Ladies, I give you Daenerys Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen from HBO's Game of Thrones, courtesy of HBO.

As part of our series on literary heroes for this year's Children's Book Week, Booktrust's Anna McKerrow tells us about why she loves George R R Martin's complex heroine

My current fictional heroine is Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones by George R R Martin.
   
Daenerys, (which sounds a little bit like dinero, which is fitting, because she is MONEY) like all of the characters in the resplendently wonderful G.O.T series is complex, flawed and human. Unlike many fantasy/swords-and-sorcery women, she is not some kind of pathetic victim or a peerless stone-hearted goddess in a leather bikini: Daenerys rides her horse dressed in practical riding gear, covered in the dirt kicked up by her horse and develops hard skin on her bottom where her saddle chafes. Her life is tough and heartbreaking, but she responds to the challenges she is dealt with bravery and vision. Life may be a war, but Daenerys shows up to every battle.

We first meet Daenerys as a shy girl of 14, oppressed by her abusive brother and about to be married off to the apparently scary and savage leader of a clan of warriors (think Klingons with ponytails on horses). She and her brother are the last of their family, the old royal family of Westeros, who were dethroned and murdered by the current king. She has been living in exile since she was born. And she is known as 'Daenerys Stormborn'. I wish I was known as 'Stormborn'.

At first Daenerys seems set up to continue her victimhood at the hands of her new husband, Khal Drogo: but not so. As his queen she gradually learns to love the freedom of galloping with her warriors, the wind in her hair and the grass on the horizon. She falls in love with Drogo, who is human after all. She eats a raw horses’ heart when pregnant to ensure the glory and strength of her baby son: she knows, as she eats it, gagging at every mouthful, that her future depends on it. The future of her son, who might retake the throne, rests on the good omen she has to ensure by eating every morsel. She does it. She flipping does it, and I love her for that.

Daenerys grows into a woman with one unwavering focus: the Iron Throne. Her desire for power isn’t for power itself, like her brother – in fact she regrets that she can’t have a normal life, and do all the things a young woman and wife should do. But she feels it’s her duty to right the wrongs of the past. If I look back, all will be lost, she repeats to herself when her warriors are on the verge of deserting her, when sun-and-stars is at death's door, when she is nine months pregnant and trying to take over a kingdom – and though it’s terrifying, she clenches her teeth and moves forward. That shy wisp of a girl has fortitude running through her like slivers of gold in rock.

Daenerys is a true heroine. A real heroine that cries and doubts herself, but makes decisions, moves forward and learns from her mistakes. A real woman that makes herself look at scary things when scary things demand to be looked at and lived with. A woman that loves, laughs and loses. Role models for girls are alive and well: Ladies, I give you Daenerys Targaryen.