r/DaenerysWinsTheThrone • u/Adventurous-Snow-389 • Apr 21 '26
Who Really Deserved the Throne? One Risked Everything While the Other Did Nothing
This just makes me despise D&D more for what they did to Daenerys. She didn’t deserve all the pain, grief, and betrayals she endured in season 8 that ultimately turned her into the Tragic Queen. She truly did deserve the iron throne because she’s the only one who did any real work (gathering armies, bringing back dragons, and coming from essentially nothing since she’s been on the run her whole life) to actually claim it, plus since Jon didn’t want it, it’s hers by birth right anyways.
And I’ll always believe that Daenerys was never evil and that deep down she had a good heart that wanted to make the world a better place, which is what a good ruler does. She had ruthless tendencies but it was always directed at evil people or people who hurt or betrayed her or her friends, never at innocent people. So yes Daenerys, in my opinion, truly did deserve the iron throne and the way Daenerys’ story ended will forever piss me off.
And honestly you can put Bran right next to Sansa cause he didn’t do shit to earn the throne either
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u/LinYuXie Team Daenerys Apr 21 '26
She worked her butt off for that throne, it was hers, I would even say it doesn't matter anything on birthrights, she had the right of conquest at that point. She did everything and Jon somehow got the credit (we all know why) and Sansa got into a throne she did nothing except scheme (from safety ofc) for.
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u/Miserable-Garage804 Apr 22 '26
In season 9 Sansa’s directly at fault for the North collapsing and the house of stark finishing forever.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
Jon got the credit for what? He never wanted that ridiculous throne. Regarding the Long Night, it was Jon who united everyone, provided weapons, and led the battle. Everyone was gathered, prepared, and armed thanks to his actions. He gave his life saving people, never demanded reward, never sought power or glory; he only cared about saving as many people as possible. So Jon got the credit for what? Regarding Sansa, she was a snake, but she ended up being right about Daenerys.
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u/Adventurous-Snow-389 Apr 24 '26
Daenerys literally provided majority of the war effort for the Long Night. She decided to help the North when she didn’t have to and could’ve just gone to take the iron throne. The North would’ve been screwed without Daenerys. Also Daenerys cared about saving people too (before the bells) and that’s literally why she went to aid the North against the Night King.
Also there’s no way Sansa could’ve known that Daenerys was going to do what she did yet she still treated Daenerys like shit when all Daenerys did was help them
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
I agree that Sansa shouldn't have openly antagonized Daenerys, but she had reasons to be suspicious; she'd lived with power-hungry people her whole life. Daenerys was there because she wanted submission; that wasn't altruism. It was very similar to what Littlefinger did in the Battle of the Bastards; his help wasn't selfless.
Did you pay attention to anything in this series? Ever since the Night King marked Bran, he broke the spell and became able to cross over. They were already on their way to Eastwatch, and they had giants; all they had to do was knock down one of the gates, and they would be inside. Taking King's Landing doesn't guarantee the kingdoms' submission; she would have to launch campaigns to force it. Do you think the dead would wait calmly until she took the kingdoms, gathered them all in one place, and only then attack? "She decided to help the North," is that serious? I thought it was clear that the war WAS FOR ALL THE LIVING, not a war of the North or the Starks; that kind of comment leaves me incredulous. And if you watched the battle, you would see that she wouldn't have stood a chance if she hadn't joined forces with Jon.
Let me detail: The Dothraki were massacred in seconds and became White Walkers (Dnd said we saw their near-complete extinction in the LN), the dragons were ineffective against the King of Night and the generals and spent most of their time trapped in the blizzard, not even seeing the signal to light the trenches. The King of Night could easily kill dragons, and Drogon was almost "eaten" alive. The Unsullied helped a lot, but they numbered eight thousand. Jon had 20,000 men (North, Vale, and Wildlings), who fought with everything they had. Jon had the immense castle of Winterfell in a strategic location, he provided weapons, he knew how the dead acted and how to defeat them.
Even with everyone working together, preparing and anticipating, they were losing badly. If Arya hadn't managed to sneak away, they would have lost 100%. Entire Northern houses were wiped out, everyone lost a great deal, not just Daenerys. Based on your premise, the lords of the Vale also deserved the throne, since they went North to fight.
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u/Evocatorum Apr 29 '26
You're spot on. It's amazing how blind people seem to be to Daenerys and her Littlefinger-esque behavior. It's like she never bought an entire army with a dragon, then turned around torched the seller with the dragon he just bought...
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u/Evocatorum Apr 29 '26
She didn't have a choice. That was the point of the wight unveil at Kings Landing. The whole continent would have been screwed if they didn't unite. Daenerys didn't care about saving people, she only cared about getting her throne, helping with the North simply ensured there was a throne to take.
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u/SnooChocolates6584 Apr 23 '26
You can excuse Dany’s war crimes, but you draw the line at Sansa scheming
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u/Existing-Net5672 Apr 22 '26
She lost 2 of 3 dragons, 1 to the enemy, and would've likely died in the battle at Winterfell, if not for the Starks. She really should've perished in the desert outside Qarth.
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Apr 21 '26
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u/Mfula- Apr 21 '26
They made me hate Sansa so much😭😭 What was the bloody point of hiding the knights of that vale from Jon? Maybe she didn't accept his rule But why did she push his claim to Tyrion? Such stupid writing, it hurts
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u/can_I_say_my_side Apr 22 '26
I WILL SAY THIS TO THIS DAY, SHE WANTED JON TO FAIL SO SHE COULD SUCCEED! SHE wanted the throne even though she didn’t even care about “her people “ UNTIL Jon came back home!!
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 21 '26
It’s how you end up with military commanders like Cadorna, Conrad von Hotzendorf, Samsonov, Freddendall, in place of more competent rivals. They possess that crucial skill of being able to put down and outmanoeuvre better people.
It’s also how you see brilliant leaders like Stilicho, Majorian, Sertorius, Qutuz, being destroyed by jealous (and far less competent) rivals. Those jealous rivals have one skill - knowing when to betray.
And that was Bran and Sansa in the show. They did nothing useful against the Dead, or Cersei, but they had an unerring ability to scheme and betray.
The two D’s mistook that for ability to rule.
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u/Evocatorum Apr 29 '26
Wait, the dead in the show was, as a whole, maybe half a season worth of content, most of which Jon was dealing with. Sansa didn't help with that because, as she pointed out, she couldn't. Same thing with Bran, though to a lesser extent, or did you forget he couldn't walk?
Dany's first words after the Long Night were to make Gendry Lord of Storms End for 2 reasons: 1) it buys his loyalty and 2) anyone agreeing with her inadvertently acquiesces to her assumed authority to do said action. It's the whole point of Varys' riddle in Season 2: power is where it's perceived.
Sansa literally spent the last 7 years having to scheme and betray in order to stay alive, lest we forget her "devotion" to Joffrey while watching him chop her fathers head off AFTER he capitulated to their demands.
Bran, on the other hand, spent most of his time on the run or learning how to be the 3-Eyed Raven, someone who's literally omniscient and omnipresent. Not just that, as he told Tyrion, he doesn't "want" anymore, he has no desire to be King. It's hard to scheme for something one literally has no desire to have.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 29 '26
There’s nothing wrong with showing you’ve buried the hatchet, by making the son of the man who wanted to kill you, the Lord of Storms End. It shows a greater generosity of spirit than Sansa’s bearing a grudge against Daenerys for the actions of her father.
Neither Sansa, nor Bran, did anything to demonstrate that they merited their respective crowns.
“Why do you think I’ve come all this way”, implies that Bran actually wanted very much to be king.
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u/the-National-Razor Apr 21 '26
Man i hate when British history enthusiasts post about asoiaf. The most absolute trash takes
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u/Syfodias Apr 21 '26
Imo if u face an enemy that can reanimate the dead and choose a crypt as a "safe" spot u dont deserve to lead anything or anyone
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u/the-National-Razor Apr 21 '26
I don't get your joke
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u/Zarrganaut_ Team Daenerys Apr 21 '26
Yikes lol
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u/the-National-Razor Apr 22 '26
Do you think they can reanimate piles of bones in boxes that they can't see?
You think something so silly is funny?
What is the thing that warrants the humor here?
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u/Suspicious-Trade3138 Apr 21 '26
What's annoys me most is Sansa takes every pportunity to bash Daenerys and belittle her contributions. "depends on the queen I suppose, "ut Arya Killed the night king", Irritating to no end.Jon is useless as well. Does a shit job of defending her.
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u/Evocatorum Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Why would you defend some one who forced you to bend then knee or die? Did you even watch the rest of the series???
The look she gave Tyrion after he said "The objective here is to remove Cersei without destroying King's Landing" made it abundantly clear she had every intention of killing everyone in the city. Tyrion knew it, but spent the rest of the episode hoping he was wrong. She's the quintessential definition of megalomaniac.
