Breaker of Chains/Jaime-Cersei sex scene

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Multiple reviewers and websites were very confused and upset by the sex scene between Jaime and Cersei in the Great Sept (in front of their own son’s corpse), 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 to the AV club.

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.

The TV producers were slow to respond to such massive outcry, and even when they eventually did, their answers seemed to be vague and waffling. 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”…they seemed so embarrassed about the issue that they tried to brush it aside quickly instead of addressing it head-on. They did, generally, making comments saying that it was not rape, but was not stated very clearly. This only compounded the negative reaction, by allowing the implication to persist that their intention was to portray Jaime raping Cersei.

George R.R. Martin’s terse reaction was to point out that the scene was different in the books – which many took to mean that he was saying that “I didn’t have Jaime rape Cersei in the books” as if to acknowledge that “he is raping her in the TV series. Though as the FatPinkCast pointed out, Martin is in a precarious position and cannot easily publicly criticize the adaptation. 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.

Overview
While the TV producers did not overtly and systematically attempt to explain what exactly happened, the fan-made ‘’Game of Thrones Wiki’’ can address the issue.

The matter can be answered logically and rationally by breaking it down and presenting it in a series of questions:

Question 1 – Was it the intention of the TV series to actually portray Jaime raping Cersei? Put another way, is Jaime actually raping Cersei in this scene, or did many viewers simply misinterpret it (through no fault of their own, but due to disastrously poor camera direction and film editing)?

The “TV series” is not a single entity, not a camera put on real-life events, but the combined effort of different groups of cast and crew members. Those related to this episode are:  the scriptwriters for the episode (Benioff and Weiss, who are also showrunners), the director for the episode (Alex Graves), possibly secondary cameramen, the editing room process (apparently also handled by Alex Graves), and then the two actors (what Waldau and Headey thought their characters were thinking and how they played it).

Question 2 – On a more esoteric and philosophical level, what is the difference between creator intent and viewer interpretation? Many said that the scene still “sure looked like rape”. Even if all cast and crew members involved in the scene can universally confirm that they never even remotely intended for this scene to be implied as Jaime actually raping Cersei, many viewers had absolutely no way of knowing that, and thus the TV series failed to convey this key information to them.

The Jaime/Cersei sex scene in the books versus in the TV episode
While we could waste time going over detailed questions of “oh wow, this screenshot shows Cersei consensually reaching for Jaime’s genitals by the end as a sign that she is enjoying this”, a brief overview would help.

In the books, this is when Jaime first sees Cersei again after returning to King’s Landing after a year imprisoned by the Starks. This has nothing to do with “well Jaime was overcome with emotion” – so was Cersei. She 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 is what Martin has said; the chapter is from Jaime’s POV and a few have argued that we can’t tell what Cersei herself is thinking, but Martin has objective knowledge of Cersei’s thoughts as the author).

In the TV series, this entire subtext that they are overjoyed to see each other but frightened and angry about everything else that has happened (Jaime being maimed, their son’s death).

INSERT TRANSCRIPT HERE

Too often, this degenerated online into questions of “well Cersei can fight off a one-handed man or shout for help if she really wanted to” – women get raped in real life all the time in circumstances where they could fight back or call for help, but are too afraid to react at all. This does not mean it was not rape.

At least as the 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.

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

A fourth factor, the wild card in this, are other members of the set crew and filming team, the cameramen, though ‘’apparently’’ Alex Graves was on set personally “directing” this scene and watching over what the cameras were filming. Until proven otherwise the actual “filming” process was therefore Graves’s responsibility. Also related to this is the editing process after filming: 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? Apparently this was also Graves’s responsibility.

What the Scriptwriters had to say
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.”

How Cersei and Jaime’s relationship dynamic has been portrayed
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.

Why didn’t the TV producers notice this in post-production?
If it wasn’t the intention of the cast and crew to portray Jaime raping Cersei (and they’re not simply denying that they ever intended this, of which there is no evidence)…how did the finished episode result the way it did?

