There is the world we want, and the world we have.
As Westeros falls apart and “normal” social bonds disintegrate, the characters are forced to see the world as it is. And so many find themselves unable to do what they want — tethered by bonds invisible.
Join us as we discuss “Breaker of Chains” from three very different perspectives: Laura Fletcher, a casual fan of the TV and book series; Corrin Bennett-Kill, a hardcore fan of the book and television series (she has read all the books four times!); and Cheryl Collins, a television show watcher who has never read the book series.
Please join the discussion in comments!
Trigger Warning/Content note: We discuss a scene of sexual violence, mainly at the start of the post. We’d like to think we handle it more thoughtfully and sensitively than most recaps did this week, but please be advised.
Corrin Bennett-Kill
I, like all of us I suspect, have been giving the rape scene in last night’s Game of Thrones episode a lot of thought. This is a tricky subject and one that it is east to get mired in. It would be easiest to say that the change made from a consensual, if still pretty disturbing, sex scene between Jaime and Cersei to a rape is simply male writers using rape for shock value. There are myriad examples of sexual exploitation in television and film, and frankly, HBO runs only a close second to Starz for gratuitous sex and nudity in their shows (see references to our GoT boobs drinking game). However, in this case, I believe there is a reason. Whether it turns out to be a good reason, or even the right one, will play out over the course of the rest of the season and the show.
First, the victim. Cersei has been portrayed from the jump as a spiteful, selfish, vindictive bitch with little but hate in her heart for most of humanity. Her love is reserved for her children and her brother, and no one else. She bitterly resents that her femininity means that she is destined to be used as a pawn for the powerful men in her life. Her brains and ruthlessness are for naught when her father says “Marry!” Only in her relationship with Jaime is she able to do precisely what she wants. As the show has progressed, we have seen the progressive stripping of her power by the men in her life. By the time of the scene in the sept, she has been remarkably diminished. The opening scene — where her remaining son is maneuvered away from her without much more than Cersei’s shocked, watery, grief-stricken eyes to betray her feelings —shows how far she has been removed from true power.
Second, the rapist. Although Jaime has done much to redeem himself in the eyes of the watcher, it is important to remember that he is a man who was willing to throw a seven-year-old from a window, hopefully to die, for seeing him making love to his sister. “The things I do for love,” he said. He helped his father arrange for his brother’s first wife to be turned into a whore for the Lannister men. He killed one king he had sworn to give his life to protect. These are not the actions of an altogether reasonable and moral man. Although we would like to think that rape is beyond him, I don’t think we can make that claim. And at the risk of sounding like an apologist, he had been rejected by the only woman he has loved after fighting for his life to return to her, losing his sword hand and raison d’être, watching his eldest son die a horrific death before his eyes, then have his lover command him to kill his beloved younger brother. To say that his mind may have snapped is not out of the question.
So, why make it a rape? I think it has much to do with the limits of the television camera, which places the viewer in the position of an outside observer, rather than a witness to a character’s internal struggle, as in the books. How does one clearly show the laying low of one character and the demoralization of another? As the storyline progresses, Cersei’s diminishment takes on even more importance. Without giving too much away, we need to begin to have sympathy for Cersei after having been groomed to loathe her. Jaime needs to be broken in a way that he hasn’t yet been. I think that the rape scene successfully sets the stage for that development.
All that being said, I think that there are other ways to go about making those points than turning consensual sex into rape. I think that the writers so easily (maybe, readily) went there says more about a culture inured to the horror of rape than the story itself.
Laura Fletcher
Corrin makes a good point about Jaime’s nature, and I think it’s an important one to make about rape and rapists in general: they are not evil booga-boogas. They can seem like normal people, even “good guys.” Jaime rapes Cersei in what is, to me, an undeniable power play (the thing that motivates sexual violence to begin with), after Cersei’s recent rejection of him and directly after she demands that he kill Tyrion, instead of waiting for a trail for Joffrey’s murder. Jaime, down a hand and a sister-lover, has far less attachment to his son than Cersei does. Joffrey’s body becomes a prop in Jaime’s humiliation of her. As Tyrion says in his jail cell, Cersei does love her children. Jaime takes this moment of horrifying fragility to attack Cersei, both physically and emotionally.
One thing I’ll pick a nit with is that I think the book version of this scene isn’t exactly consensual either. We’re told the story from Jaime’s point of view, and though Cersei’s objections seem to be mainly that it is neither the time nor place, she seems to only go along with sex after it’s forced on her and she has no other option.
Corrin
You’re right, Laura, about the fact that the scene in the books was told from Jaime’s perspective, which can … smooth away … Cersei’s protestations.
Cheryl Collins
This is what I think: sadly, I was not horrified by this scene, just as I am not by any of the countless murders we have seen on the show. Jaime’s actions make perfect sense to me: he is feeling powerless and emasculated with the loss of his hand and everything that goes with that, and he wants to dominate the person who has rejected him. He wants to punish her, and he uses sex for that.
