Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon!

[Freya]

It's not so much that people are personally affected by it that's bothering me but it's seeming to steam roll into bandwagoning about it.

I think what bothers me is there isn't an uproar about all the violence but when it comes to sexual violence against women there is. I'm still upset that they included a pregnant Talisa and then stabbed her in said pregnant area. I'm still upset that they did what they did to theon. Those were horrible.

I think it goes back to my issue with most media. That violence is okay but sexual things are not. Personally, I think people dying is also a very very horrible thing. People tend to give that a pass though cause whatever reason. I'm bothered that it's becoming a bandwagon for this incident(and the rape incidents) and nothing previous even though this is a very bad show for characters. Like people were upset over the deaths like ned and the red wedding but they were more shocked and "oooo those evil lannisters"ing it. It just doesn't compute for me. Like i'm having a critical error does not compute error error. Like The Mary Sue is declaring they will no longer talk about the show at all. And various other sites and comments i'm seeing everywhere. I'm just wondering where was this outrage before? Why were you okay with all the murder? (you as in people in general)

I just hate that in general. That people will let their kids see people getting shot down in movies but boobies are a sin. It's like when sexuality comes into anything it's suddenly worse. Violence is okay just don't add sexual to it.

I don't know. I just am confused on how it's worse than other incidents in this show when this show is so horrible to everyone and everything.

A lot of people said they'd stop watching after Ned, after the Red Wedding, etc. but those viewing figures keep going up and up. The same people bitching about it will be back again next week.

That's true. It's probably just the knee jerk reaction I guess. I should stop worrying about it.

[Psychotic]

I'm still holding out some hope that this isn't the case. This is just a theory, but even though the event must have been indescribably horrific for Sansa, I felt like there was some sense of determination in her eyes throughout her whole part this episode. Like she knew what was going to happen but on some level had accepted paying that terrible price for a chance at revenge at an opportune time. But again, that's just a shred of hope I'm holding on to.

"Winterfell is my home and you can't scare me" had to be included for a reason.

While I imagine there are a lot of those people, I'm confident that there are many who do stop watching when they find it too disturbing. The numbers going up doesn't mean nobody stops watching.

Just gonna leave this here https://twitter.com/RedWeddingTears

[Rantz]

I see what you're saying, Freya. I agree about the "violence is okay but sexual themes are taboo" thing being silly too, although I think that's a very different issue from the rape topic.

As for why people are more personally affected by depicted rape - For one, a lot of the violence in the show is institutionalised, which is something that's still socially acceptable today (no soldier gets shunned for killing in war). Not all of it, but I think that accounts for a lot. There's also the more salient fact that arguably far more will have personally experienced rape first-hand than murder, and so would be intimately affected by seeing it depicted. I'm not saying rape is necessarily a worse crime than murder, but there are logical reasons as to why it'd be more personally disturbing to watch for many people.

On a lighter topic, I wonder what this show would be like if they had split the first 80% of the whole story into 3-4 different shows about different groups of characters (with references to one another and a few characters popping in/out from one show to another, but still being separate entities) and then capped it all off with one show combining all the stories for the finale?! There are so many storylines that feel like they drag on because they can only fit so much character development into the 5-10 minutes they get per episode.

[Freya]

Seriously, so many plotlines many get abandoned.

[Shorty]

The Mary Sue have turned into a bunch of babies over it, apparently.

[escobert]

I'm gonna be so bummed when I finally catch up with where the show is and I have to wait for episodes

[Ayen]

The Mary Sue have turned into a bunch of babies over it, apparently.

Read the article. Only major thing I disagree with is the "People will argue it's not rape." I don't think anyone is going to argue in favor of Ramsay here. They're right when they say Sansa and Ramsay don't need it though they seem to be neglecting that it was more for Theon's character than anything, but I guess that wouldn't matter much. There are more ways to torture someone than what they did. They're also right that it would've been more shocking if she stabbed him or something. Rape, murder, the good guys never getting their way, that's par for the course. It's not surprising anymore.

[Jinx]

People will argue it's not rape because they're married, and she chose to marry him knowing it would entail sex.

[Del Murder]

That last scene was horrific and one of those things I wish I could unsee. The worst part about it was that I did feel Sansa had made progress with her character in the Vale and all that was stolen from her last episode. I wish they wouldn't end the episodes with these horrific scenes since it's the last thing that sits in your mind for the whole week, or at least until Tuesday when you forget about this show.

