The internet has basically exploded with the latest Game of Thrones episode, most of the discussion centered around the wedding of Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton, and the ugly scene that followed.
Sophie Turner talks about last night’s horrific finish with Entertainment Weekly, and says:
When I read that scene, I kinda loved it. I love the way Ramsay had Theon watching. It was all so messed up. It’s also so daunting for me to do it. I’ve been making [producer Bryan Cogman] feel so bad for writing that scene: “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!” But I secretly loved it.
When discussing Sansa’s Winterfell arc this season as a whole, the actress says:
I love the fact she’s back home reclaiming what’s hers. But at the same time she’s being held prisoner in her own home. When I got the scripts, it was bit like, dude, I felt so bad for her. But I also felt excited because it was so sick, and being reunited with Theon too, and seeing how their relationship plays out. Theon’s a member of the Stark clan but she thinks he totally betrayed and killed her brothers. It’s a messed-up relationship between them.
Turner says a lot more about last night’s episode, and Ramsay and Theon, so check out the full article at EW.
EW also speaks with Bryan Cogman, the show producer who wrote “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken.”
“This isn’t a timid little girl walking into a wedding night with Joffrey. This is a hardened woman making a choice and she sees this as the way to get back her homeland. Sansa has a wedding night in the sense she never thought she would with one of the monsters of the show. It’s pretty intense and awful and the character will have to deal with it.”
In the interview Cogman also confirms that Littlefinger was unaware of Ramsay’s true nature.
The difference between the Ramsay Snow of the books and the show is the Ramsay of the show is not a famous psycho. […] He’s not known everywhere as a psycho. So Littlefinger doesn’t have the intelligence on him. He knows they’re scary and creepy and not to be folly [sic] trusted and it’s part of a larger plan.
Visit EW for the rest of Cogman’s comments on Sansa and Theon.
UPDATE: Bryan Cogman has clarified on Twitter his remark about Sansa “making a choice.”
“Hi all. Not going to comment further but I do want to clarify something from the @EW interview that was conducted on set a few months ago: The ‘choice’ I was referring to was Sansa’s choice to marry Ramsay and walk into that room. She feels marrying him is a vital step in reclaiming her homeland. Not trying to change anyone’s opinion of the scene (negative or otherwise) but that it what I was … Ok, LAST last word. In NO WAY… NO WAY was that comment an attempt to ‘blame the victim.’ If it seemed that way I’m deeply sorry.”
James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly adds,“I have zero doubt that Cogman meant exactly what he says he meant, especially since his comments on the set came on the heels of us talking about the reasons Sansa was paired with Ramsay in the first place (that interview was published separately, weeks ago).”
![GOT506_102814_HS_DSC_1209[1]](https://watchersonthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/GOT506_102814_HS_DSC_12091.jpg)
Vulture checks in with the groom of the -have we settled on a name yet? Is this the White Wedding or the Grey Wedding? We love our color schemes- Anyhow, Vulture checks in with Iwan Rheon on how Ramsay’s feeling after getting hitched. Much better than Sansa, we can assume.
On the question of Ramsay’s promise to not hurt Sansa, Rheon confirms Ramsay was just plain pretending:
You shouldn’t really listen to Ramsay, especially when he’s trying to dupe someone. I think that’s one of the most interesting things about him, the way he’s so good at manipulation, and he’s a fantastic actor. He’s better than me. [Laughs] He can slip in and out of different persona quite comfortably. You saw that right at the beginning, with his introduction in the show in season three.
And what does Rheon suggest for wedding gifts?
Knives? [Laughs] Instruments of torture?
Head over to Vulture to read the rest of his thoughts about Ramsay’s situation with Roose and the new baby and Ramsay’s new bride.
After last night’s controversial episode finish and fans clamoring for his thoughts, George R.R. Martin felt compelled to comment:
There have been differences between the novels and the television show since the first episode of season one. And for just as long, I have been talking about the butterfly effect. Small changes lead to larger changes lead to huge changes. HBO is more than forty hours into the impossible and demanding task of adapting my lengthy (extremely) and complex (exceedingly) novels, with their layers of plots and subplots, their twists and contradictions and unreliable narrators, viewpoint shifts and ambiguities, and a cast of characters in the hundreds.
There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)… but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email.
Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements.
David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can.
And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can.
And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose… but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place.
In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey. Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.
In this week’s Inside the Episode, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss discuss Jorah learning of his father’s death, Littlefinger’s ambitions, the marital alliances of season 5, and Jaime’s failed rescue.
Iain Glen and Peter Dinklage share their thoughts on Tyrion’s accidental revelation that Jorah’s father has died.
Tom Wlaschiha, Maisie Williams, and more talk about the House of Black and White and the Hall of Faces, a combination of sets and visual effects.
George R.R. Martin shares some info on Arya’s training with the game of lies and the Hall of Faces.
For a minute I thought this article was a Curtain Call for
… Too soon? Sorry.
Benioff and Weiss pointedly do not say anything about Sansa’s rape, which they obviously knew would be the most controversial part of the episode. Cowardly.
Sean C.,
Yup. Leave that to Cogman, though it was almost certainly D&D’s decision to have this scene happen.
I find it strange that in the past whenever Cogman turned in an episode that fans found to be sterling, efforts were made to distance D&D from that particular episode’s achievements. If fans find something controversial or not to their liking then the D&D bashing begins. Cowards? C’mon…
Great comment from GRRM, too. They’re different beasts of the same cloth. I read old issues of Starlog where GRRM was berated by fans for his work on Beauty and the Beast. He’s familiar with the whole process.
Sansa´s arc has been compromised by this. She went back to season 2 Sansa in 3 episodes.
Dorne is a time waster as is Aryas floor sweeping
This show would profit by volumes if they only focused on the Wall, Dany and Kings landing.
It was obvious that Ramsay would not be like Tyrion. Of course he would consummate the marriage. And of course it would play out a bit like the Jeyne story.
I don’t see the controversy. That scene had to happen. It was disturbing, yes.
The controversy should be how cliche the Sand Snakes are, though I’m sure that can be discussed endlessly.
No, it didn’t. That scene only “had to happen” if you consider events only from the beginning of that scene, and ignore that the entire storyline was constructed to lead up to that moment. It could have been very easily avoided, and the writers chose not to.
If anybody found this comfortable or enjoyable to watch, seek medication. (BTW I’m talking about the last scene, not the Sand Snakes–ZING!)
I mean… this kind of thing is a harsh reality, especially in the gritty world GRRM/D&D have created. GoT deals with harsh and shocking realities, which is part of why we all like it. Was this particular treatment of a fan-favorite really NECESSARY though? In the way that Ned’s beheading, the betrayal at the Twins, etc., etc., etc. were necessary? I don’t think there’s any way of knowing yet, as much as that sounds like a copout.
I suppose the aftermath/Sansa’s rebound will tell the tale of whether it was Red Wedding awful or Jaime/Cersei in the Sept awful.
Maybe worth noting… everyone seems to be discrediting Cogman instead of crediting the three actors involved… if we were all that ished-out by it, to the point where we hate the writer and director and take for granted that Sansa isn’t a real person, well there’s definitely something to be said for the talent on-screen.
I find it hard to believe that Littlefinger wouldn’t have the info on Ramsay, or let his prize possession go so easily without knowing the full story. He’s like the worst panto villain in this show, and has been since Season 1 which was pretty much flawlessly other than that.
The real travesty of this season is that instead of getting some badass Vikings we are getting these cheeseball Sand Snakes.
Sean C.,
Sean C.,
They took the scene straight from the books. They even toned it way, way down. Anyone who complains about this scene needs to talk to GRRM about it, not D&D. This is book material they are putting into the show, and it’s MUCH more tasteful than it is in the book.
I must have missed that Sansa chapter.
Sean C.,
I do not blame them. If they tried to explain it was not a rape, but standard Westerosi wedding night Sansa agreed to participate (which is a luxury only few women get in that universe), legions of fanatical SJW (do not cofuse with real feminists) would try their best to virtualy crucify them.
I can’t believe how pissed off I am STILL about that episode. Fuck, man. I mean, I have come to the conclusion that it was and is the worst episode not just of the season, which has been pretty strong so far, but of the series as a whole. They really dropped the ball, and in doing so, the force of the ball hitting the turf was almost nuclear. And it has nothing to do with Sansa losing her virginity to Ramsay, as unpleasant as that prospect is. No, it is HOW she lost it. She was yet again a victim, when she should have been the victor. What’s the point of showing us, gradually, that Sansa is growing as a woman with newfound confidence, only to squander it in the scene where IT MADE THE MOST SENSE for her to finally reach that plateau of power? She NEEDED to be the one who seduced Ramsay, which by itself would have been a BRILLIANT spin on the scenes’ book counterpart. Instead, GOT feels like it has to prove itself to be the most dower show on television because… I don’t know. Do they have some quota to fill? Shit.
Instead, we get a scene where it felt like I was watching my sister get raped. Just awful. Unpleasant. I gotta be that guy, but shame on D&D. It’s like they BUILT HER UP… and then forgot that they built her up. In one three minute scene, she’s back to what she was under Joffrey’s thumb. All of her advancement as a person… completely squandered and forgotten. Fucking lame. Of ALL THE WAYS this season was going to drop the ball, I never would have thought that THIS would be it.
GaiusB,
That was rape. You can see her terrified face and cries of pain. If you think otherwise, you are wrong.
Just on this point, it was not the work of “one three minute scene”. Sansa has been a victim throughout this season; she was just a victim who talked a good game about not being a victim. Not once this season has she taken any initiative, manipulated anyone, or accomplished anything. She’s been lead around by the nose the entire time, duly doing whatever is asked of her.
I find Sophie Turner’s comments more disturbing than the scene.
If there’s one thing the Game of Thrones universe should have had people understand by now, it’s that no one is bubble wrapped. Especially not because people like them or it isn’t fair or it didn’t ‘need’ to happen.
I think that I am most disappointed because they entirely altered Sansa’s character with this storyline. Really – I can think of at least 3 ways this storyline could have been written in order to keep Sansa, not necessarily safe, but closer to her original character arc. It does seem they sacrificed Sansa to Theon’s arc. Blah
I like The Grey Wedding.
Thank you again for the videos here.
May I ask, what does “SJW” mean?
Sean C.,
I haven’t watched the episode yet, but I am curious. Would people be OK with the show including Jeyne Poole and her storyline, complete with Reek prepping her for Ramsay? Would that be all right?
Sean C.,
I’m afraid I agree with D’Arcy on this. It had to happen from where LF first brought Sansa to the Boltons, not from the beginning of the scene. D&D have created a new arc for Sansa that is slightly mirroring Jeyne’s. As soon as she was promised to Ramsey, this was inevitable.
I understand some fans not liking it.
I also disagree that Sansa’s character is back to previous seasons.
She is much wiser now, and this was a horrible thing to endure, but I think the key, for me at least, will be to see what happens next and how she reacts to her situation now that she’s confirmed how horrible Ramsey is.
I’m willing to give this a few more scenes to see where it’s going before I completely write it off as a bad idea.
Winter,
Yes i am sure if we got Victarion the sailor of the Dothraki Sea and Euron the evil pirate with an eye patch instead, it would not be cheesy at all!
Anyone noticed the title to the episode?
Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
Think it might apply to Sansa?
Good to see Benioff praising Iain Glen’s acting in the Mormont reveal scene. Completely spectacular. No dialogue necessary. A masterclass in acting.
I do not find it strange; only expected behavior. 🙂 Just last episode it was like: Can Bryan Cogman write ALL the episodes. And here it’s like evil D&D made poor wee Cogman write that scene. Apparently, worse scenes in the books don’t matter, since they didn’t happen to Jon, Sansa or Arya Stark. Also, it was all OK when the very first episode ever showed a similar scene happening to a much younger-looking Daenerys.
+1!!!
Please stop being coy. We ALL know that Ramsay violates Jeyne Poole repeatedly, including having Reek be a part of it, in the books. Are you upset about women and girls getting raped in general on GRRM’s novels, or just the character Sansa on TV?
We all know what Sansa is doing in the books: pretty much nothing. There’s no way they were going to leave Sophie Turner on the sidelines and cast yet *another* actress viewers aren’t invested in to play Ramsay’s victim… especially given the popularity of the current cast of the series. Add to that the fact that there’s absolutely no Sansa resolution in sight in the books – does anyone honestly feel we’ll see book six by this time next year?
It was a positive decision to align two concurrent but separate storylines into one that actually made sense within the confines of HBO’s TV series. And it could have been far more graphic and much worse, but instead we were left with a brief shot of Sansa’s face and some amazing acting on Alfie Allen’s part.
And if anyone thinks Ramsay isn’t going to get his comeuppance soon….
Mr Fixit,
Jeyne Poole’s story (which is problematic in its own right, I believe) is not relevant, because Jeyne is not Sansa, and Jeyne’s arc is not Sansa’s — and it is a gross disservice to Sansa to make her into Jeyne.
Um, that doesn’t contradict what I said. They chose to put Sansa in this position. They could easily have avoided this, even when sending her to Winterfell.
Um, seeing as I am talking about Sansa’s story, why would I be talking about anything else. Sansa is not Jeyne. Sansa’s story is not Jeyne’s story. Giving Sansa that story is a betrayal of her arc. Full stop.
Seeing as I have no faith that Sansa is going to play any role in that, no, i don’t think there is a payoff for this arc that would even come close to justifying it. Ramsay will be dealt with by whoever does so in the books, which will not be Sansa. All signs in this arc point to Sansa’s story continuing to follow Jeyne’s.
Flora Linden,
Social Justice Warriors
I think it applies to a number of characters this season: Littlefinger, who’s already on to his next part; Arya, who is still struggling in the HOB&W; and yes, Sansa.
Almost as if they’re hitting us over the head with the ‘darkest before the dawn’ stuff, because we know that this production team *gets* drama, and they *get* resolution, and we’ve got to have some of the bad guys start dropping soon (Ramsay, Roose, etc.)
Sean C.,
I disagree. When she comes down those stairs at the end of season 4, we’re looking at a very different person.
Pigeon,
Actors love doing psycho scenes it’s what they live for. I think they know how to differentiate a shoe from reality. Hence the Sansa comments
I wonder whether they put Sansa’s wedding in this episode on purpose so people would argue about that instead of how godawful that entire Dorne sequence was.
Sansa took over Jeyne’s plot, just like every other production based decision on this series.
It’s not as if these people in charge of GoT are just sitting around throwing things against the wall and hoping they stick. There are obviously reasons why they decided to go this route, and I think we owe them the time to tell their story. After all, isn’t that what people keep saying about George and his novels?
P.S. About your Jeyne comments. Jeyne DOES NOT EXIST in Game of Thrones, except as an extra in a background scene in Season 1. Again, I ask you: if you were in charge of the series, would you sideline one of your most popular actresses into doing virtually nothing (which IS Sansa’s story in the books, now) and introduce a completely new character the audience is not invested in to do the same thing? If you answer yes, you don’t have a clue about how TV works.
I thought the show was getting better with the original material the past few seasons, I hoping we would never see anything quite as lame as the Qarth S2 plotline but I think Dorne this season may top Qarth as the worst thing this show has done. It is not just the Sand Snakes either, the entire plot is badly executed. Why did everybody suddenly show up at the same location in Dorne at the same time. What exactly were the Sand Snakes planning on doing in that scene? Kidnap Myrcella? Kill Myrcella? Why wasn’t the audience made aware of what their plan was supposed to be?
And as for the Sand Snakes, I knew it was a bad idea as soon as I heard they were casting for these roles but I don’t blame the show for the Sand Snakes being lame. That was almost a guarantee because the concept of them is stupid in the books too. The “kick-ass” female characters all with their own unique weapon of choice just comes across gimmicky and that was very apparent in the recent fight sequence. And before I get labeled sexist for thinking “kick-ass” female characters are lame I would also think the Sand Snake brothers just as lame.
So I won’t blame the show for their lameness but I will blame the show for choosing to include cheesy characters like this when adapting the Dornish plot instead of Arianne and the Darkstar. As of now there is no one the audience should even care about in Dorne. Doran is the only one who comes across as a decent person, Ellaria and the Sand Snakes want to hurt or kill a young girl. Isn’t the audience supposed to like the Sand Snakes? Arianne would have added a character the audience could support and Darkstar would have made for a great villain with the right casting.
Hopefully the show finds some way to make them work because they are here to stay but I doubt it and have a feeling I am going to be like Bronn the rest of the series every time they show up “oh, for fuck’s sake”
Kay,
*standing ovation*
Iain Glen is by far one of the very best actors on the show, I was glad to hear it from the horses’ mouths. 🙂
I too am baffled by why certain characters are seen as untouchable, while what happens to others is virtually shrugged off.
I was thinking more along the lines of the Red Bedding.
Anyway, so much talk about Sansa, when there was plenty of other great stuf in this episode… I though the Arya “game of lies” scenes were fantastic, and the extended conversations between Tyrion and Jorah about his father and about Daenerys were very well-executed, too.
Er, that was last season. And they undid everything that scene set up in Sansa’s very first scene in season 5, where she was stripped of all her allies and compliantly shuttled off to her new victim storyline.
Yes, that’s what I said. And that is a complete betrayal of Sansa’s character.
