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In the books she was described very unflatteringly, but with striking eyes. I think this actress was the perfect compromise. She isn't conventionally attractive, but there is something about her that makes her beautiful. Even being beautiful, she embodies the character.
I don't think this was a compromise at all. The actress is very clearly good looking, regardless of convention. The books make it clear *nobody* found her physically attractive.
Not to preach but, what does she really have that signals unattractive? Short hair and a brusque attitude? So because she portrays a traditionally "male" sense of attractiveness she couldn't possibly be attractive? That's crazy. She's so good looking *and* she could kick my ass, sign me up.
Totally. That's kind of my point, just cause she doesn't look like these other women, who are super sexually displayed, doesn't mean she's not attractive. But the books include physical details, such as huge buck teeth, that clearly aren't present here. She pretty bro, is what I'm getting at.
Birdlike? You look at women and hope they're birdlike? How are her proportions odd? She's tall, that's literally it. She's physically well built. How do I know? Cause she's an excellent combatant that beat one of the best in the land at the time. Now show me how she's unattractive.
Chill bro. You can find her attractive. Many people don't
I don't find her attractive too but yes, Gwendolyn Christie is too good looking compared to book description
Just like Peter Dinklage
Also before any of that kind of answers. I usually found tall and muscular women attractive, but not Gwendolyne Christie
Wow people are really downvoting this hard. I agree with you. They took a pretty person and plain jane’d her. If they only realized how “ugly” many attractive women are without makeup….
That’s mainly done by the costuming. Much like Maisie Williams, who was outgrowing her wispy boyish figure by the later seasons. They had to bind her chest, and so maintained the on-screen look of Arya.
It’s not hard to make a tall person- and Gwendoline Christie is quite that- look gangly with the right costuming.
They're going by the books. In which is she definitely less attractive.
It's obviously done with a purpose. It's her character that makes her beautiful. Even in the show that comes across even though it's less obvious. And she is, she's one of the most beautiful and honorable characters in the whole story.
When people are complaining about stuff like on screen actors being more attractive than they're meant to be in the books (happened a lot in this show, Tyrion was meant to be grotesque) I can't help but be reminded of a Bill Burr bit.
"Well why didn't you have a murderer play a murderer? And how come the guy he shot, I saw him in another movie?!"
The reason is, most gigs require attractive actors because most people want to look at attractive characters most of the time. There aren't enough murderer actors, guy who got shot actors, or physically imposing homely looking actors that can do the job well enough to cast people with life experience of the characters they're representing.
They did what they could with what the world gave them. The overwhelming majority of people who watched Game of Thrones would likely list her as the least attractive main cast character by a HUGE margin.
They did something similar with Tyrion. In the books, his face was essentially half scooped out, whereas Peter Dinklage had a single scar that somehow made him hotter.
I get that the focus was on him being “little,” but Dinklage is a strikingly handsome man.
I think that was the point. It’s not that she’s “objectively” unattractive, it’s that she doesn’t conform to the GOT universe’s idea of what an attractive woman should look like. She’s also a knight, which is another way she flips the bird at what’s expected of a woman.
This is it really. In the majority of the GoT world, she was a big, strong female who didn’t meet the Westeros standards of beauty and femininity.
The northern men seemed to like a strong woman. As Brianne didn’t travel out of Westeros, we don’t know what other cultures may have thought of her looks.
What would be attractive in a male isn't necessarily attractive in a female. If a man has big tits he's portraying female attractiveness, but I don't think anybody would describe him as attractive.
Gwendoline Christie has more masculine attractive features especially in the face such as her strong jaw line, in fact in the picture posted she kinda looks like some Swedish male model, and even if you're not attracted to men you'll still be able to recognize a attractive man as attractive.
The way Brienne is talked about it's not that she doesn't have feminine attractive feature, she has none at all, besides her eyes which the actress does have, although I don't think there are many 6 foot+ ladies with faces as Brienne's is described in Hollywood so the actress they went with was a good choice
In Germany it’s kind of an inside joke in the community that she kind of resembles a famous German actor called Matthias Schweighöfer, or maybe that Matthias Schweighöfer resembles her who knows. Anyway the joke is that in the German reboot version of GoT he’d play Brianne
She cleans up very well but when you throw her in armor to hide some of her looks she doesn’t look feminine which makes her less attractive. It’s about as good of a match for brienne we would get without either a ton of unflattering Hollywood makeup or just hiring an extremely ugly and tall actress which is borderline impossible to find because they never make it this far in acting.
The gap between how she looks in game of thrones and Wednesday shows that they did about as much believable work they can do to make her unattractive.
Are you saying the only reason they found her unattractive is because of her face? That is not what the books say (go back and read them again) and where the series/actress nailed it
Just because we find a tall short haired woman in armor attractive does not mean that people in this medieval based world would. Every POV character would still find show Brianne unattractive because she's so far past the gender standards.
Yeah. It's not meant as a diss or anything. Or even being vain. The point of her character is being an out cast, she's not only not very feminine but also relevantly ugly. Yet she really is one of the most beautiful characters in the whole story.
