If they have her go all Mad Queen in order to kill her off and for Jonny Sue to rule, then you know this show has become utter rubbish. And I fear they are going this route with trying to push Sansa as being so smart and insightful and opposing Dany and all this sudden talk about how Dany needs someone to control her impulses.
It would be ironic though given all the plot armor and absurd triumphs Dany has had from day one.
To an extent they have. Even in season 2 when they wouldn't let her into Qarth, she threatened to lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground, but it was dismissed by Xaro Xhoan as harmless barking by a queen for her people (when she was totally fucking serious). Several times throughout the series her initial impulse was to go all Targaryen, but she ultimately listened to cooler heads. In later seasons, she increasingly ignores that advice. In season seven, Tyrion advised against executing the Tarleys, but she did it anyway, and that led to Sam telling Jon the truth about his heritage so he would take the throne instead of her. The writers have made plenty of mistakes, but they have been foreshadowing this for a long time.
shareMadness is thinking you are going to transform into a dragon instead of burning to death or taking orders from voices in your head. Not losing your temper or threatening your enemies.
Nothing she has done has hinted at mental instability or something that plenty of other characters would not have done in her situation.
You don't go insane in a fortnight.
Correct, on both counts. She had shown absolutely no signs of madness until now, and some people here dont know the difference between being ruthless or an asshole, and being crazy. Dany has NOT been crazy for seven entire seasons!
I'm not convinced she's actually supposed to be crazy now, maybe all the characters who are starting to think she's a few beers short of a six-pack are wrong. We will see, so I'm reserving the full -power ranting for two more episodes.
One more episode
shareBurning innocent people is complete madness and that’s exactly what she wanted to do in season 2. The main issue is the definition of madness. We know the mad king burned innocent people and the people of Westeros called him the mad king.
shareIn season 2 she was willing to burn innocent people as means to an end, and was easily talked out of it.
In season 8 she's burning innocent people to absolutely no end, for no reason, in ways that will cause massive problems for her if she ever takes the throne. And without showing any of the signs of mental illness her father had, he was delusional and thought that blowing up the whole city would turn him into a dragon.
Again, I don't mind if they have a Mad Queen storyline, what I object to is that they've botched it. They haven't made her crazy, they haven't made her slowly give in to her worst qualities, they've just made her into a different person over the course of a couple of episodes with no explanation for her drop in IQ.
Doesn’t matter if she was talked out of it, her first impulse was to destroy all innocents.
Nah, go rewatch the series. There are definite signs of her being mad. You just refuse to acknowledge it. Stop Stanning for Dany.
Some people still don't get that "sacking" entire cities, that is, burning most of the city and raping or killing a huge number of the population is considered NORMAL in Essos and Westeros. It's how kings and high aristocrats achieve their goals, how they defeat their enemies and keep them from rising again, and inspire fear in anyone who might pick a fight with them.
If you look at Danerys' strategies of conquest in seasons 2-7, you see her start out considering mass death and destruction as any military leader from that culture would do, and deciding against it. Then she conquers three city-states with clever means that don't involve mass civilian deaths, then invading Westeros while still considering ways to win over the population rather than kill them all, and then stopping the invasion to save the population from the Others. She was quite consistent in seasons 2-7, she was damn well out to conquer and was perfectly willing to use fear as a political and military weapon, but she always avoided mass civilian deaths and sacking cities whenever possible.
Again, I don't have any objection to a Mad Queen storyline, and if they'd shown her as being increasingly unstable for more than ONE GODDAMN EPISODE then the sight of her finally giving into her worst impulses while on dragonback and sacking an entire city by herself might have been fantastic drama. As it is, she's just become a stupider, more vicious person, with no lead-up. This is very bad writing.
They did drop hints of her leaning towards mad Queen status throughout the series you just ignored them.
shareNo. She consistently behaved in a fashion that was kinder and more ethical than other military leads of Essos and Westeros, until season 8. And then she did so without any leadup or signs of mental illness.
This is just crap writing.
You're an obvious Dany Stan.
shareNo, I just understand Medieval politics and warfare, and human psychology better than many of the fans. I don't particularly like Danerys, I don't like any conqueror out to gain an empire, and that's what she's been all along.
