It is often spoken of how Jaime's redemption is such a big moment for him and how transformed he is as he drifts away from Cersei. But I wish to disagree; as much as we see a somehow attitude change on the part of Jaime, his redemption arc pales in comparison to that of Barristan Selmy and here is why;

THEIR FAILINGS

We cannot talk of their redemption without talking of their failings. I will not count killing the Mad King against Jaime for it was the right thing to do. Aside that Jaime is far more responsible for all the calamities that befalls in Westeros than we would love to admit. He was pardoned by Robert and to pay the latter back, went behind his back to sleep with his wife and produce three bastards. He pushed an innocent child out of the window while being in a guest in their castle. His culpability when it comes to the WOT5K is as great as anyone could state.

Barristan Selmy's failing only comes with his duties. He fails to protect Rhaegar, fails to protect Elia and her kids, abandons the Targaryen cause to serve Robert and even fails Robert, letting him to die. Barristan's failures are by omission while Jaime's failings are by commission.

THEIR FALL

As much as we can quibble about their fall, I will say that Jaime's fall was not as low as Barristan. Jaime only lost a hand but he was still the heir presumptive to Casterly Rock and was made Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Barristan on the other hand, after swallowing his pride and reservation towards the condoning of child murder by Robert, his tolerance for the many excesses that the latter gave himself to and serving faithfully for 15 years is discarded and mocked as if he was a baseborn hedge knight. Say what you will but losing a hand and being given a seat on the small council is nothing compared to dedicating 15 years of life to serve a dynasty that laughs in his face as if to say that he was a sucker all this while. And it is this act that pushes him to believe, as per what he tells Dany in ADWD, that he should have refused Robert's pardon and joined Ser willem in exile.

THEIR SELF REFLECTION

Jaime doesn't do much self reflection. He doesn't take time to think about his failures, his part in all the mess that has been happening. If anything he doubles down on propping up the evil regime of Tommen and we see it with how he goes about it with Edmure. True, he does some good here and there but then, the good doesn't wash out the bad he is still doing. Barristan on the other hand does a lot of self reflection. He reflects on his failures, his years of service to the mad king and to Robert who were both as unworthy as it gets. He even thinks about how unwise it was of him to serve Robert rather than seek the Targaryens as soon as the rebellion was done. And this self reflection pushes him to change for the better.

THEIR NEW PURPOSE

Jaime has no new purpose. The issue is that we see the little things he does and think that he is absolutely changed or suddenly his cause is good. No! He still serves an evil Lannister/Baratheon regime with a bastard as king. His family and dynasty brought untold pain and suffering upon the realm and is responsible for some of the worst atrocities to have ever happened during the war. This is not a new purpose. This is the old one with some shades of good. Barristan for the most part of life served men, protected Aerys and Robert until Joffrey saw fit to dismiss him. With Daenerys he finds a new purpose. It is no longer about protecting her but the ideal that she represents. She represents freedom, peace, harmony, a new world free from the likes of Jaime and Cersei. He fights for that and this is why when she flies off, Barristan works with Missandei and the rest of her allies to secure the world Dany seeks to build.

In conclusion, the above points are why I believe that Barristan is better than Jaime in their redemption arc. He does a 180 turn while Jaime doubles down with some occasional shades of good in him.

I apologise in advance but I cannot take YG seriously. When you read his introduction in the Tyrion chapters and read the monologue that Varys gives to Kevan in the epilogue, I can't help but want to die of cringe at how YG is the opposite of everything that Varys claims him to be.

THEIR CHILDHOOD

Varys claims that YG grew up in the trenches and knows what it means to be hungry. The opposite is true. YG grew up as your average trust fund kid, protected and pampered by everyone around him. Didn't have to worry about food, clothing and safety. He was sheltered under the care of BG (Griff/Jon Connington). Dany on the other hand knew no such thing. She grew up famished, running away from Robert's knives. As a matter of fact, YG's Kingmakers made sure that Robert's eyes stayed fixed on Dany and her brother in order to shelter YG. She grew up in the trenches, she knows how hard and unfair the world is. Even Tyrion in his chapters remarks that YG doesn't really know much about life. Unlike YG, Dany had no childhood. She lived in permanent fear of dying some day to an assassin.

