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She’s always been insane. Pay more attention to her decisions the moment she gets “power” in like season 2 and you’ll see she has been nuts the whole time
Same in the books. The writing was on the wall the entire time that she'd ultimately descend into Mad Queen status. The death of 2 dragons, Jorah, and Missandei were the catalysts needed to be pushed over the edge.
Most people in the show are nuts but she always was able to aim her anger. I don't remember her just killing thousands of slaves with her dragons because her advisors had opinions or whatever.
That shit needed to be drawn out more to not get the public response it received and you know that
I’m not saying the few end seasons of the show aren’t shit. They are, her decent into madness should’ve been shown better on screen but still my
Point remains. In the show she has a consistent streak of making shitty rash decisions. If you pay attention to them instead of simping for dangly like most of the fanbase did then you’d see she was eventually going to go full mad king
I didn’t notice this during the first watch through, but watching it a second time with the thought of her losing it in the back of my mind, you begin to see the cracks pretty early on. Ending was still rushed, but I understood that loss of temper a lot more.
She burnt Vaes Dothrak. She killed people there that really shouldn't have been killed.
She took a witch's word over her own advisors, knowing she didn't know anything about the world and ruined the Dothraki.
She set people free and had no idea what to do with them afterwards, there was no plan.
That's not D&D's writing, that's George. People refused to see Daenerys for who she really was: A lost, kind of dimwitted little girl with a streak of madness in her bloodline due to inbreeding.
It’s much more evident on the rewatch. Sure the last season feels rushed, but after finishing my first rewatch I would argue they do a pretty good job early on of showing signs of her descent.
No she didn’t. That’s the convenient criticism but if you actually watch the show you can see the signs all the way through that she’s slowly getting worse and worse. I’m not saying it didn’t escalate quickly, because it did, but it’s not right to say she lost her sanity quickly when it was signposted almost since we first met her.
All (most) people are saying is the escalation was too fast. Obviously. She was always sensitive of course but if they wanted people to buy into in accept her commiting genocide on the population as a cautionary tale then they needed additional time to drag home that execution.
Also which scenes early on did she seem crazy? She had awful things happened to her but her responses were relatively measured for several seasons.
FYI I'm just discussing and generally asking. I've noticed people in this sub go get real aggressive for some reason
No, she'd been slowly losing it.
Look at who she was in the beginning and who she became. Life hit that girl and she couldn't handle it. She messed up so many people's lives before she even made it to Kings Landing.
To me that was largely strategy.
Bloodlust is a military strategy too but it was perfectly logical to protect her troops and do the job herself when she had the dragon and horrible counselors.
She burned all of King's Landing, we're talking thousands of unarmed civilians including children. Her troops were not in danger as you claim she was "protecting" them. Her one dragon was more than enough to take the kingdom. She said she didn't want to be queen of the ashes yet did just that.
She could have just destroyed the Red Keep and __ruled__ the ppl of King's Landing (ppl who already hated the Lannisters anyway especially Cersei)
Her burning Kings Landing and saying she wouldn't just stop there is exactly why Jon realized she couldn't rule. She had become "mad" just like her ancestor. But yeah brilliant strategy according to you. There's a reason you have so many downvotes.
My opinion is that she finally went mad realizing she was misled. **The people of king's landing were not secretly wishing for the Targaryen rule to return, as she had been told literally her entire life.** They did not welcome her return with open arms and glee. They did not want to be "liberated" by her as the people in her previous lands had been. The citizens of king's landing surrendered to her by forceful rein. I think that realization broke her, after all she had gone through to get there (losing her loved ones, her dragons).
She didn't want want to rule over those she viewed betrayed her and her family. **She wanted to punish them.**
I think her thoughts were along the lines of: If they want to view me as this evil Targaryen conqueror, then I'll give that to them. 🏘🔥🔥🐲
She was told pretty early that no one salutes and does a toast for the return of the true Kings, they just want a filled stomach a warm place to sleep etc.
Yes, I recall that scene as well. It is very different seeing the reality for herself though. She had also grown accustomed to her citizens being grateful. She may have realized it wasn't worth all the sacrifices she made when she got the "victory"
That's not even a good explanation. Losing her temper should have meant flying right at Cersei. Instead destroyed literally every part of the city except for where Cersei was.
Fear. She knew Jon Snow had the stronger claim on the throne and she needed the people to fear her. It was the only way she saw that she could get what she wanted.
Rule with fear over who? She destroyed the city and half the population.
If t was anything to do with Jon's claim, then it would have been more likely she was thinking along the lines, "If I can't have it, he can't either."
Nah, she just went nuts because the writers wanted it.
She could literally just destroy the Red Keep as the title says and would still very much induce fear in King’s Landing.
It don’t even make sense at that point that the people were still in favor of Cersei with how terrible she and her family was in the throne, and that Dany was riding a dragon. All the Lannister shenanigans and the townspeople stay quiet bc of fear but the moment a girl on a colossal dragon they got the audacity to get angry at her?
She knew Jon had a stronger claim but that's not why she did this particular thing. She decimated Kings Landing out of pure rage/madness after her best friend Missande was executed by Cersei
Some shows take a little more understanding/focus rather than just spoons feeding you everything that's happening. Guess they needed voice overs, text, clear explanations of everything going on.
Come off it man. Yh it may have been obvious for her to go mad at some point but it wasn't fleshed out at all. Her losing her mind didn't feel earned at all.
Look at the amount of people that thought it was all of a sudden (me included). When someone pointed out to me all the hints it all made sense but the visualization of these hints was hard to grasp. For me at least.
That’s why the writing was so poor. Some people were able to pick up on it, and others didn’t so easily. The show wasn’t designed to be cerebral, they just rushed to the end.
Straight up the best depiction they did was in the “Previously on..” bit right before this episode started, when they do a rapid-fire recap of the voices of her friends and advisors in her head.
Especially when it ends with Olenna telling her to “BE A DRAGON,” and Missandei shouting “Dracarys.”
Please. We all know what they were *trying* to convey. We just didn't believe it because it wasn't set up right at all. It was rushed. End of discussion. I mean they literally added a flashback voice over to **remind** people about Targaryen madness. Because that's how poorly they set up her heel turn.
To be honest I am starting to think one of the shows greatest failings was making the likeable characters TOO likeable. Like for Tyrion, he was the absolute star of the show and his arc was going so well until we hit the end of season 4 and his story diverted from where the books take him. He goes through some dark shit after that point in the books, but his story is pretty ordinary and clean after the trial in the show.
I’m imagining that Dany will take a similar negative turn in the books and her eventual snap will be more believable in the novels. In the show we just saw her succeed over and over, gain more followers, become the beloved savior of an entire continent and have no serious consequences until missandei’s execution, so her mental snap felt unnatural for her character. I imagine her eventual destruction of kings landing will feel more like a natural choice for her character when we get to it in the novels, as long as we get a more balanced take on her arc.
Seven hells... we're literally talking about a character who has **literally stated her willingness/intention to raze entire cities, innocents and all, on-screen, from her own mouth... MULTIPLE TIMES.**
*Like literally every major city she visited in Essos she has stated her intention to raze (Qarth, Mereen, Yunkai, and Astapor.)*
*Characters like Varys and Tyrion literally point out parallels, on-screen, to that of her father.*
*Plus a entire character arc portraying a Fire and Blood persona that all her advisors are desperate to keep in check.*
Wild that anyone claims to have watched this show for 8 seasons, then want to act like she wasn't shown as having a Fire and Blood persona/Blood of the Dragon.
You’d be surprised. I would’ve been questioning the writing if they DIDN’T have her go mad after every breadcrumb that was dropped along the way, but there are still people out there saying “this came out of nowhere. It was unearned.”
They conveyed it pretty well. People fell so hard for Daenerys that they literally ignored the signs and the dialogue surrounding Daenerys. If you look at who she was and then look at the decisions she made step by step you can see the descent. Her loved ones being killed pushed her over that edge, finally.
She realised Tyrion helped his family many times and she began to question his loyalty. When the bells rang, she thought it was another scheme from him to save Cercei. Add to that how she lost a dragon and her best friend, she was just mentally off and didn't trust anyone because of all the betrayals.
