Game Of Thrones: 10 Storylines That Should Have Been Cut

3. Sansa's Wedding Night

The wedding night rape of Sansa by the monstrous Ramsay was controversial for a lot of right reasons: it was unforgivably provocative for the sake of cheap disgust, it was toxic and it was needlessly dangerous, just casually defiling a young female character for the sake of it.

Naturally, a lot of people were disgusted, amid defences suggesting that it was perfectly suited to what Ramsay was - not only to Sansa, but also to Reek. They said it was a pure power play, and a further extrapolation of his evil - as well as a means to inspire Reek to get some way back to being Theon.

The trouble with that sort of story-based logic is that it's absolute bullsh*t. Ramsay was already a monster on cartoonish levels before he attacked Sansa, he was already abusive before he raped her, Reek was already broken (and he did nothing to intervene, so it wasn't a hero moment for him). And worst of all, it made the entire situation about Theon and not Sansa, which is the ultimate abuse of the character.