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My biggest issue with the finale is that they tried to make us feel guilty for supporting Daenerys' journey.


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12 hours ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

I hated that speech that Tyrion gave about how she was really always evil because she killed her enemies in Essos. We just cheered for her and didn't see the truth in the face. She killed them with fire, dragons and with other means. Just because she didn't wield a sword, didnt do it herself and wasn't a man, it doesnt make her a crazy villain. What she did in KL is another story. But trying to make us feel COMPLICIT because we cheered when she crucified child murderers and killed slavers is fucking insane. Why all of the sudden they are aplying modern sensitivities to the story?  In the recent EW interview even Kit agrees, Dany was never a good person we never believed the signs. FFS! Emilia Clarke seems to be heartbroken and very conflicted about the morality of her character even 2 years later. Whatever her undoing in Westeros was and her fast descent into madness/villainy it does not negate her past actions. Daenerys Targaryen was a GOOD PERSON and made the world across the sea a better place despite the doom she caused in her homeland.

Tyrion NEVER said Dany was always evil, didn't even imply it. He said "where ever she (Dany) went, evil men died", and that's why people like Jorah, Varys, Selmy and he supported her in the first place. They supported her vision for Westeros. But she became arrogant and obsessed with taking the Iron Throne and that's when her character really started its descent (although there were hints all along the way.) Anyway, I felt the purpose of Tyrion's "speech" (for the viewers) was to kind of summarize Dany's character arc, not to make viewers feel guilty. I felt sorry for her.

I don't think Dany's character can be boiled down to simply good or bad. She was a complex character who had both good and bad in her, just like most of the rest of the characters on the show. She did a lot of good in Essos, and even in Westeros she was a force for positive change. The problem was she had a warped idea of what an acceptable level of sacrifice was to achieve her goals. But I haven't heard anyone say that her later actions negated her earlier actions.

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I really enjoyed Tyrion’s speech because it summed up my feelings about a certain portion of the fan base who seem to want to hold Dany up as their hero. 

I never saw her in those terms, because it would be far too simplistic and uninteresting a story for her to swoop in and save the day. Her character was always more complex , in the books and parts of the show.

My least favourite parts of the show were the movements where i was expected to cheer for Danys cruelty , when she burns someone. Her riding on a dragon and giving inspirational speeches was more annoying than anything.

So yes, I’m happy

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53 minutes ago, Glorion said:

Dany was no Mad Queen. Sure she went a bit extreme there at King's Landing, but overall she always did more good than bad. She lost a dragon saving Jon and company beyond the wall. She lost most of her army defending Winterfell. Without her everyone from Winterfell to Dorne would've died at the hands of the Night  King. 

What if Tryion had been given a dragon after his trial for the murder of Joffrey? Would he of burned KL to the ground? What about Sansa or Arya, in their weakest moments if they were given a Dragon, what would they have done? She had lost Jorah, Viserion, Rhaegal, and Missandei. Lost so many others in Essos. Constantly betrayed by her advisors. Rejected by her lover. Despised by most of the Northerners she saved. All she had left to her was Drogon and Greyworm, a couple of killing machines. 

She was driven to her actions by her Westerosi "friends" Jon, Bran, Sansa, Varys, and more than anyone Tyrion. He gave her bad advice after bad advice. Betrayed her multiple times, and then convinced Jon into taking her out. For all that he was of course rewarded with yet another hand position. 

And how about Bran? The real Mad King. Knows everything but tells everyone nothing... except of course who Jon is so he can help get Dany riled up. Never warns anyone Dany is gonna burn KL down. Doesn't try to warg into Drogon to stop her from doing it. Nope nothing. But this is who should be King?

The last episode made me hate almost everyone. Sansa a power hungry bit**... Bran the evil manipulator... Tryion the sabotage master... I realized Arya's character becomes entirely pointless when she runs out of people to kill... Greyworm fails to execute either of the two men responsible for the death of his Queen. Drogon, Ghost, and maybe Pod... that's all who was left as a likable character after that finale. 

See, I sympathize. I really do.

This was a very, very tough finale for Dany fans.

