How the women of Game of Thrones have changed television forever

Is Game of Thrones a feminist show? Does it matter if it is when it’s creating the kind of complex female characters that reverberate throughout TV?

One of the most long-standing debates surrounding HBO’s smash hit series Game of Thrones has nothing to do with who, if anyone, ends up sitting on the Iron Throne at series’ end. No, instead, it’s about the show’s female characters, how the series treats them, and whether Game of Thrones can be considered a feminist series in today’s television landscape.

Unsurprisingly, the reason the debate has raged on for so long is that this isn’t an easy question to answer. There are certainly valid points to be made on all sides. But the thing is — it also kind of doesn’t matter.

Whether we categorize Game of Thrones as a feminist series historically or not, its impact on the television world around it – and, maybe more importantly, the shows that have and will come after it – is undeniable. Those shows are busy embracing the type of complicated, messy, strong, and capable women that this show has featured and championed for years. These sorts of characters are the show’s true legacy, far more than dragons and violent surprise deaths.

Is Game of Thrones a feminist show? Sometimes. And… sometimes not. But its decision to prioritize the stories of such a wide variety of women over the years will reverberate far beyond its series finale this spring.

It’s easy to question Game of Thrones’ feminist bona fides, however, simply because the series hasn’t always treated its female characters very well. Pointless violence is commonplace, and we’ve had to watch too many women become the victims of gratuitous or dehumanizing sexual assault. (I will literally never be over Sansa Stark’s brutal rape in season 5.) Female agency has often been hard to come by for many characters, and oppressive patriarchal norms are, well, pretty standard throughout Westeros. Plus, thanks to HBO’s seeming obsession with sneaking in as much nudity as possible into every episode – particularly in earlier seasons – we were forced to sit through way too many scenes where men explained a plot point while naked women lounged around in the background, serving exclusively as objects for male characters (and viewers!) to leer at.

Yet it’s also not an accident that as the show has grown both stronger as a narrative and more popular as a property, it’s the female characters who have been primarily driving things along. At every level of story in Game of Thrones, women are reclaiming their power, discovering their agency, standing up for themselves, and becoming the leaders they were always meant to be. They’re allowed to remain emotionally complex and morally compelling throughout, running the gamut from ferocious to manipulative, brave to brilliant.

The women of Game of Thrones come in as much variety as their male counterparts. There are female rulers, warriors, mothers, and queens. They can be kindhearted and capable, or bold and cruel. Sometimes, they’re even all of these at once. These are female characters that can and do contain multitudes, after all, and for all its faults, Game of Thrones has made sure to show us the breadth of their evolutions in great detail.

Whether we’re considering Cersei’s journey from a mother trying to rule through the men around her to a queen in her own right, Sansa’s evolution from a spoiled and suffering girl to a capable and intelligent leader, or Daenerys’ growth into a powerful commander with dragons at her back, one thing becomes increasingly clear: These women defy easy characterization. They all have their own flaws and agendas, and their actions all have clear, realistic motivations. None of them are static objects or symbols.

The story of Game of Thrones is not always a feminist one, to be certain, but it does present its female characters through a feminist lens. That means simply allowing them to be complex and fully realized people, with all the good and bad that can entail, rather than setting them up to tick off some predefined boxes. Even when we, as viewers, don’t necessarily agree with them, we know why Arya, Cersei, or Sansa do the things they do.

These women can be just as strong as the Hound, as brutal as the Mad King, as manipulative as Littlefinger, or as capable of command as Jon Snow.  They’re allowed to embody both stereotypically feminine and masculine traits, from Sansa’s skill with a needle and thread to Brienne’s ability in battle. We, as viewers, are also not asked to like or admire their every action. Cersei blew up half her own people in the Sept, Arya fed Walder Frey his own family, Sansa released wild dogs on her most-hated enemy, and Daenerys burned a roomful of khals alive. These are simply facts of the narrative, as they are for any male character.

As we head into Game of Thrones’ final season, it’s the series’ women who seem most likely to triumph in multiple ways. Three different female characters are currently in positions of power in Westeros, and given that the only real male contender for the Iron Throne is the questionably capable Jon Snow, it seems more likely than not that a woman (or two or more) is going to emerge from this story as its victor.

However, the real winners here are viewers everywhere, who now see complicated female characters kicking butt, taking names, and finding their own strength throughout genre television. We have Game of Thrones to thank for a lot of that.

Game of Thrones returns for its final season on Sunday, April 14 on HBO.