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.