What If… Hilda, and not Daenerys, was the Mother of Dragons?

This article will contain major Game of Thrones spoilers. Read at your own risk!

 

The Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains. Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. The Unburnt. The Dragon Queen.

 

All of these are names given to Daenerys I Targaryen, thought to be the last of the Targaryens; an ancient house with whom dragons blood coursed through their veins, who sat upon the Iron Throne of Westeros as the rulers of the Seven Kingdoms. The daughter of a ruler known as “The Mad King” because of his penchant for burning his foes alive and losing his grip on reality, Daenerys was hunted all of her life because of her name and who her father was. As many of us know however, Daenerys would go on to defy her fate, raising an army that would eventually help her get back to King’s Landing and bringing to life three dragons, creatures thought to have been long extinct, earning herself the title ‘The Mother of Dragons’. Everything appeared to point towards her ascension to the Iron Throne of Westeros.

 

Until tragedy struck.

 

Struggling her whole life to be a good person and a just ruler, and after suffering heavy losses in the war, including two of her dragons and multiple close friends, Daenerys gave into her darkest impulses on the verge of her victory.  The Mother of Dragons chose to use her children to utterly annihilate her enemies, and countless innocent civilians, rather than show mercy and accept their surrender. This would lead the people to hate her, her remaining allies to turn their backs on her, and her lover to assassinate her just as she was claiming the throne.

 

But what if it didn’t happen that way?

 

What if someone else had been in her spot? Someone else who, like Daenerys, was capable of extraordinary good… and extraordinary evil?

 

What if it had been Hilda?

 

What if some kind of tear in reality occurred, and a gateway between Lorule and Westeros was created? Imagine that Hilda had somehow swapped places with Daenerys at a critical moment — instead of history the way we know it, it was now Hilda being traded and sold to the Dothraki, a clan of tribal warriors who value strength above all else. Instead of marrying Khal Drogo and becoming the Queen of the Dothraki, or as they call, the Khaleesi, Daenerys was now trapped in a world that was rotting and decaying with no hope of saving? Most importantly, putting aside all the reasons it couldn’t happen,  imagine if Hilda, and not Daenerys, had been gifted three dragon eggs and gone on to become The Mother of Dragons?

 

Hilda is a queen shown as having love for her people, a redeeming arc at the end of her story, and the respect of her subjects, including Ravio. It’s easy to think that she could have avoided the mistakes that cost Daenerys her life.

 

But could she really have? 

Although her legacy was undoubtedly tarnished by her last few days on the Known World, people forget too that Daenerys was beloved by nearly everyone. She had a following of loyal people who would have gladly given up their lives for her. She aspired to build a world where everyone would be equal regardless of social status, set free a nation of slaves on Essos, fought bravely and honorably, and won the hearts of many great men through her beauty and her grace, men like Jon Snow, Khal Drago, and Jorah Mormont. Looking at the brightest parts of her life makes one wonder where everything went wrong, but looking at the darkest parts of Hilda’s life make it abundantly clear that she had more in common with The Dragon Queen than anyone may have thought: both were liars and schemers, willing to manipulate the people in their lives to achieve their goals, not caring about innocent bystanders that would be hurt or killed in their quest for power.

 

It’s easy to see Hilda using her three dragons to obtain power, much the same way Daenerys did, even if seizing power was initially done with the best intentions.

 

What if Hilda had left the Dothraki with three infant Dragons? If she traveled to the coast along Slaver’s Bay, gallantly freeing all of the imprisoned men and women there, giving them freedom for the first time in their lives? Hilda could have raised her Dragons in the newly named Dragons Bay until they matured, all the while gaining an army of loyal troops. What if after conquering Essos, Hilda and her army had finally sailed back to Westeros, ready to retake the Iron Throne to create a better world?

 

It’s easy to think that, had Hilda been in a similar position as Daenerys was when The Breaker of Chains first met the King of the North Jon Snow, Hilda would have also chosen to side with Snow and his band of Northerners to fight the Night King and his army of the dead — after all, Hilda possesses shades of righteousness, just like Daenerys. It’s easy to imagine that with Hilda’s cunning and wit, combined with the might of her three Dragons, that she would have not only helped Jon Snow and company defeat the Night King, but that she wouldn’t have lost one of her dragons as Daenerys did. Hilda was less emotional than The Dragon Queen, and more calculated; there was no way that Hilda would ever put her Dragons in any position of real danger, even if it meant losing Jon Snow — a man who Daenerys loved, but who little more than a political ally to Hilda.

 

Hilda also proved to us during the course of her adventure with Link and Zelda that she was ruthless when she needed to be — there’s no way that, even if the Greyjoy fleet had attacked her at Dragonstone like they had attacked Daenerys, they would have been successful in killing a second dragon like they were with the Last Targaryen. Hilda, a lethal combination of ruthless and calculated, would have slaughtered and burnt down the entire fleet before they had a chance to launch one of their Scorpion arrows into the neck of her dragon.

The only thing left for Hilda to do is take the Iron Throne in the heart of the city of King’s Landing. This was the critical moment in when Daenerys lost control of herself and eventually lost her life because of it. Daenerys couldn’t fulfill her destiny as the Mother of Dragons, but Hilda could. It’s easy to imagine Hilda taking the Throne and justifying it as necessary in order to build a better future. Hilda was prepared to destroy an entire kingdom once before in another timeline, so why wouldn’t she decide to do the same in this one? With no Ravio, who was there to talk reason to her that she could listen to? 

 

Finally, after King’s Landing was ashes, three dragons flying around the sky, anyone like Jon Snow or Tyrion Lannister who might oppose her discarded, Hilda would be free to take the Throne and rule over the perfect Kingdom she wanted all her life to have. 

 

Would Hilda’s good traits have come out and could she have eventually been a kind and just ruler, despite the atrocities she had committed to get to that position? Perhaps. Perhaps Daenerys could have as well. But in this reality, Hilda as the Mother of Dragons conquering the Iron Throne through fire and blood is the only certainty.

 

… but what if Hilda’s story didn’t end there?

 

What if she had met Milisandre, the Red Priestess who could give birth to Shadow Monsters? What if, by channeling the power of the Lord of Light, somehow, Milisandre created another portal from Westeros back to Hyrule?

 

What if this portal opened up a different kind of Hyrule, one where multiple timelines seemed to converge into each other, creating something new and different?

 

What if the Red Woman created a Shadow Monster for the Mother of Dragons that would protect her new Kingdom of Hyrule, infecting and destroying anything that stood in her way to calamitous effect?

 

What if Hilda had taken her three Dragons back with her to this new land?

 

What would this look like I wonder?

 

Andy Spiteri is the Editor-in-Chief of Zelda Dungeon. He loves big crossovers and just binge watched all 8 seasons of Game of Thrones last month. Follow him on Twitter here!

Article artwork by InkRose98