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2 hours ago, EggBlue said:

I'm not sure if they even knew they were depicting sexual assault in some cases until they received backlash . ( ie, Cersei/Jaimie I think) which is disturbing as hell coming from two men living in  21st century . and I don't agree that they were all done empathetically especially that they were done in ignorance . as an example I remember an interview in which they talked about they just wanted a rough start for Drogo and Dany's relationship . well , rape(especially as clear as the show version) is not just a rough start .  book version , although has a consensual start , is actually a rough start considering they don't have any means of communication at the beginning . 

The confusion around that scene is, well, confusing but frankly the lines between consent and non-consent can be blurry, especially between two people with as fucked up a relationship as Jaime and Cersei. I thought the scene communicated that very well. Benioff and Weiss being "two men" isn't irrelevant but I think that's a reductive statement considering the dozens of people that worked on that episode and scene, including a woman (Lena Heady). 

The Drogo/Dany thing is tough to navigate anyway you slice it, but I think the show improved on the book. In the book, 13 year old Dany immediately gets into it once Drogo is nice to her. It's certainly possible to write/depict a sex scene between a 13 year old girl and an adult man that honestly presents consent on both sides/is empathetic to both characters, but the Dany/Drogo sex scene in the first book feels like a copout. It's really, really hard to believe that a naive 13 year old girl who's just been sold into slavery to a barbarian is going to have a good first sexual experience with him because he's not "raping" her in the conventional sense. Honestly, I don't think Martin has the stomach to depict any of his POV characters getting raped. Which is a totally valid decision on his part, but it does make scenes like that one ring false. The development of Dany and Drogo's relationship in the show is much more believable thanks to the fact that it starts in a really dark place and grows from there in a way that feels true to both characters. It also doesn't hurt that Jason Momoa brings a lot to Drogo, who's really a pretty one-dimensional character in the books. 

2 hours ago, EggBlue said:

but including a rape scene for the sake of including it deserves backlash . 

with that story line ,Dark Sansa moment of previous season was completely destroyed .and despite seeing Sansa declaring that she does not run away because she is Stark of Winterfell as if she had a plan , she got raped which was a visual depiction of killing her character in my opinion and we saw her as a desperate prisoner who needs Reek to run away . honestly, I still thought they have included that godawful wedding in that season to show Sansa becoming more manipulative (like she showed hints of with Joff)  and give her a little more agency ,for example by turning Ramsay and Roose against each other or something . I mean that marriage would have still been rape for Sansa but at least her arc wouldn't have gone in such ridiculous way. and the cherry on top : she declared that Ramsay was necessary for her improvement! that one was infuriating  . honestly, they only used Sansa that season to be a catalyst in Theon and Jon's arcs and Brienne's reason to get to Stannis and her revenge. 

I'm not really sure what "including a rape scene for the sake of including it" means. Things are included or they're not included and we take from that what we will. Rape scenes don't need to check a list of boxes to merit inclusion in a work of art. Some works will be smarter or more thoughtful about it than others, but including them or not including them is a neutral factor. 

I don't think Sansa's arc was ridiculous and I don't think her rape was "the visual depiction of killing her character". Honestly, that's kind of a fucked up thing to say about rape survivors. Those scenes influence everything Sansa does going forward and I think the show has real empathy for her and continues to present her as a complicated, consistent character who has to find a way to integrate a nightmarish experience into the reality of who she is as a person, in the same way that all rape and abuse survivors must. 

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

he sexualised torture of Theon (with the Violet/Myranda faux seduction scene) and the death of Ros, were very much put in to titillate or shock. 

Theon's torture scenes inform everything about his character going forward and the sexualization of the scenes feels to me like a pointed reversal of Theon's former persona as a ladies man. Also does a great job of upping the ante with Ramsey, in presenting him as a worse version of the monster we've already seen in Joffrey.

Ros's death scene is horrifying, all the more so because it's sexualized. The discomfort you're feeling due to it being "titilating or shocking" is intentional. 

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3 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

The problem is, they aged Dany up to 16, which is at or above the age of consent in most places. So they fixed one problem just to create a new one.

I like what he said about how adaptations should stay loyal to the books :D

All HBO wants is for us to talk about them dragons, and instead we’re talking about this shit! 

*How I envision it happened*

Matt: Really, another sex scene?

Producers: Yes. Listen, Matt, we need to make it up to the straight female part of the audience. We're in the dire wolf house with them since the whole Sansa and Daenerys thing.

