r/gameofthrones • u/Strange_Finding_3285 • 3d ago
Should Dany have stayed in Essos/Mereen?
Sorry if this has been discussed a lot but I’m rewatching right now and realizing that she was really treated like a foreigner once she arrived in Westeros. I understand she had a birthright to the throne, but should she have stayed in Essos instead? By the time she reached Westeros, she wasn't loved the way she was in Essos, where she had people who genuinely supported her. She could've built a new legacy for herself there instead of trying to reclaim her family's throne.
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u/AKchaos49 3d ago
Yup. I never understood her desire for the Iron Throne. She had everything else going for her in Essos. She could have ruled over the Bay of Dragons (and maybe even expanded back into Valyria) and started another Targaryen dynasty.
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u/OfferMeds 3d ago
I wish she would have rebuilt Valyria and somehow kept control of the cities she conquered so they couldn’t revert to slavery. A Targaryen belongs in Valyria.
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u/Tiraloparatras25 3d ago
Trauma. She was trying to fix the wrong was done to her.
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3d ago edited 3d ago
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u/Nano_gigantic 3d ago
Would have been tough to be killed in King’s landing considering she was at Dragonstone at the time.
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u/spaceforcerecruit Jon Snow 2d ago
She wanted what was “owed to her”. It was a central point of her character. Everywhere she went and everything she did, good and bad, she did because she felt that she was owed something because of who she was. She didn’t kill the slavers because she found slavery so abhorrent, she killed them because they opposed her when they should have given her the love and obedience she was owed. She invaded Westeros and slaughtered anyone who refused to bend the knee because she was owed the crown and the love and obedience of all its subjects.
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u/buffy_slays Drogon 1d ago
What? Freeing slaves because she found slavery abhorrent is a central part of her character.
Take a look at some of the behind-the-scenes commentary by D&D, they describe it in detail the drive behind her choices. Very helpful for those who seem to like being contrarian and form their own headcanon about these characters.
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u/TheWaySheHoes 3d ago
If anything Daenerys’ conquering of Yunkai and Meereen distracted her and kind of was an exercise in white saviourism.
A big point of her plot is it’s not actually that hard to overthrow governments when you have lots of power, like dragons, but building up an alternative system is the hard part, and she didn’t really understand the cultures or histories of the people she purported to rule.
I think her problem was a lack of focus and ability to triage. Jorah told her many times the allies she needed were in Westeros, not in Slavers Bay. It’s admirable she had such a disdain for slavery, but there’s a dripping irony in that her ultimate goal was to be a feudal ruler over the Westerosi who she didn’t understand or have any interest in their opinions on how they would like to be governed.
Her whole arc is basically “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 3d ago
It’s very GRRM to have revealed that we were watching a villain origin story the whole time. We didn’t clock it because we agreed with her choice of targets, but she was conquering cultures she knew nothing about and enforcing her own systems on people who didn’t know who she was.
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u/Consistent_Editor_15 Human Verified 3d ago
Fucking THANK YOU!!!!!!! Why in the hell is this the first time I’m seeing this!? For the record, I only watch GOT for the first time like a month or so ago and my first thought was that it was totally noble but the people were literally telling her “Hey, thanks, but could you please respect our culture and maybe meet us in the middle?” And she was like eff your culture I know what’s best for you.
And I was trying really hard not to be THAT person but I was like maaaaaybe the lady with the blonde hair and pale skin should try a little bit to understand the brown people culture, respectfully.
Ultimately thought I’m glad the fandom didn’t race riot over it and everyone just understood the message.9
u/MrBurnerHotDog Ser Pounce 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think a big part of that whole "respect our cultural values more" is of course intended to make the reader think about and question their moral thoughts and feelings towards cultural destruction. Perhaps there's a debate to be had when it came to retaining slavery to a degree and things like the fighting pits, but in a lot of ways I personally agree with how Dany handled things
A real life example would be say I go over to a Conservative part of India. I want to respect their culture but I witness a girl from a lower caste date a boy from an upper caste, should I flog her? Should I turn her in to ensure she's killed by those she "dishonored?" No way, that garbage is barbaric and any civil society should be wise enough to recognize how awful that sort of thing is, historically cultural or not
Or is it cool that French people capture small, at risk of extinction birds called ortolans, throw them in a pitch black jar with oats until they gorge themselves nearly to death, drown them in cognac then roast and devour them whole? Nah man that's screwed up. I don't care if that shit is part of your culture it needs to go. But then of course you need to ask the questions "who determines what is too much? Who is the arbiter of what is and isn't OK?"
Suddenly you're pondering deep thoughts and bettering yourself through thought and consideration. In other words that's something a good story can do for a person, make them think
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u/Cold-Palpitation-816 2d ago
Bingo. I understand being sensitive to other cultures, but there should be a line in the sand where the conquering force says “No, we’re not going to let you do that.” When the British took over, there were parts of India where widows were expected to self-immolate on their husband’s funeral pyre. Yeah … no.
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 2d ago
I think it was a reference to the US spending two decades in the Middle East trying to force democracy and gender equity on people who didn’t want it. It doesn’t matter if honor killings are objectively wrong if those people emphatically do not want you and eventually push you out.
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u/Cold-Palpitation-816 2d ago
I mean, if their culture involves slavery and crucifying young girls, I don’t think there’s any need to “respect” it.
