The Toxicity of Jonerys

We are all allowed to ship and no one should tell us no. It doesn't matter if our ships don't make any logical sense, are non-canon, are toxic, or only a few people ship them. We shouldn't be judged for what we ship as if it reveals who we really are. Shipping is for fun and shipping wars shouldn't exist.

So if I believe that then why am I writing this post? Well this is an analysis of the relationship between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, not the people who ship them. If you want to have a Jonerys themed wedding, more power to you.

One reason I am writing this post is because Jonerys is one of the biggest ships on Game of Thrones. One could easily argue it is the biggest ship in the entire show. People were into the relationship long before they even met onscreen.

Another reason is that a lot of Jonerys shippers seem to ignore the darker aspects of their ship. They try to brush that darkness under the rug in an attempt to make the ship moral. So I want to talk about the dark subject matter that not many people have considered.

Credit

Shipping Doesn't Reflect Reality

Shipping is something a lot of people do for fun. Myself, it helps pass the time between seasons, helps me to enjoy the series even after it's long ended, and interact with the fandom. I have come into contact with people purely because I ship something that they do.

In today's shipping culture a disturbing trend has emerged. That is the trend to not ship for pure enjoyment, but to also make a social stance. This ends up with people championing certain ships for a social cause such as taking a stance against racism or homophobia.

If people simply didn't ship things that offended their morality, this wouldn't be a problem. But the thing is those shippers start to complain that those who are into the more kinky side of shipping are immoral.
The fun activity of shipping fictional couples is, therefore, turned into a battle ground. Shippers sometimes feel forced to defend themselves by proving that their ship is actually moral. This causes huge leaps of logic just so the shipper can retain the high moral ground and have people stop attacking them.

Credit

I admit to not understanding shipping wars. All I know about them is that shippers from different ships will get more than pissed off because someone is shipping differently than them. I am not really sure how one wins. I have been sucked into one or two and backed away once I realized what was going on. Yes, I do use the block/mute button liberally in those instances.

Now since a lot of people are trying to keep their idea of 'moral purity', this makes shipping wars dangerous if certain things are believed as facts. Such as if a person doesn't like a gay ship and during a shipping war they are called homophobic. Imagine the chaos of being in a fandom and everyone believing you are homophobic. Imagine that rumor getting out to the real world.

Again, shipping something doesn't mean you believe that it is acceptable in the real world. So I don't believe all Jonerys shippers are in toxic relationships, they just like the romance between Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. I doubt most think that incest should be legal.

I will cover the toxic Jonerys shippers later which is where all the insanity actually is.

Daenerys Targaryen's Insistence on Jon Snow Bending the Knee

The downfall of Game of Thrones came to fruition in Season 7 and the show never recovered. The timeline was sped up and things very quickly started to fall apart. The Season 7 episode "Beyond the Wall" is the worst the show should have ever gotten. It was the fun kind of bad. But the show decided to show us all how bad it could really get.

In Season 7 there was a subplot where Daenerys Targaryen kept trying to get Jon Snow to bend the knee. It was extremely annoying as she never tried to be politically suave about her request. Her time in Meereen should've shown her in explicit detail that she couldn't just force her beliefs onto others.

At the time it seemed extremely foolish that she appeared to never want to do anything but demand Jon's respect. But with her turn to villainy in the final season of Game of Thrones, this might have been a warning sign of what she would become.

Daenerys Targaryen likes to be in control and she can't be blamed for that need. She was raised by Viserys Targaryen who gave her no freedom and liked to treat her as a lesser being. When becoming the wife of Khal Drogo, she had power for the first time. So while we can't blame her for wanting control, we can blame her for not better controlling that instinct.

She could have easily told Jon Snow she agreed to help him. Possibly say that after she helped with his war, that he would then have to help her win hers. Instead she was confused why he wouldn't immediately obey her and kept stating the same demand. She didn't want an equal, she wanted a pawn that would adore her like others before.

Jon Snow eventually bends the knee to Daenerys Targaryen. He had arrived nearly dead at Eastwatch and so he bent the knee in spirit due to his condition. There are two main reasons that could explain why he decided to do so. One that is cute and adorable while the other is...not so much.

The cute and adorable thing is if he truly loved her. If he, after all their time together, had fallen for her. So the reason he bent the knee was because he wasn't thinking clearly, due to love and his condition, and wanted to please her.
Now even if Jon truly loved Daenerys, that doesn't make their relationship any less toxic. People do love their abuser for one reason or another. At least at first. Then eventually, at least hopefully, they realize the truth. And even more hopefully they manage to leave that relationship alive.

The not so cute explanation is that Jon realized that Daenerys could not be reasoned with. He knew that after she gained vengeance for Viserion that she could easily turn on him. That to protect himself and his people he would need to bend the knee. Even then he realizes that is a temporary fix but he needs time to decide what to do about her.

Many people like to point out that Daenerys Targaryen can't be a villain in Game of Thrones because she traveled North to help Jon Snow defeat the White Walkers. Many like to make it out like this one act is selfless and there are no other motivations to it. But if she was selfless she wouldn't have spent so much time asking Jon to bend the knee in exchange for her help. Because, yes, at one point she admitted the only thing holding her back from helping him was bending the knee.

