If Dany was a man she would look even more like a white imperialist, I'd be business as usual.
Imagine this with a white man with blonde hair, I can already see the ERA thread.....
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What Daenerys Targaryen meant to me (full GOT spoilers)
- Thread starter BDS
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Imagine this with a white man with blonde hair, I can already see the ERA thread.....
Did you willfully ignore the part where I implied that, for the analogy to kind of work, gender-bent Dany would have to be a POC, or?
Thus rendering your point moot, unless you wanna make the wild and inane point that POC can be white imperialists.
User banned (1 week): talking down to women/attempting to shut down discussion of sexism over a series of posts
If she was a man we would be complaining that they were trying to remake Jesus on the show or something.
Our perception of the character HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH HER BEING A WOMAN. Stop trying to make this some sort of sexist thing..
"Madness" is a bit of a straw man. She fundamentally can't work as a leader with or without it, there is no ending by anyone that would have her reigning over the seven (six plus one?) kingdoms in any long term fashion- "mad" or otherwise. She needs war and conquest. Who the looks at Daenerys and thinks about thoughtful leadership, peace, or stability versus someone like Sansa?
No I misread because your post comes off as intentionally antagonizing and Its stupid to equate being a POC and a Women when it comes to oppression.
Agreed. The books will ultimately end in the same way. Truly tragic character.
I mean she lays it all out. The war is not over. Winterfell and others must be liberated. Its not enough that she be Queen of the 7 Kingdoms. The 7 Kingdoms must cease to exist as must their leadership. She has to be Queen Daenerys, Ruler of the One Kingdom.
No, you're pretty sure and it's okay to say so: That critique ain't it.
There were hundreds of years of Targaryen rule, much of which was peaceful, and during much of which dragons existed peacefully.
Yet we have women in the show like Sansa, Arya and Lady Tarth to name a few who arguably went through similar circumstances and yet they don't go on a murder spree of hunderds and thousands of innocent people.
I never wanted Dany to be queen, more exactly, it never crossed my mind GRRM or D&D would make her(or Jon) rule in the Iron Throne, I never expected them to be queen or king and I think the "mad queen" idea isn't so bad but the execution is so so bad, like laughably bad.
Not everyone reacts the same way to life's circumstances. Not everyone is made of the same stuff. As we see in real life.
I never said anything about Targaryens in general, I asked about Daenerys and her dragon(s). There's no scenario where her rule end with peace. Is she going to allow the North to be free? Absolutely not.
The mistake was having not realised after Season 4 that this was the best financed bad fanfic project the world has ever known. Have faith instead in the books, her character there will actually have an arc that both makes sense and is relatable, and her 'madness' will be a part of it but not define her or be the end of her story.
And that's why she had to go, she was going full Nazi
Winterfell didn't need to be liberated, she was just there, what bothered her there the most besides
A) no one looked at her a savior
B)Sansa refusing to kneel to another tyrant.
Girl talked about liberating the people of Kingslanding. Yet she killed them all, I saw one citizen and half the flesh on his body was burned off.
The big disconnect is that the story was long foreshadowing Dany slowly becoming a tyrant, not quickly becoming fucking Hitler. There's a difference in degrees.
They didn't have a dragon either.
Not saying rhey would have but none of them had armys at their back and dragons they have been crushing with up to that point.
People react and change to similar circumstances differently.
Danny turning was not well handled but a more competent show runner could've done it. They needed 1 more season though...
In the books, which delve much more into Meereenese politics, Daenerys very much achieves peace in Meereen because she's a talented political maneuverer.
Unfortunately that peace is shattered when she's taken away by Drogon, because the Shavepate — Meereen's Littlefinger — manipulates the politically uncanny Barristan.
She's... pretty terrible really, and readily admits for her preference for conquest over long term peace and stability. In addition to a yearning/entitlement for a throne that rivals Stannis/Renley/Cersei's own entitlement.
No. The peace is shattered because Dany chose to save Drogon in the pits. She could have had her peace or her dragons, she chose her dragons. That was the entire point of her ADWD arc, floppy ears or fire and blood, she chose fire and blood.
