TW: rape, violence, domestic abuse
I have to say I agree with you, it bothers me too - although the books (up until now) can be quite bothersome too. I’m going to reply to each point but basically yes, it does feel like “instant drama!” a lot of the time, which is annoying.
zoedangerawesome:
Tw:rape, violence
(I didn’t edit this, like at all.)
I’m not upset that Game of Thrones portrays rape. Rape is a very real thing that people have to deal with. And Game of Thrones is about a war. This happens.
But, and I’m not gonna do a good job explaining why and I’m sorry, the way rape is portrayed in Game of Thrones bothers me greatly. To me it often tends to feel like instant drama! Just add rape! Without actually dealing with the fallout. Its lazy writing among other things.
Like in the first season we had Dany being raped on a frequent basis by her husband. (which I hear was not in the book. But I wouldn’t know I haven’t read the book.) And then she falls in love with him and they have what is portrayed as a really great relationship. That bothers me.
I don’t have the book to hand, but it is similar in the books, and bothered me somewhat. Although the wedding night is “consensual” in that, despite the fact that he is this extremely fearsome man who has acted indifferent towards her in public, he actually becomes quite gentle once they’re alone and expresses (without many words) that they don’t have to have sex - this ends up turning her on a lot, so she consents. The chapter ends there and I think we’re supposed to believe that she enjoyed it and was happy. I think after that the sex is consensual, but very painful for her at first as she has sores from riding her horse. Once her sores have healed and she begins learning “tricks” from Doreah, she becomes much more enthusiastic. Although I still found it difficult to get my head around, to be honest.
The thing is though: Dany is 13 in the books. THIRFUCKINGTEEN. In the world of Westeros women are “wedded and bedded” as soon as they get their first period, no matter their age. They upped Dany’s age in the show but not by enough that they could show her consenting to sex with regards to US statutory rape laws, I guess? I can’t think of any other reason, apart from ~drama~, to portray it as rape.
And then there is that scene with Ros where Littlefinger threatened to sell her in sexual slavery. Ros isn’t really a fully actualized character and really only exists for boob shots. All that scene did was remind us that Littlefinger is an asshole. Which we already knew.
And then she had another scene where the only purpose was to show that a male character was a bad guy. The scene where Joffrey forces Ros to beat the other sex worker was horrifying. (Though arguably not rape related. But they were there to have sex with Joffrey and and one of the sex workers was naked so there was a definite sexual implications going on there. Also, there was no reason for her to be naked in that scene) But we never got to see any fallout, emotional or otherwise. In the episode after we get a brief mention of it from Tyrion, and he mentions it like it was a mild annoyance. We never get to see how it affected the women that were victimized.
Yeah, this definitely bothered me. I’m also really annoyed that Ros, who isn’t a book character, is now most likely going to replace two POC characters, Chataya and Alayaya (sp) who played an important role in the books. That said, the idea of the prostitutes Joffrey tortures being WOC would have been horrendous so in a way I’m almost relieved.
But yeah, the scene was totally unnecessary and cheap, didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know and also didn’t allude to any further plot points. In the books Joffrey, instead of being a sexual sadist behind closed doors, murders beggars for fun and taunts the people of the city, leading to the riots you saw in the last episode. But I guess that’s not as hot as bewbs, right?
Oh, Sansa. Poor Sansa. A few episodes ago we got Jeffrey having Sansa beaten and striped in front of the court. But that scene didn’t get to be about Sansa. It very quickly became a scene about how awesome Tyrion is . That scene should not have been about him.
This did kiiiinda tie in with the books. Because every chapter is written from various character’s points of view, and the chapter this scene was in was Tyrion’s instead of Sansa’s. The point of it all was Tyrion seeing just how resilient Sansa is despite her disgusting treatment. It’s annoying really, because there is SO much to Sansa but it is literally all in her head and thoughts, because she has not a single person to own up to at King’s Landing.
And then there was the attempted gang rape of Sansa last night. You can argue that is was put in there for the sake of realism. But I highly doubt it. This is HBO. It was put in there for sensationalism. And honesty it felt like all of those bad fan fictions where a women is raped and then some guy swoops in, saves her, and kisses it better.(But I did enjoy the part were the rapist got disemboweled. And it was nice to see The Hound and Sansa interact. And I don’t hold it against that the Hound saved her like some people do. There was no way she was getting out of that situation on her own. That doesn’t make Sansa weak.)
I just..arg.
This REALLY fucked me off and I knew, as soon as Shae became her maid that she was going to be the one raped/saved in the riots. In the books, there are a multitude of other families at court and one of the families, headed by Lady Tanda, accompany the Lannisters to see of Myrcella. It’s Lady Tanda’s daughter Lollys who goes missing in the riots and gets gang raped - they find her walking the streets naked, having been raped over 50 times, and she becomes pregnant and extremely mentally distressed (as you can imagine!). It’s then that Varys has the good idea to employ Shae as Lollys’ maid to keep her safe. I get that they need to cut characters out for time’s sake, but it was such an obvious move and totally unnecessary - Sansa is getting enough abuse at Joffrey’s hands, without an attempted rape and murder.
I’m still not sold on SanSan, to be honest, a lot of the justification plays into common domestic abuse tropes - that the love of a woman will soften a hard, angry man. But yeah, the disembowelling was awesome. The Hound is pretty cool, but dangerous.
I’m gonna end this little rant with a quote that is relevant to at least half my post from the Rape as Drama TV Tropes page
In many works, as in Real Life, Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil, an appalling crime that brutalizes the victim and can destroy lives, or worse. While some other works play rape for sexual fantasies or laughs, these treat it soberly, for a dramatic purpose.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s treated tactfully. All too often, it’s a case of the Disposable Woman becoming the Distressed Damsel (or even getting Stuffed into the Fridge) to motivate the male vigilante.
Anyway yep, that was my tl;dr way of saying I agree with you and it sucks!
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