Spoiler alert! Below are the details for “House of the Dragon” Season 1, Episode 6, which aired on September 25th.
If women are suffering, it must be Westeros.
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” came under fire for its portrayal of sexual violence over its eight seasons. It never really did the female characters justice, even though it capped off with record-breaking ratings and hype.
The new spin-off House of the Dragon, which premiered on HBO in August, promised something different. Based on author George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, this series is primarily about his two women. and Aricent Hightower (Emily Carey, and now Olivia Cooke).
But from its first episode, “Dragon” slipped into the bad habits of its predecessor, replacing its penchant for sexual violence and rape with a penchant for traumatic childbirth. There were three illegitimate childbirth scenes, two of which ended in the death of both mother and baby. From how these scenes were shot and what the creators said about them, it’s clear their intentions were well-intentioned. But the scene was born not as revolutionary or revelatory, but as clichéd, exploitative and tasteless.
more:Sorry, HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ can’t match ‘Game of Thrones’
The first birth in the series premiere was a gruesome and violent C-section, intersected with a jousting sequence, resulting in the death of mother Aema (Sian Brooke) and child. The second, on Sunday’s episode, saw a normal delivery followed by a rigorous walk for Rhaenyra (D’Arcy) shortly after giving birth, bleeding and leaking all the way through. (Sunday too), Laena Velaryon’s (Nanna Blondell) stalled birth, still carrying her fetus, ends with Laena committing suicide by telling the dragon to burn her alive.
Director Miguel Sapochnik, who worked on the original “Thrones,” has elaborated on the series’ desire to show these births.
“Each birth of this show has a theme, just like the battles I’ve filmed in the past have a central concept.” He said Los Angeles Times in August. “The hope and intention of the show is to shed light on how the experiences of men and women in this world parallel our own past and present.”
Sapochnik told The Times that she consulted a midwife before filming Aema’s scenes and that she received “positive” feedback from other women.
more:‘Game of Thrones’ never solved women’s problems
As a woman who recently gave birth and has spoken to others who have watched these episodes, my feedback is less than positive. I remember the rape scene. The spectacle of violence was the focus. So was the pain and trauma of women, not realism or the experience of a mother.
Each of the three women is barely given enough characterization to add emotional depth to the scene, with Aemma being a disposable character with very little dialogue other than her pregnancy. Audiences are introduced to Darcy as an adult Laenira in her childbirth scene, but it’s impossible to connect her to the teenage version played by Alcock in a scene where it’s all screams, sweat, and squelch.
Raena’s Labor and Death is designed to show the difference between her husband, the Demon Targaryen (Matt Smith), and her brother, Viserys (Paddy Considine), rather than about Raena and her child. All of these scenes could have been improved if the female experience was more central, even if the female agency was taken away by the male.
The creators of “Dragon” deserve a little kudos for trying something here. Pop culture in general has long shied away from what childbirth actually looks like. You think there’s a doctor there all the time and someone yelling “push, push, push!” Press for 30 seconds to pop out a smiling baby with his raspberry jam.
That’s not it. It’s long, sometimes boring, smelly, often traumatic and dangerous. Women are still dying in 2022 (the US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, and black mothers have a dramatically higher risk of pregnancy and childbirth).
If a series is realistic about childbirth and infant care and motherhood, it can be a radical act. and the list is hopelessly short. Her PBS’s Call the Midwife, a series about childbirth, is one of them. The CW’s “Jane the Virgin” is a realistic take on postpartum life, from adult diapers to the lack of showers. These depictions are important. When people realize how hard motherhood can be, it can change perceptions of parenting in the real world.
But in “Dragon,” Birth just hit the wrong note. Raenyra bleeding all over the palace floor or leaking breast milk in a small council doesn’t feel like an unfair use of her body for drama. commits suicide, the message is sent that a woman would rather die than fail to give birth and take her unborn child with her. The violence of Aemma’s birth is over the top, almost cartoonish.
Shortly before being seen half-naked, cut open and bleeding in the series premiere, Aema told her daughter that for women, “the maternity bed is our battlefield.” , shows the fact that “Dragon” could have said something more subtle and significant about birth. I want to give a series the benefit of the doubt that has some good elements in a good episode. I want to be able to say profound things about women and motherhood. But I don’t want to be traumatized again after my own birth experience with the image of bleeding from a crude cesarean cut.
I don’t want childbirth to be just another scary thing that happens to women on TV.