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Do D&D hate feminity?


Varysblackfyre321

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23 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

and what have you has never been affected by the fact people like Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein

directly contradicts;

47 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

What is depicted, can either be the creator's real value -

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

and what have you has never been affected

 

47 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

What is depicted, can either be the creator's real value -



 

23 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

never

 

47 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

either

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13 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

directly contradicts;

All right, I misrepresented you. Still, your argument is essentially that the seediness of Hollywood higher-ups and their being exposed wouldn't affect film overall, and you claim that what people like me want are disneyfied, darkness-free media that never covers edgy topics, and imply people like me believe that an ideal director would never touch those things.

Nah, that's not what we're saying. We're saying that how they depict these things would be affected, like, for example, not portraying sexual predators as a charming romantic underdog who hasn't got looks on his side.

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8 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

All right, I misrepresented you. Still, your argument is essentially that the seediness of Hollywood higher-ups and their being exposed wouldn't affect film overall,

"Alright, I mispresented you when I claimed you said thing A.
Still, your argument is essentially that thing A"

You just can't stop doing it can you?

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16 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

"Alright, I mispresented you when I claimed you said thing A.
Still, your argument is essentially that thing A"

You just can't stop doing it can you?

I claimed that you said authorial intent never affects film, which was wrong of me to do. Now I claim you believe that exposing the seediness of Hollywood higher-ups and replacing them with more morally grounded ones wouldn't affect film overall (chiefly because, as you rightly claimed, dark subject matters would still be depicted by even the most saintly of directors). Those are distinct ideas.

I then criticised the latter stance for neglecting to take into account how said dark topics are portrayed.

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1 hour ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

I claimed that you said authorial intent never affects film, which was wrong of me to do. Now I claim you believe that exposing the seediness of Hollywood higher-ups and replacing them with more morally grounded ones wouldn't affect film overall (chiefly because, as you rightly claimed, dark subject matters would still be depicted by even the most saintly of directors). Those are distinct ideas.

I then criticised the latter stance for neglecting to take into account how said dark topics are portrayed.

Oh, "wouldn't affect film" as in "getting rid of scumbags wouldn't reduce scumbag content" - not "scumbags never affect movies with their iideas".

Fine then, ok.



Well - many scumbags carry a mask of decency, often going out of their way to appear as virtuous and moral; as a diversion tactic, or to placate their conscience etc.

And many good people like writing messed up fantasy.

So if you removed the scumbags, you'd get a bit less of the sanctimonious stuff, and a bit less of the scummy stuff - wouldn't necssarily change the landscape that much.

Plus, 2), the way I understood it, the percentage of those sex perverts when measured against comparable celebrities in general, is rather low - so maybe it wouldn't be noticeable to begin with.

What's acceptable to show or not (and, in connection to that, what assholes have to do to slip their evil messsages through without rousing suspicions) mostly depends on trends, shifting public attitudes etc. - so when things got significantly dirtier after the Hays Code went away, that doesn't mean more assholes started making movies; it's just that transgressive or unvirtuous content became more accepted in general.

 

1 hour ago, Beardy the Wildling said:
1 hour ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

 

I then criticised the latter stance for neglecting to take into account how said dark topics are portrayed.

Having "proper morals" in reality, doesn't really affect what kind of fantasy you're willing to write, or like consuming - romanticized, sanitized abuse, stories that try to make you root for an evil protagonist, all those things are entirely on the table.

If they aren't sufficiently "responsible", they might even forget to go out and say "this is definitely not how you should look at RL", or just assume everyone already understands it - however, generally a useful thing to do and avoids misunderstandings. 

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25 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Having "proper morals" in reality, doesn't really affect what kind of fantasy you're willing to write, or like consuming - romanticized, sanitized abuse, stories that try to make you root for an evil protagonist, all those things are entirely on the table.

If they aren't sufficiently "responsible", they might even forget to go out and say "this is definitely not how you should look at RL", or just assume everyone already understands it - however, generally a useful thing to do and avoids misunderstandings.

This we can agree on. But a sane man doesn't endorse horrible shit in their works, as a rule.

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11 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

This we can agree on. But a sane man doesn't endorse horrible shit in their works, as a rule.

They don't endorse it as themselves - what they do in fiction depends on how "daring" they want to be, how much or little afraid they are of people projecting (or trying to projefct) that onto his person, etc.

Going all out and, as "the narrator", say "I endorse this horrible shit that is happening here right now"? Probably not that frequent, sure.

But then, considering the context you're arguing this in: scumbags trying to mask themselves as decent, like all those Weinsteingate people, they might abstain from that as well if they'd prefer not becoming suspicious (and then people actually finding something due to the increased focus).
So again, no major difference in that regard.

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22 minutes ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

But then, considering the context you're arguing this in: scumbags trying to mask themselves as decent, like all those Weinsteingate people, they might abstain from that as well if they'd prefer not becoming suspicious (and then people actually finding something due to the increased focus).

