Great analysis on why this feels like such a betrayal of Dany’s character

[MinscS2]

The parallel between Daenerys and Olenna/Yara/Ellaria is interesting.

Last season, all three of Olenna, Yara and Ellaria wanted Daenerys to essentially hit King's Landing hard with everything they got, including the three dragons. The only one who questioned this (and who's advice she actually ended up following) was Tyrion.

I never saw anyone else, including the audience, claim that Olenna and Yara are crazy and bloodthirsty, but now when Daenerys one season later wants to do the very same thing (except from a way worse position), the show is clearly pushing the "Daenerys is mad"-angle, and it honestly makes no sense.

 

[Heartofice]

I dunno, we were all cheering in previous seasons whenever Dany acted like a cruel ruthless monster.. seeing it as some form of weird female empowerment. 

Now she's doing it on a larger scale its misogynistic? Sure.

This is up there with the 'Killing Missandei is racist' chatter going around.

[divica]

Just now, MinscS2 said:

The parallel between Daenerys and Olenna/Yara/Ellaria is interesting.

Last season, all three of Olenna, Yara and Ellaria wanted Daenerys to essentially hit King's Landing hard with everything they got, including the three dragons. The only one who questioned this (and who's advice she actually ended up following) was Tyrion.

I never saw anyone else, including the audience, claim that Olenna and Yara are crazy and bloodthirsty, but now when Daenerys one season later wants to do the very same thing (except from a way worse position), the show is clearly pushing the "Daenerys is mad"-angle, and it honestly makes no sense.

 

I have no idea why they want to sell the idea that danny must conquer KL without harming anyone.

IT just isn t realistic in a war! 

[MinscS2]

As for reference, I'm aware that Daenerys has always had a "will-she-won't-she(become like her father)" vibe about her. 
 

However, from a narrative perceptive, Season 7 pushed the "won't" angle very hard, to the point where it was all but clear by the end of the season that she is not her father. When push comes to shove, she will do the right thing, even to her own detriment. 

Then S8 rolls up. Suddenly this angle is gone over night, and she suddenly does a turn into "will"-territory that is so sharp that I almost cut myself on it, and the show gives no real reason for this massive 180 turn in character. 

From a narrative- and story-arc perspective it makes no sense.
You can almost see how the writers had a checklist and one bullet point was "Daenerys finally goes mad in S8 due to reason X".
It comes across as forced, contrived and as lazy writing and is essentially an assassination of her entire character-arc. 

I really really hope that there's some twist in the next episode, but I've honestly lost all faith in D&D by this point. 
Daenerys entire arc is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to inconsistencies and bad writing. 

[MinscS2]

3 minutes ago, divica said:

I have no idea why they want to sell the idea that danny must conquer KL without harming anyone.

IT just isn t realistic in a war! 

Yeah it honestly makes no sense. 
"Let's starve the city out", yeah because that won't harm innocent civilians. 

[north of the wall]

I couldn't even finish the article it annoyed me. D&D aren't trying to destroy Dany for any reason other than GRRM has created her this way.

For seasons I was annoyed by the whitewashing she received in Essos. I've always been able to see her walking the sanity tightrope of the targs in the books and wanted the show to allude to it to. We'd see her wobble but never quite fall.

To be fair they have come to late to this game. Some earlier instances would have been nice and then for this not to be so "in your face" mad queen like. But at least Dany is no longer the obvious choice. I want the rulers to struggle to make good decisions, that's realistic! And I don't want any incest ruler to be whitewashed or perfect.  I don't see this as a sexist thing like the article seems to claim, but rather an incest thing

 

[Nightwish]

2 hours ago, elanmorin said:

The point Varys and Tyrion made in season 7 to stop her from taking King's Landing is she should not win the throne by killing thousands of innocent people. She agreed, and paid the price for it. The northeners needed her to beat the White Walkers but now they balk at her requests of help. Besides, the person she loves turned out to have a better claim than she does to the Throne she believe to be her destiny and now she fears (rationally actually) that he can take it from her. This causes her to act more rashly and in doing so she seems to prove the fears of those who doubt her sanity and fitness to rule. It's a self fulfilling prophecy, and yes, Dany is a victim but that's probably what Martin intended from the very beginning for her AND for Jon.

