I thought Amanda Marcotte's take on the episode was exactly on point: [link]
Having finally read it, I think it's absolutely not. I don't think you can flatly diagnose assholishness of people because they enjoyed seeing a despised character get narrative comeuppance (he's not effectively a child), and "it puts you in a position to do exactly what you just spent the last hour judging others over" is nothing if not an exaggeration. For a start, we haven't done anything or been reacting to real people, as they all have, in universe.
“You are all terrible people, sitting there on your couch, enjoying the sight of a child dying a painful death.”
Yeah, no.
“You are all terrible people, sitting there on your couch, enjoying the sight of a child dying a painful death.”
That bugged me too. I wasn't enjoying his death; I was transfixed, thinking what a terrible way to die that would be. Based on limited experience, choking/not being able to breath is a very terrifying feeling.
I'm glad he's dead, and I do wonder if maybe he should have suffered more for the things he did (jesus, those prostitutes), but there's some distance between that and being a cheering throng at a gladiatorial throwdown between slaves, or something.
Marcotte and I part ways on a whole host of things. I used to really like and respond well to her writing. Since pandagon fell, not so much.
that was her old site: pandagon.net she had with another main co-author. They blogged about 1-2x a day between them. Good posts back in the day.
They forgot to renew the domain name, so a squatter took it and wanted to charge them $10K to get it back.
Marcotte was and is one of my gateways into feminism, so I'm still a fan. And you know, if the piece didn't speak to you or your reaction to the episode, then it didn't. I didn't feel like it was telling me I should feel bad about feeling good about Joffrey's death. I don't know, maybe I should go back and read it again.
As for Pandagon, I miss Jesse Taylor (one of the other bloggers from Pandagon) as a blogger, frankly. I don't know if he's writing anywhere any more, but if he was, I'd love to read his stuff again.
I was thinking some more about the Sept sex scene, and I think I figured out what bothered me. Without having read the books, all i had to set up that scene was the past few episodes. In each one they emphasized poor woobie Jaime, who murdered people!, and lost his hand!, and never stopped trying to get home to Cersei!
Only to arrive and have her a) string him along for weeks, b) reject him, and pretty cruelly, too, and c) stand over the body of their dead child and ask him to murder his brother. Especially after he moans about the gods "making him a love a hateful woman," you could construe the whole chain of events as Cersei's fault, which is really loathsome victim blaming.
I think part of it was the way some of those scenes were shot and framed -- the earlier one, where Jaime is trying to woo her and she rejects him, ends (if I remember right) with him heartbroken and stunned, putting the focus on his reaction to it.
In the Sept scene, instead of ending on Cersei's expression (which, granted, would have been pretty grim), it ends with ... her hand clutching the fabric draping the table where Joffrey is laid out.
But someone elsewhere pointed out how much is stripped from her in the Sept even before Jaime arrives -- her father is methodically prying Tommen out of her grasp before she can even begin to influence him, unlike Joffrey, and making some pretty nasty allusions to what a shit Joffrey was at the same time (as well as her drinking, whoring, rapey husband Robert). She has nothing left now, and if the scene with Jaime had ended with a focus on her face, it would have really driven that home instead of how angry Jaime was at her for being a bitch. Does that make sense?
That makes perfect sense, Amy. It's interesting that Lena is the only one of the major figures involved in the scene (onscreen and behind the scenes) who we haven't heard from.
really loathsome victim blaming.
Yes. For all that I dislike Cersei (and I do. I totally own that.), I agree with your whole sentiment.
In the Sept scene, instead of ending on Cersei's expression
THIS would have been fascinating. And might have gone a long way to helping the director's argument of what he was going for, depending on the choice they made. In any case, it would have made it very much Cersei's scene, which is what it was trying to be, up until that point.
you could construe the whole chain of events as Cersei's fault, which is really loathsome victim blaming.
I think this is pretty apt. In addition, (again, as someone who has not read the books), it makes me wonder about her previous statements about being as capable to rule as Jaime, and that she was resentful she didn't have a direct place in line.
Why doesn't SHE kill Tyrion herself if she really does see herself as a possible leader? It probably reinforces your statements above that she has increasingly felt powerless since Joffrey's betrothal, her upcoming marriage (is that still on the table), and now the loss of her son(s).
