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!

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Maia said:

This. In hindsight FaB's treatment of female characters looks hugely problematic to me and makes me really disappointed in GRRM, to be honest. Because if Dany's ending is in any way or form what he intended, then it looks like his plan all along was to prove all the sexist bigots in his Targaryen history right.

Not to mention how incredibly hypocritical it is to claim that Dany was corrupted by the power of WMD at her disposal when various dragonless dudes repeatedly dismiss and discount female dragonriders and even diss them to their faces with no reprecussions in FaB. In fact, it is quite implausible how little clout having a dragon gave most of these women - but then it somehow morphed into "absolute power corrupts absolutely" for Dany? Eh.

Too bad that they are going ahead with this and not with "last years of Valyria", as long as they are game to do the CGI dragons anyway.

At least in F & B, we got to see several of the women objecting to the unfair treatment which they received, rather than just accepting that's the way things are.

I think we have to agree that D & D have,  as @Le Cygne puts it, "a woman problem".  One could list endless examples, but I think the absolute nadir is the manner in which Jon killed Daenerys.  It takes a very tin ear to think that many viewers are going to feel Jon's man-pain at this point, rather than being disgusted by someone saying "I love you" before running a knife through the heart of the woman who is supposedly the love of his life.   It resembles domestic abuse cases horribly "she made me do it.  I loved her, you know" - and equally trashes Jon's character by making him out to be a treacherous coward, rather than a hero.  My version of the books never had Ned Stark say "If you must take a woman's life, you owe it to her to tell her you love her, kiss her, and run a knife through her heart."

That ties in with D & D's belief that "honour is stupid".

Given that Martin knows how to write romance (even if it is often doomed and tragic);  given what he's written about kinslaying;  given that he has written Jon to be a hero, who tries to emulate Ned Stark, I find it inconceivable that he would write such a scene.

Edit:  That is, viewers who sympathise in any way with  Daenerys.  Viewers who dislike her would probably just feel indifference.   

[SeanF]

On 10/28/2019 at 9:21 PM, Le Cygne said:

Another article (I love the titles of the articles, this one is "‘Game Of Thrones’ Showrunners David Benioff And D.B. Weiss Confirmed The Worst Suspicions Of The Fanbase"):

The Faceless Men, the Lord of Light, the Night King; all magical elements of the story that were never resolved, despite clearly being vital to the story. Hence, “the Prince that was promised” never showed up, and Beric Dondarrion’s grand destiny was teased, but never delivered. 

Benioff and Weiss were elevated to success by HBO’s polished infrastructure, the architecture of George R.R. Martin’s books, and the immense talent of every individual that surrounded them, particularly the actors.

They were exposed only when they ran out of material, and had to finish the story themselves. Amusingly, the two never went online to read criticisms of the show from fans, who clearly understood the books better than they did.

It seems that the Game of Thrones writer’s room was a “safe space,” shielded from criticism and outsider perspective. In a way, it’s a relief to finally understand why the show went in such a bizarre direction; there was no one there to tell Benioff and Weiss that their ideas were nonsensical. 

Nobody was there to tell them to stop inserting random rape scenes for shock value, or that Euron Greyjoy was dreadful, or that the Great Houses of Westeros finally putting aside their differences and crowning a wheelchair-bound shaman as king was immensely, indescribably stupid. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2019/10/28/game-of-thrones-showrunners-david-benioff-and-db-weiss-confirmed-the-worst-suspicions-of-the-fanbase/

That's a scorching (and entirely accurate) review.

[Lady Fevre Dream]

11 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Seems they at least fixed the dragon. And by “fix” I don’t mean neuter but that they corrected the number of limbs. A good start?

I knew something was different looking, cleaner lines or something, with the dragon.  Hahahahaha. 

11 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

HAhahahaaha, That was HILARIOUS when we had four-limbed dragons plus wings in season 8.

11 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

 

Right? Even something as simple as that they couldn’t get right...

Arms AND wings akimbo!!  LOL

[Lady Fevre Dream]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

At least in F & B, we got to see several of the women objecting to the unfair treatment which they received, rather than just accepting that's the way things are.

