Consider this a vote to stop talking about rape in this thread… at least until another episode shows or alludes to it.
Emphasis mine.
This is the biggest issue I have with the last couple of books, incidentally. Martin took a lot of time and a lot of pages to create whole new characters and show us their adventures (or lack thereof), only to kill them off or make it clear they weren’t important in the least. It worked when he did this with Ned and Robb (as examples), but when you’re four or five books into a seven- or eight-book series, it’s a disservice to the reader to do this.
I will likely finish the book series (assuming, of course, that Martin does the same), but it’s more from a sense of closure than pleasure at this point. And because it’s been, what, four years since the last one came out? … I’m going to have to re-read most of it to get a sense of the characters again and what they’re doing. And I’m not really looking forward to that.
I’ve not read the books or seen the series, mostly just waste hours reading the AWOIAF site.
But I do have a comment about the books… they’re not finished yet, and Sansa (and Cercei, and Dany) are still alive… that doesn’t mean, in the next few books, GRRM could still potentially have them raped or killed.
I understand the outrage that it happened to Sansa… yet… it could still happen to her, before the end of the book series.
I actually disagree with this in its entirety. I mean, yes, Jeyne Poole is a plot device for Theon’s redemption, but of course she was introduced well back in Book 1. In addition, the new characters show us the breath of the world and what everyone else is doing. I loved that Quentyn showcased just how far Doran was willing to go to get revenge on the Baratheons/Lannisters. I really loved Griff / Young Griff story for delving in deeper into the world and suddenly (for me at any rate) springing into life discussions about the Blackfyre Rebellion (from folks who believe Aegon is a Blackfyre).
I’m not reading these books simply to hear one story told through; I’m doing it to enter into an entirely new world. I’m fascinated by what may be going on in Essos when all of the fighting in Westeros is going on. I hope that through some extra writing we get to learn more of the history of the Summer Isles and Yi Ti.
And some of the characters introduced in the last couple books were some of the most interesting characters GRRM has written, from Arianne Martell to Victarion Greyjoy to Moqorro.
I don’t see how you’re so confident that that’s all that this scene will ever mean. If so, then you’ll have a legitimate complaint. But we don’t yet know how this will affect Sansa, or who she will be at the end of this season. Is it reasonable to be concerned that that might be happening? Sure. But you seem to be going a level beyond that.
Either way, actually, would be bad. If Sansa is roused by the rape to rise the North against the Boltons, then we have the uncomfortable question that the show runners wanted the rape to be necessary to get Sansa to do something.
Regardless, the scene focused on Theon’s reaction. Therefore, it was a plot point for him, not really her. Even a glimpse at Sansa’s face, maybe her eyes defiant in the rape, would have made it about both of them.
Or alternatively Sansa wants to be at Winterfell so that she can be well positioned to profit from the upcoming battle between Stannis and the Boltons. And in order to be at Winterfell in a position of influence she has to be the wife of the heir, and in order to be that, she has to live with being raped for a few weeks, and she’s made the conscious choice that that’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make. Beats me, we haven’t seen what happens yet.
I feel like an implicit position a lot of people in this and similar discussions have is something like “displaying fictionalized rape is SUPER DUPER HORRIBLE AND SERIOUS and therefore there needs to be a really really good justification for it, and writers should try very very hard to avoid it unless it’s absolutely necessary”. Kind of a shifting of the burden of proof such that the scene is assumed to be wrong/incorrect/inappropriate unless demonstrated otherwise.
I disagree… but I don’t think we’re getting anywhere here.
That seems very, very unlikely to me. Also a function of bad storytelling if it has been grafted on after the fact.
Really? That seems like literally the most direct and straightforward interpretation possible. Sansa was (kind of? arguably?) given a choice by Littlefinger. If she went through with it she would be in a position where should could potentially gather influence, and where Stannis would likely show up before too long. But the drawback would be that should would have to marry her family’s enemy. At the time she didn’t know how monstrous he was, but she certainly knew what marrying him would entail.
And basically nothing has changed since then.
What seems so unlikely or contrived?
This part:
“in order to be that, she has to live with being raped for a few weeks, and she’s made the conscious choice that that’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make”
There is nothing indicating that at all. Sleeping with the enemy is a far cry different than making the conscious choice that being raped by the enemy is worth the benefits.
I guess I’m not quite sure what you’re saying. Seems to me that the situation that Sansa is in is basically the situation she should/could have anticipated being in, and in fact basically agreed to be in (modulo discussion about the power dynamic between her and Littlefinger), with some reasonable percentage of added horror and cruelty because Ramsey turns out to be a sadistic monster.
Am I missing some distinction here?
I’m not really understanding why you think that agreeing to sleeping with the enemy is the same as agreeing to being raped? The conversations between Sansa and Littlefinger involved, basically, how Sansa could wrap Ramsey around her finger before stabbing him in the heart. You’ll note that during her bath, she basically thinks all the “hunting” of previous lovers is just her bather trying to frighten Sansa because she’s (the servant, that is) in love with him. I’m fairly sure that “I’ll put up with some rape for a few weeks until the Stannis/Bolton fight happens” wasn’t something she actually considered.
He could but if he did I’d trust him that it was not for the shock value ONLY. Or maybe I’d get furious and ragequit the books. But that I would even consider giving him the benefit of the doubt is a huge part of this recent episode thing: I do not trust D&D, nor have they given us any reason to trust them since S1 or S2.
This show got lots of buzz from its shocking moments, but they are confusing buzz with long-term investment in it. People aren’t still going on and on about Ned or The Red Wedding. Those shocking moments are fleeting. What keeps fans of the books around is the universe that was built, the characters, the mysteries, the waiting for the other shoe to drop. The books aren’t a series of shocking moments. Some of the best parts are the quiet moments. D&D seem to think what viewers want are things to tweet about, but what keeps the books going strong are not tweets that stop after the mere 10 episodes a year but rather long fan analyses, forum discussions, videos, panels. We talk about the future, not the past.
Bingo. She may have been privately hoping for some sort of heroic or sympathetic reprieve (a la Tyrion), but it’s implausible to assert she was ignorant of this horrible eventuality when she agreed to Littlefinger’s plan. As a viewer, what was surprising was that she wasn’t spared from her apparent fate.
Littlefinger was just sugarcoating it for her. Sansa displayed no guile or intention of duplicitous seduction to Ramsey upon meeting him. Barring an intervention, it was always going to play out like it did.
I’m hoping Sansa figures out a way to honour the Stark custom of the hand the passes sentence performs the execution with Bolton custom of flaying.
It’s rape in 2015 US (though a lot of people would still consider it a joke), but certainly not in Westeros. Even Cersei views Margery as a whore who seduced her son, not a rapist.
OPEN SPOILERS - Both books and TV show.
Discussions of rape are taking over other the GOT threads here. Please feel free to bring all such discussions here.
So … no opening post to kick off the discussion?
I’ve begun a thread devoted to the topic of rape in GOT - please consider taking all such discussions there: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=757389
Sure!
Resolved: Social views and the legal status of rape in Westeros, in the first year of the reign of King Tommen, are very different from those of post-industrial Western societies on Earth in 2015.