[TV/Books] Game of Thrones ***SPOILER Discussion***

[Jastall]

You are really underselling Daenerys' horrorshow.

She had no problem with her brother, at the time the rightful Targaryen heir, being "crowned" in molten gold by Drogo.
She burned all the Dothraki Khals, alive. Why? Because she wanted the Dothraki, and they said "no".
She locked Daxos in his vault to suffocate to death, for stealing from her.
She slaughtered the entire leadership of Astapor, for being slaveowners.
The bit about putting Meereen's slavers on racks in revenge for their doing the same to children is her stooping to their level, not a move for justice.
The one attempt she made at proper justice, rather than her personal whims of the moment, was a grotesque failure that pleased no one (killing Mossador, after he killed a Harpy's Son, for having himself killed an Unsullied). And it was the last time she made any pretense towards justice or any form of trial.

After all of this, she completely abandoned Essos. She has no consideration whatsoever for the political upheavals she created, nor any interest in ensuring a better system prevailed; she secured the resources and men she need, took them and left.

She burned the Tarlys alive, when they were her prisoners and had already been defeated on the field.
And before you say "but she went North to help Jon and the Starks", she protested that constantly, even when she knew the Night King was a real threat.

None of this is new, or surprising. It's the natural evolution of her entire character arc. She has always been solely interested in her own personal power and control. Hell, let's put it in her own words, from way back in Season 2; "I will take what is mine, with fire and blood I will take it." "When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me, and destroy those who have wronged me. We will lay waste to armies, and burn cities to the ground."

She's always been a brutal tyrant with a vicious temper and no sense of mercy. This is not a recent shift, at all. She's exactly in line with where she was in Season 2.

Edit: Don't take the above as a defense for the silly bullshit that is Season 8. I'm just making the point that this one particular thing isn't out of left field; Dany's penchant for madness and violence was introduced before Khal Drogo even died, and has been continually reinforced since.

I don't think anyone's arguing Dany did not have the capacity for brutality, which she clearly has. At best she was an anti-hero before the last episode, and definitely more ruthless than most characters not named Tywin or Roose Bolton.

But what she didn't and never did, is deliberately target civilians. She killed those who did not bend the knee, those who defied her, those she felt betrayed her, those who fought against her, that's all very true. She killed them painfully and brutally, indeed.

But all of these are fair targets in war by any in-story standards. Going out of her way to massacre hundreds of thousands of a city's population after it explicitly surrendered is far, far beyond anything she did previously. It's like saying that, because Jon hanged Olly and his conspirators, it would be fine if he hanged everyone in King's Landing. No, sorry, I can't buy that line of argumentation. I'm not a Dany fan by any means, but her character just made too large a jump towards absurd, completely unjustifiable villainy for me to take it at all seriously.

[Endus]

But what she didn't and never did, is deliberately target civilians. She killed those who did not bend the knee, those who defied her, those she felt betrayed her, those who fought against her, that's all very true. She killed them painfully and brutally, indeed.

The leadership of Atropos were civilians. The slavers of Meereen. The guy who stole her dragons was a civilian. Etc.

It's just not accurate to claim she's never killed civilians. She very clearly has, multiple times. They were just "bad people", so you overlooked the horror show of her brutal methods, and assumed her motivations were good.

Well, they weren't.

Riding a tiger's great, until the tiger gets hungry.

But all of these are fair targets in war by any in-story standards. Going out of her way to massacre hundreds of thousands of a city's population after it explicitly surrendered is far, far beyond anything she did previously.

Again, she was talking about burning cities to the ground halfway through Season 2. The only thing that changed between then and now is that now, she has a full-grown dragon and an army at her back; she didn't, back then.

[Jastall]

The leadership of Atropos were civilians. The slavers of Meereen. The guy who stole her dragons was a civilian. Etc.

