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[personal profile] jack
Nudity in the TV series

I thought some of the nudity was very natural. Tyrion or someone going out and having a night of debauchery is one of the things that was implicit in the books, but a lot more vivid when you actually see it.

But on the other hand, some was rather gratuitous. The first time Dany was with Drogo, the camera stayed for extended shots of her, which seemed inappropriate and wrong: we're not supposed to be enjoying this, couldn't the same message be conveyed equally well without any nudity?

Dany and Drogo, vs Cersei and Robert

It occurred to me that in many ways Dany and Drogo, and Cersei and Robert are in quite a similar situation, except that we learn about the first from Dany's point of view, and the second more from Robert's.

But we get to Cersei's point of view late. We start off just knowing her as scheming and conniving. But when we get to her viewpoint, we learn that she was frustrated that she wasn't groomed for combat and ruling like Jaime. And that she was happy to be married to Robert, but that he'd never really cared for her other than as a random trophy, and was generally disgusted by him. And when the secret about her children starts to come out, she's probably right to say that if she'd just let events take their course, her children stood a good chance of being killed, and it's hard to say she was wrong for taking chances, even dangerous ones, to prevent that.

Of course, she does mess up a lot. She's way too ready to assume the right answer to something is "I should be in charge of the country". And too ready to kill Robert -- that didn't really help.

I doubt other people saw it the way I did, but I found it ever so moving when I realised that this person who'd been previously presented as an "other" was suddenly very sympathetic.

Of course, the trouble is, that people are right that in the first book she and the other Lannisters aren't really presented as anything other than villains. You can read it as Ned being as flawed as the Lannisters in different ways, but nothing makes you do so, and we mostly naturally read it in a "Starks = good, Lannisters = bad" way.

Date: 2012-06-24 07:59 pm (UTC)
mathcathy: number ball (Default)
From: [personal profile] mathcathy
I'm thinking of something in either book 4 or 5 where her thoughts are reflected and it's clear that Jaime wanted to publicly acknowledge their relationship and she was ambitious and clearly wanted to marry power.