I know it's been done to death but Game of Thrones

[ASAS]

Please consider this a potential trigger warning if pregnant...

Stopped watching when I was pregnant because they killed a baby. My DS is now 4. It's on in the background while I potter about but I've just noticed a pregnant woman being stabbed in the stomach. Has it been 4 years of this level of violence? How does this even manage to get on TV?

How can you possibly tell what we are 'supposed' to be?

By the way it's written and presented, assuming we aren't psychopaths who have no empathy for the characters.
As for the purpose, you'd have to ask GRRM. I doubt it's to make us all rise up. Maybe it's to make him $$$?

I don't enjoy violence, no.

I don't think you do, either? But you're laying into me for criticising a show you like, and it bothers me because you - and others - seem to be almost personally offended by anyone not liking what you like.

It's not wrong to talk about why GoT is the way it is. We shouldn't get mocked for it.

And I do think it is deeply worrying when people make huge claims for GoT being a way of making us sympathise, or think about history differently. Because it is, as has been said, fantasy and entertainment. And it reflects the fact Martin and the makers of the show actively chose how they were going to write and portray it.

I do not think it is plausible to pretend that everyone who watches GoT, watches in a spirit of feminist awareness, looking at the naked women and thinking 'shocking! Horrible! I can't bear to see this!'

If they did, people would turn over and not watch those bits.

Clearly, a lot of people enjoy it, and also want to defend it. There have been multiple big debates in the media about how to excuse scenes of rape, or how to justify abuse, and I do think these show that people are actually emotionally invested in the show, and not just calmly and academically interested in 'emotions'.

I'm not laying into you? We are having a debate. Or we were.

I do not think it is plausible to pretend that everyone who watches GoT, watches in a spirit of feminist awareness, looking at the naked women and thinking 'shocking! Horrible! I can't bear to see this!'
Who said they do? Again you're applying expectations. Not everything has to have some noble cause to it. You seem to think GRRM has a feminist obligation and you seem to think that viewers watch with a 'spirit of feminist awareness', you have applied these expectations to people. Why? And no-one said they were 'calmly and academically interested in emotions' either. Emotions are the key to entertainment. No-ones sat watching GoT with a view to learn and develop

Can I ask, what is your goal, do you think that all rape, abuse, murder etc should be banned from films and books?

Ok, maybe I'm just having a bad day.

I thought we were having a debate, and then you decided to tell me the way I was communicating wasn't acceptable and to tick me off. When I pointed out you'd done the same, you found reason why that wasn't ok either. Now you're suggesting I have some kind of sinister 'goal'.

Does it not occur to you I might just, you know, not like Game of Thrones in the same way you obviously do? And I might even like it, but still want to discuss it critically, without that being treated as shocking and odd?

You were patronising, and you know you were. I did not belittle you, I said that if you want all happy things (which from your posts is what I garnered, apologies if this is wrong) then that's your choice. I did not, like you, imply that you and your associates arent able to think critically. Neither do I think you have a sinister goal, I'm trying to ascertain what you want from programmes and books if you are against the portrayal of negative (negative being barbaric, brutal) actions. It is a genuine question that I am interested to hear the answer of.

I know you don't like GoT, that much is evident, and that's not a bad thing either. We are discussing it - or is it not a discussion to you because I'm challenging instead of agreeing?

If you want a anti-GoT echo chamber discussion then fair enough, but when you challenge other peoples views (the its history one) then people can come back to you and say what they think too, like I did.

I think it's best if I left it there, you say you're being mocked when my intention was to debate. I've read back my initial posts (and other peoples) before I took umbrage to your comment and don't see anywhere we you have been mocked, but as to not belittle your feelings it's probably best to not go any further :)

Ok, grays.

Let's accept I misread your posts and you misread mine, and we've ended up at cross purposes?

I don't think trading insults is useful, and I don't think answering your questions would be a good idea, since I think you are making me into a straw woman with them.

That's interesting reading Buffy. I'm not big on the 'its history' view. I don't think I know enough about history to say that. But I do know there's reality.

Although speaking of reality, one minor thing that gets my goat EVERY TIME and is something relatively daft to get worked up over is the fact that men have mazzy beards but women have perfect brows and not the hint of leg fuzz.

Ok, now there we can agree!

That drives me bonkers. And perhaps explains what I meant earlier more clearly - that is why I think the women are sexualised for our (audience) benefit. Because they are so neatly depilated and made up and so on.

Though I suppose hipster beards are having a moment, so perhaps it is unfair to suggest that is an 'alternative' look.

Me and DP will sit watching and I think he gets rather annoyed because I'll be 'oh look a smooth leg' 'why are her brows better than mine she lives in the WILD'.

I definitely agree with you there, a smooth leg seems more palatable for the audience - we can watch someone be beheaded and another have their face crushed inwards but a woman having leg hair is too much apparently . A shame that comes before authenticity. There's another part in the book where Dani got really bad saddle sores, blisters and welts, and I always thought that minor detail should have been in the films to show some development of her; how she was a young girl who had to harden both physically and mentally to fit with her new life.

Yes! I think that would have made her so much more sympathetic - because something that I struggle with in the show (and I admit I've not watched all of it yet) was that Dani is presented as increasingly hard, even inhuman.

And at buffy.

Haha that's fantastic. The Walking Dead is another one I despair at for that. Evidently all sending Glenn out on missions to find razors.

Oh, and though that Buzzfeed does mention Katniss, I do like her for other reasons. I heard that Jennifer Lawrence thought it was important she should look muscly rather than very slender, so it was plausible she'd lived as she did. And although she is slim, I think that she carried off that image?

Dani is presented as increasingly hard, even inhuman
YES! A very cold character, she's sort of like that in the book but she's much more relatable with the extra narrative. I feel she's been let down quite a lot in the programme and for her it's all about dragons.

Is that because of how they changed the beginning? I only read the books in skim-read mode so I may be wrong. But in the books, she is younger, isn't she? And we get more of a sense of how she is controlled by her brother, and how if she doesn't marry Drogo, the alternative might be incest?

Whereas in the TV, it's all softened and her brother is just a classic baddie. So perhaps we never have so much sense of her panic and struggle before she becomes strong?

Yeah she's younger, they got a lot of her brother spot on but failed with her growth I think.

The sex scene change was odd. And actually on this detail I'm going to u-turn what I said upthread, I do think this was unnecessary and I now remember questioning it whilst reading it. In her first sexual scene with Drogo in the book, shes very nervous and he senses it. He only knows one word and asks her no? when he senses shes scared of sex. He's gentle and massages her and all that and he asks no? she ends up telling him yes and then they have sex...but the days after that he just ignores her and 'takes her from behind' at nighttime. Then even later there's a scene where she gets one of her handmaidens to teach her how to please a man, and apparently this is the first time he screams her name or whathaveyou. Then she's suddenly pregnant. I remember thinking this was a bit . I decided it was a lazy attempt at her becoming strong and having some power over Drogo.

I wish we had seen more of Drogo before he died. A lot more

He's back in the new series, possibly just as a flash back.

I read that the books were loosely based on the wars of the roses, in which case Margaret Beaufort's life wasn't that dissimilar to those of the women in GOT.

By the age of 13 she had been married twice and shortly after became a widow and gave birth.

Re: smooth legs, etc. the latest Outlander had a hilarious 17th Century waxing scene in.

The wildling women are definitely not well groomed, remember Osha's furry eyebrows anyone?
The Outlander scene was very funny, I liked how Jamie enthused about her normally hairy legs too.
I'm so going to call my vagina my honeypot from now on

"What have you done to your fine forest?" had me in stitches.