Slouching Towards Westeros: Why I Hope Daenerys Dies in Season Five (And Who Should Kill Her)

Note: this blog post is written assuming that you have seen Seasons One through Four of Game of Thrones.  If you have not read the books, I avoid any significant spoilers.

We all know that people die unexpectedly in Game of Thrones, and we all know that no one is safe.  Not protagonists, not women, not children.  Especially not Starks or their friends.

And it is also no secret that, in Season Five, we are going to see people start to die who have not died in the books.  I previously wrote about this, and how excited I am about it, in Why All the Bad News About Game of Thrones is Actually Good News.  The storylines in GOT have become crowded, muddled, confusing.  Too many aspiring royals with too many backstabbing sycophants in too many locations.

But there is one character that I hope dies this season, and that character is Daenerys Targaryen, aka Khaleesi, aka Mother of Dragons, aka Mrs. Khal Drogo, aka etc.

Why?  First of all, I think her story has been pretty boring since Season One, during which her story was the best part of the show.  The relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Drogo is one for the ages, especially the part where she eats a horse heart.  Plus there’s the phenomenal ending scene with the fire, the screaming witch and the dragon babies.

Unfortunately, that’s the last time I really cared.  Since then, she spent Season Two being lost, thirsty, confused, betrayed, then vengeful; Season Three she spends being the white savior for slaves in the East; Season Four she keeps doing the white-savior-for-slaves-routine (basically, remember Avatar?), except this time with more betrayals and more out-of-control dragon action.

The only redeeming elements of her storyline are the interesting characters that surround her.  Well, a few interesting characters.  Well, Barristan Selmy.

If you can’t remember who Ser Barristan Selmy is, he’s this guy:

Barristan Selmy has a few interesting qualities, the most important being that he’s a) the best fighter in the history of Westeros, and b) he hates the Lannisters, especially Jaime.  His disdain for the Lannisters results from their removal of him from the Kingsguard, and his disdain for Jaime is because Jaime is the Kingslayer.  The last we’ve seen of him, he has become essentially the Hand of the Queen, serving Daenarys as she attempts to rule a kingdom of unhappily-freed slaves, disgruntled gentry, castrated soldiers who are also sort of slaves, sellswords with no loyalty, and three wild dragons who are sort of her children.

What makes Barristan interesting is that he has the same flawed outlook on the world as Ned Stark: he attempts to live every moment with honor, justice, and righteousness, despite that he is constantly in situations in which there is no clear moral answer.  He looks upon Jaime Lannister with disgust, while his own life path takes him from serving first a Mad King, second a “Usurper,” and finally the daughter of the Mad King whose enemy he had been previously protecting for the last dozen years.

Now, let’s return to the widow Drogo.  Her incest-centric family of dragon-obsessed freaks ruled a throne that she has never seen, on a continent she can’t remember, and her entire mission is to be the queen of people who don’t look like her until she gets enough practice and hired swords to return to the city that her crazy father tried to burn down, accompanied by her confused eunuch semi-slaves and dastardly assassin lovers, upon which she expects to be openly accepted by the Westerosi people as their rightful Queen.

There is only one thing that Ms. Stormborn can be when she comes storming into Westeros on the back of a dragon: a villain.

Consider that she will be a threat to literally every other character in this entire series.  Okay, maybe Tyrion will have joined her side, because he seems to be headed her way, but what about her is going to maintain his loyalty?  Tyrion isn’t really the kind of guy who just wants to watch the world burn.

All of this leads up to Ser Barristan’s big moment.  And this is not something that I can take credit for.  I have seen it discussed here, here, here, here, and here.  This idea did not start with me, but I completely want it to happen: Ser Barristan Selmy should kill Queen Daenerys, thus becoming the Queenslayer.

Why do I want it to happen this season?  To be honest, I don’t realistically expect it to, but I think it would be an amazing surprise for everyone.  I do both expect and hope that Barristan Selmy will become the Queenslayer by the end of both the books and the show.  My main reason for wanting to see it in Season Five is that I hate to think that we are going to watch the Fish-out-of-water plotline that is “In Which Daenerys Learns That Being a Queen is Hard Work” drag on for another three seasons.  They should get her to Westeros, we should all realize collectively that yeah, turns out she is the bad guy, and then she should cause some madness before Ser Barristan kills her.

But if it’s not Daenerys who dies this season, that’s okay, as long as it’s not Arya.  It better not be Arya.  Or Jaime.  Or Tyrion.  Or Bronn.  Man, I hope it’s Daenerys.

Enjoy this?  Try Yes, Indeed, James Bond is a Codename (and Skyfall Proved it).