UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA

FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA

GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES

Trabajo de Fin de Grado

“Queens and Warriors:

The Powerful Development of Women in

Game of Thrones”

Alumno/a: Amanda Rodríguez González

Tutor/a: Miriam Borham Puyal

Salamanca, 2019
 UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA

FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA

GRADO EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES

Trabajo de Fin de Grado

“Queens and Warriors:

The Powerful Development of Women in

Game of Thrones

This thesis is submitted for the degree of English Studies

Date: July. 2019

Signature:
 Rodríguez 1

Abstract:

Game of Thrones is a HBO show released in 2011 based on George R.R Martin´s book Song

of Ice and Fire, which has challenged the conventions of not only traditional shows, but also

the gender roles in TV. In spite of being set in a feudal society, female characters such as

Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen or Sansa Stark have adopted powerful roles during the

show, being the most powerful and decisive characters in the last season. This mighty

development has been carried out throughout the eight seasons and it is analyzed in the

following essay

Keywords: Game of Thrones, Media, gender roles, female characters

Resumen:

Game of Thrones es una serie de HBO estrenada en 2011 basada en el existoso libro de

George R.R Martin Canción de hielo y fuego, que ha desafiado las todas convenciones

televisivas; no solo a las series tradicionales, sino también de los roles de género de la

televisión. A pesar de estar ambientada en una sociedad feudal, los personajes femeninos

como Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen o Sansa Stark han adoptado poderosos roles

durante el show, siendo finalmente los personajes más poderosos y decisivos en la última

temporada. Este poderoso desarrollo se ha llevado a cabo durante las ocho temporadas y es

analizado en el siguiente ensayo

Palabras clave: Juego de Tronos, Media, roles de género, personajes femeninos

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Table of contents

1. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………1

2. Table of contents………………………………………………………………2

3. Introduction……………………………………………………………………3-4

4. Body

4.1 Cersei Lannister……………………………………………………………5-7

4.2 Daenerys Targaryen……………………………………………………….7-10

4.3 Sansa Stark………………………………………………………………..10-12

5. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...12-13

6. Works cited……………………………………………………………………...14
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1. INTRODUCTION

Game of Thrones is a polemical TV show released in 2011 by HBO, and it was based on

George R. R. Martin´s book Song of Ice and Fire. Game of Thrones, published in 1995, has

had an unprecedented worldwide success, and one of the keys to that success has been that it

was one of the first shows of that magnitude that challenged gender-roles conventions on TV.

For many years, the portrait of women in films and television shows has been determined by

gender stereotypes, being clearly differenced from men by their use of language, position,

behaviour or ambitions. The media, since its creation, has been one of the most persuasive

mirrors of the way we appreciate gender roles in society, exemplifying the social conventions

in the behaviour of each gender´s characters. According to Sonia Núñez Puente, the concept

of `gender´ does not imply women and men as individuals; it implies the conventions of

society of the different epochs, since society relates, distributes and hierarchizes them, so the

concept gender is built by society. (2)

Media plays a key role in our society, since it not only shapes the values of society of

that moment but it also reflects these values. Some experts such as Galaghar or Wood argue

that the media has a negative impact on the image of female gender Commonly, this women´s

image in television is marked by the old-fashioned stereotypes that have coexisted within

society throughout all of its history. Nevertheless, some studies state that recently there has

been an improvement in the representation of these gender roles as a result of the changing

roles of men and women in certain societies. Thus, since the creation of TV and media, the

released shows have been conditioned to the perceptions of the society; hence, as we live in a

patriarchal society ruled by men, the great majority of the broadcast shows can be defined by
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this adjective as well. Nevertheless, Game of Thrones has challenged that tendency and the

show has portrayed female characters as the most powerful in the Kingdom. Actually, in the

two first seasons of the show the reality for women was not very different from what the

viewer was used to watching, as Clapton stated, “the society of Westeros was feudal,

misogynistic and patriarchal. The women of Westeros are frequently represented as objects to

be used by men at will; it is the men who wield political authority” (10). Nevertheless, the

panorama changes in the following seasons, as many female secondary characters began to

resurface, becoming the most powerful characters in the last season, so “the mapping out of

difference within the diegetic world of Game of Thrones reflects and enhances the current

transformation of television as an important bearer of cine-literary cultural capital” (Hassler-

Forest 170). Characters such as Yara Greyjoy, Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark, Sansa Stark,

Daenerys Targaryan or Cersei Lannister are almost irrelevant in the first season, but, in the

last season, they are the ones that govern Westeros.

