Mad Queen Starting? Daenerys Threatening The North in the Preview

[btfu806]

3 minutes ago, lojzelote said:

That's a wrong interpretation. Aerys did not have people burned just because, he had them burned because he believed they were all in some huge conspiracy against him and he trusted absolutely no one except for his pyromancers - not to his wife, his son, or servants, anybody. His reasons appeared irrational to people around him, but in his own mind they made sense.

Yeah, because voices in his head told him.....

It's not that he came up with the idea, oh these people are trying to conspire against me. It's that voices in his head told him that. That's mad. There was no sense.

[haemonculus]

4 minutes ago, Gala said:

Nice list. I would also add Davos to Heroes, Walder Frey to Villains.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Davos, but having him on the list twice seems a bit much...

[lojzelote]

15 minutes ago, btfu806 said:

Yeah, because voices in his head told him.....

It's not that he came up with the idea, oh these people are trying to conspire against me. It's that voices in his head told him that. That's mad. There was no sense.

Aren't these voices a show only thing? I certainly don't remember them from the books.

In the books it is made pretty clear that Aerys was always shallow, fickle, easy to anger, and had dreams of grandeur, but the real problems didn't start until the Defiance of Duskendale. His royal person that he had believed to be untouchable was taken prisoner and threatened by death for long months, while his Hand and former best friend Tywin Lannister was making plans of letting him die and replacing him with Rhaegar. That's what drove Aerys over the edge.

Cersei is already getting paranoid in a similar way. She genuinely suspects that Loras and Margaery are sleeping together like herself and Jaime. She believes that Uncle Kevan has been bought by the Tyrells. She readily believes Taena Merryweather* that her maid was a spy. She sees Tyrion's shadow lurking behind every pillar.

*In this she is very close to Aerys as well. Aerys listened only to lickspittles that made him feel good about himself. Similarly Cersei takes an immediate liking to Taena, because Taena tells her only what she likes to hear.

[btfu806]

4 minutes ago, lojzelote said:

Aren't these voices a show only thing? I certainly don't remember them from the books.

In the books it is made pretty clear that Aerys was always shallow, fickle, easy to anger, and had dreams of grandeur, but the real problems didn't start until the Defiance of Duskendale. His royal person that he had believed to be untouchable was taken prisoner and threatened by death for long months, while his Hand and former best friend Tywin Lannister was making plans of letting him die and replacing him with Rhaegar. That's what drove Aerys over the edge.

Cersei is already getting paranoid in a similar way. She genuinely suspects that Loras and Margaery are sleeping together like herself and Jaime. She believes that Uncle Kevan has been bought by the Tyrells. She readily believes that her maid was a spy. She sees Tyrion's shadow lurking behind every pillar.

UGH! Now you have me questioning.... I haven't read the series in a little while. 

It may be a show only thing. I have to go back and check now.

 

As far as Cersei, she believes Margery is out to take her place "Queen you shall be ... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." Her paranoia is for a reason (in that regard). Kevan she doesn't like in general, right? He talks down to her, or she sees him as half the man as her father or something? Details are fuzzy.
I get what you mean with the maid being a spy and Tyrion's shadow. That is her cracking.

[Princess_of_Sunspear]

1 minute ago, btfu806 said:

She arranges her daughter-in-law to be seized not because of jealousy, because of Maggy the Frog. Because of the prophecy. She believes Margery will be the death of her, so no wonder she tries to get rid of her...
And she is an awful mom. We get that. She is selfish and not as smart as she likes to think she is. That's a big part of her problem. 
I wouldn't go as far as saying she is mad. Everything she has done there is logic behind it. She believes she could be powerful and a great leader but because she was born a woman, that can never happen. She always wanted to be like her father, but again because of gender stereotypes in the book, she can't. 
When you're mad you just do things for no reason (at least how I interpret it.) I see reason in everything she does, I don't agree with her reason, but I get it.

