About Travels in Genre and Medievalism in 2017

This blog is a week over three years old, now, and it has been a little over a year since the last post made about the status of the blog, here. It would seem to be high time for another such.

The blog has roughly doubled in extent since the last post about its status; this will mark the 164th published post, and a few more are on the schedule. The most frequent contributor has been the inestimable Shiloh Carroll, whose excellent Game of Thrones posts have kept the lights on and attention focused on what we do here. What will happen when she reaches the end of the series (to date) is not entirely clear, but it can be hoped that other contributors--always welcome--will step forward and add their own voices to what is going on here. Email talesaftertolkien@gmail.com to submit; we'd love to hear from you.

As we move into the fourth year of the blog, look for more events and more happenings to be reported, as well as the aforementioned hoped-for columns and commentaries. Look also for updates to the administrative bits of the blog, so that more of it works the way it ought to.

And, as ever, thank you for reading!

Game of Thrones (Re)Watch 6.2: "Home"

Read the previous piece in this series here.
Read the next piece in this series here. 
 

6.2 “Home”

Written by Dave Hill

Directed by Jeremy Podeswa

Commentary by Dave Hill, Michael McElhatton (Roose Bolton), Iwan Rheon (Ramsay Bolton), Liam Cunningham (Davos), and Ben Crompton (Edd)

Hey, Bran’s back! Apparently his storyline is now “cinematic” enough to be included, despite the showrunners stripping out every indication of how important and powerful Bran is/will be! In this episode, Brynden takes him back to Winterfell when Ned, Brandon, Lyanna, and Benjen were about 15-19, and he watches them train. Lyanna teases Benjen about not having anyone to spar with when Ned leaves for his fosterage at the Eyrie, and suggests Wylis, the stableboy who will become Hodor when this whole storyline plays itself out to its awful conclusion. Brynden pulls Bran out of the vision, and he whines for a bit, but Brynden tells him he’s got to come up for air occasionally. Bran calls Hodor “Wylis” and tries to ask him what happened, but one guess what Hodor’s reply is.

Hodor carries Bran out to see Meera, who’s sitting in the snow sulking. Apparently she doesn’t like hanging out in the cave when there’s a war coming (also she lost her brother and doesn’t have anyone to talk to, but we’ll just ignore those particular issues). Hodor takes Bran back inside and Leaf explains that Bran won’t be staying here forever (wait, what?) and that he’ll need Meera when he leaves.

Now, it’s entirely possible that in the books, Bran will physically leave the cave and not replace Brynden as the greenseer. However, that’s not been so much as foreshadowed in the books. Martin very much seems to be setting up that Bran will stay here, merge with the godswood like Brynden has, and do some seriously powerful stuff by warging into trees, people, animals (maybe dragons?), but never physically being involved with the rest of the world. Maybe that will turn out to not be enough, maybe the dead will get through the magical barriers and drive them out, anything is possible, but at no point in the books does anyone so much as hint that this isn’t Bran’s eternal fate.

This also sets up some very un-book issues with Bran’s visions of the past. In the books, Bran can see through the eyes of weirwood trees into the past—and that’s it. He wouldn’t have been able to see what happened in the courtyard of Winterfell because there’s no tree there. He really wouldn’t have been able to see some of the stuff that happens later in the season because it’s so far south that weirwoods don’t exist down there anymore. Also, it’s not like Brynden could be sharing his own memories, because he’s been up here under the tree for close to a hundred years and was never anywhere near Winterfell or the Tower of Joy. Also also, Bran can’t be seeing the memories of anyone who was at the Tower of Joy, because they’re all dead. If we stretched slightly, we could argue that he’s seeing Hodor’s memories of Winterfell, because it’s not like Bran hasn’t snuck into Hodor’s mind before, but that doesn’t explain the Tower of Joy visions later.

Essentially, Benioff and Weiss had no idea what to do with Bran, so they used him to set up Hodor’s death and reveal Jon Snow’s parentage without giving him his own arc, really. And what there is of this story that’s Bran’s story and not a convenient way to show flashbacks makes him incredibly selfish and stupid. We’ll get into more of that later.