Except sexual coersion and acting like no means yes, niceguyism, all that shit, that's endorsed all over Hollywood, no doubt because scumbags have their own... spin on morality and whether intentionally or not, let it bleed out into their works. As I gave an example of before with Woody Allen.

You can also see it with cookie-cutter romantic comedies in general. What's the general take one gets from the typical 'loser loves a girl, girl is with other guy, loser persists, the girl leaves her man (who has been exposed as boring/evil) for the loser, happily ever after'?

Well, it implies that persistence gets you the girl, and that the only reason a woman might reject you is because she's with some man who is obviously inferior, and if you continue to undermine her agency to, you know, pick her own damn partners, you'll be rewarded with a happily ever after.

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3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Yes, it was done for the shitty replacement arc; instead of the arc her books have (and the end of Season 4 implied) where she learns how to be a clever political manipulator,

I guess in the show that turned out to be a naive fantasy just like the prince thing from S1 - just believing LF, the master player, and marrying the Boltons to somehow subvert them from within and having illusions of devious power; another lesson learned?

But that's just an interpretation, as that whole arc is quite confused.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

she instead gets a plot about as inspired as a rapesploitation movie. Which is, of course, emmy-winning writing to people like you.

Are you saying the execution of that rapesploitation plot was uninspired? Cause the notion of "learning how to manipulate from a master manipulator" isn't necessarily much more interesting - all depends on the execution.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

You... really think that makes it any less tired? Lemme guess, you don't think that Star Wars is a typical heroic fantasy progression because it has spaceships and laser swords instead of horses and steel swords? Are you really so incapable of distilling a plot down to its basic elements and seeing what's been done a million times before?

1) And what a flop SW turned out to be, repeating the same story again right?

2) Rape revenge movies are mostly about the lone survivor becoming a sadistic killer and hunting the rapists down one by one - or a hero man avenging the woman.

WAY more difference than merely "guns or swords", but I was being a bit facetiously pedantic with the genre titles anyway.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

The issue here is that it implies women can only ever get over rape by getting violent revenge upon the rapist, and, for that matter, that women are weak until they're raped into strength.

Wait, wai wai wait - why does "A is what happened in this plot" suddenly become "and this applies A is the only thing that can ever happen in any plot"?



The whole S6 is about her wanting to "take back their home" and also revengekill Ramsay - it's not like anyone contemplating "hm, how do I get over this rape, oh I guess the only way to achieve that goal would be to kill Ramsay - a means to the end which is getting over the rape".
No, defeating him was THE goal, so you're not making any sense.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

These tropes, regardless of the big armies that you claim differentiates the tale, are prevalent and have been done to death.

Yes but in a different genre than what you're claiming ;)

Braveheart or Boudica Warrior Queen come to mind - it's war movies.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Talking about Sansa's arc, rather than Jon's, then yes, it's a rape revenge arc. They mention Winterfell as home, like, once. However, when it comes to the climax, what's the focus? Jon relents on beating Ramsay to death because 'he's not his to kill', then Sansa empowered-smirks as she tells him about the dogs he starved (which she wasn't even there to hear him brag about) and lets him get torn apart.

Yeah... and?

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Worse is that Sansa didn't even get to claim revenge, even if for some moronic reason you think this is empowering! Jon let her, she didn't get to take it herself,

Well, you take what you can get.

I'm sure most tyrants would also prefer being like Voldemort, being more powerful than your underlings - however they have to contend with simply getting enough people to voluntarily follow them, and are technically at their mercy the whole time; but that illusion of individual power is apparently good enough to derive satisfaction from;
and this is still better than the kind of justice most people get in a society - which is by having the state punish the attacker. Participating oneself, in a ritualistic scenario that conveys an illusion of individual power is better - actually being a superhero and capturing and defeating the offender all by yourself is best, but she wasn't as lucky.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

unless one thinks 'asking Littlefinger for help and not telling Jon for no reason leading to countless unnecessary deaths' counts as her contribution.

That whole part was obviously confusing, I'm glad you're more willing to delve into the details now though.
 

 


 

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Yes, but you tarred fantasies over with the same brush; you imply that fantasy world = free reign to shit on anything resembling good characterisation.

No that's just more of your sloppy reading comprehension, to which you'll then admit in the near future (which is the past now).

Spiderman vs. Got was a contrast, fyi.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Never said that, just that throughout you've been implying that all the implicit sexism in heroic characters that leads to stuff like 'no just means they're teasing/being coy' tropes and what have you has never been affected by the fact people like Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein are big names in Hollywood. I don't doubt that good-hearted producers would still film dark scenes, but the difference is they wouldn't portray a rape scene as, well, romantic, like Harrison Ford's scene with the female android in Bladerunner, or necessary for character development, as D&D do.

Wait, Ridley Scott now also did something perverted to someone? When did that come out?

