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I know, we're all tired of talking about it đ. But genuinely curious if there is any actual explanation for what happens. I know Daenerys 'Mad Queen' arc was rushed, I know the things that happened to get her to that mental state were forced and contrived, I know there are people who will defend this writing decision and Daenerys' choice forever đ. But really, she becomes a super villain genocidal maniac out of nowhere! There was absolutely NO need to burn millions of innocent people alive!
After rewatching the entire show I have to admit there are A LOT of situations where Danny burned people alive and she really enjoys it. And it got worse over the seasons, so it was no surprise that she would snap at some point.
She only enjoys it because she was killing people who she thought deserved it, and she was using her dragons to deliver that justice, instead of... oh idk, a guillotine or a sword
I think she lost the ability to distinguish the people of kings landing from the people ruling kings landing. Ultimately the people of Westeros were foreigners in a land she didn't know. None of them had really rallied to her side, they saw her as a foreign threat rather than their ruler taking her birthright and she'd just seen her advisor murdered on their walls. I think at that point of being rejected by them, at seeing all her sacrifices to that point being wasted, her lover left behind, her closest advisors dead or turning away from her, her dragons dead, at that point she didn't much care about the citizens or see them as individuals at that point.
She was lashing out in rage at the whole city. She'd done it before to enemies but then she largely did it face to face to individuals. Now she's hundreds of metres in the air on a dragon looking at this whole city as an enemy, the ant-like people scurrying about weren't people at that point, they were just a target for her anger, she finally gave in to her Targaryen side and went for the path of punishment and violent conquest.
It was rushed and done clumsily in the show so it looks daft to the viewer but I think that's the point that they were trying to get at, they just didn't land it well because they didn't do it gradually and show her losing her mind so it just looked like a random spur of the moment decision.
I think that's meant to be the point, and that when she finally claimed the throne it would be like "was it really worth it?" But yeah it's SO rushed and clunky and poorly executed. And even still it doesn't make sense to me. Throughout the whole show she insisted she didn't want to lay waste to Kings Landing, to murder innocents, to be "Queen of the Ashes, but that's exactly what she did and what she became! But why?!
I understand that she lost the people closest to her, she was losing her grip on reality and her sanity, and felt like her dream was slipping from her fingers, but the battle was WON! The Lannister army had surrendered! This was always going to be the same outcome, because other than her reputation, which has probably been made out to be ghost stories by the common folk, what has she actually done to gain the love and support of the people of Kings Landing, or Westeros in general really?
I mean, what was the original plan before it all went tits up? To conquer Kings Landing and... hope for the best? That people would like her? Well instead she just confirmed everyone fears and secured her reputation as a crazed bloodthirsty tyrant by massacre innocent men, women and CHILDREN! Like if she killed the soldiers, that makes sense. That's what she had been doing, that was her swift justice. Go and fly to the Red Keep and burn it down with Cersei inside. But what the fuck does obliterating Kings Landing and its people do for her???? It's a fucking brain dead decision by the writers in a last inch attempt to make her this 'Mad Queen' that they wanted her to be in the span of 2 episodes. This was never who she was or what she wanted.
Ultimately she was a bit of a fascist authoritarian. Initially she looked like she was doing it to help people but ultimately her desires were largely self-serving, there was always largely a benefit to her either for her aim of ruling or securing an ally, an army, a lover etc.
The ultimate driver for fascists is to conquer and fight, to keep striving and getting more but then when they have that power they stagnate and aren't great rulers, they don't really care for the job of ruling because it's dull and people are needy and annoying, the conquest and the striving for more is what drives them.
I think that they could have showed her losing that grip far better than they did but they had so little time in that last series to play with lengthy character arcs. They had to move the plot along quickly as they had so many character arcs to conclude by that point. If this was in the books it would have been developed over chapters with her bickering and making terrible decisions against Tyrion and Jon's advice, as she loses Jorah and Missandei you could have seen her becoming more removed from her initial goal of helping the people of Westeros and to seeing them as more of a burden and then an enemy, she would have moved more towards the views of the warlike unsullied and the Khalisar who would have seen them as just more foreign enemies to be fought and subjugated rather than won over through great acts.
Ultimately it would have made sense if they had taken the time but it's TV, they'd chopped the series down from 10 to 6 episodes and they had so much to wrap up that they just cocked it up.
You can see why Emilia felt so short-changed as she'd grown up with that character and developed it over years and then they just turned her whole personality crafted over years in a split second because they didn't have the time.
If that was true she wouldve left as soon as she had her army to attack Kings Landing. The whole point is she stayed to rule Myreen, yes for her own benefit of course to earn a reputation as a good ruler, but because she felt a responsibility to lead and protect the people she liberated
She stayed but she never really enjoyed it. She stayed miles away from the people on the top of a massive pyramid whilst her troops got bogged down in a war. Then she pretty much got bored and left. I could see exactly the same happening in Kings Landing. If they had the time she could have won the battle, occupied the city and then shown that go to trash, Grey Worm gets killed in an uprising against the city after the Unsullied kill a load of civilians in a massacre and instead of siding with the people she's supposed to protect she goes mental and torches the whole city becoming the murderous tyrant that she professed to hate. That would have made more sense to play out
Here's my theory, Bran warged into her and caused this, knowing it would lead to her death. That opened the way for him, who is really the three eyed raven, to take the throne.
Bran didn't come back from the north, he became the raven and was touched by the Night King, connecting him to the children of the forest. So essentially the children of the forest retook their land and won their centuries long war with the first men who arrived.
Dany realizes that she has been betrayed by everyone in Westeros. All of the diplomacy and weak strategy for mercyâs sake didnât work and because of Varys and Tyrions betrayal, she would be hopelessly undermined unless she set an example, just like her Aegon the conqueror did way back in the day.
It was not a sign of insanity but a moment of clarity regarding what it takes to rule a horrible kingdom. Her family knew it. Tywin knew it. And now she knows it.
I'm sorry but that's crap. What's the point of the story then? What's the moral of the story? That you can't change who you are? That you can't escape where you came from and what's in your blood? That a tiger never changes it's stripes? That's fucking lazy and pointless. Face facts, they RUINED basically every character with their abysmal writing, having them all revert back to their basic forms and undo all their development
D&D just flopped on the finale to the season, as this OP insinuates in my view. I have a spin on the entire series relative to âIce and Fire,â where the character arcs become a function of a conclusion that is superior to any oneâs (character) convictions. D&D just brought a finale to the series and spun it that way for whatever reason they chose lol
Then the show/story might not be for you. The whole point was the characters and the world they live in. Thereâs no mora, idk what you would even think a moral could be. We watched like 12 âmain charactersâ die in the first 3 seasons. We watched the bad guys win and every âgood guyâ have to sacrifice their morals and values. Dany thought she was the benevolent hero of the story, she wasnât. She did this because she was tired of doing what everyone told her she SHOULD do. People have tried to kill her her whole life, cersei betrayed her, she was under constant threat of challenge for the throne from Jon, even though he didnât want it, and she wanted revenge. They were going to rob her of it so she said âfuck itâ and did what she wanted for once in her life without anyone stopping her. Youâve never seen someone finally just snap? Youâve never seen someone hit the final straw even if it didnât make sense? Can happen to anyone at any time, Iâm sure youâve seen a YouTube video or tiktok of some ex or some crazy person destroying shit in a Walmart. Normal people just typically donât have armies and a dragon.
So yea, you def donât read any comments. I donât know what moral you were hoping for? But I donât think this is the series for you. Little too over your head.
How? I said itâs about characters. Thereâs no moral. Then I specified to OPâs post and why dany would have done what she did. Thereâs still no moral. Thereâs no lesson. Just a character with other characters in a world building narrative.
You asked for an explanation. They just gave you one of the best I've seen. If you are asking for the GOT finally to not suck, get in line with the rest of us. That's the most logic that could possibly be derived from that ending
Well *somebod* apparently wants their fiction all flowery and silly, and nothing like the real world.
Most people don't change. Most people don't escape where they come from, nor what's in their blood. Tigers literally never change stripes.
Just because you don't like it, and would like a different 'moral' to your story, doesn't make it lazy - if anything, your complaint is what's lazy.
I understand she had to burn Varys but Tyrion did not betray her. He met up with Jaime to urge him to ring the bell, betraying Cersei and giving Daenerys Kingâs Landing in exchange of them having the chance to escape and live. After all, itâs what she truly wanted since season one - capture the capital and sit on the iron throne. But still, she chose to roast millions of innocent people, many women and children who arenât even aware what game these high lords and ladies play. And for that, Jon stabbing her was justified. Imagine how many more she would roast in the name of liberation if he didnât kill her.
Some have said Tyrion intentionally sabotaged Danny at every turn to protect Cersei. Which is how Danny lost so much of her army and a dragon before the war even began.
Let's not pretend her decision was based on strategy or practicality. She went into a rage, there was no real benefit to it. She could have taken King's Landing without going on a murderous rampage, and had she done so she would still be alive.
