There were many moments to focus on during Sunday's finale, but one of the quieter ones was hard to shake — even once Tyrion started killing people and Arya struck out on her own. Game of Thrones' Jaime and Cersei are together, even though he raped her. It was already hard enough to swallow the point at which the show decided to make Jaime the rapist a swell guy — though, with the way the books go, they had little choice — but now, we're supposed to see him as romantic (yuck) too. And it feels so, so wrong.
The series' writers made the decision to play out the scene in which Cersei and Jaime have sex against Joffrey's tomb as slightly more rapey than it was in the books (George R.R. Martin insists Cersei was more into it in his version, but that doesn't exactly remove the creep factor) and now, it's left a film of discomfort over every interaction between brother/lover and sister/lover. (Though, to be fair, the whole incest thing has always been rather uncomfortable.)
Cersei is somewhat brave before she runs into Jaime's arms and consummated their reunion on a great, round table. It's one of the boldest things she's ever done when she finally tells Tywin that not only has she been sleeping with Jaime, but she is no longer going to be under Tywin's thumb. If we weren't so conflicted about liking her, we'd almost be cheering at that moment, but then she visits Jaime (who's about to do a good deed and set Tyrion free) and gets all hot and heavy with her brother-lover. Perhaps the issue here is that the series didn't convey what Martin swears was a mostly consensual sexual encounter in the books when they put the scene on screen, or perhaps we'll just need to trust ourselves to err on the side of "this is creepy" even when the series seems to want us to 'ship and impossible, incestuous 'ship.
Shudder.
Image: HBO