I think we have to agree that D & D have,  as @Le Cygne puts it, "a woman problem".  One could list endless examples, but I think the absolute nadir is the manner in which Jon killed Daenerys.  It takes a very tin ear to think that many viewers are going to feel Jon's man-pain at this point, rather than being disgusted by someone saying "I love you" before running a knife through the heart of the woman who is supposedly the love of his life.   It resembles domestic abuse cases horribly "she made me do it.  I loved her, you know" - and equally trashes Jon's character by making him out to be a treacherous coward, rather than a hero.  My version of the books never had Ned Stark say "If you must take a woman's life, you owe it to her to tell her you love her, kiss her, and run a knife through her heart."

That ties in with D & D's belief that "honour is stupid".

Given that Martin knows how to write romance (even if it is often doomed and tragic);  given what he's written about kinslaying;  given that he has written Jon to be a hero, who tries to emulate Ned Stark, I find it inconceivable that he would write such a scene. 

I just wanted to say, I'd like to believe you are right.  I'll leave it at that, but I have to say, you made me feel the book characters true selves just reading this post.  Tis All. 

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Lady Fevre Dream said:

I just wanted to say, I'd like to believe you are right.  I'll leave it at that, but I have to say, you made me feel the book characters true selves just reading this post.  Tis All. 

The only way I could see Jon doing and saying that is if - say - she'd suffered some hideous injury which left her in agony. 

[DisneyDoc2425]

Coming up with heroic characters is going to be quite a challenge if they do the Dance. But goes what guys. The Starks may end up once again as the heroic family. Perhaps they could greatly expand upon the the role of Lord Cregan Stark in the pre and actual battles and end, as the book, with an episode entitled “The Hour of the Wolf”. Stark haters may not take this too well. But on the other hand, it would provide an early sign of what GRRM has in mind for the ending of ASOIAF, which would be consistent with his initial title for the seventh book (“A Time for Wolves" instead of ADOS). I would love to see this. 

[Le Cygne]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

At least in F & B, we got to see several of the women objecting to the unfair treatment which they received, rather than just accepting that's the way things are.

I think we have to agree that D & D have,  as @Le Cygne puts it, "a woman problem".  One could list endless examples, but I think the absolute nadir is the manner in which Jon killed Daenerys.  It takes a very tin ear to think that many viewers are going to feel Jon's man-pain at this point, rather than being disgusted by someone saying "I love you" before running a knife through the heart of the woman who is supposedly the love of his life.   It resembles domestic abuse cases horribly "she made me do it.  I loved her, you know" - and equally trashes Jon's character by making him out to be a treacherous coward, rather than a hero.  My version of the books never had Ned Stark say "If you must take a woman's life, you owe it to her to tell her you love her, kiss her, and run a knife through her heart."

That ties in with D & D's belief that "honour is stupid".

Given that Martin knows how to write romance (even if it is often doomed and tragic);  given what he's written about kinslaying;  given that he has written Jon to be a hero, who tries to emulate Ned Stark, I find it inconceivable that he would write such a scene.

Edit:  That is, viewers who sympathise in any way with  Daenerys.  Viewers who dislike her would probably just feel indifference.   

Yeah, they have a horrible woman problem. They did it to Dany and to every woman on the show. They actually had a deleted scene where Sansa stabbed a wight, and the script said this: "She stuck him with the pointy end."

THAT LINE IS ABOUT ARYA. That's a hugely important line said about ARYA. Add this to the mini Needle they put on the end of Sansa's dog collar. The costume designer of all people put down sewing, saying Sansa wants a better needle.

The last thing in the world book Sansa wants to be is Arya. She's no Arya wannabe. She is special by being herself. But Benioff and Weiss and Cogman stripped everything that made her Sansa away from her, and remade her in their own image.

They "fixed" her, made her grovel to their boy Tyrion, as well as Littlefinger, and even Ramsay. Passed her along from psycho to psycho, then made her thank them for fixing her. Traditionally feminine women are only good for stripping or assault.

I hate what they did to Dany, I hate what they did to Sansa, I hate what they did to Catelyn, I hate what they did to Brienne, I hate that they see femininity as a flaw to be wiped out or exploited, and got away with broadcasting that nastiness to the world.

[Angel Eyes]

33 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Yeah, they have a horrible woman problem. They did it to Dany and to every woman on the show. They actually had a deleted scene where Sansa stabbed a wight, and the script said this: "She stuck him with the pointy end."

