Shell_Stormborn

Chapter 3/73

Mother of dragons

Final

NO ANTIPROPAGANDA PLEASE

Propaganda under the cut

They rode by night, and by day took refuge from the sun beneath their tents. Soon enough Dany learned the truth of Doreah's words. This was no kindly country. They left a trail of dead and dying horses behind them as they went, for Pono, Jhaqo, and the others had seized the best of Drogo's herds, leaving to Dany the old and the scrawny, the sickly and the lame, the broken animals and the ill-tempered. It was the same with the people. They are not strong, she told herself, so I must be their strength. I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt. However frightened my heart, when they look upon my face they must see only Drogo's queen. She felt older than her fourteen years. If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done. (A Clash of Kings, Daenerys I)

~

" Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?" (A Storm of Swords, Daenerys III)

~

"Let them come. In me they shall find a sterner foe than Cleon. I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage." (A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys IV)

~

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people. (A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys V)

~

"The best calumnies are spiced with truth," suggested Qavo, "but the girl's true sin cannot be denied. This arrogant child has taken it upon herself to smash the slave trade, but that traffic was never confined to Slaver's Bay. It was part of the sea of trade that spanned the world, and the dragon queen has clouded the water. Behind the Black Wall, lords of ancient blood sleep poorly, listening as their kitchen slaves sharpen their long knives. Slaves grow our food, clean our streets, teach our young. They guard our walls, row our galleys, fight our battles. And now when they look east, they see this young queen shining from afar, this breaker of chains. The Old Blood cannot suffer that. Poor men hate her too. Even the vilest beggar stands higher than a slave. This dragon queen would rob him of that consolation." (A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion VI)

~

"I am no lady," the widow replied, "just Vogarro's whore. You want to be gone from here before the tigers come. Should you reach your queen [Daenerys], give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis." She touched the faded scar upon her wrinkled cheek, where her tears had been cut away. "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon." (A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion VII)

She also helps sick refugees personally, putting her health at risk (because they were contagious) and bathes and old man with her own hands:

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing. The Astapori had no place to go. Thousands remained outside Meereen's thick walls—men and women and children, old men and little girls and newborn babes. Many were sick, most were starved, and all were doomed to die. Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barber-surgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing.

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. "I will not turn away from them," she said stubbornly. "A queen must know the sufferings of her people."

Suffering was the only thing they did not lack. "There is scarcely a horse or mule left, though many rode from Astapor," Marselen reported to her. "They've eaten every one, Your Grace, along with every rat and scavenger dog that they could catch. Now some have begun to eat their own dead."

[....]

Ser Barristan watched with ill-concealed apprehension. "You should not linger here overlong, Your Grace. The Astapori are being fed, as you commanded. There's no more we can do for the poor wretches. We should repair back to the city."

"Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you." Dany vaulted down from the horse. "I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares."

Jhogo sucked in his breath. "Khaleesi, no." The bell in his braid rang softly as he dismounted. "You must not get any closer. Do not let them touch you! Do not!"

Dany walked right past him. There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow. "His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?"

By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. (A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys VI)

While crossing the dessert she gives a dying person water from her own skin and refuses to leave until she gave her last breath:

Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on. (A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I)

She swears a powerful revenge upon two men who gang-raped and killed a girl she tried to protect:

"Eroeh?" asked Dany, remembering the frightened child she had saved outside the city of the Lamb Men.

"Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo's bloodrider now," said Jhogo. "He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bloodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat."

"It was her fate, Khaleesi," said Aggo.

If I look back I am lost. "It was a cruel fate," Dany said, "yet not so cruel as Mago's will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh."

The Dothraki exchanged uncertain glances. "Khaleesi," the handmaid Irri explained, as if to a child, "Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back."

She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." (A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX)

She plays into the misogynistic views people have on her only to subvert them:

But it was Prendahl na Ghezn who spoke for the sellswords. "You would do well to take your rabble elsewhere," he said. "You took Astapor by treachery, but Yunkai shall not fall so easily."

"Five hundred of your Stormcrows against ten thousand of my Unsullied," said Dany. "I am only a young girl and do not understand the ways of war, yet these odds seem poor to me." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

~

Full dark had fallen by the time the Yunkai'i departed from her camp. It promised to be a gloomy night; moonless, starless, with a chill wet wind blowing from the west. A fine black night, thought Dany. The fires burned all around her, small orange stars strewn across hill and field. "Ser Jorah," she said, "summon my bloodriders." Dany seated herself on a mound of cushions to await them, her dragons all about her. When they were assembled, she said, "An hour past midnight should be time enough."

