Viewing posts tagged game of thrones
 |
Smirking lessons |
State of Play
The choir goes off. There is a cold open running three minutes and set north of the Wall. The opening image is pitch black and inhuman screaming, then a fade-in on the windswept landscape and Sam running in terror.
The board is laid out thusly:
Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Queen Cersei Lannister, The King’s Hand Tywin Lannister
Dragons of Astapor: Khaleesi Daenerys Targaryen
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Direwolves of Harrenhal: The King in the North Robb Stark, Caetlynn Stark,
Bears of Astapor: Jorah Mormont
Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish
Ships of King’s Landing: Davos Seaworth,
Burning Hearts of Dragonstone: King Stannis Baratheon, Mellisandre
Roses of King’s Landing: Margery Tyrell
Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarley
Stags of King’s Landing: King Joffrey Baratheon
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Sansa Stark
Tigers of Harrenhal: Talisa Stark
Flowers of King’s Landing: Shae
Bows of the Wall: Ygritte
Bears of the Wall: Lord Commander Jeor Mormont
Chains of King’s Landing: Bronn
Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins.
The episode is in eight parts. The first part runs seven minutes and is set at Mance Rayder’s ...
Posted by:
Jack Graham
5 years, 9 months ago
Spoilers & TriggersSo, Sansa and Ramsey.
Well, it was totally necessary because it shows rape is bad, which we didn’t already know…
Oh, hang on, we did.
Well, some people don’t understand how bad rape is, and this’ll make them see that they were wrong…
Oh no, hang on, it proably won’t.
Well, it was necessary for the plot.
Er… no. And even if it had been, plots are things people make, not things that grow by themselves.
But it was in the book, wasn’t it?
Um… no, it wasn’t. In fact they had to rewrite the storyline from the books quite extensively to make it possible. And even if it had been in the book, that wouldn't bind them to include it.
But at least it was germaine to the text, like the rape scene in, say,
The Accused…Umm… except that this is a show about dragons and magic in a fairytale kingdom.
But at least it shows the horrors of the treatment of women in the middle ages…
Except that this show isn’t set in the middle ages in the real world…
But, being set ...
Posted by:
Jack Graham
6 years, 10 months ago
Spoilers for Game of Thrones... if the writers haven't already spoiled it enough. Aside from being just horribly and needlessly misogynistic (Moffat has nothing on this.
Nothing.) and basically relying on the assumption that Jaime can be redeemed despite being a rapist (presumably because Cersei is such a b*tch that its okay to rape her), it also perfectly illustrates something I was banging on about in a post about
The Borgias a few years back.
It illustrates what happens when you purposefully remove consistent moral thinking from narrative texts just for the show-offy hell of it.
Now, I'm not a moralising finger-wagger (at least, I try not to be because it's a deeply unattractive and narcissistic trait) but I do believe that morality is a vital part of fiction. Not in the sense that all stories should contain clear moral messages, or avowedly support a certain moral position, or anything like that, but rather in the sense that they should be aware that questions of justice and injustice are built into storytelling, at least in the Western tradition, and that it is literally impossible to tell a story in that tradition without ...