The Violence of Daenerys Targaryen

Published May 19, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hello,

I know I’m a bit late for a discussion on episode 5, but I wanted to share my perspective with you. I know many people were unhappy with Daenerys’ “snap” in The Bells, but for me it rang true (pun intended).

To preface this, I am a school teacher, and I am a member of both the Columbine and Virginia Tech communities. As you can imagine, these experiences greatly influence the way I read violence in the media and pop culture.

When I saw Daenerys take aim at the civilians of King’s Landing, I didn’t think of a mad person snapping–I saw a school shooting unfold in precise detail. She surgically targets the innocent people along the streets of the city, aiming to annihilate the greatest number possible, seemingly for no reason than because it feels good. When I heard the bells of King’s Landing, I didn’t hear a battle surrender, I heard school bells–a long-standing signal of the normalcy and innocence which we have seen twisted by violence many times over.

There is a certain type of mass shooter who is highly interested in asserting their power over the vulnerable, and they do so by targeting random innocents with the goal of a high body count. Daenerys has been obsessed with asserting her power for as long as she’s had any power (surely as a result of her trauma and upbringing). There’s a reason she insists on all those titles, and it’s not just to let the audience know how “badass” she is. Dany uses her titles and dragons to flex on anyone who would question her authority and place in the world as she sees it. This is often her first instinct–her advisors are the ones to talk her around to diplomacy.

Daenerys believes that power is her destiny and birthright. Ever since reaching Westeros, however, she has watched her powers being slowly and surely stripped away. She loses Viserion and Rhaegal, half her forces, her closest friends and advisors, her fleet, and finally Jon Snow. The cognitive dissonance caused by watching her destiny crumble before her eyes is why she chooses violence. When the Bells ring in King’s Landing, she is not choosing then and there, she is realizing in that moment that she has already chosen–that she wants to do violence.

I personally think that the gender politics of this show are all over the place–we almost never see female mass violence, and in our current political climate it is primarily men who are feeling abruptly disempowered and turning to extremism. But I do think that the show has compelling things to say about the interplay of power and violence. A belief that they are entitled to power is what causes characters to go “mad” in this show: Aerys, Stannis, Cersei, Daenerys… As long as the Iron Throne exists, people will commit great acts of violence in pursuit of it. That’s why I believe that the “Dream of Spring” is seeing the Iron Throne destroyed, and that’s what I’m hoping to see in the final episode tonight.

If you read this whole screed, thank you for indulging me. I apparently had a lot more to get off my chest than I thought.

Yours,
Ben Wiley

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