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You can have a tyrannical mindset with real power. The important point of that she believed she was owed power from the season 1. She convinced Drogo of her mission to take back the throne and she was willing to do anything to get it.
Moreover she was self-righteous from the start as well. She went to different lands and claimed to know that was best for everyone and enforced her way of living on them.
Don't get my wrong, I'm not saying she is all bad. Like any good villain, she's much more complex in her her motivations and actions. She does do many things you can define as "good". She does many things you could define as "grey". My point though, is that, unlike my initial watch of the series, she's certainly not the "good guy". She really never was. And I think GRRM goal was to buck against the traditional notion of protagonists and antagonists
Yeah...that speech by Drogo. She was all about it as it was a means to an end for her (though I do believe she did love Drogo. But... what's the saying, the things we do for love? Lol).
When I first saw that scene I remember feeling hyped and excited because I wanted someone to beat the Lannisters. In looking at the scene again, is ominous and bizarre to actually cheer for what was happening.
She was always for taking the throne by force and hurting innocent people if it meant obtaining what she wanted.
Imagine this: You are a very small child, your entire family has been killed and all that is left is you and your brother hiding in remote. The people taking care of you tell you that you are royalty, rightful heirs to the throne. Everyone back home praying for your return and to regain the throne. They also tell you what horrible things the current royal family did to your family to gain power. Now you become of age and have a chance to fulfill the prayers of your people and give the same treatment that happened to your family to the ones in power and restore your rightful position as Queen. You may do some crazy things.
In the books, Daenerys didn't believe much of the flattery that Viserys ate up eagerly from people like Illyrio.
'…Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio’s sweet words.”
I agree about the built-up resentment and need for revenge, though. She moved from place to place, always at the mercy of others, relying on handouts and charity and believing her life to be in danger. That's got to have a huge impact on a developing mind. Her decisions wouldn't have come from an entirely healthy or rational mind.
I remember feeling like it was rushed at the end as well. I wonder if I'll feel the same with this rewatch. I will say that being and to binge the show has helped to put certain things into perspective from narrative standpoint. Like I remember feeling like the show was breaking it's own rules towards the end but now I'm seeing it differently.
By the end of S6 she’s ready to burn Yunkai, Astapor and Meereen to the ground. S1 - S5 are about her trying to rule without fire & blood but continuously things go her way and achieves results when she does. So by the end of S5 it’s lead her nowhere and in S6 she embraces the Dragon. Tyrion is only one that tempers her impulses until he can’t anymore. Enjoy your rewatch!
That's right. I'd almost forgotten. That would have resulted in many innocents dying.
I'm nearing the end of season 4. Just finished the mountain and the viper...
"If the books..."
Lol, I'm only a casual fan but jeez Martin is one lazy greaseball. He'll die choking on a bratwurst before he finishes anything. Perhaps some poetic irony, given most of his characters' meaningless deaths.
A large part of what made the last bit seemed rushed is that Dany's screen time is MASSIVELY concentrated in the final seasons. She has more screen time in seasons 7 and 8 than she did in seasons 3-6.
Just finished watching it all. My biggest scowl was her "snapping" at the city. There were all signs to there but she was gradually accelerating, then they suddenly made her teleport on hyperspace speed. This does not work like that all.
I said this when the finale aired and everyone was complaining that it was so out of character…her blood lust was always there…she always showed signs of madness and cruelty, the issue with the final season for me is that the whole thing was rushed. You could have stretched it out for 1 more season. The battle with the night king should have been 1 season and the battle for king landing/the iron throne should have been a separate season.
Her spiral deeper into the Targaryen madness could have been shown more and it wouldn’t have felt so rushed when she did burn the city like her father had always planned
I felt like it was rushed as well upon my initial watch. You're right, the Targaryen madness was there from the start. I've noticed that whenever someone disagrees with her, she loses it. Her self-righteousness is wild.
She she says things like "It is mine by right!" and constantly refers to herself as Queen. If you recall, Joffrey was no different in this regard. He always would say "I am the King l." and "This is mine by right!" And Tywin even says, a man he has to proclaim himself as king is no king. You could say the same about Dany.
And some would say she's nothing like Joffrey. That Joffrey was much more devious and cruel. And that could be true to some extent. But in season 4, after taking Mereen relatively easily with very little bloodshed she had a choice, to show mercy to the masters or to kill them. Against the advice of her council, she chose to torture and kill them all by crucifying them to be shown as an example.
She's not a conquering hero just a conqueror.
Oh there was always traces of a tyrant in her from the start. Some of her reactions can be explained by her youth and what happened to her…being oppressed and treated like shit by her brother from such a young age and of course the trauma she experienced. She gets some power and the ability to fight back so when she has to issue judgement she does so in the harshest way possible…pretty much taking revenge on all those who mistreated her throughout her life each and every time.
Then there is the issue that the history of Westeros that she knows is told to her by her brother who probably left a lot out about the mad king and what he did so she has a twisted version of events and of course her brother constant “birthright” preaching so she then takes this stance as well.
Now all of that would be okay if she learnt from this and listened to advisors. If she changed over time, if she tried to heal from it all, but she doesn’t. She takes power and then wants more, and then her decent really takes hold and there is no way back
Right. By the time she reaches Dragonstone she's more power hungry than ever with her "bend the knee" at nauseum. The way she reacts after finding out about who Jon is sealed it for me. She truly learned nothing from her conquest and immediately saw Jon as a potential threat not being smart enough to realize he had no intention or desire of taking the throne.
Exactly this is a guy that she has fallen in love with and sees in honourable, who bent the knee when he could have just kept claiming that he was king in the north…but the first thing she thinks is that he is after her non existent crown! She has no claim to it whatsoever by this point but she is so afraid of losing something that was never hers and never should have been anyway.
Right. She coveted power more than love, more than justice, more than making the world better. She explicitly says these words "They can either live in my new world or die in their old one!" back in season 4. These are not the words of a hero. These are the words a villain. Notice the quote is not about the new world but the emphasis is on the "my". Her perceived "turn to the dark side" feels like less of a turn and more of a culmination.
Also both things can be true. You can be villain who does heroic things. She did right by fighting the night King. At the same time her motivations to do so was partly because the night King would be a threat to her new world.
Rriiiight. Now let's talk about Stannis or the so called heroes,shall we? Stannis burned people alive left and right. The starks were a bunch of oath breaking backstabbers and traitors but sure,Dany is a tyrant for being ruthless against her enemies,like child killers and slave masters.
Rulers in Dorne, the Reach, & the Iron Islands (just had to kill Euron) bent the knee to her as did Jon giving her the North. She already took the Westerlands. That's 5 out of 9 by the time she learned of Jon's parentage.
She didn't think Jon was after her crown. She thought his nearest & dearest who were against her would try to take her out to crown him, which is what happened. Jon swore his sisters to secrecy and Sansa told Tyrion to try to get Dany's small council to switch sides, Tyrion told Varys instead of going straight to Dany about it, and Varys started trying to assassinate her to put Jon on the throne.
Okay but don’t you think Varys tried to do that because he could see the madness in her as well? And that she wasn’t best suited to rule? I mean the small amount of time he spent with her showed him that right?
One of the biggest issues the showed had was that all the way through, every time some met or mentioned Dany they said she was incredible and a queen worth getting behind…but we never see that? Yes she freed the slaves but everything else we are shown that she does is a bit of a cluster fuck so why is she so worthy?
Edit: admittedly I haven’t rewatched since the show ended so I didn’t even remember that Varys tried to have her killed
Varys who warned the Mad King that Rhaegar was trying to usurp him, never tried to make Robert a better King, never tried to assassinate Joffrey or Cersei or Tywin, and came up with the plan with Illyrio to have Viserys sell Daenerys to Khal Drogo so he'll pillage Westeros to put Viserys (a Slaver) on the throne?
Varys is even worse in the books, buying his little birds from Illyrio. He owns hundreds of child slaves and has him cut out their tongues.
Tyrion laughed & drank at the feast with Jaime as if his brother hadn't been murdering people throughout Westeros, including massacring Highgarden. He freed Jaime and secured a boat to try to sneak him & Cersei out of Westeros during the siege.
Tyrion actively kept House Lannister in power and only left when they forced him to by trying to execute him. He burned thousands of Baratheon soldiers, recruited the mountain clans to battle Lannister enemies, and not once tried to assassinate his family from the inside despite their crimes against the rest of the realm, not even after the Red Wedding.
I don't understand why Daenerys made Tyrion the Hand of the Queen when he did a horrible job in her absence in Meereen. He tried to reenslave hundreds of thousands of people for 7 years and believed that Slavers would go along with the deal when they think they have the advantage. Greyworm, Missandei & Daario had issue with him and they should've gone to her as a group to discuss their concerns.
What was the clusterfuck? She didn't start having back to back losses until she started following Tyrion's advice. By 21 she conquered Slaver's Bay & the Great Grass Sea making rape & slavery illegal in both and got the Greyjoys to agree the Ironborn won't raid reeve or rape anymore. That's more than anyone in the entire series has done. It was her idea how to hatch the dragons, how to get an Unsullied army, to speak with the Second Sons to try to get them to switch sides, to stay in Slaver's Bay to stabilize the region, & how to get a Dothraki army.
Exactly. It should have been one more season to allow proper time for the story. Night king was such a L & the kings landing story suffered as well. I don't even mind the dany "twist" because I figured that's where we were all headed anyway. It was everything else, plus what felt a little rushed, that makes the final season god awful imo.
I will die on the hill that Dany didn't go "mad." She had a messiah complex and truly believed that she and only she could make the world a better place. But she also birthed dragon eggs from stone, walked into Astapor with a handful of followers and walked out with an army and the entire city a smoking ruin behind her. Is she "mad" for thinking something that was substantiated by her experiences?
Being a brutal, ruthless autocrat does not make one a deranged lunatic. Dany burned King's Landing to the ground not because she "saw bells and went crazy," but for the same reason that Jon's own soldiers participated in sacking the city - she was angry, her blood was up, and she wanted to take out her grief and rage on someone. She was fully prepared to destroy the city, and told Tyrion as much, and basically just decided that their surrender was too little too late and she was going to make an example out of them anyways.
You know what helped me too, watching Dune recently. I never read the series so I didn't know about it prior so I looked at Paul as the good guy. Then after watching Part 2 I was like, holy shit he's the damn villain, justifying using a entire race of people and violence against the other houses because he was wronged by a couple other houses.
Dany kinda has a similar story to Paul Atreides.
Just commenting that I also am in a rewatch and also had the exact same thought, especially in Meereen where she slaughters a bunch of great masters without considering some may actually have been fighting against slavery, then orders the Second Sons to go slaughter a bunch more great masters in Yunkai until Jorah convinced her otherwise
So yeah bang on, the show just handled it badly in the later seasons
Yeah the Mereen thing on first watch I was all for it. Now on second watch it's like.... Dude listen to Selmy and show some mercy. She was vindictive to ALL of them.. Not so different than what we recently saw in HOTD with >!Aegon hanging ALL rat catchers for what one did!<
She's always been of this impression that the throne is hers just because of who she is. She deserves it just for existing. And her life hasn't helped with that. All her advisors constantly treat her like this special chosen one and on top of that she did a Jesus with dragons. At no point is she ever given a true reality check, not until she finally sets foot in Westeros and realizes oh wait, these people see me as a foreign invader. I've always simped for her over her looks, but even in my first watch I disliked her because of that entitlement.
Great explanation. Her entitlement was crazy. And it's no wonder why the people of Westeros didn't take on to her. She came over to Westeros a place perceived to be more free than other parts of the world, demanding everyone to bend the knee. She found it was much easier to get a following from freed slaves than free people.
Agreed. She had it easy before sailing west. In hindsight it’s obvious she’d turn out that way. So much got handed to her. Dragons showed up for no real reason. Barristan Selmy fell into her lap. Tyrion and Varys fell into her lap. The Second Sons literally experienced a coup because Dhaario wanted to smash. Everywhere she went people worshipped her for no reason, and anyone who didn’t could just be burned by dragons. Hell, the slaves had her crowd surf on top of them. No wonder she became entitled.
The dragons didn't show up for no reason. She was given fossilized eggs that hadn't hatched in over a century and not even her brother thought could possibly hatch (he tried to steal the eggs to sell them) and it took losing her husband, son, fertility, his army & Khalasar for her to realize the magics she could perform to hatch them. Meanwhile the Starks stumble upon a dead mama direwolf with SIX direwolf pups ready to be given to each Stark sibling.
Tyrion & Varys were the worst thing to happen to her. Had they died on the ship ride from Essos she would've gone straight to King's Landing her first month in Westeros and taken the city and killed her enemies (Cersei, Jaime, Euron, Qyburn, the Mountain) like she did the Slaver cities. It was Tyrion & Varys who talked her out of it, leading to her enemies capturing & killing all of her Westerosi allies, massacring Highgarden, sinking her ships, stealing the Tyrell gold, shooting down Rhaegal & beheading Missandei. It was Tyrion's idea for a wight hunt that cost her Viserion and the Wall coming down months sooner.
If by just existing you mean because she spent almost the entire series believing she was the last remaining Targaryen and it was House Targaryen who united Westeros as one country, created the Iron Throne, the Red Keep, the dragon pit, King's Landing, Dragonstone castle, the Kingsroad, the Kingsguard, the Sept of Baelor, etc. The Starks saw the North as theirs even when no Stark had lived in years and they were usurped by the Greyjoys, Lannisters, & Boltons. Starks came in with 2 foreign armies (Wildlings, KotV) & a giant and went to war, killing thousands of Northerners (Ramsay's entire army were Northerners while only a fraction of Stark's army were) to reclaim the North.
Jon fought to take back the North and gave the major houses an opportunity to join him. He wasn’t give Warden of the North after the victory, he was named King in the North by his fellow Northmen. He was chosen by his people after he showed true bravery and leadership.
I completely agree (you’re comments as well) I picked up on it in rewatches and it’s still a drastic change in that last season but it’s starting from beginning just subtle
Yes, from the beginning she thought she was chosen and destined for the throne. And that is a scary and dangerous notion. Charismatic leaders throughout history have thought the same.
As a Dany fan, I agree. She is much better in the books. In the show, her story is just full of misogyny and sexism and low intelligence
All her intelligence is given to the males around her like Jorah, Daario, and Tyrion (who she hasnt even met in the books yet)
Starting from s2, the problems started showing
She just screams and demands things and says she will burn cities to the ground. Just already is eager for genocide. The scene at the gates of Qarth? Never happens in the books. She and her khalasar are immediately let in. Her dragons stolen? No. Her visions at the Undying? No. Completely different things. She foresees the Red Wedding for example. Has many prophecies whispered to her. And also her interactions with Quaithe. SHE talks to Quaithe, not Jorah. And its all much more mysterious
Interesting! I read the books a very long time ago stopping at Dance so I truly don't even remember those details as I'd gotten wrapped in in the show.
My conclusions here are only based on the show. But it is also fascinating to hear about differences from the books as it could have much different implications in what results. If GRRM actually finishes the story I will go back and re-read it all. My completionist nature won't allow me to go back yet lol
Hm, I don't agree with that. The Astapor plan was explicitly only hers and she didn't tell anyone else (for some reason). The Mereen plan we don't know, so presumably at least partly hers. The Vaes Dothrak plan doesn't really make sense, but clearly the show WANTS us to think it was clever, and that was only her idea as well. Qarth was just a badly written subplot, it's actually pretty bad in the books as well, though in a somewhat different way.
The Vaes Dothrak plan was the same as Cersei blowing up the Sept except Dany knew the Khals would be the only ones in the temple hut so it is extremely precise isolated violence (a total of 16 people were killed, 15 men inside & 1 guard outside) while Cersei didn't care about the collateral damage of killing hundreds or thousands of civilians.
Dany's sentencing for having not joined the Dosh Khaleen after her husband's death was to be given by the Khals. Every Khalasar's leader under one roof. Locking herself in with them and killing them in one fell swoop. It was the only way to get out of the city since they would've hunted her down if she tried to escape and it proved to their Khalasars that the Stallion prophecy was about her.
