“Only death pays for life”: what MMD teaches Dany about justice
“Only death pays for life” is the critical lesson Dany learns for her magical storyline, but I also interpret this as Mirri Maz Duur’s lesson to Daenerys about the futility of trying to save people while still accepting the system that led them to being oppressed in the first place.
Mirri Maz Duur is decidedly unimpressed by Dany’s show of kindness, and of her saving her life, because as she points out, a life in which you’ve been raped and taken as a slave, seen your people get mercilessly slaughtered around you, see your beloved temple go up in flames, only to end up being saved so that you can live and serve the man who was responsible, is no life at all:
“Saved me?” The Lhazareen woman spat. “Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me? I saw my god’s house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved.”
I have written here that the moment Dany chooses to claim the Lhazareen women for herself is when she shifts from pawn to player of the game, but also that she refuses to normalize the game to herself and refuses to play by its rules. The rules of this game state that a player would have to accept sex slavery, rape, and pillaging, and in fact leverage those acts to the player’s advantage. Dany rejects those rules and chooses to pivot so that she can protect people who by the game’s standards would be considered unimportant collateral. However, as significant as the moment is for Dany, we don’t get a viewpoint of the Lhazareen women until Mirri herself vocalizes the harsh truth: what Dany did had great intention behind it, but it was ultimately futile, because it was still operating in the hegemony of the Dothraki social infrastructure, in which the title of Khaleesi is meaningless, women have no power, and the Khal can trample as many nations to dust as he wants to.
Mirri and Dany are unable to take each other’s perspectives in this moment, because of the situation they are in. Mirri doesn’t understand that “Khaleesi” is an empty title, especially for a 14 year old girl. The only way Dany could’ve halted the ongoing rapes of the Lhazareen women was by claiming them as her own, and then convincing Drogo that it was an act of strength, that it was something that pleased her. Mirri saw it as the entitled, childish Khaleesi of Khal Drogo taking what she wanted, made more dangerous by the fact that Dany’s womb houses the Stallion that will Mount the World. We know that Dany is the Stallion; Mirri doesn’t know that. To her, the prospect of Drogo’s son wreaking havoc on the world is horrifying to her, because Drogo has just destroyed all meaning in her life. And to Dany, she doesn’t see Mirri’s anger as justifiable, firstly because her son died (which no matter what wasn’t right or fair), secondly because she still has a love for Drogo despite the fact that she herself was Drogo’s veritable child bride and sex slave, and thirdly because to her, she used whatever tools at her disposal to save Mirri’s life. She did her best to put an end to the rape and take the women in. But Dany didn’t understand that the Khalasar was truly not a safe place for her, that a Khaleesi truly has no power of her own, that she was not in a position to actually protect people, and that “protecting” people by preserving the system that enslaved them is meaningless.
She had to learn this. She had to learn this in the most brutal way possible, first by learning that Drogo’s Khalasar was never a safe place for her, that she was never powerful or autonomous as Drogo’s Khaleesi, and second by learning the harsh truth from Mirri, that good intentions are nice and all but they don’t make for real change. And I’m not saying that a child’s murder was justified for this reason, but I am saying that narratively, this had to happen because otherwise, Dany wouldn’t have woken up to the truth. She has a personal connection to slavery, and comes to recognize that she was sold as a slave to Drogo (in spite of her still loving him), but Mirri’s betrayal of her both helps illuminate this personal connection to her and catalyzes her desire to actively destroy and supplant the system that enslaves human beings, destroys villages and nations, and facilitates the rape, torture, and murder of women and children.
Yet what I don’t see articulated is that MMD teaches Dany what a life really is by showing her how Drogo’s “life” is no longer a life. Dany herself points out that vegetative Drogo is not the real Drogo:
“This is not life, for one who was as Drogo was. His life was laughter, and meat roasting over a firepit, and a horse between his legs. His life was an arakh in his hand and his bells ringing in his hair as he rode to meet an enemy. His life was his bloodriders, and me, and the son I was to give him.”
This sounds very similar to what Mirri says about her own life. To Dany, Drogo was the bells in his air, the bond with his bloodriders, his son in her womb, his warrior status and power. For Mirri, life was all the knowledge she collected as a Maegi, the people in her village, the baker’s son, her temple and religion, all the people she healed with the power of her magic. And this is something important about Mirri’s speech: why should Drogo get his life back the way it was when Mirri, and the Lhazareen women, would never get their life back the way it was, especially if they’re forced to serve in Drogo’s Khalasar? What guarantee is there that Dany would always be able to protect them, knowing that a 14 year old child bride has no capacity to truly protect others when her own life is dependent upon the whims and abilities of her lord husband that owns her?
