Daenerys: Analysis of psychology and foreshadowing

[Kajjo]

First of all, thank you very much for discussing so reasonable and thoughtfully, instead of all this whining, moaning and hating. I really appreciate your seriousness and your thoughts.

2 hours ago, a girl knows nothing said:

so she decides to use fear to establish her rule instead. Her words to Jon sum this up nicely: Let it be fear.

Yes, you could be right. It's really possible. I quoted "So, let it be fear!" already as one of the most important quote oaf S8E05 and maybe you actually saw the whole scope of it.

Personally, I believe the actress showed as snapping, showed us emotions up to the limit. But yes, it might have been the conflict between her emotions and the bitter decision to instill fear. That would fit, too.

If you were right, this means she did not turn mad but evil. This might still be in sync with some sort of madness, but if she did deliberately cause all this horrors, that would be extremely bad sign for her personality, even much worse than I thought.

However, for this being a deliberate decision, it is strange that she not only destroyed parts of King's Landing and killed very many soldiers and some civilians, but no she clearly targets civilians and intentionally kills young children, mothers, common folk. This goes beyond instilling fears.

So maybe we are both right: She wanted to rule with fear, after love obviously was no choice anymore, but than got carried away, snapped and did much more horrors than she might have chosen with a clear and sane mind.

2 hours ago, a girl knows nothing said:

She chose the latter I believe because in her experience she has found fear (and using fire/her dragon) to be highly effective in achieving her goals and gaining respect and recognition as a powerful leader.

That's true.

2 hours ago, a girl knows nothing said:

When the bells started to ring, she said goodbye to her old self (the one who would never harm innocent people) and her old ideals and decided to embrace her ruthless side instead. By doing so she demonstrates the extent of her power and the lengths she is willing to go to solidify her rule. She is not to be messed with, so bend the knee.

That would be a real extreme. I still tend to believe in a mixture of actually wanting to instill fear, but snapping and overdoing it. What do you think?

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Kajjo said:

First of all, thank you very much for discussing so reasonable and thoughtfully, instead of all this whining, moaning and hating. I really appreciate your seriousness and your thoughts.

Yes, you could be right. It's really possible. I quoted "So, let it be fear!" already as one of the most important quote oaf S8E05 and maybe you actually saw the whole scope of it.

Personally, I believe the actress showed as snapping, showed us emotions up to the limit. But yes, it might have been the conflict between her emotions and the bitter decision to instill fear. That would fit, too.

If you were right, this means she did not turn mad but evil. This might still be in sync with some sort of madness, but if she did deliberately cause all this horrors, that would be extremely bad sign for her personality, even much worse than I thought.

However, for this being a deliberate decision, it is strange that she not only destroyed parts of King's Landing and killed very many soldiers and some civilians, but no she clearly targets civilians and intentionally kills young children, mothers, common folk. This goes beyond instilling fears.

So maybe we are both right: She wanted to rule with fear, after love obviously was no choice anymore, but than got carried away, snapped and did much more horrors than she might have chosen with a clear and sane mind.

That's true.

That would be a real extreme. I still tend to believe in a mixture of actually wanting to instill fear, but snapping and overdoing it. What do you think?

"Let them hate me so long as they fear me", "mercy is cowardice" have much the same meaning.

[Kajjo]

2 hours ago, madhikun said:

Sansa told her that her troops needed more rest (try to tell me Sansa wasn't stalling to play more politics

Hm, yeah, there might have been some stalling, but mainly this was again supposed the show us the smart and caring side of Sansa who took her people serious. Quite the contrary to Daenerys who only sees her own aims and others are more means to accomplish them.

2 hours ago, madhikun said:

because the writers didn't realize how liked Dany was going to be

Yes, absolutely right. But honestly, that never should be a reason to change a storyline. A story is not about expectations of the masses, but at the author's decretion. Storylines are not subject to political discussion. That would be really horrible. There is too much political correctness around anyway. We need more pragmatism, not pseudo-correctness. Women can be as evil as man.

[Zumbs]

I had expected Jamie to reach Cersei before the battle, describing Tyrions plan. Then Cersei (being Cersei) would have made a plan along the lines of feigning surrender, but mining the area around the gates with wild fire, causing a significant destruction of Daenerys' army, followed by an attack by the Lannister army and the Golden Company, who had been hiding in civilian clothes.

That would also give Daenerys a reason to snap that would be somewhat relatable and fit with her personality and story arc. As it stands, she comes across as a cruel madwoman that needs to be put down. Which is likely to happen in the next episode.

On a side note: Who ordered the bells? Jamie never made it to Cersei, and I did not see Cersei ordering the surrender.