Daenerys lending her support to Jon had nothing to do about love, but about her getting vengeance on the Night King for killing Viserion. It just happened at that one moment Daenerys and Jon's needs were the same. He wanting to kill the Night King to protect humanity and her wanting to get vengeance for a fallen child.

But in the end her motivations don't matter as defeating the White Walkers is one main duty as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. If she didn't defeat them at Winterfell they would just cause problems for her later. Praising her for going North is like people getting excited that I edit my posts. Just on a slightly larger scale.

The reason Cersei Lannister not sending help was so horrible isn't just because she lied, but because she didn't fulfill a basic function as Queen of the Iron Throne.

Daenerys Targaryen's Attempt to use Jon Snow as a Puppet

Daenerys Targaryen is a woman who loves power and being adored. Freeing slaves in Essos more than earned her the right to be respected. But as the people of Westeros had never seen any of her great accomplishments, she had no right to expect the same respect she received in Essos. And going to the North meant dealing with people who turned the cold shoulder to outsiders.

Her love of power, sadly, was part of what she expected in a romance. Her request for Jon Snow to bend the knee in Game of Thrones Season 7 and her actions in Season 8 show how much of their romance depended on him being in a lower position. Daenerys liked what she could do with Jon and he ended up being a piece of her game to her, not an actual person.

And, hey, maybe this is an exciting fantasy for some. I like stranger things so I won't judge.

When Ser Jaime Lannister is brought on trial in Winterfell, Daenerys Targaryen wants the man to be executed. With all her talk of understanding why her father was a horrible person, she is more than desperate to get vengeance. But as the short trial goes on, she realizes that the outcome she wanted won't happen. So she turns to Jon Snow with a demand phrased as a question.
The moment Jon doesn't do what she wanted, she grows angry. She hadn't thought him a person that would ever deviate from what she wanted. She must have thought the moment he bent the knee to her he would become another extension of herself. At that moment, before he reveals his true heritage, she worries her control over him will go away.

If one thinks of Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow as being in love, her reaction to his heritage makes no sense. The reason I thought all those rumors about Daenerys getting mad about Jon were insane was partially because I was judging them on the basis of the pair truly being in love. The other reason was because she would already know, just by the fact he bent the knee, he didn't care about power. So there was no reason for her to get upset. In fact the thing House Targaryen had for keeping the bloodline pure and he was the son of her favorite brother, made me believe she would be overjoyed to find out about his heritage.

But if we look at Daenerys' reaction as coming from a woman desperate to keep Jon under her control, it makes a lot more sense. The fact he was a bastard made her feel as though all the power was hers. Now that she realized he wasn't lowly made her react poorly.

Daenerys wanted Jon's true heritage kept secret even though he could easily refuse the Iron Throne. Something Aemon Targaryen did and then joined the Night's Watch. This can be explained by the fact she didn't want everyone to know her embarrassing secret: her lover was no lowly bastard.

Viewers Blaming Jon Snow for the Burning of King's Landing

If you asked most people they would agree that a man should be held responsible for any insane actions he takes for a woman refusing sexual advances. Most would say that the woman has done nothing wrong when a man overreacts to her refusal. They would say that the man had no innate right to a woman's body.

Yet there are people who seriously blame Jon Snow for Daenerys Targaryen burning King's Landing in the final season of Game of Thrones. He had his reasons for not sleeping with her. He was still shown to adore Daenerys, but she was his aunt. Because of him being raised as a Stark, committing incest was extremely distasteful for him.

Yet people think if Jon had merely made love to Daenerys King's Landing would be safe. That the innocent that were burned would be alive. They blame him for someone else's actions.

If it had been Jon Snow who burned down King's Landing and Daenerys Targaryen who refused to have sex with him, more people would not blame her. More people would support her decision to not sleep with someone she did not want to.

Now it does sound like I'm making up an argument that falls flat. Mainly the whole "if the roles were reversed" thing can be used to imply some sexist things. So while I can't find another instance of someone burning down a city with a dragon right after being refused sex, I can find two instances of rape to use.
In Game of Thrones Season 4, Jaime Lannister raped his sister Cersei Lannister next to their dead son. Shortly after the episode aired, there was an outcry. Even if you didn't watch the show, which I didn't until shortly after Season 5, you had to have read all the articles talking about it.

Yet when Cersei raped Jaime in Season 7, hardly anyone talked about it. No one used that episode to talk about when men are raped by women. It isn't that people don't care about men being raped, it's that people don't express their anger as publicly. I could go on to talk about how the legal definition of rape makes it harder for men to get justice, but this isn't the post for that.

I was just bringing up the rape to prove the point that when roles are reversed, people's rage can turn to apathy.

Let's say in the final season of Game of Thrones Jon Snow did have sex with Daenerys Targaryen in the hopes she wouldn't burn King's Landing to the ground. Let's say that this plan did in fact save the innocents that called that city their home. What would become of Jon? What would happen to his freedom?

