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(CNN) — Note: This article contains minor spoilers for House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.
Whenever a fantasy tale delves too deeply into heinous violence or human exploitation, storytellers like to throw in four little words:
“But it’s historically accurate.”
That’s how the creators of the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon explained themselves after the premiere featured a mix of blood and gore, including an excruciating forced labor scene in which a woman is cut up like a turkey in hopes of saving her Saving baby at the cost of their own lives (both die).
“We thought it would be an interesting way to explore the fact that for a woman in medieval times, childbirth was a violent thing,” series co-director Miguel Sapochnik told The Hollywood Reporter about 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 True to the Middle Ages? Partly yes, as the records show. But plenty of other things also seem to conveniently fall off the storyboard when it comes to adding authenticity.
“The desire to be ‘exact’ suddenly disappears when there’s no sex involved and really interesting little things of everyday life are involved,” says Eleanor Janega, a medieval historian who teaches at the London School of Economics. “If the world of (‘Game of Thrones’) was historically accurate, why isn’t every noble house or castle absolutely covered in huge, flashy, colorful murals? Why is this form of historical accuracy unimportant, but depicting rape as endemic is?”
Other historians point out that while something like rude death by caesarean section is very morbid and awe-inspiring, such slaughter was not as common as the narrators would have us believe.
“It was about protecting mothers from harm,” medieval historian Sara McDougall tells Slate.
The lyrics of the time indicate that these extreme measures were usually used on women who were already deceased and not, as in “House of the Dragon”, on a fully awake and alert woman who had no idea what was about to happen to her. appear.
The pivotal and traumatic scene of the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones is inspired by real events.
The original Game of Thrones series was heavily criticized for its endless merry-go-round of rape, abuse, sexual humiliation, general cruelty and, of course, births gone wrong. George RR Martin, the mastermind behind the legendary A Song of Ice and Fire series that spawned Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, has long said he used history to enhance his narratives substantiate The rivalry between the Starks and the Lannisters, for example, is inspired by the legendary Wars of the Roses. Even the deadly Red Wedding (with another unfortunate ending for a pregnant character) is inspired by an event in Scottish medieval history known as the ‘Black Supper’.
Janega points out that the Middle Ages certainly weren’t all that kind to women or anyone who wasn’t rich, powerful, and masculine, but it wasn’t the burlesque portrayal of suffering we’re so accustomed to on screen.
“‘Accuracy’ always focuses on the unpleasant aspects of a society, but never on the pleasant ones,” he says. “Sexual violence (always) includes in some way and never things like the three camp system or fish dams. They don’t really show how women, apart from nobility, are a dynamic part of the hand medieval work. Women can be found in almost every facet of medieval work: as blacksmiths, shop managers, brewmasters, cloth-makers, bathhouse operators, or trade delegations to courts.”
In fiction, the story is always negotiable. Do we really need to, say, see the details of medieval plumbing or catch a glimpse of a noblewoman’s ragged muff to feel like we’re in a story that also involves dragons and magical fire? Probably not, as the public has pointed out. But that means, as Janega notes, the really important details can tell more about the present than about the past.
“It would be more accurate to say it’s fiction, but that it reflects the society that creates the art and that society is riddled with sexual assault, rather than implying that it must be done simply in the name of witnessing a misogynistic past, that we no longer live,” says Janega.
It’s easy, and maybe a little reassuring, to look back a few hundred years and decide that things were much worse overall. While much of this is true, the record shows that we have a lot of misconceptions about and about the Middle Ages that in contrast make our current reality appear much more sophisticated.
Even as we envision rotten teeth and smelly bodies, oral hygiene and cleanliness, while limited by today’s standards, were important to those who had access to the right tools and clean (or not-so-clean) water. Even something as horrific as rape was defined differently to include kidnapping and forms of extramarital sex. Yes, people still sucked. Yes, people continued to engage in unthinkable forms of violence. But the “historical accuracy” argument can often place more emphasis on finding differences between the past and the present than combating the uncomfortable similarities that scholars have pointed out.
Of course, one should remember that fantasy doesn’t have to look like history at all. If the wide reaches of the imagination can give birth to frost giants and raise the dead, it can surely invent a world where social structures are not defined by constant suffering. And if there must be fire and blood, maybe there are more creative ways – even more historically accurate – to depict it.