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

[ToddDavid]

23 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

Exactly what I've been saying!

BTW, your user name is my brother's first and middle name. How weird is that?

That is weird. That you don’t recognize your own brother anymore.  

[ToddDavid]

You’re an aunt now by the way.  Sorry, forgot to mention it.  And call dad; he’s not feeling well.  

[JagLover]

10 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

None of those bullet points is an argument that slavery is moral.  Certainly, not all slaves were tortured throughout history or in the books and the show, this is a fact.  A slave being treated well doesn't diminish the fact that slavery itself is immoral, it simply means that not all slave holders are raging Evil Sadists Who Deserve Immediate Brutal Death.  And I would also agree, that overwhelmingly a person who was born into a slave holding society is going to view it as the natural order of things, indeed, again, we have thousands of years of real history to show us this is true, not everyone, but most this again is not any argument that slavery is moral, it's an argument that people are molded by the cultures and societies and norms in which they live. 

Besides which the lives of the supposedly "free" working class wasn't much better in pre modern times. 

[JagLover]

4 hours ago, tallTale said:

A fire breathing dragon instills plenty of fear. No need for innocent to be murdered.

 

Possession of weapons of destruction means nothing if everyone else doesn't think you are willing to use it. 

In her eyes she had to demonstrate both the power and the will in order to rule through fear. I am glad we got a calm rational Dany in Ep6 to make it clear it had been a conscious decision. 

[Kylan]

People often talk about Dany locking up Rheagal and Viserion under Meereen is a proof of how good she was.

I was -extremely- mad at her for that decision, and thinking back on it now, it's even more obvious that this was never a good decision. It was pure Dany, doing the wrong thing, for good intentions. She punished two dragons who had done nothing (and were described in the books as being the nicest dragons) for what Drogon had done (while he was never punished for it). This is never a good way to teach animals, not even dogs, and if they are indeed really intelligent, it's even crueler.

It's really a trend for Dany at this point, that she generalizes very quickly. One dragon does something bad, all dragons are guilty. Lots of Masters do bad things (crucifying children), all of the Masters are guilty. Something doesn't align with her vision of what's good? Ban all these traditions immediately, alienating people in the process, instead of slowly teaching people how to change their ways. It's actually a common theme in our world today. People think the only way to do something good is to destroy practices that are not considered to be good overnight, instead of teaching people how to change, which takes years and years, sometimes generations.

Even though I did support Dany for her ideals, I did see how she failed sometimes (probably still missed some), and when she failed, it was always with a high cost for everyone else. That, and you don't send your children to fight for you, you try to protect them instead, unless you see them as little more than war assets, which is disgusting.

So I think her going this way is actually fantastic, even though I do admit that I'm not all on board with how it was done in the show.

Now concerning how the story is told in the books, I really hope that she will not get Rheagal and Viserion's trust right back when they get free. I really hope she will have to work for it, because in the show, they started helping her immediately, and that felt really cheap to me. Or maybe that master she fed them was really super tasty or something.

[Cas Stark]

4 hours ago, Kylan said:

People often talk about Dany locking up Rheagal and Viserion under Meereen is a proof of how good she was.

I was -extremely- mad at her for that decision, and thinking back on it now, it's even more obvious that this was never a good decision. It was pure Dany, doing the wrong thing, for good intentions. She punished two dragons who had done nothing (and were described in the books as being the nicest dragons) for what Drogon had done (while he was never punished for it). This is never a good way to teach animals, not even dogs, and if they are indeed really intelligent, it's even crueler.

It's really a trend for Dany at this point, that she generalizes very quickly. One dragon does something bad, all dragons are guilty. Lots of Masters do bad things (crucifying children), all of the Masters are guilty. Something doesn't align with her vision of what's good? Ban all these traditions immediately, alienating people in the process, instead of slowly teaching people how to change their ways. It's actually a common theme in our world today. People think the only way to do something good is to destroy practices that are not considered to be good overnight, instead of teaching people how to change, which takes years and years, sometimes generations.

Even though I did support Dany for her ideals, I did see how she failed sometimes (probably still missed some), and when she failed, it was always with a high cost for everyone else. That, and you don't send your children to fight for you, you try to protect them instead, unless you see them as little more than war assets, which is disgusting.

So I think her going this way is actually fantastic, even though I do admit that I'm not all on board with how it was done in the show.

Now concerning how the story is told in the books, I really hope that she will not get Rheagal and Viserion's trust right back when they get free. I really hope she will have to work for it, because in the show, they started helping her immediately, and that felt really cheap to me. Or maybe that master she fed them was really super tasty or something.

