[TV Spoilers] What was Xaro's endgame?

[Hear Us Roar]

Pyatt Pree gets the dragons, dany and magic amplified, Xaro becomes King, Dorreah gets money/status etc.

[Harrad]

The whole coupe just makes Qarth seem like it wasn't that great of a city after all. Maybe that was the point... but that doesn't make sense either. It was definitely a place of wealth and power.

It was a place of faded glory. The whole shebang added up to one ship...a small one.

[from the arbor]

Xaro put his faith in security on Pyat. Pyat killed for him once and now had dragons and powerful magic. He figured no one would touch him fearing Pyat and his growing powers.

[Morrigan]

They sent an army of Jaime Lannisters who slaughtered all of the Dothraki warriors guarding Dany's dragons but when she comes back for him he has no guards...? I guess they all ran away at the sight of the dragon hatchlings, but it all looked very silly...

[Mulled Wino]

I guess he wanted to get those dragons to pay off his credit cards.

[Mulled Wino]

Pyatt Pree gets the dragons, dany and magic amplified, Xaro becomes King, Dorreah gets money/status etc.

He already killed the competition.

[Horus Ex Machina]

Dany's whole arc this Season has been awful.

Her book arc wasn't action packed, but at least we had character development as she dealt with the realities of politics, and there was a lot of foreshadowing in the house of the undying.

In the show we got plot points that went nowhere, false tension and endless “blood, dragon, Rahhh”

People praise the show because it;'s so “realistic” to steal her dragons; XXD had taken control of the city. He could have captured Dany and had her escorted to the house of the undying by 100 watchmen so his ally Pyat pree could imprison her. Instead, he couldn't even be bothered to spare a single watchman to protect him or his house, and Dany and her tiny Khalasar were able to march in there, take him prisoner and lock him in his own vault. Pretty poor security for the guy who's just crowned himself in a coup...

I don't criticize HBO for alot, but this storyline was just horrible. And to think, they killed off Irri to get us on this track?!! What a waste of a season. They may as well have saved their money and told Emilia Clarke to take the season off. They really made her look bad this season by having her go off on one note for the last half of the season. Alot of fans have been dumping on her this season, but most critics adored her performance in season 1. The difference was the material, to me, not the actress.

[Dolorous Nick]

I think I might be in the minority here, but I actually enjoyed Dany's story arc in the TV series far more than in the books. She is betrayed (by Doreah), learns about the harsh realities of politics in being used as a pawn in the Xaro/Pyat coup, grieves for her dead khalasar members, and discovers that she can command her dragons to burn her enemies on command. I will admit that I found it a little strange how easily Xaro was captured in the end; one would think somebody as cunning as him would have his own kingsguard of sorts. They laid the "fire and blood" stuff on a little thick...that line is effective once or twice, but starts to grate on you when it's overused. ("You know nothing Jon Snow"comes to mind from the novels)

[Dolorous Nick]

Xaro's endgame was to rule Qarth; I think once he realized Dany had no interest in marrying him, he figured he'd use her to gain an ally in Pyat Pree. I liked how, in the end, the vault contained absolutely nothing. That perfectly illustrated Varys' fantastic speech about how power is really all a trick, an illusion, a shadow on the wall.

[Khal-a-bunga]

I took my post from another thread to copy here, as it feels semi-relevant to the discussion:

I must not have had the same problem with the Qarth storyline as many here did, because I found it to be much more satisfying than her stay there in the novels.

In the Red Waste the audience sees that Dany isn't suddenly going from powerless to all-powerful simply by the virtue of having dragons at her disposal. Her people are dying and suffering, she loses Silver, and she has only Jorah to truly rely on and carry her through.

When she comes to the gates of Qarth and meets with the Thirteen she is denied entry because she's unwilling to use her dragons (her children, as Dany sees it) as a bargaining chip. Xaro then invokes "sumai" to grant her and her Dothraki followers access into the city, despite the fact that the other members of the Thirteen don't feel the same.

Next we see her with Irri (who firmly establishes that Dany is a khaleesi and not a princess) and Doreah in her chambers. The foreshadowing of "dracarys" also happens in this scene, as well as the set-up for Doreah's betrayal ("He loves you."; "Men like to talk about other men... When they're happy.")

At the party thrown in Dany's honor, Pyat Pree mentions that Dany should come to the House of the Undying. Jorah then meets Quaithe who warns him of the dangers that Dany faces in the city as a result of her being the mother of dragons, and Xaro begins to sow seeds of discontent between Dany and Jorah after discounting Pyat Pree as a sham.

This is also where the vault is introduced, and Xaro's insistence that "power resides where men believe it resides" begins. Xaro, somewhat like Dany, came to this city with nothing and has established himself through sheer force of will. At the gates of Qarth, and during her meeting with the Spice King, Dany vows to take what is rightfully her own through virtue of her family history and her dragons. She says these things with conviction, but also with no true understanding of what it means to wield such power.

Just as the Spice King and the rest of the Thirteen doubted Pyat Pree and Xaro (due to his upbringing), Xaro and Pree doubt Dany. The difference being, unlike Xaro's empty vault, Dany does have a true power hidden inside of her. That Pree monologues about her dragons strengthening his power, then tells her that her own power makes the dragons (ergo, the source of his and the other Warlock's powers) stronger is ultimately his own undoing, which seems less anti-climactic to me and more intentionally ironic.

When all is said and done, Dany shows her true strength by ignoring the false visions of power shown to her in the House of the Undying (the throne representing her future and Drogo representing what was) and embracing her role as a mother of dragons. Her remaining Dothraki loot Xaro's own "baubles and trinkets" (mirroring the scene where she forbid Kavarro from doing so) to purchase a small ship and go on to the next leg of their journey.

Doreah and Xaro are locked in his empty vault, and the lesson that Dany learns isn't 'Don't trust rich people that want to marry you.', but rather that real power can and does exist inside of her if she can believe in herself and those around her whom she trusts.

There are plenty of other things that tie this all together, and I barely touched upon how Dany's relationship with Jorah is challenged (which will give further weight to the relationship between the two in the future). My point is that this storyline isn't something that was thrown together haphazardly. Points about the common people of Qarth have no real relevance because this isn't a story about that city but about Dany's journey. Why is it so hard to simply assume that Qarth is feeling the effects of what has happened? And Dany not being able to get to Xaro because of his guards? Uh, dragons... Do you think anyone would stand in her way? Would you?

Not everything needs to be spelled out explicitly, and as it pertains to Dany's growth as a character I feel that the Qarth storyline succeeded admirably. I'm not interjecting anything from the books into this assessment, I'm simply using what was presented in the show. I have no problems with people disliking the execution of these things, but to say that the whole plot was a mess of contradictions and inconsistencies is patently false.