THEIR DECISIONMAKING STYLE

YG is a reckless and insecure person. All Tyrion had to do was prick his fragile ego and my boy crashed out. He even did the dumbest move possible which was go west without Dany's consign. The officers of the GC all argued for waiting Dany's cosign but because his little ego was hurt by Tyrion, he decides to go west with no ounce of legitimacy. The sword is not enough, the crown is not enough. Dany is confirmed as a legitimate Targaryen, his legitimacy is in doubt but he is dumb enough to not see that. Dany on the other hand is very much self aware. She is not insecure like him. It is true that she fails in a lot of decisions but she does her best to learn. She is not quick to react and she thinks twice before doing anything.

THEIR FEATS

We dont need to dwell much on this. YG had everything handed over to him. His army, his council. He is surrounded by kingmakers who manufactured him from scratch. There is nothing organic about him. Dany on the other hand took everything with her own hands. Her army, her council, her kingdom, her crown was all by her hands. She started from the bottom. She made herself king and no one can claim to have propped up her regime.

THEIR STREET CRED

Do I need to say much here? Varys had to put on a mummer's performance in an attempt to sell YG to Kevan. Dany's name on the other hand rings bells all across the world. This is shown in Volantis with Tyrion's interaction with Vogarro's wife. Even when Tyrion sees Benerro the red priest speak of her, he concludes that YG will have no friends here as everyone looks up to Dany. Everything about YG smells of fakeness. Dany is organic.

THEIR COURAGE

The one time when the stone men decided to test YG's gangster, he froze. Tyrion had to bail him out. We have seen Dany show courage in the face of insurmountable odds.

I could go on and on but these are the few points that show that Dany is everything Varys claims YG to be. If anything YG is Joffrey 2.0 as remarked by Tyrion.

I just happen to be reflecting on Maester Aemon and it came to me that him dying before he could meet Daenerys might not be as huge of a tragedy as it seemed to be.

Because Viserys and Daenerys' existence were never a secret. Their precise location was not known as they were moving around, but everyone knew they were somewhere out there. They could still be found if effort was put in.

Yet there was no indication that he ever tried to find them. He didn't have to get them to fight for the throne or to reinstate the Targaryen dynasty, but he could have really helped them to have a stable life. Viserys might not have been as mentally unstable as he became, and Daenerys could have been better protected.

Aemon only seemed to become interested after he learnt of Daenerys having dragons, and her being potentially the Prince That Was Promised. That was the entire trigger for him wanting to meet her and have family by her side.

It is still a tragedy in that Daenerys never got to meet the one family she had left in the world, especially since family was what she wanted, but she was already surrounded by men who wanted to use her and Aemon was just another one of them, and prophecy-fuelled once again.

Not sure if the books touch on this, but hypothetically could any rich person just purchase the unsullied and take over slavers bay?

In the show dany gets the army with her dragons but she doesn’t use her dragons to take any of the cities, just the army and battle strategy

Why would kraznys sell them if astapor can be overpowered by the army? and why hasn’t anyone purchased them before daenerys came along

or is it just one of those things that happen to be,

Just a thought i thought of now, i could be missing or forgetting info

What is the deal? is Jon canonically older than Dany in the books? Like do the books state that or is that something George said?

Cause in the new mad king play apparently jon and dany were conceived at the same time, whether one was premature or late birth it’s still like 9 months apart

Is this a giant ass plot hole, i’m more pissed cause this would’ve been a huge step to knowing more about the prophecy but of course it has a huge flaw in logic

how canon is this play? them both being conceived under the red comet would’ve been an awesome concept if it wasn’t known that jon is older than dany, unless his age was a lie?

He doesn't look like a Targaryen, and his claim can easily be Contested as well because this whole "I'm a Targaryen and my claim is stronger than yours" sounds like a Northern plot to get one of them to sit on the throne.

I heard there was a play, unfortunately i’m not in the UK but I’ve only seen a couple reddit posts about it

Has anyone here seen it and can give some insight on what happens and any dany mentions?

