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

[Darkflight]

Indeed. The latter (such as chest-bursting aliens) supposedly lacking in brutality and cheap shock value, depicting complex, character-driven relationships instead?

I enjoy the beauty of the xenomorph, not the movies that feature it. Just like I think that there are plenty of beautiful people and scenery in Game of Thrones. That doesn't make it worth watching. If I wanted to look at beautiful people and scenery, I'd just go outside.

The brutality and cheap shock value in the Aliens movies are useless to what I think the movies are, and they are a big part of what makes the movies pretty bad overall. It was still tolerable because of the distinction between a thinking individual making a decision to use violence against another member of its species and an animal without proper reasoning skills fighting for survival any way it can, but the aliens movies would have been far better off if they focused on showing off the aliens instead of trying to scare and shock the viewer. AvP1 shows off the aliens without resorting to graphic violence far better then any of the other movies featuring aliens, and it is my favourite for it. It's still nowhere near perfect though.

I find this distinction to be inane. If you're watching a nature documentary, you might have a point. But you're talking about fiction written by human beings. If A Song of Ice and Fire is written such that animal characters serve as substitutes for human characters, it would not change the meanings in the story very much. It is very possible to see some beast on screen as a metaphor for something quite human. That's not even getting into the intent of the producers, who similarly intend to depict gore and violence against human beings for entertainment, whatever the chosen agent of violence might be.

Meaning is subjective, intentions don't always show. The only thing a work can be judged on is the individual experience. My experience with the aliens franchise is that it takes one of the most fantastic monster designs ever and squanders it by having it brutalize humans. It was still worth a watch despite that. My experience with the Game of Thrones series is that there is nothing to be had except for violence and brutality between humans and some poor mans porn and to have an excuse to show all that there is a story behind it. The story would probably have been decent if they didn't have to resort to gorn to tell it. But they are unable to tell that story properly.

There is a distinction between how animals makes their decisions and how humans make their decisions that make Game of Thrones utter depravity and the aliens franchise tolerable.

 

[aelf]

Meaning is subjective, intentions don't always show. The only thing a work can be judged on is the individual experience. My experience with the aliens franchise is that it takes one of the most fantastic monster designs ever and squanders it by having it brutalize humans. It was still worth a watch despite that. My experience with the Game of Thrones series is that there is nothing to be had except for violence and brutality between humans and some poor mans porn and to have an excuse to show all that there is a story behind it. The story would probably have been decent if they didn't have to resort to gorn to tell it. But they are unable to tell that story properly.

There is a distinction between how animals makes their decisions and how humans make their decisions that make Game of Thrones utter depravity and the aliens franchise tolerable.

Violence and brutality between humans are true enough to life, and as long as it is, it will be in art - and legitimately so. Whether or not someone tells a story properly is also subjective in that different people have different opinions on this question.

But I must take issue with your assertion that meaning is subjective. Certainly, you may derive meanings that are different from another person from a given work of art. But the repertoire of meanings in a work of art is necessarily limited; otherwise anyone can make all sorts of outlandish claims about what the work means. If the repertoire of meanings in a work of art is limited, then we can necessarily enumerate all those meanings if we really tried. It might be difficult to be exhaustive, since we may not necessarily be attuned to some meanings that are present. However, since we can theoretically enumerate all of the meanings that are present in a work, it follows that these meanings 'exist' as non-ephemeral things, which implies that they are objective.

Which brings me to my point. I can quite confidently claim that the Alien franchise (which I also enjoy) means to depict brutality against human beings as entertainment. You cannot deny that this statement of an existing meaning is valid by appealing to subjectivity. Hence, your critique of Game of Thrones applies as well to Alien. What remains is your inability to find further, worthwhile meanings in the Game of Thrones series, which says nothing more than the fact that you are simply not attuned to the meanings that other people derive from the series.

 

[Kyriakos]

Human vs. human violence is a VERY different thing from animal vs. human violence.

Very true. Although you yourself mentioned that the Alien(s) movie was ultimately not good art either.

