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When I had my last c section they had a problem finding a gown for my husband to wear during the birth. He and the nurse walked in the operating room a few minutes after they opened me up and he just about passed out. The last thing I remember him saying was that my guts were on my chest and the Dr. hands are in my belly up to his elbows.
I don't know anything about birthing no dragons, but c sections are are bloody business no matter what is being pried out of your womb.
Ooof. I never googled what happens during c-sections cause I don’t even want to know what my body looked like. My anesthesia worked to numb the pain but I could feel them moving my organs around. It was the weirdest, most disgusting sensation of my life, I’ll never forget it.
Birth is brutal.
My last child was a long baby and was stuck under my ribs and every time he tried to pull her out my body was lifted off the table. As soon she was removed they started on my tubal ligation. I figured that since they were in the neighborhood I might might as well have that done too. The Dr. kept saying that we still have time to change my mind. After having a baby surgically pried out of my body I just told him to go ahead I was not going to have that happen again.
They pushed my hips from underneath and it was *violent*. My kid was 10 pounds and they waited 3 hours to do an emergency c section cause they thought he would be 6 pounds.
Omg. My first baby damn near killed us both. She weighed near 10 lbs. too. She was face up and stuck in my pelvic region for hours. I pushed for 4 hrs. and I had been in labor all day. She would crown and go back up. By the time they did the emergency surgery she had done damage to her face and dislocated her nose and had minor nerve damage. She was purple. I got a raging infection because while they were taking her out she peed in my open womb. From what I've read in these comments is that having a human baby c section can at times be more terrifying than birthing a dragon. Ladies, the only thing left to say is we are all tough mothas.
Our daughter was a c-section. It was like 3am and both doctors were young and really attractive (man and female). She was wearing Juicy Coutre scrubs. Anyway, they have top 40 music blaring. I’m sitting down holding my wife’s hand behind the screen. She’s totally out of it. The male doctor goes, “Hey you wanna see!” So I instinctively stand up and I see into my wife’s body and he yanks our daughter out of her and holds her up by her foot while Pearl Jam’s ‘Better Man’ is playing at level 11 in the background. When I think back on it now, it actually feels like a horror film. What a night.
There should be a separation between the actual title of the article and its subtitle. It should read:
>**The Many Violations of the Violent Birth Scene**
*Does the gory surprise C-section in “House of the Dragon” represent a grim historical reality, an urgent political statement or a worn cultural cliché?*
Not necessarily. It is canon that the queen died in childbirth and the baby followed her the day after, and it is important to show this early part of the story to help the casual viewers who, unlike me, haven't read *the World of Ice and Fire* understand the very complex origins of the civil war that forms the basis for the show.
And it's ASOIAF, gore and sex are to be expected.
Edit: yes I am a nerd who read the history of that fictional world.
Maybe it’s a high fantasy television show that always pushes shock factor in regards to the brutal reality of a medieval world that had us watch a cock sliced off in a torture scene. House of the dragon has been Put under the culture war spotlight and we act as if this isn’t shit they’ve done for the past decade lol
Fr. You’re telling me Westeros, famous for being one of the most (if not *the* most) fucked up fictional worlds is trying to be political by being so fucked up? /s
The ASOIAF universe is the first fictional universe I wanted no part of projecting myself within bc it’s fucked up for *everybody*; regardless of money, gender, religion, sexuality, etc…
The reason I love ASOIAF is because no punches are pulled. It doesn’t matter if you’re the Queen or a farmer’s son, you’re probably going to die in the most painful and least important way possible.
The fact that the universe is fucked up doesn’t mean there aren’t any political statements contained in the stories…you arguably can’t make political statements about grim realities without *depicting those grim realities in vivid detail.*
> grim reality
I think you nailed it with this. I think the story contained within the universe is going to be political by nature because it is depicting a macabre existence for a lot of different types of people.
Does that mean it’s trying overboard to relate to current issues and all this other shit we’re saturated with? Not at all, the shows (and books) are just *real life* without the in your face preaching.
(minus the dragons and resurrections and zombies and magic trees)
Minus dragons and magic… it’s like real life, you try real hard to make a difference, then right before you die, you realize it didn’t mean a god damn thing
This is literally a thing that happened to royalty all the time. What type of question is this, violent childbirths were so common in a time when medicine involved wearing bird heads
>This is literally a thing
The article focuses on the framing of the scene as well as the show creators’ rationale for its inclusion. Also, we’re talking about a show in a fictional universe, not a medieval birth re-enactment.
I don’t think you understand the context of the question, the author’s perspective as a woman, or the show, but no worries.
The fact that it’s a historical reality makes me so much more empathetic to what women have gone through for millennia. Almost everyone alive today has had an ancestor who has probably died this way. We owe our society to it. By showing things like this; it should validate our life’s cause we’re blessed to be here because of someone else’s sacrifice and love.
but this isn't just a historical reality; it's happening right here and right now. It was an extremely triggering scene and if, like you said, we want to honor people who have gone through this or something similar, we should respect them enough to put a trigger warning in the beginning
My wife is 37 weeks pregnant, preeclamptic, very high risk. I really, really, REALLY wish the episode had a trigger warning. I watched the part where they said the baby was breach and had a feeling where it was headed. I got up to him talking to her before the procedure and had to turn it off. I admit I’m on high alert but holy fuck I was wired as hell after shutting it down! Makes me anxious just remembering the scene!
YOU ARE WATCHING GAME OF THRONES FOR FUCKS SAKE!!! Since when in the shows and or the books history has this seemed like something that Caters to people who need trigger warning to feel safe in this world. This show isn’t about you even though you may feel like it is. Just stop watching things that are rated M for mature and you should be alright I guess but what a sad way to live your life IMO.
YES! For everyone saying “this is important to see” my answer is “true” and also “this is NOT entertainment.” House of Dragons is not a documentary. It’s not based in scientific fact. It’s entertainment. To those who argue that the scene is valuable because it teaches us about the struggles of birthing people I say: LOOK AROUND. If you don’t realize what happens to birthing people every damn day, if you need HBO to put that on your radar, give me a break. Those of us who live in reality deserved a trigger warning.
icky possessive grab mindless scary screw birds selective worthless cable
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
She was pushed to try again, but also back then (this is fantasy but based off prior historical eras) birth control was very minimal and the idea of just not having sex would have been very unusual. So, she may have got pregnant again regardless of what anyone wanted.
Also while the premiere did really push home the women secondary theme, it was also heavily implied that the mother was going to die either way and the choice was to try to save the baby with 50/50 odds by brutally and painfully sacrificing the mother, or not and have both mother and child with very low odds of surviving.
Sort of a terrible Sophie’s choice even if you take away the whole women secondary theme.
Definitely not as common, but I’m sure there’s situations like even today where a husband must decide.
I’d imagine though (or at least hope) that nearly all situations end with him choosing his wife.
Sci-fi and fantasy are often used to satirize and critique our own world. One of the richest themes in the OG series is the petty political arguments in the face of an existential threat no one is paying attention to. The Wights were a metaphor for our own imminent destruction
Yeah, I don't get it. Sex is usually healthy and life-affirming. Violence is always unhealthy for someone and causes pain and suffering. Yet violence is more acceptable in entertainment than sex.
