Thank you GRRM for the forensic deconstruction of Dany

[Arakan]

The outcry across the Internet is huge. One of the most beloved, most admired characters of GOT and ASOIAF seemingly went „mad“. She butchered, for all of us to see, tens of thousands of women and children. Not out of „military necessity“, the enemy had already surrendered, but out of reasons which are discussed in other places here on this forum. For many this is a huge disservice for a beloved, “badass“ „feminist“ hero. For others like me this is just the logical culmination of the path she had taken since 2000, since the release of ASOS. Well, be it as it be. 

I have to thank GRRM for this very important deconstruction. And no one will convince me that GRRM won’t play this out in similar fashion in the books. There is no rational reason to assume that the KL genocide (yes we have to call it this) was a show invention. This is GRRM all along. 

And we ALL should be thankful to him because he teaches us a very important lesson. A lesson humankind so often forgets. Don’t be blended by „great“ leaders. Don’t be blended by their supposed grandiosity, by their rhetoric of being the „chosen one“, by their supposed „strength“. 

I sympathize with the feelings of many Dany fans. I really do. They are confronted with a massive massive cognitive dissonance. This is hurtful. But only when we reach our own limits and grow beyond them we really learn. 

We are all fascinated (at least) by those „grand leaders“, often we admire them, even love them. And we try our best to ignore their dark sides, their psychopathic and sociopathic and narcissistic personality traits. Their fanatism. The list is long. From Alexander „the Great“ to Charles“lemagne“ to Ghengis Khan to Napoleon to Hitler to Stalin. Not all of them are admired, at least not openly, but even this is not a given. Stalin gets more and more rehabilitated and even Hitler still has millions upon millions of admirers in all parts of the world, for their own reasons. 

Leaders like Trump (admired by millions of Americans) or Putin (who is admired by millions of Germans) show us that even in the „information age“ we are not immune to falling into the traps. Charisma is a dangerous dangerous thing. 

And therefore, once again, thank you GRRM for holding the mirror right in our faces and confronting us with our own dark desires. 

[Regular John Umber]

36 minutes ago, Arakan said:

And therefore, once again, thank you GRRM for holding the mirror right in our faces and confronting us with our own dark desires.

 

 FFS he hasn't written the end of Dany's story yet! He gave D&D "beats" that they may or may not have followed! 

 

 Am.. am I being punked? Is this real life? JFC I'm done.

[Arakan]

1 minute ago, Regular John Umber said:

 

 FFS he hasn't written the end of Dany's story yet! He gave D&D "beats" that they may or may not have followed! 

 

 Am.. am I being punked? Is this real life? JFC I'm done.

It can’t be what cannot be. Denial is a strong psychological force. 

Just to assume that the KL butchery is not based on GRRM is ludicrous. We are speaking of one if not the most defining moments in the whole series. But sure, people can believe what they want. 

[Darryk]

People generally don't have a problem with Dany's arc, in fact, a lot of people here saw it coming ages ago. Many agree that's likely where GRRM will take it.

It's the clumsy execution of it people have a problem with. I actually burst out laughing when she suddenly started torching civilians cause it was just so stupid and non-sensical. It's like when you're playing Dishonored or one of those video games and decide to randomly start killing bystanders for fun.

She'll go the same road in the books probably but it will make sense. I could see her seizing the city and causing mass civilian casualties in the process, unlike in the show where she won the city AND THEN decided to blow everyone up.

[Arakan]

16 minutes ago, Darryk said:

She'll go the same road in the books probably but it will make sense. I could see her seizing the city and causing mass civilian casualties in the process, unlike in the show where she won the city AND THEN decided to blow everyone up.

This is NOT the same road. Scenario one can and will be justified as tragic but military necessity and colletaral damage. Scenario two is a full blown massacre. A total and deliberate butchery. 

This is the difference between bombing Hamburg in WW2 and going full Nanking.

GRRM deliberately chose scenario 2, DD executed it in visual form. Those who don’t want to believe it live in denial.  

[Darryk]

6 minutes ago, Arakan said:

This is NOT the same road. Scenario one can and will be justified as tragic but military necessity and colletaral damage. Scenario two is a full blown massacre. A total and deliberate butchery. 

This is the difference between bombing Hamburg in WW2 and going full Nanking.

GRRM deliberately chose scenario 2, DD executed it in visual form. Those who don’t want to believe it live in denial.  

GRRM will choose the scenario that makes sense. He wants there to be a tragic element to the story, but he's not so desperate to shock audiences as to sacrifice character development in the process.

I'm not saying she won't end up slaughtering civilians in the books, if she does there will be a sequence of events that makes it convincing when she does so, as opposed to the show where she got screwed over by Cersei so decided to torch every single person in King's Landing EXCEPT Cersei. 

