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Tatiana's Reviews > A Game of Thrones
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
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** spoiler alert **
3.5 stars
So, with the end of the show approaching, I found myself with a few burning questions which I felt only reading the books could help me answer:
1) why is writing so crappy in the last couple of seasons?
2) whose idea it was to deploy so much of the gross sexposition?
3) WHY THE HELL ARE THEY MAKING DANY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HER RAPIST KHAL DROGO INTO SOME KIND OF ROMANCE FOR THE AGES????!
I have my answers.
While I think Martin and the TV show runners Benioff and Weiss are men with considerable talents, they just can't get away from their own misogyny. And I am not talking about things like rapes of women by invaders, arranged marriages, etc. Sure, it happened and still happens in real life. But are they missing something essential in their brains not to understand that when a man marries a young girl and rapes her, it is highly unlikely that what she feels for him, after she finds a way to get him to treat her a little bit better, is explicitly NOT LOVE? Or that when the viewers complain about sexposition, it's not because we are prudes (who hasn't enjoyed an eyeful of Robb's ass when he is hooking up with Talisa?), but constant perpetuating of the "happy whore" fantasy is infuriating, exploitative and disgusting.
But going back to my questions,
1) Benioff and Weiss are good show makers, but Martin should get the most credit for how good this story is. The best dialog on the show almost always belongs to him. B/W's main contribution, IMO, is giving Cersei her own POV. They made her a real human, whereas in the book she is just an evil harpy. Another positive contribution to the TV show is aging up of Robb, Dany, Jon and some other older kids. A 15-year old leading an army is just... too much. Dany... ugh.
2) Sexposition is all on Benioff and Weiss team. They inserted a sex scene at absolutely every opportunity, even when Martin doesn't even hint at anything going. There are probably at least 3 extra sex scenes in every episode. But Martin probably laid a path to this trend by writing Tyrion/Shae in exactly the same way. Oh, is she always happy and willing.
3) I don't even know who's dealt with Dany/Drogo "romance" worse - Martin, writing erotica between a 13-year old girl and a 30-year old huge man? Or Benioff and Weiss with their over-the-top Sun/Moon baloney. If I were ever to meet Martin, I would recommend him to watch The Tale to get an idea of what such a "relationship" really looks like. As for Benioff and Weiss, well, it would be understandable if a young girl would find a way out of total abuse by learning how to manipulate her much older owner/husband with sex (which she basically does throughout the book), but let's not romanticize it just because Jason Mamoa is hot, ok?
Anyway, what about the book though? I liked it. Some stuff I did skim, just like I fast forward all Wall, wildlings and battle scenes watching the show. But I was super impressed by the depth of Martin's world building. The show is a very close interpretation of the first book, but omits a lot of history which I probably enjoyed the most about GOT.
P.S. I have a vague memory of trying to read GOT a decade ago. I don't think I got very far into it and I definitely wasn't compelled to finish. Not sure what changed now, and why I am not as bored by it as I was before. Maybe I am just old.
So, with the end of the show approaching, I found myself with a few burning questions which I felt only reading the books could help me answer:
1) why is writing so crappy in the last couple of seasons?
2) whose idea it was to deploy so much of the gross sexposition?
3) WHY THE HELL ARE THEY MAKING DANY'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HER RAPIST KHAL DROGO INTO SOME KIND OF ROMANCE FOR THE AGES????!
I have my answers.
While I think Martin and the TV show runners Benioff and Weiss are men with considerable talents, they just can't get away from their own misogyny. And I am not talking about things like rapes of women by invaders, arranged marriages, etc. Sure, it happened and still happens in real life. But are they missing something essential in their brains not to understand that when a man marries a young girl and rapes her, it is highly unlikely that what she feels for him, after she finds a way to get him to treat her a little bit better, is explicitly NOT LOVE? Or that when the viewers complain about sexposition, it's not because we are prudes (who hasn't enjoyed an eyeful of Robb's ass when he is hooking up with Talisa?), but constant perpetuating of the "happy whore" fantasy is infuriating, exploitative and disgusting.
But going back to my questions,
1) Benioff and Weiss are good show makers, but Martin should get the most credit for how good this story is. The best dialog on the show almost always belongs to him. B/W's main contribution, IMO, is giving Cersei her own POV. They made her a real human, whereas in the book she is just an evil harpy. Another positive contribution to the TV show is aging up of Robb, Dany, Jon and some other older kids. A 15-year old leading an army is just... too much. Dany... ugh.
2) Sexposition is all on Benioff and Weiss team. They inserted a sex scene at absolutely every opportunity, even when Martin doesn't even hint at anything going. There are probably at least 3 extra sex scenes in every episode. But Martin probably laid a path to this trend by writing Tyrion/Shae in exactly the same way. Oh, is she always happy and willing.