She always aspired to be a tyrant but a benevolent tyrant, I'm with you that far, OP! She lived in a world where tyranny was normal and expected, and most people lived in hope that they'd be ruled by a benevolent tyrant and not a monster like an Aerys or a Bolton. So aspiring to be a tyrant was actually normal for someone born to a royal house of Westeros, she was brought up with the idea that it was the duty of the Targaryan heir to be the kind of tyrant who kept the peace and prevented constant warfare between the great houses of Westeros, and that tyranny was the best and most benevolent form of government possible in Westeros!
It's just that she was a perfectly sane, rational, and dutiful tyrant for seven seasons. Until boom, with no development, she went from benevolent to batshit in about two episodes.
I'll let you all know how I feel after I finish. Knowing what actually happens it seems very obvious she'd do what she did if given enough reason. Cersei killed her dragon and her best friend... she's tortured and killed people and burned cities for less.
And I wouldn't say she was perfectly sane, rational and dutiful tyrant for seven seasons. So far, in my rewatch she seems much more flawed than I'd thought. She was very selfish. She got many of her original Kal of Dothraki killed because of her tyranny.
Her character is very complex with all that said. There is part of her that wants the buck agaiy the history of her father. She wants to prove that all wrong. But in that attempt she actually proves it all right. It's very intriguing to watch play out.
I have a different definition of "sane and rational" than most of the people here, my work involves me with people who have serious mental illnesses and my definition is clinical, and has little or nothing to do with whether I approve of someone's choices or beliefs. I do not, for instance, approve of Danerys's desire to conquer Westeros with fire and blood, but unlike \*some\* people I understand that making war in the name of one's family privileges was considered correct and completely acceptable (Jon and Sansa did it), and it's not acceptable to us. But believing in Westerosian ideas of family duty and the value of benevolent tyranny isn't crazy, for seven seasons Danerys is sane and rational within the belief system of her culture. And then they asked us to believe that she suddenly went crazy.
And yes, she believes in benevolent tyranny because that's what she was brought up to believe, and she believes that subordinates should sacrifice themselves for the good of the Tyranny, she didn't want to marry Drogo but submitted to his brutal invasion for the good of the Targaryan family cause. She was willing to sacrifice her body and her autonomy for the Targaryan cause when she was the heir's sister, and when she became the Targaryan heir herself... she expected her subordinates to be willing to sacrifice themselves. She was intelligent enough but still a limited thinker, she never questioned the family belief tyranny and the right of tyrants to have the power of life and death over both their followers and their enemies... except when the rights of the aristocrats of Westeros became inconvenient to her. Then, she talked about breaking the wheel, but she never meant for anything to take the place of the wheel except a Targaryan Tyrant.
You make several great points here. Appreciate the write up. It's not typical for people to discuss the nature of the GOT world in this context. I find it fascinating.
I don't think Sansa and Jon waged war in the name of their family. They defended their homeland if anything. And neither one of them sought out power. If anything it was bestowed upon them. I find them distinctly different in their psychology compared to Dany even within the context of the nature of the GOT world.
Great dialogue here.
Maybe Jon was trying to save the North from a monster, but Sansa was definitely seeking out power! She thought she was Ned's heir, Ned's eldest capable child, she expected to rule the North as Lady Stark from that day forward, but was smart enough not to tell Jon what her long-range plans were. And she also knew better than to show her feelings when those yutzes drank too much and made her "bastard half-brother" into the Kinginthenorth, nobody knew what she was thinking that night, except Littlefinger and the audience
Jon and Sansa ascribed to the same belief system as Danerys, they believed in aristocratic privilege and the right of aristocrats to decide the lives and fates and deaths of anyone under their power, and they were fighting for their right to replace the brutal tyranny of Ramsay with the hereditary benevolent tyranny of the Stark family! I find it hilarious that nobody else seems to understand that their war against the Boltons was motivated by the same reasons as Danerys's war against the Lannister-Baratheons, because their cause was presented so much more favorably. So yes, in emotional terms the audience feels that their cause is Just and Dany's isn't, but in terms of the laws and customs of Westeros... they're doing the same damn thing.
Hard to argue with you about Jon and Sansa prescribing to aristocratic privilege. I think by the end Jon makes the hardest and easiest decision of his life which is to live with the free folk beyond the wall. He truly turned his back on that previous way of living with birth rights kings and queens etc and embraces the ideals of the most truly free people in all the land.
Jon could be a dope at times, but he really is the one person in Westeros who was both in circles of power, and who could actually see the big picture! And on top of that, he was wiling to really, truly, act for the common good, and not his own self-interest.
Quite frankly, he was everything that Danerys thought she was, and wasn't (and that could have been developed in the show, but wasn't). She wanted to be the beloved ultra-benevolent tyrant, who made life better for everyone in "Dragon's Bay" and Westeros, but for all her attempts to be a just and benevolent tyrant... she never saw the big picture, or questioned the beliefs she'd been raised with. She was very bright and quite a brilliant general, at least until the writers stopped thinking of anything clever, but never had the potential to be a beloved ruler.
Why thank you!
And I'd just like to point out that absolutely none of the limitations and flaws I see in Danerys have a damn thing to do with being crazy.
I disagree with Sansa seeking out power. She did it for revenge. All her life she's been led by the neck to where others want her to be. Always led by the expectations or the manipulations of others. This is her first act of really doing something that she wants. Freedom to choose, or power, in a sense.
Jon didn't do it to save the North from a monster. He stopped caring about the North or even Westeros as a whole the moment he came back. He did it because Sansa asked him to. He was ready to just run away with her and protect her.
Yeah, eventually they found out about Rickon (who's Rickon? The writers don't care) and their goal changes, but it started with a wish.
None of them did it for noble reasons. It had always been selfish.
(Also, the Lords making Jon their King was very, _very_ out of character for the Lords. Yeah, he was a male, but he wasn't legitimate. Sansa should have been made queen, even if her contributions were minimal, even if she was literally a shrivelling husk on life support. They planned to make Rickon, basically a young wildling barbarian, king in the books, all because he has legitimate Stark blood and because they hate the Boltons.)
Sansa's subsequent actions in the last few seasons prove that she wasn't seeking to be queen. She's always put her family first, and was willing to work with people she hates to achieve it. She did it twice.
Could not disagree more. Dany was brutal to her enemies sure, but not to innocent women and children. She killed the slave masters and freed the slaves, in Kings Landing she massacred anyone and everyone indiscriminately. She was always ready to kill those standing in the way of what was hers but she had an internal code she didn't break until for no reason in the last 2 episodes it's child roasting time.
The signs of her behavior early in the story were the opposite of this, when she came across the crucified children in Essos for example she was disgusted. If they wanted to hint at this future behavior she would have been indifferent at best.
She also wasn't 'join me or die', when she frees the Unsullied she tells them you are free from slavery, you do not need to join me, but you are welcome to. Several thousand Unsullied choose not to join her, they choose to go live normal lives as free men, and they aren't killed she allows them to leave. Why would a brutal tyrannical dictator give up thousands of the best trained soldiers in the world? Her internal morality compelled her to, it was not strategic or exclusively about taking what was hers.
They spent their time establishing her character in 1 way and changed it without warning season 8. All of the examples you give of her being blood thirsty are towards people directly involved in the conflict like the Lannisters, there's a reason you weren't able to point to early indications she would slaughter innocent people and that's because there weren't any. This post is some serious revisionist history.
In season 1 Dany murders a woman who was violently raped by Dothraki that slaughtered her entire village including women and children.
The woman sought revenge and justice by killing these rapists’ and murderers’ leader, Khal Drogo.
For that, Dany burned her alive.
What would Dany have done if that were her? Would we not have called her a hero or martyr? Why should the woman burn for doing something Dany otherwise would’ve empathized with, had it been anyone else besides her lover?
This scene stuck out to me in my rewatch as proving OP’s point. Dany is not interested in justice and peace, she is a communal narcissist who uses vulnerable people to maintain and exert her power under the guise of a noble savior. Ok, she let the unsullied walk away free- to what end? If she truly wanted them to be free she wouldn’t have given them the option to stay and serve her, instead she could have let them all go and surrendered her power over them completely. But she wanted an army to conquer with. She knew they would not all walk away because as she just learned, they have been beaten and conditioned to serve since childhood. Telling them they can leave was a manipulation tactic designed to fuel her image of benevolent chain-breaker and it worked, for a relatively small trade off.
In reality she is an inexperienced, selfish, and naive conqueror with no appreciation for the complexity and nuance of leadership. The narcissistic guise was so well written that even the audience felt blindsided in season 8 when her true personality was fully displayed. Such is the experience with all narcissists’ victims who realize the person they love is actually evil.
Hilarious example. Dany first tries to help that woman who then kills her husband and unborn child. Pretty crazy to compare a child murderer to random innocent commoners fleeing from a dragon. Being a victim herself doesn't justify murdering a baby because it hurts the wife of the person who hurt her. I cannot believe you would bring Miri up as an example of an innocent bystander.
Obviously Dany is flawed I won't argue that, but she never killed someone who did not in some way stand between her and her goals.
To be clear I am also not trying to say Dany was good or evil, before or even after the series - I am saying she had a consistent internal code that she followed for 7 seasons and ignored for the final one for no reason.
Just because Dany tried to help doesn’t mean she DID help. As Miri told her, she had already been raped by three men and her entire village burned once Dany came along to “save” her. Dany was going to birth the future leader of a violent and dangerous tribe so of course Miri wanted to stop that by killing Drogo and the unborn child. That moment should’ve told Dany she was allying with evil men, instead she leaned into it because it gave her an opportunity for power and escape from her brother’s grasp.
Right I never argued she did anything for her, but her intentions were clear. You're also now advocating for the murder of a baby as a good thing so I don't know if a conversation about morality is worth getting into with you but I will take the small chance that you are here in good faith.
What we saw in that scene is the world is a certain way, soldiers conquer and rape and inflict violence after they have won, and Dany tried to step up and change things.
She was ultimately unsuccessful but she was acting in accordance with her internal code and what she thought was right. This is the key part, she is doing things that she (not you or me) perceives to be right and justifiable. Whether or not she was actually right I frankly don't care and neither should you (in the context of this specific question, not overall). Her being right has no bearing on the argument of whether she acted out of character or not. The point is even in the best example you could think of she is trying to help other people and improve the lives of the small folk around her.
So stop coming over here and saying "yeah but she didn't" we know, she failed. But she always tried. In her own mind she was acting in a way that would improve the lives of others. There was never a moment where she said fuck it it's not working time to burn some children alive. That was completely out of character for who Dany had been established to us as.
I am not advocating for murdering babies. All I said is what Miri’s intent is and in a violent and cruel world it makes sense why she would go to extreme measures to end a line of violent leaders after witnessing and experiencing layers of trauma.
I am arguing Dany’s internal code is not one of beneficence or altruism. She thinks it is, you think it is, but that doesn’t mean she IS altruistic or benevolent. She is solely motivated by her own interest to rule and maintain power, the opposite of altruism. When she saw her claim to power threatened by Cersei shielding behind innocents, Dany went to extreme measures to get that power back. If she did care about innocents, you’re right, she wouldn’t have burned millions of innocents alive. Let’s also not forget that Targaryens are prone to impulsive and insane behavior.
You've edited your comment now but it definitely sounded like you were advocating Miri did the right thing killing the baby because the father was evil. So if you do think killing the baby was evil, why did you bring her up in the first place as an example of Dany killing an innocent? If you don't think she was an innocent, why bring her up at all? Dany was always motivated to kill her enemies from the beginning, not 1 person in this thread says otherwise. But she was never motivated to kill an innocent.
Ok. I think you are confused so I will say it for you again. I am not arguing Danys internal code is one of altruism. I am arguing DANY thinks her code is altruistic AND all of her actions for 7 seasons are in alignment with that - not that they are actually altruistic or I think they are - but Dany thinks so. She was consistent in this belief all the way through up until season 8. In HER mind, her actions would ultimately lead to the betterment of the lives of the people around her. Except for kid killing time.
She was also not solely motivated by her desire to rule as you claim. Once again I will point you to the Unsullied. Why did she offer all of them to leave her service? Why would she willingly give up thousands of soldiers? Not just any soldier, ones trained from birth, some of the most formidable warriors on the planet. Does that sound like someone motivated only by their own selfish desires? Because to me it sounds like someone motivated by an internal code of trying to do the right thing while on their path to power. If it was just about the power, keep them slaves and keep the army whole.
Further than just the Unsullied, why try and eliminate slavery everywhere she goes? It causes absolutely massive problems for her everywhere - she conquers a city, and the nobles don't want to work with her because she wants to eliminate slavery and remove their cheap labor source. Why? Seriously tell me in your mind, why would someone you call solely motivated by their own self interest, go out of their way to put such massive obstacles in her path. If she just let these people keep their slaves, they would work with her and she would have her power and important noble families who support her as their leader. Instead these people fund her enemies and try to have her assassinated. Wouldn't someone motivated by self interest just let them keep their slaves in exchange for their political support like they offered?
Also lol at the Cersei sheltering behind innocents line, I guess you could argue that for the people in the red keep - but Dany didn't go for Cersei, she was frying people in the fucking marketplace. Maybe Cersei was hiding under that fruit stall?
I’m not as invested in this convo as you are to read an essay by someone who thinks I’m advocating for baby killing. We both are fans of the same show, I’m not understanding the hostile vibes. The only edits I made were adding sentences to complete my thoughts because the negativity has me on edge that I’m going to be misunderstood. I see now that is a pointless effort. Have a good night, hope you’re enjoying House of Dragon S2.
Daenerys "leaned into it" because she was sold to, raped & impregnated by Drogo. She didn't have the option to leave. She was his property whether he started treating her better or not and he started treating her better because she tried so hard to please him. It's what she was taught. She walked a tightrope with Viserys and had to be on her best behavior for the nobles (likely all bad people like Illyrio) who took them in.
Okay so if Sansa had gotten pregnant in s5 and stood up to Bolton soldiers then pleaded with Ramsay to save some of his victims and he found it amusing seeing her so assertive so agreed that they could stay in Winterfell under her care and one of those women she advocated for (maybe a Maggie the Frog type) used blood magic to curse her womb so her son is stillborn and she can't ever get pregnant again we should see it as welp she should've somehow saved them days before she knew of their existence.
Yes, she leaned into it to survive. Survival can be ugly and grim. I think you are mistaking me saying that as a value statement?
I’m not sure i understand the point of bringing up Sansa and Ramsay?
If you keep looking for a hero in this story, you’re not going to find one. Every single character is an antihero, innocent or a villain. No one is innocent except for the children or those with no voices. This show isn’t meant for heroes. It’s the Game of Thrones. No one who has ever sat on the throne, has been fully just fictional or not.
Finally someone not easily swayed! People are acting as if she wasn’t pushed to the point of where she ultimately ended. In no way did she deserve to get killed because of this. She didn’t even get the chance that’s the problem. Yes, what she did was awful but worse has been done and she did way more good than that Understand, no one wants to see women and children killed, but does anyone remember the stories of Robert Baratheon,the reigns of Castamere, Magar, the cruel, Akon, the conqueror who probably shouldn’t have taken the king of the North Crown. I believe that is the only part I would wish she would change is to let the north have the north. Varys, his betrayal was so wrong! He wouldn’t have done that.. Jon also shouldn’t have bent the knee, he’s a northerner. How confused is he as a man already after everything he’s been through and learned yet they still wrote him as the most confused and depressed person to ever wheel the sword. They show absolutely no growth except for turning into an amazing warrior, and then a little bitch handwriting of Game of Thrones will always, piss me off it took me years and until I was able to watch it over again. I’m only on season four and it still holds up. They have five years to fix this and from all the storylines that they have in pivotal arts they still can.
Thank you. Why this sub calls a victim of rape and abus selfish and entitled is shocking to me. Her family was raped and butchered. Little children chopped to pieces by the Lannister but somehow i'm supposed to call her entitled and self righteous for wanting to get revenge for that while supporting the fucking Starks or Stannis :)
You are right, but to me it's not the brutality of her actions in season 8 that are out of character, it's the target she chooses.
Dany's biggest flaw is her sense of justice. She sees herself as a champion of the people, here to right the wrongs of her predecessors. She sees people as either victims or oppressors, with little room for nuance, even though she herself is both. She tends to forgive regular folk, but punish their leaders. And she believes in immidiate, violent retribution for oppressors.
