A Murder of Crows: Should “Game of Thrones” be boycotted forever more? 

Tower of the Hand crew a few months back, but we decided to hold off on doing a follow-up until we came across a suitably irresistible topic that would justify the colossal task of synchronizing schedules and herding two litters of cats. As it turns out, however, a topic actually found us.

The huge and seemingly inexhaustible controversy surrounding “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken,”

Game of Thrones’s latest episode, also infected the Tower, causing one of its writers to question whether he was going to boycott the remainder of the series. The resulting conversation between him and the rest of the staff was so white-knuckled, the only polite thing they could do was invite other individuals to join in on the bar fight. Hey – these roundtables aren’t called murders for nothing.

The second half of the sometimes-tense, always-obsessive debate follows below; to catch the first half, be sure to stop by Tower of the Hand first.

There is absolutely no point I could see me going, “Well, I’ve had enough of this show – I’m done.” They would virtually have to do an alternate reality locale warp to a 1980s-era shopping mall and have Jon Cryer guest star as Duckie for me to say, “Welp, nope.” (And even then, I’d still probably watch, because – I mean, who wouldn’t?)

Because, for me, it’s not about sensitive topic A, or sensitive topic B, or whether the book is being treated with X amount of respect – it’s simply about good storytelling. And if I had never heard of

A Song of Ice and Fire prior to this show, I would still be a devoted viewer, simply because it’s a fantasy television series that comes nowhere close to sucking as badly as the Dungeons & Dragons movie did. I’m an old, oldschool nerd, and, back in my day, this shit just didn’t happen.

Whether Game of Thrones pisses off 90 or 90,000 people, it is still a gripping, well-told, epic tragedy – the Macbeth of its time, minus the chronic bad luck in modern production. Perhaps this is insensitive of me, but I take a dim view of people who wave their hands frantically before their faces and squeal their disgust for the world to hear, then go back the very next week and repeat the process of watching that thing that offended them so. The Mary Sue can Mary Sue itself into actual relevance by riding the coattails of a show it pretends to hate, driven by a topic it gleefully despises. I don’t care – it makes for amusing behind-the-scenes snark.

But if you get off, kindly stay off. Else have a partial lobotomy and/or a complete change in faiths, but for the love of R’hllor, in all other cases – stick to your guns.

The show has problems. Of course it does. No show is perfect. Dorne has been abominable. But the “Hot Button” topic crap doesn’t stir my juices.

Nothing is ending this show. They’ll finish their seven seasons, hell or high water, and no matter the criticism leveled, be it story-related and justifiable or… anything else.

I have a lot of thoughts swimming around about this episode, mostly the final scene, but I’ve distilled a few that are hopefully coherent:

I would agree that the outrage is fueled by the victim being Sansa, but should that fundamentally alter our opinion about the scene (i.e., how would we react if he had found a new victim from the commonfolk that he and Myranda would later hunt)? On some level, however, the “book wanker” in me can’t help but feel a bit ticked off that the Jeyne Poole arc was shoehorned in when plenty of great material has been left out.

As soon as they revealed the nuptials between Sansa and Ramsay, I knew a nonconsensual wedding night was a distinct possibility, but I

wanted to believe that Sansa would react to it differently than she did. The Sansa fan in me who had been so heartened by her character development up until this episode really believed that she was far enough along that this would not be “just another” rape on Game of Thrones. I thought we could get a dubcon scene, or even seduction, at worst.

I was wrong about the scene itself, though I certainly believe in the possibilities for the future. Nobody puts Sansa in the corner.

I can certainly see how someone would be able to draw the line at that scene, and people who were planning on walking away for some time now may have found their justification this week. If you don’t like how

Game of Thrones handles sexual assault, that is reasonable, but for myself, at least, I find my distaste at some of their plot choices to be eclipsed overall by other aspects of the show that I find interesting or well done. We all choose and prioritize why we buy into GoT, and as paying (hopefully… maybe…) consumers, we have the right to buy out at our own discretion.

Well, the other problems I have are the plot holes and flimsy writing. The Craster’s Keep redux storyline, Grand Theft Draco, now Loras’s arrest and the Sand Snakes this time around – each of these original conceptions have been debacles, and the plot holes draw me out of the immersion.

Mass Effect 3. What was groundbreaking and immersive is becoming formulaic and unengaging.

