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


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10 minutes ago, divica said:

I never said she shouldn t look for a way to save herself and don t have to follow the dothriaki costums.

But for the love of god. She burned the most religious place in dothriaki culture, burned all their leaders and burned the dosh kallen (or what ever those women were called). And all the things these people did were live acording to dothriaki culture! 

You can t say that from the dothriaki point of view she isn t awful! And if this isn t enough then she claims she is their leader and forbids them to follow several of their costums because she doesn t agree with them! Isn t she behaving like a dictator for the dothriaki?

And please, don t tell me how bad the dothriaki were. It isn t that we are discussing. We are talking how danny behaved in response to a huge group of people that wanted her to do something she didn t agree with and had a culture she didn t like. And the show decided to portray danny as some messiah for the dothriaki… How can the dothriaki love her?

I don't understand your point. Should she stay and die? 

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1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

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.

Her journey is definitely an interesting one as she didn't really have family or friends to learn from so her personality today derives strictly from the unfortunate events (and bad writing haha) that's was in abundance.

Maybe her actions now are a show of that, she doesn't know what's right or wrong, only what she wants.

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

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. 

The show really did act like it was something casual, it was a devastating move.

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

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.

This is true, there needs to be a clear definition in order to start labeling people as there are many similar characters traits that intertwine. If we accept that The Mad King was considered mad because he heard voices then Dany doesn't qualify as mad.

1 hour ago, RhaenysBee said:

 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.

 

Considering she's lost a considerable amount of her army (so she's probably having doubts about her chance of success), a dragon and her best friend it's ridiculous to just label her as mad without her actually doing anything mad. If she had in anger burnt down the innocent people of KL, killed some random people in her army or something of that nature then the idea of her madness (or losing control) may have some fruition.

You just can't label somebody mad after she's made sacrifice and wants to take what's rightfully hers. Did Varys genuinely believe that she would take KL without blood? He hasn't even given him a reason for him to plot against her other than finally going towards KL because she's waited long enough. She wants to avenge her family and take back the Iron Throne, Varys knew this and stuck by her but now that she's actually going to he's on a moral high. Will Cersei just bend the knee to Jon because he's Aegon Targaryen?

The issue here is there's going to be a lot of blood whether it's Jon/Aegon or Dany in contention because Cersei will put up a fight whether that means life or death as a result.

So as Dany hasn't gone on a mass murder spree of the innocent and Cersei is ready for war - which clearly means one thing then Varys is just simply committing treason because he decided he favours Jon/Aegon more and not because there's anything wrong with Dany.

The whole development of her going mad or beginning to hasn't happened yet and there is definitely not enough time for it to happen either as you said, it will take some time to get up to that point. It's simply another moment of the writers having an idea and including it regardless of how nonsensical it is.

If Cersei remains on the throne then we may as well call it The Game of D&D. 

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Just now, divica said:

Only the oprssed dosh kahleen were outside. The leaders of the dosh kahleen died.

What? We see the high priestess of the dosh kahleen outside, kneeling to Daenerys. 
https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/High_Priestess_of_the_Dosh_Khaleen

Just now, divica said:

And this small group of men had bloodriders and familly that had positions of power within their khalasars that would want to kill danny because she killed their khals. Most of the dothriaki would want to kill her for burning their most  holly place. Most of the dothriaki wouldn t follow a woman.

You're assuming things that the show has long since declared as wrong.

No familymembers tried to have Daenerys killed, and evidently the dothraki didn't care about her burning their temple or about her being a woman. They all followed her willingly, even before Drogon came back.

Just now, divica said:

Then there is a diference between defeating a khal and taking his place and murdering a khal. What danny did was murder...

This is pure semantics...

Just now, divica said:

Then she forbids them from pilaging and raping. That is how they live! A lot of the dothriaki would abandon her because of this.

Again, you're assuming stuff that the show has already told us. Evidently the dothraki didn't abandon her because she's changing their way of life, just as Yara and her Greyjoys didn't abandon her when she made a pact with them about abandoning their way of life, which was also centered around raving and looting.

Just now, divica said:

And I am not discussing if danny did the right thing. I am saying that from the dothriaki pov a lot of them should hate danny and not want to have anything to do with her! She shouldn t be shown as some hero for the dothriaki in the show… 

I'm not discussing if Daenerys did the right thing or not either, but clearly from the PoV of the dothraki, they didn't mind what she did at all, and instead decided to follow her, and still do. This isn't an opinion, it's fact, shown in the show over and over.

Your personal thoughts on the matter and how they "should" react are (and I'm not trying to be snide here) irrelevant, because the show itself proves you wrong. 
 

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Just now, Nightwish said:

I don't understand your point. Should she stay and die? 