And apparently, I also understand Medieval politics and warfare and human psychology better than whoever's been writing this shit this year! It's infuriating, the way they've dropped the ball. This show used to have writing that you could pick apart in incredible detail, and it'd all hold up no matter how hard you nitpicked. Gone are the days...
You are right in you assessment. I still do not think she is mad. From what it looks like to me is she just lost her shit and let out anger and sarrow from recent tragedies in a short span of time. People often snap under certain conditions but ot is not madness.
shareThank you! Some of the fans just don't get how incredibly rough politics was in Medieval England, or Westeros and Essos.
By the standards of monarchs or warlords in either era, Danerys has been very restrained.
There was nothing mad about her executing the Tarleys. She did it reluctantly and it was a political decision. It was no more mad than Ed strark beheading a desserter in episode one. As the OP said, there is nothing in the portrayal of her character to this point that has indicated madness. She rose to power primarily by inspiring love in her followers. Cersei rose to power by being ruthless and using fear. Danarys has been portrayed as pretty much the opposite of a mad tyrant.
shareNo, she wanted to execute the Tarleys. Tyrion tried to talk her down, but she didn't want to hear it. In one of the earlier seasons, without even a trial, she *crucified* scores of masters, which is an exceptionally cruel and barbaric punishment as it takes days to die. Would Ned Stark have done something like that? Fuck no. He would try each individually on what they had done and those sentenced to death would have got a quick clean beheading? Do you know who would have? That crazy mother fucker Ramsay Bolton.
All along, they have been concealing that monster under the mask of a pretty blonde girl that talks about breaking chains.
She returned the same punishment to the masters that they had dealt to others(including children). I can well imagine ned stark would have thought it was a fittong punishment. Trials are for traitors, not for enemies in s war. This is medieval england, not post war europe.
By your logic sansa showed signs of madness when she had Ramsay ripped to pieces by dogs.
"By your logic sansa showed signs of madness when she had Ramsay ripped to pieces by dogs."
Thank you.
That is logical fail on two counts. First, whatever Sansa did, or didn't do, is irrelevant in the present discussion. She doesn't have an established reputation for being an honorable or just leader (like Ned Stark did), so comparisons to her are irrelevant. Second, Ramsay could be judged individually on his own merits. He was punished for what *he* did, not for what others with his class distinction did. Dany made no such distinction when she crucified pretty much all the masters. Recall the scene where the guy came to Dany and talked about how his father (who Dany crucified) was a good man that fought against slavery and his request was to take him down from the crucifix and give him a proper burial?. THey were trying to show way back then that she was willing to kill and torture indiscriminately.
You Dany apologists are just refusing to see the end story they have been laying out for her ever since season 1.
Yes, re-watch the entire series and you won't be surprised she ended up here. She's always been obsessed with claiming the Iron Throne. In a not-entirely-healthy sort of way. Tyrion had to talk her out of burning all the cities of Slaver's Bay to the ground when she was back in Meereen. Her impulses have frequently been at odds with her breaker of chains, fighting for the common people persona. Tonight she just stopped trying to rein herself in.
shareThat story as it's being presented here in this season is a false one. This Daenerys is not the one that was in season seven. Not even close. This suddenly 160 in terms of her not being stable enough to handle those people in the North who would scorn her, is just nasty writing. Proves what Olenna said about these people being backwards and stupid. Same with the feeble lords who sided with Cersei. Same with the people of King's Landing who didin't do anything when Cersei took the throne. Are we forgetting how they laughed and scoffed at her during her walk of atonement? As for Sansa, remember what Ramsay said about her having him in her? That malignancy Ramsay left was fostered by Littlefinger and what she learned from Cersei. Jon asked her to keep a confidence, and what did she do.... Went blabbing to Tyrion....yet Dany is the "mad queen".
shareYou could also say that Sansa (like Varys) sensed what kind of queen Daenerys would be. Saw that dark side and didn't trust her to control it. So of course she latched onto the idea that her "brother" had a more legitimate claim to the throne as a way of sparing Westeros ... well, something like what we saw in King's Landing.
shareAnd Sansa is some sort of arbiter of sanity? She lies constantly.
