The HBO series "Game of Thrones" received a lot of backlash from fans following its episode titled, "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken," which showed the rape scene between Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton. While the episode was far from being well received by most fans and viewers of the series, it turns out that the show was less violent than George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series.
"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" was the episode which received so many criticisms from fans, including a feminist entertainment blog "The Mary Sue," which claimed that their support for the HBO series has come to an end. While fans' thoughts on the latest episode of "Game of Thrones" were divided in half, a Tumblr-user named Tafkar cited that the series is less violent than that of Martin's books.
Telegraph noted that Tafkar's calculations led to a total of 214 acts of rape with 117 rape victims in George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series, while the "Game of Thrones" series only aired 50 acts of rape with 29 victims. The outlet cited that this may also be due to the fact that Martin's books are composed of millions of words, which might explain why there are more rape scenes in the book compared to the series, which only had under 50 hours of screen time.
Tafkar also went on to cite another worrying fact on how rape victims are portrayed in the books as well as in the TV adaptation. According to Tafkar, Martin's book series seemingly gave more emphasis on and focused on the point of view of those committing rape rather than giving focus on the victims of the act.
Meanwhile, George Martin recently defended the rape scene from the latest episode of "Game of Thrones" and explained that it is common for a TV series to change several scenes from the book it is based from. The 66-year-old author also cited that this is but another of the show's butterfly effects.
"David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and Bryan [Cogman] and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can," Martin said.
Join the Conversation