Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Numtini]

I have a very different take on Cersei / Jaime. I see their relationship starting out as a healthy affection for each other and a respite in each other from the requirements of being in a scheming dynastic family. If anything, it's one of the few relationships that is consensual.

[MediumHigh]

Actually... no. From every piece of CERSEI's own inner monologue she has always been the one to initiate the sexy times when they were younger. Jaime got more bold sure, but by that time Jaime was well into his teens and enjoying what he felt was near unlimited access to the only woman he loved. Keep in my Cersei was the one who orochrestaed much of Jaimes early decisions that led to the most traumatic and miserable parts of his early teens, young adult years.

[MahrinSkel]

If they wanted to carry across the message they claim without setting off a reaction and having most of the audience miss it, they needed Cersei to break from the clinch, then go back to it deliberately.  Having her resist and Jaime overwhelms her resistance with his dick was a bad move, even in a narrative sense.

--Dave

[Lantyssa]

I suspect much of the reaction is shock by people who were deluded into thinking Jaime was about to become a White Hat. Personally I suspect all the White Hats are dead. The most positively written characters are a Smuggler who supports a regime of religious persecution and human sacrifice, and an Oathbreaker and Liar.

I think that's a nuance most people mistake about this series.  They're used to black and white characters, rather than a bunch of tribal types who may be okay within their own circles but are despicable outside them.  (Which actually makes them much more like real people so the reactions to them is all the more amusing.)  The "evil" characters of the series are the ones who are jerks to their own.

There are very few good people in the books or show.  Those who could be considered that way mainly are because they have a strict moral code they adhere to.  Even the paragons of the series have their moments:  Ned, who opens the series beheading a man and likely has as high a bodycount as anyone in the series due to past wars.  Jon who kills a Brother, and more in the books.  Brienne is perhaps the most virtuous of the lot, but she flees rather than face trial and kills plenty of people.  The Hound is an unrepentant arse and murderer who happens to be good in comparison to many in the series simply because he doesn't go out of his way to cut a swath of destruction.

[HaemishM]

Actually... no. From every piece of CERSEI's own inner monologue she has always been the one to initiate the sexy times when they were younger. Jaime got more bold sure, but by that time Jaime was well into his teens and enjoying what he felt was near unlimited access to the only woman he loved.

That's probably me projecting then.   It's really funny how I would assume that Cersei was the party who was dominated in the early steps of the relationship - and I'm assuming that simply because she's a woman. That's some of the sexist baggage I come into this thing with based on my upbringing in the Deep South in the '70's. And it's even funnier to consider that my mother is a woman I've never considered to be a meek woman. Hell, she flat out told her kids that she did not need a man to be happy in her life (even though she and my father are about to celebrate their 50th anniversary, she's very much always "worn the pants" in the family).

That baggage is informing a lot of people's reactions to this show. As has been said, medieval life was fucking brutal. Morality was what your religious leaders said it was. Rape... FFS, raping was a REWARD for a soldier's service most of the time, even in wars based on religious reasons. Slaughter and pillage and raping the likes of which would make our own soldiers hurl was the norm, and I think both the book and the TV show have done a good job portraying that. But I also think many of the people who are not as versed in history or fantasy literature are viewing this show through really naive eyes.

I read the scene as rape - but I also think that Cersei was sort of into it by the end, surrendering herself to the inevitable, much like she did with Robert and perhaps hoping to grasp onto the happier moments of the past when she wasn't dealing with the death of her monster spawn that she somehow still loved. That in itself should signal to the viewers that this relationship is not what it once was. That shouldn't change people's views of Jamie except that people on this show suddenly want him to be a white knight and live happily ever after. Which again means people have not been paying fucking attention because ain't nobody getting out of here without getting a tremendous pile of shit dumped on their heads.

Who the hell thinks Cersei has been portrayed as a redeemable or sympathetic character? Sure, she's been able to give some justification for why she acts like a completely evil witch, but even to this point, I can't see how anyone could think that. She is not sympathetic, despite all the stupid shit she's had to endure. And holy shit, what she's going to do next season should pretty much shoot that feeling directly in the eye.

