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Cast members from Game of Thrones break character to play air-guitar at a photoshoot

Open Games of Thrones Thread

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As requested by macavitykitsune in Spillover #5, here is an Open Games of Thrones Thread to mark the Season 3 finale, which was broadcast on Sunday night in the USA, and Monday afternoon/evening (i.e. a few hours ago) in Australia (if it hasn’t been broadcast in your timezone yet, then BEWARE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS BELOW).

To open proceedings, here is a photo of some cast members playing air guitar etc during a photoshoot for Entertainment Weekly (presumably to the theme tune?).

Cast members from Game of Thrones break character to play air-guitar at a photoshoot
(L-R) Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryon), Lena Headey (Cersei Baratheon nee Lannister), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister)
Image Source: scifinow.co.uk

73 thoughts on Open Games of Thrones Thread

    1. I think I would be disinclined to go to a Game of Thrones-themed wedding. I would be too concerned as to which wedding was the primary inspiration.

    2. Is there even a happy wedding in the book? No spoilers, but just of the one’s we’ve seen already, have there been any non-miserable weddings? Maybe Rob and Talsia, but that wasn’t a huge wedding and we all know how it ended…

  2. Just don’t have the band play tbe Rains of Castamere or you’ll trigger a stampede for tbe exits.

    1. Well, its a great way to get the guests to leave when you’re ready for the night to be over ; )

  3. Random thoughts from the finale:

    – Some princesses are ushered into adulthood via a fancy wedding or some kind of precious, ultra feminine ceremony. Arya was never that kind of princess, so her leaving childhood behind was going to involve an entirely different kind of initiation. You could argue her childhood ended with the death of her father, but I think it happened by that campfire, killing a man who played a role in desecrating her brother’s body. I knew she had it in her, but to see that level of raw violence from someone so young was hard to watch.

    – Even though I really like Tyrion and Shae as a couple, I see a lot of potential for Tyrion and Sansa becoming a scheming-yet-benevolent power couple. I think Varys sees that too, hence trying to get Shae out of the picture.

    – I get that the scene with the freed slaves calling Daenerys “mother” was supposed to be touching, but it left a bad taste in my mouth to see a blonde, white woman being hailed as the savior of dark skinned foreigners.

    1. I have a hard time seeing Sansa as capable of much scheming. She just consistently fails to see past the surface of anything or anyone: she thinks Joffrey is wonderful until it turns out that he isn’t, she has no idea that Margaery’s interest in acquiring her is politically motivated, and so on. I’m curious to find out whether she’s going to grow any wiser through hard experience, but she clearly hasn’t yet.

      I second your discomfort with Daenerys’ scenes last night. It’s a reaction that a lot of people have had to her storylines in general, I think, but while I’ve tended to shrug at criticisms of the portrayal of the Dothraki as racist, I think that the show has had a big racial problem with just about all of Daenerys’ “free the slaves!” arc this season.

      I laughed at Ygritte shooting Jon Snow. Partially because I am a harpy and break up with all my boyfriends via bow-and-arrow myself, of course, but also because he looked so very surprised.

      Curious that the show seemed to be asking us to romanticize Circe and Jamie a little bit in their final scene.

      1. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but as I heard her telling Tyrion about wanting to put dung in a bed as a way to get back at enemies I thought yes, she’s still quite young and immature, but she’s got a (justifiably) spiteful streak and a hell of a lot of heartbreak that needs an outlet. She’s not going to go the vengeful murderous route of her sister, but I could see her assisting her husband in carrying out some subtle sabotage if she learns to trust him and (more importantly) trust herself.

        1. I’m not so sure Sansa should learn to trust anyone, including Tyrion. Every time she trusts a Lannister it ends badly. I actually would hope she would finally learn to look out for her own interests and learn to suspect EVERYONE’s motives. She trusted Joffery and Circe , and that ended with her fathers execution. Even before that it resulted in Lady’s execution. She decided to stay in Kings landing for the “fairytale” rescue of marrying Loras and ended up in a forced marriage to Tyrion. Littlefinger probably has his own reasons for wanting her to leave with him when he left but, at least she would have been out of King’s Landing and maybe have the chance to go live with her aunt.
          Yes, I know her Aunt Lysa has her own issues but so far the Lannister’s have been responsible for the deaths of both her parents and her older brother and for her brother Bran’s “accident”. If she were smart she wouldn’t trust any Lannister as far as she could kick them. Tyrion may be the best of the lot but in the end I think he’s still going to look out for his own interests first.

