TV: Game of Thrones | Series Finale - III

[x Tame Impala]

What were these hints, other than a couple vague statements?

-they spent a lot of time in the last two seasons arguing about not whether or not Dany was going to burn down King’s landing. Especially Tyrion and Dany, as Tyrion was concerned with backing someone who’d fly dragons into his home and destroy it

-I think as soon as Khal Drogo died Dany became very goal-oriented and prioritized the Throne over love. Most people she comes across want her dead and she finds out Jorah betrayed her. Then season 7 comes along and just as she’s FINALLY in a great position to go after the Throne, she meets Jon and diverts from her priorities to help him. She takes a chance on something bigger than herself and she thinks she may have even found love with Jon.

All that follows is hardship and heartache for her. She loses two children (dragons), Jorah and Missandrei are killed right in front of her, Tyrion fails her constantly, Varys betrays her, Tyrion betrays her, Arya and Sansa visibly don’t trust her, and she is not at all accepted/loved in Westeros.

After all this, all she has is Jon’s love and you can see it during their last conversation. She’s practically begging him for something, ANYTHING, for her to love and feel accepted by and Jon won’t give it to her. She has nothing and no one. She carries allllll of that into that one last moment where she can decide if she wants to be a peaceful queen or forcefully take control over people who will never love her anyway. She snaps, and murders thousands.

I thought it all made very good sense and was personally way happier with how her character was handled over any of: Tyrion, Jon, Littlefinger, or Bran.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

They mention specifically that she crucified innocent(s) in Mereen

 

[ArGarBarGar]

They mention specifically that she crucified innocent(s) in Mereen

Right, innocent nobles who at the time were treated as a monolith of the ruling class and responsible for the crucifixion of slaves (including women and children). Daenerys was confronted on that and noticed the error of her ways.

I am seeing things that could lay the foundation for her eventual fall, but nothing that connects what we see as the foundation to the final despicable act.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

-they spent a lot of time in the last two seasons arguing about not whether or not Dany was going to burn down King’s landing. Especially Tyrion and Dany, as Tyrion was concerned with backing someone who’d fly dragons into his home and destroy it

They argued about it, but her actions didn't justify that fear until she just did it for no particular reason other than "crazy".

-I think as soon as Khal Drogo died Dany became very goal-oriented and prioritized the Throne over love. Most people she comes across want her dead and she finds out Jorah betrayed her. Then season 7 comes along and just as she’s FINALLY in a great position to go after the Throne, she meets Jon and diverts from her priorities to help him. She takes a chance on something bigger than herself and she thinks she may have even found love with Jon.

All that follows is hardship and heartache for her. She loses two children (dragons), Jorah and Missandrei are killed right in front of her, Tyrion fails her constantly, Varys betrays her, Tyrion betrays her, Arya and Sansa visibly don’t trust her, and she is not at all accepted/loved in Westeros.

After all this, all she has is Jon’s love and you can see it during their last conversation. She’s practically begging him for something, ANYTHING, for her to love and feel accepted by and Jon won’t give it to her. She has nothing and no one. She carries allllll of that into that one last moment where she can decide if she wants to be a peaceful queen or forcefully take control over people who will never love her anyway. She snaps, and murders thousands.

I thought it all made very good sense and was personally way happier with how her character was handled over any of: Tyrion, Jon, Littlefinger, or Bran.

I think this is a GIGANTIC stretch for a number of reasons, the biggest one of which is the fact they chose to equate the North with the entirety of Westeros. The North is one region in a gigantic continent, and considering two regions (Dorne and the Reach) backed her as soon as she landed she shouldn't have lost hope to be loved just because of that. Not to mention they pushed the whole "Daenerys loves Jon soo much and is now doing everything for him" way too hard for the little time they had to actually develop chemistry.

She should have been smart enough to realize that it would be almost impossible for the North to love her as much as they would love a local hero who is the face of the Starks (regardless of bloodline) and the face of those who took the North back from the Boltons and the oppressors of the south. To write her as if that short encounter with a single group of people helped pave the way for just wanton destruction of people that she has never done is lazy as all hell (and why the last two seasons should have been 10 episodes each at the least, with likely another season added to facilitate this lack of love from the people of Westeros).

