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SPOILER WARNING If you only watch the show, this thread will spoil you of future events in HBO's Game of Thrones. Thread contains discussion of all books of the series A Song of Ice and FireClick Here for the spoiler-free thread. |
On May 11 2012 00:53 Perscienter wrote:
The same goes for Robert Baratheon. He goes hunting to make his head free. Outcome: he's drunk. Who the fuck would do that right before a possible World War as the most important person in the realm?
A man responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people and entire noble houses, a lot of them by his own hands.
On May 11 2012 00:53 Perscienter wrote:
Anyway, psychologists only act as bystanders in the real world.
Not to go on a long tangent, but what you aiming at with this comment ?
Psychology is the study of the mind, occurring partly via the study of behavior. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain cognitive functions and behaviors.
Psychologists explore such concepts as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships.
People are free to do as they will, specially inside their minds, the only thing the psychologist can do is produce knowledge about these phenomenae and share it with the world (ergo, his clients) empowering them with insights and knowledge that can help them get closer to their individual goals.
Psychologists in this sense cannot be considered bystanders, they are an active personification of peoples desire to get better, the lack of direct action on the part of the psychologist relates to how much it really is about the person that is going there.
Its actually rather ironic, most people who really need a psychologist wont go to one for several reasons, and many people who go to the psychologist are on a healthy mindset and probably could do so without it, but enjoy the added insight to their daily lives.
You can never have enough knowledge about yourself and others.
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On May 11 2012 03:19 D10 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2012 00:53 Perscienter wrote:
The same goes for Robert Baratheon. He goes hunting to make his head free. Outcome: he's drunk. Who the fuck would do that right before a possible World War as the most important person in the realm?
A man responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people and entire noble houses, a lot of them by his own hands. Show nested quote +On May 11 2012 00:53 Perscienter wrote:
Anyway, psychologists only act as bystanders in the real world. Not to go on a long tangent, but what you aiming at with this comment ? Psychology is the study of the mind, occurring partly via the study of behavior. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain cognitive functions and behaviors. Psychologists explore such concepts as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. People are free to do as they will, specially inside their minds, the only thing the psychologist can do is produce knowledge about these phenomenae and share it with the world (ergo, his clients) empowering them with insights and knowledge that can help them get closer to their individual goals. Psychologists in this sense cannot be considered bystanders, they are an active personification of peoples desire to get better, the lack of direct action on the part of the psychologist relates to how much it really is about the person that is going there. Its actually rather ironic, most people who really need a psychologist wont go to one for several reasons, and many people who go to the psychologist are on a healthy mindset and probably could do so without it, but enjoy the added insight to their daily lives. You can never have enough knowledge about yourself and others.
I think the sense of "bystander" is that they don't wield power in an obvious way. They tell you about what's happening, not what they will do. I'd see that interpretation as fairly narrow, but a psychologist's contribution to the society must be patronized, whereas a guy with a gun and some followers is likely to make an impact. This isn't to say any one contributor is better, but the power of psychology is often lost among the more fiery aspects of how the world turns. Granted, Tyrion clearly understands how he can use it to his advantage. But if we're taking Westeros, a psychologically-based mindset has to be an adaptation to the rest of the world. There's a bigger point to be made here, but I'll skip that for now. I think Perscienter feels that a bystander is a buzz word for commenter.
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Well, I don't act perfectly either, but I don't kill people. :d
The characters regularly cross a clear line and act out of common conventions. Incest is not sane, never was and being a warrior is not an excuse for murdering people and never has been END OF STORY.
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If the cause is just, thou must do what you must!
The characters determine what is 'just', we observe it and judge it to our standards. All of it has a taint of insanity to it though... Though GRRM makes it appear as the logic thing to do. It might not be deep, but its deep/complex enough to twist people's brain due to the lack of black & white situations
The story is entertaining enough, so must be he's got to be nailing something on the head ^^
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I'm not sure how much of a discussion of the moral merits of characters can be had with simple absolutes being thrown around but I'll bite.
It is hard to not have a strongly negative impression of trying to kill a little kid. No matter how it is framed it is a bad decision. Maybe that is enough to make it "evil" regardless of the context, though the subjectivity and abstract nature of the concept that is "evil" comes to mind. Unfortunately it is a 'bad' decision in a situation with no 'good' decision. Throw up a poll asking "If you, in a split second call, had to make the choice between killing an eight year old or condemning yourself, your lover and three children and also starting a war, what would you do?" If Bran even gets one vote for every two against him I'd call bullshit on the respondents.
