Daenerys: Analysis of psychology and foreshadowing

[starklover]

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

I'd add:-

1. Feeding a nobleman to her dragons to frighten the others

2. Forcing Hizdhar to marry her, at the same time as belittling him

3. Going into a meeting with the Dothraki Khals with the intention of burning them alive (Jorah and Daario barred the door behind her) and then doing so

4. Her pep talk to the Dothraki riders afterwards, about tearing down the stone houses and killing the men in their iron suits

5. Cutting off Daario as if he meant nothing to her

6.  Giving the Tarlys' soldiers the choice of turn or burn

7. Wanting to raze the Red Keep, and being talked out of by Tyrion, only to find out that the attack on Casterly Rock was pointless.

8.  Her speech to Jon Snow about "faith in myself".

The cruel, ruthless, approach has worked, so far, when she's adopted it.  The merciful, restrained, approach, not so much.

Most of her victims, in earlier series, were either arseholes or people we didn't care about.  Now, they're people we care about more.  

 

i agree.

[Theda Baratheon]

This episode felt the most GRMM in a long time. This felt like his character, even if badly written by D&D. Clarke was fantastic. If you get over how rushed it was it makes narrative and thematic sense - and it’s such a masterful move on GRRM’s part - this will make rereads of the series that much more tragic and brilliant.

[darksellsword]

1 hour ago, TwiceBorn said:

It is a great observation that narcissist rage is not coherent with the results of standardized personality tests that involve emotional stability scale. However we must ask ourselves the methodological question: how the test is performed. It usually measures how often the patient expresses feelings of anxiety: worry, fear, anger, pain, envy, guilt, loneliness. Danny expresses them a lot lately. But psychopath does not seem to experience worry, guilt or loneliness. They sometimes report experiencing slight fear, pain or envy but they seek more stimuli here and they actually indulge in anger, unlike most people. Also they are unlike affective murderers who "snap", because affective murderer feels guilt over his anger and will repress it and regret it afterwards. But I don't believe that Dany was affective during her killing spree.

To prove that Dany is narcissist psychopath you'd have to show me that she enjoyed killing or torturing people and has no regrets. Viserys OK, but Dany?

Is lack of empathy exhibited by mourning loss of friends? Isn't desire to be loved/admired part of every human being? Don't we all get delusional or envious sometimes, especially when something extraordinary happens? And was it Dany who enjoyed and celebrated violence or the audience?

Also there is a kind of drive to accuse mass murderers of psychopathy although this is never proved and in cases where the murderer was under prior observation there was no such diagnosis.

Excellent analysis, a lot of food for thought

[darksellsword]

3 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

This episode felt the most GRMM in a long time. This felt like his character, even if badly written by D&D. Clarke was fantastic. If you get over how rushed it was it makes narrative and thematic sense - and it’s such a masterful move on GRRM’s part - this will make rereads of the series that much more tragic and brilliant.

I agree wholeheartedly . I think that is the only conclusion anyone can come away with from this.

[Arakan]

6 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I always knew she would be a Mad Queen. The show did it in a rushed, simplistic way that didn’t feel as earned as I expected her eventual descent in the books (that we will likely never could) would but it still rang true to the character that I have known for years. On page and off screen, it made sense to me. 

Absolutely. All the indications where there since 2000. 

[Theda Baratheon]

2 minutes ago, darksellsword said:

I agree wholeheartedly . I think that is the only conclusion anyone can come away with from this.

 

1 minute ago, Arakan said:

Absolutely. All the indications where there since 2000. 

I know people wanted her to be cute and kick ass with dragons heck yeah!!! But she came with fire and blood and she’s been heading this way since her introduction which makes her character, in retrospect, although not the most fun to read, one of the most brilliant and tragic. 

[Arakan]

Just now, Theda Baratheon said:

 

I know people wanted her to be cute and kick ass with dragons heck yeah!!! But she came with fire and blood and she’s been heading this way since her introduction which makes her character, in retrospect, although not the most fun to read, one of the most brilliant and tragic. 

You remember all those fiery discussions whether Dany committed genocide in Astapior or not? Yes, the good masters were cruel and loathsome human beings but the indiscriminate mass killings of a whole class of people (based on their clothing), without even checking who was involved or not in the slave trade, can never be a good beginning. Some of us could see were that path ends and some were blinded by wishful thinking, very selective perception and rationalization. KL is simply the logical culmination and the end of the road she started with Mirri Maaz Dur and Astapor. 

