[ SECRET POST #4496 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4496 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #644.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[chamonix]

Serious question.

Why is she crazy?

[(Anonymous)]

She's been obsessed with conquering the seven Kingdoms and getting "back" the Iron Throne ever since - a country she left as a newborn because her father, dubbed "The Mad King", got killed and revolution was imminent. She was on the run with her older brother since then.

After her marriage / miscarriage / death of Khal Drogo she travelled across Essos, "conquering" /"saving" / "ruling" several slaving cities in preparation to conquering and ruling Westeros.

It's been interesting to see that the "madness" that runs in the Targaryen line is slowly getting more prominent as the seasons progress. (Source of that madness? probably the inbreeding - just looking at the family tree in "Fire and Blood" give you one hell of a headache).
She's getting more and more focused on One Goal, kind of "obsessed" and it starts to look like Viserys - his obsession got him killed as well - and her father.

[chamonix]

I could not disagree more.

Daenerys always had one goal - to find a HOME. At the start of GoT, this was as simple as the childhood place she remembered from Braavos. “All Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.” It is only when she begins to carve out some sort of agency for herself - begins to see in herself some worth apart from the men who dominate her (at that point being Drogo and Viserys) that she starts to associate that with her birthright to the Iron Throne. But even so, that desire is inextricably linked to her longing for home and family and belonging. "But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red."

As for her campaign in Slavers Bay, you might apply modern ideals about her affrontery to 'save' an entire populace, but the campaign is born of her experience AS a slave. She was sold to Drogo. She was his property. She was raped and brutalised. She puts her quest for the Iron Throne on HOLD because she refuses to abandon Mereen to anarchy and violence. If she were so obsessed, why does she put aside the object of her obsession in order to try her best to do the right thing for the people there?

(Note she also does this in season 7 when she abandons her quest again to fight Jon's war. She only realises the seriousness of it when she has already agreed to help him. Yet again, she puts her own dreams on hold to help her prospective future subjects).

I see no evidence of the Taragaryen "madness" becoming more prominent. If anything, she is even less impulsive and more thoughtful than her youthful forays into leadership. She listens carefully to her counsellors and values the input of her subjects. A lot of people cite her burning of the Tarlys as evidence of this impending madness, but seem curiously silent when reminded that Jon hung numerous loyal members of the Night's Watch - including a 10 year old boy - for disagreeing with him.

[(Anonymous)]

He hung them for murdering him. That's a hell of a lot more serious than disagreement.

[(Anonymous)]

the only difference between jon hanging his murderers and dany killing her enemies is that jon had a personal stake in his. Jon had been bullied by that one asshole ever since he arrived at the wall. Other than that the two situations are easily comparable

[(Anonymous)]

No, the difference is that Jon was hanging his murderers. Dany burned two men alive for not immediately accepting the rule of a foreign conqueror.

[chamonix]

Ok. What of the execution of Janos Slynt and the burning of Mance Rayder?

[(Anonymous)]

If she wanted a home, why is she conquering a (essentially) foreign land? There are no slaves to free. They are free people.

In regards to current show stuff. Why is she unable to assure Sansa that the North can rule themselves? She even starts to threaten Sansa when talking to Jon. If she just wants home, why does she have to rule everyone for that?


When she finds out who Jon is, her immediate thought is that he is coming for her throne.

[(Anonymous)]

she could have contended with dragonstone but nah, everything or nothing right?

[chamonix]

Because she has been threatened and undermined and taken advantage of from day one. She is in the land of her birth and her ancestral seat, but she doesn't know the ways of the people and is essentially a stranger in her own home. I am amazed she has been as open and trusting as she has, to be honest. She trusted Jon, she trusted Tyrion, she trusted Olenna and Varys. This is the throne that was usurped from her family (whether Aerys was mad or not) and the cause of her entire wretchedly miserable childhood in the Free Cities, penniless and begging, sold as chattel, assaulted and brutalised by both her brother and husband. Obviously those experiences have affected her. She no longer wants people to walk all over her.

She has already made HUGE concessions. The very reason she is IN the North to begin with is to help them defend their homeland. If she doesn't care about the people of the North, why isn't she pulling a Cersei and waiting for the North and the Walkers to deplete each others' armies before she even sets foot on a battlefield?

When Jon reveals her parentage, her immediate thought is that she has gone through hell and back to raise herself to a position where she is no longer a beggar, a slave or a refugee, she has worked and suffered and toiled, and then this guy just comes in and sweeps EVERYTHING she has worked towards under the rug simply by the fact that he exists. I think it's important to remember that we only get to see the last couple of years of Dany's life where things start to change for the better for her - specifically, when she hatches her dragons. The whole of the rest of her life she has been disregarded and swept aside and utterly powerless. Now the person she loves most appears to be in a position to do the same thing. She reacts in the moment. What is so inhuman about that?

[(Anonymous)]

Again, if she is just looking for "home", why not stay across the ocean with a people who love her? She isn't looking for home. She wants to conquer a people that freed themselves from her family's tyranny.

[chamonix]

She doesn't see it that way. She knows her father was not a good king, but she knows her brother was a good Prince. The tales she has been fed all her life are about the 'usurper'. They slaughtered her brother, soon-to-be king, a man everyone - even his enemies - seem to agree was fucking fantastic. They slaughtered his wife and butchered his children. Her mother was forced to flee and it is implied that the stress of the seige on Dragonstone lead in part to her death in childbirth not necessarily true, but something Viserys would have tormented Dany with).

