#mirri freed dany too in a way

[doobadoobie]

all i could think when everything was done was : “this 14 year old little girl is free from her abuser and any ties to him.”

Rewatching GoT and i forgot how much i kinda agreed with the witch that killed drogo

[atopvisenyashill]

"Daenerys has done a lot of wrongs" and said are killing slavers

thanks for this one actually because you gave me an excuse to talk about that for a bit.

now first of all - i find it very frustrating that when people say “this was wrong” everyone defaults to “why do you care about slavers” when usually, when i’m talking about things dany has done wrong, i’m talking about mirri maz durr, sacking astapor, sexually abusing irri, and taking a profit off slavery. mirri wasn’t a slaver, she was a slave, and she was blood sacrificed by dany. sacking a city, regardless of who is in that city, is always messy and bad - ask Cleos the Butcher and the people he rules over how they feel about the Sack. Ask the people of King's Landing how they feel about their houses being set on fire every few decades. Ask Missandei how she really feels watching the woman she put all her faith in take a cut off the selling of slaves. Hell, Dany knows that Irri does not want to have sex with her and is doing it because she feels "obligated" because she's a slave and Dany still uses her as a bed warmer and then bars her from expressing an interest in Rakharo because she doesn't believe Irri is ~worthy~ of Rakharo (worthy to fuck but not to love and don't I fucking know about attitudes like that coming from white straight girls lmao).

But let's move past all of that (you certainly seem uninterested in talking about the personhood of slaves like Missandei and Mirri after all, despite ostensibly defending them here) and dig into the crucifying of the Great Masters. In fact, let's turn to Dany's own thoughts over this, bolded part mine:

In the plaza before the Great Pyramid, the Meereenese huddled forlorn. The Great Masters had looked anything but great in the morning light. Stripped of their jewels and their fringed tokars, they were contemptible; a herd of old men with shriveled balls and spotted skin and young men with ridiculous hair. Their women were either soft and fleshy or as dry as old sticks, their face paint streaked by tears. “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.

Immediately after doing it, Dany regrets it. She recognizes she did it while angry and impassioned and reckless, and that the deaths were agonizing, that she did it not for the children but because she was angry and humiliated. This scene has never been as righteously clean morally than people would believe from the moment it was on page! She recognizes she did a fucked up thing but rationalizes it away because she can't admit she made a mistake. She reflects on it later again as she's ruling Meereen:

She had not forgotten the slave children nailed up along the road from Yunkai. They had numbered one hundred sixty-three, a child every mile, nailed to mileposts with one arm outstretched to point her way. After Meereen had fallen, Dany had nailed up a like number of Great Masters. Swarms of flies had attended their slow dying, and the stench had lingered long in the plaza. Yet some days she feared that she had not gone far enough. These Meereenese were a sly and stubborn people who resisted her at every turn. They had freed their slaves, yes … only to hire them back as servants at wages so meagre that most could scarce afford to eat. Those too old or young to be of use had been cast into the streets, along with the infirm and the crippled. And still the Great Masters gathered atop their lofty pyramids to complain of how the dragon queen had filled their noble city with hordes of unwashed beggars, thieves, and whores. To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them.

She lets the bodies of the people she wants to rule rot, the smell lingering in the plaza for weeks, reminding the people she is trying to make peace with that she can and will viciously murder their families and gloat over their corpses and they cannot stop her. Then doesn't put in any rules about wages, anything to help the sick and disabled. She blames the Great Masters for working within the system they've had for generations despite yelling at them to get a new system and doing nothing to help them move to that new system. She judges them, she hates them, and she wonders why she has the Meereneese version of the KKK springing up afterwards. She is just as ineffective as Andrew Johnson is during Reconstruction, too focused on her own feelings to look objectively at what this destroyed city actually needs from her, instead judging them from her own lofty pyramid with her own slaves and her own superior culture and mopes about how much she wants the Seven Kingdoms.

SHE is the one who decided she was going to rule this place. But instead of focusing on reconciliation, she focuses in on revenge. And that is why she sets herself up to fail.

[horizon-verizon]

There is an enduring sense in the fandom that if you cannot structurally change the entire or major parts of an oppressive status quo, it's somehow better that one does absolutely nothing. Bc you're "messing up the stability of an already stable social order, which proved itself to be the best or most reliable bc it's endured for so long".

And I despise it. Because it essentially means that any effort except a huge, topsy-turvy one where the whole system gets upended or severely so doesn't matter. (At the very least those that don't seem like it.)

It's a perfect partner to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. & people use it not just against Rhaenyra but Dany, Rhaenys, & Alysanne!!! Any Targ woman, really. Aegon V, if one mentions his laws. Ironic, bc Jaehaerys had progressive laws for peasants ONLY bc of Alysanne, but it's obvious why they prefer the female-heir denying Jaehaerys over Aegon V!!!

Coupled with this sense, some say that these women are totally complicit in those systems bc use they happen to be born into royalty or aristocracy, actively use their privileges at times for their own ends instead of ALWAYS to create or influence others for groundbreaking policies & laws, or manage to just escape certain abuses other women face bc they were reserved for the specific task of having children for their male spouses.

Daenerys was a bridal slave, for example. She doesn't face SA from random men every other night, but that doesn't stop the risk of her facing that fate if she were to ever fall out of her husband-owner, Drogo, favor. That doesn't stop her haters from arguing that she should have done more for Mirri & those Lhazareen women, that she even profits from slave labor when she clearly is allocating and directing funds from taxes to the city of Meereen! From ignoring how all those she freed are not still slaves, that the slave masters time and time again have said, point blank, that she is a danger to their enterprise CONTINENT-WIDE!!! She makes mistakes and the biggest one compromising too much with the slave owners of Meereen, yeah, bc she is in the beginning of her leadership journey, and still she manages to inspire loyalty, faith, and hope in many of her followers and she also still manages to keep most people alive w/o actually giving all the way in and that terrifies the slaveowners! For good reason. Read the last few pages of the last book and tell me that she won't come for their necks, either literally or figuratively idc. She's obviously not fucking up so bad or has totally failed in her role as a protector, and she will make mistakes as other leaders before her and after her will! Why this level of negative & bad faith scrutiny?!

And let's go to Rhaenys the Conqueror. She created the rule of thumb & the rule of six, where no man could legally beat their wives to death when she decreed that the rod could not be thicker than the husband's thumb and he could not whack her more than 7 times. Some argue why didn't she outlaw wife-beating entirely if she and her siblings conquered Westeros. First of all, these are the very same people who bleat abt how the Targaryens destroyed and colonized Andal culture without bothering to offer material evidence of such. If Rhaenys & her siblings actually have "colonized" the Andal-FM lords, & it was Andal custom for men to beat their wives indiscriminately…then the Targs couldn't have actually destroyed any part of Andal "culture" and replaced it entirely with Valyrian ones where seemingly men could not beat their wives at all! If you can even consider this "destroying culture", as I'm sure a few would argue. If anything, this was a cultural compromise, and it obviously functioned and was intended as a form of protection for women when before there was absolutely none! Aside from male relatives, but that's not system-wide, makes such cases seem not serious enough or that people across communities shouldn't care too much about others when you personalize it, AND that just reinforces the idea that only men have a property claim over women, be they biologically family or by marriage. Secondly, if you argue that Viserys should have obeyed the "laws" of male primogeniture bc he is a feudal king--the "Protector" of their customs and interests--that is only supported by the swords & loyalty of lords, that the GC of 101 proves that (as if Jaehaerys also didn't use that to enact his own will passively for a male heir), then why is it that Rhaenys seems to do something along those lines and WORK with the current Andal customs, her efforts--which actually are protective to those who needed protecting!!! Rhaenys & her siblings were new monarchs of a newly unified-ish realm, & as unifying conquerors tend to do, they opted for the strategy that would keep them seated bc it made "the lords" comfortable that they would not force them to change the bulk of their religious and cultural practices. Not only did Visenya & Rhaenys arrange strategic marriages that both benefited them and those married (their families), but Aegon made it a point to go on progresses and hear various lords and peasants' issues to arbitrate. Which made it so that these lords felt they would not be led by a leader who'd enforce his laws willy-nilly without considering his subject's conditions or desires. It is in this context that Rhaenys, we could see and assume, was taking a bit of a risk with not one but 2 new laws against men's "rights" over their wives' bodies!

There's Alysanne, who took it a step further in her women's courts, and the right of first nigh abolishment, her attempts at the Citadel, & the Widow's Law. Again, if not for her, Westeros and KL would be 3 steps behind in infrastructure and women's protection. Alysanne was a Queen Consort who had even less power on her own than Rhaenys & Visenya and we see that she had to convince Jaehaerys to implement his laws; it took Septon Barth's interference/support for Jaehaerys to even go along with the abolishment of the right of first night! Later with Viserra, I believe that she arranged the much older Theomore to Viserra bc it coincided with Jaehaerys' plans for that marriage alliance between the Manderlys and the royal house. And to please or to go along with some of her husband's plans was to also add onto her own power…bc a royal Consort only has power by their monarch spouse gives them license to influence and status! Was it clumsy writing? Of course, it was pretty bizarre and partly due to how F&B is written as a historical document despite how this portion of history is better documented than others. Did Alysanne indirectly cause Viserra's death in her refusal to relent from her suspicion that Viserra was trying to become queen, as she interpreted it? Arguably. and I think that GRRM was telling us that over time and over the disappointments w/Jaehaerys, she slowly got more determined to retain any sense control…and where does her control end up coming from? Yeah, GRRM is showing that tightrope, I think.

