse. It's disgusting.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

The world of ASOIAF is brutal, but the brutality serves the plot, not the other way around. That is what people are upset about.

Preach.

Personally, I'm also mad how many girls have been showed to be raped or abused on screen, yet the one scene in which Tyrion forces himself into a prostitute, has been cut and oppositely changed for him to be all charming and kind towards sex workers. Idem for LF sending Jeyne Poole to her fate. The show makes very very very VERY clear it was all Sansa's choice and washed his hands.

Yeah, this show is not sexist at all. At. All.

[Bran's Legs]

Raff the Sweetling is a pedophile (or at least a man who doesn't care about the age of his victims), yet we never see him in a whore house looking for an underage prostitute. The setup is so that Arya has a pretext to get Trant alone and kill him, but why that requires Ser Meryn to be a pedophile, or why we need to see evidence of him being a pedophile (as well as seeing the frightened face of one of his victims) is a mystery. Arya does not look like a child anymore - I doubt Maisie Williams would give you any thanks for saying so. I guess it's so the audience can hate Ser Meryn, but do people forget so easily who killed Syrio and mercilessly beat Sansa? This is not a nice man - we already knew.

Pretty lazy, and once again a female character is stuffed in the fridge.

Arya will probably kill Trant in some back alley in the episode finale. Trant recognizes Arya; Trant corners Arya; Arya turns the tables and slits Trant's throat.

[Khal Boner]

I think most people here are misinterpreting the reason why people like myself are upset at this. It's not because it's sexual, or because of not wanting to see the effects of pedophilia. It's the way that it's handled. As many have pointed out, it's NOT the same as in the book. I can guess that what is the same is that Arya will use her sexuality to get close to Meryn Trant (Raff the Sweetling) so that she can kill him. There isn't time spent setting him up as a pedophile in the books. As JCRB has pointed out, he is interested in sex and violence, but he isn't necessarily a pedophile. We also don't experience a drawn-out scene leading up to the rape and physical brutalization of a young girl. So a young girl is not raped in the Mercy chapter to set up the scene between Arya and Raff. Since Arya has already gotten sexual attention in the show, it isn't necessary to set it up so Meryn Trant is a pedophile. It isn't necessary to depict a storyline where a young girl is raped and brutalized. Once again, the show is using violence against women to further someone else's storyline, without ever seriously exploring the implications. It's used as a plot device, and an unnecessary one.

This is called backwards engineering an argument. Start with the false premise that somehow the show is irresponsible for depicting a character to be a sort of pedo or needlessly brutalised an extra, and work your way backwards from there. Trant likes beating on little girls and watching Joffrey shoot prostitutes with his crossbow. It's really not a shock or reach to find out he's also sexually attracted to young girls.

[Chebyshov]

Preach.

Personally, I'm also mad how many girls have been showed to be raped or abused on screen, yet the one scene in which Tyrion forces himself into a prostitute, has been cut and oppositely changed for him to be all charming and kind towards sex workers. Idem for LF sending Jeyne Poole to her fate. The show makes very very very VERY clear it was all Sansa's choice and washed his hands.

Yeah, this show is not sexist at all. At. All.

Yup no patterns here or anything.

[Borodin]

This is called backwards engineering an argument. Start with the false premise that somehow the show is irresponsible for depicting a character to be a sort of pedo or needlessly brutalised an extra, and work your way backwards from there. Trant likes beating on little girls and watching Joffrey shoot prostitutes with his crossbow. It's really not a shock or reach to find out he's also sexually attracted to young girls.

This is an example of not listening to the counter-argument, which is that pedophilia was unecessary and irrelevant to the plot point, but was introduced by ratings-hungry HBO in order to dial up Game of Thrones as a sexual dystopia.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Yup no patterns here or anything.

Jaime being traumatized by sexual abuse and killing rapists? Cut too.

Stannis gelding and punishing rapists? Cut and replaced with him burning his daughter.

Showing the Wall cooperating with the women of both the North or Wildlings? Cut. Show them all like a band of rapists.

No, I cannot see a pattern.

[Khal Boner]

This is an example of not listening to the counter-argument, which is that pedophilia was unecessary and irrelevant to the plot point, but was introduced by ratings-hungry HBO in order to dial up Game of Thrones as a sexual dystopia.

It serves the plot in the same way Raff serves the book plot. It's about Arya. It gives her a strategy for getting close to and killing him. This is a Kings Guard. She needs to know his weakness and exploit it.

[Borodin]

It serves the plot in the same way Raff serves the book plot. It's about Arya. It gives her a strategy for getting close to and killing him. This is a Kings Guard. She needs to know his weakness and exploit it.

Really? Did Arya pose as a prostitute to kill him in a brothel...or were all these little nuances of "sexual deviance" introduced?

[dbunting]

What I find amazing is the white washing of GRRM. It seems like everything he did, he wrote, people he killed, raped, tortured, was "to further the plot". Really?

If you are someone who truly finds those things abhorrent to watch, then why did you continue to read a fantasy series about it? There was a lot of sexuality that was in the books that didn't further a damn thing. Like, I don't know, Dany and Miri(?) lesbian scene on boat? Cersei and her lesbian scene in bed?

But yeah, you guys are right, it's just HBO and DD who are exploiting FAKE people.

