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If Dany becomes mad, it will cement the idea that all westerosi queens in their own right are unworthy.


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2 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

The fact is 100% percent of all they queens will be remembered as tyrants and mad and the cause of discord such as Rhaenyra who once was rhe Realms delight. Im not defending this from a feminist point of view since Im not one. But from a historical equivalent Dany should go down as an Elizabethean Queen who made kingly choices but it is remembered as an age of prosperity and progress. Have her die for a greater good or else but not make her a crazy woman for making the same choices in war as every other man there is.

Westeros doesn't have to have an Elizabeth copy/paste, and I'm not even sure that this is possible through Targaryens. Mainly because the author appears to have more important agenda he's working on:

“Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen, one of the series’ heroines] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world,” Martin said in 2011. “But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.” (x)

The Targaryens weakened Westeros so much it's not really possible to have a cultural renaissance where art, literature, or drama thrives under an Elizabethan monarch. The "Targaryen Camelot" focused on pragmatics of building roads. When rebellions are happening every 30 years or so its kind of difficult to get past that. I think he's depicting the "dark ages" (I know people have problems with that term but GRRM has used it). 

I think he did have a ruler closest to Elizabeth - Nymeria. As for women being tyrants and mad, men are also remembered that way. Because they did the same things. This makes progress for women in fiction, in an era when Hollywood thinks we just want "Badass Strong Women Kicking Ass!" Positive stereotypes are still stock, cardboard stereotypes. 

And regardless of what characters in-universe might think, readers don't have to uncritically accept what people in Westeros think. They can challenge (and are supposed to challenge) the text. 

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9 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

Not sure if fighting to get rid of Cersei, Euron and Qyburn is what I'd consider "unnecessary". 
The realm aren't exactly likely to prosper under the heels of two mad despots who only care about themselves, and their pet necromancer. 

Not at all the point. 

I'm not AT ALL saying they shouldn't fight. 

But you can consciously decide if you are fighting Cersei and her army or just burning the whole of KL down to get at Cersei.  The fact people are arguing to do that is mind blown to me....literally no care for the population that they claim Dany would be liberating.....:dunno: :bs:

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5 minutes ago, Wik said:

Not at all the point. 

I'm not AT ALL saying they shouldn't fight. 

But you can consciously decide if you are fighting Cersei and her army or just burning the whole of KL down to get at Cersei.  The fact people are arguing to do that is mind blown to me....literally no care for the population that they claim Dany would be liberating.....:dunno: :bs:

While this is true, Daenerys has yet to actually commit any atrocities.
She's always been good at saying one thing and then doing another (or doing nothing, just venting steam.)

Considering what she's currently going trough, her being angry, lonely, furious and vengeful makes complete sense. 
But it's a far cry from talking about something to actually do it. 

I will never defend Daenerys if she willingly burns down KL. 
But until she does...

 

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19 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Getting rid of Cersei & Co is necessary. But there are great non-war options for getting rid of Cersei personally some are right in front of Dany, but those might not get her the throne.  It's clear this about the IT for Dany because she reminds us every few seconds in case we forget. So yes, it's an unnecessary vanity war. 

Please explain. The great and plausible non war options. I cant see a single one.

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14 minutes ago, Wik said:

Not at all the point. 

I'm not AT ALL saying they shouldn't fight. 

But you can consciously decide if you are fighting Cersei and her army or just burning the whole of KL down to get at Cersei.  The fact people are arguing to do that is mind blown to me....literally no care for the population that they claim Dany would be liberating.....:dunno: :bs:

Realistically she would have to burn or capture the Red Keep no the whole of KL. This is where we saw Cersei made a human shield of maximum 10k people perhaps.

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3 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

Please explain. The great and plausible non war options. I cant see a single one.

Infiltrate KL with an assassin, maybe one who can change her face.  That's option 1.

Blockade KL and wait Cersei out, when the food runs out, the citizens will turn on her.  That's option 2

 

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1 minute ago, MinscS2 said:

While this is true, Daenerys has yet to actually commit any atrocities.
She's always been good at saying one thing and then doing another (or doing nothing, just venting steam.)

Considering what she's currently going trough, her being angry, lonely, furious and vengeful makes complete sense. 
But it's a far cry from talking about something to actually do it. 

I will never defend Daenerys if she willingly burns down KL. 
But until she does...

