#you free those slaves khaleesi

[atopvisenyashill]

Whether in the books or show, didn’t Dany eventually try to prevent the pillaging of the Lhazareen village? So couldn’t her trying to protect the women from that village by claiming them as her own be all she could do considering the system the Dothraki had? Trading slaves is one of their ways of trading money. All she could do was claim the women as her own slaves, so that no harm could be done to them as they are Dany’s property. Dany obviously doesn’t share the same views but knew how to act because she knew the Dothraki ways. She cares about them and even her entire upcoming arc is freeing slaves. Dany wasn’t able to properly free them because she as a Khaleesi doesn’t have any worth without her Khal, in terms of power. But she still cared for those girls and even swore to avenge one of them. Why do ppl criticize her for that?

There are several reasons for this.

1. She burns Mirri.

Regardless of what she meant to do with her slaves, she owns Mirri. Mirri tells her what to do several times and her instructions are not followed. Dany acknowledges this herself when she thinks that Jorah killed her son, yet she ultimately makes Mirri pay the sole price for this. Later on, when a former slaver comes to her and asks for the newly freed slaves who raped his female members to be punished, she says she will not punish a slave rising up. There is no reflection here on her actions towards Mirri, there’s no growth, and it’s on purpose.

2. She doesn’t treat Irri or Jhiqui any differently

They still refer to themselves as slaves. Dany uses Irri sexually even knowing Irri feels obligated to do this, then has this weird power play moment where she implies Irri is not good enough to fuck one of her bloodriders. It is a valid point of criticism that you can say you’re a good person until you’re blue in the face but if you still see your former slaves as slaves, as beneath you, as worthy of fucking but not of marrying up - I mean what have you changed, really?

3. Regardless of her intentions, slaves were still taken in her name

This conquest is kicked off because she wants it. I get she’s not driving, she’s not even riding shotgun, and the initial fallout is out of her control in many ways because she’s literally giving birth. I also understand that she’s practically a child herself, and doesn’t quite understand what “sacking a city to build an army” actually entails until she sees it. I think you could compare the initial sack of the Lhazareen village as similar to Arya killing that stable boy, or perhaps Sansa’s actions after Ned is taken, Catelyn when she takes Tyrion to the Vale; as in, she just doesn’t have all the facts or enough agency to make this situation go the way she thinks it’s going to go, and it goes horrifically sideways.

That said, the issue here is she continues having to learn this same mistake over and over - she knows a sack is violent and unpredictable, she knows younger people often have very little control over their lives, she still sacks three cities in a row with orders to kill everyone over 13 and then doesn’t understand why they turned to hell and why the forces that sacked those cities are having a hard time taking control. Like, she hears and sees herself from the account of Eroeh AND Mirri’s own mouth that what good “freedom and safety” are worth if your home was burned to the ground before your eyes and still hasn’t made the connection here to her own actions. Tywin was mistrusted by the people of KL up until his dying day because of the brutality of the KL sack and his use of the Mountain to regularly sack & raid small towns has turned the Riverlands inside out, not dissimilar to Astapor and the Bay in general. It’s a worrying pattern that seems likely to really bite her in the ass if she still hasn’t learned this lesson by the time she lands in Westeros.

It speaks to a level of privilege, and dehumanization that puts to question whether she is capable or sincere in her quest to upend the system or whether she is simply a reactionary child grasping for the ability to protect herself at the expense of the slaves around her. I think she DOES believe what she’s talking about, that everyone deserves the chance to live a happy life (strictly in the book. i do not feel the same about her in the show). But I also think she is a child ruled by fear, with no knowledge of the context in which she exists as a valyrian and a targaryen, and actively avoids learning the truth about her family’s actions and the way she may be perceived because she ties so much of her self worth to her family’s legacy. if that legacy is bad, then she is bad, ergo her father can’t be bad. this is her constant struggle in the series - her compassion for missandei and care for the girl’s future and her complete dismissal of irri as a human being with dignity. her drive to fix injustice she sees and the idea that dragons plant no trees. all of that starts in the dothraki sea - but she never learns, even as she gains more control, she defaults to anger and violence and dangerous fire magic to solve every single problem she comes up against, and purposefully closes her eyes to the cost it has, because that cost is people like Mirri! Other slaves!!! Acceptaboe collateral damage!

4. Her actions are just kinda dumb sometimes?

Yeah, while she’s trying to stop the rape happening in Lhazar in the first book, her save for this is essentially “trap these women in hostage marriages, and sell their relatives for money and take their shit.” Even if she had said and been listened to by the time they got to another village (but they don’t bc Drogo dies), she’s still stealing their shit to fund a war of conquest with a group of Dothraki screamers? From a PR standpoint alone, that’s not gonna win her any friends, which is the same point of criticism with a lot of her alliances - she’s like tailor making an army that is going to piss off Westeros the most! She’s got Dothraki, she’s got ~freed Unsullied, she’s got a greyjoy in the works, she’s not paying anyone jack shit. Who in Westeros is going to ally with her here? I’m not even just talking about Westerosi xenophobia and racism here, it’s like. Sometimes it feels like watching Ned in the capital, to read Dany and see her make all the wrong choices. I get why she’s making them but my god they’re so bad. The Dothraki are near universally disliked for being a slaving culture! Armies that are wholesale bought somewhere else and brought to another place are not usually liked very much even just region to region - hello the riverlands mess! The Ironborn DO experience a level of social prejudice that feels xenophobic but there Is this element here that like,,, these bitches love to raid the coastline of their neighbors, a lot of people have legitimate beef with them! Take a step back from how much you love her and look at what she’s doing - half of the wars in westeros center around PR and her PR as of right now kind of sucks even internationally bc she’s got the crazy fire worshippers on her side who are about to have a big issue in Westeros with SOMEONE about to set poor Shireen on fire! I don’t think it’s bad to point out that she’s not gonna have an easy time getting buy in from the people of Westeros! People whack Rhaenyra for this point all the time, “she refuses to understand how she’s perceived” neither does Dany tho!!

5. She’s still in a place of privilege

This one is hard to get across and it’s the one that always annoys me most to explain. (not mad at u anon, you’re being perfectly polite but i just don’t know how to explain this without sounding patronizing and also like, rape tw here). But it’s like. I get she’s oppressed more so than the average Westerosi wife as a khaleesi. I get it. I understand this. She still isn’t a slave. She still owns slaves. When I say “she owned slaves” i’m saying THINK about this From The Slave’s POV, not from Dany’s!! Some slavers show up in your town and kill every man you know. Boys and men. Then they rape you, and your neighbor, and your niece, and leave you lying in the mud. Then another man comes by and rapes you. Then some girl comes up and says she owns you. You are exhausted and traumatized and now you’re on this long trudge so she can sell you or the other children captured into slavery somewhere else. Then the leader dies, and she burns a slave alive, and says you’re free. Yeah she doesn’t have a lot of control, but what about the control the slave has? Why should we not weep for Mirri Maz Durr? Why is her life and tragedy worth less than Dany’s and why is Dany’s story littered with women exactly like Mirri? Could it be that maybe there’s a theme going on here about the limits of power that relies on the subjugation of others and the consistent failures of Great Powers to nation build when they refuse to interact with their own complicity in violence or the harm done to the native population?

I’m not saying I don’t understand the limits of what Dany can do in many of the situations she’s in. I’m saying she is on this quest to free slaves while having no understanding and at this point is actively FIGHTING understanding what it is about slavery that is so evil and dehumanizing. I’m saying can we think about the PoV of the peasant child who is burned and eaten by Drogon? Can we think about the PoV of Irri or Jhiqui? If we’re freeing slaves and criticizing the system, why does Dany refuse to reflect on Mirri Maz Durr’s fate as a slave?

[agentrouka-blog]

“Illyrio is no fool,” Viserys said. He was a gaunt young man with nervous hands and a feverish look in his pale lilac eyes. “The magister knows that I will not forget my friends when I come into my throne.” Dany said nothing. Magister Illyrio was a dealer in spices, gemstones, dragonbone, and other, less savory things. 

D@enerys I - AGOT

Since day 1 D@ny avoided the bad things she wants to overlook, right?

I'd say this quote makes it very clear she knows she was living with a slaver, in a slave city that pretends to be free. She doesn't necessarily avoid the thought, nor does she approve of it. She is simply aware.

Illyrio's servants entered, bowed, and set about their business. They were slaves, a gift from one of the magister's many Dothraki friends. There was no slavery in the free city of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves.  (AGOT, Daenerys I)

Where's that echoing...

"Your slave Missandei." Jhiqui had a taper in her hand. "My servant. I have no slaves." Dany did not understand. "Why does she weep?" (ADWD, Daenerys II)

Wait, where else..

Dany stepped away from her. "No. Irri, you do not need to do that. What happened that night, when you woke . . . you're no bed slave, I freed you, remember? You . . ." "I am handmaid to the Mother of Dragons," the girl said. "It is great honor to please my khaleesi." (ASOS, Daenerys II)

Handmaids, of course.

Her brother Viserys gifted her with three handmaids. Dany knew they had cost him nothing; Illyrio no doubt had provided the girls. (AGOT, Daenerys II)

Illyrio gets his not-a-slaves where? Oh, right, the Dothraki.

Jhiqui and Irri were of an age with Dany, Dothraki girls taken as slaves when Drogo destroyed their father's khalasar. Doreah was older, almost twenty. Magister Illyrio had found her in a pleasure house in Lys. (AGOT, Daenerys III)

She freed her, remember?

Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her handmaid's thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo holding her . . . [...] For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty. (ASOS, Daenerys VI)

Great honor!

That night she could not sleep but turned and twisted restlessly in her bed. She even went so far as to summon Irri, hoping her caresses might help ease her way to rest, but after a short while she pushed the Dothraki girl away. Irri was sweet and soft and willing, but she was not Daario. (ADWD, Daenerys IV)

Super willing, great honor!

"Doreah, stay and eat with me," Dany commanded when she sent her other handmaids away. The Lysene girl had hair the color of honey, and eyes like the summer sky. She lowered those eyes when they were alone. "You honor me, Khaleesi," she said, but it was no honor, only service. (AGOT, Daenerys III)

Never mind.

She was aware. Back in the free city of Pentos.

[witchthewriter]

𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐈𝐀𝐅 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞

From the lovely @agameofclothes. I thought I'd give it a crack - if anyone wants to reblog with their answers or make a separate post is all good! I would love to see your answers!