THAT LINE IS ABOUT ARYA. That's a hugely important line said about ARYA. Add this to the mini Needle they put on the end of Sansa's dog collar. The costume designer of all people put down sewing, saying Sansa wants a better needle.

The last thing in the world book Sansa wants to be is Arya. She's no Arya wannabe. She is special by being herself. But Benioff and Weiss and Cogman stripped everything that made her Sansa away from her, and remade her in their own image.

They "fixed" her, made her grovel to their boy Tyrion, as well as Littlefinger, and even Ramsay. Passed her along from psycho to psycho, then made her thank them for fixing her. Traditionally feminine women are only good for stripping or assault.

I hate what they did to Dany, I hate what they did to Sansa, I hate what they did to Catelyn, I hate what they did to Brienne, I hate that they see femininity as a flaw to be wiped out or exploited, and got away with broadcasting that nastiness to the world.

I wonder if Catelyn’s case was inevitable, since she’s disliked by plenty of book readers for her attitude towards Jon Snow and her decisions to arrest Tyrion and free Jaime, which were kept as is. In Jon’s case, her line in the first book that he should have been pushed from the tower instead of Bran is seen by some as a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon. 

[Le Cygne]

16 hours ago, SeanF said:

If Daenerys died to save humanity, during the fight against the Others, I could see no problem.  People would see her as the last and the greatest of her House.

This was just an up yours from a pair of disrespectful hacks.

I see a lot of troubling areas when it comes to women in Fire and Blood. I think it's not just how they end up, but how they get there, how the story presents them. And it's as troubling in that book as it is on the show with Dany.

One female character is married to her brother and is pushed by the narrative as a blissfully ideal woman, which is not realistic at all. Another is sexually exploited at age 14 by her uncle, who teaches her to give him blow jobs.

I don't know which is worse, the good queen, who is sickly sweet while contently servicing her brother, or the bad queen, who is happy to oblige her uncle then becomes jealous when he goes off with another young girl after she gets fat...

I found it difficult to read, and barely did, and I sure don't want to watch it. It would take a miracle to present this material well, if it's even possible. I can see why HBO went for it, though. It's more medieval Kardashians, wrapped up in lots of expensive special effects.

All they need is scenes where the woman thanks the men for empowering them, or feeding them to a dragon, which after all, they totally deserve.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Le Cygne said:

I see a lot of troubling areas when it comes to women in Fire and Blood. I think it's not just how they end up, but how they get there, how the story presents them. And it's as troubling in that book as it is on the show with Dany.

One female character is married to her brother and is pushed by the narrative as a blissfully ideal woman, which is not realistic at all. Another is sexually exploited at age 14 by her uncle, who teaches her to give him blow jobs.

I don't know which is worse, the 1950's good queen who is sickly sweet while contently servicing her brother, or the bad queen, who is happy to oblige her uncle then becomes jealous when he goes off with another young girl after she gets fat...

I found it difficult to read, and barely did, and I sure don't want to watch it. It would take a miracle to present this material well, if it's even possible. I can see why HBO went for it, though. It's more medieval Kardashians, wrapped up in lots of expensive special effects.

All they need is scenes where the woman thanks the men for empowering them, or feeding them to a dragon, which after all, they totally deserve.

Oh yes.  Mushroom wanted to portray Rhaenyra as a precocious little whore in his memoirs.  To us, she's a teenage girl who was sexually abused by two men who she loved and trusted.  Boys and girls who were largely brought up by servants in medieval households, or fostered away from home, must have been horribly vulnerable to sexual exploitation (eg Katherine Howard being molested at age 11 by her music teacher).  Doubly so in a family where incest was considered normal.

I've always thought the most disturbing thing about Dany's first chapter in AGOT is that she *doesn't* react when Viserys gropes her.  It's something that she's used to.

[Le Cygne]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Oh yes.  Mushroom wanted to portray Rhaenyra as a precocious little whore in his memoirs.  To us, she's a teenage girl who was sexually abused by two men who she loved and trusted.  Boys and girls who were largely brought up by servants in medieval households, or fostered away from home, must have been horribly vulnerable to sexual exploitation (eg Katherine Howard being molested at age 11 by her music teacher).  Doubly so in a family where incest was considered normal.

