[ADWD Spoilers] Regarding comments on Dany

[Lyri]

... i don't care about her conscience or her moral dilemmas because the people she's worrying about are not real to me. They don't matter to me. They're just black shapes meant to be mowed down or ignored on our way to where real people live, to where people matter, to Westeros.

Ultimately, I don;t care because GRRM failed to make me care. I read that he once said that the story is about Westeros and that's why he will never write an Essos POV. That's grand except when the main protagonist is set in this fodder- doesn't-matter world. Unless I care about her world, I really can't care about her or soundly evaluate her decisions.

What Dany does in Mereen is crucial to Westeros. Mereen is her proving ground, her schoolroom and her teacher. Do I have any emotional investment in Mereen? No. She could leave it a smoking ruin like Astapor and it wouldn't matter to me. Except that if she doesn't learn to rule any better, she'll also leave Westeros a smoking ruin, and that's not cool. So I think the idea is that we want to see Dany learn how not to screw up Westeros. She learned a lesson from Astapor which she applied to Mereen. And hopefully she's learning some lessons from Mereen that she will apply to Westeros.

[JKeats]

What Dany does in Mereen is crucial to Westeros. Mereen is her proving ground, her schoolroom and her teacher. Do I have any emotional investment in Mereen? No. She could leave it a smoking ruin like Astapor and it wouldn't matter to me. Except that if she doesn't learn to rule any better, she'll also leave Westeros a smoking ruin, and that's not cool. So I think the idea is that we want to see Dany learn how not to screw up Westeros. She learned a lesson from Astapor which she applied to Mereen. And hopefully she's learning some lessons from Mereen that she will apply to Westeros.

How nice for the people of Meereen that they are no more than a trial run. The lesson Dany should have learned from her experience in Slaver's Bay is that she'd make a terrible monarch and ought to try her hand at joining the dosh khaleen.

[jack88]

How nice for the people of Meereen that they are no more than a trial run. The lesson Dany should have learned from her experience in Slaver's Bay is that she'd make a terrible monarch and ought to try her hand at joining the dosh khaleen.

LMAO

Real talk

Daenerys should have just died for real in the fighting pit. We have her dragons, we have a new Targaryen, and like all the other major characters who have died she betrayed herself. It would have been poetic justice if Drogon ate her, especially because she made you sit through 800 pages of bullshit about how she really..really........really wanted to bang her good captain.

[Haters Morghulis]

The events in Mereen seem to be another case of a conqueror being a poor ruler, something we’ve seen repeatedly in the books.

Daenerys is a formidible force because she inspires loyalty and awe among her troops. In an age when victories depend on an army’s morale and discipline more than composition and deployment, the aura of power her dragons give her has so far been more important than their physical abilities. She’s a Joan of Arc, an Alexander the Great, sweeping from victory to victory on the strength of her personal presence.

But she’s as terrible a judge of character as most people are in their adolescence. Though Mirri Maz Dhur and the House of the Undying have taught her to anticipate betrayal, she’s unschooled at deciphering people’s motives, telling lies from truth, and tempering both justice and mercy with political necessity.

How much of this is her nature and how much her upbringing is an interesting question. In her travails wandering the grasslands alone, she comes to believe that since she is a dragon, she isn’t suited to build nations, only to subjugate them. But then again, her main models for rulership so far have been Viserys and Drogo, and what she’s learned from them has been to make threats and follow through on them. If she had someone to tutor her in statecraft, the way Margary Tyrell has had the Queen of Thorns and Sansa will probably have Littlefinger, she might be a far more effective queen.

My feeling at the end of Dance is that Dany has been humbled. My hope is that she’ll find a team that will make up for the weaknesses she now sees in herself, the equivalent of a Hand and a small council that can deal with necessities and practicalities of rulership while she continues to provide inspiration and dispense justice. Furthermore, I hope she listens to them better than Robert did to Jon Arryn. Stannis lacks Robert’s charisma, but has done remarkable things because he sometimes listens to his advisors, Melisandre and Davos and Jon Snow. Will Dany find loyal councilors in the likes of Tyrion and Varys and Doran Martell? She’d better.

