Game of Thrones' "Breaker of Chains" may be one of the show's most controversial episodes yet due to sibling lovers Cersei and Jaime having sex by their dead son Joffrey's coffin. Fans on Twitter sure thought so.  Let's talk about that scene. 

Ding! Dong! The Wicked King Joffrey Is Dead, Fans Rejoice

"Stop! It's not right!" Cersei begs her brother. But he keeps going, grunting, "I don't care, I don't care." After King Joffrey dies, Cersei gets raped by her own brother / lover Jaime by the coffin of their dead son. Rape is never an easy topic, but when it's incestuous rape, that's a whole other ball game.

The scene deviates from the book in which the sex (though still incestuous) was originally portrayed as consensual. Director Alex Graves believes it became consensual, but fans are not so sure. Angry fans weigh in on Twitter:

@NickyKwonzy "I thought I've seen everything watching #GameOfThrones, until the male twin started raping his female twin on their dead son's body."

@TherealNihal "Brother and sister doing the horizontal jiggyness next to their dead son's body. #gameofthrones hits a new low in non-family viewing."

@SinCityMermaid "That scene with Cersei & Jamie was a lot more mutual on the page. Jamie may be an incestuous killer but was never a rapist. #BreakerOfChains"

@nerdsherpa "In the book, Cersei says "No no no - well, okay I guess." That's rape. The show didn't change it from not rape to rape. It was always rape."

@NotCuteNTwisted "that jaime/cersei scene was so disturbing i want to punch things??? why is shock factor so important to you HBO?? #GoT"

Also, Who Killed King Joffrey? We Point The Finger At...

Creator George R. R. Martin also weighed in on the hair-raising rape scene in his blog. According to today's Time:

"I think the 'butterfly effect' that I have spoken of so often was at work here. In the novels, Jaime is not present at Joffrey's death, and indeed, Cersei has been fearful that he is dead himself, that she has lost both the son and the father/ lover/ brother. And then suddenly Jaime is there before her. Maimed and changed, but Jaime nonetheless. Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate and Cersei is fearful of discovery, she is as hungry for him as he is for her.

The whole dynamic is different in the show, where Jaime has been back for weeks at the least, maybe longer, and he and Cersei have been in each other's company on numerous occasions, often quarreling. The setting is the same, but neither character is in the same place as in the books, which may be why Dan & David played the [scene] out differently. But that's just my surmise; we never discussed this scene, to the best of my recollection."

Graves treaded murky waters when he said, according to Monday's The Huffington Post, "It becomes consensual by the end, because anything for them ultimately results in a turn-on, especially a power struggle." 

Hmm... So was it rape or consensual sex?

Tags: television Game of Thrones hbo