Two Roads Diverged in a Scarlet Wood

Developments in HBO’s latest episode of Game of Thrones (see Game of Thrones Recap: Poor Sansa” – spoiler warning) resulted in fan site The Mary Sue announcing it will restrict coverage of the show going forward.

A lengthy post explains the decision and what The Mary Sue means by promotion:

So, from this point forth there will no longer be recaps, photo galleries, trailers, or otherwise promotional items about Game of Thrones on The Mary Sue. The newsworthiness of other items will be discussed by the editorial team on a case by case basis.

A Song of Ice and Fire series author George R.R. Martin found his blog besieged by commenters following the episode, however, it has always been his policy to refer discussion of the HBO series to other sites. He removed the comments and posted a response which says in part:

There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)… but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email.

Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements.

David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can.

And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can.

And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose… but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place.

In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey. Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.

50 thoughts on “Two Roads Diverged in a Scarlet Wood

  1. SPOILER WARNING

    In the SOI&F books, I nearly stopped reading during the second book, due to all the sexual violence. Felt much the same about what happens to Cersi in the latest book. I do think there are plenty of problems with the source materials and the TV series both.

    That said, I do think a lot of people outraged about the Sansa rape should ask themselves why that particular scene upset them so much, given all the other terrible acts (including rape) depicted on the show. Problematic, yes. But worth another firing up of the Internet Outrage Machine? I don’t know about that…

  2. Speaking strictly for myself, it’s because it seems that the showrunners weighed Theon’s book storyline (in which he empowers himself by redemption in rescuing a helpless, tortured damsel) and Sansa’s book storyline (in which she empowers herself by learning the art of politicking) and decided Theon’s was more important, so they sacrificed Sansa’s storyline and made HER the helpless, tortured damsel. They interrupted her growth as a character and made her a victim yet AGAIN so that Theon could be the hero. And IMO, that just sucked.

  3. @jayn

    Word. I’m really hoping that this doesn’t become a case of a male character finding redemption through the rape of a female character.

    That’s not just crap, but lame as well

  4. The whole “But this is different from the books” never made much sense. Martin has a lot of characters that cannot all be introduced and removing characters and topics meant that people will end up in positions where they never were in the book.

    The series and the books are two variations on a theme – complimentary in places, contradicting elsewhere. Think of them as two separate parallel realities if need be.

    The show runners could have handled Theon better this year but would it have been believable if he had managed to snap out of whatever is holding him down just by seeing Sansa? Something had to happen – and I would rather see Sansa as a victim than Sansa dead from being bitten or worse (which could also have been used to kick Theon into action). At least she is still alive and I will give the showrunners some time to see where they are going with all this…

    However – the whole outrage? Come on. They killed a pregnant woman. The Custer women were raped by pretty much everyone. Theon was abused really badly. Remember the first days of Dani and Drogo? Just because this did not happen to Sansa in the books, the outrage is dialed back in? (and what would have happened if what happened to Ramsay’s wife in the books had happened in last night’s episode instead?)

  5. >> I do think a lot of people outraged about the Sansa rape should ask themselves why that particular scene upset them so much, given all the other terrible acts (including rape) depicted on the show.>>

    In the case of TheMarySue, they do explain why this particular scene caused them to reach the decision they did, with reference to other scenes.

  6. Spoilers, duh!

    Noah – The Mary Sue article, along with the AV Club and several others do go into detail about why this one bothers them beyond just another scene of sexual violence in the series. So that is a question folks are asking.

    After last season I wouldn’t discount the show runners from knowing exactly the kind of reaction they’d get.

    I’m with Jayn in how these feels like a departure from the character arc they were establishing and appears to be sacrificing Sansa’s for Theon’s. Personally I didn’t care for Sansa’s chapters and was tired of Reek (and whoo boy does his chapters contain gratuitous violence not for the squeamish far beyond what’s in the show) and I understand they need to streamline some of AFFC and ADWD since there was a lot of wheels spinning in place that fans of epic fantasy series might stick through but HBO viewers might not.

