I didn't want to continue this on @/lesbian-sansa's post
I’ve spoken at length about the nuance in the Dany-Mirri conflict and I don’t think I need to rehash it too much. You can check this post to see my more detailed thoughts on it. I agree, it’s not entirely from a place of revolt. In fact, I don’t think she really intended it to be an act of revolt at all. But Dany seems to think so. When she thinks of Mirri as the first traitor, she notes that Mirri killed Rhaego “to avenge her people.” But Mirri didn’t want to bring Drogo back. Dany had to push for it. Mirri was not clear about what it would entail, but she also didn’t want to do it. From what I gleaned, she was perfectly willing to let Dany and Rhaego live. But Dany, understandably, wanted to do everything that could be done to save her husband. This gets lost a lot in the discourse about that part of Dany’s story and check the post I linked for more of my thoughts on it.
“My statements in this post on the situation were a brief summary of the critiques of Dany in the post those tags were on, not a full representation of what I personally think about it.”
Fair enough, but here are my 2 cents on this, because apparently stuff gets lost in discourse, especially discourse that the Dany fandom engages in.
First, let’s be clear that there are 2 incidents to take note of. When first Drogo gets hurt Mirri is the one that offers to help:
“Silver Lady,” a woman’s voice said behind her, “I can help the Great Rider with his hurts.” […] “I am named Mirri Maz Duur. I am godswife of this temple.”
Later on when Dany questions why she would want to help Drogo, Mirri answers— “All men are one flock, or so we are taught,” replied Mirri Maz Duur. “The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them.”
Despite the other riders being skeptical of Mirri, Dany starts to trust this verdict from Mirri herself, especially because Jorah confirmed that Mirri indeed spoke about a maester, someone who does know healing. Further on, Dany thinks that she could trust Mirri, and naively thinks it is because Dany “saved her from the hard hands of her rapers”. Whatever the reason for Dany’s trust, it is plain to her, and Mirri herself puts herself forward as a healer. This is a two way effort at this point.
Further in this very chapter Dany asks Mirri to attend to her when she would give birth, as she has been somewhat assured of Mirri’s capabilities; even to an untrained person, Mirri does some of the correct steps to dress Drogo’s wounds. Then Drogo imparts his “wisdom” and tells Dany that you don’t ask a slave, you tell them. You command them. Mirri is shown to agree and then the chapter ends on her quote from earlier about the Great Shepherd and his flock.
The next time is the really controversial one in this fandom. According to you: “But Mirri didn’t want to bring Drogo back. Dany had to push for it. Mirri was not clear about what it would entail, but she also didn’t want to do it. From what I gleaned, she was perfectly willing to let Dany and Rhaego live.” Mirri’s first dialogue is a stark reminder of Drogo’s mandate, berating and reminding Dany in one go that Mirri is a slave. I agree that Mirri didn’t want to bring back Drogo—but interestingly what we see is that Mirri says there are no conventional ways to bring Drogo back. Dany begs her, tries to entice her with her freedom—which is also interesting because this would only be possible now, with Drogo injured and no one to question if Dany makes such a decision and Mirri is able to slip away from the khalasar—and then Mirri tells her about a spell, which will have a price. We are agreed that Mirri is not clear what this price would be[1], and Dany comforts herself by choosing to believe the price is the horse’s life. Mirri also warns Dany that once she starts singing, no one should enter the tent, and no living man should look on the dead that would dance there that night. [2]
In tandem with Mirri’s spell inside the tent and the fight that starts outside, Dany starts to miscarry OR goes into labour, although I believe it is the former because notably at one point she says: “No,” she wept, “no, please, stop it, it’s too high, the price is too high(…) “My baby,” she screamed (…)” which happens when the crowd starts to attack her. To me, it seems like she is picking up on the fact that she has misunderstood what the price would be. Also, this starts happening before Dany gets taken inside the tent. Point of note is that Dany gets taken inside. Jorah goes with her. So, if whatever happened to Rhaego truly happened because of Dany going inside the tent--which is a popular gotcha in the fandom--then the choice of victim is interesting, because it is neither Jorah nor Dany, but the baby. [2]
When Dany wakes from her dreams—which she later notes already told her that Rhaego was dead—her concern is for the dragon eggs, which are, given an honest reading, all that her entire arc with the khalasar had been all about. She had dreamed about dragons returning from the beginning and she had put together what sort of conditions would be needed to engender this return. She also notes that “all her grief had burned away”. That she “felt sad” but “felt Rhaego receding from her, as if he had never been”.
