Of Swords and Parasols

Out of curiosity, I checked out the first episode of The Last Kingdom, mostly to see if I liked it more than The Bastard Executioner. The answer is, yes and no? In that, unlike TBE, I can actually see myself liking some of the characters if I watched more. but that's about it. The show is set during the 9th century and focuses on the Danish invasions on England, which was still smaller kingdoms at the time. The main character is a Saxon who was captured as a child and raised by a Danish family who treated him better than his own family did.

The first 20 minutes were boring and tedious, with way too much infodumping and Look At Me I'm Saying Something Important speeches. It got better once he was with the Danes, then the show (or Bernard cornwell, whichever) decided that a girl about 10-11 years old needed to be sexually assaulted to create a feud between adult men. At the end of the episode, this girl (now grown up) is being dragged off and about to be raped by the same assaulter, and her adopted brother is so busy wanting to kill someone that he can't be bothered to look around enough to notice that she's alive and being held prisoner. It has the same "grim and gritty HISTORICAL REALISM ABOUT FICTIONAL PEOPLE" thing going that all these shows seem to have going for them since Game of Thrones became popular.  Let's not even get into the whole thing where GoT is set in a fake world where seasons last for years and people who spent generations where DEADLY FIERY DEATH FROM ABOVE was a possibility but their strongholds are still open fortresses with no overhead cover.  I mean, it's been done to death.

And, honestly, regarldess of my personal feelings about GoT, I'm completely willing to blame the shows for it. All these shows want to be "the next GoT." They get advertised as such,they get discussed as such. They never achieve anything close to the popularity of GoT because they are rightly perceived as trying to be GoT. But because of GoT's incredible popularity and frequently getting hailed as The Most Amazing Show Ever (less so now than a couple years ago, but still...) US period dramas have become more popular, but they all want to be "grim and gritty." Things need to be mostly about men because they hold the more important positions. Women are wives but one or two manage to be Better Than the others and become A Strong Female Character. Rape is just there. It is. Women just got raped all the time. Fact of life. I mean, sure, it's historical fiction and truly accurate historical fiction never actually happens and we get to pick and choose how we portray it, but, you know, rape. Gotta have rape so people know we take our history seriously.

This becomes really, really obvious if you watch Pillars of the Earth and World without End. They're two miniseries based on books by the same author with some of the same people behind the scenes, and they came out several year apart. There's rape in PotE, but the rape is shown through the POV of the victims. It's horrible and wrong and the narrative doesn't expect us to accept it as the norm. The rapists die horrible deaths, either directly or indirectly because of their victims. In WWE, there's a lot more rape (and unlike PotE, a lot of the rape apparently wasn't in the source material.) and it's detached in it's approach. The rape is just there. The victims are, in those scenes, objects getting raped. Now, the narrative still thinks rape is bad and the rapist still die horribly either at the hands of their victims or because of them, but the difference between the two is very, very notable. WWE is also more violent and more graphic in its violence and, yup, a lot more into the Grim and Gritty.

What happened in between? What happened is that Got Came along and women were getting raped as background scenery, men were monologuing while requiring two women to have sex in front of him, and a teenager fell madly in love with the man who repeatedly raped her, and it was OMG True Love. And people died horribly a bunch. And it was hailed as The Best Show Ever. Yes, there's more to GoT than that, but that's what Hollywood took from GoT, and incorporated into future shows. And don't get me wrong, I'm glad that GoT has made it possible for more period and fantasy dramas to be made, I'm just not a fan of how it influenced them.

TBH, I honestly believe that, before making a period drama about politics and war and revenge and all that fun stuff, TV makers should be forced to watch a hundred or so hours of Chinese and Korean period dramas. now, hear me out. Between wuxia, historical fantasy, and straight historical fiction, China puts out dozens of period dramas every year. Most of these are between 30-50 episodes (sometimes longer, rarely shorter) and air multiple episodes a week. They're incredibly popular, obviously, as, like I said DOZENS are made every year, and people devote multiple hours a week to watch them as they air. Korea doesn't put out as many sageuks as that (usually somewhere between 5-12 a year, I believe). These sageuks are 50-70 minutes per ep and air 2-3 episodes a week. It isn't uncommon for sageuks to dominate the ratings in their timeslot for their entire run, and while there are flops, more sageuks than not are popular, as far as I know. Now, there are plenty of reasons period dramas are more popular in China and Korea than in the US, not the least of which is being a major staple for years, but I'll talk a bit about the English language fandoms for a moment. I started watching Asian dramas in the early 2000s, before DramaFever existed and before everyone who could was using Netflix and Hulu. Way back then, you almost always had to download the raws of a episode and wait anywhere from a day to a week for fansubbers to release the subs, if not longer. That's if you were lucky enough for the series you were interested in to be picked up by a subbing group. Sometimes you had to buy regionless Chinese DVDs off ebay and hope the Engrish subs were good enough for you to follow. Every once in a while, a series would get a DVD release and you'd party in your mind while your wallet wept because those things were EXPENSIVE. (Kids these days just have no idea how good they have it.)

