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Post by eyesofmist on Apr 28, 2015 22:59:01 GMT
I know this comment is quite silly, but I have to say it, I can't stand Sansa's black clothes, and I especially hate that necklace she wears in every single episode.  . What the hell is that? I know Westeros is not Medieval Europe but that necklace is incredibly dumb in any imaginable context,unless it is for a little kid making a necklace with a chain and some plastic device. Absolutely awful, it makes me cringe.  I also hate Margaery's clothes and lately she looks unattractive too, perhaps because of that wig or because of the clothes, Which don't suit her. See what I mean.  There are so many horrible things in this show that ugly clothes and fake "jewels" may seem unimportant but I don't watch the show anymore, I can't take it. I see pictures on tumble though and they are really a disaster in Sansa's and Margaery's case. And that wig, Marge, it's a horror. |
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Post by sillierthings on Apr 29, 2015 2:14:53 GMT
I find a lot of their style choices odd on this show. Katie pointed out a few days ago that Sansa's necklace looks like its made from a plastic t-shirt clip everyone used to wear in the 80s when oversize t-shirts and leggings were the style to wear. It looks so tacky. I'm reminded of the first time I saw Star Trek: The Next Generation and the character of Geordi clearly had a banana hair clip over his eyes. I wonder about these costume designers. Do they think we won't notice when they use a really common item? It makes it harder to suspend disbelief.    But beyond that, to me, Sansa's necklace looks too modern (and ugly). As you say, it's not Medieval Europe, but it's obviously influenced by Medieval Europe. Why not some jewelry inspired by that time period? Remember all those descriptions of Sansa's moonstone jewelry? Or her hair net with the poisoned jewels? I thought her poisoned necklace in the show looked incredibly cheap and fake. The dresses are disappointing. So many are variations of wrap dresses and the colors are often so muted. The colors of the characters clothing is important, and while they do put Cersei in red, I want to see Marg in Tyrell gold and green. I'd have liked to have seen Sansa in her green dress or her Stark grays. The brocades and other fabrics are ugly, too. I remember reading about all the detail the costume designers put into the embroidery on some of the dresses, but unfortunately, it's wasted work because it does not translate on screen. Sansa's wedding dress, for example, which had all that symbolic embroidery, just looked like heavy, ugly brocade. I could not even tell what the decorations were. It's funny you mention Marg's hair. I had not really paid much attention until you mentioned it, but it's not good, is it? I think it looks worse this season. It's a bit too girlish a style. They've emphasized the widow's peak and the curls and it just seems a bit like dressing mutton as lamb. Natalie Dormer is beautiful and she's hardly "old" (she's about 32, I think), but that hair is not doing her any favors. I think, though, the worst was her wedding hair:  Alas. It wouldn't bother me so much if I did not care about the story. It wouldn't bother me so much if I had not discovered the books via the show. I won't say that I hate to complain because I do enjoy critical discussion, especially when you feel like they COULD have gotten at least this part right. These are beautiful women! Is it that hard to dress them in more flattering costumes? |
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Post by katie on Apr 29, 2015 3:06:22 GMT
I don't have too many complaints about the costumes to be honest -- I do like how each region/kingdom has their own distinct style, which you can recognize on site without having to see any principle characters or banners. The only thing that kinda confused me is how close the Northerners' wardrobe is to the Night's Watch. The blacks of the nightswatchmen are supposed to be SUPER obvious, but I feel like they could be mistaken for any random Northerner, lol.
The wigs are indeed getting ridiculous. Sometimes they are really impressive, like with Sandor's scar+hair piece, which looks incredibly natural (except on those occasions when they put it on wrong or crooked and it never really matches from scene to scene). Cersei and Dany's wigs bother me the most by far. They are just sooooo fake-looking, and the amount of intricacy in Dany's hair in particular is just... too much.
The Alayne Stone Raven Dress, as bad as it is conceptually, what really bothers me about it is that Sansa supposedly MADE it herself. Sansa is not a seamstress, people. She does embroidery. There is a big difference. And yet even the show's costume designer went on this big spiel about all it's "symbolism" in Sansa's arc, and I'm like.... wouldn't the costume designer, of ALL people, realize how fundamentally erroneous it is to have a highborn girl actually MAKE a dress all by herself?? I wish we could have seen, instead, Sansa choosing a plain dark brown dress like in the books, and the dilemma she went through in having to make herself look so much more DRAB instead of having her vamp herself up like on the show.
