It all started with words and not just the ones on the pages of Martin’s incredible novels. Varys whispered them, Littlefinger manipulated them, Ned and Robb Stark fell by them but most of all, Daenerys has staked her claim with them. Well, words and massive armies and three (two, one) ginormous fire-breathing dragons. After the horrifying last few episodes, Dany seems to have cleared the path to the throne but her doom is already contained in those same words. She has become her own worst enemy and there is no way out.
It all boils down to two major points, which are the foundation of Daenerys’ entire existence and her whole sense of who she is. The dragon queen has endlessly banged on about both and made sure evryone has heard her.
Both have now been destroyed and she has betrayed herself, sealing her own doom.
Daenerys told the war council on Dragonstone: “In all Seven Kingdoms, men will live without fear and cruelty under their rightful queen… I’m here to free the world from tyrants. That is my destiny.”
Except none of that is now true.
Dany has endlessly stuck to two central facts. Firstly, endless variations on “I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and I will.” Her right to rule underpins everything, except she now knows she doesn’t have that right, Jon does. Yet, suddenly she is willing to ignore the ‘rightful’ heir based on her consuming belief in her other burning belief.
Secondly, she has always justified all her actions with the mantra: “I will answer injustice with justice.” Her almost holy destiny to champion the downtrodden and break the wheel just went flying out of the window faster than Bran or poor Tommen.
Viewers are reeling from Dany’s sudden descent into madness, killing tens of thousands of innocents in an inferno of dragon fire. Where was the injustice? And there is no way to see her actions as justice.
Of course, the books already set all this up. Her doom was already laid out in Book Five, A Dance With Dragon. Daenerys herself realised it.
In A Dance With Dragons she realises what’s to come: “Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.”
It has come true. King’s Landing is a throne of burned bones and Dany’s claims rest on quicksand. She has chosen “fear.”
But will it be enough to keep the throne?