Two weeks ago Game of Thrones fans were shocked when Jaime Lannister raped his twin sister Cersei in front of their dead son’s corpse. Now the show’s cast and crew, as well as our readers, are all opening up about their thoughts on the controversial scene.
For some strange reason the Internet seems to be confused on the definition of rape. A recent highly controversial episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones, has everyone seemingly scrambling to redefine the act.
The episode’s writer, David Benioff, acknowledged that the scene was in-fact a rape scene in an after-episode video diary on HBO:
“It becomes a really kind of horrifying scene, because you see, obviously, Joffrey’s body right there, and you see that Cersei is resisting this. She’s saying no, and he’s forcing himself on her. So it was a really uncomfortable scene, and a tricky scene to shoot.”
The episode’s director, Alex Graves, tried to downplay the act by offering Vulture one of the worst defenses for rape ever uttered:
“The consensual part of it was that she wraps her legs around him, and she’s holding on to the table, clearly not to escape but to get some grounding in what’s going on. And also, the other thing that I think is clear before they hit the ground is she starts to make out with him. The big things to us that were so important, and that hopefully were not missed, is that before he rips her undergarment, she’s way into kissing him back. She’s kissing him aplenty.”
The fact that you have gotten this far into the article leads me to assume that you can read and also understand the basic concept that kissing does not equal consent. There is also the fact that in the scene she is actually pushing him away and telling him no while he has his way with her. It is not exactly what you would would call seven minutes in heaven.
Graves also managed to contradict himself, admitting to The Hollywood Reporter:
“Then Jaime comes in and he rapes her. “
When Jaime Lannister himself, Coster-Waldau, was asked by The Daily Beast if the act was rape, he rode the fence, claiming:
“Yes, and no.There are moments where she gives in, and moments where she pushes him away. But it’s not pretty. It’s going to be interesting what people think about it.”
The reactions definitely were interesting. Several readers commented on our recent editorial about the scene.
One reader (we use the term reader loosely) going by the name Best in the World, responded by writing:
"I guess you and every other idiot missed the part where Cersei was kissing him back during the so called ‘rape’ just as she was in the books.”
Again, kissing and consent are not the same thing! We “idiots” did, however, manage to catch the parts where she tells him repeatedly to stop and he ignores her, which is the textbook definition of rape.
The bottom line is that the scene was clearly rape. True, the show regularly engages in disturbing and violent acts, however, making Jaimie a rapist was a senseless act that only cheapens the series. The fact that in the following episode the writers place Jaime back on his seemingly redeeming path like nothing ever happened makes it incredibly hard to watch. Granted, he has done horrific things in the past, that doesn’t mean he has unquenchable thirst for all things deplorable. He was on a path to redemption. Where he had demons in his closet, he also had some honor. The show managed to rape the last shred of dignity that the troubled Kingslayer had left. The cast and crew trying to downplay the act of rape and blur the lines of consent only make things worse.
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