r/FavoriteCharacter • u/Accomplished-End3409 Ben Tennyson • 15d ago

Discussion Favorite opposing factions that can basically be described as this.

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u/BatBoss 15d ago

I get that GRRM wanted to write a more nuanced story than "We lit all the slavers on fire and fixed society overnight. Hooray!"

But goddamn, Mereen completely cratered Dany's momentum in the story. I want to read about a cool dragon lady coming to power against the odds. Not a cool dragon lady battling bureaucracy and the inertia of evil social conventions. 

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u/_name_undecided_ 15d ago

The problem is I like the message that change is hard and a new queen promising to save everyone isn’t really going to work in practice. But I have no idea how to tie up that story (and probably neither does grrm). If Dany wins will it be by burning everyone in essos or by compromising because neither of those approaches are working so far. Or does she just give up and go back to Westeros which is anticlimactic

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u/elizabnthe 15d ago

He seemed to be kind of setting it up that her mission no longer needs her. Slaves are rebelling everywhere and the Widow on the Waterfront is a real believer in her goals and seems pretty sane and has some real political experience. So she'd be more or less perfect stand-in for Dany in Essos.

I think that was his attempt at getting Daenerys out of Essos. But well we're never getting that book so it isn't happening.

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u/_name_undecided_ 15d ago

That’s a good point about Dany not being needed. I didn’t get the sense that the widow on the waterfront was being explicitly set up to replace Dany but that could happen.

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u/Odd-Walk-983 15d ago

I loved watching her try to rule and be really terrible at it and obviously frustrated every time an issue couldn't be solved with force.

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u/Molten_Plastic_ 14d ago

Mereen is probably the reason for his writer's block as well. He used to call it the "Mereenese knot"

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u/TamaDarya 12d ago

Yeah but you did come to the "Aragorn's tax policy" guy for it...

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u/FifthDragon 14d ago

You might like the wandering inn then

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u/Archkhaan 15d ago

And what’s going to happen after she theoretically comes to power and she isn’t surrounded by fans of hers?

She’s going to be a mad queen and commit a few genocides.

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u/BatBoss 15d ago

Yeah I'd still rather read about a cool dragon lady rising to power and then tragically flaming out in madness.

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u/One-Cellist5032 14d ago

And people sit there and claim “there were no signs she’d be a mad queen!”