Not Only Is Pol!jon Extremely Disgusting, It's Also Laughable To Think That Dany (out Of ALL Characters)

not only is pol!jon extremely disgusting, it's also laughable to think that dany (out of ALL characters) would fall for a man's lies lmfao

“We will have it all back someday, sweet sister,” he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. “The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back.” Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

     —   Daenerys I,  A Game of Thrones

not only is pol!jon extremely disgusting, it's also laughable to think that dany (out of ALL characters) would fall for a man's lies lmfao

“I don’t get why people are so mad about the Mad Queen, Dany’s character has been building to this and it makes perfect sense for her!”

Okay, so even if we pretend for a second that Dany burning KL at the time and in the way she did made sense (it didn’t), there’s a whole other element as to why the Mad Queen arc was SO infuriating. And that is because for two seasons the entire logic of the show bends backwards until it breaks in order to get Dany to the point where they could try to justify that act.

Let’s look at some examples:

Tyrion instructs Dany to invade Casterly Rock, leaving Highgarden unprotected. It makes zero sense for a character renowned for their intelligence to propose this. CR is a defensive stronghold that offers no tactical advantage to a Conquerer, while Highgarden is one of Dany’s strongest allies with the funds to support her conquest. Dany loses House Tyrell and the Reach because of this.

Tyrion also advises Dany to send some of her most valuable men Beyond the Wall to capture a wight to convince Cersei of their existence. Again, this makes no sense for Tyrion to propose. He of all people should know that Cersei is a deranged narcissist who could never be trusted. I guess Tyrion kind of forgot his sisters central character traits. Dany loses a dragon because of this.

Dany also would not have lost Viserion if she had not arrived in time to rescue Jon and the others. But lucky for them (and unlucky for Viserion), ravens can now fly from the wall to Dragonstone in a single night.

“Dany kind of forgot about the iron fleet.” Apparently this Conquerer queen heading south for war just didn’t send out any sort of scouts, and entirely forgot about one of the like two forces that she needs to watch out for. None of her war advisors remember this either. She loses Rhaegal and Missandei because of this.

Cersei decides to behead Missandei as opposed to keeping her prisoner in the Red Keep in order to discourage Dany from just burning it down.

The Iron Fleet— which would later fail to strike down Drogon despite firing dozens of scorpions— is able to take Rhaegal down with two back to back perfect shots. Also apparently they can see Rhaegal well enough to do that, but neither Rhaegal nor Drogon nor Dany were able to see them.

Upon coming to Westeros, Dany has three dragons, a huge army of Unsullied, a huge army of Dothraki, a portion of the Iron Fleet, the full support of Highgarden with all their wealth and armies and probably much of their Bannermen, and the backing of Dorne. Dany is told that this is not enough, and she will not be able to take KL without tons of innocent bloodshed. Dany then proceeds to lose 2/3 dragons, Highgarden, Dorne, the Iron Fleet, and a huge portion of her Unsullied and Dothraki armies. In exchange, she gets an army of tired unmotivated northerners. Meanwhile Cersei obtains all of Highgardens wealth, the Golden Company, the Iron Fleet, and a massive force of scorpions. Dany proceeds to take Kings Landing and force a surrender with virtually zero civilian bloodshed.

Dany is portrayed as unreasonable and irrational for wanting to immediately attack Kings Landing with her full force. This perceived irrationality is the basis for her advisors questioning and betraying her. Dany is later proved correct in all of her courses of action when— again— she forces KL surrender quickly and cleanly and with virtually no civilian bloodshed.

Varys, a character renowned for his patience and ability to play the game and wait to strike until the opportune moment, a man who sat through Joffrey’s reign and did nothing, suddenly feels that Daenerys (who has not done anything worse than what Varys already knew her capable of when he decided to support her) is such a risk that he tries to poison her before she has even defeated Cersei for him. Again, the supposed reckless plan that Varys betrays Dany for is later proven to have been the correct plan.

Cersei faces no backlash from any of her actions. Nobody cares that she blew up the Westerosi Vatican. Nobody cares that she murdered the Queen of Westeros. Nobody cares that she helped orchestrate the fall death of Ned Stark and bears responsibility for the subsequent war and massacre of many of the remaining starks. Nobody cares that she is very very unlikely to accept Northern Independence, and very likely to hold a grudge against the north and house stark and seek to wipe them out. Cersei faces zero criticism or opposition from anyone besides Daenerys, and dethroning her is treated as an unnecessary inconvenience that nobody really cares that much about, and are only doing because Dany wants to.

These are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. There are surely many many more.

