Khaleesi navigates Cultural Difference in Game of Thrones

Daenerys Stormborn, also known as Khaleesi ('Queen' in Dothraki), acts as a navigator through cultural difference in HBO's Game of Thrones. All the visibly racialized bodies are presented in her storyline.

 In the series pilot, Daenerys is married to Karl Drogo of the Dothraki. This is audiences first introduction to visibly racialized bodies in the show. They are presented as violent, hyper-sexualized, primitive and exotic. They have darker skin, dark hair and features, they are dressed in minimal clothing, with body and face paint. They do not use swords nor wear armour, and they do not have a word for "thank you". When they do speak, it is not in a discernible language so there are subtitles. Khaleesi, her brother, and her right-hand man are all white. Khaleesi and her brother are extremely fair-skinned with very light-blonde hair and light features. They are said to come from a long line of in-breeding. In the image above, we see Karl Drogo on a dark horse and Khaleesi on a white horse highlighting difference with stark colour contrast. As a result, there is a stark visual contrast between Khaleesi and these racialized bodies (the Dothraki, and later the slaves she "liberates"). Since the story is told from Khaleesi's perspective, the Dothraki and later the slaves are otherized, even though they vastly outnumber her. Karl Drogo is the only Dothraki given much of a part in the show. For the most part, the Dothraki have little-to-no lines, and are thus reduced to props. Most attention is paid to Khaleesi and her white right-hand man.

 The Dothraki and the slaves are represented as the stereotypical brown-skin other, reminiscent of colonial images of native or indigenous populations. The Dothraki are presented as primitive, sometimes called "savages" and hyper-sexualized. 

As a fantasy genre and fictitious culture, these representations exploit this voyeuristic exoticism without fear of offending people. This representation of cultural difference is highly disappointing. As a fantasy genre, there is room for the show to present an entirely new and different image of cultural difference. Unfortunately, these representations of cultural difference are informed by, and rely on, existing racist, problematic, exoticized, eroticized, stereotypical tropes persistent in representations of otherness.