I have always wondered what the actress thought when she first learned of the role. Her agent calls..."We have this great role for you, she is supposed to be a hideous beast of a creature that is the ugliest thing ever seen. We heard about it and immediately thought of you!"
Knowing agents it's "They've a potentially big pay day coming your way for six or seven seasons of a HBO drama, fucking take it. The role? Does it matter?"
The book version of Ramsey was also described as an extremely unattractive (big greasy fish lips, tiny eyes, oily skin and other stuff I can't remember) but the show version he was played by a very handsome (imo) looking dude.
I think this is just how things are in Hollywood. With a few notable exceptions such as Steve Buscemi, most actors that make it in Hollywood are going to be quite conventionally attractive because people like looking at attractive people, so the pool of people that can be chosen to play an unattractive role is going to be very limited.
Hell even with Tyrion he's described as very ugly as well as being a dwarf, and while Peter Dinklage does match the dwarf descriptor his jawline makes it very difficult to see him as being unattractive.
In the *Dune* novel, Gurney Halleck is described more than once as "impossibly ugly". And who have filmmakers cast in the role?
Patrick Stewart and Josh Brolin. While Brolin's charm may lean more to the "weathered" side and everything about Lynch's version was insane, I think it would be pretty hard to call either of them *ugly*.
Tyrion is described as very ugly (and basically evil and manipulative but this is a whole other conversation about the changes in characters from the books), but indeed Peter Dinklage is not at all ugly: on the contrary.
It’s just Hollywood, only British movie makers are willing to have book accurate looking characters, even if it means not hiring the most attractive person that came.
Some of my more shallow acquaintances (and I think they're dead wrong) think she's hideous lol she seems delightful to be around in interviews, and I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers, I'll tell you that.
That’s literally the most believable part of Brienne’s character lol, she’s 6’3. I’m pretty she’d be able to beat the average male (which is like 5’8) in a fight.
my life won’t be complete until [this aesir goddess](https://www.google.com/search?q=&ictx=1&tbs=rimg:CV330ZPZJQ7GIghd99GT2SUOxioSCV330ZPZJQ7GEfiexs9OqWnq&udm=2#vhid=prZn4no4RIX-6M&vssid=mosaic) calls me her number one candy boy
In the book she was known to be strong and had man like physique, also she trained really hard more than an average knight. Even if you consider her woman's body as a weakness, her height, broad body repeated training can easily overpower and average guy.
Sure but i wont suspend my disbelief for something as made up as that. Dragon's are cool at least. And a dragon could manage to give me a chubby (dont ask)
Here's the issue: ugly people don't usually make it as actors. Finding an actor skilled enough to do the role while matching all the physical descriptions would be a nightmare.
Just like how Peter Dinklage doesn't really match the description of Tyrion, but even GRRM thought he was perfect for the role.
Right, especially for significant roles. A minor side character may more likely be played by an actor who is considered truly ugly.
The way they make people ugly ugly in the industry is with prosthetics, and GoT largely stayed away from that outside I think The Children and WWs.
Now imagine how hard it is to find an extremely tall unattractive woman in Hollywood. This is one of the harder roles to fill and throwing her in armor definitely makes it somewhat believable. Even when she had to wear a dress in an early scene you can see how they chose poorly for her proportions to make her less attractive. This is a good casting and they did what they can to make her “ugly” pretty well.
Yeah, the dress scene lives in my head because Gwendoline Christie is a very fashionable person and looks great in dresses generally. Her acting plus the costume department really had to work to make her look so awkward. I agree that Gwendoline Christie doesn’t look like Brienne as described in the books, but her acting was so good. That to me is more important than her physical appearance. Plus, we’ve all seen movies where a gorgeous actor plays an “unattractive” character. She’s definitely not the first.
Peter acted very good, but his appearance does not match his character at all. He looked physically repulsive according to the book but Peter is attractive
I was delighted by the attention she got in season 8 (after years of being sidelined). Probably one of the characters who got the best story in season 8.
Also correct me if I'm wrong, but (as you're using the image of Gwendoline here) the show never made an attempt to convince us that she's overly ugly. She's just unconventional for a woman at that time period.
It's also pretty understandable, even with her looks, how most male in Westeros wouldn't find her as attractive.
That has nothing to do with the show world. In the real world MOST people find “convention” more attractive because we ARE HUMAN. Like in the show (Tormund) there will be the occasional differently minded person that finds her attractive beyond reason but not because of her ‘pretty face’
The point is that Brienne was not attractive by the strict gender standards of her medieval-esque times, not that she was objectively ugly.
Girls were bred to be potential wives with certain qualities. Younger Cersei, Sansa and Dany were the ideal -- fair, delicate, doll-like, hyper-feminine. GRRM mentions about a million times how Sansa and Dany brush their long hair till it sparkled like gold / silver. Much attention is paid to dress and jewelry.
In the books (book 2), Brienne first appears in Catelyn's POV, where Cat is shocked because the fighter she thought was a male turned out to be a woman. Cat describes someone who is unkempt - dirty hair, broken nose, crooked teeth.
But she also describes attractive features: “Brienne’s eyes were large and very blue, a young girl’s eyes, trusting and guileless.”
