S05.E06: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

[Hecate7]

In the books, I still don't know how Littlefinger's betrayal of Ned isn't public knowledge.  On the show, Catelyn accuses him of betrayal but whether she heard specifically what he did (pulling a knife on Ned) is unknown.  In the books, I can understand the exact details being unknown to the North but given how close she was to the Royal Court, I have no idea how Book Sansa (or Show Sansa) doesn't know what Littlefinger did to her father.  Slynt's involvement certainly wasn't a secret.

 

Did Tyrion know?  I can't imagine him not telling Sansa when they were married.

 

They weren't married that long, really, and I think while they were married Tyrion might have been a little afraid to mention anything about her father. She was miserable enough as it was.

[Hecate7]

Jeyne Poole was fine with readers, as many readers have explained over the past week or so, because she wasn't an important character. She was a faceless cipher whose designated role was to service Theon's story, a means to another person's ends, a diposable object. A special class of Unperson known as "victim," an underclass whose distinguishing characteristic is the inability ever to have "agency" (a word whose meaning seems to have drifted off towards an infinitely vague horizon). Someone with no story of her own. In short, as Zalyn wrote, no "different from any other woman." Not someone we need to identify with at all. A typical Othered victim. Gender: feminine.

 

But main characters are different, right? POV characters are different. They have, as many people have also pointed out over the past week, their own stories. You can't just substitute Sansa for Jeyne, because Sansa has her own story to tell. She is not a means to someone else's end, but is "different from any other woman." We need to be able to identify with her. We insist that she must have agency; she is not Othered. Not object but subject. Gender: masculine.

 

POV characters don't get raped. George R.R. Martin said so himself.

 

Very true.

 

 

(Except when it's Dany, because...because why? Because we all like to pretend that never happened? I don't know if Martin believes that the fact that Dany later fell in twoo wuv somehow retroactively turned Rape into NotRape or what, but honestly, my blood pressure and I would probably really prefer not even to know how he'd defend that statement.)

George R.R. Martin considers rape off-limits for POV characters? Oh, of course he fucking would. Because being a POV character is a job for a subject, not an object, and as such, regardless of sex, the POV characters are all granted an honorary masculine gender. ......

Whatever. Martin's gender issues would probably make for a doorstopper of their own, but I'm not sure why the television show should feel the need to ape all of those same screwed-up ideas, nor do I see why any of its viewers should. Rape is a fundamental part of the human experience for a huge number of people in this world, men and women and children, and each and every one of those people considers themselves--rightly!--the protagonist of their own story. They are not incapable of action, and they have plenty of agency. None of the things they have learned over the years has been erased. Their psychological development has not been revoked.

And they remain the POV characters narrating their own lives, no matter how many people insist that their life experiences somehow magically render them inappropiate for that role.

They are still the subject of their sentence -- and what the predicate says, they do.

 

So much this.

 

I give GRRM the benefit of the doubt, however. It may simply be that he is unsure he could convincingly write a POV rape. A description from the aggressor's POV, or a third party description, sure, but I think there are some POV's he simply doesn't attempt, not because he's dismissing them, but because he doesn't want to co-opt, exploit, or appropriate someone else's experience, and because he's point blank afraid he'll get it wrong, and be offensive.

 

Besides, he lied. He did write a rape POV--Dany. And he has had so many near misses with Arya and Sansa that he might as well have gone ahead.

[Hecate7]

His screentime has been concentrated in the last two episodes, which I expect will continue now that the writers got their ducks in a row.  The point is that the rape of Ramsay's bride is about what Theon witnesses and how it affects him, not the bride.

Sansa's story is relevant, because she's one of the leads and is in the process of learning the game and consolidating power in a vital region of Westeros, while interacting with Littlefinger, one of the most important masterminds in the whole story.  As for the rewrite putting Sansa "in" the game, it's put her there exclusively as a pawn, which is what she's been all season -- and it didn't have to be that way, even if they sent her to Winterfell, but that's how the writers wrote it.

 

You mean like the way losing a hand made Jaime a pawn?

 

Sansa has been Littlefinger's pawn from the getgo, and she will be until she learns enough to face off against HIM. Meanwhile she's on her own, and I think it's good that we're not getting "someone will save you," or even dumber, "why, if only you just stabbed the guy all your problems would be solved. Just do what Arya would do." It's not a viable option because Roose is there with an army. Just as stabbing Joffrey in King's Landing was not an option.

