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Rant & Rave Season 8 [Spoilers]: When you are cool like a cucumber, as evil as the mother of madness, but never as perfect as the pet!


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11 hours ago, SeanF said:

Shae is not a nice person in the books.  But, she was certainly the victim of murder at Tyrion's hands.  And, prior to that, Tyrion did abuse her.

But, you're right about the whitewashing in the show.  Shae, for all her virtues, just wasn't worthy of him in the end, and he had to kill her after she turned on him.

When you transform a major character completely from their book portrayal, you have to transform other characters who interact with them.  So, Daenerys had to become the villain that Tyrion will likely be in the last two books.

By making Tyrion a straight-up good guy they essentially changed the entire nature of his relationship with Shae. He's no longer the chronically insecure person who is falling too deep into his 'girlfriend experience' fantasy with his hired prostitute, despite continually trying to remind himself that Shae doesn't really mean the things she says, and instead he becomes truly in-love with this woman (and her to him). I feel like they also tried to step around the notion that while Shae is in danger, it's primarily because of the situation Tyrion has put her in. Show Shae rejects a bag of gold and promise of a house in Pentos from Varys to be with her lover. I remember finding it all very gag-worthy, to be honest. 

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The prostitute falling in "love" with her john thing, that's the 13 year old boy fantasy Benioff/Weiss pushed throughout the series in such an in your face way (don't like it? too bad!) All the "happy hookers" on their show who are always so delighted to have sex with Tyrion and Bronn.

They never showed the reality for these women. The one time they did, with Ros, they just used her as a punch line, displaying her body after Joffrey abused her. His nature had already been well established, and Littlefinger was never held accountable. They used Sansa in a similar way.

Both Shae and Ros were forgotten. That Littlefinger framed Tyrion was remembered, however. That Littlefinger framed Sansa was never mentioned among his crimes. That's the whole reason she had to go with him, and stay with him, he put a price on her head (and told her so), but whatever.

Pretty women who reject Tyrion are punished... One is robbed of her own story and they make her say Tyrion is better than a known torturer/family killer, another one they turn into Satan then he urges for her to be killed, and another one he kills personally but never pays a price.

The horrors of the scene with the sex slave is turned into the glorification of Tyrion's cock by Benioff/Weiss. She exists for them only for that purpose. And they added retroactive sexual assault with Meryn Trant, then brought in a girl for him to rape, and never followed up with her, either.

Then in the end, they indulged in their "happy hooker" fantasy once more, Tyrion and his bro Bronn yuk it up about starting new brothels. The lives of the war weary starving peasant girls who will pretend to enjoy having sex with them are never considered. A better world, yeah, right.

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I know it's been repeated to death here and in other parts of the forum. But the way GRRM's pet peeve of the 'what happens after the heroics are done', specifically his soundbyte on the tax policy that wasn't, was brushed aside and substituted with that disgusting little convo about brothels being the future?

That's their answer? The Crown is going to simply whore out the impoverished and fatten their coffers off the backs of the unfortunate, or by putting the unfortunate to work on their backs? Talk about nihilism and 'the more things change' mentality.

I mean, I could see the author ending the stories as such. Hope is for children and realism means happy endings are just unfinished stories. After all, the medieval like setting doesn't quite lend itself to social utopia. Just deal with the overarching threats to humanity as a whole and then reposition the same good old boys club at the top. 

New deck, same cards, same rules. Change the players, same game.

However, the little council meeting scene was so... empty. It feels like all our discussions, no matter the vitriol pouring out from having been slapped in the face with all of 'that'? Even here we end up tailoring our criticism into should've, could've, when the sad reality is simply that there was nothing more. Just surface flash and zero substance.

Whores are funny. Tada. And a good investment. Don't forget about that.

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1 hour ago, Le Cygne said:

The prostitute falling in "love" with her john thing, that's the 13 year old boy fantasy Benioff/Weiss pushed throughout the series in such an in your face way (don't like it? too bad!) All the "happy hookers" on their show who are always so delighted to have sex with Tyrion and Bronn.

