[ADWD Spoilers] Regarding comments on Dany

[wolfbird]

Actually a Mary Sue is character which is a self-insert of the author. They just usually happen to be always perfect and awesome, but just because a character is always perfect and awesome does not mean they are a Mary Sue.

Considering the term "Mary Sue" came from fanfiction written by teenage girls, I'm usually highly skeptical about applying it to an author's original work.

[noobilly]

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.

But if she is in Westeros, which does not keep slaves, what do you think she is going to burn?

[JKeats]

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.

Agree completely. Robb and Ned die due to their errors. Jon Snow may or may not be dead, but he still got stabbed repeatedly. If he's not dead, he's at least gravely wounded. Davos loses four sons, is imprisoned twice, and nearly dies on the Blackwater. Stannis gives up some vital part of his life force (the shadow magic takes a heavy toll on his health). Tyrion loses his nose, his name and fortune, and is on the run for his life. Jaime gets his hand cut off. Brienne gets part of her face eaten! Beric Dondarrion, good grief, Beric DIES SIX TIMES OVER! I could go on. Point is, all these people suffer real and personal setbacks to their own bodies.

But not Dany. When Dany screws up, other people take the shit. The most that ever happens to our precious "mother" is her oh so special silver-gold hair burns off. And even that grows back soon enough. And after all the trouble she causes, somehow it all works to her benefit by "teaching her how to rule". Excuse me?

You know what's even worse? The way people assume she is destined to be the savior of Westeros. And who can blame them, GRRM wrote her that way. But I don't have to like it. I mean, if the key to defeating the Others is nothing more than Dany swooping in at the last minute and having her dragons roast them, the suffering of the North becomes pretty meaningless. I dearly hope GRRM pulls the rug out from under us all by forcing our heroes to do it the hard way.

[cteresa]

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.

Many people died in many wars before this started - Summerhall tragedy cames to mind. Not sure *that* is the theme of this series. But do you see what I mean about GRRM now having made Dany the new Catelyn and Sansa?

[O'san'gar's Razor]

Agree completely. Robb and Ned die due to their errors. Jon Snow may or may not be dead, but he still got stabbed repeatedly. If he's not dead, he's at least gravely wounded. Davos loses four sons, is imprisoned twice, and nearly dies on the Blackwater. Stannis gives up some vital part of his life force (the shadow magic takes a heavy toll on his health). Tyrion loses his nose, his name and fortune, and is on the run for his life. Jaime gets his hand cut off. Brienne gets part of her face eaten! Beric Dondarrion, good grief, Beric DIES SIX TIMES OVER! I could go on. Point is, all these people suffer real and personal setbacks to their own bodies.

But not Dany. When Dany screws up, other people take the shit. The most that ever happens to our precious "mother" is her oh so special silver-gold hair burns off. And even that grows back soon enough. And after all the trouble she causes, somehow it all works to her benefit by "teaching her how to rule". Excuse me?

You know what's even worse? The way people assume she is destined to be the savior of Westeros. And who can blame them, GRRM wrote her that way. But I don't have to like it. I mean, if the key to defeating the Others is nothing more than Dany swooping in at the last minute and having her dragons roast them, the suffering of the North becomes pretty meaningless. I dearly hope GRRM pulls the rug out from under us all by forcing our heroes to do it the hard way.

You mean other than the husband she loved dying, her unborn child dying, and being left unable to bear children?

[Gongsun Zan]

You mean other than the husband she loved dying, her unborn child dying, and being left unable to bear children?

But she got dragons out of the deal!

Just about all of Westeros has managed to lose husbands and sons. The inability to bear children might be a downside, but Dany doesn't seem to think very much of it.

[youper]

But she got dragons out of the deal!

Just about all of Westeros has managed to lose husbands and sons. The inability to bear children might be a downside, but Dany doesn't seem to think very much of it.

She thinks about not being able to have children a lot.

And currently she only has 1 dragon, which she doesn't control very well.

As a side note I think some people on this thread should watch their language (Not gong sun.)

[Gongsun Zan]

She thinks about not being able to have children a lot.

And currently she only has 1 dragon, which she doesn't control very well.

As a side note I think some people on this thread should watch their language (Not gong sun.)

Yeah but it lets her have all kinds of sex with Daario without getting caught, so it looks like she's got a pretty fair tradeof.

[cteresa]

You guys do realize she got pregnant and had a misscarriage on the last chapter, right?

(misscarriage seems to be caused either by the plague or the toxic berries, so not necessarily a bad sign about her reproductive health)

[em388480]

I'm currently halfway through the book and enjoying it. Davos' chapters seem long, but are pretty expository and are starting to get interesting. Bran's are great - Theon's are the best by far. Tyrion's are 'eh' but it's nice to see some familiar faces around still.