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦? 

I have no idea, honestly. Probably wouldn't be from one of the big Houses :'). Let's just say that I'm one of the main characters ... so I'd want to be from House Targaryen, a long lost cousin.

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟓 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 (𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐛, 𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲, 𝐉𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐲, 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧, 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐬) 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫? 

... None. They're terrible for the role as leader. They're all ... old mean men. Except for Renly and Joffrey. Renly is young and quite hopeful but has no ambition. Joffrey is young and awful.

However, if I were asked who I was loyal to - I would just say whoever, depends on where I am.

𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫? 

Cannot and will not choose just one. I love Sansa Stark so much. Her character development is absolutely admirable. From being a close-minded, manipulated young girl, to an adult who knows how the world works. It's amazing.

Dany Targaryen is the main character in both the books and tv series for me. She's the most interesting. From practically being a slave herself, she turned herself into a loved Khaleesi, and worked her way up from there.

𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐨��? 

A Dance with Dragons. Characters have already been fleshed out, and now it's very plot driven.

𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬? 

Okay so I found this here. Looking it up, somewhere it says it's semi-canon. But I believe it's real and I fcken love it.

House Plumm - Come Try Me

𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐒𝐞𝐚? 

Well, with the South being Beyond the Wall and the North being cold as fck. I choose across the Narrow Sea.

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝? 

Dany deserves it and I genuinely think she should sit on the Irone Throne. Not because her ancestors created the title and united the lands, but because she has known pain, she wants people to be free -not to be slaves. She wants to liberate.

𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐲𝐝𝐨𝐠, 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝, 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫, 𝐋𝐚𝐝𝐲, 𝐍𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭? 

GHOST! He is the MOST loyal?

𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡? 

Abso-fucking-lutely not. It's full of awful men???

𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫? 

Like the other question; I couldn't pick one favourite character, so I definitely can't choose just one I dislike. And so this will be in bullet form:

Obviously Ramsay, what an awful dickhead.

Joffrey, the little shit.

In the book, Euron Greyjoy is a big big bad. Very scary. Cruel. Not like in the show where he's kind of funny and amusing. No, Euron in the books is a villain villain.

The Mountain? Disgusting.

Walder Grey and all those who participated in the awful act of the Red Wedding. Terrible.

𝐊𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐢 𝐨𝐫 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧? 

Both... but her true name is: Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains.

If it means for me, than I would rather be a Queen than a Khaleesi. I want a pretty crown and to have influence over the whole realm ... (I'm very humble...)

𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬? 

...dragons. I think that's pretty obvious... Imagine being a descendant of Old Valyria and being able to BOND with a DRAGON. A freaking DRAGON. A beast that would have your back no matter what???

𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐠𝐨𝐝(𝐬) 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐨? 

The Old Gods of the Forest.

To me, a witch, this religion relies on believing in the world around you.

An excerpt from the GOT wiki page: "nameless spirits of each tree, rock, and stream worshipped by the Children of the Forest and later by the First Men."

It seems the most pagan-like, and I would be very comfortable with following this religion.

[leesielex]

So anti Dany's love to say that without dragons Dany would be nothing, that she relies far too much on her dragons, even in the books. I would like to say, you must not have read the books in a long time and are most definitely conflating that with the show and your own fanon. But also, tell me with a straight face the Stark's don't rely just as much if not MORE on their direwolves in the books than Dany does on her dragons?

Specifically Jon, Robb, and Bran but even Rickon as little as he is in the books, and Arya using her warging skills to give her an advantage as well. The only one who doesn't use their direwolf as much as Dany is Sansa b/c Lady dies so early.

The other point I heard made today in the same post was Dany relies too much on fire and blood and doesn't listen to her advisors and have any strategy. Which is a completely contradictory statement.

In the books, Dany uses her dragons exactly ONE time in Astapor to burn Kraznys. The dragons are no bigger than dogs with wings and barely can burn one man. It is the Unsullied she uses to sack the city (after coming up with the strategy to do so on her own). The only other time Drogon unleashes his fire is in Qarth. Dany doesn't order him to, doesn't say Dracarys in the books, that happens in the SHOW. In the books, Drogon sees what is happening to Dany and that these warlocks mean to do her harm and Drogon unleashes his flame and fury on the HOU on his own accord.

For the entire first book, Dany does not have her dragons and everything she accomplished was on her own and of her own merit. She gains the strength and power to stand up for herself and others. She eats an entire horse heart. As a 13 year old girl, she marries a 32 year old warlord from a completely foreign culture she is thrown into and doesn't even know the language. She acclimates and adjusts, learns the language, learns the culture; learns of her people; and becomes their khaleesi. She learns how to be respected by Drogo. And if she wasn't worthy she wouldn't have been able to hatch those dragons because Targaryens had tried to bring them back for over a century and failed until her.

It is entirely contradictory to say that Dany only knows Fire and Blood and relies on it and her dragons too much and that she ignores her advisors because it is her advisors that are telling her she is too gentle, too merciful, and she needs to use her dragons. Her advisors are the ones telling her to use her biggest advantage and bring fire and blood to her enemies! Even Ser Barristan! While Dany is missing on drogon, the Yunkaii having taken hostages including Daario, they want the dragons killed for the hostages return. When asked what Barristan will do when they refuse an alternate offer he replies "Fire and Blood."

It's preposterous to say she has no strategy because in the BOOKS every city she conquers is HER strategy. It was her idea to deceive and trick the slave masters and free astapor. Dany was the one who made them pack up all the slave collars into carts and lug them to the next city to shoot them into the city to inspire slave revolts. It was her who came up with every idea to take every city from Astapor to Meereen. She weighs all her strategies carefully and weighs every piece of advice offered to her and only ignores her advisors because she sees a better option. It was the SHOW that gave all her strategy to the MEN around her, whether it was Jorah or Daario or Barristan or Tyrion even.

And the main point, why is it always bad for Dany to use her dragons one time against like one person to take a city, yet Jon who uses Ghost often to fight and survive or Robb who always used Grey Wind in battle and used Grey Wind to scout the land are never mentioned how they would be nothing compared to any other Joe Schmo in the books without their direwolves? It's a Fricken fantasy series and while characters like Cersei, Littlefinger, and Sansa are meant to be political, characters like Jon and Dany and Bran (who uses his direwolf more than anyone uses their magical creatures) are the FANTASY characters, though they do intersect with political as well, their main focus will be on defeating the OTHERS who are also fantastical characters and won't be defeated by politicking but with the help of the fantasy companions by their sides!

The hypocrisy and ridiculous standards y'all expect Dany to live up to but your fave character couldn't do is just ridiculous and it needs to stop but I know it never will.

*I didn't come up with all these ideas all on my own. There was discussion about the post on another social media. I just needed to vent in one place.

[lady-green-sleeves]

It’s wild to me some people actually want and think Dany is gonna “go mad”🙄 like what do you just like bad writing or something???

But like really even if you don’t like Dany how is that a satisfying ending, this young girl who’s been through hell has been using the power she’s gotten to do good like try to end the slave trade is suddenly gonna go crazy just bc what the people in Westeros don’t love her enough?? How does that not sound crazy. Like yes I do think Dany wants to be loved but not bc she feels entitled to it but bc she’s grown up with an abusive brother as her only family and now even he’s dead now all she has left is her dragons who may care for her but at the end of the day they’re still wild animals

And I also definitely get why people call Dany a white savior (I could go on a whole rant about this alone bc in some ways I agree but at the same time) what was she supposed to do let the slave trade continue and let those people continue to be bought and sold and taken and treated like less than human, Dany herself was sold off to a man against her will so in a lot of ways I think she can really empathize (tho I’m aware at the end of the day Dany still has way more power being the Khaleesi ), I don’t she’s doing it so she can be praised and worshipped she’s doing it bc it’s what’s she feels now is right. She at the end of the day is still a child, a child with immense power more power than really anyone should have but definitely for a child to have, so she’s gonna mess up. She’s gonna do things that make you go ‘what the actual fuck’ but hopefully she can grow from those things and maybe even acknowledge times she really did something fucked up (you all know what I’m thinking of specifically).

I don’t like the Targaryens as a whole but Dany as an individual is a good person at her core and she’s trying her best. I don’t want Targ restoration in Westeros it would be kinda pointless my ideal ending would be Dany going back to Essos and continuing the good she’s started there. I don’t want her to continue to be queen in the tradition sense and I definitely don’t want her to be like an empress or anything. But imagine if Dany installed a democracy of sorts where all people are free and men and women are equal and the people get a say in who governs them. There’s a lot of people in Westeros who are there and willing to fight for change (Jon, Arya, Brienne, Bran, etc.) but Essos doesn’t really have that. Dany could be the good fighting for Essos and it’s underprivileged people.

[christianityoriginal]

*#regimechange #shallwebegin #kingdomofGod #gameofthrones #khaleesi* http://ChristianityOriginal.com/Era "I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.” Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. Revelation 19:11,15,17-20 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=560406842784435&set=a.549191003906019&type=3

[fireandbloodsource]

DAENERYS APPRECIATION MONTH 2021: ↳ Day 2: (Underrated) book moments

They stamped their feet and slapped their bellies and shouted, “Mhysa, Mhysa, Mhysa,” until the whole pit seemed to tremble. Dany let the sound wash over her. I am not your mother, she might have shouted, back, I am the mother of your slaves, of every boy who ever died upon these sands whilst you gorged on honeyed locusts. *** The Brazen Beasts did as they were bid. Dany watched them at their work. “Those bearers were slaves before I came. I made them free. Yet that palanquin is no lighter.” *** The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk. "Khaleesi?" Irri asked. "What are you doing?" "Taking off my floppy ears." *** "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

ASOS: Daenerys IV (Chapter 42)

Dany reined in her mare and looked across the fields, to where the Yunkish host lay athwart her path. Whitebeard had been teaching her how best to count the numbers of a foe. "Five thousand," she said after a moment.

"I'd say so." Ser Jorah pointed. "Those are sellswords on the flanks. Lances and mounted bowmen, with swords and axes for the close work. The Second Sons on the left wing, the Stormcrows to the right. About five hundred men apiece. See the banners?"

I'm only now noticing the similarity between Daario's Stormcrows and Tyrion's Stone Crows.

Could be nothing, but I'll keep it in mind.

