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bagerfluff · 9 months ago

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Domestic Sweetness

Casper x Non-Binary Reader

Prompt - Bathing Together

“Are you sure about this?”

Casper asked you. You turned your body around and took your hand out of the water. “Yes, though I feel like that was more a question for you”, you said. Making Casper turn his head away.

Casper was sitting on the toilet as you filled the bath tube with water. Earlier today Casper was thinking about something, something you had said about five months ago.

You said something about bathing with Casper, and even back then it peaked Casper’s interest. The thought of doing something so intimate, kinda scared Casper’s.

Casper’s never been intimate with anyone.

So the idea of being intimate with you, the first person Casper’s ever loved. It both scared Casper and excited him. So when you got home Casper asked, with a red face and stutter, if you would like to bathe with him.

So that’s how the both of you got here, in boxers, with a bathtub full of hot water. The lights were turned off, but a small night light shined from the counter. It made everything feel more intimate.

“Yes I’m sure about this”, Casper said. You smiled and stood up, “then you first”, you said. Casper looked at the bath, the curtain was pulled to the side with the faucet.

It was a simple curtain, one with leaves and flowers on it. It was all bunched up now though so it was a mix of white and black. Casper stood up and walked the short distance to the bath.

You had put in what you called a ‘bath bomb’ though it didn’t blow anything up. It just added light blue bubbles to the bath and made it smell nice.

A mix of mint, vanilla, and lavender. It calmed Casper’s nerves. Casper lifted a foot and put it into the bath, Casper shivered in the hot water.

Not too hot but just hot enough, it quickly made goosebumps appear on Casper’s skin. Casper placed his other leg in, soon both feet were hidden by the bubbles.

Casper then sat down in the bath, his whole body was already feeling hotter. Casper could feel his boxers getting wet and sticking to his skin, it felt weird but Casper ignored it.

“Alright, my turn”, you said before getting in. Casper kept his head straight, staring at the faucet as you got in. Casper soon felt your legs next to his, his legs were semi on top of yours.

Casper felt your arms wrap around his waist and pull him closer. Casper felt your chest hit his back, then your head rested on his shoulder.

Casper couldn’t think. Casper shifted at the feeling of his hair against his back. Casper let his arms relax into the water, his arms on top of his legs. Half in the water half out.

Though half of his body was out of the water, all of Casper’s body was warm. Maybe it was because of the steam, maybe it was because of what you and Casper were doing.

There was too much, too many things.

The smell of the bath bomb over took his nose, making Casper feel tired and relaxed. The feeling of the hot bath water, Casper normally takes cold showers, rarely baths and it’s even rarer that they're hot.

So the feeling of the water all around his legs and even on his stomach. The heat of the water warmed up Casper’s low body temperature, it was weird yet nice.

Like a fluffy blanket and hot chocolate in winter. Casper felt himself relax, he leaned back into your chest. Casper felt his muscles relax, normally so stiff and achy, now relaxed and almost numb.

Casper felt the ends of his hair dip into the water. Casper watched as one of your hands let go of his waist. You cupped some water in your hand, it was full of bubbles.

You tipped it over Casper’s chest, causing water to stream down Casper’s chest and for bubbles to collect in the middle. Casper shivered at the feeling.

You kept doing it, slowly like you were washing Casper. Casper didn’t say out could, but he didn’t say you couldn’t. Casper had asked if you two could bathe together, not bathe each other.

But the more Casper thought about it. Having someone else bathe you after a long day. Letting yourself relax, trusting them enough to not hurt you when you're so vulnerable.

It made Casper giddy, which is something never thought he would think. “You like it”, you asked. Voice ghosting Casper’s ear, making him shiver again. “Yeah”, Casper said breathlessly.

The feeling of the water, the bubbles, you. Casper liked it all. Casper leaned up fully, staring at a bottle of shampoo that was on a shelf. You followed Casper’s gaze and smiled, reaching for the bottle.

You squirted some into your hands and held Casper’s hair with the other. “Can I?” You asked, and Casper nodded. You smiled and started to rub the shampoo into Casper’s hair.

Casper closed his eyes, it felt nice.

Casper liked his long hair, but it was sometimes a hassle to take care of it. Casper felt your fingers run through his hair so carefully, like you were handling gold.

Then your hand got to Casper’s head, you scratched Casper scalp, working in the shampoo. Casper leaned his head back, this was all so weird.

Casper was new to this dating thing. He’s never been this vulnerable with someone before, Casper kinda liked it. It was nice to relax, take a break and let someone else take care of you.

Casper never had a break, never had someone to take care of him, never, no one. Yet here you were, taking care of Casper like he was gold.

Casper didn’t know if he liked or hated the feeling this was causing in his chest. Casper was caught off guard by you pushing his head forward. “Close your eyes”, you said and Casper followed.

You poured water over Casper's head, rinsing out the shampoo from his hair. You did this with a cup multiple times when all of the shampoo was out.

You repeated this, running conditioner through Casper hair, scratching his scalp, rinsing it out. Once that was done Casper leaned back down, head right in the middle of your chest.

Casper felt nice. He felt tired and ready to go to bed, but he felt nice. “You like this?” You asked again and this time Casper tilted his head up to look at you.

You had a smile on your face that Casper loved. You looked so content. Casper thought he wouldn’t like this, he thought it would feel too weird and it did.

But it was nice too. Casper smiled, ‘I-I did”, Casper said. “Though it is a little weird feeling”, Casper said. He still wasn’t used to domestic stuff like this, though he was getting there.

You were a big help too. Always there to help Casper though his feelings, helping him determine if he liked it or not. “Do you want to do this again?”

You asked and Casper thought about it. “Yes, but only with you”, Casper said. You smiled and leaned down to kiss Casper. Your lips danced with Casper’s, heads tilting until the angle was perfect.

You pulled away, “me too. I’m the only one you can do this with”, you said. Casper rolled his eyes, “I can do whatever I want, but yes”, Casper leaned up to peck you.

“Only with you”, Casper said, and that explained Casper feelings about domestic actions with three words. It could also be explained with one word.

You.

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arimiadev · 9 months ago

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Developer Interview — Making A Date with Death

6 months ago, a brand new self-insert romance visual novel hit the market called A Date with Death, created by visual novel veterans Two and a Half Studios. Coming off of the success of The Divine Speaker, they dived into the chat sim space in visual novels with a huge splash. A Date with Death is currently sitting at over 5,000 positive reviews on Steam with a Kickstarter for an after story launching this week.

Read the interview on my blog or read it below.

Arimia: Hi Gabby, thanks for sitting down to talk about A Date with Death! Both of us have been into visual novels for quite a while, but what got you into them?

Gabby: I feel like my introduction to visual novels was probably similar to a lot of people my age…. and that was being on Tumblr too much and being introduced to Dramatical Murder much too young, and installing the fantranslation for myself and all of my friends, hahaha. From there I played the rest of the N+C games, and then moved to things like No Thank You! since it had a translation. After that I moved further to Japanese games that didn’t have a translation. These were 95% BL as well – I’ve played one or two otome games in my time but never really been super into them.

