#i love season 5 and 6 man we get so many complex outsider POVs of natsume and even things that have nothing to do with him

[leviathiane]

Nishimura and Kitamoto being so protective over Natsume so early on really gets me... They saw this weirdo quiet kid with empty eyes like glass beads and went "i have a feeling this guy is a victim of bullying and needs friends and by god that friend is gonna be ME"

[nomnomzombies]

8x05: Dany’s Inferno, fulfilling the YMBQ, the Fall of the Golden Queen

> Part 2 < “Two Graves, The Pale Mare”

> Part 3 < “Going Forward”

This is probably going to be the longest of the analyses. Also on the docket is “Two Graves and The Pale Mare,” and “Going Forward, Political Jon.” I still have a final to finish today, so I’ll be updating this post with links as I get the other pieces posted.

I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to format this, since I have a handful of quotes from A Storm of Swords to contrast to the sack of King’s Landing, so we might have a point of reference when we look at the series of events. So I have them at the top, numbered, and I’ll be referring back to their number as they become relevant.

These chapters are quotes that involved the overthrowing of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen. I’m going to be using these (9) quotes as points of reference throughout my analysis, in reference to Daenerys, to compare the four instances in which Dany has sacked a city.  

ASOS Daenerys III  

(1) “Unsullied!’ Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the hapry’s fingers in the air.... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”  

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

ASOS Daenerys IV

(2) “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 awoken her dragon. ‘He will forgive me,’ she told herself. ‘I am his liege.’  ….. She felt very lonely all of a sudden.”  

(3) “On the morning of the third day, the city gates swung open and a line of slaves began to emerge. Dany mounted her silver to greet them. As they passed, little Missandei told them that they owed their freedom to Daenerys Stormborn [titles, titles] ….

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

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. ‘I will never bear a living child,’ she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled.”  

Daenerys V

(4) “I am the blood of the dragon,’ Dany reminded herself. Her thoughts were spinning in circles, like a rat chasing its tail.”

(5) Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining on their fringed tokars to feast... whilst outside her children went hungry. A sudden wild anger filled her. ‘I will bring you down,’ she swore.

(6) “How could you? What did the Usurper promise you? Gold, was it gold?” The undying said that she would be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love. “Tell me what you were promised.”

“Varys said... I might go home.” He bowed his head.

‘I was going to take you home!’ Her dragons sensed her fury. Viserion roared, and smoke rose grey from his snout. Drogon beat the air with black wings, and Rhaegal twisted his head back and belched flame. ‘I should say the word and burn the two of them.’ Was there no one she could trust, no one to keep her safe? “Are all the knights of Westeros so false as you two? Get out, before my dragons roast you both. What does a roast liar smell like? As foul as Brown Ben’s sewers? Go!”  

Daenerys VI

(7) Dany broke her fast under the persimmon tree that grew in the terrace garden, watching her dragons chase each other about the apex of the Great Pyramid..... From here she could see the whole city... And beyond the walls...

‘Do all gods feel so lonely?’  

(8) “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.” Dany took the girl by the hand. “Come help me dress.”  

(9) “I want your leaders,” Dany told them. “Give them up, and the rest of you shall be spared.”  

“How many?” one old woman had asked, sobbing. “How many must you have to spare us?”

“One hundred and sixty-three,” she answered.  

She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood..... Dany put the glass aside, frowning. ‘It was just. It was. I did it for the children.’

For the first time since the season premiere, I actually found myself wishing that we’d gotten a little bit more of Dan’s POV last episode—not a lot! (she’s eaten up enough of the season as it is) But there’s a real difficulty in trying to understand what was going on through the character’s head. Because, as it is, we don’t even get the chance to see how she’s engaging with the smallfolk. When I was writing out my initial outline, I’d entertained the idea that part of the reason that she burned the city was because she hadn’t been engaged by the smallfolk as she had in the past. In Yunkai (3) when Dany is greeted by the slaves, she describes a wholesome feeling—one that contrasts the feelings of emptiness and loneliness she experienced earlier in the chapter (2). It would make a lot of sense if we were seeing her saviour complex roaring its ugly head. She goes to the North and feels as though she should be heralded because she put her conquest on hold, but when the people don’t love her, she’ll accept their fear.  

So what happens when she comes south, again? We hear the conversation between Dany and Tyrion.

