Daenerys Targaryen Edit - Tumblr Posts
"As swift as the wind he rides, and behind him his khalasar covers the earth, men without number, with arakhs shining in their hands like blades of razor grass. Fierce as a storm this prince will be. His enemies will tremble before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood and rend their flesh in grief. The bells in his hair will sing his coming, and the milk men in the stone tents will fear his name." The old woman trembled and looked at Dany almost as if she were afraid. "The prince is riding, and he shall be the stallion who mounts the world."
~
"The stallion is the khal of khals promised in ancient prophecy, child. He will unite the Dothraki into a single khalasar and ride to the ends of the earth, or so it was promised. All the people of the world will be his herd."
@pscentral event 13: tropes || A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin
Fairest of Them All: This tropes is played with in Cersei Lannister’s arc as she is given a prophecy as a child that though she will be queen, a young and more beautiful queen will cast her down. Regarded as the most beautiful woman in Westeros, she still fears that another younger woman will one day surpass her. Though she doesn’t believe that her daughter-in-law Margaery is more beautiful than her, Cersei targets and attempts to remove her as a threat, all the while ruining her own political position. Meanwhile, Cersei is also ignoring the hints of Daenerys Targaryen, a younger and more beautiful queen who is building military support and intends to overthrow the Lannister regime.
Knight in Shining Armor: The role of knight is both practical in a military sense, but it lends itself to being a ceremonial and PR role where the values of chivalry are idealized and often discarded when inconvenient. For Loras Tyrell, its a showy display for tourneys. Others are more villainous, such as Criston Cole, Gregore Clegane, and Jorah Mormont, who use the respectability of the role while displaying none of the values of it. The ideal of the heroic Knight in Shining Armor is played straight with characters like Dunk, Lyanna Stark, Aemon the Dragonknight, and Brienne of Tarth, who fight to protect others.
Animal Eye Spy: The Stark children are all skinchangers. Bran, Arya, and Jon are specifically shown warging into their respective direwolves and seeing through the eyes of their bond animals. Arya and Bran extend their abilities from their direwolves to other animals. While Arya skinchanges a cat she bonds with, Bran is actively being taught to see through the eyes of birds and secretly skinchanges into another human-being, Hodor.
Daenerys Stormborn aka Child of Storm + tv tropes → BORN DURING A STORM (insp.)
A baby is born while a storm rages outside. […] This trope is used to mark a character as special as it’s a dramatic and exciting start to their life, and may foreshadow an eventful and fast-paced life to match their birth — indeed, a woman might give birth during the Big Storm Episode for no reason other than Rule of Drama. This is doubly so if the storm is supernatural in nature. The child may also be given a weather-related name to match. This also juxtaposes the death and destruction caused by severe storms with the birth of new life.
“… She was once smitten with a young knight from the stormlands who wore her favor at a tourney and named her queen of love and beauty. A brief thing. […] He put away his lance the day your lady mother wed your father. Afterward he became most pious, and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Queen Rhaella in his heart. His passion was impossible, of course. A landed knight is no fit consort for a princess of royal blood.” - A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys VII // naomi watts as rhaella targaryen
DAENERYS APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 ↳ Day 3: The Dothraki → Irri and Jhiqui
“Khalakka dothrae mr'anha!” she proclaimed in her best Dothraki. A prince rides inside me! She had practiced the phrase for days with her handmaid Jhiqui. *** She kissed Irri’s hand where Drogon had bitten it. “I’m sorry he hurt you. Dragons are not meant to be locked up in a small ship’s cabin.” *** When Doreah looked longingly at a fertility charm at a magician’s booth, Dany took that too and gave it to the handmaid, thinking that now she should find something for Irri and Jhiqui as well. *** Distantly, as from far away, Dany heard her handmaid Jhiqui sobbing in fear, pleading that she dared not translate, that the khal would bind her and drag her behind his horse all the way up the Mother of Mountains. She put her arm around the girl. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I shall tell him.” *** As the world darkened, Dany settled in and closed her eyes, but sleep refused to come. The night was cold, the ground hard, her belly empty. She found herself thinking of Meereen, of Daario, her love, and Hizdahr, her husband, of Irri and Jhiqui and sweet Missandei, Ser Barristan and Reznak and Skahaz Shavepate. Do they fear me dead? I flew off on a dragon’s back. Will they think he ate me?
