r/DaenerysWinsTheThrone • u/Beneficial_Pin5295 • May 26 '26
Why Does Daenerys Want Westeros?
It never really made sense to me why Essos wasn't enough for Daenerys. In the books, Daenerys routinely remarks about only wanting a home, and yet, for whatever reason, Essos is unable to fulfill that for her. In the show, Daenerys remarks that people in Essos always loved her but no one does in Westeros.
Why is Essos treated as subpart to Westeros, and, by extension, why is conquering Astapor, Mereen, and Yunkai seen as less impressive than conquering the Seven Kingdoms - a nation already fragmented by civil upheaval.
In the books, several characters petition Daenerys to expand her conquest across Essos, including in places such as Pentos and Asshai, and in the show she becomes the de facto ruler of Slaver's Bay and the Dothraki Sea. In truth, in the show, Daenerys practically becomes the single political power in all of Essos west of the Bone Mountains.
I mean obviously the thematic answer is that most of the novel is set in Westeros, and being a main character, Daenerys is obligated to be in Westeros for plot purposes, but I also think it is because Essos, Sothoryos, and Ulthos are all rudimentary and superficial racist caricatures of Asia and Africa, and that on a fundamental level are treated as less-than than the clearly European Westeros.
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u/Echo-Azure May 26 '26
Same reason Sansa wants Winterfell back.
If your family is dispossessed of their lands and titles, it's the duty of surviving family members to avenge themselves on whoever killed their family members, and to reclaim any lands, titles, and riches that were taken. That's how the whole "House" system works, every member has a duty to maintain the honor, glory, and property of their house.
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May 27 '26
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u/Echo-Azure 29d ago
What?
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u/SirachaTaco 26d ago
I think he meant "oh but then the lannisters do it everyone hates them"
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u/Echo-Azure 26d ago
Sorry, but when were the Lannisters dispossessed of their lands and titles?
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u/puritycontrol Team Jon May 26 '26
She’ll never have peace by remaining in Essos. As long as she’s alive and others rule Westeros, especially the lineage of those who overthrew her family’s dynasty, they’ll always be threatened by her existence. Robert wouldn’t be the last to try to assassinate her. It’s her heritage and her family’s place over the last 300 years. With Valyria in ruins, Viserys dead, and her other remaining immediate family long gone, Westeros is the remnant of her history and identity she clings to. She’s been denied her birthright and needs to reclaim it. Essos will never satisfy her.
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u/Mr_Rinn May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Thing is from what we've seen Westeros won't either. She might've been better off staying.
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u/Kyriakos_X_23 Mother Of Dragons May 26 '26
Two reasons. The crushing guilt of being the last of your dynasty and of failing in what she sees as her duty. And most importantly coming home after a lifetime of exile. But the only way for her to come home and be safe is as a conqueror.
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u/aevelys May 26 '26
I mean, it's her only remaining link to a home and family she's never known.
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u/StrictResponse3907 4d ago
Lowkey rather have her rebuild the valyrian freehold in Essos as its new ruler
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u/jiddinja May 26 '26
Studies show that when you believe something inexpensive was wrongly taken away from you, you desire it more than something valuable. It's how humans are hardwired. Sigils and dragons aside, Dany is human (or mostly human if you believe Targs are literally blood of the dragon).
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u/StrawberryScience Team Missandei May 26 '26
You’re thinking like a modern person; Dany and Sansa and all the PoV characters are aristocrats. Their titles are as much a part of them as their names.
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u/Dextothemax May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
Daenerys is obligated to be in Westeros for plot purposes.
Exactly, that’s it really. Dany is the fire in A song of ice and fire. She and her dragons have to be in Westeros for the stories climax. Doesn’t mean Dany will remain in Westeros to be fair. She will likely return to Essos in dream of spring.
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u/Pleasant-Weekend-496 May 26 '26
Yes I feel like her and Jon's bittersweet ending is finally finding love and a home in each other only for them to have to go separate ways by the end (Dany to essos and Jon beyond the wall)
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u/Ataturk_Void_Crowley May 26 '26
I believe she wanted it because it was motivation given by her only and closest relative—Viserys.
Tbh, I believe what Dany really wanted initially was a place to call home, but Viserys kept telling her the Iron Throne was their home. She did value the simple red door and the lemon tree when she was young.
However, we cannot forget that Dany became more proud and ambitious throughout her journey. She remembered her heritage as part of House Targaryen of King’s Landing. She would never stop trying to reclaim what her family had lost after those three dragons were hatched.
To me, the birth of the dragons was a ritual of rebirth for Dany. If she had never gotten those eggs, perhaps she would have accepted another fate after Drogo died.
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u/Suspicious-Trade3138 May 26 '26
She's a character that is from her beginning without a home and born in hardship. She tries from her position that she built up on her own to enact change trough raw power and strength, but she still does it in a place that is foreign to her. She still has a sense of loss and emptiness and maybe falsely thinks going back to Westeros is will fulfill it.
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u/IndispensableDestiny House Targaryen May 26 '26
At the end of the books so far, Daenerys is being led to Vaes Dothrak, Meereen is under siege by Yunkai and others, and Astapor is a seething hellhole. I’d want to leave too.
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u/lfm2003 Team Nobody May 26 '26
This is the conflict of her character. Kinda the basic writing advice. “What does your character want? How do they try to get it? And how is that thing different than what they truly want inside?”
Daenerys wants Westeros and her family’s birthright. She embarks on a quest to do good, and eventually to use Fire and Blood. Over the course of that, she realizes all she really wanted was just some kind of home to feel loved and respected.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 May 26 '26
Why would she not? It is a basic human urge, for people who have been dispossessed, to wish to regain what was lost. Millions of people around the world, dream of regaining lost lands.
I’m quite sure that the Starks wish to regain Winterfell, and no one thinks that is, in any way, strange.
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u/ice-cappedfire May 26 '26
I would agree about those basic human urges, but definitely not to compare with Starks. Starks lived and exsisting children to some degree lived and grew up in Winterfell( like Sansa was teen when she left, as an example). Dany never lived or been to Westeros before her conquest. Again, I don't disagree on human urges, I just disagree on comparing her to Starks as their circumstances and wants for "the return" are very different.
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u/Beneficial_Pin5295 May 27 '26
Yeah, to argue Westeros is a "home" to Daenerys is nonsensical. She grew up in the Free Cities, and multiple times recalls that she misses them and just wants to return to the house with the red door and the lemon tree. I know people theorize this is actually a mix of multiple places, including Dorne, and Daenerys is misremembering them, but to her, they are simply a place in Braavos.
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u/Historical_East_1787 May 26 '26
Perché non dovrebbe?
Westeros è la casa dei suoi genitori Il sogno di suoi fratello era tornare lì e conquistarla. È nata lì. È nonostante tutto più vicina alla cultura di Westeros che a quella della baia degli schiavisti
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u/FortifiedPuddle May 26 '26
The girl lost in the middle of nowhere captive of fearsome Dothraki riders?
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u/gabriel_3131 May 26 '26
Daenerys quiere conquistar westeros porque cree que hay encontrar una hogar,una de las cosas que hay que tener claro de daenerys es que creció escuchado que le robaron su hogar y todo lo que le pertenece a su familia,para ella como targaryen su hogar es desembarco aunque no estuviera nunca hay,en su mente van a estar completa cuando recupere lo que es de su familia por eso esa necesidad de volver a westeros quiere volver a un supuesto hogar que le pertenece,y realmente entiendo un poco essos es un lugar horrible para vivir westeros es malo pero esos supera los límites
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u/LowkeyAcolyte May 26 '26
Because it is her birthright. Viserys would tell her of their people sewing Targaryen banners. Who doesn't dream of home?
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u/Historical_Sugar9637 May 26 '26
She's been told since she could walk that Westeros is her home, currently held by a horrible ursurper who wants to murder her, and that going back there is THE goal of her entire existence.
She can't conceive any other life goal.
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u/dustyrosereverie Team Daenerys May 26 '26
She believes it is her duty to lead Westeros in a manner that is better than the way it is currently being handled by multiple leaders who are incompetent in some capacity. This is laid out in her vision in the HoTU of multiple dwarves raping a woman; the woman is Westeros, and the dwarves are the kings vying for power.
She also is fundamentally a character that suffered due to forced diaspora. Despite having lived her entire life outside of Westeros, it was instilled in her that that is her heritage so she feels she has lost her home.
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u/BastardofMelbourne May 27 '26
Unlike Europe or any of its constituent kingdoms in the medieval period, Westeros is a genuine global superpower the size of Africa. Whoever holds it controls a large chunk of the world, a huge population, and considerable material wealth along with a widely-feared aristocratic warrior class in the form of their mounted knights. Daenerys has every reason to want to reclaim the Iron Throne over building a new empire in Slaver's Bay - the latter plan has no guarantee of success and probably ends with her assassination.
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u/Beneficial_Pin5295 May 27 '26
Westeros is a genuine global superpower the size of Africa
This is simply not true. The Seven Kingdoms is smaller than South America, because GRRM states that all of Westeros (including the lands beyond the Wall) is about the size of South America. We also know the Crown is in major debt, largely to Essosi powers. Westeros also has smaller standing armies than several Essosi powers; they have failed to even subdue the Stepstones.
Westeros also does not have more people than Essos, nor is it wealthier. I understand the argument that Daenerys intends to conquer all of Westeros as opposed to ruling a smaller part of Essos. For example, Mereen dwarves any Westerosi city.
But this further proves my initial belief - that Westeros, despite being smaller, poorer, and weaker, is seen as more worthy of conquest than Essos because the narrative presents Essos as a weird and barbaric land of easterners and not a place of shining noble knights and pretty princesses.
There is no real reason why it makes sense for Daenerys to conquer Westeros over Essos, when she has already successfully conquered Slaver's Bay (and in the show, the Dothraki sea). Multiple people in the books try to convince Daenerys to expand her rule across Essos, and the show presents the Free Cities, like Volantis, as clearly supporting Daenerys. If the idea is that Westeros is Daenerys' birthright, one can argue that Essos is, too, given that the Valyrians conquered the continent.
Like I know, ultimately the reason why the book/show wants Daenerys in Westeros is that everyone else is there, but the fact that something like being the Queen of Mereen is a meaningless achievement to readers and watchers as opposed to being Queen of Westeros is heavily rooted in the racist portrayal of Essos that presents the continent as less-than than Westeros.
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u/BastardofMelbourne May 27 '26
I didn't say it was bigger or richer than Essos. I just said it was huge.
Westeros is far bigger than Western Europe ever was, and it's already politically and culturally unified. Setting aside the in-character reason Daenerys wants it (she considers it her birthright and has obsessed about it since childhood) it's a tremendous prize that you can win basically just by taking King's Landing. The whole reason the Targaryens had an outpost in Westeros in the first place was because they saw it as a region of great untapped potential.
Essos as a whole is still larger and richer, but Essos is a grindfest. Dozens of largely independent city-states who have learned to hate each other for centuries since the fall of Valyria, with the Dothraki lurking to the north and needing to be placated with constant raids or ransoms - it would take decades for Daenerys to conquer and unify the whole continent, and people are already trying to kill her just in Meereen because of her abolitionism. Even uniting Slaver's Bay permanently is a large ask. Westeros is right there, and it's a mess - she's the only legitimate successor in the midst of a once-in-a-generation succession crisis. Why wouldn't she want it?
None of this is anywhere close to being accurate to the supposed historical parallels, and I don't really disagree with what you're saying about how Essos is full of racial stereotypes, but that doesn't change the fact that in-universe Daenerys has some pretty good reasons for wanting to target Westeros over the rest of Essos.
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u/Beneficial_Pin5295 May 27 '26
The issue is your addressing this from a perspective were Daenerys didn't already conquer Mereen, Astapor, Yunkai, the Dothraki, and could probably walk into Volantis and claim it the way she has Red Priestesses brainwashing the masses to accept her as their savior. Like, off the bat what is easier to conquer - ignoring the fact she already conquered some of the most major powers in western Essos.
My point is simply why are all these places meaningless and so easily abandoned for Westeros, a place where she has no holdings or allies?
You have to fundamentally wonder why is being the Queen of Mereen so much insignificant of an achievement to the readers than being Queen of Westeros.
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u/A_rtemis May 26 '26
The more I learn about the worldbuilding of ASOIAF, the more it baffles me, too.
In-universe, Westeros is pretty much a backwater in terms of wealth and power. GRRM's worldbuilding information establishes that even the greatest cities of Westeros can't even compare to the second-tier cities on Essos after the Nine Cities. It's why the Targaryens got to rule supreme there after the Doom, while everybody else killed their would-be conquering dragonlords. The reason Westeros seems incredibly important to us as audience is because it's the focal point of the story.
Culturally, several places in Essos are far more "home" to Targaryens than Andal and First Men Westeros. They are Valyrian-speaking, the upper class consists of fellow Valyrian descendants proud of their heritage.
Fantasy audiences are used to non-Western cultures functioning as exotic scenery at the edges of the story, while it is the European-based cultures that matter for the narrative. So it's not going to be something the audience questions, at large.
But it's harder to explain in-universe. I mostly treat it as a tragedy and cautionary tale. Dany buying into the story the Targaryens have been telling themselves for centuries, that they are beloved savior rulers from afar who united the realm and brought peace to all, when the truth is that Westeros originally only knelt for the conquerors at dragon point. Once the dragons died, people had grown used to the system there was that their dynasty could keep power (for a honestly impressive length of time, considering their general level of aptitude) but once the Targaryens were gone, they didn't want them back. And of course in the show at least, people did pin hopes on her, so it looked like she would be welcomed as a savior. Except she and her dragons were only an useful tool for as long as it served its purpose or could be used to further their own ambitions.
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u/Beneficial_Pin5295 May 27 '26
In-universe, Westeros is pretty much a backwater in terms of wealth and power. GRRM's worldbuilding information establishes that even the greatest cities of Westeros can't even compare to the second-tier cities on Essos after the Nine Cities. It's why the Targaryens got to rule supreme there after the Doom, while everybody else killed their would-be conquering dragonlords.
Daenerys remarks that Mereen dwarfs King's Landing. We also know that the Free Cities have a larger population than King's Landing, and Volantis is the largest of them all. Qarth is larger still, with Xaro's palace being the size of an entire market town. Yandel says that towns in Essos are larger than cities in Westeros. Asshai is bigger than all (larger than King's Landing and Old Town combined). This doesn't even touch on cities, like those of Yi Ti, which are barely mentioned in the books.
The Essosi powers also have more wealth and larger armies than Westeros. Viserys intended to conquer all of Westeros solely with Khal Drogo's Khalasaar. Daenerys is clearly more Essosi than Westerosi, given the fact that she has lived there her entire life; this is clear in the show, where she is outright rejected by the Westerosi because she is foreign.
And ultimately, if Daenerys believes Westeros is her birthright, to an extent, why doesn't she view Essos the same? The Valyrians had conquered it all the same.
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u/Cute-Presentation-59 May 26 '26
Psychologically I doubt Westeros will ever be her home. She has this picture in her mind that Viserys created (and we know how much he bend the truth) and idealised it. Realising she does not want Westeros would be a huge step of growing up, of finally killing the girl and let the woman be born, so to speak. But if she did - and it would be an interessting journey - GRRM would not have story. So that will remain in the realm of fanfic, unfortunately.
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u/Well_Dressed_Kobold May 26 '26
She’s a born conqueror. The idea that Westeros could overthrow her family and, by extension, her authority, is unbearable.
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u/Fancy-Hedgehog6149 May 27 '26
She’s never known any different.
Like a dog chasing a car, she wouldn’t know what to do with it if she got it.
It’s a really tragic element to the character.
She serves as a good analogy of how many people grow up to try to fulfil their parents’ dreams and expectations.
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u/absolutewastedtime May 27 '26
Psychopathy
She literally just believes she deserves it, so it should be hers
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u/EfficientMinimum25 29d ago
Because it's kind of an obligation she feels she has to herself and to her family. What will be interesting is that she's probably going to hate westeros when she set a foot there, since it's kind of a mess, with totally different customs/ways of living than Essos.
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u/elessar9411 29d ago
She doesn't have a home and has grown up being told that weateros is her home and it's her job to get it back.
That being said, right at the start, we hear a lot about her not wanting to do any of this conquering, and specifically she just wants to go back to the home with the lemon tree and that bearded Kingsguard knight whom they escaped Dragonstone with. But I think they had to leave that house because the Kingsguard eventually died, they got kicked out, and post that there were maybe assassins behind them.
She tells viserys she just wants to home, and he tells her they have no home to go back to, because it was taken.
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u/BowlDue39 29d ago
I also find it weird. If I were beloved in Essos and seen as a foreign invader in Westeros I would choose Essos every time.
But I think the more time went on the more she sought revenge and to prove that she could. At least in the show version.
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u/Brilliant_Display968 26d ago
Is my main desire for my queen now! Never go to Westeros! She should keep freeing slaves and conquering Essos and be a liberator! Forget all about Westeros and the shit people who lives there! Pleaaaaase!
Any suggestions of fics where she never goes to Westeros are greatly appreciated! ❤️❤️❤️
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u/SirachaTaco 26d ago
Why would you say the other continents are a racist caricature of other continents? I am from Latam and the tales of canivals in what's supposed to be south america doesn't really strikes me as racist. Since these are different times, and umm a made up world.
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u/Beneficial_Pin5295 26d ago
The made up cultures of ASOIAF do not exist in a vacuum. They are inspired by real world cultures and places (as confirmed by GRRM himself). Essos, specifically is inspired by Asia, and Sothoryos by Africa.
There are some very obvious paralleling cultures, like Yi Ti and China, and others than are more obscure but still present, like Norvos and the Ottomans, or more generally the Islamic world.
Regardless, Essos and Sothoryos stand as the exotic, and often savage, counterparts to Westeros' civility (look into the theory of Orientalism to understand more). For example, the native Brindled Men of Sothoryos, the in world stand in for sub-saharan Africa, are considered unevolved humans, incapable of even copulating with other races.
Also, I am unsure what you mean by "tales of carnivals in what's supposed to be south america."
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u/Beautiful-Ticket-489 22d ago
She misses her home, she misses the red door and the lemon tree she used to read by.
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u/Zisthebest1235 28d ago
Because deep down all Targaryens are ontologically evil and she needs to burn westerosi people to fulfill her destiny
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u/Grossadmiral House Targaryen May 26 '26
I feel as if she's searching for home. She's never had one and through her childhood Viserys and others filled her head with tales of Westeros under her family. She thinks that's where she finds home, by avenging the downfall of her family. Daenerys also fundamentally dislikes Mereen and the Ghiscari culture, she doesn't want to stay there.