It's just not accurate to claim she's never killed civilians. She very clearly has, multiple times. They were just "bad people", so you overlooked the horror show of her brutal methods, and assumed her motivations were good.

Well, they weren't.

Riding a tiger's great, until the tiger gets hungry.



Again, she was talking about burning cities to the ground halfway through Season 2. The only thing that changed between then and now is that now, she has a full-grown dragon and an army at her back; she didn't, back then.

Talk is cheap. Tyrion lashed out and wanted everyone in the Red Keep to die during his trial and threatened his sister several times, but when push came to shove advised Dany not to burn the place to the ground, which would really have saved everyone a lot of headaches come to think of it.

And the Masters were hardly innocent commoners, killing them was ruthless but those in Meereen were explicitly her enemies, Xaro as you said made himself her enemy. The only ones who didn't wrong her first were the Masters of Astapor, and ultimately the Unsullied rose up against their insane cruelty. This is very much not the same as going full Grand Moff Tarkin with your weapon of mass destruction because your feelings are hurt. And do note that in Meereen she got flak from the ex-slaves because they felt she treated the Masters too gently. She really wasn't going around burninating everyone in sight.

Again, Dany's enemies had surrendered, which she knows The person she actually has a beef with is sitting right there in the Red Keep. And she purposefully decides to slaughter untold thousands instead, for no reason other than "she's mad lol". There's a character shifting towards villainy, and there's the writers just going as stupidly over the top with the concept as humanly possible to provoke reactions. This was the later.

[Kathranis]

I mean the budgeting concerns are real and have a part of the show since day one. They've been well documented too.

Right, they because they don't have enough money to make two more seasons of Game of Thrones but miraculously they have the budget to replace it with multiple spinoffs. Give me a break.

There are always budget constraints (because money isn't infinite), but if there is no reason they couldn't have kept producing ten-episode seasons for as long as they wanted. The show is a money maker.

[GreenJesus]

I agree I didn't expect a happy ending but at least consistency. Dany acted completely out of character or some can say she acted as she always has been without her advisers. With that being said Dany consistently refused to punish the innocent. She was a champion for the less fortunate.
Jaime went right back to what he started as after years of drifting from Cersei culminating with Cersei betraying the living and Jaime seeing how far lost she was.
Cersei begging for her life. She made her bed and was terrified to sleep in what she made when she wanted this.
Greyworm turning into this raging monster.
Arya giving up her lifelong dream of killing Cersei because the Hound told her she would die? She attacked the damn Night King surrounded by White Walkers and thousands of wights.
Jon acted in character he was horrified by what was happening.
The Northern people doing something they know Ned would never allow.


When they were at Dragonstone this was discussed between Dany, Tyrion and Greyworm what the ringing bells would mean and they both agreed.

But when did King's landing know the bells meant surrender? Who told them that? Jaime never managed to get to Cercei in time to tell her that.

[Derah]

She's killed civilians; multiple entries I listed involved civilian deaths, not armed conflicts. Most of the rest where they did involve combatants, it was not on a field of battle; it was treachery or vicious inhumanity.

The only reason "bending a knee" is an ameliorating force is because they then serve her willingly. So letting them live adds to her strength; it is entirely self-interest, and nothing more.

She's been promising this shit for 6 seasons. You don't get to call foul when she finally acts on it.



I'm actually not arguing that she's insane. I think she's perfectly sane. Angry, but not "mad".

She's just brutal, vicious, and has no sense of boundaries or humanity. She never really has. Again; for all people talk about her "freeing slaves" in Essos, how much time have we spent looking at those ruling her regime in Essos, since she left? Precisely none. Because she didn't leave anyone in control. She abandoned the continent and took everything she could with her.

For all we know, Meereen and Atropos are far worse than they ever were before the Khaleesi showed up. We've really been given no reason to think any of her actions had any lasting effect. Everything she did in Essos was for one purpose; building up forces to attack Westeros. That's all she was doing.