[Severian]

I have a very different take on Cersei / Jaime. I see their relationship starting out as a healthy affection for each other and a respite in each other from the requirements of being in a scheming dynastic family. If anything, it's one of the few relationships that is consensual.

Agreed, that's in the books. Everything is completely consensual, frictions result from the stresses of being forced to keep it hidden, and how that threatens Cercei's driving motivations, but not Jamie's. (With Joffrey in place it means no less than the Crown of the Seven Kingdoms).

Also, let us not forget that, until the Usurper took the throne by force, Westeros was ruled by Targaryens, an entire lineage delivered through incest. Even though the views of of the Westerosi commoners on incest are generally similar to ours, they make exception for the Targaryens. Because incest is an abhorrent crime against the gods and nature, except when it isn't. And the spawn of incest is an abomination, like Joffrey and Aerys the Mad, but not like Tommen or Myrcella.  Or Gilly. Or Daenerys.

[jgsugden]

If book Jaime had arrived home weeks earlier and been rebuffed by his sister /lover / baby mama repeatedly... and then watched his child die... and then was rebuffed by her in the Sept.... are you so sure he would not have done the same as the show Jaime?  I'm not.  I see the TV version of the character as being very true to the book version.  They've just faced different circumstances.  They're both murderers, they've both led armies that raped and murdered with their full knowledge, they both condone the Mountain's acts, .... they're both crap in human form.  They're just charismatic crap.  I fully think, based upon the way the book scene is written, that Jaime was not going to stop even if Cersei had more clearly objected.

[Khaldun]

I'm fully willing to credit that the director may have intended the scene to come off other than it did. But I don't get why he would still think it views that way once he looks it--because it doesn't.

[Merusk]

I'm fully willing to credit that the director may have intended the scene to come off other than it did. But I don't get why he would still think it views that way once he looks it--because it doesn't.

Observational bias of the creator. You know what you meant to show/ write/ draw so you see your intent even when others don't.

[MediumHigh]

If book Jaime had arrived home weeks earlier and been rebuffed by his sister /lover / baby mama repeatedly... and then watched his child die... and then was rebuffed by her in the Sept.... are you so sure he would not have done the same as the show Jaime?  I'm not.  I see the TV version of the character as being very true to the book version.  They've just faced different circumstances.  They're both murderers, they've both led armies that raped and murdered with their full knowledge, they both condone the Mountain's acts, .... they're both crap in human form.  They're just charismatic crap.  I fully think, based upon the way the book scene is written, that Jaime was not going to stop even if Cersei had more clearly objected.

Wait what? You are projecting very hard. And no, Jaime would have stopped because Cersei wears the pants. I mean dear me we taking this very personally.

[Ingmar]

Rape is the ultimate fictional sin apparently. I don't mean that flippantly. It seems to be above killing household pets on the chart of "things people get pissy about in fictional characters."

I don't have a ton of time to respond to the rest of your post right now but for this, I think it makes sense for one particular reason - rape is still something you actually have to worry about in your normal life as a woman in this country, whereas stuff like dynastic murder, having your hand chopped off by your enemies, and invading armies burning your city down and such are not things that hit any real life fears or experiences for most people (in the US). It's far easier to distance yourself from that sort of thing than it is from a rape, especially once you slap historical costumes on folks, and I think the gulf gets even wider when you're watching a simulated rape compared to someone getting fake-stabbed. The rape is a lot easier to make look "real" on a TV budget and is thus way more disturbing.

[MediumHigh]

Gonna be honest your probably as likely to be killed and your house broken into than sexually assaulted. And if the positions were reversed (cersei rapes a one handed depressed jaime) we wouldn't feel any outrage. We're just morally fucked up individuals at this point holding on to some taboos we're to afraid to cross or be ok with mostly because our standing with the other assholes we deal.