But I guess what I don't get with is this attitude of defending Dany at all costs and then throwing every other character under the bus to prop Dany up. You're not wrong in justifying Dany's actions--I agree with all your points. But why doesn't that same understanding and sense of empathy apply to Jon, Bran, Sansa, and Tyrion, too? These are all fictional characters, people we identify with and enjoy reading about--people we have been following for many years. Why make yourself hate them all the rest just because you identify most strongly with a particular one? Has Sansa, one of the most fascinating, important, and developed characters in the whole series, in your eyes, really just been reduced to a "bitch" because she got on Dany's bad side?

Everyone has a right to their own interpretations. But to me, making A Song of Ice and Fire about one person really misses the whole point of this story. What I love the most about this story is its sweeping richness, its tapestry of different perspectives, different voices, different journeys. Let's be sad for Dany, sure. But why can't we be happy for Sansa, too?

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That's the point, well, not to make you feel guilty, but to make you think about it... and that's the problem, a lot of people do not want to think about it, a lot of people hate to question themselves.
I liked this season, i admit it was not written as well as the first seasons, but it was not bad, and from a cinematographic point of view, last seasons were vastly superior to the first ones. Anyway, i have thought a lot about the uproar following Daenerys' turn into mad queen, reading peoples complaining there had been no ground work for it... i'm sorry for those who think like that, but they are wrong. The ground work, the character developpement AND the foreshadowing were there, it was subtle, and it had to be, because they did not want you to guess too easily and too early what was going to happen (although some did), but it was all there, right under our noses. I will be honest and will not try to make myself more clever than i am, i cannot say i saw this coming from miles away, i only guessed Daenerys would turn mad when Jorah died (episode 2 had made a point showing us how he was the voice of reason to her), but like the rest of you, and like Tyrion said, i cheered when she slaughtered bad peoples, but when you think about it, she had gone to the dark side the moment she sailed to Westeros. In Essos she had something to offer to the peoples, she freed the slaves, she was, somewhat, making Essos a better world... bit for Westeros she had nothing to offer except fire and blood, and she did not care, she was not there to make Westeros a better place, whatever she told herself, she was there because she wanted the throne of her ancestors, because she felt entitled to it, that's all she cared for, and it was a big sign something was wrong with her.
Anyway, we, the audience, got played by the writers. They knew we were not looking hard enough, and they knew it would be a shock to realise how wrong we were, and that's what a lot of people hate. When Ned got killed, it was surprising, most (except those who had read the books) did not see it coming, but it was ok, because everybody had seen that Joffrey was evil, there was no need to question ourselves... when the red wedding happened, it was the same, it was a surprise, but we knew Tywin and Walder were the kind of men who could do something like that, there was no need to question ourselves... when Oberyn got killed, once again, a surprise, but we knew the Mountain was very dangerous... but with Daenerys going mad (and also with Stannis burning his daughter for a few peoples) it is not only surprising, but it's supposed to make us question ourselves, why did we support that character? why didn't we see it coming?
I like when a movie, or a TV show, or a book, any piece of fiction, do that, i liked the Poe/Holdo situation in Star Wars the Last Jedi for the same reason, i like when i am challenged, when the writers tell me "think about yourself, think about what you believed, think about how you were wrong!"
But i have seen since december 2017 that a lot of people hate when they are really challenged....
( I know what i just said will not please everyone)
(also, sorry if my english is clunky, i am french)

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3 hours ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

This was an echo to season 1. Jon make the same choice as Ned, he lets go of his honor for the good of his sisters. Sansa gets to be queen, what she always wanted. And in the end didnt deserve it. She broke her father and Jons thrust , and terrible things happened because of it. I like Sansa in the books but if she is going to repeat this story, thats a hard no for me.

I disagree with this take.

1) It was made clear that Northern independence was something that Sansa wanted no matter who was king or queen on the IT. Her very own brother is on the IT, and she still declares independence. It wasn't as personal as Dany tended to take it. Dany said in Mereen that she was willing to discuss independences of other regions than the Iron Islands in Mereen - but they had to ask. Sansa asked. Dany never even considered how it actually might have benefited her to grant the North independence, as she did with Yara for the Iron Islands, especially once she knew about Jon's identity.

2) Dany's losses happened unrelated to Sansa's actions.