"Yes, Khaleesi," said Rakharo. "Time for what?"

"To mount our attack."

Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. "You told the sellswords—"

"—that I wanted their answers on the morrow. I made no promises about tonight. The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai'i believe they have three days. We will take them under cover of this darkness."

"They will have scouts watching for us."

"And in the dark, they will see hundreds of campfires burning," said Dany. "If they see anything at all."

"Khaleesi," said Jhogo, "I will deal with these scouts. They are no riders, only slavers on horses."

"Just so," she agreed. "I think we should attack from three sides. Grey Worm, your Unsullied shall strike at them from right and left, while my kos lead my horse in wedge for a thrust through their center. Slave soldiers will never stand before mounted Dothraki." She smiled. "To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?"

"I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen's sister," Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

"Aye," said Arstan Whitebeard, "and a queen as well." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

She is the queen of burns :

"The Stormcrows do not stand alone," said Prendahl.

"Stormcrows do not stand at all. They fly, at the first sign of thunder. Perhaps you should be flying now. I have heard that sellswords are notoriously unfaithful. What will it avail you to be staunch, when the Second Sons change sides?" (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

~

"The Second Sons have faced worse odds and won."

"The Second Sons have faced worse odds and run. At Qohor, when the Three Thousand made their stand. Or do you deny it?" (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

THIS quote !!!!

"Woman, you bray like an ass, and make no more sense."

"Woman?" She chuckled. "Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man." Dany met his stare. "I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo's riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

Final

NO ANTIPROPAGANDA PLEASE

Propaganda under the cut

They rode by night, and by day took refuge from the sun beneath their tents. Soon enough Dany learned the truth of Doreah's words. This was no kindly country. They left a trail of dead and dying horses behind them as they went, for Pono, Jhaqo, and the others had seized the best of Drogo's herds, leaving to Dany the old and the scrawny, the sickly and the lame, the broken animals and the ill-tempered. It was the same with the people. They are not strong, she told herself, so I must be their strength. I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt. However frightened my heart, when they look upon my face they must see only Drogo's queen. She felt older than her fourteen years. If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done. (A Clash of Kings, Daenerys I)

~

" Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?" (A Storm of Swords, Daenerys III)

~

"Let them come. In me they shall find a sterner foe than Cleon. I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage." (A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys IV)

~

A queen belongs not to herself but to her people. (A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys V)

~

"The best calumnies are spiced with truth," suggested Qavo, "but the girl's true sin cannot be denied. This arrogant child has taken it upon herself to smash the slave trade, but that traffic was never confined to Slaver's Bay. It was part of the sea of trade that spanned the world, and the dragon queen has clouded the water. Behind the Black Wall, lords of ancient blood sleep poorly, listening as their kitchen slaves sharpen their long knives. Slaves grow our food, clean our streets, teach our young. They guard our walls, row our galleys, fight our battles. And now when they look east, they see this young queen shining from afar, this breaker of chains. The Old Blood cannot suffer that. Poor men hate her too. Even the vilest beggar stands higher than a slave. This dragon queen would rob him of that consolation." (A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion VI)

~

"I am no lady," the widow replied, "just Vogarro's whore. You want to be gone from here before the tigers come. Should you reach your queen [Daenerys], give her a message from the slaves of Old Volantis." She touched the faded scar upon her wrinkled cheek, where her tears had been cut away. "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon." (A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion VII)

She also helps sick refugees personally, putting her health at risk (because they were contagious) and bathes and old man with her own hands:

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing. The Astapori had no place to go. Thousands remained outside Meereen's thick walls—men and women and children, old men and little girls and newborn babes. Many were sick, most were starved, and all were doomed to die. Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barber-surgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing.

Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well. Too many of the men they had sent into the camp had been stricken by the flux themselves. Others had been attacked on the way back to the city. Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. "I will not turn away from them," she said stubbornly. "A queen must know the sufferings of her people."

Suffering was the only thing they did not lack. "There is scarcely a horse or mule left, though many rode from Astapor," Marselen reported to her. "They've eaten every one, Your Grace, along with every rat and scavenger dog that they could catch. Now some have begun to eat their own dead."

[....]

Ser Barristan watched with ill-concealed apprehension. "You should not linger here overlong, Your Grace. The Astapori are being fed, as you commanded. There's no more we can do for the poor wretches. We should repair back to the city."

"Go if you wish, ser. I will not detain you. I will not detain any of you." Dany vaulted down from the horse. "I cannot heal them, but I can show them that their Mother cares."

