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Daenerys Targaryen A born Leader, but a Terrible Ruler


Baelparagon

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The OP raises some interesting ideas, however everyone is trying to pass judgment as though the character is finalized right at this very moment. If at book one anyone asked that question about Dany, i doubt anyone could answer that, or if they could give a complete and thorough answer. By the end of the second book, they might have given a different answer. After the third book they would have given another answer and after book five we are giving the answers in this thread. I am certain that halfway through the next book we would be giving a different answer, as Martin finished her story in ADWD in a sort of climax point when her character was begining to form a mindset. So if we don't see where that takes her in the first half of the book, we will not be able to give yet a definitive answer.

And it is true that most characters in the book progress through this saga. Some more than others. Dany (partly due to her age and of course hwer circumstances) has overgone probably the most radical of changes. However she is still a work in progress. She has shown potential for greatness, but she is a volatile chemical right now. Exactly because she is young and impressionable, exactly because she basically has a good heart and people like that show a vulnerability in how outside situations affect them, exactly because of the fact that she has gone through some extreme situations, and exactly because she has under her "control" the most powerful weapon in the world, she can either turn out to be the savior of Westeros, or its unwitting demise.

If she is surrounded by people who will give her good council and who would care for her, then she has the potential to be the best thing that happened for Westeros. If more extreme things happen to her, and she doesn't have people around her to care for her and advise her, and if something bad happens to her that scars her, there is a chance that it will harden her beyond redemption and that she will use the dragons in not such a constructive way for Westeros...

But as it is right now i see more potential for good rather than the oposite, based on the evidence of her chapters

Mostly agree with this.

IMHO, she has already passed that test. In AGoT she was sold to a warlord at the age of 13, lost her only family member she ever knew, lost her unborn child, and had to euthanize her husband.

That is enough to break most people. But she persevered.

Completely agree with this.

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In the end, Danys will be a slave to power; she'll be crueller than Tywin and more sadistic than Ramsay. Why? Because she must do those things to rule.

No matter that kind of leader she is, the things she is good at is staying alive and maintaining her power.

Ramsay's sadism would be counter-productive for any ruler.

It is better for a Prince to be feared than to be loved (s/he would want to be both loved and feared, ideally) but it's fatal to be hated.

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I will not disgaree with that, which is why i said that i see more potential for greatness. However i do believe that even now, there are some things that could happen that would lead her to do something terrible for Westeros, without her fully being aware of the extent of what she is doing.

As i said though, i agree that right now odds are that either the potential will be nurtured and enhanced (by the presence of the right people around her) and something great will come of that, or the potential will be squandered and nothing will come of that. However i do not think that the latter would be rivetting reading material.

I agree that having the right people around her is important for Dany. I think it is possible that the right group of advisers could help her keep her emotions under control better.

We should also not forget the matter of magic. People like to compare characters in ASoIaF to other characters from literature, myth, etc. These comparisons are not exact, but they can be of value. Stannis is sometimes compared to Faust. I think Dany has a certain Pandora potential. She herself sometimes worries about what she may have loosed upon the world.

On reflection, Tywin wages both types of war, according to how each one serves his interests. The problem is that he, Aerys, the Freys, the Boltons, have between them created a society in which losing families can expect to be wiped out. Catelyn, for one, tells Robb that if they lose to Tywin, they can expect the same treatment as the Reynes and Tarbecks (although we subsequently learn that Tywin didn't intend to go quite so far). If people expect such treatment, then they'll be ruthless in turn.

That's a reasonable way of looking at things. I say that important things have come loose in Westeros. This is a bad, but hardly a surprising, development. I'll add the following quote from AFfC to your comments. Prince Doran tells Arianne that Quentyn has gone to seek "our heart's desire." She asks what that is.

"Vengeance.." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood."

That says a lot, doesn't it? The emotionalism, the linking of justice with vengeance, and, of course, the "words." Do you see why I say that Dany fits in? She has a lot in common with many leaders in Westeros. We have truly horrible threats looming, one or two of them are existential. People are going to freeze; people are going to starve. This winter will likely be one of the worst ever. While this is happening, far too many people of power are trying to establish the "true" ruler. Worse, many of their thoughts fall into a kind of "We'll get those bastards for what they've done to us" category. This kind of thinking is very likely to make things worse.