 

Sansa, however, has watched two spousal murders now. First she witnessed the poisoning of Joffrey, and was later informed of the number of participants and her own role in it. There is nothing at all to prevent her from carrying out the exact same plan, using Fat Walda as Sansa, Theon as Tyrion, and of course Ramsey as Joffrey. She also viewed the murder of Lyssa by Littlefinger. That's a harder one to pull off, but she could use Theon as Sansa, as long as Roose and his army were somewhere else. There may even be a number of servants willing to swear that Ramsey threw himself off the tower. 

 

One thing Sansa has learned, is that it is important to get all of your pieces into position first, before attempting checkmate, whether you do it with a pawn or a queen.

To me, if Sansa is mostly there to be manipulated by one man, then raped by another, then she is being othered. She's an object, not a character. I don't really see this being told from her POV. As with Cersei last season, the confusing comments from TPTB make me have no idea what her POV even is. 

 

That may be more about your inability to empathize or look through her pov as these things happen, than about whether she's an object or a character. She has a pov and the story IS being told from her POV. Just as Theon's torture was told from his POV, and Ned Stark's beheading was told from HIS pov, and Jaime's mutilation was told from his POV>

[Hecate7]

Not only the raping but they cut stuff like Tyrion slapping Shae across the face for angering him.  There's been a consistent campaign by D&D to eliminate any trace of questionable or unlikeable behavior from Tyrion while making other characters worse.  I don't need to see Tyrion the rapist (and especially don't need to see Jaime the rapist) but they have made Tyrion's character remarkably one-dimensional.  It's only the work of Peter Dinklage that has made Tyrion so memorable.

 

They haven't made him one-dimensional at all. If they had tried to pass Tyrion off as a sympathetic character after he slaps Shae or rapes a prostitute, it would have been game over.

 

There are plenty of other traces of questionable and unlikable behavior in Tyrion. He's just been chosen as one of several characters we're allowed to have a little faith in, and possibly see ourselves in.

[Pete Martell]

That may be more about your inability to empathize or look through her pov as these things happen, than about whether she's an object or a character. She has a pov and the story IS being told from her POV. Just as Theon's torture was told from his POV, and Ned Stark's beheading was told from HIS pov, and Jaime's mutilation was told from his POV>

 

A fair amount of Theon's torture wasn't told from his POV, otherwise we wouldn't have had a "haha" moment of Ramsay eating a sausage after castrating him. Or the Ramsay/Myranda sexytimes last season, or more of Asha's rescue being about how cool Ramsay looked with swords than about Theon being kept in a dog pen.

 

I still don't see any real POV from Sansa in this. I feel like they wanted to have her victimized and they don't really want to fully address that in the writing. To me if it were from Sansa's POV, we wouldn't have Cogman saying one thing and the episodes saying another, and she wouldn't be going around calling him a bastard, which to me is OOC for her. To me she's just a sack of tropes at this point. Until that changes she's going to be unfamiliar to me, especially as they seem to have regressed 2-3 seasons from her character in my opinion.

Edited May 26, 2015 by Pete Martell

[Avaleigh]

Sansa, however, has watched two spousal murders now. First she witnessed the poisoning of Joffrey, and was later informed of the number of participants and her own role in it. There is nothing at all to prevent her from carrying out the exact same plan, using Fat Walda as Sansa, Theon as Tyrion, and of course Ramsey as Joffrey. She also viewed the murder of Lyssa by Littlefinger. That's a harder one to pull off, but she could use Theon as Sansa, as long as Roose and his army were somewhere else. There may even be a number of servants willing to swear that Ramsey threw himself off the tower.

They threw in the detail of Myranda being the kennel master's daughter for a reason, right? If Ramsay kills Myranda the way that some (most?) of us think he will I think that would certainly give her father a reason to help Sansa get rid of Ramsay and this could be how they arrange the kennel death that was suggested earlier by a poster.

I give GRRM the benefit of the doubt, however. It may simply be that he is unsure he could convincingly write a POV rape. A description from the aggressor's POV, or a third party description, sure, but I think there are some POV's he simply doesn't attempt, not because he's dismissing them, but because he doesn't want to co-opt, exploit, or appropriate someone else's experience, and because he's point blank afraid he'll get it wrong, and be offensive.

 

Besides, he lied. He did write a rape POV--Dany. And he has had so many near misses with Arya and Sansa that he might as well have gone ahead.