They never showed the reality for these women. The one time they did, with Ros, they just used her as a punch line, displaying her body after Joffrey abused her. His nature had already been well established, and Littlefinger was never held accountable. They used Sansa in a similar way.

Both Shae and Ros were forgotten. That Littlefinger framed Tyrion was remembered, however. That Littlefinger framed Sansa was never mentioned among his crimes. That's the whole reason she had to go with him, and stay with him, he put a price on her head (and told her so), but whatever.

Pretty women who reject Tyrion are punished... One is robbed of her own story and they make her say Tyrion is better than a known torturer/family killer, another one they turn into Satan then he urges for her to be killed, and another one he kills personally but never pays a price.

The horrors of the scene with the sex slave is turned into the glorification of Tyrion's cock by Benioff/Weiss. She exists for them only for that purpose. And they added retroactive sexual assault with Meryn Trant, then brought in a girl for him to rape, and never followed up with her, either.

Then in the end, they indulged in their "happy hooker" fantasy once more, Tyrion and his bro Bronn yuk it up about starting new brothels. The lives of the war weary starving peasant girls who will pretend to enjoy having sex with them are never considered. A better world, yeah, right.

Whereas Martin himself is always crystal clear about the horrors of sexual slavery.

You have the prostitute that Tyrion rapes in Selhorys.  The scene is written to be disgusting, and the woman simply wants to die.  Poor Jeyne Poole's life is a nightmare.  Even someone as powerful as Melisandre is frightened to go to sleep because she'll dream of the things that were done to her in the past as a sex slave. 

Time and again, what D & D thought they were showing is not what the viewers are seeing.  A country that's run by an oligarchy that compares the Smallfolk to livestock, and regards brothels as a priority, is not going forwards.  It's going a long way backwards.

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1 hour ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

I know it's been repeated to death here and in other parts of the forum. But the way GRRM's pet peeve of the 'what happens after the heroics are done', specifically his soundbyte on the tax policy that wasn't, was brushed aside and substituted with that disgusting little convo about brothels being the future?

That's their answer? The Crown is going to simply whore out the impoverished and fatten their coffers off the backs of the unfortunate, or by putting the unfortunate to work on their backs? Talk about nihilism and 'the more things change' mentality.

I mean, I could see the author ending the stories as such. Hope is for children and realism means happy endings are just unfinished stories. After all, the medieval like setting doesn't quite lend itself to social utopia. Just deal with the overarching threats to humanity as a whole and then reposition the same good old boys club at the top. 

New deck, same cards, same rules. Change the players, same game.

However, the little council meeting scene was so... empty. It feels like all our discussions, no matter the vitriol pouring out from having been slapped in the face with all of 'that'? Even here we end up tailoring our criticism into should've, could've, when the sad reality is simply that there was nothing more. Just surface flash and zero substance.

Whores are funny. Tada. And a good investment. Don't forget about that.

The whole message that D & D gave us is that someone who tries to reform a rotten system, like Daenerys, is worse than the people who just accept "that's the way it is" and profit from it.

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Just now, SeanF said:

The whole message that D & D gave us is that someone who tries to reform a rotten system, like Daenerys, is worse than the people who just accept "that's the way it is" and profit from it.

Ah. Just had shivers of revulsion, picturing the Lybria-like ideal world of D&D. Take your daily dose of emotion numbing drugs, so you don't need to care and simply obey the status quo? Yuck.

Also, even if Daenerys does turn into the 'you're just like your father' cartoon simply because, again quote 'bombing for peace, etc'?

I would take the lesson that warring for reform is bad and run with it, not that warring for reform is bad so don't reform, just comply. That's not being against war. That's defending the system.

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1 minute ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Ah. Just had shivers of revulsion, picturing the Lybria-like ideal world of D&D. Take your daily dose of emotion numbing drugs, so you don't need to care and simply obey the status quo? Yuck.

