Winterling

Ah well, maybe soon I’ll get one of my (many) drafts ready. 😛 Valar dohaeris.

Your comment on Hodor is really important! However, while not sexual in and of itself, it plays on the same theme – it is a sexual joke, just made visual. Like making a poop joke on screen, it is meant to be vulgar to the viewer, though obviously Hodor has no concept of vulgarity.

And as for Qarth, I agree that on the show there were multiple, solid reasons for changing the costume. Not limited to the fact that they were filming in Morocco, and it would have been difficult to find enough extras and also obey local obscenity laws. In the end, we can’t always separate the fictional norms from the real-world problems. (Though I think when one is filming a television series, attempting to do so enriches the feeling of actually being in another world!)

Game of Thrones had the possibility to be a gritty, explicit fantasy show that reached further than most ‘genre’ television, beyond boobs and blood, as it were. Sadly, boobs and blood are what sells, and in the end the people running the show are out to make money. Which they are doing but the bucket-load.

I still think conversations like this one are vital to have! After all, what we watch influences who we are and how we act in the real world. I’m not saying watching Game of Thrones is going to make someone a more violent person, but when our media condones and actually approves of violence, physical and sexual, then people internalize the idea that this is how one responds.

A little off topic, but let me just say that you can film a very violent movie without condoning violence! Mad Max Fury Road was noted for it’s high death toll and crazy stunts, but everything from the soundtrack to the reactions of the characters made a point of saying that this violence was BAD.

The GoT books make no judgement towards the violence they represent – they are simply reporting what happens. The show, however, glories in the violence and horror it creates. THAT is where we need to draw the line.

I’ve had a great time talking to you! I wish more people on the internet could reasonably discuss their differences and find points of agreement!

On Brienne, I completely agree! Especially in this scene, her dislike of her own body is used as a weapon against Jaime – she believes no one can see her as beautiful, so she sees it as something she /inflicts/ on him as much as a display of her own vulnerability.) 🙁

Agree on Melisandre as well! I think Selse’s fanatical belief is super interesting, considering their relative positions in the court. In a world where SO MUCH of what these people do is a mask, a political convienience, it’s almost disturbing to see the Queen so openly fervent. (I think it’s possible, though I’d have to rewatch the episode to be sure, that Selyse is MORE comfortable once the Red Woman has removed her desirability from the equation. That once she reveals her ‘true form’ Selyse is allowed to distance the object of her devotion from the mistress of her husband.)

On Cersei, yes schadenfruede is useful, but I think it goes beyond that. This is more for the scene before her walk, when her hair is cut. There are long, lingering shots of her breasts and…there is no polite word for this…her privates, her butt; barely focusing on her face (this was also because a body double was used, I believe) or her emotion – this is a scene not meant to show Cersei’s strength, but to display her female weakness.

And I 100% agree with the idea that they could have displayed an actual female body rather than a Hollywood model!! It would have fit in so well with Game of Thrones ~realism~ but again we see the hypocrisy. The ‘realism’ extends only as far as rape and brutal, violent deaths. It is not meant to be real, but to be titillating, as we see here.

Aaand, if you want me to go on, go on I will! About your discussion of Jamie and Brienne – I think the problem is much the same as Dany’s (and indeed you talk about her extensive nudity in s1 as a factor in this): the idea that a naked character is always sexual. Because Game of Thrones frames it this way, I can hardly blame viewers for internalizing this idea.

Now this is an explicitly showrunner problem – I actually completely agree with your analysis of the meaning of the nudity (and lack thereof) in this scene! It was powerful, and meaningful. However. If you as a showrunner are so completely divorced from your female characters that showing them naked is ALWAYS a vulnerability, ALWAYS a sexual act, then what does that say about your female characters? Mostly it says that you can’t write them.

Look at it another way – if we had been filming the female body as neutral, as just a body, then it wouldn’t have /mattered/ whether or not the viewers saw Brienne. In fact, we could have focused the shot on her face instead of Jaime’s.

As for Melisandre’s role and her power over Selyse, I definitely agree that Stannis values Meslisandre more. He actually low-key despises his wife for being unable to produce a healthy male heir. Melisandre brings him power (and pleasure, lets not deny).

BUT again we come to the cultural aspect. Selyse is uncomfortable because she is Westerosi (and a prude). Melisandre is comfortable because she is from the Free Cities, where it is shown that sex is a natural part of the Red God’s worship. Melisandre doesn’t care about nudity or even sex because that is part of how she was raised – the Westerosi would say she was raised in a whore-house, but she was raised in a temple and it is VERY different.

Here’s how I see the scene: there are three people in it. Melisandre, Selyse, and the viewer. Selyse and the viewer see the Red Woman’s nakedness as sexual (the viewer is aroused by this, the Queen disturbed). But the Red Woman herself? Is just bathing.

Okay last scene! Cersei and her walk of shame. Okay okay okay. Talking about cultural disconnect, and then we have a purely Westerosi and a purely Andal ritual. The Seven and their fanatical followers (whom Cersei has unwisely encouraged, thinking they would aid her) are a HUGE part of how Westerosi view social norms. When they cut her hair and make her strip, they are forcing humiliation on her.

I actually rewatched the scene and realized that this ties back to what I said earlier: the viewer is meant to be aroused by this. This is a humiliation of a powerful female character, and it is filmed so that the viewer can say ‘oh yes, that bitch, getting her comeuppance.’

Now I completely agree that her children are her motivation! She would do absolutely anything for them. As power hungry as she is, it is all in their name. And absolutely her strength in that walk was remarkable; that she made it all the way to the Red Keep without falling is testament to her strength. Sadly, I do not believe that the show writers were lauding that strength as much as they were displaying her nakedness.