 

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Given you've used the 'it's not rape if they enjoyed it' excuse multiple times in your other arguments,

Huh? I said here are points 1)-3) where a greyzone between rape and non-rape is possible - and here's 4), where there's desire/enjoyment combined with refusal, which may ba a moral greyzone of sorts, but NOT A RAPE GREYZONE BECAUSE RAPE IS DEFINED BY CONSENT.

I made it so explicit and clear, even with all those numbers and all - clearly distinguished between 1-3) and 4), confirming and agreeing with a post that said "enjoyment without consent is still rape" - and you still managed to confuse everything.

3 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

it's safe to say you've been affected by Hollywood attitudes to relationships as much as the next man. Of course you'd think 'Harvey Weinstein may be sexist, but that'd never affect his works, because I like Hollywood stuff'.

The only movie that I'm aware of him greenlighting was Good Will Hunting, I've no idea what kinds of movies he produced or greenlit, and whether he was or wasn't too busy showering in front of women to also bother to include fat showering fetishes into the movies that he didn't create by produced.

Maybe you have insight on those details? 

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22 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Except sexual coersion and acting like no means yes, niceguyism, all that shit, that's endorsed all over Hollywood, no doubt because scumbags have their own... spin on morality and whether intentionally or not, let it bleed out into their works. As I gave an example of before with Woody Allen.

Well, as it turns out I'm fantastically unfamiliar with Woody Allen - the only movie of his that I'm aware of right now is the one where Cate Blanchett plays a neurotic sister protgaonist of some stable woman or something.

Although I think he only directed that one.


So Dustin Hoffman apparenly has done some harassment at some point, and he also starred in a romantic comedy that featured the so-called "romantic comedy behavior", called the Graduate.
Was that him also endorsing the practice of spending weeks annoying your love interest who's moved to another university? 

One example that can be examined.

22 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

You can also see it with cookie-cutter romantic comedies in general. What's the general take one gets from the typical 'loser loves a girl, girl is with other guy, loser persists, the girl leaves her man (who has been exposed as boring/evil) for the loser, happily ever after'?

Ah, romantic comedies, yes.

22 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Well, it implies that persistence gets you the girl, and that the only reason a woman might reject you is because she's with some man who is obviously inferior, and if you continue to undermine her agency to, you know, pick her own damn partners, you'll be rewarded with a happily ever after.

It all comes down to how literal the message is supposed to be, or whether it's supposed to be applied to the population.

Do porn movies about TV repairmen also "imply that TV repairmen accept different forms of payment" or is it just a schlock scenario people like to watch? 
Not everything in Tv is meant literally - first you have to understand that, and then you can start examining particular works on whether or not they were meant literal, or to what extent.

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15 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

1) And what a flop SW turned out to be, repeating the same story again right?

Not the point. My point is, rapesploitation is rapesploitation, regardless of if you switch guns for swords and hitmen for armies. I wasn't saying typical heroic fantasy couldn't be successful, especially when, like in the case of Star Wars, it never claims to be much else.

15 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Do porn movies about TV repairmen also "imply that TV repairmen accept different forms of payment" or is it just a schlock scenario people like to watch? 

Now this is a good point. As mentioned above, things like Star Wars aren't intending to be much beyond regular fantasy. But on some level, I do believe romantic comedies are intending to portray their content as... well, romantic. Hence the name. Yes, it's a comedy, and yes, things are going to be exaggerated/skew from reality, but if they are, it's generally to serve a joke.

Where's the joke in 'harassing the object of your affections will result in true love'? Charitably, there's the absurdity, but that's about it. And not only that, but when you hear the swelling music or the soft piano that plays when they finally get together, one can hardly say it's intended to be anything other than romantic.

Now we're getting onto Game of Thrones. Are D&D trying to get messages across? I'd say, despite their schlocky material... yes.

That's why they shoehorned homophobia into the Faith Militant plotline, that's why they felt like they had to do that moronic, patronising 'women on top' initiative in Season 6. D&D have ideas that they wanna express, good ones and bad ones. As I said, given their childish understanding of feminism, I think they genuinely think magically turning every woman they want to be 'strong' into either a hypermasculine killing machine or a sexually manipulative vamp (or both) is their way of telling the world they're not sexist.

It's just, in doing so they unintentionally prove they're anything but, and all it did was piss off anti-SJWs (who rightly called out its pandering to the worst aspects of feminism) and reasonable feminists (who pointed out how disdainful of conventional femininity it was).

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On 2/25/2018 at 10:08 PM, Annara Snow said:

You think it's very realistic to the setting that women are only "empowered" through murdering people and/or burning stuff while being sassy (sometimes after marrying their enemies and legitimizing their rule over their ancestral home for revenge (??) because you need to marry your enemy and be raped and abused in order to get empowered!), while everyone, especially any "empowered" women, despises traditional feminine things like knitting or wearing dresses (booo!)? And it's also realistic for 150 cm tall, 45 kg teenage girls to become the best knight on thr continent without getting any training fir it, other than a couple of months of non-knightly sword training years earlier and then some time sweeping floors? Also, it's realistic for prostitutes and even sex slaves (!) to offer customers sex for free just because they like them?

