Readers tend to vilify or revere Dany. Just like the characters in the book do.
I just pity her.
The readers who vilify her seem to be reacting to what they see as a trick on the author's part. And no, I don't think that she quite deserves it.
Note: I think Dany's critics are right;despite her intentions, she really made a mess in Slaver's Bay; but I also think we are meant to identify with Dany and cheer for her even while we wonder a little bit if we're not cheering for 'the wrong team.'
I totally think the idea of there being a right team or a wrong team is obsolete in A Song of Ice and Fire. But that's just me.
Anyway, I feel that with Dany it's not up to me or anyone else to say she deserves the hate or not. If people hate her, that's their choice. If people love her, that's their choice, too.
The ambiguity in her character is INTENTIONAL and readers' attitudes only echo that of the millions of Essosi in-world.
.
Now, I'll fight for Sansa's honor. To the bloody death.
I'll even the defend the decidedly darker Tyrions and Stannises of the story.
I can muster up quite a lot of sympathy for the Hound and, while I definitely hate Cersei, I'd also definitely spend the night with her.
But Dany's a big girl. And she can fight her own battles.
What I think would be a better question is: Does Dany deserve the oversimplification she's subjected to?
Because that's what I tend to see.
Dany is the weirdest character in the whole book for me. Because I feel like she's not one character but several.
Not in a multi-personality syndrome type way. But in a literary way.
So many different stories are told in the individual volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire. Not only in Dany's point of view, but in her public image in the world of Essos and, eventually, Westeros.
Dany is:
- The Sex Slave turned Khaleesi turned magical Mother of Dragons
- the Prophet who wanders through the wilderness in the Clash of Kings
- the Bad-ass Dragon Queen
- the Messiah to the non-Melisandre followers of R'hllor
- the nurturing Mother to many slaves
- a dangerous political radical to the Powers that Be in Essos
- A dangerous actor whose ignorance is dwarfed only by her power
- a lost little girl yearning for the happy childhood she never really had
She's such a complicated character who undergoes so many changes, that I think that people try to push her into a little box to understand her more easily.
And, indeed, it's much easier to write about her if you reduce her to to 'courageous bad-ass compassionate queen' or 'idiot.'
Another thing that makes Dany hard to pin down is the fact that her good and her bad qualities are incompatible and that leads to a lot of tension both inside her, in the world she lives in, and among readers.
- Dany's culturally insensitive but she loves Khal Drogos Dothraki
- She's violent and has a terrible temper; but she's filled with compassion for the downtrodden and unfortunate
- She's rash and, frankly, needs guidance, but she's willing to work on things--she does slowly learn some lessons on political leadership.
- She's attracted to her own dark violence (and others') but she she yearns for an ideal world of peace and plenty.
- She's got altruistic ideals yet wants to regain the throne she feels is her right by birth.
Mother of Dragons vs Mhysa
I think you can boil down the two sides of Dany to the above.
- The violent, fiery, Dragon Queen with a trail of bodies behind her, the conquering unstoppable force of nature that's got Essos either lined up against her or about to burst their chains in support of her. This is the character that crucifies her enemies and uses dragons to destroy an entire elite class of a city.
- The compassionate 'mother' figure who frees slaves, who loves her people and her dragons, who dreams of an idyllic peace and plenty, who submits herself sexually to the violent, bad boy Daario Naharis because she'd rather HE display that side of her nature. This is the character that chains her dragons. Who forces the dark side of her nature down and automatically seems to lose her power.
These two sides cause a GOOD DEAL of tension in her. And they create a sort of charisma to her that drives people in Essos to either love her, literally worship her; or to hate her, and plot her destruction.
And readers are no different than the slaves and slavers of Essos in their attitudes. Because with Daenerys, it's love her or hate her; worship her or revile her.
She's got incredible, unbelievable, staggering charisma.
She makes incredibly, unbelievably, staggeringly unwise decisions.
But I think there is a core to her, deep down that maybe deserves a little more love than she gets.
Because she has a third side, one which she mocks, but which deep down still exists, the one that Tyrion sees when he sees her.
3. At the end of the day 'she's only a small girl who knows little of war', yearning for a pleasant, safe, childhood home that she never really had while at the same time 'not daring to look back' at all the unpleasant things she's been through. All the unpleasant things she's done.
If this is the type of inner tension that all Targaryens go through, it's no wonder half of them go mad.
I could probably write a book-length discussion on Daenerys, using the different aspects of her character and her good and bad sides. In fact, I almost did, in my struggle to write this post, but I deleted most of it.
What's in store:
It seems clear that at the end of A Dance with Dragons, Dany has come down hard on the Dragon Queen side of her nature and I expect her to conquer the Dothraki and invade Westeros with a gigantic army at her back. Because Dany is the Stallion Who Mounts the World.
And there's going to be a fiery wrack of destruction and blood left behind her.
But she's a character in search of a toaster. You know it's true.
And the little girl is never going to find either the peace she yearns for or the childhood home with the red door and the lemon trees waving their branches in the sun.
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