*Spoiler warning and disclaimer: additional trigger warning also has a spoiler inside of it. I take no responsibility for spoiled plot points if you read beyond this point. I will be getting preachy in this review as well about the ending of the episode.*
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Trigger warning: discussions of rape and sexual violence.

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Content warning: swearing

Sorry aboot the seriousness of my warnings up there, I have a bad habit of committing a cardinal sin of social media: I have posted Walking Dead and Game of Thrones spoilers on Facebook. Some of my childhood friends still hold it over my head. I understand they’re angry, but it comes with the territory of me being an entertainment writer.

I enjoyed seeing how most of the events of this episode unfolded. Namely it was nice to see Theon recover his sanity a small bit and for Sansa to finally stand up for herself in that (not too) fanservicey bath scene. I enjoyed seeing the Boltons plot against Stannis, and it was interesting to see how Cersei’s continuing to spin her web of power by getting Ser Loras and Margarey imprisoned. It was funny how quickly the “rescue/kidnapping” subplot in Dorne got resolved (thus paving way to a much greater rebellion subplot). Lastly, I enjoyed seeing Tyrion and Jorrah outsmart their captive slavers (for now).

I didn’t like seeing Loras and Margarey get imprisoned, I hated knowing that Sansa is in grave danger, and I really hated that last scene in the bedroom and here’s why:

I knew bad things would be happening to Sansa because of Ramsay, but I didn’t expect Ramsay to rape Sansa right in front of Theon like that at the end of the episode. I respect the simplistic nature of how evil Ramsay really is, but I heavily despise his character for these stunts that he pulls. At this point even The Joker would take one look at what Ramsay did and say “Damn, that’s fucked up”. The only villain more evil than Ramsay that I’ve encountered is the comic book version of The Governor from The Walking Dead (though they might be equal at this point).

Feminist media is ready to boycott the TV version of Game of Thrones over this mess, and I don’t blame them for not wanting to watch it. I can’t believe that there are people who said that Sansa “deserved it due to her own stupidity”. The only stupidity I see here are the people (mostly men) who constantly support the victim blaming portion of rape culture. This might have been in character for Ramsay and historically accurate of the time period, but it was still in poor taste. I don’t know where things will go from here, but I bet you all the gold that’s owed to the Iron Bank that Jon Snow would go off the deep end about what Ramsay did.

I’m going to keep watching GOT until the series ends, but I’ve pretty much left my hopes of any happy plot resolutions happening behind at the door. This show doesn’t fuck around, even though many of the GOT characters do. And with that, I will post a song made by Iwan Rheon (Ramsay) to erase the bad images left in my head from this episode:

I just found out today Rheon (which ironically rhymes with Theon) is actually a pretty damn good singer song writer. I hate Ramsay, but I still know to separate my emotions on the character from the actor.

-KCard