DAENERYS TARGARYEN APPRECIATION MONTH 2022 || Day 2 - Underrated relationships and dynamics: Daenerys Targaryen & Daario Naharis — Book scenes that show Daario genuinely caring about Dany:
He gives Dany flowers:
Oh, and flowers for my hair. When first they met, the captain brought her flowers every day, all the way from Yunkai to Meereen. (ADWD, Daenerys IV)
He tries to prevent Dany from seeing the crucified children:
He tried to spare me the sight of the dead children too. He should not have done that, but he meant it kindly. (ASOS, Daenerys V)
He remains faithful to Dany (even at a point when betraying her and joining Yunkai - which is what Brown Ben and the Second Sons chose to do - would have been advantageous to him and the Stormcrows):
“I thought you would be the one to betray me. Once for blood and once for gold and once for love, the warlocks said. I thought … I never thought Brown Ben. Even my dragons seemed to trust him.” She clutched her captain by the shoulders. “Promise me that you will never turn against me. I could not bear that. Promise me.”
“Never, my love.” (ADWD, Daenerys VI)
He asks Dany to marry him:
“I do not want this night to end. […] This night and the next, and we must end this.”
“Marry me, and we can have all the nights forever.” (ADWD, Daenerys VII)
He advises Dany to hold court and to remember her people (and displays an unexpected level of selflessness):
“Will you hold court today?”
“No. On the morrow I will be a woman wed, and Hizdahr will be king. Let him hold court. These are his people.”
“Some are his, some are yours. The ones you freed.”
“Are you chiding me?”
“The ones you call your children. They want their mother.”
“You are. You are chiding me.”
“Only a little, bright heart. […] You should hold court.” (ADWD, Daenerys VII)
He feels jealous of Dany’s suitors and visibly resents the fact that he’s too lowborn to marry her (so much so that he turns Dany down for sex):
“I am your queen, and I command you to fuck me.”
She had meant it playfully, but Daario’s eyes hardened at her words. “Fucking queens is king’s work. Your noble Hizdahr can attend to that, once you’re wed. And if he proves to be too highborn for such sweaty work, he has servants who will be pleased to do that for him as well. Or perhaps you can call the Dornish boy into your bed, and his pretty friend as well, why not?” (ADWD, Daenerys VII)
He leaves his blades with Dany as a token of his love for her:
She wondered if her captain’s blades still hung upon the wall beside her bed, waiting for Daario to return and claim them. “I will leave my girls with you,” he had said. “Keep them safe for me, beloved.” (ADWD, Daenerys X)
Elle Fanning as book!Daenerys Targaryen & Ranveer Singh as book!Daario Naharis
Daenerys Targaryen + a few of her similarities with each of the three main characters of Avatar: the Last Airbender
Note: This gifset is about ASOIAF!Daenerys Targaryen who, despite being portrayed as a hero by her creator, had her characterization heavily changed from page to screen. As to why Cersei is written as Dany’s foil, see here.
Daenerys Targaeryen + Persephone parallels
Daenerys Targaryen (A Song of Ice and Fire) and Catherine the Great (Hulu’s The Great) + parallels
Daenerys Targaryen Appreciation Month 2021
Day 6 - Endgame speculation:
George R. R. Martin ties many historical parallels into A Song of Ice and Fire, particularly the series of civil wars in England called the Wars of the Roses. These wars were fought between the Yorks and Lancasters, the two branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflicts resulted in ending of both direct male lines leaving only female claimants and their heirs. The two warring lines were united with the marriage of Henry VII Tudor (a Lancastrian claimant) and Elizabeth of York (the oldest daughter of Edward IV), helping to bring the conflict to an end.
Martin created a series of wars between the Targaryens and the Blackfyres, a legitimized branch of the royal family. The male line of the Blackfyres is extinguished in the War of the Five Penny Kings while the male line of the Targaryens dies in or after Robert’s Rebellion, leaving only a female claimant, Daenerys Targaryen, and men who descend from female lines of the royal family, the Baratheons and possibly Aegon/Young Griff. While Aegon was raised to believe he is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell, it’s possible that he is the seventh attempt of the Blackfyre family to take the throne, this time disguising their claimant as a claimant from the opposite side.
