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" Daenerys Targaryen should be the most interesting character on Game of Thrones. She is the daughter of a king who went insane. She was whored out by her brother to a man she then came to love. Her brother died at that man&amp;#039;s hand. That man died with their baby. She is magical. She &amp;quot;gave birth&amp;quot; to three dragons. She is an emancipator \u2014 but also one whose driving force to leave the desert she has conquered and toward Westeros is her desire to reign over a kingdom and take a throne; she is absolutely sympathetic but also absolutely vengeful. She apparently has the charisma contained in a passing glance and a few sentences to make a mercenary behead his own leaders and then overtake a city in her name. In short, she is a magical orphan on a massive roll.  And yet somehow she remains the most boring and frustrating character in the show. The issue doesn&amp;#039;t seem to be the actress Emilia Clarke. She&amp;#039;s hit her marks fine \u2014 not exceptionally, but well enough \u2014 while eating the raw heart of a stallion or speaking the few platitudinal lines she&amp;#039;s been given, or standing in front of Astapor&amp;#039;s burning walls, or standing naked from the ashes with dragons on her shoulders, or standing naked from the occasional bath. There is definitely a certain vacancy to Clarke&amp;#039;s portrayal, but that seems to be Daenerys&amp;#039; point: she is unflinching; she knows she is right. And while, no, Clarke&amp;#039;s performance while chained in the Warlocks&amp;#039; tower, defending her baby dragons didn&amp;#039;t match Michelle Fairley&amp;#039;s performance as Catelyn Stark begging for mercy and defending her own son at the Red Wedding, that is an impossible standard. It&amp;#039;s not the acting. It&amp;#039;s that every threat Daenerys has faced has needlessly proved empty, without creating any real tension. Nowhere else in the Game of Thrones universe \u2014 a land where conflict is so meticulously and beautifully constructed \u2014 has conquering been so cut and dry:  Need to become queen of open-air-rapist horse lords? Not a problem. Let any anger be either directed at the indomitable Khal Drogo or solved by dragon birth.  Facing an assassination plot? Not a problem. Hapless Jorah Mormont will have a last-minute change-of-heart and stop the plot.  Someone stole your dragon children? Not a problem. Just walk up into a magical tower, wander around, then have them torch someone for the first time in their lives.  Shopping for an army of hyper-skilled spearmen but have no money? Not a problem. Just get a fool to think he&amp;#039;s actually going to be able to keep a dragon.  Shopping for an even bigger army? Not a problem. Just eye- and mind-fk a soldier who can kill the leaders of his mercenaries and then maintain command of the sell-swords and then perform a three-man raid on a locked down city \u2014 and let all of these liberated people of disparate cultures seemingly unite behind their love for her. (It has been astounding how emancipation has been portrayed as such a simple feat.)   And what about Westeros? On last night&amp;#039;s episode \u2014 the second of three season finales that has ended on a tableau representing Daenerys&amp;#039; power \u2014 Stannis Baratheon recounted that the Targaryen who conquered Westeros had a smaller fleet than his enemies, but the dragons burnt away the disadvantage. Now, it seems like Daenerys has the larger, better trained fleet and dragons. Each of these hollow conflicts against ephemeral enemies makes the conclusion of her story arc seem inevitable: She&amp;#039;ll be the savior of Westeros, if for no other reason than White Walkers die from fire or dragon glass. (If Bran can warg dragons away from their mother, that hint should have been dropped by now. Same goes for if dragons are prone to hypothermia in the wintertime.) Of course, inevitability is at odds with the show&amp;#039;s entire ethos: Daenerys could soon die. But even that, with its inherent shock value, would be unrewarding. The story has already killed off a king with a similar disposition in Robb Stark \u2014 a sympathetic ruler who was just and kind and didn&amp;#039;t want to rule so much as exact revenge and make The People happy; though Robb was compassionate to a fault, which only benefitted his character&amp;#039;s intrigue. No, Daenerys is currently stuck in a storyline that, at this stage, promises to underwhelm regardless of whether it ends classically and happily, or in another surprising death. Maybe Daenerys&amp;#039; compassion will finally betray her. Maybe next season the three men who won her Yunkai will compete for her loyalty \u2014 maybe Ser Jorah will feel threatened by the animal magnetism of Darrio, whose mercenaries may not enjoy living in a free, maternal society after a lifetime of fking whomever they pleased (the fact that the faceless Dothraki have come to terms with that lifestyle makes this latter option seem unlikely). Maybe Daenerys will have to make a choice between her allies, instead of making the obvious, easy decision to save people with her overwhelming army. But wherever the story goes, Daenerys does not need to liberate another city. She needs to be emancipated from her own easy, comfortable, mundane victory. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a22982/daenerys-targaryen-game-of-thrones-worst-character/>