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Confused By Ending? Great Analysis Found.


It does an excellent job at explaining Danys' downfall and why Jon refused the throne:
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUcT1XWn6sE

The reason why Bran was chosen and what was meant by "a better story":
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoDS-aZ4JN4

Jon is compared to Frodo in "Lord of the Rings" who is able to refuse the corrupting power of the Iron Throne (The Ring) which is why he didn't want anything to do with it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Bran can probably withstand the Iron Throne's power because he lacks a human personality. He's no longer really Bran.

It's a little long, but never boring and very insightful. Too bad that the writers didn't do a better job at getting some of these points across in the show.

Compares Dany to Cersei:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4bff4LyuDM

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Jon didnt refuse the throne, it was never offered to him. Sure, he had a blood claim to it, one that few were aware of, and which nobody took seriously but Sam and Dany. And he was in jail when the next king was picked by a council that didnt consider his claim for a minute.

And again, the problems with the ending were 80-90% due to the execution, not the basic idea

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"I don't want it!"

Jon said that phrase repeatedly. He had no interest in becoming a king. He told everyone who knew about his claim that he didn't want to be king.

There are problems with the execution. It was rushed and there are inconsistencies like the ceiling and walls totally collapsed on Jaimie and Cersei, but Tyrion was able to remove only a few bricks to see them. Even with the problems, I am enjoying season 8 much more during my second viewing.

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Who did he day that to? Dany or Sam?

Because it sure wasnt the people who actually picked the next king.

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You must have missed most of the 8th season. He repeatedly said it to Dany, Sam, his siblings, Tyrion and Varys. It would've been stupid and pointless for the council to propose Jon as king when he wouldn't take the position. GOT is loosely following the plotlines of Lord of the Rings. The Iron Throne=The Ring. Both destroy whoever seeks its power. Drogon destroyed what was responsible for his mother's death - not Jon, but the Iron Throne. Notice how Frodo left the Shire and Jon left Westeros at the end in order to find happiness.

Jon didn't want to be King of the North either which is why he was heavily criticized by the furious Lord and Ladies when he returned. They felt betrayed and assumed his disinterest in being King of the North is why he bent the knee so easily. On the other hand, Sansa fought for the North's independence and bent the knee to nobody.

Great storytelling from GRRM!

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To me though Jon often ended in positions he didnt really want to be in so wouldnt have been surprised if he became king.

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If Jon had been convinced that it was his duty to take the throne, and that Westeros would have been worse off if he didn't... he'd have let himself be crowned and done his best to rule wisely.

But as I said, nobody ever considered him for the job.

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>But as I said, nobody ever considered him for the job

This is a frustrating point. The fact that it was never even considered and Jon had absolutely no say in basically anything he did the last season. He went from being King in the North who even earned the love and admiration of the north and the woman that at first considered him a rival that needed to bend the knee, to a sappy pathetic individual with absolutely no agency and even less direction. 7 season set him up as the as the main character but in the most important climatic moments he is rendered mostly mote and pointless.

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Along with everyone and everything on the show last season, Jon was given short shrift. He rallied the humans to fight the Others and the whole freaking continent would have been doomed if he hadn't, but he got no credit for it in the context of the show because the showrunners had lost interest in the whole thing by then and were just rushing on to King's Landing and the finale. So reduced him to trailing along in Dany's wake, while Sansa actually ran the North.

Between the Battle of Winterfell and the end of the show, he had *one* moment of real agency, and it was over and done with in a minute, with minimal dramatic impact. His journey had absolutely no payoff, and I can't think that it's what GRRM really intended.

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>because the showrunners had lost interest in the whole thing by then and were just rushing on to King's Landing and the finale.

This is the key element that lead to this disaster. This is why as soon as the white walkers were done with they as well as nearly all magic, prophesies and gods (Lord of light specifically) were dropped without a single further mention. As a result many characters were reduced to props that propel the story at breakneck speed to the end. All the characters suffered this, but as we can agree Jon probably got it the worst and most obviously.

>he had *one* moment of real agency, and it was over and done with in a minute, with minimal dramatic impact. His journey had absolutely no payoff, and I can't think that it's what GRRM really intended.

Good point, basically his only act of any agency whatsoever was killing Dany and it took such little time to happen and then was gone in a minute. And because of the way the magic and white walkers were basically thrown away after episode 3 it completely removed any point to his journey. as you said "no payoff". I walked away from season 8 saying "why the hell even bring him back from the dead, he and the story would have been better if he stayed dead".

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"I walked away from season 8 saying "why the hell even bring him back from the dead, he and the story would have been better if he stayed dead". "

I have to respectfully disagree, in S7 and S8 Jon got humanity to fight the Others, he brought Dany into the fight which gave them a chance, he was the one person most responsible for the victory of the Living over the Dead. And then he killed Dany herself, and thereby took out threats from the extremes of both Fire and Ice, which may be the point of the ASOIAF title.

I blame the showrunners for totally obscuring those points. Gawd, what a mess they made of things.

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>I have to respectfully disagree, in S7 and S8 Jon got humanity to fight the Others, he brought Dany into the fight which gave them a chance, he was the one person most responsible for the victory of the Living over the Dead.

Yes but that role could have been filled by others, Sam, Tormund, Tyrion Sansa. Bringing Dany into the fight provided the Night King the dragon he needed to get through the wall. With how easy it is to actually kill the Night King the entirety of Jon's effort seems wasted. Why not just send Arya with a Valyrian steel dagger north of the wall, where no breach happened because no dragon. She could have done this after even killing Cersei. Sansa would have likely taken the north back from the Boltons without Jon (at least based on what the show showed us).

Killing Dany after she went crazy is basically the only important thing he contributed and that came and passed in about 10 minutes of screen time.

>I blame the showrunners for totally obscuring those points.

Exactly, because of what the showrunners did almost everything ended up being or seeming pointless. Because of how badly they obscured these points, Jon's purpose as a character seems pointless now. as you say "Gawd, what a mess they made of things."

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"Exactly, because of what the showrunners did almost everything ended up being or seeming pointless. "

I'm glad we agree on that, because that is the important point. And it's so incredibly fucking true.

But as for Jon... allow me to indulge in pointless speculation. Say Jon died at the Battle of the Bastards and Sansa was acclaimed Queeninthenorth. On the show when Jon was named Kinginthenorth he made the War Between the Living and the Dead his top priority, and devoted all his energies to that, and I'm not saying that he did a perfect job what with losing a dragon and all that, but he did get the armies of the North, the Wildlings, and the Targaryans to unite in the cause. Tormund couldn't have done that, non-wildlings wouldn't follow him or take him seriously, Sansa wouldn't have done that because she'd see Cersei as the primary threat*, and without Jon Arya would have stayed a feral murderer and gone south after Cersei and her crew. So yes, I give Jon a lot of credit for the WBtLatD.


* Sansa probably would have taken Jon's talk about the Others seriously enough to give money and supplies to Tormund or the Night's Watch when they went off to try to hold the Wall against the dead. But she couldn't have rallied the North under the cry of "Well, Jon said...".

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Not that i fully disagree with you but alot of what Jon did post dying probably did more harm than good, it did drive the plot forward but think about it like this.

