Allow me to slip my fuddy-duddy, old fart coat on and explain more.

There are two scenes in the generally muted (until recently) Game Of Thrones season 5 that have garnered the most controversy. In both cases, I find myself not on the side of the show. That is rare.

The first, which has been dissected in detail elsewhere on the internet, was the rape of Sansa Stark. I’ve never really got on with the Game Of Thrones books in truth, so didn’t realise until afterwards quite how much the show’s narrative differed from George R R Martin’s prose. But even before I had more detail, it was a chilling, nasty scene, one that didn’t feel necessary from a narrative point of view, nor on screen. I write this accepting that HBO’s take on Game Of Thrones show has rarely, if ever, pulled its punches. But I did sit there wondering what I was sitting through in the name of entertainment.

Was this really the only way, given the talent involved in the show, to make the point it was trying to make? Was this the only way to progress Sansa’s story? And to further establish just what a vile man Ramsay Bolton is?

Because, no matter how dark the storytelling is, that’s what Game Of Thrones is. Entertainment. Storytelling should explore dark places, and as books, television and film have shown time and time again, often it’s what you don’t see, rather than what you do, that hits home. But that’s only half the issue with the Sansa Stark rape. It’s not just that they chose to show it as they did, but that it was felt necessary in the first place. It’s not my story to write, but I don’t have to like and agree with what I see. And I didn’t.