Game Of Thrones: The Repercussions Of Sexual Violence

I chose Game of Thrones because it is a cultural landmark, it amasses millions of people per views, and its portrayal of women is interesting. (And because I’m a fan of the books and the TV show.)

It’s hard to deconstruct this sequence, and Games of Thrones as a whole, without acknowledging the source material. Like the show, the books take place in a pseudo-medieval setting, and neither mediums shy away from sex, gore, and violence. But where ASOIAF examines the repercussions of sexual violence, GOT merely depicts sexual violence. The difference is subtle but important.

The riot at Crastor’s Keep demonstrates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epmbsdgWRrU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVdsdN5Erbs. The subplot is original to the show, and

Jojen and Meera, brother and sister, are accompanying Bran on his quest to find the Three-Eyed Raven.)

It is not the most provocative scene the show has to offer, or the most controversial. I’d even say the rationale for its existence is more incriminating than the scene itself: it is there because the writers predicted, successfully, that sexual assault attracts

Is it a coincidence that the camera lingers appreciatively over Karl and his acts of evil, that more screen time is devoted to him than to Meera, Bran and Jojen, that he voices dialogue so off-putting that. Without context, one almost gets the impression that Karl is the main character. Indeed, the blocking is such that his presence overrides everything else in the background. He passes people on his way out, all of them out of focus. Only when the camera lingers over the form of a nude woman does she come into focus.

From 0:05 to 2:20, nameless extras can be heard sobbing off-screen. As far as I can tell, the only purpose of these women is to vilify Karl; their absence has no affect on the story. There are many women at Crastor's Keep, but only one with a name: Meera Reed.

I think the TV show has captured the essence of ASOIAF’s Meera. They are both teenage girls, both loyal, both tasked with the duty of defending Brandon Stark. But literary Meera deviates from her counterpart in one critical way, as she has not been to Crastor’s Keep, has not met Karl Tanner, and has not faced rape.

A story is not a story without conflict, and violence has its place in fiction. It can illustrate something about our world, it can critique social normalcies, it can —. But this encounter does nothing to the narrative except reinforce the idea that evil people do evil things. And anyone familiar with this series already knows