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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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40 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

So, let's try something. How would you rewrite Sansa's plotline for the last four seasons? 40 episodes maximum (complement of 10 per season as it was in the first 6 seasons). Where do you want Sansa to end, and how should she get there?

Sansa marries Ser Harold Harding, and LF blackmails her over the poisoning of Sweetrobin.

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2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

So, let's try something. How would you rewrite Sansa's plotline for the last four seasons? 40 episodes maximum (complement of 10 per season as it was in the first 6 seasons). Where do you want Sansa to end, and how should she get there?

Well, to resolve the whole Sansa storyline in season 5.... If we were to use Jeyne Poole, she would at least need a bigger role in season 1 to make her known to the viewing public. But she was not cast and everything related to her from the first book was scrapped.

Another alternative is to use Ros as fSansa, while Sansa's storyline continues as usual in the Eyrie. Ros' role in Game of Thrones was not particularly memorable and her death was unnecessary. Theon and Ros also already have a "personal connection" in the TV series and she would know Winterfell fairly well as a local whore. And the character is of mature age (I think), which will already cause less controversy than was the case with Sansa (Sophie Turner still played the role of a teenager then). But please let it happen off-screen, no normal person finds such scenes entertaining.

I still find it baffling that D&D didn't let the rape scenes (both Daenerys/Drogo and Sansa/Ramsay) and the sex scenes involving actors playing underage characters (Tommen/Margaery and Arya/Gendry) happen off-screen. Any other film director would avoid such controversies.

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4 hours ago, $erPounce said:

Well, to resolve the whole Sansa storyline in season 5.... If we were to use Jeyne Poole, she would at least need a bigger role in season 1 to make her known to the viewing public. But she was not cast and everything related to her from the first book was scrapped.

Another alternative is to use Ros as fSansa, while Sansa's storyline continues as usual in the Eyrie. Ros' role in Game of Thrones was not particularly memorable and her death was unnecessary. Theon and Ros also already have a "personal connection" in the TV series and she would know Winterfell fairly well as a local whore. And the character is of mature age (I think), which will already cause less controversy than was the case with Sansa (Sophie Turner still played the role of a teenager then). But please let it happen off-screen, no normal person finds such scenes entertaining.

 

Perfect. Ros is a dark haired northern girl with ties to Winterfell, like you said and would work well with Theon's story. She may be older but that didn't matter in the book so it wouldn't here.

And yes all offscreen.

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"ROMANCE DIES": SANSA RAPE DEFENCE. part ii

sansa's triumph was planned from the start. [perhaps. unlikely.]

it led to a cultural conversation. [did it?]

the show is less watchable b/c tolerance for chauvinism has gone down. [hardly only reason.]

the irony being GOT has so many strong female characters. [to the extent that this is true, it's down to martin.]

lombardo says the Ds never pused nudity or sex for purposes of titillation. [doesn't benioff represent the "perv element" in the audience?]

it represents "savage mediaeval" times. [middle ages weren't savage, and this is deflection anyway.]

emilia clarke decries "anti-feminist spin" on show by critics.

a lot of irrelevant stuff and strawman arguments. natalie dormer says got is "completely feminist". there's a lengthy quote from martin defending references to rape *in the books*. [martin is not on board w/ sansa rape and doesn't *shoow* rape.] society in westeros not egalitarian. [irrelevant]

 

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On 1/14/2021 at 10:32 PM, Count Balerion said:

"ROMANCE DIES": SANSA RAPE DEFENCE. part i

[my comments in square brackets. sometimes made by other ppl.]

this scene was controversial by the "subjective standards of fandom uproar"

arranged marriages were norm in middle ages. [it's not an arranged mnarriage!]

LF is a "master manipulator" [despite not knowing ramsay's a psychopath].

martin notes that jeyne was dropped and that he oddly never got pushback for jeyne.

martin also notes that LF "would never hand sansa over to ramsay. ever."

Cogman: "our LF is a bit more brazen" in the show. [i wasn't aware "brazen" meant "stupid".]

are ramsay's ... propensities known in the show? [yes. he flays ppl.]

he loves sansa, but loves power more, and sees opportunity to get more power. [by giving away his strongest card?]

D&D chose the episodes they wanted. [ergo, it's very interesting they *didn't* choose this one!]

the actors were great.

they were stunned at the uproar. [the book apparently ignores the jaime/cersei rape/not rape scene.]

