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

[Cas Stark]

Just now, Nightwish said:

But the question is not what they would do, but how they would perceive themselves, as ordinary people?  

Because as @Hodor's Dragon said:

 

It would depend on the person.  Jon Snow was brought back from the dead, found out he was the true heir to the iron throne, but he didn't turn into a messianic lunatic constantly talking about his destiny, did he? 

[Nightwish]

4 minutes ago, sifth said:

Didn't Robert get his crown by being able to turn enemies into friends. I mean I hate to say it, but all Dany has really managed to do since taking Meereen is make more enemies. I'm talking about the books not the show however. I honestly doubt Varys is magically going to give Dany Dorne and The Reach the way D&D did. One of the key ways to get power and stay in power is not destroying stuff, but making new friends and allies.

Just look at all of the factions that want to her dead at the end of ADWD.

Ok let's not expand in the books. I had read them a long time ago  and is very hard to recall details. 

[madhikun]

12 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

I always marvel when people criticize Daenerys for being "entitled" or thinking she's "special" or has a destiny. If you can live her Season 1 story and stand there in front of the kneeling Dothraki at the end with your baby dragons lovin' on you under the brand-new blood-red comet and NOT think you're "special," you're not thinking straight.

clap clap clap THIS! Ugh I love Dany. She is amazing.

[BlackLightning]

14 minutes ago, sifth said:

Didn't Robert get his crown by being able to turn enemies into friends. I mean I hate to say it, but all Dany has really managed to do since taking Meereen is make more enemies. I'm talking about the books not the show however. I honestly doubt Varys is magically going to give Dany Dorne and The Reach the way D&D did. One of the key ways to get power and stay in power is not destroying stuff, but making new friends and allies.

Just look at all of the factions that want to her dead at the end of ADWD.

Robert was a idiot. A fun-loving, lovesick idiot. And he was a bad king.

Varys, Jaime and Pycelle should have never been able to keep their jobs. Cersei should have never been able to stack the deck in her favor and her favor exclusively (i.e. how many soldiers in King's Landing were Lannister soldiers in A Game of Thrones?). Littlefinger should have been watched much more closely.

Sending Stannis to kill Viserys and Daenerys was unnecessary and, ultimately, wasteful. And it backfired. Failing to reward Stannis properly was a stupid mistake and, frankly, it was mean.

Tywin should have been punished and Ser Gregory and Ser Amory executed. The Sack of King's Landing was awful.

And why does it seem like everyone in the Small Council knew the truth about Cersei's children except for Robert?

How many friends did Robert really make in the end? Not very many...summer friends vs. winter friends.

If Robert really had friends, the story would have been very different.

[Nightwish]

8 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It would depend on the person.  Jon Snow was brought back from the dead, found out he was the true heir to the iron throne, but he didn't turn into a messianic lunatic constantly talking about his destiny, did he? 

Well neither did Dany. 

[Ingelheim]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cb-C8vKvyE

 

I think this video fits really well.

 

It was sloppy and probably rushed, but Daenerys going mad doesn't come out of nowhere.

[sifth]

14 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

Robert was a idiot. A fun-loving, lovesick idiot. And he was a bad king.

Varys, Jaime and Pycelle should have never been able to keep their jobs. Cersei should have never been able to stack the deck in her favor and her favor exclusively (i.e. how many soldiers in King's Landing were Lannister soldiers in A Game of Thrones?). Littlefinger should have been watched much more closely.

Sending Stannis to kill Viserys and Daenerys was unnecessary and, ultimately, wasteful. And it backfired. Failing to reward Stannis properly was a stupid mistake and, frankly, it was mean.

Tywin should have been punished and Ser Gregory and Ser Amory executed. The Sack of King's Landing was awful.

And why does it seem like everyone in the Small Council knew the truth about Cersei's children except for Robert?

How many friends did Robert really make in the end? Not very many...summer friends vs. winter friends.

If Robert really had friends, the story would have been very different.

Say what you will about Robert, he still won the game and not by having any form of magic on his side or a dragon. The guy knew how to make friends and they put him on the throne. Dany seems to only know how to make enemies by the time we get to ADWD.