Dany immediately takes what she learns from Mirri to free her Khalasar:
“You will be my khalasar,” she told them. “I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one shall harm you. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.” The black eyes watched her, wary, expressionless. “I see the children, women, the wrinkled faces of the aged. I was a child yesterday. Today I am a woman. Tomorrow I will be old. To each of you I say, give me your hands and your hearts, and there will always be a place for you.”
This moment is so important because it shows that Dany has already taken what she’s learned from Mirri, not just in the magical sense but in the political sense as well, in the value for life and for individual human beings, in the understanding that a system that enslaves people is no noble system to preserve at all. Previously, Dany thought:
She was khaleesi, she had a strong man and a swift horse, handmaids to serve her, warriors to keep her safe, an honored place in the dosh khaleen awaiting her when she grew old … and in her womb grew a son who would one day bestride the world. That should be enough for any woman… (Dany VI AGOT)
Look at the difference between Dany freeing the Khalasar and Dany previously thinking her life with Drogo’s Khalasar would be good. When she frees her khalasar, there are no warriors to keep her safe besides Jorah and her bloodriders (who themselves are young, only a little older than Dany), only three handmaids, no Drogo, and certainly no illusion of power or prestige. That doesn’t matter to Dany, because these are HER people now (”hers, as they had never been Drogo’s”). And they had never been Drogo’s because Drogo’s Khalasar is so large in part because he’s enslaved so many people. But Dany does the opposite––she frees slaves, from this moment forward. In order to obtain her Khalasar, she’s not pillaging or turning villages into dust. She’s reaching out to them with her heart, and asking for their hearts in return. She’s giving them a permanent place both in her heart and in the Khalasar. She’s actively stating that they have a choice to follow her or find their own path, and no one will harm them for their choice. She acknowledges all the different members of the Khalasar (and later, in her first ACOK chapter, it’s noted that most of her Khalasar are women, elderly, children, and ailing people, aka the most vulnerable people that are usually abandoned to be left to their own devices).
She knows now that the system has to change, and immediately takes one crucial and important step to protect her Khalasar: frees them, gives them a choice, and reassures them not only that no harm will come to them if they choose to leave, but also that she will always have a place for them if they do choose to stay. This is why they were hers in a way they weren’t Drogo’s. Drogo didn’t care about his people. Drogo simply pillaged and enslaved and left destruction in his wake. But Dany cares about her people, she emotionally connects with them and gives them her heart. And she makes it very clear that she is the one responsible for protecting them. She takes that responsibility on to her shoulders.
In terms of what a real life is, this is also something that Dany learns, and we see the implications of that learning in her ASOS and ADWD arcs in particular. In Slaver’s Bay, she could have chosen to purchase the Unsullied without freeing them and without sacking the city to free slaves. Hell, she could’ve chosen to birth the dragons and then keep her Khalasar downtrodden the same way Drogo did his, with the threat of her dragons. She could’ve abandoned her Khalasar in the Red Waste. Or Vaes Tolorro. She could’ve even abandoned them after she miscarried Rhaego, and gone with Jorah, sold the dragon eggs to live in interminable wealth and comfort in one of the free cities. But she chose to take upon the responsibility of freeing and caring for her tiny little Khalasar (which again, as we know, offers her no “political” advantage, because 90% of her Khalasar is vulnerable people who have no combative ability). Then she chose to continue protecting them throughout the Red Waste. And they have accompanied her from the end of AGOT. Similarly, in Slaver’s Bay she could’ve chosen to move on without freeing slaves, or she could’ve purchased ships and armies with slaver gold and then headed to Westeros. She didn’t, because she has a personal connection to slavery, and that personal connection was illuminated by MMD’s lesson. But MMD’s lesson about what a true life is also impacts Dany’s perspective and actions in Slaver’s Bay.
