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People's reaction to Dany turning Mad Queen says something about us as humans


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3 hours ago, Ice Queen said:
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Darn, now that's bugging me. I know the quote is "If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." But I can't remember what it's from. Please clean out the cobwebs for me!

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Actually, Martin himself said it years ago. 

 

No, no, Martin didn't say that.

 

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17 minutes ago, JagLover said:

You seriously think the next city isn't going to surrender after seeing what happened to those who defy her?

For your logic to have work what should have happened is KL surrender without a fight and then Dany kill everyone, that would have made her irredeemably evil. There isn't any surrender at the last moment after the attackers have fought their way past the walls and it was common practice by conquerors to make an example of cities that resisted. 

The whole business with the bells is in there for modern audiences. 

People always resist. History is full of cities which resisted both in our own and in GoT's history. Plus, even if they did surrender, what would happen if some insurgency arose after she left and people naturally resented her rule? Maybe even kill a few of Daeny's advisors ? We have seen what she did to an entire city of innocents after the death of one advisor already... 

Really think she wouldn't do it again? 

I don't regard her as evil, more so totally sold on her own delusion that she is the sole bringer of justice and that all who oppose her are evil and that any act she does in the name of justice is correct regardless of the cost.

A megalomaniac is how I would label her 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Tywin Tytosson said:

I'm thinking that it's more French Revolutionary rhetoric 

In a language that can be understood by Dothrakis wild riders and robotic Unsullied troopers. That's a point that almost everyone easily forgets.

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1 hour ago, JagLover said:

In pre modern times a city got one chance to surrender, before the attackers had stormed the defences. Some bells ringing out were put there for the audience. 

In terms of Dany's aims the North and Dorne already serve her so no conquering required, she was talking of the breadth of her domain, from memory from Winterfell in the North to Dorne in the south, from Lannisport to Quarth. 

The crude imagery is meant to evoke the Nazi era, but her goals are never properly fleshed out on the show, for the sole reason that this would make her grey. The status of serfs wasn't much different to slaves if you read your history and we have seen in the books (less so on the show) how the smallfolk suffer. Do you think Westeros is a perfect society that could not be improved?, but the question is whether radical change (which Dany seems to have in mind) would do more harm than good.

She no longer trusted Jon fully because of the revelation of his descent, but she has listened to trusted councillors before, and, as her husband there is every evidence he could have been a moderating influence.

Shades of grey rather than the extremely contrived writing and (later) imagery used in the show from mid way through S7 onwards to kill off one of the most interesting characters while the masses cheer. 

I really don't care about out-of-world rationalizations. Dany heard the surrender bells. They talked about this over and over and over for the viewer. Dany killed innocent men, women, children and babies when she didn't have to.

No, she clearly wasn't talking about the breadth of her domain as she mentions places which were never under her rule. They were very clear about her goals. It's in the background of that scene and in their comparisons to the Others. 

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[Ominous discordant music with Nazi and satanic imagery]

But the war is not over. We will not lay down our spears until we have liberated all of the people of the world. From Winterfell to Dorne [shot to Jon's wtf face], from Lannisport to Qarth [shot to Tyrion's wtf face), from the Summer Isles to the Jade Seas, women, men and children have suffered too long beneath the wheel. Will you break the wheel with me? 
 

[Tyrion then confronts her and throws his hand pin away. 

Since you didn't watch it before, here it is again. 

In the world of ASOIAF and GoT, being a serf is vastly better than being a slave. Who in the world would choose being a slave over a serf? If Dany was really about liberating people, she'd be back in Essos freeing the literal slaves. 

No, you said Jon should have tried talking to her. I noted that he did several times. Now you're moving the goal posts and saying, well she didn't trust him? 

I think you're arguing from your headcanon view of the character. I can't read your mind and no one else can either, so there's no point. Discuss what's on screen, like it or not, but don't start making stuff up. 

I'll say it again. 

13 hours ago, Lollygag said:

If I was a messianic and homicidal fascist and I needed people who would accept the flimsiest propaganda excuses for the horrid deeds I wanted to do, a particular subset of Dany fans would be the first place I'd look. 

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9 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

 

I'll say it again. 

I've encountered quite a lot of people who were cheering Dany on as she torched Kings Landing, and were annoyed that she got killed in the next episode.  I wonder how common that view is.

I guess it's very common to just pick a side and stick by it.

