*Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault and MAJOR spoilers for Game of Thrones.*
This weekend 10 years ago, TV viewers watched one thing so harrowing that it precipitated a number of fans to threaten boycotts of a hit fantasy series.
By 2015, Game of Thrones had become one of the most popular TV shows in the world – and arguably essentially the most profitable fantasy TV series of all time.
Set within the fictional medieval continent of Westeros, Game of Thrones primarily focused on the warring factions and royal families who every longed to take a seat on the Iron Throne.
A violent, bloody, and graphic series, the HBO present gained rave reviews for the majority of its run and have become a worldwide smash hit, even amongst individuals who often prevented the fantasy style.
But being such a graphic 18+ present meant that it generally crossed the road with viewers, particularly when it got here to the brutal sexual assaults it usually depicted.
On this evening in 2015, the season 5 episode Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken crossed so many traces within the eyes of some viewers {that a} part of them vowed to by no means watch Game of Thrones once more.
From season one to season 4, foremost character Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) had been imprisoned by the royal Lannister household after her father’s execution. And at simply 13 years previous, she was forcibly married to Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage).
Sansa was ultimately smuggled away from the Lannisters and, by season 5, had been escorted again to the place she’d began the series: her residence fortress, Winterfell.
The Starks had dominated Winterfell for generations however, after a lethal conflict throughout seasons two and three, the Bolton household now had management – and no Bolton was as merciless as army commander Ramsay (Iwan Rheon).
Sadistic and twisted, Ramsay had already horrified viewers when he captured and tortured Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), ultimately castrating him throughout a sick sexual sport.
Theon was nonetheless Ramsay’s prisoner at Winterfell when Sansa – now aged 15 – returned to the fortress and was instructed to marry the evil Bolton boy.
On their tragic wedding ceremony evening, Ramsay fiercely ripped Sansa’s garments off and raped her, whereas additionally forcing a helpless and tearful Theon to look at.
The episode attracted 6.24 million viewers, however lots of them – TV critics and fans alike – had been outraged by the choice to take Sansa’s story on this route.
One Reddit person, account now deleted, summed up many fans’ emotions by saying: ‘Before each episode, I ask myself how much worse will Sansa’s life get at present. [It turns out] a lot worse.’
From seasons one to 5 Game of Thrones had been criticised for its frequent feminine nudity, whereas many viewers claimed that lead feminine characters had been raped with the intention to additional progress their tales.
Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) was raped within the first episode, whereas Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) had additionally been raped by her brother Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in season 4.
The time period ‘sexposition’ had additionally been coined to explain scenes within the present that used nudity and intercourse as a titillating distraction whereas essential plot data was divulged by one other character.
Following 4 seasons of this repute constructing and constructing, the incident involving Sansa, Ramsay, and Theon was seen as one step too far, with Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken being the ultimate straw for some viewers.
TV author Joanna Robinson requested in Vanity Fair: ‘Did they really need to go there? Did we really need to see Ramsay Bolton rape Sansa Stark? No, we absolutely did not.’
The artistic choice to focus the digicam on Theon’s face as an alternative of Sansa’s on the scene’s climax additionally drew criticism, with some viewers hammering the present for putting a person on the centre of a lady’s story.
Reddit person Fat_Walda argued that the scene portrayed Sansa as ‘the damsel in distress’ and as little greater than ‘a vehicle for Theon’s redemption’.
The morning after, many fans referred to as for a boycott of Game of Thrones, with United States senator Claire McCaskill amongst them after describing the episode as ‘disgusting’.
She wrote on X on the time: ‘Ok, I’m completed [with] Game of Thrones. Gratuitous rape scene disgusting and unacceptable. It was a rocky journey that simply ended.’
Sezin Koehler, writing for Huffington Post, joined the boycott and chastised the writers for having ‘beloved young girl characters brutally and repeatedly raped, tortured, and murdered.’
However, in response to Jeremy Podeswa – who directed Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken – Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss had been reportedly ‘influenced’ by the angry reaction and subsequently made adjustments to future episodes.
He stated in December 2015: ‘They did not want to be too overly influenced by [the criticism], but they did absorb and take it in and it did influence them in a way.’
Amid the requires a boycott, viewing figures for the next episode, titled The Gift, dropped to five.4 million – though many analysts attributed the drop in rankings to the Memorial Day weekend vacation in America.
For the episode two weeks on, titled Hardhome, viewing figures reached an all-time series excessive of seven.01 million, indicating that requires a boycott hadn’t reached everybody.
In the years since Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken’s preliminary broadcast, its repute hasn’t improved a lot within the wider TV-watcher neighborhood, nevertheless it has been defended by some fans of the present.
Horror writer and tradition author Gretchen Felker-Martin argued: ‘Game of Thrones is one of the only shows on TV making a meaningful inquiry into rape as both a traumatic experience and as a weapon deployed by society against women.’
She added: ‘Treating Sansa as a real person who’s been wronged by her creators, fairly than a fictional one in a narrative explicitly in regards to the completely different types of violence folks undergo, can also be a disturbing misapprehension of artwork’s nature.’
A 12 months later, Sezin Keohler wrote a second letter saying she’d ended her boycott due to how ’empowering’ later episodes had been for feminine characters – Sansa particularly.
In 2021, Professor Feona Attwood instructed the Game of Thrones fan podcast The Longest Night that ‘the dialogue across the present [suggested] there was a right technique to depict rape.
‘[Suggesting that rape scenes] should be shot in a certain way… How dull and uninteresting would it be if there were rules about how certain events unfold?’
Sophie Turner herself spoke strongly to The Times (by way of The Sun) in 2017: ‘The more we talk about sexual assault the better – screw the people who are saying we shouldn’t be placing this on TV, and screw the people who find themselves saying they’re going to boycott the present due to it.
‘[Rape] used to happen and it continues to happen now. If we treat it as a taboo subject, then how are people going to have the strength to come out and feel comfortable saying that this has happened to them?’
Game of Thrones was later praised for Sansa’s story from season six onwards, as she used army crafty to get revenge on Ramsay, reclaim Winterfell, execute her rapist, and ultimately rule as Queen within the North.
Watch Game of Thrones on SkyGo, Sky Atlantic, and NowTV.
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