#as if got was anti dany and pro jon

[russian-spider]

sad to see jon fans and dany fans fighting again :( game of thrones did them both dirty. they turned her into a villain and him into a traitor. they killed her and they made him useless. they were both ooc so I don't blame them for their actions, but I see some parts of the fandom still do. I'm very happy to see hotd vindicating dany and I hope some kind of retcon is coming, but I don't want to see this become a new reason to shit on jon. let's not pretend his ending didn't suck. he, too, deserved better than killing the woman he loved after barely contributing to the war that was central to his storyline from day one. I would like to see him acknowledged as a targaryen too and a vital part of the war for the dawn, as he should have been. ofc this show is about a targaryen queen and dany is THE targaryen queen so it makes sense they want to do right by her first and foremost, but... yeah. would be nice to get something about both of them someday.

[daenerystargaryen06]

Hey can I ask you something? Do you think George will finish the books? And what do you think Dany’s ending will be in the books? While I do want her to be Queen, all I need for the ending to be perfect is Dany and Arya and Jon all alive and being able to live peaceful lives. But… George has given Dany a complex arc about learning how to rule. I can’t see that not going anywhere. I heard that apparently D&D confirmed that Bran being King is part of the ending in the books but I don’t trust a single thing those hacks say. And even if Bran is going to be King… I can’t really see him being King of Westeros because his arc has been about the North. Maybe Bran won’t be a ruling king. Maybe he’ll be King of Magic or King will just be a title he has but he’s not a ruling monarch. But I can get behind King Bran of Westeros as long as Dany is alive and happy because I know in the books she would rather live a nice simple life.

I honestly don't know if George will ever finish the books. To be honest, it could happen, but it also could not. That is all in George's mind and plans. I hope he releases the books, but he also could very well not release them as well. It's a sort of a 'wait and see' situation sadly.

As for Daenerys' ending- I very well think it could be her and Jon ruling together as equals as King and Queen of the 7k. Mainly due to their arcs being revolved around ruling, learning of politics and being so involved with leading others, helping the downtrodden, etc. I just don't see that going nowhere, but who knows. As much as I hope Dany could become Queen of the 7k/Westeros, George could also change it entirely and give her an entirely different ending. There is a few hints towards Dany being a good ruler for Westeros not only in the books but in GRRM's interviews as well, but he could also change the game as well and give her a simple ending that people wouldn't expect for her arc.

As for Bran being King, that could also be something GRRM left vague. Maybe GRRM is planning for Bran to be King of the 7k. Maybe George will change the ending for Bran after seeing the backlash from people towards the shows ending. Maybe Bran would become King of the North instead. I don't trust D&D's words due to their shitty behavior, misogyny, and the way they destroyed George's world/story within their show. But if what they said is true, then I think George would carry out Bran being King in a more tactful and better light than D&D did; as in, not having Jon kill Daenerys just for him to go back into exile at the Wall and Bran become King in the very stupid way D&D executed that scene. There are different ways George could carry out Bran becoming King that wouldn't have to involve the shitty ending and destruction of characterizations like within the show. There are also many interviews where George expresses different opinions on his characters; he has expressed that he likes/loves Dany, Arya, and Jon- and I can't see him giving them such shitty endings within his book. So I do hope they all get the endings they deserve for being such amazing characters within the books.

Also, who knows, maybe after seeing the fan backlash for the shows ending George decided to change who becomes ruler for his ending or won't finish the books at all now in fear of receiving hate for whatever decision he could make for the ending of these books. The sad thing is we don't know what goes on in his mind or his plans, we can only speculate.

[lupuslikethewolf]

it really does piss me off when people call the war against the others 'the north's war' or 'the stark's war' or 'jon's/sansa's war' and claim that daenerys was helping because she just wanted to or something along those lines

as if the north/night's watch/the stark's/common sense wasn't saying the entire time "if these guys manage to defeat us they will come and kill all of you too, and have an army of millions of soldiers that cannot die to do so."

dany deciding to fight in the war in seasons 7/8 was not simply an act of compassion or allyship or whatnot, it was an act of self-preservation and (kinda) proactivity, considering that the war against the others is everyone's war. not just the north's, not just the stark's, and not just the night's watch.

the show and the books have been telling us the entire time that, when people get too caught up in politics and playing the "game of thrones", they end up ignoring, if not helping, the actual threat.