    2. it left a bad taste in my mouth to see a blonde, white woman being hailed as the savior of dark skinned foreigners.

      Yeah, I wasn’t too pleased with the Aryan LadyJesus myself. And I didn’t even have as much of a Facial Expression(TM) as my wife. o_o

  4. I’m going to say something that has brought me verbal lapidation from pretty much everybody I know (because this show seems to have a particularly passionate fandom that doesn’t tolerate any critique of their favourite pop culture item), but I find Game of Thrones aggresively mysogynistic, racist and nasty, and its popularity and hype are disheartening to me.

    To name just a few of my problems with the show, sexual abuse and threats of sexual abuse are (sic) abused by the writers as a handy plot device or an ingredient for “atmosphere”, and when happening on-screen they’re portrayed in an exploitive and eroticized manner similar to a Playboy photoshoot, meant as masturbation fodder (for instance, the soft lighting and loving gaze of the camera on Emilia Clarke’s breasts in the pilot, when she’s being first molested by her brother, then raped by her husband). Speaking of Emilia: the “falling in love with my rapist” Season 1 plotline for Dany is…well, I’m having a hard time finding a word for it, but every time I remember it was originally written by an old dude about a 13 year old girl, my skin crawls. This is by far the rapiest tv series to gain popularity as far as I can remember. Brown people are portrayed as primitive and animal-like. All the nudity is catering to the male gaze, to the point of ridiculous scenes where a woman gets fully naked and her sex partner stays clothed. Etc. Etc.

    In a nutshell, while I’m aware that my opinion is just that, an opinion, I’m disappointed that there is so little debate, or feminist critique of this franchise out there – and not only that, but that any criticism of it is received with knee-jerk “no, you’re wrong! GoT is awesome!” reactions. Possibly because all the feminists are passionate fans as well. I’m starting to suspect the producers of Jedi mind tricks.

    OK, rant over. I apologize…but it is an open thread on the show, right?

    1. Your comments are all totally relevant. I often find myself in that uneasy in-between space of holding multiple perspectives on the show at the same time. Yes, it is valid to critique the sexism, the racism, and extreme violence. And at the same time it’s possible to enjoy the show and even find characters and story elements that push against the oppressive elements. For example I like seeing the multiple ways the female characters attempt to gain and hold power in a patriarchal world (as mother to a king, as a sword fighting soldier, dressed as a boy, marrying the right person, practicing sorcery, etc). And at the same time, I am beyond annoyed at the lopsided female to male nudity ratio in the show, particularly when female nudity is used as a background for exposition for the male characters (Littlefinger’s scenes were especially bad with this). At the end of the day, I enjoy the show in spite of, not because of the sexism and racism (a similar argument I make for watching Mad Men).

      1. Fair enough, I know it’s entirely possible to enjoy something while simultaneously noticing what’s wrong with it. I would however argue that GoT is in an entirely different league of nastiness from something like Mad Men, at least as far as the misogyny is concerned- the main reason being that a premium channel offers the possibility to overdose on sexploitation and explicit rapiness (I do tend to think that an HBO or Showtime-produced Mad Men would be unwatchable), and also because the “fake medieval” setting is a neat excuse. (“That’s how it was back then! Women were treated horribly! You’d want it to be historically inaccurate? What, dragons you say? Well, it’s fantasy, of course it has dragons!”)

        This is, in fact, part of a trend in recent years: The Tudors, The Borgias, Camelot, Spartacus etc. (I remember, after GoT premiered, a tumblr blogger wrote that premium cable shows offered her 3 marital rapes of Skinemax quality in the same weekend). The vaguely historical setting is used as a justification to indulge in misogyny with glee, while the lax content restrictions offer the opportunity to go into softcore porn territory- most of the time these two flavors are combined. GoT is only the most popular of these shows and therefore the most worthy of critique.

    2. “Verbal lapidation” is a great phrase, I’m stealing it.

      For myself, I got through two and a half books before quitting because I couldn’t bear what seemed to me to be the over-the-top cruelty of the series’ premise; because so many of my friends were fans, I tried to watch the TV show, which is absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully acted, but I quit with no regrets after the scene where Joffrey rapes (or attempts to rape) two prostitutes with his scepter.