I agree w/all of this.  When she locked up her dragons and basically forgot about them, never tried to seek any information on how to train them, never visited them, is when I finally turned against her and started rooting for Drogon to eat her or for her to otherwise fail at her quest.  She was never fit to rule.

[The One Who Kneels]

21 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

Ned was justified to execute Jorah. Are you really trying to cite Ned's hypothetical execution of Jorah as evidence that Ned is merciless like Dany?

Jorah knew the punishment for selling slaves was death. He did it anyway.
The slavers did not know the punishment for being born in a slaving society was death. Dany killed them anyway.

There seems to be this mistaken idea that the progression to murdering a million people goes 1 3 10 100 1000 100000 1m. That isn't how it works. It goes 1 and then 1 million. If you can justify murdering one person then you can justify murdering 1 million because all you do is apply the same justification 1 million times. This is just a psychological truth. It's why mass killings happen out of nowhere. It's why the family of mass killers often say that they had no idea their son, daughter, uncle, friend or father was capable of something like that. People were NOT paying attention to the psychology of the character of Daenerys. Her progression didn't come out of nowhere, it was developed slowly since season 1 right in front of you, but we weren't paying attention to it because we sympathize with her.

Step 1: I know it's wrong but I'm not the one doing it. (Viserys, Wineseller)
Step 2: I know it's wrong but I'm not the only one doing it. (Crucify masters in retaliation)
Step 3: I know it's wrong but someone made me do it. (Tarlys made me kill them. Sansa made me kill Varys.)
Step 4: Now she doesn't know it's wrong anymore. The mechanism that was telling her the difference between right and wrong is corrupted and broken, because she kept misusing it and broke it. That's why she feels perfectly justified to burn KL and everyone in it.

Jorah WARNED her to look away from Viserys's murder.
Barristan WARNED her not to crucify the masters and apply mercy.
Tyrion WARNED her to apply mercy and let the Tarlys think in a dark cell JUST LIKE NED DID when Ned changed his mind.

Of course Ned was justified to execute Jorah. It was other people who apparently felt Ned would never execute anyone with the capacity for good unlike that crazy evil Daenerys.

Daenerys never executed anyone for being born into a slaving society. The masters of Meereen were crucified for murdering slave children not for being masters. The masters of Yunkai were left alone until they reimposed slavery after Daenerys had conquered their city abolished slavery and left at which point she considered executing them all but ultimately decided against it. 

But I'm fine with the moral hazard of killing being the point. The trouble is the show never treated it as such except suddenly with Daenerys in Episode 5. Again how many people did Arya murder? Yet it would still have been quite stupid and come out of nowhere to see her running down unarmed peasants in King's Landing and slitting their throats. Tyrion murdered his defenseless father with a crossbow but he still gets to be the voice of mercy and reason at the end of the show. Jon doesn't chuck Janos Slynt into an ice cell to let him rethink his disobedience he executes him (even as Janos cries, apologizes and begs for forgiveness) yet it's proof that Daenerys is mad or a monster when she executes the Tarlys? 

21 hours ago, ToddDavid said:

When you have to dishonestly resort to chopping down one of the show’s most honorable characters [Ned] in order to try and make Mad Dany’s cruelty & brutality appear acceptable, then you’ve thoroughly lost the debate.  

The only one being dishonest was you in your repeated claims that Ned showed Jorah mercy and that this was EXPLICITLY stated in the show. 

[SansaJonRule]

16 hours ago, ToddDavid said:

That is weird. That you don’t recognize your own brother anymore.  

Well, what do you expect? You never, write, never call, certainly don't send pictures, you got a new tat and when did you start wearing your hat backwards?

My niece looks adorable! Thanks for keeping that a secret for a couple of years! Oh, and I just talked to Dad. He's feeling much better.

Great comments, btw!

[SansaJonRule]

36 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

The only one being dishonest was you in your repeated claims that Ned showed Jorah mercy and that this was EXPLICITLY stated in the show.

If it was me, I would definitely count being exiled instead of executed as mercy. Unfortunately, we don't get to see much of what Ned did or would do, since he was killed off so early in the series. But I believe it was Robb who said that Ned taught him that there was a time for justice, but that sometimes there was room for mercy.

[The One Who Kneels]

5 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

If it was me, I would definitely count being exiled instead of executed as mercy. Unfortunately, we don't get to see much of what Ned did or would do, since he was killed off so early in the series. But I believe it was Robb who said that Ned taught him that there was a time for justice, but that sometimes there was room for mercy.

But Jorah wasn't exiled to Essos by Ned he fled to Essos to avoid being executed by Ned. 

