Because apparently, many of Dany’s “crimes” are perpetuated/more apparent in the books, so I went ahead and skipped directly from book 2 to book 5 to see what the hell these accusations were all about.
1) The Grazdan zo Galare case
Crime: Dany inventing rules as she please, self-righteousness
If you have no idea what this is all about:
The noble Grazdan had once owned a slave woman who was a very fine weaver, it seemed; the fruits of her loom were greatly valued, not only in Meereen, but in New Ghis and Astapor and Qarth. When this woman had grown old, Grazdan had purchased half a dozen young girls and commanded the crone to instruct them in the secrets of her craft. The old woman was dead now. The young ones, freed, had opened a shop by the harbor wall to sell their weavings. Grazdan zo Galare asked that he be granted a portion of their earnings. "They owe their skill to me," he insisted. "I plucked them from the auction bloc and gave them to the loom."
Dany listened quietly, her face still. When he was done, she said, "What was the name of the old weaver?"
"The slave?" Grazdan shifted his weight, frowning. "She was … Elza, it might have been. Or Ella. It was six years ago she died. I have owned so many slaves, Your Grace."
"Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. From you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman."
The verdict: honestly? Grazdan came to Dany expecting a wage for buying half a dozen slaves. We can safely assume that he already made a few bucks from the girls’s work before they were freed. Instead of granting him the wage he asks for, Dany orders him to to pay the girls for their previous work, which, I’m sure, earned Grazdan zo Galare a fair fortune already. One he was allowed to keep, too. Sounds fair to me.
2) The rich woman whose home was turned into a brothel
Crime: Dany is a hypocrite. She considers that a home is lost when you abandon it, while still considering the IT as hers.
if you have no idea what this is about:
A rich woman came, whose husband and sons had died defending the city walls. During the sack she had fled to her brother in fear. When she returned, she found her house had been turned into a brothel. The whores had bedecked themselves in her jewels and clothes. She wanted her house back, and her jewels. "They can keep the clothes," she allowed. Dany granted her the jewels but ruled the house was lost when she abandoned it.
The verdict: those girls turning the house into a brothel likely came from the “starving horde” that followed Dany from Astapor and Yunkaï. You can work out the rest. (In case you don’t, I’ll spell it out: these were homeless and penniless girls. If Dany orders them out, they end up in the streets.) It doesn’t grant them legal ownership of the house, of course, but since this is supposed to mirror Dany’s claim that Westeros is her home, let’s just say that Dany won’t get her “home” back by politely asking the 7 gods (or Robert, or Cersei) for it. She’ll have to earn it back. Why should it be different for the old woman? If she wants her house, she’ll have to earn it back as well. (She could, for instance, sell her jewels and re-buy the house.)
3) The young noble boy who wants revenge for the rape and murder of his parents
Crime: Dany is a hypocrite. She declared general immunity for the crimes committed during the sack of Meereen, while holding the Lannister responsible for the rape and murder of Elia and her children.
If you have no idea what this is about:
Can’t find the quote, but the general situation is: Dany’s armies marches on Meereen. Meereenese slaves rebels against their masters. In this particular case: 2 slaves raped the boy’s mother and killed her and her husband. The boy want the two ex-slaves hanged.
The verdict: this is a delicate situation. Dany claims that she doesn’t want to punish slaves for rebelling against their masters, which - theoretically - sounds legit. Then she’s faced with what it means (for some) to “rebel” against their masters, but by then she’s already declared amnesty for any crimes committed during the sack, and she can’t really go back on her words. The book made it pretty clear that most of these “crimes” were indeed committed by ex-slaves against their masters (again, sounds alright and well deserved for the masters when you don’t think about it too much), not by Dany’s soldiers. In fact, much of the unsullieds’s job was to put and end to these crimes after the city was taken.
In comparison, the murder of Elia, Aegon and Rhaenys was ordered by the Lannisters. Elia’s only “fault” was to be married to Rhaegar and her death was neither necessary (unlike the death of slavers from Astapor, who, had they lived, would have just gone back to the slave trade) nor deserved (she was innocent in every possible ways, and so were her children.)
4) The torture of the wine seller's daughter(s)
Crime: Dany authorized the torture of the wine seller’s daughters in front of their father’s eyes after 2 of her unsullieds died of drinking poisoned wine bought from said wine seller.
The verdict: currently, in Meereen, every freed slave is a target for the Sons of the Harpy. The SotH don’t only attack unsullieds/soldiers. Dany liberated thousands of slaves, and now those ex-slaves are being slaughtered (and raped before, sometime) for no other reason than being ex-slaves. Dany feels responsible for them. She considers them her children. She thinks it’s her fault that they’re being assaulted and killed right under her nose, because she’s the one who freed them. So she authorizes what she authorizes once (because the wine seller is the only suspect she manages to get her hands on), then forbid Skahaz from doing it again because it doesn’t work anyway.
