The R Word - Women and Game of Thrones

Spoiler/Trigger Warning: 

This blog will analyse the use of rape and sexual assault in Game of Thrones, so if you’re not caught up, or have serious problems with the issues discussed, here’s your fair warning.

Sooo.... Who watched Game of Thrones this week?

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken is a fairly standard episode (the weak Dorne plotline was compensated by a blistering performance by Dame Diana Rigg, returning as Lady Olenna Tyrell) but it was utterly overshadowed by its final scenes, where Sansa Stark was raped by her new husband Ramsay Bolton, who forced Reek/Theon to watch. To say the internet has lost its hivemind over this is an understatement; it’s got to the point where an actual senator has weighed in, announcing she’s now ‘done’ with the show. But what was it about Sansa’s rape that caused this much controversy?

As a scene, Sansa’s wedding night was lit, framed and staged like a horror film and was as tense as a bow string. Director Alex Graves showed restraint with the visuals and heightened the psychological trauma for both Sansa and Theon. It was very well executed and Alfie Allen nailed his performance as he looked in abject misery as the rape unfolded before him. But however well played and carefully this scene was handled, it was ultimately just another example of sexual assault used as a plot device. 

Though he did perfectly capture the audience's reaction

It’s not the first time that rape has been used like this in film and television, not by a long shot. Often, rape in fictional media reduces the woman to being a passive object who must be saved by the protagonist. By focusing on Theon’s face whilst Sansa was raped, the scene ceases to be about Sansa. It instead becomes the start of a new character arc for Theon, Sansa’s rape the motivation for Theon to claim back his identity. If Ramsay had destroyed a childhood toy, the result for Theon would have been the same; Ramsay crossed a line and now he must pay. Which is great for Theon, less so for Sansa, who for the past eight episodes had been growing out of her victim status and into a character with agency and plots of her own.

It’s also not the first time women have been used as foil for male characters; take the sad tale of Tysha Lannister. In season one, Tyrion tells of the horrific treatment of his first wife Tysha, who was gang raped by order of Tywin Lannister. You don’t pity Tysha (who seems to disappear after this ordeal) but Tyrion, who retreated to wine and prostitutes after this ordeal. Again, if Tywin had destroyed Tyrion’s favourite toy the result could have been pretty much the same if the story demanded it to be so. When Talisa Stark is stabbed in the baby, you don’t mourn her or feel her pain, but linger with Robb Stark, who’s lost his wife and unborn child. You are not expected to empathise with either of these women, but the received pain felt by their husbands.

And of course there were the mutineers at Craster’s Keep. Karl Tanner, when asked what to do with Craster’s daughters, tells his men to “Rape them until they die”.

He also drinks from a skull, in case you didn't get that he was evil.

Sigh.

This is extreme, even for Game of Thrones. The women in Craster’s Keep were props for the mutineers to be nasty to and for Jon Snow’s band of merry men to save. If you replaced each woman with a piece of furniture, the result would have been the same – their sole purpose was to be abused for the sake of melodrama, so as they were not fully developed characters with agency. They had no say in the events before or after the death of the mutineers and chances are they won’t pop up in episodes to follow.

From books to video games, the use of rape can feel sinister. This is because it's used as a way to sneak in nudity under the pretext of drama and yes, that is indeed messed up and gross, it’s not just you. But Game of Thrones doesn’t need a reason for nudity (which is questionable in and of itself, but beside the point of this blog), so rape can be mean more than an opportunity for perverse titillation. For the whole of season one, Daenerys’s naked body is frequently shown, to the point where Emilia Clarke put her foot down and demanded she be fully clothed from then on. But on Daenerys and Drogo’s wedding night, all that’s shown is her face and bare back. It’s not titillating; it’s disturbing and melancholic and begins her arc of gaining sexual agency and power. Daenerys’s rape advances her character, not Drogo’s. No, it wasn't necessary, but at least it had a purpose beyond how it made the men in her life feel.

Game of Thrones is walking a fine line with Sansa. Either she will follow Daenerys’s path to grow into a character who will conquer the Boltons and become the Lady of Winterfell, or she will become a prop to be saved by Stannis, Theon or Brienne. The third option, that it was actually consensual and accidentally edited to look like rape, thankfully doesn't seem to be on the table. As an audience, we can’t tell yet which way the show will fall, but hopefully it will continue to treat Sansa as a three dimensional character, not a destroyed toy or smashed up chair.

Despite this quagmire they've found themselves in, there’s still much to celebrate about Game of Thrones, especially when it comes to its women.  Right now, the main power struggle in Westeros is  between Cersei and Olenna and it’s not a ‘behind the scenes’ puppet show, using men to make their gains – they are literally the most powerful people on the continent. Women like Melisandre, Brienne, Arya and Margaery all have power, character and purpose aside from their men, carrying their own stories within this densely packed saga.   

There’s a dissertation’s worth of analysis when it comes to women and Game of Thrones, but ultimately it’s an adult show discussing serious matters against a backdrop of dragons and ice zombies. It’s frank, brutal and true to the environment created by George RR Martin. He included rape and women-as-props in his books, so the adaptation has to do what it can and so far it’s  made for (on the whole) magnificently epic television. The criticisms thrown into sharp relief by this episode are valid and need to be addressed by future episodes, but making excuses for Sophie Turner (who ‘loved the scene’ but is too naive to get it) isn't right, nor is dismissing every analytical thought because it’s ‘just a TV show’. Game of Thrones has carved itself a substantial chunk of the pop culture landscape and whether it still deserves this depends on how they move on from Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. But it would be rash to write it off this far into the game. 

Here’s hoping, anyway.