  • Varys began to have his doubts about Dany before he knew about Jon. And he even spoke up against her plans in clear terms, as he once promised to do at the start of s7. Sansa didn't even tell Varys. Tyrion decided to inform Varys, admitting to having treasonous thoughts, and one can only conclude Tyrion's reasons for informing Varys were his own doubts about Dany.
  • Jorah died defending her, nobody else.
  • Rhaegal died because of superscorpions and Dany rushing back to Dragonstone without allowing Rhaegal to heal, without allowing herself to rest, and somehow thinking Cersei would not send Euron's fleet to ambush her, despite her knowing from Jaime that Euron had not returned to the Iron Islands but sailed to Essos for the Golden Company and was still in league with Cersei. In fact, Sansa was the one who had urged for some more time. Dany herself was in need of it to deal with the loss of Jorah.
  • Dany decided to not burn Euron's fleet and save herself and Drogon and left her fleet unprotected so that Missandei could be captured

3) Dany mistrusted Jon regardless of Sansa's actions, because he had the better birtright claim than her and she explicitly wanted the IT for herself. She expected Jon to betray her. It was Jon she believed to be the one betraying her when Tyrion came to warn her about Varys.

4) She had at least a fortnight at Dragonstone to deal with her losses. And while those did break her, you cannot claim she lashes out in a fit of momentarily insanity at KL, exactly because of the timespan.

5) KL surrendered. She agreed to accepting the surrender beforehand, after debate about it. All hostilities had ceased from the troops inside the city. They had thrown their swords down. The civilians naturally cowered.

Does that make Sansa an innocent? No. But had Dany been a different person, had she taken her time, had she contextualised Sansa's issues in a rational manner instead of taking it person, and so on, then she would not have killed half a million people after they surrendered. IMO all of this would have happened anyhow sometime, because she cannot deal with people disagreeing with her (they don't get to choose), ultimately seeing it as personal worship or dislike of her, without even trying to take a step back and comprehend another's needs. She's a very black and white absolutist and her ideals were more important than the actual people already living. She wanted the next generation to profit from it, not the present one. Such mindset will always provoke rebellion. It is inevitable. And ultimately she is a conquerer rather than a ruler. She dislikes ruling, because it requires patience, a mediating mindset and emotions, and even then you cannot always convince people, and find some compromise. And she used her ideals to avoid it in the end. Where Aegon the Conquerer nuked armies in the field and a castle, he actually set out to rule the 7k. Dany intended to bugger off and conquer other cities and lay them to waste.

Now, admittedly, I apprehended Dany's actions once she got to Westeros since S2, when I watched her and heard her make her self-entitled threats at Qarth. I don't necessarily like the Qartheen, but her expectation to be regaled as a goddess who would be given whatever she needed and required from them just sat wrong for me. She was already sounding like Viserys right then and there. It's not as explicit yet in the book plot at Qarth, but there too, her anger and upset about the several factions refusing to just hand her an armada and an army are quite astonishing. The moment you reread it again, red flags should go off, because it is totally unrealistic of her, and the Undying nearly manage to eat her alive while she surrenders to a vision of being the object of personal cult worship.

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1 hour ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

I never wouldve imagined that I would end up hating the Starks. Never. Im glad Jon left them all behind, they all pushed him in the direction of how badly things turn out. 

Same. I've never been a huge Arya fan due to her blind love for her family, but I never hated her. Sansa and Arya were the most self-centered characters and they still got a happy ending. 

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3 minutes ago, beeeeeen said:

That's the point, well, not to make you feel guilty, but to make you think about it... and that's the problem, a lot of people do not want to think about it, a lot of people hate to question themselves.
I liked this season, i admit it was not written as well as the first seasons, but it was not bad, and from a cinematographic point of view, last seasons were vastly superior to the first ones. Anyway, i have thought a lot about the uproar following Daenerys' turn into mad queen, reading peoples complaining there had been no ground work for it... i'm sorry for those who think like that, but they are wrong. The ground work, the character developpement AND the foreshadowing were there, it was subtle, and it had to be, because they did not want you to guess too easily and too early what was going to happen (although some did), but it was all there, right under our noses. I will be honest and will not try to make myself more clever than i am, i cannot say i saw this coming from miles away, i only guessed Daenerys would turn mad when Jorah died (episode 2 had made a point showing us how he was the voice of reason to her), but like the rest of you, and like Tyrion said, i cheered when she slaughtered bad peoples, but when you think about it, she had gone to the dark side the moment she sailed to Westeros. In Essos she had something to offer to the peoples, she freed the slaves, she was, somewhat, making Essos a better world... bit for Westeros she had nothing to offer except fire and blood, and she did not care, she was not there to make Westeros a better place, whatever she told herself, she was there because she wanted the throne of her ancestors, because she felt entitled to it, that's all she cared for, and it was a big sign something was wrong with her.
Anyway, we, the audience, got played by the writers. They knew we were not looking hard enough, and they knew it would be a shock to realise how wrong we were, and that's what a lot of people hate. When Ned got killed, it was surprising, most (except those who had read the books) did not see it coming, but it was ok, because everybody had seen that Joffrey was evil, there was no need to question ourselves... when the red wedding happened, it was the same, it was a surprise, but we knew Tywin and Walder were the kind of men who could do something like that, there was no need to question ourselves... when Oberyn got killed, once again, a surprise, but we knew the Mountain was very dangerous... but with Daenerys going mad (and also with Stannis burning his daughter for a few peoples) it is not only surprising, but it's supposed to make us question ourselves, why did we support that character? why didn't we see it coming?
I like when a movie, or a TV show, or a book, any piece of fiction, do that, i liked the Poe/Holdo situation in Star Wars the Last Jedi for the same reason, i like when i am challenged, when the writers tell me "think about yourself, think about what you believed, think about how you were wrong!"
But i have seen since december 2017 that a lot of people hate when they are really challenged....
( I know what i just said will not please everyone)
(also, sorry if my english is clunky, i am french)

10 stars!

a lot of people hate to question themselves. Tyrion included!.

( I know what i just said will not please everyone) Yes, I guarantee you ticked off a lot people with your comment!

And your English is better than a lot of native English speaking people.

 

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11 minutes ago, draft0 said:

Everyone has a right to their own interpretations. But to me, making A Song of Ice and Fire about one person really misses the whole point of this story.

This! And George would agree too. In fact, he had other offers to adapt his series, and he turned them all down, because they wanted to make it just about Dany.

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3 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

10 stars!

a lot of people hate to question themselves. Tyrion included!.

( I know what i just said will not please everyone) Yes, I guarantee you ticked off a lot people with your comment!

And your English is better than a lot of native English speaking people.

 

well Tyrion, in the last episode, does the job, he questions himself, he is doing what we should all be doing...

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17 minutes ago, draft0 said:

Everyone has a right to their own interpretations. But to me, making A Song of Ice and Fire about one person really misses the whole point of this story. What I love the most about this story is its sweeping richness, its tapestry of different perspectives, different voices, different journeys. Let's be sad for Dany, sure. But why can't we be happy for Sansa, too?

Spot on!

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7 hours ago, WalkinDude said:

This is clearly what Martin is doing too.  He's breaking a trope.  

In my eyes, they're not breaking a Savior trope. They're mindlessly shoehorning Dany into a Arch Villain Temptress trope by letting her do something "shocking".

All the shocks in the first few seasons worked so well because there was no attempt to hide who the characters were. Indeed, the shocks came from the characters being themselves to a fault. Ned and Jeoffrey, Robb and Frey, Oberyn... Was anyone surprised when Oberyn carelessly left the Mountain on the ground without making sure he was really dead? Did we say: "That makes no sense, Oberyn has always been a bit full of himself, but we've seen time and time again that he is highly alert and misses no detail. So how could he miss this?" It had been set up that Oberyn had more confidence than all other characters in the show, and the show turned this aspect of him into a weakness. And he had no other trait that made it illogical that he got himself killed.

Was anyone surprised when Dany started killing innocents? Yes, because time and time again, caring for innocents was displayed as one of her core beliefs. The shock comes from Dany going against what we have been told is a large part of her character, as opposed to the earlier seasons when the shock was how the characters' very nature led them into trouble.

The fault is not with the audience. If half of the audience says not only that "we didn't see this coming" but that "Dany cared about innocents, so this makes no sense" - then the fault is with the show that did not properly establish beforehand under which circumstances Dany would go against her core belief.

 

7 hours ago, The_Spanish_Inquisition said:

 We’re supposed to like Dany, because she’s a young girl who was abused and now we all want to see her succeed in liberating all the people of Planetos. 

Then she doesn’t, because she’s not equipped to do that and this isn’t a fairytale. 