Interestingly, when he enters the tactical room to tell her of Varys’ betrayal, he’s quite perfectly framed to be standing in front of the dragon’s maw. Now, “Three Heads” tinfoilers may feel a sense of foreshadowing and absolution, but I think it’s more likely to either be alluding to 1) Tyrion’s possible execution or 2) a reference to the fact that Dany is no longer herself, but she is the dragon now. In their conversation, she’s overtaken with paranoia and grief... just because she happened to be right about the fact that she was betrayed doesn’t take away the fact that she was waiting to be betrayed.

This may be a bit of a sidenote, but the first thing that I actually started analyzing about GoT was the music, all the way back in 2016—I picked up on the fact that, in season 5, Jon had gotten his own character theme, and this is how I knew that he wasn’t actually dead. Fast forward to season 6? When Dany is burning the Khals, you hear the scary dragon theme (not the inspiring one). In this scene, when Dany turns back to stare out over the Blackwater, we hear the scary dragon theme again—I'd guess it was played by a single bass or cello.. Certainly not an orchestra. There is no unification; there’s no chorus of people heralding the might of the dragon. It is only the dragon.

Then we hear the conversation between her and Jon

but the most important part, here, is the piece where she simultaneously threatens Sansa and attempts to bring Jon back into her bed. Immediately before Jon enters the room, we see Dany and Grey Worm saying their goodbyes to Missandei in the form of tossing her collar into the fireplace. This moment is emphasizing the state of Dany in mourning the last person who provided a barrier between Dany and her worst impulses. I mentioned in my 804 analysis that Missandei has given awful advice, but the presence of Missandei was enough to remind Dany of how loved she was. Dany understands that the situation between her and Jon is not the loving connection she wishes it was. In the 804 bedroom scene, she acknowledges that fact when she says that Jorah loves her—this is contrasts to the dynamic between her and Jon.  

When Jon stands before her, he looks terrified. He just saw Dany burning Varys alive without so much as a trial—the complication of this interaction may have to do with Jon’s beheading of Janos Slynt at the Night’s Watch (there wasn’t a trial for that, either, but the circumstances were entirely different, as Janos was speaking out against him in a room full of people rather than conspiring behind Jon’s back). Conversely, however, Jon is probably also scared shitless because he knows that all of this is coming about because of his decision to tell Sansa and he’s worried that he will also be burned. This interaction begins to feel as though Jon is on trial.  

The reason that none of this is just, however, is that neither Jon nor Varys have done anything that they didn’t tell Dany they would do. Varys told Dany that he would first confront her before conspiring, which he did. Jon told Dany that he was going to tell Sansa and Arya, which he did. As demonstrated in quote (6), Dany is very quick to perceive things as betrayals, despite knowing that the situation is just more complicated than that. In (6), she demands to hear Ser Barriston’s reasoning for going undercover as Arstan Whitebeard, and in the end, she sends him to go into the city with Ser Jorah anyway. She still denounces him. Jon’s ‘trial’ and Varys’ execution is not madness. It is Dany’s flawed reasoning in action. Just as Ser Barriston’s quote demonstrates, “Your father gave people the justice he thought they deserved.”

At the end of it all, Dany concedes “Let it be fear, then.” aka if I can’t manipulate you into loving me, then I will accept your servitude through fearing me.  

We have the scene in the Throne room, Tyrion negotiating with her to surrender at the sounds of the bells. The most important part about this scene, however, is when Dany tells Tyrion that Jaime’s been taken prisoner and then tells Tyrion that “The next time you fail me will be the last time.” As we saw in 804, Dany is understanding how to be clever. And like she was not very clever in having a prisoner to manipulate Cersei, she now has a prisoner to manipulate Tyrion. The only reason that Jaime is still alive is because Dany needs to manipulate Tyrion into continuing to do her bidding. Varys had no one to use as leverage, and he was not useful as leverage against anyone. So here, we once again see the value of political prisoners. Dany doesn’t have access to Sansa right now, so she uses her words to constantly remind Jon about Sansa; Dany takes Jaime prisoner and reminds Tyrion what happens to people that she believes betrayed her.  

