An article that has almost nothing to say about “The Gift,” the seventh episode of season five of “Game of Thrones”[i]
by Miodrag Zarković
It’s fitting that, when discussing something originally created by the mind of George R. R. Martin, alliances are not so easy to form. Enemy of your enemy doesn’t have to be your friend in any way.
In the matters of “Game of Thrones,” a TV show that was supposed to be an adaptation of Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series, my enemies are David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the two showrunners. Needless to say, they’re not really my enemies. I wish them no harm. I present no threat to them or anyone they love or care for. I’m just regularly appalled by the dismal results they produce in HBO’s hottest item of the decade and by the frustrating disrespect for the source material they display week in, week out. Nothing more and nothing less. It’s not a “life or death” situation, but it is a serious issue.
Is then the sudden, long overdue, and very strong critique of their show, that surfaced ten days ago, a reason to celebrate?
Well, no. Not really. For the same reasons one couldn’t enjoy those misplaced complaints some four years ago, following the second episode of the debut season of the show. The episode, titled “The Kingsroad,” ended with the execution of Lady, Sansa Stark’s direwolf, and immediately after the credits rolled internet went ablaze with accusations from thousands of viewers that the show is advocating animal cruelty and that they won’t watch it again. The controversy was so big, Martin himself had to react on his “Not a Blog” and remind everyone that: 1) the dog that played Lady was actually not hurt in the scene, and 2) the kid who played Mycah, the poor butcher’s boy who was also slain in the episode, was okay too, in case someone was wondering. Possibly ashamed by Martin’s sarcastic remark, the complainers stopped with their rage, but it was an early sign that something’s very off with the public perception of this show. A legion of viewers truly thought they had to defend the species of direwolves from the man who actually brought them back to life in his saga. Yes, GOT was a strange journey from the very beginning.
TV critics were not too different from common folks. See, ahead of each season, critics are given screeners, e.g. a certain number of episodes in advance, so they can prepare both previews and early reviews. For the debut season, they received the first six episodes. The vast majority of them expressed their positive impressions of the show, hailing production values, interesting plot twists, a grittiness that was surprising for a fantasy show, good acting, and especially Peter Dinklage’s performance as Tyrion. Well, there was one exception on the last account. One critic was openly displeased with Dinklage’s performance, most of all with his accent. Some viewers also noticed the problems Dinklage, an American, had with the British accent and by extension with the delivery of some lines, but critics, apart from that one, reached the consensus that the Tyrion actor was a revelation. Here’s the catch: the one critic that disagreed was writing her reviews right after watching each episode. Opposite to other critics, she penned her reactions before watching the next episode, and she didn’t want to “correct” them afterwards, even if she changed her opinion on a particular issue later on. Her colleagues, on the other hand, just binge-watched the six screeners and only then went back and wrote respective reviews for each of the episodes. And, naturally, the sixth episode, titled “A Golden Crown,” left the biggest impression on them, because it actually was the last fresh material they’d seen. And, truth be told, it was the episode Dinklage excelled in, with his dealings with Mord and his trial at the Eyrie as high points.
In short, that may very well be the explanation for the Dinklage euphoria that accompanied the first season and practically lasts to this day. The critics, save that one (who was tastelessly attacked on show-dedicated sites as a “traitor”), simply didn’t pay too much attention to “details” like actors’ delivery and cared much more for their general feelings on the material. Because Tyrion was the unexpected hero of the last screener they received and watched, it was easy for them to single him out as the stand-out among the cast, even though his performance in the earliest episodes was far from remarkable.
At the time, I couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if the critics were given seven instead of six episodes. Would Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo, who pretty much owned the seventh hour with his war speech after the attempt on Daenerys’ life, become the favorite of the critics and receive an Emmy later on? What would’ve happened if there were only four screeners? Would Michelle Fairley, with her striking turn in the scene in which her character Catelyn Stark captures Tyrion, receive the biggest acclaim in that scenario? We’ll never know, of course, but the fact that the strongest character in the last screener reviewers received ahead of the first season became the critics’ darling and, later on, favorite of the showrunners as well (who went on to write a number of invented TV scenes that seemed to serve Dinklage first, the story itself a distant second), could be more than just a coincidence.
At any rate, this showed that TV critics aren’t to be too trusted either, at least when it comes to “Game of Thrones.”
The rest of the season only strengthened the feeling. The beheading of Ned Stark was universally praised as a revolutionary move for the TV industry, in that no show before GOT had killed its main character in the first season. Back then, however, critics weren’t asking the question that by nowadays seems like the most frequent one about GOT: was Ned’s death gratuitous, e.g. just for the shock value? Was it meant just to take viewers by surprise and send a signal that anything can happen on this show (a thought often rephrased as “Anyone can die in GOT”), or did it carry some higher importance?
A pity, really, because the answer was there all the time, offered by the showrunners themselves, in the now infamous “Inside the episode” videos and regular media interviews. In regards to Ned’s death, all they could talk about was how utterly shocking and disturbing it was supposed to be. (This is the exact quote: “It’s great to be surprised in that way, and I only hope that the people who come into this show without having read the books will have the same Holy shit response that I had when I read the book, because it was a big Holy shit for me.” Dan Weiss, eloquent as ever.) Not a word on some thematic importance, some sophisticated meaning, some subtle message if you will. No, TV Ned died solely to convey how dangerous and merciless the world of GOT is, which really is just a code word for a successful attempt to shock the viewers beyond their wildest imagination.
And pretty much the entire first season served that one purpose: to portray what a dark and unforgiving setting the show managed to create. “No good deed goes unpunished,” another direct quote, this time by Benioff, about Mirri Maz Duur effectively killing Drogo after Dany saved her.
But why would such a setting be interesting in the first place? Why would the audience care for the world in which no good deed goes unpunished? What artistic or philosophical significance could individual fates in that environment possibly have for the viewers? What was supposed to separate “Game of Thrones” from horror rides in amusement parks?
All those questions were left not only unanswered, but practically unasked, during the first ten episodes. Even the last scene, in which Daenerys stands up amidst the ashes with three little dragons on her, was hailed as a triumph and “the most effective” usage of a naked body in recent memory. Apparently, nobody had a problem with the obvious failure of the scene, e.g. its chronological discontinuity represented by the fact that Dany enters the pyre at night and emerges from it on daylight. Those rare viewers that didn’t particularly like such a break in continuity were easily convinced by the showrunners that it was a necessity, because of some difficulties with special effects.
As if it was impossible to insert the red comet as the reason behind the sudden light. Yes, the actual red comet: it appears in the books, too, and it was heavily shown in the very next episode, the premiere of the second season, so it’d probably be much more logical to have a bright comet shining on the site, instead of making the entire khalasar sleep for a few hours while Dany burns.
The critics and the viewers, however, were thrilled. It’s a fantasy show that doesn’t hesitate to kill its main characters, after all. Who gives a damn if there’s no logic for some of the most instrumental moments in the story? Who cares if a crucial political decision (King in the North) takes no more than 30 seconds to be reached, just so we can have that endless “Naked whore exits Pycelle’s chamber” scene, or that even more futile verbal sparring between Littlefinger and Varys? It’s a show about some dreaded world in which anyone can be killed at any given moment and honor is just a shortcut to an early grave and everything’s bleak and everyone’s cruel and nothing is sacred . . . We need that world, so we can favorably compare our own reality to it and feel great about ourselves. Therefore, it’s a brilliant show. It has to be. Right?