False choice. First, the writers made the choice not to introduce Jeyne. Second, as I have repeatedly pointed out, this plotline could have easily been rewritten to avoid having Sansa be raped.
And I respectfully disagree, *completely*. Sansa’s character is not made to sit in a castle nursemaiding a crippled boy. Sansa Stark, as written in Game of Thrones and played by Sophie Turner, is central to the ongoing saga.
Because television works differently than novels, where the writer can introduce as many characters as he likes without a price tag associated.
Also, does anyone honestly feel that Ramsay Bolton was going to treat his new wife with any dignity, considering that he HUNTS WOMEN DOWN IN THE FOREST, not to mention cuts of Theon’s cock and flays retreating soldiers? Let’s be real here. He’s an absolute MONSTER. There’s no way he WASN’T going to do what he did, and the only saving grace in this respect is that we didn’t have to see the errant brutality that was destined to happen the moment Littlefinger brought her to Winterfell.
I agree almost entirely with this except for Darkstar – he is just as cheesy (or even cheesier) than the Sand Snakes. The entire Dorne plot (if it really had to be included) needed a complete re-write, and obviously just adding Jaime and Bronn wasn’t enough. LOL
But IMHO, this has really been the only big misfire this season. I am really enjoying almost all of the other storylines, changes included (yes, also Sansa’s story).
Laura,
Areo is probably itching to use that axe instead of babysitting!
Cee Man,
Thank you!
I commented in a previous thread that S5 is proof the Martells are incompetent and really have no idea what they’re doing. That is the whole point. They’re not embodying their house words, while in contrast, as Cameryn pointed out, Arya, Sansa and even Littlefinger are better examples of it.
Yikes! I hadn’t thought of that. Good one.
Looks like the final scene had the exact effect it intended to have. Kudos to Cogman.
Everyone by now should know that there are no “shoulds” in character development, especially when it comes to Starks. And many of the characters lose the thing they cherish the most. These losses drive the action in the story, and I believe what happened to Sansa will drive her and Theon to action.
Which is not her story. That’s a one-line dismissal of a plot that is showing us Sansa learning to play the game of thrones. Whereas the show has given as Sansa being sent back to her season 2 story, except worse.
“The wedding will be scheduled for when Lord Baelish returns.” There, that scene avoided, in a single line.
The idea that all of the massive, massive contrivances to get Sansa to Winterfell are okay, but Ramsay not immediately having the wedding and raping Sansa would be a bridge too far, is ludicrous.
Why did Sansa need more motivation to destroy the Boltons? That was supposedly why she was already there. The book character didn’t need to be raped to motivate her to play the game of thrones, either.
LOL
Talking about it after work, Sansa had to know what she was getting herself into. Westeros has a whole ceremony dedicated to consummating the marriage. She’s not a naive girl anymore and knew what would happen by agreeing to the marriage plot. I’m not saying she enjoyed it, she clearly didn’t, nor does that excuse Ramsay’s actions, its just that she knew that aspect of the plot was going to happen and its unfortunate that it did.
Like a lot of other people have said, the scene is way more toned down from the books and it was very upsetting for me to watch it, but soon as they brought up the marriage plot we all knew what was going to happen.
mau,
What do you find funny about that? That was clearly the main controversy (seeing as it had not one, but two, pre-emptive interviews done for Entertainment Weekly), and they said not one word about it in what is meant to be their platform to expound on the key details of the show. The only reason for that is that they didn’t want to talk about it.
Knowing and agreeing to have sex is not the same thing as agreeing to be humiliated and violently assaulted (you can hear her cries of pain, and see the fear in her eyes).
I’ve been slaying the Purist for a long time now.
That day has come when I cannot defend the actions of the show. The Sansa in Winterfell I was okay with but putting Sansa through that scene last night was a desperate attempt to be GRRM.
This has open the floodgates for Westeros Assylum and villains like Linda to run loose and this time they are in the right.
Sean C.,
They have discussed it in the EW article atleast
Sean C.,
Sansa was raped because D&D wanted that. This is their story, not yours, and they can do whatever they want.
Cersei was raped by Robert and she becomed the most powerful women in Westeros.
Sansa needs motivation to kill LF, when the time comes, and this is her motivation.
How old are you?
Flora Linden,
But the elephants! Do you see the elephants Arianne! They are carrying Dragons! Quentyn succeeded in his mission!
Massive Doran fail
Thank you for saying this. Sansa’s storyline in the books is very interesting to me for two reasons, her development of becoming a player and the game’s big picture. You start to see the long term plans laid out by LF as well as Sansa. Yes sweetrobin’s character can come across annoying, but that’s exactly how he is supposed to come across. I think most of the criticisms of not only Sansa’s arc’s but the other made up character arc’s stem from characters becoming one dimensional. I am sure almost everyone know GRRM’s favorite writing inspiration, “human heart in conflict with itself”. Characters need depth, otherwise they become cheesy and unrelatable or downright hated.
GaiusB,
That was NOT a standard Westerosi wedding night. They made it very clear Ramsay was being abusive, with the dress-ripping and throwing her down, Sansa’s crying and Theon’s weeping as he watched. Initally being okay with (if unenthusiatic about) wedding night sex doesn’t mean you’re up for being ripped up, tossed around and taken that way. She didn’t consent to that.
Signed, an actual real-life feminist.
Fair enough. Reading all these criticisms, I’m reminded of last year’s Jaime/Cersei outcry, which I also very much disliked (the outcry, more than the scene itself). Frankly, I’m irked when people frame their arguments in a way that has very little to do with why they disliked the scene in the first place.
So, Jaime/Cersei. Disliking it on the basis that it does damage to Jaime’s (perceived) character arc is something I can understand. Yeah, I get the argument. But when it exploded in all its venomous glory about how the show glorifies rape, it totally lost me. All those countless rapes and other forms of violence, and nobody bats an eye (okay, I exaggerate, there were grumblings) and suddenly when a well established character dynamic diverges from the books, only then it is time to express righteous fury. I mean, if the “Jaime thing” outweighs the “rape thing” (if you’ll excuse my deliberately flippant tone), then why did everyone and their aunt cry “rape”? And if it’s rape that is at the heart of things, why did the public outcry occur only when Jaime did it? There was some kind of cognitive dissonance at work there.
I feel something similar here (though again, I have to add I still haven’t watched this episode). Would the horror be anywhere near this loud if it was Jeyne, just like in the books? Rape is rape, right? Is Jeyne’s plight not worthy of the same consideration and outcry as Sansa’s, especially in a topic as sensitive to 21st century sensibilities as this one? And vice versa, had Sansa been raped in the book (like many other characters), would somehow this portrayal be… okay, so to speak? In tune with Sansa’s character? But then it’s not really about rape, is it?
Radmure,
Sansa’s likely been prepared for this her entire life, but that doesn’t make it easier. It’s awkward to get fucked by a stranger after having your clothes ripped by your family and friends, and that’s the best case Westerosi scenario set up by your parents with a suitor that is probably not a psychopath that you probably will grow to like one day and who will very likely treat you decently enough.
Littlefinger couldn’t give her any more warning because B Cogs had confirmed he didn’t know about Ramsay. At the worst family dinner ever, when she asked him “Why are you doing this?” It’s a very WTF is wrong with these people sort of moment. Plus, they betrayed and murdered the last (that she knows of) her family. It went pretty quickly from Littlefinger advising “yeah his dad is scary but this boy will love you and you can manipulate him” to “oh shit no he’s the worse one and wtf did he do to Theon and who is this crazy girl and what the hell is going on and oh well I guess this will be my life now”. Ugh. It was a very powerful way to end the episode but I feel like how I feel about it going forward will depend on what happens next. And waiting for any sort of payback, outcome, endgame, etc will be so hard. Sansa stabbing Ramsay and sitting on the Iron Throne by next week wouldn’t be satisfying or reasonable, but I don’t know if I can stomach more bad things happening to her for any length of time.
Simeon,
Sure the name “Darkstar” is kind of cheesy and so is some of his dialogue in the books but with the right casting I think he would have been a good addition to the show. He would have been a much better villain and threat to Myrcella than the Sand Snakes. And I don’t why they have the Sand Snakes going after Myrcella. Don’t they want us to like the Sand Snakes? Why are they having them team up with Ellaria who wants to mutilate and murder Myrcella then. There is nobody for the audience to really support in Dorne, that is why a character like Arianne is necessary more than any of the others.
Sean C.,
They could have re-written it to avoid Sansa being raped but I think they are trying to use that scene as a plot point. It’s going to bring Theon and Sansa closer together and sets up Theon’s redemption just like it does in the books. Unfortunately it’s going to be at the expense of Sansa. But she still has 2 seasons left to become a player of the game.
Also despite what people might say, this episode cements Ramsay as the new Joffrey. Before unsullied reviewers couldn’t care less about this character and his story line(going by Andy Greenwald’s podcast). Now I bet they are going to be riding the Stannis hype train as he marches on Winterfell.
I would have handled that scene differently and made Roose make a threat to Ramsay if he would harm Sansa (don’t make me the the day I raped ur mother). I would also have Sansa play Ramsay off of Myranda like she does in her TWOW sample chapter with Harry.
But they chose to go all in with the Theon redemption arc from the books instead
Thank you for this post. They were all amazing.
Just like Dany in the books, then? She says yes to Drogo and is ridden like a horse so violently that she has to bite to pillow to stifle her screams, and then she lapses into suicidal thoughts:
“Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki-fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain … Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night…”
It all boils down to the fact that many book purists have invested their Sansa phantasies on babysitting Robin and gigling with Harry. It is obvious. Had these people read in book form the tv version as it was shown yesterday they wouldn’t be moaning about it because they would have had plenty of time to digest it, to think about it as a canon and live with it.
Indeed, that's exactly what I said. And that is a terrible storytelling choice.
So you think the writers are going to have Sansa’s motivation to kill LF be something Ramsay Bolton did? That’s also terrible writing.
Yes, that is a totally accurate picture of what “book purists” think Sansa’s storyline will be.
Sansa will save him in the show.
When she escapes, she will refuse LF’s plan, she will refuse to be pawn in his game. By leaving WF, Sansa will fuck up many things that LF has planed.
I believe that by the ends of this season they will reunite again, bet she will start plotting to kill him, and that will be her arc from TWOW.
Her marriage with Harry in the books, won’t be pleasant. Nothing in this story is pleasant.
LOL is THIS:
http://postimg.org/image/lz3q2m5bl/
a face of an Unbroken woman?
Sean C.,
But it won’t as you very well know. So can we who have accepted Sansa’s new plotline find some peace now? Please?
Turncloak,
I can’t find the like button!!!!! Hugs and kisses to you for saying it so well.
I also think Cogman said it perectly about a couple weeks ago when he literally spelled it out:
– they really liked a storyline with Ramsey (Theon’s)
– they had a choice to bring in a new character but they decided to “use Sansa” (that’s exactly how he said it) to do it because little source material, Sophie is good and the audience is already invested in her character.
So my take it was more about Theon than Sansa who had already experienced one monster, and had already plenty reasons to hate the Boltons.
It is not. It is brave storytelling choice.
It powerful to destroy her completely, before she become someone else.
With all the cuts and changes they’ve made to the various story lines I feel like they could have just excised this whole Jeyne Poole plot. I mean, usually when they merge characters together, it makes sense. JonCon and Jorah, for example, are both exiled older men in love with Targaryens whose one mission includes conquering Westeros and putting someone they believe in on the throne. But Sansa and Jeyne Poole are two different characters with two very different developments. Why spend a season building Sansa up into a character with her own agency who has evidently evolved from passive victim to finally playing the game of thrones only to then merge her back into a character whose entire story line is essentially to cry a lot and be tormented? Sansa could still be married off to Ramsey without their regressing her character so much, and make it kind of like how Margaery handles Joffrey. I’m still cautiously hoping they’ll turn this around but blergh.
mau,
If she needs motivation to kill LF, she should find out he betrayed Ned.
So funny! That’s exactly how I described the fight scene to a co-worker. And it is an insult to Bugs.
But enough said about Dorne…so far, none of it is working for me.
I didn’t like this episode. Didn’t care for the scene with Tyrion and Mr. Eko. Too jokey, too talky. The scenes of Loras’ trial and Margaery’s arrest seemed rushed. I was surprised – and disappointed – that Olenna came back to KL without support and a plan (although I suspect that won’t be for much longer). I wish that Cersei’s delight in getting her desired outcome had been played with a bit more subtlety.
Overall, I don’t like the show version of the “Boltons in WF” story line. I loved Theon’s arc in ADWD. I’m sure that the show will get to the same place as the book but I don’t care for this journey. Part of it is Sansa’s inclusion. Part of it is Brienne waiting beyond the walls. Part of it is LF’s involvement and the frustration at not fully understanding his long term plans.
Having said all of that, Iain Glen and Alfie Allen are extremely talented and do not get enough recognition for their work on this show.
How?
Why spend a seasons building Margaery up into player, to have her arrested?
Heh. 🙂
Upon reflection, Oberyn doesn’t get many dad points, considering that he didn’t teach his kids anything useful, other than cooking up stupid revenge plots. And yes, massive Doran fail for not dealing with his nieces years earlier (or teach them common sense) to prevent the S5 silliness.
Given what we have on the show, I wonder how Arianne and Quentyn would have fared. It’s possible the Martells would look even dumber than they do now if A & Q had been included.
I’m actually not bothered by show Dorne at all, but I get the complaints. Hopefully Doran will straighten things out by season’s end.
Nope, she hasn’t. Season 2 Sansa wouldn’t have said anything during the Bolton family dinner, and she would not have confronted Myranda.
She is in a horrible position again, but she’s not the same. In previous seasons, she had other people sort of looking after her (the Hound, Tyrion, Maergery). And even those who didn’t protect her, gave her some kind of advice, like Cersei.
This time around she is alone (even if grandma “North remembers” turns out to be legit and not some sick game by Ramsay, like he did with Theon), she has to figure out everything on her own and bit by bit.
She’s definitely in danger, but, as Cogman says in his interview, she has hardened a lot. This does not mean that she won’t suffer like crazy, cry her eyeballs off and probably suffer several other setbacks. But just think about it: she was almost raped by a mob, almost killed by her aunt, she was repeatedly publicly and privately tortured and humiliated by Joffrey, dispised by Cersei, while all her family, to her knowledge, was being wiped out…. and she survived, just as Tyrion told Bronn once.
Tormund’s Woman,
Shame on you, TW!
It’s “Ramsay” not “Ramsey” and “perfectly” not “perectly”. Stannis won’t be pleased.
I don’t think that anyone has mentioned this so I thought I’d jump in…
I fear the worst!
mau,
But Margaery has always been a player, no? It’s not like she made some grand evolution from victimized child to strong woman. And being arrested is not the same thing as being sexually violated and humiliated in front of the man you think murdered your brothers.
The Sand Snakes and the whole Water Garden scene was far worse than the Sansa-Ramsay-Reek scene. Far far worse. The Sansa scene was excruciating to watch, but it was still expertly acted and was a scene that felt real and fit in with the quality we expect from this series. The entire Dorne storyline sucks. It just does. I tried to be patient with it, but it has been Yara at the Dreadfort bad. Including the queenmaker plot would have easily been better than what we have got with Ellaria and the Sand Snakes. And it could have been accomplished with the same characters and basically the same amount of screen time.
I wanted to say that being a “player” doesn’t mean that you will always win.
We know about WoS, and we know that Cersei will be powerful again after that.
Sansa bet on LF, and she failed. She now has to bet on herself. For the first time in her life. And that is evolution.
Bryan Cogman is bad at writing fight scenes.
Yara last year, and now this.
Queenmaker plot would require a much more time, than 8 minutes that Dorne got.
mau,
Well, there were plenty of witnesses in the throne room when LF placed a knife at Ned’s throat. Goldcloacks gossip, and the news gets to Sansa through the grapevine. Or one step better–she’s wary about LF, so she bribes or charms on of LF’s goons for information about him. It would take a little set up, but not more time than that wedding scene did.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
I am still clinging a shred of hope that Siddig can elevate the Dorne storyline. It has been poorly conceived and poorly executed. Right now, Hotah is the most interesting character.
Astute observations that make that last scene a bit more bearable.
No established character will say that to her. Varys? LF? Cersei? Barristan is dead. Joffrey is dead. Janos Slynt is dead.
Who will tell her?
mau,
I just…I think you can show that without using rape as the device to do it. I’m not saying Sansa should just be an infallible badass from now on, I’m just saying turning her back into victim like this seems like a real regression and a lazy way to redeem Theon. And the fact that people are even questioning whether or not this was even rape is beyond me.
Interesting take on that….truly diabolical. It makes Ramsay’s cheeky “The North Remembers!” much more threatening (although I doubt that was their intent). This could get quite fun…
Come on, Sansa…Kill the girl!
No, he didn’t “betray her” in this, because he knew nothing about Ramsay, as the writers have said. It’s utterly ludicrous to have Sansa’s reason for going against Littlefinger, the man who is responsible for a zillion crimes against both herself and her family, be something perpetrated by Ramsay Bolton without Littlefinger’s knowledge or desire.