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"Orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities were issued on July 25. On August 6, one of the modified B-29s dropped a uranium gun-type ("Little Boy") bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion ("Fat Man") bomb was dropped by another B-29 on Nagasaki. The bombs immediately devastated their targets. Over the next two to four months, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. Large numbers of people continued to die from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition, for many months afterward. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison." (quoted from Wikipedia)

 

That wasn't Daenerys. That wasn't Hitler. That was Truman. And there are people who justify to this day killing civilians to save the lives of American soldiers. We don't need to look back to the middle ages.

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44 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I've encountered quite a lot of people who were cheering Dany on as she torched Kings Landing, and were annoyed that she got killed in the next episode.  I wonder how common that view is.

I guess it's very common to just pick a side and stick by it.

I wonder that too. Given the news lately, that's scary because I don't know to what extent people do that with fictional characters because they have that same mentality in rl. 

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2 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

You must have watched a different show?…

How many states did she march through, conquer and then abandon in the east? She destroyed everything she touched and left little of value to replace or even improve the lives of the people she claimed to be liberating. That indicates that she never was interested in truly improving the lives of these people but more so interested in imposing only her own vision of what "better" was. 

She utterly refused to work with the status quo and sure, we can justify it by saying " oh, they were the horrible slavers or mean Khals who meant to do her harm" but there is a steady escalation of destruction and self-justification which eventually at KL just becomes nonsensical. She justified torching KL and killing probably hundreds of thousands by basically saying "sorry Jon, no time for mercy, Cersei forced me into it, hold my beer whilst I spread the liberation even further now".

I've seen people mention that her actions during episode 5 were out of character and then in their very next post state Tyrion is somehow to blame since he held back Daeny back from taking KL in season 7. By doing do they fail to see the implications of the point they are making. 

If Tyrion did anything it was curbing Daeny's natural inclinations towards destruction. If Tyrion hadn't stepped in , she likely would have torched KL during season 7, plus dare we mention her execution of the Tarlys against the advice of her advisors as being testament to her natural inclinations? 

The last two episodes of season 8 aren't examples of Daeny suddenly turning for the worst and going against her own character. The odd episodes which stand out are the majority of season 7 and front half of season 8 when her megalomania was being curbed by her advisors for most of the time minus executing the Tarlys.

The last two episodes of season 8 are entirely in character with her actions during seasons 1-6. It's as mentioned previously , most of season 7 and the front half of season 8 which are out of character.

 

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14 minutes ago, Charles Stuart said:

How many states did she march through, conquer and then abandon in the east? She destroyed everything she touched and left little of value to replace or even improve the lives of the people she claimed to be liberating. That indicates that she never was interested in truly improving the lives of these people but more so interested in imposing only her own vision of what "better" was. 

She utterly refused to work with the status quo and sure, we can justify it by saying " oh, they were the horrible slavers or mean Khals who meant to do her harm" but there is a steady escalation of destruction and self-justification which eventually at KL just becomes nonsensical. She justified torching KL and killing probably hundreds of thousands by basically saying "sorry Jon, no time for mercy, Cersei forced me into it, hold my beer whilst I spread the liberation even further now".

I've seen people mention that her actions during episode 5 were out of character and then in their very next post state Tyrion is somehow to blame since he held back Daeny back from taking KL in season 7. By doing do they fail to see the implications of the point they are making. 

If Tyrion did anything it was curbing Daeny's natural inclinations towards destruction. If Tyrion hadn't stepped in , she likely would have torched KL during season 7, plus dare we mention her execution of the Tarlys against the advice of her advisors as being testament to her natural inclinations? 

The last two episodes of season 8 aren't examples of Daeny suddenly turning for the worst and going against her own character. The odd episodes which stand out are the majority of season 7 and front half of season 8 when her megalomania was being curbed by her advisors for most of the time minus executing the Tarlys.

The last two episodes of season 8 are entirely in character with her actions during seasons 1-6. It's as mentioned previously , most of season 7 and the front half of season 8 which are out of character.

 

Dany taking off and burning the Red Keep with its human shields.  Is that in character?  Pretty much.  I assumed from her final war council that that was her intention, when she hears the bells ring.   But, that still leaves her as a somewhat sympathetic character.  It's nothing unusual in this brutal world.

Dany taking off, swerving aside from the Red Keep, then systematically torching street after street of fleeing civilians?  That is what came out of the left field, in order to justify killing her off.  That's several steps removed from anything that had gone before.  It would have been fine if the series had already shown her carrying out the mass slaughter of innocents in the East, but it didn't.

