Dany the Mad Queen was a terrible idea

[Rose of Red Lake]

9 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

Trite and nonsense.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Power corrupts absolutely. That humans are too ignorant and flawed to make any decisions. So, it’s better if we simply don’t act on them. Daenerys could have been happy had she simply stayed in Drogo’s tent. Her efforts to save people and change the world only caused more suffering and turned her into a monster. 

That is morbid nihilism. It is an inditement against human nature. To say that all the worlds problems would go away if people stopped trying to change and making trouble for quiet folk is an incredibly conservative sentiment.

 

 

I'm sure GWB thought he was saving the Iraqis too...and the U.S. thought they were saving the Vietnamese...and so on. I think social change coming from 1 person with absolute power is really dangerous.

[The One Who Kneels]

6 hours ago, Kajjo said:

Was she?!

She was not.

She just started usurping Westeros and had not yet conqeured the throne. It is nonsense that she herself alway calls herself queen, even if she is not yet.

Daenerys was just the leader of an intruding force. 

Why did you cut out the part of my response where I explicitly answered this? 

It doesn't matter if Tarly really thought Cersei Lannister was his rightful Queen instead of Daenerys Targaryen (and think for a moment about what an absurd statement that is) once he picks a side in that conflict for the Iron Throne he is undeniably a traitor to the other side. When a lord rebels in Westeros and loses he either a) bends the knee if the monarch will let him (Daenerys offered this and Tarly rejected it) b) go to the Wall if the monarch will let him (Tyrion offered this and Tarly rejected it) or he gets executed as a traitor. Tarly rejected the first two options and got the third.

What else was going to happen? 

[Tyrion1991]

21 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I'm sure GWB thought he was saving the Iraqis too...and the U.S. thought they were saving the Vietnamese...and so on. I think social change coming from 1 person with absolute power is really dangerous.

 

You’re confusing propaganda with sincere intent.

Power in a story represents a celebration of the agency the individual can have. That you can change the world for the better. To brow beat people by saying people are too ignorant to have it is to say they don’t deserve agency in their own lives. If a person sees injustice or feels they have been wronged, they’re being told that they should turn the other cheek and would be happier living quiet lives.

 

[KingMudd]

2 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

Almost always prefaced with “I ve always hated Daenerys”. It’s never been a neutral theory and has been maintained by individuals who’ve resented the idea that the Starks or Baratheons wouldn’t be the central characters. 

The people who wanted that ending, I know a close friend whose reaction to KL being burnt was “YES!”, have always wanted Danys story to amount to nothing and for her be a failure. They got their wish.

It’s never been a sincere analysis of the themes involved with Danys storyline. It’s simply that people wanted Jon as King, Arya/Gendry, Tyrion or even Stannis on the throne. Nobody wanted Bran as King funnily enough. That'll go down like a wet fart; thanks George.

This is why it’s a poor storyline. If you want to tell a fantasy version of the Dark Phoenix saga and for this to be a cult tragedy people will remember for years you have manifestly failed at that task if a sizeable chunk of your readers hate the character and wanted her to implode from the beginning. Most of those people would have looked the other way had Stannis put a city to the fire; none of them remotely care about the good people of KL. 

 

I don't mind Daenerys as a character. I enjoyed her the most after Drogo died and and the dragons were still young and small. 

I'm of the opinion if it's a good story then I don't mind what happens. I have my favourite characters but don't mind if they turn out evil or die off because that's the story that GRRM wants to tell. 

It's your opinion that it's a poor storyline. I'm guessing there are many people who think the opposite and that's fine. If you're only in it for a select few characters then you are going to be angry and upset like you when something you don't like happens to them. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it's a bad story.

[Kaapstad]

There were definite signs she was a tyrant if you look back at the series. I just did a search. Its just that she does this to bad people and we never realized it.

She has a detached, almost ethereal reaction to watching her own brother have molten gold poured over his head, something she rationalizes by saying he wasn’t a real “dragon.”

She burns a woman alive in Drogo’s funeral pyre.

She threatens to burn down Qarth with her dragons if they don’t let her into the city.

She throws a spoiled brat fit when the Spice King of Qarth doesn’t just hand his ships over to her.

She has a vision of a bombed-out Red Keep in the House of the Undying. While it wasn’t clear that she’d be the cause of the damage, the damage itself was telegraphed years ago.

