Breaker of Chains/Jaime-Cersei sex scene

Work in Progress
 * This is a sub-page branching off from the "Notes" section of the main article for the third episode of Season 4, "Breaker of Chains".

Multiple reviewers and websites were very confused and upset by the sex scene between Jaime and Cersei in the Great Sept of Baelor (in front of their own son’s corpse) in the third episode of Season 4, "Breaker of Chains" - saying that it was apparently portraying Jaime raping Cersei. This allegation/interpretation was near-universal – not simply "on messageboards" but in every measurable manner, as a reaction seen on almost every major critic or review website. These ranged from io9 and the A.V. club,, to the front page of Yahoo News, , Entertainment Weekly and Time magazine,  , and even the front page of The New York Times itself.

What made this all the more baffling is that the sexual encounter between Jaime and Cersei in this scene in the books is presented as consensual. TV-first viewers were offended, while book-first readers didn't understand why the TV show was, apparently, changing it into a rape scene – particularly because it simply didn't fit with Jaime’s overall storyarc of redemption and trying to be a better person after losing his sword-hand. Moreover, Jaime in particular is a character who as a result of his backstory is horrified by rape: at King Aerys II Targaryen's court, he was forced to stand guard outside the doors as the Mad King raped his wife Queen Rhaella; later on and in the show itself, he saves Brienne of Tarth from being raped by Locke's men even though she was his captor and he could easily have just let it happen.

The TV producers were slow to respond to such massive outcry, and even when they eventually did, their answers seemed to be vague, waffling, and at times contradictory This backfired completely: instead of clarifying the issue with an instant and clear response of "No, Jaime is not raping Cersei" or "Yes, we are introducing a massive change to the material", reviewers were left even more confused and to draw their own conclusions.

This article is Game of Thrones Wiki ' s attempt to determine exactly why the scene was filmed this way, and if it can be said that Jaime did or did not rape Cersei in the TV continuity.

What this article is not trying to do is deny that many viewers perceived it as a rape scene and were offended by it, because when presenting sexual violence in television or film, moreso than usual the stress is on the interpretation of the audience, and filmmakers must not fail to adequately convey their intent.

The Jaime/Cersei sex scene in the books versus in the TV episode
In the books, Jaime only returns to King's Landing soon after Joffrey dies, and was not present for his wedding. The TV series shifted his return to slightly earlier, so he is present for Joffrey's death, changing the dynamic. When Jaime encounters Cersei in the Great Sept in front of Joffrey's corpse, it is actually the first time that they have seen each other in over a year since he was taken prisoner by the Starks. Both of them are overcome by emotion, but at seeing each other again and their anguish over the death of their son. Cersei seems mildly worried that people will see them having sex in such a public place, but soon drops such concerns and quite clearly is having consensual sex with him. This entire subtext was lost by moving the scenes around in the TV series.

In the book version, the third novel A Storm of Swords, Chapter 62, Jaime VII, Cersei's consent is much more explicit:


 * "She kissed him. A light kiss, the merest brush of her lips on his, but he could feel her tremble as he slid his arms around her. “I am not whole without you." There was no tenderness in the kiss he returned to her, only hunger. Her mouth opened for his tongue. "No," she said weakly when his lips moved down her neck, "not here. The septons..."


 * The Others [White Walkers] can take the septons." He kissed her again, kissed her silent, kissed her until she moaned. Then he knocked the candles aside and lifted her up onto the Mother's altar, pushing up her skirts and the silken shift beneath. She pounded on his chest with feeble fists, murmuring about the risk, the danger, about their father, about the septons, about the wrath of gods. He never heard her. He undid his breeches and climbed up and pushed her bare white legs apart. One hand slid up her thigh and underneath her smallclothes. When he tore them away, he saw that her moon's blood was on her. but it made no difference.


 * "Hurry," she was whispering now, "quickly, quickly, now, do it now, do me now. Jaime Jaime Jaime." Her hands helped guide him. "Yes," Cersei said as he thrust, "my brother, sweet brother, yes, like that, yes, I have you, you’re home now, you're home now, you’re home." She kissed his ear and stroked his short bristly hair. Jaime lost himself in her flesh. He could feel Cersei’s heart beating in time with his own, and the wetness of blood and seed where they were joined."

The scene is clearly consensual in the book version: Jaime and Cersei meet for the first time in a long while, Cersei only objects specifically because she's afraid they'll get caught (and that Joffrey's body is in front of them) but her initial objections about timing and place stop, and she wholeheartedly has sex with Jaime, urging him on.