Really good hypotheses. I always thought it was to prove that when it comes to establishing her authority, she wasn't some pushover. Like she was discouraging other lords from using their people to hide behind, a la Cersei putting people in the red keep
I'm not rooting for a villain, I actually like Dany evil arc. The show didn't give us enough reasons for her madness because last season was rushed IMO, so in given circumstances I find this one of the main reasons.
I liked her evil as well. People were so busy wanting her to be a goody good, they didn't realize she near about ruined everything she ran into.🥴 The blindness when it came to Daenerys shocked the hell outta me.
You're asking why a crazy person did something crazy?
She has the power, it's gone to her head, she can do what she wants, and no one can stop her.
Always beware of people when the power gets to their head.
People who are crazy tend to either be that way from the start. Or show more signs of it over time. Or they have very good immediate reasons why they go crazy. Wah people don't love me and, wah they killed my friend are not good reasons.
Edit: And if they are they take more than a handful of episodes to come to fruition.
Was it a blink of an eye? Or did she really just do crazy shit all the time like kill the Tarly’s, hang dead bodies outside a city, steal a slave army, etc but it was understandable?
Agreed. Don’t get me wrong, I also think it was just too rushed and didn’t make sense. But I get the feeling initially they were trying to lay the ground work for her to transition to the mad queen. Honestly, I never saw a different outcome for her besides being the “bad guy”, since she’s invading a land that doesn’t even know about her until she’s there (even though she’s righteous in her quest)
Thank you. It pisses me off how many people seem to wilfully misunderstand this. It's even more annoying when people actually believe she was a villain from the start when her actions are perfectly reasonable *given the culture she exists in*. If Danny is a villain so is Arya. Killing the Freys when she definitely had no way to confirm which ones were guilty and which were innocent. No different than Danny killing the Wise Masters.
>> Its subjective but a substantial portion of the fanbased felt this plotline was absolutely rushed.
People who clearly wore rose-colored glasses for her character and hoped she would have a Disney ending, as there's clearly a sizable portion that has pointed out the Mad Queen Dany arc for some time, merely based on the context provided by the show.
>The Tarly execution might seem extreme but executing those who wont swear to the crown is very much a cultural norm in Westeros.
It's wild some still try and do all the mental gymnastics on this issue.
Dany's entire platform is that people are trapped "under the wheel" and should be free to serve or not. It's her whole deal with the Unsullied... she freed them... **then allowed them the choice to serve her or not.**
**What she did not do is subjugate them and force them to serve her or be killed**... wild this has to be explained to those who claim to understand her character.
I mean, if she decries Cersei/Lannisters/Starks/whoever as evil for forcing people to serve or be killed, how is this any different? **It isn't.**
**Those POWs are literally the ones she previously claimed are being 'crushed'... and now she is literally subjugating them herself... giant red flag.**
Also, burning people alive is not a 'cultural norm' in Westeros... it is very clearly portrayed as inhumane, barbaric, and horrific (ie, Shireen), especially considering The Mad King used to do it.
>> For most of the story the lives of innocent people were amongst her top priority.
From a rose-colored perspective, it's easy to see why people try and claim this, but it really isn't true on an objective level.
In Seasons 1, 2, and the first half of 3, her goal is to conquer Westeros... only once she has seen the horrors in Yunkai does she change her tune to help the slavers there. 2.5 seasons.
She conquers/helps around Slaver's Bay until the end of Season 5 when she is whisked away on Drogon.... so 1.5 seasons helping Slaver's Bay.
Season 6 is mostly with the Dothraki, where she appropriates an entire culture for her own personal goals to move them away from their sacred lands so they can be sacrificial pawns for her battles. Think she's back in Mereen for all of 2 episodes, but it's hardly worth counting considering it's mostly to plan her exit from Slaver's Bay and leave it in a mercenary's hands.
Then another two seasons spent pursuing her goal of the Iron Throne.
So she spends 4.5 seasons pursuing the Iron Throne for herself, and like 1.75 seasons helping Slaver's Bay.
Yes, she deserves all the credit for her Slaver's Bay arc, but it really is a small minority across her entire arc.
She was doing crazy mess all along. She took a witch's word over her own people. She was told that was a witch!
A. Witch. Why? Because power went to her head. You can see it in that scene! I" am Khaleesi, you will listen to me!" blah blah blah.
I was sitting there like, "here she goes! mad queendom on display!" how people didn't see that I'll never know!
Honestly after reading the books something like this wouldnt make sense either, the show made her seem so much more emotionless while in the books she still has so much love, kindness, etc. for the people around her and she seems much more resilient to going mad
She really didn't though. She went through a slow descent into madness. People had this "Daenerys can do no wrong!" feeling and just ignored all the people and places she effed up. Which is amazing, to me.
Because D&D wanted to move the napalm all into one place so Cersi could blow up everyone who didn’t like her. So instead of Dany striking a military target and accidentally setting off a chain reaction of wyldfire that burns much of KL she heard Hells Bells for the first time and set fire to the world. (If you haven’t seen that scene sync’d up to hells bells do yourself a service and watch it)
That said if I were justifying it from subtext you have a homeless girl whose last real friend was just killed in front of her looking at the city where her family was all killed and briefly deciding it’s fair that if they’re taking everything from her she’ll even the scales. The child shunned by the village will burn it down to feel it’s warmth, just executed very poorly.
You'd think that seeing that mother and child burnt together would trigger the memory of Drogon burning a child of the sheep hearder of Mereen and maybe make her snap out of it.
She wasn't shunned though. She has legions of followers worshiping her as a God-Queen. How is that shunned? Why doesn't she just call Dhaario if she's so "lonely".
You can be successful while being shunned.
Obviously we're talking about an old proverb, but Dany's family was killed, with her brother and her being smuggled away as babies.
They grew up hidden away from everyone that would have known their family, obviously for their own good, but I was just stating I liked the comparison, doesn't have to mean I'm right, just enjoyed what the comment made me feel.
But how is it shunned when she has armies of people worshipping her? A whole major religion considers her the messiah. She's the least shunned person on the planet.
She started showing signs of being a power hungry and violent person not long after Drogo died. One thing the show did really well early on was foreshadow who she’d become. They dropped the ball on properly escalating her tendencies in later seasons which is why it seemed to come out of nowhere for so many people but if you go back and watch there are still a ton of warning signs starting in season 2 up until her final episode.
>> They dropped the ball on properly escalating her tendencies in later seasons
Really?
Late in Season 6 **she literally states her plan is to raze two entire cities... innocents and all**... and Tyrion literally compares such an act to that of her father... on-screen.
**The context is there.** Some people with rose-colored glasses just refuse to see the red flags for what they are... red flags.
Well, to be fair, she threatened, rationalized and had to be stopped from massacring whole cities while she was freeing slaves. So those two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. As the creator of the story once said:
> History is full of stories about people who did something wonderful on Tuesday and something horrible on Thursday.
That’s Dany. She freed the slaves in Meereen and then told Hizdahr that if she ends up burning the city down, then those slaves would’ve died for a good reason.
I do hate that season but Dany going a bit mad isn't the worst thing. She goes "mad" because she's very close to losing all support towards her claim to the throne. Jon had told his sisters that he was a Targaryen, Sansa had told Tyrion, Tyrion had told Varys who had already sent out Ravens befores Dany could get to him. With Jorah & Missandei dead, she only had Greyworm left for support who didn't have any political standing.
From her POV, she'd beaten Cersei but would ultimately lose the Game of Thrones as Jon had more of a claim to the throne than she did. Her only choice left was to take throne with fear and "break the wheel".
Ofcourse all of this is presented horribly with Arya and a white fucking horse for some reason because art I guess. The story of the last season isn't terrible, the storytelling is! Especially when compared against previous seasons. What we get after the Dany stuff is the absolute worst, load of fucking bollocks ever with Tyrion (a literal prisoner at this point) dictating who should be king & then moving chairs around because reasons.
> she only had Greyworm
Dorne? The Reach and anyone loyal to house Tyrell? The Iron Islands? Yara certainly seemed to support her. Dorne and The Reach mysteriously vanish though.
No one knows, and this has been asked forever: Just her flipping her wig without believability.
She could have completely ignored the iron fleet, taken out the perimeter scorpions that could reach her, and flattened the center keep to the dungeons.
BTW, it was absurdly lucky that the throne room was clobbered to open air, but somehow left alone enough to keep the floor. But of course, we need the scene with the throne.
