Little has been reported of this May 14th press conference held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London but do words matter so much when you have faces? (Yes BUT No). Click through for more event shots of the lovely faces of Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Richard Madden and Michelle Fairley.
So Televisionary has conducted an interview with the actress who plays Ros and they discussed quite a bit about the filming of the Baratheon Stick of Disgrace scene.
The scene in question lead to a critics’ debate on Twitter about whether Joffrey had, in fact, forced Ros to rape or sodomize Daisy with a stag’s head scepter, which Bianco quickly denied. “Wow, no,” she said. “What got cut from the edit was that I was beating her and you see the scepter coming down [with] blood on the end of it … I’m [actually] hitting a pillow. I had to hit it with all my force and I broke the scepter. People were gluing it back together because antlers were coming off.”
Mini-debate aside, the shocking scene underpinned the show’s exploration of the constantly shifting landscape of power. Here Ros is given a choice: beat this girl almost to death or die yourself.
“No matter where any of the characters think they’ve gotten to in terms of power, there’s always somebody that’s willing to beat them down,” she said. “It’s the one time that we see Ros where her sex appeal does nothing for her and doesn’t get her out of that situation. It’s not about her being a prostitute; it’s about her being just another person that Joffrey is going to stomp on.”
I find this interesting in that I didn’t particularly care to read that as an implied sodomy scene, my criticism of that scene is that it has no role in the narrative. It gave no character development for Joffrey, as we already know he gets off on abusing people as we saw previously in that episode with Sansa and we already know he is a sick little fuck who likes to hurt people, pouring wine down Ser Dontos’ throat and cutting out the tongue of Marillion. Secondly, it didn’t ripple down the pike with consequences in regards to Tyrion versus Joffrey, it has really meant very little to the larger story. Besides Bronn who chuckled over a spoilt birthday present when he off hand mentioned it to Tyrion in the subsequent episode, the only one that has brought it up was Cersei this past episode. Yet that still doesn’t change the fact they didn’t care to show us Ros or Daisy in the aftermath or Sandor who probably had to help Ros carry Daisy out of there.
I honestly could not care less how brilliantly non-titillating that scene was, the fact they have disregarded Ros and Daisy up to this point annoys me and I am still convinced they don’t care about Ros or Daisy, they just cared to show the abuse and some T & A. But still, I am expecting to see Ros before the seasons end. -Littlefinger must be observed and if Ros is to be caught in Shae’s place like Alayaya it has to happen soon.- Will we ever see the “results” in regards to the victims of Joffrey’s wraith?
Nevertheless, I was thinking about this the other day: Joffrey abusing Ros and Daisy is the signature scene of the season so far, is it not? Has anything stuck out farther? Not that I can think of. And it is not even book canon. I mean, that’s a pretty amazing feat when you think about all the terribly shocking moments Martin wrote in A Clash of Kings.
Meanwhile Sansa still has not received her note and is missing her second chapter. “Come to the Godswood tonight, if you want to go home.”
Yeah, Joffrey/Ros/Daisy is still a bad creative decision for the screen time that scene has hogged from other characters alone, and nothing so far, not even this interview, has changed my mind there.
If I had an agenda of pointing out the sexism in this fandom before, I most certainly do now. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I’m about to go for the throat -the jugular! the jugular!- of whoever is responsible for signing off on this Game of Thrones video game which is to be released on Tuesday, May 15th here in the US on the PC, XBox360, and PS3 platforms.
Before I read up on it for details I had full intentions of purchasing and playing this video game, I don’t now. And I will do my best to convince as many people as I can that they should boycott it too.
Why? Because there are two main characters that you can play in Game of Thrones: The Roleplaying Game. Both are male. If you wanted to play as a female character, you cannot. The two original male characters are your only options.
Here’s the synopsis:
Along the 30 hours of gameplay offered by Game of Thrones, play as Mors, sworn brother of the Night’s Watch, and Alester, a Red Priest in search of redemption who is back to Westeros after a long exile. The Hand of King Robert Baratheon has just passed away, and these two charismatic heroes will find themselves dragged in a grand quest that will lead them through familiar and gorgeous places of Westeros, such like the Wall and its region, or the famous King’s Landing. In this grand adventure, they will meet famous faces: Queen Cersei, Varys the Spider or Jeor Mormont, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch faithfully reproduced from the TV series.
In Game of Thrones, you will choose the class of your characters, find your fighting style, reach a good balance between your strengths and weaknesses, and get ready for epic battles! Find, buy or loot new equipment and weapons to fit your approach of the fights, and gain experience to improve your skills or learn new ones. Slow the time down during battle to analyze the situation and choose your next moves. In game of thrones, political skills can be as lethal as a sharpen sword, so never underestimate the power of a silver tongue to solve a critical situation! – From the publisher main page
And then they highlight this part to make sure you can see there are only two characters,
- Play as 2 charismatic characters, with their own background and skills
That’s it, Mors and Alester are your only options as main playable characters. And just so you know, they have been working on this game for 7 years, before Game of Thrones was ever realized. Yet since Game of Thrones has aired they have cooperated with HBO in order to retro-fit in character likenesses and some set design crossovers, like the Iron Throne.
