Game of Thrones

[Korts]

Man why did they kill off Yoren. Him and Bronn are the coolest.

[Korts]

Stop spamming, chesskid.

[Korts]

Are we going to find out the motives of the Kingsguard who attacked Tyrion? That was completely out of the blue and doesn't seem to make sense in the context of a losing battle or impasse. If he was ordered to assassinate him, why do it in the middle of the battlefield at a time when every ally counts toward survival, even a dwarf with minimal combat experience or skills?

[Korts]

Use the spoiler tags, Venmar.

[Korts]

Fuck yeah, Ygritte.

[Korts]

From what I gather, the Stark mentality is one of responsible leadership, serving the people rather than their own interests. The Southern houses seem more concerned with increasing their influence than putting it to good use. The former lends itself to a much more rigid code of ethics and practices, and when drawn into a conflict with more amoral political opponents unbound by any particular code, Starks and their ilk are bound to suffer in the theater of intrigue.

Robb's strengths lie in war, not politics. He is a great tactician and leader, and he certainly doesn't underestimate or misunderstand his enemies. He just doesn't question the individual motives of his own followers, and expects everyone on his side to live by the same principles of loyalty and honor as he does.

[Korts]

With all the sexual nudity and grinding and frankly essentially softcore porn, I'm wondering what the policy is regarding boners on set. Either the actors have giant orgies behind the scenes, or people are getting massively frustrated.

[Korts]

I imagine with all the lighting, dozens of crew members, etc. hanging around it's not really that sexy. Anyway, they're professionals doing a job, not 17-year-old boys.

They have lighting, crew and everything in porn too, yet those guys have no trouble getting an erection. And I know that's also down to a form of professionalism, and of course the two genres have completely different goals, but it isn't hard to imagine awkward situations arising from these scenes. Theon's penis was literally being ground into his pelvis.

[Korts]

My point isn't that they don't get erections, though I still think it's hard to get very excited in those circumstances (grinding or no). It's that "oh no, I've got a boner and I have to do something about it or I get blue balls" is something better left to 17-year-old boys trying to get a hand job rather than a professional actor.

And I'm saying that teenage sex drives or no, the Game of Thrones set seems like a pretty sexualized environment. Regardless of how the actors handle it, the fact is inescapable that they don't just do nude scenes together, but very graphically play out various stuff in camera angles that necessitate

very

intimate contact. I can't imagine that not having any influence on their work relationships.

[Korts]

I also got a bit annoyed with Arya and just really hope she can prove me wrong and that I'm just thinking "Oh Arya, they aren't that bad..." I mean it just feels she might have a stronger sense of good, and morals than me and I'm just like "oh just accept it".

Yeah really. At this point, it's been painfully clear for a long while that Arya has absolutely no sense of reality. She's just old enough to think that she knows better than all those adults and their life experience, but too young to accept that all the blacks and whites of the GoT world need to be added up for a sort of halftone system of morality.

[Korts]

And I know that was a very ass-backwards way of saying she thinks in terms of black and white, but I just really like the idea of morality in terms of halftone--a smooth gradient of greys from a sufficient distance, but easily distinguishable contrastive elements when viewed in small enough detail at the expense of the bigger picture.

[Korts]

I think the Starks have pretty much served their narrative purpose at this point--to demonstrate that in a world of political intrigue, rigid morality is impractical, compromise is necessary and trust is foolish. That basically everything we aspire to be is useless when others are willing to be less than perfect and fight dirty. Really, the few remaining Starks out there are only alive this far into the game because of circumstances beyond their control.

Arya is still alive because she's been handed off from one benevolent anti-hero to the other all this time, each of them wiser to the ways of the world than any Stark will ever be, and her naive, stubborn, short-sighted family nature doesn't have much of a chance to manifest itself in their care. Bran and Rickon are too far from any kind of action to be significantly hurt by their simplistic worldview, and Sansa was raised to be a lady--inwardly she's still judging everyone, because judgment is a big part of being a Stark, but she doesn't have the means of acting on her thoughts. And Jon Snow? He's always in between near-death experiences nowadays, and between apparently betraying the Watch and actually betraying Mance Rayder, his gruesome demise is pretty much a given.

