The house of the dragon: between obsession with childbirth and porn trauma

From the first episode, Queen Aemma faces complications as she gives birth to Baelon, a potential heir to the Iron Throne. A bloody and traumatic caesarean scene follows, where she is literally cut in two. The alternation of twists and turns between this frightening tragedy and a knight tournament (which takes place at the same time) casts doubt on its importance. Then, after several time hops, episode 6 opens with the birth of her daughter, Rhaenyra.

He goes normally, but Queen Alicent asks to see the baby right away. Rhaenyra brings it to her herself. She climbs the steps of the building, containing extreme pain, and leaves traces of blood. The grueling scene lasts several minutes. At the end of this episode, Laena, Daemon’s wife, is in labor, but the baby looks bad. Knowing she is doomed, she goes to her dragon, Vhagar, and orders him to burn her. The scene is spectacular and terrifying.

the season the final from dragon house A final unbearable sequence has in store for us: stressed by the announcement of her father’s death and Alicent’s betrayal, Rhaenyra gives birth prematurely. At the cost of excruciating pain, she herself takes out the baby’s lifeless body (everything is shown), cradles him and then prepares for his funeral. In an interview for Deadline, showrunner Ryan Condal details his vision: “It’s the story of mother and daughter. She is the daughter of the dead woman in the pilot who is going through this very difficult birth. It has always been her fear of her, birth is a battlefield and now Rhaenyra finds herself at war and is facing her own battle. ”

Scenes written and filmed by men … and it shows

The writers master their narrative: the (somewhat heavy) symbolism of the battlefield, the bonds between the dragons (Laena and Vhagar, then Syrax feeling the pain of Rhaenyra), the task of women to procreate in an inspired universe to the Middle Ages. But these scenes were written, and for three of them filmed, by men. And he feels. In episode 6, Laenor’s character reflects the feelings of the male audience. He asks his wife if he did it very badly ”, evokes a vague war wound, and concludes:“ I am very happy not to be a woman ”.

Here we touch on a post-Freudian theory, that of the “envy of the womb”. Feminist psychiatrist Karen Horney theorized in 1926 that men envy the reproductive capacity of women. It is a power they will never possess. This unconscious jealousy would be one of the causes of male domination.

Assigning to motherhood (which game of Thrones), the series takes the risk of essentializing them. Motherhood, however, is an important feminist issue. We know all the injunctions that are imposed on pregnant women and mothers. And at a time when women’s right to control their bodies is being challenged, in the United States in particular, these scenes can be seen as politically progressive.

In I have d, Aemma has no right to dispose of her own body (Viserys chooses a caesarean section in her place). Conversely, the next generation, Laena and Rhaenyra, exert a modicum of control over their bodies and their fates.

Porn trauma

Did the showrunners think for a moment how female audiences might feel when faced with these traumatic images, especially those who have experienced nightmare births? If that were the case, the series would at least split the warning messages.

Self House of the Dragon seems to have integrated the criticisms leveled at Had on the representation of rape, he found a derivative with these childbirth scenes. How The Handmaid’s Tale before her, House of the Dragon and his obsession with the horrific eavesdropping of childbirth traumatic pornography, that is to say a penchant for the sensationalist staging of trauma. There were, however, many other ways of representing childbirth. The writers have consciously chosen to exploit, once again, the suffering of women, to shock and amuse.