Gender and Magic in House of the Dragon: Alys Rivers, Admiral Lohar, and Rhaenyra Targaryen

I have a lot of complicated thoughts surrounding George R.R. Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire as a trans-media franchise, but there are some really fascinating things happening on House of the Dragon that are worth exploring. As a primer to the ways in which this world discusses gender, power, and its medievalist roots I recommend this great article examining Game of Thrones by Carolyne Larrington:

Debate about gender became lively, with medieval scholars often intervening to highlight the damage done to both men and women by the show’s model of ‘toxic masculinity’, usually underpinned by sexual violence. Chivalry came in for consistent critique in the show; this connects in part with historians’ discussion of the terrible injuries chivalric practices could wreak on male bodies and the contradictions inherent in chivalry’s attitudes towards women, the weak and the powerless. The show however refused to see any virtue in the positive civilising effects that chivalry had on aristocratic men, nor did it allow any space for its idealised ethics as expressed in romance. These values were replaced by unrelenting displays of sexualized aggression, provoking discussion about how far sexual violence was endemic in medieval Europe.
—Carolyne Larrington, 'Game of Thrones and Medieval Studies: Ten Years On'

Also worth examination if you can find access to the full text is Medievalism in 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and 'Game of Thrones' by Shiloh Carroll in 2018. I find the afterword 'Fantasy for People Who Hate Fantasy' particularly useful for my understanding of the GoT narrative world. The space provided by an unreliable narrator compiling primary sources into a historical document in Fire and Blood allows the show to use adaptation as a means of exploration, and one of the most exciting potentials I have seen so far centers around the role of feminine power throughout. I'll start with the woman who is arguably the series' main protagonist, Rhaenyra Targaryen before touching briefly on the season 2 finale appearance of Admiral Lohar, finally examining the role of Alys Rivers, whom Daemon Targaryen names witch.

Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men

The world of GoT and HotD is largely inspired by medieval history like the War of the Roses and 'the Anarchy,' when Henry I names his only legitimate child, a daughter, heir. It's fantasy, but mostly because dragons exist and there are some characters with gifts of prophecy and maybe even magic extant in this world. Though, I will point out the story-telling modes of these time periods relied heavily on the use of the supernatural for allegorical reasons. Similarly, all the supernatural elements herein work in service of the medievalist plot and, I think, support my reading of complex gender based supernatural authority.

HotD is the story of the infamous Targaryen civil war dubbed 'the dance of dragons,' the series of catastrophic events which lead to the eventual loss of dragons in Westeros and decline of House Targaryen. Rhaenyra's father Viserys is chosen as heir, ascending to the Iron Throne upon his grandfather's death. The show frames this succession as a choice between the eldest grandchildren of the old king: Viserys, who, while male, is the eldest son of the king's second son; his cousin Rhaenys Velaryon neé Targaryen, eldest daughter of the king's eldest son. Lines of patriarchal succession dictate the eldest son inherits from his father, but when both sons have perished before the King, questions of succession become complicated.

The text from which the show is adapted does not even offer Rhaenys as potential Queen. Her increased role in the show is glorious, using a singular textual reference to the 'Queen that Never Was,' played marvelously by Eve Best. The text positions her seven-year-old son Laenor as the potential heir, instead, emphasizing the masculine role in authoritative systems.

I emphasize these lines of inheritance shown in early season one of the show because Viserys rejects this masculine tradition in favor of his daughter Princess Rhaenyra, putting her in an impossible situation where she has been raised as her father's heir, yet continuously discounted for her gender. There are some wonderful moments throughout the two seasons where she makes some comments about gender and sexuality that I think show the complexity of identity, especially in rigid systems.

Her friendship with Alicent Hightower, for example, blurs the line between friendship and romance. The arc the two women have which positions them against each other, culminating in a reflection of the season 1 scene under the weirwood tree where Rhaenyra asks Alicent to fly away with her and leave Westeros behind. Rhaenyra additionally struggles with her role as a dragonrider, Queen, and mother, balancing the woman's battlefield of childbirth with the realities of her position. Never taught to carry a sword, she nevertheless must wage war to uphold her title and position as her father's rightful heir. I also love her commentary regarding the complex relationship she shares with her uncle/husband Daemon, describing them as two halves of a complete person; he was the man she always wanted to be, bold and active and courageous, while she was the heir, beloved of Viserys. For Rhaenyra, gender and sexuality are tied inextricably to her role as Princess and Queen; the duty to beget heirs clashes with her seemingly true desire to leave Westeros behind with Alicent in her youth. Is she drawn to the masculine role because she, like me, truly feels as though she is a man, or does she struggle with the restrictions placed upon her as a woman despite her proven abilities to the contrary? Like any conversation about the limits of nature vs. nurture, the unsolvable tension of her gender identity becomes forever associated with her sexuality.