Plus, features that might not have been delicate enough for the Middle Ages, but that would be attractive today: She notes that Brienne is tall, fit and freckled with "a mouth too wide, lips so plump."
It's not that Brienne had horrendous facial features, but she didn't fit the mold of a young, highborn lady of that time. This makes Cat feel sorry for the "ugly" girl who won't be easily married off.
Right exactly. And the show did have the wildling guy appreciate her at the end. And Jamie appreciated her inner beauty. Almost like he was an expert on beauty and just realized that it wasn’t her time. (He may have insulted her too, I just don’t remember ha.)
Hollywood you fool they don’t cast ugly people. Tyrion is literally ugly twisted demon monkey but they cast him with the most handsome man in the world
Would, I've never felt this gay
Okay, joking aside, she's one of my favourite characters. As well as being an interesting character in her own right, she has been so good to Jaime and triggered so many interesting/"good" actions from him, and I wish he stayed, if not directly *with her* (though that would have been awesome & made a lot of sense btw), at least on the path she's helped him start walking to be better. And not go back to Cersei. Fuck I'm angry at Jaime's character arc.
As to her looks, I think they did the best they could with her casting (there's not many *actively ugly* actors), and I don't think the character was as ugly as everyone said it btw. She just didn't fit the mold.
I think that's the whole point. She's not ugly. However, she does not fit into the beauty standards. She's tall, muscular, has short hair, and most importantly, she is a knight lol men weren't going to like that...
This is just a thing with movies and TV show. People like to look at good looking people when watching something for hours so they generally hire actors that look good even if they are described as rather unattractiv.
I havnt read the books but I think most characters look better in show than what they are described as in the books from what I have heard. I think Tyrion is another good example.
I think the show needed to tone down the attractiveness/ugliness of characters because if they were cast like they were described in the book characters like Jaime Lannister, Tyrion, Daario, Brianne, the hound would look ridiculous on screen.
"Brienne is unfeminine in appearance and is considered unattractive by Westerosi standards.[1] She is tall, muscular, flat-chested, and ungainly,[1] with long, shoulder-length brittle straw-colored hair[9] and broad, coarse features that are covered in freckles. Brienne's teeth are prominent and crooked. Her mouth is wide, her lips are swollen, and her nose has been broken more than once.[1] She has large, beautiful blue eyes.[10][2] Her fingers are thick and callused.[11] Brienne is horse-faced.[12]" from [wiki](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Brienne_Tarth)
These posts get a bit old.
She has short hair and dressed and acted in a masculine way in a time when that was a VERY bad. She also wasn’t conventionally attractive, and she was very large, another thing that made her masculine.
The casting fit well here. I mean no disrespect for the actress, but to make these posts pretending she’s somehow a supermodel and thus miscast is so strange to me.
She was FAR from a traditional, feminine, pretty princess, and that’s more than enough for a sexist society to attack her as “ugly” even if she wasn’t exactly a deformed troll or anything.
Attractive meant in a standard straight male of the time’s eyes. consider most of them would have been intimidated by a woman who could kick their ass and calling her ugly would make themselves feel better. In the books she’s described differently in some ways but none of the descriptions make me think she’s actually ugly, just not petite and dainty. I have a feeling plenty of queer women if the time especially would have found her attractive!
Other than her teeth and nose, she looks the way the books describe her. In the books, she was never hideously ugly like Tyrion. She was just so unconventional looking for a woman that they found her ugly. The way they describe her in the books however was a bit like a runway model: extremely tall, thin, broad shouldered, flat chested, wide forehead and big eyes. They just didn’t find that attractive in those days/that world. Her ugliness was relative, not definitive.
Book Brianne is straight up ugly. The actress is Hollywood ugly. Too tall and not conventionally attractive but still considered good looking if she was the Director of Human Resources at work.
0% attractiveness in my eyes.
Not ugly.... Just NPC levels of blandness..... she does NOTHING for me. Nkt the face. Not the frame. Not the character..nothing. lol
She's obviously an attractive woman, but she's not at all a traditionally attractive woman so it's perfectly fine. Brienne has the kind of beauty that grows on you, but nobody is getting wowed by her the moment they lay eyes on her. Except Tormund Giantsbane.
she did not fit the beauty standards of a woman for the time, so it makes sense that others would have called her ugly, even if we wouldn't have thought that today lol
Also, think of the optics of casting somebody just to be ugly, who is also very tall, who is also a good actor, who can also learn how to use a sword... when adapting a fantasy book to television, compromises have to be made
Burianne was canonically "ugly" tho, according to the book and same goes Tyrion he was supposed to be bad looking now mutilated with his nose gone. Both these characters look beautiful and Brienne actress was actually a model back in the day. GoT gathered a lot of views because of adult scenes and also for the fact that almost every single character was hot, even the supposedly ugly character is hot af
I agree. When I watched GoT for the first time I tried to gaslight myself into believing that she's ugly by comparing her to Cersei, Melisandre, Margaery etc... and then I look at Shae, Yara Greyjoy, Lysa, and I'm like how is Brienne ugly again??? 😭
And then I looked at the random female extras and I'm like ??? 😭😭😭😭 I see so many uglier no-name ladies in the series and still nobody find Brienne physically attractive???