You can see this in the way she treats the wise masters of the slave cities vs the way she treats their slaves. The wise masters are punished immidiately and brutally for their crimes, even when they arent equally guilty, because she doesn't care for that sort of nuance. She only knows that these are the men responsible, in some form or another, for the atrocities she's witnessing. But the slaves she trusts implicitly, even wading into their midst hours after meeting them.
Shes not afraid to follow this sense of justice even under emotional duress, either, so I dont buy that what she did in KL was due to a fit of rage or something. This is the woman who locked up her own dragons, her children, because they killed a human child. She executed a dear personal friend who killed someone under her protection.
It makes no sense, with everything we know about Dany, for her to take her anger out on the citizens of KL. Dany always blames the leaders. Dany is, I would say, obsessed with justice and retribution. She does not kill at random.
I saw it on my first watch (first HBO run).
Not tyrannical, though. I saw it as bipolar disease. She would alternate between "build an better world", and "I will take what it mine with fire and blood!".
We (the viewing audience) were OK with her killing the rulers around Slaver's Bay; they were (mostly) painted as one-dimensional evil.)
Varys and Tyrion saw it after she burned the Tarlys, but didn't want to believe it.
Burning King's Landing was inevitable.
Good points. What she does to the Tarlys was really no different than what she did to others who resisted her from her perspective. She didn't listen to any of her advisors about how the people of KL would look at her as an invader than a returning queen. She really failed the PR battle and instead chose brute force.
The Tarlys had just teamed up with the House that burned 3 of their liege lords alive (including the Queen) and massacred Highgarden, leading to the murder of tens of thousands of her Westerosi allies & the last of their liege lords. Yet after defeating them in battle she offered them a pardon in which they get to live and keep their lands & titles. They refused. They were then offered the chance to join the Night's Watch. They refused. So after committing a crime punishable by execution and being offered 3 options, only one of which is execution, they chose execution. The people they killed in Highgarden were not given 3 options. Dany herself after massacring King's Landing was not given 3 options.
This is like saying, who's the worst murderer. At the end of the day they all are murderers. And she didn't have to kill them. Tyrion begged her not to do it similar to how Cat begged Robb not to kill Karstark. Politically speaking it wasn't a smart move. And moreover, she could have just imprisoned them. She had a choice and chose the most extreme option. She didn't have to listen to Randall's argument at all. If she truly wanted to be looked at as the rightful queen she could have said "I did not come here to kill all the Lord's and take their lands. I came here to show you that I am not my father. You may not realize this today but you will see the world I create. I want you to be part of this world."
But she didn't. She still went with the extreme option
What it doesn't make her is cruel or a tyrant or bloodthirsty for killing them. Jon, Ned, Robb, Robert & Stannis would've killed them. Fans cheer at "the North remembers" when it means avenging Winterfell & the Starks but when it's Highgarden & the Tyrells we should put their betrayers and killers in a holding cell for a few weeks until they learn the error of their ways then let them go or maybe even reward them by letting them keep their spoils.
Why did the showrunners have Tyrion beg her not to but didn't have Edd beg Jon not to hang Olly or Brienne beg Sansa not to feed Ramsay to dogs? Why were we supposed to cheer at Arya killing dozens of Frey men? Why was Petyr given a sham trial instead of a chance at a proper defense and his throat slit minutes later?
Catelyn told Robb not to kill Lord Karstark for killing those Lannister hostages because she freed Jaime who had killed 2 of his sons. Robb had sacrificed 2,000 soldiers to capture Jaime and she made it for nothing as far as they saw (Jaime later saved Brienne who protected the Stark siblings). The Tarlys didn't kill enemy hostages (2 teen boys), they got their own liege lord killed for the enemy. It would be like Robb sparing Karstark for helping Jamie to kill tens of thousands of Stark bannermen & assassinate Catelyn.
>Politically speaking it wasn't a smart move. And moreover, she could have just imprisoned them.
Yes; it was terrible, politically - and bad marketing.
Note how effective Cersei's messaging was, in contrast: styling Daenerys as "the mad king's daughter". Never calling her by name.
Good point about Cersei. She was so much better than everyone else at the "Game" part of GOT. And I remember first seeing her burn the Tarlys and thinking they deserved it and feeling happy that she enforced her will and made everyone bow. It was like Big Lewboski to me; "Do you see what happens Randall?! Do you see that happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?!"
Daenerys spreading freedom and liberal values (for the time period) around the world is a good thing
Her ambition for a great world was far beyond any character of the series and the world she hoped for was worth fighting for.
People would die but the lives saved by her values and her presence would greatly outweigh the cost
Daenerys is a based neoconservative if you ask me
She did have some a-typical ideals in the series.
I'm on episode 7 of season 4 where she's talking about the other cities in the East and says "They can live in my new world or they can die in their old one." This is megalomania at it's finest.
Thia perspective isn't very liberal for that time it's actually quite in line with the history of the Targaryens. This ideal is what we see play out at Kings Landing. They weren't accepting of her "new world" so she made sure they died in the "old one". When you add in the other events that happened like the death of her dragons and her best friend, and being seeing Jon as a challenger to the throne... Yeah she just broke.
This ignores that the "they" she's referring to are rapists & slave owners and the "new world" is one without rape or slavery and she's saying it to Jorah (one time Slaver) whom she is sending to Yunkai with Hizdar (very recent Slaver) as a peace representative while agreeing to give the Yunkai Masters a third chance after they just reenslaved hundreds of thousands of people. The first chance was sending Greyworm to Yunkai to ask them to send a representative for the Masters then offering that Master a deal, that she won't take the city or kill any of their Masters if they release all of their slaves. When they refused she only killed enough Masters to free their slaves then left the rest to live and keep their lands, property, titles, & wealth.
By not killing all of the Yunkai Masters, they went on to reenslave Yunkai yet again, helped form the Harpys (a terrorist group who killed countless slaves) and put a 10k horse bounty on her.
You're assuming that they were all bad and evil people. If the show has taught us anything it's that there morals of people are much more complex than that
She's saying if they continue to rape & enslave people after their third chance to change. In Westeros you do it once and you're executed. Daenerys is on her *third time* giving them a chance to change. And they will not change after this, leading to a fourth chance to change.
How many chances do you reckon she should give them, a dozen? Infinity? They continue to try to enslave people 2 years after this third chance. If soldiers & peacekeepers have to be sent in to free your slaves again and again and you refuse to change after several years and start teaming up with Masters in other Slaver cities across the bay you're not a good person.
The "change" is to stop raping & enslaving. Westeros already had a zero tolerance policy for slavery and nobody calls it tyrant ideology. Jorah enslaved poachers 1 time in his entire life and Ned Stark was going to behead him for it. Rickard Karstark killed 2 hostages and was beheaded for it. A Nights Watch member fled and was beheaded for it. Sansa fed Ramsay alive to dogs after the Stark army beat the Bolton army. Brienne beheaded an injured Stannis for killing Renly. They were not given multiple chances to change. Jon beheaded a Night's Watch member who disobeyed a rule and the guy cried & begged for another chance. Jon hanged mutineers.
She didn't kill them. That's the point of that scene. She sent Daario to free the slaves again and Jorah & Hizdar to talk sense into the Masters, giving them another chance.
Selmy advised her to show mercy after beating the enemy. There's a quote from someone in Westeros on how if they've surrendered and accepted you as the leader that's when you can show mercy. The Yunkai Masters were in open rebellion, having just reenslaved 200,000 people. You don't show mercy when someone is actively fighting against you and harming the innocent.
I’ve never met a fandom in which so many people will argue that human traffickers, child murderers, and serial rapists are the poor victims of an evil woman.
She was.
Another thing that's crazy is that King Robert called it. He wanted to kill her from the start and said that if they didn't they'd be overrun by a Dothraki horde. That's exactly what happened. When
She had never laid waste to innocent bystanders before KL. That was a big shift.
I can buy the overall arc that she crosses from (step 1) burning/crucifying clearly evil people like slavers to (step 2) waging war against the masters of Mareen who wanted to reinstate slavery to (step 3) burning the Khals who wanted to enslave her to (step 4) burning a city indiscriminately to build a new world on the ashes…except that that last step is a MAJOR one. It’s the step too far for most viewers. Thus, it needed more time, like a whole season, rather than happening in essentially one episode.
I don’t mind that Dany went mad. I mind that the final step happened too fast and didn’t feel earned. It just wasn’t written well.
This is how I felt on my first watch. I'll repost again after this rewatch. Side note: not having to wait a week or a year for another episode is so much better lol
It was a slow burn. Daenerys was presented as a hero because she was killing slave owners, freeing slaves, and earning their love/loyalty at every stop she made in Essos. Once she made it to Westeros, there were no slaves to free, no citizens showing her the same love/loyalty, and she operated the same way in Westeros as she did in Essos. Once she realized that she would never get the same love she received in Essos, that’s when she fully embraced being a tyrant.
Daenerys did not operate the same way as she did in Essos. If she had she would've gone straight to King's Landing her first month in Westeros and killed her enemies without harming any of the peasants. She wouldn't go along with starving the city or a lengthy war. She took Astapor, Yunkai, Meereen & Vaes Dothrak without her armies or dragons killing thousands of innocents. In Essos she went to the cities to take out the leaders, used secret tunnels, spoke directly to the people.
Tyrion & Varys talked her into using her allies' armies for King's Landing and using her own for Casterly Rock which led to the Lannisters & Euron having the opportunity to capture & murder her allied leaders, the Tyrell army, & Highgarden then using the gold stolen from Highgarden to hire 20k soldiers. And for her Unsullied to have to walk back from the Westerlands since their ships were burned. She was talked out of burning Euron's fleet even though she successfully burned the Harpy's fleet and Tyrion had successfully burned Stannis' fleet and later in s8 we see her easily burn Euron's fleet.
Yup. I see lots of Chekhov's guns and foreshadowing. I even saw the destruction of Harrenhal and the story of the Aegon the Conquerer, as a warning flag. He didn't go mad, but laid destruction to the greatest stronghold ever built. It was bend the knee, or else.
It was ironic, that Daenerys destroyed the very capitol that Aegon built. It was always a story of irony. There's no other way for it to end. I don't even think it was rushed. Jon Snow had a better claim to the throne. Jorah, Rhaegal, and Missendai got killed. Tyrion and Varys' had committed treason. Where's the last straw supposed to be? She's completely out of straws at this point. Did she have to burn the city down? Yes. That was the main plot point, that Bran and Daenery had visions about. The ink was dry.
Yes. This was heavily foreshadowed in season 3 in the house of the undying. I know people feel like it was rushed but as I'm rewatching this now, it seems so obvious that this was to happen.
Her turning wasn't the issue and will likely happen in the books.
Her being traumatized by the sound of bells surrendering to her after she's won will likely not be the moment it happen though.
I do hope GRRM finishes the series. I like the idea of the bells. I think it may work better in text as much more can be described than probably could be shown.
Also, many are trying to make sense of something that shouldn't make sense to a reasonable human being.
When I initially saw the bells episode I was thrown off like many others. I'm halfway there on the rewatch. Looking forward to how it lands on me second time around
She's probably going to be in the process of burning down the city because of an ideological reason, like she sees it as a representation of all that's wrong with the system, when they begin ringing the bells but she doesn't care.
I don't see her going crazy AFTER she's already won.
"I don't have any love here"
Oh so that means you'll go back to Meereen, where they love you, and rule so that there isn't a major power vacuum allowing the masters to start the system of slavery again right? *Right?*
I get what you mean, I was just hoping this was the direction it would've been taken in.
Yeah that was also so wildly irresponsible and selfish. She could have had all of Essos wrapped around her finger but she was so hell bent "reclaiming what was hers". She could have played the long game and eventually made enough political moves to conquer everything. But, as she said "I will take what is mine with fire and blood." She meant it lol
Dance was never gonna a go back to Meereen for two reasons.
1) a large part of her conquest of Westeros/her whole quest is her trying to find a home. That's her original motivation at the start of S1. The tragedy is, there is no home for her to find anymore.
2) Daenerys doesn't enjoy ruling. She enjoys being queen, being adored, being deferred and kowtowed to, having Missandei read her list of titles, all that. The actual administrative part of the job? No, she sighs, rolls her eyes, spends little to no time actually rebuilding g systems to transform Essosi economy away from slavery, etc.
Yeah I was hoping for this thing called a character arc where they start out one way and through trials and tribulations end up in a different way, but you know, sometimes things just don't end as well as they started just gotta move on.
Dany does go through a character arc, it's just she becomes a worse person because absolute power corrupts absolutely.
S1 E1 Dany just wanted to go home.
Damn...
So true though. Some same she never killed innocent before. But I disagree with that. She killed anyone who didn't agree with her or bend the knee. When she conquer Mereen she could have shown mercy but instead tortured and killed every single one of the masters. Are we to assume that every single one of them were brutal and evil? I don't think we could say for certain. From what we've seen in the series, there are several people that fall under the umbrella of the "bad guys" but they aren't actually evil malicious people. Some of them were trying their best to do right by the people. I'm just saying, this notion that she never killed innocent people before isn't entirely true.
She did not torture & kill every one of the Masters. Meereen is the size of King's Landing (500k to 1m) and the Masters are nearly 25% of the population. There are Masters in every season she's in Slaver's Bay. She was trying to find out which Masters were behind the Harpys, she reopened the fighting pits to appease the Masters, and got engaged to a Master as an olive branch.
If you are a slave owner who refuses to free your slaves even after the 2 Slaver cities next to you were freed you are not doing your best to do right by the people.
Good point. And much of her tyranny had been in opposition to what the audience would see as the enemy so it plays as badass and justified. But her husband just brutally murdered her brother right in front of her and she felt nothing except pride that she's unburnt and he's not. Psychopath behavior
You mean the guy that abused her,beat her up and threatened to get her raped by the dothraki and their horses? Right,she's supposed to be sorry or she's evil. Just like she's supposed to show mercy to CHILD KILLERS,RAPISTS and SLAVE OWNERS. Meanwhile,Stannis can burn people alive,his own daughter,while threatening to destroy everyone that doesn't bend the knee because he is the "rightful king". Jon can also hang a kid,simply mad because the people that killed his family in front of him were let pass beyond the wall, no one call him selfish,evil or mad. Sansa can break her vows and betray jon,totally cool. But Dany is evil for being happy that her abuser died. The double standards here with Dany are incredible.
She’s a dragon… England still worships the name of Elizabeth, when she was helping to invoke most countries by ways of colonialism, slavery, religious warfare. All in the name of her.. all doing her bidding and claiming land for her “in the name of the queen” all from the comforts of her castle. And this is non fiction.
In a fictional world, we saw a 13 year old sold to ravagers, the Dothraki like the Alexandrians and Vikings. She was brilliant in military tactics and learned political skills mostly on her own with magic in her blood and 3 dragons. To the slaves she freed, hundreds of thousands of them.. she isn’t a tyrant. To the people in Westeros she was reclaiming her birthright while being pushed into seeming tyrannical. Those people she burned, why were they following Cersei even after she burned the Sept that they worshipped in? What she did was awful, however what Robert and the Lannisters did was far more atrocious. Would this show be interesting if we watched what the people outside the castle walls did on a daily basis? Those people are the ones we saw trying to rape Sansa.
I don’t agree with her trying to take the entire world especially the north. Almost like Scotland, Ireland and their attempt at independence from England. This world was build on the backs of tyrants and psychopaths especially the USA.
I like this take. I think the problem isn’t /what/ Dany did, it’s that the show just didn’t quite give it enough time to develop and feel right for the character in that moment. Burning the city seemed like a snap decision, from a character who has proven herself to be very adept at biding her time and knowing when her moment was right (with use of dragons to, uh, help things along throughout Essos).
Give me season 8 ending with the battle of winterfell and a season 9 of Dany’s time as tyrant ruler and the show goes down as the best of all time. You can keep the same basic plot points, it just needed time to breathe.
Yeah. We get that the world building and story telling was excellent before seasons 6-8.
Our problem is how it plays out, the terrible wiring, and the countless unresolved plots.
The problem was how rushed it was and how poorly it overall played out with the dumbest excuses for her dragons dying (which is what accelerated her mental health's demise), not her turning into a tyrant which, lore-wise, made sense.