Two different vigils over the dead are held in this episode, too. Down in King’s Landing, Jaime and Tommen discuss Cersei over Myrcella’s body. Tommen thinks Cersei was the one who had Trystane killed, probably as revenge for Myrcella’s death. Jaime asks why Tommen wouldn’t let Cersei come to Myrcella’s funeral (in an earlier scene, we see Lannister guards refusing to let her leave her rooms, despite Ser Robert standing right behind her, having just murdered the dude who flashed her while she was on her Walk); Tommen says if she’d returned to the Sept, they’d have arrested her again (why he couldn’t have made that clear in his orders to not let her come, who knows). Tommen feels bad about everything that’s happened to Cersei and Margaery, but continues to buckle to the High Sparrow’s decrees. Jaime and the High Sparrow have a discussion about death and Jaime points out that while the High Sparrow humiliated Cersei, he’s not strong enough to take Jaime and put him on trial. He’s got a point, too—this version of the High Sparrow seems to like picking on women (and one gay man), but doesn’t touch anyone physically strong enough to fight back. The only reason he’s getting away with any of this is that nobody wants the bad optics of attacking the Sept. If any one of these houses were to storm the Sept, with the full strength of knights and soldiers with them, the High Sparrow and his Faith Militant wouldn’t stand a chance. Get two or more of them together—like, say, the Lannisters and the Tyrells—and the whole system would crumble. But religion is important in Westeros (and is important now in Game of Thrones because the story needs it to be), so it would be political suicide to do any such thing.

Tommen goes to see Cersei and apologizes for his behavior. He tells her that he’s not strong, and he needs her help to become strong. Too bad he’s so ridiculously easily manipulated.

The other vigil is still being held over Jon’s body, because seriously these men have lost all perspective on what the risks are of keeping a dead body around. Alliser finally starts breaking the door down like he should have done last episode, and they’re interrupted by the arrival of Wun Wun and the other wildlings. Edd takes charge and has Alliser and Olly arrested.

Tormund goes to see Jon’s body and says he’ll start gathering wood for a pyre. Finally someone who knows what to do with the dead in the north! Before he can do that, though, Davos goes to see Melisandre. For some reason, he has the idea that her powers might include raising the dead. She says she’s lost her faith and can’t do anything cool anymore; he says to hell with her faith, she can do magic. Because every woman in this show needs a man to give her meaning and a reason to go on, Melisandre agrees to try. She bathes Jon’s body, trims a bit of his hair and tosses it on the fire, washes his hair, and chants in Valyrian. This goes on for a while, and finally she gives up. Everybody else leaves, and just as Davos is about to go, too, Ghost sits up, and Jon opens his eyes.

I mean, we all knew it was coming. Nobody was fooled for one second that Jon was going to stay dead and that Melisandre wouldn’t have a major hand in his resurrection. In the books, he’s not quite dead (A Dance with Dragons left him bleeding out in the snow, but not dead), but I’m absolutely certain that Melisandre will be involved in keeping him alive/bringing him back to life. The campaign of misinformation that Benioff and Weiss roped Kit Harrington and the HBO people into regarding Jon’s fate was just insulting—they could have just said, “look, we’re not going to tell you anything” rather than “nope, he’s dead, he’s totally dead, he’s really most sincerely dead and he’s not coming back” and then “OH LOOK he’s back! Trollolololol.” Forcing Harrington to lie to everybody he knows—keeping in mind that for him, this isn’t just about a story, but about his job, and as I understand it, his family was really concerned for him about whether he was going to be able to get another acting job very quickly—is just . . . rude.

We also have two major deaths that lead to a shift in power in two major kingdoms—the North and the Iron Islands. As part of their continuing culling of characters not deemed Absolutely Necessary to the “Plot,” this episode gets rid of Balon Greyjoy and Roose Bolton.

Roose we saw coming. Anybody who thought Ramsay would just take all the insinuations and attempts at manipulation regarding his position as heir to Winterfell lying down hasn’t been paying attention. Walda’s already had her baby (how long was she pregnant before they announced it? Cause it seems like this whole thing’s taken maybe six weeks). Ramsay congratulates Roose, then stabs him in the belly, and in grand tradition of lord-slaughtering on this show, the maester and the Karstarks don’t do anything about it. Ramsay then takes Walda and the baby out to the courtyard and somehow convinces her to go into the dog pens (seriously, Walda?) and sics the dogs on her and the baby. And of course we’re treated to screaming and ripping and tearing and all sorts of awful noises but not actual visuals because that might be gratuitous.

