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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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[IMPORTANT] Dany’s tenure in Meereen - Her concessions & Why she is a true queen

I would say that this is the meta I'm the most proud of. I originally started to write it as part of the series of metas showing how Dany assesses the council she receives and makes her own choices (and it can still be considered as such), but I made it its own post because, modesty aside, I think this is a very important meta.

It dissects the recurring questions that Dany had to deal with (and that ultimately led to a false peace), how Dany is unfairly blamed for the slavers' actions and the many reasons why she is a true queen (in the sense of being one who "protects the ones who can't protect themselves"). It's probably the most comprehensive meta about not only her political situation in ADWD, but also about how and why she makes the decisions that she makes during her tenure in Meereen. I really recommend that you read it.

I didn't include, however, her decisions concerning the conflicts inside her city; I have already written a whole separate meta for them.

List of contents

0) Note on my classification of Dany's motivations

1) Recurring and/or major questions that Dany has to answer

2) Dany's ultimate choices

3) The consequences of Dany's choices and her reactions

4) Which problems are the masters' responsibility, not Dany's

5) Mhysa and mother of dragons: why both identities are fallible and how, like with her successes, Dany's failures are tied to her tendency to take responsibility

6) Why Dany is a good queen

Note on my classification of Dany's motivations

I'm putting this note in the beginning to avoid confusion from anyone who reads this meta. "Peace", "freedmen" and "empathy" can seem like interchangeable motivations, so let me explain what I mean with each of these words:

Peace: That's Dany's prime concern during her tenure and will concern decisions made to avoid further carnage or any sort of dissension. Examples include her decision to not aid the Butcher King and to marry Hizdahr.

Freedmen: This refers to moments where Dany made choices that wouldn't be convenient to her attempts to merge with the Meereenese slaves, but that were still in the freedmen's best interests. Examples include her staunch refusal to reopen the fighting pits.

Empathy: This refers solely to her decision to allow the freedmen who want to sell themselves back into slavery to do so. I made one category for that one action alone because a) even if it was a decision made to restore social harmony, its primary concern was the slaves' plight (hence why she imposed a tax on the slavers for the benefit of the city) rather than any attempt to merge with the Meereenese slavers and supress discord (so it doesn't fit "Peace") and b) despite her noble intentions, I would argue that it was ultimately not the right one for them (for reasons I detailed below), so it doesn't fit "Freedmen" either.

Herself: This refers to decisions that Dany makes thinking of her own needs and desires. One could argue that her attempts to restore order in Meereen are based on her desires, but they are not rooted in self-interest, but rather selflessness. This is for the choices that Dany made primarily based on her benefit. The only examples are her postponement of the choice of a husband and her refusal to allow Hizdahr's mother and sisters to inspect her womb.

This classification is not intended to imply that Dany's decisions have mutually exclusive purposes. It is true, for instance, that Dany's decisions to merge with the nobles are primarily motivated by her desire to "protect the ones who can't protect themselves"; even so, they will be classified as "peace" rather than "freedmen".

I think that categorizing them that way reinforces that many of Dany's choices unwittingly focused on a peace that benefitted the slavers rather than the freedmen. This, in turn, reinforces that the peace she tried to create was no true peace (which is the main lesson of her ADWD storyline).

Recurring and/or major questions that Dany has to answer

As I said above, not every decision that Dany made in her tenure will be examined in this section. The ones regarding the city's protection have been dissected in this meta. Others, such as her measures to revive the city's economy and her choice to confine and chain her dragons inside a pit, will be discussed in later sections of this meta.

I especially recommend reading questions 4, 9, 10, 11, 13 and 15.

ASOS Daenerys VI

Question 1: Do I end Meereen’s neutrality? (by helping Astapor against Yunkai)

Advice from: Ghael.

Dany’s answer: No.

Motivation: Peace.

“Two have presented themselves to bask in your radiance. [...] They arrived in the night on the Indigo Star, a trading galley out of Qarth.”

A slaver, you mean. Dany frowned. “Who are they?” 

“The Star’s master and one who claims to speak for Astapor.”

“I will see the envoy first.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

It's always nice to see Dany undermining the slavers for the sake of the freedmen (something she will do again in her first chapter of ADWD when she chooses to give the former slaves and the former masters equal attention). Here, even if that's not what ultimately happens (because Ghael is actually representing another slaver), Dany did have the intention to favor the former slaves - she assumes that the council of freedmen she had left was still in power, which is why she would rather listen to the Astapori envoy first instead of the trader captain (who she acknowledges as a slaver).

Dany questions why her council was deposed in favor of King Cleon, which his envoy Ghael claims to have been a result of the council members' supposed alliance with the Good Masters. Missandei tells Dany that Cleon was a butcher owned by Grazdan mo Ullhor. Dany feels disgusted for having given (as she sees it, though she wasn't directly responsible for it) Astapor "a butcher king", but she hides her discontent and asks Ghael what he wants. In the name of Great Cleon, he proposes an alliance between Meereen and Astapor against Yunkai to be sealed with a marriage. These are Dany's responses:

“I swore no harm would come to Yunkai if they released their slaves,” said Dany. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

Dany found herself bereft of words, but little Missandei came to her rescue. “Did his first wife give him sons?”

The envoy looked at her unhappily. “Great Cleon has three daughters by his first wife. Two of his newer wives are with child. But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will consent to wed him.”

“How noble of him,” said Dany. “I will consider all you’ve said, my lord.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

As Dany will later learn, Ghael is not wrong to warn her against the threat that Yunkai represents. However, because Dany is feeling terribly guilty about what happened during the sack of Meereen, she chooses not to take part in any war for now (hoping against hope that the Yunkish will leave her alone if that's what she does).

Question 2: Do I let the Meereenese sell themselves back into slavery if they want to?

Advice from: Missandei, Daario.

Dany’s answer: Yes, under some conditions.

Motivation: Empathy.

After Ghael leaves, Dany receives the trader captain. Like she once did with Kraznys and Missandei, she confirms if Ghael's information is accurate. Unfortunately, the situation in Astapor seems to be even worse than Ghael's report, which prompts this reaction from Dany:

The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was. She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the same in Meereen once I march, she thought. The slaves from the fighting pits, bred and trained to slaughter, were already proving themselves unruly and quarrelsome. They seemed to think they owned the city now, and every man and woman in it. Two of them had been among the eight she’d hanged. There is no more I can do, she told herself. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

That Eroeh is being brought up here reinforces just how much Dany blames herself. Not only has Eroeh fueled both Dany's desire for vengeance and justice (which feed off each other rather than being mutually exclusive) before, she's perhaps the biggest example (in Dany's mind) of her failure to protect innocent lives. Now, even after her best efforts, it feels like the same has just happened (and will get even worse when/if she leaves).

I made this point before, however, and will make it again - yes, her actions indirectly caused these problems in Astapor, but the choices were ultimately made by Cleon. He was the one who enslaved highborn boys to become Unsullied and his actions were the ones that led to the chaos, the political unrest and the economy's collapse in the city. Dany did make a mistake for not leaving a garrison to guarantee that the council she chose wouldn't be overthrown, but she is not responsible for the atrocities that happened later.

The captain wants slaves to sell in Lys and Volantis, which Dany refuses at first, only to be informed by Daario that many Meereenese want to be sold in the Free Cities to be "tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests" and potentially find a more comfortable lifestyle.

Disillusioned by the news of Astapor, Dany relents under certain conditions:

“I see.” Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. “Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.” She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

After listening to Missandei's advice, Dany also decides to impose a tax on the price of the slaves to help to fortify Meereen:

“In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her.

“We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or zorse hides.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

Daario offers to have the Stormcrows collect the tenth, but Dany is rightly wary of them and tasks freedmen to keep records of the gold (which highlights that she's not taking that money for her own self-gratification):

If the Stormcrows saw to the collections at least half the gold would somehow go astray, Dany knew. But the Second Sons were just as bad, and the Unsullied were as unlettered as they were incorruptible. “Records must be kept,” she said. “Seek among the freedmen for men who can read, write, and do sums.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

This was not Dany's best decision; slavery ends not only with economic reforms, but also cultural ones in order to change the freedmen's outlook on their alternatives and their own dignity. Still, we need to have in mind that she is aiming to restore harmony in a short period of time (which is ultimately in vain, but still a sympathetic effort nonetheless). Even more so, we must take Dany's youth and inexperience into consideration, as well as the fact that trying to help the former slaves solely for their own sake already makes her a more commendable ruler than most of the others in this series by leaps and bounds. Finally, we should have in mind, as this meta by @yendany shows, that Dany's decision was aided by Missandei, a former slave herself. This highlights how it was made with the best interests of the marginalized group in mind; the tax will, after all, be used to revitalize the city and guarantee that slavery remains abolished.

ADWD Daenerys I

Question 3: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by using the tokar)?

Advice from: the Green Grace, Brown Ben.

Dany’s answer: Yes.

Motivation: Peace.

Dany's dislike of the tokar was clear even back in ASOS:

His left hand held the tokar in place as he walked, while his right clasped a short leather whip. (ASOS Daenerys II)

All wrapped themselves in tokars, a garment permitted only to freeborn men of Astapor. (ASOS Daenerys III)

"You swore I should have safe conduct!" the Yunkish envoy wailed.

"Do all the Yunkai'i whine so over a singed tokar? (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Indeed, the tokar was so strongly associated with slavery in Dany's mind that she ordered the Unsullied to kill those holding a whip and wearing a tokar:

“Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

That's the emotional baggage she is carrying when her first impulse is to ban the tokar. She backpedals on her decision, though this quote makes it clear that she does it for conciliation rather than her own wishes:

Walking in a tokar demanded small, mincing steps and exquisite balance, lest one tread upon those heavy trailing fringes. It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work. The tokar was a master’s garment, a sign of wealth and power.

Dany had wanted to ban the tokar when she took Meereen, but her advisors had convinced her otherwise. “The Mother of Dragons must don the tokar or be forever hated,” warned the Green Grace, Galazza Galare. “In the wools of Westeros or a gown of Myrish lace, Your Radiance shall forever remain a stranger amongst us, a grotesque outlander, a barbarian conqueror. Meereen’s queen must be a lady of Old Ghis.” Brown Ben Plumm, the captain of the Second Sons, had put it more succinctly. “Man wants to be the king o’ the rabbits, he best wear a pair o’ floppy ears.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

But then, it's a relatively small price to pay if she can achieve peace quickly that way.

Question 4: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by reopening the fighting pits)?

Advice from: Hizdahr.

Dany’s answer: No.

Motivation: Freedmen.

Like the tokar, the fighting pits were also a major emblem of slavery for Dany in ASOS:

“A bull is strong as well, but bulls die every day in the fighting pits. A girl of nine killed one not three days past in Jothiel's Pit.[”] (ASOS Daenerys II)

“Ask her if she wishes to view our fighting pits,” Kraznys added. “Douquor's Pit has a fine folly scheduled for the evening. A bear and three small boys. One boy will be rolled in honey, one in blood, and one in rotting fish, and she may wager on which the bear will eat first.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

She stood by the rail and looked out over Astapor. From here it looks almost beautiful, she thought. The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Kraznys's translator had promised. The brick pyramids were all glimmery with light. But it is dark below, in the streets and plazas and fighting pits. And it is darkest of all in the barracks, where some little boy is feeding scraps to the puppy they gave him when they took away his manhood. (ASOS Daenerys II)

All the grey bricks became red and yellow and blue and green and orange. The scarlet sands of the fighting pits transformed them into bleeding sores before her eyes. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

As we can see from these quotes, the systematic killing of children for the nobility's entertainment informed Dany's decision to rebel against the masters and free the slaves and certainly informs her decision to keep the fighting pits closed for now. That she sees them as "bleeding sores" at the end of ASOS signals her ongoing discomfort.

Related to her moral outrage, Dany is unwilling to reopen the fighting pits because she is aware that the nobility will profit off the "bleeding sores" of the freedmen:

When Dany had closed the city’s fighting pits, the value of pit shares had plummeted. Hizdahr zo Loraq had grabbed them up with both hands, and now owned most of the fighting pits in Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys I)

At this point in the story, Dany thinks that ruling Meereen means allying herself with the Meereenese. In this sense, she had everything to gain by satisfying the needs of Hizdahr and Grazdan zo Galare (the Green Grace's cousin), as she admits to herself:

I need this man, Dany reminded herself. Hizdahr was a wealthy merchant with many friends in Meereen, and more across the seas. He had visited Volantis, Lys, and Qarth, had kin in Tolos and Elyria, and was even said to wield some influence in New Ghis, where the Yunkai’i were trying to stir up enmity against Dany and her rule.

And he was rich. Famously and fabulously rich …

And like to grow richer, if I grant his petition. (ADWD Daenerys I)

Grazdan, she had been forewarned, was a cousin of the Green Grace, whose support she had found invaluable. The priestess was a voice for peace, acceptance, and obedience to lawful authority. I can give her cousin a respectful hearing, whatever he desires. (ADWD Daenerys I)

However, in the beginning of ADWD, Dany is not as desperate to find short-term peace as she will be later on - at least not to the point of compromising her moral principles. Her natural impulse is to make pro-freedmen decisions that ultimately hurt the privileged. She is not as concerned to deny these potential allies their petitions:

“...Hizdahr, if you could marshal armies as you marshal arguments, you could conquer the world … but my answer is still no. For the sixth time.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

“Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

Which is certainly an overall attitude that informs her determination to keep the pits closed. Related to that point, it is also noteworthy that, while she felt some regret in ASOS for cruficifying the masters, her thoughts are a bit different now that she sees that sparing them caused negative consequences for the freedmen:

After Meereen had fallen, Dany had nailed up a like number of Great Masters. Swarms of flies had attended their slow dying, and the stench had lingered long in the plaza. Yet some days she feared that she had not gone far enough. These Meereenese were a sly and stubborn people who resisted her at every turn. They had freed their slaves, yes … only to hire them back as servants at wages so meagre that most could scarce afford to eat. Those too old or young to be of use had been cast into the streets, along with the infirm and the crippled. And still the Great Masters gathered atop their lofty pyramids to complain of how the dragon queen had filled their noble city with hordes of unwashed beggars, thieves, and whores.

To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them. (ADWD Daenerys I)

Another interesting note that is that, by the time the events of ADWD Daenerys I take place, Dany is already quite familiar with Hizdahr's reasons in favor of reopening the pits, so much so that the author has Dany herself recite them onpage (instead of Hizdahr) to show off her intelligence:

“It is your cause I find wanting, not your courtesies. I have heard your arguments so often I could plead your case myself. Shall I?” Dany leaned forward. “The fighting pits have been a part of Meereen since the city was founded. The combats are profoundly religious in nature, a blood sacrifice to the gods of Ghis. The mortal art of Ghis is not mere butchery but a display of courage, skill, and strength most pleasing to your gods. Victorious fighters are pampered and acclaimed, and the slain are honored and remembered. By reopening the pits I would show the people of Meereen that I respect their ways and customs. The pits are far-famed across the world. They draw trade to Meereen, and fill the city’s coffers with coin from the ends of the earth. All men share a taste for blood, a taste the pits help slake. In that way they make Meereen more tranquil. For criminals condemned to die upon the sands, the pits represent a judgment by battle, a last chance for a man to prove his innocence.” She leaned back again, with a toss of her head. “There. How have I done?” (ADWD Daenerys I)

Not only does she manage to remember all seven of Hizdahr's arguments, Dany is also well-mannered enough to leave out the one argument that only benefits Hizdahr (i.e. the profit he'll make out of the pits) and that Hizdahr wouldn't bring up because it wouldn't help him to convince her to change her mind (even though she is aware of it).

Then, Dany astutely notes that, if the fighting pits were reopened, she would tax them before they make a profit of them in order to undermine Hizdahr and help the city:

“Your Magnificence,” whispered Reznak mo Reznak in her ear, “it is customary for the city to claim one-tenth of all the profits from the fighting pits, after expenses, as a tax. That coin might be put to many noble uses.”

“It might … though if we were to reopen the pits, we should take our tenth before expenses. I am only a young girl and know little of such matters, but I dwelt with Xaro Xhoan Daxos long enough to learn that much.[”] (ADWD Daenerys I)

Relatively speaking, wearing a tokar wasn't a hard concession for Dany. Despite her aforementioned problems with its symbolic meaning, we know that she is good at assimilating herself into a different culture. Accepting traditions that will directly harm the freedmen, on the other hand, is a different matter. Dany firmly says no for now because she feels that she has multiple alternatives.

Question 5: Do I end Meereen’s neutrality? (by helping Astapor against Yunkai)

Advice from: Ghael.

Dany’s answer: No.

Motivation: Peace.

Ghael shows up again. Instead of proposing a marriage between Dany and Cleon, he gives her a pair of slippers and simply asks for Dany to support Astapor in the fight against Yunkai. Even though both Ghael and Cleon are former slaves, Dany has no sympathy for them after the latter reinstalled slavery and still denies his request:

His new Unsullied are an obscene jape. “King Cleon would be wise to tend his own gardens and let the Yunkai’i tend theirs.” It was not that Dany harbored any love for Yunkai. She was coming to regret leaving the Yellow City untaken after defeating its army in the field. The Wise Masters had returned to slaving as soon as she moved on, and were busy raising levies, hiring sellswords, and making alliances against her.

Cleon the self-styled Great was no better, however. The Butcher King had restored slavery to Astapor, the only change being that the former slaves were now the masters and the former masters were now the slaves.

“I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of war,” she told Lord Ghael, “but we have heard that Astapor is starving. Let King Cleon feed his people before he leads them out to battle.” She made a gesture of dismissal. Ghael withdrew. (ADWD Daenerys I)

As we can see from this quote, Dany is realizing, like she did with the Meereenese nobles, that she should've been more ruthless in her punishment of the Yunkish nobles; Ghael's warning about the Yunkai'i preparing to fight against her (made back in ASOS Daenerys VI) is now coming to fruition. That being said, because Dany is focusing on Meereen's reform and believes that the slavers will leave her alone if she remains neutral, she asks for Cleon to do the same. It's easy to see where she's coming from and her reform attempts (as I will show later) will not be in vain, but underestimating the Yunkish threat is still, ultimately, a mistake of hers.

Question 6: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by marrying a noble)?

Advice from: the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany’s answer: No.

Motivation: Herself.

At this point in time, Dany isn't as desperate to find peace as she'll be later. While she still listens to her advisors' encouragement to take a husband and even weighs on her available options, she doesn't take any real measures for now:

“Cleon the Great sends these slippers as a token of his love for Daenerys Stormborn, the Mother of Dragons.”

[...] Does the butcher king believe a pair of pretty slippers will win my hand? [...] “His Magnificence bids me say that he stands ready to defend the Mother of Dragons from all her foes.”

If he proposes again that I wed King Cleon, I’ll throw a slipper at his head, Dany thought, but for once the Astapori envoy made no mention of a royal marriage. (ADWD Daenerys I)

He might be handsome, but for that silly hair. Reznak and the Green Grace had been urging Dany to take a Meereenese noble for her husband, to reconcile the city to her rule. Hizdahr zo Loraq might be worth a careful look. Sooner him than Skahaz. The Shavepate had offered to set aside his wife for her, but the notion made her shudder. Hizdahr at least knew how to smile. (ADWD Daenerys I)

That's, of course, understandable, since choosing a husband would mean risking her personal happiness and giving up her sexual autonomy.

ADWD Daenerys II

Question 7: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by reopening the fighting pits)?

Advice from: Hizdahr, Reznak, the Green Grace, the Shavepate, Belwas, Barristan, Missandei.

Dany’s answer: No.

Motivation: Freedmen.

Dany is still (rightfully) adamant that she won't reopen the fighting pits, even if her counsellors (aside from Missandei) suggest otherwise. But Hizdahr's seventh attempt to convince her leaves her feeling more conflicted than before. He brings seven former pit fighters (because he recognizes the significance of the number in Westeros) and has each of them speak in favor of the return of the pits:

Dany knew his seven, by name if not by sight. All had been amongst the most famed of Meereen’s fighting slaves … and it had been the fighting slaves, freed from their shackles by her sewer rats, who led the uprising that won the city for her. She owed them a blood debt. “I will hear you,” she allowed.

One by one, each of them asked her to let the fighting pits reopen. “Why?” she demanded, when Ithoke had finished. “You are no longer slaves, doomed to die at a master’s whim. I freed you. Why should you wish to end your lives upon the scarlet sands?” (ADWD Daenerys II)

Goghor the Giant says that he was trained to fight since the age of three and should have the option to fight, to which Dany answers:

“If it is fighting you want, fight for me. Swear your sword to the Mother’s Men or the Free Brothers or the Stalwart Shields. Teach my other freedmen how to fight.” (ADWD Daenerys II)

None of them is persuaded by her reply, however. Goghor compares her suggestion to a master's orders and says that he should fight for himself, the Spotted Cat explains that his life was better as a slave and Khrazz brings up the potential rewards for the winners. Even so, Dany is still not convinced and does not think that Hizdahr is "honorable" like the fighters do:

No, a cunning man. Daenerys felt trapped. “And the losers? What shall they receive?” (ADWD Daenerys II)

Barsena answers Dany's question by saying that their names will be inscribed on the Gates of Fate, but that they will not be remembered.

Now more uncertain than before, that's Dany's decision for the moment:

Dany had no answer for that. If this is truly what my people wish, do I have the right to deny it to them? It was their city before it was mine, and it is their own lives they wish to squander. “I will consider all you’ve said. Thank you for your counsel.” (ADWD Daenerys II)

As I explained in this post, Dany is looking at the issue from a moral standpoint. This is clear when she asks what the losers will receive; dying in these duels is an injustice on its own sake - it would mean dying primarily to make the noblemen entertained and rich (as she recognizes) and, consequently, perpetuating the very social oppression that she is trying to end (because the existence of the pits is tied to the existence of slavery and inequality in general).

At the same time, though, she is still 15-16 at this point and is in an unprecedented situation for her world, so she can't articulate her stance as eloquently as she might in the future nor does she entirely realize that the freedmen's consent is dubious in this particular case (since they weren't educated and socialized to believe that they should fight for their basic rights).

Nevertheless, even with those complications, Dany doesn't relent for now.

ADWD Daenerys III

Question 8: Do I end Meereen’s neutrality? (by waging war against Yunkai and helping Astapor against Yunkai)

Advice from: Xaro and Ghael.

Dany’s answer: No (for the most part).

Motivation: Peace.

In this chapter, Dany receives bad news from Xaro about Yunkai. He makes it clear that they will not spare her city, as much as she would want them to do so for remaining neutral in their war. Unbeknownst to him, she has been taking measures to prepare Meereen for war. The first measure was a failed one:

Daenerys had sent missions to Tolos and Mantarys, hoping to find new friends to the west to balance the enmity of Yunkai to the south. Her envoys had not returned. (ADWD Daenerys III)

As Dany finds out from Xaro, Tolos and Mantarys have made an alliance with Yunkai instead. In the next chapter, she will learn that the former called her a whore and asked for the city to be returned to the Great Masters and that the latter killed her three envoys.

The second measure, on the other hand, is more successful and will influence the outcome of the Battle of Fire; she organized the freedmen into three companies:

“My freedman—” Dany started.

“Bedslaves, barbers, and brickmakers win no battles.”

He was wrong in that, she hoped. The freedmen had been a rabble once, but she had organized the men of fighting age into companies and commanded Grey Worm to make them into soldiers. (ADWD Daenerys III)

Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. (ADWD Daenerys III)

However, even if she's now taking actions to fortify Meereen, it doesn't mean that Dany will now help Cleon:

“I warned your king that this war of his was folly,” Dany reminded him. “He would not listen.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

“Great Cleon is a slaver himself.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

Those were her former reasons to not help them. The actual one, at this point, is this:

And if I do, who will defend my walls? “Many of my freedmen were slaves in Astapor. Perhaps some will wish to help defend your king. That is their choice, as free men. I gave Astapor its freedom. It is up to you to defend it.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

As it's been argued before, not leaving part of the Unsullied in Astapor to ensure that her council would remain in power was one of Dany's crucial mistakes. It would be a specially bad time to do that now because she has too many enemies both inside and outside the city. She still says no, which leads a desperate Ghael to spit on her face. Belwas slams him down onto the marble, which prompts Dany to ask him to stop. Despite his lack of respect, she won't give him a disproportionate punishment because "no one has ever died from spittle".

ADWD Daenerys IV

Question 9: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by marrying a noble)?

Advice from: the Green Grace.

Dany’s answer: Yes, under some conditions.

Motivation: Peace.

Dany is more apprehensive and less hopeful at this point - as she explains to the Green Grace, Qarth, Tolos and Mantarys have all sided with Yunkai and openly declared war to her, freedmen are still being killed at night (note that the Green Grace may have played a part on their deaths) and the Butcher King of Astapor was killed by his own soldiers when he commanded them to fight the Yunkish, starting off a civil war inside the city while Yunkai besieges it. Dany feels like she is failing to deal with both wars (outside and inside the city), even more so because her primary desire is to be the ruler who will make Meereen more prosperous and "plant trees".

This complicated situation leads the Green Grace to counsel Dany to marry Hizdahr (again), which she finds predictable. Dany recognizes the self-interest behind the Green Grace's counsel and makes several objections to it:

“Tell me, can this king puff his cheeks up and blow Xaro’s galleys back to Qarth? Can he clap his hands and break the siege of Astapor? Can he put food in the bellies of my children and bring peace back to my streets?” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“And who would the gods of Ghis have me take as my king and consort?”

“Hizdahr zo Loraq,” Galazza Galare said firmly.

Dany did not trouble to feign surprise. “Why Hizdahr? Skahaz is noble born as well.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“His forebears are as dead as mine. Will Hizdahr raise their shades to defend Meereen against its enemies? I need a man with ships and swords. You offer me ancestors.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

However, Dany also begins to think that this may be the best course of action if she wants to help her people:

Daenerys Targaryen had other children, tens of thousands who had hailed her as their mother when she broke their chains. She thought of Stalwart Shield, of Missandei’s brother, of the woman Rylona Rhee, who had played the harp so beautifully. No marriage would ever bring them back to life, but if a husband could help end the slaughter, then she owed it to her dead to marry. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

At the same time, Dany ponders what marrying Hizdahr might mean for the Shavepate (whose support she values a lot) and why she would rather marry Hizdahr rather than the Shavepate (even if she trusts the latter more):

If I wed Hizdahr, will that turn Skahaz against me? She trusted Skahaz more than she trusted Hizdahr, but the Shavepate would be a disaster as a king. He was too quick to anger, too slow to forgive. She saw no gain in wedding a man as hated as herself. Hizdahr was well respected, so far as she could see. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

This is not a decision that Dany makes lightly because she's aware of its setbacks. Still, Hizdahr has public support and, as the Green Grace pointed out, the right bloodline, which makes him the better husband if Dany wants to find conciliation with the slavers (which, for now, is what she wants in the name of a false peace).

In keeping with Dany's tendency to be kind and courteous, she restrains her irritation concerning the Green Grace's condescendence:

“What does my prospective husband think of this?” she asked the Green Grace. What does he think of me?

“Your Grace need only ask him. The noble Hizdahr awaits below. Send down to him if that is your pleasure.”

You presume too much, priestess, the queen thought, but she swallowed her anger and made herself smile. “Why not?” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

From the passage above, one can infer that the Green Grace already expected Dany to follow her advice, so much so that she already had Hizdahr wait below the pyramid. Dany is aware of that condescending attitude; she still follows the Green Grace's advice for the reasons stated above, but it can't be simply said that she's being "dumb" for doing so.

I will talk more about Dany's interactions with Hizdahr in the next question. For now, let's only consider her request if she is to marry him:

“Peace is my desire. You say that you can help me end the nightly slaughter in my streets. I say do it. Put an end to this shadow war, my lord. That is your quest. Give me ninety days and ninety nights without a murder, and I will know that you are worthy of a throne. Can you do that?” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

Marrying Hizdahr is not a "stupid" thing for Dany to do (as I've seen some claim). Again, she knows it's not an unequivocally good choice:

If Meereen knew that a wedding was in the offing, that alone might buy her a few nights’ respite, even if Hizdahr’s efforts came to naught. The Shavepate will not be happy with me, but Reznak mo Reznak will dance for joy. Dany did not know which of those concerned her more. She needed Skahaz and the Brazen Beasts, and she had come to mistrust all of Reznak’s counsel. Beware the perfumed seneschal. Has Reznak made common cause with Hizdahr and the Green Grace and set some trap to snare me? (ADWD Daenerys IV)

As the quote shows, Dany acknowledges the Shavepate's importance (even if she is still ultimately not doing what he advises her to do) and has a healthy dose of distrust of Hizdahr, the Green Grace and Reznak (even if she is still ultimately doing what they advise her to do). Her problem is not that her judgment of them is poor, but rather that her solution doesn't address her ultimate goal, namely to end slavery and protect the freedmen on a long-term basis. That's because, unlike what many think, she feels reluctant about relying too heavily on violence; it's not her "comfort zone" and she has witnessed its costs before.

