The Parallel Journey of Daenerys Targaryen & ... Part II

[BearQueen87]

I share the opinion that Cersei is far more a parallel to Aerys than Dany has ever been. Be interesting to see if anyone is their to stop her parallel decent into fire.

Nice work Suzy.

I don't think there will be. I think Jaime will get there a moment too late. He got to Aerys just in time, but with his twin and lover he won't.

[Dragon's Daughter]

I agree with BQ. I expect that Cersei will be killed by Jaime for doing the same thing he tried to prevent Aerys from doing so many years before.

Great essay Suzy. The passages you used really illustrate how they have such opposite motivations. Cersei's major obsessions (herself, killing Tyrion, wildfire) comprise so much of her thought process, versus Dany's concern for those who call her Mhysa and her determination to end slavery. Using the text to support the fact that Dany is not the queen descending into insanity is a refreshing change from some of the "DANY IS CRAZY!!!!!" exclamations on other threads.

[Ser Creighton]

I don't think there will be. I think Jaime will get there a moment too late. He got to Aerys just in time, but with his twin and lover he won't.

Well she sent him away where Aerys kept him close. So chance is very unlikely he will be there. It's going to be really bad in Westeros in the next book. It will be right about the time that happens that the Others actually stop and go

"Do we actually want this place, cause really I am thinking no."

Jon: Finally the Others time for this guy to shine.

Puddles: Yeah fuck this shit hole lets go back to the Lands of Always winter, it's all clean and white and shinny, with pretty lights.

Terry: Hey why do we have shinny lights? Shouldn't we live in a place like Asshai?

Puddles: Yuck and no, it's a dirty looking and ashy. I like the lights.

Terry: Me too, plus we really got like 100,000 new thralls, do we actually need any more than that?

Jon: You cannot pass

Terry: Hey take at easy Gandalf, nobody said we wanted too.

Jon: Your not going to attack? But, this is my moment.

Puddles: Hey Jon, I like your hair cut.

Jon: Oh thanks yeah it was getting a bit long, do you really like... Damn it! Stop doing that.

Puddles: Doing what?

Jon: You know what, being all nice and stuff, I need a moment. I can't just be stuck up here the entire series and not have a moment.

Terry; I don't know we could run away acting all scared of you.

Jon: Yeah, Yeah do that.

Puddles: Anything for you Jon, your our special little snowflake.

Terry: Oh come on man do you have to always make it weird with him.

Puddles: Weird? You have a picture of the mother of Dragons on your night stand next to a bottle of lotion.

Terry: What? I have dry skin and I appreciate her story arc, she is freeing slaves.

Puddles: God damn numb nuts we make Thralls for crying out loud, we are no better than the slavers.

Terry: Dany wouldn't like that?

Puddles: No she would not like that stupid

Terry: We need to stop, that's really bad. People have natural rights to be free.

Puddles: Dude we mirror the Vampire Masters of Fevre dream who in turn were a mirror of pre civil war slavers.

Terry: Oh Fuck! What have we done? We have to fix it before she gets here, the country is a mess, she is going to be so angry. Were the bad guys Puddles. What have we become, we use to sell Ice Cream.

Puddles: I don't know what we have become Terry, but right we have to fix it.

Jon: Ok guys start running

Terry: Are you not paying attention? Westeros needs help.

Jon: I am not suppose to leave the wall.

Puddles: What about all the kids and people who are suffering.

Jon: I said words that make me stay here.

Terry: Jaime Lannister said words and saved KL Jon by breaking them.

Jon: But then people did not like him.

Puddles: OMG mop top, get your shit together. You can even lead us south.

Terry: Yeah you can be like our Liaison, everyone loves you on AFOIAF

Jon: You don't think anyone will misconstrue it?

Puddles: You can take off your close to show your not hiding anything.

Jon: If you think it will help

Puddles: Totally

Terry: Really?

Jon: Okay, okay lets do it, lets save Westeros.

Terry: Here put this on it's our own special armor, it will show people we are giving and willing to protect humans.

Jon: That's a great idea.

Terry: Alright go get changed.

Puddles: Oh here take these blue contacts, grey can be a bit intimidating, blue is really calming, and will go great with your hair.

Jon: Wow Ok guys this will be great, Jon snow leads the Others to save Westeros.

Terry: Yeah, it's going to be great.

Puddles: Is he gone?

Terry: Yeah

Puddles/Terry; Hahahahahahahahahahahah!

Puddles: I can't believe he fell for that.

Terry: I know, man I love Jon but really the dude is a bit thick from the neck up.

Puddles: Yeah but he is pretty

Terry: Hey what do you think will happen when Dany gets here with her Dragons?

Puddles: Like I am going to wait around to see that. Fuck no, point the finger at Jon and run.

Terry: I mean we can wait and say hi maybe she will be nice to us.

Puddles: Right, Terry, the Mother of Dragons is going to love the Ice slavers. You ever seen Drogon breath fire? The shit melts Iron, and we are made of ice. Ok I been a Puddle before it was not a good look for me Terry, and it fucking hurts!

Terry: Yeah but she has a lot of love to give.

Puddles: Oh would you stop, it's never going to happen, not her, not Emilia, not happening. We stick to the plan March south sack the country, point at Jon and run.

Terry: She is going to punish the shit out of him.

Puddles: I know it will be awesome, I can't wait to see the look on his face.

1 Year later.

Puddles: I said I am sorry.

Terry: Oh, Oh, it will be so funny Jon will get in trouble, hahaha. Yeah some trouble he got in.

Puddles: I did not know she had a thing for guys with Blue eyes.

Terry: Yeah, Yeah that could of been me Puddles.

Puddles: HA! Yeah right.

Terry; What?

Puddles: Look Jon is Jon and you are you that's all I am saying.

Telegram

Puddles: Who is it from?

Terry: Jon...

Puddles: What's it say, did he ask about me? What's it say?

Terry: Dear Terry and Puddles, haha not funny. Things are great down in our new Castle, Dany is totally bow chicka wow wow. Had our first kid a couple of months ago. They are both doing great. Though she didn't think that little joke you pulled was funny. Said one of you dropped a glove. Plans to come see you and give it back. Have fun lol go fuck yourselves.

Puddles: Way to drop your glove dumb ass. What did you think it would be like your glass slipper? Oh my god you did you did think it would like your glass slipper. You know how she feels about dropped gloves, remember Xaro moron?

Terry: PS: Sam told me to remind Puddles that he kicked his ass and that he is a loser bitch.

Puddles: He did not, let me see that letter, let me see it! Give it here, give it here!

Terry: No Jon sent it to me and your dumb as doesn't read common so fuck you, and Sam also said he thinks I am cool and you are a weakling, and a coward and says your mom is Yellow Snow.

Puddles: No he did not. He better not have said that. You are making that up.

PSS. He says down here they call Puddles Lord Yellow Snow.

Puddles: I hope she burns your ass, cause as soon as she does there is going to be a new lord Brown Snow around these parts.

Terry: Hey we don't joke about the brown snow in these parts Puddles. That's not cool, and if anything the Other brothers are always cool.

Puddle: Yeah wait till the Queen gets here Cinderella. Dumb ass glove dropping...

[BearQueen87]

Well she sent him away where Aerys kept him close. So chance is very unlikely he will be there. It's going to be really bad in Westeros in the next book. It will be right about the time that happens that the Others actually stop and go

[snippity snip snip]

*blinks*

Sometimes I worry about you.

Anyway not really the place but I disagree that Jamie won't come back to KL. I think his final move in this journey to become a real white knight is going back to KL to try and save his sister from her madness only to be too late to save anyone. Cersei and Jaime die in each other's arms (he strangles her, she stabs him, they burn in the fire).

[Seams]

Tyrant 2.

... Now Cersei really enjoys that wildfire, she considers it part of her power. ... Also of course we get multiple Aerys parallels with Cersei the Pyromancers and Wildfire. What I do find interesting with Aerys/Cersei you can see how someone has been driven in this direction and also how a Prophecy effected their two lives in very similar ways including a marriage to someone neither wanted to marry. You don't have to be born crazy but stress can do a lot of damage. They both appear to have issues very young though.

4. Dany had cup bearers from her enemies as well and she found them very sweet and is kind to them and protects them from the Shavepates desires.

5. Again with Cersei and the Cray Cray burning and all the imagined slights and plots. She didn't even deal with most of them. Her own Treason caused a problem with Arryn and Stark.

6. There is a good comparison there but again we see an Aerys parallel while the symbolism is inverted, it's the same sort of idea. Aerys decent into madness includes his hair nails and going ungroomed, while Cersei has been rather over groomed so to speak. It goes with that sort of male/female inversion or contrasting parallel that often occurs.