 

[RandV]

Maybe you didn't? I dont know? the show provided the narrative throughout this series that lead us to this climax.

I dont see any reason she would or should refrain honestly. She did not see the people as innocent but as enemies based on her POV. But I mean this has been hashed and rehashed over and over again. but I do understand that a lot of show viewers wanted her to be the hero of this story and I get it.

I don't think you did it intentionally but isn't that kind of the problem? It's a bit of a subtle/ambiguous thing that makes it hard to argue about, but through the last season a lot of people here making the predictions that Dany would turn mad queen were picking up queue's the show was throwing at you. Like at the start of each episode they can add the 'previously on' quick rehashes where they could add in 'a remember Gendry?' segment before bringing him back, but they can also pick throw the 7 seasons to put emphasize on those times Dany goes "raaawr Fire and blood!"... I can't recall if they specifically did this one but you get the idea. Personally my disagreement with it wasn't that I couldn't think she could go Mad Queen but just ignoring the tells the writers were tossing in and going by story and character I just didn't see her at that point. And then to put the nail in the coffin at the end of the third last episode(?) they use that ridiculous surprise Euron attack knocking out a dragon and capturing Missandei which was just so stupid I didn't really care much anymore.

Now while the show has a huge fanbase and a lot of people, women especially, loved Dany and wanted her to be a Mary Sue so were painfully hurt when she turned heel, I don't think anyone on this specific board held that attitude. Rather, the problem was unlike prior seasons with events like Ned's execution or the Red Wedding which were completely plot and character driven the finale was simply D&D mashing the final plot points into place with little skill or grace.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

I don't mind they made Dany the villain or crazy.

I mind that her heel turn makes no sense, save that "Oh she's crazy now because plot".

Which is bad writing.

Look at the progression of the narrative. Tyrion wants to save the city from being nuked because he thinks they're going to win either way and doesn't want to murder thousands of people. Dany wants to nuke it because she really, really wants this over with (why that is, also not clear at all, since instead of explaining her reasoning she just gets mildly irritated and tells Tyrion/Varys to piss off). Then they invade, and Dany doesn't nuke the city anyway, but instead focuses on the walls so her army can enter. Then she hears the bells, signaling total victory and....okay! time to murder everyone now!

Why? I keep seeing people put up ipso facto reasoning (she's sad because Jon won't sleep with her! She's sad because her children are dead!), but sans the death of Mormont, to which she breaks down and cries (which 1) is horribly inconsistent with their relationship, but whatever and 2) a waste of your "1 breakdown scene per season card"- to whit, why not have Mormont die in the assault of Kings Landing and THAT sends her over the edge. I'm asking for clarity here), she reacts to everything in the season with mild irritation, which is why it's always framed as, "wouldn't YOU crack under the pressure??", not, "Here's the scene that shows Dany is so super sad about X!". Seriously, Emilia Clarke's acting in the Varys execution scene, it's like she doesn't give a flying crap that Varys probably tried to poison her.

The most important plot point of the season/possibly show is utterly opaque in motivation. That's the issue here. And honestly, if we had access to Dany's point of view, her thoughts as events progressed, it wouldn't be that much of an issue. It really comes off as something you need access to her mind to be able to pull it off.

"Killing slavers and killing civilians who live in a city of free people is exactly the same thing, actually."

Um, actually, they're genital mutilating slavers. Can't forget the genital mutilation part.

 

[glovesave_35]

Why did she crucify the nobles and not the free men/women of Meereen when she took the city? It is because she understands the difference between those who are in power and those who are not. King's Landing is the only exception in the entire show.

Also please do not put me in a category I do not fall into. Daenerys could have been the final villain of the story. But based on how she was written towards the end that end was hamfisted and worthy of major criticism.


Read above. She crucified nobles because it was rational to believe nobles who owned and helped facilitate the slave trade would be worthy of the sword. What did the regular folk of Kings Landing do to convince her that they were worthy of death?

