14 DAY TRIAL // Another “Game of Thrones” episode, even more controversy. “The Breaker of Chains” episode from season 4 aired on Sunday night and, together with new developments to the stories of your favorite characters, it also brought a very brutal and perverted scene that went off the beaten track of the original novels.
This third episode picks up right after the events in the previous one, “The Lion and the Rose,” in which fans saw King Joffrey killed by poisoning at his own wedding.
*This article contains major spoilers. Fans who have not seen episode 3 from season 4 are encouraged not to read any further or, if they do, to bear in mind this stern warning.*
The scene that got fans so riled up (and so vocal on social media) is included in George R.R. Martin’s original novels as well but it is significantly different. By changing just one aspect of it in the series, writers have created what Martin himself calls on his blog “the butterfly effect” as far as two of the leading characters are concerned.
These characters are Cersei and Jaime Lannister, who meet in the crypt where their son Joffrey is temporarily laid to rest. Cersei and Jaime are brothers but, as you probably know if you’re still reading this, this never stopped them from being lovers as well. Joffrey and their other children are proof of that.
However, in the HBO episode, they shared a scene that was anything but love because Jaime raped Cersei right there next to their son’s dead body. The coupling takes place in the book too but, in Martin’s version, it is entirely consensual.
By making it into rape in this episode, writers practically annulled all of Jaime’s progress so far, returning him to the state of corruption and perversion we found him in season 1, when we were first introduced to the Kingslayer. So, from this perspective, it simply doesn’t make sense to include this twist, with the rape.
It’s as if the writers wanted to “excuse” Cersei for wanting to have relations with her brother next to her son’s dead body, so they had her raped, fans are saying on Twitter. There was hardly any need for that, they continue: by now, everyone knows that Cersei’s corruption knows no bounds.
Martin himself, though he doesn’t say it out loud, doesn’t seem to appreciate the change. However, he explains it by stating the differences between the scene in the book and the TV show and concludes that “I am not sure it would have worked with the new timeline.”
“That's really all I can say on this issue. The scene was always intended to be disturbing... but I do regret if it has disturbed people for the wrong reasons,” he adds.
The main reasons it has upset so many people isn’t so much its violent nature but the fact that it was deemed sloppy, lazy writing.