Learning to Lead V: endings and beginnings. A Daenerys and Jon reread ADWD reread project

[The Lost Lord]

as opposed to the army of charming gentle people that she could have recruited instead :) ? Isn't one of the lessons of ACOK to AFFC that all armies, irrespective of the cause they are fighting for are destructive and harpy like, preying on the countryside? War in Westeros is organised violence, but with extra potential for disorganised violence too. At least her Unsullied are disciplined, castrated and devoted to her.

Well there are different levels of savagery. Sure, there were atrocities committed by Northmen, but nothing on the scale of what Tywin ordered Gregor to do to the Riverlands, or what Euron carried out at the Shield Islands. Ironborn and Dothraki are definitely closer to the Gregor approach, from what we've seen -- utterly indiscriminate killing and raping. You're right that the Unsullied are much better in this regard.

And another lesson has been that winning over the people is crucial. Brute force is not enough. Tywin subdued the Riverlands by brute force, but the Brotherhood insurgency is now eating the Freys alive. The Boltons subdued the North by intimidation, but as we've seen "The North remembers." And of course, there was Dany's own experience in Meereen. So if Dany does land with these particularly unsavory groups known for raping and pillaging, who also happen to be tens of thousands of foreign mouths to feed on a starving continent, in an attempt to depose the heroic young dragon who's just defeated the hated Cersei, this does not bode well for her long-term prospects IMO.

And of course, there was actually another option for her, the Dornish road, which I'm sure you've all already discussed...

[PatrickStormborn]

Snip

Isn't that kind of the beauty of this story, though? Our six main characters are all very dark shades of grey in terms of morality -- Arya is a murderer, Bran wargs Hodor, Sansa is slowly poisoning Robert Arryn, Tyrion is Tyrion, Jon is an oathbreaker, and Dany is a conqueror. If this was a typical fantasy story, all six of these characters could arguably be called villains, imo (Bran, Sansa and Jon only really after ASOS), but is that what they are?

I'm not here for the whole "Dany bringing a foreign army makes her a villain" argument. I'm sorry but that's deeply racist. The Dothraki are known for raping and pillaging, yes, but that is the same with all armies. Dany, however, has shown that she will tolerate this behaviour less so than other "hero" leaders, such as Robb. As for the Unsullied... isn't the beauty of them that they CAN'T rape and don't particularly want to pillage? I just think there's a lot of hypocrisy with this argument, because it essentially names the Unsullied as a reason for Dany's supposed villainy, despite them being the opposite of why the Dothraki also make her a villain.

I have to say, I see a nice parallel with Jon here. Dany is now heading towards being a proper Khaleesi -- a female khal; similarly, Jon is heading towards being the King of the Wildlings. Both are similar groups imo -- they're widely perceived as savages, who pillage and rape and raid. But, as we've seen from Jon and Dany's time with the wildlings and the Dothraki, there is far more to them than that.

When Dany finally utters her house words, I never got the impression that she was saying "I no longer care about the lives of innocents". Instead I perceived it as the opposite -- she's going to do whatever it takes to save the innocents. The innocents being, of course, the ex-slaves in Meereen. Those are the group that Dany should have been fighting for in ADWD. Instead she submitted to the ex-slavers and the Yunkish forces, allowing them to kill her people and un-do a lot of her progress. Dany is a conqueror; she needs to embrace "fire and blood" if she wants to make changes to the world around her. If she submits and plants trees, she's no longer capable of being a force for change, as we quite evidently saw in ADWD.

"Fire and blood" is what conquering requires. Is it a good thing? No, of course not. But that doesn't mean it can't be used to prevent something worse from occurring. Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark, for example, burned the Iron Islands when Balon Greyjoy rebelled. Whilst I think it was hypocritical of them after they staged their own rebellion, I think they did the right thing as it prevented the re-emergence of the "Old Way" and everything vile that comes with it.

Who knows? Maybe I'm terribly wrong and Dany is truly an evil queen who'll burn Westeros and torture smallfolk as her armies rape and pillage, before finally being stopped by good ol' King Jon. But I don't think that's the case.

ETA:

So if Dany does land with these particularly unsavory groups known for raping and pillaging, who also happen to be tens of thousands of foreign mouths to feed on a starving continent, in an attempt to depose the heroic young dragon who's just defeated the hated Cersei, this does not bode well for her long-term prospects IMO.

Firstly, I think we have every reason to believe that by the time Dany lands in Westeros she'll be well aware of the threat posed by the Others. Much like Jon when he chose to let the wildlings pass through the Wall, she'll realise that everyone in Westeros will die unless they have enough power to face the Others. There's no point conserving food if there will be no one left alive to eat it. :)

As for Cersei... Since when did we have any reason to believe Aegon would depose her? We know that she's going to be removed from power by a woman, so surely Dany is a far better candidate?

[The Lost Lord]

I'm not here for the whole "Dany bringing a foreign army makes her a villain" argument. I'm sorry but that's deeply racist.

Well my point is about how Martin is positioning her role in the larger story -- I'm not saying that she'll become a cackling evildoer. I'm saying that seemed possible after AFFC that GRRM would position her for a "heroic" invasion where she would swoop in, depose Cersei, and the Westerosi people would rally around her. But now it seems more likely to me that her invasion will in fact end up being destabilizing, alienate the people of Westeros, and cause a lot of destruction in her futile attempt to conquer and hold the continent before she's eventually defeated.

The foreign army point is relevant to me not because I am a racist, but because of my above point that winning the loyalties of Westerosi is very important, and if she is perceived as a foreign invader rather than a savior, that could be ruinous to her. Yes, the Westerosi population is racist. Bringing over tens of thousands of foreigners to a starving and devastated continent will definitely lead to a ton of resistance and resentment among that continent's populace.

The Dothraki are known for raping and pillaging, yes, but that is the same with all armies.

See my post above. All armies we've seen in the series aren't equal in their practices toward slaughter of civilians and rape. A certain amount occurs in all armies but there is quite a bit of variation in how much.

Dany, however, has shown that she will tolerate this behaviour less so than other "hero" leaders, such as Robb.

But I think we've seen a change in her attitudes toward innocent life in this chapter. She forgets Hazzea's name and thinks she won't have any children, only dragons. She thinks that dragons plant no trees. She decides that she has to go to Westeros instead of cleaning up the mess she made in Meereen, seemingly accepting an Astapor-like outcome for the place. (There were very clear reasons why she couldn't leave yet, so she thought, so this sudden decision to leave makes me think she's going to care less about the human consequences of leaving, because she's decided she has a greater destiny in mind for herself.)

As for the Unsullied... isn't the beauty of them that they CAN'T rape and don't particularly want to pillage? I just think there's a lot of hypocrisy with this argument, because it essentially names the Unsullied as a reason for Dany's supposed villainy, despite them being the opposite of why the Dothraki also make her a villain.