Worth mentioning too that her most devoted follower, Jorah, is an UNREPENTANT slaver himself. 

 

But it IS a fairytale by this point. Beautiful temptress with dragons makes all the men fall for her, and they fail to see that she is really a ruthless killer, but once they discover it they finally manage to kill her and save the world. It doesn't get much more fairytale than this. Thrown out of the window is any nuance, any attempt of turning Dany into a complex opponent. She's not a person anymore. She's transformed into Evil Boss III. 



 

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

This is a medieval world governed by medieval military ethics, for most of the story, not modern military ethics.  But, quite slyly, the show runners started shifting the goalposts so that Dany begins to be judged by modern military ethics, which allows Varys to believe that she's evil.

Yes. This. I couldn't agree more.

And they shift the goalpost for Dany alone.

In this epic story where the moral in the end turns out to be: "War is bad, violence is bad, and the viewers should ask themselves whether it is a good idea to cheer the killing of evil people since the result can quickly get out of hand", it turns out that Dany is the *only* carrier of this particular theme. Because everyone else who ever killed someone in this story did not go mad from it. Either they were twisted people to begin with, or they retained their sanity.

It's not only cheap. It doesn't fit with the rest of Game of Thrones.
 

6 hours ago, WalkinDude said:

Totally, it was rushed in the show. But the idea it came out of nowhere and her previous actions didn’t set the stage for her burning KL is bunk in my opinion. 

I partly agree, but I disagree that it was set up that Dany would attack a city that had surrendered. That creative choice seems to have been made for one reason only: They want us to see that there is no other choice except to kill Dany.

They could have done this in so many different ways.

For example, say we want mostly the same outcome, but done in a way that makes sense in regard to who Dany is as a person:

Both of the dragons live when the bells ring. Dany is about to let the city surrender.

Then, one dragon is shot dead. It turns out that several ballistae were covered up, but now they're in attack mode. The other dragon avoids the projectiles and Dany is about to burn the ballistae...

But they are placed in the middle of the town squares, in different places of the city, and they're all surrounded by innocents. Cersei is using humans as shields for the weapons.

Dany could have retreated and spared the lives of the innocents. But she is enraged. And we've already seen that she is tired and broken earlier in the season. She's had enough. She burns down all the ballistae, and innocents die by the thousands. 

Now of course, the audience might consider this situation to justify Dany's choice. Her dragon just died. Clearly, Cersei is evil to use innocents as shields. Since Jon is going to kill Dany, we need to make sure that the viewers are on his side.

So we have Arya, who has waited by the gates with Jon, say that "She's heading for the Red Keep, she is going to kill Cersei. I want to be the one who kills Cersei!" 

She storms off on her horse, and Jon with a foreboding sense of dread storms after her, but at some point Arya is caught up in the destruction and dies. Maybe by dragon fire. 

This to show the audience that terrible things, senseless things happen in war.

Jon is beyond himself with grief, holding Arya in his arms. His grief represents all the viewer's grief at seeing this dear character we have come to love, the slayer of the Night King and the hero of the world, dead in Jon's arms.

Dany shows real remorse over the innocents who died, and over her dragon of course, and she does attempt to apologize to Jon for Arya's death. But she makes it clear that she will not accept treachery from anyone, she will meet treason with fire. As viewers we realize that a small shift is happening in her: She is learning to accept that wars cost the lives of innocents. We realize that this will become dangerous in the long run.

Tyrion, who knows Dany will kill him for his betrayal, convinces Jon that Dany will go after Sansa next. So now Jon is not only vengeful, he feels righteous when he stabs Dany to save the world from her.

There are others and I'm sure there much better ways of doing this. But in this kind of setup, the story is more ambiguous. Very few will say: "Dany wouldn't have attacked in that situation", and even in this version her action is probably not the right choice morally, but it is justified with respect to her character as it has been built up through the seasons.

And personally, I wouldn't feel fulfilled unless the last, defining act of violence in Game of Thrones was an act that both made sense, but that also felt "possibly wrong". An act where the audience could agree with Jon when he said that it felt wrong to kill Dany, even as they understood why he felt it was necessary.

Because in the version we got, they went out of their way to show us that no, he was not wrong to kill Dany. And in that creative choice, they made Game of Thrones feel like it's not Game of Thrones anymore.
 