"you'd think it was insensitive" [you invented it.]

they note that focussing on theon's face was seen as promoting "the male gaze". [this is where it gets pseudo-woke.]

cogman is bothered that D&D are accused of bad faith. [well yes.]

trying to avoid "the male gaze".

there might have been less outcry if we'd followed sansa's journy. [we DID.]

sansa's triumph was planned from the start. [but is unearned. anyway, unlikely. they don't really plan, or if they do they randomly reverse or ignore what they've planned.]

benioff: "we can take criticism"; but criticisms of sansa scene "blatantly untrue".

more later.

Love your comments. And of course, they don't know what "male gaze" means - since basically the whole show is from their own male gaze perspective. Self-awareness isn't their strong suit.

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i don't want to dis the actresses unduly. they're not responsible for writing decisions and it's possible they're being taken out of context, as martin is. one weird pattern is actors and actresses being kept out of the loop wrt what their own character is doing. (at least w/ emilia.)

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We got a good picture of what it was like from some of them. I love the way Diana Rigg stood up to them. Stephen Dillane's comments were priceless.

"I've flicked it on [since leaving] to see if I could figure out what was going on, but I couldn’t... I didn't know what I was doing until we'd finished filming and it was too late. The damage had been done. I thought no one would believe in me and I was rather disheartened by the end. I felt I'd built the castle on non-existent foundations.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stephen-dillane-its-better-not-working-in-westeros-nkb9qj3tr

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On 1/14/2021 at 4:50 PM, Count Balerion said:

are mainstream sites covering the book at all?

Mainstream sites won't cover the book(s) until The Winds of Winter is released.

The floodgates will open then and only then.

On 1/16/2021 at 10:25 AM, Angel Eyes said:

So, let's try something. How would you rewrite Sansa's plotline for the last four seasons? 40 episodes maximum (complement of 10 per season as it was in the first 6 seasons). Where do you want Sansa to end, and how should she get there?

Season 5 - We see Sansa learn how to play the game, how to run a castle and how to have a little bit of fun in the Vale. She hears of Jon becoming Lord Commander and Stannis Baratheon's war against the Boltons but she is so deep in her Alayne identity that she is super slow (or outright unable) to act. She gets very close to Sweetrobin.

Season 6 - Things get serious: Sansa learns about Jon Snow's assassination and the Boltons using "Arya" to hold Winterfell so Sansa plots to return North, save Arya, avenge Jon and take Winterfell ON HER OWN TERMS. To do that, she has to kiss a couple frogs (Harry Hardyng) and lay with a few more dogs (Littlefinger). Essentially her story arc would fuse with that of Jon, Melisandre, Davos. Maybe Sweetrobin dies. She meets Howland Reed on the way. She gets genuinely close to many lords of the Vale. I wouldn't let her kill Ramsay: I'd either allow Jon to kill Ramsay or I'd save Ramsay for the real Arya.

Season 7 - Harry Hardyng can be an abusive, impotent or incompetent asshole. Sansa struggles to deal with both her problematic husband, Littelfinger and the stubborn northern lords as well as receiving Arya and Bran and preparing the North for the Long Night. Sansa is also in a lot more trouble here as Robb's will -- along with the things she did as Alayne Stone AND letters she wrote in support of King Joffrey offscreen -- has resurfaced. She is an outsider in her own home. If I could get away with it, I'd probably spare Rickon and make him openly hostile to Sansa (and uncontrollable)

However, since we saw Sansa do so many things on her own -- more or less -- in season 6 and actually learn how to play the game of thrones AND keep a castle running....it wouldn't be a shock for Arya and so many other people to be impressed with her ability to politick and govern on a day-to-day basis.

Season 8 - Sansa doesn't have a personal problem with Dany but she is resentful/jealous of the power Dany wields, particularly over Jon. Plus, Dany isn't a true "lady" or "queen" (my version of Dany would be a warrior queen who wields a sword and leads from the front...aka more faithful to the books) so Sansa would either cringe or be outright horrified at some of the stuff Dany does. Over the course of the season, Sansa becomes more and more fond of Dany but the exact opposite happens with Tyrion. Sansa starts liking him less and less and ends the season hating his guts.  Let's say that with Harry dead, Tyrion makes his move. I'd probably keep Littlefinger alive until season 8 though. The season ends with Tyrion, Jon and Dany (among others all dead) and the entire continent would be a smoldering, snow-covered graveyard. Maybe Rickon dies. Idk but Sansa becomes the regent Lady of Winterfell and the true Lady of the Vale. Although I would have Bran remain in Winterfell until the very end, Winterfell is effectively abandoned so Sansa and the others have to retreat south to King's Landing. Sansa reunites with Cersei.