[ToddDavid]

32 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

But what group that deserved it wasn't she reasonable and sympathetic to until the King's Landing snap? 

How is treating evil enemies harshly a sign of madness or proof that she had the capacity to do the same to the innocent? If you want to make a broader point that any ruthless or violent act, even if targeted against people who deserve it, takes a moral price again fair enough but the show never really took that position with any other character (or with Daenerys herself until Episode 5). Jon hanged a traumatized orphan child. He had legitimate reasons for doing so but he still did it. Arya and Sansa did horrible things why didn't any of them suddenly snap? 

If the message is just "Targs be crazy" again fair enough but Jon is a Targaryen who will be in charge of the Night's Watch. I bet I wasn't supposed to be sitting at the end there thinking "how long until he starts killing innocent wildlings given his clear capacity for violence?" 

Once you’ve slaughtered a million people, then you’ve demonstrated the capacity to slaughter a million people, period.  

Do you think that the beliefs & values of each of those murdered soldiers & slave owners were congruent with their ruler’s or laws of their land? Of course not. There were plenty of innocents among them. Dany couldn’t care less though. They all had to die!  She had already slaughtered thousands of innocent lives prior to KL.

Do you think Tyrion, Ned, Rob, Jon, Bran, Sam, Brienne, Jorah, or Davos would’ve duplicated those actions? Absolutely not, so let’s not go pretending that her impulsive merciless decisions represented the norm of rational, compassionate thinking.

Even Jorah had to remind Dany during a bout of her mercilessness that “It’s tempting to see your enemies as evil, all of them.... but there’s good & evil on both sides in every war ever fought. I wouldn’t be here to help you if Ned Stark had done to me what you want to do to the masters of Yunkai”.

[Hodor's Dragon]

Just now, ToddDavid said:

<snip> Dany couldn’t care less though. They all had to die!  She had already slaughtered thousands of innocent lives prior to KL. <snip>

What are you talking about?

[divica]

1 minute ago, sifth said:

Say what you will about Robert, he still won the game and not by having any form of magic on his side or a dragon. The guy knew how to make friends and they put him on the throne. Dany seems to only know how to make enemies by the time we get to ADWD.

Come on. Robert was lucky as hell.

His best friend becomes the warden of the north and marries one woman that he doesn t love in order to bring the riverlands into his side?

The man that fostered him chosed him over his king and also helped secure the riverlands...

3 kingsguards stayed out of the war

Robert could wait for his lady love because his friends sacrificed themselves for him… 

The only smart thing he did was marry cersei and he had the loyalty of 5 out of the 7 kingdoms...

[weirwoodface]

I want to pop in here to go back to some comments made a few hours ago about Emilia not being very sharp and not understanding her character. I urge everyone to read her interview with The New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/daenerys-tells-all-game-of-thrones-finale-emilia-clarke-beyonce
where she discusses her craft fairly in depth. She tells us that she did know Daenerys's arc, roughly, from the beginning (it was described to her as being comparable to that of Lawrence of Arabia) but that she chose to focus on the moment when getting into character.

[sifth]

1 minute ago, divica said:

Come on. Robert was lucky as hell.

His best friend becomes the warden of the north and marries one woman that he doesn t love in order to bring the riverlands into his side?

The man that fostered him chosed him over his king and also helped secure the riverlands...

3 kingsguards stayed out of the war

Robert could wait for his lady love because his friends sacrificed themselves for him… 

The only smart thing he did was marry cersei and he had the loyalty of 5 out of the 7 kingdoms...

The only thing Robert got lucky with, was Tywin not being hand of the king and choosing to say out of the fighting.

[divica]

4 minutes ago, weirwoodface said:

I want to pop in here to go back to some comments made a few hours ago about Emilia not being very sharp and not understanding her character. I urge everyone to read her interview with The New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/daenerys-tells-all-game-of-thrones-finale-emilia-clarke-beyonce
where she discusses her craft fairly in depth. She tells us that she did know Daenerys's arc, roughly, from the beginning (it was described to her as being comparable to that of Lawrence of Arabia) but that she chose to focus on the moment when getting into character.