The Dorne stuff was amateur, which sucks because it looks like it could have been a lot better. Also Arya's story is getting boring because it's going slowly and there doesn't seem to be any point to it.

I liked all the other stuff. The dinner with the Bolton's was perfectly uncomfortable and Cerci's political maneuvering is always fun. I also loved to see the return of the best character in the show, Olenna Tyrell. And the scene with her arriving which showed a nice overhead view of King's Landing was beautiful.

[Formalhaut]

I'm broadly of the opinion that Sansa's determination will continue. I could be misreading her development, but I like to think that such a horrific event would have once broken Sansa, but that she now has the vengeful determination to see her homeland restored. I definitely think she's playing the long game. What Ramsey Bolton did was bloody terrible (and he will probably die at some point, he simply has to now). But Sansa is steeled. She was crying, yes, who wouldn't and she hasn't lost all emotion. She still retains part of what makes her, her.

In that regard, both Sansa and Arya are now travelling similar arcs. Both have had terrible things happen to them over and over again. Both have struggled, but now both are steeling themselves, without throwing away all of their humanity (Arya hiding Needle, and Sansa crying).

I quite liked this episode overall. Cersei is winning these small-term victories but she cannot foresee what will happen next: the Lannister-Tyrell pact breaking and King's Landing starving without the grain from the Tyrell farms. Cersei really hasn't thought this through. That, and Mama Bear is back. The last time she was slighted or wronged, Joffrey died. They may not have the same kind of family bond that the Starks have, but Olenna is going to, I think, to raise hell in King's Landing one way or another.

[Raistlin]

I actually think this was the least objectionable rape scene in the entire show. It was a horrific scene, and it was portrayed as absolutely horrific. You don't even see anything except Theon crying in the background, and it is incredibly emotionally powerful. Contrast that with prior rapes of, for example, Dany, which was portrayed as just another scene, despite her nudity and crying and obvious pain. The only logically consistent objection to the most recent rape scene is that rape should never be portrayed as a literary device, which is not a principle I accept. You can learn a lot about awful things by fictional portrayals of them; in fact, that's often the point. It's similar to all of the people who historically objected to Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn on account of its frequent use of the word "nigger."

If you wouldn't stop watching after involuntarily-married Dany was raped by Khal Drogo, I have a hard time understanding your rationale for doing so now. Sansa has much more power over her situation than Dany did then. I don't think all hope is lost for Sansa, either, and I don't think she lost any power or character development. What, exactly, did you think would happen when she married Ramsay? That she'd kick him in the teeth when he wanted to consummate the marriage? Her sucking it up and accepting it, unconsensually but unresisting, is perfectly consistent with her development and her and Littlefinger's plan. I think she'll be back to playing the game and start manipulating people on her own.

[Jinx]

Yeah, after seeing the scene, I'm not so sure she'll lose development.

And I think the scene was much more tasteful (as tasteful as a rape scene can be) than I was led to believe. While I understand where a lot of the rage is coming from, the scene is nowhere near as bad as so many other scenes--many of them rape scenes or sexual violence scenes--have been.

[Kalevala]

The Mary Sue have turned into a bunch of babies over it, apparently.

I made the following comment on Shorty's link to this on Facebook but I'll repost it here as well.

I am a bit confused as to why the writer of this article considered herself a fan of both the books and the show up until this point. Was she not bothered by Jeyne Poole being raped in nearly the exact same scenario when this occurred in the books?

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

[Loony BoB]

I found that scene incredibly hard to watch and stomach. It's not just the fact that it's rape, it's rape to someone we had only just seen become stronger, someone who is beloved (as Rantz pointed out), someone who submitted and just let it happen, the person raping was doing it in a sadistic fashion and is much hated for his perverse and sadistic nature, and he made someone watch who, for all his faults, clearly did not wish any harm to come to Sansa in such a way, far from it.

I haven't seen many rape scenes in my life and I find them all very uncomfortable, even when done to 'bad people' in scenes such as that in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo where it is carried out in a vigilante justice kind of manner. Some things are just never easy to watch, ever.

It won't put me off watching the show, but it doesn't mean it was done "in good taste". Sometimes things are better not shown at all, and just inferred. I find it makes a very awkward moment when you watch a show for entertainment and then something like that happens.

I watched it right before I went to bed, too, which didn't help at all. Disturbing. Thankfully I don't recall dreaming last night.