An interview with Alex Graves:
http://www.vulture.com/2014/04/game-of- ... scene.htmlQuote:
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The reason I ask is because many of the people who have read the books are questioning why the scene was changed. As described in the book, told from Jaime’s point of view, Cersei initially resists but quickly gives her consent.
I see, I see. What was talked about was that it was not consensual as it began, but Jaime and Cersei, their entire sexual relationship has been based on and interwoven with risk. And Jaime is very much ready to have sex with her because he hasn’t made love to her since he got back, and she’s sort of cajoled into it, and it is consensual. Ultimately, it was meant to be consensual. [The writers] tried to complicate it a little more with her rejecting his new hand and the state of things.
[Update: George R.R. Martin has now weighed in about the debate on his personal blog. Essentially, he says that it’s unclear in the book scene whether Jaime rapes Cersei or not, as the scene is told from Jaime’s point of view, and is therefore only one side of the story; he also says that he’s unsure what Benioff and Weiss’s intentions might have been in their version, as he never discussed it with them.]
One of my colleagues suggested that the tweak, making Jaime the kind of person who might force himself on Cersei, might have happened to remind viewers that he’s not a morally upright guy, pouring out his heart to Brienne notwithstanding. Was that part of the decision to your knowledge?
No. It’s a very, very complicated scene. The thing about it is that Jaime has come home and is trying to convince himself that things are the same: that he and Cersei are a unit, they’re in love, they have sex, everything comes out of that bond. And he’s desperate to reinvigorate that and it has not been working. That’s part of what’s behind him, that lie he’s telling himself, that seasons two and three didn’t happen. So it’s a last act of stupid clinging to what’s been home for him, because it will never be the same. It’s also setting up something that happens in the finale. For Cersei, she is so blindsided and in the middle of the audacious murder of Joffrey at his own wedding, she’s standing there pondering all this with her other son, her sweet son. And her father comes in and basically says, “There is no way you’re going to have control over this kid” and takes him away. So she’s just empty. She’s decimated. What I said is what we just talked about. It’s just fleshing it out.
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GRRM himself says the consensuality of the scene in the books is questionable as it's all from Jaime's POV, we don't really know what Cersei makes of it.
I think it was poorly handled because the director claims there's ambiguity there, and in the books there is, as GRRM himself states. In the TV depiction however it is very definitely, unambiguously and obviously portrayed as rape, whether the director intended that to be the case or not.
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