I would be remiss if I didn't note that Dany perceives marriage as a personal sacrifice, which is why she also wants to know if she can be attracted to and maybe even fall in love with Hizdahr:

“I always grow solemn in the presence of such beauty.”

It was a good start. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

He is not hard to look at, Dany told herself, and he has a king’s tongue. “Kiss me,” she commanded.

He took her hand again, and kissed her fingers.

“Not that way. Kiss me as if I were your wife.”

Hizdahr took her by the shoulders as tenderly as if she were a baby bird. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers. His kiss was light and dry and quick. Dany felt no stirrings.

“Shall I … kiss you again?” he asked when it was over.

“No.” On her terrace, in her bathing pool, the little fish would nibble at her legs as she soaked. Even they kissed with more fervor than Hizdahr zo Loraq. “I do not love you.”

“I do not love you.”

Hizdahr shrugged. “That may come, in time. It has been known to happen that way.”

Not with us, she thought. Not whilst Daario is so close. It’s him I want, not you. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

Is Dany being unreasonable and distracted for having these considerations? No.

First, Dany is willing to marry Hizdahr if he ends the shadow war in Meereen regardless of his physical appearance. She puts her people first (to her own detriment, for she knows that she won't ever love him), as she makes it clear to Barristan:

“Lingering here will never bring it any closer. The sooner we take our leave of this place—”

“I know. I do.” Dany did not know how to make him see. She wanted Westeros as much as he did, but first she must heal Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

Second, as we already saw, Dany doesn't fully trust Hizdahr because he's still a slaver wanting to profit off the fighting pits. Whether she's sexually attracted to him or not is only one of the many factors that she is considering (and not even one of the most important ones).

Third, it's good that Dany, for being queen regnant, can reflect on whether she desires her suitors or not; any woman should be able to consider that. Even so, her position doesn't prevent her from losing her political and sexual autonomy once she marries Hizdahr. We as readers should not criticize Dany herself, but rather the inherently misogynistic power structures with which she needs to deal.

Question 10: Do I end Meereen’s neutrality? (by making peace with Yunkai)

Advice from: Hizdahr.

Dany’s answer: Maybe.

Motivation: Peace.

Dany is predisposed to think ill of Hizdahr because of both the fighting pits and her belief that a marriage won't solve all her problems:

When she was gone, Dany let Qezza fill her cup again, dismissed the children, and commanded that Hizdahr zo Loraq be admitted to her presence. And if he dares say one word about his precious fighting pits, I may have him thrown off the terrace.

“You know why you are here. The Green Grace seems to feel that if I take you for my husband, all my woes will vanish.”

Hizdahr himself seems quite aware of that. For starters, he wears a "plain green robe beneath a quilted vest" (which is in keeping with his "simple robe of grey and blue" used to integrate himself with the seven freedmen he brought in ADWD Daenerys II and also a departure from his "purple tokar" "with amethysts and pearls" from ADWD Daenerys I) to pretend that he is frugal and he praises Dany's beauty. He'll also give the exact answers that Dany would want to hear (which I've talked about before here).

Dany makes reasonable questions pertaining to Hizdahr's desire to marry her (and a not-so-veiled threat as well):

Dany studied his eyes. “Why should the Sons of the Harpy lay down their knives for you? Are you one of them?”

[...] “Would you tell me if you were?” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“The Shavepate has ways of finding the truth.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Why would you want to help me? For the crown?” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

To these questions, Hizdahr presents answers of a modest nature that make them seem honest as well. No, he's not part of the Sons, but he wouldn't tell her if he was either. No, he admits that he isn't the solution to all her problems, but that he might still help Dany to bring order to the city. And no, he doesn't deny that he wants to be king, but he also wants to protect his own people. The latter response is the one that ultimately leads Dany to open herself up:

That was a good answer, and an honest one. “I have never wanted war. I defeated the Yunkai’i once and spared their city when I might have sacked it. I refused to join King Cleon when he marched against them. Even now, with Astapor besieged, I stay my hand. And Qarth … I have never done the Qartheen any harm …” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

At this point, Dany already understands how social injustice is an issue that goes beyond slavery and continues to affect the freedmen. What she hasn't realized is that her position of neutrality in Yunkai's war is not enough for them to leave her alone. Her existence as the Breaker of Chains and the main symbol of a successful abolitionist movement are reason enough for the privileged (who, all over the continent, had been relying on slave labor) to seek to actively oppose her. It doesn't matter if she is avoiding to use force or not; they will still attack, which is what Hizdahr points out. Her selflessness shines through in her response to him:

“Let them come. In me they shall find a sterner foe than Cleon. I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

Then, Hizdahr remarks that Yunkai might allow the freedmen inside Meereen to remain freedmen if Dany allows slavery to be reinstalled in the Yellow City. This is how she reacts:

“...No more blood need flow.”

“Save for the blood of those slaves that the Yunkai’i will trade and train,” Dany said, but she recognized the truth in his words even so. It may be that is the best end we can hope for. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

Why does Dany still express discomfort? That's a result of Dany's development of a "universal sense of social justice", as @khaleesirin puts it. Dany cares about all of her freedmen in a way that goes beyond national identities. Seeing them (even those outside of Meereen) continue to suffer makes her feel like a failure.

That being said, Dany still believes that conciliation is the best option because she wants (and thinks this will help) to prevent more deaths at any cost, so she considers, for now, that making peace with the Yunkish may be "the best end we can hope for". She doesn't make a firm decision here, but she's more willing to end Meereen's neutrality now than she was before.

What I also find interesting is that this moment shows that her development is not linear and clear-cut. I've defended before that war is the only righteous option in the political arena Dany is currently in and that it's good that she's coming to that realization. Here, however, despite learning how her very existence is enough for the slavers to attempt to attack and undermine her, she still chooses the more lenient path for now.

ADWD Daenerys V

Question 11: Do I end Meereen’s neutrality? (by waging war against Yunkai)

Advice from: Barristan, Brown Ben, Reznak, the Shavepate.

Dany’s answer: No (with some consideration).

Motivation: Peace and freedmen.

Before this chapter, Dany already had many problems to deal with - the Sons wreaking havoc in Meereen, Astapor about to fall into Yunkai's hands, the city's economic crisis and multiple cities turning against her to reinstall slavery in Slaver's Bay.

In this chapter, not only she finds out that Astapor has fallen, but a new complication is also introduced: the bloody flux. Dany's first impulse is to be optimistic when she listens to the news of the rider on a pale mare with signs of the bloody flux ... until she realizes that his arrival fulfills Quaithe's prophecy. Dany knows what "she is burning" means next:

The Green Grace kissed Dany’s fingers before she took her leave. “We shall pray for Astapor.”

And for me. Oh, pray for me, my lady. If Astapor had fallen, nothing remained to prevent Yunkai from turning north. (ADWD Daenerys V)

She asks for Barristan to recall her bloodriders, the Stormcrows and the Second Sons. Her sense of dread grows, as well as her need for companionship. Eight days later, Brown Ben returns with the first three Astapori refugees who managed to find their way to Meereen. Basically, they disclose that:

Cleon the Great's fall led to more political chaos with King Cutthroat and Queen Whore's dissension.

The Yunkish devoured Astapor's crops and slaughtered their herds as the Red City's habitants remained stuck inside the gates eating "cats and rats and leather".

Due to the Astapori's malnutrition, the bloody flux eventually came and killed three in every four men inside the city.

Either dying men or healthy men trying to escape the flux killed the guards on the main gate to open it.

New Ghis, the Yunkai'i and their sellswords finally enter the city; they kill Queen Whore and King Cutthroat, set fire to the Temple of the Graces, close Astapor's gates to prevent anyone from leaving it and hunt down the Astapori who try to flee from the flames.

It's important to lay out all of these events because, along with the weaver's guilt trip (sympathetic as it is), they contextualize Dany's guilt (and all of her next decisions):

He sent for me, thought Dany. That much is true, at least. (ADWD Daenerys V)

I can scarce feed my own folk. If I had marched to Astapor, I would have lost Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys V)

I could not come, the queen thought. I dare not. (ADWD Daenerys V)

She knows I lie, the queen thought. She knows I cannot keep them safe. Astapor is burning, and Meereen is next. (ADWD Daenerys V)

After the Astapori leave, Ben warns Dany and her counsellors that more refugees are coming. Both Reznak and Ben advise her not to allow them to enter the city. After Ben compares them to bad apples for being sick, Dany passionately replies:

“These are not apples, Ben,” said Dany. “These are men and women, sick and hungry and afraid.” My children. (ADWD Daenerys V)

It's a similar response to the one she gave Xaro two chapters ago; unlike the people around her, Dany refuses to trivialize the former slaves' suffering.

Also, unlike how she replied questions 1, 5 and 8, Dany has now come to regret not having helped Astapor:

“I should have gone to Astapor.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

“Cleon was the enemy of our enemy. If I had joined him at the Horns of Hazzat, we might have crushed the Yunkai’i between us.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Both Barristan and the Shavepate point out that Dany's military strength wasn't enough to help them and control the shadow war in Meereen at the same time, so she only had bad choices here. Even so, Dany can't not hold herself accountable:

“I know. I know. It is Eroeh all over again.”

Brown Ben Plumm was puzzled. “Who is Eroeh?”

“A girl I thought I’d saved from rape and torment. All I did was make it worse for her in the end. And all I did in Astapor was make ten thousand Eroehs.”

“Your Grace could not have known—”

“I am the queen. It was my place to know.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Does that mean we the readers should blame Dany as well? No.

On the one hand, yes, her mistake in not leaving a garrison to support her council did make it easier for Cleon to depose it and create political instability in the city that would later benefit the Yunkai'i.

On the other hand, as I said in this post, Dany is not responsible for the Yunkish's choice to commit disproportional acts of violence against the Astapori.

Reznak suggests a marriage with Hizdahr to make peace with the Yunkai'i, but Dany is understandably wary of him due to Quaithe's prophecy. She distrusts him and she distrusts Yunkai (who broke its previous truce with Dany, even though she left their wealth intact) even more:

“I may be a young girl innocent of war, but I am not a lamb to walk bleating into the harpy’s den. I still have my Unsullied. I have the Stormcrows and the Second Sons. I have three companies of freedmen.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Ben advises Dany to unleash her dragons, to which Reznak reacts with (veeeery hypocritical) indignation. Dany silences Reznak with "fury in her tone" and tells Ben that she won't use her dragons against her enemies. Nor will she follow his advice to sell Meereen and leave. In this particular moment, Dany is seriously considering to engage in armed conflict against Yunkai:

“...Grey Worm, are my freedmen ready for battle?” (ADWD Daenerys V)

“I defeated the Yunkai’i before. I will defeat them again. Where, though? How?” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Barristan thinks that attacking right away and taking advantage of the element of surprise would be the best course of action. The Shavepate disagrees because, according to him, the Yunkai'i have too many friends inside the city and Meereen's walls and protectors are stronger than Astapor's. This leads Dany to ask how large an army she can assemble and Ben doesn't give her a hopeful answer.

With all of this advice in mind, Dany orders Ben and his Second Sons to scout the Yunkish forces (and Ben requests more gold because he knows that he's going to turn on Dany) and asks Reznak to close the gates and double the number of soldiers keeping watch upon the walls.

Her ultimate decision on whether to bring war to the Yunkai'i or not is made with Barristan. He thinks it's unfeasible to maintain a siege, so he reinforces his advice to attack them. But Dany thinks critically about his counsel and finds problems in it:

“Meet the foe,” she echoed, “with the freedmen you’ve called half-trained and unblooded.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

“Or five. And if I give you the Unsullied, I will have no one but the Brazen Beasts to hold Meereen.”

Ultimately, it's the same reason why she couldn't help Astapor: if she had done it, she would have left Meereen itself vulnerable. So she concludes:

“I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me.[”] (ADWD Daenerys V)

My thoughts on how she dealt with this situation:

It's common to think that Dany is "made for war", not peace (or, alternatively, that she's a good heroine and a bad ruler). This assessment does a disservice to her character for putting her in a very limiting box that the text itself does not. As we see above (and as we saw in question 8), she can decide to lock her dragons and consider the option of bringing war to the Yunkai'i at the same time. She's more flexible than a single stance (either war or peace) even when she's primarily focused on one over the other.

Related to that point, she doesn't depend on a single advisor's viewpoint to make her decisions. She may trust Barristan more than she does either Reznak (who she suspects to be prophecied to betray her) or the Shavepate, but she still chooses their counsels (marrying Hizdahr and not taking up arms) because of their merit.

Question 12: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by marrying a noble)?

Advice from: Reznak.

Dany’s answer: Yes.

Motivation: Peace.

As I said above, Dany is not making this decision based on Reznak's opinions, but on her own. Her goals are not as the same as his, after all; unlike Reznak or any other noble, she cares about the former slaves' plight and holds herself accountable for whatever ill happened to them once she freed them. That's why she has this thought while she considers what to do and ultimately decides:

“I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me. The whole city. I need … I need …” She could not say it.

“Your Grace?” Ser Barristan prompted, gently.

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people.

“I need Hizdahr zo Loraq.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

The sack of Meereen, Stalwart Shield's and Rylona Rhee's and dozens of other deaths in Meereen, the fall of Astapor, the Astapori refugees coming infected by the pale mare ... These things are all looming large over Dany's head when she makes her choice. Again, it's ultimately not the right one since her goal is to end slavery, but one can understand why she would want to prevent more carnage from happening and why she would think that that would be the best course of action.

ADWD Daenerys VI

Question 13: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by accepting even more concessions for the marriage)?

Advice from: the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany’s answer: Yes, under some conditions.

Motivation: Peace and herself.

Dany's answer to this question is significant because it's the only one in which she explictly defends her own needs and desires:

The priestess and the seneschal were happy to see her garbed in a tokar, a proper Meereenese lady for once, but what they really wanted was to strip her bare. Daenerys heard them out, incredulous. When they were done, she said, “I have no wish to give offense, but I will not present myself naked to Hizdahr’s mother and sisters.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

To contextualize the passage above, Reznak and the Green Grace want Dany to have her womb examined by her soon-to-be husband's mother and sisters. They also want her to wash Hizdahr's feet to become her "handmaid". These are Dany's ultimate decisions on the matter:

And if my womb is withered and my female parts accursed, is there a special cake for that as well? “Hizdahr zo Loraq may inspect my women’s parts after we are wed.” Khal Drogo found no fault with them, why should he? “Let his mother and his sisters examine one another and share the special cake. I shall not be eating it. [...] If my husband wishes me to wash his feet, he must first wash mine. I will tell him so this evening.” She wondered how her betrothed would take that. (ADWD Daenerys VI)

This is a great moment for a number of reasons:

Dany's shrewdness shines through here. By requesting Hizdahr to wash her feet before she washes his, she makes a statement that she is still the queen regnant and he is just king consort. This prevents her authority from being undermined.

It's also interesting to ponder why Dany is questioning these customs. Is it because of her own values or because of her belief that she's infertile (or both)? Would she still question them if she didn't think she was infertile? These questions show how her character development is, as I noted above, not clear-cut and linear. They also show how her identity as a she-king and a barren woman (and a former sex slave) is propelling her to become keenly aware of systemic injustices. I wonder how she'll react to the Westerosi marriage customs that treat women like brood mare based on the decisions she is now making - consciously or not, but slowly and surely gaining more conscience - against them.

Dany concedes other requests from her advisors, however. She gives up on the idea to marry by Westerosi rites and agrees to use a "white tokar fringed with baby pearls" (which represent fertility) during her wedding.

When the Green Grace brings up that Dany should marry in the Temple of the Graces, this is what she thinks:

Get the heads of all the noble houses out of their pyramids on some pretext, Daario had said. The dragon’s words are fire and blood. Dany pushed the thought aside. It was not worthy of her. (ADWD Daenerys VI)

I've already shared my thoughts on why Dany remembers Daario's advice two chapters after he gave it on this post. To summarize them, it has a similar purpose that of Jorah, which she remembered in ADWD Daenerys V; both men are asking her to compromise her moral values for the sake of her goals (Jorah wanted her to buy the Unsullied and be complicit in the slave trade, Daario wants her to kill all the masters inside the city). I've defended before that war is the only righteous option in Dany's particular case; having her think back to these advices, in my opinion, is the author seeding her eventual transformation into the Daenerys of ASOS, whose draconic force was associated with freedom when she decided to break the rules (like Jorah suggested), but not by compromising her moral principles, but because of her moral principles. Like ASOS!Dany, TWOW!Dany will be more forceful and find a way that integrates both dragonfire and her morality in whatever she does next. We will see that embracing her identity as the mother of dragons will be what Dany needed to be a better mhysa.

Question 14: Do I assimilate myself into the Meereenese nobility (by reopening the fighting pits)?

Advice from: the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany’s answer: Yes, under some conditions.

Motivation: Peace.

This is another concession that Dany makes while she interacts with Reznak and the Green Grace:

A bride price paid in blood. Daenerys was weary of fighting this battle. Even Ser Barristan did not think she could win. “No ruler can make a people good,” Selmy had told her. “Baelor the Blessed prayed and fasted and built the Seven as splendid a temple as any gods could wish for, yet he could not put an end to war and want.” A queen must listen to her people, Dany reminded herself. “After the wedding Hizdahr will be king. Let him reopen the fighting pits if he wishes. I want no part of it.” Let the blood be on his hands, not mine. (ADWD Daenerys VI)

I've already explained in questions 4 and 7 and especially in this meta why Dany is against the fighting pits and why she is right to be, so I won't belabor that point.

What I will say is that it's fitting that the fighting pits, a symbol of the slavers' oppression of the slaves since ASOS and the one custom that Dany was seen continuously opposing throughout this book, is the last concession that she needs to make in the name of the false peace.

Later, I will comment on the restrictions that Dany imposed to make the duels in the pits less harmful to the freedmen.

Question 15: Do I end Meereen’s neutrality? (by making peace with Yunkai)

Advice from: Hizdahr.

Dany’s answer: Yes.

Motivation: Peace.

In the same day that she discussed the wedding preparations with the Green Grace and Reznak, Dany also has a meeting with Hizdahr. He brings her Yunkai's terms of peace; first, they require an indemnity in "gold and gemstones".

Gold and gems were easy. “What else?” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

Dany's reaction here is notable. First, it shows that she is not out to profit off the former slaves, as I've already pointed out in this meta. If she were, she wouldn't be okay with that requirement (in fact, she wouldn't have even stayed and tried to bring order to the city). Second, it seems easy to her because it mirrors her wish to "pay the boy Joffrey a chest of gold" instead of having to fight against him when she returns to Westeros. Both before and now, we see that Dany isn't someone who naturally gravitates towards violent methods, but who is rather thrown into situations where using them is necessary (whether to end slavery or to restore her family's rights). Even so, she wishes she could have as "easy" and "pleasant" a choice like that one. Here, it speaks volumes for her selflessness since her fight is for the greater good rather than her own benefit.

But she had been forewarned by Hizdahr that they would ask for more, and that "more" will always be intolerable to her - they will reinstall slavery and ask her not to interfere. This incites a bigger reaction from her:

“The Yunkai’i resumed their slaving before I was two leagues from their city. Did I turn back? King Cleon begged me to join with him against them, and I turned a deaf ear to his pleas. I want no war with Yunkai. How many times must I say it? What promises do they require?” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

Hizdahr replies that, to secure this peace agreement, the Yunkai'i want to see her married to him. That leads to Dany perfectly summing up her dilemma (as she had already done two chapters before):

“Marriage or carnage. A wedding or a war. Are those my choices?” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

As Xaro (in question 8) and Hizdahr himself (question 10) had both said before, Dany's actions had an impact in the continent's entire economic order. They won't rest until they know that her power is neutralized by a man and that her influence is restricted to a single city (or not; they could have just as easily betrayed the terms of the deal, for all we know). But Dany can't let that sink in yet because doing so would mean realizing that she can't try to "plant trees and see them grow" at this moment. Doing so would mean realizing that "carnage" can be the better option if she wants to protect her children, but she desperately doesn't want it to be. For now, then, she chooses "marriage".

And then, as we know, another complication outside of her control is added: Brown Ben and the Second Sons betrayed her. This stings for a variety of reasons:

As I briefly noted in question 11, GRRM intertwines the personal and political issues of Dany's storyline - her need for companionship grew as her political situation deteriorated. We saw this in the previous chapter when she was "so pleased" to see Ben again that she hugged her and they laughed together. We saw it too when she looked at the men around her and wished everyone who she holds dear was there too - Daario and her bloodriders and Jorah. That this happened now hurts that much more.

Also back in question 11, Barristan had warned Dany that it would be unfeasible to withstand a siege against Yunkai because the city is "overcrowded and full of hungry mouths" and she has "too many enemies within". Now that she lost the support of five hundred men, her ability to hold the city against the Yunkai'i is severely compromised; she lacks both the military strength and the food to do so. With all of these issues in mind, she can't do anything else but to gather food to sustain the Meereenese citizens, keep all of her forces inside and close the gates with the Astapori refugees starving outside of the city. It's an excrutiatingly painful decision for Dany - if it weren't, she wouldn't want "to scream, to gnash her teeth and tear her clothes and beat upon the floor". We already know that she wants, more than anything, to protect the ones who can't protect themselves. We already know that she holds herself accountable for the "ten thousand Eroehs" from Astapor's fall (even though this was the slavers' fault and only theirs). We already know that she cares so much about these refugees that she went to bring the food herself, wished she could share the food equally, bathed an old man and shamed all her men into helping her. Still, as she acknowledges, "[t]hey were her children, but she could not help them now". Her hand is being forced here.

Dany’s ultimate choices

These fifteen questions can be ultimately boiled down to three main issues that Dany wrestled with from ASOS Daenerys VI to ADWD Daenerys VI (when she made her ultimate choices on all of them):

Adherence to Ghiscari cultural norms: Wearing the tokar was relatively easy (question 3) for Dany. So was wearing a white tokar with baby pearls, though she thankfully did not give in to having her womb inspected or to washing her husband's feet first (question 13). The matter of the fighting pits was the one that Dany was most often seen being (rightfully) opposed to (questions 4, 7, 14), but even that had to be conceded in the end.

Meereen's relationship with the other city-states: From the end of ASOS until ADWD Daenerys III (questions 1, 5, 8), Dany tried to remain neutral and not intervene in what Yunkai, Astapor and the other cities were doing in the vain hope that they would leave her alone. However, as Yunkai found more allies, the Sons continued to murder citizens, Astapor fell and more refugees kept coming, Dany was backed into a corner from ADWD Daenerys IV to VI (questions 10, 11, 15). She struggled with remaining neutral more and more until she finally agreed to a truce that would allow them to resume slaving in Yunkai and Astapor and that would require her to marry a slaver.

Marriage: This one is, of course, tied to the first two issues. It was one that Dany chose not to think about too much (question 6) until her situation in ADWD Daenerys IV became too dire for her not to consider it more seriously (question 9). Then, in ADWD Daenerys V, she firmly decides to marry Hizdahr (question 12). This was no easy choice, for it meant marrying a man she doesn't love, abandoning one she loves and giving up on potential husbands who would better serve her political interests in Westeros.

It's also interesting to note which motivations primarily drove her decisions up until this point:

Peace: questions 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Freedmen: questions 4, 7, 11

Herself: questions 6, 13

Empathy: question 2

The consequences of Dany's choices and her reactions

As I showed above, Dany's last chapter of ASOS and her first six of ADWD had Dany pondering on the three main issues above. She made her choices concerning all of them by the end of ADWD Daenerys VI.

ADWD Daenerys VII to IX are about the consequences of these decisions and how Dany reacts to them.

The first consequence is that she doesn't get to make her own choices anymore. The Yunkish arrived in the city and are now ready to attack her if need be:

Her foes were all about her. There were never less than a dozen ships drawn up on the shore. Some days there were as many as a hundred, when the soldiers were disembarking. The Yunkai’i were even bringing in wood by sea. Behind their ditches, they were building catapults, scorpions, tall trebuchets. On still nights she could hear the hammers ringing through the warm, dry air. No siege towers, though. No battering rams. They would not try to take Meereen by storm. They would wait behind their siege lines, flinging stones at her until famine and disease had brought her people to their knees. (ADWD Daenerys VII)

Dany turned to gaze out over her city. Beyond her walls the yellow tents of the Yunkai’i stood in orderly rows beside the sea, protected by the ditches their slaves had dug for them. Two iron legions out of New Ghis, trained and armed in the same fashion as Unsullied, were encamped across the river to the north. Two more Ghiscari legions had made camp to the east, choking off the road to the Khyzai Pass. The horse lines and cookfires of the free companies lay to the south. By day thin plumes of smoke hung against the sky like ragged grey ribbons. By night distant fires could be seen. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

The second consequence is that the working conditions of many freedmen haven't improved, despite the fact that they are no longer slaves. One scene is noticeable because Dany is forced to be complicit in their mistreatment because she's wearing the tokar, which is "a master's garment, a sign of wealth and power":

Meereenese seldom rode within their city walls. They preferred palanquins, litters, and sedan chairs, borne upon the shoulders of their slaves. “Horses befoul the streets,” one man of Zakh had told her, “slaves do not.” Dany had freed the slaves, yet palanquins, litters, and sedan chairs still choked the streets as before, and none of them floated magically through the air.

“The day is too hot to be shut up in a palanquin,” said Dany. “Have my silver saddled. I would not go to my lord husband upon the backs of bearers.”

“Your Grace,” said Missandei, “this one is so sorry, but you cannot ride in a tokar.”

The little scribe was right, as she so often was. The tokar was not a garment meant for horseback. Dany made a face. “As you say. Not the palanquin, though. I would suffocate behind those drapes. Have them ready a sedan chair.” If she must wear her floppy ears, let all the rabbits see her. (ADWD Daenerys VII)

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.” (ADWD Daenerys IX)

The third consequence is that Dany is forced to accept the presence of the Yunkish masters' slaves and their slave markets:

The Yunkish Supreme Commander, Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, might have been alive during Aegon’s Conquest, to judge by his appearance. Bent-backed, wrinkled, and toothless, he was carried to the table by two strapping slaves. The other Yunkish lords were hardly more impressive. One was small and stunted, though the slave soldiers who attended him were grotesquely tall and thin. The third was young, fit, and dashing, but so drunk that Dany could scarce understand a word he said. How could I have been brought to this pass by creatures such as these? (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

“Have you ever heard such singing, my love?” Hizdahr asked her. “They have the voices of gods, do they not?”

“Yes,” she said, “though I wonder if they might not have preferred to have the fruits of men.”

All of the entertainers were slaves. That had been part of the peace, that slaveowners be allowed the right to bring their chattels into Meereen without fear of having them freed. In return the Yunkai’i had promised to respect the rights and liberties of the former slaves that Dany had freed. A fair bargain, Hizdahr said, but the taste it left in the queen’s mouth was foul. She drank another cup of wine to wash it out.

“If it please you, Yurkhaz will be pleased to give us the singers, I do not doubt,” her noble husband said. “A gift to seal our peace, an ornament to our court.”

He will give us these castrati, Dany thought, and then he will march home and make some more. The world is full of boys. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

“The Yunkai’i will soon be gone, and their allies and hirelings with them. We shall have all we desired. Peace, food, trade. Our port is open once again, and ships are being permitted to come and go.”

“They are permitting that, yes,” she had replied, “but their warships remain. They can close their fingers around our throat again whenever they wish. They have opened a slave market within sight of my walls!”

“Outside our walls, sweet queen. That was a condition of the peace, that Yunkai would be free to trade in slaves as before, unmolested.”

“In their own city. Not where I have to see it.” The Wise Masters had established their slave pens and auction block just south of the Skahazadhan, where the wide brown river flowed into Slaver’s Bay. “They are mocking me to my face, making a show of how powerless I am to stop them.”

“Posing and posturing,” said her noble husband. “A show, as you have said. Let them have their mummery. When they are gone, we will make a fruit market of what they leave behind.”

“When they are gone,” Dany repeated. “And when will they be gone? Riders have been seen beyond the Skahazadhan. Dothraki scouts, Rakharo says, with a khalasar behind them. They will have captives. Men, women, and children, gifts for the slavers.” Dothraki did not buy or sell, but they gave gifts and received them. “That is why the Yunkai’i have thrown up this market. They will leave here with thousands of new slaves.”