Meanwhile, Euron shows up a bit early for this storyline and man is he a disappointment! Where’s the eyepatch? Where’s the blue lips? Why is he even in the Iron Islands right now, when he needs the (very thin) plausible deniability regarding Balon’s death to keep the Ironborn from tossing his ass off the Driftwood Throne?

Yara and Balon have an argument regarding invading the mainland again; she tells him it’s over, that they’ve failed, Deepwood Motte has fallen and their last toehold on the continent is gone. He tells her if she doesn’t go back in and try to retake the north, he’ll breed an heir who will. He storms out onto one of the bridges between towers, where it’s literally storming, and Euron confronts him. He claims to be the literal embodiment of the Drowned God, as men have a tendency to start praying when he shows up. He admits to having gone completely bonkers in the Jade Sea and cutting out the tongues of his crew because he “needed silence.” Then he throws Balon off the bridge.

Dave Hill, who wrote this episode, mentions that “they” worried that the frequency of these deaths would get to be almost slapstick with how fast and thick they’re happening, and I’d say that’s a legitimate concern. For a show that started out with deaths being a) shocking; and b) earned by the person’s own actions, they’ve really just fallen into “do we need this one? Is there anyone else who could do what this character does? Good. Kill ‘em.” The showrunners have turned into the Bobs from Office Space.

Tyrion is continuing to be an overconfident ass. He’s drinking again, because apparently that’s a core part of his character—“I drink and I know things”—and not a coping mechanism for the physical and psychological pain he’s constantly in. Varys makes a disappointed noise at him, and Tyrion says that if he’d had his penis removed, he’d drink all the time. Grey Worm doesn’t find it funny, and Tyrion tries to defend himself by saying that this is just how he and Varys interact—Varys makes jokes about him being a dwarf, and he makes jokes about Varys being a eunuch. Of course, Varys doesn’t make ableist jokes, but Tyrion says he thinks them. Considering that he admitted to tormenting his brain-damaged cousin because it made him feel more like the people who picked on him as a kid, this doesn’t endear him to me at all. This version of Tyrion has some seriously internalized ableist thinking happening, and that Benioff and Weiss want us to think that he’s clever and it’s funny that he keeps making eunuch jokes at Varys is just disgusting.

Varys points out that every single thing that Dany did is now being undone—everywhere but Slavers Bay has gone right back to owning slaves (as mentioned, with the pit fights, it looks like even Slavers Bay has gone right back to owning slaves and rubbing Dany’s face in it). The fleet has been burned, and they have no idea who did it. Tyrion asks how the dragons are doing and decides that now he’s an expert in dragons despite there being two people in the room who lived with those dragons for a couple of years.

So Tyrion goes to visit the dragons and take their chains off because chaining dragons is bad for their health. In the best piece of writing all season (because it’s the only bit of Martin’s actual writing that made it into this season; they stole it from A Game of Thrones), Tyrion tells them about wanting a dragon for his birthday when he was young. He gets through the whole ordeal and then leaves as fast as he can, practically wetting himself, and tells Varys that if he ever has an idea like that again, to punch him in the face. I bet Varys would have no problem with that.

Arya’s still begging, and Jaqen offers to let her come back inside, feed her, and unblind her if she’ll tell him her name. She insists she has no name, that she’s no one. He tells her to come with him and leave the bowl behind.

Sansa and Brienne try to figure out what to do now and ultimately decide that the Wall is their best shot, since Jon’s still up there. Brienne tells her about meeting Arya, and Sansa regrets not leaving with Brienne when she had the chance the first time. Theon decides he’s done now that Sansa has a new protector and he’s going home.

RIP:

Roose Bolton

Balon Greyjoy

Walda Frey

Baby Bolton

Next week: The inexplicable Tower of Joy flashbacks start. Gilly and Sam make plans. The Watch reacts to Jon, and he reacts back. Arya trains. Dany joins the Dosh Khaleen.

Stills from screencapped.net; gif from makeagif.com

Game of Thrones (Re)Watch 6.1: "The Red Woman"

Read the previous piece in this series here.
Read the next piece in this series here.

