Sex and violence have been fixtures in the “Game of Thrones” TV series on HBO for its past four seasons. While there may have been intonations of sexual abuse, there has not been one where it involves one of the main actors of the show, especially if the actor involved is the pretty Sansa Stark.
In the sixth episode of “Game of Thrones” Season 5 shown on May 17 at HBO, Sansa Stark was forced to marry Ramsay Bolton and the wedding was followed by a brutal rape at the hands of her new husband.
Sansa had no choice but to marry Ramsay because she has been in enormous danger. The rape happens while Theon Greyjoy watches, who have been secretly in love with Sansa since they were still young.
The rape of Sansa outraged many viewers and also fans of the fantasy novels “A Song of Ice and Fire” by critically-acclaimed author George R.R. Martin because the rape scene did not happen at all in the books, notes The Independent.
The fans of the TV series and the books started criticizing the show creators for departing from the story on the books and they found episode 6 as quite shocking.
Coming to the creators’ defense
But George R.R. Martin came instead to the defense of “Game of Thrones” showrunners D.B. Weiss and Dan Benioff, saying that he has given the TV series and their creators full creative license to do what they want with his material.
In Martin’s novels, a girl posing as Arya Stark marry Ramsay and she was the one who was subjected to sexual assault and not Sansa Stark.
George Martin divulged that he has gotten a flood of emails after the May 17 episode of “Game of Thrones” Season 5. Although he kind of expected the public outrage, Martin reiterated that he has been saying previously that the books and the TV series will have major differences and advised the fans and readers to just respect that.
He said that the show is the show and the books are the books. That’s two different tellings of the same story.
Difference
George Martin explained that prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, and different requirements. But more and more, they differ. He explained it as analogous to two roads diverging in the dark of the woods but eventually both will lead to the same destination.
He said that he just hopes that both readers and viewers enjoy the journey. Martin has also directed anyone who is curious as to the road his books are taking to read the sample chapters of his upcoming sixth book, “The Winds of Winter,” on his website.