 

If this was actual human current events, I would agree with you 100%. 

But we know this is a show/story. Her arc is heading that way. We can all see the build up. Varys is also questioning her now. 

I am all for "you can't prosecute a crime that someone hasn't committed" but seems we are heading that way and several Dany supporters in this thread have voiced their opinion that she should just do it because Cersei is bad and the human casualty rate is not important....so while Dany hasn't done anything yet, she has some followers who already have voiced complete non care for those she would MURDER in the name of liberating them from Cersei....

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2 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Infiltrate KL with an assassin, maybe one who can change her face.  That's option 1.

Blockade KL and wait Cersei out, when the food runs out, the citizens will turn on her.  That's option 2

Daenerys, Tyrion and Varys have no way of knowing that arya is a FM though, so to their knowledge, this isn't an option.
(Could be rectified easily, but has yet to be.)

A blockade won't work, Euron has clear dominance of the seas and will shoot down drogon if he get's close. 

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Meet with the Iron Bank and try to flip the Gold Cloaks. Tell them Jon will rule and guarantee their debt - a nice, stable choice which is what they like. 

If Dany was truly invested in getting rid of tyrants as she says, she would allow Jon to take a front seat to allow him to do that. Can she work as a #2 to accomplish that goal? 

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2 minutes ago, Wik said:

If this was actual human current events, I would agree with you 100%. 

But we know this is a show/story. Her arc is heading that way. We can all see the build up. Varys is also questioning her now. 

<snip>

No, we've seen one episode where Daenerys appeared to be thinking and saying things that go against her 8-season character arc. She has't done anything momentous yet. Just because she said a few things in epi 4 doesn't mean she's going to unleash the ICBMs in epi 5.

You should realize by now that D&D have no qualms about being wildly inconsistent from episode to episode just to ratchet up the tension or set up a battle scene.

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5 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

Realistically she would have to burn or capture the Red Keep no the whole of KL. This is where we saw Cersei made a human shield of maximum 10k people perhaps.

Daenerys torched the khals in Vaes Dothrak.  She could pull a redo with Cersei and Qyburn in the throne room.

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3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Infiltrate KL with an assassin, maybe one who can change her face.  That's option 1.

Blockade KL and wait Cersei out, when the food runs out, the citizens will turn on her.  That's option 2

 

We know that the blockade would fail miserably IF and IF is a HUGE one here....but IF they stick to any historic context as the Iron Fleet would, who commands the water, be able to re-supply KL non stop. Now if the Iron Fleet moves like the Army at Winterfell, maybe the siege has a chance :lmao:

But they can easily assault the walls of the city, if we are trying to stick to a "normal" warfare type of approach. The city likely would revolt and cause more strain and issues for Cersei and company. It's not the "instant gratification" method, but it would be do-able. And a WHOLE let less loss of innocent lives of the population. 

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Just now, MinscS2 said:

Daenerys, Tyrion and Varys have no way of knowing that arya is a FM though, so to their knowledge, this isn't an option.
(Could be rectified easily, but has yet to be.)

A blockade won't work, Euron has clear dominance of the seas and will shoot down drogon if he get's close. 

Why not?  Sansa knows it.  Reasonably, which I realize the show isn't, unless we're going to make Sansa dumb again, knowing your sister is a faceless assassin with a bag of faces would be a huge asset in any military campaign.  Bran would also know.  Presumably, she would have told her brother as well.  Even if Varys and Tyrion don't know she's a FM, which would be stupid, they would still see the evidence of her assassin skills and might even ask her if she's been by the Twins lately. LOL.

Hmmm.  Maybe Dany should get some armor for Drogon, and wait for a cloudy day, swoop in and dracarys the whole fleet.  Not that difficult. 

Look,the show abandoned any pretense of military strategy that makes sense when Dany arrived in Westeros with overwhelming force and didn't show up at KL with three dragons, all the Dothraki, the unsullied and Yara's fleet and blockade KL at that time.  So, whatever happens, it isn't going to be sensible, but dumb.  Cersei frankly should have shot them all last episode standing out there like idiots with all those massive crossbows going to waste.

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4 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Look,the show abandoned any pretense of military strategy that makes sense when Dany arrived in Westeros with overwhelming force and didn't show up at KL with three dragons, all the Dothraki, the unsullied and Yara's fleet and blockade KL at that time.  So, whatever happens, it isn't going to be sensible, but dumb.  Cersei frankly should have shot them all last episode standing out there like idiots with all those massive crossbows going to waste.