I share the opinion that Cersei is far more a parallel to Aerys than Dany has ever been. Be interesting to see if anyone is their to stop her parallel descent into fire.

Suzanna's good essay and this ensuing discussion has really underscored the Aerys/Cersei similarities for me. Aerys "took" Tywin's heir by making Jaime a member of the King's Guard. I know about the Targaryen propensity for madness but I have considered the possibility that Tywin retaliated against Aerys by coating the sharp edges of the Iron Throne with poison, precipitating Aerys' insanity as he frequently cut himself while sitting on the throne. But this thread is leading me back in the direction of natural causes, with the logic that Tywin was a key player in "fanning the flames" of both Aerys' and Cersei's paranoia and general insanity.

Tywin thwarted Cersei's wish to be a warrior like Jaime (or more like Brienne, actually, who seems to be the anti-Cersei). She was treated almost as one of the child hostages/wards, and raised with the understanding that her only purpose was to be a bride and producer of heirs in whatever match Tywin could arrange for her. There was no mother she could appeal to, and then she had this burden from the fortune teller hanging over her. As a flawed role model, Tywin drove home for her that power was the only goal worth pursuing and that Jaime was the perfect child while she had made the mistake of being female. I suppose Viserys conveyed almost the same messages to Dany. Certainly the two women were wired differently, and Dany does not show the same signs of unbalanced ambition for power that Cersei does.

As for the wildfire, it does seem significant that Jaime killed Aerys to stop him from using it. Cersei started the pyromancers on preparing a new supply in anticipation of attack by Stannis. Tyrion then combined the wildfire and the giant chain across the harbor, ensuring the effective use of the wildfire. (The chain has to be an allusion to maesters, doesn't it?) He also gave the defenders very specific directions about how to practice so they knew how to aim the pots of fire before the battle. When Cersei has the Tower of the Hand burned, she leaves the details to the alchemists, trusting that they won't burn down the whole city. So Jaime may represent no wildfire, Tyrion represents wise use of wildfire, and Cersei represents Aerys-style, no-holds-barred - "Cray Cray," as Ser Creighton called it - use of wildfire. By contrast, Dany represents real fire and dragon fire, no alchemist necessary.

Obsessed

FFC - Even if Tyrion were still hiding in the castle, he wont be in the tower of the hand. Weve reduced it to a shell.

Would that we could do the same to rest of this foul castle, after the war I mean to build a new palace beyond the river. This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock.

The reference to "half a groat" caught my eye here, but I think this whole quote might be significant in a literary way: Groat is the show-biz name of Penny's brother, the little people who performed at Joffrey's wedding and who become part of Tyrion's journey. Cersei doesn't say she would take a full groat, she says half a groat would be enough. We know that she does receive (almost) half a Groat, as the head of Penny's brother is one of the heads presented to Cersei by people hoping to cash in on the reward she has offered for Tyrion's head. And the "half" motif is important with the Lannister kids - Cersei and Jaime are twins and feel incomplete without each other; Tyrion is called the half man. If some of the speculation is true about where Tysha went after Tywin dissolved Tyrion's marriage, maybe Groat and Penny were twins and Groat would have been, by the rules of Westeros, the actual heir of Casterly Rock. I love it when GRRM slips in literary irony and lets us discover it for ourselves. Maybe this is an example.

The passage also seems to allude to Tyrion's service as the appointed master of drains at Casterly Rock. Casterly Rock is not a "foul castle" because Tyrion did the dirty work of making sure it was clean and kept in proper repair. I have the feeling this detail is going to be important at a later point in the story. Not to give too much away, but having just read The Mystery Knight of the Dunk & Egg stories, there is clearly a motif around some of the elements Cersei unwittingly combines in this statement. There may also be a connection to the plugged drains in The Rains of Castamere, in which Tywin played the central role.

Tyrant

DwD - - "Let us say Elza. Here is our ruling. From the girls, you shall have nothing. It was Elza who taught them weaving, not you. Form you, the girls shall have a new loom, the finest coin can buy. That is for forgetting the name of the old woman. Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he all upon a freedman. Thereafter she alternated between the former masters and the former slaves. Many and more of the matters brought before her involved redress.

This passage struck me anew as I'm always looking for clues to assist in sorting out the fabric and sewing motifs. It may not be centrally important to the Cersei/Dany comparison, but I think this justice for the weavers shows Dany at her best but it stands in direct contrast with another of Dany's encounters with a weaver whose world has unraveled:

"You will be safe in Meereen."

The cobbler thanked her for that, and the old brickmaker kissed her foot, but the weaver looked at her with eyes as hard as slate. She knows I lie, the queen thought. She knows I cannot keep them safe. Astapor is burning, and Meereen is next.

The weaver sees the truth, and Dany has spent so much time micromanaging the problems of individuals that she has lost sight of the big picture, of providing a safe and fair way of life for the people as a whole. Luckily or unluckily, Dany gets the Groundhog Day opportunity for yet another rebirth, and I think she will come back from the Dothraki Sea with a renewed set of priorities and sense of how to approach the greater challenges in life. Cersei does not seem to have that capability for growth and maturation (or a flying dragon) to rise above the mundane.

[BearQueen87]

1. Cersei has the Tower of the Hand burned, she leaves the details to the alchemists, trusting that they won't burn down the whole city. So Jaime may represent no wildfire, Tyrion represents wise use of wildfire, and Cersei represents Aerys-style, no-holds-barred - "Cray Cray," as Ser Creighton called it - use of wildfire. By contrast, Dany represents real fire and dragon fire, no alchemist necessary.

2. The passage also seems to allude to Tyrion's service as the appointed master of drains at Casterly Rock. Casterly Rock is not a "foul castle" because Tyrion did the dirty work of making sure it was clean and kept in proper repair. I have the feeling this detail is going to be important at a later point in the story. Not to give too much away, but having just read The Mystery Knight of the Dunk & Egg stories, there is clearly a motif around some of the elements Cersei unwittingly combines in this statement. There may also be a connection to the plugged drains in The Rains of Castamere, in which Tywin played the central role.

1. I like the bolded a lot. Cersei also says that there are few things that burn hotter than wildfire--dragon fire is one. It is a more pure fire, a more natural one.

2. Dany and co took one city by the sewers, why not take another :)

[SeanF]

Tywin thwarted Cersei's wish to be a warrior like Jaime (or more like Brienne, actually, who seems to be the anti-Cersei). She was treated almost as one of the child hostages/wards, and raised with the understanding that her only purpose was to be a bride and producer of heirs in whatever match Tywin could arrange for her. There was no mother she could appeal to, and then she had this burden from the fortune teller hanging over her. As a flawed role model, Tywin drove home for her that power was the only goal worth pursuing and that Jaime was the perfect child while she had made the mistake of being female. I suppose Viserys conveyed almost the same messages to Dany. Certainly the two women were wired differently, and Dany does not show the same signs of unbalanced ambition for power that Cersei does.

.

Cersei liked dressing up as Jaime as a child, but I don't think she had serious ambitions to be a warrior.

Cersei often claims that she was treated solely as a bride and producer of heirs, but I don't take that entirely at face value. She's been given a good education, and her father placed her in charge of Lannister interests in Kings Landing for 15 years. Lancel and Tyrek were told to take their orders from her, not from him or his brother. Tywin only decided to replace her when Ned Stark was executed, Ser Barristan dismissed, and Janos Slynt made a high lord.

[Ser Creighton]

*blinks*

Sometimes I worry about you.

Anyway not really the place but I disagree that Jamie won't come back to KL. I think his final move in this journey to become a real white knight is going back to KL to try and save his sister from her madness only to be too late to save anyone. Cersei and Jaime die in each other's arms (he strangles her, she stabs him, they burn in the fire).

My brain looks like this sometimes.

http://giphy.com/gifs/excited-jeremy-renner-happy-4czY0BHt7pEgU

[BearQueen87]

Cersei liked dressing up as Jaime as a child, but I don't think she had serious ambitions to be a warrior.

Cersei often claims that she was treated solely as a bride and producer of heirs, but I don't take that entirely at face value. She's been given a good education, and her father placed her in charge of Lannister interests in Kings Landing for 15 years. Lancel and Tyrek were told to take their orders from her, not from him or his brother. Tywin only decided to replace her when Ned Stark was executed, Ser Barristan dismissed, and Janos Slynt made a high lord.

Agreed with this. I think it's more of her "put upon" and "I am a victim" nature. Cersei has had difficulties, I won't deny that--being married to Robert was certainly no picnic. But she has had it better than 99% of other women in Westeros or Essos.

Tywin replaced her because once Cersei was on her own--no Robert, no Jon Arryn, no Ned--she made a complete buffoon of herself. Before there were others there to keep her in check. I get the feeling Arryn spent a lot of his time outwitting Cersei.

