This year’s annual Game of Thrones fever was an intense few weeks. The series is coming to a close, drawing together loose threads and tying up character arcs established six seasons ago. This is hugely exciting for long term fans of the series and fans of good television in general – because, let’s be honest, Thrones has been outstanding television. But now we’re approaching the end, we’re able to take stock of how the series has developed and how showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff (D&D from here on in) have crafted their adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy novels. That word adaptation is pretty key here, because, for all their similarities, the show and the novels are very different. The latter are as sprawling and complex as the mediaeval history they emulate, and naturally D&D have had to make a lot of choices about what goes into the show and what gets left out. This is an inevitable part of the adaptation process – there are always losses and gains. It’s important, however, not to take the specific losses and gains that happen in the process as given – what gets cut and what gets brought in is not inevitable, it is always a choice.
D&D’s series has been full of choices that they have made, in their considerable experience, to make the best show possible. No one is arguing that they’ve not been successful in that venture – again, it’s a great show – but this doesn’t mean we can’t scrutinise some of those choices and consider what that indicates about the culture Thrones has been produced in, the culture it reflects and influences. This is especially interesting in the show’s case, because what began as adaptation has become something else. At the end of season five, D&D had pretty much exhausted the material in Martin’s published novels and thereafter have been pretty much making it up themselves. Sure, we’re told that Martin let D&D in on how he sees everything going down in his world, but it’s also been publicly stated that the action in the final two books in Martin’s series will be significantly different from their show equivalents, even if there are some events that remain the same. So, really, for the last two years D&D have not been producing an adaptation as much as a really expensive, really elaborate fanfiction.
This is not to criticise fanfiction at all: there’s some fantastic stuff out there. It’s just worth highlighting that what appears to be official is really just two mega fans offering up their own version of a fictional world they love, imagining what all the characters do and how the story might end – a bit like Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movies. So the choices D&D have made in adaptation are now becoming amplified as they progress further and further into unknown, Martin-less territory. This season, the differences between D&D-led writing and Martin-led adaptation are particularly obvious in the super-speedy rate at which characters can ping from one side of the fictional world to the other. Martin has always made a virtue of the fact his characters have to traverse a continent the size of South America to get things done, and in the show’s early days, characters would sometimes spend whole seasons getting from A to B. This was a consequence of the show being adapted from the books. Now, when characters say ‘I’m going to X’ they end up there during that same episode – and that is because, free of following Martin’s plotting, D&D are able to apply television logic to their world. Again, this is pretty understandable, even if it is a bit jarring – if the characters travelled at their old paces, half the crazy, wonderful, and moving things that happened this season wouldn’t have occurred at all.
Travel times that require a bit more suspension of disbelief are one thing, but there are other manifestations of D&D’s particular vision for Martin’s world that are a little more disconcerting. At this point, I really need to start talking in specifics, so you’ve been warned: this post is dark and full of spoilers. Honestly, if you aren’t up to date with Thrones, or haven’t read Martin’s books and don’t want them spoiled either, now is the time to leave.
Ok, so…everyone, can we talk about Dorne? The southernmost region of Westeros has become, amongst Thrones fans, a byword for the show’s lowest ebb and the lowest of D&D’s priorities in the seasons since we’ve visited that country and met its residents – initially the short-lived Oberyn Martell and his (just about) still-living paramour Ellaria Sand in season four, then Oberyn’s illegitimate daughters Obara, Nymeria, and Tyene (collectively known as the Sandsnakes), as well as his brother, Prince Doran, and Doran’s bodyguard, Areo Hotah, all in season five. That the show’s Dornish characters are low-ranking and expendable in D&D’s eyes is clear from how quickly and easily they tend to get bumped off – Doran and Areo were killed in a coup by Ellaria in the first episode of season six, and the Sandsnakes later became first blood in this season’s war between two opposing queens, Daenerys and Cersei. Again, this is understandable. The show has a lot of characters, and not everyone can be given the same amount of attention. It seems fairly logical that D&D continue to invest in the characters we’ve known from early on – Daenerys, the Starks, the Lannisters – and that bit players come and go in the process of advancing our main protagonists’ arcs. The problem with this, though, is that Dorne provided something the show was in dire need of as it progressed: substantial representation for people of colour.