Actually, when I first got into development, I hadn’t played any Western visual novels yet. It was only after I started in game development that I tried more indie visual novels in general.

As for my favorite VNs, I have a few favorites! My first favorite and it’ll always have my heart is Lamento. It was kind of the culmination of a lot of different things I love in media, and I still love the game. There’s another untranslated game I really like called Pigeon Blood. I actually helped with some editing of translations for some of the routes a looong, long time ago. A more recent favorite, and probably my favorite overall, is MAMIYA! MAMIYA is a Japanese indie visual novel by KENKOULAND which I will happily shill over my own games (LOL) about a group of people at the “end of the world”. The way the story is presented, I don’t think I’ve ever played anything like it, and I found it very inspiring. I was lucky enough to work with the creator Kokoroten on an animation for my own game Dreambound, which was fantastic.

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Arimia: Would you believe I’ve never played DMMD? Definitely cut from the same cloth though about being exposed from too much Tumblr time and hearing about all of these Japanese VNs that would never get localized over here, but now Fate/Stay Night is coming to Steam in a few months…. the visual novel landscape has changed so much.

You’ve worked on several boys love and girls love titles before A Date With Death that are more in the fantasy historical realm – how did you come up with the idea for ADWD?

Gabby: Well, we’d actually been wanting to try something more modern for awhile now, despite our love for fantasy settings, and we only happened across a screenshot from another developer’s chat sim and I kind of fell in love with the format. I’ve been really wanting to try my hand at something “cozy”, and though A Date with Death doesn’t really sound cozy on the box, we have a lot of features that I think set well with that crowd. I’m a very big fan of the informal aspect of the writing. I think even in my more serious games, I always lean into humor a little bit and I really enjoy writing banter, so the chat sim format was perfect for that.

(I styled my MC after my character Rose. he’d probably wind up in a shady chatroom like this)

Arimia: Having played some of A Date with Death, I can definitely see how it’s more “cozy” than some of your other games, and I think a lot of the player reactions I’ve seen have shown that too. The overall scope of the game is also on the smaller side, despite the player customization. How did you go about deciding the size of the game? Were there any parts/features you wanted to include but didn’t?

Gabby: Actually, the size is a lot BIGGER than we originally planned. Being our first free to play game, it’s always a little bit of a risk to put a lot of money into something when visual novel development is your livelihood, and obviously with a free game there’s no guarantee of a return. We originally planned for each “day” of the game to be only around 2000 words, for a grand total of 14,000 words for the game. Very short and sweet. Over the development we realized we had a lot more words than originally planned that we wanted to tell, and part of that is owing to just how many choices and options there are. There’s some conversations in the game which people are honestly surprised about because they’ve never managed to get them on any of their playthroughs. The game actually ended up being around 60,000 words, and this should be near doubled when Beyond the Bet releases.

We also included a lot of other things that weren’t originally planned when we concepted the game. We knew we wanted character creation and some degree of room decorating, but we also added a lot of small missable content – like interacting with your pet, watering your plant, reading books on your bookcase, minigames and websites on your computer, eavesdropping on your neighbor… the one thing we had originally planned but cut was voice acting. It’s something we really wanted to do, and we wrote Casper’s character with a very talented voice actor in mind, but it was a bit too much of a risk with the price of it and the unknown of releasing a free game but still making money on it. We don’t believe in having people work for us for free, even on free projects or jam games, so it wasn’t something we were prepared to have someone do for free even though I’m certain we could have.

Luckily, in the end we decided to hold a Kickstarter for the project, and that allows us the possibility of adding voice acting if it goes well!

Arimia: Yeah, it’s definitely a risk to spend so much time and effort on a free project, but I’m glad it worked out in the end. When announcing the game, what was your strategy? Did it differ any from how you announced and marketed your previous games?

Gabby: It was a little different! This is the first time we’ve had TikTok as one of our platforms when announcing a new project, and we knew we wanted to focus a lot of our attention there. Video content is very strong performing we’ve found, but it is definitely a skill in and of itself. We spent a lot of time honing down on our hook and how we could make people get it in a single line. On a platform like TikTok, you have a split second to catch someone’s attention.

We also had a much shorter amount of marketing time than our usual multi-year projects. We knew we wanted it out within a few months of announcing it, so we needed as much impact as possible in a short amount of time. We knew we wanted to get an animated opening since it can be a very powerful piece of marketing material, and I think that was a great idea and we’ll likely continue it going forward.

At the time of announcement, we had less than 10,000 followers on Twitter. Twitter is probably my favorite platform, but it was kind of falling off for us a little when we were ready to announce A Date with Death – but it just took off after we announced the game. We had a multi-month document with marketing beats and announcements we’d make over the few months we had, but with everything taking off much more than we expected we added to it a lot. I think you always have to be ready to adapt to change quickly in this field.

We actually never planned to market the game as “tease the babygirl”, but it’s something fans latched onto, and you can’t make that kind of marketing yourself, I think. We really leaned into our audience and what THEY thought of the game, and used that to our advantage in a way. I’m very thankful for whoever first asked if he was a babygirl.

Arimia: Twitter (was) probably my favorite platform too, mainly because it’s so easy to just make a quick post or update. TikTok has so much reach but it’s just so much easier to tweet a meme out somedays.

A little side question- with the name having the word “death” in it, were you worried about SEO / being censored on social media, or did it affect you? When I was creating Drops of Death years ago, I was worried social media platforms would suppress posts about it but ultimately went with it because it fit with the serial killer theme.

Gabby: Actually we weren’t too worried about that – we’ve definitely used words like death, kill, murderer, etc. in relation to our other games before and haven’t have much trouble. There ARE certain words especially on TikTok that it’s best to censor, but I haven’t had any problem using the name anywhere and we were prepared to risk it to use the name we wanted.

Arimia: It’s definitely a catchy name that summarizes the experience well. Back to the part where when people were first getting exposed to the concept and came up with Grim being a babygirl— how would you advise other devs to understand what keywords and pitches work better for their games?

Gabby: My first suggestion is to look at similar games to yours and the words they use. Look at the concept of your story and try to boil it down to a paragraph, then a sentence. Look at what makes your game unique, or how you can lean into what fans will get out of your work. Give your players elements that they can recognize instantly without a lengthy explanation.

“A romance chat sim where you flirt with and/or bully the Grim Reaper”

“Compete against the Grim Reaper to keep your soul… or die trying”

“Create your custom MC and flirt with the man trying to take your soul”

I use all of these in our marketing, because even though there’s a lot more to the game we’re not talking about, this is a hook that can capture someone’s attention straight away and then you can funnel them to your game.

Arimia: Getting hooks down can be such a difficult part but it’s so, so important. What do you think helped you most marketing-wise?

Gabby: It’s a tough question. We did a lot, and had huge amount of attention from all over the place and it just snowballed more, and more, and more. I think honestly what started the snowball was TikTok. Once we had one video go big, we were having multiple a week go 30k-400k views. We were getting 500-1300 wishlists per day for months. A lot of people joined our Discord from there and went to follow us on Twitter. TikTok is hard and the format is a lot to handle when you’re new to the platform, but it was absolutely worthwhile for us. Another thing I’ll quickly note – reuse your content. I just repost my TikToks to Insta Reels and they get a similar, if not more views, for no extra effort.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Two and a Half Studios (@twohalfstudios)

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Arimia: Yeah, it’s wild how quickly TikTok can blow up for someone. I’ve had posts get 100k+ views and then a few posts later they’ll struggle to hit 1k.