Hizdahr zo Loraq shrugged. “But they will leave. That is the important part, my love. Yunkai will trade in slaves, Meereen will not, this is what we have agreed. Endure this for a little while longer, and it shall pass.” (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

And no, the slave market is not just "posing and posturing", as some might argue. We see in Tyrion's chapters how horribly the Yunkish slavers treat the people being sold in that slave market and how what's happening is taken for granted:

"Four", called a monstrously fat Yunkishman from the litter where he sprawled like a leviathan. Covered all in yellow silk fringed with gold, he looked as large as four Illyrios. Tyrion pitied the slaves who had to carry him. At least he will be spared that duty. What a joy to be a dwarf. (ADWD Tyrion X)

At sixteen hundred the pace began to flag again, so the slave trader invited some of the buyers to come up for a closer look at the dwarfs.

"The female's young", he promised. "You could breed the two of them, get good coin for the whelps." (ADWD Tyrion X)

One of the guards yanked him back to his feet. Another prodded Penny down off the platform with the butt of his spear. The next piece of chattel was already being led to take their place. A girl, fifteen or sixteen, not off the Selaesori Qhoran this time. Tyrion did not know her. The same age as Daenerys Targaryen, or near enough. The slaver soon had her naked. At least we were spared that humiliation. (ADWD Tyrion X)

Tyrion saw a slave being whipped, blow after blow, until his back was nothing but blood and raw meat. A file of men marched past in irons, clanking with every step; they carried spears and wore short swords, but chains linked them wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle. The air smelled of roasting meat, and he saw one man skinning a dog for his stewpot. (ADWD Tyrion X)

The captives had been tied to a row of crossbeams, and a pair of slingers were using them to test their skills. "Tolosi", one of the guards told them. "The best slingers in the world. They throw soft lead balls in place of stones." (ADWD Tyrion X)

Most of the guests paid them no more mind than they did the other slaves ... but one Yunkishman declared drunkenly that Yezzan should make the two dwarfs fuck, and another demanded to know how Tyrion had lost his nose. I shoved it up your wife's cunt and she bit it off, he almost replied ... but the storm had persuaded him that he did not want to die as yet, so instead he said, "It was cut to punish me for insolence, lord."

The fourth consequence is that the anti-slavery member of Dany's council loses control of the Brazen Beasts:

The Shavepate was absent as well. The first thing Hizdahr had done upon being crowned was to remove him from command of the Brazen Beasts, replacing him with his own cousin, the plump and pasty Marghaz zo Loraq. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

The fifth consequence is that, with the fighting pits reopened, freedmen are being slaughtered to amuse the noblemen:

“This one shows much promise, my sweet,” Hizdahr said of a Lysene youth with long blond hair that fluttered in the wind … but his foe grabbed a handful of that hair, pulled the boy offbalance, and gutted him. In death he looked even younger than he had with blade in hand. “A boy,” said Dany. “He was only a boy.” (ADWD Daenerys IX)

This time her leap came an instant too late, and a tusk ripped her left leg open from knee to crotch.

A moan went up from thirty thousand throats. Clutching at her torn leg, Barsena dropped her knife and tried to hobble off, but before she had gone two feet the boar was on her once again. Dany turned her face away. “Was that brave enough?” she asked Strong Belwas, as a scream rang out across the sand. (ADWD Daenerys IX)

I've already talked here about why the duels in the fighting pits perpetuate social inequality. To sum up my points, the deaths of the Lysene youth and Barsena are injustices because they never had opportunities to question the harmful conditions they were subjected to and fight for their dignity. To make things worse, the reopening of the pits would have certainly allowed more cases like this to happen:

He had even kept the truth of Daznak's Pit from her.

Lions. They were going to set lions on us. It would have been exquisitely ironic, that. Perhaps he would have had time for a short, bitter chortle before being torn apart.

No one ever told him the end that had been planned for them, not in so many words, but it had not been hard to puzzle out, down beneath the bricks of Daznak's Pit, in the hidden world below the seats, the dark domain of the pit fighters and the serving men who tended to them, quick and dead—the cooks who fed them, the ironmongers who armed them, the barber-surgeons who bled them and shaved them and bound up their wounds, the whores who serviced them before and after fights, the corpse handlers who dragged the losers off the sands with chains and iron hooks.

Nurse's face had given Tyrion his first inkling. After their show, he and Penny had returned to the torchlit vault where the fighters gathered before and after their matches. Some sat sharpening their weapons; others sacrificed to queer gods, or dulled their nerves with milk of the poppy before going out to die. Those who'd fought and won were dicing in a corner, laughing as only men who have just faced death and lived can laugh.

Nurse was paying out some silver to a pit man on a lost wager when he spied Penny leading Crunch. The confusion in his eyes was gone in half a heartbeat, but not before Tyrion grasped what it meant. Nurse did not expect us back. He had looked around at other faces. None of them expected us back. We were meant to die out there. The final piece fell into place when he overheard an animal trainer complaining loudly to the pitmaster. "The lions are hungry. Two days since they ate. I was told not to feed them, and I haven't. The queen should pay for meat." (ADWD Tyrion XI)

As we can see, Tyrion's (and Quentyn's and Barristan's and even Victarion's) chapters are partly meant to display how false this peace is. The passage above is the firsthand account of a man who was almost sent to "fight" lions without having ever agreed to do so. Again, this sort of occurence would become more frequent with time, which is only fitting since these duels are customs inextricably tied to slavery.

Now, how does Dany react to these developments?

First, she stopped holding court:

“As my queen commands. Will you hold court today?”

“No. On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people.”

“Some are his, some are yours. The ones you freed.”

“Are you chiding me?”

“The ones you call your children. They want their mother.”

“You are. You are chiding me.”

“Only a little, bright heart. Will you come hold court?”

“After my wedding, perhaps. After the peace.” (ADWD Daenerys VII)

This is Dany's lowest point in ADWD - here, she gave up on being both mhysa and mother of dragons in the vain attempt to make peace with the slavers. She is too disillusioned by the negative repercussions of her actions and would rather leave the ruling to her husband out of spite.

What's interesting is that Daario (who represents war, among other things) advises her to hold court again. This is one of the signs that Dany needs to re-embrace her identity as the Mother of Dragons to be a better mhysa to her people. These are balancing identities in many ways, not just opposing ones.

Second, Dany attempts to turn mercenaries to her cause because she doesn't trust neither the slavers nor Hizdahr:

“I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but it seems to me that we want them to be treacherous. Once, you’ll recall, I convinced the Second Sons and Stormcrows to join us.”

“If Your Grace wishes a privy word with Gylo Rhegan or the Tattered Prince, I could bring them up to your apartments.”

“This is not the time. Too many eyes, too many ears. Their absence would be noted even if you could separate them discreetly from the Yunkai’i. We must find some quieter way of reaching out to them … not tonight, but soon.”

[…] “Our prisoners,” suggested Dany. “The Westerosi who came over from the Windblown with the three Dornishmen. We still have them in cells, do we not? Use them.”

[…] “We can still use them. One was a woman. Meris. Send her back, as a … a gesture of my regard. If their captain is a clever man, he will understand.”

“The woman is the worst of all.”

“All the better.” Dany considered a moment. “We should sound out the Long Lances too. And the Company of the Cat.”

“Bloodbeard.” Ser Barristan’s frown deepened. “If it please Your Grace, we want no part of him. Your Grace is too young to remember the Ninepenny Kings, but this Bloodbeard is cut from the same savage cloth. There is no honor in him, only hunger … for gold, for glory, for blood.”

“You know more of such men than me, ser.” If Bloodbeard might be truly the most dishonorable and greedy of the sellswords, he might be the easiest to sway, but she was loath to go against Ser Barristan’s counsel in such matters. “Do as you think best. But do it soon. If Hizdahr’s peace should break, I want to be ready. I do not trust the slavers.” I do not trust my husband. “They will turn on us at the first sign of weakness.”

“The Yunkai’i grow weaker as well. The bloody flux has taken hold amongst the Tolosi, it is said, and spread across the river to the third Ghiscari legion.”

[…] “I cannot rely on plague to save me from my enemies. Set Pretty Meris free. At once.” (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

I mentioned in question 13 that Dany is turning back into the Daenerys of ASOS (and argued that that's a good thing). Here, we see another sign of that gradual transformation, as she frees Pretty Meris to try to convince the sellsword companies to switch allegiances like she did in ASOS (Dany herself even alludes to it).

Third, Dany makes restrictions to the duels to lessen the harshness towards the participants:

“...No children die today in Daznak’s, as my gentle queen in her wisdom has decreed.”

Another small victory. Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad. Daenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany had relented.

It had been the custom to sentence criminals to the pits; that practice she agreed might resume, but only for certain crimes. “Murderers and rapers may be forced to fight, and all those who persist in slaving, but not thieves or debtors.”

Beasts were still allowed, though. (ADWD Daenerys IX)

Fourth, she takes off her tokar:

“Khaleesi?” Irri asked. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off my floppy ears.” (ADWD Daenerys IX)

It's very fitting that she takes off the tokar, "a master's garment" and "a sign of wealth and power", while she witnesses the injustices occurring inside the pit. This, along with Drogon's arrival and Dany turning him away from the city, signals her rejection of a peace that prioritizes the nobles over the former slaves.

Fifth, Dany explicitly rejects the peace:

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. (ADWD Daenerys X)

“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. (ADWD Daenerys X)

Do these realizations mark the beginning of a dark turn for Dany? Maybe (though it would carry negative implications depending on its execution), but that's not all there is to it. Trying to find common ground with the slavers was the first root of all her problems and she has now addressed it. Avoiding to use violence was the second root of all her problems and she has now addressed it.

I've already speculated that Dany embracing her house's words is (mostly) a good thing. There's a lot of discussion regarding the purpose of this scene, which goes beyond the scope of this meta. For more on this topic, see here, here, here and here.

Which problems are the masters' responsibility, not Dany's

A recurring argument to support the opinion that Dany is a bad ruler is that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" or "good intentions, disastrous outcomes". It simply does not hold water for two major reasons.

It puts the blame on Dany for the slavers' actions (which is particularly wrong because she is actively trying to make things better for the very people that they oppressed).

Carnage would have always occurred one way or another, even if Dany had been less lenient towards them from the get-go. It's likely that there would have been less collateral damage if she had killed and/or neutralized the slavers' power right away, yes, but this circles back to my first argument - that she is not responsible for their disproportionate reactions.

Let's take a look at some of the tragedies that occurred during Dany's tenure and see who was at fault.

The Great Masters of Meereen had withdrawn before Dany’s advance, harvesting all they could and burning what they could not harvest. Scorched fields and poisoned wells had greeted her at every hand. Worst of all, they had nailed a slave child up on every milepost along the coast road from Yunkai, nailed them up still living with their entrails hanging out and one arm always outstretched to point the way to Meereen. Leading her van, Daario had given orders for the children to be taken down before Dany had to see them, but she had countermanded him as soon as she was told. “I will see them,” she said. “I will see every one, and count them, and look upon their faces. And I will remember.”

By the time they came to Meereen sitting on the salt coast beside her river, the count stood at one hundred and sixty-three. I will have this city, Dany pledged to herself once more. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

It's not Dany's fault that the city's economy collapsed during her tenure, it's the masters'; Meereen's main exports were slaves and olives. The latter became unavailable because the slavers burned the fields, while the former became unavailable because Dany decided to show the entire continent that the lives of the former slaves matter and that they can't be sold.

It's not Dany's fault that one hundred and sixty-three children were crucified, it's the masters'. To hold her accountable for these deeds makes no sense (and veers into slavery apologia) because the slave masters have agency of their own and she was actively trying to undo the damage they caused for thinking that selling human lives and treating them as it pleased them was okay.

“Yunkai’s sellswords roam the hills north of Astapor, hunting down those who flee the flames.”

“Has the city fallen, then? Its walls were thick.”

“This is so,” said the bricklayer, a stoop-backed man with rheumy eyes, “but they were old and crumbling as well.”

[…] “Outside our walls, the Yunkai’i devoured our crops and slaughtered our herds,” the cobbler went on. “Inside we starved. We ate cats and rats and leather. A horsehide was a feast. King Cutthroat and Queen Whore accused each other of feasting on the flesh of the slain. Men and women gathered in secret to draw lots and gorge upon the flesh of him who drew the black stone. […] Soon after came the sickness, a bloody flux that killed three men of every four, until a mob of dying men went mad and slew the guards on the main gate.”

The old brickmaker broke in to say, “No. That was the work of healthy men, running to escape the flux.”

“Does it matter?” asked the cobbler. “The guards were torn apart and the gates thrown open. The legions of New Ghis came pouring into Astapor, followed by the Yunkai’i and the sellswords on their horses. Queen Whore died fighting them with a curse upon her lips. King Cutthroat yielded and was thrown into a fighting pit, to be torn apart by a pack of starving dogs.”

[…] “And when the city fell?” demanded Skahaz. “What then?”

“The butchery began. The Temple of the Graces was full of the sick who had come to ask the gods to heal them. The legions sealed the doors and set the temple ablaze with torches. Within the hour fires were burning in every corner of the city. As they spread they joined with one another. The streets were full of mobs, running this way and that to escape the flames, but there was no way out. The Yunkai’i held the gates.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

I've said it in a previous post and will say again - it's not Dany's fault that Astapor fell, it's the masters'. Yes, she made mistakes when she didn't leave a garrison to the council she installed in the Red City and let the Yunkai'i retain their wealth and influence; her lenience made Astapor's fall possible. It still doesn't make her responsible for the fact that they chose to hunt down the citizens and burn the entire city to serve as a lesson for the abolitionists.

What's more, letting the slaves starve inside the city and eat "cats and rats and leather" was probably what caused the bloody flux, so it's not Dany's fault that the pale mare spread throughout the city and the region either, it's the masters'. To hold her accountable for these deeds makes no sense (and veers into slavery apologia) because the slave masters have agency of their own and she was actively trying to undo the damage they caused for thinking that selling human lives and treating them as it pleased them was okay.

It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded. (ADWD The Queensguard)

It's not Dany's fault that Drogon arrived. She couldn't control him anymore and casualties were probably inevitable the moment he showed up. What actually set his attacks in motion was the spearman's attack on him, but again, Dany couldn't have prevented these things from happening. She did the only thing she could've done, which was to throw herself between him and the people in the arena and attempt to control him (which she ultimately does by flying away with him and saving more lives in the process). Related to that point, it's not Dany's fault that the peace agreement with Yunkai was compromised because of Drogon's arrival.

"Thus does Yunkai make reply to your offers, ser. I warned you that you would not like their answer."

They choose war, then. So be it. Ser Barristan felt oddly relieved. War he understood. "If they think they will break Meereen by throwing stones—"

"Not stones." The old woman's voice was full of grief, of fear. "Corpses." (ADWD The Queen's Hand)

It's not Dany's fault (nor Barristan's) that the slavers decided to throw corpses afflicted by the pale mare to spread the disease in Meereen and end the siege more quickly. That was the slavers' choice and only theirs. To hold her accountable for these deeds makes no sense (and veers into slavery apologia) because the slave masters have agency of their own and she was actively trying to undo the damage they caused for thinking that selling human lives and treating them as it pleased them was okay.

Which brings me back to the second major reason I'd mentioned above concerning why the accusation that Dany's good intentions led to horrible outcomes is weak at best and slavery apologia at worse: violence and casualties would have always been inevitable because the slavers would have always tried to fight to restore the slave trade. This is in the best interests of not just Yunkai, but of multiple city-states, most notable of all Volantis:

"The best calumnies are spiced with truth," suggested Qavo, "but the girl's true sin cannot be denied. This arrogant child has taken it upon herself to smash the slave trade, but that traffic was never confined to Slaver's Bay. It was part of the sea of trade that spanned the world, and the dragon queen has clouded the water. Behind the Black Wall, lords of ancient blood sleep poorly, listening as their kitchen slaves sharpen their long knives. Slaves grow our food, clean our streets, teach our young. They guard our walls, row our galleys, fight our battles. And now when they look east, they see this young queen shining from afar, this breaker of chains. The Old Blood cannot suffer that. Poor men hate her too. Even the vilest beggar stands higher than a slave. This dragon queen would rob him of that consolation." (ADWD Tyrion XI)

This is also one of the two reasons why the argument that Dany was "stupid" for having trusted the Meereenese nobles is very weak; not only I've said before that we don't have concrete (though it's convincing enough) evidence that they acted in bad faith, but even if they hadn't, the peace couldn't have been kept.

Poor old Yezzan. The lord of suet was not so bad as masters went. Sweets had been right about that. Serving at his nightly banquets, Tyrion had soon learned that Yezzan stood foremost amongst those Yunkish lords who favored honoring the peace with Meereen. Most of the others were only biding their time, waiting for the armies of Volantis to arrive. A few wanted to assault the city immediately, lest the Volantenes rob them of their glory and the best part of the plunder. Yezzan would have no part of that. Nor would he consent to returning Meereen’s hostages by way of trebuchet, as the sellsword Bloodbeard had proposed. (ADWD Tyrion XI)

“How long do you think the Yunkishmen will want to continue paying wages to four free companies?”

The Tattered Prince took a sip of wine and said, “A vexing question. But this is the way of life for we men of the free companies. One war ends, another begins. Fortunately there is always someone fighting someone somewhere. Perhaps here. Even as we sit here drinking Bloodbeard is urging our Yunkish friends to present King Hizdahr with another head. Freedmen and slavers eye each other’s necks and sharpen their knives, the Sons of the Harpy plot in their pyramids, the pale mare rides down slave and lord alike, our friends from the Yellow City gaze out to sea, and somewhere in the grasslands a dragon nibbles the tender flesh of Daenerys Targaryen. Who rules Meereen tonight? Who will rule it on the morrow?”

The Pentoshi gave a shrug. “One thing I am certain of. Someone will have need of our swords.” (ADWD The Spurned Suitor)

With the death of Yezzan (one of the few Yunkish lords in favor of the peace), "most" of the Yunkish lords are "only biding their time" "waiting for the armies of Volantis". The mercenaries also want to fight. These instances display that not only the peace favored the slavers over the former slaves and undermined the anti-slavery queen (which I've addressed the section about the consequences of Dany's choices), they also show that the peace was fragile and nothing prevented either Yunkai or Volantis from breaking it.

The second reason why it doesn't make sense to argue that Dany was "stupid" for having trusted the Meereenese slavers (and I admit that I was a little guilty of that too, though I changed my stance) is that it ignores Dany's decision-making process. I've already showed above how she doesn't rely on anyone's viewpoint but her own and will reiterate that once again in a future section, which will be about why Dany is a good queen.

Mhysa and mother of dragons: why both identities are fallible and how, like with her successes, Dany's failures are tied to her tendency to take responsibility

To clarify things here: mhysa refers to Dany's desire to protect the oppressed. Mother of dragons refers to Dany's assertiveness and willingness to use violent methods to accomplish her goals (whatever they might be). They are not a dichotomy in the sense that BryndenBFish and Adam Feldman tried to create in their metas, namely by characterizing mhysa as her peaceful and compassionate side and mother of dragons as her violent and selfish side. Both can be ineffective and harmful.

In AGOT, as @yendany wrote about, watching the carnage in Lhazareen initially makes Dany rationalize it by saying that "this is the price of war" (mother of dragons). Not long afterwards, however, she is unable to continue to watch these injustices occur without doing anything, so she orders her men to stop the rapes (mhysa). She asserts her position to make sure that they follow her orders (mother of dragons and mhysa combined).

In ASOS, Dany was also both mhysa and mother of dragons when she rebelled against the masters and freed the Unsullied.

This makes for complex characterization, which is only fitting since her storyline's thematic message (that war is the only righteous path) is complex as well. In order to achieve justice, Dany must be in touch with both of these sides.

What's also important to note is what these aspects of Dany's identity have in common: they are tied to Dany's sense of accountability.

When the mhysa tries to find common ground and not use violence at any cost, she's taking responsibility for the dead by seeking to prevent more deaths from occurring (and unwittingly privileging the nobles).

When the mother of dragons punishes the wineseller and his daughters, she's seeking for information about the Sons to better protect her children.

Ultimately, both of those actions were mistakes, but they are examples of Dany taking responsibility nonetheless. My intent is to show that a) Dany's mistakes are not terrible ones, but rather reasonable ones that can be amended with time and learning and that b) they are understandable ones because they are tied to Dany's sense of accountability (which is also why she is such a good queen, as I will show below). In this section, the focus is on her misses. The next one will focus on her hits.

First, let's consider the mistakes (or controversial decisions) that didn't impact the whole region.

Many people like to bring up Dany's order to torture the wineseller and his daughters as a reason why she wouldn't rule well. I am not going to have a long discussion of this issue here because I've done it elsewhere; to be concise, they tend to overlook how torture is normalized in her time (the Vale, the Night's Watch and the North have all used it) and mistakenly attribute the idea to her when it was actually the Shavepate's (yes, she is still responsible for authorizing it, but it matters in terms of characterization that she wasn't the one who first came up with it). They never take this moment into consideration as well:

“They are afraid for their children,” Reznak said.

Yes, Daenerys thought, and so am I. (ADWD Daenerys II)

This shows that, despite how morally questionable this action might be, it is ultimately being done in the name of her people - in the name of people who aren't even tied to her by heritage or feudal alliances (which is more than other feudal lords can say).

They never take these moments into consideration as well:

"We are all dead, then. You gave us death, not freedom." Ghael leapt to his feet and spat into her face.

Strong Belwas seized him by the shoulder and slammed him down onto the marble so hard that Dany heard Ghael's teeth crack. The Shavepate would have done worse, but she stopped him.

"Enough," she said, dabbing at her cheek with the end of her tokar. "No one has ever died from spittle. Take him away." (ADWD Daenerys III)

Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Kill them all and take their treasures, I say. Whisper the command, and your Daario will make you a pile of their heads taller than this pyramid.”

“If I knew who they were—”

“Zhak and Pahl and Merreq. Them, and all the rest. The Great Masters. Who else would it be?”

He is as bold as he is bloody. “We have no proof this is their work. Would you have me slaughter my own subjects?” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“If he is not the Harpy, he knows him. I can find the truth of that easy enough. Give me your leave to put Hizdahr to the question, and I will bring you a confession.”

“No,” she said. “I do not trust these confessions. You’ve brought me too many of them, all of them worthless.”

“Your Radiance—”

“No, I said.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

The last quote is noticeable for marking the only instance in this book series in which a ruler learned that torture doesn't bring feasible results and stops it.

Still, the most important takeaway here is that Dany is seen refusing to order indiscriminate and disproportionate punishments with four different people. That's the pattern for her. She won't kill innocent children or risk murdering subjects who weren't responsible for the crimes that she's punishing nor will she use torture if it doesn't help her to protect her people.

Does that mean she will never misuse her power? No, she is fallible. But it can't be forgotten that the world she lives in normalizes violence and arbitrariness in her punishments and that, despite her qualities, GRRM will not let her not be a product of her time as well. It can't be forgotten that her characterization is that of someone who strives to make just decisions, hence why she eventually stops the tortures and why her tendency is to avoid indiscriminate punishment. That makes for nuanced characterization and does not detract from her being a good ruler; King Jaehaerys I is another example of that.

That being said, the key detail that her detractors don't realize that her overuse of her mhysa side was much more harmful than her overuse of her mother of dragons side in ADWD. As I already said above, while she's not to blame for the slavers' atrocities (and not to be judged as a bad queen because of their actions), it's true that they wouldn't have had the chance to do what they did if she had been more ruthless against them from the get-go. In that sense, the mhysa side caused a lot more damage than the mother of dragons one.

We can also see some of the damage of overrelying on her mhysa side's perspective in some of her decisions at court.

This is Dany's decision when a freedman asks for a noble to be gelded for raping his wife back when she was his bed slave and to receive a purse of gold for having to take care of the noble's child:

Dany granted him the gold, but not the gelding.

“When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with as he would. By law, there was no rape.” Her decision did not please him, she could see, but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of eunuchs. (ADWD Daenerys I)

Am I saying that it would have been justice if Dany had gelded the master for raping the bed slave? No (though I don't begrudge anyone who might think it is). Still, he did deserve some sort of punishment, be it gelding (remember that we're in a pseudomedieval world) or something else.

Does that mean that this was a terrible mistake from Dany's part? No. As she cleverly notes, doing otherwise would have established a precedent that would punish too many nobles. At this point, she believes that she must have peace with the masters to bring order to the city, so she can't punish him.

This is Dany's decision when a nobleborn boy asks for her to kill the slaves who revolted against his family by killing his father and elder brother and raping his mother before killing her and are now living in his house:

I am queen over a city built on dust and death. Dany had no choice but to deny him. She had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack. Nor would she punish slaves for rising up against their masters. (ADWD Daenerys I)

This situation is even more complex than the previous one. It must be noted that we don't know how these masters treated their slaves in order for the latter to have reacted so radically when they could. Even so, the boy's mother certainly did not deserve to be raped, ever. As we can see, even if the use of force was necessary to depose the oppressors and end slavery, it doesn't come without negative consequences (and I'm sure we'll see more of those in TWOW).

Was it a mistake from Dany's part to let these slaves go unpunished? On the one hand, any rapist deserves to be punished (and Dany is intensely aware of that fact). On the other hand, like with the masters in the other case, it would establish a precedent that would punish too many slaves and she doesn't want to act arbitrarily by going against her blanket. At this moment, for Dany, finding peace means that the former masters and the former slaves must stand as equals, so she won't punish the latter harshly either. It's a nuanced situation that can't be distorted to mean that she doesn't care about these crimes; it's the opposite, as she notes that she's queen "over a city built on dust and death". She feels terrible guilt for having to do this, but it goes in line with her current attempt to be conciliatory.

This is Dany's decision when a rich woman (who lost her husband and sons during the sack) asks for her house (which she left in fear for her safety), clothes and jewels back, for they are now all in possession of former bed slaves who turned the house into a brothel:

“They can keep the clothes,” she allowed. Dany granted her the jewels but ruled the house was lost when she abandoned it. (ADWD Daenerys I)

Was this decision a mistake from Dany's part? I don't think so. In the same chapter, we saw Dany feeling empathy for the Yunkish refugees' plight:

A brothel. Half of her freedmen were from Yunkai, where the Wise Masters had been famed for training bedslaves. The way of the seven sighs. Brothels had sprouted up like mushrooms all over Meereen. It is all they know. They need to survive. Food was more costly every day, whilst the price of flesh grew cheaper. In the poorer districts between the stepped pyramids of Meereen’s slaver nobility, there were brothels catering to every conceivable erotic taste, she knew. (ADWD Daenerys I)

It's quite possible that these are the same former bedslaves who are trying to survive in these difficult times in Meereen. The woman is rich, had relatives to run to and, let's not forget, profited off slavery. The prostitutes simply don't have the same resources and never had the same opportunities that the woman had.

I'm only including this decision here because I know that it is a controversial one in parts of the fandom, who berate Dany for being "arbitrary". I wouldn't describe it as such because there were never any laws that treated masters and slaves as equals and that appointed who should receive what (because slaves weren't entitled to receive anything until Dany arrives). I would say that Dany ultimately did the right thing; she was even conciliatory by at least granting the woman her jewels. Just because the woman isn't depicted as a one-note villain doesn't mean that she wasn't part of the oppressors' side.

Dany's overuse of her mhysa identity over her mother of dragons one is also apparent in this moment:

Xaro gave a languid shrug. “As it happens, when I came ashore in your sweet city, I chanced to see upon the riverbank a man who had once been a guest in my manse, a merchant who dealt in rare spices and choice wines. He was naked from the waist up, red and peeling, and seemed to be digging a hole.”

“Not a hole. A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water.”

“How kind of my old friend to help with the digging. And how very unlike him. Is it possible he was given no choice in the matter? No, surely not. You have no slaves in Meereen.”

Dany flushed. “Your friend is being paid with food and shelter. I cannot give him back his wealth. Meereen needs beans more than it needs rare spices, and beans require water.”

“Would you set my dancers to digging ditches as well? Sweet queen, when he saw me, my old friend fell to his knees and begged me to buy him as a slave and take him back to Qarth.”

She felt as if he’d slapped her. “Buy him, then.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

This moment has been exhaustively discussed here and here. What is necessary to say here is that this man was a merchant like Xaro is; this means that he most likely owned slaves (which Xaro conveniently left out for his own benefit), like the merchant Xaro does. Both the ones who sell and the ones who possess slaves have to be undermined in order to abolish slavery. In this former merchant's case, he probably lost his slaves, had no opportunity to sell his spices and wines, couldn't leave and then had to find whatever work was available in the city. The available work was to dig ditches to plant beans and reform the city's economy. That type of work can't be prohibited, it's necessary to guarantee that the city remains without slavery.