Rhaenyra was not actively progressive in policy nor direct action as all the prior 3, but to argue that she should be feminist so that the usurpation and the femicide done against her becomes unjustified is absurd! Oh, she wasn't a feminist at all or progressive, she didn't implement any sort of law at all for women or smallfolk [did Aegon?! or Alicent?! or Aemond? Daeron, Otto?! so why are they better?!!!], so that's why she shouldn't be queen even though by the very "law of the land", she is by right the heir to this throne that never actually was about who would make a good, consummate ruler in the first place. ���.

So there is a vague & un-discernable, forever shifting, & impossible goal-post-level of feminist activity or "being" that these nihilistic or conservative naysayers use against women being leaders or even passively having positions of power that may still benefit the women of Westeros through setting a precedent &/or actions of necessary intervals that build on the past ones under conditions that are already limiting how much they can do or say in order to be able to put forth those feminist (really proto feminist), anti-slavery, etc., progressive steps--on a damn psychological and psychosocial level that:

diminishes how much brain power and time a woman can put to policy or things outside of the "house" because their power depends on the husband's regard towards them

makes it much harder for women to really commit themselves or fully expect to implement their goals & dreams for any sort of change (or even dream of any) when there's such subtle and unsubtle obstacles in their way: Rhaenyra, her stepmother an siblings plotting against her and then the usurpation, that we see in the microcosm of how the treasury stolen from her and the crown led to the smallfolk turning against her at KL AND the ongoing war, thus preventing her from really establishing herself as Queen/ruling at all; Alysanne, I described with Jaehaerys; Rhaenys, Andal patriarchy; much less, in Rhaena the Black Bride's case, find just actual happiness and plain old security against male aggression!

provides a setting where women become more compelled to compromise with some patriarchal ideas/practices to maintain a certain level of power or defense (there's a thing line to measure and transgress the "right way" and without other's judgement and impatience or lack of faith adds an additional pressure of, outside of fiction but applicable)

leads up to Daenerys having to have the strength to pursue her goals on with her own instincts and compassion and wit, work harder than most men would face in her position...not that any could since men cannot and have not largely had the bridal slave’s experience!

Anyway, all of it ignores or tries to hide the fact that it is exactly that undisrupted male authority over female (of any class or wealth) & under-classed people that is the true destabilizer and destroyer of lives. That there is still so much meaning and real impact in what people like Alysanne and Rhaenys did/do and huge upheavals or entire sweeps of structural change like Dany does takes measured steps!

That through multiple Targ women dying form childbirth, raped, murdered, or sidelined and critically limited in political authority or agency, this becomes so obvious! you cannot oppress half of your population, reduce them to sex-giving broodmares who you can kill if you think they have a male heir on the way or have cheated on you and call yourself progressive! You're actually 10 steps behind where you're supposed to be because half of you is not involved enough in the development of your society!

We wanna be all "feudalism is bad", "blood purity is bad", "the Targs didn't end feudalism so they are the most evil and responsible for all evil in Westeros" but when they see someone either passively or actively seem to make any progress to mitigate the pressures and power of patriarchal boundaries or concepts or whatever....they go screaming "not feminist enough" or "they're actually just like everyone else"! And some of us will also try to say that Daenerys is either entirely too much like her colonist ancestors or she will end up that way as D&D published because she is Targaryen (a bio-essentialist argument) to argue about why SLAVEOWNERS should stay in power!

And it all is very anti-intellectualism, anti-critical thought or introspection and examination...because on closer look and investigation, you will see how F&B is a text that was always anti-misogyny on GRRM's part (attemptively) even as it is misogynist as an-in world text! And it's on purpose--both the writing and how people wax "it's a dragon show, nothing at all to do with misogyny or wokeness!"

Because then you are not challenging the status quo...because you can't reason through it or against it and when it happens in seemingly harmless manifestations people will think it innocuous.

[theredpharaoah]

Random thoughts beforehand:

“In Qarth, tales state dragons came from a second moon in the sky, which was scalded by the sun and cracked like an egg, and a million dragons poured forth.”

“This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her living heart, her soul combining with the steel of the sword, creating Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.”

“To finish his sword, he drove it through Nissa Nissa's breast. Her blood, soul, strength, and courage went into the steel of the sword, creating Lightbringer. Following this sacrifice, Lightbringer was as warm as Nissa Nissa had been in life.”

“Nissa Nissa's cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon.”

A lot of people think Jon and Dany are going to be the new Nissa-Nissa Azor Ahai. Some think it’ll be flipped. I disagree. I think the sacrifice of Nissa-Nissa has already happened - in a way. Drogo was Nissa-Nissa and Dany was Azor Ahai. If Drogo and Rhaego hadn’t died at Mirri’s hand, Dany would’ve never killed her and used her life to hatch the dragons. Another way of looking at it is that killing Mirri Maz Durr and burning the eggs and Drogo on the pyre was the real sacrifice of Drogo and Rhaego, as she was accepting his death and letting him go. The rule is a life for a life and Mirri Maz Durr is only one life - how could she enliven all three dragons? Mirri Maz Durr killed Drogo and Rhaego. She stole their lives and that energy. Killing her didn’t just return her energy to a pure state where it could enliven an egg, it freed up the energy she stole too. Alternatively, you could say Mirri Maz Durr alone enlivened all three of the dragons which is how Dany managed to hatch 3 at once, and how all 3 seem to have bonded to her. We know previous Targs can control other dragons to various degrees, but we don’t know the extent of that. We’ve been told even Targaryens aren’t safe around dragons, but we haven’t actually seen a Dragon outright attack a Targaryen without being ordered to by a rider. Rhaena fed Androw to Balerion, Daemon flew Vhagar back, the Dragonkeepers were pretty safe as well, Viserra had the boys doing stupid shit around them, etc. That being said, we’ve never seen dragons be fond of people they weren’t bonded to. If Drogon is the only one Dany has a bond with, then Viserion and Rhaegal sticking around/being so fond of her doesn’t make a lot of sense. Even when Quentyn comes to the pit in an attempt to claim a dragon, they’re not at all interested. Viserion is interested in Pretty Meris cuz he’s still looking for Daenerys. If Drogon really wanted to harm/kill Dany, he would’ve done it. Rhaegal is a wild card - rebellious daughter vibes. Also, I don’t think Dragonbinder will work. If it was that easy to steal a dragon, Valyria wouldn’t have had a monopoly on them. And the fact that whoever blows the horn dies to fire seems to imply that only a person of specific blood can use it. Considering fAegon and Jon aren’t immune to fire and I don’t see Moquorro stepping up to use it, I’m going to assume that Dany is probably the only one alive who could blow the horn without harm coming to them. And her being a Targ would make that make sense. It would make sense for the Dragonlords to make horns to control dragons that only they can use. And then there’s the logistics; you blow the horn and the dragon’s bound to you, no? But then you die so what then? Who’s the dragon bound to? Something tells me you thinking “serve x” while blowing the horn isn’t gonna cut it. Does the horn having something to bind to stop the person blowing it from dying? Are we getting Victarion as a rider? Please don’t do that GRRM.

[esther-dot]

Show creators did injustice by not properly showing that how Dany created havoc in Essos. They promoted it as she was ridding slavery and killing bad people looking badass. But in books it's more than that. Like the whole Asaptor is hell, slavery returned in Yunkai and we have seen how she is doing as queen in Meereen. Her burning of Dothraki temple is shown as badass in show which will be terrifying in books. Hell they show her burning of Mirri and birthing of Dragons as power move.

I think they did that deliberately because they didn’t want the audience to know where Dany’s trajectory was going. It’s a hell of a thing to choose not to tell the story because you don’t want the audience to realize what the story is too soon, but that is what they did. Not sure how they convinced themselves that was a good idea, but they did. 😬

I guess many of us underestimated how anti war and anti violence Martin is. I definitely did! There is a widespread belief that violence is the solution to certain issues, and it seems that Martin is questioning that idea by showing the limitations of force as a power to bring good or lasting change. That’s a nuanced discussion and flies against some people’s firm political/moral stances. It’s hard to translate that convo to a different medium, but I agree with you that doing so would mean a show critical of Dany. IMO Martin reveals his sentiments repeatedly throughout the series, and we just have to connect the dots:

"Volantis is the oldest of the Nine Free Cities, first daughter of Valyria," the lad replied, in a bored tone. "After the Doom it pleased the Volantenes to consider themselves the heirs of the Freehold and rightful rulers of the world, but they were divided as to how dominion might best be achieved. The Old Blood favored the sword, while the merchants and moneylenders advocated trade. As they contended for rule of the city, the factions became known as the tigers and elephants, respectively.                 

"The tigers held sway for almost a century after the Doom of Valyria. For a time they were successful. A Volantene fleet took Lys and a Volantene army captured Myr, and for two generations all three cities were ruled from within the Black Walls. That ended when the tigers tried to swallow Tyrosh. Pentos came into the war on the Tyroshi side, along with the Westerosi Storm King. Braavos provided a Lyseni exile with a hundred warships, Aegon Targaryen flew forth from Dragonstone on the Black Dread, and Myr and Lys rose up in rebellion. The war left the Disputed Lands a waste, and freed Lys and Myr from the yoke. The tigers suffered other defeats as well. The fleet they sent to reclaim Valyria vanished in the Smoking Sea. Qohor and Norvos broke their power on the Rhoyne when the fire galleys fought on Dagger Lake. Out of the east came the Dothraki, driving smallfolk from their hovels and nobles from their estates, until only grass and ruins remained from the forest of Qohor to the headwaters of the Selhoru. After a century of war, Volantis found herself broken, bankrupt, and depopulated. It was then that the elephants rose up. They have held sway ever since. Some years the tigers elect a triarch, and some years they do not, but never more than one, so the elephants have ruled the city for three hundred years."

"Just so," said Haldon. "And the present triarchs?"         

"Malaquo is a tiger, Nyessos and Doniphos are elephants."                 

"And what lesson can we draw from Volantene history?"

"If you want to conquer the world, you best have dragons."