In the past 7 years, women didn’t all of a sudden become fans of the ASOIAF. We might not be the majority, but we’re here.
In the past 7 years, female point of view chapters were not invented in the ASOIAF. They constitute like half the major point of view chapters: Daenerys, Arya, Catelyn, Sansa, Arianne, Cersei, Brienne, Asha. So despite the fact Mors and Alester are original POV characters, it constitutes representation fail.
In the past 7 years, female fighters were not invented in the ASOIAF. Women wielding weapons and taking names are all over the ASOIAF; the Mormonts, the spearwives, Asha Greyjoy, Brienne of Tarth, Dany, the Sandsnakes, Arya Stark, Lyanna Stark, Meera Reed, Pretty Meris, Rhaenys, Visenya. Again, representation fail.
Just listen to the game developers describe how they created the game with so much respect and dedication to Martin’s world.
This pretty much says it all:
“It is really important for the player to feel he is the master of the destiny of his characters.”
You, the women of the ASOIAF, were not considered in making of this game. You, the female fans in the ASOIAF fandom, don’t play video games and you’re not a fan of Game of Thrones. No, the women of this series been reduced to non-playable characters that the male player can interact with and take commands from, like Cersei as well as Chataya and Alayaya and other nameless whores. -Oh yeah, they managed to slip in some prostitutes with breasts that would make Barbie jealous and of whom I am willing to bet one of the male characters will have a chance to shag,- but to play a female character and to kick some video game ass?
N. o.
Look at these publicity images, here’s your representation in the game, ye female fans:
Yeah, I can feel the accuracy to the text right there.
Ohh, oh wait a sec, right here too:
Now, in the grand scheme of things I think this presents a larger issue for us as a fandom, especially in how we are supposed to consider understand its place within the fandom, as clearly it discourages the participation of women. Are we supposed to consider this licensed fanfic? Sure makes the official stance on fanfic look awfully pretentious if this is supposed to be the alternative for those that want more of A Song of Ice and Fire. Of course Martin didn’t write it (but he did collaborate), so perhaps we’re supposed to consider this supplemental canonical fiction? And in that case I think we should be even more offended. Either way, Martin signed off on this.
“The entire game was written by Cyanide, including the plot and character dialogue. But I did have creative input at many points during the process,” Martin told Joystiq. When he met with members of Cyanide to review the game’s design document, he made sure that the experience wouldn’t break canon. “What they’re doing is a parallel story to some of the early events in Ice and Fire, so my primary concern was that nothing in the game altered the events in the books.” – Martin with Joystiq
“All the situations and story line were written under (his) monitoring in order to fit with the story the fans have already read, and thus fulfill their expectations.” – Yves Bordeleau with USA Today
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whose expectations? Not mine, you didn’t even consider my expectations never mind fulfill them or there would be a playable female character.
Look, Grand Theft Auto has only male playable characters, Grand Theft Auto isn’t based on source material like the ASOIAF. Grand Theft Auto isn’t promising to fulfill expectations based on the source material. This is like making Harry Potter the video game and retro-actively making Hogwarts a male-only school. Based on the said goals of the developers, the exclusion of women is hypocritical and discriminatory. (And I haven’t even yet mentioned the fact both male characters are white).
Furthermore, Dragon Age and Skyrim both managed to have female MPC’s, but somehow Game of Thrones missed out on what the competition did there. And you know what? I would have settled for a marginalized representation, say two main male characters to one main playable female. But no main controllable female characters? My money is going elsewhere. I suggest you consider doing the same.
(And Cyanide, your graphics kinda suck).
So this was the episode they have all been talking about, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Kit Harington, each of whom have both stated this was their favorite episode they shot this year. Well, what did you think? Was it worth the hype?
Seemed to me the pacing was a little sluggish at times, like the Jaime x Alston Lannister scene but I did like Jaime’s head-butt and subsequent strangling. Good way to add some Jaime-centric drama. Otherwise Ygritte was yet again wonderful, and Catelyn owned. Still haven’t seen that Sansa x Sandor scene in the stairway, that has to be next week, right?
Updates when I have ‘em!
This week on Sloppy Seconds, in the 16th Episode of Game of Thrones, The Old Gods and the New, we learn that heads be rolling, Doreah is a dirty word, Ygritte is a saucy minx, and the dragon is officially awake. Prepare yourselves and check out my thoughts beneath the cut.
I suppose it is finally time to run some long overdue updates that I really ought to do and which I haven’t really cared to do. I’m also going to fix up some of the pages, I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, don’t panic if the site is inaccessible for a few minutes, it shouldn’t take long to get this done and over with. (Hopefully).
Damn straight.
Update: The updates have been… updated. Also, still combing over the old pages in order to.. update those but we know have a ‘Staff‘ page, riveting isn’t it?