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Before I begin this I want to make one thing clear, this is not intended as a trollpost. I do not intend to offend anyone and I hope to make my points in a clear and organized fashion, without any misogyny or fan worship. I'm just a guy making his first post on a topic I find very interesting, one that I hope you'll be interested in as well. Also this is my first post on this website so if you feel like I could improve my writing in any way feel free to let me know. And with that said lets get started.

Recently having gotten back into the book series I have been reading a number of posts and arguments on Daenerys Targaryens credibility as a ruler. The topic tends to be argued either in one of three ways, the first is in the extreme negative, where posters will comment on Daenerys's naivety as well as her mistakes and often one sided view of justice. This side also tends to comment on her lack of emotional control and listening to her heart as opposed to her mind. The second viewpoint is taken from the extreme positive side in which posters believe that Daenerys's achievements, such as the freeing of the slaves from Astapor, are signs that her greatness has yet to come and will be a beloved monarch. And the third viewpoint is also on the positive side, but from an apologetic standpoint. Posters in this demographic will state that yes Dany has made some mistakes, but that she has learned from these mistakes and will be a stronger ruler for them. Or perhaps less respectfully they will state her age as the cause and use that to excuse her actions.

Now granted each of these arguments have some validity, with examples being easy to pull up support for any argument. Dany is a complicated character, as is the majority of GRRM's characters in this book. This girl started off as a young girl sold off by her brother to a horse lord, and through trial and error rose to become the queen of a city. Such ability does not come without some hardship and emotional strain and has created a character that in the eyes of the viewer you either love or despise. Dany is a testament to GRRM's ability as a writer and in many ways is a reflection of the things we love or hate about a protagonist.

However I do feel that the argument about her being a ruler needs to be more centralized in order to look at her with an unbiased eye. I don't believe she is incompetent as many of my fellow readers do. While she has certainly had help on her journey she has made a number of decisions that have increased her power and made her a force to be reckoned with. Such a situation could not be brought about if she did not posses some measure ability. However I will admit she has made mistakes that if made by other characters made them in the book would cause their downfall. Her actions in the aftermath of Mereneese and trusting Daario are bad mistakes, which may still come to haunt her later on. In essence I will say this, I believe Daenerys is a great leader, but as of now she is a terrible ruler.

Now before you comment on me making a catch 22, just hear me out. I believe that a leader and a ruler while similar in certain functions are two different things entirely. I'll do my best to explain. A leader is a person who, through charisma or ability is able to pull a group of people together in support of them. These individuals can inspire those under them to preform great feats under their direction and can achieve through cooperation what could not be achieved in separation. This definition of a leader is more closely akin to what we have today in the forms of presidents and politicians and is one of the reasons people like Dany. Many of the views she has would be considered modern and added to that with her strong feminine character and backstory, it isn't hard too see why those who follow her love her.

However just become someone is a good leader doesn't neccesarily make someone a good ruler. Now a ruler can have many different styles of ruling in the world, especially in medieval times such as those shown in the ASOFAI. And what may work in one kingdom is not guaranteed to work in another. Balon Greyjoy for example rules in a very serious and strong manner, or as one would say the Ironborn way. While this style of leadership is respected in the Iron Islands, it would never be applicaple in any of the other kingdoms. Regardless however of what style a ruler uses, a ruler at their core is an administrator. A ruler has subjects to whom they are owed alliegance to, but in turn must serve and keep them happy. Many a lord both in fiction as well as in the real world has lost their head due to poor management skills, while intelligent rulers like Tywin are able to form powerful houses, with entire regions owing them loyalty.

And there in lies the crux and the difficulty that Daenerys faces as a leader who has become a ruler. Just like with Robert, it was much easier to conquer a kingdom then it is to rule one. Through the first four books we watched as Dany amassed an army of followers, sacked cities and overthrew slavers. It was exciting both for herself as well as for the reader. But now she has gotten her seat, has gotten her power and the truth is she doesn't know what to do. And s the reader we don't like the chapters because of how boring we find actually ruling; as Dany does as well. Fighting battles and winning glory hold much more appeal than strengthening the economy and dealing with the ails of a city.