      That said, I was a pretty devoted fan of an equally problematic TV show with regards to sexism and racism, True Blood, for a number of years – I’ve stopped watching more because of the deterioration of the writing than because of the long-standing issues with the show. When there’s a dearth of feminist-created and feminist-themed material on TV, geeks will find outlets where they can, and for all its flaws GoT does have plenty of ‘strong female characters’.

    3. Emilia Clarke’s breasts in the pilot, when she’s being first molested by her brother,

      I’m not a regular viewer, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t what happened- they have a pretty damn gross relationship, but it is consensual, no?

      1. Barely. Dany is 13 at the beginning of the series, and she assumes that she will one day marry Viserys*, so she just kind of puts up with it. Dany doesn’t really start to gain her own voice and agency until well after her marriage to Drogo.

        *I was under the impression that Viserys intended to kill Drogo and marry Daenerys himself once the Dothraki won the Iron Throne for him, but we know how that ended.

      2. How-

        Wat.

        How – on earth did you get the impression that it was consensual? At least as written in the books, thirteen-year-old Daenerys was terrified of her considerably-older, abusive, evil older brother.

      3. Were you thinking of Lena Headey’s character, Cersei Lannister? Her relationship with her brother is creeptastic but consenual.

      4. Amblingalong, I think you’re confusing Daenerys and Viserys with Jaime and Cersei Lannister, who are also siblings, but whose relationship is totally consensual. Unlike Blondie McRapeface’s molestation of Daenerys.

        1. Amblingalong, I think you’re confusing Daenerys and Viserys with Jaime and Cersei Lannister, who are also siblings, but whose relationship is totally consensual. Unlike Blondie McRapeface’s molestation of Daenerys.

          Yup, got it. Sorry everyone!

      5. It didn’t look consensual to me. I haven’t read the books, but in the show she seemed to be putting up with it extremely unhappily. It wasn’t a “Cersei and Jaime” kind of thing.

        My problem wasn’t that there’s a plot point about her brother molesting her, specifically. Such thing can exist in a story if it’s justified, sure. But the camera was “molesting” her at the same time, identifying with his gaze. Presentation makes all the difference in conveying the message of a scene. In this case, Dany’s brother was trying to degrade her, and the directorial choices were “helping” him instead of her.

        1. This is what bugs me GOT. Instead of showing and critiquing the in-world sexism, the TV show just recreates it instead.

        2. Yes, this. It’s not so much that the show is over-loaded with rape and abuse of women and the disempowered; it’s that the show plays these scenes as porn. We’re supposed to be enjoying watching these women being raped and beaten by Joffery — it’s supposed to turn us on. The torture and castration and near rape of Theron is played like a sex scene, like a really HOT sex scene.

          Same for the rapes of Daenerys, and the abuse of Sansa.

          It’s sickening.

        3. Delagar, I think you make a good point, although I don’t agree with it entirely. I think the scenes like the one with Joffrey and the one with Theon are supposed to be seen as beyond-the-pale horrific — consider, for instance, that basically every scene with Joffrey in it has been progressively more horrendous, illustrating his unbroken descent from terrible to cacodemonic. When he rapes and beats the women, I think it is meant to come across as the most depraved of acts — until later he shoots one with a crossbow, which is just mindblowing, even in comparison.

          The problem as I see it is that there’s so much gratuitous sex for gratuitous sex’s sake that there isn’t sufficient contrast between the stuff we’re supposed to see as horrific and the stuff we’re supposed to see as hot. For instance, all the explicit scenes with Littlefinger: Are they supposed to be titillating or a reflection on his character? And when Dany finally turns around and invites Drago to actually have sex face-to-face, is she expressing a desire to be with him, or is she just trying to find a way to make him stop raping her? It would be easier to understand those aspects of the plot if the rest of the show wasn’t already Cavalcade of Titties.

    4. (because this show seems to have a particularly passionate fandom that doesn’t tolerate any critique of their favourite pop culture item)

      This can be said about almost any fandom though, if you don’t dig deep. Critique any series with an eye for social justice and you’ll get loud boos from a large portion of the fans.

      Possibly because all the feminists are passionate fans as well.

