One thing I like best about Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire is that there isn’t a clear line between right and wrong. Characters aren’t simply good or evil, they’re sort of in the grey zone, whether it be Daenerys Targaryen or Jaime Lannister (other than the White Walkers, obviously, they’re the definition of evil).

Though she only appeared in Season One (and died in it), Mirri Maz Duur was a very interesting character. When I watched Season One for the first time, I thought she was an evil witch who tricked Dany into murdering her son. But upon my second watch, I felt more sympathy, or rather, understanding for her and what she did. The books further developed Mirri Maz Duur’s character: she was not simply an evil maegi, she was a human who wanted revenge on those who slaughtered her people.

When Mirri Maz Duur volunteered to heal Khal Drogo’s wounds in the books, the Dothraki were extremely suspicious of her. I don’t think she had any intentions to take revenge in the beginning: she gave Drogo a poultice and told him to leave it on and not to drink. There wasn’t poison in it or anything - she was genuinely trying to heal him. The fact that the wound started to itch showed that it was, in fact, healing. However, Drogo scratched it off and drank fermented mare’s milk, causing his wound to fester. But Dany, driven by worry and fear for her husband, blamed Mirri Maz Duur for Drogo’s mistakes when in truth, she was innocent.

When Drogo finally fell from his horse, Dany, filled with desperation, begged Mirri Maz Duur to save Drogo’s life - without thinking of the consequences of blood magic, even when Mirri Maz Duur warned her “only death can pay for life”. It was Dany’s choice, after all, and Mirri Maz Duur only obeyed her wishes.

Before she revived Drogo, Mirri Maz Duur asked for his horse to be brought in and killed. The horse’s death would pay for Drogo’s life. Mirri Maz Duur then warned Dany not to allow anyone into the tent. But did Dany obey? No. She tried to, but she needed someone to help her through childbirth. George R. R. Martin provides a vivid description of the scene: “Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.”

Because Dany entered the tent and interfered with the blood magic ritual, her son’s life force was swapped with the three stone dragon eggs, allowing the dragons to come to life. As a result, her son was “twisted. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.”

Rhaego’s death was completely inadvertent - Mirri Maz Duur could not have plotted for Jorah to bring Dany into the tent. However, when Dany saw her husband alive yet without any mental awareness, she immediately accused Mirri Maz Duur without reason. Drogo was blind, and he did not seem to recognize or hear the moon of his life. What did Dany expect anyway? She had swapped the horse’s life with Drogo’s - a horse did not have the mental awareness of a human, so how could Drogo have any higher awareness than that of a horse? Nevertheless, that was the final straw that broke the camel's back - Dany had paid with her son’s, the horse’s, and four of her bloodriders’ lives. But Mirri Maz Duur had only done what she was ordered to do - no more, no less. She brought Drogo back to life, as commanded by the khaleesi, and she was repaid with nothing but cruelty.

Dany, who was quick in her judgment, decided that Mirri Maz Duur was evil and sentenced her to die. If you think about it - Mirri Maz Duur did nothing to Dany that wasn't a direct outcome of Dany's, Drogo's, or both of their decisions. She did not plot or intend for Dany’s son to die, though she did relish Dany’s shock and disappointment as she beheld her vegetative husband. Mirri Maz Duur avenged her khalasar’s deaths - and successfully prevented the prophesied Stallion Who Mounts The World from conquering the world. She knew she was a dead person by then - Dany would kill her for sure - yet with her family and khalasar dead, revenge was what Mirri Maz Duur desired, not survival.

In response to Dany’s incredulity, Mirri Maz Duur said, ‘“Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone.” Dany called out for the men of her khas and bid them take Mirri Maz Duur and bind her hand and foot, but the maegi smiled at her as they carried her off, as if they shared a secret. A word, and Dany could have her head off . . . yet then what would she have? A head? If life was worthless, what was death?’

Mirri Maz Duur was in some sense, in the same state as the vegetative Drogo. Just like Drogo, she had nothing but her life left, no freedom, no family. She was a slave to an enemy khalasar, a khalasar who had slaughtered her family and friends. What was life worth then? Better to spit defiance and die knowing that no khal and no khal’s son may murder or enslave people again, than to live as a slave to an enemy. That’s why Mirri Maz Duur “smiled” - death may in fact be a comfort to her, a final escape from her pains.

In the end, Mirri Maz Duur died an honorable death - she fought back against her enslavers and perished in the fire singing (and screaming). From Dany’s point of view she might seem like a treacherous maegi, but what did she truly do other than avenge the deaths of her loved ones?

References

Martin, George R. R. A Game of Thrones. Bantam Books, 1996.

Game of Thrones. Created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, HBO Entertainment, 2011–2019.

Hayes, K. L. In Quora. qr.ae/p2XWZV

Hayes, K. L. In Quora. qr.ae/p2XWej