Power & Ruling Is Not A Privilege Or Reward;it's A Duty & Responsibility - Tumblr Posts

This is gonna be pretty much a joint meta with @sunny12th. We have been discussing how Feast and Dance are in obvious conversation with each other, and how Dance explores many of the thematic concepts and questions that Feast proposes. One of the key thematic statements of Feast that we believe Dany’s story is in conversation with is:

Above him, all the windows had gone black, and he could see the faint light of distant stars. The sun had set for good and all. The stench of death was growing stronger, despite the scented candles. The smell reminded Jaime Lannister of the pass below the Golden Tooth, where he had won a glorious victory in the first days of the war. On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king? There were crows circling the seven towers and great dome of Baelor's Sept even now, Jaime suspected, their black wings beating against the night air as they searched for a way inside. Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well. That notion pleased Lord Tywin; his smile widened further. Bloody hell, he's grinning like a bridegroom at his bedding.

We know that Dany already had a very significant dream that parallels this exact event. She was in Rhaegar’s shoes. Her trauma and fears are packaged in TLN imagery. She came out victorious against death. She succeeded where Rhaegar had failed. What did she have? A Dragon. I’ll come back to this.

A main thing that AFfC quote is referring to is an equality that is inherent to life. With or without crowns, despite all man-constructed hierarchies and systems, all people are equal in death. So why shouldn’t we thrive to make them equal in life? A fight for equality is obviously a very integral theme in Dany’s story. George believes that a leader should be viscerally aware of this kind of egalitarianism. Power is a responsibility, not something that gives you privilege and allows you to feast on others. This is also why Dany’s approaches are juxtaposed so overtly with Cersei’s. A Feast for Crows is primarily exploring the devastation that the Westerosi regimes have brought on. Rulers do not recognize equality, and even if they do, it is done in a way that is selfish (Robert complaining about the responsibility the crown gives him, despite acknowledging that it did not make him different). Yet, all are a feast for the crows right now. A crown made no difference. Aerys, Robert, and Joffrey’s crown’s did nothing to prevent their deaths, and the same goes for Tywin’s invisible crown. A crown also becomes a death sentence to many children. It distances Robb from his real self, Greywind, and brings his doom. Jaime & Cersei’s children are destined to die due to their crowns. All that Westeros brought on with their crowns is a great feast for crows.

We also know that Dany already came to a conclusion about what a “crown”, on a more metaphorical level, means:

“He shouldn't have done that. He wasn't just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?"

"Some kings make themselves. Robert did."

"He was no true king," Dany said scornfully. "He did no justice. Justice. That's what kings are for."

Later, Dany is made to believe that her physical crown is symbol of this very responsibility. But that supposed symbol is what destroyed and will destroy the lives of the children forced to wear it in Westeros. The crown weighs her down, oppresses her, it is a symbol of the burden of the false peace that she is sacrificing her very ideology for.

Irri fetched her crown, wrought in the shape of the three-headed dragon of her House. Its coils were gold, its wings silver, its three heads ivory, onyx, and jade. Dany's neck and shoulders would be stiff and sore from the weight of it before the day was done. A crown should not sit easy on the head.

Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

By midday Daenerys was feeling the weight of the crown upon her head, and the hardness of the bench beneath her. With so many still waiting on her pleasure, she did not stop to eat.

While her sense of responsibility is being exploited and skewed, the nobles are feasting on the lives of slaves, on Dany’s ideology, and on her as a person:

So Daenerys sat silent through the meal, wrapped in a vermilion tokar and black thoughts, speaking only when spoken to, brooding on the men and women being bought and sold outside her walls, even as they feasted here within the city.

Here is Sunny’s part getting into more depth about just how Dany’s crown functions and gets deconstructed as a symbol with some of my added thoughts: Dany's crown is a visual representation of her three dragons, but it doesn't empower her at all. It actually feels wrong because Dany's dragons came from stone, and they're being captured in stone again as her crown. Likewise, Dany is slowly being entrapped by the crown. Symbolically, the crown is meant to represent Dany as a Queen. That's why she doesn't sell it. She does not want to be a Beggar Queen like Viserys but, really, her dragons (alive, made of fire and blood) are all she needs. The crown is her dragons made stone again. It's heavy, and physically hurts Dany, but she continues to wear it. Dany would've been killed regardless of her crown (floppy ears). She acknowledges this when she remembers that one of her forbears had said "the crown should not sit easy." Rhaegar was killed regardless of his status, Rhaegar's son was killed, and Dany knows she will be killed too if her Usurpers have the chance. Similarly, Aegon the Conqueror had the Iron Throne made because a king should not sit comfortably. Dany with her ebony bench is also aware of this despite not apparently knowing Aegon I said that. Dany is Aegon I's heir in a lot of ways, like how she is Rhaegar's heir. Cersei doesn't see the Iron Throne for how uncomfortable it is (in a literal practical sense) or how uncomfortable it should make her. She only sees the power (and freedom she never had) it represents, not the responsibility. Dany knows there's power in being a queen, but it's the responsibility that draws her to stay in Meereen. But her sense of responsibility gets used against her. Dany wears a veil and a tokar to the fighting pits, when drogon reappears, and both of these are cast off. She's not wearing the floppy ears anymore and it's just her and the dragon again, like in her old dragon dreams. Her crown is her dragons made stone again, just how they are locked away in caves. It represents responsibility, but a warped kind that pushes her into a false peace. Her dragons, brought to life from stone, are the responsibility and power to burn down the subjugating institutions. The dragons are Dany’s real self. Right after Dany thinks about Rhaegar being killed and how the crown should not sit comfortably, she thinks about how the Masters of Meereen freed their slaves only to "hire" them as servants and pay them unlivable wages. Slavery is technically abolished, but inequality and servitude still thrive in Meereen. Her crown, stone dragons (cold and unalive), can't bring her ideology to life. What is a crown worth if the person under it lacks the strength or will to use it to protect their people? Dany's crown is a mockery of her real power (living dragons) and she wears it to build a false peace for the masterclass, and they are not her people, they are not the weak that must be protected at all costs. They, and the institutions they represent, are the ones preying on the weak.

So what is a crown’s worth? If she wants to attempt to achieve the things that she was meant for: to protect the weak, to fight death, it will not be with dragons made of cold stone, but dragons made of fire & blood.

Fire is not just destruction. Blood is not just about bloodshed. Fire burns bright and gives light. Blood flows through your veins. The Others “hate every creature with hot blood in its veins.”