‘The House of Black and White’ is the second episode of the fifth season of HBO’s fantasy television series Game of Thrones, and the 42nd overall. We see the first absurdly feminist scene of the episode when Brienne, with the meagre help of her male squire, defeats several Littlefinger soldiers after speaking with Sansa in a tavern in the Vale.
The second feminist scene is even worse, and reminds me of my father’s abject codependency before my mother. Cersei manifests a vehement desire and Jaime will risk his life to fulfil it. The dynamic is typical: the female demands something and the male feels obliged to comply. Cersei ranks higher than her brother-lover Jaime at King’s Landing castle, as she is the mother of the king (and the people mustn’t know that Jaime is the real father of the king). So do men obey women that even in the city of Braavos, a sort of Venice in Martin’s world, Ternesio Terys takes Arya to the gates of the House of Black and White, the headquarters of the Faceless Men: where the young girl will be trained as a professional assassin.
Another toxic scene for the Aryan spirit is to see the blonde daughter of Cersei and Jaime strolling through the water gardens of Dorne with her fiancé: the swarthy Trystane Martell. Recall that in Martin’s world Dorne seems to have been inspired by Islamic culture.
The feminist scenes continue in Dorne. Ellaria Sand tells Prince Doran Martell that she and her daughters will avenge the death of Oberyn (killed in the previous season). Thus, it is women who have the initiative to start wars, or rescues like what Jaime will try in Dorne. Ellaria, who is not even a woman of noble birth, even threatens Prince Doran by asking him, extremely upset, the rhetorical question of how long will he reign. Just imagine a Muslim woman speaking like that to the Caliph of Baghdad!