in fact, her fighting in the war is beneficial to her if she wishes to establish a reputation as the hero, and the liberator, coming first to conquer or reclaim, but then deciding that stopping the apocalypse is actually more important than ambition for the throne. whether or not i agree with that statement is a bit iffy, considering she needed the north to help in the fight as much as they needed her, but it is good PR.

no-one is indebted to dany because she decided to fight against the long night alongside everyone else, who had been doing it/preparing for it for far longer than she had. if the north/house stark had not sent word to dany, she would have been caught completely unawares and likely suffered a far worse fate at the hands of the others.

they helped each other, as just because dany had dragons and an army, she had no way of knowing what would kill the others or the wights, or what the legends surrounding them were, or even that it was a threat to be addressed until it would have been too late.

now this isn't me saying that i at all agree with the directions of seasons 6/7/8, or with how D+D handled the aftermath of the war with others, or jon, or dany, or any of the show in the later seasons really. dany (among others) absolutely deserved much better treatment, and so many characters were absolutely assassinated for no reason (*coughjoncough*). but, working with the material we have, dany made the only intelligent choice in those circumstances. the north are not supposed to worship for acknowledging what they have been saying and preparing for since the beginning: 'winter is coming'.

they helped each other: just because dany arrived at the war with the westerosi equivalent of nukes does not mean that everything else that was done by the north was useless compared to that. it was their land, and funds, and food stores, and shelter that was providing for dany's army and dany's dragons. "what do dragon's eat, anyway?" is a legitimate concern when you are trying to feed an entire nation of people during winter. "whatever they want" is not helpful here, babes, even if it is a badass line. my girl was just trying to figure out how to feed your kids without starving everyone else.

what happened after the long night is a different story entirely, but when it comes down to the actual war, there was never any question of what dany should do/should have done. had she ignored the others, and instead focused on "conquering" westeros, in the end, there would have been no westeros for her to conquer and rule.

tl:dr: the north is not to blame for what happened to dany during the long night, as if she had chosen to simply ignore the problem, it would have been so much worse for her in the end. nor are they indebted to her, as the problem would have become hers anyway, except on a much larger scale with much worse consequences. they helped each other, because it was never the north vs the others, it was humanity vs the others. life vs death.

[ponypickle]

you can never find someone/something [blog] that has it all, it's always one or the other 🥲.

just to put it into context, I like sansa and she is my nr.1 qitn, she got everything she deserved, I also don't particularly enjoy daenerys' character but she's still fun to watch until she starts interacting with Jon in season 7, jonerys is my notp (you can't make me read anything with it I will click off ANY fic as soon as its mentioned jon and dany are together anywhere within the world, even if I've read like 1/2 of the story already)

but at the same time I'm soo on team Black's side, rhaenyra deserved to be queen, the only reason she didn't get crowned was because of everyone on team green being misogynists (i.e. little bitch boy otto thinking he's all big). I had already made up my mind on this during the history and lore for season 5 of got, its been ingrained in my veins that rhaenyra is the queen since then and reading fire and blood just cemented that till death. so suddenly all the blogs I had been following since got have turned to team green and I've had to suffer slowly unfollowing and blocking each and everyone of them because I want my tumblr to be curated to me.

basically a lot of the team black blogs I find post things that are anti sansa and VERY pro dany (I'm good with saying you enjoy dany but I do think she's a villain in the end and will be so in the books, but again that doesn't mean she IS a bad character, I enjoy her povs in the book and liked her scenes until around season 7, so obviously there is something good about her) and so I don't want that in my feed but then a lot of sansa blogs are team green which I despise.

tldr; just me lamenting that I can't find any blogs that post things I don't vehemently disagree with in either team black or sansa stans blogs. I better stick with tagged posts only

[pixiecactus]