Her advisors at best are able to offer decent suggestions from time to time but continuously these decisions keep ending in failure. Some would argue that this is the fault of the Sons of Harpy's or a blunder of her age which can be forgive; but I don't agree. Dany set out to be a ruler of a city, to overthrow a system that had ruled there for centuries or even millennia, and to excuse her for the consequences of that overthrow is foolish. As for the excuses for her age, we live in a modern world with modern views. in ASOIAF teenagers are expected to rule, to marry even to lead men on the battlefield if need be. When you are the ruler of a city, specifically one you yourself overthrew and took over; saying that "I am just a young girl" whenever you make a mistake is not acceptable. Below I list the four traits that rulers in this show have been shown to use, and in them will be examples in which Daenerys does not succeed.

1. Administration: A ruler is first and foremost an administrator. A kings duty is to ensure that the noble lords are ruling the land, paying their taxes and remaining loyal. An administrator aso must find ways to deal with the problems plaguing their respective realms before they become detrimental. Daenerys has not been able to do this in Mereneese, she freed the slaves of the city state but now they're left in a perpetual state of limbo. She has not found a way to replace the economy that was lost due to the abolishment and now many in the city are growing resentful from the poor conditions and the lack of response to the Harpys. For someone who is struggling to control one city, I find it difficult to believe that she will be able to rule seven kingdoms and the infinite number of headaches and situations that arrive from that. That and the fact she has made little to know attempt to learn about the kingdoms she means to rule, as well as the reasons her father was overthrown, shows a bit of arrogance on her end.

2. Firmness: Whether a ruler controls his region through honor, respect or fear those decisions they make must be firm as well as consistent. Stannis is not a man who could inspire men to him nor charm his way to power, but those who do follow him respect him because of his unflinching ways. He hands out punishment and reward in the measure warranted by the action of those under him. And when he commits to something he does not shirk from it, regardless of how tasteless it might be. Daenerys's sense of justice has not been so strict, but more to her own personal whims. When angered she tortured the winesellers family, but then when challenged by the harpies she refused to kill her hostages. While this may have been the ethically right thing to do it has made her look weak in the eyes of her enemies and in some of her commanders. A ruler who is not firm will rule an uneasy kingdom.

3. Alliance making: Perhaps one of the weakest areas Daenerys suffers from is in her ability to make and keep alliances. Not with her own soldiers or close retainers, but with many of the power players in Mereen as well as the other cities. While it is true some of her enemies are responsible for this she has also failed on her own. Instead of instilling her authority in Astapor she left it in a freefall that lead the city to eventually being sacked. The Yunkai offered her ships to get her army to Westeros and she instead sacks it. Many cities are wary of Daenerys because of the Yunkai, but you cant blame all of it on them. When you've made it a policy to destroy instead of deal it tends to make people nervous. Even when Prince Martell comes to Mereen, offering nt just his hand but the entire kingdom of dorne and she refuses it in order to marry Hizhdar. Drone might have been the only kingdom that would have turned to Dany willingly, and with their prince dead this may no longer be the case.

4. Priorities: Daenerys wishes to keep Mereen free and to take over Westeros but this is unlikely. As is her intention to bring over her army of tens of thousands over the sea, the number of ships that would be required for this would be staggering in and of itself. Then there is the act of trying to acclimate her people to Westeros, and area that has been shown to have a much colder climate and if like anything in the real world, will have diseases that her people will not have been exposed to. And all of this while wanting to eliminate the Starks, Baratheons and Lannisters from existence.

A little jumbled I know but my point is this, Daenerys knows what she wants to do but has no idea in how to accomplish said goals. She does not seem to have even an inkling of what step to take, the implications that will come from seeking the destruction of the great houses nor the futility in trying to hold two kingdoms on different continents separated by hundreds of miles of ocean. This combined with her now incapability to control her dragons she is swiftly on her way to disaster, unless someone can help her fix this, and quickly.

