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Daenerys Targaryen's tropes - The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask
A princess or a queen who is the supreme ruler of her country. She is usually beautiful but certainly clever, strong-willed and charismatic and she cares about her land and her people.
The problem is, her people — for all that they need a ruler — don’t want her. They don’t want a young woman, or they don’t want any woman, or they just don’t want this particular woman on the throne. But she is the one best equipped to see them through the current war or other disaster, and she sure as hell isn’t going to turn the country over to the treacherous aristocrats who would be next in line if she stepped down.
So she takes the reins with silken force and makes them follow her through brute cunning and charisma, overawing her detractors through her impeccable style, speech, imperturbability, wisdom, indomitable will, disdain for frivolity and — where necessary — utter ruthlessness. Even her love life is coolly calculated and orchestrated to best effect, often involving Arranged Marriage setups like Altar Diplomacy.
And if it wears her out, she’ll just have to drink more coffee and soldier on. Her personal happiness is a small price to pay…
An important part of this character is that she isn’t in a trusting and happy relationship (platonic or otherwise) as this would make her burden less heavy for her and thus remove much of the conflict inherent in this archetype. (It would also make her less alluringly lonely.) Naturally, this sad state can change over the course of the story.
This trope is being deconstructed and reconstructed with Dany.
1) They don’t want a young woman, or they don’t want any woman, or they just don’t want this particular woman on the throne.
Dany is hated by the slavers because she’s an abolitionist threatening their main source of income, but the vast majority of the freedmen love her.
2) But she is the one best equipped to see them through the current war or other disaster, and she sure as hell isn’t going to turn the country over to the treacherous aristocrats who would be next in line if she stepped down.
The deconstruction of this trope is most apparent here. On the one hand, yes, it was important that Dany stayed in Slaver’s Bay so that the noblemen wouldn’t undo her pro-freedmen reforms:
“…I will not let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”
“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked Rakharo.
“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a queen.” (ASOS Daenerys VI)
On the other hand, Dany also makes mistakes that cause massive problems. She left the Yunkish slavers’ wealth intact and refused to wage war against them because she assumed that they would leave her alone if she did so. This indirectly caused the Yunkish slavers’ siege (which left the Astapori starving and spread the bloody flux) and conquest of Astapor and their killing of its citizens, which then allowed them to march on to take Meereen as well. Dany also left the Meereenese slavers’ wealth mostly intact, which allowed them to retaliate against her anti-slavery stance by killing freedmen with the Harpy’s Sons. Basically, she ended up having to fight enemies inside and outside her city partly because of her shortcomings.
That being said, it’s important not to excessively blame Dany for all of this because the slavers have agency of their own and they deliberately caused all of these problems. Also, acknowledging Dany’s failures is not to say that Dany’s leadership style is bad (she is a good queen), only that this trope isn’t being played straight with her because, despite her presence being needed, she still has things to learn and her problems aren’t going to be solved overnight because they’re meant to be realistic (deconstruction). This, of course, makes Dany’s character and storyline that much more interesting. One of the main lessons of her journey is that she wasn’t ruthless enough against the slavers and will need to be in the future in order to protect her people (reconstruction).
3) So she takes the reins with silken force and makes them follow her through brute cunning and charisma, overawing her detractors through her impeccable style, speech, imperturbability, wisdom, indomitable will, disdain for frivolity and — where necessary — utter ruthlessness.
The trope isn’t played straight here either. Dany is cunning when she needs to be, as we saw in Astapor and Yunkai and Meereen. She is very charismatic, which we see from the way she naturally behaves to the fact that she has attracted and influenced thousands of people. She has an indomitable will, which is clear from her refusal to leave Slaver’s Bay without freeing all of its slaves to her desire to reform Meereen.
On the other hand, Dany isn’t stoic and imperturbable. She is Wise Beyond Her Years, but that doesn’t prevent her from making mistakes and failing to carry out her plans. She only maintains an impeccable style in ADWD because she wants to make peace with the slavers, but she resents doing so because she is Modest Royalty - she prefers simple clothing and wishes she could have banned the tokar. Finally, she doesn’t always know when she needs to be “utterly ruthless”, but she learns her lesson in ADWD.
4) Even her love life is coolly calculated and orchestrated to best effect, often involving Arranged Marriage setups like Altar Diplomacy.
And if it wears her out, she’ll just have to drink more coffee and soldier on. Her personal happiness is a small price to pay…
An important part of this character is that she isn’t in a trusting and happy relationship (platonic or otherwise) as this would make her burden less heavy for her and thus remove much of the conflict inherent in this archetype. (It would also make her less alluringly lonely.) Naturally, this sad state can change over the course of the story.
On the one hand, Dany’s personal happiness has been compromised by being queen. She agreed to an arranged marriage with Hizdahr in order to restore order to Meereen and end the war with the Yunkish slavers. She doesn’t love nor does she trust her husband, which heightens the conflict between her duty as queen and her desire for love, home and a normal life (all of which Daario represents).
On the other hand, the arranged marriage wasn’t “orchestrated to best effect” because Dany couldn’t have allowed the slavers to keep their privileges and abolished slavery simultaneously.
Her “sad state” might indeed change considering the many signs that she’ll start a romantic relationship with Jon in the future.
Conclusion
This trope is played with Dany in interesting ways. As it’s expected from the trope, she’s compassionate, smart and determined, her rulership was indeed necessary in Meereen (despite the opposition that she faced from the noblemen) and “wearing the queenly mask” was detrimental to her personal happiness.
She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself. (ADWD Daenerys IX)
On the other hand, the trope is largely deconstructed: the city’s problems aren’t instantaneously solved because of her; in fact, some of them are even heightened (indirectly) by her (understandable) mistakes. This is only to be expected considering a) her young age, lack of experience and tendency to be conciliatory and b) that GRRM threw her into the most complex political scenario of the series. By getting in touch with the different sides of her identity (mhysa and mother of dragons), Dany will be a better queen to her people (reconstruction).
A young girl she might be, but Daenerys Targaryen was the only thing that held them all together. (ADWD The Queen’s Hand)
The trope will most likely be revisited when Dany arrives in Westeros. She will face political opposition because many won’t accept her as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Even so, her leadership will, nevertheless, be key to uniting the realm to fight in the upcoming War for the Dawn.