Jhogo sucked in his breath. "Khaleesi, no." The bell in his braid rang softly as he dismounted. "You must not get any closer. Do not let them touch you! Do not!"

Dany walked right past him. There was an old man on the ground a few feet away, moaning and staring up at the grey belly of the clouds. She knelt beside him, wrinkling her nose at the smell, and pushed back his dirty grey hair to feel his brow. "His flesh is on fire. I need water to bathe him. Seawater will serve. Marselen, will you fetch some for me? I need oil as well, for the pyre. Who will help me burn the dead?"

By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. (A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys VI)

While crossing the dessert she gives a dying person water from her own skin and refuses to leave until she gave her last breath:

Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on. (A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I)

She swears a powerful revenge upon two men who gang-raped and killed a girl she tried to protect:

"Eroeh?" asked Dany, remembering the frightened child she had saved outside the city of the Lamb Men.

"Mago seized her, who is Khal Jhaqo's bloodrider now," said Jhogo. "He mounted her high and low and gave her to his khal, and Jhaqo gave her to his other bloodriders. They were six. When they were done with her, they cut her throat."

"It was her fate, Khaleesi," said Aggo.

If I look back I am lost. "It was a cruel fate," Dany said, "yet not so cruel as Mago's will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear it by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh."

The Dothraki exchanged uncertain glances. "Khaleesi," the handmaid Irri explained, as if to a child, "Jhaqo is a khal now, with twenty thousand riders at his back."

She lifted her head. "And I am Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal Drogo." (A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX)

She plays into the misogynistic views people have on her only to subvert them:

But it was Prendahl na Ghezn who spoke for the sellswords. "You would do well to take your rabble elsewhere," he said. "You took Astapor by treachery, but Yunkai shall not fall so easily."

"Five hundred of your Stormcrows against ten thousand of my Unsullied," said Dany. "I am only a young girl and do not understand the ways of war, yet these odds seem poor to me." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

~

Full dark had fallen by the time the Yunkai'i departed from her camp. It promised to be a gloomy night; moonless, starless, with a chill wet wind blowing from the west. A fine black night, thought Dany. The fires burned all around her, small orange stars strewn across hill and field. "Ser Jorah," she said, "summon my bloodriders." Dany seated herself on a mound of cushions to await them, her dragons all about her. When they were assembled, she said, "An hour past midnight should be time enough."

"Yes, Khaleesi," said Rakharo. "Time for what?"

"To mount our attack."

Ser Jorah Mormont scowled. "You told the sellswords—"

"—that I wanted their answers on the morrow. I made no promises about tonight. The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai'i believe they have three days. We will take them under cover of this darkness."

"They will have scouts watching for us."

"And in the dark, they will see hundreds of campfires burning," said Dany. "If they see anything at all."

"Khaleesi," said Jhogo, "I will deal with these scouts. They are no riders, only slavers on horses."

"Just so," she agreed. "I think we should attack from three sides. Grey Worm, your Unsullied shall strike at them from right and left, while my kos lead my horse in wedge for a thrust through their center. Slave soldiers will never stand before mounted Dothraki." She smiled. "To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war. What do you think, my lords?"

"I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen's sister," Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

"Aye," said Arstan Whitebeard, "and a queen as well." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

She is the queen of burns :

"The Stormcrows do not stand alone," said Prendahl.

"Stormcrows do not stand at all. They fly, at the first sign of thunder. Perhaps you should be flying now. I have heard that sellswords are notoriously unfaithful. What will it avail you to be staunch, when the Second Sons change sides?" (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

~

"The Second Sons have faced worse odds and won."

"The Second Sons have faced worse odds and run. At Qohor, when the Three Thousand made their stand. Or do you deny it?" (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

THIS quote !!!!

"Woman, you bray like an ass, and make no more sense."

"Woman?" She chuckled. "Is that meant to insult me? I would return the slap, if I took you for a man." Dany met his stare. "I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, khaleesi to Drogo's riders, and queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys IV)

I reconcile it by knowing that George R.R. Martin is constantly telling us that the powerless are not to blame for the things they have to do to survive, especially when they’re in positions where they cannot object to what’s being done to them. 

I would never claim that Sansa Stark is responsible-by-proxy for Lannister atrocities just because she was forcefully married to one, but I see people blaming Daenerys for Khal Drogo’s atrocities all the time. I would never claim that Bran, Arya, Sansa, or Rickon are responsible for Robb’s failure to keep all Stark loyalist soldiers in check (leading them to rape and pillage their way through the Riverlands) just because they’re Starks or his heirs/siblings. I would never blame Myrcella or Tommen Baratheon for the crimes of their parents and their families. I would never blame Jon Snow for the crimes of the Night’s Watch, which functions as a penal colony and is the primary infrastructure responsible for systematically hunting and discriminating against Wildlings. I would never claim that Sansa is complicit in murder as the de facto Lady of the Vale simply because she’s hiding out as LF’s daughter and because she got that position only after Lysa was murdered. 