[Parwan]

Agreed with this. I think it's more of her "put upon" and "I am a victim" nature. Cersei has had difficulties, I won't deny that--being married to Robert was certainly no picnic. But she has had it better than 99% of other women in Westeros or Essos.

Tywin replaced her because once Cersei was on her own--no Robert, no Jon Arryn, no Ned--she made a complete buffoon of herself. Before there were others there to keep her in check. I get the feeling Arryn spent a lot of his time outwitting Cersei.

I don't think that anyone has every truly kept Cersei Lannister in check. She and her twin brother got away with high treason for what? Sixteen years? Seventeen years? More than that, I'd say. She hasn't been convicted of the crime yet. To a considerable extent, the abysmal failure of justice and of governance was due to the fact that several people who are supposedly "for the realm" knew about the matter and did nothing, or less than nothing, about it. Others, who should have been able to piece together the evidence, were blind and dumb.

Over a good many discussions on a good many threads, I have come to see that my view of ASoIaF is more sociological/political than that of most posters. From the first page of the prologue of AGoT, my feeling has been "something is very wrong here." I mean some thing, not some one. A matter of relevance to the current thread: It is possible to view Cersei and Dany as creations of Varys. The guy is incredible, and his long-term position in the realm was even more so--the intelligence chief, the great spy master, and he's a twenty-four-carat traitor. Everybody looks down on him, everybody suspects him, but he gets away with murder. He didn't just forswear his oath; he swore a false oath. On the day he pledged fealty to King Robert, he was already plotting the downfall of the Baratheon dynasty.

The spider set things up for Daenerys. He not only allowed Cersei to continue her activities. He has now cleared Ser Kevan out of the way. However, he is not at all in control of either of his "creatures." He certainly had no idea that Dany would accomplish all she did. Cersei is likely to destroy King's Landing; I find it hard to believe that this is part of the spider's plan.

[SeanF]

No doubt Varys provides just enough genuinely useful information to his masters to keep them satisfied, however much they may distrust him.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Thank you Seams and Dragon's Daughter :)

I don't think that anyone has every truly kept Cersei Lannister in check. She and her twin brother got away with high treason for what? Sixteen years? Seventeen years? More than that, I'd say. She hasn't been convicted of the crime yet. To a considerable extent, the abysmal failure of justice and of governance was due to the fact that several people who are supposedly "for the realm" knew about the matter and did nothing, or less than nothing, about it. Others, who should have been able to piece together the evidence, were blind and dumb.

Over a good many discussions on a good many threads, I have come to see that my view of ASoIaF is more sociological/political than that of most posters. From the first page of the prologue of AGoT, my feeling has been "something is very wrong here." I mean some thing, not some one. A matter of relevance to the current thread: It is possible to view Cersei and Dany as creations of Varys. The guy is incredible, and his long-term position in the realm was even more so--the intelligence chief, the great spy master, and he's a twenty-four-carat traitor. Everybody looks down on him, everybody suspects him, but he gets away with murder. He didn't just forswear his oath; he swore a false oath. On the day he pledged fealty to King Robert, he was already plotting the downfall of the Baratheon dynasty.

The spider set things up for Daenerys. He not only allowed Cersei to continue her activities. He has now cleared Ser Kevan out of the way. However, he is not at all in control of either of his "creatures." He certainly had no idea that Dany would accomplish all she did. Cersei is likely to destroy King's Landing; I find it hard to believe that this is part of the spider's plan.

Very god point to the bolded, and I meant to touch on that. No one has ever kept her in check at all. She has done exactly what she wanted her entire life with no one around to tell her no. In fact we see the first few times she was told 'NO', when her and Jaime were caught 'playing at lovers' as children, at which point they just decided to hide it instead of getting caught again. And then of course when she was denied betrothal to Rhaegar, and you can tell it was one of the only times anyone refused her, because she carried it around like an emotional trophy the rest of her life, never got over it. She can hold a grudge like no one we have seen. Even when she married Robert and got her wish to be queen, he mutters Lyanna's name on their wedding night, and that's it for Cersei---Marriage Over! the next 16 years WILL be miserable because you said another woman's name one time. Cersei would never try to 'make the best' of something, if it is not her way 100% then she is unhappy, pouting, drinking and scheming.

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Great essay Suzanne!

I have a lot to say, I'll comment right after I finish work.

[MoIaF]

Attention

The re-read has been pushed back a week. Sorry for any inconvenience. The revised schedule can be found here.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay. It took me forever to get through this parallel. I felt like I had to have samples from all 5 books and had to do a re-read of almost all Dany and Cersei's chapters. it just took forever. anyway just finished. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Suzanna Stormborn]

Motherhood

Dany and Cersei have very long and complicated journeys as mothers in ASOIAF. They take to it very differently with only one thing in common; they both fiercely defend those whom they consider to be their ‘children’. Cersei of course only has the 3 children, while Dany has Rhaego, the 3 dragons and the thousands of freedmen and former slaves whom she feels responsible for. Neither of them are ‘bad’ mothers, they just take it to a different place, and go about protecting in very different ways. (Please note I will underline the focus of each passage quoted from the books in bolded letters And sorry for any editing or spelling mistakes, I tried.)

I begin with Dany’s journey in Game of Thrones. She becomes pregnant with Drogo’s child and show’s all signs of loving the baby within her. This is her 1^st stage of motherhood. She wants only the best for his future, she believes he will be strong and capable and she is very protective over her pregnant belly.

Dany

GOT--“In the songs, the white knights of the Kingsguard were ever noble, valiant, and true, and yet King Aerys had been murdered by one of them, the handsome boy they now called the Kingslayer, and a second, Ser Barristan the Bold, had gone over to the Usurper. She wondered if all men were as false in the Seven Kingdoms. When her son sat the Iron Throne, she would see that he had bloodriders of his own to protect against treachery.”

Dany does dream of her son on the Iron Throne. She wished him to be there safe and protected.

GOT--‘He grabbed her arm. “You forget yourself, slut. Do you think that big belly will protect you if you wake the dragon?”

His fingers dug into her arm painfully and for an instant Dany felt like a child again, quailing in the face of his rage. She reached out with her other hand and grabbed the first thing she touched, the belt she’d hoped to give him, a heavy chain of ornate bronze medallions. She swung it with all her strength.

It caught him full in the face. Viserys let go of her. Blood ran down his cheek where the edge of one of the medallions had sliced it open “You are the one who forgets himself”, Dany said to him. “Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon my khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.”

This is the first time Dany has ever raised a hand to her king and brother, Viserys. He has mis-treated and abused her the entire time they’ve spent together and she never fought back until now. I believe it is because she has become protective of her child. Before when Viserys hurt her she had no one to protect so she just let him do as he would, since she is quite a selfless person. But now that hurting her = possibly hurting the baby within her, she instinctively fights back.

GOT—“She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her….as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. “You are the dragon,” Dany whispered to him, “the true dragon. I know it. I know it.” And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

Being pregnant makes her feel happy and calm. And she will do anything that could possibly be a good omen for Rhaego, or will comply with any Dothraki superstition, as long as it is good juju for her baby. And at this point she is also starting to reach out to the dragons eggs, who will be her 2^nd stage of motherhood.

GOT—‘Warm blood filler her mouth and ran down over her chin. The taste threatened to gag her, but she made herself chew and swallow. The heart of a stallion would make her son strong and swift and fearless, or so the dothraki believed, but only if the mother could eat it all. If she choked on the blood or retched up the flesh, the omens were less favorable; the child might be stillborn, or come forth weak deformed or female.’

GOT—She stood to answer. “He shall be called Rhaego,” she said, using the words that Jhiqui had taught her. Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively as a roar went up from the Dothraki. “Rhaego,” they screamed. “Rhaego, Rhaego, Rhaego!”

GOT—‘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…. But not for the dragon. With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget.’

Here we see that while she wants a happy life for her child she also understands the importance of her continuing her bloodline and being a strong branch in the Targaryen family tree. She also still cares about family, duty and House glory as well as being a proud mother.

GOT—‘The taste in her mouth was one she had known before; fear. For years she had lied in terror of Viserys, afraid of waking the dragon. This was even worse. It was not just for her herself that she feared now, but for her baby. He must have sensed her fright, for he moved restlessly inside her. Dany stroked the swell of her belly gently, wishing she could reach him, touch him, soothe him. “You are the blood of the dragon, little one,” she whispered as her litter swayed along, curtains drawn tight. “You are the blood of the dragon, and the dragon does not fear,”

GOT—“No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself ….. and her eyes went to the dragon’s eggs resting in their nest of dark velvet. The shifting lamplight limned their stony scales, and shimmering motes of jade scarlet and gold swam in the air around them, like courtiers around a king.