      I get what you’re implying but almost any critique i have ever read on any series is by passionate fans. It takes a passionate fan to write up a 2,000+ word screed on why Cersei is being hated for the wrong reasons, or the history of merkins and the weird lack of pubic hair on the show.

      To criticize it you have to watch/read at least some of it, and that’s hard to do if you aren’t a fan/hate it. Some feminists *do* do that, but when there’s problematic things to be critiqued in any series there’s no reason to stick with one you hate.

      There is some wonderful critique and meta out there that you’re missing out on. Unless you’re following the fandom tags or sites (which seems unlikely given your dislike of the series) I don’t know how you could come across it.

      (I’m not trying to stick up for the series or fandom; I just really love the critique I’ve found for this series. Because there are so many women that take such an equal part of the series, there is a lot of examination of their roles. Contrast that with something like Supernatural, where that critique is virtually possible because there are no female main characters, and none that last very long period)

      1. All of this. I don’t know if it’s just that I look at the more feminist-minded people online, but I’ve read tons of feminist critique, most/all from huge fans of the show. Hell, I critique it heavily and I quite enjoy it (though I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a big fan).

    5. In GRRM’s defense, a lot of the gratuitous female nudity and sex scenes are exclusive to the HBO series – Littlefinger’s scene with two of the women from his brothel in season 2, the scene with Joffrey and the two prostitutes in season 2, and the scene with the two women and Theon in Ramsay’s dungeon from season 3. Those are the ones that I can think off the top of my head that simply were not in the books at all; I am sure if I were willing to watch the show again I would find more.

      Also, the initial sex scene between Daenerys and Khal Drogo is considerably different in the books. Given the age difference a discussion of meaningful consent is pointless, but it is far less rape-like than portrayed in the HBO series.

      I would agree with your critiques of the show as it stands. I do think the books have a bit more nuance, but I would agree that they are problematic as well. What the series does have going for it is several strong, complex female characters who do not derive their significance from their roles as mothers or objects of desire.

      1. Also, the initial sex scene between Daenerys and Khal Drogo is considerably different in the books. Given the age difference a discussion of meaningful consent is pointless, but it is far less rape-like than portrayed in the HBO series.

        This. When I saw that in the show, it was a serious WTF? moment for me. Yes, obviously, in the book she’s really young and scared, but he doesn’t force her.

        At this point, I’m just watching it to see how it all turns out. It’s mostly crap.

        1. I was pissed at how they portrayed that scene as it was very different in the book, made it difficult for someone who hasn’t read it to understand how Daenarys comes to care for him. but then again there are a lot of ways the book is different.

  5. So, I’m a reader of the books, and I really don’t like what they’ve done with Asha – sorry, Yara – Greyjoy’s personality. She’s riding to rescue her brother? What even is going on with that?

    1. Maybe they’re trying to accelerate her storyline? SPOILERS She get’s kidnapped by Stannis’s army in the north, right, and then runs into Theon after he escapes. (source: my faulty memory and A Wiki of Ice and Fire) Since I’ve heard the 4 and 5 books will be one season each, maybe the writers are shifting storylines around. The timeline gets really weird in the books anyway.

      1. The entire Kingsmoot plotline has to happen in the meantime but.
        I think part of it is that by having Theon clearly alive (unlike in the books, where he’s presumed dead after the fall of Winterfell), they have to give the Greyjoys some way of dealing with him being alive. Instead of having Asha truly be seen – at least in her own eyes – as Balon’s true heir, they have her striving to rescue Theon.

    2. I haven’t read the books, but I still thought it was out of character for her to go on a rescue mission for the brother she can’t stand. The show did a terrible job of laying any foundation for her motives.

      1. Maybe she doesn’t like him very much but he’s family and this show is ALL about family loyalty and power. (See Tywin Lannister thinking he should be father of the year because he put family first and didn’t drown Tyrion at birth). Also, if she’s trying to prove herself as a warrior, why not go rescue her brother and maybe take back the North?

      2. >Avoiding the show like the plague until Mr. Writey-McWriterpants manages to turn out a book on time.

        Watched the clip, saw Balon and her argue, what’s he doing on the mainland, or are they not at Deepwood Motte? She’s the one that told Theon to not go after Winterfell, which then sets up her motivation for leaving him without support when the northmen come calling. She does end up going there after the place is wrecked but it’s not for vengeance, he was dead to the family a long time ago.

