Season 6, Episode 3: Oathbreaker
Well people, this is it. “Game of Thrones Class,” as we have taken to calling it at NIU is coming to end. 
With that said, this doesn’t mean our blogging days are over! Many scholars of the throne have plans to continue with our weekly blogs while others are out of here faster than Jon Snow can say “my watch has ended.”
Speaking of, I don’t blame Jesus Stark one minute for getting the heck out of town. His time at Castle Black hasn’t exactly been the best. First, he was humiliated by Thorne. Next, he was captured by the wildlings and forced to kill a brother in order to stay alive. Once he made it back to the wall, he was criticized and questioned about how he survived. He was rightfully named Lord Commander and a bunch of his own men stabbed him to death and now he’s back.. So yeah, not exactly like staying at a 5 star hotel. After what he’s just had to do in the last episode, we can assume he’s had enough.
I know that I am not the first (or probably even the first 100th) to write about brutality in Game of Thrones but I found it particularly awful this week. With finals almost over, I had time to watch the 2003 film Troy over the weekend with a friend. I noticed her diverting her eyes away and/or cringing during many of the more brutal scenes, prompting me think about violence and brutality in film. While Troy and other films such as Gladiator, Braveheart and Lord Of The Rings are arguably violent in their depictions of battle, cruelty and so forth, it’s been argued that HBO’s Game Of Thrones has taken it to the next level. Aside from the red wedding, the hanging scene at castle black this week felt like serious horror movie status.
Did we really need to see their faces (including young Olly’s) after their hanging? Or their legs twitching? The show has a tendency, apart from Ned’s beheading, to show us the most gruesome atrocities that can be done to the human body. For example, the shot of Jaime’s hand being cut off or the countless throats we’ve seen slit. Arya’s murder of Meryan Trant where she stabs him with a short blade is one that particularly stands out to me. The audience is never left curious about the bloodshed in battle or the filleting of flesh. We see it all – and sometimes, it’s too much.
It’s difficult not to make comparisons when you’re as big a nerd as I am. For example, having been an avid reader of The Hunger Games series, I was expecting some truly awful scenes in the film. For example, in the first book, a boy is ripped apart by mutant muts and forced to die in agony until Katniss puts an arrow through his heart (all written with great description.) The film adaptation was basically a blurry mess of fur and Cato’s face but no actual shot of beast biting into flesh or flesh being ripped from the bone. It is true that the series is considered “young adult” and may have done this so as not to scar young viewers. However, it makes you think: If HBO had taken on the book series (and others, such as Divergent) would it have been shot the same? I don’t think so.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve told people, “You would love this show, except for the violence” or “I don’t think you could handle the brutality.” I, myself, have not been bothered by it enough to stop watching and it is unlikely that I ever will be. I can usually gather from the first glimpse whether or not I want to watch the entire scene but is this a good thing? Perhaps but maybe not. HBO continues to shock its viewers but is the show simultaneously losing out on some potential viewers in the long run? (I will admit they probably don’t care… they are literally one of the most if not THE most successful show on television).
OH YEAH, Everybody hates Ramsay but Ramsay! This week, I’m actually a little bit more upset with his obnoxious/loyal out of fear/excruciatingly pitiful followers. Why did they have to kill Shaggy Dog? I guess it’s been awhile since we’ve had to say goodbye to a direwolf because I did not take it well. Poor helpless animal – ugh. What a bunch of cowards. I think my new hashtag should be #PrayForRickon
And I just have to mention before I go: How completely annoying is it that Sansa is going to end up at Castle Black next week right after Jon has left it? I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE.
