Is the Boar Hunt in Game of Thrones a Nod to Venus and Adonis?

As I read Shakespeare’s version of Venus and Adonis, I kept picturing the boar hunt from Game of Thrones. The boar hunt in Game of Thrones is quite similar to the situation in Venus and Adonis: men go on a boar hunt, one of them is pretty, one of them is killed by the boar, and there is a beautiful and powerful woman that holds some influence over the hunt. I found the relation I was making to be quite interesting, in that there is a woman present in both instances, who both directly and indirectly affect the outcome of the boar hunt, and brought up some questions about the power dynamics of women.

            In Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister is the queen of the Seven Kingdoms and is made to appear as a beautiful blonde woman (and one who knows her own beauty and uses it to her advantage). She has some issues, one being that she hates the king, Robert Baratheon, and is attracted to just about any other man and more specifically, any other man in her family. Cersei, despite her faults, is a very powerful woman, which is why she could very well be paralleled to Venus in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. Cersei is able to convince Lancel to kill her husband with the promise of taking him into her bed after the deed is done. To further support the parallel, there is a boar hunting scene in Game of Thrones much like the setting of Shakespeare’s poem, complete even with cute baby face Lancel Lannister, Cersei’s cousin.

Lancel Lannister would be a perfect representation of Adonis in my book. First off, he is young, as he is only a squire and not yet a knight. Lancel also has soft skin and appears to be sexually confused, or at least not quite sure about his sexuality just yet, which adds to the image of him as an Adonis-like figure, especially when we see him in the setting of the boar hunt with King Baratheon. Much like in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Lancel appears to be confused about his sexuality, knowing that he is attracted to women, but only his cousin… (A little creepy right?)

Now that the parallels between the actual characters of Venus and Adonis to Cersei and Lancel have been established for the most part, we can look at the more interesting parallel and the resulting power dynamics of the female figure in both pieces of literature. For Shakespeare, Venus attempts to seduce Adonis but is unsuccessful and is rejected by the boy, conjuring some questions about his sexuality or perhaps lack thereof and why Shakespeare might have taken the power of seduction away from Venus. In contrast, Game of Thrones offers a more Ovid-like dynamic, where Venus/Cersei is successful in her seduction of Adonis/Lancel, and is able to engage in a sexual relationship, regardless of how the male figure feels about his own sexuality.

So, what is the importance of the difference in the female power dynamic between one type of Venus and one type of Adonis? Why would Shakespeare choose to make Venus unsuccessful in seducing Adonis and what does this say about the power of females during Shakespeare’s time?