Hopefully, these two threads should suffice. But you never know…!
Because Ned’s execution wasn’t viewed as exploitative, gratuitious, etc. It was viewed as a shocking but necessary part of the story. You didn’t get people getting all morally indignant and saying the show has gone too far, or that they’re done with the show, or that they could no longer in good conscience recommend the show, and the sort of hysterics you see across the internet, not necessarily all in this thread. The reaction is disproportionate to everything we’ve seen - Ned’s execution, the Red Wedding, Oberyn’s death even if you want to limit it in a “characters important to us” sort of way.
Compare it to Oberyn’s death. That was shocking and hurt a lot of people. But there wasn’t a mass call that Game of Thrones was exploitative after that, that it was done as a stunt, and that people were done with the show, their episode reviews weren’t coming to a stop after 5 years, etc.
Oberyn’s death was way more gut-churning to me, incidentally. Here’s a guy that the audience really likes, a guy that we think may have the power to inflict revenge on some of the people we’ve come to hate, who’s on a righteous mission to expose and get revenge on his sister’s, and niece and nephew’s killers. We got to see him murdered in the most visceral, graphic way possible - there was no cut away and left to our imagination like with the Sansa rape - and we got to see him murdered while a guy gloated about raping and murdering his family. And, you know, being murdered is worse than being raped, because you don’t fucking survive and rebuild after the murder. Yet while people were shocked, and sad, I don’t remember all this bluster about the show going beyond the pale like now.
“Oh but Oberyn took the risk, he ultimately chose his own end” - Well so does Sansa. She agrees to the marriage when apparently given the choice knowing that it’s going to entail a wedding night and being married to the people who killed your family. She apparently decided it was worthwhile in order to have a chance at revenge - which is exactly the same choice Oberyn made.
So what are we left with? I guess the idea that rape and violence against women is just so much more important and valuable than violence against men, which isn’t to be given a second thought? Ultimately, based on the sort of people getting worked up over this, I suspect that’s exactly what it is.
I want to take this a bit further. There are Youtube videos called ‘Reactions to Oberyn’ or ‘reactions to the Red Wedding’ and we all laugh (most of us)…if a ‘reactions to Sansa’ video were made (and it may have) it would be called horribly insensitive and probably ‘contributes to rape culture’.
That seems…odd to say the least.
Yeah, I forgot to unsubscribe after the last post and got caught up in it again. I’ll unsub now. Toodles.
Then you must have missed it, because there were definitely people who said they were done with the show after Ned’s death. Book readers were waiting for the reaction of people to see what they’d do. Same thing after the Red Wedding.
Or rather that the show has kind of treated women poorly (sexposition, taking away power from women in the show who had much more in the books - ie, Cersei, eliminating powerful women from the narrative who were in the books) and this was the final straw for many.
Saying that oh, violence against women just must be worse than violence against men and that’s why there is such clucking just strikes me as all sorts of misogynist.
I’ll add a little to my last sentence (which, yes, was provocative and was meant to be somewhat) with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones#Use_of_sex_and_violence
To act as if there has been no outrage until now about the show’s use of sex and violence is simply not true. The Cersei rape scene was arguably even more controversial. And the discussions about torture porn involving Theon was all over the internet. This has been a recurring theme and isn’t simply about dainty people who can’t handle demonstrations of violence to women.
GOT is unremittingly brutal in it’s treatment of men and women. Killing and rape are regular fare. In last week’s episode there was scene where Sansa Stark was raped and reaction in various blogs, articles and podcast and radio commentary seems to be intense anger, shock and disgust at this scene way beyond reaction to all the other rapes, molestations and killings that occur in the show. Some are saying they will quit the show if this continues.
Why the visceral reaction to this particular assault vs the other horrible assaults that have occurred on the show.
I see there another thread on this already so close this one if you deem it overlapping
I don’t really get it either. The closest I can come is that Sansa is a character many people identify with, so bad things happening to “nobodies” isn’t as important as something bad happening to her.
Soooooo. What do you guys think of the Sansa replacing Mance and the women theory? The North remembers.
What do you mean replace Mance? She’s going to fail to rescue herself and get murdered? She’s going to sing about the Rat Cook? Isn’t the most commonly accepted theory that Theon killed the random Frey/Bolton men?
I’d like to see Sansa act for herself, but I have a hard time seeing it ring true for someone under Ramsay’s thumb. It might also undermine Theon’s arc.
I think we’ll see Brienne in the Mance role, she’ll die during the rescue attempt, and then Theon will rescue her.
No, she’s going to secretly incite the village to kill Boltons and incite an uprising.
I’ve edited the title to remove the name, that way nobody is spoiled from that.
Nope.
The conclusion is that a lot of the murders are committed by the spearwives and mance. They are killing Freys and Boltons guards (rather than specifically them).
I think the Rat Cook contents are dead Freys who never made it back from White Harbour.
The theory is that Big Walder killed Little Walder, given that Little Walder is found frozen and murdered, and Big Walder is covered with blood.
Now whether “the Ghost of Winterfell” or hooded man who Theon meets, is involved is another thing. There is an unidentified character walking around Winterfell as well. Some people think this is Theon having gone mad, and Theon could be killing as well.
Some think it could be Benjen or Blackfish or even one of the previous cast of Winterfell who was thrown down a well and survived…
GRIM seems to leave so much open to possibility and ambiguities and that is why there’s so many theories…
“Theon Turncloak. Theon Kinslayer.”
The analysis of the meaning of Kinslayer, given that the Stark children were not kin is a very leading phrase which could lead to a previous occupant of Winterfell, who knew that Theon might have been the father of one of the substitute children used instead of the Stark children…
Then again, given that information and knowledge, I’d say the only one who’d perhaps know this was Roose/original Reek.
I don’t get it either. There’s all kinds of vicious murdering, killing, beheading, etc and people are upset over a rape scene?
I suspect it’s simply that it’s sexual. Every source I’ve read on this claims that they’re “done with” or “quitting” or “boycotting” the show claims that it’s objection to the gratuitous, wanton violence; that’s complete nonsense. If gratuitous, wanton violence bothered you that much, you’d’ve stopped midway through the first episode. Sexual violence is perceived as being somehow worse. Couple that with the fact that this is happening (relatively) on-screen, and the impact that gives compared with simply reading “and then she was raped” and you’ve got a recipe for overwrought responses.
In addition to the sexual violence, some people are upset by what they see as Sansa’s lack of character growth. A co-worker told me that Sansa has been the show’s punching bag since season one and she’s sick of it.
I think we’ve seen signs that Sansa is beginning to come into her own. Her character arc is far from over.
But isn’t “Mance being murdered” thing only found in the letter from Ramsey to Jon? Where he claims he destroyed Stannis as well? So… basically we don’t really know that to be the case.
*Nooooooooo! *
It was the recreational outrage crowd mainly. When sensible people pointed out what you say in the post, they have scuried to make excuses like being “invested in the character” or “rape is special”.