Jump to content

(ADwD Spoilers) Dany the Mad Queen


needamazing

Recommended Posts

I'm reading the books a second time and I'm enjoying all the discussions on this site and others.

I would have thought this had been mentioned before but I have not seen it in a thread so I thought I would throw it out there.

I think Dany is going to end up Mad like her father Aerys.

Why? In the same way that some characters started out bad and then starting redeeming themselves (Jamie) I think there will be character that started out good (or perceived as good) and then went bad. I think Dany is one of those.

My key reason for picking Dany is because of the decisions she has made and keeps making. Yes, she started out in a rough situation under Viserys and then getting wed to Drogo but since then she has made some very bad decisions.

1) Keeping the Lamb people slaves from being beaten/raped was a good thing but then she took it too far when she had MMD (the witch woman) attend to Drogo. Bad decision all around and she was even told so by Drogo's bloodriders. This decision caused Drogo's death

2) After Drogo dies, she doesn't accept her loss and move on, she has the witch woman again use black magic to try and save Drogo. Once again she is warned strongly by Drogo's bloodriders and by Jorah but she has it done anyway. This decision causes the death of her son.

3) She is then "blessed" with the 3 dragons. This was not really a decision that she made it was more based on who she was and where she came from; a Targaryen. So, she gets this great blessing and what has she done with it.

She chooses not to make the dragons a top priority and teach them to obey her so she can control them. She puts them on the side and concentrates on the politics of Mereen. This decision causes dire circumstances all through the last book and will linger on.

4) She frees the slaves of Mereen but then makes the situation worse by some of the bad decisions or indecisions she made while ruling.

5)

She chooses to comfort many of the people dying from the "Pale Horse" instead of making the proper decision of secluding them or putting them out of their misery. (I know, I know, not sympathetic, but is risking all the people of your city for their comfort really a good decision). This is probably the cause and how she got the "Pale Horse" at the end of the book.

6)

She chooses to sleep with Dario when she knows it is not the right thing to do for any reason.

So, basically she has been a bad ruler despite a couple of genuinely good intentions like freeing the slaves. And, she has been a bad ruler mostly because of the "bad" decisions that she has made and has known better not to make. Our actions define us.

So, I'm thinking Dany will continue to descend and end up being the "bad" guy or one of the "bad" guys at the end of the series.

Maybe for Aegon to oppose.

Let me know what you think or show me where I am wrong

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bump, finally saw it in thread list on second page.

Most important point I was trying to get across is I feel Dany will not be the "hero" or one of the heroes of the story based on her history of decision-making. I think she will end up "turning to the dark side".

Is this heresy?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still have hope in Dany. She has always been one of my favorite characters, and I got the sense in her last Dance chapter that she was beginning to understand the bad choices that she has made and how she needs to move forward to fix them.

She has been a great conqueror but not a great ruler. I think her recalling that the Targareyn words are Fire and Blood was a big turning point for her. She was so focused on being the mother of the freed slaves due to her vision at the House of the Undying that I think she lost her purpose. The people of Mereen are not her people and never will be, and I think she gets that now.

Aegon the Conqueror conquered the six of the Seven Kingdoms with fire and blood but he also had the support of the faith and the growing support of the lords who joined him. Dany will never have that in Mereen but if she goes to Westeros with her three dragons, she will. My thought is that the khalasar at the end of Dance will join her army and they will make for Westeros in the next book.

Whether she dies valiantly in the war with the Others or is Queen of the Seven Kingdoms at the end of the novels, I am not sure, but I do strongly feel that she will never turn bad. It will take Fire and Blood to conquer, but I think she could bring peace to a land where people would love her and accept her, and I think that was the main problem in Mereen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Dany is going to end up Mad like her father Aerys.

I LOVE this thoery, it's always been a favorite of mine, and I actually think it's kinda likely.

Daenerys sees herself as a sort of mystical savior. This is not as evident as Mel's obsession with Azor Ahai (Mel's obsession, since Stannis looks quite upset by the whole thing), but it's still there. All her "I'm the blood of the dragon" mantra shows that she does believe to be better than the rest of the world. It's not a conscious thing, mind you, but it's still there.

I'm interested in finding out Dany's reaction to the news of Young Griff's claim. I don't believe YG is who he think he is, but Dany doesn't know this - how will she react when she discovers she's not that special after all? She's not the Chosen One, the Prince That Was Promised is. All she's done - hatching the eggs, conquering Slaver's bay - will be meaningless because YG's claim is better than hers. This will knock down the foundation of Dany's world, and I'm fully especting she will start behaving a little...odd. Who knows what jealousy will do to her.

