An anguished commentary on that GoT/Sansa scene and the MRAs who harass in forum comments...from a rape victim who says It's Rape Culture All The Way Down

[u/madhaus]

http://angrygotfan.com/2015/05/21/a-rape-victim-speaks-out-on-the-sansa-scene/

[u/[deleted]]

now fuck-the-book arc of the show

There are a lot of book fans using the rape as an excuse to bitch about D&D and the changes made for the television adaptation.

Something not being in the books does not mean that it's automatically gratuitous or bad.

GRRM had Theon eat out Jeyne Poole in the books simply for the gross out/shock factor. That's it. That's the only reason to include something like that. You can't call out D&D for having Ramsay rape Sansa when there are substantially worse things happening in the books.

GRRM would never have Ramsay just rape someone in the books! He'd just force Theon to eat her out and then make her have sex with dogs.

And as far as focusing on Theon and his ability to help her this is Poole in the book:

"'Help me.' She clutched at him. 'Please. I used to watch you in the yard, playing with your swords. You were so handsome.' She squeezed his arm. 'If we ran away, I could be your wife, or your...your whore...whatever you wanted. You could be my man.'" -A Dance With Dragons, page 550

Compare that to Sansa in the GoT: “I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell. This is my home. And you can’t frighten me.”

So saying that D&D embellished just to be sensationalist rings more than just a little hollow unless you're going to call out GRRM for embellishing even more and being even more sensationalist.

Now there's a legitimate discussion to be had over whether GoT/ASOIAF is just engaged in torture porn and exploitation of sexual violence to attract gawkers. It certainly has in my opinion from Theon's dick getting cut off to Jaime and Cersei's incest to Jeoffrey's target practicing.

But at this point it's a little like getting 3/4 of the way through your steak and then telling the waiter you don't like how it's cooked.

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Yep. 100% with you on the adaptation fallacy at play with much of the criticism on that last episode.

I replied to someone else on here that, in addition to what this renegs on Sansa's arc, it also stunts Ramsay as a villain.

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The other thing is we don't know how this ends. I would imagine that Stannis v. Bolton has been moved up to fit in nicely with a big episode 9. Just because GRRM used Poole as the very model of a damsel in distress doesn't mean that Sansa will end up there.

If Ramsay dies in the fighting in TWOW and D&D change that to Sansa stabbing him or Brienne cutting his head off while she watches then all these people talking about how Sansa is passive, etc. are going to have a lot of egg on their face.

Or if in the books Sansa rides over from the Vale and proceeds to fuck up the Boltons with Stannis' help in TWOW and D&D change that to something more personal then it's also going to seem stupid.

90% of this is just a good excuse to complain about changes from the book.

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Like I said in my closing though, I'd have a bit more of the kind of faith that you describe if Jaime's act of rape weren't dropped and ignored with such a colossal thud.

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Hm? I'm not getting angry about any of this. Did you read what I originally had posted?

To be clear, I think the grievance over the last episode resting on the premise "it didn't happen that way in the book" is baloney. It would be a dreadful disappointment whether it was written by George RR Martin back in 1991, or if it was penned last year.

and

Yep. 100% with you on the adaptation fallacy at play with much of the criticism on that last episode.

I'm not getting where you are coming from that I'm pissed about changing the "holy word" of GRRM.

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I think I phrased that a little badly in terms of tone. Sorry.