#daenerys stans

[melrosing]

i don’t know if these needs to be said but calling Dany’s slaver’s bay arc orientalist is not a criticism of Dany herself. it is a criticism of GRRM, the white westerner writing it. Dany is not responsible for the orientalist tropes that arise here, any more than say, Lyanna Stark et al are responsible for the disproportionate number of childbirth deaths in the series.

and I am aware that the people of slaver’s bay are of many different races, including white! GRRM has said that many times over. but the thing is that orientalism is not so much about race as it is the east vs the west. so whilst the racial dynamics here may be more ambiguous the juxtaposition of the east and the west is not. it’s in the names of the continents: Westeros, Essos. one is made up of familiar western fantasy and medieval tropes, the other is, well, other, and made up of a range of orientalist tropes. it’s in the food, the clothes, the sex, the accents, the religion, the everything. it is there. we have to reckon with that.

and if people are somehow blaming the presence of these tropes on Daenerys herself, that’s very much on them. it is extremely reductive to use these critiques as your pedestal in a stan war. it only shows that you do not even understand the argument at stake here. but if we refuse to acknowledge the orientalism in the story for the sake of defending a white character: that is also extremely reductive.

[amaltheas-garden]

when u point out Dany having the power of god x3 to destroy any city she doesn't like might be a bad thing and probably won't be rewarded by the narrative

targies: noooo it will be fine because Dany would NEVER do that she's just too fundamentally GOOD to ever be corrupted by unlimited power 🙃 source: trust me bro

apparently the theme of asoiaf is absolute power is good, actually, we just need to make sure the *right* people have it 😇

[danyseastar]

hot take maybe but the only reason most show runners/producers/writers/etc. age up the (female) characters from book to show adaptation is to overtly sexualize them and not face mass amounts of scrutiny for it.

put 13 year old daenerys next to 30 year old drogo and the audience understands that daenerys is a victim to him and not an equal. put 22 year old emilia clarke as daenerys next to 32 year old jason mamoa as drogo and they’re seen as a budding romance with a tragic ending (by the general audience) due to their on screen chemistry.

flash forward to today, and now we’re dealing with 21 year old milly alcock playing rhaenyra from 14-19 and how her relationship with (28 year old fabien) a mid twenties criston is seen as -morally acceptable- and not a result of a degenerate pedophile taking advantage of and grooming his charge. “ser criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from ser criston?” rhaenyra was 14 when rumors started speculating that she slept with an almost 30 year old criston. a criston who had know her since she was 8 and had been her sworn shield since she was 9. obviously seeing a teenager in the early stages of puberty next to a fully grown man would emphasize rhaenyra being THE victim, as opposed to the show having an 18-19 year old explore her sexuality and seek out ‘consensual’ sex with her peer bodyguard. the discourse has even reached the point where certain stans try to paint the much younger woman as the perpetrator and aggressor of this event, who forced the unassuming man into having sex with her.

i’ll even take this a step farther, and bring up how if they had shown a 19 year old alicent abusing a 10 year old rhaenyra it would be identified and mutually agreed upon as a reprehensible act on alicent’s part. instead they’re of similar age, so people can attempt to paint the picture as two women of equal standing hating each other, and not a much older woman bullying a motherless child. once again however, some stans even go so far as to try and paint alicent as a victim of rhaenyra, and not the other way around. further cementing this is how both versions of alicent are younger than both versions of rhaenyra, AND how criston is still played by an actor who is younger than older!rhaenyra despite his character being the same age as daemon in canon.

they know exactly what they’re doing too, considering they aged alicent down to give her that innate compassion one typically feels when seeing children being abused on tv (something that can no longer be applied to rhaenyra). despite that never being her story; *she* was the abuser, and rhaenyra was her victim. criston’s victim. it’s a nasty cop out, and i wish more people would call out how sickening it is to flip the switch and attempt to make abusive individuals more sympathetic than the *actual* victims of said abusers.

[the-daily-dreamer]

The targaryen ruled 130 years without dragons. And the most capable kings were all targaryen. After them it was a decline for the throne. Robert, joffrey, tommen, cercei were all sith ruler .

I see targ stans are investing in high quality air to fill their heads lol

But anyways. “The most capable kings were all targaryens”. You know who else were targaryens? The worst rulers of Westeros. Robert, Cersei, Joffrey, and Tommen aren’t even close to the worst kings and queen to rule. And bringing them up as evidence to show that the targaryens are good is so disingenuous.

