I'm really proud to have been a part of 'Game of Thrones': Sophie Turner

British actress Sophie Turner, who played Sansa Stark in the seminal HBO action fantasy ‘Game of Thrones’, stands by the sexual assault scenes the makers depicted throughout the show, featuring her, particularly that episode in season 5 when Stark gets raped on her wedding night. While Turner admitted there’d be trigger warnings today, she said it was a crucial part of the larger conversation they were trying to make.

“I did feel - and still do - that ‘Game of Thrones’ shone a light on things that many people were like, ‘Oh god, you can’t show that kind of thing’ - and I understand it can be triggering. I totally understand that point of view,” said Turner, adding, “But I did feel we were actually doing a lot of justice to women and the fight women have had to fight for hundreds of thousands of years - the patriarchy, being treated as objects and being constantly sexually assaulted - I don’t think there’s one woman I know who hasn’t had a form of that.”

In the interview with ‘Flaunt’ magazine, Turner claimed that men around her still get shocked at how rampant sexual assault or sexual misconduct is because ‘we don’t talk about it enough - we shy away from it’. “I think if Game of ‘Thrones came’ out today, we’d definitely put some trigger warnings on there,” she admitted.

“But I’m really proud to have been a part of ‘Game of Thrones’, where they didn’t shy away from showing atrocities that happened to women back then. I feel proud to have been part of the conversation,” she added. The wedding rape scene in question got even more outrage because it wasn’t a part of the source material, George RR Martin’s books.

Even back in 2015, Turner defended the scene at the ‘Comic-Con’. “The one thing that Sansa still is, despite what happened to her, is strong. She’s not to blame for that. Sansa, yes, has gone through a lot, but she’s developed some skills from Cersei and Margaery and others and she’s still just as strong. She could have fought back (in the wedding night scene). But she didn’t. She does her scheming in her mind rather than outwardly,” said Turner.

She’ll be next seen reuniting with Kit Harington, who played her half-brother Jon Snow, in ‘Game of Thrones’ for Natasha Kermani’s gothic horror film ‘The Dreadful’. Turner’s Sansa Stark was the daughter of Ned Stark, who was assumed to have fathered Jon Snow outside his marriage. “I did a movie last year which I’m really excited about with my old but very good friend Kit Harington, who played my brother on Game of Thrones,” she had told ‘People’, adding, “We’re doing a Gothic horror, but we play lovers. Sorry, guys. It’s really weird for all of us.”