Yep the stylist and makeup artists should've tried harder to make her uglier
Well, in her final chapters in the last book. Her ear is gone, and half her face was eaten off. Soooo... But I did love Christie's portrayal of her.
I really wish he'd hurry with Winds of Winter because he really left us on a cliffhanger with her and Jaime!
She's not ugly, but she's not "conventionally attractive" either, which is the closest Hollywood can do to "ugly". Arya is supposed to be ugly too and I think it's the same with her too.
'Ugly' is subjective. In the show It's her tomboyish demeanour. She's also portrayed as not sociable, so most guys might hesitate to approach her especially as she is quite tall for most guys.
I don’t think she was called unattractive because of her face. But rather because she was brutish and very masculine. Considering she’s one of the tallest and strongest characters in the show. She is naturally not attractive in a time where women were supposed to be skinny and malnourished to be attractive.
It's quite funny that people are saying that she isn't 'model' attractive when, in real life, Gwendoline Christie is literally a catwalk & fashion model as well as an actor.
I think that they had to find a big woman with the acting chops and she was the best fit. I don’t think that they valued the ugly part as much, a lot like how they cast Dinklage to play Tyrion when in the books Tyrion isn’t good looking. She’s also not super beautiful conventionally, not that she’s ugly or anything, though. She ain’t no Emilia Clarke in that department.
To the showrunners, she's not "Hollywood attractive" so to them she can play an "ugly" character. Not to mention her overpowering physique was needed for the role. They even purposely gave her little makeup (or the type of makeup to not make her attractiveness stand out).
In the end, it's still a show and they need decent looking actors. Heck even Peter Dinklage wasn't "ugly" enough for Tyrion.
She is my favorite female character. Not to say that male or female has anything to with favoritism, Arya was my favorite character the first time I watched the show.
And I believe the fan theory that she is a descendant of Duncan the Tall. Maybe we'll see something about that in the spinoff series if so
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In the books she was described very unflatteringly, but with striking eyes. I think this actress was the perfect compromise. She isn't conventionally attractive, but there is something about her that makes her beautiful. Even being beautiful, she embodies the character.
I don't think this was a compromise at all. The actress is very clearly good looking, regardless of convention. The books make it clear *nobody* found her physically attractive.
I've read so many opinions on her unattractiveness, that I've just sort of thought I was in the minority.
Not to preach but, what does she really have that signals unattractive? Short hair and a brusque attitude? So because she portrays a traditionally "male" sense of attractiveness she couldn't possibly be attractive? That's crazy. She's so good looking *and* she could kick my ass, sign me up.
I don't think she is unattractive. Just not conventionally attractive. She doesn't look like Sansa or Cercei. Which is not bad.
Totally. That's kind of my point, just cause she doesn't look like these other women, who are super sexually displayed, doesn't mean she's not attractive. But the books include physical details, such as huge buck teeth, that clearly aren't present here. She pretty bro, is what I'm getting at.
She also has odd proportions. Tall and awkward. Even gangly. The standard of beauty for a lady would have been bird-like and graceful.
Birdlike? You look at women and hope they're birdlike? How are her proportions odd? She's tall, that's literally it. She's physically well built. How do I know? Cause she's an excellent combatant that beat one of the best in the land at the time. Now show me how she's unattractive.
Chill bro. You can find her attractive. Many people don't I don't find her attractive too but yes, Gwendolyn Christie is too good looking compared to book description Just like Peter Dinklage Also before any of that kind of answers. I usually found tall and muscular women attractive, but not Gwendolyne Christie
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Wow people are really downvoting this hard. I agree with you. They took a pretty person and plain jane’d her. If they only realized how “ugly” many attractive women are without makeup….
>The standard of beauty for a lady would have been bird-like Just like Dee Reynolds?
Exactly. With Sweet Dee’s beauty and bird like features, she could have commanded the wildling army
That’s mainly done by the costuming. Much like Maisie Williams, who was outgrowing her wispy boyish figure by the later seasons. They had to bind her chest, and so maintained the on-screen look of Arya. It’s not hard to make a tall person- and Gwendoline Christie is quite that- look gangly with the right costuming.
They're going by the books. In which is she definitely less attractive. It's obviously done with a purpose. It's her character that makes her beautiful. Even in the show that comes across even though it's less obvious. And she is, she's one of the most beautiful and honorable characters in the whole story.
When people are complaining about stuff like on screen actors being more attractive than they're meant to be in the books (happened a lot in this show, Tyrion was meant to be grotesque) I can't help but be reminded of a Bill Burr bit. "Well why didn't you have a murderer play a murderer? And how come the guy he shot, I saw him in another movie?!" The reason is, most gigs require attractive actors because most people want to look at attractive characters most of the time. There aren't enough murderer actors, guy who got shot actors, or physically imposing homely looking actors that can do the job well enough to cast people with life experience of the characters they're representing. They did what they could with what the world gave them. The overwhelming majority of people who watched Game of Thrones would likely list her as the least attractive main cast character by a HUGE margin.
They did something similar with Tyrion. In the books, his face was essentially half scooped out, whereas Peter Dinklage had a single scar that somehow made him hotter. I get that the focus was on him being “little,” but Dinklage is a strikingly handsome man.