(ADWD, Tyrion IV)

This idea is talked about in various ways, in various POVs, and Martin seems pretty consistent in his idea that if possible, peace, even at great sacrifice, is better, and means other than war must be used. In entertainment, violence is usually the means by which the good guys win, so it would take a lot of dedication to the theme for writers/showrunners to refuse to glorify violence and instead represent it negatively. They should have, but commercially, I understand why they weren’t going to do that. Whenever they do a remake, I think new showrunners would be wise to approach this very differently and allow the horror of war to be felt. D&D couldn’t do that and keep people thinking this was going to end up happily for Dany though.

[groovypalacewobblereagle]

Dany antis:

We have to understand that Mirri was devastated over her town and the abuse she suffered. To empathize. She’s a “hero” therefore, for killing a BABY.

We do NOT have to understand that Daenerys was devastated over the loss of her husband and child. She does not deserve empathy despite her losses. She’s “evil” for killing a grown woman who killed a baby.

We have to understand the culture of wealthy grown educated men who have subjected human beings to slavery for hundreds of years.

Oh, but they weren’t alive for hundreds of years! We can’t hold that against them!

But we also can’t deny them the benefit of the excuse that they’ve done this for hundreds of years.

We do NOT have to understand the culture of a teenage girl who is a Khaleesi of the Dothraki, who kills the wine seller for trying to kill her and her baby.

Because she killed him painfully. We don’t care that Varys suggested killing her with the tears of Lys, and remember that the victim dies an agonizing death. We don’t think about the morals of a painful death when the intended victim is Daenerys.

The same applies to when she crucified the slavers. We’re going to insist she did it indiscriminately, even though we know she didn’t kill a single woman who would have had less power, or child who would be entirely innocent, nor did she kill random civilians, they were all nobles. All slavers. But there are innocent slavers! Innocent slavers are definitely a thing.

The people who make laws that are not up to modern standards, like Daenerys, are evil.

But the people who follow those laws, like Ned beheading a man for running away from the dead, or Jon who beheaded a man for refusing to follow an order, or Robb who threatened to hang a man if he didn’t join the war against the Lannisters, aren’t.

Daenerys may have warned the slavers she would show no mercy if they didn’t free the slaves and pay them reparations, but she should have given them a trial even though they own the system.

It’s true they were all slavers, but if she was punishing them for being slavers, she should have killed all of them. The fact she didn’t kill all of them shows it wasn’t about justice, so she’s evil.

But she was also wrong for wanting to kill all of them, and Jorah talked her out of it. The fact he had to talk her out of it shows she’s evil.

And then when Daario tried to talk her into slaughtering them Red Wedding style, and she refused, that’s also proof she’s evil because Daario represents her evil nature.

We can empathize with the slavers! Because we might have done the same thing! We all like to think we’d stand against slavery, but if it’s our culture we might not. And we might stand by while our friends torture 163 children to death to spite an abolitionist.

We say we empathize with the slaves, too, but it’s more we sympathize with them. We understand that they are victims. We don’t see ourselves in their place. We don’t empathize with the anger the parents of those children felt. They follow Dany blindly. They don’t understand choice. That’s why they follow her.

What we CANNOT empathize with (because we know we would NEVER) is a teenage girl who walked along a road lined with the corpses of children who were tortured to death to spite her. We know a GOOD ruler would be stalwart in the face of such horror and hold a trial. Because even though the slavers own all the systems in existence in that city, there’s no way a trial could have caused the death of lesser evil instead of greater. Trials are foolproof!

She should have killed them all or tried to have every one of them examined by witnesses who are profoundly biased. We cannot empathize with that.

Dany’s attachment to the Dothraki shows her savagery. The Dothraki are rapists and slavers and she lusted after her husband when he made that speech and so it doesn’t matter how she tried to fight rapists later. They are all terrible. The Khals are monsters and she loved one, so that shows she’s a monster.

Also, she’s evil for killing the Khals.

She was wrong for sacking Astapor and Yunkai but not staying to rule them. She made it worse because poverty is as bad as slavery and the freed slaves are not able to build their own society, and she should have known that. She was wrong for not staying and ruling them.

She was also wrong for staying in Meereen and ruling it because that makes her a colonizer.

She agrees to allow adults to sell themselves into temporary slavery, and that’s wrong, because voluntary indentured servitude is as bad as generational chattel slavery-except when it’s in Westeros! The rulers in Westeros are rightful, but Daenerys was trying to enslave them by having them bend the knee! She was using the privilege of her father’s name, and it’s different when the Starks do it.

Dragons are evil. They serve no good purpose and she’s evil because she has dragons.

Also, Jon should have a dragon.

When Arya met the Lannister soldiers, and Ed Sheeran, that was to show how she realized that they are not all bad. This shows that sometimes enemies are good. This will show that we should empathize with enemies. That Dany is bad because she doesn’t even though she agrees to help the Starks, whose father supported the man who murdered her brother, and was not disturbed by the murder of her niece and nephew. Who would have killed a baby, had he known Jon was her nephew. Who would have killed her.

This does not apply to Daenerys and her armies, of course. The North was one hundred percent right to treat her with hostility.

Daenerys considered killing Tyrion when she met him! This shows that she is willing to kill people just because they are related to enemies! She’s evil!

Even though she named Tyrion her Hand. Even though she agreed to aid the North with no strings attached once she saw the army of the dead. Even though she accepted Varys into her service when he’d tried to have her murdered. Varys being part of the plan to sell a teenage girl into sexual slavery was not evil because she turned that to her advantage.

Dany was wrong for even considering killing Tyrion despite the fact that she didn’t and ultimately named him her Hand.

She was wrong for killing the Tarlys even though they were oathbreakers who killed their own friends and attacked their liege’s home. Even though the punishment for oath breaking is death. Even though they refused to bend the knee in exchange for keeping their lives, lands and titles, which is standard procedure in Westeros. Even though they refused the Wall, where Tarly sent his eldest son.

She didn’t kill them for oathbreaking or murdering her allies. She killed them for not bending the knee! Even though she only attacked them after they did that, and she did not harm Jon when he refused to bend the knee, she allowed him to mine her dragonglass, and offered to provide men and resources to help.

Sam was not wrong for hating Daenerys for killing his father, even though he was an oathbreaker, an abuser, and threatened to kill Sam. Even though he said that nothing would give him more pleasure than telling Sam’s mother that her son died. Even though Sam knew of Dany’s great deeds from Aemon. It’s understandable that he would still mourn his father. Even if his father was a monster, we have to empathize with his anger.

YET Daenerys is dead wrong for calling out Jaime for murdering her father. Her father was a monster! How dare she feel anything about his murder! She had no right to object to Jaime’s presence at Winterfell, even though he tried to kill her on the battlefield and said straight out said he wasn’t sorry for all he’d done and would do it again to protect his family.

She was wrong for restoring the family name of the man who killed her brother and cheered the brutal murders of her niece and nephew. Because she only legitimized Gendry for personal gain, even though he could have done the opposite of joining her, and tried to take the throne himself.

She is wrong if she is good to the family of her enemies because she is self serving, and she is wrong if she’s not good to them because it’s not their fault.

The Starks are not wrong for judging Daenerys by her father’s actions even though she came to help save them. Sansa is not wrong for wanting to evict children from their homes because their families were traitors.

When the Starks are suspicious of the family members of those who’ve harmed them, it’s fair. They are being smart.

When Daenerys is suspicious of the family members of those who’ve harmed her, it’s proof of her being paranoid like her father.

When Sansa told Jon that the free folk should join their fight against Ramsay, that they owed it to him because he’d saved their lives, that was smart!

When she told Arya “you should be on your knees, thanking me,” she had every right to assert her accomplishments.

YET, Daenerys was very entitled to want the North to fight Cersei with her in exchange for her helping them defeat the army of the dead, even though Cersei was their enemy too, and she sent them a letter saying “come bend the knee or face the fate of all traitors.”

It was not wrong of Jon to tell the North he bent the knee to save them, even though she said she’d help before he bent the knee.

It’s Dany’s fault the Night King got a dragon even though the wight hunt was Tyrion’s idea and Daenerys did not like it. Even though Jon told her, “I don’t need your permission. I am a king.”

Dany held Jon prisoner even though he had to stay to mine the dragonglass and he stated that he did not need her permission to leave. That’s what being a prisoner means, right?

Daenerys went mad because her family was fraught with incest. This does not imply that Jon will go mad, because his mother was not a Targaryen (even though his mother’s parents were related). Generations of inbreeding unequivocally mean madness, but the ramifications of those generations are undone if one guy at the end of the line produces a child with a woman whose parents were also related. That’s how genetics work, right?

Daenerys is a colonizer. Even though she didn’t have any goal other than destroying the slave trade in Essos. She only did that for selfish reasons even though Yunkai trains bed slaves and neither Meereen nor Yunkai added to her military might. Even though she never forced her religion or language on them. Even though she renounced power over the cities when she left, so that the people could choose their own leaders.

The Starks were never colonizers! Even though the earliest Starks were First Men, who committed genocide against the Children of the Forest. The First Men called themselves the First Men, they did not acknowledge the humanity of the Children. Therefore, the Children were not human.

The First Men destroyed the Children. The Starks built a Wall to separate the dead from the living, but left thousands of living and Children of the Forest at the other side of it. The Starks destroyed the other families, established power over the area, established their religion and language as the official religion and language. The Starks became the Kings of Winter by bringing to heel, and sometimes extinguishing, other families. That’s fine because the Starks are good. That’s not colonizing! The Starks were always good! They killed the warg king and his sons and beasts and then married his daughters. That’s not rape, that’s marriage!

The Targaryens who adapted the Westerosi religion and language and did not in any way repress other religions or languages, were the oppressors.

