Game of Thrones: Rape & Bestiality is now mainstream?

[Whipstitch]

What you just said about violence can apply to sex too though. The Lannisters twins straight up have an unsexy, explicit, ridiculous, overwrought relationship that shits all over good taste, and portraying that in ways tawdry and gross communicates things about them that just having Jaime write "I wish I could quit you" in his diary afterwards does not. Now, if you want to make the argument that the series would be better off with characters who feature better impulse control than that, i won't stop you, but that's also rather a different argument. I'm openly contemptuous of the idea that the tone and themes are not intertwined in the case of this series.

[Stubbazubba]

What you just said about violence can apply to sex too though.

Yes, that was the point. GRRM said graphic sex is just like graphic violence, and I'm saying that's true, but that doesn't mean that either is appropriate whenever sex or violence is part of the story. The same way "graphic" descriptions of food or eating or architecture is probably not particularly pertinent to the character arcs, even though food, eating, and architecture are definitely a part of the story.

I'm openly contemptuous of the idea that the tone and themes are not intertwined in the case of this series.

That I believe, but that's not the argument Kaelik is making. He's saying that the plot doesn't make sense without graphic sex scenes, which, based on his examples, I don't believe.

[Mask_De_H]

The problem with GRRM isn't the weird sex or the violence, it's the gratuitousness of everything. The food, the architecture, the boning of teenagers, the prose. It's increasingly self-indulgent.

But on topic, this question is really dumb and outside of the HBO mandated hookers and boobs, the HBO series cuts almost all of that and the other gratuitous bits out. Nobody wants that in their TV, nobody wants it in their (unerotic) role-playing, it is not acceptable to the "general public".

[Neurosis]

In the books, sex is explicitly talked about relatively rarely, and is often plot important.

In the show, hookers be hooking, because how could you listen to words without boobies on the screen.

QFT.

So Game of Thrones is the most torrented show in the world and a best selling novel series, and it features swords and bits of magic and dragons and lots of rape and sex and mutilation, incest and castration, and at least one guy turning into a dog to get fucked by an alpha wolf. And it's really popular and everyone has heard of it.

Has it influenced tabletop gaming though? Have any companies taken note and released products with an 'edginess' like Game of Thrones, not shying from barbarians raping everything or have druids get banged by their animal companions?

im not sure about the edginess but pathfinder kingmaker module is a clear rip off of game of thrones from succession struggle to coral the conqueror and his three dragons and every noble house having family words. not to mention many of Brevoys noble houses are rip offs of game of thrones families

such as House Orlovsky which is a pretty obvious cope of house Arryn from its eagle sigil to its neutrality and mountain fort oh and there words are high above while house Arryns words are as high as honor.

also House Rogarvia is clearly based on House Targaryen both were founded my foreign invaders who united the kingdom both invaders used three fire breathing dragons both built forts in their capitals House Targaryen built the red keep and House Rogarvia built the ruby fortress oh and if those fortress names are not close enough for you a Targaryen price was killed at a river that became know as the ruby ford. and both houses ended suddenly causing a succession struggle. House Rogarvia's words are"With Sword and Flame" and house Targaryen's words are Fire and Blood

finally House Surtova is a shameless rip off of house House Baratheon. House Baratheon's words are "Ours is the Fury" and House Surtova words are "Ours Is the Right" next both families are the current rulers of their respective countries in the aftermath of the first succession struggle. King Robert and king Noleski both both have brothers who rule over the traditional lands of their house Renly rules storms end and Domani Surtova rules ice port. one might also point out that house surtova also ripped off house Frey because both are decedents of pirate kings

Just gonna point out that ASOIAF is a "clear rip off" of this little thing called The War Of The Roses.

[Neurosis]

I haven't read the books or watched much of the show, but seriously? How many of these actually have to do with explicit details about the sex going on? Most of these plot points would be equally well served by fade-to-black or other narrative hand-waves, and then get on with the consequences of the act, but he writes the intricacies for the sheer indulgence of the sex scene. Nothing about the intricacies of the sex scene go on to matter, just the fact that sex was had. In that case, it's a sex scene for sex's sake. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with that, but to claim that "all sex scenes contain important plot points because sex has these consequences, therefore all the sex details are necessary" is untrue, because those details don't matter in the majority of cases. Characters can have sex without an explicit sex scene, y'know, and we can arrive to the majority of these plot points without them. The extra sex scenes are authorial indulgences, not critical plot points in and of themselves.