[Theda Baratheon]

She knew she had fear & her messiah complex and entitlement had her furious that the peasants of kings landing didn’t rightfully bow down to her as their queen. People say she’s so good because she freed slaves, she loved the feeling of being worshipped because it fed into her messiah complex but she knew she wasn’t going to get that same high from kings landing and so she did the next best thing, if she can’t have love then fear. 

[The One Who Kneels]

57 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Cool. 

So you are agreeing that Dany is no better than all those „evil“ Westerosi war mongerers like Tywin or Roose Bolton? Thank you for making my point. 

Executing lords who refuse to bend the knee or go to the Wall after they side against you in war is certainly not what makes Tywin or Roose Bolton evil. 

[BlueNightzx]

the way I see it, she just didn't accept their surrenderThey took a dragon for her, one of her sons, they refused her, as a monarch, as a queenJon Snow refused her romantically, they killed her dearest friend and confidant.she had no love, no friends, no family, but at least she could get revenge,

at least she could enjoy a fight against her enemies and they denied that to her as well, after they took all of that from her, they wanted to take her revenge out of her too, for all the years of suffering in essos.And she was just not able to accept it, neither did grey worm so I don't see  an insane behavior, 

it was petty, vindictive, and morally awful and heinous, which tarnished her virtues and good actions to this point.but as they've pointed, at this point, the lives as westerosi people means nothing to her, they're not her children, nor subjects.

if she was really insane, she would start attacking even her own troops and supporters, so to me was just a very angry and pissed Targaryen.

[Arakan]

16 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

Executing lords who refuse to bend the knee or go to the Wall after they side against you in war is certainly not what makes Tywin or Roose Bolton evil. 

Please stop this farce about taking the black option. That was Tyrion’s idea, not Dany‘s. For her it was convert or die. 

Anyway it’s useless to discuss this topic with Die Hard Dany fans. All perception is subjective and selective in the end until of course the breaking point is reached where no denial is possible anymore (one should assume). KL was this breaking point. Then comes the rage and outcry. This is exactly what we see across the Internet and media with all those Dany fans. It can’t be what cannot be. 

So many have crowned Dany as this badass selfempowering feminist icon that they chose to willfully ignore her dark personality and character traits.

 

[BlueNightzx]

I don't like show dany, and was never much a fan of book dany, but they made an awful job with her in this season, this was not the way to display her descent into "madness".

[darksellsword]

I think it is pretty obvious that Daenerys turning bad was Georges big twist he has referred to for the ending many times. If it were something that was so foreshadowed hinted at etc it wouldn't be described as a twist. You can view much of Daenerys actions as a restorative journey, a girl sold into slavery acting out of conscience to make lives better for those she liberated all while battling against her inherited madness and instincts towards violence. You can also view it as the rise of a Tyranical foe either as you are reading her story from the beginning or in hindsight but to say it was always going to be this way just because you guessed correctly when the coin was tossed is ridiculous. The plot development is genius from Georges storytelling point of view but the showrunners blew it, they left it way too late, 1 episode before the end is the first time they have Daenerys killing any innocent people and it is a massacre. I don't blame anyone for feeling blindsided

[Hodor's Dragon]

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

<snip>Yes, the good masters were cruel and loathsome human beings but the indiscriminate mass killings of a whole class of people (based on their clothing), without even checking who was involved or not in the slave trade, can never be a good beginning. <snip>

Can you give me another realistic beginning to the enterprise?

Sure - OF COURSE it would be better to give everybody due process, use soft powers like persuasion, perhaps provide job training to the masters as they were replaced. . . .

But let's get real. That was a one-time shot at slaughtering the masters and freeing the slaves. Either you put the Unsullied and dragons to work on the spot while the masters are vulnerable or you don't. There is no "checking" to see who is involved like they're all gonna just queue up to be "checked." If you pass you lose Drogon and the slaves stay slaves. But if you act and win you have all your dragons, you have an army, the slaves are freed, and the millenia old circle of slavery in Slaver's Bay has a fighting chance to be erased.

 

[darksellsword]

1 minute ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

Can you give me another realistic beginning to the enterprise?