The sad truth is that, just like countless other shows and movies, the first season of GOT really offered not much more than pure escapism. And was hailed for it.
A very small minority was disappointed. The corresponding book (those days it was still possible to recognize one, at least) offered a multitude of finer explanations and explorations that went well beyond that “You didn’t see that coming, did you?” pettiness that is sometimes confused with good storytelling, but almost none of those found its way into the show. Those that did seemed to exist on screen despite the showrunners’ intentions and not because of them. But most were missing. There was no connection to the past (Ned’s dream, for example) that determines the present. The importance of one’s heritage was practically erased, most notably from Ned’s arc for which it was the most important aspect in the books; the one exception was the character who was only bound to appear inconsistent because of that later on—Tywin. There was no underlying humanity in, say, the Night’s Watch, where TV Alliser’s cheap “Come winter, you’ll die, like flies” speech had way more gravity than Jon standing up for Sam and securing him a place on the Wall (the second part was actually omitted).
Sadly, rarely anybody seemed to care. Cersei speaks of some dead infant? The Trident scene was amateurishly filmed? Doesn’t matter, an alleged animal cruelty in the same episode needs be addressed. Ned was robbed of his dream sequence and given only one scene in the dungeon? Doesn’t matter, everybody just loved he was killed. People are going to be confused about battles and war strategies and army movements and secessions and complicated political relations between the kingdoms in the realm? Don’t worry, look how strongly everyone hates Joffrey!
The second season came with only bigger problems. Instead of delivering a rather complex but enlightening back-story about his troubled upbringing that left eternal consequences on his personal views on deities, TV Stannis was literally teased by Melisandre into a sexual intercourse. And on top of everything, Bryan Cogman, a trusted accomplice of Benioff and Weiss, was actually angry when asked about the decision to go overt with the Stannis/Mel sexual affair, opposite to the books where it’s only hinted at: he openly revealed that the two of them also have sex in the novels, despite the fact the positive confirmation is still to come in the source material, strong hints notwithstanding. He, who’s always so careful not to spoil anything from the future episodes, actually didn’t hesitate to spoil the books in order to defend the show’s need for nudity and sex scenes.
This is not about being a Stannis fan, of course. In case somebody’s interested, I’m not, by the way. Technically speaking, I’m a fan of all the characters. Even Ramsay: I literally can’t wait to read the next chapter he or some letter of his appear in, which probably makes me a fan of Ramsay, too. So no, I’m not a Stannis fan strictly speaking, but I was shocked by the sad truth that this “adaptation” is headed by the men who find Stannis’ alleged sex life much more interesting than his religious beliefs. He is the closest ASOIAF comes to Prometheus: he wants something given by the gods (the position of a monarch), though not to serve deities but the realm (e.g. humans), and there’s a fire involved heavily in his arc . . . And yet, in the show he’s reduced to a power-mad warlord who can’t control his sexual impulses. But, in battle he’s the first to climb the besieged walls, without a helmet even, so the show won that round, apparently.
Arya’s Harrenhal sequence was deformed into a vehicle for two actors to appear together on screen. Sansa’s arguably bravest deed (saving Dontos) disappeared after the initial gesture, along with some of Sandor’s lines that—again!—went Littlefinger’s way. Jon was learning how to be an idiot whom Ygritte can best in any way. Tyrion was busy with grammar dilemmas and not with actual ruling. Jaime was preoccupied with murdering his relatives for no reason at all. Theon was realizing the life without Ramsay has no closure—literally! Robb and Dany’s respective arcs were seen as improvements of the source material, because, apparently, it’s better to have moronic characters and nonsensical twists in more scenes than believable characters and tight stories delivered in less . . . sorry, fewer memorable scenes. And Bran and Rickon stopped being important to anyone. That’s the outline of the “season of romance,” as Benioff called it, and, again, hardly anyone complained. It was still the show with horrible things happening to everyone and bad guys were still winning. What’s not to like about it?
Season 3 came a year later, with the scene Benioff and Weiss always emphasized as the main reason they went in this “adaptation” to begin with. Without going into details, here’s just one, often overlooked example, of what the writing in the show looked like by then: when Robb is informed by Talisa she’s pregnant, she asks him: “You’re angry with me?” Seriously, someone in the writing team thought it’s a theoretically possible line in a world that has no idea of anti-baby pills and little of other forms of contraception. (The scene belongs to the episode written by Martin himself, but, until proven otherwise, I’m positive the man didn’t write a single line for the abomination called Talisa, and the scenes often get shifted between episodes anyway.)
By the way, Benioff and Weiss’ most beloved book scene, the Red Wedding, was so gratuitous in the show that in the end it was obvious the infamous Talisa was added mainly for the massacre to be even more shocking, by having her repeatedly stabbed in the belly.
Once again, the critics managed to largely miss or purposely avoid all the low points of the show. Occasionally, someone wrote about the assassination of this character or that one, which was a big step of course, but it was still an exception and not the rule. The vulgar honeymoon between GOT and the critics was still far from over.
And then, last year, something happened. The romance between the media and the show abruptly paused. The reason was the scene in episode 3 of Season Four, depicting the now infamous intercourse between Jaime and Cersei in the sept, right by Joff’s corpse.
“Rape!” yelled the critics in fury, every single one of them. And, if one didn’t know better from the books, it actually looked like a rape. Cersei’s resisting at first, but Jaime doesn’t want to stop and she eventually surrenders. For the unsullied eye, it could look like nothing but the forced sex in which one party was clearly violated. The crew, however, claimed something else. When the scandal broke, the showrunners, the director of the episode and the actors themselves kept saying the scene wasn’t meant to be seen as a rape.
I remembered the case with Lady’s death in Season 1 (not the least because Martin himself once more felt the need to react and remind everyone the scene in his book is written way differently), and realized once again there are two sides making strange claims, neither having any grasp whatsoever over whatever the hell they’re talking about.
Let’s start with the crew first. It’s truly something special, though really not in a good way, when you manage to film a scene and practically everyone sees it differently than you do. That’s quite a milestone in the history of TV incompetence. As far as memory serves, no other show, or movie for that matter, managed to unintentionally convey something so different from the original idea. There’s a lot of unintentionally funny moments in the history of motion pictures, but before this there was probably no unintentional rape scene. Everyone who wrote, directed and edited the said scene, should really go back to the basics of their jobs and start the career all over again. Some things really can’t be fixed, only reset, and this is obviously such a case.
On the other hand, even if we agree it was a rape (and, again, to anyone who didn’t possess the knowledge from the books the scene could look like nothing else), I’m still to hear why any Unsullied critic/viewer was upset over it. Isn’t this the show in which everyone can be killed, or maimed, or brutalized? Or raped? How was an Unsullied to know if such a scene will lead to any meaningful conclusion or not? If we look at the show as a separate entity from the books—which is a line every show lover, TV critics included, kept parroting all these years—there was simply no way to tell what the show intended to do with this development in Jaime and Cersei’s relationship.