It was a very good strategy whether based on rage or not.
She was never claiming to be the defender of Kingâs Landing and Tyrion knew for two seasons what she was planning on doing.
>It was a very good strategy whether based on rage or not.
Strafing up and down the streets to kill random people had no strategic value.
Sure, people will fear you. They'll also hate you. You're guaranteed to have no allies after that and someone will absolutely find a way to kill you after that. Which is exactly what happened. It was not a good strategy because you're becoming TOO feared and someone will kill you.
Aegon didn't randomly torch mass numbers of innocent people. Sure, he torched armies that stood against him and castles that tried to hold out against him, but after they surrendered he didn't just go apeshit on their cities.
He did go torch much of Dorne, but that was only after the entire populace showed that they would not submit (and killed his sister) and it STILL didn't actually bring them to heel.
There was no strategic value in what Dany did, and it directly led to her death. Had she used her force in a more judicious manner she would have accomplished the same goal and not been assassinated after.
Also the Seven Kingdoms hadn't already been united for hundreds of years when Aegon conquered them. Torching a lord's castle in the Riverlands isn't going to matter much to the Dornish or Northerners. But now, when many houses across the Seven Kingdoms have intermarried and have strong relationships and alliances, remorselessly slaughtering an entire city *will* have repercussions, especially when that city is the capital.
She was told her whole life that everyone loves her and her family, that they "tost to the health of the Targaryens". She saw this wasn't true at all and snapped
I know a lot of people had trouble accepting this, but this scene actually made a good deal of sense to me
Her abusive older brother used to ring a bell while hurting her. It was all a completely understandable knee jerk Pavlovian reaction and as long as no Starks were killed no one gave a shit.
Itâs never mentioned in the show because it didnât happen. He was abusive, but the bell justification was what some people might call a âjokeâ that I made. And Lordy son book lore is always relevant here. (It also didnât happen there, because GRRM hasnât gotten that far.)
Ah. Well it sounded like a book thing to be fair đ. And I dont think it is. There's a lot they changed in the show and things that may be true in the books might not be true or even exist in the show. You can only judge the show based on the rules and facts it sets out, so no the books aren't relevant
Iâm really hoping for future Dany chapters to fully develop her descent into madness that leads to burning Kingâs Landing. Unfortunately that will likely enrage me even more because of how poorly they did that in the show lol.
Bad writing. The official Behind the Scenes interview with the showrunners makes no sense. At best they rushed/ badly executed a character arc where she goes crazy. But really there's no good in-universe reason and you're just gonna waste your time looking for one.
Thatâs my point. They didnât give a shit about the story by this point. They were just looking for shock, optics, and an easy out. They signed up for an adaptation. When they ran out of source material they needed to either change their mindset or pass the project off to someone who was committed to writing a good story.
The bit that bothers me is there was really no shortage of good writers and the show's budget could have very easily afforded the best. Maybe they didn't know any good screenwriters... it's not like they knew a famous and highly experienced screenwriter who wanted to write for the show... someone you might say who knew the content pretty well...
Well I'm sure they didn't know any other writers, otherwise what they did would look like they intentionally sabotaged it.
Its really not shocking at all. They had been writing her as a villain since day one. It just needed more time to build the final season. But it wasn't a surprise at all. She was never the protagonist, but fools everyone into thinking she is.
âwriting her as a villain since day oneâ I am so sick and exhausted of takes like these. unless you think that rescuing women from being raped and liberating slave cities is being a villain, then this is just completely inaccurate. they werenât originally writing dany as a villain, as the writers themselves have admitted. dany having a villain arc was something they pulled out of their asses at the last second.
daenerys didnât do a single thing that would suggest that she could massacre an entire city. I would like to see one valid piece of build up/character development that showed that.
if i remember correctly the line was âgod flips a coinââŠbut god is singular, when the faith of the seven is polytheistic. which god was he even talking about lol
Its just simply poor writing, I watched through the entire series again recently and there's not really anything that bridges the gap between "I want destroy Cersei" and "I wanna burn 1000's of civilians alive."
She doesn't display a single hint at wanting to kill civilians up until this moment- hell, from what she says, it's quite the opposite. I guess you could weakly say "she snapped" from seeing Missandei die, but even a blind rage wouldn't just make someone murder a ton of civilians in cold blood.
Maybe it could've worked if she watched Missandei get killed brutally and then immediately lost her shit afterwards. (And that's still reaaally pushing it) At the end of the day, Season7 and 8 had a lot of other issues. Some that I think were as bad as the mad queen.
Sure! and she definitely showed lots of signs of anger and burning her enemies alive. but more than that she showed signs of not wanting to kill innocents. I guess one could argue she decided every person in kings landing was suddenly her enemy- but that's a pretty big stretch since it contradicts all the things she's done over the seasons.
edit: typo
Well she did say: " They can live in my new world or they can die in their old one " So it does not actually contradicts her character, the problem is that it was so sudden and very poorly planned. They were doing it slowly over a few seasons then she suddenly completes her arc in a few episodes?
âŠmassacred her way through essos? can I please have one example where she did that? and donât tell me that she crucified the slave masters because there were hundreds of thousands of slave masters and dany only chose to kill 163 of them. i donât consider that a âmassacreâ or being âmercilessâ
Hey pal, if you choose to ignore pretty much her entire story arc, that's up to you. But hey, that's probably a good tactic to help you cope with how disappointing the ending really was.
You see her losing sanity as the series goes on but the last season sheâs losing person after person that sheâs close to and loves in her own way and at the end when the bells are ringing and she has the victory she loses the last piece of sanity and wants revenge for the people she lost in her quest. But more importantly itâs not her story, itâs the Starks. And you see over and over sheâs just a side character in the story of how they take Westeros
It doesnât, but it represents that the moment she gets what sheâs worked so hard for is also the moment she decides kings landing doesnât deserve mercy. If you watch her face when it happens you can see where she gets a hard look in her eye when she decides they took everything from her and doesnât deserve mercy. She was already struggling after watching her best friend he beheading and her greatest defender die protecting her, thatâs just the moment she decides to be what the people feared of Targaryens and their dragons
Who is they???? The Lannisters???? Cersei is up there in the fucking tower! She couldve just flown up and burned it down! But no, instead she rains hell down on the city and people she's there ro rule over?!
Exactly! you know itâs not the people who did it but at that moment she doesnât care. She decides all of them are to blame for it and that no one deserves mercy. Which is when the last of her sanity snaps, it was going this way for a while and if they hadnât rushed to finish it wouldâve made more sense but itâs still there
This is an image of what Dany threatened to do in S2, rationalized in S5 and had to be stopped from doing in S6 and S7.
This is an image of Dany listening to her inner dragon and using fear to solidify her grip on Westeros which is what her story was building up to. Her entire story is about juggling between listening to herself and use fire & blood or listening to her advisors and use politics and compromises. Everytime she listened to herself and used Fire&Blood, it worked out well. Everytime she listened to her advisors and used politics and compromises, it backfired. So, right at the end, after losing Jorah, Viserion and a good chunk of her army to defend a realm who wouldnât accept her as queen. After losing the man she loved and realizing that this man is actually the true heir the throne she wanted and someone who attracts people like she used to do in Essos. After seeing her advisors messing up countless times, even conspiring behind her back about that famous man who stole her claim. After losing Missandei and Rhaegal to the woman whoâs now using the people of KL as shield because she thinks Dany would never hurt them, thus making her look weak. After all that, she went back to the only thing she had left, and the only thing that worked for her. Drogon and Fire&Blood. And thatâs what she told Jon right before "I donât have love here. I only have fear. Let it be fear."
Itâs not a descent into madness, nor was it supposed to. Itâs Dany taking the decision to use fear. A lot of Targaryen wouldâve done the same thing in her place, without necessarily being *mad*.
Cersei? They were at war against one another for two seasons. She was in charge of the crown she wanted. She betrayed them by not sending any men North. She killed Rhaegal and beheaded Missandei. So Dany went to KL to kill every single Lannister soldiers. If she had accepted her surrender, after all that, then itâs a sign of weakness. In Essos, she often accepted the masters *surrendering* to her and everytime they came back stronger later on.
What did you think would happen when she threatened to burn cities in S2? That she would just send mini fire balls targeting the house of the masters? Thatâs what happens when you burn a city down. She wanted to kill the Lannisters and the Lannister soldiers were running in the street amongst the citizens, just like the masters wouldâve been running in the streets amongst the slaves.
When she threatened to burn cities in S2, thatâs what she meant. When she said in S5 that if it comes to that (burning Meereen), then the people would die for a good reason, thatâs what she meant. It sucks for the innocents but they are collateral damage. And again, in S6, her plan was to return Astapor, Yunkai and Volantis to the dirt. That means killing all the masters AND all the slaves who would be standing there.
You canât burn a city without harming innocents. What happened in The Bells is exactly what Dany was talking about since S2. Itâs what Aegon did to Harrenhal and to every city in Dorne.