Boy, do you have some weird ideas about the Middle Ages, or what.

At the very least more realistic for women in that time than women having risen to an equal status as men, yes. Except for those in power positions of course, like queens or ladies (i.e. Cersei, Catelyn, etc.)But that wasn't even the point so much as that it was realistic for the setting that the GOT reality has. And I don't understand why so many people seem to have such a problem with this.  And what's your point about burning stuff and so on? A lot of men are considered badass too because they're in scenes like these. Arya isn't physically strong but she's clever and a dancer after all. It's just a different style of fighting and obviously quite an effective one, as seen with Syrio and Jaqen. 

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26 minutes ago, dragonlords said:

At the very least more realistic for women in that time than women having risen to an equal status as men, yes. Except for those in power positions of course, like queens or ladies (i.e. Cersei, Catelyn, etc.)But that wasn't even the point so much as that it was realistic for the setting that the GOT reality has. And I don't understand why so many people seem to have such a problem with this.  And what's your point about burning stuff and so on? A lot of men are considered badass too because they're in scenes like these. Arya isn't physically strong but she's clever and a dancer after all. It's just a different style of fighting and obviously quite an effective one, as seen with Syrio and Jaqen. 

This was literally my reaction to this reply. (I'm not exaggerating. I really did this.)

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10 hours ago, dragonlords said:

At the very least more realistic for women in that time than women having risen to an equal status as men, yes. Except for those in power positions of course, like queens or ladies (i.e. Cersei, Catelyn, etc.)But that wasn't even the point so much as that it was realistic for the setting that the GOT reality has. And I don't understand why so many people seem to have such a problem with this.  And what's your point about burning stuff and so on? A lot of men are considered badass too because they're in scenes like these. Arya isn't physically strong but she's clever and a dancer after all. It's just a different style of fighting and obviously quite an effective one, as seen with Syrio and Jaqen. 

Except murdering your brother-in-law/nephew magically makes a woman equal in status to a man in GoT's moronic 'world', and similarly blowing up the Vatican while smirking or burning down the only holy establishment a bunch of hyper-sexist barbarians have also makes you magically equal in status to a man in Weisseroff, despite the fact that Margaery was apparently going to have to do a walk of atonement for so much as having self-pride and being a woman (as well as not having enough child sex) and all of the gratuitous background rape/whorehouse scenes that are there because 'that's just the world, man, it's rough'.

The patriarchy/religious dominance/Night's Watch Vows/literally any oppressive law/cultural nuance in Westeros is so subject to change depending on D&D's creative 'sense' (ie: What they want to happen) that all of this 'women on top' bullshit is nothing meaningful. I entirely mean it as an insult when I say the Wachowskis write more nuanced takes on resistance narratives.

Catelyn Stark, both book and show, and Book!Sansa show what shrewd resistance within the system looks like, and guess what? It's not just hypermasculine, 'kill everybody because it's cool' bullshit, or getting raped to get revenge against the Boltons (wut?). The show has consistently failed at portraying femininity as anything other than a 'lame' thing that holds women back, and portrayed hypersexuality or hypermascuclinity as the only meaningful way to 'honourably' deal with a problem.

You know what would be realistic, if Weisseroff was truly the awesome, consistent grimdark setting you seem to think it is? Arya would have been spotted during her dumb Frey pies schtick, and killed. Dornish guards would have seen Ellaria's usurping attempt and killed her, because it turns out they don't like the thought of a woman in power (never mind the whole 'kinslaying' thing, that seems to be in in Weisseroff).

But nope; to D&D, female empowerment means letting women kill lots of people gratuitously or use their sexual wiles to manipulate men to kill lots of people gratuitously. They're not really a smart bunch; it seems they can only quantify a character's worth by how well they kill people. Incidentally, that seems to be your position, given you place so much emphasis on men being 'badass' too as justification for this toxic tripe.

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8 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Except murdering your brother-in-law/nephew magically makes a woman equal in status to a man in GoT's moronic 'world', and similarly blowing up the Vatican while smirking or burning down the only holy establishment a bunch of hyper-sexist barbarians have also makes you magically equal in status to a man in Weisseroff, despite the fact that Margaery was apparently going to have to do a walk of atonement for so much as having self-pride and being a woman (as well as not having enough child sex) and all of the gratuitous background rape/whorehouse scenes that are there because 'that's just the world, man, it's rough'.

The patriarchy/religious dominance/Night's Watch Vows/literally any oppressive law/cultural nuance in Westeros is so subject to change depending on D&D's creative 'sense' (ie: What they want to happen) that all of this 'women on top' bullshit is nothing meaningful. I entirely mean it as an insult when I say the Wachowskis write more nuanced takes on resistance narratives.