I feel like Cersei got a rape POV in the books. It wasn't told in real time but I think Cersei even uses the word "assaults" at one point when she talks about what she had to endure with Robert sexually. Feeling like she could get revenge by "eating his heirs", talking about how much it hurt, how she'd try to avoid it, how ashamed he would be, how sex with Jaime was the only sex that was ever good, etc. Their marriage was a horror show and Robert was no innocent party. 

[marys1000]

Going by her record Brienne is pretty incompetant.  Renly gets killed, Catelyn gets killed, Jaime loses a hand and gets sent back to KL w/out her getting the girls, Arya gets away...then she actually lets Sansa ride right by into the hands of Ramsey Snow. 

Everything about most of the women in this show just sucks. 

I agree with the comments re the lameness of the Sand Snakes and Ellyria (spelling) is acting like an emotional idiot. 

 

I've never seen Sansa do anything but react in a situation to save herself, usually by being diplomatic, a proper good woman, crying, yes lying etc. 

So to say that she's learned and become some great strategic game player doesn't fit to me not yet anyway.  At least it hasn't been shown yet.

 

I don't get LF...sure it sounds like a good plan to let the Bolton's and Stannis kill each other off and then sweep in for the glory of KL - but if that were the real plan  would he really tell Cersei? 

 

So...the faces in those towers are just.........faces?  They removed them from the bodies?  I  got the impression that they are the masks that they use. 

 

So sad to see Jorah get greyscale (that didn't happen in the books did it?).  Of course I watched him touch Tyrion after and the slavers also touched him so I don't get all the "did they touch you did they touch you".  Tyrion would be doomed twice because the one grabbed him when he was in the water. 

Edited May 27, 2015 by marys1000

[WearyTraveler]

Jorah doesn't get greyscale in the books, but Jon Connington does.  The show is giving Jorah that part of his plot.

 

Also, I think that to get infected you need to touch infected skin.  The stone men that attacked Jorah and Tyrion were covered head to toe with the disease, Jorah's only got a little area on his arm active.  I'm not completely sure about this, though, so, if someone has a better recollection of greyscale transmission from the books, by all means...

[Avaleigh]

I thought in the books that a big deal was made of the fact that Tyrion was completely submerged and even drank that contaminated water. Yet JonCon was the one who ended up getting infected. 

 

The power of Targaryen blood seems to be enhanced a bit on the show with Dany being able to hold the burning hot dragon eggs while either Irri or Jhiqui ended up getting burned when they tried. I think that not catching most illnesses like greyscale could be another perk to having Targaryen blood. (Yes, yes, I know about the the Great Spring Sickness and I don't think that book or show Dany has shown any examples of catching an illness--I'm of the opinion that she had a miscarriage in addition to food poisoning. Just wanted to get that out of the way.) Shireen is 1/8 Targaryen and I think that this is what might have helped her survive the disease. The show made it sound like her survival was something of a miracle so this is what makes me think that her blood might have been helpful. 

[marys1000]

As to transmission, the story Stannis tells his daughter makes it sound like a toy he gave her is what gave her the disease.  Although why it wouldn't have given him it as well IDK.  So why not contaminated clothes?

[SeanC]

There are plenty of other traces of questionable and unlikable behavior in Tyrion. 

Such as?

 

Tyrion on the show is a white knight, who always does the right thing, and is always meant to have the audience's sympathy.

[Holmbo]

Such as?

Tyrion on the show is a white knight, who always does the right thing, and is always meant to have the audience's sympathy.

-He supported Joffrey's reign when he could have left with Shae (not an option in the books but the show definitely presented it as an option he choose not to take).

-He followed Tywin's order about marrying Sansa when he could have refused.

-He's a bit spoiled in some ways (I don't know of that is the right word. Taking a life of privilege for granted)

-this season he's been extremely whiny and really outright self destructive

-he constantly provokes and put people down needlessly. Which is something the audience enjoy but is still a flaw of the character.

I do think that he is probably the character which moral is closest to most viewers. He's pragmatic but also has empathy.

I like the book character but I'm fine with the tv show making him a protagonist rather than an anti hero. It would be impossible to get the same Tyrion as the books without his inner dialogue anyway.

Edited May 28, 2015 by Holmbo

[SeanC]

-He supported Joffrey's reign when he could have left with Shae (not an option in the books but the show definitely presented it as an option he choose not to take).

-He followed Tywin's order about marrying Sansa when he could have refused.