Laura
Cheryl, it’s good to know that it made sense to a non-book reader. Like Corrin, I can see how this makes sense with the direction of Cersei and Jaime, but I’m still not sure rape was the way to make that point. Especially rape on screen. I’m back to feeling the show push back against its female fandom in a way I find infuriating. Like, don’t forget about us! Some of us are survivors! That was already a really gross scene since there’s a dead child in it! It reminded me of how we kept seeing Joffrey humiliate and, later, torture people, including his murder of Ros by crossbow. It was overkill via violence against women, and to what end?
Cheryl
I guess that it makes sense to me to include the rape. This show is all about the range of human behavior as it revolves around power, and I don’t think certain behaviors should be off limits — especially one that is tragically common.
I was also stuck by the look on Cersei’s face as she helplessly watched her father “tutor” her son Tommen and walk him away from her, as she sees he is about to be consumed in the maw of King’s Landing and drawn into her father’s web (to mix metaphors).
The whole episode seemed to be about terrible behavior and mixed motives — from the Hound robbing the nice farmer, to Jon suggesting all the mutineers be murdered. Littlefinger too — though not a nice guy — has Dontos killed after he saves Sansa.
Corrin
Well, the episode was titled “Breaker of Chains.” I think that theme envelops the whole episode. The chains of slavery, of honor, of loyalty, of social mores. Westeros is falling apart at the seams.
Cheryl
Yes, it seems all social mores are in the process of disintegrating — and how people respond to that is always interesting.
Corrin
Did anyone else find it particularly ironic that Tywin, master of “the end justifies the means,” was lecturing his grandson on the virtues necessary for kingship?
Cheryl
Via the Socratic method. This episode could have been called “Hard Truths” as they were forced on everyone: not the world as we want, but the world as it is.
Laura
Tywin’s speech is incredible — and as we said earlier, it has the subtext of being a speech to Cersei as much as it is to Tommen.
Corrin
It was incredible, Laura, and totally disturbing to me. Mostly for how deftly Tywin manipulates the boy. He uses the terrible lessons of past kings, including Tommen’s psychotic brother lying dead before him, to move him into reliance upon his grandfather rather than anyone else. If anyone thinks that the “advisors” to whom Tommen is supposed to be listening would include anyone other than Tywin, then they just aren’t listening when that particular Lannister speaks. He might as well have said, “If you don’t want to become a lunatic like your dead brother, listen only to me.”
Cheryl
And all as Cersei helplessly watches and listens — including as Tywin notes that Joffrey was not “wise,” as he lies there. She is losing her last child.
Laura
The acting Lena Headey (as Cersei) does without a word in that scene is awe-inspiring.
Cheryl
She was brilliant. Such a range of emotions in that scene.
Corrin
It was like a gradual awakening from the encompassing grief as she recognizes what her father is doing.
Cheryl
Yes, and she was powerless. What struck me about this episode was all that was unspoken conveyed by looks and glances — and it reminded me how good the actors on this show are. Tyrion’s face as he absorbs the news that Sansa is gone and considers for a moment whether she was involved; the volumes unspoken in the looks between Gilly and Sam; Tywin’s brief blank look as he “categorically” denies having been involved in the murder of Oberyn’s sister and her children; Jon’s look of — well, what? — as the hardass Alliser Thorne declares what must be done in response to the Wildling attack.
Corrin
I’m glad the Martells are finally getting their due. Tywin uses Oberyn’s desire for vengeance to rope him in. The Martells have been there, lurking off-scene for the whole of the story, but now they are getting their just desserts. I’m excited to see how the trial proceeds just to see Oberyn in unpredictable action again.
Speaking of powerlessness, how about Sansa’s reunion with Littlefinger? We began to see a bit more of the plot to kill Joffrey revealed.
Cheryl
And it seems that it was all about Littlefinger’s obsession with Sansa …
Laura
Right, especially since his true love Catelyn is now dead, we know he’s not being nice to Sansa to get to her. He’s just being a creepazoid. At best.
Cheryl
What was especially chilling was him telling her that she really had no options, because she was wanted back in King’s Landing for the murder, while he pets and strokes her.
Laura
And our attention was drawn again to the necklace, which Littlefinger says was all part of his plot. Then again, we never know when he’s telling the truth and when he’s just trying to take credit, or freak someone out with his power.
Cheryl
I will be interested to see how or if she evolves to deal with it, and if she will regret leaving King’s Landing, as much as she hated it.
Corrin
I think she will begin to realize what she had in Tyrion, that’s for damn sure.
Cheryl
There is lots of lecturing in this episode. Tywin schools Tommen, then Littlefinger lectures Sansa about the way the world works after having Dontos killed to silence him, Margaery is lectured by her grandmother, and then the Hound reminds Arya what kind of world she is really living in: where the vestiges of good behavior are silly, quaint, and suicidal.
Laura
And then Daenerys lectures the slaves of Meereen. Dany does it kindly and does it well, but still — yet another scene where the Great Blond Western Wonder lectures some brown people.
Cheryl
And then finds herself falling for Daario.
Laura
Yeah, I guess that scene was supposed to have more “wow” than it did for me. I blame the rape scene for distracting me. That and the male full frontal earlier on.
Corrin
It was the first time I felt any investment in Dany’s story line this season.
