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Chapter 67: Sansa
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Game of Thrones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Politics and Power
Climate Change and Collective Action
Gender and Power
Honor and Integrity
Identity
Summary
Analysis
Daenerys falls in and out of sleep. She dreams of Khal Drogo, Rhaegar, and Viserys. When she awakens intermittently, she asks to hold the dragons’ eggs. After days of falling in and out of sleep, she awakens again and asks what happened to her baby. Jorah says that Khal Drogo lived, but the baby did not. Mirri says that when she took the baby out, it resembled a monster. It had wings like a bat and was covered in scales that fell off when touched. Dany says that the baby was strong when Jorah brought her to the tent. Mirri says death was in the tent. Dany says she thought that the horse was the life that had to be paid for Drogo to live. She hadn’t known it would be her son’s life. Mirri says Dany told herself what she wanted to hear but knew the truth all along.
Before Daenerys asks about what happened to her baby, she asks to hold her dragon eggs, showing that she feels deeply and intimately connected to those eggs and to what was once inside them. Viserys often claimed that he was a dragon. The “monstrous” baby that Mirri describes seems to resemble a dragon, suggesting that something in Daenerys is closely related to dragons (a symbol of the Targaryen family) in the way that Viserys claimed to be. Mirri also explains to Daenerys that she paid for Drogo’s life with the life of her unborn child, something that Daenerys says she didn’t agree to.
Themes
Dany says she wants to see Khal Drogo. When Dany leaves the tent, she sees that Drogo’s khalasar has left. The only people who remain are those who are sick and those who swore an oath to serve Drogo. The rest have left to look for other khalasars or to form khalasars of their own. Dany then sees Khal Drogo lying on the ground. He is covered in flies but doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes follow the motion of the sun, but he can’t see. He cannot speak either and only eats when food is held to his lips.
As Jorah and Daenerys predicted, once Khal Drogo lost the ability to lead, his khalasar deserted him. While Mirri promised to save Drogo’s life, she didn’t explain what that life would look like. When Daenerys examines Drogo, she finds that he is alive but in a catatonic state, which is not at all what Daenerys expected.
Themes
Dany tells Mirri that Mirri cheated her and murdered her child after she saved Mirri’s life. Mirri says that Khal Drogo and his men burned down her god’s house and her home. They killed the people closest to her, and she was repeatedly raped. By killing the “stallion who mounts the world,” Mirri says, she ensured that Dany’s child wouldn’t grow up to burn and pillage other towns. Dany orders the men who remain to bind Mirri. She then goes into a tent alone with Drogo. She does everything she can think of to try and elicit a response from him, but he does nothing. She holds a pillow over his face to suffocate him.
Daenerys realizes that she was wrong to trust Mirri. That realization is similar to Ned’s realization that he was wrong to trust Littlefinger. Mirri’s explanation for why she betrayed Daenerys also points to the novel’s theme that people fashion narratives based on their own perspectives. In this case, Daenerys envisioned herself as something of a hero for stopping Dothraki men from raping the shepherd women. From Mirri’s perspective, though, Daenerys’s intervention was too little, too late, and sabotaging Drogo and his khalasar made the world a better place and made innocent people safer.
Themes