[HaemishM]

You are probably right, but I also think for Americans anyway, our really fucked hangups that we have about sex is part of it. We are all about violence, to the point where we actually (and I count myself among them) cheer when shit happens like Arya and the Hound killing those motherfuckers for chickens. That scene was funny as fuck and Arya stabbing that bastard in the throat was something we cheer. An 11-year old CHILD stabbing some guy in the throat is to be celebrated, laughed at and no one bats an eye. Maybe it's because that guy deserved it along with a lot of the people she wants to kill and maybe we can feel for her after all the crap she's had to endure.

And if you think about it, Cersei "deserves" some of that retribution because of the parts she's played in Arya being where she is. And yet... her rape by a man she clearly loves  (in her own twisted way) is not seen as retribution and is instead something viewers are finding evokes sympathy. We're downright squidgy about sex, especially sexual violence but the murdering kind we as viewers seem all to happy to accept, even to cheer on. We are some bloodthirsty cunts.

Again, not saying I agree with the rape or the way the scene was shot because it so clearly IS rape that I can't imagine how anyone even the director would think it otherwise. I find it really fucking crazy how up in arms people are about that one scene of sexual violence as compared to all the other scenes of murderous violence we have all eaten up without even a tsk tsk.

[Merusk]

Gonna be honest your probably as likely to be killed and your house broken into than sexually assaulted. And if the positions were reversed (cersei rapes a one handed depressed jaime) we wouldn't feel any outrage. We're just morally fucked up individuals at this point holding on to some taboos we're to afraid to cross or be ok with mostly because our standing with the other assholes we deal.

Let's not go to politics, but no. You're wrong on all of these "points."  Even for you this was a boneheaded statement.

[Ingmar]

Gonna be honest your probably as likely to be killed and your house broken into than sexually assaulted.

It's actually not even close (well, for murder, I have no idea why you threw having your house broken into unless you mean specifically murder as part of a home invasion, in which case it is even less common); rape is far more common than murder (over 5x as common in 2012) and that's not including the large number of unreported or unprosecuted cases of rape, nor is it including lesser kinds of sexual assault. Unreported murders, as you might imagine, are relatively rare on the other hand.

[jgsugden]

...Wait what? You are projecting very hard. And no, Jaime would have stopped because Cersei wears the pants. I mean dear me we taking this very personally.

I have no idea why you think I'm taking this personally.

There was no tenderness, only hunger.  He didn't even hear her respond to him.  

[calapine]

We are all about violence, to the point where we actually (and I count myself among them) cheer when shit happens like Arya and the Hound killing those motherfuckers for chickens. That scene was funny as fuck and Arya stabbing that bastard in the throat was something we cheer. An 11-year old CHILD stabbing some guy in the throat is to be celebrated, laughed at and no one bats an eye.

Actually that scene bothered me*. I just didn't feel bringing it up would be of any value/insight for the forum discussion, so I didn't post about it.


*Same with Daenerys Targaryen, she is responsible for a lot of deaths, but it never seems to damage her good-girl image.

[Phildo]

They've done a good job of not mentioning the fact that Arya's 11, and that guy definitely was a dick.  Revenge killings are generally celebrated in our culture.

Similarly, Danaerys is crusading for justice and anti-slavery!  So that's also the good kind of killing.

[Velorath]

*Same with Daenerys Targaryen, she is responsible for a lot of deaths, but it never seems to damage her good-girl image.

Ah yes Daenerys, the series' strong female character. Almost hard to remember her back in Season 1 when she was in a rapey relationship with Drogo that eventually became consensual.

[Rasix]

*Same with Daenerys Targaryen, she is responsible for a lot of deaths, but it never seems to damage her good-girl image.

Ah yes Daenerys, the series' strong female character. Almost hard to remember her back in Season 1 when she was in a rapey relationship with Drogo that eventually became consensual.

Another scene they bungled. 