(Also, if R+L = J, Dany won't be happy)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are certainly some who would call it heresy. (And just a hint, you don't need spoiler tags to discuss ADWD). Personally, I think Dany's well on her way to being the villain (or at least, antagonist) of the story:

1) She's started genuinely believing that Targaryen blood, "blood of the dragon," makes her immune to sickness. I think we all know what kind of a slippery slope that is.

2) She's somehow managed to be both suspicious of everyone and terrible at reading people's bad intentions. I'm still not quite sure how she managed that.

3) She's obsessed with interpreting prophecies given to her by people who tried to kill her, or by a stranger whose face she hasn't even seen. It never occurs to her to doubt the truth or "good intentions" of these words.

4) Pretty much all of her military victories thus far have been against slave armies who defected to her side at the first opportunity, or sellsword armies she could buy off, a strategy that she can't replicate in war-loving, led-by-warrior-lords Westeros.

5) She genuinely believes she knows Westeros, the politics and culture, to the point that when people try to correct her, she shuts them down.

6) Westeros contains uber-powerful skinchangers, a group that can probably neutralize---or usurp---Dany's trump card, the dragons.

I think all of these things will cause her untold grief in Westeros, and when Dany gets desperate, she doesn't think clearly, as we've seen.

I LOVE this thoery, it's always been a favorite of mine, and I actually think it's kinda likely.

Daenerys sees herself as a sort of mystical savior. This is not as evident as Mel's obsession with Azor Ahai (Mel's obsession, since Stannis looks quite upset by the whole thing), but it's still there. All her "I'm the blood of the dragon" mantra shows that she does believe to be better than the rest of the world. It's not a conscious thing, mind you, but it's still there.

I'm interested in finding out Dany's reaction to the news of Young Griff's claim. I don't believe YG is who he think he is, but Dany doesn't know this - how will she react when she discovers she's not that special after all? She's not the Chosen One, the Prince That Was Promised is. All she's done - hatching the eggs, conquering Slaver's bay - will be meaningless because YG's claim is better than hers. This will knock down the foundation of Dany's world, and I'm fully especting she will start behaving a little...odd. Who knows what jealousy will do to her.

I think there's a good chance that she'll find out about Aegon (probably via Tyrion) at around the same time she meets up with Moqorro, who's ready to crown her Prophecized Savior of the World. And Dany deciding she's a prophecized messiah is a terrible, terrible thing for everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

tze,

Exactly the same way I feel. I like your examples. Some of them were ones I was trying to think of when I came up with my list. She seems to have a lot of villain tendencies like you say.

I really think this is the way Martin is going. What more dramatic thing to do than making the character everyone fell in love with in the first book the villain by the end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Dany is going to end up Mad like her father Aerys.

This is an interesting theory, but the examples you bring are of decisions which have been (at least with hindsight) incompetent, not crazy.

On the other hand, if you want indications that the Targaryen toincoss is going badly for her, they are there, and have been pointed out splendidly by tze. What concerns me even more is that when in the grip of her temper she has displayed an ugly taste for cruelty which is in stark contrast to her usual beliefs. For me most strongly evidenced in her treatment of the guy on whose premises the Harpy commited a murder: First she wants him interrogated, but treated humanely. When she hears about the Harpy committed a second murder elsewhere where she knew the victim, she changes her mind about him and orders his children to be tortured in front of him. Completely against her moral code which she usually follows very closely. Except when her dragon is woken that is.

It still doesn't make me believe she will become one of the principal villains, but it does make me believe she will die in the end (thus eliminating the question of whether she'd be fit to rule Westeros).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dany as a character has the ability to raise passionate debate. Its possible to argue on the one hand that she makes some pretty bad mistakes and has some worrying character defects, and on the other to defend her by citing her youth, inexperience and good intentions.

What I do find worrying is her assumption that the Iron Throne is hers by right without any real thought of why she wants or indeed should be Queen of Westeros, a place she has never seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dornishman's Wife,

This is an interesting theory, but the examples you bring are of decisions which have been (at least with hindsight) incompetent, not crazy. There's no plausible connection I can see from the one to the other.

That is fair and I did understand the difference. I was thinking perhaps her bad decisions could lead her to situations where she acts irrational or cruel which then escalate and ultimately cause her madness. After all, how "mad" was King Aerys? He saw the Starks and ultimately all the usurpers has his hated enemies and was simply eliminating them. How was this different from King Robert demanding Dany be killed?

Anyway, I do agree that tze had better examples to prove my earlier point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dany as a character has the ability to raise passionate debate. Its possible to argue on the one hand that she makes some pretty bad mistakes and has some worrying character defects, and on the other to defend her by citing her youth, inexperience and good intentions.