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On 5/21/2019 at 4:22 AM, A man doesn't have a name said:

I see people complaining about poor character development, or unforeseen corruption of Daenerys, but I honestly feel like people are mad because of how humans are. We pick our favourite heroes and turn a blind eye to everything they do from the moment they become our heroes. We leave them unchecked or justify their actions on the basis of a greater purpose that they are trying to achieve.

 I literally saw people trying to justify the burning of King's Landing in order to spare their heroin from moral judgement. That's the danger of idolizing someone for whatever reason. You grant the person the status of immaculate hero and from that moment the person becomes unaccountable. It happened to many dictators in history. A tyrant is seldom born a tyrant. They win people's hearts and then go rogue as people support them unconditionally.

I have observed that people who didn't idolize Daenerys from season 1 could clearly see how she was slowly becoming obsessed with power and gave up support to her by season 7,  as she failed to display lenience and to rule with wisdom.

I don't know. I'd like to hear people's opinion on that. Although I feel like Dany's fans are so passionate that this might attract some angry comments.

Yeah, that is precisely what it is. There was writing on the wall of Daenerys going Mad Queen route years ago.

Problem is that it was done so badly. She just jumps the shark with her torching of civilians in King's Landing, and for no obvious reason.

4 hours ago, JagLover said:

The only way "breaking the wheel" makes some sort of sense (and bearing in mind this is D&D so it may not make any sense) is that Dany wants to upend the existing social order, to end Feudalism. So she is not talking of conquering lands she already controls only that they will be included in the social changes.

The imagery was Nazi like, but her message was similar to the French revolution or Communism. 

Seeing how all three resulted in extreme number of dead people, that does not really paint her in positive light either. Which might have been the point: the fall of a hero, how easily idealistic aims and claims can get corrupted and turned into murderous rampage.

Yes, Dany "wants" to end Feudalism. But were we ever shown what it is she wants to replace it with, other than "You do as God Empress Daenerys Stormborn of Blah-Dih-Dah commands"?

15 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

OMG:bawl: 

A Hitler without the cult of personality, without the hate of other cultures, without the Lebensraum, without the racial delirium, without the Party, et. etc. Dany's journey has nothing to do with Hitler's. You just won a Godwin Point.

You kidding? The entire Daenerys story arcs is built around the cult of personality she built up for herself. She also does hate other cultures - for justifiable reasons (slavery, serfdom) maybe, but she does. And Lebensraum? She has even the parallel there - "The Iron Throne is mine by right." She is an outsider seeking to conquer Seven Kingdoms for her own personal gain. Aegon the Conqueror with tits.

17 hours ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

I guess like how people defending the show are deliberately turning a blind eye to:

Ned Stark beheading a guy who just wanted to survive.

Robb Stark beheading an ally who killed hostages.

Sansa smirking while feeding her abuser to dogs and coldly staring as she has her sister slit the throat of her years-long abuser/benefactor.

Jon killing an ally to infiltrate the wildlings, beheading a man pleading for his life, and later hanging a twelve year old.

Arya smirking while slitting the throat of a paedophile, putting Freys into pies, feeding pies to their relative and smirking while slitting his throat, threatening to flay her sister's face, and threatening to kill multiple great lords of Westeros.

Either ruthlessness is a tacitly necessary feature of dealing with enemies/threats in the dark world of Westeros/Essos, or it's a sign you'll go coocoo for coco puffs after getting the surrender you want and playing death race with civilians (alternatively, being a decent person all the time but seeing your idol start playing the death race makes you score a perfect 10 javelin on a surrendering enemy). Which has been the more consistent portrayal of such violence?

Difference is that most of these examples were people actually guilty of various crimes, and deserved death penalty for their individual crimes. Meanwhile Daenerys just went and torched innocent people - keep in mind that, historically, sacking the city was not really a murder spree.

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44 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Difference is that most of these examples were people actually guilty of various crimes, and deserved death penalty for their individual crimes. Meanwhile Daenerys just went and torched innocent people - keep in mind that, historically, sacking the city was not really a murder spree.

Well, yes, my point was that most of the time Daenerys did the same, torching/executing people who were guilty, or showing apathy to the death of an abuser. Suddenly randomly torching citizens is a completely different breed of evil and not particularly well-established as part of her personality.