Catelyn Stark, both book and show, and Book!Sansa show what shrewd resistance within the system looks like, and guess what? It's not just hypermasculine, 'kill everybody because it's cool' bullshit, or getting raped to get revenge against the Boltons (wut?). The show has consistently failed at portraying femininity as anything other than a 'lame' thing that holds women back, and portrayed hypersexuality or hypermascuclinity as the only meaningful way to 'honourably' deal with a problem.

You know what would be realistic, if Weisseroff was truly the awesome, consistent grimdark setting you seem to think it is? Arya would have been spotted during her dumb Frey pies schtick, and killed. Dornish guards would have seen Ellaria's usurping attempt and killed her, because it turns out they don't like the thought of a woman in power (never mind the whole 'kinslaying' thing, that seems to be in in Weisseroff).

But nope; to D&D, female empowerment means letting women kill lots of people gratuitously or use their sexual wiles to manipulate men to kill lots of people gratuitously. They're not really a smart bunch; it seems they can only quantify a character's worth by how well they kill people. Incidentally, that seems to be your position, given you place so much emphasis on men being 'badass' too as justification for this toxic tripe.

BOOM!!  I think the bolded statement you've made pretty much sums up the Ds #WannaBeDudeBro attitude when it comes to the female characters on the show.  I've also come to believe they pretty much recreate the same villains over and over again, too, just about, but that's another topic I suppose.  Truly, the bolded segment of your post is the most succinct diagnosis for the show's take on femininity that I've seen in quite a bit. 

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12 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Except murdering your brother-in-law/nephew magically makes a woman equal in status to a man in GoT's moronic 'world', and similarly blowing up the Vatican while smirking or burning down the only holy establishment a bunch of hyper-sexist barbarians have also makes you magically equal in status to a man in Weisseroff, despite the fact that Margaery was apparently going to have to do a walk of atonement for so much as having self-pride and being a woman (as well as not having enough child sex) and all of the gratuitous background rape/whorehouse scenes that are there because 'that's just the world, man, it's rough'.

The patriarchy/religious dominance/Night's Watch Vows/literally any oppressive law/cultural nuance in Westeros is so subject to change depending on D&D's creative 'sense' (ie: What they want to happen) that all of this 'women on top' bullshit is nothing meaningful. I entirely mean it as an insult when I say the Wachowskis write more nuanced takes on resistance narratives.

Catelyn Stark, both book and show, and Book!Sansa show what shrewd resistance within the system looks like, and guess what? It's not just hypermasculine, 'kill everybody because it's cool' bullshit, or getting raped to get revenge against the Boltons (wut?). The show has consistently failed at portraying femininity as anything other than a 'lame' thing that holds women back, and portrayed hypersexuality or hypermascuclinity as the only meaningful way to 'honourably' deal with a problem.

You know what would be realistic, if Weisseroff was truly the awesome, consistent grimdark setting you seem to think it is? Arya would have been spotted during her dumb Frey pies schtick, and killed. Dornish guards would have seen Ellaria's usurping attempt and killed her, because it turns out they don't like the thought of a woman in power (never mind the whole 'kinslaying' thing, that seems to be in in Weisseroff).

But nope; to D&D, female empowerment means letting women kill lots of people gratuitously or use their sexual wiles to manipulate men to kill lots of people gratuitously. They're not really a smart bunch; it seems they can only quantify a character's worth by how well they kill people. Incidentally, that seems to be your position, given you place so much emphasis on men being 'badass' too as justification for this toxic tripe.

What I "place emphasis on" is altogether unimportant and was not the main argument. I only reverted back to this because apparently I "only" think Dany and co. are badass because they blow stuff up, which isn't true. I merely said men in scenes like these are also frequently thought of as badass, no more no less (e.g. Drogo's considered a badass for his fighting skills and killing all these men without ever being harmed himself, so I don't see the argument here; I'd say the same if Dany were a male character and from Targaryen history you can tell that many men were like this with their dragons so I don't understand what's upsetting about the writers having Dany do this as well!?). And not all strong female characters are like that either. 

Whether you like it or not, women were seen as property of men in the past and especially during wartime, rape was an everyday occurrence and in many cases men did with them as they pleased. Granted, we will never have exact numbers or anything from reality and it might all pale in comparison to how it is portrayed on the show. I don't agree with all the changes that have been made from the book either, but the way the show deals with issues such as these still feels realistic to me because that's just the setting and the context of this story we were given. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that's the way I personally see it. 

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13 hours ago, dragonlords said:

Whether you like it or not, women were seen as property of men in the past and especially during wartime, rape was an everyday occurrence and in many cases men did with them as they pleased. Granted, we will never have exact numbers or anything from reality and it might all pale in comparison to how it is portrayed on the show. I don't agree with all the changes that have been made from the book either, but the way the show deals with issues such as these still feels realistic to me because that's just the setting and the context of this story we were given. Maybe I'm in the minority, but that's the way I personally see it. 

