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Why didn't Dany send agents to Westeros?


Estelindis

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Sorry if I've missed or forgotten something, but while we all know the situation in Westeros it seems like Dany only gets sporadic news. She has an ally in Illyrio, who clearly has agents there, but it doesn't seem like she feels she can trust him 100%. Why didn't Dany send her own agents to Westeros?


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Whom would you have her send, and when? She was pretty helpless before Astapor, no? She had three dragons a couple of body guards and a pathetically small khalesar. After Astapor she exiled one of her body guards and acquired a host of unsullied and an even lager host of freed slaves. One sellsord company has remained truewhile the other switched sides twice.

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I doubt those agents would give her much more than sporadic news. She´s still quite far away. When she is somewhere like the stepping stones it will be time to analyze the situation. The way things are now, an year old news is almost worse than no news at all.

Perhaps - but, assuming she was able to find and/or train people loyal to her who she could trust to do the job, at least she'd have information from sources she could rely on, albeit not particularly up to date.

To be honest, this might have been the use she should have made of Quentyn Martell. She could have found out more about the real Westeros from him or asked him to help set up a more reliable method of communication between Meereen and Sunspear.

I don't really know, though. It's just a thought I had.

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I doubt those agents would give her much more than sporadic news. She´s still quite far away. When she is somewhere like the stepping stones it will be time to analyze the situation. The way things are now, an year old news is almost worse than no news at all.

I agree. As long as her dragons are not fully grown and her troopes are not on march, she has no reason to send agents to Westeros.

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It would take 6 months for an agent to get there, and there is no guaruntee that the agent gets there, the ship could sink. Then once the agent gets there it will take 6 months for the messages to start getting back to her with no guarantee that they arrive. So she could do it but it would take a year or two to set up the network of observers or spies. I've always wondered why Ned did not have an agent or represenative at Roberts court and ended up walking into that situation like a blind man. I can understand Dany because of the distances involved and her having problems closer at hand and in fairness she really does not have ships, her port has been blockaded almost since she took it. Neds the one who has me shaking my head not Dany.


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The reason is that Daenerys has kind of got her arms full with what is going on right now to this point. Also remember that Daenerys don't know much about Westeros and for her agents to do something she will need alot of information to plan her actions. But she also needs people who knows Westeros and can work there without getting pointed out and still get news back to her. And with thinks as shake as they've been so far for her I don't blame her that she's focused on solving the present issues first.


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How would it be possible?


  • Before she turned into Slaver's Bay, there was no reason to: she spent the majority of ACoK trying to get back to Pentos, remember, and from there she would be in a better position to "send agents" across the sea to Westeros.
  • After she turned into Slaver's Bay, she was preoccupied with a war; why send agents then? And worse - what if she sent agents and they decided to send more assassins while she's distracted, or begin preparing for her invasion?
  • Even by the time she reaches Meereen, she still believes she's going to keep travelling to Pentos, presumably intending to remain as a guest of the city until she can send people across the sea to bring her information/spread news of her.
  • When she decides to stay in Meereen, what's the point? She doesn't know how long it will take for her to leave Meereen and reach Westeros, and there's no point sending anyone to get news because by the time it reaches her it will probably be irrelevant.


I'm not surprised at all to see ~oh that would require her being LOGICAL~ because, as per usual, some readers are ignorant and lack critical thinking when it comes to assessing Dany's decisions. But these reactions are wrong; at no point in Dany's arc after the birth of the dragons has sending agents to Westeros been a good decision. She can get news of what has happened in Westeros when she's much closer to the continent. Hell, she could actually just wait in Pentos or on Dragonstone (like Aegon the Conqueror) until she feels like she has enough information about everything.


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While it would make sense, there would be some tricky parts to it...

As one might noticed, she doesn't have a lot of Westerosi folks in her ensemble. Jorah is gone, and it is just Barristan who remains but was kicked out of the KG and placed in self imposed exile. Sending someone who is a complete foreigner in Westeros might be difficult, with the language barriers, cultural confusions, and the fact that a person who is suppose to be a spy ends up sticking out like a sore thumb because of their different appearance, attire and manner of speech, and education. Especially since Dany doesn't have a lot of "Highborn" people, mainly former slaves, servants, children and warriors. The only Highborns she knows that could somehow wiggle their way into a place like KL with composure and court knowledge, are the ones in her current city, including her curernt husband, and they wouldn't be trustworthy enough to go on her behalf.

Where could her informants go with that in mind too? How could someone like Jiqhui, her bloodriders, Strong Belwas, her Unsullied, merceneries, peasants, sneak into a significant place somehow? And as mentioned, Barristan can't really go back to KL himself, he is already well known, he is outcasted and shamed. At most he could try and be a Kingsguard again under Tommen. But still, he is needed by Dany's side, training upcoming knights and he himself might feel too old to do such a deed. Who could survive going to the wall, or the North in general? Storm's End? Where the Ironborn live? Dorne will be out of the picture now after Quentyn's sizzling moment. There is Missandei, who is brave, intelligent and linguistic, but Dany might not want her away from her side. Missandei also might be too exotic and young looking to probably blend in anywhere, unless she works with someone else under a plan.

