More outrage at depiction of rape in Game of Thrones television show (spoilers)
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Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
Myranda doesn't know anything about her so she really has no idea whether or not Sansa is willing to fight back. To your other point? Absolutely. Sansa is extremely valuable to the Bolton's: her namesake may not protect her from them but neither Ramsay nor Roose is going to allow her to be harmed by anyone else.
BattleMonkey
Member
People who claim rape ruins a character, or somehow destroys their growth essentially gives power to rape.
Also people seem to be equating growth with power. They're not the same. Sansa may be learning, but she still is powerless currently.
Agree with you there, though I can also understand people not having a ton of faith in the showrunners to handle it responsibly at this point. They haven't exactly been employing a light touch.
Reset was maybe the wrong word. It just means nothing has actually tangibly changed, the growth was illusory; she's not actually world smart, she's still naive and incapable of exerting agency within this world.
Or, we have option 3, which says that it has no influence on her arc whatsoevershe was already "growing" as a character... and that seems most problematic of all because then we accept that it doesn't matter, it has no character implications for Sansa whatsoever and and that Weiss/Benioff had Sansa raped just because they could. Because the audience would get a cheap kick out of it.
So it was just rape, not rape rape. Okay.
Or, we have option 3, which says that it has no influence on her arc whatsoevershe was already "growing" as a character... and that seems most problematic of all because then we accept that it doesn't matter, it has no character implications for Sansa whatsoever and and that Weiss/Benioff had Sansa raped just because they could. Because the audience would get a cheap kick out of it.
So it was just rape, not rape rape. Okay.
Hari Seldon
Member
Exactly. Sansa has one from a little girl who took Joffrey's side against her own sister because she thought he was a cute and noble lord, into to someone willing to be raped in order to seek revenge for her family. That is a tremendous character arc.
BattleMonkey
Member
Rape should not destroy a character or a real person, it's something horrible, but people should not look down upon them because of it. It's a tragedy to happen, something to overcome, a hurdle, but especially in fiction it should not be seen somehow as something that is bringing down the character or erased previous achievements
PsychoSoldier
Banned
There was no way to win in the depiction of the scene. If they show Sansa's face they're being gratuitous if they show Theon's face they're making the scene about him.
Only naive people get raped.
I_D
Member
In what way is rape a pre-requisite for empowerment?
Just to make sure we're all up to date on how marriages work:
Girls are married off to men who will hopefully improve their status. Marriage is a contract regarding property; it has nothing to do with love unless the wife just happens to get lucky and likes the guy.
In short, if you're getting married, you're getting sex. If you don't like it, it's rape, but you're still getting it.
With that said...
Dany's marriage was clearly pre-arranged, and she knew fully well what that entailed. Her marriage led to her empowerment, not her rape. Hell, she even turned the tides and fell in love with Drogo, and even took over the bedroom activities. Rape had nothing to do with her rise to power.
Cersei's rape knocked her down a peg and proved she wasn't as powerful as she thought she was. She was defeated by a one-handed man. There's definitely no empowerment here.
Sansa, like Dany, knew exactly what she was getting into, since that's how marriage works. She hasn't been naive since she saw her dad's head roll across the ground, so I'm not sure what you mean by your comments. Hell, people were calling her "Dark Sansa" last season for a reason. This is just another political marriage, like all the others. Marriage leads to power, not rape.
Who else is there? Theon definitely didn't gain any power from his 'rape' (I'd call getting castrated worse than rape, but maybe that's just me). Brienne was almost raped, but wasn't. Sansa was almost raped by those goons once, but wasn't. I'm struggling to think of anybody that actually benefited from being raped in this show.
There is nothing, politically, in this show that isn't realistic to the times. Backstabbing, forced marriages, incest, double-crosses, etc. are all par for the course. If anything, the show is a bit tame.
I wonder what kind of backlash we'd see if the show actually portrayed shit-filled streets with sick people everywhere, battlefields littered with rotting carcasses, daily gang-rapes on lone women trying to walk down the road, parents selling children for food, and all the other lovely parts of life people had to deal with.
