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Originally Posted by 72off
is Mad Queen Dany really supported in the books?
has felt like a dumb red herring on the tv side, especially in S7
Dany has a guy's children tortured at one point.
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Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon’s mercy. “Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply.”
“I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him.”
“Do as you think best, but bring me names.” Her fury was a fire in her belly.
-- Daenerys II, A Dance with Dragons
She also brings instability to Slaver's Bay, with Astapor sacked by Yunkai, dragons flying around the place torching people, etc (Drogon burns a young girl to death). It's a bit of a US/Iraq situation; she "liberates" the slave cities but brings violent chaos instead of slavery. But when Dany turns to introspection, the conclusion she reaches is that she needs to unchain her nature. This is right at the end of ADWD:
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“I am the blood of the dragon,” she told the grass, aloud.
Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.
“Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …” Dany could not recall the child’s name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. “I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.”
Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.
....
You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. “To be a queen.”
You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. “It is such a long way,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl.”
No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.
“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.
That's the journey of Dany in ADWD - trying to be a politician, be a ruler, and failing. And her conclusion is that she has to go back to her roots - Fire. Conquering, destruction, ruthlessness. That's not to say that Dany will be a Mad Queen, but she's a morally questionable character. I mean, look at what she's doing. She's gearing up for violent conquest of a continent and she has no idea what Westeros is like right now, no idea how she'll improve it when in power. She just wants to conquer.
Like much else in ASOIAF, this is just told straightforwardly, with Dany being presented more or less as a heroic character, and it's up to the reader to question the morality of all this - just like it's up to the reader to question whether there's really "honor" in being a knight serving brutal rulers, or how moral Catelyn's behaviour actually is at times, or whether Jaime is really a monster. Everything I wrote about Dany above doesn't necessarily mean she's going to go full evil. It's just that, like most of the characters, she is morally complex. But I would expect the books to ultimately be critical of these ideas of Birthright and Rightful Queens. I am fond of a tinfoil theory in which Daenerys is not really a Targaryen at all, although I definitely don't expect the show to go in that direction.
Last edited by ChrisV; 05-10-2018 at 10:26 PM.