I guess my only real complaint is, like you guys said, much of the costuming is just very muted. I would have loved to see more over-the-top styles that are mentioned in the book, like, for instance, crazy clownman Daario! lol
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Post by eyesofmist on Apr 29, 2015 6:26:51 GMT
Sansa's necklace bothers me because it isn't believable and it looks cheap and as if it was made of plastic and alluminium in the bloody 80s.
If the raven dress is symbolic I also would like to know what kind of symbol it is for her to be dressed as some sort of gothic character from the Adam's family or as a sort.of raven vamp for Halloween. Sansa is highborn and should look classy even when wearing Alayne's clothes but those clothes look like fancy dressed for Halloween.
Jaime's tunic, jerkin or whatever it was in the first seson was a disaster too, not because it was ugly but cause it didn't look right for a medieval-like world. It looked like something from the 80s again.
Cersei should look magnificent but those dresses look like robes rather than queenly gowns and make a pretty woman look
unremarkable. Those dresses are dull, nothing like Cersei's.
Cat's were wrong too and made a highborn lady look poor. Since when did the Starks and Tullys look poor? Their dresses could look stern and simple but not cheap and poor.
The worst thing is that the clothes seem fancy dresses and not real dresses worn in a real world by noble people. I have seen much better costumes than these and they keep getting worse. I don't think they help the actors feel regal and aristocratic as they should.
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Post by katie on Apr 29, 2015 6:43:14 GMT
I have to say, when I first watched GoT, it took me a while to realize that the Starks were a noble family -- just based on their clothes and hair alone, LOL. I guess they're supposed to be making the point that they are more "modest" than the rest of the Westerosi nobility? And it also took me a second or 10 to realize that Robert was the king. I never thought he looked particularly kingly. Even when I watched it again with my mom, she was like, "THAT's the king??" LOL.
I don't mind so much the mixing of styles so long as it doesn't look cheap or costumey. This is indeed supposed to be a medieval-like world, but still a made-up one, so I think they can take some liberties with costumes, but again, it has to look consistent and believable.
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Post by sillierthings on Apr 29, 2015 13:58:45 GMT
To me, more often than not, the women's dresses look very much like a wrap style maxi dress I have from Banana Republic. It's a super comfortable dress, so hey, who can blame them, but they do not look royal to me either. Lena Hedley is a lovely woman, but I always pictured Cersei as being very va-va-voom. She's meant to be a seductress (a Circe-like sorceress). However, her hair and costume do not convey that. The first time we see her:  That looks like someone who stayed out at the disco all night in 1973. This is our beautiful queen? Again, it's not Lena. It's the way they styled her. Now admittedly, I LIKED season 1 and 2, so it wasn't a deal breaker, but the costumes do not do their job, in my opinion. Katie, as a writer and director, I know you probably add greater insight to this, but given that the novels have been adapted to television, the costumes should be working extra hard to convey the characterization that must necessarily be lost when we do not get the character's thoughts and such. In addition, the colors the characters wear in the novel say so much about their allegiances and connections to each other. As we've discussed before, the Hound goes from Lannister red tunic w/ dog motif to grey/green. That's subtle, but significant. One thing I loved about the show "Breaking Bad" was how they used the color of the costumes to show the characters shifts in personality and allegiance. I just wonder why they don't use more of that in their costumes in GOT since it's already laid out for them in the books. Also, there are just impracticalities that bug me:  Those little twisted braids that the women in King's Landing wear. There are no clasps. No rubber bands. How do they keep their hair in a twist like that? |
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Post by katie on Apr 29, 2015 14:49:09 GMT
That IS very important, and it's something many directors (including myself) put a lot of stock in. Color is indeed a classic literary AND cinematic motif, and I love how it is used by GRRM in ASOIAF (people who say that's reading too much into it can choke on it). Color can be used in costuming for anything from conveying a character's mood to conveying a character's evolution to just plain making a character stand out from the rest of his/her environment (a classic example is Vertigo and Kim Novak's green dress when James Stewart first spots her in the restaurant that's decorated all in red; she stands out so conspicuously because red and green are opposite colors). Since it seems the costume department makes everything from scratch, you would think more thought would be put into this, but it all seems pretty random.