I've always thought the most disturbing thing about Dany's first chapter in AGOT is that she *doesn't* react when Viserys gropes her.  It's something that she's used to.

There's a fine line, who is doing the exploitation. Is it Westeros or HBO. You'd have to very clearly show the woman's perspective, but when she was written as a joke in the first place, you'd have to tell an entirely different sort of story.

And then the question becomes, is this really necessary? It's just a rehash of all the exploitation that was on Game of Thrones, with more incest and dragons. They are clearly cashing in on GoT. There are better stories to tell about women.

And I'll also note, there are two male showrunners, one of whom is set to do the writing, the other directing. Maybe, just maybe, this topic from this perspective has been done. Been there, done that, know how it ends.

[Angel Eyes]

52 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

I see a lot of troubling areas when it comes to women in Fire and Blood. I think it's not just how they end up, but how they get there, how the story presents them. And it's as troubling in that book as it is on the show with Dany.

One female character is married to her brother and is pushed by the narrative as a blissfully ideal woman, which is not realistic at all. Another is sexually exploited at age 14 by her uncle, who teaches her to give him blow jobs.

I don't know which is worse, the good queen, who is sickly sweet while contently servicing her brother, or the bad queen, who is happy to oblige her uncle then becomes jealous when he goes off with another young girl after she gets fat...

I found it difficult to read, and barely did, and I sure don't want to watch it. It would take a miracle to present this material well, if it's even possible. I can see why HBO went for it, though. It's more medieval Kardashians, wrapped up in lots of expensive special effects.

All they need is scenes where the woman thanks the men for empowering them, or feeding them to a dragon, which after all, they totally deserve.

So is GRRM any better than D&D?

[Lady Fevre Dream]

Since the ending is coming up, it seems Jason Momoa STILL isn't over it, LOL 

 

 

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, DisneyDoc2425 said:

Coming up with heroic characters is going to be quite a challenge if they do the Dance. But goes what guys. The Starks may end up once again as the heroic family. Perhaps they could greatly expand upon the the role of Lord Cregan Stark in the pre and actual battles and end, as the book, with an episode entitled “The Hour of the Wolf”. Stark haters may not take this too well. But on the other hand, it would provide an early sign of what GRRM has in mind for the ending of ASOIAF, which would be consistent with his initial title for the seventh book (“A Time for Wolves" instead of ADOS). I would love to see this. 

One of my favorite shows of the last several years is Black Sails. Despite that all the main characters are pirates or are strongly linked to pirates, the writers made you root for them or against them, depending on how the story went. It's possible to make heroic characters out of the characters in Dance, or at least characters who have heroic traits but are intertwined with deep flaws.

[divica]

3 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

There's a fine line, who is doing the exploitation. Is it Westeros or HBO. You'd have to very clearly show the woman's perspective, but when she was written as a joke in the first place, you'd have to tell an entirely different sort of story.

And then the question becomes, is this really necessary? It's just a rehash of all the exploitation that was on Game of Thrones, with more incest and dragons. They are clearly cashing in on GoT. There are better stories to tell about women.

And I'll also note, there are two male showrunners, one of whom is set to do the writing, the other directing. Maybe, just maybe, this topic from this perspective has been done. Been there, done that, know how it ends.

Dance isn t a story about women. It is a story about a several topics and women are just part of the story. 

And despite what some people like to claim the gender, race, color or whatever of the writers doesn t mean they can t write about a certain topic. It depends on their life experiences and sensitivity… We would be really screwed if only women could write about women...

Honestly, this kind of speech annoys me and it was one of the problems I mentioned earlier. For some reason a large group of people likes to judge what happens in a medieval society by modern standards and hope to see modern values aplied in the medieval society. I don t think anybody is suposed to support certain behaviours seen on these shows, however I have zero interest in seeing a show trying to educate medieval people to behave like modern people... 

 

[Prince of the North]

Hmm...I'm not sure I've seen anyone call for anyone writing "about women" to also be women.  It seems to me that the contention is just that, given the track record of GOT's treatment of women in the story, some women involved in writing/directing related stories from here on out may be a good thing.

