#this is not hating on game of thrones the show

[maxdibert]

Omg Sansa Starkk!!!! The TV show did her so dirty. Holy shit, they took a complicated layered character (every character of asoiaf is complicated and layered actually) and gave her the most dismissive interpretation possible.

Fuck, when I heard the criticism against game of thrones, it being sexist and the depiction of violence against women, teenager me dismissed it. Then I read the books, and I agree with every criticism 😭

Sansa irritated me in the first couple episodes of season 1, until everything turned and it became a helish nightmare for her and then I felt immense sympathy for her. In the books, she became my instant favorite.

Even Arya had more layers and complexity in the books. Arya was much more human in the books, loved it.

The show assassinated several characters—it didn’t just simplify some, like Sansa, but outright destroyed others. For example, they turned Arya into a complete psychopath, period. The Arya from the last three or four seasons had literally zero personality; she was just a badass who killed people, that’s it. She would put on her psycho killer face, and that was her entire character. She was only there so the male audience could jerk off.

And then there’s Daenerys’ character assassination. And listen, this is coming from someone who can’t stand Daenerys and found her chapters in the books unbearably boring. But even so, I can’t stand it when characters are disrespected in certain ways, and what they did to Daenerys at the end was a complete disgrace. She went from being one of the main characters, always framed as good, positive, and revolutionary by the narrative, to literally a crazy, sociopathic, genocidal maniac—it made zero sense. I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened. Sure, you could spend two more seasons showing how she descends into madness. But don’t do it in three episodes—that’s just pure nonsense. Plain and simple.

And well, WELL—I won’t even get into the rant that is, for me, the biggest crime of the entire trash show: THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF JAIME LANNISTER. Jaime is one of my absolute favorite characters in the saga, and his redemption arc is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s truly a masterpiece of storytelling. I can accept that the show’s Jaime was more meh and had less charisma, but what I can’t accept is that after setting up a redemption arc so well, they ended it like that. Like, WHAT. They should have just killed him off during the Long Night—seriously, I wish they had done that. It would have been less painful. What a complete disaster.

Anyway, back to Sansa. She has always been my favorite character from the very beginning, in both the books and the show. I also think she’s a particularly interesting character when it comes to analyzing misogyny within fandoms. Both book Sansa and show Sansa get endless hate for one simple reason: she’s a normal girl. Sansa isn’t a dragon queen, she isn’t a ruler, she isn’t a rebel like her sister. Sansa is just a regular aristocratic girl with regular dreams for a girl of her age and status—someone who has always lived in a bubble. And her reactions, her doubts, and her fears are exactly what any normal person in her situation would have.

And that’s what audiences can’t stand—first, because she’s a reflection of themselves, since most people would act and react like Sansa, not like Arya. And second, because in a patriarchal view of women, a female character is only acceptable if she has traditionally masculine traits (she leads like a man, fights like a man, speaks like a man). A female character with flaws, whose personality isn’t masculine but also doesn’t cater to male fantasies, is unacceptable—so she becomes a constant target.

So yeah, as I’ve been saying for over ten years: hating Sansa Stark is misogyny, and I will not elaborate on this because I don’t do free education for misogynists.

[elliesgaymachete]

I think Game of Thrones damaged collective expectations for television media and is the reason for the decline of full length low budget seasons.

We all know HBO is high budget cable even before, but Game of Thrones was arguably the first time one of their shows became so massively, globally successful. People who had never consumed fantasy media in their lives were watching Game of Thrones. It became mainstream culture rather than nerd culture so your coworkers weren’t going to make fun of you for liking it. In fact, your coworkers probably watched it too.

Before this the only TV shows that achieved anywhere close to this level of popularity (and even then were not nearly as popular as Game of Thrones) were network shows, usually TV comedies. These were low budget and had full seasons! Things like HIMYM, Big Bang Theory, The Office. You either watched them or knew multiple people who watched them. Sometimes TV dramas also reached this level of popularity—Shondaland shows to name a few. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder. Even if you didn’t watch them, you had heard of them. These were also network shows. Low budgets, 22 episodes. Not to mention network television is FREE so it has the potential to reach a much wider audience than cable.

But Game of Thrones exploded into common popularity. Even people who didn’t watch much television watched Game of Thrones. And you know what they had because it’s an HBO show? Insanely high budgets and 10 episode seasons. They were basically making ten short movies released as TV seasons. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that itself, it worked well for Game of Thrones. The problem is how its affected television production since then. Sure shorter seasons and miniseries have existed before, but it feels like they’ve been in an upward trend ever since Game of Thrones

Every studio with a streaming service wants to create the next mega popular phenomenon like Game of Thrones so they copy the formula. Big budget, shorter seasons. Quality over quantity. But in doing so they neglected the main format television has used for quite a while. Network seasons are fewer and far between with smaller budgets and shorter seasons so they can invest more in the high budget shows. And a few of them were good, but somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the quality part and throw microbudgets at shows for six episode runs and are surprised when no one gets invested after only six episodes when we used to get 22 episodes and since no one’s watching anyway they just cancel it without giving the show a chance to find its legs. If it happens to get a lucky with a second season but there’s not EXPONENTIAL growth in viewership? Cancelled. Why is no one watching tv anymore? Why does no one want to pay for our streaming service that releases maybe one show you like every other year? Why why why they ask when they ruined a perfectly good formula and make things less and less accessible