Laura
Well, there you go! I was bored by it.
Cheryl
I was struck that the mood of this episode was of confinement, claustrophobia. Most of the shots in Westeros seemed to be closeups and medium shots, and mostly interiors. Everyone felt stuck. We didn’t get a wide shot with a nice vista until we headed North … and then the Wildlings attacked. Tyrion, Cersei, Stannis, the Night’s Watch, Sam and Gilly all are stuck.
Laura
Stuck, and with no realistic — let alone honorable or decent — way out of their trajectories.
Cheryl
That sense of confinement was calculated, and it fits with the episode’s title. It’s not just the slaves of Meereen who feel powerless.
Laura
Dany seems to be one of the few forging her own way, albeit on the wrong side of an ocean. Still, we don’t know how that scene in Meereen will end.
Cheryl
So much passed unspoken in wordless glances between Gilly and Sam, as neither of them can say truthfully what they both feel.
Laura
Plus, we know poor Sam simply doesn’t know how to talk to women. Gilly all but told him what to say (when he was saying all the other men dream of her, and she asked what he thinks). C’mon, Sam!
Corrin
Sam cannot be to her what she wants — and he wants — him to be. And for all of his faults, Sam is a good and honorable man.
Cheryl
And he is stuck in his vows to the Night’s Watch.
Corrin
He just needs to employ that big brain of his and he’ll come up with a good solution! There’s so much awesome stuff on the horizon for Sam.
Cheryl
Help me understand the look on Jon’s face as Thorne was dictating strategy against the Wildlings. He seemed angry, resentful — but something else?
Corrin
Resigned. Jon was willing to follow good advice even if the source was repugnant.
Laura
There’s that Stark honor again. He doesn’t want to agree with Alliser — he was the one who trained them cruelly back in Season 1. Plus, Jon would love to go help the townsfolk, but he knows they simply can’t without losing Castle Black.
Cheryl
And, Alliser actually asked for his advice. He is becoming a leader, our Jon.
Corrin
He’s growing up before our eyes! Awwww! Well, he learned some hard lessons north of the wall about necessity, and the greater good. Lessons his father never did learn.
Cheryl
As for not being able to help the townsfolk — again, it’s a lesson about he world as it is, not as it could be. And I was intrigued by the multiple references this episode and the last to the Iron Bank and the Golden Company, so I suspect they will play a larger role.
Corrin
It seems as if everyone is looking outside Westeros for sources of power now that the social structure on the continent is crumbling.
Cheryl
Great point. So, what about Tyrion sending Pod away?
Laura
It’s a replay of Shae all over again. Poor Pod! And I never thought I’d say that after his initial two-dimensional “sex god” characterization.
Corrin
Tyrion trying to protect those who are loyal to him. He returns that loyalty in full measure.
Cheryl
Lots of closeups of Dinklage. I thought the look on his face as he wondered about Sansa and as he said good-bye conveyed so much. The camera loves that guy.
Corrin
Let’s talk about the Hound and Arya. As for our dynamic duo, they have provided some of the best moments of the season so far. Constantly surprising each other and defying expectations.
Laura
I like how we can see them rubbing off on each other.
Corrin
It is becoming much more of a father-daughter dynamic than before. He wants Arya to know enough about the real world so she doesn’t get killed. And Arya cares for the Hound’s actions and, in a way, his soul. He certainly moderates his behavior on her say-so in a way he didn’t before.
Cheryl
You get the sense that Arya knows the Hound’s view of the world is “right” but hates it. That gentle farmer so reminded me of Ned Stark, and the Hound saw him only as future roadkill.
Laura
The Hound isn’t a good guy, but he’s so much better than we expected him to be — at least in taking care of Arya, and in saving Sansa from rape back in Season 2 — that we root for him.
Cheryl
Quick question about Tywin and Tommen: Did it seem odd to you Tywin was explaining the facts of life as they walked away, and he says “It’s all relatively straightforward”? Wow, if Game of Thrones has shown us anything, it’s that sex is almost never straightforward! But that’s what it seems to be for Tywin, merely a procreational act.
Corrin
Tommen is only a boy. He’s played much older, like all the young characters are. But he’s only eight or nine. He’s the youngest of Cersei’s children. Young enough to laugh genuinely at Joffrey’s dwarf show and then feel badly about it when his uncle gives him a censorious look.
Laura
And young enough to worry innocently about people’s welfare. It could be his youth, it could be his character; it’s too early to tell. One thing’s for sure: he’s easier for Tywin to manipulate than Joffrey was.
Corrin
Yes, Laura! If he had someone like Tyrion to guide him he could be a great king. But with Tywin, he’ll be Tywin’s kind of king.
Laura
Final thoughts: what’s coming next? Cheryl, what do you think?
Cheryl
Further societal disintegration. That’s all I can foresee. It’s impossible to guess! Maybe we’ll catch up with Rikon.
I’ll just add that the feeling in this episode seemed so evocative, where all seemed cold (with lots of blues), sunless, and cramped, and no one smiles. Very moody.
Corrin
This is a terrific place in the story and I am pretty excited about what is to come. As things fall apart, opportunities for greatness arise.