The simple answer might be that the TV series short-sightedly just continued this portrayal…without realizing that when you replace “slap slap no, then kiss kiss” with “slap slap no, then sex”, that visually looks VERY MUCH like rape. They might have seen it as just an extension of the “slap slap, kiss kiss” principle” (if their intentional was to show it as consensual, it would also ‘’really’’ have helped to show Cersei actively kissing Jaime by the end, and clearly shouting “Yes!” as well)

This ties into the common problem that people who have read a book being adapted for film often find it difficult to judge whether new viewers will find it understandable. In the case of Game of Thrones, we see the example of the pilot episode itself: Benioff and Weiss thought the pilot they shot explained the mythos well enough, but when they test screened it, a large number of people said that they didn’t even know that Tyrion was Cersei and Jaime’s brother (or even that Cersei and Jaime were brother and sister). To Benioff and Weiss, and perhaps any other crewmembers who had read the first novel, this seemed clear enough. This is why the finished episode has invented dialogue inserted in which Jaime has to prominently say “as your brother, Cersei…” or overdub Arya pointing out “that’s Tyrion, the queen’s brother!”.

Similarly, because the cast and crew read the book version of this scene, they (and in fact, many book readers) may have simply seen it as “Jaime and Cersei having rough sex, angered and frightened over the death of Joffrey – I remember when this happened in the book version”…because they could not look at it through the eyes of TV-first viewers, with no objective knowledge of what they are trying to present. The result being that the interpretation upon viewing the footage that Jaime is outright raping Cersei honestly just never occurred to them.

It also doesn’t help matters that Game of Thrones is one of the most complex projects in television history, with shooting going on simultaneously in three separate countries during Season 4. The production staff are overburdened as it is. Gemma Jackson even left working on the show due to strains it was putting on her marriage. Benioff and Weiss are pervasively overburdened with work, and if we can glimpse into what the creation process is like, they are continually juggling dozens of tasks and logistical problems across these different sets. It is therefore not difficult to see how something like this could slip through the cracks: they don’t have the luxury of painstakingly editing every scene to the point of utter perfection. They probably just gave the footage a quick viewing, and as book-readers they based their interpretation of the Jaime/Cersei sex scene on how they know it played out on the books – they didn’t have time to say, screen it for TV-first viewers to ask if they thought it looked non-consensual, particularly because as book-first readers this isn’t a possibility that occurred to them.

Why didn’t the TV cast and crew give a clearer response?
TV production has several unwritten rules. One is never admit self-fault…even when it would be self-defeating ‘’not’’ to acknowledge a mistake. A second and even more counterproductive rule is “never point out mistakes by coworkers, it is considered rude, and will lead to internal strife and you being shunned.”

For example, in Season 3’s “The Climb”, the subtitled High Valyrian dialogue includes the first and only time that the proper name of the Lord of Light –“R’hllor” – has been stated on screen. Unfortunately, there was a production error, and the subtitles spell it as “R’hlloro”. Language creator David Peterson explained that he handed in his notes with the proper spelling. “R’hllor”, however, is pronounced as “R’holloro” in High Valyrian, because it’s a foreign loanword (the name comes from Asshai in the far east). Whoever was adding the subtitles, apparently, just spelled it phonetically the way that the characters pronounce it on-screen, not realizing that “R’holloro” is itself a translation of what should have appeared as “R’hllor” in the subtitles.

Now it would seem a very simple matter to fix this: just change the subtitles for all subsequent re-airings, on HBO Go’s streaming service, and on the Blu-ray release. But they were not fixed. Why?

While we can only speculate, pointing out that the on-screen subtitles had a misspelling in them would be an admission of self-fault. It might also cost some money to fix the files. Moreover, no one wants to be seen as “that guy”, pointing out that the person who makes the subtitles made a mistake and did not present information properly…even though they obviously did fail in their job, and “accurately convey this visual information” is explicitly their primary job description.