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"If battle is joined, let Grey Worm show wisdom as well as valor," Dany told him. "Spare any slave who runs or throws down his weapon. The fewer slain, the more remain to join us after."

Great reason to spare a slave!

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A second encampment lay close beyond her own; five times the size, sprawling and chaotic, this second camp had no ditches, no tents, no sentries, no horselines. Those who had horses or mules slept beside them, for fear they might be stolen. Goats, sheep, and half-starved dogs wandered freely amongst hordes of women, children, and old men. Dany had left Astapor in the hands of a council of former slaves led by a healer, a scholar, and a priest. Wise men all, she thought, and just. Yet even so, tens of thousands preferred to follow her to Yunkai, rather than remain behind in Astapor. I gave them the city, and most of them were too frightened to take it.

The raggle-taggle host of freedmen dwarfed her own, but they were more burden than benefit. Perhaps one in a hundred had a donkey, a camel, or an ox; most carried weapons looted from some slaver's armory, but only one in ten was strong enough to fight, and none was trained. They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself to abandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tell them now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires and swallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst.

God, don't you hate it when you ravage an entire city, and all the most vulnerable cling to you for self-preservation?

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Ser Jorah Mormont returned an hour later, accompanied by three captains of the Stormcrows. They wore black feathers on their polished helms, and claimed to be all equal in honor and authority. Dany studied them as Irri and Jhiqui poured the wine. Prendahl na Ghezn was a thickset Ghiscari with a broad face and dark hair going grey; Sallor the Bald had a twisting scar across his pale Qartheen cheek; and Daario Naharis was flamboyant even for a Tyroshi. 

Have you ever noticed the name Daario Naharis is just a distorted way of saying Daenerys? Things that make you go hmmm.

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"The Stormcrows do not stand alone," said Prendahl.

"Stormcrows do not stand at all. They fly, at the first sign of thunder. Perhaps you should be flying now. I have heard that sellswords are notoriously unfaithful. What will it avail you to be staunch, when the Second Sons change sides?"

NOT THUNDER.

Stormcrows are notoriously unfaithful. The Stormcrows now serve Daenerys, in case you're wondering.

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"You fight beside bed-boys armed with spears." When she turned her head, the twin bells in her braid rang softly. 

Guys look, she's now an orange belt.

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"Woman?" She chuckled. "Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man." Dany met his stare. "I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo's riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros."

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Two hours later the commander of the Second Sons arrived alone. He proved to be a towering Braavosi with pale green eyes and a bushy red-gold beard that reached nearly to his belt. His name was Mero, but he called himself the Titan's Bastard.

Titan's Bastard could be code for Sansa, but I don't remember anything terribly noteworthy about Mero during his brief appearance in the story.

Well, other than him trying to assassinate Daenerys.

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"The Second Sons have faced worse odds and won."

"The Second Sons have faced worse odds and run. At Qohor, when the Three Thousand made their stand. Or do you deny it?"

The Second Sons run. The Second Sons now serve Daenerys, in case you're wondering.

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But when Mero was gone, Arstan Whitebeard said, "That one has an evil reputation, even in Westeros. Do not be misled by his manner, Your Grace. He will drink three toasts to your health tonight, and rape you on the morrow."

"The old man's right for once," Ser Jorah said.

She's warned to not trust Mero, and he'll later try to kill her.

In this same chapter, she will be warned to not trust Daario.

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The envoys from Yunkai arrived as the sun was going down; fifty men on magnificent black horses and one on a great white camel.

[...]

Grazdan shrugged expansively. "If blood is what you wish, let it flow. I am told you have freed your eunuchs. Freedom means as much to an Unsullied as a hat to a haddock."

Oof.

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When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?"

"I say, you are mad."

"Am I?" Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys."

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Grazdan mo Eraz pointed a finger. "You shall rue this arrogance, whore. These little lizards will not keep you safe, I promise you. We will fill the air with arrows if they come within a league of Yunkai. Do you think it is so hard to kill a dragon?"

"Harder than to kill a slaver. 

You guessed it, your favourite chapter transition is coming up!

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"Yes, Khaleesi," said Rakharo. "Time for what?"

"To mount our attack."

Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. "You told the sellswords—"

"—that I wanted their answers on the morrow. I made no promises about tonight. The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai'i believe they have three days. We will take them under cover of this darkness."

That's not how you parley!

You're not even creative, Stannis was pulling these dirty tricks a book ago.

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"To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?"

"I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen's sister," Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

Keep repeating that, like it could ever be a good thing.

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When the exile knight delivered him, she asked herself whether two men had ever been so different. The Tyroshi was fair where Ser Jorah was swarthy; lithe where the knight was brawny; graced with flowing locks where the other was balding, yet smooth-skinned where Mormont was hairy. And her knight dressed plainly while this other made a peacock look drab, though he had thrown a heavy black cloak over his bright yellow finery for this visit. He carried a heavy canvas sack slung over one shoulder.

She's flush.

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"Khaleesi," he cried, "I bring gifts and glad tidings. The Stormcrows are yours." A golden tooth gleamed in his mouth when he smiled. "And so is Daario Naharis!"

She's throbbing.

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"What do Prendahl na Ghezn and Sallor say of this?"

"Little." Daario upended the sack, and the heads of Sallor the Bald and Prendahl na Ghezn spilled out upon her carpets. "My gifts to the dragon queen."

She's climaxing.

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"Why?"

"Because you are so beautiful." His hands were large and strong, and there was something in his hard blue eyes and great curving nose that suggested the fierceness of some splendid bird of prey. 

That can't possibly be good.

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He stood with his hands crossed at the wrists, his palms resting on the pommels of his blades; a curving Dothraki arakh on his left hip, a Myrish stiletto on his right. Their hilts were a matched pair of golden women, naked and wanton.

"Are you skilled in the use of those handsome blades?" Dany asked him.

A lot of people think there's a deeper meaning to these two blades with the naked women, so we'll keep an eye on it.

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In a blink, Daario's arakh was free of its sheath. His submission was as outrageous as the rest of him, a great swoop that brought his face down to her toes. "My sword is yours. My life is yours. My love is yours. My blood, my body, my songs, you own them all. I live and die at your command, fair queen."

"Then live," Dany said, "and fight for me tonight."

"That would not be wise, my queen." Ser Jorah gave Daario a cold, hard stare. "Keep this one here under guard until the battle's fought and won."

Yeah stupid, you shouldn't blindly trust any man that kneels for you.

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"And if he betrays you, surprise is lost."

Dany looked down at the sellsword again. He gave her such a smile that she flushed and turned away. "He won't."

"How can you know that?"

She pointed to the lumps of blackened flesh the dragons were consuming, bite by bloody bite. "I would call that proof of his sincerity. Daario Naharis, have your Stormcrows ready to strike the Yunkish rear when my attack begins. Can you get back safely?"

Do you want to know how dumb Daenerys is? She pointed to the charred heads of the two other captains that Daario betrayed to prove his loyalty.

Anyway, is there symbolism happening here? Three captains, the dragons are feasting on two of their heads?

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"We know that he is a great fighter."

"A great talker, you mean."

"He brings us the Stormcrows." And he has blue lips eyes.

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"You say it every day. Pyat Pree's a liar, Xaro's a schemer, Belwas a braggart, Arstan an assassin . . . do you think I'm still some virgin girl, that I cannot hear the words behind the words?"

That's a pretty high batting percentage.

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When he was gone, Dany threw herself down on her pillows beside her dragons. She had not meant to be so sharp with Ser Jorah, but his endless suspicion had finally woken her dragon.

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Dany found herself wondering whether he was right about Daario. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. 

Like Jon in the previous chapter! Oh my goodness, I'm convinced. They're soulmates, not foils.

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Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. "You must be my children," she told the dragons, "my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead."

Do you want to maybe take a second to think about that?

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Drogon looped his neck around to nip at her hand. His teeth were very sharp, but he never broke her skin when they played like this. Dany laughed, and rolled him back and forth until he roared, his tail lashing like a whip. It is longer than it was, she saw, and tomorrow it will be longer still.  

There's only so many anime gifs!

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Dany did not want to hear about Rhaegar being unhorsed. "But what tourneys did my brother win?"

"Your Grace." The old man hesitated. "He won the greatest tourney of them all."

"Which was that?" Dany demanded.

"The tourney Lord Whent staged at Harrenhal beside the Gods Eye, in the year of the false spring. A notable event. Besides the jousting, there was a mêlée in the old style fought between seven teams of knights, as well as archery and axe-throwing, a horse race, a tournament of singers, a mummer show, and many feasts and frolics. Lord Whent was as open handed as he was rich. 

This story starts with Barristan claiming Rhaegar seldom entered the lists, then goes on to detail the one time he did and won.

Normally I wouldn't find that noteworthy, but today I learned it's been speculated in-universe that Rhaegar Targaryen planned Harrenhal.

Most took this simply as an attempt by Whent to outdo the former Hand and demonstrate the wealth and splendor of his house. There were those, however, who believed this no more than a ruse, and Lord Whent no more than a catspaw. His lordship lacked the funds to pay such munificent prizes, they argued; someone else must surely have stood behind him, someone who did not lack for gold but preferred to remain in the shadows whilst allowing the Lord of Harrenhal to claim the glory for hosting this magnificent event. We have no shred of evidence that such a "shadowhost" ever existed, but the notion was widely believed at the time and remains so today.

But if indeed there was a shadow, who was he, and why did he choose to keep his role a secret? A dozen names have been put forward over the years, but only one seems truly compelling: Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone. - TWoIaF

Fucker.

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"But that was the tourney when he crowned Lyanna Stark as queen of love and beauty!" said Dany. "Princess Elia was there, his wife, and yet my brother gave the crown to the Stark girl, and later stole her away from her betrothed. How could he do that? Did the Dornish woman treat him so ill?"

Daenerys is all over the place with this issue. Sometimes Lyanna is the woman he loved, and sometimes he stole her away.

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Dany pulled the lion pelt tighter about her shoulders. "Viserys said once that it was my fault, for being born too late." She had denied it hotly, she remembered, going so far as to tell Viserys that it was his fault for not being born a girl. He beat her cruelly for that insolence. "If I had been born more timely, he said, Rhaegar would have married me instead of Elia, and it would all have come out different. If Rhaegar had been happy in his wife, he would not have needed the Stark girl."

Delicious, coming off a Jon chapter.

