Game of Thrones producer explains Sansa's wedding night horror 

Warning: Contains a major spoiler about Sunday’s Game of Thrones

fandom angst Sunday night as Sansa Stark was brutally attacked and humiliated on her wedding night by her sadistic new husband Ramsay Bolton. Across five seasons, audiences have watched as the character—played Sophie Turner—grew up on screen, with Sansa shifting from a naive innocent pining for a storybook marriage to gradually evolving into a hardened survivor. But on Sunday night, the character lost her virginity in just about the worst way imaginable—at the hands of the psychotic son of her mother’s killer, while her former childhood friend Theon was forced to watch. 

set in October and were able to briefly discuss it with producer Bryan Cogman, who also wrote the episode (in addition we have an interview with Turner where she gives us her thoughts about the scene).

My first question to Cogman was what would he say to fans who ask: “How could you do this to Sansa?”

Cogman seemed to take this question very seriously and took a moment to consider his response. “This is

,” he said soberly. “This isn’t a timid little girl walking into a wedding night with Joffrey. This is a hardened woman making a choice and she sees this as the way to get back her homeland. Sansa has a wedding night in the sense she never thought she would with one of the monsters of the show. It’s pretty intense and awful and the character will have to deal with it.”

I also asked whether the scene would be as sadistic as the version in George R.R. Martin’s

, where Ramsay’s bride is played by a different character who is not in the show. In Martin’s novel, Ramsay forces Theon to sexually interact with his bride. Cogman looked somewhat horrified at that idea. “No!” he said. “Lord no.

It’s still a shared form of abuse that they have to endure, Sansa and Theon. But it’s not the extreme torture and humiliation that scene in the book is.”

Cogman added that the scene is also “an important turning point” for Sansa. “She’s seen Theon and hated him and thinks he killed her brothers and betrayed them but she’s very conflicted by what she’s seeing there,” he said. 

The writer producer also confirmed that, for those suspecting Littlefinger might have known about Ramsay’s sadism, that Baelish was definitely ignorant of the situation. “The difference between the Ramsay Snow of the books and the show is the Ramsay of the show is not a famous psycho,” he said. “He’s not known everywhere as a psycho. So Littlefinger doesn’t have the intelligence on him. He knows they’re scary and creepy and not to be folly trusted and it’s part of a larger plan.” 

We also spoke to actress Sophie Turner about Sunday’s scene. That interview is here. 

And previously, EW exclusively revealed the showrunners’ reasons for departing from the books by marrying Sansa and Ramsay.

Our recap will have plenty of thoughts about the scene as well. The recap introduction is here. The full version will replace it in a couple hours. 

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