A lot of people were angry with HBO television series Game of Thrones after it aired its controversial episode "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" last Sunday, which showed Sansa Stark being raped by her new husband Ramsay Bolton.
Entertainment website The Mary Sue is one, saying it will no longer promote the popular television series because of it. They recalled a season 4 episode called "Breaker of Chains," where Cersei Lannister was raped by her brother Jamie while she was mourning for her son. It was the first straw for them, but they decided to give the show another chance.
"The consensus from us at that time was that, though we wished the scene hadn't happened, we were going to continue to watch — but we were not going to let the creators off the hook," wrote the Mary Sue's Jill Pantozzi.
Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss disappointed them the second time around last Sunday when they decided to have Sansa's character be raped.
"In this particular instance, rape is not necessary to Sansa's character development (she's already overcome abusive violence at the hands of men); it is not necessary to establish Ramsay as a bad guy (we already know he is)," they said. "Rape here, like in all instances, is not a necessary story-driving device."
The people behind The Mary Sue believe that using rape as the impetus for character motivations is one of the most "problematic tropes" in fiction, and people rarely afford it the careful consideration it deserves. That particular scene only took Sansa from her growing place of power, then pushed her back down again.
"There's only so many times you can be disgusted with something you love before you literally can't bring yourself to look at it anymore. That is where I currently find myself in relation to Game of Thrones. The staff of The Mary Sue feels the same. You may feel differently," they said.
