there's a running theme in asoiaf of loving parents understandably privileging the lives of their highborn children. cersei, as imperfect as she is, is a loving parent. this is why both catelyn and ned, who are also loving parents, are able to empathize with her. while praying to the seven, catelyn wonders to herself if she would do any less for her own, and when ned places both himself and catelyn in cersei's shoes, he is unable to say they wouldnt do the same as her. they get cersei, they understand where she's coming from
tyrion does not get it. at the battle of the blackwater, he's unable to foresee cersei pulling joffrey away from the fighting and unable to understand why she would do such a thing. he didnt consider that a parent would make short-sighted tactical errors out of love for their child because he's never had a parent who would do that for him
that's not to say cersei, catelyn, and ned being loving parents who would do anything for their children is a good thing. it makes them sympathetic, it makes them realistic, it makes them very, very human. but it's not a good thing that these people with immense political power and responsibility, whose every action has ripple effects on the entire realm, dont prioritize that realm first and foremost. it's not a good thing that the lives of highborn children are privileged above the lives of the smallfolk, adults and children alike
this is why i like to think of dany as a foil to these characters. dany's motherhood disrupts this hierarchy because unlike cersei, catelyn, and ned, her children whom she prioritizes are the lowborn, the enslaved, and freedmen. missandei calls her "mother to us all." the freedmen call her mother in all their different mothertongues: mhysa, maela, aelalla, qathei, tato. throughout ADWD, we see dany genuinely think of her subjects as her children even within her own mind and she sacrifices and compromises herself again and again for them. because she'd do anything for her children the way cersei, catelyn, and ned would do anything for theirs
and this is getting more into headcanon/spectulative territory, but i also like to think of dany as an embodiment of the mother above. in fact, i think all three of the seven's female faces—the innocent maiden, the merciful mother who loves all her children, the highborn and low, and the wise crone whose lantern guides people in the dark—are meant to mirror her narrative role and character arc.
i searched all of AGOT for any mentions of the seven's female aspects, the maiden, mother, and crone, and there werent any as far as i could tell, but i did find these:
the word crone comes up a lot in dany's chapters to refer to the widows of the dosh khaleen, which she fears will be her future. and by her final AGOT chapter, she's come to terms with her fate and reclaimed it: yesterday she was a child (a maiden), today she is a woman (a mother), tomorrow she will be old (a crone). i almost want to say george added the concept of the maiden, mother, and crone (the triple goddess associated with the phases of the moon, just as dany is the child of three and associated with the moon, which married the sun and gave birth to dragons) to the subsequent books because of dany.
but i digress, my main point here is that dany's motherhood is deeply entwined with the themes of this book and the arcs of characters on an entirely different continent and it's really fascinating to read how this thematic tension between parenthood and ruling is subverted in her chapters and chew on how these background fictional religions echo the political, human foreground of the story
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