As for book readers, this scene could be just the last straw in a long string of serious misinterpretations of Jaime’s character—similar to last week’s situation with Sansa. If one’s concerned with the way Benioff and Weiss are adapting Jaime Lannister, one was bound to be unhappy ever since the second episode of the first season (the scene in which Jaime, a member of the Kingsguard, mocks Jon and the very concept of the Night’s Watch), angry ever since the murder of cousin Alton in Season 2, and outraged after witnessing the humiliation Jaime suffered in that duel with Brienne in Season 3. To start attacking the show only then and there, over that one scene? That didn’t sound convincing to me back then, and it doesn’t sound any more convincing now.
And the best thing is, it’s pretty much evident Benioff and Weiss were speaking the truth when they said it wasn’t meant to be a rape.
I don’t believe them when they say they love and respect Martin’s books, because with every given episode they’re just proving they’re much more in love with the garbage they invent. I don’t believe them when they say they had to make this change or that one because the corresponding source material wouldn’t look good on TV: with every given episode they prove how little they know of any medium at all, be it literature or television. I don’t believe when they say weather conditions forced them to give Sandor’s lines to Littlefinger, because the scene itself proves it couldn’t be the case.
But when they say they didn’t write Jaime raping Cersei, I believe them. They were just trying to solve the mess they created with their Cersei. You see, TV Cersei loves her children. It’s not only she who recognizes it, but basically everyone around her agrees. Even Tyrion, who openly hates her, admits she’s a loving mother. Why they wanted her that way, I can only guess, but the fact is that a loving mother would never have sex right by her son’s dead body. No. Freaking. Way.
Ahead of the fourth season, Benioff and Weiss figured it out, or more probably someone told them. And they saw they were in a trap. It was one of those butterfly effects Martin was warning them about. Book Cersei is obsessed only with herself and, while she doesn’t hate her children and, as Martin once told, she sees them as extensions of herself rather than as individuals she loves, she really sees no problem in having sex with Jaime right by Joff’s dead body. Jaime, who’s a POV character in that chapter, outright says he feels nothing for Joffrey, which is a clear signal Cersei also doesn’t, not really, because otherwise she wouldn’t engage in intercourse with her lover in the most inappropriate of moments and at the most inappropriate of places. Anybody who ever grieved for anyone can testify to that: just ask yourself if you would be able to have sex right by the fresh corpse of your loved one. That is why the intercourse in the book is clearly consensual, just like the author explained—because book Cersei doesn’t love her children, at least not in the most common meaning of the word.
TV Cersei, on the other hand, loves her kids. That’s how Benioff and Weiss created her pretty much from the start. And then, facing the sept scene, they realized they can’t have her in a consensual sex with Jaime in those circumstances. To the Unsullied viewers, who for years watched Cersei as this loving mother, that would be extremely odd. So, talented as they are, Benioff and Weiss tried to fix their mess by having Jaime somewhat more forceful at the beginning of the scene. And just at the beginning. That’s how they operate: a loving mother would never have a consensual sex with her lover right by their son’s corpse . . . but, if he pushes her a little . . . now we’re talking! It doesn’t start as consensual, but it ends like that. Problem solved!
Trying to preserve their twisted characterization of Cersei, they ruined the character of Jaime, once more. Granted, instead of dodging a little storm, they caught the big one. Butterfly effect. Martin was warning them. They didn’t listen. Their funeral. Not an atom of mine felt sorry for them. Remember, they’re my enemies.
But I also couldn’t side with the enemies of my enemies in that case. All those critics that crucified Benioff and Weiss obviously had some agenda, but their agenda was not something that in any way corresponded with one of mine: the love for the ASOIAF books. Book purism, if you will.
In that controversy from a year ago, book admirers were the only side that wasn’t represented, other than in Martin’s brief statement on “Not a Blog” and on fan forums. The scene was discussed either from the perspective of show apologists, who continue to claim there’s nothing wrong with it and everyone should just have complete trust in Benioff and Weiss’s skills, or from the perspective of politically correct media that pursued their own interest, which wasn’t much different from the already mentioned “animal cruelty” scandal after “The Kingsroad.”
Something similar happened last week, with the new controversy, this time around TV Sansa’s rape. Contrary to last year’s situation, there is no doubt this time—it was a rape. Theon’s face confirmed it clearly, along with Sansa’s own reaction in this week’s episode, “The Gift.” Contrary to last year, Benioff and Weiss are silent this time around. Contrary to last year, some media outlets are not only listing silly accusations, but openly declaring they’re going to stop covering/promoting the show from now on. Contrary to last year, some other media outlets are determined to justify Benioff and Weiss by throwing some silly accusations of their own about other people’s accusations. In short, everything seems different this year, except from one detail: again, nobody was talking on behalf of those who love the source material, both Sansa fans and the rest.
(to be continued before the next episode)
[i] Just like the headline and the subtitle say, this was not meant to be a standard review. However, it wasn’t a decision made just because of the gravity of last week’s controversy but also for practical reasons. “The Gift” was, truth be told, an unbelievably dull episode, in which the show reused all the nonsensical aspects that plague the current season. The one refreshing thing is that Dorne was probably not the most moronic part of the episode, thought they did try hard to preserve the status, both with Myrcella’s almost Talisa-like outburst at her “uncle” Jaime, that ironically contained the most truthful line of the entire subplot (“Why is it happening at all?”), and with the poison triggered by the sight of boobs. Alas, the stupidest sequence has to be the Tyrion/Jorah weekly adventure. That cheap attempt at a “Gladiator” rip-off, combined with Tyrion’s sudden martial prowess that was not an unintentional rape but was certainly unintentionally ridiculous (and don’t forget a complete nonentity releasing him at the most convenient of moments), has to be included in textbooks as a perfect example of dishonoring not just one but basically two source materials. Congratulations, Benioff and Weiss, you again managed to outdo yourselves. The rest of the episode was just a bridge between the nonsense seen in the first half of the season and the final three episodes, therefore, it will probably be addressed in the coming reviews, when it will be put in the context.
PAWN TO PLAYER 
” “No good deed goes unpunished,” another direct quote, this time by Benioff, about Mirri Maz Duur effectively killing Drogo after Dany saved her.”
My god, is that really what they said, and all they had to say, about that storyline? That’s really incredibly shallow.
I could talk for hours about the complexity and moral ambiguity of that storyline. It was one of the moments in the first book when I was most impressed by Martin. I had been sympathizing with Dany since her first chapter, and her situation after losing both her child and her husband and seemingly her future was devastating. But at the same time, it was a logical result of the moral ambiguity of her position as Khaleesi, wife of Khal Drogo, loving consort of a man whose job consisted of leading his army to kill, rape, burn and enslave, and who, as a 14-year who still hadn’t faced the reality of what war was, was unprepared for seeing that reality and for her own horror at the crimes and compassion for the victims.