Side note: Gabby has written about her experiences with TikTok on her blog. You can also read about my discussions on TikTok marketing for visual novels here.

What do you think was the least effective thing you did for marketing?

Gabby: I suppose Steam events this time around kind of paled in comparison to our own marketing efforts. They’re always worth doing though – any Steam events you can get into, participate in them! You’ll always see some kind of return. But for us, an event giving 200-300 wishlists was just a drop in the water. Not at all not worth doing, but certainly it wasn’t a huge focus for us this time around.

[A]ny Steam events you can get into, participate in them!

Apart from that, I posted also to some other social media sites like bluesky, but I didn’t find it very worthwhile and stopped rather quickly. There’s only so much time in a day, and as the only person handling all of the marketing, it just wasn’t worth it.

Arimia: For newbie devs, what would you recommend they focus on? TikTok, Twitter, or something else?

Gabby: I think TikTok is the easiest platform to hit it big on “fast”. I say “fast” because it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to hit it big, it really depends how well you adapt to the platform, but your content there has a chance of being seen, even without any followers at all. That’s probably why I recommend it as a platform for new and old visual novel devs alike.

I think you’ll also find that once you pick up the format, it can be pretty fun to make. I think platforms like Twitter are easier to use, but getting started on them is hard. VNs are so visual heavy so we already have so much content that works well on TikTok. Of course, there could be problems in the future with using TikTok in the US, so we’ll see how that goes.

It’s best to focus on a few places though, and not to put all of your eggs in one basket. When you’re putting your audience in places that can go away, it’s always a risk, so it’s good to spread them between places like TikTok, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

Arimia: Yeah, I think one thing devs forget is that these social media platforms are ran by big tech that don’t care about the little guys – if your account gets banned or falsely flagged, what are you going to do if you can’t get it back? Always best to have more than one site you’re posting on, but you don’t want to spread yourself too thin.

At what point in ADWD’s development cycle did you start marketing it? It was a pretty short development cycle to begin with.

Gabby: We started working on the concept of A Date with Death January of last year, and announced it on the 5th of July. This wasn’t really 6-7 months of dev time though – we were working on two of our other games at the time. By that point, we’d finished maybe half of the game and announced the game in time for the Steam Visual Novel Fest a month later.

This was actually pretty successful for us, and gave us a decent boost to start from. We then released the demo at the end of September in time for Steam Next Fest, which was a bit more meh for us despite going in with a high wishlist velocity. We then released the game at the start of December. But, like I said, we were working full time on Dreambound and The Divine Speaker: The Sun and the Moon, so I think we could have made it in much less time if we didn’t have other games on our plate.

My suggestion is to announce the game and start marketing early, but not so early you run out of content you can post. My strat is usually announce the game at the same time the Steam page is ready, so you can use the announcement to drive people straight to it. A trailer can be another marketing beat, and then lead up to the demo release. Going in with a solid marketing plan is a great idea, too.

Side note: despite the short amount of time to market the game, they were able to enter it into at least 2 different Steam-ran festivals! That’s a great boost to wishlists and they usually don’t require much work from yourself.

[A]nnounce the game and start marketing early, but not so early you run out of content you can post.

Arimia: Once you’ve worked on a few games it’s a lot easier to gauge when that sweet spot is, but when you haven’t it’s definitely hard to figure out. I usually go with how much progress I have towards something playable like a demo. When ADWD was ready to release, how did you reach out to press?

Gabby: Actually, I didn’t sent out any press releases for the full game! I can’t tell you exactly if this was a good thing or not – but the way I’ve done it for all of my other games is that I send out a press release and streamer keys for the demo only. Especially for A Date with Death, we already had a lot of press and streamer interest naturally, so we decided to use our time for other forms of marketing and polishing up the game instead.

For the demo though, we curated a list of ~70 people to send out early keys to. I think this is quite worthwhile in hyping up the demo release, and it’s quite easy these days with tools like sullygnome.

Arimia: What lessons learnt from your previous games did you bring with you when making ADWD?

Gabby: We’ve been very lucky to work with our amazing artist Fuyuure for over six years now, so we came in with a great team who worked incredibly well together. I think that was a big bonus – working on something like a big character creator can be a difficult task for many artists, because of the sheer amount of assets you need. So, I would say coming in with a talented team who were ready for their tasks was a massive boon.

I think working on so many games beforehand prepared us to make the game in the time we did. We usually work on bigger, multi-year projects, and this was our first proper commercial endeavor into a smaller game. Our experience helped us to pinpoint exactly what we would need, which is a lot less than our other projects. The game actually only has 5 CGs, which is less than usual for us, but I think we managed to do it in a way where it doesn’t feel lacking, either. Getting scope right is a difficult thing and it’s easy to want to include anything and everything, but we were very particular about what we wanted and how long it would take.

Arimia: I can definitely see how that helped – working with people you’re already comfortable with can alleviate a lot of stress. For the A Date with Death: Beyond the Bet Kickstarter, how did you prepare the marketing campaign for it? How long did that pre-planning take you?

Gabby: We really started planning the new DLC the day A Date with Death launched last December. We knew we wanted to make more content, and with Dreambound nearly complete it was a good time to start thinking of running a new campaign. I would say the preplanning took a couple of months – working on a good date, working with lots of artists on new merch, setting up the page, getting the page to our graphic designer to make some images up for it… running a Kickstarter is definitely a lot of work! Even organizing the tiers takes some time.

We prepared mostly by getting the prelaunch page up as early as possible and getting the word out on all of our socials – Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok, Reels, Steam itself, Discord, our email list, itch…. basically, did a big blast out everywhere and we had a huge amount of people come and prelaunch straight away. We also really enjoy doing countdown images the week before launching – it lets us work with a bunch of amazing artists, and we use the art for rewards during the campaign too (as prints). Being our third campaign, we came into it knowing what we had to do, which is a big timesaver. For new developers, I’ll say don’t sleep on the prelaunch time – it’s not a good idea to put up a Kickstarter and instantly launch it. You need to bring an audience with you and get as many pledges lined up on that first day as possible.

Honestly, the support so far has blown our mind. With a similar amount of prep, Dreambound launched with less than 300 followers on the page, but as of writing this we’re already over 4500 on A Date with Death.

[I]t’s not a good idea to put up a Kickstarter and instantly launch it. You need to bring an audience with you and get as many pledges lined up on that first day as possible.

Arimia: Even though I’ve helped run and advised several Kickstarters before, there’s always something I forget or push off until the last minute. Was there anything you learned from the Dreambound KS that you used/did differently for the ADWD KS?

Gabby: Oh, for sure. I learned a lot about my tiers and page organization from our past Kickstarters. We actually have a lot more tiers than usual on this Kickstarter and I don’t think we’d be able to manage that without our past experiences.