The messed up part is that all of this stuff STILL EXISTS in tons of places around the world. People get more upset at an extremely tame portrayal of an event than they do at the actual events that occur right at this very moment.
I think most of this 'outrage' just stems from the fact that Sansa is pretty. If it was anybody less desirable, like the random lady that Theon fucks on the ship then tells her to her face that he's ditching her as soon as they're done, chances are people wouldn't care.
Lol common people don't have knives sharp enough to kill high born?
Bolton orchestrated the Red Wedding and seized the North before he even knew Sansa was in play. He already figured he could hold it. He needs to marry Sansa into the family so she doesn't oppose Bolton. Honestly they'd probably have been better off just killing her. In a certain sense, she's only the "key to the North" until she carries a son to term. So she can reasonably assume Ramsay won't kill her for at least that long. It'd be savvy of her to get her hands on some moon tea to prolong that.
But what does holding the North do for Myranda? Why should she give a shit? As far as anyone can see the only thing she cares about is being with Ramsay. If Ramsay sets her aside then she's a loose cannon. Myranda gets off on violence with Ramsay. If she thinks being punished for hurting Sansa is the only way back in, she might get desperate...
PsychoSoldier
Banned
This singular scene does not remove all of her agency in this world but what we have to understand is that no matter what, as a woman, she has a cap on how much power is available to her in this world.
Her not falling apart at the dinner table with Ramsay taunting her and her not flinching when threatened by Myranda has already shown her growth. But just because she has grown as a character, it does not suddenly mean that she can now physically or emotionally overpower someone like Ramsay so to view this as evidence that she has not grown is wrong on so many levels.
Her not falling apart at the dinner table with Ramsay taunting her and her not flinching when threatened by Myranda has already shown her growth. But just because she has grown as a character, it does not suddenly mean that she can now physically or emotionally overpower someone like Ramsay so to view this as evidence that she has not grown is wrong on so many levels.
You're the one extrapolating here, not me. I'm only looking at why Sansa was raped.
"it was something she was actively willing to go through." This goes for all three comments: Well, did she consent or did she not consent? Was it rape or not?
If it was rape, which I think we can all agree that it was, then what does the fact that Sansa was raped mean for her character and her position in this world?
Damerman
Member
I don't agree at all. Unless she is crying on purpose, i don't agree with this at all. Sansa is damaged before the rape, before the muder of Joefrey and before being subject to Jofrey's abuses. She went from being a girl with a plan to a vulnerable victim in a matter of seconds...
Naughty_Doge
Member
I don't understand the people saying Sansa's rape suddenly nullifies any character development or progress she may have had.
When a woman is raped, does that suddenly nullify any past accomplishment or triumph she had? I don't see the logic here, not to mention she couldn't have done anything to prevent the marriage from being consumated, especially with someone like Ramsay.
Also, that has to be the tamest rape scene I've ever seen. I still don't understand the outrage.
When a woman is raped, does that suddenly nullify any past accomplishment or triumph she had? I don't see the logic here, not to mention she couldn't have done anything to prevent the marriage from being consumated, especially with someone like Ramsay.
Also, that has to be the tamest rape scene I've ever seen. I still don't understand the outrage.
Damerman
Member
so you spend all this time manipulating events and learning from Peter Baelish and being subject to Cersi's abuses, and you are telling me that being raped while plotting your revenge on your aggressor makes you vulnerable all of a sudden?
Ramsay is a fictional character. Sansa is a fictional character. They live in a fictional world. "This isn't real" is not an excuse that insulates Benioff and Weiss from responsibility of good storytelling when they /chose/ to tell this story.
Why did Benioff and Weiss have Sansa raped? What purpose does this serve her character? Or is it merely just another cog in a giant, churning machine?
Of course it was rape. But she was also aware that it was going to happen when she agreed to marry Ramsey. And that's something she did because it puts her in a better position to claim back Winterfell. That's a decision "season 3 Sansa" never would have made. That shows character growth.
Wasn't it to make his claim on the North more legitimate? Especially with Stannis at the gates he needs the different families rallying behind him, and that's should be more likely when he has a Stark on his side. At least is that how I understood it. Right now she's very important to them. But you're right, when she bears a child that obviously changes.