I’m a Book Arya only fanboy too! Let me tell you something. I have been rereading the books and actually paying true attention this time. Show Arya was a travesty. She was not Arya at all. “Most girls are idiots”? The real Arya would never say something like that. “The woman is important too”. Real Arya is not afraid to show her emotions and to make new friends. Show Arya is a stoic cold hearted loner who likes killing people. Book Arya tries to avoid violence whenever she can but she will defend herself if she must. And Show Arya became a Sansa sycophant who sided with her over Jon. The real Arya would NEVER side with anyone (not even Ned) over Jon. Sorry for the rant. But it saddens me that Show Arya is what a lot of people think of when they think of Arya and that is not Arya. That’s partly why I can’t rewatch the show anymore. Because I will never be able to enjoy Show Arya ever again knowing how much of an insult she is to real Arya. Also real Arya would have become easy and close friends with Dany. I firmly believe they will become friends. Become like sisters

how it's that i found a book!arya fanboy first (well you found me first, semantics i guess) that those dude bros that hate female characters on the basis that those characters like feminine things like stansas told me... and the most dude bro i found in the arya tag was an anti targaryen pro stark (pro sansa) and pro robert baratheon stan. once again, i do think that type of man actually exists but i still haven't seen one in the wild.

kidding aside, i did the same thing this time rereading arya's chapters last year, because my memory was really fuzzy and it mixed book and show even i stopped watching during got third season back then. and when i tried to reconnect with my love for arya and the fandom would you have guessed that the first thing i saw was stansa's posts about how "the stark sisters love each other and you are just a misogynist that doesn't understand their dynamic" or “how you should let little girls be ugly when talking about arya” or “how sansa is the one stark sister that is just like lyanna” or “how arya always wanted to be a knight and that’s why she should be sansa’s underling”. that’s why now i’m really obnoxious with my “sansa critical posts” because i don’t want more people, arya stans to be specific, to fall victim to stansas rancid lies and distortion of canon.

i have seen that people that still praise the show usually say that the first seasons were really similar to the books... and to that i’ve to say... did we watch the same show?? arya was always adapted badly, with her being better at the bow and arrow than bran and having her parents looking at this situation fondly somehow, treating her siblings bad when they were meeting the baratheons in season one, showing her throwing food at sansa unprovoked it seems because we never saw how sansa and jeyne bullied arya and how they completely destroyed arya’s self-esteem.

a scene i have engraved in my mind is young maisie williams stabbing repeatedly a wooden surface, i think it was a table (?) looking extremely menacing for a little kid in season one… excuse me but is this supposed to be the same character that played all the games possible with wintertown’s children, the little girl that gifted flowers to her beloved father, the little girl who always took interest in other people no matter how high or low they were classified in the westerosi social ranking. the little girl that named unborn babies when she saw them in their mother’s bellies. the little girl that punched a ghost!jon because he made her baby brother cry.

(i want to say that i have a bone to pick with the casting too because what do you mean that in the book the only one of the stark-tully children that has a different appearance to the rest of her siblings is arya and the show gave us sansa being the only auburn ginger haired between a lot of brown haired siblings… we were doomed from before the start)

that’s the thing, arya doesn’t have a love or passion for violence, the times when we see her being violent is because it’s a life or death situation of the kill or be killed kind, she is mostly a victim of the circumstances, which in this case it’s a actual war going on while she is trying to get back home with no name or status to protect her of the cruel world and crueler men, only her intelligence and knowledge. and the other time, she is looking for justice for crimes committed against the smallfolk, as a example when we see her naming chyswick to jaqen h’ghar after hearing him boasting about gangraping a 13 year old girl and the fact he made it to her list due to the fact he tortured the smallfolk.

and you’re absolutely right about how arya will never betray jon for anyone else. i’ve said this before i’m a gendrya shipper (only bookwise) but i honestly think that arya’s safest place for her to be is in jon’s embrace. and you meant to tell me that fucking hbo had their arya character tell jon that sansa was the most intelligent person she ever met, just reminding myself that was a line in the actual show makes me want to puke.

i have to admit that i just saw season eight last year, because the only thing i knew about the show after i stopped watching in 2014/2015 was in 2019 when i found out that gendrya fucked each other because i saw a gif on twitter of all places… and let me tell you, i’d like to go back in time and just stay with that knowledge because in this case with this trainwreck of a show, ignorance is bliss.

oh god, arya would admire dany so much and vice versa, i think they would have a rough start when meeting each other, because you know the targaryen/stark conflict during robert’s rebellion era… but after all of that is resolved arya and dany (and missandei of course) would get along like a house on fire. 

sorry for rambling as well, hope i’m making some sense, today my brain is not really working well in english.