You see, Dany could have stopped at freeing slaves in one city. Or she could’ve been more merciful toward slavers. Or she could’ve freed Meereen without trying to negotiate for peace with slavers. But Dany knows that a life in which you can easily be re-enslaved, a life in which you’re being discriminated against because you’re a former slave and thus can’t obtain a job to feed your children, a life in which rape continues to be justified, a life in which peace is built upon the corpses of children, a life in which slavers will take advantage of the vulnerability of the newly freed population, a life in which things like fighting pits exist and slaughter is normalized as recreation, a life in which you try to “free” slaves without eliminating the people who enslaved them, a life in which you DON’T teach the oppressors that they cannot get away with their actions, is no true “life” for the slaves/freedmen at all. Because they’re still vulnerable, they’re still at risk, they’re still in danger if the slavers are still alive, if the mere option of returning to slavery is still in consideration as a legitimate course of action. THIS is why Dany is so ruthless, in addition to her own anger at slavers and the personal connection she has with slaves. THIS is why it’s important for Dany to be ruthless against them. Like Mirri points out, stopping at “freeing” slaves without destroying the continent-wide system of slavery is meaningless because those slaves could easily go back to being re-enslaved, or they could be forced to serve the people who destroyed their lives in some capacity, and in any case, they have already been dehumanized and objectified. What is the point of freeing slaves if their slavers are still around to threaten them and endanger them and RE-ENSLAVE them? Dany HAD to be ruthless and merciless toward slavers. She’s crucified by all factions in the fandom for doing so, and her tale is seen as a reflection on the costs of war and peace and the limits of justice/how far people are willing to go in the name of justice. That’s your interpretation. My interpretation is that if Dany hadn’t been ruthless against the slavers, not only would the lives of the slaves be worse, but what MMD taught her would’ve been rendered meaningless. A life in which you’re teetering on the edge of going back to being dehumanized is no life at all.
And yes, Mirri’s eye-for-an-eye version of justice also teaches Dany a lesson, because clearly “163 noblemen for 163 slave children” was a vindictive eye-for-an-eye moment on Dany’s part. While I personally see nothing wrong with killing 163 members of an elite who profit off of slavery, and in fact I see it as necessary revolutionary violence, the fandom makes “intellectual” points about how eye-for-an-eye justice is part of the commentary in her arc when it concerns the limits of justice and how far someone can go in the name of justice. Fine, you can accept that premise, and I do think that MMD and Dany’s actions both are framed in universe as “justice going too far”. But still it’s clearly a reflection of MMD’s teachings. And Dany will of course be grappling with how far one can go in the name of justice before innocent people are effected, especially in TWOW, but she is going to rise above it. Learning the balance between justice and mercy is something that is a crucial part of Dany’s arc.
I also want to say that “only death can pay for life” may be interpreted as “only the death of an old system can pave the way for a new life in which we reconstruct a better world”. This is another theme in asoiaf, and it’s integral to Dany’s arc. Only Drogo’s death could ensure that Dany can take power for herself and free the remnants of his Khalasar. It’s also a very important distinction that all the powerful and able-bodied members of the Khalasar left with the Kos that broke off and made their own Khalasar, vs. Dany’s Khalasar being composed entirely of the weakest and most vulnerable members of the Khalasar who’d either have been killed or abandoned anyway, and who were unable to leave. It is only because Drogo died that Dany can genuinely protect them with her strength. Drogo’s death is one of the things that will pave the way for a new Dothraki, a united Khalasar, without the slavery and the rape and the pillaging. And similarly, only the death of the slavers and the system that they represent can pave the way for a continent-wide slave rebellion such that slaves can empower themselves and create a new, just world in Essos, in which no man, woman, or child has to fear being enslaved ever again. That new life will not be possible without revolutionary violence and the death of the elite, the death of the very system they operate within. Dany could not free slaves or protect the freedmen without killing slavers and noblemen. The death of the old system is necessary to build the new system from the ground up. Consider too that fire is cleansing in Dany’s arc and represents rebirth. Her fire paves the way for that human rebirth as well, where we are reborn in a world that is more just and the old world is turned into the ashes we build the new world on. Not only that, but the parallels between Dany X AGOT and Dany X ADWD are vast. Dany experiences a rebirth in both chapters, and in both chapters she truly embraces fire and blood as a path for that rebirth and as a path to gain the strength and power necessary to protect people. I often see it said that her re-embracing fire and blood spells disaster for Westeros, and is setting her up to go mad, or at the very least go dark. To be sure I do think she’ll be darker in TWOW, and again we’ll really be seeing an exploration of where justice treads over the line into hurting innocents, but this second rebirth that Dany experiences to me indicates that she will destroy the old system of slavery in Essos once and for all, to pave the way for a new life for the slaves so that they will never have to live under that system again. Only death can pay for life, and fire and blood is necessary to end the old system. As for Westeros, she’ll definitely engage in a lot of violence that won’t be seen as justified, but I also think the significance of that is it’ll illuminate Dany’s realization that the game of thrones is meaningless and the Throne itself is meaningless, and needs to be destroyed, because it’s a symbol of the worst ills of humanity. And again, it’ll be the death of that old system that paves the way for a new life in Westeros, which Dany will be part and parcel to creating. Not to mention that the death of the old system and the uniting of humanity for common cause against the Others is something Dany is foreshadowed to have an active role in.
In short: only death pays for life clearly has ramifications for the magical arc, not just for Dany but for other characters as well. But I think MMD’s lessons extend beyond that, and have already taught Dany a lot about what a real life is, and what it takes to achieve a real life for every individual human being to realize their full worth.
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