Maegor the Cruel, Aegon the Unworthy, The Mad King Aerys, Rhaenyra (yes, I know that’s controversial), and Daenerys (yes, I know that’s even more controversial) are all far FAR worse than anyone you mentioned.

Maegor killed his wife and her entire family. He was a usurper (apparently it’s good when the targs you like do it lol), a kinslayer (also a thing only good when it’s targs you like doing it), raped and tortured many people, wiped out entire houses, killed any and everyone that he saw in any way as deserving, and created a huge war with the faith of the seven.

Aegon the unworthy was corrupt and lazy and legitimized his bastards leading to the blackfyre rebellions that led to endless bloodshed for 5 generations.

Aerys was so bad he had a rebellion staged against him that ended his family dynasty. He burned fathers and sons together. He tortured people and burned them alive. He abused and raped his wife when he would burn people alive. He wanted to kill the entire city of kings landing.

Rhaenyra (who like it or not went down in history as one of the worst rulers) known as maegor with teats taxed her people to starvation. She had daily executions. She had knights inquisitors hunt down and punish people.

Daenerys burnt down kings landing, was complicit in the rape and enslavement of hundreds, ruined city economies so badly slavery was a better option, then profited from said slavery, abandoned the people she conquered (no doubt ensuring they will be enslaved much more harshly after supporting her), raped a “free” slave that she admits still acted like a slave because that’s all she knew, oh yeah and again, SHE BURNT DOWN KINGS LANDING. And this is after the people you listed.

And this isn’t including non Targaryen rulers that ruined lives like the blackfyres. Or rulers that are bad but weirdly beloved like Aegon I who basically conquered people by threatening to kill them and everyone they loved, subjugating a country for hundreds of years.

The best rulers I admit were Targaryens. But that’s because they were the only rulers save for 4 people. Of those four, two were bad and two were incompetent. Not nearly the sadistic “mad” people I described above. And funnily enough, as soon as a Targaryen came back to power…things got worse again. Funny how that is.

Oh and by the way. Going with the histories of Westeros. Guess who is among the best rulers according to small folk Aegon II and Alicent. Seethe :)

[valkyriepegusus]

As much as I want GRRM to finish and publish Winds of Winter, honestly I can’t even blame him for not being in any sort of rush to do so.

If I were him, and I spent like half my life writing bible sized books— with thousands of pages of additional material that is primarily focused on how the mistreatment of women and the concept of purity culture is extremely destructive and harmful, why heredity monarchies are dangerous, and how biased misogynistic men will manipulate history, only for people to unironically support male primogeniture, be proudly “bastardphobic”, rank characters based on their ability to fight, and sympathize with slavers. I would genuinely just not finish the series as a punishment like I don’t even blame him for not being eager to publish more content just for people to grossly misconstrue.

[rise-my-angel]

I think its funny that technically Jon has "the blood of Old Valyria" in him as well. But if you told him that as if it meant something, you know Jon would dismiss it entierly as unimportant, and that he does not give a single shit about it. Being Valyrian is so integral to someone like Danaerys or really any mainstream Targaryeans identity.

Then you have Jon Snow whose just like "I have things to do, I don't care" literally anytime something tries to convince Jon hes special. He's the opposite of everything Valyrians stand for and it would be so funny if hes the only one with Targaryean blood to survive, so that the last living relic of the ancient Valyrian Freehold is stuck inside the most grouchy, anti prophecy Northerner known to man.

[daenerysthefirst]

Team Green needs to realize that even if the show gets rid of Daenaera, Daenerys is still not related to Alicent and Aegon II; she's the descendent of Viserys II and Larra Rogare.

[the-witch-of-woods-beyond]

actually despise the take that rhaenyra trying to put her sons on the throne is equivalent to cersei lying about her own children’s parentage to put them on the throne and so both of them are not worthy of the throne because no, no that’s so blatantly wrong. cersei was queen CONSORT, rhaenyra was QUEEN. she was 100% their mother and they were her blood. it doesn’t matter that they might not have been laenor’s (something that isn’t even confirmed in the book) because they were rhaenyra’s and SHE was heir to the throne, so her bloodline would still succeed her. because cersei was queen consort, if people found out joffrey was fully a lannister then he wouldn’t have been able to rightfully claim the throne because robert, a baratheon, was king. and robert’s bastards also had a claim to the throne, which is made evident by tywin having them all killed so joffrey could become king with minimum threats, and by gendry being said to have some claim to the throne in the fandom and later season.