[jackoshadows]

Hi, so I watched GoT+ am on asoiaf 1 rn and I have a Q about Dany; why is her character so divisive? I read meta by pro Dany fans and its "Dany's compassionate, self critical, a good ruler, a political reformer, frees slaves she'll be a hero at the end" and the antis "shes entitled, vengeful, profiter of slavery, a coloniser and GRRM wont validate a foreign invasion with nuclear weapons; hes anti war!!" Like, wHAt? Surely her character cant be THAT ambigious?! These are popular opposites??

Alright, I'll try to explain this from my perspective as a Jon Snow fan. However, this will be spoilery if you have read only one book. I would suggest reading all the books before joining in on discussions about the character.

It's a combination of things.

One is most definitely sexism. I don't throw that word around lightly having been constantly attacked as a ‘sexist dudebro who hates women’ for simply critiquing a female character.

Sexism in fandom is when female characters are held to different standards compared to their male counterparts. When female characters are critiqued or disliked for doing the same thing that male characters are often praised for doing. Daenerys is subjected to a lot of this which is especially evident in the books because she has a parallel arc of leadership with Jon Snow over at the Wall - the two characters at the ends of the world. 

An example is right there in your ask. GRRM is anti-war and hence why would he validate Dany's invasion - She is therefore in the wrong. Okay. In which case why not extend that argument to every other main character in the series? GRRM is anti-war and therefore Robb Stark was wrong to wage war for Northern independence. GRRM is anti-war and therefore Jon Snow is wrong to help Stannis in his battle against the Boltons. GRRM is anti-war and therefore Tyrion is wrong to use wildfire and defeat Stannis at the battle of the blackwater. GRRM is anti-war and therefore Jon Snow is the villain of the battle at Castle Black.

I think the main thesis of GRRM’s argument in regard to his protagonists has been that there is no good or bad and instead they are all morally gray? Yeah war is bad and most of our protagonists engage in war and they are therefore morally grey characters. I mean, Jon Snow is over there taking child hostages that he has promised to behead - does that make him a baddie? Ned Stark took Theon as a child hostage. Is he a baddie? Our main characters all belong to noble houses in a feudal monarchy - a system of governance that GRRM relentlessly critiques in the books. Are they all baddies?

This double standard is particularly glaring when Dany's battles in Essos is about helping the little guy - the slaves who are under the worst kind of oppression. The WOT5K (War of the 5 Kings) on the other hand was about personal power, ravaged the land and lead to much devastation and suffering. However, for some strange reason when fandom discusses the books and the author being anti-war they focus particularly on Daenerys - that strange reason is sexism.

If you have watched GOT, I am sure you would have noticed those obvious  double standards yourself.

Tyrion standing there making sad faces makes it look like Daenerys is doing something wrong when she executes the Tarlys - two treasonous traitors. However every other House does the same! Jon Snow executed the mutineers at the wall - even a child. After the battle of bastards, he mentions the Karstarks and Umbers having been killed in battle or else they would have been executed. Sansa wants to punish even their children!! But for some strange reason [(i.e) sexism] a female leader executing traitors is evil. That she does so without crying (Something the show runner David Benioff points out in an BTS interview) means she is evil. Jon not crying when killing people = badass, Dany not crying when killing people = evil.

Daenerys in battle with Jaime Lannister to get the Iron Throne = evil. Starks fighting against the Boltons to get Winterfell = Yay! Awesome. Thousands die in both battles - in one battle they die, burned by dragonfire. In the other one they are hacked to death and die with their guts hanging out. In both cases, people die.

The show quickly moves past Jaime Lannister, the Tarlys and their men massacring everyone of Olenna's men and piling their bodies high and sacking and looting the place. However, the show takes time to linger on Tyrion's sad face with the sad music and the men dying when Daenerys is attacking those same men on the battlefield.

I am not even getting into season 8 because it was so, so bad and full of puke inducing sexism that will need 10 pages to outline. I think you have got the gist of why sexism is such a large factor in how Dany's character is otherized and analyzed by fandom at large and made worse by Benioff and Weiss' rampant misogyny shining through in the show's writing.

I mentioned this in another post and I will say again - removing show Tyrion from show Daenerys' narrative would reduce the sexism in her story arc ten fold. He was D&D's mouthpiece in the series after season 5 - there to tell us that Dany was evil for doing all the things the male characters did.

And yes, Nuclear weapons are bad. Nuclear weapons can also be a deterrent and prevent war. Nuclear weapons can also be useful in a fantasy, magical world dealing with an existential apocalyptic threat. This is why I find one to one comparisons like these to be ridiculous. The Starks also have some fiercesome beasts that the author has indicated will be used in battle. Are we calling them evil?