But the antagonist in that storyline, Mirri Maz Duur, was in fact not only sympathetic, but arguably justified in everything she did. Her actions were a big rejection of the Stockholm Syndrome and refusal to take scraps as mercy from people who were associated with the same people who had raped her, destroyed her community and murdered people she knew and loved. A refusal to be an obedient and grateful slave, to be happy to only be forced into “nice” slavery from now on. And at the same time, this is unfair to Dany, who never chose to be married to Drogo and who was doing her best under the circumstances; she had the power to stop the rapes of these women, but not to free them. However, Dany of AGOT still didn’t understand fully why what she did was not the good solution. Why should Mirri, or any of those women, be grateful that they were made to be slaves, only slaves to be treated better, and live with the same people who had raped them, killed their loved ones and destroyed their lives? I can only imagine how wonderful it must have felt to hear that the Dothraki men who wanted to rape them would have to marry them instead, marrying your rapist is such a great prospect!
If Dany took any messages from that experience, it was not – and should not have been – the trite nihilistic idea that “no good deed goes unpunished”, but the understanding that, to help the oppressed and enslaved, you cannot ally yourself with their oppressors, and you need to give them freedom, not offer them “pleasant” slavery and feel good about yourself for being a “good” slave owner who’s saving them from the worse ones out there. Because there’s no good kind of slavery.
Furthermore, MMD’s actions were in itself deeply morally ambiguous. Wanting an innocent child dead is very wrong, without a doubt, no? But what if you know (or you believe you know) that this child is a future mass murderer, even more dangerous and powerful than his father, who will destroy countless villages and cities, the way yours was destroyed? It’s similar to the popular hypothetical scenario: “if you could travel back in time, would you kill Hitler as a child?” Or, in this case, would you kill him in the womb? From that point of view, MMD was both a child killer and a hero.
On the other hand, I also can fully understand why Dany had no qualms about burning MMD to hatch her dragons, after MMD had destroyed *her* life. It was a tragedy that was almost inevitable because of a conflict between those two women, who were both sympathetic and driven by understandable and relatable motivations, and who were both justified from their POV.
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No, it wasn’t all they said about MMD and Dany, sorry it the wording of my piece left such an impression. They elaborated a little and talked about some of the things you bring up here (Weiss even said something like “MMD has a point”), but, on the other hand, they never went into it as deep as you and many other fans did. And the fact they did utter this “No good deed goes unpunished” nonsense speaks volumes, because it’s practically a running theme for their entire storytelling effort.
As for Ned, yeah, all they ever said of his death boils down to: “Look how shocking it was”. They gave a lot of interviews those days (they were celebrated as the great new talent in the industry), and I possibly read/watched all of them, precisely because I was interested in their opinion on the possible thematic reasons behind his execution. And I found none. Zero. They’re very talkative, by the way, and they don’t hesitate to offer their explanations on the meanings some other characters and arcs might carry (shallow as those explanations often are, but still). In the case of Ned’s death, however, there was nothing but the shock value. It’s the same with Red Wedding. Both instances were used just for shocking the viewers, it seems.
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These days the TV and movie industry market their products with short, succinct tag lines. These are meant as teasers that give the audience a few clues as to what the story is about. The problem arises when a Tv show like GoT starts to plan and write the show according to a few simple tag lines such as “anyone can die” and “no one is safe”. That’s reversal of the proces: the marketing ploy because the raison d’être of the storytelling.
Regarding Ned’s death. Yes it was a shocking moment. However, it was an integral element of the source material that acts as a catalyst for the rest of the narrative. So I really don’t buy the claim that they simply wanted it for shock value. However, the unsullied reaction definitely convinced them that shock value is something that would generate lots of publicity for the show. The books certainly have plenty of shock value themselves and Martin does rely on it to a certain degree. The Red Wedding was shocking in the books and Martin seems to be relying too much on cliff hangers IMO.
However, when it comes to this season where they’re approaching uncharted territory, you definitely have solid ammunition for the argument that they plan their story around creating events solely for shock value. Sansa’s storyline is the most damning example of this. According to the double Ds, they have planned the Sansa/Ramsay wedding since season 2 because they “loved” the Jeyne Poole subplot. Seeing how this plot has played out so far, it looks like they only liked the brutalizing of Jeyne, especially since they’ve completely erased the Northern Lords and their possible conspiracy from the WF storyline. Furthermore, this season has been very very slow and when it comes to WF it is clear that they were only building up to the big shocking moment of Sansa’s rape. The fact that they’ve promoted and hyped Sansa’s traumatic scene so heavily indicates that they slotted Sansa into Jeyne’s role solely for shock value. For what? Well, the season isn’t over yet but with only 3 episodes left and a lot of different plot lines it doesn’t seem that there’ll be any big pay-off for the rape of Sansa Stark other than the manipulation of the feelings of the audience and that is not good storytelling to me.
Sansa’s rape is not the only shock they’re building up to: they are most likely also doing the betrayal of Jon Snow since Olly’s the most overdetermined Checkov’s Gun I’ve ever seen on TV, which is another case of bad storytelling, not to mention an insulting lack of faith in their own audience’s intelligence. They also seem to build up to a possible burning of Shireen, which would cause another huge controversy. In fact, they are yet again hyping a big moment in ep 9-10 that, according to one actor, will break the internet! So it seems that when they’re having trouble with the source material (either it is too difficult for them to put on the screen or there isn’t any) then they fall back on constructing the story around tag lines (instead of using tag lines as a condensed teaser) and writing for shock value and public controversy. Neither is good storytelling and I expect that things will get worse now that they’re running out of source material.
Neither of the double Ds are good writers. Just look at Benioff’s butchery of Troy! But I think the biggest mistake was to take on an adaptation of a series of books that aren’t even finished!
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@Trinuviel
About TV Ned’s death, it’s not a matter of buying, I’m afraid, because anything that might suggest some other intention on D&D’s part was omitted from the show. As a matter of fact, the first book is possibly the purest in the thematic sense, because practically all the characters’ arcs are based around the question Dany answers in the last chapter, with her famous “If I look back I’m lost.” Ned, as good a person as they come, was someone who kept looking back and that is what I believe led to his demise. After all, that may be the interpretation of Bran’s last chapter in AGOT and the often overlooked line about Brandon and Lyanna’s statues: Bran says to Osha they were not supposed to be buried there, because the crypt is just for Lords of Winterfell, but Ned insisted. Now, in Ned’s first POV chapter, when Robert says Lyanna should’ve been buried somewhere under the sun, Ned answers she belongs right there, in the crypt. In Bran’s chapter we find out Ned’s wrong because she actually didn’t belong there. All that, and many other clues, point to this interpretation: Ned’s tragedy is that he was constantly caught between options neither of which he wanted to let go. For example, he couldn’t choose the priority: is he a husband to Cat or a brother to Lyanna? That’s what Jon’s parentage boils down to. Ned wanted to keep his word to his dead sister and also to be a good husband to the woman he came to love, but the tragedy is that he couldn’t do both. Also, he couldn’t choose between being the Hand of the King and Robert’s childhood friend, when the two conflicted. And so on. It’s something that fascinates me about Ned as a character, really: he’d excel in all those roles, but it wasn’t theoretically possible to unite all of them, and he just couldn’t let go something. It’s a dilemma many of us face, and Ned’s tragedy shows even the best of men can suffer dearly because of it.
And it’s not just Ned, because AGOT is full of characters facing and avoiding similar choices. Robert wanted to be both the king and a warrior. Drogo wanted to be both a Dothraki and someone who can cross the sea. Until the very end, Jon was constantly between being a sworn brother and being a member of the Stark family. And so on.