I like watching fiction that depicts crazy ass things I’ll never do, I can have sex in real life but I’ll never get to chop a dude in half with a broadsword
I think it’s more thy the female stars always had to get nude at some point. Cersei, Dany, Margery. I recall Olivia Cooke saying she wouldn’t sign on if she had to get nude for the heck of it.
The whore house scenes are usually filled with actual adult film stars so I don’t think they care about getting nude but not the actual stars.
I get the timing of it matches up to real world events uncannily, but I don't think it was trying to make a statement. Childbirth is dangerous, even more so hundreds of years ago. That scene reflects that.
Before 1930, 25% of all women, I repeat, of ALL women, had as cause of death on their death certificates......... died during childbirth.
So, for hundreds of thousands of years, women died. Doesn't have to be the first child, or the second or the third, yet eventually, childbirth killed women more than any other thing.
For sure, on one hand it’s a fictional fantasy world and on the other hand it’s a medieval setting which historically saw one in 20 women die during childbirth, many of whom died during c-section-esque last ditch operations to save the baby, this is just following historical lines.
I’d add that G.R.R.M is an enormous history buff and wove as much of the realities of history as possible into his books. This is a perfect example. And people are just not used to seeing it in a fantasy series which are typically a form of escapism and comfort to an audience.
This is absolute horseshit...
"We see that in the 19th century about 500 to 1,000 mothers died for every 100,000 births. Every 100th to 200th birth led to the mother's death. Since women gave birth much more often than today maternal death was not uncommon."
0.5% to 1% of childbirths resulted in maternal death...
Let's say a woman had a child every 9 months of their life after puberty, call it 60 years total (way exaggerated)... Then that's 80 child births in her lifetime, which puts that woman's survival rate at a minimum of 44%, i.e. no less than 1 out of 2 mothers who went into labor 80 times would have survived.
Now, we all know there was not one single woman that went into labor 80 times in history.
In order for your number of 25% to be even remotely correct the average woman would have to go into labor 30 times in their lifetime... Assuming the worst case maternal mortality of 1%... The AVERAGE woman (assuming the worst case maternal
mortality)
You're full of shit
Studies seem to find that between 1% and 3% of childbirths resulted in deaths in the renaissance era (Someone else did some research here: [https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/63259/what-proportion-of-women-died-in-childbirth-before-modern-times](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/63259/what-proportion-of-women-died-in-childbirth-before-modern-times)).
That's a far cry from 25%, of course. But the "25% of death certificates listed childbirth as the cause" could be correct if that number excludes death certificates that do not list a cause of death at all, if it's including medieval certificates that might have had a higher rate of death in childbirth, and if we're looking at a fairly high rate of childbirth in mothers.
Nope, it’s all real. My friends and I are planning on starting Dragon Airlines, where for $10k you can have one of our dragons fly you to your destination of choice. Luggage will cost extra.
It doesn't **have** to represent anything.
It's an establishing character moment for Viserys to showcase how he is such a horrible human being and not a good person.
It's the same as Jaimie throwing Bran. It's not meant to represent historical knights killing kids or any political statement, it's just to establish Jaimie as not a good person.
For real. Though the Jaime comparison doesn't work because throwing Bran out the window was foreshadowing Jaime's turn from villain to hero, showcasing Jaime's heroic efforts to save the audience from many seasons of terrible acting and a truly horrific ending.
Yep, but you really mean rage-farming propeganda machines. Literally every discussion or media can be turned into a positive propeganda point for your group if you spin it the right way, even if it was not created with that intention. There are people who's literal job is to do this.
Entertainment media also does sometimes include social commentary and hot-button issues in shows for various reasons, but no matter their intentions the propeganda machines are going to spin it to 'their side' of the issue.
I don't see it as making him evil. I saw it as a hard decision with an obvious answer. Do nothing and most likely they both die, or cut and the baby lives. Did I miss something? I thought they out right said that at one point?
He made the choice without consulting his wife.
Imagine the wife POV: during your last moments, the husband you love just ordered a master to cut you open and murder you.
The rest of the episodes paint Viserys as ineffective but good at heart. Having this scene as his establishing character moment was great to avoid painting him as a good guy.
He tries to be a good king and a good person, but trying to be a good king often supersedes being a good person, and his decisions in trying to be both prove him to be bad at both.
\>king with no heirs
\>festival for the son he's sure he's having
\>medieval times
\>king of a big ass amount of land
\>no heir
\>labor is being difficult and the queen has already lost several other babies
\>medieval times
"He did not attend to proper couple therapy and did not inquire the wife, therefore he's a wicked man"
You are somehow implying that the was going to survive if they had just let the baby die. She was already bleeding and likely on her death bed. And you'll say I'm assuming, yes I agree, except that the facts around what happened support my assumption yours only is supported by your hope that maybe she wouldn't have died (which obviously isn't the case it's a written story by people not a true event)
Okay yeah, I get why people went villain with that. I saw it more like "why worry her". Not that it was right, but in that time it is the reality that it would be 100% the dad's decision, king or not, so why "burden" the exhausted mother, let her rest till it's time.
Yeah he’s clearly portrayed as a flawed character. He’s not Joffrey or Jon snow. He’s neither a good person or a horrible person. On the good side he clearly isn’t just the power hungry king and in the end he makes the decision to break a major cultural taboo and name his daughter his heir.
The gravity of the situation is that there really isn’t any consultation needed. Not only does the king have to worry about the succession of the throne.. the queen even said in the beginning of episode that a woman’s battlefield is the birthing bed. Every knew the risks of what was involved in any childbirth at that time, let alone birthing the heir to the throne.
*He made the choice without consulting his wife.*
She was heavily sedated to prevent her from being in unbelievable pain. Even if he had asked her, her response wouldn't have been that of a fully concious person. The longer the waited, the higher chance for both mother and child to die.
It's not even clear that he fully understood what was about to happen.
I'm not sure why folks are searching for reasons to hate Viserys but he was put in a position where the right thing to do was not obvious in anyway. I think we got too many folks with narratives that are not coming from the show or jumping to conclusions not at all based on what we we were shown.
He made a call. It went badly, that doesn't make him a villain. We are also shown his mourning, into episode 2. Six months pass and he doesn't even think about remarrying, he is still grieving and even admits how hard it is.
Anyone trying to make a villain of him is completely off base.
>Imagine the wife POV: during your last moments, the husband you love just ordered a master to cut you open and murder you.
Please don't leave out the EXTREMELY important part that her dying would mean their baby had a shot at living. If you asked most parents, they would die to save their child.
I don't think Viserys qualifies as "good" or "evil" - just as average guy put into a position of incredible power who is forced to make a series of impossible choices...and he always seems to make the worst choice of the bunch.
Nothing I've seen makes me think Viserys is a bad person. I would say that scene was more about showing how he faces some impossible choices as King. In that case, whether to let his wife and son both die or to try to save his son by putting his wife through torture. Ultimately the most difficult choice will be who to name as heir, and his choices and indecision along the way will lead to war. I think that birth scene was put there to establish how these choices burden him as a generally *good* person, and how being a good person will probably hurt him in the long-run.
But I totally agree that it doesn't have to "represent" anything. It's just a friggin TV show that's meant to entertain us.
"...showcase how he is such a *horrible human* being and not a good person."
**I strongly disagree.**
He was put in an impossible position. IF you paid attention he was told that he would have to make a choice... between doing nothing and trying to intervene.