Was it madness that seized her then, born of fear? Or some strange wisdom buried deep in her blood? Dany could not have said. She heard her own voice saying, “Ser Jorah, light the brazier.”

She continues to move towards the dragons, as she said, born of some wisdom buried deep. She wants her baby to be a strong dragon like she is becoming. But at the same time she is having dragon dreams, and as a Dragonlord is also feeling the calling of this very ancient thing in her blood. I think at this point she finds the love for her baby and the eggs in the same place inside her.

GOT—“I am khaleesi, and I say it is not forbidden. In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage. This is the same. The same.”

GOT—Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. “My baby,” she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead.

This is the end of her protecting her child within her. And all the way until Rhaego dies she has kept up her protection best she could, her first instinct is always to keep Rhaego safe. Even though she is also making poor decisions that will lead to his death, she was doing it to keep his father alive and by extension herself and her baby alive as well, once Drogo dies her and the baby are next, so while sacrificing so much to keep him alive may strike some people as selfish, there really is no other choice for her. Her first priority at this point has to be to keep him alive, she never considered her baby was in danger, perhaps a bit of hubris, but she is young and does not understand that MMD could be capable of something like this after Dany had saved her life 2 times.

GOT—She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin. (Dany dreaming)

GOT—“What is it? I must know. Drogo ….and my child.” Why had she not remembered the child until now? “My son ….Rhaego….. where is he? I want him.”

GOT—My son is dead, she thought as Jhiqui left the tent. She had known somehow. She had known since she woke the first time to Jhiqui’s tears. No, she had known before she woke. Her dream came back to her, sudden and vivid, and she remembered the tall man with the copper skin and long silver-gold brid, bursting into flame.

She should weep, she knew, yet her eyes were dry as ash. She had wept in her dream, and the tears had turned to steam on her cheeks. All the grief has been burned out of me, she told herself. She felt sad, and yet …… she could feel Rhaego receding from her, as if he had never been.

So her human child has died, and of course after that she hatches the dragons and immediately becomes their mother, they drink her milk and become her 3 children to replace the one she just lost. Sher accepts it very quickly that Rhaego is dead and does not weep for him. She accepts the truth and is a very tough girl. It is not because she is uncaring, but simply because she is able to see the situation with clarity and understands everything. Many women would not be able to do this in the same situation. This is why I say she is the perfect combination of Ned and Tywin. She cares immensely, but does not let it get the best of her.

COK—“They are mine,” she said fiercely. They had been born from her faith and her need, given life by the deaths of her husband and unborn son and the maegi Mirri Maz Duur. Dany had walked into the flames as they came forth, and they had drunk milk from her swollen breasts.

In the 2^nd book, she is no longer a mother to her human baby and has fully accepted the dragons as her children.

COK—“ON the morrow, you shall feast upon peacock and lark’s tongue, and hear music worthy of the most beautiful of women. The Thirteen will come to do you homage, and all the great of Qarth.

All the great of Qarth will come to see my dragons, Dany thought, yet she thanked Xaro for his kindness before she sent him on his way.

The dragons are a different kind of child, any woman can have a human baby, but no human will ever be as strong or as resilient or as rare as one of her three dragons. So while she is their mother and always wants to protect them, she also does not have to worry quite as much at their vulnerability. These are children she can use for other means without any worry as to how it will affect them. In short these are the toughest babies anyone could ever hope to have.

COK—“Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets.”

Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty.

“And now?”

“And now his powers grow Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it.”

“Me?” she laughed. “How could that be?”

The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany’s wrist. “You are the Mother of dragons, are you not?”

COK—Tyrion was growing impatient. Ser Jacelyn Bywater was likely here by now, and Ironhand misliked waiting. “Yes you have secret spells; how splendid. What of them?”

“They, hmmm, seem to be working better than they were.” Hallyne smiled weakly. “You don’t suppose there are any dragons about, do you?”

“Not unless you found one under the Drgaonpit. Why?”

“Oh, pardon, I was just remembering something old Wisdom Pollitor told me once, when I was an acolyte. I’d asked him why so many of our spells seemed, well, not as effectual as the scrolls would have us believe, and he said it was because magic had begun to go out of the world the day the last dragon died.”

Another important aspect of her role as the mother of dragons is that there is a lot of weight that goes along with this. She is affecting the entire world with her actions. Bringing the magic back and increasing the potency. She has accomplished much more than she knows.

SOS—‘They are my children, she told herself, and if the maegi spoke truly, they are the only children I am ever like to have.’

SOS—Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her mouth. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice, “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”

She can gamble and plot rouses with her ‘fierce children’ in a way she never could could with a human child. They are what she needs to handle herself in Slaver’s Bay, and they are tough enough to survive the trip.

SOS—‘Grey Worm had remained Grey Worm. When she asked him why, he said, “It is a lucky name. The name this one was born to was accursed. That was the name he had when he was taken for a slave. But Grey Worm is the name this one drew the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free.”

SOS—Dany had left Astapor in the hands of a council of former slaves led by a healer, a scholar, and a priest. Wise men all, she thought, and just. Yet even so, tens of thousands preferred to follow her to Yunkai, rather than remain behind in Astapor. I gave them the city, and most of them were too frightened to take it.

SoS—“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

SOS—“I have a gift for you as well.” She slammed the chest shut. “Three days. On the morning of the third day, send out your slaves. All of them. Every man, woman and child shall be given a weapon, and as much food, clothing, coin, and goods as he or she can carry. These they shall be allowed to choose freely from among their masters’ possessions, as payment for their years of servitude. When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?”

But now she is advancing to her 3^rd stage of motherhood. She not only has the dragons (who can more or less take care of themselves at this point), but since she left Astapor she now is becoming mother to her people. Which is by far the hardest job of all. She does not command anyone to follow her, they all go willingly, preferring to be near their ‘mother’ rather than to stay in this city they were kidnapped and taken to.

SOS—‘She felt lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. “You must be my children,” she told the dragons, “ my three fierce children. Arstan says the dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.”

This is a great quote. She is naming them as her ‘fierce children’ which makes them stand apart from any regular children anyone else could have.

SOS—“Mysha!” a brown-skinned man shouted out at her. He had a child on his shoulder, a little girl, and she screamed the same word in her thin voice. “Mhysa! Mhysa!”

Dany looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?”

“It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘mother.’”

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned and shouted again, and others took up the cry. “Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!” They were all kneeling before her. “Maela,” some called her, while others cried “Aellala” or “Qathei” or “Tato,” but whatever the tongue it all meant the same thing. Mother. They are calling me Mother.

SOS—Ser Jorah urged her to go, but Dany remembered a dream she had dreamed in the House of the Undying. “They will not hurt me,” she told him. “They are my children, Jorah.”………”Mother,”they called from a hundred throats, a thousand, ten thousand.” Mother,” they sang, their fingers brushing her legs as she flew by. “Mother, Mother, Mother!”

SOS—“I will see them,” she said. “I will see every one, and count them, and look upon their faces. And I will remember.”

SOS—“No,” she said. “I will not march my people off to die.” My children. “There must be some way into this city.”

SOS—Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining in their fringed tokars to feast on lamb and olives, unborn puppies, honeyed dormice and other such delicacies, whilst outside her children went hungry. A sudden wild anger filler her. I will bring you down, she swore.

She takes this all very seriously, as she should, we are no longer talking about anything remotely selfish, she is taking on the 'mother' role to all slaves in Slaver’s Bay, all 84% of them who have been treated as bad as possible for most of their lives. All she wants is to make things better for them and she is finding out exactly how hard that is. No matter what her great intentions are, nothing is ever going to go precisely the way she envisioned. So she gets very angry sort of easily from here on out, but IMO, rightly so. She is talking about the lives of 163 children, innocent children, what would Katniss Everdeen do in this situation? Cersei would kill this many people simply to find Tyrion, when Dany does it, she has a damn good reason.

SOS—“This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath will be there, always. You are good to this—to me.”

“And you to me.” Dany took the girl by the hand. “Come help me dress.”

DwD—“Six or more,” said Barristan. “From the look of his wounds, they swarmed him from all sides. He was found with an empty scabbard. It may be that he wounded some of his attackers.”

Dany said a silent prayer that somewhere one of the Harpy’s Sons was dying even now, clutching at his belly and writhing in pain.

DwD—“Henceforth, no man of mine walks alone after dark.”

“These ones shall obey.”

Daenerys pushed her hair back. “Find these cowards for me. Find them, so that I might teach the Harpy’s Sons what it means to wake the dragon.”

More examples of her treating her ‘children’ so well that they all become fiercely loyal towards her as well. Grey Worm and Missandei are perfect examples of your mens loyalty and how if you knew nothing else about her besides that, it would be enough to show you she is a wonderful person and mother to these people.

