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[No Spoilers] The Ros Appreciation thread


Raion Laion

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@KayOfLaihr

I understand where you're coming from because my knee-jerk reaction at the way her corpse was posed and other factors was to say it was gratuitous and unnecessary too, but I don't know. I think that's the point. Poor Ros was treated as nothing more than an object by everyone around her, and I think the scene emphasized that, if that makes any sense. She died a painful, pointless, brutal death, and it didn't seem glamorized or sexualized for the purpose of titillation to me - it was horrifying and an absolute gut-punch. The pan to her dead, vacant stare and hanging body was so much more effective than a drawn-out scene of her murder would have been, and less exploitative as well.

Not that I'm trying to put your arguments down or anything, because I made a post a few days ago asking peoples' opinions about what they thought of the reveal and why they felt it was exploitative and such. Just sharing my own thoughts as well.

Seeing peoples' responses online talking about how hot or was or whatever is definitely really disappointing and skeevy, but I feel like they're more or less missing the point and are probably the types to stare at everything through perv-goggles anyway. I won't let that affect my perception of the moment itself.

edit: aaa just noticed all the wonky grammar hours later haha

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I suspect any way the death was staged would have caused people to complain...if it was shown on screen, the complaints would be of torture porn and titilation, if her body was shown as a bloody mangled mess people would complain about that as well.

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You're either misunderdanding everything i'm saying or pretending to.

While i'm argumenting about the show, you try and analyze me. Don't, as you obviously don't get my point. Thanks.

No, I understand your point precisely. You claim that it was portrayed as glamourized sexual violence, yet you personally did not see it as beautiful or sexy. So unless you're somehow an atypical viewer, then the fact that you didn't get some gratuituos thrill from it suggests that viewers in general didn't either, in which case, there's no basis for saying it was portrayed that way. It was instead portrayed as something viewers in general did not find to be sexy or tittilating.

In other words, how do you know the shock, horror, revulsion that you and other people felt was not exactly what the writers/director intended?

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I never minded her or the eye candy she provided. It was pretty obvious that she was a plot device to give insight into what was going on with some of the characters (Theon, Varys, Littlefinger) and I honestly never understood the hate. Heck, I still don't understand the apparent hate of the nudity involved in this series either. GRRM was never afraid to describe nudity or sex scenes in the books and I appreciate that D & D are staying true to that.

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I thought it was a very effective death in that it was unexpected and shocking, and very sad.

Countdown to someone who comes in here and says "I appreciate that Ros is dead, nyuck nyuck"

I thought it was well done. Joffrey was starting to come across as soft. He rebounded to his true nature.

Ros was a great "series-character."

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I never minded her or the eye candy she provided. It was pretty obvious that she was a plot device to give insight into what was going on with some of the characters (Theon, Varys, Littlefinger) and I honestly never understood the hate. Heck, I still don't understand the apparent hate of the nudity involved in this series either. GRRM was never afraid to describe nudity or sex scenes in the books and I appreciate that D & D are staying true to that.

To be fair, the criticism of the nudity is the fact that it is so unequal.

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Heck, I still don't understand the apparent hate of the nudity involved in this series either. GRRM was never afraid to describe nudity or sex scenes in the books and I appreciate that D & D are staying true to that.

I think books are more personal things than are TV shows. I'd gather some folks probably weren't fans of book sex either, but that's easy to skip as a reader. It's not so easy to skip nudity or sex scenes on tv, particularly when you're watching the show as it airs. I've watched the show with my wife, and she really likes the story, but then "stick it up her ass" pops up, along with lots of nudity, and she's like "this isn't drama, this is soft-core porn". And a fair bit of it seems completely gratuitous, as if they're trying to hit the HBO nudity/sex quota or something, because it isn't shown or described in the books. So why is it there, other than for, I suppose, some level of titillation?

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Was very Martinesque way to deal with a "waste" character.

I never had as many issues as most people here seem to have with Ros, I felt very neutral of her. But the way she got outed, awesome.

No one saw it coming, that's the way deaths are supposed to come in series like this, it keeps the viewers on their toes. Anything can happen.

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@chareth cutestory

thanks for your comment. That scene was particularly triggering for me as I'm only too familiar with the topics of domestic violence/violence towards sex workers and the fact that the victims quite often get silenced. That's the reason why I looked at it and payed attention to the details. The brievety of the shot forced me to imagine the missing scenes. And when you get down to it, a former prostitute was sold (or more likely given) to a sexually frustrated sadistic teenager so he could lash out at her, in a luxurious bedroom with dimmed light while wearing a very revealing dress. And it looks like he shot her in the crotch twice. If you make abstraction of the fact that you're actually looking at a dead woman, I maintain that the show made the shot look prettier than it should've been (Sansa getting her period needed more fake blood than Ros' torture). They didn't do that for anyone else that I can think of... Viserys, Ned Stark, Renly, none of their death was made pretty.