I think if Dany arrived with the Unsullied alone she could pull it off, despite their foreign-ness. But adding thousands more foreign freedmen from Slaver's Bay (and soon, Volantis) makes her task more difficult -- again, if only for the mere fact that these are mouths to feed and they need somewhere to live, and that will necessarily come at the expense of native Westerosi. And if she brings the Dothraki or ironborn, forget it, she'll be loathed by everyone.

When Dany finally utters her house words, I never got the impression that she was saying "I no longer care about the lives of innocents". Instead I perceived it as the opposite -- she's going to do whatever it takes to save the innocents. The innocents being, of course, the ex-slaves in Meereen. Those are the group that Dany should have been fighting for in ADWD.

In my reading she thinks very little about "her people" in that last chapter, and instead thinks mainly about being a dragon, showing the world the meaning of her words, that Meereen is not her home and never could be and that she has a "war" in Westeros. I didn't really see any mention of her trying to do the right thing, or any reasoning of why she wanted to take over Westeros except that she thinks it's her birthright.

As for Cersei... Since when did we have any reason to believe Aegon would depose her? We know that she's going to be removed from power by a woman, so surely Dany is a far better candidate?

ETA: Mummer's dragon, cheering crowds. It would be Aegon's point in the story. GRRM has said there will be "a second Dance of the Dragons." The dynamics of how people would rally to Aegon's side were amusingly predicted by Tyrion during the cyvasse game. The Faith Militant and Dorne in particular could back him to depose Cersei. And it's a great twist to have Dany arrive and find her alleged nephew on the Iron Throne rather than a Usurper.

[PatrickStormborn]

Well my point is about how Martin is positioning her role in the larger story -- I'm not saying that she'll become a cackling evildoer. I'm saying that seemed possible after AFFC that GRRM would position her for a "heroic" invasion where she would swoop in, depose Cersei, and the Westerosi people would rally around her. But now it seems more likely to me that her invasion will in fact end up being destabilizing, alienate the people of Westeros, and cause a lot of destruction in her futile attempt to conquer and hold the continent before she's eventually defeated.

The foreign army point is relevant to me not because I am a racist, but because of my above point that winning the loyalties of Westerosi is very important, and if she is perceived as a foreign invader rather than a savior, that could be ruinous to her. Yes, the Westerosi population is racist. Bringing over tens of thousands of foreigners to a starving and devastated continent will definitely lead to a ton of resistance and resentment among that continent's populace.

How can Dany destabilise a continent that has never been less stable? Stannis and the Boltons are warring in the North, Euron is pillaging in Oldtown, Aegon is conquering the Stormlands, Cersei has remilitarised the Faith, the Riverlands is about to implode and, oh yeah, an army of frozen zombies is making its way south. Unless Aegon somehow sorts all of that shit out in half a book, Dany won't be destabilising anything.

See my post above. All armies we've seen in the series aren't equal in their practices toward slaughter of civilians and rape. A certain amount occurs in all armies but there is quite a bit of variation in how much.

It depends on their leader, surely? Stannis' army has the least amount of rape because he doesn't tolerate it. Similarly, Dany puts herself at risk back in AGoT to prevent the Dothraki from raping, and it's kind of successful. Could you imagine her allowing the Dothraki to rape the smallfolk if she actually LED the khalasar? I don't think so.

But I think we've seen a change in her attitudes toward innocent life in this chapter. She forgets Hazzea's name and thinks she won't have any children, only dragons. She thinks that dragons plant no trees. She decides that she has to go to Westeros instead of cleaning up the mess she made in Meereen, seemingly accepting an Astapor-like outcome for the place. (There were very clear reasons why she couldn't leave yet, so she thought, so this sudden decision to leave makes me think she's going to care less about the human consequences of leaving, because she's decided she has a greater destiny in mind for herself.)

She says nothing about Westeros. She says "To go forward, I must go back" and "Fire and blood", and she decides that Meereen is not her home. But she makes no mention of abandoning it to an Astapor fate. In fact, isn't the whole point of this chapter that she's going to subdue the world with fire and blood? That includes the nobles of Meereen, I imagine. Unless she's mentioned that she now supports slavery??? I didn't think so.

I think if Dany arrived with the Unsullied alone she could pull it off, despite their foreign-ness. But adding thousands more foreign freedmen from Slaver's Bay (and soon, Volantis) makes her task more difficult -- again, if only for the mere fact that these are mouths to feed and they need somewhere to live, and that will necessarily come at the expense of native Westerosi. And if she brings the Dothraki or ironborn, forget it, she'll be loathed by everyone.

If you think she's going to bring freedmen to Westeros, you're in for a very big surprise. The whole point of this chapter is to show her moving from a "I have to protect EVERYONE no matter the cost" to a more pragmatic "I have to make difficult decisions to protect everyone". That will inevitably include not allowing the freedmen to follow her to Westeros. She doesn't have an unlimited supply of ships, after all.

In my reading she thinks very little about "her people" in that last chapter, and instead thinks mainly about being a dragon, showing the world the meaning of her words, that Meereen is not her home and never could be and that she has a "war" in Westeros. I didn't really see any mention of her trying to do the right thing, or any reasoning of why she wanted to take over Westeros except that she thinks it's her birthright.

So we're going to disregard everything Dany has shown to be over the course of the series in favour of one chapter in which she was suffering from a fever? Dany has shown, time and time again, that she's compassionate, with a gentle heart. But she's now realised that, in her attempt to save everyone, she's actually saving no one. We'll be seeing a far more pragmatic Dany in the next book, I imagine, but I don't see her somehow being a completely different character. All along she has said that she wants Westeros because she wants to do justice; she wants to see the smallfolk happy. I never got the impression that any of that was gone, I just saw it as her finally accepting what she needs to do if she wants that to happen. But clearly you see things differently. :)

ETA: Mummer's dragon, cheering crowds. It would be Aegon's point in the story. GRRM has said there will be "a second Dance of the Dragons." The dynamics of how people would rally to Aegon's side were amusingly predicted by Tyrion during the cyvasse game. The Faith Militant and Dorne in particular could back him to depose Cersei. And it's a great twist to have Dany arrive and find her alleged nephew on the Iron Throne rather than a Usurper.

You're forgetting what comes after the vision. ;) "Slayer of lies", she is called. If that's the case, Aegon would be as much a usurper as Tommen is.

[tze]

This is kind of a random point, but: do dragons . . . excrete? In the dungeons where Viserion and Rhaegal were chained, Quentyn and Dany mentioned seeing charred objects, bones, etc., but never mentioned any of the heaping piles of dragon dung you'd expect to find when two large animals are trapped in an enclosed space. Here at her new Dragonstone, Dany sees charred objects, scorched bones, but never any dragon "leavings", as it were. Given the fact that Viserion and Rhaegal were stuck for months in an enclosed space (and I seriously doubt men were going in with shovels there), there should logically have been droppings there, and it's not like GRRM exactly shies away from this particular topic. But if dragons don't . . . ahem . . . excrete anything, that would fit with the general idea expressed about fire: it consumes everything in its path. Animal droppings serve as fertilizer, but dragons only destroy, they don't fertilize. Drogon is on the Dothraki Sea, but his den is a place of fiery destruction, a place where the grasses char and die.