Daenerys has parallels to both Henry VII and Elizabeth of York while Aegon has parallels with both Henry VII and Perkin Warbeck. Like Elizabeth, Daenerys’ lineage is from the direct royal line without dispute and others wish to use her claim through marriage, but like Henry VII, she spent many years in exile and was pursued by the reigning king. Like Henry VII, Aegon’s claim would come through his mother, who herself descended from the illegitimate line of the royal house and he grew up in exile, but like Perkin Warbeck, he is being passed off as a presumed dead prince.
The political side of this novel series could end with the union between Daenerys and Aegon, uniting the red dragon with the black, just as the union of Henry VII to Elizabeth of York united the red rose to the white.
…daughter of death, bride of fire, mother of dragons.
♔ Parallels between Daenerys Targaryen and Anne Boleyn (requested by anon).
the birth of venus by sandro botticelli, c. 1485 | the birth of the dragons by daenerys targaryen, 298 ac
Daenerys Targaryen Appreciation Month 2021 || Day 27 - Historical Parallel: Daenerys I Targaryen and Elizabeth I Tudor
The sister post of this edit can be found at asongoficeandfiresource
Daenerys Targaryen Appreciation Month 2021 || Day 27 - Historical Parallel: Daenerys I Targaryen and Elizabeth I Tudor
The sister post of this edit can be found at asoiafdaenerysdaily
Daenerys Appreciation Month || Mythological or Historical Parallels
Hestia
Hestia is a Greek fire goddess of the hearth, home, family, and the state. Daenerys parallels Hestia because of the importance she places on home and her people. I would also argue that home is the most important thing to Daenerys and that her quest for the Iron Throne is a manifestation of that desire for home and for safety (since being exiled means she is forever under threat of assassination attempts.) As the books go on, she consistently attempts to create this sense of safety and home for former slaves and the disenfranchised. I also love how Hestia reminds us that fire is not only a tool used to destroy, but it is also necessary to sustain life, which I think is at the heart of the duality of Daenerys’ house words of Fire and Blood.
Kali Ma
Kali Ma is a Hindu goddess who is considered to be the Master of death and time. She is also said to be the Paramshakti, that is the supreme of all powers, or the ultimate reality. She is the ultimate manifestation of Shakti and the mother of all living beings. She destroys evil in order to protect the innocent. Daenerys parallels Kali as a mother figure who is the defender of the weak. For more details about how Daenerys parallels Kali read this meta by @yendany
Artemis
Artemis is a Greek goddess of the hunt, wildlife, the moon, and the protector of women and children. Daenerys parallels her connection to animals through her natural ability to ride and bond with horses as seen with The Silver and the fact that she was able to hatch, nuture, tame, and ride dragons, an extinct species at the time the books begin. She also parallels Artemis as a protector of women and children and as a mother figure. Artemis herself never gave birth, yet was revered as a Mother Goddess and prayed to by women in labor. This parallels Daenerys who has also never physically given birth to a human child, but is seen as a mother to her people and to the dragons she brought into the world.
Sekhmet
Sekhmet is an Egyptian warrior goddess of healing. She is the daughter of the sun god, Ra, and is among the more important of the goddesses who acted as the vengeful manifestation of Ra’s power, the Eye of Ra. Sekhmet was said to breathe fire, and the hot winds of the desert were likened to her breath. She is given titles such as the “One Before Whom Evil Trembles”, “Mistress of Dread”, “Lady of Slaughter” and “She Who Mauls”. Yet she is also revered as the goddess of healing and a protection. Daenerys has parallels with Sekhmet’s fire imagery and also parallels the idea that the destruction of evil is often necessary in order to protect and sustain life and to make way for healing.
They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not. — ACOK, Daenerys I
Freya Allan as book!Daenerys Targaryen, Heath Ledger as book!Rhaegar Targaryen, Alexandra Moen as book!Rhaella Targaryen, André Dussollier as book!Willem Darry & Jamie Campbell Bower as book!Viserys Targaryen
asoiaf quotes // A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I ↴ Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her. […] A princess, Dany thought. She had forgotten what that was like.
fixing game of thrones → Rhaella survives Dany’s birth and gets to raise her children in Essos