They’re really bad at “show don’t tell” on this series. If you want viewers to understand that weeks have passed during Littlefinger’s trip, you need to actually depict that somehow instead of having a character in another city entirely mention the passage of time. At the very least, show Littlefinger on the road in his caravan before he pops up in King’s Landing looking fresh as a daisy.
Well we saw whatsername Tyrell on the road on her approach to Kings Landing. That’s something.
hepcat
6303
Or include a montage with music. Man, I love a good montage.
Gil102
6304
Ok, ok…I admit my comment was playing off the oft-forgotten time lapse between episodes in epics. However, I do think that Stannis’s army would have made it to Winterfell before Littlefinger was able to arrive in King’s Landing. Unless I missed where the show explains that Stannis intends to stop by and see all the major Lords in the north asking for support and troops? It is very possible I missed this…
Well… to be honest, an Army is going to move way slower than a single lord/bodyguard cadre. But looking at the map Wall to winterfell is about half the distance of winterfell to king’s landing.
I guess Stannis’ army is just taking their time?
They agreed on no rush 10 mins
Dinklage sings about his character making it this far: https://youtu.be/1URvDyzh8uI
jg93
6308
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/all-hopefully-of-the-bad-arguments-about-rape-on-game-of-thrones-debunked/
“It comported with the way the series exists, above all other things, to subvert common fantasy and adventure tropes that glamorize war by twisting certain cliches that we’ve become accustomed to, including the cliche that sexual violence is always thwarted at the last minute by a brave act of heroism.”
Pod
6309
I had no idea people were upset about it. But looking around today, it’s some massive scandal. Was it like this with the previous rape scenes?
As mentioned in the link above, there was a lot of similar discussion about last season’s rape scene since it was apparently consensual in the book. I don’t think other scenes got as much debate in the media though. I know Daenerys’ scenes with Khal Drogo have gotten their fair share of analysis, but I don’t remember it being a big inflammatory talking point taking over social media at the time the way this scene blew up.
Well, yes and no. Yes, there has always been an undercurrent of complaining about the T&A, sexual violence, and occasionally-crass depictions of prostitutes in the show… so any instance of rape was complained about by some small minority of watchers. There was an outcry over the Jamie/Cersei scene last season, even in this thread.
But I think it’s a little different here since Sansa has always been depicted as an innocent. Sansa (or Sophie Turner) was very literally a child when she started the show (13 or 14 as I recall), and the viewers have watched her grow up on screen. A sexual assault against someone that the audience still thinks of as a minor is different from one against the “evil” Cersei, or even a not-too-much-older Dany.
In addition the innocence thing, the other part is Ramsay is a vile creature. So at least with Dany it was the ickyness of her being forced to marry, thus marital rape, but unlike Sansa’s husband the audience didn’t see Khal Drogo as a bad guy. There’s an extra level of horror there with Ramsay such that I don’t see how anyone can deny it.
Certainly it’s horrific (along with almost everything else about Ramsey), I haven’t seen anyone denying that in defense of the scene. It was not supposed to be pleasant.
I also think the rape was the wrong note to hit after Sansa fought back against the kennel master’s daughter tried to spook her. The way the show has been going, viewers were treated to a Sansa that was slowly growing more confident and taking agency over her situation thanks to lessons imparted by Littlefinger. The whole point of her staying in Winterfell was to navigate the psycho politics and turn things to her advantage so she could get justice for her family. The rape sort of negated that. It made her a victim and robbed her of that growth.
We know she’s not going to follow Dany and use her sex as a way to tame her husband, so the only positive outcome (for viewers) is Sansa going all I Spit on Your Grave on Ramsay, which isn’t really an empowering scenario. It’s just cheap revenge and kind of lazy.
Not trying to be snarky, but did you read the whole piece jg93 linked? It specifically addresses that issue, and I’m curious if you disagree or just didn’t read that part.
I don’t get why the kind of people who are upset over this are still watching the show. You’ve had five seasons of blood, guts, T&A, betrayals, torture, etc. Suddenly now you expect that the show is going to pull punches? I thought the scene was actually pretty restrained, without directly showing anyone but Theon, leaving it mostly to our imagination. This kind of rape-justified-by-marriage is a horrific thing that we should all dislike, absolutely, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be part of the story. I put it in the same category as Ramsey’s tortures of Theon, hedonistic excesses in the whorehouses, Craster/Lannister incest, various innocent people getting killed in horrible ways, and so on. That stuff is in the story, and this show has chosen to portray it rather than push it off into the background. It’s uncomfortable to watch and I expect that’s exactly how the writer/director planned it. If you’re not down with that, you probably are watching the wrong channel, and you should know that already in the fifth season.
I read it and I disagree.
First, my commentary has nothing to do with real life. Let me get that out of the way now.
In this fictional work, there is a character arc and story beats. The rape undermines the story that was progressing. It’s no longer about Sansa getting justice for her family and growing as a person. It’s about rape revenge. Sansa getting revenge on Ramsay after her rape will be immediately satisfying in a primal fist-pump “HELLS YEAH” way, but it’s cheap and lazy. I guess it’s sort of a slam-dunk for the writers, but it’s shamelessly manipulative and ultimately less engaging than Sansa using her new-found wiles and courage to do what she set out to do. She’ll still probably do that, but it’s always going to be colored in the viewers’ eyes with that rape.
As for the cultural marriage issue, I don’t think Sansa had a choice. She was going to have to have sex with Ramsay. I’m not saying she’d ever really enjoy it, but there’s a wide gulf between a Cersei/Robert situation in which Cersei performed her duties grudgingly and without pleasure, and the act we saw and heard happening.
Eh, sorta-agree-sorta-don’t.
I think I agree with most of the points in jg93’s link, and the gist of what you’re saying. A lot of the noise online is outrage I don’t think is justified at all. But I don’t want us to swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction either, on a personal level nobody should ever get attacked* for deciding they’ve had enough.
So I don’t believe the scene is in any way a defense of rape, gratuitous, titillating, or undermining Sansa’s character. It is absolutely uncomfortable to watch, as it should be. And there’s value in art making you uncomfortable, nobody’s in this show for happiness and rainbows every Sunday night. But there’s nothing wrong with reaching a point—a point that will look pretty arbitrary—where that’s just not what you want any more. And that’s okay.
So in that sense I do get how someone could make it this far and decide to draw the line here. But that’s not what most of the people are shouting about online.
*not that you sound like you’re attacking anyone, that’s probably a poor choice of words
Okay, fair enough. Thanks for expounding on that.
Oh, and I should make it clear that I’m not outraged about the scene. I just thought it was a disappointing.
Still watching the show. Still want to know where it all goes.
