Rape Will Make Benjamins

Rape Will Make Benjamins

There has never been a deficiency in the raping of women in popular culture, but it seems to have reached a pinnacle in Game of Thrones. Writer Nina Raine said that “If you create a drama with a rape in it that doesn’t get talked about, that must surely be because the character didn’t get raped enough times”. This notion was specifically the case in the television show Game of Thrones. J.R.R Martin’s ideas were executed and altered to become more popular and interesting for the viewers. If you ponder on this idea, it sounds extraordinarily crude and twisted almost suggesting that mankind has no more morals left to scavenge for. The casual violence of rape in Game of Thrones has become so normative and playful to the extent that the audience forgets that it is wrong and immoral. Half the male cast in Game of Thrones are known for their authoritative, hyper-masculinity, and sexism toward women like chieftain of the Dothraki, Khal Drogo. However, these factors are interpreted differently in the novel and the television show.

In the first novel of A Game of Thrones Khal Drogo and Dany ride their horses to “a grassy place beside a small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned around to look at her, she began to cry” (Martin, 107). In the beginning of this scene, Dany appears like she is providing no consent towards the rape she is about to endure from Drogo. She suggests that she still does not want to be his khaleesi and his “child breeder”. However, after a back and forth exchange of “no”s Drogo asks Dany for her consent and she replies with a “yes” (Martin, 108). In the novel it appears as if Martin strived for a woman to give into the consent of their rape thus proving the powerful effect of a man’s authoritative and hyper-masculinity.

On the contrary, in the television show Game of Thrones (season 1, episode 7) Dany never provides consent. After getting off of their horses, Dany walks over to a grassy place near an ocean. After securing the horses Drogo progresses over to Dany and begins to untie her bridal silks leading to the action of him caressing her breasts as she struggles to keep them covered with her hands. Drogo strains her hands away from her breasts and bends her over to take her consent away. Martin’s interpretation expressed the notion that women can succumb to their rape due to a man’s power, while the television’s interpretation strains on the fact that women do not succumb to such a treacherous notion and act.

In medieval fantasy, the inalienable rights of women are obscure to almost non existent, as proven in Game of Thrones. The book expressed that Dany submits under a man’s control and in the show it is expressed that she continues to resist therefore continuing the normative of rape culture. Women are obsolete objects that are used, abused and recycled in numerous ways, rape being one of them. Rape culture in medieval fantasy novels, especially those that are transcribed to the screen, will not go away. Rape culture has become a normative phenomenon that intrigues the sick minds of its viewers, in result, feeding HBO countless Benjamins to create more of these horrid scenes.

- Kianna Marrs