6.1 “The Red Woman”

Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss

Directed by Jeremy Podeswa

Commentary by Jeremy Podeswa, Greg Middleton (DP), and Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne)

Well, here we are. Well and truly beyond the books, in uncharted territory—for us. Benioff and Weiss had a long talk with Martin before they hit this point, so they know what’s supposed to happen in the books, but they clearly just don’t care. I remember reading at one point (and I can’t find it now) Benioff and Weiss remarking that they were relieved not to be “tied down” by the books anymore. They probably meant that fans couldn’t yell about them deviating from the canon plot (they have no idea), but it really came off as “yay, now we don’t have that Martin dude holding us back from being as completely insane as we really want to be!” It feels that by about season three they were seriously chafing under the restrictions of adaptation rather than doing original work, so they went haring off in their own direction, and now, without actual books as a blueprint, they’re free to do whatever they want. And then turn around and blame Martin anyway when people get angry about big shocker moments (like Shireen last season. And Hodor this season).

This episode picks up right where the last one left off, with Jon dead on the ground. Ghost is howling and trying to beat his way out of his cage, which gets Davos’ attention. With the help of Edd and a couple of other loyal men, they take Jon back to his office and lay him on a table—instead of burning him immediately, which is the smart thing to do on the Wall! Okay, yes, that would mean we don’t have Jon anymore, but seriously, they let him sit for days. A) gross; b) what if he got back up as a wight? The men discuss what to do now that only Davos, Edd, and a couple of random brothers are still loyal to the ideals of the Night’s Watch, and Edd goes out to get the Wildlings to help beef up their numbers. Melisandre mourns over Jon's body for some reason; if I didn't know better I'd think she had started to think that maybe he was the Prince That Was Promised but now he's dead, too.

Alliser explains to the rest of the Night’s Watch that yes, they killed Jon, but it was for his own good. Olly makes a determined face. The rest of the Night’s Watch gives in with a few grumbles. Alliser and his posse yell at Davos and his posse through the door, demanding they give up Jon’s body and come back into the fold—except Davos, who’s free to go and take Melisandre with him. Davos has no intention of opening the door and allowing the Night’s Watch to come in and kill all of them. He plans to instead get Melisandre’s help.

Melisandre, isn’t feeling very helpful. Instead, she’s sitting in her room staring blankly into the fire. She’s clearly lost all hope and I have absolutely no sympathy for her because she burned a little girl alive for no reason and then abandoned Stannis without any explanation. Apparently she stopped believing that he’s the Prince That Was Promised, but since we only see her from the outside (and we don’t get her trying to see Stannis in the fire and constantly getting either Jon or a snowstorm). She gets up and stands in front of her mirror, then takes her clothes off, then takes her necklace off and turns into a withered old woman. She heads over to the bed and climbs in, wrapping herself up in the furs.

Remember way back when I mentioned that the screenshot of Melisandre in the tub would be important? Here’s why. We’ve seen her without the necklace before. The implication here is that it’s the necklace holding the illusion magic that makes her look young and sexy. That implication would be a lot clearer if they’d kept the Rattleshirt-is-Really-Mance subplot with the ruby wrist-cuff that held the illusion on him, but whatever.

Normally I avoid nudity in these screenshots, but this is really the only way to see what I mean.

Additionally, this plays right into one of those women-in-horror tropes with women not being what they appear to be and tricking the man/men, especially into having sex with them. It’s the succubus thing, the vagina dentata thing, the vampire thing. Melisandre has been seducing or attempting to seduce every man in the show since she appeared, and you can’t tell me that this reveal—which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in its placement—doesn’t play into the “ew” factor. As often as she’s naked for no reason, it’s clear we’re supposed to see her as sexy and desirable, but surprise, she’s actually a withered old hag using magic to make herself look sexy and desirable, but really you were lusting after a withered old hag all this time. Reducing Melisandre’s power to sex magic—what is what they’ve done in the show—doesn’t allow this reveal to explain her backstory, or why she’s so skilled and wise, or any of the other little mysteries about her background and characterization.

In Winterfell, Ramsay is mourning the loss of Myranda, his partner in depraved crime, who understood him like nobody else did. Gross. The maester asks if he wants her body buried or burned; Ramsay says to feed her to the dogs because something something poetry something something double gross.

Roose has a Talk with Ramsay, complimenting him for winning the battle but scolding him for losing Sansa and Theon. He says if Ramsay had just managed to control himself and not play his stupid games with Sansa, this might not have happened. And oh, by the way, they’re probably about to have to face a Lannister army because technically marrying Sansa was treason.  And if Ramsay doesn’t find Sansa and get her pregnant, Winterfell will go to Walda’s son. Roose really doesn’t understand Ramsay at all, and is just courting his own death at this point. Also Walda’s and her son’s.

