Written by Amanda Rodriguez.
Spoiler Alert
Even after the finale of its fourth season, the HBO series Game of Thrones continues its reputation for unpredictability and for subverting our genre expectations. However, a glaring pattern of predictability is emerging: all sex workers with significant roles will die horribly. Think about it.
Doreah (played by Roxanne McKee), Daenerys Targaryen’s handmaiden and a prostitute: DEAD.
Ros (played by Esmé Bianco), a Northerner who moves South to King’s Landing, working as a prostitute and trusted assistant to Littlefinger: DEAD.
Finally, we have Shae (played by Sibel Kekilli): a prostitute and the lover of Tyrion Lannister who poses as a handmaiden to Sansa Stark: DEAD.
What do all these women have in common? Their profession as sex workers, and they are all disloyal.
After being raped by Viserys and ordered to sexually train/service Daenerys, Doreah betrays her Khaleesi in Qarth, helping Xaro Xhoan Daxos (the man Dany instructed Doreah to sleep with) to steal Dany’s dragons. (A deleted scene even shows Doreah coldly murdering fellow handmaiden Irri.)
Ros rightfully fears her employer and seeks to help Sansa Stark by revealing to Varys Littlefinger’s plans to spirit the girl away.
In one of the most significant acts of betrayal the series has ever depicted, Shae testifies against Tyrion in court, condemning him for the crime of regicide. We also find that she was sleeping with his father, Tywin Lannister, which the show asserts is an even greater form of betrayal than her false testimony.
Shae’s acts of betrayal are over-the-top and out of character (remember, we’re talking about the show here, not the books). Season 4 has her being sullen and adopting a completely unrealistic attitude about the danger she and Tyrion face. She is irrationally jealous of his forced marriage to Sansa while still maintaining her affection for the young Stark girl. Overall, though, we must remember that Shae truly does love Tyrion. She has refused gold, safety, and a fine home with servants all for love of Tyrion.
We are to believe that because Tyrion white fanged Shae, she would condemn him to die by telling lies during his trial, condemn Sansa whom she loved and protected by telling lies about her, fuck Tywin, get so cozy with him that she’d call him “my Lion” and try to kill Tyrion the next time she saw him? I ain’t buying it.
Is Shae really a woman so scorned that she’d destroy everyone she ever cared about to get revenge? Is she really so daft that she couldn’t see that Tyrion was trying to protect her all along? Is she really so malleable that Tywin could so easily manipulate her into such complete betrayal?
Though actress Sibel Kekilli claims she understands her character’s motivations in the latter part of Season 4, Shae’s actions really only accomplish two things:
Her utter betrayal is character-defining for Tyrion. That he is “forced” to kill her changes him, so her unrealistic actions and extreme betrayal merely serve to further Tyrion’s character arc, while contradicting her own characterization over the last four years.
More importantly, Shae’s betrayal when considered alongside the double-crosses of her fellow prostitutes and their collective fates reveal a disturbing attitude toward sex workers that Game of Thrones is advancing. It claims that sex workers are disposable and that they cannot be trusted.
In the behind-the-scenes video, Game of Thrones Inside the Episode: Season 4 Episode 10, show co-creator D.B. Weiss says of Tyrion’s discovery of Shae in Tywin’s bed,
“That’s in a way, the most horrible thing he could see because she wasn’t a whore…they had become committed to each other. She’s no longer a whore. When he calls her a whore, it’s not that he believes this is what she is; it’s what he desperately needs to tell her to save her life in his mind, and, ironically, he’s ended up turning her into that very thing that she was running from.”
Weiss’ repeated use of the offensive term “whore” here encapsulates so much more than Shae’s profession as a sex worker. Weiss’ and the show’s obsession and discomfort with these women’s occupation is very masculine and very patriarchal, asserting that if you must pay a woman for sex, her morals and motivations are never to be trusted about anything ever. This stems from an ego-driven masculine notion that if a woman retains enough agency to demand payment for sex, it is impossible to know if she really enjoyed said sex, and if she might be faking that, she could be faking any and all other emotions or professed loyalties.