Dany hardly did anything in the Long Night. Her armies and dragons did not thin out the dead army, making it possible for Arya to kill the Night King. Two dragons can only do so much against an army of 100k. Even though Dany’s army also was over 100K.

YET, she burned MILLIONS in KL (even though the population of KL is under a million and even though I just said she could not have possibly taken out much of the dead army.)

When Daenerys didn’t weep and wring her hands over her abusive brother’s death that was evidence of her turning “mad.” Even though he abused her, sold her, and pressed a sword to her belly and threatened to cut her baby out of her body.

When Sansa smiled as Ramsay screamed, being torn apart by dogs, that was not a sign of anything bad. He abused her!

When Daenerys crucified the slavers even though a trial would have yielded nothing, because they had owned the entire system, that was a sign of her being a villain.

But Varys wasn’t wrong for trying to poison her before she did anything wrong because he sensed what she would do! Instinct > Trials. Unless the “instinct” is Daenerys’. Then it’s paranoia, even when the people she suspects of plotting against her are plotting against her.

When Arya killed two men, baked them into a pie, fed them to their father, slit his throat, smiled faintly as he died, cut off his face, then killed every one of his bannermen, with no knowledge of whether those men had been there at the Red Wedding, or whether they’d spoken against it, that was not a sign of her being a villain. Because if it’s a Stark, we understand complicity.

Besides, Arya is not a ruler. Only rulers do harm. Not explorers! Explorers who believe “I’ll never know her, she’s not one of us”, have never done anything bad in all history. Happy Columbus Day, btw.

[rainhadaenerys]

Sansa stans keep criticizing Dany for literally every breath that she takes, and keep insisting that Sansa is "smarter", "better ruler", "better politician", etc. And this just makes me curious to know how they think Sansa would have acted better than Dany.

Like, let's say Sansa was in Dany's place and was forcibly married to Khal Drogo. Since Dany is so evil for "owning slaves" while she was married to Khal Drogo, what would Sansa do if she was in Dany's place? How would Sansa avoid being a "slave owner" that they accuse Dany of being? Then Khal Drogo and his khalasar attack some villages, take slaves and rape women. According to Sansa stans, Dany taking the women as her slaves is evil because she is not really saving those women, and therefore Dany deserved to be betrayed by Mirri. So what would Sansa do in Dany's place? What does Sansa do differently to "truly" save those women from the Dothraki?

Then let's suppose Sansa gets to Slaver's Bay and sees how dehumanized the slaves are. What does Sansa do, since Dany's way was clearly evil? Does Sansa just see all the slaves and leaves them there, since violence to free slaves is evil? Or since Dany's attack against the slave masters in Astapor was evil, does Sansa buy only the slaves that she could afford and then frees them, but leaves all the rest of the slaves behind, still enslaved? And what does Sansa do with these handful of slaves that she freed?  I mean, Sansa stans say that Dany allowing the Unsullied to follow her is wrong and clearly makes her a slaver who is just the Unsullied's new master. So Sansa obviously can't do what Dany did, because what Dany did is evil. Since letting the Unsullied follow you and using them as your army is wrong, would Sansa just leave the Unsullied behind, to live their own lives? But wouldn't this just leave these Unsullied vulnerable to being recaptured and re-enslaved if they're no longer organized as soldiers? What does Sansa do to protect them then, since using the Unsullied as soldiers is wrong? How does Sansa build a new life for them?

Since Dany attacking and conquering Yunkai and Meereen is also evil because it involves violence, what does Sansa do to free the slaves in those cities? She just… doesn't free them? Because I guess letting people remain enslaved is still more moral than using violence? Or does Sansa make pacific protests in front of those cities? How would this even work? Does anyone actually believe the slavers would just end slavery because some random girl was making a peaceful protetst? Oh, and if Sansa doesn't conquer either Yunkai or Meereen (because violence and conquering is evil), where does Sansa find the resources to feed the former slaves that she freed? Does she buy food from those cities? But how would she buy food, if she already spent the money she had in buying the slaves that she freed? Does Sansa just leave them behind to die, since she can't feed them (and taking the cities to feed them would involve violence, so Sansa clearly can't do that).

Ok, now let's supposed that Sansa does decide to conquer Meereen to feed her people like Dany did. How does Sansa do it better than Dany? I mean, we clearly know that Dany's way was evil and incompetent. Dany ended slavery in Meereen and didn't build a completely new economy out of nowhere in a single day. But Sansa is clearly smarter, more educated, more gracious, and more moral than Dany. So Sansa would clearly find a better way, right????

So how does Sansa manage to take Meereen without violence? Dany punished the rapists, looters and murderers in her army. But clearly that wasn't enough, Dany should have been competent enough to stop all of her soldiers from looting, raping and killing. So how does Sansa, the smartest politician evah, do to control every single person in her army and stop them from looting, killing and raping? Sansa is better than Dany, so Sansa would clearly find a way to avoid all of that, right??? Also, what does Sansa do to stop the slaves from revolting and killing and raping their former masters? Sansa is so superior to Dany, she would have clearly found a way, right???

Now, let's suppose that some Meereenese come to Sansa asking to sell themselves into slavery. Dany allowing it was clearly evil, so Sansa obviously won't allow it, because Sansa is superior to Dany. So what does Sansa do to stop them from asking to sell themselves? Remember, the Meereenese who ask to sell themselves were gently born and lived lives of luxury, and wanted to sell themselves to live in luxury as prized educated slaves. For Sansa to stop them from wanting to sell themselves, she needs to give them the kind of luxurious life these people were accustomed to. So how does Sansa do it? Does she just… take money from the city to pay for the luxury of these people, all to avoid them asking to sell themselves? But what about all the poor people in Meereen? If Sansa is going to pay some people a life of luxury, then she should do this for everyone, right? How does Sansa manage that? Does she plant a magic tree that grows money?

What about the people who come to Dany for justice? They would come to Sansa as well. Remember, there was a son of a master that comes asking for a former slave to be punished for killing and raping his mother. Dany had declared a pardon for all the crimes committed during the sack, but Sansa stans have clearly decreed that this was wrong and evil. So what does Sansa do? Does Sansa go around killing all former slaves accused of crimes when they revolted against their masters? And how does Sansa avoid the complete political chaos that would arise from that? How does Sansa stop the former slaves from turning against her? Sansa is clearly a political genius, so I guess her huge brain would devise a strategy that would allow her to kill slaves who rose against their masters, all without the former slaves turning against her and all without creating chaos and violence in Meereen. Suuuuure. Because Sansa is clearly a genius and clearly a more morally correct person than Dany, so she would have found a magical way, of course.

And what does Sansa do when a former slave comes asking the former master to be gelded for raping his wife? Dany refuses to punish, because at the time it happened, the crime wasn't illegal, and if she granted this she would have to geld every man who ever slept with a sex slave, meaning that she would have to geld almost everyone in Meereen. But Dany was clearly evil and wrong in her decision. So I guess… Sansa would have granted the request and gelded the man? But then, what would Sansa do when former sex slaves started coming to her all asking for their former masters to be gelded? Would Sansa go on a hunt across Meereen in order to geld all the rapists? But wouldn't this be too violent, and isn't violence evil according to Sansa stans? Also, wouldn't this kiiiiinda cause a huge political chaos and create more war within the city? How does Sansa manages to punish all the rapists without creating political chaos? Or maybe… Sansa could imprison them all? But to imprison all the people who ever slept with sex slaves, she would have to build prisons, wouldn't she? I doubt there's all that space ready in Meereen. So how does Sansa do that, in a short span of time? And how does Sansa manages to capture all the rapists in Meereen? I mean, surely the former masters would fight back against this. So how does Sansa do this, and all without creating chaos and violence in Meereen? I guess the better solution would be to have been conciliatory and not gelded men who slept with sex slaves when slavery was legal, but then Sansa would have been just as evil as Dany…

Ok, now, how about the economy? Sansa stans say that Dany was incompetent in not rebuilding an entire new economy in the time span of one week, so how would Sansa manage that? How does Sansa end slavery without creating any economic problems (considering that slaves were the only thing Meereen exported)? Does Sansa plant magic beans that grow in a single night? Does Sansa buy teleportation machines in order to travel across Essos to negotiate trade deals with different cities? And how does she even convince the slave cities of Essos to trade with a city that just ended slavery? I guess Sansa super charm and courtesy magic would have made them all want to be friends with her, right? Or maybe Sansa just negotiates with Braavos… but for that to work in such a short span of time (remember, Sansa needs to rebuild the economy in one week) Sansa needs to use that teleportation machine, or else she can't get to Braavos. Also, what will Sansa even trade??? Meereen had nothing but slaves and olives to trade. The slavers burned the olives, and Sansa ended slavery, so wtf would she trade? Oooops. My bad. I forgot Sansa had magic seeds that made crops grow in a single day. I guess Sansa can trade those magic crops. Or maybe… Sansa ends slavery gradually, in order not to collapse the economy? But that would make Sansa a slaver, wouldn't it? How does she justify forcefully keeping people in bondage for the sake of the economy? Also, how do the slaves not rebel against her when she refuses to free them all for the sake of the economy? And how does she force the slave masters to give up their slaves when the time finally comes?

Ok, but now let's pretend Sansa indeed had a perfect plan to end that was so much better than Dany. Where is the evidence in the books that Sansa would do a better job than Dany? Where are the book quotes that show Sansa's understanding of economics, "pacific" (?) military tactics, how to end slavery…? And remember, if Sansa was in Dany's place she wouldn't have a formal education and wouldn't have Littlefinger's training.

