So, this post isn’t wholly about the show. The show’s writing and character development have been in a nosedive since Season 5. They clearly bungled Daenerys’s turn; they just didn’t devote enough time and energy to it.
And obviously Daenerys has become a fan favorite, one of the heroes in a story full of Joffreys, Ramseys, and Cerseis. People, especially women, related to her story of rising from an abusive, oppressive situation and growing into a strong, independent woman. The turn was hard to accept.
And a big part of that is because of George R.R. Martin himself.
If you play an openly antisemitic, racist, & transphobic game which directly supports its’ openly antisemitic, racist and transphobic creator… You don’t get to call yourself an ally. Full stop.
I get it, HP was many people’s childhood. Nostalgia, memories… But at some point you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it. You were children back then, and most of you can truthfully claim you didn’t know better. But now…? The vast majority of you? You are adults. You are no longer children.
Jewish people have asked - begged - us to listen to them about JKR’s antisemitic shit for years. Trans people are (also) actively being put in danger because of how JKR is using her money.
At some point you have to ask yourself, is it really worth to play a game - knowing full well what it supports - just for some childhood nostalgia? To re-live some memories? Is it really worth to play a game you full well know at this point actively aims to hurt Jewish, PoC and Queer people?
… Sadly some of you will say yes, it’s worth it for you.
However, that also means you will face consequences of your choice.
And we are watching - searching - for who we can trust.
Is it truly worth it, to live in a world where your Jewish, Queer and PoC friends know they can’t trust you?
Because we will know.
We will know your childhood nostalgia and memories meant more to you than than our lives.
He’s a Baratheon with a Targaryen great-grandmother. He was raised with the small folk so he knows their problems and (Bill Clinton voice) feels their pain.
I like Gendry but he would never be a fit King. Knowing simple folk doesn’t magically make you a wise ruler. Great blacksmith, nice guy doesn’t equate great ruler. He’s unsure, impulsive , proposed to a girl because he thought they had a deep love and him being a Lord her being Noble equals perfect. Hell he was less qualified then his Dad . Bran has literally centuries of wisdom, intelligent, supernaturally insightful and trained to rule. No contest.
Making Bran king completely ignores the expectations and norms of Westeros. Great southern lords aren’t going to agree to let some weird woods witch from the North be king. That council was ridiculous. I guarantee Yara Greyjoy and the Prince of Dorne are immediately starting rebellions when they get home. I doubt even Bran’s own family are going to be that warm on his rule; Sansa embarrassing Edmure in public like that probably didn’t fill him with familial love for his sister’s children (He also spent years as a prisoner because Robb couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, and Robin Arryn’s mother refused to let the Vale help in the War of the Five Kings).
And Bran is wise? What’s your proof for that? What has he done in the last few seasons other than destabilize the political situation in the country? And trained to rule? He was a child when forced to flee Winterfell and then lived for several years in the woods. Trained to rule a treefort, maybe.
I mean Bronn can’t have much more education or training than Gendry, BUT HE’S THE FUCKING MASTER OF COIN.
He's a Baratheon with a Targaryen great-grandmother. He was raised with the small folk so he knows their problems and (Bill Clinton voice) feels their pain.
Arya, a girl with no discernable naval talent or training: I'm going to sail into the Sunset Sea! With one boat! I'll be the first to find what's on the other side!
So, this post isn’t wholly about the show. The show’s writing and character development have been in a nosedive since Season 5. They clearly bungled Daenerys’s turn; they just didn’t devote enough time and energy to it.
And obviously Daenerys has become a fan favorite, one of the heroes in a story full of Joffreys, Ramseys, and Cerseis. People, especially women, related to her story of rising from an abusive, oppressive situation and growing into a strong, independent woman. The turn was hard to accept.
And a big part of that is because of George R.R. Martin himself.
Hear me out. These books have been coming out since 1996. That means some people have been reading about Daenerys for almost 25 years. A quarter century. And for most of the books, Daenerys has unquestionably been a hero.
Yes, she has a ruthless streak. She loses her temper. Its part of what makes her human. But in the last book, A Dance With Dragons (2011), most of her story revolves around things like; 1) her advisers pressing her to start killing the slavers’ families and her refusing, 2) continuing to keep her children locked beneath the pyramid because they might have killed a child, and 3) she struggles on how to protect and provide for the refugees flocking to the gates of Meereen. She is still a hero. She is still Mhysa, the Breaker of Chains, a woman still concerned with protecting the people she’s freed rather than conquering Westeros.
This is the Daenerys that fans of the books have been reading about for 25 YEARS. This is the image of Daenerys that fans have allowed to crystallize in the hearts. And GRRM’s slow writing, his insistence on working on other projects, have allowed that image to form. If he had released all 7 of these books in, say, a decade (like Harry Potter of The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings), fans would not have had so much to immortalize Daenerys as the hero.
If a Feast for Crows (2005) / A Dance With Dragons (2011) had come out within a few years of A Storm of Swords (2000) with books 6 and 7 a few years after that, fans would have been more able to see the turn in Daenerys. But because GRRM has allowed so much time to pass, leaving Daenerys as a flawed hero but a hero none the less, her turn to a genocide-committing Mad Queen is just harder to swallow.
You can’t leave a character as a hero (especially such a sympathetic and inspiring hero) for OVER TWENTY YEARS and not expect that idea of her to take a firm root in your fandom.
So, Daenerys (a grown ass woman who has already buried a husband, a child and several other people with emotional grace) sees her best friend unjustly beheaded and she goes crazy.
Meanwhile, Arya sees HER FATHER unjustly beheaded (in addition to having her mother, two brothers and other important figures die) AS A CHILD becomes a perfectly functioning adult?