Dany spends most of her final chapter walking on the Dothraki Sea, her hair burned off. The Dothraki, the rulers of the Dothraki Sea, view "walkers" as the lowest of the low. And a khal cutting his braid is a sign of defeat, not victory. What does it mean among the Dothraki for a khal to shave his head entirely? Nothing positive, I suspect---a hairless khal would be incapable of putting bells in his hair.

On Drogon’s back she felt whole. Up in the sky the woes of this world could not touch her. How could she abandon that?

Deep down, she doesn't really want to deal with her problems, she wants to escape her problems. And that's the sign of a child, not a woman.

A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

Hizdahr, of the tepid kisses.

Dany confronts her own "kill the girl and let the woman be born" issue. But she clearly associates the responsibilities of "being a woman" with aspects of "being a slave", with "bend[ing] before the whip". She sees her responsibilities as a queen of Meereen as stifling her, because she associates her Meereenese crown and "throne" (her ebon bench) with Hizdahr "of the tepid kisses", who she clearly does not want to be married to. What's extremely troubling for her future is the way she associates her responsibility to protect "her children" with Drogon "having" to bend before the whip. Because we later discover that Drogon doesn't actually have to bend before the whip. And Dany doesn't "have" to protect her "children"----she can leave them, and the fact that she associates protecting freed slaves as another form of slavery doesn't bode well.

Throughout ADWD, Dany has internally struggled between doing what's best for her personally and doing what's best for her people. She sacrificed her happiness, discovered that that led to her not being happy, and inwardly raged against that. But she understood "sacrificing her happiness" as "doing exactly what everyone else tells me to do." But in its own way, blindly doing exactly what other people want you to do is just as much the mark of a child as is just doing everything you want to do regardless of the consequences. Dany spends her previous ADWD chapters doing the former, and in her final chapter, seems to embrace the latter. She chooses Drogon and Daario, and forgets Hazzea's name. Has she "killed the girl"? I don't see how. Her understanding of "fire and blood" is, in its own way, just as childish here as when she blindly gave in to everyone around her.

Only the birth of her dragons amidst the fire and smoke of Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre had spared Dany herself from being dragged back to Vaes Dothrak to live out the remainder of her days amongst the crones of the dosh khaleen.

The fire burned away my hair, but elsewise it did not touch me. It had been the same in Daznak’s Pit.

Here we're given a pretty clear understanding of why Dany tries to connect the Pyre, where her clothes were burned entirely off and none of the objects on the pyre burned her, to the Pit, where her clothes were explicitly not burned off and an object was capable of burning her: because in both instances she was feeling utterly powerless, and since the pyre gave her a newfound sense of power out of that powerlessness, she desperately wants to believe that that event wasn't a one-off, that the pit repeated it. She's not exactly calling the shots in the Dothraki Sea---she can't force Drogon to go where she wants him to go, she's sick and injured, she's failing at trying to ameliorate her discomfort (when she fails to make a hat, for example). But she associates the first arrival of the dragon(s) with a newfound sense of power, so she desperately wants to believe that there will be a positive, power-inducing outcome to her current situation.

A woman in a green tokar reached for a weeping child, pulling him down into her arms to shield him from the flames. Dany saw the color vividly, but not the woman’s face. People were stepping on her as they lay tangled on the bricks. Some were on fire.

Interesting that Dany remembers this specific event. I don't think this woman was actually the Green Grace (people were stepping on this woman, and the Green Grace is so old that you'd think she'd have suffered some physical issues had people been trampling her in the pit). Dany sees the woman in the green tokar shielding a child, while both are being trampled by other people (some of them on fire). On the one hand, the imagery---a woman in a green tokar being trampled by people Drogon set afire---has clear literary implications, given what many readers strongly suspect about the Green Grace being the Harpy. But Dany sees this woman shielding a child. The child is being trampled right along with the woman. Even in this chapter, Dany never seems to recognize the Green Grace as a Harpy candidate, so is her remembering this incident meant merely to illustrate how entirely she's been fooled? Or is it meant as a more general idea, that the person opposing Dany isn't necessarily slaveringly evil (the woman in green is the one shielding the child there, not Dany herself)? Or is it a symbol of how attacking her enemies (symbolized by the woman in green) will also necessarily lead to attacks on innocent children as well?

And she wondered how much the Yunkai’i knew about what her captain meant to her. She had asked Ser Barristan that question the afternoon the hostages went forth. “They will have heard the talk,” he had replied. “Naharis may even have boasted of Your Grace’s … of your great … regard … for him. If you will forgive my saying so, modesty is not one of the captain’s virtues. He takes great pride in his … his swordsmanship.”

He boasts of bedding me, you mean. But Daario would not have been so foolish as to make such a boast amongst her enemies

It's clear here that she still doesn't really understand that her affair with Daario is a secret to absolutely no one. She doesn't seem to see how a common sellsword boasting far and wide about having sex with her is problematic in a political sense, or that gossip is never confined to only a single place, and Daario wouldn't have to boast among her enemies for them to still know her feelings about him. There are interesting implications there, given the way her reputation has been spreading, both the good (she's going to free us all!) and the bad (she's a brutal psychotic murderer who has sex with horses!). She doesn't see her actions in a wider context, and she doesn't really understand the power of rumors and gossip.

It makes no matter. By now the Yunkai’i will be marching home. That was why she had done all that she had done. For peace.

She flew off on a dragon's back, saw people fleeing, people on fire. She knows there were Yunkishmen in Daznak's Pit. She knows that people she cares about are Yunkish hostages. But it doesn't occur to her that her "escape" from the pit could itself have been what destroyed the peace, and it doesn't occur to her that her leaving the city could have altered the Yunkishmen's actions in any way.

Do they fear me dead? I flew off on a dragon’s back. Will they think he ate me? She wondered if Hizdahr was still king. His crown had come from her, could he hold it in her absence? He wanted Drogon dead. I heard him. “Kill it,” he screamed, “kill the beast,” and the look upon his face was lustful. And Strong Belwas had been on his knees, heaving and shuddering. Poison. It had to be poison. The honeyed locusts. Hizdahr urged them on me, but Belwas ate them all. She had made Hizdahr her king, taken him into her bed, opened the fighting pits for him, he had no reason to want her dead. Yet who else could it have been? Reznak, her perfumed seneschal? The Yunkai’i? The Sons of the Harpy?

She actually does some deductive reasoning here and notices the assassination attempt, and actually names some likely candidates. But there are also candidates she still doesn't recognize: she's allowed Hizdahr to kick out the Shavepate, but never conceives of the idea that the Shavepate might have not gone quietly away. She knows Daario is boasting about having sex with her . . . but doesn't connect that to a possible reason Hizdahr could have for wanting her dead (fear that she's been cuckolding him). She still doesn't see the Green Grace as a potential threat.

