So...is it worth trying to watch the Game of Thrones series?

[Crezth]

Actually I'm not sure. I think it was less rapey, but still not something that she actually wanted.

It was still pretty rapey though. In either the book or the show, it's pretty clear that saying "No" was not a realistic option for her.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Interestingly - and I am saying this without any subtext I foresee will immediately be assumed - to be part of a society where the husband has a right to intercourse or in other words to find yourself in the position that it is just normal to have to have sex - probably tends to make the rape less rapy then when you find yourself feeling "entitled" to not be raped. One way how it is problematic to judge this by our modern standards.

 

[Crezth]

Not being raped is "entitlement" now. Welp.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well you responded exactly as reactionary as I foresaw

 

[Crezth]

Awesome job, Nostradamus. Maybe now you can use that future sight to catch a glimpse of some actual morality.

 

[Oruc]

I wonder if Kyriakos is still interested in watching this rapefest?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I didn't talk about morality but reality. And I foresaw you not being able to distinguish the two.

 

[gay_Aleks]

 

[BvBPL]

The only way your interpretation works is if you believe that some people are just born innately weaker than others, and have to be made strong by other, stronger people -- in this case by raping them. If you believe that people are all born equal, if you believe that all people are innately capable of great strength, if you have an optimistic and positive view of humanity, if you believe that we all have it within ourselves to overcome great adversity and grow stronger in the face of it, then you will see nothing wrong with Daenerys's story. If you believe that raping women makes them stronger, then yeah, you're gonna have a bad time.

Character development is a critical part of good fiction. Characters change over the course of the story. It is a necessity to fiction, generally. That's not a comment on the equality of man, but a condition of the medium.

Not to be that guy, but I'm pretty sure Dany's sex with Carl von Dragon is at least semi-consensual in the books.

Which is exactly why it is worth discussing why it is different in the show. Why is the show putting more rape and sexual violence in if the story, presumably, stood fine on its own.

 

[azzaman333]

Which is exactly why it is worth discussing why it is different in the show. Why is the show putting more rape and sexual violence in if the story, presumably, stood fine on its own.

I think this is primarily due to difficulties portraying ambiguous consent when you can't see inside the mind of the character. Haven't read the books, but I assume that the Daenerys-Drogo sex scene is from Dany's point of view. As such you know for a fact that while she's not exactly keen on it, she's not feeling raped. I would think it was the same sort of idea with the Jaime-Cersei in the church, where from Jaime's point of view it might've seemed all good, but from a less personal point of view it's not clear.

It's the same scene in both the book and the show, but the perspective on the scene is different. That'd be my assessment.

 

[BvBPL]

There is no difficulty in portraying consent on the TV. In both scenes in the book the characters verbally consented. It isn't a question of one not knowing the heart of another, but the show's creators making a conscious decision to omit one word lines that change the nature of the scene.

 

[Crezth]

I didn't talk about morality but reality. And I foresaw you not being able to distinguish the two.

"Sure, rape is wrong, but let's be real - is it wrong?"

 

[Kyriakos]

I did happen to read that they also changed the recent rape scene (Jaime and his entirely non-related woman)

Martin commented on that, to note that in the book it was not a rape (but merely an utterly weird situation involving a corpse).

 

[TheLastOne36]

The context of the scene in the books and in the show were completely different imo.

The way the show did it, was entirely against Jaime's character, which is where I am most upset about.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

"Sure, rape is wrong, but let's be real - is it wrong?"

Am I annoyed, sad or amused? I just can not decide.

 

[Winner]

It's so amusing to see people discussing the ethical implications of relative prevalence of rape in medieval-esque fiction

Reminds me of how I got totally gangtrolled by a bunch of crazy people on an unnamed different forum because I dared to suggest that present-day concepts of age of consent do not really apply in A Song of Ice and Fire. One lady (at least I think she was a lady) emphatically claimed that Tyrion is an evil rapist because presumably he had sex with that teenage wifey of his and some underage (I think for her this meant "under 21" or something) prostitutes.

Needless to mention, most of the moralists come from America, for some unfathomable reason

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, a pic of Martin should help dilute all sense that his work has perverted themes

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Look at his shiny lips.

 

[Winner]

With respect to the sept scene as it went down in the TV show:

In the course of the above interview, she makes some of the following remarks (transcript from The Mary Sue):

“Yes, so, you know, we spent a long time rehearsing it with Alex [Graves], the director, and myself and Nik and Jack [Gleeson] and you know, of course it’s a very complicated moment for many reasons and what I will say about it is, from my stance as an actor who’s had this character for three years, four years, who knows her intimately…you know you’re standing, as a woman in absolute grief, in pain that she’s never felt before. And you know, she’s staring at the body of her dead son who’s been her sanity and her purpose and she’s joined by her brother who’s also her lover so, you know, we’ve also got bigger problems going on than the ones everyone’s talking about]. And it becomes very messy. And there’s lust and desperation and you know, a need to feel something other than this searing, empty loss. And so that’s where I came from when we were filming. There was this need and it wasn’t right and yet it felt great and yet it wasn’t right and it played out the way it did. And I was really happy with it. I thought it was um, my intention was there and I think people’s reactions are right and opinions are varying.”

(...Q: was this consensual? In the book it was...)

I came from this place of grieving and a need to feel connected and alive and you know, this is the only other person, probably the only person she has ever trusted in the world. And she’s shunned Jaime and he’s never stopped loving her and in that moment she’s embracing and she’s rejecting of him in the same breath and you know, if I had not have said “not now, not here,” you know, if there were silence I don’t know how people would have reacted, you know what I mean? But it’s tricky, man, because we could go into this for a long time, I could get personal, we could…you know what I mean? It’s a real f***er of a situation. And I also think, you know, without being too much of a tw*t about it, we’re talking about a show with dragons, incest, babies taken by zombies, you know…


Link to video.

source

 

[Crezth]

Am I annoyed, sad or amused? I just can not decide.

Just keep in mind that you literally said not being raped is entitlement. Like, you wrote those words down. So. Yeah. That's a thing you did.

If I didn't think "rape culture" existed before - well, maybe it still doesn't, but dude, that's a really weird and bad opinion to have.