[Khal Boner]

Really? Did Arya pose as a prostitute to kill him in a brothel...or were all these little nuances of "sexual deviance" introduced?

Who cares? The show scene works. It reminds us what a douche Trant is, why he is on Aryas list and it gives the trainee assassin the info she needs to get close to him

[Borodin]

Whou are someone who truly finds those things abhorrent to watch, then why did you continue to read a fantasy series about it? There was a lot of sexuality that was in the books that didn't further a damn thing. Like, I don't know, Dany and Miri(?) lesbian scene on boat? Cersei and her lesbian scene in bed?

Lesbianism is abhorrent?

[Khal Boner]

What I find amazing is the white washing of GRRM. It seems like everything he did, he wrote, people he killed, raped, tortured, was "to further the plot". Really?

If you are someone who truly finds those things abhorrent to watch, then why did you continue to read a fantasy series about it? There was a lot of sexuality that was in the books that didn't further a damn thing. Like, I don't know, Dany and Miri(?) lesbian scene on boat? Cersei and her lesbian scene in bed?

But yeah, you guys are right, it's just HBO and DD who are exploiting FAKE people.

Some of the Jeyne Pool in WF was nauseating. Dogs for christ sake. Like we didn't already know Ramsay was a sicko.

[dbunting]

@ Brodin, if you have read the Mercy chapter you would know she uses sexuality to lure Raff. She offers to have sex with him, so yes, GRRM uses Arya in a sexual way.

[Borodin]

Who cares? The show scene works. It reminds us what a douche Trant is, why he is on Aryas list and it gives the trainee assassin the info she needs to get close to him

It worked before. We don't need a reminder of why Trant is bad. So the changes require explanation. The only explanation that seems to make sense is that HBO wanted to up the sexual edginess of the episode.

[TepidHands]

So many defenders, and the heart wants what it wants, so if the show makes them happy, so be it. The first season of the "adaptation" made me pretty happy. The second, almost as much. I didn't care for the Talisa business; Robb's failure to uphold his end of the Frey bargain was a matter of his honor, not of falling for a smart-mouthed foreigner, and the marriage before the Seven made me want to hurl. Even the third season had more good points than bad. The fourth showed some promise, but then the Jaime-Cersei stuff got butchered and ground into a different kind of sausage, Sansa grew feathers, the Tysha backstory mentioned in two seasons previous got dropped, too much time was spent beetle crushing KUSHKUSHKUSH, Oberyn could hardly have a scene that didn't include T&A, and so on. I wasn't very happy. But even amid all that flotsam, there was still some tone of the books, some sense of GRRM's tale, some faint beat of the heart that made these characters alive for me.

Then came this season, and I am very unhappy. There's not enough Song of Ice and Fire and far too much noise being made by people who don't seem to understand that TONE, that SENSE, that HEARTBEAT that drives the books. "O! But they're making good television!" say some. No, they're not. They're making "Lost" in leather armor, "Sopranos" with swords. They seem to have made a checklist of plot points and are ticking them off, one by one, but at the cost of the narrative.

And that's the shame of it. I got out my Season 1 DVDs and watched a couple episodes, and they're still entertaining, still good, still compelling, and still very faithful to the books. The TV series has run out of that source. In better hands, more careful, more skilled, more caring hands, these Season 5 episodes would have been far better, and I do not thing that speaks well of what's ahead for two more seasons.

ETA: reference to Season 5 in last paragraph to specify which episodes

[RGBeyondAsshai]

What I find amazing is the white washing of GRRM. It seems like everything he did, he wrote, people he killed, raped, tortured, was "to further the plot". Really?

If you are someone who truly finds those things abhorrent to watch, then why did you continue to read a fantasy series about it? There was a lot of sexuality that was in the books that didn't further a damn thing. Like, I don't know, Dany and Miri(?) lesbian scene on boat? Cersei and her lesbian scene in bed?

But yeah, you guys are right, it's just HBO and DD who are exploiting FAKE people.

Why did you pick the lesbian scenes? Both were showing women in power being isolated and-in Dany's case-seeking solace and in Cersei's case--wielding power after a lifetime of being forced into a female subservient position.

Neither of those were rape scenes or pedophile scenes.

I mean, I agree with your point that GRRM wrote some seriously dark stuff...I just wonder at your examples.

[Khal Boner]

It worked before. We don't need a reminder of why Trant is bad. So the changes require explanation. The only explanation that seems to make sense is that HBO wanted to up the sexual edginess of the episode.

The scene is about Arya as well. She uses sexuality to get Raff in the books and will use sexuality to get to Trant.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Also, let's remember that, once more, the show shits on Sansa.

The fact Meryn beat her and let her bruised was, apparently, not enough for him to be a douche. Because, of course, Sansa had it coming for betraying Ned and being some spoiled little princess. No. Now, it's personal for Arya. He deserves because he hurt Arya and little girls.

This is the kind of situations that make watchers believe that D&D have a personal vendetta against the "Sansas" of their childhoods, tbh.

[Borodin]

@ Brodin, if you have read the Mercy chapter you would know she uses sexuality to lure Raff. She offers to have sex with him, so yes, GRRM uses Arya in a sexual way.

When they went with Trant rather than Raff, they didn't have to use sexuality or pedophilia. They had already made a change in who Arya's target would be, so why reintroduce and highlight that very specific particular aspect of Raff? Isn't it interesting?