#outofcryo

The Targaryens were conquerors. Well guess what? They got overthrown. It happens. They made a point of staying ABOVE their subjects, of taking an exceptional pride in their heritage from Valeria. They inbred like crazy to keep their blood “pure” instead of doing more marrying among the Great Houses of Westeros to secure their place as actual citizens of the land they ruled. The rule of the Seven Kingdoms has been returned to their native people. It took 300 years, but the invaders were cast back out. 

Daenerys, in my opinion, is her father’s daughter. Mad. It’s a quieter madness, an obsessive sense of entitlement to a birthright that was taken from her. Literally NOTHING will be good enough until she takes the Iron Throne. She was a Queen in Mereen, but that wasn’t good enough. She could have gone on to build a flourishing kingdom there, completely rewriting the rules of society to whatever ideal she pleased. Nobody gonna argue with the Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains. A decade or so, and the cities of Slaver’s Bay would be completely revamped.

But noooooooooo, even KNOWING what a hierarchical clusterfuck Westeros is, with its Seven Kingdoms and endless pissing contests between the great houses, she HAS TO reclaim her “birthright”. And she has NO problem doing whatever it takes to get what she wants. She tries to be reasonable to make herself a more likeable ruler, but she has no problem burning people alive, nailing them to stakes along the road, and feeding them to her dragons if they displease or threaten her. She does this with almost no regret or hesitation. She’s not much better than Cersei, when it comes to killing people that get in her way.

The Targaryen line was fading long before she was born. The dragons died off in captivity, inbreeding and infighting reduced the bloodline to a handful of genetically questionable rulers holding onto control and sanity by a thread. What if the dragons falter again? Captivity doesn’t suit them, and Dany isn’t going to make any friends by allowing them to pillage the land to sustain them as they see fit.

ALSO, there is the matter of her suitability to be queen on the basis of her infertility. The witch that “helped” Drago told her when he died that he wouldn’t return to Dany until her womb bore a living child (also until mountains blow away in the wind, and the seas go dry, etc etc something like that). And, barring some super fancy magic shit we haven’t seen YET in the GoT world yet, that’s not gonna happen. So she’s effectively infertile. She cannot produce an heir to the throne she’s so damn desperate to reclaim. One more generation of Targaryen rule, then the Seven Kingdoms would be right back where they were before she showed up. And she’s damn well aware that inheritance is a huge part of maintaining power. She could name a non-blood heir, but it would be highly contested, at best. (including Jon Snow, who, as a bastard, has no LEGITIMATE claim, and an extremely slim chance of being able to PROVE beyond all doubt that he even IS a Targaryen heir)

Now, I will give her credit. She’s badass, I can see the appeal. She’s been through some serious shit and come out on top and in charge. But her driving force as a character is STILL what was drilled into her as a child. That she’s entitled to the Iron Throne because she’s a Targaryen. In this aspect, she has either grown in a bad way, or not at all. This was so ingrained into her that she cannot fathom wanting anything else, so she hasn’t expanded her self-worth beyond what she was trained to want. She has gained all of these titles, but the one that was taken from her insane father is still the most important to her. Not the ones she has EARNED through her own actions, but the ones that she inherited from the last of an inbred, failing dynasty.