Women and Madness in Game of Thrones:

A Feminist Critique

Abstract

Historically, women do not appear to be escaping the determination to be insane either by adopting prescribed patterns of femininity or by opposing the attributions. No matter how strong or weak a woman is, in the end, there is always a possibility of the loss of the self that turns them into mad women. This paper examines why and how several female protagonists in Game of Thrones are depicted as insane and hysterical as over time their characters grow stronger. The analogous arrangement of madness and femininity blocks their access to the position of normality in this fictional world. Moreover, female abnormality is a clear form of female normality since, weak or strong, women like Daenerys, Sansa, Arya, or Cersei end up being labeled as insane or hysterical by the patriarchal normativity. In the fictional world of Westeros, madness and gender performative discourses form the framework of behavioral traits that lead its female protagonists towards madness. This paper will use gender theories and Butler’s performative acts to explain the attitudes of the writer as well as the creators of Game of Thrones towards female insanity and the reasons behind the depiction.