She doesn't have someone like Varys or Littlefinger, nor would she have the time to raise people up like that. Varys and LF were originally commoners, working their way up to better status and placing themselves in a noble world, but that took a long while for it to happen. Varys little birds are all local kids spying on local locations.

There is Daario, but how reliable would Daario be? And he is also mainly busy with leading his own men.

Alongside all that too, many of her Dothraki still fear the water. Imagine trying to send one of them alone across the sea, with only a fear companions! Instead of at least being together as a large group. And even if they did make it, they would be considered enemies. Once someone finds out they are Dothraki, trouble would arise.

At most, she probably should have asked more questions about Westeros with people like Jorah, Barristan and Qyentyn. Barristan and Qyentyn especially, since Barristan can give insight whatnots of how courtlife was, about the last two kings he served personally, and Qyentyn about the specifics of Dorne and political situations and the war. It wouldn't be a mind boggling amount of information, but it would still be the important enough basics, and she could still use it to prepare in some way.

If she were to choose informant(s), it would be a long decision and likely some training involved.

And then is of course, possibly Tyrion, if they ever meet.

Then there is obviously the geographical issues, the time it would take to get information and the risk of death for the informant. Plus, who knows, maybe Dany doesn't feel comfortable going that route. She was the target of informants, and that felt awful. And she is likely a target of informants once again in Meereen. She isn't really in a trustful mood over things like these. Having informations everywhere, ones for her and ones against her, might be too much. Perhaps she would worry whether they would easily get bought out too, if not killed by whatever enemy it might be.

But altogether, yeah, I definitely agree that Dany really does need to do more to educate herself on places like Westeros. Come on, girl!

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<snip>

It makes sense to some extent, but what about disrespecting the agents who came to her from Westeros. I'm talking about the Dornish psrty of course. Even if she didn't want to sail to Westeros immediately and wanted to rule Mereen for now, she knew she will one day eventually go back to Westeros. She could have used allies then, but she ruined that opportunity. :(

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Who did she disrespect? She laughed at Quentyn being a "Frog" and then a "Prince", but otherwise she was courteous to him and even held his hand when the dragons scared him.



And by the time she opens Daznak's Pit, she's basically given up on Westeros. But one of the Dornish (Yronwood) still has some respect for her IIRC.





But altogether, yeah, I definitely agree that Dany really does need to do more to educate herself on places like Westeros. Come on, girl!





I agree that she should have questioned Barristan more (although from what the Shavepate says it's clear that he is telling her stories of Westeros, but just off-page). But we should remember that Quentyn and Dany were only in Meereen together for a really short period of time, and during that time Dany had a LOT more to deal with than learning about history. She also had to stay away from Quentyn to keep him safe. So we can hardly blame her for not learning much from him. She did ask him about Westerosi history at one point, but again it happened off-page.


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I think that outright sending agents would have been very inpractical, at this point. She is half a world away from Westeros, or near enough. Who would she sent (former slaves or unsullied aren't exactly going to blend in, and random sailors may not be trustworthy) and how would they report back to her, short of glass candles or transoceanic ravens?



Just look how difficult it was for Tyrion to get near her. Soon, he will be a good source of info on Westeros anyway, along with Marwyn and co.


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Kind of silly to judge her harshly because she hasn't sent spies to Westeros. As has been pointed out before, she has no one who would blend in. The reality of it is that IIliyo should be sending her info from Varys spies. I mean, how long have LF and Varys been in Kings Landing? It's not like they developed their entire network in one year, while being 16, and in a war. Be realistic people.


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I'm not surprised at all to see ~oh that would require her being LOGICAL~ because, as per usual, some readers are ignorant and lack critical thinking when it comes to assessing Dany's decisions. But these reactions are wrong; at no point in Dany's arc after the birth of the dragons has sending agents to Westeros been a good decision. She can get news of what has happened in Westeros when she's much closer to the continent. Hell, she could actually just wait in Pentos or on Dragonstone (like Aegon the Conqueror) until she feels like she has enough information about everything.

With how ignorant all these readers are, it's really surprising how they recognize that 'sending agents' doesn't mean just sending for a newspaper delivery boy. I can't believe how the "ignorant" readers totally understand that sending agents means sending those to do your bidding. Like, you know, seeing who would rise for her when she landed in Westeros, figuring out the best place to land, the strengths and weaknesses of each region that can be exploited, and how best to integrate her army with those in Westeros. I mean, Dany herself thinks about lacking agents all the way in her first chapter of AGoT, in the same sentence where she talks of mistrusting Illyrio. But yeah, totally agree with you that it's other readers who are ignorant. In the two years since that first chapter, she just really didn't have the time. Definitely could wait. :dunno:

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