Gonna second Kaelik's assertion of you being a fucking idiot.

For starters, Daenerys is a 13 year old girl that is immediately and involuntarily sexualized by her brother, then by Khal Drogo, and these are things she has to deal with...later on when her hormones begin going crazy due to puberty, obscuring her judgement.

Describing these things in detail serve the story...because it is actually PART OF the story.

***

Also the worst case is that the story has some unnecessary sex in it. Oh no? There's also unnecessary food in it. I wasn't particularly offended by that, either.

[hyzmarca]

Doesn't D&D have carousing rules and random harlot tables?

Edit: Yes, it does.

[Doom]

What you just said about violence can apply to sex too though. The Lannisters twins straight up have an unsexy, explicit, ridiculous, overwrought relationship that shits all over good taste, and portraying that in ways tawdry and gross communicates things about them that just having Jaime write "I wish I could quit you" in his diary afterwards does not. Now, if you want to make the argument that the series would be better off with characters who feature better impulse control than that, i won't stop you, but that's also rather a different argument. I'm openly contemptuous of the idea that the tone and themes are not intertwined in the case of this series.

For what it's worth, Jaime does develop some decency and impulse control eventually. Apparently, most of one's capacity for evil is contained in the right hand...

[Chamomile]

As Chamomile said, we skip over most of the gratuitous violence in most fantasy works,

No, let's be clear here: We skip over most of the gratuitous violence in Game of Thrones. The majority of major battles are not directly described at all. It makes the page-long sex descriptions stand out much more, especially since any time consenting adults have sex (Cersei and Jaime, for example) we get about three sentences establishing that yes, they are having sex, and then Bran gets shoved out of a window (but his impact with the ground is also not described).

Dany's intimately described sexcapades start when she is thirteen. When I dropped the books because I was sick of the disproportionately detailed pedophilia, she was about fifteen.

[Whipstitch]

That I believe, but that's not the argument Kaelik is making. He's saying that the plot doesn't make sense without graphic sex scenes, which, based on his examples, I don't believe.

No, the argument that Kaelik was making is that sex is a social interaction and these interactions can be a plot point just as easily as icylordshadow's hypothetical plot significant meal can be. As far as sweeping judgments go I don't think that statement is any more inane than claiming that a book you haven't read uses the intricacies primarily as an excuse to justify the portrayal of sex as opposed to sex being a motivator that makes the intricacies explicable. Your stance rather implies that the series is merely the world's least efficient erotica delivery vehicle, which rather undersells all the shit that's actually going on in the books.

Also, bonus round:

0) An entire fucking war is really started about who gets to fuck Lyanna Stark.
1) Bastards are born that set the entire fucking thing in motion.
2) A Kid gets pushed off a tower and breaks his fucking spine.
3) The Wildlings tentatively accept that Jon Snow has forsaken the Black.
4) Danni gets pregnant and miscarries and can never have kids again.
5) Tyrion. Everything about Tyrion. Tyrion and ?Tyra? Tyrion and Shae. Even and especially the part where she has sex with Tywin, because otherwise he might not even be dead.
6) Walder Frey feels slighted, thus Red Wedding.

0. Motivated by lust, no explicit sex in the books.
1. Motivated by lust, no explicit sex in the books.
2. Witnessed but markedly unsexy, absolute proof of the Queen's super important infidelity and her brother's general status as a shit-heel. It is seen from the perspective of a 7 year old, so while it's clear they were banging it's described like "Huh, naked wrestling... the dude must be winning because she is pretty loud." The scene is certainly sensationalist, but I'm at a loss as to how omitting the spartan description of sex would actually make it any better since the bluntness of the whole thing sets the stage for so much that follows. You could hypothetically write your way around it by making the Arryns more important and competent or something but that level of re-writing is in itself an implicit acknowledgement of how much the scene actually matters and in any case the incest itself is still integral to later events.
3. This always hit me as one the least defensible bits, but whatever, I've skimmed through worse.
4. Danni's sex life features heaps of characterization and motivations for later stuff but, yeah, it never has been or will be fun and I understand how it's a bridge too far for many people.
5. Tyrion's entire life is like an emasculation themed Aristocrats style anti-joke. It's ham-handed and sensationalist, but tons of stuff would make way less sense without it.
6. Walder Frey feels slighted because a betrothal was broken due to lust, no explicit sex in the books.