You may have noticed I never actually said I disliked the inclusion of patriarchy/oppressive systems. In fact, the raw depiction of these things, both book and early seasons of the show, are definitely one of the series's strengths. No, the problems come in with the differing motives for showing these things between GRRM and D&D, and how these differences in motive have bled through onto the screen.

The main reason one can tell that D&D don't care about realism in this world is that these systems of patriarchy and oppression are inconsistent. So, for example, Randyll Tarly, an established buyer-in to rigid gender roles to the point of threatening to kill his first-born over him not adhering to dominant masculine roles, and who is forcing his daughter into an arranged marriage with a far older man due to viewing her as a possession and little more, is not only magically okay with his wife talking back to him, but will actually call her a 'good woman' for doing so.

Another example is Cersei Lannister; as a queen dowager, she has little real power, as she's not married to the king, is merely his mother. This reluctance to give a woman power is the centre of her resentment of the system, that and the Tyrells and Faith Militant, who can use the system to their advantage with marriage and humiliation respectively, are encroaching upon her. So, how does she solve this? By blowing the Vatican the fuck up. And suddenly, the realm's problems with queen dowagers having any say over the kingdom is magically gone, all signs of what should have been a succession crisis is gone and Cersei wins.

Another example is the notoriously sexist culture of the Dothraki magically being okay with being ruled, not just by a woman, not just a woman that wasn't born Dothraki, but a woman who'd just burned their holy place down. Or how about Dorne, who went from (apparently) a culture ruled by 'weak men' to one that was magically okay with backstabbing, kinslaying women taking over, because feminism. And that's not even going into how the universe seems to bend over backwards to make Arya Stark and Lyanna Mormont correct all of the time.

So, if the universe isn't actually consistent in how it's depicting oppressive systems, if the 'realism' excuse isn't the reason for all of this violence and brutality, what's the real reason all this shit is depicted? Simple. Edginess. Because sex and rape and violence is 'cool' and that's what all the edgy, 'pushing the envelope' writers do. The defining example of this is Sansa's 'marriage strike' and subsequent rape by Ramsay Bolton.

Not only did this not happen in the books, not only was there a better story there (Sansa learns from Littlefinger how to be a political player in the Vale), not only does it make no sense from any perspective (legitimise your enemy's claim to the North to take back the North!), not only does it result in a gratuitous rape scene that establishes... what, Ramsay Bolton likes rape (?), but it also... doesn't make sense from the perspective of there being a patriarchal system and patriarchal residents within.

Let me explain; Littlefinger is a possessive, sexist man. Of this there is no doubt. Both in the books and in the show, he considers 'lost loves' largely replaceable, has a massive entitlement complex, and sells women against their wills willy-nilly. And what is it that Littlefinger likes about Sansa more than anything? She resembles a young Catelyn Tully, and she's his. Patriarchy's (slightly) positive side-effect is a man's protectiveness of their women, and Littlefinger just ain't letting Sansa go. That's why in the books he keeps her with him at all times in the Vale. So even if the show was interested in showing the dire effects of patriarchy, they could still do it by keeping her in the Vale.

No, the true rationale behind Sansa's rape was, essentially, they need a recognisable actress for Ramsay to rape so they could set up their own lame rape revenge plotline. Not only that, but according to D&D, Sansa was not developed enough to be a kind person, she hadn't 'been through' enough to be a true hero. Arya was 'already there', but Sansa 'had to' go through some trauma. Why is Sansa the inferior sibling? Well, she didn't, at the time, kill people with a shit-eating smirk on her face.

Now to get onto the pertinent issue: Do D&D hate femininity? This brings up your other point about men being defined as nothing but badasses. Yes, this is sexist too, and yes, it's sexist towards men, because whenever D&D bring up admirable traits in men, they almost always come down to how aggressive and violent they are. Jon is awesome because he charges into battle recklessly, Ramsay is 'more admirable than Joffrey... like... he fights...', Sam's a bigger and better person for buying into his father's philosophy that all maesters do is 'read about the works of better men'.

This then extends to women and femininity... namely, they don't really like it all that much. Sansa is lame because she didn't have any rape revenge to go after, and only became good after leaving Ramsay to dogs while smirking, Arya is the most awesome grill ever because she kills with a shit-eating grin, Brienne now uses 'woman' as an insult while being degraded from a gentle, chivalrous being to a brutish transman, Lyanna Mormont is awesome for scoffing at very necessary feminine wartime roles like knitting socks, etc

The list goes on and on. It's not the inclusion of inflammatory scenes, some of which involve violence against women, that make D&D sexist. It's their rationale, the feelings they're trying to get across: That being feminine is something women must shed to be awesome, that real men never forgo violence, that in order to be respected, women must act like stereotypical testosterone-poisoned men. And yeah, that's sexist against... pretty much everyone. And yes, it means on some level they hate femininity.

