50 influential fictional women in nerd history

Daenerys Targaryen

She’s the mother of dragons. The Khaleesi, if you will, is an extremely powerful character — one that has been through it all — and still remains strong. She was raped, sold into marriage, and still she fights for those who cannot fight for themselves.

Daenerys is a wonderful character because she’s still a sexual being despite everything that has happened to her. Often, women are depicted as strong, but they aren’t sexual, and it isn’t fair to women. With Daenerys, that isn’t the case.

So often we are either one of the other, and very rarely are we seen as complete people. Though Game of Thrones is out there in terms of reality, it still has characters that are strong-willed and vulnerable at the same time.

Though she has literal dragons as her children, she is still a woman with needs and fears, and it shows that we are changing the narrative of how women are written into our fiction. So easily she could have been this character without a heart or one that is too powerful to think about anything of a sexual nature, but the show has married the two ideas. And that’s what makes Daenerys Targaryen one of the greatest characters on television.