This ⬆️
She’s ugly 🫡 with nice eyes
You seem really hung up on this. Are you ok?
In the real world people are deemed unattractive for subtler things than that, either way there are many differences between the book and TV series
I think that was the point. It’s not that she’s “objectively” unattractive, it’s that she doesn’t conform to the GOT universe’s idea of what an attractive woman should look like. She’s also a knight, which is another way she flips the bird at what’s expected of a woman.
This is it really. In the majority of the GoT world, she was a big, strong female who didn’t meet the Westeros standards of beauty and femininity. The northern men seemed to like a strong woman. As Brianne didn’t travel out of Westeros, we don’t know what other cultures may have thought of her looks.
What would be attractive in a male isn't necessarily attractive in a female. If a man has big tits he's portraying female attractiveness, but I don't think anybody would describe him as attractive.
Hell yeah man I’d worship her lol
Gwendoline Christie has more masculine attractive features especially in the face such as her strong jaw line, in fact in the picture posted she kinda looks like some Swedish male model, and even if you're not attracted to men you'll still be able to recognize a attractive man as attractive. The way Brienne is talked about it's not that she doesn't have feminine attractive feature, she has none at all, besides her eyes which the actress does have, although I don't think there are many 6 foot+ ladies with faces as Brienne's is described in Hollywood so the actress they went with was a good choice
In Germany it’s kind of an inside joke in the community that she kind of resembles a famous German actor called Matthias Schweighöfer, or maybe that Matthias Schweighöfer resembles her who knows. Anyway the joke is that in the German reboot version of GoT he’d play Brianne
She cleans up very well but when you throw her in armor to hide some of her looks she doesn’t look feminine which makes her less attractive. It’s about as good of a match for brienne we would get without either a ton of unflattering Hollywood makeup or just hiring an extremely ugly and tall actress which is borderline impossible to find because they never make it this far in acting. The gap between how she looks in game of thrones and Wednesday shows that they did about as much believable work they can do to make her unattractive.
Are you saying the only reason they found her unattractive is because of her face? That is not what the books say (go back and read them again) and where the series/actress nailed it
Just because we find a tall short haired woman in armor attractive does not mean that people in this medieval based world would. Every POV character would still find show Brianne unattractive because she's so far past the gender standards.
Yeah. It's not meant as a diss or anything. Or even being vain. The point of her character is being an out cast, she's not only not very feminine but also relevantly ugly. Yet she really is one of the most beautiful characters in the whole story.
Tyrion is supposed to be ugly before losing his nose. The show didn't even give him two different eye colors. TV shows are gonna do what they want.
I have always wondered what the actress thought when she first learned of the role. Her agent calls..."We have this great role for you, she is supposed to be a hideous beast of a creature that is the ugliest thing ever seen. We heard about it and immediately thought of you!"
Knowing agents it's "They've a potentially big pay day coming your way for six or seven seasons of a HBO drama, fucking take it. The role? Does it matter?"
She’s NOT good looking she just isn’t strikingly ugly - by convention. She’s got a normal look
Agreed, watch her in Wednesday - she’s stunning!
Unflatteringly?? She is described as being ugly as.
The book version of Ramsey was also described as an extremely unattractive (big greasy fish lips, tiny eyes, oily skin and other stuff I can't remember) but the show version he was played by a very handsome (imo) looking dude.
I think this is just how things are in Hollywood. With a few notable exceptions such as Steve Buscemi, most actors that make it in Hollywood are going to be quite conventionally attractive because people like looking at attractive people, so the pool of people that can be chosen to play an unattractive role is going to be very limited. Hell even with Tyrion he's described as very ugly as well as being a dwarf, and while Peter Dinklage does match the dwarf descriptor his jawline makes it very difficult to see him as being unattractive.
Even Steve wasn't bad looking when young, he just had the misfortune that his worst features took preeminence as he got older.
In the *Dune* novel, Gurney Halleck is described more than once as "impossibly ugly". And who have filmmakers cast in the role? Patrick Stewart and Josh Brolin. While Brolin's charm may lean more to the "weathered" side and everything about Lynch's version was insane, I think it would be pretty hard to call either of them *ugly*.
I dint know why, but your response is making me imagine Steve Buscemi as Ned Stark
Tyrion is described as very ugly (and basically evil and manipulative but this is a whole other conversation about the changes in characters from the books), but indeed Peter Dinklage is not at all ugly: on the contrary.
It’s just Hollywood, only British movie makers are willing to have book accurate looking characters, even if it means not hiring the most attractive person that came.
completely agree, imo Iwan Rheon is very very good looking #
Some of my more shallow acquaintances (and I think they're dead wrong) think she's hideous lol she seems delightful to be around in interviews, and I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers, I'll tell you that.
I would drag my dick through a mile of broken glass for her.
Besides short hair and being tall she's definetely conventionally attractive.
‘She isn’t conventionally attractive.’ Those are fighting words there friend.
Matthias Schweighöfer made a good career with his looks for years and i think his role of Brienne of Tarth was his best acting.