No. She could have done all she did but a lot of the dothriaki shouldn t have joined her.

That is the problem. She did a completly brutal thing to the dothriaki and noone of them revolted. The show depicted it as some great moment that everbody present is grateful for instead of showing a division where a big number of the dothriaki become her enemies.

That acting the way danny did has consequences and doesn t get her complete loyalty! 

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Just now, divica said:

That acting the way danny did has consequences and doesn t get her complete loyalty! 

Except that it did.

We haven't seen or heard a single thing regarding discontent among the dothraki ranks since they joined Daenerys. 
Therefor we can safely assume that they are completely loyal to her, as of S8E4.

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2 minutes ago, divica said:

No. She could have done all she did but a lot of the dothriaki shouldn t have joined her.

That is the problem. She did a completly brutal thing to the dothriaki and noone of them revolted. The show depicted it as some great moment that everbody present is grateful for instead of showing a division where a big number of the dothriaki become her enemies.

That acting the way danny did has consequences and doesn t get her complete loyalty! 

That's because Dothraki bow to raw power and nothing else. That's why they also kneel on their own as they see her standing there unburnt. I am not even sure how we would react seeing a person coming out of the flames. Its a miracle that overshadows everything. Being a race that cares so much about physical strenth, they are captivated by what they see. 

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Dany could have simply escaped.  Killing the Khals and blowing up their religious shrine wasn't necessary to her survival.  It's questionable whether she even needs the Dothraki screamers for her invasion, since she already has the only remaining unsullied army in the world.  

I will say that the show seems to be telling us that her only value and power is in her dragons.  Now that she is down to one dragon, she's falling apart immediately.  the whole thing is unfortunate if it ends the way the leaks indicate.

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Just now, MinscS2 said:

I'm not discussing if Daenerys did the right thing or not either, but clearly from the PoV of the dothraki, they didn't mind what she did at all, and instead decided to follow her, and still do. This isn't an opinion, it's fact, shown in the show over and over.

Your personal thoughts on the matter and how they "should" react are (and I'm not trying to be snide here) irrelevant, because the show itself proves you wrong. 

Then you entered in the midle of the conversation and didn t know what I was talking about.

I was talking about that this behaviour from danny has been consistent with how she has behaved for years. But previously the show treated this moments as bad ass moments that portray danny as some messiah and now they are showing that not everybody likes her behaviour.

And I used the dothriaki situation as an example of this situation. She did something brutal to the dothriaki and they all simply follow her as if she is a hero to them for whatshe did.

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4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Dany could have simply escaped.

How?
Jorah and Daario wants to escape with her but she shoots the idea down, saying that they would never make it. 
I'm inclined to agree. The dothraki know the land better than they do, are better riders than they are, and there are many many more of them.
They would've been (re)captured in a heartbeat, and Jorah and Daario would've been summarily executed and Daenerys...well, "no dosh kahleen for her"...

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Just now, Nightwish said:

That's because Dothraki bow to raw power and nothing else. That's why they also kneel on their own as they see her standing there unburnt. I am not even sure how we would react seeing a person coming out of the flames. Its a miracle that overshadows everything. Being a race that cares so much about physical strenth, they are captivated by what they see. 

Actually given the reaction of the dothriaki in the show to mirri maz durr certainly some of them would think she is a witch and try to kill her.

I have given enough reasons in my previous posts to justify why there should be a lot of dissention in the dothriaki. If you don t agree there isn t more I can do.

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2 minutes ago, divica said:

And I used the dothriaki situation as an example of this situation. She did something brutal to the dothriaki and they all simply follow her as if she is a hero to them for whatshe did.

But it's a bad example, as a brutal people may very well react to a brutal thing in their own brutish way, and not the way we predict.
Her actions against the dothraki and their reaction to it makes sense. The dothraki don't perceive what she did (killing to gain power and loyalty) as evil or wrong, but as fully normal. Which also, turned it into a "bad ass" TV-moment

Obviously if she tried to do the same against, for instance, the Unsullied, they wouldn't react in the same way as the dothraki. 

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59 minutes ago, divica said:

She did a completly brutal thing to the dothriaki and noone of them revolted. The show depicted it as some great moment that everbody present is grateful

No, the point is (1) Dothraki bow to power and strength and winners, and (2) they were in awe seeing a young lady standing in white-hot fire, living, like a goddess. Unimaginable. Unbelievable. They bowed to a religious moment convincing all of them that Daenerys is special, god-like, has more power than everyone else.

That was what this scene was supposed to convey.

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6 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

If I were to kill someone in retaliation for killing my pet, I'd rightfully go to prison for murder. Animals are not people, and peoples' lives are more valuable than animals' lives

I never said you wouldn't go to prison for it, nor that you shouldn't. But Daenerys has not as of yet killed any human for killing her dragon so I'm not sure what this line is meant to convey?