[Haters Morghulis]

I have been following the arguments about Catelyn and Sansa for years. I have now come to the conclusion that GRRM can not write a long PoV of conventionally feminine woman (i.e somebody who does not fight with a sword/axe) without making her act stupid and in obnoxious ways. It´s a pattern by now.

All of GRRM’s POV characters are tragically flawed people, men as well as women. Dramatic irony--that feeling you’re getting when someone is doing something you know is massively stupid and you can’t stop it from happening--is one of the hallmarks of his series.

So I don’t really believe that GRRM can’t write a conventionally feminine character who doesn’t make bad decisions. Margary Tyrell and the Queen of Thorns are conventionally feminine and deadly competent. The Green Grace of Mereen--my number one suspect for the Harpy, by the way--is conventionally feminine and effective. If we’re talking gender roles rather than biology, Varys acts conventionally feminine, and is one of the prime movers of the series. I simply think GRRM isn’t interested in presenting us with viewpoints of clear-thinking, undamaged people.

[cteresa]

So I don’t really believe that GRRM can’t write a conventionally feminine character who doesn’t make bad decisions. Margary Tyrell and the Queen of Thorns are conventionally feminine and deadly competent. The Green Grace of Mereen--my number one suspect for the Harpy, by the way--is conventionally feminine and effective. If we’re talking gender roles rather than biology, Varys acts conventionally feminine, and is one of the prime movers of the series. I simply think GRRM isn’t interested in presenting us with viewpoints of clear-thinking, undamaged people.

I was talking of long (sustained) PoV characters. None of those you mention are PoV characters and no, Varys does not count as feminine in any way.

[Haters Morghulis]

I was talking of long (sustained) PoV characters. None of those you mention are PoV characters ...

Correct. That was my point. GRRM writes feminine characters who commit no stupidies, he simply doesn’t give us their PoVs. He doesn’t give us the PoVs of masculine characters who commit no stupidies, either. His PoVs are all laden with dramatic irony. It is a hallmark of the series.

[cteresa]

Correct. That was my point. GRRM writes feminine characters who commit no stupidies, he simply doesn’t give us their PoVs. He doesn’t give us the PoVs of masculine characters who commit no stupidies, either. His PoVs are all laden with dramatic irony. It is a hallmark of the series.

He can not write about a woman having romantic or maternal feelings without having her do stupid, treasonable or just obnoxious things for which innocents will pay. (mind you, he had Robb do it). But in the case of male PoV characters brought low so to speak by love they seem to get away with it mostly. Cat, Sansa, Dany, innocents die and hey, some people will have a field day indeed with what bitches they are.

[JKeats]

He can not write about a woman having romantic or maternal feelings without having her do stupid, treasonable or just obnoxious things for which innocents will pay. (mind you, he had Robb do it). But in the case of male PoV characters brought low so to speak by love they seem to get away with it mostly. Cat, Sansa, Dany, innocents die and hey, some people will have a field day indeed with what bitches they are.

Male PoV characters who do idiotic things for love include Jaime (tossing Bran from a window) and Arys Oakheart (for playing along with Arianne).

[Alexia]

Male PoV characters who do idiotic things for love include Jaime (tossing Bran from a window) and Arys Oakheart (for playing along with Arianne).

Tyrion Lannister and Robb Stark as well.

[noobilly]

Ah I just got back. Well, the thing is that, to you guys who are saying "Dany's story is boring", I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU!

I thought "A Dance with Dragons" would be about Victarion seizing hold of one or two dragons while Dany controls the others and they have a showdown of epic proportions, turning Mereen into an apocalypse. Tyrion, Quentyn,Barristan, the Unsullied, the Ironmen and all other armies would get sucked into the fight and the book would made ASOS look like AFFC.

Unfortunately that was not the case. However, giving her circumstances, I still think that Dany did not "behave like an idiot". Yes she slept with Daario. So? As for locking up her dragons, I don't see what better thing she could have done. Marrying Hizdahr is perhaps more debatable, I'm going to reread that one and come back.

[cteresa]

Male PoV characters who do idiotic things for love include Jaime (tossing Bran from a window) and Arys Oakheart (for playing along with Arianne).

Yes - and like I mentioned myself Robb is the prime example. And Jon breaking his vows, and Sam breaking his vows. But things tend to not go always haywire to masses of innocents because of it. Nor do they seem to just became you know stupid at other things.