Also, even if Daenerys does turn into the 'you're just like your father' cartoon simply because, again quote 'bombing for peace, etc'?

I would take the lesson that warring for reform is bad and run with it, not that warring for reform is bad so don't reform, just comply. That's not being against war. That's defending the system.

I think that was the whole point of Tyrion's "evil men" speech.  Fight injustice, and you become as bad (or even worse) than the people committing the injustice.  That's a piece of selective pacifism which is very useful if you benefit from the unjust status quo. Indeed I've even read people arguing that Daenerys was the one in the wrong at Astapor because she was "stealing the private property" of the Good Masters (yes, in the year of Our Lord 2019, people are prepared to argue that point). 

I can understand why no one wants to let D & D make Confederate.  You can imagine that the slave owners would be sympathetic, black sex slaves would all enjoy their work, the house slaves would be devoted to their masters, and the Underground Railroad would be rascals.

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 

I can understand why no one wants to let D & D make Confederate.  You can imagine that the slave owners would be sympathetic, black sex slaves would all enjoy their work, the house slaves would be devoted to their masters, and the Underground Railroad would be rascals.

In the words of Dean Winchester: "Eugh."

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On 10/18/2019 at 10:49 AM, SeanF said:

Whereas Martin himself is always crystal clear about the horrors of sexual slavery.

You have the prostitute that Tyrion rapes in Selhorys.  The scene is written to be disgusting, and the woman simply wants to die.  Poor Jeyne Poole's life is a nightmare.  Even someone as powerful as Melisandre is frightened to go to sleep because she'll dream of the things that were done to her in the past as a sex slave. 

Time and again, what D & D thought they were showing is not what the viewers are seeing.  A country that's run by an oligarchy that compares the Smallfolk to livestock, and regards brothels as a priority, is not going forwards.  It's going a long way backwards.

I would add to that, Benioff and Weiss didn't think about it at all, other than to thumb their noses at critics. Many critics writing for mainstream media sources complained about the show's woman problem all along, and noted that in the final season it only got worse.

Their woman problem was part of their larger problem of looking at things from their own rich boy privileged viewpoint, coupled with poor writing skills. Add to this that HBO gave the "boys" free rein, not bothering to say no to glaring offensiveness.

(HBO didn't even bother to put up a rape warning for the atrocious and until this season, lowest ranked episode of the show, Bowed, Bent, and Broken - other channels, including premium channels, routinely do this, even for not graphic scenes.)

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On 10/18/2019 at 9:48 AM, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

I know it's been repeated to death here and in other parts of the forum. But the way GRRM's pet peeve of the 'what happens after the heroics are done', specifically his soundbyte on the tax policy that wasn't, was brushed aside and substituted with that disgusting little convo about brothels being the future?

That's their answer? The Crown is going to simply whore out the impoverished and fatten their coffers off the backs of the unfortunate, or by putting the unfortunate to work on their backs? Talk about nihilism and 'the more things change' mentality.

I mean, I could see the author ending the stories as such. Hope is for children and realism means happy endings are just unfinished stories. After all, the medieval like setting doesn't quite lend itself to social utopia. Just deal with the overarching threats to humanity as a whole and then reposition the same good old boys club at the top. 

New deck, same cards, same rules. Change the players, same game.

However, the little council meeting scene was so... empty. It feels like all our discussions, no matter the vitriol pouring out from having been slapped in the face with all of 'that'? Even here we end up tailoring our criticism into should've, could've, when the sad reality is simply that there was nothing more. Just surface flash and zero substance.

Whores are funny. Tada. And a good investment. Don't forget about that.

I can see GRRM ending on a dismal note, he has a very dismal outlook. But one thing he will do is explore what it is like for the characters. And other shows (and movies) manage to pull this off quite effectively, even for secondary characters. Any skilled screenwriter knows how to do this.

