Was Daenerys a successful person?

[Elia Sand]

At school, I'm currently working on what makes a successful life, and wondered if Dany was. She's my favourite character, so I'd really like to know what you think.

This is my first forum topic, so let me know if I've done anything wrong. I hope I haven't!

[Mithras]

First Wellcome;

Second, Dany was a total failure in SB.

[LordStoneheart]

Depends on what you're talking about. She was certainly successful at getting an army. She was successful in making Yunkai bend the knee and beseiging Meereen. She was successful in hatching dragons. She's made a lot of mistakes and that's led to some failures but as her story is not done, it can't be said that's she's succeeded or failed. Her endeavors are still going on.

And you haven't done anything wrong. You may have opened up an invitation for endless Dany bickering between haters and fans, but don't worry, make a thread called "Does Dany like figs?" and chances are it'll end up that way. Good luck with your responses and school work.

[Lord Bowie]

We didn't see the end game yet, so we must assume her success so far...

A successful life really depends on what a person (Dany in this case) thinks is important for herself and how fulfilled she feels.

In the matters of her ultimate goal, which is to rule the Seven Kingdoms, Dany didn't succeed it yet. BUT she's trying to and being actually very successful in her means. Even though a lot of her plans didn't work out, she managed to triumph over very sticky situations. She failed in attacking Westeros with a Dothraki army but she got three Dragons; see what I mean?

In her personal relationships such as family, friends and all that, unfortunately she wasn't very lucky. She was successful for a time having a husband that loved her and expecting a child. If you look at her life up to the point before Drogo falls you could see that Dany lived a very successful life. She lost all her family and her westerosi rule but she was happy at last and not even caring for her "rights". When a person is at the bottom and manages to get to the top in his/her life, I think that means that said person is very successful.

But since that didn't happened, she is trying to achieve her dreams and a sense of fulfilment going as far back in time unconsciously for that. Remember that Red Door that she keeps imagining? That's what she wants, a home. For Dany, IMHO, home is what she's looking for and the only thing that would easy her mind and make her life truly successful. It appears now she shifted that feeling of home for ruling a whole Kingdom, so we're going to have to wait some years until Georgie finishes her life story. Only then we would have some grounds to judge her life as (or not) a successful one.

[Brightstar_]

At school, I'm currently working on what makes a successful life, and wondered if Dany was. She's my favourite character, so I'd really like to know what you think.

This is my first forum topic, so let me know if I've done anything wrong. I hope I haven't!

Well she's not dead yet, so we can hardly judge if her life will be considered "succesful'. Secondly whether or not her life is considered succesful also depends on who you ask. In some eyes she may be seen as the rightful monarch on a path of rigtheousness, while some other people's view of might be, eh, a bit more negative.

It's also important to remember that victors write history, so should she succeed in conquering the IT, she will most probably be remembered as Aegon the Conqueror with teats.

To me personally, she's had her ups and downs, with Meereen being her most obvious down, both morally and politically. Depending on what exactly her "Fire and Blood" epiphany means, will determine a full view of her as a person. (I.E If she means to burn everyone and everything, I will not consider her a succesful person)

It also pretty much depends on your opinion of succes. Do you think someone who is willing to kill thousands of people in order to rule a realm they have never even seen before, because it is "her right", and overthrows an entire, admittedly corrupt and vile, system for very naïve and idealistic reasons, and then fails in succesfully establishing a new governance, while the people she 'freed' are starving, can be considered succesful.

[Creticus]

Like most people, she's been successful in some things and not so successful in other things. That's not much of an answer, but to be fair, this is a extremely personal question.

[Facebookless Man]

At school, I'm currently working on what makes a successful life

That's incredibly depressing.

[Guess who's back]

She was lucky

[David Selig]

There are thousands of people bashing her on the Internet and criticizing every act of hers, that usually means you are a successful person.

[Raving Stark the Mad]

It depends a lot on how you define "successful". But the key point to Danaerys is that she is very young, and in the middle of a story of which she is a major character. No matter how you define "success", the end of Dany's character is not clear.

Despite being a rich series with many themes, "success" or "happiness" or "fulfillment" is not one of the themes that GRRM really spends time on. The closest thing we get to a contemplative character, near death, is Tyrion Lannister. Faced with imminent death, Tyrion vomits. Not exactly Socrates or Plato, but certainly George RR Martin. I'm pretty sure, that if you are learning and reading about "success", that A Song of Ice and Fire in general, and Dany in particular, are not the best places to look for knowlege and wisdom. Maybe at the end of A Dream of Spring.