I’m pretty tired of seeing sex workers raped and murdered on TV. I’m sick of seeing sex workers depicted within a stereotypical trope as liars and betrayers who get what’s coming to them. It’s no secret that Game of Thrones doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to the exploitation of its female characters, liberally employing death, rapes, gratuitous nudity and crappy decision-making that runs counter to characterization in order to move the plot along, make a nonessential point or punish an “unlikeable” woman. This so disappoints me because, in other ways, Game of Thrones delights with its intricate plot, attention to detail, breathtaking visuals, character depth and endless surprises. Season 5 is being filmed right now. It’s time for the bar to be raised with this amazing series’ treatment of women and, in particular, its treatment of sex workers. I challenge the creators to stop exploiting their female and sex worker characters. I challenge them to start working as hard to give these marginalized women as much real depth and humanity as they do for their male counterparts.
***Please no book spoilers in the comments!***
Read also:
Sex Workers Are Disposable on Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones: The Meta-Feminist Arc of Daenerys Targaryen
Gratuitous Female Nudity and Complex Female Characters in Game of Thrones
In Game of Thrones the Mother of Dragons Is Taking Down the Patriarchy
Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.
I was really fed up with Shae’s death – because as you say this
‘development’ of her character just didn’t fit. But I was more upset
because of all the male characters in the show, I really liked Tyrion
and when he killed her not only didn’t it fit his story arc, but also
let the show down in my eyes – Shae became just another disposable
woman, and by association he becomes just another violent male. Very
disappointing.
I agree! I felt the same way about Jaime’s rape of Cersei. It seemed completely out of character (too bad the writers and director apparently didn’t even recognize they were filming a rape scene). It’s interesting that the brutalizing of women seems out of character for these men, but the plot demands it in order to affirm some sort of epiphanic shift within them. At best, that’s bad storytelling. More likely, though, it reveals more about the show’s creators’ associations and stereotypes surrounding women.
Everyone is disposable in this series. Stop it.
Puh-lease. You and I both know that Tyrion Mary Sue Lannister is going to be juuuust fine.
Yes the ‘oh no it’s not a rape scene’ (wtf?) rubbish from the producers should tell us all we need to know. But it doesn’t explain the actual strength of the female characters. I had resisted watching the show for a long time because i had read so much bad press about the gratuitous nakedness of women in it and rape scenes. I ended up watching it (a weekend feast of SO1 and 2) and really liking the whole thing. I liked the fact that although a lot of the women in the show are sex workers or in subordinate positions, they nonetheless had agency within their cultural mores. But when Tyrian killed Shea I was actually shocked – it was so misogynistic. As I say very disappointing. Will give the next series a go but am on the fence now to be honest. Will probably bow out at the merest hint of misogyny. Such a shame.
Meanwhile, @Stord – and your point is?
Yeah, not like they kill of characters to the left and to the right all the time.
But hey, the men can die, no problem, but dare kill a female character you sexist pig! Hound gets killed by a woman? YEAHHHHH, you go girl!!!!! Shae gets killed in self defense by Tyrion? SEXISM!!!!!!!!
Thats exactly like the “Buhuhuhu, the caracter who tortured a man the whole last season and cut his dick of now shot a woman, this shows how sexist the show is!”
Saying the male characters are killed off too and tortured too reeks of mansplaining, derailing and echoes the recent “Not All Men” discussion on misogyny women face that happened in the aftermath of the Elliot Rodgers murders.
Yes, men are killed and tortured on Game of Thrones. This doesn’t negate or diminish the show’s sexist problems. The camera doesn’t linger on men’s murdered and tortured bodies as it does women’s murdered and tortured bodies. Women are raped and objectified on the show. These are issues that should be analyzed.
And yes, I absolutely love the show. Doesn’t mean it’s above reproach and cannot be or shouldn’t be critiqued or improved.
‘The camera doesn’t linger on men’s murdered and tortured’.
Yes, it does. At least, I believe it does – which is as valid as your opinion. We have no evidence here on the matter. For one, as the above poster mentions, an entire story arc is dedicated to the prolonged dessication of a man – Theon.
And that’s the only argument in your post. It’s otherwise…
* ‘you’re allowed to argue against me because you’re a man [mansplaining]’.
* a bizarre guilt-by-associate – ‘happened in the aftermath of the Elliot Rodgers murder’ – which, for someone decrying derailing, comes across somewhere between hypocritical and spiteful. You think a comment saying that this article dumb bears contextualizing with a mass shooting.