[saltywinteradult]

not the targaryen stans seeing daemon having a vision of dany and thinking this means dany was actually meant to be the hero, she was good all along guys, she actually was the Chosen One destined to save the world and they just ruined her for no reason!!! jesus christ if you people wanted a simple good vs evil narrative you should’ve stuck to harry potter

this shit is so disrespectful to asoiaf because prophecies being misinterpreted through people’s own biases and blind spots and causing more harm than good when obsessed over (see also: rhaegar) is such an important theme in the books. fuck house of the dragon for upending that theme and making the targs the good guys who totally had an altruistic reason to violently conquer westeros, actually! and fuck hotd for implying that daenerys (the person who probably killed about as many people by burning king’s landing as she saved by helping fight the white walkers) was actually a good guy all along.

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

btw what theon went through is what thousands upon thousands upon thousands of slaves still go through in essos. so, do you still feel pity for the slavers that were crucified? do you still pity the slavers killed when daenerys freed the unsullied?

i ask these questions, and yet i know that there are still many people who believe that the violence against the slavers wasn’t justified, or believe that it was simply “too much” or “not fair.” truly… what an insane hill to die on.

maybe these people should spare more empathy for the formerly enslaved instead of wasting time making up excuses (that are not supported by the text) for why the slave masters' deaths were somehow not justified 🫶

[niniane17]

I realize that anti Got Season 8 posting in late 2024 is a bit boomerish, but screw that it's my blog and there's no law stating that I can't post about That Series again.

I've stumbled across an old anti-Daenerys post written by a Sansa fan some months after the show ended and...oh my God. I had nearly forgotten just how batshit crazy those takes are.

Dany is a colonialist. Dany is a white supremacist. If you like her you are both. Martin is just pretending to write her as a hero, in the end he will reveal she was evil all along and freeing slaves was a secret code for enslaving people. Valyria is evil and the Targaryens are evil. Westeros is simultaneously the ancient Americas and Medieval Europe. Essos is Europe but also the Oppressed Middle East.

Sansa is the true anti colonialist hero. Sansa is the true opprossed woman. If you don't support her you are an oppressor and possibly a rapist yourself. The North is good and the Starks are good. When Arya sails West of Westeros sporting the North's banner, she is not partaking in colonialism, in fact, she will be the anti Christopher Columbus. How do we know that? Because she's a Stark, the Starks are good...

It's maddening. No wonder Daenerys fans are driven into a frenzy. It's not irrationality, it's just natural frustration at constantly being held to double standards and fighting some crazy takes.

Now, treating a fantasy tv show fandom as anti-colonial activism is bad enough, but it's clear to me that at least some of these takes are motivated by the fact they see Sansa as the underdog, mistreated by both the characters and sometimes even the narrative.

And here's where things get weird.

I've said many times that I didn't become a full Dany fan until she was heavily mistreated by the narrative, and I'm definitely not alone in this. Back in the day, many people who previously didn't care one bit for Daenerys suddenly ended up defending her or even stanning her.

Like, of course if somebody wants to root for the underdog, the first thing to do is rooting for the actual underdog. Season 8's underdog was Daenerys. Everyone and everything was deadly set against her from the moment she arrived in Winterfell. They constantly disrespected her, undercut her efforts, killed off or villainized her allies, snobbed her non-traditional upbringing, conspired behind her back. And all the while they always asked asked asked for more, nothing she was giving was enough.

In contrast, the Starks' and the North's actions were constantly justified or presented as good, even betrayal (which is a very huge deal in Westeros) or, in one instance, outright racism by the Northern people -this time fully intended by the production, rather than an unintentional outcome of some poor behind-the-scene choices.

At the end, Season 8's Starks were absolute gods who could do no wrong and were always in the right no matter what they did -except their bastard son, who was contaminated by the evil people's blood and has to symbolically kill that part of himself forever.

Well, guess what, people didn't like that. But the newfound Dany fans were perfectly consistent: they wanted the underdog to win, to overcome her hurdles, internal or external, and be happy at the end. If the underdog is Dany, well, then it's time for Dany to win.