There's layers to this one too, with Aegon choosing Arianne, and Jon choosing Sansa.

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"Your Grace, I bring you victory. The Stormcrows turned their cloaks, the slaves broke, and the Second Sons were too drunk to fight, just as you said. Two hundred dead, Yunkai'i for the most part. Their slaves threw down their spears and ran, and their sellswords yielded. We have several thousand captives."

[...]

"Very well," Dany said. "Sellsword or slave, spare all those who will pledge me their faith. If enough of the Second Sons will join us, keep the company intact."

I'm curious, what are you doing with the sellswords and slaves that don't pledge their faith?

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"Mhysa!" a brown-skinned man shouted out at her. He had a child on his shoulder, a little girl, and she screamed the same word in her thin voice. "Mhysa! Mhysa!"

Dany looked at Missandei. "What are they shouting?"

"It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means 'Mother.'"

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. "Mhysa!" they called. "Mhysa! MHYSA!" They were all smiling at her, reaching for her, kneeling before her. "Maela," some called her, while others cried "Aelalla" or "Qathei" or "Tato," but whatever the tongue it all meant the same thing. Mother. They are calling me Mother.

MY HEART.

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Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. "They will not hurt me," she told him. "They are my children, Jorah." She laughed, put her heels into her horse, and rode to them, the bells in her hair ringing sweet victory. She trotted, then cantered, then broke into a gallop, her braid streaming behind. The freed slaves parted before her. "Mother," they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand. "Mother," they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. "Mother, Mother, Mother!"

Wait, I remember that vision!

They were reaching for her, touching her, tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her foot, her leg, her breast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Dany gasped and opened her arms to give herself to them . . .

But then black wings buffeted her round the head, and a scream of fury cut the indigo air, and suddenly the visions were gone, ripped away, and Dany's gasp turned to horror. - Daenerys IV, ACOK

Aw, shoot.

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Final thoughts:

Daario Naharis is not Euron Greyjoy, but how much do you love that a huge portion of this fandom can't tell the difference?

And how much do you love that Daenerys is weak in the knees for one, and destined to come face-to-face with the other?

-> return to menu <-

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

 Dany and Jon parallels: against rape culture

Daenerys Targaryen:

Dany has suffered herself sexual harassment from a very young age by her brother, Viserys. She knows herself how it is to be sexually abused and therefore once she becomes a khaleesi she tries to stop the rapes of dothraki:

"You heard my words," she said. "Stop them."She spoke to her khas in the harsh accents of Dothraki."Jhogo, Quaro, you will aid Ser Jorah. I want no rape".

[...]They passed other women being raped. Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end of it and claimed the victim as a slave.

Keep in mind that during that time Khal Drogo was still alive and therefore Dany didn't have complete power over the khalasar. The best she could do was to keep the raped women as her slaves in order to protect them from potential future assaults (and even that action of her raise complains among her husband's riders).

Unfortunately, the first girl she saved , Ereoh, doesn't have a happy ending. When Khal Drogo dies and his horde is broken into smaller khalasars, Ereoh's rapist recaptures her and after further sexual abuse the girl meets a tragic end. Dany couldn't help her during that time because she was unconscious. Still, she vowed to avenge the girl and even years later she remembers her and feels guilty she couldn't do more to help her. This shows how seriously Dany takes her responsibilities as a leader. She holds herself responsible even for events she really wasn't the one to blame.

Jon Snow:

One of the most important actions of Jon's short career as Lord Commander was to let the Free Folk pass to the south side of the Wall. In order to be sure that the Free Folk wouldn't start fights he asked for hundred wilding boys as hostages. When among those boy hostages two girls were found, Jon asked immediately for their removal. Not because he believes that the lives of girls value any less than those of boys but because he knows the girls would be in danger to be raped. Jon knows well his Black Brothers and some of them ended up in the Wall because they were accused of rape. And as long as he's commander he'll do anything in his power to prevent rapes from happening in his Castle/army.

That’s why when he decides to let Wilding women also participate in the fight against the Others he sents them to occupy the Long Barrow (a castle abandoned by Night’s Watch) and only lets men who have his complete trust to accompany them.

[jackoshadows]

Hi! I have an ask, I hope you don't mind. I really like your views on Jon. I was just wondering if you find him particularly selfless and who do you think is more selfless between him and Daenerys. For purposes of thinking whether/which one of them will sacrifice themselves in the fight against the Others. Thanks!

On the face of it, Daenerys is obviously more selfless. Her goal is the Iron Throne. Freeing those slaves in Essos and giving them a better life provides no advantages for her in Westeros. Only disadvantages - Young Griff gets to Westeros before her. She delays her campaign, against advice, and stays in Meereen because it's the right thing to do. Which is her ethos as a ruler - that a queen should do right by her people. Which is why she feels that claiming her birth right and the Iron Throne is doing right by the people of Westeros.

Meanwhile, Jon's desire to save the Freefolk is entangled with the need to defend the Wall and not provide the Others with an army of more dead. He also needs manpower and recruits for the Wall. In fact, this is one of the arguments he makes to the likes of Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck.

At the same time, Jon's post as LC is in itself a selfless position IMO. Being a Night's Watch brother is a thankless role. There is no acknowledgment and reward for what they do. This is embodied in what Jeor Mormont says to Jon.

Mormont gave a whistle, and the bird flew to him again and settled on his arm. “A lord’s one thing, a king’s another.” He offered the raven a handful of corn from his pocket. “They will garb your brother Robb in silks, satins, and velvets of a hundred different colors, while you live and die in black ringmail. He will wed some beautiful princess and father sons on her. You’ll have no wife, nor will you ever hold a child of your own blood in your arms. Robb will rule, you will serve. Men will call you a crow. Him they’ll call Your Grace. Singers will praise every little thing he does, while your greatest deeds all go unsung. Tell me that none of this troubles you, Jon… and I’ll name you a liar, and know I have the truth of it.” - Jon , ACoK

And it's not just Jon Snow. It's also the other brothers. There’s Cotter Pyke who sails off to Hardhome on Jon’s orders to save Freefolk and who is probably dead. There’s Maester Aemon and Jeor Mormont. Donal Noye. Or Squire Dalbridge who stays behind to hold off the Wildlings while Jon and the others make their escape.

Or Qhorin Halfhand:

“ We can only die. Why else do we don these black cloaks, but to die in the defense of the realm.”

“Our honor means no more than our lives, so long as the realm is safe.”

They are some of the unpraised, unspoken heroes of this story. No one knows about them. No one sings songs about them. They have no titles, no lands, no crown.

Jon could have accepted Stannis' offer and become Lord of Winterfell. He could have put personal ambition above the greater good. However, he is reminded of his oaths to the Old Gods and his sense of duty pushes him to stay at the wall and get it ready for what's to come.

This

“I know what I swore.” Jon said the words. “I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. Were those the same words you said when you took your vows?”

“They were. As the lord commander knows.”

“I am the shield that guards the realms of men. Those are the words. So tell me, my lord—what are these wildlings, if not men?”

is the equivalent of this bad-ass scene:

Jorah: We don’t need Yunkai, Khaleesi. Taking this city will not bring you any closer to Westeros or the Iron Throne

Daenerys: "How many slaves are there in Yunkai?"

Jorah: "Two hundred thousand, if not more."

Daenerys:  "Then we have two hundred thousand reasons to take this city".

So I would say that both Daenerys and Jon are selfless characters in the series who put the good of the people above personal ambition. In ADwD, Jon did end up putting his personal interests - Arya - above the greater good and pays the consequences.

And this is why I think that if there is any sacrifice of a character to be done, it's going to be Jon. Jon is currently dead. One chapter of his story is over. As per GRRM, resurrection in ASoIaF is not clean and perfect. Resurrection in ASoIaF is Lady Stoneheart and not Gandalf. He's going to be different. Rand al'Thor, the protagonist in the Wheel of Time has never healing injuries till the end of the series. I suspect the same could be true for Jon Snow and his numerous stab wounds. I therefore think there's a better chance that 'Zombie' Jon sacrifices himself than Daenerys. Like, imagine if Jon is Arya's Nissa Nissa and she ends up using Needle on the person she loves most. Stick ‘em with the pointy end 😭

Sacrifice can also mean giving up something very important to them. Considering all 5 key characters survive the series in some form (As per the OG outline), this is most likely what happens. This is why one of the possible semi happy endings I can envisage for both Jon and Dany is that in order for true peace and victory over an existential threat from the Others, they go off into the Lands of Always Winter while the rest of Westeros think the Last Targaryens are dead. Depending on what type of Jon comes back, it could be Jon and Dany being a family and Dany finally getting her house with the red door. Now that would be a bittersweet ending.

[groovypalacewobblereagle]

Dany antis:

We have to understand that Mirri was devastated over her town and the abuse she suffered. To empathize. She’s a “hero” therefore, for killing a BABY.

We do NOT have to understand that Daenerys was devastated over the loss of her husband and child. She does not deserve empathy despite her losses. She’s “evil” for killing a grown woman who killed a baby.

We have to understand the culture of wealthy grown educated men who have subjected human beings to slavery for hundreds of years.

Oh, but they weren’t alive for hundreds of years! We can’t hold that against them!

But we also can’t deny them the benefit of the excuse that they’ve done this for hundreds of years.

We do NOT have to understand the culture of a teenage girl who is a Khaleesi of the Dothraki, who kills the wine seller for trying to kill her and her baby.

Because she killed him painfully. We don’t care that Varys suggested killing her with the tears of Lys, and remember that the victim dies an agonizing death. We don’t think about the morals of a painful death when the intended victim is Daenerys.

The same applies to when she crucified the slavers. We’re going to insist she did it indiscriminately, even though we know she didn’t kill a single woman who would have had less power, or child who would be entirely innocent, nor did she kill random civilians, they were all nobles. All slavers. But there are innocent slavers! Innocent slavers are definitely a thing.

The people who make laws that are not up to modern standards, like Daenerys, are evil.

But the people who follow those laws, like Ned beheading a man for running away from the dead, or Jon who beheaded a man for refusing to follow an order, or Robb who threatened to hang a man if he didn’t join the war against the Lannisters, aren’t.

Daenerys may have warned the slavers she would show no mercy if they didn’t free the slaves and pay them reparations, but she should have given them a trial even though they own the system.

It’s true they were all slavers, but if she was punishing them for being slavers, she should have killed all of them. The fact she didn’t kill all of them shows it wasn’t about justice, so she’s evil.

