Seeds in Game of Thrones

     It is very apparent that women have always been inferior in the eyes of men, even in our current present day. Tracing back to Medieval times, women's bodies were considered deformed, polluted, and especially, disgusting. In an article titled, Woman Defamed and Woman Defended, Alcuin Blamires discusses two specific theories. These theories are called the one and two seed theory. Blamires details the one seed theory, stated by Aristotle, as men giving the vast majority of uniqueness to their children. Mothers are known as the vessels for children, while fathers contribute the children's overall being. As opposed to the one seed theory, the two seed theory, described by Galen, states that a child receives two seeds, but one is stronger than the other. Both theories degrade women to the bottom of the gender totem pole, but how do these theories pertain to certain instances like incest, heirs, and power, which all connect to a simple character from the Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister.

Cersei is the widowed wife of Robert Baratheon, the Queen regent of the Seven Kingdoms, mother of Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen, and shares a incestuous relationship with her twin Jaime Lannister. Cersei’s role as Queen Regent to guide her sons as they take the throne and be a mother queen as the new queen steps in line. Cersei demands power in the Seven kingdoms because she has suffered throughout her life and has pushed her way to get to the top and does everything she can to remain there. Cersei considers herself Tywin’s best son due to the fact that she is the only child who takes her father’s advice and does what she’s told. Although Cersei is the only female child of Tywin, she stands as the most masculine in the sense that she uses her knowledge and gender role to get her to the throne. Another spin to Cersei’s character is that she not only has an incestuous relationship with her twin brother Jaime, Cersei’s children are also fathered by Jaime.

Pertaining this back to the seed theories, how does Cersei relate to both or one of the theories and how can that reflect on women from Medieval times? Looking at the one seed theory, our present day Biology tells us that men determine the sex of children. Comparing this to the one seed theory, since men give the vast majority of uniqueness to their children, that would mean that when females are born, the mother’s seed was stronger than the father’s. This can relate back to Cersei being Tywin’s best son because her seed was able to beat out Jaime’s seed. But if you look at the two seed theory, Myrcella would be considered a deformed, mutilated man and Cersei’s seed was stronger in the sense that it deformed one of her children. So which theory would Cersei follow? Cersei shared a womb with her twin brother, so why would her blood be different than Jaime’s? Just because her body is different to her brother’s does not mean she did not contribute the same characteristics to her children. Cersei is a great example to test the contradictions within these theories because it allows the readers to look at the one sided views on women and how those views can’t follow that men create the children and women are just the vessel.   

Out for Blood: Reactions to Women Bleeding

In the show and books, Game of Thrones treats blood as a symbol of a women’s ability to have children, and therefore ability to be married. In the show, Sansa Stark is horrified to wake up to find that she has started her period. She wakes from a nightmare where she is being harassed to find blood all over her sheets. In this scene the focus is on her blood that has stained her sheets instead of the blood on her. She rushes to get a knife to cut out the stain and Shae walks in and immediately starts helping her hide the blood, which they are eventually unsuccessful in doing. Sansa’s blood was the focus of this scene. After, Sansa confesses to Cersei that she did not expect it so messy and Cersei tells her that childbirth is worse. The obsession with Sansa’s “flowering” is connected to her ability now to have children, specifically Joffery’s children, so they can now marry. In this example, a medieval woman bleeds to show her ability to have children. She is scared of her own blood while everyone else was anticipating it. As Sansa is now scared of the king, the thought of having his children is something is desperately avoiding. The same acceptance and usefulness of women’s blood is seen with Dany as she prepares to marry Khal Drogo. She is described as being ready for marriage because “she has had her blood” (34). Again women’s blood is connected to their ability to have children and therefore, in this scenario, their individual worth.

Another example of blood from the show is in the scene between Ygritte and Jon Snow in which Ygritte assures Jon that “girls see more blood than boys.” Here is another reverse to women’s menstruation and childbirth but this time it is in a superior tone. Ygritte portrays women’s almost indifference to blood as a strength they have over men.

From the book A Feast for Crows, Cersei does not talk of blood in menstruation; instead it is something that is showing her weakness. Curse has a dream that she is sitting on the Iron Throne but it is almost attacking her as the sharp edges cut into her skin. The description of the dream is vivid: “blood ran red down her legs, as still teeth gnawed at her buttocks…The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening” (Martin 65-66). Here blood seems to be Cersei’s punishment for wanting to hold a man’s position and gain power. Cersei imitating a man has caused her to bleed and her blood is not praised for what it brings or a sign of strength but rather a sign of her weakness and shortcoming.

For these female characters, the presence of blood takes on several different meanings and can either be an unwelcome sentence or a symbol of their power.

Mother or Monster?

Again and again in medieval literature we find constant criticism towards the mothers/queens for a variety of reasons. She’s too bitchy, she chose the wrong child to rule, she is way too involved in her kid’s life, she’s overbearing, etc. The endless judgement from medieval audiences and readers today leads us to ask ourselves, “Are these women really what we say they are, or are they trying their best to survive and provide for themselves and their children in the medieval period?”

The character of Cersei in “A Game of Thrones” faces a lot of negativity from other characters, readers, and viewers. Many people see her as an evil, overbearing, bitchy woman. But if we really look at her situation can we honestly blame her for her actions? Yes if you view it from a strictly moral perspective she is not the best; murder, sleeping with her brother, illegitimate children, etc. But look at her life, she was married off to a man she did not know and the people that surround her definitely are not interested in anyone’s wellbeing other than their own. The saying “adapt, improvise, and overcome” definitely applies to Cersei’s situation because that’s exactly what she had to do to survive and provide for her children.

In “Encomium Emmae Reginae”, Queen Emma’s life takes a sad turn when her children begin to fight amongst themselves for the kingdom and she is caught in the middle because of her previous choice between her children as to who would rule after the death of her husband. When she chose one child over another to rule at the time she most likely thought that she was making the right decision, how was she to know that the not chosen kid would come back and enact revenge on her? Like Cersei, Emma was married off to not one but two men she did not know and was then thrust into motherhood and queendom. I think we can all agree that having to choose a king from between your children is not the easiest decision and sadly it did not turn out that well in her favor. The choices she made in “Encomium Emmae Reginae” from an outside perspective may not appear to have been the greatest but it seems like she did the best she could with what she had.

While I was coming up with the ideas for this blog I intended on including the mother Donegild from the “Man of Law’s Tale” and the BBC version. But as I was trying to rationalize the actions of the mother in the actual Canterbury Tales version I really could not find a good reason for her actions besides her being a cruel woman who hated Christians. In the BBC version it is easier to see the mother’s point of view because she saw what happened with Constance and her son; the murder trial and all the red tape of getting her to stay there in the UK. As screwed up as it was to lie to Custance like that it’s understandable that the mom thought she was doing the right thing for her son at the time. So in the BBC version I can see the point of view of the mother, but in the original “Man of Law’s Tale” Donegild just seems pretty crappy. 

I couldn't find a photo of Donegild so this is how I imagined her