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Well, D&D are screwed either way. If Sansa appears to be a stronger person for her rape, it will be decried as the "rape as empowerment" trope. If Sansa is traumatized by her rape, it will be decried as more of "Sansa as victim." If Sansa shrugged off the rape with no apparent ill effects, it will be decried as trivializing the suffering of rape victims.

They wrote themselves into this mess and it would be a surprise if they write themselves out of it. I suspect they will just dig themselves a deeper hole with the rape baby storyline they probably have lined up for next year. It will be interesting to see which side of Roe v Wade they fall on.

However given we still definitely have Jon's stabbing, the Walk and probably Shireen being burnt to death, I think everyone can have their fill from the forthcoming controversy buffet.

Sansa getting pregnant most likely in the book too, you may not love (put your own person here )but you'll love your children is ringing loud.

Yep there was a lot of foreshadowing in the book only the child is unlikely to be a product or rape or Ramsay Bolton's.

Let's not give D & D any ideas here. I'm sure they would love to have a Melisandre & Sansa scene. Of course, they probably have been already planning it.

Oh dear God that is probably why Mel is going with Stannis: so she can comfort Jeyansa after her escape.

I have the feeling that one day, GRRM and Homer will fund the "I hate D&D" club up there.

D&D should be worried if they do....they Greeks really know how to do revenge.

Also, Troy: bloody awful film.

I was going to say something about the Tommen situation, but... while the problem of women being raped is big, and people is now -hopefully- aware of it, men and boys being raped is still denied. They are invisible victims because people (well, idiot people) even laugh at them. At least with women, they are given the benefit of the doubt. With men, nope. "You got raped? LOL, you must be gay or something".

This is a very important point. Whilst there still are many problems with rape and society's response in regards to women, it is abysmal in response to men. The lack of support for male victims is terrible. People's attitudes are also much more negative or willing to deny it such as the lack of comment on Tommen and Marg in general (it is at least being discussed here).

I suspect GRRM has no such ending planned,

Fingers crossed! I suspect that whole same destination thing is the same as two people setting off from Japan and arriving in LA only one arrives at a port after a voyage across the Pacific with many stops on route and the other flies into LAX.

Technically they have both made it to the same destination but the journey and the exact details of arrival are very different.

No doubt. Empowerment! Unless they go there with the Rosemary's Baby subplot.

Well she will need to do something next season: since she has no Vale plot the Ramsmary's Baby plot seems bloody likely especially if other characters can be horrible to her about it. Indeed between that and trying to persuade Stannis not to kill Theon because he's a good guy really....because suffering abuse from the same person totally makes you forgive the fact they basically started the downward spiral for your brother and mother, murdered your retainers and friends, pretended to kill your younger brothers necessitating them to go into hiding and then burnt your home to the ground I don't think she'll have time for anything else. But never fear she will get the great ending of Tyrion swooping in to take her back and her being overjoyed and grateful to him, probably apologise to him too for not being happier with her forced marriage etc.

Sorry this is crackpot but I would now put money on it that that is roughly where they are heading with their Jeyansa story. If not, I will be very pleasantly surprised!

This, too. Even if we set aside the soul destroying trauma of this marriage (which her family would never want for her), and the complete stupidity of it, since she's already a Stark, and the whole reason Robb wrote the will was because he didn't want this to happen... She provides the family killers with an heir so they can kill her, too! That will teach them! Robb and Alys both said that's what happens, they get the heir, they kill the mother:

Not to mention the conversation between Jaime and Edmure

"She is carrying my child."

No, thought Jaime that's your death she has growing in her belly.

Genna Lannister too says Edmure needs to go and that Roslin's child will be fine if it is a girl as they can marry her to their heir ensuring legitimacy for House Frey.

D&D show a rape scene and all these people just "have to" shout and curse.

D&D make cock chopping a very common joke and none cares. They actually find it funny! (FYI. Its not hilarious. Its disgusting)

God when will these double standards end?

Well so far this season I do not believe we have seen any loss of cocks. There was quite a lot of disgust with the endless Theon torture porn at the time.

However you are right about double standards. If we are to have awful additional storylines for the female character why not have it for some of the male ones too.