The reason I posited suggestion that perhaps they took things ten steps further than what GRRM told them is because they have a history of doing so. They always go overboard, they LOVE shocking people. These are the guys who started the red wedding off with a pregnant woman being stabbed in the belly, even GRRM thought that was too much.

The power of a Shakespearean tragedy, which may well be what GRRM is going for, lies in watching a character gradually crumble before your eyes. The audience is heartbroken to see it happen but they understand why it's happening, whereas here the reaction was more "eh, wtf?" or just outright laughter cause it was so stupid. Not the effect you want to have as a writer.

 

[Loge]

1 hour ago, Arakan said:

This is NOT the same road. Scenario one can and will be justified as tragic but military necessity and colletaral damage. Scenario two is a full blown massacre. A total and deliberate butchery. 

This is the difference between bombing Hamburg in WW2 and going full Nanking.

GRRM deliberately chose scenario 2, DD executed it in visual form. Those who don’t want to believe it live in denial.  

We don't know what GRRM chose, or if he even has made a choice yet. He hasn't published the books yet. 

[Cas Stark]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

People generally don't have a problem with Dany's arc, in fact, a lot of people here saw it coming ages ago. Many agree that's likely where GRRM will take it.

It's the clumsy execution of it people have a problem with. I actually burst out laughing when she suddenly started torching civilians cause it was just so stupid and non-sensical. It's like when you're playing Dishonored or one of those video games and decide to randomly start killing bystanders for fun.

She'll go the same road in the books probably but it will make sense. I could see her seizing the city and causing mass civilian casualties in the process, unlike in the show where she won the city AND THEN decided to blow everyone up.

There is a lot of denial that Dany turning into a merciless tyrant won't happen in the books, that this is something the show only did.

[JoeyBanana]

 And thank you for the lecture, OP.

 

[Leonardo]

1 hour ago, Loge said:

We don't know what GRRM chose, or if he even has made a choice yet. He hasn't published the books yet. 

Lol

[teej6]

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

There is a lot of denial that Dany turning into a merciless tyrant won't happen in the books, that this is something the show only did.

Yeah, I can think of a few posters (one in particular) on this website who will continue to deny that Dany will turn into the antagonist and will be responsible for the massacre of thousands of innocents in the next books. It was always obvious to me that GRRM would remove the curtains regarding Dany once she came to Westeros, the only thing that is uncertain is the how. She will turn into the antagonist for many in Westeros, many that we sympathize and identify with unlike the slavers in Essos. I wish @applemartini was still active on this website. Her road to hell is paved with good intentions argument for Dany was always a favorite of mine.

I’m not sure D&D knew when they started the show that their silver haired princess would end up being the antagonist, for that matter I’m not sure they even read all the books in their entirety. This is probably why they whitewashed her character on the show and removed any hint of cruelty in the initial seasons. They made Mirri Maz Duur less sympathetic. In the books, to me, she didn’t intentionally kill Drogo, she did try to save him (he just didn’t follow her instructions and that’s why the wound festered) and her statements to Dany after were just out of spite. D&D may have been told by Martin of Dany’s eventual descent into mass murdering tyrant when they had their sit down with him but they were still enamored by her and she had become the biggest draw for the show. They also may have stupidly thought that this would be a great gotcha moment and decided to write her still in the vein of the benevolent conqueror. This and the fact that they removed all the sympathetic characters and storylines in Westeros — Aegon, Arrianne, Griff — that will be her possible nemesis in the books and instead replaced them with Cersei is the reason their show makes no sense to a lot of the viewers. The butterfly effect that Martin loves to quote has become the dragon effect. A lot of Show!Dany fans can’t fathom how this is even possible. D&D have only themselves to blame. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

I think they gave plenty of warning signs that Dany would "be a dragon." I think people just didn't really come to terms with what that meant and saw dragons as cool magical pets. They also fell for Dany's demagoguery and cinematic tricks they used to make Dany look like the savior. People fell for the illusion.

Its kind of irritating to hear people say they needed MORE Dany scenes to convince them, when I'm angry she took up all the screen time at the expense of other characters. My critique is that the writing for Dany is fine, I just wanted more time for Stark scenes. But alas, this is The Dany Show now.

[longest night]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I think they gave plenty of warning signs that Dany would "be a dragon." I think people just didn't really come to terms with what that meant and saw dragons as cool magical pets. They also fell for Dany's demagoguery and cinematic tricks they used to make Dany look like the savior. People fell for the illusion.

