From a father burning his daughter alive, to a brother raping his sister over the corpse of their dead son, it's little wonder that Game of Thrones shocks its audience.
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Since the HBO show premiered in 2011, critics have frequently accused Game of Thrones of going too far, most recently "that thing that happened this week" and with the rape of Sansa Stark on her wedding night.
While many fed-up fans threatened to boycott the show - one US senator called Sansa's rape "disgusting and unacceptable" - the series is still one of the most popular in recent history.
So why do we keep tuning in to television shows such as Game of Thrones, True Detective and Breaking Bad when they appal us with almost each and every episode?
University of Wollongong media studies professor Dr Sue Turnbull says it's the strength of plotlines, characters and moral struggles which keep us coming back for more despite stomach-churning violent scenes.
"One of the reasons why Game of Thrones is so successful is because it's got so many different storylines," Dr Turnbull says.
"It goes so swiftly in terms of alteration from one scene to another. The violent content may only be one very small aspect of the overall pleasure in viewing, where you're driven by other things than the desire to watch violence.
"It might be that you actually don't like those violent moments, but there's enough good things going on."
The same can be said for Breaking Bad, which developed a cult-like following, despite its dark and often-gruesome scenes, because the fate of protagonist Walter White was so fascinating.
"People may have been engaging with that because what you're watching is a moral morass as this character slides further and further towards becoming what he feared most."
What a viewer can tolerate however, depends on the individual.
"We all have an aesthetic frame of things we can watch comfortably and those we can't watch comfortably," Dr Turnbull says.
Dr Turnbull says we have developed to view graphic violence in fictional shows and the real world differently, but Macquarie University development psychology professor Dr Wayne Warburton argues our brain can't differentiate between the two.
"The human brain didn't evolve to separate the unreal from the real," Dr Warbuton says.
"People who have a lot of exposure to violent media including violent television, over the longer term, tend to see the world as a lot more hostile than it really is.
"They're more likely to be desensitised to everyday violence."