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1 minute ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

The confusion around that scene is, well, confusing but frankly the lines between consent and non-consent can be blurry, especially between two people with as fucked up a relationship as Jaime and Cersei. I thought the scene communicated that very well. Benioff and Weiss being "two men" isn't irrelevant but I think that's a reductive statement considering the dozens of people that worked on that episode and scene, including a woman (Lena Heady). 

The Drogo/Dany thing is tough to navigate anyway you slice it, but I think the show improved on the book. In the book, 13 year old Dany immediately gets into it once Drogo is nice to her. It's certainly possible to write/depict a sex scene between a 13 year old girl and an adult man that honestly presents consent on both sides/is empathetic to both characters, but the Dany/Drogo sex scene in the first book feels like a copout. It's really, really hard to believe that a naive 13 year old girl who's just been sold into slavery to a barbarian is going to have a good first sexual experience with him because he's not "raping" her in the conventional sense. Honestly, I don't think Martin has the stomach to depict any of his POV characters getting raped. Which is a totally valid decision on his part, but it does make scenes like that one ring false. The development of Dany and Drogo's relationship in the show is much more believable thanks to the fact that it starts in a really dark place and grows from there in a way that feels true to both characters. It also doesn't hurt that Jason Momoa brings a lot to Drogo, who's really a pretty one-dimensional character in the books. 

I'm not really sure what "including a rape scene for the sake of including it" means. Things are included or they're not included and we take from that what we will. Rape scenes don't need to check a list of boxes to merit inclusion in a work of art. Some works will be smarter or more thoughtful about it than others, but including them or not including them is a neutral factor. 

I don't think Sansa's arc was ridiculous and I don't think her rape was "the visual depiction of killing her character". Honestly, that's kind of a fucked up thing to say about rape survivors. Those scenes influence everything Sansa does going forward and I think the show has real empathy for her and continues to present her as a complicated, consistent character who has to find a way to integrate a nightmarish experience into the reality of who she is as a person, in the same way that all rape and abuse survivors must. 

Theon's torture scenes inform everything about his character going forward and the sexualization of the scenes feels to me like a pointed reversal of Theon's former persona as a ladies man. Also does a great job of upping the ante with Ramsey, in presenting him as a worse version of the monster we've already seen in Joffrey.

Ros's death scene is horrifying, all the more so because it's sexualized. The discomfort you're feeling due to it being "titilating or shocking" is intentional. 

I think what EggBlue is saying is that Sansa marrying Ramsay was really, really dumb. On a narrative level, you don’t marry your enemies for revenge, especially when your claim is better than theirs. And if you have to take your army back down south again, you leave a few guards behind to watch over the most high-ranking lady in the north. On a thematic level, S4 ended with Sansa taking charge and playing the game after four seasons of being an abused pawn, complete with a Darth Sansa makeover, only to then go back to being an abused pawn and spending the rest of the season locked in a rape tower. It was all so utterly stupid and boring.

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12 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

The confusion around that scene is, well, confusing but frankly the lines between consent and non-consent can be blurry, especially between two people with as fucked up a relationship as Jaime and Cersei. I thought the scene communicated that very well. Benioff and Weiss being "two men" isn't irrelevant but I think that's a reductive statement considering the dozens of people that worked on that episode and scene, including a woman (Lena Heady). 

The Drogo/Dany thing is tough to navigate anyway you slice it, but I think the show improved on the book. In the book, 13 year old Dany immediately gets into it once Drogo is nice to her. It's certainly possible to write/depict a sex scene between a 13 year old girl and an adult man that honestly presents consent on both sides/is empathetic to both characters, but the Dany/Drogo sex scene in the first book feels like a copout. It's really, really hard to believe that a naive 13 year old girl who's just been sold into slavery to a barbarian is going to have a good first sexual experience with him because he's not "raping" her in the conventional sense. Honestly, I don't think Martin has the stomach to depict any of his POV characters getting raped. Which is a totally valid decision on his part, but it does make scenes like that one ring false. The development of Dany and Drogo's relationship in the show is much more believable thanks to the fact that it starts in a really dark place and grows from there in a way that feels true to both characters. It also doesn't hurt that Jason Momoa brings a lot to Drogo, who's really a pretty one-dimensional character in the books. 

I'm not really sure what "including a rape scene for the sake of including it" means. Things are included or they're not included and we take from that what we will. Rape scenes don't need to check a list of boxes to merit inclusion in a work of art. Some works will be smarter or more thoughtful about it than others, but including them or not including them is a neutral factor. 