I guess my main concern with this decision is that it takes Sansa’s character evolution – of someone who has been horribly abused, but has managed to escape her tormentors with her innocence and humanity intact, while also developing a sense of agency and determination over her own destiny – and cuts it off at the knees. Suddenly, Sansa is no longer the increasingly canny manipulator and strategist we’ve observed under Littlefinger’s tutelage in season four. Suddenly, she’s back to square one, the cat’s paw of a new cast of sadists.

We see the same tense dinner conversations, where she sits there, miserable, resigned to her fate. Except, now, the showrunners have decided to tip the bucket over, and just straight up carry out the threat that had been dangling over her head all throughout her stay at King’s Landing. The question is why?

Why have they departed so dramatically from her book plot in the Vale, where she is actively playing the game of thrones to gain support and influence politics? Why did the showrunners feel the need to regress her storyline to book two material? Perhaps if she were actually working to manipulate Roose and Ramsay, or undermine their power by befriending the residents of Winterfell, or reaching out to the vassals of the north who are still loyal to her family, I might see the change in a more positive light. But, no, it’s just comatose Sansa all over again – a character who is exclusively acted upon, but never allowed to determine her own destiny; a prop to motivate the story around her, whether it’s empowering Theon to redeem his past sins, or motivating Brienne to rescue her, or making the audience root all the more for Stannis to triumph (and the Boltons to fall).

Obviously, it’ll depend on the final few episodes to see how this scene will be contextualized, but based on the show’s previous clumsy attempts at depicting sexual assault (see: Jaime and Cersei) and objectifying victims (see: Craster’s Keep), I’m not all that confident.

I share some of your concerns, but I think we should be very careful about presuming that Sansa being raped somehow means that she’s weak or not able to determine her own fate.

Oh, of course not, but I was speaking more to the way the showrunners are using her character in a potentially objectifying fashion – e.g., we want to really establish Ramsay as the villain of this season, so let’s have him rape Sansa; we need something for Brienne to do this season, so let’s marry Sansa off to Ramsay, so she has someone to rescue. However, they very well may have something planned that actually respects Sansa as a character in her own right, and acknowledges the rape with the gravity it deserves, so I guess we’ll see.

There is no way of knowing yet where Sansa’s plotline is going. Currently, it seems like we’ve rewound back to Joffrey’s old days, and everything will depend on where we are going from here.

I’m quitting this show because I don’t enjoy watching rape scenes, and

Game of Thrones seems to love the hell out of them. If you want to pull out a rape scene once in a while for an important moment of storytelling, fine. As I’ve said many times, it can be done well, it can be meaningful, and this could have been done well, too. But it wasn’t. It was just another example of the lazy storytelling that has come to define this show since the very beginning of season four. I don’t care where Sansa’s plotline is going. I don’t care about what happened, or didn’t happen, in the books. I’m done making excuses, I’m done giving these people the benefit of the doubt, and I’m done with Game of Thrones.

GoT is in the business of doing horrible things to our heroes and heroines. People cite Ned’s execution and Oberyn’s smashed skull. They say this is a groundbreaking adult tragedy that deliberately indulges in the most terrible possible things as a statement against all the other non-realistic works of genre fiction that don’t do that. They actually praise the show for being willing to “go there” as opposed to having Sansa be rescued or any of the other alternatives (and there are many) to her being raped. They say this is what makes the show different from everything else.

Ned Stark’s beheading was groundbreaking because the narrative disposed of the presumed central protagonist, which almost never happens. Oberyn’s death worked the same way: in most stories, the good guy wins that particular duel. In contrast, do you know what happens to an unbelievably large portion of female protagonists in genre fiction?

This wasn’t Game of Thrones being unique or creative; it was Game of Thrones being lazy, typical, and offensive. You want to tell the story of Sansa allowing herself to be assaulted for a higher purpose or a greater political gain? Fine. Then tell that goddamn story. The story told here was “Evil man rapes girl because evil man is so evil, why must evil man make helpless puppet watch?” If the writers and showrunners wanted to tell a meaningful, character-driven story, they failed. Spectacularly. If they succeeded in telling the story they wanted to tell, that story sucks. I don’t know why this insistence on rape exists in this show, but if you are going to do that, at least have some respect for the gravity of what you are portraying. Have some self-awareness of the fact that you are presenting this story to a 2015 audience. And, for fuck’s sake, hire some women for your creative team.

I think this show is going downhill even aside from the rape stuff, and given the fact that we’re living in the Golden Age of Geek Culture, I’m pretty confident I’ll find other stuff to watch that doesn’t insult my intelligence or betray my trust. As I said, I am going to finish out the season, but even if the last four episodes are the best the show as ever been, I will not be back for season six.