Good point. But when I compare her inexperience and decisions with the same inexperience and decisions of Robb or Jon they pale in comparison. Robb and Jon both acted much more rationally and wisely and rarely let their emotions cloud their thinking. Dany is constantly letting her emotions rule her much like it appears her father did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What concerns me even more is that when in the grip of her temper she has displayed an ugly taste for cruelty which is in stark contrast to her usual beliefs. For me most strongly evidenced in her treatment of the guy on whose premises the Harpy commited a murder: First she wants him interrogated, but treated humanely. When she hears about the Harpy committed a second murder elsewhere where she knew the victim, she changes her mind about him and orders his children to be tortured in front of him. Completely against her moral code which she usually follows very closely. Except when her dragon is woken that is.

I'm reminded of the justification for the Starks having no headsman: if you're going to condemn someone to death, you should kill him/her yourself, because killing should not be easy. Has Dany ever really "killed" anyone with her own hands? (Other than Drogo, who's a special case since, obviously, he wasn't really "alive" in the usual kicking/screaming aspect.) She's never fought in a battle, she hangs out in her tent or at the back of the army when her soldiers attack an army or sack a city. When the dragons kill she doesn't feel it (not like the Stark wargs do). She ordered other people to nail up the 163 Meereenese Great Masters, got sick when she had to look at it, then . . . didn't look at it. When she orders people tortured in ADWD, she has the Shavepate do it; that whole thing reminded me of Cersei sending people down into Qyburn's dungeons (where she'd conveniently never have to witness the atrocity she'd ordered).

It just seems like Dany's on a slippery slope when it comes to "waking her dragon": she's okay with being the judge and jury, but has other people to be the executioner. And when you combine that with dragons and a steadfast belief in her own righteousness, it seems like a recipe for future disaster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good point. But when I compare her inexperience and decisions with the same inexperience and decisions of Robb or Jon they pale in comparison. Robb and Jon both acted much more rationally and wisely and rarely let their emotions cloud their thinking. Dany is constantly letting her emotions rule her much like it appears her father did.

Both Jon and Robb have grown up with a very strong role-model in Eddard Stark and when making decisions have both tried to emulate him whereas Dany has grown up with a mad brother and the only father figure she may have had died years ago in Ser Willam Darry.

I don't think she will become mad like her father but I do see her somewhat naive decision making getting her killed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5) She genuinely believes she knows Westeros, the politics and culture, to the point that when people try to correct her, she shuts them down.

Actually she repeatedly says she knows little of westerosi culture and would like to learn more. Nor is this rare among westerosi leaders, robert doesn't what the barrows of the first men are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think she will become mad like her father but I do see her somewhat naive decision making getting her killed.

Her getting killed may actually make more sense. I just have this strong suspicion that Martin is going to show the deevolution and "turning" of a character we love and if I had to bet on a character it would be Dany.

Arya and Bran are also options but I don't feel quite as likely. Although, what if Arya is sent to Kill someone we "like" or someone "good" in the series like Tyrion? Makes you wonder.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good point. But when I compare her inexperience and decisions with the same inexperience and decisions of Robb or Jon they pale in comparison. Robb and Jon both acted much more rationally and wisely and rarely let their emotions cloud their thinking. Dany is constantly letting her emotions rule her much like it appears her father did.

Yeah Robb acted real rationally and wisely when he threw away the allegiance of house frey and its 4,000 soldiers for Jeyne because she was "good and gentle". :rolleyes: Nor did he let his emotions cloud his thinking regarding theon when his mom told him how stupid it was to send balon greyjoy's only son back to him without any guarantee of his behavior.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, I'm thinking Dany will continue to descend and end up being the "bad" guy or one of the "bad" guys at the end of the series.

Maybe for Aegon to oppose.

Since Dany is supposed to be the "slayer of lies" and Aegon is very likely the mummer's dragon, if anything Dany may oppose Aegon rather than the other way round (though it doesn't have to come to conflict between them per se, I suppose, even if Aegon is not who he is sold to be by Varys and co and Dany manages to prove that).

I see no indication that Dany is going mad - she can be cruel at times (wen angry/provoked) but she has demonstrated this somewhat disturbing quality even during AGOT, and in ADWD she was actually relatively mild (the incident with the wineseller notwithstanding), especially with her hostages. Barristan was looking for a sign of the "taint" and there is no indication in his chapters that he is even starting to have second doubts about this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me know what you think or show me where I am wrong

You're wrong because all of your examples show the complete opposite of the point you're trying to make. All you've proven is that Dany is a compassionate, at times conflicted leader who is trying to bring peace to an extremely volatile place without resorting to her most devastating weapons: the dragons. How exactly this shows a propensity towards madness is beyond me. Further, what is so bad with sleeping with Daario? Did it help or hurt her campaign in anyway? Nope, so no problem there.