    But I still think this is dumb. Petyr of the books wouldn’t have paired the ace up his sleeve with a loose cannon and the plan he proposes makes little sense compared to the books. The fact that Bolton didn’t actually marry a Stark would question the legitimacy to his claims to the North, only now he has really married a Stark so I’m not sure what the point of that is now or how they’re going to write their way out of several corners they just put themselves in.

    Too much of it seems like they went for shock value. I hope that proves to be wrong.

  7. and what would have happened if what happened to Ramsay’s wife in the books had happened in last night’s episode instead?

    HBO is lenient but not that lenient. Still I don’t think it would’ve caused much outrage since that would’ve been a non-main character who we hadn’t just seen married off twice before, once to someone who already abused her. We’ve seen her rise to start to have agency in her own destiny in the last season despite watching her struggle against helplessness, only to see her back in that position because she was inconvenient to the plot the show creators were crafting. So yeah, people probably would react differently to a different character experiencing a different set of situations leading up to that point.

  8. Except that at this point, the wife was always going to be Sansa…

    Oh – I wished more than once that either Sansa say no to the wedding or someone get her off all this fast (Brienne?) But once she decided to go through with the wedding, the wedding night was inevitable and only someone not watching could have expected something else from Ramsay.

    So yes – could have been handled a lot better, without ruining her growth but after Littlefinger convinced her to marry, there weren’t too many places for the writers to go – either get her say no at the wedding or say yes and get Ramsay to be Ramsay. And the first was not happening…

    So the outrage should have been a lot earlier, last few weeks really. Except that everyone expected a miracle I guess.

  9. Spoiler warning? I thought I danced around spoiling anything. Apologies if I didn’t.

    Anyhow, TMS and others gave a lot of verbiage to the issue, but I still think they are missing the issue of why certain terrible acts are beyond-the-pale, but others are entertainment. It’s like some kind of reverse-Pangloss. For the most part, I agree that this sort of sexual violence isn’t really entertaining (nor was seeing the torture of Theon throughout season 3, when mostly occurred off-page in the books). I’m just weary of the Internet Outrage Machine in general.

  10. Noah Body: Since everybody who commented after you discussed the spoiler now I am as mystified as you why I edited that warning into your comment…

  11. Off page in the books? Theon was tortured graphically in the books, several times, in detail reserved for banquets.

    I thought they nailed it in terms of what’s beyond the pale and what isn’t, as in when it creates dramatic tension to a story, or in the many ways it is used as a narrative device but why most of those ways don’t help here (it doesn’t help Bolton be more evil, or add to the other characters involved in the scene in ways that couldn’t have been done better otherwise).

    Like I said, I bet the show runners knew exactly the reaction they would get and if anything counted on it to keep people talking about the show and to continue to shock audiences that like to be shocked. They’ll probably zap the audience again as well to keep people making reaction videos and talking about it.

  12. Annie Y

    So the outrage should have been a lot earlier, last few weeks really. Except that everyone expected a miracle I guess.

    1. Non-book readers who didn’t know what happened to Jeyne in the books.
    2. Book readers who were deperately hoping for something different – like Jaime not being such an incompetent fighter as he was in the books or Tyrion escaping grotesque disfigurement in Blackwater.

  13. I don’t find the outrage so sudden as it’s been steadily building, at least in my circles. I imagine for most that are posting angry at the moment that this wasn’t so much a switch as it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  14. snowcrash,

    Fair points. But most of the screams I am seeing are from people that had read the books and are comparing to what happened there – and this is why I said that they were obviously expecting a miracle.

    I don’t know. I was not even surprised that it happened last night – I was sure it is where it was going even if I hoped that someone else may happen. It is badly handled but the writers put themselves in a corner and did not have so many moves left.

    As Matt Y said – shock value was probably part of the reason as well.

    On the other hand – a Stark wedding and noone died? Isn’t that a first?

  15. “So the outrage should have been a lot earlier, last few weeks really. Except that everyone expected a miracle I guess.”

