Spoiler below the cut, nsfw



Nudity is everywhere in Game of Thrones, but in most cases only for sexual reasons. Brothels, marriages and war, you rarely see so many naked women on TV if you are not watching porn. But today, I want to compare two of the queens, Cersei and Daenerys, because I noticed something interesting: I can’t recall any other female (except maybe the Red woman, but her nudity was either sexual or private) that was naked for no sexual reason.

Let’s start with Daenerys. We see her naked from the start, when her brother undresses her, which makes her pretty uncomfortable, although he doesn’t exactly do anything sexual to her.



Here, she is still basically a child, if you go after the books around 13. Of course she is uncomfrortable with her body, with being naked, especially in front of her brother. Then comes the sex with Khal Drogo (I will ignore that a very caring scene from the book got turned into a disgusting rape scene) and after a while, gets incredibly comfortable with her body, at least when she is together with Drogo. Then she goes through the fire.

She is a bit insecure, yes, but a lot stronger than before and doesn’t really care that she is naked. Why should she? She just survived fire. Later, it becomes clear that she understands the power that being nude gives her. Daario Naharis invades her tent while she is bathing. The “normal” reaction we are used to see is either going deeper into the water or desperately reaching for the towel. But what does Daenerys do? She gets up, without weapons, without protection she faces the assasin (who just brought her the HEADS of the other men)

After that, she stays fully clothed most of the time. A bit sex here and there, but that’s it. Until the most recent episode.

This is not a grieving widow, this isn’t even a queen. This is a godess. This is the mother of dragons and you better bow to her (what the Dothraki do). She may be naked, but there is nothing sexual or weak about her. She is not vulnerable, she will burn you down if you look at her the wrong way.

Now, let’s compare her to our other “main” queen, Cersei. Interesting enough, even in her sex scenes, Cersei is always basically clothed.

The one time she IS naked though, is her walk of shame, which itself already illustrates what it means to her. This naked queen feels no pride in showing her body, she feels vulnerable, she wants to end this and get new clothes as soon as possible. She doesn’t present herself to thousands of people willingly.

I don’t remember if it is mentioned in the show, but Cersei got a prophecy, that a younger and prettier queen will come and take her place. She probably thinks it is Margery, but I am sure it actually meant Daenerys. They both show so many parallels, but at the same time, they are so different.

Their family gave them away to a man they didn’t want, but while Daenerys found love, Cersei became bitter. They are both powerful, but Cersei gets her power from money and her family name (which explains the shame in being stripped of all that). Daenerys has her name, yes, but it does her no good. She has the dragons, yes, but they wouldn’t be enough in the wrong handy. Everything Daenerys is and has is her strong will and her vision for the future. And that can’t be taken away by taking away her clothes.

In conclusion, it’s interesting how different those two women react to being exposed and how the director and writers of the show seem to use this as a device of pointing out the differences. Cersei is a queen because of who her family is, Daenerys is a queen because of who she is.

