“The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust.”

“I spoke for you,” she said, anguished. “I saved you.”

“Saved me ?” The Lhazareen woman spat.

“Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me ?

I saw my god’s house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting.

My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads.

I saw the head of a baker who made my bread.

I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past.

I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips.

Tell me again what you saved.

“Your life.”

Mirri Maz Duur laughed cruelly. “Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone.”

I have to be honest, when I first read that scene in 2008, I considered Mirri the monster that deceived and betrayed Daenerys and therefore she deserved to die.

Years later, I reread the books for the first time and Daenerys already did things I found awful so I was more open minded to take in consideration Mirri’s POV… that truly changed my opinion on what GRRM created.

Mirri Maz Duur is a brown woman who lived in a peaceful community when one day a particular strong clan of Dothraki attacked her village and that lead into the slaughter and mass rape of everyone she knew and loved.

Mirri did witness the carnage firsthand and, most importantly, she was also a victim of the Dotharki violence.

When Daenerys “saved” her, Mirri was already a broken soul and rereading that scene it seems really a sinister joke that Daenerys wanted to save a few Lhazareen women when the main reason why Drogo decided to massacre this peaceful group of people is that he needed more slaves to trade for a fleet to invade Westeros and give Daenerys a throne that didn’t mean anything to the Lhazareen.

And there is more: Daenerys “saved” Mirri and made her one of her slaves and as such she was bound to serve the new Dothraki khal, the great khal of khals who would have united the Dothraki as one horde and used them to conquer the entire world, in other words a new Dothraki prophesied to wipe out the entire world… the future looked darker with every day that passed.

From this point of view, I understood why Mirri did what she did and she wasn’t the evil witch that I believed she was at first.

I love how we can revisit a book and understand it in a completely different way!

If Mirri set out to kill Drogo, I wouldn’t blame her at all (I don’t think anyone would if Dany weren’t at the center of this), but I’m not convinced that’s what she did. She had training and experience and gave clear instructions,

But they didn’t follow them,

The same goes for when Dany asks her to save him. She gives warning about the cost and tells Dany no one can enter the tent, but Jorah takes Dany in. Somehow, people still hold her responsible for Rhaego’s death which isn’t entirely fair.

It’s perfectly understandable to not catch details on a normal reading, there are so many things to keep track of, but even if Mirri did set out to kill her oppressor, on what grounds can we object? If I had suffered what she had and Dany reproached me for not being grateful, I’d laugh at that cruel joke too.

Thank you for sharing your evolution of thought here, anon. I enjoyed reading it!