[BlackLightning]

2 minutes ago, Zumbs said:

I had expected Jamie to reach Cersei before the battle, describing Tyrions plan. Then Cersei (being Cersei) would have made a plan along the lines of feigning surrender, but mining the area around the gates with wild fire, causing a significant destruction of Daenerys' army, followed by an attack by the Lannister army and the Golden Company, who had been hiding in civilian clothes.

That would also give Daenerys a reason to snap that would be somewhat relatable and fit with her personality and story arc. As it stands, she comes across as a cruel madwoman that needs to be put down. Which is likely to happen in the next episode.

On a side note: Who ordered the bells? Jamie never made it to Cersei, and I did not see Cersei ordering the surrender.

That's the problem.

No one ordered the bells. There was no official surrender from the Red Keep.

No one even knows who rung the bells.

[Kajjo]

2 hours ago, Wsc48 said:

Heroic Cersei, died trying to protect King's Landing from the genocidal foreigner. 

There was nothing heroic about Cersei. Not at all. She played all her cards and lost. In the end she whimpers in the catacombs, doesn't want to die that cheap and simple.She lost everything. Cersei has never been heroic. 

[Tyrion1991]

I don’t care.

Fundamentally if you’ve invested in the character then all of that has been only to serve a hack heel switch. Jorah saving Dany sure looks very foolish now. I can never watch or read those scenes without this event colouring it.

The only people who think it’s great are the Stark and Stannis fanboys who have always hated Daenerys and have wanted her to amount to nothing for the entire series. Well you have your wish. The writers and George have sure hell made me look a fool. Clap clap. Bravo. 

Am I supposed to feel anything? Is there a moral point to all this? No, it’s a pointless setup just so the Starks get the ultimate win and we have Jon or some Stark on the Iron Throne. Now I have to wait for Arya or Jon to kill her (with Jorahs sword to add insult to injury). Great, your budget Aragorn gets to be King. Clap clap.

[Wsc48]

3 minutes ago, Kajjo said:

There was nothing heroic about Cersei. Not at all. She played all her cards and lost. In the end she whimpers in the catacombs, doesn't want to die that cheap and simple.She lost everything. Cersei has never been heroic. 

Context. Compared to Dany she's extremely heroic. She at least mounted a defense, yes?

[Hodor's Dragon]

25 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It's not 180 degrees on her previous character. It's probably about 45 degrees on her previous character.  Veering off in a worse direction, rather than doing a U-Turn.

1. She kills her enemies horribly, from Season 1 onwards.   By burning them alive, locking them in a vault to stave, or crucifying them.

2. Some of those enemies may be innocent (like Hizdahr's father) or potentially innocent (like the nobleman who was fed to Drogon) or have some justification for their actions (like the Tarlys, or Mirri Maz Duur).  Most of her victims, though, have been arseholes (like Kraznys), or people we don't care about (eg random bystanders at Astapor).  Now, we see what happens when she uses her methods against people who are not arseholes.

3. She has frequently spoken of razing cities to the ground, (eg her pep-talk to the Dothraki after she killed the Khals) or her discussions with Tyrion at Meereen, and her advisors in Season 7 and 8.  She believes in collective punishment.  Up until now, she has been dissuaded.  And the upshot of being dissuaded from brining fire and blood to Kings Landing at the outset was that she lost two dragons, a large proportion of her armed forces, and her best friend.  She's lost out from playing nice.  Whereas she's always won in the past, by bringing fire and blood to her enemies.  She's run out of patience with bad advisers.

4. She's survived numerous assassination attempts, and has suffered  from traitors.  Doreah, Varys, Jorah (later forgiven) and (she fears) Jon and Tyrion have betrayed her.  Now is the time to instil a bit of terror in her subjects, and those who are close to her.

5. She's seen that in Westeros, she's viewed with indifference ranging to hostility.  If she can't be loved, then she'll be feared.  She realises that it's better to be feared than to be loved - but she overlooks the part about not being hated. 

Could this all have been better executed?  Yes, I think so.  But, I don't think her decision to burn part of Kings Landing has just arrived out of nowhere.

Harsh punishment: yes, she's done harsh punishment, but always for a reason.

Talked about razing cities, other harsh stuff? Yeah, she's used threats to get what she wanted.

What she has never done is kill people for no reason. That's the crux of the matter. She killed massive numbers of people, and made the rest of the city's population homeless with nowhere to go, and she did it for no reason other than "to be feared," which is an objective that could be achieved much more effectively by less destructive means.

That's a 180. It's the difference between good and evil, too, which is what makes it hard to swallow.