I agree Dany tried to behave by the book and even joined the North in her effort to establish her position in a nice way and become accepted. But meanwhile by following all these advices around her she loses time, allies, her army, her dragons. She gets no recognition whats so ever, the harder she tries, the harder she fails. Varys switches sides as he sees her ship sinking and losing her strength.

She is meant to be left alone and live a second exile. It's a very bad and harsh downfall after being praised, loved and respected. 

 

[Runaway Penguin]

7 minutes ago, divica said:

I have no idea why they want to sell the idea that danny must conquer KL without harming anyone.

IT just isn t realistic in a war! 

Why didn't the Allies firebomb Paris?

Dany wants to be seen as liberator, not conqueror. Olenna and Yara do not care about this aspect, Tyrion and Varys do.

 

That being said, yes, war is messy, but in war you behave differently (usually) if you wage war through the occupied territory of your allies (or your own) or if you go through enemy territory to conquer.

[Nightwish]

12 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

The parallel between Daenerys and Olenna/Yara/Ellaria is interesting.

Last season, all three of Olenna, Yara and Ellaria wanted Daenerys to essentially hit King's Landing hard with everything they got, including the three dragons. The only one who questioned this (and who's advice she actually ended up following) was Tyrion.

I never saw anyone else, including the audience, claim that Olenna and Yara are crazy and bloodthirsty, but now when Daenerys one season later wants to do the very same thing (except from a way worse position), the show is clearly pushing the "Daenerys is mad"-angle, and it honestly makes no sense.

 

Of course they did. Varys had promised them "Fire and Blood". I was seeing reactions and fans were cheering with his line. Haha, everybody wanted "Fire and Blood". 

[tallTale]

Dany is a hero who’s getting backstabbed by all these ungrateful pieces of garbage. They would be dead if not for her. 

this mad queen nonsense is only because she has dragons and the theatrics of her attack. When Tywin slaughters, he’s not mad. When Stannis wanted to sack kings landing he wasn’t mad. It’s all garbage to make her look bad. And shame on all these characters conspiring against her. I hope she burns everyone of the traitors.

[Kajjo]

5 minutes ago, tallTale said:

Dany is a hero

What exactly makes her a hero in your eyes?

Heroism requires more than supporting other's in a war or riding a dragon. Daenerys did nothing heroic so far.

[tallTale]

11 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

What exactly makes her a hero in your eyes?

Heroism requires more than supporting other's in a war or riding a dragon. Daenerys did nothing heroic so far.

She sacrificed her resources and by extension herself to save the north. She stayed true to her character and helped those in need instead of going straight to king's landing. She's freed slaves from bondage, she saved the north, she risked her life and the life on her children to fight the NK, wtf does she have to do to prove her worth? 

And the first thing the show does is make Sansa and Varys conspire against her. Unbelievable. 

[LearnToBeNoOne]

41 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

No, two people can do the same thing for different reasons and in a different state of mind.

The Mad King was mad. Just shouting, giving unreasonable orders, enjoying people burning. He was really mad, not to be taken seriously anymore.

Cersei does all this with a clear mind, very deliberate, very calculated. She acts completely differently.

There's no doubt that Cersei is doing what she must do given her circumstances to remain alive and in power. That doesn't mean her narcissism isn't dictating her actions, she's sacrificing whatever possible to remain on that throne and will sacrifice more if she has to. She isn't in control of herself, the Iron Throne controls her, she's addicted - Jaime said “Everything I did, I did for my house and my family,” what did Cersei do it for? Considering they're twins that says a lot about the difference in state of mind between the twins. I just don't think somebody who uses wildfire in general, especially to blow up a Sept qualifies her as sane.

