[EVERYTHING] About Jamie and Cersei's...

... Rape scene. Yes, I know that there is much debate about whether it actually was rape or not. But, let's assume for the duration of this post that it was. Let's assume that Cersei did mean "No, not here" and Jamie didn't care.

What was the big deal about it?

And I don't mean from a feminist pov or something about depiction of rape on media or latent misogyny or using female characers as a tool for male ones. I'm not interested in all that - I'm talking about this being a problem from the perspective of Jamie's character development. Because I recall that that was a complaint a lot of people had - that after some great character development in season 3, Jamie just went back to being his usual dick self.

But I didn't see much in the way of character development in Jamie. I saw nuances being added to the character - which was well done - but not much in terms of actual change. Before, we saw him as an arrogant, entitled dick and thought that that was all to him. But eventually, we saw that he did have a heart and some decency, that there were some lines too horrible for him to cross, that he could genuinely grow to care for other people and not be a selfish bastard all the time. But he was still arrogant and entitled and that part of him never went away - despite losing his hand and being humiliated. He felt entitled to demand that Brienne come with him and even after Roose had refused, he forced the issue. You might see it as being heroic for Brienne's sake, but only someone with a sense of entitlement would presume to make demands like that.

With Cersei, it sure looks like more of the same. He had risked his life to come back to her. He had sworn those stupid oaths to Catelyn for that. Even killed his cousin. He was entitled to Cersei's love for his efforts and her refusal was just meaningless, petty torment. Having some good qualities doesn't mean that everything bad is just erased. Nor doing something bad mean that you aren't capable of being good again. Jamie is a grey character - he can be heroic for saving Brienne and he can be villainous for raping Cersei. So, what's the issue people have with it?

Submitted June 01, 2017 at 06:56AM by genkaus http://ift.tt/2srpGIE