Let's face it: Sansa stans just want to criticize Dany for whatever reason and to claim that their fave is better, without even thinking if their fave would have done things better or what she would have done, or if there's even evidence that Sansa would be better than Dany. And the same goes for show!Sansa by the way. I see Sansa stans talk about how "if Sansa went to Dragonstone instead of Jon, she would put Dany in her place" (because obviously, Sansa is sooooo much smarter), and yet I haven't seen anyone explain what would be Sansa's plan to "put Dany in her place" and defeat the army of the dead without Dany's help, or how would Sansa manage to get Dany's help without bending the knee and at the same time disrespecting Dany (since they want Sansa to "put Dany in her place"). This political genius Sansa really only exists in their minds, and they aren't even smart enough to come up with actual concrete plans on what Sansa could have done that is better than Dany.

[aboveallarescuer]

Daenerys Targaryen's tropes - Powerful and Helpless

A hero or villain can have superpowers, fighting skills, knowledge, wealth, power, technology, political and social connections, all of which help them to achieve their goals. But sometimes a situation arises where their power is rendered useless. No, they haven't wandered into the range of a Power Nullifier or been Brought Down to Normal. They don't have Useless Superpowers that regularly fail to work properly. They'll still punch as hard as they normally can, or use their genius intellect to try to think their way out of the problem, or they'll call on all their connections and resources and favors owed, but none of those things matter here.

*

“I have the dragons,” she pointed out.

“Hatchlings,” Ser Jorah said. “One swipe from an arakh would put an end to them, though Pono is more like to seize them for himself. Your dragon eggs were more precious than rubies. A living dragon is beyond price. In all the world, there are only three. Every man who sees them will want them, my queen.”

“They are mine,” she said fiercely. They had been born from her faith and her need, given life by the deaths of her husband and unborn son and the maegi Mirri Maz Duur. Dany had walked into the flames as they came forth, and they had drunk milk from her swollen breasts. “No man will take them from me while I live.” (ACOK Daenerys I)

~

The Pureborn heard her pleas from the great wooden seats of their ancestors, rising in curved tiers from a marble floor to a high-domed ceiling painted with scenes of Qarth’s vanished glory. The chairs were immense, fantastically carved, bright with goldwork and studded with amber, onyx, lapis, and jade, each one different from all the others, and each striving to be the most fabulous. Yet the men who sat in them seemed so listless and world-weary that they might have been asleep. They listened, but they did not hear, or care, she thought. They are Milk Men indeed. They never meant to help me. They came because they were curious. They came because they were bored, and the dragon on my shoulder interested them more than I did. (ACOK Daenerys III)

~

“I will not throw away Unsullied lives, Grey Worm. Perhaps we can starve the city out.”

Ser Jorah looked unhappy. “We’ll starve long before they do, Your Grace. There’s no 
food here, nor fodder for our mules and horses. I do not like this river water either. Meereen shits into the Skahazadhan but draws its drinking water from deep wells. Already we’ve had reports of sickness in the camps, fever and brownleg and three cases of the bloody flux. There will be more if we remain. The slaves are weak from the march.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

~

“The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained.”

The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was. She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the same in Meereen once I march, she thought. The slaves from the fighting pits, bred and trained to slaughter, were already proving themselves unruly and quarrelsome. They seemed to think they owned the city now, and every man and woman in it. Two of them had been among the eight she’d hanged. There is no more I can do, she told herself. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

~

“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?” He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”

“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo.

“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)

~

When Missandei was sound asleep, Dany slipped from her arms and stepped out into the predawn air to lean upon the cool brick parapet and gaze out across the city. A thousand roofs stretched out below her, painted in shades of ivory and silver by the moon.

Somewhere beneath those roofs, the Sons of the Harpy were gathered, plotting ways to kill her and all those who loved her and put her children back in chains. Somewhere down there a hungry child was crying for milk. Somewhere an old woman lay dying. Somewhere a man and a maid embraced, and fumbled at each other’s clothes with eager hands. But up here there was only the sheen of moonlight on pyramids and pits, with no hint what lay beneath. Up here there was only her, alone.

She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman’s pain. And who would ever dare to love a dragon? (ADWD Daenerys II)

~

“Is it true that dragons never stop growing?”

“If they have food enough, and space to grow. Chained up in here, though …”

The Great Masters had used the pit as a prison. It was large enough to hold five hundred men … and more than ample for two dragons. For how long, though? What will happen when they grow too large for the pit? Will they turn on one another with flame and claw? Will they grow wan and weak, with withered flanks and shrunken wings? Will their fires go out before the end?

What sort of mother lets her children rot in darkness? (ADWD Daenerys II)

~

“It is good that you have come,” she told the Astapori. “You will be safe in Meereen.”

The cobbler thanked her for that, and the old brickmaker kissed her foot, but the weaver looked at her with eyes as hard as slate. She knows I lie, the queen thought. She knows I cannot keep them safe. Astapor is burning, and Meereen is next. (ADWD Daenerys V)

~

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing. The Astapori had no place to go. Thousands remained outside Meereen’s thick walls—men and women and children, old men and little girls and newborn babes. Many were sick, most were starved, and all were doomed to die. Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barbersurgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing.

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

~

Bless me, Dany thought bitterly. Your city is gone to ash and bone, your people are dying all around you. I have no shelter for you, no medicine, no hope. Only stale bread and wormy meat, hard cheese, a little milk. Bless me, bless me.

What kind of mother has no milk to feed her children? (ADWD Daenerys VI)

~

This is peace, she told herself. This is what I wanted, what I worked for, this is why I married Hizdahr. So why does it taste so much like defeat?

“It is only for a little while more, my love,” Hizdahr had assured her. “The Yunkai’i will soon be gone, and their allies and hirelings with them. We shall have all we desired. Peace, food, trade. Our port is open once again, and ships are being permitted to come and go.”

“They are permitting that, yes,” she had replied, “but their warships remain. They can close their fingers around our throat again whenever they wish. They have opened a slave market within sight of my walls!” (ADWD Daenerys VIII)

~

The Brazen Beasts did as they were bid. Dany watched them at their work. “Those bearers were slaves before I came. I made them free. Yet that palanquin is no lighter.”

“True,” said Hizdahr, “but those men are paid to bear its weight now. Before you came, that man who fell would have an overseer standing over him, stripping the skin off his back with a whip. Instead he is being given aid.”

It was true. A Brazen Beast in a boar mask had offered the litter bearer a skin of water. “I suppose I must be thankful for small victories,” the queen said.

“One step, then the next, and soon we shall be running. Together we shall make a new Meereen.” The street ahead had finally cleared. “Shall we continue on?”

What could she do but nod? One step, then the next, but where is it I’m going? (ADWD Daenerys IX)

[scratchybeardsweetmouth]

Hi! :) Can you explain the differences between Book!Jorah and Show!Jorah ?

From appearances to behaviours, it can be vastly different. However, Ibelieve at the heart of it, they are the same Jorah. 

Since we all know of show!Jorah, I will be describing book!Jorah more.

Using Dany and Tyrion’s POVs on book!Jorah, he’s unattractive yetphysically fit. Iain Glen’s Jorah is… well… fine wine.

Ser Jorah was not a handsome man. He had a neck and shoulders like abull, coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there wasnone left for his head. Yet his smiles gave Dany comfort.– Daenerys III, A Game of Thrones

Ser Jorah… stripped out of his wool and leather and sweat-stainedundertunic to reveal a scarred, brawny torso covered with dark hair. If I couldskin him, I could sell that pelt for a fur cloak…– Tyrion VII, A Dance With Dragons

Book!Jorah is protective yet a tad bit clumsy or ungraceful. Twice heshielded her in a rush and twice she stumbled - one was to save her from a caskthrown by the wine merchant, the other from fellows (Strong Belwas and ArstanWhitebeard) he suspected had attacked her. He fights well but others do get thebest of him sometimes that he does get injuries. Show!Jorah is never clumsy,but his fighting skill is similar: measured enough but does get by sometimeswith luck. 

Book!Jorah can be selfish, unpleasant and pitiful. When he was banishedhe went to a brothel and used the services of one who looked like Daenerys.Just like in the show, he outright smacked Tyrion for calling him out on hisflimsy plan to offer Tyrion to Dany. He mostly isolated himself, got drunk andpuked several times as he and Tyrion sailed on a ship going to Meereen. Hispriority is mostly Dany and himself; when things are not going ok for either orboth, he broods or his temper brews. (I hope to see his selfishness change ortested in the books to come if he truly came back to serve Dany.)

He is practical, almost to a fault. When Drogo sacked the landof the Lhazareen, one of whom is Mirri Maz Duur, and gathered slaves to sellfor money for ships, he suggested where best to sell them, including boys andgirls. He was also the one who suggested they buy the Unsullied and wasnonchalant about the buying and selling process. He also suggested that theyleave Meereen behind, including her newly freed followers, and sail forWesteros since the Meereenese was difficult to deal with and Meereen was achallenge to take over. 

Given all the above, he is wise, a cynic, brutally honest,wears his heart on his sleeve, and loyal just like show!Jorah. Dany finds hiscounsel worth listening to because there’s always a truth to them, even theuncomfortable ones. He is thoughtful about every answer to her questions orstatements and would reason out with her for as long as she allows. While shesometimes doubts if his advice is borne out of service or love, she never doubtshis good intentions for her. He is suspicious to a great degree, which I thinkstems from his own experience of being a spy then siding with his queen – withDany’s influence, history, and popularity growing, he feels that if every manwas like him in meeting Dany, then he would have to think of the worst versionof himself being at her side and tries to avoid that. The latter is useless toher cause of course if it turns out that some of her new followers are betteror best versions of himself and actually come to believe in her. Lastly, he’sloyal in that he had chances to turn away from her before she hatched herdragons but instead chose to stay, and that when he was banished he returned toher instead – it was either death (or The Wall if anyone’s merciful) by returningto Westeros without his pardon, or death by Dany’s hands, but he took hischance with her.

