Sophie Turner Defends Game of Thrones Controversial Rape Scene

Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner has opened up about her character Sansa Stark’s controversial rape scene in a new interview, stating that the show did “justice to women” by not shying away from difficult topics. She added that if the show were released today, it would require trigger warnings.

August 27, 2025: English actress Sophie Turner, who is most known for her portrayal as Sansa Stark in the HBO series Game of Thrones, has talked about the show’s most controversial scene: her character’s marital rape by Ramsay Bolton.

Turner talked about the fifth season episode “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” with Flaunt Magazine. She was only 19 years old when it aired. Even though the sequence caused a lot of anger at the time, Turner still thinks it should have been in the movie since it brought up an important issue.

“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,” she told the magazine. “But I really thought we were doing a lot of justice for women and the fight they’ve had to fight for hundreds of thousands of years—the patriarchy, being treated like objects, and being sexually assaulted all the time. I don’t think there’s a woman I know who hasn’t had some form of that.”

The 29-year-old, who first joined the show when she was 13, said that she “didn’t fully understand” similar scary situations in past seasons. She thinks that the show would be handled differently now that the media landscape has changed. Turner remarked, “I think if Game of Thrones came out today, we would definitely put some trigger warnings on it.”

In the end, Turner said she was proud to be part of a production that didn’t shy away from showing “atrocities that happened to women.” She said she wanted to keep talking about critical issues in her career, and she thinks the show helped her do that.