To Our Unsettled GOT Viewers,*

We here at Game of Thrones know many of you are outraged by last week’s episode Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. And we want you to know that adding Sansa’s rape scene was a tough decision for us. And, we understand that it was tough for you, our loyal viewers, to watch.

But this is HBO! We’re not censoring anything and we’re not making television that’s going to make the viewer “comfortable.” If you want that, go watch Modern Family with your kids. Make Pillsbury croissants and put them in the oven and, while they’re in the oven, make little Fimo animal sculptures that you’ll put in the oven after the croissants are done. And then talk about how amazing Cam is.

We understood that the viewers were going to be shocked and surprised by this scene because, really, what’s more surprising than seeing another rape on a show that has featured 14.3333 rapes. But, this is the brutal reality of a series based on a book set in an alternate universe in the past! Of course, Sansa herself didn’t get raped in the books, but someone got raped. And Sansa’s rape was a necessary and integral part of her character development for this season.

Sansa needed that final push to become a truly confident, empowered woman and take her rightful place at Winterfell. Naysayers say that the rape scene undermines Sansa’s character arc towards agency. In one fell swoop, they claim, we immediately took away that Tully sense of pride when she told Ramsay’s girlfriend “This is my home and you cannot frighten me.”

But what people aren’t seeing is that this was an act of agency on her part. She chose to marry Ramsay. It was a strategic decision. And being forced into bending over and take it from behind while Theon/Reek watches crying is another strategic decision. Being raped is her act of empowerment. Rape-powerment as we say in the Game of Thrones office. Remember how Daenerys took her traumatizing rape and turned it on its heels, learning how to be on top and ride Khal Drogo hard. Also, unrelatedly, remember how hot that was?!

Rape is the one true nadir in a woman’s life that forces her to turn things around and become a powerful avenger. True, Sansa’s already been through some horrible things that could motivate her to rebel against the Boltons: her husband’s family murdered her brother and mother; her father was executed by her last fiancé; she believes her little brothers were killed by Theon; she was a target of Geoffrey’s emotional and physical sadomasochism; and she almost got raped once at King’s Landing. But…eh. Sansa’s a girl. She isn’t a Westerosy man filled with fire and brimstone. She isn’t Rob, who led the north into war after his Dad was imprisoned. Sansa needed that last huge jigsaw piece of horrors to complete the horror jigsaw puzzle in her life. And we found it in Ramsay Bolton’s scrotum!

And how about Ramsay Bolton? Did you realize how sadistic he could be? Did you really? You knew he cut off Theon’s penis, tortured him for months, and maybe hunted his ex girlfriends for sport but did you think he could be this sadistic?

As for Theon, we thought it was important to take an already traumatized girl’s traumatic rape scene and use it as inspiration for a man with ambiguous morals to recapture his identity. Some people argue that, if we had to do this scene, we should have had the balls to end it on Sansa’s face. But, they don’t understand that Sansa’s rape isn’t entirely about her. I think, Theon might use this memory to recapture his manhood and join forces with the Stark supporters to help Sansa.

Honestly, I don’t understand where the critics are coming from. This isn’t a pretty universe. It’s HBO. It’s Game of Thrones. And, sure, the real Sansa doesn’t get raped in the books and we understand that but…

Ok — to be honest — the HBO execs give us a rape quota every year and SOMEBODY had to be raped in this episode. The quota’s a bit of a formula. Each rape is graded on a scale of from 1–5 and we have to earn at least 13 rape points each year. (There’s a similar quota for nudity and the amount of pomade we have to use on Jon Snow’s hair). We didn’t even initially count the Cersei Jaime Lannister scene last year but, after you guys insisted that it was rape, the execs let us give it a .3333 rating.

So there are more rapes to come and we’re running out of options. It’s not like we have much book material left to fall back on. Right now all we have for this season is… We don’t want to give spoilers but we can say this: Dame Diana Rigg, a cat o’nine tails, and another Bolton bastard child named Barnabus. He’s Ramsay’s eviler twin. Half his face is covered in greyscale, half of his face is covered in blackscale, and he has a diamond studded metal plate on his ass. (He lost his ass to greyscale.) Occasionally he tortures victims by sort of hopping backwards into them repeatedly.

It’s going to be so intense!

*In case you didn’t realize, this is a satire. The Game of Thrones producers did not write this letter. Lisa Gunn, a writer and comedian living in San Francisco, did. Her work has appeared in Bust, The Brooklyn Rail, Salon, and Nerve.com. Follow her on twitter @LC_Gunn.