Game of Thrones: Why Dragon House doesn’t show sexual violence

It’s not that far off, and yet it dates back to a different era, to the #MeToo era. Remember, Game of Thrones has sparked outrage for its eight seasons of frequent depictions of sexual violence against women, most famously in the Season 5 episode where Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) is raped on her wedding night.

While some confusion has surrounded HBO’s Dragon House prequel series as to whether it will feature the same graphic violence, writer and executive producer Sarah Hess told . Vanity Fair that “Dragon“- It’s a little name that comes up to talk about the series -“Does not depict sexual violence” on the screen.

As for Miguel Sapochnik, director and House of the Dragon co-showrunner, he confused fans last month after telling HollywoodReporter that series “lift your leg“Compared to Game of Thrones on the depiction of sexual violence, but this”Violence against women is still a large part of the world.“

“We are not shy– said Sapochnik.On the contrary, we are going to highlight this aspect. You cannot ignore the violence that was perpetrated against women by men at that time. It should not be minimized and it should not be glorified.“

But these comments by Miguel Sapochnik created some uncertainty about how the prequel series was going to deal with the issue of sexual violence against women. This is how Sarah Hess explained things:I would like to clarify that we do not depict sexual violence in the series– he told Vanity Fair.We work without a screen and instead show the consequences and impact on the victim and the abuser’s mother.“

“What our series does, and I’m proud of it, is that we choose to focus on the violence against women that is inherent in the patriarchal system.“, he added, noting that House of the Dragon represents violence against women that is not strictly sexual.

There are many “historical” or historically inspired series that romanticize powerful men in sexual and/or domestic relationships with women who were actually of consenting age, even if they were “fine,” Hess continued.

“We show it on screen and we are not shy to say that in the first half of the series our heroine is forced and manipulated into doing the will of a grown man. It is not necessarily committed by those we define as abusers or perpetrators, but often by generally well-meaning men who cannot see that what they are doing is traumatic and oppressive because the system they live in normalizes it. It’s less obvious than rape, but just as insidious, albeit in a different way.“

House of the Dragon premieres on August 22nd on OCS.