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Series analysis: Medieval life goes beyond misery and sexual violence

Note: This text contains slight spoilers for “House of the Dragon” and “Game of Thrones”.

Whenever a fantasy story goes too far in violence or the plain old exploration of human misery, storytellers like to trot out four little words:

“But it’s historically accurate.”

That was the explanation the creators of the “House of the Dragon” spin-off from “Game of Thrones” gave after the premiere served up a smorgasbord of blood, including an agonizing scene of forced labor in which a woman is cut asunder. a turkey hoping to save her baby at the cost of her own life. (Both die).

“We felt it was an interesting way to explore the fact that for a woman in medieval times, giving birth was violence,” showrunner Miguel Sapochnik told The Hollywood Reporter of the scene. (HBO, home of “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon,” shares parent company Warner Bros. Discovery with CNN ).

Is sexual and reproductive violence historically faithful to the medieval age? To some extent, yes, as the records show. But also many other things that seem to conveniently fall off the storyboard when it’s time to add authenticity.

“The urge to be ‘accurate’ suddenly disappears when sex isn’t involved and it’s really interesting everyday minutiae,” says Eleanor Janega, a medieval historian who teaches at the London School of Economics. “If the world (‘Game of Thrones’) was historically accurate, why isn’t every noble house or castle absolutely covered in huge, colorful and eye-catching murals? Why is this form of historical accuracy not important, but showing rape as endemic is?” she asks.

Other historians point out that as lewd and sigh-worthy as a crude death by Caesarean section, this carnage was not as prevalent as storytellers would have you believe.

“They were very interested in protecting mothers from harm,” medieval history scholar Sara McDougall told Slate.

Texts from the time indicate that such extreme measures would usually be carried out on women who had already died – no, as in “House of the Dragon”, a woman fully awake and alert, with no idea what was about to happen to her.

The original “Game of Thrones” series was highly criticized for its never-ending carousel of rape, abuse, sexual humiliation, cruelty and, of course, childbirth gone wrong. George RR Martin, the mastermind behind the iconic “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, which spawned “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon,” has long said he turns to history to inform his narratives.

The rivalry between the Starks and the Lannisters, for example, is formed after the legendary Wars of the Roses. Even the deadly Red Wedding (which features another unfortunate ending for a pregnant character) takes inspiration from an event in medieval Scottish history known as “Black Dinner.”

Eleanor points out that while medieval times certainly weren’t very kind to women or anyone else who wasn’t rich, powerful and masculine, they weren’t the burlesque of suffering we’re so used to seeing on screen.

“’Accuracy’ is always focusing on the unpleasant aspects of a society, but never the pleasant ones,” she says. “(It) somehow always covers sexual violence and never things like, for example, the three-field system, or fishing ponds. They don’t really show how women beyond the nobility are a dynamic part of the medieval workforce. Women are found in virtually every facet of medieval work: as blacksmiths, running shops, brewing beer, producing cloth, running bathhouses, or in commercial delegations heading to court.”

In fiction, history is always negotiable. Do we really need to see, for example, the specifics of medieval plumbing, or do we need to glimpse the frayed fist of a noblewoman to feel centered in a story that also includes dragons and magical fire? Probably not, as the public noticed. But that means, as Eleanor notes, the details that matter can say more about the present than the past.

“It would be more accurate to say that this is fiction, but it reflects the society that is creating the art, and that society is rife with sexual assault, rather than suggesting that this simply has to be done in the name of witnessing a misogynistic past that does not we experiment more,” says Eleanor.

It’s easy, and perhaps a little comforting, to look back a few hundred years and decide that things were much worse in every way. While much of this is true, the records show that we carry a plethora of misconceptions about medieval and neighboring ages that make our current reality seem far more sophisticated in contrast.

While we can imagine rotten teeth and fetid bodies, oral hygiene and cleanliness, while limited by today’s standards, were important for those with access to proper tools and clean (or not so clean) water.

Even something as horrible as rape has been defined differently, encompassing kidnapping and forms of sex outside of marriage. Yes, people still stank. Yes, people still engaged in unthinkable forms of violence.

But the “historical accuracy” argument can often place more emphasis on finding differences between past and present than dealing with the uncomfortable similarities that scholars have noted.

Of course, it’s worth remembering that the fantasy doesn’t have to look like the story. If the vast recesses of the imagination can spawn frost giants and bring the dead back to life, they can certainly invent a world where social structures are not defined by ever-present suffering. And if there must be fire and blood, perhaps there are more creative – or rather, even more historically accurate – ways to describe this scenario.

Source: CNN Brasil

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