She walls up Xaro and Doreah alive in Xaro’s vault and then robs his house.

After having kept slaves while married to Drogo, she suddenly decides to be anti-slavery right around the time she needs an army that she can’t pay for. She sacks Astapor, burns a bunch of people alive and leaves with the Unsullied.

She threatens the Yunkai representative with her dragons when he comes to see her.

She crucifies 163 people when she conquers Meereen, with no trials. She makes no effort to determine any person’s individual guilt.

She later executes an ex-slave without a trial for the crime of executing someone without a trial. After that, she feeds a guy to her dragons without a trial, and it’s never specified either before or after this happens whether this guy actually did anything to warrant being fed to her dragons.

She burns the Dothraki khals alive and assumes leadership of the Dothraki, after which she yells at them from her dragon to conquer Westeros for her, knock down stone houses and kill people.

She essentially holds Jon prisoner while demanding he swear fealty to her when all he really wants is the damn dragonglass and some soldiers.

She destroys the loot train rather than just capture it and make use of the food resources, and burns a bunch of Lannister and Tarly soldiers alive with Drogon.

She burns the Tarlys alive when they don’t submit to her rather than force them to take the black, hold them ransom or just behead them.

She’s clearly troubled when she doesn’t get a hero’s welcome in the North, and takes equally clear enjoyment in people in the North being afraid of her dragons.

She openly threatens Sansa to Jon and conflates civil frostiness with treachery and disobedience.

She refuses to take the North’s independence into consideration when Sansa broaches it.

Her first reaction to finding out who Jon is is shock that her claim to the throne is compromised. After doing the morally right thing and helping to defeat the Others, she demands that the North and the Vale act for her benefit, by fighting Cersei with her.

She out and out lies to everyone around her about being the rightful queen once she knows about Jon, and she maniacally demands he spend the rest of his life living a lie so that she can take the throne because she wants it.

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

You’re confusing propaganda with sincere intent.

Power in a story represents a celebration of the agency the individual can have. That you can change the world for the better. To brow beat people by saying people are too ignorant to have it is to say they don’t deserve agency in their own lives. If a person sees injustice or feels they have been wronged, they’re being told that they should turn the other cheek and would be happier living quiet lives.

 

Unintended consequences are a thing. They occur whether your intent was sincere or not, but certainly your good intent is not going to protect you from negative consequences, especially if you are attempting to create massive societal change on the fly. Dany's story is about what happens when your good intentions aren't married to any strategy, you think that you will liberate the people and then it will all be a fairly tale ending, but that isn't how things work. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

4 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

You’re confusing propaganda with sincere intent.

But that's Daenerys in a nutshell. She believed her own propaganda and didn't realize the faults in her own logic. 

She uses the language of beneficence:

“It employs the vocabulary of ideals and lofty goals and insists that the power of empire is noble and benevolent. The language of beneficence is used to speak to those outside the centers of death and pillage, those who have not yet been totally broken, those who still must be seduced to hand over power to predators.” - Chris Hedges

It's kind of unique how Dany is written as a dictator from the left. It's fascism in the name of what one person thinks is "injustice." Dany just isnt reflexive about her worldviews and that's untenable. No one wants a social justice Robocop. We want people who understand the humanist perspective and can think critically and admit what they don't know.

5 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 Power in a story represents a celebration of the agency the individual can have. That you can change the world for the better. To brow beat people by saying people are too ignorant to have it is to say they don’t deserve agency in their own lives. If a person sees injustice or feels they have been wronged, they’re being told that they should turn the other cheek and would be happier living quiet lives.

That's only one definition of power - from the protagonists perspective. Western individualism and the heroic journey and all that. GRRM isn't drawing from Campbell. "Happier living quiet lives?" At some point ambition becomes voracious and excessive. Dany wasn't even content with one throne in Essos, and she wanted a second one. 

[Nowy Tends]

15 minutes ago, Kaapstad said:

There were definite signs she was a tyrant if you look back at the series. I just did a search  to fIts just that she does this to bad people and we never realized it.

She has a detached, almost ethereal reaction to watching her own brother have molten gold poured over his head, something she rationalizes by saying he wasn’t a real “dragon.”

Yeah. You had to do "a search", it says a lot. Without "a search" you had zero argument. How credible.