Dany deserved more than to spend almost the entire endgame in the background looking worried about threats to her rule and reacting to her closest allies being slaughtered. We get tons of scenes of Jon struggling with how to deal with his true identity or Tyrion slowly realizing he's an idiot, but we never really get a view into Dany's thoughts and that's what we needed to understand the tragedy of her burning King's Landing. It's like if GRRM decided to nix all Dany viewpoint chapters in ADoS and have the pivotal turn be told from Cercei's perspective viewing it from the Red Keep Tower.
Gonna post a link to this pretty brilliant essay on Daenerys' chapters in ADWD, seeing as people are quoting it:
https://meereeneseblot.wordpress.co...reenese-knot-part-i-who-poisoned-the-locusts/
Contrast the subtle character development in ADWD, with the pro wrestling style rapid heel-turn of the show. Daenerys' inner conflict should have been the focus of the entire season, but it felt more like an afterthought.
https://meereeneseblot.wordpress.co...reenese-knot-part-i-who-poisoned-the-locusts/
Contrast the subtle character development in ADWD, with the pro wrestling style rapid heel-turn of the show. Daenerys' inner conflict should have been the focus of the entire season, but it felt more like an afterthought.
Perception of any human being, fictional or otherwise is heavily influenced by gender whether you want it or not, whether your realize it or not. Do you wanna talk about how men perceive women who ever so slightly display a tiny modicum of leadership skills as being "bossy" and "bitchy" in a negative way while the exact same behavior from male counterparts are perfectly acceptable and seen as normal? Do you wanna talk about how when women open their mouths for 30% of the time in evenly-gendered spaces, men perceive it to actually amount to 50% instead of the actual 30%? Do you wanna talk about how men are allowed to express anger and negative emotions in public spaces without fear of having it used against them, of being slandered because of them, of having their opinions disregarded because of them, while women are always belittled, ridiculed and disregarded as soon as they express those exact same feelings? Your failure, and the one of many in this thread, to realize their perception of Daeneys and of her behavior can also be DEEPLY influenced by sexism, is baffling. But I suppose you're the special chosen one who somehow managed to transcend and rise above years of pervasive and insidious conditioning from the inescapable and omnipresent patriarchal society we all live in, and thus are able to judge Daenerys as a character without being influenced by her gender in the slightest, my sincere congratulations.
Can't believe I thought ERA would be a progressive space, ugh. My bad.
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D&D intentionally severing the viewer's previous link to Dany just when we needed to understand her most will probably stand as the single worst choice they made in their handling of these characters.
It's like they were so repelled by the outline they had to follow for where the character would end up that they took it upon themselves to spare viewers from the disgust. Like they thought we couldn't handle it. Or maybe they just didn't care to do the work required to present her that way.
Meanwhile, in the books we get chapter after chapter diving into Cersei's head. This kind of material is the very core of what this series should be about.
I think this is the sort of storytelling choice people are referring to when they say GoT feels so much more like average television with a big budget these last few seasons. Yanking the camera away from characters as they become something the viewer might not like, making the choice for us to stop empathizing, is about as standard TV storytelling as it gets.
i dont think so, IIRC ive never really looked up to anyone in fiction
ive looked up to the creators sometimes, but never the creations themselves
Nah thats how I am too, that why its hard having discussions about shows with some people because they are too invest.
Yes, but as you can see, we're not talking about the fictional character's traits as "bossy" or "bitchy". We aren't trying to wield the hammer of sex against her character when it's clear she has several structural impediments within the narrative itself because of her gender. What do you want people to say? To just blanket agree with how you interpreted the art? I am genuinely asking, what do you believe that people should see here? I believe that there's a fairly universal consensus here that how the show handled her was incredibly poorly. But I don't find the other things you're talking about to even be part and parcel of this conversation we're having in this individual thread. That isn't to dismiss them, or deride them, or say they don't exist.
I, personally, think it's not a healthy outlet either to view a fictional character as a role model for women to use to break their chains because a fictional character, unless you're the one that made it can always end up disappointing you in the end. You have to engage with the art as presented, and sometimes the art is going to leave you feeling like it didn't turn into what some thought it would be and it leaves people saddened or angry. The characters agency is within the story, as crafted by the teller, but as an observer the expectations of engagement in art aren't a healthy dialogue it's that you become invested in believing that the art is also yours, that the art should conform to how you want them to act. You can always interpret art how you wish, but interpretation is a different animal than believing that you should have the ability to impact the story yourself.
