game of thrones

[Scootaloo]

3. A Song of Fire and Ice portrays a world that really is shit for women

Which is honestly a sort of rarity for medievalist contemporary fantasy - the medieval world WAS a pretty awful place to be a woman, and i think Martin goes a good way towards making that point.

That scene last week was absolutely bizarre, however. per the book, she does say no - or specifically, "No, the septons-" before just throwing herself wholeheartedly into trying to make another flipperkid with her brother. The show... is definitely not her being worried about the priests spotting her and Jaime, but Jaime forcing her to the floor and raping her.

Why the change? Well, it's obviously not an improvement of the scene in the book, which is supposed to be "one last hurrah" before Jaime rides out to do the duty Tywin has set before him. It's not an improvement on Cersei's character - Jaime's right hand wouldn't be the only stump he'd have, if she had been written in-character for this scene. And it's sure as fuck not an improvement on Jaime's character, since his entire story arc from Harrenhall to King's Landing and beyond is one of him becoming a truly decent human being - raping someone - namely your own sister, while she weeps for the death of the child the two of you had, is seriously a setback for such a story arc.

And the show being what it is, this mess will never be mentioned again.

So why write it? It doesn't further plot, it doesn't tie up plot threads (As the killing of Rose could be said to have done) and in fact sets both back, and leave the sane viewer with an icky taste in their mouth. As far as I and some other avid fans of the series have been able to figure, this is purely HBO trying to "push the envelope," at a pretty big cost to the story being told.