    I assure you, I’ve been outraged for the last few weeks, ever since Littlefinger thought it was a good idea to bring Sansa to the Boltons, drop her there alone, and go posting off to King’s Landing, while Sansa went meekly along with it for no good reason I could see. My outrage only peaked last night…(though the showrunners may yet draw new heights from me…)

  16. Annie Y

    But most of the screams I am seeing are from people that had read the books and are comparing to what happened there – and this is why I said that they were obviously expecting a miracle.

    That would be the number 2. point in my post.

  17. snowcrash,

    Was agreeing with you by the end of that sentence (and I’ve said it before as well) 🙂

  18. a Stark wedding and noone died? Isn’t that a first?

    Bwahahaha, see, obviously not canon.

  19. Annie: On the other hand – a Stark wedding and noone died? Isn’t that a first?

    Well, that section of the script was titled “romance dies.”

  20. Let me ask a simple question – does anyone think that having Ramsey NOT rape Sansa on their wedding night would have been more believable?

    There’s already been sexualized violence on the show, and the rape was organic to the situation and characters. Is the outrage due to people not believing that such things would happen to a beloved major character? Why didn’t people triggered now stop watching in disgust when poor Ros was murdered by Joffrey?

  21. “Why didn’t people triggered now stop watching in disgust when poor Ros was murdered by Joffrey?”

    That actually is a factor for some. It’s a cumulative effect.

  22. @Cpaca

    I don’t think it boils down to rape/ not rape for Sansa.

    I dunno, different character, different levels of emotional investment?

  23. There’s another reason for this upset for some:

    A loud and toxic portion of the fanbase, small though it may be, has been rooting for this sort of thing to happen to that specific character for years.

    Couple that with the age of the actress, and how old she was when that nastiness started flying about.

    Some might feel that those sort of fans are the ones being catered to.

  24. Let me ask a simple question – does anyone think that having Ramsey NOT rape Sansa on their wedding night would have been more believable?

    So let me ask you a simple question: Suppose the scene had been more explicit–nudity, a screaming and crying Sansa, a beating that left her bloody and bruised, and penetration in full view of the camera.

    Suppose you objected to the staging of this scene.

    And suppose someone got in your face and demanded to know if you expected Ramsay to not rape Sansa.

    Would you feel like this question was directly on point? Or would you feel that the questioner was perhaps being willfully obtuse?

  25. We don’t have the Lady Without Mercy in the TV version. That leaves a job opening for someone to avenge the outrages against the Starks. I wonder if Sansa might be up to the job with assists from Brienne and the people of the North.

  26. Laertes, I haven’t had the chance to see the episode yet. From recaps, the camera focused on Theon’s face as the deed was done, which seems a reasonable level of discreteness.

    Your comment seems irrelevant, however – the criticism shown by the Mary Sue article is based on the *fact* of the rape NOT how it was *staged*. It could have been far more explicit; equally, it could have been far more discrete – but the criticisms would have been the same.

  27. XS

    A loud and toxic portion of the fanbase, small though it may be, has been rooting for this sort of thing to happen to that specific character for years.

    You’re kidding me. No. Just No.

    Cpaca – 2 things –
    1. See the ep, your perception of the scene is factually inaccurate.
    2. I think we’re not limited by the criticisms in the OP article, some of us have other issues with it as well.

  28. Sorry Cpaca, I misread your post, my number 1 point above should read “partially accurate”.

  29. One of the things that I think I should point out to my intense dislike of the Rape as Character Development trope. I tend to find it clumsy and lazy. When it’s done as Rape as Redemption I find it mind-blowingly offensive.

    I hope the showrunners are going somewhere better with this. But in the way the rape was framed, I’m not optimistinc.

  30. Cpaca – 2 things –
    1. See the ep, your perception of the scene is factually inaccurate.

    Noted – I will. Thank you.

    snowcrash: I dunno, different character, different levels of emotional investment?

    You can make a comparison directly to the death of Rob – *plenty* of other people had died miserably in the show before that, but everyone (who hadn’t read the books) was outraged when it happened to a viewpoint character people identified with, despite it being a consequence of his own actions.

