Game of Thrones features a lot of violence of all sorts (so many murders) but the stats show that there is also a startlingly large number of rapes.
The most recent cause for debate on the issue was raised by a controversial scene involving Sansa and Ramsay, and that caused one Tumblr user to go back and crunch the data on what seems to be a prevalence of sexual violence in the show and the books, and the numbers are pretty startling.
Tafkar went through both the episodes of the show and the A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) series of books to find that there was a big difference between how many scenes of that nature had been written, and how many made it into the on-screen product. According to her workings, the stats are as follows:
Rape acts in Game of Thrones the TV series (to date): 50
Rape victims in Game of Thrones (to date): 29
Rape acts in ASOIAF the book series (to date): 214
Rape victims in ASOIAF (to date): 117
She also added that her numbers may in fact be lower, given that it's difficult to get a handle on the number of victims, but it has lead to criticism of the works from several groups. Responding to accusations that his novels rely too much on acts of sexual violence, Martin said "My novels are epic fantasy, but they are inspired by and grounded in history. Rape and sexual violence have been a part of every war ever fought, from the ancient Sumerians to our present day. To omit them from a narrative centered on war and power would have been fundamentally false and dishonest, and would have undermined one of the themes of the books: that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters."
In light of her discovery however, Tafkar has started up the Sansa Stark Project, which aims to raise awareness and funds for rape crisis centres around America, and is encouraging those around the world who were affected by the scene to do something about it and donate either a penny for every word they've written or blogged about it, or volunteer their time with their local centre. She lists a few on her tumblr, and encourages people to add more to the list, and post pics of their donation using the hashtag #TheSansaStarkProject.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this piece, you can find more information on the Rape Crisis Network Ireland page.