DwD—“Reznak and the Green Grace had been urging Dany to take a Meereenese noble for her husband, to reconcile the city to her rule. Hizdahr zo Loraq might be worth a careful look. Sooner him than Skahaz. The shavepate had offered to set aside his wife for her, but the notion made her shudder.”

DwD—“No one ever kept me safe when I was little. Well, Ser Willem did, but then he died, and Viserys …. I want to protect you but … it is so hard. To be strong. I don’t always know what I should do. I must know, though. I am all they have. I am the queen … the… the…”

“…mother,” whispered Missandei.

“Mother to dragons,” Dany shivered.

“No. Mother to us all.” Missandei hugged her tighter.

DwD—“My people are bleeding. Dying. A queen belongs not to herself, but to the realm. Marriage or carnage, those are my choices. A wedding or a war.”

At the end of DwD, we see Dany making every sacrifice she can think of. She sacrifices her happiness, her body, her hand in marriage, everything she can possibly give she gives. All for peace and to keep her ‘children’ safe. In the end of course, it all amounts to nothing anyway, since the Meereenese are unruleable and have no desire for peace or dragons or doing anything on the up and up. Al l they want is her dead or gone and for slavery and the fighting pits to be legal again, for everything to go back to how it was and for the ruling class to be standing on top of the other 84% like the dirty apes that the Masters consider them to be.

DwD—Grey Worm had informed the king that they were free men who took commands only from their mother. (Barristan I)

Her men remain loyal to her even when all assume she is dead, they all saw her fly off literally on fire, but do not believe she is gone. They have so much loyalty and hope wrt Dany. They will never forsake her.

Cersei

Cersei has a much different approach to being a mother. We begin early in Game of Thrones with her, we see that she only cares about herself and her immediate family (well most of them). She has no care for anyone elses child or feelings, or friendships, or peace in the realm. While we can give Cersei credit for caring about her children and doing anything for them, is it worth the lives of so many others who could easily have been spared? I think not.

GOT—“Where is the direwolf? Cersei Lannister asked when her husband was gone. Beside her, Prince Joffrey was smiling.

I am showing many examples of her ill-tempered children throughout hers and Tyrion’s chapters. How Joffrey comes off right from the beginning is a very good indication of how she over mothered her boys, turned them spoiled, and was basically a terrible mother, even though she cared about them and tried. Her problem is that she doesn’t know the correct way to try, she learned everything she knows about parenting from Tywin Lannister, who doesn’t believe in love or praise, only in the bottom line and the look of it all. So while Cersei tries and fails, it is not all her fault, her father and Robert’s are also to blame for sure. But no one can deny that it was her who influenced Joffrey the most and we all know what a monster he was, and it must be concluded that much of that was a direct result of her influence over him.

GOT—“I have dreamed of giving up the crown…….You know what stops me? The thought of Joffrey on the throne, with Cersei standing behind him whispering in his ear. My son. How could I have made a son like that, Ned?” (Robert about Cersei)

GOT—He gave Ned a sideways glance. “I’ve also heard whispers that Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, three years ago when he went west for Lord Tywin’s tourney. Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver. Too much affront to Lannister pride, that close to home.”
Ned Stark grimaced. Ugly tales like that were told of every great lord in the realm. He could believe it of Cersei Lannister readily enough…..(LF and Ned about Cersei)

Two examples of what others think of her parenting techniques and the way she treats children in general. LOL, what does the Great Robert Baratheon fear most? Letting his son and wife take the throne after he is gone. This is a man who has seen battle and loss of all kinds……..that speaks volumes to me.

GOT—To her credit, Cersei did not look away. “He saw us. You love your children, do you not?”

Robert had asked him the very same question, the morning of the melee. He gave her the same answer. “With all my heart.”

“No less do I love mine.”

Ned thought, if it came to that, the life of some child I did not know, against Robb and Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon, what would I do? Even more so, what would Catelyn do, if it were Jon’s life, against the children of her body? He did not know. He prayed he never would.

Exactly Ned, excellent point. How many other children are worth the life of your own child. I think for most people there would be a limit. For Cersei there is no limit, she would kill everyone else on the planet to make sure her children were safe in the palace, this is not necessarily a good thing, being a mass-murderer for any reason. Because in the end when your children asked you what you did to keep them safe, and you have to tell them, how will that make them feel? What will your relationship be after that?

GOT—“A dozen years,” Ned said. “How is it that you have no children by the king?

She lifted her head, defiant. “Your Robert got me with child once,” she said, her voice thick with contempt. “My brother found a woman to cleanse me. He never knew. If truth be told, I can scarcely bear for him to touch me, and I have not let him inside me for years. I know other ways to pleasure him, when he leaves his whores long enough to stagger up to my bedchamber. Whatever we do, the king is usually so drunk that he’s forgotten it all by the next morning.”

Here we see that Cersei is fine with Moon Tea, to keep her from having her husband’s children, committing regicide and treason. So clearly does not care so much about any child she gets pregnant with but only the ones that Jaime has fathered.

GOT--”Oh but it was, my lord,” Cersei insisted. “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

This is the last thing Ned and Cersei ever say to each other, after he has confronted her about Jaime fathering her children and what he will do about it. This is the ultimate difference between Dany and Cersei. In Cersei’s mind, her children are all tied up with 'the Game', they are vastly important to her but not so important as 'the Game'. Much like Tywin, children are also pawns, they are delicate and carefully kept but pawns nonetheless, and they are vulnerable and can die just like anyone who plays. But she puts them on the board anyway. I think that is why it so important to see that Dany uses only her ‘Fierce Children’ who actually have the tough skin and can survive much worse, than say Tommen or Mycella.

GOT—“Let her say what she likes. Her son needs to be taken in hand before he ruins us all.”

(Tywin to Tyrion about Cersei)

COK—“Will the queen attend, do you think?” Sansa always felt safer when Cersei was there to restrain her son.

COK—“Why? What does he know?”

Tyrion shrugged. “He knows that your son’s short reign has been a long parade of follies and disasters. That suggests that someone is giving Joffrey some very bad counsel.

Cersei gave him a searching look. “Joff has had no lack of good counsel. He’s always been strong-willed. Now that he’s king, he believes he should do as he pleases, not as he’s bid.”

COK—“Father did,” said Tyrion. “That is why he sent me. To put an end to these follies and bring your son to heel.”

“Joff will be no more tractable for you then for me.”

“He might.”

“Why should he?”

“He knows you would never hurt him.”

Cersei’s eyes narrowed. “If you believe I’d ever allow you to harm my son, you’re sick with fever.”

A good example that not even Tywin thinks Cersei has done a good job with the future king of the 7K. She has raised a psychotic monster whom is not even loved by his own family. Everyone knows he is simply a loose canon. Tywin, Tyrion and Sansa all agree that Joffrey is terrible, a sore on the Red Keep. A vile, viscous man who will make an even worse king.

COK—“I shall take that as a tribute, my lord. In any case, Prince Doran will hardly be insensible of the great honor you do him. Very deftly done, I would say …… but for one small flaw.”

The dwarf laughed. “Named Cersei?”

“What avails statecraft against the love of a mother for the sweet fruit of her womb? Perhaps for the glory of her House and the safety of the realm, the queen might be persuaded to send away Tommen of Myrcella. But both of them? Surely not.” (Varys and Tyrion)

Even Varys agrees that Cersei will only risk her children for the Game, ‘statecraft’. Anyone who looks closely enough at Cersei and the situation can clearly see that 'the Game' is the only thing she will bend to, or will break for.

COK—“How safe do you think Myrcella will be if King’s landing falls? Renly and Stannis will mount her head beside yours.”

And Cersei began to cry.

Tyrion Lannister could not have been more astonished if Aegon to Conqueror himself had burst into the room, riding on a dragon and juggling lemon pies. He had not seen his sister weep since they were children together at Casterly Rock. Awkwardly, he took a step toward her.

Cersei rarely has moments of weakness, but to her credit I believe she does love her children.

COK—The girl never wept. Young as she was, Myrcella Baratheon was a princess born. And a Lannister, despite her name, Tyrion reminded himself, as much Jaime’s blood as Cersei’s……..When the time came to part, it was Prince Tommen who cried, and Myrcella who gave him comfort.

Another sign that she babied her sons while probably treating her daughter like a second class citizen. As I am sure her father did for her and Jaime. Which makes her sons weaker and her daughter stronger in the end. Maybe it will end up as a positive for Myrcella.

FFC—“His grace is sleeping peaceful.”

Let him have a sweeter dream than mine, and a kinder waking. “Who is with the king?”

FFC—Tommen peered through the drapes at the empty streets. “I thought there would be more people. When father died, all the people came out to watch us go by.”

