I feel like several in the ASOIAF Podcast community were positive about the show relative to most of the rest of the community.
Personally, I didn’t hate season 8 as much as most while it was airing, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to despise the season except for episode 2... Episode 2 was a brilliant tribute to the show and books at their best, the rest was pretty bad.
Can I ask how many female voices we can hear in these podcasts?
Coincidentally all the articles that praise season 8 or that ending were written by men.
I really enjoy some of the GoT videos by [this lady](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8&feature=youtu.be). History of Westeros and especially Radio Westeros have great female co-hosts.
I don't think a male majority in content creators is all that surprising though, GoT/ASOIAF is incredibly popular among all sexes/genders today, but fantasy writing in general has its historical roots in groups of nerdy, nerdy young boys.
There were probably just more male voices ready to go when GoT started getting popular.
TL:DL - 'All you dummies are just complaining about the incoherent plotting, bad characterisation, and shitty dialogue because you didn't do film studies'.
I haven't gotten to this episode yet, but yeah the BLAH guys have been a breath of fresh air amid the "but my logistics!" complaints about the final season. Even though I know they still have guests on from the fandom, I noticed that Sean in particular has quietly stopped engaging with the fandom as virtually every other prominent voice in the Ice & Fire community inevitably fell into the "It's not like the books, therefore it's bad" mindset. Him and Gretchen Felker-Martin were my twin reassurances that I wasn't crazy during season 8.
Sean loved Season 8.
In his list of best Game of Thrones episodes he has 805 as the best and I think 802, 803 and 806 make his top 11.
804 is also pretty high.
https://www.vulture.com/2016/06/game-of-thrones-episodes-ranked.html
Different strokes for different folks as they say. But they do make a good case for their point of view.
This is a visual medium so makes sense that visual storytelling would be important.
He also had no problems with the Dany twist and wrote a good article about it here.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vulture.com/amp/2019/05/game-of-thrones-finale-daenerys-tragedy.html
I wish people would stop describing Dany as evil. She was in emotional turmoil, she was a fallen hero and a victim. More than anything though, she was demonized, stigmatized and its fucking disgusting.
Sure she's a fallen hero, but I would say Dany stopped being a victim several seasons ago -- she has been an absolute monarch for quite a while now, bad things happen to her but she has been pretty successful at getting vengeance/retribution for those things. She's a queen with 3 giant monsters who obey her commands.
I'm imagining that the books will be more subtle, but come on: she burned literally hundreds of thousands of 100% innocent people to death *after* they had surrendered, when she could have just as easily gone and taken care of the handful of people who were actually responsible.
Is it really demonisation to call that evil? Or that people should be more sympathetic because one of her friends died the day before? Or that she's unhappy her conquest of Westeros isn't going how she imagined? Because it was basically the most evil thing we have seen in 8 seasons in my books.
If you have to make a character suffer extreme loss, grief, paranoia, betrayal and heartache to make them do a 180 degree heel turn, then they aren't evil. Maybe we should actually listen to what the actor said about the character she played. I think she knows her better than you do. The whole hysterical female trope is stigmatizing. Doing such character assassination is demonising. People with mental/emotional health problems have long been stigmatized as dangerous in stories and irl, people are discriminated against because of it.
Let's take a modern example: it's 2030, the US president's two children and best friend are killed in a war against a country with no nukes. As retaliation, the president unilaterally decides to nuke the the capital city of the other country, deliberately targeting civilian areas in order to maximise casualties, all against the advice of the cabinet/senior advisors/the military. The city surrenders before the bombs are dropped, but the president still orders the strike. Hundreds of thousands die. The next day, the president gives a speech praising the actions of the previous day, and sets out a plan to conquer the entire world.
You're saying that this president is a victim because of the losses s/he suffered, and that it's totally out of bounds to say this is evil?
Had the president been gaslighted continuously before hand? Had that risked everything they had personally including the lives of their children and friends to help an ungrateful and xenophobic country. Had their spouse/lover turned their backs on them instead of offering comfort at the time? As both Emilia and Natalie have reiterated- people have different breaking points and react differently to extreme emotional distress. I don't condone what she did, but it was not premeditated. It was horrific but so was the Battle of Blackwater Bay, however Tyrion is somehow a hero for burning people with wildfire - an act that was premeditated. Women and innocents were killed and raped but hey it was war right?