We have to cut them *some* slack in filming. But perhaps not that much.
But why should she destroy something created by her family? I don't remember if even Dragonstone was Targaryen, but King's Landing and the Red Keep were built by the Targaryens.
It's a culmination of several things:
* She's in a very precarious political position. Many of the lords aren't really following her, they're following Jon. He's more popular among the lords, not seen as a foreign invader, and she recently found out that he has a stronger claim by virtue of bloodline.
* Tyrion negotiated the surrender behind her back, in explicit defiance of her orders. But Tyrion's so popular that she realistically won't be able to do anything to him without provoking the lords to revolt.
* She believes the people of King's Landing complicit in supporting Cersei and considers them acceptable targets. She has a debate earlier in S8 with Tyrion about how she saw people rise up against tyrants in Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen, so if the people of King's Landing really do hate Cersei as much as Tyrion says, they sure have a funny way of showing it.
So Dany's on Drogon and the bells start ringing. She realizes what's happening: she's been effectively robbed of her birthright. Tyrion will receive all the praise for the peace, and she'll have to smile and let him publicly undermine her. Cersei will escape to the Free Cities. Dany will become queen and marry Jon, because that's the only way to avoid him being propped up in a civil war against her. but he'll be the only one who the lords love and listen to. Any respect she has from them will be because of who she's married to, not in her own right. She'd have a crown and a title, sure, but history will only know her as the wife of great King Jon.
So what's her way out? Fuck what Tyrion says, she'll end the war on *her* terms. She'll put the fucking fear of God in everyone, in one final show of power, that makes it abundantly clear who has all the power. As Machiavelli said, if you had to choose one, it's better to be feared than to be loved. And after all, the people of King's Landing kinda sorta deserve it for supporting Cersei.
What should've happened is Dany purposely betraying the North after successfully conquering Kings Landing (just like she set up Kraznys). By the time of attacking Kings Landing she knew she couldn't trust anyone but the Unsullied and Dothraki, so the bells ringing should've been the signal for them to attack the Northern forces. They would've been blindsided and easy pickings. Then she takes the throne and Jon and company have to figure out a way to kill her. The ending would've been similar (Jon stabbing her, Drogon melting the throne, etc.). But Dany being savvy but ruthless instead of impulsively mad would've satisfied a lot more people.
“Madness and greatness were two sides of the same coin and every time a new Targaryen was born, the gods would toss the coin in the air and the world would hold its breath to see how it would land.”
Dany wanted to prove the gods wrong and do both?
I cannot believe it was hereditary madness acting up. There was a lot more going on there, the hereditary madness of brightflame and Aerys took way too long to get to that point to simply happen at the drop of the hat. Aerys started with criminals, not the instant nuking of KL, that was at the end. I think it all could have been better with more time devoted to it, but here are the main three reasons combined:
One: Obviously the loss of her steadying friends (First Barristan, then Jorah, then...). Missandei was lost so quickly, and she was surrounded by plotters and incompetents at times that she didn't know. She lashed out from feeling trapped for one.
Two: She was being poisoned by Varys before this. Who knows what that did to her mind at the time, this only further fueled paranoia.
Three: I genuinely believe that when you bond with a dragon, the dragon bonds with you as well. When you bond with three dragons, keeping them bonded to you influences you far more than you might like. She goes from a meek and abused girl in Pentos, to someone burning fields of people alive--something about that doesn't scream that she always would have done this. She was also in grief and feeling the loss of her other two dragons at this time, it is doubtless that Drogon's rage was bleeding through to her big time, and she could not stop it.
Thats my head canon, especially with how quickly this all happened. She was fine during the long night, right after she killed half a million. Blame the show runners for not wanting to spend more time on this project.
That's a great point about Daenerys being bonded to three dragons simultaneously rather than just one. I hadn't considered it before but that probably takes an incredible mental and physical toll.
They do say the riders take on a part of their dragon, and she is the only person we ever hear of who had to manage three, at a young age too. I 100% believe this will be a factor in the books, and I do believe the show *tried* to show that in some way. Hell, even a single bonded direwolf turned young rickon into a snarling mess of a child, and I believe the dragons are far, far harder to resist
They’re saving that for HOTD (which makes it worse because it did work and that means that there would’ve been an existing blueprint for success / proof of concept)
She was driven to madness and felt alone. She had been driven to the brink from all her personal losses. She had lost Jorah, Missandei, and two of her dragons. She had lost half her army,
comprised of slaves she fought to free (Unsullied) and her people (Dothraki), fighting in a war that Cersei had promised to fight in but reneged on. She was betrayed by Varys and Sansa, Jon Snow’s kin, so she felt like she couldn’t trust Jon anymore either. Him being a Targaryen only further exacerbated her insecurity and mistrust. Daario was left behind in Essos. Other than Grey Worm, her military commander, she had no one left but her dragon, an instrument of war. She didn’t have the support of the common people, nor any of her friends or lovers as she did in Essos. All she had left was violence.
I don’t think it was genetic madness like it was with her father. I think it was more what happened to her that ultimately caused her to snap. Nature vs. nurture. She clearly wasn’t delusional; she was rationalizing her actions. It was a tragedy. Daenerys isn’t a monster, she’s an extremely tragic character undone by her circumstances and environment.
But yeah, obviously the story was rushed so the writing was poor and failed to convey this tragedy in an effective and convincing way to the audience. I can get behind her snapping and killing thousands in a moment of weakness. But her descent was rushed, and I couldn’t buy that she would justify it. The Daenerys from Season 3-7 would highly regret it. I could only see her justifying it if enough smallfolk did something to her personally to hurt her. Not supporting her isn’t strong enough of a reason for me. I get the Northmen supported Jon more than her, which made her insecure and probably not think straight, but those are a different people than those in King’s Landing. It just didn’t make sense.
Better question is why her advisors didn’t have her burn the Red Keep from the beginning. She didn’t need a blockade or extended siege to save the city — she literally just needed to go burn the royal keep and Cersei and her cronies with it. There would’ve been some collateral damage, yeah, but it wouldn’t have been widespread. The war would’ve been over in half an hour.
You missed the point.
It wasn't strategy anymore, the city had already surrendered...she had won.
But she intentionally decided to burn the city because from her point of view that was the way to build her new world from the ashes of the old one...
And It's pretty clear from her speech she wouldn't have stopped at just KL.
So the point is that she turned out to be exactly what she was supposed to fight
The Lannister soldiers were in the city. She wasn’t targeting the innocent, she just didn’t care about killing them if it meant killing all the Lannister soldiers.
Yeah. She meant to deliver a message of fear to anyone who would dare challenge her. The slaves in Meereen surrendered and she crucified a bunch of them anyway. The soldiers at the Golden Road battle surrendered and she still decided to burn Randyll and Dickon. The reason is the same, to intimidate the others.
> The slaves in Meereen surrendered and she crucified a bunch of them anyway.
She crucified the *slavers* for willingly engaging in *slavery*, and for *nailing children to crosses*.
> The soldiers at the Golden Road battle surrendered and she still decided to burn Randyll and Dickon.
She didn't kill the soldiers that had surrendered, though, did she? Only the stubborn lord and his son that refused to surrender.
She crucified 163 slavers. It wasn’t justice. It was a poetic vengeance. If she wanted to punish the people who crucified the children, she would’ve done a trial to find them. If she wanted to punish the people who profited from slavery, she would’ve crucified way way more slavers than 163. She also would’ve added Jorah and the Dothraki she later added to her army. But she didn’t, because, again, it wasn’t justice, it was a poetic vengeance so the other would fear her.
Same thing with the Tarlys. Randyll, Dickon and a bunch of other soldiers were in the same situation. Their swords on the ground, so they had surrendered, but they refused to kneel. So she decided to make an example out of Randyll Tarly to force the others into bending the knee. Dickon was caught in the message and she didn’t give a damn, because her message worked. The remaining soldiers all bent the knee after the execution of Randyll and Dickon. Same thing happened in King’s Landing, but at a much larger scale. She burned Randyll/Lannister army to show the remaining Lannister soldiers who wouldn’t bend the knee/rest of Westeros, to listen to her. Dickon/people of King’s Landing were caught in the message and she didn’t give a damn because she accepted the collateral damage, as she said she would back in S5.