* a strawman – ‘doesn’t mean it’s above reproach and cannot be or shouldn’t be critiqued or improved.’. They presented the opinion that the this article dumb. Not that GoT is perfect.
* otherwise opinion. For example, ‘this doesn’t negate or diminish the show’s sexist problems’ and ‘objectified on the show.’. This isn’t constructing an argument. You’re stating opinion.
If every one of your sex workers betrays men and then gets gruesomely killed (including by the main, admirable hero) that’s an issue. If Daenarys had tortured Theon and we were supposed to “understand” that would also be a big issue (misandrist, no less). As it is, torturing Theon marks the Bastard as Unimaginably Evil. Killing a sex worker (Tyrion) / raping your own sister (Jaime) does not make a man evil, because those women were bitches, and therefore disposable. That’s the logic, and it has real world effects.
“…he’s ended up turning her into that very thing that she was running from.”
I actually think this is a very smart statement from Weiss considering that this is the very problem with Tyrion–both in the show and in the book. We all like to think of him as “likable”, as the “hero”, but Tyrion is a misogynistic douchebag. Shae didn’t want to be a whore anymore, but that’s all she would ever be to Tyrion. Full stop. Shae was willing to do anything for Tyrion, but Tyrion was not willing to give up his family for her.
“After being raped by Viserys”
uggggg no. Just no.
You cannot try to defend sex workers by, essentially, negating that what they do is work, and not always something they *want* to do (this is not to say sex workers cannot be raped – of course they can). If you are trying to buy a shirt and you give someone money and instead of giving you the shirt they start talking about their day and you say, “um, excuse me, can I just get my shirt?” you aren’t stealing from them.
Likewise if you pay a sex worker and they begin the sex act but they start randomly talking about shit, and you say, “um, I’m paying for sex, not your life story” it’s not a rape.
When people call EVERY sex act they don’t like “rape” it diminishes the use of the term and unfortunately lends credence to misogynists who say, “you call EVERYTHING rape!” Was that scene hurtful? It sure was. But it wasn’t a rape.
Rape isn’t just about saying “no,” it’s about a lack of consent. If there isn’t enthusiastic consent, then it’s rape.
‘If there isn’t enthusiastic consent, then it’s rape’.
It’s a good personal practice. And it’s something worth championing for other people to perhaps adopt.
But the belief that *anything* other than sex agreed upon with ‘enthusiastic consent’ is rape … is madness.
I can understand you advocating that position for your own sex – i.e. ‘I need to enthusiastically consent; otherwise, I fundamentally reject that partner and me could engage in anything healthy’.
But – rightly or wrongly – my parent and me don’t have that mindset. It’s not rape – and our sex is largely defined by our opinion of it – because our appraisal of content is different.
I can also respect: ‘I believe euthsiactic consent is an ideal. Strive for it. Couples not engaging in it risk unhealthy and hurtful act’. But it’s not all rape.
Doreah is a slave. She doesn’t receive wages. He didn’t pay her; he bought her. She doesn’t have the capacity to give consent here. Also, saying people can’t change their mind during the sex act, thus revoking consent, is a serious rape apologist claim. Sex workers can revoke consent at any time. If they are forced, as Doreah was, to continue, it is absolutely, unequivocally rape.
@kmacca:disqus: See, that’s why I am not in favour of defining prostitution as “sex work”. Because it isn’t “a job like any other”, and defining it as such will lead to such ridiculous comparisons as yours. A woman’s body is not a shirt, and never will be.
Amanda Rodriguez points out that Doreah is a slave. But even if she was not a slave by name, how many women in Westeros are really free? How many are in a position to become prostitutes by their own free will … instead of being forced to prostitute themselves because they need to eat? I mean, really. If a woman in a welfare state wants to self-define as sex worker, okay. But applying such terminology to women in a crapsack world where the career options for women are close to zero, is misleading. Your comment is a good example for why that is so.
Additionally – while I agree the show did not go into it, and I really began to hate Tyrion at this point (in the books and show) to accuse Shae of being “malleable” which is what allowed “Tywin [to] easily manipulate her into such complete betrayal” shows a complete misunderstanding of the situation at hand.