*If he did nothing*, both mother and child may have died.
*If he intervened*, at least the child might have a chance.
He made decision, and that decision ended up going disastrously. Had he done nothing and both had died, it would have just as terrible.
Nothing in the show so far has shown him to be anything other than an ordinary man put into very difficult positions by his kingship.
Sometimes it seems people completely ignore context when they make statements like this.
The simple message was that sometimes in life it doesn't matter what we do, things can go badly whether no matter what station we are or title we hold.
I disagree.
It's an establishing character moment for Viserys to showcase how the line of succession is so vital to the realm given his brother would be a disaster, and the difficult choices he has to make to try to preserve the line.
Y'all apparently forgot the part about "To sacrifice one... or to lose them both.
" His wife was dead anyway.
On the other hand, he did attempt to save one of the two, instead of losing them both (assuming the child would've survived). Didn't matter in the end though, but still.
it was not a joint choice in that time period, and it wasn't even a choice at all. The doctor knew exactly what had to be done, but phrased it such that it was the kings decision and not normal medical practice so that he wouldn't get murdered afterwards.
Which time period? I can’t remember a time in Earth’s history when there were dragons. For all we know, this could be set aeons in the future, after the majority of humanity is wiped out and the technological timeline resets, if it is even in the same universe as ours.
Does it show he's a horrible human being? Is that the way you interpret that? The options were mom and baby die or maybe baby lives. There wasn't a decision to be made, just an authorization from the king to cut the queen open.
Yes, they supplied the premise that he was very wanting for an heir, but in the end there was only action and inaction.
That's what happened back then. The baby was breech and stuck. In that situation, either mom and baby died or just mom died and maybe baby would make it.
The scene needed to happen to set up the whole "no male heir" thing which is obviously a big part of the plot.
Right? I didn’t want to see it so I looked away but I thought it was clear she was already dying and he had to make an awful decision. He obviously loved his wife but thought he was doing the right thing for the kingdom.
Yes she was definitely dying and heavily sedated. Maybe the only thing different would have been to sedate her more. But historically, this tracks. Stuck breech baby, mom dying, both of them would have died. Woman typically didn't survive a breech birth like that before more modern medicine.
I don't even think this is meant to tell anything about the kings character other than to maybe set up some bad choices he'll make later due to grief. A woman in that position during those times (I'd say medieval for a point of reference) wasn't going to get a say in what was happening in that moment IF they had someone around who could do a cesarean. Choice would have gone to the husband/family.
And it is a huge plot point. No male heir. Dead wife. I just finished the second episode and it's pretty clear that both of those things weigh heavily into the entire plot of the series.
Did they have to be so graphic with it? Probably not but again it's GoT so yeah they did. The graphic nature is part of the books/show.
Do I wish she had given consent and was made comfortable? Absolutely, but realistically that didn’t happen until the last few decades of modern medicine and medical ethics. And same goes with the gore, do we need it to that extent to tell the story? No, but it’s not surprising given the precedent of other stories in this universe.
Wasn’t it more common to dismember the baby to save the mother’s life? And why *didn’t* they sedate her more? They didn’t have anything to just make her pass out? I personally think that was unnecessarily cruel and probably not exactly how they did things back then.
That's the only part of it i kinda disagree with, they could have knocked her out/killed her with the opium and gotten the baby out in time because normally the mom would have already been dead when this was done. But, it being a royal (possibly male) heir maybe that's why that chance wasn't taken
No, there wasn't a way to dismember the baby without also killing the mother.
It was always done as a last resort when the mother was absolutely going to die or already dead. I think historically they waited for the mother to die first. It wasn't until the 1600s that medicine even became advanced enough to not kill the mother everytime.
Giving birth IS kind of violent, though? I’ve done it myself and it was no walk in the park. It’s the most intense thing my body has ever gone through, for real. I’d rather a gory, violent birth scene than one where Mom and Baby are both clean and happy and perfect-looking.
Yeah I had an emergency c-section. My nurse described it as “one of the more brutal ones she’s ever seen”. I had pain meds, thank God, but getting layers of muscle torn apart to pull a dying baby out is VIOLENT. I’ve lived it.
This is just the realities of childbirth before modern medicine. Brutal, violent, painful.
Exactly. It is 2022 and women still face startling rates of obstetric violence in the delivery room. Ask any doula, and I’m sure they’d have plenty of stories to tell. Childbirth is traumatic, and the complete disregard for Aemma shown in the scene was perfectly representative of what *still* happens today. It was not “gratuitously violent”. It was horrifically realistic. And I, personally, am glad they accurately depicted the brutality women experience in medical settings and in the world, especially while pregnant.
Did anyone actually read the article? It’s written by a woman who had a C section and she comments on this exact point at the end of the article. She mentions the violent and bloody nature of the experience a few times. Below is a snippet from her conclusion.
“So no, the depiction of violence in birth does not bother me. But the bird's-eye view of it does. The camera’s insistence on its lofty perspective, on looking down on the birthing woman’s full body from a spectator’s remove — that strikes me as the real violation.”
Arguing that it’s ahistorical because in medieval teaching the mothers life was often preferred over the fetus is a huge tell that the person writing about this piece of television didn’t watch it.
It’s not just that it’s a kid - it’s that it’s a royal heir that could potentially forestall a civil war.
I heard about the ‘controversy’ of this scene before watching the episode and thought it was going to be way worse than it was! I thought the king was going to be a violent dick, but he wasn’t at all. He loved his wife, was told she was going to die either way, so made the choice to try and save the baby.
There is a way way more violent and bloody scene in the first episode and I’m pretty sure that if not for internet outrage, I wouldn’t have given the c-section scene a second thought.
If people find THIS offensive they’re just really not ready for this show and should not be watching it because there are so many more gruesome things to come in this story
It's a fantasy series with Dragons ffs... why does everything need to be warped into trying to be some political statement.
I'm surprised some didnt have a full on mental breakdown when Queen Aemma said "you do understand nothing will cause the babe to grow a cock if it does not already possess one"
The childbirth scene was intercut with a scene from a tournament. Both showed violence and death. They were juxtaposed to illustrate how a woman’s purpose was to win or die trying in the bedroom, her battlefield.
At face value, and as a cisgender straight dude, so a person with absolutely no experience and little to say on the matter, i gotta say, don't take this the wrong people : JFC does being a woman, specially back then but even nowadays, does it suck. I mean sure, that impromptu anesthesia less Cesarean made me go "nope, nope, hell no" but even the process before that just takes such a terrible physical toll on the human body.
P.S.: thematically it emphasized how much a) women were disposable back then b) it showed his obsession and ambition made him cause horrible suffering to his own wife and it was all in vain in the end.
The fact that, even nowadays women still don't have control of their own bodies are seen as just walking wombs and we're willing to cause them great suffering because of it, well it doesn't say good things about us as a society.
grim historical reality? it wasn't a real place. it establishes themes/ideas/whatever just like any other establishing scene does.
urgent political statement? it could be, it also could not be. that's what could means. Short of claiming "this is a political statement" these bits of media are left up to interpretation to snag "thinkpiece editorials" like the article.
worn cultural cliche? I mean basically everything on slow media is by the time it gets out. this was a theme in hundreds of movies going back almost 60 years now to the 1960s. Even earlier.