It seems like the directors take the "how hard can we shock the viewers" stance and in the process manage to fuck things up.  The book is brutal enough without having to turn the dial to 11.  Just like all of the baby murder.  I'm surprised they haven't filmed a flash back scene for the death of Ellia Martell and the baby Targaryens.  They could have Tywin yell "YAHTZEE!" from somewhere off screen.

[Threash]

*Same with Daenerys Targaryen, she is responsible for a lot of deaths, but it never seems to damage her good-girl image.

Ah yes Daenerys, the series' strong female character. Almost hard to remember her back in Season 1 when she was in a rapey relationship with Drogo that eventually became consensual.

Another scene they bungled. 

It seems like the directors take the "how hard can we shock the viewers" stance and in the process manage to fuck things up.  The book is brutal enough without having to turn the dial to 11.  Just like all of the baby murder.  I'm surprised they haven't filmed a flash back scene for the death of Ellia Martell and the baby Targaryens.  They could have Tywin yell "YAHTZEE!" from somewhere off screen.

Yeah, no.  The book scene was ridiculous and it would have been idiotic if they tried to film it as it was.  The book went from retarded consensual wedding night to nightly rapes, the show made a whole lot more sense.

[Soulflame]

Are you talking about dragon girl?  That wedding was not consensual.  That was her brother selling her off in exchange for a position with the guy she was forcibly married off to.

Of course, that turned out terribly well for him.   

[Threash]

Yeah, but in the book their first night together he was tender and basically didn't do anything until she said yes.  Then every night after that he plowed her like a blowup doll.  It was all very silly and the show did a much better job with the whole thing.

[MediumHigh]

Gonna be honest your probably as likely to be killed and your house broken into than sexually assaulted. And if the positions were reversed (cersei rapes a one handed depressed jaime) we wouldn't feel any outrage. We're just morally fucked up individuals at this point holding on to some taboos we're to afraid to cross or be ok with mostly because our standing with the other assholes we deal.

Let's not go to politics, but no. You're wrong on all of these "points."  Even for you this was a boneheaded statement.

I really don't want to get into politics but err no. Only 3 times less likely to be murdered, buy 4 times more likely to be robbed, 10 times more like to be assaulted, and 20 times more likely to be suffer through a home invasion. On the plus side your only 50% less likely to suffer someone intentionally setting your house on fire according to the fbi. The point is we don't bat our eyes at casual baby stabbing.

[jgsugden]

Hey, as long as it is casual, nobody objects to a good baby stabbing.  We're all just objecting to being required to dress up for it.

Right?

Guys?

[eldaec]

Rape is the ultimate fictional sin apparently. I don't mean that flippantly. It seems to be above killing household pets on the chart of "things people get pissy about in fictional characters."

I don't have a ton of time to respond to the rest of your post right now but for this, I think it makes sense for one particular reason - rape is still something you actually have to worry about in your normal life as a woman in this country,

The other big element in a fictional rape is that you get to see the impact on the victim - and it is impact that translates well though acting.

If Jamie had murdered Cersei, Cersei would have gone away. If he genuinely rapes her, you expect the narrative to explore the aftermath - so the event has more impact.

There was also a rape in episode 1 this season, you probably don't remember because it was an extra you won't see again - and you were being distracted by the prepubescent psychopath.

[Khaldun]

This semester, I was teaching a non-Western epic that was written down from oral traditions in the 19th Century; it includes a major story element in which a woman is given away as a reward to heroic hunters, they attempt to rape her and are defeated by her animal 'double', and then she is given to a king whose animal 'double' eventually defeats hers after many nights of struggle. It's very clearly a story of rape and non-consent in some sense, and yet it's also set in a historical context where every modern idea we have about individuals doesn't really fit. Nobody in the story is a modern "choosing individual" in the sense that we today prize.

I'm ok when a story is trying to work with that kind of source material. The problem is that the book scene of Jaime and Cersei is NOT that. In fact, it's a rather explicit reference to a very similar scene in Richard III (and Shakespeare was just as prone to 'shock material' of this kind as Martin). The TV version just fucked it up because in part it lost the literary reference AND it lost the sense of historical alienness--that was a very modern scene of a very modern kind of rape. That's why it's so jarring, in addition to it breaking the character arc for Jamie that they were developing. I honestly think from what I can see so far, the showrunners didn't even know that that scene broke the character arc they were working towards, which raises concerns about the whole thing.

