Game of Thrones Season 4 (news and episodes discussion) (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he makes it pretty clear that he was intending to show a rape scene:"That was one of the greatest days I've ever had filming. To film Charles (Dance) kidnapping Lena's son with words for three minutes of monologue -- and to have Lena keeping up with him at the highest bar of acting possible with no words at all -- was a joy. It was directorial crack to do that scene. It was one of my favorite scenes I've ever shot. It's almost like a build from Ordinary People meets a Hitchcock movie, because you're sitting here going, 'This is so dysfunctional and bizarre.' She's a wreck. Tywin is really going on about this historical stuff, and you slowly start to go, 'He's kidnapping her only boy,' because she's not going to have him anymore. And then he succeeds, and then Jaime comes in and he rapes her. That was like -- you read the scene and go, 'Wait, who's directing this?'"The show's in real danger of painting its characters in such shades of gray that you have nothing redeeming to hang your hat on. Rape is one of those things you can't really come back from.

Aren't most of those characters pieces of crap anyway? You can't come back from incest either!

 

[Sam Posten]

That makes terrific sense, THANKS Walter!

 

[Yee-Ming]

The show's in real danger of painting its characters in such shades of gray that you have nothing redeeming to hang your hat on. Rape is one of those things you can't really come back from.

Well, considering that those who weren't very grey are now dead...

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, considering that those who weren't very grey are now dead...

Yup!

 

[RobertR]

I don't understand all the outrage about Jamie. He's become more sympathetic, but he's hardly stopped lusting after Cersei. After all, it's not as if he was raping some poor young innocent. Her only real objection (half hearted at that) was the time and place, not the act.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Aren't most of those characters pieces of crap anyway? You can't come back from incest either!

The difference is consent. The prior incest, however icky, was between two consenting adults.

Well, considering that those who weren't very grey are now dead...

If that's the way they're heading, it will make for a very boring series. There's few things less interesting to me than watching awful people do terrible things while all of the good people die. You can't call that realistic, either, because the real world is not that awful. I don't want or need the characters to be pure as snow (no pun intended), but I do want to see them portrayed consistently and I don't want to be asked by the show to emotionally invest in a rapist.Deeply flawed characters that live by their own morality are interesting. Characters that are simply depraved are not. Having Jaime rape Cersei made him less interesting. Having the Hound rob that man and his daughter, while more grounded in the storytelling, also made him somewhat less interesting. The more awful a character is in some aspects, the more carefully the show should guard his or her nobler qualities.

I don't understand all the outrage about Jamie. He's become more sympathetic, but he's hardly stopped lusting after Cersei. After all, it's not as if he was raping some poor young innocent. Her only real objection (half hearted at that) was the time and place, not the act.

I disagree. Cersei's certainly not innocent, indeed she's probably one of the most unlikable among the surviving characters, but that doesn't justify raping her. Her being wealthy and politically powerful doesn't make her less of a victim. Whatever their fucked up sexual history, his lust doesn't entitle him to force himself on her over her objections. She doesn't owe him sex just because she had sex with him many, many times before. Through the entirety of the act, she never stopped telling him "no." And the result is that my investment in his character is sharply curtailed.

 

[Walter Kittel]

While I don't really know if Jaime was capable of redemption (considering that he committed defenestration of a child to cover up incest) the time we spent with the character on his journey back to King's Landing certainly humanized the character and made him more approachable. The latest episode is certainly a step backwards in that regard.

I'm not condoning the act, but re-watching the episode, Cersei says "It's not right." to which Jaime replies "I don't care." This sequence is repeated twice which to me suggests that Cersei's objections were more about the timing and location vs. the act itself. No doubt, consent was not given however and Jaime was wrong.

We've seen: People being burned alive at the stake, a naked man dragged to death behind a horse, beheadings, a hand, limbs (and other extremities ) hacked off, the deaths of children, cannibalism, a woman killed by crossbow bolts at close range, various tortures, and murders portrayed throughout the series. Basically the entire internet was celebrating the death of a teenager last week. I'll grant that these were leading characters which raises the stakes for the viewer but in the overall scheme of things we have seen much worse fates befall the inhabitants of Westeros.

- Walter.

 

[RobertR]

Through the entirety of the act, she never stopped telling him "no."

Her words said no (weakly), but her body language said yes. This is a man she has lusted for ever since puberty.

the result is that my investment in his character is sharply curtailed.

