Jump to content

Daenerys the Cheater


Blue-eyed Onion

Recommended Posts

At this point i've come to seriously hate this character and can't wait to see her fail massively and die (which, in all probability is never gonna happen). It's not 'good' hate either like the one you feel for a character that just did something really upsetting, like Theon betraying and taking winterfell for instance, no, it's just plain old full-on annoyance and irritation.

It's not just the one-dimensional cartoony villans she gets to fight, unlike the complex situations and opposing POVs we get to see in westeros, it's not the increasingly arrogant and entitled attitude, the ten thousand tittles she's so fond of, it's not the dumb "decisions" she makes on ADWD, the mocking of Quentyn for one, the inability to hear anything positive about someone in westeros that's not a Targaryen and the same for anything negative about those, and well, oh so many little things and details... But no, those are not the main reasons why i find the character so irritating and almost 'insulting' by now,

it's because she's too alien, too magically contrasting, it's because she "Cheats".

Here's a list:

1) So she gets 'sold' to a barbaric monster of a man (who happens to be a handsome one in his own way of course), ok, and turns out the guy (who isn't used to anything of the sort, and it just isn't part of his culture as we get to find out later on) just makes sweet, sweet love to her, asking for permission and everything so her first time is magically non-rape like as it should've been (given what we know of dothraki), ok.

2) She actually manages to get the brutal barbarian to actually fall in love with her in just a few months which allows her some leaway between the dothraki (contrary to their ways and traditions), ok.

3) She was raised as a westerosi princess with westerosi values, but her adaptability knows no limits and she quickly and easily (none of those long emotional and psychological conflicts that span for many, many chapters we see some other characters go through in order to adapt to different circumstances, not to mention radically different ones such as Daenerys's) embraces dothraki culture even in some of it's basest ways. ok.

4) She gets pregnant and, of course, not only is he a boy of gender to properly please her manly man husband, also, her unborn son is declared to be some long awaited uber-dothraki of prophecy by the dothraki 'witches'. ok.

5) Her dangerous, moronic, abusive, mad brother had to go, so he commits some mayor stupidity and gets himself killed with a neat trick. ok.

6) We're told that she's lived her life running from the knives of the usurper and all that, which we know it's not true and that only once did Robert aproved of having her killed which he shortly thereafter changed his mind, but not before one assasin tried to poison her, conviniently giving her the 'edge' she needed to finally convice khal drogo to get his ass moving to westeros (which he obviously never intended to do, making Viserys even more of a pathetic figure, for which she doesn't even share a tear, btw). ok.

7) She's saved of being poisoned at the last moment by Jorah Mormont, who was a spy but gets a change of heart out of falling in love with her just at the right moment, of course. Also, no more assasins from westeros ever show up (even though the poisoner almost got her in Vaes Dothrak itself). ok.

8) So she get's thrown the only curve ball ever for her, and the maegi seemingly poison drogo and her unborn child... but of course, in doing so, she reveals the super secret maegi trick that only life can pay for life. ok.

9) And of course, out of that one curve ball, she gets to hatch freaking dragons, she did this not knowing anything about magic (despite the maegi saying that it took her years to learn the most basic things), except that one trick the maegi said. And most important of all she's magically and completely inmune to fire, unlike many Targaryens we've seen and known about. ok.

10) She crosses the desert with her rag-tag band of women, abandoned slaves and old people, without ever knowing where they were or where they were going, but lo and behold after some difficulties (not that much really, if it were any other character doing that travesy they would've lost 3/4 of their people), she comes into an abandoned city of old with a little bit of resources to sustain them for the moment. How lucky!. ok.

11) Out of nowhere come this 3 characters that seemingly cast 'detect dragon' or somesuch and magically found her, bringing all kinds of gifts and resources. ok.

12) So she gets to Qarth, this wonderful oasis, and thanks to her dragon show she gets a huge respite, plenty of resources and riches, etc, etc. ok.

13) So the wizard guy leads her to a trap (but only after showering her with useful resources, of course), and she gets to see all kinds of visions past, present and future, and she even learns that she'll be betrayed 3 times and for what reasons too!. ok.

14) The 'undead' or something wizards try to zap her soul out or somesuch, she falls for it, and it is her black dragon that saves her ass this time (lucky those wizards had such an obvious and easy weakness too!). ok.

15) Upon leaving the building the wizard outside tries to stab her and she gets saved, yet again, by someone else. ok.