If a character empowered you that's wonderful, and I am so glad that something profound and powerful came from it, that's the beauty of narrative and storytelling, how it can empower and embolden people to become better. But there are lines that you should stand behind because without them you're left with nothing BUT the art to hold together how you frame your life.
It's in large part because we've basically removed all easy and compulsory explanations as to why "things are this way". The media apparatus has no interest in explaining why things are this way, the political apparatus functions entirely on you NOT knowing that. So people retreat into "culture", into media, because media is something that's understandable. Especially a fictional world, because that world has rules and the rules are explained to you, you see very clearly how that world functions, how people function within it, and who they are. So you extrapolate that into yourself and society at large because nothing else offers you an answer. Or because the answer you draw is awful and you want to retreat.
Nothing else gives you even the illusion of agency
We've so removed agency from peoples lives unless you make like $250K a year that this is the only thing people do to feel in control of even just something.
But it's a retreat, a fantasy concocted because people's material needs and conditions are so detached from everything they, personally, can do to have any impact whatsoever that the apparatus that constructs all of this keeps it that way on purpose, because a retreat into the fictional at least gives you some semblance of meaning. People want to know why things are how they are, they want to connect, they want to understand the world they live in. But there's so many layers and overwhelmingly obfuscations of it that it becomes too much to parse through. So we're just left with millions upon millions of people retreating into spaces that they can at least understand.
Dany's story was a bit rushed but for me it made a lot of sense, it probably helped that I never liked her, I thought from day one that she was an entitled cow with a cruel streak who didn't care half as much about the people as she pretended.
She watched her brother die a gruesome death and barely cared, she was perfectly fine with the Dothraki raping and murdering, she burned Mirri alive for getting her justified revenge, that Dany expected Mirri to be grateful for being "saved" shows how far gone she was even back then.
She threatened Quarth to burn the city and its people as soon as her dragons were grown when things didn't go her way, she made a deal to buy unsullied and then reneged on that and murdered the slave masters. We can pretend that freeing the salves was a good thing but she didn't give a shit about the people of Astapor, she just walked away with the unsullied and left a bunch of people and a power vacuum behind ... yay? She also proved that she's not trustworthy, her word means nothing and that's not a good thing if she ever wants to engage in diplomacy.
In Mereen she had an entire class of people executed (only to then realize that oops, maybe some weren't as bad), she fed people to her dragons, she talked about fire and blood all the times, about turning cities to ash. She burned the Khals not because it was goimg to help anyone, she did it to gain more strength.
Her fixation on westeros and the iron throne was nothing but entitlement, she didn't want to free the people from westeros ... free them from what? An absolute monarch? No because she just wanted to replace whoever was on the throne when she arrived and be an absolute ruler herself, she wasn't going to make people's lifes better.
During the most recent war she was the aggressor, she invaded westeros and as shitty as Cersei and Euron were they had every right to defend themselves, Dany was basically pissed because Cersei didn't roll over and surrender. "She watched her dragon die", so what? She can call them her children as much as she wants, they are flying weapons of mass destruction and are a valid target especially in a war Dany started.
She watched her brother die a gruesome death and barely cared, she was perfectly fine with the Dothraki raping and murdering, she burned Mirri alive for getting her justified revenge, that Dany expected Mirri to be grateful for being "saved" shows how far gone she was even back then.
She threatened Quarth to burn the city and its people as soon as her dragons were grown when things didn't go her way, she made a deal to buy unsullied and then reneged on that and murdered the slave masters. We can pretend that freeing the salves was a good thing but she didn't give a shit about the people of Astapor, she just walked away with the unsullied and left a bunch of people and a power vacuum behind ... yay? She also proved that she's not trustworthy, her word means nothing and that's not a good thing if she ever wants to engage in diplomacy.
In Mereen she had an entire class of people executed (only to then realize that oops, maybe some weren't as bad), she fed people to her dragons, she talked about fire and blood all the times, about turning cities to ash. She burned the Khals not because it was goimg to help anyone, she did it to gain more strength.