Dany's chapters I skip entire pages at a time. They are slow, meandering and 100% retarded GRRM indulgence waste of page space. He wrote half a book about a girl doing NOTHING in some city no one gives a damn about. This is more than disappointing, its a huge turnoff. Feast was half a book of Cersei which at least was interesting at first,JESUS H CHRIST I NEED TO VENT.

[dr reader]

I had two responses to the Dany storyline.

1- way too long, and the jumble of not-really-developed characters with goofy names made it, increasingly, a chore to get through.

2- I think the problem with Dany (with regard to her potential as a ruler, or her potential to survive the series) is not just that she's making problematic decisions, but that she doesn't seem awfully interested in learning or listening. She's surrounded by counselors/advisers, some of whom are there to mislead and some of whom have worthwhile things to say (ie Barristan). But whenever Barristan says anything about HISTORY-- anything she might actually LEARN FROM-- she tunes out super quick (or else draws the wrong lesson). So in the end, what she has left (to base her decisions on) is her pride, her temper, and her abstract understanding of what her place is in the world. No wonder she keeps making bad choices.

[Jane Doe]

I was not going to get dragged into this. Seriously. Particularly since I just found I got major isshoos with GRRM´s female characters and how GRRM is not doing the romance-y stuff convincingly.

But just to point out that Daenerys Targaryen, Stormborn, heir the throne of Westeros and all that, seeming to care more for the welfare of the people around them and wanting to end slavery in the world or in as much of it as she can seems like a much more modern, *right* thing to care about than for her feudal right to be queen of a land where she never set foot. In fact that is one of my problems with this series, I think I now also care for the existence of slavery in the eastern part of that world.

(not that I think GRRM did Dany thought processes at all logical or clear to me, and that portrayal of a 17 year old girl in love, nooo, does not compute).

Actually it made perfect sense to me. We have been in Westeros for decades and are emotionally invested in the people of Westeros. For Dany, it's just a concept, something she should have but have never laid her hands on. OTOH, she had been sold like a slave, used like a slave at the beginning of her marriage. It's understandable why she so want to eradicate slavery.

Yeah but it lets her have all kinds of sex with Daario without getting caught, so it looks like she's got a pretty fair tradeof.

Gosh. You must be a guy so think abou this: You've lost your only son, and was told that now you've lost your prostate. You would still be happily off with a beauty, and never mourn the fact that you've lost your prostate and would never be able to father a child? For a woman, it's even more than that. I would think it's equivalent of being totally gelded for a guy.

[Sword of the Morning]

Let's stop and think again about the point of Dany's story arc from Game of Thrones even.

What was the whole point of her marriage to Khal Drogo? The hatching of the dragon's eggs? Why did she want to free the slaves in the first place?

I thought the answer was that as far as she knew her entire family was butchered and murdered by the "usurpers" leaving only her brother and herself left to fend as beggars in the cruel word. I thought she wanted to go back to Westeros to reclaim her throne and her birthright . . . to dispense justice, to dispense revenge, to rule, etc, etc.

Weren't the dragons going to be part of that when they got old enough and big enough?

Weren't freeing the slaves initially more about getting the UNSULLIED, the world's finest infantry?

Weren't all of this in service to RECLAIMING WESTEROS??

Isn't that what she wanted to honor the memory of Rhaegar and Viserys and even her unborn dead child Rhaego?

Isn't that even why she decided to stay in Meereen after conquering it so she could "learn" how to rule so ultimately she could be a better queen in WESTEROS???

Well, all of that got muddled. For one thing, she can't learn how to rule in Westeros by ruling in Meereen. The culture, the expectations, the people, the issue of slavery as a foundation of the region's economy, all of that is alien to Westeros. Successfully ruling Meereen likely would get her killed or deposed very quickly in Westeros. So from the outset her decision was a foolhardy one. Even if Dany didn't know this, surely GRRM did. Yet we had to be subjected to a 1000 page book with deadly tedium to force her to see the truth of this and frankly by her last chapter, I'm still unsure if she TRULY understands or whether another night doing it with Daario "in all the ways a man and a woman can do it" will shove that right out the window.

Finally, for both Dany and the readers applauding her decision not to "abandon" her children and her freed slaves. Well it's a little late for that. She abandoned Astapor by not marching on that city (a mistake even she regrets in the end) and as a result butchery and atrocity greater than any slavery could hope to match was unleashed in that city. Didn't the whole city of hundreds of thousands die? Then the pale mare was unleashed. From what city? Astapor. And what of the thousands more to die at Meereen and even the armies of Yunkai due to that?

