WARNING: contains spoilers for season 5 episode 7 of Game of Thrones and lots of discussion about rape.
Many fans have given up on Game of Thrones, the rape of Sansa Stark (who’d been getting steadily more independent) being the straw that broke the camel’s back in a show that frequently sees unpunished, hyper-sexualised rape as a plot point.
It wasn’t that she was innocent or a virgin or that she’s been treated so badly before. It’s that the scene was written in, seemingly for a bit of the old boobs and bums titillation the show is famed for, with the pain of it shown through Theon/Reek (Alfie Allen’s) eyes as if the only way to show a rape’s really bad is to get a man to think it’s bad.
Some might say that all this rape is just part of the savagery of the show (the show is written by people – it’s not an uncontrollable piece of mould that keeps growing by accident); a thing that happened those days (um, it happens now, shitloads! One in three women can expect to experience sexual violence in their lifetime); and besides why didn’t we get cross when Danaerys or Cersei were raped? (we did, but were willing to give the show some time to right its wrongs, but considering Jaime is still to be punished for raping Cersei we’re pretty much at the end of our tether).
But what we want to really address right now is the: ‘Heyyyyy chill out it’s just a TV show!’ people. Well, if it’s just a TV show, then you’ll feel entirely unnerved by the people getting turned on by the thought of Sansa being raped and beaten up while locked in a tower.
So turned on, in fact, that they’re tweeting about their lust, for everyone in the world to see:
It’s silly to think that people are so stupid as to copycat everything they see on TV – by that theory, Dancing on Ice would’ve already turned us all into a nation of ice-skating fanatics, forever polishing our blades and flapping about in sequins.
But by presenting rape like this, for sexual titillation over actual furthering of the plot, it is perceived – at least by some – as something desirable. Don’t believe us? Scroll up.
And that’s not only it. There are people saying that marital rape just isn’t a thing:
Or that it was Sansa’s fault anyway:
Or that it’s simply OK, a casual thing to joke about:
Game of Thrones’s producer Bryan Cogman was asked about the rape scene. His response started off: ‘This is Game of Thrones,’ and explained that this is something Sansa as a character is going to have to deal with.
But those tweets, those opinions, they’re real world and also need to be dealt with. The people behind Game of Thrones can’t undo what they’ve done, but hopefully they can take note that this is what happens when they put this sort of stuff out there unchallenged.
For those still watching, we hope there’s some punishment in store for Ramsay, but part of us feels mightily uncomfortable watching the very same rape scenes that are getting some weird guys hard.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.