I could see her taking throne in a similar way to the marriage problem that arises in the Dragon Age Series. There will be a spoiler in this paragraph for those who haven't played the game. During an event called the landsmeet the two opposing sides, yours and that of Teryn Loghain, are in debate over who to name as Ruler of Ferelden and to lead the armies against the darkspawn. As the player you must decide between either your companion Alistair, a bastard of the former king with a love for justice and ideals, or you must choose the current queen Anora, a cold but practical ruler disdained by the nobles but well liked by the common man. One a leader, the other a ruler. The third but more difficult option is to convince the two to marriage, thus giving Ferelden both a beloved figurehead and a capable ruler.

In essence I don't believe Daenerys will ever be a good ruler, she has drive and charisma but lacks cold logic and the skills to govern a realm. She might be able to win the throne, but I doubt she would keep it for long. But if she was to ally with someone, say a certain disgraced half-man or a northern bastard who've both proven some capacity for the reigns of governing, then she might have a chance. Well just have to wait and see. Thank you all for reading and let me know what you think, have a good one.

Dany was a horrible leader... she grew in to it... She is a horrible ruler but is growing in to that was well...

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Dany, in many ways, is a good leader. She has some serious weaknesses as a ruler. Nothing in this thread, or any other thread I've read on similar subjects, changes my overall opinion: Dany fits in. She has a lot of similarities to other important people who have or are trying to gain power in the seven kingdoms. These people have virtues. Overall, however, government in the realm absolutely sucks. I have detailed many reasons for my opinion in a series of threads under the general heading of "Systemic Problems." Some items from these threads are similar to assertions I made in my replies to SeanF in #44 and #64 above.



The OP says that an administrator, "must find ways to deal with the problems plaguing their respective realms before they become detrimental." The claim is clearly that Dany stands out as being worse than average in this respect. I flatly reject this claim. The main leaders, in KL and elsewhere, are failing horribly by the given criterion. There are problems which are not just detrimental. They are existential. In some cases, less than nothing is being done about them.



Another matter for your consideration:



Let's say it is asserted that, for more than a decade of the Cold War, the chief intelligence officer of the United State of America was a traitor, a dedicated communist trying to assure the triumph of the Soviet Union. The man wasn't paid off. He didn't get pissed off over some issue or other. He didn't convert to Marxism at some point during his tenure. He was a communist on the day he assumed his office.



Such a situation is just about impossible to imagine. However, a pretty much identical situation was very much the case during the entire reign of Robert Baratheon. Varys not only forswore his vow, he swore a false one. On the day he pledged fealty to Robert, he had already started plotting the downfall of the Baratheon dynasty. No one ever suspects this. That alone shows you how badly the government of the realm sucks. Jon Arryn, Stannis Baratheon, Ned Stark, and everyone else who suspects or establishes the treason of Cersei and Jaime all show a blindness that goes beyond incompetence. It never even occurs to them, during the entire process, to wonder about the spider. The spy guy is supposed to know what you're going to have for breakfast before your servant even buys the food in the market. How could he not know about what's gong on with the queen? She is guilty of multiple counts of treason, and this man who claims to be "for the realm" never even mentions the fact to anyone. Even a little thought on this matter should have tipped off Robert's friends and supporters to the rottenness in the center of the small council.


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I think one of the reasons why Dany is so frustrating is because of the contrast between the awesome leader and poor ruler. I don't hate her, but the fact that she has done such a poor job of ruling after being awesome annoys the sh*t out of me.


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I think one of the reasons why Dany is so frustrating is because of the contrast between the awesome leader and poor ruler. I don't hate her, but the fact that she has done such a poor job of ruling after being awesome annoys the sh*t out of me

The ruling of Slaver's Bay was based on murder, greed, mass torture and slavery. Also the few upper class families keeping the other 99% under their heel. There is absolutely not one positive aspect of any of the Slaver's bay cities prior to Dany getting there. Anything she has done, even if it does not work out 100%, is better than how it was before. Utter chaos under Dany is better than the previous alternative.

