“I will answer injustice with justice.” — Daenerys Targaryen
Poor Dany. Of all of the major characters in the Game of Thrones saga, she has been the only one stuck on the far side of the world, the one place she does not consider to be her royal birthright. Sure, she is kicking slavers’ asses and taking their cities and freeing their oppressed people, but she is pretty disconnected from the happenings in Westeros. Actually, you know, that might be a good thing for her since people are dropping like flies over there, but she is little more than an afterthought to the powers that be that currently rule the land previously controlled by her family.
However, just because she has been overlooked by the Westerosi, that doesn’t mean that she has been forgotten by Funko, and Daenerys now has TWO figures in their Legacy line. While she got her Dothraki “Khaleesi” attire in series one, this wave brings us Dany in her blue dress that she wore for the better part of the last few seasons. For me, this is a great thing as this outfit is my most preferred of hers that she has worn in the story thus far, at least of those appropriate for an action figure… Anyway, much like the Hand of the King Tyrion Lannister, the second time is a charm for Funko outfits, and this Daenerys instantly becomes my new default figure for her.
While she gets a costume upgrade according to my own personal taste, this figure is also an upgrade over the series one figure in terms of just about every facet of what goes into making an action figure. The paint, engineering, and overall production quality is also a step up, and while the figure is not perfect, the improvements that have been made are all high-impact, so I think this version of Dany is going to be very well received by the collecting public.
The greatest improvement comes in the overall likeness of the figure to actress Emilia Clarke. It is not perfect, and while I suspect that her likeness is a real challenge to capture in plastic, this Dany turned out more accurate to my eye than the previous attempt. Both sculpts are solid for sure, but the continuing challenge has been in the paint on the face, but the Daenerys figures are not alone in that regard. Funko is getting better and the paint is more subtle with softer shading, but the eyes on this figure are still a little off target in both placement and expression. This a more stern and experienced Dany and that certainly comes through, but after looking at almost all of the series two figures at this point, I hope that the paint on the face is the primary spot Funko targets for perfection because then there will be no stopping them.
The articulation engineering and overall production quality is better on this figure too. While her elbow and wrist joints were frozen due to heavy paint right out of the box, a few minutes with the hair dryer did the trick with no breakage or paint wear. Also, this figure was assembled correctly, which might not sound like a big win, but the series one Dany figure was plagued by swapped feet that had to be corrected once in the hands of collectors. I do not discount production quality in any action figure line, and that was one of my biggest fears after series one of this Legacy line; there has been a dramatic uptick in series two, so I really want to commend Funko and request that they please keep it up.
I know I spoke of my aesthetic preference with the outfit, but I do want to mention that it is also represented quite well on the figure. The bodice portion is simply sculpted onto the torso, but the dress portion is also well done, and for being so long and flowing, it does not render all of her leg articulation useless. Sure, it is not as free-moving as a figure that does not wear a dress, but it does not get in the way any worse than it has to, and it is made of a fairly soft plastic. Like the cape as well, though, like in the case of Robb Stark, it is a little heavy, so it rankles a couple of posing options and it is not removable.
Finally, Dany comes with that ceremonial whip doohickey, and it is fine for what it is, if not very exciting. This makes her a bit sparse in terms of accessories, but these have never been heavy on the weapons/implements. I would have personally rather have seen another one of her baby dragons, or even the dragon eggs, even though I know neither would be true to this particular costume. It makes me worried that we will not get representation for the other two dragons in this line, and that would be a bit of a shame, even though they grew up fast.
Overall, I find this to be a pretty great figure of Daenerys Targaryen and I am quite pleased to add this to my toy shelf. It did not take us long to get two versions of her, but I have no objections to getting meaningful variants in the line, offset by original characters, of course. Sure, Dany is not the most exciting subject for an action figure, so while I like Robb and some of the others better, Dany is a very important character and I am quite satiated with this representation. Thanks for reading, and we will be back tomorrow with our look at the final figure in this series.
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