Sansa talking back to people is not some new development. She did that in season 2. It is also a totally insignificant development, because she is still a victim, just a victim with what the show has demonstrated to be an unjustified sense of her own capability. The point of the scene with Myranda is so that Myranda can be proven right, and Sansa wrong; it’s not some great show of how far she’s come along.
I’m just kind of amazed that people are trying to debate “whether or not it was rape”.
Under the letter of Westerosi law, no it wasn’t “rape”, for whatever that’s worth.
In the context of our real world, yes, of course it was rape, and any non-sociopath viewer definitely ought to interpret the scene as such.
Even more shocking is Cogman’s stuff about, “no, no, she had to do this as a deliberate choice for her power play” or whatever… okay, so maybe don’t have her thrown around and screaming and shit then? I mean I get what he’s saying, but daaaaaaamn… at the very least he’d have to explain it away as her being willing to get raped to be in the necessary position for her endgame, which is super f-ed up still.
The debate over “did it really need to happen” is a somewhat valid, if pointless, one… the debate over whether or not it was rape is a little mind-blowing.
Winter,
GaiusB,
Turncloak,
I like the Iron Islands more than I did the Dorne story, however I think either one had a lot of potential cheeseball factor, particularly once translated to TV. I would have settled for either IF they had done them correctly, but so far they have bungled the Sand Snakes IMHO. I’m going to try to be patient and hope that someone rescues the Dorne story–Doran maybe? But they are very close to being too far to rescue at this point.
I would have had one SS, probably Obara. I would have introduced her in a bar in Plankytown meeting the Captain and getting her intel. Then she would have sent off a message to Ellaria to meet her so they can journey to the Water Gardens. Could have shown them tracking Jaime and Bronn or racing to beat them to the Water Gardens, getting some of her backstory in the process. Simple, to the point, plenty of opportunity to intro her sufficiently. Having the three made it so we got only the most superficial understanding of them. And the same thing would have happened in the Iron Islands case as well. The writers were taking the worst of GRRM’s books (IMO) and trying to make a good show and just missed the mark (again IMO). But here’s to hoping that Doran and Jaime’s presence in Dorne can rescue that story enough by season’s end.
We will see what will happen with Sansa in TWOW. She will have some reason to hate LF, and that means he will do something bad to her.
We can’t judge this now. We need to see S5, 6 and 7, and we need to read TWOW and ADOS.
And how will she find out about this?
He did betray her. He send her there just to start a war between the Boltons and the Lannisters.
mau,
Like I said, she could get the info from one of LF’s henchmen, as a way of showcasing the agency she’s supposed to have this season. Did you not read my post?
Steph,
I really think we should wait to watch the rest of the season and series before assuming Sansa will just be a victim again. Her actions moving forward will decide whether she is back to acting like a victim. I understand rape is probably the biggest taboo subject you can show on film. It is not pleasant, and for a lot of people it is worse than watching murder or mutilation. And it’s made worse when it is not warned about in the ratings for the episode. But it is realistic to that world and the world we live in today. Once D&D went with Sansa being Ramsay’s bride, they had to go ‘there’. It would have taken me out of the story had virgin 16 year old Sansa been able to sexually manipulate Ramsay and been able to stoop to his level. It would have been out of character for both Sansa and Ramsay for that to happen. IMO.
That is deus ex machina.
Winter,
I could take or leave the Ironborn on the show. They’ve got to cut stuff and I’m more than willing to let them hack away, even at some things that I like. It’s going to happen and I’ve accepted that.
Dorne has been really disappointing, though. I was hoping for maybe a few mini-Oberyns and this isn’t even close. I took a long time to warm up to the Dornish in the books, and this version is making me pine for that. I held off passing judgement prior to this episode, but their whole plot, and that fine scene, was just…
Not remotely good.
Sue the Fury,
Yes it was ugly, but do you really think it is unusual in Westeros? I really doubt that. Bride have no right to refuse sex and the reaction of the groom (who is pressured by societal norms to proceed) depend purely on his character. Since being a violent asshole is pretty normal in Westeros, i dont imagine that Sansa/Ramsay wedding night was very different to what is a standard Westerosi wedding night.
That’s right, in our world it is rape; but it’s not our world.
By that logic, Ned Stark is a murderer for cutting off the head of the deserter Nights Watch man.
The look that Olenna gave Cersei at the end – the beginning of the the end for dear Queen Mom.
I don’t think Olyvar’s knowledge of Loras’ birthmark was as much of a tell as Loras’ reaction to it. That was the giveaway, and was well played. Like on crime shows where the detectives pretend to know something they don’t, and con the criminal into giving themselves away. If Loras had just been like “Well yeah, I do, of course he’s seen it” instead of Hulking out, it’d be a different story.
It appears that Jorah’s affliction is not particularly aggressive, which is encouraging for now.
I thought the Waif had a nice scene this episode.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
They didn’t have to ‘go there.’ They could have delayed the wedding long enough for Stannis to attack, or had Ramsey treat Sansa kindly at first, like how he treated Theon at the start of the third season. Don’t act like they had a gun to their heads–D&D are responsible for their own choices.
That’s not a betrayal. It doesn’t meaningfully alter what the role in his plan that he outlined to her will be.
No, they didn’t. Just don’t have the wedding. There are multiple good explanations for that that could have been used, and far less credulity-stretching than many of their other plots.
Yes, it is. Ramsay is a psychotic pervert. He is very explicitly established by the authors to be outside the Westerosi norm, and his marriage, likewise.
Harma Dogememe,
I don’t think she has a single idea how to power play. Everything was fed down to her by Petyr, the whole convoluted plan with charm the Bolton boy, wait for Stannis etc.
I understand what Cogman was saying. But I don’t see it on screen at all so far. It’s like a pawn who’s moved by someone in the shadows. Did you see any original idea from Sansa on how to get the upper hand on the Boltons? Which is why every time I’m reading that it is all part of her plan I feel like I’m not watching the same show!
mariamb,
Nice! I agree with all you say! 🙂
mau,
Nah, queenmaker plot would have needed two minutes. Obara says something like “I understand Jamie is coming to get Marcella, but we need to keep her for ourselves, marry her now to Trystan and make her Queen instead of Tommen.” Doran doesn’t want that conflict… yet. one. It’s NOT than complicated… it’s just way too smart for women to come up with on TV… let’s stick with mindless revenge…
BrightroarsBane,
Sure, and why would the Boltons wait that long, and what would be the purpose of sending Sansa to Winterfell if she isn’t going to marry Ramsay? It’s okay to have Ramsay turn into a respectful person to keep Sansa safe, I guess.
Winter,
This…
Sean C.,
Ramsay is indeed a psychotic pervert, but he did not do anything psychotically perverted to Sansa with the exception of Theon presence. Rest of it was just rough sex, i would not expect any better from half of male population of Westeros. I dont believe even 10% of potential husbands would stop if Sansa refused to fulfil her obligation to have sex during the wedding night.
Big Al,
Yeah, I agree. I’m just making the point that in terms of our reactions to it, we are neither Westerosi nor in a vacuum. It is and it isn’t depending on the context you view it from; there’s no gray area to “debate” either way.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
Yara at the Dreadfort was only a 5 minute scene though not an entire plot line. We will have to suffer this Dorne plot the rest of the season. Hopefully it gets better.
I feel like the show’s biggest problems this season have come from them trying to do their own thing and condense the story, while still adhering to the general outline from the books. Sometimes, the combination of those two things just doesn’t work out, and they need to either stay closer to the books, or just break off from them altogether.
This makes me think the writing will be better next season, when they no longer have that outline to cling to.
Sean C.,
You know what? Forget.
Discussing with Sansa’s fanatics is like discussing with Linda. The same story over and over again.
I have better things to do this evening.
I hope you will stop watching the show. Everyone on this site will have better time.
mau,
I believe GRRM hinted Harry is going to do to Sansa what Ramsey just did.
As for the names, White Wedding/Black Honeymoon sounds good. Hopefully there will be an extremely graphic deleted extended scene released with the Bluray to compensate for the extremely tame one last night.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
Yeah, I came into this season really optimistic about Dorne and it just has not been good at all.
Well, they could have kept up the ‘Alayne’ ruse and sent her as a delegate from the Vale. Then they could have used the ‘fArya’ plot. Sansa could have gone along with the ruse in an attempt to stay low-key to carry out her revenge against the Boltons, but eventually decided to help Theon rescue ‘fArya.’ Or she could have taken on Manderly’s role. You wouldn’t need to change Ramsey’s characterization–he doesn’t run after every woman he sees, look at Walda. Furthermore, he isn’t always sadistic. Remember that hand-holding scene from last episode? Ramsey likes to act nice when he’s playing a mind game. He’s capable of behaving
Sue the Fury,
Oh shit, here we go again…
It wasn’t rape, it was rough sex. The fact that Sansa didn’t want it to happen doesn’t mean it was rape. The moment she said “I take this man” was when she agreed to go on with the ceremony, which includes the consumation, so i’m sorry but I strongly disagree.
People are very sensitive nowadays, jeez. I am willing to bet it’s mostly Americans complaining about this, otherwise I am disappointed in the rest of the world.
JamesL,
I said last night that Doran better be the main focus of the rest of the Dorne scenes. I’ll say this, with all of the action sequences out of the way, things should settle down and hopefully will allow for character building and some sharp dialogue between Doran and everyone involved.
Well.
Those Powerpuff Snakes of Dorne were worse at fighting than at plotting. What were they thinking! Great way to bring some JarJar through the shallow greens (no sands) Geez!
What is even worse about Ramsay’s wedding (the rape was inevitable, i’m afraid) is the small feast – I dearly missed some dead bastard boys and a fat lord begging for a certain song, while some suspicious big pies are served … sigh,.
Laura,
To your point number 4, it really is nice to see everyone coming around to my side about Stannis. When I read the books he instantly became my favorite non-POV character as soon as he made those corrections in the letter about Joffrey’s parentage. “Robert wasn’t my ‘beloved’ brother…a lie, take it out.” “Make it ‘Ser’ Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Whatever else the man may be, he’s still a knight.”
BrightroarsBane,
That is a good point about having her go there as Alayne, with a contingent of Vale soldiers. I originally hoped that was what would happen when it became clear Sansa would be in Winterfell this season. But they didn’t go there. They went with Sansa being Ramsay’s bride, and once they went with that amalgamation from the books, I believe they had to be true to what Ramsay would do, and delaying or making Sansa come out of it unscathed or have her turn into a seductress who could manipulate Ramsay Fucking Snow(He’s still a no good bastard) would be unbelievable to me.
Sue the Fury,
No, it wasn’t a standard Westerosi wedding night. Instead of being stripped by the men in the wedding party as she was carried to the bed chamber (which I’ve always thought had to be both terrifying and humiliating), Ramsay tore her dress. This is not in any way to say the scene wasn’t horrible to watch, but frankly, the scene with Dany and Drogo (at least for me) was even worse. The way this world has been set up, it’s just as likely as not the wedding night for many women happens like that. Did it make it any easier for me to watch? No. Does it make it ok to modern sensibilities? No. Did I turn the channel once her dress was ripped on the rewatch? Yep. If I try to separate my emotional (and visceral) response from reason as it applies to the world of Westeros, do I think it fit with that world? Yes, I do.
JamesL,
Yeah! The Dorne thus far has been ridiculous. The good thing is that I happen to be that kind of person who just laughs it off and it doesn’t diminish my overall enjoyment of the show that much.
Dorne is a mess due to a few things:
1.) Ellaria’s bi-polar behavior…okay, I get the whole “revenge” thing; but how are we supposed to get behind this character with the limited screen time they’ve given her? Besides Oberyn’s death…why should we root for her (she’s plotting to kill an innocent child for Bob’s sake)
2.) Extremely POOR introduction of the Sand Snakes, not only do they come off CHEESY…the acting for their “limited” scenes are borderline LAUGHABLE. Nothing has been written for these characters to make us engage in their arcs.
3.) What a coincidence, Jaime and Bron just so happen to arrive to rescue Myrcella at the exact same time the Sand Snakes attempt their revenge plot…TRASH. The fight was poorly choreographed and the acting from the Sand Snakes made it that much worse.
4.) LOL Doran and Hotah’s acting runs laps around the few scenes that have been given to Ellaria and the SS.
Lol please don’t fail me D&D, you have to make up for this Sand Snake fiasco!
Pigeon,
I find real people having an unhealthy emotional attachment to a fictional character even more disturbing.
I didn’t have time to read every single comment posted on this story before I went to work, so forgive me if I’m restating what others have said. I also know that what I have to say will probably upset some people as well, but it is my opinion thus I am able to state it. Regarding the controversial Sansa scene: At no time during the scene did Sansa ever say no, stop, or anything to that effect. It was extremely uncomfortable and hard to watch, but it was necessary. Sansa chose to marry Ramsey. She has come to terms with what she now knows she needs to do. In no way we’re the events that took place a digression for Sansa’s character, as many people are putting it. The fact that Sansa chose to go through with the consummation, however terrifying to her that she knew it would be, is most definitely a progression of her character. She is no longer a bystander in her own life. She is making the tough, uncomfortable, and unfathomable decisions that she knows she needs to make to avenge her family and win back the home that is rightfully hers.
However traumatizing it was, it was necessary. And Sansa knows it. Sophie Turner is exquisite. And now I’m late for work. Cheers.
TheMannis,
Exactly, what little we’ve seen of Doran and Hotah seems to fit right into GoT. The Ellaria/Snakes scenes could be out of some awful fantasy movie like Seventh Son or Jack the Giant Slayer.
And great username there #VoteStannis2016
I find it laughable that people are up in arms claiming Sansa’s character has retracted back to season 2 Sansa WITH 4 MORE EPISODES OF THE SEASON LEFT!! Good thing this isn’t a six episode season as this claim would have more merit.
People should wait and see how the rest of the season plays out.
Couldn’t agree more!
I think Dorne was more of a mess this last episode because enough time was not being spent on developing SEVEN new characters (Doran + bodyguard, the lovebirds and three SSs). This is the kind of half-play that will always lead to dissatisfaction for almost all. If a new place and players are to be introduced this season, then do them the justice of spending adequate time on those characters. Dorne is a beautiful place with people who so far are nice, it shouldn’t be too difficult to develop it more! Personally I found the mess in Dorne in the last episode more palatable and rewatchable than the long, slow scenes of Arya and her Valar Morghulis stuff. So I am left wondering: why so much time with Arya and her training? In Episode 5, why so much time at Winterfell with the Boltons? Why so little time at Dorne, if they decided to include Dorne? Is it the writer? Is it the showrunners? Who?
Tomigreyjoy,
You DO know there is such a thing as marital rape. Right? Regardless of the the medieval social/cultural context. It’s a thing.
I’m married, but that doesn’t give my husband the right to use me as his sexual plaything. I’m my own person and my body is my own. Just because it was a social norm doesn’t make it right (see: slavery).
And it was mentioned in the books that king Aerys took queen rhaella in much the same manner while Jamie and another kingsguard were present. It was explained that, while they were sworn to protect the queen, they’re ultimate loyalty is to the king, which made believe if it were anyone else they would’ve intervened.
My opinion on the rape scene:
Martin has written some pretty foul things in the books that make this scene with Sansa look like an episode of Reading Rainbow. I understand the rage, but let’s be honest here; we all saw this coming whether we wanted to admit it or not. The moment Sansa stepped foot into Winterfell we knew it was going to happen. There is just no pleasing some people.
While I understand that at this point in the story Sansa is now fully learning to “play” the game, that does not mean that horrible things still can’t happen to her. And while people can talk trash about D&D and call them hacks, do you really believe Martin would be below Sansa getting raped (who’s to say he isn’t planning on something similar anyway?)
Did people expect Ramsay (psycho in books and show) to give her a bouquet of flowers on her MEDIEVAL based BEDDING night?
Game of Thrones and ASOIAF is all about showing you the brutality of a world MUCH similar to our own (in our case, our world is probably much worse; and worse things have happened to good people).
Rape is a HORRIBLE thing, and a REALLY HORRIBLE thing if it happens to someone you care about or even a fictional character in a show like GoT…but here’s the thing, it happens.
I wonder if this scene was in aDwD would people complain or would people say D&D did a great job at portraying such a heartfelt chapter?
In regards to #4. I agree. I hope now that the silly snakes have been subdued, they are imprisoned and we get a healthy dose of Jaimie interacting with Doran. Nothing against any of the actors I just would enjoy the wit of Jaimie against the calculating plotting of Doran. Just about the only semi positive thing that could come from this storyline at this point. IMO.
A bit off topic but I just stumbled to this short recap video which at least in my opinion was quite funny 😀 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LUFCu_iO6E
Margaery ‘n Loras are placed on a trial by authorities of the Faith of the 7. Probably their legal cases will be judged by the church court. Maybe Loras can choose trial by combat for both him ‘n his sister. Or… they can convert to the religion of the Lord of Light, or to the religion of the Old Gods. In that case the court supposedly loses jurisdiction to do anything with the cases.
