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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 22, 2015 at 10:29 am
Of course I'm repulsed by the rape scene(s). I'm a woman, rape is horrible and frightening, and well...repulsive, done to a man or a woman.
However, why are people more repulsed by that than say, poor Oberyn getting his head popped like a grape? That bothered me for a LONG time after viewing it.
I guess I'm just one of those people out of the loop or something.
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 22, 2015 at 10:43 am
The most disturbing aspect of the show has to be for me Ramsay's slow breaking down of Theon into Reek. There's something about a human being being gradually ground down and transformed into something else that I find utterly disturbing. Did it stop me watching? Nope, if anything it gives a whole new layer of morbid fascination to the show. Part of the reason I enjoy GoT is its totally unflinching portrayal of the world which it exists in - most of the people are bastards (a few quite literally) and really bad, really fucked up shit happens. If people can't handle it, fair enough.
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 22, 2015 at 10:52 am
(May 22, 2015 at 10:43 am)Iroscato Wrote: The most disturbing aspect of the show has to be for me Ramsay's slow breaking down of Theon into Reek. There's something about a human being being gradually ground down and transformed into something else that I find utterly disturbing. Did it stop me watching? Nope, if anything it gives a whole new layer of morbid fascination to the show. Part of the reason I enjoy GoT is its totally unflinching portrayal of the world which it exists in - most of the people are bastards (a few quite literally) and really bad, really fucked up shit happens. If people can't handle it, fair enough.
I know, right?
But seriously, I have to agree with you here, I don't understand why people would be less squeamish about the Ramsay/Theon plotline than 2 very brief rape scenes. Seriously, some of that last season really did verge on torture porn.
Rape is a very sad reality, as is murder, torture, etc. And like murder, torture, etc, it was even more common (and more accepted) in the middle ages. GoT's really is just saying it like it is....or was. We can't judge a show that is portraying the morals of a fictional people based on cultures 500 to 1000 years ago on the morals of today. That is, really, the whole freaking POINT of GoT's. To be turned away by a specific aspect but accept all the other stuff is asinine. Well, imo. 
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 22, 2015 at 12:50 pm
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2015 at 12:51 pm by Regina.)
I think that's true. It's why I don't understand some of the feminist critique about the show being "sexist". It is sexist, but there's context to it, it's heavily influeced by medieval European culture which was a deeply sexist and homophobic culture, and where gory brutality was commonplace. It wouldn't make sense to have every character in the show being chivalrous and benign. Scenes like that (while disturbing) are what show some characters for the monsters they are. It could also be educational in a perverse way, by showing us a model of a society we definitely don't want to live in, or even idealize.
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 22, 2015 at 12:54 pm
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2015 at 12:56 pm by pocaracas.)
Off-camera chopping of Theon's dick and then waving a sausage in his face is OK, but off-camera rough sex with your newly wed (albeit uncooperative) wife isn't?!
EDIT: not to mention this very episode's repeated mentioning of cock merchants and how they were going to chop Tyrion's off. This is ok, huh?
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 22, 2015 at 1:26 pm
Why is every media outlet supposed to be a bastion of progressive thinking, regardless of the setting?
I don't get this. Of course the rape was grotesque and brutal. That was the fucking point. Did the show condone rape? Were Weiss and Benioff supposed to have a "The More You Know" moment after the show, like an after school special? Fuck the PC police.
One of the most overarching themes in this series, both book and show, is the fact that death and misfortune are for everyone. Highborn or not, bad shit happens because bad people exist and bad things exist. We have seen Ramsay hunting women with dogs. To kill them. Rape is terrible, but the fear and anguish that would come with being hunted and torn to shreds like a wild animal would trump everything in my book. We are supposed to revile and fear Ramsay. And so we do, and so will Ramsay's recompense be that much sweeter, or his triumph that much more defeating. That is the hallmark of a great show. When it can hit the ends of the emotion spectrum through characters and storytelling.
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 23, 2015 at 3:22 am
(May 22, 2015 at 1:49 am)SteelCurtain Wrote: Well remember, Doran is a calculating pansy. He might send Jaime back just to avoid a war. They really haven't hit too hard on that part of Doran's personality, this might be how they show it. In the books, he locks up all his nieces in order to avoid war, and he the whole thing with Arianne.
That does sound likely, although I think it would go beyond any pansy-ish tendencies we've seen in the book, to send him back would be passing up a golden opportunity the Lannister's have handed them, and keeping Jaime as a hostage could be a good way of preventing war
(May 22, 2015 at 6:50 am)Iroscato Wrote: As long as it remains the best TV show of all time - and in my opinion it still is - I couldn't care less how closely it follows the books. They'll still retain the basic elements and draw from GRRM's plans to a certain degree, much as how the MCU takes elements and amalgamates them into the movies, but doesn't strictly follow them.
I agree, it doesn't really matter how faithful the series is to the books so long as it's still good, but some of the recent deviations from the books haven't looked too promising. I'm just worried that in going away from the books they could fall into some of the traps of writing a tv show, sensationalist attention grabbing, contrived cliff-hangers, reluctance to kill off fan favourites despite that being one of the reasons GoT is so popular. With a book you can afford a slow, natural build to a rewarding conclusion at the end - with a tv series you have to be constantly focused on ratings from week to week. Although there have been great tv shows in the past that haven't fallen into those traps I listed above, The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men come to mind
(May 22, 2015 at 10:43 am)Iroscato Wrote: The most disturbing aspect of the show has to be for me Ramsay's slow breaking down of Theon into Reek. There's something about a human being being gradually ground down and transformed into something else that I find utterly disturbing. Did it stop me watching? Nope, if anything it gives a whole new layer of morbid fascination to the show. Part of the reason I enjoy GoT is its totally unflinching portrayal of the world which it exists in - most of the people are bastards (a few quite literally) and really bad, really fucked up shit happens. If people can't handle it, fair enough.
Definitely, I found myself strangely looking forward to and dreading scenes between Ramsay and Reek. I think it's a similar sort of morbid curiosity to wanting to see the face of that woman who got her face ripped off by her pet chimp be unveiled - it's quite disturbing to think I have that capacity, to on some level want to see things like that
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 25, 2015 at 6:59 am
Is it too early to say, OMG Tyene (.)(.) O.O?!
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 25, 2015 at 11:59 am
My reaction to the latest episode elegantly summed up in meme form -
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RE: Game of Thrones Season 5 Discussion [SPOILERS WITHIN]
May 25, 2015 at 12:14 pm
Holy shit!
I just found that the actress that plays Tyene, whom found to be the prettiest of the sand snakes since episode 1... and maybe the the prettiest on the whole show... was once on a children's show... that my kids watched and I already thought the girl was cute in there... Mia and me Oh, boy...
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