What else can I slay? Is that a hobbit over there?
So yesterday 
inlovewithnight and I made margaritas and watched the first episode of GoT!
Okay, so, first of all I'm not that attached to the book -- I've only read the first one so far, and I'll probably read the rest of them eventually but it's not a pressing need. And I also don't generally get too fussed about changes from books, and indeed often I'll even enjoy them.* B/c you know what, film and books are two different media, and what works on a page isn't necessarily going to work on-screen. Not only is shit going to get changed, shit has to get changed! But mostly I'm frustrated that the changes from the book seem to involve stripping women of their personality and agency.
Other people have pointed out the Dany/Drogo bits. Like, okay, in the book, I hesitate to be more generous than to describe that first sex scene between them as dub-con, and even that's pretty fucking generous, but the entire point of that scene, for me, was that she consented as much as she was able, that he tries his best to make her comfortable and to give her an active part, letting her undress him and undo his braid, and that ultimately she says yes. Whereas in the show it was -- like, it wasn't triggery for me, but partly that was just because I knew it was coming b/c I'd read the book and seen other reaction posts, but if I hadn't had all of that to go on? That was some upsetting, triggery shit. He inspects her like a piece of meat, she starts to cry a little, he pushes her on the ground and she starts flat-out sobbing and then we cut away? IDK, since the episode ends shortly after I'm willing to hope that maybe they're going to do more next episode to make things less awful, but seriously? Seriously, what the fuck? I also wasn't sure I liked her scenes with her brother that much, either; sometimes I was like "oh my gosh she is playing dissociating wonderfully" but without him being more than kind of ridiculous and crazy I'm not sure how much of the abusive violent rage as well as the creepy incestuous grossness comes across, and without that, you lose the fact that her story is basically one of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and choosing to learn to swim. With Viserys just being kind of gross and incestuous and not genuinely violent...IDK. I just wasn't nuts about it.
The thing I haven't heard people talk about as much, though, UGHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING TO CATELYN. Probably it will not shock people to learn that she was quite possibly my favorite character in the entire book! Like, that moment where she's planning Sansa's marriage and Ned's like "SHE'S ELEVEN DDDDDDDDD:" and Cat's just like "and I was twelve when I was betrothed, what's your point?" To say nothing of their reunion in King's Landing where he is just baffled and sputtering and doesn't get how she's even here, and she basically tells him not to worry his pretty little head, ughhhh that moment was like candy JUST FOR ME. Yes, okay, she does freak out when her son falls of a building and is in a coma, and she is useless then, which is why I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt over that bit in the trailer of her weeping and wailing and begging him not to go, b/c that does happen in the book when she is freaking out because her child is quite possibly dying. Except then, while she is weeping and wailing, an assassin comes into Bran's room, and what does she do? SHE FIGHTS THAT GODDAMN ASSASSIN OFF WHILE STILL KIND OF IN TRAUMATIZED FUGUE STATE. And then she snaps out of it, goes "wow, okay, that's kind of embarrassing, now LET'S! GET DOWN! TO BUSINESS! TO DEFEAT THE HUNS LANNISTERS." I'm willing to wait and see if they do have that happen, but I really liked that it wasn't out of nowhere, that you'd seen previously that there's a strong, brave, clever woman there, b/c it made it this fantastic fist-pump-worthy moment when she snapped out of it and that strong, brave, clever woman PERMANENTLY DAMAGED HER HANDS BY GRABBING THE KNIFE A GODDAMN ASSASSIN HAD AT HER THROAT AND PULLING IT AWAY. BADDEST OF ASSES, GUYS, BADDEST OF ASSES.
I mean, like, you guys are the last people I have to tell that I basically feel that every movie/tv show ever could be improved by the addition of Sean Bean playing STOIC and HONORABLE and DOOMED and bearded, but come the fuck on, part of the whole tragedy of the Starks is that the whole ~honor~ schtick of Ned's is not only what gets him killed, but that there is a direct line between his refusing to play the game and civil war breaking out. And part of what I loved was that Catelyn basically tells him this all along, that if they want to find out what's happening and save them and theirs, he's going to have to play the goddamn game. And because she knows that he won't listen to her and he's just going to be HONORABLE and STOIC, then she'll do it herself. They have such an interesting relationship and complement each other so well, and not only is it clear that they have a great deal of respect for one another, it's also clear that each of them respects the other because they have earned that respect. I feel like we lost some of that. Which is part of why I'm super-irritated that they gave her clothes in the letter scene, although this might just be my resentment that oh no we can't have naked middle-aged women, just naked nubile ingenues, part of which resentment is on general principle b/c lol sexism and ageism, but also b/c that letter scene is right up there with the scene in King's Landing as one of my favorites, where he's all WHAT ARE YOU DOING and she's just like "oh bb".
