I wasn’t
expecting to do another Asexual Sighting so quickly after Sherlock, but last
night’s Game of Thrones bowled me
over when Varys, master of whispers, came
out as asexual. Granted, he didn’t
use the word “asexual,” but Westeros
doesn’t seem flush with that sort of language; there have been several queer
characters on the show, and none of them are referred to as gay, bi, etc. Still, his meaning was clear, and the number
of explicitly asexual characters I’ve encountered has risen to a whopping two.
So, who
is Varys? He’s a fixture at the court of
King’s Landing, a foreigner with a rough upbringing. He was castrated as a boy by an unsavory wizard (understatement of the year,) but
he’s learned to use it to his advantage:
as a eunuch, nearly everyone underestimates him. He’s valued at court for his “little birds,”
a network of spies that keep him apprised of goings-on all over the Seven
Kingdoms. He’s been a recurring
character through all of the show’s four seasons, and since he is a eunuch, I never made anything of
his not having a sex life. (Is that
ignorant thinking, insensitive to eunuchs?)
Until
now. In “The Laws of Gods and Men,”
which aired last night, Varys gets to know Prince Oberyn of Dorne. Feeling magnanimous, Oberyn invites Varys to
accompany him back to his brothel of choice, where Varys could at least enjoy
the company of the boys Oberyn presumes he likes. Varys denies an attraction to boys, at which
point Oberyn jocularly readjusts and admits that he wouldn’t have guessed Varys
was straight. But, psych! Varys isn’t into girls either. So what is
he into? “Nothing,” he very definitively
says.
I
should mention that Oberyn is bi, and because TV tends to assume bisexuals are
uniformly promiscuous, he generally treats the Seven Kingdoms like his own
personal sex buffet. As such, he’s
perplexed by this admission, insisting that “everybody is interested in
something,” but Varys is resolute. He
even makes it clear that his “absence of desire” predated his castration.
It’s an
interesting coming-out that includes a few hallmarks of people’s thinking re:
asexuality. First, Oberyn (and others
before him,) noting that Varys doesn’t appear interested in women, wrongfully
assume that he must therefore be attracted to men. When Varys softly but firmly asserts his
identity, he’s met with disbelief and an insistence that his orientation is
impossible.
Personally,
I’m thrilled to have Varys join the fold.
Like Poppy from Huge, he doesn’t
fit the socially-awkward, rude/brusque stereotypes held by certain potential
asexuals I could name. This being Game of Thrones, he’s not exactly a good
character or a bad character. He’s intelligent and resourceful, with a
talent for reading people. He also has a
wide self-preservation streak, and he’ll do both noble and nefarious things in
service of it. In short, he’s a complex,
interesting character who’s never been a major player but who’s always made
valuable contributions to plot. No
complaints there! Furthermore, he has
absolutely no qualms about his asexuality – rather, having seen “what desire
does to people,” he considers himself lucky to be as he is.
(On a
tangential note, how much of a boss is Peter Dinklage? Pretty sure he earned another Emmy last night;
just fabulous.)
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