No way, there’s an evolution going on. ‘There’s a kind of big evolution for Sansa’, Sophie Turner told us about a year ago. Agreed. Unfortunately for Sansa, she’s not dealing with the from-the-victim-to-the-player evolution. It’s obviously now that she unknowingly becomes a part of LF’s plot to kindle conflict between Lannisters ‘n Boltons. She’s LF’s (political) toy, ‘n she turns into s Ramsay’s (sex) toy as well. It seems her change really is evolutionary – from virgin Sansa that’s humbled by Joffrey, plus manipulated by LF, to deflowered Sansa that’s roughly fucked (not raped at all) by her husband Ramsay (on their wedding night).
TheMannis,
I’m starting to think that a dance-off would have looked more natural.
No it was rape. Marriage does not magically mean that your partner gets to do whatever they want to you. It was rape.
Trying to take myself above the initial feelings I had and in many ways still have. I think a lot of the outrage comes from the plot-lines changing so much that you try and create best case scenarios. Saying,
Then when we don’t get the best case scenario all we feel is the outrage. Outrage because we see nonsensical plots being stretched to fit into a narrative we no longer understand, with brutality that may not be necessary. I mean did anyone think that Ramsay was a nice guy at this point? Now I say we but I really mean myself as I can’t speak for anyone else.
Give it another 6 days, by then there will probably be a new noninthebookGATE to discuss and critique.
The point is this: the showrunners didn’t have to make the choices they made. There were plenty of ways they could have gotten out of it. What if Myranda jumped off a tower because Ramsey got married? Boom, delayed. What if Stannis attacked Winterfell? Delayed. What if Ramsey decided he’d be nice to Sansa in order to torture her later? What if Brienne crashed the wedding? What if LF demanded the ceremony be postponed, or left a couple of his loyal knights to guard Sansa? What if Sansa had shown the character development we see in her TWOW sample chapter and tried flirting with Ramsey?
They chose to go this way with this story, and I’m through with it. I don’t want to keep watching, because that scene was sick. How are they supposed to handle the WoP if this is their approach to writing female characters? People say, give them the benefit of the doubt, there’s four episodes left, but I’ve given this show plenty of that. Eventually, I have to draw a line. If the show was still amazingly good, I might find it in me to keep wanting to watch, but with this underdeveloped Dorne plot, this plodding Tyrion plot, and my near certainty Brienne’s going to die, I simply haven’t felt exited about tuning in to watch each week. If episode 7 was online right now, I wouldn’t want to watch it. I’ll keep an eye on the recaps and catch Dany’s scenes on youtube, but I honestly don’t want to keep watching my favorite show right now.
And that was rape. Maybe not under the laws of Westeros, but it’ll have the same physical and mental effects that non-marital rape would have on the victim. That’s why you can’t write it off as “okay” because they were married.
Kay,
Yeah Andy Greenwald made a similar point too. Arya’s first couple scenes this ep honestly could have been excised entirely. Just start with the dying girl. And the Ramsay/Myranda sex scene last week wasn’t bad but it could have been left out too. Maybe that time could have been used to develop Dorne a bit more.
I too am really disappointed by the Dorne scenes. The scenery is beautiful, but the action has been dire. I do hoever believe that it was necessary for them to include 3 Sand Snakes. George has said that they play big parts in the future, and I’m sure D&D would have cut them if not. The execution hasn’t been great though. I’m just hoping there are some signs of improvement before the end of the season, because if they’re as bad all season no one is going to care about the big things they get up to next season.
I’m not too bothered about the Sansa scenes, but anyone who thought they could hold off/water it down is naive. The scene was horrible, but wasn’t atrocious like the book counterpart. Both the acting & the score was unbelievably good, and it really made the scene.
2 episodes ago book purists were whining that LF’s plan doesn’t make sense. After this episode everything has perfect sense.
Now, they are whining that Sansa’s storyline dosen’t make sense. You can predict the result.
mau,
You are disgusting, a women don’t need to be rape to have motivations and cersei is who she is for the valonqar not for rober’s rape stop with this that scene wasn’t necessary at all.
Sorry for my English.
Well. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I am still not keen on the scene but there are two points I would like to make.
1. Since when was Sansa free of her captive victim status? She was really a captive of Littlefinger and totally manipulated by him, a thoroughly evil person who effectively murdered all her family by starting the whole thing. Just because he had planted in her mind the concept that he was her protector and that she now had agency did not make it true. It was just another of his cruel mind games. Maybe she will learn what sort of person he really is and take revenge on him too, as she should.
2. All we know from the WoW chapter is the beginnings of Sansa thinking she was able to get her own way. We don’t know the eventual outcome. From what little we know of Harry the Heir he seems a shit too. Who knows what secrets he has. Will she really successfully manipulate him in the long term or is it just another delusion. I hope not but I’m not putting it past GRRM to give her yet another setback on the rocky road to power, if she ever gets any. She could just die.
Well. As I said, I am not happy with the clumsy shoe-horning in of Jeyne Poole’s experiences into Sansa’s arc but I am prepared to wait and see. In the book I cared much more about Theon’s pain than Jeyne’s, which was not a correct inference, I think.
On a related note, I am somewhat amused by the fact that The Mary Sue apparently won’t be promoting GoT anymore nor will they be recapping the show. I guess The Perfect Storm 2.0–also known as the Jaime-Cersei Enhanced Edition–is brewing?
I have waited for Victarion, Euron & Aeron for 5 years. All I got was this.
Mr Fixit,
Every time something controversial happens, there is this kind of thing. Goodie for them, I guess?
Jeb,
As a dornish fan I am too disapoited by that plotline in the show. The actors and scenary are great but the plot is just a mess, no character development whatsoever. IMO if they adapted that first Aero chapter, I think, where Doran goes from the water gardens to sunspear and meets the three sandsnakes, it would have helped so freaking much with their character building. 6 episodes in and all we had were 3 scenes basically. If you are going to introduce a whole new plotline (even if jaimie is going to be part of it eventually) you should spend some time on it to at least let people become familiar with the characters so they care about them (or hate them too, as long as they have an opinion). Still, I hope that on these last episodes things pick up and we get some heavy character development for our dornishmen.
Except for how that’s the DEFINITION OF RAPE.
By Westerosi law it was not rape. By our own real-world standards that inform how we should process such a scene, yes, it absolutely was rape.
Reasonable people should not see any gray area to debate here.
There is no lack of sexual abuse and use of men/boys on the show either. As for ‘necessity’, there’s never going to be a clear answer, either in the books or the show. Was it ‘necessary’ to have Dany’s scenes? Have Gendry used by Melisandre and get a leech to his dick? Have Lollys gang – raped and have several characters jest about it in the books (nope, D&D spared us that one)? How about Theon sexually assaulted by Myranda and Co, then getting his dick cut off and fed-exed to his family?
Because flaying and burning alive and stabbing and beheading and poisoning and crushing heads, well we can show those. But showing ugliness in the form of sexual violence is too real, I guess, and we must all be protected from having to face it.
Jillybean,
My sentiments exactly. I don’t see any particular agency on Sansa’s part this season (or last, really). She’s still learning, and she must work within the confines of her world’s social framework, not ours. The next few episodes will tell whether or not D&D are using this to develop Sansa and Theon along the same lines. You CAN suffer and come out of it, perhaps on top.
Mr Fixit,
The question is will Bryan Cogman continue to retweet their articles and follow them on twitter then. That websites community is the tumblr “SJW” type crowd who are very hostile towards the show and writers so I never understood why I always seen him retweeting their articles.
What Ramsay did to Sansa was horrible and actual rape, whatever adjective you throw in front of it. What he did to that girl in the woods, and to Theon, all the flayed-alive people, and apparently Jeyne Poole in the books, was even worse. Him having done worse things shouldn’t minimize what happened to Sansa. But so many here seem to accept all of the above save Sansa’s treatment by the writers (or writer: GRRM). Because you identify more with one imaginary person than another? All these imaginary people should deserve your mourning for their imaginary sufferings.
As to the awkward (and disingenuous?) argument that the real problem is taking away Sansa’s agency arc… It would be poor storytelling to have it be so linear, her getting stronger and stronger without having any setbacks and then… turn into a ninja or some master seductress having no training for either?
Keep in mind, Sansa consented to this marriage and thus to losing her virginity to a man she didn’t know but knew to despise completely. She did not consent to how it went down, obviously. And part of her agency was making it clear that she didn’t consent, by acting (or not acting) as she did. She decided to go through a hideous marriage and all it would take from her (it took more than she expected, but she knew it would cost greatly) to put herself into position.
It seems like Ramsay is leaving to intercept Stannis, but I think that things will not go so well for Roose while he’s gone. I suspect Sansa will do more than light a candle for Brienne to save her. What if she lights a candle to off Roose? Will that be enough agency?
The bottom line here is that people clearly have a strong emotional attachment to the Sansa character and everyone is still hurting.
I made a joke about Oberyn getting his head squished shortly after it happened and received some backlash for that.
BRAVO!!
This just this.
Well freaking said.
No, TV-LF’s plan makes no sense. He should have died at Moat Cailin, where Roose would have betrayed him and sent his skin (and Sansa) to Cersei. He should have died in King’s Landing after any one person among many informed Cersei of his bringing Sansa to Winterfell. In any rational version of Westeros, he has lost any power in the Vale after lying to the Vale lords and taking Sansa to the Boltons. And of course, he has lost Sansa herself. Really, he should have pissed off just about everybody in Westeros with this idiotic book diversion. D&D are writing around this by making everyone clueless. Perhaps there was a raven plague or a mass outbreak of stupidity or something.
In any case, that is water under the bridge. More interestingly, we are know seeing glimpses of LF’s TWOW plot, and the seeds of his eventual downfall. The savage giant will indeed fall in the castle of snow.
Without wanting to offend anyone as I understand that this is a sensitive topic to many, I wanted to say that I agree with your general sentiment. I don’t like bandwagoning in any shape or form and I very much dislike how certain social phenomena seem to get (or cease to be) topical or even borderline taboo in some sort of political correctness gone amok. Any rational discussion on such matters usually becomes almost impossible.
Remember the awful treatment Alex Graves was subjected to last year due to some unclear comments that weren’t as nuanced as they could have been? The guy was practically crucified all over the net as some kind of serial unrepentant rapist apologist and part of the problem that makes rape culture thrive. He was essentially an easy mark for anyone who wanted their “progressive creds” established. Diss him and bury him under an avalanche of increasingly silly charges and you become an avowed and attested forward thinker. Feel-goodism at its finest.
With respects to this episode, we’ll have to wait a day or two to see if the trend crystalises, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does and we see countless people expressing horror and at the same time being perfectly OK with so many other forms of violence, physical or psychological, that occur on the show.
Jillybean,
Thank you for your level headed view. I said much the same thing on the sullied recap page.
Incorrect. I was saying this storyline didn’t make sense from the beginning, and it has continually proved me right. There’s nothing that could happen going forward that would change that; they’ve still changed Sansa’s plot, in the absolute best case scenario, into a cliched rape-revenge drama.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
Indeed, this is what could (somewhat) redeem the Dorne storyline this season. I understood why they wanted to include it before the season started, but the way it has been presented so far is just underwhelming (and I’m not talking about the fight choreography, per se, as I had no big issues with it, but really: was that all the fuzz was about?).
My question is: If you only want to spend so little time on Dorne, why include it?
The only thing that stands out are the Water Gardens itself, but a location does not make a story great. A fight sequence does not make a story great. Carrying a different weapon doesn’t make you a different character. GoT has always understood it’s the CHARACTERS that make the show great and somehow they’ve forgotten about that when it comes to Dorne. Why have the Sand Snakes not had a proper intro? Why has Tyene only said one word? Why have we only seen 3 minutes of Doran? It’s mindboggling, honestly.
Hopefully the last four episodes will give us at least SOME development for the SS (as they’ll need to re-win the audience for their S6 role) and lots and lots of scenes with Doran (and Hotah). I mean, in their very limited screentime, Siddig and Oparei nailed it.
Mr Fixit,
Part of the show’s massive success is due to its ability to illicit strong emotional response from viewers. Perhaps certain scenes moreso because they can be triggering – there are thousands upon thousands of people who can relate to sexual violence as opposed to being flayed, for example. I am not trying to downplay the seriousness of those issues. I just see constant double-standards that are disturbing.
That is an interesting interpretation. Though I’m not sure that LF fits as ‘savage giant’.
Yes, show the SSs mourning Oberyn a bit more. Show their interactions with Doran. Show Doran with the young lovers. Show the interpersonal relationships. What are Doran’s motivations besides staring out at his gardens? They had such a great character in Oberyn last season, why not show more about how he is mourned by his family? Does Doran mourn Elia? What does he think of a Lannister marriage alliance? Spend more time, otherwise do not include this plot. In fact, astonishingly, they have spent a good part of total Dorne time on the Very Lame Adventures of Bronn and Jaime Lannister. Sadly, I see the show doing the same thing to Dorne as they did to Meereen last season; half-heartedly paying lip service to those plots while spending an inordinate amount of time on other stuff (Winterfell and Braavos, this season). I still shudder when I recall the writing for some of the Meereen arc last season.
Completely agree with what you said. And I really hope so too. The Dornish seem an interesting and less loathsome group of people than most Westerosi.
Chad Brick
I agree 100%.
LF may be able to move The Vale’s forces into place, but the moment a single Vale Lord finds out the Sansa is in Winterfell, rather than safe in the Fingers they not only will withdraw those troops (which they need to command, as LF does not have the experience or training) but he will be a dead man walking. A plot hole so large you could ride Drogon straight through it. Bad bad bad.
You’re assuming Sansa is ultimately the one affected – I mean in terms of inner psyche – by the action (and no I don’t mean the effect of the action itself, which of course is deplorable…) I think, more to the point, that this is what is going to drive Reek over the edge and inch him back to being Theon. It was bad enough when it was him. But he already feels tremendous guilt over his betrayal of Robb. Perhaps Sansa’s misfortune is going to reawaken Theon inside him.
… and no, before anyone jumps on me for this, I am not advocating this plot development. I said many times before it made me uncomfortable to say the least. I’m just saying that maybe, just maybe, this might be the point. We haven’t seen episodes 7-10 yet.
Meanwhile, I continue to remain puzzled that *this* is the episode so many people are saying they’re giving up the show over, never mind PREGNANT Talisa being stabbed in the stomach, or Theon’s dick being cut off and sent to his father, or Robb’s head being chopped off and his wolf’s head sewn on him, or the countless scenes in Littlefinger’s brothel, or Dany’s rape by Drogo (we always forget that because they fell in love… later, much later), or – you know – the pain and suffering of all of the thousands of people, men, women and children killed and maimed and destroyed. Our fire-haired heroine Ygritte *killed Olly’s mother right in front of him* but this is what sets people on fire. It’s just … interesting.
Sean C.,
My feeling is that scene bonded Theon and Sansa in a mutual traumatic event against Ramsay, which will advance their relationship (see the clip of them speaking in secret about remaining northern Stark loyalists in the preview for next week’s ep).
I still prefer what the show did over the book events. *shudder*
*hisssssesssss like a Meereenese* NO, it wasn’t. Even in our society it is expected that the groom and bride will have sex on their wedding night. Had Sansa said, “it is too soon” or “I want to wait” or even her line to Tyrion “What if I never want you”….it would be different, then Ramsay would have taken her against her will.
It wasn’t marital rape either for those going “there”. Again for reasons above. I believe that the reason that men who don’t give a shit about the women they have just married take them from behind, it is so they don’t have to see the tears or shame or fear. Still, doesn’t make it rape. Rape is when someone is “unwillingly taken”. Sansa didn’t make herself known to be unwilling.
Can’t we please stop this? Both sides have said and said and repeated and repeated. I just wish it was next Sunday already so we could move on.
*besides to note here and others have noted it well, but obviously ignored or dismissed….Dany was taken far worse and for a long time. A “bedding” as has so many times been brought up in the world of GRRM is NOT a happy fun time for the bride. She is shamed and her clothing ripped off BY friends AND family. She is laid out and made ready for the MAN to come and consummate the marriage. Remember the line by Catelyn to Roose “Ned would never have allowed that” referring to whether she had enjoyed the “bedding” or not. Also reference when Joff wanted to have a “bedding” for Tyrion and Sansa and only Tywin stepping in probably stopped that. THAT would also have been brutal. But not rape in the sense that, this is expected.
So please, stop this insanity!!
Yeah, when they cut Arianne and retained the Snakes, I thought it seemed reasonable based on their wanting to use the characters who have been set up for important roles in Book 6. But the handling of them has been baffling. Obara is the only one with any meaningful characterization; Nym and Tyene are basically extras, and they both looked ridiculous in the combat sequence (especially Nym’s whip, which is totally ineffective as a sole weapon, and the sequence makes it pretty obvious why).
Oh, for Christ’s sake. Sansa was clearly terrified of him, and didn’t say no because that was not an option. She went in willing to sleep with him; she did not consent to being humiliated and then being assaulted violently in the process of intercourse, which is what was happening. Hence, her cries of pain, and the closed captions say you hear the sounds of a struggle.
All of this Sansa talk and my
Sean C.,
Well, honestly, what did you expect what would happen after her S4 make-over. That she would suddenly become an expert in the game of thrones? A linear character journey from emotional state A to emotional state B? That she would never be sad or hurt again along the way? That she would have a wonderful dull little life until Winterfell was safe to get back to? That she would not realise what she got herself into when she made her choice at Moat Cailin? That she would not realise that, in order for LF’s plan to succeed and take revenge, she would have to put up with whatever Ramsay wanted from her?