Now, here's the thing: People getting into Chinese and Korean period dramas often then often gave the same reasoning my friends getting into period dramas now give. They watch them because there are politics! Adventure! Epic storylines! There are popular shipping tropes (Enemies as lovers! Friends become enemies! Childhood friends fall in love! courtly love! Bodyguard/Lady! [and gender swapped! And subtext for both m/m and f/f slash!] adventuring buddies who become more! Forbidden noble/commoner!Engaged to one person FOR POLITICS but in love with another! And on and on.) And oh yes, women. Lots of women. Multiple women with important roles, even in male-dominated plots. Ladies, merchants, servants, princesses, courtesans, scholars, warriors, cooks, spies, priestesses, etc. all of the above types being portrayed are warranting respect and sympathy. Women who held independent political power. Women who did not have personal political power who who had incredibly devoted male followers who used their political power to further the women's goals. Men completely devoting themselves to women's goals and it being treated as as unusual, and other men not acting like those men have been emasculated. women allying themselves with each other. Women having feuds that have nothing to do with being in love with the same man. Women in love with the same man becoming friends instead of rivals. Women protecting their romantic rivals. Women who plot together and women who plot against each other.  women mentoring women.  And on and on.

And lest I forget, while rape isn't unheard of, it's rare enough to be surprising when it happens. And while there are frequent, bloody battles, Noble Deaths and gruesome executions all the time, they rarely feel the need to be gross or overly graphic on screen.

It should also be noted that sageuks became MORE POPULAR when they started having more women in the shows, and to try to appeal more to women. It's almost like Korea is 15 or so years ahead of the US in figuring out how to make period dramas more popular or something.

(I'm not ignoring or forgetting British period dramas here, but most of them aren't the type of show that I'm talking about, though shows like The White Queen definitely fall into the "historical accuracy is a joke, but we need plenty of rape and/or assault so we'll be seen as realistic." I will note that I enjoyed the first half of that series a good bit despite certain things, but the second half...it just...wow did it go wrong. And I haven't seen enough period dramas from other countries to really be able to comment, though I have liked the Spanish telenovelas that I've watched.)

This went way, way off course from the post I started with, but I do feel better getting all that out there.

Getting back to just TLK, the original subject of this post, the Saxons and Danes in this version of history would be extinct in a generation or two anyway. Why? Because even including the extras in the villages, the men outnumber the women about 10 to 1. Society isn't lasting long unless they find a way to make mpreg actually happen.

I should say many semi-intelligent things, but I am mostly thinking about how much I hhhhaaaaaaattttteeeee Joffrey and Baelish.  Actually, I had forgotten how much I hate Baelish.  I suspect I hate him even more now because, just like the Fail of Ned's POV of Robert, the show emphasized how Baelish's arc in this book/season is essentially about punishing Cat for not loving/choosing him.

Also, uhm, I'm really tired of people saying that Arya's toughness or Sansa's "few moments" (as reported by others) of awesome are their showing that they're Ned's daughters.  Other's have commented on this, but I feel I must whine about it too!

I mean, really.  Cat takes on armed assassins while unarmed herself and holds her own, brokers treaties with reluctant allies with grudges, and walks into a bar with a single retainer and walks out with an army and a prisoner.  Ned warns his enemies that he's plotting against them because he feels bad for them.  Which of these parents do you think is more likely to pass on what's needed for survival at all costs amidst poisonous courts and unknown terrains where someone could/will stab you in the back at any moment.  I'm not dismissing Cat's flaws or disparaging Ned's good qualities (though I think the show removed a lot of his more endearing personality traits to focus on him being the Stalwart And True Hero)  I'M JUST SAYING. 

Also, I think I shipped Cersei/Ned for 5 seconds in the garden scene.  It felt very strange.

It…it’s wrong to watch a dwarf hit a 13-year-old boy and be going “do that again!” isn’t it? Like, on multiple levels. I just can’t help it. I hate that abusive little creepster so much. Though I’m glad they gave Tyrion some, you know, depth and personality beyond “Drinks a lot. Likes brothels.” Because, really.

So, in and of itself, I like the show as it’s own show, despite agreeing with the criticisms re: rape and racism that have been making the rounds. But as an adaptation…well, plotwise, it’s fine but characterwise, this show is on notice. If it doesn’t shape up regarding Danaerys Targaryen and Catelyn and Sansa Stark stat, I may have to devote a fair bit of energy to mocking it or something.

