Game Of Thrones: 7 Minor Changes That Irritated Book Readers

7. Jaime Rapes Cersei

Let's get this out of the way since it's likely the one you have heard the most outrage over. During the third episode of season 4, twins/lovers/parents Jaime and Cersei are alone in the Sept, standing over the corpse of their dead king/son/nephew Joffrey. What begins as a consoling embrace between brother and sister turns nasty in a hurry when a sexually frustrated Jaime forces Cersei to the ground and ... oh you all know what happened next! Now in the books Cersei originally said no, but only because they were technically in a church, and because anyone could have walked in on them. And because their dead son was lying just a few feet away. Hardly the most romantic circumstances. However after some ... lets say "persuasion" she eventually gave in and let him do as he pleased. Keep in mind she hadn't seen him for over a year and she was obviously in need of some comforting after her sons death. In the series however, Cersei was clearly not up for it at all, and what should have been a wholesome consensual act of passionate love making between twin brother and sister with their dead son in the background, just turned into a rape scene. Needless to say this caused a major fury from book fans who thought that David and Dan were just including rape for easy shock value. TV fans were also annoyed by the scene, as it pretty much destroyed the heroic and sympathetic version of Jaime from Season 3. Just when we were starting to like that attempted child-murderer! As a further slap in the face, episode director Alex Graves, in defence of the scene, assured us "it becomes consensual by the end." That's right. We were apparently supposed to just assume that she gave him permission while the show moved onto the next characters story. It's apparently our fault for not knowing that a scene that started out as rape, would eventually become something other than rape. We do apologize. Please forgive us for not immediately jumping to that conclusion!