A Dance With Dragons

“Man wants to be the king o’ the rabbits, he best wear a pair o’ floppy ears.”

Sellsword Ben Plumm advises Daenerys to accept the trappings of power in Essos—the tokar—if she hopes to rule over them. This is one of her early lessons in what it will take to get and keep power as a queen instead of a conqueror. Daenerys is no more a noble of Slaver’s Bay than a man is a rabbit. This early bit of advice foreshadows that a descendant of the Targaryens isn’t likely to be able to maintain the pretense for very long.

“All kneel for Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles, and Mother of Dragons.”

Daenerys’s many titles encompass her history. She is Stormborn because there was said to be a violent storm on the day she was born in Westeros. She is Unburnt, a Khaleesi, and mother of dragons because she literary survived fire hot enough to hatch dragons. She is the breaker of chains because she is a liberator of the enslaved people of Astapor and Meereen. The problem for Daenerys is that it is impossible to fulfill all of the duties associated with these roles, especially in a society in which rule by unmarried women isn’t always acceptable.