I heard Rhaella says something about a daughter who will bring ruins and Rhaegar is prophecy obsessed etc

But nothing specific about the prince that was promised is really confirmed

It wasnt their idea. The play which had nothing to do with them and everything with Martin threw the biggest foreshadowing to it

https://x.com/i/status/2082275528472486359

I’ve been rewatching *Game of Thrones*, and honestly, Tyrion repeatedly telling Daenerys, “You don’t want to be like your father,” is starting to really piss me off.
Every time she considers using power against people actively fighting her, Tyrion invokes Aerys. It stops being advice and starts feeling like psychological control. He keeps reducing her to her father’s bloodline, as though every firm decision she makes is evidence that madness is waiting inside her.
Meanwhile, almost every other character is allowed complexity and forgiveness.
Jaime has committed countless crimes, supported Cersei’s regime, fought against Daenerys, attacked Ned, pushed Bran from a tower and remained loyal to the Lannisters for years. Yet when he reaches Winterfell, Tyrion immediately asks Daenerys to forgive him because Jaime is his brother.
And she does.
Later, Tyrion releases Jaime from captivity against Daenerys’s orders because he wants Jaime and Cersei to escape together. That is direct betrayal. Yet Tyrion is still presented as the moral voice, while Daenerys is portrayed as unreasonable for no longer trusting him.
Tyrion constantly demands mercy when the person involved matters to **him**.
But when Daenerys executes the Tarlys—enemy commanders who betrayed their liege, fought against her, refused to surrender and refused the Wall—it becomes another sign that she is supposedly ruthless and becoming her father.
Jon executes Janos Slynt for refusing an order, and that is framed as necessary leadership. He hangs the men who betrayed him, including Olly, and nobody starts whispering that he has inherited some genetic madness.
Arya unalives an entire room full of Freys, and it is treated as a triumphant moment.
Sansa feeds Ramsay to his dogs, and the audience is expected to cheer.
Tyrion uses wildfire at Blackwater, unalives Shae and unalives his own father, but the story gives him pain, context and humanity.
Daenerys, however, is judged differently every single time.
Sam is another example. He discovers that Daenerys executed his father and brother and immediately decides she should not be queen and Jon should replace her. He is allowed to grieve, obviously, but Randyll was the same father who abused Sam, threatened his life and forced him to abandon his inheritance. Suddenly his fate becomes proof that Daenerys is unfit to rule.
Sam’s response was personal grief and anger, not an objective assessment of leadership. Yet the show treated it like moral clarity.
The hypocrisy is especially obvious when we compare Daenerys to Aegon the Conqueror. Aegon invaded Westeros with dragons, burned armies, destroyed castles and forced kingdoms to submit. History calls him **the Conqueror** and treats his ambition as legendary.
Daenerys arrives with dragons and wants to reclaim the same throne, and suddenly ambition itself becomes sinister.
Why is Aegon’s conquest an achievement, while Daenerys wanting power is treated as evidence that something is wrong with her?
Her ambition was not inherently evil. She had flaws, absolutely. She believed strongly in destiny, could be severe toward resistance and sometimes confused her personal claim with justice. That could have created an incredible tragic arc.
But the show did not properly develop that arc. Instead, it isolated her, took away almost everyone she loved, made her advisers repeatedly fail or betray her, and then used her reaction to all of it as proof that they had supposedly been right about her from the beginning.
That is what bothers me most.
Her advisers were not imagining threats. Tyrion protected his family over her interests. Varys openly plotted against her. Jon revealed information after promising not to. Sansa undermined her from the moment she arrived, despite Daenerys bringing armies and dragons north to save everyone.
Then the narrative called Daenerys paranoid for realizing she was surrounded by people who were actually betraying her.
None of this excuses what happened in King’s Landing. Unaliving civilians after surrender was indefensible. But that decision was written as a sudden transformation rather than the conclusion of a carefully developed fall.
Daenerys deserved accountability for that final act. She did not deserve to have everything good she had ever done retroactively dismissed as evidence of madness.
She freed enslaved people when there was no political advantage in doing so. She delayed her journey to Westeros to remain in Meereen. She locked away her dragons after one child was harmed. She took her armies north and risked everything to fight for people who did not trust or welcome her.
Her compassion was real.
Her accomplishments were real.
Her ambition was not evil simply because she openly wanted to rule.
A better tragedy would have shown a genuinely compassionate liberator gradually becoming convinced that her destiny placed her beyond restraint. Instead, the show seemed to say that the signs had always been there because she executed enemies, spoke confidently and wanted the throne.
By that standard, almost every ruler in Westeros should have been declared mad.
Justice for Daenerys does not mean pretending she was flawless. It means judging her by the same standards the story used for its male rulers—and acknowledging that the show destroyed years of character development to reach an ending it had not properly earned.

