#stay tuned for more hot takes on the faux feminism and rape culture / apologism in the dragon show

[alicentflorent]

it’s more complicated than “he raped someone end of story” - Sarah Hess on Aegon raping a serving girl

The thing is Sarah, it isn���t though is it? If someone (fictional or not) is revealed to be a rapist then that is how we are going to see them. Rape is something that is mostly a black and white issue and something most people will see as unforgiveable.

YOU made the choice to write this character as a rapist. YOU decided to include a scene of his survivor, who already oppressed because of her class status, hysterically crying and asking someone to please believe her. We aren’t going to care if her rapist doesn’t realise it was rape. Rape is still Rape and majority of the audience is going to see rapist as irredeemable,

If you wanted to make Aegon more likeable and more morally grey then that’s fair but maybe don’t make him a canon rapist? You don’t want him to be seen as a sadistic evil villain like joffrey but you took us on a city tour showing us the depraved things he’s done like watching child fighting rings for entertainment, showing one of his bastards being trafficked into these rings and having Aemond tell us that Aegon had him raped in a brother when he turned 13 (another sexual assault).

If you wanted to address rape and rape culture in a medieval society and show the POV of the victims, the enablers and the perpetrators then it has to be handled sensitively and written in a way that allows nuance without dismissing the experience of rape survivors. You don’t have the talent or intellect to handle something like that because you couldn’t think far enough ahead to consider the implications of what you were writing and how it would impact the bigger story.

You can’t retcon these decisions you’ve made after you’ve aired them. You can’t ignore what you’ve written because you regret the way you wrote a character into a joffrey shaped corner and now you’ve realised that maybe you should have handled certain characters differently so now we have a new season of the show and multiple characters who seem like they’ve had a personality change within the space of a week