Once we see Dany’s Inferno begin by destroying the Iron Fleet and taking out the scorpions, we (as the audience) are at an impasse because, so far, what we see Dany doing is very reasonable war tactics. She’s disarming the enemy and providing an avenue for her ground forces to neutralize the opposing forces. She lands Drogon on the battlements, and we see how fucking terrified the people are of her. This is, not only, because of the fact that Drogon is the equivalent of WWII bombers, but also because Cersei has invested a lot of time into brainwashing the smallfolk into associating Dany with a blood thirsty conqueror. This is the point that I’m wishing that we’d had a moment of Dany taking in the townfolk, because I do want to have at least a modicum of reference to how she’s dealing with their reaction to her. However, based on the knowledge that we have from Jon’s ‘trial,’ it’s fair to assume that she’s embraced the fact that she will be ruling through fear. This plays into the conversation that Cersei and Sansa had at the siege at Blackwater when Cersei says, infamously, “make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.”  

I don’t think that Dany burned the smallfolk because she wanted them to fear her, however. As I established in my “Gold and Silver” analysis; Drogon is Dany’s ‘throne.’ She feels the most powerful when she’s on his back, and the two have merged into a singular identity.  

In quote (7), we are illustrated with a direct comparison to what Dany was seeing on the back of Drogon as she was staring down the Red Keep,

“Do all gods feel so lonely?”

Dany (in the books) is as obsessed with prophecy as Rhaegar was, and she’s seeking men to fulfill the ‘three heads of the dragon’ prophecy, as she fancies herself to be Aegon she needs men to be Rhaenys and Visenya.  

In quote (9) we see Dany has an anger problem. Quote (8) illustrates that when Dany is angry, her dragons respond in kind. So, as Dany is isolated atop Drogon (and I brought up in a little vent that every time Dany climbs on top of Drogon, she is escaping reality), staring down the Red Keep, she starts to get angry that Cersei isn’t ringing the bells. And since she has no one to check those impulses, and is instead in her own little world, her and Drogon begin reciprocating rage.  

Missandei’s last words were, “Dracarys!” as quote (1) provides that it’s Dany’s favourite word when she’s feeling angry and powerful. On top of the world, she’s always loved to watch people burn and die. And here she is, on top of the world, staring down the Red Keep and seeing the entire symbol of her family’s dynasty in the hands of Cersei Lannister. It doesn’t matter that they’re surrendering, because she’s already angry. She’s already seething and ready to burn Cersei to the ground.  

Grey Worm is angry, too. The whole point of Grey Worm’s arc is not that “he’s a ruthless killing machine,” but the fact that he can once again feel. The Unsullied go through a process of dulling their physical and mental/emotional sensations. The fact that Grey Worm threw the spear without command, but rather precedent, from Daenerys illustrates how much he loved and cares for someone (“Love is the death of duty”). Grey Worm is in pain.  

Dany is the YMBQ

We see Cersei standing at the same balcony that she observed the Baelor explosion. While it can be easily explained as “that’s just the best balcony to look over the city,” we can’t deny the fact that this symmetry gives us (the audience) the idea that Cersei has a plan. We are expecting her to pop off some grandiose, Machiavellian scheme that proves that Cersei was baiting Dany into. Instead, we find Cersei regressing into a Janos Slynt.  

GOT 409 (sidenote: I’m trying to type up this dialogue but both Janos and Jon are JS so fml)

Slynt: “Bars of those gates are four inches of cold rolled steel.”  

Snow: “THOSE ARE GIANTS RIDING MAMMOTHS!”  

Slynt: “There’s no such thing as giants... stories for the children...”  

GOT 805

C: “All we need is one good shot.”  

Q: “All the scorpions have been destroyed...”

C: “The Red Keep has never fallen.”  

Q: bitch it’s falling rn

And let me say. Cersei. Deserved. Better. If we look at everything that Janos Slynt was: King’s Landing trash. And upjumped.... whatever he was—I don’t even remember if he was a sellsword or what before he was commander of the City Watch. Cersei Fucking Lannister deserved better than to be equated to Janos Slynt on her failure. /rant

So how does this make Dany the YMBQ? (Younger, more beautiful Queen)  

The YMBQ is meant to “cast [Cersei] down and take all that [she] hold dear.”

