That to me is the worst thing about Gambo. It makes a point of showing the brutality and injustice of the world, and then you have someone who's experienced that and wants to change it, but the fiction decides thats wrong for no logical reason, other than the author's cynicism and lack of imagination (although he's very imaginative when it comes to SA and underage girls bodies, and medieval dining). Therefore there's no way to redeem it. The brutality ultimately serves no point other than for its own sake.
To be fair, we don't have any idea where the story's going apart from that it won't be what the show did (there's an author statement that the "big five" - Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Bran, and Tyrion - all survive). We don't even know where the Meereen arc specifically is going, except that where the show clutched pearls over anti-slaver violence the books kept showing and then explicitly saying that tepid reformism and collaboration with the erstwhile slaver aristocracy was a catastrophic mistake.
GRRM's a brainwormed lib, but not as bad as the absolute hack libs the showrunners were. He's at least got the cynicism to know the world he's writing about is bad instead of getting swept up in the epic romantic fantasy of it all like they did, and takes the time to explicitly point out how completely fucked every aspect of feudal society is.
He is, however, permanently stuck in a place that I can only articulate as "somewhat better than most of his contemporaries were in the 80s and 90s" in terms of problematic content. If he'd finished the series in the 90s we'd be looking at it and thinking "wow, it's got its creepy moments but it's not as bad as most old fantasy like that is."
Edit: I just came across this comment on r/asoiaf about, well, literally this topic, that lays out some other details
For what it's worth, Daenerys's 'show ending' is one of the elements we can conclude doesn't come from GRRM's 'ending notes':
D&D have said outright that Jon killing Daenerys was their idea - and that they had it around the time of S3, which is two full years before GRRM actually sat down with them to tell them his own ending plans.
The original shooting script does NOT have Dany go 'mad' and torch all of King's Landing. She does go somewhat ruthless and ceases to care about civilian casualties when going after fleeing Lannister troops (who are trying to use civvies as human shields), but that's as far as it goes. The systematic burning of King's Landing - the actual 'Dany goes insane' element - was created in post production.
Another thing to take into consideration is that she can't actually do what she did in the show - her dragons are still basically babies in the books. Even Drogon, who is the biggest, is barely large enough for a 15 year old girl to actually ride at the end of ADWD. He's decades away from becoming the Balerion-sized living nuke he became in the show. It'd take book-Drogon weeks to torch king's landing on his own. Dany's dragons are 'potential future nukes', but unless there's a VERY long time skip before the end, they're just not going to be as big of a 'military advantage' for Dany as they were depicted to be in the show - not only are they too young to burn entire armies/fleets on their own, they're small enough that they can be hurt by 'conventional weapons' - they're only 3 years old. We know during the Dance of Dragons that Stormcloud - a 8-9 year old dragon - was still vulnerable to 'regular' arrows.
Also fuck, the context that the showrunners came up with that ending while still malding over Emilia Clarke renegotiating her contract so she wouldn't have to do nude scenes anymore just adds to what absolute pieces of shit they were.
I remember a story from what it was first coming out that Jason Momoa yelled at people on set and got her a robe because no one gave her anything to cover up between takes for the nude scenes.
I've only read the first and a half book but I really don't remember this. People say it all the time. But I think they're just put off that Martin has underage characters that are in sexual situations, which is like... completely reasonable for the setting and themes (and mostly portrayed as bad rather than titillating?). It strikes me as a really misguided "dont write about bad things happening" mindset. From what I remember, he doesn't creepily dwell on it like people describe. Willing to be proved wrong though.
I'm not saying there's no weird male fantasy author creepiness in ASOIAF, but I am saying that its overblown.
You're projecting opinions on me I don't hold because this is one of your personal bugaboos that you're quiet frankly a little too obsessive over. (Also you have made me never want to see that combination of three emotes again because you overuse it so much but I cant tell if thats a me problem or not. Not to make this personal I just see you post that so many times that it really starting to put me off.)
But regardless, I find that stuff you put on spoiler to be a huge exaggeration of whats in the text. Its not like there's NOTHING for you to base that on but there's just not as much there as you seem to think. Like I said, I haven't read the whole series (yet) but I don't remember a single "Detailed description of children's bodies". Like, the scene with Dany and Drago in the first book, which I did read, I dont remember that. I remember sexual violence towards children, but I dont remember it being played for titillation.