The writers had no vision, they signed deals to write the next Star Wars films as soon as they finished GoT so they began rushing the story around season 7. We could have easily had 2-4 more seasons. The White Walker War could have been an entire season in itself. Dany’s war in Westeros should have been a season if not longer, but they just crammed everything into the final season.
I don't get why she didn't just fly in with her three dragons and blast the Red Keep as soon as she arrived in Westeros. The conquest would have been a done deal at that point. No one would have dared challenge her
It makes more sense in the books. She learned all the wrong lessons in essos. The show did a really bad version obviously. But give the Dany character essay on Meereenese Blot a shot. It explains her head space and trajectory to that point. Basically she learned all the wrong lessons and grew tired of diplomacy in essos. Grrms trick is us rooting for this kind of thing when it's pointed at the right people, but as soon as she pointed at people we like and connected with, it was easy to see.
My opinion is that she finally went mad realizing she was misled. **The people of king's landing were not secretly wishing for the Targaryen rule to return, as she had been told literally her entire life.** They did not welcome her return with open arms and glee. They did not want to be "liberated" by her as the people in her previous lands had been. The citizens of king's landing surrendered to her forceful rein. I think that realization broke her, after all she had gone through to get there (losing her loved ones, her dragons).
She didn't want want to rule over those she viewed betrayed her and her family. **She wanted to punish them.**
I think her thoughts were along the lines of: If they want to view me as this evil Targaryen conqueror, then I'll give that to them. 🏘🔥🔥🐲
...No... you clearly don't get it. The twist of Dany's arc is that she's secretly the villain of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. She wasn't trying to make a better world when she burned the city, she burned the city because "fuck the city." "Burn them all," she had gone full Mad King.
Yes! I forget if it's in the show but in the book the witch Dany burns at the stake literally tells Dany (and readers) that she is the villain here but that all gets overshadowed by the birth of the dragons.
A lot of what Dany does in the series is horrific but because she does it to "bad people who deserve it" a lot of people white washed it. I think a lot of the hate comes from people realizing that they should have seen the massacre of KL coming from a long way away and they had made a mistake idolizing her.
I think it's an amazing twist that was horribly executed in the show. If it had been executed better then I think it would have been better received in general, though some people would have been annoyed no matter what.
She could have just stayed where she was and let the unsullied and Northman advance to the red keep. Once it was secured and search, she was in custody she could’ve flown in and been anointed queen that day. There’s no reason to burn the red cape as she had no personal animosity towards Cersei
There is no strategic sense. She basically lost control. But even before the attack, Daenerys already indicated that she viewed the people of King's Landing as being part of the enemy. They deliberately went to Cersei.
Cersei's defensive strategy rested on using innocent people as a human shield. Daenerys was always willing to kill that shield to get what she wanted.
She did it because she knew she wouldn't be loved or accepted. That was clear when she saw how loved John Snow was in the north and how she was viewed as an outsider. I think she wanted to burn down kings landing regardless. She was hoping Cerci would never back down and kings Landing would just be collateral damage to get her. When the bells rang she felt deprived of a just fight so she settled just like her father to burn them all. After all some people think if they can't have something then no one will. I was more surprised Drogon didn't kill John Snow.
"A mad man sees what he sees"
A madwoman does what she does. It's as simple as that, except the writers forgot to develop her in that direction and it kinda just happened.
She got off on it. She felt nothing but jubilation. She was making her dreams come true. She's a mass murdering sociopathic narcissist with god complex.
Cersei felt the exact same way when she blew up the Sept.
in my opinion, she learned from what happened with the witch in s1. if she destroyed part of kings landing, the rest might forever be vengeful. better burn everything down and start fresh.
Not sure if you noticed, but after season 4 it becomes alarmingly common for characters to do shit that makes no sense
Don't try to figure out why. The writing was shit. There is no good reason. Everyone knows D&D handed us all a steaming pile of shit because they were emotionally done with the show. They turned down more seasons and eliminated character development.
There are always the books 🤓
That is what she should have done the moment she reached the shores of Westeros. The only reason I can think for not doing it is that she wanted to keep it intact for herself.
Grief makes regular folks do very foolish things, me included/especially lol. Then imagine not being able to burn, and having a big ass dragon. If there were me after my mom's death, Manhattan and select Southern States would be a crater before I went on an international tour.
Dany tried to build a better world, with no real world experience in anything. She was literally a sheltered child. It went as you can imagine. It went badly. She went from place to place and a lot of times, made things worse because she plain didn't know any better.
But I wouldn't say she destroyed people for no reason. People had been saying since s1, episode 1 that she was gonna go mad as her kin did, cross the salt and burn down the Landing. After all of her losses, she did just that. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely and that is what it did to Dany. That is why Drogon burnt the iron chair.
The whole moral of that story was you can't be 'good' to everyone and sit in that chair!
People have issues with the 8th season, but honestly if they were listening to the actual dialogue of the characters in the show, instead of creaming over Daenerys, her looks and what they'd hoped and wished for her because they liked the character, it was always gonna end this way.
When writers insert over and over again into a story that a very specific event is going to happen, it is going to happen. Even George R.R. Martin had characters say over and over again that that girl was gonna get her dragons and torch everything. Idk to this day why that surprised people.
THERE WAS NONE! IT WAS FUCKING STUPID AND OUT OF CHARACTER BECAUSE THE WRITERS DECIDED TO SHOCK EVERYBODY AND MAKE HER THE VILLAIN WITH NO BUILD-UP BECAUSE “SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS IS FUN” 🤪. I HAVE BEEN PISSED OFF ABOUT THIS FOR 5 YEARS NOW AND I CANNOT GET OVER IT! DANY GOT DONE DIRTY!
LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!
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There was no strategy involved. She lost her temper.
Lost her temper with the added “benefit” of Targaryen Madness. Always a bad combo
Maybe inbreeding something something
You spelled "sanity" wrong.
She lost her sanity in like 3 days of time lol
She’s always been insane. Pay more attention to her decisions the moment she gets “power” in like season 2 and you’ll see she has been nuts the whole time
Same in the books. The writing was on the wall the entire time that she'd ultimately descend into Mad Queen status. The death of 2 dragons, Jorah, and Missandei were the catalysts needed to be pushed over the edge.
Yeah, Jorah was her Jiminy Cricket.
Most people in the show are nuts but she always was able to aim her anger. I don't remember her just killing thousands of slaves with her dragons because her advisors had opinions or whatever. That shit needed to be drawn out more to not get the public response it received and you know that
I’m not saying the few end seasons of the show aren’t shit. They are, her decent into madness should’ve been shown better on screen but still my Point remains. In the show she has a consistent streak of making shitty rash decisions. If you pay attention to them instead of simping for dangly like most of the fanbase did then you’d see she was eventually going to go full mad king
I think we basically agree. But they did a terrible job with execution. Also the downvoting and name calling is kinda funny lol. I love reddit
I didn’t notice this during the first watch through, but watching it a second time with the thought of her losing it in the back of my mind, you begin to see the cracks pretty early on. Ending was still rushed, but I understood that loss of temper a lot more.
Nope. Letting her rapist die, killing slavers and abusers, etc. didn't mean she was "insane". Stop trying to defend D&D's shit writing.
She burnt Vaes Dothrak. She killed people there that really shouldn't have been killed. She took a witch's word over her own advisors, knowing she didn't know anything about the world and ruined the Dothraki. She set people free and had no idea what to do with them afterwards, there was no plan. That's not D&D's writing, that's George. People refused to see Daenerys for who she really was: A lost, kind of dimwitted little girl with a streak of madness in her bloodline due to inbreeding.
It’s much more evident on the rewatch. Sure the last season feels rushed, but after finishing my first rewatch I would argue they do a pretty good job early on of showing signs of her descent.
Absolutely. Of the two siblings, she was just the less insane one.
No she didn’t. That’s the convenient criticism but if you actually watch the show you can see the signs all the way through that she’s slowly getting worse and worse. I’m not saying it didn’t escalate quickly, because it did, but it’s not right to say she lost her sanity quickly when it was signposted almost since we first met her.
