Game of Thrones review

[PatrickC]

I would really enjoy Stef's persopective on the Game of Thrones series.. Particularly the perspective on family obligation and the experience of childhood for some of the characters.

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzI9v_B4sxw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzI9v_B4sxw

Cant seem to embed the video.

[Guest NateC]

HTTP Secure, I removed the 's'

[VIEW:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzI9v_B4sxw]

[PatrickC]

thanks

[Kevin Beal]

I usually don't like violent TV shows, but I've seen every episode of GoT so far (except yesterday's), and it's one of the most violent shows I can think of. It would be interesting to get Stef's take I think, but what do you think of it Xelent?

I literally had to turn away for a lot of the first season when all these people get graphically murdered, and yet I keep watching. I think it's actually a lot to do with rage, personally.

I just listened to this awesome sunday show from 2009 FDR#902 where Stef talks about the distinction he makes between hatred and rage and that really resonated with me. Like trying to get the bad guy instead of getting the bad guy the hell away.

I notice I have this tendency to want to get the people that are spreading pretty toxic stuff, and through a lot of the GoT series I kept wanting the Lanister family to pay for the fucked up shit they did. Vengeance is probably the core theme I would say. Even the snow people were getting revenge by the end.

I must admit to having a couple revenge fantasies of my own, which may be the reason I am so drawn to the show.

I don't know if that makes much sense, but that's where I would go with it. What do you think?

[PatrickC]

Yes, the vengeance makes complete sense.

I agree that the violence is often more than one can bear to watch or listen too at times. I think the show has a way of enhancing the violent scenes with sound effects and facial expressions, making the scene much less gory than you first imagine. But that said, there were some scenes I simply had to look away from.

My interest in the story was with the family mythology which is everywhere within this series. Characters like Theon Greyjoy who was abandoned by his father with the Stark family. Theon considers himself as a prisoner of the Starks and rightly understand his fathers hatred of him. He spent much of the second series attempting to regain his father’s love haplessly, by doing some of the most atrocious and despicable things. He utterly destroys his relationship with the Stark family. But given Theons history brought up within a family that eulogised the family. He then finds himself being completely rejected by his own and never truly accepted as a part of the Starks. He is a deeply tragic character consumed by the family myth.

For me the whole series is about peoples relationships with their family. Tyrion positively feels obligated to be out manoeuvring all the members of his family. John Snow is constantly seeking honour as a means to overcoming the name as the ‘bastard’ son of Stark. I'd be curious to get Stef's take on this and particularly the unconscious motives of the writer as well.

I find the writing simply superb. The way one moment you can feel such absolute terror with a character and the next moment you could almost shed a tear for them. I think that can be quite bewildering for some listener’s, but is a mark of a brilliant writer I think.

[Flake]

 

. Vengeance is probably the core theme I would say. Even the snow people were getting revenge by the end.

 

If you meant that the main reason you like the show is because of fantasies of vengeance I can't argue with that. What I think you meant was that the core theme of the show / novel is vengeance, which is a possibility, but I think the core theme of the book is power. With a title like Game of Thrones that's what came to mind when I first started reading the novels, after reading all the novels so far, I'm inclined to think that power is still the core theme. Some are trying to seize it, some are trying to keep it, and the vengeance seems to be a side effect of people's various struggles to get / keep power. (I haven't watched the show so it might be different from the book.)

[Steinhauser]

[spoiler ALERT]

So who saw the first episode of season 3? Remember when Joffery's new fiancee went down to the orphanage? I thought that was brilliant.

 

At first, it looks like she's doing some charity for the poor children, out of the kindness of her heart. But listen to what she tells the children: "Your father was a brave soldier, who died in defense of the king."

Those children would probably have grown up to be violent criminals, resentful toward the king and the system who took their fathers from them, and left them with nothing.

By framing their fathers as noble heroes who died at the hands of the king's enemies, while defending a just cause, instead those kids are going to grow up to be violent soldiers, bent on revenge against the enemies of the king.

 

Before discovering Stefan's work, I would never have noticed that. Or any of the hundreds of other causal links between adult violence and child abuse the show is about.

[PatrickC]

So who saw the first episode of season 3? Remember when Joffery's new fiancee went down to the orphanage? I thought that was brilliant.

Yes, a quite machiavellian moment I thought. at least psychologically.. well spotted!