Mr. Edd said:
SPOILER WARNING! Do not click on "more" if you don't want to be spoiled! This discussion contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, previous seasons of the show, the "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series and related works by George R. R. Martin. If you haven't watched this episode yet, leave now, for the discussion is dark, and full of spoilers...
That's the thing, Furion. This is and always has been Daenerys character arch.
Granted, the execution on the show was bad, but I'm certain the end result is the same of the books: Daenerys goes "mad", and destroys the city. This reeks of something planned by GRRM. The difference is that the books have been showing consequences to her actions (Astapor, Yunkai) and being a little less subtle on the whole Daenerys-isn't-that-great trend. Besides, this has been discussed and brought up as a possibility by fans even before A Dance With Dragons, which is the first book where we get a real outsider perspective to Daenerys' world, in the person of Quentyn Martell.
Not only that, but there are two instances on the show itself where we get to see scenes of this episode: the first dates back to the House of the Undying in Season 2, the second dates back to a vision Bran had back in Season 4, of Drogon flying over King's Landing and the Throne's Room destroyed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gh0-4hOzyw) what does this mean? It means the showrunners knew at least since Season 2 about Daenerys' destiny and, what's more, the Season 4 episode with Bran's vision was written for television by George R R Martin himself. This is GRRM's plan for the character, but of course he executes his vision much better and over an extended period of time (at the end of A Dance with Dragons, Dany claims she has chosen "Fire and Blood". This is her entire arch in ADWD: will I be the Targaryen conqueror, or will I be benevolent? She chooses the former at the end of the book. And there are still two more books to go!).
So yes, the show should have kickstarted this a lot sooner, at least in Season 5, but... It feels good to be vindicated. Can't believe how many times I got called a "Dany hater" simply for defending that Dany would be, by the end of the series, a "villain". A tragic one, but a villain nonetheless. There are some good answers here (https://www.quora.com/Does-Games-of-Throne-prepare-us-for-Daenerys-Targaryen-becoming-crazy-It-feels-as-if-it-is-unearned-and-the-notion-hasn-t-been-developed-in-great-detail-throughtout-the-series), including one by Kelsey L. Hayes, who, together with Susan Bertolino (also on Quora) convinced me that Dany was... problematic, to say the least (I had already been bothered by the way she handled Slaver's Bay in the books, but these two ladies' answers really gave me a better understanding of the character).
I'll admit my opinion of Dany is likely biased. I really enjoyed reading the Targaryen histories in Fire & Blood and The World of Ice and Fire. For all the ups and downs of thier family during thier reign I believed the throne should stay with thier house (atleast until the last episode anyway). I just loved reading about them and all thier acomplishments and misdeeds, from great leaders like Aegon the 1st and his sisters and Jaehaerys the Concilitor and Good Queen Alysanne. To the cruel and mad like Maegor The Cruel and Aerion Brightflame. And the outright ecentric like Baelor the Blessed. They have one of the most interesting histories in the series. The part that is really sad is all the legacys these characters left behind (save for what's written about them and the Kings Road), was oblittereated by Dany in a bizare fit of madness. It took almost all of her ancestors who exibited signs of madness and even her father years to go full crazy. The Mad King started out as a good or at least not a bad ruler. His madness started to take root after Rhaella had some still births and some of thier children died (They had 8 children in total with 5 of them dying before or shortly after birth iirc). It wasn't until Aerys was kidnapped and held hostage at Duskendale that he really went proper mad, and even after that it was years before he had decided to try and blow KL up with wildfire. Kings landing survied Maegor the Cruels Reign,The dance of dragons,and the Mad King only to be destroyed by Dany in moment of what? Rage? Madness? Thats been foreshadowed in what 2 maybe 3 episodes? Theres no real presedent set for any of Targaryens just all of a sudden just flipping out on the scale that she did. And if they had it would have taken YEARS. Maegor the Cruel is probably the exception,he was just born bad (Visenya probably doing some crazy alchemy/sorcerry stuff).
You are right the show hasn't portayed Dany the same as she is in the books and perhaps thats another bias I have since my first intepretation is of the character we see on the show. She is much more grey in the books which leaves most of what she does open to interpretation. But still she locked her Dragons in Meereen's pyramid because they (maybe) killed one child. So we go from her freeing slaves and locking her dragons up to avoid hurting innocents. To her burning a city to ashes with innocent civillians everywhere after the Lannister army had clearly ceded to her. She wasn't even intrested in Cersie, she was just high on the flames and killing everyone and everything if the Northern army hadn't retreated they would have probably been a casualty too. It just seems like a MASSIVE jump. Maybe the books will foreshadow her descent better the show has (I can only hope). I'm also only about a third of the way through ADWD, though have gotten the broad strokes of it from youtube over the years, (about 300 pages in) so maybe once I've finished I'll catch somthing I've maybe been missing about her character. And you know the way she dealed with slavers bay was maybe not the best or maybe it was. You can't expect a society that has relied on slavery for hundreds maybe thousands of years to change overnight (That was never going to go down well), but then isn't slavery in of it self a cruel and heinous act. It all depends, from whose perspective you look at that through and how much value put on one human life vs another. When freed the fighters wanted to continue to fight because they valued the perks that came with being an accopmlished fighter to that of a free person with nothing. Perhaps the compromise that Dany could have sort instead of abolishing slavery, was to give The Wise Masters and Slaves the option of having/being indetured servents or voluntery slaves as long as thier needs were met and they were looked after. Because the way it was the vast majority were not.
I know that the books however they frame Dany's character will be far more well thought out and recieved than what we got on the show. I mean what a vision that showed a dragon flying over buildings isn't alot to go on when you think about it. it could just be a dragon flying over a building (Though almost all of Brans visions have proven to be ominous). I mean if Bran is the all seeing guy he is, why didn't he let anyone know about that? The more I think of it, the more I think Bran has some wierd master plan for the end of show cooked up. Like what if he ends up on the throne wouldn't that be a super wierd way to end it? And the house of the undying vision I'll give you that.
I just think the way they have finshed Danys character was just really unsatisfying even if this was where she was meant to end up. It'd be like after watching Jon get all the way to where he did at the start of this season and then in the last 2 episodes turn into a crazed monster with little to no explanation other than he's a Targaryen (Which he is). Would that make it any better what they did with Dany? I mean everyones saying she went mad last season when she burned the Tarlys. But that was a war. She gave them option, Bend the knee, The wall or Die. Aegon the conqueror did the same. Jons executed people as well does that make him just as mad? So far as I can tell her madness (in the show) only showed 2 episodes ago and that was more grief than batshit crazy i'm going to burn everything down madness. And I know dany wanted to break the wheel but damn she broke the entire car. It was hard seeing her be the one to destroy KL after all it was her family who built it.
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