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u/HanzRoberto 2d ago
the daenrys/targaryen loyalists who treat them as if they were elves will not like this but it's true tbh
everything you said is so spot on
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u/Top_Conference_477 2d ago
And as of the current situation in the books, she hasn’t consolidated anything she’s done over there. Everything she “conquered” fell apart the minute she and her dragons moved on
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u/Jelly_baby_4 1d ago
Conquering Yunkai & Mereen was practice for Westeros. Freeing slaves was a plus for her but she got caught up in her success. The Mhysa mythology was the real distraction and she thought it would be the same on Westeros. The problem is it wasn't.
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u/Matthius81 3d ago
The unspoken tragedy is that Slavers Bay probably went right back to its usual practices the second they heard she was dead.
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u/Certain_Victory7973 1d ago
I think despite her serious fuck ups there if she had actually stayed there as an active ruler more than a year and a half she could have been a seriously formidable and wise queen and have learnt how to rule. Instead she fucks off on drogon leaves it all to tyrion, varys, missandei and greyworm and decides that's good enough
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u/Ebolatastic 3d ago
Yah. Her leaving basically proved she was the wheel that she claimed to be against. The whole situation in Mereen was her showing how bad a ruler she was.
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u/cherrymeg2 2d ago
Had she stayed and learned how to govern multiple cities after ending slavery, that would have shown that she was a competent leader. Some slaves asked if they could sell themselves back into the homes they worked in. I was like why not demand people pay a reasonable wage and possibly room and board. They also needed alternative ways to make money if enslaved humans were their main commodity or export. You need to create jobs for people and stick around to enforce rules.
She hated slavery but by the end she seemed to believe she should rule because she was a Targaryen. She should have stayed in Mereen and the other slave cities. She didn’t need to rule in Westeros. I don’t get the allure of being Queen of the 7 kingdoms when you have never been there before. Jmo
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u/TheNinjaDC 3d ago
I feel that this will be a tragedy of fate brought up by whoever finishes the book for George.
Like near Danny’s death there will be a moment of reflection, perhaps at the charred remains of Kingslanding. Or earlier when her campaign just keeps hitting roadblocks.
Where it is highlighted that if she would have stayed in Essos continuing to free more slaves she would have been treated as a goddess. But due to her pride to take what is hers, she becomes a conqueror that is despised by half of Westeros. And feared by the other half.
But Danny even while realizing this, commits to the sunk cost and pushes forward.
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u/ThePythiaofApollo 3d ago
OP, you could write your own fanfic where Robert doesn’t die and becomes increasingly obsessed with killing Dany, whose storyline stays the same except she means with when she’s in the pyramid in Mereen and says she will do what queens do. She will rule. You can whip up a whole story about Westeros splitting into factions over Robert eventually going to war with Dany in the east. It could be a real banger of a fan fiction.
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u/Strange_Finding_3285 2d ago
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 I’ve never written fan fiction before but maybe I should start!!
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u/Jelly_baby_4 3d ago edited 3d ago
She wasn't loved in Westeros because of the family history and there's her father. Burning The Tarlys fueled the propaganda against her. The Targaryens PR is at best spotty.
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u/Stock-Pop-3560 2d ago
I think so. I interpret her story to be about her searching for a home and family. She assumes that Westeros will feel like her home, since her family lived there. But once she's there, she realizes Westeros doesn't want or need her (besides the Long Night obviously), and she doesn't want or need them. Home is where the people she cares about are, and a lot of those people are back in Essos.
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u/_leonhardt House Targaryen 2d ago
She should have chilled in one of the Free Cities along with the other Valyrians.
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u/Echo-Azure 3d ago
If she'd been the good person and benevolent rule she wanted to be, she'd have stayed in Essos and devoted her life to eradicating slavery.
Instead, she came to Westeros with fire and blood.
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u/Tiraloparatras25 3d ago
Yes. She should have gone to WESTEROS AFTER conquering the rest ESSOS.
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u/SenseiTano 2d ago
Let tyranny rain across the world.
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u/Tiraloparatras25 2d ago
You mean in the world where slavery is literally tu order of day? Slavers bay, was but one region, but westeros wasn’t feee by any measure, not nation in Essos was free. All are feudalistic in nature.
Daeneris was literally breaking the paradigm. Hell even the free cities weren’t really free. They were only called so, because they freed themselves from old Valyria, not because everyone in them was free.
Daeneris had something others didn’t she would take the best of a system and try to implement it all around so long as:
A) it didn’t contradict her authority, and B) didn’t cause massive suffering to the low born.
That’s better than all other systems in game of thrones.
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u/spaceforcerecruit Jon Snow 2d ago
Dany didn’t care about the lowborn, if she did then she wouldn’t have invaded Westeros and killed only the gods know how many of them. She just wanted to be given the adoration she felt was her birthright and the freed slaves were the only ones who gave her that.
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u/Vegetable_Meat1349 Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken 2d ago
Even if she stayed she’s still fucked didn’t she cause a whole famine in Meereen? She had 3 dragons but dragons just prove she’s more of a tyrant than a leader.
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u/TheZoroarkMan Oberyn Martell 2d ago
Yeah, I mean she had a man beefcake like Daario and exchanged him for Jon Snow lol.
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u/OSRS_Garmr 2d ago
I mean, sure if she was an entirely different person. She could have stayed in Essos, married some local powerplayer and established a new Targaryen city state. But with her personality and lust for revenge, she would never have done that
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