If I had to pick one thing from the Dreambound Kickstarter that I’ve changed for A Date with Death’s, we decided to have all of our stretch goals viewable from the get-go. I enjoyed the “unlocking” of stretch goals we had before, but with the amount of attention I think we’ll get, it’s just easier to lay everything out for everyone.

Arimia: Yeah, I imagine you’ll probably be hitting stretch goals pretty early on with how many people are excited for the KS. Aside from social media like TikTok and Twitter, how do you keep your audience interested?

Gabby: I think one of the things that mobile games have as an advantage is continuously adding more content and patches. That really keeps people interested and coming back to your game and characters. Obviously we don’t really have a big enough team or enough time to be adding more and more content, so keeping people interested can be quite tough. We were very conscious of this when deciding WHEN to hold a Kickstarter in the first place – if we wait too long, people will move on. It’s already been 6 months since the game released, after all.

There’s multiple ways we’ve kept people interested during these months. One is that we funneled a lot of people to our Patreon, where we have exclusive art every month from the game, as well as behind the scenes stuff about the new DLC. We then can tease these on social media too, and drip feeding content works pretty well to keep people interested.

Another is we now have near 8000 members in our Discord, and these people become some of your core audience. We encourage interaction with each other and the game by weekly game questions that players can answer. If you had enough time to organize it, I honestly think even doing daily questions would be a really great idea. Anything to kind of keep people chatting and thinking about the game.

Arimia: To wrap this up – what advice would you give to other visual novel devs?

Gabby: There’s so much I’d like to say, but I’ll just give a few pieces of advice that I think could help newer developers. Don’t think of marketing as a bad thing, or an annoying thing. I see a lot of new developers come in and say “I won’t market. I feel like a shill and my game will speak for itself”. I think this is a huge mistake, because people won’t play your game if they don’t know it exists. Marketing can be fun! Share your little stories with the world proudly, don’t feel bad about that.

If you want to do game dev as just a hobby, then that’s absolutely fine – but it’s totally possible to do this as a profession, too. My partner and I have been working on visual novels full time for over two years now. A lot of people tend to think that’s there’s no money in visual novels, but I would say that’s not true at all. It’s hard work – like all small businesses are – and not every game is going to be wildly profitable, but it’s totally possible with a good game and good marketing. Keep making the games you love, doing market research to see what other people love, and you might be able to find a good crossover.

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And there you have it, some insight into the development and creation of A Date with Death! If you haven’t already, check the game out – the base game is completely free to play on Steam and itch.io. You can check out their social media here:

Twitter – TikTok – Tumblr

Support their Kickstarter!

#visual novel #visual novels #a date with death #two and a half studios #visual novel game #my articles #interview #Youtube #Instagram

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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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Daenerys Targaryen in A Storm of Swords vs Game of Thrones - Episode 3.9: The Rains of Castamere

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”.

In case you're wondering, I added a screenshot of Emilia Clarke's name in the opening as the review's main photo because this is the first (and only) episode of Game of Thrones where she receives top billing. It makes me fantasize about an alternative universe where GRRM made Daenerys Targaryen the sole protagonist of the story (which I certainly would have preferred, since 90% of my enjoyment of ASOIAF now comes from Dany).

Scene 10

DAENERYS: Where?

DAARIO: There. It's a back gate.

As I had already noted before in my review of episodes 3.7 and 3.8, in the books, it's not Daario who outlines the plan to take Yunkai, it's Dany herself:

“An hour past midnight should be time enough.”

“Yes, Khaleesi,” said Rakharo. “Time for what?” 

“To mount our attack.” 

Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. “You told the sellswords—”

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

“They will have scouts watching for us.”

“And in the dark, they will see hundreds of campfires burning,” said Dany. “If they see anything at all.”

“Khaleesi,” said Jhogo, “I will deal with these scouts. They are no riders, only slavers on horses.”

“Just so,” she agreed. “I think we should attack from three sides. Grey Worm, your Unsullied shall strike at them from right and left, while my kos lead my horse in wedge for a thrust through their center. Slave soldiers will never stand before mounted Dothraki.” She smiled. “To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?”

“I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen’s sister,” Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

“Aye,” said Arstan Whitebeard, “and a queen as well.”

It took an hour to work out all the details. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Dany's decision to fool the Yunkish slavers and the sellswords in order to take their city is not a sign of her tyranny, as I've already argued before; instead, Dany is simply fulfilling what she perceives to be her moral duty by prioritizing the lives of the oppressed (many of whom would have been slaughtered in a typical battle) over the lives of the oppressors (an attitude that she should have maintained throughout the rest of ASOS and ADWD).

By fulfilling her moral duty in Yunkai, Dany not only shows us how selfless and compassionate she is, but also how intelligent she is. As highlighted in the quote above, all three of Dany's negotiation talks pay off because she told the captains and the Yunkish envoy what they needed to hear in order to be completely taken aback by her surprise attack. Additionally, that she considered from which directions the Unsullied and her khalasar should attack implies knowledge a) of these two groups' particular strengths, b) of the Yunkish forces' tactical formation and c) of the area's basic topography (as explained here).

In the show, however, the scene doesn't care to convey show!Dany's strengths, knowledge base or skills by having her concoct and lay out a battle plan in front of her advisors like she did in the books. Instead, on HBO, show!Daario is the one who gets to decide how and from where show!Dany's forces should attack in order to take the city. Show!Dany is given much less agency than her book counterpart, so much so that, as the screenshot above highlights, show!Daario even needs to guide her hand so she can find the location that he's talking about.

DAARIO: There. It’s a back gate. My men use it when they visit Yunkai’s bed slaves.

Not only the show writers would rather let show!Daario (instead of their female lead character) outline the plan to take Yunkai, they also went out of their way to make it happen by creating a brand new plan for his character. Dany's plan from the books was already showed above. On HBO, show!Daario is conveniently the only person in the room who knows of a secret passage to infiltrate the city. It's not an inspired change at all:

"How is it a brothel happens to have a secret entrance?"

"The tunnel was dug for another King's Hand, whose honor would not allow him to enter such a house openly. Chataya has closely guarded the knowledge of its existence." (ACOK Tyrion III)

“There must be some way into this city.”

“I know a way.” Brown Ben Plumm stroked his speckled grey-and-white beard. “Sewers.” “Sewers? What do you mean?”

“Great brick sewers empty into the Skahazadhan, carrying the city’s wastes. They might be a way in, for a few. That was how I escaped Meereen, after Scarb lost his head.” Brown Ben made a face. “The smell has never left me. I dream of it some nights.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

As we can see from these quotes, we already have 1) a secret entrance to a brothel and 2) a passage that only one character was aware of and that allowed Dany to take Meereen (though, even with this advantage, GRRM still made sure that Dany would play a part in designing the plans to conquer the city, which I'll discuss in season four reviews). The solution that D&D wrote for show!Daario feels like a retread of these two moments from the books. Also, we know that the show writers will later have show!Tyrion take Casterly Rock thanks to, once again, a secret passage. In retrospect, this addition is lacking in originality, which is a problem that could have easily been prevented if they'd been more faithful to the books and cared more about giving Dany agency.

