“A dragon is no slave.”

Daenerys declares this to the slave master Kraznys mo Nakloz, just before she kills him. In the scene, Daenerys “sells” one of her dragons to Kraznys in exchange for an army of Unsullied slave warriors. Dragons are weapons of great power in the novel. Some people, like Kraznys mo Nakloz, seem to think of a dragon as something like a mindless tool that can be wielded like a sword. But Daenerys recognizes that they are dangerous and have their own wills. Her quote suggests it would be both cruel to enslave them, which is not surprising as she considers her dragons to be her children and loves them deeply, and essentially impossible, since they’re too powerful to be held by any man. Moreover, dragons have a connotation of being regal creatures because of their power and rarity. What Daenerys also implies is that it would be wrong to debase something so noble. It’s in that sense that Daenerys also refers to herself with these words. The Targaryen family is closely tied to dragons, as dragons have long been the source of the family’s power and prestige. In fact, the Targaryens are often referred to figuratively as dragons, and so what Daenerys additionally suggests is that she won’t be subservient by handing over one of her dragons to someone like Kraznys.

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