‘Game of Thrones’ sex: These creepy scenes should not have been filmed
Hoo boy, where do we begin? Game of Thrones pushed the envelope even for premium cable. With each sex scene being more explicit than the last, and each act of violence playing out like a gorefest horror movie, we were on the edge of our seat through the HBO smash hit’s run, wondering what gruesomeness we’d see next.
However, your mileage may vary on some scenes. Here are the ones that showed how depraved characters in the world of Westeros could be. Most of them definitely wouldn’t have made it past the censors on normal TV shows. From the start, Game of Thrones sex scenes showed us how far the show would push the envelope.
From incest to abuse, here are the Game of Thrones sex scenes that would’ve been scrapped if they were anywhere else besides HBO.
Pilot episode incest (S1,E1)
The pilot episode lets Game of Thrones viewers know that the show will go there. At the end of the first episode, Bran Stark climbs the tower that his mother forbade him from climbing. However, Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) gets more than he bargained for when he stumbles on twins Jaimie & Cersei Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau & Lena Heady) getting it on doggy style in the ruins.
In order to cover up their incest, Jaimie Lannister walks over to the stunned Bran, shrugs “the things I do for love,” then pushes the nine-year-old out the tower window, crippling him for the rest of his life.
Joffrey forces prostitutes to beat each other up (S2,E4)
As if we needed more examples of how Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) is a monster. As a name day present, Joffrey’s uncle Tyrion buys him whores, including Ros (Esmé Bianco), to have some fun with. In the book A Clash of Kings, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) believes it could help Joffrey relieve some of his anger issues so he’ll stop being such a brat.
Instead, Joffrey takes out his psychopathy on the women by making them beat each other up for his amusement. Even as Ros cries and becomes bloodied, Joffrey makes them continue. In another scene, he kills Ros with his new crossbow. Why? Because he’s the king, so he can.
Theon’s castration (S3,E7)
In the books, this scene happens off-page, and we don’t even know it happened until Reek (Alfie Allen) is introduced in A Dance With Dragons. This gruesome Game of Thrones sex scene also shows how sadistic Ramsay Snow/Bolton can be. As if we didn’t think there could be someone worse than Joffrey!
Ramsay Bolton brings his girlfriend and another prostitute in to entice Theon to have an erection. Then, he beats him and cuts off his manhood. In a later scene, Ramsay even taunts Theon with what he did by eating a sausage in front of him.
More disturbing, the way Iwan Rheon plays the character is reminiscent of Alex from A Clockwork Orange, who conducts his “ultra-violence” in a sadistically cheerful way.
Margaery & Tommen (S5,E3)
Remembering that Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman) is eight in the books, and in his early teens in the show makes this Game of Thrones sex scene implicitly creepier. Margaery (Natalie Dormer) is a grown woman using sex to manipulate Tommen, a younger boy, into giving her more leverage at court.
The scene is sweet on the surface, with Margaery checking in on Tommen and reassuring him he was good. It’s the underlying age factor that makes this scene creepy. Then again, this is to our modern sensibilities, not the medieval world that is Westeros.
Ramsay Bolton rapes Sansa Stark (S5,E6)
We’d be remiss not to include the sex scene that launched a bunch of backlash against Game of Thrones. Littlefinger arranges a marriage between Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Ramsay Bolton so she can later resume control of the North. What Sansa doesn’t know is that Ramsay is a cruel, evil person who doesn’t care about her at all.
The infamous episode ends with Ramsay Bolton raping Sansa while making Theon watch. The credit roll as Sansa screams in pain.
People criticized the episode for glorifying rape and reducing a traumatic experience to a plot point. Fans also pointed out that this scene doesn’t take place in the books. Ramsay marries a fake Arya Stark instead and they have consensual sex. The only silver lining to this episode is that it makes the season finale where Sansa feeds Ramsay to his dogs sweeter.
Arya’s revenge on Meryn Trant (S6,E10)
While we wish we never had to see another child molester, this is Westeros. And as in the real world, monsters walk among us. Bering Game of Thrones, we’re left to believe that we’ll see child-killer Meryn Trant (Ian Beattie) assault a young girl. However, this gruesome scene turns into Arya Stark’s ultimate revenge against this creep.
Granted, revenge is sweetest when served by Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), especially when it’s on a guy planning on molesting a kid. Meryn Trant was a merciless member of the Kingsguard, whose violence against children was so depraved that the Lannisters let Tyrion banish him. Over the sea, he continues his depraved ways.
The grizzly scene opens with Meryn Trant whipping girls with a cane. When the third girl in line doesn’t cry out, he hits her harder & harder. Finally, the girl reveals herself to be Arya Stark & gouges out his eyes. She stabs him a bunch of times and as he gurgles in his own blood dying, she tells him, “you are nothing, you are no one.”