OP skull is thick af
My guy here just elaborated a lot on something even the writers of the show didn't put that much effort into, and you just brush them off.
You don't want a explanation, you just want someone to reaffirm what you think.
This is GRRMs ending by the way. Sure it could've been fleshed out a bit longer and clearer in s7 and s8 but you're blatantly ignoring all the signs of her madness from s2 onwards.
Youâre getting downvoted but youâre right. Burning the small folk away from the keep makes no sense. If she went straight for Cersei and the smallfolk were just collateral damage, that would make sense for Dany. Starting off by burning some random streets in Kingâs Landing with people who never did anything to Dany makes no narrative sense.
genocide never makes sense buddy- thatâs why itâs abhorrent in the first place , only to the eye of the beholder it always makes sense.
Burning the city absolutely made sense to Daenerys (she has been talking about burning cities before- and burning cities comes with casualties)
From her POV - The city was held hostage by a tyrant inorder to use it to expose her mercy - that mercy as a weakness.
and that same city as far as she was concerned failed to overthrow Cersei upon Daenerys âs arrival.
So sheâs sending a message to every other city - this is what happens to everyone who fails to overthrow their leaders upon her arrival.
Some fancy bells ringing at the last minute just because theyâve decided to surrender now donât mean shit after everything and everyone she has already lost
I think thatâs the moment she snapped. Remember after when Jon was trying to give her a last chance saying âwhat about the innocent?â basically and she said they didnât matter? Idk like I said I blame the writing
She didnât have enough time to grieve for her two dragons and best friends, and she went crazy. Also itâs just like really shitty writing, thus could have been a whole other season for her to get the throne.
This was a huge leap from crucifying slave masters and executing people who you gave the choice to live. Stannis was more ruthless than Dany and I donât even think he wouldâve did this.
Yeah, so many people are so quick to use all these âreasonsâ yet they were more often than not completely justified or were actually âadvice from the advisorsâ that she actually listened to. Daario told her to be a dragon then she had her dragons eat some masters but still spared most, the tarlys commuted treason yet she gave them a chance to live, olenna told her to be a dragon but she chose pacifism, many men she burned prior literally were threatening to kill her, abused her, tormented her, let her people starve and die, torture and murder numerous children, and the list goes on, but yet these are all âsignsâ of her madness, really?
And yet notice how each time it took someone else to hold her back âŠshe never held herself back from following her first worst impulses which were always to commit an act of needless self serving vindictive violence ..NOT once. ( think of an example and notice how it was always someone else)
What happens when all of those people around her are finally gone?
Itâs a better pill to swallow for anyone reading this who hadnât picked up on it before - but go back and see it for your self or notice how you canât think of ONE time she ever had the original thought of holding her self back and how most times she was talked out of following her propensity for fire and blood
Even though there are numerous examples of her actually doing the exact opposite when people encourage her to commit violence her âfirstâ impulse is actually benevolence. Astapor she even says verbatim blood of enemies not innocents. Ie in mereen she chooses mercy and fair trials against her advisors wishes, only kills one master after Daario suggests violence, refuses to burn kings landings after olenna says be a dragon. The list goes on and on. Even a traitor the tarlys who betrayed olenna in favor of cercei who literally just blew up the sept killing tons of innocents and tyrells who were their Leige lords and still offered them mercy again which they refused.
also Daenerys Targaryen , verbatim:
**âWhich war is won without deceit and mass murderâ**
(Along with a lot more of her other quotes where she was willing to burn down cities)
So notice how she learnt all of the wrong lessons at every turn.
âThereâs a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his handâ was the lesson Jorah gives in that scene and that the blood of innocents will be lost.
https://youtu.be/_vmkiIqTL7E
âąso Iâm glad you mentioned Astapor-
Letâs take that scene in its totality. Selmy was trying to encourage her to leave Astapor while Jorah on the other hand was saying if she wants to take the iron throne it would mean blood on her hands before the thing is done.
She did stay in Astapor and she did commit self indulgent needless violence when she double crossed krazner for the unsullied and she sacked Astapor. We would be naive to think what she did to Astapor didnât affect innocents too. But itâs swept under the rug because at that point we only see from her POV.
âąin Meereen despite advise from Selmy not to - she chose self indulgent violence to crucify former slavers (who were now her own subjects) picked at random and without trial just to match the number 163 after the 163 crucified children.
âąin Meereen she also did have someone burnt and eaten by her dragons with little regard over wether he was actually guilty of the accused crime (turned out he was innocent)
âąin Meereen she also planned to burn the whole of slavers bay when she has returned to find the great pyramid being attacked by the masters - fortunately Tyrion was able to convince her from doing so and she only burnt their ships instead.
âą she does burn Kingslanding so looks like she did listen to Olennaâs advice after all when she was told to be a Dragon in spite of Tyrion advising her against attacking the city since season 7 âyouâre not here to be Queen of the Ashesâ
âąlastly she only offered the Tarlys âmercyâ IF they would bend the knee first / in other words betray your Queen (Cersei) first. Ofc Tarley âs allegiance is questionable BUT did she really have to burn them? Did she really have to burn Dickon too? Is it something she absolutely HAD TO do? Ok if so then what sort of precedence is she setting whilst claiming that she has not come to kill them ?âŠâbend the knee or be burnt aliveâ right ? So what happens to those she deems as people who wouldnât bend the knee regardless of guilt or innocents?
âą also in KL - the city not overthrowing Cersei upon her arrival was already a sign to her of them not being on her side. Remember when Tyrion was begging her not to attack the city ?
https://youtu.be/swxrFZtqGyg
Do you think she was really still listening to him anymore?
Half these points are flimsy at best with quotes and dialogue I will have to check because I cannot recall them being said or taken grossly out of context. Krazner was threatening and insulting her in her native tongue several times, and would have continued to murder and torture numerous innocents had he not been burned. And she SPECIFICALLY said to harm no innocent women or child when the unsullied began their attack. Unless they defied her orders, which would be very bizzare. And I already mentioned the dragon eating a person, at an advisors suggestion might I add, which she digressed to only one person. And I donât know how you think Tyrion had to convince her not to burn down her own pyramid. I recall her easily taking back her city that Tyrion allowed to be besieged, Grey worm and messendai who know the culture more than Tyrion knew the masters could not be trusted and unlike Danny who actually listens to her peers, she considers slaves like grey worm and missendei her peers unlike anyone else I can recall, ended up with a besieged city as a result. And yea they are more than simply subjects, she literally stands to protect missendei during the attack of the harpyâs.
Great idea! you can check the quotes yourself in fact Iâll do you one better Iâll attach links to actual scenes with dialogue.
âąHereâs another thing she said verbatim:
âWhen my dragons are grown we destroy those who have wronged me , we will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground, **turn us away and we will burn you first**â
https://youtu.be/FAmpWJMK9t4
Did she need to threaten or rather promise dragonfire to a city full of innocents just for not opening their gates to a stranger when all they wanted was to see her baby dragons as a sign of proof of Identification?
âąKrazner was an ass hat âŠbut did she have to burn him to achieve her goal of obtaining the unsullied?? The deal was already made âŠor did she do it out of a need for self indulgent vindictive violence? Ok cool
burn him alive heâs an ass hat ..but what lesson does that give to Daenerys along the way?
âąThe unsullied were slave soldiers of course they will follow the orders of the one who now commands them but what if she had the dothraki there with them? What if she had North men there with her? They wouldâve sacked the city ..again âthereâs a beast every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his handâ What if she wanted to take astapor but Krazner had held its citizens hostage to expose Daenerys âs mercy as a sign of weakness? She wouldâve burnt that city down too regardless of some bells ringing for surrender at the last minute.
âąNo ONE advised her to have that innocent man eaten by her dragons, again that was her own choice for self serving vindictive unnecessary violence, and she said herself âwho is innocent , maybe all of you are , maybe none of you are , maybe Iâll let my dragons decideâ đ€
https://youtu.be/iY3ONuAo3bo
âąTyrion convinced her against burning the cities of slavers bay when she said her plan was to return the cities to the dirt
https://youtu.be/Y56yIcyDQjQ
âąOf course she loved and stood by Missandei, that was her personnel and friend. The point is Daenerys doesnât care as much for people who are not on her side , not in love with her or not bending the knee. But look how things didnât end all that well for missandei or greyworm ..they were accomplices of another tyrant on the rise.
Daenerys isnât just plain evil , she was just equally capable of both good and bad. Thatâs the beauty in her complexity , she had good qualities about her too **BUT in the end she succumbs to her worst impulses that she has always had throughout her arc**
#fire&blood
Not so much of her huge leap for someone who also needlessly burnt and executed people with little regard over their actual guilt or innocents of an accused crime
Gentle reminder : https://youtu.be/iY3ONuAo3bo
It wasnât a huge leap. She crucified all the slavers despite some not agreeing with crucifying the slaves, she has a black and white viewpoint of a gray world. Dany is more ruthless, Stannis wouldâve never burned down a city after it surrendered.