As for her brother, you're talking about the guy who just threatened to tear her baby out of her belly with his sword, right? In a sacred place where no one is supposed to carry a weapon, right? She's not stupid, she knew that Viserys had just condemned himself to an atrocious death. Viserys, with whom she feels less and less connected because he is so vain…

[Nowy Tends]

SHI BIRNT THI TARLY ILIVE WHIN THI DIN'T SIBMIT 

[KingMudd]

54 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

Yeah. You had to do "a search", it says a lot. Without "a search" you had zero argument. How credible.

As for her brother, you're talking about the guy who just threatened to tear her baby out of her belly with his sword, right? In a sacred place where no one is supposed to carry a weapon, right? She's not stupid, she knew that Viserys had just condemned himself to an atrocious death. Viserys, with whom she feels less and less connected because he is so vain…

Um, that's how theories and facts are obtained. You have to search through the material. They found what they were looking for as well so it's quite credible.

The hints are there even if you don't believe them. Just like the hints are there for Jon's parentage.

[The One Who Kneels]

1 hour ago, Kaapstad said:

There were definite signs she was a tyrant if you look back at the series. I just did a search. Its just that she does this to bad people and we never realized it.

She has a detached, almost ethereal reaction to watching her own brother have molten gold poured over his head, something she rationalizes by saying he wasn’t a real “dragon.”

She burns a woman alive in Drogo’s funeral pyre.

She threatens to burn down Qarth with her dragons if they don’t let her into the city.

She throws a spoiled brat fit when the Spice King of Qarth doesn’t just hand his ships over to her.

She has a vision of a bombed-out Red Keep in the House of the Undying. While it wasn’t clear that she’d be the cause of the damage, the damage itself was telegraphed years ago.

She walls up Xaro and Doreah alive in Xaro’s vault and then robs his house.

After having kept slaves while married to Drogo, she suddenly decides to be anti-slavery right around the time she needs an army that she can’t pay for. She sacks Astapor, burns a bunch of people alive and leaves with the Unsullied.

She threatens the Yunkai representative with her dragons when he comes to see her.

She crucifies 163 people when she conquers Meereen, with no trials. She makes no effort to determine any person’s individual guilt.

She later executes an ex-slave without a trial for the crime of executing someone without a trial. After that, she feeds a guy to her dragons without a trial, and it’s never specified either before or after this happens whether this guy actually did anything to warrant being fed to her dragons.

She burns the Dothraki khals alive and assumes leadership of the Dothraki, after which she yells at them from her dragon to conquer Westeros for her, knock down stone houses and kill people.

She essentially holds Jon prisoner while demanding he swear fealty to her when all he really wants is the damn dragonglass and some soldiers.

She destroys the loot train rather than just capture it and make use of the food resources, and burns a bunch of Lannister and Tarly soldiers alive with Drogon.

She burns the Tarlys alive when they don’t submit to her rather than force them to take the black, hold them ransom or just behead them.

She’s clearly troubled when she doesn’t get a hero’s welcome in the North, and takes equally clear enjoyment in people in the North being afraid of her dragons.

She openly threatens Sansa to Jon and conflates civil frostiness with treachery and disobedience.

She refuses to take the North’s independence into consideration when Sansa broaches it.

Her first reaction to finding out who Jon is is shock that her claim to the throne is compromised. After doing the morally right thing and helping to defeat the Others, she demands that the North and the Vale act for her benefit, by fighting Cersei with her.

She out and out lies to everyone around her about being the rightful queen once she knows about Jon, and she maniacally demands he spend the rest of his life living a lie so that she can take the throne because she wants it.

How many people did Arya kill? She targeted bad people too. I guess we never noticed she was also developing into a mass murderer of helpless innocents. 

I mean if Arya had been running around King's Landing killing women and children instead of trying to save them it would've been totally foreshadowed and a reasonable path for her character to take based on all that killing (often brutal) she did right? 

That's the problem with this "doing bad things even to bad people has a price" argument. It was only ever reflected with one character and completely undermined everywhere else. Arya can murder tons of people and still want to save women and children and have a nice happy ending sailing off to be an explorer. Sansa can feed a horrid abuser to dogs and no believes it presages her developing into a potential mass murderer. Jon deals harshly with disobedience and treachery and no one pretends his actions are somehow unreasonable or something we should be concerned about. Tyrion incinerates thousands to prop up a horrid tyrant and murders his defenseless father with a crossbow and still gets to be the voice of morality and reason. Bronn is an amoral hired killer and he ends up one of the most powerful lords in Westeros. Brienne executes a defenseless wounded Stannis (what a fair trial he got!) and she's still the paragon of knighthood. You can go on and on with this. 