I can’t help but wonder how this scene is any worse to watch than, say, a young man being shot to pieces by crossbows while his mother watches, and while he sees his wife get stabbed in the belly where his baby is. And then the mother gets her throat slit, no fade-to-black. Or seeing someone’s head get crushed between the hands of Ser Gregor. Is it because this violence is so over the top?

Please don’t take this as me saying rape is okay. I hate it, and I felt very uncomfortable watching the scene with Sansa and Ramsay. I also felt uncomfortable during the Jaime/Cersei scene (but not to the same extent), and Khal Drogo/Daenerys.

I take more offense at the “reality” of the show being that most guys seem to know nothing else but doggy-style. And, yes, they might even be “going there” for the shock factor – but, come on, the Red Wedding. Different kinds of violence? Yes. But still violence.

And the pervert himself, George R.R. Martin, had far more hideous things happen to Ramsay’s victims than what the show does.

Which seems to lead to a conclusion that this is bad because it’s Sansa. And it

is, but until next episode or whenever we see her again, we can’t really know whether they have something going here, or if it is, indeed, a scene meant to shock.

I do agree that the show is going downhill, by the way – the Jaime/Bronn scenes in this episode were hilariously bad.

I think we should agree that while the Bronn/Jaime/Sand Snakes love triangle really is a steaming pile of shit, it’s not like this would be a new development for the show. The Night’s Watch plot in seasons two and four wasn’t exactly proving itself of much worth, either. Eighty-five percent of this show is one of the best television shows out there, period. That makes its failing in the other 15% all the more obnoxious.

Basically, you know you’re going to upset people if you put rape into something. A creative person has to decide if a strong reaction is worth it and if the content can be defended as not just a creative choice, but as a necessary event in the plot. In the case here with Sansa, they decided to weather the storm because this apparently is a necessary event, and we can’t say for sure if they are wrong on that second count.

The Red Wedding is probably the single most important moment in the story so far. You can’t argue that the violence there is gratuitous. The violence in that scene serves a distinct purpose. I don’t know how many times I have to say that the simple fact of the story including rape is not what bothers me. What bothers me is the way it was portrayed. What bothers me is that the scene should have been Sansa’s, but wasn’t. What bothers me is that her character is disrespected and treated as a prop. What bothers me is that all of this could have been easily avoided; good luck avoiding the Red Wedding, even in this joke of an “adaptation.”

You cannot equate the way this show has depicted rape with the way it has depicted, say, murder. They are two completely different things, particularly in the context of the modern lens through which all of us, like it or not, view this series. When someone is murdered in real life, you don’t often see judges and juries letting the murderer off the hook because the victim had it coming. Rape and rape culture aren’t just serious problems in our society, they are serious problems

that we have yet to properly address. Look at Steubenville. Look at GamerGate. Look at the military. Look at the ten million other instances of rape not being treated as a serious crime. For Game of Thrones to then use it as a plot device that could absolutely have been avoided is an unmitigated insult, and to argue that other forms of violence also appear in the show is to completely, totally miss the point.

And, finally, Stefan, regarding the 85%… yeah, not anymore. Sorry, dude. If this show was still one of the best things on television, I feel like I would want to watch it on Sunday. It’s not, and I don’t. That time has passed.

Also, the books are completely irrelevant to this discussion. They don’t matter. Period. And I’ll say this much: if and when Martin writes a scene like this one into his books, I’ll stop reading them, too.

Martin already did. I’m sorry – how is Theon being forced to go down on Jeyne Poole before she’s raped by Ramsay not the same thing as this? It was the same idea – and similar in that we didn’t explicitly see it occur. It was made plain it was about to happen, Ramsay talked about it, and we certainly observed Jeyne suffer other indignities beforehand. Frankly, this feels like selective memory on your part.

[Editor’s note: for an in-depth discussion of what Martin’s original scene was – and why it was adapted to the finished product – see our Anatomy of a Throne article here.]

I think it’s fair to be critical of this wedding night scene, and I am critical of it myself, but I’ve tried to use this opportunity to examine my own past reactions so I can try to avoid hypocrisy or putting GRRM on a pedestal. This is an incredibly hard topic to dissect, and I don’t think we’ll make much progress by pretending that Martin didn’t depict quite a bit of sexual assault in the novels.

