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

[Nowy Tends]

42 minutes ago, Apoplexy said:

As for her delusional talk and messianic complex, she has veered in that territory since almost the beginning of the show. But other characters (looking at you tyrion) only loved and believed in her for it. 

Exactly! What was shown as a quality suddenly became highly suspect.

[ToddDavid]

On 5/25/2019 at 5:14 AM, SeanF said:

Not always.  At Astapor, she specifically ordered restraint.  The only innocent we see being killed in the scene is a horse.  Likewise, there was no sack at Meereen (unlike the books) even though she did crucify masters who she deemed guilty of murdering children.  Then she tried very hard to conciliate the masters.

If the show runners wanted her to be seen as Timur the Lame, then we really needed actual footage of her ordering soldiers to bring her back severed heads, massacring prisoners etc.

No, that wasn’t needed.  The main point of her existence was the mystery revolving around whether or not she’d suddenly devolve into Daddy 2.0 [as heavily referenced]..... and it was pertinent to the mystery of the Iron Throne that her destiny be held out for as long as possible.  

Genghis Khan never did what you’re speaking of during the beginning of his campaign, so why should we have NEEDED to see anything from Dany beyond the immense amount of clues & foreshadowing provided?

[RFL]

5 hours ago, Rory Snow said:

Perceive as bad? She killed most of King's Landing AFTER they surrendered!! 500,000 or so innocent people, women, children & elderly died unnecessarily. Considering that much of Westeros was appalled at Walder Frey for ignoring guest right at the Red Wedding, one would imagine that Dany killing half a million surrendering people would be perceived as a war crime of the Nth degree. It wouldn't seem likely that they'd want her on the Iron Throne just because she might do better next time. 

Killing nobles, previously granted guest right, is far different then killing half a million peasants in flea bottom.  At least in Westeros. 

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, ToddDavid said:

No, that wasn’t needed.  The main point of her existence was the mystery revolving around whether or not she’d suddenly devolve into Daddy 2.0 [as heavily referenced]..... and it was pertinent to the mystery of the Iron Throne that her destiny be held out for as long as possible.  

Genghis Khan never did what you’re speaking of during the beginning of his campaign, so why should we have NEEDED to see anything from Dany beyond the immense amount of clues & foreshadowing provided?

He most certainly did, even when he was just fighting tribes like the Merkits.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

You don't need to tout Daenerys as a flawless heroine to be 'like, wtf?!' when she torches KL.

The poorly constructed story up to the 180 turn are there. It's not necessary to make her look good just to subvert the narrative. When you read her inner monologues it creates a dimension of instability that is always couched in protection, be it of her interests, agenda or her people, in the show.

Also, the heroicy music and the 'always the bad guys', safety cushion.

That is not the character, that's the hunter!barbie and later on 'I'm a queen, watch me float about in pretty dresses' caricature from tv. 

No one is 100% sane while starddling a nuke, people.

Consider 'The Prestige'.

I still waiting to read the book, honestly. I bought it after I rewatched the movie.

You follow 'Angier' and his antagonist use progressively low tactics in their private war.

Angier mutilates Borden, even causes him to die in prison, you know he is a bad person.

But you can still be emotionaly involved, shocked and disgusted by the cost of his 'trick' and the depths of atrocity he is capable of by the end.

If D&D were capable of creating emotional attachment to characters and translate that onto their work, they would have managed this.

It's the kind of evolution I expect of Daenerys.

She is not perfect, eventually she will be warped from even the least of her good intentions.

That would be a good way to make 'power corrupts' into a decent fable.

Not a mockery on the heredity of mental illness.

 

[ToddDavid]

14 minutes ago, SeanF said:

He most certainly did, even when he was just fighting tribes like the Merkits.

Huh? You mean the hostile warlike group who kidnapped and raped his wife?  

There’s a reason why there’s basically 2 versions of Khan told, the Mongolian version and the one told by everyone else.   

