The HBO series Game of Thrones has got a very avid and loyal fan base, so much so that the interest in it has not died down even after the series ended. The release of a new Game of Thrones oral history book, Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon has revealed some new details about some of the sexual scenes in the series. Apparently, the book reveals author George RR Martin as saying that he was not consulted about the change of a consensual sex scene between Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen and Jason Momoa’s Khal Drogo to a sexual assault scene.
According to an online portal, Martin slammed the changes made to the sex scene and said that he was not kept in the loop when the changes were made. Martin said that the showrunners, David Benioff and DB Weiss never discussed the crucial details about the encounter between Daenerys and Khal Drogo on their wedding night. He said, “Why did the wedding scene change from the consensual seduction scene ... to the brutal rape of Emilia Clarke? We never discussed it. It made it worse, not better.” The scene in the book A Song of Ice and Fire is a consensual sex scene between Drogo and his wife, although he assaults her at many occasions later on.
However, Benioff defended the change and said, “Here’s a girl who is absolutely terrified of this barbarian warlord she’s being married off to, it’s the last thing in the world she wants, yet somehow by the end of this wedding night she seems to be in a completely joyful sexual relationship with him. It didn’t entirely work for us.”
Weiss said, “Also, in the second episode she has to go back to the less consensual, rougher relationship. In the book that works, but we just didn’t have that amount of time and access to the character’s mind. It turns too quickly. It was something the actors themselves felt wasn’t gelling.” Weiss stated that Emilia ‘mentioned the wedding night and issues she was having with it’, but they were on the same page.
Game of Thrones had some overtly explicit sexual scenes and during the show’s eight-season run, many prominent female characters were sexually assaulted.
(Source: The Insider)