JORAH: Your men, but not you?

DAARIO: I have no interest in slaves. A man cannot make love to property.

I don't think that the Daario of the books would have lacked interest in slaves. In fact, considering how he brags about his sexual experience, I assume he must have slept with bed slaves at some point:

“I swore that I should wed Hizdahr zo Loraq if he gave me ninety days of peace, but now … I wanted you from the first time that I saw you, but you were a sellsword, fickle, treacherous. You boasted that you’d had a hundred women.”

“A hundred?” Daario chuckled through his purple beard. “I lied, sweet queen. It was a thousand. But never once a dragon.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

Besides, even if it's true that show!Daario never slept with bed slaves, this doesn't say anything particularly flattering about him. After all, it's not that he refused to sleep with them because he recognized that their basic human rights were being violated and that it was wrong to be complicit in their oppression, but because he "cannot make love to property". In other words, his refusal doesn't say anything about his compassion, but rather about how he's also willing to dehumanize the bed slaves because he's "above" them. Unfortunately, the show doesn't address this and would rather frame it as if his interest in show!Dany is "special" because he doesn't sleep around (a common thing that heterosexual men say to earn women's attention; the book counterpart is not immune to this, of course, but at least there's no dehumanizing mention of the bed slaves being used to obtain Dany's interest).

But having these concerns while watching this scene is pointless; it's ultimately not interested in saying anything meaningful about slavery and how its abhorrent nature drives show!Dany, it simply wants to establish sexual tension between her and show!Daario and to display show!Daario's competence (to the detriment of show!Dany's).

DAARIO: This is where we enter the city. Very few guards. They know me. They let me inside...

BARRISTAN: We’re not gonna sneak an army through a back gate.

DAARIO: I kill the guards. I take your two best men and lead them through the back streets, which I know well, and open the front gates. Then comes the army. Once the walls are breached, the city will fall in hours.

JORAH: Or perhaps you’ll lead Grey Worm and me to the slaughter, cutting the head off our army. The masters of Yunkai will pay you your fee and you won’t have to split it three ways ’cause you’ve already slaughtered your partners.

DAARIO: You have a very suspicious mind. In my experience, only dishonest people think this way.

As I already noted above, show!Daario's plan is uninspired.

Show!Jorah's objection to it sort of makes sense for leaving him and show!Grey Worm vulnerable to the Yunkish slavers, but that could've been easily solved by sending two other soldiers instead of show!Jorah and show!Grey Worm. This is what Dany does in the books, after all:

“Why that one, Khaleesi?” Rakharo demanded of her. “He is fat and stupid.”

“Strong Belwas was a slave here in the fighting pits. If this highborn Oznak should fall to such the Great Masters will be shamed, while if he wins ... well, it is a poor victory for one so noble, one that Meereen can take no pride in.” And unlike Ser Jorah, Daario, Brown Ben, and her three bloodriders, the eunuch did not lead troops, plan battles, or give her counsel. (ASOS Daenerys V)

In the context of the quote above, Dany is forced to send a man to fight against Meereen's champion during the city's siege. She ultimately chooses Strong Belwas for multiple reasons: he's a skilled fighter, he's a freedman (who would be a "poor victory" for a nobleman) and he isn't nearly as influential as the other men in Dany's retinue are. Even if the show's context is different from the books', they could have had show!Dany have a similar decision-making process by deciding to give the task to other men that aren't key members of her team. Instead, she's shown to rely entirely on her male advisors' feedback, which irks me since the show writers are ignorant (at best) and dismissive (at worst) of her book counterpart's capabilities. (see here and here)

Show!Daario's response to show!Jorah's concern is ridiculous; it's one of these cases where the show writers want character A to come across as smart, but only because they have character A conveniently know/be right about something that no one in-universe (not even character A) has any reasonable/certain way of knowing. In show!Daario's case, his convenient intuition makes him seem "smart" because the show writers already knew that show!Jorah is being dishonest with show!Dany. (Years later, in season eight, we'll see that with show!Sansa; she'll be considered "smart" by those around her partly because she was "able" to predict - based solely on the knowledge of the show writers - that show!Dany was a "tyrant" even when there weren't any reasons to think of her as one.) Also, besides this being a convenient (i.e. lazy) response from show!Daario to enhance his qualities, it doesn't address any of show!Jorah's actual points and turns the exchange into a cheap personal insult.

What's worse is that none of this had to happen if they'd simply followed the books and allowed show!Dany to have the same amount of agency that her book counterpart does.

JORAH: You command the Unsullied. What do you think?

DAENERYS: You are a leader now. Do you trust him?

GREY WORM: I trust him.

DAENERYS: You leave tonight.

First, while theoretically it's good to see show!Grey Worm's opinion being valued because show!Dany genuinely considers him a leader and thinks of him as his own individual (which is something that happens in the books as well) after years of dehumanization ... His opinion is being used merely to prop up show!Daario's opinion. In other words, both the leading lady (especially in comparison to the books) and the man of color become subservient to the white male character.

Second, as I've already said, this scene makes show!Dany come across as entirely reliant on her advisors' opinions. In the books, Dany is often seen weighing her options and/or making decisions by using her own critical thinking skills; here are some examples from ASOS Daenerys III and IV:

“Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon. [...] Tell them I await their answer.”

She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut, but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young, and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none. (ASOS Daenerys III)

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)

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)

“An hour past midnight should be time enough.”

“Yes, Khaleesi,” said Rakharo. “Time for what?” 

“To mount our attack.” 

Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. “You told the sellswords—”

“They will have scouts watching for us.”

“And in the dark, they will see hundreds of campfires burning,” said Dany. “If they see anything at all.”

“Khaleesi,” said Jhogo, “I will deal with these scouts. They are no riders, only slavers on horses.”

Of the four moments above, only the first was partly adapted (I say "partly" because there's no hint that show!Dany also took historical background into consideration when she made her decision), but not because they cared about highlighting show!Dany's abilities, but rather because it was necessary preparation to ~shock~ the audience in episode 3.4. In any case, they are examples that display that Dany is someone who has her own opinions and makes her own choices. Because being faithful to her book counterpart's characterization isn't one of D&D's main concerns, show!Dany is undermined.

JORAH: Very good. We’ll prepare.

BARRISTAN: Ser Jorah. You can use an extra sword.

JORAH: You’re the Queensguard, Ser Barristan. Your place is by the Queen. If we are truly her loyal servants, we’ll do whatever needs to be done, no matter the cost, no matter our pride.

In the books, this exchange would have never happened for a number of reasons.

First, at the time of ASOS Daenerys IV (which is the chapter that they are adapting), no one is aware that Barristan is a good fighter because he's still pretending to be an old squire named Arstan:

The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. Her bloodriders would do that well enough. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Dany climbed into her litter frowning, and beckoned Arstan to climb in beside her. A man as old as him should not be walking in such heat. (ASOS Daenerys II)

“Missandei,” she called, “have my silver saddled. Your own mount as well.”

The little scribe bowed. “As Your Grace commands. Shall I summon your bloodriders to guard you?”