Once Dany goes on to assault the Red Keep after burning the Western half of King’s Landing, we have a distinct shot of Drogon blasting out the Lion sigil on the stained glass window. All throughout the series, Cersei has never stopped referring to herself as “The Queen,” even when she had moved on to being Queen Regent/Dowager Queen/Queen Mother. Cersei has insisted that King’s Landing is her home, twice, when Tywin tried to have her marry Loras and move to Highgarden and again when Tommen tried to convince her to move back to Casterly Rock. Cersei’s core identity is derived from the Iron Throne. In the siege at Blackwater, when Cersei thought the battle was lost, she was ready to meet her end via suicide sitting on the Iron Throne. She was ready to kill herself and Tommen. Now, though, she wants to live and attempts to flee to save her unborn child. And instead of meeting death on the Iron Throne, she meets it in the basement. So, all that Cersei holds dear: “The Queen” title, King’s Landing/The Red Keep, the Iron Throne, Cersei’s unborn child’s life. In one afternoon, Dany takes it all. And casts Cersei down (into the basement, specifically)

[themagicianshea]

From now until November, we’ll be spotlighting some of our MHHE registered authors. Want to make art for them? Register here! Artists who register before July 6th get early access to claims.

MHHE Author Spotlight: Page161of180

What piece of work best represents your writing style, and how would you briefly describe it?

I think that my most representative piece is one called "You're a Story (I Can Follow)". It's a take on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, that involves Eliot rescuing Quentin from the Underworld after the events of season four-- which, *heavy sigh*, I wrote in the middle of season four, before I realized how badly I would eventually a crave a story that gets Quentin back. 

I think it speaks clearly to the things I like to do as a writer: the plot is there but not overly complex, the focus is on the characters (specifically Eliot and Quentin) and how they understand themselves and each other and who they are to each other, there are just an absolutely gratuitous number of flashbacks and memories and little moments that show the truth of any relationship (in my view), it's deep in the feels but ends joyfully, and it takes as both thesis statement and rallying cry that the beating heart of love is knowing someone really damn well and taking care of them as best you can, even if you are a full disaster every time you try to express it. 

One of my favorite bits, which takes place near the start of the story, when Eliot is trying to convince himself that Quentin is actually following him out of the Underworld, follows below. If you want to know how I see Eliot in his relationship to Quentin (that is: desperately romantic and desperately dysfunctional about it), this is all you really need to read:

He cleared his throat once. It would have been almost comically affected, except for the fact that he actually did need to clear the choking lump that had formed if he was going to get a word out. “The thought occurs,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately casual, “that if we’re going to make it up however many stairs are in the Underworld Branch without me losing what’s left of my mind, the whole ‘ascending in silence’ thing isn’t going to cut it. I know there’s not much you can do about that at the moment--”

He grabbed the banister to cover the tremor in his hand, “--so you’ll just have to suffer through my sparkling conversation. Fortunately, I’ve cultivated a real gift for speaking to imaginary versions of you recently. And on the off chance you’ve bailed on the whole enterprise already, we’ll just-- chalk this up to the stage of the grieving process where I go full season 5 - season 6 hiatus Spike.”

Eliot actually could feel Q, then, but he knew it wasn’t coming from behind him, but inside him, the shard of Q that was a part of him, always, even all the months Eliot had repressed him. The part that was always watching Eliot with disappointed (but unsurprised) eyes as Eliot pretended every little thing about Q didn’t make him want to carve a shelter out of his body for this reckless little stormcloud of a man, with his awful clothes and embarrassing earnestness and the eyelashes that Eliot honest-to-God couldn’t not kiss every. Single. Time. he’d watched them flutter while Q flew apart with Eliot’s name in his mouth.

“Sorry,” Eliot said quietly, letting out a sigh. “I told myself that I was going to be better--” braver “--if I ever . . . saw you. Again. Ever so slightly less full of my own bullshit. But this is--”

Nothing like he thought it would be , for starters. In his relentless planning for what he’d do when he was free, he’d imagined what he’d say if Q was happy, if Q was furious, if Q had already fucked off and married Alice and they had 2.5 magical prodigies and Q hadn’t even thought of Eliot in thirteen years of however the fuck much time had passed. But never had he considered coming back to find Q-- gone . It hardly would have been conducive to maintaining his sanity. Nor had he considered what it would be like to find Q but to have lost the words . To be too chickenshit to say them, sure. To fumble them, abso-fucking-lutely. But to have mortgaged them away?

“-- it’s hard, Q,” he finally settled on. “It’s just-- really hard.”

He could imagine the Q behind him, and the Q inside him, both furrowing their brows.

“Oh stop it,” he shushed, in the familiar way born of having the time to learn every one of a person’s textbook moves. “You know you’re always worth it. To me.”