It's Sansa stans that see everything in terms of How This Affects My Fave and are willing to bend over the narrative to get what they want. They are perfectly happy with a biased narrative and double standards, they just want it to be biased towards Sansa, and everything is fair game to them, including real life politics and vocabulary, with some hilarious results. For example: Sansa as the voice of the Oppressed Minorities is...a take, to say the least. Her world doesn't even have a prejudice against red hair, as it would have in real life.

And guess what else, this kind of Protagonist-Centered Morality is very similar to the one used by real life colonizers, especially in their "explorations". Not that it matters because this isn't a post-colonial story and it never will be. It's a story about a messed up Fantasy Medieval/Early Renassaince World with Dragons, heavily influenced by various periods of European history. The only vaguely post-colonial element are maybe the zombies-as-slaves metaphor, and I think it's more due to the fact that Martin was probably inspired by old horror Movies pre-dating the Romero ones. And who is liberating slaves in his story, again?

Anyway. 2019-2020 was a really weird time to be a Dany fan, and in hindsight it was crazy how much shit there was around a fantasy series with dragons. Surely five years later people are a little more normal, right? Right?

[katy-89]

asoiaf fandom when they talk about Daenerys and Rhaegar

[amaltheas-garden]

people still shocked that in the year of our lord 2024 some of us don't want to see Dany get her 'happy ending' by becoming the white savior who was promised

[danyseastar]

“the dance isn’t about misogyny” one, if rhaenyra had been born with a dick the dance would have effectively been prevented (or at least stalled). male!rhaenyra would be seen as the undisputed heir to the throne, and if viserys still ends up marrying alicent (but this is an IF situation because aemma might not even die if v has no reason to keep pushing her for a male heir) the *only* excuse she would have to help usurp the throne is for her own want of power. the ‘my children will be in danger!’ line will not work and no one (besides maybe a few upstarts) will back her.

two, aegon had the chance to name a female heir after he murdered rhaenyra and didn’t. both of his sons were dead, his enemy was dead, the only other living male targaryen that he knew of was his captive. it’s *almost* like aegon knew he backed himself into a corner all on the basis of usurping a woman and couldn’t then name jaehaera as his heir. it probably didn’t help that he knew his days were numbered too once word reached the remaining green council of cregan’s army. he *quite literally* fucked himself. repeatedly. an embarrassing number of times, really. dude kept his massive loser persona in tact right up until the very end. props to him for that i guess.

[the-daily-dreamer]

Reminder that if your feminism revolves around propping up women that partake in traditionally masculine activities/roles and shitting on or even hating women who embody traditionally feminine roles and enjoy feminine activities you’re not really a feminist.

It sets the precedent that women are only valuable and valid if they have traditionally masculine traits, which feeds a narrative that masculine traits are better simply because they are associated with men who are the ideal. It perpetuates the idea that things that are feminine and traditionally associated with women are in fact inferior to men/masculinity and should be looked down upon and belittled.

And, it alienates so many individuals that feel more comfortable in femininity, regardless of gender identity.

I think people in the ASOIAF fandom really need to learn this because feminine characters are so despised on the basis that they are not “better” women. Simply because they don’t embody traditionally masculine things like conquering or fighting.

Much of the hate comes from stans that love characters like Rhaenyra, Daenerys, and Arya (and do not get me wrong I love Arya), who are women and girls that are in positions that allow for more traditionally masculine behaviors and tomboyishness. And they will say incredibly sexist things about how the other women in media are inferior and directly contrast these women to their faves negatively by pointing out that they’re “too weak” or “subservient”. They reduce femininity to weakness and bowing to patriarchy instead of considering that some people have a different, more feminine nature. And that is OK! Just because a woman isn’t wielding a sword or fighting on the front lines or pursuing leadership roles in masculine ways (because historically women exacted and sought power in different ways than men) doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable and strong characters. Do not use feminine characters as a negative comparison to show how “feminist” and great your fave is. Because it’s just so blatantly sexist.

Don’t fall into the trap of reinforcing patriarchal rhetoric!!! Don’t reinforce narratives that traditional masculinity is superior to femininity!! Don’t belittle feminine activities and act as if they aren’t valuable!!! Girbosses are great but so are gentlewomen.

[mutter-of-dragons]

It's interesting that they always miss the point. Also very big of them calling the fandom ships "weird,incestuous" when J0nsa would also count as such. Newsflash: this is not about Sansa being or needing to be "humbled". If only they knew half the shit their own fandom is up to...