It's like any show where you suddenly have to ask, "Uh-oh, do they actually know where to take this thing? What to do with those people?" Occasionally everyone is panicking too early with those questions, but we have plenty of recent examples where it turns out that the first time you say, "Uh-oh, that doesn't look good" is only the beginning of the times where you're going to say, "Fuck, they're losing it." They're heading into a season ahead where their judgment MUST be consistently better than Martin's or it's going to be a dull mess, and if they think that the solution to 'dull mess' is to make stuff shocking just to keep it from being boring, we'll all end up hating the whole fucking thing.

[Cyrrex]

The bottom line is that the scene was clumsily handled and gave off the wrong impression of what was really meant to happen.  In the book, any explicit or implied objection Cersei may have had towards the act had to do with the totally inappropriate setting.  I mean, up against their dead son's coffin?  Does that still make it rape?  I am not qualified to answer that.  Martin fucked it up when he did that.  The director of the show fucked it up a good bit further by making it appear like clear rape.

But I think Haemish touches on an interesting point.  Jaime pulls her dress up, forces her down to the ground and has at it with this woman we are all meant to absolutely despise, despite her objections.  We are all in an uproar.  Had he forced her down to the floor, pulled out a dagger and stabbed her forty times in the brain, stood up and pissed into dead Joffrey's slightly ajar mouth...we'd all be celebrating and falling even more in love with Jaime Lannister. 

This in no way excuses the act that was portrayed, but some of you people have your moral compasses hugely out of whack.  Yeah, it is totally wrong, but at the same time it is an extremely honest depiction of what would have been very commonplace in that world.  But neither in that world nor this one is it worse than, say, killing a kid.  It's just odd to me how one thing will bother some people so much, when so many other things not only get a pass, but they even get us to cheer.

[Rasix]

And around we go again..

[Setanta]

This in no way excuses the act that was portrayed, but some of you people have your moral compasses hugely out of whack. 

“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.” - A Song of Ice and Fire author, George R.R. Martin on American readers’ reactions to his sex scenes

It's fiction. Just because people watch it, it doesn't mean they are going to have a family fuck-fest at a funeral. It's also pretty obvious that people make compromises with double standards - watch it but don't do it. Having said that, I can understand why the scene is distasteful to many - I wasn't a fan of the representation.

[Ironwood]

No-one else was disturbed by the big googly eyes they put on Joffreys corpse ?

That's what really made me shudder.

Gooooogly eyes.

[calapine]

No-one else was disturbed by the big googly eyes they put on Joffreys corpse ?

That's what really made me shudder.

Gooooogly eyes.

Yes, Google scares me too.



If you re-watch the first episode you will see the same stones are on the murdered Hand of the King, so it's nothing Joffrey specific.

[Velorath]

No-one else was disturbed by the big googly eyes they put on Joffreys corpse ?

That's what really made me shudder.

Gooooogly eyes.

They did the same thing with Jon Arryn's corpse.

[apocrypha]

[Khaldun]

Much as I want to make the point that the past was different and all that, in late medieval Europe it would still have been considered shocking to rape your sister next to the body of the dead child born from incest between you.

It wasn't so shocking for the nobility to march into a town and rape and murder peasants in retaliation for popular unrest or because of religious heresy, etc.--crimes across the social hierarchy were generally a different matter. It also was not that shocking for Vikings to raid towns and take women (and men) as prizes. Etc. And what we would call rape certainly happened within arranged marriages.

But the stuff that really shocks in tales from the Hundred Years' War or the War of the Roses (and various retellings like Shakespeare's) was generally some form of exaggerated propaganda--which shows that yeah, you could shock people even then by saying, "Hey, didcha know Richard had his nephews murdered? They were just kids!"