GoT is actually disgusting, isn't it?

[Miljah]

In what way can it be described as 'entertainment'?

I seriously, don't understand why people happily sit down to watch the carnage, the immolation, the screaming children.

What is wrong with people?

I think You must just be a vastly better person than those millions of us who like GoT, pat yourself on the back OP and bask in your moral superiority.

GoT fans get really cross and defensive, don’t they?

Considering it's about as original as a supermarket knock off of cornflakes, GoT has certainly become popular.

Oh come on, people who willingly watch Saw or Hostel are worse surely!?

It’s funny how those who agree with us are reasonable and measured, but those who take an opposing viewpoint are always condemned as frothing, seething, defensive, cross, angry....

The most frothing poster on here was surely the OP!

I'm a 59 year old mum. I love GOT and am wildly over invested in it. I also loved Rome which an earlier poster described as wank fodder for teens. The writing and acting of that series was superb. If it doesn't work for you, don't watch.

While it is a fantasy series, it does well to remind us that these things happen during times of war. People forget their humanity. It has been happening around the world and we turn our backs to it on the news, so what’s the difference if they’re wearing costumes. Can’t this be a good thing for us to be reminded of?

“People forget their humanity. It has been happening around the world and we turn our backs to it on the news, so what’s the difference if they’re wearing costumes.”

As so many have said- because it’s not real. If we turn our back on it on then news because it it too distressing, then watching it as a drama is not going to increase or awareness of real life agonies.

So anyone running around yelling about how its definitely 100% okay to really enjoy watching a great deal of very violent simulated rape and it doesn't mean anything at all, is going to be at least a little suspicious in my book

Can you not watch something horrific and enjoy it while still feeling negative emotions? I've been through sexual violence, I still watch a lot of dramas involving rape and sexual abuse/abduction etc. It's not "wow I love this", it's empathising with the character and feeling pain when they go through what they do, rooting for them to get away? "Enjoy" to me doesn't necessarily mean smiling and laughing. I enjoyed the boy in the striped pyjamas, even though I was in tears. It means it touched me.

That being said, do you remember Happy Valley? I know the man was a rapist and horrifically violent psycho. But he was very attractive and I couldn't help liking him. Still recognised he was evil though and everything he did as evil.

No one was rubbing their hands together with glee as the people were burned alive. It was a bloody and shocking climax to a very long running series. It would be unreasonable and frankly unbelievable to shy away from the horrors of war. I think there have been problematic sexual scenes before in the series but this episode dealt honestly and in-leeringly with the brutality that it really has earned the right to over the course of ten years. There’s a dragon, for goodness sake. What else is it going to do? It’s absolutely fine if it’s not your cup of tea but follow your train of thought to its logical conclusion and we wouldn’t watch/read/consume anything.

What a bizarre thread, are people suggesting no one should ever depict violence in art? That's quite a lot of it wiped out then isn't it.

Indeed, @squidge. It’s unhelpful to use the term ‘entertainment’ as if all it is good for is scoffing popcorn to. We watch and consume many things for many reasons. To evoke emotions, to empathise, to learn, to explore. This argument is reductive.

I would love to be able to watch GoT because it does seem to have a fascinating plot and the production looks visually stunning. I have read the books and made it most of the way through the first series , but the sexposition was annoying and I can't bear the way they dwell on the gore - I find it grim enough to know what has happened without having to see it in close up. (I don't watch or read horror at all.) I think I gave up at the point when I looked away, but when I looked back the camera was lingering on something even more horrific. I think I need a version which skips the gory bits...

lock how do I know who is evil? Well people who enjoy watching evil being done (even in a simulated reality) is one of the first places I'd be looking

I mean come on, this is ridiculous, no one is rubbing their thighs while someone's being burnt during GOT. It's storytelling! Do you not like stories?

I think you have a very, very over-simplified view of how any kind of art works and of why people consume, for want of a better word, it in the way that they do.

Do you know Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus?

Anyway, Carol Ann Duffy says it better than I do.

