Not to mention have his own prospective wife stripped naked and flogged (a scene he would then try and re-enact with his gift whores), again in front of the entire court.
I don’t think “people might start thinking I’m a little weird if I were to do this” enters his thought process very often. He’s the King, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, and he’s been very fond of reminding everyone of that so far.
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And I don’t see him asking his kingsguard to do it. Beating his bride-to-be for him is one thing. Tying (former) whores to his bed to be killed is another.
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Well, the Goldcloaks shanked babies when they were told to, and they can’t even boast the whole honor & oathbound mystique of the Kingsguard, so…
OK, I’ll grant that there’s perhaps not as fine a line between “The drunk offended me, kill him” and “please drag this lady from Littlefinger’s house to my room and tie her up”. But it’s hardly a Lost-esque conspiracy to see a dead (former) whore tied to a bed and think it started with (a promise of) kinky sex. (Especially since she’s been there once before on such a mission that also devolved into sadism). Maybe it’s just me, but usually I figure that people tied to a bed got there semi-willingly. Even if its the bed of a psychopath that eventually kills them with a crossbow.
Joffrey’s definitely into the D and S of BDSM. Not so much into the M, as far as we know, but I don’t think the B is a stretch.
Anyway, this:
is probably correct. You can imagine it your way and I can imagine it mine. Either way, Joff’s a monster and Ros is an unfortunate victim.
See, I agree with Magnusblitz here. Loathing a psychopathic torturing serial killer like the BTK Killer is much, much different from a villain that you love to hate. It’s not in the territory of “juicy villain whose eventual comeuppance I will savor.” It’s in the territory of “ugh, that’s just sick.”
I think the violence is a result of the showrunners following Martin’s story, which is clearly based on the reality of medieval life rather than SCA fantasies about it. Real medieval history is so filled with violence, torture and death that Game of Thrones, graphic as it is, is sugar-coating what really went on.
Really, we need Joffrey to be so evil so there is a clear-cut villain on this show. Pretty pretty every other villainous character is either dead or has some sort of redeeming/sympathetic quality, (the other Lannisters, Theon, the Hound, etc.)
I take back what I said early this season about them going in a more nuanced direction with King Dickhead. Looks like he’s going to be a cliched sadistic, crazy villian.
Joffrey had a terrible upbringing in terms of emotional/mental development, with a father who ignored him and a mother who pandered to his every whim and megalomaniacal impulse. That’s about it in terms of sympathetic aspects to him, though.
I wonder about that actually. When you watch any show about the Middle Ages or the Roman Empire, it always seems like they were constantly at war or feuding or otherwise killing each other at the drop of a hat. I bet their lives were more or less as boring as ours. 500 years from now, I’ll bet they portray the 21st century like something out of one of the Fast & Furious films.
While undoubtedly there were hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle Ages who lived mundane lives full of farming and dysentery without ever having their village burned down by marauders, Evil Captor is right about Medieval warfare and politics being even nastier in real life than it is in Game of Thrones. I’m not entirely sure it’s physically possible to read an entire book about the history of the Byzantine Empire without vomiting at least once.
There are several different themes one could draw from Game of Thrones, but a major one is clearly that feudalistic monarchies are a ridiculous and terrible form of government. The fact that someone with no redeeming qualities like Joffrey could wind up in a position of supreme authority is an indictment of the system. It’s not just that Joffrey isn’t the best person to be king, he is literally the worst person possible to make king.
Psychopathy is NOT a medical problem. Medicine has nothing to offer psychopaths. Forensic psychiatry as a whole notes that the criminal justice system is the best way to deal with psychopathic behavior. NOT the mental health system.
If a psychopath wanted to change, they could benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. But psychopaths don’t want to change.
And none of that info came from the book. Well, not GRRM’s book, anyway.
Exactly. Everyone knows that supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony, or who your dad (maybe) was.
Reference aside, that’s what’s hilarious to me about Dany’s current storyline.
She goes on and on about wanting her people to be free, makes a big show of disliking slavery and injustice… girl, your end goal is to become an autocrat, and your claim to the throne is backed only by right of birth and will to power. It doesn’t really *get *more unjust and un-free than that.
One could question whether blokes who’ve basically been raised as slaves from birth and brainwashed every day along the way can have any meaningful concept of freedom to begin with. Might as well ask a blind man his favourite colour.