You write as though I’ve written off the show as anti-feminist (I didn’t say this) or as racist (I didn’t say that either), as opposed to simply denoting the way story choices echo longstanding criticisms of the show. It is disingenuous to dismiss identity-based criticism as a claim that art loses any and all value…

Grey Worm’s behavior is not a problem, seems consistent with the character. And the show is not misogynistic per se, but it sure gives fuel to people who like to think that way. “Put a woman in charge, she’ll either prove to be cruel and selfish, or mad, or both.”

As always, I am hesitant to reply to comments with the knowledge that the Kinja system elevates Staff contributions and thus the comments themselves, but I want to address this since I’ve seen it pop up a couple of times in my notifications.

It wouldn’t be a problem if there were literally any other non-white characters on the show

The complaints have more to do with the fact that they undid his arc so sloppily and swiftly, and in a way that doesn’t make sense given what they’ve shown us of the character. It would be like if at the end of Endgame, Bucky just shot Cap in the back and then had the writer be like “What?! He’s a brainwashed Hydra…

Martin’s characters are complex, but randomly ping-ponging through various character traits like TV Jamie has isn’t “complex.”

Having people act randomly without consideration of what has happened before is not deconstructing anything. Real life doesn’t work that way, neither does good story telling. You can pretend that this has been some avant garde exercise in story deconstruction, but it’s just sloppy writing by a team that’s ready to end…

Too often, people use GOT’s “trope subversion” to had-waive away bad writing. If they weren’t going to give Jaime a full redemption arc, then fine. But the way they progressed his story made no sense.

Martin’s subversions have purpose, thematic heft, and a reason for veering beyond “Ha! You didn’t expect THAT, did you?!” Jamie’s behavior here is pure subversion for the sake of subversion, with no greater thought or purpose behind it. That’s why people aren’t happy with it, not because it surprised them and they…

This is Game of Thrones. I fully understand having Dany go off the deep end and become the Mad Queen. But there wasn’t enough to justify it. Even her father, likely one of the craziest and evilest people in the entire history of Westeros, refrained from killing all of the people in King’s Landing until after he had…

“Worthiness” is completely dependant on how many levels of Paladin you have. To lift Mjolnir you need 12+ Levels in Paladin, and of course that implies you’re Lawful Good with 17+ Charisma. That’s all.

My read has always been that Cap lifting Mjolnir as a party trick is not a worth action, and he knows it.

The leaders(Holdo and Leah especially) were making very bad decisions and not consulting anyone else about them, if the leaders would have been doing their jobs correctly none of that would have happened.

Mjolnir doesn't necessarily judge a person by our standards.  It judges by Asgardian standards. Kingship, valor, honor, etc.  Steve was always a good person, but wasn't always "worthy" to Mjolnir.  Perhaps because of his soldier mindset of taking orders, or his hiding the truth from a close friend, or that he simply…

I think Forgetting Sarah Marshall did a decent job with this. Jason Segel is a working musician (so a pretty interesting job) with creative aspirations. And despite Sarah Marshall being depicted as pretty terrible overall, the movie DOES let her say her side of things, that he had rejected his ambitions to do what was…

I don’t know if she’s the driver behind this, but agree completely that she probably saw this as something that would be a lot of fun to make after a string of demanding action roles.

Sorry, no dice on Rachel Dratch. Best we can do is *checks notes* Charlize Theron with a fake mole.

I think the biggest issue with the “schlub gets the hot girl” trope isn’t so much the attractiveness differential - we’ve all seen couples in the real world where one person is much more physically attractive than the other. The problem is that most of these movies and shows don’t put in the work to make the…

I think Tom covered it appropriately. He mentions the troubling/dated aspects, mentions that contemporary actors at the time had a problem with it (the Rita Moreno anecdote), but also put it in context in terms of what the filmmakers intended and makes an argument for why we should still care despite it.

Brownface wasn’t popular among people of color back in The 1960s, so you’re merely holding the film to the standards of the people depicted