Tag: asoiaf

masha-russia:

One of the things that Daenerys haters who have read the books love to say to the show watchers (to convince them to join their ranks I guess?) is that the show version is an “ideolized version” of the character, that the show writers “whorship” her and that in the books she is much worse and it is utterly untrue! 

The show removed a lot of Daenerys’ kindness, her intelligence and political mind, as well as her emotions. The true Daenerys is softer, sweeter, brighter (without mentioning ten years younger) and her so called “questionable actions” are few in the novels. In fact, the only “questionable” thing I can think of is when she agreed to allow one of her advisors in Meereen to use torture on the only witness/suspect they had following the torture and slaughter of dozens of innocent people. But even that part – which is the darkest moment in Daenerys story – was made worse on the show, where she gave two Masters to be devoured to her dragons.

In the second novel, Daenerys never said the “when my dragons are grown we will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground” speech. She wasn’t insisting that the merchants of Qarth have to give her ships, she never locked up Doreah and Xaro Xhoan Daxos in a room to die of starvation, she didn’t plunder the city (not that I have a problem with show Daenerys about it, but she did not do that in the books). Doreah died in the Red Waste in Daenerys’ arms, and she gave her her last water although Doreah was dying and they were in a desert without provisions.

In the third novel, Daenerys didn’t enjoy the sack of Astapor and her quote was not “all men must die but we are not men” but “all men must die,

but not for a long while, we may pray.” She really wanted to forgive Jorah despite his betrayal but his behavior towards her is what made her banish him (he was insisting that he did no wrong and that she had to forgive him, and that in front of others) – and even after he was gone, she thought a lot of him and wished for him to find happiness back on his Bear Island.

In the fifth novel, Daenerys is the one who is compromising and navigating in the very complex political situation of Meereen. She is the one trying to negotiate with the former slavers and slaves. She never ordered one of her followers to be decapitated, and she never let her dragons eat the Masters. It is not Drogon who rescued her from the Sons of the Harpy, but she who ran toward him to help him after Hizdahr’s men tried to kill him. She didn’t fly away leaving her friends behind in danger, she and Drogon were the only ones in direct danger and she needed to protect him from harm – besides it was the very first time she rode a dragon and did not know how to control him. 

Book Daenerys loves to hug children, kisses people on the cheeks, smiles and laughs and has a great sense of humor, doesn’t say things like “I am a Queen not a politician” and does not need men around her to restrain her from using dragonfire – it is actually the other way around. Everyone of her advisors in the fifth book wanted her to use dragons to burn her enemies but Daenerys was insisting to negotiate and build peace without using force. 

I love show Dany, but book Daenerys is amazing and anyone who tries to claim that the show version is “overhyped” or “whitewashed” or “idolized” compared to the real, canon version is a liar.

What do you think it means? Cause I’ve heard a ton of different interpretations.

lyannas:

I had taken “if I look back I am lost” to mean a willful erasure of the past, and a refusal to examine it. Dany repeats it 13 times over the course of the books, always in situations where she is uncomfortable or unsure of herself. She first thinks it when Mirri Maz Duur recalls the “birth” of Dany’s child:

“Monstrous,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. “Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.”

Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. “My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent,” she said. “I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born.”

Dany doesn’t allow herself to remember exactly what happened in the tent. She thinks only of the darkness, then pushes past it, unwilling to face the details of it.

This willful erasure/forgetfulness becomes more obvious here, where Mirri Maz Duur blatantly points out that Daenerys lies to herself (to the point to where Dany believes her own lies):

Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew. He had done what he did for love and loyalty, yet he had carried her into a place no living man should go and fed her baby to the darkness. He knew it too; the grey face, the hollow eyes, the limp. “The shadows have touched you too, Ser Jorah,” she told him. The knight made no reply. Dany turned to the godswife. “You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse.”

“No,” Mirri Maz Duur said. “That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price.”

Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost. “The price was paid,” Dany said. “The horse, my child, Quaro and Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo. The price was paid and paid and paid.” She rose from her cushions. “Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me, godswife, maegi, bloodmage, whatever you are. Show me Khal Drogo. Show me what I bought with my son’s life.”

Again and again, Dany repeats “If I look back I am lost”. When she learns of Eroeh’s fate (a child, who was raped and killed by the dothraki) Dany repeats this mantra and does not allow herself to dwell on what happened or react emotionally to it (AGoT, Daenerys IX). She repeats it immediately after looking up a catatonic Drogo and calling him her “sun-and-stars” (AGoT, Daenerys IX). It becomes a knee-jerk reaction to things that she simply does not want to think about:

She could feel the eyes of the khalasar on her as she entered her tent. The Dothraki were muttering and giving her strange sideways looks from the corners of their dark almond eyes. They thought her mad, Dany realized. Perhaps she was. She would know soon enough. If I look back I am lost.

“Aggo,” Dany called, paying no heed to Jhogo’s words. If I look back I am lost.

If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she would lose all courage.

Finally, in ADWD, Dany realizes what exactly she’s been doing to herself each time she said those words:

If I look back, I am doomed, Dany told herself … but how could she not look back? I should have seen it coming. Was I so blind, or did I close my eyes willfully, so I would not have to see the price of power?

For the first time, she debated with the past. She wondered if she was truly ignorant or willfully so. This moment does not last, however. She slips back into ignoring the past, forcing herself to see what she wants to see:

Much of the talk about the table was of the matches to be fought upon the morrow. Barsena Blackhair was going to face a boar, his tusks against her dagger. Khrazz was fighting, as was the Spotted Cat. And in the day’s final pairing, Goghor the Giant would go against Belaquo Bonebreaker. One would be dead before the sun went down. No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. Better a few should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost.

She cannot and will not dwell on the tragedies that have happened, that she has brought on, and that she had endured. She constantly pushes these thoughts away. Those seven words are a coping mechanism, and a powerful one. They keep her moving forward past her mental hurdles– at great cost to herself, and others, unfortunately.

I’d like to add that it is precisely because of how often she does this that I believe that Dany forced herself to love Drogo and the dothraki way of life. Dany finds it much easier to lie to herself about the bad things that have happened, if she cannot forget about them completely.Â