Tywin is the Hand of the King and (on record) the richest man in Westeros, which makes him the most powerful (as now he has title and apparent wealth). Although it would be quite easy for him to look another way, he is putting his own son on trial for murder. He has threatened to kill any whore he finds said son with. Shae is already on the bad side of an extremely powerful man. Cersei, who as Queen regent, should be more powerful than Tywin, cannot stand up to him. What hope does Shae have. To act as though her “manipulation” to betraying Tyrion is far-fetched and shows a moral lacking is just unreasonable. Tyrion told Pod to simply leave the city (and had done the same to Shae) because he KNEW what his father could do to those around him. You write as though saying “no” to Tywin is just something that can be done of someone by someone of low birth. It cannot.
FURTHERMORE, going back to the whole “bond” that she and Tyrion formed, Tyrion had just dismissed her as a whore and told her any feelings she thought they shared were utterly false. Why is it assumed that she should still feel loyalty to this man?
That said, I don’t think the show portrayed this as well as it should because there are still people (such as yourself) who just don’t see this, and simply see a whore turning on a man, and how shameful.
Comparisons to Bronn and Shae are made that really show how unequal the sex dynamics are. Both Bronn and Shae’s company were “bought” by Tyrion. Originally straight-out, but they still continued to be paid by him even after true affection was felt. When Tyrion gets into real trouble, with again, the most powerful man in Westeros, both turn on him.
Bronn’s betrayal is completely mercenary. Tywin was able to name a higher price, and set him up with lands. Bronn abandoned Tyrion while Tyrion was asking him to stay. Bronn’s services are now Tywin’s. But still, Tyrion doesn’t not feel ill will towards Bronn.
Shae’s betrayal is all but forced upon her. Tyrion seems to abandon her. She is then brought to the same man who was able to turn Bronn (there is no doubt in my mind Bronn never put her on that boat and simply brought her to Tywin). Shae’s services are now Tywin’s. But this betrayal is not to be borne.
And THAT’S the big problem with Shae’s arc. Not the fact that she betrayed Tyrion – PLENTY of people betrayed him, most of whom were not sex workers (in fact Ros was faithful to him even though betraying him could have spared her a beating).
I think you’re making a false correlation that this show is saying “sex worker = morally corrupt”.
EVERYONE on the show is morally corrupt in some way or another. What this show does, however, is show that it’s less acceptable for women – any woman – to be morally corrupt. And, unfortunately, no one’s pointing that out as a bad thing. Even the writer (I think) for Breaking Bad said, “Walter White is NOT a good person” – because there were people who really thought that what he was doing was acceptable, and Skyler was just being a bitch.
George R.R. Martin has said that Tyrion is the grayest of the gray characters (he was a LOT harsher to Shae in the books) but that doesn’t come through in the show. All we see is poor Tyrion, betrayed by a woman he loved! And that’s officially defended. The writer’s talk about how he was betrayed, not how he betrayed Shae by sending her off.
So yeah…. there’s a huge problem with these deaths, and how they’re portrayed, but not for the reasons you’re claiming.
You assume a lot of information here that we aren’t given. Shae’s motivation is an unknown. What happened between her and Tywin is an unknown. We must go on the information the show presents, which does not portray her decisions sympathetically and goes so far as to change the tenor of her character in order to make her seem morally bankrupt, which, as I say, is lazy storytelling.
I agree. Having read the books, I know that Shae’s motivation in the books was (supposedly) that she was scared and felt intimidated by Tywin and Cersei. However, Shae is also a completely different character in the show. The only motivation we can guess at based on what the TV show depicts is that she’s pissed off that Tyrion spurned her and called her a whore. So she’s getting revenge, underscoring your assertion that the show says sex workers can’t be trusted.
I also have to say that even though this is an adaptation, the TV show should be able to completely stand on — and be judged on — its own.
It really has nothing to do with the story. Guys who tune in want to see new tits. Thus the rotation. A fucked up reality most pay channels have found to be true for years.
In my opinion, the approach of prostitution in Game of Thrones is clever and relevant. Sometimes prostitutes call the tune, sometimes they end up being the laughing stock. As an avid consumer and hardcore hobbyist, I’ve found many situations that actually happen with sex workers.
I’ve made this compedium of scenes that involve prostitution/prostitutes.
http://must4ngx.tumblr.com/post/90697184524/art-game-of-thrones-prostitution