So once again she turned her back upon the distant hill and closed her ears to the song of flight and freedom that the wind sang as it played amongst the hill’s stony ridges. The stream was trickling south by southeast, as near as she could tell. She followed it. Take me to the river, that is all I ask of you. Take me to the river, and I will do the rest

In its own way, Dragonstone is just as much a prison as Meereen, but Dany doesn't seem to realize that. She connects it with "freedom", but if she stays with Drogon, she'll fly, be free---but only free to go where Drogon wants to go, and she'll inevitably end up stuck back on "Dragonstone".

Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy’s city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.

This is actually a brilliantly written paragraph, because on the one hand GRRM outlines all of the reasons readers dislike Meereen (it's just so weird to the majority of his English-speaking audiences' sensibilities), but on the other hand, this train of thought has absolutely terrible implications for Dany. She's thinking about why she failed in Meereen, and she puts the blame there on Meereen, not her. Her thoughts completely ignore everything else Meereen is: it's a city filled with ordinary people as well as slavers in tokars, bricklayers and weavers and stonemasons, people with weird hair and people who shaved off their hair to please her and risked their own lives to walk through the streets and keep the peace, it's filled with loads of freedmen and innocent children of all social strata who've never hurt anyone. But Dany isn't thinking about what's best for the people she declared she was in charge of, she's thinking here about what's best for her, Daenerys Targaryen, personally. Meereen is weird to her, and she doesn't think it will ever be a home to her, and she's weighing that (her desire for a home) against the good of all the people she's gathered around her. And her thoughts of her people are subtly being subsumed by her thoughts of her personal desires.

I think her desire for "home" is one of the inherent tragedies of Dany's character. The only home she ever had was lost when she was still a child. But the things she associates with "home"---safety, security, unconditional love, lack of responsibilities---are the things associated with childhood. She thinks Meereen can't be her home, but the qualities she associates with "home" are intrinsicly lost to her, because she's no longer a child. She'll never find a place like the house with the red door again, because she'll never find her childhood again. But she never seems to realize this, so she keeps telling herself that this place or that place will be "home", but she doesn't really understand what "home" is, so she keeps losing out on potential homes because she doesn't recognize them for what they are.

You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. “To be a queen.”

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. “It is such a long way,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.”

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.

Ouch. The "Jorah" in Dany's head is telling her that, as a Targaryen (blood of the dragon), she can be a queen in Westeros, but she cannot plant trees. This is absolutely terrible for her. She's telling herself that she can somehow be a queen in Westeros, as she could not be in Meereen . . . because she's the blood of the dragon and dragons plant no trees? Planting trees didn't work in Meereen, but planting no trees will somehow work to make her a queen in Westeros? I know others think she's given up the idea of Queenship altogether, but "Jorah" (who is really just Dany herself) tells her she is a Queen---just in Westeros, not Meereen. I don't think she's given up the idea of being a queen. She seems to think that she failed in Meereen, but it's really Meereen's fault, and all the things the prevented her success in Meereen won't prevent her success in Westeros, which obviously is untrue.

Dragons don't plant trees. Neither do wolves, or lions, or trout, or roosters, or any other animal. Humans, however, do. One of the striking things about Dany's "epiphanies" in her final chapter is how incredibly ignorant she seems to be of what "the blood of the dragon" actually wanted to do in the past. Aegon the Conqueror didn't just rain down fire and blood on everyone. Harrenhal seems to be the only major castle in Westeros that was hit by dragonfire and the Field of Fire is famous because it was the exception, not the rule. The Targs' entire basis for making themselves kings wasn't that their so-called superior blood made kingship their only option, it was the idea that they were going to unite the seven kingdoms, to bring peace and prosperity. Had none of them ever "planted trees", the Targs would never have lasted as long as they did. In Meereen, we saw Dany go way too far to one extreme: all compromise, no fighting. In the Dothraki Sea, she seems to decide to go to the other extreme: dragons plant no trees, fire and blood, an extreme that seems just as doomed to failure.

[Blisscraft]

FE- I agree that this is Dany's rebirth. She comes forth hairless as a new born baby (As does Cersei after her "grooming"). She struggles. She falls and she keeps following water, another symbol of birth and rebirth. Her skills as a milliner are hopeless, to be sure. However, making hats isn't her destiny. It isn't her purpose. It's not what she is supposed to do. Her rendevous with destiny awaits and it isn't making hats.

PS - Very nice post. I especially like the parallel between Dany's affinity with the Dothraki and Jon's with the Free Folk. Both environments enrich their respective experiences and thrust them forward toward their self awareness and respective destinies.

As for the idea that Dany is a villain - WHAT?!?! I've read this before and I always wonder if I am reading the same series as other posters. The idea, which Lummel so elequently returns to again and again, is that this fantastic tale is about the song of ICE AND FIRE. It begins with the Starks and their individual struggles, but quickly the world becomes larger amd more complex. Also, it seems that to defeat the Others will require, as Jon and the Free folk understand, all men (which presumably includes women and children); all humankind and maybe some help from the Children of the Forest and Giants and even grumpkins and snarks. This tale is a tale of salvation and unity, not a tale of discord and derision.

[Fire Eater]

FE- I agree that this is Dany's rebirth. She comes forth hairless as a new born baby (As does Cersei after her "grooming"). She struggles. She falls and she keeps following water, another symbol of birth and rebirth. Her skills as a milliner are hopeless, to be sure. However, making hats isn't her destiny. It isn't her purpose. It's not what she is supposed to do. Her rendevous with destiny awaits and it isn't making hats.

She was already reborn in Drogo's pyre with three newly hatched dragons. Now she has another rebirth. Just how many rebirths does this girl need?

[The Lost Lord]

She says nothing about Westeros. She says "To go forward, I must go back" and "Fire and blood", and she decides that Meereen is not her home. But she makes no mention of abandoning it to an Astapor fate. In fact, isn't the whole point of this chapter that she's going to subdue the world with fire and blood? That includes the nobles of Meereen, I imagine. Unless she's mentioned that she now supports slavery??? I didn't think so.

She does mention Westeros, or at least, the Jorah figment of her imagination mentions that her war is in Westeros and she seems to agree with him. But I simply don't believe the problems in Meereen can be solved with "fire and blood" -- unless perhaps she intends a wholesale massacre of the Meereenese noble class. (Which would make her a villain in my book, it is genocide after all.)

Apart from that, I don't see what other brilliant revelation she's come upon in the Dothraki Sea that's enabled her to suddenly feel confident that staying in Meereen was a mistake and that she can leave soon. Unless it's just a growing lack of concern for the Meereenese people, as tze pointed out with that quote where she says they're all weird and have weird hair and a gross culture and she doesn't belong there.

If you think she's going to bring freedmen to Westeros, you're in for a very big surprise… She doesn't have an unlimited supply of ships, after all.