An animal, obviously, has numerous sepearations from a human, both linguistically and pragmatically. The theme of man vs beast is common in art, obviously. Man vs Man is by itself more mundane in my view as well. "Deus est Anima Brutorum" (god is the soul of the animals), and all those mystical phrases can often expand illustrations of violence in art where animals are depicted either as object or symbol

(And Giger's alien design was quite good, although not my favorite work of his, which would be the Shaft collection, and Atomkinder).

 

[Verbose]

The fact that anyone can enjoy watching Game of Thrones is a testament to what a messed up species we are. It's the kind of production that should cause severe pshycological damage to any reasonable person that watches it. Instead it is "universally acclaimed" because people are addicted to the cheap shock value of obscene brutality that is the shows sole selling point.

Well, we watch Shakespeare as well. "Titus Andronicus" outgores GoT by a mile. And we also no longer, or still, don't consider public torture and executions festive occasions.

The show, and the books, portray a morally ambiguous world, like our own, with people confronted by an interesting array of challenges and dilemmas. There's a strong strand of political intrigue relating to the nature, use, abuse and temptations of power. It's psychological treatment of how its cast of hundreds responds to it all is pretty decent too. All of which helps make it interesting.

 

[NovaKart]

Not by itself, no.

Instead it is the gratuitous and unnecessary portrayals of sexual violence as well as the unhealthy relationship nearly all the characters have with sex that is misogynist.

As for an exploration of rape, I don't see it. Perhaps you could explain what they are exploring vis-a-vis rape.

If you're talking about that particular scene I think it was saying something about how Jaime had little regard for Joffrey and cersei was the only one who did and then their conflicted relationship with each other and whether they still had feelings for one another.

There's all kinds if violence on the show and I think it's far from misogynist.

 

[Traitorfish]

Hm, interesting opinion. I thought that behind the façade of sadism and brutality it is actually a very PC show destined for modern and young audience (not sure if the books are like that). It's full of extremely powerful women, including great female warriors. Several of the best fighters are gay or bisexual. The most likable of the throne contenders is engaged in a pretty silly and dislocated slave-liberating crusade. So there are a lot of messages behind this mask of violence and amorality, and they're all PC.

Both women and gay people existed, historically, and routinely wielded considerable power, and Game of Thrones seems to do a fairly reasonable job of portraying that. The warrior-women and the anti-slavery stuff clearly express modern sensibilities, I'll give you that, although neither are entirely without historical analogies. But what you're essentially claiming in regards to powerful women and gay people is that "history is PC", which is... quixotic?

The fact that anyone can enjoy watching Game of Thrones is a testament to what a messed up species we are. It's the kind of production that should cause severe pshycological damage to any reasonable person that watches it. Instead it is "universally acclaimed" because people are addicted to the cheap shock value of obscene brutality that is the shows sole selling point.

Game of Thrones is pretty soft, to be honest, even compared to other HBO shows. True Blood has way more gore, it's just that it uses gore in an over-the-top way styled after horror movies, while GoT aspires to a sense of realism, or at least grittiness, so it doesn't get the same sort of attention as a "violent" series.

 

[Verbose]

Possibly GoT just isn't downright "Victorian" enough in its sensibilities? It's more "The Nightmares of the King"...

 

[luiz]

Both women and gay people existed, historically, and routinely wielded considerable power, and Game of Thrones seems to do a fairly reasonable job of portraying that. The warrior-women and the anti-slavery stuff clearly express modern sensibilities, I'll give you that, although neither are entirely without historical analogies. But what you're essentially claiming in regards to powerful women and gay people is that "history is PC", which is... quixotic?

Of course they did, and I already clarified I didn't mean PC in a derogatory way here (except for the anti-slavery crusade which I find ridiculous). While obviously there were a lot of powerful women and gays throughout history, they certainly aren't very prominent in classical works of the genre, to say the least. That, coupled with the warrior-women (and gay warriors), the anti-slavery crusade, etc, they all point to an appeal to modern sensibilities, as you say.

