How ‘Game of Thrones’ failed its female characters

In the abstract, Season 8 sounds like Game of Thrones‘ female-friendliest yet.

The struggle for the Iron Throne has come down to Cersei and Daenerys. Arya slayed the Night King. Brienne got knighted and got laid. Lyanna Mormont is this season’s breakout fan fave. And Sansa, much-abused, much-maligned Sansa, has emerged as one of the smartest players in the game.

So why does it all ring so hollow?

From the beginning, Game of Thrones has distinguished itself through its female characters. Unlike so many other prestige dramas, fantasy sagas, and (pseudo) historical epics, it considered seriously how women and girls might fit into this patriarchal, misogynistic world, how they might be shaped by it, and how they might shape it in turn.

It was a show as interested in how Catelyn guided her son’s ascension to King in the North, as it was in any of the military campaigns he waged to get there. It drew Cersei, the conniving queen to a boorish king, as a compelling figure in her own right. It demonstrated how a sweet girl like Sansa might learn to wield her words as weapons, or a shrewd lady like Margaery might exert soft power through feminine charm. And we got to see how characters as different as Arya, Brienne, and Daenerys bucked their society’s gender norms, or didn’t.

Even in its iffiest moments, though, the show’s saving grace was its commitment to character.

True, Game of Thrones‘ feminism was never perfect. (Remember when Dany got raped in the very first episode? Or those ridiculous sexposition scenes in Littlefinger’s brothel?) Even in its iffiest moments, though, the show’s saving grace was its commitment to character. Through the first four (or so) seasons, the series’ refusal to sort its characters into simple archetypes, its insistence on drilling into their thorny psychologies, its prioritization of slow burns and long games over quick and easy payoffs, yielded some of the most thrillingly complicated female characters on television. 

But Game of Thrones has been on a creative decline for years now, basically ever since the show ran out of books to adapt. Storylines have been stripped down to their most basic beats, to be rushed through as quickly as possible, as with the zombie-capturing expedition last season or the Jon-Dany romance this season. Characters have been whittled down to a single defining personality trait, and the relationships between them simplified to the point of nonsensicality: Does it really make sense for Sansa and Arya to share such an easy sisterly bond? Even the visuals have been robbed of color, detail, and light, though Game of Thrones insists that part is your fault. 

This is true of all things Game of Thrones at this point, not just its female characters. But watching Sunday’s “The Last of the Starks,” it’s apparent that, for all the girl-power posturing we’ve seen lately,  the women of this show have suffered most of all.

Cersei and Daenerys have lost any nuance either one of them had, turning into reckless, ruthless, power-mad despots. Brienne’s lovely relationship with Jaime was reduced to a few quick fucks and then a teary goodbye. Sansa summed up years of sexual assault and psychological torment by explaining that if it weren’t for “Littlefinger and Ramsay and the rest, I would have stayed a little bird all my life.”

Arya’s ugly past as an assassin has been wiped clean, leaving her as a purely heroic figure. Melisandre died unceremoniously once the show ran out of stuff for her to do. Missandei, one of the few women of color ever to exist on this show, was beheaded for shock value. 

The thing is, any one of these storylines could have worked. (Well, maybe not Missandei getting fridged — that one’s bullshit, through and through.) Brienne’s emotional journey has been one of slowly opening up; it makes sense that she’d be devastated after getting dumped by the first person she’s ever let herself be vulnerable with. Sansa has been changed by her trauma, and it’s worth exploring how she’s processed it. Dany’s Targaryen tendency toward tyranny was seeded back in Season 1, so it’s hardly a surprise that it’s coming up now. 

But that would have required a level of patience and attention that Game of Thrones doesn’t have anymore. In its rush to resolve these years-long arcs, the show has relegated them to the same lazy archetypes this show once tried to avoid: the ambitious bitch, the brokenhearted girlfriend, the “empowered” rape survivor.

The men, at least, have better — more active, more essential, more flattering — tropes to return to, because men have always had better tropes to return to in stories like these. Jon is your classic noble hero, and just in case you’re not convinced, Season 8 has propped him up by throwing Dany under the bus — not least by emphasizing how little he really wants power. (Strangely, Jon’s frequent insistence that he does not want to get promoted has never led to him actually turning down a promotion. But that’s a rant for another day.)

Jaime seems poised to do something stupid and noble once he’s reunited with Cersei. Euron gets to be the bad boy, felling dragons and seducing queens. Tyrion and Varys are still the guys behind the guys, pulling all the strings from the shadows.

There are still two episodes left of Game of Thrones, and it is theoretically still possible that the show will turn it around. Perhaps Sansa will ascend to the throne, or Dany will prove to be a just ruler, or Brienne will wipe away her tears and jump back into the fray — though doing so in a way that undoes all the fuckery of recent seasons seems more than this show is up for these days.

But from here, I’m guessing that, like so many other Game of Thrones twists, this latest disappointing turn was foreshadowed long ago. Maybe Jaime had it right, last season, when he mused, “It really is all cocks in the end.”