Castration and symbolism in the House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones Universe

We are two episodes down in _House of the Dragon_, HBO’s big-budget _Game of Thrones_ spinoff created by George RR Martin (the author of the Song of Ice and Fire books, which spawned Game of Thrones in the first place) and Ryan Condal. To nobody’s surprise, the show is well-shot, gorgeously mounted and ticks off several stylistic boxes that hearken back to Game of Thrones: frequent nudity and sex scenes, graphic violence, amputations, decapitations and all manner of imaginative onscreen bloodshed. Oh, and dragons, of course, this time in a past where they were (relatively) abundant, at least in the House of Targaryen.

Every season, every storyline in Game of Thrones had one character that fits the classical ‘loose cannon’ mould: a person whose motivations were often unclear, whose behavior was reckless and unpredictable and whose appearance would signal that the narrative could soon be overwhelmed with a sense of anarchy. So far in House of the Dragon, Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) fits the bill. He is privately scornful of his brother, the King Viserys (Paddy Considine), he openly laughs at his brother’s Small Council, and it’s clear that he will stop at nothing to succeed his brother as King.

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Daemon’s bloodlust is amply depicted in the first episode, when he and his men take it upon themselves to rid the capital of criminals and crooks. This is not about cleverness or intrigue, it’s just a brutal display of power and impunity — in a succession of summary trials at the town square, perceived criminals are killed, mutilated, flogged and generally abused in full public view.

One moment in particular was distinctly Game of Thrones-flavoured in its conception and the way it’s shot — a castration scene where Daemon’s general points at a criminal, says, ‘Raper!’ and then proceeds to chop the man’s penis and testicles off in three strokes (the sound effects are really quite grisly), as the man screams in agony and Daemon watches approvingly.

The imagined medieval past of the Game of Thrones universe is, of course, inextricable from the sociological and material realities of the era it has been written in. And while the books challenged phallocentric norms in many ways, especially with the way its women were written, the TV show Game of Thrones often fell short, reinforcing the same patriarchal themes that the story once critiqued. In House of the Dragon, now that Martin (who has always insisted that he’s a feminist) is at the helm, fans expect this aspect to be improved upon.

In the first episode there are some moments which remind viewers about the way this world functions, where the presence or absence of a penis can mean so much for the narrative. When the King Viserys is anxious about his wife’s pregnancy, it’s not because he fears for her health (although he really should, given how sickly she is from the moment we first see her). It’s because he desperately wants a male heir, in order to shut down the pack of wolves circling for his throne. His wife, the Queen, reassures him drily, “You do understand that nothing will cause the babe to grow a cock if he does not already possess one.”

Castration and its impact on Game of Thrones  characters

In the main cast of Game of Thrones, there are three male characters whose genitalia has been completely removed. For two of these characters, this was during childhood: Westeros’ incumbent spymaster, Lord Varys, was captured by a magician who cut him while Grey Worm, Daenerys Targaryen’s most trusted military advisor, is the leader of the mighty warriors called ‘The Unsullied’. When a boy joins the Unsullied, his genitals are removed completely, “root and stem” or “the pillar and the stones”, as the show puts it. Theon Greyjoy, however, is castrated as an adult by the villainous Ramsay Snow (later, Ramsay Bolton).

You can see the different but overlapping ways in which these characters react to their circumstances. Grey Worm’s spear becomes his honorary phallus of sorts, and the countless men that it kills bestows masculine power and societal status upon him. Theon is first disgraced as a “killer of little boys” (he claims to have killed the Stark boys) which is an emasculating tag in itself, before his actual castration takes place. His redemption arc as a “good man” or a “man of honour” must also take place on the battlefield—where we once saw him fleeing from a battle where his sister Yara is eventually captured, in the final season he also dies a hero’s death after charging the undead, seemingly invulnerable Night King, a battle he knows he cannot win.

But it’s Varys who presents the most compelling and subversive case of phallocentric power being side-stepped in favour of a new model, one that does not depend on what lies between a person’s legs. His power as the master of spies and secrets is significant; knowledge becomes a tool of overcoming patriarchal structures and the barriers they impose on ‘outsiders’ gaining power. In contrast, the hyper-sexualized Lord Baelish, better known as ‘Littlefinger’, wields power by controlling and feeding the base urges of powerful men; his brothel services everyone from lord to peasant to warrior. Every taste is catered to and nobody is above the carnal temptations that Littlefinger uses as currency in his world.

Brooke Askey writes about the way Varys and Littlefinger are complementary characters in terms of their approach to gender relations, sexuality and power, in her 2018 essay ‘“I’d Rather Have No Brains and Two Balls”: Eunuchs, Masculinity, and Power in Game of Thrones’, published in The Journal of Popular Culture.

“Littlefinger foils Varys because he is steeped in sexuality. He literally deals in sex and women as a trade, which only re-asserts him as a dominant force in terms of constructions of heteronormative power. In “Lord Snow,” Littlefinger is shown in his brothel with multiple women clustered around him. When the noble woman, Catelyn Stark, comes to speak with him, he ushers the prostitutes away from her gaze. Littlefinger’s worried expression reveals that he thinks his trade in women’s bodies is in some way perverse while also making the highly questionable assumption that an upper-class woman is too pure to be subjected to witnessing prostitution.”

Askey is similarly perceptive about the way Varys first declares his asexuality and then suggests that because he does not engage in sexual activity of any kind, his mind is freed up to think about the good of realm, the future of Westeros.

“Oberyn cannot believe that an asexual person would exist, saying, “Everyone is interested in something,” but Varys shakes his head “no” with certainty. This further normalizes Varys as a person with bodily autonomy and a grasp on his sexuality not purely connected to the sum of his parts. He also glances at the throne after addressing the idea that not having sex gives him more time for other pursuits, which offers a subversive view of the gender hierarchy by implying that someone who falls outside of cultural gender norms could gain power and control in the kingdom.”

Of course, there are other, symbolic forms of castration as well, beyond these three characters. Jaime Lannister begins the show as one of the clear-cut bad guys, but his redemption arc begins when he is captured and his right hand is chopped off—his reputation as a mighty warrior revolved around his sword hand, of course and so, this amputation is a thinly-veiled, symbolic castration. Debra Ferreday’s essay ‘Game of Thrones, Rape Culture and Feminist Fandom’, published in the journal Australian Feminist Studies in 2015, describes how the Jaime-Brienne relationship involved several moments of ‘symbolic castration’ for Jaime, moments that were inextricable from his redemption arc. Within the context of this symbolism, castration boils down to being ‘feminised’, in one way or another.

“Jaime (…) is rescued with the help of the female knight Brienne of Tarth, a woman of honour, visually coded as lesbian, who, while she is repeatedly ridiculed as an inappropriate woman, is ironically shown as far more worthy than he of the armour they both wear. Tropes of symbolic castration are an important part of his redemption: first the amputation of his sword hand, and then again when he learns to fight with his left hand, is given a rare and powerful sword, but gives it to Brienne as the worthier knight. His transition from apparently ‘evil’ killer and attempted murderer of children became the subject of many transformative fanworks, very often focusing on a ‘shipping’ romance between Jaime and Brienne which centre on his emerging respect for women.”

I get the feeling that before House of the Dragon wraps up its run (and it has already been renewed for a second season) there are going to be many more onscreen castrations, both literal and metaphorical. It remains to be seen whether these sequences display the same narrative audacity and allusiveness that Game of Thrones displayed at its best, even if all-too-briefly.

Aditya Mani Jha is a Delhi-based independent writer and journalist, currently working on a book of essays on Indian comics and graphic novels.

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