I came up with this in less than 10 minutes.

On 1/16/2021 at 12:29 PM, $erPounce said:

Well, to resolve the whole Sansa storyline in season 5.... If we were to use Jeyne Poole, she would at least need a bigger role in season 1 to make her known to the viewing public. But she was not cast and everything related to her from the first book was scrapped.

Another alternative is to use Ros as fSansa, while Sansa's storyline continues as usual in the Eyrie. Ros' role in Game of Thrones was not particularly memorable and her death was unnecessary. Theon and Ros also already have a "personal connection" in the TV series and she would know Winterfell fairly well as a local whore. And the character is of mature age (I think), which will already cause less controversy than was the case with Sansa (Sophie Turner still played the role of a teenager then). But please let it happen off-screen, no normal person finds such scenes entertaining.

I still find it baffling that D&D didn't let the rape scenes (both Daenerys/Drogo and Sansa/Ramsay) and the sex scenes involving actors playing underage characters (Tommen/Margaery and Arya/Gendry) happen off-screen. Any other film director would avoid such controversies.

You don't need Jeyne Poole.

Using Ros as fSansa is not a bad idea. It's a pretty good one in fact.

However, you don't even need Ros. If you want to be deeply impactful and speak to the treatment of the smallfolk and their relationship to the nobles, you can just have the "Jeyne Poole" of the story be a regular degular Jeyne. She has no last name because she's just the daughter of a carpenter.

Not only does it really touch up on the theme that the game of thrones is horrific and the wheel must be broken but it also makes Theon that much more of a hero. Because he's risking his life not to save someone he grew up with (Sansa) or someone he used to date (Ros). He'd be risking his life to save a nobody.

If Brienne is in the North by this time (or shortly thereafter), it also allows Brienne's A Feast for Crows storyline to be further adapted. Brienne has been threatened with sexual violence before and she spent Feast wandering around, seeing the pain and misery of the smallfolk and deciding to take a detour in finding the Starks girls to help the smallfolk.

---------

On the note of underaged rape scenes and sex scenes...well, first of all, it's HBO. I mean, let's keep it real. Sex scenes between underaged characters are not off-limits. Rape scenes between or involving underaged characters is different but...the others? Nah. Second of all, all the scenes that you cited @$erPounce are extremely problematic besides the fact. The Daenerys/Drogo scenes that are adapted from the books are not rape: especially not the first one on her honeymoon. The Sansa/Ramsay rape scene doesn't exist and was completely made up. To add insult to injury, the Jeyne/Ramsay rape and sexual abuse scenes happen "offscreen" in the books. Cersei takes an active role in preventing any sexual activity between Tommen and Margaery so again...completely made up. If I remember correctly, Tommen/Margaery sex took place offscreen anyways: we saw them post-coitus (not much better I know) but it was off-screen.

Arya/Gendry doesn't exist but they are both supposed to be underaged anyway. I'm not sure why they aged Gendry up like they did. Gendry was only a few years older than Arya in the books (Ned sees him as a boy and Brienne later thinks that he looks like a younger, teenaged Renly).

Yet TV show Gendry looks like he has 7-10 years on her. It was yet another weird decision they made. What bothered me about that scene wasn't its sexuality.

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They often said they copied things from the movies for the show, which was funny, because you knew they didn't understand the movie any more than they understood the source material.

Let's see, how many levels of abstraction there were from actually telling a story:

  • the source material they didn't understand
  • the actors they didn't understand as the basis for characters they didn't understand
  • the movies they copied that they didn't understand
  • the directors who didn't understand what was going on
  • the actors who didn't understand what was going on
  • gratuitous female nudity and gratuitous violence
  • and other things like special effects, to distract from lack of a story

All these things were thrown at the screen, rather than simply telling a story, because that's something they can't do. They are like George Costanza, when he got a job he couldn't do.

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8 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

They often said they copied things from the movies for the show, which was funny, because you knew they didn't understand the movie any more than they understood the source material.

