HBO: Game of Thrones

[rhinohide]

This. The scenes were very dramatic and evoked all kinds of emotions that get so jumbled up together I can't possibly explain them in mere words. I didn't get all bogged down in deciding whether or not it was rape. It was just another in a long string of complicated interactions in their history that doesn't conform to some label IMO.

[quartermainefan]

I am reading a lot of commentary about how Jaime's redemption is in jeopardy after this, but perhaps that is for the best. I love Jaime and think aside from that archer guy who can shoot an arrow and hit any target from anywhere he is the coolest stylish warrior on the show (although Dany's boyfriend warrior did a neat trick against that horse). But anyway, if Jaime is redeemed and becomes Ser Romance-A-Lot with Brienne or whoever then that means what Jaime did to Bran is acceptable because we are willing to accept it so it doesn't intrude on our liking him.

Jaime is the character who kicked the whole series off when he pushed Bran out the window and I think people forget he is better than Cersei and Tywin but not by much. He cavalierly killed his own squire cousin while held captive. She is vindictive and cruel, he may not be vindictive but he is cruel and but just doesn't put as much energy into it. Jaime is a complicated character and had love of Brienne just changed him and tied him nicely into a little love story then we would have no further use for him.

[Bright Eyes]

I think the main problem is anyone trying to find a love story on this show. That's not what this show is or should ever be about for any character. This show is about power, how to retain it, the weakness/vices of those who lost it and whether or not one is strong enough to get it back once they've done so. If I wanted some lame romance I'd watch crap like Scandal or something equally embarrassing.

[ChitHappens]

I have to pass on this season until Amazon puts it up for sale on the site, but that just cracked me up like crazy.

[Juliajms]

Another thing I found interesting was Davvos writing to the Iron Bank of Bravvos. I have no idea what is going on there (either it didn't happen in the books or I don't remember). The Queen of Thornes mentioned them to Tywin and implied he should be afraid. I wonder if Joquin (I can't spell these names, I mean the guy who could change his face) is an assassin for that bank.

[Cheap21]

I'm not ashamed in saying I actually like Jamie and Cersei together. Regardless of how sick and twisted they are, they had one of the more genuine relationship on the show. Things have changed since he returned but I did believe they fully loved each other prior to this

[Juliajms]

Here's an interesting article on the Cersei and Jaime scenes. It's odd though because I don't remember Robert ever raping Cersei, not sure what the interviewer is talking about there.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/game-of-thrones-director-on-the-rape-sex-scene.html?mid=twitter_vulture

[Cheap21]

it wasn't shown but implied. Sex was one of her wifely duties, whether she wanted it or not

[Juliajms]

Gotcha. I can't get behind calling that kind of thing rape. As far as I know wives still humor their husbands now and again by having sex with them when they really aren't in the mood. Cersei even said that she finished Robert off in other ways, so that she wouldn't have his babies, after she didn't love him anymore. It sounded to me like he was generally too drunk to care who he was having sex with or what kind of sex it was.

Frankly, I think if Cersei thought Robert was raping her, she would have had him killed much sooner. That's why, I didn't see the Jaime thing is rape either. As if Cersei wouldn't have scratched his eyes out if she didn't want it.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Juliajms

[DRW50]

Cersei did have at least one of his children.

For all of Cersei's inner strength, she is still a slender woman who has, as far as we know, taken no opportunities to learn self-defense. When a man rapes her, she has little way of stopping him. Robert likely did move away from her as time passed, but I think he did rape her and beat her at points during their marriage.

I wasn't going to say anything else but I mostly just commented because my objection to that scene isn't about ruining the beautiful Cersei/Jaime love story, or wanting to see Jaime redeemed, or not realizing that Jaime is an awful person.

My objection to it is that I feel like they took a character and made him a rapist for no reason, and added rape into a story for no apparent reason.

Cersei's characterization was built on feeling like every man in her life but Jaime used and abused her. The one person who made her feel whole and gave her a glimpse into a life she could never have (not only what she and Jaime saw as true love, but also what Cersei saw as the man she wanted to be). When he was gone, she spun even further out of control. By the time he came back, it was too late for her to keep clinging to this fantasy. And instead of using this crumbling fantasy to mirror her crumbling mental state, Jaime is now just another rapist. If as some fans say, this wasn't new for them, then he's been raping her over and over. So her main character point is actually just another of her abusers. Cersei's rich character arc is turned into a rape storyline, and the disturbing message that being raped is something a woman can never come back from.

As for Jaime, yes, he's done terrible things. But so have many other characters. Yet the show didn't just throw in rapes to help remind us of their wickedness. Let's look at Theon, a man who treated women like garbage, who sexually humiliated women, who felt inferior to women. They could have had him rape Ros. They could have had him rape the captain's daughter on the boat. They didn't. Because they knew that being a terrible person doesn't automatically mean you go around raping people. If we go down that road, where let's just throw in some rape because this person is bad news, then that means everything on the show becomes some type of rapefest. Ygritte kills innocent people and watches them be eaten? Hey, let's have her rape Jon Snow - why not? The Hound is a horrible excuse for a man - let's have him raping women he sees on the way to wherever the [!@#$%^&*] he and Arya are glowering their way toward. Why not? Tywin is a cold, cruel man - let's have him rape prostitutes, because why wouldn't he, right?