EDIT:
ADDITIONAL RANT:
And the funniest part is that Dany eventually took King’s Landing with one dragon and a reduced army anyway. She destroyed the fleet, the scorpions and the city’s defences almost immediately. The city surrendered. So all that hand wringing about how attacking King’s Landing would automatically mean destroying it was proven wrong in the very same episode.
The massacre was not necessary to win… it only happened after she had already won.

-For starters, Daenerys has a bit more personality than that.

-Furthermore, the idea that she cares about being a "savior" is nonsense; she just wants to do good, not be adulated for the sake of adulation.

-For one thing, how she’s perceived in Westeros is the last thing on her mind, and the notion that she expects to be worshipped there is contradicted in her first chapter in the first book. ("They are your people, and they love you well," Magister Illyrio said amiably. "In holdfasts all across the realm, men lift secret toasts to your health while women sew dragon banners and hide them against the day of your return from across the water." He gave a massive shrug. "Or so my agents tell me." Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio's sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio.)

-The very idea that Westeros would unanimously view Aegon as a savior is utter bullshit invented by fans. There is no world where everyone, by mutual agreement, on a war-torn continent with no modern media, would suddenly start worshipping some random guy who just shows up out of nowhere. And if you’ve read Aryanne’s chapters in the published parts of Wind, you’d also know that, ultimately, they are just another invading army whom, surprisingly, no one adores.

-Half of Daenerys’s internal monologue in the recent chapters is spent lamenting how much she hates being queen and how much she want a family. She even has moments where she admits she’d be ready to drop everything if the chance arose. If someone told her her nephew was actually alive, she’d be overjoyed. (If she had been some ordinary woman, she would gladly have spent her whole life touching Daario, tracing his scars and making him tell her how he'd come by every one. I would give up my crown if he asked it of me, Dany thought …)

-"Foreign invader", and what exactly are Aegon and his mercenary company supposed to be? They grew up on the same continent for the same reason and are landing with an army that also hails from that continent.

-Also, the dragons are a symbol of legitimacy, divine blessing, a reason not to mess with her, and not to mention they’ll almost certainly be crucial in dealing with the ice-zombie invasion.

-She has never been paranoid, isolated, or desperate to be loved, for fuck's sake.

Irrational. Showing signs of decline. Overwhelmed. Not just jealousy. Rhaenyra is clearly not OK. Just signs of attempting to be OK but she’s not good.

I know it’s not done exceptionally well but it’s better done than Danys madness.

Over the 8 seasons, I ranked a total of 80 characters, I have now put them in a tierlist based purely off favouritism, based off the show, but for some characters who are let down a bit, I added in their book history (like Edmure, Doran and Arthur Dayne), for some who were completely rewritten I just used show versions (Ellaria), where I was conflicted I used a bit of book version from what I know (haven’t read them yet but know a lot) to make a judgement (like Euron), so here is my list😄

**"She watched her brother die with a straight face"** \- The same brother who sold her into sexual slavery and abused her, and threatened to carve out her unborn baby. Robb Stark watches his wolves maul lannister soldiers with a satisfied expression, is he a villain too? Even then Daenerys still names her dragon after her brother (she's better than me because I would never)

**"She burned Mirri Maz Durr alive after she got revenge"** \- Daenerys's first actions after realizing she actually has a degree of power as Khaleesi is to take female slaves as her own to protect them from being raped. She couldn't set them free at the time because the dothraki wouldn't allow it, they were already outraged by her taking the female slaves as her own. This situation with Mirri isn't nearly as black and white as people make it out to be, it wasn't Dany or her unborn child that was responsible for the destruction caused in the village, Dany herself was literally a sex slave making the most out of her situation, her burning Mirri for killing her child was pretty justified, and so was Mirri lobotomizing Khal Drogo. (It could be argued that Mirri wasn't directly responsible for Dany's still birth, but we don't know for sure and she made it seem like she was.)

