The Trouble with Targaryen Eyebrows

Those Eyebrows Though

As you know, I have strong opinions about eyebrows. I also have strong opinons about Game of Thrones. Usually, those two things do not intersect, but today they do. Let's not dance around the issue here: Daenerys Targaryen has weird eyebrows.

(If you don't watch Game of Thrones, this probably is total nonsense to you. In case you're interested, Daenerys Targaryen is one of the show's main characters. She is descended from a royal line that originated in Valyria. In the A Song of Ice and Fire books, Valyrians have very distinctive physical features: white hair and purple eyes. In the show, Daenerys (aka Dany) has white hair (a wig) but her eyebrows are dark brown -- mostly because the actress' natural hair is dark brown.)

Anyway, if you watch Game of Thrones at all you know that Dany looks great in almost every episode and she's completely gorgeous and beautiful. However, the weirdness of her eyebrows is unavoidable. I know it, you know it, and I'm pretty sure that the showrunners know it too.

Now, I say that Daenerys has weird eyebrows because Emilia Clarke has rather lovely eyebrows. The only problem is that Emilia Clarke's eyebrows do not match Daenerys Targaryen's hair. I'm not sure if the makeup and hair people on Game of Thrones are aware of this or not, but eyebrow color tends to match hair color because eyebrows are -- *wait for it* -- hair! Therefore, If Daenerys has white hair, she should have white eyebrows too. *Shocker*! The fact that she doesn't have white eyebrows makes her look really disjointed and not in character.

A Fan's Idea of what Dany Should Look Like

Now, obviously, part of the problem is that her hair is a wig. I'm aware of the fact that there aren't wigs for eyebrows (but wouldn't it be fun if there were?), but there are other ways that the makeup and hair people could color correct her eyebrows. The most obvious solution would be to dye her eyebrows. I can understand why that might be a problem for Emilia Clarke because, as I just got finished saying, it looks weird when eyebrows and hair don't match. And, if she bleached her eyebrows, they certainly would not match her natural hair. Personally, I think that, as an actor, you should be willing to make some small sacrifices for your character and temporarily dying your eyebrows seems pretty inconsequential (except for the fact that I'm writing an entire blog about why it is consequential). In Emilia Clarke/Daenerys Targaryen's case though, I think it makes sense. Game of Thrones fans are so obsessed with details that I'm actually surprised that there isn't already a change.org petition for this or something. Plus, the showrunners don't allow Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) to cut his hair, so they should have no problem regulating Emilia Clarke's eyebrows. Seriously, the worst thing that could happen would be that Emilia Clarke would have funny looking eyebrows for a while and then she would dye them back to their normal color.

Emilia Clarke must have a better agent than Kit Harrington though because there doesn't seem to be a hair clause in her contract. All right, that's cool, Emilia Clarke doesn't have to dye her eyebrows. I'm sure there are plenty of hair chalks and cosmetics that could easily be utilized to lighten her eyebrows. Or, even better, they could just change the color of her eyebrows in post-production. I mean, if they can create CGI dragons and superimpose scars and scales on people's faces, they should be able to alter the color of Emilia Clarke's eyebrows. I understand that that would take a lot of extra effort, but it would be a small portion of the overall amount of money and time that they must spend on CGI and special effects.

However, I'm not convinced that they couldn't just use some sort of brow powder or makeup to change the color of her eyebrows. They don't even have to be white -- actually, I'd rather they weren't white. A nice grayish/silvery color would be nice. I understand that sometimes characters can't look the way they're described in books and I'm okay with that. For example, in the books, Dany has purple eyes, which would be totally unrealistic for TV Dany. All I'm asking for here is a sense of visual continuity and an attempt at making her wig-like hair look natural without making her eyebrows look ridiculous -- which is a real concern. I know a couple of people with naturally light colored eyebrows and I've observed that when your eyebrows are too light it looks like you don't have eyebrows. If you look like you don't have eyebrows, you have a permanent expression of surprise. I don't know if that would be a good look for Dany -- it's not really the appearance of a confident leader.

Although, in all fairness, a lot of surprising things have happened to her -- like the dragons; who could have seen that coming?

Just sayin'