kyuuei
Emperor/Dictator
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2008
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Personally, I wan't "crying about the rape" when I found that scene between Cersei and Jaime disappointing. What I don't understand is why they're turning sex scenes from the book into rape scenes that IMO take away from the character arcs. Dany's scene was like that, too- I haven't read the books but I have a living Cliff's Notes sitting beside me each week, and his take on Dany's wedding night was that in the book, Khal Drogo was the first man to ever give her any agency of her own, and didn't force anything on her, and it was that rudimentary respect from basically a barbarian when the "civilized" men in her life have been using her as a pawn that caused her to fall in love with him. That seemed believable to me. In the show he just flips her over and does his thing, and that makes it a little harder to then feel good about their love story later, which narratively I think we were supposed to feel good about.
It's not a victim thing and it's not about rape being worse than the other brutal stuff on this show. There was a rape scene in the most recent episode, and sure, it was disturbing, but it made narrative sense. Joffrey's scene where he made one the whores hurt the other was disturbing and rapey, but it made narrative sense because he's supposed to be hateful and vile. But Jaime and Cersei's scene really bothered me because I had been feeling like I was supposed to be sympathizing with Jaime over the past several episodes (since he was paired with Brienne, I guess) and this week we're back to pretending it didn't happen and he's still being narratively portrayed as a man of some honor. My Cliff's Notes told me in the book it was more of a bodice ripper scene with some "not here!" but not so much of the crying and the no and the pinning her down. If it was supposed to be a means of portraying him as a complicated man and not a "good guy" or a "bad guy," it was really ham-fisted IMO.
The thing is, I think I remember it exactly being like that in the book though. Maybe I need to re-read the story, but I think I remember that scene being pretty much Jaime pushing himself onto her until she caved into him. I don't think they deviated far from the actual story with that. In the book, Jaime is struggling--he's unsure of if his sister loves him anymore, she's pushing and pulling, trying to be in charge and wanting him to take charge, and he just dominates her to try and push back the only way he really feels he can without his hand at the woman he loves. He's been without her for so long, gone through all of this to get back to her, and now he's not the same man, she's not the same woman, and he sort of just tries to push their relationship into what it used to be.. and the whole point of the scene is that both of them realize how fucked up their relationship really is in that moment.. It's a huge staple of "No, it's not fairy tales and sunshine, you all changed, your situation is fucked, and you both did it to yourselves." It isn't about making Jaime good or bad or complicated.. it's just the symbol of the downfall of their love.. they know they'll never make it with each other at that point, but Cersei gives in anyways because she still loves him even if it's in her own twisted way now.