As far as "defending the fictional rape" I would have exactly the same objections as you do. That is not the same thing as defending the inclusion of a rape scene and the implications that has for the story. I thought that's what we were talking about here.

Because there are so many reasons why this scene was a bad idea we maybe talking at cross purposes about different things. I have objections when these type of scenes are used as shock value, play into unpleasant tropes, play to the nastier wishes of the dark side of fandom or when plot lines are wrung through an insanity wormhole to make them happen, all of which I think have happened in this case.

She gives the baby to the Others and it becomes the Great Ginger Other.

Okay that was quite funny.

Could be a great twist if she finds out she's pregnant.

Given the fact that is almost a certainty, not really. It makes her character even more tragic.

She lets the child live and then the Bolton's have won: their bloodline has a direct claim to Winterfell. Even if she kills them all, she has forever linked House Stark to House Bolton.

Or she kills the child (so far apart from Moontea we have not seen any abortions) and then becomes a monster with a hollow victory.

I'm with you though. It may work in the context of having put Sansa in this position, but the contrivances the writers have invented to put her in that position are utterly nonsensical.

Agreed. I've stated earlier in the thread why her choosing to marry Ramsay makes absolutely no sense from the character POV but the fact the writers have been planning this since season 2 when ST was a minor and have gutted her storyline and LF's to get her to this point whilst simultaneously stripping the Winterfell plot of all its other elements seems to suggest the scene was about wanting her character to experience rape at the hands of Ramsay.

Seriously? I don't think that means what you think it means.

You do realize we are talking about a fictional rape involving fictional characters in a fictional universe, right? That Iwan Rheon didn't actually forcibly penetrate Sophie Turner on camera? Defending that scene does not make you a "rape apologist".

Here's what a rape apologist does:

"She's lying".

"The way she was dressed, you know she was asking for it."

"She shouldn't have gotten drunk around all those guys."

See the difference?

Defending a fictional rape is still making excuses for it. Here is another couple of examples to add to those above:

"She knew what she was getting into"

"She went home with him, what did she expect to happen"

Variations of both of these as well as the good old, but there is no rape in marriage excuse have been flying around the comments sections of numerous articles.

We can even go back to when book readers were discussing the original Jeyne scene describing it as partly her fault for not fighting back or trying to find a way to escape. The nasty old trope of not resisting meaning it is partly the victim's fault.

No worries. Perhaps, the fault is mine. Rather than trying to mock the article and, more generally, the idea that Sansa went into the marriage with eyes wide open and to take back Winterfell and that it was a plausible scenario, I should have made a more direct criticism. At any rate, I find the whole idea to be extremely dumb and it annoys me to no end.

No sadly it it is a testament to the kind of awful rape apology we have seen on the Internet regarding this episode that it could be taken seriously.

Only dead fish swim with the tide ;)

No, seriously, I admire her courage. Only I think her well reasoned opinion is not so unpopular among those who do not spend all day in web debates.http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/all-hopefully-of-the-bad-arguments-about-rape-on-game-of-thrones-debunked/

Defending apologists with Strawman arguements, well there's a surprise.

The major problem with her article is that it only tackled a very small section with what was wrong with that scene. Her first statement about counter arguements being weak because there are so many is a terrible Strawman. It is not as if people are putting an arguement forward and when it is debunked and they are trying something else, but that there are so many bloody arguements against the scene, most of which she is ignoring btw. Very few people I have seen write about this are upset there was a rape on TV and yet that is one of the main accusations against those who are horrified by the scene.

Honestly it comes across as a woman who just does not like Sansa's character because she is feminine. A bit of a 'Break the Cutie' trope advocate.

Given the controversy they have caused with this episode, does anyone else think that Cersei's Walk is now going to be even more controversial?

Her Walk / Jon's Death should have been the biggest shocks of the season and there certainly would have been fallout from the walk in the press, but now we have a added rape scene for one major female character and then the sexual humiliation of another female character, who they have made a lot nicer on the show than in the books.

Hey Longrider fantastic essay. Sam and agilely are one of the sweetest couples in the series.

