8.03 should’ve effectively annihilated Mad Queen Dany/Dark Dany theories, and effectively should’ve ended all the misogynistic critiques of Dany/all the cultish Sansa stans’ hatred of Dany, but of course it didn’t.Â
Disclaimer: I love Sansa, but I hate how D&D are writing her this season, and I hope the writing for her improves for the last three episodes because she’s been quite OOC this season, in my opinion.
First of all, everyone was praising Sansa for being hostile toward Dany & her people from the first episode itself, claiming that Sansa’s right to prioritize Northern independence and to be suspicious of a Targaryen given that the Mad King killed Brandon and Rickard Stark. People particularly lauded Sansa snidely asking how they’re supposed to feed the Dothraki, the Unsullied, and two dragons, as if that’s the cleverest thing someone has said on the show. People were acting as if Winterfell was doing Dany a favor by housing her armies.Â
This episode proved quite the opposite: without Dany, Jorah, Greyowrm, Dany’s dragons, and her Dothraki and Unsullied, the North would’ve fallen quickly, and all the Starks would’ve died. Dany and her armies were integral to winning the Battle for Winterfell. I can’t believe people are still doubting this.Â
The fact that the racist writers sacrificed the lives of nameless Dothraki and Unsulied, all of whom are brown and black, for the sake of racist and xenophobic white northerners who hated them and will probably not even appreciate their sacrifice, is fucking disgusting to me as a brown woman. And this makes Sansa’s hostility even worse. Saying “oh how are we supposed to feed these people” really makes me think that the Northerners just decided to “get rid” of the food/space problem by sacrificing brown and black bodies and having those brown and black men protect the Northerners with their lives without any worry. So the brown and black Dothraki & Unsullied soldiers aren’t good enough to be housed and fed, they’re not good enough to be treated with some semblance of humanity, they’re too scary to make eye contact with, but they’re good enough sacrifices to be the vanguard and to die for the Northerners.Â
By the way, I’m going to be locking any Northern stan, especially white ones, who justify racism and xenophobia. You can go fuck yourself if you think this was at all acceptable.Â
Missandei’s response to Sansa’s unnecessary hostility in the crypts was absolutely justified for that reason. Again, I’ve seen people claim that Missandei was defending Dany blindly because she’s her best friend. I’m sorry, but it’s really racist to claim that a Black woman has no autonomy or identity of her own outside of her relationship with a white woman (and these are the same people who call Dany a “white savior” and “imperialist”, which again as a brown woman I have my legitimate criticisms of the white saviorism in Dany’s storyline, but that criticism doesn’t apply here at all). Plus if you can’t understand why a Black woman who was enslaved for so long has every right to criticize the rich, powerful white Lady of Winterfell, who enabled and turned a blind eye toward her people’s racism and xenophobia, then you need to grow some brain cells. Missandei wasn’t just objectively correct; she was fed up with Sansa and the North’s racism and xenophobia. Out there, her friends were fighting and dying for the same Northerners who sneered at them and refused to talk to them. The man she loved was out there, and she had no idea if he was dead. Her best friend was out there fighting. Her comrades were out there fighting. It was hypocritical of Sansa to bring up hostility when this fight is supposed to be uniting armies against a common enemy that could spell death for everyone in Westeros, and yet Sansa’s attitude was so against that unity. And I think that’s precisely what set Missandei off - more than just her hostility toward Dany, or her hypocrisy for being in the Crypts while people fought; it was that Missandei was not going to put up with Sansa’s (indirect or direct, you can argue either way) sanctioning of Northern racism while her friends were literally out there dying for those Northerners, when the battle was supposed to unite people against Death itself.Â
Missandei defending Dany thus proves that Dany is not actually going to become a “Mad Queen”. We know full well that Missandei is usually soft spoken and very kind and gentle. That even Missandei got worked up enough to finally put Sansa in her place is very telling of how much Missandei has had to endure while at Winterfell. And this is deliberate: from the moment Missandei and Greyworm stepped foot in Winterfell, they faced hostility. D&D made it a point to show that in 8.01 and 8.02, with racism specifically targeting both of them. D&D also made it a point to have Greyworm and Missandei talk about how there was no place for them at Winterfell. Finally, both of them discussed that the point of showing Northern hostility was to exemplify that the Northerners do have these racist and xenophobic biases. They explicitly pointed this out, so this excuse that the Northerners just “don’t know what Black and brown people look like” is ignorant and willfully racist.Â
