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Why do you find Daenerys so compelling? There are so many facets to her character, the role she plays within the larger story of ASOIAF, what she represents to others that makes her a character many of us feel a camaraderie with.

Initially, I came across Daenerys in the context of the show. Her plotlines and scenes were always my favourite. I can recall even now how I felt after I saw the scene where she births the dragons. But I cannot recall why I was so enamoured with her at the time.

I watched GOT for the first time in 2018, so it has been a long enough time since I first became familiar with her character. I only read the books for the first time in late 2022, because of her character, I wanted to read them for myself and put some distance between show Danys actions and book Danys.

That was easily done. I’ve since read the series in its entirety, and am currently on my first reread. And still I find Dany the most compelling character in the series. And in all series’ as I’ve worked my way through fantasy. But only in the last year or so have I been able to put a finger on why I love her so much.

Childhood. That sense of a dysfunctional childhood, where it ends prematurely. A catalystic event where you can go - then - that’s when my childhood ended. And how relatable is this? For so many of us. Robbed of a childhood due to abuse, poverty, an unfair burden of responsibility. Any and all of these are something so many of us experience.

On a reread I now love so many of the characters ten fold compared to my first read, but Dany still comes out on top.

I see people insult others faves in the series all the time, so I’m implore you, we all have different life experiences and are drawn to the characters we feel closely reflects those experiences. And that’s what makes ASOIAF so so incredible, because there’s a character for all of us.

So my question is no longer why do you find Daenerys so compelling, but why do you find your fave so compelling?

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The prince that was promised

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I think that Daenerys will decide to burn the iron throne willingly, and I have my evidence right here!

"Her audience chamber was on the level below, an echoing high-ceilinged room with walls of purple marble. It was a chilly place for all its grandeur. There had been a throne there, a fantastic thing of carved and gilded wood in the shape of a savage harpy. She had taken one long look and commanded it be broken up for firewood. "I will not sit in the harpy's lap," she told them. Instead she sat upon a simple ebony bench." - Daenerys VI ASOS

"Daenerys wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people" - George RR Martin

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It’s the little details George puts in that I love “and for the first time in hours” … “and for the first time in hundreds of years”

Nervously Dany gathered the reins in her hands and slid her feet into the short stirrups. She was only a fair rider; she had spent far more time traveling by ship and wagon and palanquin than by horseback. Praying that she would not fall off and disgrace herself, she gave the filly the lightest and most timid touch with her knees. And for the first time in hours, she forgot to be afraid. Or perhaps it was for the first time ever.

Daenerys Targaryen & her Silver, commissioned from vintrage (tumblr)

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Two scenes that give off the same energy:

Book! Cersei watching the Tower of the Hand burn in AFFC

&

Dennis Reynolds in this clip from Always Sunny

(Jaime as a stand in for Dee also works so effin well)

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Never forget “Dany and Daenerys”. She is his fave child xox

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The fact that people take Daenerys — one of the most magical characters in the entire series, a girl who started out as a refugee and a slave and became a queen in her own right, who has prophetic dreams and incredibly intuitive magical capabilities, who miraculously survived a burning pyre and birthed literal dragons from stone, who then proceeded to abolish slavery and become the Mother of the tens of thousands of people that she freed, who is literally the fire of the title “A Song of Ice and Fire”, who is the closest thing this series has to a legendary and even mythical hero — and think that being murdered and put down like a rabid dog after randomly going mad or being stabbed as a sacrifice so that a man can appropriate everything she’s done and achieved to be the sole hero of the story is a fulfilling or even plausible end to her arc, is not only baffling to me, but also plain abhorrent.

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This is officially one of my fave fantasy TV show sequences. I love it sm.

If the Aiel and the Forsaken have taught me anything, it's that the Aes Sedai don't know everything about it. See, if I stopped fighting it, even for a second, I'd be gone. It's just always there.

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Since Shohreh came out to fight we're using the hashtag #UnsinkableShohreh to spread the word lol

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All the above listed highlights why Viserys’ death is so so satisfying. But I’ve seen it said elsewhere on the internet that Dany had Viserys die. Or that she did nothing. There is a reason. HE WIELDED A SWORD IN VAES DOTHRAK. THAT is why Drogo kills him. It is FORBIDDEN. He is told as much. He did it irregardless and then then threatened Dany on top of that. That’s why Dany stands by and watches it happen: she knew the rule. He did aswell. He knowingly ignored it. And he knew the consequences. He was warned.

I hate how it’s becoming normal to whitewash (or romanticize!) Viserys’ repugnant actions towards his little sister (let’s not forget the fact that Daenerys is 13 year old and Viserys is 22) and paint him as a misunderstood character just because of his tragic childhood, or blame her for Viserys’ death when he brought it fully on himself.