I dont even understand the argument here. Is anyone actually advocating that Slaver's Bay was a nice place before Dany got there? That slavery and mass torture are better than what she is trying to do?

Anytime you install a new government of course there will be problems and trial and error. I salute her for trying to bring peace to the masses. She is trying to overturn a terrible culture that has reigned for millennia, good for her for being brave where no one else has ever even tried. Everyone else has just been ok with the status quo of Slaver's Bay, shame on them.

I hate bringing up these real world examples. But wasn't the North correct in going to war with the South over slavery? Didn't the southern inhabitants have an extremely hard time of life after the war? OF course they did, their entire culture was Gone with the Wind....Just because the southerners had to adjust greatly to the new laws and new life without slaves does not mean that it was not worth it. The North was right to stop them and to try an install new leadership that was not based on slavery and cotton mills. The inhabitants of Slaver's bay having to adjust to life without slaves is just the natural order of a slave culture suddenly having no slaves. Of course there are revolts and everyone does not accept the system, right away. But that does not mean someone (like Dany) should not at least try to make change in that part of the world. Someone had to start the revolution and if poster's on this forum want to fault her for it, then I say that they don't understand how bad it was before.

Also there is no basis for comparison. NO one has previously tried to help these people, so how can anyone say she is doing a bad job? THERE IS NO ONE TO COMPARE HER TO.

There is no rational argument that the vast majority of Slaver's Bay was (or will be) better off before she got there. There is no higher cause in human history than freedom, than giving freedom to an entire peoples.

Just because she didn't have a manual on exactly what she should have done at every turn does not make her a bad leader or a bad ruler. It makes her the first one to ever try any of this. It makes her a Pilgrim with no guidance whatsoever.

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3. Alliance making: Perhaps one of the weakest areas Daenerys suffers from is in her ability to make and keep alliances. Not with her own soldiers or close retainers, but with many of the power players in Mereen as well as the other cities. While it is true some of her enemies are responsible for this she has also failed on her own. Instead of instilling her authority in Astapor she left it in a freefall that lead the city to eventually being sacked. The Yunkai offered her ships to get her army to Westeros and she instead sacks it. Many cities are wary of Daenerys because of the Yunkai, but you cant blame all of it on them. When you've made it a policy to destroy instead of deal it tends to make people nervous. Even when Prince Martell comes to Mereen, offering nt just his hand but the entire kingdom of dorne and she refuses it in order to marry Hizhdar. Drone might have been the only kingdom that would have turned to Dany willingly, and with their prince dead this may no longer be the case.

A remarkable display of cognitive dissonance. You criticize her for not forging alliances, yet argue she should've broken her marriage pact with Hizdahr, smashed her alliance with the Meereen nobility (that stopped the terrorist insurgency) and abandoned hundreds of thousands in desperate need of her help.

Yunkai never offered her any ships (only a chest of gold), nor was it sacked. Dany offered to spare Yunkai if they freed their slaves and gave them reparations. Yunkai rejected her offer and called her "mad" for even proposing it. Dany's forces then killed or recruited Yunkai's soldiers outside the gates, leaving the city ripe for the taking, yet in the name of peace she still renewed her generous offer. That's explicitly not "a policy to destroy instead of deal." It's the slavers who've carried out that policy any time they weren't forced into diplomacy by Dany. As soon as she left Yunkai, its slavers moved to war against her, dispatching envoys to recruit slaver cities across Essos, sellswords and a khalasar to invade Meereen.

And all of this while wanting to eliminate the Starks, Baratheons and Lannisters from existence.

Evidence for which exists nowhere in the text, but admittedly that doesn't mean much here.

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I saw someone say something about Dany torturing 2 innocent girls? I don't recall this, when did this happen?

Dany allows the Shavepate to "question sharply" aka, torture, the daughters of a merchant that she believes knows who the Harpy is. She does this in a moment of weakness after multiple Unsullied and Freedmen have been murdered in the streets trying to bring and keep peace. It's directly after finding out 2 more have been killed. Before then she was not allowing the torture to happen. She also has no idea how old the girls are, they could be children, they could be adults, we don't know.

