How can you know that this is now exclusively Theon's story, given that you haven't seen the remaining episodes? I also fail to see an issue with how the scene was directed. Showing a character reacting to something horrible rather than showing the horrible thing directly is a pretty standard device. Would a close-up…

Huh? Roose Bolton is the Warden of the North. What do you think that means? House Bolton controls the North. The Northern lords answer to him. What show have you been watching?

I'm sorry but that's laughable. What is Roose even doing with Sansa then? His goal is quite obviously to marry her to Ramsay and produce an heir. This was Tywin's exact plan — he was pretty explicit about it.

Fair enough. Agree to disagree. [I'm not terribly fond of that phrase but I'll employ it here anyway.] Thanks for having a thoughtful discussion with me.

No that makes total sense. Never again in all of fiction can a woman need rescuing by a man — it's already been done! In fact, why don't we just do away with fiction altogether? Surely everything has been crossed off the list since the invention of writing. And thanks for grossly mischaracterizing my view, by the way.…

That doesn't make any sense. A marriage not consummated is worthless. Furthermore, an heir solidifies their claim. Simply holding her prisoner would be a huge error and not one a man as cunning as Roose Bolton is likely to make. Tywin knew it, Roose knows it.

Why is it unacceptable for a female character to require the help of a male character? Just throwing out the words "agency" and "problematic" is not sufficient. Are we to deny the full range of human experience to females in fiction out of some misguided attempt to redress millennia of female subjugation and…

Doesn't the show also ask us to feel for Sansa? Or are we somehow meant to be cheering for acts of sexual violence committed against women? Gilly's character has been deeply impacted by her father's perversions. The rapes suffered by Cersei at the hands of Robert Baratheon inform her character. The uproar surrounding…

So essentially a work must then explore the perspective of the character as relates to his/her victimization. If this is the only requirement, then the outrage is premature. And is this true of all instances of rape in fiction, or only when a recurring/major character is involved?

Marital rape was legal in the US not that long ago. Are you contending that it was illegal in medieval England?

Why is rape seemingly the only act that can't possibly ever connect to plot/character development? Genuinely curious as to how rape can be included in fiction without raising the same tired complaints. Is rape off the table completely? If so, why? [What other acts are also on the forbidden list? Why are other horrific…

Roose? The rapist? THAT Roose? Not to mention marital rape is no crime in the world of the shows and if anything is expected. [See: Lannister, Tyrion] The key to the North is getting a baby in her belly. This would obviously have been sanctioned by Roose.

Well if we're just going to invent absurd motivations for the writers then I'll have a go as well:

Leonard is purple drink.

They are not and need not be bound to the source material. [Unless we're speaking contractually, of course.] Whether or not the changes were successful or the reasoning behind them sound is a separate issue. [The main problem I have is how they got her from A to B, from the Vale to Winterfell. Well and truly mucked…

Right, they haven't the time for a "very special episode." In the absence of such, how might they "articulate the aftermath … effectively?" Is it even possible, at this point, to say that the scene wasn't about Sansa, in addition to Theon? [If Theon weren't present, would it necessarily have been about Ramsay? How…

So what if it isn't her arc in the books? Creative license in adapting the source material. I'm not defending every choice they've made along the way. God knows I don't love the decision to remove her from the Vale, although there'd have [potentially] been an awful lot of wheel spinning otherwise. My point is simply…

Perhaps her story just has a different arc than the one you wish to see. Deviating from your preferred narrative isn't mucking it all up. She grows stronger only to run into forces beyond her control. She builds herself up but the world grinds her back down. She cultivates her flame only to see it snuffed out. Etc…