[the trees have eyes]

On 5/29/2019 at 2:52 PM, beeeeeen said:

The show is about how birthright and ambition are dangerous, and Dany was all about birthright and ambition

It's a story set in a faux medieval world where birthright and ambition are everything.  IF GRRM really wanted to hammer that home would he not have Dany break the wheel?  The wheel surely isn't broken and she was really just another player in the game of thrones .

Much like having Ned go to KL to solve Jon Arryn's murder and save Robert from his enemies; or having Robb set out on a campaign to free and then avenge his father; having Dany set out to reclaim the throne in order to "do justice" is all part of GRRM delight in setting up the character's hopes only to dash them and to make their own actions the key to their failure and downfall.  And of course to shock the reader in so doing.  It seems largely because we expected and wanted Ned, Robb and Dany to succeed that he determined they should fail.  I don't think there's a moral here really, just an interest in writing a gripping story and having tragic characters contributing to their own failures throughout: Catelyn finally got trumped (by Dany) in terms of dying knowing that nothing she cared for in the world was left to her.

[Tyrion1991]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

But that's Daenerys in a nutshell. She believed her own propaganda and didn't realize the faults in her own logic. 

She uses the language of beneficence:

“It employs the vocabulary of ideals and lofty goals and insists that the power of empire is noble and benevolent. The language of beneficence is used to speak to those outside the centers of death and pillage, those who have not yet been totally broken, those who still must be seduced to hand over power to predators.” - Chris Hedges

It's kind of unique how Dany is written as a dictator from the left. It's fascism in the name of what one person thinks is "injustice." Dany just isnt reflexive about her worldviews and that's untenable. No one wants a social justice Robocop. We want people who understand the humanist perspective and can think critically and admit what they don't know.

That's only one definition of power - from the protagonists perspective. Western individualism and the heroic journey and all that. GRRM isn't drawing from Campbell. "Happier living quiet lives?" At some point ambition becomes voracious and excessive. Dany wasn't even content with one throne in Essos, and she wanted a second one. 

 

Again, you are confusing propaganda with sincere intent. That quote is pointing out that such claims to be benevolent are insincere and that leaders are not genuinely trying to help but only interested in power and domination. That’s not the same thing as actually having good intentions but falling down the rabbit hole. It’s conflating two very different situations.

It’s not “at some point” when it becomes linked to the idea that even setting foot on the path leads to damnation. The show is quite clear that Danys path on “breaking the wheel” leads to genocide and totalitarianism. It casts doubt on the whole notion of seeking any change or really taking any action in life. You are literally told that you’ll go mad and end in ruin if you take that path. It’s satire. 

What it advocates is is the idea that everything will be fine if we all just let the system develop organically on its own. All the complaining just causes so much woe and ruin. We would still be serfs if people had that attitude.

The lesson is that it’s bad to care and act on it. That being apathetic would cause less suffering. For example, Dany is not really criticised for employing violence over peace to free the people of slavers bay. She is criticised for having thought that she should be the one to make that decision rather than let things carry on. As all of the violence spills out as a  consequence of her changing things. Which George as a writer can control so it’s not really proving anything in the detail.

 

 

 

 

[Einheri]

12 hours ago, Targaryen Peas said:

Can he now? The show spoiled it, wouldn't it be too hard for the reader to be surprised, or follow the path to her dawnfall.

The first impression is always full of consequences. 

I’m not so certain that George intended for this to be a surprise. If Dany’s transformation is going to be believable, I think it has to be more of a gradual process where we see her getting more and more desensitised to violence and the horrors of war, which causes her to break boundary after boundary until she eventually reaches the point of no return.

George’s Dany embraced the words of her house at the end of aDwD, and unlike the show, there won’t be many goody two shoes advisors around her to keep her worst impulses in check (on the contrary, I think that characters like Tyrion will only push her towards more war). I also don’t expect that the conclusion to her adventures in Essos is going to be anywhere near as clean of an affair as it ended up being on the show, and once she eventually does make it to Westeros, she probably won’t find a hated Lannister queen on the Iron Throne either, but a “Targaryen” king who will be popular among the people of Westeros. And if bringing Dothraki to the continent hasn’t made her super unpopular already, it certainly won’t get any better after the second dance is over.