Mind you, Daenerys had the same exact childhood but even worse because of Viserys. He sold her into sexual slavery, and because of him, she was raped to the point of contemplating suicide. Her son was murdered, she confronted the humiliation of being a “beggar king” when she was in Viserys’ exact position in ACOK and had to be everything to her tiny khalasar of mostly vulnerable civilians who have no power or strength, and yet she still became a profoundly kind-hearted, empathetic, and compassionate person who choose to dedicate her life to abolish slavery and end the misery of thousands of people who have no one else to help them. What’s Viserys’ excuse ?

Bear in mind though that Viserys had every chance to embrace Daenerys after her marriage and wait for his crown. She was protective and loving towards him even when he told her to her face, his 13 year old sister, that he’d let 40,000 Dothraki rape her along with their horses to get his throne, because that mattered far more to him than she ever did. He threatens and berate her to please Drogo when she’s tearful and terrified about being sold off to a 30 year old warlord. She kept trying to defer to and respect him as her king, but he showed barely any regard for her within the respect that ought to have been shown to her as a khaleesi.

Viserys sexually, emotionally and physically abused Daenerys throughout her childhood (in almost every scene he appears in, he sexually assaults his sister), blaming her for their mother’s death, for the downfall of the Targaryens, when she wasn’t even alive during most of Robert’s Rebellion, and believing that Daenerys is to blame for Rhaegar kidnapping Lyanna, reasoning that if she had been born sooner then he would have married her and would have never looked at any other woman.

Viserys kept twisting Daenerys’ hair until she cried when she innocently told him she wanted to be a sailor. He tried to break into her room and rape her the night before she married Drogo because he still wants to exert some vile sense of ownership over Daenerys. His abuse and other cruelties have clearly taken a heavy mental toll on Daenerys, who is (initially) a meek and fearful child cowed into submission by him. 

That’s not to mention how Daenerys never humiliated him in front of anyone. It was Viserys himself who repeatedly ignored her and physically lashed out at her when Daenerys tries to make a conscious effort to integrate him into the people he’s supposed to be leading, only for him to staunchly refuse, because he’s violently racist and considers them filthy savages. And she still, up to the point where he threatened her to cut her baby out of her, tried to empathise with him and appease him (offering to give him her dragon eggs, inviting him to sit with her).

Viserys’ death is one of the most satisfying moment in ASOIAF. He deserved far worse. My only regret is that Daenerys wasn’t the one to pour molten gold over his head.

All this ↑

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Went to New York for Pokémon GoFest.

Caught 41 shinies and this photo.

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Let Shohreh cook!

We are less than 4,000 signatures away from matching The Expanse's petition numbers!!!

Keep this energy up! Link with us!

Go to savewot.com today to see how you can take action and keep the Wheel turning.

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"GrRm cAnT wRiTe WoMeN" said by morons who genuinely like hotd and hail it as a feminist masterpiece lmao are u like braindead or your standards for female characters truly that low. Not a single woman on that show makes sense let alone whatever passes for feminist media lol atleast the books gave them consistent personality where they don't cry and be useless

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the last heirs of house targaryen

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Oh and they boil it down to who’s the best swordsman?? Like that’s what you get from this? Not fervent discussion of all the themes? What are you doing here?

men liking asoiaf feels so wrong. this is a girl interest. get the fuck out.

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You know who did stand by Dany right till the end though? Ramin Djawadi. You can just hear the love he had for her in her soundtrack

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Mother of Dragons, Bride of Fire...

(Daenerys the Unburnt. Art by Michael Komarck)

When Dany visits The House of the Undying in Quarth she has a number of visions – and at one point she is called “Mother of dragons, bride of fire…” (A Clash of Kings, Daenerys IV)

Many readers assume that this sentence means that Daenerys will becomes someone’s “fiery” bride. However, @thewesterwoman points out that:

“The grammatical construction ‘bride of’ is not meant to refer to a description of the bride, but rather to signify who the bride’s husband will be. Thus, rather than ‘bride of fire’ being a poetic way to describe Dany as a ‘fiery’ future bride, it seems instead to predict that she will be a bride who somehow ‘marries’ fire. For example, the Bride of Frankenstein isn’t a description calling the Bride ‘Frankenstein-like,’ it’s a title announcing the person who the Bride is a bride to: i.e., Frankenstein. Similarly, Dany has here been prophesied to be a bride to fire.” (x)

However, it is worth asking if these words “bride of fire” is a prophecy or simply a description of who she is? At this point in the story, Daenerys is already known as Mother of Dragons, so the first part of the litany “mother of dragons, bride of fire” simply refers to who she is. I would argue that the second part of the litany, “bride of fire” has the same function – because Daenerys became the bride of fire when she lit the pyre that hatched her dragons! What’s more, Daenerys had to become the Bride of Fire in order to become the Mother of Dragons.

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