Daenerys Targaryen Is Not A Villain, But A Tragic Hero

Ryan Fan
5 min readMay 28, 2019
from savingstark on Instagram

Warning: This article will spoil “Game of Thrones.”

“I have been sold like a broodmare. I’ve been chained and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing through all those years in exile?Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends, in myself. In Daenerys Targaryen.” — Daenerys Targaryen

Isolated, forlorn, brutalized, and left with no other option, in season 8 of “Game of Thrones,” Daenerys Targaryen broke bad. Her faith in herself is what allowed her to survive and even thrive through eight seasons on “Game of Thrones” when everyone she loved in the world died. But in the final season of the show, that is what faith in herself and her right to the Iron Throne is exactly what led her to burn an entire city down and commit a mass genocide of King’s Landing.

Through eight seasons and eight years, we have seen Daenerys as the liberator of slaves, mother of dragons, and commander of the strongest armies in the world. For the most part, she used her power for good, with her people calling her their savior, Mhysa. Daenerys was a character that viewers absolutely loved, not only because she is a three-dimensional and well-developed female character, but because of her resilience in the face of her loved ones’ tragedies, and her seemingly steadfast moral compass

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Ryan Fan

Believer, Baltimore City IEP Chair, and 2:39 marathon runner. Diehard fan of “The Wire.”