Game of Thrones 4.3 - "Breaker of Chains" - Rate and discuss
- Thread starter Out Of My Vulcan Mind
- Start date
The Walking Dead, which of course is another cable drama based on print source material, in this case an ongoing comic book.
I can’t believe that people are trying to defend this with: “Hey, so what if they made a main character a rapist even though he is not a rapist in the books and abhors rape! That doesn’t change things much, does it?"
See, the problem is not just whether Jaime is in the middle of a "redemptive arc", it's that Jaime was never a rapist, abhors rape, and never abuses people he loves in the books. It's not a story about a "redemption of a rapist" where you could legitimately make that apology - he never was one.
"But he’s not a good dude! He’s done bad things, and this means he would do any other sort of bad things that cross the writers’ minds” is a pathetic argument. It’s as if people don’t understand the concept of characterization and out of character behavior, and the only character traits are “good” and “bad”. Quite ironic for the fandom of a series known for its moral ambiguity. It’s not a problem when morally grey characters do something bad, it’s when they do something that’s so OOC.
And it’s going to get worse because his arc is no doubt going to proceed the same as in the book in the very next episode (as confirmed by the promo), so it will look like rape is not a big deal, even to Cersei. Expect a lot of anger and cognitive dissonance on the part of the Unsullied then.
They don't have a solid grasp on the Hound's character, either. The writing in this episode was an example of that. It's also a 100% change from what he is actually did in that situation in the book. What's worse, they've made him look like a hypocrite, with making him talk about a 'code' (which he never does in the books) and then having him break it two episodes later, when his defining trait in the book, or one of them, is that he hates hypocrisy. They're basically writing random anti-hero material for him rather than something that stems from the book characterization.
At this point, I wish they had just changed all the characters' names as they did with Talisa/Jeyne and called it "inspired by ASOAIF" rather than "adaptation of ASOAIF' in interviews. Then that poster who always cries: "Don't talk about the book!!!" would be perfectly right to do so.
It is more disturbing due to the simple fact that sexual assault and rape happens very close to home every single day. When we see it depicted as entertainment it is highly disturbing. When the internet decides that the scene "wasn't really rape" or it started off as rape but "became consensual" there is an enormous problem.
How many mass murders have occurred in the distance between your home and your place of work in the last 6 months? Where I live that number is zero. However, I have read about no less than 20 sexual assaults in that distance in my area in that period of time.
It is "more disturbing" due to the assumption that more viewers (both male and female) will have experience of surviving a sexual assault than they will with being in proximity to a mass murder.
I enjoy the books and I love the show...however, as someone stated upthread, the show runners are demonstrating a real inability to address their female viewership.
Well to be fair it's not just an issue with this show. As an EW article pointed out, it's been a major trend lately to use rape as a Shocking Plot Twist, or to give characters tragic backstories involving rape to make them more interesting or sympathetic.
As for Jaime, I can definitely see how this would complicate any redemptive arc he was on, but perhaps that was the intent of the writers anyway-- to make the redemption much less clear cut and make you question if he really has reformed his ways at all.
As for Jaime, I can definitely see how this would complicate any redemptive arc he was on, but perhaps that was the intent of the writers anyway-- to make the redemption much less clear cut and make you question if he really has reformed his ways at all.
I'm inclined to agree with Devileyes re the Hound's character and the writers' grasp, or lack of, on it. I thought the same thing when I watched but couldn't remember what he'd done in a comparable situation in the books. So I didn't put it in my review.
It's as if they will do anything to soften Tyrion but are afraid to show too much redemption or nobility for these characters.
It's as if they will do anything to soften Tyrion but are afraid to show too much redemption or nobility for these characters.
This summarize my feelings of GoT
http://io9.com/10-science-fiction-and-fantasy-stories-that-editors-are-1566121756/+tinaamini
http://io9.com/10-science-fiction-and-fantasy-stories-that-editors-are-1566121756/+tinaamini
The writers may have clearly messed up when it came to this scene, but I don't think we should go overboard here. Regardless of what the book readers may think, I'd say the writers have gotten FAR more right with this series than they got wrong.
If they want to chart a slightly different course with Jaime than what was in the books, then I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on it. I think they've definitely earned it by this point.
If they want to chart a slightly different course with Jaime than what was in the books, then I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on it. I think they've definitely earned it by this point.
I find it disturbing that in order to be "adult" therefore serious entertainment excessive amounts of sex, violence and profanity have to be used.
That's going to go over so well with the audience and the public, judging by the fact that so many people still go on about Spike's attempted rape of Buffy and treat it as Moral Event Horizon, even though he didn’t have a soul at the time, even though the guilt over it prompted him to get a soul, and even though other soulless vampires, including Spike himself when he was a villain, committed all sorts of crimes, including on-screen and off-screen murder and mental and physical torture, presumably off-screen rape of mostly anonymous characters, plus an attempt to bring hell on Earth, literally.