Seriously, Kaelik's list isn't all that bad, really.

Anyway, in the interest of full disclosure, I do believe there's fair a bit of tossed off one-line fan (dis)service in the books that exists for little reason but grimdark tone and self-indulgence. Even so, the sex trumps intricacy angle still seems to fall rather flat since he seems rather happy to go all minimalist on you when it really becomes time to drop the hammer on a character. Martin has his weird quirks, but the main thrust of the series does not actually read like a pizza delivery porn.

[Kaelik]

That I believe, but that's not the argument Kaelik is making. He's saying that the plot doesn't make sense without graphic sex scenes, which, based on his examples, I don't believe.

You are a colossal fucking retard who cannot fucking read or think. Unsurprisingly, you are completely wrong. I explicitly told you that where graphic sex scenes are not need, they are not present.

I told you this because you are a complete retard decrying the presence of graphic sex scenes that don't exist, because you haven't read the fucking books.

I have pointed out over and over that there aren't very many graphic sex scenes in the first place, and therefore your stupid assertion that they exist for the sure wanton joy of writing them is fucking stupid.

If you can't even learn to read what people are saying to you, then you don't get to claim to understand what they are arguing. Not that your inability to read has stopped you yet, since this began with you decrying the many graphic sex scenes you have never read that don't exist.

[Stubbazubba]

-snip-

-snip-

I'm gonna break forum rules here and say OK, you're right. It looked like Kaelik was saying that this list of graphic sex scenes was necessary because of these consequences, and I explained my argument against that proposition. Looking back, I thought icyshadowlord was making a much more nuanced criticism of the work, and I thought Kaelik's list was something it wasn't. Mea culpa.

[flare22]

Just gonna point out that ASOIAF is a "clear rip off" of this little thing called The War Of The Roses.

While ill admit their are similarieties their are many clear differances and asoiaf is not the first book to take influence from history and its mostly original material while brevoy is mostly a copy and makes no effort to stand on its own merits

[Omegonthesane]

Just gonna point out that ASOIAF is a "clear rip off" of this little thing called The War Of The Roses.

While ill admit their are similarieties their are many clear differances and asoiaf is not the first book to take influence from history and its mostly original material while brevoy is mostly a copy and makes no effort to stand on its own merits

More to the point only the War of the Five Kings is a WotR expy, and even then with its own subtleties - for an obvious example, squid-emblem Vikings who frown on market economies on religious grounds weren't a thing in that period (I'm less confident about saying they weren't a thing ever other than the squid emblem.)

EDIT: overdue spelling errors, modified phrasing

[flare22]

One of the reasons I love the series is because dispite it having fantasy elements george rr martin take no prisoners when it comes to making court life in the seven kingdoms as true to dark ages europe as possible. This includes the practice of wemon getting married very soon after they became capable of having children often to older men. While shocking today this was comen practice in the middle ages mainly for three reasons

1.The nobility wanted hairs as soon as possible and as many as possible for succession purposes.
2Wemon got married off at younger ages then men because the faster they started having kids the more they could have before their biological clock ran out
3 deaths during child birth were common so men often remarried after losing their wives thus older men married younger for their second marages

Thus I find the sex in the books in fairly good taste he never went into to much detail but also never clossed over the reality of the situation dani got married and she had to have sex with her husband and wether it was pleasant or not your first time changes your for ever and thus is integral to a charecters development as is the developing relationship with khal drogo with since he was still learing to speak her language another good piece of realism she had to use other means to camunicate with him at first including physical camunication

Pardon my bad spelling my computers on the fritz and I have been humbled by how much I take spell check forgranted