Stormborn

‘Stormborn’ is the second episode of the seventh season of HBO’s fantasy television series Game of Thrones, and the 62nd overall. We see the first feminist message in Dany’s war council that used to be Stannis’ headquarters. Dany invited three powerful women, Olenna Tyrell, Yara Greyjoy, and Ellaria Sand as allies to overthrow another woman, Queen Cersei. Olenna, Yara, and Ellaria are hawks while Tyrion recommends restraint to avoid unnecessary genocide.

The warriors with balls are women, and those who care for civilians are men (Varys is also in the Dragonstone war council as Dany’s counsel). That eagerness to behave like a hawk is even more noticeable when Olenna is left alone talking to Dany, haranguing her to honour her Targaryen surname, that she becomes a true dragon.

We see the second feminist message of the episode when Sansa, once again in the war council of Winterfell with the lords of the north, again contradicts, and resoundingly, the decisions of the king of the north, Jon. In the real world, an insolent woman who had done a scene like the one Sansa had done in the previous episode would not have entered the war council room again. But here, obviously, the male kings tolerate these mouthy little women, even the Mormont girl who opens her little mouth again at Jon’s war council to show her disagreements.

The worst thing is that, when Jon Snow accepts the invitation to visit Dany in Dragonstone, he leaves Sansa as Guardian of the North in Winterfell. So now three women rule Westeros: Cersei in King’s Landing, Dany the invader (who has allied with Olenna, Yara and Ellaria), and Sansa as guardian of the north while Jon Snow returns from his dangerous diplomatic mission.