After that season 6 finale of Game of Thrones, I have so many feelings and thoughts. For now, however, I would like to focus on the women.


This episode proved that season 7 of Game of Thrones is going to be the "season of women." In the first six seasons we have largely been experiencing the universe through male power dynamics and attempts to resolve age old male conflicts. However, season 6, episode 10 has set an unprecedented number of women (at least in Westeros) into positions of great political power. We have Daenerys and Yara Greyjoy teamed up and moving from Essos to Westeros, Darth Cersei sitting on the Iron Throne (*gulp*), Sansa Stark, although under Jon, certainly has her spoon stirring the Northern plot, wildcard Arya is seeking to finish her kill-list (only Cersei and the Mountain to go!), and Lady Olenna and Ellaria Sand plotting it up with Varys in Dorne.


Yara and Daenerys are going to be a force to be wreckoned with. Between Dany's dragons and Yara's extensive fleet of ships, the current Westerosi powerhouses had better brace themselves for a bitter battle if they have any chance at holding their positions.

Cersei has always been a bit dark, but this episode seems to be pushing a comparison between Cersei and the Mad King. He prepped the fire to "burn them all" and Cersei actually took action. Unfortunately for her, she may be sorry she used up the wildfire before the White-walkers arrive on the scene. If nothing else, it seems that Jamie has finally come around the the position he holds in the books of being 100% OVER Cersei's BS. Did you see that look he gave her as he watched her take the throne? Something tells me that Jamie may have to decide whether or not to take out a second "Mad" ruler. This would, after all, complete the Valonqar prophecy.


Although I specifically mentioned Arya as a wildcard above, I would argue that this is actually true of each of the Stark sisters. Ever since Sansa's time with Baelish, the audience has been exposed to a back and forth tendency in Sansa where we are not quite sure where her loyalties lie. In fact, I would argue that the hardships that she has faced have her becoming more and more like Cersei (which is obviously quite troubling). Arya, on the other hand is pretty clear about who she is and what she wants, but I am unsure how this is going to impact the overall power structure of Westeros. We saw at the end of this episode, however, that her ability to take faces is one that will allow her to get close to her enemies and perform her kills and taking out the last two people on her kill list will most certainly shake things up.


I am still a bit unsure how Lady Olenna and Ellaria Sand will play into things but the season finale suggests that Varys is going to put these powerful ladies to good use in some one or other of his own plots.

Clearly season seven is going to be largely about the ladies of Westeros. It will be interesting to see if there might be an argument to be made about the difference in rule and political problems in gendered terms. But for now...we will have to wait and see. Is it next year yet? I'm already singing Beyonce ("Who run the world? Girls!") and waiting impatiently...
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Although I am unsure whether I have ever mentioned this in any of the House Lorch blog posts that came before this one, a couple of my larger areas of academic interests are children's and young adult literature & media and women's & girls' studies. As a result, I have found that I tend to gravitate toward explorations of the way in which literature and media construct and depict interpersonal relationships between women (or girls...or women AND girls).


More often than not, women's relationships, especially those with rivals (or frenemies), are centered on social, rather than physical, aggression. When girls are young, they are often socialized in a way that discourages physical aggression and, as a result, girls often seek out other avenues to express frustration (Lipkin 92). Instead, girls are more likely to partake in relational aggression (i.e. "being emotionally hurtful through rejection, sending rumors around, gossiping strategically, and withholding or denying friendship in order to reinforce or foster a social pecking order") which allows girls to be aggressive in ways that are more covert (97). This is not the same for boys, who are less apt to be punished for displaying aggressive behavior. This kind of relational aggression is something I have been tracking between Cersei and Margaery.


Interestingly Elline Lipkin points out that these relationships often come to a head as a result of disputes over relationships with men. This is particularly true when a romantic relationship exists at the center of the relationship between one of the women and the male in question. Of course, the struggle between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is nothing really new. I am interested, however, in the way in which Margaery and Cersei go about making one another miserable. As much as some feel that this series depicts strong female figures, the use of relational aggression between these two characters is fairly stereo-typical and demonstrates women sticking to their usual cattiness toward one another.


To make things even worse, in their relational aggression towards one another, these characters tear one another apart using female oriented insecurities related to age and beauty. Naomi Wolf once wrote about the way in which beauty culture tends to divide women of different generations even if it might be in their best interest to come together to move women forward (Wolf 283).  She writes: "the links between generations of women must always be newly broken...older women fear young ones, young women fear old..." (Wolf 14). I do not mean to argue that the beauty myth is a sole driver of the divide between Margery and Cersei but the tension related to the beauty myth is certainly central to their relational assaults. For example, Margaery's "sister or mother," or later "queen mother or queen regent" question that she has posed to Cersei are clearly a jab at their age difference. In Cersei's flashback earlier this season we also know that Cersei fears a younger beauty that will take her place as queen.


Going back to the relational agression, we have seen in these last episodes (S5.E3-S5.E6) that Cersei is spreading rumors and exercising power to remove Margaery from her support system (sending her father to Braavos, having Ser Loras arrested, etc.). Clearly, Cersei has the kind of power that comes with age and Margaery the power that stems from beauty. It will be interesting to continue watching the way in which these two characters navigate their relationship (both with one another and Tommen) in the coming episodes. In the mean time, I will continue to think of these two as "the mean girls of Westeros."



Works Cited:
Lipkin, Elline. Girls' Studies. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2009. Print.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women. New York: Anchor Books, 1991. Print
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