    Hell, way back in the first series, Drago had sex with an unwilling Dany on their wedding night. It was called rape online back then because, by our standards, it was. But the people who are outraged now at it happening to Sansa have been watching four whole series after that first rape.

  31. does anyone think that having Ramsey NOT rape Sansa on their wedding night would have been more believable?

    I don’t think anyone is suggesting that. They’re questioning why Sansa, who in the books does not marry Bolton, was married to him and faced the fate of Jeyne. Because you’re right, it’s in line with Bolton’s character. But it’s out of character for Littlefinger who creepily became her protector and had her as his hidden surprise would abandon her to the Boltons.

    You’re right that if there was a completely different outcome there would be a completely different set of complaints. Since we’re working with what did occur though….

  32. Matt Y: But it’s out of character for Littlefinger who creepily became her protector and had her as his hidden surprise would abandon her to the Boltons.

    Yes, you are correct. Myself, I’d put it down to not realising what Ramsey was.

  33. Matt Y–“But it’s out of character for Littlefinger who creepily became her protector and had her as his hidden surprise would abandon her to the Boltons.”

    Littlefinger is maximizing disaster for certain parties for the benefit of other parties. There was a scene in the first season which would have sort of informed you where Littlefinger really stood.

  34. I have not read the books and I looked on in horror as Sansa was raped as Theon watched.

    Here’s my question; where was the outrage from The Mary Sue after the emascilation of Theon? Or The Red Wedding? Or any number of atrocities committed in We stores the past four seasons?

    Look, if they want to opt out of commenting or promoting Game if Thrones, fine. But they would have had A LOT MORE respect for this action if they had done it earlier this this point in the story. Just sayin’…

  35. “Littlefinger is maximizing disaster for certain parties for the benefit of other parties. There was a scene in the first season which would have sort of informed you where Littlefinger really stood.”

    Maybe Littlefinger’s plan IS to sit on the Iron Throne and look down at a crowd of beheaded aristocrats, and his game plan is supposed to be a series of twisted clever moves to achieve that end. But this season we see him cheerfully hand over a valuable game piece (Sansa) to a family of career flayers to be married to a scion he doesn’t know at all, under the Pollyannaish assumption that she will survive both him AND the war he expects Stannis to bring down on them, without being flayed, dead in a castle storming or starved in a siege, AND that she will bring about an outcome useful to him. IMO, it was an awesomely stupid move no matter how you look at it.

    And IMO, because it was so stupid, it looks to me like a ham-handed plot mutilation that chose to make clever Book Littlefinger into an idiot in order to
    deprive Book Sansa of her story of empowerment in learning politics in the Vale, SOLELY so that the producers could have that Sansa rape scene they seemed to want so badly. That’s what I’m objecting to.

  36. CPaca – Yes, you are correct. Myself, I’d put it down to not realising what Ramsey was

    Littlefinger making uninformed major decisions? I find that even more preposterous.

    Milt – Littlefinger is maximizing disaster for certain parties for the benefit of other parties. There was a scene in the first season which would have sort of informed you where Littlefinger really stood

    There were sort of many more scenes after that that would’ve informed you of his position, history, and continued development of the character in his regards to the Catelyn Stark, her daughter and how he thinks and plans. Littlefinger maximizes situations regardless of the outcome for those parties for the benefit of Littlefinger. Giving up the best card in his hand for little to no benefit isn’t in line with the character at all. I guess if this took place right after that scene though you’d have a really good point!

    Chris –Look, if they want to opt out of commenting or promoting Game if Thrones, fine. But they would have had A LOT MORE respect for this action if they had done it earlier this this point in the story. Just sayin’…

    They explain their position really well in the article linked.