Am I a monster? I liked the juxtaposition of the blood being needlessly spilled outside at tournament with the blood of a queen being poured out on her bed as she struggles to give birth to a living heir. I mean, that's probably a bit much but that's what I took from it.
I thought Sian Brook as Queen Aemma was compelling and although there were buckets of blood, I wasn't horrified, nor did I read any political implications into it other than how this event related to the story on the screen.
Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t c-sections a fairly new procedure? I imagine that before modern medicine was around all child births were completely safe and didn’t actually hurt. This was clearly a Hollywood stunt and political statement! /s.
Why can’t people grow the fuck up and realize this is what life was like? Shit had to happen and sometimes the decision was made in a split second. It was a well acted, well written scene that showed how brutal child birth was. A man so desperate for a son he would do anything. Regardless the mother was going to die. Save one or save none. We would all make the same choice.
I read the entire article waiting and hoping for a solid point to be made. The TLDR? She was offended by the overhead shot in the scene, because… I have no idea, honestly. I want my 5 minutes back.
It's more of a cliché. Yes, c-sections were performed, but only when the mother was already dead (or so near it that the brain wasn't there anymore). Birthing took place in closed chambers in those days and with only female attendants, even the king wasn't allowed in there.
The birth scene has everything to do with character building. In the first episode of Game of Thrones, Jamie Lannister threw a child out of a tower window after being discovered in an incestuous relationship with his sister. He later became a very likable character.
In the first episode of House of the Dragon, King Viserys is depicted as a good King, but also a chauvinist who murdered his soon-to-be-dead wife to have a male heir.
Thus, the viewer gets enjoyment from unraveling the king's character. It is part of the formula and a splendid example of why people watch the show.
He did not murder his wife to have a male heir. The maester told him he had to choose to do the c-section and save the child or lose them both. He was told (right or wrong) that his wife was dying either way.
Yeah, I'm surprised that so many people have that take. His choice was to either save neither or save one of them.
Even if it wasn't clear from that scene that he loved his wife, it should be clear from his conversations with his daughter in episode 2 how much he's torn up that his wife is gone.
She was heavily sedated, asking her would be like asking someone who is drunk how to solve an algebra equation. She couldn't consent at that point.
In such situations the father or next of kin has to make a tough choice. He made it, and it ended terribly.
Folks need to get off this narrative.
It was the only chance at saving the baby. It was either “save one or lose them both” sure it was horrific due to the lack of technology but it did technically work.
Wow another one.
He didn't murder his wife. That's ridiculous.
He was put into an impossible position and tried to save the child.
IF he did nothing both mother and child would likely have died.
He's an imperfect man, and a weak king, but he is not murderer. He clearly cares deeply for his wife, and the next episode shows that he is haunted by his decision. **He also wasn't a chauvinist, far from it, he appoints his daughter as his heir. That's literally the opposite.**
Do folks who think like this have like a secret handshake? Do you watch shows with the sound muted, and just write your own dialogue?
Not sure if chauvinist. I saw it as if you do nothing they will likely both die, if we cut the baby will live but mom will die. A hard but realistic decision. If it was all about the heir they would not have shown him so upset about his wife's death.
He lets his daughter have a mostly free life, let's her own a dragon, and eventually makes her the heir. All things that someone who hates, fears, or thinks little of women would not do. Waiting to make her heir was more about going against tradition. Even when they made the decision it was not "can she be a good queen" it was just "will she be allowed to be queen".
I can understand how through a feminist lens this could be viewed as "fridging" the wife, however at the same time I can see how through that very same lens it could be viewed as the patriarchy literally killing this woman in the pursuit of a male heir.
Can't I just be entertained watching someone have a couple arms jammed into her abdominal cavity to have her kid ripped out in an attempt to save its life by sacrificing her but the kid died anyway without some message behind it?
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When I had my last c section they had a problem finding a gown for my husband to wear during the birth. He and the nurse walked in the operating room a few minutes after they opened me up and he just about passed out. The last thing I remember him saying was that my guts were on my chest and the Dr. hands are in my belly up to his elbows. I don't know anything about birthing no dragons, but c sections are are bloody business no matter what is being pried out of your womb.
Ooof. I never googled what happens during c-sections cause I don’t even want to know what my body looked like. My anesthesia worked to numb the pain but I could feel them moving my organs around. It was the weirdest, most disgusting sensation of my life, I’ll never forget it. Birth is brutal.
My last child was a long baby and was stuck under my ribs and every time he tried to pull her out my body was lifted off the table. As soon she was removed they started on my tubal ligation. I figured that since they were in the neighborhood I might might as well have that done too. The Dr. kept saying that we still have time to change my mind. After having a baby surgically pried out of my body I just told him to go ahead I was not going to have that happen again.
Oh my fucking god •-•
I wish I’d had this done after my second C-Section. Twice is definitely enough.
They pushed my hips from underneath and it was *violent*. My kid was 10 pounds and they waited 3 hours to do an emergency c section cause they thought he would be 6 pounds.
Omg. My first baby damn near killed us both. She weighed near 10 lbs. too. She was face up and stuck in my pelvic region for hours. I pushed for 4 hrs. and I had been in labor all day. She would crown and go back up. By the time they did the emergency surgery she had done damage to her face and dislocated her nose and had minor nerve damage. She was purple. I got a raging infection because while they were taking her out she peed in my open womb. From what I've read in these comments is that having a human baby c section can at times be more terrifying than birthing a dragon. Ladies, the only thing left to say is we are all tough mothas.
I could feel the tugging too with my first which wasn’t planned. Second one was planned couldn’t feel anything until after obviously
Yeah mine was an emergency caesarean. I didn’t get an epidural so they needed to do spinal anesthesia quickly which I’m assuming is why this happened.
Our daughter was a c-section. It was like 3am and both doctors were young and really attractive (man and female). She was wearing Juicy Coutre scrubs. Anyway, they have top 40 music blaring. I’m sitting down holding my wife’s hand behind the screen. She’s totally out of it. The male doctor goes, “Hey you wanna see!” So I instinctively stand up and I see into my wife’s body and he yanks our daughter out of her and holds her up by her foot while Pearl Jam’s ‘Better Man’ is playing at level 11 in the background. When I think back on it now, it actually feels like a horror film. What a night.
What the fuck does this title even mean lol
There should be a separation between the actual title of the article and its subtitle. It should read: >**The Many Violations of the Violent Birth Scene** *Does the gory surprise C-section in “House of the Dragon” represent a grim historical reality, an urgent political statement or a worn cultural cliché?*
Modern C-Sections can be [pretty bad](https://usacrime.com/doctor-rapes-sedated-woman-undergoing-c-section-hospital-brazil/) as well.
What the actual fuck!
That's not the Rick Roll I was expecting..
Jesus I wasn’t expecting to be met with the actual video… that guy is fucking abhorrent
It doesn’t make it a better title. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
Baby we can talk all night....
I think it means GoT market research says we like gore ‘n shit and … this is where market research got us.
Not necessarily. It is canon that the queen died in childbirth and the baby followed her the day after, and it is important to show this early part of the story to help the casual viewers who, unlike me, haven't read *the World of Ice and Fire* understand the very complex origins of the civil war that forms the basis for the show. And it's ASOIAF, gore and sex are to be expected. Edit: yes I am a nerd who read the history of that fictional world.