Also as has been mentioned, Dickon and Randyll Tarly refuse to acknowledge any order she gives, which means they are in open defiance of her claim. If she executed them with a sword like Robb or Eddard did, would that has been fine, or what?

Throughout the series she showed a tendency toward violence when she believed it was justified. She progressively needed more and more talking down and her view of justifiable violence also turned. I don't see what happened as a major heel turn is all.

Your last question I don't really understand. Do you really think any Stark would have executed a noble who had surrendered as the Tarly men had?

 

[MadDevil]

My problem with the heel turn is the same problem I have with pretty much the entire last two seasons, and that is it felt rushed. The signs were there throughout the show that Dany could go Mad Queen, but how they put it all together in the end just felt...underwhelming. It didn't anger me, and I certainly don't think it's a betrayal of her character, but I was disappointed. Which, again, pretty much sums up my feelings about most of the last two seasons. It's still one of my favorite shows ever, and I'll miss it, I just wish they'd stuck the landing (which is no small task for any wildly popular show).

 

[x Tame Impala]

They argued about it, but her actions didn't justify that fear until she just did it for no particular reason other than "crazy".


I think this is a GIGANTIC stretch for a number of reasons, the biggest one of which is the fact they chose to equate the North with the entirety of Westeros. The North is one region in a gigantic continent, and considering two regions (Dorne and the Reach) backed her as soon as she landed she shouldn't have lost hope to be loved just because of that. Not to mention they pushed the whole "Daenerys loves Jon soo much and is now doing everything for him" way too hard for the little time they had to actually develop chemistry.

She should have been smart enough to realize that it would be almost impossible for the North to love her as much as they would love a local hero who is the face of the Starks (regardless of bloodline) and the face of those who took the North back from the Boltons and the oppressors of the south. To write her as if that short encounter with a single group of people helped pave the way for just wanton destruction of people that she has never done is lazy as all hell (and why the last two seasons should have been 10 episodes each at the least, with likely another season added to facilitate this lack of love from the people of Westeros).

I 1000% agree that there should’ve been a lot more episodes and the lack of episodes in S7&S8 led to a lot laziness from a writing standpoint. The show was clearly rushed and it suffered a lot because of it

 

[Emperoreddy]

It really wasn’t just a sudden oh she is crazy moment though.

Dany’s default was always Fire and Blood ever since the moment she watched her brother die a pretty gruesome death right in front of her.

She defaults to burning people alive, brutally executing her enemies, and making legitimate threats to burn cities down for opposing her (this includes cities she previously liberated as her initial plan for the slavers when she returned from the Dothraki was to burn Volentis, Astapoor, and Yunkai to the ground). Something like this was going to happen, even if her initial way effort went as planned.

I think people tend to ignore how significant a blow Jon’s true heritage was to her as well. Her talk about not being loved is legitimate. She was viewed as a foreign queen, and was mostly accepted by her allies to her claim and stretngh of arms.

Someone with a stronger claim that happened to be a war hero raised in Westeros was a legitimate threat. Especially since the Northern/Vale alliance was the strongest remaining power on the continent.

It was a basic choice for her. Her world view as the one true queen was shattered, as was her belief in claiming and holding the throne and the dominions that came with it. If it wasn’t KL then she would have eventually killed Jon and soon after Winterfell would have had KL’s fate instead when the North rebelled.

She wanted to burn a statement into the countryside that she was the one true queen and anyone else was a pretender. And to Dany the ends always justify the means. There didn’t need to be 20 more episodes exploring this fact.

The Tarly bit is also a poor argument. She murdered two prisoners of war alive because they wouldn’t bend the knee. Comparing it to Robb is silly. He would never have executed two high profile prisoners at all in that situation. It’s bad strategy, never mind being over the top. Hell a huge part of Robb’s story was him NOT executing his prisoners of war.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

That all is a lot of stretching to make her burning an entire city to the ground feasible. It also requires you to provide your own interpretation that isn't necessarily demonstrated to Daenerys's mindset leading up to the moment. Every single time she killed someone she had a reason for doing so that was explicitly demonstrated. She killed the slavers of Asatpor because they had slaves. She crucified the nobles of Meereen because she believed they were complicit in the slave trade (she was partially right, partially wrong, and admitted the fault in that plan as soon as it was pointed out to her). She burned the Khals alive because they intended to keep her as essentially a prisoner for the rest of her life, and would continue to plunder and pillage based on the Dothraki way, something that she was clearly averse to. She burned the slavers ships because they were laying siege to Meereen. She burned the Tarlys because they were in open defiance to her claim (while tactically a bad decision and an iffy choice, not a good enough bridge from that moment to slaughters innocent civilians). She executed Varys for treason.