More of Lysa's back story would have fleshed out the character from a cardboard cut out crazy lady into a character with motivations and an understandable grievance. However as they cut out all the Hoster stuff I guess it made sense to cut out the Lysa backstory too.

I can understand why people are upset by the loss of "only Cat" but show only watchers would have missed it. My other unsullied half still can't remember Dany's name never mind Cat, whose role in the series was minor compared to the books.

Well for better or for worse their doing a good job of making The Hound out to be a right cunt. It will definitely make it easier for Arya (and perhaps more importantly for D & D,the viewers) to leave him for dead at the end of the season.

The Hound scene seemed to be a bad attempt at recreating the conversation Sansa and Sandor have on the rooftops. The problem with the Hound is that they pretty much have ignored his character for 3 seasons and have given him no background or development and now seem to be trying to fit 3 books worth of Character development into one season and it isn't really working.

Stealing the money from the family was bizarre. In the book he cheated the ferry men who wanted to cheat him and stole the farmer's cart and horse. He also was chased out of the village by the villagers as opposed to cheating them. I think this is similar to how they changed Stannis's motivation for burning people from treason to religion. It is as if D&D are trying to do characterisation by adding their own invented scenes, but missing what makes the characters who they are in the book.

What did he do in the books that was so bad? I love Tyrion btw so maybe I'm blind to his evilness? He is a shit sometimes but I felt like he was a pretty decent guy in the books...

Covering for Jaime and Cersei over Bran's "accident"

Winding Thorne up just because he can

Breaking Marillion's fingers (for mocking him, despite Tyrion doing this to others)

Finding Masha Heddles murder amusing

Giving the antler men, without trial to Joff to "play with"

Letting the Mountain men rape and murder in KL (arming them so they are now raping and murdering in the vale)

Hitting Shae

Being part of the forced marriage to Sansa (breaking his sworn oath to exchange her for Jaime)

Kidnapping Tommen and threatening to rape him

Organising for Myrcella to go to Dorne

The general pity parties

And all that is before we get to Essos and the rape of a slave that takes place.

Edit: Forgot about Singer Stew. He could have sent Shae away.

How did they miss killing Blackfish out side. I mean really he is kinda hard to miss and if he survives episode 10. I say the Freys and Boltons need some goof Fishy revenge.

Perhaps he escaped through the hole in the Gardrobe?

Although if he did, he would have to change his name to Stinkyfish.

They are really nailing Jaime and Brienne. The loss of Vargo Hoat and making them Bolton's men, makes a lot of sense. Jaime and Brienne are probably my favourite part of the show at the moment.

The Arya and HotPie goodbye scene was lovely, although I wish they would put in more of her sense of loss, and no one sticking by her, but that's a tiny niggle. Wish we could see more of Sandor, though its good we are finally seeing him! Yay!

Theon's storyline is great...the only problem is that last season they actually made me like Roose Bolton and this season they are making me like Ramsay. The actor maybe a tad too good looking for the role.

Dany's storyline and character are much better. Really looking forward to her story this season.

Sam's story is going well I thought in this episode.

Still not liking the way they are having to make all the Tullys look like idiots and avoiding that Robb lost a huge portion of the army because of the Talisa change. But there is still time for development of the Blackfish and Edmure, I hope.

The only real downside in this episode for me was the awful whores scene and the gossipy discussion afterwards. They really need to stop with the over whore scenes when other characters are not being developed. Also I am really getting fed up of Bronn. Jerome Flynn is an excellent actor but they are cutting out other characters' development because they seem to like creating scenes with him. Also I'm not against the nudity, but there needs to be more balance with attractive male nudity. However the contortionist was just over the top. Really was gratuitous.

9/10 Truly amazing. Season 2 had been a bit of a let down recently, but this episode was fabulous. Between Stannis and Davos, Jaime and Brienne and Arya/Sandor, it looks like there will be some good scenes for the next season.

But since when can Shae read?

Since the TV forgot the time setting they were in and gave it modern day sensibilities. It seems the TV show has become in parts, what GRRM describes as bad fantasy. http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Canadian_Signing_Tour_Vancouver1/