I don't think Sansa's arc was ridiculous and I don't think her rape was "the visual depiction of killing her character". Honestly, that's kind of a fucked up thing to say about rape survivors. Those scenes influence everything Sansa does going forward and I think the show has real empathy for her and continues to present her as a complicated, consistent character who has to find a way to integrate a nightmarish experience into the reality of who she is as a person, in the same way that all rape and abuse survivors must. 

Theon's torture scenes inform everything about his character going forward and the sexualization of the scenes feels to me like a pointed reversal of Theon's former persona as a ladies man. Also does a great job of upping the ante with Ramsey, in presenting him as a worse version of the monster we've already seen in Joffrey.

Ros's death scene is horrifying, all the more so because it's sexualized. The discomfort you're feeling due to it being "titilating or shocking" is intentional. 

The whole idea that Sansa would ever willingly marry the man whose father massacred her family is stupid beyond belief.  The idea that LF would ever press for such a marriage is stupid beyond belief.  And it’s not even Sansa’s story.  It’s Jeyne Poole’s and Alys Karstark’s stories, cut and pasted into Sansa’s.  Finally, having her saying she’d have remained a little bird but for Ramsay’s rape and torture is gross.

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Just now, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think what EggBlue is saying is that Sansa marrying Ramsay was really, really dumb. On a narrative level, you don’t marry your enemies for revenge, especially when your claim is better than theirs. And if you have to take your army back down south again, you leave a few guards behind to watch over the most high-ranking lady in the north. On a thematic level, S4 ended with Sansa taking charge and playing the game after four seasons of being an abused pawn, complete with a Darth Sansa makeover, only to then go back to being an abused pawn and spending the rest of the season locked in a rape tower. It was all so utterly stupid and boring.

I mean, there's multiple reasons why Sansa might marry Ramsay:

1. She plans to gut him in the middle of the night AND/or let her followers into the keep to slaughter everyone. Yes, its a violation of kinslaying, guest right, and more but would be perfectly in character for Sansa to be the first Stark to say, "Honor is a lie" with a Hound-like expression on her face.

2. She genuinely wants to make peace with the Boltons and end the struggle in the North, which of course is not remotely what's on screen.

3. She plans to manipulate Ramsay into killing his father and/or the Freys or others because she's become super confidant in her psychopath whispering skills.

But none of these are on display because they barely change the Jeyne Poole plot.

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9 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

 

The Drogo/Dany thing is tough to navigate anyway you slice it, but I think the show improved on the book. In the book, 13 year old Dany immediately gets into it once Drogo is nice to her. It's certainly possible to write/depict a sex scene between a 13 year old girl and an adult man that honestly presents consent on both sides/is empathetic to both characters, but the Dany/Drogo sex scene in the first book feels like a copout. It's really, really hard to believe that a naive 13 year old girl who's just been sold into slavery to a barbarian is going to have a good first sexual experience with him because he's not "raping" her in the conventional sense. Honestly, I don't think Martin has the stomach to depict any of his POV characters getting raped. Which is a totally valid decision on his part, but it does make scenes like that one ring false. The development of Dany and Drogo's relationship in the show is much more believable thanks to the fact that it starts in a really dark place and grows from there in a way that feels true to both characters. It also doesn't hurt that Jason Momoa brings a lot to Drogo, who's really a pretty one-dimensional character in the books. 

 

Well in the case of Sansa's rape Benioff and Weiss kept to Martin's train of thought with the POVs not being raped, since the focus was on Theon in that scene, particularly on his crying face.

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2 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I think what EggBlue is saying is that Sansa marrying Ramsay was really, really dumb. On a narrative level, you don’t marry your enemies for revenge, especially when your claim is better than theirs. And if you have to take your army back down south again, you leave a few guards behind to watch over the most high-ranking lady in the north. On a thematic level, S4 ended with Sansa taking charge and playing the game after four seasons of being an abused pawn, complete with a Darth Sansa makeover, only to then go back to being an abused pawn and spending the rest of the season locked in a rape tower. It was all so utterly stupid and boring.

Littlefinger married Sansa to Ramsay because she has a claim to the North and the Boltons are the ones currently controlling the North. I feel like it was pretty clear that Littlefinger intended to use her to ingratiate himself with the Boltons and then betray them because that's how Littlefinger works. 

