Game of Thrones viewers in China 'beg' for sex and violence to not be censored in final season

Game of Thrones viewers in China 'beg' for sex and violence to not be censored in final season

As the final season of HBO's blockbuster television series Game of Thrones hits screens around the world today, audiences in China are begging for the explicit scenes of sex and violence not to be censored.

Key points: Posts with #GameofThronesSeasonEight have racked up more than 100 million views on Weibo

Many Chinese viewers have vowed to boycott the censored version of the show on Tencent Video

Chinese authorities recently ramped up pressure to censor "vulgar" content

After a near two-year hiatus, the first episode of the final instalment was made available for streaming on Tencent Video at the same time it was released in the United States.

Season eight has been one of the most discussed topics on Chinese social media in the lead-up to its release, with the hashtag related to the topic racking up more than 100 million views on Weibo.

Even Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reportedly name-dropped the show at the start of a summit last week in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where parts of the hit drama were filmed.

While the show's explicit sex scenes and violence are a key ingredient to its success, China's heavy-handed censors have repeatedly denied its citizens of the most memorable moments of previous seasons.

Disgruntled viewers in China have previously compared the significantly edited version to a "medieval castle documentary".

According to the South China Morning Post, one example of the extent of censorship is evident in the very first season of Game of Thrones in which brother and sister Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen are seen together as Daenerys takes a bath.

The confronting scene of Viserys casually fondling his sister shocked many viewers — but the nude elements were cut in the Chinese version.

And in a more recent episode in season seven, parts of a scene in which an Archmaester slices open a corpse and asks steward Samwell Tarly to weigh its heart were also reportedly removed.

'Daddy Tencent please don't censor it, I beg you'

While Chinese Game of Thrones fans know all too well that the final season is likely to be stripped of its ample nudity and bloody massacres in line with past seasons, many still took to social media to plead for reduced censorship.

"Daddy Tencent please don't censor it, I beg you," one Weibo user wrote.

"I will watch it if it's not censored, but that's not realistic," said another user.

"I bet it's going to be censored so I won't watch it on your platform."

Despite the apparent outrage over the censored Game of Thrones, Chinese audiences are used to "clean" versions of imported movies and TV dramas without the violence, nudity, sex scenes, and profanity.

Chinese authorities have also in recent years ramped up pressure on the television and film industry to "clean up" content they deem vulgar.

For example, while the blockbuster Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody recently opened for viewing in a limited number of Chinese arthouse cinemas, it was heavily edited to remove any mention of the Queen singer's sexuality, or his later AIDS diagnosis.

The absence of about four minutes' worth of footage left some viewers complaining that the film was "out of context".

And in the Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water, a woman who was seen walking towards a bathtub while completely naked in the original version of the film was seen wearing a black dress in the Chinese version.

Fed up with the censored versions of their favourite movies and dramas, many Chinese viewers have turned to virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent the great firewall of Chinese government censorship.