[Haters Morghulis]

But in the case of male PoV characters brought low so to speak by love they seem to get away with it mostly. Cat, Sansa, Dany, innocents die and hey, some people will have a field day indeed with what bitches they are.

I’m not sure I can agree with you. Tyrion seems as scarred by love as any character in the book, Jaime commits the first crime we see in love’s name, not to mention high treason, and Jon Snow can’t defend himself against charges that he broke his vow for love. And Ned dishonors himself in the sept of Baelor, a fate he surely considers worse than death, out of paternal love.

I suspect most readers, for whatever reason, are simply more willing to forgive the books’ male characters for the follies and crimes they do for love. Is it possible this has roots in real-world attitudes towards women, who are expected to be more guarded and cautious in romance than men are?

[Eaglewood]

The events in Mereen seem to be another case of a conqueror being a poor ruler, something we’ve seen repeatedly in the books.

Daenerys is a formidible force because she inspires loyalty and awe among her troops. In an age when victories depend on an army’s morale and discipline more than composition and deployment, the aura of power her dragons give her has so far been more important than their physical abilities. She’s a Joan of Arc, an Alexander the Great, sweeping from victory to victory on the strength of her personal presence.

But she’s as terrible a judge of character as most people are in their adolescence. Though Mirri Maz Dhur and the House of the Undying have taught her to anticipate betrayal, she’s unschooled at deciphering people’s motives, telling lies from truth, and tempering both justice and mercy with political necessity.

How much of this is her nature and how much her upbringing is an interesting question. In her travails wandering the grasslands alone, she comes to believe that since she is a dragon, she isn’t suited to build nations, only to subjugate them. But then again, her main models for rulership so far have been Viserys and Drogo, and what she’s learned from them has been to make threats and follow through on them. If she had someone to tutor her in statecraft, the way Margary Tyrell has had the Queen of Thorns and Sansa will probably have Littlefinger, she might be a far more effective queen.

My feeling at the end of Dance is that Dany has been humbled. My hope is that she’ll find a team that will make up for the weaknesses she now sees in herself, the equivalent of a Hand and a small council that can deal with necessities and practicalities of rulership while she continues to provide inspiration and dispense justice. Furthermore, I hope she listens to them better than Robert did to Jon Arryn. Stannis lacks Robert’s charisma, but has done remarkable things because he sometimes listens to his advisors, Melisandre and Davos and Jon Snow. Will Dany find loyal councilors in the likes of Tyrion and Varys and Doran Martell? She’d better.

Word a thousand times over.

I simply don't understand how Dany defenders can try to justify any of her actions in this book. Of course there were people arguing over if the Red Wedding was okay a few weeks ago, so clearly there are a lot of things I'll never understand.

Dany, in five books, has not shown any inclination of being a good ruler. A good conqueror yes. Particularly with Mormont and Barristan's counsel. A good administrator? No. In fact, shes awful. Worse then Ned at the game of thrones. Worse then Hot Pie in battle. Worse then Walder Frey at being honorable. She has no head for it. She can't read people, she trusts the wrong people, she can't politically figure out how to solve a problem (look at the Mormont exile. That was so stupid. No one in Mereen knows who he is or cares what he did. Who was she trying to impress?), and when she makes choices they are usually bad (I'm sorry, your dragon ate a child. SO WHAT? It's a frigging dragon not a pig or a puppy or a human. Dragons are the nuclear weapon of GRRM's world for that very reason. They are monsters. They are also your ONLY SOURCE OF POWER. If you can't live with the consequences of what they are, you should never have let them grow in the first place. Or, at a minimum, train them! Jesus).

Finally, like most people have said, Dany is 100% the Mary Sue of Westeros. One of the biggest themes in the series is: you make a decision, you accept the consequences. Look at Ned, Robb, Cat, Tyrion, Cersei, Viserys, Jamie, Bran, et. al. Even Jon finally felt the sting of that this book.

Dany in Slavers Bay has not. She has, through arrogance that she could land from above and change a people she despised, has left three cities in a smoking ruin, yet she flies away, without even a burn mark, from her problems. Even when she made mistakes and paid from the in the first book, she still came out better for the bargain with three freaking dragons! So not only is she boring us, she isn't even living by the logic of the world.