Another false accusation against Dany is that she didn't care about this man. That's not true, she cares too much - see how "[s]he felt as if he'd slapped her". That's how she feels, in the same chapter, when she realizes what leaving for Westeros would mean for the city at this point:

“The Yunkai’i will restore the Great Masters the instant you are gone, and we who have so faithfully served your cause will be put to the sword, our sweet wives and maiden daughters raped and enslaved.”

“Not mine,” grumbled Skahaz Shavepate. “I will kill them first, with mine own hand.” He slapped his sword hilt.

Dany felt as if he had slapped her face instead. (ADWD Daenerys III)

The mhysa in her is being too lenient for not realizing that the slavers have to be undermined and that she must prioritize the lives of the freedmen. The mother of dragons should have intervened by being more pragmatic in that sense. This displays how difficult (and dramatically compelling) her situation is.

But why is Dany so insistent on finding peace and conciliation with the slavers? To contextualize why, it's crucial to remember the deaths that she believes herself to be responsible for:

Rakharo and Quaro stood beside the tent flap. Quaro took a step forward, reaching for the handle of his whip, but Qotho spun graceful as a dancer, the curved arakh rising. It caught Quaro low under the arm, the bright sharp steel biting up through leather and skin, through muscle and rib bone. Blood fountained as the young rider reeled backward, gasping.

[...] The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human, Quaro pleading for water as he died. (AGOT Daenerys VIII)

“Eroeh?” asked Dany, remembering the frightened child she had saved outside the city of the Lamb Men.

“Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo’s bloodrider now,” said Jhogo. “He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bloodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat.”

“It was her fate, Khaleesi,” said Aggo. 

If I look back I am lost. (AGOT Daenerys IX)

They left a trail of dead and dying horses behind them as they went[.]

[...] Three days into the march, the first man died.

[...] Two nights later, it was an infant girl who perished.

[...] Death followed death. Weak children, wrinkled old women, the sick and the stupid and the heedless, the cruel land claimed them all. Doreah grew gaunt and hollow-eyed, and her soft golden hair turned brittle as straw.

[...] Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on. (ACOK Daenerys I)

All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. When word of what had befallen Astapor reached the streets, as it surely would, tens of thousands of newly freed Meereenese slaves would doubtless decide to follow her when she went west, for fear of what awaited them if they stayed ... yet it might well be that worse would await them on the march. Even if she emptied every granary in the city and left Meereen to starve, how could she feed so many? The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, “there is no need for you to see this.”

“He died for me.”

[...] “This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to the women of the brothels to lie with him and hold him.”

The blood of the dragon does not weep. (ADWD Daenerys I)

“I would give Hazzea back to you if I could,” she told the father, “but some things are beyond the power of even a queen. Her bones shall be laid to rest in the Temple of the Graces, and a hundred candles shall burn day and night in her memory. Come back to me each year upon her nameday, and your other children shall not want … but this tale must never pass your lips again.” (ADWD Daenerys II)

Your servants Mossador and Duran were crushed by falling stones beneath the river wall. Your servants Eladon Goldenhair and Loyal Spear were poisoned at a wineshop where they were accustomed to stop each night upon their rounds.”

Mossador. Dany made a fist. (ADWD Daenerys II)

The queen flinched. Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany’s councils. (ADWD Daenerys II)

“A girl I thought I’d saved from rape and torment. All I did was make it worse for her in the end. And all I did in Astapor was make ten thousand Eroehs.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Dany's trauma from all of her losses doesn't mean that she was doing the right political choices, but it does make them understandable and sympathetic. What's more, her mistakes stemmed from a genuine desire to do good for these people and to prevent more from dying, which is a major reason why Dany is a good queen (I'll elaborate more on why in a later section):

Now, which of Dany's mistakes had international repercussions? This post lays them out well, so check it out. They boil down to three:

Not leaving a garrison in Astapor to protect the council she installed (which indirectly caused atrocities like the political chaos that arose with Cleon's ascent and, later, Astapor's fall).

Leaving the wealth of the Yunkish slavers intact (which indirectly caused atrocities like Astapor's fall and the upcoming Battle of Fire).

Leaving the wealth of the Meereenese slavers intact (which indirectly caused the Sons of the Harpy's attacks; I've talked about how Dany handled them here).

Are these mistakes understandable? Yes. First, she is a 15-year-old with no experience or formal education to properly understand how these solutions were insubstantial. In fact, her situation seems pretty much unprecedented in scale in this universe.

Second, as @rainhadaenerys pointed out before here, Dany may be fighting for the freedmen, but she is still part of the nobility and would not consider depriving them of their resources right away. Indeed, she and her family had their resources taken away and she lived in poverty and fear because of it. Both her background and the previous losses I noted above must be taken into consideration to make sense of her mistakes.

If these were pretty much the only errors that had international repercussions and that Dany should be held 100% accountable for, why does she receive so much criticism from the fandom? I'll say it again: because many people are holding Dany accountable for the slavers' actions.

Here's the thing: Dany's actual mistakes (which were caused by her tendency to conciliate, not to be forceful) were not massive in nature; the consequences of her mistakes (caused by the slavers) were massive. But that's because her crusade was so unacceptable and detrimental for their way of living that they felt that they had to retaliate with a ridiculously high amount of brutality to exert their control. Therefore, her understandable mistakes initiate a large chain of events that might make her seem ineffective, but they were never her fault in the first place, they were the slavers'. She is not responsible for the choices that they ultimately made, even if she still had an indirect part (at best) in making them possible.

Why Dany is a good queen

Daenerys Targaryen is a good queen not just because her shortcomings are understandable, but because she also has skills and achievements of her own that deserve praise. To quickly sum them up before I lay them out:

She applies her critical thinking skills when she makes her decisions and doesn't rely on any single advisor's opinion, but on her own. We saw this before in her previous actions and we see this happen here as well.

She took measures that will influence the outcome of the Battle of Fire.

She took the first steps to improve the city's economy.

Her genuine compassion for the unprivileged informs every single decision that she makes, from her mistakes (already discussed) to her successes (which will be addressed here). I will discuss highlights such as her pro-freedmen decisions at court, her choice to lock the dragons and her efforts to help the Astapori refugees.

Most of the freedmen love Dany. She is not tied to them because of her heritage, but because she fought for their basic human rights and they chose her as their leader.

1) Critical thinking in her assessment of her counsellors' advice

If you made it until this part of the post, you already know that Dany analyzes the facts and considers the pros and cons in each advice before reaching a decision. This is something I've showed in other posts of this series as well.

Since Dany receives a lot of advice in her ADWD arc and since I've already talked about how she reacts to almost all of them, here I'm only going to reiterate that she dealt with the issue of marriage using her critical thinking skills and add more observations (to the ones already made from questions 9 to 11) explaining why. Not only this proves my overall point, it also helps to dispel the belief that Dany will be shown to be as out of control of the situation as Cersei was if it is revealed that the Green Grace is the Harpy and/or that the slavers were deliberately acting in bad faith. I don't think this argument holds up when you consider how she came to decide to marry Hizdahr.

Dany starts to consider taking a noble husband in ADWD Daenerys IV. That's because the Sons' killings continue and Yunkai has found several allies, so she feels that she can't fight enemies both inside and outside Meereen. The Green Grace suggests taking Hizdahr as a husband; these are Dany's responses:

“Ah.” Dany had been expecting this. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Why Hizdahr? Skahaz is noble born as well.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

These passages display that:

Dany is aware that a marriage between her and Hizdahr would be advantageous to the Green Grace, so she questions in which ways she would benefit from it herself.

Dany is aware that the marriage would not solve all of the freedmen's problems.

Dany is aware that she would potentially lose the Shavepate's support, but that marrying Hizdahr would still bring her more rewards.

Later, she interacts with her suitor about their potential marriage. These are her questions:

“Why should the Sons of the Harpy lay down their knives for you? Are you one of them?”

[...] “Would you tell me if you were?”

“Why would you want to help me? For the crown?”

These passages display that:

Dany doesn't fully trust Hizdahr.

Dany recognizes that, like with the Green Grace, Hizdahr has a lot to gain with the marriage.

Then, as we know, she agrees to a marriage if he manages to stop the killings in the city for ninety days.

But then, one might argue, the Shavepate did warn Dany that Hizdahr was only able to end the Sons' activities because he's working with them. That she still chooses to continue her alliance with him makes her seem dumb, doesn't it? Well, not really if you take her actual line of reasoning into consideration:

Skahaz was convinced that somewhere in Meereen the Sons of the Harpy had a highborn overlord, a secret general commanding an army of shadows. Dany did not share his belief. The Brazen Beasts had taken dozens of the Harpy’s Sons, and those who had survived their capture had yielded names when questioned sharply … too many names, it seemed to her. It would have been pleasant to think that all the deaths were the work of a single enemy who might be caught and killed, but Dany suspected that the truth was otherwise. My enemies are legion. “Hizdahr zo Loraq is a persuasive man with many friends. And he is wealthy. Perhaps he has bought this peace for us with gold, or convinced the other highborn that our marriage is in their best interests.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Dany's conclusion makes sense with the information that she has at this point. If dozens of the Harpy's Sons who were captured are blaming different people, it stands to reason that too many nobles are working concurrently against her, that there isn't a single overlord commanding everyone and that Hizdahr may have convinced them to stop their activities through bribery. In fact, even if she had found their leader (who might or might not be the Green Grace), would that have necessarily stopped the killings? It's highly questionable.

Even if Dany might be ultimately proven wrong, she made a reasonable guess based on what she knew. That's far from being dumb or ineffective and, again, it's not as if knowing that the Green Grace was the Harpy would solve everything.

Astapor's fall and the arrival of the pale mare are the events that ultimately seal Dany's decision to marry Hizdahr. That means that she followed Reznak's suggestion, but it can't be said that he convinced her since she distrusts him. What actually happened is that neither a siege nor battle were viable options to her. A siege would require more food and less enemies. A battle would require a larger military strength, as Dany reflects here:

“Meet the foe,” she echoed, “with the freedmen you’ve called half-trained and unblooded.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

“Or five. And if I give you the Unsullied, I will have no one but the Brazen Beasts to hold Meereen.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

“I cannot fight two enemies, one within and one without. If I am to hold Meereen, I must have the city behind me. The whole city. I need … I need …” She could not say it.

“Your Grace?” Ser Barristan prompted, gently.

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people.

“I need Hizdahr zo Loraq.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

In Dany's view, marrying Hizdahr and accepting a peace agreement with the Yunkai'i was the only decision that would guarantee the control of Meereen. It is ultimately a mistake for privileging the nobility over the freedmen, as I talked about above. Still, GRRM allows us to see that Dany ultimately failed (for now) and, at the same time, that she is capable of critically evaluating the advice that she receives. Indeed, even if she is following their advice, Dany does not trust Hizdahr or any of the nobles:

She needed Skahaz and the Brazen Beasts, and she had come to mistrust all of Reznak’s counsel. Beware the perfumed seneschal. Has Reznak made common cause with Hizdahr and the Green Grace and set some trap to snare me? (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Do as you think best. But do it soon. If Hizdahr’s peace should break, I want to be ready. I do not trust the slavers.” I do not trust my husband. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

Meanwhile, as we know, she trusts Barristan most of all and Skahaz more than the nobles (see the first passage above and here). It doesn't mean that she'll always follow their suggestions.

None of this is to say that Dany handled things perfectly. Again, she's very young and inexperienced and, because she just arrived in the city, ignorant in many ways. Aside from maybe not guessing who the Harpy was, she couldn't grasp the difference between marrying Hizdahr and marrying the Shavepate (which the Green Grace claims to be an obvious one if one knows their families and Ghiscari history in general), for instance. On the other hand, she grasps the cultural importance of the Temple of the Graces right away when she asks for the petitioners who bring her burned bones to swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis (i.e., if they lie to her, they'll be lying to the gods as well). GRRM is a really great writer in that sense - he could have Dany be passive and overreliant on her advisors all the time (which is often how the show writers portrayed her), but he gives Dany many nuances that allow us to appreciate both her strengths and weaknesses.

So, to sum this up, Dany was shown considering lots of factors before she decided to marry Hizdahr. She recognized the advantages to the nobles, she pondered how she would benefit from it, she compared its upsides to the ones she would get (or rather wouldn't get) from a marriage with Shavepate, she maintains a healthy dose of distrust for the slavers, she considers the possibility of a single person leading the Harpy's Sons and concludes that there might be too many (which might be wrong, but isn't unreasonable) and she chooses marriage over both siege and battle for reasons already mentioned above. This case is representative of how Dany doesn't make decisions carelessly, but rather using her critical thinking skills. You can find more examples in this very meta and in the others from this series.

2) Her influence in the upcoming Battle of Fire

There's already a post about this, but, for the sake of comprehensiveness, I'll bring up what was said.

Dany was the one who created three companies of freedmen, who will all be useful in the upcoming Battle of Fire:

“My freedman—” Dany started.

“Bedslaves, barbers, and brickmakers win no battles.”

She freed Pretty Meris to negotiate with the Tattered Prince and other sellsword companies to switch allegiances to Dany’s side (and they will do so, as we know from the TWOW chapters). I've already commented on this instance above in the section "The consequences of Dany's choices and her reactions".

And she fostered the cooperation and unity of purpose that will help the freedmen to be stronger against the Yunkai'i. I will explain below how she accomplished this feat.

One should also go back to ASOS, since the Unsullied are only there because of Dany's intelligence and compassion, as I explained in this meta. No wonder they will only fight for her and not for a nobleman.

3) Reviving the city's economy

Meereen is certainly not in its best economic conditions in the beginning of Dany's ADWD arc. As we already knew from ASOS, the slavers "harvest[ed] all they could and burn[ed] all they could not harvest", so there were "scorched fields and poisoned wells" everywhere. And that's not even considering that the city "had been sacked savagely" during Dany's conquest (despite her attempts to restore order).

The reasons why Dany can't resolve these issues overnight in a clear-cut manner are laid out concisely in this exchange between Dany and Xaro:

“You spoke of help. Trade with me, then. Meereen has salt to sell, and wine …”

“Ghiscari wine?” Xaro made a sour face. “The sea provides all the salt that Qarth requires, but I would gladly take as many olives as you cared to sell me. Olive oil as well.”

“I have none to offer. The slavers burned the trees. [...] What of copper?”

“A pretty metal, but fickle as a woman. Gold, now … gold is sincere. Qarth will gladly give you gold … for slaves.”

“Meereen is a free city of free men.”

“A poor city that once was rich. A hungry city that once was fat. A bloody city that once was peaceful.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

As we see in this passage, the slaves and the olives were the main sources of income for the city. With Dany's abolition of slavery and the slavers' burning of the fields, however, both of them are gone, which makes it that much harder for Dany to restore order in the city. Of course, this is not to say that Dany shouldn't have done anything - not only the former slaves would have continued to be exploited and killed if she hadn't, but it's also important to remember that the slaves in Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen were willing to fight for their freedom and grateful that Dany chose to make that her cause. The problem is that abolishing slavery is not enough to help the freedmen because slavery was the basis of the society they lived in, and reforms from the economic to the cultural level will be necessary. It's impossible not to fail on some level in this situation, which makes it all the more admirable, especially for her time and place, that Dany decides to stay.

And so we see Dany taking several actions to overcome some of these economic difficulties in her first five chapters:

Thousands of slaves still toiled on vast estates in the hills, growing wheat and olives, herding sheep and goats, and mining salt and copper. [...] Dany had dispatched her tiny khalasar to subdue the hinterlands, under the command of her three bloodriders[.] (ADWD Daenerys I)

Beyond the eastern hills was a range of rounded sandstone mountains, the Khyzai Pass, and Lhazar. If Daario could convince the Lhazarene to reopen the overland trade routes, grains could be brought down the river or over the hills at need … but the Lamb Men had no reason to love Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys I)

“I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but older, wiser men tell me that to hold Meereen I must control its hinterlands, all the land west of Lhazar as far south as the Yunkish hills.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

“[…] [He was digging a] ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water. […] Meereen needs beans more than it needs rare spices, and beans require water.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

“We are replanting, but it takes seven years before an olive tree begins to bear, and thirty years before it can truly be called productive.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

“Our stores are ample for the moment,” he reminded her, “and Your Grace has planted beans and grapes and wheat. Your Dothraki have harried the slavers from the hills and struck the shackles from their slaves. They are planting too, and will be bringing their crops to Meereen to market. And you will have the friendship of Lhazar.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Again, it must be emphasized that the city's economic situation only became as dire as it did because of the Meereenese slavers (and, later, the actions of Qarth, New Ghis and Tolos). Still, Dany is putting a lot of effort to revive the city's economy and guarantee that the freedmen retain their freedom. As we can see from these passages, she:

Successfully freed the slaves from the hinterlands (something she didn't do earlier because of her need to conciliate and make peace quickly), which is now "bringing their crops" to sell in Meereen.

Made an alliance with the Lhazarene, which allows her to reestablish the overland trade route through the Khyzai Pass and bring grains down the river or over the hills.

Ordered that irrigation canals were build to plant beans (which started to be planted two chapters later).

Is replanting olive trees.

Planted grapes and wheat.

Additionally, she also tries to sell what little the city has to offer (even if Xaro was ultimately not interested):

“You spoke of help. Trade with me, then. Meereen has salt to sell, and wine [...] What of copper?” (ADWD Daenerys III)

Dany wasn't responsible for the reasons that led to Meereen's lack of trade during her tenure.

Dany is responsible, on the other hand, for multiple efforts to improve a scenario that will take a very long time to be properly tackled. This can't be understated.

4) How her genuine compassion for the oppressed inform all of her decisions

Dany's genuine concern for the former slaves should never be understated; it informs both her use of force:

“Let them come. In me they shall find a sterner foe than Cleon. I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

And her attempts to reform the city:

Dany did not know how to make him see. She wanted Westeros as much as he did, but first she must heal Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

At the same time, when this aspect is remembered, it tends to only be seen as a reason why she's a sympathetic character and nothing else. This is not entirely surprising, considering that many fans tend to mock those who have moral principles as ineffective in the game of thrones (see also Cat and Ned).

Still, this quality can and must be contextualized as part of why Dany is a good (but imperfect) ruler, which is what I intend to do here.

At court, Dany decides to give the freedmen and the nobles equal attention. This is unprecedented, which is clear from the fact that it departs from Reznak's advice (and is obviously a huge deal considering that the former were slaves not long ago):

Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he call upon a freedman. Thereafter she alternated between the former masters and the former slaves. (ADWD Daenerys I)

In fact, she could leave the task of holding court to her advisors, but she chooses to listen to them herself:

“Ser Barristan,” she called, “I know what quality a king needs most.”

“Courage, Your Grace?”

“Cheeks like iron,” she teased. “All I do is sit.”

“Your Grace takes too much on herself. You should allow your councillors to shoulder more of your burdens.”

“I have too many councillors and too few cushions.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

She has many freedmen as advisors in her council:

Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany’s councils. (ADWD Daenerys II)

Dany assembled her council to hear them. Grey Worm was there for the Unsullied, Skahaz mo Kandaq for the Brazen Beasts. In the absence of her bloodriders, a wizened jaqqa rhan called Rommo, squint-eyed and bowlegged, came to speak for her Dothraki. Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen’s elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. Dany would not lack for counsel. (ADWD Daenerys III)

She frequently empathizes with the freedmen and makes decisions favoring them over their former masters.

This is Dany's decision after former slaver Grazdan (who is a relative of the Green Grace, so Dany would've benefitted from granting him his will) says that six young girls owed them gold because they learned their craft from an old weaver who was previously his slave:

“What was the name of the old weaver?”

“The slave?” Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. “She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace.”

I love how Dany punished him for forgetting the old weaver's name. I love that she recognizes the significance of remembering the names of the marginalized people who died. Any activist who deals with losses in the social movements that they are part of can relate to this. In Dany's case, she won't forget Eroeh or Stalwart Shield or Rylona and she certainly won't let the master forget the old weaver's name without suffering the consequences.

This is Dany's decision after Reznak says that the freedmen were disrespecting the traditions of the guilds for "carving stone and laying bricks" for a cheap price and calling themselves "journeymen" or "masters" and that the guilds ask for her to "uphold their ancient rights and customs":

“The freedmen work cheaply because they are hungry,” Dany pointed out. “If I forbid them to carve stone or lay bricks, the chandlers, the weavers, and the goldsmiths will soon be at my gates asking that they be excluded from those trades as well.” She considered a moment. “Let it be written that henceforth only guild members shall be permitted to name themselves journeymen or masters … provided the guilds open their rolls to any freedman who can demonstrate the requisite skills.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

Both Dany's empathy and critical thinking skills are at work here. She understands the freedmen's current hardships and she's aware of how prohibiting them from keeping this job could establish an unfortunate precedent in other occupations. However, because she also knows that there's inherent value in the skills of the guild members, she agrees that they are the only ones who should be called "journeymen" or "masters" ... as long as the freedmen are allowed the chance to obtain that honor as well. This scene showcases both Dany's intelligence and desire for equality.

When it comes to the casualties that happened during her tenure, Dany always holds herself accountable. One major example occurs right in the beginning of her arc with Stalwart Shield's murder. I've already talked about her reaction to it here and will reiterate: she refuses to forget his name, makes sure that he's properly buried and honored, increases the amount to gold to find his killer, forbids her soldiers to walk at night to prevent them from being killed, names a company of freedmen after him and thinks about him when she considers marrying again to maintain order in the city.

Other highlights concern her dragons. More and more people show up with charred bones, which leads her to make this decision:

“Three-and-twenty.” Dany sighed. “My dragons have developed a prodigious taste for mutton since we began to pay the shepherds for their kills. Have these claims been proven?”

“Some men have brought burnt bones.”

“Men make fires. Men cook mutton. Burnt bones prove nothing. Brown Ben says there are red wolves in the hills outside the city, and jackals and wild dogs. Must we pay good silver for every lamb that goes astray between Yunkai and the Skahazadhan?”

“No, Magnificence.” Reznak bowed. “Shall I send these rascals away, or will you want them scourged?”

Daenerys shifted on the bench. “No man should ever fear to come to me.” Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they’ll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could easily devour a sheep a day. “Pay them for the value of their animals,” she told Reznak, “but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

Many details can be gleamed from this passage:

With the increase of people claiming that their lambs were burned by her dragons, Dany is becoming understandably suspicious that they are taking advantage of the situation.

At the same time, however, her sympathy for them makes her prioritize the claims that were genuine (which she thinks are the majority) rather than the few ones that were false, so she still chooses to pay for their animals.

It's also notable is that GRRM contrasts Reznak's advice with Dany's ultimate decision. Because Reznak is a nobleman, he's used to mistreating the lowborn, so having them scourged wouldn't be a big deal. Dany, on the other hand, wants to be both just and approachable as a leader, so not only she won't punish them, she'll compensate them all, even if it includes paying people who were lying.

Dany's decision also showcases her shrewdness (already mentioned above): she doesn't just pay them, she also requests that they swear an oath before the gods of Ghis, making it clear that she's aware of the importance of religion in the city. If they lie to her, they'll be lying to the gods too.

But the most notable actions that Dany takes in order to answer for the dragons' casualties are taken after after she finds out that Drogon killed a child named Hazzea:

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old. Unless her father lied. He might have lied. No one had seen the dragon but him. His proof was burned bones, but burned bones proved nothing. He might have killed the little girl himself, and burned her afterward. He would not have been the first father to dispose of an unwanted girl child, the Shavepate claimed. The Sons of the Harpy might have done it, and made it look like dragon’s work to make the city hate me. Dany wanted to believe that … but if that was so, why had Hazzea’s father waited until the audience hall was almost empty to come forward? If his purpose had been to inflame the Meereenese against her, he would have told his tale when the hall was full of ears to hear.

The Shavepate had urged her to put the man to death. “At least rip out his tongue. This man’s lie could destroy us all, Magnificence.” Instead Dany chose to pay the blood price. No one could tell her the worth of a daughter, so she set it at one hundred times the worth of a lamb. “I would give Hazzea back to you if I could,” she told the father, “but some things are beyond the power of even a queen. Her bones shall be laid to rest in the Temple of the Graces, and a hundred candles shall burn day and night in her memory. Come back to me each year upon her nameday, and your other children shall not want … but this tale must never pass your lips again.” (ADWD Daenerys II)

This passage is similar, in many ways, to the one about the burned bones of sheep; both of them display Dany's compassion and intelligence:

Like in the previous moment, she is shown using her critical thinking skills: on the one hand, she is also suspicious of the man's only evidence being burned bones. At the same time, though, she recognizes that he would have told the tale while the whole audience was inside the hall if his desire was to tarnish her reputation.

Like in the previous moment, a nobleman urges her to punish the man harshly (because that's how the relationship between master and slave went). Instead, Dany would rather pay him the blood price, bury Hazzea's bones in the Temple of the Graces, have a hundred candles for her in her memory and compensate him for his other children as well. This speaks volumes about how Dany, as a queen, feels that she is answerable for all of her subjects' problems. This is remarkable for her time and place, in which people were bound by feudal alliegiances and places of origin. Dany's sympathy transcends both.

Her only request is that the man does not tell anyone about what happened. One could interpret this as her having political concerns in regards to her reputation, which is possible, but I think the main reason why she made that request was because she doesn't want any person to ever "fear to come to [her]". She genuinely wants to protect them, not harm them. She wants to be their mhysa, not the mother of monsters (as she sees it).

After Hazzea's death, she makes a remarkable sacrifice in her name and other potential victims: chain her own (dragon) children. It's not an easy decision to make due to the parts in bold below:

The Great Masters had used the pit as a prison. It was large enough to hold five hundred men … and more than ample for two dragons. For how long, though? What will happen when they grow too large for the pit? Will they turn on one another with flame and claw? Will they grow wan and weak, with withered flanks and shrunken wings? Will their fires go out before the end?

What sort of mother lets her children rot in darkness?

If I look back, I am doomed, Dany told herself … but how could she not look back? I should have seen it coming. Was I so blind, or did I close my eyes willfully, so I would not have to see the price of power? (ADWD Daenerys II)

But she makes it for the sake of her people. Was this the right choice? We don't know if she could have tamed them and effectively used them against her enemies, so maybe it was.

However, it must be reiterated that Dany is doing more than she ever needed to do. She didn't have to stay and try to bring order to the city in the first place. She didn't have to make so many compensations for Hazzea's father. That she does all of these things highlight her selflessness, but we shouldn't hold her in higher moral standards like she does.

All of this is to say that she shouldn't be criticized harshly if she eventually decides to let her dragons remain free. As I've already touched upon above, using her dragons won't necessarily result in negative consequences. Her main lesson in ADWD was that she had to have been more forceful, after all. Also, she was already doing far more than she had to and had no real moral obligation towards anyone (though she feels that she does). She didn't have to chain her dragons. And she certainly didn't have to delay her departure for Westeros:

“...I say, let this city be. You cannot free every slave in the world, Khaleesi. Your war is in Westeros.”

“I have not forgotten Westeros.” Dany dreamt of it some nights, this fabled land that she had never seen. [...] Dany set great store by Ser Jorah’s counsel, but to leave Meereen untouched was more than she could stomach. She could not forget the children on their posts, the birds tearing at their entrails, their skinny arms pointing up the coast road. (ASOS Daenerys V)

“My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”

“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo.

“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.”

“No one will be left to die. You are all my people.” Her dreams of home and love had blinded her. “I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

“What are you saying? Are you telling me you will not go?”

“I cannot go.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

“Lingering here will never bring it any closer. The sooner we take our leave of this place—”

“I know. I do.” Dany did not know how to make him see. She wanted Westeros as much as he did, but first she must heal Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Dorne is too far away. To please this prince, I would need to abandon all my people. You should send him home.” (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

Even if she decides to go back to Westeros, one must always remember that Daenerys was already doing more than she had to do by staying in Meereen; she was already doing a lot more than any of her contemporaries would do. Turning her eyes back to Westeros, at least by itself, does not mean that she is getting "darker", it just means that she is thinking of her own desires for once.

Dany's use of her own resources to revitalize Meereen is another one of the multiple sacrifices she makes for her people. The decisions made using her gold are both great political decisions and proof of her compassion, which shows that these aspects can (and should) go hand in hand in a great ruler. I've listed and talked about the moments where she's explicitly shown spending her own gold solely to help her people in this post. I'll sum them up here:

She promises to pay "good gold" for the short sword of Stalwart Shield and "one thousand honors" for information about the Sons of the Harpy.

She pays people affected by the actions of her dragons.

She sets up a camp and sends food to the Astapori refugees.

She is not bothered at all for having to compensate the Yunkish masters with "gold and gems".

She orders the food that would normally be thrown away to be given for the poor.

She seeks to strengthen her military forces to defend the city from the Yunkish masters and does not care about the price to do so.

@rainhadaenerys added that she also sent "gems and gold" to guarantee the alliance with the Lhazarene solely to improve the city's economy.