After all of this, you take her vague claims (some of which under duress and trying to use intimidation as a desperate tactic to meet her goals) as a perfectly sound progression to the end?

Also, as I have mentioned before, the idea that she felt challenged by another person with a "better" claim is idiotic because we have a high-profile Targ who WAS the rightful heir over the Mad King but he turned down the throne, so the idea that Jon Snow abdicating would not stop people from trying to undermine her for him is not only stupid, it is contradictory to the universe that has been established in the show.

This doesn't even touch on the fact that other characters had to expedite their descent into treason (Sansa/Varys) in order to lead Daenerys down this path in the first place. To focus on just Daenerys and say the amount of content we got was sufficient completely ignores the other characters who deserved a better progression to get them to where they ended up in the whole arc.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

What made the turn to murder civilians in King's Landing even more strange was the fact they set up a potential massacre at the Red Keep itself with Cersei letting people file into the Red Keep as a type of human shield. They set up an interesting situation where Daenerys destroys only the Red Keep but still kills hundreds or thousands (something that would lead to many jumping to the whole "mad Targ" angle but it being a little more nuanced), but they ignore it and just have her start destroying the entire city, THEN going after the Red Keep.

It seems we really really needed to give Jon Snow no other choice but to put the mad woman down who he loves, and make sure that he didn't look like the bad guy in any way, instead of a potentially grey situation that gives our main characters difficult choices to deal with (which was a major theme of the books and the entire show).

 

[Blender]

That all is a lot of stretching to make her burning an entire city to the ground feasible. It also requires you to provide your own interpretation that isn't necessarily demonstrated to Daenerys's mindset leading up to the moment. Every single time she killed someone she had a reason for doing so that was explicitly demonstrated. She killed the slavers of Asatpor because they had slaves. She crucified the nobles of Meereen because she believed they were complicit in the slave trade (she was partially right, partially wrong, and admitted the fault in that plan as soon as it was pointed out to her). She burned the Khals alive because they intended to keep her as essentially a prisoner for the rest of her life, and would continue to plunder and pillage based on the Dothraki way, something that she was clearly averse to. She burned the slavers ships because they were laying siege to Meereen. She burned the Tarlys because they were in open defiance to her claim (while tactically a bad decision and an iffy choice, not a good enough bridge from that moment to slaughters innocent civilians). She executed Varys for treason.

It's easy to justify atrocities when you cloak them in what seem like good deeds. I think the problem here is not that @Emperoreddy is stretching anything, it's that you and many others perhaps did not realize at the time that she was committing atrocities. Not to mention all the atrocities she wanted to commit but was talked out of by Jorah and then Tyrion. She has always been willing to butcher groups or populations based on her worldview, and that people who we also sympathize with eventually came under threat from her was hardly surprising.

I don't think the exact sequence of her destruction of King's Landing was well done, but that she was willing to slaughter people who refused to support her wasn't a stretch.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

It's easy to justify atrocities when you cloak them in what seem like good deeds. I think the problem here is not that @Emperoreddy is stretching anything, it's that you and many others perhaps did not realize at the time that she was committing atrocities. Not to mention all the atrocities she wanted to commit but was talked out of by Jorah and then Tyrion. She has always been willing to butcher groups or populations based on her worldview, and that people who we also sympathize with eventually came under threat from her was hardly surprising.

I don't think the exact sequence of her destruction of King's Landing was well done, but that she was willing to slaughter people who refused to support her wasn't a stretch.