Mad King Aerys burned people because of voices he heard in his head... that's mad.

The reason she can't be a powerful leader is not because she's a woman, though I can sympathise with her growing up in a deeply misogynistic society. She's not a leader material because she has no skills or personality traits that would make her a good leader beyond a certain level of cunning, and she's not powerful enough on her own to make a conquest in the books- most of what she has and managed to hold on to, she achieved with the help from either her family members, or their allies. She makes no friends, does not inspire love or loyalty, she doesn't care for those less fortunate than her, those more fortunate she envied. Look at how she treats Jaime, the one person who was always loyal to her, the minute he becomes less perfect?

Maggy the Frog is one of the reasons she dislikes Margaery, but I think a part of it is also jealousy, from reading her POV. She's jealous of Marg being on good terms with Tommen (and she's not even using sex in the books) and being popular with smallfolk, because she recognises on some level that she lacks the same support that Marg has. Her actions have a reason, but to me they are fuelled by paranoia more than any rational fear- she even blames washerwomen for shrinking her gowns, she's threatened even by Mace Tyrell, hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer and later gives one of her maids to Qyburn because she wasn't pleased with her service. If that isn't mad I don't know what is-this is exactly what Aerys did to those he felt threatened by, he either offended/threatened them so they left (Tywin), or tortured/burned them alive. I wasn't aware that he burned people because he heard voices, but he started off by being paranoid about his vassals in the same way Cersei is, and it probably progressed from there. The way I remember, it was after he was taken prisoner by the Darklyns at Duskendale that his madness became more apparent. 

 

[xjlxking]

I think people are just trying to assume that anytime Danny attempts to threaten someone for failure to obey is automatically considered to be going mad

 

no, she basically kills of people who either betrayed her or obviously not listening to her. The same way Jon killed people who had him killed or refused to listen to his order

 

it doesn't make her mad if she address the people who just saw the comrades get burned or killed. Its called war! She's not going to win the entire kingdom with no battle. 

In regards to the hint of what's Tyrion and Varys are speaking about, I am interested to see. I think she can sound very demanding but it's definitely needed or any ambiguous house will always revolt or plan to betray. 

[Nic.]

Just now, xjlxking said:

 

no, she basically kills of people who either betrayed her or obviously not listening to her. The same way Jon killed people who had him killed or refused to listen to his order

 

I fail to see how crucifying 163 slave owners or burning an innocent man alive to make a point equates to what you just stated.  Nowhere has Jon even come close to doing that.  In fact when he had the option to kill and elderly innocent man when the opposite choice meant his likely death, he chose the second option.  I somehow don't see Dany doing that. 

[Princess_of_Sunspear]

2 minutes ago, Nic. said:

I fail to see how crucifying 163 slave owners or burning an innocent man alive to make a point equates to what you just stated.  Nowhere has Jon even come close to doing that.  In fact when he had the option to kill and elderly innocent man when the opposite choice meant his likely death, he chose the second option.  I somehow don't see Dany doing that. 

What innocent man did she burn?

Slave masters were by and large complicit in the inhumane treatment of slaves and benefitted from it. The same slave masters have crucified slaves all along the road towards Meeren as a warning to her. The same slave masters devised the method for creating perfect killing machines, by gelding boys and marking them kill puppies and newborns. I'd say they had the crucifixions coming for a long time.

[Gala]

1 hour ago, haemonculus said:

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Davos, but having him on the list twice seems a bit much...

Oh, for some reason I didn't notice him in the list - the end of working week and I am a little bit careless

[Paid Debt Lannister]

Mad Queen has already begun and her name is Cersei. Blew up a portion of the city she rules, killing a bunch of innocent nobles and commonfolk, while also destroying the heart of spirituality in the continent and the fucking Pope, and killed the Queen who fed the poor.

Please stop painting Dany as the bad guy. Cersei is the antagonist here. She is already full on Mad Queen mode. Daenerys could have destroyed the entire continent but didn't, because she sees herself as different (which is obviously not working, as half the audience thinks she is as bad as or worse than Mad Queen Cersei)

[Nic.]

38 minutes ago, Princess_of_Sunspear said:

What innocent man did she burn?

Slave masters were by and large complicit in the inhumane treatment of slaves and benefitted from it. The same slave masters have crucified slaves all along the road towards Meeren as a warning to her. The same slave masters devised the method for creating perfect killing machines, by gelding boys and marking them kill puppies and newborns. I'd say they had the crucifixions coming for a long time.

The man she burned alive right after Barristan's death to make a point.  

Yes because she had evidence pointing that all 163 of them ordered the Crucifixion of those children?  Yeah we should just kill and crucify all the people we find immoral or are born into a position where they are slave owners.  That's the way we should do things. Dany sounds like a really nice and moral person now. Funny part, we don't see her demonizing her targaryen ancestry, despite the fact that the dragon riders of valyria were the ones who abused the slave trade the most.  

[Illiterati]

4 minutes ago, Nic. said:

The man she burned alive right after Barristan's death to make a point.  

Yes because she had evidence pointing that all 163 of them ordered the Crucifixion of those children?  Yeah we should just kill and crucify all the people we find immoral or are born into a position where they are slave owners.  That's the way we should do things. Dany sounds like a really nice and moral person now. Funny part, we don't see her demonizing her targaryen ancestry, despite the fact that the dragon riders of valyria were the ones who abused the slave trade the most.  

I think part of Dany was pulled from a popular opinion of Lincoln, that his freeing of the slaves was a thing of political expedience more than moral responsibility.

Dany may have freed the slaves to build an Army.  The adoration she received for it made her even more defensive of them.  She doesn't know how to apply what she learned there to the task of winning the hearts and minds of Westerosi who have different needs that she hasn't even sought to discover, which would also initially be for political expedience.Free the slaves and enslave the free can't be an intentional platform for her.

[El Guapo]

Why would Dany demonize her ancestors that lived like, what 500 years ago?  What possible relevance does that have to her wanting to free slaves in the present time?

[Donaldys I Trumpagar]

The entire premise for supporting Dany is that she represents "something different" for the average people of Westeros. This has been suggested in many episodes including this one.

But if she obliterates entire cities in a fiery holocaust (as she surely would have if not for Tyrion's counsel) or if she executes disarmed POWs (as is implied in the previews for the next episode) that would make her the same a lot worse than most Westerosi rulers.

Better for the average Westerosi had she not come over with her horde of savages and fell beasts at all.

Maybe she isn't mad, as in insane, but perhaps she is shaping up to be definitely not morally superior to any other Westerosi ruler.

[Princess_of_Sunspear]

16 minutes ago, Nic. said:

The man she burned alive right after Barristan's death to make a point.  

Yes because she had evidence pointing that all 163 of them ordered the Crucifixion of those children?  Yeah we should just kill and crucify all the people we find immoral or are born into a position where they are slave owners.  That's the way we should do things. Dany sounds like a really nice and moral person now. Funny part, we don't see her demonizing her targaryen ancestry, despite the fact that the dragon riders of valyria were the ones who abused the slave trade the most.  

