Game of Thrones

I don't have anything too particularly interesting to say about Game of Thrones lately, except that I kind of hate the characters they've created to be Robb and Jon's love interests. I mean, it doesn't help that they're only in scenes with Robb or Jon, who were already characters I was wishing the show could just forget about already. Has either shown an ounce of personality this whole time? But now they've gone and inserted these uninteresting, implausible women to share screen time with them...and damnit, I want that screen time back and replaced with one of the Lannisters.

One of the best parts of the series, in my opinion, is the way that it handles womens' roles in a medieval setting. Between Cersei, Sansa, Margaery, and even Myrcella you have a pretty broad theme going on with the reality of arranged marriage, the variety of ways that different characters adapt to the limits of their autonomy, and how they manage to scrounge some power and influence regardless. Even Daenerys, who most of the time is also a character I wish would just toss her screen time back into the pot and get out of the way, is cool to watch as she negotiates the possibility that she could make a strategic match for herself with the guy from Qarth, if she chose to, since her royal lineage is the one thing that his money can't buy otherwise. In contrast, I feel like Florence Nightingale of Westeros and that Eskimo girl ought to be prancing about in comic book style leather bikinis (maybe Eskimo girl's could include a fur cape, for realism) based on the amount that they represent any kind of realistic depiction of the kind of dilemmas that women would face in that kind of society. They're nothing but foils for the already boring male characters they're meant to attract, and it shows, and I'm really hoping they die next episode. (That's the one good thing about the show, if you really truly hate a character, there's at least a 50/50 chance they'll die soon...if only that didn't also apply to the ones you like).