Without Jon Dany does not go North to get a wraith and therefore NK gets no dragon to use to bring down the wall. No wall fall, no White Walker invasion. This means no real need to unit the north, wildings and Targaryans. At that point it would likely be better for everyone is Sansa was named Queen of the north at first because she proved to be a more all around effective ruler than Jon, whom was too focused on the primary goal and gave no consideration to important secondary considerations.

Arya stays a feral murder and likely successfully kills Cersei. This means Dany goes unopposed for the throne. No Mad Queen happens.

This makes it seem like Jon was brought back from the dead to make the plot go the direction it needed to go. He became a plot device rather than a character. That is the point I am really trying to make.

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Except that IMHO the Night's King could have gotten his army through or around the Wall by other means, he was clearly powerful enough to freeze enough ocean to give his army a surface to walk on, or perhaps his magical connection with Bran would have allowed him to defy the Wall's magic and pass through pre-existing tunnels. So while Jon was an idiot regarding the dragon and in general, I do think that the Others would have invaded the land of the living with the ice dragon or without. And without Jon, there would have been no organized resistance to the invasion, they could have gone straight through to Cersei's lands and faced no real opposition in the southlands.

But yeah, in general, I think you're right about some of Jon's stupider decisions in the later seasons being designed to further the plot, and not being genuinely character-driven (although his character is that of a well-intentioned dim bulb). Although, IMHO he wasn't as bad on that front as Danerys, who has always been inconsistently written and hoo boy did that get worse in the last couple of seasons!

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We would have to split hairs a little to have that discussion of whether or not the NK would or could have found another way, there is not enough evidence to speculate unfortunetly. The way the show made it appear at least to me, was the NK was waiting for the Dragon.

I fully agree with you about Dany being inconsistently written, and that inconsistency coming to a disastrously terrible finally. In general all the characters became more of plot driving devices than organic characters in the later 3 seasons, Jon IMO was just the most obvious. Dany might have been more inconsistent in the writing but her objective was consistent, and therefore her character never really felt like a plot device the way Jon did especially in the last season. He seemed to no longer have any independent thought or objective or even personal motivation.

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[deleted]

Reposting a brilliant comment from the second YT video:

I don't get why people think that "Bran" as king is a "utopian" ending. The real Bran died in the cave. What's sitting on the throne is a thousands-year-old demigod who very coincidentally defeated his chief rival and ended up wielding supreme power. His only lines this season has been telling people that they "did what they were supposed to." But...supposed to by *whom*? The clear implication is that it was by *him*, and that this was his intended goal all along. We don't see him "doing" much of anything to get there, but how much effort does an omniscient demigod really need to put in? He would know exactly how people would react to whatever he would say to him, so really it would only require minor course corrects.

That HBO has chosen to rewind to the Three-Eyed Raven's origin story for their first spinoff show is, I think, quite telling. They've set the stage to cast a very dark pallor on the "utopian" ending that this series gave us. Chaos is a ladder, but it was the Raven - not the Mockingbird - who came out on top.

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That's one of the problems with the rushed, hashed ending. Did Westeros just make its first baby steps towards democracy, or have they unintentionally set up a literal theocracy - with an immortal and omniscient demigod as king? Are the Lords of Westeros really going to choose the next king, or is Bran going to live and rule for a thousand years? Or are his successors going to be Three-Eyed God-Kings whose word is beyond question?

It's INSANE to fade out with a question like that dangling, but they did!

And BTW I heard a rumor that the prequel show had been cancelled. Anyone hear anything other than a rumor?



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We have had five different GAME OF THRONES successor shows in development (I mislike the term “spinoffs”) at HBO, and three of them are still moving forward nicely. The one I am not supposed to call THE LONG NIGHT will be shooting later this year, and two other shows remain in the script stage, but are edging closer.


http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2019/05/04/stuff-and-nonsense-3/

So it sounds like spinoffs (sorry George) 4 and 5 have been killed. I suspect the rumor you heard may have related to the spinoff that Bryan Cogman was working on because he talked about it a bit recently while doing press for Season 8.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/game-of-thrones-prequel-cancelled-2/

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They were never going to air all five prequels. Just the best one(s). They have already moved forward with three of them.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a21271221/game-of-thrones-prequel-plot-details/

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Interesting. "Bran" said he didn't want to be king so that gives me hope it wasn't a diabolical plan. "Bran appears to know what's going to happen but tries not to interfere except rarely. The same with the other gods who have done things to course correct events like Jon being brought back to life. There appears to be a mix of destiny with free will. I hope the books explain the three-eyed raven more.

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Im only confused by why the writing became so bad - starting in season 7 there are multiple logical flaws in the story.
1 Dany lands in Dragonstone and doesn't attack KL? umm thats why she came to Westeros.
2 This retarded idea of bring a "dead guy" to Cersei? wtf??? Like Cersei was ever going to help - an idiot could see that Cersei was never going to help.
3 Saving the battle for KL for the end - The battle with the dead should have been saved for last - we learn about the dead in S1 Ep1 - "Winter is Coming" code for the Night King is coming. This was the biggest part of the story, save it til the end - we knew they would defeat the NK because the battle for KL is after that. - No real drama.
4 Missandei would never be on a warship - why was she there??? only so that she could be caught - horrible, clueless writing.
5 Who was in charge of the armies? Greyworm? Jon? Tyrion? there has to be a chain of command.
6 We see Dany for 8 years, freeing slaves, helping the oppressed - and all of the sudden she kills innocent women and children? no way - I call bullshit - This is like Arya suddenly killing Bran and Sansa - its not going to happen. Characters must stay true to their character.

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"Characters must stay true to their character."

Unless they go mad, which does happen IRL.

Schizophrenia, the mental disorder most commonly associated with what was called "madness" prior to it becoming a psychiatric diagnosis, typically begins in adulthood brought on by a combination of heritable genetics (which we know Dany had) and environmental factors. Problem is Dany's descent into madness was too abrupt, or at least the cues leading up to her psychotic break where she torches innocents were too subtle. In hindsight it's easy to see how the execution of the Tarlys and her stone cold delivery of this news to Sam's face without a hint of regret were warning signs something was amiss. IMO, a few more cues could have made it more believable.

What I don't buy is the narrative some have tried to sell here that she was a sociopath all along. That makes absolutely no sense.

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> That makes absolutely no sense.

Hmmm.
Doreah was not just her handmaiden, they seemed to be good friends, too. Yes, Doreah betrayed her, but leaving her to suffocate or die of thirst without the slightest hint of compassion does not exactly seem like a sane behaviour to me.

I’m not saying that she was a sociopath – but also I’m not so sure anymore that she wasn’t.

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Where the betrayal resulted in Dany's children being taken from her and the rest of Dany's loyal men and the other handmaidens who were friends of Dany slaughtered? Was Doreah "sane" in your book to betray her friend Dany to slavery or death? I think that's a very selective and unjustified application of the word "sanity" here when vengeance was entirely understandable and justified given the depths of Doreah's betrayal. I don't think many people would have felt much compassion when taking vengeance on a former friend who sold her kids off into slavery and whose betrayal resulted in everyone else close to her being butchered.

