Use Your Gifts: Daenerys and Ymir.
So I’ve been thinking about two magical girls from my two favorite fictions Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama and ASoiaf by GRRM.
Daenerys and Ymir are amongst the most powerful beings in their worlds.
I see a lot of similarities in that they obtained their magic power through their will to live
But the way they use their power is so different, and have such different consequences. I think their’s a lot to learn about it in storytelling.
Let’s look at how Daenerys and Ymir. Use their Gifts.
Part 2: Ymir.
Ymir is one of the most important characters in Attack on Titan even though she doesn’t speak a word of dialogue. Her story ended 2000 years ago.
She starts off as an enslaved little girl of the Eldian empire under King Fritz.
In her early life she let some of the kings pigs escape just to know what it might be like to be free. She was punished for this. The other slaves blamed her to save themselves and King Fritz sent out a hunting party to kill her.
It was here that she gained her titan powers, to defend herself. When she came back to the king with her new powers he called her a slave and she believed it so.
So over the next few years with her power, Ymir served King fritz and the eldian empire, expanding warring and oppressing people all over the attack on titan world.
Fritz forced Ymir to bear his children. She served as his military power for 13 years until the Eldians captured Marley. A Marleyan soldier tried to kill the king, and Ymir saved his life in her human form, sacrificing herself. Though she had the power of the titans healing ability, Ymir lost her will to live and died.
In her dying, she was disrespected even further and she failed to protect the three daughters she’d had by the king.
He made the girls eat her entire corpse and to have many children to preserve her power. And for their children and descendants to eat corpses to preserve the power Which eventually created the 9 titans.
The 9 titans are interesting to me. They seem like manifestations of Ymir’s personality and wishes.
Ymir was cursed after her death. She was sent to the paths; a timeless endless space where she would create titans and serve the will of the king and his descendants for all eternity. And of course, in the real world, all of her titan children are enslaved in some way as well
She really should have fucking smashed King fritz. Ymir’s curse I believe comes from her having the power to finally free herself and others and instead using it to make the world worse. Even though it kills her inside.
Ive always found it interesting when Both Frida Reiss and Grisha Yaeger told the story of Ymir as a goddess, who used her power to build and grow communities and advance technology.
But instead Ymir blessing became a never ending chain of servitude, watching her titans live and kill and die every 13 years. If they make it that long.
Then the curse got even worse over time. When the Eldian empire was defeated Marley took back 7 of the nine titans. The Marley titans(Annie, Reiner Bertholt) were made to create war and subjugation in other countries. The rest of the Eldians around the world were hated and oppressed.
Ymir has a relation with all the eldian people in that anyone born with eldian blood can become a titan.
And now, with her power, Eren Yaeger is destroying the world. I think the hard meaning in Ymir’s story is that she didn’t use her gifts stand up to her devil, she became one. And now everyone is paying for it.
Part 3: Daenerys.
Daenerys starts off as the exile princess across the Narrow Sea. Travelling around with her abusive brother viserys, trying to survive as children
They end up in Illyrian Mopatis manse. And Daenerys is being prepared to be sold as a wife to THE Khal Drogo, at the age of 13.
And as you’d expect, it was terrible for Dany at first. Her peace of mind only came at the expense of sexually pleasing Drogo and bearing his children. In that she found some of her voice, but it was under her husbands power.
So I think was very good writing of Isayama and George Rr Martin to highlight both Ymir and Daenerys womanhood and fertility and their sexuality as a means to connect them with their magic and their suffering. I think a common theme that I see in a lot of magic is the power of fertility and creation. And blood sacrifice
Through her marriage in the khalasar Dany developed a connection to her dragons eggs, her pregnancy and dragon dreams. These little pieces of magic Gave Daenerys the will to live.
When she sacrificed Myrri Maz Durr she gave living blood to the burning magic of fire and Myrri’s life went into the dragons and hatched them.
Dany gets a lot of criticism for burning Mirri Maz Duur but at that point they were enemies, Dany’s will to live was at odds with Mirri’s desire for revenge. and Dany was burning her child, husband and betrayal into the dragons.
She takes the left over people from Drago’s previous Khalasar and does her best to keep them alive.
So Daenerys and her baby dragons become a wonder of the world. And when she gets to Qarth she is showered with gifts and adoration. But it’s also there that she learns that her dragons are threatened . By the time she left Xaro Xhoan Daxos wanted her out of his face and gone.
And then she starts up the slave rebellion in Astapor. Daenerys and her dragons. She’s so very bold. After she tricks Kraznyz and the other masters into selling her the unsullied army she burns them and the unsullied kill them and free themselves.
Daenerys gives them the option to lead a free life or join her on her campaign as freedmen. -Each event that happens with Daenerys’ dragons catapults her to more fame and more people surrounding her and depending on her.
So in the 5th book Daenerys takes over the great pyramid city Mereen after killing 163 slavery masters and ending slavery.
So now Daenerys is trying to manage a city, create a new economy and maintain peace amongst freed people, while a shadow war of the previous masters is waged against her.
I think Daenerys biggest test yet is how she will respond to war in Mereen. *Not only is there a deadly disease spreading inside and outside her city walls,* Because the rest of the powerful slave lords are sending their soldiers there to get that action with her.
Daenerys disrupted one of the most lucrative and influential systems in all of Essos and the people who lost their power because from it want her and her dragons dead.
So now she has to smash it down.
Right now Daenerys is stuck with Drogon in the Dothraki Sea and Khal Jhaqo has found her. Her triumph over him and his murderers will start her back on her path.
Conclusion.
So we can see the inverse relationship between Ymir and Daenerys. Now their stories are not finished in the anime and book, respectively, but their themes seem to be heading in reverse of each other.
They have their similarities in that they were in a low place and their will to live in combination with their magic blessing set them free in a way, but they bare the responsibility of this freedom differently.
Whereas Ymir’s inability to use her power freely, as well as her titan descendants is now leading to the destruction of the world
Daenerys is using her power to empower and free others, the lowest of the low.
Both of their stories are very grounded and visceral
They are used for their sexuality against their will and their concept of motherhood extends beyond themselves to the people that they consider a part of them.
Ymir considers all the Eldian as a part of her in that only they can inherit her titan powers.
Daenerys feels like her people are a part of her in their hodge podge goal of living peaceful self determined lives.
The Attack on titan world is paying to the nth degree of Ymir and later her descendants, for not using the titan power for good and freedom
And Daenerys is bearing the weight of all the lives she’s taken into her hands, she has to keep her promise to keep herself, her dragons and her people alive.
When I tell you I love these stories, it’s interesting to reflect on. Using your gifts can lead to salvation or disaster. That to me says a lot about why these characters are so interesting.