Sansa and Theon are running away through the frozen north. Theon gets them ready to cross a frozen river, and Sansa says there’s no way she’s going in the literally freezing river when the air temperature is also below freezing because that way lies certain death. Theon says it’s this or the dogs, and the tone I’m picking up is that Sansa is the one being unreasonable and girly, which is stupid. Theon shelters them in the roots of a fallen tree a few steps from the river, as if that’s going to hide them from the hunters. It doesn’t, so Theon tries to draw them off and tell them Sansa’s dead, but guess who gets discovered in a tree.

Brienne and Pod to the rescue! Pod’s fighting skills have improved; apparently, because he manages to stay on the horse and kill a man. Brienne takes out a few herself, as does Theon. Brienne then kneels in front of Sansa and again offers her service. Sansa, who loves nothing more than tales of knightly valor, whose armor is courtesy, who dreamed of a knight or a prince to protect her and love her, forgets the words accepting Brienne’s fealty. Podrick Payne, the worst squire in the world, has to prompt her.

I cannot express to you how angry I am about this moment. Every single thing Benioff and Weiss do with Sansa takes away everything about her character that is interesting and strong. At least Brienne is happy; she has a purpose again.

The “Dorne” storyline explodes spectacularly in this episode. Doran and Ellaria discuss how Oberyn would ultimately have been a bad ruler because he was more of the adventuring type, and he’s glad fate put them right where they’re supposed to be. Ellaria agrees that Doran would have made a terrible adventurer. Then the maester brings him a message announcing Myrcella’s death. Tyene stabs Aero in the back (Aero deserved so much more from this show), and Ellaria stabs Doran in the chest. Tyene throws a knife, taking out the maester. Ellaria tells Doran everyone in Dorne hates him for not doing something about Oberyn. Doran asks about Trystane; Ellaria says that, like Doran, he’s weak, “and weak men will never rule Dorne again.” She bears him to the ground and stabs him a couple more times just to be sure. And none of the other guards standing around do a damn thing about it, because that's totally believable.

Jaime has returned to King’s Landing with Myrcella’s body, and Trystane is painting the rocks for her eyes. He’s still on the boat, anchored in a small, private little bay, which is why I really want to know what kind of teleportation powers Obara and Nym have that let them go from the docks at Sunspear, where we last saw them, to the same boat as Trystane without any clear means of transport or boarding. Did they swim?

They give Trystane the option of which of them to fight, and he chooses Nym. So Obara puts her spear through the back of his head, prompting Nym (always the wordsmith) to call her a “greedy bitch.” Because not only are Benioff and Weiss horrible at writing politics, they are abysmal at writing women and women’s relationships.

The sheer number of deaths over the next several episodes leads me to believe that Benioff and Weiss were just cleaning house, that some of these characters—including the entire Dorne contingent—were just here because they were in the books. Set free of the books, the show murders the heck out of anyone not deemed absolutely necessary for the plot.

Meanwhile, in the Keep, Cersei tells Jaime about the prophecy, and he swears to protect her. He says they’re the only people in the whole world who matter: “fuck anyone who isn’t us.” Because who needs character development, right?

Over in the Sept of Baelor, Unella is now tormenting Margaery until the High Sparrow comes in and tells her that she really needs to be with Tommen because marriage is sacred, but he can’t let her go until she confesses to her sins. She says she has nothing to confess; he asks if she thinks she’s perfect, and she says nobody is. He thinks she’s on the right track now.

In Meereen, Tyrion’s doing a bang-up job of governing. Varys takes him for a walk, during which Tyrion makes the first of many eunuch jokes, scares a beggar woman by making her think he wants to eat her baby, and discovers that the entire fleet in the harbor is on fire. Great work, Tyrion. We got you to replace Hizdahr and Barristan why? Good thing you’ve got Varys here to roll his eyes and clean up your messes (for now).

Speaking of totally competent men, Jorah and Daario come upon an area with burned bones and, with their Sherlock-like powers of deduction, decide that Drogon’s been here. They keep riding, and Daario speculates that maybe Dany didn’t want to be queen and was actually running away from men like them. Jorah says everywhere has men like them (you’re damn straight). Daario then half-taunts, half-sympathizes with Jorah for being in love with Dany and her not reciprocating. Jorah checks on the progress of his greyscale, which is still spreading. Then they find the torn-up area of grass where Dany dropped her ring (and it somehow wasn’t picked up by a horse’s hoof or trampled deep in the grass).