No. She is learning. In a manner more dramatically satisfying than the way she learns in the book. Sometimes that requires taking a few steps back, or at least pretending to do so. The Sansa we see here (owning Myranda, for instance) is a far more interesting and smarter character than the annoying little Sansa from S2. Of course she’s hasn’t become a player all of a sudden, but she is far from the bystander she was back then.
So cut the crap about inconsistent character development. My god.
Big Al,
Also on the subject of the Dornish plot:
How is she learning, exactly? She has done absolutely nothing this season other than be victimized and act sullen, which is a dumb idea when she’s supposed to be winning the Boltons over.
As to what I “expect”, I would expect a plot that makes sense, and which doesn’t just drop her back into exactly the same scenario in season 2. And it is the same. Even if backtalking to Myranda was somehow new (and it’s not; she took shots at Joffrey in season 2, and could have done more if she had the security that Sansa seemingly had until the wedding night), that’s just talking a good game, not doing. Sansa has been completely passive this season, and has not done the slightest thing to manipulate anyone or take initiative. Indeed, Littlefinger’s whole plan is about her doing nothing and being rescued. And as for “smart”, I’m pretty sure a person who was smart would not allow themselves to be dragged from Runestone to Moat Cailin without any details as to where they were going.
Big Al,
Love that guy, and it’s a heck of a
Another good episode from Jeremy Podeswa and Brian Cogman! Hope these two guys work together in the future.
Not bothered in the least by the scene with the Sand Snakes. Even in the novels, they are more bark than bite. They are young and full of bluster…
Besides, they had little screen time to establish themselves as characters. And in the show, against Bronn and even one-handed Jamie, they stood very little chance, add Areo Hotah in the mix…and it was over before it began.
I’m scared for Bronn now…
I did not find the scene with Sansa wanton or gratuitous. I think that as uncomfortable as it was it drives home the message, that no matter the birth, station in life, smarts, strength or cunning etc., women in Westeros (and elsewhere) can find themselves in this situation. That of course apart from a reminder of how fucked up Ramsey is…
Things to take away from this episode. A new career to explore …”cock merchant”…does that come with a regular pay raise and overtime?!
And clearly Lady Olenna Tyrell, aka the Queen Of Thorns has superpowers, since she can smell shit from miles away…especially that from King’s Landing…
And oh Cersei! Tyrion was right “You are not half as clever as you think you are!”. What a fool’s game you’re playing!
Guess next week no new episode because of the Memorial Day long weekend!
You’re one of those individuals who make up their mind and cannot be swayed before posting on these boards. Having a discussion, or argument, with someone like you offers nothing in return.
Pigeon,
Yeah, there are a lot of knee-jerk responses around. I like Alyssa Rosenberg’s and Sean T. Collins’s reviews of the episode a lot because they take the time and effort to really delve headlong into this messy situation instead of taking the easy way out.
Sean C.,
I have to agree with Ser Duncan.
Mr Fixit,
This. Well-put.
Big Al,
Well, at least he got nicked on his left arm. If he cuts off part of his left arm soon to avoid the poison spread, he can still fight fairly well since he is right-handed, although he will have to learn to balance himself again. It actually syncs up quite nicely with Jaime’s handicap. If they fight side-by-side, they could still be quite formidable.
Not…what a crock situation he has got himself into.
Y’all mothafuckas need R’hllor.
And get laid.
He’d be the most powerful man in Westeros at that point, having control of the Vale, the North and much of the Riverlands. And having a guy with “little” in his nickname be the giant fits the kind of irony GRRM puts into his prophecies.
If Sansa in the next episodes tries to run from Winterfell or kill him or light that candle, I will ask you why would she do that. Since there is no abuse and everything going according to the plan, there should be no desire to run away or plot, but go forward with “her plan” of being a good wife and charm the Bolton husband while waiting for Stannis. I’m sure you will have a very good explanation.
Also I just saw the preview, and I don’t understand why Sansa is crying when Ramsay get close for a kiss. I’m kidding! of course I know.
My feelings exactly.
I would respect the argument more regarding the Sansa scene if the outcry had been the same when they showed the rape orgy of Craster’s daughter-wives last season. Rape is rape, it shouldn’t matter what character it is happening to for the reaction.
Ok. now, something else to have some fruitful discussion. Let’s talk episode 7. Judging by the preview and synopses, we’ll get:
– the Wall
– KL
– Winterfell + Brienne
– Stannis crew
– Jaime in Dorne, possibly Bronn/Ellaria
– Braavos, the Gift, so it must appear
– Tyrion and Jorah
– We will surely see Dany and her group again
So that means: all storylines? Possibly 26 of 27 main characters appearing in ONE episode? That just seems a bit much, right?
There is no break for Memorial weekend this year. Episode 7 airs as usual next Sunday.
For all the moaning about ratings that has gone on this season, this really shows that HBO don’t care anymore. The show is massive, and even small drops in viewership won’t bother them.
I don’t have to have any explanation “good” or otherwise. It is getting really teeth clenching boring to write the same thing over and over again. I didn’t say that Sansa had a lovely sexual experience with Ramsay, she heard the birds singing and unicorns showed up to genuflect to her. I said it wasn’t rape. What is it you don’t understand about that? She has just realized that she is now married to a bigger freak than Joff could imagine to be. I hope that she tries to run and to get help and to be sad and cry if Ramsay tries to have sex with her again.
‘Nuff said.
I am leaving work in a few moments and I am going home and pouring myself a drink…a VERY LARGE DRINK!!
First time poster here, but long time reader. 🙂
May I suggest to everyone who’s reacting strongly to Dorne and the Sansa storyline to wait until the end of the season to judge the choices D&D made? It sounds like the best way to go. As for the outburst about Sansa being raped by Ramsay, I can understand not wanting one of your favorite characters to go through such an ordeal; however, a lot of bad things have happened to various characters in GoT, it’s not going to stop. People get mutilated, raped, tortured and killed. If this story bothers you that much, it would probably be better not to watch it.
It all sounds like someone who would be afraid of horror and gore who would then proceed to watch horror flicks all the time and complain that they are too scary and gory. It’s a little strange.
Overall, this season has made me realize that as a screenwriter you barely have any time to fit in everything from a series of books. I feel like a lot is missing this season and that some storylines have to be rushed, and because of that are not as interesting as they could be.
I did love the scene where Arya enters the room of faces! It was one of the few times where something from the show appeared better than what I had imagined reading the books. 😀
While I agree that the show is massive and isn’t going anywhere, I wouldn’t exactly call a couple million viewers lost a “small” drop in viewership. HBO was extremely upset by the leaks and they knew it would hurt their numbers.
I don’t have a problem with the ‘giant’ part; it makes sense. Don’t forget he’s from Braavos and the Titan is on his house’s coat of arms. ‘Savage’ is the word that doesn’t really fit in my opinion. There are many words that would be apt to describe Littlefinger, but savage isn’t one of them.
Though it could be mere nitpicking on my part. This interpretation of the prophecy is certainly thematically very fitting and I’d even say likely as I’ve never liked other proposed possibilities like Sansa slaying unGregor or somesuch.
So much whiners … When Drogo f..ks 13 years old Dany in the books everything is OK (yes, Dany is 13 in the first book). Why? Because GRRM write it so? Maybe he will write something similar to what we see in last episode for Sansa in next book (you never know with GRRM) and then everything will be OK?
I can’t wait for next book, but I’m so glad that GRRM didn’t finished books jet. Next season no one will be able to whine anymore because you will not know what would it be in the new book and what not.
I wonder if Ramsay is going to use Sansa as some sort of distraction or misdirection or blackmail with Stannis as he approaches? Perhaps as a decoy? How will Ramsay attempt to defend WF? With Brienne, Mel, Davos, Myranda and the Northern Chapter of AARP in the mix, who knows what chaos this may bring? Regardless, I hope Ramsay fights shirtless…and brings his bitches.
I hope Varys will show up in Dorne to discuss Dany’s eventual invasion of Westeros (even though I think their long game would be Tyrion Targaryen).
The ceremony was very beautiful.
Well, after declaring last night that this was the Worst.Episode.Ever, I had a few beverages and rewatched the episode this evening. I’ve got to say, while I’d still rank it near the bottom of GOT episodes, it wasn’t as totally disappointing as it was last night.
The problem with the Sand Snakes fight is primarily that the editing is terrible. Watching it again after having already seen it, it seemed to flow a little better and didn’t seem as badly performed as it did last night. Still, Jeremy Podeswa did great work with the action scenes in The Pacific, I expected better here.
Regarding the Sansa scene, it’s still seriously depressing, ill-advised and gross. The enormity of what a bad decision this scene was didn’t go away, however it didn’t feel quite as bad the second time. Here’s hoping Sansa truly transcends this perpetual victimhood D&D had saddled her with after this; and if Theon plays any role in helping her, I hope that it’s secondary to her own victories, whatever they may be.
JCDavis,
Hey, I understood exactly what you said. You said it wasn’t “unwanted sex” and that it is expected to have it in your wedding night and she should have verbally let Ramsay know she didn’t want it or it is not “unwanted sex”.
I believe she was abused because of Reek’s expression of genuine horror, of her cries of pain and general scene tone plus Ramsay’s cruelty in general and that she will react and will not wait for Stannis or charm her husband in any way shape or form as it was originally planned. I don’t think simply not having “lovely sex” as you put it, would move Sansa to change her mind about her original plan.
I’m sorry if you had typed too many times the same argument, I cannot cannot remember seeing it before but I have read many today. I was just disagreeing with you which is what happens in a thread of comments and conversations on GoT!
Actually that is the definition of rape.
And as for you’re superiority complex over Americans, get over yourself.
So can we all agree now that Littlfingers plan probably wasn’t the best….or was it?! Glad they’ve addressed that loophole although as putting Sansa in WF gives the Crown a reason to not aide the Boltons. It’s still not perfect but it’s better than it was.
The Dorne stuff seems increasingly rushed. Have we actually seen anything that wasn’t in the making ofs yet?! Hoping the Jaime and Doran conversations save this from being a dud as although I’ve enjoyed the Bronn/Jaime buddy stuff the rest of it has been pretty woeful so far. Gives me no pleasure that my predictions for the SS were accurate but at this pont it would be an insult to comic book villians to call them that. Also a massive waste of Indira.
Tyrion and Jorah was some good stuff this week and are heading in the right direction now.
Arya’s stuff was ok but dragged a bit.
King’s Landing was very strong again. Think they’re trying to hard to make Olenna a ‘cool’ character and her calling Cersei a tart after her advice on putting out to Marg was a bit pot,kettle,black. The trial has been tied together nicely though and Cersei’s vindictiveness is coming through strong which will make it even better when it comes back to bite her in the arse!
And so to the Sansa controversy. I honestly don’t think it was that bad. The wedding played out well reminding us of what Winterfell used to be like and Theon and Sansa of who they used to be. Sansa got a great scene with Miranda and whether people liked ( strange choice of word!) it or not that has made Sansa a MUCH more interesting character whilst making Ramsay the bastard he’s always been (was worried he sailed too close to being comedic at times) and gave hints of Theon finally coming back into himself. I know I’m going to get a ton of flack for this but are we certain it was rape? Obviously Sansa wasn’t keen but she showed no resistance and was almost accepting that this is what she had to do. Yes she was making painful noises but there’s not one girl I know who claims that when they lost their virginity it wasn’t painful. Plus we knew that in Westeros it wasn’t going to be rose petals , champagne and tons of foreplay. It’s a brutal medieval world, as horrible as these events are by our standards, it’s what happened in this universe. I think the scene itself was very tactfully done considering the content and I think they deliberately didn’t have much dialogue or visuals of what was happening to leave it ambiguous as to whether it was rape or not (they’ve learnt from the Jaime/ Cersei incident). Not going to get into a discussion as to whether it was rape or not as I honestly don’t know and would accept arguments for either but please stop the bitching about the scene happening at all. It worked well in the context of the plot and has added to the story and character development.
EDIT: I think the rape/sex was comparable to the Dany/Drogo stuff in the first season. Only with a shitter backdrop and the knowledge that we know Ramsay is a prick and restrospectively Drogo was alright!
Since Bryan Cogman has clarified his comments about Sansa making a choice, I’ve added his remarks to update the post above.
Hodor’s Bastard,
HB you are so bad! You’ve made me laugh. No bitches, and definitely no shirtless Ramsay!
In my thorough opinion of the show . I beleive this was worse than any episode since season 2. The sand snake fight sucked , the timing with Jaime Bronn was clunky , the Tyrion jorah Scene was the best of the episode , but predictable , Alfie Allen saved the winterfell stuff , if someone else played him that would have came off worse than it did anyway. No john snow no khaleesi no stannis , 90 percent fan fiction that has me scratching my head on why cut Ariane and Quentyn . It looks like they had to write it as if it could go either 8 or ten seasons . The dorne story’s moving super slow , while little fingers master plan suddenly seems very spur of the moment , kill the boy was my favorite episode in a long time and cogmans unbowed unbent unbroken , left a bad taste in my mouth.
According to Daniel Portman, episode 10 will “break the Internet”.
Interesting!
Sue the Fury,
All the writers (& the whole crew) have received a lot of praise over the time they have been making this show, and I know you have to take the rough with the smooth. But, my God some of the bile & abuse they must get over scenes like this week’s ending must be horrific. I don’t understand why people cannot be civil, even if they are disagreeing.
The writers are doing what they believe is best for the show, and even though I disagree with them over a few things, I know they are doing what they think is right. When you start second guessing yourself is when things start to fall to pieces, but fortunately they have a clear plan of what needs to happen to get from A to B.
I’ll also add that I appreciate the fact that it is incredibly rare to see a vitriolic comment about the writers on this site. There are certainly a few book purists, but at least they don’t lower themselves to such low standards as elsewhere (e.g. Twitter).
I’d like to know if filming where they did in Spain has anything to do with the quality of the Dorne scene? Everything about that from the writing to the fight scene (not even just the choreography but the execution of it from the actors/director) felt rushed like they had no time or budget.
I think I’d like to have my business cards reprinted to read “Cock Merchant.” 🙂
My, my. Not for the faint of heart?
Mr Fixit,
By the Seven, y’all are ridiculous. Just watch the fuckin show, enjoy it, and move on. Jeez. To act as if Sansa were not a willing participant is just putting blinders on. She knew Ramsey was a psycho fucker thanks to Myranda, and gave herself to Ramsey at the (?) Wedding anyway. She HAS to be familiar with the traditions associated with Westerosi weddings (every wedding needs a bedding). She didn’t put up any resistance, and could presumably have been crying during the act simply due to the fact that she’s a virgin and it hurts. Fer fook’s sake, man, she was TAKING HER CLOTHES OFF. SHE KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING. SHE WAS DOING WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE.
Yung Wolf,
I agree. It’s very implausible that Littlefinger wouldn’t be aware of Ramsey’s little “foibles”.
The world is big, but full of spies and loose mouths.
It is also very implausible that Ramsey Bolton would not have abused Sansa given the opportunity. If you “thought there was going to be a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention”.
What Sansa does now is up to Sansa. Can she marshal the ability to deal with this evil, or must she flee?
But the idea that bad things happen to good people is a staple of this show. (Bad things also happen to bad people.) You really have to be a wilting flower to actually want it to have gone some other direction, and violate the spirt of the show & underlying book series.
Seemed pretty obvious what Cogman meant. Pretty sad that he felt he needed to clarify things on Twitter. Then again, people tend to read into things what they’re pre-disposed to expect, without actually reading or thinking.
Onward to speculation! I don’t expect big events next episode, but “Hardhome” should be exciting. I still think this season has been solid (if not quite as much fun as Season 4), and the groundwork has been laid for great things in the homestretch.
Mr Fixit,
Please, R’hllor, no. I can’t stand anymore Brienne. I would say that her arc can’t get any worse, but history has proven otherwise.
Let’s just hope that the tweet from the Frey actor back in October wasn’t fake.
Nymeria Warrior Queen,
already looking into getting “the dwarf lives until we find a cock merchant” tshirts to go with my “i am a person that drinks” one.
as a male having Cock Merchant on my business cards would be a mis-direct i think lol
Seems that clickbait has begun as predicted. Multiple outlets have special short features that don’t say anything except mentioning that, yes, rape has again reared its ugly head on GoT.
Yung Wolf,
Hehehe. Oathkeeper’s bloodthirst must be slaked. The closer they get, the more it drools. I imagine Brienne’s scabbard is slick as hell right now. 😉
Yeah, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised though.
Sean C.,
Season’s not over. We don’t know what’s in store for her story in the future. I completely disagree that this is the same Sansa from season 2. Those comments she made to Joffrey were just her annoying him what she said to Myranda was “Fuck Off!”
Yung Wolf,
Hear, hear. If she offs Stannis then she is again removing characters far more interesting than herself. Hope Stannis burns her at this point in time as everything she does annoys me!
I think it must be FTW that gets that much attention. Killing of Bronn would be a shocker for the casual viewer but a lot of us have a sneaky feeling it will happen…what a horrible place to die, in the dud land of Dorne! Unless tehy go crazy and kill off Jaime or Stannis which would make me seriously question where the show is going.