Before reading that article posted further up, I hadn't realized that Daeny's first sex scene with Drogo went so differently than in the books. I thought it was rather strange that she embraced him, but I just figured it wasn't impossible for such a thing to happen.
I don't think GoT has excessive sex, but rather other shows have a huge lack of it happening. Same with profanity, really.
I don't think GoT has excessive sex, but rather other shows have a huge lack of it happening. Same with profanity, really.
I think that shows like GoT are often criticised as having "excessive" profanity or sex is that until fairly recently anything beyond very indirect references to these things was prohibited (if you think of the choice of language in say The West Wing there are barely more profanities than a squeaky clean show like TNG) so against that benchmark GoT *is* excessively profane and explicit.
dJE
Which proves that good shows don't need profanity or sex to get people's interest.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
Game of Thrones would be just as good with or without the "excessive" sex. The only people who complain about it are prudish people who are okay with beheadings, excessive violence, and depictions of war, but are horrified by a naked woman or -- worse -- a naked male. Ooh, heavens no! Anything but that!
Personally, I don't give a damn about those people's opinions, nor do I think anyone else should.
Personally, I don't give a damn about those people's opinions, nor do I think anyone else should.
Without question a lot of the violence and sex on GoT is gratuitous, lacking in any narrative function other than maybe setting tone (if we're being really generous), and the same can be said of other premium series. But gratuitous and excessive aren't the same thing. Even where it is obviously only there to shock or titillate (basically porn-lite, if we're being honest), it's rarely done without restraint.
I tend to see explicit sex more as part of the palette with which writers and directors can paint the landscape their characters live in. It's sometimes illuminating, rarely poignant, but can all too easily become garish. This show runs the entire spectrum.
And lest we forget, the majority of these random whoring scenes take place in KL. It's sometimes (most of the time) tasteless, but also goes to show what a charming little seaside villa that place is. In other words, tasteless but not pointless.
I tend to see explicit sex more as part of the palette with which writers and directors can paint the landscape their characters live in. It's sometimes illuminating, rarely poignant, but can all too easily become garish. This show runs the entire spectrum.
And lest we forget, the majority of these random whoring scenes take place in KL. It's sometimes (most of the time) tasteless, but also goes to show what a charming little seaside villa that place is. In other words, tasteless but not pointless.
I can't think of any gratuitous violence (if we discount this scene as an example of gratuitous sexual violence) on the show, but there is a certainly a lot of gratuitous sex and nudity, mostly in brothel scenes... and the problem I have with them is that they are taking up precious screentime that could have been used better. But I feel the same about the gratuitous and repetitive scenes of people snarking at each other in King's Landing. I liked the first scene between Littlefinger and Varys back in season 1, but then next time they had a scene together, in the season 1 finale, I was thinking: "So, what did we find out? That they're rivals, that Varys is a eunuch, and LF is an asshole. Eh, we already knew all that. "
Brothel scenes and snark scenes the show's favorite ways to insert filler, and filler is the last thing the show needs. For instance, in season 3 they managed to drag out King's Landing even though nothing much was happening there, while completely sidelining Catelyn in the season whose high point was the Red Wedding.
Oh God, yes. Tyrion is there white knight despite the fact that he does a number of character flaws in the books and is actually a deeply misogynistic individual. They've stripped every shade of gray away from him on the show to the point his behavior has become predictable. It's a credit to Peter Dinklage and not the writers that he still manages to make Tyrion a compelling character.
The Jaime stuff though, yikes. I don't know what possessed them to alter the scene like that. When they've stuck to the books, Jaime has had some of the best moments. When they decide to go into business for themselves, we get stuff like Jaime killing his cousin and Jaime raping Cersei. Weiss said at the time the former was to show that Jaime was a "monster who loves to kill" which is a description of Gregor Clegane. While Jaime is certainly capable of monstrous acts (throwing Bran of the tower) it was only done because of his (extremely unhealthy) love for Cersei and not for shits and giggles. As for raping Cersei, that's something Robert would have done and Jaime would never have done that.
It's original scenes like this that make me worry about when the show overtakes the books. I'm concerned about the prospect of D and D doing mostly original scenes based on whatever outline GRRM gives them. When D and D attempt to do regular scenes, it's like playing Russian Roulette with three bullets in the chamber instead of one.
The shows characterizations of Stannis and Catelyn were terrible. The writers clearly hate Stannis and he's portrayed as a guy who can't wipe his ass without Melisandre telling him too. Catelyn was a complex character in the book but was reduced to a generic mother figure who had all her decisions made for her by the men around her.
The show's take on nudity and sex has always been embarrassing and they seem content on doing this. Even with the way they portray Oberyn. There's one brief passage in A Storm of Swords that says Oberyn was rumored to have relations with men. Well, that was enough for D and D to make the character bisexuality his defining trait on the show.
The show's take on nudity and sex has always been embarrassing and they seem content on doing this. Even with the way they portray Oberyn. There's one brief passage in A Storm of Swords that says Oberyn was rumored to have relations with men. Well, that was enough for D and D to make the character bisexuality his defining trait on the show.