I've been thinking a bit about this story, especially in light of the current debate about which historical figures should be commemorated, and which should have their statues and monuments erased. On this theme, I'd recommend Kathryn Warner's excellent Edward II blogspot, and in particular, her Ten Commandments for writing history:-
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The Ten Commandments should also apply to anyone who writes fiction, especially historical fiction, or fantasy fiction which is loosely based on a real time period such as this story. The majority of people who have held positions of power, throughout history, have neither been wholly good, nor wholly bad. There have been monstrous rulers, and a far smaller number of saints, but most fall on a spectrum between the two.
Was Daenerys in this tale, a heroine, or a sociopathic butcher? Let's assume you're asking people about her, a few hundred years after her death. The people of the Bay of Dragons would view her as a legendary ruler, who brought their ancestors freedom (and perhaps she would still be worshipped as a goddess in the region). The people of modern-day Kings Landing would revile her as a genocidal maniac, who slaughtered their ancestors out of her desire to wear a crown. Other regions of Westeros would no doubt hold differing views about her.
One has to cut some slack to people who find themselves at war. "War brings out a darkness in all of us" as she put it. That doesn't mean that warfare justifies any form of behaviour, however bestial, but nor can one pretend that war is anything other than brutal. Most people today would regard World War II as a just war, but none of us can be happy with everything that the Western allies did, during the course of that war. Why not just become a pacifist then? Well, pacifism also entails abandoning other people to suffer and die. Had Daenerys shrugged and moved on, when she came to Astapor, thousands of lives would have been saved; and hundreds of thousands of people would have continued to suffer appalling cruelty. And, she knows that she is the only person who is capable of fighting the existential threat posed by the Others.
So, was she a heroine? Certainly, in my view. Did she have feet of clay? Again, I think that is certain. She could be very cruel to her enemies, and the burning of Kings Landing was brutal. While she may have intended her reprieve of Margaery to be an act of clemency, it was, as one reviewer has pointed out, gratuitously cruel to make her go through a form of mock-execution. On the other hand, she tried to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible. Her enemies were not so scrupulous. In the end, the burning of Kings Landing was an act of necessity - easier to justify than say, the incendiary bombing of Tokyo or Dresden, in 1945.
Daenerys, Sansa, Margaery, Arya were all deeply flawed people, in this tale, but none was rotten to the core, in the way that people like Ser Garlan, Lady Olenna, Lord Tarly, Varys, or Ellaria were. Perhaps the only two people who could be thought truly good were Tommen and Missandei, who played relatively small parts in the story.
When it comes to our ancestors, all that we can do is to emulate their virtues, while trying studiously to avoid their vices