        Also, the Dreadfort is on the eastern side of the mainland, the Weeping Water flows out in to the Narrow Sea, I’m a huge nerd, and she’d need to sail all the way around the south end of Westeros in order to get up there. That adds time to her story-line and in fact damages it, especially if she’s on the move when SPOILER:

        Balon dies and the Kingsmoot is called.

    3. I totally hate that they have her rescuing her brother, no, just not right. She is not the maternal caring type, maybe that’s why they changed it – her character is too “manly”?

  6. Thoughts on the finale, which I watched yesterday:

    1) Who the fuck does Tywin think he’s fooling, making himself out to be Daddy Bestest for not killing Tyrion? Dwarfism isn’t apparent at birth, afaik (feel free to correct if I’m wrong). If Tywin’s best defense against being an epic asshole is “Well, I didn’t kill that innocent baby that one time, so there!” he really needs to look at his life and look at his choices.

    2) Ygritte – ♥ ! Of course, I’m very convinced she’s going to be killed off for the temerity of being female while having personality.

    3) Obligatory “dick in a box” joke to get it over with: I don’t see the problems others have raised in the thread re: Asha/Yara “losing” her place as heir in order to help Theon. It seems pretty clear that no matter what she does, he’s not going to be heir, much less rule the Ironborn, not mutilated and broken as he is (and he wasn’t exactly a fine piece of work to begin with before Ramsay got to him, mentally or physically; the only person who thought he’d rule was Theon himself). It seems more of a continuation of her looking out for her brother. Though I haven’t read the books, and I don’t know where it goes, really.

    4) Dany – erm, show, maybe try not to be quite so racist? Not that I have any real hopes for you in that area, it is white-male-penned high fantasy after all. I was actually really pleased with her season 1 storyline – white saviour saves savefully and whitefully, only to have her saviour complex smack her in the face with prejudice – but I was hoping for a deconstruction, and this wasn’t it. Unless it all blows up in her face in s4, I’m not remotely happy with this shit.

    5) Tumblr fandom (I don’t have a tumblr, but I do check in on a couple of meta writers) going apeshit over not being spoon-fed the significance of bread and salt – wait, what? I don’t understand! How is this not a thing people know (or can extrapolate)? I mean, the salt thing is even a plot point in Indian epics… though I guess I don’t know if it’s a thing for enough other cultures that everyone would know.

    6) Is it just me or was the finale really underwhelming? Like…sure, things happened, but it wasn’t exactly gripping or anything.

    1. Agreed on all points.

      As Daenerys was getting crowd-surfed in Yunkai, I thought, “Wow, they couldn’t have picked a whiter character on the entire show for that scene, could they. Head to toe, she’s damned near ecru.” And the fact that her character has gone from three interesting dimensions to two, the remaining two being “white chick who frees people,” has been disappointing. Maybe she’ll get interesting again in Season 4, but the ending to this episode doesn’t make me hopeful.

      And as finales go, this one completely lacked punch. I grant you that it’s hard to make an impact after your previous episode ended with “AND THEN EVERYONE DIED BLOODY,” but this one seemed more expository than anything else, and you can’t exposit your way into a summer hiatus.

      1. And the fact that her character has gone from three interesting dimensions to two, the remaining two being “white chick who frees people,” has been disappointing.

        I think what really kills me about the whole thing is that we’re supposed to root for the “white chick freeing oppressed brown people”, while literally every other highborn character we’re supposed to root for (bar three) is directly oppressing white people. Are we really supposed to just blindly nod along with Dany’s apparent assumption that being common in Yunkai is somehow worse than being common in Westeros, just because they call the people being raped/pillaged/murdered/abused “slaves” instead of “lowborn”? Because, you know, I’d pick being enslaved in Yunkai or Meereen over being a serf in Westeros any day of the week. The lack of ten-year winters (who exactly is the first to starve again? Nobility?) and ice zombie apocalypses seem convincing points to remain Brown and Oppressed for me.

      2. Apparently the season finale takes place at a midway point in one of the books, so if that’s the case I can forgive a slightly underwhelming finale (especially given the previous episode’s events).

        I’ve read other comments elsewhere on the web trying to explain away the problem of “white lady rescuing brown folks” trope by saying that it’s supposed to look racist and make the viewer uneasy. Having not read the books I guess that could be a possibility, but I don’t really buy it as a credible excuse for that stupid crowd surfing “mother” scene.