 

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 5/24/2019 at 4:21 PM, HeadlessHenchman said:

Now, if we assume for a second that Dany's genuine ambition is indeed to "break the wheel" and rid the world of oppression, she needs the backing of the oppressed. History has taught us that the only way for freedom and change to stick is if the those who are being liberated are actively engaged in their own liberation. 
Only when the oppressed are able to free themselves (when given the opportunity) will that freedom last. This is what the unsullied did. For example. They got the opportunity and they took it.  

The people of King's Landing, seen in this light, are part of the problem. They are not innocent because they are not shackled. They can rise up and topple this feudalistic system that reduces most of them to pawns in an eternal game of power among the lords. Yet they don't. Even when the opportunity arises when a friendly(from Dany's POV) force arrives to back them up. 

Social revolutions with a god-dictator at the head? Will never happen. Dany just demoralizes them further. Dany's ideas sound leftist but eventually circle back around into authoritarian. Meereen simply inverted the hierarchy and that's why they continued to persist in strife. The former masters felt like they got a raw deal and they did. They didnt necessarily want their slaves back they wanted their dignity back. Dany can't see that. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

4 hours ago, HeadlessHenchman said:

Doesn't excuse what she did, but the full Hitler treatment was not warranted given the mission she was on. She was trying to break the wheel. Not just replace the dudes driving the cart. 

And where does Dany fit in the wheel?

You saw her scene in front of the Iron Throne. There was no breaking being done.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

I had a thought. 

If you combine this thread with the 'they tried to make us feel guilty' one?

Personal gripe: how dare those hacks, after this caliber shit, try to tell me how to think and feel?

I think watching St. Tyrion of all people speak the words of D&D, calling the audience idiots? 

In the words of Olenna Tyrell, 'people' as in mob? are sheep. 

I used to have sheep. They are docile and will follow, but if you try to force them, they resist.

If you want to guide your audience to an emotional response, you need to do it properly, or it will backfire.

[the trees have eyes]

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

The problem is that we've not seen her wantonly slaughtering tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of civilians before this point.  Nor do we get any narrative justification for her burning down the city that her ancestors built - this is all her property, which she's about to inherit, after all.

I get that her becoming a tyrant was foreshadowed, that there were disturbing tendencies in her character, but this was not developed properly across previous seasons. Why couldn't they have just shown her massacring the Tarlys and their surviving soldiers by dragon fire, without even giving them the chance to join her?  That would then give Varys a genuine reason to turn against her, and the Northerners a genuine reason to fear her.

I'm wondering if we are being too hard on the show writers here.  GRRM does like to have big showpiece shocks on page - Ned's betrayal and execution, Fist of the First Men, Red Wedding, Sack of Winterfell, even Dany hatching the dragons - that have such an impact because the reader (mostly) does not see them coming.  Yes the clues are there but they are often subtle and are buried amid other clues that allow for other possibilities and that create other expectations.  If the development is clearer or more linear then the eventual result is less impactful because you are expecting it or are at least aware that it's a possibility.

If the author wants Dany torching KL and Jon killing Dany to be as impactful as the Red Wedding then the show writers have to choose between giving us a trail of breadcrumbs that we follow ( and that lessens the emotive impact of the ending) or giving us the jarring shock of another Red Wedding.  I don't really know how you square this circle but it seems it was easier to go for the second.

The big problem here is the style of writing and the consequences for the storytelling.  The Red Wedding would have been an unsatisfactory place to end the story but we are given time to get used to it, we know it's not the end of the story and the Starks can recover and so we read (mostly) hoping they do.  There is no such hope here: the tragedy is complete.

5 hours ago, HeadlessHenchman said:

One does not have to be indifferent of human life in order to decide to take it. Lots of it. What one does need (at least) is the capacity to not value a specific life over another life.  Current life over future life. Or life that is close compared to life that is further away. 

I don't think the American leadership was indifferent when the decision to drop those nukes was made. What they hoped was that x mostly innocent lives lost here and now would stop x+1 mostly innocent lives from suffering later. Their care for the z+1 won. Good/bad/crazy? Different question. 

When heinous acts are committed, the horror is easy to note. It's happening right there and then. But as previously stated in this thread, the (possibly) resulting benefits might take decades to fully materialize. 

