More Jon Snow, Less Sexual Assault: An Important Game of Thrones Update

The world of Westeros just got a little safer for women. After a lot of public backlash and criticism, one of the directors of Game of Thrones, Jeremy Podeswa, revealed some very important news regarding future episodes at a breakfast with Fox Studios in Sydney, Forbes reports. He said the show's creators are listening, and have decided to alter their approach at depicting rape. “It is important that (the producers) not self-censor," he said. "The show depicts a brutal world where horrible things happen. They did not want to be too overly influenced by that (criticism) but they did absorb and take it in and it did influence them in a way.” Podeswa defended the show's execution of a particular scene with Sansa Stark and Ramsay Bolton: “To be fair, the criticism was the notion of it, not the execution. It was handled as sensitively as it could possibly be. You hardly see anything.” He also said how shocked him and his team were at the public outcry against it. “I welcomed the discussion about the depiction of violence on television and how it could be used as a narrative tool sometimes and the questionable nature of that. We were aware ahead of time that it was going to be disturbing but we did not expect there would be people in Congress talking about it.” It is unclear exactly what Podeswa has planned in terms of how much of the new plot lines will be adjusted since sexual assault and misogynistic acts have always been a dynamic, and dramatic, part of Westeros, but it is nice to hear that the GoT team is listening to the public's criticism. The show returns in April 2016. Until then, Refinery29 did some research and identified which television shows succeeded in portraying sexual assault here. Maybe the GoT guys can get some inspiration; there's always room for improvement. Now give us Jon Snow back, please.