I also object to reducing ASOIAF to "hog feed" because there's like... so much more there than that. I think you're reducing a really complex work into a few things that bother you that make up like 3% of the text at most. Just throwing out all the detailed characterization and stuff.
I'm not going to defend when Martin is genuinely creepy, and I know there's SOME stuff where its there. But I am going to request moderation when I feel someone is going way too far with the criticism. And I just think you've taken this on as one of your bugaboo obsessions (you have a few) and aren't really reading it rationally anymore.
I also disagree that you aren't supposed to feel sympathy for the victims of the SV. I feel like Martin just kind of assumes anyone reading about sexual violence towards children is going to sympathize with the children and doesn't feel the need to spell it out for you? And I think that should be a fair assumption to make? Like as a writer I don't think I need to tell my audience things like that (I also have no plans to put SV towards children, or SV at all really, in my work, but if I did I wouldn't think I needed to spell out "SV is bad and you should feel sympathy for the victim). Like maybe Martin just has more respect for the reader than that lol? I dont get this complaint. Maybe I'm not understanding the substance of it.
Re: Your edit, If a single person reads ASOIAF because they enjoy reading about SV, I would be shocked. Thats certainly not what people talk about when I talk to them about ASOIAF.
"Shame" I can see (it also happened after I stopped enjoying the show) because of how the audience was meant to enjoy the brutal shaming of a female villain who is overhated due to misogyny. But can you explain how the Red Wedding has anything to do with the core discussion here? Its violent, and tragic, but its not SV or anything. One could argue its gratuitous I guess but I would argue it serves a narrative purpose within the story. This seems like the pinnacle of "dont write about bad things" to say the red wedding is bad. MAYBE the show went too far in portraying the violence but idk, that happened in what I think was the good part of the show and I think the episode was well handled. I would definitly push back against the idea of the Red Wedding being merely a gimmick.
Did the Game of Thrones show really need to add more sexual violence than the books actually had in it? Did so many characters have to be forcibly changed on the directors' whims into more misogynistic versions of themselves?
No, definitely not. There's some debate to be had about the former regarding "the show made explicit what was always there in the text" but regardless that wasn't their motive, their motive was to put shocking things on television for views. I won't deny that. Even though I like the first four seasons of the show overall, the flaws were there from the start and D&D are assholes.
This is why I took issue with your apparent claim that no one enjoyed the sexual violence presented as entertainment for entertainment purposes,
I was talking about fans of the books here, just to clear up the confusion. I find it difficult to believe that fans of the book are in it for the SV. Some fans of the show were probably pulled in by that.
Yeah, I read online when I was looking for examples myself about how
(cw sexualizaiton of minors)
spoiler
::: Young teen Dany describes her own breasts in a very male gazey way.
:::
and I agree with that criticism. Its not necessary and doesn't serve a narrative purpose. My objection was that there's not enough of it there for it to be a core engagement for the fans of the books. When I read discussions about it on /r/asoiaf, they're most people there seem to regret that its there and see it as a flaw in the text.
I think the show's popularity can be partially ascribed to its use of gratuitous nudity, not necessarily SV though. The books? I can't say my experience with ASOIAF fans falls in line with your perception that they are hogs gobbling it up because there's SV in it. Mostly because while it is there, there's just not enough to justify reading entire books for it. And I'm not even talking about people in my life (I dont have that many, and even less I can talk about ASOIAF with). I also read the ASOIAF subreddit and they seem more interested in tinfoil hat theories about whats going to happen in the next few books than the SV. They might defend it as "Historically accurate" (and I agree that that excuse doesn't excuse unnecessary gratuity in description) when you bring it up, but its not why they read it. They're just defending their treats which is bad, but its still not the main engagement. Its just a reaction when people bring it up as a criticism. So I'm not even talking about people in my life, but the fandom broadly here. I really don't think SV is the main engagement.
ETA: "because of what it focuses on portraying, over and over again, " unless we're broadening the discussion past SV into human misery generally or something, I stand by thinking this is an exageration of how much of the content in ASOIAF is about what you're complaining about. I might not have finished the series, but I have read the first book. Ie, the thing that would get someone into the series (unless they were a show first person), and there just... isn't that much SV in it. There is... so much else going on for a fan to get into.