 

6 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

You might say, well dragons are an exception. But I would say that you might feel differently if you were to think hard about what it would have been like to have been one of those slave masters of Astapor when Dany betrayed her part of the bargain and slaughtered them all

I wouldn't say dragons are the exception but she didn't kill the slavers for killing or even injuring her dragon, she killed them for their cruelty & enslavement of other people. 

You aren't seriously trying to prove Daenerys is evil by saying the slavers are not are you? 

6 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

 

 If you're thinking that you wouldn't have been a slave master because slavery is bad, then what else would you have been?

Now you might say that you would have been a slave. But more likely you'll realize that's too obviously dishonest and anticipate the weakness of such a stance. So instead you might dodge the dilemma entirely by saying that you would be neither a slaver nor a slave, you would migrate to some place that doesn't practice slavery.

Tsk tsk. You're not taking the dilemma seriously. If there were only two possibilities, as most of the people in Astapor were either slaver or slave, which one would you be? The slaver or the slave?

If you answered slave, then you either don't think very highly of your ability to adapt and survive, or you aren't being honest with yourself

You presume too much. I don't have the slightest idea what circumstance fate would have put me in if I were in this situation. Of course I would like to say my moral ground is firm, & it is, & that I would never be a slaver nor a slave but guaranteed the people in these situations didn't ask to be there. What I can tell you is that I could never treat another human being with such indignity and I don't feel bad for the people who can & do treat people like this when someone gets out their fire breathing dragon & scorches them. 

 

6 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

Now that we've proven that the reason slavers are slavers is, in large part, due to the unavoidable necessities of their environment, then Dany's treatment of them begins to look a lot less like a righteous liberation and a lot more like a self-righteous little girl who didn't stop to consider every perspective before she set out to change the world

We have no way of knowing if the slavers actively put themselves in the positions they are in or were otherwise put there, I would imagine some of both but no it doesn't make her look like a self-righteous little girl at all. It makes her look like someone with empathy for the slaves & a means to free them from that imprisonment - so she uses it. To argue she is bad for frying the slavers but the slavers are not bad for disfiguring, torturing, humiliating, & murdering people on a regular basis is ridiculous. 

 

6 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

Was Astapor a city of villains? Was Yunkai? Meereen? Does being a slaver make someone a villain? If yes, would you consider Jorah a villain? If Jorah's involvement in slavery is not significant enough to earn him villainhood, exactly how much slavery must a person be involved in before he is a villain? Ten slaves sold? Ten slaves bought? A hundred?

It isn't the mere fact of owning slaves. It's the treatment of other human beings. Just like in RL there are people who make mistakes & people who enjoy the sadistic pleasure they get from hurting people. Do you not see the difference?

 

6 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

The purpose of prosaic justice isn't to give people what they deserve. I think the purpose is to stop the suffering.

I wasn't arguing the purpose of prosaic justice at all. I was only trying to say that while Daenerys has made some mistakes she isn't sadistic, her feelings are mostly understandable & that the argument that "animals lives are more valuable than humans" doesn't mean she shouldn't be upset or angry enough to want to hurt the people that have hurt her. 

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The wildly popular show has started covering its frontrunner female candidate in much the same way that Hillary Clinton was treated during the 2016 election, relitigating her worst mistakes, overlooking her accomplishments, and suggesting that perhaps we've always been wrong to like her.

aaand that's when i stop caring about your opinion. jesus christ cnn is cancer...

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57 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I never said you wouldn't go to prison for it, nor that you shouldn't. But Daenerys has not as of yet killed any human for killing her dragon so I'm not sure what this line is meant to convey?

It's meant to convey that, from many valid perspectives, Dany is the bad guy. The people and families she kills with her dragons would say that their lives are more valuable than the lives of any number of dragons, as you would too if you were them. If they had an opportunity to kill the dragons to save their families, they would take the opportunity without flinching, just as you would. You might dodge the dilemma by saying "No, I don't have a family" or "No, I would let my family die so that dragons can live." But I don't imagine that I need to point out the weakness of those arguments.

So now we've established that, if you were a slaver in Astapor, Yunkai or Meereen and you had the ability to kill the dragons, you would have killed them. Then there it is. We've just proven that human life is more valuable than dragon life, from every perspective that matters, because no person or group would elect to die over killing any number of dragons.

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I wouldn't say dragons are the exception but she didn't kill the slavers for killing or even injuring her dragon, she killed them for their cruelty & enslavement of other people.