There are certainly some who would call it heresy. (And just a hint, you don't need spoiler tags to discuss ADWD). Personally, I think Dany's well on her way to being the villain (or at least, antagonist) of the story:

1) She's started genuinely believing that Targaryen blood, "blood of the dragon," makes her immune to sickness. I think we all know what kind of a slippery slope that is.

Why is this a slippery slope tze? If she's wrong, she dies. If she isn't, then she's able to continue her outreach to the sick and needy.

2) She's somehow managed to be both suspicious of everyone and terrible at reading people's bad intentions. I'm still not quite sure how she managed that.

This is ridiculous. Dany is very good at reading people. Sure, she's made mistakes with trusting certain individuals - like every other character in the series - but by and large she knows that most people are at heart two-faced, and want something from her in return for their support.

3) She's obsessed with interpreting prophecies given to her by people who tried to kill her, or by a stranger whose face she hasn't even seen. It never occurs to her to doubt the truth or "good intentions" of these words.

One would expect her to be obsessed with interpreting prophecies if the writer kept having people pop up to give them to her. However, she isn't by any means like her brother Rhaegar. She gets down to the daily necessities of Queenship, and is mostly preoccupied with trying to turn things around in Meereen.

4) Pretty much all of her military victories thus far have been against slave armies who defected to her side at the first opportunity, or sellsword armies she could buy off, a strategy that she can't replicate in war-loving, led-by-warrior-lords Westeros.

If she is able to amass a big enough force to conquer Westeros, then she shall. It's not about not having practice against "war loving, led-by-warrior-lords" but in being able to potentially bring some of these people over to your side, and if not, defeat them by sheer force of military might. Aegon so far is doing quite fine, and Dany has tons more experience and acumen than he does.

5) She genuinely believes she knows Westeros, the politics and culture, to the point that when people try to correct her, she shuts them down.

Wrong. She hasn't heard the specifics of her father's reign, but she admits to not knowing much about Westeros. She said as much to Quentyn when he was telling her about the water gardens.

6) Westeros contains uber-powerful skinchangers, a group that can probably neutralize---or usurp---Dany's trump card, the dragons.

Right now the Starks are all outcasts or pawns. They cannot ally with the Lannisters or the Tyrells, and Stannis is on the way out. It makes sense that Dany would be able to capitalise on this situation and make an alliance with the Starks, probably through the North. If Jorah reenters her service this is particularly likely to happen.

I think all of these things will cause her untold grief in Westeros, and when Dany gets desperate, she doesn't think clearly, as we've seen.

Wrong again. We've actually seen what Dany won't do when she gets desperate. She tends to sacrifice her own happiness and safety (walking into the fire, locking up the dragons, denying Quentyn and Xaro, marrying Hizdahr) for the general good of those depending on her. Of course the naysayers ignore of all this to focus on one extraordinary act of justice and revenge on the slavers in Meereen, but the facts are there.

I think there's a good chance that she'll find out about Aegon (probably via Tyrion) at around the same time she meets up with Moqorro, who's ready to crown her Prophecized Savior of the World. And Dany deciding she's a prophecized messiah is a terrible, terrible thing for everyone.

Of course, because she's suddenly going to turn into a raving lunatic like her brother Viserys :rolleyes: or maybe she'll be like Stannis, who thinks he's Azor Ahai reborn? Whatever. Dany isn't the only one hearing of prophecies, but she hasn't let them cloud her judgment or let some mad priestess convince her to disrespect the cultures and religious beliefs of others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Both Jon and Robb have grown up with a very strong role-model in Eddard Stark and when making decisions have both tried to emulate him whereas Dany has grown up with a mad brother and the only father figure she may have had died years ago in Ser Willam Darry.

I don't think she will become mad like her father but I do see her somewhat naive decision making getting her killed.

But her mad brother did not kill anybody. dany attitude is just that , her attitude. I do not believe that it is because she had Visery as brother and no father figure. She did watch her brother been killed ( i know she tried to save him before, but she Watched.

I think it is at that moment that she really showed herself : blood of dragon, wake the dragon, I am the true dragon, undirect killer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting points. We've seen a number of characters make huge mistakes. Sometimes they learn from them. (Dany, Arya) Sometimes they don't (Tyrion, Cersie)

We've also seen characters that came across as "bad" becoming better. I think we'll see it go the other way too. Joff was the 1st. Dany could well be the next but I don't think she'll be mad, tho some may say so. Like Varys.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...