4 hours ago, Ingelheim said:

Yeah they rushed it all. It could have been done a thousand times better,

Still, I suggest rewatching Season 7. Dany starts to go mad as soon as she reaches Westeros. She's completely irrational about Jon Snow having to bend the knee, the way she burns the Tarlys alive, etc.

A lot of Dany didn't make sense in these seasons. She was happy at some point that her evil brother would become a king some day. She was happy to be married with Khal Drogo. She shouldn't even have had a problem with Jon being king (he could rule while she went out conquering for example), and this whole contrived problem could have been solved by them marrying. Jon didn't make sense either. In the second to last episode he seemed to not love her anymore. Sure, he said he did, but he acted as if he didn't. Then in the last episode his love for her nearly brainwashes him into justifying the rampage, and it takes Tyrion to talk him into seeing her for the problem she has become. In these seasons, it's apparent that people behave the way they do and feel the way they feel because it fits the plot, not because it makes sense to their characters.

 

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26 minutes ago, draft0 said:

But I guess what I don't get with is this attitude of defending Dany at all costs and then throwing every other character under the bus to prop Dany up.

Why not? The show threw Dany under the bus to prop up every other character.

I really hate this narrative of "DaNy StaNS r juS UpSeT Cuz SHe diED". There are plenty of viewers who hated Dany and wanted her to go mad and be killed, but were still disappointed in her turn because of how poorly executed it was.

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24 minutes ago, beeeeeen said:

well Tyrion, in the last episode, does the job, he questions himself, he is doing what we should all be doing...

That was the problem for me... they sacrificed actual drama for the most boring moralistic finger-wagging (in a show that had pretty much descended into soap-opera). Character consistency, internal plausibility and all sense of dramatic satisfaction were rejected in favour of some sententious rhetoric. It’s insulting

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3 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Why not? The show threw Dany under the bus to prop up every other character.

I really hate this narrative of "DaNy StaNS r juS UpSeT Cuz SHe diED". There are plenty of viewers who hated Dany and wanted her to go mad and be killed, but were still disappointed in her turn because of how poorly executed it was.

There are plenty of ways to portray Dany's relationship with her allies and advisors deteriorating, but it would have required more episodes and better writing.  Dany can die as an antagonist, but turning her from flawed heroine who has helped to save the world, to the worst devil in hell, in two and a half episodes, just so Jon can be justified in murdering her - and then retconning her behaviour in Essos to prove how evil she was is just cheating.

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2 minutes ago, Davidlopan said:

That was the problem for me... they sacrificed actual drama for the most boring moralistic finger-wagging (in a show that had pretty much descended into soap-opera). Character consistency, internal plausibility and all sense of dramatic satisfaction were rejected in favour of some sententious rhetoric. It’s insulting

I don't agree, Tyrion supported Daenerys and like us he saw what she did, so he's doing what we should all be doing, he questions himself, he questions what did he miss, he questions how could he support a tyrant...
In that kind of situation, there are two reactions possible, either you look your mistakes in their eyes, and that's what Tyrion did, or you try to rationalize, to find excuses that would prove that you were right to be wrong...
those who think it's not credible for Tyrion to do the former are probably those who, in this situation, would rather do the latter....
And from what i see on this forum, that's exactly what happens

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13 minutes ago, Vanadis said:

In my eyes, they're not breaking a Savior trope. They're mindlessly shoehorning Dany into a Arch Villain Temptress trope by letting her do something "shocking".

All the shocks in the first few seasons worked so well because there was no attempt to hide who the characters were. Indeed, the shocks came from the characters being themselves to a fault. Ned and Jeoffrey, Robb and Frey, Oberyn... Was anyone surprised when Oberyn carelessly left the Mountain on the ground without making sure he was really dead? Did we say: "That makes no sense, Oberyn has always been a bit full of himself, but we've seen time and time again that he is highly alert and misses no detail. So how could he miss this?" It had been set up that Oberyn had more confidence than all other characters in the show, and the show turned this aspect of him into a weakness. And he had no other trait that made it illogical that he got himself killed.

Was anyone surprised when Dany started killing innocents? Yes, because time and time again, caring for innocents was displayed as one of her core beliefs. The shock comes from Dany going against what we have been told is a large part of her character, as opposed to the earlier seasons when the shock was how the characters' very nature led them into trouble.