[Hodor's Dragon]

18 hours ago, rustythesmith said:

Too easy. This scene is an amalgamation of scenes directly from the books, all of which I've already analyzed in an essay. I'll try to sum up the bigger points.

1. Dany's disgust for slavery and the people who practice it is amplified by her experiences in this scene.

"The blood of my enemies. Not innocents."

This quote demonstrates that Dany has a good and evil view of the world. If GoT and ASOIAF has an anti-premise, it is the good and evil world view. It's the reason the story is hailed for its "grey" characters. The good and evil world view is GRRM's biggest criticism of conventional fantasy. The good guys are beautiful and wear white while the bad guys are ugly and wear black. And it's the reason the whole book series is written from a first person point of view. Martin is drawing attention to the problem of moral relativity.

2. Jorah and Barristan are literally the angel and devil on Dany's shoulder in this scene, walking on either side of her. Jorah sells Dany on the idea of taking a bite out of the fruits of slavery by buying the Unsullied. It's the "ends justify the means" argument, one of many bad lessons Jorah teaches her.

Barristan makes the case against it by pointing out that people followed Rhaegar because they loved him, not because they were bought.

Jorah gives the last line of the"and Rhaegar died" speech, which is the next and perhaps most harmful lesson that Jorah teaches Dany. The takeway for Dany is that nothing she does matters if she dies. It suggests that death is the worst thing that can happen to her, or rather, that she should sacrifice her ideal when it is expedient.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person, as we see with other characters like Theon. And there are some values that are worth dying for, such as protecting children, like we see Ned do. And, perhaps, not taking a bite out of the fruits of slavery.
 

Kudos, this was a better effort than I expected, but ... no. I'm thoroughly unconvinced. This scene contributes zero toward setting up what happened in epi 5.

First, I'm not talking about the whole conversation, I'm talking about Dany going up and giving water to the crucified man. But let's call that a technicality, leave it aside, and I'll take you on your own terms.

- It seems quite obvious that the quote you give - "The blood of my enemies. Not innocents." - cuts a lot harder toward Dany making distinctions as to who tastes her fire and blood than in favor of mass application to all as in epi 5. As does every act she has taken in the whole series. She has blustered about burning cities down many times, but I read that as using threats as a tool, not as an actual intention. My interpretation by the fact that she never does actually do anything remotely like burning a city down to the ground, even when the SOTH are making things impossibly difficult for her rule and she just can't find out who is behind it in order to dispense justice. Threats are a known tool of the conqueror, after all.

The bit about "black and white" doesn't really move the needle either way in terms of making it seem likely Dany will ultimately choose mass destruction. Besides, while Daenerys may be pretty black and white about whether people support her or refuse, that's just what medieval rulers did. In other areas, I see her making some pretty nuanced and intelligent decisions.

- If Jorah gives her "end justifies means" re taking a little bite of slavery, SHE REJECTS IT. Not only does she free the Unsullied, she immediately puts them to work not by indulging in slavery, but by attempting to end it. She doesn't even nibble on slavery.

I mean sure, she uses the Unsullied, who got their training as slaves, but that already happened and she can't undo it.

- Perhaps you can read some pragmatic thing about rejecting your ideals instead of dying into Jorah's speech, but so what? Dany rejects Jorah's ideas frequently and makes her own decisions. That's what she has advisors for, to give her other points of view.

 

[SansaJonRule]

5 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

But Jorah wasn't exiled to Essos by Ned he fled to Essos to avoid being executed by Ned. 

Oh, my bad. I thought he was exiled and spying on Viserys and Dany was part of the bargain.

[Jen'ari]

I don’t think her demonstrating her power by destroying Kings Landing was that bad really.

[John Meta]

On 5/20/2019 at 1:42 PM, 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.

I wouldn't use "good/evil" to describe her. I know many people tend to skew things perceptively into blacks and whites, but I think the theme of her character is that this is not something we can really do. Dany's character arc is the arc of a coin flipping through the air, as was said a few times. One face was liberator, the other was destroyer. It's much like the fire which is her nature. Fire can be a very good and benevolent thing when properly cared for, but when care of tending is removed, it can burn out of control, and that which was life-giving and benevolent can very suddenly become utter destruction.

I don't think we're meant to feel complicit in a sense that makes us feel guilt. When she did those things, it was against "evil men" and so we could justify the destruction. We could maintain our belief that she was "good" despite the fact we were watching a flipping coin. She was in part life-giver, but she also showed in part destroyer. It just so happens that we can justify the destroyer since the destruction is - from a certain point of view - justified.