The only example I can think of on GoT where a person's appearance plays any kind of part in their arc is Sansa's hair, LOL. When she gets to KL, she's quick to adopt those ridiculous up-'dos in order to fit in to her new surroundings. Once Joffrey sets her aside for Marg, she stops doing this. And, of course, once she gets to the Eyrie and becomes Darth Sansa, she dyes her hair dark brown. Subtle! ;-)
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Post by sillierthings on Apr 29, 2015 15:45:42 GMT
Yes, they do TRY to do things with Sansa's costuming to convey this but somehow, like with the embroidery, it doesn't come across very clearly or it's not nearly as sophisticated a touch as they might think (Black hair, goth transformation, for example). I sort of feel for the person doing all that needlework on Sansa's dresses because I know that's a lot of work, but I don't notice it most of the time. I know the dragonfly motif is something they've pointed out as being used in Sansa's costuming, but again, unless you were really looking for it, it doesn't come across very well. Maybe I need a bigger t.v. Also, how are they meaning that symbol to come across? Is she like the Prince of Dragonflies, marrying a commoner? Does that refer to a lesser noble like Sandor or have they been planning to marry her to the bastard of Bolton all along?
One more thing about Sansa's new necklace--I assumed it was meant to show how powerful she is becoming, dominatrix-ish. But now that I look at it more, it seems like she is the one who is collared and chained, hardly empowered.
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Post by katie on Apr 29, 2015 16:43:42 GMT
Ha, you're right, it does look more like a dog collar/chain, doesn't it? With the little dangly thing at the end that LF can lead her around by. Ugh. The wolf girl in chains. :-(
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Post by eyesofmist on Apr 29, 2015 20:26:51 GMT
That's exactly what I thought and that chain looked like a dog's lead and this is absolutely awful. They are portaying a sort of BDSM pornish situation for poor Sansa in that psycho's power and Joff was already enough of a monster, nobody needs a second monster in Sansa's story line. They cut a lot of story lines and deleted a lot of characters,sho why did they keep Ramsay'sexual abuse on Jayne when they have made her disappear? Why is this more important than LS, M Ryder or Aryanne? Because of the BDSM style porn?  |
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Post by sillierthings on Apr 29, 2015 21:40:38 GMT
I can't see any other reason for it. That black dress suddenly seems so much more insidious. Let's dress up this teenage girl in her black vixen dress and ugly necklace. We'll tell everyone how strong she is, how her sexuality will be used for her to gain power, how SHE chose the outfit. SHE made the dress and the necklace--so even if it looks like she is in the slave position, SHE chose it, just like SHE chose to marry Ramsay. Don't you see it is all SANSA'S CHOICE  ? If it is meant to imply some elements of BDSM (and I think it is), Sansa is the one wearing the collar and being controlled. All the worse when we now know she's been given to Ramsay for what I assume will amount to some torture porn in Season 5, much like we saw with Theon in Season 3. |
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Post by katie on Apr 29, 2015 22:34:24 GMT
I saw a GoT ep. 5.3 recap summary somewhere this week that chocked up Sansa's storyline thusly: "Sansa makes a terrible decision (seriously, it's so bad)", and I'm like... SHE made the decision??? The summary seemed to flippantly imply "welp, that dumbass Sansa did yet another completely stupid thing as usual!" I guess I can't completely fault the writer though, because that is what the show has reduced her to -- just a walking, talking Terrible Decision Machine. Even the decisions she makes that were completely justified in the books (i.e. not leaving KL with Sandor) are stripped away of any context and therefore DO make her look like a complete idiot utterly responsible for her own misfortunes. Yeah, what if she really HAD said no to LF on that cliff above Moat Cailin?? Just 2 eps before, he made an insidious comment about what happens to people who "disappoint" him, and now here he is all up in Sansa's face, grabbing her by the collar of her coat, not giving her any ACTUAL room to say no. SHE HAD NO CHOICE. She STILL has no choice.
The best we can hope for is, with LF going back to KL, she'll no longer be under HIS control or grip and can make some decisions for herself and, hopefully, be able to defend herself against Ramsay somehow...
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Post by eyesofmist on Apr 30, 2015 16:03:04 GMT
When I said how much I disliked Sansa's clothes and espcially the necklace I handn't thought what nasty implications that chain around her nech could have, I only thought she looked like some sort of Goth, which made no sense neither for her character nor for the universe she lives in. But you have dug further and I'm afraid I have to agree with you,this may be a twisted version of a BDSM collar,which is absolutely disgusting. They chose to keep this part of the story,which means torturing a girl when Ramsay has already tortured a young man,Theon. Why keeping this and not other plotlines which seem far more inmportant as regards the big picture?
