Is it possible to talk about gender issues in GOT without people inferring or implying some blame or moral failing for having done it the way they chose to do it? So, GOT redeems male characters but not female characters (allegedly). They also revel too much in rape scenes and they're opportunistic about using nudity to get ratings. Okay, that's the story they want to tell. Does there have to be condemnation on the one hand and some defense on the other? I think they've got a lot of Red Sonja Syndrome going on -- fetishizing strong women.
It's not our world. It's a fantasy world with different rules than we have in our world. She is wrong in her assertion and even if she wasn't, she still shouldn't be holding Westeros to the standards of 2019 United States.
I'm not sure what kind of culture we are aiming at anymore but I'll post it here and Facebook when I find out.
I also think Theon sunk into this pathetic character and also had his penis cut off which made the audience feel a bit more sympathetic to him - he definitely was "punished"; Theon had a fall from grace. Melisandre was never well liked, was always arrogant, and her fall had to do with the guilt of what she did but she was never truly punished other than her isolation. It was almost as if she finally took her punishment by taking off her necklace at the end, and in that moment Davos witnessed that and she had her moment of redemption. I feel the show has been very progressive towards women. And I tip my hat to the showrunners for the scene that shows Missandei dealing with racial bias. I would like to have seen at least one minority cast as a character of power in the series outside of the Dornish. For example, the representative of the Iron bank
Honesty, what isn’t sexist male privilege these days? I mute at least two accounts like this per week.
George RR Martin has said before about writing about 3 dimensional characters "Good people do horrible things, and Horrible people do good things.... it was said that Hitler famously was a dog lover". I think that says everything you need to know about GOT characters. This is a medieval fantasy. A good person doing something terrible in the real world would be cheating on your spouse in a moment of weakness you have to recon for.... in a medieval fantasy it would be seizing a castle of a family who raised you as an orphan, and burning two children to pass off as their children when they escape. This author is trying WAY too hard to find commonality with our modern day sociopolitical world we live in. All of our central female leads have had pretty compelling arcs up to this point IMO. Especially Arya who has had maybe the most trying arc over many many seasons. You want to write about our F-ed up culture and GOT.... write about how fans cheer when a child murders someone in cold blood, but how those same fans are enraged that a girl in her late teens discovers her sexuality with someone she cares deeply about. GOT has very compelling 3 dimensional characters IMO. That's what makes the story amazing. But looking for some end character "message" like a Sermon at Sunday School is a fools errand. Its a medieval fantasy... not the New Testament.
Honestly, three dimensional characters have ended with this season. The main hyped baddie was just a one dimensional pure evil figure. The show has lost its edge.
However.... I will certainly say that ASOIAF/ GOT does have themes in it that GRRM carries through all of his works. Themes that really are more relevant to history's lessons in general for sure. But these are bigger themes than 2019 metoo themes. Some themes: -Religious fanaticism... when weaponized for political gain can be highly destructive -Doing the "Right and Honorable" thing in certain situations is rarely popular & can have severe consequences -The misunderstandings of "The Other" -The Innocent always are the ones who feel the most pain in times of war etc. etc. All great themes to write about, but don't have to be pigeon holed into one specific timeframe to be effective.
They haven't been three dimension in a while. Once the show passed the books they wrote all of the characters as white hats and black hats to draw from our current discourse. Tyrion is just all around good, no shades of gray. Cersei is evil. Jamie has left Cersei because he is good. Jon is 100% good. Basically everyone on his side is 100% good, everyone on Cersei's side is evil.
I agree I think the show was done after Season 6. They could have ended it right there with Daenerys sailing to Westeros. It would have been much more interesting if the White Walkers had some other dimension to them - like what are they going to do after they conquer all of westeros and wipe every man off the map?
Unfortunately the show's current producers, David and Dan are **** writers. They are solid directors but they can't write a story at all. They had great source material to work with and that source material ran out.
Imagine spending five hours a day looking for things to get triggered about on Twitter . That’s a pretty sad life. And they call us snowflakes...
It's about forgiveness. Bran, Sansa, and Jon were able to forgive. It wasn't about Theon. It was about the nobility of the Stark house. Davos was not able to forgive. Arya forgave the Red Witch and she wanted to kill her the most.
Working off Martin's suggestions and notes is quite different than having a fleshed out storyline from an actual book. The filling in the gaps with complex characters is where D&D really struggle.