But behind that justified face, there was a question of; is she capable of destruction which we wouldn't justify? We only see the destruction from a certain justifiable point of view. But what happens in a crisis situation? What face do we see then? It turns out that it's the face of the destroyer. She showed previously that in a specific situation she would be the dragon. But until King's Landing (perhaps even with the Tarlys) we never saw which face would show in that specific type of crisis situation. Turns out it's the dragon.

Dany doesn't really do a character "heel turn" at King's Landing; though many perhaps perceive it as such. It's a character revelation in a crisis situation. It only seems sudden because we're suddenly seeing a face we've seen before - but now we can't justify it anymore. The writers didn't "trash" Dany's character, they trashed the viewer's ability to see her destroyer face in a way that could be justified.

And, again, I don't think anyone is meant to feel guilty or as if they are "complicit villains" because the viewers (mostly) want to see the good in people. There's nothing wrong with that. I would propose that the story is wanting is to see Dany as a tragic figure who is where she supposed to be, even though it is not where we may want her to be. But her actions, justifable or not, do cause the breaking of the wheel even as she said to Jon, they did it together - just not how it was expected.

Remember the end of the vision she had, right after the throne room, she was with Drogo and her child. Clearly a type of peaceful afterlife imagery. So she is not a "villain" at all - not in the sense in which we might apply the term to, say, a person who destroys for the sole purpose of hurting people like Geoffrey. Dany's purpose was always rooted in compassion and freedom - even when her path toward that purpose became destructive.

People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions - but I question that saying, and I'd propose so does this story.

[SansaJonRule]

7 minutes ago, John Meta said:

I wouldn't use "good/evil" to describe her. I know many people tend to skew things perceptively into blacks and whites, but I think the theme of her character is that this is not something we can really do. Dany's character arc is the arc of a coin flipping through the air, as was said a few times. One face was liberator, the other was destroyer. It's much like the fire which is her nature. Fire can be a very good and benevolent thing when properly cared for, but when care of tending is removed, it can burn out of control, and that which was life-giving and benevolent can very suddenly become utter destruction.

I don't think we're meant to feel complicit in a sense that makes us feel guilt. When she did those things, it was against "evil men" and so we could justify the destruction. We could maintain our belief that she was "good" despite the fact we were watching a flipping coin. She was in part life-giver, but she also showed in part destroyer. It just so happens that we can justify the destroyer since the destruction is - from a certain point of view - justified.

But behind that justified face, there was a question of; is she capable of destruction which we wouldn't justify? We only see the destruction from a certain justifiable point of view. But what happens in a crisis situation? What face do we see then? It turns out that it's the face of the destroyer. She showed previously that in a specific situation she would be the dragon. But until King's Landing (perhaps even with the Tarlys) we never saw which face would show in that specific type of crisis situation. Turns out it's the dragon.

Dany doesn't really do a character "heel turn" at King's Landing; though many perhaps perceive it as such. It's a character revelation in a crisis situation. It only seems sudden because we're suddenly seeing a face we've seen before - but now we can't justify it anymore. The writers didn't "trash" Dany's character, they trashed the viewer's ability to see her destroyer face in a way that could be justified.

And, again, I don't think anyone is meant to feel guilty or as if they are "complicit villains" because the viewers (mostly) want to see the good in people. There's nothing wrong with that. I would propose that the story is wanting is to see Dany as a tragic figure who is where she supposed to be, even though it is not where we may want her to be. But her actions, justifable or not, do cause the breaking of the wheel even as she said to Jon, they did it together - just not how it was expected.

Remember the end of the vision she had, right after the throne room, she was with Drogo and her child. Clearly a type of peaceful afterlife imagery. So she is not a "villain" at all - not in the sense in which we might apply the term to, say, a person who destroys for the sole purpose of hurting people like Geoffrey. Dany's purpose was always rooted in compassion and freedom - even when her path toward that purpose became destructive.

People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions - but I question that saying, and I'd propose so does this story.

I think this is the best explanation of Dany's character I read.

[Nightwish]

42 minutes ago, John Meta said:

The writers didn't "trash" Dany's character, they trashed the viewer's ability to see her destroyer face in a way that could be justified.

simply stated: all characters have shown extreme acts of violence - when under pressure or just for reasons of revenge. So in that aspect the screen-writers manufactured this side of Dany which could not be justified, as they could have manufactured the same side if needed also for other characters. So they don't trash the viewer's ability because a. they are not so clever b. universe of Westeros allows them just to pull the carpet under Dany's feet when its convenient because they set the table. 