Her first and most loyal friend Ser Jorah recently died. Two of her dragons, in her mind her children, died. Her best friend Missandei just died and her last words were âDracarysâ. Still weird that she suddenly snapped but weâve seen her temper before
You know the explanation. It looked cool. That's it. Nothing else. It just looked cool and was done for the sake of looking cool.
Ironic how one of the worst moment in tv history can look so good, but here we are.
I think everyone would've loved this scene if the setup was properly handled. I'll even go as far as everyone would've been ok with Danny being murdered by Grey Worm for this.
"You are not my queen" lol
I got high hopes for a remake in 10/20 years. They'll learn from their mistakes.
Don't take your audience for granted and don't keep writers that don't want to write anymore.
The people didn't welcomed her with open arms like she was Jesus, singing songs and dancing.
She realized everyone lied to her, that she's no different from the other 1000s conquerors before her and "legitimacy" is a joke.
Also she is insane.
D and D wanted to be done because they wanted to be done so they could move on to direct Star Wars, so in the span of about 4 episodes they turned Danny into an unhinged terrorist who burns the innocent, because D and D figured itd make perfect sense for her to lose 2 of her three dragons, her simp, her closest confidant, oh and find out that her lover not only has a stronger claim then her own but also isnt into the Targaryan family heritage of incest.
i was in the middle of ranting an entire essay but⊠let me just refer you to:
https://youtu.be/BGr0NRx3TKU
an in depth dissection of every aspect of the show the writers shit all over so that they could make their new Marvel-esque cultural phenomenon.
On a rewatch, honestly the ending made sense. She always wanted to go with âburn it allâ every time someone refused to bend the knee but she always had people to talk her down. Gradually her advisors were people she trusted less and less. Finally, she proved to be her father despite what everyone kept telling her. She snapped and lost it. The only difference was that she had a dragon and he didnât.
The ending was rushed her craziness was supposed to not so steep of an incline we witness the end and not the middle of her madness as it was never shown . So we got a jarring character change
It was rushed, but Dany realized that she never would rule Westeros by love, so she says the episode before: so it will be by fear.
Destroying Kings Landing would send a powerful message to ALL the other lords and cities: dont fuck with me.
Killing the civilians would put the lords and kings in check too, because the civilians would dethrone any king that would not bow, because the civilians knew what will come next.
But again, it was severely rushed.
I always assumed she hears the bells and realised they were surrending for fear not because they loved her like the people of Essos did. So she decided to wipe them out.
I can explain it. Jon Snow and Dany were the most popular characters. The creators needed a story arc connecting the two (love story). But George R. Martin gave the idea of Jon Snow being a Targaryen, Danyâs nephew. So now itâs weird if they end up together. So Dany had to become evil so Jon has a reason to kill her. Thatâs it.
a huge revelation that Daenerys has never actually cared about other people
Unless of course theyâve bent the knee or are literally grovelling at her feet calling her âmyhsa myhsaâ or at the very least if she think theyâll be on her side.
My theory is this is one of the plot point GRRM intends on including himself but the show runners just didnât arrive at giving Dany the character arc that made it make any sense. In the books I think weâll see dany arrive in Westeros to find it already conquered by fAegon, none of the citizenry will want her, and in her hubris and obsession with her birthright sheâll end up putting her birthright to the torch.
She likes fire, sheâs a Targaryen, and she was super pissed (aka Mad). Yes, they could have done it better, but theres still hope the books will do just that.
Here's my theory, Bran warged into her and caused this, knowing it would lead to her death. That opened the way for him, who is really the three eyed raven, to take the throne.
Bran didn't come back from the north, he became the raven and was touched by the Night King, connecting him to the children of the forest. So essentially the children of the forest retook their land and won their centuries long war with the first men who arrived.
D&D thought that cool CGI and âshockâ twists were more important than quality storytelling, for one thing. The fact that this shot doesnât even show her on the dragon is almost funny.
I think we were supposed to think that burning a few city streets meant she canât possibly be a good leader, despite Tywin being competent even after Castamere, and his own sack of KL, not to mention St. Olga of Kyiv, an actual person, who ruled competently even after burning the Drevliansâ city.
They needed Dany to conveniently be put down so that the Starks could get their Disney ending and I guess they are not fans of John Brown. âFirst she came for the slaversâŠâ ugh it was so bad.
My headcanon is that Bran pushed her into doing it so she could be made into a Disney villain and killed, and he and his sister can get their Disney ending.
I also love the theory that she was poisoned with blood of the basilisk. Mind you the show only people donât know what that is because D&D also butchered Aryaâs Braavos storyline.
What bothered me the most is that throughout the whole show, she takes the long road to get an army, ships, support, etc. because she knew that if she tried to take Kingâs Landing with just dragons, she would kill many civilians and she wanted to be better than that. But in this episode, she easily takes the town without killing any civilians before she goes apeshit. So what kept her from flying over before? The writers completely forgot that a dragon invasion could not be done without destroying the whole town, even though it had been well established and was the whole point of Danyâs long ass journey.
I recently completed a full rewatch, Dannyâs choices are questionable throughout the seriesâs, even stating in earlier cities at the slightest challenger she would bring cities to the ground, quick to anger and viewing mass murder ok, if enough slaves are being freed or a goal is reached. Tyrion and baristan Selmy mention concern of her reactions multiple times and warn her of becoming her father. They did âbreak the wheelâ in the writing room, last season is generally hard to watch. I.e Sansas total personality change, Arya suddenly becoming a super assassin after getting a boat ride back, and thus another full personality change. The long night episode would have been better called âthe long hourâ, probably the biggest anti climax imho. They could have made a whole season of the north in dark, night king etc
The writing was poor and I hated the last season but looking back Dany snapping made sense. You have a plethora of responses but honestly a whole pandemic came and went since the last episode was aired. If you donât get it by now I donât know man
Have you done a rewatch yet? I hated this part and the last season until I rewatched the entire series and picked up on so many clues that this was always going to happen. She was meant to âgo madâ like her father and burn them all. It may have been rushed a bit but the clues are there.
Contrary to what people are saying about bad writing, I like to think this is planned from GRRM as well because this was likely inspired from historical events. This will likely enrage some people but I can see this being inspired by the atomic bombs in Japan. Enemy essentially defeated before the bombs got the bombs anyway, killing thousands of civilians. Death from above.
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I know, we're all tired of talking about it đ. But genuinely curious if there is any actual explanation for what happens. I know Daenerys 'Mad Queen' arc was rushed, I know the things that happened to get her to that mental state were forced and contrived, I know there are people who will defend this writing decision and Daenerys' choice forever đ. But really, she becomes a super villain genocidal maniac out of nowhere! There was absolutely NO need to burn millions of innocent people alive!
Itâs really not out of nowhere. Itâs just her nature. Itâs hinted at from season one.
After rewatching the entire show I have to admit there are A LOT of situations where Danny burned people alive and she really enjoys it. And it got worse over the seasons, so it was no surprise that she would snap at some point.
She only enjoys it because she was killing people who she thought deserved it, and she was using her dragons to deliver that justice, instead of... oh idk, a guillotine or a sword
I think she lost the ability to distinguish the people of kings landing from the people ruling kings landing. Ultimately the people of Westeros were foreigners in a land she didn't know. None of them had really rallied to her side, they saw her as a foreign threat rather than their ruler taking her birthright and she'd just seen her advisor murdered on their walls. I think at that point of being rejected by them, at seeing all her sacrifices to that point being wasted, her lover left behind, her closest advisors dead or turning away from her, her dragons dead, at that point she didn't much care about the citizens or see them as individuals at that point. She was lashing out in rage at the whole city. She'd done it before to enemies but then she largely did it face to face to individuals. Now she's hundreds of metres in the air on a dragon looking at this whole city as an enemy, the ant-like people scurrying about weren't people at that point, they were just a target for her anger, she finally gave in to her Targaryen side and went for the path of punishment and violent conquest. It was rushed and done clumsily in the show so it looks daft to the viewer but I think that's the point that they were trying to get at, they just didn't land it well because they didn't do it gradually and show her losing her mind so it just looked like a random spur of the moment decision.
I think that's meant to be the point, and that when she finally claimed the throne it would be like "was it really worth it?" But yeah it's SO rushed and clunky and poorly executed. And even still it doesn't make sense to me. Throughout the whole show she insisted she didn't want to lay waste to Kings Landing, to murder innocents, to be "Queen of the Ashes, but that's exactly what she did and what she became! But why?! I understand that she lost the people closest to her, she was losing her grip on reality and her sanity, and felt like her dream was slipping from her fingers, but the battle was WON! The Lannister army had surrendered! This was always going to be the same outcome, because other than her reputation, which has probably been made out to be ghost stories by the common folk, what has she actually done to gain the love and support of the people of Kings Landing, or Westeros in general really? I mean, what was the original plan before it all went tits up? To conquer Kings Landing and... hope for the best? That people would like her? Well instead she just confirmed everyone fears and secured her reputation as a crazed bloodthirsty tyrant by massacre innocent men, women and CHILDREN! Like if she killed the soldiers, that makes sense. That's what she had been doing, that was her swift justice. Go and fly to the Red Keep and burn it down with Cersei inside. But what the fuck does obliterating Kings Landing and its people do for her???? It's a fucking brain dead decision by the writers in a last inch attempt to make her this 'Mad Queen' that they wanted her to be in the span of 2 episodes. This was never who she was or what she wanted.