shareSansa has become a player of the game. That's true. But I can't see her setting a whole city on fire, families and children included. Dani knew King's Landing had surrendered. She just wasn't about to be cheated of her rightful retribution.
shareSansa became nothing but a snide little acolyte of Cersei, Littlefinger, and of her own sense of self importance. She lied to Jon twice that could have meant his death on the field of battle. She didn't learn a thing about loyalty in her not keeping his secret.
shareSansa wasn't being a petty schemer or a petulant child. She judged that the safety and security of her people was at risk, and that outweighed all other considerations. What happened at King's Landing certainly proves her fears were well founded.
shareThe cruxifiction of the Masters of Mereen wasn't insanity, it was one of the few time she acted in anger instead of her usual chilly ruthlessness. She regretted it to some degree when she saw that she'd failed to administer justice properly for those miles and miles of horribly crucified children, and tried to make nice with the former Master class by re-establishing the arena fights and promising to marry the hottie who asked to bury his crucified father. Presumably she'd learned from that mistake, because she kept her temper for several seasons after that.
Until now, when she's suddenly a totally different person, with out being actually crazy. See above.
Tyrion was wrong to try to talk her down. If the idiot Tarleys had looked her in the eye and she'd just taken them prisoner instead of executing them on the spot the way any other Lord, King, General, or warlord would have done, everyone in Westeros would have concluded that she could be defied with impunity. Because you bet you ass Cersei would kill anyone who tried that on the spot and with extra pain first, and Dany couldnt afford to let the lords of Westeros be more afraid of Cersei than her.
It was a necessary political and strategic move, and effective war leader would have done the same. She didnt enjoy it any more than Ned Stark enjoyed beheading that deserter in ep. 1, and it was NOT evidence of insanity.
Correct on all counts. People just don't get that part. The part where if she'd spared the Tarlys it would have been open season on her ability to command effectively. Jon did it with the Nights Watch. Robb did it with Rickard Karstark who defied his orders. Ned did it in battle. Robert did it. Stannis did it. I notice if it's a man, that's balls and integrity. Dany does it and she's whacko.
shareNone of the male characters you mentioned burned people alive; and they were punished for treason *on top of* refusing orders, unlike the Tarleys. People probably wouldn't be questioning Danearys' sanity so much, if she wasn't so fire-happy. While, I don't think she was written to be "mad" in the past season, she def. has pyrophiliac obsessions, which is very frightening, esp. for someone who owns dragons.
shareThe other Lords of Westeros don't have the option of instantaneously burning people with dragon fire, and believe me they would if they could!
Like I said, Danerys is very much at home with the strategic uses of fear, because as I said above a Medieval warlord has to be feared, if they let people think that you're softer than your opponents then they'll side with your opponents because they feel free to defy you but not the other side. So she does think like feed one Merrinish lord to the dragon in front of the others, and lets the others live. She torches one ship out of the armada invading Mereen, and graciously accepts the surrender of the others. She fries the Tarlys, and lets all the other prisoners live. That is standard Medieval political/military tactics, and was considered more merciful than the other option, which was to kill every last one of the Mereenish lords or Lannister prisoners, or to burn all the ships.
Some of the fans just don't get how rough politics was in those days! They also don't get how huge and sudden her change of personality has been, she went from ntelligent strategic use of fear, to pointless slaughter, in the course of two episodes, with no character development.
Stannis had people burned alive. Several people. And unlike Dany, he knew most of them. Most of the people Dany burned were either collateral damage (citizens of King's Landing) or faceless members of an army (the Lannister Army and Golden Company).
The people Dany deliberately burned alive?
The creepy master in Astapor (who was skivvy and perverted, and don't tell me you didn't cheer when Drogon fried him)
The Tarly's (she had given them a choice to bend the knee or die)
Varys (she had warned him what would happen if he ever betrayed her)
eta:
Mirri Maz Dur (indirectly responsible for the deaths of Drogo and Rhaego)
Pyat Pree (who had kidnapped Dany and trapped her in a room WITH her dragons)
NONE of them compare to the burning alive of YOUR OWN DAUGHTER.
