The People's Queen: Elizabeth I on the Iron Throne

Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII, one of the most infamous British Kings in history. She ascended to the throne at the age of twenty-five, by which time she had already been imprisoned by her own sister, and forced to parrot beliefs that she did not hold. After the death of her sister, she was the last Tudor, and the heir to the throne. When she became queen, she was besieged by suitors, and enemies alike. In shining, silver-plated armor, she spoke to her troops as the Spanish armada approached saying, "Let tyrants fear!" (Norton, 762). She never married, and was consequently nick-named, "The Virgin Queen," though whether she was actually a virgin or not is still a controversial subject, because the persona she presented to her subjects was as much a sex symbol as it was a mother, or a warrior. Daenerys Targaryen, of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series, and HBO's popular serial adaptation Game of Thrones, bears a striking similarity to Elizabeth. The daughter of "The Mad King" Aerys Targaryen, Daenerys is an exile throughout her childhood. She lives under the control of her distasteful brother Viserys, who forces her into an arranged marriage. After Viserys and her husband die, Daenerys is the last living Targaryn, and is determined to reclaim the throne of the country from which she was exiled. Daenerys uses her sexuality to win allies all over the world, and she builds an army of freed slaves and outcasts, who call her "mother." She, like Elizabeth, is a mother figure, a warrior, and a sex symbol. The difference between Elizabeth and Daenerys is that the later's power depends almost entirely on one thing: dragons. Without these mythical creatures, she probably would have died before the end of the first book, or the first season of the show. Elizabeth had no dragons, but she was still able to rule England well for more than half a century because her people believed in her divine right to rule, and her constructed identity, "The Virgin Queen." Elizabeth I is often remembered as the ruler of the Golden Age in England; she was possibly the most powerful queen in western history. After the Spanish armada was defeated in 1588, Elizabeth's citizens believed that her power was a result God's favor. Daenerys gets her power from a similar supernatural force, in this case dragons. If Daenerys is a fictional reflection of Queen Elizabeth, her chances of winning the Iron Throne and steering Westeros into a Golden Age seem much greater to me.