Further along in the Dothraki Sea, Dany’s tied up and walking like a slave, but somehow still allowed to keep her dragon torque? The riders laugh amongst themselves about how pale and blonde she is, then haul her to the khal’s tent, where what is arguably the absolute worst piece of writing in the entire series occurs. The khal’s bloodriders want to rape her on the spot because the Dothraki are barbarians, remember. The khal’s wives want her killed as a witch because barbarians are superstitious like that. The khal can’t wait to rape Dany himself because apparently there’s nothing better than seeing a beautiful woman naked for the first time, but the bloodriders chime in with three things that might maybe be better than seeing a beautiful woman naked for the first time and it’s a mix of Conan the Barbarian’s “kill your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women” and Monty Python’s “amongst our various weapons are surprise, fear, alarm, nice red uniforms, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope” and oh my god just watch it because there’s nothing I can say that does it justice.

See?!

It’s at this point that Dany finally announces herself and all her titles, and somehow they don’t believe her although it’s not like the Dothraki spend all their time riding around the Dothraki Sea in circles. They capture slaves and trade them to the cities of Slavers Bay, and you’re telling me that nobody mentioned to them that they don’t have slaves anymore because of a white-haired crazy lady with dragons? Only when she invokes Drogo’s name do they back off, because it’s the equivalent of her saying “I have a boyfriend” to get the horny dude at the bar to leave you alone. She demands that they take her back to Meereen, but they’re like um, no, you go back to Vaes Dothrak to live with the Dosh Khaleen, because this has totally been mentioned before. The women are super smug about what should be an honor—the Dosh Khaleen are supposed to essentially be the rulers of the Dothraki, after all. Dany is, of course, less than thrilled.

Blind Arya is begging on a street corner until the Waif comes along, tosses her a quarterstaff, and proceeds to beat the crap out of her and saunter off. Nobody on the street seems to notice or care that this is happening. Maybe it’s normal enough for the training regimen at the House of Black and White.

So the first full season off-book is off to a great start! I can’t wait to write up the rest of it. (cries)

RIP:

Doran Martell

Aero Hotah

Trystane Martell

Sunspear maester

Bolton soldiers

Next week: Brynden and Bran are back. Tyrion’s still a bad leader. Yara wants to be queen. Melisandre raises the dead.

Game of Thrones Interlude: We Pause for Pure Analysis

Read the previous entry in this series here.
Read the next entry in this series here.

Wee paws?

 Geoffrey requested a bit more elaboration and analysis on my comments in the rewatches that Benioff and Weiss moving away from the books or past the books and how the show turns into a complete mess in seasons five and six (especially six), so here’s a bonus Game of Thrones post for your midweek enjoyment.

Martin described the changes that had to happen in order to move the story from the book to the screen as “butterflies.” Small changes that lead inevitably to bigger changes, until the “butterflies grow into dragons.” This is a very zen way of looking at it (though the overall tone of the post in question indicates that behind that zen is some deep disappointment in how the show is turning out), but it does skate over the fact that while some changes may have been absolutely necessary due to budget constraints and the differences in the way TV and books are able to show character development, there have been lots of changes that were completely unnecessary and even antithetical to the themes Martin conveys in the books. For the most part, Martin spends his time working against traditional tropes, whether those tropes are from medieval romance, Victorian medievalist romance, or fantasy; Benioff and Weiss have a really bad habit of going right back to those tropes instead of complicating or undermining them the way Martin does. I’ve talked about some of these themes in bits and pieces throughout the last 50 posts (phew!) on this blog, but let me pull a couple of them together here.