His relationship with Dany is nicely summed up by Dany’s owndeclaration to him:

“You have been a better friend to me than any I have known, a betterbrother than Viserys ever was. You are the first of my Queensguard, thecommander of my army, my most valued counselor, my good right hand. I honor andrespect and cherish you—but I do not desire you, Jorah Mormont, and I am wearyof your trying to push every other man in the world away from me, so I mustneeds rely on you and you alone. It will not serve, and it will not make melove you any better.”– Daenerys III, A Storm Of Swords

Lastly, Book!Jorah took his chances romantically with Dany. Falling inlove with Dany or the idea of love with Dany was unplanned. He didn’t mean tofall for her. She was sweet and kind with him – healing his hip wound from theQotho fight, occasionally touching his hand and arm, and kissing him on the cheek– and with each gesture he probably simultaneously thought she could feel forhim too while denying it. At an unintended vulnerable moment that Dany wasnaked in front of Jorah which he might’ve assumed as realization that she wasallowing herself to be this vulnerable with him, he risked showing his feelingsand kissed her, with her surprisingly kissing him back (Dany suggesting inlater chapters that she actually missed the physical affections rather thanromantically falling for Jorah). A few chapters after it looks like the two didnot really talk about it nor addressed their feelings at the time and so heattempted to still show bits of physical affection, until Daario Naharis swore allegianceto her and she grew tired of Jorah’s suspicions and said the above quote tohim. He was hurt, showed it in his initial manner of coldness, but he neverbrought it up again nor made any more attempts and stayed to serve by her side.Looking at all of book!Jorah’s faults one might say he’s not really that worth rooting for compared to his show version. That’s part of the appeal though for me. Book!Jorah sounds very real on the page; we see people like him around us, or ourselves. The way he reacts is not always mature, but the understanding on why he does so is always there, whether you agree with it or not (or whether you believe Dany and Tyrion’s view of him because he does not have his own POV chapter). Just like the other characters, there’s a hope that he learns from his experiences about what to let go of the past and what to accept of the present in order to be a better man for himself, and for someone he loves - just as show!Jorah turned out to be.

[reignof-fyre]

Lemme stop you right there

1 - Daenerys had a lack of empathy to her abusive (emotionally, physically, and sexually) brother who just threatened to cut her unborn child from her womb. He also previously threatened to "let Khal Drogo's 40,000 men and horses fuck her if it meant he could get his throne." Her lack of empathy toward her death isn't surprising or shocking. I'd be the exact same, tbh.

2 - Daenerys' reaction toward Drogo's speech was more toward his agreement to go to Westeros and claim the Iron Throne, she wasn't happy about his claim to rape their women.

3 - "she conveniently forgot she was an active slaver" she WAS a slave. She was sold to Drogo in order for Viserys to get an army. She was a young, terrified girl stunned by the Dothraki's savageness and brutality. What was she supposed to do? Free the slaves and be beaten or worse by her husband and his men? Argue against him and be beaten or worse? When Drogo sacks the Lhazareen city she speaks up to save the women by claiming them and her kindness is punished by Mirri Maz Durr making Drogo a vegetable and killing her unborn son.

4 - DAENERYS HAD NO IDEA MIRRI WAS RAPED BEFORE SHE SAVED HER. SHE ONLY FOUND OUT LATER, AFTER MIRRI MADE DROGO A VEGETABLE AND KILLED RHAEGO. DANY WAS A YOUNG, DESPERATE YOUNG GIRL WITH SEVERE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME THAT ONLY WANTS HER HUSBAND TO LIVE. MIRRI OFFERS MEDICINE FOR DROGO, SHE ISNT COMMANDED BY DANY. AND WHEN DROGO RIPS THE POLTICE OFF, DANY ASKS HER TO REAPPLY IT. SHE ASKS MIRRI IF THERES A WAY TO SAVE DROGO FROM THE FEVER, AND MIRRI SAYS THERE IS BUT ITS BLOOD MAGIC AND DANY IS DESPERATE - WITHOUT DROGO, SHES NOTHING. SHE'LL BE TAKEN TO THE Dosh Khaleen, probably raped, her son slaughtered etc. Her burning Mirri wasn't a sign of madness or cruelty.

5 - ser Barristan's words are important, yes, and Mercy is a good thing. Did the SLAVERS offer mercy for the INNOCENT SLAVE CHILDREN they crucified ALIVE in order to frighten Dany away from Meereen? No. There's a time for mercy, and there's a time for brutal justice.

6 - not a parallel to Barristan's words, its a sign of Daenerys giving justice to men that chose to crucify children. Was it brutal? Yes. Did she regret it? Yes. Was it impulsive? Yes. Should she have given them a trial? Yes. It's not a sign of madness. I truthfully would have done the same thing in her shoes. Anyone who slaughters children in a grown ups war deserves what dany gave those masters, idc if it makes me sound "insane"

7 - this point makes no sense. Dany would have crucified anyone who did that to children, just not the Masters. And the masters ARE her enemy. They became her enemy when she witnessed and heard what the Astapori masters did to create Unsullied. She decided then that slavery would end at her hands. Please refer to my point 4 about Dany being a "slaver".

8 - she did this in order to scare the leader of the harpy into showing themselves. If a man had done it, threatening to behead someone, you'd have cheered. Actually, Tyrion did it with Pycelle in Season 2 when he threatened to have Timmet son of Timmet castrate him in order to get the truth from him, and sent him to the black cells. Double fucking standard.

9 - again, this makes no sense. D&D left out crucial information from the books in the show, showing Daenerys as an actually great ruler. She left freedmen in charge at Astapor over a council, that was left out. In Yunkai, the same. In Meereen, she worked with a council of advisors to assist her in ruling the city. She refused to open the fighting pits because it's literal blood sports despite it being freed people fighting?? Who in their right mind enjoys watching people, free or not, fight to the bloody end???????

10 - seriously?? Drogon kills a child, okay, and he flies off. Should she sent men to find him and capture him and possibly be killed, too, while letting Rhaegal and Viserion fly around free? She did it as a show of good faith in order to prove she won't stand for her children harming people. You bet your ass the Meereenese didn't see it as wrongful imprisonment. And, in the books, there's a belief that the killing of Hazzaea was a plot by the Harpy's in order to get Dany to do just what she did; lock her dragons up.

11 - Dany imprisoned Hizdar because he was a suspect of leading the Sons of the Harpy. She offered to marry him, the Head of a powerful Meereenese family, to keep the peace and hopefully stop the Harpy's from attacking. Which they did. Again, in the books Hizdar doesn't die. He is heavily suspected to be the leader of the Sons of the Harpy until he's poisoned by someone. By this time, Dany has flown off on Drogon.

12 - Randyll and Dickon Tarly are bannermen to the Tyrell family. With Mace, Loras, and Margaery dead Olenna is their liege lady and they are supposed to support her and her choices. She chose Daenerys as her Queen, thus her bannermen do so as well. Randyll and Dickon knelt to Cersei on the promise of usurping Highgarden and the Wardenship of the south. They sacked highgarden, and Dickon admitted to killing his friends from a queen that killed the rightful queen, their liege lord, her own uncle and cousin, and stole the throne. What Dany did was nothing Ned or Jon or anyone else wouldn't have done, too. Just with a sword.

13 - "defending cruelty in the path of justice" sure, Jan. Randyll and Dickon committed treason against their liege Lady. Who else did that and when they were killed everyone cheered? THE BOLTON'S AND FREY'S. But because it was the Stark's carrying out justice, its okay??? As to Dany saying "I'll return their cities to the dirt" and Tyrion reminding her that Aerys threatened the same: it IS different. Aerys burned the city because "Let the Usurper rule over ashes and bones" he wanted to keep his throne and power, Dany is fighting men harming the people she has sworn to protect. Ofc she's angry and tempted to destroy them, innocent people are dying so the slavers can return to slaving because oh, no, poor slaver boys they lost money bc the mean dragon Lady freed their slaves :((((

14 - Show me one moment Dany was paranoid in Season 7. Where's the proof?? And Dany threatens to burn the Red Keep, she wants the war over and Cersei removed from power. She wants it done with. Her allies are dead or dying, she has to retaliate or be seen as weak.

15 - d&d chose to make the freed men POC, in the books they range from Summer islanders, Qartheen, Westerosi, and from EVERYWHERE around the Known World in ASOIAF. d&d did that. Period.

16 - Daenerys' entire story line is her repenting for her ancestors. The Targaryen��s of old were slavers, she worked to free slaves. Why should a woman not even born when Aerys, Rhaegar, etc did what they did have to repent???? She wasn't even alive then, my god. Should Jon or Sansa or Arya repent for Theon "The Hungry Wolf" Stark's massacre of hundreds of Andals??? Dany doesn't want her ancestors throne for power, she wants to make the world a better place and the only way to do so is from a position of power.

17 & 18 - yeah, this is just terrible writing on D&D's part.

19 - she was totally smiling in Mama Pride not Scary Dragon Lady Pride.

20 - she's saying this because Sansa is being a petulant child winging over the fact that Jon gave up his crown to gain allies in the coming fight that would decimate them if not for Dany, her dragons, and armies. Lmao.

21 & 22 - more plot device to "prove" the "mad queen" theory as right when it's totally not lmao.

23 - declining human interaction??? The entire time she was in the North, she was legit spat at (deleted scene) and recieved with hatred, xenophobia toward her people, suspicion and outright hostility on Sansa's part and she's grieving Jorah. Jon is sitting with his friends, IGNORING HER, and hasn't introduced her to Tormund etc. More plot device to make her "descent to madness" seem legit when its not.