Let's see, how many levels of abstraction there were from actually telling a story:

  • the source material they didn't understand
  • the actors they didn't understand as the basis for characters they didn't understand
  • the movies they copied that they didn't understand
  • the directors who didn't understand what was going on
  • the actors who didn't understand what was going on
  • gratuitous female nudity and gratuitous violence
  • and other things like special effects, to distract from lack of a story

All these things were thrown at the screen, rather than simply telling a story, because that's something they can't do. They are like George Costanza, when he got a job he couldn't do.

I liken them to a pair of chimpanzees, flinging paint at a canvass.

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On 1/17/2021 at 9:55 PM, BlackLightning said:

 

On the note of underaged rape scenes and sex scenes...well, first of all, it's HBO. I mean, let's keep it real. Sex scenes between underaged characters are not off-limits. Rape scenes between or involving underaged characters is different but...the others? Nah. Second of all, all the scenes that you cited @$erPounce are extremely problematic besides the fact. The Daenerys/Drogo scenes that are adapted from the books are not rape: especially not the first one on her honeymoon. The Sansa/Ramsay rape scene doesn't exist and was completely made up. To add insult to injury, the Jeyne/Ramsay rape and sexual abuse scenes happen "offscreen" in the books. Cersei takes an active role in preventing any sexual activity between Tommen and Margaery so again...completely made up. If I remember correctly, Tommen/Margaery sex took place offscreen anyways: we saw them post-coitus (not much better I know) but it was off-screen.

Arya/Gendry doesn't exist but they are both supposed to be underaged anyway. I'm not sure why they aged Gendry up like they did. Gendry was only a few years older than Arya in the books (Ned sees him as a boy and Brienne later thinks that he looks like a younger, teenaged Renly).

Yet TV show Gendry looks like he has 7-10 years on her. It was yet another weird decision they made. What bothered me about that scene wasn't its sexuality.

They aged up Gendry I think because they had him in mind early as a replacement for Edric Storm and they knew there was gonna be a sex scene involving Mel and him. I actually think it was one of the few things they planned out in advance (because otherwise, it was clear to me that they were writing the show season by season). 

Also, on the more broader topic of aging up underaged characters who are in sex scenes, I think it's a mixed bag and it's tricky and it has to be handled carefully (which the show obviously had problems with). Now, first of all, I was never one to complain too much about the too many sex and nude scenes in this show (actually, it's so funny to me that GoT became notorious for being "porn with dragons" or otherwise for excessive nudity, when shows like Spartacus Blood and Sand and its sequels exist, which shame GoT in this department in their first episodes, and Blood and Sand came out before GoT as well). BUT! When it comes to underaged characters, the topic of sex scenes (nevermind rape scenes) just becomes too big a can of worms and depiction of it should be avoided whenever it's possible. Now obviously, GoT didn't do that, but in a way, they did. So in general, I think it was the right choice to age up underaged characters who they knew were gonna be in those types of scenes.

So for Daenerys, making her 17-18 at the beginning of the show instead of 13-14 was the right decision, especially because you cannot really avoid her intimate scenes with Drogo, because at that point, it's part of her character progression. Now making their early encounters (including their wedding night) non-conseual on Dany's part was the show's invention and honestly, I've never known how to feel about it. On one hand, it's more "realistic" I guess, but again, since this is such an explosive issue and everytime it's depicted on a popular TV show, you have to walk on eggshells when discussing it, why not just stick to the books? But I think they lucked out on that one, since it was in season 1 and no one was really scrutinizing the show at that point on any deeper level really. 

Sansa/Ramsay was indeed made up for the show and it was just as terrible as the other aspects of Sansa's storyline in Season 5. In fact, the whole Winterfell theatre in Season 5 should not have happened at all in the way it happened. There are really no excuses there for the show.

Tommen/Margaery shouldn't have happened either, but since they aged up Margaery at least somewhat (I'm not sure how old she is supposed to be when she enters the show in season 2, but at least 18-20 I'd wager, just by the way she looks and acts) and they wanted her to sort of seduce Tommen, I guess they had to age him up as well. Now, again, the whole thing could have been avoided if they just kept them as old as they were in the books but it is what it is. Besides, since Tommen took on more of an active role in the KL storyline in S5 and especially in S6, he needed to be much older than 8. But that wasn't planned out in the earlier seasons I think, because he obiously aged too rapidly between seasons.