(Night told me I need to write her bookverse Cat/Ned PWP. I'M JUST SAYING IT IS REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS that their favorite bedroom pastimes include "septa and naughty schoolboy", "black brother taken prisoner by sexy wildling queen", and basically anything else that involves Cat tying Ned up and/or gagging him and/or spanking him until he cries.)
I did enjoy the kids, what little we've got of them so far! Bran and Arya were a little too precious for my taste in the book (wrt Arya ughhhh you guys have heard my rant about the "spunky girlchild who's terrible at and hates girly things and just wants to fight" trope b/c lol devaluing femininity), but I loved Arya's relationship with Ned, and his interactions with his daughters in general, where he's way out of his element but clearly adores them and is genuinely trying to do the best he can by them while also preparing them for ~*~*~WINTER~*~*~. So I did love that moment in this episode of her tearing around the yard before the arrival of the royal company and Ned having to catch her as she runs by and wrangle her into place and the kind of long-suffering, tolerant Dad look on his face. I do kind of adore the actress they've got for Arya already, though, and suspect she'll go a long way towards making me less annoyed by Arya. I am quite tickled by the fact that they decided to interpret the mentions of her looking more like Ned while Sansa takes after Cat to mean "find a little girl who can do Sean Bean's 'FML' face". I'm terrified of what they're going to do with Sansa, too, who is fascinating and is, like Bran and Arya, kind of flat and annoying initially but then SHIT GETS REAL and OH SNAP SHE IS INDEED CAT AND NED'S DAUGHTER AND STEEL AT THE FUCKING CORE, THAT LITTLE SHIT DRAGGED HER UP TO THE ROOF TO LOOK AT HER FATHER'S HEAD ON A FUCKING PIKE AND SHE DIDN'T GIVE HIM THE SATISFACTION OF CRYING, WHAT.
(Actually a lot of the characters who annoyed me did that much less once shit started to get real; Jon is probably my #1 example of this because UGHHHHHHH I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FUCKING MANPAIN JON, I SERIOUSLY DON'T FUCKING CARE and I had to talk myself out of skipping most of his chapters, but once the FUCKING ICE ZOMBIES showed up again and he had some actual plot-related shit to do instead of sitting around whining, I still didn't like him but he was a lot more tolerable.)
Also, nitpick: "AUBURN" IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR "REDHEAD". My hair is auburn. Show!Cat and show!Sansa are redheads. IDK why that's working me up, but there you go. >:( THEIR HAIR IS TOO RED, SHOW, STOP IT.
Basically, like, Night and I were talking, and she said "you know, I've heard people describe Martin as feminist, and IDK that I'd go that far, but he did a damn sight better than the show is doing." And I was saying in talking to people about the book after I read it that, you know, no, there are no really decent, likable adult women in the book, but there aren't really any decent, likable adult men in it, either, because the entire point is that no one is really decent and likable because decent, likable people don't last in this game. The women get their hands dirty, but no dirtier than the men do, and they're given a lot of agency and very strong voices and they accomplish a lot and they're just fascinating in general -- most of the dudes I range from "meh" to "oh my god shut up shut up shut up" (except for Ned because IL the Honorable Decent Tryhard Straight Man -- "straight" in the comedy sense, not the sexuality sense, obvs -- character a lot) but the women are wonderful and interesting and I could happily read tons more doorstops if I knew they were going to be all the ladies, all the time.
But okay it is only the first episode so it is probably too early to really start giving it up as a lost cause, because maybe they will improve things later. And again, I am willing to put up with a lot for Sean Bean playing honorable, stoic, doomed, and bearded, so I will probably watch more, although probably not sober. Also my roommate wants screencaps because she wants to spam Tumblr with Sean Bean's various hilarious facial expressions. My work is done here.
* Yes let me once again take this opportunity to talk about Arwen in the FotR movie, and my unending resentment that Jackson bowed to neckbeard pressure and didn't make her as awesome as she was supposed to be in the following two movies. NECKBEARDS WHY DO YOU HAVE TO RUIN EVERYTHING?????
Originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments; reply here or there with your DW username or OpenID.
inlovewithnight and I made margaritas and watched the first episode of GoT!
Okay, so, first of all I'm not that attached to the book -- I've only read the first one so far, and I'll probably read the rest of them eventually but it's not a pressing need. And I also don't generally get too fussed about changes from books, and indeed often I'll even enjoy them.* B/c you know what, film and books are two different media, and what works on a page isn't necessarily going to work on-screen. Not only is shit going to get changed, shit has to get changed! But mostly I'm frustrated that the changes from the book seem to involve stripping women of their personality and agency.
Other people have pointed out the Dany/Drogo bits. Like, okay, in the book, I hesitate to be more generous than to describe that first sex scene between them as dub-con, and even that's pretty fucking generous, but the entire point of that scene, for me, was that she consented as much as she was able, that he tries his best to make her comfortable and to give her an active part, letting her undress him and undo his braid, and that ultimately she says yes. Whereas in the show it was -- like, it wasn't triggery for me, but partly that was just because I knew it was coming b/c I'd read the book and seen other reaction posts, but if I hadn't had all of that to go on? That was some upsetting, triggery shit. He inspects her like a piece of meat, she starts to cry a little, he pushes her on the ground and she starts flat-out sobbing and then we cut away? IDK, since the episode ends shortly after I'm willing to hope that maybe they're going to do more next episode to make things less awful, but seriously? Seriously, what the fuck? I also wasn't sure I liked her scenes with her brother that much, either; sometimes I was like "oh my gosh she is playing dissociating wonderfully" but without him being more than kind of ridiculous and crazy I'm not sure how much of the abusive violent rage as well as the creepy incestuous grossness comes across, and without that, you lose the fact that her story is basically one of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and choosing to learn to swim. With Viserys just being kind of gross and incestuous and not genuinely violent...IDK. I just wasn't nuts about it.
The thing I haven't heard people talk about as much, though, UGHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING TO CATELYN. Probably it will not shock people to learn that she was quite possibly my favorite character in the entire book! Like, that moment where she's planning Sansa's marriage and Ned's like "SHE'S ELEVEN DDDDDDDDD:" and Cat's just like "and I was twelve when I was betrothed, what's your point?" To say nothing of their reunion in King's Landing where he is just baffled and sputtering and doesn't get how she's even here, and she basically tells him not to worry his pretty little head, ughhhh that moment was like candy JUST FOR ME. Yes, okay, she does freak out when her son falls of a building and is in a coma, and she is useless then, which is why I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt over that bit in the trailer of her weeping and wailing and begging him not to go, b/c that does happen in the book when she is freaking out because her child is quite possibly dying. Except then, while she is weeping and wailing, an assassin comes into Bran's room, and what does she do? SHE FIGHTS THAT GODDAMN ASSASSIN OFF WHILE STILL KIND OF IN TRAUMATIZED FUGUE STATE. And then she snaps out of it, goes "wow, okay, that's kind of embarrassing, now LET'S! GET DOWN! TO BUSINESS! TO DEFEAT THE HUNS LANNISTERS." I'm willing to wait and see if they do have that happen, but I really liked that it wasn't out of nowhere, that you'd seen previously that there's a strong, brave, clever woman there, b/c it made it this fantastic fist-pump-worthy moment when she snapped out of it and that strong, brave, clever woman PERMANENTLY DAMAGED HER HANDS BY GRABBING THE KNIFE A GODDAMN ASSASSIN HAD AT HER THROAT AND PULLING IT AWAY. BADDEST OF ASSES, GUYS, BADDEST OF ASSES.
I mean, like, you guys are the last people I have to tell that I basically feel that every movie/tv show ever could be improved by the addition of Sean Bean playing STOIC and HONORABLE and DOOMED and bearded, but come the fuck on, part of the whole tragedy of the Starks is that the whole ~honor~ schtick of Ned's is not only what gets him killed, but that there is a direct line between his refusing to play the game and civil war breaking out. And part of what I loved was that Catelyn basically tells him this all along, that if they want to find out what's happening and save them and theirs, he's going to have to play the goddamn game. And because she knows that he won't listen to her and he's just going to be HONORABLE and STOIC, then she'll do it herself. They have such an interesting relationship and complement each other so well, and not only is it clear that they have a great deal of respect for one another, it's also clear that each of them respects the other because they have earned that respect. I feel like we lost some of that. Which is part of why I'm super-irritated that they gave her clothes in the letter scene, although this might just be my resentment that oh no we can't have naked middle-aged women, just naked nubile ingenues, part of which resentment is on general principle b/c lol sexism and ageism, but also b/c that letter scene is right up there with the scene in King's Landing as one of my favorites, where he's all WHAT ARE YOU DOING and she's just like "oh bb".