16) She pisses some guys off and gets sent a special assasin with a manticore and voila! just in time ser Barristan Selmy arrive to save her. ok.

17) She needed some ships desperately and that's exactly what Illyrio sends her (with an obedient captain and full of valuable merchandise too, of course). ok.

18) Don't quite remember how she ends up arriving at slaver's bay, but none of her ships sink (depite it being a common ocurrence in the books that fleets always loose at least one ship). ok.

19) So she desperately needs soldiers and super duper conveniently the first slaver's bay city she comes upon it's the one that sells the invincible spartan guys (it couldn't have been the one that sells pleasure slaves, no, that would've been too 'inconvenient'). ok.

20) Obviously the city is ruled by absolute morons (despite being guys who should be pretty used to dealing with basically the scum of the earth: slavers, dothraki, slave-merchants for the big cities, etc) who get cheated out of their invincible slave army incredibly easy and with minimum discomfort to Daenerys. ok.

21) Depite being raised as a princess, and never to lead armies or anything of the sort, she even magically manages to posses some strategic and tactical knowledge of warfare... ok.

22) Not quite clear yet, but if Jorah Mormont's "betrayal" is supposed to truly be one of the 3 betrayals she's supposed to face then she got off quite easily, isn't it! (same goes for that merc she liked to sleep with, the one who changed sides). ok.

23) Conveniently, yet again, the taking of that other slaver city goes quite smootly thanks to some trick (instead of bloody, costly and hard for a change - can't have Dany wasting her army can we?). ok.

24) That bravosi mercenary finds her vulnerable and attemps to kill her and yet again she gets saved by someone else without so much as a scratch (be nice if she got a hand chopped off, her legs crippled, half her face cut off, lost an ear, half her face bitten off, or at least a broken fingernail, but no, that's for the non-cheating characters). ok.

25) Of course, she has a super magical friend who pops up to give her advice about the upcomming future perils and situations with perfect accuracy record (unlike some other future seeing character... of course how could she?, she doesn't serve Dany!). ok.

26) ::sighs:: we also learn that her super awesome targaryen blood makes her inmune to all diseases that affect common men (i have to admit, i almost threw the book out the window at this point). ok.

27) As if the above wasn't enough, her elite unsoiled captains that she sent to help the plague camp conveniently didn't catch the disease either (as they should have, dammit!). ok.

28) She takes moronic decisions, entrust the obviously wrong people, and it never comes back to bite her in the ass. ok.

29) We learn that there's a bunch of westerosi going her way, and all of them intent on kissing her ass of course, none of her possible westerosi enemies so much as cares to make any move. ok.

30) If she finally decides to go to westeros she already has Aegon there establishing a beach head on the Stormlands for her (and it's made quite clear that he needs her). ok.

31) So her black dragon returns and start wreacking havoc (just when she was most disgusted and stressed and needed to escape her resposibilities and burdens - how conv..., oh enough of that word!). ok.

32) So she dominates the rebelious dragon with a whip and 'a smile' (dragon that conveniently spits fire at her, to which she's inmune, instead of clawing or bitting her head off), and she actually gloats later on that while the ancient valyrian lords used magical commands or magical horns to dominate their dragons she did it with just her whip and her voice... of course. ok.

33) I forgot, all things indicate that she's some prophesized specialty; the promised prince(ss) as Aemon says, and (if they're the same thing, perhaps not and she's not only one specially prophezised being but a twofer how a bout that!) the azor ahai one which the fire priests in that boring ass continent (except Bravos, Bravos is awesome) obviously believe her to be. Which serves to give her yet another super powerful ally in the red priests, how nice. ok.

34) So while she's away meditating on her life, having a respite from her stress (and diarreha) all her problems in the city are being solved (yet freaking again) by her loyals and wannabe loyals (such as Tyrion). ok.

35) At the end of ADWD, she's in need of a couple of very important things, which by the looks of it, she's about to get, yet incredibly again, served to her in a silver platter:

- she needs to break the sea blockade and be able to defend the city's coast: there conveniently comes Victarion with the Iron Fleet to do it for her.

- she needs a way to control her dragons: there comes the magical horn that Victarion is bringing. Moqorro the gigantic fire priest is there too, probably to kill Victarion after he's no longer useful to Daenerys.

- she needs to break the siege of the city: the plague, Barristan and Tyrion are about to do it for her.

