Yes and no. A lot is based on women as property, but you still have interesting stories like this one in medieval Byzantium: A Varangian guard (basically Vikings working as mercenaries for the Empire) tries to rape a local woman. She fought back and killed him with his own sword. Now in the GoT 'verse, his compatriots…

Yes, exactly. What always stayed with me is the scene where she fears that she's endangering her own soul and then answers herself in God mode saying that worrying about her soul was selfish in relation to her quest. Kinda reminds me of how Jesus descended into hell before he resurrected. She was willing to damn…

But was it necessary? I don't object to the nudity during consensual sex scenes or in other cases where it makes sense that a woman would be naked (like when Melisandre gave birth). However, there is no need for nudity in a rape scene—just look at last week. We didn't need to see Cersei naked to know she was being…

Funny you should mention that, given that last week when Jaime raped Cersei there was zero nudity. Also rape has been depicted on network tv, cable, and in the movies without showing the victim's naked body yet it was still very clear what was happening. The nudity in the Craster's Place scene was gratuitous. So no…

Yeah, but it gets pretty ridiculous when the Vikings, who were known to rape their slaves and the people in the towns they raided were still better to women (at least free-born women) than most of Westeros (Dorne being the sole exemption, of course). Making the book/show represent a crapsack world is the creator's…

That's a bs excuse. They show nudity in multiple situations already. Showing nudity during a rape scene is purely to titillate and that is creepy and gross. Also, the whole change the channel argument is thinner than a White Walker. The whole point of sites like this is to discuss the good and bad of tv shows.

The Craster's Keep sequence was beyond gratuitous. We could've easily figured out they were brutalizing Craster's daughters from their bruises and the gross rape them to death bit. We did not need to see them actually raping them. And we sure as hell didn't need to see the victim's tits and arses bouncing while they…

Yeah but remember GRRM says he's based on Westeros on medieval Europe. And yanno what? Medieval Europe wasn't constant misogyny all over the place. Women's rights varied from country to country. What's annoying is that GRRM and co. are cherry picking the worst of misogyny without including everything else.
Also, every…

I have read up on the blood eagle and one of the main points is that it's greatly debated if it really existed or was an accidental or deliberate misinterpretation of skaldic verse. Writings from that time often included exaggerations and unrealistic happenings (there's a whole sub-category of saints who, upon being…

The thing about St. Patrick is, he didn't try to convert anyone when he was a slave. He waited until he was older and had more power and he was smart enough to impress and convert the king so no one would persecute the new Christians. It was a very different situation from Athelstan's.

I hope she cuts off his arm and hits him with it as he's bleeding to death.

What made it even better is that Athelstan was dressed all in black.

Let's split the difference and assume that they were just as nasty as any other group at the time. The sad truth is it's very easy to dehumanize the enemy when you're at war. We see it happening now with crap like Abu Ghraib and other abuses and we have the benefit of centuries of humanist thought.

Still groaning over that one…

Young Bjorn has the best bitchface. Will miss that.

The Viking Answer Lady site is one of the most comprehensive sites I've read and she has a section on marriage and divorce: http://www.vikinganswerlady… If you scroll nearly to the bottom of the page you'll see the part on divorce. Basically, divorce was possible even in early Christian times, and probably even easier…

One fan on twitter was joking that he kept holding that baby goat because he hoped that Lagertha was less likely to beat the shit out of him for fear of hurting the cute goat.

Funny that the story written in Victorian times gave Adler more agency than the modern Sherlock version.