Two Swords

I have been bad at posting of late, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) the new series of Game of Thrones just started, and I can always talk about that.

I was of mixed feelings before the first episode. On the one hand, I really like the show (sometimes I think I prefer it to the books, but that's at least a little bit because I want to know how the story ends, and I honestly think the show is the only reason we're going to get there in anything like a timely fashion) and the trailers were getting me really excited. On the other hand, the part of fandom I hang out in is mostly book-fans and there's a lot of negativity towards the show - of the HBO ruined everything variety. And I know I'm in a minority here, but while I have been annoyed by some of the changes the show has made, I genuinely think most of them are in the service of trimming the fat and making the narrative more streamlined and watchable. For instance, if Asha Yara was to go straight to the north and we were to skip the kingsmoot and never see a Greyjoy nuncle, I would never complain about the show ever again. That's a lie, but I still think that it would be the right way to go.

Of course, some of the changes are in the service of more boobs, and that's annoying for a different reason.

My other unpopular opinion is that I don't think the show is any worse at female characters, misogyny, or sexual violence than the books.The show is more exploitative, and in desperate need of some naked dudes to even things up (I vote for Oberyn Martell), but thus far I haven't felt that the show has fetishised sexual violence in the same way the books sometimes tilted at (Lollys Stokeworth and her fifty rapists). Dany was raped by Khal Drogo in the books, if not on her wedding night then definitely afterwards, and I had no problem with the show making that explicit.

Eek, that's quite a lot of words before I've even started talking about the new episode, so ( Two Swords )