There's really no excuse for the poor writing of this show at all. If you have neither the sensibility nor skills to follow through on difficult topics, someone (the network at the very least) should say no, you can't bring it up if you are going to just make it for cheap shock, or if you don't care to understand it.

Even just looking at the last season, so many objected to them making Sansa thank her sex trafficker and rapist for empowering her, and turning Dany into Satan because some guy who put her down like a dog wouldn't have sex with her. This is not rocket science to know there's something very wrong here.

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2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

There's really no excuse for the poor writing of this show at all. If you have neither the sensibility nor skills to follow through on difficult topics, someone (the network at the very least) should say no, you can't bring it up if you are going to just make it for cheap shock, or if you don't care to understand it.

It's really too bad that HBO's new management (after being bought up) didn't come in years earlier. After all they are the ones who gave D&D the actual boot and said 'not thank you guys, never again with you for anything'. Imagine what they could have done and how it might have made the show better for everyone.

2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Even just looking at the last season, so many objected to them making Sansa thank her sex trafficker and rapist for empowering her, and turning Dany into Satan because some guy who put her down like a dog wouldn't have sex with her. This is not rocket science to know there's something very wrong here.

Lets face it, there are plenty who think Sansa only became QitN because D&D had just turned the only two female rulers into Mad Queens and probably thought it would smooth things over. Except even her becoming Queen is completely misogynistic. She only gets to become Queen when all of her male relatives are either dead, higher up or exiled.

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10 hours ago, Mystical said:

It's really too bad that HBO's new management (after being bought up) didn't come in years earlier. After all they are the ones who gave D&D the actual boot and said 'not thank you guys, never again with you for anything'. Imagine what they could have done and how it might have made the show better for everyone.

Lets face it, there are plenty who think Sansa only became QitN because D&D had just turned the only two female rulers into Mad Queens and probably thought it would smooth things over. Except even her becoming Queen is completely misogynistic. She only gets to become Queen when all of her male relatives are either dead, higher up or exiled.

Dany was the radical tyrant, Cersei the reactionary tyrant, and Bran's rotten oligarchy the voice of reason and moderation.

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In the end, was there a major character they did not destroy, compared to their book counterpart?

Dany became Old Yeller, and had to be put down.

Jon became Judas Iscariot, betraying with a kiss.

Sansa was empowered by rape.

Arya became a xenophobic brat.

Bran had all the personality of a log.

Tyrion became D & D's mouthpiece.

Jaim's redemption arc went nowhere and his backstory was pointless.

Cersei stared out of the window.

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7 hours ago, SeanF said:

In the end, was there a major character they did not destroy, compared to their book counterpart?

Dany became Old Yeller, and had to be put down.

Jon became Judas Iscariot, betraying with a kiss.

Sansa was empowered by rape.

Arya became a xenophobic brat.

Bran had all the personality of a log.

Tyrion became D & D's mouthpiece.

Jaim's redemption arc went nowhere and his backstory was pointless.

Cersei stared out of the window.

Oh, how true. They turned Jon into Judas. It's utterly despicable what he did. What they did was bad enough, but how they did it, was just character destroying. And that could be said for all of them.

Sandor was already past his brother in season 1, when he chose not to kill him. They all ended up back where they were in season 1, some of them even before that. They wiped out everyone's story.

There are lots of articles saying they screwed both Jaime and Sandor over the same way. I collected them here! I'll quote the Lindsay Ellis one (I liked that Preston Jacobs called it Pointlessbowl):

So... Cleganebowl... All about that revenge... As a dramatic plot point it's really fucking dumb. One, not only is the Mountain functionally dead by this point, Oberyn Martell killed him, and what we have now is just a mindless zombie who does whatever Cersei says, but two, the books make it really clear that Sandor is finally at peace with himself and his need for revenge...