Thus, we can state that Game of Thornes’ strong point is the narrative arch and

development of all its female characters. Game of Thrones’ characters are as complex as

people of flesh and bone. They evolve, not only physically, but also psychologically; they are

able to change, learn from their mistakes and rectify. Everyone has a role and a marked

personality in the show, men and but also women, as George R.R Martin himself affirmed in

an interview: “women would find different roles and different personalities, so women with

different talents would find ways to work with it in a society according to who they are”, and

it is more surprising in this kind of show since it is set in a typically feudal and medieval

society where women had no right or power. Therefore, I have chosen three characters whose

development in the show has been awe-inspiring: Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and

Sansa Stark. As I previously said, there are more female characters to be analysed in this
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show, but the aim of my work is exploring the marked development of these three women,

who have managed to reach the highest power suffering many misfortunes and adversities.

The first character to be analysed will be Cersei, the next one Daenerys and the last will be

Sansa.

2. CERSEI LANNISTER

Cersei Lannister, the first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, is the first character to be

analysed. If Cersei could be described with three words, they would be arrogant, vengeful

and strategist. Cersei has been one of the most representative characters in terms of female

development; she was a secondary character in the first episode of season one, but at the end

of the show she could be considered one of the most powerful, complex and relevant

characters, and one of the best and more respected villains in the history of television. In the

first episode, Cersei was only seen as Robert Baratheon’s wife, without any kind of authority

or power in the Kingdom. Nevertheless, after her husband´s death, Joffrey, her eldest son,

became king and at that moment, Cersei began her journey to the throne. She began to

manipulate Joffrey´s reign and to control the Seven Kingdoms at her pleasure, becoming the

Queen Regent.

The death of Robert Baratheon was Cersei’s first step towards the Iron Throne, although

at first she showed no pretensions of to get it because her only purpose was giving the throne

to her child Joffrey and to protect him. However, Robert’s death was also the trigger of the

beginning her misfortunes and paranoias. Throughout the seasons, Cersei’s personality has

progressively acquired instability, strategy, ambition and selfishness until the point in which

“jealously and paranoia motivate Cersei’s every action” (Estelle 93). As implied before, one
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of the better words to describe Cersei is `mother´, because the aim of her actions was the

protection of her children, since her weakness during the show was loving them and the

major part of her atrocities were committed by the power of the impulses of that

unconditional love. Thus, besides being her weakness, the love towards her children was also

her most powerful weapon; as Valerie E.F concluded, “her one redeeming feature is loving

them” (92). Nevertheless, Cersei not only loves her children, but also her brother and lover,

Jaime, who is also the father of her children. Cersei and Jaime love each other fiercely, and

the support provided by Jamie during the show strengthens Cersei’s actions, according to

Sandqvist, “Cersei and Jaime are equals in the sense that both possess power and have

common interests in the political game” (18).

Nonetheless, Jaime’s faithfulness towards his sister is questioned in the last season, when

he abandoned her to fight against the dead, but their love is powerful and he is back by her

side in the penultimate episode when the two brothers and lovers died together, crushed by

the falling rocks of the Redfort, and everything they created collapsed around them, their

home and the home of their deceased children. Their ending concluded with Cersei´s

recurrent statement: “Nothing else matters, only us.” showing even in her last sigh her

selfishness. Nevertheless, her development is marked by suffering and losses, being

practically without any sentimental support in the last season, because all of her actions had

repercussions in her family and she ended alone. Cersei lost her family due to her selfishness

in the course of the seasons. While she was losing her children, she began to show that the

only thing that had importance for her was the power and the Throne, and she was able to

perform any atrocity in order to keep it. She became a player and strategist, but at the end of

season one she already showed her cards to Ned Stark telling him: “When you play the game

of thrones you win or you die, there is no middle ground.” With this sentence, she evidenced
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that she was able to do everything, and she did everything; but burning the Sept of Baelor

with Wildfire was undoubtedly her masterful plan. This action provokes Tommen’s suicide;

he was her last child alive and the King of the Seven Kingdoms, and Cersei was crowned as

the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms for the last two seasons.

However, Daenerys’ arrival to Westeros threatened her reign and despite planning another

of her masterful strategies by buying the Golden Company, she finally died in the

penultimate episode hand in hand with her brother, both losing their lives same time, as I

previously explained, under the debris of their destroyed and buried by Daenerys’ dragon

fire. Thus, although Cersei finally dies she would be remembered as a powerful woman and

mother, who, in spite of being a secondary character, reached power in a glorious way.

Nevertheless, despite reaching this gloriousness during the show, her death was meaningful

and criticized by the fans, since Cersei’s meteoric role in the show deserved a death at the

same level.