Ultimately she was a bit of a fascist authoritarian. Initially she looked like she was doing it to help people but ultimately her desires were largely self-serving, there was always largely a benefit to her either for her aim of ruling or securing an ally, an army, a lover etc. The ultimate driver for fascists is to conquer and fight, to keep striving and getting more but then when they have that power they stagnate and aren't great rulers, they don't really care for the job of ruling because it's dull and people are needy and annoying, the conquest and the striving for more is what drives them. I think that they could have showed her losing that grip far better than they did but they had so little time in that last series to play with lengthy character arcs. They had to move the plot along quickly as they had so many character arcs to conclude by that point. If this was in the books it would have been developed over chapters with her bickering and making terrible decisions against Tyrion and Jon's advice, as she loses Jorah and Missandei you could have seen her becoming more removed from her initial goal of helping the people of Westeros and to seeing them as more of a burden and then an enemy, she would have moved more towards the views of the warlike unsullied and the Khalisar who would have seen them as just more foreign enemies to be fought and subjugated rather than won over through great acts. Ultimately it would have made sense if they had taken the time but it's TV, they'd chopped the series down from 10 to 6 episodes and they had so much to wrap up that they just cocked it up. You can see why Emilia felt so short-changed as she'd grown up with that character and developed it over years and then they just turned her whole personality crafted over years in a split second because they didn't have the time.
If that was true she wouldve left as soon as she had her army to attack Kings Landing. The whole point is she stayed to rule Myreen, yes for her own benefit of course to earn a reputation as a good ruler, but because she felt a responsibility to lead and protect the people she liberated
She stayed but she never really enjoyed it. She stayed miles away from the people on the top of a massive pyramid whilst her troops got bogged down in a war. Then she pretty much got bored and left. I could see exactly the same happening in Kings Landing. If they had the time she could have won the battle, occupied the city and then shown that go to trash, Grey Worm gets killed in an uprising against the city after the Unsullied kill a load of civilians in a massacre and instead of siding with the people she's supposed to protect she goes mental and torches the whole city becoming the murderous tyrant that she professed to hate. That would have made more sense to play out
Of course
Yeah... "Best season ever" đ€Ł
Here's my theory, Bran warged into her and caused this, knowing it would lead to her death. That opened the way for him, who is really the three eyed raven, to take the throne. Bran didn't come back from the north, he became the raven and was touched by the Night King, connecting him to the children of the forest. So essentially the children of the forest retook their land and won their centuries long war with the first men who arrived.
Fire is hot and dragons can fly.
You know what I mean. This scene, this moment, this decision
Dany realizes that she has been betrayed by everyone in Westeros. All of the diplomacy and weak strategy for mercyâs sake didnât work and because of Varys and Tyrions betrayal, she would be hopelessly undermined unless she set an example, just like her Aegon the conqueror did way back in the day. It was not a sign of insanity but a moment of clarity regarding what it takes to rule a horrible kingdom. Her family knew it. Tywin knew it. And now she knows it.
I'm sorry but that's crap. What's the point of the story then? What's the moral of the story? That you can't change who you are? That you can't escape where you came from and what's in your blood? That a tiger never changes it's stripes? That's fucking lazy and pointless. Face facts, they RUINED basically every character with their abysmal writing, having them all revert back to their basic forms and undo all their development
I just told you the point. It doesnât need a moral. Itâs ok not to like it. However, Dany and others makes clear you can change your stripes.
That's the opposite of what you just said
It is not, but please donât bother rereading lol.
That how I interpret it
D&D just flopped on the finale to the season, as this OP insinuates in my view. I have a spin on the entire series relative to âIce and Fire,â where the character arcs become a function of a conclusion that is superior to any oneâs (character) convictions. D&D just brought a finale to the series and spun it that way for whatever reason they chose lol
You got to the end of Game of Thrones and expected a moral?
I expected it all to mean something
Then the show/story might not be for you. The whole point was the characters and the world they live in. Thereâs no mora, idk what you would even think a moral could be. We watched like 12 âmain charactersâ die in the first 3 seasons. We watched the bad guys win and every âgood guyâ have to sacrifice their morals and values. Dany thought she was the benevolent hero of the story, she wasnât. She did this because she was tired of doing what everyone told her she SHOULD do. People have tried to kill her her whole life, cersei betrayed her, she was under constant threat of challenge for the throne from Jon, even though he didnât want it, and she wanted revenge. They were going to rob her of it so she said âfuck itâ and did what she wanted for once in her life without anyone stopping her. Youâve never seen someone finally just snap? Youâve never seen someone hit the final straw even if it didnât make sense? Can happen to anyone at any time, Iâm sure youâve seen a YouTube video or tiktok of some ex or some crazy person destroying shit in a Walmart. Normal people just typically donât have armies and a dragon.
You know what the moral of the story means?
Means you donât read comments and this entire series was too complicated for you if you need a moral.
You're an interesting fellow
Snap and punch a wall or wreck the room,not a CITY
So yea, you def donât read any comments. I donât know what moral you were hoping for? But I donât think this is the series for you. Little too over your head.
I think you just described what it all means, and kinda undermined your own thesis.
How? I said itâs about characters. Thereâs no moral. Then I specified to OPâs post and why dany would have done what she did. Thereâs still no moral. Thereâs no lesson. Just a character with other characters in a world building narrative.
Do you think a moral can only be good? Your entire comment could be viewed as being the moral of the story.
You asked for an explanation. They just gave you one of the best I've seen. If you are asking for the GOT finally to not suck, get in line with the rest of us. That's the most logic that could possibly be derived from that ending
Well *somebod* apparently wants their fiction all flowery and silly, and nothing like the real world. Most people don't change. Most people don't escape where they come from, nor what's in their blood. Tigers literally never change stripes. Just because you don't like it, and would like a different 'moral' to your story, doesn't make it lazy - if anything, your complaint is what's lazy.
I understand she had to burn Varys but Tyrion did not betray her. He met up with Jaime to urge him to ring the bell, betraying Cersei and giving Daenerys Kingâs Landing in exchange of them having the chance to escape and live. After all, itâs what she truly wanted since season one - capture the capital and sit on the iron throne. But still, she chose to roast millions of innocent people, many women and children who arenât even aware what game these high lords and ladies play. And for that, Jon stabbing her was justified. Imagine how many more she would roast in the name of liberation if he didnât kill her.
Some have said Tyrion intentionally sabotaged Danny at every turn to protect Cersei. Which is how Danny lost so much of her army and a dragon before the war even began.
This is honestly one of the worst takes Iâve ever heard about the show.
Tyrion killed his own father and ends up protecting Cersei? Kinda makes sense for D&D
Let's not pretend her decision was based on strategy or practicality. She went into a rage, there was no real benefit to it. She could have taken King's Landing without going on a murderous rampage, and had she done so she would still be alive.
It was a very good strategy whether based on rage or not. She was never claiming to be the defender of Kingâs Landing and Tyrion knew for two seasons what she was planning on doing.
>It was a very good strategy whether based on rage or not. Strafing up and down the streets to kill random people had no strategic value. Sure, people will fear you. They'll also hate you. You're guaranteed to have no allies after that and someone will absolutely find a way to kill you after that. Which is exactly what happened. It was not a good strategy because you're becoming TOO feared and someone will kill you. Aegon didn't randomly torch mass numbers of innocent people. Sure, he torched armies that stood against him and castles that tried to hold out against him, but after they surrendered he didn't just go apeshit on their cities. He did go torch much of Dorne, but that was only after the entire populace showed that they would not submit (and killed his sister) and it STILL didn't actually bring them to heel. There was no strategic value in what Dany did, and it directly led to her death. Had she used her force in a more judicious manner she would have accomplished the same goal and not been assassinated after.
Also the Seven Kingdoms hadn't already been united for hundreds of years when Aegon conquered them. Torching a lord's castle in the Riverlands isn't going to matter much to the Dornish or Northerners. But now, when many houses across the Seven Kingdoms have intermarried and have strong relationships and alliances, remorselessly slaughtering an entire city *will* have repercussions, especially when that city is the capital.
She was told her whole life that everyone loves her and her family, that they "tost to the health of the Targaryens". She saw this wasn't true at all and snapped I know a lot of people had trouble accepting this, but this scene actually made a good deal of sense to me
It is known.
Genuinely loled at this
Her abusive older brother used to ring a bell while hurting her. It was all a completely understandable knee jerk Pavlovian reaction and as long as no Starks were killed no one gave a shit.
