The Bear and the Maiden Fair third season emasculation New York magazine torture porn The Bear and the Maiden Fair A scene Breaker of Chains The A.V. Club sexual violence Theon Greyjoy Daenerys Targaryen Alex Graves Khal Drogo York Lannister The New York Times first Time
The episode "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" in the third season featured the lengthy torture and eventual emasculation of Theon Greyjoy, which prompted criticism. New York magazine called the scene "torture porn". According to one commentator, although the series' violence tended to serve a narrative purpose, Theon's torture in "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" was excessive as well. One commentator noted that Greyjoy's emasculation was one of the only sexual assault scenes where a male was the victim. A scene in the fourth season's episode "Breaker of Chains", in which Jaime Lannister rapes his sister and lover Cersei, triggered a broad public discussion about the series' depiction of sexual violence against women. According to Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times, the scene caused outrage, in part because of comments by director Alex Graves that the scene became "consensual by the end". Sonia Saraiya of The A.V. Club wrote that the series's choice to portray this sexual act, and a similar one between Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo in the first season—both described as consensual in the source novels—as a rape appeared to be an act of "exploitation for shock value".