But she was also wrong for wanting to kill all of them, and Jorah talked her out of it. The fact he had to talk her out of it shows she’s evil.

And then when Daario tried to talk her into slaughtering them Red Wedding style, and she refused, that’s also proof she’s evil because Daario represents her evil nature.

We can empathize with the slavers! Because we might have done the same thing! We all like to think we’d stand against slavery, but if it’s our culture we might not. And we might stand by while our friends torture 163 children to death to spite an abolitionist.

We say we empathize with the slaves, too, but it’s more we sympathize with them. We understand that they are victims. We don’t see ourselves in their place. We don’t empathize with the anger the parents of those children felt. They follow Dany blindly. They don’t understand choice. That’s why they follow her.

What we CANNOT empathize with (because we know we would NEVER) is a teenage girl who walked along a road lined with the corpses of children who were tortured to death to spite her. We know a GOOD ruler would be stalwart in the face of such horror and hold a trial. Because even though the slavers own all the systems in existence in that city, there’s no way a trial could have caused the death of lesser evil instead of greater. Trials are foolproof!

She should have killed them all or tried to have every one of them examined by witnesses who are profoundly biased. We cannot empathize with that.

Dany’s attachment to the Dothraki shows her savagery. The Dothraki are rapists and slavers and she lusted after her husband when he made that speech and so it doesn’t matter how she tried to fight rapists later. They are all terrible. The Khals are monsters and she loved one, so that shows she’s a monster.

Also, she’s evil for killing the Khals.

She was wrong for sacking Astapor and Yunkai but not staying to rule them. She made it worse because poverty is as bad as slavery and the freed slaves are not able to build their own society, and she should have known that. She was wrong for not staying and ruling them.

She was also wrong for staying in Meereen and ruling it because that makes her a colonizer.

She agrees to allow adults to sell themselves into temporary slavery, and that’s wrong, because voluntary indentured servitude is as bad as generational chattel slavery-except when it’s in Westeros! The rulers in Westeros are rightful, but Daenerys was trying to enslave them by having them bend the knee! She was using the privilege of her father’s name, and it’s different when the Starks do it.

Dragons are evil. They serve no good purpose and she’s evil because she has dragons.

Also, Jon should have a dragon.

When Arya met the Lannister soldiers, and Ed Sheeran, that was to show how she realized that they are not all bad. This shows that sometimes enemies are good. This will show that we should empathize with enemies. That Dany is bad because she doesn’t even though she agrees to help the Starks, whose father supported the man who murdered her brother, and was not disturbed by the murder of her niece and nephew. Who would have killed a baby, had he known Jon was her nephew. Who would have killed her.

This does not apply to Daenerys and her armies, of course. The North was one hundred percent right to treat her with hostility.

Daenerys considered killing Tyrion when she met him! This shows that she is willing to kill people just because they are related to enemies! She’s evil!

Even though she named Tyrion her Hand. Even though she agreed to aid the North with no strings attached once she saw the army of the dead. Even though she accepted Varys into her service when he’d tried to have her murdered. Varys being part of the plan to sell a teenage girl into sexual slavery was not evil because she turned that to her advantage.

Dany was wrong for even considering killing Tyrion despite the fact that she didn’t and ultimately named him her Hand.

She was wrong for killing the Tarlys even though they were oathbreakers who killed their own friends and attacked their liege’s home. Even though the punishment for oath breaking is death. Even though they refused to bend the knee in exchange for keeping their lives, lands and titles, which is standard procedure in Westeros. Even though they refused the Wall, where Tarly sent his eldest son.

She didn’t kill them for oathbreaking or murdering her allies. She killed them for not bending the knee! Even though she only attacked them after they did that, and she did not harm Jon when he refused to bend the knee, she allowed him to mine her dragonglass, and offered to provide men and resources to help.

Sam was not wrong for hating Daenerys for killing his father, even though he was an oathbreaker, an abuser, and threatened to kill Sam. Even though he said that nothing would give him more pleasure than telling Sam’s mother that her son died. Even though Sam knew of Dany’s great deeds from Aemon. It’s understandable that he would still mourn his father. Even if his father was a monster, we have to empathize with his anger.

YET Daenerys is dead wrong for calling out Jaime for murdering her father. Her father was a monster! How dare she feel anything about his murder! She had no right to object to Jaime’s presence at Winterfell, even though he tried to kill her on the battlefield and said straight out said he wasn’t sorry for all he’d done and would do it again to protect his family.

She was wrong for restoring the family name of the man who killed her brother and cheered the brutal murders of her niece and nephew. Because she only legitimized Gendry for personal gain, even though he could have done the opposite of joining her, and tried to take the throne himself.

She is wrong if she is good to the family of her enemies because she is self serving, and she is wrong if she’s not good to them because it’s not their fault.

The Starks are not wrong for judging Daenerys by her father’s actions even though she came to help save them. Sansa is not wrong for wanting to evict children from their homes because their families were traitors.

When the Starks are suspicious of the family members of those who’ve harmed them, it’s fair. They are being smart.

When Daenerys is suspicious of the family members of those who’ve harmed her, it’s proof of her being paranoid like her father.

When Sansa told Jon that the free folk should join their fight against Ramsay, that they owed it to him because he’d saved their lives, that was smart!

When she told Arya “you should be on your knees, thanking me,” she had every right to assert her accomplishments.

YET, Daenerys was very entitled to want the North to fight Cersei with her in exchange for her helping them defeat the army of the dead, even though Cersei was their enemy too, and she sent them a letter saying “come bend the knee or face the fate of all traitors.”

It was not wrong of Jon to tell the North he bent the knee to save them, even though she said she’d help before he bent the knee.

It’s Dany’s fault the Night King got a dragon even though the wight hunt was Tyrion’s idea and Daenerys did not like it. Even though Jon told her, “I don’t need your permission. I am a king.”

Dany held Jon prisoner even though he had to stay to mine the dragonglass and he stated that he did not need her permission to leave. That’s what being a prisoner means, right?

Daenerys went mad because her family was fraught with incest. This does not imply that Jon will go mad, because his mother was not a Targaryen (even though his mother’s parents were related). Generations of inbreeding unequivocally mean madness, but the ramifications of those generations are undone if one guy at the end of the line produces a child with a woman whose parents were also related. That’s how genetics work, right?

Daenerys is a colonizer. Even though she didn’t have any goal other than destroying the slave trade in Essos. She only did that for selfish reasons even though Yunkai trains bed slaves and neither Meereen nor Yunkai added to her military might. Even though she never forced her religion or language on them. Even though she renounced power over the cities when she left, so that the people could choose their own leaders.

The Starks were never colonizers! Even though the earliest Starks were First Men, who committed genocide against the Children of the Forest. The First Men called themselves the First Men, they did not acknowledge the humanity of the Children. Therefore, the Children were not human.

The First Men destroyed the Children. The Starks built a Wall to separate the dead from the living, but left thousands of living and Children of the Forest at the other side of it. The Starks destroyed the other families, established power over the area, established their religion and language as the official religion and language. The Starks became the Kings of Winter by bringing to heel, and sometimes extinguishing, other families. That’s fine because the Starks are good. That’s not colonizing! The Starks were always good! They killed the warg king and his sons and beasts and then married his daughters. That’s not rape, that’s marriage!

The Targaryens who adapted the Westerosi religion and language and did not in any way repress other religions or languages, were the oppressors.

Dany hardly did anything in the Long Night. Her armies and dragons did not thin out the dead army, making it possible for Arya to kill the Night King. Two dragons can only do so much against an army of 100k. Even though Dany’s army also was over 100K.

YET, she burned MILLIONS in KL (even though the population of KL is under a million and even though I just said she could not have possibly taken out much of the dead army.)

When Daenerys didn’t weep and wring her hands over her abusive brother’s death that was evidence of her turning “mad.” Even though he abused her, sold her, and pressed a sword to her belly and threatened to cut her baby out of her body.

When Sansa smiled as Ramsay screamed, being torn apart by dogs, that was not a sign of anything bad. He abused her!

When Daenerys crucified the slavers even though a trial would have yielded nothing, because they had owned the entire system, that was a sign of her being a villain.

But Varys wasn’t wrong for trying to poison her before she did anything wrong because he sensed what she would do! Instinct > Trials. Unless the “instinct” is Daenerys’. Then it’s paranoia, even when the people she suspects of plotting against her are plotting against her.

When Arya killed two men, baked them into a pie, fed them to their father, slit his throat, smiled faintly as he died, cut off his face, then killed every one of his bannermen, with no knowledge of whether those men had been there at the Red Wedding, or whether they’d spoken against it, that was not a sign of her being a villain. Because if it’s a Stark, we understand complicity.

Besides, Arya is not a ruler. Only rulers do harm. Not explorers! Explorers who believe “I’ll never know her, she’s not one of us”, have never done anything bad in all history. Happy Columbus Day, btw.

[agentrouka-blog]

“Whether in the books or show, didn’t Dany eventually try to prevent the pillaging of the Lhazareen village? So couldn’t her trying to protect the women be all she could do considering the system the Dothraki had? Trading slaves is one of their ways of trading money. All she could do was claim the women as her own slaves, so that no harm could be done to them as they are Dany’s property. Dany obviously doesn’t share the same views but knew how to act because she knew the Dothraki ways. Clearly she cares about them if her entire upcoming arc is freeing slaves. Dany wasn’t able to properly free them because she as a Khaleesi doesn’t have any worth without her Khal, in terms of power. But she still cared for those girls and even swore to avenge one of them.”

You already sent me something along those lines twice, anon, and I really don't feel comfortable just randomly commenting on a quote from someone else's meta work. I don't know where it's from, I don't know what exactly you are looking for here, but you're not having a conversation with me, you are trying to create a conversation between me and a third party that probably has neither knowledge nor interest in that, and I don't think that's fair?

[fandomficsnstuff]

Little Dragon - Part 8

Summary: You were a child slave of Meereen, when one day a silver haired woman sets you free. Though your master isn’t too keen on letting you go, and Daenerys took personal action to see you freed and taken care of.