The fault is not with the audience. If half of the audience says not only that "we didn't see this coming" but that "Dany cared about innocents, so this makes no sense" - then the fault is with the show that did not properly establish beforehand under which circumstances Dany would go against her core belief.

 

But it IS a fairytale by this point. Beautiful temptress with dragons makes all the men fall for her, and they fail to see that she is really a ruthless killer, but once they discover it they finally manage to kill her and save the world. It doesn't get much more fairytale than this. Thrown out of the window is any nuance, any attempt of turning Dany into a complex opponent. She's not a person anymore. She's transformed into Evil Boss III. 



 

Yes. This. I couldn't agree more.

And they shift the goalpost for Dany alone.

In this epic story where the moral in the end turns out to be: "War is bad, violence is bad, and the viewers should ask themselves whether it is a good idea to cheer the killing of evil people since the result can quickly get out of hand", it turns out that Dany is the *only* carrier of this particular theme. Because everyone else who ever killed someone in this story did not go mad from it. Either they were twisted people to begin with, or they retained their sanity.

It's not only cheap. It doesn't fit with the rest of Game of Thrones.
 

I partly agree, but I disagree that it was set up that Dany would attack a city that had surrendered. That creative choice seems to have been made for one reason only: They want us to see that there is no other choice except to kill Dany.

They could have done this in so many different ways.

For example, say we want mostly the same outcome, but done in a way that makes sense in regard to who Dany is as a person:

Both of the dragons live when the bells ring. Dany is about to let the city surrender.

Then, one dragon is shot dead. It turns out that several ballistae were covered up, but now they're in attack mode. The other dragon avoids the projectiles and Dany is about to burn the ballistae...

But they are placed in the middle of the town squares, in different places of the city, and they're all surrounded by innocents. Cersei is using humans as shields for the weapons.

Dany could have retreated and spared the lives of the innocents. But she is enraged. And we've already seen that she is tired and broken earlier in the season. She's had enough. She burns down all the ballistae, and innocents die by the thousands. 

Now of course, the audience might consider this situation to justify Dany's choice. Her dragon just died. Clearly, Cersei is evil to use innocents as shields. Since Jon is going to kill Dany, we need to make sure that the viewers are on his side.

So we have Arya, who has waited by the gates with Jon, say that "She's heading for the Red Keep, she is going to kill Cersei. I want to be the one who kills Cersei!" 

She storms off on her horse, and Jon with a foreboding sense of dread storms after her, but at some point Arya is caught up in the destruction and dies. Maybe by dragon fire. 

This to show the audience that terrible things, senseless things happen in war.

Jon is beyond himself with grief, holding Arya in his arms. His grief represents all the viewer's grief at seeing this dear character we have come to love, the slayer of the Night King and the hero of the world, dead in Jon's arms.

Dany shows real remorse over the innocents who died, and over her dragon of course, and she does attempt to apologize to Jon for Arya's death. But she makes it clear that she will not accept treachery from anyone, she will meet treason with fire. As viewers we realize that a small shift is happening in her: She is learning to accept that wars cost the lives of innocents. We realize that this will become dangerous in the long run.

Tyrion, who knows Dany will kill him for his betrayal, convinces Jon that Dany will go after Sansa next. So now Jon is not only vengeful, he feels righteous when he stabs Dany to save the world from her.

There are others and I'm sure there much better ways of doing this. But in this kind of setup, the story is more ambiguous. Very few will say: "Dany wouldn't have attacked in that situation", and even in this version her action is probably not the right choice morally, but it is justified with respect to her character as it has been built up through the seasons.

And personally, I wouldn't feel fulfilled unless the last, defining act of violence in Game of Thrones was an act that both made sense, but that also felt "possibly wrong". An act where the audience could agree with Jon when he said that it felt wrong to kill Dany, even as they understood why he felt it was necessary.

Because in the version we got, they went out of their way to show us that no, he was not wrong to kill Dany. And in that creative choice, they made Game of Thrones feel like it's not Game of Thrones anymore.
 