(Also, for anyone who dares to say that it’s Dany’s fault that the Unsullied and Dothraki were there: you people are so willing to forget everything that happened in the show just to hate Dany. Dany FREED the Unusllied from slavery. And then she ASKED them if they wanted to fight for her. She explicitly said that they were henceforth free, and could leave if they wanted to. She gave them a choice, and they CHOSE to fight for her. Greyworm specifically makes it a point to emphasize that Dany is his queen. Again, disrespecting the autonomy of Black characters is not actually progressive; it’s racist and antiblack, especially considering how few Black and brown characters there are in this series. Dany also asked Missandei if she wanted to stay by her side. She gave them choices, and they chose to follow her. Dany is important to them, and to ignore that is to conveniently sideline Black characters just to turn them into props for your own agenda, which, hilariously enough, is racist. Some people even defend slavery and the slavers just to hate on Dany which is fucking gross and ridiculous. Even if you hate Dany, defending slavery is fucking wrong. Also don’t even say bullshit like “she left them financially tenuous”. She was fucking young, younger than most of the characters, when she freed slaves, and she did everything she could to free them again. Literally blame the SLAVEOWNERS for slavery lmao, not the Queen who liberated them. Dumbasses.Â
And as for the Dothraki: I do agree, as a South Asian woman, that the writing in Dany’s storyline has taken on white saviorism at some points, and that the way both GRRM and later D&D have written the Dothraki is overtly racist and orientalist. There is no getting around that. Again, however, look at the facts: Dany was forcefully married to Khal Drogo, so she was forced to become a Khaleesi and then adopt that position when Drogo died. She’s cared about the Dothraki from the very beginning, since she defended them from Viserys and took the remaining Khalassar with her in season two. And at the end of season six, she had every right to burn down the temple full of the Khals who LITERALLY THREATENED TO GANG RAPE HER. If you’re defending rapists, I don’t know what to tell you. Finally, she, again, ASKED the Khalassar to follow her. She didn’t force them or threaten them or coerce them; she asked them to, and they ENTHUSIASTICALLY followed her. They’d never crossed the Narrow Sea, but because of Dany, they did.Â
Also, most Sansa stans who call Dany out are white themselves, and Sansa herself is literally white, and literally a privileged noblewoman, so there is nothing “more progressive” about stanning Sansa over Dany. They’re both powerful white women. There are racist aspects in both of their storylines. Sansa’s willful enabling of Northern hostility is explicitly racist as we have seen over and over again, and to gleefully ignore that while calling Dany a white savior is racist and it proves that most of y’all only care about the overt racism in game of thrones just to prove some anti-Dany point, rather than to actually care about racism in got and in the fantasy genre. Women of color have every right to criticize the white saviorism in Dany’s storyline, but when it comes from white people who want to glorify another white female character, it’s hypocritical and disingenuous.Â
Second of all, there was a big difference drawn between Sansa and Dany this episode, and it has to do with how they faced the imminent threat.Â
Sansa, when Arya tells her to go the Crypts, first says “I’m not abandoning my people”, but she realizes that she has to go there because she’s not a fighter. Then, in the Crypts, she rightfully tells Tyrion that he’d die if he went out there, because none of them are fighters, and that the most difficult and heroic thing for them to do is to can front the truth that they can’t do anything in this battle. I really loved that line because it shows Sansa’s integrity and her intelligence and her honesty. And yet! Not even two minutes later, she’s badmouthing Dany. Instead of doing something productive, such as soothing her people or her friends, she brought up hostilities. All while Dany and her people were out there fighting. So then what was the point of bringing up how she has to confront the truth? Is the most productive way to confront the truth to bring up her hostility toward Dany when Dany and her people are fighting for her home?Â
Meanwhile, when Dany was out there, and she saw that the Dothraki were dying, she got on to her dragons. Jon tried to stop her because their original plan was to wait for the Night King to show, and yet she couldn’t sit idly by and watch her people die. This directly contradicts the notion that Dany doesn’t care about her people. We see her burning significant portions of the Wight army. If she hadn’t done that, there would’ve been EVEN MORE Wights in Winterfell later on. In the Inside the Episode Segment, D&D explicitly stated that Dany, when she saw the Dothraki dying, didn’t want to just sit and watch, she wanted to help them and save them. She refused to give up on the Dothraki, which when we recall how her Khalassar died in season two, we know that she never wants to be in that position again. And yet she had to deal with her people dying for Winterfell the entire episode. Like, we know full well that Dany is very hands on. She doesn’t like to sit by and let people do work for her; she always wants to confront things directly, and that was firmly emphasized in this episode.Â