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They spent two seasons to build her up, even start to make her interesting and then this?

Come on, not only killing her it also appears pretty useless. Kill her offscreen by Joffrey, and then such a horrible death. It's not only sad but also a mockery to all viewers to dispose her like that

Actually, that's very GRRMish of them to do that :P

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@chareth cutestory

thanks for your comment. That scene was particularly triggering for me as I'm only too familiar with the topics of domestic violence/violence towards sex workers and the fact that the victims quite often get silenced. That's the reason why I looked at it and payed attention to the details. The brievety of the shot forced me to imagine the missing scenes.

Totally understand and see where you're coming from. It's refreshing that you're able to post about the matter so calmly even though you have a very genuine and personal reason for being upset by the scene - around here there's often a lot of grand, sweeping proclamations made and personal attacks leveled against the showrunners for even slightly disagreeable content, and unfortunately it tends to weaken even perfectly valid points in the eyes of other posters when people resort to negativity and melodrama like that.

There's definitely no denying that they succeeded in creating one of the most genuinely, powerfully upsetting moments of the show yet, if not the most upsetting, at least for a lot of us anyway - not only for what we saw, but what we didn't see. I was very impressed that they managed to evoke such a strong emotional response in what essentially amounts to a 3-5 second shot.

Reading over your post and looking at a screencap of her, I do see your point - even brutalized and with crossbow quarrels sticking out of her, she's still relatively unblemished and in what you could call a "sexy" pose. I suppose the main question, then, is whether it's for the purposes of cheap titillation or if it's a valid artistic direction - by making her beautiful even after death, they're further emphasizing her role as an "object" for others up to that point and contributing to the horror of the scene.

(sorry if this is an annoying derail y'all!! i can make another thread or something if needed. i'm probably way over-analyzing this but IDK, it's interesting to me)

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To be fair, the criticism of the nudity is the fact that it is so unequal.

Maybe so, but it's not like they haven't had everything. They've show men, full frontal and also homosexual gay scenes from both women and men.

I think books are more personal things than are TV shows. I'd gather some folks probably weren't fans of book sex either, but that's easy to skip as a reader. It's not so easy to skip nudity or sex scenes on tv, particularly when you're watching the show as it airs. I've watched the show with my wife, and she really likes the story, but then "stick it up her ass" pops up, along with lots of nudity, and she's like "this isn't drama, this is soft-core porn". And a fair bit of it seems completely gratuitous, as if they're trying to hit the HBO nudity/sex quota or something, because it isn't shown or described in the books. So why is it there, other than for, I suppose, some level of titillation?

The point is, they aren't adding sex into the story as much as the story calls for sex. And it's not gratuitous at all. Most of the sex scenes are over within seconds, unless you count scenes like when Little finger is giving his speech in the brothel. Have you ever seen the stars show Sparticus? Go watch that if you want to see a well written TV drama that boarders on softcore skin-amax porn at times, haha.

In a world were whoring is widely excepted, you're going to have some sex.

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I did not expect that ending for Ros, it shocked me; I was expecting her dying getting Sansa in the boat with LF but I then realized that she let Varys know so she had to die before that.

I also felt the actress really did do a good job with the part.

I felt really sad looking at her corpse in that scene, can't wait for the PW.

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i saw her death coming but not at this time or in this manner. i thought she would be the ser dontos equivalent with his role with helping sansa escaping and a confidant for LF in terms of intel, eventually dying in the same instance as the book, that is helping Sansa escape by boat. I guess not. This was alot less interesting, only reinforcing Joff's role which we already know for sure.

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i saw her death coming but not at this time or in this manner. i thought she would be the ser dontos equivalent with his role with helping sansa escaping and a confidant for LF in terms of intel, eventually dying in the same instance as the book, that is helping Sansa escape by boat. I guess not. This was alot less interesting, only reinforcing Joff's role which we already know for sure.

Except since everyone knows Ros works with LF her helping Sansa escape would be pretty obvious and much less interesting. A lot of people were starting to wonder if Joffrey is really being tamed by Tywin/Marg and Gleeson's portrayal shows that he was attempting to be more valiant and was more manageable overall. But then they shoot that short clip that just reminds everyone - nope, there is no taming this kid.

Just because you read the books and know more than the average person would know coming into this episode, it doesn't mean it's bad TV or unnecessary.

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Esmé Bianco was the most underrated and most under-appreciated actress on the show imo. I will miss seeing at least one common person on the show, we need a reminder that common people get caught up in this as well dammit. Her death was fitting in that it grasps one of the main ideas of ASOIAF though: If you get involved with people more powerful than you are, no matter on which level, you're going to get screwed over. That said, it was totally unexpected to me, well, I knew she was getting in trouble, but (!) I thought 'Littlefinger's friend' was

Lyn Corbray and she was perhaps going to return later at the Eyrie in his captivity to show Lyn is a messed up dude.

instead of it being Joffrey.

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