Death of character in Game of Thrones
In Indian mythology there exists an incomparable feminine deity called Kali. The ultimate destroyer the ultimate dominatrix her insatiable desire to devour male blood and decapitate his monstrous head sends her into such a delirium that the three worlds quake in trepidation. To stem her rampage her partner Shiva prostrates himself in front of her. Only when she steps on his supine body does she snap out of her mad fury.
And then there is the Dragon Queen.
What she does to King’s Landing is what any conqueror would do. Destroy. Destruction is the skill base of any conqueror’s job profile in the Middle Ages. Rape and pillage is forgivable even for a piddly Lord, but interestingly, not for Daenerys Stormborn. Who neither raped nor pillaged.
Even if it was a moral and ethical mistake to wipe out innocent millions the evil Queen Cersei was using as a shield, it was probably the only mistake Daenerys made in her illustrious career as Breaker of Chains. Why could she not be forgiven? She was after all, doing what conquerors do.
But no. A woman, may she be a conqueror and creator of fire breathing dragons must be faithful to the character essence of a woman. Climactically, she must become this neurotic premenstrual harridan grappling with another hysterical woman in just another irrational cat fight. Even in a fantasy this is the best way for a woman to be true to character.
As for rationality, considering how loyal Varys, Tyrion and Jon Snow turned out to be, was she mad to distrust them or intuitively shrewd?
But there is never any logic in the debasement of a woman. Not that anyone is asking.
Jon Snow, a personal favourite, leading the Game of Thrones ‘men of honour’ list does not try to talk the Dragon Queen out of her irrationality but stabs her in the heart at her most vulnerable moment. Shiva could teach him a thing or two about honour.
He destroys forever his glorious moment at the Battle of Bastards, his heroism at the Wall and beyond with the Wildlings. He can no longer be the man who always does the right thing. He has no moral high ground over Theon, who at least stood by his sister, spineless weakling though he was.
Jon Snow exposes a narrative that will deify a woman up till the point that she is still controllable and malleable. Beyond this point there is nothing for her except a justifiable excuse for a stab in the heart. At her most intimate moment.
It’s a narrative that has no place for the sacredness of the feminine like Kali.
A place where a woman’s anger is meant to be appeased not erased and definitely not derided.
At the end the glorious Arya whose character arc had created this indomitable girl child of epic proportions no longer has a vindictive eye for justice. She becomes another bickering relative plotting to overthrow the unpopular in-law.
Sansa at the end never grows out of her victimhood and is at best a canny survivor who has learned the politics of subserving to her brothers while competing with the other women in their lives.
Even Cersei, the ultimate anti heroine is not even driven by overarching ambition for power or glory. Her cruelty comes from a need to protect her family.
From larger than life to the dimininutive. Small characters petty lives.
Its almost as if every female character in Game of Thrones understands the subtext of the grandeur of her narrative arc. There are limits. Especially if you are a mother of fire breathing dragons. More so for you. You are on thin ice, girl, you are too big for your character and patriarchy is gonna come and get you. No woman can escape the long phallus of patriarchy.
I had enjoyed Game of Thrones for the sheerness of neurodiversity. There was always a tie between Jon Snow and Tyrion, and Tyrion as a master of disability mostly won. His whoremongering was somehow indulgently forgiven, so was his murder and parricide, but not his treachery to his Queen. That is when his character just curled up and died.
As a disabled person surviving against all odds wherefrom his moralising pomposity? He is allowed to kill his lover and father in a fit of rage but his Queen is not allowed a single moment of weakness?
Even Drogon melts the Iron Throne but does not singe a hair on Jon Snow’s head. Almost as if he understands the gender code. Leave the boy alone. For the boy all sins are forgiven.
In the last scene Drogon melts away all the fantastical diversity and romance and magic of the series. He carries away his dead mother and leaves in their wake the debris of a white hegemony. And I’m not talking about the White Walkers.
Brandon Stark the boy who could not walk but who could fly transforms from a three eyed Raven to a dead pan social climbing opportunist positioned conveniently at the right time and the right place to become the occupier of the Iron Throne.
Samwell Tarly, charming reader of books and gentle protector of women is also sitting at the high table as a reward for betraying his Queen. The Stark brothers and sisters divide the seven kingdoms between themselves without shedding a drop of ink or blood.
The seven kingdoms lest you forget is the ‘whole world’. Just like how a pie- eating contest in Kentucky is an international ‘world’ contest. And how the best actor at the Oscars is the best actor in the whole world.
Of course the rulers of the seven kingdoms are untainted by melanin.
Grey worm could easily have ruled in the name of his deposed Queen or found someone suitable who could. But he makes no effort to take over the Iron Throne. Instead he arranges a meeting between the bwanas where he is firmly told ‘it’s not for you to decide’. He is the only one in the gathering who leads an unvanquished army but what does he do?
He fades quietly and conveniently into the background. Presumably to pine for the death of the only other token black presence in the series. Missandei.
That is how the characters sketched so endearingly from Season 1 onwards burns to a crisp like a self combusting dragon at the end of Season 8.
In the end, after all, the women are without substance, and the men without honour in this most subversively misogynic, racist and beloved story in ‘the whole world’.
It’s not just history that is witten by the conquerors but fantasy too.