High Valyrian is in cursive

You were listening intently to the conversations going on in the war room, so many faces that you wanted to remember, their names, their houses, their history, but for now you settled on staying silent and listening, “are you really sure we can discuss this around her?” your head snapped towards the accented voice, seeing a beautiful woman with olive skin, black hair and dark brown eyes, and you wanted to look to your mother for help, but decided that you couldn’t use her as a pillar forever “(Y/N) Targaryen, Lady…?” you couldn’t help your tone, you were not a little girl wearing a collar around her neck anymore, jumping at the slightest of sounds. You were still timid and childish with Daenerys and Missandei, because you knew you could afford it, but you didn’t know these people, they were allies of your mother, but you didn’t know them.

“Ellaria” she sounded tense as she responded, she probably hadn't known you were the daughter of Daenerys, but you merely nodded “well, Lady Ellaria, I would prefer that if you are done questioning who your Queen trusts, perhaps we could get back to planning the war we are currently in” you heard a short laugh, your eyes glancing to none other than Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns, and the only living Tyrell left. “Are you sure you did not birthe her? She has the spirit of a dragon that one” Daenerys did everything to not smirk proudly at Olenna’s comment, and even Ellaria looked a bit surprised at your response “now… I agree that a foreign army would send the wrong signal, but an army from Westeros, it would show that we are not here to raid and pillage, the Dothraki will not do so unless their Khaleesi orders and my mother never will, the Unsullied are obedient and loyal, so they won’t either, but we need Westeros with us, and showing that their own houses are turning on Cercei is a good way to win quickly and without a lot of losses, on either side”, you studied the map as you spoke, unaware of the impressed looks everyone gave you, Tyrion being the first to speak up “well… I agree” you glanced at him and sent him a quick smile, one of the few smiles you had offered him, but you didn’t really know him either, so it was justified that you didn’t treat him, or Varys, as warmly as the rest of your mother’s allies.

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You stood impatiently besides Daenerys in the throne room, and Daenerys couldn’t help the amused glance she shared with Missandei “alright go, but change before you do!” you barely even heard the rest of her sentence, you were already off, heading towards your room. In record breaking time you changed from your formal dress to a special outfit you had made for you. You had been riding Rhaegal much more frequently, and today were the day of the arrival of Jon Snow, King in the North, and you had promised to stay for his arrival and then ride Rhaegal after, but you couldn’t help fidgeting, and were more than happy that Daenerys excused you. You put on your leather trousers, securing them with a harness that was connected to them, ensuring that they didn’t fall down, not even an inch, you had a tunic under your harness, pulling a shortened cloak over your shoulders and tying it to the harness, making sure the knots were tight, the cloak was warm but light, it reached just below your hips, but kept you warm. Next you threw on a pair of gloves made from cloth on the inside and leather on the outside, and then your boots, they were high, they almost reached your knees, and you pulled the laces tight, so they wouldn’t fall off during the flight.

Your room had an open balcony, just like Daenerys’, and you approached the edge, grinning widely as you waited. You couldn’t help the excited giggle you let out as you heard him roar as he came closer, and in a leap of faith you jumped off of the balcony, you let out a little huff as you landed on scales, and a few moments later you got a good grip, holding onto Rhaegal as you flew away from the castle, going high up and then soaring, admiring the landscape below, seeing a ship you presumed belonged to Jon Snow, you flew towards Drogon and Viseryon who were flying on the other side of the island. You could still just about watch Tyrion greet Jon Snow, and saw them making their way towards the entrance.

A wicked smile grazed your lips as you got an idea, and somehow Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal knew what your plan was, Rhaegal let out an ear shattering roar as you held on tightly, flying towards Tyrion and the two men he were leading up the long stone staircase. You leaned forward as you flew closer to the ground, Rhaegal barely managing to not hit the small people below, something that made you laugh loudly and you couldn’t help but cheer, Tyrion seeing you on Rhaegal as you waved at him, and you could see him shake his head, but you also knew of the smile he tried to hide, he was probably telling Jon that he himself wasn’t used to the presence of the dragons.

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You heaved heavily as you ran into the throne room, your hair wild from the wind, your chest rising dramatically as you tried to catch your breath, standing besides Daenerys who did her very best to not smirk at you proudly, instead she tried to look as regal as ever, waiting patiently for this, Jon Snow, to arrive.

Rhaegal had barely managed to throw you off on the open balcony you jumped out of earlier, you almost bumped into a few tables on your way to the throne room, a fact that made you smile amused before trying to hide it. “Well, at least you made it back in time” her words could be mistaken as scolding, but you knew her better, and you couldn’t help the breathless giggle you let out “think I scared an inch or so off of Lord Tyrion” Daenerys let out a short, although quiet, laugh at your comment, shooting you a very poor attempt of a scolding gaze before looking back towards the large doors at the end of the throne room, making you straighten your back, your smile faltering and your hands placed in front of yourself, as you always did when you had attended any court meeting.

You watched the two strangers as Missandei went down the list of titles that your Queen had acquired along the way, something you took great pride in, she was your mother after all.

“And this is (Y/N) Targaryen, daughter of Queen Daenerys Stormborn, princess of the Seven Kingdoms and heir to the throne” Missandei finally ended, and the two men looked at you confused, giving you the impression that they didn’t know that much about your mother, and therefore you, they had probably only heard rumours, lies or other falsehoods, and therefore didn’t know of your existence, which was probably not a bad thing. You had heard of how the usurper King Robert Baratheon had sent assassins to kill Daenerys, even while she was pregnant, so who says they wouldn’t have been sent after you, back then nothing more than a little girl, had the usurper's children heard of your existence, and Daenerys’ love for you. You were snapped out of your day dream as Daenerys got up, approaching Jon Snow and his adviser, and first now you tuned in on their conversation, a small frown resting on your brows, hearing her words, but you couldn’t deny the pride it gave you, despite hearing all that she had suffered, “I was born at Dragonstone. Not that I can remember it. We fled before Robert's assassins could find us. Robert was your father's best friend, no? I wonder if your father knew his best friend sent assassins to murder a baby girl in her crib. Not that it matters now, of course. I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me, I don't remember all their names. I have been sold like a broodmare. I've been chained and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing, through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any god, not in myths and legends. In myself. In Daenerys Targaryen. The world hadn't seen a dragon in centuries, until my children were born. The Dothraki hadn't crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and I will, and so will my daughter.” Her gaze turned to you for a brief moment and you smiled proudly, one she proudly returned before turning back to Jon Snow.

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You frowned as you watched your mother study the map in silence, you wanted to say something, you really did, but what could you say? The Iron Fleet was gone, Yara and Ellaria had been taken prisoner and Jon Snow refused to bend the knee and instead only wants to hack away at some mysterious stone somewhere in a cave on the island, claiming that an army of undead people and giants are the true enemy.

You couldn’t help the sigh that escaped your lips, you being the only one to actually make a sound in the entire map room “maybe…” you dared a glance at your mother, not that you feared her, but more that you knew of the thin ice you were balancing on “maybe you should just let him mine this… ‘dragonglass’... it means nothing to you after all” Daenerys looked to you slowly, and for a second everyone in the room were praying to whoever and whatever that you hadn’t crossed a line, but when you received no response, you continued, “you didn’t know it was there, no one did… there are two options here, either he’s right, in which it doesn’t hurt you or your army or your dragons to comply, or he’s mad, and it won’t hurt you, your army or your dragons either. There’s no outcome here where anything bad is an outcome, you complying will also show that yes, you are to be feared, but you are also complying and reasonable, and allowing one man, one person to mine something of no value is a sign that you are with the people of Westeros” there was another second of silence, but eventually Daenerys smiled at you, walked over to you and placed a gentle hand on your cheek, looking at you with a proud look in her eyes before walking off.

“Where is she going?” Tyrion looked at you baffled and confused, but you simply shrugged “to allow Jon Snow to mine the Dragonglass” you leaned over the map table, studying the different areas, looking at the different highlighted places, such as King’s Landing, Winterfell, all the places you’ve only ever read about, you couldn't wait to see them for real.

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

Daenerys Stormborn, Part 2: Wake the Dragon

Oh hey, I have part 2 already! Guess my brain is really focused on Dany now. In part 1, I talked about Dany's arcs from AGOT to ASOS, exploring the narrative and thematic purpose of her journey. However, the most important part of her journey occurs in ADWD, and sets the stage for some incredibly exciting developments to come in TWOW. For part 2, I'll be talking about the gradual transformation of Daenerys into a slightly different, darker character for the future.

Breaker of Chains & Mhysa

Slavery has been an important background element throughout Dany's time in Essos, even in AGOT, but it becomes front and centre in ASOS. She accepted the Dothraki, a society that uses slaves for many things, and wasn't too perturbed at the use of slaves in Qarth. However, it is in Astapor where she finally realizes just how bad the institution is, as she tells Xaro:

"Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?" I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. "Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened."

As mentioned last time, ASOS is when she begins to take control of her destiny, and she does so by beginning a revolution to free the slaves of Slaver's Bay. She believe she has a greater destiny lying ahead of her, that there is a reason for her dragons, the red comet. She also has great empathy for people and sees this disturbing injustice being played out with nobody to stop it. But she has the power to do so, and thus she begins by going fire and blood at Astapor, killing the Good Masters and freeing all the slaves. Afterwards, she leaves the city with a ruling council of a priest, a scholar, and a healer and moves to Yunkai.

She does a different approach with Yunkai, negotiating with the Wise Masters to surrender their slaves and to leave them in peace. And then when she arrives at Meereen, she decides to stay and rule as its queen. This is where things begin to get difficult for Daenerys. The ruling council of Astapor is overthrown by a butcher named Cleon, who said the council was conspiring to bring back slavery, who declares himself King of Astapor, enslaves the children of the former Good Masters to make new Unsullied, and tries to ally with Daenerys against Yunkai, who has resumed slavery.

Daenerys is not interested in any war with Yunkai. The reason she stays in Meereen is exactly because she learned what happened when she left Astapor. The fire and blood approach didn't work. You can't just dismantle such a deeply engrained system so easily. So instead she opts to rule, and protect the people she can. While a lot of readers view Dany's actions in Meereen as pointless, the whims of a naive girl, and poor leadership, I actually think it's the opposite.

For starters, Dany realized that she can't simply burn the slavers to end slavery, but she needs to stay and instill changes. While King Cleon repeatedly begs for Daenerys to join the war against Yunkai, she refuses, and warns Cleon to not do such a thing. She turns out to be horribly right, as Cleon is killed, Astapor is sieged, before being slaughtered, burned, and sacked, to be reinstated as a slave city once more. Likewise, the Yunkish siege Meereen, first by creating a blockade in the bay with ships, and then by having armies amassed outside the city walls.