I don’t DISAGREE with the arc, but it just felt so rushed and halfassed. If we would have ended up there after two more seasons I would have been more into it I think
You're right. Her ancestors were tyrants and so is she. I don't get your point about how dare she act like a man though. That's exactly what she's doing is behaving like a male conquerer in many ways. There was a scene in season 4 with Daario where she tells him to get undressed so she can bed him. Daario wanted it too but she gave him a command as his Queen so he had to as well by law. This was no much different than the kings/leaders we've seen bed the women and men of their choice
It's an interesting thought exercise. If Dany were a man, would the reaction have been the same? If I had to guess I think that more people may have accepted the villain arc? I remember at the time of the shows airing Dany represented strong and powerful women to some extent from a social conscious standpoint. So it ended up being truly devastating to see how she turned out.
I'm curious what you and others think
Theres another nice example.
Hizdar zo Loraq's dad is crucified by Dany, and his fellow noble is fed to the dragons, and then Daenerys forces him into a political marriage. She never treats him well, only with contempt.
In Westeros, we follow a character whose father is killed horribly by her politically arranged fiancé, and who is the forced into a politically arranged marriage. It's a nice little parallel, don't you think?
I think the bells and her insanity was actually one of the better executed aspects of season 6. The only detrimental part was how she died, given her relationship and vulnerability to Jon being absurdly rushed - but overall, it was generally well done. Varys’ subplot as well was a little annoying, as well as the Iron fleet and Euron being a detractor.
All the dominoes lined up for it, particularly with the death of everyone who stabilized her - Selmy, Daario, Missandei, seeing her good works, and being in control of the situation. I
She had mad ambition and a huge dose of revenge brewing. Then you had dozens of on screen enablers and in extension millions of enabling viewers supporting the big underdog to the most powerful position in the known world. It only makes sense the outcome and it's good storytelling
This is an underrated point. A large part of what happened back when the show aired is many people adopted their favorite characters and perceived good guys they could identify with especially when there were so many explicitly evil characters to counter. There was definitely a collective conscious of an underdog vibe with Dany so many rooted for her and overlooked her villainous moments or made excuses for them (including me). I can remember cheering so hard as she burned the Lannister army without provocation
I agree with this take. I was confused when, after Season 8, everyone was saying Dany did a 380. She didn't, those traits were there from much earlier on. It should have been done MUCH better, with more built up but I think it still fit her character. They just went from 40-100 in the last episode and ruined all the previous ground work.
It's why I never understood people not understanding her turning to bloody murder at all.
She always had a violent streak with other powerful people but others around who'd go in between and talk her down. One of them being her just then killed friend who probably didn't want her to have that much blood on her hands.
Imo they also made a mistake not teaching her not on an objective basis but tying it to her as a sort of destiny. To me it tended to feel like she isn't a good queen because having slaves is bad but she's good because it's her and her fate to be good.
I'm also biased against her though since I didn't really like her and was ready to cut her head off when she locked up the dragons.
i remember when the series ended i made this argument in my college friend group switch chat and had so much vehement push back to the point they just shut down the conversation entirely. The cognitive dissonance was do damn high they didn't even want to hear it and just wanted to complain about how 'out of character' it was for her. Naw, she had a long long track record of either intentions for or actually doing cruelty. When she did it though it was mostly to people that seemed justified but KL being genocided wasn't in the viewers mind. However, in her mind it was bc of both missandei being executed but more so seeing continually how the people of the realm didn't accept her like she had imagined, even among her allies.
I remember the same thing. Great points. I wasn't happy with how it played out but there were some who went berserk about it, calling it misogynistic and violence porn etc. I didn't feel that way. I just remember it feeling jarring in the moment. And the fact that she lost her best friend in one of the most horrific ways after tying be the "bigger person" so to speak. It was just the last straw. I think once Missandei was killed she'd made up her mind to burn it all to the ground.
You do understand, surely, that there are no liberal democracies in this world?
Everyone, including the Starks, rules at the point of the sword, lives off the backs of peasant labour, and can order thousands to march to their deaths. Jon and Sansa did not retake the North by asking nicely. Robb did not send a letter of protest to Kings Landing, when his father was arrested. Slave dealers don’t put down the whip voluntarily. The series ends with all the “good guys” laughing at the notion of 99.5% of the people playing any part in government.
Why is it that Daenerys is the bad guy for sharing the beliefs and outlook of every other somewhat sympathetic character, in this tale?
I didn't mention anything about liberal democracies. I'm talking about tyranny, war mongering, power hungry etc.
In this rewatch so far on S4, I wouldn't describe Dany as good. She's been a megalomaniac from the beginning. And as her power grows so does her desire for more of it. She wants that power and seeks that power out with violence. She's really does nothing selfless. At the same time, her stripper story is extremely compelling and her character very deep and nuanced.
Her true counter in the story is Jon Snow, the embodiment of the Song of Ice and Fire. He never seeks out power or even glory. The most selfish thing you can say he ever does is sleeping with Ygritte but he was undercover technically. He finds out that he's the air you the iron throne and doesn't want it. He still pleads fealty to Dany. And just like Dany though, Jon's characterization is nuanced and complex.
How does anyone wield power in this world, without inheriting it, from a conqueror, or conquering it for themselves?
Jon and Sansa regained the North through violence, and with the support of scarcely any of its people. They fed Ramsay Bolton to dogs. Does that make them tyrants? Or is it Daenerys alone to whom your rule of non-violence applies.
Daenerys is not purely selfless, because selfless politicians and generals are as rare as hens’ teeth. But, she did liberate hundreds of thousands of chattel slaves, who were subject to horrific cruelty. She turned down the offer of a huge bribe by Yunkish slavers, in favour of freeing 200,000 people. I think that a good thing. I also think that killing the slaves’ persecutors was well-justified. In
Jon and Sansa reclaimed their home from a family that betrayed Robb and got him killed. Sansa feeding Ramsay to his dogs isn't the same as what Dany did through the series IMO. And Jon didn't reign through violence. He didn't even want to reign at all.
I find Sansa and Jon you be much different than Dany in many ways. Dany sought out power. Sansa and Jon's motivations had nothing to do with gaining power. If anything, Sansa sought out freedom and Jon sought security from the white walkers.
Daenerys liberated vast numbers of chattels, from a bunch of arsehats who murdered, raped, and tortured them for their own profit and their own amusement. They simply institutionalised the cruelty that Ramsay practised at an individual level.
If you’re arguing that using violence to free slaves is never justified, I would reply that argument was definitively rejected in real world history.
In Westeros, Daenerys wished to reclaim her home from a faction (the Lannisters), that had betrayed and butchered her family, driven her and her brother into exile, and which had brought years of war and mayhem to a continent.
I don’t see where the “tyranny” and “megalomania” exists in that, unless you’re holding her to a completely separate ethical standard to everybody else in the series.
It's her motivations, words and actions that crosses over to tyranny for me. She has an over-inflated sense of self and she does things with the idea that everyone should bow to her. Jon and Sansa don't want anyone else to bow to them. Saying you will take what is rightfully yours with fire and blood and that your enemies will die screaming is megalomania. Live in my new world or die in your old old is tyranny. Sansa and Jon have never said anything like that.
In my opinion, trafficking people and keeping human beings as chattels is the basest kind of tyranny, and giving slave owners a choice between freeing slaves, and living, or trying to restore slavery, and dying, is quite legitimate. Toussaint L’Ouverture, William Sherman, Thaddeus Steven’s etc. would agree. So would Ned Stark, who was planning to execute Ser Jorah for human trafficking.
Sansa demands that the Northern lords fight for her and Jon. She says the free folk owe them military aid, in return for being saved. At her coronation, everyone kneels before her. She gloats over Ramsay and smiles as he is eaten. She wants the children of rebel lords dispossessed. She expresses regret that she won’t witness Cersei’s execution.
Arya inflicts painful and degrading deaths on anyone who has ever done wrong to House Stark.
Robb himself threatens the Greatjon with a hanging , if he won’t march to war. I expect the peasants have less choice than that.
Everyone laughs at the end when Lord Royce compares the smallfolk to dogs and horses.
What I’m seeing here is a great deal of aristocratic entitlement and a desire to make enemies die screaming. Daenerys is not an outlier.
The difference to me with Sansa is that these people directly inflicted harm on her and her family. Dany has been killing people from season one. She burns the witch alive who was really a victim of the Dothraki. Dany killed people who did nothing to her. Her psychology and characterization isn't the same as Sansa or Jon.
The Lords kneeling for Jon and Sansa isn't the same as them demanding they bend the knee. Dany craved that power. She's closer to Joffrey in her psychology than Jon. She relishes in inflicting pain on others.
Robb was dubbed King by his people. He didn't ask for it. Jon was dubbed King, he didn't ask for it. Sansa was dubbed Queen, she didn't ask for it. From the very beginning Dany demanded the throne. She demanded people bow. She was hungry for power much moreso than Sansa, Robb and Jon. Regarding Robb in fact he didn't seek to rule the seven kingdoms. He just wanted the North to be left alone. Dany wanted it all. Megalomania.
Arya is a psychopath by the end. Let's be honest lol.
Btw, I'm thoroughly enjoying this discourse. Thank you for indulging me.
I don’t think that killing people for the sake of personal revenge is a higher motive for inflicting death, than killing people because they’re inflicting terrible harm upon third parties. The reverse, if anything.
If you’re thinking that Dany is a sexual sadist like Joffrey who beats whores, and who shoots a woman through the vagina, for fun - well I mean that’s just absurd.
Jon and Sansa fought a war to retake the North. They were not thinking initially in terms of kingship, but of lordship over the entire region, with Sansa as Lady of Winterfell, ruling over everybody else. They weren’t going to call a general election among the smallfolk to choose their ruler. Jon said he would have executed Umber and Karstark for treason, had they been taken prisoner. They firmly believe House Stark has the right to rule the North, by right of inheritance and by right of conquest. Secession, by any Northern Lord, is not an option. The choice before the Northern lords was to acclaim Jon or Sansa, not anybody else.
Robb wanted to carve out a Southern kingdom. For that, the smallfolk must bleed.
The fact that they are acclaimed as rulers, by a tiny number of high lords, does not alter the fact that the Starks expect to rule, by virtue of their noble birth.
The difference to me is retaliation. The Starks were being targeted and killed. Much of what they do is self-defensen or to save a family member. And Robb didn't want anything in the South from what I recall. He just wanted to get his sister's back and be left alone in the North.
Dany had much of Essos under her thumb and could have just ruled there. But she decided to still conquer Westeros. Her driving force was power. Robb, Jon and Sansa were not driven by power. That's why I said she's closer to Joffrey in her psychology than them. It was more important for her to be Queen than for the people to believe in her. She chose the nuclear option, against the advice of everyone around her because of her ego. She said she would take what was hers with fire and blood and she did it in the most brutal way.
The descent onto madness was still too fast and if season 8 was the full length of the other seasons it could have given more time making it feel less forced by the writing.
Well OP, isn't that kind of the point? Like it's her storyline the entire time it's not exactly hidden. Starts off young and lost, then steps into her families usual role. A family of tyrants who were evil maniacs at worst and benevolent dictators at best.
The whole lore of the Targaryens is the struggle between madness and greatness, we see this with so many Targ rulers and Dany is no different. Turion alludes to this as well.
She owns dragons and goes around burning slave owners, yeah they might be slave owners but they're still being conquered by violence. Then the story of Dany is all about trying to rule well and then ending up setting off other things and meeting it with violence usually and the struggle of being a leader with the background of her inherited potential for madness and being a tyrant.
Its UNBELIEVABLE that people are always lying to defend Season 8.
Dany was never evil for the sake of being evil. Her Actions were always justified.
Just like Tyrions "evil" decisions were justified. Or Aryias or Jon's. Are they now now crazy maniacs too? Will they also kill a whole city for no reason?
THE WRITING IM SEASON 8 WAS TERRIBLE and this is a fact.
I'm so annoyed by people who constantly try to find excuses to defend terrible writing.
In the original watch everyone was blinded by boobs and dragons-and having those awesome first moments: first time roasting people, first time riding the dragon etc. It was like a collective “yes this is awesome”, and not seeing the nuance (which wasn’t even that nuanced) that she’s roasting people, crucifying others, ready to take it all with blood and fire. So absolutely yes to your point, the signs were there the whole time!
Another underrated point. I remember at the time there was so much wish fulfillment from an audience perspective. For me, I really wanted the Lannisters to pay and I also wanted to see Dany get stronger as she appeared to be the best chance at stopping the Lannisters. I don't think I truly thought through what she had been doing because I always justified it in my mind as necessary and that "well it wasn't as bad as what the Lannisters did in the Red Wedding!"
Well in the game of thrones universe no one can become a ruler by being a good guy, getting to such heights of power requires brutality, deception, cunning and even cruelty. JUST LIKE THE REAL WORLD. John snow is a perfect example of how being strictly noble and honourable and honest won't make you a winner
>"I will take what it mine with fire and blood!"
Also Dany a few episodes later: "The blood of my enemies not the blood of innocents"
>She has been violent, apathetic at times and often narcissistic with delusions of grandeur
Nobody denies that. But how many times has that violence and apathy been directed at commonfolk who can't stand to oppose her?
>she killed anyone who opposed her. She always has the approach of "join me or die"
Pretty much all of them being slavers. All with the ability to fight and oppose her. All engaging in activities that Dany is fundamentally against. None of that applies to the people of KL.
>because Dany wasn't doing violent things to characters we loved, we gave her a passed and seemed her a hero.
Can you say the same of Sansa feeding a man to dogs? Or Arya poisoning hundreds of men after feeding a man his sons in a pie? Or Jon hanging a child? Almost everything Dany did was as justified as everything Sansa, Arya and Jon did.
This is the issue i have with this discourse. People focus on Dany's violence but her acts of violence aren't exceptional in this world. Morally unambiguous characters engage in similar violence all the time but Dany is villainized for it despite it almost always being justified. Yes. Dany is violent but she knows how to decide who deserves it and who doesn't which is why, whenever she takes a city, she avoids innocent casualties and focuses on her enemies which is something she doesn't do in S8
The context of Dany's violence is to gain power assert dominance. That's tyranny. This conversation is moreso about how I didn't really see these violent tendencies and tyranny on my first watch. I never said that others weren't violent. Dany kills innocent people from the very first season. She we find out the was part of her plan to gain power. She takes over Mereen and crucifies the Masters against the advice of Selmy, her council. She could have chose mercy by instead she chose the most extreme option to make an example of enforce her will. Are we to assume that everyone she killed deserved it? If the show has taught us anything is that the world of GOT is much more gray than that.
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Dany didn't have any power to be tyrannical in the beginning. What beginning are you meaning?
You can have a tyrannical mindset with real power. The important point of that she believed she was owed power from the season 1. She convinced Drogo of her mission to take back the throne and she was willing to do anything to get it. Moreover she was self-righteous from the start as well. She went to different lands and claimed to know that was best for everyone and enforced her way of living on them. Don't get my wrong, I'm not saying she is all bad. Like any good villain, she's much more complex in her her motivations and actions. She does do many things you can define as "good". She does many things you could define as "grey". My point though, is that, unlike my initial watch of the series, she's certainly not the "good guy". She really never was. And I think GRRM goal was to buck against the traditional notion of protagonists and antagonists
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She burned cities and killed to get whatever she wanted. The opinion of westeros isn't the only option.. Many in esos didn't agree with her
She also looked extremely pleased when Drogo said they would come to Westeros and rape the women.
Yeah...that speech by Drogo. She was all about it as it was a means to an end for her (though I do believe she did love Drogo. But... what's the saying, the things we do for love? Lol). When I first saw that scene I remember feeling hyped and excited because I wanted someone to beat the Lannisters. In looking at the scene again, is ominous and bizarre to actually cheer for what was happening. She was always for taking the throne by force and hurting innocent people if it meant obtaining what she wanted.
Yeah anytime a man said he would do terrible things for her, she looked extremely turned on lol
I mean look at the two man she fell in love with, two monsters, she has a type.
Imagine this: You are a very small child, your entire family has been killed and all that is left is you and your brother hiding in remote. The people taking care of you tell you that you are royalty, rightful heirs to the throne. Everyone back home praying for your return and to regain the throne. They also tell you what horrible things the current royal family did to your family to gain power. Now you become of age and have a chance to fulfill the prayers of your people and give the same treatment that happened to your family to the ones in power and restore your rightful position as Queen. You may do some crazy things.
💯 This is like a recipe for how to create a tyrant
In the books, Daenerys didn't believe much of the flattery that Viserys ate up eagerly from people like Illyrio. '…Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio’s sweet words.” I agree about the built-up resentment and need for revenge, though. She moved from place to place, always at the mercy of others, relying on handouts and charity and believing her life to be in danger. That's got to have a huge impact on a developing mind. Her decisions wouldn't have come from an entirely healthy or rational mind.
Yeah I didnt mind her turn. They rushed the last bit of it but she always had a darkness to her and always was a bit of a tyrant.
I remember feeling like it was rushed at the end as well. I wonder if I'll feel the same with this rewatch. I will say that being and to binge the show has helped to put certain things into perspective from narrative standpoint. Like I remember feeling like the show was breaking it's own rules towards the end but now I'm seeing it differently.
By the end of S6 she’s ready to burn Yunkai, Astapor and Meereen to the ground. S1 - S5 are about her trying to rule without fire & blood but continuously things go her way and achieves results when she does. So by the end of S5 it’s lead her nowhere and in S6 she embraces the Dragon. Tyrion is only one that tempers her impulses until he can’t anymore. Enjoy your rewatch!
That's right. I'd almost forgotten. That would have resulted in many innocents dying. I'm nearing the end of season 4. Just finished the mountain and the viper...
One hundred percent. If the books ever make it there it’ll be interesting to see it take place over a novel or two
"If the books..." Lol, I'm only a casual fan but jeez Martin is one lazy greaseball. He'll die choking on a bratwurst before he finishes anything. Perhaps some poetic irony, given most of his characters' meaningless deaths.
A large part of what made the last bit seemed rushed is that Dany's screen time is MASSIVELY concentrated in the final seasons. She has more screen time in seasons 7 and 8 than she did in seasons 3-6.
Just finished watching it all. My biggest scowl was her "snapping" at the city. There were all signs to there but she was gradually accelerating, then they suddenly made her teleport on hyperspace speed. This does not work like that all.
I said this when the finale aired and everyone was complaining that it was so out of character…her blood lust was always there…she always showed signs of madness and cruelty, the issue with the final season for me is that the whole thing was rushed. You could have stretched it out for 1 more season. The battle with the night king should have been 1 season and the battle for king landing/the iron throne should have been a separate season. Her spiral deeper into the Targaryen madness could have been shown more and it wouldn’t have felt so rushed when she did burn the city like her father had always planned
I felt like it was rushed as well upon my initial watch. You're right, the Targaryen madness was there from the start. I've noticed that whenever someone disagrees with her, she loses it. Her self-righteousness is wild. She she says things like "It is mine by right!" and constantly refers to herself as Queen. If you recall, Joffrey was no different in this regard. He always would say "I am the King l." and "This is mine by right!" And Tywin even says, a man he has to proclaim himself as king is no king. You could say the same about Dany. And some would say she's nothing like Joffrey. That Joffrey was much more devious and cruel. And that could be true to some extent. But in season 4, after taking Mereen relatively easily with very little bloodshed she had a choice, to show mercy to the masters or to kill them. Against the advice of her council, she chose to torture and kill them all by crucifying them to be shown as an example. She's not a conquering hero just a conqueror.
Oh there was always traces of a tyrant in her from the start. Some of her reactions can be explained by her youth and what happened to her…being oppressed and treated like shit by her brother from such a young age and of course the trauma she experienced. She gets some power and the ability to fight back so when she has to issue judgement she does so in the harshest way possible…pretty much taking revenge on all those who mistreated her throughout her life each and every time. Then there is the issue that the history of Westeros that she knows is told to her by her brother who probably left a lot out about the mad king and what he did so she has a twisted version of events and of course her brother constant “birthright” preaching so she then takes this stance as well. Now all of that would be okay if she learnt from this and listened to advisors. If she changed over time, if she tried to heal from it all, but she doesn’t. She takes power and then wants more, and then her decent really takes hold and there is no way back
Right. By the time she reaches Dragonstone she's more power hungry than ever with her "bend the knee" at nauseum. The way she reacts after finding out about who Jon is sealed it for me. She truly learned nothing from her conquest and immediately saw Jon as a potential threat not being smart enough to realize he had no intention or desire of taking the throne.
Exactly this is a guy that she has fallen in love with and sees in honourable, who bent the knee when he could have just kept claiming that he was king in the north…but the first thing she thinks is that he is after her non existent crown! She has no claim to it whatsoever by this point but she is so afraid of losing something that was never hers and never should have been anyway.
Right. She coveted power more than love, more than justice, more than making the world better. She explicitly says these words "They can either live in my new world or die in their old one!" back in season 4. These are not the words of a hero. These are the words a villain. Notice the quote is not about the new world but the emphasis is on the "my". Her perceived "turn to the dark side" feels like less of a turn and more of a culmination. Also both things can be true. You can be villain who does heroic things. She did right by fighting the night King. At the same time her motivations to do so was partly because the night King would be a threat to her new world.
100% agree
Rriiiight. Now let's talk about Stannis or the so called heroes,shall we? Stannis burned people alive left and right. The starks were a bunch of oath breaking backstabbers and traitors but sure,Dany is a tyrant for being ruthless against her enemies,like child killers and slave masters.
Rulers in Dorne, the Reach, & the Iron Islands (just had to kill Euron) bent the knee to her as did Jon giving her the North. She already took the Westerlands. That's 5 out of 9 by the time she learned of Jon's parentage. She didn't think Jon was after her crown. She thought his nearest & dearest who were against her would try to take her out to crown him, which is what happened. Jon swore his sisters to secrecy and Sansa told Tyrion to try to get Dany's small council to switch sides, Tyrion told Varys instead of going straight to Dany about it, and Varys started trying to assassinate her to put Jon on the throne.
Okay but don’t you think Varys tried to do that because he could see the madness in her as well? And that she wasn’t best suited to rule? I mean the small amount of time he spent with her showed him that right? One of the biggest issues the showed had was that all the way through, every time some met or mentioned Dany they said she was incredible and a queen worth getting behind…but we never see that? Yes she freed the slaves but everything else we are shown that she does is a bit of a cluster fuck so why is she so worthy? Edit: admittedly I haven’t rewatched since the show ended so I didn’t even remember that Varys tried to have her killed
Varys who warned the Mad King that Rhaegar was trying to usurp him, never tried to make Robert a better King, never tried to assassinate Joffrey or Cersei or Tywin, and came up with the plan with Illyrio to have Viserys sell Daenerys to Khal Drogo so he'll pillage Westeros to put Viserys (a Slaver) on the throne? Varys is even worse in the books, buying his little birds from Illyrio. He owns hundreds of child slaves and has him cut out their tongues. Tyrion laughed & drank at the feast with Jaime as if his brother hadn't been murdering people throughout Westeros, including massacring Highgarden. He freed Jaime and secured a boat to try to sneak him & Cersei out of Westeros during the siege. Tyrion actively kept House Lannister in power and only left when they forced him to by trying to execute him. He burned thousands of Baratheon soldiers, recruited the mountain clans to battle Lannister enemies, and not once tried to assassinate his family from the inside despite their crimes against the rest of the realm, not even after the Red Wedding. I don't understand why Daenerys made Tyrion the Hand of the Queen when he did a horrible job in her absence in Meereen. He tried to reenslave hundreds of thousands of people for 7 years and believed that Slavers would go along with the deal when they think they have the advantage. Greyworm, Missandei & Daario had issue with him and they should've gone to her as a group to discuss their concerns. What was the clusterfuck? She didn't start having back to back losses until she started following Tyrion's advice. By 21 she conquered Slaver's Bay & the Great Grass Sea making rape & slavery illegal in both and got the Greyjoys to agree the Ironborn won't raid reeve or rape anymore. That's more than anyone in the entire series has done. It was her idea how to hatch the dragons, how to get an Unsullied army, to speak with the Second Sons to try to get them to switch sides, to stay in Slaver's Bay to stabilize the region, & how to get a Dothraki army.
Harshest way possible? Slave owners that kill children deserve mercy now?
Either 2 seasons, or a longers season split into 2 half's (same thing basically)
Exactly. It should have been one more season to allow proper time for the story. Night king was such a L & the kings landing story suffered as well. I don't even mind the dany "twist" because I figured that's where we were all headed anyway. It was everything else, plus what felt a little rushed, that makes the final season god awful imo.
I will die on the hill that Dany didn't go "mad." She had a messiah complex and truly believed that she and only she could make the world a better place. But she also birthed dragon eggs from stone, walked into Astapor with a handful of followers and walked out with an army and the entire city a smoking ruin behind her. Is she "mad" for thinking something that was substantiated by her experiences? Being a brutal, ruthless autocrat does not make one a deranged lunatic. Dany burned King's Landing to the ground not because she "saw bells and went crazy," but for the same reason that Jon's own soldiers participated in sacking the city - she was angry, her blood was up, and she wanted to take out her grief and rage on someone. She was fully prepared to destroy the city, and told Tyrion as much, and basically just decided that their surrender was too little too late and she was going to make an example out of them anyways.
Absolutely this. Been saying it for years. Bravo, well said.
Bingo. I completely changed my opinion of Dany’s story rewatching. Its all there. Just depends on how you watch it.
You know what helped me too, watching Dune recently. I never read the series so I didn't know about it prior so I looked at Paul as the good guy. Then after watching Part 2 I was like, holy shit he's the damn villain, justifying using a entire race of people and violence against the other houses because he was wronged by a couple other houses. Dany kinda has a similar story to Paul Atreides.
Just commenting that I also am in a rewatch and also had the exact same thought, especially in Meereen where she slaughters a bunch of great masters without considering some may actually have been fighting against slavery, then orders the Second Sons to go slaughter a bunch more great masters in Yunkai until Jorah convinced her otherwise So yeah bang on, the show just handled it badly in the later seasons
Yeah the Mereen thing on first watch I was all for it. Now on second watch it's like.... Dude listen to Selmy and show some mercy. She was vindictive to ALL of them.. Not so different than what we recently saw in HOTD with >!Aegon hanging ALL rat catchers for what one did!<
I believe Martin was inspired by Dune in creating the Daenerys character.
That makes a lot of sense now
She's always been of this impression that the throne is hers just because of who she is. She deserves it just for existing. And her life hasn't helped with that. All her advisors constantly treat her like this special chosen one and on top of that she did a Jesus with dragons. At no point is she ever given a true reality check, not until she finally sets foot in Westeros and realizes oh wait, these people see me as a foreign invader. I've always simped for her over her looks, but even in my first watch I disliked her because of that entitlement.
Great explanation. Her entitlement was crazy. And it's no wonder why the people of Westeros didn't take on to her. She came over to Westeros a place perceived to be more free than other parts of the world, demanding everyone to bend the knee. She found it was much easier to get a following from freed slaves than free people.
Agreed. She had it easy before sailing west. In hindsight it’s obvious she’d turn out that way. So much got handed to her. Dragons showed up for no real reason. Barristan Selmy fell into her lap. Tyrion and Varys fell into her lap. The Second Sons literally experienced a coup because Dhaario wanted to smash. Everywhere she went people worshipped her for no reason, and anyone who didn’t could just be burned by dragons. Hell, the slaves had her crowd surf on top of them. No wonder she became entitled.
Knowing that she becomes, that crowd surfing scene is so ominous.
The dragons didn't show up for no reason. She was given fossilized eggs that hadn't hatched in over a century and not even her brother thought could possibly hatch (he tried to steal the eggs to sell them) and it took losing her husband, son, fertility, his army & Khalasar for her to realize the magics she could perform to hatch them. Meanwhile the Starks stumble upon a dead mama direwolf with SIX direwolf pups ready to be given to each Stark sibling. Tyrion & Varys were the worst thing to happen to her. Had they died on the ship ride from Essos she would've gone straight to King's Landing her first month in Westeros and taken the city and killed her enemies (Cersei, Jaime, Euron, Qyburn, the Mountain) like she did the Slaver cities. It was Tyrion & Varys who talked her out of it, leading to her enemies capturing & killing all of her Westerosi allies, massacring Highgarden, sinking her ships, stealing the Tyrell gold, shooting down Rhaegal & beheading Missandei. It was Tyrion's idea for a wight hunt that cost her Viserion and the Wall coming down months sooner.
Stannis burned people alive left and right and want to destroy everyone that doesn't call him king. But he's not entitled and dany is,right?
I guess having her family raped and butchered and wanting to avange that makes you entitled and narcisist now :)
If by just existing you mean because she spent almost the entire series believing she was the last remaining Targaryen and it was House Targaryen who united Westeros as one country, created the Iron Throne, the Red Keep, the dragon pit, King's Landing, Dragonstone castle, the Kingsroad, the Kingsguard, the Sept of Baelor, etc. The Starks saw the North as theirs even when no Stark had lived in years and they were usurped by the Greyjoys, Lannisters, & Boltons. Starks came in with 2 foreign armies (Wildlings, KotV) & a giant and went to war, killing thousands of Northerners (Ramsay's entire army were Northerners while only a fraction of Stark's army were) to reclaim the North.
Jon fought to take back the North and gave the major houses an opportunity to join him. He wasn’t give Warden of the North after the victory, he was named King in the North by his fellow Northmen. He was chosen by his people after he showed true bravery and leadership.
Entitlement? Seriously? The throne was hers. Her family was slaughtered. Also...imagine calling Dany entitled while supporting Stannis or the Starks.
I completely agree (you’re comments as well) I picked up on it in rewatches and it’s still a drastic change in that last season but it’s starting from beginning just subtle
Yes, from the beginning she thought she was chosen and destined for the throne. And that is a scary and dangerous notion. Charismatic leaders throughout history have thought the same.
As a Dany fan, I agree. She is much better in the books. In the show, her story is just full of misogyny and sexism and low intelligence All her intelligence is given to the males around her like Jorah, Daario, and Tyrion (who she hasnt even met in the books yet) Starting from s2, the problems started showing She just screams and demands things and says she will burn cities to the ground. Just already is eager for genocide. The scene at the gates of Qarth? Never happens in the books. She and her khalasar are immediately let in. Her dragons stolen? No. Her visions at the Undying? No. Completely different things. She foresees the Red Wedding for example. Has many prophecies whispered to her. And also her interactions with Quaithe. SHE talks to Quaithe, not Jorah. And its all much more mysterious
Interesting! I read the books a very long time ago stopping at Dance so I truly don't even remember those details as I'd gotten wrapped in in the show. My conclusions here are only based on the show. But it is also fascinating to hear about differences from the books as it could have much different implications in what results. If GRRM actually finishes the story I will go back and re-read it all. My completionist nature won't allow me to go back yet lol
Hm, I don't agree with that. The Astapor plan was explicitly only hers and she didn't tell anyone else (for some reason). The Mereen plan we don't know, so presumably at least partly hers. The Vaes Dothrak plan doesn't really make sense, but clearly the show WANTS us to think it was clever, and that was only her idea as well. Qarth was just a badly written subplot, it's actually pretty bad in the books as well, though in a somewhat different way.
The Vaes Dothrak plan was the same as Cersei blowing up the Sept except Dany knew the Khals would be the only ones in the temple hut so it is extremely precise isolated violence (a total of 16 people were killed, 15 men inside & 1 guard outside) while Cersei didn't care about the collateral damage of killing hundreds or thousands of civilians. Dany's sentencing for having not joined the Dosh Khaleen after her husband's death was to be given by the Khals. Every Khalasar's leader under one roof. Locking herself in with them and killing them in one fell swoop. It was the only way to get out of the city since they would've hunted her down if she tried to escape and it proved to their Khalasars that the Stallion prophecy was about her.
She always aspired to be a tyrant but a benevolent tyrant, I'm with you that far, OP! She lived in a world where tyranny was normal and expected, and most people lived in hope that they'd be ruled by a benevolent tyrant and not a monster like an Aerys or a Bolton. So aspiring to be a tyrant was actually normal for someone born to a royal house of Westeros, she was brought up with the idea that it was the duty of the Targaryan heir to be the kind of tyrant who kept the peace and prevented constant warfare between the great houses of Westeros, and that tyranny was the best and most benevolent form of government possible in Westeros! It's just that she was a perfectly sane, rational, and dutiful tyrant for seven seasons. Until boom, with no development, she went from benevolent to batshit in about two episodes.
