“The Game of Thrones” controversy continues.
“A Song of Ice and Fire” creator George R.R. Martin weighed in yesterday about Sunday's controversial episode which featured a rape scene which was dramatically altered from the book.
The scene in question finds sibling-lovers Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) having sex in front of their son's corpse in a religious sept. In Martin's book, the act is inherently disturbing, but still consensual. The HBO version — from showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff — rendered it indisputably non-consensual, with Cersei repeating “no,” and Jamie responding “I don't care.”
Many fans were upset at the change, which alters the Jamie character's character arc, and seems to underline accusations of the show's misogyny.
Martin took to his blog to address the controversy, detailing the differences between the book and the adaptation. He also distances himself from the TV version, noting that Benioff, Weiss and director Alex Graves never consulted him about the scene.
“Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate and Cersei is fearful of discovery, she is as hungry for him as he is for her,” Martin wrote when asked about the scene.
“The whole dynamic is different in the show, where Jaime has been back for weeks at the least, maybe longer, and he and Cersei have been in each other's company on numerous occasions, often quarreling,” he continued. “The setting is the same, but neither character is in the same place as in the books, which may be why they played the sept out differently.”
“But that's just my surmise; we never discussed this scene, to the best of my recollection.”
For his part, Graves recently told HitFix that he thinks the TV version of the scene “becomes consensual by the end.”
“The scene was always intended to be disturbing,” Martin concluded, “…but I do regret if it has disturbed people for the wrong reasons.”
Read Martin's entire post on the subject here.
“Game of Thrones” returns Sunday on HBO.