- she lacks and therefore needs a powerful cavalry: she conveniently encounters the khal 'something' the former bloodrider of Drogo while riding on her dragon and they will bend the knee and provide it to her (we even got a hint of that from one of them Quaithe prophetic advices), just wait and see...

I only recently read the books, and i read them all one after the other, so this 'pattern' was pretty obvious to me; one or two, maybe three of those 'lucky shots' i have no problem with but when you put them all together you just... wow, what is this? It is such a profound and strong contrast to the rest of the characters and the problems and situations they go through that we're reading about in these novels, such a blatant favoritism, such irritating contrast, such "cheating".

It makes me wonder whether the author is doing this on purpose, or not... not a good sign if he's not, and if he is, well, why, for what?

Maybe this has been discussed to death around here, apologies if it has, but, what are your thoughts on this, anyone feel the same way about this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently watched Titanic. And all i could think is, "this lying ungrateful cheating hussy just got taught a lesson by an iceberg"

So i kinda feel you. But Dany is multi-dimensional and i think she'll earn her place in the book.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How is it that in a massively ;tldr post with 35 points I don't see a single one even attempting to prove what is stated in the title: that she cheats? I realize she gets things handed to her easily and that other characters in the book have things backfire on them that seem like much more minor faults so the plot does kind of go her way. But how is she cheating - or is that meant in a k way that she opened the console and typed in IDDQD (sorry, Doom reference, couldn't resist)?

She has massive plot armor and everyone is frustrated how long she has been idling in what is backstory-wise the most boring part of the fictional world. But extrapolating what you think is going to happen to further strengthen your points is not very sound reasoning. Might be that her plot line is taking a massive turn early next book, or might be that it doesn't - we won't know for " a few years at least"...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dany's earned her story pretty well. ADwD just provided her more dimensions, I think, and it's a shame that she's being lambasted both for being awful at things and at the same time being great at things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shes had as much heartache as anyone so i dont think shes had it easy.I find her purely annoying in the way a guy might find a girls inner thoughts annoying if he could read them like we do hers i.e. the mooning over Daario.Same with Sansa in AGOT

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Danny is most similar to "Fictional Jesus" like characters although GRRM does subvert it somewhat. What I mean is the kind of character in a story that he is the prophecised one, the hero to save the world, the guy that has extremely good luck at times and so on, many stories have these kind of characters, Despite what others will tell you, or rudely and unfairly dismiss you, you are free to feel that way about her and you sort of have a good of a point.

Still as I said I believe that GRRM is doing all this on purporse and he is not going to have Danny story's end in a cliche way. I think he took that kind of character and he subverts it. I hope at least that this is where the story is going with Danny being not the hero but a menace despite having some good intentions. Or if she does end doing something heroic it won't be completly cliche and there will be a dark edge and a sad conclusion for her.

Just look at her rule in Mereen she might have plot armor to survive it but things didn't go as much as they wanted. The thing with the disease and her decision to see herself as special Targaryen might bite her in the ass. GRRM has in my view given her enough luck at times to make us think she is that kind of character but subvert it. So really she isn't. But I can understand someone not seeing it that way although I disagree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How is it that in a massively ;tldr post with 35 points I don't see a single one even attempting to prove what is stated in the title: that she cheats? I realize she gets things handed to her easily and that other characters in the book have things backfire on them that seem like much more minor faults so the plot does kind of go her way. But how is she cheating - or is that meant in a k way that she opened the console and typed in IDDQD (sorry, Doom reference, couldn't resist)?

Yeah, more or less she "cheats" (that's why i used quotation marks there) from outside the story... i could've said Martin the 'cheater', as in, 'favors this character too much to the point where it contrasts heavily with the rest of the characters and realities in the novels' but that would have a darker connotation to it which i would prefer not to say because i don't know the author's intent and/or whether he's doing it on purpose to achieve some unknown (to me) goal.

And my point is that she gets things handed to her not just easily but *too easily*, in direct contrast with the harshness with which all other major character are treated, the difficulties they have to face to achieve/win something, etc, etc. Bodily functions not-withstanding, she's basically less 'real' and more 'unreal' than the rest, which creates an irritating contrast and diminishes the whole.

She has massive plot armor and everyone is frustrated how long she has been idling in what is backstory-wise the most boring part of the fictional world. But extrapolating what you think is going to happen to further strengthen your points is not very sound reasoning. Might be that her plot line is taking a massive turn early next book, or might be that it doesn't - we won't know for " a few years at least"...