She's been clear from the beginning that she's had one goal; retaking the Iron Throne. The rest is just a means to that end, and ceases to mean anything to her once it stops serving that purpose.

I'm directly quoting her promising to burn cities to the ground for personal slights, from Season 2, and you're hand-waving that she didn't really mean it.

You can argue that wrong point all you want, but it wont change the fact that her characterization here, doesn't fit what has been established of the character before.

And just so we're clear here, when we say "civilians", we're talking the peasants, the common folk. Don't you dare insinuate that the masters of Mereen, Yunkai and Astapor were civilians because they weren't. You're thinking "if they're not soldiers, they're civilians", and that's not how it works. They were the leadership. The ones in charge. The ones hurting the innocent.

Never once in the entire show has Danny been depicted slaughtering INNOCENT UNARMED PEOPLE who did nothing wrong. Babies, children. The number one way to piss her off was to harm children, so to have her incinerating thousands just doesn't fit what they established of her personality.

The show is trying to portray her as insane, unfit to rule, and Mad Queen, even though Tywin Lannister did far worse than she ever did and nobody questioned his sanity, nor were there rallying cries for his head.

Tywin Lannister eradicated two lesser houses at a younger age than Dany is now, and commenced the Sack of King's Landing without warning, which resulted in the deaths and raping of hundreds, possibly thousands of innocent people, laid waste to the Riverlands (Which again, resulted in countless villages, and cities being sacked, the men killed, the women raped then killed, and this is without even starting with what Gregor was doing, torturing everyone at Harrenhal) when his son got kidnapped, yet the show never makes him out to be a bad ruler. Before that, Aegon the Conqueror also burned Harrenhal to the ground due to Harren Hoare's defiance, and yet he is widely regarded as a successful conqueror and a savvy politician in-universe.

So no, the show trying to tell us "look, she's a tyrant" makes NO fucking sense.

[Jayma]

The leadership of Atropos were civilians. The slavers of Meereen. The guy who stole her dragons was a civilian. Etc.

It's just not accurate to claim she's never killed civilians. She very clearly has, multiple times. They were just "bad people", so you overlooked the horror show of her brutal methods, and assumed her motivations were good.

Well, they weren't.

Riding a tiger's great, until the tiger gets hungry.



Again, she was talking about burning cities to the ground halfway through Season 2. The only thing that changed between then and now is that now, she has a full-grown dragon and an army at her back; she didn't, back then.

Literally every character on the show would kill someone who kidnapped their children.

[Graeham II]

The foreshadowing was always there in regards to Dany being set to descend into madness. Sadly like any mainstream show there's no shortage of obnoxious fans who obsess over specifics characters and convince themselves that they're perfectly justified even if they have a lapse of judgement. Much like Cersei, Dany conjured up cruel and unusual punishments to inflict on those who crossed her. Yet unlike Cersei, her kill count was much higher. Some of those she targeted deserved it yet others did not.

The books will handle it better, I don't doubt it. Yet even though the show rushed certain things the foreshadowing was always there.

[Kathranis]

So no, the show trying to tell us "look, she's a tyrant" makes NO fucking sense.

Maybe the book has just tinged my overall impression of her, but in the books she leaves Slaver's Bay in chaos. She conquers and then leaves and in her wake what happens? Civil wars and disease as the social hierarchy collapses and no strong rule of law is there to maintain it.

You act like her having zero qualms about burning thousands of men alive before this event shouldn't be throwing up red flags to begin with. As if all the soldiers she had butchered and burned by barbarians and dragons were evil just because they were born in the territory of her enemies and conscripted into their armies.

[sarahtasher]

As said in another thread, not liking the direction the episode take does not means it's illogical.

For instance, in the series, the very first episode, we do Cersei and Jaime committing a huge sin for a society that is pretty open minded about perversions. Doing stuff like that pretty much spells out ''your children will die horribly and you will die horribly, since you violated a law of the Gods''.