(Night told me I need to write her bookverse Cat/Ned PWP. I'M JUST SAYING IT IS REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS that their favorite bedroom pastimes include "septa and naughty schoolboy", "black brother taken prisoner by sexy wildling queen", and basically anything else that involves Cat tying Ned up and/or gagging him and/or spanking him until he cries.)
I did enjoy the kids, what little we've got of them so far! Bran and Arya were a little too precious for my taste in the book (wrt Arya ughhhh you guys have heard my rant about the "spunky girlchild who's terrible at and hates girly things and just wants to fight" trope b/c lol devaluing femininity), but I loved Arya's relationship with Ned, and his interactions with his daughters in general, where he's way out of his element but clearly adores them and is genuinely trying to do the best he can by them while also preparing them for ~*~*~WINTER~*~*~. So I did love that moment in this episode of her tearing around the yard before the arrival of the royal company and Ned having to catch her as she runs by and wrangle her into place and the kind of long-suffering, tolerant Dad look on his face. I do kind of adore the actress they've got for Arya already, though, and suspect she'll go a long way towards making me less annoyed by Arya. I am quite tickled by the fact that they decided to interpret the mentions of her looking more like Ned while Sansa takes after Cat to mean "find a little girl who can do Sean Bean's 'FML' face". I'm terrified of what they're going to do with Sansa, too, who is fascinating and is, like Bran and Arya, kind of flat and annoying initially but then SHIT GETS REAL and OH SNAP SHE IS INDEED CAT AND NED'S DAUGHTER AND STEEL AT THE FUCKING CORE, THAT LITTLE SHIT DRAGGED HER UP TO THE ROOF TO LOOK AT HER FATHER'S HEAD ON A FUCKING PIKE AND SHE DIDN'T GIVE HIM THE SATISFACTION OF CRYING, WHAT.
(Actually a lot of the characters who annoyed me did that much less once shit started to get real; Jon is probably my #1 example of this because UGHHHHHHH I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FUCKING MANPAIN JON, I SERIOUSLY DON'T FUCKING CARE and I had to talk myself out of skipping most of his chapters, but once the FUCKING ICE ZOMBIES showed up again and he had some actual plot-related shit to do instead of sitting around whining, I still didn't like him but he was a lot more tolerable.)
Also, nitpick: "AUBURN" IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR "REDHEAD". My hair is auburn. Show!Cat and show!Sansa are redheads. IDK why that's working me up, but there you go. >:( THEIR HAIR IS TOO RED, SHOW, STOP IT.
Basically, like, Night and I were talking, and she said "you know, I've heard people describe Martin as feminist, and IDK that I'd go that far, but he did a damn sight better than the show is doing." And I was saying in talking to people about the book after I read it that, you know, no, there are no really decent, likable adult women in the book, but there aren't really any decent, likable adult men in it, either, because the entire point is that no one is really decent and likable because decent, likable people don't last in this game. The women get their hands dirty, but no dirtier than the men do, and they're given a lot of agency and very strong voices and they accomplish a lot and they're just fascinating in general -- most of the dudes I range from "meh" to "oh my god shut up shut up shut up" (except for Ned because IL the Honorable Decent Tryhard Straight Man -- "straight" in the comedy sense, not the sexuality sense, obvs -- character a lot) but the women are wonderful and interesting and I could happily read tons more doorstops if I knew they were going to be all the ladies, all the time.
But okay it is only the first episode so it is probably too early to really start giving it up as a lost cause, because maybe they will improve things later. And again, I am willing to put up with a lot for Sean Bean playing honorable, stoic, doomed, and bearded, so I will probably watch more, although probably not sober. Also my roommate wants screencaps because she wants to spam Tumblr with Sean Bean's various hilarious facial expressions. My work is done here.
* Yes let me once again take this opportunity to talk about Arwen in the FotR movie, and my unending resentment that Jackson bowed to neckbeard pressure and didn't make her as awesome as she was supposed to be in the following two movies. NECKBEARDS WHY DO YOU HAVE TO RUIN EVERYTHING?????
Originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments; reply here or there with your DW username or OpenID.