It doesn't matter if not all of them ordered the crucifixion of the children, it still happened, and they either ordered it, or didn't protest it hard enough. The empire of Ghis and its treatment of slaves have lasted for eons and nothing was done to prevent it, it's not like slavers have had campaigners for ethical treatment of slaves in full swing before she showed up? It doesn't matter if they were born into a position of a slaver owner, they still abetted the practise and saw nothing of it- the slaves were a property and they gave them no more thought than we would give a kettle. We shouldn't kill and crucify those we find immoral, but we don't live in the universe where little boys are gelded and made to kill a newborn to become a killing machine- the last time I checked, people who do that in our universeare called war criminals and when captured are detained for war crimes. Westeros and Essos are still at the medieval stage of their history, and when we were at that stage, we burned people alive for saying the wrong thing, and conquerors weren't known for being either nice or moral. Hell, in the last major world conflict, America and her allies were ok with dropping a weapon of mass destruction on enemy cities, without getting a proof of every man, woman and child being pro Nazi. No one is arguing that Danny is nice, she isn't nice in the same way Aegon wasn't nice when he burned the whole of Harrenhal or when he burned the Gardiner men in the Field of Fire. This isn't a story about good and moral people, Daenerys is not a Jesus figure by a long stretch. She's a complex character who can be ruthless to her enemies where being ruthless to ones enemies is expected and being honourable gets you killed. Was Lincoln wrong to fight against the Confederacy? Because I'm sure not all Confederate conscripts were against abolitioners or whipped their slaves to death, but, in the end, they still fought for the side that was into slavery. 

Her ancestor that died with the Doom of Valyria have nothing to do with what she does or does not with her enemies. If she's not owned the throne for who her dad was- and she is not, because she has to conquer the Iron Throne and her allies pick her on the basis of disliking the opposition more than they fear her madness, then, the actions of even her father don't matter anymore than her ancestors from 5000 years ago. My ancestors were like the Dothraki, doesn't mean that I shouldn't consider rape and pillage moral, or feel sorry for rapists and pillagers. 

[xjlxking]

1 hour ago, Nic. said:

I fail to see how crucifying 163 slave owners or burning an innocent man alive to make a point equates to what you just stated.  Nowhere has Jon even come close to doing that.  In fact when he had the option to kill and elderly innocent man when the opposite choice meant his likely death, he chose the second option.  I somehow don't see Dany doing that. 

Innocent? 

Yes, slave owners! She was within her right to do it as they are clearly her enemy.  She 

 

And for the record, she demonized her father easily. 

[Princess_of_Sunspear]

9 minutes ago, xjlxking said:

Innocent? 

Yes, slave owners! She was within her right to do it as they are clearly her enemy.  She 

 

And for the record, she demonized her father easily. 

Yes, those poor, innocent slavers, my heart bleeds for them. We might as well light a candle for poor King Aerys, it's not his fault he was born into privilege and had means to burn men alive for being too lippy. 

Its not just Aerys that she and others demonise for their misdeeds. Maegor the Cruel and Aegon the Unworthy are known as such across the continents. 

[xjlxking]

8 minutes ago, Princess_of_Sunspear said:

Yes, those poor, innocent slavers, my heart bleeds for them. We might as well light a candle for poor King Aerys, it's not his fault he was born into privilege and had means to burn men alive for being too lippy. 

Its not just Aerys that she and others demonise for their misdeeds. Maegor the Cruel and Aegon the Unworthy are known as such across the continents. 

Innocent indeed! Using them slaves to guide tired weary travels to the greatest city in Essos

 

and she even demonized her own brother

[Gala]

1 hour ago, xjlxking said:

Innocent? 

Yes, slave owners! She was within her right to do it as they are clearly her enemy.  She 

 

And for the record, she demonized her father easily. 

That's a lie! She was forced to demonise him, because people told her what her father was over and over and over again and they still tel l- Varys, Jon.
In the books she hasn't even started to listen to people on this matter. Barristan either softens the stories about her family or she stops him when he tries. Jorah feeds her fairytales, not real stories, from the day one he is a flatterer. 

[El Guapo]

10 minutes ago, Gala said:

That's a lie! She was forced to demonise him, because people told her what her father was over and over and over again and they still tel l- Varys, Jon.
In the books she hasn't even started to listen to people on this matter. Barristan either softens the stories about her family or she stops him when he tries. Jorah feeds her fairytales, not real stories, from the day one he is a flatterer. 

Yes she has. You need to re-read her chapters.