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Alright - this short selective response doesn't mean I won't reply to the other stuff later; it only serves a very specific illustrative purpose:

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Now to get onto the pertinent issue: Do D&D hate femininity? This brings up your other point about men being defined as nothing but badasses. Yes, this is sexist too, and yes, it's sexist towards men, because whenever D&D bring up admirable traits in men, they almost always come down to how aggressive and violent they are. Jon is awesome because he charges into battle recklessly, Ramsay is 'more admirable than Joffrey... like... he fights...', Sam's a bigger and better person for buying into his father's philosophy that all maesters do is 'read about the works of better men'.

This then extends to women and femininity... namely, they don't really like it all that much. Sansa is lame because she didn't have any rape revenge to go after, and only became good after leaving Ramsay to dogs while smirking, Arya is the most awesome grill ever because she kills with a shit-eating grin,

Both Jon and Arya are depicted, in-universe, on purpose in the script, as flawed and reckless - they survive their hotheaded behavior due to luck, and other characters point out their flaws plenty of times.

Why do you keep and keep ignoring this no matter how many times it's been pointed out already?
And, before you go "Arya was supposed to be awesome in the S7 conflict and Sansa lame / treasenes kant", no - Arya was also stupid, show was clearly aware of as much.

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Ramsay is 'more admirable than Joffrey... like... he fights...',

Would you not say that showRamsay is by and large a competent villain and Joffrey a whiny stupid idiot?

The differing ways these 2 types of villains are perceived by audiences is well known and reaches way beyond GoT.

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Sam's a bigger and better person for buying into his father's philosophy that all maesters do is 'read about the works of better men'.

Except he isn't buying into it - that's why he STOLE THE BOOKS BEFORE HE ESCAPED THE CITADEL.

He wanted to find important, useful knowledge and not read useless HS diaries - with the ticking time bomb scenario being cited as the main reason for his impatience. These particular Maesters weren't taking his thing seriously enough, that's all that happened.

His thing was btw the same from the moment he left CB - he didn't go to the citadel to go read about history a lot, he went there and was allowed to go there for that very specific purpose.
 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

This then extends to women and femininity... namely, they don't really like it all that much. Sansa is lame because she didn't have any rape revenge to go after, and only became good after leaving Ramsay to dogs while smirking, Arya is the most awesome grill ever because she kills with a shit-eating grin,

Not a strong agent / hero doesn't mean she's a "lame" character or person in general, nothing in the show implied that.

The only thing that was lame was buying into the abstract subversion-revenge plan, but that's naivity - lots of other "non-lame" characters have also shown naivity and were killed for it.

 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Brienne now uses 'woman' as an insult while being degraded from a gentle, chivalrous being to a brutish transman,

She has more gentle and chivalrous moments in the show than "brutish man woman" moments - at the very least, the former doesn't come close to being outshined by the latter so you have no excuse.

These were now 4-6 times of you *blatantly misrepresenting the show*. Why?

And how good is your general position if it relies on constant falsehood.

 

 


 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

The list goes on and on. It's not the inclusion of inflammatory scenes, some of which involve violence against women, that make D&D sexist. It's their rationale, the feelings they're trying to get across: That being feminine is something women must shed to be awesome, that real men never forgo violence, that in order to be respected, women must act like stereotypical testosterone-poisoned men. And yeah, that's sexist against... pretty much everyone. And yes, it means on some level they hate femininity.

Did Ygritte shed her feminity to be awesome? No.

The most illustrous, though not the only counterexample to this (by now) PRATT argument.


 

 


 

 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Brienne now uses 'woman' as an insult while being degraded from a gentle, chivalrous being to a brutish transman,

And when parting with Cat she praised her for having a "woman's kind of courage".

Definitely more weight to that moment, than to something barked at Podrick - yet you insist on emphasizing the less serious bit, in order to push your agenda.


Or not just "emphasize", you act like it's the only piece of information on Brienne's views about women lol

 Someone else here when called out on that very thing, used the excuse of "well that was early season and now doesn't count lol" - well, since when has everything from the early seasons been erased from canon again?
 

On 5.3.2018 at 10:39 AM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Catelyn Stark, both book and show, and Book!Sansa show what shrewd resistance within the system looks like, and guess what? It's not just hypermasculine, 'kill everybody because it's cool' bullshit, or getting raped to get revenge against the Boltons (wut?). The show has consistently failed at portraying femininity as anything other than a 'lame' thing that holds women back, and portrayed hypersexuality or hypermascuclinity as the only meaningful way to 'honourably' deal with a problem.

Hey you know what's not consistent? These two mutually contradicting bolded parts :D
 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

You may have noticed I never actually said I disliked the inclusion of patriarchy/oppressive systems. In fact, the raw depiction of these things, both book and early seasons of the show, are definitely one of the series's strengths.

So either "the show has consistently" or "the late seasons unlike the early seasons" - make up your mind, and clear up all those other confusions and misapprehensions while you're it.

