“Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”
May 17, 2015
As noted last week, my reviews of Game of Thrones have shifted to The A.V. Club, but I will continue to link them here for regular readers. Warning: These are reviews intended for book readers, so if you want to know absolutely no small details about the story as told in the books, you may want to steer clear.
Game of Thrones – “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” [The A.V. Club]
The nature of episodic television reviews means that we don’t know if it will be the same this time. I want to believe that this rape is not simply being used as an escalation of Ramsay’s evil, given that it would be highly unnecessary. I want to believe that Sansa’s redemption arc will not simply view her rape as a generic narrative turning point. I want to believe that this rape will be treated like a rape, and justly punished (perhaps by someone who was nearly raped herself earlier in the series). I want to believe all of this because I want to think the show has learned a lesson from the previous instances, and chosen to echo Dany’s marriage to Kahl Drogo by giving Sansa more agency and allowing this rape to remain a rape even after Sansa fights back against Ramsay. I want to believe that if the show is in uncharted territory in terms of source material and chooses to use rape as a narrative tool, they have a good reason, and didn’t just fall back on this as a problem-solving tool.
Cultural Learnings 
This episode left a sour taste in my mouth. Every time Sansa is with the Boltons i want to scream at her to remind her THEY KILLED HER MOTHER AND BROTHER! She refuses to touch Theon because he killed her brothers, but marries into (and all that bloody well happened after) the murderers of her own mother? Seriously? She is not that stupid. Starting to think the show might be…rant over.