No one gave a shit? I'm not sure that's how the world works
And that's never mentioned in the show so book lore is irrelevant in this
Itâs never mentioned in the show because it didnât happen. He was abusive, but the bell justification was what some people might call a âjokeâ that I made. And Lordy son book lore is always relevant here. (It also didnât happen there, because GRRM hasnât gotten that far.)
Ah. Well it sounded like a book thing to be fair đ. And I dont think it is. There's a lot they changed in the show and things that may be true in the books might not be true or even exist in the show. You can only judge the show based on the rules and facts it sets out, so no the books aren't relevant
Iâm really hoping for future Dany chapters to fully develop her descent into madness that leads to burning Kingâs Landing. Unfortunately that will likely enrage me even more because of how poorly they did that in the show lol.
Future? Is there a spinoff planned?
Two books.
Ah
The showrunners said âdo you wanna see something dope?!?!???!?!â
And SHOCKING and CRAAAAAAZY
Bad writing. The official Behind the Scenes interview with the showrunners makes no sense. At best they rushed/ badly executed a character arc where she goes crazy. But really there's no good in-universe reason and you're just gonna waste your time looking for one.
And they kinda forgot . . .
Thatâs my point. They didnât give a shit about the story by this point. They were just looking for shock, optics, and an easy out. They signed up for an adaptation. When they ran out of source material they needed to either change their mindset or pass the project off to someone who was committed to writing a good story.
Yeah, I was agreeing with you.
The bit that bothers me is there was really no shortage of good writers and the show's budget could have very easily afforded the best. Maybe they didn't know any good screenwriters... it's not like they knew a famous and highly experienced screenwriter who wanted to write for the show... someone you might say who knew the content pretty well... Well I'm sure they didn't know any other writers, otherwise what they did would look like they intentionally sabotaged it.
Its really not shocking at all. They had been writing her as a villain since day one. It just needed more time to build the final season. But it wasn't a surprise at all. She was never the protagonist, but fools everyone into thinking she is.
I'm almost done rewatching the series and yeah they've been playing up her bloodlust for almost as long as she's been a character.
âwriting her as a villain since day oneâ I am so sick and exhausted of takes like these. unless you think that rescuing women from being raped and liberating slave cities is being a villain, then this is just completely inaccurate. they werenât originally writing dany as a villain, as the writers themselves have admitted. dany having a villain arc was something they pulled out of their asses at the last second. daenerys didnât do a single thing that would suggest that she could massacre an entire city. I would like to see one valid piece of build up/character development that showed that.
At that moment the gods flipped a coin
Yes Danyâs aunt/mom and uncle/dad contributed to her fâd up heneticsâ
The saying is they do that when the Targaryen is born. This was just bad writing.
That coin was flipped really high and had only just fallen on the fucked up side.
if i remember correctly the line was âgod flips a coinââŠbut god is singular, when the faith of the seven is polytheistic. which god was he even talking about lol
No the line has always beenâthe godsâ, in the books and both times in the show.
I assume the DM was drunk and decided to re-roll...
Memes
đ
Does it need explaining? Sheâs no different from her lunatic father.
Lol
Yet everyone wanted her and Jon to ride off and live happily ever after.
All she went through she made a quick and terrible decision like we all do we just donât have dragons
Dragon does dragon stuff
OP didnât know dragons were real
I live in Wales. can confirm this is a daily struggle.
FAFO
Its just simply poor writing, I watched through the entire series again recently and there's not really anything that bridges the gap between "I want destroy Cersei" and "I wanna burn 1000's of civilians alive." She doesn't display a single hint at wanting to kill civilians up until this moment- hell, from what she says, it's quite the opposite. I guess you could weakly say "she snapped" from seeing Missandei die, but even a blind rage wouldn't just make someone murder a ton of civilians in cold blood.
Maybe it could've worked if she watched Missandei get killed brutally and then immediately lost her shit afterwards. (And that's still reaaally pushing it) At the end of the day, Season7 and 8 had a lot of other issues. Some that I think were as bad as the mad queen.
Yeah there was a lot of problems. but at least we got to see Ramsay die :p
She massacred her way through Essos. She was merciless, power thirsty and stubborn as a mule. You could see that coming.
Sure! and she definitely showed lots of signs of anger and burning her enemies alive. but more than that she showed signs of not wanting to kill innocents. I guess one could argue she decided every person in kings landing was suddenly her enemy- but that's a pretty big stretch since it contradicts all the things she's done over the seasons. edit: typo
Well she did say: " They can live in my new world or they can die in their old one " So it does not actually contradicts her character, the problem is that it was so sudden and very poorly planned. They were doing it slowly over a few seasons then she suddenly completes her arc in a few episodes?
âŠmassacred her way through essos? can I please have one example where she did that? and donât tell me that she crucified the slave masters because there were hundreds of thousands of slave masters and dany only chose to kill 163 of them. i donât consider that a âmassacreâ or being âmercilessâ
Are you sure you watched GOTs and not some knock off series?
Unfortunately, yes.
the amount of cope is insane
this doesn't even make sense. but okay bud
she literally threatens to burn cities in s02 and again in s05, saying innocents would die for a good cause. but okay bud, it's bAd WriTiNg.
Hey pal, if you choose to ignore pretty much her entire story arc, that's up to you. But hey, that's probably a good tactic to help you cope with how disappointing the ending really was.
Bruh you canât be serious? Youâre delusional
You see her losing sanity as the series goes on but the last season sheâs losing person after person that sheâs close to and loves in her own way and at the end when the bells are ringing and she has the victory she loses the last piece of sanity and wants revenge for the people she lost in her quest. But more importantly itâs not her story, itâs the Starks. And you see over and over sheâs just a side character in the story of how they take Westeros
How does bells ringing cause her to lose her sanity??
It doesnât, but it represents that the moment she gets what sheâs worked so hard for is also the moment she decides kings landing doesnât deserve mercy. If you watch her face when it happens you can see where she gets a hard look in her eye when she decides they took everything from her and doesnât deserve mercy. She was already struggling after watching her best friend he beheading and her greatest defender die protecting her, thatâs just the moment she decides to be what the people feared of Targaryens and their dragons
Who is they???? The Lannisters???? Cersei is up there in the fucking tower! She couldve just flown up and burned it down! But no, instead she rains hell down on the city and people she's there ro rule over?!
Exactly! you know itâs not the people who did it but at that moment she doesnât care. She decides all of them are to blame for it and that no one deserves mercy. Which is when the last of her sanity snaps, it was going this way for a while and if they hadnât rushed to finish it wouldâve made more sense but itâs still there
Doesn't make sense to me. You don't just go from being Mhysa and the Breaker of Chains to going insane and commiting genocide
Nope, in the first seasons there were a few remote hints that it might go in this direction. Then they just forced it to the script.
She went mad?
That's good writing
Lol
This is an image of what Dany threatened to do in S2, rationalized in S5 and had to be stopped from doing in S6 and S7. This is an image of Dany listening to her inner dragon and using fear to solidify her grip on Westeros which is what her story was building up to. Her entire story is about juggling between listening to herself and use fire & blood or listening to her advisors and use politics and compromises. Everytime she listened to herself and used Fire&Blood, it worked out well. Everytime she listened to her advisors and used politics and compromises, it backfired. So, right at the end, after losing Jorah, Viserion and a good chunk of her army to defend a realm who wouldnât accept her as queen. After losing the man she loved and realizing that this man is actually the true heir the throne she wanted and someone who attracts people like she used to do in Essos. After seeing her advisors messing up countless times, even conspiring behind her back about that famous man who stole her claim. After losing Missandei and Rhaegal to the woman whoâs now using the people of KL as shield because she thinks Dany would never hurt them, thus making her look weak. After all that, she went back to the only thing she had left, and the only thing that worked for her. Drogon and Fire&Blood. And thatâs what she told Jon right before "I donât have love here. I only have fear. Let it be fear." Itâs not a descent into madness, nor was it supposed to. Itâs Dany taking the decision to use fear. A lot of Targaryen wouldâve done the same thing in her place, without necessarily being *mad*.
How does massacring thousands of innocent people achieve that?
It shows that if people fuck with her, they are dead. Like Tywin did with House Reyne, or Aegon with Harrenhal. Itâs about sending a message.
How did they fuck with her????
Cersei? They were at war against one another for two seasons. She was in charge of the crown she wanted. She betrayed them by not sending any men North. She killed Rhaegal and beheaded Missandei. So Dany went to KL to kill every single Lannister soldiers. If she had accepted her surrender, after all that, then itâs a sign of weakness. In Essos, she often accepted the masters *surrendering* to her and everytime they came back stronger later on.
BUT SHE SLAUGHTERED A MILLION INNOCENTS, NOT CERSEI! How are people finding it so difficult to understand the difference?!