But, in the show, there’s none of it. There is no Bran’s line about Lyanna and Brandon not really belonging there in the crypt, even though Osha did carry him into the crypt. There’s nothing about Ned’s childhood, or Jon’s parentage, or any other aspect of the book that portrayed Ned as a conflicted person. TV Robert was a sexual maniac and someone who enjoyed mocking Jaime, instead of a king who doesn’t get he’s not on the battlefield any more. Even Drogo’s arc was changed, because he didn’t die for refusing to abandon the Dothraki way of pillaging and plundering (as in the books), but exactly the opposite, for defending Dany against those who stick to Dothraki tradition. In the end, there wasn’t even “If I look back I’m lost”.
Add all those D&D’s “explanations”, and there’s really no reason to think they saw anything other than shock value in Ned’s death. They killed Ned for what they think is a world-building: “let’s send a message nobody’s safe in this story”. Many a reader thinks the same, but one would expect something more from the writers trying to adapt ASOIAF. If you’re killing main characters just because the world you’re trying to create doesn’t tolerate good people and someone has to be a catalyst, well, sorry, but in effect it really means you’re only after the shock value.
And once again, we disagree about Martin. You seem to have a number of complaints about his work, which is fine, really, and your right, of course. But, I don’t see him relying on shock value at any important instance. His twists are often shocking, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t more than meets the eye in them. He doesn’t kill or torture his main characters just because it’s thrilling, or in order to send a message about the world he created. There are examples of that (Lommy), because he has to depict the casual cruelty of war somehow, but he never does that with main characters. And when I say main, I don’t think just POV characters, but also characters like Stannis and Sandor. And even Ramsay. I mean, is it really a coincidence he’s Roose’s son? Why did Martin even bother to include both Roose and Ramsay in the first place? If you think they’re there just for the shock value, I’d have to strongly disagree again, because Roose’s obsession with health and blood purity (leeches, also absent from the show) is quite telling.
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Out of curiosity, Miodrag, though do you find Roose-Ramsay to be one of the highpoints of ASoIaF? I know the reasons why you love them so much (and I agree) though I’m curious how high it ranks for you.
And yes, their obsession with shock value becomes even more evident in the Red Wedding, being the thing that compounded them to pursue adapting the series and how they handled it and the way in which they hyped it up.
Sad to see their attempts to spit on the concept of honor and decency seems to be influencing parts of the fanbase to adopt such views (again, WHY do some insist GRRM/ASoIaF = nihilism?)
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@ The Weeping Knight
Truth be told, I’m not sure I even see a low point so far. For example, Dorne was the least favorite part of the saga for me. It was nicely written for the most part, and I find TPITT chapter to be one of the best written ones in the entire series, but it never grabbed my strongest attention – possibly because of the overload of new characters (first Areo’s chapter, though also nicely written, was an overkill in that regard, I’d say).
Things started to change recently, after, following the Dorne debacle in the show, Dorne suddenly became discussed much more than before. In those discussions, fans of Dorne subplot revealed to me certain layers that escaped me before. I reread those chapters and realized they’re right: there’s much more in there than I initially saw. Dorne’s not the low point of the series for me any more. Possibly nothing is, honestly.
As for the Boltons, what’s not to adore there? Just thinking about Ramsay’s pink letter makes me hungry for more chapters with them. By the way, how can those two clowns ever recreate in their stupid show something that is as chilling and disturbing and simultaneously exciting, as that letter? Better writers than them possibly wouldn’t, let alone them two. And then you have Jon, when he recruits the volunteers, thinking to himself: “I have my swords, and I’m coming for you, bastard”. Whatever happens with Jon, I’m pretty sure he’ll meet Ramsay somehow. Their showdown was built so powerfully, I think it’d be a waste to miss it. And I’d like it better than Theon killing Ramsay – that’d be too linear for ASOIAF.
So yeah, the Boltons are brilliant villains, in that they have no redeeming qualities (those are often ascribed to anyone these days) but they’re not without depth. A character doesn’t have to be ambiguous to be deep, and Boltons are a testament to that. One thing that could disappoint me in that regard would be if some fan theories that Roose is secretly working for the Night’s King and The Others, appear true at the end. However, I don’t think that’s the way Martin operates.
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“About TV Ned’s death, it’s not a matter of buying, I’m afraid, because anything that might suggest some other intention on D&D’s part was omitted from the show.”
“Add all those D&D’s “explanations”, and there’s really no reason to think they saw anything other than shock value in Ned’s death. They killed Ned for what they think is a world-building: “let’s send a message nobody’s safe in this story”.”
I honestly don’t understand what you mean here. Ned’s death was a narrative necessity. They couldn’t omit it and it wasn’t filmed and edited in a lurid manner. I don’t contest that they saw the shock value in this moment and that they decided to exploit that throughout the series because it creates buzz and keep the audience on their toes. You appear to put effect before cause here. They killed Ned because the narrative demanded it, because it was a catalytic moment in the source material that sets all the following events in motion. And then they exploited the shock and buzz from this moment as a guiding factor in how they map out each season. The problem with an approach based on shock value is that they constantly have to up the ante – and that may quite possibly turn off their audience.
Regarding Martin’s use of shock value – the cliff-hanger where we are led to believe that Brienne is being hanged by Lady Stoneheart, the stabbing of Jon. Using shock value in a narrative doesn’t necessarily mean that it is gratuitous. However, I do think that the mock-rape of Asha in Dance is such a gratiutous shock moment where Martin trolls the reader. IMO I felt that scene was completely unnecessary and out of character. Just because you like something doesn’t mean that you can’t have problems with parts of it. Being a fan doesn’t have to mean that we should slavishly praise everything an author does.
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Furthermore, GoT is a Tv show with only 10 episodes per season and multiple storylines. They simply can’t devote several episodes to Ned looking back to the past. However, I agree that completely disregardi-ng the themes of Martin’s work is a bad decision on their part.
That is why I’m so angry with the omission of Arianne because without her the Dornish plot becomes irrelevant, which we have seen this season. Arianne’s story ties in wonderfully with the theme of the power women can have because it is a contrast to the inheritance laws of the strictly patriarchal Westeros. It also ties in with the theme of parents failing their children. It is also yet another power play to grab the Iron Throne, which is one of the overarching themes of the books – how that power play seems petty and ultimately irrelevant when we, the readers, know that Westeros faces a much much bigger threat from the Others.
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Jon’s chapter ended on the stabbing because he fell unconscious, as do many other chapters when its POV loses consciousness like Tyrion being dragged into the depths of the Rhoyne by one of the stone men. And I wouldn’t exactly label Brienne’s final chapter’s ending as some cheap cliffhanger. She spoke a word and it takes a small bit of inference to piece together where this is going even before her reappearance in Jaime’s ADwD chapter. An example more fitting would be ones where the final sentence is giving the appearance of being a cliffhanger without being one logically nor necessitating it (unlike the ones where the POV falls unconscious). I can think of very few times that occurs in the books.