I still haven't properly explored the third moment of the list, which is one of the most notable examples of Dany's selflessness, so let's get to it.

After finding out about the pale mare's spread and the Astapori refugees' plight, this is Dany's first impulse:

My children. “They are coming here for help. For succor and protection. We cannot turn our backs on them.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

However, as both Barristan and the Shavepate note, the bloody flux is very contagious and could easily turn Meereen into a epidemic disaster like it did Astapor. So, Dany comes up with these ideas:

“As you say, then. We will keep them outside the walls until this … this curse has run its course. Set up a camp for them beside the river, west of the city. We will send them what food we can. Perhaps we can separate the healthy from the sick.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

Not only these are clever ideas (which she had without anyone's help), it's noteworthy that she's hopeful that she can allow them inside once "this curse has run its course".

However, as she finds out in the next chapter, these solutions weren't as successful as she hoped they would be:

The Astapori had no place to go. Thousands remained outside Meereen’s thick walls—men and women and children, old men and little girls and newborn babes. Many were sick, most were starved, and all were doomed to die. Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barbersurgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing.

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.”

[...] Many shat where they slept now, too feeble to crawl to the ditches she’d commanded them to dig. (ADWD Daenerys VI)

So, let's recap:

Dany sets up a camp for them "beside the river, west of the city".

Dany tries to separate the healthy from the sick, but that meant separating family members. That was ultimately for naught, since the ones who were only sick at first died and the ones who were healthy got sick.

Dany sends "healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barbersurgeons", but they got sick as well.

Dany commanded them to dig ditches to defecate, but they started to do it where they slept because they were too weak to stand up and defecate there.

Dany sent the food that she could, but "every day there were more of them and less food to give them". Even sending the food was becoming hard, since some soldiers were becoming sick and others were attacked on the way back to the city.

This leads Dany to decide to bring the food herself, even while knowing all of the risks that doing so would entail. See what she also does:

There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow. “His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?”

By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. Symon Stripeback and his men were pulling the living from the dead and stacking up the corpses, while Jhogo and Rakharo and their Dothraki helped those who could still walk toward the shore to bathe and wash their clothes. Aggo stared at them as if they had all gone mad, but Grey Worm knelt beside the queen and said, “This one would be of help.”

Before midday a dozen fires were burning. Columns of greasy black smoke rose up to stain a merciless blue sky. Dany’s riding clothes were stained and sooty as she stepped back from the pyres. (ADWD Daenerys VI)

So, let's recap:

Dany went to distribute the food even while knowing all of the risks. She also considered sharing the food equally twice.

Dany decided to bath an old man herself even while knowing all of the risks.

Dany burned the dead corpses (which could have transmitted the disease) herself even while knowing all of the risks.

Dany "shamed all of them into helping her". She had her fighting men help her to take care of people who she had no allegiance to and would receive no benefit from helping.

And look at her thoughts while she does all of the above:

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing. (ADWD Daenerys VI)

“I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

Bless me, Dany thought bitterly. Your city is gone to ash and bone, your people are dying all around you. I have no shelter for you, no medicine, no hope. Only stale bread and wormy meat, hard cheese, a little milk. Bless me, bless me.

What kind of mother has no milk to feed her children? (ADWD Daenerys VI)

“Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you.” Dany vaulted down from the horse. “I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

We would be remiss if we were to think she had any obligation to help the Astapori refugees. Every single advisor, from the Shavepate to Reznak to Barristan to Symon (note that three of the four are anti-slavery) advised her to stop caring, but she simply can't do it. If Daenerys Targaryen is not a true queen, I don't know what she is. Which brings me to the next section.

5) She chose the freedmen and the freedmen chose her

Dany's love for the freedmen is returned with their love for her.

"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.

The chant grew, spread, swelled. It swelled so loud that it frightened her horse, and the mare backed and shook her head and lashed her silver-grey tail. It swelled until it seemed to shake the yellow walls of Yunkai. More slaves were streaming from the gates every moment, and as they came they took up the call. They were running toward her now, pushing, stumbling, wanting to touch her hand, to stroke her horse's mane, to kiss her feet. Her poor bloodriders could not keep them all away, and even Strong Belwas grunted and growled in dismay. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“Say the word, my sweet, and I will send you from this awful place. I will find a ship somehow and send you home. To Naath.”

“I would sooner stay with you. On Naath I’d be afraid. What if the slavers came again? I feel safe when I’m with you.”

Safe. The word made Dany’s eyes fill up with tears. “I want to keep you safe.” Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. “No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys … I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don’t always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen … the … the …”

“… mother,” whispered Missandei.

“Mother to dragons.” Dany shivered.

“No. Mother to us all.” (ADWD Daenerys II)

“Wherever the Mother of Dragons goes, the Mother’s Men will go as well,” announced Marselen, Missandei’s remaining brother. (ADWD Daenerys III)

"...Should you reach your queen, give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis." She touched the faded scar upon her wrinkled cheek, where her tears had been cut away. "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon." (ADWD Tyrion VII)

Their eyes followed her. Those who had the strength called out. “Mother … please, Mother … bless you, Mother …” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

Daenerys Targaryen was wed, the guards on the pens had told them, laughing. She had taken a Meereenese slaver as her king, as wealthy as he was noble, and when the peace was signed and sealed the fighting pits of Meereen would open once again. Other slaves insisted that the guards were lying, that Daenerys Targaryen would never make peace with slavers. Mhysa, they called her. Someone told him that meant Mother. Soon the silver queen would come forth from her city, smash the Yunkai'i, and break their chains, they whispered to one another. (ADWD Tyrion X)

"Is it true?" a freedwoman shouted. "Is our mother dead?"

"No, no, no," Reznak screeched. "Queen Daenerys will return to Meereen in her own time in all her might and majesty. Until such time, His Worship King Hizdahr shall—"

"He is no king of mine," a freedman yelled. (ADWD The Discarded Knight)

Hizdahr's blunder with Grey Worm had cost him the Unsullied. When His Grace had tried to put them under the command of a cousin, as he had the Brazen Beasts, Grey Worm had informed the king that they were free men who took commands only from their mother. (ADWD The Queensguard)

This may be a show line, but it's accurate - she is the queen that the freedmen chose. What's more important, they chose her because she chose them. Because she chose to be held accountable for their protection:

"I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn't have done that. He wasn't just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?"

"He was no true king," Dany said scornfully. "He did no justice. Justice ... that's what kings are for." (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany didn't have to delay her arrival to Westeros, but she did. She didn't have to fight for the freedom of the slaves in Slaver's Bay, but she did. She didn't have to stay and try to bring order to the city, but she did. She didn't have to give the freedmen voice in her council, but she did. She didn't have to question these institutions and fight for these people; her contemporaries are only focused in their own regional squabbles and wouldn't lift a finger for the slaves ... But she did. I won't mention all of her sacrifices again because, if you've reached this far into the meta, you already know how the list goes on and on.

Dany did not just make what seemed impossible to come true in the birth of the dragons.

She made what seemed impossible to come true by choosing to do what's right and challenge half of the world and fail and try again and again.

She made what seemed impossible to come true by becoming the queen that this world needs.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #a dance with dragons #dany and her choices

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alinaastarkov · 5 years ago

Note

I hate how stansas are all like "Sansa will become a genius at the game of thrones, but she'll keep her moral compass so she'll be the perfect queen". First, they should stop pushing that stupid idea that being good at the game is the same as being a good ruler, it just isn't. Second, Sansa's compassion is not nearly as significant as to say it will definitely stop her from playing dirty, she is not the mother theresa fandom thinks she is. And third...

[Cont.d] ...ALL the characters are getting darker next book, I'm an Arya fan and I'm mentalizing to face that she'll do dark stuff next book, Why tf would Sansa be above the rest? For god's sake she's gleefully following a plan for her personal benefit that relies on her own cousin dying without feeling too sad about it. Among other things. Sansa is not that special, she'll get her hands really dirty just like the rest and being naive isn't going to be an excuse.

Yeah it is kind of infuriating. Aside from the game, which I’ll get to in a minute, we are told constantly that being a leader requires a certain hardness, a willingness to do morally questionable things, that it leads to a colder or darker personality given the difficult decisions, and makes the leaders lament their lost naivety and wish they still had little responsibility.

Look at Jon:

You would weep as well if you had a son and lost him, Sam almost said. He could not blame Gilly for her grief. Instead, he blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon's heart had turned to stone. Once he asked Maester Aemon that very question, when Gilly was down at the canal fetching water for them. "When you raised him up to be the lord commander," the old man answered.

- Samwell III, A Feast for Crows

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. He'd had Mikken make a sword for Arya once, a bravo's blade, made small to fit her hand. Needle. He wondered if she still had it. Stick them with the pointy end, he'd told her, but if she tried to stick the Bastard, it could mean her life.

- Jon VI, A Dance with Dragons

It’s stated, plain as day, that Jon becoming Lord Commander marked the end of his days being, for want of a better word, kind and emotional, as he started having to make tough decisions that would not please everyone and would absolutely break some, but were necessary to keep his people safe and ensure victory. In the second quote, we see this sense of duty and coldness over emotion also applies inwardly, as he curses the fact that he can’t help Arya when he desperately wants to. Choosing to help Arya is ultimately what cause his death too, and coming back from that will only make him even darker.

Let’s look at Dany too:

She dreaded what must come next, yet she knew she had put it off too long already. Yunkai and Astapor, threats of war, marriage proposals, the march west looming over all . . . I need my knights. I need their swords, and I need their counsel. Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she'd swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears.

- Daenerys VI, A Storm of Swords

"No . . . no." He shook his head. "I never meant . . . forgive me. You have to forgive me."

"Have to?" It was too late. He should have begun by begging forgiveness. She could not pardon him as she'd intended. She had dragged the wineseller behind her horse until there was nothing left of him. Didn't the man who brought him deserve the same? This is Jorah, my fierce bear, the right arm that never failed me. I would be dead without him, but . . . "I can't forgive you," she said. "I can't."

"You forgave the old man . . ." [...]

“Remove this liar from my sight,” she commanded. I must not weep. I must not. If I weep I will forgive him. Strong Belwas seized Ser Jorah by the arm and dragged him out. When Dany glanced back, the knight was walking as if drunk, stumbling and slow. She looked away until she heard the doors open and close. Then she sank back onto the ebony bench. He's gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers, Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died inside me, and now Ser Jorah . . .

"The queen has a good heart," Daario purred through his deep purple whiskers, "but that one is more dangerous than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one." His strong hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden women. "You need not even say the word, my radiance. Only give the tiniest nod, and your Daario shall fetch you back his ugly head."

- Daenerys VI, A Storm of Swords

One would be dead before the sun went down. No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. Better a few should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost.

- Daenerys VIII, A Dance with Dragons

Dany has not been as affected by Jon, she is still a young girl with a lot of hope and sympathy, but it’s clear throughout that she takes being queen to heart and she knows that means showing strength at times rather than tears. Much like with Gilly, Dany has to make the hard decision with Jorah, even if she wanted to pardon him. He was not contrite so she could not forgive him without seeming weak or foolish. And we see this internal struggle again with the fighting pits, a practice she abhors, but knows she must endure it for her people. Being a leader, she makes tough decisions and has to desensitise herself as much as possible, and Winds promises that she will be darker too.

Hell, we even see this happen with Robb.

Only Robb and baby Rickon were still here, and Robb was changed. He was Robb the Lord now, or trying to be. He wore a real sword and never smiled. His days were spent drilling the guard and practicing his swordplay, making the yard ring with the sound of steel as Bran watched forlornly from his window. At night he closeted himself with Maester Luwin, talking or going over account books. Sometimes he would ride out with Hallis Mollen and be gone for days at a time, visiting distant holdfasts. Whenever he was away more than a day, Rickon would cry and ask Bran if Robb was ever coming back. Even when he was home at Winterfell, Robb the Lord seemed to have more time for Hallis Mollen and Theon Greyjoy than he ever did for his brothers.

- Bran IV, A Game of Thrones

This rings extremely close to Jon not sitting and eating with his friends as he used to. So, even ignoring the game of thrones cause none of these are playing it, being a leader creates a sterner, harder person than when they weren’t leaders, and this isn’t even everyone we see this in. Same happens with Bran for a time, Tyrion, Arya, etc. so there’s no way that if Sansa ever became queen she can stay the perfect little ray of sunshine who makes no bad or questionable decisions they all think she is (not that this was ever really the case).

We are constantly told the game of thrones is a bad thing.

"Oh, but it was, my lord," Cersei insisted. "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

- Eddard XII, A Game of Thrones

"Rhaenys was a child too. Prince Rhaegar's daughter. A precious little thing, younger than your girls. She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know? I always wondered what happened to him. Rhaenys liked to pretend he was the true Balerion, the Black Dread of old, but I imagine the Lannisters taught her the difference between a kitten and a dragon quick enough, the day they broke down her door." Varys gave a long weary sigh, the sigh of a man who carried all the sadness of the world in a sack upon his shoulders. "The High Septon once told me that as we sin, so do we suffer. If that's true, Lord Eddard, tell me … why is it always the innocents who suffer most, when you high lords play your game of thrones? Ponder it, if you would, while you wait upon the queen. And spare a thought for this as well: The next visitor who calls on you could bring you bread and cheese and the milk of the poppy for your pain … or he could bring you Sansa's head.

- Eddard XV, A Game of Thrones

"As to that Wall," the man went on, "it's not a place that I'd be going. The Old Bear took the Watch into the haunted woods, and all that come back was his ravens, with hardly a message between them. Dark wings, dark words, me mother used to say, but when the birds fly silent, seems to me that's even darker." He poked at the fire with his stick. "It was different when there was a Stark in Winterfell. But the old wolf's dead and young one's gone south to play the game of thrones, and all that's left us is the ghosts."

"The wolves will come again," said Jojen solemnly.

- Bran II, A Storm of Swords

Marillion's face seemed to float before her, the bandage pale across his eyes. Behind him she could see Ser Dontos, the crossbow bolts still in him. "No," Sansa said. "Please."

"I am tempted to say this is no game we play, daughter, but of course it is. The game of thrones."

I never asked to play. The game was too dangerous. One slip and I am dead.

- Sansa I, A Feast for Crows

He did not like the taste of this. It smelled of deceit, of whispers and lies and plots hatched in the dark, all the things he'd hoped to leave behind with the Spider and Lord Littlefinger and their ilk. Barristan Selmy was not a bookish man, but he had often glanced through the pages of the White Book, where the deeds of his predecessors had been recorded. Some had been heroes, some weaklings, knaves, or cravens. Most were only men—quicker and stronger than most, more skilled with sword and shield, but still prey to pride, ambition, lust, love, anger, jealousy, greed for gold, hunger for power, and all the other failings that afflicted lesser mortals. The best of them overcame their flaws, did their duty, and died with their swords in their hands. The worst …

The worst were those who played the game of thrones.

- The Queensguard, A Dance with Dragons

Even Sansa herself is used to tell us this game is a bad thing, that the smallfolk suffer for it, and those who play it are destined to fall. And we are also shown that those who play are poor leaders because they allow the smallfolk to suffer as they play. The characters who do play the game - Cersei, Tywin, Tyrion (sort of), Varys, Littlefinger - are all either morally questionable or straight up villains. Why do all these people so desperately want that for their fave?

This question of Sansa’s actual compassion has often been asked and I think it’s clear that her compassion has a limit. It does not extend to people below her social class, and it gets exasperated very quickly. Look at Jeyne Poole and more importantly Sweetrobin. She wants to keep this kid away from her, so locks him out of her room even though she knows he goes to her for comfort as his mother just died and he suffers from seizures. So, no, she’s not the most compassionate anyway, and she already has begun to play dirty. If she ever becomes a leader, as illustrated above, this will only get worse.

We have all accepted that our faves are going down darker paths. Tyrion is already there, Dany is bound to and honestly we can’t blame her, and most of us are actually excited to see Jon and Arya’s darker paths. Sansa is closer to it than Arya is already, and I’m excited to see how grey she is going to become. This complexity is what makes good characters, and the expectation that Sansa, whatever scenario she’s in, will suddenly become perfectly innocent and pure when she never was before, and we can clearly see no-one is getting lighter, is completely ridiculous. The rabid stansas may never change their minds, but Winds will prove this to them at least, if we ever get it.

#asoiaf #neve has mail #shut up neve #sansa stark #winds of winter #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #arya stark #tyrion lannister #robb stark #petyr baelish

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theusurpersdog · 5 years ago

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The Price of Peace

In my first two pieces on A Dance with Dragons, I discussed the political aspect and relationships within Dany’s arc; and those aspects are extremely important because the way Daenerys interacts with the world reveals pieces of her. But they are just reflections of the most important part of her story: the human heart in conflict with itself.

The way her 10 chapters are written is extremely intentional; they are meant to act as mirror images of each other; the choices Daenerys is forced to make in the first three chapters are the choices she is again forced to make in the last three chapters. The point of this is so we can see how she has changed over the course of the story; at the end of her arc, she makes the opposite choices than she did at the beginning – instead of chaining her dragons she flies off on Drogon, abandons her “floppy ears”, and instead of staying in Meereen decides to leave.

And beyond the chapters in this book, GRRM has designed Daenerys’ whole story to be circular; everything about her time in Meereen harkens back to her time with the Dothraki, and her final chapter on the Dothraki Sea is an almost exact recreation of her last chapter in A Game of Thrones. Just as the middle chapters of A Dance with Dragons function as the connecting thread between Daenerys’ change of heart, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords connect the little girl from the first chapter of A Game of Thrones to the khaleesi embracing fire & blood at the end of A Dance with Dragons. And that’s why this book feels like the climax of Dany’s story; because everything she’s done has been building to Daenerys X.

Only One Thing Frightens Me Now

In previous books, especially A Storm of Swords, we see Daenerys begin embracing her connection to her dragons, using it to explain her fiery nature and short temper. But when she is presented with Hazzea’s bones, it forces Dany to reckon with the truth of that connection:

“Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper’s dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty. The guilt. . .” The word caught in her throat. Hazzea.

For a long time now, she has known what her dragons were capable of; in A Clash of Kings she feared they would burn her kingdom to the ground, and in A Storm of Swords she feared they would hurt Irri and Jhiqui after Drogon bit and burned them. But she chose to ignore the red flags because her dragons were her children. And worse, they were her path to power:

If I look back, I am doomed. Dany told herself . . . but how could she not look back? I should have seen it coming. Was I so blind, or did I close my eyes willfully, so I would not have to see the price of power?

When Eroeh was hurt in A Game of Thrones, Daenerys was able to tell herself that it wasn’t her fault, that all she had done was try to help her. But the blood of Hazzea’s death is on Dany’s hands and she can’t pretend otherwise. Daenerys had always had some amount of fear that she could be capable of the cruelty her father and brother displayed, but this is proof to her that she has already let herself become something she never wanted to be. So she locks her dragons away; refusing to allow anyone else to get hurt, or herself to be tempted by their power.

And for the first several chapters of A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys is heartbroken; for her dragons and for herself. Before, they had been like her children, but now she can only think of them with disgust:

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought, Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world?

And beyond the shame she feels for placing her dragons ahead of her people, Daenerys is scared of what she might become:

“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 cheeks. “But not so foolish as to tell you that.”

These lines make it very clear that the only thing that frightens Dany is herself; but a pre-released chapter from before A Dance with Dragons was published made it even more clear:

She looks at Ser Barristan and tells him that she told Xaro that she feared only one thing, though she would not tell the merchant what. Ser Barristan guesses that she only fears her dragons. “Myself,” Dany tells him

This fear she has of herself is made even clearer in this passage:

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.

This is the first time Daenerys acknowledges that being “the blood of the dragon” could be negative, and enforces her belief that she should completely turn her back on her dragons.

Looking Back

I call so much attention to Daenerys’ chaining of her dragons and fear over her own impulses because it is so contradictory to the choices she will make in the last several chapters.

Like I said earlier, GRRM designed her chapters to be circular in nature to highlight Dany’s change of heart through the course of the book. But her change of heart does not happen suddenly; it happens slowly, as she begins to forget Hazzea and her father.

At first, she feels guilty even mentioning her dragons to Xaro Xhoan Daxos:

“My dragons have grown, my shoulders have not. They range far afield, hunting.” Hazzea, forgive me.

But by the time Quentyn arrives in Meereen, she is willing to flaunt her dragons for him:

“They are dragons, Quentyn.” Dany stood on her toes and kissed him lightly once on each cheek. “And so am I.”

A part of the reason she can never let her dragons go is that she really did see them as her children, and they protected her when no one else could:

Drogon saved me when they would have drained my life from me. Drogon burned them all.

When Drogon disappears, she genuinely misses him as if she has lost a child.

But even more than that, the dragons are a piece of her. In the same way that the Starks share a special bond with their direwolves, Daenerys has imprinted on her dragons; to deny them is to deny herself. That’s why she seeks out comfort in the form of Daario once she has caged them:

And who would ever dare to love a dragon?

She found herself thinking of Daario Naharis once again

Everything in Meereen is built on Dany’s rejection of her dragons; not because she wants or planned for it to be this way, but because she must give up on her dragons to protect her people. And that gets to the heart of Dany’s despair at everything in Meereen; because her and her dragons are so interconnected, she must reject herself to be Queen of Meereen. Dany understands this when she chains her dragons, and understands that she should reject the parts of herself that allowed Hazzea to die; she spends nearly the entirety of A Dance with Dragons trying to change who she is. That’s what she is doing when she chains her dragons, makes peace with Astapor and Yunkai, marries Hizdahr, and opens the fighting pits.

But change is easier said than done, and even though Daenerys constantly places everyone above herself, she can’t quite commit to leaving her dragons and true nature behind. As I explored in my last meta, Daario is Dany’s outlet for her “dragon” desires, and the more she commits to Meereen, the more she gives to Daario; until she has to marry Hizdahr, and has to end her affair with Daario. Not coincidentally, it is right after this that she decides to leave Meereen for good.

Dreams of Smoke and Fire

Throughout the series, even before they hatched, the dragons have been on a parallel journey with Daenerys. And while she spends most of A Dance with Dragons apart from them, Dany still shares much of her story with Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion.

The way Rhaegal and Viserion are chained at the start of the story is symbolic of how Daenerys must give up part of herself to be Queen of Meereen. And much like Daenerys holds on to Daario as refuge, not all of the dragons are caged:

Two score of her bravest had risked themselves trying to capture him. Almost all had suffered burns, and four of them had died. The last she had seen of Drogon had been at sunset on the night of the third attempt. The black dragon had been flying north across the Skahazadhan toward the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea. He had not returned.

Even while Daenerys and her dragons labor in Meereen, a part of them is returning to the Dothraki Sea.

And just as Daenerys begins to grow tired and frustrated with the city and seeks more and more comfort with Daario, her dragons slowly begin to work their way free:

Down in the pit, Viserion had snapped one of his chains; he and Rhaegal grew more savage every day.

The bones on the floor of the pit were deeper than the last time she had been down here, and the walls and floors were black and grey, more ash than brick. They would not hold much longer … but behind them was only earth and stone. Can dragons tunnel through rock, like the firewyrms of old Valyria? She hoped not.

In the days leading up to the events of Daznak’s Pit, Daenerys begins to have dreams similar to the ones she had on the Dothraki Sea:

She was still talking when Dany finally fell to sleep, to dream queer, half-formed dreams of smoke and fire.

Drogon arrives in Daznak’s Pit just as Daenerys decides she can’t handle to proceedings anymore, and rips off the tokar that represents the peace she has made in the city. And when the spearmen begin trying to kill him, it affects Daenerys just as much as the dragon:

Drogon raised his head, blood dripping from his teeth. The hero leapt onto his back and drown the iron spearpoint down at the base of the dragon’s long scaled neck.

Dany and Drogon screamed as one.

Even when Daenerys has flown off with Drogon and left Meereen, her other two dragons continue to parallel her journey; Rhaegal and Viserion break free of their chains just as Daenerys symbolically breaks free of hers.

And once her and Drogon are in the Dothraki Sea, Drogon’s refusal to leave “Dragonstone” for Meereen is a reflection of Daenerys’ own desire to leave the city.

All of these connections work to make one point very clear: Daenerys is her dragons. So much of her arc over the last two books comes down to Daenerys having to choose between her people or her dragons, but it’s a choice she cannot make because she will always return to the dragons. At the end of A Game of Thrones, standing in the burning funeral pyre as her dragons hatch, this is what she thought to herself:

I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons

She made the choice to become those things when she sacrificed Mirri Maz Dur, and it’s a choice she is unable to turn her back on, no matter how hard she tries.

And GRRM has gone out of his way to make clear that this is a bad thing. The dragons cannot be tamed, chained, or overpowered. They are an unstoppable and unpredictable force, and everyone around them must cater to their whims or be burned along the way. Daenerys herself faces the consequences of dragons from thousands of years prior; the people in Meereen are starving because none of the ground is fertile, and none of the ground is fertile because Valyrian dragons scorched the earth. Hazzea’s death is the culmination of a pattern of escalation from Dany’s dragons; a tragic inevitability because Daenerys allowed them to be free.

I find it very interesting because, as I’ll elaborate below, the last two chapters of Dany’s Dance arc are focused on her undoing the decisions she makes in the first few chapters as she returns to the choices she made at the end of A Game of Thrones, that she also undoes a pivotal choice she made in A Storm of Swords. As I mentioned in the meta I wrote for that book, Daenerys went to Slaver’s Bay to buy an army, and “Breaker of Chains” humanitarian efforts came next; a side quest that became her main storyline. And it became her main storyline when she decides to lead the Unsullied as free men:

She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside.

But when she decides to tame Drogon and ride away from Daznak’s Pit, she does the opposite:

She scrabbled in the sand, pushing against the pitmaster's corpse, and her fingers brushed against the handle of his whip. Touching it made her feel braver. The leather was warm, alive.

A Dragon or a Harpy

Daenerys’ time in Meereen is defined by her steadfast refusal to accept any part of their culture; she hates their food, she hates their customs and traditions, and it is a burden for her to even wear the tokar. This is a startling contrast to how willing she was to join Dothraki culture in A Game of Thrones, where she tells Jorah she is not a Queen but a Khaleesi. Her attitudes toward the Meereenese are much more in line with Viserys’ view of the Dothraki; the same way Viserys complained of their strange clothes, foreign tongue, and general “savagery”, even the way Viserys was appalled by the way they eat horse meat, is paralleled in how Daenerys discusses those aspects of Meereenese culture, except replace “horse meat” with “dog meat”. While Daenerys has some moral objections to Meereen, she hates most of their things because she is angry she has to be there, stuck a world away from the Seven Kingdoms, just as Viserys hated the Dothraki because they wouldn’t sail across the Narrow Sea for him.

Daenerys connection to Viserys grows as she is forced into the same position he was; watching helplessly as the Iron Throne slips slowly out of her grasp. Much more than any prior book, Daenerys constantly hears his advice in her mind:

"I am the blood of the dragon," Dany reminded him. "Have you ever seen a dragon with the flux?" Viserys had oft claimed that Targaryens were untroubled by the pestilences that afflicted common men, and so far as she could tell, it was true.

Viserys would have his head off for that insolence.

“If my brother Viserys had known that he had a Dornish princess waiting for him, he would have crossed to Sunspear as soon as he was old enough to wed."

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.

These parallels aren’t meant to suggest that Daenerys is becoming Viserys as much as they are to show the fulfillment of Dany’s own fears; through Clash and Storm, she has worried that if she had to beg and wait as Viserys did, she could become him. And in A Dance with Dragons, she has to beg for every small amount of peace the Sons of the Harpy will allow her, and abandon Astapor and Yunkai back to slavery, as well as marry herself away to Hizdahr zo Loraq; all so one day Meereen might be peaceful enough for her to sail to Westeros. This waiting and begging chips at her sanity the same way it did Viserys.

Complicating Dany’s moral distaste for Meereen is the way she unintentionally perpetuates some of the worst aspects of the culture. As I broke down in a previous meta, Dany tortures prisoners en masse and allows the Shavepate to torture innocent children in front of their fathers. She also forces people into hard labor:

“Not a hole. A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water.”

“How kind of my old friend to help with the digging. And how very unlike him. Is it possible he was given no choice in the matter? No, surely not. You have no slaves in Meereen.”

Dany flushed. “Your friend is being paid with food and shelter. I cannot give him back his wealth. Meereen needs beans more than it needs rare spices, and beans require water.”

Daenerys never says the man is a criminal, and only mentions that he lost his wealth when the spice trade collapsed. To me, this strongly suggests the man is not a criminal being punished for his crimes, but a newly poor man being exploited due to his lack of options. And previously in A Storm of Swords, Daenerys had already decided to collect taxes from the temporary slave trade.