I would recommend you start with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Book I. You'll probably get more thought out of that on the subject, than Danaerys Stormborn.

[JonSnow4President]

At school, I'm currently working on what makes a successful life, and wondered if Dany was. She's my favourite character, so I'd really like to know what you think.

This is my first forum topic, so let me know if I've done anything wrong. I hope I haven't!

Well, she's mid story, so it's hard to tell.

In the hypothetical story of a homeless man who invents something and becomes the next Bill Gates, she's homeless right now, so I'd say no now.. However, it's hard to judge if she's going to be successful at this point.

Right now, she's failed to claim a throne her family never held in her lifetime. She's failed to face the truth of her family's failings. She's failed to be a morally consistent ruler. She's failed to institute her (incredibly, stupidly, ambitious) policy changes in slaver's bay. The only thing she has succeeded at is tricking some cartoon villains and wandering to Qarth without killing everyone. Not only has she learned, but she apparently hasn't learned from her failures, which is the true failure in her character.

It's why what was initially my favorite character is now on my hate list.

[RoamingRonin]

She's certainly failed in some endeavours but not in everything. She has her army, her dragons, but she has yet to abolish slavery and claim her throne in Westeros. But look at all of her titles (minus the Westerosi ones): slaver of warlocks, mother of dragons, the unburnt...

Not only has she learned, but she apparently hasn't learned from her failures, which is the true failure in her character.

She's both learned and not learned from her failures. The logic. The what.

This is a lie, by the way.

[SeanF]

At school, I'm currently working on what makes a successful life, and wondered if Dany was. She's my favourite character, so I'd really like to know what you think.

This is my first forum topic, so let me know if I've done anything wrong. I hope I haven't!

It's too soon to say. You'll need to wait till the end of the series.

[Mithras]

I don't think this is mid-story. Her story in SB is pretty much over. She failed. Now she will have a new story.

[Lady Winter Rose]

There are thousands of people bashing her on the Internet and criticizing every act of hers, that usually means you are a successful person.

That usually mean someone is controversial. Like Kim Kardashian or the Pope or Charles Baudelaire (sp.?) I think all are more than successful.

[Ellfoy]

"success" is a subjective thing.

In Dany's case, I think that what she truly wants to achieve is to find a "home" (the house with the red door, westeros), that she mostly associate with family. She succeeded in it first with the Dothraki and Drogo+ baby Rhaego but she lost it. So she held to what was left to her, her origins and the home of her ancestors. That primeraly why she wants to conquer the seven kingdoms, wants to know about Rhaegar but choose to ignore all the horrible things that her father has done and that the rebels ("usurper dogs") were in their rights to revolt.

She's also searching for a family: her dragons, the slaves that she freed. She's their mother, I don't think that she did get over Rhaego's death and the fact that she thinks she bared.

So no, as long as Dany will not find her home, we can not say that she had truly succeded in her life no matter how many lands she conquered.

[Ellfoy]

Sorry double post

[RoamingRonin]

I don't think this is mid-story. Her story in SB is pretty much over. She failed. Now she will have a new story.

... Set in the same place with the same characters and dealing with the same events?

[TallTyrion]

Successful in some ways, yes. Hatching dragons, crossing the red waste, getting an army for nothing, taking multiple cities with minimum casualties.

However, I have a hard time imagining her anti slavery campaign being a success. So if eradicating slavery is the sole criteria to judge her success then no she isn't successful and won't be any time soon. However, a more accurate measure of her success will come if she can reclaim her family's seat, since we don't know if she will be able to do we can't say yet.

[JonSnow4President]

She's certainly failed in some endeavours but not in everything. She has her army, her dragons, but she has yet to abolish slavery and claim her throne in Westeros. But look at all of her titles (minus the Westerosi ones): slaver of warlocks, mother of dragons, the unburnt...

She's both learned and not learned from her failures. The logic. The what.

This is a lie, by the way.

Dafuq was I typing. That should be :

"She's not only failed, but hasn't learned from those failures."

And reading her, I don't see the learning.

Edit: I don't count "well, compromising didn't work, so I'm just going to do everything my way, and tough for anyone who disagrees" as learning.