3. DAENERYS TARGARYEN

Daenerys, whose full name is “Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her

Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea,

Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons” is the last of the house Targaryen, and

consequently, the legitimate heiress of the Iron Throne. Daenerys could be considered the

character with a more powerful development full of feminist assertions, since in a world ruled

by men’s authority, in her case dominated by Dothrakis, she managed to be their Khalessi,

their Queen. Daenerys must be highlighted not only for her development, but because she is

one of the most vindictive characters in terms of feminism: in a world ruled by men, she is
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continuously empowering women over men. These female grievances are appreciable in

many of her conversations with other women in the show in many occasions Daenerys

concluded important statements such as “All men must die, but we are not men.” or “I am not

an ordinary woman, my dreams come true”, critiquing in this case the great majority of

women in the Seven Kingdoms that are satisfied with their fates and roles in life.

Nevertheless, despite turning into a powerful character during the course of the show,

Daenerys had a role that harms the image of women in the first season; she was treated as an

object by her own brother, since she was the key for him to recover the throne, forcing her to

marry Drogon, a Dothraki, in order to get a powerful army to help him in the reconquest of

the Seven Kingdoms. However, fate was not favourable for these two men, who died in the

first season, becoming Daenerys the first Khalessi in history. According to Elis Sandqvist,

Daenerys’s first contact with power was only possible due to her marriage with Drogon, not

by herself, considering that “through marriage, women are capable of entering the political

power structure in a completely different way” (24). Despite being true, Daenerys raised to

many levels of power on her own after the loss of her husband and brother. This rise is the

revolutionary aspect of Daenerys: she was the only one able to achieve the full power for a

woman in a patriarchal society. As William Clapton concluded: “what is more interesting

about Daenerys’ rise to power is that it simultaneously challenges traditional conventions in

the show that people in positions of authority exclusively ought to be men and reinforces the

fundamentally gendered nature of political authority and its exercise” (12).

After season two, Deanery’s only goal was building an army, leaving Essos and

returning to Westeros to snatch the Iron Throne from the Lannisters, who usurped it from her

family when she was only a child. Nevertheless, this process was not easy and until season
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seven Daenerys does not return to Westeros, but she does it with the most powerful army

already formed. From season two to seven, Daenerys deals with the slave issue in Essos and

during this period her objective was to free the slaves of all the cities, “where she becomes

accepted as a Khalessi even to them” (Sandqvist 22). Despite beginning her path to the Iron

Throne alone without no family or friends, Daenerys found during her path people in which

to trust, such as Missandei and Jorah Mormont, who became her family and were faithful to

their Queen until their last breath. Besides, Danerys had their dragons, Drogon, Rhaegal and

Viserion, considered by her as her sons, a key piece in her ascent to the Throne since they

were her strongest and fiercest allies to destroy her enemies. Actually, between seasons two

and seven, while Daenerys was liberating Essos’ cities and building her army, she did not

find relevant problems, she got a powerful army and people who proclaimed her as their

Queen. With cession, justice and self-confidence she achieved the leadership of an entire

nation. As Clepton described “confidence, ferocity, aggressiveness and a capacity and

willingness to use force are key masculinised employed by Daenerys as she develops as a

leader” (13). Nevertheless, her arriving to Dragonstone changed her trajectory to the Throne

and the real adversities began for the Mother of Dragons.

Once in Westeros, Daenerys requested fidelity and support from the different houses to

get the throne. Nevertheless, after her encounter with the King in the North, Jon Snow,

Deanery’s conquest of the Iron Throne went to a secondary plane to deliberate the Great War

and the fight against the dead. In two seasons Daenerys lost everything she had when she

arrived to Westeros; the only two persons in which she could trust, Missandei and Jorah

Mormont; two of her beloved dragons, Viserion and Rhaegal, and her legitimate inheritance

to the throne, after the revelation that Jon Snow was actually Aegon Targaryen, her nephew

and legitimate heir of the Iron Throne. Reaching this point, after overcoming the Great War
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against the dead, Daenerys found herself in the penultimate episode with a powerful army in

front of the doors of King´s Landing and despite the surrender of the city, she decided to burn

it and all its inhabitants. Ultimately, in spite of being claiming freedom for all citizens of the

world and freeing them from their masters, she decided to burn alive thousands of innocents;

Targaryen madness flourished inside of her and despite taking King’s Landing and murdering

Cersei, the Queen, she never reached the Iron Throne, because finally the Mother of Dragons

was killed by her lover and nephew Jon Snow, who murdered her in order to avoid future

slaughter. Nevertheless, in spite of ending the show lifeless, her development has been

unprecedented. If we compare her first scenes as an innocent young girl with her last

apparition delivering a powerful speech to her army, we appreciate how strong a person can

turn into in order to achieve her goals. Thus, Daenerys will be always recalled as the

Khalessi, Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains of the Seven Kingdoms.