I find Genghis Khan an interesting parallel to Dany. 
Everyone knows him as a ruthless barbarian. And based on what I've read, he most definitely was. Man, the things one can read about the tactics the Mongolians sometimes used. 

But, and here's where my gripe with the way D&D ended Dany's arc lies, Genghis Khan ALSO ended much suffering, changed so many things for the better and probably raised the quality of life for many generations to come. Yet his legacy is that of a war-mongering tyrant. 

By going full Hitler in the treatment of Dany, nothing remains of all the the good intentions, noble acts and beneficial change she had already caused and might have caused in the future. 

Dany always led from the front making sacrifices every step of they way. That is not the trademark of a sociopathic demagouge. It might be of a misguided, isolated, over-powerful liberator enslaved by her own legacy high on her own juice and trapped between cultures - but not a cynical mass murderer. 

Like Anakin ultimately got a sliver of redemption and nice final paragraph in the book go his life, D&D should have done more to thank the pre-KL torching Dany for all that she had done. Leaving Jon and Tyrion in doubt as to whether they had done the right thing or not was something, but not enough. Imho. 

Thanks for responding and thanks for helping me explore these thoughts further. 
 

I mean indifferent to the lives of ones own people in whose interests one is ruling or developing policy.  Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were all prepared to countenance millions of deaths to carry out the social engineering projects they thought were best at the macro level of the society or nation but were utterly disinterested in suffering or death at the micro level of communities or individuals.

It's quite different when we talk of the lives of enemies or those deemed enemies, reference the Allies dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, Hitler's Final Solution or ISIS executing anyone who does not hold to their ideology.

So the question of Dany as an authoritarian revolutionary like Mao, breaking the wheel to make the world a "better place" is a good one but I find two problems (as no doubt the show writers did): how this girl who with the gentle heart becomes indifferent to the suffering or deaths of thousands at her own hand and how the extreme violence that she would meet her enemies with is directed at her own civilian populace. 

Yes, sacking cities that refused to yield was common in medieval warfare but KL is her own capital.  Tywin sacked KL a generation ago to demonstrate his abandonment of Aerys, Dany has just won so has no need or reason to, unless...

The alternative reading, that she has gone full Aerys, early signs of promise turned to paranoia and ruthlessness out of the pressure of events and betrayal and turning to misguided violence and fury at any opposition to her sense of her rights.  People will differ but that's a pretty bleak and unsatisfying view to me.  Life is shit and eventually it will break you.

In any case I think this is pretty much what the author wanted to achieve with this character and the debates will continue long after the books are done.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, the trees have eyes said:

I'm wondering if we are being too hard on the show writers here.  GRRM does like to have big showpiece shocks on page - Ned's betrayal and execution, Fist of the First Men, Red Wedding, Sack of Winterfell, even Dany hatching the dragons - that have such an impact because the reader (mostly) does not see them coming.  Yes the clues are there but they are often subtle and are buried amid other clues that allow for other possibilities and that create other expectations.  If the development is clearer or more linear then the eventual result is less impactful because you are expecting it or are at least aware that it's a possibility.

If the author wants Dany torching KL and Jon killing Dany to be as impactful as the Red Wedding then the show writers have to choose between giving us a trail of breadcrumbs that we follow ( and that lessens the emotive impact of the ending) or giving us the jarring shock of another Red Wedding.  I don't really know how you square this circle but it seems it was easier to go for the second.

The big problem here is the style of writing and the consequences for the storytelling.  The Red Wedding would have been an unsatisfactory place to end the story but we are given time to get used to it, we know it's not the end of the story and the Starks can recover and so we read (mostly) hoping they do.  There is no such hope here: the tragedy is complete.

.

Even with 13 episodes, I think there are ways that the burning of the city can be made more plausible.  Say, Dany's forces are actually losing the fight for the city, so that unleashing dragon fire is the only way left to defeat the Lannisters;  or have her burn the Red Keep, only to ignite caches of wildfire in the process, causing a firestorm.  A terrible shock to be sure, but also one that coheres more easily with what has gone before.  Or, as a lot of people suggested, a botched surrender.  Accidentally, or deliberately, one of the defenders lets off a bolt that hits Dragon, or an arrow that injures Daenerys or one of her entourage, leading her to conclude that the surrender is a sham, and prompting her and army to go on the rampage.