That's fair. I wish they had the opportunity to show their work more but...that's fair. Good call.
shareNone of those actions were crazy or particularly Targaryan, that's just how politics is played in Westeros and especially Essos. She was brought up by her vicious brother and came to adulthood under the influence of her Dothraki Screamer husband, and if her first thought was to lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground, that was the standard way to get things done. She didn't suggest slaughter with any sense of enjoyment or cruelty, and was perfectly happy to accept alternatives when offered. For the next several seasons, she thought of methods to gain her ends other than mass slaughter, because she was written as an intelligent conqueror who killed, but never with enjoyment, and never without a reason.
She's always been ruthless, and since midway through season 1, she's been on a campaign of conquest. She's killed and even slaughtered when she needed to, avoided doing so when she could gain her goals without mass slaughter, because she's been consisitently written as an intelligent, rational, and not particularly bloodthirsty conqueror. Until now, of course, when she's suddenly stupid and bloodthirsty.
I would not say that she has shown indications of madness, but she is ruthless. The sackings of Astopor and Yunkai, the crucifixions at Meereen, and the executions of the Tarleys all point to a certain amount of cold blooded behavior. Very rational for that matter, not madness.
share1) We’ve never seen Dany like this before ... her advisors are all dead (except for Daario), two of her dragons are dead, she keeps getting betrayed by her Northern allies and her lover is her biggest rival for leadership.
2) All of Dany’s conflicts have been straightforward good vs evil in an entirely different storyline / political realm.
I think there was some foreshadowing that Dany was a bad fit (politically and personality-wise) for the conflict over the Iron Throne, but it needed another season to really let it sink in.
Five episodes just isn’t enough to convince everyone that a character that’s been a hero for eight seasons can turn into the ultimate villain.
Yeah - I'm sorry, but burning down the innocents/civilians is a sign of insanity she has never shown before. She was ruthless, yes - but she's never gone full psycho by burning down civilians, especially after the bell rang (which should have signaled throne abdication)
shareMy take is that she acted out of pure rage and revenge for Missandei and the other dragon. Her original plan was to burn Kings Landing, but Tyrion talked her out of it. As she heard the bells ring and you could see the rage building in her face, I imagine she was thinking that Missandei and the dragon would still be alive if she’d burned it all in the first place. At that point, she snapped, overcome with rage, and went “fuck it”.
shareI’ve been re-watching the series and actually, there have been signs of ruthlessness. Honestly, I have purposely been ignoring it - because I mostly agreed with her viewpoints (freeing the slaves, taking care of her people etc). Edit: and also because WE have seen how screwed up the people on the throne have been, but imagine they would have been good people, it would not have changed her plan, and we would have viewed her as the villain from the beginning on. Edit end.
But when you really think about it, she really has been shoving her point of view and her will on others... And with more power she gave people less choices.
I think the timing is off, too much cramped into too little episodes towards the end; but even though I really liked Dany, I am not upset at where this went. Devastated from a “being submerged in the story” kinda view, but not from a outside observer (if this makes sense). I like that this showed me my own bias, that it shows people as more than purely good or evil. That you can package someone as a beautiful person who had good intentions but who, with growing power and without other good people and advisors around gives in to personal hurt and goes down the wrong path.
If Jon would not have found out who he is, if her friends would not have died, if she would have felt more welcome and respected...I think this would have gone a different way.
For people with a goal, the line, the reasoning can easily be crossed if not careful. As she said...destroying everything with her reasoning, would help future generations...don’t have to care about the sacrifices of the now...
I have no objection to a Mad Queen storyline, but they're making a fucking hash of it!
Instead of having her actually be crazy, as in delusional or hearing voices or having irrational beliefs, they've just made her stupid, vicious, bloodthirsty, and fond of killing civilians... after they spent seven fucking years establishing that she isn't stupid, vicious, bloodthirsty, and that she goes out of her way to avoid civilian casualties.
The madness is so badly rushed that they've basically turned her into a different person, in the course of a couple of episodes. There's been no progression, no motivation for her changes in personality and no actual craziness, they've fucked it all up.
Agreed.
shareShe wanted Westeros to fear her. She was making an example of a city that didn't kneel to her glory.
share[deleted]
But the city DID kneel, they rang the bells of surrender without orders.