Well, Jon will have bent completely to his abuser and truly forgone his sense of self. He would have given up his sense of right and wrong. He would have given up his body. He would have given up any sense of power he still had. If you thought Jon had become a mere play thing by the end of the show, you would have seen him become even less than that. There are lines that people can cross and recover from. Then there are lines that people can cross and never come back from.

Jon denying Daenerys before the Burning of King's Landing was an extremely powerful moment for him. He held onto his sense of self and the Targaryen made her own choice independent from his.

Also, it is extremely debatable why Daenerys burned down King's Landing. Her turn to villainy was done so poorly that every reason is just a headcanon. It is entirely possible she was thinking of Jon not having sex of her when she decided to destroy the city. But that doesn't mean it was actually Jon's fault.

Toxic Shippers

Shippers as a whole aren't bad. I am a shipper and I don't ruin anyone else's fun. I might analyze things in a way not everyone will like, but I don't go out of my way to harass them. And that there is the difference between normal shippers and toxic shippers.

Normal shippers may make memes, but won't go into a psychotic breakdown if you don't ship what they do. They know that not everyone likes the same things and that is okay. Toxic shippers, on the other hand, will seem to start a crusade if you don't like what they do.

You don't like Jonerys? Well you obviously don't have a good love life. You like Jorlessi instead? Well you obviously have father issues. You don't think Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen have any chemistry? Well you obviously don't understand that they were always meant to get together.

As my main ship is Jorlessi (aka the ship of Jorah Mormont and Daenerys Targaryen), suffice it to say I've had my share of toxic Jonerys shippers. Most are easily forgotten as they use the same insults. Only less than a handful have stuck with me.

The most annoying one commented on one of my fanfics on Archive of Our Own. Somehow he thought I was trying to win a shipping war with him. So simply saying stop did nothing. And when I deleted some of his comments because they were attracting other trolls, he got downright nasty with his comments. Due to Archive of Our Own having no block button, I had to contact an admin on the site. Finally after a month of working to 'block' him I've never heard from him ever again.

So if someone harasses you for a month because you don't ship their ship, they are toxic. No normal shipper does that if you don't agree with them.

There are also shorter ways to figure if a shipper is toxic than waiting through a month's worth of harassment. There are also ways shippers defend certain problematic elements of their ship. In the case of Jonerys, there is the problematic element of incest.

Normal shippers will use Game of Thrones lore to defend the incest in Jonerys. Basically in the show House Targaryen believes in incest to keep the bloodline pure. They are so obsessed with purity that they marry brother and sister to make sure the magic is kept. Aegon "The Conqueror" Targaryen took over Westeros with his two sister wives, for instance. I believe book readers have stated that if Daenerys Targaryen had been born earlier she would've married her brother Rhaegar.

So in universe incest is not that big of a deal. They even bring up the point that incest is also practiced by other Houses in Westeros. Though they seem to forget the freakiest other Houses get is marrying cousins at the most.

But, hey, using the text is a great way to analyze a work of fiction and formulate ideas and theories.

Now what does a toxic shipper do? Or at least one who is missing a few marbles? They will go much further than the text. They will bring up the real world to make arguments that no sane person would use. I am going to repeat before going on that not all Jonerys shippers are like this.

Some Jonerys shippers argue that incest really isn't as taboo as everyone is making out. They argue that we need to stop thinking of incest as disgusting in the real world. That in the real world everyone should be allowed to marry people who they are genetically closely related to. One person I saw provided a series of links arguing their point.
I think that some shippers argue that incest is okay in the real world because they want to keep the high moral ground. They, like many non-toxic shippers, believe that you can only ship things that are okay in the real world. So to justify their ship, some might feel compelled to make insane arguments. 

Even though toxic shippers will bend over backwards to justify how Jonerys isn't the 'bad kind of incest', they will not do so for other incest couples. Instead they seem to take utter delight in pointing out how disgusting incest is even in a fictional setting. They will falsely call out other incest shippers for agreeing with incest in real life.

One incest ship that toxic Jonerys shippers loathe is Jon Snow/Arya Stark. Okay, the larger one is Jon Snow/Sansa Stark (aka Jonsa). While I like both, I prefer Jon/Arya.

Now maybe toxic Jonerys shippers have another reason to loathe Jon/Arya than incest. It could be because some people only ship a character with only one other character. Instead of like me who has so many ships it's not even funny. So the toxic shippers could be attacking the Jon/Arya ship because...um...because if he is shipped with anyone else Jonerys can't happen?

I am a shipper but sometimes other shippers confuse me.

I must repeat clearly for all those in the back that not all Jonerys shippers are toxic or insane. One of my best friends in the whole is a Jonerys shipper. I trust her more than anyone else I know and she doesn't try to shove her ship down my throat.

There are good shippers out there.

And, yeah, even if you don't like a ship never ever harass someone because of it. There are more important things to get angry about like the correct pronunciation of 'jif'.

Those are some of my opinions on how I view Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen's relationship. Comment below with your opinions on what you think about Jonerys.

Remember you can submit ideas for future posts HERE. I also talk about other fandoms, so don't feel that you have to only submit ideas for Game of Thrones posts.