– Wilhem Is Coming
Wilhelm Is Coming 
That meme at the end is awesome. I agree about the level of violence in the show. I don’t turn away, but there are few movies with a similar look (many of which you mentioned) that come close to being as brutal. There is also the difference between fantasy and reality. I can understand showing high levels of graphic violence in order to represent a real historical event, such as in films like “Schindler’s List” or “12 Years A Slave.” But this, no matter what real events it draws from, is ultimately a fantasy series in a fictional world with fictional characters. Your references to “The Hunger Games” and Arya Stark’s story line also reminded me that “Breaking Bad” included many plot points where children were injured or killed. One’s corpse was even placed in acid as a way to destroy evidence of the crime. Yet the camera never lingered on their corpses or wounds to the extent this show does. I don’t recall Vince Gilligan subjecting us to blood spurting out of a dying kid’s neck. Still, I doubt many fans of “Breaking Bad” would argue that being less graphic in some respects made the emotional impact of those deaths any less devastating. I don’t think some restraint (and it is restrained only in comparison to “Game of Thrones”) made drug dealing seem any less disgusting. Toning down the gore a little bit in this show would not make most of the shocking plot twists and emotional moments any less memorable. .
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Interesting mention of the hanging scene in this episode. Oddly enough, I wasn’t affected by the hanging as much as I thought I would be. I did think while watching this part that I knew fans would have a problem with it, but rightfully so. It was hard to hear their testimonies before they were hung, but still, I think the overly violence in the show is starting to take it’s effect on me viewing the show. The meme at the bottom is wonderful. After reading your comment on my blog, I agree that it’ll be annoying if Sansa and Brienne get to the Wall and Jon isn’t there. However, how will Jon ride south if he doesn’t have an army? It’ll be interesting to see how it’s played out, but maybe Rickon and Jon will reunite briefly!
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Ha, Jesus Stark. That T Swift Stark meme is so great. I’ve seen it and it just makes me mad because it’s so true! Ugh, so annoying. Freaking Bran could have at least left a note for Jon. Jeez, so inconsiderate.
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I saw an interesting theory on the net that the dog head was a fake, meaning it wasn’t Shaggy Dog. Apparently, the theory thinks that Umber is infiltrating Bolton’s castle to bring him down. They got another dog’s head and will later have Shaggy Dog feed on Ramsey…. or so the theory goes.
I didn’t mind so much Ollie getting hung–it kind of gave me a new inflection on Jon Snow’s post resurrection mind frame–dark! My vote for the most gruesome thing that GOT has done was when the Mountain squeezed the Red Viper’s eyes out of their sockets. That one was hard to watch.
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Jesus Stark is bound for a wild adventure this time. I have no idea what the rules he will live by this time around. The sound effects during the hanging scene were very intense for me. They held the shot on Olly for so long. HBO really takes ya there. I have been hearing whispers about Shaggydog being a decoy too. I really hope the Umbers will not actually break their oath to the Starks.
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I am interested to see what Sansa is going to do when she gets to Castle Black. IS she going to go after her brother? Stay with the Night’s Watch? She could even travel with Ser Davos!!!! I think it is going to be interesting to see if they will ever let the Starks come back together at least once before the series ends.
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The hanging scene was really powerful. This scene made me think a bit about the Theon scene in season 2 (?) in which he burned and hung the “Stark” boys. Perhaps hanging and burning are just the go to procedure when offing children in Westeros. But as another note, this was possibly one of the less honorable things Jon has done (depending on how you look at it). If he intended to leave the Night’s Watch and use his death as an out, he probably should have left before acting further in his post. I have no doubt that the traitors would have been served justice by the next Lord Commander, but I am unconvinced it was technically Jon’s place to act in this capacity if he were going to leave.
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I’m really glad you talked about the hanging scene. It was something I was thinking of talking about in my blog, but didn’t want it to go on for too long. I was really surprised by how gruesome the hanging scene felt to me. I thought the sounds and images were very alarming… and the fact that I’m still alarmed by scenes of violence on GOT makes me have hope that I haven’t been completely desensitized to all the violence. But there was one moment that I was watching a GOT episode with a friend who isn’t a regular viewer, and they reacted to a scene of violence while I barely flinched..it makes you wonder about the effects of repeated exposure. Is GOT going to have to keep coming up with more gruesome violence in order to shock us? Or is all of this working to make us somewhat used to these violent depictions…
I hope you continue to blog this summer! Otherwise- I won’t know what new hashtags to use.
Speaking of which- My hashtag for this week is going to be #getahaircutrickon
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