And true Myranda might eventually just totally flip, but I think right now she's more interested in appeasing Ramsey and hurting or killing Sansa would only cause the opposite
Derekloffin
Member
Asking what use this has to her character when it just happened is an unanswerable question at this point. It just happened, it hasn't had an opportunity to effect her character yet. Only the continuing story can tell the tale whether it was a useful addition to the story or a throwaway shock moment.
A woman does not need to be raped to grow as a character. She's managed to grow leaps and bounds in the books and guess what, she didn't need a rape scene as a catalyst to develop anybody else's progression.
This was shoehorned in for entertainment reasons and because the producers themselves said that her story in the books was boring (I guess we need an assault to spice up a character's story!)
They could have continued to deviate from the books and give Sansa another role in the North. But of all the plots they needed to keep from the source material, they needed this assault.
But even if they HAD to have this scene, it was so poorly handled in regards to Sansa's character that it just proves D&D just don't know how to write for these characters if they deviate from George's script.
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
Some of the most powerful people in the GoT universe are women. Their power fluctuates just as it does with everyone else but characters like Cersei, Daenyrys, and Olenna are not to be trifled with. Sansa, under Littlefinger's guidance, has the potential to become every bit as potent and threatening a force as any of those other women.
To demonstrate that she's willing to make a short-term sacrifice for a long-term goal, as has been repeatedly mentioned time and time again in this thread. Your unwillingness to acknowledge the point does not nullify it.
To demonstrate that she's willing to make a short-term sacrifice for a long-term goal, as has been repeatedly mentioned time and time again in this thread. Your unwillingness to acknowledge the point does not nullify it.
I think the writers are fucked whatever they do now. Unless the next 2 episodes are completely filled with Sansa dealing with the rape no one will be happy. Least from what I'm reading in this thread that's what's going to be needed. Like there has to be some vast grand narrative that justifies the scene, instead of just "I'm playing along until I see an opening".
I hate comments like this. No one is "pretending to be upset or offended." The scene bothered me. Get over yourself.
I think this is the big problem I have. We all knew Sansa was going to consummate this marriage but the show-runners decided to make it come across that instead of that, she was raped. The same situation could have occurred but take out her screaming in the background and the tone is dramatically different. She is still playing along in this horrible situation but she's not brutalized in the process. You still establish that she doesn't have the power over Ramsay that she assumed just with his discussion just prior and making Theon stay.
I admit, I'm just fucking tired of characters that I like being treated like shit. We finally have Arya getting somewhere and I had hoped Sansa was on that as well. Raping her was just another shitty thing to put her through and it wasn't necessary.
Definitely pissed off my gf considering that scene was supposedly consentual in the book.
How's about she hasn't grown because she's still able to be easily duped by Littlefinger into agreeing to be raped. Like she had a chance of making Ramsay hers. Like Ramsay could care about her or anybody. Like its a necessary thing to do in order to kill the Boltons when Stannis is on his way already to kill the Boltons. If the Boltons think it looks like they're going to lose, they're likely to just kill their hostages. Falling for Littlefinger's trick into being a victim again shows that she hasn't grown at all.
lol what event has Sansa ever manipulated? she lied to those Value lords I guess?
she is plotting? what is her plot for revenge right now?
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
It definitely didn't start that way.
Ya I don't remember it being consensual in the book, but it's been a long time. I don't remember her fighting back, but she didn't wanna be there that's for sure.
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
These are her first steps as a player in the game of thrones. We don't know what she's plotting: we just know that she's plotting something. The decision to return to Winterfell and marry into the Bolton family was ultimately hers and she wouldn't have made it without some motive in mind. Up until now, she's just been a bystander.
We don't know she's plotting anything. "Hmm yes I shall do what Littlefinger tells me to do" isn't playing the game it's being a piece.
Not true in the slightest. The TV show is way, WAY toned down compared to the books. Whoever told you the scene was consensual in the books was lying completely and thoroughly.