    As for the other events, those were in the books, and between the show and the books they’re explained well within the context of the situations they’re in. The Red Wedding was a result of decisions Robb made. Theon’s fate was a result of a long series of decisions he made. Other atrocities in the book, such as Drogo’s rape of Daenerys was actually toned down from the books (along with several other things). For the most part main characters though have had a hand their fate, from Ned Stark sticking to his honor over everything, to the most recent events with Jon Snow, these are events that are shocking but the it’s not a story that delivers shocks like a haunted house at a fair, it has shocking moments within it but is dominated by a larger narrative they take place in.

    My problem is that with this decision they’ve made shocking the audience more important than the narrative. That’s not why I enjoy the series and I think diminishes the story Martin is telling by reducing it to such.

  37. I’m guessing Littlefinger wants the Boltons destroyed and the North separated from the Lannisters. If the North rises against the Boltons, they are likely to resist Stannis as well. Sansa is the right tool for the right job. Her death or major mistreatment will cause the North to rise.

  38. I’m guessing Littlefinger wants the Boltons destroyed and the North separated from the Lannisters. If the North rises against the Boltons, they are likely to resist Stannis as well. Sansa is the right tool for the right job. Her death or major mistreatment will cause the North to rise

    Seems odd then to allow Bolton to marry a Stark, which would cement his position in the North better than anything else. In fact the wedding is to attempt to convince the North to accept the Boltons, their presence is already tenuous. The North has no love for the Lannisters and it would seem unlikely that if they’d rise against Bolton that they would also by default rise against Stannis. If anything a mistreated Sansa who is saved by Stannis would make him the most sympathetic party to the North.

    If he wants the North to roust the Bolton’s, leaving Sansa behind to so Bolton could marry a Stark is a terrible idea all around.

  39. It does not matter. The SJWs turn on their own allies as soon as it suits them. Whedon and GRRM are merely the latest casualties/oppressors. This is nothing more than an extension of Racefail 09, Bulletin 201, etc.. Kowtowing to the SJW will get you nowhere. If you are an old white male baby boomer, you are on the clock with them.

  40. Oh xdpaul, why must you be so factually wrong?

    On Joss Whedon leaving twitter:

    “That is horseshit,” he told BuzzFeed News by phone on Tuesday. …
    “I saw a lot of people say, ‘Well, the social justice warriors destroyed one of their own!’ It’s like, Nope. That didn’t happen,” he continued. “I saw someone tweet it’s because Feminist Frequency pissed on Avengers 2, which for all I know they may have. But literally the second person to write me to ask if I was OK when I dropped out was [Feminist Frequency founder] Anita [Sarkeesian].”

    And on GRRM – I dunno, most of what I’ve seen is asking what the showrunners and/or HBO is doing. Maybe I just hang around a crowd that knows the difference between a novel and it’s adaptation?

  41. Hi Paul! So do you think that the rape makes sense in context of the continuing character arc for Sansa and that it fits with what we know of Littlefinger? What did you think of them merging the plot lines of Jeyne and Sansa?

  42. Matt Y : The Red Wedding was a result of decisions Robb made.

    While trying to avoid victim-blaming, isn’t that just what happened here when Sansa agreed to Littlefinger’s scheme? Indeed, for noble girls, there’s an expectation of arranged marriage and therefore sex ranging from the “get it over with” to outright rape. And look how marvelously that worked out for Cersei…

    And it occurs to me that having a Bolton marry a Stark makes sense for Littlefinger IF he expects the Boltons to shortly suffer a serious existence failure – it leaves Sansa already in position to pick up the pieces.

  43. While trying to avoid victim-blaming, isn’t that just what happened here when Sansa agreed to Littlefinger’s scheme?

    I think there’s a considerable difference in Robb choosing to follow his heart at the expense of insulting a House and making enemies whose anger is deeper than he realizes, and Sansa, who agreed with a man she was essentially a hostage for and not an equal partner in the plan in any shape or form. Speaking of things that fall out of character, it’s also really odd for her at this point to meekly accept such since this is her third husband.

  44. CPaca on May 19, 2015 at 9:26 am said:

    Matt Y : The Red Wedding was a result of decisions Robb made.