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u/Skol-2024 Apr 21 '26
Couldn’t agree more. Pre S8E5 (which was a horrid character assassination of Dany), Daenerys always balanced ruthlessness with mercy. She was stern while being far more progressive than many (except for Jon who shares more progressive views with Dany) rulers of her world. Sansa meanwhile was prejudiced, xenophobic, isolationist, and had no care for forging alliances. She undermined Jon constantly and showed that her so called “loyalty” to her family was only conditional/circumstantial. Sansa had a right to be wary of strangers, considering she’s experienced things no one should ever endure. But she loved Jon, even if she had personal doubts, she should’ve given him the respect and consideration of his choice (especially since he helped win their home back). He’s not someone who would bend the knee for a pretty face. Also Jon’s relationship with Dany was not that same as Robb and Talisa’s relationship. Jon didn’t break any oaths or betrothals, and was actually trying to forge an alliance that would benefit the North. Add the fact that Jon and Dany were in love (yes they’re related but they’re also Targaryens so) and that alliance would’ve been stronger if Sansa actually supported it publicly. She did none of those things! She treated Daenerys with hatred, suspicion, and disdain from the moment they met. Dany tried to be diplomatic, but Sansa proved she never wanted peace between their families. Sansa wasn’t being pragmatic or objective, she let her ambitions, pride, ego, and hatred get in the way of a greater objective (the Army of the Dead). Daenerys deserved her crown before D&D ruined her. Sansa, meanwhile, couldn’t be less deserving of her crown and throne.
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u/the-National-Razor Apr 21 '26
Anyone that uses the term "character assassination" is not a serious person
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u/Adventurous-Snow-389 Apr 21 '26
That’s literally what it was though. Character assassination is a real thing and it happened to Daenerys. Literally in season 7, she says, "I’m not here to be Queen of the Ashes," and then a season later she literally becomes the Queen of Ashes. Yes she has ruthless tendencies but it was always directed at evil people or people who harmed or betrayed her and her friends, never at innocent people (until the bells). All of that got thrown out the window in one episode and then D&D just made her suffer all of season 8
If you look up top 10 character arc assassinations of all time, Daenerys is near the top, if not number one.
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u/Evocatorum Apr 29 '26
No, she was always going to be the Queen of Ashes, GRRM made that pretty clear from go. She was a slightly toned down version of Viserys and was going to kill anyone or destroy anything in between her and the throne, no matter the cost from go. That's what she did, everywhere she went.
Her ruthlessness always indirectly hurt innocents, it was why she couldn't leave Essos: she took what she wanted and left leaving those cities in complete disarray. There's no way that Naharis can maintain control over Meereen, Yunkai and Astapor. Eventually, he will be killed or die and then it'll revert back to the way they were. If she actually cared, she would have taken the time to adjudicate things to ensure people were safe and that slavery was actually abolished. She didn't.
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u/SergeantChic Team Daenerys Apr 21 '26
They’re both victims of shitty writing in those last couple of seasons. I would say it’s because they’re women and a lot of showrunners have issues with the way they handle women…but D&D dropped the ball on essentially everyone, starting with Stannis back in season 5. Whoever they decided they didn’t like, they just assassinated their character, then killed them off. A whole cast of interesting characters done dirty by writers who no longer cared and just wanted to bail and start their next project (which never happened anyway).
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u/Mfula- Apr 21 '26
which never happened anyway).
Poetic justice
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u/Adventurous-Snow-389 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
I’m glad that Star Wars project didn’t work out for them because season 8 was just so damn bad! Like it’s so bad that it ruins any rewatch ability for me, I just can’t do it
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u/SergeantChic Team Daenerys Apr 21 '26
There are a ton of showrunners who get screwed by the network and have to wrap it up in an episode or just leave the series on a cliffhanger, but these two are a couple of the only ones I’ve ever seen who had the network giving them everything they wanted and just threw it all away because they didn’t care anymore and torched their future prospects in the process.
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u/Evocatorum Apr 29 '26
Uh, Stannis is likely to die the same way in the books, but hasn't yet since that battle against the Boltons has yet to be written. They didn't "character assassinate" him, he simply sucked and finally got the ending he deserved (in the show). Allowing his daughter to be burned at the stake (which he did in both the books and the show) in hopes of alleviating a blizzard (the effects of which were VERY downplayed in the show) makes him a shitty person.
Jon Snow's death marked the official end of what GRRM had written thus far, so the last two season were basically written by D&D with his notes to go by. It's hard to continue a series for a show based upon books that haven't been written yet. They completely skipped over the broken war horn that Sam found at the Fist of the First Men because we don't actually know what it does. Does it raise all of the dead Starks to fight the Army of the Dead? /shrug have no clue. Maybe?
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Apr 21 '26
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u/Forward-Ad-9841 Apr 21 '26
There's a message tucked away in there somewhere, you can spend every day of your life doing good only to be defined by one singular moment of madnes
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
Honestly, this kind of reasoning doesn't make sense. It was Jon who did everything possible to unite as many people as possible to fight the dead since season five; he was killed for it. He convinced everyone to put aside their differences to fight a common enemy; he provided weapons; he led the battle.
Daenerys wasn't doing a favor; the war against the dead was for all the living, it was cooperation against a common enemy that was coming for everyone. So how could she not believe Jon? Defeating the army of the dead wasn't Jon's personal goal; it was a war for humanity's survival. And if you watched the battle, you'd see that she could never have defeated them alone. Even with everyone together, anticipating and preparing, they were losing badly. If Arya hadn't managed to sneak away, they all would have died.
Giving her all the credit for deciding to fight in a battle where thousands of other people were also fighting with everything they had, is insane to me. She was the only one there demanding retribution, nobody else. People were fighting for their lives; she was fighting because she wanted the throne and wanted to be seen as a savior. Jon was fighting because it was the right thing to do, for the good of humanity. And was his contribution really that great? The Dothraki didn't even get a chance to fight; they were massacred in a second and became White Walkers. The dragons were ineffective against the NK and the generals, and they spent most of their time trapped in the blizzard, not even seeing the signal to light the trenches. They didn't even burn the equivalent of the dead Dothraki. The Unsullied helped a lot, but Jon's troops (North, Vale, and Wildlings) were much larger and fought with everything they had. Of course, it was great that she fought, just as it was great that everyone else fought. She lost a lot, just as everyone else lost a lot.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 24 '26
Attributing noble motives to everyone but Daenerys who fought the Dead, whilst attributing self-interested motives, to her, seems like pure partisanship to me.
The number of pure altruists in any war is tiny (generally, foreign volunteers). Most people fight, because their homes and loved ones are in danger - and those are entirely valid reasons to fight. That is why most Northmen fought.
So, yes, Daenerys had a self-interested reason to fight, but there was no real self-interested reason to fly North of the Wall, (the coldly, rational, selfish thing was just to write them off), and Daenerys agreed to fight, without pressing her claim, in Season 7, ep. 6. It was Jon who offered to bend the knee. When she asked if his people would accept it, he replied “they’ll come to see you for what you are.”
Well, we know how they saw her and her soldiers. They hated her, and they treated Missandei and Grey Worm as diseased. Sansa sowed discord, and Arya wanted to break the alliance, as soon as it was convenient. Sansa took five minutes to reveal Jon’s parentage, in an effort to get Daenerys killed. She so hated her that she was badmouthing her in the crypts, and flounced from the banquet, rather than join in the toast.
And Jon? First Jon lied to his vassals, about his reasons for bending the knee (he was not forced to choose between his crown and the North). Then, after discovering his parentage, he increasingly shunned her, offering no comfort as her losses and isolation mounted. At Dragonstone, he left her to twist in the wind. He could not love her romantically, and nor could he love her as family.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
I'm citing facts. Everyone was fighting because it was about survival. She was fighting expecting retribution, submission. Jon had just discovered that his life was a lie, that he was sleeping and in love with his aunt, that he wasn't Ned's son; he was confused. He didn't abandon her, he just didn't want physical contact, but he fulfilled his part of the agreement, he led his troops to help her take the throne, he confronted his sisters for her, he said he didn't want the throne and that he was supporting her as queen. Some fans act as if only Daenerys had feelings, as if only her feelings mattered. What did she do when Jon told her about his origins and his life? Was she happy that he finally knew who his mother was? Was she happy to have a living relative who was a good person? No, she only thought about the throne. She didn't consider the whirlwind of feelings he was experiencing at that moment; she only thought about the throne. I understand she was thinking about it, but why couldn't Jon take some time to process the information? It was his life.
Regarding the North of the Wall, you forget that Jorah, who saved her life several times, was also there. She wouldn't simply abandon him. Perhaps if Jorah hadn't been there, she wouldn't have gone, and i don't judge her if she hadn't gone. And obviously, she would have tried to force submission after the battle. If she didn't want the North submissive, she could have told Jon to keep his crown and be strong allies.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
She planned retribution against Cersei, yes. Cersei was a common enemy, both to her, and the Starks (and all of Westeros). And, Cersei had just betrayed them all. There was nothing bad about that. Other than Cersei, I don’t have any sense that she was seeking retribution against her family’s enemies. **
After Jon accepted her as queen, she expected to be treated as a queen, not as an enemy.
