Season 3 is over, your favorite characters are dead, Winds of Winter isn't coming out until who-the-fuck-knows-when, and it will be A WHOLE YEAR until season 4—so, guys, let's chat about Game of Thrones and feminism in the meantime! Yay!
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR BOOK 3. SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4. (Unless you're like my boyfriend who got 5 pages into A Feast for Crows, and said fuck it and read the wiki instead.)
After the first season of the TV show and before I delved into reading the books, I happened upon Sady Dolye's epic and hilarious takedown of books 1 - 4. So, naturally, I began to read the books with a critical eye. Many people have jizzed themselves over how feminist George RR Martin's writing is, how he writes lady characters really well, blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong, I love this series just as much as the next person—the characters, imagery and world building are absolutely amazing (Also: DRAGONS!!!). And because you, me and a shit ton of other people love it so much, I definitely think it's worth (necessary even!) to calm down and take stock of its feminist shortcomings. If George RR Martin can improve on JRR Tolkien, I'm sure someone out there can improve on George RR Martin.
In this post I want to take a look at Shae. If you've only been following along with the TV show, Shae is a mysterious, yet fiesty camp follower/sex worker who becomes Tyrion's personal whore. But Shae just isn't any whore. Tyrion thinks he has her all figured out, but Shae keeps her past private. She is more than willing to threaten a maid with a knife to protect Sansa and would be happy to run off with Tyrion to Essos. Unfortunately, book Shae is not as bad ass.
Book Shae pretty much just pouts her lips, always ready to have sex with Tyrion and wants to wear pretty dresses and jewels:
“I know.” Shae wriggled atop him, smiling. “Just where you belong.” Her mouth turned pouty. “But how long must I go on with Lollys, now that you’re well?” A Storm of Swords, Book 3, Page 169
Shae eventually betrays Tyrion when he falls from power and she is offered gold from his enemies. So here we have a sex worker who adheres to every misogynist stereotype you can imagine—sex workers are total gold diggers who just want swindle dudes for their monies when they should be fucking them for free, amirite?! In reality, sex work is dangerous and not necessarily lucrative. It's funny how history can inspire so many elements in Game of Thrones, but creating a well rounded sex worker doesn't get the same treatment. (Sorry Molly Pitcher, you're just a whore!)
But, Lynx, you say, not every character can be the best, most well rounded character ever! That's true—but even in this one dimensional character's death, she isn't even written like a human.
After Shae betrays Tyrion, he finds her in the most unlikely of places—Tywin's bed, with the chain of the Hand around her neck. Shae tries to sweet talk Tyrion, but Tyrion is having none of it. He takes the chain in his hands and strangles her to death with it. And while this makes Shae just another woman in a refrigerator, that's not even the part that gets my panties in a twist. From a writer's perspective, I'm not sure even how Tyrion is able to kill Shae. Ideas? Anyone? Here's the scene:
“More than anything,” she said, “my giant of Lannister.” That was the worst thing you could have said, sweetling. Tyrion slid a hand under his father’s chain, and twisted. The links tightened, digging into her neck. “For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman’s hands are warm,” he said. He gave cold hands another twist as the warm ones beat away his tears. Afterward he found Lord Tywin’s dagger on the bedside table and shoved it through his belt. A Storm of Swords, Book 3, Page 1071
Yeah, like how did Shae not poke out his eyes? Wrap her legs around his neck and fling him across the room? How did he even slip his hands under the chain? I don't need an exact minute by minute account until her last breath, but seriously? C'mon. This scene reminds me of the movie Stage Beauty where Billy Crudup's character Ned Kynaston is obsessed with Desdemona dying "beautifully." Claire Danes' character, Mariah, finally gets fed up with him and yells:
I always hated you as Desdemona. You never fought! You just died, beautifully. No woman would die like that, no matter how much she loved him. A woman would fight!
But Shae does not fight. She just dies beautifully in a poetic, tragic scene where the rich white dude exacts his revenge and goes off to find his true love (who, guys, really wasn't a whore! Really! Jamie says so!) So when someone tells you that Games of Thrones is so "realistic," remember that when real sex workers are murdered, it's not beautiful. When the realism is saved for plot points like war, but not for the sex worker, you begin to wonder what kind of fantasy you are actually reading.