So no. I won't mourn for the King in the North.

[Korts]

I dunno that I agree with your argument that all this is essentially random, with no narrative end goal in mind from GRRM. I do think there is a moral of sorts that kind of arises from the fact that realism is taken to the extreme here. And it's this: just because we have been conditioned by popular culture to think that Good Guys are winners doesn't mean that it's necessarily true--Good Guys have self-inflicted disadvantages that put them in an impossible postion when facing Bad Guys of the same level.

I think it's clear that GoT (and SoIaF) tries to explore the lives of fictional characters and the consequences of their actions outside the controlled environment of fiction and narrative causality. The thing is, the fact can't be escaped that it's still fiction, and it would fall apart without narrative structure. And as long as it's an ongoing project, that's not a pressing concern, but it has to end at some point, and when it does, it needs something meaningful to end on. And at that point, the illusion of an uncontrolled environment will shatter--the rises and falls of all the houses will be put in a perspective where random happenstance is no longer an excuse for anything.

[Korts]

Arya is short-sighted because she doesn't factor the motivations of others into her judgment, and so she cannot plan any more than one step ahead of herself. All this time, she has been drifting along on the goodwill of her guides alone. She is naive because she thinks that Good and Bad are distinct and mutually exclusive categories of being, and she doesn't actually kick much ass--every time she has been confronted by a capable adult, she has failed to prove herself worthy of serious consideration. Not that I expect much of her, she is just a kid.

[Korts]

A youtube comment I read said that George R.R. Martin can't use twitter anymore, because he killed all 140 characters required.

[Korts]

I dunno how politically convincing it is for the Bolton to cut a guy's penis in order to get territories back.

[...]

It is also not clear to me what the whole make Theon escape then recapture him was all about. Seems pointless.

Sheer cruelty and mindfuckery for Theon. Ramsay is one of the few true psychopaths in the series; he gets off on torturing people, doesn't need an ulterior motive (though he

did

learn that the Stark boys are alive and away from Winterfell by letting Theon escape and gaining his trust). Also note that the letter to the Greyjoys was written by Ramsay, not by his father.

Agreed. Ramsay is not interested in making threats. He is entirely capable of dealing with the Ironborn occupying the North, he doesn't actually need Theon to make Balon withdraw. He's only doing it because he enjoys it, and he only sent Balon his son's penis because he gets off on rubbing things in people's faces.

[Korts]

Aegor the issue is not "oh lawdy the show has a rape scene," it's that the director, i.e. a supposed authority on the scene, claims that it was consensual even though it clearly wasn't.

This is not about the show, it's about the perception of the show, and an influential voice spreading a common and harmful misbelief about sexual consent.

So shut the fuck up.

[Korts]

Happy to add to this completely fruitless effort. Aegor, as always, it has been a great displeasure.

[Korts]

Before I go.

the viewer may now justifiably assume consent was given, regardless of what appeared on screen

Explicit content trumps authorial intentions. Once the text is out of its creator's hands, they have no control over its interpretation - if the director wanted the

rape

to be debatable, he should have had

Cersei give consent

midway through.

You're not following? I'm not surprised. Let's analyze why the director's opinion does not matter.

Consent is explicit permission given for something to happen. This is not a hazy thing, and certainly not here:

Cersei verbally denies permission, she struggles to assert her decision, and she does not retroactively give consent at any point.

Physical arousal (

though I don't think there was any shown on Cersei's part

) in no way means a conscious endorsement of the act, either. Ever. Neither does acceptance: admitting that resistance is futile and trying to make the best of a fucked-up situation does not mean that the victim at any point actually wanted to have or continue having

sex

.

Those are the plain facts of consent, and the plain facts of the scene. It was

non-consensual sex

. Period.

