So it isn't a case of the Vatican receiving an honest-to-God vision and deciding to just grab a random peasant off the street. Rather it is the case that the vision told them that they were going to be sent a great hero and that the task of recovering the new prophet belonged to the hero - and they weren't allowed to help her. That's why the priestesses did some questioning just to make sure that yes, Daenerys was the one, but once they realized she matched Senna's last message from Dibella they backed the off. The priestesses didn't understand it, but they followed the divine instructions anyway.
Now, Dibella is certainly playing games with the Dragonborn and setting up situations, but no surprise there. The Daedra are more likely to intervene directly with a doom-driven hero, but this is hardly the first time that an Aedra has sent one off on a quest.
Honestly, to me this is even more reason to postpone it, and go back to the DG first, and maybe get around to it at some point in the future, maybe, if Dibella is gonna fuck around with someone trying to save the world then fuck her, best response is to just not play games. "Don't feed the trolls". If Dibella wants her prophet delivered to her priestesses then she can actual reasonable about it. Dany's got enough...'destiny'? shall we call it, about her that Dibella couldn't fuck with her just because she refuses to play her stupid games when bigger things are more important.
Fair. I also spotted it as a possibility that early on, but overcoming the temptation of darkside/evil/madness is a very common heroic subplot. I was hoping it would go the other way because frankly there are plenty of broody sword swinging male heroes and I liked Daenerys. There were a lot of hero vibes in her as well, and in very male dominant world, I liked cheering for her. I could have gone for Daenerys going villain, if it had been done well, but it was such a horrible
face-heel turn that it just didn't work for me.
Ahhh but remember a lot of GOT and ASoIaF is about subverting expectations while ALSO meeting them but in a fairly unpredictable way - see everyone thinking it HAD TO BE Jon or Dany killing the NK and then it turns out to be Arya (which I personally think was a GRRM suggestion and where it might actually go, Arya book plot has the LEAST to do with everyone else and the LEAST impact on the main War for the Throne and War for the Dawn plots yet she has the most coverage after Jon, Dany, and Tyrion).
Which I'm glad about as Arya is my favourite ASoIaF character by far. I actually really want a fanfic' where Arya ends up in Skyrim as the Dragonborn, Nord = Northmen, Skyrim = North, and she would really fit being a Dragonslayer...., and she simultaneously both matches and subverts what Nords expect their 'savior' to be - she is a Nord(ish) who follows the way of the warrior, and is willing to confront problems and her enemies head on and has a strong (if odd by Skyrim standards) sense of honour and can be boisterous and arrogant... but she's also small, uses a thin precise weapon, relies on agility over strength, and is perfectly willing to kill stealthily as she is in a duel out in the open, and excellent at fading into the background. She embodies so much about a Nord Warrior - but also is a trained expert Assassin.
100% agree, I am SO BORED of gruff voiced manly male heroes. At this point I basically just refuse to play a video game if it's forcing be to be a gruff voiced manly male hero, and fic's/books have to be very very very good to make me consider reading it if the MC is one. While if the action/fantasy/sci-fi etc MC is a girl or woman I'm basically always going to give it a try.
I mean, Dany is the woman who smiled as she burnt people alive (who is THAT like), and who had 100's of people crucified.....Dany never targeted who she felt was an 'innocent', but if she deemed you not then she felt perfectly fine with doing whatever she wanted to you.
Her burning down KL DID make sense to me - before that the people of KL's were 'innocents' to her and therefore she wanted to help and save them....but after Missandei died and she felt they 'refused' her, they became guilty in her mind and therefor it made perfect sense (to her) to burn them all.
All Targ's are insane, ALL OF THEM, but the severity and way it manifests is different - Baelor's was an UTTER obsession with the Faith of the Seven (to the point of imprisoning his sisters and having ALL women sent from his sight so he wouldn't be tempted), Aegons was an obsession with bringing the Dragons back (and resulting in a lot of deaths' and Summerhall burning down), Aerys was an obsession with becoming a Dragon and burning anything and everything etc etc.
Dany's was a critical case of us vs them - if you were on 'her' side and/or someone she deemed an 'innocent' then she felt it was her role to lead you and do what in her mind was best for you and do her best to protect you (very noblesse oblige, matriarchal, nanny state, benevolent dictator sort of thing - see her still maintaining her 'rightful' throne even when it would be better for her own people to just stay in Meereen, she DOES want to do her best for 'her' people but not if it means giving up what she thinks she's entitled to).
However, if you were an enemy or someone she felt was 'guilty', then nothing was too atrocious or monstrous to do to you (see burning enemies alive or crucifying them when she could have just had them quickly and cleanly executed).
Drop the Targaryen name? We're talking about the woman who had herself introduced as Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains. If she somehow managed to get her ass on the throne and survive, I'm sure she'd squeeze Septim in there somewhere, but she's not one to drop titles... Hmm, though she has dropped most of them since arriving in Skyrim while picking up others: Companion of Jorrvaskr, the Dragonborn, and Ysmir, Dragon of the North.
To be honest, her dropping titles would show character growth - the sheer number of titles she had and that she MADE DAMN SURE YOU KNEW SHE HAD - shows how obsessed with power she was and how she felt she deserved and was entitled to every one of them. There's that saying of something like people who feel the need to shout out how important they are at every opportunity aren't actually that important and/or very self-conscious about it/ feel inadequate...or something.
I fully agree with the theory that the Targ name is cursed. The Doom was so massive and SO COMPLETELY removed the Valyrians that it couldn't have been anything but intentional, meaning that when that Targ seer got her vision and removed the Targs to Dragonstone whatever force or deal was struck or whatever to destroy Valyria was PISSED. Sort of like the film series Final Destination - someone gets a vision of a bunch of people dying, prevents it, and then some force tries to correct it.
So their excessive inbreeding combined with the curse is where their family insanity comes from. The Maester conspiracy combined with the curse is why their Dragons disappeared. etc etc. Basically the curse nudged things to help the people acting against them, to worsen the effect of what they already did to themselves, and just in general slightly alter things to go against them.
Even without that, the Targaryen name is just a name synonymous with tyranny, insanity, war, death etc. (literally for every person alive in Westoros their main experience of the Targ's are Aerys' reign and Dany burning down KL) Even if only Dany knows the history, she should still recognize that.
I mean she seems to be so worried and feels so terrible about what she did to KL, when it was her entitlement to what she thought she deserved as a Targaryen that caused it. Everything bad that has happened to her and everything bad she has ever done has ultimately happened because of her House and Name. If she really wants to be a better person and never sink to that level again, making a clean break with the person she was through dropping her family name would be a good way to start. "I'm not a Targaryen anymore, I'm not a power hungry maniac who burns everyone who opposes her alive in order to claim a throne, I'm not going to pass on that madness to my descendants".
Plus the Targs literally don't exist anywhere in Nirn so she losses nothing from dropping it and potentially gains a lot by doing so.
And like I said, just purely from a practical perspective taking Septim as her Name and House will help her so much (make things more difficult with some cough* Thalmor* cough) but it offers so many advantages.
Her (potential) Royal title could just be something like: Daenerys Ysmir of House Septim, Empress of the Empire and Dragonborn.
While for now it's just simply: Daenerys Ysmir, Dragonborn and Head of the Dragonguard.