Moreover, people were claiming that Dany would attack or kill Jon after he revealed his parentage to her. Obviously that didn’t happen because most anti Dany people are absolute raging idiots who don’t have a single functional brain cell. Not only that though, she saved Jon twice in the episode. She knocked the Night King off Viserion, which eventually made it easier for him to be killed (and of course all credit goes to Arya for killing him!). But we know full well that if the Night King was on Viserion, it would’ve been nearly impossible for Arya to kill him. Moreover, because of Jon, she was stranded in the middle of the Wight Army without Drogon, and yet she TOLD HIM to go find Bran. And then when Jorah came and saved her, she didn’t cower behind him. She picked up a sword and fought by his side, to the bitter end. Dany has no training - she isn’t like Brienne or Arya. She doesn’t have magical powers like Melisandre. A lot of people claim that Dany is useless without her dragons, and yet she proved those people wrong. With no training and no prior combative experience, she successfully killed many Wights by Jorah’s side. And her absolute devastation when Jorah died once again shows that Dany is compassionate and that she cares about her people. If she didn’t care about Jorah, she wouldn’t have fought with him, or mourned him so emotionally, and Drogon wouldn’t have sensed his mother’s sadness and come to comfort her. Like the fact that you freaks are ignoring these obvious things really makes me wonder how much you have to hate women to come up with these bizarre ideas that Dany is dark or a mad queen or that she “pushed Jorah” in front of the Wight that killed him.Â
So while Sansa had given up on her ability to fight, and didn’t even try to comfort or save her people in the Crypts, Dany did not give up. Even without her dragons, stranded with Jorah in the middle of a Wight army, she fought till the end. By the way, Sansa has done this before: when Jon wanted to save Rickon, Sansa claimed that he’d die anyway. And Rickon did die! I’m not saying here that Sansa is selfish or weak. Obviously Sansa is hardened by everything she’s gone through, and is very clever and much more politically aware as a result, but the fact is that Dany, unlike Sansa, has never given up on her people, whereas Sansa’s wariness is a flaw. Moreover, I’ve literally seen Sansa stans claim that Dany “didn’t do anything in this episode”. Are you serious? How can you say that Dany was “useless” when she was integral to winning the Battle of Winterfell, both because of her armies and dragons and because she literally fought herself, and then simultaneously excuse Sansa’s actions in the Crypts? Sansa literally did not fight at all in this episode. How in the genuine fuck can you people simultaneously say that pointing out that Sansa didn’t fight at all and was quite hypocritical in 8.03 (and out of character, in my opinion) is misogynistic AND then say that Dany was “useless” when she was fighting and doing something concrete while Sansa wasn’t??? What kind of fucking cognitive dissonance are you people suffering from???? Like hello, did we watch the same episode???? Sansa gets to be “feminine” and “not fight” but Dany is “useless” even though she fought and helped out immensely? So what’s the truth? It’s bad for people to point out Sansa’s flaws, for people to glorify her and never legitimately deconstruct the bad writing in her storyline, but it’s wrong for people to defend Dany or point out literal objective truths about her actions?Â
Finally, people have been calling Dany manipulative, and yet these same people praised Sansa for acting like Cersei in 8.01 and like Margaery in 8.02. And like the thing is this: if Dany only fought for Winterfell to to get their help, she wouldn’t have told Jon that she’ll fight for the North, that she’s going to save the North. She allowed him to mine Dragonglass before he bent the knee to her. She came to save Jon and the crew in season 7 when they were stranded north of the wall. She’s lost one of her dragons, ONE OF HER CHILDREN, her most trusted advisor, and so many of her Dothraki and Unsullied soldiers for the North. She’s recognized that fighting for the North meant fighting for life itself. She could’ve easily packed up and waited it out on Dragonstone, or attacked Kings Landing first, and left Winterfell in the dust. But she didn’t, and because she didn’t is one of the reasons Winterfell is still standing.Â
But you guys would find any reason to hate her. If Dany stuck to the original plan instead of helping out the Dothraki, y’all would’ve called her selfish. If she cowered behind Jorah, y’all would’ve called her weak. If she didn’t save Jon, y’all would’ve called her a Mad Queen or manipulative anyway. We even saw her bonds with so many people in this episode and we saw Missandei explicitly defending her, but that’s not enough I guess. You freaks keep coming up with excuse after excuse because your misogyny makes you so fucking delusional. Dany didn’t burn Jon or Winterfell or abandon anyone or manipulate anyone. She didn’t kill Jaime when he arrived. Every fucked up thing y’all have said Dany will do hasn’t happened because y’all are so unwilling to actually pay attention to who she is. Dany has done nothing to Sansa for her to get this kind of hate from Sansa stans, especially considering all the parallels between Dany and Sansa. Dany is one of the reasons Sansa’s home is still standing, and I hope she comes to appreciate that, and I hope that y’all do too.Â
I’m going to block any racist, misogynistic, or anti Dany freaks, so don’t even try it.Â
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