In the TV version, the only dialogue is:
 * Jaime:"You're a hateful woman. Why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?"
 * Cersei "Jaime, not here, please. Please."
 * Cersei: "Stop it. Stop it. Stop. No. Stop it. Stop. Stop. Stop. It's not right. It's not right. It's not right."
 * Jaime: "I don't care."
 * Cersei: "Don't. Jaime, don't.
 * Jaime: "I don't care. I don't care."

The camera doesn't specifically show Cersei embracing Jaime or kissing him back, or even shouting "Yes!" or "Do me now, Jaime" as she does in the novel. At least as the TV scene presented it, Cersei seems to be half-heartedly saying, "No [we will be seen]", but eventually just stops worrying about that – but then the camera cuts away to the next scene too quickly, without really firmly establishing that Cersei is indeed consenting to this. Something basic along the lines of having Cersei start saying "Yes! Yes! Yes!" for a few seconds at the end of the scene would have drastically altered (or clarified?) its presentation.

The week after the episode aired, Elio Garcia, owner of Westeros.org and co-author of the World of Ice and Fire sourcebook with Martin, appeared on Sky Atlantic's Thronecastto discuss it, saying:


 * "It seems that what they wanted to convey is not what shows up on the screen in the end. There have been interviews with the director in particular, Alex Graves, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as well, where they said, they wanted to do something ambiguous, more ambiguous than what's in the novel, but they still wanted the ambiguity of, well, maybe this is how they're interacting, that it is forceful and its rough and its dark, but it's in the end a consensual relationship.


 * But a lot of people couldn't see that on the screen, and they've missed some of the sexual scenes between them prior to this point, because a lot of it is in flashback. They don't have that.  In fact in the books the dynamic between the two characters is actually kind of like that:  Jaime initiates, and Cersei  kind of always says "stop that, uninterested" - and then she gives in to it.  And it's not intended as "rape", that is their sexual dynamic, and it's worth remembering these are siblings, these are twins, this is not a normal sexual relationship by any stretch of the imagination."

George R.R. Martin's terse reaction was to point out that the scene was different in the books – though Martin is in a precarious position and cannot easily publicly criticize the adaptation, because legally HBO has the rights to it instead of him. This may have simply been Martin indirectly saying through clenched teeth "I have no idea why this scene is different, I personally never told them to change it" – but even Martin may simply not know why it is, apparently, different.

Did the TV series cast and crew actually intend to portray Jaime raping Cersei?
The three groups involved are:
 * 1) The scriptwriters for the episode itself (who also happen to be the showrunners) David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
 * 2) The director of the episode, Alex Graves.
 * 3) The two cast members involved, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) and Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister).

A fourth factor is the editing process in post-production - which apparently Alex Graves was also responsible for. If they wanted to show a consensual sex scene, with Cersei initially hesitant but then dropping her fears and consenting to it, why did the scene cut away before clearly showing this? Was it Graves's intention to edit the camerawork in such a way that it appeared non-consensual, or did this simply happen by accident?

What the Scriptwriters initially had to say after the episode aired
Benioff waffled around a bit, apparently embarrassed by the question, but then came around to saying “no it was not rape”.

There are of course the theorists out there who speculate that the writers and/or directors may have initially come up with an idea to make it a rape scene, but then started adamantly denying it after the extreme backlash this caused. We have no smoking gun evidence that provides any solid proof that this was ever their intention (such as one of the cast members saying they heard them say that while they were filming). Nor does this particularly make sense given that none of the rest of the season seems to react to it in that way.

What the Cast members had to say
Waldau and Headey both delayed a long time before answering questions about this, but both eventually said that they didn’t play it as a rape scene and didn’t think this is what Cersei thought.

What Director Alex Graves had to say
Alex Graves’s comments are the most confusing. Initially he didn’t describe it as a rape scene, then because so many were saying that it “looked like rape”, he backtracked….by attempting to admit that “well yes, it’s rape at first, but then Cersei gets into it.” – That isn’t how the difference between rape and consensual sex works. It’s possible that Graves simply meant to say “It ‘’looks like’’ he is raping her at first, I suppose, but by the end I tried to show that Cersei is clearly no longer hesitating” and he just didn’t convey his words clearly.

Philosophically, what “objectively” happens in a scene when the writers and cast members intend it one way, and the director intends it in another? Is that even what happened in this case?