24- jorah wasn't her mercy. He's completely different from the show and books. In the books he's a creepy old man trying to bang her and keep her from trusting anyone else around her. She exiles him and he's never seen again in ADWD. In the show, yeah, he suggests she forgive tyrion and try again with sansa. Jorah is her oldest friend. He was there with her when she was a terrified little girl marrying a brutal man, when she became the mother of dragons, etc. He is her best friend (one of) and losing him will change her for sure. But he wasn't her mercy. Dany has A LOT of mercy on her own. Tyrion's fuck ups were huge. Led to Yara and Ellaria being captured, highgarden sacked bc he insisted she go for Casterly Rock. He messed up SO MUCH and she kept forgiving him for those fuck ups.

All in all, terrible writing. Because if you'd have read ALL the books, not just the first, you'd see how wrong D&D did daenerys. Thanks.

Daenerys Targareyan: The Path Towards Madness.

Okay let’s begin.

Intro: I read book 1. And then, I binge watched seasons 1-6 after season 6 finale. By that time, I knew all the major theories like L+R=J, dark!dany, targ!tyrion etc.

So, I was paying extra attention and these are some of the obvious moments where I felt they showed Dany’s mad side show. Some points, you may find valid. Some points you may find silly and over-reaching. In any case, this is what *I* felt.

Feel free to have discussions. Appreciate positive critisism. However, just yelling/abusing will not be tolerated.

1. Lack of Empathy

Her obvious lack of empathy when her brother was killed.

I did not expect her to save him. I did not expect her to mourn him. I did not even expect her to cry for him. I did, however, expect a reaction, any sort of reaction, when someone close (despite him being an abusive asshole) dies that suddenly and that violently.

2. Her facial expression during Drogo’s speech.

“I will kill the men in iron suits and tear down their stone houses! I will rape their women, take their children as slaves and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak!”

3. During her Breaker of Chains phase, she conviniently seemed to forget that she used to practice not only slavery, but also pillaging while she was with her khalesar.

Master Illeryoi owned slaves. Her brother owned slaves. She was gifted slaves to teach her how to please the Khal.

Her husband was a war-lord and her khalesar constantly raided and pillaged villages. They killed men. They raped women. Remaining alive women were taken as sex slaves and later sold. That was their way of life. She saved Mirri Maz Duur and several other women from the fate of gang rape and murder but they were still dragged along side the khalasar as slaves. In books, the reason MMD was not sold was so that she can assist Dany during childbirth.

4. The burning of Mirri Maz Duur (MMD)

This is going to make sense to a lot of people. But confuse the fuck out of many. But let’s see.

In colonized countries, we have a term called “Savior’s Complex”. It is where a colonizer raids a country, steal its riches, impose extreme taxing, destory most of its heritage and then expect praise for bringing something (could be education, technology, architecture).

Dany takes the complex another step above. She not only expects gratitude from an enslaved MMD while dragging her along with her khalesar with sole purpose of assistance with childbirth, she also expects her to save the life of her husband. The war-lord whose khalesar raided her home, pillaged her village, killed her countrymen, raped/killed her countrywomen, dragged remaining alive women along with the khalesar to be sold later. Despite all this, Dany expects gratitude from MMD for her life. This flawed logic however is thrown back in her face.

“So, tell me again exactly what it was that you saved?”

“Your life.”

“Why don’t you take a look at your Khal? Then you will see exactly what life is worth, when all the rest has gone.”

This is an old age tale of revenge. Khal raided her village. She took revenge on them for destroying her temple. Dany burned her for it.

What completely bamboozled me in this fandom was how much people hated MMD for what she did while completely making Dany the victim in this scenario while forgetting that MMD was the orginal victim who was not only an enslaved prisoner of war, but also gang-raped victim of her khalesar’s doing.

5. Ser Barriston’s words.

Ser Barriston in Mereen, tells her to treat injustice with mercy. She replies that she will treat injustice with justice.

Another quote by Ser Barriston: “He gave people the people the justice he thought they deserved.”

Justice and what people in power percieve as justice is often very different.

6. Daenerys’ justice for the crucified slave children

She did that by choosing 163 random Great Masters and crucifying them to avenge the 163 slave children. This seems like justice. But is it, really? They never recieved trial. They were never proven guilty. Like Hizdahr Loraq said, some of the masters were not in favor of crucifying children and tried very hard to stop it. Who knows how many other good masters she crucified?

This is a direct parallel to Ser Barriston’s words about Mad King Aerys: “He gave people the people the justice he thought they deserved.”

7. She stopped slavery only when it benefitted her.

Some of you, while reading point 6, may have thought, “They were SLAVERS! So what?!”.

Well, while choosing 163 masters, Dany decided that all Masters are her enemies. She decided that all of them deserved punishment. She decided that they were guilty just for engaging in slavery while conviniently forgetting that if that were the case, she should be the one in the first cross.

8. She burnt Great Masters without even investigating who were behind the Sons of Harpy’s attack.

After Ser Barriston’s death, we again get to see more of her twisted sense of justice. By her own words, “Who is innocent? Maybe all of you are, maybe none of you are. Maybe, I should let the dragons decide.”

It is not supposed to be called justice if you punish (and a cruel punishment, at that) without even caring whether they are innocent or not.

9. “You are a conquerer. Not a ruler.”

Time and time again Dany proves this to be true. She conquered Yunkai and left immeidetely. The slavers took back the city in no time. She closed off the fighting pits and refused to open them despite being told that participants will be free men who enter willingly. This is where ruling comes in. Any place she conquered and freed, she failed to put something else to keep up the economy. She collapsed the economy so bad that slaves were selling themselves again.

10. Wrongful imprisonment.

Dany finds that Drogon has harmed children. The correct response is to either train or punish the dragons. She, however, imprisons the two dragons who werent at fault while Drogon ran free. Does that mean she is not responsible for whatever terror or death Drogon caused to wherever he flew off to? What exactly does imprisoning Rhaegar and Viseryion get her?

What kind of justice is it where the accused is free while the innocent get prisoned for association. Again, feeds into the twisted justice train.

11. Twisted Justice. Hipocrisy. Again.

While many men were fed to dragons, Hizdahr Loraq was imporisoned. He begged for mercy in terror.She also decides that she will show her respect for Meereen by marrying a member of one of its great families. For a woman who was forced into marriage and “sold like a broodmare”, she sure didn’t feel any moral dilemma in making a terrifed man betroth her. His death though, proved that he was not at all involved with Sons of Harpy and he was imprisoned for nothing.

12. Burning POW’s

Burning Tarly’s (father and son) was a direct paralell to her father burning Ned’s father and brother alive. You cannot hide behind “It was a war. She gave them a choice.” No matter what defenses one can attempt to give her, killing (forget burning) POW is a war crime. So is forcing prisoners against their own side of war.

13. Defending cruelty in path of justice

She killed Tarly’s and defended that decision, by saying that was necessary.

When Hizdahr asks her how many men will have died to achieve her goal, she says “They would have died for a greater cause.” She is talking about destroying cities and sure, that must be for a greater purpose.

When Tyrion reminds her that about what her father planned to do when she said she wnated to burn Mereen to the ground.. her response was “This is different,”. How, exactly?

“The easiest way to defend cruelty is to say that it is part of the destiny.”

14. The insinct to burn down cities.

By s8e01, she has wanted to burn down cities thrice. Meereen - once. King’s Landing - twice. Both times, she had to be talked out of it by her advisors. The fact that her first instinct when her plans were failing was to burn down cities. Direct parallel to Aerys wanting to destroy king’s landing because he thought there were traitors everywhere. The fact is that a person can surrond themselves with good counsel. But it is not necessary that the counsel is always heeded. Which is what happened to Aerys. He was going incresingly mad for months and his counsel members hid the fact from the outside world because they thought they could control the madness. We all know what happened in the end.

Since s7, Dany has been becoming increasingly paranoid about Tyrion’s loyalty and increasingly more frustrated with every loss. How long before she decides not to listen to them anymore?

15. The entire collonialist/white savior imagary presented in Essos.

It is amazing how most of the fandom either ignores it or is just unaware of it.

Though this point doesnt parallel anything to the show, i just found it extremely cringy. I am sure members of most colonized countries would. I cant even beging to describe how cringy that mysha scene was.

16. The typical white priviledge mentality.

She wants to inherit her ancestor’s throne and power. But she doesnt want to repent for her ansestor’s sins and betrayal.

17. Wrong sense of entitlement

She truly believes that she is entitled to the North’s fealty. She asks Jon Snow not to judge her based on her ancestors and in the same breath asks him to hold up the vows of his ancestors.

But, whatever vow the Starks made to the Targareans was broken the moment Aerys decided to burn the Starks. The fealty was made on promise of protection. Technically, any member of the houses that Aerys burnt, is no longer accountable to the vow.

Still, she expects everyone to uphold their fealty but refusing to accpet that her father broke that fealty when he decided to burn the vassels (whom he promised to protect) alive.

18. Savior Complex

Some parts of Dany reminds me of how missionaries work.

“Will your God punish me for not praying to him if I did not know about him?”

“No.”

“Then why did you tell me about him?”

I believe one thing about Daenerys Targareyan. That she truly wants to help people. That she truly wants to save people. But her problem is, she wants to be the one to save people. She doesnt seem to understand that some people dont require saving.

She talks about freeing the world of tyrants and in the same breath refuses to give North the independence that they demand in solidarity. How is that not the definition of tyranny?

This is Westeros. I am not expecting a democracy and free elections. If she wants to be a conquerer, then she can be one. If she wants to bring to bring together the 7k, she can. What she cannot do is talk about destiny, talk about a wheel, talk about breaking the wheel, and and then do the exact same thing her ansestors did years go by spinning the wheel so that she is on top.

19. She was smiling when she saw that her dragons terrified people of Winterfell.

20. “They eat whatever they want”

Is that really the correct way to respond to people are already scared/cowering over the arrival of dragons? To people who have never seen such beasts before? Did she forget that few seasons ago “whatever they want” that Drogon ate were children?

