House of the Dragon spoiler thread

[payn]

We can hold GRRM 100% accountable for his books, and at least partially accountable for the Game of Thrones series. But House of Dragons? I'm not sure how much editorial control he has.

Look, I get it: it is a dark world and you don't like it. But you also seem rather insistent on making it yet another example of misogyny and/or fetishizing violence against women. I just don't agree. Martin might have a fetish for violence/torture etc in general, but I don't see him--at least as expressed through his writing--as being particularly misogynistic, especially when you keep in mind how well his female characters are written - that they are every bit as complex as his male characters are.

Excellent points. I think its worth noting that the Jaime and Cersei Sept scene was not a rape in Martin's writing, but was on the series. The Sansa scene might not even be in Martin's books (if he ever finishes them).

 

[Mercurius]

Excellent points. I think its worth noting that the Jaime and Cersei Sept scene was not a rape in Martin's writing, but was on the series. The Sansa scene might not even be in Martin's books (if he ever finishes them).

That's the real question, no?

 

[Stalker0]

That's the real question, no?

Is that even a question at this point? I think the simple is answer is....no, martin will die before he finishes the series, based on simple maths of human life expectanacy and how long each book seems to take. My money is on one more book, I'll give them that, but I think that's it.

 

[billd91]

Excellent points. I think its worth noting that the Jaime and Cersei Sept scene was not a rape in Martin's writing, but was on the series. The Sansa scene might not even be in Martin's books (if he ever finishes them).

If anything involving Ramsey Bolton and Sansa comes up it will be in a substantially different context since Sansa wasn't being married off to Bolton in the books - that was her old friend Jeyne Poole in the guise of Arya though it is known she is badly abused by Bolton.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am thinking of the joker just now. "When men are exposed to violence and death its according to plan and everyone is fine. When Women are exposed to violence and death; everybody loses their minds!"

The same Joker who shot Barbara Gordon through the spine and then took off her clothes to send pictures of her paralyzed, bleeding out and naked to her father and Batman?

That's not as good of an example as you think.

There's a whole lot of pop culture that uses violence against women as either motivation for men to be heroic (Women in Refrigerators) or, worse yet, as just background noise.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeap, I was thrown for a loop for a second too. Joffery is the name of Laenor's paramour that Ser Cristen punched to death. Including this point right after a GoT reference got away from me for a second.

We're now up to three Joffreys in this franchise now, since the new baby is named after the one who got punched to death. Presumably Joffrey from GoT isn't named after any of the two from HoD.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And the wild part is that the levels of violence aren't all that unrealistic.

The "realism" argument is silly. This is a story with magic, dragons and zombies. There's no requirement for any of this.

And, separately, there's no need to show us graphic violence in loving close-ups, especially when it's not portrayed that way for the straight male characters. The Sansa rape scene could have been we see her looking scared, the door closes, we hear a muffled scream. The showrunners chose to depict violence against women on screen.

Folks here are getting pretty defensive about this. If you're secretly the showrunners, posting on ENWorld is a weird use of your time. And if you're GRRM, I think you know how we'd prefer how you spend your time.

For everyone else, you're allowed to watch and enjoy the show. There's no need to ride to the defense of a bunch of Hollywood millionaires. But everything you're watching on screen is an authorial choice, not something that "has" to happen. And some of their choices are questionable (and I'm not just talking about the writing of the last two seasons of Game of Thrones).

 

[payn]

The same Joker who shot Barbara Gordon through the spine and then took off her clothes to send pictures of her paralyzed, bleeding out and naked to her father and Batman?

That's not as good of an example as you think.

There's a whole lot of pop culture that uses violence against women as either motivation for men to be heroic (Women in Refrigerators) or, worse yet, as just background noise.

No, I was thinking The Dark Knight Joker, and it doesn't even matter that it was the joker who said it, but the point in the statement.

You seem to have a general distaste for the material of Martin, and that is fine. What is strange is this projection as if its something terrible about the man himself, and I don't think its fair as the series isn't all his material.

 

[Mercurius]

Is that even a question at this point? I think the simple is answer is....no, martin will die before he finishes the series, based on simple maths of human life expectanacy and how long each book seems to take. My money is on one more book, I'll give them that, but I think that's it.

You're probably right. I feel for the guy - I'm guessing he's thoroughly burnt out and writing it gives little joy, especially considering it was completely on screen (regardless of how poor one thinks season 8 was).

Even more baffling is Patrick Rothfuss' inability to write the third book in his series. I know and empathize with the fact that he's had mental health issues, but it isn't like he hasn't been publicly active and, well, it has been 11+ years. But that's another topic....

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Is that even a question at this point? I think the simple is answer is....no, martin will die before he finishes the series, based on simple maths of human life expectanacy and how long each book seems to take. My money is on one more book, I'll give them that, but I think that's it.

Yeah, Martin is old, obese, insists on going to conventions and getting COVID despite saying ahead of time that he knows he's in a high risk group.

I think we're going to be in a Christopher Tolkien scenario where his estate will announce they've got a giant pile of notes for someone to make sense of and we will eventually get material based on it, but almost certainly not both Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. Hopefully they will actually finish the novels instead of just seeing dollar signs and deciding to chop it all up and churn out six or seven more series of novels instead of just giving us a proper ending.