[Kajjo]

2 hours ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

with absolutely no foreshadowing she would ever do anything even remotely like what she actually did

This is simply not true. There has been a lot of foreshadowing throughout the series, S1 to S8. You claim of "absolutely no" is ridiculous. No further discussion.

[snow is the man]

6 hours ago, Kajjo said:

I don't see much defense. I see more delusion and avoiding reality. Claiming the book will be different in such a fundamental part and attacking GRRM's storyline. 

This arc is great and the storyline phantastic. Like it or not.

I don't see dany fans defending her. Most like myself are furious because it made no sense for her to do what she did. If she had gone after cersi and burned the red keep down after the surrender then yeah it would have made sense and could have previous forshadowing. However she specifically went after civilians and destroyed the city AND attacked the red keep LAST! None of it makes sense and is way out of character.  I don't see anyone "defending" dany. They are saying it was way out of character and made no sense and getting angry at the show runners.

[Hodor's Dragon]

Just now, Kajjo said:

This is simply not true. There has been a lot of foreshadowing throughout the series, S1 to S8. You claim of "absolutely no" is ridiculous. No further discussion.

Well here you are again, just saying there was foreshadowing without actually identifying any.

I've challenged you again and again in this thread to name an instance of foreshadowing that Daenerys would kill large numbers of people for no reason but to be feared, yet here we are on page 11, there has been nothing, not one example, and your response is "[t]here has been a lot of foreshadowing.... No further discussion." 

Sounds like waving the white flag to me.

[Saturno]

It does not make sense to "CHOOSE FEAR" pointed towards the smallfolk before doing it against Cersei. By killing random people in the streets she is producing far less fear than she would by destroying the SEAT OF POWER with the queen inside. Let's get this straight... even if she wants to kill ONLY smallfolk and AS MANY AS SHE CAN... the Red Keep is the place where the majority of smallfolk are concentrated on the same place. We are shown this, waves of people seeking refuge withint the walls.... not all the population, but it is by far the single spot with the highest concentration.

There is NO EXCUSE FOR DANY TO NOT GO STRAIGHT FOR THE RED KEEP!

[Cas Stark]

7 minutes ago, snow is the man said:

I don't see dany fans defending her. Most like myself are furious because it made no sense for her to do what she did. If she had gone after cersi and burned the red keep down after the surrender then yeah it would have made sense and could have previous forshadowing. However she specifically went after civilians and destroyed the city AND attacked the red keep LAST! None of it makes sense and is way out of character.  I don't see anyone "defending" dany. They are saying it was way out of character and made no sense and getting angry at the show runners.

I'm not sure it's really out of  character, it was done poorly.  In hindsight we can realize that having everyone in the North hate and distrust her on sight was supposed to show is that she is going to get a frosty reception in Westeros as a whole...but it was done poorly, so it really reflected more badly on the North and the Starks, but I presume the goal was to show us that she's going to get a chilly reception the closer she gets to her life's goal.

Dany has always, always defaulted to fire and blood, and she basically gives her reason at the beginning of the episode, the slaves in Meereen fought their tyranny when given a chance, but the people of KL didn't, and so she deems them expendable, and she has a point, as they should have ousted Cersei after she blew up the sept.

[divica]

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I'm not sure it's really out of  character, it was done poorly.  In hindsight we can realize that having everyone in the North hate and distrust her on sight was supposed to show is that she is going to get a frosty reception in Westeros as a whole...but it was done poorly, so it really reflected more badly on the North and the Starks, but I presume the goal was to show us that she's going to get a chilly reception the closer she gets to her life's goal.

Dany has always, always defaulted to fire and blood, and she basically gives her reason at the beginning of the episode, the slaves in Meereen fought their tyranny when given a chance, but the people of KL didn't, and so she deems them expendable, and she has a point, as they should have ousted Cersei after she blew up the sept.

But the problem is that in the previous season she was acepted by dorne and the reach… I think the big problem of the season is that they prepared us for the show to go in a direction and in the end all characters completly change and we go in the oposite direction. It just doesn t fit the story the have been building.

 

And the people in KL surrendered to her! they became her people! And she just decided to kill them all! Not even aerys the mad did this! And aerys super mad! This just doesn t link with the story so far...

[snow is the man]

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I'm not sure it's really out of  character, it was done poorly.  In hindsight we can realize that having everyone in the North hate and distrust her on sight was supposed to show is that she is going to get a frosty reception in Westeros as a whole...but it was done poorly, so it really reflected more badly on the North and the Starks, but I presume the goal was to show us that she's going to get a chilly reception the closer she gets to her life's goal.

Dany has always, always defaulted to fire and blood, and she basically gives her reason at the beginning of the episode, the slaves in Meereen fought their tyranny when given a chance, but the people of KL didn't, and so she deems them expendable, and she has a point, as they should have ousted Cersei after she blew up the sept.

