Before I get into this post, I should point out that this post contains spoilers. But I do imagine anyone who is watching Game of Thrones is up to date anyway, since it's one of those shows it's hard to stop watching.
I'll be honest, Game of Thrones shouldn't really be my cup of tea. I hate anything with gore, violence, really anything remotely scary. But after everyone and their mother kept banging on about it I decided to give it a go. And I got quite into it. Okay, sure, so I have to watch it with my phone out for distraction whenever a sword is pulled, and I can't watch it too close to bedtime, but I've enjoyed the character evolution and following the plotline.
After this week's episode however, I think I might be done.
Whilst I appreciate that Game of Thrones is based on a book, and they're somewhat tied to plotlines, I can't get past this nonchalant attitude to violence towards women the show seems to portray. And this scene doesn't actually correlate with the book anyway.
The show has never shied away from actively portraying women being beaten, abused and raped for the pleasure of men (cough cough, Joffrey using a prostitute for target practice, Jaime Lannister raping Cersei because he's just SO pleased to see her), but to end this week's episode with Bolton raping Sansa whilst her adoptive brother is forced to watch just makes no sense to me. Once again, rape is being used as a plot device, as a tool for entertainment. And it's just not entertaining.
Contrary to what the show's producers seem to think, it is possible to write a compelling fantasy drama without having every leading female character raped, with no consequences for their rapists. Just like when Jaime raped Cersei (a scene the show called 'consensual'. If that's consensual sex then I want off this planet), the show continues to depict rape as something that happens to women before being promptly swept under the rug and forgotten by the time the next episode comes around.
The worst part is, that this scene offers literally no character development whatsoever. We already know that Ramsay Bolton is a sadist, an abuser, an all around nut job. We already know that he's got Theon, or should I say, Reek, wrapped around his finger. They didn't even have the decency to concentrate on poor old Sansa in all of this, nope, instead it focused on just how hard it is for Theon. I'm sorry, surely the poor woman being subjected to the abuse is finding it a little more difficult? What they've essentially done is used a woman's rape to evolve a male character. How bloody wrong is that.
I have no doubt that they'll continue next week to show Sansa growing as a result of the 'hardship' (I say hardship in quotations because a brutal rape is a lot more than a bloody hardship) that she's faced, but why does this character development need to come from rape? There are a thousand and one other ways they could have shown Sansa's evolution from pawn to player, and they sure as hell picked the wrong one. I wonder what ran through their minds when they began to plot Sansa's journey. Shall we use the moment her betrothed lops off her father's head in front of her for her growth? No. What about when her adoptive brother supposedly burns her two youngest brothers to a crisp? Nope. What about when her sister vanishes? Nope. Or when her brother and mother are brutally murdered whilst at a wedding? Nope. What about when she's forced to marry the son of the man who ordered their deaths? Nope. How about if she gets raped? Perfect.
The night might be dark and full of terrors in Westoros, as the show keeps reminding us, but for me at least, the night is over.