Now with Gendry and Arya, the problem I don't think is with the age difference like some critics said (I mean, I personally, in real life, know couples with fairly large age differences, so it obviously isn't an unthinkable phenomenon) but with the fact that Gendry knew her as a child and they were in scenes together when she was a child. And when they met years later, though he pretty much looked and acted the same, she was now a grown-up (like HBO made it super clear in advance in a tweet that she was 18 already). So, what should one make of that? I honestly don't know. The sex scene itself wasn't really necessary I guess, but it was done in a fairly tasteful way, so it didn't bother me that much. 

You didn't mention Missandei, she was also infinitely younger in the books and although at the time, I didn't care about it, but looking back, her storyline with Grey Worm was honestly one of the better inventions of the show, so aging her up wasn't really a problem I think and their intimate scenes were not only earned and fitting to their respective character developments, they were also done very tastefully. 

So all in all, I think more than anything, for the most part, GoT kinda circumvented the whole "underaged characters in sex scenes" problem by either aging up book characters depicted in those scenes or if they invented the scenes, aging them up for that reason. I agree completely with the former, and 50/50 on the latter. Sansa/Ramsay, Tommen/Margaery and Gendry/Mel bad (especially how they reflected on it in later seasons), Arya/Gendry meh and Missandei/Grey Worm good.

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4 hours ago, The Boastful Knight said:

They aged up Gendry I think because they had him in mind early as a replacement for Edric Storm and they knew there was gonna be a sex scene involving Mel and him. I actually think it was one of the few things they planned out in advance (because otherwise, it was clear to me that they were writing the show season by season). 

I understand that decision and it makes sense. But I don't agree with it. I think that they dropped the ball on the whole Dragonstone storyline in seasons 2-4. It was a sure sign that they did not care about the supernatural elements of the series. Which is weird because the series is supernatural at its core.

The Stannis story arc was always super dry in the TV show whereas in the books, it's pretty rich what with Cressen, Patchface, Selyse's family and, yes, Edric Storm.

Instead of trying to use Gendry as a stand-in for Gendry, Mya and Edric, I think it's better to just use King Robert's three bastards as key pieces in different storylines before bringing them all together as siblings towards the end. Leave Mya Stone in the Vale so she can be a part of Sansa's circle, let Edric Storm be Edric Storm and keep Gendry with the Brotherhood so he can play off of UnCatelyn, Thoros, Tom Sevenstreams, etc.

Kill one or two of them in the great finale (we were sorely lacking in major deaths anyway) and let the survivor continue House Baratheon.

Speaking of Gendry/Mel...again, everything pertaining to Stannis and Dragonstone was dry. I never really like how they handled the Gendry/Mel situation after the fact. He was essentially raped by Melisandre (and there was an audience, no less) but they acted like he had no real right to complain at all. Like it was like "shut up! rape is empowering surprise sex!"

4 hours ago, The Boastful Knight said:

You didn't mention Missandei, she was also infinitely younger in the books and although at the time, I didn't care about it, but looking back, her storyline with Grey Worm was honestly one of the better inventions of the show, so aging her up wasn't really a problem I think and their intimate scenes were not only earned and fitting to their respective character developments, they were also done very tastefully. 

Missandei and Grey Worm were good. But outside Missandei's death, Grey Worm's confession of love and their sex scene, their relationship fell VERY flat after season 4.

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3 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

I understand that decision and it makes sense. But I don't agree with it. I think that they dropped the ball on the whole Dragonstone storyline in seasons 2-4. It was a sure sign that they did not care about the supernatural elements of the series. Which is weird because the series is supernatural at its core.

The Stannis story arc was always super dry in the TV show whereas in the books, it's pretty rich what with Cressen, Patchface, Selyse's family and, yes, Edric Storm.

Instead of trying to use Gendry as a stand-in for Gendry, Mya and Edric, I think it's better to just use King Robert's three bastards as key pieces in different storylines before bringing them all together as siblings towards the end. Leave Mya Stone in the Vale so she can be a part of Sansa's circle, let Edric Storm be Edric Storm and keep Gendry with the Brotherhood so he can play off of UnCatelyn, Thoros, Tom Sevenstreams, etc.

 

Chalk it up to Benioff and Weiss not liking Stannis.

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