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I’m not sure if he was suggesting that, about episode on episode dedicated to the past for Ned. It takes dialogue smartly woven in from his internal thoughts to get that across/faithful adapting and of course the Tower of Joy. 10 episodes you say? Chapter for chapter I’d wager AGoT, and maybe ACoK, can be done in less than 10 episodes (20 episodes is overkill for ASoS as well. 15 at most, perhaps less), and they added in dozens of extra scenes like Tyrion with Ros, or Catelyn braiding Sansa’s hair… in the first episode. Oh and Cersei questioning Sansa on her periods… this is better than the conversation Bran overheard between Cersei and Jaime or Robb/Stark men vs. Joffrey/Lannister men (intercut with the initimate brother-sister (or cousin) moment between Jon/Arya) HOW? Not saying you favor those changes, but I always dislike the 10 episodes/time excuse, especially in the earlier seasons, because if often rings hollow when you see them eating up proably nearly an hour’s worth (or more, in later seasons) every seasons of shit that isn’t needed.
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Weeping night,
I definitely question their choice to put in all sorts of weird filler, which gets exponentially worse throughout the seasons. However, the fact of the matter is that they got 10 episodes per season from HBO. That in itself makes it necessary to cut out a lot from books that are very big. There are a lot of changes that I don’t agree with but they have to work within the framework they’ve been given by HBO.
I think it was a very big mistake of beginning an adaptation before the book series is done, especially when the writer is well know for working at a glacial pace. In fact, I think that GRRM’s books are unsuitable for a Tv adaptaion on a fundamental level. They have too many characters and plotlines to successfully adapt – and it shows in GoT. There are so many plots they need to make room for that many of the episodes feel very unfocused and fragmented. The best episodes are the ones where they focus on one or two things. There’s a reason why Blackwater is one of the most successful episode and that is because they didn’t flit around between 3-4 different plotlines in the space of 42 minutes.
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@ Trinuviel
Of course they had to kill Ned in the show. But they didn’t have to cut out anything that gives some deeper meaning to his death. Martin manages to be both shocking and meaningful in his twists. His twists always seem to have some purpose beyond the shock value. That’s one of the outstanding qualities of the entire series: if you want fun, it is fun; if you want something more, you have that also.
Using Ned’s death as a catalyst was very shallow on the part of D&D. And that is emblematic of the problems with this season. Sure, Martin also have catalysts in his story: Waymar Royce, Will and Gared, Mycah, Lommy, Jeyne Poole, Groleo… But never main characters. Main characters, even with all those shocking twists in their arcs, are meant for much more. When you strip them of those deeper meanings, they’re left just as shallow manipulations meant to surprise the audience. And that’s exactly what the show’s been doing from the start. Even the pilot was like that: Dany was raped by Drogo, and the entire conversation between the twins that Bran overheard was omitted. But for a shoehorned brothel scene they had time.
As for the books’ cliffhangers, some were not as tasteful as others, but on the other hand, this kind of story is impossible to tell without cliffhangers. Wherever you put the end of a particular novel in the series, some (many) plot-lines are going to remain unresolved and on a dramatic point. Once the series is completed, all that will look much better and less annoying.
About Asha and mock-rape, again, perhaps that’s how you read it, but I saw no shock value there. What would be the shock, when from the beginning of the scene it’s pretty obvious Asha’s playing some kind of game? It’s her POV and not in a single moment she feels frightened or endangered, so yeah, it’s intended to be seen as a game she plays with her lover right from the get-go. And I don’t see why would it be out of character for Asha, one of the most free-minded characters in the series and a girl with “devil may care” attitude. She was teasing her own brother to fool him in ACOK, why would this be out of character for her then?
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Yes, small cuts that add up over time if they were actually being faithful. Their situation with ADwD/AFfC is their own fault for how they handled ASoS. If perhaps they ended their first part of the ASoS in Season 3 somewhere like around Joffrey’s demise (if they did adapt it faithfully, the Red Wedding would have happened much earlier) or whatever (or Mance’s arrival at the Wall, whatever) and finished off the remaining material in the early half of Season 4 (likely less than 5 episodes), then use the rest for AD/wD/AFfC (as they already did in Season 4, e.g. Moat Cailin), THEN the season after that for the remaining AFfC/ADwD stuff they would not being in the situation of having this horribly paced, horribly written rubbish that at this point is utter sacrilege of the source material.
And I do disagree with GRRM’s being unsuitable for television, though were I handling it there would be much more more episodes focusing on specific regions, e.g. an episode detailing the entire battle for Meereen starting with Barristan’s coup (though Quentyn releasing the dragons would occur the end of the episode BEFORE, though as it happens at the same time as the coup, there is no differing timeline from the books) and ending with whatever the hell the conclusion of the battle will be in TWoW and the final scene being Daenerys as the Dothraki Sea, thus Meereen’s battle won’t be dealt with at the beginning of TWoW season.
However, of course not having the books done beforehand presents many difficulties and my dislike of GoT aside, even for a good adaption it would likely benefit from waiting AFTER.
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Of course Ned was killed for narrative purpose, D&D had no choice in that because Martin did it. The point is that although D&D thought Ned’s death as “awesome”, they ultimately did not understand why that moment was important, and why it was great.
The fact that the only thing they saw in that moment is the shock value tells you that they do not grasp the underlying depth of the source material and therefore will not be able to properly adapt it. They won’t know which are the important parts of keep which are the superfluous stuff that can be cut, how can they when they don’t understand what the story is about?
To them, the entire story is about “anyone can be killed’ and “honor gets you killed” and “no good deed goes unpunished.” Martin gets wrongly accused of nihilism, but D&D are the actual nihilists.
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@Miodrag
I agree about Theon not killing Ramsay, though I 50/50 on how sure I am on them confronting each other one more time, with Theon doing so no longer as his Reek, to bring this aspect of his arc full circle before moving forth.
Jon confronting Ramsay (and Theon) would be wonderful but I can’t even begin to guess what will happen with his storyline in TWoW. How will he get out of his predicament? How long until the Wall is actually attacked, during Jon’s Ides situation, or after? Will it even get attacked? What happens then? Does he go north or south? If south, what happens? Does he get there in time for the defeat of the Boltons to contribute to it somehow? If he arrives in the aftermath, what then? This all depends on the situation with the other Northern lords, maybe even Lord Reed. How will his stabbing impact on him? What of the Night’s Watch? What was Ghost unnerved by? Will he even be a POV? Will Melisandre be our eyes for Jon? What? Where? Why? I DON’T KNOW!
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It’s incredibly shallow for the same critics who praised the show for its subversive storytelling in which “anyone can be killed” and now throwing a fit because the writers decided that also means “anyone can be raped”.
“Anything (choose you awful thing here) can happen to anyone” is not a sign of good storytelling, it can even get boring and predictable after a while. But then most of the critics wouldn’t know good storytelling any better than D&D,
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“But why would such a setting be interesting in the first place? Why would the audience care for the world in which no good deed goes unpunished? What artistic or philosophical significance could individual fates in that environment possibly have for the viewers? What was supposed to separate “Game of Thrones” from horror rides in amusement parks?”