The argument that is normally trotted out at this point is a variant of the one that turns up when the whiteness of historical dramas is pointed out. Invariably someone says “Well, there aren’t any black people because there weren’t black people back then” (or you the inverse: “Why are there black people when there weren’t any black people back then?” Mary Beard knows all about that.) In the case of Thrones, it’s observed that Westeros is based on mediaeval Europe – hence lots of white folks. But Martin cleverly circumvented this from the very beginning by having one of his key players travel through a continent other than Westeros, one that seems to take inspiration from Mediterranean Europe and Asia, i.e. where there are less white folks. Race evidently has a different set of meanings in Martin’s fictional world and in the books, a character’s skin colour is rarely of significance. In a visual medium such as television, though, race cannot help but make itself apparent. And the way that D&D have used race (including skin colour and accent) in the show is as a visual shorthand for the world in which the story is set. So even though this is a fantasy universe with dragons and ice demons, people in the Northern Europe-inspired Westeros, with the exception of Dorne, are white and speak with some kind of British accent. People from Dorne and from elsewhere tend to not be white and speak in non-British accents, though there are of course exceptions to this. In any case, the point is we have a show that follows mostly white characters and while there have been (and continue to be) prominent people of colour – Grey Worm and Missandei, for example – they have been few and far between.
Dorne threatened to change that. In the books, Martin uses Oberyn’s death in King’s Landing as a means of delving into new, complex subplots for a range of Dornish characters, including several whose stories are told from their own point of view. The most prominent are Arianne and Quentyn Martell, Doran’s children, but there are also chapters from Areo Hotah’s perspective – and while Areo makes it briefly onto the show, D&D cut both Arianne and Quentyn. Instead, they chose to expand Ellaria’s character, giving her a revenge storyline as she marshals the Sandsnakes in a plot to kidnap and kill Myrcella Baratheon, Cersei and Jaime’s daughter, sent to live with the ruling house of Dorne by Tyrion in season two. The plot is initially foiled but at the end of season five, Ellaria defies Doran by poisoning Myrcella; she proceeds to seize control of Dorne at the outset of the following season. We see virtually nothing of anyone from Dorne until the season six finale, in which Ellaria joins with Olenna Tyrell in allying with the invading Daenerys. Yet, as I’ve mentioned, Ellaria and her Sandsnakes become the price of Daenerys’ first loss against relatively new character Euron Greyjoy, hoping to impress Cersei. The latter poisons the final Sandsnake in symbolic revenge and Ellaria, as of the time of writing, is chained up in the dungeons of the Red Keep.
While this sounds quite a substantial plotline, with Ellaria and the Sandsnakes caught up in a cycle of reciprocal vengeance, it is relatively minor. It takes up very little screen time. Moreover, by focusing our attention towards the choices D&D have made in their adapting and inventing, it becomes apparent that this plotline isn’t even really about Ellaria or anyone from Dorne. Just as Oberyn’s appearance in the show ultimately factored into Tyrion’s storyline – Martin’s plot – D&D use Dorne in season five to advance Jaime’s character, in season six to set up for Daenerys’ arrival, and in season seven to prove Euron’s credentials as a mad but fierce fighter and then to further Cersei’s character. In other words, the people of colour that, in the parallel world of the books, get their own plots told from their own perspective, are repeatedly put to the service of advancing or defining white characters. This is not accidental, though it is also not explicitly a decision based on race. Really, it is a decision based on the characters the books and the show have spent time on developing since the beginning, and these characters just happen to all be white (and heterosexual – note that Ellaria and Oberyn are/were unapologetically bisexual). But let’s not be fooled into thinking this was the only decision that could have been made. D&D can and have invested significant time in developing new plots separate to the books for characters that join the show late – in fact, two of the Sandsnakes were killed in order to prove that newcomer Euron was a badass. It is another character, though, that by way of comparison demonstrates the dearth of development D&D have given Dorne.
Ramsay Bolton, D&D’s anointed heir to Joffrey as supreme psychopath, rose to prominence in season three and four, becoming such an important character that in season six, the always pivotal episode nine was devoted to Ramsay’s defeat. The show’s Ramsay – played by white actor Iwan Rheon – is largely the creation of D&D; Ramsay is present in the books but his role is no more significant than the Dornish characters. On the contrary, while the nascent Dorne plots get four different point of view characters in the books, Ramsay only ever appears in other characters’ POV chapters. One of these, Theon, is the character that gave D&D pretext to expand Ramsay’s screen time – Ramsay’s abusive remoulding of Theon into his servant Reek established a relationship that D&D continually invited their audience to find compelling. D&D’s decision to have Ramsay rape show veteran Sansa to further advance Theon’s character received a lot of negative criticism, and observing just how much time and effort the show has put into Ramsay – a white, heterosexual male – only heightens the underdevelopment of the people of colour down in Dorne.