And I don’t see any of you blaming every single courtier or noble who works with House Lannister, knowing what Tywin did to Elia Martell and her children, or every single person who sided with Robert Baratheon during Robert’s Rebellion, knowing what he did to the Targaryen innocents and children and knowing that he smiled at the corpses of Elia and her children. I don’t see you blaming Jaime Lannister for being part of Aerys’ Kingsguard and not doing anything when he heard Aerys raping Rhaella. I don’t see any of you blaming Sandor Clegane for serving the Lannisters loyally for years. I don’t see any of you blaming the men of the Night’s Watch for working with Craster, a man who rapes and marries his daughters and sacrifices his sons to the Others, in exchange for shelter, food, and information. I don’t see any of you writing essays about what Victarion Greyjoy did to his wife. No call out posts for Arys Oakheart slapping Sansa Stark when ordered to by Joffrey. No essays about how Oberyn Martell stole Obara Sand from her mother and slapped her to teach her that she belongs with him instead of her (a lowborn prostitute). No one blaming Tyrion for what Cersei and later Tywin do to Alayaya. So on and so forth. 

Finally, I don’t blame Jon Snow for working with all the Wildlings and all the men of the Night’s Watch, despite these truths: 

Jon lifted his eyes at the sullen voice. Grenn loomed over him, thick of neck and red of face, with three of his friends behind him. He knew Todder, a short ugly boy with an unpleasant voice. The recruits all called him Toad. The other two were the ones Yoren had brought north with them, Jon remembered, rapers taken down in the Fingers. He’d forgotten their names. He hardly ever spoke to them, if he could help it. They were brutes and bullies, without a thimble of honor between them. (Jon III, AGOT) 

Mormont stood before the altar, the rainbow shining on his broad bald head. “You came to us outlaws,” he began, “poachers, rapers, debtors, killers, and thieves. You came to us children. You came to us alone, in chains, with neither friends nor honor. You came to us rich, and you came to us poor. Some of you bear the names of proud houses. Others have only bastards’ names, or no names at all. It makes no matter. All that is past now. On the Wall, we are all one house. (Jon VI, AGOT) 

Septon Cellador made the sign of the star. Othell Yarwyck grunted. Bowen Marsh said, “Some might call this treason. These are wildlings. Savages, raiders, rapers, more beast than man.” Tormund is none of those things,“ said Jon, “no more than Mance Rayder. But even if every word you said was true, they are still men, Bowen. Living men, human as you and me. Winter is coming, my lords, and when it does, we living men will need to stand together against the dead.” (Jon VIII, ADWD) 

I would never accuse Jon of being a rape apologist or complicit in rape/murder/pillaging (that many of the Wildlings do indeed engage in) because I understand the importance of his crusade and I know why he wants to unite the Wildlings and the Northmen. I know how that fits into the context of the series as a whole and why it’s thematically consistent. 

You people talk on and on and on about mercy, about forgiveness, about moral grayness, about nuance, about innocence. And yet you people fail to apply this to Dany and her people every goddamn fucking time. 

Daenerys is not to blame for her brother’s prejudices or Khal Drogo’s crimes. She had no power in what happened to her. Irri and Jhiqui are not to blame for being sex slaves and serving the Dothraki. Dany’s bloodriders are not to blame for internalizing Dothraki prejudices, because that’s all they learned as they grew up. Dany’s Khalasar is not to blame for Drogo’s crimes or his bloodrider and Ko’s crimes because they were the weakest and most vulnerable members of the Khalasar, and many of them were former slaves. Missandei had no choice in being Kraznys’ translator. The Unsullied had no fucking choice in being forced to kill children and puppies, especially considering that when the trainees fail to do so, THEY are killed. Strong Belwas had no choice in killing people in the fighting pits of Meereen because he was a slave. The slaves of Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen had no choice in serving the masters because they were slaves. 

So she’s a bitch when she frees The Unsullied but she’s also a tyrant when she kills the elite of Meereen? 

The Targaryen Children, photographed by Willem Darry 5 years after their parents passing.

aka MODERN TARGARYEN CHILDREN! I drew viserys and rhaegar ages ago, and decided to finish it all yesterday.

Details below!