5. It Has Racist Undertones
The Criticism: Daenerys often comes out on top when you ask people to list their favourite Game of Thrones characters, though her story is one that has been criticised for being somewhat racist in its nature. It begins with her being wed to warlord Khal Drogo of the Dothraki, portrayed by the show as a bunch of brown-skinned rapist war-mongers who have no word for thankyou and enjoy a death or two at a wedding. In short, it has been said that the Dothraki get the same treatment as Native Americans did in early westerns a savage tribes-people that need tamed with western ways. After the Dothraki comes Danys tour of the slave cities; a high-born, liberal white woman who wants to enforce her values on ancient ethnic civilisations. Some critics have even gone as far as comparing her to Laura Bush, wife of former US President George W Bush, who advocated the invasion of Iraq under the supposed pretext of freeing its women from oppression, telling them they can live a free life on one hand and using the other to usher them towards the army barracks. Is this really what Dany is doing? Why Its Wrong: Firstly, the comparisons drawn between the Dothraki and early cinematic depictions of Native Americans seems a little off target in terms of the authors influence Khal Drogo and his khalasar far more closely resemble the meritocracy of Genghis Khan and his army who butchered countless local populations across Eurasia as they built the Mongol Empire. Martin harnesses the ferocity of such a force and adds a young Dany to the mix not as a conqueror (she was forced to be there, after all) but as a way for her to learn to get hard for what is to come. As far as Dany enforcing her values on the rest of world, this argument would hold more weight if there wasnt just as many bad things happening in her home land. While slavery is outlawed in Westeros, the common man is a slave to his lord in all but name, and violence of a physical, sexual and a sadistic nature is commonplace. Dany is not trying to create a new Westeros across the Narrow Sea, she wants to create a new world, which means tearing down the old one in its entirety. Remember, she doesnt intend to stop the wheel, she intends to break the wheel.