Sure - OF COURSE it would be better to give everybody due process, use soft powers like persuasion, perhaps provide job training to the masters as they were replaced. . . .

But let's get real. That was a one-time shot at slaughtering the masters and freeing the slaves. Either you put the Unsullied and dragons to work on the spot while the masters are vulnerable or you don't. There is no "checking" to see who is involved like they're all gonna just queue up to be "checked." If you pass you lose Drogon and the slaves stay slaves. But if you act and win you have all your dragons, you have an army, the slaves are freed, and the millenia old circle of slavery in Slaver's Bay has a fighting chance to be erased.

 

The slavers had the choice to not be slavers at any point in their lives, the slaves never had any choice. I laughed at the idea that there would be slavers just uninvolved with any injustice or cruelty

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, darksellsword said:

The slavers had the choice to not be slavers at any point in their lives, the slaves never had any choice. I laughed at the idea that there would be slavers just uninvolved with any injustice or cruelty

Why?  Why wouldn't it be absolutely reasonable, as we have seen in real history, that many slave owners treat their extremely expensive slaves well?  Living in an unjust society doesn't mean that every single person who benefits from injustice is an evil person deserving of death.  Good grief.

[darksellsword]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

Why?  Why wouldn't it be absolutely reasonable, as we have seen in real history, that many slave owners treat their extremely expensive slaves well?  Living in an unjust society doesn't mean that every single person who benefits from injustice is an evil person deserving of death.  Good grief.

There were no slave masters in Astapor which were the only target of Daenerys attack that wouldn't have actively enslaved, castrated slaves, ordered the killing of children, whipped or crucified slaves for any dissension. If you are referring to the masters of Yunkai or Meereen then you should remember that Daenerys didn't attack them directly. It appears most of the masters that were targeted by the slaves during the slave revolt were the sadistic ones or those that participated in selling and buying gladiators in gladiatorial fighting pits  I'm sure there would've been some that didn't deserve a violent end but is that any more unjust than being enslaved or what was being endured by the slaves, again they had the choice not to be involved in that practice or being associated with that class within slave cities the slaves had no choice.

[The One Who Kneels]

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

Please stop this farce about taking the black option. That was Tyrion’s idea, not Dany‘s. For her it was convert or die. 

Anyway it’s useless to discuss this topic with Die Hard Dany fans. All perception is subjective and selective in the end until of course the breaking point is reached where no denial is possible anymore (one should assume). KL was this breaking point. Then comes the rage and outcry. This is exactly what we see across the Internet and media with all those Dany fans. It can’t be what cannot be. 

So many have crowned Dany as this badass selfempowering feminist icon that they chose to willfully ignore her dark personality and character traits.

 

Dany never said anything against it. It was Tarly who rejected it out of hand. 

I'm not a die hard Dany fan. I'm just pointing out that trying to use the Tarly burning as proof of her madness doesn't work. If it was meant to show Dany as unreasonable and ruthless then the scene failed because the Tarlys only get burned due to refusing every reasonable compromise that can be expected in the setting out of some bizarre sense of loyalty to Cersei. 

[Roza Ahai]

12 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

Dany never said anything against it. It was Tarly who rejected it out of hand. 

I'm not a die hard Dany fan. I'm just pointing out that trying to use the Tarly burning as proof of her madness doesn't work. If it was meant to show Dany as unreasonable and ruthless then the scene failed because the Tarlys only get burned due to refusing every reasonable compromise that can be expected in the setting out of some bizarre sense of loyalty to Cersei. 

I think here is a parallel between Aeries burning Starks ( farther & son) and Dany burning Tarlys. 

[darksellsword]

1 hour ago, Roza Ahai said:

I think here is a parallel between Aeries burning Starks ( farther & son) and Dany burning Tarlys. 

It is a parallel but it isn't a reasonable comparison. The Tarlys refused to swear fealty. They denounced Daenerys as a foreign traitor with savages supporting her. She excuted them with Dragon fire. Rickard and Brandon Stark demanded Rhaegar return Lyanna Stark who they believed had been kidnapped. Aerys burned Rickard alive and had Brandon in a device where he choked himself to death trying to reach for his sword to put his father out of his agony, all the while Aerys laughed, two very different acts , one with only Tyrannical control being its motivation that clearly brought him sadistic pleasure and the other a military execution without any sign of pleasure from Daenerys