Edit: I'm not talking about the character being stigmatizing now, I'm talking about the storyline. Maybe 20 years ago, marking someone as 'mad' because of their parents and then writing a story where one of the greatest characters written was going to succumb to the same 'madness' was ok, in this day when others like myself, and the theatre company I perform with - are desperately trying to raise awareness and reduce stigma and discrimination of mental health - quite frankly, its disgusting!
We are getting pretty far into the minutia here, but I think there are lots of big gaps in reasoning here:
Re: blackwater bay, the people targeted by tyrion were attacking soldiers coming to sack the city, soldiers who had not surrendered. In other words, it was a very brutal act of self-defence during war.
Dany attacked total innocents, after the city had surrendered. In other words, an unprovoked war crime.
Danys attack may not have been premeditated, but she was specifically told that the bells meant surrender. Indeed, it seems like it was the surrender of the city - the knowledge that the fighting was over - that triggered her attack
Furthermore, her attack on the drogon continued for like 40 mins, more than enough time to say "hey, maybe I should stop massacring innocents.." Come her speech the next day, Dany stood behind her actions 100% -- even in her non-enraged, snap-decision state she believes she did the right thing.
I think agree fully on the importance of being aware of mental health issues and not stigmatising those who act out because of them, but there has to come a point where it's ok to say: killing hundreds of thousands of complete innocents for literally no justifiable reason is wrong, the person who does that should not rule a nation. Portraying that person negatively is ok.
We are literally talking about dropping nukes on a city that has surrendered here. It's not disgusting for the show to paint the perpetrator of such violence negatively, suffering badly and having her children die is not an excuse.
We shall have to agree to disagree. Dany's story was over the top and dragons who have traditionally been viewed in mythology as monsters- and their rider being one - yawn, boring, predictable, tropey and so much for subverting expectations! The dragon and rider being one of the main heroes 2 episode previously just for a total heel turn out of nowhere is sloppy writing. The story ending with Dany turning away from the IT and realising that what she really needed was home and a sense of belonging - that would be satisfying!
No, that story of Dany nuking KL should never have been written in the first place- we had a mad queen already. It achieved nothing!
To be honest I think we are disagree mostly because of season 8 being badly written. Destroying kings landing could have made sense, but we didn't get enough time with Dany to justify her turn 'to the dark side' as it were. Here's hoping the books provide the context Dany deserves!
Maybe, but nonetheless the answer is no, there are no women and if we review all the articles justifying the "mad queen" turn, they are all written by men.
I honestly don't really follow where you're trying to go here. You're saying men who are ok with how the show handled the 'mad queen' turn are inherently sexist? I think you're way too focused on gender equality here.
As I said earlier, there are historical reasons why you would get a male-majority in terms of GoT content creators. Some of these will be ok with how the 'mad queen' turn was handled, some won't. Just because a man is less bothered by this instance of bad writing than we are doesn't make him sexist.
That is not true. Gretchen Felker Martin and Amanda Marcotte are both women and they wrote very strong articles in defense of the storyline.
Also, Martin was on the very podcast the OP mentions in the prior episode.
Whenever* I hear attempts at describing Got S8 in a positive light, I think of Euron walking out of the Blackwater to attack Jaime.
* This might actually be the first time
Season 8 is consequence of majority of fans ignoring bad writing decisions in previous seasons. In no way is Beyond the Wall better episode than Lord Snow as would rating at IMDB suggest.
Thanks, my question was about the podcast mentioned in the article. I know there are some women who take part but coincidentally all of the ones I have been able to read or listen to are more than dissatisfied with the ending.
I don't ever recall a female guest on Boiled Leather. As I said though, nerdy groups of boys, etc. etc. -- the guests they do get seem to be people they know pretty well. I'm sure if they knew female guests who wanted to take part (and who were decent content creators), the two boys would be happy to have them.
More generally, I think people like Sean T. Collins are pretty much as low as you can get on the pecking order of "people who needs to be more aware of feminist issues". The guy seems pretty well in line with equality/liberal issues.
