Television Tuesday :: the blood of old Valyria [a sartorial analysis of Daenerys Targaryen]

I had been planning to space my sartorial analyses out, I really had.  (Even though this one has been brewing since I started prepping my Halloween-featured cosplay back in July.)  But yesterday I was rewatching a couple of episodes with a friend and there should be no surprise about the fact that I slip back into that kind of headspace at the slightest provocation, so this kind of thing happens.

I’m doing this one a little differently: so much of my analysis of Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) is noting what she rewears and when.  Strictly speaking, it shouldn’t be weird when characters rewear clothes.  Real people do it all the time.  But it’s still easy for characters to go entire shows without rewearing, and the ways that Dany rewears are actually fascinating to me.  Because this is the sort of thing you notice when you are already analytically minded and then you spend months prepping cosplay.

Both of these are outfits from 1×01, “Winter is Coming.”  The first thing I note is that the pink dress is the closest that Dany ever gets to a King’s Landing dress.  Not like the noblewomen wear, because those dresses are structured and properly pseudomedieval, but Shae (Sibel Kekilli), for example, wears dresses similar to this.  Ros (Esme Bianco) and the other whores wear dresses similar to this.  Not identical, but similar.  And at this point in the story, that’s about as much worth as is being placed on Dany.  Viserys (Harry Lloyd) (is a monumental d-bag and I strongly dislike him and I have a really hard time mentioning him without reiterating that) is selling her into marriage to serve his own goals.  He’s whoring her out in order to return to King’s Landing and rejoin the society he sees as his.  You see variants on the dress in 1×02, “The Kingsroad,” too (there’s one that looks identical save the straps being the same light pink in the first scene, but then it’s the same one with the dark straps later in the practicesex scene), but then it goes away.  Also, while it’s not the only time she wears pink, it’s still worth noting: pink, being a color of traditional femininity and therefore representing his perception of her weakness, adds to her being dressed to his idea of her.  No wonder this dress soon disappears.  Her hair is completely unstyled, which it never is again.  Then, the gray and white dress: this is the only time this dress gets worn.  It fits closely to her body, it’s an amenable pale color, the fabric is transparent (which would be one reason why I only included a shoulders-up picture), it looks like it could just drift away even while it alludes to basic human needs and what, again, Viserys perceives as potential uses of her body.  Also, silver dragon jewelry (the other reason).

Then let’s talk about variants on this dress, first seen in her wedding in “Winter is Coming” and then seen before she climbs on the pyre in 1×10, “Fire and Blood.”  Part of it is just the lighting, I imagine, but in the first scene, this dress is almost typical bridal white.  It’s the same gray of the transparent dress in the previous scene, it’s decked with any number of adornments, dragon jewelry at her cleavage and more jewelry on the bands leading to the completely functionless, though pretty enough I suppose, little arm cape things.  This is one of her least styled hairstyles, beaded but without braids, and she’s rosy-cheeked and innocent as could be desired.  By the end, though, the dress is nearly tinted blue.  It seems much less clean and almost heavier, more disheveled.  The dragon at her cleavage remains, but the functionless arm cape things are gone.  And her hair is braided, probably as complexly as it ever has been.  Both times, this is a dress for ceremonies of transition in her life, but only the second time is it of her choosing.

The Dothraki clothing doesn’t appear until 1×03, “Lord Snow,” but once it appears, it’s a constant (save the instance of the above ceremonial dress) until Qarth in season 2.  And even then, well.  Her first howeverlong with the Dothraki, Dany is still wearing her pink dress(es?), needing her handmaids to soothe her hands which are unused to riding.  That’s a long dress, and riding horses in it can’t be practical.  But once she’s achieved intimate compromise with Drogo (Jason Momoa) and thus begun to take an active role in her life, to fit it to her but not just to hide from it completely, she’s getting comfortable in her clothes as well.  (Or as comfortable as wearing a burlap halter top can be.)  As I’ve before mentioned, ALL THE SHADES OF BROWN is the Dothraki way, and she works it in every variation.  She’s got cloth around her hands for riding, that skirt she’s wearing is both not all the way to her feet and slit up the middle to facilitate riding, you can’t see them very well here, but there are leggings (also for the riding).  And the khaleesi’s jewelry is largely gold, unlike the silver given her by her brother.  And boots.  These boots are going to be consistent (save the ceremonial dress and then the first dress in Qarth) right through season 2.  Also, “you’ve no right to a braid,” she tells him in an argument, negating his snide comment about braiding his hair and acclimatizing with the Dothraki by pointing out the traditional implications of a proper braid in the culture. By 1×06, “A Golden Crown,” her hairstyle has gotten increasingly intricate, braiding braids into braids, which, trust me, takes quite a while to accomplish, and by the end of the season, she has definitely earned her braid.  That tradition is meant to apply to men in Dothraki culture, but then, men are also meant to be the ones to rule a khalasar.  Dany is the beautiful gender convention upender.