Yet Daenerys does not seem to notice the voluntary choices she makes to compromise her morality, instead focusing on the choices the Sons of the Harpy and Hizdahr force on her. But the symbolism of Drogon makes it clear:

Drogon hunted far afield, but when he was sated he liked to bask in the sun at the apex of the Great Pyramid, where once the harpy of Meereen had stood.

And Daenerys even living in the Great Pyramid begins to disconnect her from the people she is supposed to represent; in A Storm of Swords, she thinks to herself how different it is for those in the pyramids:

The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Kraznys’s translator had promised. The brick pyramids were all glimmer with light. But it is dark below, in the streets and plazas and fighting pits. And it is darkest of all in the barracks, where some little boy is feeding scraps to the puppy they gave him when they took away his manhood.

Daenerys’ men are slaughtered in the streets as she stays atop her pyramid with Daario, too impatient to hear the complaints of her people:

"As my queen commands. Will you hold court today?"

"No.”

Mother to Us All

Daenerys is torn between being a mother to her people or to her dragons; and while she grows more tired of her role as Queen and pulls closer to Daario, she is also starting to hate the Meereenese smallfolk she stayed to protect.

The reason Daenerys was able to temporarily overcome her love for her dragons and chain them is because of how much she also loves her people; from the moment they declared her Mhysa, it fundamentally changed the way she perceived the world. Because of Mirri Maz Duur, Dany believes she will never be able to have kids; and in the immediate aftermath of that revelation, she treated her dragons like they were her only chance to be a mother. But thousands of smallfolk chose her to be their mother, which offers Daenerys the choice to be something more. Being the mother of dragons is what she wants, but being mhysa is the right thing to do. At the end of A Storm of Swords, Daenerys didn’t realize it was a choice she had to make, and tried to be both; but once Hazzea dies and she is forced to choose, she makes the right decision by placing her people first. But, slowly throughout A Dance with Dragons, she comes to regret that choice for two reasons: she feels as if she can’t help the people, and then realizes she doesn’t want to.

As I discussed before, Daenerys has to make a series of compromises with the Sons of the Harpy and the Masters of Astapor and Yunkai to keep the peace; one of these compromises is locking Meereen’s gates and leaving the Astapori refugees to die:

They were her children, but she could not help them now.

Dany has to make so many decisions that harm huge amounts of smallfolk to keep what little peace she has made in Meereen, and starts to feel as if nothing matters. If Astapor and Yunkai have returned to slavery anyway, why should she make herself miserable in Meereen when she could take her dragons and fly to Westeros?

Even more than a feeling of hopelessness, though, it is Dany’s dislike of the Meereenese that makes her regret choosing them over her dragons:

Ten thousand throats roared out their thanks; then twenty thousand; then all. They did not call her name, which few of them could pronounce. “Mother!” they cried instead; in the old dead tongue of Ghis, the word was Mhysa! 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.

As Queen, Daenerys feels like she is forced to only represent the Nobles of Meereen instead of the slaves she stayed behind to protect. Being made to attend the fighting pits and watch as smallfolk fight and die for the pleasure of the Masters is the final insult to Daenerys.

But even though Dany tells herself she is the mother of their slaves, in truth it is clear she doesn’t like them either:

Daenerys was sick unto death of Zhak and Merreq; she was sick of all the Mereenese, great and small alike.

She has become so disconnected with “her people” that it’s a joke to her when Daario calls her out on it:

“On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people."

"Some are his, some are yours. The ones you freed."

"Are you chiding me?"

"The ones you call your children. They want their mother."

"You are. You are chiding me."

The idea of the slaves appeals to Daenerys much more than the reality. The complete love and adoration she felt when she rode through the screaming crowd at the end of A Storm of Swords is what she wanted from the Meereenese when she chose to stay behind, but in reality they aren’t always like that; they are poor people who just want better lives, and get angry with Daenerys when she gets in the way of that, such as when they line up to be repaid for their animals that Drogon killed. The only slaves that never lose hope in Dany as a savior are the ones who live in Astapor, desperately clinging to the hope that someone could come save them:

“Every day we told each other that the dragon queen was coming back.” The woman had thin lips and dull dead eyes, set in a pinched and narrow face. “Cleon had sent for you, it was said, and you were coming.”

And those are the people she must shut outside the gates, again making her feel like everything she does is meaningless. By the time she has married Hizdahr and is opening the fighting pits to negotiate peace with Yunkai, Daenerys can’t even remember why she stayed in Meereen:

“I suppose I must be thankful for small victories,” the queen said.

“One step, then the next, and soon we shall be running. Together we shall make a new Meereen.” The street ahead had finally cleared. “Shall we continue on?”

What could she do but nod? One step, then the next, but where is it I’m going?

I think this divide within Daenerys, of wanting to be a mother to her people while slowly growing to despise them, is fascinating to view through the lens of her relationship to Missandei:

"I would sooner stay with you. On Naath I'd be afraid. What if the slavers came again? I feel safe when I'm with you."

Safe. The word made Dany’s eyes fill up with tears. “I want to keep you safe.” Missandei was only a child. With her, she felt as if she could be a child too. “No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys . . . I want to protect you but . . . it is so hard. To be strong. I don’t always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen . . . the . . . the. . .”

“. . . mother,” whispered Missandei.

“Mother to dragons.” Dany shivered.

“No. Mother to us all.” Missandei hugged her tighter.

Missandei is exactly what Daenerys wanted when she chose to stay in Meereen; a former slave who loves and adores her, and because she is Dany’s own scribe she gets to feel safe and cared for (unlike the unprotected slaves living in the city). Beyond that, Missandei allows Daenerys to vicariously fix her own childhood; so much of Dany’s hatred of slavery comes from her own experience being sold by Viserys to Khal Drogo, and Daenerys sees herself in Missandei. As Daenerys says in the above quote, once Ser Willem died, she had no one to ever protect or even care for her, and she wants to be the mother she never had to anyone who feels scared or afraid.

I think it’s so easy to forget because Daenerys was married and gave birth in the first book, and then goes on to lead an army and be Queen of a city, but she is still a child herself. During A Dance with Dragons, she’s roughly 15 or 16 years old - just a teenager - and yet she’s putting tremendous pressure on herself to be a mother to thousands of former slaves, while at the same time trying to build herself the childhood she never had. It’s no coincidence that she begins thinking of the house with the red door more often:

She had been dreaming of a house with a red door when Missandei woke her.

Dany had never known a home. In Braavos, there had been a house with a red door, but that was all.

This was done in Braavos, while we were living in the house with the red door. Why did that make her feel so strange?

She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door

Not since those half-remembered days in Braavos when she lived in the house with the red door had she been as happy.

I’m most interested by this dream she has, though:

"Is it Daario? What's happened?" In her dream they had been man and wife, simple folk who lived a simple life in a tall stone house with a red door.

This is the first time Daenerys has imagined a future with a red door; she has always wanted to return to the house in Braavos, but she’s never had dreams of what a future there could look like until this dream. And she pictures Daario as her husband living a simple life, even though she knows that is impossible:

I would give up my crown if he asked it of me, Dany thought. . . but he had not asked it, and never would. Daario might whisper words of love when the two of them were as one, but she knew it was the dragon queen he loved. If I gave up my crown, he would not want me.

This emphasizes that Dany will never be happy. She longs for and dreams of the house with a red door because it is an impossible reality - the one time in her life where she lived as a princess free of fear and responsibility. It’s the perfect childhood she almost had and then lost, and for the rest of her life she’s going to try and get it back. But the truth is it is lost forever; Daenerys is not the same young girl who wants peace and simplicity and nothing else, and the world will not allow her to be a carefree princess anymore. And if the red door is Dany’s ideal of lost childhood and innocence, Daario is the personification of her new dream of fire and blood and freedom from her moral misgivings. She dreams of both Daario and the red door together because they are the two things she wants most in the world; but they cannot possibly exist together. She can’t be a dragon queen who lives a simple life. At some point, she has to choose which future she wants, because she can have one but not the other.

I’ve decided to split this piece into two separate parts. As I said in my first post about A Dance with Dragons, I originally intended on three metas; the first two, about Dany’s political arc and relationships, I’ve already put out. But in writing about her personal journey, I realized it has two halves, and to do both justice I think they need separate posts. This piece is to cover the first half of her arc, up through the first nine chapters, and should highlight the huge choices she made in the first three chapters to give up on her dragons and Westeros to save her people, and then the next six chapters which test her resolve and make her regret those original choices. My next, and last, piece on Daenerys in A Dance with Dragons will solely focus on Daenerys X, when she decides to turn her back on Meereen and embrace her family and her dragons.

#daenerys targaryen #anti daenerys #game of thrones #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #A Dance with Dragons

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its-pathetic-dream-blog · 6 years ago

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Daenerys suffered an abortion in A dance with dragons? Can she get pregnant?

At the end of A Dance with Dragons, in the last chapter of Daenerys, she appears ill and bleeding, she concludes that the bleeding was due to menstruation, but then she tries to remember when she last bled and understands that she had been doing some time .

"She was bleeding, but it was only woman's blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that." - A Dance with Dragons

If she had bled at the normal time she would not try so hard to remember the last time she had menstruated. We know that Mirri Maz Durr gave birth to Dany and the baby was dead and looked monstrous

The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. “Twisted. I drew him forth myself . He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.”

After this she assured that Daenerys could not have more children and when Daenerys questioned when Drogo would return Mirri answered .

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur, "When the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.

We may simply suppose instead of saying "never" Mirri gave a spell and said it, but we are talking about Daenerys, a character who is surrounded by magic, prophecies and visions, so Mirri's speech could mean a curse that could be broken.

The idea of being the last of the line left Daenerys sad, for all her conquests were to be continued by others who were not of her blood, and the very idea of no longer having children left a sense of emptiness and incompleteness in Daenerys who wanted to be a mother .

"She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad." - Daenerys - A Storm of Swords

For many people, after the events in A Dance with Dragons where Daenerys, in the last chapter, finds herself sick and alone in the great sea of grass Dothraki the curse would have been broken. Daenerys's womb would be able to produce a living child, but due to the circumstances of famine, poor eating, and contaminated drinking water, Daenerys ended up suffering a miscarriage, but in any case being able to have children would prevent the Targaryen extinct . Analyzing line by line the speech of Mirri we have:

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,"

Quentyn Martell, son of Doran Martell, was assigned to go to Meereen to propose a wedding ring with Dany in exchange for Dorne's support for her to conquer the iron throne, Daenerys did not accept the request, as she would marry Hizdarh zo Loraq in the Quentyn decided to try to tame one of the trapped dragoons by hiding with his men in the dragon pit, Quentyn did not want to go home with his hands shaking, but ended up being burned dead by one of them.

The importance of all this is that the symbol of the Martell house is a sun pierced by a spear, Quentyn Martell was born in Westeros and died in Meereen, the sun was born in the West and died in the East.

“When the seas go dry"

The Sea of Dothraki grass is drying and dying, here is the stretch of Daenerys walking on it in Dance with Dragons.

"Though she walked through a green kingdom, it was not the deep rich green of summer. Even here autumn made its presence felt, and winter would not be far behind. The grass was paler than she remembered, a wan and sickly green on the verge of going yellow. After that would come brown. The grass was dying."

"and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves."

The Pyramids of Meereen are being destroyed by the dragoons that were released by Quentyn Martell and the ashes were scattered everywhere by the wind, it is also noted that Quentyn and his companions who freed the dragons infiltrated the Mercenary Company 'Windblown' "When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child" Daenerys bleeding may indicate that she was fertile again and was pregnant.

"As she splashed her face, she saw fresh blood on her thighs. The ragged hem of her under-tunic was stained with it. The sight of so much red frightened her. Moon blood, it’s only my moon blood , but she did not remember ever having such a heavy flow."

"Then he (Drogo) will return, and not before"

Daenerys finds Khal Jhaqo's Khalaasar, of course physically Drogo does not return, his body turned to ashes, but the symbolism in Mirri's speech and in such a 'curse' is perhaps indicative of Daenerys being able to replace Drogo by height, as the great leader of the Khalaasar , the Dothrakis follow the strongest and Daenerys's mount is Drogon, she can prove her strength before them and finally take revenge on Mago and Khal Jhaqo for what they did with Eroeh.

"Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo's bloodrider now," said Jhogo. "He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bl oodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat."

"It was a cruel fate," Dany said, "yet not so cruel as Mago's will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh." The Dothrakis exchanged insecure stares. "Khaleesi," explained Aia Irri, as if she were talking to a child."Khaleesi, Jhaqo is khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back.

She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming."

#game of thrones #daenerys #jon snow #sophie turner #jonerys #jonsa #kit harington #emilia clarke

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nymini · 7 years ago

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A list of lines & other things in ASOIAF that break my heart

…because I just finished adwd and I’m trying to cope

“And afterward, we'll ride north to see the Wall. We won't even tell Jon we're coming, we'll just be there one day, you and me. It will be an adventure." "An adventure," Bran repeated wistfully. He heard his brother sob. The room was so dark he could not see the tears on Robb's face, so he reached out and found his hand. Their fingers twined together.

Distressed baby Rickon not quite knowing where his family is and what’s going on. (“You leave him. You leave him be. He’s coming home now, like he promised. He’s coming home.”)

“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are.”

Promise me, Ned.

“How then did you save me? I saw my god's house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved." “Your life." Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. “Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone."

“Dimly, as if from far away, she heard a … a noise … a soft sighing sound, as if a million people had let out their breath at once.”

The tragedy that is the story of Jeyne Poole

PROUDWING

The Starklings remembering Robb with snow melting in his hair.

Mycah & Lady’s deaths

Barra & her mother

Alayaya

Arya held her breath and kissed the mud on the floor of the tunnel and cried. For who, she could not say.

Run Weasel, run as far as you can, run and hide and never come back.

“It’s always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”

The fate of the people in the Riverlands, Hardhome, Astapor & Saltpans.

When they took his head off, they killed me too.

But if we are winning, why am I so afraid?

Davos pretty much having to watch half of his children die at the Blackwater

Sansa singing the mother’s song to Sandor before he leaves King’s Landing

It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I’m not dead either.

“When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.”

Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.

“Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king?”

But the wolf’s dead and the young one’s gone south to play the game of thrones, and all that’s left us is the ghosts.

“She was,” said Meera, “but that’s a sadder story.”

We look up at the same stars and see such different things.

“I have won every battle, yet somehow I’m losing the war.”

“The singers make much of kings who die valiantly in battle, but your life is worth more than a song. To me at least, who gave it to you.”

Jaime, he thought, my name is Jaime.

The training of the Unsullied

“Could you bring back a man without a head? Just the once, not six times. Could you?”

“And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we’ll live.”

In this light, she could almost be a beauty. In this light she could almost be a knight.

“We’re all just songs in the end. If we are lucky.”

“No, don’t, don’t cut my hair, Ned loves my hair.”

Let him grow taller, she asked the gods. Let him know sixteen, and twenty, and fifty. Let him grow as tall as his father, and hold his own son in his arms. Please, please, please.

“D’you remember that cave? We should have stayed in that cave.”

Back in Winterfell, Sansa told him, that the demons of the dark couldn’t touch him if he hid beneath his blanket.

I have a hole where my heart should be, she thought, and nowhere else to go.

The story of the dying archer Sandor and Arya come across after the RW.

"You remember where the heart is?"

Arya took the doll away from her, ripped it open, and pulled the rag stuffing out of its belly with a finger. “Now he really looks like a soldier!”

The boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead.

“I’d win in the end, yes, but you’d bleed me, and my people have bled enough.”

Joffrey was dead, but if Robb was dead too, what did it matter?

I thought my song was beginning that day, but it was almost done.

A pure world, Sansa thought. I do not belong here.

What do I want with snowballs? She looked at her sad little arsenal. There’s no one here to throw them at. She let the one she was making drop from her hand.

“I was a man grown when they were playing in these pools. Yet here I sit, and they are gone.”

“And pull your hood up. The snowflakes are melting in your hair.”

Arya never seemed to find the places she set out to reach.

“I’m his squire,” he repeated, as the rain ran down his face, “but he left me.”

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

“My sister Elia had a little girl as well. Her name was Rhaenys. She was a princess too.”

The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves…

It was not the scorn of the many that left her confused and vulnerable, but the kindness of the few.

“Egg? Egg, I dreamed that I was old.”

Gilly having to leave her baby behind

“We are sworn to protect her as well,” Jaime had finally been driven to say. “We are,” Darry allowed, “but not from him.”

“I’m sorry I never trusted you. I don’t know how to do that anymore.”

“It’s just a sword,” she said, aloud this time… but it wasn’t. […] the Many-Faced God can have the rest, she thought, but he can’t have this.

“I used to have a dog when I was little. I called him Hero.” “Was he?” “Was he what?” “A hero.” “No. He was a good dog, though. He died.” (oh Podrick…)

The Broken Men speech

Jaime’s dream about Joanna

“The war of the Ninepenny Kings?” asked Hyle Hunt. “So they called it, though I never saw a king, nor earned a penny. It was a war though. That it was.”

“Egg? It’s dark. Why is it so dark?”

“I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be a son or daughter.”

“Death should hold no fear for a man as old as me, but it does. Isn’t that silly?”

“[…] I was never afraid, when he was throwing me. I knew he would always be there to catch me. Then one day he wasn’t.”

“It were the black one,” the man said, in a Ghiscari growl, “the winged shadow. He come down from the sky and… and…”

Jon remembered Ygritte, crying. I am the last of the giants.

Pia being genuinely confused when Jaime has her rapist executed. Those poor people are seriously not used to actually getting some justice.

Penny and her brother

“He taught me how to climb a tree when we were little. He could catch fish with his hands. Once I found him sleeping in our garden with a hundred butterflies crawling over him. He looked so beautiful that morning, this one… I mean, I loved him.”

Her name had been Hazzea. She was four years old.

One day when the war is done and King Stannis sits the Iron Throne and has no more need of onion knights. I'll take Devan with me. Steff and Stanny too if they're old enough. We'll see these dragons and all the wonders of the world.

“I’m no slave.” “Every man ever taken by slavers sings that same sad song.”

“Should you reach your queen, give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis. Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon.”

I am so sorry Marya, I have loved you. Please forgive the wrongs I did you.

“Who is Eroeh?” “A girl I thought I’d saved from rape and torment. All I did was make it worse for her in the end. And all I did in Astapor was make ten thousand Eroehs.”

The story of the Mountain and the Hound

What if I don’t want to remain when you are gone? he almost asked, but he swallowed the words unspoken.

“That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us…“

I was going to be a knight, Bran remembered. I used to run and climb and fight. It seemed a thousand years ago. What was he now?

Bran did not want to be married to a tree… but who else would wed a broken boy like him?

“I saw your father die. Here is his killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night? Will it make me laugh, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick?”

It is an easy thing for a prince to call the spears, but in the end the children pay the price.

“Thousands of enemies. Thousands of wildlings.” Thousands of people, Jon thought.

An honest kiss, a little kindness, everyone deserves that much, however big, or small.

It was my home, though. Not a true home, but the best I ever knew.

“Naath. Butterflies and brothers. Tell me of the things that make you happy, the things that make you giggle, all your sweetest memories. Remind me that there is still good in the world.”

Where was I? I should have died with him.

Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad.

Her song is sad and pretty. What happened to her wasn’t.

Men’s lives have meaning, not their deaths.

I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

“Sister. See. This time I knew you.”

“Theon,” he repeated. “My name is Theon. You have to know your name.”

A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes.

Quentyn did not want to die at all.

"I want to go back to Yronwood and kiss both of your sisters, marry Gwyneth Yronwood, watch her flower into beauty, have a child by her. I want to ride in tourneys, hawk and hunt, visit my mother in Norvos, read some of those books my father sends me. I want Cletus and Will and Maester Kedry to be alive again..."

They know nothing, Ygritte. And worse, they will not learn.

Stick them with the pointy end.

“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was… her name was…” 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 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.”

Feel free to add.

#nymini reads asoiaf #long post #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #a game of thrones #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #a feast for crows #a dance with dragons #grrm #quotes

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the-arilouverse · 24 days ago

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you.

i have been pulled in by sword and his weird green son. tell me more ab them would ya :3

btw i jst wanna let you know- if i could ever hold shiv irl, id put him in a sock

Like this vv

^^ I'm glad you like them! I can't take all the credit because Sword and the rest of Shiv's family members are all my friend/Co-Author Kurumi's OCs. That being said, let's dive into this weird green family! Shiv's parents are a Cacturne named Eroeh and an Aegislash named Sword. The two of them met deep in the desert, in a place known as the Sea of Sand.

Sword was originally part of a crew of ghost types sailing on a previously-sunken ship. They attacked Eroeh, but he single-handedly defeated them all and was able to escape.

During that fight, Sword saw something in Eroeh. Maybe it was like-minded bloodlust, or maybe he just.. had a feeling about the guy. Either way, Sword followed him out of the Sea of Sand, intent to join him wherever he was going next.

It was rough at first, to say the least. Eroeh is mute and had been alone chasing bandits for years. He didn't want Sword's company, but punching only works so well on a pokemon made of solid metal.

What ultimately won Eroeh over was that Sword could fight and fight well- And insisted on teaching him how to do the same. Sword recognized that Eroeh was strong, but he was also unfocused and his defense was lacking. So, Sword taught Eroeh to wield him like a weapon, and use his shield to defend himself.

Together they were a force to be reckoned with, and they soon became infamous across the Pale Desert. Legends were being spread far and wide of the terrifying Spirit of Vengeance and his Ravenous Blade.

With the parents covered, let's talk about the kids! Some number of years after Eroeh and Sword clean up their act, (You can thank Snek for that, by the way. He's been a very good influence on them.) they find an "abandoned" egg in the remains of a bandit camp after they cleared it out the night before.

At first, they decide to make the long walk back to the nearest village and drop off the egg, where it would hopefully hatch and be placed in a good home. But.. the longer Eroeh carried the egg with him, the more he wondered if they should keep it. He'd spent most of his life without a family- having lost everyone he held dear when his home village was destroyed almost twenty years ago. This could've been his only chance to have a family again.

Sword was vehemently against keeping the egg. He and Eroeh were a couple of scoundrels- They didn't have what it takes to be parents, they didn't even have a home! The two argued back and forth about it while they traveled, until one day, in the middle of an argument, the egg started to crack.

Eroeh forgot about the argument entirely, choosing instead to focus on the egg. Sword kept his distance, still furious from their fighting.

The egg hatched into a little Cacnea. Eroeh was instantly overwhelmed with fondness for the little tyke, though Sword was less than amused. He knew in that moment that he lost out, and that they'd be keeping the baby whether he liked it or not.

Eroeh decided to name him Heome.

Sword would keep putting up a fuss over it, but he eventually came around to being a parent. For one, it made Eroeh extremely happy to be a father, and two, Heome was just really cute. Just the sweetest, cutest little baby.

They took Heome everywhere with them. When they needed to bring in bandits, they'd find someone to look after him for a little while. (Occasionally Heome would be babysat by none other than Snek. He loves kids, and by this point he was very good friends with Eroeh and Sword.)

When Heome got too big to carry around anymore, the little family found a home in a modest village called Little Oasis. Not long after they settled in there, Eroeh and Sword found themselves with another egg. One that would hatch into a Honedge that they named Shiv.

Heome and Shiv's childhood was fine. Eroeh and Sword tried their best to strike a balance between being vigilantes and being fathers.

Heome and Shiv would go stretches of time without seeing their dads, but it was alright, the rest of the village would take care of them. One pokemon in particular was quite fond of the boys. A Hisuian Decidueye named Artemis. He had a young son of his own, a Rowlet named Orion. The three boys would go on to be the closest of friends.

Heome grows up to have a very protective personality. He looks up to his fathers a lot, and wants to protect and help people like they do. He's also a softie, a sweetheart, and is just an all around friendly guy.

As a child, Shiv is very timid. Choosing to hide behind his brother or his dads whenever he can. He's not very brave, and he doesn't really want to be a fighter, even if he is a sword.

Shiv eventually grows out of his shyness, or at the very least by the time he evolves for the first time he's learned to hide it behind an attitude and humor. He learns to fight alongside Heome in the same way Eroeh and Sword fight together, although Heome and Shiv have a third teammate in the form of Orion. Unlike his dad, he's a regular Decidueye and isn't half bad as an archer.

I could probably go on about this cast of characters for hours- they're some of my absolute favorites, but I think I'll leave this here before the post gets too long. This is certainly the gist of 'em!

#Eroeh and Sword #Shiv #Heome #Lore #See eroeh and sword get a joint tag because they are a set #do not separate #Also don't worry about how a Cacturne and an Aegislash have two kids together there's lore for it I'm just saving it for later #Also this doesn't even get into the story of Shiv's life hehe #Look forward to that >:]#ask

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the-arilouverse · 20 days ago

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Eroeh and Sword are serial tax evaders not because they're doing it on purpose but because no tax collector has the guts to confront them

#they were also running around with no home to speak of for years on end #but this is funnier #Eroeh and Sword

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the-arilouverse · 23 days ago

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I have a personal headcanon that Aegislash are particularly strong telepaths. Obviously they can only speak with their minds, as they lack a mouth, but they can also read the thoughts of other pokemon pretty well.

This is why Eroeh and Sword are able to "speak" to each other despite Eroeh being mute.

It also means that Sword was the first and only person to hear Eroeh in years when they first met.

Nowadays their telepathic bond is so strong that they practically share a mind. Sword knows everything about Eroeh and vice versa. They practically see through eachother's eyes.

#Eroeh and Sword #yappin'#lore #We actually have a running gag that Eroeh doesn't know everything about Sword #but only because he never asks #Eroeh is a lot of things but he struggles with being considerate. Or at least Sword thinks so.

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years ago

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Daenerys Targaryen's tropes - A Mother to Her Men

This commander cares deeply about their men and exhibits it constantly. A mentor to the officers under them, they take a deep personal interest in their welfare and try to keep them out of harm's way. They would never say "We Have Reserves" unless they have absolutely no choice (and even then you can expect them to privately be torn up about it). Staff officers, engineers, and the Camp Cook will be treated with respect and made to feel as valued as the troops on the front line. However, they have no patience with the Glory Hound or the Obstructive Bureaucrat. They will never lay claim to their subordinate’s work, and will even downplay any credit that is due to them. They willown up to any mistakes, even those of their subordinates. In the latter case, they often follow up with treating their subordinate's mistakes as Career Building Blunders. When their followers are on the losing end of a battle, you better believe that No One Gets Left Behind. And when their subordinates actually die, they will remember all of their names and faces.

Gender flipped version of A Father to His Men with Dany.

Cares deeply about her followers and exhibits it constantly

Dany considered. The slaver host seemed small compared to her own numbers, but the sellswords were ahorse. She’d ridden too long with Dothraki not to have a healthy respect for what mounted warriors could do to foot. The Unsullied could withstand their charge, but my freedmen will be slaughtered. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“...The slaves are weak from the march.”

“Freedmen,” Dany corrected. “They are slaves no longer.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

“No,” she said. “I will not march my people off to die.” My children. “There must be some way into this city.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

“Say the word, my sweet, and I will send you from this awful place. I will find a ship somehow and send you home. To Naath.”

“I would sooner stay with you. On Naath I’d be afraid. What if the slavers came again? I feel safe when I’m with you.”

Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

When the gluttony was done and all the half-eaten food had been cleared away— to be given to the poor who gathered below, at the queen’s insistence— tall glass flutes were filled with a spiced liqueur from Qarth as dark as amber. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

Refuses to forget her followers' names and faces and holds herself accountable for their deaths

“It was a cruel fate,” Dany said, “yet not so cruel as Mago’s will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.” (AGOT Daenerys IX)

Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on. (ACOK Daenerys I)

“Your Grace,” said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, “there is no need for you to see this.”

“He died for me.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

“Stalwart Shield shall not be forgotten. Have him washed and dressed for battle and bury him with cap and shield and spears.”

“It shall be as Your Grace commands,” said Grey Worm.

“Send men to the Temple of the Graces and ask if any man has come to the Blue Graces with a sword wound. And spread the word that we will pay good gold for the short sword of Stalwart Shield. Inquire of the butchers and the herdsmen, and learn who has been gelding goats of late.” Perhaps some goatherd would confess. “Henceforth, no man of mine walks alone after dark.” (ADWD Daenerys I)

“They are afraid for their children,” Reznak said.

Yes, Daenerys thought, and so am I. (ADWD Daenerys II)

Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripe-back of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. (ADWD Daenerys III)

… but Daenerys Targaryen had other children, tens of thousands who had hailed her as their mother when she broke their chains. She thought of Stalwart Shield, of Missandei’s brother, of the woman Rylona Rhee, who had played the harp so beautifully. No marriage would ever bring them back to life, but if a husband could help end the slaughter, then she owed it to her dead to marry. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Who is Eroeh?”