[Le Cygne]

6 hours ago, Prince of the North said:

Hmm...I'm not sure I've seen anyone call for anyone writing "about women" to also be women.  It seems to me that the contention is just that, given the track record of GOT's treatment of women in the story, some women involved in writing/directing related stories from here on out may be a good thing.

Yes, exactly.

Also I'll drop this article here:

This racial-sexual problem isn’t unique to Game of Thrones. It’s apparently a truth universally acknowledged by cable television writers that the rates of nonconsensual sex and mindless violence rise exponentially the further back in time one goes. The rationale, or even excuse, that shows with this philosophy offer is that the kind of racism or sexism they portray is historically accurate (never mind, of course, that Game of Thrones takes place in a fictional universe). In other words, these shows depict women who are treated like disposable objects and ethnic or racial “others” who wantonly destroy life because that’s the way it was.

But historical accuracy and fear of anachronism are not good excuses for representing racial and sexual politics in the way that Game of Thrones does. Deadwood began its run with some similarly shocking occurrences of sexual violence and racial caricature. But that show also offered blistering and uncomfortable critiques of the culture that enabled and encouraged those acts, and it offered layered portraits of women and ethnic and racial minorities who survived and resisted that dismal age.

There’s no evidence of such critique so far in Game of Thrones. Every act of brutality, every assaulted woman, every exoticized barbarian is presented for the delectation of the audience. No prostitute appears on screen without her bosom already exposed, no transgressive sex act occurs without the frame of luxuriant tapestries or the glow of moonlight upon it. This show’s historical misogyny and racism are purely aesthetic, and that’s a problem we should hope this series works out on the double.

 

https://www.slantmagazine.com/tv/game-of-thrones-season-one/

[SeanF]

On the subject of sexual violence, I think that Robin Hobb handles it brilliantly in her Liveships Trilogy.  It's not there for shock, it's awful , but it's part of the development of the characters.  We see how it affects them, from their point of view.

Whereas, the treatment of rape in this show is awful.

[Many-Faced Votary]

Sansa is an excellent example of the underlying sexism everywhere in Game of Thrones. I will write only briefly and will disregard many other sexist trends that aren't as clear with Sansa specifically, so it should be telling just how problematic the show is in this respect. It was clear from the beginning that the show completely misunderstood her character and did her no justice *, framing her traditional femininity as bad in contrast to Arya's tomboyish nature, and removing or modifying scenes that demonstrated her social intelligence and blameless indoctrination into the pervasive concept of what a "good girl" should be. She also served as essentially a background character for the most part -- except in GRRM's episodes, tellingly -- until they decided to begin her journey of empowerment™ in Season 5. They characterized her -- if the word can even be applied here -- extremely inconsistently, to the extent that she is more accurately a complex of intermittent sub-characters that randomly take turns manifesting; yet one thing tied the complex together, and it was misogyny: "femininity and traditionally feminine gender roles are bad" and "most women girls are weak" and "the passivity into which women are forced, or would be if it weren't for the patriarchy that magically disappears in D&D's Westeros when convenient, is something that needs to be 'fixed'" and "women become empowered™ if they are victimized by gendered crimes" and "women are catty and cannot form healthy relationships with each other" and "unfailing stoicism, psychopathy, and an active desire for brutal revenge are attributes of an empowered™ woman."

* This is also true of other characters, especially other female characters who are strong in a more traditionally feminine way such as Catelyn, but at least they more closely resembled their book counterparts initially.

 

That this is all true despite the fact that the source material from which the show was adapted is a rather nuanced and manifestly feminist work best tells the story.

[sweetsunray]

On 10/29/2019 at 10:15 PM, Art Vandelay said:

How could they possibly do a show featuring the White Walkers now? They were given no character at all and made to look like an after thought in the grand scheme of people forgetting about fleets, magical moving cities and random selection of monarchs. They are just a bunch of pasty gimps that got taken out by shit Batman. I'm not surprised it's been cancelled. GoT is probably a poisoned chalice now.

There's actually a bus tour around some of the sets and areas used for filming here on Halloween. I was tempted to take the day off and go on it, but I fear it becoming upsetting after a while when I start remembering seasons 4-8.

Did a coach tour during Titancon at the end of late August. Been ranting about the show since the start of S5, but the sets are lovely, because the island is just beautiful!!!!