Dear Daenerys Targaryen of the A Song of Ice and Fire series...
You know, I had serious, serious doubts about you at first. A beautiful silver-haired princess with purple eyes who's one of two rightful heirs to the throne, was orphaned as a baby, has an abusive brother and was given to a stranger in an arranged marriage? I mean, come ON. You started out as every goddamned fantasy princess cliché in EXISTENCE.
But you didn't stay that way. You adapted. You learned. You grew confident and savvy. You listened to people from a dozen different cultures and you respected them. and you learned from your mistakes...and you made some abysmal mistakes. But by the end of A Storm of Swords, you had grown in a very young but a very capable young woman who recognized--unlike every OTHER candidate for the Iron Throne--that just being of royal blood wasn't enough to make you a good queen. That you needed to learn how to rule.
Now, eleven years after A Storm of Swords, you're back in A Dance With Dragons. And I have one question:
WHAT THE EVER-LOVING FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?
Suddenly, the capable young queen is gone, replaced by a doppelganger who whines about clothes, thinks about her mercenary boyfriend Daario and can't be arsed to train her dragons not to attack and eat humans. In the last book you were in, you INVENTED ways to train your dragons! They were relatively safe to be around unless you gave an order to attack! And you're in a city that historically has had experience with dragons and dragonriders. And it has libraries. You could probably find a few books on dragon training if you looked--and if you can't read them, YOU ARE THE QUEEN. You can hire a translator or two from somewhere on this planet, surely!
But instead...you can't be bothered. No. You're shoving two of your dragons in dungeon-like pits instead, and just leaving them there. But you still expect them to carry you to Westeros and fight for you in your battle for the crown. How do you go from loving a pet and trying to ensure that people and property aren't harmed by it to this?
Also, why are you having so much trouble understanding why people would resent having their armies destroyed, their cities sacked and their governments taken over by a foreign usurper? Especially the last, for you constantly refer to Robert Baratheon--the man who threw your family off the throne--as the Usurper. You hate and resent him no end, and you've never even seen the guy.
And your intelligence. What happened to that, Dany? You were pretty damned sharp before. Now you can't spot when a evil-Grand Vizier-type and a police chief who's collaborating with your regime are manipulating you to find their scapegoat guilty. And Daenerys...they're dropping ANVILS. Great big mountain-sized anvils.
Not to mention that you keep simpering at all and sundry. You never stressed your youth and inexperience before; rather, you tried to demonstrate that you were intelligent and competent, despite your youth, your inexperience and your femaleness. If men patronized and insulted you, you didn't try to make yourself look weaker. You may have smiled politely, but there was confidence in your bearing and conviction in your voice. You made them deal with you as an equal, and that was great. Maybe "I am but a young girl and inexperienced" is supposed to be sarcasm, but after you say it a few billion times to men who agree that yeah, your inexperience, youth and girlishness makes you easy to dismiss or manipulate, the sarcasm does NOT come through.
I don't know who the hell you are, Ms. Doppelganger, but you are not welcome in this series. I want the competent, capable, intelligent Dany back. I want the inventive girl who comes up with dragon-training techniques that no one has needed for more than three centuries. I want the girl who can be betrayed and hurt and who will then pick herself up from the ashes and start all over again, damn it. I want the awesome young woman that Dany has proven she can be.
This series does NOT need Targaryen Princess Barbie.
But you didn't stay that way. You adapted. You learned. You grew confident and savvy. You listened to people from a dozen different cultures and you respected them. and you learned from your mistakes...and you made some abysmal mistakes. But by the end of A Storm of Swords, you had grown in a very young but a very capable young woman who recognized--unlike every OTHER candidate for the Iron Throne--that just being of royal blood wasn't enough to make you a good queen. That you needed to learn how to rule.
Now, eleven years after A Storm of Swords, you're back in A Dance With Dragons. And I have one question:
WHAT THE EVER-LOVING FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?
Suddenly, the capable young queen is gone, replaced by a doppelganger who whines about clothes, thinks about her mercenary boyfriend Daario and can't be arsed to train her dragons not to attack and eat humans. In the last book you were in, you INVENTED ways to train your dragons! They were relatively safe to be around unless you gave an order to attack! And you're in a city that historically has had experience with dragons and dragonriders. And it has libraries. You could probably find a few books on dragon training if you looked--and if you can't read them, YOU ARE THE QUEEN. You can hire a translator or two from somewhere on this planet, surely!
But instead...you can't be bothered. No. You're shoving two of your dragons in dungeon-like pits instead, and just leaving them there. But you still expect them to carry you to Westeros and fight for you in your battle for the crown. How do you go from loving a pet and trying to ensure that people and property aren't harmed by it to this?
Also, why are you having so much trouble understanding why people would resent having their armies destroyed, their cities sacked and their governments taken over by a foreign usurper? Especially the last, for you constantly refer to Robert Baratheon--the man who threw your family off the throne--as the Usurper. You hate and resent him no end, and you've never even seen the guy.
And your intelligence. What happened to that, Dany? You were pretty damned sharp before. Now you can't spot when a evil-Grand Vizier-type and a police chief who's collaborating with your regime are manipulating you to find their scapegoat guilty. And Daenerys...they're dropping ANVILS. Great big mountain-sized anvils.
Not to mention that you keep simpering at all and sundry. You never stressed your youth and inexperience before; rather, you tried to demonstrate that you were intelligent and competent, despite your youth, your inexperience and your femaleness. If men patronized and insulted you, you didn't try to make yourself look weaker. You may have smiled politely, but there was confidence in your bearing and conviction in your voice. You made them deal with you as an equal, and that was great. Maybe "I am but a young girl and inexperienced" is supposed to be sarcasm, but after you say it a few billion times to men who agree that yeah, your inexperience, youth and girlishness makes you easy to dismiss or manipulate, the sarcasm does NOT come through.
I don't know who the hell you are, Ms. Doppelganger, but you are not welcome in this series. I want the competent, capable, intelligent Dany back. I want the inventive girl who comes up with dragon-training techniques that no one has needed for more than three centuries. I want the girl who can be betrayed and hurt and who will then pick herself up from the ashes and start all over again, damn it. I want the awesome young woman that Dany has proven she can be.
This series does NOT need Targaryen Princess Barbie.