Mrs Schofield's GCSE

The poem Carol Ann Duffy penned in response to her work being removed from a GCSE curriculum
Carol Ann Duffy

You must prepare your bosom for his knife,

said Portia to Antonio in which

of Shakespeare's Comedies? Who killed his wife,

insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch

knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said

Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?

Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt's death?

To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark - do you

know what this means? Explain how poetry

pursues the human like the smitten moon

above the weeping, laughing earth; how we

make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:

speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.

“What a bizarre thread, are people suggesting no one should ever depict violence in art? That's quite a lot of it wiped out then isn't it”

No. Because that would be silly.

So if we show no graphic violence on TV we can choose to either avoid epics/fantasy/war altogether, because war happens obvs and it's bad but we don't want our Sunday dinner ruined by having to see it, stick to the antiques roadshow thanks, or perhaps have the war and fights for power and philosophising about how power corrupts, but have the nasty stuff happen off screen so the people we decided we're the 'goodies' can shoot dozens of baddies without us having to watch the baddies die horribly and see the awful consequences and worry about whether perhaps the 'goody' might also be a bit of a shit, a la James bond?

Since OP is clearly responding to GOT most recent episode, it was pretty obvious the viewer is supposed to empathise with the characters who are horrified and shellshocked by what happens, and were led to think about whether war is ever justified, even if it is originally presented as a 'just' war against tyranny, because war is hell and violence is horrific whoever is committing it and whatever their reasons.

Saying watching it means you enjoy violence is like saying that people who watch romcoms love it when their friends get their heart broken

Right So is it the kind of violence in GOT? Only certain kinds of violence should be written/acted?

We all have different strategies for managing what we see and hear. I can't watch Titanic. I was shocked by how popular it was. How can anyone spend an hour and a half watching people drown?
Luckily for Kate and Leo, I was alone!

if I were to go looking for evil in the world I'd start with those who really seem to enjoy watching gratuitous violence

This is really strange. Really strange. Because I enjoy Game of Thrones, a fantasy television programme about ice zombies and dragons, that makes me the first place to look for evil.

My enjoyment of a fake television programme negates my charity work, my Foster child, my primary school work, the awareness I raise for certain causes, my donations to food banks and the homeless, the assemblies I take on the importance of sustainability, kindness and celebration of diversity?

Ludicrous.

I can't watch it either - I can't cope with a lot of TV violence these days (think it started after I had post-natal anxiety with DD1) and the two I've found I have to leave the room when DH is watching them on TV are 24 and GoT.

DH watches it avidly - he'd read all the books long before they announced the TV series - and I just jokingly refer to it as "Game of Tits and Dragons"... I just bugger off and do other stuff.

I can watch things like Ambulance and 24 Hours in.. fine - it's something about the way programmes like GOT pitch their violence to pull on the viewer that really doesn't sit nicely with me - so I just don't watch it. Shame in a way because I love the theme music and the like of it, and I'm quite partial to a bit of dragon action - but I just can't do GoT.

I'll be glad when the whole social media hypewagon of it all is over though. Think a lot of people are talking themselves up into huge disappointment with how they're expecting the epic ending to end all endings and I'm just thinking.... "Hello.... Lost is calling you"

I can't watch Titanic. I was shocked by how popular it was.

I’m like that with Les Mis. Grim event after grim event, and she has to sell her teeth and hair! It’s a pass from me.

GoT fans get really cross and defensive, don’t they?

Or are they a bit incredulous at the bonkers posts from the OP and the person with the remarkably similar posting style who took over the baton after the OP went to bed.

I've watched most of GoT and thought that the writing in the last series was getting better - more plot interest, less sex and violence. The most recent episode was horrible though. I get the feeling that it was meant to be. If there's going to be violence in the plot, then I'd rather be shown that war is horrible than have some kind of sanitised violence where only baddies die and they die instantly or while groaning as though they've a belly ache. I'm kind of relieved that it's almost over, it could have been so much better as a series than it has been.

I watch it and enjoy it because I KNOW IT ISN'T REAL?