“This rain has driven them inside.” King’s Landing had never loved Lord Tywin. He never wanted love, though. “You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night,” she heard him tell Jaime once, when her brother had been no older than Tommen.

Tywin used hard love, if any at all. These are the lessons Cersei has to go by.

FFC—“The little queen gave them to him. She only meant to give him one, but he couldn’t decide which one he liked the best.”

Better than cutting them out of their mother with a dagger, I suppose. Margaery’s clumsy attempts at seduction were so obvious as to be laughable. Tommen is too young for kisses, so she gives him kittens. Cersei rather wished they were noit black, though. Black cats brought ill luck, as Rhaegar’s little girl had discovered in this very castle. She would have been my daughter, If the Mad King had not played his cruel jape on my Father. It had to have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin’s daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.

Often Cersei says one thing out loud but then changes her opinions in her inner monologue, especially when it comes to her having made any mistakes parenting.

FFC—“Oh not yet. But you will.” I ought to have him strangled. Let him gasp for breath until his face turns black, the way my sweet son did. The words were on her lips.

Your ‘sweet son’? C’mon now Cersei, lets not pretend things we all know to be untrue.

FFC—Cersei took him by the ear and dragged him squealing to the door, where she found Ser Boros Blount standing guard. “Ser Boros, His Grace has forgotten himself. Kindly escort him to his bedchamber and bring up Pate. This time I want Tommen to whip the boy himself. He is to continue until the boy is bleeding from both cheeks. If his Grace refuses, or says one word of protest, summon Qyburn and tell him to remove Pate’s tongue, so His Grace can learn the cost of insolence.”

This is very messed up on every level. This is a terrible thing to do in the course of parenting. Essentially psychological torture to your son and king!! All in an effort to blackmail him into doing what you want, when left with no other ways to get what you want? Her access to Tommen is just as dangerous as her spoiling Joffrey was.

FFC- No harm will ever come to Tommen whilst I still live. She would kill half the lords in Westeros and all the common people, if that was what it took to keep him safe. “Go with Jocelyn,” she told the boy after they had eaten.

FFC-“I shall my sweet.”Taena took her hand and kissed it.” I pray that I never offend you. You are terrible when roused.”

“Any mother would do the same to protect her children,” said Cersei.

Further examples of Cersei placing herself and her children above the lives of anyone and everyone in the world. Which would actually be normal for the royal family, if they weren’t so terrible like the Lannisters. This is the kind of regency that gets overthrown, just like the Mad king.

FFC—Margaery did not answer at once, but her brown eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Blunt or Trant,” she said at last. “It would have to be one of them. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Osney Kettleblack would cut either one to pieces.”

Seven hells. Cersei donned a look of hurt. “You wrong me, daughter. All I want—“

“—is your son, all for yourself. He will never have a wife that you don’t hate. And I am not your daughter, thank the gods. Leave me.”

“You are being foolish. I am only here to help you.”

“To help me to my grave. I asked for you to leave. Will you make me call my goalers and have you dragged away, you vile, scheming, evil bitch?”

Margaery has Cersei pegged here, there is no one alive that Cersei would be happy with as the up and coming queen who will one day replace her, she is not built that way. She is built to stand alone until she dies.

DwD—His words frightened her. “Has something happened to Tommen? Please, no. I have been so afraid for my son. No one will tell me anything. Please tell me that Tommen is well.”

DwD- “Slain, defending her. Dayne cut him down, it’s said.”

The sword of the Morning had been a Dayne, the queen recalled, but he was long dead. Who was this Ser Gerold and why would he wish to harm her daughter? She could not make any sense of this, unless…. “Tyrion lost half his nose in the Battle of the Blackwater. Slashing her face, cutting off an ear … the Imp’s grubby little fingers are all over this.”

After her imprisonment everything changes, she becomes unsure about everything. Begins to realize how all her plots schemes and general bitchiness has come back to bite her in the ass, not only that but how it has also come to possibly endanger her children she took so much care to protect. In short, her madness has put her children at risk and she is just now beginning to realize it.

DwD—He will not refuse his own mother. Joff was stubborn and unpredictable, but Tommen is a good little boy, a good little king. He will do as he is told. If she stayed here, she was doomed, and the only way she would return to the Red Keep was by walking.

DwD—“Let us go.” Her son awaited her across the city. The sooner she set out, the sooner she would see him.

DwD—If Joff had only done as he was told, Winterfell would never have gone to war, and Father would have dealt with Robert’s brothers.

DwD—Once she reached its gates, the worst of her travails would be over. She would have her son again. She would have her champion. Her uncle had promised her. Tommen is waiting for me. My little king. I can do this. I must.

Dance With Dragons ends on a very uncertain note for Cersei. She is not so sure about anything anymore, she is clearly hoping that Tommen will still love her and will want her near him and that somehow everything will go back to how it was. But I love the uncertainty that shows through in her once so adamant and pretentious voice. Everything is different now. Her life is changed forever since she stepped over the line and got caught by the High Septon. I think it will lead to a much more dangerous path for her. I doubt any of us can accurately predict what crazy shit Cersei will be getting up to when WoW is published at long last.

Dany and Cersei have very few things in common, and the traits they do share are utilized in completely different ways between the two women. Dany gets angered and raged when people hurt her ‘children’ but to her the word ‘children’ encapsulates many tens of thousands of people, so she is correct to care so much about them. Cersei just takes it to a completely different level and she is only protecting 2 people, but she is so far up on her high-horse that she cannot see the damage she is doing to the entire realm just to protect them.

[Seams]

Very comprehensive and thoughtful! Thank you for another insightful essay, Suzanna Stormborn!

The thing that strikes me immediately about Dany and Cersei's parallel experiences of motherhood is that they both give birth to - or bring up their children as - monsters. As you point out:

She [Cersei] has raised a psychotic monster whom is not even loved by his own family.

This is what others say about the literal monsters to which Cersei and Dany give birth:

Sansa on Joffrey:

A shiver went through her. A monster, she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. Joffrey is a monster. Hes evil and cruel my lady, its so.

Tyrion on Joffrey:

And I want Robb Starks head too. Write to Lord Frey and tell him. The king commands. Im going to have it served to Sansa at my wedding feast.

Sire, Ser Kevan said, in a shocked voice, the lady is now your aunt by marriage.

A jest. Cersei smiled. Joff did not mean it.

Yes I did, Joffrey insisted. He was a traitor, and I want his stupid head. Im going to make Sansa kiss it.

No. Tyrions voice was hoarse. Sansa is no longer yours to torment. Understand that, monster.

Joffrey sneered. Youre the monster, Uncle.

Mirri Maz Duur on Rhaego:

He turned his face away. His eyes were haunted. They say the child was

She waited, but Ser Jorah could not say it. His face grew dark with shame. He looked half a corpse himself.

Monstrous, Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.

Different kinds of monsters, to be sure: Joffrey is a monster because he is evil and cruel, and Dany's baby was a monster because he was physically inhuman; he was twisted, scaled, had a tail and wings, and was dead and rotting.

But Joffrey turns the tables, calling Tyrion a monster. He is probably referring - in his tactful and oh-so-original Joffrey way - to Tyrion's dwarfism. Perhaps Joffrey is simply reflecting Cersei's longstanding attitude toward Tyrion, although Oberyn Martell specifically refutes Cersei's claim that baby Tyrion was a monster:

When we met your sister, she promised she would show you to us. Every day we would ask. Every day she would say, "Soon." Then she and your brother took us to your nursery and... she unveiled the freak. Your head was a bit large. Your arms and legs were a bit small, but no claw. No red eye. No tail between your legs. Just a tiny pink cock. We didn't try to hide our disappointment. That's not a monster, I told Cersei, that's just a baby. And she said, he killed my mother. And she pinched your little cock so hard, I thought she might pull it off. Until your brother made her stop. It doesn't matter, she told us, everyone says he will die soon, I hope they are right, he should not have lived this long.

But Joffrey's attempt to insult his uncle, as well as Cersei's attempt to brand her baby brother as a monster, raise the question: if there are other monster-children in the books, maybe the comparison is not unique to Dany and Cersei's offspring. A little bit of googling turns up some interesting points. Two passages from an Arya POV closely juxtapose children and monsters:

If she saw them watching, all her courage would desert her, she knew, and she would drop the bundle of clothes and run and cry like a baby I took her more than an hour to find the low narrow window that slanted down to the dungeon where the monsters waited.

This time the monsters did not frighten her. They seemed almost old friends. Dragons, she whispered. She slid Needle out from under her cloak. The slender blade seemed very small and the dragons very big, yet somehow Arya felt better with steel in her hand.

The wives of the Winterfell freeriders, knights, squires and men-at-arms

gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children.

