Except for Matt Smith’s bottom, Game of Thrones’ prequel has been significantly more modest in its use of nudity than its predecessor. Has the #MeToo movement reached Westeros?
I used to run an annual Game of Thrones pub quiz back in the show’s watercooler prime. Name That Bum was always the most well-liked round. The round involves projecting massive images of solitary arses — such as Khal Drogo’s full moon ponytail and Daenerys Targaryen’s buttock flash — on the wall and asking the crowd to identify the proud owner. It’s a good thing I haven’t been asked to host a House of the Dragon quiz yet because Matt Smith would be the answer and the round would last around 30 seconds.
Except for Matt Smith’s bottom, Game of Thrones’ prequel has been significantly more modest in its use of nudity than its predecessor. Has the #MeToo movement reached Westeros?
I used to run an annual Game of Thrones pub quiz back in the show’s watercooler prime. Name That Bum was always the most well-liked round. The round involves projecting massive images of solitary arses — such as Khal Drogo’s full moon ponytail and Daenerys Targaryen’s buttock flash — on the wall and asking the crowd to identify the proud owner. It’s a good thing I haven’t been asked to host a House of the Dragon quiz yet because Matt Smith would be the answer and the round would last around 30 seconds hanging in the obnoxious Ser Otto Hightower’s quarters (Rhys Ifans).
How long do you anticipate this situation to persist? Will Paddy Considine’s King Viserys suddenly throw aside those cumbersome robes and flaunt his regal seat? Will Ser Criston Cole, played by the newest heartthrob Fabien Frankel, reveal what lies beneath his white robe and gleaming armor? Do they have anyone’s true desire, too? The responses are: most likely no, most likely yes, and… it’s difficult.
Truth be told, times have changed. When Game of Thrones debuted ten years ago, the world was more shady and bit eerie. It was still unusual to see regular, explicit nudity on television, especially in a medieval fantasy series. For many viewers and critics, this novelty gave the show a new, audacious, and even slightly mature feel that set it apart from other sword-and-sorcery series with their cheery hobbits and simple moral certainty. The drama appeared more daring by including more “difficult” aspects including incest, prostitution, and forced marriage.
But right from the beginning, Game of Thrones was creating a straw man for itself. In contrast to George RR Martin’s original material, Daenerys is raped by her new husband, Khal Drogo, in the first episode. Despite this, the two went on to develop a strong emotional attachment over the course of the remaining episodes. The savage death of the sex worker Ros and yet another attack on Sansa Stark on her wedding night, one of the few genuinely likeable characters in the series, are examples of how the theme of utilizing sexual violence as a tool to shock the audience will be used mercilessly in succeeding episodes.
Therefore, even while the show’s joyous fondness for exposed skin at first might have been mistaken for ordinary titillation, it was soon untenable due to the scenes’ growing ugliness and violent content. Did we really need so many sequences of Littlefinger plotting while nude extras were having a good time in the background? It didn’t help that the full-frontal nudity tended to be almost exclusively female and frequently completely superfluous. By later seasons, the #MeToo movement’s emergence had brought our uneasiness into stark focus: the program had ceased to feel daring and had instead begun to feel exploitational and crude.
Can House of the Dragon therefore reverse it? Is it possible to include sex on a regular basis without abusing the actors or alienating the audience? The first episode’s brothel sequence demonstrated that the producers believe gratuitous nudity to be just as much a part of the Game of Thrones experience as silly hair, inventive swearing, and amputated limbs. They will undoubtedly try.
However, the more important query is: Will viewers desire it? Can we wipe away the sour taste that far too many graphic assaults left behind? Will there ever be another round of Name That Bum? And perhaps most crucially, will we ever be presented to what would unquestionably be the pinnacle Game of Thrones moment—the sight of a Targaryen noble riding their dragon into battle naked—sword in hand, silver hair streaming proudly? That would undoubtedly be a cause that we could all support.
