Games of Thrones’ Daenerys doesn’t need to be a feminist hero.

"Daenerys Targaryen became the focal point for the slippage between reality and fiction. Despite being played by one of the weaker actresses in the cast, Dany has become an all-purpose stand-in for powerful women (You could even argue that Emilia Clarke’s blank performance makes her a better screen upon which to project.) Dany is a Strong Female Character, a badass, the freer of slaves, the inspirer of men, the Mother of Dragons. Perhaps her will-to-power was a touch messianic, but see how far a woman gets with Jon Snow’s aw-shucks “I don’t want to rule” schtick. Dany shouldered the hopes, not so much of her would-be subjects (most of whom had never heard of her), but the audience, who could see in her a viable female candidate, one with the dragonfire to hold her ground against less-qualified men.

In this, they were enabled by the show, which for many seasons gave Dany a hero’s arc: winning over armies, freeing cities from slavery, regularly encountering cynical men (Tyrion, Varys) and convincing them she was truly special. As the show continued, Dany remained, for season upon season, the great blond hope, making mistakes but continually learning, a despot who might actually be enlightened—a timely riff on the protagonist in a fantasy quest who believes he is destined for something great and always turns out to be right. Dany’s experience as a young woman—being ignored, traded, terrorized—made her sensitive to injustice, to the underdog. Her femaleness was not irrelevant to her larger claim, but part of her particular sensitivity. Up to and through agreeing to go fight the white walkers for the greater good, her demons were in check to the angels of her better nature. And in the larger context of what was and is happening in America at this particular juncture, all of this turned Dany into a version of The Feminist Hero We Need Right Now, compared by Emilia Clarke to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, backed by Elizabeth Warren, memed as Hillary Clinton (even, perhaps, opposed by Donald Trump). She became more than a character, she became a symbol, a fantasy, of the woman who could thread the impossible double standards to rule lesser men, rewriting genre, history, and the future in the process."

read the analysis by Willa Paskin

Games of Thrones’ Daenerys doesn’t need to be a feminist hero.