The Visual Psychology of Daenerys’ Victory Speech in GAME OF THRONES
At the end of Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen claims the Iron Throne of Westeros by using her dragon and soldiers to demolish the already-surrendered capitol city and slaughter its innocent inhabitants. Moments later, she gives a victory speech to her soldiers from the steps of the devastated capitol castle. Daenerys addressing her organized troops draws clear parallels to the speeches of real-life tyrants and dictators like Hitler.
After seasons of Daenerys claiming to be better than her “mad” ancestors and having a higher humanitarian purpose to claiming the Iron Throne, she has become a Mad Queen herself. On their own, the words of Daenerys’ victory speech demonstrate that she remains internally consistent in believing her actions are morally right. A deeper semiotic analysis of hair and clothing, translation subtitles, and Daenerys’ metaphoric “wheel” reveal more nuanced layers of meaning in the victory speech scene. Daenerys believes she is the protagonist, but the semiotics of the scene reinforce that she has become the antagonist.
Hair and Clothes
Hair can symbolize the self and even “is the self since it grows from and is part of the physical human body” (Synnott, 2002, p. 122). This makes hair paradoxically personal while also being a public display of self-identity. In addition, clothes can “invoke and communicate certain messages” such as power relationships between people (Owyong, 2009).
Game of Thrones’ first episode introduces a young Daenerys with her white-blonde hair flowing freely. Long hair like hers is often connotated as feminine, sexual, and hindering to bodily movement (Synnott, 2002, p. 105). Furthermore, unruly long hair often symbolizes fertility and sensuality (Barkai, 2002). This fits Daenerys’ beginning character arc as her brother, inappropriate and controlling of her body, sells her to the leader of the Dothraki, a fictional race of nomadic warriors, to be a subservient wife and procreator. She is feminine and sexual, although she is vulnerable and lacks freedom. Daenerys’ soft pink dress symbolizes her gentleness. The thinness and flow of sheer fabric suggests lightness and openness (Bouvier, 2018), giving Daenerys a childlike quality. The fabric itself is heavily textured. Looselytextured fabrics suggest naturalness and uncomplication (Bouvier, 2018). The dress, with its thin shoulder straps, is easily slipped off, emphasizing Daenerys’ vulnerability.
Eight years later, fresh off burning a city and its inhabitants the ground, the speech scene lingers on Daenerys’ braided hair before she ever says a word. Tying back hair is an act of detaching from the physicality of the body, instead favoring organization and control (Barkai, 2002). This symbolism fits Daenerys. While she has been amorous, Daenerys ultimately chooses to lead through fear over love. In the previous episode she tells her lover Jon Snow — also a threat to her claim to the throne — that she does not have the people’s love in the land of Westeros, only fear. Physically rejected by Jon, Daenerys resigns herself to conquer Westeros by force: “Alright then, let it be fear” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019). Furthermore, pulled-back hair can also symbolize “castration or repressed sexuality” (Barkai, 2002). Years earlier, Daenerys learns she is infertile and has resigned herself to be maternal only to her dragons. Hence, a stark contrast is drawn between Daenerys in the first season and the current Daenerys about to give her victory speech. Femininity, fertility, and restriction have given way to modesty, infertility, and dominance.
Meaning-making of hair styles occurs in the context of its social group (McMurtrie, 2010). The Dothraki wear their hair in a long braid as a symbol of achievement; they only cut their hair after defeat in battle as a symbol of shame. While not Dothraki herself, it seems Daenerys as their leader has adopted this trait. The Dothraki attending her victory speech likely see the intricate braids as symbols of her conquest and achievement. Despite the cost of her victory — losing two dragons, her closest confidants, and most of her soldiers — Daenerys displays no shame or vulnerability.
Daenerys’ clothes are rigid, illustrating her authority. Shoulder pads expand her size, invoking strength and power (Owyong, 2009). The heavy fabrics instill a sense of “substance, durability, and functionality” while their smooth textures connote “fineness and expense” (Bouvier, 2018). The interconnectedness of her clothes suggests closedness, creating a barrier between others and herself. The clothes even hide her neck and glove her hands, creating no entry points to her body. Furthermore, Daenerys’ outfit is all black. Black can be construed as a symbol of impending storms and smoky fire (Kauppinen-Räisänen & Jauffret, 2018). Also known as Daenerys Stormborn because she was born during a storm, Daenerys has become the storm herself and a potent source of destruction.
