Another Scorned Woman as Presented by the Male Writers of Game of Thrones

You can imagine how disapointed I am, that the Protector of the Realm and Breaker of Chains, Daenerys Targaryen, in a sudden and utterly out of character manuever, is made into a ruthless murderer by the primary writers of Game of Thrones, David Benieoff and D.B. Weiss.  

Listening to this sauve pair of hipsters with their pompedoers and suits trying to mansplain how the recent events in Dany’s life led her into an impromptu murdering spree of the very people she has spent her entire life and series vowing to protect made my already sick stomach sicker.  

Dany, who has been a role model and inspiritation for women around the globe for over 8 years, has now been denounced to nothing more than yet another women scorned; a women so afronted by the actions of others that she is galvanized into unthinkable actions of vengence and terror.

The phrase itself “hell hath no fury like a women scorned” was coined into existence by William Congreve in the 1600s, and has been circulating and evolving in breadth ever since. I will readily admit that there may be some truth in the statement. In my experience so far, woman are generally more emotional than men. I find the power I am able to manifest after having been pissed off to be, quite frankly, riveting . Like the time I applied for and received a college leadership position that I previously had little interest in, only because my applying male counterpart said I would’t fit the bill. Sorry, John.

While admittedly I have made some poor choices while scorned, this emotional power has never led me to make devestatingly irrational choices so far from my center of character and moral integrity that a paradigm shift such as Dany’s has occurred.   

It is in this latest development that the subliminal message is sent that being emotional is bad, and that emotional women make terrible, terrible choices, (as if we were the ones to have started the majority of wars and atrocoties since the beginning of time, ummm…hello dudes!)

Being an emotional, empathetic person is what led Dani to become the ground breaking QUEEN she has faithfully been, up until last night’s episode. According to Benioff and Weiss, all it takes is rejection from a guy and a few lost friends to make a girl lose all reason.

Some may argue that this turn of events was explicable considering Dani’s violent family heritage and at times, her ruthless delivery of justice i.e. burning down the non knee-benders, etc. However, I truly hope that the majority of fans will recognize that this decision to have her torch thousands of innocent people was completely out of character for Dany, who has always fervently denounced the actions of her father and other tryants, and who has gone to incredible lengths throughout the seasons to save lives, not end them.

In my opinion, turning Dany into a murderous scorned woman was a pathetic and lazy ploy exploited for mere shock value in lieu of actual, good writing. The repercussions of this are dismal. I’m not sure if Benioff and Weiss realize the gravity of the message they have sent or if they intended to do so, but the fact is this: They have one of the largest platforms in pop-culture today.  With this power comes the duty to, at the very least, avoid obvious and damning tropes such as the scorned woman that have helped fuel the long time mis-characterization of women in film and media, which as we know, trickles down to the fabric of our society.

In the past, I liked to blissfully ignore the bits of sexist cinema and painful character inconsistencies featured in the GOT in favor of spending my Sunday nights indulging on cheap food and entertainment. However, this latest blow has left me seriously jaded. Now that the show is literally, almost over, I don’t think that boycotting it will do much good, but regardless, I won’t be catching the ending. I no longer wish to be manipulated by Benioff and Weiss’s malicious and ridiculous narrative.  I can guess however, that the cool-headed and benevolent Jon Snow will come to rectify the situation as best he can. Another day, another Prince Charming. RIP to the dream that we could have a women hero on a platform so large. Dani, I know you aren’t real, but the idea of you was real to me, as I’m sure it was real to hundreds of women and men around the world. Here’s to hoping that the episode was a spoof or a dream and that Dani somehow fulfills her destiny of ending Tyranny, or that Aria takes a surprising sweep of the throne, or in the very least that we can see some better writing of mega-series in the near future.