So shut the fuck up.

[Korts]

Spoilered names, scene descriptions, and trigger words.

And one other thing.

That they are shocked is a matter of fact and thus not interesting at any discursive or dialectic level. On the other hand, the pseudo-intellectual response from those who are shocked is. I can only feel deep sadness at viewers who can watch a young girl murder others in cold blood and a prostitute be shot at point blank range in the vagina with a crossbow and somehow claim that it is a sexual assault that puts them over the edge.

So you agree it was sexual assault, then? Didn't you just say that the director, who said that it was consensual, is infallible?

Are you agreeing with the director, or are you strawmanning his critics? It's high time you chose a fallacy and stuck by it.

(By the way, the shocking thing isn't that rape happens in Westeros. Bad things happen in that world, and that's pretty much the reason we watch it every week. No, that is not an issue. That is part of the story, for better or worse.

The problem, pretty simply, is the director's thoughts on the scene.

So, uh. Shut the fuck up?)

[Korts]

To be honest though, and disregarding the director's idiotic (or badly edited, as it may seem) thoughts, I kinda get Jaime.

Spoiler: Jaime's motivations in my mind

He never had much love for Joffrey, and he certainly never really respected Cersei. And he's back in civilization after a long, long journey, except he's now a useless laughing stock in the King's Guard, his father wants to write him off, and not even the woman who has been there for him all his life has been interested in him since his return. He desperately wanted to assert some form of control in his life.

I mean, Cersei was emotionally wounded by her son's death, and she would have returned to the comfort of old habits even though she was repulsed by the man Jaime had become, but that's not how Jaime wanted it to happen anymore. He explicitly told her that he hates her, and that is precisely the reason he had to do it right there and then, disrespecting religion and family and her body and mind.

[Korts]

I'm sure he loves her, but man, he sure as hell is not happy about it.

And Oberyn, yes. I wish I was a line in his script so he would say me with that accent.

[Korts]

(Jaime doesn't have to be conscious of the modern definition of consent, but it would be nice if the director was.)

[Korts]

Fuck the Kingslayer, I want to see what the Imp is working with.

[Korts]

Your argument is disingenuous, Rhinox. As long as they make warnings for female nudity when you see a naked female, as long as that keeps being censored, and as long as a crotch is a sexual image--it doesn't matter if you don't technically see her vulva. You're dwelling on technicalities to make a silly argument when it's obvious that it's a skewed ratio.

To be fair to Rhinox, portraying male nudity in a "tasteful" manner presents more challenges in terms of pure anatomy. The penis is as explicit as it gets, especially since most if not all nudity on film is in a sexual context - so it would make sense that it would have to be an erect penis as well. And there are no other real frontiers in terms of male nudity - the penis is the only thing left to show.

Comparing that level of explicit sexual imagery to breasts and butts is just as disingenuous. The most female actors have to do is undress in front of a camera, but male actors would have to be genuinely aroused. Not to mention the personal anxiety of penis length and shape, which I'm not sure compares to the body image issues of women - the right kind of exercise and diet can make most people look the way naked people are supposed to look on cable television, but an ugly cock is an ugly cock forever.

I agree that there is an imbalance in the sexual portrayal of the characters, but there are legitimate issues in terms of filming.

[Korts]

- "Nothing is just nothing" has to be one of the worst written, and most poorly delivered lines in the history of the show. That's like something I would've written for my middle school creative writing class.

To be fair, Arya is an adolescent, over-confident snot with no oratory training or writing experience. It makes perfect sense that when she wants to drop some massive truth bomb, she goes for nonsensical clichés.

[Korts]

I have said this before, and I will say it again, Arya is an obnoxious brat.

[Korts]

Arya just turned from annoying to hateful.

[Korts]

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/4-be ... e-thrones/

[Korts]

Guys, I've been saying it for years, the Arya storyline is nothing less than awful. I'm just sad we didn't see the Many-Faced God taken in any interesting direction.

