Daenerys Targaryen Created Another Heir to the Throne for No Reason Whatsoever
Look, we all love Dany here, but closer to the end of Game of Thrones, her decision-making was daft: why would she create a future rival for herself out of thin air?
Game of Thrones has its main feature in the name: it’s all about the lords and ladies fighting for power and influence through any means necessary.
Intrigues, betrayals, alliances, espionage, and open confrontation — anything’s good enough if it brings you closer to the sun and the Iron Throne. That’s what the Game is about.
In the earlier seasons — those that were following George Martin ’s existing books, that is — the characters were actually playing the Game, and their ambitions and goals directly influenced their decision-making.
It was a great time, full of backstabbing and other surprises… It was great while it lasted, as later, it ceased.
The closer Game of Thrones was to its notorious finale, the fewer people were actually playing the Game. Even Daenerys Targaryen, whose primary motivation has always been taking over her father’s Throne, completely forgot everything she’d learned about the Game up to that point and started behaving erratically.
After all, what else would you call her decision to legitimize King Robert’s bastard, Gendry, and turn him into a full-blown new Lord Baratheon?
Sure, it was a “feels good” moment for the viewers since many of us were sympathetic toward Gendry. But in terms of the plot, this decision made no sense: in fact, it was as destructive for Daenerys’s primary goal and future reign as possible.
Did Daenerys Targaryen, who was aspiring to return the Iron Throne to her House, forget who took the Throne away from her father in the first place? Did she not realize that at the time, the Baratheons were the ruling lineage of the Seven Kingdoms? Did she not stop for a second and understand that she made a new heir?
This was as far from the Game as possible. Daenerys already had Gendry as an ally, and she gained nothing from legitimizing him as a Baratheon; instead, she just created a new potential rival for herself — and the new legitimate heir to the Iron Throne which went completely against her goals of becoming the Queen of Westeros.