In staying with Meereen, she has now in essence abandoned Westeros. WESTEROS is where she owes her loyalty and her responsibility. THAT is the land whose people and smallfolk she should be protecting. Winter is coming, the Others lurk North of the wall, the Lannisters destroy the land, chaos rules all, the North is in the grip of the Boltons, and millions may starve or die while she concentrates on her slaves.

What about the people in Westeros who need her and her dragons and her armies that she is now wilfully ignoring?

Is she being moral by letting all those people die while she saves her slaves in Meereen?

Her decisions are based partially off kindness and morality but they are also based off of ignorance and youthful idealism.

You can't save everyone and when you try to save everyone, you may wind up destroying everything.

So no, I don't think Dany is doing the right thing at all in ignoring poor Quentyn and putting off Westeros to take care of Meereen and her little abolitionist movement in Slaver's Bay.

Freeing the slaves was initially a means to the end of retaking Westeros. Somehow she has twisted it so that the means has become an end more important than the original end. In so doing, she has devastated all of Slaver's Bay and potentially caused more death, destruction, and suffering there than when slavery was there at its worst.

At this point, it's hard to see that Dany even DESERVES Westeros since people like Aegon and Jon Connington have shown they care a lot more about the realm than she has in Dance. And right now as far as it goes, Aegon seems INFINITELY more qualified to sit the Iron Throne than she does.

[Total Depravity]

George screwed the pooch on both Jon and Dany in ADWD. They are polar opposites from the leaders they are presented to us in SoS. It is poor characterization (I'd say mischaracterization) in order to fit the needs of plot. There is no nuance. There is only categorically bad decisions over and over. I could tell very very early he was just going to force them to lose their commands. I was just surprised at how badly he got us there. You guys all know what I am talking about. You read the book thinking Jon/Dany wouldn't do that. He can't be that stupid. That closed minded. That ignorant. That childish, etc.

It isn't so much the decisions they made, it is how they made them. It was like reading two totally different characters. Go back and re-read their chapters from SoS and stuff about them in AFFC. It is a rather stark contrast. And it has no basis in the narrative. I could tell he was constrained by the chronology.

I'm not one of those mad that Jon might be dead. Kill him. I'm fine with that. Just make sure he's still Jon Snow when he dies, not this thing we got in a ADWD.

Except for the beheading of Janos Slynt. That was boss.

[Daemrion]

You guys do realize she got pregnant and had a misscarriage on the last chapter, right?

(misscarriage seems to be caused either by the plague or the toxic berries, so not necessarily a bad sign about her reproductive health)

Pregnant or was it merely her period?

For the first time in the whole series I'm actually supporting Dany. I'd much rather her end up on the throne than Aegon.

[rashtrakut]

Pregnant or was it merely her period?

For the first time in the whole series I'm actually supporting Dany. I'd much rather her end up on the throne than Aegon.

Her inner monologue that she could not remember the last time she had her period suggests it was a miscarriage?

[Hoya Karsa Orlong]

Her inner monologue that she could not remember the last time she had her period suggests it was a miscarriage?

I read that as she was preggers and lost Daario's get because of the RU-480 Berries - which makes me wonder whether any of the prophecies were accurate - e.g. that she would be bretrayed three times. Rather the lesson seems to be she will continually be betrayed and needs to allocate trust accordingly.

[Spilt Pea Soup]

Dany was my favorite character until this book. Was hoping she'd be all bad-ass and tyrannical, as the situation seemed to warrant, but her "mother"-shtick earned her absolutely nothing. There's definitely a good moral in the story, but it's frustrating as a reader!

[Sword of the Morning]

I'd like to bring up those THREE TREASONS prophecy.

I think Dany is WAAAAY to reliant on that. She thinks for sure as we do that 2 of them are slam dunks. Mirri Maz Durr's treason for blood, Mormont's treason for gold.

After the Second Sons betrayed her, she all of a sudden decides that she is done and NO ONE will betray her again. That's the third right? It seems unfathomable to me that she won't be betrayed like . . . dozens of times with that attitude.

As suggested in another thread, I'm pretty sure Daario does love her and is going to wind up betraying her because of that love and the way she spurned it by marrying Hizdahr.

Remember that the prophecies give the reasons FOR the betrayals. FOR blood (the murder of Mirri Maz durr's people), FOR money (the money Mormont was being paid to write those letters), and so FOR love . . . I'm expecting a treason because of a spurned love. Daario fits too well for this not to come about I think.

[Ser Grifter]

I hope Dany rides her dragon to White Harbour and Lord Manderly makes her into a pie and takes it to Dorne riding the dragon to present it as a gift to Doran Doran and they both eat it and laugh whilst wearing George masks