Regardless, Dany wasn't a sociopath because the underlying attribute in sociopathology, an inability to feel empathy, is present in sociopaths at birth. Dany clearly was capable of empathy in early seasons as she personally intervened to prevent the rapes of villagers by Dothraki hordes and got Drogo to instill a new rule that forbade it. Her words in season 2 "I am not here to be queen of the ashes" because her goal at that time was to be a kinder and gentler ruler. She deliberately took Yunkai, Astapor, and Meereen with minimal bloodshed when she didn't have to. She also stayed as long as she did in order to create a better world for its inhabitants, which she succeeded in doing. A sociopath lacking empathy would not have bothered.

Her condition was a degenerative and progressive disease (I'm assuming schizophrenia) she inherited that ultimately culminated with her psychotic break where she takes out her rage on the innocents she was ostensibly there to save from Cersei's tyranny. But she couldn't have been a sociopath all along when she had clearly shown a strong capability for empathy and compassion for others prior to that. Even as recently as her initial plans to conquer Westeros were made to ensure minimal bloodshed.

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A sociopath has the ability to switch off empathy which Dany does. Inherited mental illness doesn't have to be a degenerative and progressive disease. Unlike in the show, an event doesn't need to trigger it if it's biochemical. A mental breakdown can happen "out of the blue".

Dany is a very complicated character. What makes her a tragic figure is that she wants to be good queen, but she is doomed to be a villain through no fault of her own.

1) She shares her families personality traits: narcissism, sociopathy. Both Sam and Tyrion discuss her sociopathy or lack of empathy. And D&D bring it up during their post show interview. It was subtle in order to fool the audience into cheering for a villain.

2) Mental illness is genetic in her family so it was likely to appear at some point.

3) And she was extremely angry at Cersei for killing Missendei.

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"A sociopath has the ability to switch off empathy which Dany does."

Dany is one of the primary POV characters in the first five books where the reader is privy to her thoughts. And no she was not written as a sociopath who decides to switch off empathy whenever it suited her. Quite the opposite it was her compassion and empathy as an enlightened ruler that earned her 'breaker of chains' moniker where she was widely adored and respected by her followers. Greatly principled knights like Barristan Selmy in his POV chapter favorably compared her to her deceased brother Prince Rhaegar known for his valiance and being honorable and noble.

You're just wrong on this. She wasn't always a sociopath because she just wasn't written that way. For her it was degenerative and progressive just like her father who began his reign as an enlightened ruler and descended into madness. The prodromol period preceding a first psychotic episode can last anywhere between a few weeks to a few years. This is the period when a person going mad has symptoms like delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, disorganized thinking, cognitive impairment. In retrospect we see some of that in Dany in the weeks leading up to her full blown psychosis when we see her all disheveled and unkempt, making poor and out of character decisions, and convinced Jon Snow had betrayed her.

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I'm not disagreeing with you about her madness. She clearly was mentally ill. Even if she hadn't become mad, she would've made a poor queen because of her cruelty and narcissism. She repeatedly said she wanted to end tyranny while being a tyrant:

No compassion. A misguided follower who thought he was helping Dany's cause. Punishment could've been a prison sentence.
https://youtu.be/q_ykIx_wq38?t=211

No empathy.
https://youtu.be/xpCocBknqWI?t=197

Cruelty.
https://youtu.be/qV3IOrxlNq4?t=68

Horrific way to die. No emotional reaction. Nada.
https://youtu.be/Akl6OK2HUNA?t=153

She was more cruel than Cersei.

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"Even if she hadn't become mad, she would've made a poor queen because of her cruelty and narcissism."

Yeah I just don't agree with this entirely one sided characterization. You're not even striving for objectivity when you don't bother to acknowledge all the times she showed empathy, compassion, benevolence, and all the qualities that inspired the loyalty of followers like Barristan Selmy, Tyrion, and Varys who all came to believe she was the most enlightened ruler for the realm. There's plenty of evidence that directly contradicts your one dimensional caricature.

Perhaps this point is made more clearly in the books from the amount of time she invests in Meereen after freeing the slaves to ensure they live a better life. She refuses Xaro's gift of a fleet to sail to Westeros when she realizes the freedmen left behind will be enslaved again or die. She instead commits to learning how to rule as queen so they wouldn't suffer the same fate. We're given one example after another of her empathy and learning from her mistakes that signaled she would have made a great queen. She repeatedly places the welfare of her newly freed subjects before her own interests, offering to wed a noble Hizdahr if he can stop the attacks on civilians from the Sons of the Harpy and refuses to have him tortured when he's suspected of being a spy. She angrily sends off Daario when he plans to massacre the Grand Maesters because she intends to honor her promise to wed a douchenozzle she clearly didn't love in order to keep the peace. She rules as selflessly and with as much compassion as you'd about expect of an enlightened monarch during her reign in Essos and succeeds in improving their lives.

So when you cite her not appearing sad when watching her sadistic brother who sexually abused and treated her so cruelly suffer for a few moments before dying, or suggest a lack of mercy for traitors Xaro and Doreah who stole her children and slaughtered all her loyal men and handmaidens leaving her to enslavement or death, as reasons you think she'd make a poor queen ... it's just really hard for me to take your charges seriously.

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I absolutely acknowledged her desire to do good. I wrote earlier:

"What makes her a tragic figure is that she wants to be good queen, but she is doomed to be a villain through no fault of her own."

What you're ignoring is that she intermixed her goodness (freeing the slaves) with bad actions like torture and killing. Not everyone she killed was bad like the slave and Sam's brother. Also, her choice of killing was especially brutal.

Dany freed Meereen AND kept the slavers armada. She killed Xaro and kept his wealth to build a ship. In other words, her good deeds weren''t pure. One child told her the father she had just crucified was a good man who was against slavery but Dany didn't care. She randomly killed a class of people instead of finding the guilty.

There was no trail. Did Doreah do those things or just sleep with the guy?

Every season she has screamed about killing her enemies and razing cities to the ground and then she did exactly that. Tyranny. Kind people show compassion, justice, fairness and mercy.

None of the GOT characters are 100% good or bad. What's bumming fans out is that most were fooled into believing she was a heroine when she was the opposite all along.

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"What's bumming fans out is that most were fooled into believing she was a heroine when she was the opposite all along."

And this is where I believe you've got it wrong. She wasn't the "opposite all along", because she wasn't mad all along. Her disease was degenerative and progressive. As I stated earlier, the primordial period leading up to a first episode of psychosis can be anywhere between a few weeks to a few years and symptoms include cognitive impairment. I was telling gater the first signs something was amiss was her execution of the Tarlys. That's when she started going mad.

You're going out of your way to paint her as this cruel and evil queen "all along" that just doesn't fit with the character of Dany portrayed in the show or described in the books prior to her arrival in Westeros. Until that point, we're given every reason to believe she would be the mythical benevolent monarch in the Elizabethan mold. Her reign in Meereen and hordes of adoring followers was the proof. Yet you argue "Even if she hadn't become mad, she would've made a poor queen because of her cruelty and narcissism" by reaching with arguments like this that I found so dumbfounding I'm almost inclined to think you're trolling:

"Dany freed Meereen AND kept the slavers armada. She killed Xaro and kept his wealth to build a ship. In other words, her good deeds weren''t pure."