I am curious why you're so certain about this? Especially because you've said she will no longer abandon her people. Will she just leave them behind? And it's definitely possible for her to get more ships, for instance, if she takes over Volantis and Pentos.

So we're going to disregard everything Dany has shown to be over the course of the series in favour of one chapter in which she was suffering from a fever? Dany has shown, time and time again, that she's compassionate, with a gentle heart.

Well this is an extremely pivotal chapter that I think we all agree contains great import for Dany's future, I don't think it's accurate to dismiss it as a mere fever, why would it then get such prime placement at the end of the book?

As for Dany's "gentle heart," she has had some moments of great compassion in the series. She's also had moments of great brutality. She crucified 163 Meereenese nobles and it made her feel like an avenging dragon, then a little empty at the end of ASOS, but by ADWD she thinks she probably should have crucified even more. She ordered the torture of the wineseller's daughters by Shavepate and didn't give it a second thought. She's always been part Mother and part Dragon. But in this chapter she appears to discard the Mother identity and embrace the Dragon entirely.

All along she has said that she wants Westeros because she wants to do justice; she wants to see the smallfolk happy. I never got the impression that any of that was gone, I just saw it as her finally accepting what she needs to do if she wants that to happen.

I've always found her ideas about why she wanted to rule Westeros quite vague and ill-formed (except for "it's mine!"), but leaving that aside, the problem is making it happen. As I've mentioned, I foresee a ton of resistance to her from the Westerosi people, and if that type of resistance happens, what does "fire and blood" Dany do about it? How many will she kill in her quest for the throne?

As for the idea that Dany is a villain - WHAT?!?! I've read this before and I always wonder if I am reading the same series as other posters.

Yes, it's a series that's had a few "pull the rug out from under us" twists so far. I'm guessing that one of the next twists is that the central antagonist has been hidden in plain sight all along, and that Martin has made her extremely sympathetic and relatable, but she'll nonetheless end up a destructive threat to Westeros that must be stopped.

[butterbumps!]

In my opinion, even if shenanigans were afoot in the last chapter, the fact an assassination attempt is perfectly explicable and understandable, in the context of the chapter, means Jon’s leadership is eminently poor by the end and, TBH, was never that good throughout.

Maia, Blisscraft and The Lost Lord have already made lots of the points I’d like to make, so apologies if I repeat too closely what anyone else has said.

Out of curiosity, had you re-read through all of Jon's POV's recently to come to all of those conclusions, additionally to the full discussion on this? Because we've seen firsthand that many of the things you are saying- how we "dressed up" the farsightedness of Jon's decisions, how he doesn't have a clue in terms of fighting the Others, how Jon doesn't understand how to lead-- are really not tremendously supported by the text.

Judging by your recent comments here and elsewhere, I surmise that you dislike the fact that he's not perfect- that his decisions do not have 100% "positive for the Watch" ramifications. Personally, I think that this is missing the beauty of his repeatedly proven abilities as a leader. That he doesn't conform with your personal view of a leader, which to be honest, I've found somewhat draconian and based largely on pure utility, doesn't mean that he's a bad leader. What you seem to criticize, many of us admire. Not even Lincoln made 100% perfect choices, and despite this, he's probably my most admired leader of all time. Leaders are human, and I think that the best sometimes sacrifice practicality over principle.

Dany had not conformed with my view of a good "leader" either, and I went through an intense struggle to uncover the beauty of her character, interrogating my expectations of her and refraining from concluding that she is "bad" due to the failure of her to meet what I thought her character was supposed to be in a leadership capacity. Though I still cannot say that I favor her ruling methods, I realized that leading and ruling are not exactly the same thing, and came to see the capacity in which Dany was a good leader (so much so that I wrote a spin-off thread dedicated to this recently). By reframing the conventional lens through which I view leadership, I came to appreciate Dany in ways that I never could have if I hadn't listened to others with a favorable impression of her, nor go out of my way to challenge my own expectations. ETA: and I bring that up because I'm curious whether your strong feelings of Jon stem from a similar exercise in challenging expectations and definitions. If you had and still find him this poor a leader, that's fine, I'm just wondering if you had.

I guess I'm just surprised that after going through all of this, that anyone would call either a "bad leader."

[Winterfellian]

Unfortunately I haven't had time to organize my thoughts for this chapter so I just want to put out this silly question: Does anyone got a Lion King vibe with Dany's scene in the Dothraki sea? I know is silly but when I first read it I was strongly reminded men of the scene where Simba sees Mufasa in the clouds especially with Dany seeing Quaithe in the stars telling her the same thing.

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/053/d/3/remember_who_you_are_by_rabidxtoaster-d4qnvuy.jpg

[Harlaw's Book]

I think at this point several characters are emulating the founding/iconic members of their houses. The Tyrells are using the "unjumped steward" tactic to gain the throne. The Martells want marriage alliances. The Lannisters are left with using trickery to achieve theirs goals.

Dany is the most explicit example because there are in universe references to her being Aegon the Conqueror come again. I just find it interesting that she really embraces that she's a conqueror after she has made the decision to reject "planting trees" aka be a builder. Now which house is associated with building? It's House Stark. In short Dany is rejecting a Stark view in favor of a Targ view.

I'm predicting/hoping that Jon, like Dany, will have go through a thought process where he has to decide between building (Stark) or destruction (Targ). Does he only embrace one side like Dany does, or is he able to reconcile?

[PatrickStormborn]

One thing I have to focus on in this chapter is the role of Quaithe. Who is she? Why is she so interested in Daenerys? Is her appearance in this chapter real, through a glass candle?

Her mask is made of starlight, Dany realises. Is this a hint towards her identity? If so, it immediately gives two candidates: Ashara Dayne of Starfall, and Shiera Seastar. I'm inclined to think it's Shiera, for the simple reason that her mask if made of 'starlight' whilst being in the Dothraki 'sea'. If she truly is Shiera Seastar, Dany immediately parallels Jon and Bran, who are being led by Bloodraven -- does this mean they are the other two heads of the dragon?

Dany spends most of her final chapter walking on the Dothraki Sea, her hair burned off. The Dothraki, the rulers of the Dothraki Sea, view "walkers" as the lowest of the low. And a khal cutting his braid is a sign of defeat, not victory. What does it mean among the Dothraki for a khal to shave his head entirely? Nothing positive, I suspect---a hairless khal would be incapable of putting bells in his hair.

Luckily she also spends a lot of time riding a dragon, and a dragon is more powerful than any horse. Dany is therefore, by the end of the chapter, much stronger (in Dothraki terms) than any khal.

Deep down, she doesn't really want to deal with her problems, she wants to escape her problems. And that's the sign of a child, not a woman.

This is kind of a moot point, seeing as she ends the chapter by saying "To go forward, I must go back", showing that she's ready to face her problems before she moves forward.

