It's fitting that this week's Game Of Thrones episode ended in complete silence. Ramsay Snow raped his new wife Sansa and it was one of the most terrible things I have ever seen — even without showing the actual assault. And this is a show that allowed us to watch a man's head get squashed like a grape. We all knew that Sansa would likely go through with her marriage to Ramsay, especially after Littlefinger so convincingly told her his plan to make her Wardenness of the North — a little awfulness in exchange for some actual autonomy. Unfortunately, that marriage plan also involves Sansa giving up her virginity to her husband, the absolutely abhorrent Ramsay Bolton.
Sansa was never going to enjoy her wedding night and I was hoping we wouldn't see it. But once Myranda, Ramsay's lover and Sansa's lady in waiting, tells Sansa about Ramsay's tastes (that thing where he's incredibly cruel and gets bored easily and generally is the worst person a girl would ever want to sleep with), Sansa looks forward to that night even less.
And it only gets worse from there when Ramsay orders Sansa around, tells her to get naked for him and demands that Reek nee Theon stay and watch Ramsay take Sansa's virginity. It's absolutely abhorrent and I'd say that the show shouldn't have gone there, but how could it not? This marriage plot was happening and the wedding night is something that needed to be covered — after all, it was the entire plot between Sansa and her other husband Tyrion.
In fact, the showrunners did the best possible thing they could have done in this situation: Not actually show it.
We see the entire scene by watching the look on Theon's face, which is almost more painful: He can't handle the sight of a girl he knew as a boy experiencing something so horrific. And though this creative choice is the best option for the terribly unavoidable scene, that doesn't make it any easier.
Many of us probably jumped right into the series finale of Mad Men after this episode, but it's worth taking a moment to really understand the weight of what we've just seen and hope against all hope that Sansa eventually gets her revenge.
Image: Helen Sloan/HBO