I guess is an exageration to say NOONE is reading the books for that. But there's two things I think about 1. I find it really odd that they would choose ASOIAF when reading entire books for what is a fairly small part of the text is pretty illogical. 2. My observations of the fandom show me that its a tiny minority at best.
Yeah D&D are pigs and even the fandom doesnt respect them anymore. Fuck those guys.
But I'm sorry you were hit by hype aversion. The only thing I still don't get is putting the Red Wedding on the same level as the SV but I guess for you the Red Wedding is just an edgy gimmick? I strongly disagree with that but I dont expect to convince you. Also if I were to suggest Gambo to a freind I wouldn't say "oh you'll love the red wedding" (partially because this would be inherently a spoiler lol), I would talk about the characters and their arcs moreso.
I will admit, I can see how a people hyping up the red wedding might have been essentially gore enjoyers enjoying it because of the violence and human misery. And that sucks. I do agree thats a dark part of the fandom., But my enjoyment of the moment has little to do with that. Also I was spoiled that it was happening because I had read up on the books already so it wasnt the shock factor either.
Just to contextualize specifically the show vs book Red Wedding: in the show it's just another sHoCkiNg tWisT spectacle, albeit one that ends up defining its season; in the book it hits right when the story's narratively been building tension between several distinct arcs and is moving towards resolving that tension, only instead to just cut those strings, metaphorically speaking, obliterating one arc entirely, ending a PoV perspective permanently (although the character ends up still being around, sort of - that got cut from the show entirely), and sending all the other story threads that were being pulled in tension flying.
It's a sickening gut punch rather than a spectacle, made all the stronger by just how the third person limited perspective PoV character chapters drag out and build tension by dividing story progression between them, versus the rapid fire way the show flits back and forth throughout the world with a third person dramatic perspective (not to mention how the show just stops bothering with taking distances into account and effectively has characters start teleporting around the world to where the showrunners wanted them).
Thinking about it a little more, it reminds me of the old line about how "you can't make an anti-war movie" because of how cinema inherently creates a sort of romanticized spectacle: when you see something like that happen in a movie or TV show it's exciting and shocking, while in text it ends up more just sort of sad and nauseating.
Yeah, the showrunners are absolute hacks who leaned as hard into the spectacle as they could, and "you can't make an anti-war movie" is less a fundamental law and more a stark reminder that even a grotesque and tragic spectacle is still a spectacle, and that making the audience feel pain and sorrow is still making them feel.
Which led to me thinking how the scene could have been adapted to film, and while I think a part of it would be fixing the pacing of the show itself to be less frenetic it would also need to slice away at the spectacle, so you just see enough of the edges to know that it's happening but after that you just don't have a pair of the PoV arcs anymore and you only get fragmentary scraps of what happened to them from things other PoV characters hear - it makes it tragic and unjust and awful instead of a thrilling spectacle.
That to me is the worst thing about Gambo. It makes a point of showing the brutality and injustice of the world, and then you have someone who's experienced that and wants to change it, but the fiction decides thats wrong for no logical reason, other than the author's cynicism and lack of imagination (although he's very imaginative when it comes to SA and underage girls bodies, and medieval dining). Therefore there's no way to redeem it. The brutality ultimately serves no point other than for its own sake.
To be fair, we don't have any idea where the story's going apart from that it won't be what the show did (there's an author statement that the "big five" - Jon, Arya, Daenerys, Bran, and Tyrion - all survive). We don't even know where the Meereen arc specifically is going, except that where the show clutched pearls over anti-slaver violence the books kept showing and then explicitly saying that tepid reformism and collaboration with the erstwhile slaver aristocracy was a catastrophic mistake.
GRRM's a brainwormed lib, but not as bad as the absolute hack libs the showrunners were. He's at least got the cynicism to know the world he's writing about is bad instead of getting swept up in the epic romantic fantasy of it all like they did, and takes the time to explicitly point out how completely fucked every aspect of feudal society is.
He is, however, permanently stuck in a place that I can only articulate as "somewhat better than most of his contemporaries were in the 80s and 90s" in terms of problematic content. If he'd finished the series in the 90s we'd be looking at it and thinking "wow, it's got its creepy moments but it's not as bad as most old fantasy like that is."