Pure? Please Keelai tell me you weren't serious. This is a world where the victor takes the spoils and you're trying to hold her to an alien standard of christian sainthood after defeating Meereen slavers?
And again Dany executed Xaro after he slaughtered her loyal men and handmaidens and sold her three children off to the House of the Undying. So if she donated Xaro's wealth to Salvation Army would that have met your purity test? I think it's logical to assume if she hadn't taken his wealth after executing him, someone less savory would have. But what does your arbitrary and invented standard of "purity" have to do with anything?

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Dany always set people on fire who didn't follow her. Why would the Tarleys be different?

You're defending someone who was setting people on fire for seven seasons. No trail. No mercy. That's tyranny.

"she wasn't mad all along."
I said she was a sociopath, cruel, and a narcissist all along. Madness came in season 8. I linked a few short scenes of her cruelty in prior posts. You're in denial if you believe Dany wasn't cruel.

"Her reign in Meereen and hordes of adoring followers was the proof."
Hitler had adoring hordes too. People can be fooled. Obviously.

"mythical benevolent monarch in the Elizabethan mold. "
Queen Elizabeth setup and killed her cousin and promoted slavery... not so benevolent.

Dany didn't care if the Dorthaki were burning and pillaging villages because the money would go towards her ships. Her "merciful act" is to tell Drogo to have the men not rape the women, but instead to marry them. How is kidnapping, repeated rape, being forced to marry your rapist and have his child(ren) an improvement?

You can't have it both ways. You can't say Dany represented a good person who would "break the wheel" and then excuse her actions as being similar to "victors". She's just as barbaric and tyrannical as they were.

Even her advisors were telling her not to kill the slave or the masters.

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"I said she was a sociopath, cruel, and a narcissist all along."

And I've already addressed why you're wrong on this. She wasn't a sociopath all along and I already explained why. It's just not the way she was written from a first person POV in the books. It runs contrary to all the good and empathetic works she did in Meereen where she places the welfare of her people first. You can't have it both ways. Please re-read two posts up for better comprehension.

This seems to always inevitably happen every time I have a discussion with you Keelai. You completely space out and have no memory of what was discussed from one post to the next and you just start repeating yourself. You're doing it again now.

Your whole purity test is bizarre. Like I was saying, no one is claiming she's a saint. Elizabeth wasn't a saint either, she was ruthless to her enemies like Dany is, but was considered an enlightened monarch. Your examples of her taking slaver ships of those she defeats or the wealth of traitors like Xaro she executed for betrayal to "prove" she's a sociopath doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.

It's hard to understand why you think executing treasonous individuals by the direct blast of dragonfire "cruel" when it melts bone and is over in an instant. Painful? Of course, it's supposed to be. The worst forms of execution are always reserved for the treasonous, as it should. Elizabeth was far worse by having traitors drawn and quartered. If you don't know what that means I rec you look it up because it's a gruesome way to die. So does that make England's most enlightened monarch Elizabeth a cruel sociopath in your book? You can't have it both ways.

If Dany ruled the seven kingdoms the way she did in Meereen, that alone would be 'breaking the wheel' because it was unprecedented. Putting the welfare of her people before her own interests like she did repeatedly in Meereen (which I already detailed in a previous post) in order to improve their lives is 'breaking the wheel'. You bizarrely expect her to be Mother Teresa. You can't be a saint and rule as an absolute monarch, that's why its never happened. It's the benevolent despot paradox that you seem to have trouble grasping.

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Emilia Clarke interview:

"Regardless of the final season’s narrative’s origin, the Thrones writers have planned Dany’s fate for years and have foreshadowed the dark turn in the storyline. In previous seasons, producers would sometimes ask Clarke to play a scene a bit different than what she expected for a seemingly heroic character. “There’s a number of times I’ve been like: ‘Why are you giving me that note?’” Clarke says. “So yes, this has made me look back at all the notes I’ve ever had.”"

Kit Harrington interview:

"“I think it’s going to divide,” Harington says of the finale’s fan reaction. “But if you track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, we have to say to the audience: ‘You’re in denial about this woman as well. You knew something was wrong. You’re culpable, you cheered her on.’”"

https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/19/game-thrones-finale-interview-emilia-clarke/

There is a difference between tyranny and benevolent despotism.

Since her cruelty didn't disturb you, do you believe that Dany should've been allowed to continue her plan to invade other areas and establish herself as world leader to "break the chain"?

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What do you mean "allowed"? Allowed by whom? She went mad so of course I wouldn't support her going on random rampages.

But you didn't answer my question, was Elizabeth a "cruel sociopath" because she had traitors drawn and quartered?

I think part of the problem is that you're not familiar with the clinical definition of "sociopath" and you're using the word colloquially in an inaccurate way. Your quotes do nothing to prove she was a sociopath all along. I'm sure Kit and Emilia would even tell you Dany was not a sociopath all along. At worst it reveals she was capable of situational cruelty against those that betrayed her, much like Elizabeth. That doesn't make either of them sociopaths. Cersei on the other hand had all the symptoms of sociopathology, many of which Dany lacked until her descent into madness.

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Like Kit said, you're in denial.

Dany's behavior wasn't situational.

Dany's cruelty and lack of empathy were routine and becoming worst. Other characters may do something cruel once or a few times, but then they stopped.

There is no clinical term for sociopathy since they don't use it anymore. The new term is Antisocial Personality Disorder. I prefer the old terms which differentiate between psychopath (born) and sociopath (made).

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Yet you won't answer my question because you know that if you do it will refute your own point.

It was situational. Until she started going mad all you could point to were cases of executions for betrayal or using dragonfire on the battlefield which is a ridiculous argument since that's the sole source of her power. You can't reasonably expect her not to use it in battle. Kit never called her a "sociopath" so you're the one very clearly in denial.

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"Dany wasn't a sociopath because the underlying attribute in sociopathology, an inability to feel empathy, is present in sociopaths at birth."


You're confusing terms. You described a psychopath. Psychopaths are born, show traits before the age of 15, have no empathy, and have a different autonomic nervous system.

Sociopaths are not born that way and originally have empathy. They learn or are trained to lessen or get rid of empathy. For instance, a kid whose father teaches them to cheat people in the family business, or a kid who joins a violent gang. They learn to harm others and not feel remorse.

Some of it is connected to survivalism like a kid growing up in a violent neighborhood who joins a gang or Dany who learned the behavior in order to survive her bad circumstances.

Dany was a narcissistic sociopath.

You've been ignoring my comments about Dany harming innocent people without remorse during the earlier seasons. Address my comments and I'll be happy to answer re: Elizabeth.

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Your claim she had no remorse for people she'd harmed is unequivocally false and just illustrates how desperately you're reaching. This topic has been covered already elsewhere in this thread. The problem is your poor memory and reading comprehension skills are highly lacking.

As cited elsewhere:

"where she locks up her own children because 1 child died accidentally. She basically cried when she had the one former slave executed for treason."

Why? It's called "remorse". Your very own "no compassion" link debunks your point when she very clearly shows remorse on her face when first delivering the sentence in the throne room and then again right before the public execution of the slave. You're just so hyper focused on wanting to demonize her as a sociopath that you're not even bothering to check if your citations even support your point. That's because you're in denial. FYI: They don't.

Another time she shows remorse is with Hizdahr zo Loraq:

Daenerys sets up the time to hear petitions from her new subjects. Among the first is a goatherd whose flock were roasted by her dragons; Dany orders him paid three times their value. Next is Hizdahr zo Loraq, who asks to be allowed to bury his father, one of the 163 Great Masters Daenerys ordered crucified. Dany is swayed by Hizdahr's arguments (aided by guilt upon realizing that the elder zo Loraq opposed the crucifixion of the slaves in the first place) and allows the burial.


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

You could do yourself a favor by reading that entire page and specifically her rule in Meereen where she's clearly NOT a sociopath.

The reason you keep refusing to answer my question about Elizabeth's far worse treatment of traitors is because you KNOW it will expose your fallacy of using that label with Dany.

You're in heavy denial.

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Going from where Dany was, to the madness it takes to burn innocent women and children would takes years - like 20 to 30 years - it would be a slow process - but D&D had to do Star Wars - they couldn't be bothered with this show anymore.

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"...to burn innocent women and children would takes years - like 20 to 30 years "

Not true at all. I often read in the paper how a mother had a mental break and kills her own children. They literally don't know what they are doing because their thought processes become twisted.

Dany also had the misfortune of having mental illness run in her family so it's probably biochemical too. The first sign tends to happen in the teens or early twenties. (Dany is about 23) It was precipitated from losing her "children", close friends and lover without emotional support.

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It is true - if you knew these mothers you would know they had demons for years before they hurt their kids, others just didn't see it coming.
We had a close-up and personal view of Dany for years - her sudden transition into a executioner was total bullshit - completely unrealistic, awful, clueless writing - and only GOT fanboys like you would accept it.

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"her sudden transition into a executioner"

She was always an executioner: making her dragons set people on fire; allowing/directing her husband to kill her brother; crucifying, locking people in vaults.

You're upset because you were fooled into thinking she was a heroine. I liked her too, but her brutality and lack of mercy at times bothered me. Apparently those were the clues that viewers were supposed to be paying attention to.

The mental illness came later. When her first dragon died, she became depressed. It took her a while to get back to normal. In season 8, Dany witnessed three deaths, no time to heal, isolation and no support system. A few weeks is plenty of time for psychosis to develop. She had mental illness in her family which put her at high risk. The events were the trigger.

"they had demons for years"
Not if it's biological. If it's postpartum depression then it's due to hormonal changes during pregnancy and childbirth which effects the biochemistry in the brain. A mother who was treated for severe depression after her last pregnancy was warned not to become pregnant again because of a possible relapse. She had another baby anyway (5th) and relapsed. She drowned all five children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates

And not if it's from an event like a death. I know someone who became suicidal within weeks after a relative died. She was surprised by her reaction and sought help.

There isn't one sweeping rule re: mental illness for everyone.

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It took her a while to get back to normal. In season 8, Dany witnessed three deaths, no time to heal, isolation and no support system. A few weeks is plenty of time for psychosis to develop. She had mental illness in her family which put her at high risk. The events were the trigger.

That's irrelevant.

You can't have some main character single... and the next scene happily married to a some new character. And then justify "In Game of Beds, season 8, Dany witnessed her best friend marry, she became the only one in her group to be single. A few weeks is plenty of time for love to develop. She felt lonely and wanted to marry. The events were the trigger.".

It's a MAIN character, and what defines a main character is that the the public follow her character arc, her progression. You need to build her story, her changes, no matter it took a week, a month or a year in the timeline. Changes in main characters require screentime.

Of course, you can explain it. And the explanation could make sense. Indeed, I don't doubt the whole story makes sense, since RR Martin is the one who set the milestones (or at least most of them). And making sense is enough for background story and secondary characters... but when it comes to the main arcs, it's not enough: you need to show it. That was D&D's work... and they screwed it.

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They did show it. But, if you're saying that season 8 (as well as season 7) felt rushed, then I agree. Some of the direction was also inconsistent and confusing.

Tyrion knew she might kill everyone because he repeatedly tried to convince her not to. She was rationalizing killing the citizens to him which is a bad sign.

I'm not sure if viewers expected a stereotyped mad women yelling, wild crazy eyes and hair, etc. Most psychotics don't act like that in reality - just TV and movies. Although Dany did have that stare.

Her quick descent into madness didn't bother me as much as the final episode when everyone agreed to King Bran and an independent North without one objection nor debate. Now that was rushed!

I'm not sure what that quote is referring to: "You can't have some main character single...". Huh?

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No, they didn't show. THAT was the problem. Showing something requires flat exposition and screentime... OR skill, something only great directors, screenwriters or writers have. Here, you had none of both.

In the first season, Littlefinger suddenly betrayed Ned... and people agreed that was a great plot twist. The clues were cleverly placed, and when it finally happened, it was logical, maybe unexpected, but logical. There was no need to explain why Littlefinger committed treason: once happened, it was crystal clear. Of course, they had Martin's book back then.

A main character's plot arc is like a joke: if you need to explain it, it means it didn't work.

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King Bran was not rushed. That was non-sense.

Dany's story made sense. Psychosis/Schizofrenia ran in the family. However, while the plot arc makes sense, and it would have worked for a secondary character, lack of development made her storyline a mess, because Dany is not a secondary character. D&D screwed it.

King Bran, on the other hand, didn't make sense at all. It was not about something that makes sense but without a proper development in the story. It was about not making sense. And it seems that this event was not in the original Martin's timeline... so, again, D&D screwed it.

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With regard to "I'm not sure what that quote is referring to: "You can't have some main character single...". Huh?", that's because you just cut off the rest of the sentence, you know, the part that comes after the 'AND'. Please, don't edit sentences when you quote. 'you can't have A and B' is a not the same sentence than 'you can't have A'.

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You know hormonal changes as a result of being pregnant would be an interesting thing to explore in terms of Dany going "Mad Queen". How tragic of a story could it have been if Jon had to kill Dany because she was going completely crazy as a result of him getting her pregnant. But this is just another thing that went completely unexplored and added to the disappointment of this series last season.

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I was hoping she was pregnant, but I guess not since there was no mention of it.

A pregnancy would've really complicated matters since I question if Jon would've killed her if she were expecting his child. How would he stop her from destroying other regions? We could've had another GRRM novel based on that.

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I agree, Dany being pregnant with Jon's child would have made for a far more interesting and complicated conclusion. Alas, it is just another thing to be disappointed about. considering how thick they were laying it on us in Season 7 it is almost a slap in the face to completely drop that plot.

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her stone cold delivery of this news to Sam's face without a hint of regret were warning signs something was amiss.


I didn't think she was unfeeling in that moment. It seemed to me that she was initially taken aback and then forced herself to put on her "game face".

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I went back and re-watched that scene wondering if I had missed something. But she looked as stoic delivering the hammer to Sam as he broke down in front of her as I remembered the first time. I didn't catch any hint of her being "taken aback".

It was in stark contrast to the emotive facial expressions of Ser Jorah standing right next to her, who most definitely was "taken aback". I believe that side by side was quite deliberate.

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Well, how else could she break that kind of news? Doing so apologetically would be ridiculous, as she isn't sorry, the exeuction of those idiots was politically necessary. Crying would be self-serving, and unworthy of a monarch. Sympathy would be offensive.

So I dont see how she could do so other than with flat facts and no obvious expression of feeling. Of course if anyone's faced a similar social challenge in real life, I'd like to hear how they handled it.

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"Crying would be self-serving"

lolz. No one is saying she should have cried. You're talking like a hyperbolic drama queen.

But if you fail to recognize she was written to deliver it without betraying a hint of compassion to signal she was going mad then I'd say you're quite thick. The way Sam complained to Jon immediately afterward about her lack of compassion should have tipped you off.

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No, really, what IS the socially correct way to tell someone that you've executed soneone's immediate family members and you arent sorry you did it?

If you've got a better way, a way that doesnt open you to suspicions of cruelty or madness, I'd be glad to heard what it is.

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I'm left to presume you must lack imagination if you can't think of how she might have delivered that news with a pained look on her face at least briefly belying regret even if it's not reflected in her words.

What you don't seem to get is that it's not about premeditation in order to appear "socially correct". It's about whether she spontaneously expresses some semblance of empathy in that moment that reveals she still retains her humanity.

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Any expression of regret would make a liar of her, she didn't regret killing them, and any expression of sympathy would have made her a hypocrite, because she killed them in cold blood. All she could do at that moment was present the facts, and let Sam be the one to express feelings.

Look, I'm not saying she's a nice person, she's not, she's been a ruthless person set on conquest since S1. I'm just saying the thing with the Tarlys isn't evidence of any personality changes. She fried the Tarlys and let their wet-trousered followers walk away free afterwards, just like she fed the Mereenish Lord to her dragon and let his fellows walk away free to tell the other Sons of the Harpy what she was capable of when pissed. And it's not the first time she's confronted a son about killing his father, remember when that guy came to her and asked for permission to bury his father, whom she'd crucified? She kept a regal calm then, as well.

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"Any expression of regret would make a liar of her, she didn't regret killing them, and any expression of sympathy would have made her a hypocrite, because she killed them in cold blood."

This is a bunch of horseshit. She doesn't have to regret killing them to feel compassion at Sam breaking down in front of her over learning of their deaths. It's called "empathy" and Ser Jorah's expressions next to her expressed it in spades.

My point you seem to have copious trouble grasping was the fact that she lacked empathy in that moment, which signaled a strong shift from earlier seasons when she expressed empathy over the tragedy of others she was less directly involved in causing, like when her dragons killed a child and she cried and had them locked up. This was deliberately scripted this way by D&D as a symptom of her descent.

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Did she express any empathy to the guy who came to ask her to bury the father she'd unjustly crucified?

You're the one who seems to have trouble grasping things. She'd already killed his father, she didn't regret it, expressing empathy wouldn't have helped and would have made most people even angrier under the circumstances. And she didn't express any empathy to the last guy who came to talk to her about having killed his father, so you can't say that it was a personality change.

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"expressing empathy wouldn't have helped and would have made most people even angrier under the circumstances."

This sentence alone illustrates how you're still not getting it. It's not about putting on a show for other people. It's about feeling bad for a person who you see breaking down and crying in front of you because they learn of the death of a loved one. She did this when told her dragons had killed a child. She didn't when delivering the news to Sam. It was a marked change in her temperament.

Why are you stooping to lying about how she reacted to Hizdahr zo Loraq?

Daenerys sets up the time to hear petitions from her new subjects. Among the first is a goatherd whose flock were roasted by her dragons; Dany orders him paid three times their value. Next is Hizdahr zo Loraq, who asks to be allowed to bury his father, one of the 163 Great Masters Daenerys ordered crucified. Dany is swayed by Hizdahr's arguments (aided by guilt upon realizing that the elder zo Loraq opposed the crucifixion of the slaves in the first place) and allows the burial.


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

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First, as for the dragon killing the child, that is a case where she was deeply and correctly sorry, she expressed guilt, remorse, and responsibility, and did what penance she could.

Second: the reason I keep bringing up the situation with the crucified Master and his son is that the situation was more equivalent to the one with the Tarlys, at least at first. When she first met the son she thought she was *right* to have killed the SOB slave-owning Master, and she was as cool and regal with the son as she was with Sam, until he convinced her that she may have been wrong. Up until that point she behaves pretty much the same with the two injured sons, so you can't say there's been a huge personality change, and let's drop that particular point.

" It's about feeling bad for a person who you see breaking down and crying in front of you because they learn of the death of a loved one."

Honey, those were not normal circumstances where expressions of compassion were appropriate. To express any kind of regret or sympathy would have not only been hypocritical and insulting to the bereaved, since she caused the grief and isn't sorry, they would have been damaging to her own authority as monarch. That is not a situation where a king or queen can do a damn thing but look regal and above it all, and you aren't going to change my mind about that.

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"Honey, those were not normal circumstances where expressions of compassion were appropriate."

Sigh. I'll say it one last time. It's not about what's "appropriate" because it's not about putting on a show for anyone. I'm saying the lack of betraying any hint of emotion IN SPITE OF whatever might have been "appropriate" revealed a lack of empathy.

Sorry but I don't agree with your idea that it was justified for her to execute the Tarlys for simply refusal to bend the knee. She should have had at least some remorse over the decision to execute the son instead of letting him cool in a dungeon as Tyrion suggested. It would have better served her to show some compassion while still making an example out of the father. But aside from the strictly utilitarian show of things that you seem to be only capable of recognizing, it would have revealed she really did have some genuine compassion.

Regardless, like I said before, I'm sure her ice cold delivery of the news to Sam was done intentionally by D&D to underscore her lack of empathy in that moment. The proof was in how Sam reacted by running to Jon immediately and crying about Dany's lack of empathy. Your opinion that it was entirely appropriate is at odds with the intent of why they scripted her to deliver it that way.

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Again, executing the Tarlys was justified, and fit with what she's done all along. They defied her in front of a thousand Lannister soldiers who'd given up, and she did what she usually did, make an extremely effective example of someone and let the rest go free to change their trousers. By frying them she gained the reputation of someone who is no more to be defied than Cersei, and she spared herself the expense of housing a thousand prisoners as well. She sent them home, damp trousers and all, perfectly confident that they'd never raise a weapon against her again. That's how she's used violence all along, killed only as many as was strictly necessary by the standards of the rough politics of that world. Like the episode I mentioned earlier, where she fed one Son of the Harpy to the dragons, and let the others walk away.

As for expressing empathy, remember, she's an absolute monarch (more or less), operating in a role where many of the normal rules of niceness don't apply. She's both a person and a government, and the execution of the Tarly dumbasses was a governmental necessity, not done out of rancor and not something to be apologized for, but something that was done in a cause that Sam is at least theoretically fighting for.

As for hurting Sam's feelings, well, there was no way she could possibly avoid hurting his feelings. She could only hurt his feelings a lot by being chilly and regal, or hurt them a whole hell of a lot by justifying herself or expressing false sympathy. And she could hurt her authority as monarch as well, don't think that wasn't a consideration, so she couldn't whine or go back on any part of a decision that had already been made.

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"executing the Tarlys was justified"

Actually it wasn't. Like you said, they had already surrendered. On top of that she was explicitly demanding a public display of fealty that they "bend the knee" or die? What was the point of making such gratuitous demand they prostrate themselves before her? It was absurd given the circumstances.

Sorry but this wasn't the same as executing a Sons of the Harpy slaver for rebelling with guerrilla attacks on innocent civilians. Justice in that case would have been to execute the whole lot of them for orchestrating the killing of innocents. She showed mercy by only executing one. This was excessive and gratuitous and you'll never convince me that it was justified to execute battlefield commanders who had already surrendered for not agreeing to be further publicly humiliated. I'm sure most people wouldn't agree with you either. This was definitely different and crossed a line.

"First, as for the dragon killing the child, that is a case where she was deeply and correctly sorry, she expressed guilt, remorse, and responsibility, and did what penance she could."

I don't agree with this either. She WAS NOT directly responsible for what her dragons do while not under her supervision. She chose to assume accountability because she was capable of empathy at that stage of her life, unlike by the time she was executing the Tarlys and delivering the news to Sam. OTOH, she was DIRECTLY responsible for setting up the utterly unnecessary "bend the knee or die" ultimatum to the Tarlys that led to their death. She should have felt remorse.

"As for hurting Sam's feelings, well, there was no way she could possibly avoid hurting his feelings."

You're again missing the point. It's not about putting on a show for Sam to try and avoid hurting his feelings. She revealed her true self as lacking empathy to Sam. Her change in temperament from her previous self in Essos into her marked cold descent into madness had begun by that point.

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YOu know, I think we'd better give this up. It's clear we're not going to convince each other of anything, and I'm flying to another continent early tomorrow so I won't be able to continue this argument indefinitely. Even though I'm perfectly capable of doing so, when I know I'm right!

As for what D&D intended... I no longer believe they are capable of putting their intentions on film in a coherent form.

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Of course. Enjoy your vacation.

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Thank you for your good wishes, and for being reasonable.

It's pleasure arguing with you, even if you don't understand certain things about Westeros.

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Okay, I'm on vacation and have a down hour... not that I can continue the argument with the old fervor but there are a couple of points you seem to have missed:

As for sparing Dickhead Tarly, the son, well... he was defying her right along with the dad, and instant his dad died he'd inherit the titles and lands of his father. And the idiot was defying her along with his dad, so it was obvious that sparing him wasn't going to get her anywhere but telling Drogon to draw breath twice.

As for telling him to draw breath at all... well "bending the knee" was Westerosian shorthand for "You're the Warden of the Reach, change sides and fight for me instead of Cersei. I demand your active support and not just your surrender, because you have the power to hand over 1/7 of my goal right here and now. Or else dragon, and you know damn well that Cersei would give you a worse deal."

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Jorah isn't a monarch. There is a certain stoicism needed for that job and I would not equate it with cruelty. You mentioned Dany's POV chapters in one of your posts. I would remind you of the admonition that she frequently gave to herself in those pages: "If I look back, I am lost." It seems to me that this was one of those occasions.

I think the differences between her reaction to the father of the three year-old who was accidentally killed by Drogon and her reaction to the son of two soldiers who were defeated on the battlefield and who refused to accept a pardon in the full knowledge of what such defiance would cost them are completely reasonable and in no way represent some kind of breakdown of her humanity. The two situations are not a good point of comparison.

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"There is a certain stoicism needed for that job and I would not equate it with cruelty. "

Cruelty is a strong word and I wouldn't either. But I maintain the intent of the directors having her deliver the news stoically was to underscore her lack of compassion. I base this on the evidence that Sam went crying to Jon immediately after complaining about Dany's lack of empathy.

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Oh for fuck's sake, Dany was NOT schizophrenic! Look up the symptoms, she didnt have a single one. Compare her to the next desperate homeless lunatic you see yelling at the aliens, and ask yourself if she looks like she has the same disorder.

Her father may well have suffered from schizophrenia, but Danerys absolutely positively did not.

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"Compare her to the next desperate homeless lunatic you see yelling at the aliens"

Funny how you seem to think schizophrenia manifests in everyone this way. You clearly don't have any idea of what you're talking about. There can be less severe forms marked by symptoms of paranoia and cognitive impairment that we clearly saw symptoms of in weeks leading up to a First Episode Psychosis when she was looking haggard and convinced Jon Snow had betrayed her. I'm speculating it was a psychotic break we witnessed in the penultimate episode where she loses touch with reality. What psychotic disorder do you postulate she had genius?

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Oh for fuck's sake, part of my job involves dealing with real schizophrenics, of varying degrees of illness, those whose symptoms are controlled with medication or not, at various times of life.

Danerys was NOT SCHIZOPHRENIC, she did not display a single primary or secondary symptom of the disease.

You'd have a much easier time making a case for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

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"part of my job involves dealing with real schizophrenics, of varying degrees of illness"

lolz. So then why would you ludicrously claim that because Dany did not resemble homeless people yelling at aliens on the street that she could not be schizophrenic? Such an unsophisticated and ignorant analysis doesn't inspire confidence you have any idea what you're talking about.

My guess was based on her inheriting her father's genetics and predisposition to his paranoid schizophrenia which he clearly had. Dany suffered a progressive illness, who are you to say she wouldn't have developed symptoms more in line with her father had she lived? I assumed she had a psychotic break when she heard the bells and started torching the city, like she was responding to audio stimuli in her head. It could have been NPD that began when she arrived in Westeros that was absent when she ruled Meereen. But don't act like you have superior insight when you're clearly spitballing like I am.

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"But don't act like you have superior insight when you're clearly spitballing like I am."

No, really, I work in the helping professions, and I'm not saying more than that on a forum full of nutters.

And yes, it's clear you're spitballing, and have no real understanding of what a complex and multifaceted disease schizophrenia is. FYI the symptoms definitely don't involve episodes of pointless mass murder, while acting completely normal.

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Actually no one cares what you claim you do on an anonymous forum. If you speak like you're spitballing by saying Dany didn't behave like homeless lunatics yelling at aliens, so she can't be schizophrenic, then you're not going to be taken seriously and no one will believe what you claim to do. You're spitballing.

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Sigh.

Go look up the primary AND secondary symptoms of schizophrenia (such as the flat affect and characteristic use of language), and tell me whether it sounds like committing mass murder while appearing otherwise normal seems like part of the usual symptoms.

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Look up what a psychotic episode is. Like I said, she could have been reacting to voices in her head when she heard the bells ring and it was natural to assume she was developing schizophrenia based on what her father had. Who are you to say she wouldn't have developed symptoms more in line with her father had she lived? Stop trying to pretend like you have any better idea.

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1) Dany attacked Lannister's army and wiped them out with her dragons. Jon convinced her of a greater threat, The Night King and his army.

2) You'd think a dead guy would convince Cersei. But, she tends to do stupid things that bites her in the butt.

4) They were all warships. NO other way to transport Missandei and Tyrion.