I would never argue that Martin has never depicted sexual assault, and, yes, what happened to Jeyne Poole was horrible. There are totally legitimate conversations to be had about Martin’s own proclivities toward using the threat of rape to advance his female characters. I’m not holding him up on a pedestal here.

But let’s be real about this. Except for Cersei, none of the primary women in Martin’s series actually get raped, unless you really want to argue the Dany-Drogo thing, which is fair, but debatable. Martin himself never actually “goes there” very often. Jeyne is really one of the most notable examples, and, as you say, we cut away immediately before anything explicit took place. Not arguing that it’s fun or good or not worthy of criticism, or that Martin himself is immune from criticism, because it isn’t, and he’s not. But the show isn’t content with Martin’s level of rape depiction. The show wants more.

And, for the record, when I said “a scene like this one,” I didn’t mean “a rape scene.” I meant a rape scene that does a complete disservice to an established character and which could have been avoided without major changes to the narrative. As I said in my review of the episode, it makes sense for the Jeyne Poole scene to be mostly about Theon, because Theon is the primary character involved in the story. As horrible as the situation is for Jeyne, she is a side character. That scene didn’t immediately follow a series of chapters in which the reader was told that Jeyne had learned about strength, agency, independence, and manipulation. From what we know, she had been broken by Littlefinger long before this. I don’t see it as the same thing in any way.

…Although, that said, I will admit that I have been reconsidering my thoughts about the Theon story arc in

A Dance with Dragons over the course of the week.

I hated the scene first time I saw it. I was livid and, quite frankly, pissed as fuck. I was outraged that D&D used rape again to progress the story,

but after thinking on it and reading an article at RawStory, I understand that “it was going to happen” (I guess is the easiest way to put it). I wouldn’t say it was entirely unavoidable, but Game of Thrones is a show that is dark, dangerous, and graphic, which is why it has the audience it has. It was tastefully done after re-watching – it’s effective and extremely horrific (it literally has been on some layer of my mind since Sunday) as an ending, and it leaves the biggest question: what’s next for Sansa? On that, I think, lies my ultimate judgement of the scene.

I will say this also: the discussions have been very fascinating, and not just here. And while opinions do seem to differ to the extremes, few have (compared to past topics we’ve seen splattered across the interwebs) devolved into outright hostility or name-calling.

This thread is actually an exemplary example of how these kinds of discussions should be comported. So kudos to everyone involved.

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I am glad some people are starting to realize that the show has begun to jump the shark. It begun in S4 for me.

I boycott new episodes for 6 days and 23 hours each week in the spring….

Just like I am a vegetarian for 23 hours each day.

If people reacted so passionately towards real world problems the way they do to things they see on the bloody TV, shit would be sorted in a snap….

Or some people could say that the show has become too popular…. and as soon as that happens, haters gonna hate.

Just like how the Star Wars prequels. A vocal minority complain very loudly about them. They say all 3 movies aren’t even close to as good as the original 3. And yet if you go onto SW website right now, you can see a poll in which Revenge of the Sith is the 2nd most popular movie in the entire saga.

Interesting debate, thanks. I think Sue is being the voice of reason. A couple of the Tower of the Hand people… well…

“I’m pretty confident I’ll find other stuff to watch that doesn’t insult my intelligence or betray my trust. As I said, I am going to finish out the season, but even if the last four episodes are the best the show as ever been, I will not be back for season six.”

“And I’ll say this much: if and when Martin writes a scene like this one into his books, I’ll stop reading them, too”

Are just bizarre. As you allude to Sue, Martin has written much, much worse.

And I call BS on this individual not being back for season 6.

Fundamentally I don’t really understand how someone can have such an extreme reaction to a scene that it makes them stop watching the programme (with the exception of people who can unfortunately relate to it due to previous experience).

The only valid argument against it which I can unpick from all the words written on this subject so far, is that Sansa is being used as a tool to advance Theon’s story. In which case yes, rape is being used as a slightly throwaway manner which is ill-judged. But we don’t know that yet. We have to wait and see.

I certainly don’t agree in this line of argument (again well countered by Sue) that Sansa was weak and passive, suddenly became an arch-manipulator, and is now weak and passive again. It’s perfectly believable that she has “progressed” as a person, is starting to play the game a lot more actively, but is still a novice. The wedding night doesn’t undo all that, it doesn’t turn her into the Sansa who was with Joffrey. She is certainly a different person (in some ways) to then, and it will be interesting to see where she goes from here. Life doesn’t work in perfect character arcs.

If people reacted so passionately towards real world problems the way they do to things they see on the bloody TV, shit would be sorted in a snap….