Arya has been playing with babies and children, including engaging in a game that involves monsters. Maybe this role-playing has given her the skill set to deal with Joffrey, similar to the way that Old Nan's stories helped to prepare Bran for his quest. In addition to the figurative monster that is Joffrey, Arya is also confronted with the literal monsters in the form of dragon skulls. First she tells the reader that they are like old friends but then she admits that she feels better around them with a sword in her hand. Arya is not at the right age to enter into a direct comparison to the motherhood role occupied by Cersei and Dany, but the baby and monster symbols are part of her story anyway, in a different form. At one point, I think there is a reference to her as the mother of her wolf. Maybe that's also part of the baby/monster motif.

For what it's worth, there's another graphic baby/monster incident in the Targaryan history in the WoIaF book:

FROM THE HISTORY OF ARCHMAESTER GYLDAYN:

On Dragonstone, no cheers were heard. Instead, screams echoed through the halls and stairwells of Sea Dragon Tower, and down from the queens apartments where Rhaenyra Targaryen strained and shuddered in her third day of labor. The child had not been due for another turn of the moon, but the tidings from Kings Landing had driven the princess into a black fury, and her rage seemed to bring on the birth, as if the babe inside her were angry too, and fighting to get out. The princess shrieked curses all through her labor, calling down the wroth of the gods upon her half brothers and their mother the queen, and detailing the torments she would inflict upon them before she would let them die. She cursed the child inside her too, Mushroom tells us. Get out, she screamed, clawing at her swollen belly as her maester and her midwife tried to restrain her. Monster, monster, get out, get out, GET OUT!

When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, and a stubby, scaled tail. Or so Mushroom describes her. The dwarf tells us that it was he who carried the little thing to the yard for burning. The dead girl had been named Visenya, Princess Rhaenyra announced the next day, when milk of the poppy had blunted the edge of her pain. She was my only daughter, and they killed her. They stole my crown and murdered my daughter, and they shall answer for it.

This story seems to fit well with the Cersei model of the vindictive mother, consumed with grief, bitterness and anger, turning her own baby into a monster. (And putting the blame entirely on others.) And yet the physical monstrousness of the stillborn baby has elements in common with Dany's story.

[MoIaF]

Motherhood

Dany and Cersei have very long and complicated journeys as mothers in ASOIAF. They take to it very differently with only one thing in common; they both fiercely defend those whom they consider to be their ‘children’. Cersei of course only has the 3 children, while Dany has Rhaego, the 3 dragons and the thousands of freedmen and former slaves whom she feels responsible for. Neither of them are ‘bad’ mothers, they just take it to a different place, and go about protecting in very different ways. (Please note I will underline the focus of each passage quoted from the books in bolded letters And sorry for any editing or spelling mistakes, I tried.)

Very well done, Suzanna! :thumbsup:

It's an interesting comparison to see how both Dany and Cersei react towards their duties as mothers. While Dany is an inclusive and embracing mother, Cersei is exclusive, he children and her personal needs are all that matter.

Even as Cersei can be loving and protective of her children there is always an underlying selfishness to everything she does and feels. In the end I wonder if she loves them for being sole an extension of herself (and Jaime) or does she love them for the people they are.

With Dany you have someone who feels compelled to become a mother in part because she was denied the role of being an actual mother. And so therefore she's much more embracing of all the different opportunities she's been given to be a mother. Dany has shown to be the type of mother who would sacrifice her personal needs in order to protect her people. In ADWD we see this with her marriage to Hizzy but also at the end when she once again becomes the Mother of Dragons. Dany doesn't enjoy war for war sake but knows that's the only way she can protect her people and fight her enemies, so there is some sacrifice there as well.

Very comprehensive and thoughtful! Thank you for another insightful essay, Suzanna Stormborn!

The thing that strikes me immediately about Dany and Cersei's parallel experiences of motherhood is that they both give birth to - or bring up their children as - monsters. As you point out:

This is what others say about the literal monsters to which Cersei and Dany give birth:

Sansa on Joffrey:

A shiver went through her. A monster, she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. Joffrey is a monster. Hes evil and cruel my lady, its so.

Tyrion on Joffrey:

And I want Robb Starks head too. Write to Lord Frey and tell him. The king commands. Im going to have it served to Sansa at my wedding feast.

Sire, Ser Kevan said, in a shocked voice, the lady is now your aunt by marriage.

A jest. Cersei smiled. Joff did not mean it.

Yes I did, Joffrey insisted. He was a traitor, and I want his stupid head. Im going to make Sansa kiss it.

No. Tyrions voice was hoarse. Sansa is no longer yours to torment. Understand that, monster.

Joffrey sneered. Youre the monster, Uncle.

Mirri Maz Duur on Rhaego:

He turned his face away. His eyes were haunted. They say the child was

She waited, but Ser Jorah could not say it. His face grew dark with shame. He looked half a corpse himself.

Monstrous, Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.

Different kinds of monsters, to be sure: Joffrey is a monster because he is evil and cruel, and Dany's baby was a monster because he was physically inhuman; he was twisted, scaled, had a tail and wings, and was dead and rotting.

But Joffrey turns the tables, calling Tyrion a monster. He is probably referring - in his tactful and oh-so-original Joffrey way - to Tyrion's dwarfism. Perhaps Joffrey is simply reflecting Cersei's longstanding attitude toward Tyrion, although Oberyn Martell specifically refutes Cersei's claim that baby Tyrion was a monster:

When we met your sister, she promised she would show you to us. Every day we would ask. Every day she would say, "Soon." Then she and your brother took us to your nursery and... she unveiled the freak. Your head was a bit large. Your arms and legs were a bit small, but no claw. No red eye. No tail between your legs. Just a tiny pink cock. We didn't try to hide our disappointment. That's not a monster, I told Cersei, that's just a baby. And she said, he killed my mother. And she pinched your little cock so hard, I thought she might pull it off. Until your brother made her stop. It doesn't matter, she told us, everyone says he will die soon, I hope they are right, he should not have lived this long.

But Joffrey's attempt to insult his uncle, as well as Cersei's attempt to brand her baby brother as a monster, raise the question: if there are other monster-children in the books, maybe the comparison is not unique to Dany and Cersei's offspring. A little bit of googling turns up some interesting points. Two passages from an Arya POV closely juxtapose children and monsters:

If she saw them watching, all her courage would desert her, she knew, and she would drop the bundle of clothes and run and cry like a baby I took her more than an hour to find the low narrow window that slanted down to the dungeon where the monsters waited.

This time the monsters did not frighten her. They seemed almost old friends. Dragons, she whispered. She slid Needle out from under her cloak. The slender blade seemed very small and the dragons very big, yet somehow Arya felt better with steel in her hand.

The wives of the Winterfell freeriders, knights, squires and men-at-arms

gave her scones and she invented names for their babies and played monsters-and-maidens and hide-the-treasure and come-into-my-castle with their children.

Arya has been playing with babies and children, including engaging in a game that involves monsters. Maybe this role-playing has given her the skill set to deal with Joffrey, similar to the way that Old Nan's stories helped to prepare Bran for his quest. In addition to the figurative monster that is Joffrey, Arya is also confronted with the literal monsters in the form of dragon skulls. First she tells the reader that they are like old friends but then she admits that she feels better around them with a sword in her hand. Arya is not at the right age to enter into a direct comparison to the motherhood role occupied by Cersei and Dany, but the baby and monster symbols are part of her story anyway, in a different form. At one point, I think there is a reference to her as the mother of her wolf. Maybe that's also part of the baby/monster motif.

For what it's worth, there's another graphic baby/monster incident in the Targaryan history in the WoIaF book:

FROM THE HISTORY OF ARCHMAESTER GYLDAYN:

On Dragonstone, no cheers were heard. Instead, screams echoed through the halls and stairwells of Sea Dragon Tower, and down from the queens apartments where Rhaenyra Targaryen strained and shuddered in her third day of labor. The child had not been due for another turn of the moon, but the tidings from Kings Landing had driven the princess into a black fury, and her rage seemed to bring on the birth, as if the babe inside her were angry too, and fighting to get out. The princess shrieked curses all through her labor, calling down the wroth of the gods upon her half brothers and their mother the queen, and detailing the torments she would inflict upon them before she would let them die. She cursed the child inside her too, Mushroom tells us. Get out, she screamed, clawing at her swollen belly as her maester and her midwife tried to restrain her. Monster, monster, get out, get out, GET OUT!

When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, and a stubby, scaled tail. Or so Mushroom describes her. The dwarf tells us that it was he who carried the little thing to the yard for burning. The dead girl had been named Visenya, Princess Rhaenyra announced the next day, when milk of the poppy had blunted the edge of her pain. She was my only daughter, and they killed her. They stole my crown and murdered my daughter, and they shall answer for it.

