Game of Thrones season 7 fashion: Why isn’t Daenerys wearing armor?
“The Spoils of War” might not have a ton of new Game of Thrones fashion to pick apart, but it does ask a very serious question about wearing armor.
Warning: You know the drill. It’s Tuesday. If you haven’t seen the Aug. 6 episode of Game of Thrones, it’s time to mosey on over to the recap before we completely ruin “The Spoils of War” for you.
When a good portion of the current Game of Thrones episode consists of Daenerys Targaryen introducing Westeros to both Dothraki and Drogon, there is really not much to analyze in terms of fashion, other than to note that dragon fire is, unsurprisingly enough, devastating to people wearing metal armor. Really, we should be thankful the lighting was as muddy as it was in that battle. (That’s not a knock on it, either, so much as a statement that I’m glad we didn’t see exactly how gross it was in disgusting, Sam-curing-Jorah levels of detail.)
But even with the slightly funky, yellow-orange-tinted lighting, Game of Thrones managed to get a few character tidbits in.
Speaking of Daenerys, let’s just look at what she’s wearing to go into battle, shall we?
Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen/HBO
Is that … not armor?
Did Daenerys seriously fly into battle and not expect that people would at least try and shoot at her, even if only Bronn succeeded? If Drogon had been hurt worse, she’d likely have gotten killed by Jaime Lannister.
Of course, you may say that this doesn’t actually prove she’s not wearing armor. There are two pieces of evidence to the contrary. First, it looks like she’s wearing the same fur-trimmed costume that Emilia Clarke donned for a famous HBO promo, just without the cape:
Also, here’s a still from the behind-the-scenes video HBO posted detailing what went into shooting this scene:
Still from “Game of Thrones: The Loot Train Attack (HBO)” on YouTube. Image is a screengrab via official Game of Thrones YouTube channel/HBO
The contrast provided by the green screen basically shows us that Daenerys doesn’t actually own any armor yet (or that she didn’t think she needed any, which is not quite as silly but still not great for her plans in general). Maybe when she returns to Dragonstone, which we see in the preview for episode 5, she’ll ask Jon how to go about getting some armor so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.
At least she knows what Edna Mode taught us all in The Incredibles:
“No capes,” indeed.
Besides, it’s not like there are Westerosi blacksmiths out there that don’t know what they’re about when it comes to making armor for women:
Episode 64 (season 7, episode 4), debut 8/6/17: Gwendoline Christie, Maisie Williams.
photo: Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO
Thank you, Brienne.
Let’s also take a moment to talk about Dickon Tarly.
Tom Hopper as Dickon Tarly – Photo: Macall B. Polay/HBO
(As a brief aside, how funny was it that Bronn had the standard 12-year-old’s response to learning his name? Come on, someone had to do it eventually.)
Anyway, immaturity aside, compare and contrast this to, say, Jaime’s armor — or even Dickon’s father, Randyll Tarly. Both men have really fancy stuff on. Here’s Jaime for comparison, who is maximally fancy as these things go:
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister, Jerome Flynn as Bronn – Photo: Macall B. Polay/HBO
However, even Randyll has a pin of the Tarly sigil on. Dickon doesn’t have any of that, which rather reflects his status as someone who hasn’t earned his way to fame just yet. It’s not that he’s unfamiliar with fighting in theory, but he hasn’t had the chance to practice it in real-time just yet.
Maybe if he does turn out to be the one to save Jaime (if you have concrete proof it’s someone else, let us know!), he’ll get something nicer as a reward.
Next: Game of Thrones season 7: 5 predictions for episode 5
That’s our fashion observations from this week’s episode of Game of Thrones. Keep an eye on Culturess as we break down “The Spoils of War” and look ahead to episode 5 of season 7!