I feel like Hizdahr was a great minor character in S4/5 of the show. Though he was once a member of the Slave Masters of Meereen, Hizdahr’s role, in Daenerys’ council, was actually really well done and thought provoking.
Throughout S5, Hizdahr attempts to convince Daenerys to honor the traditions of Meereen and its people, mainly through the re-opening of the fighting pits. Though some viewers might see this as surface level “Hizdahr was a slave owner, which automatically makes him evil”, Hizdahr’s advice is actually very true.
Daenerys has never lived a day of her adult life in Westeros, which makes it even less of a home than Essos, where she’s spent her entire life. Daenerys is under the pretense that when she returns, the common folk will flock to their true leader, which just isn’t the case. The common folk have very little interest in the wars of kings and queens, and wouldn’t have cared when Daenerys arrived. What Hizdahr is saying, accepting tradition, is not only about Meereen, but a warning for Westeros itself. If Daenerys ever hopes to become a good ruler, she can’t just make it her way or the highway. She has to make accommodations with people’s prior lives, if she ever hopes to keep the peace.
Daenerys’ unwillingness and impatience to accept old traditions is very telling of how naive she is, believing that people will just love her automatically. Daenerys is so unwilling, that she even threatens Hizdahr directly, during the Fighting Pits Tournament, that she might burn Meereen and its traditions to the ground if they don’t accept her own way.
(Very reminiscent of how she threatened the same thing for the city of Qarth, just because they refused to let her enter. All she needed to do was show her dragons, yet she refused to do so, even if it meant her people might die)
Now that’s not to say Meereen was a perfect city. Far from it, as it was the center of slave trade, however, this emphasizes how unprepared Daenerys was to rule Westeros, as she most likely would have enforced her own rule with fire and blood if anyone talked back. Daenerys talks about “breaking the wheel”, but everything she has done so far shows she is continuing the same wheel.
Anyway, back to Hizdahr, this guy isn’t a “good” person, due to his history in slavery, however, his advice is sound and crucial for Daenerys’ rule, yet it’s just discounted because everyone believes Hizdahr leads the Sons of the Harpy. Hizdahr even gives his life trying to save Daenerys from the Harpies, and yet she doesn’t even care.
Overall, Hizdahr was a man willing to help Daenerys, even though she had changed his entire way of life, and ultimately didn’t get any credit for his role. If Daenerys had put aside her own grievances towards him, she actually would have learned something in ruling.
Submitted January 27, 2021 at 12:24AM by Broadbeck7 https://ift.tt/2YhT2em
No comments:
Post a Comment