Valaquen,
GRRM’s blunt statement that these are two different telling a of the same story should clarify in peoples’ minds what the story actually is, or even what GRRM means when he uses the word. To some extent, it probably galls him that so many self-proclaimed “biggest fans” have so little idea what he actually is doing.
Well, at least what the show has is a huge improvement on what was in the book. Eight chapters, and I never knew what GRRM meant by it all. The TV show has been very clear about her storyline at least: and it looks like there might be some actual zenith in the associated plot here.
Cameryn.
Thank you for your level head and well-reasoned comments. I really can’t add much to them except this.
A typical Bolton/Northern wedding night not only involves strangers ripping the clothes off the bride before she gets fucked by a stranger, but it also involves the lord of the region having the option of taking her virginity before her husband gets to. It’s disgusting. Sansa didn’t have to suffer that.
Why the hell are people so outraged by the Sansa scene and yet not utterly disgusted by Roose’s description of how he violently raped a woman under the swinging corpse of her husband because he was denied the right of First Night? Oh I know why! Rapes of nameless women are fine. We can wave those off easy, no biggie right? We didn’t know her or care. You know what? That’s rape culture, rape as background noise. Sorry, but that bothers me greatly. *waves her feminist card*
If this show is going to show rape, and they are showing a lot fewer rapes than are contained in the books, it should be horrific and terrible and make the viewer want to throw things. Rape should be horrible and disgusting.
And as far as this “they could have delayed the wedding!” idea, perhaps it’s important that Sansa has lost her virginity and the marriage cannot be set aside. Or perhaps it’s important that she be pregnant.
And I am so so tired of the lame “it’s destroying her character development” argument. We don’t know what Sansa becomes by the end of the series. D&D do. She might be a broken wretch of a woman. She might be a creature of hate and vengeance. She might bear a child who can rule the North. She might die in childbirth. We don’t know what her character becomes so stop saying D&D are destroying her. Hell, she might not even make it out of Winds alive.
To me it seems obvious that most of the outrage is neither about rape nor about Sansas character development, but simply about peoples inability to accept what happened, because it feels wrong. People are disappointed or angry about how that scene made them feel, not about storytelling and certainly not about the depiction of sexual violence, because in both regards there have been much worse on the show.
No one who dislikes the scene hates it because it is boring or it really makes no sense (as people have pointed out it’s rather straightforward). Almost all the reasons given are about Sansas “arc” or her supposed character, but those things are really results of an analysis of a story that you already know, or of a plan a storyteller might have. How boring would it be when half the audiences expectations of supposed arcs of either redemption, revenge or what not would play out exactly as foreseen?
An arc is nothing that’s made for the audience, and it also has nothing to do with what drives characters. If audiences care more about arcs and plotlines than with what happens, you’re doing something wrong as a storyteller (or as an audience).
I had the same problem with the outcry when last season Jamies supposed “redemption arc” was slightly disturbed by him being a bit to rapey with his sister. It’s funny though that it always has to be rape, as victim or perpetrator, that totally defines characters in exactly the way that’s unacceptable for everyone. I guess everyone was happy with how perfectly the Robb Stark or Oberyn Martell “revenge arcs” played out, only a little blood there, no rape (not of or by them anyway).
A story is bad when it is not engaging, because it’s predictable, not plausible or when it’s not dramatic. I think you can’t say any of that about this scene. For some of the Dorne stuff on the other hand…
I especially love Sophie Turners take on the scene, which shows that you can certainly view it in a totally different light, when you’re not invested in the outcome of a storyline but it’s quality.
We would have to agree on what Littlefinger’s plan is! I found it very intriguing that he basically told Cersei all about Sansa. So, what is LF up to doing? Is he going to take the Vale armies north to join the Boltons, fight the Boltons, or mop up the winner of Stannis vs the Boltons? Is he just trying to tear everything down for no apparent reason? If he is an agent provocateur, then, on who’s behalf? He’s playing all ends it seems, but I as yet cannot figure out where he wants this candle to finish.
Now, LF seems to have developed genuine affection for Sansa: but would LF let affection for anyone get in the way of his plan? Whatever this long-con is, it started long before he met Sansa: she might be an additional goal at this point (or not), but she clearly was not the original goal.
Color me flummoxed.
I hope something bad happens with Harry the Heir in TWOW. Not that I wish Sansa ill, but I would like to see the reaction if something similar to what we witnessed in this episode happens. I don’t expect it to be quite as bad, but I do get the feeling Harry will mistreat her, and may even drunkenly force himself on her. I got a Robert Baratheon vibe from him, and in my opinion, Robert did force himself on Cersei, which to me is rape.
TheTouchOfFrost,
My thoughts exactly.
Hound, meh, fine. As far-fetched as it was, it was a fun scene and it was a lot better than the way he went out on paper. But Stannis? Yeah, how about no, D&D. I would rather he freezes to death or dies in battle.
I’m not gonna lie, D&D sending Brienne so far north has me worried. I can’t help but feel like she is going to show up, give us another boring, ten minute dialogue about her “oath” and how she is a “great lumbering beast” and proceed to ruin everything. Maybe even let out one of her trademark shrieks in the process.
*cringe*
Well, it also ignores a common arc that probably is going to appear in several other lead characters: a sort of
We are seeing it with Tyrion and Theon to be certain, and we probably will see it with Daeny, Jon, Arya and Cersei.
Incidentally, kudos to Alfie Allen on his performance. It has been subtle but incredibly effective. And I do wonder if we saw Smeagol, I mean, Theon stirring in the end!
Wimsey,
See, now this I disagree with.
For some reason, I enjoyed her chapters in AFFC the most. Perhaps even more than Cersei’s. I just can’t stand her show counterpart; she annoys the seven hells out of me.
Ross,
I wonder which character will be getting raped that episode.
I think that the more intriguing question might be, what is Sansa going to do? She’s learned lessons from Cersei. She’s gotten the inside scoop on Ramsay from Myranda. So, how will she combine these two to stop Ramsay from getting bored: and will she contrive to find some way to make that his downfall in some parallel to what Cersei did to Robert?
Lyanna_targaryen,
You do realize your marriage is not a good comparison, right? In fact I think Bryan Cogman thought as I did. The moment she accepted to marry Ramsay was also the moment she accepted to consumate it, as custom dictates. Whether the dude was rough or gentle is another subject.
Harma Dogememe,
I know, I should have specified. It’s not rape in the context of the show which I think it’s the only context that matter when it comes to judging a scene.
TheWinterRose,
So we should consider that every Westerosi arranged wedding in which the bride doesn’t really want to fuck and old man or an ugly little boy is rape? Lysa Arryn didn’t want to sleep with Jon Arryn but she accepted when she agreed to marry him. That’s my point.
You enjoyed 8 chapters of nothing? Of storyless plodding adding up to nothing with a non-sequitor ending that was basically a repeat “shocker”?
Again, had it not been for everyone debating with the Dorne or Iron Island plotlines and characters were worse, the Riverlands fiascos would have gotten a lot more negative attention. However, being merely “bad” in the presence of “awful” is a good way to get ignored!
Now, you might well have enjoyed it – after all, taste is completely subjective, and I myself certainly have more than a few guilty pleasures out there (*cough* Quentyn *cough*) – but there no way that the audience would have tolerated it. This, at least, offers story and plot, which is what the audience wants.
Quite frankly, this is not a world in which men are going to care whether women enjoy sex or not, or whether it hurts them or not. It’s not a value to them. I mean, they are in a world where beating women is not considered to be truly wrong.
And it’s important for the audience to understand that, because we need to understand what obstacles Daeny, Arya, Sansa, etc., face. Being considered sub-human broodmares is right up at the top of the list.
I chuckled. Although we regularly disagree (on Brienne as well, who I find an interesting character), I sense a rather funny cynic in there somewhere. I approve.
Wimsey,
I’ve always thought that he wants to pull the system down and give power to the common man. A bit like an Oliver Cromwell figure but I’m not sure as he does genuinely seem to like Sansa so his show decisions are confusing. He’s perhaps the only main character in the show/book who hasn’t revealed his end game (Euron being the other).
Wimsey,
Yes, it was a lot of tedious traveling. Yes, it was repetitive and monotonous. But it was also the arc with the most action next to Asha’s.
Jaime, Sam, and Sansa’s were by far the worst. Those chapters are the definition of nothing.
Well, to be honest, until now it was an all girls club. I vote for Loras.
Yung Wolf,
For me what would work best is if she helps get Sansa out and then realises the only safe place for her is with Stannis which would cause her to confront the battle between her emotions ( kill Stannis for revenge) and her duty (protect Sansa). Or perhaps a situation between killing Stannis as her honour demands it or letting him live when she realises he is the best option for the people kinda mirroring Jaime’s choice when he killed the Mad King…only much much less epic!
Yung Wolf,
I agree that they were bad. However, I disagree that they were the worst. Again, I fell on the “Dorne” side of the “Dorne vs. Iron Islands” debate: but I was quick to chime in with “the Iron Islands were almost as bad.
But it all would have been horrible television. It’s no surprise that only three Crows plotline survived to see the screen. The Dragons plotlines, on the other hand, have had a very high survival rate: and even picked up characters that were not in them in the books! For the life of me, I cannot figure out how the man who wrote Thrones, Kings, Swords and Dragons wrote Crows: I mean, sure, there is always variance, but this was a ridiculous outlier. (I mean, yeah, I have a couple of papers that I think flopped badly: but nothing like that.)
Ramsay wouldn’t have taken her against her will? Really? Ramsay Bolton? Sansa did not give consent. It was rape whether you’d like to argue it is or not. Yes Dany was raped, but she “did not have it worse.” It isn’t a contest or about who had it worse. What is was was rape. Whether you and others would like to call it that or not. And I’ll say you are repeating arguments that real life victims of rape hear all the time…that it wasn’t rape because it was marriage. Because rape isn’t possible between couples.
Giving power to the common man is a concept that nobody in this world would have. The relative egalitarians would be those favoring reducing the burdens on the “small folk.” Indeed, one of the things that happens first is reducing the burdens on lesser lords that the higher lords impose upon them. As a lesser lord, LF might want some sort of “Magna Carta”: but we’ve seen no evidence of him organizing the lesser lords or interacting with them in any way. If GRRM was doing something like that, then he should have presented us with some evidence of that by now. (The Vale chapters would have been ideal for that: but LF worked only with the great houses there.)
At any rate, these things always come in baby-steps: the evolution from aristocracy to democracy is one that happens over many, many generations, and Westeros is many, many generations away from even a limited democracy. Littlefinger would be as confused by the concept as we are by his motives.
The main culprit is splitting the book in two and separating it geographically. All the main weaknesses of Feast are magnified because of it: the prominence of new PoVs and the prologue feel of Dorne and Iron Islands chief among them. I suspect that Martin, once he decided to split the book and relegate the majority of main protagonists to Dance, realised he had a lot of free space in Feast to fill with tangential characters and plots, and couldn’t contain himself. Ergo, various “sideshows”, like Brienne for instance, spiraled out of control. Almost like a mission creep.
Wimsey,
Oh of course…to use Pigeon’s favorite word, Sansa MUST gain “agency!” At the same time, if Ramsay or Roose concern themselves with their wives rather than strategy while Stannis bears down upon WF, then all is lost for them…which is what I find intriguing about this situation. Perhaps Sansa does become more assertive and is able to play mind games with her awful, awful monster spouse and actually distract the Boltons from the looming battle…a Sansa-based interpretation of The Ghost of Winterfell would be welcome. I hope she incorporates the broken tower and the crypts into her “ghost” activities. That would be cool!
But I can’t help but think that Ramsay will try to use her as a decoy or evil misdirection with the “North Remembers” force as well. Sansa is up against a massively brutal monster (or three)….and there shall be no holding back (I hope)…this should be brutal, awful, bloody and completely disturbing. WF is her fucking home…use it, woman!
Until Theon convinces her that he didn’t kill her little brothers (and she actually believes him..somehow), then I don’t see them becoming a concerted force at all. I’d rather see Sansa do something unique and covert (much like the “spearwives” did) without Theon’s “help”.
And let us be clear on this:
Sansa Stark knew, from the scorn placed upon Tyrion by his father in King’s Landing, that Tyrion would be expected to wed-then-bed Sansa. He refused (and Sansa mentions that she is at peace with Tyrion’s kindness toward her in this episode). But that was an exception to the rule. She is not a 12 year old girl. With her KL experiences behind her, she had to know that Ramsay would want the same thing. She was stunned by the violent ripping of her clothing and, most especially, the twistedness of him demanding Theon watch, but she knew what was coming. She had to. She is not a “stupid, silly girl” like she has stated about herself in the past.
Dany Targaryen was not a willing participant in a marriage to Drogo (she told Viserys in the pilot she did not want to be Drogo’s queen), and yet Drogo married her, stripped her naked, mounted her and raped her with tears streaming down her face – all in the first season.
Neither of these actions are excusable. They are sexual violence against women and that is anathema to everything I believe in as a human being.
But I’m still waiting for a good answer why people look upon Dany’s experience in season 1 as acceptable (since she later fell in love with him… LATER), but everyone’s knickers are in a twist about Sansa. Comparing the two, not in the larger scheme of things, but as actions within the Game of Thrones TV series.
And just to reiterate a point… Ygritte killed Olly’s mother right in front of him, and Theon’s cock was mailed to his father… and the list of savagery in Game of Thrones goes on.
But it’s only TODAY that people are up in arms about this show, it seems.
I hate it when people pick and choose history.
Hodor’s Bastard,
*slams face into keyboard* LOL. I suppose I deserved that….let’s throw in ’empowered’ and ‘closure’ for good measure. 😉
There are things that make no sense in the show, like some news spread so fast and accurately but some never do.
Tyrion knows exactly what happened to Jorah’s dad beyond the wall but Cersei doesnt know that LF took Sansa to Winterfell even though he did it publicly. LF with all his power and knowledge doesnt know Ramsay is an insane monster! Like how?
I can sort of see that. However, the thing to keep in mind is that Sansa and Theon are the lead characters here, not Ramsay: ultimately, Ramsay is just a foil for letting the (wo)man be born for these two. Whatever the action/reaction/counter-reactions are, Sansa (and then Theon) will be active participants.
Personally, I could see Sansa taking on something closer to Able’s role here. After all, she has access to an “underground.” She saw enough of Kings Landing to see how LF (and possibly Varys) could use this sort of thing effectively, too.
The show is pretty clear about why that would be. Tyrion was in Kings Landing and still the Master of Coin when the Wall sent Ravens south telling them what was happening. So, of course he would know. Indeed, the show makes a to-do about how the Wall told everyone what happened: but only one King responded.
Thanks to Theon’s earlier actions, the only person in Winterfell with a Maester with Ravens is going to be Roose. And you can be darned sure that his Maester is very loyal to him. Indeed, given everything we know about Roose, it is hardly surprising that he excels at keepings his doings fairly secret. A big point of the scene in which Bolton “shares” Cersei’s missive to LF with LF is to show that he’s controlling the information coming and going from Winterfell.
probably the viewers
Because we live in the age of sensitive SJW’s and rape is the “in” thing to debate and have a fascination over these days. People love a good “trigger”.
I had no idea that this site was comprised of Melody Hensley clones.
Voice of Reason,
It’s quite easy to believe. The Night’s Watch regularly sends ravens to all of the great Lords of Westeros, and are likely to send even more to Kings Landing. Sam was at Crasters’ when Mormont was murdered. He returned to the Wall in the final episode of season 3, which is when they sent ravens out asking for aid. I would imagine they would mention the death of their leader.
JamesL,
Sam, by Gilly.
Been silent so far, but hard to avoid the shitstorm.
I wasn’t as disturbed as most people seem to be by the scene in question; maybe it is because with all the hype I feared worse and/or it played out more or less as expected given knowledge of the characters and scenes involved, or maybe I’m an unempathetic creep.
With regards to the definition of rape: Yes, Sansa willingly agreed to have sex on her wedding night, but it was still rape because Ramsey deliberately decided to assault her, make it more painful then it needed to be, humiliate her in front of Theon and deliberately ignore her pain and cries, and got his jollies not from the sex itself but from the damage he was doing to her. Rape is more then nonconsential sex, it is a crime of violence. It can leave scars both physical and psychological, and while Ramsey is gifted at physical and sexual torture, his true talents lie with messing with peoples minds, and that scene was also about as torturing Theon as well as Sansa (but not nearly to the same degree).
Was hoping to see some decent Dorne stuff, but that just fell flat. The best parts were Areo and Bronn singing “Dornishman’s Wife”. Trystane and NewMercella got a poor introduction, and that fight scene was just ridicuious…it was obvious the actors were trying not to hurt each other. Maybe it was a side affect of limited shooting times with so many exotic weapons. If the SS don’t get some character development soon, and Doran some more scenes, ShowDorne might not be salvageable.
LFs plan is now obvious; play Cerci, Bolton, QoT and Sansa against each other and climb up the ladder with victor. He always made that obvious in the show, but his words with Cerci proved it.
Tommen sure as no spine…I guess years of Joffrey bullying him around have taken their toll. With Tywin or even Kevan around, maybe he could learn be a strong leader, but with the way things are going, things are looking bad.