And man, I really did manage to forget how much Robert is The Worst King And Father Ever. Like, dude, discipline your kid and learn what he’s like, especially if you want him to be anything resembling a half-decent king, don’t just indulge him and make life and death decisions because your wife is in a bad mood and you want her to shut up and go get drunk(er), and don’t punish your friend’s children because your son is a spoiled brat. Not to mention the “Wipe out everyone of this bloodline! Starting with the teenaged girl who wasn’t even alive yet when the bad things went down!” bit.

( Spoiler for the episode and a later reveal in the books re: Cersei and her children )
The dramatic decrease in random boobage is appreciated, though.

Meanwhile, remember that New York Times article that said that women don’t like fantasy and GoT would only have women because it would be the only way to get viewership. (Ok, this is technically true of my listies, but not for the reason they think. My listies are largely pro-genre/period drama, but generally lose more interest the closer something gets to being The Great Tales Of Men, whereas the NYT article thinks women hate these things and will only watch them if their boyfriends force them or whatever.) Anyway, somewhere in that discussion, it was brought up that most of the Sexytimes Onscreen shows airing in the US right now were period and/or fantasy dramas.

Now, disregarding the “genre is for boys” silliness, I get the impression that the general opinion is that, when it comes to period dramas, war/battle/action dramas are “dude things,” and women only like the Austen/Bronte/Gaskell “genteel class and social examinations with romance and manners and such” shows. I haven’t actually seen any major discussions of that, but that’s the impression I get of what people think. My point (to the very limited extent that I have one) is that Camelot and Game of Thrones and “action and battle and politics and war” shows, and The Borgias is basically the same thing, only mostly shifted to intricate not-always-accurate-but-they’re-trying politics. In all three, the storylines for the women are focused, to varying degrees and with varying success, on the idea of women trying to get by and not get crushed or thrown aside in a patriarchal society that sees them as secondary/chattel/adornments. I don’t watch too many of the Sexytimes Onscreen shows, and haven’t seen any of The Tudors (Is it even still around?) and didn’t see enough of Spartacus don’t remember enough of it to really comment there, but I find that…interesting? (Of course, I’m typing this laughing and thinking about how China and Korea figured out years ago that it’s best to just throw in lots of women, lots of men, a few romances of varying types, tons of battles, tons of politics [with both genders participating in both] a lot of costumes and weapons, and a couple of overly dramatic backstories, and just toss it all in a pot, stir, and assume everyone who can last 20-50 episodes will be happy.) I can’t help but think there might be an interesting WisCon panel in there somewhere, but I’m not sure I’d be the one to do it.

Randomly, pre-anything airing, my level of anticipation went about Camelot>>Game of Thrones>>The Borgias. Now that they’re out, my enjoyment level goes The Brgias>>Game of Thrones>>Camelot. (Alternatively, it goes “Multiple women with multiple scenes together, men who I do not hate, except for the one I’m supposed to want dead, and find interesting enough to make up for when they annoy me. ..Multiple women with some scenes together, some men I like and some men I hate, and creepiness I’m not sure it knows is creepy. >> Multiple women with the occasional scene together, a few men I like but the two most central characters are men a loathe who think they’re walking endorsements of why Patriarchy is awesome, and a general obliviousness on the show’s part to some major patriarchal-set fail. Like the central conflict boiling down 2 men trying to screw a woman out of her birthright.”

Watched the pilot for Game of Thrones.  I have thoughts (and observations like "gosh, all the Starks are older, and we seem to be missing one..." and "wow, those opening credits were odd and made me think of a slow steampunk," and "man, Danaerys is gorgeous but...has limited expressions so far.") but want to see more to think about them before talking about them much.

But I have to say, I...was uncomfortable with the portrayal ofthe Dothraki (I think I'm misspelling that) culture as portrayed in the books, but I...don't remember it being nearly as bad as this seemed to be.  Though, I think that's my only really huge issue, in terms of adaptation.   (Well, that and the fact that I fear they're going to seriously defang Catelyn.)  Though extra troubling for me as, while Danaerys isn't actually my favorite character (that's Catelyn) her plotline is possibly the one that interests me the most.

Also, I found much of the facial hair to be deeply tragic.  Jason Momoa's prettiness is completely obscured, and Jon...well, that facial hair makes me think it's like if the kid playing Arthur over in Camelot were to grow a beard?  Decent face ruined by a deeply unfortunate fashion choice.  (I feel i should apologize to Jon for comparing him to that Arthur, but then, Jon is basically the aRthur character of the series.