And: bonus answer! While I think "You're a Story" is probably my most representative work overall, it is a bit mournful in tone until the ending, so perhaps not the best representative of what my MHHE work will be like! For that, I'd recommend, "The Honor of Your Presence," which is the fully indulgent, outsider-POV, Queliot wedding piece that my heart needed: . A snippet (and strong contender for my absolute favorite piece of dialogue that I've written) follows below:

“Fine,” King Quentin says. “Forget the whole ‘obey’ thing. What about just love and honor ? That’s-- unobjectionable, right?”

King Eliot doesn’t answer immediately, and because he is wearing one of his looser tunics today, without the high-collared jackets he prefers, Rafe can see that the pulse in his throat begins to pound at a pace not unlike the palace’s fleet of messenger bunnies.

“Seriously,” King Quentin sighs.

“It’s not that it’s objectionable , per se,” King Eliot says, his voice a note higher than normal. Rafe might say it was verging on the hysterical, were that a word that could be fairly applied to a king. “Isn’t it just-- a bit gauche to come out and say it? What happened to preserving the mystery?”

What piece of work are you most proud of and why?

While I'm embarrassingly attached to everything I've written in this fandom (because I'm embarrassingly attached to the characters themselves), I think my personal proudest moment is a piece called "A Little Disguised, or a Little Mistaken". On one level, this is all about Eliot and Quentin's memory-wipe personas Nigel and Brian meeting and falling in love like the nonsensical soulmates that they are. But on another level, it's also about the parts of Eliot and Quentin that are immutable and come through no matter what, and the way that they keep making the same mistakes with each other (and getting the same things right) across their various timelines and identities. It's also, in large measure, about Jane Austen, for reasons. If you want to know what me writing a no-magic, modern AU romcom would look like (cough cough, MHHE!, cough), the first three-quarters of this are a pretty good indication.

“What can I make you tonight? And keep in mind-- we’re celebrating.”

That was right, Nigel’s text had said he had good news. Well, at least one of them did.

“Um. Something, like, fruity?”

Nigel smirked and it made Brian want to simultaneously slide to the floor and also reach over and pull Nigel in by the collar, but he did neither.

“Okayyy,” Nigel said. “Do I get anything more to go on?”

Brian shrugged one shoulder. “Surprise me.”

Nigel’s hands, always deft and sure, fumbled the glass for a moment, but he recovered it. “Why don’t you tell me what you don’t like,” he said once he had.

Nothing you’re offering , Brian wanted to say. But instead he cleared his throat and said, “Uh. Peaches, I guess? I don’t like them.”

Nigel nodded. “What don’t you like about them?”

They hurt to eat , Brian thought. “Too sweet, I guess,” he said instead.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Nigel said, already starting to gather ingredients.

“You’ve never eaten a peach?”

Nigel shook his head as he started muddling something with something else. “Allergic. Even the smell’s kind of overpowering, though. I get how they could be too much.”

As Nigel poured and shook and stirred, Brian watched entranced and a little sad that something Nigel did so naturally was so dangerous for him. Or maybe it wasn’t natural at all. Maybe Nigel was just a much better actor than New York had given him credit for.

Nigel finished his creation and placed it on a napkin, before sliding it across the bar to Brian. It was reddish-gold in color, shading down to a deeper purple-red at the bottom of the glass.

“Gin fizz with a plum shrub,” he said to Brian’s inquisitive look. “Anyway. Brace yourself. Good news incoming.”

What tropes can we look forward to in your MHHE fic?

Let's see . . .  There's going to be about a millisecond of enemies-to-lovers, but let's be real-- these two are far too charmed by each other to stay enemies for long. Not sure any of the following are within the strict definition of "tropes," but they're among my personal favorites, so you can go ahead and expect some gratuitous cuddling of a puppy, some deep-meaningful-late-night-talks-even-though-we've-only-just-met (time is an illusion! they bond fast!), so so so much expressing of thinly-veiled feelings through artistic expression, and actively pining while also actively sleeping together. Also, am I going snow these ridiculous gentlemen in? (I'm going to snow these ridiculous gentlemen in.) 

Fuck, Marry, Kiss (under the mistletoe) with three Magicians characters of your choice!

My fully honest answer is Eliot, Eliot, and Eliot. But my even more honest answer is that I'd rather sit back with a cup of tea and a plate of gingerbread cookies and sigh with deep appreciation while Quentin handles all of Eliot's mistletoe needs.