The rest. Colonizer? They should look up what that means and whether it applies to Dany's story in Essos. Profiting off slavery? If one reads the books one knows this is blatantly untrue. Entitled and vengeful? No more than any of the other main characters who belong to noble houses in Westeros.

Daenerys has her flaws, not saying that she doesn't. That's what makes her a three-dimensional and relatable character. It's easy to criticize the character because she does self-reflect and introspect, is sometimes crippled by self-doubt and wants to do things differently and try different options - something that makes her human and real and very well written. Leadership is not easy and she’s 15 in the last book.

The other aspect is a flaw in the writing with respect to the setting of Daenerys' story in the series. She's the only main POV character in Essos until Arya and Tyrion get there in ADwD. And there is a lot of orientalism in GRRM's writing for Essos - meant to represent the East while Westeros represents the West.

There's much to say about how he writes the Dothraki as savage barbarians. While he gives POV characters for the Ironborn with Theon and Asha and characters like Mance, Tormund and Ygritte for the Freefolk, where's the equivalent of all that for the Dothraki? Oh but look, they are eating honeyed locusts! How exotic! There's lots of cartoonishly evil slavers who kill puppies! GRRM keeps otherizing their customs and culture as being savage and cruel and different - highlighted by the fact that we don't have a single Essosi POV giving us their side of things.

I do find GRRM's orientalism distasteful and off putting, especially as Essos is just a prop, a stepping stone for the characters before they move onto Westeros where the real story is happening. That is however a critique of the writing, not of the character. People tend to conflate the two. A middle aged white man writing in the nineties about a fantasy eastern world does not make Daenerys a 'white savior' or a 'colonizer' and it's clear from various interviews the author has given that this was not his intention either.

Daenerys is also the only Targaryen POV in the books. Think about that. The Starks have 6 POVs in the first book. The Lannisters get 3 by AFfC. The Greyjoys have 4, the Martells have 2. The only major house worse off than the Targaryens are the Baratheons with no POV characters.

We see Jon Snow through Arya and Bran’s POV. We see Arya through Jon’s. We get none of this for Dany. The Starks have a home and a loving family. Dany meanwhile is starting off the story at her lowest point - an abusive brother and forcefully married off to a Dothraki. While the Starks then end up losing that security, family members die, one of them is a hostage and the other is on the run - they still have memories of each other. Danerys meanwhile, slowly and painfully works her way to the top. 

Reminds me of a post I responded to the other day, where the OP said that Arya and Jon cannot be underdogs because they are winners (Whatever that means). That’s the attitude that a lot of fandom has towards Daenerys - now that she is queen and has power, she has it easy compared to the likes of Sansa and the rest of the Starks. Ignoring that when the books started Daenerys was in a way worse position than any of the Starks.

This is a fandom that thinks that Sansa Stark deserves to be Queen in the North because she’s beautiful, has good manners and is a Stark. And this is the same fandom who think that Daenerys, who worked her way to the top - with no family to help, no happy childhood, no teachers, no security of food and shelter, who were beggars and on the run at one point - the Daenerys who is currently spending an entire book ruling a city state, making trade deals, dealing with an insurgency and famine, engaging in marriage diplomacy to sue for peace for the slaves she freed, that Daenerys is entitled. Do you agree?

I am a Jon Snow fan and even I can see how utterly ridiculous the fan discourse around Daenerys is. When the show was on, I was only posting about Jon and there was so much anti Dany stuff on the Jon Snow tags I had to wade into discussion about the character. And the more I defended her, the more I ended up re-reading her chapters, the more I ended up loving the character. There’s so much hypocrisy and sexist double standards where the character is concerned.

And I have not even touched upon the obnoxiousness that is ‘Jonsa’ - group of morons who think Sansa is the main character in a book series called A Song of Sansa and Sansa and Jon is secretly in love with Sansa who is going to be Queen with executioner/personal spymaster Arya Stark and her consort Jon Snow who will sexually manipulate and murder Daenerys for his great love Sansa.

