What is Daenerys Targaryen Squint?

A cropped reaction still of Daenerys Targaryen forcing a tight, closed-mouth smile at Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones season eight, episode two, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms".

Where did Daenerys Targaryen Squint come from?

Twitter user @reallyhalalfood posted the screengrab on April 22, 2019, one day after the episode aired on HBO, and asked followers for captions.

What does Daenerys Targaryen Squint mean?

It reads as polite hostility, the strained smile someone puts on when they want to appear friendly while quietly annoyed, and it is often used for workplace passive-aggression jokes.

How do you use Daenerys Targaryen Squint?

People overlay a caption describing a passive-aggressive moment, and the image is often paired with Thor's "Is he though?" screencap for a two-panel Speak to Your Manager exchange.

Is Daenerys Targaryen Squint still popular?

It peaked in late April and early May 2019 during the final season of Game of Thrones and settled into occasional reaction-image use afterward.

Daenerys Targaryen Squint

2019reaction imageclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Daenerys Targaryen Squint is a reaction image pulled from Game of Thrones season eight, episode two, showing Daenerys forcing a tight, closed-mouth smile at Sansa Stark. The still went viral on Twitter in April 2019 as visual shorthand for polite hostility and passive-aggressive workplace moments.

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Overview

Daenerys Targaryen Squint, also known as Smiling Daenerys, is a reaction image pulled from Game of Thrones season eight, episode two, "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" 1. The frame shows Emilia Clarke's Daenerys tightening her eyes into a small, closed-mouth smile at Sansa Stark during a cold conversation at Winterfell 1. Twitter users started passing the still around in April 2019 as shorthand for polite hostility, the strained face someone puts on when they want to look gracious while quietly seething 3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Game of Thrones (source) / Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

@reallyhalalfood

Date

2019

The episode aired on HBO on April 21, 2019 1. The next day, Twitter user @reallyhalalfood 2 posted the cropped screengrab and asked followers to caption it, and the tweet pulled in more than 1,000 retweets and 11,600 likes within two days 3. The tense subtext between Daenerys and Sansa in the scene gave the still its bite, and the format took off almost immediately 3.

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How It Spread

On April 22, 2019, filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry tweeted the image with the caption "Per my last email face," racking up around 15,000 retweets and 57,100 likes in two days 4. Later that same day, Twitter user @_kurlykay posted the caption "this how white people smile at all minorities," which hit roughly 80,900 retweets and 331,500 likes over the same window 5. On April 23, replies from @dosslucss and @Traitorius extended the joke into fake-pregnancy comments and last-minute cancellation gripes, and Meme Base collected the standout entries into a roundup 6.

Within days, people started pairing the Daenerys Squint with the "Is he though?" screencap from Thor: Ragnarok 7, since Chris Hemsworth's Thor pulls a similarly unimpressed look at Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner. Twitter user @Jonny_Dodds framed the pairing as a Speak to Your Manager exchange and hit more than 150,000 retweets and 433,000 likes in about two weeks 8. On May 10, 2019, Redditor FetusLettuce posted a similar mashup that earned more than 22,000 upvotes in a single day 9.

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How to Use This Meme

People typically overlay the cropped still with white caption text describing a moment of forced politeness, such as receiving a passive-aggressive email or hearing unwelcome news 6. A common convention pairs the image with the "Is he though?" screencap from Thor: Ragnarok in a two-panel exchange, often framed as speaking to a manager 8.