What separates Daenerys from people like Joffrey?

[thewolfofStarfall]

Daenerys is self righteously cruel. She revels in the suffering of others if she thinks they derseve to suffer. This description of her chracter  came to me from an old thread discussing a disgustingly evil act she committed: her burning of Miri to death. It was by @Petyr Patter. That cruelty was the first of many if you don't count her standing by as her own brother was killed in an externally disgusting way. Viserys was a lunatic, but pouring molten gold on someone's head is even more insane than he was.

The thing is her atrocities are no different from the likes of Joffrey. There are basically  three categories  of evil people:

1.) The Ramseys who are plainly sadistic and are aware their victims  have done absolutely nothing wrong and don't derseve to suffer. 

2.)Joffreys who are actually deluded into believing their victims deserve barbaric treatment for whatever reason.

3.) People who are actually of a subtype of #2, but are also self righteous in their pursuits.. aka Daenerys.

Joffrey  genuinely believes the people he torments derserve what they're getting. This is no different from how Daenerys treats people. People she deems as worthless  are worthy of torture. Her fans claim  Daenerys is capable of compassion, well it's not like Joffrey isn't either. Evil people can be sympathic with people they ident with. For Joffrey it's his mother, for Dany its  the slaves. However, Dany's "kindness" is out of pure self righteousness. At least Joffrey is real and consistent in what he is ,and doesn't masquerade behind a delusion of "I'm the good guy".

For instance, Dany also identifies with the Dothraki, most prominently her dead beloved genocidal rapist, Khal Drogo.  This shows she's insanely hypocritical and only condemns something or someone as wrong if it suits her goals. She has no true problem towards the atrocities of the Dothraki if it gets her "her kingdom".  Slavery being one of them. Dany only decides to play "the hero" when she has to see it in front of her.  We all know how Dany stops like five women from being raped for the zillionth time by her savage buddies, and acts like their savior even though she and "her" stupid IT were the reasons for these innocent people's trauma. Brilliant. Then of coarse later she becomes an abolitionist and pretends the slavers are the only abhorrent people in the world. Okay not quite,  later on she orders the Ironborn to stop their practices even though they are the Dothraki of the sea, except the Dothraki are a 100 times worse.

Furthermore, I thought it was ridiculous when I saw the episode recap of the Battle of the Bastards, and one of the "Ds" (the bald guy, can't remember if his name is Dan or David) claimed Daenerys "was not her father. She's not a sadist. She's ruthless". Seriously, what the fuck??? The difference between sadism and "ruthlessness" aka cruelty is slim to none in practice. Tywin isn't necessarily sadistic like Ramsey, but has probably taken more lives and caused more destruction than he has. More people we're probably tortured under Tywin's authority by the Mountain and Co. than Ramsey or Joffrey. 

Moreover, Daenerys is actually very sadistic. She has a crazy gratified arsonist look in her eyes anytime she is the burning or otherwise torturing someone. However, whether she's sadistic or not is irrelevant to the impact of her actions.

It amazes me how people can actually call her "one of my most compassionate characters". She frees slaves in ASOS and I think she fed some poor people in ACOK. However, apparently she still goes on to her allow kids to be tortured in front their father for information by ADWD (I'm still on the first book). This doesn't make her a good person in the slightest. Being kind to people who aren't a threat to you, and sadistic towards people you disagree with is not "compassion". That makes her a reprehensible person like Joffrey, with a strong dosage of self righteous fanactism akin to Melisandre.

[thewolfofStarfall]

7 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Heh, while true, I think more significantly, what separates them are her dragons, which turn her from basically a slave sold to a Dothraki, to a queen.  But of course a teenage queen who grew up with Viserys, and was married into a family of rapists and killers.

But to be fair, she's still better than Joffrey.  She is at least capable of showing kindness.  I'm not sure we have a like example with Joffrey.

I feel like Joffrey's behavior is more understandable considering how he was raised.  He was brainwashed to believe he's allowed to do whatever he wants to people because he's a Lannister by his mother. Daenerys was taught to believe  in Targaryen superiority by her brother, but I honestly believe she is just naturally self righteous with a victim complex because "her kingdom was taken from her".

[Stubby]

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