4. SANSA STARK

The following female character to be analysed will be Sansa Stark. Sansa, another female

character that initially succumbs to male authority in the TV Show. Sansa, unlike Cersei and

Daenerys, and in spite of being a character with many plots and appearances during the show,

does not have large relevance until chapter 6.08, when she received all the credit for winning

the Battle of the Bastards, won due to the surprising alliance of Sansa with the Nights of the

Vale. The victory in the Battle of the Bastards meant a renaissance for Sansa, she was back in

her home, Winterfell, and she started to blossom again, but this time as an empowered

woman. She began to have access to power shyly, to be finally crowned as the first Queen of
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Winterfell in the last episode. However, before reaching this point, the fantastic development

of Sansa must be analysed.

In the story of Sansa Stark, the older daughter of the House Stark, we find a story of

survival, not rising to power as the two previous characters, but surviving. In the first season,

Sansa is portrayed as the innocent, illusive and courtesan girl, typical of the feudal society;

she dreamt of stories about the King and his Queen, but the reality hit her when she met the

Lannisters, specially her fiancé, Joffrey, who turned her courtly dreams into nightmares.

Sansa´s idyllic vision of life is very well described by Frankel: “Sansa´s character reveals the

flaws in the kind of upbringing as she´s hopelessly naive, trusting in beauty and rank over

character” (105). Her only pretention was living a fairy tale in King’s Landing. Nevertheless,

all her desires were vanished and her arrival at King’s Landing was the beginning of her

nightmare.

Sansa was present in the execution of her father, Ned Stark, by order of her own fiancé

Joffrey. At this point, Sansa was alone in King’s Landing and under the rule of the members

of House Lannister, who made her life miserable. Joffrey’s death in the fourth season seemed

to be a struck of luck for Sansa, but she started to be manipulated by Littlefinger, who sold

her to Ramsey Bolton, the Lord of Winterfell between seasons four and six, to be his wife.

Sansa underwent heart-breaking and aberrant experiences; the mistreatment by Ramsey’s

hand, the loss of Winterfell at the hands of the Greyjoys and, besides, her family’s leaving

Winterfell was another of Sansa’s misfortunes, since almost all her family died after leaving

their home. After the recovery of Winterfell, Sansa was finally reunited with her living

family, the Starks, and from that moment her only priority was the keeping of Winterfell and

the Stark’s interest. The North should be united to survive as she concluded citing her
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deceased father in episode 7.06: “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone

wolf dies, but the pack survives." As I have explained, Sansa was exposed to face many

challenges on her own during the show. She was for the great part of the show subordinated

by male characters “as a way of

establishing man’s political authority” (Clapton 14) and suffering physical and mental torture

not only from Ramsey, but also from the Lannisters, Littlefinger and the great majority of

people that crossed her path, and this process led Sansa to develop herself. As Valerie Estelle

analyses, Sansa is during the course of the show “in quest of identity” (106), but she finds

that identity in the two last seasons and she reinvents herself.

Thus, the in the last season Sansa is portrayed as one of the most empowered characters;

she shows herself firm, with fixed ideas and protector of her home. All the atrocities that she

had to deal with took her to place where she is now, her home, and they have turned a weak

girl into one of the most powerful women in the Seven Kingdoms. Thus, regardless of her

suffering, she survived, the North survived and while all her male enemies are in the grave,

Sansa Stark is reigning in Winterfell.

5. CONCLUSIONS

To conclude, it is necessary to highlight the great role that women have had in Game of

Thrones. It has been startling to see how different kinds of women have reached their

objectives throughout the course of the seasons, and it has been motivating for female

viewers that have dreams and purposes that sometime women think that they are not able to

achieve. Thus, Cersei, Daenerys and Sansa had a powerful development that will be

remembered throughout the years and will be a motivation for many women all over the
world. Nevertheless, it has been criticized that finally there is not a woman sitting on the Iron

Throne, but it also creates a halo of hope to keep trying to find their way, their own `thrones´.

Besides, Cersei and Daenerys’s deaths should be used as a metaphoric advice, since you do

not have to destroy others to get to the top, but if you keep learning from your mistakes and

griefs as Sansa did, you can overcome every difficulty and you will have your reward.
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WORKS CITED

Clapton, William. “Lessons from Westeros: Gender and power in Game of Thrones” vol. 27,

no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-18

Hassler-Forest, Dan. “Game of Thrones: Quality Television and the Cultural Logic of

Gentrification” TV/Series, vol.6, 2014, pp. 1-19

Estelle Frankel, Valerie. Women in Game of Thrones: Power, Conformity and Resistance.

McFarland and Company, 2014

Puente Nuñez, Sonia. “Género y televisión. Estereotipos y mecanismos de poder en el medio

televisivo” Comunicar: Revista científica iberoamericana de comunicación y

educación, vol. 2, no. 25, pp. 1-5, 2005

Sandqvist, Elis. “Politics, Hidden Agendas and a Game of Thrones: An Intersectional

Analysis of Women's Sexuality in George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones” Luleå

University of Technology, 2012, pp. 1-26