Threatening to flay your sister's face and threaten several great lords of westeros with death, though? That's fine, right, Arya?

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On 5/21/2019 at 4:22 AM, A man doesn't have a name said:

I see people complaining about poor character development, or unforeseen corruption of Daenerys, but I honestly feel like people are mad because of how humans are. We pick our favourite heroes and turn a blind eye to everything they do from the moment they become our heroes. We leave them unchecked or justify their actions on the basis of a greater purpose that they are trying to achieve.

I literally saw people trying to justify the burning of King's Landing in order to spare their heroin from moral judgement. That's the danger of idolizing someone for whatever reason. You grant the person the status of immaculate hero and from that moment the person becomes unaccountable. It happened to many dictators in history. A tyrant is seldom born a tyrant. They win people's hearts and then go rogue as people support them unconditionally.

I have observed that people who didn't idolize Daenerys from season 1 could clearly see how she was slowly becoming obsessed with power and gave up support to her by season 7,  as she failed to display lenience and to rule with wisdom.

I don't know. I'd like to hear people's opinion on that. Although I feel like Dany's fans are so passionate that this might attract some angry comments.

Im guessing Dany is supposed to illustrate the awfulness of utilitarianism: that even if something is super good for the many, the cost to the few can be heinous.

Which is so basic, its embarrasing.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Dany taking off and burning the Red Keep with its human shields.  Is that in character?  Pretty much.  I assumed from her final war council that that was her intention, when she hears the bells ring.   But, that still leaves her as a somewhat sympathetic character.  It's nothing unusual in this brutal world.

Dany taking off, swerving aside from the Red Keep, then systematically torching street after street of fleeing civilians?  That is what came out of the left field, in order to justify killing her off.  That's several steps removed from anything that had gone before.  It would have been fine if the series had already shown her carrying out the mass slaughter of innocents in the East, but it didn't.

For all that it's impossible to defend her actions - come on, didn't public opinion condemn every military action on positions covered in civilians who are only there for that exact reason? - in the spirit of a character established as a conqueror, a woman who was taught that the only way to impose her rule was through martial means? 

I cheered, mea culpa, as she dispensed with the bullshit the likes of Tyrion and Varys had been advising her of and torched through the military positions of her enemy.

It was when she was pictured, via eyes of sympathetic character like in the ignoble Gold Train Loot sequence, straffing back alleys of meaningless positions with the equivalent of magical napalm that I thought - wellp, they do need to kill her for the AA imagery.

By the end of that, in a language that secures her only remaning - and magically respawning- allies - Jon, while refusing the throne, will be used as a figurehead by others, and Tyrion once again worked against her orders to favor his personal interests for all that he is pictured as a feudal nobleman defending the common populace - Daenerys promises her freed slaves a continued campaign of liberation and her marauding savages an endless war.

Could be.

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59 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Well, yes, my point was that most of the time Daenerys did the same, torching/executing people who were guilty, or showing apathy to the death of an abuser. Suddenly randomly torching citizens is a completely different breed of evil and not particularly well-established as part of her personality.

 Threatening to flay your sister's face and threaten several great lords of westeros with death, though? That's fine, right, Arya?

She hadn't done it before, true, but she did threaten to burn cities on multiple occasions.

I tried to find a video of all the times she threatened to burn cities to the ground - she did it more than once - but this will serve as well:

https://www.bustle.com/p/11-times-dany-burning-kings-landing-down-was-foreshadowed-on-game-of-thrones-17868220

https://www.inverse.com/article/55831-why-did-daenerys-burn-kings-landing-game-of-thrones-season-8-dany-mad-queen-foreshadowing-40-examples

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2 hours ago, Charles Stuart said:

If Tyrion did anything it was curbing Daeny's natural inclinations towards destruction. If Tyrion hadn't stepped in , she likely would have torched KL during season 7, plus dare we mention her execution of the Tarlys against the advice of her advisors as being testament to her natural inclinations? 

 

It is more just an example of the contrived writing leading to this point (which is why the show died for me mid way through S7). She wouldn't have needed to do anything like what she did in S8Ep5 because at that point she felt secure, she still had all of her army, all of her dragons, and Jon's rival claim had not been revealed. There was also no reason whatsoever to pause after destroying most of the Lannister army in the field. It was fairly easy in the show to storm KL as it was, imagine how much easier it would have been with a weaker Lannister army, no Golden Company and a full strength army.

The show needed to get to a certain point and didn't have a logical way to get there.

