I think the part about Sansa's mindset is absolutely right and I think it builds both of their character. I'd like to say I'm baffled by the people who are upset over this but these days it's just the predictable kneejerk thing. I mean, how horrible is Ramsay? How horrible is a story that rapes, maims, and kills characters that we love? Horrible! It's supposed to be. We're supposed to hate Ramsay so hard. We certainly do in the books. And now here's some more on tv. We're going to hate him so hard and you know somebody is going to absolutely destroy him. He's going to get his, and then some, and we're all going to relish it. And we're going to relish it because he does things like this rape and everything else. A story in which they sit here and read books on their wedding night would not draw us in and chew us up and make us have such a range of feelings.

This story is supposed to do these things. It's why it's good. I mean look at Sansa's horrible arc in the books to date. She was presented as the most innocent, the most naive, the most delusional, the most powdery and that perfect little world she imagined just gets wrecked left and right and over and over as her family gets destroyed, as she gets abused, repeatedly married off, used, betrayed, etc. And slowly the little bird is becoming savvy and understanding how the world really works, and we can telegraph a stronger character in the future who is being built right now by these experiences.

Bad guys are bad. They're not real, and this rape wasn't real, and it wasn't encouraging rape or something. Ramsay's a bad guy and here's another reason why. What do these people want? It's a story taking place in a brutal world with zero fuzz or padding in it. It's heading towards their version of an apocalypse. What do they want to happen instead of slaughter, rape, kidnapping, betrayal, war, etc.? The backlash is stupid.