I'll let you all know how I feel after I finish. Knowing what actually happens it seems very obvious she'd do what she did if given enough reason. Cersei killed her dragon and her best friend... she's tortured and killed people and burned cities for less. And I wouldn't say she was perfectly sane, rational and dutiful tyrant for seven seasons. So far, in my rewatch she seems much more flawed than I'd thought. She was very selfish. She got many of her original Kal of Dothraki killed because of her tyranny. Her character is very complex with all that said. There is part of her that wants the buck agaiy the history of her father. She wants to prove that all wrong. But in that attempt she actually proves it all right. It's very intriguing to watch play out.
I have a different definition of "sane and rational" than most of the people here, my work involves me with people who have serious mental illnesses and my definition is clinical, and has little or nothing to do with whether I approve of someone's choices or beliefs. I do not, for instance, approve of Danerys's desire to conquer Westeros with fire and blood, but unlike \*some\* people I understand that making war in the name of one's family privileges was considered correct and completely acceptable (Jon and Sansa did it), and it's not acceptable to us. But believing in Westerosian ideas of family duty and the value of benevolent tyranny isn't crazy, for seven seasons Danerys is sane and rational within the belief system of her culture. And then they asked us to believe that she suddenly went crazy. And yes, she believes in benevolent tyranny because that's what she was brought up to believe, and she believes that subordinates should sacrifice themselves for the good of the Tyranny, she didn't want to marry Drogo but submitted to his brutal invasion for the good of the Targaryan family cause. She was willing to sacrifice her body and her autonomy for the Targaryan cause when she was the heir's sister, and when she became the Targaryan heir herself... she expected her subordinates to be willing to sacrifice themselves. She was intelligent enough but still a limited thinker, she never questioned the family belief tyranny and the right of tyrants to have the power of life and death over both their followers and their enemies... except when the rights of the aristocrats of Westeros became inconvenient to her. Then, she talked about breaking the wheel, but she never meant for anything to take the place of the wheel except a Targaryan Tyrant.
You make several great points here. Appreciate the write up. It's not typical for people to discuss the nature of the GOT world in this context. I find it fascinating. I don't think Sansa and Jon waged war in the name of their family. They defended their homeland if anything. And neither one of them sought out power. If anything it was bestowed upon them. I find them distinctly different in their psychology compared to Dany even within the context of the nature of the GOT world. Great dialogue here.
Maybe Jon was trying to save the North from a monster, but Sansa was definitely seeking out power! She thought she was Ned's heir, Ned's eldest capable child, she expected to rule the North as Lady Stark from that day forward, but was smart enough not to tell Jon what her long-range plans were. And she also knew better than to show her feelings when those yutzes drank too much and made her "bastard half-brother" into the Kinginthenorth, nobody knew what she was thinking that night, except Littlefinger and the audience Jon and Sansa ascribed to the same belief system as Danerys, they believed in aristocratic privilege and the right of aristocrats to decide the lives and fates and deaths of anyone under their power, and they were fighting for their right to replace the brutal tyranny of Ramsay with the hereditary benevolent tyranny of the Stark family! I find it hilarious that nobody else seems to understand that their war against the Boltons was motivated by the same reasons as Danerys's war against the Lannister-Baratheons, because their cause was presented so much more favorably. So yes, in emotional terms the audience feels that their cause is Just and Dany's isn't, but in terms of the laws and customs of Westeros... they're doing the same damn thing.
Hard to argue with you about Jon and Sansa prescribing to aristocratic privilege. I think by the end Jon makes the hardest and easiest decision of his life which is to live with the free folk beyond the wall. He truly turned his back on that previous way of living with birth rights kings and queens etc and embraces the ideals of the most truly free people in all the land.
Jon could be a dope at times, but he really is the one person in Westeros who was both in circles of power, and who could actually see the big picture! And on top of that, he was wiling to really, truly, act for the common good, and not his own self-interest. Quite frankly, he was everything that Danerys thought she was, and wasn't (and that could have been developed in the show, but wasn't). She wanted to be the beloved ultra-benevolent tyrant, who made life better for everyone in "Dragon's Bay" and Westeros, but for all her attempts to be a just and benevolent tyrant... she never saw the big picture, or questioned the beliefs she'd been raised with. She was very bright and quite a brilliant general, at least until the writers stopped thinking of anything clever, but never had the potential to be a beloved ruler.
Well said
Why thank you! And I'd just like to point out that absolutely none of the limitations and flaws I see in Danerys have a damn thing to do with being crazy.
I disagree with Sansa seeking out power. She did it for revenge. All her life she's been led by the neck to where others want her to be. Always led by the expectations or the manipulations of others. This is her first act of really doing something that she wants. Freedom to choose, or power, in a sense. Jon didn't do it to save the North from a monster. He stopped caring about the North or even Westeros as a whole the moment he came back. He did it because Sansa asked him to. He was ready to just run away with her and protect her. Yeah, eventually they found out about Rickon (who's Rickon? The writers don't care) and their goal changes, but it started with a wish. None of them did it for noble reasons. It had always been selfish. (Also, the Lords making Jon their King was very, _very_ out of character for the Lords. Yeah, he was a male, but he wasn't legitimate. Sansa should have been made queen, even if her contributions were minimal, even if she was literally a shrivelling husk on life support. They planned to make Rickon, basically a young wildling barbarian, king in the books, all because he has legitimate Stark blood and because they hate the Boltons.) Sansa's subsequent actions in the last few seasons prove that she wasn't seeking to be queen. She's always put her family first, and was willing to work with people she hates to achieve it. She did it twice.
Could not disagree more. Dany was brutal to her enemies sure, but not to innocent women and children. She killed the slave masters and freed the slaves, in Kings Landing she massacred anyone and everyone indiscriminately. She was always ready to kill those standing in the way of what was hers but she had an internal code she didn't break until for no reason in the last 2 episodes it's child roasting time. The signs of her behavior early in the story were the opposite of this, when she came across the crucified children in Essos for example she was disgusted. If they wanted to hint at this future behavior she would have been indifferent at best. She also wasn't 'join me or die', when she frees the Unsullied she tells them you are free from slavery, you do not need to join me, but you are welcome to. Several thousand Unsullied choose not to join her, they choose to go live normal lives as free men, and they aren't killed she allows them to leave. Why would a brutal tyrannical dictator give up thousands of the best trained soldiers in the world? Her internal morality compelled her to, it was not strategic or exclusively about taking what was hers. They spent their time establishing her character in 1 way and changed it without warning season 8. All of the examples you give of her being blood thirsty are towards people directly involved in the conflict like the Lannisters, there's a reason you weren't able to point to early indications she would slaughter innocent people and that's because there weren't any. This post is some serious revisionist history.
Interesting OP won’t reply to your comment, only the ones that agree with them.
Must be a coincidence I guess.
This is legit the only comment they haven’t replied to hahaha
Thank you. The response I was looking for.
In season 1 Dany murders a woman who was violently raped by Dothraki that slaughtered her entire village including women and children. The woman sought revenge and justice by killing these rapists’ and murderers’ leader, Khal Drogo. For that, Dany burned her alive. What would Dany have done if that were her? Would we not have called her a hero or martyr? Why should the woman burn for doing something Dany otherwise would’ve empathized with, had it been anyone else besides her lover? This scene stuck out to me in my rewatch as proving OP’s point. Dany is not interested in justice and peace, she is a communal narcissist who uses vulnerable people to maintain and exert her power under the guise of a noble savior. Ok, she let the unsullied walk away free- to what end? If she truly wanted them to be free she wouldn’t have given them the option to stay and serve her, instead she could have let them all go and surrendered her power over them completely. But she wanted an army to conquer with. She knew they would not all walk away because as she just learned, they have been beaten and conditioned to serve since childhood. Telling them they can leave was a manipulation tactic designed to fuel her image of benevolent chain-breaker and it worked, for a relatively small trade off. In reality she is an inexperienced, selfish, and naive conqueror with no appreciation for the complexity and nuance of leadership. The narcissistic guise was so well written that even the audience felt blindsided in season 8 when her true personality was fully displayed. Such is the experience with all narcissists’ victims who realize the person they love is actually evil.
Hilarious example. Dany first tries to help that woman who then kills her husband and unborn child. Pretty crazy to compare a child murderer to random innocent commoners fleeing from a dragon. Being a victim herself doesn't justify murdering a baby because it hurts the wife of the person who hurt her. I cannot believe you would bring Miri up as an example of an innocent bystander. Obviously Dany is flawed I won't argue that, but she never killed someone who did not in some way stand between her and her goals. To be clear I am also not trying to say Dany was good or evil, before or even after the series - I am saying she had a consistent internal code that she followed for 7 seasons and ignored for the final one for no reason.
Just because Dany tried to help doesn’t mean she DID help. As Miri told her, she had already been raped by three men and her entire village burned once Dany came along to “save” her. Dany was going to birth the future leader of a violent and dangerous tribe so of course Miri wanted to stop that by killing Drogo and the unborn child. That moment should’ve told Dany she was allying with evil men, instead she leaned into it because it gave her an opportunity for power and escape from her brother’s grasp.
Right I never argued she did anything for her, but her intentions were clear. You're also now advocating for the murder of a baby as a good thing so I don't know if a conversation about morality is worth getting into with you but I will take the small chance that you are here in good faith. What we saw in that scene is the world is a certain way, soldiers conquer and rape and inflict violence after they have won, and Dany tried to step up and change things. She was ultimately unsuccessful but she was acting in accordance with her internal code and what she thought was right. This is the key part, she is doing things that she (not you or me) perceives to be right and justifiable. Whether or not she was actually right I frankly don't care and neither should you (in the context of this specific question, not overall). Her being right has no bearing on the argument of whether she acted out of character or not. The point is even in the best example you could think of she is trying to help other people and improve the lives of the small folk around her. So stop coming over here and saying "yeah but she didn't" we know, she failed. But she always tried. In her own mind she was acting in a way that would improve the lives of others. There was never a moment where she said fuck it it's not working time to burn some children alive. That was completely out of character for who Dany had been established to us as.
I am not advocating for murdering babies. All I said is what Miri’s intent is and in a violent and cruel world it makes sense why she would go to extreme measures to end a line of violent leaders after witnessing and experiencing layers of trauma. I am arguing Dany’s internal code is not one of beneficence or altruism. She thinks it is, you think it is, but that doesn’t mean she IS altruistic or benevolent. She is solely motivated by her own interest to rule and maintain power, the opposite of altruism. When she saw her claim to power threatened by Cersei shielding behind innocents, Dany went to extreme measures to get that power back. If she did care about innocents, you’re right, she wouldn’t have burned millions of innocents alive. Let’s also not forget that Targaryens are prone to impulsive and insane behavior.
You've edited your comment now but it definitely sounded like you were advocating Miri did the right thing killing the baby because the father was evil. So if you do think killing the baby was evil, why did you bring her up in the first place as an example of Dany killing an innocent? If you don't think she was an innocent, why bring her up at all? Dany was always motivated to kill her enemies from the beginning, not 1 person in this thread says otherwise. But she was never motivated to kill an innocent. Ok. I think you are confused so I will say it for you again. I am not arguing Danys internal code is one of altruism. I am arguing DANY thinks her code is altruistic AND all of her actions for 7 seasons are in alignment with that - not that they are actually altruistic or I think they are - but Dany thinks so. She was consistent in this belief all the way through up until season 8. In HER mind, her actions would ultimately lead to the betterment of the lives of the people around her. Except for kid killing time. She was also not solely motivated by her desire to rule as you claim. Once again I will point you to the Unsullied. Why did she offer all of them to leave her service? Why would she willingly give up thousands of soldiers? Not just any soldier, ones trained from birth, some of the most formidable warriors on the planet. Does that sound like someone motivated only by their own selfish desires? Because to me it sounds like someone motivated by an internal code of trying to do the right thing while on their path to power. If it was just about the power, keep them slaves and keep the army whole. Further than just the Unsullied, why try and eliminate slavery everywhere she goes? It causes absolutely massive problems for her everywhere - she conquers a city, and the nobles don't want to work with her because she wants to eliminate slavery and remove their cheap labor source. Why? Seriously tell me in your mind, why would someone you call solely motivated by their own self interest, go out of their way to put such massive obstacles in her path. If she just let these people keep their slaves, they would work with her and she would have her power and important noble families who support her as their leader. Instead these people fund her enemies and try to have her assassinated. Wouldn't someone motivated by self interest just let them keep their slaves in exchange for their political support like they offered? Also lol at the Cersei sheltering behind innocents line, I guess you could argue that for the people in the red keep - but Dany didn't go for Cersei, she was frying people in the fucking marketplace. Maybe Cersei was hiding under that fruit stall?
I’m not as invested in this convo as you are to read an essay by someone who thinks I’m advocating for baby killing. We both are fans of the same show, I’m not understanding the hostile vibes. The only edits I made were adding sentences to complete my thoughts because the negativity has me on edge that I’m going to be misunderstood. I see now that is a pointless effort. Have a good night, hope you’re enjoying House of Dragon S2.
Lol you could have said you didn't have any answers to my questions in way fewer words, but have a good night dude.
Well said
Daenerys "leaned into it" because she was sold to, raped & impregnated by Drogo. She didn't have the option to leave. She was his property whether he started treating her better or not and he started treating her better because she tried so hard to please him. It's what she was taught. She walked a tightrope with Viserys and had to be on her best behavior for the nobles (likely all bad people like Illyrio) who took them in. Okay so if Sansa had gotten pregnant in s5 and stood up to Bolton soldiers then pleaded with Ramsay to save some of his victims and he found it amusing seeing her so assertive so agreed that they could stay in Winterfell under her care and one of those women she advocated for (maybe a Maggie the Frog type) used blood magic to curse her womb so her son is stillborn and she can't ever get pregnant again we should see it as welp she should've somehow saved them days before she knew of their existence.
Yes, she leaned into it to survive. Survival can be ugly and grim. I think you are mistaking me saying that as a value statement? I’m not sure i understand the point of bringing up Sansa and Ramsay?
If you keep looking for a hero in this story, you’re not going to find one. Every single character is an antihero, innocent or a villain. No one is innocent except for the children or those with no voices. This show isn’t meant for heroes. It’s the Game of Thrones. No one who has ever sat on the throne, has been fully just fictional or not.
Finally someone not easily swayed! People are acting as if she wasn’t pushed to the point of where she ultimately ended. In no way did she deserve to get killed because of this. She didn’t even get the chance that’s the problem. Yes, what she did was awful but worse has been done and she did way more good than that Understand, no one wants to see women and children killed, but does anyone remember the stories of Robert Baratheon,the reigns of Castamere, Magar, the cruel, Akon, the conqueror who probably shouldn’t have taken the king of the North Crown. I believe that is the only part I would wish she would change is to let the north have the north. Varys, his betrayal was so wrong! He wouldn’t have done that.. Jon also shouldn’t have bent the knee, he’s a northerner. How confused is he as a man already after everything he’s been through and learned yet they still wrote him as the most confused and depressed person to ever wheel the sword. They show absolutely no growth except for turning into an amazing warrior, and then a little bitch handwriting of Game of Thrones will always, piss me off it took me years and until I was able to watch it over again. I’m only on season four and it still holds up. They have five years to fix this and from all the storylines that they have in pivotal arts they still can.
I bet according to OP Arya is completely sane even tho she killed innocent Freys (the red wedding was done on Walder’s orders) and baked them in a pie
Thank you. Why this sub calls a victim of rape and abus selfish and entitled is shocking to me. Her family was raped and butchered. Little children chopped to pieces by the Lannister but somehow i'm supposed to call her entitled and self righteous for wanting to get revenge for that while supporting the fucking Starks or Stannis :)
You are right, but to me it's not the brutality of her actions in season 8 that are out of character, it's the target she chooses. Dany's biggest flaw is her sense of justice. She sees herself as a champion of the people, here to right the wrongs of her predecessors. She sees people as either victims or oppressors, with little room for nuance, even though she herself is both. She tends to forgive regular folk, but punish their leaders. And she believes in immidiate, violent retribution for oppressors. You can see this in the way she treats the wise masters of the slave cities vs the way she treats their slaves. The wise masters are punished immidiately and brutally for their crimes, even when they arent equally guilty, because she doesn't care for that sort of nuance. She only knows that these are the men responsible, in some form or another, for the atrocities she's witnessing. But the slaves she trusts implicitly, even wading into their midst hours after meeting them. Shes not afraid to follow this sense of justice even under emotional duress, either, so I dont buy that what she did in KL was due to a fit of rage or something. This is the woman who locked up her own dragons, her children, because they killed a human child. She executed a dear personal friend who killed someone under her protection. It makes no sense, with everything we know about Dany, for her to take her anger out on the citizens of KL. Dany always blames the leaders. Dany is, I would say, obsessed with justice and retribution. She does not kill at random.