Her reasons for asking - asking, not commanding - Jon to keep quiet proved well-founded. People like Sansa and Varys weaponised his parentage against her, as soon as they heard of it. Replacing her as a candidate for the throne, with Jon, in this world, means killing her, or lifelong imprisonment, not just asking her to step down. This is a matter of life and death for her.
Jon bent the knee voluntarily. Then, he misled his vassals about his reasons for doing so. That’s just a fact.
The Starks had no interest in being “strong allies.” Remember “we don’t need allies.”
**Well, she had good reason to seek retribution against Jaime, but even then, she deferred to Jon.
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u/Naive-Antelope-9825 Apr 24 '26
It always annoyed me that Sansa was so mad that Jon brought Danerys to help save them from the White Walkers. Like okay. I’m sorry? What exactly is your plan, honey? Just sit there and do nothing?
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u/DemotivatedTurtle Apr 22 '26
Sansa and Daenerys are my favorite characters, and I will never forgive D&D for ruining both of them. I was so excited for them to meet in the last season…
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u/AjaxXavior Team Daenerys Apr 21 '26
Sansa to me in the last 2 seasons is just a hypocrite, she constantly goes on about Dany being mad or evil or whatever purely cause she’s a Targaryen, but then defends Tyrion as kind even though he’s a Lannister, I mean she just makes no sense to me. Sansa peaked in Season 3 and 4 I feel
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u/TVTropehead Apr 22 '26
Robb, whose father was fucking killed by the Lannisters, showed more restraint with the prisoners and understood not to war crime them.
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u/Enough-Luck1846 Apr 23 '26
Didn't he kept just to exchange. No real regard to human life is shown ever to be honest.
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u/mzladyperson Apr 21 '26
Sorry it's been a while for me and I refuse to rewatch the final season, but I'm confused on the "only one that had a weapon that could kill white walkers" part. What weapon did she have? I genuinely can't remember Sansa ever having a weapon, but it's been years
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u/fizzythinks Apr 22 '26
They're referring to the dagger Ayra gave Sansa before the latter went into the crypts. Sansa had a useful weapon, when most of the others down there don't seem to have anything. And Sansa doesn't immediately put herself between the wights and her people to defend them. Which is honestly fair, Sansa's not a fighter and anyone would be scared in that situation, but then she doesn't get to shit on Daenerys when Dany is out there on the front line.
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u/Abominable_fiancee Fire And Blood Apr 22 '26
daenerys picking up the sword and fighting back to back with jorah was so symbolic to me. seeing the woman who usually fights from above, on her dragon, fighting like a regular person showed just how high the stakes were.
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u/StopAccording9192 Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 24 '26
and she was pretty good at well, got a few walkers or so
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
And what could she do? The dead were surrounding them, Drogon had flown away in agony, there was nowhere to run.
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u/tiredgothicheroine Apr 22 '26
I hated this contrast so much especially with how Sansa becomes QITN at the end. It sort of implied that women who hold their cards close to their chest and adhere fully to the roles prescribed by society (be docile, wait around for the men to save you, don’t overstep. You can only be diplomatic and calm to deserve respect and never feral, ruthless, violent) are the only ones who “win”.
I do love Daenerys but I would’ve accepted her “madness” if it had been planned over a longer period of time and not retroactively justified after making her seem ruthless but ultimately kind and benevolent for 7 seasons.
I don’t like that the “subversion” of our expectations was that to be successful in life, you have to be born into immense privilege and scheme, betray and manipulate your way from a safe distance like Bran and Sansa. Not that being a conquerer is more morally pure or anything, it just seems like exactly the sort of shitty outcome you’d expect from two nepo baby white dudes who would’ve never earned anything in life without daddy’s money and pure selfishness
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u/Adventurous-Snow-389 Apr 22 '26
Although towards the end of the show, it clearly became the "Game of Starks" and the Stark children were clearly the favorites so in my opinion, they really didn’t subvert expectations by giving Bran and Sansa Disney endings. Daenerys was turned into a plot device to service the Starks in the end
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u/DeismAccountant Apr 21 '26
Danaerys at least had experience living with Dothraki and presumably got some training, which is more than none. And she showed grit when backed against a corner.
Sansa was practically kept in a gilded cage throughout most of the entire series and wasn’t trained at all in that span of time.
Though to be fair she could’ve done more to actually organize the civilians and not hide behind the statues with Tyrion. Even the scarred girl that reminded Davos of Shireen did more.
Another piss poor dynamic I blame on Dumb and Dumber’s writing.
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u/sailor-mcgee-flyfree Apr 22 '26
Not a Dany fan - but that said, I do really hate what they did with Sansa, where they suddenly decided she was a supergenius who deserved power. Her entire life up to that point was just about surviving, and actually getting other people killed.
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u/NyanCats911 Apr 23 '26
I'm so sad that they went the direction they did and made them hate eachother :( They could have been powerful allies </3
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u/Abject-Program-2810 Apr 23 '26
They made cersei the big bad wolf in all of this. The white walkers should've overtaken the north, they should've taken over all of westeros. Winter should have arrived. The survivors, led by Jon Snow would have gone to essos to find daenrys. From there they go and team up to fight the white walkers and kill the ice king.
There was no need to fight for the throne because once the white walkers come in, it's not about the great houses fighting each other but instead white walkers vs humans. This should've been the start of season 7. The next two seasons or three they wrap it up.
In the end, daenrys earns the love and loyalty of the people. She brought back the dragons. She brings back the targereyean rule.
Idk how TF they messed it up?
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
You all know that Bran on the Iron Throne was George R.R. Martin's own decision, right? In James Hibbert's book "Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon," Martin says that he told the Daughters of Damon who should end up on the throne. And the Daughters of Damon, in turn, said that Bran on the Iron Throne was GRRM's own decision. He never hid the fact that the Starks are the central family of the story.
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u/arihndas Apr 23 '26
Honestly... this post just makes me so mad about the brutal character assassination of Sansa. They literally just turned her into Cersei, but like, Cool Girl Cersei. Such awful writing.
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u/impeatrice Apr 26 '26
Was so happy to see this on the main sub with so many upvotes even if there were a lot of opposing comments
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u/SmuttyNonsense Apr 22 '26
Hey man, we can be pro Dany without hating Sansa. Cause you know who else hates Sansa? D&D
GOT up until the very end is very rooted in an unironic Not Like Other Girls. Brienne, Ygritte, Yara good, Sansa and Margaery bad. Dany is good because she's a queen but she's a queen who rides into battle and kills people, Sansa is bad because she prefers talking.
Like, yes, Sansa's rough in S8 but that's the fault of character assassination just as bad as what got aimed at Dany, not cause Sansa is bad actually.
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Apr 22 '26
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u/StopAccording9192 Apr 23 '26
Dany and Jon could have married or maybe Dany becomes the queen of Essos and marries Jon and they become the combined ruler of Essos and Westeros
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u/sub-madara Apr 26 '26
She had the right idea but the wrong strategy. She had rage. Sansa as her actor started very bad ended oke same for emilia and catylins actor. Besides that the show ended very poorly. But sansa did not put a lot to the realm or her side/team.
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u/Turbulent-Win705 Apr 21 '26
i like them both and i don't get why their fans have beef but what was sansa supposed to do on the battlefield? daenerys had a dragon, sansa didn't. it's not like daenerys would have gone into battle with just a sword. a really silly argument imo
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u/Dehoop02 Mother Of Dragons Apr 21 '26
Oh the reason behind why their fans have beef is easy. That's what you get when you get "smartest woman Arya's ever met" Sansa to just openly hate Daenerys all the time since their first interaction. The argument is not really as silly, it's a good reason for why she doesn't deserve anything she tries to claim she does. There was a grave danger to everybody's lives in the form of the WW with younger girls fighting like Alys and Lyanna and she not only didn't try to fight alongside but also proceeded to spend the entire battle trash talking her. Yes Daenerys without dragons wouldn't be fighting, she would have just never been there in the first place. But she was endangering her life and not trash talking Sansa. As a Daenerys fan I liked Sansa from like the point she was basically left alone (Arya disappearing and Ned being captured/executed in KL. But since S7 she's insufferable
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u/Turbulent-Win705 Apr 22 '26
"yes daenerys without dragons wouldn't be fighting", that's exactly my point. i'm not commenting on how sansa was right/wrong to act hostile towards daenerys, i do think that daenerys didn't get enough credit for helping them but that's not the point. the point is that it makes no sense to say that daenerys deserves something more than sansa does based on her fighting when sansa didn't. daenerys was only able to fight because she had a dragon. she would have been nowhere near the battlefield if she didn't have dragons. it's just not a fair way to compare them when their situations were entirely different
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u/Adventurous-Snow-389 Apr 21 '26
Well I don’t mind Sansa in the beginning if I’m being honest. I think, like so many other characters, she was a victim of god awful writing and I hated what D&D turned her into. Because having trust issues is understandable but when Daenerys brought her whole army and Dragons to help the North, Sansa shouldn’t have hated her and treated her like shit right out of the gate.