The fact that Sansa "earned" her "Dark Sansa" skin at the end of season 4 only to discover that it doesn't shield you from the machinations of men like Littlefinger and Ramsay is a tough pill to swallow. Almost like she was learning a lesson of some kind. Huh. 

I won't defend the pacing of season 5. At that point, they had really hit a wall of too many plot lines and not enough time to go around.

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The whole idea that Sansa would ever willingly marry the man whose father massacred her family is stupid beyond belief.  The idea that LF would ever press for such a marriage is stupid beyond belief.  And it’s not even Sansa’s story.  It’s Jeyne Poole’s and Alys Karstark’s stories, cut and pasted into Sansa’s.  Finally, having her saying she’d have remained a little bird but for Ramsay’s rape and torture is gross.

I don't know what show you were watching where you think Sansa willingly marries Ramsay. She went through with it yes, but it was clearly under duress. 

The Jeyne Poole/Alys Karstark point isn't really relevant, they're both nonexistent in the show. I mean, they both appear in the show, but they're functionally different characters. 

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4 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Well in the case of Sansa's rape Benioff and Weiss kept to Martin's train of thought with the POVs not being raped, since the focus was on Theon in that scene, particularly on his crying face.

I love that moment. Alfie Allen crushes it and it's the emotional bedrock of the later scenes between Theon and Sansa. 

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1 minute ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

I don't know what show you were watching where you think Sansa willingly marries Ramsay. She went through with it yes, but it was clearly under duress. 

The Jeyne Poole/Alys Karstark point isn't really relevant, they're both nonexistent in the show. I mean, they both appear in the show, but they're functionally different characters. 

So why did she go through with the plan?

At the end of the day it was her choice to go along with Littlefinger's plan.

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1 minute ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

I don't know what show you were watching where you think Sansa willingly marries Ramsay. She went through with it yes, but it was clearly under duress. 

The Jeyne Poole/Alys Karstark point isn't really relevant, they're both nonexistent in the show. I mean, they both appear in the show, but they're functionally different characters. 

LF never compelled her to travel to Winterfell.  He talked Sansa into doing something that made no sense for either of them.

The point about Jeyne and Alys is their stories are given to another character in a way that makes no sense.

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3 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

Because she trusted Littlefinger and was in no position to refuse? Like, what was she going to do otherwise?

Why should she trust him? At this point she should know he only cares about her as the image of her mother and has passed his affections to her, Sansa, whom Littlefinger says should have been his child. Plus he didn't do jack shit for her in King's Landing except smuggle her out of the city (and that's before she learns that he betrayed her father).

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1 minute ago, Angel Eyes said:

Why should she trust him? At this point she should know he only cares about her as the image of her mother and has passed his affections to her, Sansa, whom Littlefinger says should have been his child.

I mean, she probably shouldn't have trusted him by that point, but he was her benefactor and her only line to actual power at that time. It's not a great decision, but hey, sometimes fictional characters make bad choices!

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3 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

Because she trusted Littlefinger and was in no position to refuse? Like, what was she going to do otherwise?

Of course she could have refused.  She’d just saved LF’s life at the end of Season 4, and could easily have shopped him to the Vale lords if she wanted..

D & D simply wanted to ditch the Vale plot for…reasons.

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14 minutes ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

Littlefinger married Sansa to Ramsay because she has a claim to the North and the Boltons are the ones currently controlling the North. I feel like it was pretty clear that Littlefinger intended to use her to ingratiate himself with the Boltons and then betray them because that's how Littlefinger works. 

The fact that Sansa "earned" her "Dark Sansa" skin at the end of season 4 only to discover that it doesn't shield you from the machinations of men like Littlefinger and Ramsay is a tough pill to swallow. Almost like she was learning a lesson of some kind. Huh. 

I won't defend the pacing of season 5. At that point, they had really hit a wall of too many plot lines and not enough time to go around.

How many times do you have to learn the same lesson before it becomes redundant?

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1 minute ago, Black of Hair and Heart said:

I'd suspect that the primary reason was "it didn't exist because Martin hadn't written it yet" whereas the Northern plot with the Boltons did. 

D&D were also clear they wanted to wind down from three sets to one and decrease the number of characters and plots.

Hence their gleeful excision of the majority of Martells, Griff, Victarion, Damphair, and so on.

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1 minute ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

How many times do you have to learn the same lesson before it becomes redundant?

I don't think there's a fixed number. But you'd be surprised how many people have the same lesson shoved in their face again and again and never learn it. Although it's different for Sansa since all of this is happening against her will. 

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