“A girl I thought I’d saved from rape and torment. All I did was make it worse for her in the end. And all I did in Astapor was make ten thousand Eroehs.”

“Your Grace could not have known—”

“I am the queen. It was my place to know.” (ADWD Daenerys V)

No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. Better a few should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost. (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

Her followers view her as their mother

“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. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Their eyes followed her. Those who had the strength called out. “Mother … please, Mother … bless you, Mother …” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

Daenerys Targaryen was wed, the guards on the pens had told them, laughing. She had taken a Meereenese slaver as her king, as wealthy as he was noble, and when the peace was signed and sealed the fighting pits of Meereen would open once again. Other slaves insisted that the guards were lying, that Daenerys Targaryen would never make peace with slavers. Mhysa, they called her. Someone told him that meant Mother. Soon the silver queen would come forth from her city, smash the Yunkai’i, and break their chains, they whispered to one another. (ADWD Tyrion X)

Hizdahr’s blunder with Grey Worm had cost him the Unsullied. When His Grace had tried to put them under the command of a cousin, as he had the Brazen Beasts, Grey Worm had informed the king that they were free men who took commands only from their mother. (ADWD The Queensguard)

“Is it true?” a freedwoman shouted. “Is our mother dead?”

“No, no, no,” Reznak screeched. “Queen Daenerys will return to Meereen in her own time in all her might and majesty. Until such time, His Worship King Hizdahr shall—”

“He is no king of mine,” a freedman yelled. (ADWD The Discarded Knight)

#daenerys targaryen #dany tropes #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings #a game of thrones

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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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How Dany assesses the counsel she receives and makes her own choices - Attempting to save the Lhazareen victims

I want to devote the beginning of this series of posts specifically for May 19 2020, which marks the one-year anniversary of the death of the queen who inspired so many of us. Even if I don't engage exclusively with the show and its discourse, as a Dany fan, I was also very emotionally affected by what happened. I felt the need to write something for this day, even if not show-related. This meta is a love letter to our brave, compassionate and intelligent queen; it shows the kind of leader she is, the kind of leader the show decided to destroy and the kind of leader that will leave an unfillable void if she also dies in the books. #istandbydaenerys

This will be a series of posts meant to show that Dany is open to receiving advice and criticism, but that she doesn't act solely based on what other people tell her to do. On the opposite, GRRM makes great effort to write a Dany who most often merges different viewpoints and/or finds her own solutions to the problems she's facing. I won't include every single decision she ever made (e.g. her decisions at court are often made without counsel and her execution of the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs was already exhaustively and deftly analyzed by other people), but there will be plenty of instances in this series that will prove my point nonetheless. The metas will always have four items: in which chapters the events mentioned take place; what advice she receives and from whom; what were her actions; the verdict (whether she followed other people's advice, ignored/rejected them or did both at the same time).

Chapter (s):

AGOT Daenerys VII

The advice Dany receives:

Quaro, Irri and Jhogo tell Dany that "the riders do [the lamb girl] honor"; the latter goes as far as to propose to cut her tongue if her cries bother Dany.

Jorah tries to normalize what's happening by saying that it's how it's always been and that the khal's men claim their reward for fighting for him. He praises Dany's actions at first by saying that she is Rhaegar's sister, but soon afterwards reinforces that she can't save everyone.

Dany's actions:

Dany’s hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver’s head. “Make them stop,” she commanded Ser Jorah.

“I will not have her harmed,” Dany said.

As we can see in these passages, Dany uses the limited authority she has to stop the sexual violence she's witnessing. To make sure that she's successful, she consciously changes her manners to convince him:

Dany told him what she had done, in his own tongue so the khal would understand her better, her words simple and direct.

“It pleases me to hold them safe,” Dany said, wondering if she had dared too much. “If your warriors would mount these women, let them take them gently and keep them for wives. Give them places in the khalasar and let them bear you sons.”

There are multiple factors to consider as to why Dany proposed for the Dothraki men to marry the Lhazareen women they were raping:

She was told by Jorah that Drogo's men feel entitled to rape the Lhazareen women as a reward for fighting for him, so she is aware that she is breaking their social contract, even if righteously so.

She doesn't understand what marital rape is because she still absorbs some of her society's patriarchal values uncritically. Also, she still doesn't realize that this is a systemic issue and that she can't pass these women around from one master to another. This sets up her eventual rebellion against Kraznys's deal and her freeing of the Unsullied. Her failure to protect Eroeh still looms large in her thoughts and is part of Dany's reflections on why should she be a queen in the first place.

She considers Drogo "the shield that kept her safe" even though her marriage was forced, so she might expect that things work out as "well" for the other women as well. This is understandable for a 14-year-old who, despite being mature in many ways, is still naive in others.

Perhaps most importantly, her decision to help the women could have been easily overruled by Drogo. She had to think of a solution that would conciliate her husband's desires and these women's best interests simultaneously.

On the other hand, while Dany needs to act tactfully with Drogo, she doesn't do the same with the other people around her:

“Khaleesi?” The knight sounded perplexed. 

“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.”

“I claim her. Do as I command you, or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.”

Qotho was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders. It was he who laughed. “Does the horse breed with the sheep?”

Something in his tone reminded her of Viserys. Dany turned on him angrily. “The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.”

Now that she is both khaleesi and the last known Targaryen, Dany knows that she needs to have people's respect if she wants them to obey her and see her as an authority. She knows she has to be firm at times, and that's what she does.

The last quote is particularly noteworthy because of Viserys's mention. His influence on Dany contextualizes the development of her political skills in key ways.

We know right from her first chapter that Dany had to grow up and mature more quickly than a normal child/teenager: she lived with someone with whom she had to carefully consider her words ("she knew better than to question her brother"), even when she disagreed with him ("she mistrusted Illyrio's sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio") or was critical of him ("His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never used a sword in earnest"). Because of Viserys, she had to learn to be conciliatory.

It is also because of Viserys (and the Dothraki, who gave Dany the support she needed to stand up to him) that Dany had to learn to be assertive. Although her brother was "stupid and vicious" and "cruel", he could also be strong-minded and resolute, and that's what Dany held on to. The moments where she declares her titles to express her authority (among other usages) are not only contextualized by the pseudofeudal system that she's part of, but also by Viserys's influence on her (which Dany doesn't accept blindly, she learns the best he could've taught her), hence why you see her using phrases that he used as well. (The difference is that she recontextualizes them - "blood of the dragon" is used to give herself strength in moments of fear and remind herself that she needs to control her emotions to be perceived as an authority; "wake the dragon" is used in moments of great distress, such as when she's furious at Robert's attempt to kill her and Rhaego or when she became impatient with Jorah for constantly trying to isolate her from other men; and so on.)

Dany's handling of her interpersonal relationships with Drogo and Viserys need to be analyzed and contextualized to fully grasp not only this particular moment, but also Dany's entire character development and the politically savvy queen she will become in ASOS and ADWD. Some argue that it was "unrealistic" to see her getting to that point, but I would argue it wasn't at all: her entire life, with all its setbacks and hardships, shaped her to be conciliatory, assertive and resilient and develop the political skills that she did. She wouldn't have survived if she hadn't developed them.

(Just to be clear, none of this is to say that these men were responsible for making who Dany is or that their emotional and sexual abuse of Dany was justified in any way. Indeed, neither Viserys nor Drogo ever had the intention of guiding Dany - her development is hers and only hers. Because of her extraordinary courage and strong moral values, she was able to separate the good from the bad in their influences and be resilient and adaptable all the way through.)

People tend to see this moment solely as a failure on Dany's part because her efforts to help these women didn't pay off. However, to look at these scenes only from that perspective means missing out how they serve as a prelude to Dany's rise as a political leader.

Verdict:

Dany's decisions were all hers here and she took them despite everyone else's advice (though she also took Jorah's into consideration when she spoke to Drogo).

#daenerys targaryen #istandbydaenerys #dany and her choices #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #a game of thrones #viserys targaryen #drogo

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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.4: And Now His Watch Is Ended

In this series of posts, I intend to analyze precisely how the show writers downplayed or erased several key aspects of Daenerys Targaryen’s characterization, even when they had the books to help them write her as the compelling, intelligent, compassionate, frugal, open-minded and self-critical character that GRRM created.

I want to make it clear that these posts are not primarily meant to offer a better alternative to what the show writers gave us. I understand that they had many constraints (e.g. other storylines to handle, a limited amount of time to write the scripts, budget, actors who may have asked for a certain number of lines, etc) working against them. However, considering how disrespectful the show’s ending was to Daenerys Targaryen and how the book material that they left out makes it even more ludicrous to think that she will also become a villain in A Song of Ice and Fire, I believe that these reviews are more than warranted. They are meant to dissect everything about Dany’s characterization that was lost in translation, with a lot of book evidence to corroborate my statements.

Since these reviews will dissect scene by scene, I recommend taking a look at this post because I will use its sequence to order Dany’s scenes.

This post is relevant in case you want to know which chapters were adapted in which GoT episodes (however, I didn’t make the list myself, all the information comes from the GoT Wiki, so I can’t guarantee that it’s 100% reliable).

In general, I will call the Dany from the books “Dany” and the Dany from the TV series “show!Dany”.

Scene 4

Summary: show!Dany enters Astapor and exchanges Drogon for the Unsullied. Then, she orders them to attack the masters and has Drogon burn Kraznys. At the end, she frees the Unsullied and leaves the city.

As I've explained many times in my reviews of episodes 3.1 and 3.3, the show writers have sidelined Dany's thoughts and feelings and overall motivations a lot in their adaptation of the books' events. The moment above is another example. Do we have any clue on how show!Dany is feeling in the screenshot above? Because we do in the books:

If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she would lose all courage. (ASOS Daenerys III)

When it comes to this change, it's important to have in mind how the show writers (particularly Benioff) perceive Dany at this point:

Benioff: Dany is becoming more and more viable as a threat, you know, both, you know, in attaining an army and because she's the mother of these three dragons who are only gonna get more and more fearsome. (Inside the Episode, 3.4)

The darker moments can weigh on fans, though. The Red Wedding in particular is infamous for making many fans very upset with the books. One reader once claimed on the EW boards that there are no heroes in Martin’s novels, only victims.

Benioff: Well, that’s not true. It’s hard to think of Daenerys Targaryen as a victim.

Weiss: She started as a victim. But many heroes start as somebody who is powerless. (x)

Because show!Dany is "becoming more and more viable as a threat" in Benioff's eyes, she is no longer even acknowledged as a victim (as if one ever "stopped" being one) and her emotional expressions are flattened accordingly. In the show, expressing fear and anxiety and sorrow is restricted to either powerless victims or unhinged characters, not "badasses". In the books, on the other hand, Dany is allowed to feel a variety of emotions:

Dany fed her dragons as she always did, but found she had no appetite herself. She cried awhile, alone in her cabin, then dried her tears long enough for yet another argument with Groleo. “Magister Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about it.”

The anger burned the grief and fear from her, for a few hours at the least. Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.

She meant to sleep afterward, to be well rested for the morrow, but an hour of restless tossing in the stuffy confines of the cabin soon convinced her that was hopeless. Outside her door she found Aggo fitting a new string to his bow by the light of a swinging oil lamp. Rakharo sat crosslegged on the deck beside him, sharpening his arakh with a whetstone. (ASOS Daenerys III)

On the night before she frees the Unsullied, Dany is restless. That's quite understandable - she is putting the lives of her entire retinue (which she describes as "small and insignificant" in numbers) and her child at risk to fight for the dignity of the slave soldiers. She even cries on her own, perhaps due to her guilt over the exchange of Drogon for the army. Then, she asks for the people whom she trusts to sleep in her cabin because she can't stand being alone during these hours in which there's nothing she can do but to wait and have doubts. This moment of calm before the storm is crucial because it perfectly illustrates Ned's lesson to Bran back in AGOT - by allowing us to see Dany's fear, her bravery becomes more apparent later. By allowing us to see Dany's vulnerability, we get a better sense of how difficult her narrative conflict is and her ultimate triumph feels even more hard-earned. Unfortunately, the show writers never understood any of this.

The calm before the storm is also important for this reason:

“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your strength.” 

“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him.

“The Lhazareen girl?”

“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.” 

“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

This is one of the key moments of the chapter, not only because it's one of the hints of Dany's eventual breaking of the deal, but also because it highlights Dany's character development: after being a slave and witnessing what others experienced as slaves, she comes to the conclusion that she is no true queen if she doesn't fight for and protect the oppressed. There are no feudal alliances or benefits to be found here, Dany is doing this just because it's the right thing to do.

Benioff may say that the surprise attack made sense in the books because of the hints scattered across the chapter, but neither he nor Weiss seem to have considered including any of the scenes above into the TV show. More than just signaling what will happen, they are pivotal to understanding Dany's character motivations. By understanding them, the resolution of the conflict becomes obvious in retrospect. Unfortunately, they don't care enough about them to make sure that they are conveyed onscreen. As a result, the show scene begins on a much weaker foundation.

Some key details are missing in the exchange scene of the show:

Aggo went before her with his great Dothraki bow. Strong Belwas walked to the right of her mare, the girl Missandei to her left. Ser Jorah Mormont was behind in mail and surcoat, glowering at anyone who came too near. Rakharo and Jhogo protected the litter. Dany had commanded that the top be removed, so her three dragons might be chained to the platform. Irri and Jhiqui rode with them, to try and keep them calm. Yet Viserion’s tail lashed back and forth, and smoke rose angry from his nostrils. Rhaegal could sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui’s hand. Drogon coiled into a ball, wings and tail tucked tight. Only his eyes remained to tell that he was not asleep.

The rest of her people followed: Groleo and the other captains and their crews, and the eighty-three Dothraki who remained to her of the hundred thousand who had once ridden in Drogo’s khalasar. She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red waste and black salt sea. (ASOS Daenerys III)

As we can see above, in the books, Dany brings her entire retinue and organizes them in a way that makes them look more imposing to the masters; it's a detail that showcases her political skills. In the show, she is only accompanied by Jorah, Barristan and Missandei (and Drogon). The Dothraki mentioned in episode 3.1 are nowhere to be seen here.

This part is also cut:

He looked at Missandei. “Tell her they are hers ... if she can pay.”

“She can,” the girl said.

Ser Jorah barked a command, and the trade goods were brought forward. Six bales of tiger skins, three hundred bolts of fine silk. Jars of saffron, jars of myrrh, jars of pepper and curry and cardamom, an onyx mask, twelve jade monkeys, casks of ink in red and black and green, a box of rare black amethysts, a box of pearls, a cask of pitted olives stuffed with maggots, a dozen casks of pickled cave fish, a great brass gong and a hammer to beat it with, seventeen ivory eyes, and a huge chest full of books written in tongues that Dany could not read. And more, and more, and more. Her people stacked it all before the slavers.

While the payment was being made, Kraznys mo Nakloz favored her with a few final words on the handling of her troops. “They are green as yet,” he said through Missandei. “Tell the whore of Westeros she would be wise to blood them early. There are many small cities between here and there, cities ripe for sacking. Whatever plunder she takes will be hers alone. Unsullied have no lust for gold or gems. And should she take captives, a few guards will suffice to march them back to Astapor. We’ll buy the healthy ones, and for a good price. And who knows? In ten years, some of the boys she sends us may be Unsullied in their turn. Thus all shall prosper.”

Finally there were no more trade goods to add to the pile. Her Dothraki mounted their horses once more, and Dany said, “This was all we could carry. The rest awaits you on the ships, a great quantity of amber and wine and black rice. And you have the ships themselves.[”] (ASOS Daenerys III)

We do get Kraznys's advice on what to do with the Unsullied, but we don't see the exchange of the trading goods happening in the TV show. Some might consider this a minor change, but it is, nonetheless, part of an overall pattern to reduce the extent of Dany's sacrifices to save the Unsullied.

Like in the books, show!Dany also asks Kraznys if the deal is done after she hands him the dragon and is given the whip. The way that show!Dany confirms that the Unsullied are now hers is different from the books, though:

She stood in her stirrups and raised the harpy’s fingers above her head for all the Unsullied to see. “IT IS DONE!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “YOU ARE MINE!” She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the first rank, holding the fingers high. “YOU ARE THE DRAGON’S NOW! YOU’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!” (ASOS Daenerys III)

DAENERYS: Unsullied! Forward march! Halt!

In a way, I actually like this change. That show!Dany makes a command (rather than just an announcement) that the Unsullied obey gives her (and the audience) even more assurance that they will remain faithful to her - she is being clever here.

My only quibbles are that:

In the books, Dany shouting that the deal is done and that the Unsullied are now hers is Dany making sure that they'll fight against their former masters when she offers them freedom. This ties back into her questions to Kraznys and Missandei about whether the Unsullied want (or even can) turn against their previous owners. In the show, as I said, making sure that they follow a command is a surer way to guarantee their allegiance, but it's not connected to any of the many hints that she'd eventually rebel like the moment from the books is.

In the books, we are supposed to be unsure about whether the Unsullied would take Dany's side or not (and it's important that we don't know until the very end), but I'll get to that in a second.

Another change is that, in the books, her advisors do not look surprised when they see her speaking to the Unsullied (we witness Missandei's surprise earlier in the chapter), only one of the masters do (while the others are too distracted to pay attention):

She glimpsed old Grazdan turn his grey head sharply. He hears me speak Valyrian. The other slavers were not listening. They crowded around Kraznys and the dragon, shouting advice. Though the Astapori yanked and tugged, Drogon would not budge off the litter. Smoke rose grey from his open jaws, and his long neck curled and straightened as he snapped at the slaver’s face. (ASOS Daenerys III)

While we're at it, remember how I mentioned in my reviews of 3.1 and 3.3 that the show writers tend to center on show!Jorah's perspective and make it the one we're supposed to relate to?

Like in episode 3.3, his reactions were conceived to mirror those of first-time viewers (and Benioff's):

“It’s a hallmark of a number of scenes in [A Storm of Swords] where, in retrospect, I should have seen it coming because George laid out all the pieces, he had given you all the clues,” Benioff said. “The best kind of surprises aren’t the ones that come out of nowhere. The best ones are where after you see it you’re asking yourself, ‘Why didn’t I see that was coming?’ I remember reading [Dany planning to give up Drogon to the slaver] and thinking, ‘Oh, this is kind of disappointing.’ When the real plan was revealed I think I even called [Weiss]. This was before we had met with George, when we were still trying to figure out if this show was possible. The culmination of that scene was one of those moments when we were like, ‘We got to make this f–king show.’ It was very gratifying seeing that wish fulfilled … I think it will be one of the most staggering things ever put on television.” (x)

It is, of course, problematic to prioritize the perspective of a male slaver over that of the female revolutionary who is the POV character in the books. It's also sad to see, even early on, that her male advisors were given priority over her. It just wasn't as noticeable because, despite everything, we were still supposed to be on her side rather than torn between her and her male advisors.

Like in the books, Drogon won't obey Kraznys, which leads Dany to tell him that "a dragon is no slave". Then, the sequence of events change.

In the books, Dany makes that statement, hits Kraznys in the face with the whip (as a payback for his whipping of the slaves and everything else he did in the previous chapter) and has Drogon breathe fire on him immediately after:

And Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver’s face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy’s fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. “Drogon,” she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. “Dracarys.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Chaos ensues in the Plaza. The masters shove one another as they attempt to escape, Viserion and Rhaegal are unchained (which doesn't happen in the show) and Dany's bloodriders and Belwas defeat the Astapori guards before they can do anything to help. Meanwhile, the Unsullied remain still. The master who heard Dany speaking Valyrian tries to order the Unsullied to attack her in vain:

“Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

When Rakharo put an arrow through his mouth, the slaves holding his sedan chair broke and ran, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. The old man crawled to the first rank of eunuchs, his blood pooling on the bricks. The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer. (ASOS Daenerys III)

This is why I said it was important that we didn't know that the Unsullied would be on Dany's side or not until the very end of the chapter. Not only that intensifies the tension, it also highlights that Dany's leap of faith ultimately paid off because the Unsullied were still willing to fight for their freedom. Kraznys might have said that they no longer had any desire of their own and weren't even worthy to be called men anymore, but the narrative ultimately proves him wrong: there is still enough strength of will in them to fight for their dignity. So, when the chapter closes on this note:

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. (ASOS Daenerys III)

It is all the more impactful because it reinforces that the Unsullied willingly took the opportunity that they were given to fight for their rights.

On HBO, after show!Dany says that "a dragon is not a slave", she doesn't attack Kraznys with the whip nor does she burn him via Drogon. Instead, this is what happens:

KRAZNYS: You speak Valyrian?

DAENERYS: I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, of the blood of Old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue.

As @mytly4 explains here, Dany's mother tongue in the books is not Valyrian in the books, but rather the Common Tongue of Westeros. My guess is that this mistake was made simply because they wanted to make it clear that show!Dany is sassy and completely outsmarted Kraznys. Don't get me wrong, I love to see Dany being a badass, but it was still a change made overlooking her characterization (which, sadly, is the pattern for the show writers).

Then, she orders the Unsullied to kill the masters and has Drogon burn Kraznys:

DAENERYS: Unsullied! Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip, but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!

KRAZNYS: I am your master! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!

DAENERYS: Dracarys.

The change in the order of events is a problem here. As I just explained, the books make this moment about the Unsullied: when they refused to obey and then responded to Dany's order, it meant that they decided to fight for themselves. On the other hand, in the show, Dany gives the Unsullied the order before their former master attempts to have them obey him once more, so their act of defiance from the books:

The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Is impossible to happen in the show. This change makes the show scene culminate in this point:

DAENERYS: Unsullied! Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip, but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!

KRAZNYS: I am your master! Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!

DAENERYS: Dracarys.

When it should have culminated in this one:

“Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.

To summarize what's happening above:

Books: Master Grazdan tries to get the Unsullied to his side, but they choose not to => Dany commands the Unsullied to attack the masters => Dany says dracarys and the Unsullied shout it back

Show: Show!Dany commands the Unsullied to attack the masters => Kraznys tries to get the Unsullied to his side => Show!Dany says dracarys

As I just said, it was important that Dany would give the Unsullied the order to attack the masters only after they decided to not remain on the masters' side - this reinforces that the scene is not only about Dany, but also about the Unsullied's newfound agency. On HBO, the scene where show!Dany gives them the order happens before Kraznys tries to have them to get them to his side, so it becomes less about them and simply serves as a buildup to Dany saying dracarys and burning him.

Speaking of dracarys, as one can see in the quote above, the word is associated with freedom in the books. This intertwines Dany's mhysa identity (the part of Dany that wants to protect the freedmen and give them freedom) with her mother of dragons identity (the part of Dany that birthed the dragons and said dracarys). That's only fitting since, as @yendany said to me in a conversation, Dany was acting as mhysa way before she was hailed as one. On HBO, dracarys will be remembered simply as the word that show!Dany used to burn Kraznys (which happens in the books, of course, but the most relevant part is cut). Changing the order of the events overfocuses on show!Dany's "capacity for cruelty" (as Weiss puts it) which was not the point in the books.

Also, as @yendany notes in this meta, many of Dany's servants were seen actively helping her during the slave revolt. In the show, their roles are transferred to the Unsullied while her entourage reacts to the events passively and seemingly with apprehension:

While partly triumphant, the song "Dracarys" also hits dark notes that signal show!Dany's so called "capacity for cruelty", which is not at all supposed to be the purpose of the scene in the books. There, the author cuts the action in the middle of it because the point is not to highlight the violence and how ~wrong~ it is, but rather the adrenaline one feels in the midst of a successful and rightful slave rebellion. These statements from Frederick Douglass that GRRM recently posted in Not A Blog only further strengthen this reading:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

On HBO, on the other hand, having show!Dany order the Unsullied to attack earlier leads to the audience witnessing the slaughter of more people than in the books (which cuts the action). Again, this deviates from the main thematic intent of the scene. That's not to say that Dany did things perfectly in Astapor - we'll see negative consequences on ASOS Daenerys VI, when we find out that her council was deposed for the sake of the Butcher King. Here, however, Dany is doing the right thing. One can still interpret the show scene as such, don't get me wrong, but it rubs me the wrong way that the show writers would rather talk about this scene as one that indicates show!Dany's "capacity for cruelty" or how she is "becoming more and more viable as a threat". Also, in light of the show's ending, the scene becomes even worse: because show!Dany is killing Ghiscari characters, the show asks us to root for her. When she eventually kills Westerosi characters, on the other hand, she (and the Unsullied and the Dothraki) will be the villains.

DAENERYS: You have been slaves all your life. Today you are free. Any man who wishes to leave may leave, and no one will harm him. I give you my word. Will you fight for me? As free men?

This part of the scene was an addition from the show writers. It's a good one on its own. To begin on a positive note, we see show!Dany explicitly freeing the Unsullied, promising that none of them is forced to stay with her and wanting them to fight for her because they want to fight for her. This erases any doubt that show!Dany didn't free show!Missandei in the previous episode (which didn't show Dany immediately freeing her like in the books).

That being said, there are still issues when you compare what happens in the final scene of the episode with what happens in canon. In the books, as I said, the Unsullied are seen willingly rebelling against their former masters when they ignore Grazdan's order. In the show, while this final scene still features the Unsullied making their own choices, it doesn't have the same impact because they weren't shown choosing a different path even when they had another one just as viable (similar to how the negotiation scene on HBO took away show!Dany's alternatives and undermined her altruism).

One could argue that there was another viable path in the show scene too: they could have left. However, considering that the option of staying with your master (which is the one the books presented) would be much easier and that the books deliberately complicate how much of a choice the former slaves really have even after being freed ... I would say that the scene does lose part of the impact. In other words:

Books: Do I stay with my former masters? VS Do I fight for my freedom?

Show: Do I stay as a freedman with Dany? VS Do I leave?

One dilemma is about their freedom, the other is about whether they join Dany or not. This change ties back into others I've addressed in previous episodes, namely how the show writers have overfocused on Dany's need to get an army.

Second, I don't like that it's implied that show!Dany leaves Astapor in the same day that she sacked it (she's still wearing the same clothes she wore during the sack of Astapor and it's evening). It gives weight to the superficial read (that ignores her entire characterization, of course) that she primarily wanted an army and freeing the slaves was convenient. In the books, I highly doubt that she left in the same day. Since we know that she left the city with a new government, she must have spent some time there choosing (or letting the freedmen choose) which freedmen she would support as the new leaders:

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. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

We'll find out in episode 4.5 that show!Dany did the same thing, sure, but, on its own, the scene makes it seem that she just sacked the city and left.

Third, we don't see the Astapori freedmen following her like in the books:

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. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

For all the show writers will say that they cared about showing the viewpoint of the lowborn when they had show!Dany burn King's Landing, they sure as hell didn't care about it before.

Fourth, I've seen people argue that the timing of show!Dany's rejection of the whip means that she is doing what she's doing for self-interest. In their opinion, she should have discarded it before she had the Unsullied attack the masters and before she asked them to fight for her. That's another stupid misreading that would have been easily fixed if the show writers had had show!Dany use the whip against the master and thrown it away earlier like in the books.

Fifth, it's certainly gorgeous to see the dragons at the end of the scene, but it also makes me resentful considering that the show writers think Dany is overdependent on them and her advisors (so much so that they thought that she had to learn to be self-reliant in season two):

Weiss: This whole season is really the season where Dany learns the lesson of self-reliance, she's never, it's a very painful lesson for her to learn, I mean, she's lost all her people, she's lost her husband, she's lost her bloodriders. The temptation for her has always been to lean on someone else, a man of one kind or another. So, I think for her, what she's learning in this episode, especially, is that she can't trust in other people, ultimately, she ends up in a place where she needs to do things for herself and she needs to do things that nobody in the world could possibly do, except her.

Benioff: Dany is so defined by her dragons, they're so much a part at this point, they define her so much that when they're taken from her, it's almost like she reverts to the pre-dragon Daenerys, you know, everyone is a bit defined by who they were when they were an adolescent, you know, no matter how old you get, no matter how powerful you get, and Daenerys was a scared, timid, abused adolescent and I think when her dragons are taken for her, all those feelings, all those memories and emotions are triggered and come back and all the confidence that she's won over the last several months, it's as if that just evaporates and she's back to being a really frightened little girl. (Inside the Episode, 2.6)

None of this, of course, is true in the books, hence why I've been writing a series of metas to show how Dany's choices and actions are her own. Heck, even in this episode, the dragons barely play a role. Drogon was the bait, sure, but Dany's plan was all hers.

While one can appreciate the final scene simply for what it is, it's important to have in mind that it is informed by the misconception that Dany is "nothing without her dragons".

My comments on the Inside the Episode 3.4

Weiss: We never really got this, a sense of her capacity for cruelty. She's surrounded by people who are terrible people, but haven't done anything to her personally, and it's interesting to me that, as the sphere of her empathy widens, the sphere of her cruelty widens as well.