Regardless of whether you think the Mad King was wrong for wanting to he also had a reason and it was arguably calculated, he said "The traitors want my city, but I’ll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat." It's the ideology that if I'm going down then I'm bringing everybody down with me.

Either way he was stopped from using it, the Mad King wasn't.

41 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

No, I don't so. Cersei replaced a normal Septon with the High Sparrow from a militant sect. Like replacing the Pope with a militant, aggressive, overly fundamental TV-preacher ordering death penalty for homosexuality, incest, alcohol abuse and so on. 

All knights with at least a residual common sense will not support the High Sparrow, but the established Septons and Maesters. Knight would not follow these weird sectists. We saw how Kevan despised them. Or Olenna and many other nobility.

I think you realise the power of the High Sparrow, it was a big enough for Cersei to do what she did, kill or be killed? If it were just words and no real power would she have needed to take such drastic measures. My belief is that it could have gone either way but worked in her favour as it's shocking and needs time to process.

Remember whilst Lancel was under the care of the High Septon, Kevan went to visit and told Lancel: "I am going to marry you to Gatehouse Ami, son," To which Lancel responded by making a plea to the High Septon: "Abomination, filth, High Seppy, make me yours and save me. I'd rather be celibate than be with Gatewhores Ami."

So it's not so surprising that many others would have been followers of the High Septon, especially is if he made people feel safe. We can only go by assumptions with certain things so we don't know for sure, at the end of the day a lot of people do follow faith blindly doing dangerous things because they're misinformed.

Either way I stand by the fact that a move so bold would have under normal circumstances provoked a reaction in Westeros.  This does not mean that I don't acknowledge your points.

41 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

Well, I agree that the Varys issue is difficult. We were never shown what his true intentions are. He claims "the best for the realm" but we don't know.

Varys turned his head quite a lot of times. So he might switch from Daenerys to Jon if he thinks Jon is more temperate, moderate, a better ruler. This is believable for me.

Indeed we don't know, we only know what he wants us to know in a way, his character is beginning to crumble though.

Or he's switching because he doesn't believe Dany can win the war and the only way to get more support is if Jon/Aegon makes a claim to the throne as the rightful heir. Otherwise where will Vary's end up? Back with Cersei for her to do whatever she wants with him. Survival may require selfishness but serving 'the Realm' requires sacrifice. So is he thinking about himself or 'the Realm?'

[Kajjo]

5 minutes ago, LearnToBeNoOne said:

would have under normal circumstances provoked a reaction in Westeros

Well, the people hate her. We agree on that. 

Cersei has the power in form of military and King's guard. The situation is fragile.

However, the knights and remaining houses surely are relieved the High Sparrow is gone. No one in his right mind appreciated an aggressive militant sect to grab power. The High Sparrow was a threat to every noble man. They all had interest in him gone. That's why Cersei politically survived blowing up the Sept. 

[RhaenysBee]

4 hours ago, LearnToBeNoOne said:

No I totally agree with you, just made the point so it can be discussed. I said earlier it wasn't my initial thought the first time I watched it but could see why people thought that the second time I watched it. Wouldn't say it's intentional and that event would have definitely affected her but she's been through so much, it's hard to say if one event is worse than the other.

Regardless of how it's interpreted, the only thing certain is the bad writing. It's once again lazy that scene could have been a lot more powerful. The biggest motivation could have been her fathers death and the fact Cersei didn't object to Joffrey making Sansa watch - as well as the Littlefinger situation and many more. Her referencing those events without fear and saying something along the lines of, I'm who I am now because I've stayed alive to see Cersei suffer would have sent a big message about her too. Even if not in that exact way some Queen like attributes would have been welcome. 

 Maybe I'm asking too much from the writers.

Yeah I agree that there isn’t really any point in ranking the bad things that happen to characters and trying to determine what’s worse than what. All of these unfortunate events affect everybody differently and have different outcomes for the characters. 