Throughout ADWD, Dany has internally struggled between doing what's best for her personally and doing what's best for her people. She sacrificed her happiness, discovered that that led to her not being happy, and inwardly raged against that. But she understood "sacrificing her happiness" as "doing exactly what everyone else tells me to do." But in its own way, blindly doing exactly what other people want you to do is just as much the mark of a child as is just doing everything you want to do regardless of the consequences. Dany spends her previous ADWD chapters doing the former, and in her final chapter, seems to embrace the latter. She chooses Drogon and Daario, and forgets Hazzea's name. Has she "killed the girl"? I don't see how. Her understanding of "fire and blood" is, in its own way, just as childish here as when she blindly gave in to everyone around her.

Dany sacrificed her happiness for her people. There's nothing childish about that. She told Hizdahr that she'd marry him if he gave her peace, and he did. She symbolically enslaved herself to end the slaughter of the ex-slaves. If you think that's childish - cool. But I don't see how it is, and I'd be very impressed by any child who sacrificed their happiness for what they consider to be the greater good.

Oh dear. I'm sorry, but do we even know what Dany's understanding of "fire and blood" is? As far as I'm aware, "fire and blood" is literally fire and blood. Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark destroyed Balon Greyjoy's rebellion with "fire and blood". Dany realises that taking Westeros will require fire and blood. I don't see how she doesn't understand it?

Here we're given a pretty clear understanding of why Dany tries to connect the Pyre, where her clothes were burned entirely off and none of the objects on the pyre burned her, to the Pit, where her clothes were explicitly not burned off and an object was capable of burning her: because in both instances she was feeling utterly powerless, and since the pyre gave her a newfound sense of power out of that powerlessness, she desperately wants to believe that that event wasn't a one-off, that the pit repeated it. She's not exactly calling the shots in the Dothraki Sea---she can't force Drogon to go where she wants him to go, she's sick and injured, she's failing at trying to ameliorate her discomfort (when she fails to make a hat, for example). But she associates the first arrival of the dragon(s) with a newfound sense of power, so she desperately wants to believe that there will be a positive, power-inducing outcome to her current situation.

This is a lot of waffle for something that amounts to very little. You're deliberately over-thinking the sentence just to criticise Dany. She thinks that the fire didn't harm her because, guess what, the fire did not harm her. In the pyre, she received no burns from the flames. In the pits, she received burns, but once again they weren't from the flames. You've brought up the idea of objects burning her, but here's the difference: in the pyre, the objects were on fire. In the pit, the spear was very much not on firer. So, although she received burns, the fire did not hurt her.

She's not connecting the pyre and the pit because of some strange psychological need to feel empowered. She's connecting them because they were similar and both resulted in her hair being burnt off. If my hair was burnt off, I think I'd probably also think back to the other time(s) my hair had been burnt away.

Interesting that Dany remembers this specific event. I don't think this woman was actually the Green Grace (people were stepping on this woman, and the Green Grace is so old that you'd think she'd have suffered some physical issues had people been trampling her in the pit). Dany sees the woman in the green tokar shielding a child, while both are being trampled by other people (some of them on fire). On the one hand, the imagery---a woman in a green tokar being trampled by people Drogon set afire---has clear literary implications, given what many readers strongly suspect about the Green Grace being the Harpy. But Dany sees this woman shielding a child. The child is being trampled right along with the woman. Even in this chapter, Dany never seems to recognize the Green Grace as a Harpy candidate, so is her remembering this incident meant merely to illustrate how entirely she's been fooled? Or is it meant as a more general idea, that the person opposing Dany isn't necessarily slaveringly evil (the woman in green is the one shielding the child there, not Dany herself)? Or is it a symbol of how attacking her enemies (symbolized by the woman in green) will also necessarily lead to attacks on innocent children as well?

I like this point, but I think the idea is to show that, despite being a slaver, the woman still loves her child. Slavers are people too, even if their customs are vile.

It's clear here that she still doesn't really understand that her affair with Daario is a secret to absolutely no one. She doesn't seem to see how a common sellsword boasting far and wide about having sex with her is problematic in a political sense, or that gossip is never confined to only a single place, and Daario wouldn't have to boast among her enemies for them to still know her feelings about him. There are interesting implications there, given the way her reputation has been spreading, both the good (she's going to free us all!) and the bad (she's a brutal psychotic murderer who has sex with horses!). She doesn't see her actions in a wider context, and she doesn't really understand the power of rumors and gossip.

I think you've missed the point of the quote ... again. She doesn't question if the Yunkai are aware of her sleeping with him... She's questioning if they know how deeply she cares about him. For all the Yunkai know, he's just her paramour. Of course, we know that Dany's feelings for Daario are far stronger than that; she actually loves him, in a sense.

I don't see how keeping a paramour is necessarily a bad thing in a political sense. Pretty much every (male) ruler we've seen in the series has been incapable of remaining faithful to his wife, so why should Dany be any different? The only problem with Robert Baratheon's whoring was that it made Cersei despise him even more, and led to her resuming her relationship with Jaime, so he had no heirs. As Dany is, technically, the one who would be having the children, this is not a problem. Any children she had, even illegitimate, would be capable of continuing her line.

She does understand the power of rumours and gossip. We know that from her very first chapter, where she is very well aware of Viserys being called "The Beggar King", and how it affects his personality. We also see it when the Dothraki mock Viserys for riding in the carts.

She actually does some deductive reasoning here and notices the assassination attempt, and actually names some likely candidates. But there are also candidates she still doesn't recognize: she's allowed Hizdahr to kick out the Shavepate, but never conceives of the idea that the Shavepate might have not gone quietly away. She knows Daario is boasting about having sex with her . . . but doesn't connect that to a possible reason Hizdahr could have for wanting her dead (fear that she's been cuckolding him). She still doesn't see the Green Grace as a potential threat.

Hizdahr was happy to sleep with whores, so I don't see why he'd poison Dany for sleeping with Daario... Like you said, everyone is well aware of their relationship, and he also knows that she's sent him away to be an envoy.

My favourite theory is that the "poisoned" locusts were actually an abortificent, with the aim to make sure that Dany would not carry Daario's child.

This is actually a brilliantly written paragraph, because on the one hand GRRM outlines all of the reasons readers dislike Meereen (it's just so weird to the majority of his English-speaking audiences' sensibilities), but on the other hand, this train of thought has absolutely terrible implications for Dany. She's thinking about why she failed in Meereen, and she puts the blame there on Meereen, not her. Her thoughts completely ignore everything else Meereen is: it's a city filled with ordinary people as well as slavers in tokars, bricklayers and weavers and stonemasons, people with weird hair and people who shaved off their hair to please her and risked their own lives to walk through the streets and keep the peace, it's filled with loads of freedmen and innocent children of all social strata who've never hurt anyone. But Dany isn't thinking about what's best for the people she declared she was in charge of, she's thinking here about what's best for her, Daenerys Targaryen, personally. Meereen is weird to her, and she doesn't think it will ever be a home to her, and she's weighing that (her desire for a home) against the good of all the people she's gathered around her. And her thoughts of her people are subtly being subsumed by her thoughts of her personal desires.