Toxic Masculinity

In A Song of Ice and Fire, Westeros is a land dominated by a patriarchal social structure with a thin veneer of chivalry painted over it to try to make it pretty. While a lot of attention is paid to how patriarchy is bad for women, Martin also explores how patriarchy is bad for men—they’re not allowed to be emotional, or kind, or gentle, or anything less than domineering and violent at all times. Yet they’re expected to act out chivalric values—protecting women and children, standing up for family, etc. Jaime really says it best in his “so many vows” speech—it’s truly impossible for men to live up to these expectations. And this leads to some serious trauma and emotional disturbances in the men, which of course they’re not allowed to express to anyone lest they be thought “weak.” Martin doesn’t shy away from that trauma, and it doesn’t go away by magic. Tyrion and Jaime are easily the clearest examples of this, coming at it from two different directions—Tyrion’s been abused his whole life and sees the system for what it is, while Jaime was (mostly) a paragon of the system, only to lose everything and be sent into a philosophical tailspin after losing his hand. Many other characters also exemplify the problems with this society—Sandor “the Hound” Clegane. Sam Tarly. Every member of the Kingsguard—which creates a clear tapestry of how awful a society that valorizes “typically male” attributes and looks down on “typically female” ones—especially when expressed by a man—is for the men.

Benioff and Weiss seem to have missed this point entirely. Instead, they treat the upper layer of the society—valorizing violence and “manly” behavior—entirely at face-value, missing the deeper layers of how damaging this is for the men. They do sort of hit how bad it is for the women, but they tend to boil that down to rape and sexual assault, ignoring the emotional toll it takes on women. This means they’ve completely failed to successfully adapt Martin’s thematic content with regard to men and patriarchy, instead going right back to portrayals of successful masculinity as violent and sexual. In order to be a Man in “Westeros,” you have to fight and have sex—however you need to. Hence the radical changes to Jaime’s storyline that ignore his trauma and massive introspection and remaking of his Self after losing his hand. Instead of trying to become a new person who can survive in this world without the combat and sexual prowess that he had before leaving for the Riverlands, Benioff and Weiss have him attempt to go back to being the exact same person he was, even if that means raping Cersei and having slapstick hijinks with the gold hand. They completely miss the fact that Jaime’s inability to take anything seriously through the first 2-3 books was due to his disillusionment and trauma after having to murder his king to save his father and the people of King’s Landing, and being vilified for doing the exact right thing.

This might even be worse with Sam, who’s one of the most damaged-by-the-patriarchy characters out there. Sure, his story hits the beats from the books more reliably, but the context for all of it is pushing Sam closer to the “ideal” man—Sam the Slayer, who killed a White Walker and a Thenn, who fights his own Night’s Watch brothers over a woman, who gets rewarded with sex, who steals his father’s family sword.

This attitude also spills over into the portrayal of women. Martin shows that women can wield power even in a patriarchy through politics. Not as visible politics as the men, of course—part of why Cersei spends so much time being frustrated, because she can’t be her father—but the more subtle politics of social gatherings, marriages, even sewing. In Game of Thrones, all of this is dismissed as girly and women are reduced to sex and violence just like the men; either they get what they want through having sex with or promising sex to men, or they kill people. Sansa kills Ramsay. Arya kills Meryn and Walder Frey. Brienne kills so many people. Cersei kills everyone else. Dany murders the entire upper power structure of the Dothraki. Those women who stay within the political framework—like Margaery—wind up dead, regardless of how good they are at the politicking, because someone else will just kill them to gain power (even if that makes no sense).

Which brings us to…

Not Like Other Girls

The rejection of female power and insistence that in order to be Strong™ women must act just like men is a major point of contention in my analysis of Game of Thrones. It’s not just that women are attempting to find any means to power and/or survival in a world that’s overtly hostile to them, it’s that there are only two ways for women to take power—and they’re intensely shamed for one of them. Benioff and Weiss restructure entire swaths of the story around this idea that “girly” things are less worthy, less important, and overall worthless.

Exhibit A: Talisa Stark, née Maegr. Talisa is every single thing Martin claimed was wrong with fantasy, the type of anachronism that annoyed him so much he purposefully wrote ASOIAF in such a way as to avoid said trope.

“Westeros isn’t medieval England but, from my readings in history, one of the things that impresses you is that the medieval mindset was very different and I’m trying to convey that. I think that is lost in modern fantasy. While they may be riding horses and living in castles, it is a very modern setting. You see peasants sassing princesses, religion being disregarded and lots of things that happen.”

In this case, Talisa sasses Robb, tells him all about how bad of a leader he is, stomps around battlefields without an escort (in a world that established early on that women are prey and at constant risk of rape), and declares that she didn’t want to plan parties or masquerades like the other Volantene noble girls, or to “play the harp, and dance the latest steps, and recite Valyrian poetry,” clearly dismissing these activities as lesser, just as Arya does throughout the series. As I mentioned while writing about this arc way back in seasons two and three, these things are important social glue, and part of the reason Westeros is unraveling is that the violence-oriented people are in charge and not listening to the not-violence-oriented people. This is a bug, not a feature.