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I could have sworn it was only one girl. An innkeeper and his daughter. They were taken onto custody because they owned the inn where two unsullided where poisoned. Dany ordered sharp questioning after hearing a harpist she knew was also murdered. They cut her fingers off before killing her.

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I could have sworn it was only one girl. An innkeeper and his daughter. They were taken onto custody because they owned the inn where two unsullided where poisoned. Dany ordered sharp questioning after hearing a harpist she knew was also murdered. They cut her fingers off before killing her.

His daughters, she changed the order to start with torture after she heard about the deaths, the original order was sweetly at first then torture.

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Dany allows the Shavepate to "question sharply" aka, torture, the daughters of a merchant that she believes knows who the Harpy is. She does this in a moment of weakness after multiple Unsullied and Freedmen have been murdered in the streets trying to bring and keep peace. It's directly after finding out 2 more have been killed. Before then she was not allowing the torture to happen. She also has no idea how old the girls are, they could be children, they could be adults, we don't know.

All the worse it is.

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The ruling of Slaver's Bay was based on murder, greed, mass torture and slavery. Also the few upper class families keeping the other 99% under their heel. There is absolutely not one positive aspect of any of the Slaver's bay cities prior to Dany getting there. Anything she has done, even if it does not work out 100%, is better than how it was before. Utter chaos under Dany is better than the previous alternative.

...

Also there is no basis for comparison. NO one has previously tried to help these people, so how can anyone say she is doing a bad job? THERE IS NO ONE TO COMPARE HER TO.

There is no rational argument that the vast majority of Slaver's Bay was (or will be) better off before she got there. There is no higher cause in human history than freedom, than giving freedom to an entire peoples.

Just because she didn't have a manual on exactly what she should have done at every turn does not make her a bad leader or a bad ruler. It makes her the first one to ever try any of this. It makes her a Pilgrim with no guidance whatsoever.

I sympathize with much that you say. There is a need, however, for accuracy. I frequently point out to Dany critics that she did not sack Astapor, and I am sometimes answered with sarcasm. More often, they ignore my desire for proper terminology and then later go back to talking about the "sacking" of the city. There are no figures for the number of people killed in Astapor. Yet I read posts about how Dany wiped out almost the entire upper class (and perhaps almost the entire middle class) of age 12 or above. I don't mind repeating myself, so I'll repeat myself here: There's no evidence that the killing in Astapor extended beyond the Plaza of Punishment.

Proper terminology and accurate numbers are important. Dany crucified 163 people in Meereen. Lord Tywin wiped out two entire Westerosi families. I don't see any basis for denying these facts. However, "to sack" means to pillage and loot a captured city. The text gives us no reason for saying that Dany's forces did any such thing in Astapor. Indeed, the strong indications are that they did not do this. Continuing along this line, I have to object to your "other 99%" phrase. I don't think we can say what the percentages are.

It is true that there is no one to compare Dany to in Slaver's Bay. We can make at least rough comparisons between her leadership and that which we observe in Westeros. I stand by my overall contention that Dany fits in. She is not an outlier.

...

Evidence for which exists nowhere in the text, but admittedly that doesn't mean much here.

Yep, there is a lack of evidence here. We discussed this upthread. No one produced any evidence. SeanF did present an interesting idea about how war is developing in Westeros. Here's another of my repetitions, my reply to SeanF: "Nothing you say in your post indicates that she would be any more terrible a ruler than any other powerful person in the seven kingdoms. If Westeros in general goes in for guerre mortelle, then that is a problem with Westeros in general, not with one particular character." One more time, Daenerys fits in.

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She'll most likely try to find her people a place to live and work as paid civilians without overpopulating Westeros. And even if she doesn't want to do so, they don't need to cross at the same time her army does.

Nymeria had ten thousand ships. Did it take her a century to acquire them?

If you look at the lore surrounding Nymeria's culture the Rhoynar, they were a civilization of river city dwelling individuals that fled in the wake of the Valaryian expansion. These cities were dependent on the water and thus had a wide number of ships on hand, both for economic purposes as well as military ones. Not to mention that they didn't need to ferry the 250,000 soldiers that were killed before their exodus. They also had forests and woods available to carve and make ships from, and the wiki cite states that her ten thousand ships were according to her myth, the actual number could be smaller than this.