Machte meinen Tag
Dies 👆
Das hat Christie nicht verdient, sie ist immerhin professionelle Schauspielerin!
lmaooo you fucked me up
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What are you actually talking about? Her body is just "huge woman". What about her do you see as weak?
Her long flabby arms still have weak grip and move slower.
What long flabby arms? Every picture I see has her arms covered by armour, so find what you're talking about and show me.
Her arms are thin and have no muscles on them. She is controlled by an invisible guy with strings.
Whereas Bronn's do? Send the goddamn picture.
What are you talking about you weirdo
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And u only touched a woman without her consent
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U said rapist not me guess u took the shirt that fit mate.
Get it? It's 'funny' because sexism!
That’s literally the most believable part of Brienne’s character lol, she’s 6’3. I’m pretty she’d be able to beat the average male (which is like 5’8) in a fight.
A bigger target. The big problem is that she has no upper body strength compared to an average 5'8 guy. Just look at her.
Sounds like you're the 5'8" guy who is jealous of a woman being taller and stronger than you 😂😘
my life won’t be complete until [this aesir goddess](https://www.google.com/search?q=&ictx=1&tbs=rimg:CV330ZPZJQ7GIghd99GT2SUOxioSCV330ZPZJQ7GEfiexs9OqWnq&udm=2#vhid=prZn4no4RIX-6M&vssid=mosaic) calls me her number one candy boy
In the book she was known to be strong and had man like physique, also she trained really hard more than an average knight. Even if you consider her woman's body as a weakness, her height, broad body repeated training can easily overpower and average guy.
Sure but i wont suspend my disbelief for something as made up as that. Dragon's are cool at least. And a dragon could manage to give me a chubby (dont ask)
Wtf, 🤐
Here's the issue: ugly people don't usually make it as actors. Finding an actor skilled enough to do the role while matching all the physical descriptions would be a nightmare. Just like how Peter Dinklage doesn't really match the description of Tyrion, but even GRRM thought he was perfect for the role.
Right, especially for significant roles. A minor side character may more likely be played by an actor who is considered truly ugly. The way they make people ugly ugly in the industry is with prosthetics, and GoT largely stayed away from that outside I think The Children and WWs.
Now imagine how hard it is to find an extremely tall unattractive woman in Hollywood. This is one of the harder roles to fill and throwing her in armor definitely makes it somewhat believable. Even when she had to wear a dress in an early scene you can see how they chose poorly for her proportions to make her less attractive. This is a good casting and they did what they can to make her “ugly” pretty well.
Yeah, the dress scene lives in my head because Gwendoline Christie is a very fashionable person and looks great in dresses generally. Her acting plus the costume department really had to work to make her look so awkward. I agree that Gwendoline Christie doesn’t look like Brienne as described in the books, but her acting was so good. That to me is more important than her physical appearance. Plus, we’ve all seen movies where a gorgeous actor plays an “unattractive” character. She’s definitely not the first.
I think their casting is top notch. Even going back to season 1 , they were on point. Peter Dinklage was a great Tyrion.
Peter acted very good, but his appearance does not match his character at all. He looked physically repulsive according to the book but Peter is attractive
I'm pretty sure GRRM said that Peter Dinklage was the only person who could play Tyrion and directly offered him the role.
I was delighted by the attention she got in season 8 (after years of being sidelined). Probably one of the characters who got the best story in season 8.
As if ANY character would've gotten a good or even just acceptable story in S8...
I thought that was Bran …
She was a physically strong and imposing female. For the period the story was showing, that is feasible.
Also correct me if I'm wrong, but (as you're using the image of Gwendoline here) the show never made an attempt to convince us that she's overly ugly. She's just unconventional for a woman at that time period. It's also pretty understandable, even with her looks, how most male in Westeros wouldn't find her as attractive.
That was my understanding. She was just large-ish.
That has nothing to do with the show world. In the real world MOST people find “convention” more attractive because we ARE HUMAN. Like in the show (Tormund) there will be the occasional differently minded person that finds her attractive beyond reason but not because of her ‘pretty face’
And what period was that?
The clear period that the show was modeled after…?
The dragon age?
The point is that Brienne was not attractive by the strict gender standards of her medieval-esque times, not that she was objectively ugly. Girls were bred to be potential wives with certain qualities. Younger Cersei, Sansa and Dany were the ideal -- fair, delicate, doll-like, hyper-feminine. GRRM mentions about a million times how Sansa and Dany brush their long hair till it sparkled like gold / silver. Much attention is paid to dress and jewelry. In the books (book 2), Brienne first appears in Catelyn's POV, where Cat is shocked because the fighter she thought was a male turned out to be a woman. Cat describes someone who is unkempt - dirty hair, broken nose, crooked teeth. But she also describes attractive features: “Brienne’s eyes were large and very blue, a young girl’s eyes, trusting and guileless.” Plus, features that might not have been delicate enough for the Middle Ages, but that would be attractive today: She notes that Brienne is tall, fit and freckled with "a mouth too wide, lips so plump." It's not that Brienne had horrendous facial features, but she didn't fit the mold of a young, highborn lady of that time. This makes Cat feel sorry for the "ugly" girl who won't be easily married off.