As a woman, especially a Princess, her first duty is to beget the next heir, before any contributions to Westeros she makes in her own stead. Her marriage must be arranged to secure the lineage, but also to ensure loyalties and alliances remain strong—she does not have leave to marry where she will. Despite the clear tension between young Rhaenyra and Alicent, early sexual experiences for Rhaenyra align with heteronormative experiences—an older man (in this case her uncle and future husband Daemon) shows her the potential of pleasure housed in the body. But, when she seizes power for herself in this moment, leaning into the enjoyment of the experience, Daemon withdraws, no longer interested in meeting her as an equal. Her response in this moment is to sate her desire through seducing her sworn protector Kingsguard Criston Cole (importantly, the Kingsguard's oaths include celibacy), an action with pretty significant consequences in terms of loyalties down the line. It's clear this experience is about the body for Rhaenyra, who scoffs and nearly laughs at Cole's request that she leave the country with him, mirroring Rhaenyra's own request of Alicent earlier in the season. She has come to understand herself now as inseparable from her role as heir; her body is her duty, and her duty is the crown. But, that does not mean her body is incapable of pleasure, despite the increased risks to the female form.

It is a tender moment she shares with Mysaria in season two that speaks to more complicated modes of attraction, intimacy, and vulnerability. When given the space to choose entirely for herself, with no thought to progeny or duty, she chooses the only person who has ever seen her for who she truly is, Rhaenyra and the Queen. It's a phenomenal scene all around, but don't just take my word for it:

So, there's plenty to continue saying about gender and authority, especially because Rhaenyra offers so many points of comparison: between her and Daemon, Viserys' initial heir, Rhaenyra and Alicent, both young women playing a role in service of their family, and Rhaenyra and Mysaria, separated by class more than anything else. But, it's clear gender and the depictions thereof within this world are...complicated, to say the least. The assumption that a woman will be a less effective ruler than a man because of battle, which Rhaenyra refutes beautifully by informing her council there has been peace for 80 years, no one has that kind of experience regardless of gender. The introduction of Admiral Lohar in the season 2 finale, however, plays with these constructions for the audience to contend with as much as the characters within the text.

Admiral Sharako Lohar (He/They/She)

In the text, Admiral Lohar is only described as a man, but the show makes the incredible decision to cast Abigail Thorn, a transgender woman actor and activist. She leans into the ambiguity and discomfort the character provides with an open engagement surrounding gender and sexuality for the character. Lohar has long hair, but wears armor, is described in the masculine by those who serve her, but never refers to themselves in character (though Thorn describes the character with she/her pronouns online and in interviews). Lohar even has many wives, who they need help impregnating, casting a fundamental tension on her body and its limits. With these factors in mind, I may refer to Lohar with a variety of pronouns, leaning most heavily on 'they' as a commonly recognized gender-expansive pronoun. However, I'm pretty sure they would probably tell you "Admiral" is their pronoun, if you asked the character.

The show runners describe the character as using their androgyny in a very 'David Bowie' fashion. I take this to mean, and as a trans person watching the show before I listened to any of the discourse around the character, that Lohar understands the limits of authority in this world. Whether or not Lohar is themselves a transgender person is not the point. I repeat, it does not matter what kind of body Lohar has. In casting Thorn to the role, in using various terms depending on who is speaking to or about them and why, the show highlights the limits of gendered discourse. If the assumption that Lohar is successful as an Admiral only because of the inherent masculinity of their body is raised through these tensions, enough ambiguity is injected into the character (both in terms of the writing and the choices made by the actor) to dismiss this association for what it is: misogyny with a heavy dose of transphobia.

Lohar enters the series when Rhaenyra's rivals need a naval fleet if they are to even hold their own against her. The option Prince Regent Aemon takes it to treat with the heretofore antagonistic Triarchy, an alliance of three free cities across the ocean with immense naval power. They agree to treat with the Prince's representative Lord Lannister, but will only finalize the alliance if their admiral personally approves of the Regent's representative. Enter a fun sequence of trials for Lord Lannister to contend with, some lovely brevity in an otherwise bleak universe of treachery and betrayal.

I give Thorn a lot of credit for playing this role, its bound to attract discourse from those who view gender and sexuality as rigid constructs with clear definitions. However, in being a positive representation of expansive gender identities within a series proving to carrying at least some insight into the nuances of gender, sexuality, and feminine power, I think there is incredible potential that will spring from here.

Lohar commands an enormous fleet, and does so incredibly well with absolute loyalty, by leaning into the role of the masculine ship commander. These are men who would not understand a woman in the role of Admiral, because for them woman carries a system of behavioral and visual signifiers. They wouldn't assume a man could take up sewing, for example, either. Lohar mixes elements of the feminine gender, matching them to aspects of the masculine, and vice versa, which confounds assertions that it is possible to 'just know' someone's gender or sexual identity (which often means: what genitals does someone have) by looking at them.

