Will the New Game of Thrones Be Any Less Cruel to Women?

With a prequel on the horizon, the franchise has a golden opportunity to right its wrongs.

- EMMA BATY

Attention, everyone: Winter A is coming. And by that I mean more thinly veiled sexism could be hitting your screens-and, inevitably, your social media timelines this August. I know, I know, you're still not over Bran Stark ending up on the Iron Throne, but such is life and such is the entertainment industry. The prequel series is called House of the Dragon, and it follows the Targaryen family 200 years before everything in the original Game of Thrones. With any luck, it will bring just as many reasons for hot takes.

A lot of us-19.3 million people tuned in for the May 2019 finale alone-lived for that drama, much of it in the form of the show's incredibly divisive plotlines (see: the aforementioned Iron Throne thing) and holy-shit-that-just-happened twists. But the prequel announcement resurfaces what many of us resented the first time around: Game of Thrones went out of its way to punish the women it created.

I'm talking about the many, many rape scenes. The complete lack of agency for female characters. The disproportionate physical abuse of women compared with men.

Allow me to further refresh your memory with some specifics: A very young Daenerys Targaryen is sold into marriage, raped by her husband, and then...falls in love with said husband. (See also: her eventual descent into madness and resultant murdering spree.) Sansa Stark's storyline begins with being passed around like a handle at a frat party and eventually includes her crediting a rapist and abusers, plural, for her strength. For much of the series, Brienne of Tarth cared more about her knightly duties than anything-until she's reduced to tears because a man slept with and then left her. (Sorry, but no one's dick game is that strong.) I could go on.