I started watching Game of Thrones about two and a half months ago and needless to say I am addicted (R+L MOST DEFINITELY EQUALS J and also I hate Bran the end).
It amazed me how much I liked Daenerys Targaryen after the first episode. Before she was the badass mother of dragons, taking what is hers with fire and blood, she was Dany, marrying Khal Drogo against her will, raped by her husband in his people’s brutal wedding ritual and answering to decisions made for her by her brother Lucius Malfoy Viserys. At first glance, she is a character that will slip into the background or be used as a pawn in someone else’s quest for the Iron Throne. It becomes rapidly evident that this is not the case.
I think I related to Daenerys so much initially because we both have this ability to absorb languages like a sponge and view learning the language of a culture as the best way to adapt to and experience it. But as I finished off series one, something else clicked with me.
Daenerys lost everything. She lost her sun and stars. She lost her unborn son. She lost her home. She is forced to lead a group of people who will make her obsolete because she isn’t a male warrior. She is responsible for three creatures that no one has seen or experienced in years. She is far from where she started and so far from where she is supposed to end up. She stops a lot on her way. And I relate to that. I miss my sun and stars because he’s gone right now. I’m so far from where I am supposed to end up and I don’t know when I’ll make it back there. But much like Dany stopping and staying in Meeren to grow as a ruler, I am changing my course. Yes, one day I will set sail for Westeros but I need that growth and support elsewhere first.
Ultimately though, what makes me different from Daenerys is that I can’t cope with my loss. Daenerys’s loss made her stronger, fiercer and more determined. I don’t think that mine has done that for me. I am not the Mother of Dragons, I am more like the Mother of Empty Whisky Bottles. I need to take a page from her book and channel this loss into starting a new chapter. Because, at least for my sun and stars, the sun doesn’t yet rise in the west and set in the east. There’s still hope. And I need to take what is mine with fire and blood instead of passivity and budding alcoholism. I might not be a Khaleesi but I know that I am stronger than what I have been behaving as for the past six months. There’s a chance I could have the blood of the dragon in my veins after all.
coeurdelamere 