Presumably, this is Dothraki maternity wear, circa 1×09, “Baelor,” and it’s here as transition and because it’s noteworthy that that top is not the standard dark brown burlap-looking something but instead a tan material that looks kind of like dragon scales.  Makes sense.  Also, I just feel compelled to include multiple shots of every variety of braids that are worked into her hair.  Because there are many.

Two entirely different outfits, circa 1×02, “The Kingsroad,” and 2×05, “The Ghost of Harrenhal.”  But these are both outfits that don’t belong anywhere else, and outfits for similarish purposes.  The first is a nightgown/robe thing, and it has long flowy sleeves; it’s almost blush colored in the light of the tent, and it ties at the side.  The second is what I figure is the equivalent of a housedress, like one of those nice robes you wear while you’re putting your face on if you’re a person who likes to pretend they’re in a midcentury movie where they do that or something.  It’s white, it’s similarly cut, it’s fairly plain.  With the nightgown, her hair is down and largely unstyled; with the second, her hair is back, out of her face, and braided like mad.  It’s an interesting contrast of different uses for similar things.

Now, let’s talk about the gifted clothes of Qarth.  That long dress is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s got similar problems to the original long dresses.  One, it’s not practical.  Two, it’s not entirely opaque.  Three, and this is odd to say considering the multiple naked scenes she’s had in the interim, it’s probably the most overtly provocative outfit since the gray transparent dress.  This is not to say, mind you, that provocative is bad or showing or alluding to skin is bad.  It’s just interesting that in this instance, as in that of the gray dress, it wasn’t a dress of her own choosing.  There is no coincidence that it’s around the time they’re going over this dress that Dany and Doreah (Roxanne McKee) are having the discussion about how “men like to talk about other men when they’re happy.”  (Am I the only one who always took that line to mean “yes, let us go flirt with guests for information” and possibly “this is the sort of thing you’ve taught me, Reah, hence my sly smiling” and not “hey, go sleep with some dudes”?  Even one of my people IRL thought it meant the latter, and just… am I crazy?  Is this my lady-tinted glasses problem again?  I just can’t imagine that Dany would voluntarily advocate for that, especially knowing all she does about Reah’s past, and it looked to me more like they were both flirting, which is probably as happy as men would need to be to start talking, and then slyly giggling about it because reasons.)  This is a dress that is designed to make men happy, or it well could be, between the neckline and its diaphanous but ultimately cumbersome cut.  The other blue outfit is the same as the pink one, but I’m going to be analyzing that one in another context, and instead will just note here that wow, the Qartheen really dig on that shade of blue (which I’m good with) and that lacy gold metal.  It’s a recurring theme.

Now I’m putting that same shot from “Lord Snow” next to one of the pink version of that outfit from 2×10, “Valar Morghulis.”  Because now I’m about to talk about things I discovered when prepping above cosplay.  Presumably after that first Qartheen party, it was realized that dresses like that were not emotionally well-suited to the khaleesi.  She is of a different world than that, and while she’s willing to play nice and pretend, it is not suited to her.  Surely when trying to appease their guest, they would have realized they would need to go about it differently (while I’m sure Dany had thoughts about this herself, and I smile to imagine it, I question whether she would have specifically had discussions with anyone who could do anything about it).  So this happens.  The pretty silky textured fabric top because this is not the desert and because she understands that adapting somewhat to situations is wise (and can be nice so long as it’s practical).  The metal armor-bra-shoulder-thing (even having helped to pseudorecreate one, I don’t entirely know what to call it) because in the above blue, they just had to include their favorite gold lace metal and in the pink, continuity.  Also, it’s armor because she is a warrior queen.  But you know what?  That skirt and belt of sorts?  Why, they’re the same skirt and belt of sorts (or at least made the same) as the ones that went with her Dothraki outfits.  The leggings are the same, the boots are the same.  Even the way the pink top is cut, with the fabric dropping down the middle, is reminiscent of fabric hanging on the Dothraki skirt.  (Presumably because the split in the skirt is necessary, as per horses, but also is good to hide, as per modesty of sorts.)  Even here, where there are people willing to bribe her with fanciness to get her to play their crap power games, she holds onto part of the culture she adopted.  She was given into it unwillingly, and she adapted, and I was just about to go on about feelings I started having the other day after coming across some Disney tag meta, but I’ll save it.  No matter where she is, once she’s come into herself, she’s still displaying as herself, and she is regal as all get-out whether she’s got silk or burlap or leather on her body.  She carries herself as royalty and makes all that she wears seem suited to it.

And finally, this is just to observe the difference in rings on her fingers.  She doesn’t wear a ring before she’s married; although that’s not the ring finger in our real world, maybe it’s the ring finger at least in Dothraki culture?  I wouldn’t think anything of it besides “oh, she’s wearing a ring,” and I didn’t for a long time, but then I looked at the finger she’s wearing a ring on in season 2.  Also index finger, but opposite hand.  I’ve perused multiple episodes, and she doesn’t switch where she wears her ring until Drogo’s ultimately fatal injury.  (And she doesn’t wear a ring into the pyre at all, but does in most every other scene.)  So for whatever that’s worth.

–your fangirl heroine.