When Daenerys is viewed from behind, only her free-flowing cuffs move in the breeze. The curved silhouette and movement of her cuffs iconically represents the dragon wings. (This is a more subtle symbolism than the overt dragon wings that open behind her earlier in the scene.) Besides dehumanizing Daenerys and reinforcing that she has become dragon-like, the superfluous cuff detail semiotically invokes her powerfulness in contrast to her audience.
Daenerys’ three-headed dragon brooch reflects the three dragons she had over the course of the series as well as the Coat of Arms of House Targaryen. The symbolism of a three-headed monster goes back to Cerberus, the Greek three-headed dog who guards the Underworld. Author Patrick O’Neill summarizes that Cerberus “characterizes all of the negative aspects of [the past, present, and future] time frames. He aims to freeze forward movement and lock us into negative, repetitive patterns. Obsessing about the past, overwhelm in the present, and fear of the future are his methods” (2014). Daenerys’ arc follows the symbolism of the threeheaded monster. She is vengeful about the past, when her Mad King father was assassinated and she was exiled to another land; she has gotten caught up in the present, demolishing a surrendered city she had already won; she sees only one path forward in the future: fear.
Translation Subtitles
Daenerys delivers her victory speech in the fictitious language spoken by her primary audience of Dothraki and Unsullied soldiers. Any language requires agreement that a sign arbitrarily stands for something else (Crow, 2016, p. 18). Hence, the other main characters present, including Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister, mostly cannot understand the words of her speech because they do not know the relationships between signifiers and signified. They must make meaning instead from visual and verbal cues of her delivery.
However, the audience is provided translation subtitles to understand her speech. Because translation subtitles contain culture-specific signs, this audiovisual text represents culture through both language and visual images (Chen & Wang, 2016). For instance, Daenerys begins her speech with “blood of my blood” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019). The viewer can infer that this is a familial term for Daenerys’ soldiers, but it carries cultural meaning that the viewer cannot participate in. This translation subtitle draws the viewer into the culture of the characters, but reliance on visual text for meaning-making keeps a barrier between the viewer and the characters. The viewer is an observer, not participant.
Translation subtitles are inseparable from the verbal and visual information of the scene. Hence, meaning is made in the context of how the subtitles, audio, and other visual elements of the scene work together to weave a cohesive narrative (Chen & Wang, 2016). This is imperative because additional semiotic meaning can come from the juxtaposition of image and text (Crow, 2016). For example, Daenerys tells her soldiers that they are “liberators” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019) with the translation subtitle overlaying a view of the destroyed city (Figure 7). This demonstrates that Daenerys has perverted “liberate” into a metonym for the mass destruction and slaughter of a city like the one preceding her victory speech. When Daenerys later proclaims “we will not lay down our spears until we have liberated all the people of the world” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019), the viewer can infer that Daenerys plans to destroy other cities in the same manner.
The translation subtitles, along with the camerawork, also give the viewer insight into how Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister perceive her speech and what meaning they have made. The actual text of the subtitles imposed on the screen create connection between the content of Daenerys’ speech and the cut-away close-ups of Jon and Tyrion. Daenerys continues her speech by listing the cities that she will liberate, starting “from Winterfell to Dorne” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019). Mid-word on “Winterfell”, Jon Snow’s home, the camera cuts to Jon while the subtitle narration stays stagnant (Figure 8). In the fictional language Daenerys is speaking, the name Winterfell sounds similar, so the viewer can infer that this word caught Jon’s attention. However, the camera only stays on Jon for a moment, as if he caught the word, but has not processed what this means with the visual and verbal contexts of the scene — he seems concerned but has not resolved to take action.
