Viserys is an Asshole - Daenerys

And if he were my brother, I'd have killed him the first chance I got when I was old enough to hold a dagger.

Daenerys

The story is pulled from Winterfell across a couple land masses and some oceans to a place called Pentos.  It's in a realm called the Nine Free Cities, commonly refered to as just the Free Cities.

Introduced are Daenerys and her brother Viserys.  Viserys is showing Daenerys a lovely silk dress she will be wearing so as to look like a princess again.  Magister Illyrio is helping them survive at this time due to their current misfortunes in life.

Over the course of this chapter, to be brief, we learn a lot about the history of Westeros and the Iron Throne.  It appears as though our beloeved Eddard Stark and his King Robert took the Iron Throne from the Targaryens, Rhaeger fighting to protect his brother Viserys and sister Daenerys, but dying in the battle at the Trident.  A lot of Targaryens were killed.  And Viserys doesn't like that.

So they want their land back.  And Viserys' way of doing this is by marrying off his sister, who is a mere 13 years old, to a much older ruler of a people known as the Dothraki, a savage warrior race in Pentos.  Khal Drogo sounds like a fierce man, but pales in comparison to the fear that Viserys instills in Daenerys when he speaks of "waking the dragon".

The Targaryen's house symbol is a dragon.  And whenever Viserys gets pissed, he calls it "waking the dragon".  Okay, Viserys ... whatever you say.

As he says this to Dany (Daenerys), he also tells her to act proper tonight in front of Khal Drogo, stand up straight to let him see she has a woman's shape now.  He then begins to carress her breast and when he asks "You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" and she does not answer, he grabs her nipple and twists, repeating, "Do you?" and she finally responds with a quiet, "No."

I would have kicked him in the balls so hard, he would no longer be capable of siring heirs.

But alas, this is a medievally accurate world where women, especially younger women, have no rights whatsoever unless they're of high nobility.  And even then, they're simply protected, they still have little say in matters of ... anything besides their own safety.

Viserys leaves for her sister to bathe and get dressed.  After dressing, they head off for the feast where Viserys intends Dany to make a good, long lasting impression on Khal Drogo, enough so that he asks her to marry him.  They enter and Daenerys sees Khal Drogo for the first time and his frightened out of her mind.  He's huge, imposing, intimadating ... and yet she notices he's graceful on his feet, like a large cat, and is younger than she expect, maybe only thirty.

Viserys points out the incredibly long braid the khal has; the end brushes the back of his thighs.  Viserys explains that Dothraki warriors chop off their braids when they lose in combat but survive as a sign of shame.  Khal Drogo's, to be so long, had never lost a battle.

Dany say she wants to leave, but Viserys threatens her again (in an extremly rude fashion), and so Dany musters up the courage, wipes away her tears, and goes forth to meet Khal Drogo.

Not All That Scary

From the description of Khal Drogo, he sounds like a good lookin' guy.  Sure, their separation in age and the way Viserys treats Dany, she may not exactly be ... okay in the head, but the only threatening thing we know about the man is that he's never lost a fight and he has an army of forty thousand Dothraki warrios.  And that's the whole reason Viserys wants Daenerys to marry the khal.  He wants the Dothraki army to go north and take back his land.

I fear for Daenerys in the hands of Khal Drogo, however.  I'm afraid things won't end well for the poor girl.

While this chapter had a singly important event beginning, it felt more moving than the previous two chatpers.  Sure, the book beginning with a death, a beheading, and another death (direwolf), this chapter felt more important for some reason.  It feels as though the start of this event will lead to some fairly intense chain reactions down the plot line.