In addition, refugees from Astapor begin to pile up outside the city, and a deadly plague called the pale mare (for the horse from Astapor that arrives at Meereen) begins to sweep the starving Astapori freedmen, who begin to resort to cannibalism to survive. Dany blames herself for leaving Astapor a mess, but does not wish to have the same thing happen in Meereen. She wants to protect the people she's freed, not just from the Yunkish, but herself as well.

When a sheepherder brings the burned bones of his daughter, Hazzea, who was killed by her dragons, Dany has Rhaegal and Viserion chained in the dungeons below the Great Pyramid to prevent them from causing any more harm. However, Drogon is still loose, unable to be found. In addition, when the sons of the harpy, a terrorist group opposed to the emancipation of Meereen, begin massacring freedmen, Dany decides to raise a tax on the Great Masters and have all families of suspect loyalty send a child to serve as a hostage and cupbearers. Yet, as the killings continue, she has grown close to the children and decides not to have them killed.

Now, some of you may notice that I am taking a lot from the Meereenese Blot essays written by Adam Feldman. That's not only because they are really well written essays, but ones that GRRM himself has approved of.

"I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention."

So I am retreading some of the ground Feldman has laid, but it's important to do so if I am to build up to what I think is going to happen in the future of Dany's story.

As Feldman notes, Dany's own actions (or in the case of the cupbearers, inaction) actually made a peace possible, because the Yunkish saw that she was someone who is capable of mercy and not a (in their eye) violent mass murderer. Knowing what happened with Astapor, and seeing what happens when her dragons are unleashed with Hazzea, Dany decides to make peace with the Yunkish and marry Hizdahr.

Under the peace, Meereen itself would remain a free city, but the Yunkish would continue to sell slaves. They even sell them in markets outside the walls of Meereen, which displeases Daenerys extremely. In addition, slaveowners could bring their slaves into Meereen without fear of them being freed, and the Yunkish promised to respect the rights of the freedmen in Meereen. Yet, despite the peace and the progress made, she feels as though this is a defeat.

This is peace, she told herself. This is what I wanted, what I worked for, this is why I married Hizdahr. So why does it taste so much like defeat?

The thing is, Daenerys has had to sacrifice so much of herself and her morals to get to this point. Yes there is peace, even if it is tentative, Meereen would not be sacked by the Yunkish, but slavery is still going on, and she thinks that she has let herself and other people down by agreeing to peace and allowing the Yunkish to continue slavery. She has agreed to peace to people she loathes and thinks are despicable, she has married a man she does not love and does not love her, she has chained her dragons in the pit below, she has allowed the fighting pits to reopen. This comes to ahead at Daznak's Pit when she is at the height of her discomfort.

The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.

And then Drogon arrives, and in the chaos of him attacking the boar and being attacked by the soldiers in the pit, Dany tries to calm him, but he spits fire at her, and she tries to tame him by whipping him into submission. Here, Dany is quite literally fighting herself. She herself in this moment represents the Queen of Meereen, someone who desires for peace. Meanwhile, Drogon represents the dragon inside her, who wants to unleash blood and fire on her enemies. In the end, Dany climbs onto Drogon and they fly away together, which foreshadows and symbolizes Dany's later decision to choose being the dragon.

Despite her frustrations in Meereen, the peace was a good first step. Not to say that it solved every issue, it didn't, but that doesn't need to be the end of it. Daenerys could forge new peaces, new agreements, and if she stayed in Meereen, she could implement great changes throughout Slaver's Bay. But what is done is done, and cannot be undone. The peace that was forged is now gone. Next comes war.

The House with the Red Door

Before we move on to Dany's final chapter and what that means for the future, we must take a look at a very important part of her backstory which is one of the main elements of her own story. Sure, destiny, greatness, prophecy, power, and identity are themes with Daenerys, but at the center of it all is the desire for home. Dany was born on Dragonstone, but was whisked away to Braavos, and there she lived in the house with the red door, with Viserys, Ser Willem Darry, and their servants.

To Dany, the house with the red door was the only place in her life she called home, and she has very fond memories of it, of Willem, or the lemon tree. But after Willem died, they were kicked out and forced to become beggars on the streets, selling off their possessions and travelling the Free Cities. The red door was closed and gone forever after, but the dream of having a home hasn't.

Daenerys has a desire for home, for love, for family. Throughout her childhood, Viserys would tell Dany all about Westeros, how they need to take back the Iron Throne, that the Seven Kingdoms were the most beautiful lands in the world. And sure enough, soon, Westeros represents the idea for home and belonging to Dany.

"I pray for home too," she told him, believing it. Ser Jorah laughed. "Look around you then, Khaleesi." But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

Although she takes on the mantle as the new head of House Targaryen and carries on Viserys's dream of taking back the Iron Throne out of a sense of duty, she also does so for desire to belong in a place she can call home. It's a nostalgic feeling she gets of the old days, that she wants to relive again.

But then other ambitions get in her way. She frees the slaves of Slaver's Bay, and decides to stay in Meereen to try to ensure that her revolution succeeds. Thus, her quest for home is put on hold. Throughout ADWD, she gives up parts of herself, to try to become one with the Meereenese; marrying Hizdahr, reopening the fighting pits, chaining her dragons, dressing in the Ghiscari fashion, and making peace. But in the Dothraki sea, hundreds of miles outside Meereen, she finds that she wasn't being her true self, that she can never be the Queen of Meereen, or become a true Meereenese.

I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home. Except it wouldn't, not truly. Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

The series is all about the human heart in conflict with itself, and Daenerys in ADWD is one of the best examples of that. She was struggling with her two competing titles of Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, but in the end she was not comfortable with being the Breaker of Chains. This final transformation she undergoes in the Dothraki sea really sets the tone for what she will do in the future, and how she will change as a person and character.

Mother of Dragons

Daenerys X is one of the more bizarre chapters in the series, since it follows only one character alone with her thoughts, but it works extremely well as a character study, and the development over the course of the chapter is one of my favourites in the whole series. Through all the hallucinations and visions and dreams Daenerys has during this chapter, it's important to remember that they all (apart from possibly Quaithe) are her, so the discussions she has are with her own internal thoughts directly.

The topic of Targaryen madness reoccurs throughout the series, but it's ADWD where it is brought up the most. Now, the topic of Targaryen madness will be another post i will do in the far future and won't discuss in depth today, but the matter is that Dany is aware of some of it, even if she hasn't fully accepted the truth of her father. She fears that she is succumbing to the madness at points.

"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once.

Later, she implies this fear again to Barristan.

I lived in fear for fourteen years, my lord. I woke afraid each morning and went to sleep afraid each night … but my fears were burned away the day I came forth from the fire. Only one thing frightens me now." "And what is it that you fear, sweet queen?" "I am only a foolish young girl." Dany rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. "But not so foolish as to tell you that. My men shall look at these ships. Then you shall have my answer."

But in an early version of Daenerys III, the answer Daenerys gave was "myself". She fears what would happen if she "woke the dragon", as Viserys put it. She's afraid of succumbing to the madness that consumed her father and probably was consuming Viserys. She's afraid of what would happen if she unleashed her dragons, how many innocents they would kill. But in the Dothraki sea, she begins to question her decisions, starting when she woke up after finding blood between her thighs:

"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. "Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.

The importance of this quote cannot go unnoticed. She thinks about Hazzea all the time throughout the book, feeling deeply guilty about what Drogon did to her. But here, at the end, she cannot remember her name. The in world explanation is that, of course, she is delirious from being in the wilderness eating berries and being sick, but thematically this is her slowly turning away from the people she freed. Next comes a dream with Viserys (long quote incoming):

She dreamt of her dead brother. Viserys looked just as he had the last time she'd seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes. "You are dead," Dany said. Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned. "I loved you once." Once, he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed. "You hurt me. You frightened me." Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you. "You sold me. You betrayed me." No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger. "You could have had your crown," Dany told him. "My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited." I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me. "You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen, but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake." Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead. "You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …" I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon's eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I'd had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.

The dream terrifies Daenerys, but once again, Viserys (really herself here) is telling her she is stalling in a place she doesn't belong, that she needs to go home, that she should embrace being a dragon. The climax of this comes right after she realizes Meereen would never be her home, where she argues with Jorah (again, herself):

Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy. Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. The voice was no more than a whisper, yet somehow Dany felt that he was walking just behind her. My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest, but she knew that if she turned around Ser Jorah would be gone. "I am dreaming," she said. "A waking dream, a walking dream. I am alone and lost." Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah, as softly as the wind. Alone, because you sent me from your side. "You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold." For home. Home was all I ever wanted. "And me. You wanted me." Dany had seen it in his eyes. I did, the grass whispered, sadly. "You kissed me. I never said you could, but you did. You sold me to my enemies, but you meant it when you kissed me." I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen. "I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march." Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. "I had to take Meereen to feed my people." You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. "To be a queen." You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

And here is where everything changes. She has spent time trying to protect innocent lives, to make peace, not war, to be loved and accepted by Meereen. But here, she decides that it is time to do away with that. Meereen is not her home, Westeros is, and it's time to wake the dragon and burn Yunkai. No longer will she be burdened by the idea of a cost of innocent lives, no longer will she fear herself, and no longer will she linger. When the time comes, she will burn her enemies and leave for Westeros.

I need to make a few things clear here, however. For one, I don't think she's mad now, this is just her resolving her internal conflict. For another, I don't care what she does to the slavers. They deserve what's coming for them. She will still care about the innocent, but she's now going to go full-blooded Targaryen and burn cities to the ground, and this will mean massive collateral damage she will try to rationalize away.

Daenerys has now transformed into a different, much darker character, which I feel will continue to define her for the rest of the series. She is now the Mother of Dragons, in her entirety, and Essos is about to bleed and burn. I really appreciate how GRRM put this together, and that she didn't stay fire and blood after Astapor. His character development is realistic, and sometimes the development is not linear. In part 3, I will be discussing predictions about Daenerys's arc and story in TWOW, more specifically what she will do in Essos.

[reignof-fyre]

Made the mistake of browsing the Daenerys Targaryen tag and saw some hate and now I'm Fired Up.