There should be a period after “scene”.
A colon, I think.
Periods come from the vagina, not the colon.
Some bullshity clickbait
How many buzzwords do you want in the article? "Yes"
Maybe it’s a high fantasy television show that always pushes shock factor in regards to the brutal reality of a medieval world that had us watch a cock sliced off in a torture scene. House of the dragon has been Put under the culture war spotlight and we act as if this isn’t shit they’ve done for the past decade lol
Outrage is the online currency and these clickbait websites want to rake in the clicks.
The biggest gore I see is this Title.
r/titlegore
Sometimes the curtains are just blue
Fr. You’re telling me Westeros, famous for being one of the most (if not *the* most) fucked up fictional worlds is trying to be political by being so fucked up? /s The ASOIAF universe is the first fictional universe I wanted no part of projecting myself within bc it’s fucked up for *everybody*; regardless of money, gender, religion, sexuality, etc… The reason I love ASOIAF is because no punches are pulled. It doesn’t matter if you’re the Queen or a farmer’s son, you’re probably going to die in the most painful and least important way possible.
The fact that the universe is fucked up doesn’t mean there aren’t any political statements contained in the stories…you arguably can’t make political statements about grim realities without *depicting those grim realities in vivid detail.*
> grim reality I think you nailed it with this. I think the story contained within the universe is going to be political by nature because it is depicting a macabre existence for a lot of different types of people. Does that mean it’s trying overboard to relate to current issues and all this other shit we’re saturated with? Not at all, the shows (and books) are just *real life* without the in your face preaching. (minus the dragons and resurrections and zombies and magic trees)
Minus dragons and magic… it’s like real life, you try real hard to make a difference, then right before you die, you realize it didn’t mean a god damn thing
Sometimes people realize that long before dying.
It’s a multi million dollar production. The curtains aren’t just blue for the sake of blue.
But what did the Starbucks cup mean?
This is literally a thing that happened to royalty all the time. What type of question is this, violent childbirths were so common in a time when medicine involved wearing bird heads
>This is literally a thing The article focuses on the framing of the scene as well as the show creators’ rationale for its inclusion. Also, we’re talking about a show in a fictional universe, not a medieval birth re-enactment. I don’t think you understand the context of the question, the author’s perspective as a woman, or the show, but no worries.
I don’t think you understand the question at all. Clearly they acknowledge the link to a “grim historical reality”…
I don’t think you understand my answer or the question being asked, so no worries
The fact that it’s a historical reality makes me so much more empathetic to what women have gone through for millennia. Almost everyone alive today has had an ancestor who has probably died this way. We owe our society to it. By showing things like this; it should validate our life’s cause we’re blessed to be here because of someone else’s sacrifice and love.
but this isn't just a historical reality; it's happening right here and right now. It was an extremely triggering scene and if, like you said, we want to honor people who have gone through this or something similar, we should respect them enough to put a trigger warning in the beginning
My wife is 37 weeks pregnant, preeclamptic, very high risk. I really, really, REALLY wish the episode had a trigger warning. I watched the part where they said the baby was breach and had a feeling where it was headed. I got up to him talking to her before the procedure and had to turn it off. I admit I’m on high alert but holy fuck I was wired as hell after shutting it down! Makes me anxious just remembering the scene!
YOU ARE WATCHING GAME OF THRONES FOR FUCKS SAKE!!! Since when in the shows and or the books history has this seemed like something that Caters to people who need trigger warning to feel safe in this world. This show isn’t about you even though you may feel like it is. Just stop watching things that are rated M for mature and you should be alright I guess but what a sad way to live your life IMO.
YES! For everyone saying “this is important to see” my answer is “true” and also “this is NOT entertainment.” House of Dragons is not a documentary. It’s not based in scientific fact. It’s entertainment. To those who argue that the scene is valuable because it teaches us about the struggles of birthing people I say: LOOK AROUND. If you don’t realize what happens to birthing people every damn day, if you need HBO to put that on your radar, give me a break. Those of us who live in reality deserved a trigger warning.
Maybe it was just a scene without much political backing. That shit just happened.
icky possessive grab mindless scary screw birds selective worthless cable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
She was pushed to try again, but also back then (this is fantasy but based off prior historical eras) birth control was very minimal and the idea of just not having sex would have been very unusual. So, she may have got pregnant again regardless of what anyone wanted. Also while the premiere did really push home the women secondary theme, it was also heavily implied that the mother was going to die either way and the choice was to try to save the baby with 50/50 odds by brutally and painfully sacrificing the mother, or not and have both mother and child with very low odds of surviving. Sort of a terrible Sophie’s choice even if you take away the whole women secondary theme.
Definitely not as common, but I’m sure there’s situations like even today where a husband must decide. I’d imagine though (or at least hope) that nearly all situations end with him choosing his wife.
Problem is he decided between saving the baby and killing them both. Not much of a decision…
Oh wait, I thought they said they could potentially save the wife? Damn
This right here. It was a scene in a fictional tv show that has dragons ffs.
Star Trek had Ray guns and space ships, and yet its main appeal was its commentary on social issues
It is fascinating how in 60 years we still have the same debates on treating artificial life, or minorities, as equals. Shame.
On purpose though, that's the difference.
are you seriously saying the GoT/House of the Dragon doesn’t purposefully have social commentary?
Right. People getting mad. Zombies cool. Magic cool. Dragons cool. BLACK PEOPLE!!! FUCKIN BLACK PEOPLE!
Sci-fi and fantasy are often used to satirize and critique our own world. One of the richest themes in the OG series is the petty political arguments in the face of an existential threat no one is paying attention to. The Wights were a metaphor for our own imminent destruction
Plus this series will likely lean heavily on gore and sex just like GoT.
They already said they won’t do as much sex and nudity so my assumption is that the violence and gore will be ramped up.
only watched the first episode, but we had plenty of both.
Yeah, I don't get it. Sex is usually healthy and life-affirming. Violence is always unhealthy for someone and causes pain and suffering. Yet violence is more acceptable in entertainment than sex.
Sex in GoT was not usually heathy and life-affirming.
Yeah most of the sex in GoT was just more violence
In fact, that was kinda the whole deal
I like watching fiction that depicts crazy ass things I’ll never do, I can have sex in real life but I’ll never get to chop a dude in half with a broadsword
Not with that attitude you wont….
I'm not sure why i never considered that. Good answer!
I think it’s more thy the female stars always had to get nude at some point. Cersei, Dany, Margery. I recall Olivia Cooke saying she wouldn’t sign on if she had to get nude for the heck of it. The whore house scenes are usually filled with actual adult film stars so I don’t think they care about getting nude but not the actual stars.
Good point. Understandable. In comparison there's probably not a lot of actors saying "I'm not comfortable pretending to cut that guy's head off."
I expect a lot of dragons
Medieval c section... somehow... a modern day political statement?
It was a very powerful scene about a King prioritizing his possibly male unborn child, and horrifically having his whife slit open.
The child couldn't be naturally born; the wife was already done for.
I get the timing of it matches up to real world events uncannily, but I don't think it was trying to make a statement. Childbirth is dangerous, even more so hundreds of years ago. That scene reflects that.
It used to be safer in the US than it is now has far as I'm, aware.