One of my biggest problems is the vague nature in which you and others describe Daenerys and her actions. When it comes to characters, specificity does matter. Daenerys did do things she believed to be right, and was ruthless when she felt it necessary. But in Season 1 we see she is averse to wanton destruction, and averse to rape and pillage. In Season 3 Jorah has to force her to acknowledge that innocent people die by the thousands in wars, because she does not want to spill the blood of innocents (and this characterization is verified when she specifically tells the Unsullied not to harm the innocents of Astapor). She specifically starts a war with Yunkai and Meereen to save innocent lives. She attempts to govern over Meereen to help protect those she has saved, and becomes distraught over the fact that those innocent people she saved in Astapor and Yunkai are in danger. When she comes to Westeros she chooses not the become "Queen of the Ashes" and tries conventional tactics to win the war. And even when those plans fail she doesn't even fly to the Red Keep and burn it, possibly killing many innocents. She just wins a battle and uses dragons (but this is a bad thing because men are burning and Tyrion is sad about that).

Wars are bloody. They are ruthless. People die in horrific ways (see Season 2 when Robb meets Talisa, and they are forced to saw off a man's leg because of a war Robb is a part of), whether soldiers or civilians or nobles or commoners. Prisoners are sometimes executed, sometime spared depending on the circumstance. Was Rickard Karstark not a prisoner?He did commit treason, but Catelyn Stark did as well and Robb Stark didn't execute her.

The specifics of what a character does and why matters, especially in a world where people's heads are lobbed off for numerous reasons. When you go into the specifics of Daenerys as a character and judge her based on the world she inhabits, her descent to murder citizens for no reason other than "well she talked about fire and blood and she was willing to do violence for her goal" comes across as very poorly written.

I understand they did set a foundation where she could become a tyrant of Westeros, as she does not have a clean record (and I never asserted such). But because they truncated the end of the series they made a major jump from where she was to where she finally ended up.

 

[Blender]

One of my biggest problems is the vague nature in which you and others describe Daenerys and her actions. When it comes to characters, specificity does matter. Daenerys did do things she believed to be right, and was ruthless when she felt it necessary. But in Season 1 we see she is averse to wanton destruction, and averse to rape and pillage. In Season 3 Jorah has to force her to acknowledge that innocent people die by the thousands in wars, because she does not want to spill the blood of innocents (and this characterization is verified when she specifically tells the Unsullied not to harm the innocents of Astapor). She specifically starts a war with Yunkai and Meereen to save innocent lives. She attempts to govern over Meereen to help protect those she has saved, and becomes distraught over the fact that those innocent people she saved in Astapor and Yunkai are in danger. When she comes to Westeros she chooses not the become "Queen of the Ashes" and tries conventional tactics to win the war. And even when those plans fail she doesn't even fly to the Red Keep and burn it, possibly killing many innocents. She just wins a battle and uses dragons (but this is a bad thing because men are burning and Tyrion is sad about that).

Wars are bloody. They are ruthless. People die in horrific ways (see Season 2 when Robb meets Talisa, and they are forced to saw off a man's leg because of a war Robb is a part of), whether soldiers or civilians or nobles or commoners. Prisoners are sometimes executed, sometime spared depending on the circumstance. Was Rickard Karstark not a prisoner?He did commit treason, but Catelyn Stark did as well and Robb Stark didn't execute her.

The specifics of what a character does and why matters, especially in a world where people's heads are lobbed off for numerous reasons. When you go into the specifics of Daenerys as a character and judge her based on the world she inhabits, her descent to murder citizens for no reason other than "well she talked about fire and blood and she was willing to do violence for her goal" comes across as very poorly written.