[a-chaotic-dumbass]

i hate the idea of sansa ending up as this cold ice queen when through out the books one of her defining characteristics has been kindness. kindness to dontos when joffrey wanted him executed, kindness to the woman with the baby during the riot, kindness to an injured lancel despite cersei's words, kindness through warning margaery of the type of person joffrey is, kindness to sandor clegane and sweetrobin in the vale. sansa even says that once she was queen, she'd wish to rule with kindness when cersei encourages her to rule with fear during the battle of the blackwater. i cant imagine a world where grrm would genuinely go with the idea that only once you refuse love and warmth can you rule

[puppeteerpoet]

Sansa stark they’ll never make me hate you

[spicy30]

Discovered tumblr too late and now my fandom for my show is damn near DEAD

[witchlingcirce]

I think about how there played by the same actor all the time bro

[nessberry]

"You can't hate this character because-" yall ain't real haters I'll hate whatever character i want and I don't care I'll hate a character so much it consumes my entire being just because I was annoyed the day they were introduced and they made a facial expression I dont fuck with or I didn't like they're tone in one (1) line character hating is half of media enrichment I fear

[seasononesam]

Stackednatural- 71/327

Slumber Party (9x04) October 29th, 2013

[captaincanonly]

none of these make sense. send help. i’ve gone woke…..

[danymst]

assembly distractions

sketch!!

[bloodyspector]

Shōgun getting renewed for multiple seasons when it was supposed to be a limited series while Dead Boy Detectives gets cancelled after one season is the clear example of everything that is wrong in the industry right now. Things either get milked so hard the audience eventually gets tired of the product (The Walking Dead and Grey's Anatomy) or it gets cut short because it didn't become the next Stranger Things.

[rynnthefangirl]

Just started (finally) reading the main ASOIAF series... why did nobody tell me that book!Jon was such a cutie pie?? Such a good boy?? That in his first POV scene he literally gets drunk, knocks over a serving girl and spills wine everywhere, and runs from the hall crying as everyone stares at him?? That he jumps for joy and spins Tyrion Lannister in a circle right in front of the men of the Night's Watch when he finds out Bran woke up??

Wtf did the show do to him, show!Jon is such a bland and boring character. Book!Jon I've only had for a chapter and a half, but if anything happens to him I will kill everyone in the series and then myself.

[kvtnisseverdeen]

The horrors I have just loosed cannot be for a crown alone. HOUSE OF THE DRAGON 2.04 “The Red Dragon & the Gold”

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

I feel like whenever we talk about Aemon the Dragonknight's love and devotion for a particular sibling of his we focus on the wrong one. The singers (and asoiaf fans alike) always speak of how much Aemon loved Naerys and how he would do anything for her. Except he didn't, if he truly loved her more than anything he could save her from the hands of Aegon, and would be willing to pay the price for it. But he did not. He duelled for her honour once, people say, but the only time he did actually fight for her was when he too was accused of treason (adultery) with her. He didn't keep Aegon from impregnating her after she made it clear she didn't want to suffer any more pregnancies, he didn't attempt to whisk her away or just seperate them temporarily (as even Baelor did) even though he was supposedly SO in love with her. And he certainly did not die for her.

Aemon died for his brother. He certainly argued with Aegon (because he did hold affection for Naerys) but he never truly opposed him in a way that mattered. He protected him more than he did anyone, even when Aegon wasn't the king he was sworn to, even before Aegon was a king at all. And at the end of the day Aemon died for Aegon. He could die for Naerys, he could defend her from Aegon and become a kingslayer, a kinslayer too, to protect her. But he chose to protect his brother with his life and he quite literally died for him, leaving behind Naerys to continue suffering her husband's abuse on her own until it killed her.

Aemon the Dragonknight loved his siblings (as arguably most Targaryens do in sometimes screwed-up ways), he loved them in different ways perhaps, but one of them mattered to him more than the other, enough to die for. And it was the one that had been nothing but cruel and hateful to him all his life.

[victorclays]

The thing that pisses me off most about the Arya/Gendry ... "ending"(????) is that... these two people love each other. It was such a good mix of stony girl who only smiles for her dude who can hold his own but is also a huuugggeee goof.

Like, his little rant about not even knowing how to hold a fork. And him just gushing and saying he loves her and needs her with him. And she smiles at him. And kisses him.

And then she says what she says and it hurts me everytime. Not because it isn't true. But because... Gendry KNOWS that. He knows she's not a lady. He's always known that.

It just hurts my heart that the writers thought Gendry didn't see her? Or at least that... she thought he didn't? Because in that moment he wasn't asking her to be A lady.

He was asking her to be HIS lady.

And he would have accepted her however and whoever she was. Like he always had. With a twinkle of mischief in his eyes as he called her "milady", waiting to see that smile.

[izzy140105]

Me when I found out that dumb and dumber never wanted or intended for Jon to kill the Night King despite all the build up for it: