If you don’t know who these characters are and what this image is from, this post is probably not for you.
I’m assuming readers of this post have seen up to season 8, episode 4 of Game of Thrones. Spoilers and ranting ahead.
In her final conversation with Daenerys Targaryen, Olenna Tyrrel, Game of Thrones’ most cunning, long-lived, and sharp-tongued matriarch, explains the secret to her political success and survival has been to ignore the advice of clever men in favor of trusting her own mind.
“You’re a dragon,” she says to Dany. “Be a dragon.”
And, at first, the young queen takes Olenna’s words to heart. Shortly after this scene, Dany leads an ambush of Cersei’s forces and then rides off to save what remains of the northern expedition, both against her advisor Tyrion’s wishes. And, despite some losses, those decisions were the right ones.
But then most of Dany’s female allies die, leaving her surrounded by “clever men” and would-be enemies, all of whom want to control her actions and guide her decisions. And, despite herself, she has once again begun to let them.
While the male characters wring their hands over whether or not Dany listens to them enough, believing her willingness to do so is ultimately what determines whether she is a truly fit ruler, they conveniently ignore the fact that listening to them is what pushed her into her current, terrible corner.
I am so disappointed in you two.
Lest we forget, Dany could have taken King’s Landing when she arrived in Westeros. If she had acted when she wanted, the way she wanted, Cersei would not have had time to develop the weapons she now has, nor would she have been able to assemble the forces currently under her control. Dany could have defeated Cersei in a single day. The country would be under Dany’s control, and they wouldn’t have needed to waste the time and manpower it took to capture that stupid wight and bring it to Cersei. Rhaegal and Viserion would probably still be alive; Thoros, Beric, and Missandei, too. And, because they wouldn’t have wasted that time, they could have saved more people in the north from the Night King. Yes, innocent people in King’s Landing would have died. But so many people have already died, and the deaths of many more seem imminent.
Just look at all those human shields.
Dany’s greatest fault isn’t that she doesn’t listen to her advisers enough; it’s that she listens to them too much.
Contrast this with Jon, who never really listens to anyone, especially the women in his life, and who, as a result, consistently makes foolhardy decisions that put both him and those who follow him in spectacular danger. In season 6, for instance, Sansa insists they need more soldiers before confronting Ramsay on the field. He acknowledges she’s right but goes to battle anyway, knowing he is leading his men to die. They only avoid complete destruction when Sansa unexpectedly shows up with the knights of the Vale, a plan she kept secret because, again, she knew she couldn’t trust Jon to listen to her.
Likewise, Dany and her dragons are the main reasons anyone Jon led beyond the Wall survived the season 7 mission that cost Viserion, Thoros, and several redshirts. Jon himself lived because Benjen also rode in and sacrificed himself.
More recently, the plans for the Battle of Winterfell that everyone on the internet thinks are stupid and caused the near-complete extermination of the Dothraki were Jon’s plans. He only survived that battle because, first, Dany and Drogon came in to save him from wights and, then, Arya killed the Night King before undead Viserion could toast him.
Then there is the fact that Jon actually did die before, killed by the very people he was supposed to be leading, and is only around now because Melisandre brought him back.
Of course, every character on the show has needed saving every now and again. But since his resurrection, Jon specifically puts himself—and everyone who follows him—in danger in a way that is not simply brave, but speaks to underlying suicidal tendencies. Shortly before the Battle of the Bastards, he asks Mel not to bring him back if he falls during the fight. And then he does this:
Jon, ready to go down fighting in the Battle of the Bastards. Image from Den of Geek.
It’s a heroic image of bravery in the face of (almost) certain death, but it is also the image of someone who has given up on living.
Then, at the Battle of Winterfell, he does essentially the same thing when he stands up and yells at undead Viserion. There is no strategic reason for this—it won’t help him accomplish his mission of getting to Bran or save anyone else in the courtyard. And, despite what some corners of the internet insist, he was not telling Arya to “Go!” Instead, it’s another moment where Jon gives up in the face of overwhelming odds. He is asking to die.
Jon Snow’s suicidal intent isn’t even subtext here. It’s just text.
My point is not that Jon is terrible or that Dany is perfect. It’s that he is at least as flawed as she is.
Yet the assumptions of pretty much everyone, both on the show and in the audience, seems to be that Jon would make the better ruler and that Dany is in danger of going mad. In internet-world, this means Jon’s flaws are consistently blamed on bad writing and his failures frequently reimagined as successes. Dany’s flaws are blamed on her character and her character is reimagined to be far worse than it actually is.
There is a very obvious sexist undercurrent to all of this, one that brings me right back to the 2016 election, and I’m not sure yet whether the writers are trying to illustrate this sexism or are actively participating in it. If the show does have Dany “turn,” it will have two violent, cruel, power-hungry queens, a fact that would be even more disappointing given that Cersei and Dany are also the first queens of Westeros. (I won’t call them mad because I don’t believe Cersei is crazy. Cruel, yes. Crazy, no.) It would undo all of the (uneven) feminist work GoT has accomplished up to this point and make it yet another example of a recent show/movie/world that can’t quite imagine decent women standing at the top of a power pyramid. As a society, we have become more-or-less comfortable with the idea of the young rebel woman—as embodied by Arya and early Dany on the show and pretty much every young adult movie heroine of the last 10 years—and even competent lieutenant women. But not experienced, smart, ruling women. We, like the people of Westeros, are more comfortable putting a man who doesn’t want and isn’t particularly suited to the job in charge because, it seems, he scares us less. Even though he should really scare us so much more.
During the celebrations following the Battle of Winterfell, Tormund celebrates Jon for riding a dragon, calling him “king” for the feat, while Dany—who has done the same thing better and longer—watches on. Moments like this still give me hope the show is trying to comment on sexist double-standards rather than simply perpetuate them.
And yet, in the same episode, Varys and Tyrion—two of the series’s supposedly smartest characters—agree that Dany is too strong for a co-rulership with Jon to work.
Wut?
Aside from the misogynistic nature of claiming a female ruler is somehow too strong to lead (has anyone ever said this about a man?), their assertion just isn’t true. As I’ve already established, and as Dany herself says to Sansa in a previous season 8 episode, Dany has bent to Jon’s will far more than he has bent to hers, sacrificed far more for him than he has for her. But this time there is no one in the room to contradict their claims, making it difficult to tell whether the show runners actually share this view. What is clear, however, is that a significant portion of the viewing audience is taking the opinions of Varys and Tyrion as facts.
In this most recent episode (s8, e4), Dany pleads with Jon to keep his heritage a secret because, she correctly asserts, exposing his true parentage will ruin everything they both have been trying to build, putting Dany and her claim to the throne in real peril while forcing Jon into a position he doesn’t want. He ignores her (typical), and by the end of the episode all of Dany’s closest advisors are either actively working against her or seriously considering it.
Sigh.
Personally, I hope the show will end with the throne destroyed and a new system of government put in place, thematically and literally bringing an end to the game of thrones. After all, what would be the message of Jon or Dany (or Tyrion) bringing back the Targaryen dynasty? That only people with certain bloodlines are worthy of ruling? That magical abilities or magical alliances are necessary to lead? How would that story have any worthwhile meaning in our current moment? How would it honor the underlying themes of the show?
Even if the series ends the way I hope (and that is a big if), how it gets there also matters. Our stories reflect our present, but they also shape our future. Storytellers therefore have real power, especially when their tales reach and impact as many people as GoT clearly does. Let’s hope the storytellers behind Game of Thrones are taking that power seriously. Because sexism and misogyny are already exhausting, depressing realities we live with everyday, and if they are going to show up in fiction, they need to be there for the purpose of ultimately making our world a little bit better, not worse.
I have never begged for anything, but I am begging you. Don’t ruin Game of Thrones by ruining Dany. Please.