Just this Sunday, on Game of Thrones Season 4 Episode 3, they witnessed an orgy between multiple men and women.
But it was a very different kind of sex scene that has generated a great deal of controversy since the final credits rolled on the latest installment of this HBO smash: Jaime raped Cersei.
Alongside the corpse of their dead, inbred son, no less
In the novel penned by George R.R. Martin, the sex between brother and sister in this setting is consensual, causing many to wonder why showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss altered the story in such a violent, forceful manner.
In the Comments section of his blog, Martin responded yesterday to the uproar
"I think the 'butterfly effect' that I have spoken of so often was at work here,” Martin wrote. “In the novels, Jaime is not present at Joffrey's death, and indeed, Cersei has been fearful that he is dead himself, that she has lost both the son and the father/ lover/ brother."
On the series, however, Jaime has been home for weeks, leading Benioff and Weiss to likely play the scene out differently, Martin surmised, because the characters were in a very different place.
"Also, I was writing the scene from Jaime's POV, so the reader is inside his head, hearing his thoughts," Martin said. "On the TV show, the camera is necessarily external. You don't know what anyone is thinking or feeling, just what they are saying and doing."
Given this “new timeline,” Martin isn’t sure if the show could have depicted this unusual sex scene in the same manner as he did. But he does understand the backlash.
"The scene was always intended to be disturbing," he concluded. "But I do regret if it has disturbed people for the wrong reasons."
What did you think of this Game of Thrones shocker?
