HBO: Game of Thrones

[DRW50]

There sure was a lot of focus in that article on how hard it was for Cogman. Not to be hard-hearted, because I'm sure he genuinely was upset with the whole thing, but he also chose to write the scenes, rather than ask them to give someone else that script. It's not as if he was held at gunpoint.  The whole thing has the usual sycophant-EW undertone of "Don't be critical - you'll hurt his feelings" and praise him because he's "speaking his truth," or whatever the jargon would be.

 

The other problems are:

 

- This is not a realistic show. It's a fantasy show. Why is it that when women are brutalized, it's suddenly time for realism? And if we're talking realism, then Ramsay would not have left her alone as she repeatedly shunned and belittled him. He wouldn't have just killed some servant she barely knew. He would have repeatedly raped her, or he would have tortured or killed her. That's Ramsay. He has little self-control when he is not completely in charge. 

 

-  His comments about her wanting to "get the hell out of there" remind me of the ideas that she needed to be empowered through rape. But none of this happened. Said empowerment amounted to a few sassy one-liners to Ramsay and berating Theon. One could say that she eventually broke through to Theon, but this was not well-told onscreen, and it could have been done without a rape scene. 

 

The people who run this show got high on their own hype and they are also lazy in how they write for characters who are not their favorites. So Sansa got shoved into this story because it saved time and they thought they could pass off a season of nothing beyond a rape scene and being locked up with the Boltons and Theon (whose "redemption" reduced him to a bit player and basically just existed to pit abuse victims against each other until a rushed denouement) as some type of strength. And since it didn't get the result they expected, out come the violins. 

 

 

[Vee]

The difference is that I think Sansa is one of their favorites, particularly in the last two years. But I also don't think the show is nearly as driven by fanbases as you do. I think they acknowledge them but they don't write for them, any more than TWD really does.

 

I don't agree with the fantasy excuse - this is a world GRRM created which has always, always had this low fantasy world heavily steeped in the horrors of brutal medieval societies. We see people gutted, ravaged, families wiped out, etc. and no one has an issue with that, but when it comes time to deal with sexual violence some people seem to want to fall back on "it has dragons and fantastical elements so this other stuff shouldn't happen". My take is that they either can choose to want the show and its content to be infantilized or not. (I don't think you feel this way, but I think the bounce between the two extremes comes up a lot online.) Do I think there's been too much rape, probably, and I don't think Sansa's was necessary. But I also understand how it happened and I don't think it was exploitation, or shot or written as such.

 

I think they made a narrative and perhaps stylistic choice you didn't agree with, and a narrative one I didn't agree with. I understand their reasoning though, and I don't think it's not genuine or hypocritical. YMMV.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Vee

[DRW50]

 

I don't think it's as fanbase-driven as TWD, but it's a self-fulfilling prophecy with GoT. From the start they were, to me anyway, far more invested in characters like Dany, Tyrion and Arya than in most of the rest. And that's where their focus still goes now, as does their attempts at less clumsy, generic writing. If Sansa is a favorite, then not only giving her another woman's storyline, but also taking away about 50 IQ points (would the "player" Sansa really think that the best reaction to a lunatic raping her and holding her captive be to taunt him about being a bastard?) is an odd way of showing it. 

 

Again what bothers me with the "realism" element is it's only realistic when it's time for rape and violence against women. You can say well, they show torture and violence, and that's real, but it's not something that is often repeatedly invented and revived just for the show, the way the rapes are. And it's only realistic within a narrow parameter. Realism would likely include Sansa bleeding to death, or being tortured, or being violated day after day, the way Jeyne Poole was. They didn't want that (nor did I, obviously), because that can't be spun as "empowerment." So it is, for me, trying to have it both ways on their part. As all this type of writing is on this show.

Edited February 19, 2016 by DRW50

[Vee]

I honestly don't think TWD gives a [!@#$%^&*] about fanbases; if they did, we'd have seasons of possibly-asexual molestation victim Daryl being an utterly different character and overtly agonizing over two women onscreen. They're renewed from now til the actual zombie apocalypse at this point, they don't have to care, and GOT also has a much bigger blank check. I think there's a lot of primetime and cable we can potentially apply the cancerous soap audience-to-brass signal to noise ratio thinking you're talking about to, but I just don't think those two shows are a part of that. And I don't think their social media presences can be taken as part of the active production of the shows, either - that's a whole different wing.

 

I actually felt Arya was considerably downplayed last year, as was Tyrion in a lot of ways - he was a sideline to a lot of Daenerys' story and is left in her wake with the rest at the end of the season. I understood why they wanted to consolidate the stories WRT Winterfell/Ramsay Snow, but I don't think either a. raping her, b. raping, torturing and mutilating her, or c. nothing at all were the only options.

 

I agree with you about some of the rapes and sexual violence that's been added to the show, which is why I agree it's overused at this point. And while I think they had the right idea folding Sansa's story back into Winterfell and Ramsay and consolidating it into one resembling one from the books, I don't think they needed to add that specific incident. I think it was a mistake, but I don't think it was done for titillation or exploitation. And I don't think Sansa's empowerment is all about her rape - I think it began before then and continued after, which is why it didn't need to happen at all. But I don't think the only way they can or should be allowed to do some of these things is to do it utterly horribly or not at all.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Vee

[Vee]

EW claims Finn Jones will be playing Marvel's Iron Fist. Solid choice, if true.

[Skin]

I'm not buying into their apologies or sadness either really. They revel in their own filth whenever they write for the Ramsay storyline. The writers themselves have even said that they like writing storylines in which Theon suffers. Sansa was a tool for them to utilize to torture the fan base, and was another trophy for Ramsey to "win." Nothing they say will rid me of that belief. He can take his tears and sprinkle them over his food for seasoning, as far as I am concerned.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Skin

[Vee]

We shall disagree! I'm not trying to rid you of it, I just find it wildly implausible and unrealistic.

[Skin]

Well he failed to give a compelling reason why Sansa had to be raped, which is what makes me feel this way. I felt that it was a gratuitous choice in the first place, and it always seemed like another tool for them to utilize to flagellate Theon further, and to emasculate him more as a cowardly figure. But we are all entitled to our own opinions.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Skin

[Juliajms]

Wonderful news. He has that certain something that makes me want to watch him. It's not just sex appeal either.

[Vee]

I'm happy for him and I think he's a good choice. I just know it will take until he appears on the Luke Cage series for the Internet to stop shrieking because they didn't cast an Asian-American actor. (I would've been perfectly fine with that though Danny Rand is historically white and that's a substantial part of his backstory - admittedly a somewhat dated one which could've been modified. I just don't like when the Internet thinkpiece culture gangs up to try to wish something into reality with magical thinking and then becomes outraged when the extremely predictable opposite occurs, as though they were 'owed' it.)

Edited February 25, 2016 by Vee

[YRBB]

Great stuff. Like I've said before, GOT will be like OZ -- a lot of its cast will never be without work. They have all built incredible goodwill. 

[DRW50]

I didn't know Danny Rand was Asian. Did they change that recently?

[Vee]

He isn't. The minor outrage is because some people hoped the new series would change his ethnicity, which I could understand but do not find necessary.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Vee

[DRW50]

Oh. Thanks. At this point I'm surprised people were expecting it from Marvel. Then again people were upset that Dr. Strange was cast with a white man...

 

Finn's rarely had anything to do on this show so I don't know how he'll be as Danny, but I'm very happy for him. He deserves the break.

[Juliajms]

He's not, which seems to be the whole point. Some people are calling it a colonialist story and cultural approbation. I don't know what's really right in these circumstances. I'll watch and judge on the product.