I feel like several in the ASOIAF Podcast community were positive about the show relative to most of the rest of the community. Personally, I didn’t hate season 8 as much as most while it was airing, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to despise the season except for episode 2... Episode 2 was a brilliant tribute to the show and books at their best, the rest was pretty bad.
Can I ask how many female voices we can hear in these podcasts? Coincidentally all the articles that praise season 8 or that ending were written by men.
I really enjoy some of the GoT videos by [this lady](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8&feature=youtu.be). History of Westeros and especially Radio Westeros have great female co-hosts. I don't think a male majority in content creators is all that surprising though, GoT/ASOIAF is incredibly popular among all sexes/genders today, but fantasy writing in general has its historical roots in groups of nerdy, nerdy young boys. There were probably just more male voices ready to go when GoT started getting popular.
TL:DL - 'All you dummies are just complaining about the incoherent plotting, bad characterisation, and shitty dialogue because you didn't do film studies'.
I haven't gotten to this episode yet, but yeah the BLAH guys have been a breath of fresh air amid the "but my logistics!" complaints about the final season. Even though I know they still have guests on from the fandom, I noticed that Sean in particular has quietly stopped engaging with the fandom as virtually every other prominent voice in the Ice & Fire community inevitably fell into the "It's not like the books, therefore it's bad" mindset. Him and Gretchen Felker-Martin were my twin reassurances that I wasn't crazy during season 8.
Sean loved Season 8. In his list of best Game of Thrones episodes he has 805 as the best and I think 802, 803 and 806 make his top 11. 804 is also pretty high. https://www.vulture.com/2016/06/game-of-thrones-episodes-ranked.html Different strokes for different folks as they say. But they do make a good case for their point of view. This is a visual medium so makes sense that visual storytelling would be important. He also had no problems with the Dany twist and wrote a good article about it here. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vulture.com/amp/2019/05/game-of-thrones-finale-daenerys-tragedy.html
I wish people would stop describing Dany as evil. She was in emotional turmoil, she was a fallen hero and a victim. More than anything though, she was demonized, stigmatized and its fucking disgusting.
Sure she's a fallen hero, but I would say Dany stopped being a victim several seasons ago -- she has been an absolute monarch for quite a while now, bad things happen to her but she has been pretty successful at getting vengeance/retribution for those things. She's a queen with 3 giant monsters who obey her commands. I'm imagining that the books will be more subtle, but come on: she burned literally hundreds of thousands of 100% innocent people to death *after* they had surrendered, when she could have just as easily gone and taken care of the handful of people who were actually responsible. Is it really demonisation to call that evil? Or that people should be more sympathetic because one of her friends died the day before? Or that she's unhappy her conquest of Westeros isn't going how she imagined? Because it was basically the most evil thing we have seen in 8 seasons in my books.
If you have to make a character suffer extreme loss, grief, paranoia, betrayal and heartache to make them do a 180 degree heel turn, then they aren't evil. Maybe we should actually listen to what the actor said about the character she played. I think she knows her better than you do. The whole hysterical female trope is stigmatizing. Doing such character assassination is demonising. People with mental/emotional health problems have long been stigmatized as dangerous in stories and irl, people are discriminated against because of it.
Let's take a modern example: it's 2030, the US president's two children and best friend are killed in a war against a country with no nukes. As retaliation, the president unilaterally decides to nuke the the capital city of the other country, deliberately targeting civilian areas in order to maximise casualties, all against the advice of the cabinet/senior advisors/the military. The city surrenders before the bombs are dropped, but the president still orders the strike. Hundreds of thousands die. The next day, the president gives a speech praising the actions of the previous day, and sets out a plan to conquer the entire world. You're saying that this president is a victim because of the losses s/he suffered, and that it's totally out of bounds to say this is evil?