My investment in the character wasn't curtailed when he tried to kill an innocent boy, and it isn't now. I never expected him to be noble and chaste.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

My investment in the character wasn't curtailed when he tried to kill an innocent boy, and it isn't now. I never expected him to be noble and chaste.

An article in The Atlantic captured what I was trying to get at better than I could: "The problem is that in this instance Benioff and Weiss’s alteration wasn’t merely one of degree, but one of kind. You can take Joffrey the sadist and make him 20 percent more explicitly sadistic and it doesn’t meaningfully alter audiences’ impressions of him. Ditto with Ramsay the super-sadist. But this is different. Yes, Jaime and Cersei’s relationship is wrong and transgressive in innumerable ways. But this tweak didn’t make it wrong-er or more transgressive. Instead it fundamentally altered impressions of Jaime..."What Bran saw made him a threat. Jaime attempted to silence him through murder. That's at least as terrible of an act as what transpired in this past episode, but it was rooted in his desire to protect his family and it was at the beginning of his journey. Killing his cousin in an attempt to escape, which came much further along in his journey, was also horrible, but in keeping with his character. He is a killer and a liar. But until this episode, he was not a perpetrator of sexual violence, and certainly not against someone he loved. That's not a matter of nobility, or chastity, but of character development. I think the impulse to shock the audience overcame the impulse to stay true to the character.There, I think I've beaten that horse enough.

 

[RobertR]

But until this episode, he was not a perpetrator of sexual violence, and certainly not against someone he loved.

In the beginning, Arya wasn't a cold blooded killer who would gleefully stab an unarmed boy laying on the ground, which is also a change in kind. Have you lost your investment in her too?

If you haven't read the books, this won't be the last time you'll be faced with a "change in kind".

BTW, is it Jamie who changed, or Cersei who changed (because he lost his hand)?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Is it bad I primarily watch this show for the deaths, sort of like I do with "The Walking Dead", lest Facebook spoil the deaths for me? LOL!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

In the beginning, Arya wasn't a cold blooded killer who would gleefully stab an unarmed boy laying on the ground, which is also a change in kind. Have you lost your investment in her too?

Arya's story is a tragedy. And from the moment the Hound killed her friend, her story has been all of a kind: one toward a colder, more brutal person. In her case, I'm invested because I remember the person she was. In Jaime's case, I hated the person Jaime was, was slowly starting to sympathize with the person he was becoming, and then disappointed to see that journey undercut, at least by my standards.

BTW, is it Jamie who changed, or Cersei who changed (because he lost his hand)?

Oh, there's no question that Jaime's action was a reaction to Cersei's rejection of him. She is an angry, bitter, spiteful woman. She loved Jaime because he protected her, and on some level, she wanted to be him. Jaime represented the ideal man, which no doubt played a role in ensuring that he was the biological father of her children. But then he was gone so long, and he wasn't there to protect her. And when he came back, he wasn't the ideal man any more. His hand had been cut off and he was damaged goods. And that repulsed her on some level. That scene was still just a step too far for me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Despicable characters that deserve whatever comes to them.

 

[RobertR]

Arya's story is a tragedy.

So is Jamie's. He was the most skilled swordsman in Westeros, the literal Golden Boy, rich, powerful, his father's favorite, and had the woman the books described as looking like a "goddess". Now look where he is. Oh, and let's not forget the burden he's had to carry of being labeled Kingslayer, even though it turned out that the killing of that particular King was actually quite a heroic deed.

 

[Josh Dial]

Jaime's chapter with him reading the White Book is among the finest of the entire series. It's a shame it couldn't be adapted for the show.

 

[RobertR]

True. It's difficult to portray internally expressed thoughts on screen.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

True. It's difficult to portray internally expressed thoughts on screen.

I think this impacts some of the more reprehensible actions we see on the show, too. I haven't read the books, but I can see how POV would be a great tool for George R. R. Martin to shape the reader's perceptions of events; if the event is told from the perpetrator's point of view, the reader is far more likely to sympathize with the action, whereas if it's told from the victim's point of view, the reader to far less likely to sympathize with the action.

 

[Sam Posten]

Her words said no (weakly), but her body language said yes. This is a man she has lusted for ever since puberty.

Sorry to throw you under the bus like this Robert, but that madness that I was worried this thread could derail into, well that right there is the first step towards it...

Respectfully request we move on before someone takes the second.

 

[RobertR]

Respectfully request we move on before someone takes the second.

Your post strikes me as an oblique attempt to do just that. Adam and I had already moved on.

 

[Sam Posten]

Fair enough.