Daenerys doesn't see the people in Westeros as innocent after her time there. She treated the people of slavers bay in a patronizing way, i.e. they were helplessly oppressed and only she could liberate them and then rule over them with a firm hand of (her) justice. That they were horribly oppressed and treated meant that they embraced her, at least at first. When she arrived in Westeros she expected a similar reception, that she would cast off the old ruling aristocracy in Westeros and that the newly free people would embrace her as their liberator and savior. She also expected that the people would rise up and overthrow their "masters" as soon as she put them under pressure, which also didn't happen. Instead, she discovered that the average person in Westeros not only didn't want her "help", they didn't like her and many took up arms against her. This is the major difference between the two continents, she saw both people as innocent at first, but no longer considered the people in Westeros to be that way.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Daenerys doesn't see the people in Westeros as innocent after her time there. She treated the people of slavers bay in a patronizing way, i.e. they were helplessly oppressed and only she could liberate them and then rule over them with a firm hand of (her) justice. That they were horribly oppressed and treated meant that they embraced her, at least at first. When she arrived in Westeros she expected a similar reception, that she would cast off the old ruling aristocracy in Westeros and that the newly free people would embrace her as their liberator and savior. She also expected that the people would rise up and overthrow their "masters" as soon as she put them under pressure, which also didn't happen. Instead, she discovered that the average person in Westeros not only didn't want her "help", they didn't like her and many took up arms against her. This is the major difference between the two continents, she saw both people as innocent at first, but no longer considered the people in Westeros to be that way.

I sincerely disagree with your interpretation of the text as we see it, because it seems you are inserting motivations and thoughts into a character that were not established.

 

[Deen]

Show was so good for a while though.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

One of my biggest problems is the vague nature in which you and others describe Daenerys and her actions. When it comes to characters, specificity does matter. Daenerys did do things she believed to be right, and was ruthless when she felt it necessary. But in Season 1 we see she is averse to wanton destruction, and averse to rape and pillage. In Season 3 Jorah has to force her to acknowledge that innocent people die by the thousands in wars, because she does not want to spill the blood of innocents (and this characterization is verified when she specifically tells the Unsullied not to harm the innocents of Astapor). She specifically starts a war with Yunkai and Meereen to save innocent lives. She attempts to govern over Meereen to help protect those she has saved, and becomes distraught over the fact that those innocent people she saved in Astapor and Yunkai are in danger. When she comes to Westeros she chooses not the become "Queen of the Ashes" and tries conventional tactics to win the war. And even when those plans fail she doesn't even fly to the Red Keep and burn it, possibly killing many innocents. She just wins a battle and uses dragons (but this is a bad thing because men are burning and Tyrion is sad about that).

Wars are bloody. They are ruthless. People die in horrific ways (see Season 2 when Robb meets Talisa, and they are forced to saw off a man's leg because of a war Robb is a part of), whether soldiers or civilians or nobles or commoners. Prisoners are sometimes executed, sometime spared depending on the circumstance. Was Rickard Karstark not a prisoner?He did commit treason, but Catelyn Stark did as well and Robb Stark didn't execute her.

The specifics of what a character does and why matters, especially in a world where people's heads are lobbed off for numerous reasons. When you go into the specifics of Daenerys as a character and judge her based on the world she inhabits, her descent to murder citizens for no reason other than "well she talked about fire and blood and she was willing to do violence for her goal" comes across as very poorly written.

I understand they did set a foundation where she could become a tyrant of Westeros, as she does not have a clean record (and I never asserted such). But because they truncated the end of the series they made a major jump from where she was to where she finally ended up.

Actions speak louder than words. Dany would talk like she just wanted to solve things peacefully, but when she had to make a decision her first instinct was always violence.

 

[glovesave_35]

One of my biggest problems is the vague nature in which you and others describe Daenerys and her actions. When it comes to characters, specificity does matter. Daenerys did do things she believed to be right, and was ruthless when she felt it necessary. But in Season 1 we see she is averse to wanton destruction, and averse to rape and pillage. In Season 3 Jorah has to force her to acknowledge that innocent people die by the thousands in wars, because she does not want to spill the blood of innocents (and this characterization is verified when she specifically tells the Unsullied not to harm the innocents of Astapor). She specifically starts a war with Yunkai and Meereen to save innocent lives. She attempts to govern over Meereen to help protect those she has saved, and becomes distraught over the fact that those innocent people she saved in Astapor and Yunkai are in danger. When she comes to Westeros she chooses not the become "Queen of the Ashes" and tries conventional tactics to win the war. And even when those plans fail she doesn't even fly to the Red Keep and burn it, possibly killing many innocents. She just wins a battle and uses dragons (but this is a bad thing because men are burning and Tyrion is sad about that).