 I think it’d have been nice of the show to touch on the fact that Sansa isn’t who she is because of one thing (whichever that may be), it was the collection and the chain of the unfortunate events (and bad writing) that made her who she is.

4 hours ago, LearnToBeNoOne said:

Would they have been so quick to label her insane if her father wasn't the Mad King. Why isn't Cersei described as insane? Surely the biggest evidence of insanity was her refusal to send her army up north.

It's no secret that Dany wants the Iron Throne meaning that a war is inevitable. She has feelings and has suffered a lot on her journey which only fuels her ambitions and desire to get it over and done with. If she wants to use her resources because that's the only way to conquer KL then is that such a bad thing? Her enemies will only get stronger and it's Cersei that wants to use her people as human shields, voluntarily just to make Dany seem no different to her father. Yet there is no still no agenda against Cersei or how she's the new Mad King equivalent, I mean she blew up the Sept of Baelor. There's literally so much to mention about Cersei and why she must be removed.

I find it shameful that an argument about Dany not being fit to rule due to her madness is even being entertained as if she hasn't forgiven traitors in the past or made sacrifices up north. There's a bias towards one side of the story, they're refusing to look at the flipside. As I always say, whether you're for or against Dany, there's clearly an agenda against her character. Sansa and Vary's creating plots just seems a bit too ungrateful after 'The Long Night.`

Cersei blew up the sept of Baelor with the entire nobility of KL in it, including her uncle and practically the entire house Tyrell. Nothing else needs to be said about her state of mind. But the show just wrote that little accident off as a badass villain move. 

Now, it would be important to put down as a writer what we consider insanity. Is cruelty insanity? If so, half the characters on thrones are insane and Daenerys can’t be set apart. If not, we need to put down a very clear picture about what’s insanity and what’s regular medieval warfare or vengeance cruelty. The Mad King was not considered mad because he burned or executed people in a cruel manner. He was considered mad because the voices told him to burn people.

 Being cruel in war or taking vengeance doesn’t make a person automatically mad. Nor does burning people. Otherwise Aegon the Conquerer was mad, Tywin was mad, Tyrion, Cersei, Stannis, Robb Stark, ARYA, the Hound, Jon, Theon, Sansa are all all all mad, and narratively, you don’t set Daenerys apart. If they want to make the audience question Daenerys’s sanity, they need to do more than put illogical and unfounded sentences into Tyrion and Varys’s mouths or showing Daenerys stride off fuming. Her best friend was just killed, She was just screwed over in an attempt to make peace. That’s the least she would do. I stride off like that after a client call weekly. What’s even remotely mad about that? Have her have a meltdown, throw stuff around, scream and blame people, have her randomly execute Greyworm, have thrash in the night beside Jon and hear voices. There are half a hundred ways in which the show could make us question Daenerys’s sanity. Saying that she’s mad because she wants results from a decade long endeavor, because she wants to use her resources or because she was consistent to her word and executed people who insisted on being executed instead of choosing the three different ways out they had been offered. 

The first step in the right direction is her isolation. With Jorah dead, Missandei dead, Daario in Essos, Jon on the road, two of her dragons gone, she is more alone than she had ever been in her life. But building up her madness from here properly would take at least four-five more episodes from this point and we have two. And it’s been screwed up in advance already either Varys and Tyrion entertaining the idea for no real reason. 

I personally wouldn’t mind Mad Daenerys if it was properly done (which it hasn’t been and will not be). It could be a beautifully heartbreaking storyline. What I expect is a visually pretty self-serving mess with no message or direction. Maybe Cersei will win because d&d are so obsessed with Lena Headey. 

 

 

 

[LearnToBeNoOne]

1 hour ago, Nightwish said:

In regards to Varys if you remember two seasons ago and while trying to form alliances for Dany, he promised Olenna "fire and blood". So back then he seemed ok, promoting their campaign motto without any second thoughts. 