If the show wanted to transform all her cruel moments into bad ass moments of woman's power how can she be blamed?

I have no idea why everbody suported the "break the wheel" for exemple… Always sounded really dangerous and full of bloddshed to me...

[BlackLightning]

1 minute ago, sifth said:

Say what you will about Robert, he still won the game and not by having any form of magic on his side or a dragon. The guy knew how to make friends and they put him on the throne. Dany seems to only know how to make enemies by the time we get to ADWD.

Are you serious? He didn't win the game.

He had no real friends except for Ned. He says so himself and look where that got the both of them.

He was a pawn for other people and then he died when he outlived his purpose in the games of other people.

I agree with Dany's knack for making enemies; she is just like Jon in that regard. It's probably the point GRRM is trying to make.

Revolutionaries have no friends. Conquerors and generals who lack political aptitude (it's very rare to be a good politician, a good commander and a good person) have no friends.

That's why successful revolutions rarely work out in the long run. The Haitian Revolution was successful but Haiti was blacklisted and isolated for centuries due to racism and classism and, as such, it became worst than it was under French rule. The French Revolution was successful but was very ugly and very bloody and gave birth to the Reign of Terror and then Napoleon Bonaparte and then the kneejerk response was the super-conservative age of European nationalism and imperialism that eventually caused World Wars I and II. And we all know how spectacularly the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the Chinese Revolution in 1948 turned out.

The American Revolution is the exception to the rule (part of the reason why the world is so fascinated with us) but even us Americans had serious problems. Currently, not only are we still struggling with issues that should've been put to bed a long time ago, but we also are struggling with current issues that are currently pulling the country further apart.

But the common thing between Dany, Jon and Ned Stark is that they are trying to do good things and somewhat succeed in doing so. However, they are hated by bad people who hate the good they do, they are hated by people who are indifferent and comfortable because they hate change and they are hated by good people who misunderstand or are envious of them.

 

[Lolgotfan]

Again justifying atrocities. He could have been jailed or punished. No instead he gets tortured and she is smug about it all. And you want to make excuses for everything why was he angry? Oh cause that very baby was unpaid for. She's always been submit or die and how can you not possibly see that as a tyrant is beyond me. fanboy stuff.

[The One Who Kneels]

26 minutes ago, ToddDavid said:

Once you’ve slaughtered a million people, then you’ve demonstrated the capacity to slaughter a million people, period.  

Do you think that the beliefs & values of each of those murdered soldiers & slave owners were congruent with their ruler’s or laws of their land? Of course not. There were plenty of innocents among them. Dany couldn’t care less though. They all had to die!  She had already slaughtered thousands of innocent lives prior to KL.

Do you think Tyrion, Ned, Rob, Jon, Bran, Sam, Brienne, Jorah, or Davos would’ve duplicated those actions? Absolutely not, so let’s not go pretending that her impulsive merciless decisions represented the norm of rational, compassionate thinking.

Even Jorah had to remind Dany during a bout of her mercilessness that “It’s tempting to see your enemies as evil, all of them.... but there’s good & evil on both sides in every war ever fought. I wouldn’t be here to help you if Ned Stark had done to me what you want to do to the masters of Yunkai”.

So when you kill people or order some people to be killed or get people killed for a cause you lead you're capable of killing any amount of people for no reason? Again that's not how the show has framed anyone including Daenerys until Episode 5 of this season. 

Citation needed. There are always innocent and good people serving bad causes that die in war. War sucks. Never before has presiding over just (or even unjust) wars been proof of madness. 

You say Ned wouldn't have duplicated those actions then you have Jorah talk about how Ned wanted to do to him what Daenerys wanted to do the masters of Yunkai. When Rickard Karstark murdered two children Robb had him and all the men who participated in (including a guy who just watched) executed. See any obvious parallels there with executing slave masters (including those who didn't actively take part) for executing slave children? You want to turn " sometimes ruthlessly dealt with enemies" into proof of madness or a willingness to kill anyone and that's not how its ever worked. 