This story seems to fit well with the Cersei model of the vindictive mother, consumed with grief, bitterness and anger, turning her own baby into a monster. (And putting the blame entirely on others.) And yet the physical monstrousness of the stillborn baby has elements in common with Dany's story.

Really interesting comparison on the monster aspect. It's a good comparison to see what it signifies to be a physical monster versus a psychological monster. Joffrey is said to be a very handsome boy but that's all the beauty he posses, otherwise he's a horrible and ugly person.

[BearQueen87]

Motherhood

I finally have a moment to read this!

First off, well done Suzanna!

I believe it is because she has become protective of her child. Before when Viserys hurt her she had no one to protect so she just let him do as he would, since she is quite a selfless person. But now that hurting her = possibly hurting the baby within her, she instinctively fights back.

In a different world where different choices were made, it would be interesting to see how Viserys reacted to Rhaego (if both were alive). I honestly don't think Viserys would have cared for his little nephew. He would see him as a threat since Rhaego would have the backing of prophecy AND many (many many many ) Dothraki under Drogo and Dany.

Why back the Dragon Prince when the Dothraki can take Westeros and install Dany/Drogo with Rhaego as heir?

Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively

Touch is quite important for Dany--her dragons are her emotional touchstones, but she also literally touches them to steady herself, to draw power from them, ect, something I touched (ha! pun) on in my third Arya and Dany essay. But going further, I'm going to pull from something MOIAF and I wrote together over the holidays:

Eating the stallion’s heart is something akin to a Herculean feat of strength. It’s raw, bloody, the taste makes Dany gag but through it all Dany, “made herself chew and swallow.” During this display in front of the Dothraki khals and crones, Dany carries on by focusing on three things: her husband whom she has come to love, the child growing within her (“Dany touched the soft swell of her belly…she must not flinch or look afraid”), and reminding herself that she is blood of the dragon. This essay will focus on Dany as a Dragon below, but for now Dany’s growing relationship as Mother is nicely illustrated here. Notice that in order to draw strength during this bloody ritual, Dany touches the physical reminder of her pregnancy. The child growing inside her will always remind her of the first time when she seized her own power and got out from the dark and abusive shadow of her brother. In fact, Dany touches her stomach (Rhaego) quite often when she needs to steady herself, when she feels the need to protect her growing son, or when she is drawing on that idea of power.

The one-eyed crone peered at Dany. “What shall he be called, the stallion who mounts the world?”

She stood to answer. “He shall be called Rhaego,” she said, using the words that Jhiqui had taught her. Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively.

~~~~~~

“What does it mean?” she asked. “What is this stallion? Everyone was shouting it at me, but I don’t understand.”

“The stallion is the khal of khals promised in ancient prophecy, child. He will unite the Dothraki into a single khalasar and ride to the ends of the earth, or so it was promised. All the people of the world will be hi herd.”

“Oh,” Dany said in a small voice. Her hand smoothed her robe down over the swell of her stomach. “I named him Rhaego.”

“A name to make the Usurper’s blood run cold.”

~~~~~

Viserys began to scream the high, wordless scream of the coward facing death. He kicked and twisted, whimpered like a dog and wept like a child, but the Dothraki held him tight between them. Ser Jorah had made his way to Dany’s side. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Turn away, my princess, I beg you.”

“No,” she folded her arms across the swell of her belly, protectively.

(Daenerys V, AGOT)

~~~~~

Dany was near tears as they carried her back. The taste in her mouth was one she had known before: fear. For years she had lived in terror of Viserys, afraid of waking the dragon. This was even worse. It was not just herself that she feared now, but for her baby. He must have sense her fright, for he moved restlessly inside her. Dany stroked the swell of her belly gently, wishing she could reach him, touch him, soothe him.

(Daenerys VI, AGOT)

These are just a few of the instances where Dany uses tactile touch to draw on the power of motherhood. The touching is repeated with the dragons but also with the slaves in SB, who reach out to touch their mhysa, and she to touch them. In ADWD we even see Dany touch and care for them when the former slaves/residents of Astaphor are sickly.

By way of contrast...Cersei would never do that. Like...ever.

Dany had walked into the flames as they came forth, and they had drunk milk from her swollen breasts.

In the 2^nd book, she is no longer a mother to her human baby and has fully accepted the dragons as her children.

This is a nice way to recall the final lines of AGOT: "The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. when it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals.

The imagery of this final scene is vital and at its heart is something as old as time: a mother nursing her newborn. Isis and Horus, Madonna and Jesus, Daenerys and her dragons, all three of these representations are presented the same way. A mother clutches her child close and nurses him. The image with Dany is strengthened by the fact that there are two dragons nursing and another who is waiting his turn, but the message is clear, Daenerys Targaryen is the Mother of Dragons. Dany is sadly never given a chance to nurse Rhaego, an act that bonds mother and child even further but with her dragons she gets that chance and for the rest of the books, Dany considers the dragons her true children.

“No. Mother to us all.” Missandei hugged her tighter.

The more we talk about Dany and the more I re-read, the more I think this might be one of my favorite quotes to describe Daenerys.

I am showing many examples of her ill-tempered children throughout hers and Tyrion’s chapters. How Joffrey comes off right from the beginning is a very good indication of how she over mothered her boys, turned them spoiled, and was basically a terrible mother, even though she cared about them and tried. Her problem is that she doesn’t know the correct way to try, she learned everything she knows about parenting from Tywin Lannister, who doesn’t believe in love or praise, only in the bottom line and the look of it all. So while Cersei tries and fails, it is not all her fault, her father and Robert’s are also to blame for sure. But no one can deny that it was her who influenced Joffrey the most and we all know what a monster he was, and it must be concluded that much of that was a direct result of her influence over him.

When it comes to Joffery, I think he's walking a fine line between nature vs nurture. Myrcella and Tommen are both the children of Jaime and Cersei, yet are not mad. But they too were raised by Cersei with Robert as their father. Yet, they aren't mad. Joffery definitely has some sociopathic tendencies but he was also likely more affected by Cersei and Robert's toxic relationship than his siblings. We know that as their marriage progressed, Robert and Cersei saw less of each and interacted less. Likely Tommen and Mrycella were spared the brunt of the fighting, unlike Joffery who saw it all and even fell to Robert's temper.

FFC-“I shall my sweet.”Taena took her hand and kissed it.” I pray that I never offend you. You are terrible when roused.”

“Any mother would do the same to protect her children,” said Cersei.

Further examples of Cersei placing herself and her children above the lives of anyone and everyone in the world. Which would actually be normal for the royal family, if they weren’t so terrible like the Lannisters. This is the kind of regency that gets overthrown, just like the Mad king.

I've often read Cersei's line there as if she were in her own little play. Cersei says these things because they are expected of her, not necessarily because she believes them. I have no doubt that Cersei would kill half of Westeros (and will a la wildfire) but she's not doing it because of some sort of deep love for Tommen but because in her own twisted world she think that is what she SHOULD do because "mother."

[SeanF]

Very well done, Suzanna! :thumbsup:

It's an interesting comparison to see how both Dany and Cersei react towards their duties as mothers. While Dany is an inclusive and embracing mother, Cersei is exclusive, he children and her personal needs are all that matter.

Even as Cersei can be loving and protective of her children there is always an underlying selfishness to everything she does and feels. In the end I wonder if she loves them for being sole an extension of herself (and Jaime) or does she love them for the people they are.

With Dany you have someone who feels compelled to become a mother in part because she was denied the role of being an actual mother. And so therefore she's much more embracing of all the different opportunities she's been given to be a mother. Dany has shown to be the type of mother who would sacrifice her personal needs in order to protect her people. In ADWD we see this with her marriage to Hizzy but also at the end when she once again becomes the Mother of Dragons. Dany doesn't enjoy war for war sake but knows that's the only way she can protect her people and fight her enemies, so there is some sacrifice there as well.

Really interesting comparison on the monster aspect. It's a good comparison to see what it signifies to be a physical monster versus a psychological monster. Joffrey is said to be a very handsome boy but that's all the beauty he posses, otherwise he's a horrible and ugly person.

Suzanna, thank you for another good essay.

WRT monsters, Dany compares herself to one. At heart, she fears that she's an evil person, and that she'll enjoy killing and violence far too much. I think that someone who fears that they're evil is unlikely to be evil; but, there is a side to her that does enjoy violence. "Dracarys" "she sang" at Astapor. She doesn't get sexually aroused by torture, like her father, or laugh at seeing dwarfs hunted by lions. But, she does rejoice at seeing bad people suffer horribly.

She's a woman of contradictions. Like Alexander the Great, who behaved with great kindness and chivalry towards the Persian royal family and King Porus, but could deal horribly with those who defied him.