Meereen on the other hand is a former city slave in a primarily desert region. They do not have forests to make ships nor thanks to the collapse of their economy, and are under siege as well as the dragons going beserk. And it will take Daenerys at least a few weeks to return from the Dothraki sea before she can try to settle things in Meereen. I could see the cities maybe giving her ships in order to get rid of her, but that's iffy to me. Such a deal would expect her to completely leave Essos with all her followers, and any rationale person would be suspicious of her keeping her word. She broke it in Astapor once she had her army, whether this was the ethically right thing or not isn't the issue. Martin goes to great lengths to show that in this world if you break your word, no one will ever trust you again; Robb Starkk and Walder Frey being the text book examples of this.

Also in regards to integrating her freedmen from Essos to Westeros, this is not as simple as say moving an armorer from Riverrun to Kings Landing. This is a civilization that has lived on a continent with completely different geographical, cultural and linguistic differences. This culture has likely not been exposed to many of the diseases or living conditions associated with Westeros, and potentially vice versa. History shows us that any time you have a mass migration of people it often ends in large scale epidemics or deaths. Not to mention the many risks that would come from moving a desert faring people across the Sea for a several month voyage.

Then you have to decide where to put these people, as well as who to displace from the kingdoms. Do you place them in Dorne where the cultures are similar but has a sparse population that is difficult to feed? Do you place them in the Reach and give them work that will simultaneously take work away from those already living there, who they cannot communicate with or hope to understand in the short term? Such action would likely result in riots and the death of many of the Meereneese at the hands of the peasants and nobility who would feel slighted by such an action. Is it right? No, but it would be a logical and most likely inevitable occurrence.

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I sympathize with much that you say. There is a need, however, for accuracy. I frequently point out to Dany critics that she did not sack Astapor, and I am sometimes answered with sarcasm. More often, they ignore my desire for proper terminology and then later go back to talking about the "sacking" of the city. There are no figures for the number of people killed in Astapor. Yet I read posts about how Dany wiped out almost the entire upper class (and perhaps almost the entire middle class) of age 12 or above. I don't mind repeating myself, so I'll repeat myself here: There's no evidence that the killing in Astapor extended beyond the Plaza of Punishment.

Proper terminology and accurate numbers are important. Dany crucified 163 people in Meereen. Lord Tywin wiped out two entire Westerosi families. I don't see any basis for denying these facts. However, "to sack" means to pillage and loot a captured city. The text gives us no reason for saying that Dany's forces did any such thing in Astapor. Indeed, the strong indications are that they did not do this. Continuing along this line, I have to object to your "other 99%" phrase. I don't think we can say what the percentages are.

It is true that there is no one to compare Dany to in Slaver's Bay. We can make at least rough comparisons between her leadership and that which we observe in Westeros. I stand by my overall contention that Dany fits in. She is not an outlier.

Yep, there is a lack of evidence here. We discussed this upthread. No one produced any evidence. SeanF did present an interesting idea about how war is developing in Westeros. Here's another of my repetitions, my reply to SeanF: "Nothing you say in your post indicates that she would be any more terrible a ruler than any other powerful person in the seven kingdoms. If Westeros in general goes in for guerre mortelle, then that is a problem with Westeros in general, not with one particular character." One more time, Daenerys fits in.

Whether or not Dany fits in with the rulers in Westeros does not equal being a good ruler. Westeros is on the brink of destruction because of poor management and multiple civil wars. The OP of this thread does a great job of breaking down what he thinks are the "four elements" of a good ruler: Administration, Firmness, Alliance Making and Priorities. We may have one ruler in Westeros who is good at those four, but the fact that the other rulers of Westeros are so bad with these different elements is why they've failed. I don't expect this series to end all tied up in a pretty bow, but judging by what Martin has said about "Aragon's tax policy," I can't imagine Martin will leave the series with Dany as the ruler she currently is, even if she "fits in" because we would have no proof that Westeros would be any better off now than it was before.

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