[Korts]

Did you have that impression for book!Arya as well, Korts?

To a lesser extent. Part of it is probably Maisie Williams' acting - I'm just not impressed with the baseline character of the righteous pre-teen who puts all the evil adults in their place.

Everyone else in the series who acts according to a rigid moral compass and refuses to compromise gets punished for it pretty fast. The way Arya's story keeps going, it reads like GoT fanfiction written by someone who just wants the good guys to win for once - and that's counter to the established rules of the universe.

[Korts]

By the way, uh, whatever happened to Tyrion unchaining the captive dragons? Are they still just hanging out in the dungeon? Will there be no follow up?

[Korts]

Great episode.

Now I can't remember why I hate Cercei so much.

I'm kind of frustrated though about Jon Snow ruining Sansa's claim. Otherwise we might have had all queens for the last season.

glad arya's storyline is interesting again

Interesting is a stretch.

[Korts]

Watching it right now.

What an amazing actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is. In the scene where Cersei is telling him that Tyrion was chosen as Dany's hand, and reminding him of all the things that Tyrion has done, the range of emotions and the process of thoughts is beautifully transparent on his face. I have rewound the scene a bunch of times - wariness, then guilt, then indignation, shock, regret, sadness, and sourness at the end, then Cersei asks him where they will land, he visibly collects himself and starts thinking ahead.

[Korts]

Sansa has the best line so far: "No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish. I'll assume it was something clever."

[Korts]

Why was Dragonstone just completely abandoned? Has it been unclaimed since Stannis vacated it? I mean, its strategic importance cannot be understated. Have none of these armies running around all over the place considered marching in and setting up a garrison? Especially the Lannisters - Dragonstone sits on an island right at the mouth of the bay that leads to King's Landing, and much fuss has been made of Dany's fleet coming from the East to take back her birthright.

Instead, Dany can just waltz in without so much as a single soul seen running away, and puts herself in a very strong starting position without any resistance.

[Korts]

Goddammit Theon.

Can we talk about the wonderful match cut from Sam removing Jorah's greyscale to a knife plunging into a pie?

[Korts]

Soooo... Anyone seen the leaked next episode? Pretty intense stuff.

[Korts]

I did.

Spoiler: HYPER-SPOILERS AHEAD

Did you catch the name of the anti-dragon weapon? Qyburn's Scorpion. I wonder if that name has any meaning given the inventor is a poison-savvy guy who was even explicitly lampshaded as poison-savvy last episode...

This makes a distressing amount of sense.

[Korts]

Based on the conversation I assumed they were like immediately outside kings landing. There was a report that all the gold had made it to kings landing, presumably part of their supply line. They yell for jaime to run to kings landing at one point. They mention they'll be across the blackwater before nightfall, which I read as the end of the supply line will be.

Yeah. I think a more germane question would be how the Dothraki even got to the mainland in the first place, since both halves of Dany's fleet have now been destroyed - the ships headed toward Dorne, and the ones laying siege to Casterly Rock were I assume most if not all of the ships she had, so unless the Dothraki had been ferried to the shore beforehand, or she flew them in via dragon a handful at a time, I don't see how such a big army could realistically be transported over water.

[Korts]

One of my colleagues also works as a translator for HBO, and he told me some major spoilers for the season finale. It is going to be epic.

[Korts]

That thing about the annulment was a pretty well executed reveal. I thought the awkward tension between the Jon-Dany-Jorah triangle was a bit unnecessary, but I'm sure a lot of people were squealing with joy over it. Littlefinger's trick was clever, I wonder what his goal is. Now that Gendry is here, he's definitely dying next episode, because what else would his point be on this quest. And goddammit, Dickon. So is Sam now the head of his house, or did he lose that privilege when he took the black?

[Korts]

So the Tarlys are extinct.

[Korts]

do I have enough self-control

I did not.

Arya is a fucking psychopath. Teleportation is bullshit. Sloppy writing. Good action scenes. You know, the usual.