-this season he's been really whiny and really outright self destructive

-he constantly provokes and put people down needlessly. Which is something the audience enjoy but is still a flaw of the character.

(1)  The show has never suggested his remaining in King's Landing is any kind of flaw.

(2)  The show went to extreme lengths to portray him as having no choice, and even suggested that he and Sansa were in roughly equivalent positions.

(3)  He's supposed to have the audience's sympathy in that too.

(4)  I've never seen this treated as a flaw.  Generally, we're meant to agree with whatever he says.

[Hecate7]

(1)  The show has never suggested his remaining in King's Landing is any kind of flaw.

(2)  The show went to extreme lengths to portray him as having no choice, and even suggested that he and Sansa were in roughly equivalent positions.

(3)  He's supposed to have the audience's sympathy in that too.

(4)  I've never seen this treated as a flaw.  Generally, we're meant to agree with whatever he says.

 

1) Tyrion himself said it was a flaw, and I think the consequences of remaining are self-evident.

2) He didn't have much of a choice. They were not in equivalent positions, but they were in similar, parallel positions.

3) Did you know it's possible to have sympathy for more than one person at a time? It's not a zero sum game. You can actually sympathize with Tyrion AND Sansa. I do it all the time.

4) Normally we're supposed to agree, but that doesn't mean it's not a flaw. Tyrion blurts out whatever's on his mind at a given moment, which more than once has resulted in a belt in the face. There's a difference between true, and appropriate.

[SeanC]

Normally we're supposed to agree, but that doesn't mean it's not a flaw.

A "flaw" that the audience is not meant to challenge the audience's perceptions of him is not really a flaw.  Tyrion in the books is a grey character who semi-regularly behaves in ways that show he is not a particularly nice, and which challenges the audience's instincts to like him (or should; some people whitewash his conduct in the books too).  The show has diligently removed all that.

[Hecate7]

No, Tyrion in the books is a sympathetic light or medium gray character for four books, who suddenly turns jet black in the fifth book after murdering his girlfriend. He becomes a villain we once liked. That's not dark gray, that's outright black, and in many ways is worse than just killing the character off. The show is not about to sacrifice Dinklage, its biggest draw.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Hecate7

[SeanC]

No, Tyrion in the books is a sympathetic light or medium gray character for four books, who suddenly turns jet black in the fifth book after murdering his girlfriend. He becomes a villain we once liked. That's not dark gray, that's outright black, and in many ways is worse than just killing the character off. The show is not about to sacrifice Dinklage, its biggest draw.

And yet Tyrion remains a popular character in the books, and he is not considered a villain.

 

I have no idea why it would be "sacrificing" Dinklage to portray Tyrion more honestly to the book.  Prestige cable drama is dominated by anti-heroes or anti-villains, like Tony Soprano and Walter White, in whose company Tyrion would be more than comfortable (he's more sympathetic and has nobler instincts than either of them).  And ASOIAF has plenty of much more openly heroic characters.

 

And even if I were to agree with you on Tyrion in ADWD, the show's whitewashing of Tyrion began long before that.  He was never a "light or medium gray" character on the show (and GRRM personally called him "the greyest of the grey"), he was the funnier, more freewheeling Ned Stark.

Edited May 29, 2015 by SeanC

[nksarmi]

I've always liked Tyrion, but I met him first on the show and second in the books.  I am finding that I can barely remember the last two books - I just really did not enjoy them for the most part.  I do not remember feeling like they had put a black hat on Tyrion in the books, but I do feel like GRRM darkened his story a lot after he killed Tywin and Shae.  In real life, that might be enough for me to feel that the man belonged in prison for the rest of his life.  But in this world, where I am gradually seeing the redemption of the man who pushed a child out the window crippling him for life - I can accept Tyrion not being a permanently dark character. 

 

What I think the show saved Tyrion from this season was the self-pity and self-loathing that in the books is very realistic, but on the show would have made people start to hate him.  I found his plot in books 4/5 (I can't even remember which one had his POV story) painful to read.  And this was a character that I lapped up every chapter for the first three books.  That is a serious turn in writing and I'm ever so grateful to the show that they did not put us through that as viewers. 

 

On the show, I adore Tyrion.  And while I do consider him a flawed character, I would also classify him as a hero.  So, yes the show has whitewashed him a lot, but I'm so very glad they did.

[Hecate7]

And yet Tyrion remains a popular character in the books, and he is not considered a villain.

