Fans seem prepared to see Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) chopping off heads all day long but shy away from the idea that women, too, can experience a bloodbath. Emma D’Arcy noted this dichotomy and pointed out how this seemed to have to do with gender inequality.

“What it feels like is that we want women to conform to a certain image,” D’Arcy continued. “Which is interesting, insofar as acting is concerned, because there’s also a lot of fun to be had getting to do the big physical, physically demanding sequences. And it’s interesting that maybe sometimes that is not afforded to female characters.” It was also integral to creatives that the series depicts an honest reality. The first birthing scene of the series shows Queen Aemma (Sian Brooke) receiving a medieval cesarean against her will. This demonstrates a shared female experience and sets up a resonant theme of the series. Former showrunner Miguel Sapochnik defended the choice vehemently to PopSugar.

“We did make a point of showing it to as many women as possible and asked the very question, ‘Was this too violent for you?'” Sapochnik said. “And unanimously, the response was no. Often the response was, ‘No, if anything, it needs to be more.'” Viewers criticizing these decisions are missing the point of the series. Women have been treated this way for generations, and watching it shouldn’t be easy.