Game of Thrones
HBOWhen you think about the major characters left alive in the beginning of season 8 of Game of Thrones, familiar names come to mind. Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Arya and Sansa Stark, Tyrion, Cersei and Jaime Lannister. And yet when all was said and done, despite the major players of Game of Thrones being a relatively even split between men and women, by the end of season 8, women had just 22% of the lines of dialogue across the final six episodes.
That’s the lowest figure ever according to research group Ceretai, who has tracked this across all eight seasons of the show. Spoiler alert, it hasn’t ever been an even split, but season 8 was the worst offender yet.
- Season 1 – 24% female dialogue
- Season 2 – 29%
- Season 3 – 28%
- Season 4 – 27%
- Season 5 – 26%
- Season 6 – 26%
- Season 7 – 31%
- Season 8 – 22%
While this obviously brings up broader questions about the show (please don’t come at me with “well this is a medieval society where women are less important”), I am curious about season 8 in particular, especially since it was supposed to be a conflict between two queens, Cersei and Daenerys, and two of three remaining Starks were also women.
So what happened?
Spoilers follow.
Cersei, even though she was originally supposed to be the final Big Bad of the series going into season 8, had relatively nothing to do for most of the episodes. Her only scenes of note were with Euron, and there were not all that many of those. Since 95% of the characters were all grouped together up north, we spent 95% of the time with them, so even though this was the season where Cersei was supposed to be a hugely important force to be reckoned with, in the end, she wasn’t.
Game of Thrones
HBOSansa was similarly sidelined for most of this season. Her most important scene was her bonding/sparring with Daenerys, but other than that, she was not given all that much to do, despite ending up as Queen in the North at the end. Without a central role in a Ramsay/Littlefinger/Joffrey storyline, she just was not a big player in this final season.
Arya was given a large role in season 8 in nearly every conflict, but her scenes were mostly action-based, be they her fighting the undead at Winterfell and killing the Night King, or her surviving the dragon attack of King’s Landing. Not much speaking involved.
I’m also remembering scenes like Brienne’s knighting, where she was the only woman in a group that featured Tyrion, Tormund, Jaime, Davos and Podrick. Similarly, the “smart guy strategy council” was Tyrion, Davos and Varys, all men.
Of those 22% of lines, most of them probably went to Daenerys, but even she didn’t really have anyone to talk to except Jon Snow, or her big Hitler-esque speech after her King’s Landing victory.
All of this added together is probably why we saw fewer female lines this season than ever. Not that this is a good reason, but it’s how we got here. As a guy, I didn’t really notice this as the season was going on, but that’s…probably the point, right?
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2019/05/25/game-of-thrones-season-8-gave-women-just-22-of-all-lines-the-lowest-ever/
2019-05-25 13:30:27Z
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