There are some tricky layers to the matter as well. Do you try to embrace the social norms of the setting or stick to the audience's paradigms? That is the difference between "cursed oathbreaker" and "he put everything on the line to save a city and then kept his actions secret." According to Ned and Barristan the Joker is proud of him, according to (probably) Sean and Ian the Batman is proud of him.
I think part of the perception of Jaime "apologists", a group to which I am more a member than not, is more based on Jaime post: spending a few months in a cell finally forced to slow down and reflect on things, getting his hand cut off, having a bit of a falling out with Cersei, learning how much of a monster Joff was, and generally getting fed up with "the game" to an even greater degree than he had been all along.
The perception of him as some kind of blond, young and cocky Darth Vader is more rooted in his in-background of the setting reputation as "Kingslayer" and pushing Bran out of a tower. Then of course he attacked Ned when Ned still looked almost like the story's protagonist, or the closest thing to one anyway.
I imagine the effect of no longer having "sword it!" as ones easiest/fastest/cheapest/surest solution to nearly every problem a person faces in their life alone could fuel essays of personality evolution discussion.
People can change, and the greatest example of it in asoiaf is almost surely Jaime. He certainly is among the adult characters anyway.
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On May 11 2012 04:56 Perscienter wrote:
Well, I don't act perfectly either, but I don't kill people. :d
The characters regularly cross a clear line and act out of common conventions. Incest is not sane, never was and being a warrior is not an excuse for murdering people and never has been END OF STORY.
There's a reason little people agree with you: you're wrong.
Incest is not insane, although obviously looked down upon in current society. I wouldn't say it's immoral, either. Its just... icky.
People in Westeros are accustomed to death. Peasents die every day. You won't get through your life without seeing multiple executions. War seems to be more common than even even real life.
So is it acceptable to murder someone? No, of course not. But by their standards, a 'random' life just isn't worth as much as it is in common times.
Also, I'd wadger that you'd do the same in your situation. If the choice is between a random child, or your children, you, and your lover, would you not kill that child ten times out of ten?
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On May 11 2012 05:37 Crazyeyes wrote:
There's a reason little people agree with you: you're wrong
Are you saying little people aren't smart? Tyrion would like a word with you.
edit: format
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On May 11 2012 04:56 Perscienter wrote:
Well, I don't act perfectly either, but I don't kill people. :d
The characters regularly cross a clear line (no grey?) and act out of common conventions . (yea right, because from their POV waiting for something better to magically fall in your lap is a better course of action)
Incest is not sane(do you even know what sane means?), never was and being a warrior is not an excuse for murdering people and never has been(Ok now I now you were trolling) END OF STORY.
gave me good laughs
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On May 11 2012 04:56 Perscienter wrote:
Well, I don't act perfectly either, but I don't kill people. :d
The characters regularly cross a clear line and act out of common conventions. Incest is not sane, never was and being a warrior is not an excuse for murdering people and never has been END OF STORY.
What's the purpose of a discussion when you end your posts with "END OF STORY?" Incest isn't considered normal in (most) cultures today, but how much of that is because it has been linked to genetic problems? Quite a bit I would assume. Other people have already mentioned it, but there are numerous examples in real history and the world GRRM created of incest being considered normal, let alone not insane. I don't think that word means what you think it means.
And I sure as shit would kill an 8 year old child if it was the difference between life and death for myself, my lover, and my 3 children. Bran should have known better not to be snooping on something he was obviously not meant to see, or at least being so obvious about it.
And last I checked, being a warrior (at least in this series) is by definition an excuse to murder people.
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United States43523 Posts
On May 11 2012 04:56 Perscienter wrote:
Well, I don't act perfectly either, but I don't kill people. :d
The characters regularly cross a clear line and act out of common conventions. Incest is not sane, never was and being a warrior is not an excuse for murdering people and never has been END OF STORY.
Incest was a regular part of the lives of regular sane people in a normal society for hundreds of years. You can insist otherwise as much as you like but we have census returns from Roman Egypt in huge numbers and they demonstrate it. Sorry.
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You are so funny.
Maybe the common, normal people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo consider it to be regular, too. But who cares about that? In our antiquity, it has mostly been illegal, especially between siblings. They did not have today's knowledge of genetics, but could certainly understand, that there's a higher chance of disabilities in children begot per incest. The law also existed to diminish inner familial rapes.
Unfortunately I don't know where ASoIaF belongs in comparison with our ages, because they never talk about their technological advances in agriculture for instance.