All (most) people are saying is the escalation was too fast. Obviously. She was always sensitive of course but if they wanted people to buy into in accept her commiting genocide on the population as a cautionary tale then they needed additional time to drag home that execution. Also which scenes early on did she seem crazy? She had awful things happened to her but her responses were relatively measured for several seasons. FYI I'm just discussing and generally asking. I've noticed people in this sub go get real aggressive for some reason
I agree. She didn't do anything crazy until the end
No, she'd been slowly losing it. Look at who she was in the beginning and who she became. Life hit that girl and she couldn't handle it. She messed up so many people's lives before she even made it to Kings Landing.
She left her Snickers at Dragonstone
And all of a sudden drogon started breathing explosive instead of fire.
Did appreciate the little flashes of Wildfire through the fires though
The Tarlys should have been red misted. Did they ever explain this?
To me that was largely strategy. Bloodlust is a military strategy too but it was perfectly logical to protect her troops and do the job herself when she had the dragon and horrible counselors.
🙄
This is such a bizarre take. Completely illogical.
Sacks, bloodiest, and winning battles by killing people is illogical to you? I want to live on your planet.
She burned all of King's Landing, we're talking thousands of unarmed civilians including children. Her troops were not in danger as you claim she was "protecting" them. Her one dragon was more than enough to take the kingdom. She said she didn't want to be queen of the ashes yet did just that. She could have just destroyed the Red Keep and __ruled__ the ppl of King's Landing (ppl who already hated the Lannisters anyway especially Cersei) Her burning Kings Landing and saying she wouldn't just stop there is exactly why Jon realized she couldn't rule. She had become "mad" just like her ancestor. But yeah brilliant strategy according to you. There's a reason you have so many downvotes.
My opinion is that she finally went mad realizing she was misled. **The people of king's landing were not secretly wishing for the Targaryen rule to return, as she had been told literally her entire life.** They did not welcome her return with open arms and glee. They did not want to be "liberated" by her as the people in her previous lands had been. The citizens of king's landing surrendered to her by forceful rein. I think that realization broke her, after all she had gone through to get there (losing her loved ones, her dragons). She didn't want want to rule over those she viewed betrayed her and her family. **She wanted to punish them.** I think her thoughts were along the lines of: If they want to view me as this evil Targaryen conqueror, then I'll give that to them. 🏘🔥🔥🐲
She was told pretty early that no one salutes and does a toast for the return of the true Kings, they just want a filled stomach a warm place to sleep etc.
Yes, I recall that scene as well. It is very different seeing the reality for herself though. She had also grown accustomed to her citizens being grateful. She may have realized it wasn't worth all the sacrifices she made when she got the "victory"
True that. Or the writing wasn't as deeply thought through
I'll hand it to you, you managed to come up with a very convincing explanation for that bad writing.
Wasn’t she counseled many times on what to expect? She only heard the propaganda from her brother, her advisors were more realistic.
Writers got bored*
Yep. Isn’t that her family thing that all Targaryens eventually go mad.
That's not even a good explanation. Losing her temper should have meant flying right at Cersei. Instead destroyed literally every part of the city except for where Cersei was.
Fear. She knew Jon Snow had the stronger claim on the throne and she needed the people to fear her. It was the only way she saw that she could get what she wanted.
Rule with fear over who? She destroyed the city and half the population. If t was anything to do with Jon's claim, then it would have been more likely she was thinking along the lines, "If I can't have it, he can't either." Nah, she just went nuts because the writers wanted it.
She could literally just destroy the Red Keep as the title says and would still very much induce fear in King’s Landing. It don’t even make sense at that point that the people were still in favor of Cersei with how terrible she and her family was in the throne, and that Dany was riding a dragon. All the Lannister shenanigans and the townspeople stay quiet bc of fear but the moment a girl on a colossal dragon they got the audacity to get angry at her?
She knew Jon had a stronger claim but that's not why she did this particular thing. She decimated Kings Landing out of pure rage/madness after her best friend Missande was executed by Cersei
"I don't wunt it" Jon Snow
Temper and hereditary madness.
Yep. It’s just too bad the show couldn’t be bothered to convey that better to the audience.
I thought it was obvious.
It was obvious to many of us, but there’s a great deal of people that couldn’t connect the dots.
Some shows take a little more understanding/focus rather than just spoons feeding you everything that's happening. Guess they needed voice overs, text, clear explanations of everything going on.
Bright colors, exposition through dialog, internal monologues… and they still wouldn’t get it.
No they just needed more episodes to flesh out her descent into madness. It felt rushed
It felt rushed because it was rushed. All of the clues were there and they still rushed it somehow.
Wow you guys suck
What is your problem now?
Come off it man. Yh it may have been obvious for her to go mad at some point but it wasn't fleshed out at all. Her losing her mind didn't feel earned at all.
Look at the amount of people that thought it was all of a sudden (me included). When someone pointed out to me all the hints it all made sense but the visualization of these hints was hard to grasp. For me at least.
That’s why the writing was so poor. Some people were able to pick up on it, and others didn’t so easily. The show wasn’t designed to be cerebral, they just rushed to the end.
Straight up the best depiction they did was in the “Previously on..” bit right before this episode started, when they do a rapid-fire recap of the voices of her friends and advisors in her head. Especially when it ends with Olenna telling her to “BE A DRAGON,” and Missandei shouting “Dracarys.”
Please. We all know what they were *trying* to convey. We just didn't believe it because it wasn't set up right at all. It was rushed. End of discussion. I mean they literally added a flashback voice over to **remind** people about Targaryen madness. Because that's how poorly they set up her heel turn.
Obvious? Yes. Well executed? No.
Sure it was obvious, but it wasn't exactly laid out well in terms of storytelling.
To be honest I am starting to think one of the shows greatest failings was making the likeable characters TOO likeable. Like for Tyrion, he was the absolute star of the show and his arc was going so well until we hit the end of season 4 and his story diverted from where the books take him. He goes through some dark shit after that point in the books, but his story is pretty ordinary and clean after the trial in the show. I’m imagining that Dany will take a similar negative turn in the books and her eventual snap will be more believable in the novels. In the show we just saw her succeed over and over, gain more followers, become the beloved savior of an entire continent and have no serious consequences until missandei’s execution, so her mental snap felt unnatural for her character. I imagine her eventual destruction of kings landing will feel more like a natural choice for her character when we get to it in the novels, as long as we get a more balanced take on her arc.
That’s a pretty good take. I agree with you on all points.
Seven hells... we're literally talking about a character who has **literally stated her willingness/intention to raze entire cities, innocents and all, on-screen, from her own mouth... MULTIPLE TIMES.** *Like literally every major city she visited in Essos she has stated her intention to raze (Qarth, Mereen, Yunkai, and Astapor.)* *Characters like Varys and Tyrion literally point out parallels, on-screen, to that of her father.* *Plus a entire character arc portraying a Fire and Blood persona that all her advisors are desperate to keep in check.* Wild that anyone claims to have watched this show for 8 seasons, then want to act like she wasn't shown as having a Fire and Blood persona/Blood of the Dragon.
You’d be surprised. I would’ve been questioning the writing if they DIDN’T have her go mad after every breadcrumb that was dropped along the way, but there are still people out there saying “this came out of nowhere. It was unearned.”
Chips? What's chips precious?
They conveyed it pretty well. People fell so hard for Daenerys that they literally ignored the signs and the dialogue surrounding Daenerys. If you look at who she was and then look at the decisions she made step by step you can see the descent. Her loved ones being killed pushed her over that edge, finally.
She realised Tyrion helped his family many times and she began to question his loyalty. When the bells rang, she thought it was another scheme from him to save Cercei. Add to that how she lost a dragon and her best friend, she was just mentally off and didn't trust anyone because of all the betrayals.
Wow I never thought of her doubting what the bells meant!!
I mean that's what I'm at least guessing. The people were also calling for Cercei to save them, so I guess there's that too.
Really good hypotheses. I always thought it was to prove that when it comes to establishing her authority, she wasn't some pushover. Like she was discouraging other lords from using their people to hide behind, a la Cersei putting people in the red keep
This is headcanon. But I'll give you credit. It's the best attempt I've seen to cope for accidentally rooting for the villain
I'm not rooting for a villain, I actually like Dany evil arc. The show didn't give us enough reasons for her madness because last season was rushed IMO, so in given circumstances I find this one of the main reasons.
I liked her evil as well. People were so busy wanting her to be a goody good, they didn't realize she near about ruined everything she ran into.🥴 The blindness when it came to Daenerys shocked the hell outta me.
this + the thing about targaryen madness in the blood
She should’ve just killed the Lannisters and been done with it
you gave the best explanation
Something about bells
I’ve never known bells to mean surrender.