Edit: I just came across this comment on r/asoiaf about, well, literally this topic, that lays out some other details
Also fuck, the context that the showrunners came up with that ending while still malding over Emilia Clarke renegotiating her contract so she wouldn't have to do nude scenes anymore just adds to what absolute pieces of shit they were.
I remember a story from what it was first coming out that Jason Momoa yelled at people on set and got her a robe because no one gave her anything to cover up between takes for the nude scenes.
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Holy shit, they made that change in post?! No wonder the show sucked after they had to start writing it themselves.
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I've only read the first and a half book but I really don't remember this. People say it all the time. But I think they're just put off that Martin has underage characters that are in sexual situations, which is like... completely reasonable for the setting and themes (and mostly portrayed as bad rather than titillating?). It strikes me as a really misguided "dont write about bad things happening" mindset. From what I remember, he doesn't creepily dwell on it like people describe. Willing to be proved wrong though.
I'm not saying there's no weird male fantasy author creepiness in ASOIAF, but I am saying that its overblown.
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You're projecting opinions on me I don't hold because this is one of your personal bugaboos that you're quiet frankly a little too obsessive over. (Also you have made me never want to see that combination of three emotes again because you overuse it so much but I cant tell if thats a me problem or not. Not to make this personal I just see you post that so many times that it really starting to put me off.)
But regardless, I find that stuff you put on spoiler to be a huge exaggeration of whats in the text. Its not like there's NOTHING for you to base that on but there's just not as much there as you seem to think. Like I said, I haven't read the whole series (yet) but I don't remember a single "Detailed description of children's bodies". Like, the scene with Dany and Drago in the first book, which I did read, I dont remember that. I remember sexual violence towards children, but I dont remember it being played for titillation.
I also object to reducing ASOIAF to "hog feed" because there's like... so much more there than that. I think you're reducing a really complex work into a few things that bother you that make up like 3% of the text at most. Just throwing out all the detailed characterization and stuff.
I'm not going to defend when Martin is genuinely creepy, and I know there's SOME stuff where its there. But I am going to request moderation when I feel someone is going way too far with the criticism. And I just think you've taken this on as one of your bugaboo obsessions (you have a few) and aren't really reading it rationally anymore.
I also disagree that you aren't supposed to feel sympathy for the victims of the SV. I feel like Martin just kind of assumes anyone reading about sexual violence towards children is going to sympathize with the children and doesn't feel the need to spell it out for you? And I think that should be a fair assumption to make? Like as a writer I don't think I need to tell my audience things like that (I also have no plans to put SV towards children, or SV at all really, in my work, but if I did I wouldn't think I needed to spell out "SV is bad and you should feel sympathy for the victim). Like maybe Martin just has more respect for the reader than that lol? I dont get this complaint. Maybe I'm not understanding the substance of it.
Re: Your edit, If a single person reads ASOIAF because they enjoy reading about SV, I would be shocked. Thats certainly not what people talk about when I talk to them about ASOIAF.
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"Shame" I can see (it also happened after I stopped enjoying the show) because of how the audience was meant to enjoy the brutal shaming of a female villain who is overhated due to misogyny. But can you explain how the Red Wedding has anything to do with the core discussion here? Its violent, and tragic, but its not SV or anything. One could argue its gratuitous I guess but I would argue it serves a narrative purpose within the story. This seems like the pinnacle of "dont write about bad things" to say the red wedding is bad. MAYBE the show went too far in portraying the violence but idk, that happened in what I think was the good part of the show and I think the episode was well handled. I would definitly push back against the idea of the Red Wedding being merely a gimmick.
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Ah ok, I can understand that. Ignore my other reply then if you want. I see what you mean now.
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No, definitely not. There's some debate to be had about the former regarding "the show made explicit what was always there in the text" but regardless that wasn't their motive, their motive was to put shocking things on television for views. I won't deny that. Even though I like the first four seasons of the show overall, the flaws were there from the start and D&D are assholes.
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I was talking about fans of the books here, just to clear up the confusion. I find it difficult to believe that fans of the book are in it for the SV. Some fans of the show were probably pulled in by that.
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Yeah, I read online when I was looking for examples myself about how
(cw sexualizaiton of minors)
spoiler
::: Young teen Dany describes her own breasts in a very male gazey way.
:::
and I agree with that criticism. Its not necessary and doesn't serve a narrative purpose. My objection was that there's not enough of it there for it to be a core engagement for the fans of the books. When I read discussions about it on /r/asoiaf, they're most people there seem to regret that its there and see it as a flaw in the text.
