Game Of Thrones star Sophie Turner has defended an infamous rape scene involving her character, Sansa Stark, saying she felt “proud to have been part of the conversation” about issues of abuse.
Turner played the character for all eight seasons of the show, and was aged just fourteen when she began filming in 2010. One of the most controversial moments in the series came in the 2015 season five episode Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken, where Sansa marries the sadistic Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon). Toward the end of the episode, she is violently sexually assaulted by her new husband.
The moment received criticism from journalists and fans alike, but in a new interview with Flaunt magazine, the actor said she believes it brought focus to the treatment of women in a historical context.
“I did feel — and still do — that Game of Thrones shone a light on things that many people were like, ‘Oh god, you can’t show that kind of thing’ — and I understand it can be triggering — I totally understand that point of view,” she explained.
“But I did feel we were actually doing a lot of justice to women and the fight women have had to fight for hundreds of thousands of years — the patriarchy, being treated as objects, and being constantly sexually assaulted — I don’t think there’s one woman I know who hasn’t had a form of that”.
She conceded: “I think if Game of Thrones came out today, we’d definitely put some trigger warnings on there. But I’m really proud to have been a part of Game of Thrones where they didn’t shy away from showing atrocities that happened to women back then. I feel proud to have been part of the conversation”.
Turner has been vocal about the HBO hit’s graphic use of sex in the past, joking on a podcast in July that the sex scenes in Game Of Thrones were “crazy shit”, and that she got “more than enough” sex education while making the series.
