Jessica Chastain just epicly slammed Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss harder than winter slammed the Starks over the portrayal of the tragic events in Sansa's backstory.
[iframe https://giphy.com/embed/FEBXwlJ3c6r6M allowfullscreen="" class=^{{"giphy-embed"}}^ frameborder="0" height="480" width="452"]
While the popular HBO fantasy juggernaut has never been one to shelter it's audience from the gruesome realities of the world, including violence (emotional, physical, and sexual), many people are now calling it out for its fumbled display of heavy topics like rape.
Chastain was vocal on the issue following last week's episode, "The Last of the Starks," that featured a frustratingly sloppy conversation on Sansa Stark's rape at the hands of her husband Ramsay from season five (a scene that received a lot of backlash from critics and the GoT fanbase). While Sansa seems to keep a somewhat level head about her sexual assault being brought up, she goes on to weirdly credit the trauma for her personal growth, saying "Without Littlefinger and Ramsay and the rest, I would've stayed a little bird all my life."
Chastain took to Twitter to voice many of our frustrations over the dialogue following the epsiode. "Rape is not a tool to make a character stronger," she said. "A woman doesn't need to be victimized in order to become a butterfly. The #littlebird was always a Phoenix. Her prevailing strength is solely because of her. And her alone."
The Oscar nominee, who will also be co-starring alongside Sansa actress herself Sophie Turner in the upcoming X-Men flick Dark Phoenix, gained much praise for her impassioned words. Unfortunately, it's likely that little will be done to remedy the issue of the way sexual assault is portrayed in Westeros, since the series ends within the next two weeks.
Jessica's words are still very powerful, though, and a lesson for showrunners of future shows to learn from.
