Dany gets a little bit of an unfair rap IMO. Her story in book 2 is a very small part only covering 5 out of 70+ chapters. The House of the Undying chapter is excellent and full of interesting visions and prophecies, the rest are fine, but perhaps not thrilling. Still, we are only talking about 4 chapters.

In book 3, I thought Dany's story was excellent and a lot of fun to read. So I can't see how she had three consecutive bad books. Plus she is not even in book 4 at all, so she's not boring in book 3 or 4. I also liked her story in book 1 a lot. So really it is book 5 that is the biggest issue with Dany.

Her chapters in Book 5 did have some tedious parts, and she certainly makes some mistakes. But she is a young girl trying to be a queen, and GRRM will try to make his characters' behavior realistic under their circumstances, even if it makes them less fun to read about (he does this with all three of Dany, Tyrion and Jon in book 5, especially the first 2/3 of the book).

So my Dany summary would be:

Book 1: Dany's story is good and interesting
Book 2: Dany's story is only a small part but finishes strong with House of Undying
Book 3: Dany kicks butt and takes names, I enjoyed her a lot in Book 3
Book 4: Dany's not in book 4
Book 5: Dany's story drags in this book until she finally flies away on Drogon near the end

To me, Book 5 is her only real weak spot.

I agree. I thought it was cool to see her become really powerful and basically build herself an empire with 3 dragon hatchlings, the remnants of a khalasar, and an exiled knight. In the show, I think her character has gotten pretty whiny and annoying. I'm hoping to see her step it up now and see them give her character some teeth (fangs and fire).

I agree.

I love where Danny's story goes and the woman she becomes in Book 3. She's one of my favorite characters and it's largely because of her changes/actions in Storm.

Book 5 is only difficult for me because of the repetition. Danny has more chapters in Dance than her story arc really requires. And that's all George Martin spinning his wheels. That's on him. Overall, I love what Danny becomes/goes through in Dance as well, it just goes on too long and has less forward momentum than it deserves.

See, I think her story is tedious in book 3. I guess the idea is that she's growing into her power and maturity, and I suppose I'm supposed to give her the benefit of immaturity when I'm getting tired of watching her say "I'm the mother of dragons, you'll do what I want" over and over and over again, but it just seems like a meandering shitshow of a story. It's just her trying to prove what a badass she is, but fairly often failing miserably. The only parts of her story that I actually like are Mormont and Ser Barristan's roles in them.

Book 2 is interesting for her until she gets to Qarth for me. I'm not even all that amazed by the House of the Undying chapter. Maybe I need to read it again, but it just seemed too frenetic and disorganized. I just wanted to be done with it.

She went from an extremely promising character in book 1 to just another demanding but ultimately over-matched 'King' by the end of book 5. Look at it this way - has she been any more successful or less entitled than Joffrey as a ruler? The only distinction is that she !@#$ed her way to the top of a Khalasar before relying on a shaky birthright. And while her motives are determined to be more 'pure', she's still all about killing folks to take over a country because she feels its hers by birth.

It's just not that simple. Reducing her to a whiny slutty brat is myopic bordering on absurd. At least to me. I really identify with the challenges she's facing - had to face. And I think there is a nobility and something admirable about what she wants. Even if the way she goes about it is frustrating and/or naive at times.

She's a little girl growing into a woman. She's flawed, just like all of them. But, to me, comparing Danny to Joffrey is like saying that a cop who kills a serial killer is no better than the serial killer himself. Which, again, feels like an oversimplification to me.

But I understand different storylines will appeal to different people.

Okay, you totally lost me when you compared Dany to Joffrey. Really? Joffrey is an evil, sick twisted psychopath who derives pleasure from the suffering of others. Dany is an orphaned teenage girl who is willing to kill to claim the throne she thinks her family deserves, but doesn't derive any pleasure from it and only does it if she has to. She wants to free slaves, not enslave people. She wants to be loved by the people she rules and wants to take care of them, even if she doesn't really know how. Joffrey shoots arrows at his starving subjects to kill them for fun and could not care less whether they all starve to death and die. I mean come on. Really? If you didn't enjoy Dany's story in Book 3, then you just aren't going to be a fan of her. To each his own. But there's no basis for putting her at joffrey's level.

BTW, not sure if you've done a re-read, but the House of Undying chapter is great on a couple of fronts. One is that Drogon gets to burn the place down which is the first time we witness the power of the dragons and that they will protect Dany. And the bad guy Pyatt Pree gets the axe. But on a re-read, after having read all 5 books, it is a fascinating chapter in terms of the visions and prophecies. It is wild how much foreshadowing GRRM does in his books, and her vision of the king with the wolf's head sitting over a feast where all the guests are slain is one of the most obvious examples. The part about Rhaegar and Aegon and the song of ice and fire and the dragon having three heads is one of the key passages in all the books. She gets the three treasons prophecy. She sees the blue flower in a wall of ice (another clue that Jon is Lyanna's son). Lots of good stuff.

BTW, I've been re-reading book 2 for the first time while this season is going, and not only does GRRM have Dany foreshadow the Red Wedding in her visions, but in one of Theon's chapters, he dreams about all the people from Winterfell that are dead, and he also sees Robb and Grey Wind bleeding from a hundred cuts. Things like that are easy to gloss over the first time through, but they really stick out on a re-read when you know what's coming. GRRM definitiely warned us what was coming in his own subtle way. Amazing how much stuff I missed or forgot on my first reading.

I really, really need to read this series. I've done all the books via the audio route, and I just don't have the recall on specifics like many of you do.

I hear you, I knew a lot of specifics based on just reading things like the essays on the Tower of the Hand website which really provide a lot of good insights supported by book quotes, but I have not sat down and done a re-read all the way through myself until I picked up book 2 again in anticipation of this season. These books really do hold up well to a re-read. Looking forward to re-reading book 3 as a lot of the specifics of that one are fuzzy to me at this point, though I may wait until closer to the next season starting.

Wickedson found this... it's awesome.

http://www.theworldsbestever.com/201...ns/#more-83698

Love how they have the actors explain it all.

Nothing like getting your hair burned off, being dropped in a cave in the middle of nowhere and staggering around starving,puking and bleeding to give a character some teeth.

I'm tired of little Dany the nice, I want to see grown-up Dany the vengeful bitch.

In case anyone cares, those are from the DVD's.

Maybe I am fuzzy on the whole thing since it was 3 books ago but I don't remember the whole story with the dragons going the way it is in the show.

Yeah it's not like this at all.

I'm having a hard time watching this show. It seems nothing has happened. I'm on season 2, episode 4. I was pretty pumped at the end of season 1 but I have to force myself to pay attention to this show, I fall asleep half the time or start playing on my phone cause I'm hella bored.