[HeadlessHenchman]

5 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Social revolutions with a god-dictator at the head? Will never happen. Dany just demoralizes them further. Dany's ideas sound leftist but eventually circle back around into authoritarian. Meereen simply inverted the hierarchy and that's why they continued to persist in strife. The former masters felt like they got a raw deal and they did. They didnt necessarily want their slaves back they wanted their dignity back. Dany can't see that. 

Just to be clear. That's not my take. It's almost the opposite. 
It's a libertarian take not a socialist one. 

Dany is chaos. Chaos is change. Change can be good. Change can be bad. But consider the fact that status quo isn't all that awesome if you're not a lord with a birth right, change is justified. 

And that change is not systemic. It is personal. Chaos creates the opportunity for people to make new choices. Choices that leads to change. 

Through Tyrion, Dany gave the people of King's Landing a warning and a opportunity to change. A choice. With an outside force ready to aid, they could have toppled the Lannister reign. 
They chose not to. They preferred that someone else made all the sacrifices on their behalf.

One can argue perspective. One can point to ignorance of cultural differences. But in a world where people in general are mere pawns in other people's game of power, one should  be respected for trying to topple that system. 
 
This is 100% a TV series take and one I decided to explore in order to come to terms with a season that left me feeling a bit betrayed. Doesn't mean it holds up to scrutiny. It's clearly NOT how I was supposed to interpret things. 

Thanks for participating in my therapy :-) 

[HeadlessHenchman]

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

I'm wondering if we are being too hard on the show writers here.  GRRM does like to have big showpiece shocks on page - Ned's betrayal and execution, Fist of the First Men, Red Wedding, Sack of Winterfell, even Dany hatching the dragons - that have such an impact because the reader (mostly) does not see them coming.  Yes the clues are there but they are often subtle and are buried amid other clues that allow for other possibilities and that create other expectations.  If the development is clearer or more linear then the eventual result is less impactful because you are expecting it or are at least aware that it's a possibility.

 If the author wants Dany torching KL and Jon killing Dany to be as impactful as the Red Wedding then the show writers have to choose between giving us a trail of breadcrumbs that we follow ( and that lessens the emotive impact of the ending) or giving us the jarring shock of another Red Wedding.  I don't really know how you square this circle but it seems it was easier to go for the second.

The big problem here is the style of writing and the consequences for the storytelling.  The Red Wedding would have been an unsatisfactory place to end the story but we are given time to get used to it, we know it's not the end of the story and the Starks can recover and so we read (mostly) hoping they do.  There is no such hope here: the tragedy is complete.

I mean indifferent to the lives of ones own people in whose interests one is ruling or developing policy.  Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were all prepared to countenance millions of deaths to carry out the social engineering projects they thought were best at the macro level of the society or nation but were utterly disinterested in suffering or death at the micro level of communities or individuals.

It's quite different when we talk of the lives of enemies or those deemed enemies, reference the Allies dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, Hitler's Final Solution or ISIS executing anyone who does not hold to their ideology.

So the question of Dany as an authoritarian revolutionary like Mao, breaking the wheel to make the world a "better place" is a good one but I find two problems (as no doubt the show writers did): how this girl who with the gentle heart becomes indifferent to the suffering or deaths of thousands at her own hand and how the extreme violence that she would meet her enemies with is directed at her own civilian populace. 

Yes, sacking cities that refused to yield was common in medieval warfare but KL is her own capital.  Tywin sacked KL a generation ago to demonstrate his abandonment of Aerys, Dany has just won so has no need or reason to, unless...

The alternative reading, that she has gone full Aerys, early signs of promise turned to paranoia and ruthlessness out of the pressure of events and betrayal and turning to misguided violence and fury at any opposition to her sense of her rights.  People will differ but that's a pretty bleak and unsatisfying view to me.  Life is shit and eventually it will break you.

In any case I think this is pretty much what the author wanted to achieve with this character and the debates will continue long after the books are done.

I think there's some justification for Dany not seeing the inhabitants of KL as "her own civilian populace". 
In that moment atop Drogon, as a result of their refusal (from her POV) to help usurp Cersei, she sees them as part of the problem. 

She sacrificed everything to get to here. They didn't lift a finger. 
They could have liberated themselves from Cersei's tyranny (again from Dany's POV) with her backing. 

But they didn't. Why?

Hatred for Dany and her ambitions?
 

[darmody]

7 hours ago, ToddDavid said:

The main point of her existence was the mystery revolving around whether or not she’d suddenly devolve into Daddy 2.0 [as heavily referenced]..... and it was pertinent to the mystery of the Iron Throne that her destiny be held out for as long as possible. 

How was that the main point of her character? I would put it no higher than fifth on her list. And why "suddenly?" Even the Mad King devolved gradually. 

I don't see why that's pertinent or how the Iron Throne is mysterious. Aside from who would end up being king or queen. But Bran would have been a surprise had Dany died in season One.

HOwever, assuming her destiny had to be held out for as long as possible, you do realize going mad is not her destiny. Jon stabbing her is. And there's no reason that had to be motivated by SUDDEN turn to madness like a half-hour of show time before she dies. 

[Ser Hedge]

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

I'm wondering if we are being too hard on the show writers here. 

Not a chance. If anything we are being too nice and civilized.

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

GRRM does like to have big showpiece shocks on page - Ned's betrayal and execution, Fist of the First Men, Red Wedding, Sack of Winterfell, even Dany hatching the dragons - that have such an impact because the reader (mostly) does not see them coming.  Yes the clues are there but they are often subtle and are buried amid other clues that allow for other possibilities and that create other expectations. 

Ned: Sacrifices his honour for once (and tragically too late) to save his children, makes a deal via Varys, only to have crazy Joffrey go off the reservation. This is 100% in keeping with what Joffrey is capable of. Shocking and surprising, but once it's happened, you can clearly understand what has happened and why. Joff's personality was well built up and this was totally in character. You are not on the internet one week later debating who ordered the execution and why.

RW: Similar to above and believable. Many of us missed the breadcrumbs, but especially in the books there is a very clear trail that you pick up on on a re-read, Robb's alliance is steadily breaking down, Greywind goes after the Freys as they arrive at the Twins for the wedding, Arya POV of Roose at HH shows Lords starting to plot and the whole thing makes sense - Freys and Boltons advance themselves by doing the Lannisters a huge favour.

First of First Men: Not sure it's a huge twist really. The threat of the WWs was being built up and was dialled up a few notches here.

Dragons: Sure, this might have come out of nowhere, but her story arc would have gone nowhere otherwise. A Deus ex machina in the traditional style. A fun way of ending book/season 1.

You want to re-watch read GRRM even after the shocks, few want to re-watch the show after the slow motion car crash of the last two seasons.

[darmody]

6 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

And where does Dany fit in the wheel?

You saw her scene in front of the Iron Throne. There was no breaking being done.

Well, the wheel metaphor was about ruling houses and she was jumping in front of Jon to take control of their house, so I guess it's...grrl power?

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

Thought up another one, and this might make me more charitable towards friends of mine who saw Daenerys as Disney!Princess Dany and others who are all about House Stark being perfect people who never got anything wrong or did anything skeevy.

The pity vote.

The story goes that our heroine, Dany the Pretty, gets abused and exploited and harmed.

Alakazam, she gets magic dragon eggs that hatch and goes on her merry way.

From the first sentence on, you're compelled to root for her, because she's the underdog.

Same with Jon, with Sansa, with Arya.

And with the plain and one directional story telling, it's just that.

They're victims.

Nevermind that in certain conditions victims can become abusers. You want to be fooled. You want them to rise above the shit sandwich of life and call them heroes, not human.

Oh little lamb, you can torch those morons, feed your ex-husband to his dogs, feed a man 'son pie' or callously plan to starve out a civillian population of one million (I can’t be arsed to watch that crap, but someone repeated on a thread here that Jon was cool with a siege on KL to incite the starving populace to revolt which in no way qualifies in the brutality olympics of carpet bombing, but is still cold blooded as befit a medieval war commander).

