Game of Thrones Season Five! No Spoilers Please!

yes...it's a TV Show. People love SCANDLE.

 

In the book, she resists at first, mainly because they're right there in the Church, but she ultimately consents and gives herself over to it fully. That's not how they presented it in the show.

 

Not at all. There must have been rape scenes on the show, I just can't remember them right now. But Sansa and Cersei were not raped. Sansa was undressing for sex with her husband on her wedding night, and Cersei sent her brother on a diplomatic mission to rescue her daughter like the very next day.

 

Seriously???!

 

It's because of real-world politics. There's a lot of emotion right now regarding "rape culture" and people try to subordinate pop culture to their political agenda. If the show had taken place during, say, the waterboarding debate, then Theon's torture would have been the big controversy du jour.

 

She wasn't?

 

Not true. That happened this season. The scene in the sept was last season, so it's been quite a while and relations between the two of them have been rather frosty since then. Regardless, I don't think that the showrunners handled that scene well.

That's one way of looking at it. Another would be to say that shows and books like this deliberately play with these kinds of questions precisely because they know what kind of a reaction it will provoke among the audience (although I don't see any meaningful comparison between what happened to Theon and the modern torture debate; Ramsay wasn't interrogating him for information, it was sadism and domination, pure and simple.). Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum.

 

If you consider an unwilling and powerless woman being ordered to undress in front of a third party so he can watch the sexual assault not to be rape, than I'd hate to think what your definition of rape is.

 

It's a new bride's wedding night in a medieval culture. What do you think happened on wedding nights in the year 900 or whatever? The whole point of the character's arc is that Sansa agreed to the wedding. But being a naive virgin, she may have bitten off more than she could chew. It's great writing.

She'll probably get her revenge at some point.

 

This is an interesting point. I think that it's quite likely that when it comes to the sparrows and their crusade, Martin and the showrunners are deliberately making a commentary about the dangers of empowering militant religious fanatics. We've seen many examples of this kind of thing throughout history and on up to the modern day, so it's hard not to think that they had this in mind. This is how storytelling--even fantasy and science fiction--resonates with readers/viewers because it speaks to things that are going on in the real world.

 

Not this.

I know the point of the scene and I have defended it in earlier posts, and yes, it is pretty good writing. But none of that makes it not rape!

 

I disagree. I think that was consistent with their characters. Though the show has softened Jaime quite a bit the last few seasons, he's still a rich kid who grew up getting what he wanted, and Cersei had been cold to him since his return for reasons he didn't comprehend. Mix grief, frustration and entitlement together, and that was entirely plausible to me.

I see you point out later that in the book it comes across differently in that she resists at first but then gives herself over to it. I saw it that way in the show, though I get that it may not have come across as clearly as they intended. We only see the beginning of the sexual encounter, we don't watch it through to its end, so we don't see as clearly that Cersei went along with it.

 

A lot of people have some really ridiculous ideas about what life was like in the middle ages but I am pretty confident that ripping your bride's clothes off and pushing her headfirst into the bed and [INSERT TRIGGER WARNING HERE] was not SOP for a man and woman on their wedding night.

Ramsay is a cruel, sadistic person and that scene was meant to be consistent with that. He wasn't just doing-a-what-comes-naturally.

 

Medieval? How would we know the time period, when we don't even know what planet they're on? Certainly Earth doesn't have Esteros or Westeros continents. Where they are, this could be the present day?

 

Come on. Yes, its a different world, but its clearly based on Middle Age Europe.

 

It seems the most dangerous thing in Westeros is marriage

 

I wouldn't use to teach a history class though.

 

No, of course not.

 

I'm kind of hoping the Bolton's stick around long enough to get torched by a dragon or two.

What form of demise would you like to see for Roose and Ramsey?

 

I could see Roose 'setting up' Ramsey to fail when Stannis comes to town.
He could easily head back to the Dread-Fort, tell Ramsey if he holds Winterfell, he'll always be number one in his book, and watch him fail..... maybe.

 

I wouldn't anticipate an early demise for the Boltons, but I can't see Stansa putting up with abuse for long either.

 

I think Ramsay was consistent with what to expect from him.

I expect Ramsay will be getting what he deserves soon.

 

Isn't there another Bolton that is the true heir now? Ramsay really isn't needed. Maybe his own father will kill him off.

 

This is getting out of hand:
I just saw something on a cable news channel about certain people taking offense to 'it'!

 

It would only be offensive if Ramsay were to escape punishment, which I'm sure he won't. Sansa will probably be the one to deliver the killing blow.