“We’ll take Arstan. I do not mean to leave the camps.” She had no enemies among her children. (ASOS Daenerys V)

Second, at this point, in the books, Jorah is the first of Dany's Queensguard:

“I vow to serve you, to obey you, to die for you if need be.”

“Whatever may come?”

“Whatever may come.”

“I shall hold you to that oath. I pray you never regret the giving of it.” Dany lifted him to his feet. Stretching on her toes to reach his lips, she kissed the knight gently and said, “You are the first of my Queensguard.” (AGOT Daenerys X)

Even so, he still takes part in the battle of Yunkai. The dichotomy between either fighting for Dany or guarding her doesn't exist in the books, only in the show.

Third, I'm not a fan of the stupid implication that, because show!Barristan is a knight, he would necessarily choose to fight rather than stay and protect show!Dany, as if doing the latter would hurt his pride. In fact, the Barristan of the books describes himself as a protector and, because of his many years as a member of the Kingsguard, is used to listening to and keeping the secrets of his kings and queen:

“A knight of the Kingsguard is in the king’s presence day and night. For that reason, our vows require us to protect his secrets as we would his life. But your father’s secrets by rights belong to you now, along with his throne, and ... I thought perhaps you might have questions for me.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

She turned her back upon the night, to where Barristan Selmy stood silent in the shadows. “My brother once told me a Westerosi riddle. Who listens to everything yet hears nothing?”

“A knight of the Kingsguard.” Selmy’s voice was solemn. (ADWD Daenerys III)

I am no Hand, a part of him wanted to cry out. I am only a simple knight, the queen’s protector. I never wanted this. (ADWD The Queen's Hand)

On HBO, show!Barristan doesn't seem to be as conscious of his duties.

Fourth, why the heck would show!Barristan go to show!Jorah to question his task instead of, y'know, his actual liege??? It doesn't make sense considering their fraught relationship in the books and, most importantly, is another way to undermine show!Dany's authority (and this problem is only going to get worse in the later seasons). In the books, Barristan takes Dany's authority very seriously:

“I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen’s sister,” Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

“Aye,” said Arstan Whitebeard, “and a queen as well.” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“You are the trueborn heir of Westeros. To the end of my days I shall remain your faithful knight, should you find me worthy to bear a sword again. If not, I am content to serve Strong Belwas as his squire.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

What would Daenerys want? he asked himself. (ADWD The Discarded Knight)

A young girl she might be, but Daenerys Targaryen was the only thing that held them all together. (ADWD The Queen's Hand)

The Dornishmen, Hizdahr, Reznak, the attack … was he doing the right things? Was he doing what Daenerys would have wanted? (ADWD The Queen's Hand)

As we can see above, not only Barristan calls Dany by her rightful title and obeys her orders, he also thinks about what she would do (even when she's far away from Meereen) before he makes his own decisions. Following a she-king, an abolitionist and a heroine is what propels his character development in the books, for he finally found a ruler whose wants match with the right thing to do ("was he doing the right things? Was he doing what Daenerys would have wanted?") or, in other words, because he finally found a "good queen" who "put[s] her people first".

Unfortunately, on HBO, show!Dany doesn't get to outline battle plans and her male advisors think that they should take orders from each other rather than from their queen.

Scene 11

DAARIO: When you hear a songbird’s whistle, you come. I’m a great whistler. The greatest in the land.

DAARIO: That one was quick.

JORAH: There may be others.

DAARIO: I doubt it. The Yunkish prefer to let their slaves do their fighting for them. JORAH: That’s what you call a few guards?

With this scene, it could be argued that the depiction of show!Daario's inteligence and skills was (well, relatively) nuanced. His plan (uninspired and arguably callous as it is) will give show!Dany the city and his assessment of people (convenient as it is) is sharp. Those qualities don't prevent him from making mistakes, as we can see above when he underestimated the number of Yunkish guards that would be present to defend the city.

You know which character GRRM focuses on presenting as smart and competent but still fallible in the books? The actual female lead character, Daenerys Targaryen. There, she proves to have a knack for military strategy and her actions are motivated by her compassion for the Yunkish slaves and the Astapori freedmen and by her desire to prevent collateral damage from both her side and the slavers'. Unfortunately, her attempts to end slavery and be conciliatory later backfire on her because she doesn't realize that her abolitionist crusade is too much of a threat for their income and their way of living. ASOS Daenerys IV shows that Dany's strengths inform both her hits and her misses.

The show, on the other hand, is not at all interested in showing how show!Dany was influential in the battle of Yunkai. Only episode 3.7 (written by GRRM himself) centered on her motivations and decisions; episodes 3.8 and 3.9, on the other hand, have show!Daario as their protagonist - he is the one who deceives his co-captains (not show!Dany like it should have been), he is the one who decides to turn to show!Dany's side (seemingly because of her beauty instead of her military advantage), he is the one who concocts the plan that will bring the Yunkish slavers to their knees (not show!Dany like it should have been), he is the one who furthers show!Jorah's "tragedy" for being "in love with a woman who couldn't love him back" (which is not how the books frame Jorah's feelings, partly because Dany's perspective is front and center there; more on this later) and so on.

Not only this scene is indicative of how the show writers don't care about show!Dany's character, it is also really unnecessary. What is the point of creating a cliffhanger that a good portion of the viewers would have known to be inconsequential (either because they had already read the books or searched for spoilers on the internet) and that won't even last for more than ten minutes? What is the point of writing an entire new scene for a storyline that didn't even have all of its key scenes from the books adapted (more on this below)? For all that they found "the Dany stuff" "a challenge" because of the supposed lack of material, they didn't pay that much attention to the material that they had to begin with.

Scene 12

Before I comment on the scene's dialogue itself, I need to point out ... What the heck is this?

Show!Missandei offers show!Dany some food and show!Dany doesn't even bother to look at her and politely decline? That's rude and OOC for Dany in the books, whose tendency is to be courteous and well-mannered with everyone. With Missandei, in particular, she is always warm and affectionate:

“I am going to take you home one day, Missandei,” Dany promised. If I had made the same promise to Jorah, would he still have sold me? “I swear it.”

“This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath will be there, always. You are good to this—to me.”

“And you to me.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

Dany took the younger girl by the hand. “Never lie to me, Missandei. Never betray me.”

“I never would,” Missandei promised. “Look, dawn comes.”

[...] Dany held Missandei’s hand as they watched the sun come up. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

“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)

“Come. Sit. Talk with me.”

“If it please you.” Missandei sat down beside her. “What shall we talk of?”

“Home,” said Dany. “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.” (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

Unfortunately, the show writers never bothered to adapt any of the scenes above (only the second quote had a scene based on it shot, but, probably because of the direction they were given, the actresses express much less warmth than in the books; in any case, the scene was ultimately cut from the show, but more on that in my upcoming season four reviews), which makes show!Dany and show!Missandei seem much less attached to one another in comparison. Even if their dynamic needed to be different because show!Dany can't feel "as if she could be a child" with show!Missandei (who is very much an adult on HBO), they could still have received more scenes displaying how they've grown intimate because of their shared experiences as exiles and former slaves (and that don't undermine show!Dany's skills, like in episode 3.8). Instead, the show writers would rather portray show!Dany as dismissive of her servants, which is a waste of potential at best and a disrespect to Dany's and Missandei's characters at worst.