This is the kind of thing that would have made me doubt when the show started but not now, I would have thought that perhaps this was more important than I had anticipated. Now I know better,they are just looking for more gratuitous sex,and what is much worse,looking for the kind of porn I hate most,that which thrives on violence and humiliation. It seems torturing and castrating Theon wasn't enough for this show,and having Jeyne in the story as a sexual torture victim wasn't shocking and disgusting enough, it had to be Sansa. And having her accept her marriage to f....ing Ramsay,as you have pointed out makes this even more disgusting,as if she deserved it somehow for not being smart enough to have fought against this.
Some twisted people wanted Littlefinger to abuse here but D&D have gone even further by having Ramsay torture her. They will be gloating and thinking she should have accepted Tyrion or even Littlefinge,that this is much worse.
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Post by katie on Apr 30, 2015 16:56:47 GMT
When I first started watching the show, I thought Sansa was a bitch. Not a big enough bitch that I would want to see her tortured and abused by Joffrey the way she was, but I remember doing a lot of eyerolling in her direction. I started warming up to her around the time she almost pushed Joffrey off the battlements, LOL, and I was on her side at the beginning of Season 2 when she just sort of dully went along with whatever Joffrey said in order to avoid more abuse (as was Sandor's advice). And, of course, the whole SanSan thing warmed my cockles too, heehee. Yes, Sansa was finally starting to grow on me... and then BOOM, she refuses to go with Sandor during the BoBW. I could not believe it!!! I was flabbergasted!!! But, again, this was D&D's Sansa I was reacting to, not GRRM's. And thus, once I realized that Sansa had made the decision to stay in KL rather than go with literally the ONLY person who seemed to give a sincere shit about her, I was like, you know what? Whatever happens to you from here on out, gurl, it's your own fault; you shoulda gone with the Hound. So, I can kinda see where show-watchers are coming from with this latest development; I can see where it would look like yet another horrible decision on her part, because, without the CONTEXT of what book-Sansa thinks/feels/does, she does indeed seem to have a history of bad decisions on this show. Book-Sansa is more clever and rational whereas show-Sansa is kind of an idiot.  |
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Post by sillierthings on Apr 30, 2015 18:15:14 GMT
It's not important. Jeyne's storyline is heartbreaking, and it does serve an important theme: she is just another one of the "Jeynes" in the story who ends up manipulated and hurt when the Lords and Ladies play their games. She also fills in the role of showing us just how lucky Sansa was that she escaped a similar fate being given into marriage with the enemy. Jeyne is also part of Theon's redemption, so if the show is concerned with finishing Theon's storyline, I GUESS that might be their excuse for keeping the plot line, but there is no reason that it needs to follow exactly, and there is absolutely no reason to make Sansa play Jeyne's role.
The worst has not happened yet, but if Sansa is raped or tortured sexually, I cannot give any more of my time or money to this show. I cannot believe that I even need to worry about that happening, but there it is. They have misread Sansa's character, turning her into a stupid girl who pays for her mistakes and her "choices" with being used and abused by men. I can't help but feel that Sansa's character is being set up to fulfill someone's dark fantasy. Even the violence done to Jeyne generally happens "off screen." We know what happens because of the things she and Reek say, but we don't have it described. It's even worse in the Sansa version of the plot because they make it seem as if Sansa has the ability to CHOOSE to do this. Didn't you see how she was dressed? She's asking for it. Why else would she wear that dress and collar? Why else would she agree to marry Ramsay?
Even what has happened so far is turning my stomach. The more I reflect, the worse Littlefinger's treatment of Sansa is. The invasion of her space, the manipulation of calling her weak for wanting to run away from the Boltons. They sexed up Sansa with that dress. They tell us it's Dark, Manipulative Sansa. They all--the writers, Aiden Whats-his-face, Sophie Turner--all say that Sansa is definitely manipulating Petyr with this newfound sexuality. Go on, pull the other leg. It's a lie. Maybe they tell themselves that so they can justify what they are doing, but the show itself tells a different story.
It's very similar to the Jaime/Cersei rape in the sept last season. They can say it wasn't rape all they want. It looked like rape on my screen. So, tell me this teenage girl is empowered and manipulative. It still looks like sexual and psychological abuse from where I'm sitting. And though they DO make Sansa look like the world's biggest idiot, it's still not a justification.
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. What the hell is that? I know Westeros is not Medieval Europe but that necklace is incredibly dumb in any imaginable context,unless it is for a little kid making a necklace with a chain and some plastic device. Absolutely awful, it makes me cringe.