I think her desire for "home" is one of the inherent tragedies of Dany's character. The only home she ever had was lost when she was still a child. But the things she associates with "home"---safety, security, unconditional love, lack of responsibilities---are the things associated with childhood. She thinks Meereen can't be her home, but the qualities she associates with "home" are intrinsicly lost to her, because she's no longer a child. She'll never find a place like the house with the red door again, because she'll never find her childhood again. But she never seems to realize this, so she keeps telling herself that this place or that place will be "home", but she doesn't really understand what "home" is, so she keeps losing out on potential homes because she doesn't recognize them for what they are.

She had safety and security with the Dothraki, which is why she considered it her home. I don't really think Dany found her childhood with the Dothraki, so clearly those qualities you associate with childhood are not just associated with childhood.

Ouch. The "Jorah" in Dany's head is telling her that, as a Targaryen (blood of the dragon), she can be a queen in Westeros, but she cannot plant trees. This is absolutely terrible for her. She's telling herself that she can somehow be a queen in Westeros, as she could not be in Meereen . . . because she's the blood of the dragon and dragons plant no trees? Planting trees didn't work in Meereen, but planting no trees will somehow work to make her a queen in Westeros? I know others think she's given up the idea of Queenship altogether, but "Jorah" (who is really just Dany herself) tells her she is a Queen---just in Westeros, not Meereen. I don't think she's given up the idea of being a queen. She seems to think that she failed in Meereen, but it's really Meereen's fault, and all the things the prevented her success in Meereen won't prevent her success in Westeros, which obviously is untrue.

I think you've missed the point. Meereen is not Dany's destiny. It's not where she was supposed to stay. Dany is being led, imo, by her "destiny" -- she knows that Westeros is her destiny, although as of yet she doesn't know why. "Remember what you were made to be." Dany was not made to be the Queen of Meereen. She was made for a greater purpose, and she's just beginning to realise this. "Remember who you are. The dragons know. Do you?" Dany forgot who she was in Meereen. She's not the mother to slaves, and she's not a dragon. She is the mother of dragons. She did not hatch those dragons accidentally; they are part of her destiny, and this destiny does not involve Meereen.

Dragons don't plant trees. Neither do wolves, or lions, or trout, or roosters, or any other animal. Humans, however, do. One of the striking things about Dany's "epiphanies" in her final chapter is how incredibly ignorant she seems to be of what "the blood of the dragon" actually wanted to do in the past. Aegon the Conqueror didn't just rain down fire and blood on everyone. Harrenhal seems to be the only major castle in Westeros that was hit by dragonfire and the Field of Fire is famous because it was the exception, not the rule. The Targs' entire basis for making themselves kings wasn't that their so-called superior blood made kingship their only option, it was the idea that they were going to unite the seven kingdoms, to bring peace and prosperity. Had none of them ever "planted trees", the Targs would never have lasted as long as they did. In Meereen, we saw Dany go way too far to one extreme: all compromise, no fighting. In the Dothraki Sea, she seems to decide to go to the other extreme: dragons plant no trees, fire and blood, an extreme that seems just as doomed to failure.

Not planting trees =/= endless fire and blood. Dany has now realised that her role is not to plant trees. Her role is to conquer, to subdue Westeros so that trees can be planted by others -- by the people.

Well this is an extremely pivotal chapter that I think we all agree contains great import for Dany's future, I don't think it's accurate to dismiss it as a mere fever, why would it then get such prime placement at the end of the book?

As for Dany's "gentle heart," she has had some moments of great compassion in the series. She's also had moments of great brutality. She crucified 163 Meereenese nobles and it made her feel like an avenging dragon, then a little empty at the end of ASOS, but by ADWD she thinks she probably should have crucified even more. She ordered the torture of the wineseller's daughters by Shavepate and didn't give it a second thought. She's always been part Mother and part Dragon. But in this chapter she appears to discard the Mother identity and embrace the Dragon entirely.

Has she really discarded the "mother identity", or has she instead decided to embrace her true identity as the mother of dragons? She is a mother and a dragon, not one, and that is what her arc was about, imo.

Yes, Dany has had moments of brutality, but that's because of her compassion. Could you imagine someone such as Tywin Lannister, who lacks compassion, crucifying 163 slavers simply because they crucified 163 children? No. He would have killed them all, but he wouldn't have cared for the children. Hell, he probably would have killed their children too. This is what separates Dany from the villains -- her compassion. Similarly, she allows the Shavepate to torture because of her compassion for those who have been killed (although it is worth noting that she stops allowing torture in ADWD). The use of torture is not pleasant, of course, but it's also by characters in Westeros who aren't really considered villains, like Qhorin Halfhand.

I think part of the problem some people have with this chapter is that a lot of it is not supposed to make literal sense. Dany is having an epiphany here, and we're not supposed to fully understand it. She's finally accepting her destiny.

[Blisscraft]

She was already reborn in Drogo's pyre with three newly hatched dragons. Now she has another rebirth. Just how many rebirths does this girl need?

As many as it takes! :dunno:

PS - Awesome! :bowdown:

[The guy from the Vale]

@Patrick:

I might be missing something, but where does the idea of Qhorin torturing people come from? As far as I can see, torture has only been used by the most despicable of characters - Gregor Clegane, Cersei, the Faith or the Boltons... That Dany ordered the torture of possible innocents purely based on a whim (or her compassion, as you call it; but where is her compassion for the torture victims?) puts her further into villain territory than just about any other of her actions.

[Blisscraft]

Once again - I fail to see how Dany is "the villain" by your point, tgftv. Or, for that matter, whatever has happened before that is driving her further into "villain territory." Is it that she has dragons? Dragons, in western culture, are associated with Satan or the Devil. Is that it?

[Lummel]

...Not planting trees =/= endless fire and blood. Dany has now realised that her role is not to plant trees. Her role is to conquer, to subdue Westeros so that trees can be planted by others -- by the people...

Yes that was the way I read it it too. Like Harlaw's book was saying our characters are lining up with their ancesteral archetypes and that's made clear here with Daenerys replaying her ancestor's role on Dragonstone starting with nothing except three dragons.

Like Aegon's conquest I fully expect hers to be destructive, but one that will lead to a new political reality and maybe other changes too.

In a like manner with the sex. Daenerys is a source of power. She's is not dependant on being true to custom or tradition as a source of power. She neither has nor needs the institutional rabbit ears that King Bob or Jon Snow used - she has three dragons. Obviously there are huge creative potentials as well as the potential for huge destruction associated with this, but her power does mean that the same old rules don't apply to her - she gets to make new rules.

