Rape in GoT and ASOIAF

I think you've made a great point there Polantaris. As a damsel in distress, I couldn't care less about Sansa. One of the few significant changes made in GoT that I liked was her relationship with LittleFinger. I'm really hoping that her impotence is temporary and merely and that she will be left without Brianne's help. She really ought to just be able to stab the bastard or better yet manipulate someone else into doing it for her. It seems like she's already begun playing him off against his father. That will certainly come to a bloody conclusion.

If she just ends up getting rescued I'll be severely disappointed and she'd be no more interesting than her ASOIAF counterpart.

Daenerys' scene is much more ambiguous. I think the show actually portrayed it as much closer to rape than ASOIAF did. Drogo had a longer introduction in the novel and Martin very deliberately added some details to show Drogo wasn't intending to hurt her and had some empathy. It emphasized the language and customs difference along with Daenerys' youth rather than violence or impotence. Their eventual love also undermines the rape narritive in both media.

I like the fact that she's finally starting to actually use that training with Littlefinger to good effect as of the most recent episode. It's definitely where her character was aiming towards after last season. Considering the amount of time that transgresses between the point where she lies for Littlefinger at the end of last season to the point where she is married off to Ramsey, I feel like she just isn't showing proper character development. It has to have been at least three or four months between the two plot points, but yet in all of her scenes minus Episode 7 she's been exactly the same character. It's like the end of Season 4 never happened for her.

It's really my overall problem with her character in general. She really hasn't changed, in any way, what so ever. And yet, she's been in more than one perfect situation to change. If the objective for her character was to be the same whiny spoiled brat from S1E1, then I think they're doing a pretty good job with that. But if her character was supposed to grow into someone who can really play the Game (which is clearly what is supposed to happen with her), then they've failed utterly and completely as of right now.

Maybe it's just because I haven't rewatched since the beginning of the show, but I honestly can't say I've noticed any major character development for her, especially after the rape scene, which bothers me more than the scene did. I really hope that she saves herself, too. If she doesn't at least give a massive amount of effort towards it, I'll be completely confused as to what they plan to do with her character next Season.

Daenerys' interactions with Drogo are pretty interesting. I think pretty early on she was shy, but had a powerful mind. I think the major plot point of her story in the first season/book isn't that she was raped, but that she used her situation completely and utterly to her advantage. Add in the fact that she started to love Drogo, which also helps her tremendously. For her Season 1 plot, it wasn't so much about that she was essentially sold off and raped, but that she was growing into a figure of power. That's why people don't really care so much, because it turned her into the character they love today.