    While trying to avoid victim-blaming, isn’t that just what happened here when Sansa agreed to Littlefinger’s scheme? …”

    Sansa AGREEING to Littlefinger’s scheme is a big part of what I object to about the whole plotline. Sansa escaped from King’s Landing, from a forced marriage to a family that helped kill her family. Having escaped that, Littlefinger proposes ANOTHER marriage to a family that helped kill her family, in order to avenge her family, in a plan that (as LF explained it) has an Underpants Gnome probability of succeeding, i.e.:

    Step 1: Marry the son of the man who killed your mother and brother
    (a son who the minimal level of background research will show has an unhealthy interest in torture.)
    Step 2: ??????
    Step 3: Revenge!

    Sansa meekly allows herself to be convinced by this abortion of a plan instead of demanding to go back to the Vale. IMO, only a lobotimized girl would do so after the experiences Sansa has had. Ergo, the showrunners lobotomized Sansa so they could shoehorn her into the Jeyne Poole victim role. They had everyone concerned act like an idiot so they could get Sansa into a position where Ramsey could rape Sansa so that THEON could have his hero’s transformation in saving her. It is that unnecessary and stupid book distortion for cheap shock value that I object to.

  45. Chris Barkley said: “Here’s my question; where was the outrage from The Mary Sue after the emascilation of Theon? Or The Red Wedding? Or any number of atrocities committed in We stores the past four seasons?

    Look, if they want to opt out of commenting or promoting Game if Thrones, fine. But they would have had A LOT MORE respect for this action if they had done it earlier this this point in the story. Just sayin’…”

    They did. This has been building for a long time–they were critical of those things when they happened, they wrote a lot about them, and they ultimately said something along the lines of, “Well, because this was in the books and it was more or less dramatically necessary to get to the plot points that GRRM had already established in later storyarcs, we’ll give them another chance or two. But we’re not happy.” They mention in the linked article that the show had narrowly escaped this fate once before, in fact.

    Then the showrunners rewrote the series to add a rape scene that GRRM hadn’t included. That was pretty much the last straw. I don’t see why they should be criticized for their principled stance that is no doubt going to hurt their blog traffic because they didn’t act sooner. Maybe criticize instead the showrunners for saying, “Hey, it’s been almost three weeks since a rape scene! We’ve got a reputation to maintain!” 🙂

  46. Matt Y : Littlefinger making uninformed major decisions? I find that even more preposterous.

    Ah, here we go:

    http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/17/game-thrones-sansa-ramsay-interview

    We heard about this scene while on the Thrones set in October and were able to briefly discuss it with producer Bryan Cogman, who also wrote the episode […]

    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 Game of Thrones,” 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.”
    […]
    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.”

  47. Aside from how ridiculous I think that is in general, He knows they’re scary and creepy and not to be folly trusted should be enough to know to not leave an asset like a Stark child, whose mother he truly cared for and mentioned (in the show even) how she reminded him of her, in the care of them. If that’s the kind of Littlefinger they’re portraying as well, then I also have additional issues with how they’re diverging.

  48. My issue with the Sansa scene is with the *how*, not the *what*. The what of it — Sansa’s being used as a pawn in Littlefinger’s larger plan, Ramsay being a psycho, Sansa’s agency versus the agency of women in general in this world — you can argue back and forth all day and never come up with a final answer. There are ways to think of it to make everything internally consistent and there are ways that seem inconsistent or backwards. Whatever.

    But how the scene was presented didn’t seem very insightful or useful. Given how much of the episode felt so clunky, I suspect some of the blame should go to the director (Jeremy Podeswa).

    My issue with how people are arguing about what happened to Sansa is that there is a lot of confusing of how and what, of people’s empathy with the Sansa character versus Sansa’s role in the story.

    I really hope the main point of this storyline isn’t going to be about the “salvation” of Theon. That would really suck. And I doubt it is going to be a Lady Snowbird kind of story (Arya’s already doing that, minus the rape). But if this is somehow part of Sansa growing into a real bad-ass, Cersi type (with less drinking, incest and, you know, evil), it could be interesting. But for now, I am more ambivalent than outraged.

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