Missendei Deserved Better


HBO

I don't care if you watch Game of Thrones or not. You don't even have to in order to get why I am about to completely read HBO for the treatment of their only Black Woman in the 8 Season long trauma fest known as a show.

I know that she's not a real person. I know she's a fictional character on a televised show based on books about a bunch of fictional characters. That means nothing to me. I am frustrated beyond belief that this raggedy wretched show would choose to eliminate one of the few women of color, the only Black Woman in the cast, from the show with only two episodes left in the series.

This is not the only time the GOT has botched the storylines of women of color. From the gyrating Dothraki women who were portrayed as savages in opposition to Dany, the white woman who will make them civil; to the very feminist daughters of Oberyn Martell that the show writers gave a  botched the Sand Snakes storyline, with the three women of color flattened from their book counterparts into basic femme fatales and then killed off in brutal ways.

Unfortunately, Missendei, a positive light in the sea of white supremacy that is this show, was snuffed out last episode.

Her last word: Dracarys, meaning "dragon fire", while a lot of us thought it was Missendei telling her friend and queen, Danaerys, and the love of her life and General of the Queen's army, Grey Worm, to burn King's Landing down to avenge her. But it goes even deeper than that. Dracarys actually has a special meaning to Missendei, as explained:
Which is even more heartbreaking. The first word that spoke liberation for this brilliant Black woman (and simultaneously to her love Grey Worm who at the same time stood among the other slaves in the armies of the Unsullied) and death to her captors. In this way, Missendei was telling them both, but particularly her queen, to continue to fight for the liberation of those considered less than.

And now I am even more devastated. And I am not alone. Missendei was one of my favorites of the series, but I did not realize how many people loved her as Twitter lit up with outrage and sadness against her death.






Even the actor who played her executor felt compelled to post his apologies!
Nathalie Emmanuel, the lovely actress who played the role of Missendei had to follow up her initial goodbye message with this heartwarming tweet.

I hope that, in a different dimension, Missendei and Grey Worm made it to Atlanta and are doing the running man challenge, drinking rum, eating chicken, and enjoying their Blackness in a way they could never in Westeros.
And that next week, Danaerys lights up Cercei for the betterment of the realm. Valar Morghulis.


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