[ToddDavid]

8 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

What are you talking about?

Did you even read the first part of that paragraph?  I asked the rhetorical question: “Do you think that the beliefs & values of each of those murdered soldiers & slave owners were congruent with their ruler’s or the laws of their land? Of course not. There were plenty of innocents among them”.  

What happens to a slave owner or soldier who disobeys or fights the system? More than likely they die.  Not every individual was a representation of the evil she believed she was fighting. There were PLENTY of innocent lives among those  she mercilessly slaughtered.  Just bc they don’t have names or faces doesn’t change that fact.  Reread Jorah’s quote to Dany:

“It’s tempting to see your enemies as evil, all of them.... but there’s good & evil on both sides in every war ever fought. I wouldn’t be here to help you if Ned Stark had done to me what you want to do to the mastersof Yunkai”.

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

So when you kill people or order some people to be killed or get people killed for a cause you lead you're capable of killing any amount of people for no reason? Again that's not how the show has framed anyone including Daenerys until Episode 5 of this season. 

Citation needed. There are always innocent and good people serving bad causes that die in war. War sucks. Never before has presiding over just (or even unjust) wars been proof of madness. 

You say Ned wouldn't have duplicated those actions then you have Jorah talk about how Ned wanted to do to him what Daenerys wanted to do the masters of Yunkai. When Rickard Karstark murdered two children Robb had him and all the men who participated in (including a guy who just watched) executed. See any obvious parallels there with executing slave masters (including those who didn't actively take part) for executing slave children? You want to turn " sometimes ruthlessly dealt with enemies" into proof of madness or a willingness to kill anyone and that's not how its ever worked. 

The guy who 'watched' was the look out, he was part of the group that kidnapped and killed the POWs, don't make him out to be a bystander.  So, Robb knows that all of those executed were guilty and part of the murder, it is not a parallel in any meaningful sense of crucifying a randomly selected number of ruling nobles. 

[Jon and Dany Targaryen]

7 hours ago, beeeeeen said:

we could be in a "agree to disagree" situation... however, there are peoples who, for years, told us this was going to happen... that means one thing, it was all in front of us, and we just could not see it.
But don't worry, that's exactly what the writers wanted. They wanted to trick us into cheering Daenerys, so the clues had to be subtle, they needed it for two reasons. First, for the shock value, it's one of the core elements of Game of Thrones, that's what fuel the buzz around the show, and they need it. And secondly, they needed us to be wrong so they could make us think about ourselves. If there had been too many clues, we would all have guessed what would happen, and we would all be leaving the show reinforced in our belief that we are very good at judgement...
And it would be a terrible idea, because if there is something that History tells us, it's that we have often be very bad at judging peoples... That's why i love that this show is trying to teach us something.

I surmised danys actions were all geared in part selfishly and for adoration for a long time now but the writers went overboard turning her into a pitiful and desperate creature in her interactions with jon and pushed her over the edge in having her lose everything but I still dont think this person would for no reason burn down a city. Without cause and for no  given plausible reason. Makes no sense. At least the made king has reason; hearing voices and insane. They pushed their plot rushing everything to an unrealistic close which few could have predicted in totality, which is what they were going for.

[The One Who Kneels]

15 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

The guy who 'watched' was the look out, he was part of the group that kidnapped and killed the POWs, don't make him out to be a bystander.  So, Robb knows that all of those executed were guilty and part of the murder, it is not a parallel in any meaningful sense of crucifying a randomly selected number of ruling nobles. 

And the masters who took no part in crucifying the slave children weren't part of the ruling body of Meereen that did decide to crucify slave children? Neither were bystanders even if they didn't commit the crimes itself. Daenerys didn't just randomly crucify some masters because they were her enemies it was specific retribution for a horrible crime. Could there have been a better way of trying to separate the culpable masters? Sure probably. But that's a far cry from a Mad Queen who goes around slaughtering anyone and everyone who opposes her. Why didn't she crucify all the masters in Meereen?