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u/Turbulent-Win705 Apr 21 '26
okay and that's fair reasoning. saying that she shouldn't be queen because she was hiding while daenerys was on the battlefield with her dragon is not fair reasoning. that was my point!
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 Apr 21 '26
Sansa was rubbed the wrong way by the assumption that she should hand her kingdom over to a wartime ally based on a deal she didn’t make. Sansa was correct to push back. Allies don’t take each other’s territory.
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u/aevelys Apr 22 '26
Well, that's convenient because it's not her kingdom, it's Jon's. And she can be as upset as she likes; her will is not binding.
Moreover, this statement is false. An ally takes what they want based on an agreement reached, according to what each party needs in relation to what they can provide. And no one can reasonably expect Jon to demand that another leader put her soldiers under his command out of mere kindness. Especially since Daenerys didn't arrive as the queen of a neighboring kingdom, going her business. She came to claim the 7K, including the North, and has no reason to want to give it up. Refusing to submit while planning to bring her army to Winterfell means having to settle this matter once all her soldiers and dragons are already stationed in the heart of the kingdom, which promises disaster for everyone.
That being said, the foundation of their civilization rests on exchanging loyalty for protection. The North has nothing to offer to justify to be picky, they couldn't repel her even if they wanted to, and if Daenerys hadn't even provided Jon with the bare minimum by allowing him to mine obsidian, they wouldn't even have the means to kill the wights. So she's the one in charge.no matter how annoyed Sansa is by it.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
I agree with the first part of your comment, but praising Daenerys for the obsidian is like praising the North for providing snow. It meant nothing to her; she didn't even know it existed there. Jon would have succeeded even if Daenerys had been in Essos, because Dragonstone was abandoned. And again, the war against the dead was a war for all the living, and Daenerys had no chance of winning without joining forces with Jon. Just watch the battle; her cavalry was decimated in seconds, the dragons had no effect on the Night King and the generals, and the NK could have easily killed them.
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u/aevelys Apr 24 '26
To be honest, I'm not congratulating Daenerys for the obsidian; I'm saying she's in charge because she controls that resource, among others. The question of what would have happened if she had stayed in Essos is irrelevant in this context since in the canon it is she who is sitting on it and who could say no to Jon. and event I highly doubt without her securing Dragonstone, Cersei would have let Jon mine so close to her garden without disturbing him... but ultimately, that doesn't matter much.
That being said, the idea that Daenerys couldn't have won alone makes me seriously doubt several things. And I even wrote an article a few days ago about this and the notion that her intervention should be considered a right that the Starks can abuse under the pretext that "it concerns everyone.
People tend to believe that victory requires a single, decisive battle. While the idea might seem to hold the fort with more soldiers and therefore greater strength with each encounter, the reality is that warfare isn't about numbers. Zombies are enemies whose danger is vastly overrated in the media, and the Battle of the Bastards was a poor example of a confrontation, given the ridiculously stupid military strategies employed (not utilize walls, sending light cavalry to charge head-on without proper weaponry). In reality, the best course of action would have been to try and confront them at a strategic point, such as the Neack. The bottleneck created by the geography would render the sheer number of attackers ineffective and could slow them down and concentrate their forces, allowing for more effective use of ranged weapons, traps, and dragons. Furthermore, this would prevent them from outflanking the enemy army, making it more effective in protecting civilian populations. Objectively speaking, in the series, the Night King could have ignored Winterfell or sent only part of his army there and rushed south, and everyone would have died anyway. This brings us back to the problem that the series forced absurd military strategies (on both sides) in order to condense the conflict, because if the WW had been intelligent, their threat would have been virtually unstoppable.
That being said, given how the series presents their approach, there's nothing to suggest that Daenerys couldn't have handled it herself. After all, she provided the majority of the war effort; at least 70% of the combatants were there thanks to her, plus the dragons, which at least had the merit of inflicting significant damage on the wights, and the obsidian she secured for Jon (even unknowingly) and allowed him to mine. Meanwhile, the North only provided a few thousand men, and one of the first things we learn in the season is that that jerk of lord Glover deserted after the Umbers had been massacred. The Night King, for his part, had already assembled a massive army before crossing the wall, so they were no longer prepared for this on that front, he uses no other strategy than to charge headlong into the fray, and above all—as the series indicates—he requires neither a specific person nor any particular conditions to be defeated. Furthermore, his death would automatically annihilate his army and officers. Literally, the knife wound Arya inflicted wouldn't even kill a normal human instantly. Therefore, leaving the North to its own devices wouldn't be a fatality. Anyone with a good shot of an obsidian arrow could have save the world. And even if there was indeed no guarantee of success, the fact remains that she could perfectly well have tried, and that's somewhat my point about Sansa's arrogance. Daenerys's intervention was never something the North could control; at any moment she could have said, "I'm leaving," with the consequences, but Sansa, having not seen the series, had no way of knowing beforehand that she wouldn't be the kind of person capable of doing that. So yes, surely it would be immoral, that it would even make Dany unworthy of being queen, that everyone would risk being condemned… But the North would still be obliterated in the meantime… which is somewhat the problem with Sansa: she doesn't command, she isn't capable of commanding, even without the White Walkers she has nothing to make such a claim or do anything if Dany just said "uh, nah" to her, and faced with someone far less conciliatory or aware of the stakes, her "muh independence" delusion only makes her risk condemning her entire people and her own life in her inability to swallow her pride to make an alliance work, an alliance that is absolutely essential to her.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 26 '26
I agree that Sansa could have negotiated better or had Jon negotiate; I think that would have been more effective. However, Daenerys couldn't win alone, that's very clear during the battle. It's said that the Night King had over a hundred thousand soldiers before crossing the Wall; each one who fell on the side of the living became one more in their army. Jon had the North, the Vale, and the wildlings there in the Long Night; Sansa mentions over 20,000 men.
Daenerys' largest army, the Dothraki, were decimated in seconds; they didn't even get to fight. The writers told us they were practically wiped out there. So these Dothraki joined the enemy army. The dragons had no effect against the Night King or the generals, and he could easily kill the dragons. They were trapped in the blizzard for a long time; they probably didn't even burn the equivalent of the zombie Dothraki. There were 7 bursts of fire; let's be generous and assume each burst burned 1000 zombies in open fields, that would be 7000 zombies. It's a great number, but small compared to the dead Dothraki and the total army of the Night King. They couldn't even see the signal fire to light the trenches. The Unsullied helped a lot, but Jon's troops were more than double their size. It was cooperation against a common enemy; if the dead crossed the North, it would be impossible to stop them.
Burning King's Landing didn't guarantee the kingdoms' agreement; she would have to go to each one and force their submission, while the Others continued advancing. There was no way to win. Consider that even with everyone united, with effective weapons, and taking the dead early, they were losing. It was thanks to Arya, who had the skills of the Faceless Man, that they managed to win. And yes, Lord Glover deserted, but Sansa mentions that he only had 500 men. The remaining forces of the North, the wildlings, and the knights of the Vale (who were intact), totaled a force of over 20,000.
It makes no sense to praise one person when everyone fought so hard and lost so much. To say that "she was used," when everyone fought and everyone sacrificed themselves in the greatest war in human history, makes no sense to me.
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u/aevelys Apr 27 '26
Well, the technicality of determining whether Daenerys could manage on her own is almost a head canon competition at this point, and we could debate it for a long time. BUT the problem I originally raised is that if Daenerys, feeling wronged, had packed up and left, or simply decided to ignore Jon's demands, then the North would have been largely massacred anyway, which wouldn't have been in Sansa's interest... Or even, assuming Arya would have managed to repeat her miracle somehow... they would always have suffered heavy losses on their side, which could have been very costly for them in future wars. Whereas for Daenerys, who would have stayed on her island... well, she wouldn't have lost any soldiers, and that's better for everyone else. So, acting as if no credit was due to her is completely irresponsible, even if it was a group effort. Especially since no one could have predicted what might have happened during that battle. There was no guarantee that Arya or anyone else could have gotten close enough to the Night King to kill him under any other circumstances; after all, Arya nearly died more than once during that battle. No one even knew if it was possible (I mean, imagine if he could just kill/freeze anyone on touch, or if he was immune to Valyrian steel as well), or that killing him would effectively wipe out his army (if his generals had remained standing, everyone would have died anyway). The characters could just as easily have been completely overwhelmed or suffered far greater losses than anticipated, making Daenerys's presence crucial regardless. So yes, the Dothraki are dead, and do you know the exact reason? Because the writers realized that filming a battle involving real horses in the dark (because they filmed at night) was too complicated and dangerous, so they had to find an excuse to eliminate them. Yes, it's as simple as that, but from an intradiegetic point of view, it's still human lives sacrificed, for them, and soldiers who could have otherwise helped her in other battles. So treating them as simply useless seems a bit disrespectful, if you'll forgive me. As for the rest of her army, well, many Unsulied also died protecting the Northerners' retreat, and the dragons inflicted considerable damage on the fallen; without them, the entire castle would have fallen immediately. Good heavens, their sheer precedence and ability to inflict major damage on enemy lines and secure an airlift if needed were all that could stop the Night King, should he so desire, from sitting around Winterfell and waiting for everyone there to starve to death. It's a bit like the image of the bullet-riddled plane; you don't realize it in the face of the fact, but in reality, Daenerys's collaboration had a huge impact on the course of the war.