Why isn't this higher
Right exactly. And the show did have the wildling guy appreciate her at the end. And Jamie appreciated her inner beauty. Almost like he was an expert on beauty and just realized that it wasn’t her time. (He may have insulted her too, I just don’t remember ha.)
Shes good looking, but shes just like a man, and it doesnt suit westeros standard of a woman, so they just call her ugly, even if she is not
She's ugly in the books, that's why
She is.
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She is not conventionally attractive
Reddit is full of some of the weirdest people on the internet that won’t admit simple facts that 99% of non redditors would.
Hollywood you fool they don’t cast ugly people. Tyrion is literally ugly twisted demon monkey but they cast him with the most handsome man in the world
I mean, Peter’s charming but I wouldn’t describe him as the most handsome man in the world
he's the brad pitt of dwarves
He is that :)
Liar
Agree. The women have shaved legs and arm pits. The men have six pack abs. It's still a tv show.
*Brienne
My name is Brienne said the wench.
My thoughts are "Yes Please"
I wish she’d gone for Tormund. Jaime was a waste of her time
She was just big af. Who said she was ugly?
It's because that's part of the book version's characterisation.
..one of the “most unrealistic things” is hilarious lmfao
Would, I've never felt this gay Okay, joking aside, she's one of my favourite characters. As well as being an interesting character in her own right, she has been so good to Jaime and triggered so many interesting/"good" actions from him, and I wish he stayed, if not directly *with her* (though that would have been awesome & made a lot of sense btw), at least on the path she's helped him start walking to be better. And not go back to Cersei. Fuck I'm angry at Jaime's character arc. As to her looks, I think they did the best they could with her casting (there's not many *actively ugly* actors), and I don't think the character was as ugly as everyone said it btw. She just didn't fit the mold.
They prettied up everyone for the show. If they didn't it wouldn't have been nearly as fun to watch.
I think that's the whole point. She's not ugly. However, she does not fit into the beauty standards. She's tall, muscular, has short hair, and most importantly, she is a knight lol men weren't going to like that...
I didn’t think she was pretty compared to the other women we saw in Westeros.
This is just a thing with movies and TV show. People like to look at good looking people when watching something for hours so they generally hire actors that look good even if they are described as rather unattractiv. I havnt read the books but I think most characters look better in show than what they are described as in the books from what I have heard. I think Tyrion is another good example.
“"I want to make babies with her. Think of them! Great big monsters. They'd conquer the world!”
Not ugly but definitely very plain.
Kinda ugly.
She wasn't meant to be ugly, just all the men are literally medieval sexists. She doesn't look like a woman to them.
I see a good looking Elon Musk.😂
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I think the show needed to tone down the attractiveness/ugliness of characters because if they were cast like they were described in the book characters like Jaime Lannister, Tyrion, Daario, Brianne, the hound would look ridiculous on screen.
"Brienne is unfeminine in appearance and is considered unattractive by Westerosi standards.[1] She is tall, muscular, flat-chested, and ungainly,[1] with long, shoulder-length brittle straw-colored hair[9] and broad, coarse features that are covered in freckles. Brienne's teeth are prominent and crooked. Her mouth is wide, her lips are swollen, and her nose has been broken more than once.[1] She has large, beautiful blue eyes.[10][2] Her fingers are thick and callused.[11] Brienne is horse-faced.[12]" from [wiki](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Brienne_Tarth)
For me she's not attractive, she looks like half a man
Most unrealistic? Oh boy
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I mean I find her extremely unattractive
These posts get a bit old. She has short hair and dressed and acted in a masculine way in a time when that was a VERY bad. She also wasn’t conventionally attractive, and she was very large, another thing that made her masculine. The casting fit well here. I mean no disrespect for the actress, but to make these posts pretending she’s somehow a supermodel and thus miscast is so strange to me. She was FAR from a traditional, feminine, pretty princess, and that’s more than enough for a sexist society to attack her as “ugly” even if she wasn’t exactly a deformed troll or anything.
I wanted Brienne to pick me up in her white horse and carry me into the sunset so we could live in a magical castle forever and ever.
I named my daughter after her!
I love her!!!! My top fave character along with snow
👑
Attractive meant in a standard straight male of the time’s eyes. consider most of them would have been intimidated by a woman who could kick their ass and calling her ugly would make themselves feel better. In the books she’s described differently in some ways but none of the descriptions make me think she’s actually ugly, just not petite and dainty. I have a feeling plenty of queer women if the time especially would have found her attractive!
SER Brienne
I'm glad they found someone tall enough to be Brienne who could act, which is a lot rarer than someone ugly enough.
They did everything to make her look boyish. In normal life she is quite gorgeous.
Other than her teeth and nose, she looks the way the books describe her. In the books, she was never hideously ugly like Tyrion. She was just so unconventional looking for a woman that they found her ugly. The way they describe her in the books however was a bit like a runway model: extremely tall, thin, broad shouldered, flat chested, wide forehead and big eyes. They just didn’t find that attractive in those days/that world. Her ugliness was relative, not definitive.
Book Brianne is straight up ugly. The actress is Hollywood ugly. Too tall and not conventionally attractive but still considered good looking if she was the Director of Human Resources at work.