Also let's not forget that the world of ASOIAF is not our world. It is feudal. Titles mean something. Dany is royalty. All she knows is that usurpers rebelled, butchered her family and took their ancestral seat. She has been penniless and destitute unstill she clawed her way to agency. This is her birthright. Of course she is going to place a tremendous amount of importance on that.

[(Anonymous)]

The fact that her father WAS mad and terrible and awful in every way isn't something to be brushed over--it's very important to why the people she wants to rule don't want to be ruled by her.

If she just wanted a home, everything you're saying would be enough. But if she wants to rule Westeros, she needs to earn Westeros, and that means winning the people, who have already decided they were done with Targaryen-style rule.

[chamonix]

Except those same people loves Rhaegar and would have been perfectly happy to live under his rule. They are not necessarily opposed to Targaryens. Those same people are currently living under the rule of CERSEI. As an aside, Cersei is very obviously a narrative foil to Dany - an example of an ACTUAL mad queen who cares far more about her own power and comfort than any subject, whom she views as her personal totally expendable pawns. Dany has demonstrated time and time again that she will make heavy sacrifices - including her own campaign for the throne - for the wellbeing of her people.

The land of ASOIAF is feudal and Dany is royalty. She has grown up under the assumption that this is her birthright and it was taken from her, in a way that completely ruined her life. Yes she wants to rule Westeros. By all the cultural standards WITHIN CANON, she is entitled to that. Her home and her birthright are synonymous to her.

[(Anonymous)]

Jon executed literal murderers. She burnt prisoners of war alive.

[chamonix]

Ok, a more even example. Jon grants Melisandre permission to burn Mance Rayder / Lord of Bones alive at the Wall. A prisoner of war. No other crime. Direct comparison.

And what about Jon beheading Janos Slynt? That was a literal case of disagreement. He executed him for opposing his rule. Nothing else.

[(Anonymous)]

If I don't like Jon either am I allowed to hate Dany for how much she loves burning people alive or what

[chamonix]

What tells you she loves burning people alive, can you actually give me an answer to this

Hint: it's not "because she executed two enemies in war who would not yield, when they had already been offered to take the Black"

Like I don't think that was her greatest moment but people seem to allow her WAY less slack than they give almost every other character.

[(Anonymous)]

Daenerys also subjected more than a hundred people to death by crucifixion in retribution for something it was textually acknowledged that a number of her victims played no part in.

No one except the White Walkers has done anything even remotely comparable to that. Even Cersei hasn't gone that far.

[(Anonymous)]

Olly was just a kid who had every right to be upset with Jon. Jon chopped the head off one guy for back talking him even though he was begging for his life. Ned executed a guy for leaving the wall because it's the law, even though he didn't deserve to die.

But go ahead and sugar coat it and twist things to fit your own view.

[(Anonymous)]

Olly. Was. A. Murderer.

[(Anonymous)]

She was portrayed as Drogo's equal in the books, not his property. And she wasn't raped and brutalized by him.

I believe her issues with slavery came from the lack of agency she experienced under her brother. But not under Drogo. He listened to her and honored her requests to the extent his culture and position allowed, and if he and their child had lived, Dany's story would not have happened. Not because she was his slave but because she had found some semblance of a home and sense of belonging with him.

It's sad they portrayed the relationship so differently in the TV series.

[chamonix]

I... what no. Just no.

Dany was ABSOLUTELY raped and brutalised by Drogo in both the show AND the books. Yes, they had that semblance of a consent request on their wedding night... what, I wonder, do you think would have happened if she had said no? Would Drogo have respected that? Do you REALLY think so?

And then we get this text:

“Even the nights brought no relief. Khal Drogo ignored her when they rode, even as he had ignored her during their wedding, and spent his evenings drinking with his warriors and bloodriders, racing his prize horses, watching women dance and men die. Every night, some time before the dawn, Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain. When he was done, he would close his eyes and begin to snore softly and Dany would lie beside him, her body bruised and sore, hurting too much for sleep.

Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night…"

She literally contemplates suicide. In the end, she manipulates Drogo through sexual tricks taught to her by another slave. He then shows her desire and love, and it's true, probably allows her more liberties than some other khals would show their wives. But make no mistake; this is solely based on her sexual value. Dany's position is perilous. He promises the Iron Throne, yes - after another man has offended him by seeking to harm his wife, his PROPERTY. And even then, who does he promise The Iron Throne to? Rhaego. His son in utero. Not Dany. Be honest. Had Drogo lived, how do you see their story unfolding? Do you see him happy to be her subordinate as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms? To allow her to rule in her own right? You must be joking.

Dany makes a very moving and insightful speech in Mereen when she is told some slaves wish to return to how things were before. "We learn to love our chains", she says. And so it was with Drogo. She turned a terrible situation to her own benefit and as a very young woman began to associate feelings of love with her captor who eventually showed her some reciptocation. But her life under Drogo would NEVER have been free. You'd have to be completely delusional to think so.

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't she young when she marries him? I've never seen the books or show so I'm coming at this blind but I thought one of the issues with her marriage with Drogo is because she was young and that she couldn't technically consent to the sex?

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly.