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MavKilledGoose's Replies
For Whom the Bell Tolls is the one that's gone viral. It's pretty rad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCHlCiB98N4
You're cherry-picking. And getting basic facts wrong.
Has Daenerys demonstrated empathy in the past? Certainly. More so than Sansa, if only because she's a larger more consequential character. Even from an early age, we saw Sansa gravitate toward Joffrey and lie for him.
And while she eventually walked away from Ramsay being eaten alive, they made sure that we saw her initially lean in to watch. She didn't avert her gaze because it was too sick and brutal. I gauran-fucking-tee that if Daenerys did anything similar, it would be Exhibit A. Hell, one of the first things people mention is how she reacted to her brother.
Does Sansa's behavior reveal her as a would-be mass-murderer? No. I don't think we can get from the gruesome death of Ramsay Bolton to slaughtering innocents on the street.
It would have been interesting if Dany had the girl Martha executed. After all, the little girl was committing regicide. However, we also maintain, in the current age, that someone so young cannot be (fully) accountable for their actions. Interestingly, I doubt anyone has considered the now-noble Varys guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Still, it would've moved Dany's arc along. Now she's killing children. (This could stir discussion, as Jon Snow executed Olly.)
This is a reply to me. It quotes me. But it's bizarre. Please read for comprehension.
[quote]I've never seen her looked troubled about killing anyone. [/quote]
She does look on intensely when people die. However, I have not seen her delight in killing, like the sadistic Mad King. The absence of sadism is notable. Sansa smiled with satisfaction when the hounds tore Ramsay apart. Now, I'm sure people will say that was perfectly understandable -- just like Arya feeding people PEOPLE. So it's OK to delight in the death of Ramsay, but Daenerys is particularly evil because she crucified slave-masters?
Daenerys was consistently better than alternative rulers. We thought she'd meet her match with the pure and wise Jon Snow, but instead, the writers now showed her (without proper setup) to be worse than worst: the former Queen Bitch, Cersei Lannister. Hell, Daenerys is now worse than the Mad King.
It'll be interesting to see how she justifies her atrocities. It's possible that she's not mad in the Targaryen sense at all. She could appear in the next episode as clinical and calculating, which I'm sure some people would be perfectly happy to rationalize.
I've long thought she was annoying.
[i]"there was plenty of warning and even if there was more your wounded egos would have never accepted it." [/i]
Before the season began, I repeated the line attributed to Martin about how one character is supposed to go bad, and "Dany has always been suspect #1." After episode four, I said "The 'Mother of Dragons' looks isolated and unhinged." There were plenty of people who anticipated the Mad Queen arc, such as this Youtuber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JrpXbPc2vw
And then he dispensed rational criticisms in his review of episode five about the execution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SrRdWa5Snw
[quote]You don't want to admit that you rooted for an egomaniac but there was plenty of warning and even if there was more your wounded egos would have never accepted it. I'm sure the few of us that saw right through her character are perfectly fine with it. [/quote]
Alternatively there are people who never liked her, and love seeing their world-view confirmed despite poor execution because ego. Anyone can play that facile game. Do you have anything to offer other than weak-ass ad hominems?
Since character development does not matter, and we can just cherry-pick for weak ad hoc justifications. Everyone should be totally fine with Tyrion celebrating the destruction of King's Landing. They should have been wondering why the hell he wanted to spare innocent lives in the first place. As he remarked as his trial:
"I saved you. I saved this city and all your worthless lives. I should have let Stannis kill you all... I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you. I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it."
He murdered Tywin, which empowered Cersei to do cruel and stupid things, then he went off and enabled the Dragon Queen, the same person who we all knew wanted to slaughter innocents because she made a remark about burning cities to the ground and we wisely ignored everything else she would say and do.
It will also be perfectly in keeping with Jon's character if he's turned on by all of the destruction since he has Mad King blood n' stuff.
I think there was a line in the show recently about how regular people don't really care whose ass sits on the throne. But for the people who hold the throne, it's long mattered (going back to King Robert, who felt threatened by the existence of Targaryen children, and the reason Ned had to conceal Jon's identity).
Birthright is what she's staked her claim on, so it's not particularly easy to say, after all these years, "Oh, yeah, lineage doesn't actually matter. I have dragons." A line of inheritance is also a potentially useful construct. If anyone can just seize power, then there'd be more bloodshed.
Of course some people are highly adept at abandoning their "principles" (unless it involves senselessly slaughtering tens of thousands, apparently). I recall someone who said "under God" should be in the pledge as a matter of tradition. "It was always there and it shouldn't be changed in times of 'political correctness.'" It was pointed out that "under God" did not appear in the original pledge but was inserted later. "Well," his response went, "there are new traditions."
Daenerys' messianic destiny has been confirmed to her in part by beating impossible odds and performing miraculous feats. She's intensely curious to know what was meant by Jon taking a knife to the heart. Even though she believes he's not actively making a play, she inhabits a universe of prophecies. For all the power of Greek gods and titans, not even they could avoid their fate. This did not stop them from trying, of course, but efforts to subvert their destiny would ironically secure it.
Here's an annoying Youtube video that distills what's wrong with so many of the arguments defending the writers: [b]Foreshadowing is not character development. [/b]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdBC1lEVGDo
First off, that doesn't even follow.
Suppose Jon kisses her back. She's still under the impression they'd love him more than her. And his claim to the throne is still stronger than hers. Her obstacle is Jon, not anonymous peasants.
It's also bullshit because people claim the breaker of chains wanted to "burn cities to the ground" early on, so why does she even care about the love of the people in the first place? Burn them all. She's long killed nobles and masters, yet this is somehow in keeping with her character. Pants.
Cersei's responsible for killing one of her "children," executing Missandei (why strategically take a hostage when you can be cruel for the sake of cruelty?), reneged on a vow to fight the Night King, and has been a tyrant to the people. So Daenerys kills the people. Yeah, that's totally true to the character.
Apologists for the US dropping atom bombs on Japan point out that after detonating one (and firebombing Tokoyo), the Japanese STILL didn't surrender. They could've done something like that with the show. Her WMD dragon smokes the city, but people keep fighting. Maybe some even WANT to surrender, but they're afraid of Cersei. What happened instead was just stupid and pointless.
The Night King was not an interesting character. He represented pure darkness and evil, which made him bland. The show has always been primarily about the political angle.
This could have been interesting with Daenerys as a tyrannical ruler, but they made her cartoonishly villainous in the penultimate episode.
Yes, everything is "obvious" in retrospect.
One thing set up for her character is that she was relatively adept at seizing power, but not so good at the hard task of governing. With more time, they could have developed this angle.
Again, I'm not disputing the arc -- just the rapid onset. She massacred tens of thousands of random people, which is not in keeping with previous behavior, and explicitly contrary to stated intentions in the previous season.
And you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. If a person is "perfectly healthy," then they wouldn't've exhibited all of these signs of madness. You're also cherry-picking. One can identify twice as many moments where reason consistently prevailed and she behaved in relatively benevolent manner.
Dany could've seized King's Landing, but she fought the army of the undead. Defended the realm. Cersei, meanwhile, lied and conspired, imperiled humanity in order to improve her position.
As for being plunged into insanity. She lost her dragon second dragon and Missandei earlier. These did not occur in the moment. Where was the erratic behavior immediately after those events leading up to the battle? It's as though she can behave in any manner at any time and it's perfectly acceptable just because.
This would make complete sense if it were not scary-retarded.
Deserves got nothing to do with it.
Yeah, and in a boxing match, one combatant should be brought up on charges of initiating violence. The Targaryen children were shuttled off to the easy because of orders to have them killed. Both sides were prepared for that battle; there were even first generation anti-dragon balistas.
Not to get technical, but the arguments in this thread suggesting the signs were all there are retarded. Virtually every character is morally compromised, but that doesn't mean atrocities of this type and on this scale were entirely predictable. In addition to what was mentioned earlier about Tyrion and Varys... The Hound has done his share of killing. Jorah Mormant took slaves (and facilitated the assassination of a child). Jaime pushed a kid out a window and maybe raped his sister (among other things).
Someone earlier said people could make excuses for Daenerys. Absolutely. What excuses can be made now? There's almost no moral ambiguity. The person below who imagines a scenario where Euron kills one of the dragons, which sets Dany off, is far more believable.
The Tarleys tried to kill her and her men. We accept their actions because it was war, and so they were offered an option to avoid their fate. They declined.
The episode with the slaves killing their masters is hazy. From what I recall, she was genuinely concerned for those oppressed. I don't recall if she anticipated the consequences of her actions, but I doubt she celebrated the violence and carnage.
After the episode, the showrunners said maybe she doesn't turn her dragon into a WMD if she's loved in the north, or loved by Jon, and so on. One could always argue for rapid onset madness. We're typically surprised when someone shoots up a school (99.9% of other kids who showed the same signs do not become mass killers).
Martin long ago said one character who was a good guy would turn bad, and she always the number one suspect, so I'm not shocked. But I don't think it was properly set up. Even at the beginning of the episode, Varys says he's not sure how her coin has landed.
She's definitely messianic, but when has she indiscriminately slaughtered innocents? This argument that it was well presaged is nonsense.
We could look at Tyrion. Strangled a whore, murdered his father on the toilet, lit conscripts on fire. Varys attempted to poison Dany when she was a child (and later on in this episode). And those are the good guys. There wasn't anything preparing people for this kind of curb-stomp. The bells were ringing, men had dropped their arms.
[Quote]Jon doesn't become the new king unless he either marries Dany, or someone is able to prove that he's a Targaryan.[/quote]
Varys was presumably writing (and sending) letters claiming Jon was a Targaryen.
Dothrakis gonna Dothraki.
That's not how it will read in the books at the Citadel. Sam, not Edd, acted heroically. Then he had women clawing at his junk, craving the D. Dead men don't live to tell tall tales.