White people who donât understand colonialism or imperialism talking shit about Daenerys Targaryen, meanwhile brown and black people with an intimate, experiential knowledge of both, loving our niña because she uses her power to help people and respects peoples cultures. She doesnât care what you look like or where you come from, only what actions you take.
Me whenever I hear the word âimperialistâ or âcolonialistâ about Dany:
i had to read a white person say âpoc donât like her because sheâs a colonizer.â me, a poc. I was dead.
Oh, I had to read how Dany was an âimperialistâ and âcruelâ because she destroyed the Slaverâs Bay economy. And she didnât take enough steps to save that economyâŠ
Oh, you are worried about the economy⊠Hmmm⊠Gee⊠I DONâT KNOW LUCINDA, MAYBE AN ECONOMY FUNCTIONING ON SLAVE LABOUR DESERVE TO BE DESTROYED!!
Jfc, the so called intellectuals exhaust me.
Another Black woman fan of Daenerys here. Her haters endlessly amuse me.
lol and Iâm another woman of color who adores Dany.
Iâve always found it interesting that Dany haters misuse the terms colonialism or imperialism when criticizing her. They act like they have some kind of moral high ground, yet theyâre the ones upset over a slave-based economy being crushed. Itâs almost like they have more sympathy for the slavers than they do the former slaves who gained freedom.
And donât get me started on how so many of them think they can speak for all POC as if we all only have one mind that theyâre an authority on.
They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not.
â she had it easy â yeah right. Wish she did. When all you people loved the other characters and think she didnât suffer enough, they had to sell her motherâs crown just to eat for a week.
One of the things that make me sympathize with her is that sheâs one of those who suffered the most.
She lost all her family, lived in poverty, always hungry, scared, and never safe, she had no childhood, never knew love and knew plenty of abuse. In a very sick relationship she found love and hope for a family, thatâs the main reason she started to accept her fate and circumstances, but then it was taken all away, again, before she could grasp it.
We see how other characters suffer, their pains, their tears, the injustice done to them and is so easy to say that the went through so much more and criticize Daenerys because apparently her life is too perfect.
All the other children can remember their families with love, pride, cherish the many moments of happiness they shared, and hope to grow up to be like them and make them proud.
Daenerys cannot do it, and all she has is a hole that has always been empty. Itâs so ironic, considering she has so much love to give, to her people, the slaves she freed and the dragons she brought to life.
Just because YOU donât seeit happening, it doesnât mean it doesnât affect her. Because it does.
I have always felt that the reason why people ignore Danyâs tragic backstory and/or hardships is because we donât get chapters/books establishing her character or setting. Her story in asoiaf starts in medias res.
In the very first chapter, she is getting engaged to Khal Drogo and things are happening to her (terrible things). There is NO establishing chapters where she is a naughty child or playing in the streets or laughing with her brother – so it is very easy to NOT sympathize with her and just see her as this tool for moving story forward (aka: dragons were needed, so she is dragon-lady).Â
This also makes all her trauma and her past to be seen through her memories – which antis find easy to discard (it is her memories, she is biased arguments).
However, she is also a teenagerlike the other main characters of asoiaf. She also longs for home. She had her family killed. She has starved. She was sold. She was raped. She was thrust in a hugely patriarchal society whose language she didnât speak at the time. She had to take some very difficult decisions as a child and as a teen.Â
But yeah, letâs take the fanon characterization of âspoiled ladyâ or âentitled queenâ and twist it to her canon characterization!
This man frightened her. âI donât want to be his queen,â she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. âPlease, please, Viserys, I donât want to, I want to go home.â
Yet every night, some time before the dawn, Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain. When he was done, he would close his eyes and begin to snore softly and Dany would lie beside him, her body bruised and sore, hurting too much for sleep.
Yeah, itâs even creepier in the book. Daenerys is only 13 and just barely begun to start puberty. She is forced to marry a huge, violent warlord twice her age, who hurts her so badly that she contemplates suicide đł.
She felt very lonely all of a sudden. Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me. That made her sad. âYou must be my children,â she told the dragons, âmy three fierce children. Arstan says dragons live longer than men, so you will go on after I am dead.â
Reminder that Ser Barristan believed in Dany so much that he died for her cause in Meeren. He saw what her father was and saw that she was better than that. So take your mad queen theory and shove it
đ„ There is beauty in destructionđ„ 