The same goes for the Tangaryan-in medieval and ancient times, people would have assumed that the line was cursed as divine retribution for their sins.

[Bodakane]

Right, they because they don't have enough money to make two more seasons of Game of Thrones but miraculously they have the budget to replace it with multiple spinoffs. Give me a break.

There are always budget constraints (because money isn't infinite), but if there is no reason they couldn't have kept producing ten-episode seasons for as long as they wanted. The show is a money maker.

Type this into google:

game of thrones budget issues

Read the number of articles talking about all the budget issues this show has had.

Come back here and admit you were wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem with this is that she's lying, and you're somehow not able to see that.

She's also a tyrant. And questioning her will and working against her will, as we saw with Varys, result in a gruesome and immediate death by her whim. No trial, no justice.

She isn't "breaking the wheel" and freeing people. She's just replacing the people on top, to make sure she's the tyrant who sits the throne.

- - - Updated - - -



Also note that said deserter's fate was enshrined in the laws, and Ned Stark was serving his role; it was a duty he was bound to carry out, not an act he had chosen to do. It fundamentally was not Ned Stark's decision. His choice was to do his duty himself, or wuss out and hand it off to an underling, and that was the lesson he taught his kids; to take care of your duty your own self.

Tyrants rarely see themselves as tyrants.

The often cast themselves as heroes.

This is why I agree that Dany's "turn" wasn't a turn at all.

- - - Updated - - -

I also think it is a little absurd for people to be at a show for not giving them exactly what they want after falling in love with the show for specifically not giving anyone exactly what they want for 7 seasons.

[Kathranis]

Read the number of articles talking about all the budget issues this show has had.

Come back here and admit you were wrong.

Type this into your brain and see if it'll process it: If they have the money to make multiple spinoffs, they have the money to do more seasons.

[Bodakane]

Type this into your brain and see if it'll process it: If they have the money to make multiple spinoffs, they have the money to do more seasons.

You don't understand the way things work. I gave you a path to see actual fucking facts and instead you want to be an arrogant ass about your stupid fucking opinion.

What you think happens with finances and these shows means fuck all when there is article after article telling you are wrong about the that. You are allowed to have opinions about facts, you aren't allowed to pretend like your opinion changes those facts.

So again, read the fucking evidence, then come back here and apologize for not only;y being wrong but being belligerent about wrong.

Flaming isn't allowed. Infracted.

[eschatological]

I don't think anyone has a problem with the characterization of making Dany the "mad queen," at least I hope not. I think the problem was with the line she crossed. If she had gone to the Red Keep, and Cersei had stacked the place with civvies, and Dany burned them all to get to Cersei, that'd be a natural progression of her just not giving a fuck and being more like Aerys.

But she literally snapped, and killed thousands of innocent, unarmed peasants. Narratively, that can be a valid character progression, sure. But, in terms of this narrative, it goes completely against her previous sympathies, but more importantly, it makes the narrative boring and two dimensional. She's a cartoon villain now, who cannot be allowed to sit on the Throne. She has surpassed anything Aerys ever did, with a snap of the fingers.

The first scenario (her burning the Red Keep with civilians in it) is the standard for GoT - have something that is a matter of perspective. Some would absolutely claim she's mad and evil for doing that - others could justify her actions. Jon could then witness her growing paranoia and insanity in private, much like Jaime witnessed Aerys disintegrating. And then the cycle continues again, because as humans, we don't learn. The game of thrones begins anew, with Jon taking the place of Ned, and perhaps seating someone like Tyrion on the throne who is a decently liked king but has enemies everywhere. Except this storyline would have only made sense with the ever-present threat that Winter is Coming, but oh well.


P.S. I guess winter is just done now? It was snowing in KL when Jaime left, I guess......what, we're back to regular seasons now? I guess it would be too much to hope for some lore about the elongated seasons in the show.

