{"id":1257,"date":"2016-06-10T18:46:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T00:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2016-06-10T18:46:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T00:46:43","slug":"is-daenerys-the-villain-of-game-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/?p=1257","title":{"rendered":"Is Daenerys the Villain of Game of Thrones?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"game_of_thrones___daenerys_targaryen_by_daninaimare-d5plslq\"<\/a>It has been a while since I posted on Game of Thrones, or more accurately, A Song of Ice and Fire. As we start winding down on Martin\u2019s epic, a small but fast growing sector of the fanbase is giving credibility to this notion: Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons (and a bunch of other honorifics) is the true villain of the story<\/a>. We already have the obvious candidate in the Night King, but recent episodes, as of Episode 6, has Daenerys taking a heel turn in her declaration of conquest. She\u2019s made these claims before, but always with a qualifier \u2013 to free the slaves of Slaver\u2019s Bay, to restore her House of Targaryen, etc. Now it\u2019s just strictly conquest for the sake of conquest. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, despite this new possibility, I suspect it\u2019s more complicated than that. There is no true villain of the story, much like how there\u2019s no such thing as a villain in real life. The reason I think this is the case is due to George Martin\u2019s true goal \u2013 subversion. He is more than just a fantasy writer \u2013 he writes with a historical angle, as well as a deconstructionist one. On top of the various tropes of heroic fantasy, Martin is also writing with the inspiration from the War of the Roses, which means his epic should be understood as a commentary on history AS fantasy. Martin is more interested in demonstrating how power works in politics, as well as how history is told and then mythologized in a way that reduces the violent, complicated series of events into a linear narrative. What the characters are told and what they eventually find out (Bran\u2019s green-seeing, and Tyrion\u2019s careful sifting of the records) is more indicative than the obvious interlocking of the tropes themselves in Martin\u2019s overarching narration. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If we take the historical backdrop of the War of the Roses as a guideline to the Song of Ice and Fire, then in order to decipher the ultimate endgame, we must look at the result of the history: The Tudor period ended in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If Daenerys is the analogue of Queen Elizabeth, then the endgame of the Song is the unification of all humanity that overcomes the existing politics of discord and elimination of the White Walkers. After all, Elizabeth did institute a Golden Age by reigning for over 40 years, survive the Spanish Armada, and build England from a petty kingdom to a global empire. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, I suspect A Song of Ice and Fire is no conventional fantasy epic because it is a subversion as well as a deconstruction, which means we should expect nothing but a nihilist ending, that Daenerys\u2019 rule will require brutality and compromise \u2013 the very thing she tried to avoid. In order to be a ruler, she will have to move from a conqueror to a morally conflicted ruler in the end. There will never be such a thing as a just rule or ideal society in Martin\u2019s epic. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, no matter how we construct history, no matter how great our ideals are, or how perfect we build society, there\u2019s only one true power in the universe \u2013 death. The very power that is free of the pain of life, always fated to violence and pain. All the existing philosophies in Martin\u2019s epic, as well as our own are all constructions that give meaning to patch over this underlying truth \u2013 the void. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The popular thesis that requires mapping a structure with a classic villain on the reality of history is the futile attempt of man, trying to cope with existence. But there is no god of mythology controlling the fate of our characters, ourselves \u2013 except the god of nothing. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Valar Morghulis. <\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a while since I posted on Game of Thrones, or more accurately, A Song of Ice and Fire. As we start winding down on Martin\u2019s epic, a small but fast growing sector of the fanbase is giving credibility to this notion: Daenerys, the Mother of Dragons (and a bunch of other honorifics) … Continue reading Is Daenerys the Villain of Game of Thrones?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[343,218,29],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1Af2X-kh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1260,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyperboreans.com\/heterodoxia\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}