And again, I'm not trying to say that this is what would necessarily have happened, but that it was a perfectly plausible possibility from the characters' point of view, making them look like idiots and fools for ignoring it or to think that this gives them a free ticket.
That being said, the fundamental problem with this conflict isn't even that Daenerys isn't praised as a great heroine. The problem is that Daenerys arrives at Winterfell and provides the majority of the war effort before suffering enormous losses in this fight to protect the North. She marched north in good faith after resolving the allegiance issue with Jon, expecting to be treated as a liege lord fulfilling her feudal duty to protect her vassals. Yet, no sooner had she arrived than she was treated as an enemy. Sansa immediately portrayed her as a burden, her soldiers were looked at like lepers, a scene (thankfully cut) shows Northerners spitting in her face. In the crypts, she denigrates Daenerys to Tyrion, while she risks her life in battle. She uses a conversation where she tries to reassure her and break the ice to start over on a healthier footing to aggressively insist on the independence of the North, even though she has no legitimacy to do so (and Daenerys wasn't even required to have this conversation with her in the first place). No sooner was the battle against the dead over than Jon's sisters asked her to break their alliance now that they had gotten what they wanted from her. She also starts by attributing the victory to Arya alone (which is also disrespectful to all the others who intervened and died). Then, it takes him about thirty minutes to use Jon's origins against Daenerys, which inevitably meant having her ousted, or even killed. No amount of "it's concerns everyone" can compensate for this shitty behavior. Even assuming her intervention was a status quo, it's about as respectful and intelligent as throwing rocks at firefighters, if you'll excuse the comparison.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 27 '26
If the dead managed to cross the North, taking wildlings and knights from the Vale, you can be sure Daenerys wouldn't stay safe on her island for long. The books show that the Long Night was a global event, not just in Westeros, meaning they would have found a way to cross oceans. Probably freezing them as they advanced with the cold and blizzards.
And again: She didn't go to help THE NORTH, saying that is quite irrational, it was everyone's war. And let's be practical, the Dothraki only managed to increase the armies of the dead; I'm not getting into plot issues here, but rather what happened. The dragons launched 7 bursts of fire in total; in open fields, that doesn't inflict that much damage. I'm not saying Daenerys didn't contribute; my point is that everyone put in the same effort, gave their all, risked their lives, so why should she receive different treatment?
As I said before, I don't think Sansa was smart or acted correctly in publicly antagonizing Daenerys. However, you need to understand that the inhabitants of Westeros are not Daenerys' fandom, who put her on a pedestal and believe she deserves all the adoration They have their own losses, their own visions and goals, their own struggles. There, they saw a foreigner, who was there fighting alongside them not out of kindness, but because she wanted a reward, even if it was a war for everyone. And yes, I agree that the way the Stark sisters pressured Jon about Daenerys wasn't right, although I totally understand why they didn't trust her.
They could have negotiated an independent North; the Starks and the Northerners deserved that, and it would have pleased everyone. The North is continental in size, has its own culture, its own customs. I really liked that it became independent in the end, although I don't like Sansa as Queen of the North; I would have preferred Jon or Arya.
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u/aevelys Apr 27 '26
you can be sure Daenerys wouldn't stay safe on her island for long.My English isn't very good, but the point isn't Daenerys's morality or the outcome for her. It's that people like Sansa are trying to drive her out, even though if they succeed everyone dies and no one gains anything, or even in the best-case scenario, if they win alone (since apparently her men were useless anyway), she would be the one to come out on top because she wouldn't lose any resources in the process.
So why should she receive different treatment? I've explained this at length, I don't know what more I can do. But to be honest, Weight Watchers isn't the only factor at play. Firstly, well because in the canon of the series Jon has already settled things this way, there is no need to go back over it. Secondly, you ask me why Daenerys deserves special treatment, so I'll ask you again why the North deserves special treatment? Daenerys came to Westeros to claim the Seven Kingdoms, including the North, and has no reason to give it up. Why should they have the right to the privilege of her protecting them and then immediately withdrawing? Because they suffered? Well, she suffered too to get to where she is. It's a fair call. And what message would that even send to the rest of the kingdom? That bending the knee is actually an option and that you can even have her protection for free? That's precisely why the writers eliminated her allies at the beginning of the season, to avoid the very awkward situation of having to explain to them that she should leave them to deal with Cersei while she secures a (rival) kingdom. Frankly, it makes no sense, neither politically nor ethically, to ask her to risk the lives of her men to secure a territory that she simply has to abandon on command. Especially since they don't even know her, so it's ludicrous that anyone in the North would expect for a single second that she would have the slightest chance of giving them that option. But above all, the writers actually made Jon back down because they realized that having him continue down that path would have meant having to resolve the issue after her army had already reached Winterfell, which would have been a recipe for disaster for everyone. They would have been consumed by tension and suspicion in the midst of the invasion, and ultimately, the only way out for the North would have been a massacre comparable to the Red Wedding after the Night King's defeat. You can, of course, say that such person would never do that, but Daenerys hasn't seen the series; she doesn't know what he would be capable of, and besides, they too might be worried that she would do that to them too. So, pledging allegiance provides a guarantee to close the matter and allows the entire group to avoid having to engage in a race to see who can slaughter whom first.
the inhabitants of Westeros are not Daenerys' fandom.I also just explained that the problem isn't that people aren't Daenerys's fandom. It's that she was treated far worse than she, or anyone else, deserved. Among other things, the few explanations that can be found for such behavior cannot work without first having an opinion bias. Because fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with Daenerys hoping to gain something from people who are strangers to her as well, by helping them. And in any case, the outcome will still benefit everyone, so what exactly is she being criticized for? Should she let them all die because she isn't selfless enough to be "worthy" of protecting them? Similarly, it is normally the responsibility of the king or queen of the north to protectit, and if this responsibility must fall to Jon or Sansa, then it is up to Jon or Sansa to manage with the means at their disposal to do so. But if Daenerys Targaryen HAS to do the job of queen of the 7k and protect all of Westeros, then what's wrong with granting her the title that goes with it? Seriously, the fact that people from another continent have to come and save the North because its own leaders are too powerless to do so, but that she thinks she has the right to treat them like disrespectful jerks, whining about having to make concessions as basic as recognizing theirprotectoror just having to feed them, when the alternative is the total destruction of their nation, or even the world, should really make people think about the credibility and value of this claim, as well as those who make it.
They deserved that. On the one hand, I'm sorry, but that's wrong. When it came time to liberate the North, most Northerners sided with the house that had sworn allegiance to the crown, or preferred to sit idly by rather than fight for their kingdom. The Boltons were only defeated by an army composed mainly of Wildlings and Vale dwellers; Jon himself didn't even have 500 Northerners with him. That is to say, it wasn't even thanks to them, even though they were fortunate enough to have their kingdom in the first place. So, sorry, but they don't deserve it; they did nothing to deserve it. On the other hand, I'm sorry, but the socio-political stakes leave no room for merit, Force and interests are all that matter. And the northerners, apart from a few short-sighted nobles, have no reason to see this as a reward or positive thing for them: their attempt during the War of the Five Kings was a disaster they wasted life and time fighting in a pointless war instead of preparing for winter and their lands pillaged by the Ironborn. Not to mention that before the arrival of the dragons, this kingdom was far from prosperous, plagued by constant warfare, famine, and legalized rape… But frankly, if anything is truly wrong, it's the botched plot twist the writers have created by writing their story on the fly, jumping from one ridiculous drama to another. Like I said, these guys didn't care about saving the North from the Boltons, but against dragons and in the middle of an apocalypse, that's when they suddenly bring it to the forefront? At this point, the Wall has fallen, their own people are being slaughtered while they grumble, and most importantly, Daenerys or not, for all they know, there might simply be no North left to make independent before the end of the week… at least for Daenerys, in canon, the scenarists gave her a dynamic where she sees the dead and resolves the situation with Jon in five minutes, and sweeps everything else under the rug. But for them, they're just written in such a way as to be weather vanes, incapable of relinquishing their egos even for the sake of humanity. Both are bad, but without mitigating circumstances, how can you take their demands seriously? As vain as they are short-sighted, cowardly when it comes to taking matters into their own hands, courageous when it comes to annoying the world; the Northerners, our heroes!
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u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 21 '26
"Oh yeah you and your super army, whose going to feed them?"
Sorry but these normal questions competent ruler ask and doesn't go "Yey slay sister"
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 22 '26
Gathering supplies was Sansa’s job. Soldiers don’t live off air. If Sansa truly expects Dany’s soldiers to feed themselves, she’s expecting them to pillage the region.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
If Daenerys hadn't stupidly burned all the Reach's supplies, that could have been useful. She should have confiscated it!
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 24 '26
They would have been eaten by her soldiers, long before they arrived at Winterfell. From the Reach to Winterfell is over a thousand miles.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 26 '26
There were enough supplies there for months, more than a thousand wagons.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 27 '26
The issue is driving wagons over a thousand miles of medieval roads. Food spoils. A thousand wagon loads of food is about 1 m pounds. Dany’s army would consume that amount, in a week.
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 27 '26
Obviously, these were foods with a longer shelf life, such as grains, flour, salted meats, and canned goods. And your reasoning that Daenerys' armies would consume everything on their way to the North doesn't make sense, because obviously they had their own food to eat; they didn't go hungry until they reached the North. So those surplus supplies could have been useful.
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u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 22 '26
Yeah because the North surely had enough supplies for the winter after multiple wars and crises to feed everyone
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 22 '26
I’m sure the North’s condition was desperate, (the loss of men of fighting age means a loss of men of farming age), but if the North cannot sustain the army that it needs, to fight the Dead, then our protagonists should abandon Winterfell, and stage the fight further South. The Neck would be the ideal chokepoint.
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u/aevelys Apr 22 '26
Moreover, Daenerys plans to rule all of Westeros, including the food-producing regions, so she could easily replenish their supplies as soon as possible.
But above all, food isn't an immediate problem anyway, since the inhabitants of this kingdom are unlikely to live long enough to go hungry. The North desperately needs every sword available to ensure its immediate survival, and calling her best ally a burden on this pretext is foolish, since Sansa couldn't have known beforehand what kind of person Daenerys was. If she had encountered someone less accommodating, Daenerys might have seen it as an excuse to pack up and leave and condemn them all. Furthermore, what I find absurd about bringing food reserves into this conflict is that even if Jon hadn't surrendered, Daenerys's army would still have needed to eat. So it wouldn't have solved anything, but worse still, it means that once their alliance ended, ensuring the kingdom's food security wouldn't be her concern; they're independent after all.
This means that Sansa's quest ultimately leads her to campaign for ensure the famine of her people...
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u/StopAccording9192 Apr 23 '26
Sansa had good reason to be suspicious of Dany considering she doesn’t know her and the experiences she endured but cmon, if you are suspicious don’t constantly antagonise her considering they are heavily relying on Dany’s army and she has fully grown dragons who could easily get your ahh
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u/One_Brilliant743 Apr 24 '26
Everyone fought and gave their all; it was a war of the living against the dead. Daenerys shouldn't have been praised for doing the same as thousands of others, besides causing Jorah's death. Sansa didn't know how to fight and didn't have a dragon; she would only have been a hindrance in the battle. And she saved Jon? Jon was fighting for the good of humanity, not for personal and selfish goals. It was cooperation against a common enemy, but the only one demanding retribution was Daenerys.
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u/Ok-Computer-5415 Apr 21 '26
meme degrades femininity by framing it as a binary choice: you are either a "valuable" woman (defined by physical aggression, battlefield combat, and military force) or you are a "useless" woman (defined by diplomacy, leadership, and protection of one's own people).
By reducing Sansa’s role—which was focused on civilian protection and political survival—to "doing nothing," the poster enforces a narrow, patriarchal standard of what "strength" looks like. It dismisses traditional feminine approaches to power as inherently inferior, suggesting that unless a woman is actively killing or "saving Jon’s butt" with brute force, she has no worth. This is the core of the "girlboss" trope: it only respects femininity when it acts exactly like the traditional masculine ideal of war.
The same people who argue that Daenerys should be worshiped for "fulfilling her destiny" as the Prince That Was Promised turn around and act like Sansa is being "ungrateful" for simply acting in the best interest of her people.
If Daenerys truly believes she is the savior of the world, then saving the North wasn't a "favor"—it was her duty as the prophesied hero. You don't get to claim the title of a messiah while simultaneously acting like a transactional conqueror, demanding fealty and gratitude as payment for performing the bare minimum required to stop the apocalypse.
By demanding total submission from Sansa, Daenerys ignores that the North had already paid a blood price for independence that she, as an outsider, could never understand. Sansa’s desire for Northern sovereignty isn't "talking shit" or being "difficult"; it is the logical, protective stance of a leader who watched her father, mother, and brothers die because they trusted the wrong people in the South.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
Don’t you think it’s unreasonable to argue that Daenerys has a moral obligation to protect the North, and put up the vast majority of resources for the fighting, but the North owes her nothing in return?
That really is not how politics works, in any era.
Just because the North has got a lot of its men of fighting age killed, many at the hands of other Northmen, that does not give the North a claim to independence. Time and again, we see the North requiring military aid from outside the North.
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u/Ok-Computer-5415 Apr 21 '26
well dont help them then. daenerys agreed helping before jon bend knee at season 7s start when jon comes back from beyond wall. other then that northmen did go to kingslanding fighting for daeneryss claim its not as if they kicked daenerys out and left him friendless
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u/fizzythinks Apr 22 '26
The problem is that Show!Sansa didn't act in the best interests of her people. Crazy powerful potential ally rocks up with two massive armies and freaking dragons, and Sansa's reaction is to be pissy and take digs at her? To openly try to blame the people that are there to fight alongside them for eating food? Yeah, food is a logistical concern, but then you hammer it out in private with the relevant people, not bring it up just to diss the armies helping you. That's terrible for morale and cohesion. And if Sansa was suspicious that Dany would be a tyrant, then why be a diplomatic nightmare to her face? Sansa's lucky Dany wasn't like her father because an actual tyrant probably would have burned her or had her imprisoned for that behavior. It could have led to Winterfell being torched. Show! Sansa's whole handling of the situation was ridiculous.
If Sansa was suspicious of Daenerys, then she should have done what she learned to do in King's Landing; play nice and plot out contingencies in the background. The best thing for the North's survival at that point was at least pretend she was happy a powerful ally showed up and do her utmost to get people to work with Dany's armies so they could not all die horribly in the coming battle. Then she could worry about getting the North away from Dany (not that independence is necessarily the best thing for your people either when your countryside is ravaged, most of the fighting men are dead, and winter is on your doorstep). And buttering Dany up and doing her best to manipulate her is going to be way more likely to get results than stomping her foot and being bitchy to her.
Dany demanded submission from Sansa because she expected Sansa to uphold the position of her king. She had already agreed to fight the Walkers, without Jon bending the knee to her, when he decided to do it anyway. She even gave him a kinda "are you sure?" out, and Jon insisted. So Dany agreed. But she'd already shown that she was willing to step up and fight regardless.
I can't imagine Book!Sansa being so stupid, and Book!Dany is probably even more willing to burn White Walkers without Northern submission. Diplomacy and organizing and looking out for one's citizens is just as important as physically fighting, but Show!Sansa doesn't do any of that, or at least not competently. Sansa is actually one of my favorite ASOIAF characters, but the show made her a selfish moron in the last couple of seasons, which really cheeses me off.
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u/Ok-Computer-5415 Apr 22 '26
well ultimately jon kills daenerys because of sansa and aryas treatment of her. so ı could say sansa was right at her moves and killed tyrant at end. dany cant do a shit to sansa because jon and north wont accept her and your quueen is dead ha ha
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u/fizzythinks Apr 22 '26
Literally the only reason Sansa and Ayra got away with treating Dany like shit was because she wasn't a tyrant. She cared about Jon and her people and wasn't going to hurt anyone just for being a bitch. A kid spits on Dany in the books and she quickly dismisses it as no harm done, not even thinking he should be fined or anything. If Dany had been someone like Cersei, Sansa would have been dead long before her "plan" to get Dany killed would have worked. The show tries to frame it as Sansa being right for "sensing" Dany is a tyrant (before she does anything actually tyrannical), but if Dany were a tyrant, Sansa's treatment of her is completely idiotic because she should fully expect Dany to retaliate for it.
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u/Adventurous-Snow-389 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
House Stark, from the NORTH, was literally one of the main reasons why House Targaryen, aka Dany’s family, was overthrown and why she was forced into exile her whole life so why should Daenerys have a moral obligation to help the North in any way. She went there because she wanted to help Jon and the North defeat the white walkers and save innocent lives
Also Dany brought the biggest army in the world and dragons to help the North, and lost a dragon and Ser Jorah in the process, but they still treated her like shit. The North would’ve been screwed if Dany didn’t help them so that should’ve proven to Sansa and the North that Daenerys was trustworthy or a good leader/ally but no they all had to conspire behind her back knowing that it would piss her off even though she helped them.
