Trigger warning: some of the topics discussed in this article may be troubling to some readers. Please check out one of our other articles if this one has the potential to negatively impact your mental health.
This is probably obvious, but spoiler alert for everything up to Season 8, Episode 3.
As Game of Thrones nears its series finale, I think it’s time for a good review of where it’s come from. My hot take? Game of Thrones got better when all the men died.
The show has definitely had its problems in the past, and I have plenty of friends who’ve boycotted it altogether after one too many rape scenes. That seems like a pretty low expectation to set, but apparently the show still couldn’t come through, especially in its early days.
For everybody who had to tap out – I get it. Seriously. As a fan of the show, I still more than understand when people say it just glorifies violence too much and they don’t want to support it.
But I will say that there was a certain turnaround point around season six or seven, when things finally started to change for the better, and not just in gender politics and equality, but in honest-to-god breaking the monotony and telling better stories.
The women stopped filling the roles of just sex toy, mother or occasional intrigue and started actually pulling most of the weight in politics, war and motivations – and it vastly improved the show.
And that only happened after most of the menfolk had died.
There was a certain scene that I remember specifically from S7E2, in which we saw Lady Olena (RIP), Elaria Sand (RIP), Yara Greyjoy and Daenerys all together around the battle plans, debating their next move about how to take down Cersei Lannister.
The scene stuck out to me because it was the first time we saw four absolute powerhouse ladies unencumbered by male voices, and they got to work together in the same capacity as all the kings, knights and advisors we’d seen so far. (Which, additionally, was in retaliation against another powerhouse woman who they just happen to be pitted against.)
In fact, the only man in the room was Tyrian, who hung out at Daenerys’ elbow, offered the occasional help and otherwise shut up and drank his wine.
I want to make the point here that this isn’t just a #frustratedfeminist post. My thesis here is that after all those abusive men ended up killing each other off, we were left with nothing but women who were there to take up the roles left behind. (And by the way, this is historically accurate in regard to what’s happened when large populations of the men have died in a society; just look at WWII and Rosie the Riveter.)
Personally speaking, my opinion of the show has gone way up in the past few seasons because A) our female characters are no longer being abused, B) the sh!tty men who were in charge are now dead and C) we can stop focusing solely on interpersonal drama (usually abuse) between characters and get to objectively better plots.
I don’t want to see another plot line about a prostitute getting beaten up because it does nothing for the show. I do, however, want to see the defeat of the Night King and the fight for the Iron Throne. It’s richer, more compelling storytelling, and we only managed to get here with female leadership. After weeding out half the cast of male characters, we can see that they were only ever in the way of the women in charge, as well as in the way of good old-fashioned, better storytelling.