That was your job, Tarly, your one job.

Even if Graves did badly direct the camerawork for the scene and badly edit it, the writers don’t really want to be seen as “throwing him under a bus” by accurately blaming him for unintentionally making a consensual rape scene ‘’appear’’ like a rape scene. Also, because Benioff and Weiss are the showrunners, at least in theory they should be thoroughly reviewing every single minute of footage (even though this is logistically impossible). So to blame Graves would also be to blame themselves, because they are his superiors. Graves, of course, would not want to admit that he made such poor camerawork and editing decisions that many viewers thought he was trying to portray a rape scene when he honestly wasn’t.

Therefore while the clear and obvious answer would be to simply and clearly put out a statement that “Wow, this was an editing mistake, we never even remotely intended for this to be interpreted as a rape scene, we’re really sorry, we’ll fix this in post-production by altering it for reruns and on the Blu-ray release, by simply overdubbing Cersei shouting “Yes!” over it”…that is probably not going to happen. Because this same production team wouldn’t even admit blame and “fix” a scene for re-airings when it had a minor problem so simple as a spelling mistake in subtitles. They don’t want to admit their own failure nor do those not directly responsible want to be seen as attacking those who are responsible.

The problem is that viewers and fans are a forgiving lot if treated honestly, and they would actually be receiving ‘’far’’ less negative press for publicly admitting to an “editing failure”, than they have already received by remaining silent about it, and letting the assumption grow by many viewers and critics that they actively intended a consensual sex scene from the books into a rape scene.

To deny that Jaime raped Cersei is not to deny that viewers were offended
The writers and cast have eventually said that they didn’t intend to portray Jaime as actually raping Cersei, and Alex Graves generally seems to have said this as well.

But assuming the conclusion from Question 1 that “No, the writers, actors, and director don’t think Jaime is actually raping Cersei”…philosophically, how should this be interpreted both by fans and on a fan-made wiki, which is meant to be an objective record of what “actually happened” in-universe?

The problem is this following hypothetical exchange:

Viewer: “Is Jaime raping Cersei in this episode?” Wiki: “No, the TV producers said he wasn’t” Viewer: “But it still ‘looks like rape’ to me. I’d have no way of knowing this was not intended to be rape if you hadn’t told me.” Wiki: “Well, that’s your fault, it doesn’t matter that you were shocked by this scene.”

Yes, outside of any other context the overwhelming majority of professional critics and review sites thought the TV episode was trying to show Jaime actually raping Cersei. Pointing out that this isn’t what was really meant to be “actually happening” is not meant to be shutting down and dismissing the valid complaints of viewers and wiki-readers who say “it looked like rape.”

Cersei is a fictional character, not a real life person. In real life, if you are concerned that someone is being raped (of any gender), there is reason to be concerned and you should say or do something. But the “if it looks like it, it is it” rule doesn’t apply to fictional creations. The writers have objective knowledge of Cersei’s thoughts, and they can officially declare that “Cersei is consenting to this”. This does not absolve any responsibility from the writers: just because they have objective knowledge of the writer’s thoughts only means that they can produce “good writing” which accurately conveys this, and “bad writing” in which they fail to adequately convey what the characters they write are thinking.

Jaime was not raping Cersei in this scene because the TV production team confirmed that this was never their intention. Yet this does not dismiss the complaint that it ‘’appeared to be’’ a needlessly inserted (and in the context of Jaime’s storyarc, nonsensical) rape scene. To deny that Jaime was raping Cersei is not to deny that it was a “rape scene” in terms of its impact on viewers who were needlessly shocked and confused by it. Rather, denying that Jaime was actually raping Cersei in this scene allows focus on the real fault: disastrously bad camerawork and film editing, combined with a belated and vague response which only served to compound the problem.

Rather, efforts should be focused on pressuring the production team into re-editing the scene when the episode is released on all formats again.