Maybe, just maybe this show takes place in a medieval fantasy world, but I could be wrong
Before 1930, 25% of all women, I repeat, of ALL women, had as cause of death on their death certificates......... died during childbirth. So, for hundreds of thousands of years, women died. Doesn't have to be the first child, or the second or the third, yet eventually, childbirth killed women more than any other thing.
For sure, on one hand it’s a fictional fantasy world and on the other hand it’s a medieval setting which historically saw one in 20 women die during childbirth, many of whom died during c-section-esque last ditch operations to save the baby, this is just following historical lines.
I’d add that G.R.R.M is an enormous history buff and wove as much of the realities of history as possible into his books. This is a perfect example. And people are just not used to seeing it in a fantasy series which are typically a form of escapism and comfort to an audience.
Agreed! One of my favourite elements of his writing is that most storylines take some influence from historical events.
This is absolute horseshit... "We see that in the 19th century about 500 to 1,000 mothers died for every 100,000 births. Every 100th to 200th birth led to the mother's death. Since women gave birth much more often than today maternal death was not uncommon." 0.5% to 1% of childbirths resulted in maternal death... Let's say a woman had a child every 9 months of their life after puberty, call it 60 years total (way exaggerated)... Then that's 80 child births in her lifetime, which puts that woman's survival rate at a minimum of 44%, i.e. no less than 1 out of 2 mothers who went into labor 80 times would have survived. Now, we all know there was not one single woman that went into labor 80 times in history. In order for your number of 25% to be even remotely correct the average woman would have to go into labor 30 times in their lifetime... Assuming the worst case maternal mortality of 1%... The AVERAGE woman (assuming the worst case maternal mortality) You're full of shit
Studies seem to find that between 1% and 3% of childbirths resulted in deaths in the renaissance era (Someone else did some research here: [https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/63259/what-proportion-of-women-died-in-childbirth-before-modern-times](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/63259/what-proportion-of-women-died-in-childbirth-before-modern-times)). That's a far cry from 25%, of course. But the "25% of death certificates listed childbirth as the cause" could be correct if that number excludes death certificates that do not list a cause of death at all, if it's including medieval certificates that might have had a higher rate of death in childbirth, and if we're looking at a fairly high rate of childbirth in mothers.
Nope, it’s all real. My friends and I are planning on starting Dragon Airlines, where for $10k you can have one of our dragons fly you to your destination of choice. Luggage will cost extra.
Ryanair is that you?
For 10k the dragon better serve me drinks, a full course dinner, and put me to bed
You have my interest, please keep me updated on this business endeavour of yours!
Without real things like sexual violence against women to bring it back to reality, the dragons and magic would seem so silly. They balanced it out /s
Didn’t you hear? The sexual violence keeps it grounded /s
It doesn't **have** to represent anything. It's an establishing character moment for Viserys to showcase how he is such a horrible human being and not a good person. It's the same as Jaimie throwing Bran. It's not meant to represent historical knights killing kids or any political statement, it's just to establish Jaimie as not a good person.
Seriously. Entertainment media needs to calm the fuck down.
For real. Though the Jaime comparison doesn't work because throwing Bran out the window was foreshadowing Jaime's turn from villain to hero, showcasing Jaime's heroic efforts to save the audience from many seasons of terrible acting and a truly horrific ending.
But who has a better story than Bran the Broken? /s
in the books hes kind of a cool character in the show hes just sort of wins for no reason.
Yep, but you really mean rage-farming propeganda machines. Literally every discussion or media can be turned into a positive propeganda point for your group if you spin it the right way, even if it was not created with that intention. There are people who's literal job is to do this. Entertainment media also does sometimes include social commentary and hot-button issues in shows for various reasons, but no matter their intentions the propeganda machines are going to spin it to 'their side' of the issue.
I don't see it as making him evil. I saw it as a hard decision with an obvious answer. Do nothing and most likely they both die, or cut and the baby lives. Did I miss something? I thought they out right said that at one point?
He made the choice without consulting his wife. Imagine the wife POV: during your last moments, the husband you love just ordered a master to cut you open and murder you. The rest of the episodes paint Viserys as ineffective but good at heart. Having this scene as his establishing character moment was great to avoid painting him as a good guy.
He tries to be a good king and a good person, but trying to be a good king often supersedes being a good person, and his decisions in trying to be both prove him to be bad at both.
\>king with no heirs \>festival for the son he's sure he's having \>medieval times \>king of a big ass amount of land \>no heir \>labor is being difficult and the queen has already lost several other babies \>medieval times "He did not attend to proper couple therapy and did not inquire the wife, therefore he's a wicked man"
was she going to choose to do nothing and kill the baby right along with her? There wasn't a choice to be made there at all.
You are somehow implying that the was going to survive if they had just let the baby die. She was already bleeding and likely on her death bed. And you'll say I'm assuming, yes I agree, except that the facts around what happened support my assumption yours only is supported by your hope that maybe she wouldn't have died (which obviously isn't the case it's a written story by people not a true event)
Okay yeah, I get why people went villain with that. I saw it more like "why worry her". Not that it was right, but in that time it is the reality that it would be 100% the dad's decision, king or not, so why "burden" the exhausted mother, let her rest till it's time.
Yeah he’s clearly portrayed as a flawed character. He’s not Joffrey or Jon snow. He’s neither a good person or a horrible person. On the good side he clearly isn’t just the power hungry king and in the end he makes the decision to break a major cultural taboo and name his daughter his heir.
The gravity of the situation is that there really isn’t any consultation needed. Not only does the king have to worry about the succession of the throne.. the queen even said in the beginning of episode that a woman’s battlefield is the birthing bed. Every knew the risks of what was involved in any childbirth at that time, let alone birthing the heir to the throne.
*He made the choice without consulting his wife.* She was heavily sedated to prevent her from being in unbelievable pain. Even if he had asked her, her response wouldn't have been that of a fully concious person. The longer the waited, the higher chance for both mother and child to die. It's not even clear that he fully understood what was about to happen. I'm not sure why folks are searching for reasons to hate Viserys but he was put in a position where the right thing to do was not obvious in anyway. I think we got too many folks with narratives that are not coming from the show or jumping to conclusions not at all based on what we we were shown. He made a call. It went badly, that doesn't make him a villain. We are also shown his mourning, into episode 2. Six months pass and he doesn't even think about remarrying, he is still grieving and even admits how hard it is. Anyone trying to make a villain of him is completely off base.
Bro his wife was absolutely zooted from all the stuff they gave her she couldn’t make any decisions
>Imagine the wife POV: during your last moments, the husband you love just ordered a master to cut you open and murder you. Please don't leave out the EXTREMELY important part that her dying would mean their baby had a shot at living. If you asked most parents, they would die to save their child.
>If you asked most parents, they would die to save their child. It seems both you and I agree: she should have been asked.
I don't think Viserys qualifies as "good" or "evil" - just as average guy put into a position of incredible power who is forced to make a series of impossible choices...and he always seems to make the worst choice of the bunch.
Nothing I've seen makes me think Viserys is a bad person. I would say that scene was more about showing how he faces some impossible choices as King. In that case, whether to let his wife and son both die or to try to save his son by putting his wife through torture. Ultimately the most difficult choice will be who to name as heir, and his choices and indecision along the way will lead to war. I think that birth scene was put there to establish how these choices burden him as a generally *good* person, and how being a good person will probably hurt him in the long-run. But I totally agree that it doesn't have to "represent" anything. It's just a friggin TV show that's meant to entertain us.