Dany was too OP coming into season 7. As such, in order to make the plot work and reach their predetermined Mad Queen ending, the very fabric of the universe twisted and warped for the explicit purpose of taking away everything she had and loved. Dumbass plans from characters known for the intelligence, fast travel, discarding of the “action and consequence” internal logic of the show for Dany’s opposition, forgetting of basic war time strategy. Cersei’s forces are a formidable threat when Dany needs to look reckless and bad for wanting to attack Kings Landing. Cersei’s forces then proceed to not be a threat at all and collapse like a tower of cards when Dany needs to look awful and evil for burning down a city that surrendered so easily.

So yeah, even if in that moment you believe Dany would burn down Kings Landing, the fact that Dany fans had to sit there and watch as every single aspect of the show was manipulated in the most illogical way for the sole purpose of making her the villain…? Is it really in character if the fundamental logic of the universe has to change in order for it to happen?

Why Daenerys should not be glorified

Her story isn’t about revolution. A revolution happens from within, it doesn’t happen when an outsider (and ok, she was raised in poverty, but now she has a huge amount of power & privilege, as the post under the ‘read more’ discusses) shows up to free people from their own savage culture. As if nobody in the slave cities had ever gone “wow guys, this is bad, maybe we should do something.” No, the only person to have the courage/mercy/humanity to stand up to the barbaric practices there is the same person who burnt a rape victim alive. Okay then.

If GRRM had wanted her narrative to be about revolution, then Dany would have freed the people in Westeros — not in some orientalist, Otherized, exotic part of the ASOIAF universe. 

People don’t sit around going “I wish someone would show up and set us free,” they start their own revolutions. So how on earth is it relevant to compare her story to the Arab Spring?

Is Dany really a underdog? She has dragons! She's top of the foodchain, not like the Starklings staying hidden and hunted. Arya, Sansa, Bran and Tyrion is who comes to mind when I think underdog.

When GRRM refers to underdogs he is referring to the characters at the start of the books. Jon, Dany, Arya and Tyrion are all underdogs when the story starts and Bran soon joins them in a couple of chapters. These are characters who don't normally fit into Westerosi society - that's GRRM's definition of the underdog. That they actively engage in changing their life, pursue power and obtain it doesn't negate their underdog status at the start. Jon is Lord Commander of the watch, doesn't change how he started the story and how he is still viewed as.

GRRM has always grouped Dany in along with the rest of the underdogs, sees her as a sympathetic character and identifies with her struggles.

2003 interview with GRRM (After ASoS):

Shaw: You created Jon as a bastard and an outcast from the get-go. Yet he's also one of the most attractive characters. Did you choose to make Jon a bastard to make him more attractive as an "underdog," or was his bastard birth central to the shaping of his character itself?

Martin: Almost all the characters have problems in some way. Very few of my major viewpoint characters have all the answers or have an easy path through life. They all have burdens to bear. Some of them are women in a society that doesn't necessarily value women or give them a lot of power or independence. Tyrion of course is a dwarf which has its own challenges. Dany is an exile, powerless, penniless, at the mercy of other people, and Jon is a bastard. These things shape their characters. Your experiences in life, your place in life inevitably is going to change who you are.

http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0410/theheartofasmall.shtml

Jon Snow has me in him, and Sam Tarly. The women too, Lyanna and Shaara, and the girls, Arya and Adara … Daenerys Stormborn, searching for that house with the red door. And Tyrion Lannister? Oh, yes. The Imp is me in spades, the horny little bastard.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjreiP50DG8

“I had a walk past that house every day on my way from the projects on 1st Street to 5th Street, and it’s like, well, that used to be our dock, that used to be our house. Now we don’t have a house, we don’t have a yard, but I had always had the sense of, yeah I’m poor, but I come from royalty, or I come from greatness that somehow was destroyed by the depression, by corrupt politicians, by things like that. So maybe that gives me a little of the emotional temperament to understand somebody like Daenerys Targaryen.

There was a watchman on the dock, though, and if he saw us he’d come out of his shed and shout at us. "Get out of here, you kids,” he’d yell. “You got no business here.” Yes, I do, part of me always wanted to shout back, you’re the one who’s got no business, my great-grandfather BUILT this dock.

This theme of fallen families is one that made it directly into A Song of Ice and Fire, George explained, in the characters Daenerys and Viserys Targaryen. With that same feeling of loss of a future, wondering about the family he never knew and their upper class lifestyles, he felt like disinherited royalty much like the two Targaryen siblings. When Dany reads about Westeros in the books she received from her wedding, or when Barristan told her stories about her brother Rhaegar, or she lands in Dragonstone and walks in her family’s home those are actually George wondering about his own family and dreaming of a better life stolen from him in the projects of Bayonne.