Don’t know why people are complaining about Tyrion’s plot being so slow.
So, do you guys think that Season 5 DVD set will mysteriously be missing this episode’s commentary track?
Mr Fixit,
Sophie is game for it.
JS,
Yes, LF’s tactics are obvious: but the next good explanation for his strategy will be the first!
Oooh! 🙂 Something happens to Stannis through Brienne? Or Brienne gets taken out by Stannis? Since Daniel Portman wrote that, it has to involve Brienne. There are a very few characters for which the majority of GoT internet-ers (not the vast majority of regular viewers who make up ratings) live, breathe, and die, Stannis being one of them. Yes, it’s gonna be “fun” seeing yet another Internet meltdown on all the GoT forums. 🙂
It may be a misdirect, but the look on people’s faces when they read the card would be priceless…hahaha.
(I was going to say if I weren’t attached to my SN, I’d make a “Cock Merchant” one, but as I was reading the responses, I noticed someone else already has. )
Wimsey,
Cameryn,
THANK YOU! Someone understood what I meant. There is no need to whine people, the moment we saw a man push a child out of a window after fucking his own sister, you knew what you were signing for. It makes sense in the context of the show, which is the only one that matters.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
I do hope we get it. Frankly, I’m more interested in their Dorne commentary as that was quite possibly the single worst fight scene the show has ever done. It was atrocious, truly. I’m unable to comprehend how a veteran director of Podeswa’s caliber managed to film *that* horror. Something must have gone terribly wrong… like evil saboteurs evilly destroying all good takes so Podeswa had no choice but to show us that little gem. Yes, that’s probably it. Nefarious show-haters are to blame!
Sansa’s scene, on the other hand, I have no problems with. It was gut-wrenching and very sad, but tastefully done (as much as rape can be tastefully done, that is), respectful to the actors, especially Sophie, and most of all, didn’t trivialise rape in any way. Let’s be perfectly honest here: if that was Jeyne Poole being raped, no one here would have lifted a finger in protest.
Mr Fixit,
I feel bad for everyone involved in the Dorne storyline. I just can’t believe they thought people would like what we are seeing. And they had to, as the Sand Snakes were the most publicized characters leading up to this season.
Tyrion Pimpslap,
Not necessarily. I don’t think D&D+Cogman have a final say on the marketing stuff, though they probably do have some kind of hands-off supervisory role regarding what’s spoilery, what can be shown, etc. HBO and their marketing department likely wanted to brag about Seville and Spain and all these cool new Dornish guys and gals (having in mind how popular Oberyn was). It is what it is.
Tomigreyjoy,
Just for the record, I was simply pointing out that what happened was technically rape. I wasn’t screaming about it or disgusted by or or calling for a boycott on the show about it. Just stating what went down. Obviously it was awful and wholly uncomfortable to watch, but I do get why they left it in and even think the story would’ve not had as much impact without it.
It’s been very interesting to read what each of the commenters considers their own personal definition of rape, especially since I’m guessing a majority (half at least) are men.
the ongoing arguments re: book vs. show material become ever more infuriating, and the rigid book readers are losing. so far, in my opinion, the show is infinitely more entertaining than the book was at this point, and i really loved the books, motored through them and lost a lot of sleep trying the finish them as fast as i could. with that in mind i have a few thoughts:
1). i get annoyed when people confuse real life and fiction. showrunners should not have to constantly apologize for the choices they make, nor should viewers, when a controversial subject such as rape is portrayed. a person can be wholly disgusted by rape in real life and yet understand its placement in an artictic work.
2). contrary to what some have suggested, i do not believe on any way tat the show runners are somehow trying to condone rape by portraying it on screen, and if somehow they are the monsters people think they are, they are doing a piss poor job, because that last scene was abhorrent, disgusting and in no way titillating at all.
3). the complaints about the changes in sansa’s story arc are rigid to the point of absurdity. any one who understands the spirit of the books understands that no one is safe, and anything can happen at any time and typically goes against fantasy tropes. sansa not getting raped actually goes against the spirit of grrm’s novels. anyone who believes that if given the same scenario, grrm would not have writen the exact same ending but with even more gory detail is just being stuck for the sake of being stuck.
4). book readers have been spoiled that they already knew what was coming most of the time even after all the shocking moments. i don’t know how mny people who read the books i have talked to who were ready to give them up after a particular shocker. i myself actually stopped reading for a month after the red wedding i was so pissed. how is it that people constantly forget how brutal these stories are?
Moreover, it is possible that in 20 years time, people will look back at these definitions and be aghast that we left out something. (As I’ve noted before, the idea that husbands could rape wives would have been considered absurd 50 years ago and is still denied in some places today.)
One thing that we do have to keep in mind, however, is that in Westeros, nobody would consider Ramsay a rapist: or at least they would not for what happened on his wedding night. In Westeros, nobody considers a Lord who executes a liegeman for failure to follow his orders a murderer. In Westeros, nobody considers torture to be a human rights violation. (Of course, in Westeros, nobody would understand the concept of “human rights.”) The biggest mistake that enlightened people make when dealing with such people is assuming that, deep down inside, such people know that they are wrong. In reality, they usually are convinced that they are perfectly moral/honorable. (And, as I wrote, it’s quite possible that we all are taking things for granted that people in the near future would label us bigots for so taking.)
This is a key point. The rape that has been shown is really no different from the torture or murder that has been shown. It’s not there to titillate: it is there to horrify. Now, if it is ruining your fantasies about living in Westeros, then guess what: you were being a Sansa about Westeros! You should not want to live there. The people are awful and completely backwards: they debate whether curses or humors cause diseases, even the richest of them live in what we would consider to be squalor, and Hobbes himself couldn’t have imagined a nastier typical life.
This does, however, make the characters and the story potentially all the more interesting. They are all being forced into situations where they have to compromise between values or emotions or self-definitions: and that is when people get really interesting.
It may be implausible, but Cogman straight up said that LF did not know. So it is show canon now.
I think this is hugely revealing towards TWOW. TV-Sansa now hates LF with a passion and he doesn’t know it. This seems clearly to be something set up as the cause of his eventual downfall. Something parallel to this would have to happen in the books. I have a strong feeling now that LF is the “savage giant” of the prophecy.
We finally get some TWOW spoilers and everybody is missing it because they are fixated on the rape. How ironic.
That is not remotely close to being the case. The Sandsnakes only got coverage at sites like this: and as the vast majority of viewers don’t know about these sites (save in general terms), that didn’t create coverage for them. The main entertainment media covered Harrington, Clarke, Dinklage and Headey, with quite a bit of Turner and Williams (particularly the angles on girls -> women). Oh, sure, EW and places like that gave the obligatory “this year will add blah di blah” like they do for any big series: but then it was right back to Kit, Emilia, whether the Stark girl actresses could juggle acting and normal teenage life (they never can pass up that angle and now that they cannot do it with the Harry Potter “kids,” they need someone!), etc.
One also cannot accuse HBO of doing that. Their trailers gave the Sand Snakes hardly any emphasis at all: indeed, you would have been hard pressed to figure out that they were additional characters and not just extra “soldiers” or something like that. It was (as always) the usual cast that got the big emphasis there. What promotional stuff they had seemed a bit more balanced than what the media picked up, but it was focused on the main characters.
Indeed, I’m trying to think if I saw anyone on major magazine covers other than Harrington, Clarke and Dinklage this year: it seems that the entertainment media restricted the focus much more than in prior years, at least on the covers. Even Lena Headey didn’t seem to get as much coverage, although I’ve seen her on a couple of magazines in the last couple of weeks.
And nor do we. Yes, she might target LF for blame: but much of it is going to depend on what she makes of this situation before she sees LF again. What LF does with his Vale knights also might have a huge impact.
And it absolutely does not follow that LF is the savage giant. There are still any number of things that this could mean. (Logic 101: until you show that all of the alternatives are false, it’s illogical to conclude one possible answer.)
am i the only one who thinks that cogman does not like dany and takes line staright from posters from westeros.org instead of taking lines from the books for her story arc
I just realized Myranda mentioned Violet to Sansa as one of Ramsey’s other girls that became boring to him. She got pregnant and I assume Ramsey killed her. In case anyone forgot Violet is the other girl involved in Theon’s favorite toy removal, curtain call for Violet! 🙁
And why is it more acceptable to torture Theon? Because he’s ‘used’ to it? Because he isn’t a favourite character? Because he’s a man? It’s no better. Not at all.
Laura,
The bedding scene with Jeyne Poole was 1000x worse than Sansa’s bedding scene.
Um, wouldn’t they have done so? It would have been a bit unreal to not do it. Moreover, the book solution of just having someone else come in and wipe out the mutineers was not a viable TV option; at some point, we needed to fear for the survival of Bran’s party. Also, what aspects of the “are we there yet?” narrative that were interesting could not translate to screen: something had to be added.
This could be difficult to do given how much Sansa hates Theon. Indeed, Sansa’s hatred of Theon for killing her brothers probably will be a huge obstacle to her to overcome in the coming weeks. What the story really needs here (particularly to fit in with GRRM’s story-style) is for Sansa to make a choice between two people she despises. That is a key element to the Game of Thrones (either in reference to the series or the politicking!) Having her actually sympathize with Theon too quickly or too easily (or even at all) could undermine the story: it will be much more powerful to have it be choice between two foes.
And, let’s face it: could their wedding night have been any different? Really, it would have required Sansa very aggressively (and probably mildly violently) “seducing” Ramsay: and that’s not something that a sexually inexperienced young lady would have any chance of pulling off.
That storyline bordered on anti-feminist because the awful protagonist that GRRM devised for it was a callow short-sighted princess (figuratively and literally) who immediately demonstrated that she was completely outmatched when trying to play the Game. I suspect that GRRM intended it to be the “child” failing at the “adult’s” game – after all, that fit’s the story – but it too easily comes across as the girl failing at the man‘s game. Indeed, that is how many readers at the time took it. (Of course, mostly it was just “Dorne sucked most!” “No, the Iron Islands sucked Most!” “NO! Dorne stunk even more than your mother!!!!” “IRON ISLANDS were worse than your mother’s ARMY BOOTS” and similarly insightful and intellectually stimulating debates.)
Moreover, it’s been replaced with Jaime’s storyline, not the Sandsnakes. For all the fandom’s obsessing over them, the SS are, after all, incidental characters getting a fraction of the screentime that Jaime and Bronn are getting. They exist to create some challenge(s) for Jaime: probably resulting in Jaime demonstrating that
, which ultimately is his story in the book, too.
Hodor’s Bastard,
In the preview for the next episode, I think Sansa is looking up at Myranda’s flayed corpse.
HBO has a new 5 minute clip, “Sansa’s Return to Winterfell.” Show spoilers:
Rygritte,
I am not buying the Sansa wants to flee scenario. I think she will stay. In any case Ramsay will go and fight so she will be alone for a while and have time to bond with Theon. One way to show Sansa’s first step to real independence would be to kill Myranda. But I don’t remember how many episodes has Myrands still in the show. It would be interesting to see Ramsay’s face when he hears the news.
One element that most reviewers have missed is the extraordinary visual language of this episode – particularly the juxtaposition of the beauty of the wedding scene, and the horror of the aftermath. The wedding, in the snow-covered godswood at night, lit by a number of small lanterns, was absolutely beautiful. Just as most such royal weddings have been in history. The veneer of these times was romantic, elegant and heart-stirring. But below the surface lies a darkness. Especially for women. Below the surface of this wonderful ceremony was the rape of a child, whose parents and sibling had been murdered by the family she had just been born into. The dreams of young women, as exemplified by the snow-castle of Winterfell built by Sansa last season, are only realized in slight, artificial ways. Those dreams cannot paper over the horrible state of their slavery in a brutal, patriarchal society.
The only way out of this hell, in such a world, is for a woman to bide her time. Build alliances. And strike when the time is right.
Sansa’s day is coming.
The above should read “the family she had just been married into” NOT “born into.”
I am far more upset by how meh the Sand Snakes are than anything else in this season. Yes, I hated the final scene of the episode with a passion of a thousand suns but there must be a reason for it that may be able to salvage the sickness I felt after. Nothing can save the Sand Snakes.
Thank god for the books.
One complaint that was brought up and got lost in all the concentration of Sansa (admittedly I haven’t read all 1000+ posts in the last 2 days) was why didn’t the Kingsguard intervene to protect Queen Margaery?
For one thing they are the Kingsguard and Tommen sitting there like a lemon gave no orders, plus it is very possible that Cersei ordered them not to intervene beforehand no matter what happened unless Tommen or herself were threatened (this would work better of course if they followed the books Cersei/Kettleblack story). Cersei is a bit dim at times but she would know Margaery would defend Loras and his reputation must be well known on the court. Cersei was never going to look after Margaery’s interests once she saw the way the wind was blowing. She thinks she has won…..
This has to be inferred of course from unshown things but there is a logic to it.
Arya Havin’ a larf?,
If I remember well. Tommen ordered them not to intervene with a slight raise of his hand.
I didn’t notice that, I’ll have to have another look at the scene if I can…
Problem is there that I’m not sure what Tommen’s motives could be for allowing Margaery’s arrest (since he’s apparently besotted by her, although granted he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer), it would only serve if she was arrested for suspicion of not being a maiden as per the books.
Cersei OTOH is always into that short term gain approach and not realising how important the Tyrell alliance is.
Pod, maybe?
Arya Havin’ a larf?,
I think it is obvious that Thommen is very confused caught in a bitter fight between his mother and the woman he loves. The revelations in the episode were quite shocking for him and considering the hypocritical reactions of his mother he was wise to choose a milder reaction to Maergerys arrest. We have to remember Tywins lesson to him a season ago. I think that at the moment he is very buffled and trying to understand the situation which came all over him out of a sudden he will choose subtler ways of reacting to it. But somehow I believe that they upgraded him not only for being a naive spectator to this dangerous game btw mother and lover and it would be interesting to see his future development.
I understand that many people had a problem with this scene, but since the amount of people jumping to conclusions after this ONE scene increases in every moment that passes, I`d also like to contribute my two cents.
I think it´s not justified to say from this point in the story that Sansa was thrown back in the role she had from Season 1-3 and to be honest, I don´t know how anyone can possibly tell that this should hinder her character-development. If anything, it accelerates her urge to dispose of Ramsay, to defy the Boltons and most of all, LF´s “planning”, since obviously he didn´t quite judge right how twisted Ramsay already is and that there´s no effective way to manipulate/handle him. She now even has a possible ally in Theon since everyone could finally see that his defiance of Ramsay starts to gain the upper hand and that he maybe won´t break free from his role of Reek to fence for himself, but to redeem himself in the eyes of the last known member of the House Stark.
After all, what did some of the most disgusted expect? That Sansa could play him like a harp after such a small amount of time of playing the game? That Ramsay would pass the opportunity to torture both Sansa and Theon? That Ramsay wouldn´t want to consumate the marriage or that Sansa would just stab him or something? Come on, we knew that this was going to happen at one point in time, even if it may not be what anyone could possibly consider easy to watch…
So the whole point of this is: please don´t jump to conclusions now, even before the next two Episodes are out, we can not know how Sansa´s character-development will turn out or if it´s even hindered by that scene. Just wait and we´ll see what´s the aftermath to it.
I seem to be the one person on the planet who didn’t think the Sand Snakes were totally atrocious. Was their scene in the most recent episode of GoT the best in the whole of the show’s history – no of course not. In all honesty we have had such little character development concerning them that it is hard – for me at least – to form a valid judgement about them. Jessica Henwick was (IMO) good in “Silk” a BBC series as trainee barrister, Amy Lang. I have been puzzled about some of the changes in the Dorne story-line (won’t go into detail about the changes in case I “spoil”) though.
Can’t say I was outraged or convulsed with laughter at the supposed ineptness of the fight scene, though it was for sure rather clunky and could/should have been done more convincingly if it needed to be done. The Dorne storyline doesn’t seem to be all that promising but neither was it in the books IMO, the Show!Sand Snakes as warrior troop isn’t gelling but maybe that’s the point…
Dame of Mercia,
No, not at all alone. I iked it too. I mean it was not a masterpiece of martial arts but somehow amid all seriousness the whole scene created a kind of comic lightness (silly in a sense but not badly made). I think the fight scene itself was not that bad, it lacked a sense of dramatic conviction but it had the spontaneous effect of a firework where the viewer cannot really concentrate on a single motion. In the end it was stigmatised by the periphery, that is Jaime + Bronn arriving as the tail of a peasant march, Myrcellas + Trystanes love shennanigans, the Sand Snakes zealotry all of which were like scenes from a fair. Even Bronn’s comment on Tyene was hillarious in its banality and I must admit that this is Bronns best season. On the whole this episode was one of the best of GOT.
And to be fair
“You fight pretty good for a little girl” was pretty damn funny 😀
And to expand my comment about the Show!Sand snakes not looking massively effective against Jaime & Bronn , maybe it’ll just be a trigger for Doran to consider that their talents would be better used in other ways.
JamesL,
dany is going to go full ramsay on hizdar
Pigeon,
You said this sooooooooooo well. Thank you.
They didn’t sit there: they initially drew their swords; Tommen waved them to stand down.