Besides their bonding moments, I can also point to instances in which Dany respectfully declines Missandei's service and/or advice:

Missandei offered to sing her a lullaby of the Peaceful People, but Dany shook her head. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Missandei returned with a melon and a bowl of hard-cooked eggs, but Dany found she had no appetite. (ADWD Daenerys I)

“Your Grace needs more than wine to break her fast. You are such a tiny thing, and you will surely need your strength today.”

That made Daenerys laugh, coming from a girl so small. She relied so much on the little scribe that she oft forgot that Missandei had only turned eleven. [...]

Her appetite had left her. “Take this food away,” she told Missandei. “It is time I bathed.” (ADWD Daenerys VII)

“Even if the pits must open, must Your Grace go yourself?” asked Missandei as she was washing the queen’s hair.

“Half of Meereen will be there to see me, gentle heart.”

“Your Grace,” said Missandei, “this one begs leave to say that half of Meereen will be there to watch men bleed and die.”

She is not wrong, the queen knew, but it makes no matter. (ADWD Daenerys IX)

So, yeah, this brief moment is very wrong and very offensive when one properly takes Dany's characterization and Dany and Missandei's relationship in the books into account.

DAENERYS: We’ve been waiting a long time. Haven’t we? Well, I don’t know, you tell me. How long does it take to sack a city?

I mentioned above that the show writers didn't bother to include all of Dany's key scenes of her ASOS storyline in their adaptation ... and this show scene omits one of them: the one where Dany and Barristan talk about Rhaegar's knightly skills, accomplishments, personality, birth and relationships with Lyanna and Elia. Adding this exchange in the TV series not only would have serviced show!Dany's characterization, it would have also functioned as necessary setup for the eventual R+L=J revelation (which, let's face it, can't be understood by solely watching the show; to do so, you'd have to read the books and/or search for supplemental material).

In the books, Dany is deeply anxious during the battle because she cares about her soldiers and can't do anything but wait:

“I cannot sleep when men are dying for me, Whitebeard,” she said. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

In this particular moment, she wants to feel more optimistic and less worried, which heightens her (understandable) desire to view her family on a positive light:

“Tell me more of my brother Rhaegar, if you would. I liked the tale you told me on the ship, of how he decided that he must be a warrior.” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“He won some tourneys, surely,” said Dany, disappointed. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Dany did not want to hear about Rhaegar being unhorsed. “But what tourneys did my brother win?” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“You make him sound so sour,” Dany protested. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

At the same time, though, Dany is still the same person who told Barristan that "only lies offend [her], never honest counsel" and that he "should never fear to speak [his] mind" with her. While she wants him to focus on the positive about Rhaegar, she also notices when Barristan is mincing his words, which leads her to ask him to be straightforward. In other words, Dany's tendency to idealize her family conflicts with her usual open-mindedness in this scene:

“But?” said Dany sharply. “Tell me. I command it.” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

“Say it,” she urged. “A sense ...?” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

There's only one instance in which she (consciously or not) criticizes Rhaegar's behavior:

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

As I noted in a previous meta, Dany is not being hostile towards Elia, otherwise she wouldn't have asked "[h]ow could [Rhaegar] do that". Her question about whether "the Dornish woman treat him so ill" is simply an attempt to make sense of Rhaegar's behavior (which she didn't think was right, as seen with how she behaved later with her husband Hizdahr) in relation to Viserys's romanticized stories about him. At this point, Dany is 14-15 and has not interacted with anyone besides Viserys and Jorah concerning her relatives, so it only makes sense for her to still be confused about this particular issue. Indeed, she may not even have wanted to reflect that much on it, considering that it became associated with Viserys's abuse of her:

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

ASOS consistently has Dany either finding out more information about her family or at least having them in her thoughts. Right from her first chapter in the book, we see her asking questions about Aerys and Rhaegar; on the second, both of them are brought up in her conversations with Jorah and Barristan; on the third, she thinks of Rhaegar before she rebels against the Astapori masters; on the fourth (which is the chapter that this episode is adapting), she asks more questions about Rhaegar; and then, finally, on her sixth and last chapter, Dany is told by Barristan that her father was mad.

Why were her relatives so constantly brought up? In an 2000 interview with GRRM (that is, right after ASOS was released), he said that he intended to "focus on the return of Daenerys Targaryen to Westeros" in ADWD (which was supposed to be the next volume after ASOS, not AFFC). This explains why Dany's family is a looming presence in her chapters - the author was laying the groundwork for when she would inevitably learn more information about information about her brother Rhaegar and her father Aerys (and hopefully her mother Rhaella too) in Westeros (which is where he expected her to be in the book after ASOS). However, as we all know, the 5-year gap was cut, more plotlines were created and Dany was forced to stay in Essos for longer than expected. Because the setup made in ASOS can only pay off when Dany is in Westeros (which could be either TWOW or ADOS), she is forced to stay relatively ignorant about her descendants.

These last two paragraphs were a digression meant to reinforce that the show writers really should have included Dany and Barristan's conversation in this episode. Not just because of R+L=J or the historical characters and events mentioned (both of which I chose to avoid discussing because they go beyond the scope of this meta), but also because it is key to Dany's characterization. Her tendency to idealize her family is tied to her tendency to idealize Westeros, for both of them are a manifestation of her search for and desire to find a home. With that in mind, it's only natural that, when Dany arrives in Westeros and becomes disillusioned with it, she also finds another disappointment in her relatives (especially Aerys). Additionally, as I said above, this scene adds nuance and complexity to her characterization. As much as Dany is open-minded and accepting of feedback, she can also be a bit inflexible about her relatives. As much as Dany took upon herself to carry the burden of being the last Targaryen and became more mature and responsible than most people of her age because of it, she remains naive (as one might expect of a typical 14/15-year-old orphan) about her relatives.

Unfortunately, none of this comes across in the show.

JORAH: It was just as you said. They did not believe until it was too late. Their slave soldiers threw down their spears and surrendered.

DAENERYS: And Daario Naharis?

I need to reiterate that the context in which Jorah gives Dany the news of her victory was heavily changed from books to show:

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

“Our own losses?” 

“A dozen. If that many.”

Only then did she allow herself to smile. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

In the books, "just as you said" refers to the accuracy of Dany's predictions ("The Stormcrows turned their cloaks, the slaves broke, and the Second Sons were too drunk to fight") and the overall success of her military plan. In the show, "just as you said" has no clear meaning because show!Dany wasn't seen onscreen giving any substantial contribution to the plan that was ultimately executed to take Yunkai.

In the books, right after Jorah gives Dany news of the battle, she asks of her losses first (because she cares about the men fighting for her and, most importantly, because she was trying to prevent too many casualties among the freedmen when she decided to deceive the Yunkish) and then smiles. In the show, right after show!Jorah gives show!Dany news of the battle, she asks of show!Daario first (because the show writers decided to make show!Dany's storyline about her love interests in this episode rather than about herself and her fight against slavery like in the books) and then smiles.