Only my last point there out of 35, mentions any future speculations, but given her pattern and the last events of ADWD i don't think they're far fetched at all; one of the character there around the siege, for instance, i believe it was Tyrion says that the yunkai have already lost the siege. The horn to control dragons along with Victarion's fleet is practically already there, etc.

Dany's earned her story pretty well. ADwD just provided her more dimensions, I think, and it's a shame that she's being lambasted both for being awful at things and at the same time being great at things.

Not at all, i think way too much is served to her character in a silver platter (with very little or any intervention from her character) in a way that makes her stand out and contrast too much with the rest of the characters and realities of the novels.

I envy the energy of people who can dislike someone in these many characters. Dany's story may be somewhat flawed but this entire list is ridiculous, sorry.

Try harder. I provided arguments, you provide counter-arguments, othewise what is ridiculous is not my post but yours. Yep.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay...

So who's had more adversity than her?

Cause i would argue that crossing the red waste might be the most physically and close to mentally difficult thing that any one has done in the book.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Danny is most similar to "Fictional Jesus" like characters although GRRM does subvert it somewhat. What I mean is the kind of character in a story that he is the prophecised one, the hero to save the world, the guy that has extremely good luck at times and so on, many stories have these kind of characters, Despite what others will tell you, or rudely and unfairly dismiss you, you are free to feel that way about her and you sort of have a good of a point.

Still as I said I believe that GRRM is doing all this on purporse and he is not going to have Danny story's end in a cliche way. I think he took that kind of character and he subverts it. I hope at least that this is where the story is going with Danny being not the hero but a menace despite having some good intentions. Or if she does end doing something heroic it won't be completly cliche and there will be a dark edge and a sad conclusion for her.

Just look at her rule in Mereen she might have plot armor to survive it but things didn't go as much as they wanted. The thing with the disease and her decision to see herself as special Targaryen might bite her in the ass. GRRM has in my view given her enough luck to make us think she is that kind of character but subvert it.

That sounds like a very reasonable explanation to me. I'll certainly hope that you're right about Martin's ultimate purpose there and hopefully will get to see the beginings of that sooner rather than later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I must say, after reading all five books in a very short time, I found Dany the most frustrating character, too. She's a classical Mary Sue at the moment, but since Martin did a lot of awsome work with most of the other characters, I hope, that he has something great in store for Dany (and with that I don't mean, invading Westeros with three now very obedient dragons and taking the Iron Throne - that would be teh very obvious outcome), something none of us could imagine. And I hope, she will learn, how to treat her dragons right, fo that was the main reason, I hated her POVs in ADWD - I just couldn't stand Viserion and Rhaegar being chained in that dark hole - and who has to pay the prize for that? The nice, but naive Prince from Dorne (the last part was fun of course, I know, that Quentyn was responsible for what happend to him :) )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll never understand why there's so much Dany hate on this forum. Especially when Cat and Sansa are given a pass so often.

Dude, are you tripping? The Cat and Sansa hate has been going strong since at least 2001. Dany is probably one step down from the absolutely vitriol spewed at Cat and Sansa, but only barely. No other characters get as much hate as these three, not even if you add all the other characters together, I think.

@Fylimar,

You claim Dany is a Mary Sue, but yet you hate her story in ADwD, where we get to see for real that she is flawed and where she makes stupid decisions and looks less than clever. You are contradicting yourself. You either think she is a Mary Sue, or you get annoyed that she's flawed/stupid/makes mistakes.

She can't be both at the same time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is gonna be like that "Jon is a Gary-Stu" thread, isn't it?

Ehh, anyway, I don't hate Dany and I don't think she's a Sue. I actually liked her during the first two books, but my interest in her storyline waned during SoS and plummeted to absolute zero during DwD. At this point, I literally could not care less what happens to her. It's kind of the opposite of my feelings towards Jon, who I found boring at first but who became more interesting in DwD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dude, are you tripping? The Cat and Sansa hate has been going strong since at least 2001. Dany is probably one step down from the absolutely vitriol spewed at Cat and Sansa, but only barely. No other characters get as much hate as these three, not even if you add all the other characters together, I think.

I didn't get to these boards until 2011, so I've probably missed a lot, but since I've been here, it seems like Dany gets a huge amount of the hate.

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...