Rape should not be a catchall for bad behavior, or some type of lazy touchstone. And when I keep seeing people saying Jaime is bad so of course he is a rapist, that's what it becomes. Nothing in Jaime's character arc made me think he was a rapist, or that his relationship with Cersei, twisted as it was, was built on rape. And now, any time I see him, I will wonder when he will rape again and I will see him as a rapist.

Edited April 21, 2014 by DRW50

[Vee]

I thought Cersei told someone (Ned?) that she hadn't let Robert consummate the marriage in years - that she'd just had him between her legs and "finished him off in other ways" to trick him, as he was generally drunk when he came to her bed. I was under the impression that their dead son, the one she told Catelyn about at Winterfell at Bran's bedside, was likely the only child she and Robert had ever conceived.

I'm glad Martin weighed in that the scene is not necessarily as consensual as some may claim in the books. And I think that Vulture article covers what I saw as well - she's wrapping herself around him, clinging to the table not to try and get away but for some bearings. And more than the blocking, this kind of venom and ugly [!@#$%^&*] is how they work, what they've become in their family. I think Alyssa Rosenberg at the Washington Post said something similar as well. Whether it was or it wasn't rape, whether it was or wasn't wholly consensual, what I never sensed was that it was new. It's something they do together, that they've done to each other. And I've always felt Cersei had the upper hand over Jaime in the past - always, always. She had the control in that relationship. She was the one with the power, he was the one in the Kingsguard, condemned as Kingslayer - he was at her beck and call when we met them. When he left, she just grabbed Lancel. When he came back changed, and when he had spent a year not at her beck and call, leaving her to the whims of the ebb tide of King's Landing, she found him to not be the man he was and immediately rejected that. I don't think Cersei has any kind of safety valve in Jaime, but I do think they found some vague solace in each other. He thought she made him a man, she thought he would always be the fallback guy. Now neither of those things are true and he is trying to get it back and can't.

This I agree with as well, from the Vulture piece. But I don't truly believe either Cersei or Jaime respect their father so much as fear him, and in their home they have confused that with respect and admiration. He's abused them, he's created what they are. It was clear in Season 3 just how much he's been belittling and controlling their views of themselves - all of them, not just Tyrion.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Vee

[Juliajms]

I know she had one of his children. That's why I said she stopped having sex with him when she fell out of love with him. She told Ned that. We have no reason to believe that Robert raped her. She had her own reason for being in that marriage until she decided to exit via wine and wild boar. No doubt Robert and Cersei had a toxic relationship, but I have a hard time seeing her as a victim who couldn't or wouldn't help herself, considering she did just that when it suited her.

Do you need self defense lessons to scratch someone when your hands are free, instead of kissing them?

Edited April 21, 2014 by Juliajms

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Where did Martin "weigh in" and I frankly don't believe a word of it. The backlash is the only reason he's even commenting and it must really be bad for him to say something. Frankly I'm losing a lot of respect for the man. For someone who's dedicated so much of his life to this work of literature and these priceless characters he seems so willingly and completely blase about letting ti all go into the sh*ttter.

Its reprehensible. He's starting to remind me of George Lucas and Star Wars...just in it for the money and the true fans care more about the series and the characters than he does at this point.

As for Cersei and Robert he did claim his "duties" as a husband and forcefully took her but since they were married thats how he justified it. I think its so crucial what DRW50 and others have said about Jaime and this world of Westeros. Rape is so common in that world that what made Jaime stand out in a lot of ways was the fact that he had never done such a thing. SO for the show to go there is just ridiculous

[rhinohide]

Jaime's the one who tried to murder a child by pushing him out of a window. He was never a good and noble fellow.

[DRW50]

I thought you meant she would be able to defend herself from rape, period.

I would like to believe that through a 17 year marriage to a man who saw his dead love's face every time he crawled into bed with her, he never raped her, but I don't feel like it was ever really said on the show, other than her saying sometimes he was too drunk to actually finish the act.

If Jaime had been raping Cersei for years, I don't think she would have had the reactions to him that she had in the early seasons. I think she would have lumped him in with all the other men in her life. I think in her mind, Jaime was pure.

I read that article too, and I felt like it was one of those which was patting the show on the back for using some grand statement that reminds us all the men on Game of Thrones (bar a few) are terrible people. To me that's just too easy - if I assumed that every man on this show but one or two went around raping women, then I would not watch. It's not a grand statement on life and on sociology. It's a dramatic series that is supposed to have some characters with shades of complexity. She also said this:

So basically Joffrey beating women and pleasuring himself to the sounds of women being beaten unconscious (or dead) are from Jaime, since now we know Jaime is a rapist.

I think that's just way too much. Everything with the Lannister family is already toxic and tragic and self-destructive enough without needing to have the show turn into Pin the Tail on the Rapist.

No one is saying he was a good and noble fellow. What we're saying (well, two of us) was that he wasn't a rapist. I don't think every person on this show who does terrible things is a rapist or is going to become a rapist. If I did, then there would be about a dozen characters or so characters who would be free of that trope.

http://io9.com/george-r-r-martin-responds-to-that-controversial-game-1565762209

Edited April 21, 2014 by DRW50