Crime: Dany perpetuates forced labor; allow people to sell themselves back into slavery (and keep the money)
If you have no idea what this is about:
Xaro gave a languid shrug. “As it happens, when I came ashore in your sweet city, I chanced to see upon the riverbank a man who had once been a guest in my manse, a merchant who dealt in rare spices and choice wines. He was naked from the waist up, red and peeling, and seemed to be digging a hole.”
“Not a hole. A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water.”
“How kind of my old friend to help with the digging. And how very unlike him. Is it possible he was given no choice in the matter? No, surely not. You have no slaves in Meereen.”
Dany flushed. “Your friend is being paid with food and shelter. I cannot give him back his wealth. Meereen needs beans more than it needs rare spices, and beans require water.”
“Would you set my dancers to digging ditches as well? Sweet queen, when he saw me, my old friend fell to his knees and begged me to buy him as a slave and take him back to Qarth.”
She felt as if he’d slapped her. “Buy him, then.”
“If it please you. I know it will please him.”
The verdict: There’s many points to cover here. Xaro implicitly accuses Daenerys of resorting to forced labor (slavery). Daenerys’s answer, however, implies something else: many ex-slavers tried (or are still trying) to exhort monetary compensation from Daenerys for their lost source of income (slavery). Daenerys refuses to compensate them. It’s likely that the spices merchant came to ask for a compensation as well (presumably, Meereen, Yunkaï and Astapor were big buyers of fine spice and wines before Dany arrived and crashed their economy), and after all, why not? Spices and wines aren’t slaves. There’s nothing wrong with selling spices and wines. Doesn’t mean that Dany can afford to restore the merchant’s wealth, though. The best she can do is offer the man an alternative source of income, which she does. Food and shelter? Even slaves get that much! Yeah, I’ve heard that one. The difference is, a slave who refuses to work gets crucified. A free man who refuses to work goes hungry. Food and shelter aren’t a big income, by any means, but in itself it’s still an income. Could Dany have afforded to pay him more? Meereen isn’t exactly rich at the moment, and Dany have to: 1) compensate every days dozens of shepherds who claims (not always truthfully, but Dany gives them the benefit of the doubt regardless) that a dragon killed their sheep, 2) pay her unsullieds (or else, how would they buy wine and brothel services?), 3) compensate a man for raising the child of her wife (an ex bed slave) and her previous master, 4) feed the refugees from Astapor, 5) feed the meereenese, 6) God knows what else. Even in Meereen, money doesn’t grow on trees. Yet, if Dany was so desperate for hole diggers that she’d threaten them to get to work or else (what Xaro is implying), it really wouldn’t have been in her interest to allow Xaro to buy the man. So, forced labor? To be taken with a grain of salt.
There’s also the paradox of the free man freely choosing to sell himself into slavery. Something doesn’t sounds right? If he sell himself, who gets the money but him? If he gets money, isn’t that a form of payment?
Oh right, some people are claiming that Dany keeps the money.
Actually, she keeps a tenth of if, not the full amount. It’s called income tax, folks. And she doesn’t claim a penny from Xaro.
The crime: Daenerys laughed at him
If you have no idea what this is about:
Can’t find the quote, but anyway: Quentyn traveled to Meereen to make a marriage offer to Dany. He calls himself “frog” and Dany laugh because upon learning that he’s a prince, she can’t help but think of the “Princess and the Frog” tale.
The verdict: come on people. (Btw, after she’s done laughing, Dany orders that Quentyn be treated as a noble guest)
The crime: Dany led him on... somehow... then she fled Daznak’s pit on Drogon’s back, nobody knew where she had gone, and Quentyn decided to be her hero. He decided to get a dragon for himself first. It didn’t end well.
The Verdict: Dany clearly told Quentyn that she couldn’t marry him (because she had to marry Hizdahr) and pressed him to return to Dorne because it was dangerous in Meereen anyway. Quentyn wouldn’t have any of it, so Daenerys changed her tactic: she brought him in the catacombs where Viserion and Rhaegal were chained, all the while slightly flirting with him, calling him “Quentyn”, holding his hand, kissing him on the cheek, etc. Quentyn was quite smitten with Dany, and ready to shit himself because of the dragons beneath them. What was that all about? Leading him on? I doubt it. Dany was trying to scare him off. She told him straight up that her dragons sometime frightened even her. She told him that she couldn’t protect him from them. She told him that she was a dragon too. She told him that he’d be getting fire and blood by marrying her. She told him of her excessively jealous (and deadly) lover Daario. She was trying to show him exactly what he’d be earning by marrying her. She was telling him that it wasn’t worth it, that he should give up on her already and get the fuck out of Meereen while he still could.
General verdict : made mistakes, but not guilty. Was stuck in no-wins situations for the most of it. No-wins situations means that no matter what you do, some people will criticize you, and if you do nothing, they’ll criticize you even more. No Dany, you’re not an evil psycho bitch.
If needs be, I’ll do more of these after reading books 2, 3 and 4.