I’m really glad you’re not upset! It’s always touch and go, on the internet, how someone will react to a differing opinion. But I love talking about (and debating) the things I enjoy reading/watching.

Without further ado: on Qarth and outfits! Again I’m going to focus on the difference between the books and the show. 😛 Obviously in the books women wearing dresses with one breast bare would be normal, not obscene or prurient. That is something we as viewers bring with us. (Though I agree that they would find nakedness degrading just as we do.) The decision made in the show to change the design seems solid for several reasons; they talk about it on the wiki page: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Costumes:_Essos

But I think the discussion of having one breast bare ‘degrading’ Dany’s storyline is misleading. If it was filmed and treated as normal, it would be one step closer to BECOMING normal. It’s only ‘distracting’ because of the expectations we come to the screen with. The first time we see the Mountain he’s out killing people shirtless, but you don’t see people complaining that this undermines the seriousness of his scenes?

(this is on the wiki, not you) but I find the claim that having extended dialogue scenes with her breast bare would undermine her character is ESPECIALLY rich coming from the writers of the show SO full of scenes with naked women and extended conversations that people came up with a term for it!

I guess the only conclusion to draw from that claim is that its only undermining when the women are the ones supposed to be powerful. Apparently they can’t do that wearing a dress with one breast bare. Though GRRM has said that Qarth does not correspond to any real historical group, here is an interesting pin for this conversation: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/559572322425314203/
Showing that high fashion in the 17th century sometimes involved necklines so low you could see a woman’s nipples. And yet somehow they went out in public and had conversations and presumably men heard what they were saying without being so ‘distracted’ that they literally couldn’t focus on the conversation.

This is a funny turn around for me, because normally I’d definitely be arguing for less nudity, not more! But the thing about Game of Thrones (the show) is that it’s (almost) never about the characters themselves or what they are experiencing. It’s all about the viewer and how the viewer is getting off to the violence and the nakedness. When put that way, it makes sense to cut the outfits from Qarth: the women there aren’t naked for the viewers’ arousal/amusement. They were just living their lives, and in the case of Dany, arguing for ships.

That argument ties back into what you were saying about Sansa: that it would change the way the viewers felt about her, not necessarily Sansa herself. By filming this way, the viewer does not empathize with the female characters and instead views them as an object. And if you at how the bedroom scene with Tyrion is filmed, you see that that’s exactly the case! We are watching Tyrion’s reaction to Sansa’s undressing, Tyrion’s feelings and conflict. The camera treats Sansa as a thing, and so does the viewer.

I’m not a prude, arguing that there should be less sex and violence on TV. I’m saying that because of the choices the show writers have made, they display nudity /only/ in sexual contexts, and thus eliminate the fact that women exist outside of those contexts. In Qarth, that dress is not revealing. It is just a dress. The fact that they chose not to show it doesn’t mean they didn’t want more boob scenes with Emilia Clarke; it means that they are literally incapable of showing breasts as anything OTHER than sexual. And that’s a problem.

I think that superheroes occupy a unique place in out culture, and I agree that most people aren’t really willing to accept brand-new names, especially in the film industry where so much money goes into each movie. (I don’t necessarily agree that breathing new life into old heroes has no merit. It’s how most of those heroes came into existence to begin with.)

I think your argument is a bit muddled here – in the beginning it seems like you are arguing for more than a JUST Marvel and DC options, which I completely agree with. Let’s see Hellboy brought back, or let’s see Witchblade hit the big screen.

But then you wrap up your argument with x-men, which is a marvel franchise? Wolverine IS an avenger? X-men vs Avengers was a relatively recent thing in the comics? I find your argument very unclear: what exactly are you trying to say? First you argue that too many mainstream heroes are getting shows/movies, then that no one cares about the particular heroes that are getting movies (GotG, Iron Man) then you say that x-men did a good job…. because they used characters that fewer people had heard/cared about before they appeared in the movies???

Also, I do realize we are talking about films here and not actual comics, but Marvel right now is pulling in a /lot/ of new stories, like the new Ms. Marvel and the Young Avengers.

The thing about super heroes is that they exist within a particular mold that’s difficult to break out of. It’s more common to have a new person take up the name of an old hero than it is to have a brand new identity coming out. And here’s the most important point, to me – that is how myth /works/. And super heroes ARE myths, don’t forget. Stories we tell ourselves to feel better, to elucidate some facet of human nature, just /to tell a story/.

Myths get recycled. There is no such thing as an original story. And for the super hero genre, this ‘recycling’ works particularly well. I don’t see any reason to change or forget the attachment I’ve forged to the familiar characters that were first created years ago, and I’m excited to see them in new forms on screen.

This is such an amazing essay! One of the reasons I have trouble focusing enough to play video games is that I more often play Dungeons and Dragons, a game in which choice is also inherent and (with the DM’s help) also infinite. You can play the same adventure module again and again, but by making different choices you can radically change the outcome.

I haven’t played Bioshock but I’ve watched other people play, and this essay does a great job of explaining why they matter so much to the genre of video games. Being aware of the limitations of a form can provoke incredible work and responses in players, as you’ve shown!

I was just in a Children’s Literature class this past semester (not quite the same thing, but with similar principles) and I would definitely argue that children can take a lot more than we expect. That doesn’t mean I’m going to show my 5 year old nephew the Matrix or anything, but I do think that sheltering kids from all ‘adult’ themes may not help them in the long run.

I think you’re 100% right, kids need to learn about these darker themes in life, and it’s better to show them in ways you can encourage them to ask questions and to grow with you rather than having them exposed the hard way and not be prepared at all.