Agreed. Logic left the game years ago. 

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9 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

Please explain. The great and plausible non war options. I cant see a single one.

I replied in an above post. If Arya can take care of the NK, she can handle Cersei. Work something out with Jaime. Get the IB on board (they have access to FM themselves). Get someone on the inside to turn on Cersei. Bronn is certainly transactional. Qyburn only cares about his experiments. We already know it's easy to sneak into the Red Keep. 

You don't think we were given Arya going after Cersei, the Hound going for the Mountain, and Jaime possibly going to kill Cersei (we all know the valonqar prophesy even if it's not in the show) in conjunction with Dany's fire and blood war for no reason, do you? 

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4 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

No, we've seen one episode where Daenerys appeared to be thinking and saying things that go against her 8-season character arc. She has't done anything momentous yet. Just because she said a few things in epi 4 doesn't mean she's going to unleash the ICBMs in epi 5.

You should realize by now that D&D have no qualms about being wildly inconsistent from episode to episode just to ratchet up the tension or set up a battle scene.

Ok, won't argue with any of that lol

BUT we know that SOMETHING is going to happen between Dany and Jon. They aren't going to just go back to sleeping with each other, making children and loving each other like episode 1 or 2.....It hasn't been good writing but they have slowly been driving a wedge between Jon and Dany. And they took great lengths to show HOW upset Dany was, especially after her 2nd child/dragon was killed. 

You are right though, they could just show next episode with Dany and Cersei drinking tea together and D&D would have a post show video about, "We thought since no one saw it coming, it would be the best way to go." lol

BUT I do think, this late in the series, they have their backs to the wall and have to wrap this stuff up and the only real way you would see Jon and Dany divide 100% is death or something crazy like Dany losing her shit and trying to burn KL down to "beat" Cersei. 

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My prediction - Just when it looks like Dany is going to go full Tagarian and burn KL to the ground, Cersi will be killed by either Jamie or Arya, and everyone else on Cersi's side will surrender.

Jon will then take the black to end his claim to the throne and head North to the Willings, inspiring Dany to melt the IT down, and actually start working to break the wheel.

 

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Just now, olibar said:

My prediction - Just when it looks like Dany is going to go full Tagarian and burn KL to the ground, Cersi will be killed by either Jamie or Arya, and everyone else on Cersi's side will surrender.

Jon will then take the black to end his claim to the throne and head North to the Willings, inspiring Dany to melt the IT down, and actually start working to break the wheel.

Love it. Won't happen, way to happy an ending. 

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1 hour ago, Wik said:

The TV series has sucked. It's pretty obvious. ESPECIALLY this season. It's been OMG bad. Total hack BS. 

That being said, I have always maintained that Dany wouldn't survive the series and I assume that in the books we get a much more in depth sense of her and why she starts down a negative road. The show has none of that ability because of poor writing and time crunches. 

I think her arc in the books will devolve much slower and have much more reason and logic (no pun intended) as to why she goes mad. 

I agree that the issue is season 7-8 having such accelerated pacing resulting in the proper development of her arc being lost.

1 hour ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

Im still baffled what was the point of "We have to tell him" and truth playing. He wasn't AA or Tptwp. Was the only reason is because he wants his bro on the Iron throne. Really? 

No, there are some hints but they are to subtle. D&D doing that interview about how in the original pilot no one knew Jamie and Cersei were related has me thinking they've made that same mistake again. But, I think people in world, and thus the fandom have misunderstood the prophecies. But, that links to a different post, so I'll explain more when I get there.

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I'm not following. In a show that was praised for having female characters be just as dark as the men, and when the author says he treats women just like men, how is any of this shocking? GRRM isn't writing a feminist bible. It would be hypocritical to have women receive a "happy ending" even if they did the same horrible things men did, just because they're women. Dany HAS ruled. Cersei HAS ruled. So there have been female queens in story. That glass ceiling has already been broken. I'm not sure what else you want from the story, unless its to have women get a special pass because they're women? GRRM was never writing that kind of work. 

 

I agree, he is writing around the characters, and the issue this season is that D&D are rushing so much that all sense of character has been lost, so the plot is in the driver seat and that can make it feel like a character like Dany is being vilified. Some well used character beats would have helped a lot, but they were either absent or not impactful enough to make this feel believable. 

1 hour ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

How do you propose Jon would deal with Cersei. Leave her be? There isn't a solution where innocents don't die in warfare and capturing a city.

For starters care enough about the men to let them re-group. Send riders or ravens to all the other Lords explaining the situation, and denouncing the Iron throne, and Kings Landing. Declare Winterfell the new capital, defend and reinforce the Neck and wait. Why would this result in less death? Cersei wouldn't have a million hostages. Cersei's claims of them just wanting to usurp her and kill the people would be proven false. If she wants to do anything she would have to come to them, have to face their dug in rested troops, not the other way around. If the other houses back them and not her, she has no food, no supplies, no taxes for income and her army is sellswords. It wouldn't be quick, but it would be more effective and cost less lives. They don't need to go in and kill her, they just need to take her power, you know choke her off at the neck... 

1 hour ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

The fact is 100% percent of all they queens will be remembered as tyrants and mad and the cause of discord such as Rhaenyra who once was rhe Realms delight. Im not defending this from a feminist point of view since Im not one. But from a historical equivalent Dany should go down as an Elizabethean Queen who made kingly choices but it is remembered as an age of prosperity and progress. Have her die for a greater good or else but not make her a crazy woman for making the same choices in war as every other man there is.

We don't know how she would be remembered in world. It's fans that have labeled her as mad, and Cersei no doubt. But if Jon wins he writes the history. He wouldn't vilify her. He'd explain the tragic nature of it all, her good intention, he's not the type to allow her name to dragged though the mud.

1 hour ago, Lollygag said:

This. 

GRRM was consciencous (sp) objector. He's surely not writing a theme about the ends justify the means, some innocent casualties are ok, war...meh, without making Dany into a villain. 

Episode 4 opens with those who died in a necessary war and at the end we gets deaths in an unnecessary vanity war. The contrast is intentional. 

I agree with you on GRRM's intent, but I think D&D did a poor job of conveying this message. I think we are supposed to feel for her, and understand her actions despite knowing that they are wrong, but they seem to be forcing her to the brink to quickly for viewers to fully empathize.

48 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

“Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen, one of the series’ heroines] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world,” Martin said in 2011. “But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.” (x)

The Targaryens weakened Westeros so much it's not really possible to have a cultural renaissance where art, literature, or drama thrives under an Elizabethan monarch. The "Targaryen Camelot" focused on pragmatics of building roads. When rebellions are happening every 30 years or so its kind of difficult to get past that. I think he's depicting the "dark ages" (I know people have problems with that term but GRRM has used it). 

I think he did have a ruler closest to Elizabeth - Nymeria. As for women being tyrants and mad, men are also remembered that way. Because they did the same things. This makes progress for women in fiction, in an era when Hollywood thinks we just want "Badass Strong Women Kicking Ass!" Positive stereotypes are still stock, cardboard stereotypes. 

And regardless of what characters in-universe might think, readers don't have to uncritically accept what people in Westeros think. They can challenge (and are supposed to challenge) the text. 

I think GRRM using the Dark ages and Age of enlightenment is what the prophecies are really about, I think we with our real world knowledge are supposed to make the leap that light bringer means bringing enlightenment, and red sword is the ruler that brings this. Red Dragon Ruler. Mel didn't die before the literal dawn after all. So if the Prince that was promised still hasn't brought the Dawn, Bran worrying about who Jon is, since it impacts the fate of the people in Westeros makes sense. The Arya thing was supposed to be our clue that we all got it wrong. I just wish D&D handled it better so that GRRM's intended anti war themes weren't lost. That his showing painstakingly what he thinks makes a good ruler wasn't lost (FYI it's not a man that is stupid, that is a show only construct that boggles my mind). I also wish they wrote the female characters better since this loss of depth, and indelicate handling of their arcs that are supposed to show us that the system is faulty and drove these women to such great length being lost is what leads to many fans thinking that the story is sexist. But, what Varys said, should have hinted at the fact that the Lords will only follow a man until someone forces them to change, by changing the rules. (remember that Tywin quote about Aegon changing the rules) Jon will change the rules, place women in roles of power like wardeness of the North. But, the show mishandled it, so fans will hate it all the same... 

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