Tony Black counts down to season 7 of Game of Thrones…
Khaleesi. Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains. Queen of the Andals and the First Men. Rightful Heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Daenerys really has more titles than an old fashioned video shop, which speaks to the journey she’s had over the span of Game of Thrones thus far.
Daenerys was the youngest child of King Aerys IV, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms who sat the Iron Throne until he went mad and planned to burn down King’s Landing with wildfire rather than Robert Baratheon’s rebel forces take the city and the throne. Around the time Jaime Lannister put a sword through him, and Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane started baby killing any children who might threaten the new order, Dany’s mother Rhaella was spirited off to Dragonstone–the ancestral Targaryen seat–along with brother Viserys, where she died giving birth to Dany in the middle of (appropriately) a storm. Thanks to the machinations of Lord Varys & Illyrio Mopatis of Pentos, in secret, the Targaryen heirs were ferried to Braavos where they were raised for many years on the QT. Varys, you see, has always had a plan for the Targaryen children, and the realm he loves so much.
Upon coming of age, as the upjumped Viserys planned to restore Targaryen dominance over a Westeros, Daenerys was to be sold into marriage to Khal Drogo, a powerful warlord of the Dothraki, Viserys and his Westerosi advisors suggesting they could provide the army needed to defeat King Robert’s forces and make Viserys Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. There was only really one problem with that – Dany fell in love with Drogo, Viserys became an abusive sociopath obsessed with his own grandeur, and she let her new husband pour a tub of molten gold over her brother’s head and decided she would be the rightful restorer of the Targaryen dynasty.
Pregnant with Drogo’s child, prophesied as a warrior who would conquer the world, Daenerys’ future looked set – until Drogo died following battle and thanks to dark magic by sorceress Miri Maz Dhurr, Dany lost her baby but in the midst of flame survived the fiery hatching of the three dragon eggs presented to her by Illyrio as a wedding gift. So became the Mother of Dragons.
Rejected by the other Khals of the Khalasar, it took Daenerys time, strength and a dash of good fortune to build allies and increase her strength. Flanked faithfully by her three dragons, Drogon, Visenya & Dracarys, not to mention her exiled Westerosi knight Ser Jorah Mormont, Daenerys faced empty deserts, the trickery of powerful lords and sinister warlocks in the grand eastern city of Qarth, before she finally began to gain more supporters and build herself an army.
Spurned Kingsguard knight Ser Barristan Selmy, one of the greatest fighters of the age, sought out and joined her Queensguard, while Daenerys gained close advisor Missandei while in the city of Astapor purchasing an army made up of Unsullied, eunuch warriors trained of absolute unquestioning loyalty to their owner. In many ways, this is where Dany’s problems truly began, in her desire to be a different ruler from those before her – she became obsessed with the idea of freeing all slaves under the heel of oppressors. It worked in Astapor. It worked, after some difficulty, in Yunkai. Then came her greatest challenge: the slave city of Meereen.
In choosing to stay put and rule, as opposed to using cities as part of her leapfrog back to Westeros, Daenerys found a few surprises waiting for her: the bed of swaggering, sellsword lothario Daario Naharis, the betrayal of her trusted Jorah after discovering he was a spy for the nefarious grandmasters working for deceased King Robert Baratheon, and primarily the startling reality of a slave uprising filled with slaves who, when given the choice of freedom, prefer the chains Dany was so determined to break.
Coupled with this, she begins to realise the human cost of her growing, feral dragons when Drogon disappears after barbecuing an innocent child, forcing her to lock away Rhaegal & Viserion for fear they can do more harm than good. Despite an army at her back, Dany finds insurrection from within when radical insurgency group, Sons of the Harpy, begin slaughtering her Unsullied and even kill Ser Barristan during an attack. Problems compound when she learns that her most loyal subject, Jorah, was assigned to spy on her by King Robert’s spymaster Varys, and subsequent in her rage exiles Jorah from her service.
Surrounded by enemies, in a city where many are dying at the hands of insurgents Dany believes are being funded by the slave masters of Meereen, Yunkai and Astapor, and without her strongest counsel, Dany falls into the bed of Daario, relies more and more on Missandei, and is eventually stunned when after a long and arduous journey, Jorah reappears in a slave fighting pit and delivers Tyrion Lannister at her feet, a member of the family who helped destroy the Targaryen dynasty.
Dany very soon realises Tyrion wishes to serve her, his wit and wisdom leaving an impression, and his key knowledge of the land she wishes to take back – but his first suggestion is that she exile Jorah again, aware she cannot have him by her side when she returns home. Daenerys and her new team are soon ambushed in the Meereen fighting colosseum by the Sons of the Harpy, intending to kill her, but Drogon’s arrival at the last minute barbecues the Harpies and for the first time, Dany rides her biggest dragon over the city… and far beyond, Drogon depositing her deep in the Dothraki Sea, where she is soon captured by the very people she once ruled.
The ignorant Khal Moro and his khalasar treat Dany like dirt until she proves she is the Khaleesi of Khal Drogo, only earning their respect also earns her disadvantage; the rule of the Dothraki being that any Khal’s widow must take her place with the rest in Dosh Khaleen, where she must live the rest of her days. Daenerys is treated like scorn by the Dosh Khaleen too, and the Dothraki who guard them, but as Daario & Jorah–having come back to Meereen after her disappearance–arrive to rescue her, Daenerys instead signals her intent to convert the Dothraki into more of an army she can take to Westeros, in a moment of seeming godhood burning the Dothraki Khal’s to death and emerging naked in the flames, alive.
Daenerys successfully rallies the rest of the Dothraki forces as her own khalasar, all prepared to as never before cross the oceans and fight for her on Westeros. Upon learning Jorah tried to save her again, and that he’s infected with the creeping grayscale disease during his journey with Tyrion, an emotional Dany orders him away to find a cure but this time to return – she wants him by her side when she takes the Iron Throne. It appears the time has come for her to finally head home…
Upon returning to Meereen however she finds the city under siege, being bombed by a vast fleet of Slave Master ships in Slavers Bay from the three cities. Tyrion, Missandei & Grey Worm had attempted to negotiate a deal with the slavers but instead Daenerys takes matters in her own hands – after Grey Worm executes two of the three lead slave masters, she mounts Drogon and with her two other dragons–unchained in a moment of bravery by the Imp–Daenerys destroys the slaver forces and protects Meereen, with Tyrion telling the surviving slaver to head home & warn his cities never to attack them again.
With Meereen secured, Daenerys still has a problem with enough ships to transport all of her army across the ocean – a problem aided by the arrival of Yara & Theon Greyjoy, with their own Ironborn fleet, who seek Dany’s help in defeating their uncle Euron before, as he intends, reaching Daenerys & forcing her into marriage so he can conquer the Seven Kingdoms. Daenerys promises the Iron Islands independence if they support her & after leaving Daario in command of Meereen, needing a ruler and knowing she will need to marry once in Westeros, she sets sail at long last for home.
Daenerys has an enormous weight of power behind her; hundreds of ships, thousands of warriors made up of Unsullied, Second Sons, Dothraki & Ironborn, plus her three dragons. She has, thanks to Lord Varys, an alliance also in play with the ruling Sand Snakes of Dorne and the vengeful Olenna Tyrell of the near destroyed house by the same name, both of whom add further power. A seemingly unstoppable conquering force, who might have the strength to prevent Dany’s Targaryen restoration? Can any power in the Seven Kingdoms stand in her way?
Tony Black