Her fixation on westeros and the iron throne was nothing but entitlement, she didn't want to free the people from westeros ... free them from what? An absolute monarch? No because she just wanted to replace whoever was on the throne when she arrived and be an absolute ruler herself, she wasn't going to make people's lifes better.
During the most recent war she was the aggressor, she invaded westeros and as shitty as Cersei and Euron were they had every right to defend themselves, Dany was basically pissed because Cersei didn't roll over and surrender. "She watched her dragon die", so what? She can call them her children as much as she wants, they are flying weapons of mass destruction and are a valid target especially in a war Dany started.
Being progressive != seeing every form of media through the lens of oh thats sexist, fucking writers are obviously men.
Hell at one point I even rooted for her in some of her actions, doesn't stop her from not being "good". The same with Jamie Lanister, once Lady Tarth came into the picture Jamie became a sort of moral grey character that I grew pretty attached to, and his demise was just a tragic end, just like Danerys. Doesn't change the fact that neither of them were good people or fit to rule.
Maybe stop reading/watching media written by men? Don't know what to tell you. I wonder if you would have the same outrage if this exact same outcome was written by a woman.
You see similarities in her story arc, every where in fiction. Frodo in LOTR, Anakin in StarWars, Tony Stark in Avengers AOU. Good intentions corrupted by power, and using that power to do what you think is right no matter the consequences. Not so much in Frodos case, but had it not been for Golum attacking him on Mount Doom he would have kept the ring and the world of men would have fallen. You can make the case that Frodos redemption was done prior to reaching mount doom, and that he was just too corrupted by power then to let it go.. In the same light you can make the same assertion of Danerys, but in her case her decline was a slow build for 7 seasons(where you see power taking over and her belief in being the savior) that went into HYPERDRIVE in the last 3 episodes.
That's what I said?
You're describing the metaphorical point of no return for Meereenese peace, yes, but that is not the literal point that the peace is shattered, which is what I described.
The mistake is in thinking that Daenerys' character arc is over or irrecoverable as of the end of ADWD — that she will grow no more, that she is now fixed in Fire and Blood. I think that's a fundamentally flawed presupposition, because she has quite a lot of plot ahead of her; just look at the House of the Undying prophecies, her role as Slayer of Lies, as Bride of Fire.
Daenerys strove for peace, then decided on war (which will last from Vaes Dothrak to Volantis to Pentos to King's Landing), and finally I think she'll find a middle ground by going North and defending the realm against the Others to ensure its existence — likely after being horrified at the metaphorical extreme of Fire and Blood through the jade holocaust at King's Landing.
Though who knows when and how Euron factors in, except to say his storyline is inexorably linked to hers, as he'll be representative of the dark temptation of her heritage (the full suit of Valyrian Steel armor, his tales) and will likely steal one of her dragons via Dragonbinder.
A Song of Ice and Fire is about the human heart in conflict with itself. Daenerys' conflict is not over or decided in favor of Fire and Blood.
Oh and one last thing. If Danerys was truly a "good" character who was so concerend with her families legacy and making things right she would have stepped aside once it was discovered that the true heir to the Iron Throne was not her.
I won't object some people get too invested. r/Freefolk alone had countless people unironically state that they won't have anything to live for post the series' conclusion. Nonetheless, it shouldn't be that difficult to see how fiction can have an impact on marginalized and oppressed groups. Black Panther was a fucking highlight for black America and rightfully so, so why can women not derive a sense of pride from GoT's Daenerys, a survivor of sexual abuse and other hardships, who wouldn't let herself be put down by all the men that tried? Even as a guy, I thought that she was inspiring.
Her own husband she married to keep the peace was trying to poison her. She had nothing under control in Meereen.
Hizdahr was very much not the poisoner, and the peace was real. The author himself has said this is the correct reading.
uh no, you're referring to a brief period.
Apparently the OP and lots of others here. They won't be happy with the book conclusions either.
Yeah I know the theories about it being the Shavepate, which I don't buy, but even if I do, you've got the same problem, the peace hasn't been achieved, it's just a different faction breaking it.
The dragonpit was made by Maegor I that was a son of Aegon I, that isnt a brief period