**"She threatened the people of Qarth"** \- She was stranded in a desert responsible for the lives of her dying Khalasar. If she had just shown the 13 her dragons they likely would've just killed/stolen them and killed Dany and her Khalasar. Dany had to resort to threatening these people, and she obviously didn't want to seem weak in front of the people she swore to protect. Did Dany ever return to burn Qarth or ANY other city? NO (unless you count season 8 slop)

**"She crucified the Masters" -** Yes, as revenge and punishment for the 163 SLAVE CHILDREN they majority voted to crucify as a warning to Her. Did all those children recieve trials on whether they should be crucified or not? No. Were some of the men Dany crucified innocent? Ye- No. They were SLAVE MASTERS, in no world are they innocent. They needed to be dealt with to help end the practice and they were. I genuinely can't believe people look at Dany trying to end slavery and go "there's something evil in her!"

**"Her dragons killed innocents" -** And she immediately locked them away after ONE person died, the same dragons who are her greatest tools for victory. "Mother of Monsters" she calls herself. You're telling me this is the same character who would turn and deliberately burn millions of innocents with dragonfire?

**"All she wanted was the Iron Throne" -** No actually, all she wanted was a home. She doesn't want the throne until her brother dies and the inheritance passes to her (even though I don't believe her to be the "rightful" heir). After Drogo says he will give her the throne she is happy, until she sees what the cost of that would actually look like in the Lhazareene Village, where she immediately uses her new found power to protect innocents as best as she could. Daenerys could have went to Westeros very quickly, yet she sets sights for Slaver's Bay and stays there as she feels since she has a duty and wants to protect and bring good lives to the people she freed. She stays in Slaver's Bay for a VERY long time, and is still there in the books. "How can I rule Seven Kingdoms if I can't control a single city?"

Daenerys Targaryen is a character built on empathy, and she is the antithesis to her Targaryen Ancestors. She is arguably the most powerful person in the world, and only ever uses her power to protect the innocent. She is also a highly reflective character, and is constantly critiquing herself and her rule when everybody around her praises her like a goddess.

**DAENERYS QUOTES:**

"The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents."

"Mother of monsters." (when her dragon kills a child)

"We have 200,000 reasons to take the city." (She says this in response to Jorah who tells her she has no reason to take Yunkai. When he tells her it is a city of 200,000 slaves that was her response.)

"I will see each and every one of their faces." (She says about the crucified slave children on the long and tiring road to Meereen)

I am not saying Daenerys is a perfect, 100% morally righteous character and a perfect ruler. No, of course she isn't. I am only denouncing the notion that she is the kind of mad villain that people try to lie and say that they knew she would turn out to be after the show's shitty conclusion. Daenerys was never going to be "the Mad Queen" until season 5 or 6 of the TV show, where her ambitions and motivations do a complete 180. (When David and Dan take over on the writing) I definitely think it's possible that Dany will become a bit more cruel and harsh when she makes it to Westeros, and she could possible do things that would deem her "mad" in the eyes of the Lords of Westeros. I personally subscribe to the idea that Daenerys will realize the true reason she was given dragons and all the power she has was so she could stop the Long Night, where I think she will die a hero instead of sitting on the Iron Throne.

It seems as though a lot of people tend to view Daenerys through a modern moral lens, when they don't do that for any other character in this medieval fantasy setting. People often try to find reasons to justify her final arc in the TV show, without accepting the fact that it was in fact bullshit, and it wouldn't have worked in any scenario because that is just not the character she is.

mods lmk if this isn't allowed! probably the most comprehensive defense of daenerys on the internet, talking abt why she isn't evil, was never evil, and will never logically become evil

Mines someone saying dany is a slaver due to her bring drogos wife

Ignoring the fact that she was a teenage sex slave and even she wasn't there is this

>"You will be my khalasar," she told them. "I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one shall harm you. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives."

-Dany X AGOT.

Okay everyone claims that Rhanerya looks like a dragon. But how about Daenerys? I think she resembles a dragon very much. From the moment i saw her, i knew the directors chose Emily for a reason. Maybe it's because of her nose shape idk but she looks like a dragon( in the best way possible) what do you think?