Its kind of irritating to hear people say they needed MORE Dany scenes to convince them, when I'm angry she took up all the screen time at the expense of other characters. My critique is that the writing for Dany is fine, I just wanted more time for Stark scenes. But alas, this is The Dany Show now.

Anyone else notice of all three dragons, it was Drogon that killed an innocent, and that's just the innocent we know about.

[CrypticWeirwood]

11 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

There is a lot of denial that Dany turning into a merciless tyrant won't happen in the books, that this is something the show only did.

Just as there are still people who have an unshakable belief that R+L=J is show-only, not something that will ever happen in the books.

There are half a gazillion elements like that. Belief and denial are linked, and these are far more powerful than facts or reason can ever be. Ever.  Those folks will insist on all these things with their dying breaths, no matter what.

And when the books come out confirming that things like that actually are the same, they'll loudly insist that GRRM changed things in the book to match the show "so he wouldn't make the show look bad" and that these facts are therefore not real. And that therefore these folks are still "right" after all.

Mark my words. This will happen.

 

[CrypticWeirwood]

1 hour ago, longest night said:

Anyone else notice of all three dragons, it was Drogon that killed an innocent, and that's just the innocent we know about.

That's because each dragon partakes of his namesake's nature, and Drogo was a vicious murdering bastard.

[Lollygag]

This is the best explanation for Dany's sudden turn that I've found. 

 

----------------------------------------------------------

 

The passage below helps to explain the origins of Dany's ideas of collective guilt's dominance over individual guilt. It's something we see with the 163 masters and burning alive the innocent heads of houses for Barristan's death. In revenge for the Thirteen denying her, she threatens to burn down the entirety of Qarth. The smallfolk, and perhaps all of Westeros if we get on the slippery slope that Dany's on here, are all part of the pack of dogs which ultimately supported Robert and turned their backs on Viserys and Dany. 

ADWD Daenerys II

"Your Grace," said Selmy, "Eddard Stark played a part in your father's fall, but he bore you no ill will. When the eunuch Varys told us that you were with child, Robert wanted you killed, but Lord Stark spoke against it. Rather than countenance the murder of children, he told Robert to find himself another Hand."

"Have you forgotten Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon?"

"Never. That was Lannister work, Your Grace."

"Lannister or Stark, what difference? Viserys used to call them the Usurper's dogs. If a child is set upon by a pack of hounds, does it matter which one tears out his throat? All the dogs are just as guilty.

 

 

[White26]

It will be like that in the books I am sure as well, but I would like to see how and why it happens, because 5 mins in tv is not enough.

[Mordant Jester]

On 5/15/2019 at 9:42 AM, Darryk said:

People generally don't have a problem with Dany's arc, in fact, a lot of people here saw it coming ages ago. Many agree that's likely where GRRM will take it.

It's the clumsy execution of it people have a problem with. I actually burst out laughing when she suddenly started torching civilians cause it was just so stupid and non-sensical. It's like when you're playing Dishonored or one of those video games and decide to randomly start killing bystanders for fun.

She'll go the same road in the books probably but it will make sense. I could see her seizing the city and causing mass civilian casualties in the process, unlike in the show where she won the city AND THEN decided to blow everyone up.

 

This x1000000

 

I dont 'mind' that she went 'mad'.  The show missed the opportunity to show any sort of internal conflict, or any sign she was not stable until Season 8, Episode 4 and 5.

It would have made the story much, much stronger if we were rooting for Dany's 'Rhaegar' side to win out, along with wanting Cersei and the Night King out.  Could have had a bad councilor who was increasingly proven correct every time Tyrion made an error... (they say Aerys started out good and it changed when Varys got involved).  Could have made a great bottle episode with her as the general POV, sometime in the past few seasons.  The moment that the Bells rang would have been a much more intense and heartbreaking climax.

 

For her to just go from everyone's sweetheart and righteous queen, protector of the weak to a murdering despot, a 96 on a Targ crazy scale of 1-10... in the matter of an episode.  Thats the hard part to swallow.

[T and A]

3 hours ago, Ilissa said:

I think I understand Martin's idea. There is no good war, even if it is led by a good man.

P.S. You, German, the last person on Earth who has the right to say something against our Stalin. 

 

 

German here: why do I not have the right to say something about "your" Stalin, one of the worst beings to have ever existed? I am curious?

[The Bard of Banefort]

I agree that this will likely be presented as a deconstruction, one that I interpret as of the messiah complex. You need to be a narcissist to believe that you are a savior among men, and narcissists have been known to reap irreparable damage.

I admit that I don’t know much about Russian history, but Dany seems rather Lenin-esque. Lenin was a true believer who fought to liberate Russia, then turned tyrant in due time. That appears to be Dany’s trajectory.