The camera cuts to Tyrion, the Hand-of-the-Queen, and the imposed text create a tense connection between Daenerys and Tyrion (Figure 9). Unlike Jon, it seems the Tyrion has better understood the meaning of Daenerys’ speech. The continued focus on him as she rattles off the rest of the cities to liberate illustrates that he has caught on to her plan, whether he somehow understands her words or is better at context clues than Jon. The scene stays unwavering on him until Daenerys finishes listing cities, foretelling his resolve to take action.
Daenerys nears her conclusion by saying women, men, and children “have suffered too long beneath the wheel” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019). This final juxtaposition between translation subtitle and camera shot point to the irony of Daenerys’ words. The imagery shows the evidence of her hours-earlier slaughter of innocent women, men, and children under her banner (Figure 10). As Daenerys ends her speech by imploring her soldiers: “Will you break the wheel with me?” (Benioff & Weiss, 2019), the visuals of the scene betray and contradict her proclamation to “break the wheel”.
The Wheel
Central to Game of Thrones is the continuous fight between Houses for control of the Iron Throne. In an earlier episode, Daenerys describes to Tyrion her aim:
Lannister, Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Tyrell — they’re all just spokes on a wheel. This one’s on top, then that one’s on top, and on and on it spins crushing those on the ground. I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break the wheel. (Benioff & Weiss, 2015)
The wheel is a symbol of repeating political cycles over time. The circular shape is enduring, restrictive, and reminiscent of the earth, sun, and other universal systems (Bradley, 2018). Now in the final episode, as Daenerys gives her speech, it has become evident that she has become yet another spoke on the wheel, crushing more people under her than any other contender for the Iron Throne. As much as she previously tried to overthrow the circular wheel, she has become a spoke herself.
The numerous circular motifs of the speech scene betray Daenerys’ insistence that she is not part of the wheel. First, Daenerys’s banner is the House Targaryen Coat of Arms, which depicts the three-headed dragon. However, in this illustration, the dragon is circular. The fire out of the dragons’ mouths loops and loop and circles with the dragon’s wings, with small triangles illustrating that the dragon’s fire flows in both direction’s around the circle.
Second, Daenerys’ Master of War has the three dragons on his uniform arranged in a circle, fire of each linking to the next dragon (Figure 11). Third, even the round shields of the Unsullied create an endless field of soldiers holding the symbolic circular wheel, reinforce the symbolism of protectiveness, impenetrability, and inevitability the “wheel” that Daenerys describes.
Though he cannot break it, only Tyrion escapes the wheel. As Hand-of-the-Queen, his title is intended to show his agency in acting on behalf of the queen. He wears a pin to symbolize this role. However, by this episode, the pin has taken on a new meaning. His pin features a hand breaking out of the confines of a circle (Figure 12). This symbolizes how Tyrion has one who can break out of the “wheel”, giving him agency. The stem of the pin resembles a sword, which put into the hand creates action and is a vector directed away from the circle. As Tyrion approaches Daenerys and throws the pin down the steps, he takes agency in rejecting Daenerys’ new mission to “liberate” the world. Although he is not powerful enough to break the wheel, he has the agency to break himself out of it, even if it means his own demise.
Conclusion
A semiotic analysis of the speech scene erodes Daenerys’ humanity. Her hair and clothing suggest modesty, infertility, and dominance. Her many hair braids are symbols of her conquest and achievement. Her clothes are rigid, illustrating her authority. Only her cuffs flow in the wind, curves in arcs that imitate dragon wings. Clad in all black, Daenerys is a symbol of storms and smoky fire, as she has become a potent source of destruction. Her three-headed dragon broach recalls classical mythology and the dangers of a three-headed monster clouding her past, present, and future. She sees only one path forward: fear. The translation subtitles juxtapose and contrast the words of Daenerys’ speech, revealing the danger of her mindset. Daenerys insists on breaking the wheel, but she has only propagated the wheel as visually reinforced in the scene. Her Coat of Arms is circular, her Master of War’s dragon emblem is circular, and her soldiers’ shields are circular. Only her Hand-of-the-Queen, Tyrion, can escape the wheel as his hand escapes the circle. After seasons of Daenerys claiming to be better than her “mad” ancestors and having a higher humanitarian purpose to claiming the Iron Throne, as semiotic analysis reveals she has remained internally consistent but lost some of her humanity and become the Mad Queen.
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