Wars are bloody. They are ruthless. People die in horrific ways (see Season 2 when Robb meets Talisa, and they are forced to saw off a man's leg because of a war Robb is a part of), whether soldiers or civilians or nobles or commoners. Prisoners are sometimes executed, sometime spared depending on the circumstance. Was Rickard Karstark not a prisoner?He did commit treason, but Catelyn Stark did as well and Robb Stark didn't execute her.

The specifics of what a character does and why matters, especially in a world where people's heads are lobbed off for numerous reasons. When you go into the specifics of Daenerys as a character and judge her based on the world she inhabits, her descent to murder citizens for no reason other than "well she talked about fire and blood and she was willing to do violence for her goal" comes across as very poorly written.

I understand they did set a foundation where she could become a tyrant of Westeros, as she does not have a clean record (and I never asserted such). But because they truncated the end of the series they made a major jump from where she was to where she finally ended up.

At the risk of rehashing this long-winded debate, you say she "won a battle with dragons" and Tyrion was sad. The city had capitulated. That is what the bells meant. Battle won. King's Landing captured. Send in the troops to round up nobles and Cersei.

Is your problem with the show that she didn't do that? That after the bells she terrorized a city that she had, for all intents and purposes, captured, and that that was out of character for her?

 

[ArGarBarGar]

At the risk of rehashing this long-winded debate, you say she "won a battle with dragons" and Tyrion was sad. The city had capitulated. That is what the bells meant. Battle won. King's Landing captured. Send in the troops to round up nobles and Cersei.

Is your problem with the show that she didn't do that? That after the bells she terrorized a city that she had, for all intents and purposes, captured, and that that was out of character for her?

I was talking about the Loot Train attack.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Actions speak louder than words. Dany would talk like she just wanted to solve things peacefully, but when she had to make a decision her first instinct was always violence.

Her actions were less tyrannical than her statements.

She liberated Astapor from the slavers. Then she went to Yunkai and specifically attacked the city with minimal innocent lives lost by sneaking inside and defeating the slavers army, and waited for the liberated slaves to either welcome them or reject them (and if she was rejected do you think she would just burn the city to the ground)? Then she marched on Meereen and inspired the slaves to take the city for themselves instead of laying siege and sacking the city. She chose to stay in Meereen and try to keep the peace and become a better ruler. She was remorseful when she felt she went to far in her actions (noted when she acknowledged the errors in her plan to crucify the nobles of Meereen), and was very clearly conflicted when she executed a former slave for killing one of her prisoners.

Violence with reason is not the same thing as violence for no reason.

 

[glovesave_35]

Violence with reason is not the same thing as violence for no reason.

A propensity to be violent is what it is, however.

 

[glovesave_35]

I was talking about the Loot Train attack.

Still, your problem is that her turning "mad queen" felt out of character and came out of nowhere?

 

[ArGarBarGar]

A propensity to be violent is what it is, however.

Like I have said before, specifics with regards to a character are important. "Propensity to be violent" is a very vague term that can apply to people among various moral standings. Gregor Clegane had a propensity to be violent. Are we saying that Gregor Clegane and Daenerys Targaryen are morally equivalent or are equally prone to murdering civilians? Sandor Clegane had a propensity to be violent, and there is a clear line between him and Gregor because of what they specifically do during the course of the series.

Specifics do matter, especially when it comes to transitioning from a moral or generally moral perspective to a grossly immoral one.

 

[Finlandia WOAT]

Dany’s default was always Fire and Blood ever since the moment she watched her brother die a pretty gruesome death right in front of her.

She defaults to burning people alive

That's not true until after she burns the Dothraki leaders. She tries to work deals in Qarth, she tries to work with the Masters and burns them after they insist on the dragon for army swap (and they're genital mutilating slavers, so who cares). She spares Yunkai after they surrender and free the slaves. And she tries to be a "good" queen in Meereen after crucifying the elites.