A lot of Dany didn't make sense in these seasons. She was happy at some point that her evil brother would become a king some day. She was happy to be married with Khal Drogo. She shouldn't even have had a problem with Jon being king (he could rule while she went out conquering for example), and this whole contrived problem could have been solved by them marrying. Jon didn't make sense either. In the second to last episode he seemed to not love her anymore. Sure, he said he did, but he acted as if he didn't. Then in the last episode his love for her nearly brainwashes him into justifying the rampage, and it takes Tyrion to talk him into seeing her for the problem she has become. In these seasons, it's apparent that people behave the way they do and feel the way they feel because it fits the plot, not because it makes sense to their characters.

 

I agree with this, especially the bolded.

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The show doesn't make us feel guilty for supporting Dany's journey. It was a necessary journey. The Targaryen line had a mythical destiny to produce the saviors of humanity. The Targaryen's affinity with dragons was important and I think this will be emphasized even more in the books. But the Targaryen's struggled to rule benignly partly and especially the Targaryen's that had dragons at their disposal. I think a lot of the disappointment with this season has been that people were invested in a drama about the Targaryen restoration but it was not about that. Instead, the whole series is about the Targaryen's fulfilling their destiny to destroy the Others. After that, the Targaryen's are more of liability than anything else. It's the tragedy of House Targaryen: they were destined to save the world but could not be trusted to rule in peace.

So, I'm totally onboard with Dany as a mythical hero in the best fantasy tradition. GRRM often said that he wondered whether Aaragorn would be a good king after the defeat of Sauron. It's a good question. Inspirational wartime leaders are rarely the best people to rebuild shattered nations.

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4 minutes ago, HouseLark said:

The show doesn't make us feel guilty for supporting Dany's journey. It was a necessary journey. The Targaryen line had a mythical destiny to produce the saviors of humanity. The Targaryen's affinity with dragons was important and I think this will be emphasized even more in the books. But the Targaryen's struggled to rule benignly partly and especially the Targaryen's that had dragons at their disposal. I think a lot of the disappointment with this season has been that people were invested in a drama about the Targaryen restoration but it was not about that. Instead, the whole series is about the Targaryen's fulfilling their destiny to destroy the Others. After that, the Targaryen's are more of liability than anything else. It's the tragedy of House Targaryen: they were destined to save the world but could not be trusted to rule in peace.

So, I'm totally onboard with Dany as a mythical hero in the best fantasy tradition. GRRM often said that he wondered whether Aaragorn would be a good king after the defeat of Sauron. It's a good question. Inspirational wartime leaders are rarely the best people to rebuild shattered nations.

I'm on board with that.  But, turning that hero into the devil in next to no time, simply so everyone else can be pleased that she's dead, and then retconning her previous actions which were largely portrayed as good as being bad is rotten writing.

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24 minutes ago, beeeeeen said:

I don't agree, Tyrion supported Daenerys and like us he saw what she did, so he's doing what we should all be doing, he questions himself, he questions what did he miss, he questions how could he support a tyrant...
In that kind of situation, there are two reactions possible, either you look your mistakes in their eyes, and that's what Tyrion did, or you try to rationalize, to find excuses that would prove that you were right to be wrong...
those who think it's not credible for Tyrion to do the former are probably those who, in this situation, would rather do the latter....
And from what i see on this forum, that's exactly what happens

But, this assumes that the takeaway is that we should have questioned Dany's use of violence, and only hers.

I think that if we are to follow Tyrion's advice, we should question not only Dany's arc but every single act of violence in the show that we ever felt the urge to accept or cheer.

We should question accepting Ned beheading that "traitor" in the first episode.
We should question killing Jeoffrey.
We should question killing Ramsey.
We should question killing the Freys.
We should question Arya killing that man who tried to buy an under-aged whore.
We should question Tyrion killing his father and lover and threatening that if he could, he would have killed everyone present at the trial.
Everything. All of it.

We should have looked back and asked: Did these acts of violence in the end make the characters so insensitive to power that they turned into monsters?

And in all other cases, the answer is no. In every single other case, the dealer of violence either was mad to begin with, or they stayed sane.

Now if what Tyrion describes really was the moral of the story, we should have seen evidence of it everywhere. We should have seen people breaking under the burden of the violence they committed. 

But in the end, Dany was the only one to carry this theme. The only one out of how big a cast...? 

No - you can say that isolated perhaps that there was some sense to be made from Dany's story, and you could be generous about how much information you think it is fair that the show provided about her character before her fall. But, even if you accept that this is the moral of her story, it in no way fits in with the rest of the GOT world as a whole. 




 

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