[ablock87]

Imagine thinking Dany killing evil people, slave owners, and mutineers is somehow similar to killing innocents and an army that THREW DOWN THEIR WEAPONS.

You have to be pants-on-head ignorant to think this is in character.

I don't care if she goes mad queen, but how about a build up that lasts longer than, say, one episode.

[Celista]

P.S. I guess winter is just done now? It was snowing in KL when Jaime left, I guess......what, we're back to regular seasons now? I guess it would be too much to hope for some lore about the elongated seasons in the show.

Good catch. They could have explained it with one line of dialogue (death of the NK impacting the weather, perhaps?) but didn't, due to this I can only assume this is a coffee cup-esque derp on the show's part.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't care if she goes mad queen, but how about a build up that lasts longer than, say, one episode.

Yeah this is the part that most have issue with, I think. Arguably it's been a whole season and an episode from season 7 but still.

[Bodakane]

Is Targaryan madness a long slow burn thing?

[Aurrora]

But she literally snapped, and killed thousands of innocent, unarmed peasants. Narratively, that can be a valid character progression, sure. But, in terms of this narrative, it goes completely against her previous sympathies, but more importantly, it makes the narrative boring and two dimensional. She's a cartoon villain now, who cannot be allowed to sit on the Throne. She has surpassed anything Aerys ever did, with a snap of the fingers.

Now not only is the Star Wars sequel trilogy making the prequels look better, so is Game of Thrones! Anakin falls to the dark side and is immediately okay with killings the Jedi younglings? Well there were only a handful of them, at least he didn't spend an hour barbecuing civilians for no good reason.

[Santti]

She's just brutal, vicious, and has no sense of boundaries or humanity. She never really has. Again; for all people talk about her "freeing slaves" in Essos, how much time have we spent looking at those ruling her regime in Essos, since she left? Precisely none. Because she didn't leave anyone in control. She abandoned the continent and took everything she could with her.

For all we know, Meereen and Atropos are far worse than they ever were before the Khaleesi showed up. We've really been given no reason to think any of her actions had any lasting effect. Everything she did in Essos was for one purpose; building up forces to attack Westeros. That's all she was doing.

Not exactly true. She left The Second Sons and Daario Naharis in charge in Meereen, until the people living there choose a new leader for them. I don't think we've seen or heard about Meereen since Daenerys left, though. It should be noted that Second Sons consist of some 2000 men, but who knows if they were all left behind.

https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Second_Sons

With the slave masters defeated and slavery abolished across Slaver's Bay, the region is renamed the Bay of Dragons in honor of Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons.[11] Having formed several new alliances in Westeros, the Targaryen forces begin to set sail towards the Seven Kingdoms. However, on the advice of Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys decides to leave Daario Naharis and the Second Sons behind, charging them with keeping the peace in Meereen and the rest of the Bay of Dragons until the people choose their own rulers.[1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6EIcOECVk8

A good move in my opinion, even if it might have been Tyrions idea. She says she can't bring a lover, and needs alliances (likely through marriage), but leaving the Second Sons seems excessive, if that's her reasoning. Although I guess she couldn't really take the Second Sons without Daario, him being their leader and all. Daario did pledge his life and sword to Daenarys, though, so maybe she could have taken the Second Sons without Daario? Or just take everyone and not be lovers? Or lovers in secret? Or Daenarys just pretending until she sits on the throne?

I think she does care about Meereen. Just seems rather weak reason to just leave them all behind.

I agree with pretty much everything else you said, though.

[Elim Garak]

I don't care if she goes mad queen, but how about a build up that lasts longer than, say, one episode.

The buildup lasted the entire series. Dany never needed the armies to take Iron Throne, since she had dragons, she only needed the army to take it without killing everyone at the King's Landing so they would accept her as their rightful queen. In the last episode, she finally realized that she will not be the rightful queen - so why bother? Burn mother fuckers, burn!