What bugs me is this: the show spent 7 seasons treating Dany as a sympathetic protagonist. Even her maleficient parts are portrayed as basass- and I agree with Blender here that this was intentional, that the entire twist all along was that Dany does not have the same moral code as the reader; to whit, that Dany doesn't realize the difference between murdering genital mutilating slavers and random people in King's Landing. As late as the end of season 7 had her find true love, which the audience 100% (is supposed to) connect with and support. Heck, as late as Episode 3, we, the audience, are rooting for her as she napalms zombies, are scared when the Night King raises his heat seeking stick of Doom at Drogon's prodigious bosom, are sad when she cradles Jorah's carcass in a sea of the dead... I don't buy "she was an a**hole all along" theory when not 2 hours of screentime previous the audience was completely on her side.

I think people tend to ignore how significant a blow Jon’s true heritage was to her as well.

It's easy to ignore. It's not dramatized. She reacts to it the same as with everything else, with mild irritation (the only thing she actually reacts to in this season is 1) Jorah's death and 2) Rhaegar's death.) And it's not at all clear what that has to do with her decision to burn down King's Landing after she had won.

Her talk about not being loved is legitimate. She was viewed as a foreign queen, and was mostly accepted by her allies to her claim and stretngh of arms.

This makes the most sense of any reasoning I've seen, on a cathartic/dramatic level, as to why Dany burned down King's Landing after she had won. But it only came up once, in the middle of a debate over whether to use the dragons or not (which was framed around expediency), and, to me at least, came off as a riposte to Tyrion's point about how she shouldn't murder thousands rather than an actual ideological sticking point. If that's her mindscape, great! Commit to it. They were already half way there with the Starbucks scene.

It was a basic choice for her. Her world view as the one true queen was shattered, as was her belief in claiming and holding the throne and the dominions that came with it.

But this is contradicted in the very same episode when she/Jon have a tearful reunion/ makeup. If you're going to hinge a character doing something so extreme as Dany did on such a plot point, then why are you undermining that plot point EMOTIONALLY (because yes, people can make up, this isn't a script logic point, this is a "If you're trying to emphasize her world view is shattered because Jon, then why is a scene included in which Dany be like, "Oh Jon, we will rule the world together!! <3")?

She wanted to burn a statement into the countryside that she was the one true queen and anyone else was a pretender.

So did she burn King's Landing after she had won because she was mad that Jon had a better claim? Or did she burn it after she had won to let everyone know she was the one true queen? I went back and watched her speech after she had burned it, and she doesn't say anything to that effect? I did notice that the Targaryan sigil looks like a wheel, ha, give the graphic designer who came up with that visual metaphor 1000 points.

TBH, this comes off like the reasoning why Dany burned King's Landing after she had won, when the entire point of using the dragons had been around expediency; when she had wanted to target Cersei and the Red Keep and she destroys everything else first because (?).....is opaque and unclear, and ya'll are just throwing whatever post hoc reasoning you can muster to explain that away rather than accept the opaqueness because it worked for you.

And I've talked to 3 people over the Labor Day weekend who weren't the least bit bothered by Dany's heel turn (though they still disliked season 8 more than I did). I guess it comes down to how sympathetic you thought Dany was. I thought she was very sympathetic, so I had a hard time accepting, "Oh, she's evil/crazy now". C'est la vie.

Still, your problem is that her turning "mad queen" felt out of character and came out of nowhere?

What is Dany thinking here?



At 1:12, her reaction to bells?

Unclear. The most important plot point of the series has opaque motivation.

The issue is the debate between Tyrion and Dany around whether or not to use the dragons is framed as one of expediency, which is not one of the half dozen reasons drudged up to explain the scene because it has *NOTHING* to do with the ultimate result- she burned it after she had won, so why was screentime wasted on debating how to win? If she's angry at Jon, if she wants vengeance for Jorah/Rhaegar, if she's angry the people of Westeros haven't accepted her, if she's angry at Jon's claim to the throne, if she's just flat out insane, whatever- pick one and stick with it and dramatize it. Instead of one clearly demonstrated motivation, the audience is given half a dozen half assed ones that, for the most part, aren't dramatized.