The mention of her emotions is muted up until the point when she asks to speak to Mirri alone, and accuses her of misleading her about the price. Just pages earlier, Mirri had said that believing the horse would be the price was a lie that Dany told herself, which makes Dany mentally back pedal, because what Mirri is really saying is that Dany knew the price would be Rhaego yet she went ahead with the spell anyway. Coming back to when she speaks with Mirri alone, she finally accuses Mirri of knowing all along what the price was and Mirri answers that it was in response to what had been done to her temple—that indeed, the prophesized son of the Great Khal would never grow up to do what his father had done. [1]
From the beginning, the target had been Rhaego. Mirri never refutes this. She doesn’t even admit this in front of anyone but Dany. At this point, she forfeits plausible deniability and admits her purpose. This is as clear as it gets. Later that night, Dany—notably—tells herself that “there are powers stronger than hatred, spells older and truer than anything the maegi had learned” alluding to what she would set out to do. Something her own forebears had failed in: to bring dragons back by way of spellwork/bloodmagic. In the next chapter, Mirri is tied up, she is aware that Dany is attempting some spell, then she tries to goad Dany. Dany simply tells Jhogo to shut her up.
Finally, their last interactions consist of Mirri realizing that Dany might be onto something and tries to make a last stand by saying Dany will not have her screams. By this point, Dany’s anger has made one (1) appearance, and that’s when Jorah hesitated to tie Mirri to the pyre (Jorah also doesn’t even know what Mirri all but admitted to Dany). Dany’s final answers consist of thanking Mirri for what she has taught her, and that she only needs her life. That is, one half of the equation that makes up the bloodmagic spell that would revive the dragons—not an object of ire, or a focus for Dany’s revenge or anything really driven by such emotions.
I think this answers this question of yours: “If Dany’s reaction wasn’t motivated by her pain and revenge, what was it? I don’t expect anything from Dany but I simply think it’s interesting that she doesn’t think about it given that she is a reflective character who does not like violence. She questions her own actions often. This is why it’s interesting to me that this big life-changing thing she did is not something she dwells on. That’s all.” Something that isn’t driven by violent emotion wouldn’t register in Dany’s mind as being on the scale of her stringing up slave owners, something she does on a large scale and in direct response to their provocation. So, I think it makes sense that she doesn’t reflect on it. Dany is notorious for forgiving slights/insults/attacks against herself. Her anger drives her actions when she faces injustice. But what Mirri did affected Rhaego. This is an outlier situation, and personally… I think her not reflecting on the violence of this particular event is warranted. Not only is it personally scarring to her, it also overlaps with her trauma with the khalasar but then confusingly concludes with a moment of triumph: the dragons.
“I think X ship will happen because of these things in the books,” and possibly misinterpreting those things or not taking the full context into account is not the same as misconstruing someone’s meta and implying that their take is a result of the ship they like.” The fact that this bizarre coincidence in the ASOIAF fandom hasn’t made an impression on you yet is interesting. I think that possibly misunderstanding (to different extents) the entire institution of slavery, taxes, feudal rule in Westeros and then applying that to understanding characters does significantly affect their interpretation. Themes, which are for eighth graders as we all know, suddenly do start seeming as if interpreted by eighth graders.
“They like Dany. I would know. We’ve spoken in DMs to talk Dany meta. My view on her and where her story might go is more optimistic but we both love drawing parallels between Dany and Anakin Skywalker and to do this you must believe that Dany is fundamentally good with a big heart.” Their posts are public, so your DMs are not of any value to me in this discussion. I don’t know you personally, but I know quite a bit of how atopvisenyashill approaches the text and what their takes are, since they are so prolific. For your information, they do screenshot users, although they are kind enough to scrub out handles. This might be a regular occurrence or it might be rare, but it happened at least one time.
Given that the high amount of hate and misinterpretation Dany’s character has received over the years came from Sansa fans, from people who love Jon or Young Griff far more—but really, in recent years, mostly from Sansa fans who ship her with Jon, it does kind of bear mentioning when Dany is being discussed, because the overlap continues to happen. Yes, I do believe shipping Jonsa with any seriousness affects someone's understanding of the themes of this book series, and if you believe otherwise, you are free to do so. People making fun of Jonsas really came about after years of Pol!Jon, the wonder theory of their entire belief system. Any amount of ridicule after that is pretty much warranted.
Lastly, I read your linked post, and there are overlaps between your understanding of some events and mine. However, I think you should re-read Dany's dreams and recontextualize them with what really happened at Drogo's pyre. I have talked about some other points, like Jorah and the tent in this post already. Dany doesn't really violate her own principles, because her principles--the principles that she would go on to solidify, rework and integrate with what "peace" requires later on--are that justice involves that people be freed from the yoke of slavery, not that... whatever slaves do to other innocents be handwaved away. It always bears mentioning that Dany is Mirri's "master" in name only, and that she is really under the command of Drogo and his bloodriders, just like Dany herself had been--whether that was apparent to Mirri or not is debatable.