But it could be Dany, it could be Tyrion (on his trial and under crisis he wished for everyone to die), it could be Arya (obsession with pies), it could be anyone if pushed to the corner, isolated, betrayed and probably finished. If violence under justification is just the reason we can't see Dany's dark side, this won't do. It is a motif repeatedly countless times in GOT, it is almost a standard in GOT universe, introducing itself as soon as Ned beheads a lad for running scared to death from the Night Watch.

What does this example show for the ethics and morality of the time; that discipline to laws, fear for the punishment and submission are higher values than the human life itself. Under this context, how can viewers even distinguish the good from the bad since murder and death seem to be the solution that even the best of the characters have accepted? 

It is not Danny's character alone whose morality is double face, or who suffers from it, it is all the characters because this is how GOT is built. 

Even at the end the good Jon has to murder a young woman, pretending to give in to her charms. The script could have set another way to do it less treacherous. 

This is the second time that he does it (killing a lover). Perhaps deep down he finds a satisfaction in this and we are just seeing his justified side? So we don't see that he is a serial killer? 

 If from there on the script writers showed him going on a serial killer mode, would you justify them to say: you should have foreseen it, because the signs were there?

Well if you adopt this way of thinking, probably. Because you couldn't accept it for Dany if you don't accept it for Jon.

So this is not just Dany's case, they are all potential murders who we just haven't seen under crisis, since they are accustomed to violence from a very young age (remember Ned's scene mentioned above?)

But the simple truth is that is just manufactured all the way to cause surprise, taking advantage of the immorality that governs GOT. Nothing more. 

[SansaJonRule]

28 minutes ago, Nightwish said:

It is not Danny's character alone whose morality is double face, or who suffers from it, it is all the characters because this is how GOT is built. 

This is the second time that he does it (killing a lover). Perhaps deep down he finds a satisfaction in this and we are just seeing his justified side? 

I strongly disagree that all characters had the same chance of succumbing to their bad side. Can you see Brienne, or Tommen turning into murderers? Or Margarey, for all her scheming, was not a killer. On the other hand, Arya could very well have turned into a cold blooded killer, with the hate she harbored in her heart, and I was really afraid that was where her character was going to end up.

The thing that makes it more likely for Dany is that she carries the "Mad Targaryen" gene, which made it a question for her character from the very beginning.

Oh, and Jon did not kill Ygritte (his first lover). Olly shot her, Jon caught her as she fell and she died in his arms, so that argument is a non starter.

[NymeriaWarriorQueen]

Dany violated the rules of war by committing war crimes.  She totally ignored the surrender and slaughtered and burned civilians.   She heard them crying “Ring the Bells” but didn’t care.  That is why she is worse than Ayra, Cersei, and others.

[Nightwish]

26 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

I strongly disagree that all characters had the same chance of succumbing to their bad side. Can you see Brienne, or Tommen turning into murderers? Or Margarey, for all her scheming, was not a killer. On the other hand, Arya could very well have turned into a cold blooded killer, with the hate she harbored in her heart, and I was really afraid that was where her character was going to end up.

The thing that makes it more likely for Dany is that she carries the "Mad Targaryen" gene, which made it a question for her character from the very beginning.

Oh, and Jon did not kill Ygritte (his first lover). Olly shot her, Jon caught her as she fell and she died in his arms, so that argument is a non starter.

Right, I thought it was his arrow, but nevertheless, the point is to see how potentially all characters could turn into villains because GOT universe is built, constructed and actually run by violence even in the pretense of the law.  

Again, I want to say that my argument here is not Dany's character, but how the script writers can so easily construct a character who results in violence because the GOT world allows it, since this is how the characters learn to resolve their problems with violence.  

[Tyrion1991]

It is playing the good and evil card if you’re criticising the notion of the greater good as being inherently bad. Which, doesn’t have anything to do with the show because Dany achieved the end but used the means anyway....

Jorahs not wrong when he tells her that she needs an army and Rhaegar died. Barristan insists that the Lords of Westeros will rise if she simply takes a boat there. That’s incredibly naive of him to believe when everything suggests that Westeros has completely moved past caring for the Targaryens. Only one house is interested and he didn’t know that at the time. It’s never presented or even insinuated as a possibility that the Lords would swing for Daenerys. Plus on the show in season 2 Jorah tells her the exact opposite about how “you have a gentle heart” and if people see that then they would love her.

Also, Jorah was there. He was at the trident and saw Rhaegar die; his army scattered. He’s speaking from personal experience. Being noble doesn’t make you strong; that’s what he’s saying to contradict Barristan. Why shouldn’t he tell Dany that she should do everything she can to win?