Generally, writer intend supersedes director intent, and director intent supersedes what cast members believe their character thinks. Hypothetically, if the scriptwriter gives the instruction that “Ned Stark regretfully tells Catelyn that he won’t reveal who Jon Snow’s mother is”, and the director also gives this explicit instruction, but then the actor plays it as “Ned angrily tells Catelyn he’ll never reveal who Jon Snow’s mother is, and by his reaction he is insulted that she even asked” – what “objectively” happened? If a cast member doesn’t “act well” but ignores scripting and direction? Similarly, what if the director and film editor plays a scene one way, when the writers and cast members played it another? Generally, the writer’s intent supersedes all others.

Yet it isn’t even clear if Alex Graves was trying to play it differently from the writers and actors at all. Rather, it seems that he just got so eager to turn up the level of how “dark and edgy” the scene was that he –quite unintentionally – made it look like a rape scene to any new viewer who had no idea what the book scene it was attempting to portray was like.

As Westeros.org’s Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson explained, it seems that the episode, Graves in particular, was attempting to make “dark and ambiguous” what was not ambiguous in the books, even though he never intended it as a rape scene. It then honestly never occurred to Graves that people wouldn’t take the matter of rape and sexual assault as an ambiguous and unanswered question, but arrive at the logical conclusion (based solely on the scene as it aired) that they were attempting to show a rape scene.

The most probable answer seems that the writers and cast members didn’t intend it as a rape scene, while in a lamentably poor direction choice, Graves chose to shoot and then edit the scene in such a way that it was needlessly ambiguous, simply to make it “dark”. For all we know, Headey-playing-Cersei on set was actually actively grabbing at Waldau-as-Jaime and saying “Yes!” by the end of the scene – but then Graves chose alternate takes of the shot, or edited it down in such a way, that it really isn’t very clear by the end that Cersei is consensually having sex with Jaime – even though it was never Graves intention to actually have Jaime raping Cersei.

As AxeyFabulous, aka FireAndBlood, of TheWatchersOnTheWall.com put it, “They’re now saying it wasn’t so much a rape scene as very poor camerawork and editing giving the wrong impression of what they were actually trying to present.”

Cersei and Jaime have a very “slap slap, kiss kiss” relationship, they get into arguments, they fight, then they wordlessly reconcile and embrace passionately, sometimes roughly and violently. That’s how their unhinged relationship works. This never escalates into non-consent: Cersei will be slapping Jaime one minute only to actively embrace him in the next. The problem is that we haven’t seen them on-screen together in private since Season 1. During the one, major private scene between Jaime and Cersei in Season 1, we are actually shown this dynamic: Cersei is angry and slaps Jaime, they fight, but then they start lovingly kissing.

The Jaime/Cersei scene was subsequently ignored for the rest of Season 4
For the rest of the season, Cersei and Jaime don’t act like he raped her – not that this would necessarily disprove that he did, but it is ‘’extremely incongruent’’ that in the very next episode she doesn’t particularly react as if that is what happened.

Ultimately, it seems that what the production team was trying to do was set this scene up as one half of two parallel scenes, though the other one occurs a full seven episodes after this one, in the Season 4 finale (and thus aired a full two months later, due to break week). In the Season 4 finale, Jaime has gradually grown to loathe Tywin and Cersei for their determination to see Tyrion exiled or executed for killing Joffrey (of which Jaime accurately believes he is innocent). After a disagreement with Tywin, Cersei goes to Jaime in the White Sword Tower and proclaims that she doesn’t want to hide their incestuous relationship anymore, and begins actively seducing Jaime. The roles are explicitly reversed and in parallel with the sex scene in “Breaker of Chains”; now it is Cersei who is sexually grabbing at Jaime, while Jaime is the one protesting “No” and that they should stop, both because he is upset with her and because they don’t have enough privacy where they are, and he fears they will be discovered – but by the end he relents.