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
If that's your take on the plot then I'd suggest you look into a show with a simpler narrative structure.
meltingparappa
Member
Probably buried deep within the thread, but George RR Martin did respond to the reaction to the episode
I interpret that as citing the differences between the book and adaptation as an excuse for someone to take a sanctimonious high road in their personal discomfort they expect everyone else should share as a poor argument to shut down discussion of the topic.George RR Martin said:
Really he's just saying "don't bother me, that's not my thing".
Damerman
Member
Bro, the showrunners said themselves that Sansa made this "tough decision". what the hell else could making this "tough decision" mean?
I'm not talking plot specifics.
We've got a few character arc options here:
If she starts naive, then grows into strong character post-rape, then rape is a pre-requisite for empowerment and world-knowingness. For Sansa at least. Which makes no sense in a world where rape is constantly dangled, for the viewer at least, as a means of creating tension and narrative.
If she isn't naive and this is a knowing power-play... well, she still did just get raped. If the reading ascribes some level of agency to Sansa's decision making (ie. it was a sacrifice she was willing to make), then it also has to ascribe some level of consent to the scene. She married a psycho: she knew what she was getting into, she deserves it, she asked for it, etc. Was this scene prostitution: a transaction of sex for power? Or was it rape? Because those are two very different things—and, thus far, everyone seems to be in agreement that it was the latter, not the former.
If it doesn't influence her arc at all—she was growing as a character this whole time, then the rape didn't matter at all, it has no character implications for Sansa and Weiss/Benioff had Sansa raped just because they could. Because it's an easy emotional shock.
I know I'm making it seem like Benioff and Weiss can't win here, but that's precisely the point: they don't have an easy job. The fact that writing and handling rape is difficult and nuanced in a way they simply haven't demonstrated any ability in being able to handle thus far is precisely why they can't just haphazardly rape their main characters for funsies whenever they need to up the ante.
No, but then they also don't get to complain when accused of trivializing or exploiting rape.
We've got a few character arc options here:
If she starts naive, then grows into strong character post-rape, then rape is a pre-requisite for empowerment and world-knowingness. For Sansa at least. Which makes no sense in a world where rape is constantly dangled, for the viewer at least, as a means of creating tension and narrative.
If she isn't naive and this is a knowing power-play... well, she still did just get raped. If the reading ascribes some level of agency to Sansa's decision making (ie. it was a sacrifice she was willing to make), then it also has to ascribe some level of consent to the scene. She married a psycho: she knew what she was getting into, she deserves it, she asked for it, etc. Was this scene prostitution: a transaction of sex for power? Or was it rape? Because those are two very different things—and, thus far, everyone seems to be in agreement that it was the latter, not the former.
If it doesn't influence her arc at all—she was growing as a character this whole time, then the rape didn't matter at all, it has no character implications for Sansa and Weiss/Benioff had Sansa raped just because they could. Because it's an easy emotional shock.
I know I'm making it seem like Benioff and Weiss can't win here, but that's precisely the point: they don't have an easy job. The fact that writing and handling rape is difficult and nuanced in a way they simply haven't demonstrated any ability in being able to handle thus far is precisely why they can't just haphazardly rape their main characters for funsies whenever they need to up the ante.
No, but then they also don't get to complain when accused of trivializing or exploiting rape.
Damerman
Member
this point is moot. Can you imagine Daenerys being raped now? in season 5? no... she's much too powerful.
It's almost the same situation. Sansa is plotting against the bolton's and then all of a sudden you are a vulnerable girl after all the shit that you 've been through?
It's apparent looking at when she changed her mind about marrying Ramsay from Littlefinger simply saying "avenge them" and her saying "I don't know how" to Littlefinger telling her (lying) to make Ramsay yours that she doesn't have much of a plan. She just went along with what LF told her.
I think what I'm gathering from people is that rape, as a plot device, is different than other negative plot devices. I don't ask this sarcastically and I'm not trying to be condescending, but what is it about rape as a plot device that's different than like... Gratuitous murder and torture?
She's a vulnerable girl because she IS a vulnerable girl. Why are people equating character growth and knowledge with strength? She can make all the progress with her character in the world, but until she has power it doesn't mean shit.
flintstryker
Banned
I can't understand how a relatively tame rape scene could cause such an uproar in a series that has a lot of vile shit taking place almost every episode.
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