Game of Thrones: Why Jaime saying no to Cersei during sex is not rape, but the other way round is
Game of Thrones as a show has stretched the collective imagination of the audience with its unarguably disturbing content. The fantasy show, while thoroughly engaging with its complex characters and sharp story arcs, has been known to visualise what we tend to never speak of or think about.
And despite the fact that most of the show’s audience is happy looking at visuals of mass murders, torture, genital mutilation, infanticide and regular debauchery, the audience (most of it) definitely draws a line at rape – though not always; viewers were okay with a young Daenerys getting raped by Khal Drogo.
The audience was appalled in the fifth season of the show when Sansa Stark was raped by her husband — the psychopathic, human-flaying, genital-mutilating monster that was Ramsay Bolton — on their wedding night. The scene was horrific for many reasons. One, there was really no need to show it, just to illustrate the emotional depth of Theon Greyjoy. Additionally, it was detrimental to the character of Sansa herself, literally and figuratively stripping her off of whatever agency she had managed to gain through the course of the show.
But perhaps the vilest moment of the show was a different rape – that of Cersei Lannister by her twin brother Jaime Lannister. Cersei and Jaime’s equation in the show has always been a complex one. Incestuous twins who as a whole feel like a Westerosi Yin and Yang, a balance of good and evil.
Cersei, as anyone who has seen the show knows, has gone through a terrible journey. She lost her husband, she can’t reveal to the world who she truly loves and she also lost her children. Add to that she was paraded naked through the streets of King’s Landing all the while being judged by her subjects as a group of religious fanatics publicly shamed her.
Yet, Cersei’s most painful moment on screen was, perhaps, not getting shamed or seeing her children die, but being raped by none other than the person she most loved – Jaime Lannister, and beside the corpse of her first-born child Joffrey, no less. It was scene that received near-universal outrage.
Just after Joffrey was poisoned to death – when Cersei sat by his corpse mourning him – Jaime Lannister forced himself upon her, despite her repeatedly saying “No”, and begging him to stop. In the books, the sex there was consensual, in the show not so much. The show was accused of adding “another layer of unnecessary depravity to an already profoundly desperate moment.”
Jaime, rather than comfort Cersei upon the loss of their child vents out his own frustration (of losing his hand) on his sister who he felt snubbed him. It reduced the powerful and headstrong and unabashedly spiteful character of Cersei into that of a helpless woman. It was a particularly low moment in the history of the show, despite the fact that it wasn’t the first time we were shown rape.
Compare this to another scene from the latest season of Game of Thrones where the same set of characters engaged in sex and consent then was a little ambiguous. In the episode “The Queen’s Justice”, the scene begins with Jaime alone in Cersei’s bedroom. He can be seen removing his heavy prosthetic hand (made of gold). Cersei bursts into the room and starts kissing him. Jaime murmurs, "No," but Cersei does not stop and is ultimately down on her knees, trying to pleasure him.
There are some key differences between this scene and the one in the fourth season. As an article on Refinery29 has pointed out, the reason Jaime says no is not because he is not consenting to sex, but because he feels unworthy of his sister’s love because of his amputation. Cersei in this scene does not force herself upon her, instead tries to comfort the weary Lannister. She did not assault Jaime. In fact, she tries to make him realise that she doesn’t care for the amputation – she pushes the prosthetic away.
And there lies the difference between the two scenes. While one is an act of aggression, the other is an act of care. That and the fact that one can clearly see pleasure on Jaime’s face here, as opposed to horror and grief on Cersei’s in the fourth season.