Excellent questions and ones which have become even more glaring in their absence as the seasons have gone on and we are all now trying to endure the casual character assassinations and crater sized plot holes of Season 5. I really appreciated this “not a review,” Miodrag, especially as you so aptly outlined a lot of the hypocrisy and lack of critical judgement in many of the reviews that have lauded GOT over the years. You will recall the Vanity Fair article that praised the show for “fixing its three weakest characters” one of whom was none other than the unfortunate Sansa Stark. With absolutely no regard for the logical development of Sansa within the books, this review was only too happy to credit the show runners with fixing her perceived problematic characterisation. Then two weeks later? She is raped by Ramsay and they are outraged. Sansa’s arc in the show could be perfectly represented by a horror ride in an amusement park, as it happens. A freakish merry go round that places her on an endlessly circular trajectory where tormentors only change their names but have the same bag of tricks and where she continues to be portrayed as a passive victim, literally just along for the ride with whoever is in control of her fate at the given moment.
Concerning Martin’s response to all these various controversies engendered in the show, it’s noteworthy that he once again cited the “butterfly effect” regarding D&D’s choices with Sansa this season, and pointedly recommended that anyone interested in seeing where the story goes to read the TWOW chapters. Wasn’t this season loudly proclaimed as the one where we would begin to see spoilers for the books? What has become Martin’s favourite mantra on GOT’s debacles: “the show is the show and the books are the books” could not be more clearer now. After reading of D&D’s comments on Tyrion meeting Dany, the fact that they took the reins of this show to see their fanboy aspirations brought to life on screen becomes more and more obvious. And Benioff’s comment summed up what can be regarded as their entire approach to adapting Martin’s books: “Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.”
http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/24/game-thrones-tyrion-dany-meet
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That explanation is by far the funniest one I’ve ever heard D&D tell, and unfortunately for us, it’s also not a joke at all. I’d go as far as saying this is the most honest thing they’ve ever said.
Adding to your points on Martin’s reaction to the controversies, there’s something that reinforces our suspicions that he’s definitely not happy with this deviation in particular as it’s way bigger and with larger consequences than the others. First, he said that sometimes buttlerflies become dragons, alluding to the enormity of this mess: it’s no longer just one butterfly, it’s a big dragon, and you cannot escape dragonfire. It consumed Sansa’s development; and I am not seeing how they will be able to get out of this faux pas, because they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t in whichever scenario they pursue, it’s bound to be taken as either using the rape-revenge trope or victimisation, or worse.
Second, it’s noteworthy that just days after the controversy blew up in our faces, he decided to read the Alayne sample chapter at the Kansas convention. There, he made some interesting comments, according to fan reports:
I cannot vouch for the veracity of this report, since it’s the only one I’ve read and don’t know if there are others. But, if true, it does show our appreciated author is really bothered, as the tone of his voice says so, according to the fan, and I tend to agree the use of the Frost quote does tell us basically this: “It’s not my stuff.” This is not a Scarlett O’Hara number of babies scenario we’re dealing with, this is one major deviation with dire consequences, and regardless of what the showrunners do after to make Sansa’s arc meet her endgame, it doesn’t solve the issues they created. And also, Martin’s insistence in the two-paths metaphor doesn’t mean what most people assume, that we can happily look for clues in the show regarding her or anyone’s fate. Broad strokes is what they know, and that’s not much more different that a writing exercise like in this scenario: you give your students the skeleton of a storyline for a writing assignment, say, the story of a family with 3 kids that start a road trip from point A to point B, and in the road they met X, Y, Z and have a number of adventures; the father is the one that dies in the process, the daughter falls in love in the process, etc., and the end is that once they arrive at B, which is in ruins, something they didn’t expect, they decide that it was worth the myriad adventures and proceed to rebuild the place.
In that exercise, every one of your students will know the story and the endgame. But once you collect their papers and read, you see the incredibly rich differences. Some students are so talented, with an exquisite prose, rich character development, some will have the father’s death be gruesome, others will have it be sad and memorable, some will have the daughter fall in love with a ne’er-do-well who leaves her after one night of sex, others will write a compelling romance for her, some will make the adventures be action-packed, others will make the adventures be horrific, others will make the adventures be hilarious, etc., etc. So many differences that you as the professor and originator of the plotline sometimes pause and wonder if you really gave them all the same basic plot or you gave them each a different plot and then forgot… And what this will teach you is that, as Martin has always been saying, it’s not the endgame what matters but the voyage towards that end.
Benioff and Weiss know the endgame, the professor gave them the writing assignment, and they turned out like the least talented students in the class, those who give us the worst versions of the plot assigned. It doesn’t matter what they know, they’ve proven they cannot take us along on a compelling journey towards that end.
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@brashcandie
Okay, that can very well be the stupidest thing ever related to GOT, or HBO for that matter. “Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.” At first, I had to check you really quoted them directly. It’s not that I doubted you, but I really couldn’t believe a career writer would actually be disingenuous enough to say something like that. But he really did. The man truly said it. And Hibberd left it in there. You know, this Hibberd guy may be less of a friend to them than I believed. I mean, if he’s not going to save them from themselves, or die trying, what kind of a friend is he?
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“Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.”
This quote along with the one about how they just “loved” they Jeyne Poole subplot tells us all about why Sansa is in Winterfell being raped by Ramsay. For whatever reason (I shudder to think) they loved the Jeyne Poole plot and they wanted Sansa in it because it would be more shocking, it would put the audience through an emotional grinder and it would most definitely create public controversy (especially after last seasons debacle about Cersei and Jaime).
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“Creatively it made sense to us, because we wanted it to happen.”
Maybe this should be D&D’s own person tag line.
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That quote will never get old. That and “themes are for eighth grade book reports.” Ladies and gentlemen, we have our show.
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Themes, plural, is clearly too much for these two to handle but they don’t mind boiling down an entire season to one simple theme this year – REVENGE! This is why Sansa agreed to marry into the family that killed her brother and mother, so that she can seek REVENGE! from the inside. Arya’s needle now represents REVENGE! The sand snakes and Ellaria want REVENGE! (So much for the idea that they don’t harm little girls in Dorne). They have focused on how Brienne still wants to kill Stannis for REVENGE! Even Cersei’s arrest we can now boil down to REVENGE! by Olenna for what Cersei did to Marg and Loras. And from the obvious way they are featuring Olly, it seem like they will have Olly stabbing Jon to get REVENGE! for his family that the wildlings killed.
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Yep. This season is a perfect example of overdetermined storytelling because they make every single plotline about one thing: REVENGE. With such a number of disparate storyline this is extremely bad/lazy storytelling.
And the REVENGE theme still doesn’t make much sense of Sansa’s arc this season. They wanted Sansa in WF because they loved the Jeyne Pool story. They cut out the entire Northern Conspiracy, which is about revenge and justice to have Sansa entirely isolated. They spent the better part of the season building up to that one big shocking moment (her rape), which they promoted extensively. With this storyline it doesn seem that it is entirely motivated by the desire to have a serious WTF moment, especially since they went out of their way to make it happen. I expect a serious pay-off but it is hard to see how they’re going to accomplish this with only 3 eps left and some other major storylines to come to a head.
If there’s no big pay-off to Sansa’s storyline this season then we can all conclude that they simply wanted a shocking moment of extended misery porn for no other reason that it would get the audience up in arms. And that would be the worst example of bad storytelling that I’ve ever seen on TV.
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They use revenge because it’s one of the few tricks in their writing bag of tricks. They don’t know how to properly write motivation for characters so their fallback is always “use revenge”. They also have this thing where the only way they know how to make a person likable is to portray them loving their kids. Whenever they need to make the audience like a character they go back to it. It’s as if that’s all’s they know.
