12 Reasons Game Of Thrones Is All About Female Empowerment

Dying for the new season of Game Of Thrones? Us too. Thankfully, we're only about a week away from the Sunday April 24th sixth season premiere of everyone's favorite gory/magical/breathtaking drama based on the super popular book series A Song Of Ice and Fire George R. R. Martin. While the Twitterverse loves to chat about the crazy deaths that no one ever saw coming or whether Jon Snow is actually dead (please say no, producers), there's another big issue that this amazing series brings up, and that's feminism. While it may not look like it at first, since the men of Westeros seem to totally run the show, the women are stepping up to the plate and really proving who they truly are. Here's why Game Of Thrones is all about female empowerment.

12 The Female Characters Believe They're Worth It

No mousey, lame women to be found here. Instead, even when these women are in sticky situations or facing the worst tragedies you could imagine, like when Sophie Turner's Sansa Stark became a slave to the insane man she married last season, they believe they're worth it and that they deserve more from their lives. That's a pretty important thing.

11 It's Ultimately A Feminist Show

Members of the female cast graced the covers of the April 1/8 double issue of Entertainment Weekly and a killer cover story, called "Dame of Thrones," proved that at its heart, this is definitely a super feminist show. The producers are pretty frustrated by recent complaints that the show is super sexist and demeaning to women. They have no idea where those ideas are coming from, because in their view, this has been a female-driven show from the very first episode. So once you look at it from that lens, it's pretty easy to see there's been a plan all along.

10 The Women Are Strong

You can't call these women weak, even if they have less power in their world than the men. They can fight with the best of them, they can hide behind marriages of convenience or for society's benefit while knowing the truth, and ultimately they're pretty smart.

9 They're Two Steps Ahead

Take Margaery Tyrell, for example, played by the brilliant Natalie Dormer. We first saw her back in season two and she was married, but she totally understood that this marriage was completely for show and wasn't based on anything even close to real love. Instead of waiting around for her life to change, she's always been a total go-getter and has always been two steps ahead of the men in her world. That's a pretty empowering character.

8 This Is The Women's Season

Get ready for some feminism because season six is the women's time. Daenerys, Brienne, Arya, Margaery, Corsei, and Sansa are all going to be at the center of the action. The cast is giving interviews left and right about how the female characters are really going to shine this year, so you should probably take their word for it and get super excited now. We're definitely in for a wild and amazing ride.

7 The Producers Have A Strategy

Show runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have said recently that their strategy is to turn the show around and have it focus more on the women. They claim that's not exactly ground-breaking for the show or even a brand-new concept, because they've always had this feminist strategy beneath all the male-dominated storylines. So there you go.

6 The Actresses Are Inspiring

You probably couldn't find a more inspiring and super feminist female cast if you tried. Maisie Williams made an interesting point in the EW cover story interview mentioned above: she says she's of course a feminist, but she thinks that everyone should be a feminist if they know what's good for them. Her theory: if you're a feminist, you're "human", and if you're not, you're "sexist." Isn't that just the coolest thing you've ever heard?

5 They Can Fight

Just look at this photo of Maise Williams' Arya and think about Brienne, played by Gwendoline Christie. Brienne's got some amazing fighting skills inside of her, probably because she's suffered such a crappy childhood/entire life so far. She's desperate to be a knight but has no idea what would really be in store if she went down that path. It's awesome to see women not looking super pretty and dainty all the time -- hopefully other shows will follow in Thrones' (super massive) footsteps.

4 They're Ambitious

While the female cast's plans may not always work out too well in the end -- like Margaery ending up in jail in season five (oops) -- at least you can say that they have tons of ambition. It's always good to see strong female characters on one of your favorite shows because they prove that without ambition, you don't have very strong storylines, particularly for women. It's super boring to watch a bunch of women sitting around sipping tea and sighing about their lives, so it's awesome when we can actually see women who are trying to improve their lives.

3 They're Allowed To Get Intimate

On TV. That's a pretty big deal. Of course we had Sex and the City we saw four best friends chatting about their bedroom lives and the camera often showed each character in the bedroom. But it's not every single show that dares to go there -- that really shows women enjoying themselves just as much as their male partners. The Huffington Post U.K. actually made a video of the scenes from last season and it was six minutes total. So there you go.

2 They Do What Needs To Be Done

Ultimately, being empowered as a woman doesn't always mean doing the right thing. For the women of this tricky and violent fantasy world, the right thing is not always the moral thing. Take Arya -- she's got no bones about doing what needs to be done and has even killed people more than a few times. But that doesn't make her a bad person -- and it does make her a shining example of female empowerment. Okay, of course, in your every day life you're not going around killing people, or you'd wind up in jail and your life would be ruined. But think about that in the context of your normal life. If you stand up for yourself, then that's your own version of empowerment (without the murder).

1 The Show Isn't Afraid

Sure, it's not super fun to watch characters be assulted or otherwise be the victims of violence both sexual and physical. But in a sense, Game Of Thrones should be celebrated for choosing  these storylines, because it proves that they aren't afraid to go there and really delve deep into tough issues that we don't like to talk about. If they treated women as anything less than the men, then they wouldn't have any big storylines involving the female characters at all. But they do. They put women in the worst situations imaginable and let them crawl their way out on their own terms, and they allow them to heal.  And this season, the women are taking over. So get ready -- both you and your PVR.