        Also agreed on the similarities between “slave” and “lowborn.” I would love to see the series do more of an exploration of what life is like for the non-highborn, especially in wartime. I was glad for the scene between Davos and Gendry where it was established that they were both from Fleabottom and grew up in poverty, but scenes like that are far too rare.

    2. re: 1) I don’t know if dwarfism is apparent at birth or not, but in the books at least, it is treated like it was an apparent thing, to the point where there were all kinds of rumors about baby Tyrion flying because of it and someone (one of the Martells, idk) was excited to get to see him in his crib. Tywin, for whatever reason (GRRM not knowing about biology or whatever) was aware that his infant son had dwarfism. Jaime and Cersei knew as well, iirc.

      1. I gather from googling that some forms are apparent at birth and some are not, so I think they’re covered for that one.

        1. Ledasmom, yes, Barnacle – thanks! I didn’t know the details, and I haven’t read the books, so that makes that whole conversation much less baffling to me.

        2. It’s one of the many concessions that the show had to make. In the books, Tyrion is described as extremely ugly, whereas in the show, he’s Peter Dinklage.

        3. In the books, Tyrion was not only a dwarf, but physically deformed in a variety of ways

          I am far too lazy to search out quotes at the moment, but on reading the books I had the thought that, with his descriptions of Tyrion, Martin might be demonstrating a difference in thought between the presumed reader and the people in the particular setting of the books. That is, although Tyrion is described as ugly, it’s either explicitly by another character speaking about him or from the point of view of another character – the only specific bit I remember is that he’s described as having a misshapen skull. Remembering that many of the characters have a belief that outward difference reflects an inward difference – they think that, because Tyrion is outwardly, by their way of thinking, deformed, he must also be untrustworthy, evil, etc. – that would also lead them to feel an especial horror at any physical difference. What they see as a misshapen skull might very well be seen by any of us as a pretty common skull shape for someone with achondroplasia.
          Apologies for the rather long digression, but this is something I’ve been thinking about.

      3. My memory of the book is that Tyrion’s birth also killed his mother which Circe and Dad blame on Tyrion.

    3. #Spoilers

      2) Or being a character in the song of ice and fire.

      4) It won’t help your misgivings about the race of the author, but take comfort in knowing that her “I will save and rule the brown people” plan does hit her in the face quite soundly when she finds out that ruling a culture and civilization that you don’t understand is messy and people often don’t like being ruled by an outsider, even a benevolent one.

      I’m not sure where they are going with the show, but the reality that Danny doesn’t really have the experience or skillset to do what she’s setting out to do is one of the interesting parts of the later books. She means well (especially by this world’s standards), but is approaching the affairs of slaver’s bay from a very privileged place. That privilege gets examined in interesting ways in her plotline.

      6) It seemed to match the rhythm that each season has. Episode nine tends to be the biggest dramatic moment, with ten wrapping up loose ends and showing the fallout/cliffhanger. Ned dying, the battle of blackwater, the red wedding. All nines.

      1. 2) Fair enough, fair enough. Either way, I’m pretty sure she’s done for. It’s a shame, because she was the only thing that made Jon interesting for me…

        4) Awesome! Like I said, the… strange success of her plans is really headtilty for me, because it looked like GRRM was setting her up for a deconstruction. As long as it’s on its way, I’m cool with the plotline.

        6) True. I don’t know, I had a different feeling about the other two finales, though. But it’s a “book to show” issue, I think, given what you pointed out.

        1. They struggle with Jon, because his character relied more heavily on internal conflicts than any of the other characters.

          As an aside, one of the things lost in the series is how truly awful the wildling culture is.The whole tradition of “stealing women” and associated values is one of the things that makes John’s internal struggle so interesting in the books.

        2. I don’t know that we’re supposed to see the wildling culture as awful – or at least not more awful than the general Westerosi culture. Women are treated as property in the 7 kingdoms just as much as they are in the wildling culture – women aren’t stolen, but they’re used as bargaining chips between fathers and potential husbands/fathers in law.
          I agree that Jon’s story was much more compelling in the books.

        3. Oh – and part of Jon’s struggle was realising that the values he grew up with weren’t always superiour to the values of people he considered uncivilized. It’s really what made his story interesting and it’s a shame it didn’t really come across on the show.

