#im so done being told. it is so true of all revolutionary figures and proponents of social change

[forthemetamyguy]

Daenerys’ violent acts are justified and here’s why

(do NOT @ me about 8x5. it’s an absurd and laughable suggestion that she would commit this. this is in relation to all the comments various cast & crew have made about all her previous acts of violence being the justification for this preposterous heel turn. which was ridiculous.)

What the white male writers think: Daenerys’ relationship to violence is horizontal. All people are on a straight line. With this mentality, it becomes easy to say “she doesn’t know right from wrong. She will cause indiscriminate harm.” Inevitably, she will do evil.

What it actually is: people in this world (and for that matter, ours) are placed on a vertical line of privilege and a system of oppression upholds that.

Daenerys, who ought to be at the top (Targaryen) is actually lower down (persecuted at birth for the name, disenfranchised for her adolescent life) and the abuse she suffers and endures drops her lower and her being sold as flesh and blood brings her in deep mental and psychological closeness to those individuals on the downward slope of the line.

With this in mind, it is easy to see a few things: 1) She uses her built in privilege and position of relative power to uplift those less fortunate

2) She has experienced the depravity of oppression and so will not harm those not at the top of the line

3) She only uses violence from a low position on the line towards a position above. If Daenerys were to reach the peak of this line, her violence would exist ONLY to defend.

She is not motivated by the gain of power itself and a love of violence, but by the gain of power to dismantle power and a willingness to use violence to achieve that. It is absurd to have claimed that she was “always like this,” and that we should have seen it as inevitable and that she deserves what she got. That absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well, sure, if you’re a white guy. If you don’t know pain. Daenerys is a product of abuse, and I’m sorry but no, those of us who have lived this life…we don’t become our abusers. It isn’t ABOUT having the power to be the one in charge. This is Cersei’s motivation. She wants power to have power, because wielding power will allow her to say “fuck you” to everyone who ever denied her any or questioned that she was worthy of it. Daenerys understands that power is a transformative tool as much as it is the wheel she wants to destroy. She needs power to do it. She wants power to make power meaningless, not for everyone BUT herself (like Cersei) but for all people.

And if she is willing to destroy those who are currently in positions of power and abusing that power, then so be it. This is a world of death and destruction. You cannot simultaneously ask me to cheer for the deaths of some oppressors (High Septon, Frey’s, Baelish, Joffrey, Ramsay, and so on – the ones who, while evil, only hurt our White Favs) yet feel disgust for others (slavers, Varys, Viserys, the khals, etc – ones who hurt a woman revolutionary yall seemingly want me to hate).

So eager are you to tell me that war is awful and depraved, but only when undertaken by a woman. So terrified are you of having to question the system you benefit from that you will destroy and kill the one who wishes its destruction. Perhaps she is willing to destroy the ones sitting in privilege from this system’s existence. So what. If they would unshackle themselves from it and agree to disseminate their power and embrace a new system, she would not harm them. She is not evil for wanting to help those who are by design unable to help themselves. She would never turn on them. If she turns on you, well, you weren’t right to begin with.

TL;DR: violently overthrowing oppressors does not mean you will inevitably become a violent oppressor. it means the violent oppressors are dead and gone and the system can finally breathe. if you’re oh so sad that violent oppressors have been killed, that’s on you