Critics have long bemoaned the violence on Game of Thrones as excessive, especially sexual violence. Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow in the series, explained that it’s about as bad as the daily news, and if we’re willing to face that real-life bloodshed, we should also be willing to see it in drama. With Game of Thrones attracting about 14 million viewers an episode, the people seem to agree with Harington.
Kit Harington explained to Radio Times his views on Game of Thrones violence.
“I don’t see a problem with it because you mostly always feel the consequences of that person dying. In Thrones it’s war and awful, awful things happen, as we see on the news daily. And if we’ve got an appetite for watching these things on the news then you can’t shy away from it on cable drama.”
ISIS beheadings, war in Eastern Ukraine, and tales of North Korean concentration camps; it’s certainly true that the news is often bloody.
Harington emphasizes that deaths in Game of Thrones have serious consequences on the story itself. Certainly, viewers have become accustomed to watching in agony as their favorite characters end up in an early grave, giving real meaning, and misery, to death in the series.
Harington went on to say,
“In Thrones , as much as they bury the death they see very quickly, there is an impact that those deaths have which I’m constantly playing. People are always dying around me in Thrones .”
Although torture or being boiled in molten gold seem to spark few controversies, Games of Thrones’ depictions of sexual violence have caused a number of outrages in the past, most notably the rape of Cersei Lannister by her brother Jaime.
Scott Berkowitz, of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, explained to the New York Times that the use of rape in some stories do have positive effects, just not in Thrones .
“They use it to tell a deeper story about recovery and what effect it has on that person. But Game of Thrones does not seem to be doing that.”
As Game of Thrones prepares for its highly-anticipated fifth season, writers reportedly have no plans to shy away from controversy. Kit Harington also talked a bit about the upcoming episodes.
Naturally, Harington didn’t give away any Thrones spoilers, but he did give credit to the writers on making season five one to remember, explaining “They’ve built it in the right way – it could have got a lot sillier a lot earlier and it hasn’t. It’s progressed in the right way story-wise. It’s so brilliant this year.”
Unfortunately, fans still have to wait a while to see it.
As previously reported by Inquisitr , technical problems have pushed back its original release date, which was already ambiguous. HBO will try to give some consolation to the viewers by showing a featurette called Game of Thrones: A Day in the Life, which will debut in February.
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