Daenerys Isn’t A Villain, She’s Conqueror

Published May 21, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey Guys,

“The Iron Throne” broke my heart into a million pieces, but I have come to peace with it. I feel like I have known for a long time now that this show was going in a direction that I, as a book reader and severely in-depth watcher and researcher, would not particularly enjoy. My girl Daenerys, too much for this world of Westeros. For years she has inspired followers and love. She destroyed “bad men” in Essos and we cheered her on. Almost every time I watched Game of Thrones and stood up, cheering, fist-pumping and high-fiving my husband was because of some awesome Daenerys moment with her, her armies and her dragons. When she lit up slaver”s bay after the masters betrayed her peace offering, I loved every second of it. Her character inspired more in me than most any living person, because of her resiliency, her independence, and her fierceness. Unfortunately, I started to see that Dany was not meant for Westeros. Like the rest of her ancestors before Aegon the Conqueror, she was of Essos, and I feel that is where she thrived. Once Dany burnt the Tarly”s, I realized that she didn’t belong in Westeros, not permanently at least. It was justified, and she gave them a choice, and as far as we know and from the books, Randall Tarly sucked. The thing is, you can’t just burn people because you assume they are bad, because they aren’t always necessarily so. The most interesting thing is how we were manipulated by the brightness and love in her, to support all the other things she ever did. She came to “free” Westeros, but really, they would have been her slaves, too fearful of her and her wrath to ever say anything against her and her dragon. She wasn’t right to be queen, just as Dario Nahaharis spoke in season 6 episode 10, “You weren’t mad to sit on a chair in a palace, you”re a conqueror, Daenerys Stormborn”. I really should have known not to get so invested in her storyline, but I just could not help it. My mind takes me to a particular part in her last chapter of A Dance with Dragons, where she may have “turned” into the conqueror rather than the hero. “I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl”.

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.

I”ve come to terms with, as many times as Daenerys spoke about “breaking the wheel”, her idea never involved the destruction of the Targaryen family, who essentially created the wheel. I’m finding myself wondering if this was the point of the story, Daenerys to break the wheel, by breaking the “bad men”, as well as herself. It hurts me to think of her as a villain, but I don’t let myself… just as a conqueror. As Maester Aemon once spoke, “My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and their dreams killed them, everyone”, and later, “the dragon must have three heads…but I am too old to be one of them. I should be with her, showing her the way, but my body has betrayed me”. Maybe the only reason it (kind of) worked the first time, was because Aegon had two sisters, three “heads” to balance each other”s thoughts and impulses. She never had a Targaryen teaching her, except Viserys, who was truly horrible…

I”m hopeful for more from the books, if they are ever to come, and am overall “at peace” with the episode.

I can’t even get started on Jon”s story.. or I will never stop crying.

Thanks for all you do, the best podcast in all of Planetos.

Andie from Kentucky

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