House Of Dragon ‘Buries Their Gays’

House of the Dragon’s latest episode left many fans, particularly LGBTQI fans, devastated.

The introduction of Laenor Valaryon (played by Theo Nate) in the series’ third epiosde as the first queer character of House of the Dragon left many fans of the show hopeful and excited for positive queer and black representation.

Promisingly, the recently released fifth episode of the series seemed to be heading in this direction with the introduction of Ser Joffrey Lonmouth (Solly Mcleod) as Laenor Valaryon’s love interest, making the pair the series’ first LGBTQI couple.

The fifth episode of House of the Dragon includes romantic scenes of the couple play-fighting and kissing lovingly.

The episode also showed Laenor being matched with Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) for marriage. The pair agreed to the marriage and to their duty to have children as a means to align themselves politically and keep up appearances. Additionally, Laenor and Rhaenyra agreed that they may continue their romantic and sexual relationships with whomever they wish outside of the marriage.

Anti-Gay Trope Disappoints Fans

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This arrangement seemed promising for the future of Laenor and Joffrey’s relationship, however their romantic storyline ended brutally with the murder of Joffrey at Laenor and Rhaenyra’s wedding.

Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), a fellow night of Joffrey and love interest of Rhaenyra learnt that Joffrey knew of his affair with the bride. Criston became outraged and gruesomely beat Joffrey to death.

This left Laenor, overcome with grief at the loss of his partner, crying over Joffrey’s disfigured body as viewers mourned the end of yet another LGBTQI relationship due to the “bury your gays” trope.

I love this show, really I do, but we are SOOOOO tired of bury your gays. Tired.

— Rachel (she/they) 🐝🍓 (@Mustang423) September 19, 2022

“How many minutes was that between introducing a gay love interest to killing one of them, GOT? That’s a #buryyourgays record”, one fan tweeted, with another adding, “I love this show, really I do, but we are SOOOOO tired of bury your gays. Tired.”.

Queer Characters Seldom Get Happy Endings

Although according to GLAAD’s ‘Where We Are on TV Report’ for 2021-2022, LGBTQI media representation is on the rise, the queer community is still subjected to problematic and outdated tropes onscreen.

Unfortunately, LGBTQI characters are more likely to die than their straight counterparts and the ‘bury your gays’ trope is certainly indicative of that. 

The ‘bury your gays’ trope has historically been so commonplace that tvtropes.org has an alphabetised list of examples that is disturbingly lengthy. The trope stems from the early days of queer characters on television and film often being portrayed as villains who end up receiving punishment and death. These notions linger in today’s media project the idea that for queer people, there is no ’happy ending’.

Understandingly, fans of the HBO series House of the Dragon are disappointed with Joffrey’s death, especially after such a promising introduction to the series in the fifth episode.