To say the show is misogynistic because it features rape is like saying "Roots" was both racist and misogynistic for featuring the rape of female slaves.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Link to video.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I think GOT is best described as a epic action-soap-opera of high production and narration value.
I am used to nurturing a lustful disdain of all soaps, but GOT just made it so awesome that I got sucked in. Watched the first two seasons in 3 days or so.
IMO the 4th season is a bit weak so far. But the first three were just great entertainment.
Just give it a try.

 

[Zack]

obscene brutality that is the shows sole selling point.

have you watched even ten seconds of the show?

 

[BvBPL]

BvBPL, I think that to demonstrate that the show is misogynistic, you would have to prove that it is attempting to titillate the audience or glorify sexual violence, rather than merely depicting a character who is misogynistic. There are misogynistic humans, rapists, murders, etc etc in real life, and depicting those things in a work of art is merely reflecting reality. However, glorifying those things in art or anywhere else is another thing entirely, and would be wrong.

I'm not sure that intention is necessary. You can have a misogynistic portrayal without intending to be misogynistic.

There are at least two scenes in the show that were rough but consensual sex in the books but were rape on the TV show and at least one instance of non-consensual sexual violence that was a new scene for the TV show and never appeared in the books. The additions made by the TV show from things that were not in the book make it very questionable if there's a valid artistic purpose to making these scenes rape scenes. It is necessary to ask why the TV show changed this to make these scenes more violent.

The case can be made that GoT does glorify sexual violence to some extent. For example, in season one, Khal Drogo raped Daenerys (unlike the book where the sex was consensual, albeit complicated by Daenerys's age). As a result of the non-consensual sexual encounters Drogo has w/ Daenerys, and her resulting learning to use sex as a tool to manipulate Drogo, Daenerys develops and matures as a character. She comes into her own because of the rape.

The rape made her a woman. It made her a strong character.

Suggesting that rape does this, that is makes the victims of rape stronger for going through the rape, is a glorification of rape.

...you really can't deny this show offers a far more powerful female cast than nearly any other show.

Yeah, I can.

In Veep, the only component characters are women.

In Parks & Rec, all the women are powerful.

Powerful women are no longer unusual on TV. The number of powerful women in GoT is not a unique attribute.

Claiming that GoT can't be misogynistic because it has powerful women is like saying you can't be racist because you have black friends.

 

[Yeekim]

If one has scores of black friends, I'd indeed question just how racist can he be.

Sent from my G740-L00 using Tapatalk

 

[Chukchi Husky]

There is one strange thing that happened to me about A Game of Thrones. I read the first book just before the TV series came out, so I kept being asking questions. These questions were from someone who thought for some reason that A Game of Thrones was historical, and set in the North of England.

 

[Kyriakos]

^AFAIK people argue that it is partly based on The War of the Roses, so you weren't that far off

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses

(Lancaster and York, Lannister and Stark, etc. Anyway like i said i never read the books, but some people who have do mention some link).

 

[gay_Aleks]

^AFAIK people argue that it is partly based on The War of the Roses, so you weren't that far off

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses

(Lancaster and York, Lannister and Stark, etc. Anyway like i said i never read the books, but some people who have do mention some link).

Much as Ulysses from James Joyce is related to Odysseus from Homer are related.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Not as little as that. For starters both environments were medieval, war-ridden, a king's dynasty was broken and things were pretty chaotic.

In Joyce's Ulysses you have various epidermic parallels with the Odyssey. (but i only read the first 150 or something pages of Joyce's work there, which was at first very interesting for me, but then deteriorated to experimental crap).

 

[gay_Aleks]

So now everything which is medieval, war-torn and filled with squabbling dynasties over the control of the throne is now related to Game of Thrones?

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes. Provided that the future generations know mostly of GoT and not other paradigms of this situation.

Which is not that unlikely.

 

[Zack]

GRRM has stated several times that the War of the Roses was indeed an inspiration. Look at the names of the houses, for one.