So, I for one am still looking forward to seeing how this plays out in the next books because Dany’s arc has the potential to be really interesting, even if we now know that it’s most likely going to be a tragic one. The journey is as important as the destination after all, and here George will be able to deliver unlike the show.

[Rose of Red Lake]

7 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Again, you are confusing propaganda with sincere intent. That quote is pointing out that such claims to be benevolent are insincere and that leaders are not genuinely trying to help but only interested in power and domination. That’s not the same thing as actually having good intentions but falling down the rabbit hole. It’s conflating two very different situations.

It’s not “at some point” when it becomes linked to the idea that even setting foot on the path leads to damnation. The show is quite clear that Danys path on “breaking the wheel” leads to genocide and totalitarianism. It casts doubt on the whole notion of seeking any change or really taking any action in life. You are literally told that you’ll go mad and end in ruin if you take that path. It’s satire. 

What it advocates is is the idea that everything will be fine if we all just let the system develop organically on its own. All the complaining just causes so much woe and ruin. We would still be serfs if people had that attitude.

The lesson is that it’s bad to care and act on it. That being apathetic would cause less suffering. For example, Dany is not really criticised for employing violence over peace to free the people of slavers bay. She is criticised for having thought that she should be the one to make that decision rather than let things carry on. As all of the violence spills out as a  consequence of her changing things. Which George as a writer can control so it’s not really proving anything in the detail.

There are like 9388902 different types of propaganda. It's just a technique. The person dishing it out can have whatever moral justification they like. Just look at a church doctrine from the colonial period as an example. Religious leaders thought they were saving the unfortunate heathens from a terrible fate.

In Essos, Dany caused suffering every time she attempted to cause less. It's like the trust fund white girl from the U.S. who wants to go solve rapes in the Congo. The Dead Kennedys wrote a brilliantly satirical song about this actually, called Holiday in Cambodia. It's not cynical to criticize this type of person. Doing that doesn't SHUT DOWN acts of social change altogether either. The two can co-exist. 

People can also delude themselves into thinking war and conquest is good for the nation and themselves - and Dany has deluded herself on both. In Westeros, she's created her own World War II in her mind when those conditions aren't really there. It's convenient that she personally benefits from "ridding the world of tyrants" (whatever that means). She not only gets to feel self-righteous, she gets to ride around on her dragon and burn shit which she loves doing. She gets to feel like she has the love of the people (really, just her own army) and she also gets great satisfaction in knowing she's won. She gets to feel like her family's legacy is restored and that the blood of the dragon is once again ascending to greatness. All the while, nothing actually changes. They just experience more of the same. Why shouldn't this type of person deserve just as much social critique as a slave master?

Everyone hitched their wagons to the wrong horse. Dany would never be able to be the inspiring leader you want her to be with dragons or at the head of a khalasar. That's just doomed from the start. The message would be that only nuclear weapons and warlords can make good changes in the world - a ridiculous assumption. It's like saying an uninformed charismatic leader can use the U.S. nuclear arsenal to solve the problem of child labor in the salt mines of Nigeria. What a mess that would be. To map to Dany's story, the leader would then abandon them after a year or so, and run off on a completely different mission.

I would disagree that the story is saying that it's bad to act. I think the message is that at a certain point the divine ruler with the atomic bomb probably isn't the best person to make lasting social change. 

[SeanF]

7 hours ago, Einheri said:

I’m not so certain that George intended for this to be a surprise. If Dany’s transformation is going to be believable, I think it has to be more of a gradual process where we see her getting more and more desensitised to violence and the horrors of war, which causes her to break boundary after boundary until she eventually reaches the point of no return.

George’s Dany embraced the words of her house at the end of aDwD, and unlike the show, there won’t be many goody two shoes advisors around her to keep her worst impulses in check (on the contrary, I think that characters like Tyrion will only push her towards more war). I also don’t expect that the conclusion to her adventures in Essos is going to be anywhere near as clean of an affair as it ended up being on the show, and once she eventually does make it to Westeros, she probably won’t find a hated Lannister queen on the Iron Throne either, but a “Targaryen” king who will be popular among the people of Westeros. And if bringing Dothraki to the continent hasn’t made her super unpopular already, it certainly won’t get any better after the second dance is over.