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Great not-a-review again Miodrag. Thank you for helping us keep our sanity. It seems that everything that comes from those two is a joke, but it isn’t. If anything they never cease to surprise me (shock me!) with their stupidity. Each time I think they can’t get any worse… and then they do an interview like those mentioned above in the comments.
I’m convinced that D&D’s wish to make Sansa go through that misery comes from a place similar to those “fans” that have been wishing her all kinds of horrible things since she ~betrayed the Ned~. Obviously, I can’t back this up with any evidence.
I never understood the violence that Sansa inspired in some parts of the “fandom”, but the Ds have wasted no time in fulfilling those wishes. And with that new quote from them, knowing that they do whatever they want, it’s clear to me what kind of “fans” they are.
On another note, Aimee Richardson has answered a question about what she thought of Sansa’s scene from UUU on her tumblr:
“I’m absolutely not slating the show on a whole here, and as I said I’ve been trying not to get involved because I don’t want to just slag off the show that pretty much fired me, but the unnecessary rape scenes have made me angry, I’m not going to hide it”
http://justabigcliche.tumblr.com/post/120030598947/whats-your-opinion-on-game-of-thrones-constant
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Lady Stoneheart = badass woman? I know she hasn’t read the books and all, but no. That is so damn far from her meaning. That’s nearly as stupid as apologists for her omission citing Catelyn’s resurrection undermines the horror and tragic nature of the Red Wedding (really? In what manner does it actually not excerbate it?), or that she is pointless (akin to “b-but Queeeentyn is pointless!” (more strawmaning from me, I know)). And even if GRRM’s intention was to make her meaning some “badass” female or whatever, then he would have failed considering all that wretched, hate-filled creature that was once Catelyn Tully Stark has done. However, the man is not stupid, so that is not the case.
Though frankly even if an adaption of ASoIaF emerged with utterly fanatical approach in its writing to GRRM’s work, controversy would be stirred as soon as they adapt the Jeyne Poole consummation (even if toned down to ommit the disrobing) from the PC crowd. I’m sure of that. So whilst this Richardson person is correct and Sansa’s rape is utterly stupid and disrepectful to the books and characters, I am fairly certain a significant amount is up in arms over it NOT for those reasons. Such people remind of those enraged over the Joker cover DC printed a while back for what many believed to be a rape allusion.
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I’m starting to think that the lack of Lady Stoneheart is due to D&D not understanding what her purpose is (there are other ASOAIF fans who feel the same). since she is a tragic epitome of a person who’s dead inside and completely obsessed with nothing but revenge. This does not fit into the show, which is operating under the premise that revenge is awesome, and that being completely obsessed with revenge to the exclusion of everything else is a positive and desirable thing for people to be.
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As that idiot Graves said last year, they think Lady Stoneheart is a zombie(!!?!?!) and implied Farley is too good to portray her, spitting on GRRM’s work in the process. Oh, and he praised her on a level of sycophantism close to D&D’s embarrasing praise of Dance last year.
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Seems like this type of criticism IS EXACTLY what Miodrag is advocating against. Criticize the show for its failures in storytelling, don’t turn it into another quiver in some agenda driven crusade about how the show specifically target women.
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Sorry, I did not mean to draw attention to her opinion on the scene but to the being fired part. I don’t remember her ever stating that so clearly. And since that had been discussed previously on another review I believed it would be relevant.
The entire tumblr post just appeared from the url I pasted as source but I had no idea it would show up as a.. what’s that? A widget?
That’s why I said “on another note” = not about the sansa scene. In any case I understand it may not read that clear.
I wish I could express myself better in English…
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Don’t worry, Catherine, I understood what you were going for and appreciate that you brought another GOT ex-employee’s opinions to our attention.
That widget is one of the newest toys Brashcandie has been playing with… 😉
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Why not? The two are not mutually exclusive. They can be incompetent and also sexist (not consciously – I’m sure they believe they are being oh so progressive in how they portray women, homosexuals, or the Dornish, who are obviously represented as an ethnic “Other”). I’m sure that Miodrag is right that they have no grand plan to insult and stereotype women, or homosexual men, or non-white people, but it just comes to them naturally and they don’t even seem to get why anyone would have a problem with it.
Someone on Tumblr recently brought up Sansa’s book line “I’m stronger within the walls of Winterfell” and that the current plotline almost feels like some vicious deliberate travesty/trolling attempt on D&D’s part. But I’m sure it’s not, because that would mean that they actually carefully read and remembered or later reminded themselves of Sansa’s inner monologue from her chapters.
There’s a portion of fans who have been wishing for years for Sansa to be punished by rape, but there’s also a portion of fans who been arguing for years that Sansa needs to be raped for “character development”, so she would finally stop being so “stupid” and give up all those annoying dreams and hopes of love, happiness and/or human decency. I have the impression that D&D belong to the latter group. They even apparently called that scene “Romance dies” in the script (WTH?! What romance?!). What’s even more puzzling is that they had already portrayed her as someone who had given up all hopes and dreams of love, happiness and human decency (how else are we to believe she was willing to agree to marry into the family of her family’s murderers so she could get “revenge”?), so why exactly did they need to punish her further? And then we go back to the shock value and fetishization (I’ve seen the screenstills of Sansa in her room from the latest episode… several people have commented on how the makeup and camera is doing its best to make her look like a beautiful and sexy rape victim [ugh]).
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@Syrio
She also calls Arianne a “badass”, which I utterly disagree with despite very much loving the character. She seems to be exemplifying a typical notion that badass = good female character. Thank God GRRM did not make that mistake when writing ASoIaF. She hasn’t read the books nor does she watch the television show, so it isn’t the most suitable to attacking D&D’s idiocy for butchering a narrative. As you said, displaying some already ingrained notions.
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At this point, I think by “badass woman” she may simply mean: “Any woman who has a role in the show that doesn’t consist just of being abused, showing her boobs in the background, or offering sex to a guy so we could see he’s awesome”.
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Hey, Miodrag, sorry to say that I’ve only recently discovered your blog and now you blow me away with your criticism every week.
With this post you have effectively made me reassess virtually everything I thought about GOT – from Season 1 onward. What has frustrated me about this current rape controversy is that the number of critics who actually comment on Sansa’s character can be counted on one hand, and you are undoubtedly the best. Rather than a click-bait discussion about feminism or “problematic” treatment of a woman on screen, I would rather point to the damage this does to a character I love. She has been turned from the rapidly developing manipulator with a heart of gold into the sacrificial virgin at the altar of plot convenience.
Why does Littlefinger not know aboout Ramsay’s darker nature? Not because he wouldn’t know, but simply because he can’t know, otherwise his plan doesn’t make any sense.
Why does Sansa agree to go to Winterfell? Not because she would but go, but because she has to go, otherwise she has too much power over Littlefinger whilst still in the Vale.
Compared with the horror show in Winterfell, the complaints about the Sand Snakes scene seem so banal and trivial. A woman using her boobs to outfox a man is hardly anything to get up in arms about, not when in other scenes an attempted rape is just the thing to get a character in the mood.
Thank you for pointing out to me that although we’ve reached a crescendo with this nonsense, the problems have been endemic from the very start.
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