BOOK SPOILERS BELOW!

Why do people keep making claims along the lines of, "This was the first time one of our main characters got tortured when she wasn't in the books, so that's why people are taking to the internet saying it shouldn't have happened."

Sure, if you want to split hairs, than this particular thing didn't happen to that particular character (at least, not yet).

But the show has to condense characters.

In the books, basically, this exact same thing happens to Jeyne Poole, Sansa's old friend, who, at the time that this is happening, is married to Ramsay and is masquerading as Arya Stark! In this way, Jeyne is figuratively standing in for Arya.

Here's a good overview: "Jeyne is forced to marry Ramsay and pleads with Theon Greyjoy several times before the wedding for him to help her and take her away. When stripped by Theon for the bedding, numerous scars cover Jeyne's back, suggesting she had been whipped. When Ramsay asks her if she knows how to please a man, she replies fearfully that she has had training. Jeyne spends all her time confined to a tower and is deeply traumatized by the things Ramsay does to her. The maids who bath her notice the bruises on her body and the girl's sobbing is known throughout Winterfell. According to Lady Dustin, the crying of "Arya Stark" is more a danger than the army of Stannis Baratheon. The Freys may not care, but the other northern houses who had served House Stark for generations do, and morale is being damaged from hearing the cries of Eddard Stark's "daughter."

So yeah. Sorry something MUCH worse than this scene, though pretty close to it, happens in the book to Sansa's best friend who is pretending to be her 11 years-old sister at the time.

So fucking different.