Daenerys is a revolutionary figure and obviously that isn't meant to be necessarily comfortable for us to read either. Shiva is one way to think about her, maybe Durga is another - demon slaying, blood thirsty, mother goddess...an invincible protector to her people but a fierce and terrible enemy to her foes

[PatrickStormborn]

@Patrick:

I might be missing something, but where does the idea of Qhorin torturing people come from? As far as I can see, torture has only been used by the most despicable of characters - Gregor Clegane, Cersei, the Faith or the Boltons... That Dany ordered the torture of possible innocents purely based on a whim (or her compassion, as you call it; but where is her compassion for the torture victims?) puts her further into villain territory than just about any other of her actions.

"What it is, our captive could not say. He was questioned perhaps too sharply, and died with much unsaid."

ACoK, Jon V

Dany has compassion for the Unsullied who was killed. She lacks compassion for the wineseller's daughters in her rage, true, but it cannot be denied that this rage is caused by her compassion. Just because she's selective with her compassion doesn't mean it's non-existant.

[The Lost Lord]

Dany sacrificed her happiness for her people. There's nothing childish about that. She told Hizdahr that she'd marry him if he gave her peace, and he did. She symbolically enslaved herself to end the slaughter of the ex-slaves. If you think that's childish - cool. But I don't see how it is, and I'd be very impressed by any child who sacrificed their happiness for what they consider to be the greater good.

I agree completely with you here and I wish I had been here for the discussion of Dany's earlier chapters because I would've loved to stick up for her there. I think the evidence shows us that she did make a successful peace with both the Harpy and the Yunkai'i, with a series of amazingly selfless actions. (The poisoned locusts were the Shavepate's attempt to break the piece because she was so successful.) I don't think there's anything else she could've done except for genocide, since an insurgency is impossible to defeat on the battlefield, so a political accommodation between the new (Dany/freedmen) and the old (Hizdahr/nobles) steering Meereen's future, with no one side getting everything they want, seemed entirely appropriate to me. The Yunkai'i also planned to honor the peace as long as Dany stayed in Meereen, according to what Shavepate tells Barristan and what we learn in Tyrion's chapters. But once this peace is successfully established, something starts to turn in Dany. The peace ends up making her miserable, feeling like she's compromised her personal autonomy and her policy goals. And she chooses to reject it in favor of a simpler and more satisfying path of fire and blood, which will end up being tragic for the people of Slaver's Bay and, eventually, Westeros.

I think you've missed the point. Meereen is not Dany's destiny. It's not where she was supposed to stay. Dany is being led, imo, by her "destiny" -- she knows that Westeros is her destiny, although as of yet she doesn't know why. "Remember what you were made to be." Dany was not made to be the Queen of Meereen. She was made for a greater purpose, and she's just beginning to realise this. "Remember who you are. The dragons know. Do you?" Dany forgot who she was in Meereen. She's not the mother to slaves, and she's not a dragon. She is the mother of dragons. She did not hatch those dragons accidentally; they are part of her destiny, and this destiny does not involve Meereen.

Overall I think the theme of ADWD is that peace is tremendously difficult to create and preserve, and often feels unsatisfying -- and this is the tragic reason why even well-meaning characters like Dany, Jon, and Barristan can end up breaking a peace and bringing about war and all the terrible things war entails. Martin made his views on the horrific consequences of war clear in AFFC. "It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones." With this in mind I think it's clear Martin thinks war can only be ethnically justifiable for a very, very good reason.

Is the mumbo-jumbo about prophecy and destiny you've described above a good reason to set Westeros on fire? Martin is, in general, scornful of the mindset of zealots who decide to wage war based on faith rather than logic. And there really isn't any logic to Dany's thoughts in this chapter. A vague sense of destiny and "a greater purpose" might be enough reason for a plot-armored character to start a war in a lesser fantasy book, but I doubt it's enough for Martin, who thinks prophecy will bite your prick off every time.

ETA: And haven't we heard about several Targaryens getting themselves killed because they believed this mumbo-jumbo about prophecy, destiny, and dragons? And here we see Dany herself, at odds with the facts, pretending she was magically immune to fire in the fighting pits just like in Drogo's funeral pyre. This is delusional, and not a healthy mindset.

I think part of the problem some people have with this chapter is that a lot of it is not supposed to make literal sense. Dany is having an epiphany here, and we're not supposed to fully understand it. She's finally accepting her destiny.

I have actually spent a lot of time analyzing this chapter on a symbolic, not literal, level and that's why I've come to my views on where Dany's going. Psycho Viserys appears challenging Dany to "show the world the meaning of our words." Quaithe appears with some prophetic mumbo-jumbo. Dany forgets Hazzea's name. Dany decides Meereen's not her home and full of weirdos with weird hair, and that she never should have stayed there in the first place. (And as someone who thinks her peace efforts were honorable and successful, this is pretty incriminating to me.) Dany embraces Daario, favorably comparing him to Hizdahr who won't get his hands dirty. Dany embraces fire and blood. Dany literally gets blood on her hands eating the horse. Even the sky turns "the color of a blood bruise" in the final paragraphs.

[brashcandy]

I have actually spent a lot of time analyzing this chapter on a symbolic, not literal, level and that's why I've come to my views on where Dany's going. Psycho Viserys appears challenging Dany to "show the world the meaning of our words." Quaithe appears with some prophetic mumbo-jumbo. Dany forgets Hazzea's name. Dany decides Meereen's not her home and full of weirdos with weird hair, and that she never should have stayed there in the first place. (And as someone who thinks her peace efforts were honorable and successful, this is pretty incriminating to me.) Dany embraces Daario, favorably comparing him to Hizdahr who won't get his hands dirty. Dany embraces fire and blood. Dany literally gets blood on her hands eating the horse. Even the sky turns "the color of a blood bruise" in the final paragraphs.

Yes, LL, but all of what you listed there and your interpretations of them is taking it too literally. Just because her brother turns up in a dream shouting the same nonsense he normally did in life doesn't mean that Dany is going to follow his path to madness and destruction. As for forgetting the name of the little girl, I've always read it as symbolic of Dany's collective purpose. In Meereen, she allowed herself to get mired in the details, constantly on the back foot and reactive, locking up her dragons because Drogon ate one child, etc etc. It's not that the child doesn't matter, but that Dany has to effect change on a grander scale and the way of progress will not be simple.

[The Lost Lord]

Yes, LL, but all of what you listed there and your interpretations of them is taking it too literally.

Hi Brash! We've discussed this many times before, but basically I think you and PatrickStormborn are the ones being too literal -- because you say that I'm wrong since nowhere in the chapter does Dany literally say she's gonna discard her concerns about innocent life and embrace a more destructive path. When one looks at all the symbols and the figurative language together, I think that is pretty clearly what they imply. I don't really see how an alternative interpretation is backed up by the text. Either one must try to avoid the implications of the visions and symbols by calling them "a fever" and therefore unimportant, or one resorts to these vague concepts of "destiny," "a grander scale," a "greater purpose" and so forth, even though this chapter has no specifics at all on what this could possibly mean (besides "go to Westeros," "be a dragon," and "fire and blood"), and even though "it's my destiny" is a type of thinking that Martin has generally mocked and subverted elsewhere in the series.