"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Monday, May 12, 2014

Asexual Sighting: Varys (Game of Thrones)

 
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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