 

I have no idea why it would be "sacrificing" Dinklage to portray Tyrion more honestly to the book.  Prestige cable drama is dominated by anti-heroes or anti-villains, like Tony Soprano and Walter White, in whose company Tyrion would be more than comfortable (he's more sympathetic and has nobler instincts than either of them).  And ASOIAF has plenty of much more openly heroic characters.

 

And even if I were to agree with you on Tyrion in ADWD, the show's whitewashing of Tyrion began long before that.  He was never a "light or medium gray" character on the show (and GRRM personally called him "the greyest of the grey"), he was the funnier, more freewheeling Ned Stark.

 

To be the grayest of the gray does not mean the darkest of the gray. It means the grayest--a nice medium gray exactly in the midpoint between black like Ramsey Bolton, and white like Ned Stark. Ned Stark was the lightest gray character on the show--even lighter than Sansa or Jon Snow. Darkest of the gray more nearly describes Arya and Baelish.

 

A funnier, more freewheeling Ned Stark is exactly what Tyrion is on the show, and started out being in the books as well. Ned was more of a Gainesboro gray, so Tyrion is probably more of a light medium gray after all, if you think of him as being like Ned. Like Ned, he stopped the bedding at his wedding. Like Ned, he tries to protect children, women, "cripples, bastards, and broken things." He is more fun when he is not shaded darker. He's a mostly neutral character with good undertones, a shade or two lighter than true middle gray.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Hecate7

[John Potts]

To start with the uncontroversial stuff:

OK, Littlefinger - that bit with Cersei was smooth. "OMG - I found Sansa Stark! It looks like the your BFFs the Boltons have betrayed you! Luckily, I can get my hands on this army to kill off whichever of those traitorous villains, Stannis Baratheon or Roose Bolton wins. Then your old pal Littlefinger would be Warden of the North!"

Gotta love Olenna: "The famously tart Queen of Thorns" "The famous tart Queen Cersei" (even better, she didn't back down from it).

On ‎18‎/‎05‎/‎2015 at 3:09 AM, WatchrTina said:

 I'm no ninja but it seems to me that a courtyard surrounding by balconies in broad daylight seems a pretty crappy place to try to stage a kidnapping.

Jamie & Bronn's escapades in Dorne struck me as such a Player Party thing to do as opposed to an actual plan. "My character breaks into the place where the Princess I being held." "You do realise you're like - the third most recognisable face in the Kingdom?" "I'll wear a disguise!" "OK, so what's your plan?" "I just go in and grab her!" "In the middle of the day?" "Sure, they'll never expect it!"

OK, to wade into the choppy waters of the Sansa/Ramsay marriage: I think it was the right choice to show it that way. Not because I want to see Sansa being abused, but because it would be unbelievable for Ramsay not to act like that. Secondly, it's a disservice to the "nameless" characters (eg. those in the Riverlands that the Mountain raped, or Craster's wives) who were raped to then go, "Oh, but Sansa is our heroine, she can't be touched!" If rape is a reality for women in Westeros, the fact that somebody "is a main character" should not protect them.

Where I think TPTB went wrong is in trying to present this as some sort of empowering action for Sansa to walk into the Bolton occupied Winterfell. There is a certain nobility to walking into an enemy stronghold unaided, but she had no plan other than "Wait until somebody rescues me" (Stannis? Brienne? Jon? Littlefinger?) for extracting herself. I wouldn't mind if her plans failed (maybe she tries to subvert the Stark loyalists among the Winterfell servants, only for Ramsay to uncover the plot and have them killed), but despite the repeated claims that Sansa is learning to "Play the Game", she's as much a pawn of other people's power plays as she was back in Season 2 (or 3... or 4).

On ‎18‎/‎05‎/‎2015 at 8:06 AM, Insomnia said:

I call bullshit on Littlefinger not having a clue what Ramsey is like...

"I haven't heard anything about him really, but he removes all the skin off a person while they are still alive? I bet once you get to know him he's very cuddlesome. I'm sure the people he's flayed were very bad people and they deserved. I'm sure he completely regrets having to do it as well."

If TPTB want to claim he doesn't know, then I have to agree - that's utterly untenable. Not have we seen that Littlefinger is very well connected, Ramsay himself has claimed that he had the head of a recalcitrant House publicly flayed to enforce Bolton rule. It would defeat the purpose of public terror to keep that sort of thing quiet.

Now I have no problem with Littlefinger saying he didn't know Ramsay's reputation, but for him to actually not know is ridiculous.