 








More poor arguments that don't support the conclusion they claim to support:
 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

The main reason one can tell that D&D don't care about realism in this world is that these systems of patriarchy and oppression are inconsistent. So, for example, Randyll Tarly, an established buyer-in to rigid gender roles to the point of threatening to kill his first-born over him not adhering to dominant masculine roles, and who is forcing his daughter into an arranged marriage with a far older man due to viewing her as a possession and little more, is not only magically okay with his wife talking back to him, but will actually call her a 'good woman' for doing so.

There can be a difference between a patriarch's attitude towards his daughters and his wife - when God created "the patriarch", he didn't just draw one model and then pasted it all over geography and history: there are variations.

So, not an inconsistency per se.

Also, he didn't call her a good woman FOR talking back to him - he said because she's a good woman (for other reasons presumably having to do with her person or birth family/status).
Can't just get anything right?
 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Another example is Cersei Lannister; as a queen dowager, she has little real power, as she's not married to the king, is merely his mother. This reluctance to give a woman power is the centre of her resentment of the system, that and the Tyrells and Faith Militant, who can use the system to their advantage with marriage and humiliation respectively, are encroaching upon her. So, how does she solve this? By blowing the Vatican the fuck up. And suddenly, the realm's problems with queen dowagers having any say over the kingdom is magically gone, all signs of what should have been a succession crisis is gone and Cersei wins.

While it's not been brought up by anyone in the show as far as I can think, and definitely should've - the implication that she has more wildfire all over the place, can't be discounted and makes this a specific unique case.
 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Another example is the notoriously sexist culture of the Dothraki magically being okay with being ruled, not just by a woman, not just a woman that wasn't born Dothraki, but a woman who'd just burned their holy place down.

1) Their "sexism" isn't Gorean - they have women as spiritual authorities which even the Khals obey (after first appointing them of course lol).

2) Their acceptance of a ruler who burned down their holy place, depends entirely on their specific religious views which haven't been discussed.


 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Or how about Dorne, who went from (apparently) a culture ruled by 'weak men' to one that was magically okay with backstabbing, kinslaying women taking over, because feminism.

And that's not even going into how the universe seems to bend over backwards to make Arya Stark [...] correct all of the time.

It didn't "magically go from A to B" - it was B all along, Doran was simply unaware of it due to having lost touch in his ivory tower.

This was clearly spelled out in the show.

On 5.3.2018 at 10:39 AM, Beardy the Wildling said:

You know what would be realistic, if Weisseroff was truly the awesome, consistent grimdark setting you seem to think it is? Arya would have been spotted during her dumb Frey pies schtick, and killed.

That's the realistic thing that would've happened in a supernatural stealth assassin scenario eh? 
Her not being spotted while wearing a M:I mask is the universe bending over backwards to make her correct?


Maybe Jaqen should've been spotted and killed in Harrenhalmao
 

On 5.3.2018 at 10:39 AM, Beardy the Wildling said:

Dornish guards would have seen Ellaria's usurping attempt and killed her, because it turns out they don't like the thought of a woman in power (never mind the whole 'kinslaying' thing, that seems to be in in Weisseroff).

No they wouldn't because they're on her side - which is actually the more grimdark scenario than the one you're suggesting, since that would mean they'd be on Doran's side (the gentle good guy's that is).

Dorne's been established as less sexist in both show and book, so what applies to Dorne doesn't apply to main Westeros - other contrasts such as Ironborn also exist. What, Balon would've told Yara to gtf out of the room and wait outside with a sandwich while the men talked? Well no, "this isn't Winterfell, boy" - they're fine with a woman leading raids and talking back to some men, although not with outright ruling as it happens.

And obviously Ironborn =/=> Dorne ;D

 

 

On 6.3.2018 at 1:51 PM, Beardy the Wildling said:

So, if the universe isn't actually consistent in how it's depicting oppressive systems, if the 'realism' excuse isn't the reason for all of this violence and brutality, what's the real reason all this shit is depicted? Simple. Edginess.

Aye - that very well may be. But none of your examples support this conclusion - they don't support the claimed inconsistency (due to being exceedingly sloppy with the plot specifics), and even if there was an inconsistency that still wouldn't mean the reason for the violence wouldn't be "realism" or whatnot - because realism, guess what, can also be applied inconsistently: applied when it's applied, and forgotten about the other half of the times.

 


So, as long as you keep clinging to all these falsehoods, your credibility will remain at the current low - that obviously doesn't mean your other points shouldn't necessarily be addressed anyway;
not that you get absolutely everything wrong, just a whole lot.

 

 

 

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17 hours ago, Pink Fat Rast said:

Except he isn't buying into it - that's why he STOLE THE BOOKS BEFORE HE ESCAPED THE CITADEL.

He wanted to find important, useful knowledge and not read useless HS diaries - with the ticking time bomb scenario being cited as the main reason for his impatience. These particular Maesters weren't taking his thing seriously enough, that's all that happened.

He cited Randyll, however, so some people took an "offense". Of course, when it comes to handling Citadel, I think we are once again trapped in endless discussion of adaptation´s nuance, since obviously, if books will ever be published, that place might be much more interesting.    

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