#many of her criticism is valid but i'm done with the mary sue double standard

[mmusicofmysoul]

Here it comes a rant I've been posponing since the moment I fell in love with Daenerys as a character and what I found first on internet were comments complaining about her and/or missing book/season 1 Daenerys because she "went so corrupt" after that. I'm far from being a good ASoIaF/GoT analyst, the saga has 10000000022992839283 issues and the tv show has 129829839283923 more, but I almost never see people calling out this attitude against Dany as I do see people defending Sansa or calling out other valid issues and I'm %100 done.

Tumblr aside, opposite to her haters who complain she's a popular character, I never felt on the "popular opinion" loving her. She has fans, but not close to other characters. Anyway, I understand there's a lot of valid criticism for the character, but rather than discuss the White Savior/Mighthy Whitey tropes present in the books and overplayed in the show (plus the good old trend the show perpetuates of violence as empowering, but that's a problem in all the characters), the most outrageous complains are 1) she's an hypocrite, 2) she's a Mary Sue. I love to read critical metas of all the characters, even my faves because asoiaf is full of gray morality and complex characters, but hell you fucking lose me with the Mary Sue thing.

It wouldn't piss me off so much if the reasons to hate her weren't so inconsistent, but here. If she's so flawed (because yes, hypocrisy is one of her many flaws) how the fuck is she a Mary Sue character? She's a psychological mess, can't we have a flawed, complex yet endearing female character who happens to have power and people who follows her for her good traits? Jon is MUCH MORE of a typical "Mary Sue" and he's still a fan-favorite because he "earned it" mhmmmm. Because men had the possibility to "earn" power, women did not (yet somehow noble-born bastard Jon is more of an underdog than a exiled noble-born woman). Dany had to do the best of her situation; an abusive marriage she was sold into by her abusive brother with a brutal man twice her age (in a Stockholm Syndrome situation that you'll never be sure if it was intended to be seen that way or at the end was just plain romanticized abuse) - it is hypocrite of her to stand against slavery and rape yet idolize Drogo, but that relationship is way more complicated than that: Dany was respected as a khaleesi, but when she actually put her feet down against the dothraki culture of pillaging and raping (see. Eroeh, Mirri Maz Duur.) was when all started to fall down - she didn't have much say on that; Drogo only listened to her because her fire was the fire of his son speaking or similar bullshit, when Drogo died she was a nobody to the rest of his men, even his bloodriders until she hatched dragons.

Here they come, the dragons!!! She has dragons, she has power, so she's a Mary Sue now, right? People follow her because dragons and Targaryen and not because she deserves it. I'm not going into monarchy-apologism, but I don't think you win that much loyalty and love of your people with just that - both Dany and Jon are characters who try to deal with With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, both of them fail in different situations (more clear in the books than in the show but still). Dany tries to do good, she is ~incompetent when she fails, yet she's a Mary Sue. She's an hypocrite, tho still a Mary Sue. She's violent and going mad, still a Mary Sue who needs to become a legit villain to be a subversion and not so Sue-ish. Jon doesn't need to become a villain to be a subversion of a traditional male hero. He's the most traditional of GRRM's character (Ned was there to actually die and that be Shocking TM so he doesn't count) but he can still be a fan-favorite.

GRRM loves to write flawed, complex characters. We can love a flawed male character for being Complex TM. Tyrion, Stannis, JAIME, even frigging Littlefinger. But asoiaf has a fandom where Dany, Sansa and Catelyn get the most hate for their mistakes. MMMMMMM.

I don't think you should like a character if you can't stand their hypocrisy and other flaws but for fuck's sake the "she needs to go villain to not be a Mary Sue, but here have a summary of all her flaws" gets the worst of me. I think there's enough foreshadowing of Dany going mad for it to be a possible development for the character, but not because "if she doesn't end as a villain - and thus she's away from the Iron Throne I want for my male fave - she's just a plain, simple Mary Sue". Not so much on tumblr but in any other site, you name it.

Basically STOP CRYING MARY SUE EVERY TIME YOU DISLIKE A FEMALE CHARACTER. It's so overused it doesn't make sense anymore, you can't have any kind of female character who's not accused of being a Mary Sue. She is a woman = Mary Sue. God fobid she has power!!! the fandom shall explode.