So, Lohar builds an identity for themselves through ambiguity, establishing himself as a capable military leader, with multiple wives to prove his virility and status (a household requires a good deal of gold to maintain), and whose physical prowess garners additional levels of respect in such a militant world. Abigail Thorn's height is listed online as 6'1" which, as an AFAB person only an inch shorter than that, I know is very tall for a lady in the USA. There's something intimidating in a tall woman, but you can't tell me that isn't also incredibly attractive. I've played enough BG3 the past year to know exactly what kind of niche Thorn's Lohar fills:

So, if you're watching Admiral Lohar and your takeaway is 'but I'm still not sure if they're a man or a woman' I think you haven't really been paying attention to the way the show has been constructing gender all along. Thorn offers a clear point of departure by which to apply a contemporary lens (i.e. modern language and terminology) to explore these concepts, but they were importantly already there. This is exactly why I am a queer theorist: the possibilities suggested by Lohar existed in the middle ages, the trick is not in finding the ways in which we might shove these ideas into today's boundaries, but how we might explore what is being said by these narratives. To that end, I turn to the only witch shown in HotD so far, Alys Rivers. (yes, yes, we can talk about Helaena and the gift of prophecy as magic/witchcraft in the future if you want)

Alys Rivers of Harrenhal

So far in the show, Alys has appeared primarily in connection with a sequence of trauma dreams that lead Daemon Targaryn to the true path of prophecy. When Daemon finds her in the decrepit and haunted Harrenhal, she says she has taken over the position of Maester, as the previous one couldn't stand the ghosts of the castle. This is incredibly important for such a quick moment, in terms of the authority this grants Alys within the castle. The castle itself represents a strategic military position, offering Daemon the means to raise an army if questions of his loyalty can be succesfully enough assuaged. To that end, he requires supernatural intervention; he has gone to Avalon, the land of the dead or of the fairies, and only paradoxical healing can save him now.

Traditionally, healing arts fall under the purview of the Maesters, 'an order of intellectuals (scholars, healers, and other learned men)' that exist as a separate power to the Church and state of Westeros. Responsible for educating and counseling the nobility, tending the ravens used for long-distance messaging, and serving in the households of the nobility, they occupy a unique position in the patriachy of Westeros. Like medieval clerks and monks with whom they share many affinities, Maesters are only men, but take oaths of celibacy, bending their masculinity towards academic pursuits rather than martial or sexual exploits. They are sometimes referred to as 'the knights of the mind,' which orients them further within this system.

Yet, Alys Rivers occupies an informal position at Harrenhal, performing the duties of a Maester seemingly without resistance. She mixes potions, grinds herbs, and gives Daemon a tonic to help him 'make use of this place.' The heavy implication throughout Daemon's time at Harrenhal is Alys uses her abilities (and weirwood sap) to either create or open his mind to visions and prophecies of the future.

But, this is importantly all left to subtext, allowing the audience to decide what Alys's role in the narrative is so far. I know where she is likely to go from Fire and Blood, and her upcoming epithet 'witch queen' speaks to this forbidden knowledge and power of manipulation. Women with these kinds of abilities are often dubbed 'witch,' a negative way to categorize, define and, ultimately, dismiss the complicated power of women. Their role as a destabylzing influence on the patriarchical instutions around them works to increase these fears and negative associations.

I may have to return to these dream sequences and make a formal comparison to Morgan le Fay and/or Nimue in terms of the authorized knowledge these women receive from Merlin or nunneries, and how prophecy functions in prequel narratives. Alys so far seems to function in service of the greater narrative, providing the impetus to Daemon, who has been floundering for all of season two regarding his loyalty to his wife, to understand his part in the bigger picture, the overarching narrative of GoT.

Her first appearance occurs in S2E3 'The Burning Mill,' played impeccably by Gayle Rankin. At this point, Daemon has arrived to the damp castle to find its castellan Ser Simon Strong and already had at least once dream-vision confronting questions of guilt and his role in events surrounding the Iron Throne. He wakes from this initial vision outside, at the foot of a massive weirwood tree. These trees importantly carry supernatural context, which Alys reinforces in the next episode by telling Daemon they carry ancient spirits whose whispers may still be heard on occasion. It is here Alys first tells Daemon he 'will die in this place,' a prophecy I think likely to play out early season 3. As I mentioned at the start of this section, however, Harrenhal can be read like an Avalonian otherworld, a space where 'the real and the natural gives way to the unreal and the supernatural,' opening 'a wholly new horizon of expectations within the text' (Byrne 2016).

