Why Yara Greyjoy is rocking fatigue posture

"Fatigue Posture" involves pushing your pelvis forward; you use less muscular energy by essentially hanging on your ligaments. Pretty awful for your bones and organs, and yet, if you look around, you'll see it everywhere.

That's because most folks know more about body language than posture. They have no clue that fatigue posture might cause constipation and osteoporosis, but they can read loud and clear the "I'm cool and I'm powerful" message.

"I'm cool."

"I'm powerful"

And there is it, in 6th season, episode 9 of Game of Thrones, Yara and Theon Grayjoy stand in front of Daenerys, beseeching her for support. Through most of the scene, Yara has her hands folded in front of her crotch, very low-power in terms of body language. But she's also in a pronounced fatigue posture! Seemingly contradictory but it speaks volumes about what's going on.

And as long as I'm this deep in geeky posture land, let's talk about Theon's posture. He's more stacked, in other words, neutral. And neutral, in the world of non-verbal messaging, sorta says nothing. Again, appropriate. We need this character to fade into the background a little. He is, however, hanging his head for most of the scene, which tells us something about his beaten-down character.

I'm fascinated by this stuff. I also wonder, were they directed to stand like this, or do we have such an innate understanding of body language that these skilled actors just knew what to do and struck these poses? I looked for other pictures of Yara and the actress who plays her. She doesn't normally stand like this. But in this scene, she has to be deferential while subtly exerting her power. And subtly sending messages that we can all read loud and clear is what body language is perfect for. It's just too bad about what it does to your low back...

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