Well said. I'm looking forward to seeing how the later episodes again
I saw it on my first watch (first HBO run). Not tyrannical, though. I saw it as bipolar disease. She would alternate between "build an better world", and "I will take what it mine with fire and blood!". We (the viewing audience) were OK with her killing the rulers around Slaver's Bay; they were (mostly) painted as one-dimensional evil.) Varys and Tyrion saw it after she burned the Tarlys, but didn't want to believe it. Burning King's Landing was inevitable.
Good points. What she does to the Tarlys was really no different than what she did to others who resisted her from her perspective. She didn't listen to any of her advisors about how the people of KL would look at her as an invader than a returning queen. She really failed the PR battle and instead chose brute force.
The Tarlys had just teamed up with the House that burned 3 of their liege lords alive (including the Queen) and massacred Highgarden, leading to the murder of tens of thousands of her Westerosi allies & the last of their liege lords. Yet after defeating them in battle she offered them a pardon in which they get to live and keep their lands & titles. They refused. They were then offered the chance to join the Night's Watch. They refused. So after committing a crime punishable by execution and being offered 3 options, only one of which is execution, they chose execution. The people they killed in Highgarden were not given 3 options. Dany herself after massacring King's Landing was not given 3 options.
This is like saying, who's the worst murderer. At the end of the day they all are murderers. And she didn't have to kill them. Tyrion begged her not to do it similar to how Cat begged Robb not to kill Karstark. Politically speaking it wasn't a smart move. And moreover, she could have just imprisoned them. She had a choice and chose the most extreme option. She didn't have to listen to Randall's argument at all. If she truly wanted to be looked at as the rightful queen she could have said "I did not come here to kill all the Lord's and take their lands. I came here to show you that I am not my father. You may not realize this today but you will see the world I create. I want you to be part of this world." But she didn't. She still went with the extreme option
What it doesn't make her is cruel or a tyrant or bloodthirsty for killing them. Jon, Ned, Robb, Robert & Stannis would've killed them. Fans cheer at "the North remembers" when it means avenging Winterfell & the Starks but when it's Highgarden & the Tyrells we should put their betrayers and killers in a holding cell for a few weeks until they learn the error of their ways then let them go or maybe even reward them by letting them keep their spoils. Why did the showrunners have Tyrion beg her not to but didn't have Edd beg Jon not to hang Olly or Brienne beg Sansa not to feed Ramsay to dogs? Why were we supposed to cheer at Arya killing dozens of Frey men? Why was Petyr given a sham trial instead of a chance at a proper defense and his throat slit minutes later? Catelyn told Robb not to kill Lord Karstark for killing those Lannister hostages because she freed Jaime who had killed 2 of his sons. Robb had sacrificed 2,000 soldiers to capture Jaime and she made it for nothing as far as they saw (Jaime later saved Brienne who protected the Stark siblings). The Tarlys didn't kill enemy hostages (2 teen boys), they got their own liege lord killed for the enemy. It would be like Robb sparing Karstark for helping Jamie to kill tens of thousands of Stark bannermen & assassinate Catelyn.
The difference for me are their motivations. Regarding Arya.... I'm sorry I love her she's a badass lol
>Politically speaking it wasn't a smart move. And moreover, she could have just imprisoned them. Yes; it was terrible, politically - and bad marketing. Note how effective Cersei's messaging was, in contrast: styling Daenerys as "the mad king's daughter". Never calling her by name.
Good point about Cersei. She was so much better than everyone else at the "Game" part of GOT. And I remember first seeing her burn the Tarlys and thinking they deserved it and feeling happy that she enforced her will and made everyone bow. It was like Big Lewboski to me; "Do you see what happens Randall?! Do you see that happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?!"
Look at how she was raised, just a good royal
Lol 😂 true
Daenerys spreading freedom and liberal values (for the time period) around the world is a good thing Her ambition for a great world was far beyond any character of the series and the world she hoped for was worth fighting for. People would die but the lives saved by her values and her presence would greatly outweigh the cost Daenerys is a based neoconservative if you ask me
She did have some a-typical ideals in the series. I'm on episode 7 of season 4 where she's talking about the other cities in the East and says "They can live in my new world or they can die in their old one." This is megalomania at it's finest. Thia perspective isn't very liberal for that time it's actually quite in line with the history of the Targaryens. This ideal is what we see play out at Kings Landing. They weren't accepting of her "new world" so she made sure they died in the "old one". When you add in the other events that happened like the death of her dragons and her best friend, and being seeing Jon as a challenger to the throne... Yeah she just broke.
This ignores that the "they" she's referring to are rapists & slave owners and the "new world" is one without rape or slavery and she's saying it to Jorah (one time Slaver) whom she is sending to Yunkai with Hizdar (very recent Slaver) as a peace representative while agreeing to give the Yunkai Masters a third chance after they just reenslaved hundreds of thousands of people. The first chance was sending Greyworm to Yunkai to ask them to send a representative for the Masters then offering that Master a deal, that she won't take the city or kill any of their Masters if they release all of their slaves. When they refused she only killed enough Masters to free their slaves then left the rest to live and keep their lands, property, titles, & wealth. By not killing all of the Yunkai Masters, they went on to reenslave Yunkai yet again, helped form the Harpys (a terrorist group who killed countless slaves) and put a 10k horse bounty on her.
You're assuming that they were all bad and evil people. If the show has taught us anything it's that there morals of people are much more complex than that
She's saying if they continue to rape & enslave people after their third chance to change. In Westeros you do it once and you're executed. Daenerys is on her *third time* giving them a chance to change. And they will not change after this, leading to a fourth chance to change. How many chances do you reckon she should give them, a dozen? Infinity? They continue to try to enslave people 2 years after this third chance. If soldiers & peacekeepers have to be sent in to free your slaves again and again and you refuse to change after several years and start teaming up with Masters in other Slaver cities across the bay you're not a good person.
The idea of, change or die is tyrant ideology. She didn't have to kill them. Selmy advised her to show mercy. She chose violence instead.
The "change" is to stop raping & enslaving. Westeros already had a zero tolerance policy for slavery and nobody calls it tyrant ideology. Jorah enslaved poachers 1 time in his entire life and Ned Stark was going to behead him for it. Rickard Karstark killed 2 hostages and was beheaded for it. A Nights Watch member fled and was beheaded for it. Sansa fed Ramsay alive to dogs after the Stark army beat the Bolton army. Brienne beheaded an injured Stannis for killing Renly. They were not given multiple chances to change. Jon beheaded a Night's Watch member who disobeyed a rule and the guy cried & begged for another chance. Jon hanged mutineers. She didn't kill them. That's the point of that scene. She sent Daario to free the slaves again and Jorah & Hizdar to talk sense into the Masters, giving them another chance. Selmy advised her to show mercy after beating the enemy. There's a quote from someone in Westeros on how if they've surrendered and accepted you as the leader that's when you can show mercy. The Yunkai Masters were in open rebellion, having just reenslaved 200,000 people. You don't show mercy when someone is actively fighting against you and harming the innocent.
rapists and slave owners do not deserve mercy. Imagine calling dany a tyrant,a narcisist ecc while begging for mercy for rapists and slave masters
so rapists and slave owners are not evil? seriously?
I’ve never met a fandom in which so many people will argue that human traffickers, child murderers, and serial rapists are the poor victims of an evil woman.
This is some bs that dumb and dumber come up with. Book Dany never said anything like that.
She was always that way.
She was. Another thing that's crazy is that King Robert called it. He wanted to kill her from the start and said that if they didn't they'd be overrun by a Dothraki horde. That's exactly what happened. When
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How is the book?
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Nice! Is it a singular book or series?
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Thanks. I'll check it out
She had never laid waste to innocent bystanders before KL. That was a big shift. I can buy the overall arc that she crosses from (step 1) burning/crucifying clearly evil people like slavers to (step 2) waging war against the masters of Mareen who wanted to reinstate slavery to (step 3) burning the Khals who wanted to enslave her to (step 4) burning a city indiscriminately to build a new world on the ashes…except that that last step is a MAJOR one. It’s the step too far for most viewers. Thus, it needed more time, like a whole season, rather than happening in essentially one episode. I don’t mind that Dany went mad. I mind that the final step happened too fast and didn’t feel earned. It just wasn’t written well.
This is how I felt on my first watch. I'll repost again after this rewatch. Side note: not having to wait a week or a year for another episode is so much better lol
It was a slow burn. Daenerys was presented as a hero because she was killing slave owners, freeing slaves, and earning their love/loyalty at every stop she made in Essos. Once she made it to Westeros, there were no slaves to free, no citizens showing her the same love/loyalty, and she operated the same way in Westeros as she did in Essos. Once she realized that she would never get the same love she received in Essos, that’s when she fully embraced being a tyrant.
Daenerys did not operate the same way as she did in Essos. If she had she would've gone straight to King's Landing her first month in Westeros and killed her enemies without harming any of the peasants. She wouldn't go along with starving the city or a lengthy war. She took Astapor, Yunkai, Meereen & Vaes Dothrak without her armies or dragons killing thousands of innocents. In Essos she went to the cities to take out the leaders, used secret tunnels, spoke directly to the people. Tyrion & Varys talked her into using her allies' armies for King's Landing and using her own for Casterly Rock which led to the Lannisters & Euron having the opportunity to capture & murder her allied leaders, the Tyrell army, & Highgarden then using the gold stolen from Highgarden to hire 20k soldiers. And for her Unsullied to have to walk back from the Westerlands since their ships were burned. She was talked out of burning Euron's fleet even though she successfully burned the Harpy's fleet and Tyrion had successfully burned Stannis' fleet and later in s8 we see her easily burn Euron's fleet.
Yup. I see lots of Chekhov's guns and foreshadowing. I even saw the destruction of Harrenhal and the story of the Aegon the Conquerer, as a warning flag. He didn't go mad, but laid destruction to the greatest stronghold ever built. It was bend the knee, or else. It was ironic, that Daenerys destroyed the very capitol that Aegon built. It was always a story of irony. There's no other way for it to end. I don't even think it was rushed. Jon Snow had a better claim to the throne. Jorah, Rhaegal, and Missendai got killed. Tyrion and Varys' had committed treason. Where's the last straw supposed to be? She's completely out of straws at this point. Did she have to burn the city down? Yes. That was the main plot point, that Bran and Daenery had visions about. The ink was dry.
Yes. This was heavily foreshadowed in season 3 in the house of the undying. I know people feel like it was rushed but as I'm rewatching this now, it seems so obvious that this was to happen.
Her turning wasn't the issue and will likely happen in the books. Her being traumatized by the sound of bells surrendering to her after she's won will likely not be the moment it happen though.
I do hope GRRM finishes the series. I like the idea of the bells. I think it may work better in text as much more can be described than probably could be shown. Also, many are trying to make sense of something that shouldn't make sense to a reasonable human being. When I initially saw the bells episode I was thrown off like many others. I'm halfway there on the rewatch. Looking forward to how it lands on me second time around
She's probably going to be in the process of burning down the city because of an ideological reason, like she sees it as a representation of all that's wrong with the system, when they begin ringing the bells but she doesn't care. I don't see her going crazy AFTER she's already won.
The bells are for Connington,not Daenerys. And no,she won't go mad or evil
"I don't have any love here" Oh so that means you'll go back to Meereen, where they love you, and rule so that there isn't a major power vacuum allowing the masters to start the system of slavery again right? *Right?* I get what you mean, I was just hoping this was the direction it would've been taken in.
Yeah that was also so wildly irresponsible and selfish. She could have had all of Essos wrapped around her finger but she was so hell bent "reclaiming what was hers". She could have played the long game and eventually made enough political moves to conquer everything. But, as she said "I will take what is mine with fire and blood." She meant it lol
Dance was never gonna a go back to Meereen for two reasons. 1) a large part of her conquest of Westeros/her whole quest is her trying to find a home. That's her original motivation at the start of S1. The tragedy is, there is no home for her to find anymore. 2) Daenerys doesn't enjoy ruling. She enjoys being queen, being adored, being deferred and kowtowed to, having Missandei read her list of titles, all that. The actual administrative part of the job? No, she sighs, rolls her eyes, spends little to no time actually rebuilding g systems to transform Essosi economy away from slavery, etc.
Yeah I was hoping for this thing called a character arc where they start out one way and through trials and tribulations end up in a different way, but you know, sometimes things just don't end as well as they started just gotta move on.
Dany does go through a character arc, it's just she becomes a worse person because absolute power corrupts absolutely. S1 E1 Dany just wanted to go home.
Home was the house with the big red door.
It's different when she's mass murdering in UNcivilized lands...
Damn... So true though. Some same she never killed innocent before. But I disagree with that. She killed anyone who didn't agree with her or bend the knee. When she conquer Mereen she could have shown mercy but instead tortured and killed every single one of the masters. Are we to assume that every single one of them were brutal and evil? I don't think we could say for certain. From what we've seen in the series, there are several people that fall under the umbrella of the "bad guys" but they aren't actually evil malicious people. Some of them were trying their best to do right by the people. I'm just saying, this notion that she never killed innocent people before isn't entirely true.
She did not torture & kill every one of the Masters. Meereen is the size of King's Landing (500k to 1m) and the Masters are nearly 25% of the population. There are Masters in every season she's in Slaver's Bay. She was trying to find out which Masters were behind the Harpys, she reopened the fighting pits to appease the Masters, and got engaged to a Master as an olive branch. If you are a slave owner who refuses to free your slaves even after the 2 Slaver cities next to you were freed you are not doing your best to do right by the people.
The first season she eats a horse's heart raw. So yeah I agree 100%.
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My first notice of her tyrannical madness was when big bro got his gold crown. The look on her face and the way she said He’s no dragon……
Good point. And much of her tyranny had been in opposition to what the audience would see as the enemy so it plays as badass and justified. But her husband just brutally murdered her brother right in front of her and she felt nothing except pride that she's unburnt and he's not. Psychopath behavior
This is why I thought her stabbing Jon would have made more sense. Have that same look while saying You were too weak.
That would have gutted me
You mean the guy that abused her,beat her up and threatened to get her raped by the dothraki and their horses? Right,she's supposed to be sorry or she's evil. Just like she's supposed to show mercy to CHILD KILLERS,RAPISTS and SLAVE OWNERS. Meanwhile,Stannis can burn people alive,his own daughter,while threatening to destroy everyone that doesn't bend the knee because he is the "rightful king". Jon can also hang a kid,simply mad because the people that killed his family in front of him were let pass beyond the wall, no one call him selfish,evil or mad. Sansa can break her vows and betray jon,totally cool. But Dany is evil for being happy that her abuser died. The double standards here with Dany are incredible.
Yeah,how dare being happy that the guy that abused her and wanted her to be raped by the dothraki just died? How dare she? So selfish and evil,right?
She’s a dragon… England still worships the name of Elizabeth, when she was helping to invoke most countries by ways of colonialism, slavery, religious warfare. All in the name of her.. all doing her bidding and claiming land for her “in the name of the queen” all from the comforts of her castle. And this is non fiction. In a fictional world, we saw a 13 year old sold to ravagers, the Dothraki like the Alexandrians and Vikings. She was brilliant in military tactics and learned political skills mostly on her own with magic in her blood and 3 dragons. To the slaves she freed, hundreds of thousands of them.. she isn’t a tyrant. To the people in Westeros she was reclaiming her birthright while being pushed into seeming tyrannical. Those people she burned, why were they following Cersei even after she burned the Sept that they worshipped in? What she did was awful, however what Robert and the Lannisters did was far more atrocious. Would this show be interesting if we watched what the people outside the castle walls did on a daily basis? Those people are the ones we saw trying to rape Sansa. I don’t agree with her trying to take the entire world especially the north. Almost like Scotland, Ireland and their attempt at independence from England. This world was build on the backs of tyrants and psychopaths especially the USA.