People really be out here hating Daenerys because she was a slaver? Bitch where??? She herself was a slave (practically owned by Viserys) and sold to a 30 year old Dothraki Khal (known for their brutality and savageness) against her will for Viserys' gain. She tried (in the books because Drogo never rapes her in the books) to make the best of her situation. She was a thirteen year old girl who had been terrified and oppressed her entire life by her brother. She was an unwilling slaver, I'll agree to that. She claimed the women in Lazhareen because she didn't want them harmed. She argued with Maggo (?) When he complained to Drogo over what to do with the women (marry them) and Maggo spat at her.

Daenerys at the time was a fourteen year old girl sevenish months pregnant, physically much weaker than her husband and his men (also she's in a male dominated culture where a woman's word is worthless even when she's a khaleesi) what do you expect her to do? Free all the slaves, stop the pillaging etc? Fight against the Dothraki literally double her size??

And the whole Mirri Maz Dur thing - Mirri only offered to help Drogo to do 2 thinks - kill him and Dany's unborn child for revenge. Dany didn't know she'd already been raped. She thought this woman had found it within herself to show a small amount of sympathy to help the girl that had spoken up for her. Do I think Dany deserved gratefulness? No. She shouldn't. But Mirri was only thinking of vengeance (earned, but Rhaego was INNOCENT) and Dany was losing the one man (drogo) that could truly protect her fully in thr situation she was in, and that made her desperate. Dany executing Mirri wasn't a surprise to me. I wanted Dany to execute her for killing her innocent baby JUST because of a prophesy. I didn't care all that much for Drogo on principle.

Also, Dany didn't steal the Unsullied. She freed them using cunning, intelligence, and manipulation. The slavers got what they fucking deserved. They made the Unsullied boys kill innocent babies and strangle their dogs!! They legit tortured them to mold them into the perfect killing machines. It's disgusting and I cheered when Kraznyz was burned. If you say Dany stole them and Kraznyz didn't deserve to die, dont even breathe in my direction.

The same with Yunkai. They force slaves to learn how to be prostitutes. Children. Child escorts. It makes me feel physically ill. And Meereen, too. All those children crucified to scare Dany off weren't chosen because of some imagined slights. They were chosen for the fact they WERE innocent and guilty of nothing for maximum effect. Dany executing the Masters without trial makes sense to me!! Those children were innocent and had done nothing wrong, so why should the Masters be given the same courtesy??? And Dany does think that maybe it was too hastily done, perhaps a bit too ruthless. And perhaps it was. But it was effective.

[nooneeverlookedforagirl]

AU where Drogo does not kill Viserys.

Jhiqui runs to him when Viserys drags Doreah to their tent by her hair. She says the foreigner is mad with anger and she fears for the khaleesi. He walks in just in time to see him slap Daenerys so hard she falls to the floor. Daenerys, the girl Viserys gifted him. Daenerys, his wife. Daenerys, the moon of his life. Daenerys with their son in her belly.

Whatever Viserys might have done or said after hitting her was nothing. His fierce little wife strikes him so hard across the face with a golden chain that it leaves a mark. He falls to the side just as Drogo reaches them, and he picks Viserys up by the throat with one hand.

Drogo might have killed him then and there, but his wife begs for his life. He is her brother, her only family, she says, in broken Dothraki. Perhaps he does not understand all the words, but he understands enough. Send him away, Daenerys pleads, but do not kill him.

It might have been better if he had. Viserys follows them on foot for many days. On their first encounter with another khalasar, just outside Vaes Dothrak, Drogo gifts him to the other khal. The Andal tells his wife, he knows, but she says nothing to him and if she is angry it does not show.

Then Drogo falls from his horse on the Dothraki Sea, and Daenerys is reborn in fire and blood. One of their children she names Viserion, for her brother.

When Daenerys burns the khals one of their riders brings her a gift. It's Viserys, filthy and despondent, but alive. Neither knows what quite to do with the other, the beggar king and the dragon queen. Still, for the blood they share, Daenerys gives him a simple tent and male servants and a single horse, and he rides with her when they leave.

He rides with her all the way to Meereen, for when she finds Drogon on the Great Grass Sea she tames him with nothing except a whip, her khalasar in awe as she lands him in their midst. She looks at Viserys, and he at her, and then she pulls him onto Drogon's scales and together the last dragons fly toward the besieged city.

Daenerys keeps looking at him like she expects a fit, like she expects him to demand what is rightfully his, from a crown or a Targaryen bride to rooms suitable for the queen's brother. He does none of that. When the city has calmed and the slavers have died, he goes to her in her counsel room and kneels before her, taking her hands in his.

"I'm sorry." Viserys says, looking up into her eyes. "I was a poor brother and a worse king. I hurt you, I thought only of myself, I sold you into slavery. I was young and afraid and desperate, but I should have protected you. All we had was each other."

This Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, she is above all a rescuer. Daenerys drowned the slaver cities in blood rather than leave strangers to their chains, she can scarcely abandon her own brother. Instead she drops to her knees beside him on the floor and tells him of all that has happened since they parted.

When she is done, Viserys says, "I cannot be the king. You must go on in my stead."

"The throne is yours by right." Dany replies.

Viserys pauses, then admits, "I can father no children, Dany. You are the last of our house. You hatched dragons and conquered cities. You must be the queen."

"The maegi said-"

"That you would go to the Dosh Khaleen and become one of them. Or that you would die on Drogo's funeral pyre." Her brother touches her face with a gentleness she has never felt from him before. "A witch who murdered your son and husband is not a reliable source of information, Dany."

"If one of us has a child, then they must take the throne," she insists, "I am the blood of the dragon and for that I ruled, but Viserys I only want peace. The little house with the lemon trees and the red door. Peace."

"Let us rule together, then. As brother and sister," Viserys tells her, "We are the last of our blood and we only have each other."

Then they return to Westeros, where Cersei and the White Walkers await them. The dragons do not allow Viserys to ride, but they seem to like him. Brother and sister, Viserys rides behind Dany on Drogon's back, the last dragons the five of them.

"You are not here to be queen of the ashes," Tyrion tells her.

"Nonsense," Viserys scoffs, "You've lived through a starving Kings Landing, Lord Tyrion. It's said they ripped people apart and ate them still living in front of your eyes."

Drogon burns the Red Keep to the ground with its inhabitants inside but saves thousands from starvation and wildfire. The siblings find Cersei dead on the throne, having poisoned herself, and Tyrion weeps over her. Daenerys returns her body to the Rock, for his sake, and names Olenna Tyrell their Hand.

"With the queen's permission I'll go north and take one," Jorah Mormont offers.

"None of our men are going beyond the Wall. This is all ridiculous. You, the "King in the North" are going to personally go to the most dangerous place in the world for the sake of Jaime Lannister and his men?" Viserys touches his sister's shoulder gently. "You can never trust a Lannister," he tells her, Tyrion looking more uncomfortable by the second, "when Tywin Lannister swore to our father that he would fight for him, he sacked the city and murdered Rhaegar's family. Rhaenys, all of three. Aegon, the rightful king. Elia of Dorne. Jaime Lannister himself broke his sworn oath to our father. Do not trust them. Do not."

Jon Snow goes without Jorah Mormont, and of all the men that step beyond the Wall only he makes it back, bloody and battered, barely alive. Those that had gone with him had traded their lives for his, and had died for nothing. Jon has his wight. Jaime Lannister does not stir from the Rock. Perhaps he swears not to attack them, but he did not have the strength to fight in the field anyway.

"You will rule wisely and well, while she-" Varys begins, but Jon cuts him off.

"If you want another ruler, go and speak to Viserys."

And Varys has, but whatever happened to him in Essos has made it so that he will hear not a word of it. What Varys did say he expects made it back to Daenerys. "Viserys is his father's son, just so, and Rhaegar's son comes before his brother."

Varys will burn that night, when Viserys and Jon both swear that he is a traitor. Viserys would burn Jon too, but Dany refuses him. Burning the North's chosen ruler will do little to make them love her, she says. I love him, she does not, but he hears anyway.

Viserys has seen Jon's eyes. He is a Targaryen, that one, not a Stark, not like his beloved Ned. He takes to wearing full armor, even on Dragonstone, and warns Grey Worm as well. They come to an understanding, if an uncertain one, for Grey Worm has lost Missandei and he will not lose her as well.

As the Red Keep is rebuilt, Dany goes to walk among the ruins. Sometimes she goes up to the Iron Throne, although that room has not been started yet, just to be alone and think. She takes no guards but her children. In the throne room, she welcomes Jon to her, angry or not. They argue.

Casterly Rock has burned, and Viserys is looking for his sister. He finds her usual guard in the hall, and asks where she is. "The throne room," they say, "Jon Snow is with her."

He starts to run. Alarmed, the Unsullied follow him. She had commanded to be left alone, but Jon Snow is one of her generals, one of her trusted allies. The queen has been alone with him before, in more intimate places, and

"You are my queen." Jon says, and she lets him embrace her. There is a blade in his belt, one that almost killed his brother. He reaches for it.

Yet Viserys is not fast enough. He is only a man, but Drogon is not. While he is not Viserys' in the way he is Daenerys', he still feels his fear, still knows it's for his mother. With a flap of his great wings he shakes the snow away and soars up to the ruined keep.

Viserys bursts into the throne room steps ahead of the guards to find Daenerys naked and on her knees, weeping over the corpse of her lover, half-burned away along with her clothes. He still holds the blade he would have killed her with.

Removing his cloak, he drapes it over her instead, hiding both her nakedness and the swell of her stomach as she cries. Viserys pulls her away from the body, turning her face into his shoulder. His mother was careful, so careful, to shelter him from the worst of his father's atrocities, but this is not the first time he has smelled burning flesh. It's all he can do to mummer in High Valyrian to his sister, trying to calm her.

"You were right." Are her first words. "I should never have trusted him. You were right."

Above them is Drogon, the son she bore from Khal Drogo's pyre. Because of her they sit in the halls their ancestors built and call themselves king and queen. Three cities yet stand in Essos, their slaves free for the first time in thousands upon thousands of years. All her doing.

Viserys accepted a long time ago that he was never going to take back the Seven Kingdoms. He was never going to go home. Yet here he stands, all because of his little sister. Viserys had wanted his father's throne; Daenerys envisioned a new world. Jon Snow is but dush and ash.

"No," he presses a kiss to her forehead, and tries to wipe away the tears. "You're a conqueror, Dany, you're a queen. He chose the old world, and you will craft a new one."