Jeyne Westerling unfortunately doesn’t have a whole lot of personality in the books—she’s sweet, she’s desperately in love with Robb, her family is power-hungry—so apparently Benioff and Weiss decided she wasn’t good enough for show-Robb and instead gave him an anachronism who doesn’t know where the seat of her own new power is.

While Talisa is the most egregious example, like the Real Man problem, this crops up again and again in small but consistent ways that undermines the characterization of Sansa, Arya, Gilly, Margaery, etc. Arya, who thinks “most girls are stupid.” Sansa, whose slinky black dress is a sign that she “doesn’t want to sew anymore.” Gilly, who thinks her skills in cooking, cleaning, and sewing are “worthless.” Margaery, who seduces a something-year-old at least five, possibly ten, years younger than her instead of politicking her way into his good graces.

And this last one is partially because . . .

Politics are Hard

I have said (many many times) before, and I’ll say again, Benioff and Weiss are bad at writing politics. Even when the politics are handed to them on a silver platter, as they are for the first five seasons, they don’t seem to understand the intricacies of them and how they drive the overall narrative of ASOIAF. So instead, they water them down, thin them out, make the greatest political minds of the books into either ultimately ineffective schemers (Olenna Tyrell, Margaery Tyrell, Catelyn Stark), moustache-twirling villains (Petyr Baelish), or flailing idiots whose plans work because they’re lucky (Daenerys Targaryen, Petyr Baelish). The complications of running a city or a country are reduced to a few people being cranky and making really stupid decisions. This leads either to decisions that make no sense either narratively or thematically, or to massive shifts from the books either narratively or thematically (or both).

Not only are politics hard, they’re apparently not cinematic enough. Remember, this is a show for which a critic coined the term “sexposition” because they felt like they had to “spice up” the “boring” history and character exposition by including boobs. They abandoned Bran for an entire season because his training “wasn’t cinematic enough”—after declaring that they did Theon’s torture on screen because they didn’t want to just not have Theon on screen for a season the way he disappears in the books. They hauled Sansa out of the Vale and put her in a travesty of a borrowed storyline because her learning to be a political player and preparing to use the Vale forces to retake the North wasn’t cinematic enough. They reworked Jaime and Cersei’s relationship and didn’t send Jaime out to handle the Riverlands in season five because him dealing with his trauma, talking at Ilyn Payne while relearning how to fight, and putting the country back together wasn’t cinematic enough. Neither, apparently, was Adrianne Martell. Or the rest of the Sand Snakes. Or Doran’s plan to help restore the Targaryen dynasty. Or 75% of what’s happening in Meereen and Slavers Bay.

They’re Not Good Writers

As will become painfully obvious through season six, Benioff and Weiss are not good writers. When they leaned heavily on Martin’s dialogue and plot, the show shone. It had its problems, but they were the problems you’d expect from moving from one medium to another. When they decided that they knew better than Martin how to tell this story and ventured out into, essentially, fan-fiction, everything faltered. The storylines that aren’t Martin originals—Jaime in Dorne, Sansa in Winterfell—are just downright awful. The storylines that are watered-down Martin ones are nonsense—Jon’s entire arc past season three, Dany up through season five, Arya in Braavos. When they move entirely past the books, which they do in the next season, everything falls apart in a spectacular mess. The one good spot of writing they have in season six is borrowed from the first book.

And yet they clearly think they’re doing a wonderful job and staying true to the “spirit” of the books, if not the letter. Considering how purposefully they’ve shielded themselves from the public outcry about most of their changes—especially the more problematic ones—and how they keep getting showered with awards for some reason, I can see why they’d think that. But despite their claims that they loved the books and just want to do them justice, I strongly doubt their commitment to Sparkle Motion (okay, that one might be obscure. Go watch Donnie Darko. You’re welcome). A proverb I’ve seen on the Internet a lot lately is “grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man,” and I think that’s what we’ve got going here. They’re absolutely confident in their own abilities, despite the fact that they had never run a show before this and have a handful of other writing credits—movies and books—to their respective names. The popularity of the show has apparently murdered any humility they might otherwise have had, and it’s made the show the worse for it.