But since you've been seeing their struggle, their pain? It's all good.

I guess it takes outright genocide or the shittiest of fearmongering tactics to slap you awake.

I want this, properly done!

So I can go awesome! even while cringing or bawl my eyes out. Instead of almost laughing at the screen on the few bits I wasn't damn near apathetic.

Also, on the particular instance of the 'she didn't give a crap about her brother getting the 'gold bucket challenge'?

There's this thing called shock?

Not saying that's what happens on that scene, the showrunners have just 'explained' it, but that's just what I thought on first watch of that scene?

Maybe it was shittily done.

Or they didn't know they would need to shift the storyline until they were told the ending?

Who knows?

It's an anecdote around here that a person who called 911 to request emergency transportation to the hospital was refused that assistance because she 'sounded too calm'.

Her son was bleeding out on the seat next to her and she had a shattered leg.

And no, she's not a psychopath.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

Thought up another one, and this might make me more charitable towards friends of mine who saw Daenerys as Disney!Princess Dany and others who are all about House Stark being perfect people who never got anything wrong or did anything skeevy.

The pity vote.

The story goes that our heroine, Dany the Pretty, gets abused and exploited and harmed.

Alakazam, she gets magic dragon eggs that hatch and goes on her merry way.

From the first sentence on, you're compelled to root for her, because she's the underdog.

Same with Jon, with Sansa, with Arya.

And with the plain and one directional story telling, it's just that.

They're victims.

Nevermind that in certain conditions victims can become abusers. You want to be fooled. You want them to rise above the shit sandwich of life and call them heroes, not human.

Oh little lamb, you can torch those morons, feed your ex-husband to his dogs, feed a man 'son pie' or callously plan to starve out a civillian population of one million (I can’t be arsed to watch that crap, but someone repeated on a thread here that Jon was cool with a siege on KL to incite the starving populace to revolt which in no way qualifies in the brutality olympics of carpet bombing, but is still cold blooded as befit a medieval war commander).

But since you've been seeing their struggle, their pain? It's all good.

I guess it takes outright genocide or the shittiest of fearmongering tactics to slap you awake.

I want this, properly done!

So I can go awesome! even while cringing or bawl my eyes out. Instead of almost laughing at the screen on the few bits I wasn't damn near apathetic.

Also, on the particular instance of the 'she didn't give a crap about her brother getting the 'gold bucket challenge'?

There's this thing called shock?

Not saying that's what happens on that scene, the showrunners have just 'explained' it, but that's just what I thought on first watch of that scene?

Maybe it was shittily done.

Or they didn't know they would need to shift the storyline until they were told the ending?

Who knows?

It's an anecdote around here that a person who called 911 to request emergency transportation to the hospital was refused that assistance because she 'sounded too calm'.

Her son was bleeding out on the seat next to her and she had a shattered leg.

And no, she's not a psychopath.

Like you, I think she was in a state of shock.  And what could she do?

In the book, it's clearer that she tried to save her brother, but  ran out of ways to do so.  And, feels huge and unjustified guilt about his death.

[Apoplexy]

2 hours ago, It_spelt_Magalhaes said:

From the first sentence on, you're compelled to root for her, because she's the underdog.

The problem with the show was that every other main character around her was rooting for her too. I wasnt, but the show portrayed her as the protagonist, ignoring and apologizing for her flaws. So I'm not surprised that a lot of casual viewers were rooting for her to eventually sit on the IT.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

1 minute ago, Apoplexy said:

The problem with the show was that every other main character around her was rooting for her too. I wasnt, but the show portrayed her as the protagonist, ignoring and apologizing for her flaws. So I'm not surprised that a lot of casual viewers were rooting for her to eventually sit on the IT.

Hell, I even rooted for Cersei at times. She was that bitch.

The clubistic sportsfan like attitude of choosing a favorite always felt like an ode to the simplifying contrivances of the script.

Barbie!Dany or AragornLight!Jon?

Shit, I caught myself going 'damn' about LF before he lost his brain on the way to Winterfell.