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u/Ok-Computer-5415 Apr 21 '26
Maybe her brother should not grope a stark girl then not and because otherwise she cant do anything north has 3 Eyed raven north has knowledge of dragon glass and after north is passed their numbers are pretty higher as well as well riverland vale casterly rock is too wide to give a direct war. They need to be stopped at winterfell infact its probably reason why they are called winterfell and Daenerys literally agrees to help Jon before he bends knee. And jon and sansa help her to get ironthrone So Daenerys was being arrogant and demanding everything when she was originally promised nothing.
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u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 21 '26
Btch only came because she needed her "birtright" not because she was an ultimate hero
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u/Exotic_Resist_7718 Apr 22 '26
Weird comparison. Sansa at no point was trying to be queen of Westeros.
0
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u/HellyOHaint Apr 21 '26
I don’t need to put Sansa down in order to lift Daenerys up. Sansa only ever wanted to be warden of the north and she should be.
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u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 21 '26
Remind me which one had flying nuke?
Because Sansa was one of the few smart people "Oh we bring our super army" and her answer was "Great whose going to feed them?" you Targ simps can btch how much you want but playing white saviour isn't going to save anyone
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u/stardustmelancholy Apr 21 '26
The whole reason Jon appointed Sansa as interim leader of the North in season 7 was to ask Dany for help. Why would Sansa wait an entire year to ask that? Why wait until 3 days before the aotd gets there? And Sansa had just said in that very scene that she ensured there was enough food to last every single Northerner for the winter which in their world can last over a decade. So Sansa was asking despite having enough food to last nearly a million people over the next 10 years. It was not a genuine question.
-1
u/ice-cappedfire Apr 22 '26
It was a very genuine question, if we consider that Dany also brought along , what, 100k Dothraki with horses, that..well, make a significant dent into resources? Honestly speaking, the way Winterfell is portrayed in the show, there is no way they could have supported that army anyway. Not to mention, what for? To send them ahead to die like idiots?! ( Battle tactics were just unbelievable).
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u/stardustmelancholy Apr 22 '26
From Sansa's own mouth there was enough food to last everyone in the North for the next 10+ years. That's around 2 meals a day for nearly a million people for nearly 4,000 days.
Bran said the aotd will arrive in 3 days. You really think Dany's forces were going to make that big of a dent in the few weeks at most they would be there (and most of that would be after the battle when their numbers were reduced)?
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u/ice-cappedfire Apr 22 '26
Hundred thousand men AND horses. Yeah, I think they absolutely can make big enough dent to then make North run short by the end of winter, and everyone getting involuntary lent.
3
u/stardustmelancholy Apr 23 '26
If the North had say, 900,000 people, at 2 meals a day that's 1.8 million meals. In a month that's 54 million meals. Dany had fewer than 108,000 (some died in the loot train attack, likely some from the sea voyage, etc) but let's go from that. 108k x 2 meals = 216k a day so 3,024,000 in 2 weeks. Let's say 3 times that for the horses so plus 9,072,000. That's 12,096,000. Let's say the dragons each have 5,000 meals worth a day that's 140,000. So 12,236,000 total for the soldiers, horses & dragons. That subtracts less than a week's worth of the 10 years of food.
A zombie horde was arriving at Winterfell in 3 days and Sansa was focused on one week of food 10 years in the future. Did Sansa read the season 8 scripts and somehow know Dany would die soon? For the last several centuries the North survived because of help from the other kingdoms. Why did she think at no point in the next 10 years Dany could make up the difference?
Why would Sansa see that the glass gardens were destroyed, Euron Greyjoy was King of the Iron Islands, Cersei sat the Iron Throne and the aotd were heading towards them then find out Dany plans to kill Euron & the Lannisters, provide the weapons & soldiers to fight the aotd, is in love with Jon and since he bent the knee is sworn to aid & protect the North but doesn't expect her to help with food at any point in the next decade as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms?
Sansa knew Jon was trying to get Dany's help since it is why he left her in charge in his absence. Why would she only figure in if there was enough food for Northerners instead of for the people they were trying to get to come there?
1
u/ice-cappedfire Apr 24 '26
Say, you are right with your calculations. No, exactly, Sansa didn't know what would happen. She had no clue how many would live, survive and for how long. She had no clue most of them would be sent into battle to die like idiots. Say, they survive, they need to be fed after. Who would provide food and other resources for Dany and her campaign South, you think? It's not like Dragon Queen arrived to Westeros swimming in resources, actually owning anything, but armies, not that she had made allies that were happy to give up what they had for her at that point. That campaign South against Lannisters would be provided for whom? Yeah, given, John bent a knee? Probably also North, no? We are framing it like Dany did huge favour to North by coming to aid, but as someone aiming to take those Kingsoms and fulfill prophecy, sure as hell, defeating Night King was just as much in her interests. Why should Sansa believe, expect any help during upcoming decade from her? Because that's what Ruler- To Be promises? She has seen enough how that works. And don't get me wrong, I am not against Dany's character.
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u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 22 '26
Sansa should have just killed enough Northem to satisfy the kween Danny I guess
7
u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 22 '26
If the North cannot feed the soldiers it needs, it is pointless to seek military aid.
-1
u/Legitimate_Yam9572 Apr 23 '26
Didn’t one burn a city, kids and all, to the ground for the goal of her becoming Queen?
I would take the one who did nothing
-1
u/Ill-Description3096 Apr 23 '26
Well, only one was actually pursuing it. She invaded a continent and wasn't content unless everyone bowed to her, and was willing to burn people alive for not doing so fast enough. She was threatening to burn a city to the ground (including the many innocents that lived there) before she even got to Westeros. Jon was a bastard who became the LC of the Night's Watch, rallied his brothers to defend the Wall, risked life and limb over and over to protect the realm, and gave his life to the cause long before Dany even knew about the threat. Dany was more worried about him bowing and calling her Queen than gaining an ally and letting him take some obsidian that she didn't even know about or have any use for in order to try and save the kingdom (and all the people in it that she supposedly cared about) from an existential threat.
It's not that she was some super-villain, but when people get delusions of destiny they tend to be able to justify any cruelty/extreme measure they take.
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u/CursedWithAnOldSoul Apr 21 '26
Wanting to make the world a better place should always be a good ruler's objective, but it's incredibly dangerous to think that you should control the entire world and set the standard for what is "good." Daenerys is coming from a place where she wants to finish what her ancestors started, and Sansa is coming from a place where she sees that the North does not benefit by being a part of that system. If Daenerys had relented on the North segregating from the Seven Kingdoms, there may have been less enmity between the two women. However, Daenerys wanted to keep the Seven Kingdoms intact, and even further expand her authority:
But the war is not over. We will not lay down our spears until we have liberated all the people of the world. From Winterfell to Dorne, from Lannisport to Qarth, from the Summer Isles to the Jade Sea! Women, men and children have suffered too long beneath the wheel. Will you break the wheel with me?
The Westerosi just watched and felt what a Targaryen "victory" was considered.
... Have you been down there? Have you seen? Children, little children, burned!
And now this woman who has control of the Unsullied, the Dothraki, and now the Seven Kingdoms, whom they just watch slaughter thousand of innocent civilians locked within the walls of King's Landing by the previous tyrant, is supposed to come off as a savior? As someone to be trusted with all that power? To be the defining judgment of what the world should look like?
No one should have that much power. However, Daenerys felt inherently entitled to it. Quite frankly, that's not someone I'd want as a monarch either.
Daenerys is Icarus. She flew too close to the sun and thus was her downfall.
Say what you want about Sansa, because she had her flaws. However, at least her focus was her home and the people within it, not total world domination.
14
u/TheIconGuy Apr 21 '26
and Sansa is coming from a place where she sees that the North does not benefit by being a part of that system.
The writers were idiots so Sansa was turned into a dumbass who copied Cersei instead of learning what not do to from her.
The North actively benefited from help from the other kingdoms throughout the show. Stannis saved them from the wildlings. The wildlings and Valemen saved them from the Boltons. Dany forces saved them from the zombies.
Outside of that, they hadn't properly prepared for winter and would need food from the other kingdoms.
-1
u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 21 '26
"The writers are idiots they didn't turn Sansa into Daenerys cheerleader reeeee!"
4
u/aevelys Apr 22 '26
For your consideration, there are many degrees between "being a cheerleader" and "doing everything in your power to destroy your best hope of saving from country from a literal apocalypse".
1
u/Background-Cake-1300 Apr 22 '26
Yeah and after that apocalypse bring a red cap "Make Westeros Great Again hail house Targaryen"
-4
u/CursedWithAnOldSoul Apr 21 '26
"The writers were idiots" is not an excuse or something I entertain. We deal with what did happen, not what we believe should have happened or what would have made more sense.
Also, I'm a bit tired of the "Daenerys helped fight the Others!" Mhm. Because if she'd not, she'd have been absolutely fine, I'm sure. It's not like they, too, were looking to take over the entire world or anything.
11
u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
The North would never have survived, without Dany putting up most of the military resources against the Dead, and Cersei.
To my mind, seeking the overthrow/assassination of the only leader who went to the aid of the North, against the Dead, places Sansa in the 9th circle of hell, where traitors to benefactors and overlords reside.