So D&D could have made the decision to put the time and effort they gave to someone like Ramsay into Ellaria, or Doran, or Areo. But D&D have a curious fascination with their white male characters, and episode five of this current season demonstrates this acutely. At the end of the episode, seven white men from different strands of the show’s narrative came together in a kind of team up that is popular in the age of Avengers. It is classic D&D. If something similar goes down in the books, it certainly involves different characters: three of the show’s team up are dead, and Gendry is pretty inconsequential. Actually, Gendry’s return is perhaps D&D’s most inexplicable bit of fanfictioning yet – he is the epitome of a minor character, one of hundreds in Martin’s vividly populated world, and need never be seen again on the show. But D&D bring him back, wielding a hammer like the dad we knew but he really didn’t. I’m not against Gendry, per se, but my question is: why him? Why Thoros, Beric, and the Hound, whose continued existence on the show is symptomatic of another major choice D&D made in adaptation? Why Jorah, a character whose arc was essentially wrapped up in season six? I mean, D&D literally invented a cure for greyscale in order to heal Jorah and get him into that team up. Think about what could have been. What if Areo, who wielded a giant battleaxe, had escaped Ellaria’s coup and found his way to that team up? What a tale of survival that could have been – and he could have easily filled Gendry’s two-handed weapon swinging slot. What if one of the Sandsnakes had escaped Euron’s clutches, like Theon, and made it back to Dragonstone to inform Daenerys’ court, in grief and fury, of the horrible battle at sea? Her presence could have given Ellaria someone to live for if she ever escapes her dungeon, and might have set up a suitable partner for Theon and/or Yara to kill Euron in revenge. There are lots of possibilities. But what happened, in the actual event, was that D&D choose to develop and invest in seven white men.
But those men are cool! They are characters with history! They’ve been through things. This is the common outcry from some quarters when characters like these are questioned, like the history and coolness of any character on a fictional show is somehow self-created – no, they’ve been written that way. I agree that, as things stand, the Hound and Jorah might be more interesting than what the show gave us of Areo or the Sandsnakes. We’ve spent more time with them, invested in their characters, and we’ve seen them do cool things. But the Hound isn’t naturally cooler and more interesting than Areo. The characters from Dorne simply haven’t been given anything to do. In their first appearances during season five, the Dorne plot and its characters were subordinated to Jaime, because the show needed something to do with him. Jaime and Bronn (another white heterosexual dude D&D love to keep alive) head off south, intervening in Ellaria’s plot to kill Myrcella. Although Ellaria and the Sandsnakes are set up to have potential, they become players in someone else’s story. The fact that a storyline revolving around people of colour is hijacked by two white men and made to be about them is painfully symbolic. Again, think about the what ifs here – what if D&D had invested in Ellaria as a bridge character for the audience from season four, and spent time giving her, the Sandsnakes, Doran, and Areo cool moments and character development? After all, if you took Jaime and Bronn out of that storyline the only difference would be experiencing it from the perspective of the people of colour, not the white guys.
This is the crux of it, though: we’re continually encouraged to invest in white heterosexual males and see people of colour as other, expendable, secondary, or otherwise not as important. Any character of any race, gender, or sexuality can be interesting or have a compelling storyline, but they have to be written that way. As such, the people that shape the story hold the power to make us interested in a character – D&D’s wholesale failure to show any interest in Dorne thus speaks volumes. At best, the show’s treatment of the Dornish characters is a sad but true reflection of the marginal position that people of colour occupy in popular culture; at worst, it is systemic, unacknowledged prejudice that reveals just how much we are asked to invest in white, heterosexual men over and against other kinds of people in the culture we consume. That this prejudice is subtle – manifesting in the tacit coding of race, gender, and sexuality in a show’s system of representation – makes it all the more insidious. Maybe this is all rather petty in the wake of what happened in Charlottesville several weeks ago, but this show is part of a culture that also produced that real life violence. While I don’t think anyone is inciting hatred because of what they’ve seen on Thrones, I don’t think it is an exaggeration to suggest there may be a link between the way people of colour are undervalued in culture and the displays of intolerance seen in Virginia.
I enjoy Thrones. I’ve been a fan for years. But I think it is important to hold the culture we enjoy to account and not to accept at face value the perspective it offers. It’s not about changing what’s happened on the show to make it more ‘PC’ – I’m not arguing, for example, that it didn’t make sense to kill off the Sandsnakes first in this season. It’s about becoming aware of what has happened and why – so, if it made sense to kill the Sandsnakes first, why did it make sense? It’s about questioning how the biggest show on TV prioritises its characters and the way that correlates to race, as well as gender and sexuality. I want us to think about the fact that decisions like killing off those Sandsnakes were choices made by two white heterosexual men who are essentially now writing fanfiction. If the hallmark of fanfiction is to take your favourite characters and write their story then, in some senses, this is what D&D have done – but I just want to draw attention to the fact that their favourite characters, the characters they expand and invest in most, seem to mostly (but not exclusively) also be heterosexual white men. Is it any surprise that the announcement of their next project – an alternate history that imagines the return of slavery in modern America – was met with apprehension? The bottom line is: it didn’t have to be this way. Another white heterosexual man created this fantasy world; he made different choices. When Martin releases his final books – the next is possibly coming in 2018 – we’ll see how those different choices play out. Then we’ll see what could have been for the people of colour on Game of Thrones.
It’s now only two weeks until By Jove’s MEDEA opens in Tooting Bec! See here for tickets.