5) Greyworm

6) You mean the same women and children who were against her and supported Cersei? They needed to die in order for the future to be free of tyranny or did you miss her "rationale" to Tyrion? She had a mental breakdown at that point in the same way her father had when he plotted to kill the King Landing's women and children for being against him.

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2 Why would you think that Cersei would support the battle with the dead??? Apparently you haven't seen the 1st 6 seasons.
4 Why was Missandei on the ship, she couldn't ride a horse after the battle was over???
5 The chain of command was never made clear or else Jon and Greyworm wouldn't have had a conflict.
6 are you retarded? what makes you think the people of KL supported Cersei?

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2. The Knight King was an existential threat to all people including Cersei. She ended up dead because she repeatedly made stupid decisions. What sane person would anger a woman who had a dragon? Killing Missendei wasn't necessary since Dany wanted the throne.

Instead, she could've sent her army. As a new ally, she could negotiate her "surrender or exile". Her real threat would've been Sansa and Arya anyway. Bran knows that Joffrey was the one who ordered Ned''s death over the objections of Cersei. Both Jaimie and Tyrion would've pleaded to keep pregnant Cersei alive.

4. Less protection on a horse. KL soldiers could've been lying in wait for them on the road to KL.

5. Dany was leader. Dany continued killing which sent a signal for the soldiers to continue.

6. Didn't you listen to Dany's explanation to Tyrion as to why the citizens are her enemy also? This was the same distorted thinking her mad father had when he was going to kill the people in KL. In her madness, she believes the people are supporting Cersei because they are doing what she wants which is coming to KL to be used as human shields. Of course, they have no choice but it's not possible to reason with someone who is psychotic.
You're the one who isn't paying close attention to the show.

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2. There was never indication whatsoever that Cersei would recognize an existential threat; in fact she has been so consistently bad on thinking she can use things outside of her control to her advantage that anyone that knew here in the slightest would know she would do something like this.

4. traveling by land would be much safer than traveling by sea, especially with the Iron Fleet about that wiped out 2 of Dany's fleets last season. But "while Dany kind of forgot about Euron's forces and the Iron Fleet, they certainly haven't forgotten about her". This right here is the most unforgivable explanation D & D offered for the poor quality of writing in the 8th Season

5. Just because your commander goes on a killing spree doesn't mean you follow them without orders to do so. The way it went down suggested this was discussed between Dany and Grey Worm and the Unsullied were prepared for it. Obviously this is not the case but the poor execution of the scene made it all happen so illogically.

6. But that is not the reason Dany gave in episode 6. She said to Jon that Cersei was using them as a shield. So basically she decided to specifically target the shield for destruction when she had the option to go around the shield. This explanation shows a complete lack of connection to reality. Which is fine if they wanted to go that route with her, that she was fully disconnected form reality but they needed to show that more. Like a few episodes worth of her saying completely odd things, like during the battle plans in episode 4 when sansa confronts her on the loses and need for recovery time, make her say something like "My forces are stronger than ever and my dragons and soldiers will heal faster if I command them to" Something like this where the audience can recognize she is completely losing all connection to reality and starting to believe she has god like powers. of course they should have been setting that up better as far back as season 6.

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onfused by why the writing became so bad - starting in season 5.

FTFY.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

No. Not confused in the least. I have an attention span, and a respect for writers who have shown me they have talent. I give them the latitude to take their work where they will. I do not care about anyone else’s opinion. Also, I would sooner do research off a bubble gum card than fucking YouTube.

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I think you are getting the complaints wrong. I do not think people are overtly upset that she became the mad queen and was the villain; since as you point out in some of these comments there was some indication early on that would happen. But those indication and 'hints' were not enough, especially since as others pointed out there was enough benevolent behavior out of Dany that targeting and burning completely innocent children and women was out of character for her compared to say season 5, where she locks up her own children because 1 child died accidentally. She basically cried when she had the one former slave executed for treason.
The hints were there but then the total descent happened too fast and all at once. For this to be an 'acceptable' twist more build up was required.

I point this out in another thread but the main point is:

Seasons 1 to 4 gave us shocking moments that left us saying "We should have seen that coming" (Ned's Death, Red Wedding) All the build up was there we just were not looking close enough to realize it was coming.

Season 7 to 8 gave us with shocking moments that left us saying "what the hell was that/Where did that come from" (Littlefinger's death, Dany going crazy). The build up was not there for these last seasons, it was rushed and unsatisfying and instead of being mad at ourselves for not seeing it coming we are disappointing in the writing because it failed to deliver enough build up to those twists.

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"season 5, where she locks up her own children because 1 child died accidentally. She basically cried when she had the one former slave executed for treason."

Thank you for pointing this out. Further proof how the thesis of the OP that she was a "sociopath, cruel, and a narcissist all along" doesn't wash. Narcissistic sociopaths don't do what you just described here.

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There is no doubt that Dany developed narcissism over time; who wouldn't when they accomplished the things she did; including surviving fire through supernatural power. It takes a special kind of person to remain humble after that; which is why Jon is such an amazing character that really got reduced to almost meaningless the last season.

It is possible that Dany would go so crazy and self obsessed that she would in fact burn innocent people, especially if she started to see them as more akin to vermin compared to herself and her own people. The problem is people do not flip a switch to become that. It take years to develop and goes through multiple stages of dehumanizing those people.

Dany definitely was not a sociopath. Being a sociopath is not a prerequisite for being a mass murderer. In fact throughout history those that have committed the worse atrocities often had the best of intentions for their people. But there is a transition, a dark path that leads them to evil. With Dany they skipped that dark path completely. That is why it was awfully done and a terrible twist.

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Narcissism is practically a prerequisite of anyone seeking to be ruler of the world so that's not something I can hold against her. The same can be said of modern day leaders, you'd have to have a certain level of narcissism to seek the job. I don't necessarily see it as a downside from a leadership standpoint unless it develops into the unhealthy obsession of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) that combines the need for admiration with a lack of sympathy. Dany's time in Meereen and the incidents you cite prove she didn't have NPD when she was demonstrably empathetic.

I see the primordial period with a noted lack of empathy commencing with her execution of the Tarlys. Her prior executions were reserved for personal betrayals. The Tarlys had not personally betrayed her, but were battlefield commanders conscripted into service who had refused to bend the knee, which is not at all the same thing. Empathy and restraint should have prevailed in that circumstance and in hindsight that's the first sign I saw of Dany's descent where she acted really out of character, but I missed it as it happened.

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You are exactly right in all of this I would say. Especially with the execution of the Tarly's, this is probably the only example from the entirety of the character that suggested she could be very cold blooded to her enemies. This would show a willingness to be terrible in the face of those that would oppose her, even maybe killing innocents that got in her way, the Tarly son (forget his name) might have been a combatant but he was pretty damn innocent all things considered.

But that is not what happened at the end, she did not kill innocents that were in her way; she specifically targeted them and burned them all alive. The execution of the Tarly's was an indication that this could happen, but it was not nearly enough to justify it. There needed to be quite a few more steps to reach this level of cold blooded psychotic killing. and they were just not there; development was thrown away for a cheap unearned twist.

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Only confused by why anyone would defend this shit season

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