The debut episode of HBO's newest hit, "House of the Dragon," included a highly controversial and violent childbirth scene that has drawn criticisms from mothers who were taken aback by the blood and gore.
During a podcast breakdown of the first episode, Jen Coates expressed that the HBO show should have included a notice or warning on the traumatizing scene depicting Queen Aemma Arryn's cesarean birth. As this was a period drama, the scene called for no anesthesia and a crude surgical procedure on her baby belly.
Coates said that a warning should have given viewers an informed choice and a chance to skip watching as it could trigger memories of real-life trauma, affecting an "enormous community of people," per Deadline. Coates, a mom, is the director of Sands, a charity for women who have suffered a baby loss.
Childbirth is "incredibly dangerous" for some moms
Laura Birek, a TV writer and a mother, also discussed the scene on her pregnancy podcast, "Big Positive," to warn moms who have not yet watched the series. She received a call from one of her listeners who said she would have appreciated a notice at the start of the episode as she was due for a C-section in a month.
Birek called out the writer, Ryan Condal, and director, Miguel Sapochnik, of "House of the Dragon" for failing to recognize how "incredibly dangerous" childbirth is for some women. She described her experience with giving birth to a breech baby, just like Queen Aemma on the show.
"Imagine how someone who underwent an emergency c-section, after hours of fruitless labor, would feel after watching," she wrote on Shondaland.
Mommy viewers on Reddit warned each other about skipping the scene. In the r/Miscarriage forum, one mom said that a friend texted her beforehand and advised her to skip the episode if she was not in the right frame of mind. Another mom described the childbirth scene as "deeply disturbing," although it was short, while someone decided to delay watching for a few months until they were sure there would be no triggers.
Violence is a given in "Game of Thrones"
In response to the criticisms, Sapochnik revealed that they showed rough cuts of the cesarean birth to "as many women as possible" and asked if it was too violent. A lot of the women they asked said no.
The director also said that the feedback from the women made them more resolved to show that the queen had no say over her fate. It raises a point about choice, which reflects the "state of play" women have to deal with in the world, per Metro.
Meanwhile, fans of both the original series and the prequel episode said that viewers should expect by now that "House of the Dragon" will not pull any punches or sugarcoat the violence. The episode was also rated TV-MA, which should have sufficed as a warning to the viewers.
Some also said that it seems people are asking for a trigger warning for scenes that could upset a certain demographic when almost anything is a trigger.
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