Further, in the tradition of Arthurian otherworlds, a character must first cross a delineated boundary; in otherworlds contending with questions of life and death these 'frequently take the form of a water barrier,' (Byrne 2016) which we see Daemon do arriving to Harrenhal, which pour water seemingly from the walls themselves to baptise him for his journey. So, Daemon has entered a deathly otherworld, received a prophecy of his impending death, and met Alys Rivers, who says she is 'no woman at all,' but 'a barn owl, cursed to live in human form' (S2E3 'The Burning Mill'). He can only be returned to life, in this case, returned to his wife's side, through the transformative process of these realms.

There's something extra delicious about Rankin using her Scottish accent in the role; while we know there is no Scotland and England in Westeros, the Riverlands have some interesting connections to remaining unique in the face of Empire to Scotland and Ireland, and I love the use of accent to reinforce the role the Riverlands has to play in this version of Westeros.

After three visions Daemon breaks, asking Alys for help. This is when her role shifts yet again, though only in implication. Thus far, her actions have been centered around Daemon's engagement at Harrenhal and his poor dealings with the Lords of the Riverlands, but again, this is only ever implied. What we see is Daemon confide in Alys, Alys inform Daemon of the...uniqueness of the Riverlands and its people, and a major death occur after she had been the attending doctor (note the lack of Maester even outside of Harrenhal).

I keep thinking about Alys' scene with Daemon in the season two finale. She's sitting on his bed in the middle of the night when he wakes (which she had pointed out earlier as made of the very weirwood trees that haunted Harrenhal), and she takes him out into the woods to seek the kinds of omens available to those who know how to look for them. Importantly, when Daemon doesn't scoff at this commentary, like he had done in his initial dealings with her, Alys displays a lot of emotion, chuckling and saying she's 'pleased to hear it.'

I find it interesting she asks Daemon if he wants to learn 'what is given to' him, explicitly stating 'all your life, you have sought to command your own fate,' before putting his hand directly on the weirwood tree to give him a vision of what is to come. It's a really cool scene with a ton of easter eggs I can't even begin to fully enumerate, but it ends with a clear vision of Rhaenyra ascendant and it is this that compels Daemon's obescence to his wife thereafter. While all previous visions seem bent towards his redemption, exploring significant moments of guilt, shame, and trauma, this vision of the future literally puts Daemon in his place. He is transformed into a proper King Consort, bent in service of the realm and the narrative, through his allegiance and support of Rhaenyra.

Alys clearly holds more knowledge and power than it would seem on first glance, and I hope to explore that in future seasons of the series. As the impetus for Daemon's return via his confirmed allegiance to Rhaenyra, she has played a major role in the continuation of the franchise's overarching prophecy. Truly, she is an heir of Morgan le Fay and all the messy nuance that inheritance entails.

Final Thoughts

There are so many things I could discuss here, and may return to in the future. I didn't even get into the incredible twin episode which pit Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk against each other, each in service to the same oath and carrying it out to the best of their abilities. Neither did I really dive into what I think is happening with Alys, and how witches like Melisandre in GoT extend Morgan le Fay and similar supernatural women's lineage into contemporary fantasy.

It's not a perfect show, and even the engagement with these themes doesn't always land with the impact or strength I, a queer transgender medievalist, would prefer. But, I think it's doing a much better job than the source material and than HBO's GoT, likely in part due to the diversity of voices involved in the creation of scrips, production, directing, editing, etc. all down the line. I preferred HotD to GoT immensely, and, importantly, I think it can be watched devoid of the context of the earlier series, if you haven't watched any of it before.

At its heart, HotD is a political drama, a family tragedy wherein the weapons of war, rather than guns and bombs, are imagined as dragons and sorcery. This of course evokes for me Arthur C. Clarke's infamous third law (his adages, essentially) which states:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Now, dragons aren't technology, but they are definitively an allegory, show runner Ryan Condal describes the dragons as 'finite super weapons' used in the 'idea of an armed nuclear conflict,' where the cost of winning may be tantamount to a loss, anyway. Emo boy Criston Cole summarizes in the season 2 finale: 'the dragons dance and men are like dust under their feet. [...] we march now toward our annihilation.'

And, look, the dragons are terrifying. They've done an incredible job creating these animals with such unique looks and personalities, but the destruction they cause incidentally is enormous. Their blood, when it falls on humans, burns and boils, and that's if the massive weight of their bodies doesn't destroy everything around them. This particular scene, and the impact just shy of 1:30 speaks to Condal's descriptions of these animals as nuclear weapons. The sound designer also deserves so many awards, because even though I know these aren't even animals underneath the CGI, the way they cry and roar makes me feel so many things.

The series will return with two more seasons, likely not until spring 2026 at the earliest, so we have plenty of time to speculate about the dragons, the war, and the role of witchcraft throughout.