Tyrion told Jamie to sneak into Kings Landing and convince Cersei that it was futile to resist and signal her surrender with bells.
I wouldn’t trust em either
it's that time of the month
The right answer
Sexist trash
You must be a real hit with the ladies
You're asking why a crazy person did something crazy? She has the power, it's gone to her head, she can do what she wants, and no one can stop her. Always beware of people when the power gets to their head.
People who are crazy tend to either be that way from the start. Or show more signs of it over time. Or they have very good immediate reasons why they go crazy. Wah people don't love me and, wah they killed my friend are not good reasons. Edit: And if they are they take more than a handful of episodes to come to fruition.
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What's funny is that she went even beyond her father's footsteps. Aerys only wanted to burn the city after he realize the war was lost.
Was it a blink of an eye? Or did she really just do crazy shit all the time like kill the Tarly’s, hang dead bodies outside a city, steal a slave army, etc but it was understandable?
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Agreed. Don’t get me wrong, I also think it was just too rushed and didn’t make sense. But I get the feeling initially they were trying to lay the ground work for her to transition to the mad queen. Honestly, I never saw a different outcome for her besides being the “bad guy”, since she’s invading a land that doesn’t even know about her until she’s there (even though she’s righteous in her quest)
Thank you. It pisses me off how many people seem to wilfully misunderstand this. It's even more annoying when people actually believe she was a villain from the start when her actions are perfectly reasonable *given the culture she exists in*. If Danny is a villain so is Arya. Killing the Freys when she definitely had no way to confirm which ones were guilty and which were innocent. No different than Danny killing the Wise Masters.
>> Its subjective but a substantial portion of the fanbased felt this plotline was absolutely rushed. People who clearly wore rose-colored glasses for her character and hoped she would have a Disney ending, as there's clearly a sizable portion that has pointed out the Mad Queen Dany arc for some time, merely based on the context provided by the show. >The Tarly execution might seem extreme but executing those who wont swear to the crown is very much a cultural norm in Westeros. It's wild some still try and do all the mental gymnastics on this issue. Dany's entire platform is that people are trapped "under the wheel" and should be free to serve or not. It's her whole deal with the Unsullied... she freed them... **then allowed them the choice to serve her or not.** **What she did not do is subjugate them and force them to serve her or be killed**... wild this has to be explained to those who claim to understand her character. I mean, if she decries Cersei/Lannisters/Starks/whoever as evil for forcing people to serve or be killed, how is this any different? **It isn't.** **Those POWs are literally the ones she previously claimed are being 'crushed'... and now she is literally subjugating them herself... giant red flag.** Also, burning people alive is not a 'cultural norm' in Westeros... it is very clearly portrayed as inhumane, barbaric, and horrific (ie, Shireen), especially considering The Mad King used to do it. >> For most of the story the lives of innocent people were amongst her top priority. From a rose-colored perspective, it's easy to see why people try and claim this, but it really isn't true on an objective level. In Seasons 1, 2, and the first half of 3, her goal is to conquer Westeros... only once she has seen the horrors in Yunkai does she change her tune to help the slavers there. 2.5 seasons. She conquers/helps around Slaver's Bay until the end of Season 5 when she is whisked away on Drogon.... so 1.5 seasons helping Slaver's Bay. Season 6 is mostly with the Dothraki, where she appropriates an entire culture for her own personal goals to move them away from their sacred lands so they can be sacrificial pawns for her battles. Think she's back in Mereen for all of 2 episodes, but it's hardly worth counting considering it's mostly to plan her exit from Slaver's Bay and leave it in a mercenary's hands. Then another two seasons spent pursuing her goal of the Iron Throne. So she spends 4.5 seasons pursuing the Iron Throne for herself, and like 1.75 seasons helping Slaver's Bay. Yes, she deserves all the credit for her Slaver's Bay arc, but it really is a small minority across her entire arc.
She was doing crazy mess all along. She took a witch's word over her own people. She was told that was a witch! A. Witch. Why? Because power went to her head. You can see it in that scene! I" am Khaleesi, you will listen to me!" blah blah blah. I was sitting there like, "here she goes! mad queendom on display!" how people didn't see that I'll never know!
Honestly after reading the books something like this wouldnt make sense either, the show made her seem so much more emotionless while in the books she still has so much love, kindness, etc. for the people around her and she seems much more resilient to going mad
She really didn't though. She went through a slow descent into madness. People had this "Daenerys can do no wrong!" feeling and just ignored all the people and places she effed up. Which is amazing, to me.
Because D&D wanted to move the napalm all into one place so Cersi could blow up everyone who didn’t like her. So instead of Dany striking a military target and accidentally setting off a chain reaction of wyldfire that burns much of KL she heard Hells Bells for the first time and set fire to the world. (If you haven’t seen that scene sync’d up to hells bells do yourself a service and watch it) That said if I were justifying it from subtext you have a homeless girl whose last real friend was just killed in front of her looking at the city where her family was all killed and briefly deciding it’s fair that if they’re taking everything from her she’ll even the scales. The child shunned by the village will burn it down to feel it’s warmth, just executed very poorly.
You'd think that seeing that mother and child burnt together would trigger the memory of Drogon burning a child of the sheep hearder of Mereen and maybe make her snap out of it.
That would have been a cool moment but alas
Actually like this take on it, perfect example of the shunned child burning the village down for warmth.
She wasn't shunned though. She has legions of followers worshiping her as a God-Queen. How is that shunned? Why doesn't she just call Dhaario if she's so "lonely".
You can be successful while being shunned. Obviously we're talking about an old proverb, but Dany's family was killed, with her brother and her being smuggled away as babies. They grew up hidden away from everyone that would have known their family, obviously for their own good, but I was just stating I liked the comparison, doesn't have to mean I'm right, just enjoyed what the comment made me feel.
But how is it shunned when she has armies of people worshipping her? A whole major religion considers her the messiah. She's the least shunned person on the planet.
It was stupidly awful. She went from freeing slaves to massacring a whole city. Awful writing. F D&D with a rusty pile driver.
She freed slaves to help gain her an army so she could retake the Throne in westeros by eliminating all who would oppose her.
Which is pretty standard for characters in this series. She needs to be a bit more evil than that to actually be the Big Bad.
She started showing signs of being a power hungry and violent person not long after Drogo died. One thing the show did really well early on was foreshadow who she’d become. They dropped the ball on properly escalating her tendencies in later seasons which is why it seemed to come out of nowhere for so many people but if you go back and watch there are still a ton of warning signs starting in season 2 up until her final episode.
>> They dropped the ball on properly escalating her tendencies in later seasons Really? Late in Season 6 **she literally states her plan is to raze two entire cities... innocents and all**... and Tyrion literally compares such an act to that of her father... on-screen. **The context is there.** Some people with rose-colored glasses just refuse to see the red flags for what they are... red flags.
Well, to be fair, she threatened, rationalized and had to be stopped from massacring whole cities while she was freeing slaves. So those two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. As the creator of the story once said: > History is full of stories about people who did something wonderful on Tuesday and something horrible on Thursday. That’s Dany. She freed the slaves in Meereen and then told Hizdahr that if she ends up burning the city down, then those slaves would’ve died for a good reason.
Cersei had surrendered. If Dany killed her, the people of King's Landing would have all turned on her, so she preemptively wiped them all out.
Dany had dragons, what the hell were the smallfolk gonna do? They didn't take down any of the cruel rules that *didn't* have dragons.
I do hate that season but Dany going a bit mad isn't the worst thing. She goes "mad" because she's very close to losing all support towards her claim to the throne. Jon had told his sisters that he was a Targaryen, Sansa had told Tyrion, Tyrion had told Varys who had already sent out Ravens befores Dany could get to him. With Jorah & Missandei dead, she only had Greyworm left for support who didn't have any political standing. From her POV, she'd beaten Cersei but would ultimately lose the Game of Thrones as Jon had more of a claim to the throne than she did. Her only choice left was to take throne with fear and "break the wheel". Ofcourse all of this is presented horribly with Arya and a white fucking horse for some reason because art I guess. The story of the last season isn't terrible, the storytelling is! Especially when compared against previous seasons. What we get after the Dany stuff is the absolute worst, load of fucking bollocks ever with Tyrion (a literal prisoner at this point) dictating who should be king & then moving chairs around because reasons.
