Yeah, I am very much Not On Board with how the Septcest went down on the teevee. Though I suppose this is as good a time as any to remind people that Jaime should not be anyone's woobie. With losing a hand and being basically nice to Brienne for a season and a half by now, he was getting dangerously close to being considered one of the good guys.

yep. but there have to be other ways to handle that (e.g. have him dismiss Tyrion)

I'm surprisingly OK with the rape. These are not the good guys, and even if Jaime occasionally shows a good streak that indicates he could have once been a worthwhile human being... he really isn't.

Tyrion is another character I would like de-woobified, but I don't think the show is ever going to really make that right.

I've seen readers elsewhere complaining that a) it didn't go down that way in the book and b) it ruined a character that was being redeemed in the book. Do you disagree, readers?

Since Martin not only seems to have good input for the show, but awesome respect by the show runners, I'll assume he's copacetic with the change.

ita, it didn't go down that way in the book. I...I am increasingly less sure of the second point. I have spent a significant amount of brainpower today thinking about the psychology of rape in two specific circumstances, and I'm not especially pleased about that. I'll post once I have coherent thoughts.

I'll assume he's copacetic with the change.

He said he wasn't consulted.

It just looks like Something Red all over again, but this time I'm David Fury.

Huh!

He said he wasn't consulted.

Jesus fuck.

Ok, I have spent all day having Thoughts (cross-posted from Tumblr). This is the current state of them. They are deeply disjointed, and it is entirely possible that they will change again over the next day.

I don’t want to have to be thinking about shades of rape. This is not a conversation I wanted to be having with myself. So, you know, thanks for that, showrunners.

As a caveat, I am a strong proponent of the “enthusiastic consent” standard, in real life and in fiction. I don’t believe in “sort of rape” vs. “actual rape-rape” distinctions.

So, when Breaker of Chains aired (or, rather, I watched it on HBOGo), I went in with a vague idea, based on things people were saying on Tumblr, that Problematic Changes had been made to the Sept Scene. Given the changes in the timeline, changes were inevitable, but I tried to go in with as open a mind as I could.

And I was fucking pissed. For all the reasons every other book-reader was pissed, and I won’t go over again. I went to bed pissed.

I woke up in the morning thinking about the chapter as written. And, by any modern standard, despite her later active participation, Cersei starts out at “not here,” which, roughly, translates to “no.” So, lack of consent. Yeah, Jaime rapes Cersei in the book, as well.

And, yet, it reads very differently from the scene as filmed. I still maintain that, in some sense, the scene as filmed breaks the character of Jaime. Not in the sense that Theon is broken, but in the sense that his arc stops working in the way that it did. Whether this is intentional, only future episodes will tell (see the final paragraph for further thoughts)

Which lands me at that first sentence up there. And, from this point, I will be talking about distinctions within Jaime’s own head and decision-making.

From a character perspective, these are the salient distinctions I see:

In the chapter as written:

Jaime is just back in King’s Landing. This is, quite literally, the first time he sees Cersei in months and months. Love of his life, mother of his children, person he has been trying to get back to this whole time. I think Martin points right at the crux of this scene with Cersei’s line. Jaime’s home.

(My brain does keep tossing up the fact that he has always wanted more from her than she from him, from the time they were teenagers and he wanted to marry her. I don’t know quite how that fits in, but it seems like a piece of this, somehow, especially with the line I seem to remember about making another son. That was in this chapter, right?)

And she says, “Not here.” Which implies that, were they elsewhere, the answer would be different. This is not someone who doesn’t want him. This is someone who is being sensitive to the time and place. At the very least, that’s true in his head.

And, yes, she does get to “yes” in the end, although that has less to do with his internal decision-making. I also wonder if this encounter isn’t part of the distance that develops between them going forward.

It’s also worth noting where this comes on his character arc. All those other scenes he’s had? With the book of the Kingsguard and not returning to Casterly Rock? Those happen AFTER this, I am pretty sure. His honor, internally speaking, is on a vaguely upward trajectory from this point.

In the scene as shot:

We already had the reunion scene. Last season, even. Weeks or months ago, from the characters’ perspective. We’ve had the “I murdered people to be here with you” conversation. He’s home; he’s been home. Home sucks, and doesn’t want him (note the conversations with Joffrey and Tywin, as well).

Her rejection is not of the time and place. Her rejection is of him. Specifically of his (lack of) hand, but it is the same rejection she has been giving him since he got back.

And he is reacting very directly to that rejection. That rejection (on top of her asking him to kill Tyrion) is the proximate cause of his choice to disregard her lack of consent. If the (continued...)