Daenerys Targareyan: The Path Towards Madness.
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.
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?”
“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.
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.
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?”
“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?
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.
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.
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.
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