“Mixed feelings” as actors, author discuss controversial Game of Thrones scene

A rape scene in the latest episode of Game of Thrones, between Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) next to the corpse of King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) is attracting plenty of media discussion.

Author George R.R. Martin defended the show’s decision to alter the scene from what was originally a consensual sex scene in the books.

Natalie Dormer, who plays Margaery Tyrell, Joffrey’s recent widow, told E! News Lena Headey had ‘mixed feelings’ about shooting the scene.

“I remember talking to her in the makeup trailer the day before she had to shoot that, she had mixed feelings about it for obvious reasons,” she said.

“But as an actor, those scenes are the ones you really get to sink your teeth into, so there’s sort of a perverse enjoyment in exploring those really dramatic moments as well.”

Martin wrote on his blog:

“I think the ‘butterfly effect’ that I have spoken of so often was at work here. 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. And then suddenly Jaime is there before her. Maimed and changed, but Jaime nonetheless. Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate and Cersei is fearful of discovery, she is as hungry for him as he is for her.

The whole dynamic is different in the show, where Jaime has been back for weeks at the least, maybe longer, and he and Cersei have been in each other’s company on numerous occasions, often quarreling. The setting is the same, but neither character is in the same place as in the books, which may be why Dan & David played the sept out differently. But that’s just my surmise; we never discussed this scene, to the best of my recollection.

Also, I was writing the scene from Jaime’s POV, so the reader is inside his head, hearing his thoughts. 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.

If the show had retained some of Cersei’s dialogue from the books, it might have left a somewhat different impression—but that dialogue was very much shaped by the circumstances of the books, delivered by a woman who is seeing her lover again for the first time after a long while apart during which she feared he was dead. 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.”