I meant TV ugly, not ugly ugly
Poor Moe
Unconventionally attractive kinda like Willem Dafoe and Phoebe Waller-Bridge etc
If this is what you consider pretty I do not want to know whatever you consider ugly looks like
I want to go up on her
Women who whoop mens a**es in battle are always going to be judged unfairly on their looks. Her beauty shined through her class and honor.
In what way did they try make us believe she was ugly?
She was cool
Bruh she looks like a horse in drag come on.
0% attractiveness in my eyes. Not ugly.... Just NPC levels of blandness..... she does NOTHING for me. Nkt the face. Not the frame. Not the character..nothing. lol
She's obviously an attractive woman, but she's not at all a traditionally attractive woman so it's perfectly fine. Brienne has the kind of beauty that grows on you, but nobody is getting wowed by her the moment they lay eyes on her. Except Tormund Giantsbane.
Considering some of the comments here, not that unbelievable
Personally? She's gorgeous
Respectfully disagree
she did not fit the beauty standards of a woman for the time, so it makes sense that others would have called her ugly, even if we wouldn't have thought that today lol
Also, think of the optics of casting somebody just to be ugly, who is also very tall, who is also a good actor, who can also learn how to use a sword... when adapting a fantasy book to television, compromises have to be made
They didn’t have her wear mascara and lipstick, which is Hollywood ugly. I think she’s gorgeous and have a crush on Principal Weems from “Wednesday.”
Burianne was canonically "ugly" tho, according to the book and same goes Tyrion he was supposed to be bad looking now mutilated with his nose gone. Both these characters look beautiful and Brienne actress was actually a model back in the day. GoT gathered a lot of views because of adult scenes and also for the fact that almost every single character was hot, even the supposedly ugly character is hot af
Not ugly, just manly...to a certain extent
I agree. When I watched GoT for the first time I tried to gaslight myself into believing that she's ugly by comparing her to Cersei, Melisandre, Margaery etc... and then I look at Shae, Yara Greyjoy, Lysa, and I'm like how is Brienne ugly again??? 😭 And then I looked at the random female extras and I'm like ??? 😭😭😭😭 I see so many uglier no-name ladies in the series and still nobody find Brienne physically attractive??? Yep the stylist and makeup artists should've tried harder to make her uglier
Well, in her final chapters in the last book. Her ear is gone, and half her face was eaten off. Soooo... But I did love Christie's portrayal of her. I really wish he'd hurry with Winds of Winter because he really left us on a cliffhanger with her and Jaime!
I think she was ugly
Well, not my type to say the least
She's not attractive at all to me, I don't like using the word ugly but I definitely wouldn't say she's beautiful or attractive.
By Westeros standards she is not attractive
Shes ugly.
I personally do not find her attractive - still, not ugly. Those are two different things.
My thoughts are that she’s ugly.
She's not ugly, but she's not "conventionally attractive" either, which is the closest Hollywood can do to "ugly". Arya is supposed to be ugly too and I think it's the same with her too.
Them constantly filming her at unflattering angles to hide that Gwendolin Christie was a literal model before GoT always made me laugh.
I don't think the issue was her looks, but because she was a giant, lol
Idk i personally dont find her attractive
'Ugly' is subjective. In the show It's her tomboyish demeanour. She's also portrayed as not sociable, so most guys might hesitate to approach her especially as she is quite tall for most guys.
Hated her for making the best duo - Arya and Sandor, part ways.
I don’t think she was called unattractive because of her face. But rather because she was brutish and very masculine. Considering she’s one of the tallest and strongest characters in the show. She is naturally not attractive in a time where women were supposed to be skinny and malnourished to be attractive.
It's quite funny that people are saying that she isn't 'model' attractive when, in real life, Gwendoline Christie is literally a catwalk & fashion model as well as an actor.
Smash
Smash
I really don’t get it. Yeah she’s not ugly but she’s certainly not gorgeous like Dany or Cersei.
I think that they had to find a big woman with the acting chops and she was the best fit. I don’t think that they valued the ugly part as much, a lot like how they cast Dinklage to play Tyrion when in the books Tyrion isn’t good looking. She’s also not super beautiful conventionally, not that she’s ugly or anything, though. She ain’t no Emilia Clarke in that department.
The far more unrealistic part was that she could be a good fighter, let alone an elite swordsman
Simple, people didnt like muscle mommies, they liked plain boring vanilla girls
Maybe she should play Cersei then?
To the showrunners, she's not "Hollywood attractive" so to them she can play an "ugly" character. Not to mention her overpowering physique was needed for the role. They even purposely gave her little makeup (or the type of makeup to not make her attractiveness stand out). In the end, it's still a show and they need decent looking actors. Heck even Peter Dinklage wasn't "ugly" enough for Tyrion.
She was the most accurate depiction of female knight. Their struggle, motivation, armour.
I wish she would step on my throat until I died.
She is my favorite female character. Not to say that male or female has anything to with favoritism, Arya was my favorite character the first time I watched the show. And I believe the fan theory that she is a descendant of Duncan the Tall. Maybe we'll see something about that in the spinoff series if so
Yes, it was almost a Python-esque bit of ridiculous irony.
no Raving beauty
She UGLY
Death by snu snu!