Welcome back, loyal Unicorns! And if this is your first time here, a warm welcome to those newly magically maned members of our community. Are Unicorns known to be loyal, by the way? Not bi folks, of course — we all know that old, terrible, and untrue stereotype about bi people permanently ready to stray from their partners. I’m talking about the mythical creature. They seem to only get spotted on their own, never in packs. Usually in great lighting and shrouded in a glittery mist.
You may wonder why in the world am I going on and on about the personality traits of a creature that seems to only exist around virgins in medieval folklore. Well, that’s because this time around we are going to dive into the mythos and happenings of Westeros, the focus of the worldwide TV sensation Game of Thrones. The fantasy epic likes to take tropes of fairy tales and European history and give them a more considered, nuanced viewpoint. (Hey, if George R.R. Martin can go on and on about the backstory of direwolves, I can give unicorn fidelity a bit of a think.)
I thought it might be a good idea to go back a few seasons and see how the series treated characters that may not have been inherently straight. Plus, hey, who doesn’t love a good reason to recap one of the great water-cooler TV shows of our generation?
Before I go any further, at this point I should give a heads up that this review will contain SPOILERS for both the show Game of Thrones and characters from its source material, the A Song of Ice and Fire book series. I should probably also give a good content warning: graphic violence for discussing the timeline of certain characters. Oh, and one last thing: if you need a refresher to see if my assessment tracks with our bi metric, it would be wise to go peruse the original article.
All right, enough of that. Words are wind. A girl must review.
Game of Thrones is a fantasy epic that centers on a world of many kingdoms and unusually long seasons, and multiple monarchies fighting for rule over the major continent in question, Westeros. Wars and grudges fill this world of lust and blood, and in season four we meet what became one of the audience’s favorite characters, Prince Oberyn Martel of Dorne, AKA the Red Viper (Pedro Pascal) and his bright and fierce paramour, Ellaria Sand (Indira Varma). Oberyn arrives in King’s Landing ostensibly to attend a royal wedding, but we quickly learn he has scores to settle.
What I Liked:
Oberyn and Ellaria prove themselves to be some of the most worldly and passionate characters in the whole narrative, with multiple dimensions to their personalities and zero shame. I remember reading the books and not thinking much about these characters — they didn’t really figure into the overall arc much from what I remembered. And I definitely didn’t pick up on the subtleties that they were bi. But the show puts Oberyn and Ellaria front and center for the fourth season, casually introducing it and giving them a wonderful scene talking about their desires. This declaration is so beautiful and #biconic, here is the big pull quote:
MALE SEX WORKER: You like them both the same? Boys and girls?
OBERYN: Does that surprise you?
MALE SEX WORKER: Everyone has a preference.
OBERYN: Then everyone is missing half the world’s pleasure. The gods made that, and it delights, me. The gods made this, and it delights me. When it comes to war, I fight for Dorne. When it comes to love, I don’t choose sides.
I have to admit, when I first saw this scene, I fist pumped so hard because I felt so seen. The showrunners did not need to make this scene a priority — anyone who has seen the show knows there is plenty of (straight and some gay) sex to be seen. But they did, and I was so damn grateful to see multi-dimensional bi characters get so much screen time, and so much respect. It’s not done for titillation’s sake (a la the infamous “sexposition” for Littlefinger’s background story in Season 1), but rather to show all the nods Oberyn gave to Lancel and other men throughout the season were legit. And to have a truly badass male character be bi in this brutal world feels almost like a revelation.
Even after Oberyn’s gruesome death (which was very much mourned in the bi community, Ellaria continues to have fulfilling arcs — and more bi love scenes! No, it’s not a threesome like the first scene, but we still get to see that Ellaria has same-sex tendencies for all the haters who like to claim that women do it for the attention of men. As an added bonus, we find out that Yara is bi too.
What I Didn't Like:
I’m not gonna quibble about the lack of the term “bi”. I think Oberyn described it as well as one can in this kind of world. But … sigh … this is another sad example of #killyourgays. Oberyn’s famously graphic death was hard to watch — I still can’t watch it in full when I re-watch the series. I know brutal deaths are part and parcel for this show, but it feels like Oberyn and Ellaria’s demises were particularly cruel. (True, at the time of writing we know that Ellaria was left to starve while watching her favorite child rot, but we didn’t actually see her perish. I’m hoping for a Gerald’s Game-esque twist where she gets so skinny she can wriggle out of her handcuffs and go slaughter Cersei (Lena Headey).) Their sexualities don’t figure into the nature of their deaths, but these feel particularly damning ways to kill off characters. Maybe I’m just partial to this doomed pair, but it felt harsh.
Ugh, I don’t want to think about their deaths anymore. Let’s celebrate Oberyn with this silly little video instead:
The Rating:
Oh, how I love the Red Viper. He is a smart, passionate, capable badass who also is a proud bi man. And Ellaria is a cunning woman, even in her grief, and still full of dimensions and power — and she is also very much bi. They deserved better fates (valar morghulis), but gods, I was glad we got to see them in this crazed world.
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