Sansa fans make up the vast majority of asoiaf fans on Tumblr and the majority of them dislike Daenerys and Arya or see Dany as Sansa’s antagonist - even though these two characters have no connection in the books and I doubt they would ever interact. If you look at most of the anti Dany posts on here, they will be made by someone with a Sansa pfp. There are posts about how Jon will kill Dany or how Arya will kill Dany, and if you look at their blogs they will be big Sansa fans.

These are the same people who write essays on how Arya is not a real girl or is ‘male-coded’ or who write essays on how Daenerys only uses ‘threats and force’ whereas Sansa is apparently a political genius who uses ‘Soft Power’ - a foreign policy concept - because she talked down 13 year old idiot Joffrey that one time. When in the actual books, it’s Daenerys who has used Soft Power in her marriage diplomacy with Hizdahr and Sansa has never engaged in any kind of politics with actual adults.

Notice that these kinds of ‘metas’ are popularized by fandom bnfs using blogs like asoiafuniversity. There’s this very popular idea that’s propagated in fandom that Sansa is kind and compassionate when in the actual books there are more instances of kindness and compassion from Arya and from Daenerys. This is once again an example of how sexism and misogyny in this fandom has worked to give the wrong impressions of these characters. Arya and Daenerys are seen as more violent compared to Sansa even though Daenerys’ entire arc for two books has been about helping an oppressed population. The mind boggles!

It’s the same when it comes to love and romance. Arya and Daenerys are not considered worthy of love, romance and marriage because they are the wrong kind of girls. And let’s not bring age into this considering Sansa is 11 at the start of the books and she is the fandom bicycle shipped with every Tom, Dick and Harry.

I am not even getting into the slut-shaming and victim blaming that Daenerys gets in the fandom. There was actual discourse in this fandom on how Dany was not a good rape victim like Sansa because she brought up her rape in conversation! Daenerys is somehow seen as less than because she can’t possibly have children - that apparently makes her less of a woman and a bad partner for Jon Snow unlike Sansa Stark who will surely have ten babies!

The worst part is that’s it women who engage in this kind of discourse and the same women who turn around and gaslight the fandom into thinking that Sansa is unfairly targeted because of sexism.

There’s also the usual dislike from the fans of other characters.

There are Jon Snow fans who see him as the prophesied hero and main protagonist, who don’t like Daenerys coming over and taking away main character status. I personally think there is no one main character. IMO, Jon, Dany, Arya, Bran and Tyrion are all tier one main characters, who will work together against the Army of the Dead. [Note: This works the other way as well. I have seen Dany fans who dislike Jon Snow as well and think he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things]

There are Stannis Baratheon stans over on the Asoiaf subreddit who will excuse everything Stannis does - including burning people alive for his God - and then nitpick every single policy decision of Dany’s in order to argue she is evil or a bad ruler. 

There are house Stark fans who hate House Targaryen and see them as in opposition to each other. There are fans who believe in Northern exceptionalism i.e the North is special and Dany is a threat to that specialness because she wants the 7K etc. etc.

This turned out to be a long post. On the whole, the answer to your question on why Daenerys is such a polarizing character is mainly because of sexism. There are other factors like the setting and isolation of her story, the lack of other POVs etc. The main reason though is sexism and ship wars.

[atopvisenyashill]

I don’t get how you’re a Rhaenyra fan but a Dany hater 🤨 like Rhaenyra committed a lot of atrocities in the end.

I don’t hate Dany! She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s got some of the best magical scenes in the series - she’s got some of the best scenes in the series, period, her last dragon fever dream in agot is like top 10 for me easy - and she’s a character that is conceptually similar to like, theon or ned or cersei in that she is really firmly rooted and informed by her past traumas, and I love characters like that from a writing standpoint. I have definitely talked more negatively about her bc it’s basically impossible to not be constantly inundated with takes i feel are just the most vapid or deranged or whatever takes in the world, but you can say that for anyone who feels anything at all about dany bc she is a very polarizing character! i think some of her narrative is frustratingly written, i do not mesh well with a large section of her fanbase, and i actively hate her show counterpart, but show dany is a vastly different character than book dany is (i mean just age alone, like with robb and jon, some of your sympathy evaporates bc they are too damn old to be acting this stupid). ultimately, a lot of the "hate" people think i feel for her is directed at what i feel are stupid opinions on her character or her show counter part's place in pop culture, or just like, normal analysis and critique that i do of every character in this series.