21. Jaime’s trial

She made Jaime stand trial and was heavily leaning towards punish him despite the fact that she knew what her father had planned and what Jaime Lannister had done. She openly spoke in favor of the Mad King in front of Northern Lords. When Tyrion intervened, she publically breated him and questioned his loyalty. Further adds to the Mad King’s paranoia and unwillingness to listen to counsel.

22. Jaime Lannister

Not only has he tried to kill her, he has also questioned her intentions twice. The only living person who knows about Mad King more than anyone is perhaps Jaime Lannister. When he questions Tyrion, “Is she really different? Are you sure?” in a sceptical tone. If he doesnt trust her or thinks she had the Targ madness, then I am willing to bet that she probably does.

23. Her decling human connections

the show seems adament in making her seem alone. Like a stranger in her own home land. In an episode full of emotional reconnections, tenderness, friendships and relationships, she is shown all alone. In later episodes, she is incresingly shown alientated: Theon coming to fight for the starks despite being her bannerman, death of the Jorah, Tyrion’s withdrawal.

24. jorah was her mercy.

She had shown jorah mercy despite his betrayal. She cared for him and most importantly, completely trusted and listened to him. When she felt no remorse about berating Tyrion and strongarming Sansa, jorah urges her to forgive tyrion and to try and make amends with LAdy of Winterfell. And, she listened to him. He is the only advisor she fully trusts and listens to without having to worry about wavering loyalties. And jorah’s death is going to be the acorn in Ice Age that started the avalanche.

<<2 episodes left. will add more after next one airs.>>

This is not to say that she was an evil character. She was a good person with good intentions and bad execution with a twisted sense of justice and destiny. But, the journey to hell is paved with good intensions. Dany was a character who had the potential to be great. But she was always headed to doom. She is a good person whose downfall will be due to pride, ambition and obsession with destiny. She will chose her fate with a sound mind but a flawed personality. Her story will not be heroic, but tragic. Not because of what she was, but because of how she could have been.

[sansa-hand-of-the-king]

The seven

I have been reading about the seven gods in westeros, and it came to me a stupid theory that i wanted to write.  The seven gods are:

1) The Father (Tyrion)   2) The Mother (Danaerys)   3) The Maiden (Sansa)  4)The Warrior (Jon)  5) The Smith (Gendry)  6) The Crown  (Bran) 7) The Stranger. (Arya).   I am going to explain this under the cut because its LONG: 

1) The Father (Tyrion):  

 The Father's face is stern and strong,he sits and judges right from wrong. He weighs our lives, the short and long, and loves the little children.  Tyrion is not doubt the most intelligent man in the books, he is smart and loves his little nephews. But the most intersting fact is that he has a lot of quotes about justice and a strong opinion about what is right or wrong 

“Is this how justice is done in the Vale?" Tyrion roared, so loudly that Ser Vardis froze for an instant. "Does honor stop at the Bloody Gate? You accuse me of crimes, I deny them, so you throw me into an open cell to freeze and starve." He lifted his head, to give them all a good look at the bruises Mord had left on his face. "Where is the king's justice? Is the Eyrie not part of the Seven Kingdoms? I stand accused, you say. Very well. I demand a trial! Let me speak, and let my truth or falsehood be judged openly, in the sight of gods and men."

"A trial by combat, deciding a man's guilt or innocence in the eyes of the gods by having two other men hack each other to pieces. Tells you something about the gods."

Nothing but this: I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had." He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. "I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here. You leave me no choice but to appeal to the gods. I demand trial by battle." 

 2) The Mother (Daenaerys):  

The Mother represents motherhood and nurturing. She is prayed to for fertility or compassion, and is depicted as smiling with love, embodying the concept of mercy. It is also said that the Mother could be fiercer than the Warrior when her children were in danger.  Dany is the mother of dragons, she was pregnant in the first book

This Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer 

Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “my three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.” 

Mhysa!” a brown-skinned man shouted out 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 looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?”“It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.'”

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… It was just. It was. I did it for the children.

“My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.”

 Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon,she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

3) The Maiden (Sansa):

  The Maiden dances through the sky, she lives in every lover's sigh. Her smiles teach the birds to fly, and gives dreams to little children. The Maiden represents innocence and chastity. Sansa is always considered the Maiden in the tower of the ASOIF universe. She has her lady armor, her courtesy. She inspires bravery, and a sense of protection. She is considered beautiful ( and sansa has a strange connection to birds, songs and dreams)

“Thank you,’ she said when he was done. She was a good girl and always remembered her courtesies”

“I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs.”

Have you seen a highborn maid of three-and-ten, with a fair face and auburn hair?

4) The Warrior (Jon):  

 The Warrior represents strength in battle. He is prayed to for courage and victory. He carries a sword. Jon is the song of Ice and Fire, he is known for his ability to fight. Not only he has a lot of connection to swords but he is considered the most brave and skilled by his brothers of the nightwatch

"Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fis”

“I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R’hllor shows me only Snow

. . I am the sword in the darkness. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn . . .”

"A swordsman should be as good as his sword, Sam. Longclaw is Valarian Steel, but I am not. The Half-Hand could have killed me as easily as you swat a bug"

5)The Smith (Gendry):  

 The Smith represents crafts and labour. He is usually prayed to when work needs to be done, for strength. He carries a hammer.  I dont believe that because Gendry is introduced as a smith, but because he has a hammer, and is the character who is more associated with strenght

"I bet you do." She ran a hand along his arm. "I don't cost nothing to friends of Thoros and the lighting lord." "No, I said." Gendry rose abruptly and stalked away from the table out into the night. Bella turn to Arya. "Don't he like girls?" Arya shrugged. "He's just stupid. He likes to polish helmets and beat on swords with hammers.”

I'll smith for you," Gendry went to one knee before Lord Beric. "If you'll have me, m'lord, I could be of use. I've made tools and knives and once I made a helmet that wasn't so bad. One of the Mountain's men stole it from me when we was taken."Arya bit her lip. He means to leave me too."

Gendry was beating up a breastplate. When he worked nothing existed for him but the metal,bellows,fire the hammer was like  part of his arm. She watched the play of muscles in his chest and listened to the steel music he mad. He’s strong, she thought.  

6) The Stranger: Arya

The Stranger represents death and the unknown, and leads the dead to the other world. Whilst referred to as male, he is neither male nor female. Arya is linked to the faceless men, she is forced to  disguises  her self as a boy, she the character more associated with death in the books, and she has taken different names, and faces. Also outcast seems to have a deep connection with this god ( Arya had always considered herself an outcast)

Death holds no sweetness in this house. We are not warriors, nor soldiers, nor swaggering bravos puffed up with pride. We do not kill to serve some lord, to fatten our purses, to stroke our vanity. We never give the gift to please ourselves. Nor do we choose the ones we kill. We are but servants of the God of Many Faces.

7) The Crone: Brandon Stark 

The Crone represents wisdom and is prayed to for guidance. Her statues often show her with a lamp in one hand.  Bran is only nine but he is one of the most wise character in the series. He has the sight, because he is the three eyed raven. 

“Old stories are like old friends. You have to visit them from time to time”

“The strongest trees are rooted in the dark places of the earth. Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother's milk. Darkness will make you strong”

“ The stone is strong... The roots of the trees grow deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me... I'm not dead either.”

Grrm works in seven. Seven books, seven kingdoms, seven gods and devils, and for me seven end game characters. Thats not to say all will end up alive, but these 7 character will impact the story in a major way for me. (yes gendry and sansa too...).

[agameoftragedy]

Just woke up remembering more stuff and angry again.

Who tf are they talking about supporting Dany because 'she's their pretty, white, fantasy princess'?! All the mains in the show were white, the same could be said for Sansa. And who was upset because it was just 'too violent'?! Fuck off.

Dany herself may have had a white actress, but hers was by far the most diverse faction and engaging non-Westerosi places and cultures, something that appealed to a lot of PoC. And others saw themselves in her for coming out of a fucked up family and still achieving, not because 'omg she's pretty and white'.

The person on the podcast was citing a list of incidents as foreshadowing but the only one they mentioned that carries across to the books was burning Mirri Maz Duur. She did also crucify the slavers in retaliation for the slave kids and (eventually) agree to torture in response to freed women being murdered(? iirc). I'm not saying there's no chance or darkness in Dany, but it's such a mischaracterisation to her upset fans to dismiss them in this way.

Or to act like the show was a consistent and competently told story where you could even trust that A would lead to B, rather than a scene just being done because the writers thought it would be cool 👀

I later listened to more podcast episodes and I think the host mostly just lets guests say their pieces (the person wasn't really even meant to be talking about Dany) and agree or prompt at points, not get into arguments with them, so maybe he was playing nice, but it still irked me that this person was going unchallenged. But, as it turns out, I wasn't the only one to leave a snarky review on that episode anyway 👀

(Note: Based on an oldish podcast episode I just listened to)

Ok now I need TWOW so I can bitchslap some people with it. There need to be more places where I can click dislike buttons to show disapproval

STOP LISTING STUFF THAT WAS SHOW-ONLY AS REASONS FOR WHY THE BOOK CHARACTER IS DEFINITELY ACTUALLY A TERRIBLE PERSON, and OMG YOU CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF DISMISSING FANS AS NOT BEING ABLE TO ENGAGE WITH MEDIA

Like arrrrrrrrgh, I don't even know who in fandom they were talking about and their arguments because I'm barely on twitter and what they seemed to be responding to isn't what I ever see.

I stopped engaging in the show before series 5, but it was already evident the characterisations were fucked, we know they sawed out entire storylines and kept bits they liked glued to the wrong characters. And the podcast host! Who spoke so eloquently before about why some end show choices were so inappropriate! Now agreeing that people who didn't like (the end of) season 8 just can't media!

Omfg I am so angry, I would downvote 10 times