Sorry it’s been so long since my last post but this new job has been hell. You know what I have to do? I have to go into work and sit at a computer all day!
So I haven’t had time to play through any other games yet, though I’m currently working on Witcher 3 so you can expect a review of that soon. But I have been watching Game of Thrones, and you may have noticed everyone seems to be really mad about that last episode.
So if you haven’t seen last Sundays Game of Thrones, turn back now, because there’s about to be spoilers.
Game of Thrones:
What went wrong with Sansa’s Wedding?
Lots of people are angry over Game of Thrones latest episode, in which Sansa gets raped by Ramsey Bolton after their wedding. Other people are angry that they’re angry, because the honest truth is that we’ve seen far worse on this show. Season 1 basically starts out with Daenaerys getting raped by Khal Drogo and eventually succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome. Then there was the Red Wedding, where we literally watched a pregnant woman get stabbed in the baby.
So why are people upset by this? Why are some people saying this is where they draw the line?
I’m going to tell you why and… I can’t believe I’m saying this…
They hated it because it was badly written.
Yes you heard me. And I don’t mean it was bad dialogue or badly acted, both were great, I mean the situation itself was born of bad writing.
See people aren’t upset that there was a rape scene in the show, that’s what everyone is focusing on but that’s just the swollen red skin in their blister of anger. The hot gooey pus of the matter is that the scene added nothing to the story and derailed the character arcs of Ramses, Theon, and Sansa. And without a good story to back up this rape scene, it becomes violence for its own sake. Shock value is all that’s left.
See the rape of Sansa does absolutely nothing for the story, and in fact hinders several important character arcs. You see we’ve watched Sansa suffer already, in fact it was getting kind of repetitive by the time she finally reached the Eyrie. But when she did get there, we finally got our reward: watching Sansa slowly begin asserting control over her life.
Little Finger is despicable and disgusting, but there’s no denying he taught Sansa how to survive. Like him, Sansa isn’t a warrior, she can’t survive on strength. What Little Finger teachers her is to play the strong against one another, and move in when both are weakened. She uses these skills beautifully and helps cover Little Finger’s ass after he kills his wife.
So now we come to the wedding, and several things happen that aren’t at all in keeping with what the story has been telling us so far. First of all, all of Little Finger’s obvious affection for the girl goes right out the window, not to mention his meticulous planning. He of all people must know about Ramsey’s sadistic insanity. Yet even though Ramsey might accidentally kill the girl he loves, he just dumps her off and goes tearing back to King’s Landing. (Where he arrives after using Westeros’s first automobile, seriously how did he get there so fast?)
Now this scene was the perfect opportunity to make Sansa’s character more than a victim. Think about it for a moment, Sansa has all the information she needs to turn this situation to her advantage. At dinner she heard about Lord Bolton’s expecting wife and if she pays even a miniscule amount of attention to Ramsey, she would notice how much this upsets him. It wouldn’t take a genius to realize his greatest ambition is succeeding his father.
Then she’s confronted by Ramsey’s girlfriend and Sansa shows off that cool controlled poker face, showing us she’s capable of standing up for herself. She also gains another piece of valuable information, that Ramsey uses women like a five year old’s toys… he uses them and eventually breaks them. So she’s not going into this situation blind, and Little Finger has taught her how to use information to manipulate people. He straight up told her that she was the key to controlling the North, she was one of the most powerful pieces in the game.
So what could she have done? Pretty much whatever she wanted.
Really all she had to do was say something like this:
“You lay hand on me and I’ll throw myself out the window [or any other method of suicide/disfigurement]. Everyone knows you’re a monster, and they won’t believe for one moment you didn’t do it. Ramsey Bolton killing the last Stark; every banner man in the North would rise up in revolt and now that your father has a real son, he wouldn’t hesitate in flaying you alive to regain control. So here’s what gonna happen, you’ll wait in here for ten minutes and then return to your own chambers. And that’s it. From now on I’ll be your wife, but you will never touch me.”
Of course after he leaves we could see Sansa break down in tears, because obviously it’s all bluff. But it’s a bluff that Ramsey would totally have fallen for, there is nothing more important to him than the approval of his father (or perhaps more accurately, succeeding his father), it’s his Achilles heel. What’s more it would be a woman that brought him down, someone he would never have seen as a threat.
This also opens up all new realms of possibilities for stories and situations. The delicate balancing act between Sansa and Ramsey could have lead to some tense scenes as Sansa keeps a tenuous grip on Ramsey’s increasing anger at her control over him. Or maybe they would strike up an alliance of convenience, conspiring to kill Lord Bolton in order to avenge her brother and allow him to succeed him. Each plans to betray the other after Bolton’s death though, and it becomes a tense game of cat and mouse where we’re never quite sure who’s the cat.
But the Sansa Rape story? The only possible story that can come from this is her signaling for Brienne to rescue her. It’s boring and predictable which is precisely what we don’t expect Game of Thrones to be. It’s why we love the show, because it surprises us so much.
And while I suppose Sansa could come out of this experience stronger and able to take control of her fate, here’s the thing:
You didn’t need to rape Sansa to make that happen.
Which means it was unnecessary to the story.
And that’s why people hated it.
The Writer's Block 
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