For seven years she's been very astute about the uses of fear, which is how she managed to turn three disobedient dragons into an empire, but this wasn't using fear. To use fear for political purposes you leave most of your victims alive - like when an armada of slavers attacked Mereen and she torched one ship and just to make it clear that she could burn them all. But this wasn't the use of fear, that was pointless, counterproductive slaughter, that would leave her without a capitol city - nobody to work in her palace or serve in her armies or engage in trade with other regions. It wasn't so much crazy as it was stupid.
I agree with you to a point... Let's set aside the fact that they had to condense and "end" several stories in just a few episodes.
Can any of you honestly say, that had you experienced the incredible amount of loss that Dany has you wouldn't suddenly snap and become a different person capable of her acts?
She lost EVERY person she ever loved... her only sibling (yes he was horrible but he was her brother and all she had), her husband, their unborn child, two of her dragons (2 more children), her best friends (Jorah and Missandei) and now her potential second husband and love Jon Snow.
Yeah, I think that would send me over pretty fast.
She suffered an incredible amount of loss in the first season, her husband, her baby, her 40,000 followers, etc., and it didn't make her vicious and stupid. It may have made her suicidal, it was never clear why she walked into Drogo's pyre, but she didn't turn her anger and grief into rage at others. That just hasn't been part of her personality. In fact the only time she ever turned anger and grief into rage at others was when the Masters crucified thousands of innocent children to troll her, and she crucified the lot of them without a trial, and she came to regret that later and kept her temper under better control fter that.
The thing is, they really could have shown her to be cracking under the pressure of fighting supernatural forces and losing two out of three dragons, as well as her only real friend, but they didnt' do that. Or they could have shown her as developing progressive signs of mental illness, but they didn't do that either. She got a bit weepy when Jon got the first dragon killed, but she stayed sane and stable through the Battle of Winterfell, and even forgave Jon. They're making a mess of the Mad Queen business, they've just changed her into a different person in the course of about two episodes.
When all this is over, I'm going to post a long rant about how they could have shown her cracking under pressure or slowly going nuts, and Missandei could have been acting to keep anyone else from catching on, as they haven't bothered to do. Because for some insane reason, they want to cram two years of material into six episodes, and they've thrown character development out the window.
There must be something in the water in King's Landing. Maybe wildfire leaking in?
shareYep - it looks like Arya is going to kill the queen - making John the new king. But yeah, the bout of madness is a bit of an overkill. I mean the moment when the bells rang and she went into the 'let's kill every civilian' mode - like WTF? That's how you destroy a character by shitty writing. If they wanted things to be more believable, they should have made us doubt her sanity way earlier on in the series. And turning her dragon into an unbeatable machine after her brush with death last time? Bad writing, period.
shareJon doesn't become the new king unless he either marries Dany, or someone is able to prove that he's a Targaryan. Because like Dany said when he first brought it up, that rests on the word of his brother and best friend, and neither of them are anywhere near King's Landing.
So at this point, if Dany doesn't become queen, Tyrion is the person with the best claim to the throne! He's Cersei's next of kin, and she was the last person to put her butt on the Iron Throne!
Martin has covered this in his ancillary writings about Westeros, there were a couple of times in history when there was some doubt who should be king, and what happened was that all the great lords came together and voted and politicked in a new king. Some version of that may happen in the next episode, and hope to fucking fuck that they don't just get drunk and appoint Jon king, like they did after the Battle of the Bastards.
Jon doesn't become the new king unless he either marries Dany, or someone is able to prove that he's a Targaryan.
Yeah, well, that means that the only person who wanted Jon to be king and was in a position to make it happen is gone!
Seriously, if you were a lord of Westeros at the conclave that's deciding the new king, wouldn't you pick Tyrion over Jon Snow? Tyrion's a known quantity, he's been hand of the king and master of coin and knows how a government runs, and then there's this bastard deserter from the Night's Watch who claims that he's the secret child of Rheagar Targaryan and was dead for three days so his vows don't matter.
All hail Tyrion, First of his Name, King of the Andals and the First Men!
Jon will be proven a Targaryen when Dany tries to execute him for turning against her (after last week that's pretty much a given) and Drogon's flames leave him untouched. No one will dispute it after that!
shareUnless you watched the last 5 seasons or so.
share