To build a space for queer people like myself, every Saturday I’ll be posting interviews, opinion pieces (like this Emma D’Arcy House of the Dragon post), listicles, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community from a Latina perspective. Welcome to Queerly Not Straight!
Enjoy and leave a comment below if you have a suggestion for what I should cover next. P.S. I, Lyra Hale, do not give any site permission to copy or repost my work in any form. If you are reading this on any site besides Fangirlish, it has been stolen.
With House of the Dragon finally here, and season 3 confirmed, it’s time to remind people about Emma D’Arcy and their pronouns. Because even though House of the Dragon is one of the most popular shows on network television, garnering 10 million viewers in its debut episode and over 2 million per episode, we still get moments like the one just recently via a Sky interview in the UK—ones where the lead actor, playing the lead character Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen is misgendered.
While interviewing Matt Smith, who plays Daemon Targaryen, Sue Perkins asked about D’Arcy. And they continuously referred to Darcy using “she” pronouns. Smith gently corrected Perkins at every turn, with the interviewer not comprehending their blunder. Simply put, it’s unacceptable. House of the Dragon is not the Matt Smith show. If anything, Emma D’Arcy is the lead. So this blunder speaks of an interviewer who does not care to take the time to know the show. And it doesn’t matter that Perkins apologized or said they had a bunch of stuff going on in their ear. Because at this point this continued misgendering feels malicious.
It takes nothing to use people’s preferred pronouns. Day in and day out people call each other “her” or “him” with no problem. And it feels like such a disrespect to who someone is at their core when you can’t even refer to them with the pronouns that they prefer. For D’Arcy it’s quite infuriating because you have these seasoned interviewers speaking with the cast and if you can’t use the proper pronouns, you’re not supporting the show or the talent that you supposedly like.
This is coming from someone who has never watched a single episode of House of the Dragon. Game of Thrones scarred me and I thankfully dropped off before that heinous ending with Daenerys Targaryen. But even I know that Emma Darcy’s pronouns are not “she/her.” Their pronouns are “they/them.” And if I can use their pronouns as someone who is not involved in the show in any way, shape, or form, I don’t understand how journalists ignore this pivotal piece of the lead when covering House of the Dragon. It’s ignorance at its finest, especially because nowadays junkets/interviews have press notes with pronouns attached.
Then there’s the fans. A lot of fans respect D’Arcy and their pronouns. After all, it’s none of their business how someone identifies and since they’re fans of D’Arcy, they’ll give them the decency to refer to them in the way that they want. But then there are the fans who purposefully use “she/her” pronouns when responding to tweets or Instagram posts about D’Arcy. Their responses range from blatantly misgendering them even though they know and also hitting back when “they/them” pronouns are used to describe the actor. They do this all while waving their Team Black flag.
Once upon a time, I hated pulling this card, but I’m going to do it now. Because it’s how I truly feel about fans who have conditions like this. Conditions where they support the show but misgender the lead at every turn and don’t respect them. You are not a fan of the subject or material in question if you do not respect someone’s choices to identify the way that they want to. Using “they/them” pronouns for Emma D’Arcy says nothing about you. And that’s something that I think about all the time as to why people misgender nonbinary people. It’s like they think using D’Arcy’s pronouns says something “bad” about them so they can’t “give in” and use them.
The only thing that using Emma D’Arcy’s preferred pronouns says about you is that you respect the actor’s choice to choose who they want to be. That you have empathy and understanding for struggles or experiences that maybe do not match your own. That it’s not all about you. Because it truly isn’t. We all have a choice. And if you choose to continuously misgender Emma D’Arcy, even into seasons 2 and 3 of House of the Dragon, you’re maliciously disrespecting them and choosing to disregard an essential part of who someone is while going about and declaring how much you love their character. It’s twisted, and speaks of a lack of self-reflection, and how some people in 2024 will openly choose to stay ignorant instead of having empathy.
Queerly Not Straight posts Saturdays with opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latine community since I am Latine.)