 

This is a great point, in the season 6 finale Vary's responds: ''Fire and Blood''to Olenna asking ''And what is my heart's desire?''

Which is laughable because he knows what he signed up for, what this campaign is about and what it will take. It's lazy and terrible writing, let's make Vary's suddenly plot behind her back because he predict's that Dany is following in the footsteps of the Mad King whilst ignoring the good she has actually done. He knew it would take ''Fire and Blood'' to take KL yet is suddenly on this moral high as if he's had some kind of epiphany.

[Kajjo]

8 minutes ago, LearnToBeNoOne said:

So is he thinking about himself or 'the Realm?'

We really do not know his motivation at all. Varys is a mystery in this show. We don't know how an eunuch came to such position in the first place, we do not know how he assembles his spying "birds", how he became master of whiperers. 

I don't trust him. All this "for the realm" sounds lame to me.

[El Guapo]

1 hour ago, MinscS2 said:

The parallel between Daenerys and Olenna/Yara/Ellaria is interesting.

Last season, all three of Olenna, Yara and Ellaria wanted Daenerys to essentially hit King's Landing hard with everything they got, including the three dragons. The only one who questioned this (and who's advice she actually ended up following) was Tyrion.

I never saw anyone else, including the audience, claim that Olenna and Yara are crazy and bloodthirsty, but now when Daenerys one season later wants to do the very same thing (except from a way worse position), the show is clearly pushing the "Daenerys is mad"-angle, and it honestly makes no sense.

 

Agreed.  And as has mentioned below by other Varys was all for "fire and blood" just two season ago.  

[Kajjo]

1 minute ago, LearnToBeNoOne said:

This is a great point, in the season 6 finale Vary's responds: ''Fire and Blood''to Olenna asking ''And what is my heart's desire?''

Varys is buying Olenna into the cause. That does not mean he really wants this. His is a master of intrigues. Don't take Varys' words for his true motivation.

2 minutes ago, LearnToBeNoOne said:

He knew it would take ''Fire and Blood'' to take KL yet is suddenly on this moral high as if he's had some kind of epiphany.

War takes blood. And dragons cause fire. Of course Varys knows that. No question. He is not sensitive about certain losses. But burning thousands innocent small folk is something different than defeating the Lannister army on its way back to King's Landing. That was blood and fire in the right amount. Not demolishing the whole city.

[LearnToBeNoOne]

1 hour ago, divica said:

I agree that the problem is the inconsisty of how varys and tyrion behave. Danny is acting like she has always done and sudenly they want to rebel when 5 min ago they thought she was the greates ruler ever...

This. It just doesn't make sense.

1 hour ago, divica said:

However there have been clear signals in the show that danny is very destructive and mean when she is angry and her speeches are mostly rubish. Her supporters just didn t care until last ep. 

I agree but she didn't become this person overnight, the foreshadowing has been there if you wish to call it that. The timing of it all doesn't make sense, especially as they were campaigning with and for her.

As I just discussed in a previous post Vary's was part of the 'Fire and Blood' campaign in the Season 6 finale and understood what it would require. Yet now he's on some moral high, lazy.

1 hour ago, divica said:

And once again being a cruel person to her enemies isn t exactly a motive to revolt against her now. Even if she kills a lot of inocents to conquer KL it wouldn t be strange. I can only understand that people get angry with her if she unleashes her anger on the smallfolk without need just to vent her anger. However that isn t danny! 

 

She plans to war Cersei yet everybody's acting like this is suddenly such a terrible idea and that she should wait. Even though taking the Iron Throne has always been her plan, she has also clearly said: "I will take what is mine with fire and blood,'' and Varys knew this and supported her, that's why he's been with her. So this sudden change of mind is pathetic.

Exactly there's nothing to be angry about as of yet she's just sacrificed her army during 'The Long Night.' As a reward not only Sansa but Varys too are plotting on how to remove her from power.