Why the Rape on Last Night's Game of Thrones?
Last night was the third episode of the fourth season of Game of Thrones entitled, "Breaker of Chains." The episode dealt with the aftermath of the murder of Joffrey Baratheon and showed Daenerys finally reached Mereen. It was a stand out episode except for one pretty large thing that happened in a scene that happened around the halfway point of the episode. When I first watched the scene, I was like a lot of people, really mortified and squeamish and I even tried to be a little glib about it on Facebook to try and offset how uncomfortable the whole thing made me. I'm talking about the rape of Cersei by her brother Jamie, under their son's dead body.
When I initially watched the scene, I was disturbed, but not disturbed as I may have been had I not read the books. I thought that this was how the scene had gone in the book. I even sort of girded myself as soon as Jaime walked into the sept, because I knew it was coming. The more I thought about it, I had this nagging feeling that this is not how it went in the book. So, I re-visited the source material and found that my suspicions were correct. This is not how George R.R. Martin wrote this particular scene. The scene in the book takes place towards the end of A Storm of Swords. In the book, Jaime is just returning to King's Landing with Brienne and he is greeted with the news that Joffrey, his son, is dead and that Cersei is with his body in the sept. It takes place on page 851:
"There was no tenderness in the kiss he returned to her, only hunger. Her mouth opened for his tongue. "No," she said weakly, when his lips moved down her neck. "not here. The septons..."
"The Others take the septons." He kissed her again, kissed her silent, kissed her until she moaned. Then he knocked the candles aside and lifted her up onto the Mother's altar, pushing up her skirts and the silken shift beneath. She pounded on his chest with feeble fists, murmuring about the risk, the danger, about their father, about the septons, about the wrath of the gods. He never heard her. He undid his breeches and climbed up and pushed her bare white legs apart. One hand slid up her thigh and underneath her smallclothes. When her tore them away, he saw her moon's blood was upon her, but it made no difference.
"Hurry," she was whispering now. "Quickly, quickly, now, do it now. Do me now! Jaime Jaime Jaime." Her hands helped guide him. "Yes," Cersei said as he thrust. "My brother, sweet brother, yes, like that, yes I have you, you're home now, you're home now, you're home." She kissed his ear, and stroked his short, bristly, hair. Jaime lost himself in her flesh. He could feel Cersei's heart beating in time with his own, and the wetness of blood and seed where they were joined."
So, yeah. Super disturbing. But consensual nevertheless. So, why change the scene so that it is rape, rather than something that both people want? In the book, it seems that this is a warped part of Cersei and Jaime's grieving process. Cersei is destroyed. Her son is dead. Her brother is back and she needs him and this is how they connect. It's maybe the only way that they can connect. She seems to want this as much as Jaime, her only reluctance is that she doesn't want to get caught, something that is reinforced when after they finish, she tells him to hurry up and get dressed before they're discovered.
The scene in the show is completely different. Cersei is at her lowest point in the series, so far. Joffrey is the reason that she wakes up. Her entire life is dedicated to him. Now, he's dead. Before Jaime shows up at the sept, she has had to listen to her father berate Joffrey to Tommen. Then, her brother storms in, she probably assumes he might comfort her, but instead he rapes her. There is nothing in the way the scene plays on the show that indicates that Cersei just wants him to stop.
I don't get it. For the most part, I think that the changes that show runners, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, have made enrich the show. This one though? It seems like they think that Cersei is so unlikable that killing her child wasn't enough to garner any sort of sympathy from the audience? Really?
This is a disturbing trend that has been popping up on television recently. There seems to be an epidemic of shows raping their female characters. Norma Bates was raped in the premiere episode of Bates Motel. Mellie was raped by her father-in-law on Scandal. And now this. It's a disturbing trend and these show runners really need to stop it.
This also doesn't make sense when it comes to the character of Jaime. This is right around the time that readers and viewers should start to kind of root for Jaime. It's hard to root for someone who raped their sister. I don't see any scenario that the writers can come up with that would put me back on the Jaime of the show's side. It's really unfortunate and big misstep for a show that has come really far creatively and has been having it's best season so far.
So, what did you guys think? Were you as appalled as I was? Is the only way to make a female character who people don't care for sympathetic is to rape her? Let me know.
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