I think the reaction of Americans says more about our own pitfalls then it does anything about the show. We can see men have their heads chopped off on screen and we don’t flinch. But a rape and people go crazy.

Same with real vs. fake. This is a story of fiction and people are getting upset. Yet Sony made a comedy about North Korea and people laughed. There is some true horror going on in that country and nobody seems to care.

The only thing that has jumped the shark is people using the term “jumped the shark”

Does anyone else think that “The Gift” could dip below 6 million viewers, what with all of the table-flipping over last episode, the fact that it’s Memorial Day weekend, and the general downward trend of this season’s ratings?

The Bastard: Or some people could say that the show has become too popular…. and as soon as that happens, haters gonna hate.

Just like how the Star Wars prequels.A vocal minority complain very loudly about them.They say all 3 movies aren’t even close to as good as the original 3.And yet if you go onto SW website right now, you can see a poll in which Revenge of the Sith is the 2nd most popular movie in the entire saga.

So just because the show is popular we should all excuse the poor writing and shoddy decisions from D & D? GTFO

And LOL at bringing the Star Wars Prequels into this. Those three movies are giant piles of steaming shit, the majority of Star Wars fans and movie fans in general know that.

One thing that pointed to the inevitability of the scene that no one (that I have seen) has mentioned was that in the previous episode, Roose told Ramsey about his conception, which was by a horrific rape. If there had been any doubt about what was going to happen on Sansa’s wedding night with Ramsey, that should have killed it right there!

I still believe this is the best show on television right now. They do have their big fails depicting sexual violence, i.e., Jaime/Cersei rape and the Crasters Keep multiple rapes used as

. They also have some eyeroll-worthy plot fails, i.e., the Sand Snakes arrive at the same time as Jaime/Bronn.

It is fantastic that there is so much discussion, and I fervently hope that the discussion leads to a lessening of gratuitous/titillating depictions of rape in popular culture, but I won’t be giving up on the show.

If the writers and showrunners wanted to tell a meaningful, character-driven story, they failed. Spectacularly. If they succeeded in telling the story they wanted to tell, that story sucks. I don’t know why this insistence on rape exists in this show, but if you are going to do that, at least have some respect for the gravity of what you are portraying. Have some self-awareness of the fact that you are presenting this story to a 2015 audience. And, for fuck’s sake, hire some women for your creative team.

I find myself siding with Sue here. Just because someone is raped doesn’t automatically make them a weak character who has no control of their destiny. To some, strength is unyielding and just perhaps this includes Sansa. Lets wait and see how they handle the aftermath before we make judgements.

I also appreciate the points brought up about how GRRM has been much more brutal with his rape scene depictions.

And lastly, to those who said they were done, that’s totally fine. Just stick to your word and move on to greener pastures. Avoid the embarrassment of getting caught returning and making your declarations null and void (ghostlovesinger etc).

“As horrible as the situation is for Jeyne, she is a side character. That scene didn’t immediately follow a series of chapters in which the reader was told that Jeyne had learned about strength, agency, independence, and manipulation. From what we know, she had been broken by Littlefinger long before this. I don’t see it as the same thing in any way.”

so it is ok to rape already broken poor girl bcz she didn’t have enough presence in the story…

this debate isn’t about rape. it would be if the rape was depicted graphically or any way that it felt seductive. it was terribly uncomfortable and in no ways justifies the rape.

why not admitting you didn’t like what happened in the story? someone who likes stories where only good things happen to good people should have known to stay the hell away from got.

Nope. Still watching. I’m going down with the ship.

Westeros is a fictional place. It actually doesn’t exist. And it’s not based on 2015 society and culture.

And last time I checked, women did work on the show’s creative team.

I find myself siding with Sue here. Just because someone is raped doesn’t automatically make them a weak character who has no control of their destiny.

See, to me, it isn’t just the rape, though that’s emblematic of this season.

Sansa’s character regression from episode 408 happened completely in episode 501, where the only remnant of her previous season’s supposed character development (which was also shoddily done, but that’s a separate argument) was her kewl black dress. It’s just that people have only gradually been catching up with this fact as the progress of the plot makes it more explicitly apparent. She has been every bit as manipulated and passive this season as she was in season 2, and has done nothing this season that she did not do in season 2 (which is why I find the way that people desperate to read character development into this arc exalt, say, the dinner scene or the bath scene, rather odd, unless their memories of what Sansa was like in King’s Landing are so totally dominated by the atrociously-written season 3).

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