Well, for one thing, most of the planet is too busy discussing the end of Mad Men to be bothered to comment! But, no, they were not bad. I think that this is a “fan only” issue. The general viewers almost certainly view them are just incidental characters; they understand that this is Jaime’s story, and that they are just some Lannister-hating obstacle in his path. The question in their minds is, what is that obstacle? How is Jaime going to simultaneously deal with the overt threat that they represent and whatever Doran is going to present? We have another Thrones 3-way conflict here, and Jaime is the primary corner.
Quite the opposite, this will probably harden her resolve to stay and defeat the Bolton’s. B&W put her there for story-telling purposes, after all.
ArgonathofBraavos,
Just watched the episode again and WOW! The visuals were unreal especially the Godswood wedding. It’s so easy to criticise and nitpick the plot and characters, but sometimes you just have to sit back and marvel at the quality of the visuals. No other show comes close in this regard.
Wimsey,
That’s what I said. I think she will stay and work hard for the Bolton and LF’s demise. What puzzles me is what Alfie Allen said about Boltons long future. It had the perspective of another season for them…
And yes it was one of the best episodes of GOT. Time will tell
I think that the Boltons will be around for awhile. Like someone said earlier, there are too few ‘blatant’ villains to lose these ones yet. Next week’s trailer has me worried.
Jon gets raped by Night king!?
IF they survive the season it will be at the expense of someone else. I wonder who that someone will be… I might be wrong though and we will see a double Bolton demise
Having Sansa go trough all of that just to kill fkn sidekick like Myranda????
Its right up there with a books worth of Arya only to have her kill 1 kingsguard.
We are past the halfway point the story should be more focused on the important things, killing Myranda and Trant are not important things.
This seemingly popular argument is also very weird to me. Why would the author of a story full with violence and, one could argue, about violence make a conscious effort to avoid some specific forms of violence, if it’s dramatic? Rape is never “needed”, almost nothing is, certainly you could tell a story without violence, but this is not one of them I hope everyone noticed.
I don’t really get it. Is it because of a taboo? To not offend, or not to trigger the audiences sensibilities? That might be an issue, but I don’t believe we are at that level yet where you have to stop to avoid offending everyone. Up until that point: Why chose to avoid rape and not mutilation and head squishing? I suspect many people have first hand experience with someone dying, maybe even in a bloody way (think about car accidents alone).
And I also find it patronizing towards people who have experienced rape, to shield them from everything concerning rape, especially since everyone knows the show might deal with that. Then there is the often repeated “we get it already” argument. But that’s also not what storytelling is about. A story doesn’t go a certain way for someone to “get it”, to understand a moral of the story or something, at least that’s not the only goal. And by the way, people who claim to “get it” are often pretty clueless about other obvious interpretations. A story makes you experience something, there might not be anything to rationally understand there, or at the very least not one simple thing like “the world is tough”.
People might think Ned Stark died because he acted to honorable, but you could equally argue he died because it defied genre conventions and maybe a typical character arc, and that in turn says something about reality and how we perceive it. It might even be more interesting to assume that he was a perfectly good guy and didn’t do much wrong, even in his position.
I still think people feel betrayed because they were duped into thinking Sansa as a “player” of the game could not be hurt, just as a the perfectly aligned “revenge arc” of Oberyn Martell could not go wrong. But that is meta-thinking and plot-immunity.
I’m not a book reader but GRRM has repeatedly said that breaking genre conventions is one of his objectives, and the show does the same. So if you are offended that might be the point, but not necessarily the only one.
So Bronn got slashed by Tyene at the end of that godawful fight , does that mean he is poisoned and will probably die?
I don’t normally comment but I do enjoy reading all of your comments. Good to see many people made the switch from old site. This sites writers are clearly big fans and I enjoy reading their takes on things.
My wife was traumatized more by the final scene with Sansa then any other crazy thing we have seen on Game of Thrones, even the red wedding. We watched this character grow from a child on the show, and she still looks like one even though the character has been through alot. The scene was just unsettling. I know this show and books themselves likes to go for shock like no other, and I’m sure its even worse in the books. It was just a very difficult and unsettling thing to watch. I hope the show didn’t lose people with that. I hope my wife will continue to watch. We’ll see.
Wimsey,
Well, I honestly don’t know what his end game is. Perhaps to be lord of Winterfell married Catlyns daughter as a way of trying to emulate Brandon or even Ned Stark? Still, it makes his plan to leave Sansa there on her own even more bizarre. Maybe his motivations is to give power to someone not born into it then or maybe just as a way of punishing the system than has stopped him marrying his love because of his status. It could all just be revenge, he even says ” I have always found revenge to be the purest of motivations” so may have been talking about himself?
Sean C.,
I strongly disagree that the scene could have been changed. It is the brutal mistreatment Jeyne that begins Theon’s redemption arc. This scene isn’t JUST about Sansa’s character development, it is also about Theon and how he finds his way back. By moving Sansa into the Jeyne role it adds weight to the brutality of the moment, Sansa is known and liked by the audience. Everyone watching that scene was likely doing the same thing I was; wishing that Theon would break free of the hold Ramsay has on him. How you easily change the fundamental turning point of Reek to Theon is beyond me. The way the show handled it you end up with a brutal scene that underscores Rasmay as a monster WORSE than Joffrey. You gain the impetuous for the Reek/Theon transformation AND you show that Sansa IS a strong resilient woman who is unbowed, unbent and unbroken by the attack.
I hardly remember anyone up in arms when Drogo raped Dany on the show? It was a moment that in the end Dany used to make herself stronger. Actually, this Sansa moment mirrors the Dany/Drogo scenes quite interestingly. Both Dany and Sansa are “sold” into marriage for political gain. Both are young and inexperienced. Scared. Both are raped by their new husbands. The parallels are strong and it may give some foreshadowing as to where Sansa’s arc will take her
Sansa will do exactly as LF did in KL–she will squeal to Lord Bolton that LF’s playing both sides. As LF foreshadowed, she learned from the best. She’ll explain that LF intends to watch the Bolton’s burn and then swoop in to rule the North in Sansa’s name.
Just imagine… (enter sweet, innocent, 2nd season Sansa): “Lord Bolton, I love your son with all my heart! I just couldn’t bare to keep LF’s secrets any longer. I was his prisoner–his hostage in the Vale! I begged him to bring me home and he said he would, only if I kept his secrets and did everything he bade me. He will not council the Vale to unite with you in arms. He would have Stannis or the Lannisters flay you and your son….but The NORTH remembers Lord Bolton. I’ve heard the whispers, and they are many. Let me help you call the northern banners, yada yada yada….
Oh, and by the way, there is this crazy stable-keeper’s daughter named Myranda that is madly in love with Ramsey. I would hate for her to get in the way of things.”
LF is flayed once he arrives back in Winterfell–he did make a point to say he’d be back shortly. This will happen season 6 after Ramsey sneak attacks and kills Stannis–or after Brienne somehow brings down Stan the man. Then, once the Boltons are surrounded by Northmen brought together by Sansa, sitting pretty and getting comfortable in Winterfell, Sansa will then pull a Lady Catelyn (circa the time she got her supporters to chain Tyrion in a pub) or a Lord Frey (red wedding style–where Frey’s pregnant daughter would be in attendance) and then the Bolton bloodbath ensues. Sansa FTMFW. Winter is coming….in the form of Sansa.
Queen of the North!
Theon’s helplessness mirrored that of every single viewer of this episode when that scene hit.
Ramseyiscoming,
Or Rickon will do it.
Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy) is listed in the cast of episode 7 & 9 on imdb. Is there any chance of a Yara-Theon reunion on the show?
Laura,
Oh, well if it’s a matter of deserving it, you’re gonna have a bad time with this show. 😉
War doesn’t discriminate.
Pigeon,
Ok for some reason not all of my post posted and when I edited it that didn’t work either. Lol…anyway, I was saying that in times of war and chaos, the concept of innocence or guilt gets thrown out of the window in the fray…because someone doesn’t ‘deserve’ something doesn’t mean it won’t happen. And horrible things that happen can be glossed over/ignored. It is chaos. The bad guys can win. The good guys can lose.
One of the main acts of violence/dominance/punishment/humiliation towards women will almost always be rape, since it is very much about control and power to the man, and it is very very personal to the victim. I don’t think that it would be reasonable to omit this in the show because it isn’t palatable. It’s not supposed to be, it’s supposed to be visceral and upsetting and hard to watch, because it’s a terrible thing to happen. And it would have happened. It still does.
Although Dany and Sansa aren’t quite victims of a village raid, they are involved in the politics of war. Dany is a trade ‘item’, a tool, a sacrificial lamb. She doesn’t make it a debate that she means ‘no’ – unfortunately no one cares. Then she decides that the only way to gain some control and respect (?) is sexual. And it works. And then she ….falls in love with him. Alrighty. But here she is.
Sansa isn’t sold in that sense, she rejects the marriage, then accepts it, clearly not wanting any part of it but also feeling she need so be. “I take this man.” What a terrible moment that was. Now, you can argue as to whether she didn’t fight Ramsay due to resignation, fear, duty, a bigger plan, or whatever, but clearly this goes way farther than ‘Hey let’s shake things up a bit and rape and humiliate Sansa for shits and giggles.’ It’s very clear to me that this is not a ‘oh crap that was bad, well let’s carry on being submissive as usual’, no way. It’s the breaking point for her, the accumulation of many last straws, and I think/hope that she will definitely NOT go back to being a little balloon on the string of whoever decides to carry her around.
Sansa is not going to do a switcharoo like Dany and use sex as a power move. She’s not going to try to get Ramsay’s respect and she is certainly not going to fall in love with him. She will never match wits with him, because he is insane. What she will do is turn a humiliating experience into armor, and say “fuck it – I’ve had enough.”
Was rape ‘necessary’? No. Was it realistic? Yes. Was it the turning point for a character grown weary of being violated over and over in other ways? Yes.
Remember last season when people thought it was ridiculous Sansa was a player now because she put on a goth dress & a “no” necklace? Duped indeed just like Sansa.
Ramseyiscoming, Reading that was the only thing that made me feel a little better since watching the scene.
When is anything necessary when it comes to choosing what will or won’t happen in a dramatic story? What a strange notion when it comes to art. Authors/artists choose to tell their story depending on what they view as thematically or dramatically important or – in some cases – will put the most bums on seats. Do viewers seriously only examine each scene as being necessary for the bare bones of the plot or not, or can they appreciate other aspects or challenges those scenes present?
I’m finding it increasingly frustrating at how some viewers view everything in a very binary, dichotomous fashion. It’s their prerogative, of course, to opine that showing Theon’s face at the end is somehow implying it’s only his arc which matters in that scene, but I totally reject that line of thinking. It feels incredibly ‘zero-sum’, if that makes sense. It’s as if we can’t care about BOTH Sansa’s and Theon’s plight in that scene. As if we can’t see how it affects both of their story arcs without taking anything away from them. The same goes with the idea that Sansa can only be a naive, stupid girl or a badass manipulative coquette who is ready to take on the Boltons. Why can’t it be something in between these two extremes? Why can’t Sansa both be a girl who still clung to romantic notions of revenge, a girl who totally was played by master-manipulator Littlefinger into being his pawn, and yet who is still a girl maturing into a woman who is starting to find her own inner strength, starting to discover what power she might yet yield and what lengths she is willing to go to, to reclaim her family’s name?
What happened to Sansa reflects more on Ramsay and his respect or lack thereof of his bride than it does on Sansa’s level of ’empowerment’. Seriously, some of the arguments I’ve read seem to insinuate that it’s Sansa’s fault she didn’t fight back more or somehow become a seductress in order to deflect what was likely to happen. We’re conditioned to expect 11th hour reprieves or that some manly man will step in to stop such events. It’s time we stopped relying on such narrative crutches and accepted that real life seldom is so tritely pat.
I am glad Theon didn’t snap and kill Ramsay during that scene. That would have indeed made it more about him than Sansa. More about the white knight, than the woman who chose to endure this for the sake of her family’s revenge.
Being victimised doesn’t take away someone’s agency, either. Rape happens to the young and old alike. The ugly as well as the pretty. The strong and the weak. The thought that some people might have stomached the torture and sexual assault Theon underwent because he ‘deserved’ it more is problematic, in terms of the levels of outrage.
The less we judge the person put into that horrific situation, the better.
Every time I see people saying Sansa’s development has now regressed or been completely negated by this single event, the more I cringe. It’s as if her loss of maidenhood or ‘purity’ has suddenly become more important than her ongoing resilience or determination to make the Bolton’s ultimately pay for their treachery. It’s a little insulting, to be honest.
We ended the episode on the act. We have no indication as to how that act affects the parties involved. How about we reserve judgment as to what this means (for good or for ill) in terms of Sansa’s ‘coming of age’ story until the final four eps have played out, yes?
Yes it had…
Great scene.
Sand Snakes…not so much
Also, the only thing that doesn’t make sense is Littlefinger not knowing Ramsay is a psycho. It makes no sense. It’s a HUGE plot hole. Some reviewers even think he obviously knew, but chose to sacrifice Sansa. Oh well.
Succubint,
The next round of drinks is on me.
I don’t think it’s a plot hole at all. You’ve got to remember that show-Ramsay is much more low-key than book-Ramsay. For example, there’s no Hornwood affair and all its associated horror. Until now Ramsay has been a little-known bastard son of a second-tier Northern lord, living thousands of miles away from King’s Landing. His ‘hobbies’, like hunting girls for sport, have been kept quiet. The only acts of depravity he engaged in that presumably are known are the flaying of the Ironborn at Moat Cailin and of Lord Cerwyn.
The first were foreign invaders, and while how they were dealt with was harsh, it’s in keeping with Bolton ancient traditions. Cerwyn was certainly a more illuminating window into Ramsay’s psyche, but you have to keep two things in mind. One, it happened after Littlefinger had already arranged the marriage, so LF couldn’t have known about it at the time he was exchanging letters with Roose. Two, Cerwyn was a rebel lord who refused in the most disrespectful manner the new Warden of the North. Not saying it makes the subsequent flaying acceptable, but it can be viewed as an intentionally bloody response to keep the other lords in line through fear. What I’m trying to say is that these two incidents don’t necessarily tell us anything about Ramsay’s psychotic tendencies and his private affairs except that he takes to his family words perhaps a bit too literally when his House’s *public* standing appears threatened. Look to Tywin as a similar example. What he did to Reynes and Castameres was beyond horrible, yet I don’t think anyone would call him a psycho from whose treatment of these two families automatically follows he’d behave the same with his wife.
Perspective is all I’m saying.
Succubint,
“The same goes with the idea that Sansa can only be a naive, stupid girl or a badass manipulative coquette who is ready to take on the Boltons. Why can’t it be something in between these two extremes? Why can’t Sansa both be a girl who still clung to romantic notions of revenge, a girl who totally was played by master-manipulator Littlefinger into being his pawn, and yet who is still a girl maturing into a woman who is starting to find her own inner strength, starting to discover what power she might yet yield and what lengths she is willing to go to, to reclaim her family’s name?”
Because this scene doesn’t imply that she’s in between two extremes, it shows us that she’s on an extreme, specifically, exactly where she was in Season 2: abused in a castle run by lunatics who have murdered her family, with no recourse save for glowering at them. If they intended to make it seem as though she was *willing* to make this sacrifice to reclaim her home, thereby establishing that she is taking charge of her life in a way that Season 2 Sansa was unable to, then they should have made her intent very clear, perhaps by showing Sansa with a steely-eyed, determined expression on her face as she was being raped. Instead, they show her with a horrified expression on her face, and we hear her crying out in pain, like she’s just a frightened young girl. This is not part of some grand political scheme concocted by someone who is “discovering her inner strength.” Indeed, I find it particularly disturbing that you consider this rape to be necessary for Sansa to discover her inner strength, as though the 3 previous seasons of nonstop physical and mental abuse was insufficient for her to do this. The rape serves no discernible narrative function other than to shock and titillate, and is therefore cheap, gratuitous, and objectionable.
“Seriously, some of the arguments I’ve read seem to insinuate that it’s Sansa’s fault she didn’t fight back more or somehow become a seductress in order to deflect what was likely to happen.”
Then what on earth was the point of that scene? If she isn’t doing anything different from a Jeyne Poole style helpless rape victim, then how does this scene establish her “inner strength” or whatever?
“Every time I see people saying Sansa’s development has now regressed or been completely negated by this single event, the more I cringe. It’s as if her loss of maidenhood or ‘purity’ has suddenly become more important than her ongoing resilience or determination to make the Bolton’s ultimately pay for their treachery. It’s a little insulting, to be honest.”
What “resilience or determination” are you talking about? She hasn’t shown anything of the sort this entire season. Her story arc this season has been marked by frustrating passivity and quiet submission, whether it is blindly following LF out of the safety of the Vale without even asking where they were going, to cluelessly strolling into WF with no men, money, allies, or even a *plan* to take out the Boltons save for passively waiting for Stannis to show up and save the day without her lifting a finger. This is why people are annoyed that Sansa did not struggle or seduce Ramsay, because if she had, it would have been the first step to establishing her “resilience or determination.” If anything is insulting, it is the show’s failure to do this in favor of the exact opposite.