His arc wasn't about getting revenge, it was about moving past that... Who is forcing you to do this? He's dead, he's a zombie. Cleganebowl happens while Daenerys is doing some war crimes and Kings Landing is burning, they are fighting for nothing. The Hound has long since moved on, this has not been his motivation for a while. Gregor is an empty zombie shell and the world is ending outside and everyone is about to die anyway so who cares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8

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31 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Oh, how true. They turned Jon into Judas. It's utterly despicable what he did. What they did was bad enough, but how they did it, was just character destroying. And that could be said for all of them.

Sandor was already past his brother in season 1, when he chose not to kill him. They all ended up back where they were in season 1, some of them even before that. They wiped out everyone's story.

There are lots of articles saying they screwed both Jaime and Sandor over the same way. I collected them here! I'll quote the Lindsay Ellis one (I liked that Preston Jacobs called it Pointlessbowl):

So... Cleganebowl... All about that revenge... As a dramatic plot point it's really fucking dumb. One, not only is the Mountain functionally dead by this point, Oberyn Martell killed him, and what we have now is just a mindless zombie who does whatever Cersei says, but two, the books make it really clear that Sandor is finally at peace with himself and his need for revenge...

His arc wasn't about getting revenge, it was about moving past that... Who is forcing you to do this? He's dead, he's a zombie. Cleganebowl happens while Daenerys is doing some war crimes and Kings Landing is burning, they are fighting for nothing. The Hound has long since moved on, this has not been his motivation for a while. Gregor is an empty zombie shell and the world is ending outside and everyone is about to die anyway so who cares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8

If it ever came to the point, in the books, where Jon did have to kill Daenerys, he'd do as Ned Stark insisted.  Look her in the eye, tell her why he was doing it, and listen to her last words.  Ned would have been disgusted by the manner of Dany's death in the show.

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Season 1 - Tyrion (their self insert) - practically perfect in every way, surrounded by happy hookers and his awesome buddy Bronn. Cersei - queen. Sansa - wannabe queen. Arya - wandering around. Jon, alone at the Wall. Bran - out of it with visions. Sandor - fighting his brother. Jaime - Cersei's boot licker. Theon - wannabe Stark. Dany - down and out.

Season 8 - Ditto.

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32 minutes ago, SeanF said:

If it ever came to the point, in the books, where Jon did have to kill Daenerys, he'd do as Ned Stark insisted.  Look her in the eye, tell her why he was doing it, and listen to her last words.  Ned would have been disgusted by the manner of Dany's death in the show.

True, I still think a lot of mindless swapping of roles was going on, with missing characters like fAegon, Jon Connington, and Arianne doing things that Jon and Dany did on the show. And the loss of Lady Stoneheart really changed the trajectories of many characters in the Riverlands and the Vale.

The thing is, kinslaying is a grave sin in the books, so no one would approach this lightly. It's the thing to be avoided at all costs, and the thing that is never without great cost. Those are the stakes of the story. So Jon would be toast if he killed Dany, no frolicking in the snow with Ghost.

(fixed that, I meant Arianne)

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1 minute ago, Le Cygne said:

True, I still think a lot of mindless swapping of roles was going on, with missing characters like fAegon, Jon Connington, and fAegon doing things that Jon and Dany did on the show. And the loss of Lady Stoneheart really changed the trajectories of many characters in the Riverlands and the Vale.

The thing is, kinslaying is a grave sin in the books, so no one would approach this lightly. It's the thing to be avoided at all costs, and the thing that is never without great cost. Those are the stakes of the story. So Jon would be toast if he killed Dany, no frolicking in the snow with Ghost.

It's why I agree with you that if Dany is murdered in the books, it's likely to be someone other than Jon who does it. 

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It's why I agree with you that if Dany is murdered in the books, it's likely to be someone other than Jon who does it. 

"No man is so accursed as the kinslayer, in the eyes of gods and men." Something means something very important in a culture, and is repeated so often, is not done so lightly.

Theon: "I have done terrible things … betrayed my own, turned my cloak, ordered the death of men who trusted me … but I am no kinslayer." It's the worst of the worst.

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