CHAPTER 23: DAENERYS

Daenerys visits the Plaza of Pride in Astapor, where Kraznys mo Nakloz displays a thousand Unsullied before the harpy statue. Through a Naathi slave translator, Kraznys boasts of the eunuchs’ absolute obedience, demonstrating their pain-dulled endurance and describing their brutal training: daily drills from childhood, the "wine of courage," random verminous name-disks, and trials that include strangling their puppies and killing infants.

Arstan Whitebeard condemns slavery and warns that arriving in Westeros with a slave army will harm Daenerys’s claim. Kraznys, insulting and lewd, presses for a sale by the thousand and offers Astapor’s diversions. Daenerys departs through the red-brick city, reflecting on its cruelty and history while Arstan urges her to hire free sellswords instead of slaves. She recalls her own sale to Drogo and bristles at the moral cost.

Back aboard Balerion, Daenerys vents her disgust to Ser Jorah, striking him when he defends the Unsullied’s utility. Though she longs to flee, she admits she must find a way to buy soldiers. Belowdecks, her confined dragons fret; Drogon has scorched the air and bit Irri, and Daenerys refuses Irri’s offer of sexual comfort, unsettled by revived desires and determined to think.

At dusk, Jorah counsels pragmatism: to win the Iron Throne she will need steel and dragonfire, and disciplined Unsullied shed less innocent blood than freer killers. He explains why Astapor endures—Unsullied deter attack and the slavers bribe khalasars to pass by. Daenerys contrasts Viserys’s ruthlessness with Rhaegar’s honor, questioning what kind of army she should lead.

Jorah closes with a hard truth: Rhaegar fought nobly and died, losing war and crown. Daenerys remains torn between honor and necessity, contemplating whether to buy the Unsullied despite abhorrence.