Daenerys with the good hair
Macall B. Polay/HBO; Matt Monath; Helen Sloan/HBO
On the eve of the final season premiere of Game of Thrones, Jonathan Van Ness — Queer Eye’s grooming guru and Funny or Die’s Gay of Thrones recapper — weighs in on whose locks are worthy of the Iron Throne, and whose need some TLC.
Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner)
“Sansa’s given us ginger realness, she’s given us a more brunette realness; I’m sure she’s going to go back to ginger. I love her character. I need the whole Stark family to get some wins. I need to see her have a win. I can’t take anymore Stark trauma. She has been through it — she’s still Sansa, but she’s a bit hardened, she doesn’t have time to take no sh—. So I feel like her hair is a bit edgier and more center-parted, more braids and more styling on the hair that makes it feel more like Cersei à la seasons 1 and 2. I feel like she’s really developing her power with her hair transformation.”
Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke)
“Talk about iconic — that is very iconic hair. For colorists out there, though, that is one of the hairstyles that has caused the most corrective color and hair crackage of all time — it’s very unattainable hair. At first, that was her hair with extensions; then I feel like it was a full wig, and then for the last season they colored Emilia’s hair. Her hair’s really short now; if I was reading into that, I wonder if [Daenerys] experiences a haircut, which we know in Dothraki culture means you got beat. I’m hoping that’s not a thing and that she’s serving us a lot of extensions this season.”
Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey)
“At first, I was not Team Cers; even now, I’m not sure if I am Team Cers. She’s almost giving me the Donald Trump treatment; she’s so corrupt and so messed up — but she’s not even calling it fake news. She’s like, ‘Yes, I am psycho, and I will kill you whilst falling in love with my fraternal twin brother.’ And I think it’s refreshing to see someone so 100 percent authentic about their craziness. And with her hair, she can do no wrong — she can do extremely short, she can do medium-length pixie. What can Cersei not do except fall in love with someone she’s blood-related to? My feelings for Cersei’s hair journey can best be described by the following No. 1 hit single by Miss Britney Spears, ‘Stronger.’ Her loneliness ain’t killing her no more.
Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie)
“Obsessed, so much. She moves from strength to strength. She’s the Simone Biles of Winterfell. Everything she does is perfect, seamless. She’s a really good example of sometimes people don’t like a short haircut, but it’s all pushed back from their face, but then if you blow it forward and give them a little fringe like Robin Wright, they love it. Brienne, she’s so versatile — sometimes it’s strong and masculine, and she’s like, ‘Don’t come for me unless you want to leave with a sword between your temples.’ But other times, like her scenes with Jaime Lannister, her hair is very soft, very feminine. It’s a great example of how short hair can be very versatile, very feminine and masculine.”
Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa)
“Gorj. Pony power. Love that ‘long hair, don’t care.’ Very gorgeous. The Dothraki warriors are such an important part of the story, and he was the most perfect Dothraki — he represented this fierce idea of masculinity and fierce idea of being undefeated. What I think is really cool about that world is that you have these really rage-filled men with guyliner, and he has a braid down to his butt and wears miniskirts, so his character, without ever saying it, speaks to the silliness of the binary that we always subscribe to. He’s the ideal of masculine perfection, and he’s in a skirt and a lazy gladiator shoe and snatched braids and a brow that he obviously goes to Anastasia Beverly Hills every six weeks. So I think that’s great, it’s fabulous. I miss him; I don’t get to see his pecs anymore.”
Game of Thrones season 8 premieres April 14 on HBO.
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