why it looked more consensual in the bool

Being in his head absolutely makes a huge difference.

the director said that she was supposed be be active in it at the end of the scene.

Having seen it twice, that was not particularly clear.

I just...wasn't he always a horrible person? Can you weigh pushing a child out a window one one side against raping the sister you're in love with?

There is maybe one character in the books that isn't to some degree a horrible person, so it becomes all about nuance and shades of horrible (both on the more/less continuum and the different flavors continuum). Given the change in timeline, I think this is a different flavor of horrible. I can buy the book version as being unclear in his own head. What we saw onscreen, I really can't.

I don't tend to play the "who/which is worse?" game with this series. As much as I tend to dislike psychological studies of dislikable people*, I have fallen for this series, hard, as basically just that. People making impossible choices in a broken world. They're all broken by it, in one way or another, and I like the way the series grapples with morality and why people do horrible things (usually in service of power, love, or honor.)

Part of what I find compelling about Jaime is that he, more than basically any other character, starts out driven by love (His iconic line is "The things I do for love" for a reason) and does awful things in the service of that. What's brilliant and compelling, to me, is the way that that motivation changes over the course of the series. He's also one of the characters who could give a fuck about power.

* Although, now that I say that, I'm not sure it's as true as it was a few years ago.

passions seem relatively modestly roused compared to the Buffy situation since Jaime/Cersei isn't fandom's dominant pairing.

Ha. IO9 asked "Has Game Of Thrones Gone Too Far"? And it's full of people screaming "HAVE YOU BEEN WATCHING THE SHOW???" It's not even the first rape...

And now people are complaining that Jaime and Cersei are now ruined--as noted, I think Jaime was plenty despicable before, even if everyone's all dreamy about him and Brienne now, and why does rape "ruin" the female character?

I also don't think it makes her sympathetic, FWIW. She's still an absolutely horrible person, just one something horrible happened to. Welcome to the series.

And now people are complaining that Jaime and Cersei are now ruined

Because...their love was so pure before?

Because...their love was so pure before?

Exactly. Now they're damaged. I feel like wandering around replying to everything in IO9 with "Psst! Khal/Dany?"

"Psst! Khal/Dany?"

Now THAT was the show change that pissed me off - in the book, it is very explicitly Not Rape on their wedding night. He asks "No?" and she says "Yes." Granted, she is still 14 years old at that point, but she at least says yes.

Is it recency why this seems to have a bigger response than Khal/Dany? It was not such a thing then, was it? Why wouldn't it be? He was a savage? It was expected? Show hadn't spent time nicey nicing him? It's not a betrayal of a previous relationship?

eta: GRRM's response: [link]

It's not even the first time Cersei's been raped (Thank you, Robert.). I think, especially paired with the scene immediately before, where Tommen goes off with Tywin, it serves quite well to isolate Cersei. She's running real low on allies, at this point.

I think maybe the show wasn't as big a deal at that point? I honestly don't know.

I feel like HBO's done a great job of making it a big deal from the start (says a non-reader, or at least one who *tried* and failed during the first book). But it's definitely a bigger deal now.

I doubt many people will stop watching because of it, and who knows--the noise may attract new viewers.

Not my co-worker, though. He doesn't watch TV, and was trying to tell me about a show popular amongst his friends "Something about a chair?" It was quite endearing coming from a hip (but not ster) thirtysomething.

Is it recency why this seems to have a bigger response than Khal/Dany

Rape culture 101 I think. Audience LIKES Jamie and don't want to think this character could do something like that.

Of course the savage man would do that on his wedding night.