From today's perspective Incest is certainly insane regarding the known consequences. It's also in GRRM's world. It's clearly forbidden. Both Jaime and Cersei were also told to stop that doggy-style plays early enough. What did they not understand? Animals don't know no genetics either. They avoid siblings, too, just with their sixth sense.
When you live in antiquity and bugger your sister or what else he was doing and are being told to stop that, I bet you'd stop. They would find it disgusting, anyway. I don't fully buy these characters.
I don't see peasants dying in that world, at least in peace times. I don't see how war is common there. The last conflict was nine years ago, I think. Nine years of peace. Then the Lannisters deliberately, stereotypically escalated it, so the story could start.
Yes, I know the word 'sane'. It's normal, reasonable, responsible for one's actions. Apart from that, English is not my mother tongue, so I might miss a few meanings.
I bet the families who ran incest were the ones afraid of mixing up with common people. They did it out of fear but often paid a high prize.
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Canada11398 Posts
I don't know how complex GRRM characters really are.
Oh they are selfish alright. And I think a lot of people find the switch from selflessness to selfishness a rather refreshing change. But are they actually more complex? I don't think self-interested people are all that very complex. You can always count on them to look out for their best interest.
Are the characters of Pirates 3 more complex than the characters of Pirates 1? Because all Pirates 3 is self-interested people backstabbing everyone else to claw their way up to gain the best advantage. And sometimes I feel GRRM is the same. I'll grant that some characters are complex, but certainly not all of them simply because they are selfish rather than heroic.
You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest.
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On May 11 2012 06:16 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2012 04:56 Perscienter wrote:
Well, I don't act perfectly either, but I don't kill people. :d
The characters regularly cross a clear line and act out of common conventions. Incest is not sane, never was and being a warrior is not an excuse for murdering people and never has been END OF STORY. Incest was a regular part of the lives of regular sane people in a normal society for hundreds of years. You can insist otherwise as much as you like but we have census returns from Roman Egypt in huge numbers and they demonstrate it. Sorry.
On May 11 2012 10:01 Perscienter wrote:
You are so funny.
Maybe the common, normal people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo consider it to be regular, too. But who cares about that? In our antiquity, it has mostly been illegal, especially between siblings. They did not have today's knowledge of genetics, but could certainly understand, that there's a higher chance of disabilities in children begot per incest. The law also existed to diminish inner familial rapes.
Unfortunately I don't know where ASoIaF belongs in comparison with our ages, because they never talk about their technological advances in agriculture for instance.
From today's perspective Incest is certainly insane regarding the known consequences. It's also in GRRM's world. It's clearly forbidden. Both Jaime and Cersei were also told to stop that doggy-style plays early enough. What did they not understand? Animals don't know no genetics either. They avoid siblings, too, just with their sixth sense.
When you live in antiquity and bugger your sister or what else he was doing and are being told to stop that, I bet you'd stop. They would find it disgusting, anyway. I don't fully buy these characters.
I don't see peasants dying in that world, at least in peace times. I don't see how war is common there. The last conflict was nine years ago, I think. Nine years of peace. Then the Lannisters deliberately, stereotypically escalated it, so the story could start.
Yes, I know the word 'sane'. It's normal, reasonable, responsible for one's actions. Apart from that, English is not my mother tongue, so I might miss a few meanings.
I bet the families who ran incest were the ones afraid of mixing up with common people. They did it out of fear but often paid a high prize.
KwarK is right.
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On May 11 2012 10:01 Perscienter wrote:
From today's perspective Incest is certainly insane regarding the known consequences. It's also in GRRM's world. It's clearly forbidden. Both Jaime and Cersei were also told to stop that doggy-style plays early enough.
As I was reading it I thought more about the whole aspect of making alliances with marrying your children to other wealthy/influencial(?) familys. In the sense that if you gonna marry away your highborn daughter she should be a virgin. I think there was even a passage in one of the books where they talk about margerys virginity or the lack of it. They kind of make a big deal out of it.
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On May 11 2012 10:21 Falling wrote:
I don't know how complex GRRM characters really are.
Oh they are selfish alright. And I think a lot of people find the switch from selflessness to selfishness a rather refreshing change. But are they actually more complex? I don't think self-interested people are all that very complex. You can always count on them to look out for their best interest.