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27 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

I tried to find a video of all the times she threatened to burn cities to the ground - she did it more than once - but this will serve as well

Fair point, but not only did she never follow through, but never had to because they usually capitulated. That is, they surrendered.The exact thing King's Landing did.

I can think of many ways to make her snap. But why for the love of all things holy did they do it when she'd already won?

Here's an example of a better way to handle it:

Don't kill Rhaegal in Ep 4, have Dany not forget about the Iron fleet and therefore decimate it. Euron survives, pissed that his glorious fleet is gone. Also handles the issue of Aimbot Pirate.

After that, Dany attacks with two dragons and disables most of the ballistae, forcing KL to surrender. Initially Dany accepts that, but then Euron, crazy, angry, and just plain after a fight, shoots a resting Rhaegal.

This, along with the civilians cheering at the proof that dragons are mortal, makes Dany completely dishonour the surrender agreement, see the civilians as ideological enemies that need to be 'taught a lesson', and in general, goes apeshit. Easy changes, just as many scenes, far more organic.

Not perfect, but better than 'Surrender bells? KOWABUNGA IT IS'

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2 minutes ago, Beardy the Wildling said:

Fair point, but not only did she never follow through, but never had to because they usually capitulated. That is, they surrendered.The exact thing King's Landing did.

I can think of many ways to make her snap. But why for the love of all things holy did they do it when she'd already won?

Here's an example of a better way to handle it:

Don't kill Rhaegal in Ep 4, have Dany not forget about the Iron fleet and therefore decimate it. Euron survives, pissed that his glorious fleet is gone.

After that, Dany attacks with two dragons and disables the ballistae, forcing KL to surrender. Initially Dany accepts that, but then Euron, crazy, angry, and just plain after a fight, shoots a resting Rhaegal.

This, along with the civilians cheering at the proof that dragons are mortal, makes Dany completely dishonour the surrender agreement, see the civilians as ideological enemies that need to be 'taught a lesson', and in general, goes apeshit. Easy changes, just as many scenes, far more organic.

Not perfect, but better than 'Surrender bells? KOWABUNGA IT IS'

My point was that she was always mentally capable of doing so, and I always did expect her to eventually snap and burn King's Landing to the ground. I just expected it to be straight after Rhaegal got shot down, maybe during the battle of King's Landing itself, so KL would get no chance to surrender in the first place. Your idea would work as well. But as it was done... I agree, execution is shit.

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I still don't understand why we are supposed to care about the Kings Landing population? The basic premise is Dany is bad because she commits destruction on an enemy population during a setting where that already was routine?

TBH it didn't have have any effect on my view of her. Her post winning speech she gets a little more iffy but her actions in KL were consistent with total war as Cersi goaded her into. As pointed out the show tried to apply modern Western values on Dany but fails to do so on anyone else(even to the point of pulling in the ridiculous Hitler imagery). Lots of people still support her character, myself obviously included. If D&D wanted to make her evil so people no longer liked her they failed to do so.

The only way they could have pulled it off is if she did the same thing on an ally for a minor transgression, which they didn't do.

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3 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

For all that it's impossible to defend her actions - come on, didn't public opinion condemn every military action on positions covered in civilians who are only there for that exact reason? - in the spirit of a character established as a conqueror, a woman who was taught that the only way to impose her rule was through martial means? 

I cheered, mea culpa, as she dispensed with the bullshit the likes of Tyrion and Varys had been advising her of and torched through the military positions of her enemy.

It was when she was pictured, via eyes of sympathetic character like in the ignoble Gold Train Loot sequence, straffing back alleys of meaningless positions with the equivalent of magical napalm that I thought - wellp, they do need to kill her for the AA imagery.

By the end of that, in a language that secures her only remaning - and magically respawning- allies - Jon, while refusing the throne, will be used as a figurehead by others, and Tyrion once again worked against her orders to favor his personal interests for all that he is pictured as a feudal nobleman defending the common populace - Daenerys promises her freed slaves a continued campaign of liberation and her marauding savages an endless war.

Could be.

The fact is that if she'd torched the Red Keep, at the start of Season 7, with three dragons, the war would have been over in 30 minutes, at the likely cost of casualties in the high hundreds or low thousands.  Job done.  Cersei is dead, Dany becomes Queen, and the inhabitants of Kings Landing can get on with their lives.

Tyrion and Varys deserved to be hanged for the advice they gave her.

 

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