I think we all did.

While the Blackout storyline was a bit weak, never has a tv makeout session been better ended then when crashed by Patton Oswalt blood.

I kind of like that. I'll have to catch the episode. Much like a dusty Atari 2600, it's something I'd like to look old and 80s.

Not sure it was a great episode, but "A Little Peace and Quiet" is always the story I remember from this series. It was very much an episode of its time.

Yep. It sounds like a real Hearts of Darkness moment where production slipped out of everyone's control and they just didn't see what was happening.

She's saying no (for whatever reason) and beating in his chest until it's clear he's doing whatever he wants. Maybe she agrees for passion and maybe she agrees to end the assault. Since we only have Jaime's pov, it's ambiguous at best.

"Not here" is "no." To hear that as something else is problematic. Whatever the reason she is saying no, it's still no.

When it's obvious that force is about to happen and she's the survivor of a previously abusive relationship? It's not that simple given her earlier protests.

You may be right. I'm curious if adding violence would make the incestous and illicit affair worse in Westeros. Or is this like Ajax and Cassandra where the location is what matters.

Hmmm, I think deciding that intense of a POV scene around such a complicated issue isn't tricky is tricky.

So no-no-please let this be over?

I'm not sure what your point is here, but as for sugar coating, Martin's text doesn't scratch the surface of terror for a 14 year-old about to be "seduced" into sex for the first time by a full grown warrior king.

Both are indeed grotesque, and I agree that it's worth discussing how one type of assault is okay to depict while another is not. I see what you're saying about her point, but my point is that the depiction in the books is not complicated consent but explicit rape. The age makes it explicit but the showrunners could…

It is complicated, but modern views of rape are—well, modern, too. It's all problematic for a variety of reasons. The show and the books are choosing to deal with different taboos and power balances. I'm pretty sure the original scene between Drogo and Danny is unfilmable even for HBO.

Not comfortable with what the show has done, but I think people seem overly comfortable with what happens in these parts of the books.

I'm not sure a no-no-yes fantasy from Jamie's POV makes the books much better than the show here. Much like the romanticized rape of a 14-year-old child giving consent to an adult warrior king, Martin's sugar coating is far more regressive than the frank brutality of the series in my opinion.

The Danny-Drogo encounter is dealt with problematically in this essay. How do you write off the age power imbalance as anything but rape in that situation? Much like the no-no-yes fantasy between Jamie and Cersei in the books, I'd say if anything Martin's views are regressive compared to the show, which acknowledges…

As I recall he gave no name to Loreli. Am I remembering that wrong? There could be a third true love.