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I think the show's popularity can be partially ascribed to its use of gratuitous nudity, not necessarily SV though. The books? I can't say my experience with ASOIAF fans falls in line with your perception that they are hogs gobbling it up because there's SV in it. Mostly because while it is there, there's just not enough to justify reading entire books for it. And I'm not even talking about people in my life (I dont have that many, and even less I can talk about ASOIAF with). I also read the ASOIAF subreddit and they seem more interested in tinfoil hat theories about whats going to happen in the next few books than the SV. They might defend it as "Historically accurate" (and I agree that that excuse doesn't excuse unnecessary gratuity in description) when you bring it up, but its not why they read it. They're just defending their treats which is bad, but its still not the main engagement. Its just a reaction when people bring it up as a criticism. So I'm not even talking about people in my life, but the fandom broadly here. I really don't think SV is the main engagement.
ETA: "because of what it focuses on portraying, over and over again, " unless we're broadening the discussion past SV into human misery generally or something, I stand by thinking this is an exageration of how much of the content in ASOIAF is about what you're complaining about. I might not have finished the series, but I have read the first book. Ie, the thing that would get someone into the series (unless they were a show first person), and there just... isn't that much SV in it. There is... so much else going on for a fan to get into.
I guess is an exageration to say NOONE is reading the books for that. But there's two things I think about 1. I find it really odd that they would choose ASOIAF when reading entire books for what is a fairly small part of the text is pretty illogical. 2. My observations of the fandom show me that its a tiny minority at best.
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Yeah D&D are pigs and even the fandom doesnt respect them anymore. Fuck those guys.
But I'm sorry you were hit by hype aversion. The only thing I still don't get is putting the Red Wedding on the same level as the SV but I guess for you the Red Wedding is just an edgy gimmick? I strongly disagree with that but I dont expect to convince you. Also if I were to suggest Gambo to a freind I wouldn't say "oh you'll love the red wedding" (partially because this would be inherently a spoiler lol), I would talk about the characters and their arcs moreso.
I will admit, I can see how a people hyping up the red wedding might have been essentially gore enjoyers enjoying it because of the violence and human misery. And that sucks. I do agree thats a dark part of the fandom., But my enjoyment of the moment has little to do with that. Also I was spoiled that it was happening because I had read up on the books already so it wasnt the shock factor either.
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Just to contextualize specifically the show vs book Red Wedding: in the show it's just another sHoCkiNg tWisT spectacle, albeit one that ends up defining its season; in the book it hits right when the story's narratively been building tension between several distinct arcs and is moving towards resolving that tension, only instead to just cut those strings, metaphorically speaking, obliterating one arc entirely, ending a PoV perspective permanently (although the character ends up still being around, sort of - that got cut from the show entirely), and sending all the other story threads that were being pulled in tension flying.
It's a sickening gut punch rather than a spectacle, made all the stronger by just how the third person limited perspective PoV character chapters drag out and build tension by dividing story progression between them, versus the rapid fire way the show flits back and forth throughout the world with a third person dramatic perspective (not to mention how the show just stops bothering with taking distances into account and effectively has characters start teleporting around the world to where the showrunners wanted them).
Thinking about it a little more, it reminds me of the old line about how "you can't make an anti-war movie" because of how cinema inherently creates a sort of romanticized spectacle: when you see something like that happen in a movie or TV show it's exciting and shocking, while in text it ends up more just sort of sad and nauseating.
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Yeah, the showrunners are absolute hacks who leaned as hard into the spectacle as they could, and "you can't make an anti-war movie" is less a fundamental law and more a stark reminder that even a grotesque and tragic spectacle is still a spectacle, and that making the audience feel pain and sorrow is still making them feel.
Which led to me thinking how the scene could have been adapted to film, and while I think a part of it would be fixing the pacing of the show itself to be less frenetic it would also need to slice away at the spectacle, so you just see enough of the edges to know that it's happening but after that you just don't have a pair of the PoV arcs anymore and you only get fragmentary scraps of what happened to them from things other PoV characters hear - it makes it tragic and unjust and awful instead of a thrilling spectacle.
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I get where you're coming from. I just think we have very different experiences with the fandom that colors our perceptions.
I also enjoyed Rome quiet a lot.
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