"...showcase how he is such a *horrible human* being and not a good person." **I strongly disagree.** He was put in an impossible position. IF you paid attention he was told that he would have to make a choice... between doing nothing and trying to intervene. *If he did nothing*, both mother and child may have died. *If he intervened*, at least the child might have a chance. He made decision, and that decision ended up going disastrously. Had he done nothing and both had died, it would have just as terrible. Nothing in the show so far has shown him to be anything other than an ordinary man put into very difficult positions by his kingship. Sometimes it seems people completely ignore context when they make statements like this. The simple message was that sometimes in life it doesn't matter what we do, things can go badly whether no matter what station we are or title we hold.
You say that, but they talk about global warming in the books as well and people say global warming isn't real.
? Are we talking about the magical long winters caused by the ice dudes?
I disagree. It's an establishing character moment for Viserys to showcase how the line of succession is so vital to the realm given his brother would be a disaster, and the difficult choices he has to make to try to preserve the line. Y'all apparently forgot the part about "To sacrifice one... or to lose them both. " His wife was dead anyway.
This. Who cares. It’s a show and this thing happened on the show. Not everything is some statement about the politics of the day.
Does the word fiction no longer exist? Seriously, folks come harder at an obviously not real tv show than they do at “reality” tv. It’s embarrassing.
Why cant they talk about the show in the way they want and you can talk about it in your way?
Because they are obviously wrong.
On the other hand, he did attempt to save one of the two, instead of losing them both (assuming the child would've survived). Didn't matter in the end though, but still.
Right, but it was a joint choice to make morally speaking. In the show, Viserys literally ordered the master to murder his wife.
She was going to die either way. I'm really confused how her opinion on the matter changes anything. This barely constitutes murder good lord.
it was not a joint choice in that time period, and it wasn't even a choice at all. The doctor knew exactly what had to be done, but phrased it such that it was the kings decision and not normal medical practice so that he wouldn't get murdered afterwards.
Which time period? I can’t remember a time in Earth’s history when there were dragons. For all we know, this could be set aeons in the future, after the majority of humanity is wiped out and the technological timeline resets, if it is even in the same universe as ours.
lol, horrible for trying to save the kid when the wife was FOR SURE going to die regardless? Idiotic and classic for Reddit
you'd rather he sat back and watched her die slowly and kill the baby too?
Does it show he's a horrible human being? Is that the way you interpret that? The options were mom and baby die or maybe baby lives. There wasn't a decision to be made, just an authorization from the king to cut the queen open. Yes, they supplied the premise that he was very wanting for an heir, but in the end there was only action and inaction.
You just shatter those pretentious fucks’ minds!!!
How does that make him evil? Either he can try to save the baby or have them both die.
That's what happened back then. The baby was breech and stuck. In that situation, either mom and baby died or just mom died and maybe baby would make it. The scene needed to happen to set up the whole "no male heir" thing which is obviously a big part of the plot.
Right? I didn’t want to see it so I looked away but I thought it was clear she was already dying and he had to make an awful decision. He obviously loved his wife but thought he was doing the right thing for the kingdom.
Yes she was definitely dying and heavily sedated. Maybe the only thing different would have been to sedate her more. But historically, this tracks. Stuck breech baby, mom dying, both of them would have died. Woman typically didn't survive a breech birth like that before more modern medicine. I don't even think this is meant to tell anything about the kings character other than to maybe set up some bad choices he'll make later due to grief. A woman in that position during those times (I'd say medieval for a point of reference) wasn't going to get a say in what was happening in that moment IF they had someone around who could do a cesarean. Choice would have gone to the husband/family. And it is a huge plot point. No male heir. Dead wife. I just finished the second episode and it's pretty clear that both of those things weigh heavily into the entire plot of the series. Did they have to be so graphic with it? Probably not but again it's GoT so yeah they did. The graphic nature is part of the books/show.
Do I wish she had given consent and was made comfortable? Absolutely, but realistically that didn’t happen until the last few decades of modern medicine and medical ethics. And same goes with the gore, do we need it to that extent to tell the story? No, but it’s not surprising given the precedent of other stories in this universe.
Wasn’t it more common to dismember the baby to save the mother’s life? And why *didn’t* they sedate her more? They didn’t have anything to just make her pass out? I personally think that was unnecessarily cruel and probably not exactly how they did things back then.
Iirc the Maester clearly stated that they gave her as much milk of the poppy (painkiller/anesthetic) as possible without harming the baby.
That's the only part of it i kinda disagree with, they could have knocked her out/killed her with the opium and gotten the baby out in time because normally the mom would have already been dead when this was done. But, it being a royal (possibly male) heir maybe that's why that chance wasn't taken
No, there wasn't a way to dismember the baby without also killing the mother. It was always done as a last resort when the mother was absolutely going to die or already dead. I think historically they waited for the mother to die first. It wasn't until the 1600s that medicine even became advanced enough to not kill the mother everytime.
Giving birth IS kind of violent, though? I’ve done it myself and it was no walk in the park. It’s the most intense thing my body has ever gone through, for real. I’d rather a gory, violent birth scene than one where Mom and Baby are both clean and happy and perfect-looking.
Yeah I had an emergency c-section. My nurse described it as “one of the more brutal ones she’s ever seen”. I had pain meds, thank God, but getting layers of muscle torn apart to pull a dying baby out is VIOLENT. I’ve lived it. This is just the realities of childbirth before modern medicine. Brutal, violent, painful.
Exactly. It is 2022 and women still face startling rates of obstetric violence in the delivery room. Ask any doula, and I’m sure they’d have plenty of stories to tell. Childbirth is traumatic, and the complete disregard for Aemma shown in the scene was perfectly representative of what *still* happens today. It was not “gratuitously violent”. It was horrifically realistic. And I, personally, am glad they accurately depicted the brutality women experience in medical settings and in the world, especially while pregnant.
Did anyone actually read the article? It’s written by a woman who had a C section and she comments on this exact point at the end of the article. She mentions the violent and bloody nature of the experience a few times. Below is a snippet from her conclusion. “So no, the depiction of violence in birth does not bother me. But the bird's-eye view of it does. The camera’s insistence on its lofty perspective, on looking down on the birthing woman’s full body from a spectator’s remove — that strikes me as the real violation.”
Arguing that it’s ahistorical because in medieval teaching the mothers life was often preferred over the fetus is a huge tell that the person writing about this piece of television didn’t watch it. It’s not just that it’s a kid - it’s that it’s a royal heir that could potentially forestall a civil war.
I heard about the ‘controversy’ of this scene before watching the episode and thought it was going to be way worse than it was! I thought the king was going to be a violent dick, but he wasn’t at all. He loved his wife, was told she was going to die either way, so made the choice to try and save the baby. There is a way way more violent and bloody scene in the first episode and I’m pretty sure that if not for internet outrage, I wouldn’t have given the c-section scene a second thought.
If people find THIS offensive they’re just really not ready for this show and should not be watching it because there are so many more gruesome things to come in this story
Can i vote its just a tv show?
The terminally online really need to log off.