3) I don't even know who's dealt with Dany/Drogo "romance" worse - Martin, writing erotica between a 13-year old girl and a 30-year old huge man? Or Benioff and Weiss with their over-the-top Sun/Moon baloney. If I were ever to meet Martin, I would recommend him to watch The Tale to get an idea of what such a "relationship" really looks like. As for Benioff and Weiss, well, it would be understandable if a young girl would find a way out of total abuse by learning how to manipulate her much older owner/husband with sex (which she basically does throughout the book), but let's not romanticize it just because Jason Mamoa is hot, ok?
Anyway, what about the book though? I liked it. Some stuff I did skim, just like I fast forward all Wall, wildlings and battle scenes watching the show. But I was super impressed by the depth of Martin's world building. The show is a very close interpretation of the first book, but omits a lot of history which I probably enjoyed the most about GOT.
P.S. I have a vague memory of trying to read GOT a decade ago. I don't think I got very far into it and I definitely wasn't compelled to finish. Not sure what changed now, and why I am not as bored by it as I was before. Maybe I am just old.
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Jamie
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rated it 4 stars
Apr 26, 2019 01:36PM
I don't know if I agree with your about the Dany/Drogo relationship. Don't get me wrong....it totally skeeved me out, but history is full of girls being married to older men, and then falling in love with them.....or at least THINKING they're in love with them. Victims have feelings of love toward their abusers all the time. The main issue with GRRM's take for me isn't so much that she grew to (think) she loved him, but that the fact that she fell in love with Drogo was never acknowledged as a victim Stockholming all over her rapist.
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Jamie wrote: "I don't know if I agree with your about the Dany/Drogo relationship. Don't get me wrong....it totally skeeved me out, but history is full of girls being married to older men, and then falling in lo..."That’s the point I was trying to make - working out an arrangement with him was her way of surviving. Talking herself into thinking they loved each other was a part of it. How can she love him if he doesn’t really know or respect her. All he does is have sex with her body. GRRM didn’t have the mental capacity to understand what it is he’d created.
I totally agree with you — it was def gross in the show (although complicated a bit by the vagueness of Dany's age?), but the grossness of it in the books totally flies under the radar. Like, she's THIRTEEN, George!
Stuti wrote: "I totally agree with you — it was def gross in the show (although complicated a bit by the vagueness of Dany's age?), but the grossness of it in the books totally flies under the radar. Like, she's..."I also think they gave her a little more agency on the show. She was more respected I think. Still, Drogo was totally raping her in the beginning!
Meanwhile, Jamie rapes Cersei on the show, which wasn't in the book. So.....hard to say which medium is better.
Jamie wrote: "Meanwhile, Jamie rapes Cersei on the show, which wasn't in the book. So.....hard to say which medium is better."I want to see how Theon’s story line plays out in the books, because it’s a total sadistic travesty on the show.
Season one followed the book very closely though.
Jo wrote: "These are some really good points. I finally forced myself to read the latest book, A Dance with Dragons, after reading the first four books years ago. The plotting and writing on the show has de..."
Thanks for the info. Although it kind of made me not want to read any further:(
I would attribute the Dany/Drogo “love” to Stockholm Syndrome where a captive (generally female) convinces herself that she actually loves the man who has abducted, imprisoned, tortured, and raped her (think Patty Hearst). It’s a completely abnormal reaction to the terror she lives with. And Dany has been used badly by her sicko brother. What would this child know about healthy relationships?There aren’t a bunch of happy couples in the books. Cersei and her brother are constantly getting busy making more heirs to the throne, Tyrion’s in love with a faithless whore, And Papa Lannister is too obsessed with wealth and power to care what his offspring are getting up to. Even Ned and Lady Stark have marital woes since he presented her with his bastard son to raise but refuses to tell her who the mother was.
George RR does a fantastic job of world-building, but his male/female relationships are hopelessly f***ed up.
I'm going to agree with you about the relationship between Dany and Drogo but not about this:[i]Throughout the books Daenerys is 13-15 years old and Martin explores her sexual desire through masturbation, taking her handmaiden as a lover, and lusting after Daario an excessive amount. [/i]
I'm female and between the ages of 13-16 I masturbated and had fantasies. 13-16 year old girls aren't children, we've gone through puberty and have all the hormones that will allow us to be women. This idea that 15 year old girls don't think about sex is stupid and any girl who says that they've never thought about sex is lying.
Our problem is that we think lust is love. We want to get laid but we think it's more than just sex. That's the issue with young girls, not 'my god she's 14 it's horrifying that she thinks of sex'. It's oh my god she hasn't worked out that men can have sex without getting emotionally attached and men will lie to have sex. That's the only problem with 15 year old girls and sex, well that and pregnancy and pregnancy affects women far more than it does men.
