Game of Thrones – Dany Is An Awful Ruler and Should Not Be Queen

Published April 17, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

My Lords of House Shat,

Dany has no business ruling Westeros. Her supporters believe that her desire to “break the wheel” will make her a good queen who will care for the common man – they’re wrong and all you have to do is look at her choices during her reign over Mereen and her short time in Westeros to see why.

Mereen

* Sure, she abolished slavery – that’s great – but slavery is already illegal in Westeros. Even under Joffrey or Cersei, slavery is a non-starter.

* Dany’s “reformed” Mereen is plagued with sectarian violence and vast inequality that she did nothing to fix – the ex-Masters were still rich, the former slavers were still poor (some worse off).

* Her change of government was actual regressive. Mereen was ruled by an oligarchy of noble families – not idea, sure – but oligarchies require compromise among various points of view and competing voices. Dany’s Mereen was a strict monarchy where her word was law, other opinions be damned. Indeed, a citizen’s two methods of being heard by his government under Dany’s rule were: (1) plead before Dany’s throne and hope she’s in a good mood or (2) commit enough acts of anonymous, random violence and hope she notices. The Sons of the Harpy were, arguably, the most successful voices of dissent in Mereen – that’s a bad precedent to set as a ruler.

* Dany’s ideas of justice were horrendous. She retaliates against the Masters for crucifying children – which is fair – but she does so by crucifying men at random. Many of these men died long, tortuous deaths despite having done all they could to prevent the attack on children. In similar fashion, after the Sons of the Harpy get out of control, she takes the leader of every noble family – no matter their involvement with the Hary – and takes them into the Great Pyramid. She burns two of them alive – again, at random – and has her dragons eat them in front of everyone. The rest are locked underground for an indefinite period of time, except for Hizard who is forced to marry her. This is Ramsay-level awful.

Westeros

* When Dany gets impatient with Tyrion’s plan failing, she decides she is “done being clever” (i.e. no battle plan) and burns the Lannister loot train because – apparently – that’s somehow more moral than attacking the capital. In doing so, she burns stockpiles of food on the eve of winter. If she had taken some time to be “clever” and have a scouting party determine what was in the loot train, this wouldn’t have happened. Also, if she knew her own kingdom, she’d have known the Reach and Highgarden are the bread basket of Westeros and may have – again- taken a moment to think.

* When Tyrion attempts to talk succession – a totally reasonable thing to do in times of war when a queen is at risk of dying – Dany implies he is a traitor. Tyrion might be forgiven for thinking, after all of Dany’s pontificating, that she might be interested in a new system like a democratic Night’s Watch/Iron Born choosing process. But no – she threatens Tyrion for daring to dream that an ass other than hers might sit the throne.

* In this last episode, Dany marches her armies and dragons to Winterfell, ready to be hailed as a savior, but never thinks about how that many men might put a strain on the North’s food stocks in winter. Again – no time to be clever, I guess. Nevermind that a certain Lannister loot train might have come in handy about now.

* Sansa – the only person alive with a working brain in Season 8 – asks what dragons eat. Dany gives us a real zinger, which I guess we’re supposed to applaud – they eat whatever they want. Real fucking rich from a woman who not-so-long-ago had the charred remains of a three year old girl placed at her feet. Keep in mind that tragedy happened with a younger, smaller Drogon grazing in Mereen when there was no food shortage. What will a larger Drogon and Rhegal do in the North in winter where there is no food, but plenty of people? Dany could, apparently, give a fuck.

Why does this make Dany a bad Queen?

* These actions demonstrate an unwillingness to share power – Mereen may have been won peacefully if she compromised at the start. Tyrion’s succession conversation is a necessary one for a supposedly barren queen who wants to reform. But Dany doesn’t want to reform – her entire claim in based on the old system. Break the wheel just means less oscillation between which great house is on top at a given moment. Dany wants Targaryen to always be on top. Keep in mind, other players in the Game of Thrones – say, Cersei – want the same, but only Dany and her followers falsely preach a message of change.

* These actions demonstrate an unwillingness or inability to plan – she bruns food in winter, she brings armies into holdfasts without considering the resource strain, she is indifferent to the dangers her dragons pose, when she is impatient, she abandons planning in war for impulsive attacks.

* These actions show an unwillingness to learn from her own family’s history. Aegon the Conequeror is a master class in how to take over a kingdom and Dany took no notes. Aegon knew local culture matters – he let the Andal kingdoms keep their ways, he let the Northerners keep theirs, and he knelt before the Faith of the Seven (an Andal religion that arrived before he did) to get his crown. He knew that would get him loyalty dragonfire could not buy. Dany did just the opposite in Mereen. Aegon’s conquest of the Vale is instructive for how to take down Cersei – Aegon’s sister-wife flew to the Eyrie with her dragon and landed on the balcony, demanding the King of the Vale bend the knee. The kingdom was won without bloodshed. Dany could have done this to Cersei in the Red Keep, but instead she suggests just attacking King’s Landing, then agrees to Tyrion’s awful plan, than just attacks the Lannisters willy-nilly.

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