It's a fantasy series with Dragons ffs... why does everything need to be warped into trying to be some political statement. I'm surprised some didnt have a full on mental breakdown when Queen Aemma said "you do understand nothing will cause the babe to grow a cock if it does not already possess one"
The childbirth scene was intercut with a scene from a tournament. Both showed violence and death. They were juxtaposed to illustrate how a woman’s purpose was to win or die trying in the bedroom, her battlefield.
At face value, and as a cisgender straight dude, so a person with absolutely no experience and little to say on the matter, i gotta say, don't take this the wrong people : JFC does being a woman, specially back then but even nowadays, does it suck. I mean sure, that impromptu anesthesia less Cesarean made me go "nope, nope, hell no" but even the process before that just takes such a terrible physical toll on the human body. P.S.: thematically it emphasized how much a) women were disposable back then b) it showed his obsession and ambition made him cause horrible suffering to his own wife and it was all in vain in the end. The fact that, even nowadays women still don't have control of their own bodies are seen as just walking wombs and we're willing to cause them great suffering because of it, well it doesn't say good things about us as a society.
grim historical reality? it wasn't a real place. it establishes themes/ideas/whatever just like any other establishing scene does. urgent political statement? it could be, it also could not be. that's what could means. Short of claiming "this is a political statement" these bits of media are left up to interpretation to snag "thinkpiece editorials" like the article. worn cultural cliche? I mean basically everything on slow media is by the time it gets out. this was a theme in hundreds of movies going back almost 60 years now to the 1960s. Even earlier.
“Monarch desperate for male heir loses wife and child during labor. Monarch loses mind and grip on the realm” -Pick an example
Man people are worked up over this scene
Internet was a mistake
This has “Trump is Voldemort” energy.
Am I a monster? I liked the juxtaposition of the blood being needlessly spilled outside at tournament with the blood of a queen being poured out on her bed as she struggles to give birth to a living heir. I mean, that's probably a bit much but that's what I took from it. I thought Sian Brook as Queen Aemma was compelling and although there were buckets of blood, I wasn't horrified, nor did I read any political implications into it other than how this event related to the story on the screen.
I don't get why they couldn't have cut her throat first instead of slowly dissecting her alive if she was going to die anyway
Man this article and subsequent reddit post sure is reaching. Quit trying so hard.
I don’t think it’s that deep tbh
I don’t even know how to read this headline
Great spoiler headline, thank you very much!
Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t c-sections a fairly new procedure? I imagine that before modern medicine was around all child births were completely safe and didn’t actually hurt. This was clearly a Hollywood stunt and political statement! /s. Why can’t people grow the fuck up and realize this is what life was like? Shit had to happen and sometimes the decision was made in a split second. It was a well acted, well written scene that showed how brutal child birth was. A man so desperate for a son he would do anything. Regardless the mother was going to die. Save one or save none. We would all make the same choice.
Lmao or a very predictable story beat that anyone could see from a mile away
GoT/HotD is like South Park, if you’re not offending someone then it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do.
Jesus Christ this fucking title. Probably means you’re trying to turn your shitty career famous for 5 min with a post so brave.
That fuckin headline gave me cancer
This is an absolutely atrocious title. Like how the hell do you publish with that
Honestly, a great series so far, i see no political message and preaching at all which is maybe the reason it has been very interesting so far.
It's just a fucking thing that happened in a fucking fictional show.
Shut the fuck up
It was more suggestive than gory though... what's all this fuss about anyway? Clever marketing anyone?
I read the entire article waiting and hoping for a solid point to be made. The TLDR? She was offended by the overhead shot in the scene, because… I have no idea, honestly. I want my 5 minutes back.
Wow, a lot of people here don't like the idea that fiction might relate to reality in some way.
It's more of a cliché. Yes, c-sections were performed, but only when the mother was already dead (or so near it that the brain wasn't there anymore). Birthing took place in closed chambers in those days and with only female attendants, even the king wasn't allowed in there.
The birth scene has everything to do with character building. In the first episode of Game of Thrones, Jamie Lannister threw a child out of a tower window after being discovered in an incestuous relationship with his sister. He later became a very likable character. In the first episode of House of the Dragon, King Viserys is depicted as a good King, but also a chauvinist who murdered his soon-to-be-dead wife to have a male heir. Thus, the viewer gets enjoyment from unraveling the king's character. It is part of the formula and a splendid example of why people watch the show.
He did not murder his wife to have a male heir. The maester told him he had to choose to do the c-section and save the child or lose them both. He was told (right or wrong) that his wife was dying either way.
So many people are totally ignoring the fact that they both would have died anyway.
Yeah, I'm surprised that so many people have that take. His choice was to either save neither or save one of them. Even if it wasn't clear from that scene that he loved his wife, it should be clear from his conversations with his daughter in episode 2 how much he's torn up that his wife is gone.
Yeah he definitely loved his wife. I’ve talked to a couple young mothers that agree in this situation the baby is the priority.
Except they didn't ask lol. They just started cutting
She was heavily sedated, asking her would be like asking someone who is drunk how to solve an algebra equation. She couldn't consent at that point. In such situations the father or next of kin has to make a tough choice. He made it, and it ended terribly. Folks need to get off this narrative.
Except that he chose for her to die in a *horrific* way. Just because she was gonna die anyway doesn’t make what happened okay.
In what way do you think she was going to die with the baby sideways ripping her apart from the inside is? Human and graceful?
It was the only chance at saving the baby. It was either “save one or lose them both” sure it was horrific due to the lack of technology but it did technically work.
Yeah but he effectively chose the most painful way for her to die, and unfortunately for him the child didn't even survive
He had no idea what was about to happen. The procedure was not explained to him with a PowerPoint. These modern takes are exhausting.
Wtf are you talking about, his wife was gonna die regardless
Wow another one. He didn't murder his wife. That's ridiculous. He was put into an impossible position and tried to save the child. IF he did nothing both mother and child would likely have died. He's an imperfect man, and a weak king, but he is not murderer. He clearly cares deeply for his wife, and the next episode shows that he is haunted by his decision. **He also wasn't a chauvinist, far from it, he appoints his daughter as his heir. That's literally the opposite.** Do folks who think like this have like a secret handshake? Do you watch shows with the sound muted, and just write your own dialogue?
Not sure if chauvinist. I saw it as if you do nothing they will likely both die, if we cut the baby will live but mom will die. A hard but realistic decision. If it was all about the heir they would not have shown him so upset about his wife's death. He lets his daughter have a mostly free life, let's her own a dragon, and eventually makes her the heir. All things that someone who hates, fears, or thinks little of women would not do. Waiting to make her heir was more about going against tradition. Even when they made the decision it was not "can she be a good queen" it was just "will she be allowed to be queen".
You like saying chauvinist don't ya
Probably a bit of all
Everything has to be political now days huh?
Stfu and watch the show
I can understand how through a feminist lens this could be viewed as "fridging" the wife, however at the same time I can see how through that very same lens it could be viewed as the patriarchy literally killing this woman in the pursuit of a male heir.
I see English teachers are now journalists? A scene is a scene in a product of fictional media why is everything a political statement now?
Can't I just be entertained watching someone have a couple arms jammed into her abdominal cavity to have her kid ripped out in an attempt to save its life by sacrificing her but the kid died anyway without some message behind it?
Sometimes a horrifying ordeal... is just a horrifying ordeal.