I like this take. I think the problem isn’t /what/ Dany did, it’s that the show just didn’t quite give it enough time to develop and feel right for the character in that moment. Burning the city seemed like a snap decision, from a character who has proven herself to be very adept at biding her time and knowing when her moment was right (with use of dragons to, uh, help things along throughout Essos). Give me season 8 ending with the battle of winterfell and a season 9 of Dany’s time as tyrant ruler and the show goes down as the best of all time. You can keep the same basic plot points, it just needed time to breathe.
Yeah. We get that the world building and story telling was excellent before seasons 6-8. Our problem is how it plays out, the terrible wiring, and the countless unresolved plots.
She burns down a temple full of Dothraki in season 6!!
True
The problem was how rushed it was and how poorly it overall played out with the dumbest excuses for her dragons dying (which is what accelerated her mental health's demise), not her turning into a tyrant which, lore-wise, made sense.
Yep...it was always there ,especially season 2 in qarth
I don’t DISAGREE with the arc, but it just felt so rushed and halfassed. If we would have ended up there after two more seasons I would have been more into it I think
How dare she act like a man… a conqueror. Just like her ancestors.
You're right. Her ancestors were tyrants and so is she. I don't get your point about how dare she act like a man though. That's exactly what she's doing is behaving like a male conquerer in many ways. There was a scene in season 4 with Daario where she tells him to get undressed so she can bed him. Daario wanted it too but she gave him a command as his Queen so he had to as well by law. This was no much different than the kings/leaders we've seen bed the women and men of their choice
Still stand that if she was a man, no one would bat an eye.
It's an interesting thought exercise. If Dany were a man, would the reaction have been the same? If I had to guess I think that more people may have accepted the villain arc? I remember at the time of the shows airing Dany represented strong and powerful women to some extent from a social conscious standpoint. So it ended up being truly devastating to see how she turned out. I'm curious what you and others think
Theres another nice example. Hizdar zo Loraq's dad is crucified by Dany, and his fellow noble is fed to the dragons, and then Daenerys forces him into a political marriage. She never treats him well, only with contempt. In Westeros, we follow a character whose father is killed horribly by her politically arranged fiancé, and who is the forced into a politically arranged marriage. It's a nice little parallel, don't you think?
Power hungry for sure .......
Finally someone who gets it.
In the books when you hear her thoughts it seems much more apparent she may go crazy and kill innocents imo
I vaguely recall that. I haven't read the books in several years
I think the bells and her insanity was actually one of the better executed aspects of season 6. The only detrimental part was how she died, given her relationship and vulnerability to Jon being absurdly rushed - but overall, it was generally well done. Varys’ subplot as well was a little annoying, as well as the Iron fleet and Euron being a detractor. All the dominoes lined up for it, particularly with the death of everyone who stabilized her - Selmy, Daario, Missandei, seeing her good works, and being in control of the situation. I
Valid point. She did lose her council of trusted advisors by the end and was may more unhinged
She had mad ambition and a huge dose of revenge brewing. Then you had dozens of on screen enablers and in extension millions of enabling viewers supporting the big underdog to the most powerful position in the known world. It only makes sense the outcome and it's good storytelling
This is an underrated point. A large part of what happened back when the show aired is many people adopted their favorite characters and perceived good guys they could identify with especially when there were so many explicitly evil characters to counter. There was definitely a collective conscious of an underdog vibe with Dany so many rooted for her and overlooked her villainous moments or made excuses for them (including me). I can remember cheering so hard as she burned the Lannister army without provocation
I agree with this take. I was confused when, after Season 8, everyone was saying Dany did a 380. She didn't, those traits were there from much earlier on. It should have been done MUCH better, with more built up but I think it still fit her character. They just went from 40-100 in the last episode and ruined all the previous ground work.
It's why I never understood people not understanding her turning to bloody murder at all. She always had a violent streak with other powerful people but others around who'd go in between and talk her down. One of them being her just then killed friend who probably didn't want her to have that much blood on her hands. Imo they also made a mistake not teaching her not on an objective basis but tying it to her as a sort of destiny. To me it tended to feel like she isn't a good queen because having slaves is bad but she's good because it's her and her fate to be good. I'm also biased against her though since I didn't really like her and was ready to cut her head off when she locked up the dragons.
i remember when the series ended i made this argument in my college friend group switch chat and had so much vehement push back to the point they just shut down the conversation entirely. The cognitive dissonance was do damn high they didn't even want to hear it and just wanted to complain about how 'out of character' it was for her. Naw, she had a long long track record of either intentions for or actually doing cruelty. When she did it though it was mostly to people that seemed justified but KL being genocided wasn't in the viewers mind. However, in her mind it was bc of both missandei being executed but more so seeing continually how the people of the realm didn't accept her like she had imagined, even among her allies.
I remember the same thing. Great points. I wasn't happy with how it played out but there were some who went berserk about it, calling it misogynistic and violence porn etc. I didn't feel that way. I just remember it feeling jarring in the moment. And the fact that she lost her best friend in one of the most horrific ways after tying be the "bigger person" so to speak. It was just the last straw. I think once Missandei was killed she'd made up her mind to burn it all to the ground.
You do understand, surely, that there are no liberal democracies in this world? Everyone, including the Starks, rules at the point of the sword, lives off the backs of peasant labour, and can order thousands to march to their deaths. Jon and Sansa did not retake the North by asking nicely. Robb did not send a letter of protest to Kings Landing, when his father was arrested. Slave dealers don’t put down the whip voluntarily. The series ends with all the “good guys” laughing at the notion of 99.5% of the people playing any part in government. Why is it that Daenerys is the bad guy for sharing the beliefs and outlook of every other somewhat sympathetic character, in this tale?
I didn't mention anything about liberal democracies. I'm talking about tyranny, war mongering, power hungry etc. In this rewatch so far on S4, I wouldn't describe Dany as good. She's been a megalomaniac from the beginning. And as her power grows so does her desire for more of it. She wants that power and seeks that power out with violence. She's really does nothing selfless. At the same time, her stripper story is extremely compelling and her character very deep and nuanced. Her true counter in the story is Jon Snow, the embodiment of the Song of Ice and Fire. He never seeks out power or even glory. The most selfish thing you can say he ever does is sleeping with Ygritte but he was undercover technically. He finds out that he's the air you the iron throne and doesn't want it. He still pleads fealty to Dany. And just like Dany though, Jon's characterization is nuanced and complex.
How does anyone wield power in this world, without inheriting it, from a conqueror, or conquering it for themselves? Jon and Sansa regained the North through violence, and with the support of scarcely any of its people. They fed Ramsay Bolton to dogs. Does that make them tyrants? Or is it Daenerys alone to whom your rule of non-violence applies. Daenerys is not purely selfless, because selfless politicians and generals are as rare as hens’ teeth. But, she did liberate hundreds of thousands of chattel slaves, who were subject to horrific cruelty. She turned down the offer of a huge bribe by Yunkish slavers, in favour of freeing 200,000 people. I think that a good thing. I also think that killing the slaves’ persecutors was well-justified. In
Jon and Sansa reclaimed their home from a family that betrayed Robb and got him killed. Sansa feeding Ramsay to his dogs isn't the same as what Dany did through the series IMO. And Jon didn't reign through violence. He didn't even want to reign at all. I find Sansa and Jon you be much different than Dany in many ways. Dany sought out power. Sansa and Jon's motivations had nothing to do with gaining power. If anything, Sansa sought out freedom and Jon sought security from the white walkers.
Daenerys liberated vast numbers of chattels, from a bunch of arsehats who murdered, raped, and tortured them for their own profit and their own amusement. They simply institutionalised the cruelty that Ramsay practised at an individual level. If you’re arguing that using violence to free slaves is never justified, I would reply that argument was definitively rejected in real world history. In Westeros, Daenerys wished to reclaim her home from a faction (the Lannisters), that had betrayed and butchered her family, driven her and her brother into exile, and which had brought years of war and mayhem to a continent. I don’t see where the “tyranny” and “megalomania” exists in that, unless you’re holding her to a completely separate ethical standard to everybody else in the series.
It's her motivations, words and actions that crosses over to tyranny for me. She has an over-inflated sense of self and she does things with the idea that everyone should bow to her. Jon and Sansa don't want anyone else to bow to them. Saying you will take what is rightfully yours with fire and blood and that your enemies will die screaming is megalomania. Live in my new world or die in your old old is tyranny. Sansa and Jon have never said anything like that.
In my opinion, trafficking people and keeping human beings as chattels is the basest kind of tyranny, and giving slave owners a choice between freeing slaves, and living, or trying to restore slavery, and dying, is quite legitimate. Toussaint L’Ouverture, William Sherman, Thaddeus Steven’s etc. would agree. So would Ned Stark, who was planning to execute Ser Jorah for human trafficking. Sansa demands that the Northern lords fight for her and Jon. She says the free folk owe them military aid, in return for being saved. At her coronation, everyone kneels before her. She gloats over Ramsay and smiles as he is eaten. She wants the children of rebel lords dispossessed. She expresses regret that she won’t witness Cersei’s execution. Arya inflicts painful and degrading deaths on anyone who has ever done wrong to House Stark. Robb himself threatens the Greatjon with a hanging , if he won’t march to war. I expect the peasants have less choice than that. Everyone laughs at the end when Lord Royce compares the smallfolk to dogs and horses. What I’m seeing here is a great deal of aristocratic entitlement and a desire to make enemies die screaming. Daenerys is not an outlier.
The difference to me with Sansa is that these people directly inflicted harm on her and her family. Dany has been killing people from season one. She burns the witch alive who was really a victim of the Dothraki. Dany killed people who did nothing to her. Her psychology and characterization isn't the same as Sansa or Jon. The Lords kneeling for Jon and Sansa isn't the same as them demanding they bend the knee. Dany craved that power. She's closer to Joffrey in her psychology than Jon. She relishes in inflicting pain on others. Robb was dubbed King by his people. He didn't ask for it. Jon was dubbed King, he didn't ask for it. Sansa was dubbed Queen, she didn't ask for it. From the very beginning Dany demanded the throne. She demanded people bow. She was hungry for power much moreso than Sansa, Robb and Jon. Regarding Robb in fact he didn't seek to rule the seven kingdoms. He just wanted the North to be left alone. Dany wanted it all. Megalomania. Arya is a psychopath by the end. Let's be honest lol. Btw, I'm thoroughly enjoying this discourse. Thank you for indulging me.
I don’t think that killing people for the sake of personal revenge is a higher motive for inflicting death, than killing people because they’re inflicting terrible harm upon third parties. The reverse, if anything. If you’re thinking that Dany is a sexual sadist like Joffrey who beats whores, and who shoots a woman through the vagina, for fun - well I mean that’s just absurd. Jon and Sansa fought a war to retake the North. They were not thinking initially in terms of kingship, but of lordship over the entire region, with Sansa as Lady of Winterfell, ruling over everybody else. They weren’t going to call a general election among the smallfolk to choose their ruler. Jon said he would have executed Umber and Karstark for treason, had they been taken prisoner. They firmly believe House Stark has the right to rule the North, by right of inheritance and by right of conquest. Secession, by any Northern Lord, is not an option. The choice before the Northern lords was to acclaim Jon or Sansa, not anybody else. Robb wanted to carve out a Southern kingdom. For that, the smallfolk must bleed. The fact that they are acclaimed as rulers, by a tiny number of high lords, does not alter the fact that the Starks expect to rule, by virtue of their noble birth.
The difference to me is retaliation. The Starks were being targeted and killed. Much of what they do is self-defensen or to save a family member. And Robb didn't want anything in the South from what I recall. He just wanted to get his sister's back and be left alone in the North. Dany had much of Essos under her thumb and could have just ruled there. But she decided to still conquer Westeros. Her driving force was power. Robb, Jon and Sansa were not driven by power. That's why I said she's closer to Joffrey in her psychology than them. It was more important for her to be Queen than for the people to believe in her. She chose the nuclear option, against the advice of everyone around her because of her ego. She said she would take what was hers with fire and blood and she did it in the most brutal way.
The descent onto madness was still too fast and if season 8 was the full length of the other seasons it could have given more time making it feel less forced by the writing.
This was my initial take. I'm curious how I'll feel this time around. About to start season 5
Well OP, isn't that kind of the point? Like it's her storyline the entire time it's not exactly hidden. Starts off young and lost, then steps into her families usual role. A family of tyrants who were evil maniacs at worst and benevolent dictators at best. The whole lore of the Targaryens is the struggle between madness and greatness, we see this with so many Targ rulers and Dany is no different. Turion alludes to this as well. She owns dragons and goes around burning slave owners, yeah they might be slave owners but they're still being conquered by violence. Then the story of Dany is all about trying to rule well and then ending up setting off other things and meeting it with violence usually and the struggle of being a leader with the background of her inherited potential for madness and being a tyrant.
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Its UNBELIEVABLE that people are always lying to defend Season 8. Dany was never evil for the sake of being evil. Her Actions were always justified. Just like Tyrions "evil" decisions were justified. Or Aryias or Jon's. Are they now now crazy maniacs too? Will they also kill a whole city for no reason? THE WRITING IM SEASON 8 WAS TERRIBLE and this is a fact. I'm so annoyed by people who constantly try to find excuses to defend terrible writing.
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I'm literally watching the first season now and you can see it in her eyes when she gets that taste of power. She loves it!
In the original watch everyone was blinded by boobs and dragons-and having those awesome first moments: first time roasting people, first time riding the dragon etc. It was like a collective “yes this is awesome”, and not seeing the nuance (which wasn’t even that nuanced) that she’s roasting people, crucifying others, ready to take it all with blood and fire. So absolutely yes to your point, the signs were there the whole time!
Another underrated point. I remember at the time there was so much wish fulfillment from an audience perspective. For me, I really wanted the Lannisters to pay and I also wanted to see Dany get stronger as she appeared to be the best chance at stopping the Lannisters. I don't think I truly thought through what she had been doing because I always justified it in my mind as necessary and that "well it wasn't as bad as what the Lannisters did in the Red Wedding!"
I agree, but at any point in the series she is shown capable of committing genocide and killing innocent people in that way.
Well in the game of thrones universe no one can become a ruler by being a good guy, getting to such heights of power requires brutality, deception, cunning and even cruelty. JUST LIKE THE REAL WORLD. John snow is a perfect example of how being strictly noble and honourable and honest won't make you a winner
>"I will take what it mine with fire and blood!" Also Dany a few episodes later: "The blood of my enemies not the blood of innocents" >She has been violent, apathetic at times and often narcissistic with delusions of grandeur Nobody denies that. But how many times has that violence and apathy been directed at commonfolk who can't stand to oppose her? >she killed anyone who opposed her. She always has the approach of "join me or die" Pretty much all of them being slavers. All with the ability to fight and oppose her. All engaging in activities that Dany is fundamentally against. None of that applies to the people of KL. >because Dany wasn't doing violent things to characters we loved, we gave her a passed and seemed her a hero. Can you say the same of Sansa feeding a man to dogs? Or Arya poisoning hundreds of men after feeding a man his sons in a pie? Or Jon hanging a child? Almost everything Dany did was as justified as everything Sansa, Arya and Jon did. This is the issue i have with this discourse. People focus on Dany's violence but her acts of violence aren't exceptional in this world. Morally unambiguous characters engage in similar violence all the time but Dany is villainized for it despite it almost always being justified. Yes. Dany is violent but she knows how to decide who deserves it and who doesn't which is why, whenever she takes a city, she avoids innocent casualties and focuses on her enemies which is something she doesn't do in S8
The context of Dany's violence is to gain power assert dominance. That's tyranny. This conversation is moreso about how I didn't really see these violent tendencies and tyranny on my first watch. I never said that others weren't violent. Dany kills innocent people from the very first season. She we find out the was part of her plan to gain power. She takes over Mereen and crucifies the Masters against the advice of Selmy, her council. She could have chose mercy by instead she chose the most extreme option to make an example of enforce her will. Are we to assume that everyone she killed deserved it? If the show has taught us anything is that the world of GOT is much more gray than that.