This change is particularly awful because Dany and Jorah's situation in the books (particularly in the chapter that they are adapting) is very different:

“Daenerys, I am thrice your age,” Ser Jorah said. “I have seen how false men are. Very few are worthy of trust, and Daario Naharis is not one of them. Even his beard wears false colors.”

That angered her. “Whilst you have an honest beard, is that what you are telling me? You are the only man I should ever trust?”

He stiffened. “I did not say that.”

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

“Your Grace—”

She bulled over him. “You have been a better friend to me than any I have known, a better brother than Viserys ever was. You are the first of my Queensguard, the commander of my army, my most valued counselor, my good right hand. I honor and respect and cherish you—but I do not desire you, Jorah Mormont, and I am weary of your trying to push every other man in the world away from me, so I must needs rely on you and you alone. It will not serve, and it will not make me love you any better.”

Mormont had flushed red when she first began, but by the time Dany was done his face was pale again. He stood still as stone. “If my queen commands,” he said, curt and cold.

Dany was warm enough for both of them. “She does,” she said. “She commands. Now go see to your Unsullied, ser. You have a battle to fight and win.” (ASOS Daenerys IV)

In the books, Dany notices how often Jorah has been attempting to make her distrust the other men around her and to isolate her so that she can only rely on him. We see red flags in this sense particularly in ACOK Daenerys II, ACOK Daenerys III and ASOS Daenerys I (and that's not even mentioning all the other types of red flags). In ASOS Daenerys IV, she finally (and rightly) calls him out and sets appropriate boundaries. Throughout these scenes, we see things from Dany's point of view and we're meant to empathize with her.

On HBO, however, we're meant to feel sorry for show!Jorah's "tragedy" for "being in love with a woman who couldn't love him back". Even if one sees things from a Watsonian angle and says that show!Jorah is a better person in this universe (and I don't think he deserves that much praise considering that he's also a slaver), the Doylist angle is the most noteworthy here: instead of focusing on the female lead character and how she's been disrespected, manipulated and infantilized by the male supporting character in the books, the show writers would rather give the spotlight to the male supporting character to paint him as a Nice Guy and to frame his story as a tragic one. It's nothing short of disgusting and it's why we got awful and nonsensical takes like this and this.

And because the TV series barely focuses on show!Dany's perspective in this episode, we also miss Dany's thoughts right after she puts Jorah in his place:

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.”

Drogon looped his neck around to nip at her hand. His teeth were very sharp, but he never broke her skin when they played like this. Dany laughed, and rolled him back and forth until he roared, his tail lashing like a whip. It is longer than it was, she saw, and tomorrow it will be longer still. They grow quickly now, and when they are grown I shall have my wings. Mounted on a dragon, she could lead her own men into battle, as she had in Astapor, but as yet they were still too small to bear her weight. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

There are three important things to remark from the quote above:

Dany is too hard on herself because being as (rightly) forceful as she was with Jorah isn't something that comes naturally to her, hence why she is plagued by self-doubt afterwards. This is undoubtedly a result of her upbringing with Viserys and I explored how it shapes the way Dany deals with her relationships in this meta.

Dany considers Jorah her family, so any threat to her relationship with him reminds her of the fact that she already has no family members by her side to begin with. This knowledge enhances the pressure that she imposes on herself to fulfill her duty towards her family, her desire to find a home and her tendency to try and see her relatives on a positive light (note that her conversation with Barristan, which I've already addressed above, takes place right after she has these thoughts about how her death would mark her house's as well ... No wonder she's resistant to thinking critically of Rhaegar).

Dany's leadership is defined by how she holds herself accountable for her people. This is what informs her desire to be a dragonrider: not because of self-gratification (though it wouldn't be an issue if it were), but because, as their queen, she feels that it is her duty to "lead her own men into battle". Her desire to be a dragonrider is also related to the prophecy about the three-headed dragon (which she assumes to foretell the arrival of two men who she can trust) and to her connection to the dragons, to whom she views herself as mother because they're the only family she has and the only ones who she believes to be able to carry on her legacy. Fittingly, by the end of the chapter, Dany will meet another found family when she's hailed as mhysa to thousands of people. As we can see, ASOS Daenerys IV perfectly illustrates how Dany's roles of queen, mother of dragons, mhysa and dragonrider are all intertwined and related to her core motivations: home and duty.

Unfortunately, none of this can come across in the show because its writers are too busy giving the spotlight to show!Daario and show!Jorah and depriving show!Dany of the interiority that she could have had based on the material that they are adapting.

DAARIO: The city is yours, my queen.

So far, I mostly focused on how Dany's contributions to her victory in the Battle of Yunkai were transferred to Daario. Now, I want to focus on what Daario actually does in the books. There, he kills his co-captains, goes to Dany's camp and is captured by the Unsullied (unlike on HBO, where he is conveniently able to deceive the Unsullied and trap show!Dany and show!Missandei). He vows that he will give her the support of the Stormcrows, which Dany ultimately accepts:

“My sword is yours. My life is yours. My love is yours. My blood, my body, my songs, you own them all. I live and die at your command, fair queen.”

“Then live,” Dany said, “and fight for me tonight.”

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

She considered a moment, then shook her head. “If he can give us the Stormcrows, surprise is certain.”

“And if he betrays you, surprise is lost.”

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

“How can you know that?”

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

“If they stop me, I will say I have been scouting, and saw nothing.” The Tyroshi rose to his feet, bowed, and swept out. (ASOS Daenerys IV)

Dany's decision to make use of Daario and his Stormcrows was a sound one and the reasons why it was were already laid out in this meta; basically: a) he wouldn't have anything to gain by betraying his captains and betraying her again; b) having his force would guarantee that the Yunkish would be overwhelmed by her surprise attack; c) Dany recognizes that, despite needing to have a healthy distrust of others, she must also be open to them; d) there's also a Doylist reason: if her decision had been the wrong one, Jorah's jealousy and selfishness would have been validated, which would have negative implications that I believe the author is aware of.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that, in the books, Daario is simply another commander who incidentally helps Dany to win the Battle of Yunkai. Dany would have defeated the slavers with or without Daario's help because, ultimately, her intelligence, her military plan and her army are what allowed her to free the slaves.

On HBO, however, show!Daario gets to concoct the plan to take the city, have an entire scene of his own and present Yunkai's flag to show!Dany. Unfortunately, he became the protagonist of this storyline in episodes 3.8 and 3.9.

For this review, there’s no comment of mine on any Inside the Episode because D&D’s Inside the Episode 3.9 doesn’t talk about show!Dany’s storyline.

I’m not commenting on show!Dany’s clothes either. She's wearing a new variation of the blue dress because it seems to have more dragon scales than the previous ones and is now combined with a slave collar, whose significance I talked about in the review of episodes 3.7 and 3.8.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf vs got #asos vs got #asoiaf meta #a storm of swords #daario naharis #jorah mormont #barristan selmy #missandei #rhaegar targaryen #grey worm #s3

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