Meh. Can't bring myself to watch Game of Thrones S5.

[rheasilvia]

I'm so unenthusiastic about Game of Thrones. I haven't watched the season opener yet, and I'm not really motivated to. None of the characters interest me right now.

Comments

[rheasilvia]

Yeah, any hopes I might have had that the show would wise up and at least present equal-opportunities nudity after catching so much flack for being all about the boobs (particularly the rapey boobs, and the rapey underage boobs) died long ago.

I'm not actually particularly sensitive to the subject myself, but this show has managed to do so many things wrong in the field of rape, nudity and creepy exploitative male gaze issues (often involving very young girls) that by now I am just grossed out at every new instance of it. Even just anticipating it.

It's a symptom that I was actually overjoyed when Theon almost got raped at one point, not because I wanted another person to get raped, but because male rape had simply never seemed to exist for the show before. This in a world with the Night's Watch (there would be *so much rape* here) and Jaime Lannister being capturted by the Stark forces for ages without suffering anything more than a few bruises. Yeah right.

I do have to say this, though. Some book fans assured me that the rape-turns-to-love thing with Danaerys and Whatshisface the Pseudo-Mongol was not as rapey in the book. I have now ascertained that it was actually worse in the book, as well as adorned with reperated mention of how underage she was. Sex with unwilling / reluctant / child-bride underage girls comes up so much in the books - and is usually dwelled on at way more length than seems warranted - that I actually would not want to meat GRR Martin at this point.

Unfortunately, I'm probably going to watch this at some point. It'd be much smarter not to, argh.

So Varys is your Theon, huh? ;-)

[jo_lasalle]

Oh, I find Theon unbearable too. That's kind of my problem, I don't actually like all that many characters. I like Sansa (though her plotline is dreary) and Margaery, and have found Cersei interesting to watch even if she's not a good person (ahem), and that's about it.** I still found myself getting pulled in in previous seasons just because of the incredible production values -- the show just *looks* so good.

(And, admittedly, people saying there was a lot of sexual violence in it intrigued me to some degree, because I actually dislike it when settings where rape would be very common -- and an analogy of the Thirty Years War sure is one -- don't deal with it. But this show just went... icky.)

**I know whether someone is 'a good person' isn't something everyone cares about that much, but when pretty much every character (who is not super-boring) is despicable, I definitely run into trouble.

[rheasilvia]

an analogy of the Thirty Years War

You give the creators more credit than I ever did. ;-)

when pretty much every character (who is not super-boring) is despicable, I definitely run into trouble.

Same here, especially when the world itself is also so bleak and horrible. That's why I had to stop watching Rome and The Tudors (also both shows in which the bleakness and horribleness of the world was illustrated by a lot of casual background rape - of women only, of course - that seemed creepily exploitative in presentation).