Grape and Violins on Television!

Pictured: George R. R. Martin doing
publicity for GOT. Not pictured: him
working on goddamn Book Six. 

Um, so Game of Thrones the other night. I uh...what the hell? Look, George R. R. Martin wrote a pretty dark series, which admittedly I kind of gave up on when it became clear that book six would be hitting sometime in the late 2070's, but the scene in question doesn't even happen in the novels. I guess the TV series' writers just decided that the show didn't include enough wedding rape. I'm not going to get into details, both to avoid spoiling plot points and because the details are depressing and gross.

Above: twins Jamie and Cersei about to-
you know what? Let's just move on...

If you don't follow the show, or haven't kept up, it's kind of like that now. Unrelentingly grim I mean, particularly in its treatment of women and LGBT characters. The series is set in a pseudo medieval world where everyone's constantly scheming for more power and that's great, but where it started off with elaborate palace intrigue, inter-house politics and a sort of looming, supernatural threat, the series has kind of devolved into a show about people just being horrible to one another.

Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament:
100% more historically accurate than
anything on Game of Thrones.

I think there's an instinct to chalk up the cruelty and violence on the show to some kind of historical accuracy. As if life in the middle ages was nothing more than a brutal, disease-ridden and short existence with the wealthy elite routinely getting away with murder and women being bought and sold as property, which-yeah, ok, was probably kind of true, but isn't Game of Thrones supposed to be a fantasy? Sure, everyone dresses like they're going to a Ren Fair, but they're on some other planet with ice zombies and dragons. I mean, couldn't they lighten up a bit?

Hey, speaking of, what ever happened to the ice zombies and dragons? They've been teasing us with the prospect of Daenerys and her dragons battling not only the depraved medieval dickweeds of Westeros but also the unstoppable army of corpses from the north. Instead we've had nothing but five seasons of rape, torture and head-crushings. This show should be nothing but dragons and ice zombies.

Of course, given HBO's track record, we'd probably be subjected
to dragons having non-consensual sex with the zombies.

Next time on HBO's
Game of Legislative Procedure...

I don't know exactly when I turned into Emily Litella, but all these violins can't possibly be good for us. Sometimes horrible things happen to innocent victims on GOT and sometimes they happen to people who kind of deserve it, but we're enlightened 21st century viewers. Shouldn't we be wanting to see these characters work through their issues and grow as people? Ok, obviously not, that would be boring, but then so is the constant parade of horrors GOT has turned into. The violence just sort of blends into the background and at some point, you have to wonder if anyone is going to be left alive when the zombies show up to eat them.