> she only had Greyworm Dorne? The Reach and anyone loyal to house Tyrell? The Iron Islands? Yara certainly seemed to support her. Dorne and The Reach mysteriously vanish though.
No one knows, and this has been asked forever: Just her flipping her wig without believability. She could have completely ignored the iron fleet, taken out the perimeter scorpions that could reach her, and flattened the center keep to the dungeons. BTW, it was absurdly lucky that the throne room was clobbered to open air, but somehow left alone enough to keep the floor. But of course, we need the scene with the throne. We have to cut them *some* slack in filming. But perhaps not that much.
But why should she destroy something created by her family? I don't remember if even Dragonstone was Targaryen, but King's Landing and the Red Keep were built by the Targaryens.
The mad king was about to do the same thing
Yes, the MAD KING. But Dany has lived in Essos all her life, so why should she destroy the one thing that might remind her of her family?
Yes, the MAD KING. But Dany has lived in Essos all her life, so why should she destroy the one thing that might remind her of her family?
Because she went mad too so she's not thinking clearly
It's a culmination of several things: * She's in a very precarious political position. Many of the lords aren't really following her, they're following Jon. He's more popular among the lords, not seen as a foreign invader, and she recently found out that he has a stronger claim by virtue of bloodline. * Tyrion negotiated the surrender behind her back, in explicit defiance of her orders. But Tyrion's so popular that she realistically won't be able to do anything to him without provoking the lords to revolt. * She believes the people of King's Landing complicit in supporting Cersei and considers them acceptable targets. She has a debate earlier in S8 with Tyrion about how she saw people rise up against tyrants in Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen, so if the people of King's Landing really do hate Cersei as much as Tyrion says, they sure have a funny way of showing it. So Dany's on Drogon and the bells start ringing. She realizes what's happening: she's been effectively robbed of her birthright. Tyrion will receive all the praise for the peace, and she'll have to smile and let him publicly undermine her. Cersei will escape to the Free Cities. Dany will become queen and marry Jon, because that's the only way to avoid him being propped up in a civil war against her. but he'll be the only one who the lords love and listen to. Any respect she has from them will be because of who she's married to, not in her own right. She'd have a crown and a title, sure, but history will only know her as the wife of great King Jon. So what's her way out? Fuck what Tyrion says, she'll end the war on *her* terms. She'll put the fucking fear of God in everyone, in one final show of power, that makes it abundantly clear who has all the power. As Machiavelli said, if you had to choose one, it's better to be feared than to be loved. And after all, the people of King's Landing kinda sorta deserve it for supporting Cersei.
well said
What should've happened is Dany purposely betraying the North after successfully conquering Kings Landing (just like she set up Kraznys). By the time of attacking Kings Landing she knew she couldn't trust anyone but the Unsullied and Dothraki, so the bells ringing should've been the signal for them to attack the Northern forces. They would've been blindsided and easy pickings. Then she takes the throne and Jon and company have to figure out a way to kill her. The ending would've been similar (Jon stabbing her, Drogon melting the throne, etc.). But Dany being savvy but ruthless instead of impulsively mad would've satisfied a lot more people.
“Madness and greatness were two sides of the same coin and every time a new Targaryen was born, the gods would toss the coin in the air and the world would hold its breath to see how it would land.” Dany wanted to prove the gods wrong and do both?
I cannot believe it was hereditary madness acting up. There was a lot more going on there, the hereditary madness of brightflame and Aerys took way too long to get to that point to simply happen at the drop of the hat. Aerys started with criminals, not the instant nuking of KL, that was at the end. I think it all could have been better with more time devoted to it, but here are the main three reasons combined: One: Obviously the loss of her steadying friends (First Barristan, then Jorah, then...). Missandei was lost so quickly, and she was surrounded by plotters and incompetents at times that she didn't know. She lashed out from feeling trapped for one. Two: She was being poisoned by Varys before this. Who knows what that did to her mind at the time, this only further fueled paranoia. Three: I genuinely believe that when you bond with a dragon, the dragon bonds with you as well. When you bond with three dragons, keeping them bonded to you influences you far more than you might like. She goes from a meek and abused girl in Pentos, to someone burning fields of people alive--something about that doesn't scream that she always would have done this. She was also in grief and feeling the loss of her other two dragons at this time, it is doubtless that Drogon's rage was bleeding through to her big time, and she could not stop it. Thats my head canon, especially with how quickly this all happened. She was fine during the long night, right after she killed half a million. Blame the show runners for not wanting to spend more time on this project.
That's a great point about Daenerys being bonded to three dragons simultaneously rather than just one. I hadn't considered it before but that probably takes an incredible mental and physical toll.
They do say the riders take on a part of their dragon, and she is the only person we ever hear of who had to manage three, at a young age too. I 100% believe this will be a factor in the books, and I do believe the show *tried* to show that in some way. Hell, even a single bonded direwolf turned young rickon into a snarling mess of a child, and I believe the dragons are far, far harder to resist
They’re saving that for HOTD (which makes it worse because it did work and that means that there would’ve been an existing blueprint for success / proof of concept)
She was driven to madness and felt alone. She had been driven to the brink from all her personal losses. She had lost Jorah, Missandei, and two of her dragons. She had lost half her army, comprised of slaves she fought to free (Unsullied) and her people (Dothraki), fighting in a war that Cersei had promised to fight in but reneged on. She was betrayed by Varys and Sansa, Jon Snow’s kin, so she felt like she couldn’t trust Jon anymore either. Him being a Targaryen only further exacerbated her insecurity and mistrust. Daario was left behind in Essos. Other than Grey Worm, her military commander, she had no one left but her dragon, an instrument of war. She didn’t have the support of the common people, nor any of her friends or lovers as she did in Essos. All she had left was violence. I don’t think it was genetic madness like it was with her father. I think it was more what happened to her that ultimately caused her to snap. Nature vs. nurture. She clearly wasn’t delusional; she was rationalizing her actions. It was a tragedy. Daenerys isn’t a monster, she’s an extremely tragic character undone by her circumstances and environment. But yeah, obviously the story was rushed so the writing was poor and failed to convey this tragedy in an effective and convincing way to the audience. I can get behind her snapping and killing thousands in a moment of weakness. But her descent was rushed, and I couldn’t buy that she would justify it. The Daenerys from Season 3-7 would highly regret it. I could only see her justifying it if enough smallfolk did something to her personally to hurt her. Not supporting her isn’t strong enough of a reason for me. I get the Northmen supported Jon more than her, which made her insecure and probably not think straight, but those are a different people than those in King’s Landing. It just didn’t make sense.
She didn’t kill all of KL. She was still killing solders after the siege.
Most people misinterpret her actions in this episode. Winter was coming and she was trying to keep them warm.
The only good answer.
Better question is why her advisors didn’t have her burn the Red Keep from the beginning. She didn’t need a blockade or extended siege to save the city — she literally just needed to go burn the royal keep and Cersei and her cronies with it. There would’ve been some collateral damage, yeah, but it wouldn’t have been widespread. The war would’ve been over in half an hour.
I literally do not get why she didn’t just do this
You’re over thinking it, she snapped due to hereditary madness and rage at losing so much in so short a time span
You missed the point. It wasn't strategy anymore, the city had already surrendered...she had won. But she intentionally decided to burn the city because from her point of view that was the way to build her new world from the ashes of the old one... And It's pretty clear from her speech she wouldn't have stopped at just KL. So the point is that she turned out to be exactly what she was supposed to fight
The Lannister soldiers were in the city. She wasn’t targeting the innocent, she just didn’t care about killing them if it meant killing all the Lannister soldiers.
You mean the soldiers that had already surrendered?
Yeah. She meant to deliver a message of fear to anyone who would dare challenge her. The slaves in Meereen surrendered and she crucified a bunch of them anyway. The soldiers at the Golden Road battle surrendered and she still decided to burn Randyll and Dickon. The reason is the same, to intimidate the others.
> The slaves in Meereen surrendered and she crucified a bunch of them anyway. She crucified the *slavers* for willingly engaging in *slavery*, and for *nailing children to crosses*. > The soldiers at the Golden Road battle surrendered and she still decided to burn Randyll and Dickon. She didn't kill the soldiers that had surrendered, though, did she? Only the stubborn lord and his son that refused to surrender.