Benioff: I think she becomes harder to dismiss, you know, for a long time people have been saying, even if she was alive, you know, really, the only threat she poses is her name, she's a Targaryen, great, but she's a little girl in the edge of the world, so she's starting to knock on people's doors a little bit.

Weiss: All at once she becomes a major force to be reckoned with, she spent a lot of time kind of banging her fists on the doors and declaring that she was owed the Iron Throne by right, but now she's stepped in her own as a conqueror.

Weiss: I've already written on how the dichotomy of mhysa and mother of dragons doesn't actually exist in the way people like Weiss talk about. In fact as I said above, this scene in Astapor actually merges these two identities. Also, while I was complaining to @rainhadaenerys about what D&D were saying, she called attention to how stupid it is that he is saying that show!Dany is cruel for harming people who "haven't done anything to her personally". This informs the show's framing of the Starks taking Winterfell back or show!Sansa's killing of Ramsay or show!Arya's killing of the Freys as "righteous" while show!Dany's pursuit of the Iron Throne was seen as "bad".

Benioff: His observation about the episode showing how "Dany is becoming more and more viable as a threat" misses the point because, in the books, the scene is not framed negatively in a way that makes us focus on and/or question the violence. Instead, it is framed triumphantly as the Unsullied get to make their own choices and Dany's draconic force is associated with freedom. Also, it's infuriating that he thought that "the only threat she poses is her name, she's a Targaryen" until the sack of Astapor, for we already had lots of moments in which Dany displayed her intelligence and political skills before it happened.

Show!Dany’s clothes

This is what Dany wears in the exchange scene:

Today she rode her silver, clad in horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of Dust. (ASOS Daenerys III)

I appreciate how the single bell is mentioned to indicate Dany's confidence:

“Drogon,” she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. “Dracarys.”

It will be mentioned again in the next chapter (where she will have one more bell after her victory in Astapor) when she is talking to the mercenaries and when she rides to meet her children:

“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. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Not only the bells give Dany confidence (the way her Targaryen heritage does) in ASOS, they also come up in these moments in which she is embracing her mhysa identity by giving her people the agency they didn't have. This is very fitting; as this meta notes:

Khal Drogo is, admittedly, a surprising model for a lefty revolutionary to pattern herself on, but I think the important thing is less his example, and more that he and his khalasar provided her with a new set of rules to explore herself within. Knowing them gave her permission to live among her people, putting on the face she needed to guide them to safety, and to allow herself to be called upon through a criteria other than blood and birthright.

While it's true that the Dothraki culture is rooted in violence and misogyny, it's also true that it helped to shape Dany's sense of equality. That's why it's appropriate that the bells are ringing in these moments from ASOS and will ring once again in TWOW. As @yendany aptly said to me, Dany gave up on being both mhysa and mother of dragons when she allied herself with the slavers (even if she thought she was doing the right thing for the freedmen). On the other hand, by re-embracing her Dothraki roots and her identity as the mother of dragons, Dany will be able to truly protect her children and be their mhysa.

On HBO, show!Dany is still wearing the blue dress, this time with a cape:

I couldn't find any interview from Clapton or anyone else explaining why that cape was added. @rainhadaenerys's guess is that she wanted to have show!Dany look like a superhero, which is a good one, though it's questionable since she couldn't remember show!Dany having ever done anything that is not necessarily for personal gain until season seven.

What actually impressed (and delighted) me was to realize how show!Dany's and show!Missandei's outfits are made to resemble each other starting from this episode until the end of the series:

I'm not sure how these similarities were designed to tie into show!Dany's characterization since both the show writers and Clapton misunderstand the character she's based off. That being said, if you choose to not take their word into consideration (and that's more than possible, considering the vast amount of show canon evidence that there is to support show!Dany in the last season), I would say that they highlight how show!Dany, like her book counterpart, also desires equality for everyone.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #a storm of swords #missandei #asoiaf vs got #asos vs got #s3

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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

Text

Dany asserting her identity, titles and achievements (to others or herself) and/or moments of pride in general

As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and smart) or aspects of hers that are usually overstated (e.g. that she's ambitious and prophecy-driven). Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).

It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take. (and that's not even considering the double standards and the contradictions with what had been shown from show!Dany up until then, but that's obviously out of the scope of these lists)

Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.

I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend (or even simply explore different facets of) Dany's character in metas or conversations.

*Well, at least all the passages that I could find in her chapters, which is no guarantee that the effort was perfectly executed, but I did my best.

Also, people could interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages if they ever attempted to make one, so I'm not saying that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).

Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books and use asearchoficeandfire). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully referenced, sometimes not.

I listed the passages back to front because I felt doing so highlighted Dany's evolution better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To justify the existence of this list, let's see examples of widespread opinions that I feel misrepresent Daenerys Targaryen:

Demanding respect simply because she is the “rightful heir” to the Iron Throne is in her Signature Moves list right up there with Yelling and Burning. As Machiavelli might say: “she trippin". A ruler only gets real power through taking and earning and keeping it, not through inheritance. (Wisecrack)

But even Daenerys’ sense of altruism has diminished considerably of late, and she’s been relying on her reputation rather than a desire to inspire love and loyalty. Tywin once told Joffrey that any man who must say “I am the king” is no true king. Meanwhile, Daenerys’ first course of action is always to intimidate with her endless list of titles, even when they can’t possibly help her, as when she’s brought before Khal Moro in “The Red Woman.” (x)

Her arc is honest and real and logical. It is a coherent response to her given circumstances and follows her narrative thread coupled with her inherent lust for her own destiny. It both pushes against her gender and is inherently shaped by how others have treated her due to her gender. It is both a result of her victimization and in spite of her trials. She is self-absorbed and self-servicing, and the human tension between ego and selflessness is a huge fulcrum for the story thematically across the board. (x)

But the character has been obsessed with the Iron Throne, right from her youth. While, time and again, she has admitted that her father was a homicidal maniac, but that has never discouraged her from leaving her claim to the throne. (x)

We are supposed to forget that she is fighting for nothing more than her own sense of entitlement to the throne, like some upper-class brat who loses her family’s fortune and eventually manages to become CEO of her own corporation. (x)

I would argue that her assertion of her titles does not stem from "sense of entitlement to the throne" or from being "self-absorbed" and "self-servicing" or simply for the sake of "intimidating".

She asserts them when she needs to show other people why she deserves respect (which is, of course, all the more necessary for the sake of her gender) like in ASOS Dany IV;

She asserts them when she needs to control her fear or emotional pain (AGOT Dany II, ASOS Dany III, ADWD Dany I);

She asserts them to motivate herself (ADWD Dany X);

She asserts them to take responsibility for carrying them in the first place (ADWD Dany V, ADWD Dany VI, ADWD Dany VIII);

She even acknowledges their potential negative side (ADWD Dany II, ADWD Dany VIII).

And let's not forget that, in ADWD Dany IV, when the Green Grace argues for a Dany-Hizdahr marriage by mentioning some of their ancestors, Dany replies that "His forebears are as dead as mine. Will Hizdahr raise their shades to defend Meereen against its enemies? I need a man with ships and swords. You offer me ancestors."

And these are only examples off the top of my head. My point is that her relationship with power is complex.

IMO, claims like the ones I've linked to certainly cannot be made after reading the books (some can't even after watching the show's first 71 episodes, but the show can be all over the place and ... I digress), so take a look at these passages.

A Dance with Dragons

ADWD Daenerys X

The sun grew hotter as it rose, and before long her head was pounding. Dany’s hair was growing out again, but slowly. “I need a hat,” she said aloud. Up on Dragonstone she had tried to make one for herself, weaving stalks of grass together as she had seen Dothraki women do during her time with Drogo, but either she was using the wrong sort of grass or she simply lacked the necessary skill. Her hats all fell to pieces in her hands. Try again, she told herself. You will do better the next time. You are the blood of the dragon, you can make a hat. She tried and tried, but her last attempt had been no more successful than her first.

No, Dany told herself. If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to.

Am I dying? Then she saw the pale crescent moon, floating high above the grass, and it came to her that this was no more than her moon blood.

If she had not been so sick and scared, that might have come as a relief. Instead she began to shiver violently. She rubbed her fingers through the dirt, and grabbed a handful of grass to wipe between her legs. The dragon does not weep. She was bleeding, but it was only woman’s blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she told the grass, aloud.

“...I am only a young girl.”

“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.

ADWD Daenerys IX

When his mouth opened, she could see bits of broken bone and charred flesh between his black teeth. His eyes were molten. I am looking into hell, but I dare not look away. She had never been so certain of anything. If I run from him, he will burn me and devour me.

[...] He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I.

ADWD Daenerys VIII

You saw me as defeated, Dany thought, and who am I to say that you were wrong?

“...Never trust a sellsword.”

Or a queen, thought Dany.

“The dragon has three heads,” Dany said when they were on the final flight. “My marriage need not be the end of all your hopes. I know why you are here.”

“For you,” said Quentyn, all awkward gallantry.

“No,” said Dany. “For fire and blood.”

“They are … they are fearsome creatures.”

“They are dragons, Quentyn.” Dany stood on her toes and kissed him lightly, once on each cheek. “And so am I.”

ADWD Daenerys VII

It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown. Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on. These are my people. I am their rightful queen.

“Come back to bed and kiss me.” No one had ever kissed her like Daario Naharis. “I am your queen, and I command you to fuck me.”

She had meant it playfully[.]

“...This match will save our city, you will see.”

“So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them fruit.” Does it matter that Hizdahr’s kisses do not please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?

ADWD Daenerys VI

“Your Grace should not be here, breathing these black humors.”

“I am the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “Have you ever seen a dragon with the flux?” Viserys had oft claimed that Targaryens were untroubled by the pestilences that afflicted common men, and so far as she could tell, it was true. She could remember being cold and hungry and afraid, but never sick.

ADWD Daenerys V

“Your Grace could not have known—”

“I am the queen. It was my place to know.”

“What of these Astapori?”

My children. “They are coming here for help. For succor and protection. We cannot turn our backs on them.”

Ser Barristan frowned. “Your Grace, I have known the bloody flux to destroy whole armies when left to spread unchecked. The seneschal is right. We cannot have the Astapori in Meereen.”

Dany looked at him helplessly. It was good that dragons did not cry.

ADWD Daenerys IV

"Most queens have no purpose but to warm some king's bed and pop out sons for him. If that's the sort of queen you mean to be, best marry Hizdahr."

Her anger flashed. "Have you forgotten who I am?"

"No. Have you?"

Viserys would have his head off for that insolence. “I am the blood of the dragon. Do not presume to teach me lessons.” When Dany stood, the lion pelt slipped from her shoulders and tumbled to the ground. “Leave me.”

ADWD Daenerys III

“...A child departed Qarth, as lost as she was lovely. I feared she was sailing to her doom, yet now I find her here enthroned, mistress of an ancient city, surrounded by a mighty host that she raised up out of dreams.”

No, she thought, out of blood and fire.

“You have grown suspicious, Daenerys.”

Always. “I have grown wise, Xaro.”

“Is that meant to frighten me? 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.

If I were a dragon, I could fly to Westeros, she thought when he was gone. I would have no need of Xaro or his ships.

ADWD Daenerys II

“… mother,” whispered Missandei.

“Mother to dragons.” Dany shivered.

She squeezed the water from her silvery hair. “I am half-sick of riddling. In Qarth I was a beggar, but here I am a queen. I command you—”

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. “I was praying,” she told the Naathi girl. “It will be light soon. I had best eat something, before court.”

Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

ADWD Daenerys I

“This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to the women of the brothels to lie with him and hold him.”

The blood of the dragon does not weep.

Daenerys pushed her hair back. “Find these cowards for me. Find them, so that I might teach the Harpy’s Sons what it means to wake the dragon.”

A Storm of Swords

ASOS Daenerys VI

No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day.

Yet the thought of seeing Jorah Mormont again made her feel as if she’d swallowed a spoonful of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears.

She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen, Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there was no one in the world that she could trust.

ASOS Daenerys V

Worst of all, they had nailed a slave child up on every milepost along the coast road from Yunkai, nailed them up still living with their entrails hanging out and one arm always outstretched to point the way to Meereen. Leading her van, Daario had given orders for the children to be taken down before Dany had to see them, but she had countermanded him as soon as she was told. “I will see them,” she said. “I will see every one, and count them, and look upon their faces. And I will remember.”

By the time they came to Meereen sitting on the salt coast beside her river, the count stood at one hundred and sixty-three. I will have this city, Dany pledged to herself once more.

They watched Oznak zo Pahl dismount his white charger, undo his robes, pull out his manhood, and direct a stream of urine in the general direction of the olive grove where Dany’s gold pavilion stood among the burnt trees. He was still pissing when Daario Naharis rode up, arakh in hand. “Shall I cut that off for you and stuff it down his mouth, Your Grace?” His tooth shone gold amidst the blue of his forked beard.

“It’s his city I want, not his meager manhood.” She was growing angry, however. If I ignore this any longer, my own people will think me weak. [...]

High on the walls of Meereen, the jeers had grown louder, and now hundreds of the defenders were taking their lead from the hero and pissing down through the ramparts to show their contempt for the besiegers. They are pissing on slaves, to show how little they fear us, she thought. They would never dare such a thing if it were a Dothraki khalasar outside their gates.

Could I love Daario? What would it mean, if I took him into my bed? Would that make him one of the heads of the dragon? Ser Jorah would be angry, she knew, but he was the one who’d said she had to take two husbands. Perhaps I should marry them both and be done with it.

But these were foolish thoughts. She had a city to take, and dreaming of kisses and some sellsword’s bright blue eyes would not help her breach the walls of Meereen. I am the blood of the dragon, Dany reminded herself. Her thoughts were spinning in circles, like a rat chasing its tail.

When the horses had been saddled, Dany and her companions set out along the shoreline, away from the city. Even so, she could feel Meereen at her back, mocking her. When she looked over one shoulder, there it stood, the afternoon sun blazing off the bronze harpy atop the Great Pyramid. Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining in their fringed tokars to feast on lamb and olives, unborn puppies, honeyed dormice and other such delicacies, whilst outside her children went hungry. A sudden wild anger filled her. I will bring you down, she swore.

ASOS Daenerys IV

“Woman, you bray like an ass, and make no more sense.”

“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.”

The man on the white camel named himself Grazdan mo Eraz. Lean and hard, he had a white smile such as Kraznys had worn until Drogon burned off his face.

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.

He will forgive me, she told herself. I am his liege. Dany found herself wondering whether he was right about Daario. She felt very lonely all of a sudden. 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.”

ASOS Daenerys III

“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a queen.”

“Yet even queens can err. The Astapori have cheated you, Your Grace. A dragon is worth more than any army. Aegon proved that three hundred years ago, upon the Field of Fire.”

“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own.”

ASOS Daenerys II

Kraznys had commanded them to lay down their spears and shields, and doff their swordbelts and quilted tunics, so the Queen of Westeros might better inspect the lean hardness of their bodies.

“Remind your Good Master of who I am. Remind him that I am Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, trueborn queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. My blood is the blood of Aegon the Conqueror, and of old Valyria before him.”

“When Aegon the Dragon stepped ashore in Westeros, the kings of Vale and Rock and Reach did not rush to hand him their crowns. If you mean to sit his Iron Throne, you must win it as he did, with steel and dragonfire. And that will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.”

Blood and fire, thought Dany. The words of House Targaryen. She had known them all her life.

ASOS Daenerys I

No squall could frighten Dany, though. Daenerys Stormborn, she was called, for she had come howling into the world on distant Dragonstone as the greatest storm in the memory of Westeros howled outside, a storm so fierce that it ripped gargoyles from the castle walls and smashed her father’s fleet to kindling.

“I ... that was not fitting. I am your queen.”

“My queen,” he said, “and the bravest, sweetest, and most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Daenerys—”

“Your Grace!”

A Clash of Kings

ACOK Daenerys V

She was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when Irri brought her a Qartheen gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. “Take it away,” Dany said. “The docks are no place for lady’s finery.”

If the Milk Men thought her such a savage, she would dress the part for them. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and woven grass sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a painted Dothraki vest, and a curved dagger hung from her medallion belt. Jhiqui had braided her hair Dothraki-fashion, and fastened a silver bell to the end of the braid.

When she told a Lyseni on the Trumpeteer that she was Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, he gave her a deadface look and said, “Aye, and I’m Lord Tywin Lannister and shit gold every night.”

She turned back as he reached for his coins, intending to put an end to this mummer’s farce. The blood of the dragon would not be herded through the bazaar by an old man and a fat eunuch.

“The great cog Saduleon is berthed at the end of the quay, and the galleys Summer Sun and Joso’s Prank are anchored beyond the breakwater.”

Three heads has the dragon, Dany thought, wondering. “I shall tell my people to make ready to depart at once. But the ships that bring me home must bear different names.”

“As you wish,” said Arstan. “What names would you prefer?”

“Vhagar,” Daenerys told him. “Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned.”

ACOK Daenerys IV

Ser Jorah Mormont gave the merchant prince a sour look. “Your Grace, remember Mirri Maz Duur.”

“I do,” Dany said, suddenly decided. “I remember that she had knowledge. And she was only a maegi.”

Pyat Pree smiled thinly. “The child speaks as sagely as a crone. Take my arm, and let me lead you.”

“I am no child.” Dany took his arm nonetheless.

The blood of the dragon must not be afraid. Dany said a quick prayer, begging the Warrior for courage and the Dothraki horse god for strength. She made herself walk forward.

ACOK Daenerys III

“Did you weep?”

“The blood of the dragon does not weep,” she said testily.

Xaro sighed. “You ought to have wept.” The Qartheen wept often and easily; it was considered a mark of the civilized man.

Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference.

Even so, it would be years before they were large enough to take to war. And they must be trained as well, or they will lay my kingdom waste. For all her Targaryen blood, Dany had not the least idea of how to train a dragon.

“If you go west, you risk your life.”

“House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities,” she reminded him. “Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn.”

“Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?”

“I know that he gave me my dragon eggs.”

He snorted. “If he’d known they were like to hatch, he would have sat on them himself.”

That made her smile despite herself. “Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now.”

“Sellswords have their uses,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but you will not win your father’s throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil.”

“I am their rightful queen,” Dany protested.

“You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least.”

I am afraid, she realized, but I must be brave.

ACOK Daenerys II

“The only palace I desire is the red castle at King’s Landing, my lord Pyat.” Dany was wary of the warlock; the maegi Mirri Maz Duur had soured her on those who played at sorcery. “And if the great of Qarth would give me gifts, Xaro, let them give me ships and swords to win back what is rightfully mine.”

“I am not the frightened girl you met in Pentos. I have counted only fifteen name days, true ... but I am as old as the crones in the dosh khaleen and as young as my dragons, Jorah. I have borne a child, burned a khal, and crossed the red waste and the Dothraki sea. Mine is the blood of the dragon.”

“As was your brother’s,” he said stubbornly.

“I am not Viserys.”

“No,” he admitted. “There is more of Rhaegar in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons can die.”

“Dragons die.” She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. “But so do dragonslayers.”

ACOK Daenerys I

A living dragon is beyond price. In all the world, there are only three. Every man who sees them will want them, my queen.”

“They are mine,” she said fiercely. They had been born from her faith and her need, given life by the deaths of her husband and unborn son and the maegi Mirri Maz Duur. Dany had walked into the flames as they came forth, and they had drunk milk from her swollen breasts. “No man will take them from me while I live.”

“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law.

Dany kissed him lightly on the cheek. It heartened her to see him smile. I must be strong for him as well, she thought grimly. A knight he may be, but I am the blood of the dragon.

A Game of Thrones

AGOT Daenerys X

“Princess ...” he began.

“Why do you call me that?” Dany challenged him. “My brother Viserys was your king, was he not?”

“He was, my lady.”

“Viserys is dead. I am his heir, the last blood of House Targaryen. Whatever was his is mine now.”

“My ... queen,” Ser Jorah said, going to one knee.

“You do not mean to die with him? You swear it, my queen?”

“I swear it,” she said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms that by rights were hers.

Dany called the Dothraki around her. Fewer than a hundred were left. How many had Aegon started with? she wondered. It did not matter.

Her bath was scalding hot when Irri helped her into the tub, but Dany did not flinch or cry aloud. She liked the heat. It made her feel clean. Jhiqui had scented the water with the oils she had found in the market in Vaes Dothrak; the steam rose moist and fragrant. [...] Dany closed her eyes and let the smell and the warmth enfold her. She could feel the heat soaking through the soreness between her thighs. She shuddered when it entered her, and her pain and stiffness seemed to dissolve. She floated.

The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her.

No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE?

AGOT Daenerys IX

“Eroeh?” asked Dany, remembering the frightened child she had saved outside the city of the Lamb Men.

“It was her fate, Khaleesi,” said Aggo. 

If I look back I am lost. “It was a cruel fate,” Dany said, “yet not so cruel as Mago’s will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.”

The Dothraki exchanged uncertain glances. “Khaleesi,” the handmaid Irri explained, as if to a child, “Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back.”

She lifted her head. “And I am Daenerys Stormhorn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon’s daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo.”

AGOT Daenerys VIII

[“]Do you trust your khas? Will they come with us?”

“Khal Drogo commanded them to keep me safe,” Dany replied uncertainly, “but if he dies ...” She touched the swell of her belly. “I don’t understand. Why should we flee? I am khaleesi. I carry Drogo’s heir. He will be khal after Drogo ...”

“Rein in your tongue, bloodrider. The princess is still your khaleesi.”

“Only while the blood-of-my-blood still lives,” Qotho told the knight. “When he dies, she is nothing.” 

Dany felt a tightness inside her. “Before I was khaleesi, I was the blood of the dragon. Ser Jorah, summon my khas.” 

“Is there no other way?”

“No other.”

Khal Drogo gave a shuddering gasp.

“Do it,” Dany blurted. She must not be afraid; she was the blood of the dragon. “Save him.”

“There is a price,” the godswife warned her.

“You’ll have gold, horses, whatever you like.”

“It is not a matter of gold or horses. This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.”

“Death?” Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. “My death?” She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.

“Khaleesi,” he pleaded, “you must not do this thing. Let me kill this maegi.”

“Kill her and you kill your khal,” Dany said.

“This is bloodmagic,” he said. “It is forbidden.”

“I am khaleesi, and I say it is not forbidden. In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage. This is the same. The same.”

AGOT Daenerys VII

“You cannot claim them all, child,” Ser Jorah said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her.

“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.” Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children.

“If your warriors would mount these women, let them take them gently and keep them for wives. Give them places in the khalasar and let them bear you sons.”

Qotho was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders. It was he who laughed. “Does the horse breed with the sheep?”

Something in his tone reminded her of Viserys. Dany turned on him angrily. “The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.”

AGOT Daenerys VI

If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home. She was khaleesi, she had a strong man and a swift horse, handmaids to serve her, warriors to keep her safe, an honored place in the dosh khaleen awaiting her when she grew old ... and in her womb grew a son who would one day bestride the world. That should be enough for any woman ... but not for the dragon. With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget.

Dany was near tears as they carried her back. The taste in her mouth was one she had known before: fear. For years she had lived in terror of Viserys, afraid of waking the dragon. This was even worse. It was not just for herself that she feared now, but for her baby. He must have sensed her fright, for he moved restlessly inside her. Dany stroked the swell of her belly gently, wishing she could reach him, touch him, soothe him. “You are the blood of the dragon, little one,” she whispered as her litter swayed along, curtains drawn tight. “You are the blood of the dragon, and the dragon does not fear.”

“Was it the Usurper?”

“Yes.” The knight drew out a folded parchment. “A letter to Viserys, from Magister Illyrio. Robert Baratheon offers lands and lordships for your death, or your brother’s.”

“My brother?” Her sob was half a laugh. “He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.” This time her laugh was half a sob. She hugged herself protectively. “And me, you said. Only me?”

“You and the child,” Ser Jorah said, grim.

“No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself ... and her eyes went to the dragon’s eggs resting in their nest of dark velvet.

AGOT Daenerys V

She must not flinch or look afraid. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself as she took the stallion’s heart in both hands, lifted it to her mouth, and plunged her teeth into the tough, stringy flesh.

Warm blood filled her mouth and ran down over her chin. The taste threatened to gag her, but she made herself chew and swallow. The heart of a stallion would make her son strong and swift and fearless, or so the Dothraki believed, but only if the mother could eat it all. If she choked on the blood or retched up the flesh, the omens were less favorable; the child might be stillborn, or come forth weak, deformed, or female.

And finally it was done. Her cheeks and fingers were sticky as she forced down the last of it. Only then did she turn her eyes back to the old women, the crones of the dosh khaleen.

“Khalakka dothrae mr’anha!” she proclaimed in her best Dothraki. A prince rides inside me! She had practiced the phrase for days with her handmaid Jhiqui.

AGOT Daenerys IV

The water was scalding hot, as she liked it.

The Dothraki would respect him more if he looked less a beggar, she hoped, and perhaps he would forgive her for shaming him that day in the grass. He was still her king, after all, and her brother. They were both blood of the dragon.

“Next you’ll want to braid my hair.”

“I’d never ... ” Why was he always so cruel? She had only wanted to help. “You have no right to a braid, you have won no victories yet.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Fury shone from his lilac eyes, yet he dared not strike her, not with her handmaids watching and the warriors of her khas outside. Viserys picked up the cloak and sniffed at it. “This stinks of manure. Perhaps I shall use it as a horse blanket.”

“I had Doreah sew it specially for you,” she told him, wounded. “These are garments fit for a khal.” “I am the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, not some grass-stained savage with bells in his hair,” Viserys spat back at her. He grabbed her arm. “You forget yourself, slut. Do you think that big belly will protect you if you wake the dragon?”

His fingers dug into her arm painfully and for an instant Dany felt like a child again, quailing in the face of his rage. She reached out with her other hand and grabbed the first thing she touched, the belt she’d hoped to give him, a heavy chain of ornate bronze medallions. She swung it with all her strength.

It caught him full in the face. Viserys let go of her. Blood ran down his cheek where the edge of one of the medallions had sliced it open. “You are the one who forgets himself,” Dany said to him. “Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon my khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.”

AGOT Daenerys III

“Wait here,” Dany told Ser Jorah. “Tell them all to stay. Tell them I command it.”

The knight smiled. Ser Jorah was not a handsome man. He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there was none left for his head. Yet his smiles gave Dany comfort. “You are learning to talk like a queen, Daenerys.”

“Not a queen,” said Dany. “A khaleesi.” She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone.

The descent was steep and rocky, but Dany rode fearlessly, and the joy and the danger of it were a song in her heart. All her life Viserys had told her she was a princess, but not until she rode her silver had Daenerys Targaryen ever felt like one.

“What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?” she asked him.

“Home,” he said. His voice was thick with longing.

“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.

“He could not lead an army even if my lord husband gave him one,” Dany said. “He has no coin and the only knight who follows him reviles him as less than a snake. The Dothraki make mock of his weakness. He will never take us home.”

“Wise child.” The knight smiled.

“I am no child,” she told him fiercely. Her heels pressed into the sides of her mount, rousing the silver to a gallop. Faster and faster she raced, leaving Jorah and Irri and the others far behind, the warm wind in her hair and the setting sun red on her face. By the time she reached the khalasar, it was dusk.

There is no privacy in the heart of the khalasar. Dany felt the eyes on her as she undressed him, heard the soft voices as she did the things that Doreah had told her to do. It was nothing to her. Was she not khaleesi? His were the only eyes that mattered, and when she mounted him she saw something there that she had never seen before. She rode him as fiercely as ever she had ridden her silver, and when the moment of his pleasure came, Khal Drogo called out her name.

AGOT Daenerys II

Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might react. [...]

There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to hear her.

So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talking silently to herself. I am blood of the dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.

She was afraid of her brother, of what he might do if she failed him. Most of all, she was afraid of what would happen tonight under the stars, when her brother gave her up to the hulking giant who sat drinking beside her with a face as still and cruel as a bronze mask. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself again.

“Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the dragon wake as it has never woken before.”

The fear came back to her then, with her brother’s words. She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what was about to happen to her.

They rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo spoke no word to her, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering dusk. The tiny silver bells in his long braid rang softly as he rode. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she whispered aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. “I am the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon.” The dragon was never afraid.

AGOT Daenerys I

The girl pulled the rough cotton tunic over Dany’s head and helped her into the tub. The water was scalding hot, but Daenerys did not flinch or cry out. She liked the heat. It made her feel clean. Besides, her brother had often told her that it was never too hot for a Targaryen. “Ours is the house of the dragon,” he would say. “The fire is in our blood.”

#daenerys targaryen #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings #a game of thrones #dany passages

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