Then why TARGET the civilians. Again her burning the red keep down after the surrender in a fit of range would have made some sense and showed how she had changed and gone mad since she was willing to kill all those people in order to kill cersei. Instead she targets the civilians first and then hits the red keep as an after thought.

 

Also while she often resorted to fire and blood it was usually to an "understandable"  degree. Not saying I agree with her on them but even though some were brutal they made sense. The masters she killed in mereeden was brutal but made sense. Her exiling jorah even after he helped her made sense. Her burning the tarly's was brutal but  made sense this was just stupid and over the top because they wanted to have her go completly evil and to have the shock value. No other reason and it made no sense.

[snow is the man]

Just now, divica said:

But the problem is that in the previous season she was acepted by dorne and the reach… I think the big problem of the season is that they prepared us for the show to go in a direction and in the end all characters completly change and we go in the oposite direction. It just doesn t fit the story the have been building.

 

And the people in KL surrendered to her! they became her people! And she just decided to kill them all! Not even aerys the mad did this! And aerys super mad! This just doesn t link with the story so far...

It makes no sense. And yeah i have said this makes her worse then aerys since he had lost and was doing a mixture of "I'll take you all with me" and a "if I can't have it nobody can". Dany had won. The iron fleet was gone and the lannister soldiers had given up and the golden company was decimated.

If she had attacked the red keep after the surrender in order to kill cersei in a fit of rage at the cost of the human shields that would have made some sense. This was just stupid and completly out of character.

[Kajjo]

3 minutes ago, snow is the man said:

this was just stupid and over the top

Madness is the opposite of sanity and reason. 

[Sigella]

Burning Kings Landing is a pretty rational choice given Dany's experiences in Slavers Bay and acute grief. She conquered Mereen "softly"* and her rule there was crumbling up until she actually really defeated them with dragons and dothraki. I suppose how long it took for the defenders to ring the bells reminded her of the Sons of the Harpy and what kind of rule she had to look forward to not actually really defeating them.

While watching the moment they finally ring the bells my gut feeling was "its a trap" so its not out of the realm of possibility that Dany thought so as well.

It wasn't Dany who tried to hide behind a human shield after aggressively provoking the enemy. Being goaded into cruelty is dumb, but if you think your life is on the line most of us would use brutality out of survival instinct and not by choice.

 

I keep thinking this must be the cruelest act by any Targ ever. Maegor, Aegon tC and Aerys doesn't touch this death toll. But if you take a close look at them their notabie deeds have patterns:

-Aegon I; burns thousands of soldiers in the field of fire and war against Dorne (soldiers and civilians) for building his iron throne and revenge for Rhaenys.

 -Maegor the Cruel; mass-murdered the builders who built the Red Keep and burnt the Sept of Remembrance (hundreds of builders and thousands of pious soldiers) for secrecy and security.

-Aerys; torturing people (anyone he could make an excuse to burn; all of Kings Landing included) to enjoy sadism and pyromania.

-Dany: burning half** the population of Kings Landing (soldiers and human shield-civilians) to get the iron throne and get revenge for her child and best friends.

Its obvious that she pairs with Aegon rather the others. Remember he burned every castle in Dorne at least once after they killed Rhaenys. Their motivations are the exact same. Wants to rule Westeros and avenge death. If Aegon tC wasn't mad she isn't either. Not yet at least. 

Aerys and Maegor differ markedly by their pettiness. Massmurder over some secret tunnels or torture because you get off on it is both sillyshly petty. Aerys did burn some who plotted against him and Maegor had a strong military opposition in the Sept, but its the petty stuff that really sets them apart.

 

I would agree that pursuing the rule under the given circumstances constitutes a really crazy choice but lust for power doesn't make someone crazy in a real sense.

*I'm not saying crucifying people is soft - but that sad story was a Nürnberg trial medieval-style. The people crucified had themselves ordered the crucifixion of a hundred children for crying out loud, it's one of a few rare moral exceptions when a horrible brutal way of justice isn't as bad as doing nothing like. Can't imagine anyone who wants crucifiers of children going unpunished and I can't honestly blame anyone who takes excessive action against such either.

**Or by show makers death-logic this season say 5%. Or maybe they will subvert out expectations  and make like she killed all of them? Exact number is beside the point anyway, one murdered civilian is bad enough.

[snow is the man]

Just now, Kajjo said:

Madness is the opposite of sanity and reason. 

So she goes from "targeted strikes" in the beggining to hearing the bells of surrender and going BURN THEM ALL and lets hit the red keep last. This goes beyond madness and is just horrific writing.