So, I for one am still looking forward to seeing how this plays out in the next books because Dany’s arc has the potential to be really interesting, even if we now know that it’s most likely going to be a tragic one. The journey is as important as the destination after all, and here George will be able to deliver unlike the show.

For sure, by Book 5, Tyrion is a complete shit.  Even 20 years ago, Martin was saying of him "He's the villain, but we all love a good villain." When he becomes an advisor to Dany, in TWOW, he's  more likely to be her evil genius, rather than someone who counsels restraint.  He'll be saying "It is better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved" or "Mercy and cowardice are one and the same."  Book Tyrion would be thrilled to see Kings Landing go up in flames.

By the end of TWOW, I doubt if the inhabitants of Western Essos will be calling Daenaerys the Breaker of Chains.  More likely epithets will be things like The Destroyer, The Terrible, The Conqueror.

[kevinbgwrites]

Just lol @ anyone who doesn't think Dany as the villain is the only logical/satisfying end to her story.

Also Just lol @ anyone who thinks the writers did a remotely passable job at getting the story there in a believable way and didn't fumble what could have been one of the great villains in fiction horribly over the course of two seasons after 5 seasons of build up.

[Tyrion1991]

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

There are like 9388902 different types of propaganda. It's just a technique. The person dishing it out can have whatever moral justification they like. Just look at a church doctrine from the colonial period as an example. Religious leaders thought they were saving the unfortunate heathens from a terrible fate.

In Essos, Dany caused suffering every time she attempted to cause less. It's like the trust fund white girl from the U.S. who wants to go solve rapes in the Congo. The Dead Kennedys wrote a brilliantly satirical song about this actually, called Holiday in Cambodia. It's not cynical to criticize this type of person. Doing that doesn't SHUT DOWN acts of social change altogether either. The two can co-exist. 

People can also delude themselves into thinking war and conquest is good for the nation and themselves - and Dany has deluded herself on both. In Westeros, she's created her own World War II in her mind when those conditions aren't really there. It's convenient that she personally benefits from "ridding the world of tyrants" (whatever that means). She not only gets to feel self-righteous, she gets to ride around on her dragon and burn shit which she loves doing. She gets to feel like she has the love of the people (really, just her own army) and she also gets great satisfaction in knowing she's won. She gets to feel like her family's legacy is restored and that the blood of the dragon is once again ascending to greatness. All the while, nothing actually changes. They just experience more of the same. Why shouldn't this type of person deserve just as much social critique as a slave master?

Everyone hitched their wagons to the wrong horse. Dany would never be able to be the inspiring leader you want her to be with dragons or at the head of a khalasar. That's just doomed from the start. The message would be that only nuclear weapons and warlords can make good changes in the world - a ridiculous assumption. It's like saying an uninformed charismatic leader can use the U.S. nuclear arsenal to solve the problem of child labor in the salt mines of Nigeria. What a mess that would be. To map to Dany's story, the leader would then abandon them after a year or so, and run off on a completely different mission.

I would disagree that the story is saying that it's bad to act. I think the message is that at a certain point the divine ruler with the atomic bomb probably isn't the best person to make lasting social change. 

 

It is saying it’s bad to act.

When you read Spider-Man it’s not about telling the reader, “oh if we had vigilante superheroes with superpowers who punch people the worlds problems would go away”. Spider-Man’s power is a metaphor for why it’s better to make a positive contribution rather than “do nothing”. That’s why Uncle Ben dies because Peter goes “not my problem it’s the way of the world and I am just one man trying to make it through”. So a reader will think to themselves that maybe they shouldn’t just stand by if bad things happen because it doesn’t impact them. It’s a positive message.

Daenerys tale is a satire of that type of story. Flipping it on its head to argue that taking action is inherently bad. George applies precisely the same brow beating attitude when Daenerys tries to change the system peacefully in ADWD. He’s not concerned with the methods she uses at all. The ultimate moral of the story is that people are ignorant of the world so should do nothing to change it.

So when he writes Danys storyline the message is not “you should be wary of charismatic dictators” the message is “you should not walk the same path as Daenerys”. Standing up to the worlds problems, standing up for yourself and believing that you have an obligation towards others. 