i will acknowledge that i tend to describe myself as "pro stark, pro blacks, pro smallfolk" so people know the general gist of what they're signing up for when they start interacting with me, but that is such a simple way of diluting all of my feelings for all of these characters. like "pro stark" in the sense that they are the most rational of the leaders we get in the main series, and have a connection to the land, people, and culture that is important, but i've pointed out plenty of times that robb's war is harmful to the people of the riverlands, regardless of whether he's justified or not, and i've been posting about how ned and cat fail to properly prepare their children (and the north in general) for Real World Politics, to the detriment of their kids. "pro stark" in the sense that i thought show dany wasn't just deranged from season 1 she was also wildly unlikable and nauseatingly stupid, you could see her "dark dany" turn coming from a mile away because these were not subtle writers interested in exploring why dany would decide "dragons plant no trees" and instead focused on her looking hot while she set shit on fire (same way they were less interested in looking at why jon failed as lord commander and had him be the action hero fighting at hardhome). definitely most of my aggravation at "dany" is at the show version, and while i do get why people feel that if you're a proponent of the "dark dany" theory that you're "anti" dany, but I am not anti book dany! i just think like rickon stark, shireen baratheon, jojen reed, aegon vi, etc she is very much doomed to die a very tragic death.

and i do not like characters based on how little atrocities they commit lmao, like, if i were to list my top 10 favorites, probably half of them have committed some extreme war crime. theon is a rapist! jaime is a shitty ass partner to cersei, a deadbeat dad despite living in the same building as his kids, and a failed child murderer! bran is mind raping hodor, understands on some level that what he's doing is morally repugnant, and keeps doing it anyway! pretty much every targaryen i like has committed some sex crime heinous enough to get them life + 25!! bobby b raised joffrey!!! i know i facetiously say shit like "rhaenyra did nothing wrong" but i'm well aware she's out here torturing people, same as like 75% of the characters we interact with in the whole series. so "rhaenyra commits atrocities" or "dany commits atrocities" is just not how i look at these characters (and not to get into stan wars here, but good lord, "rhaenyra commits atrocities" she is not the only or even the worst person in the dance! like 85% of these people suck and the ones who don't - which is limited to like, helaena, jace, nettles, and addam almost exclusively - either die or disappear because That's The Point. also, i was raised SDA alright, you gotta be a really compelling character for me to get past being super catholic, it's in my dna to be a spiteful hater of catholics!! catelyn stark is my one exception to this rule folks!!!!).

as to why i like rhaenyra - for one thing, saying that emma d'arcy is a better actor than emilia clarke is like saying cillian murphy is better than bradley cooper. they are just not on the same level lol. i definitely have my critiques of show!rhaenyra's writing but i also think she's miles better written than show!dany and her story is also more interesting because her writing is much less nonsensical. for another, i think book rhaenyra and book dany are wildly similar characters (for a reason!) meant to be in conversation with each other, and i very much enjoy what that conversation is saying about power, nobility, gender, sex, war, and identity. on a more technical level, while fire and blood is a mess writing and world building wise, the one thing it does better than the essos chapters (because it doesn't take place in essos, it takes place in westeros, and george struggles much less fleshing out "western poc" than he does "eastern poc" ya know) is that rhaenyra is not the only insight we get into the conflict. the people she loves, the people she rules, the people she harms, they all have a pov and a voice in a way that missandei, irri, jhiqui, rakharo, jhogo, grey worm, on and on, do not, the way that basically every single character that isn't westerosi except mmd (who was killed in book one) is not afforded. it's just a lot easier (as of right now) to talk about rhaenyra as a character because we have her beginning, middle, and end and the povs of people who hated her vs dany, we have the beginning and middle, a lot of arguing over what her end will be, and no one in the narrative as of yet who has even the barest criticism of her decisions besides cardboard cut out villainous slavers.

so like...no i do not hate dany, and i don't feel it's necessary to asterisk every post about rhaenyra with "i know putting a hit out on nettles and addam, locking the smallfolk into KL without easing their burdens of the war, positing herself as an exception to male line primogeniture instead of pushing for absolute primogeniture, and using torture on tyland and vaemond's family was fucked up, i acknowledge that she's flawed" when i talk about her, nor do i feel the need to defend my position on dany on the off chance one of her more annoying stans finds my posts and decides i hate women because i said i didn't like her sexual relationship with irri.