[Eaglewood]

I’m not sure I can agree with you. Tyrion seems as scarred by love as any character in the book, Jaime commits the first crime we see in love’s name, not to mention high treason, and Jon Snow can’t defend himself against charges that he broke his vow for love. And Ned dishonors himself in the sept of Baelor, a fate he surely considers worse than death, out of paternal love.

I suspect most readers, for whatever reason, are simply more willing to forgive the books’ male characters for the follies and crimes they do for love. Is it possible this has roots in real-world attitudes towards women, who are expected to be more guarded and cautious in romance than men are?

I would say so. I would also say men are more romantic in the real world too See here for studies. I don't want to fully open that can of worms, but the men of Westeros are much bigger fools for love than the women, who are much more pragmatic about their place in the world.

[cteresa]

I suspect most readers, for whatever reason, are simply more willing to forgive the books’ male characters for the follies and crimes they do for love. Is it possible this has roots in real-world attitudes towards women, who are expected to be more guarded and cautious in romance than men are?

That was what I thought up to ADWD. And then Dany´s PoV, it seriously did not work for me - she is blind and more naïve and we see onscreen people die and die because she does not get something other people are telling her. Also Pretty (not a PoV chapter, no, but the straw which broke the camel´s back in a way) - who starts out awesome trying to kill Tyrion but becames conventional and stupid in her naïveté at the same time she starts to crush on Tyrion.

[Logen Ninefingers]

Can we not say Mary Sue guys please?

A Mary Sue is a character who is super awesome at everything and never fucks up.

Someone who makes a stream of appalling decisions like Dany does here can't be a Mary Sue, however frustrating she may be to read.

[Alexia]

Does anyone want this woman to rule Westeros? I'm only halfway through the book and I'm already aghast at her decision making process. If she plans to bring the Dothraki there, then I'm rooting for her dragons to eat her AND her army.

I can't think of a worse possible ruler for Westeros. Littlefinger would be better. Cersei Lannister would be better. Mace Tyrell would be better. Daenerys Targaryen is an absolutely horrible candidate and I don't want to see her serve to Westeros what she's served Mereen and Astapor in her arrogance and xenophobia.

[Haters Morghulis]

Dany´s PoV...seriously did not work for me - she is blind and more naïve and we see onscreen people die and die because she does not get something other people are telling her. Also Pretty (not a PoV chapter, no, but the straw which broke the camel´s back in a way) - who starts out awesome trying to kill Tyrion but becames conventional and stupid in her naïveté at the same time she starts to crush on Tyrion.

I see love as madness as a central theme of the books. Robert’s Rebellion is a judgment on the mad king, to be sure, but it is also a love affair gone wrong drawing an entire continent into a bloody war. However many innocents die in Mereen for Dany’s cause of emancipation and her lack of judgement, I’d guess as many die for Robert’s cause and fury.

[Gongsun Zan]

I think its undeniable that Dany made a series of mistakes in this book.

Does that make her stupid? No. It makes her _believable_.

She's not Ender Wiggins, and she is still a teenage girl who was thrust into a situation far beyond anything she has been prepared to handle.

Given that situation, she has done remarkably well, and I doubt any of us could have done half as well as she did under those circumstances. To judge her harshly is uncalled for IMO, and a product of our all-seeing perspective.

Be that as it may, I have a feeling she's getting herself back together at the end. When she does come back, something tells me she won't be alone. :)

Itkovian

Let's see, if I were Dany:

1. It's obvious that the Great Houses have something to do with the Sons of the Harpy, especially after Hidzhar magically manages to placate them. Some sort of Inquisition would have been in order.

2. I would have made some attempt to train the dragons, instead of locking them away and pretending they're not there.

3. I would have sent an envoy to Braavos, since all we hear about is how they're not too keen on slavery. Take a loan from the iron bank, and outbid the Yunkai sellswords.

4. In the process of 3, said envoy may come across the Golden Company, which may help bring another 10,000 swords to her cause.

5. At the very least, I would have used Quentyn's arrival as an excuse to stall the marriage.

But anyway, the point isn't that Dany *made* mistakes. Dany didn't even do anything. She just kind of sat there and let things happen, and that's my biggest annoyance of all.