Lets take an example, say you are being bullied at work and underpaid. If you take the Spider-Man moral then, you should seek redress and act on it. If you take Danys tale well: nothing good could come of it, do I really know enough to make those complaints, am I just whining, will this make things worse for me? That kind of self doubt that Danys story encourages is in my view a horrendously negative message. 

[Tyrion1991]

13 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Unintended consequences are a thing. They occur whether your intent was sincere or not, but certainly your good intent is not going to protect you from negative consequences, especially if you are attempting to create massive societal change on the fly. Dany's story is about what happens when your good intentions aren't married to any strategy, you think that you will liberate the people and then it will all be a fairly tale ending, but that isn't how things work. 

 

If it was a question of strategy then we would be shown “oh if Dany did X instead of Y she could win without being a monster”.  You aren’t given enough material to suggest an alternate path for her beyond “just throw people in jail for a change”.

When I read ADWD, it became very apparent that George was rail roading the character. An economy that was reliant on importing and exporting slaves is ridiculous. Especially from an isolated region wracked by murderous storms and where the only road out of it is “the demon road”. Had it been like the agricultural Southern United States Dany would not have had the same problems because then she could just redistribute the land to her followers. No benefit from the slaves all but worshipping her. Slave cities who apparently knew they couldn’t beat her militarily but did so anyway because reasons. The bloody flux destroying Astapor. It becomes ridiculous after a while and came across as contrived. 

This rail roading by Martin makes every decision Dany makes preordained because everything in that happens to her reinforces and changes her attitude. So we can’t say “oh but if Dany had just went into the wilderness until the dragons had grown and crossed over it would have been the restoration of 1660 and she could have won without anyone dying”. That is basically Barristans plan and it’s not depicted as remotely realistic or believable within the context of this story.

In the show its particularly note worthy that Tyrion casts a long shadow over Danny’s  entire arc and the very premise of her trying to change the world. Tyrion is not interested in methods. Those methods are a direct and inevitable consequence of her intent. So what’s being blamed is her desire for change and that is what’s being demonised. Not the strategy. 

 

[Rose of Red Lake]

49 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Standing up to the worlds problems, standing up for yourself and believing that you have an obligation towards others. 

This is also something most of the other characters are doing; Dany doesn't own this. I think you might dislike every character except Dany? This would be a struggle, then.

I also think that's too straightforward because this character is chock full of contradictions.

59 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Daenerys tale is a satire of that type of story. Flipping it on its head to argue that taking action is inherently bad. George applies precisely the same brow beating attitude when Daenerys tries to change the system peacefully in ADWD. He’s not concerned with the methods she uses at all. The ultimate moral of the story is that people are ignorant of the world so should do nothing to change it.

This isn't how I read ADWD at all? GRRM is concerned with methods because he's showing how this character makes decisions with her brain instead of tEH dRaGoNS, and she succeeds. She throws it all away when she jumps on Drogon.

Also, the moral of the story is that if you want to change the world you should understand the history of that world so you don't make the same mistakes as your predecessors. And Dany is making the same mistakes. He said she should read Fire and Blood to learn a few things. 

1 hour ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 Lets take an example, say you are being bullied at work and underpaid. If you take the Spider-Man moral then, you should seek redress and act on it. If you take Danys tale well: nothing good could come of it, do I really know enough to make those complaints, am I just whining, will this make things worse for me? That kind of self doubt that Danys story encourages is in my view a horrendously negative message. 

This is an odd metaphor. First, if Daenerys was being bullied at work and underpaid, she would just melt her bosses' face off and smile while his eyeballs dribbled down his cheeks. Is that the moral of the story? Most violent action is best? Second, I think you're expecting this character to do way more than she was ever written to do. She's not a superhero. Her primary objective is to fulfill her family's awful legacy. She got caught up in a side quest, that she only discovered when she needed to buy some slaves. Her "standing up for injustice" schtick was really just about her reveling in the fact that she could gain supremacy over people. And she liked winning. And she liked followers. Part of what keeps her going in Essos is the idea that she's "practicing" for rule in Westeos so she's trying to be a good queen. To her credit she probably could be without dragons but again...we know where that's going.

I think you're sugarcoating Daenerys a lot.