    4. I think the underwhelming-ness of the finale is the result of them cutting the book in half. Of the storylines, only Rob and Catelyn’s is really “finished” by that point of the book, so they had to really stretch for the others.

      The bad part of the show is that they had to cut so much out for time. Arya’s chapters really show how the non-nobles are suffering from the war. There is also a character later on who calls out another character on the horrible treatment of the servants in Westeros when the other character makes a remark about how awful slavery is.

      I’m going to be so mad if they cut out the consequences of Dany’s actions on the show.

      1. There is also a character later on who calls out another character on the horrible treatment of the servants in Westeros when the other character makes a remark about how awful slavery is.

        Fuck yeah!

        A thing I seem to be noticing as the show progresses (largely because of fan grumbles) is that the show seems consistently less progressive and less self-reflective than the series, judging by others’ responses. And also apparently oodles more misogynistic. Which gives me a sad, but oh well.

        …you know, I think I have, like, manga privilege or something. At least when an anime’s being adapted, they tend to stick pretty closely to the manga (to the point the manga’s progressed, anyway). Never seen an anime/manga where one was significantly more problematic than the other….

    5. Are we really supposed to just blindly nod along with Dany’s apparent assumption that being common in Yunkai is somehow worse than being common in Westeros, just because they call the people being raped/pillaged/murdered/abused “slaves” instead of “lowborn”?

      I wonder that too. About both the books and the show. I mean… of course Dany thinks her culture is superiour, colonizers usually do. But are we supposed to agree? Or are we supposed to be waiting for Dany to get a nasty shock when she gets to Westeros and realises how unjust the society is (keep in mind she hasn’t been there since she was a baby and learned about it from her brother who is not very reliable). I genuinely can’t tell… I get mixed messages from both the show and the books.

    1. I’d be pretty down with a Women Of GOT Do Stuff one, too.

      Mind you, with the number of non-tropetastic sympathetic significant male characters at this point being… what? Tyrion? Jon? Gendry? Davos? Compared to the sheer number of complex female characters (the Starks, Dany, Ygritte, Asha/Yara, Osha, Olenna, Margaery, Brienne, etc, even Cersei and Melisandre) one can root for… yeah. Women Of GOT Do Stuff is already basically the show.

      Great, and now you’ve got me thinking of GOT!Avengers:

      “Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I’ll give you that one. But let’s do a head count here: your brother the demi-god the fireproof mother of dragons; a super soldier, a living legend who kind of lives up to the legend; a man Wildling woman with breath-taking anger management issues; a couple of master assassin in the making, and YOU, big fella, you’ve managed to piss off every single one of them. Oh, and there’s

        1. Well at this point Sansa’s superpower is having the family name Stark and existing anywhere near a Lannister while still breathing and not in a dungeon:

          Ned – Dead due to a Lannister
          Kat – Dead due to a Lannister
          Robb – Dead due to a Lannister
          Bran – paraplegic due to a Lannister(some people may have “forgotten” Jamie throwing a nine year old out a tower window..)
          Edmure(ok he’s a Tully) – Frey’s dungeon
          The Blackfish(another Tully) – on the run

          Sometimes just keeping your head down and not dying is all you can do.

        2. Sometimes just keeping your head down and not dying is all you can do.

          Yep. And frankly, for a thirteen-year-old? Fourteen? She’s doing amazingly. Arya would be dead ten times over by this point had they switched places. (Of course, so would Sansa, but wev.)

          And the fandom’s collective forgetting of Jaime throwing Bran out a window is something that baffles me. I mean, l like Jaime, but I’ve never been under the impression he’s not an epic asshole. (This is in the same spirit that I like Cersei, Tyrion, Jaqen, Sansa – who for all that she’s currently The Woobie was an epic jerk all through s1 to whomever she could – Dany, etc.) Are they so desperate to like him that they’ll change him? Because that seems ass-backwards to me, personally, but…ah well.

        3. l like Jaime, but I’ve never been under the impression he’s not an epic asshole.

          I know, right? He has his come-to-jesus thing but he still pushed a fucking kid out of a window. Only so much tenderness for Jaime. Although all of my affection for Jaime is completely dependent on him being pretty much the only Lannister who treats Tyrion like a human being.

        4. Although all of my affection for Jaime is completely dependent on him being pretty much the only Lannister who treats Tyrion like a human being.