[finitefall]

if you want to see a pro-dany video essay, i recommend "Who is the real Dany show vs. books" by David Lightbringer on his channel. it's very cathartic and he touches on some very interesting nuanced stuff that most of the anti-dany fandom misses such as dany being a slave herself. the comments are very positive too and since so much of youtube has "why dany has always been Mad" videos this is a fresh change

Thank you nonnie! For those who want to see it, here's the link. Warning: there are a few clips of the finale episode in the very beginning of the video, including Dany being killed by Jon.

But as you can guess from the title, the video was made after an extensive reread of the books to answer the question "Who is Dany in the books and can anything like we saw on the show could happen to her in the books?" (spoiler alert: the answer to that second question is obviously no).

Daenerys Targaryen is one the most compelling fictional characters ever created in modern storytelling and certainly she is one of if not the most talked about fictional characters created in the age of social media.

From the beginning, he's on point. Even Dany haters spend their time talking about her because they know she's one of the best characters ever created and the most iconic one in GOT. They can't stand it. And there's a reason why the ending of the show is one the most controversial we've ever seen, as he explains. Just the Nazi imagery was insulting, and it's clearly in the script written by D&D too. If we talk about what politics views Dany can remind us of, it's certainly not this. I also appreciate that even though it's a Show versus Books, he does say the ending wasn't consistent with her character on the show either.

I won't talk about the rest of the video, I obviously agree with David Lightbringer. You should watch it too, even though many points have been discussed in metas here, it's worth bringing them up again, especially since I know many of you are worried about her ending in the books thanks to the show. The video is very long and very good, so watch it when you have the time in one go

Edit: @ladyalianora brought to my attention that David Lightbringer is also an Alicent stan who got into fights on twitter with those who are team Blacks, and seems now convinced that there was no right side and he’s “team smallfolk”. It’s really disappointing from him, but it doesn’t make this video about Dany any less relevant. Just don’t go look for anything else he made.

[kellyvela]

It's so hard being a Sansa fan. Not fun at all. Every time GoT is brought up in any discussion, and on any platform, there'll always be people who bring her up, how she should have died, and how much they hate her. It's so unfair and irrational. I think Dany is likely the most popular GoT character of all time. God knows why, but she is. I've tried to like her but I can't find a single reason for why people are so obsessed with her. Entitled, arrogant, smug, narcissistic. Is it her beauty? People on twitter saying they'll only watch the Jon sequel in the hopes of her being resurrected, and Sansa being slaughtered. I wish I could put this fandom behind me, but I love the universe so much.

Get out of any of those holes. Block, mute and blacklist when possible. Only visit and read pro Sansa platforms and blogs. Just ignore the haters and antis and dumb people in general.

[rosalinesurvived]

Dear all hard-core Dany Stans:

Nobody in Westeros would like Dany if she burned House Stark. People remember Aerys well enough, and the Loot Train Attack. Your "fave" would not be considered a heroine by killing the family that everyone respects, and the North are trying to get back in power

Sincerely, April

[reignof-fyre]

Me, watching and rewatching ASOIAF meta youtube channels that hated the last 3 seasons of GOT:

[blackmachine312]

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What it's like to be a Dany fan. Be proud and own it.

(X)

[distraughtlesbian]

game of thrones is fucking stupid they could have just played musical chairs instead of doing all that

[gods-leastfavorite-parent]

Daenerys was the Last Dragon. Not Rhaegar or Viserys or even Drogon, and definitely not Jon. Not season 8 Jon, at least. Season 7 and before, maybe, but the Oathbreaker, Queenslayer, and Kinslayer who killed his lover in a moment of intimacy is not a dragon.

[artoounit]

Most people who have threatened Sansa’s life are dead now so please Danielle I fucking dare you. 

[ensifervm]

I deleted my last post about the spitting scene because it seems that some of Nonsas stans are too dumb to realize that something written by someone whose blog name is “standbydaenerys” will never be an anti Daenerys or anti Jonerys post. I am not saying that a S*nsa or Nonsa stan cannot be a Dany stan as well, but I gave a quick check to some of the blogs who reblogged it and they were full of horrific things. Like a post which said that the northeners got all the right to spit at Dany because of her “unwanted presence”. Some of these dumb people also cheered at the thought of Jon just smiling while his people were showing disrespect to a woman. Please do not ever dare to reblog something from me just to fill your hatred for the character I love. Peace.