While it did eventually become clear that the writers were trying to set these two scenes up as parallel to each other, they occurred so far apart that viewers would not readily be able to put the Jaime/Cersei sex scene in “Breaker of Chains” in this context. Even if they had aired next to each other, many would still have interpreted it as Jaime actually raping Cersei, but putting the “payoff” many episodes later only made the problem worse. Thus what started in the planning stage as “Jaime will throw himself at Cersei, and later on Cersei will throw herself at Jaime” ended up appearing to many as “Jaime forcing himself sexually on Cersei”, and then no particular worries about Jaime’s consent in the second encounter

Benioff and Weiss have been suspiciously evasive about the issue
In an interview with Observer just before Season 5 began, writer Bryan Cogman was asked about the Jaime/Cersei sex scene, but declined to comment, except to say that he didn't write it, his superiors Benioff and Weiss did, so it would be out of place for him to comment on it instead of them - given that, as he put it, they had not "publicly" made a significant comment about it since it aired in early Season 4:


 * Question: The enormous, intense audience brings additional scrutiny, and the reaction can get very vociferous. I’m thinking of “that scene” from last season with Jaime and Cersei in the sept next to Joffrey’s body. Book purists felt the scene altered the character dynamic, people concerned primarily with social justice issues felt it excused sexual assault, and people parsed every word Dan, Dave, director Alex Graves and actors Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau said about it for what the scene was “really” doing. If you can speak to it specifically, what happened there?:


 * Cogman: "My bosses, the showrunners, haven’t publicly commented on it. So while there’s a lot I could say about it and the media’s reaction to it...I don’t feel it’s appropriate."

Conclusions: Tywin, Gregor, and Elia Martell
Benioff and Weiss think it is embarrassing that through inaction, Alex Graves's bizarre camerawork decisions - made without the knowledge of them as scriptwriters or the actors - managed to slip into the final version of the episode, without them noticing that it looked so much like rape. This was not their intention when they wrote the scene as neither the actors nor the director mentioned it as in the script they produced. They seem to be of the mindset that it is more embarrassing that acknowledge that a subordinate made a mistake they failed to notice, because it makes it appear that they are not in total control of the production - even though it is a massive TV production with multiple filming units running simultaneously in multiple countries, and mistakes and oversights are bound to happen.

In the week after the episode aired, Benioff and Weiss tried to ignore the issue - but eventually it became painfully obvious that ever media outlet thought Jaime was raping Cersei, as even Benioff acknowledged he was aware that it ran as a front page story in The New York Times.

Realizing they could not longer simply hope that audiences and critics would not view it as rape, they tried to "own" it, and claim that Jaime actually was raping Cersei because he's a grey character (even though this still doesn't fit with Jaime's characterization or Cersei's interactions with him for the rest of Season 4). Benioff and Weiss apparently think that it is less embarrassing to claim that they made a controversial decision on purpose, instead of admitting that it was an accident that occurred outside of their control.

Consider that similarly, Tywin didn't order Gregor Clegane to rape and murder Elia Martell, Gregor did it on his own initiative without Tywin's orders. Tywin did not punish Gregor or take actions to make amends for it, instead allowing everyone to tacitly assume he must have given the order - because in Tywin's mind, being unable to control Gregor made him look weak.

Concerns about sexual violence in the TV series as a whole
The TV series has already come under frequent criticism for its use of gratuitous sex and nudity (“Sexposition”), an extreme “male gaze” imbalance of pervasive female nudity and comparatively little male nudity, and perhaps relying on “rape-as-drama” to the point that it is gratuitous. They should have been more conscientious when filming an violent/angry sex scene to show that it was fundamentally consensual, in light of these criticisms they were already under.

Thus while Jaime didn’t rape Cersei in the episode, the fact that the production team pushed for it to be so ambiguous, “dark and edgy”, that an overwhelming number of reviewers thought that it actually was rape, underscores that the TV series has had more generalized problems with not realizing when sexual violence (or the mere suggestion of sexual violence) may offend viewers. It probably didn’t help that Season 4 had no female writers on the staff, and that director Alex Graves is not a woman.

Response
In terms of what happened “in the TV continuity”, as a persistent alternate fictional reality and not merely within the frame of the camera in a single scene, Jaime did not rape Cersei in “Breaker of Chains”. This was never the intent of the writers or the actors performing the scene. The exact intentions of the director Alex Graves remain vague, but it seems that he just kept pushing for "dark and edgy" camerawork that went too far until it was misleading - in any case, the writers' intent (combined with actor intent) supersedes misleading camerawork. The writers did later claim they had intended it to be non-consensual, but they were apparently lying out of embarrassment at not noticing what the director had done until it was too late: had their intent when they produced the scene been to show Jaime raping Cersei, it would have specifically said this in the script they produced - but both the actors and the director stated they never received instruction that it was a rape scene, and therefore, the script the writers produced could not have contained such instructions, despite their later, retroactive claims.

As for how to respond to this incident,