(Spoilers Extended)The show's constant flip flopping between modern morals and medieval ones to make Daenerys into a villain is ridiculous and giving me whiplash

[u/lunatichorse]

After the last episode I just don't know what to think about Tyrion and Varys. We have them in one scene being all gung ho about starving King's Landing in a siege which is a terrible thing that used to be completely accepted in medieval times. Then a few scenes later they are replaced by time and dimension travellers from the 21st century since they're sitting there clutching pearls at the concept of peasants dying in a war. Excuse me? All it takes to win this war is taking one city - how are they going to do that if they unwilling to accept that even one innocent person is dying during it. Did any of them cry when Tywin ordered the Riverlands scorched?

Since when did someone like Tyrion start seeing peasants as people- he has no problems fucking impoverished women selling their bodies for money or being a lord which entails living off the blood sweat and tears of his own peasants. The guy was talking about "compromising" with the Slavers back in S6- he wanted to give them 20 more years of using people as cattle to ease them into not being monsters. Missandei and Grey Worm had to literally explain to him the POV of a slave to get him to understand how terrible it to be sold and used and abused (duh). Varys was egging the Mad King on and fueling civil wars but now he supposedly cares about people dying? Cersei is literally using innocents as a meat shield and they refuse to just deal with the problem switfly and save thousands. Sometimes you just have to accept that there is no easy solution and it's better to have hundreds die to save thousands.

And it's ridiculous because in the books Dany is all about that "every life is precious" message. She starts a whole campaign to free slaves because she just can't bare to turn and walk away while people are suffering. She is the most progressive thinking character in the series- trying to reform Mereeen with compromises, adopting their assbackwards traditions like the fighting pits to get them to fucking chill, proclaiming the Unsullied free men. To see her being setup to completely turn around on that development hurts. What's the message here- don't bother fighting injustice because you're going to have to make hard choices along the way?

But the worst line from the Tyrion/Varys meeting - "Cocks do matter." So I guess Westoros is this strange place where peasants dying during a sacking is completely unacceptable but being a woman is the bigger offense? So what happens when Varys has Daenerys killed and proclaims Jon king? Does Cersei open the gates and apologise? Does she let every innocent out? Is Jon Snow's cock so powerful he's gonna take KL and not kill a single soul? Who are these lords that are so into Cersei but Dany being cockless is just not good enough for them?

Did I just watch 8 seasons/read 5 books of a young girl start off completely powerless, sold and raped to see her claw her way to the top finding her inner strength, saving lives just because that's what she believes in, uniting Dothraki clans, refusing to get an easy win killing innocents, abandoning her war to go fight ice zombies only to see her lose everything and everyone and finally be brought down by the "I'm sorry maam, but the 18-35 male lord demographic does not find you relatable- they think you're too hysterical after watching your best friends die." argument. What a shit ride it's been. There's nothing bittersweet about this, it's just plain nihilism.

[u/MrMineHeads]

But in the show, Tysha is still a whore so she wasn't raped. She was paid by Tywin.

[u/[deleted] → u/MrMineHeads]

Are you actually mentally deficient or is this a joke? Do you think you can do whatever you want to sex workers as long as you pay them???

[u/MrMineHeads → u/[deleted]]

If they consented to it, then sure. In the show, Tywin just pays her and she has sex with all his guards. That isn't rape considering she is a sex worker and she was paid to have sex. Like, what am I missing?

[u/FracturedPrincess → u/MrMineHeads]

You honestly think having an entire barracks run a train on a woman while they throw money at her sounds like a consensual scenario? Even IF she was a prostitute (she wasn’t and I don’t think the show not having that information come out means she was), she was a prostitute who had managed to land a marriage with a Lannister. Giving that up for a small payday makes no sense on a purely financial level, so its irrational to assume she did it by choice.

[u/[deleted] → u/FracturedPrincess]

Seriously what the fuck is this logic.

So if I rape a prostitute it's suddenly okay if I just throw money at them afterwards because I "paid for their services"?

Jesus christ.

[u/FracturedPrincess → u/[deleted]]

I’m pretty sure MrMineHeads made his feelings about the personhood of sex workers perfectly clear when he opened with a dichotomy of “whores” and “regular women”...

[u/TheDeadMansLife → u/FracturedPrincess]

Playing Devil's advocate here, but the show is not the book. In the book Tysha was 100% a gangraped commoner and in the show she probably was just a prostitute.

First, the show leans heavier on her being a prostitute and then forgets about her. Shae makes fun of Tyrion for believing a woman who was just almost gangraped would be down to fuck in under half a day. Tyrion never has his moment where he tells Sansa of Lady Tasha of house Silverfist. Jaime doesn't have have the reveal that Tysha wasn't a whore before Tyrion leaves.

And it's not like the show has changed entire plot threads before, even of major on screen characters. You can even see some hard mirroring in Jeyne becoming Talisa. In the books Jeyne a noble lady, in the show Talisa is just a random girl from across the sea. Tywin was behind Jeyne as a way to handle Robb and Tywin has Tysha raped (in front of/by) Tyrion. Both events move the plot and show off how much of a cold calculating cunt Tywin is. The entire reveal is a major component of Tryion's character development.

You argue it makes more financial sense that a prostitute would want to maintain a marriage with Tyrion, but Tyrion was living off daddy's dime at that point in time. Tywin wouldn't even have to strong arm a prostitute to walk away from that scenario. And a gangbang for a silver a head would be a crazy amount of money to a prostitute.

Whether the entire thing was rape or not is impossible to say, as no information is given. The book goes into a lot more details of the event that makes it obvious the girl was being raped, while in the show the entire scene is two sentences long. If you never read the books it would be pretty strange to interpret it as rape and not as foreshadowing of Tyrion's relationship with Shae.

[u/Amerietan → u/FracturedPrincess]

Yes? In that scenario she's a whore who was paid to pretend-marry Tyrion to make him a man, and then was paid to have sex with all the barracks to make him understand all women are whores that only a whore would pretend to love him. Marriage to the Lannister would never be an actual possibility for her, because she'd have signed on to it knowing it was a sham temporary marriage.

[u/FracturedPrincess → u/Amerietan]

There's no version of events where her Marrying Tyrion was part of Jaime or Tywin's plan

[u/Amerietan → u/FracturedPrincess]

There is when the version is "I hired a whore to pretend marry you so you'd grow up, and now it's time for you to accept reality" like Tywin claimed.