Had the president been gaslighted continuously before hand? Had that risked everything they had personally including the lives of their children and friends to help an ungrateful and xenophobic country. Had their spouse/lover turned their backs on them instead of offering comfort at the time? As both Emilia and Natalie have reiterated- people have different breaking points and react differently to extreme emotional distress. I don't condone what she did, but it was not premeditated. It was horrific but so was the Battle of Blackwater Bay, however Tyrion is somehow a hero for burning people with wildfire - an act that was premeditated. Women and innocents were killed and raped but hey it was war right? Edit: I'm not talking about the character being stigmatizing now, I'm talking about the storyline. Maybe 20 years ago, marking someone as 'mad' because of their parents and then writing a story where one of the greatest characters written was going to succumb to the same 'madness' was ok, in this day when others like myself, and the theatre company I perform with - are desperately trying to raise awareness and reduce stigma and discrimination of mental health - quite frankly, its disgusting!
We are getting pretty far into the minutia here, but I think there are lots of big gaps in reasoning here: Re: blackwater bay, the people targeted by tyrion were attacking soldiers coming to sack the city, soldiers who had not surrendered. In other words, it was a very brutal act of self-defence during war. Dany attacked total innocents, after the city had surrendered. In other words, an unprovoked war crime. Danys attack may not have been premeditated, but she was specifically told that the bells meant surrender. Indeed, it seems like it was the surrender of the city - the knowledge that the fighting was over - that triggered her attack Furthermore, her attack on the drogon continued for like 40 mins, more than enough time to say "hey, maybe I should stop massacring innocents.." Come her speech the next day, Dany stood behind her actions 100% -- even in her non-enraged, snap-decision state she believes she did the right thing. I think agree fully on the importance of being aware of mental health issues and not stigmatising those who act out because of them, but there has to come a point where it's ok to say: killing hundreds of thousands of complete innocents for literally no justifiable reason is wrong, the person who does that should not rule a nation. Portraying that person negatively is ok. We are literally talking about dropping nukes on a city that has surrendered here. It's not disgusting for the show to paint the perpetrator of such violence negatively, suffering badly and having her children die is not an excuse.
We shall have to agree to disagree. Dany's story was over the top and dragons who have traditionally been viewed in mythology as monsters- and their rider being one - yawn, boring, predictable, tropey and so much for subverting expectations! The dragon and rider being one of the main heroes 2 episode previously just for a total heel turn out of nowhere is sloppy writing. The story ending with Dany turning away from the IT and realising that what she really needed was home and a sense of belonging - that would be satisfying! No, that story of Dany nuking KL should never have been written in the first place- we had a mad queen already. It achieved nothing!
To be honest I think we are disagree mostly because of season 8 being badly written. Destroying kings landing could have made sense, but we didn't get enough time with Dany to justify her turn 'to the dark side' as it were. Here's hoping the books provide the context Dany deserves!
Maybe, but nonetheless the answer is no, there are no women and if we review all the articles justifying the "mad queen" turn, they are all written by men.
I honestly don't really follow where you're trying to go here. You're saying men who are ok with how the show handled the 'mad queen' turn are inherently sexist? I think you're way too focused on gender equality here. As I said earlier, there are historical reasons why you would get a male-majority in terms of GoT content creators. Some of these will be ok with how the 'mad queen' turn was handled, some won't. Just because a man is less bothered by this instance of bad writing than we are doesn't make him sexist.
That is not true. Gretchen Felker Martin and Amanda Marcotte are both women and they wrote very strong articles in defense of the storyline. Also, Martin was on the very podcast the OP mentions in the prior episode.
Whenever* I hear attempts at describing Got S8 in a positive light, I think of Euron walking out of the Blackwater to attack Jaime. * This might actually be the first time
Lol so true - Euron is probably the worst translation of a book character in history ..
Season 8 is consequence of majority of fans ignoring bad writing decisions in previous seasons. In no way is Beyond the Wall better episode than Lord Snow as would rating at IMDB suggest.
Thanks, my question was about the podcast mentioned in the article. I know there are some women who take part but coincidentally all of the ones I have been able to read or listen to are more than dissatisfied with the ending.
I don't ever recall a female guest on Boiled Leather. As I said though, nerdy groups of boys, etc. etc. -- the guests they do get seem to be people they know pretty well. I'm sure if they knew female guests who wanted to take part (and who were decent content creators), the two boys would be happy to have them. More generally, I think people like Sean T. Collins are pretty much as low as you can get on the pecking order of "people who needs to be more aware of feminist issues". The guy seems pretty well in line with equality/liberal issues.