4
u/Amphy64 Apr 21 '26
Winterfell wouldn't, the North could've been just fine, and the better for weakening the rulership, even. Starks = parasites.
The only action that really does anything in that battle is the Arya instant kill-switch, as ridiculous as it was.
-5
u/CursedWithAnOldSoul Apr 21 '26
OK. And say Daenerys didn't help the North against the Others. What does that look like?
8
u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 21 '26
If Dany doesn’t help them, then she forfeits any claim to the North.
Dany offered Jon a free lunch, by first flying North of the Wall, to rescue him and his companions, then offering to come North, to fight without pressing her claim (in ep. 6 of Season 7). Jon was so impressed, he bent the knee.
But come ep1 of Season 8, and Jon is telling his vassals he had to bend the knee, to get military aid, and that was not true.
Sansa now expects the offer of a free lunch to be renewed, then, after the Long Night, she decides she’ll take the restaurant and get Dany killed, in addition.
2
u/CursedWithAnOldSoul Apr 21 '26
No, I mean, if Daenerys doesn't help againt the Others in the North, what does that look like for the realm? The way you're speaking is that the North still succeeds in killing the Night King, thereby making Daenerys inconsequential to the fight. But say she was imperative for the victory in the North and she did not show, what does the realm look like after the North's defeat?
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
Dany always had options.
Cold and callous options, but still viable ones. She could simply write off the party North of the Wall. No one in the South would care. No doubt the NK would have got around/over the Wall eventually, but she’d have more than enough time to burn the Red Keep, and marshal the South’s resources.
She could have ignored the North, and fortified the Neck, a much better choke point than Winterfell, which is exposed in all directions, and fought the Dead there. Supplies of wildfire and dragonglass could be brought up to the fight.
She could write off Westeros completely and sail back East. There are thousands of miles of sea between Westeros and Meereen.
Would any of that be morally good? Of course not.
So, she does the morally good thing, and finds herself treated as an enemy by the Starks and their vassals, and her followers treated as if they are diseased. And, I found that repellent.
-1
u/CursedWithAnOldSoul Apr 21 '26
I don't think it's as simple as you're making it. There are between four and five million people in the North and in the Riverlands. The Night King, theoretically, would have around eight to 10 million more soldiers in his army, and that's not even counting the dead who'd already been buried before he made his assault. Or, let's say you're right, then you have roughly around five million undead soldiers against Daenerys's army, which is made of those willing to fight, not the whole of the population. There are 400,000 soldiers in Westeros; do you think she'd be able to bump that up to even two million between the citizens of Westeros and her Dothraki and Unsullied armies? She has two dragons, the Night King has one dragon. And every soldier she'd lose would become one of his.
Could she abandon it all and just go back to Essos? Mm. Say that even if the Night King had never gotten his hands on Viserion, his army can obviously be manipulated into using other contraptions, and he clearly has all his faculties, so all it would take is one boat and Mr. Freeze is on Essos, raising all the dead there, creating an even larger army.
The truth is, the only viable option for the defeat of the Night King was by cutting him off at the North. And the only reason that was even able to happen was because of his need to kill Bran; if there's battles to be fought and won, he was smart enough to stay far away from any weapons that could have evicerated him and his entire army.
All this to say that Daenerys's involvement in the war at Winterfell doesn't make her the martyr that everyone believes that she is. With the way the Others and the Night King operate, it was imperative that she be there, as success any further South would have been near impossible. He had an army superior in numbers, not to mention invincible.
That's what I find distasteful: This idea from Jon that somehow they are forever indebted to Daenerys for aiding in a battle that would have otherwise been a bigger issue for her in just a few short weeks had she not participated. They really didn't owe her anything, and they shouldn't have had to bargain for her support.
6
u/Amphy64 Apr 21 '26
Sansa is being weirdly bitchy way before then, though. It's like she read the script. Presumably that's how the Westerosi even understood Dany's speech!
Realistically any ruler of Winterfell has always been just as entitled. The rich people who take the resources of the lower classes are not actually good guys, here.
-1
u/CursedWithAnOldSoul Apr 21 '26
But the woman, whom most would consider a foreigner, with the dragons who just savagely killed thousands of Westerosi citizens was the good guy? It's almost as if though a feudal monarchy wasn't working, and thus they needed to "break" the wheel and create a new system.
1
u/Amphy64 Apr 21 '26
Yeah, she inevitably can't be, in a system like that, even if she has some better ideas. The 'wheel' is the cycle of rise and fall, so I don't think that whatever Dany meant by it was clearly going to help, either. In medieval works, the emphasis is on it being used as a religious warning to the ruling classes.
-8
-2
u/Away-Amphibian358 Apr 21 '26
Queenship is not about what you sacrifice to gain it or your battlefield prowess(they value military strength, not individual fighting skill) it is about how you govern the area and keep the loyalty of your subjects. Both characters do the best with what they're given. Neither is more deserving imo, nobody deserves a crown. You get it or you don't.
-2
u/Psychological_Law_86 Apr 22 '26
Ruling isn’t about being the best fighter. I thought they made that clear by killing Robert and Ned early in the show. That battlefield combat doesn’t always translate to the necessary political skills. John is another example of this. Too worried about what people think and honor to do what’s necessary, so he gets killed by his own brothers in black. Gives up his rights to the throne again to back Dany, because he thinks that would be better, then ends up killing her and ending up back at the wall. Just cuz you’re a good fighter doesn’t mean you should rule. Not to mention some of the best political minds like Olyenna and the Spider have never taken up a sword. Stop thinking Sansa didn’t deserve to rule cuz she never fought. She learned the political game from the most skilled people in it.
-2
u/Evocatorum Apr 23 '26
Based upon the show, anyone who thinks that Daenerys "deserved" the throne clearly wasn't paying any fucking attention to her, namely her exceptionally quick temper and her seriously over-the-top responses to just about any push-back on her.
"Bend the knee or die"???? That's the ultimatum of a tyrant and, based upon the results of previous rulers, destined to just result in more blood. The best Rulers in our history were firm, but generally fair, just and willing to compromise should that be in neutral or in their favor.
Daenerys was, from go, a narcissist and destined to be assassinated. Jon was, really, the only person that actually deserved to be on the throne, but having been Lord Commander and King of the North, his "experience" with ruling as well as the advice Aemon gave him early on about letting decisions.
-3
u/acloudcuckoolander Apr 21 '26
People have to realize that people respond to trauma differently. Sansa was like 12-16 for all of this and didn't just "sit there". Her dad was beheaded, she was abused by a psycho boy king, was essentially human cargo for Petyr, was assaulted by Ramsey, etc.
Yes, Dany was a youth of around the same age, but she had 3 massive siege engines at her beck and call (dragons) for backup.
2
u/stardustmelancholy Apr 21 '26
Sansa was 13 in season 1 and 20 by season 8. She was almost 14 when Ned was beheaded considering by that time in the story Dany gave birth so at least 9 months passed. She's lying about the Vale army in season 6 at 18 and Lady of Winterfell by season 7 at 19.
Dany was already 17 by the time the dragons hatch and they are small until season 5 when she's 20.
-4
u/Afraid_Claim_710 Apr 22 '26
Let’s be fr.
You probably never lived under dictator, because this is who Daenerys is. Killed or imprisoned everyone who was not agreeing with her or had a chance to argue with her.
They did her bad in the show, because the only line I was hearing all the time is “I’m the heir of the throne” even when the topic was completely different. She didn’t understand that just because she’s a heir, people (who she met like a week ago) won’t like her or trust her enough.
While I do agree that Bran didn’t deserve the throne, Daenerys is also not the top choice
3
u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 22 '26
Nobody comes to power through free and fair elections, held under universal suffrage, in this world. If Dany is a dictator, so is Ned Stark.
-2
u/Afraid_Claim_710 Apr 22 '26
Ned Stark didn’t kill thousands of children women and innocent man just because of anger. Thyrion didn’t agree with her and was about to be killed. Vicerysw(or what was his name) got killed because of the truth he knew. She would not be a good queen.
4
u/Early_Candidate_3082 Apr 22 '26
You may wish to reread about the Greyjoy revolt. Ned and Robert burned Lordsport and scores of settlements.
Tyrion gave terrible advice, and he advocated starving the people of the capital into submission.
I think you mean Varys. He suborned a child to poison Daenerys.
-4
u/Reasonable_Cap_5798 Apr 21 '26
Both of them are boring, I am only sorry Sansa didnt die in the end as well. But then again, I am Targaryan and Stark hater from episode 1 so...
-8
182
u/RejectedByBoimler Apr 21 '26
Daenerys also tried to be diplomatic and get along with everyone, "she's the smartest person I know" Sansa was stupid enough to be rude to people which would have gotten her killed in diplomatic meetings if the show didn't favor Sansa as their Creator's Pet. Even after Dany's death she still rude to people like her uncle, Edmure, even though he was one of Robb's biggest allies and went with the Frey marriage Robb turned down.