          That’s definitely a factor for me. Though there’s also the fact that he took on the brunt of being a kingslayer (a BFD in Westeros), seems to have been trying to take care of Cersei in whatever way he can, fucked-up as that is, and has the grace to be good to Brienne. My tl;dr on this would be that people are complex, epic assholes can also have soft sides and good intentions and noble actions.

          1. I’m as certain as an armchair psychologist can be that Jaime’s character arc is more about GRRM setting himself anti-trope writing challenges (make the readership like someone WHO THREW A YOUNG BOY FROM A HIGH WINDOW [x] ) than about anything hugely profound, but I do enjoy how setting these writing challenges for himself has taken a bunch of characters in interesting directions. It’s meant that he’s ended up with a terribly unwieldy plot sprawl though, and at this point half the appeal of the next book for me (whenever he does get it finished) is going to be finding out whether he’s going to pull any satisfying resolutions out of that hot steaming tangle at all.

        5. at this point half the appeal of the next book for me (whenever he does get it finished) is going to be finding out whether he’s going to pull any satisfying resolutions out of that hot steaming tangle at all

          Yeah, I’m really beginning to see what the book fans mean by the series being a clusterfuck at this point. Not that I don’t love my sprawly epics – Jordan, yo – but Jordan had a pretty good grasp on the endgame right from the beginning, and it was obvious through the entire series that things were building in a certain way. I simply don’t see that in GOT. (Show fan only, YMMV, etc.)

        6. Not that I don’t love my sprawly epics – Jordan, yo – but Jordan had a pretty good grasp on the endgame right from the beginning, and it was obvious through the entire series that things were building in a certain way. I simply don’t see that in GOT. (Show fan only, YMMV, etc.)

          You are the first person I have ever seen speak fondly of Jordan’s bloated works. I have been reading that series for twenty years now and I haven’t bothered to buy the final book because I know it will be as disappointing as every other book in the series since Fires of Heaven. At least Sanderson doesn’t invest entire paragraphs to the embroidery of a skirt or entire chapters to plotlines which barely intersect with the primary character arcs, but that is the best I could say of anything in the last 15 years of WoT books.

        7. I have a hate-reader relationship with WoT. There are a few characters whom I decided I cared about in the first three books (which were pretty good) – Nynaeve, Egwene, Perrin – and a few who I came to like over the course of the series, but unless I’m reading about the characters I like, the books are a boring, tedious slog. Unfortunately, there were just enough Crowning Moments of Awesome (particularly with the Aes Sedai) interspersed up until book 8 or so that I felt obliged to keep reading. I, too, haven’t even bothered to read the latest, because I’d have to reread everything that came before, and there is no way I have time for that now that I can’t read under the table in high school any longer.

        8. You are the first person I have ever seen speak fondly of Jordan’s bloated works.

          Eh. I don’t like that they’re bloated, but they work well enough for me.

          Although, if you’ve hated every book since Fires of Heaven, I should give you some sort of prize for sticking with it this long, oi. I don’t have the attention span to make it beyond two awful books in a row. Though yes, Sanderson’s vastly improved the standard of writing in WOT IMO.

        9. I, too, haven’t even bothered to read the latest, because I’d have to reread everything that came before, and there is no way I have time for that now that I can’t read under the table in high school any longer.

          I just hit the Wiki. >.> *is a bad fan*

        10. One of the interesting things about Jamie, from a thematic standpoint, is that he has been spit upon is entire life for what was definitely the most noble act he ever did.

        11. Yeah, short of whoever stops the zombie apocalypse, it seems unlikely that any character can possibly be more heroic than Jaime was. And then he pushed Bran out a window (intending him to die, not be paralysed) so he wouldn’t tell anyone about incest (which would surely lead to his and Cersei’s death). As I recall, even Cersei was horrified at the child murder. But she quickly came around to it.

          New writing challenge: rewrite Game of Thrones such that we know about Jaime Saves Everyone first, then see if anybody believes it when he shoves Bran. Or the part even earlier in his backstory that hasn’t been revealed in the show yet, but is pretty damned intense.

  8. If Sansa survives her education she is going to make Cersei seem as dangerous as a teletubby in comparison. Look at who her instructors are.

  9. Pingback: Friday Hoyden: Fictional Female Protagonists

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