She didn't kill them for either reason. Dany was faced with two options that were unacceptable to her. Either act in contradiction with her anti-slavery values and her motherly love of Drogon buy trading Drogon for an army of slaves, or, continue on her path without any army, as her brother tried and failed to do. Dany's betrayal and conquest of Astapor was done in defiance of that difficult decision. She's trying to have her cake and eat it too. "If I'm freeing the slaves, then I'm not a slaver." This way she gets to have an army, at the end of the day, benefiting from the fruits of slavery. And still be able to tell herself that she isn't partaking in the ugly tradition of slavery.

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You aren't seriously trying to prove Daenerys is evil by saying the slavers are not are you?

This isn't a zero sum game. One doesn't have to be innocent in order for the other to be evil, nor vice versa. Both Dany and the slavers are grey, as is the case with every person under the sun. What I'm pointing out is that the slavers are slavers, in large part, by virtue of simply having been born in Slaver's Bay. And that if you were the son or daughter of a slaver, you would be a slaver too. Unless you suppose that you're single-handedly going to change all of the social, religious, political and economic systems that hold up your civilization.

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You presume too much. I don't have the slightest idea what circumstance fate would have put me in if I were in this situation. Of course I would like to say my moral ground is firm, & it is, & that I would never be a slaver nor a slave but guaranteed the people in these situations didn't ask to be there.

I know exactly what circumstances fate would have put you in if you were in this situation. You were born there, as most of them were. Your beliefs and attitudes toward slavery would reflect exactly their beliefs and attitudes toward slavery, because those are the values you would have inherited from the only family and environment you have ever known.
 

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What I can tell you is that I could never treat another human being with such indignity and I don't feel bad for the people who can & do treat people like this when someone gets out their fire breathing dragon & scorches them.

With respect, I think that's naive and that you aren't taking the hypothetical seriously enough. People like Ned and Jon are the best rulers, in no small part, because of their ability to take the lives of people they can't see, don't like or don't quite understand, into their moral calculations.


 

 

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8 minutes ago, rustythesmith said:

<snip> Both Dany and the slavers are grey, as is the case with every person under the sun. <snip>

Listen, I'm all with putting moral choices into historical context, but Jesus Christ on a hot dog bun, slavers and the person who freed the slaves aren't "both grey." :o


 

 

 

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4 hours ago, Kajjo said:

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. 

That's the thing we can only make assumptions and it's a shame that we may never find out, especially not from the series to say the least.

4 hours ago, Kajjo said:

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

Another thing we agree on, it's lame indeed. He's definitely not selfless to say the least.

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4 hours ago, Kajjo said:

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.

True, that's why as I said in my previous reply to you he's definitely not selfless and his actions in a way contradict what he's doing in the background. Especially in regards to the plot so yeah the 'I serve the Realm' thing is daft.

4 hours ago, Kajjo said:

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.

He doesn't have to agree with her doing that, if she does in fact do that but then again what has he agreed on?

Dany will take action and whatever it may be he's not going to be satisfied. Varys has in a way confirmed that he's committed to stopping her.

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14 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

<snip> Both Dany and the slavers are grey, as is the case with every person under the sun. <snip>

Listen, I'm all with putting moral choices into historical context, but Jesus Christ on a hot dog bun, slavers and the person who freed the slaves aren't "both grey." :o

Think of two or three values that you inherited from your parents. Now imagine that I said that I'm going to kill you if you don't change your values to match my values.

Do you see the problem here? It doesn't actually matter what the values are. Whether they're pro-slavery, anti-slavery, racist, sexist, egalitarian, freedom of speech, the moral error that I am committing is the same regardless of the values: I shouldn't kill people for having different values than me. I should change your mind through diplomacy and by showing you a way that works better. That might take 7 years and it might take a lifetime, as Tyrion pointed out to Dany.

But Dany doesn't have that kind of time, right? She has a throne to get to.

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4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Yeah, well, he could also advise that they can hire a FM to go through the secret tunnels and kill Cersei.  Oh, what's that you say, there is alreaedy a FM in Winterfell who will do the kill for free?  Hmm.  But, no, doesn't think of that, no one does.  Because: plot.

Exactly, if only he did his job and advised so that he cold truly serve 'the Realm' he would find that the solution is pretty simple and that what he's convinced himself in regards to Dany and the burning of KL can be avoided.

Hiring a FM to kill a Queen is probably out of budget atm but as he's a 'spider' and knows everything surely he's aware of the FM they have among them, who *oh shock* also happens to have Cersei on a 'kill list.' He lacks basic communication skills and can't organise a single thing, the war could be over before it began if they sat back and waited for the FM to kill Cersei.

If they had done something along those lines then 'The Long Night' could have also been later.

Whilst adding the deaths they chose in-between as well as their go to, shock factor. 

However as you said: plot.

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