Concerns about sexual violence in the TV series as a whole
The current strategy of a few sporadic comments that they never intended for it to be a rape scene can never reach all of the millions of viewers the TV series has (probably not even if they made them prominently). It also tacitly blames the viewers for “misinterpreting” what was happening as Jaime raping Cersei – even though the fault lies with the TV production team for not conveying this clearly. 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.

Indeed, the writers themselves seem to have belatedly realized some of these wider problems while filming Season 4. In the books, the Betrayers of the Night’s Watch do take over Craster’s Keep, then rape and brutalize Craster’s wives, but this occurred “off-screen” (the entire subplot about returning there was invented for the TV series). While this unquestionably was “rape” in the TV series, while the production team for “Oathkeeper” was filming this subplot, they originally included a ‘’very’’ long montage consisting entirely of the mutineers raping Craster’s many wives. While this did happen in the books, and was rape in the books, the production team pushed for it to be very “dark and edgy” to emphasize how brutal it was. Upon viewing the finished material, however, they realized that what was essentially a long montage of many women being raped served no actual plot purpose relative to its shock value and was indeed “gratuitous”, so the entire sequence was cut from the final episode.

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.

The Jaime/Cersei scene in context of 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.

The Death of the Author?
There is a literary theory known as the “Death of the Author”, popular in the late 20th century, which espouses that authorial intent is absolutely meaningless, and an audience has equal right to claim that how they personally interpreted a scene’s meaning has equal claim to being valid.

For example, when Jaime throws Bran out of a window at Winterfell in the first episode, the writers, directors, and cast members played the scene as “Jaime regretfully throws Bran out of a window”. The creators did not conceive of Jaime as the type of person who enjoys needlessly killing children. Instead, he regrets that he will have to kill Bran, because if he doesn’t and Bran reveals his secret relationship with Cersei, that would mean that Jaime, the woman he loves, and all of their children would be executed – he ruefully throws Bran out the window because he feels he has no choice. According to the “Death of the Author” principle, a viewer is free to interpret this scene as “Jaime attempted to kill Bran out of pure malice”…based on no evidence or internal logic whatsoever, nor the fact that this simply does not fit with any of Jaime’s subsequent actions and behavior in Season 1.

Fundamentally, writers actually do have objective knowledge of what is going on in their characters’ heads. The Game of Thrones production team do have objective knowledge of what Jaime is thinking when he shoves Bran out of the window, and that he is not malicious but regretful.

Similarly, the production team also has objective knowledge of what Cersei is thinking in her sex scene with Jaime in “Breaker of Chains”, and that it was consensual. While many viewers and critics assumed (based on how it was filmed and edited) that Jaime was actually raping Cersei, the creators actually do have the authority to say that this is not what the characters thought, and not what was happening. The main difference between the two scenes is that when Jaime threw Bran out of the window in “Winter is Coming”, strong writing and strong direction were able to accurately convey to most viewers that Jaime doesn’t enjoy what he is doing – while in “Breaker of Chains”, poor camerawork and film editing decisions resulted in the episode not adequately conveying to the viewers what was actually happening.

Conclusion
The writers, actors, and director have wanted to avoid admitting any mistakes, but what really happened in “Breaker of Chains” was a mistake in camerawork and editing, not accurately conveying that Cersei is voluntarily having sex with Jaime. The production team only compounded the problem by being so embarrassed by it that they gave only vague responses, instead of prominently declaring that it was an error in editing, and rushing to overdub the episode with Cersei shouting “Yes!” in subsequent re-airings to make their intentions more clear.

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 is not raping Cersei in “Breaker of Chains”.

Interpreting it as rape ignores the statements of the production team that they never intended that, as well as the ancillary detail that interpreting it as rape would be incongruent with how they interact throughout the rest of the episode.

It is not the fault of so many viewers, however, for assuming it was rape: it is the fault of the TV production team for not adequately conveying that it was consensual, as well as not adequately responding to the criticisms by overdubbing the scene in reairings.