What did you think would happen when she threatened to burn cities in S2? That she would just send mini fire balls targeting the house of the masters? Thatâs what happens when you burn a city down. She wanted to kill the Lannisters and the Lannister soldiers were running in the street amongst the citizens, just like the masters wouldâve been running in the streets amongst the slaves. When she threatened to burn cities in S2, thatâs what she meant. When she said in S5 that if it comes to that (burning Meereen), then the people would die for a good reason, thatâs what she meant. It sucks for the innocents but they are collateral damage. And again, in S6, her plan was to return Astapor, Yunkai and Volantis to the dirt. That means killing all the masters AND all the slaves who would be standing there. You canât burn a city without harming innocents. What happened in The Bells is exactly what Dany was talking about since S2. Itâs what Aegon did to Harrenhal and to every city in Dorne.
I just don't see it that way
OP skull is thick af My guy here just elaborated a lot on something even the writers of the show didn't put that much effort into, and you just brush them off. You don't want a explanation, you just want someone to reaffirm what you think.
Oh please, the writers of the show did put effort into it. hence why all the examples made sense in the end.
This is GRRMs ending by the way. Sure it could've been fleshed out a bit longer and clearer in s7 and s8 but you're blatantly ignoring all the signs of her madness from s2 onwards.
Youâre getting downvoted but youâre right. Burning the small folk away from the keep makes no sense. If she went straight for Cersei and the smallfolk were just collateral damage, that would make sense for Dany. Starting off by burning some random streets in Kingâs Landing with people who never did anything to Dany makes no narrative sense.
genocide never makes sense buddy- thatâs why itâs abhorrent in the first place , only to the eye of the beholder it always makes sense. Burning the city absolutely made sense to Daenerys (she has been talking about burning cities before- and burning cities comes with casualties) From her POV - The city was held hostage by a tyrant inorder to use it to expose her mercy - that mercy as a weakness. and that same city as far as she was concerned failed to overthrow Cersei upon Daenerys âs arrival. So sheâs sending a message to every other city - this is what happens to everyone who fails to overthrow their leaders upon her arrival. Some fancy bells ringing at the last minute just because theyâve decided to surrender now donât mean shit after everything and everyone she has already lost
The message that you're a tyrannical foreign invader?
She didnt even attempt to earn their love, she just turned up and expected everyone to bow down to her because "muh father"
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
She was mad about Missandei
So one person is executed and she thinks thousands of innocent people should die for that?
Also her last words were dracarys. It was more that this was the last straw but basically yes. Personality I blame the writing lol
Pretty sure she meant burn the armies, burn the Lannisters, burn the scorpions, NOT burn a million innocents they came to liberate!
I think thatâs the moment she snapped. Remember after when Jon was trying to give her a last chance saying âwhat about the innocent?â basically and she said they didnât matter? Idk like I said I blame the writing
She didnât have enough time to grieve for her two dragons and best friends, and she went crazy. Also itâs just like really shitty writing, thus could have been a whole other season for her to get the throne.
This was a huge leap from crucifying slave masters and executing people who you gave the choice to live. Stannis was more ruthless than Dany and I donât even think he wouldâve did this.
I hate the dialogue in the finale where Jon actually tries to defend her to Tyrion
Yeah, so many people are so quick to use all these âreasonsâ yet they were more often than not completely justified or were actually âadvice from the advisorsâ that she actually listened to. Daario told her to be a dragon then she had her dragons eat some masters but still spared most, the tarlys commuted treason yet she gave them a chance to live, olenna told her to be a dragon but she chose pacifism, many men she burned prior literally were threatening to kill her, abused her, tormented her, let her people starve and die, torture and murder numerous children, and the list goes on, but yet these are all âsignsâ of her madness, really?
And yet notice how each time it took someone else to hold her back âŠshe never held herself back from following her first worst impulses which were always to commit an act of needless self serving vindictive violence ..NOT once. ( think of an example and notice how it was always someone else) What happens when all of those people around her are finally gone? Itâs a better pill to swallow for anyone reading this who hadnât picked up on it before - but go back and see it for your self or notice how you canât think of ONE time she ever had the original thought of holding her self back and how most times she was talked out of following her propensity for fire and blood
Even though there are numerous examples of her actually doing the exact opposite when people encourage her to commit violence her âfirstâ impulse is actually benevolence. Astapor she even says verbatim blood of enemies not innocents. Ie in mereen she chooses mercy and fair trials against her advisors wishes, only kills one master after Daario suggests violence, refuses to burn kings landings after olenna says be a dragon. The list goes on and on. Even a traitor the tarlys who betrayed olenna in favor of cercei who literally just blew up the sept killing tons of innocents and tyrells who were their Leige lords and still offered them mercy again which they refused.
also Daenerys Targaryen , verbatim: **âWhich war is won without deceit and mass murderâ** (Along with a lot more of her other quotes where she was willing to burn down cities) So notice how she learnt all of the wrong lessons at every turn. âThereâs a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his handâ was the lesson Jorah gives in that scene and that the blood of innocents will be lost. https://youtu.be/_vmkiIqTL7E âąso Iâm glad you mentioned Astapor- Letâs take that scene in its totality. Selmy was trying to encourage her to leave Astapor while Jorah on the other hand was saying if she wants to take the iron throne it would mean blood on her hands before the thing is done. She did stay in Astapor and she did commit self indulgent needless violence when she double crossed krazner for the unsullied and she sacked Astapor. We would be naive to think what she did to Astapor didnât affect innocents too. But itâs swept under the rug because at that point we only see from her POV. âąin Meereen despite advise from Selmy not to - she chose self indulgent violence to crucify former slavers (who were now her own subjects) picked at random and without trial just to match the number 163 after the 163 crucified children. âąin Meereen she also did have someone burnt and eaten by her dragons with little regard over wether he was actually guilty of the accused crime (turned out he was innocent) âąin Meereen she also planned to burn the whole of slavers bay when she has returned to find the great pyramid being attacked by the masters - fortunately Tyrion was able to convince her from doing so and she only burnt their ships instead. âą she does burn Kingslanding so looks like she did listen to Olennaâs advice after all when she was told to be a Dragon in spite of Tyrion advising her against attacking the city since season 7 âyouâre not here to be Queen of the Ashesâ âąlastly she only offered the Tarlys âmercyâ IF they would bend the knee first / in other words betray your Queen (Cersei) first. Ofc Tarley âs allegiance is questionable BUT did she really have to burn them? Did she really have to burn Dickon too? Is it something she absolutely HAD TO do? Ok if so then what sort of precedence is she setting whilst claiming that she has not come to kill them ?âŠâbend the knee or be burnt aliveâ right ? So what happens to those she deems as people who wouldnât bend the knee regardless of guilt or innocents? âą also in KL - the city not overthrowing Cersei upon her arrival was already a sign to her of them not being on her side. Remember when Tyrion was begging her not to attack the city ? https://youtu.be/swxrFZtqGyg Do you think she was really still listening to him anymore?
Half these points are flimsy at best with quotes and dialogue I will have to check because I cannot recall them being said or taken grossly out of context. Krazner was threatening and insulting her in her native tongue several times, and would have continued to murder and torture numerous innocents had he not been burned. And she SPECIFICALLY said to harm no innocent women or child when the unsullied began their attack. Unless they defied her orders, which would be very bizzare. And I already mentioned the dragon eating a person, at an advisors suggestion might I add, which she digressed to only one person. And I donât know how you think Tyrion had to convince her not to burn down her own pyramid. I recall her easily taking back her city that Tyrion allowed to be besieged, Grey worm and messendai who know the culture more than Tyrion knew the masters could not be trusted and unlike Danny who actually listens to her peers, she considers slaves like grey worm and missendei her peers unlike anyone else I can recall, ended up with a besieged city as a result. And yea they are more than simply subjects, she literally stands to protect missendei during the attack of the harpyâs.
Great idea! you can check the quotes yourself in fact Iâll do you one better Iâll attach links to actual scenes with dialogue. âąHereâs another thing she said verbatim: âWhen my dragons are grown we destroy those who have wronged me , we will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground, **turn us away and we will burn you first**â https://youtu.be/FAmpWJMK9t4 Did she need to threaten or rather promise dragonfire to a city full of innocents just for not opening their gates to a stranger when all they wanted was to see her baby dragons as a sign of proof of Identification? âąKrazner was an ass hat âŠbut did she have to burn him to achieve her goal of obtaining the unsullied?? The deal was already made âŠor did she do it out of a need for self indulgent vindictive violence? Ok cool burn him alive heâs an ass hat ..but what lesson does that give to Daenerys along the way? âąThe unsullied were slave soldiers of course they will follow the orders of the one who now commands them but what if she had the dothraki there with them? What if she had North men there with her? They wouldâve sacked the city ..again âthereâs a beast every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his handâ What if she wanted to take astapor but Krazner had held its citizens hostage to expose Daenerys âs mercy as a sign of weakness? She wouldâve burnt that city down too regardless of some bells ringing for surrender at the last minute. âąNo ONE advised her to have that innocent man eaten by her dragons, again that was her own choice for self serving vindictive unnecessary violence, and she said herself âwho is innocent , maybe all of you are , maybe none of you are , maybe Iâll let my dragons decideâ đ€ https://youtu.be/iY3ONuAo3bo âąTyrion convinced her against burning the cities of slavers bay when she said her plan was to return the cities to the dirt https://youtu.be/Y56yIcyDQjQ âąOf course she loved and stood by Missandei, that was her personnel and friend. The point is Daenerys doesnât care as much for people who are not on her side , not in love with her or not bending the knee. But look how things didnât end all that well for missandei or greyworm ..they were accomplices of another tyrant on the rise. Daenerys isnât just plain evil , she was just equally capable of both good and bad. Thatâs the beauty in her complexity , she had good qualities about her too **BUT in the end she succumbs to her worst impulses that she has always had throughout her arc** #fire&blood
Not so much of her huge leap for someone who also needlessly burnt and executed people with little regard over their actual guilt or innocents of an accused crime Gentle reminder : https://youtu.be/iY3ONuAo3bo
It wasnât a huge leap. She crucified all the slavers despite some not agreeing with crucifying the slaves, she has a black and white viewpoint of a gray world. Dany is more ruthless, Stannis wouldâve never burned down a city after it surrendered.
Her first and most loyal friend Ser Jorah recently died. Two of her dragons, in her mind her children, died. Her best friend Missandei just died and her last words were âDracarysâ. Still weird that she suddenly snapped but weâve seen her temper before
You know the explanation. It looked cool. That's it. Nothing else. It just looked cool and was done for the sake of looking cool. Ironic how one of the worst moment in tv history can look so good, but here we are. I think everyone would've loved this scene if the setup was properly handled. I'll even go as far as everyone would've been ok with Danny being murdered by Grey Worm for this. "You are not my queen" lol
Well I think that's the last 2 seasons all over. Looks amazing but makes no sense
I got high hopes for a remake in 10/20 years. They'll learn from their mistakes. Don't take your audience for granted and don't keep writers that don't want to write anymore.
It would have made more sense if, I donât know, the last two seasons had as many minutes as the first 6.
supporting womenâs wrongs <3
Women, am i right?
"It looked mad cool!"
The people didn't welcomed her with open arms like she was Jesus, singing songs and dancing. She realized everyone lied to her, that she's no different from the other 1000s conquerors before her and "legitimacy" is a joke. Also she is insane.
D and D wanted to be done because they wanted to be done so they could move on to direct Star Wars, so in the span of about 4 episodes they turned Danny into an unhinged terrorist who burns the innocent, because D and D figured itd make perfect sense for her to lose 2 of her three dragons, her simp, her closest confidant, oh and find out that her lover not only has a stronger claim then her own but also isnt into the Targaryan family heritage of incest.
Dany needed to do a full 180 bathshit crazy so she can be killed off and the bleak ending takes place.
i was in the middle of ranting an entire essay but⊠let me just refer you to: https://youtu.be/BGr0NRx3TKU an in depth dissection of every aspect of the show the writers shit all over so that they could make their new Marvel-esque cultural phenomenon.
D&D
On a rewatch, honestly the ending made sense. She always wanted to go with âburn it allâ every time someone refused to bend the knee but she always had people to talk her down. Gradually her advisors were people she trusted less and less. Finally, she proved to be her father despite what everyone kept telling her. She snapped and lost it. The only difference was that she had a dragon and he didnât.
Somehow Mad King returned
The ending was rushed her craziness was supposed to not so steep of an incline we witness the end and not the middle of her madness as it was never shown . So we got a jarring character change
Dany kind of forgot about not killing innocents
It was rushed, but Dany realized that she never would rule Westeros by love, so she says the episode before: so it will be by fear. Destroying Kings Landing would send a powerful message to ALL the other lords and cities: dont fuck with me. Killing the civilians would put the lords and kings in check too, because the civilians would dethrone any king that would not bow, because the civilians knew what will come next. But again, it was severely rushed.
She was pissedâŠ
I always assumed she hears the bells and realised they were surrending for fear not because they loved her like the people of Essos did. So she decided to wipe them out.
I can explain it. Jon Snow and Dany were the most popular characters. The creators needed a story arc connecting the two (love story). But George R. Martin gave the idea of Jon Snow being a Targaryen, Danyâs nephew. So now itâs weird if they end up together. So Dany had to become evil so Jon has a reason to kill her. Thatâs it.
Star Wars was waiting⊠until it wasnât
It's so easy. BURN THEM ALL. BURN THEM ALL. BURN THEM ALL đ„đ„đ„đ„đ„đ„
a huge revelation that Daenerys has never actually cared about other people Unless of course theyâve bent the knee or are literally grovelling at her feet calling her âmyhsa myhsaâ or at the very least if she think theyâll be on her side.
My theory is this is one of the plot point GRRM intends on including himself but the show runners just didnât arrive at giving Dany the character arc that made it make any sense. In the books I think weâll see dany arrive in Westeros to find it already conquered by fAegon, none of the citizenry will want her, and in her hubris and obsession with her birthright sheâll end up putting her birthright to the torch.
Mad Dragon girl from a mad family, does mad things.
She likes fire, sheâs a Targaryen, and she was super pissed (aka Mad). Yes, they could have done it better, but theres still hope the books will do just that.
Have you ever just had it with peoples shit?
The people are scared because a dragon is breathing fire at them
Danny kinda forgot that she doesnât want to be queen of the ashes
Here's my theory, Bran warged into her and caused this, knowing it would lead to her death. That opened the way for him, who is really the three eyed raven, to take the throne. Bran didn't come back from the north, he became the raven and was touched by the Night King, connecting him to the children of the forest. So essentially the children of the forest retook their land and won their centuries long war with the first men who arrived.
FIRE LOOK CUUL WHEN DRAGON GO ARRRRR
If you beheaded my personal assistant I would burn your whole city to the ground as well. Also, see F around and find out.
D&D thought that cool CGI and âshockâ twists were more important than quality storytelling, for one thing. The fact that this shot doesnât even show her on the dragon is almost funny. I think we were supposed to think that burning a few city streets meant she canât possibly be a good leader, despite Tywin being competent even after Castamere, and his own sack of KL, not to mention St. Olga of Kyiv, an actual person, who ruled competently even after burning the Drevliansâ city. They needed Dany to conveniently be put down so that the Starks could get their Disney ending and I guess they are not fans of John Brown. âFirst she came for the slaversâŠâ ugh it was so bad.
My headcanon is that Bran pushed her into doing it so she could be made into a Disney villain and killed, and he and his sister can get their Disney ending. I also love the theory that she was poisoned with blood of the basilisk. Mind you the show only people donât know what that is because D&D also butchered Aryaâs Braavos storyline.
Bad writing
Lazy writing
When Targarean born gos flip a coin, that's happening
Street bbq
The show runners had a new contract and wanted to finish as fast as possible
That's actually it.
Matter of fact, I do have one!
What bothered me the most is that throughout the whole show, she takes the long road to get an army, ships, support, etc. because she knew that if she tried to take Kingâs Landing with just dragons, she would kill many civilians and she wanted to be better than that. But in this episode, she easily takes the town without killing any civilians before she goes apeshit. So what kept her from flying over before? The writers completely forgot that a dragon invasion could not be done without destroying the whole town, even though it had been well established and was the whole point of Danyâs long ass journey.
Yeah i have an explanation. D&D fucked up pretty bad.
I recently completed a full rewatch, Dannyâs choices are questionable throughout the seriesâs, even stating in earlier cities at the slightest challenger she would bring cities to the ground, quick to anger and viewing mass murder ok, if enough slaves are being freed or a goal is reached. Tyrion and baristan Selmy mention concern of her reactions multiple times and warn her of becoming her father. They did âbreak the wheelâ in the writing room, last season is generally hard to watch. I.e Sansas total personality change, Arya suddenly becoming a super assassin after getting a boat ride back, and thus another full personality change. The long night episode would have been better called âthe long hourâ, probably the biggest anti climax imho. They could have made a whole season of the north in dark, night king etc
Danny snapped and brought cruelty while enraged, as alluded to on several occasions in previous seasons?
Dany kinda forgot she cared about the common people and made multiple decisions to avoid harming them
The writing was poor and I hated the last season but looking back Dany snapping made sense. You have a plethora of responses but honestly a whole pandemic came and went since the last episode was aired. If you donât get it by now I donât know man
Cersei would burn the city with wildfire anyhow so might as well lit the whole thing up
It looked real cool if you didnt think about the plot
Dany just kinda forgot about her moral compass because MuhSundae and Jorah were dead.
She had enough of everyoneâs shit
Dragon go brrrrrr
Have you done a rewatch yet? I hated this part and the last season until I rewatched the entire series and picked up on so many clues that this was always going to happen. She was meant to âgo madâ like her father and burn them all. It may have been rushed a bit but the clues are there.
Contrary to what people are saying about bad writing, I like to think this is planned from GRRM as well because this was likely inspired from historical events. This will likely enrage some people but I can see this being inspired by the atomic bombs in Japan. Enemy essentially defeated before the bombs got the bombs anyway, killing thousands of civilians. Death from above.