Are the characters of Pirates 3 more complex than the characters of Pirates 1? Because all Pirates 3 is self-interested people backstabbing everyone else to claw their way up to gain the best advantage. And sometimes I feel GRRM is the same. I'll grant that some characters are complex, but certainly not all of them simply because they are selfish rather than heroic.
You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest.
Except that there are only a few characters (Joffrey, Ramsay, The Mountain) out of dozens who are that one-dimenstional. Everyone else has varying shades of grey. Do you really think all the characters are one-dimensional? Obviously it's been discussed here before, but Jaime is the best example of a character who has likely changed over the course of the books after all he's been through. Now it's unclear whether or not he would fight for Cersei if the opportunity presented itself.
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On May 11 2012 10:44 n00bie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2012 10:01 Perscienter wrote:
From today's perspective Incest is certainly insane regarding the known consequences. It's also in GRRM's world. It's clearly forbidden. Both Jaime and Cersei were also told to stop that doggy-style plays early enough. As I was reading it I thought more about the whole aspect of making alliances with marrying your children to other wealthy/influencial(?) familys. In the sense that if you gonna marry away your highborn daughter she should be a virgin. I think there was even a passage in one of the books where they talk about margerys virginity or the lack of it. They kind of make a big deal out of it. There's a line in I believe one of Sansa's chapters about how highborn ladies would often lose their cherries horseback riding.
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On May 11 2012 10:01 Perscienter wrote:
I bet the families who ran incest were the ones afraid of mixing up with common people. They did it out of fear but often paid a high prize.
Fear? Inbreeding for the sake of keeping a bloodline pure is pride and arrogance, not fear. Just like in our world, incest in Westeros is something that is/was politically acceptable in some cultures, but is not accepted by most. The Targaryens married brother to sister almost without exception to keep their bloodline pure (and as a result, a significant portion of them were mentally unstable). This is exactly analogous to the inbreeding in the Hapsburgs of Austrian/Spanish/HRE royalty, minus the dragons and the violent insanity. But Valyria is not Westeros, and incest is not okay with the vast majority of Westerosi. Jaime and Cersei are not really comparable to Aegon and Rhaella (siblings and parents of Danaerys/Viserys/Rhaegar), just like some hillbilly banging his cousin in Alabama is not really comparable to Tutankhamen marrying his niece.
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On May 11 2012 10:21 Falling wrote:
I don't know how complex GRRM characters really are.
Oh they are selfish alright. And I think a lot of people find the switch from selflessness to selfishness a rather refreshing change. But are they actually more complex? I don't think self-interested people are all that very complex. You can always count on them to look out for their best interest.
Are the characters of Pirates 3 more complex than the characters of Pirates 1? Because all Pirates 3 is self-interested people backstabbing everyone else to claw their way up to gain the best advantage. And sometimes I feel GRRM is the same. I'll grant that some characters are complex, but certainly not all of them simply because they are selfish rather than heroic.
You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest.
Yes this is what I was trying to say in my earlier post lol. Selfishness is not to be confused with complexity
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On May 11 2012 13:47 oldgregg wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2012 10:21 Falling wrote:
I don't know how complex GRRM characters really are.
Oh they are selfish alright. And I think a lot of people find the switch from selflessness to selfishness a rather refreshing change. But are they actually more complex? I don't think self-interested people are all that very complex. You can always count on them to look out for their best interest.
Are the characters of Pirates 3 more complex than the characters of Pirates 1? Because all Pirates 3 is self-interested people backstabbing everyone else to claw their way up to gain the best advantage. And sometimes I feel GRRM is the same. I'll grant that some characters are complex, but certainly not all of them simply because they are selfish rather than heroic.
You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. Yes this is what I was trying to say in my earlier post lol. Selfishness is not to be confused with complexity
But a selfish character could make the overall story more complex. An archetypal character or pure good/evil could make the author's intention clearer. A selfish character acts with himself in mind, thus making the author realize this in the text, a not-so-selfish character might become too reliant on the narrative.
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On May 11 2012 06:13 ZasZ. wrote:
And I sure as shit would kill an 8 year old child if it was the difference between life and death for myself, my lover, and my 3 children.
wtf? are you serious?
i understand the idea of jaime redeeming himself (and actually this was one of my favorite parts about the books) but you seem to be saying that he doesn't even need to redeem himself because he's been cool the whole time...
on the topic of complexity: my only problem with GRRM's character-depth is that he seems to have two (not always) methods for making characters complex: either make em go dark (introduce "greyness"), or kill em off.
now, a character like Jaime, i really like because he is kind of breaking that mold with him.
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EPT
