ChainsawAsh said:
Bingowings said:
Fans of the books please bear with me, I haven't read them but usually villains (even cruel sadists) have some feature of interest which makes them compelling to watch or read.
Young King Joffrey is just a nasty little git.
There is nothing interesting, redeeming, or entertaining about him at all so far in the series.
He isn't a love to hate character he is just a vile piece of work and I can't see how any death, no matter how imaginative would work as narrative payback for what he is.
He is like one of the monsters from Salo.
This is why I take issue with the scene of him with the prostitutes this week. It's not in the books, but it's not a necessary addition either - you don't learn anything new about him, except maybe that he's even worse than you thought. But we already thought he was a monster, so it doesn't significantly enhance our understanding of the character. It's just unnecessarily off-putting.
Overall, though, this season's been fantastic, even though it's less faithful to the book than season 1 was. This is really the only non-book thing so far that I don't like.
I don't think it was totally unnecessary.
For one, I couldn't have been the only one thinking that a teenage king is a horny king, and this kid, unmarried as he is, should be taking advantage of his status to fuck every beautiful woman in the seven kingdoms. I think the scene proved that his proclivities are of the unusually sadistic, non-sexual kind. It almost makes one wonder if he has any interest in sex at all.
Secondly, up until now, we've seen Joffrey behave as a tyrant prince and king, but one could rationalize his decisions as cruel necessities to assert his new authority over the threat of every other house coming for the throne. This scene provided a contrast, as the only one in which his cruelty extends to private affairs not associated with ruling.
Finally, using whores is a distinctly Tyrion means of trying to appease the boy, and if Joffrey can't quite bring himself to harm his uncle, the scene at least showed just how much he'd like to.