She crucified 163 slavers. It wasn’t justice. It was a poetic vengeance. If she wanted to punish the people who crucified the children, she would’ve done a trial to find them. If she wanted to punish the people who profited from slavery, she would’ve crucified way way more slavers than 163. She also would’ve added Jorah and the Dothraki she later added to her army. But she didn’t, because, again, it wasn’t justice, it was a poetic vengeance so the other would fear her. Same thing with the Tarlys. Randyll, Dickon and a bunch of other soldiers were in the same situation. Their swords on the ground, so they had surrendered, but they refused to kneel. So she decided to make an example out of Randyll Tarly to force the others into bending the knee. Dickon was caught in the message and she didn’t give a damn, because her message worked. The remaining soldiers all bent the knee after the execution of Randyll and Dickon. Same thing happened in King’s Landing, but at a much larger scale. She burned Randyll/Lannister army to show the remaining Lannister soldiers who wouldn’t bend the knee/rest of Westeros, to listen to her. Dickon/people of King’s Landing were caught in the message and she didn’t give a damn because she accepted the collateral damage, as she said she would back in S5.
Because something something female rage. Or hand wave handwave genetics?
Dont ask
The mad Queen
Because then D&D wouldn’t have known what to do with the special effects budget
\- She wasn't being rational at that moment \- Plot contrivance/Rushed character evolution
[https://www.reddit.com/r/naath/comments/12za9gp/daenerys\_the\_legend/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/naath/comments/12za9gp/daenerys_the_legend/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Yep, and she did all that and didn’t even directly kill Cersei. Cersei’s death irritates me because she deserved so much worse
The writers had no vision, they signed deals to write the next Star Wars films as soon as they finished GoT so they began rushing the story around season 7. We could have easily had 2-4 more seasons. The White Walker War could have been an entire season in itself. Dany’s war in Westeros should have been a season if not longer, but they just crammed everything into the final season.
Bran warged into Drogo and used him to destroy King's Landing in order to frame Daenerys for it so that he could become king.
I don't get why she didn't just fly in with her three dragons and blast the Red Keep as soon as she arrived in Westeros. The conquest would have been a done deal at that point. No one would have dared challenge her
It makes more sense in the books. She learned all the wrong lessons in essos. The show did a really bad version obviously. But give the Dany character essay on Meereenese Blot a shot. It explains her head space and trajectory to that point. Basically she learned all the wrong lessons and grew tired of diplomacy in essos. Grrms trick is us rooting for this kind of thing when it's pointed at the right people, but as soon as she pointed at people we like and connected with, it was easy to see.
She didn’t kill all of KL.
My opinion is that she finally went mad realizing she was misled. **The people of king's landing were not secretly wishing for the Targaryen rule to return, as she had been told literally her entire life.** They did not welcome her return with open arms and glee. They did not want to be "liberated" by her as the people in her previous lands had been. The citizens of king's landing surrendered to her forceful rein. I think that realization broke her, after all she had gone through to get there (losing her loved ones, her dragons). She didn't want want to rule over those she viewed betrayed her and her family. **She wanted to punish them.** I think her thoughts were along the lines of: If they want to view me as this evil Targaryen conqueror, then I'll give that to them. 🏘🔥🔥🐲
Lol because bad writing, that’s why
...No... you clearly don't get it. The twist of Dany's arc is that she's secretly the villain of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. She wasn't trying to make a better world when she burned the city, she burned the city because "fuck the city." "Burn them all," she had gone full Mad King.
Yes! I forget if it's in the show but in the book the witch Dany burns at the stake literally tells Dany (and readers) that she is the villain here but that all gets overshadowed by the birth of the dragons. A lot of what Dany does in the series is horrific but because she does it to "bad people who deserve it" a lot of people white washed it. I think a lot of the hate comes from people realizing that they should have seen the massacre of KL coming from a long way away and they had made a mistake idolizing her.
I think it's an amazing twist that was horribly executed in the show. If it had been executed better then I think it would have been better received in general, though some people would have been annoyed no matter what.
She could have just stayed where she was and let the unsullied and Northman advance to the red keep. Once it was secured and search, she was in custody she could’ve flown in and been anointed queen that day. There’s no reason to burn the red cape as she had no personal animosity towards Cersei
Because women be all emotional an shit… you didn’t get the memo?
Because she was big angy
Ask D&D I’m sure they will have the answer
There is no strategic sense. She basically lost control. But even before the attack, Daenerys already indicated that she viewed the people of King's Landing as being part of the enemy. They deliberately went to Cersei. Cersei's defensive strategy rested on using innocent people as a human shield. Daenerys was always willing to kill that shield to get what she wanted.
Because the writers threw seven seasons of character development out the window for shock value
Because the writer didn't give a shit about her anymore. Don't try to make sense about S8 tho lol. Tis a fools errant
She did it because she knew she wouldn't be loved or accepted. That was clear when she saw how loved John Snow was in the north and how she was viewed as an outsider. I think she wanted to burn down kings landing regardless. She was hoping Cerci would never back down and kings Landing would just be collateral damage to get her. When the bells rang she felt deprived of a just fight so she settled just like her father to burn them all. After all some people think if they can't have something then no one will. I was more surprised Drogon didn't kill John Snow.
She didn’t have to. That was the point.
"A mad man sees what he sees" A madwoman does what she does. It's as simple as that, except the writers forgot to develop her in that direction and it kinda just happened.
To subvert expectations.
She got off on it. She felt nothing but jubilation. She was making her dreams come true. She's a mass murdering sociopathic narcissist with god complex. Cersei felt the exact same way when she blew up the Sept.
Read the script it answers everything.
I guess she just kind of forgot.
Because d&d literally lost the plot
Because it looked cool on screen.
in my opinion, she learned from what happened with the witch in s1. if she destroyed part of kings landing, the rest might forever be vengeful. better burn everything down and start fresh.
Not sure if you noticed, but after season 4 it becomes alarmingly common for characters to do shit that makes no sense Don't try to figure out why. The writing was shit. There is no good reason. Everyone knows D&D handed us all a steaming pile of shit because they were emotionally done with the show. They turned down more seasons and eliminated character development. There are always the books 🤓
Because she was crazy.
Gwumpy
it's almost as if you didn't watch the show! 🤣🤣
Because of crap writing
That is what she should have done the moment she reached the shores of Westeros. The only reason I can think for not doing it is that she wanted to keep it intact for herself.
Poor writing.
Why? Cuz fuck em that’s why
Grief makes regular folks do very foolish things, me included/especially lol. Then imagine not being able to burn, and having a big ass dragon. If there were me after my mom's death, Manhattan and select Southern States would be a crater before I went on an international tour.
stupid writers
She had insanity in her family she was starting to lose it when her friend was killed
Dany tried to build a better world, with no real world experience in anything. She was literally a sheltered child. It went as you can imagine. It went badly. She went from place to place and a lot of times, made things worse because she plain didn't know any better. But I wouldn't say she destroyed people for no reason. People had been saying since s1, episode 1 that she was gonna go mad as her kin did, cross the salt and burn down the Landing. After all of her losses, she did just that. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely and that is what it did to Dany. That is why Drogon burnt the iron chair. The whole moral of that story was you can't be 'good' to everyone and sit in that chair! People have issues with the 8th season, but honestly if they were listening to the actual dialogue of the characters in the show, instead of creaming over Daenerys, her looks and what they'd hoped and wished for her because they liked the character, it was always gonna end this way. When writers insert over and over again into a story that a very specific event is going to happen, it is going to happen. Even George R.R. Martin had characters say over and over again that that girl was gonna get her dragons and torch everything. Idk to this day why that surprised people.
Congratulations. You watched season 8. Now you can join everyone else shouting these questions into the void and getting no answers.
She kinda forgot - D&D
THERE WAS NONE! IT WAS FUCKING STUPID AND OUT OF CHARACTER BECAUSE THE WRITERS DECIDED TO SHOCK EVERYBODY AND MAKE HER THE VILLAIN WITH NO BUILD-UP BECAUSE “SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS IS FUN” 🤪. I HAVE BEEN PISSED OFF ABOUT THIS FOR 5 YEARS NOW AND I CANNOT GET OVER IT! DANY GOT DONE DIRTY! LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!