Flamefall author Rosaria Munda on female characters and the Daenerys problem

When Rosaria Munda’s Fireborne – the first installment of a trilogy called the Aurelian Cycle – hit shelves last year many reviewers likened the novel and its universe to hit HBO series Game of Thrones. (Our review here at Culturess included!) A story featuring compelling characters, complex political questions, and dragons – the parallels just write themselves.

And though the upcoming sequel Flamefall also has dragons – and we all kind of ship Aela and Pallor at this point – they’re certainly the least important part of the story. This novel is where things get messy, where the story asks us the sort of complicated questions that don’t have easy answers

Munda graciously volunteered to give us an inside look at how Flamefall not only tackles thorny issues of privilege and politics but how we, as a society, tend to respond to the idea of women in positions of power – by casting them as unlikeable, difficult bitches for making the same hard choices that men are often lauded for. (Or deeming them crazy when they make choices we don’t like.)

She refers to this phenomenon as “The Daenerys Problem,” and it’s something that’s far too commonplace in our current fiction – be it in television series or the pages of novels. Here’s how her Flamefall attempts to solve it.