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Jon killing Dany doesn’t work for me


Tyrion1991

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3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Dany is 23 at the time of her death.  Seventy per cent of her life was an absolute nightmare of abuse.  

When she wasn't actually a rich person and a ruler of a Khalasar or a city except for the period between Drogo's death and entering to Qarth?

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17 minutes ago, RFL said:

Rich does not imply lack of abuse.  Especially women in Westeros with lord husbands or brothers. Ask Sansa. 

You know very well Dany never get the same treatment that Sansa suffered from Ramsay.

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Maybe not the same but the books are clear her brother was abusive to her.  “Don’t wake the dragon”.  We also know she complains Drogo “treats her like a dog”. If Sansa is the measuring stick for what abuse is it’s an incredibly tall bar.  I only offered Sansa as a counter example to the implication that rich and abused are somehow mutually exclusive. 

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1 hour ago, RYShh said:

When she wasn't actually a rich person and a ruler of a Khalasar or a city except for the period between Drogo's death and entering to Qarth?

In the Show, we see her start at 17 being groped by Viserys, who has been abusing her for years, and then sold to Drogo who rapes her at the end of the episode.  Then, for a period, she's Khaleesi, which means being a sex slave for a time, but gradually, she develops a loving relationship with her husband.  Then he dies, and she's on the run in the desert, albeit with three tiny dragons.  She comes to Qarth, and is feted for a time, before being betrayed by her BFF, and imprisoned by a warlock who intends to keep her a prisoner for hundreds of years.  Subsequently, she faces an assassination attempt in Astapor, before pulling off a coup where she gets the Unsullied.  She takes Meereen, which she rules for a couple of years, while facing an insurgency.  After another assassination attempt, she takes off into the wilderness, where she's again taken prisoner, whipped, abused, and repeatedly threatened with rape.  Eventually, she succeeds and manages to retake Meereen, leaving it apparently, under a reasonable government.

Then she reaches Westeros, finds that she is widely disliked, even by people she makes sacrifices for, has two of her dragons and her closet friends killed, is given terrible advice by her closest advisors, has people turn traitor against her, and is eventually stabbed through the heart by her nephew, all the while professing his love for her.

For all of her faults, this is the tale of someone who was handed the shitty end of the stick in life.

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4 minutes ago, RFL said:

Maybe not the same but the books are clear her brother was abusive to her.  “Don’t wake the dragon”.  We also know she complains Drogo “treats her like a dog”. If Sansa is the measuring stick for what abuse is it’s an incredibly tall bar.  I only offered Sansa as a counter example to the implication that rich and abused are somehow mutually exclusive. 

 

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

In the Show, we see her start at 17 being groped by Viserys, who has been abusing her for years, and then sold to Drogo who rapes her at the end of the episode.  Then, for a period, she's Khaleesi, which means being a sex slave for a time, but gradually, she develops a loving relationship with her husband.  Then he dies, and she's on the run in the desert, albeit with three tiny dragons.  She comes to Qarth, and is feted for a time, before being betrayed by her BFF, and imprisoned by a warlock who intends to keep her a prisoner for hundreds of years.  Subsequently, she faces an assassination attempt in Astapor, before pulling off a coup where she gets the Unsullied.  She takes Meereen, which she rules for a couple of years, while facing an insurgency.  After another assassination attempt, she takes off into the wilderness, where she's again taken prisoner, whipped, abused, and repeatedly threatened with rape.  Eventually, she succeeds and manages to retake Meereen, leaving it apparently, under a reasonable government.

Then she reaches Westeros, finds that she is widely disliked, even by people she makes sacrifices for, has two of her dragons and her closet friends killed, is given terrible advice by her closest advisors, has people turn traitor against her, and is eventually stabbed through the heart by her nephew, all the while professing his love for her.

For all of her faults, this is the tale of someone who was handed the shitty end of the stick in life.

Consider this,

Sansa suffered the worse from Ramsay, yet she never try to usurp Jon's right as KitN.

Dany didn't experience Ramsay, she still wanted to usurp Jon's right to the throne, and then she went too far and asked him to not to tell his family. Which is reaching at best.

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2 minutes ago, RYShh said:

 

Consider this,

Sansa suffered the worse from Ramsay, yet she never try to usurp Jon's right as KitN.

Dany didn't experience Ramsay, she still wanted to usurp Jon's right to the throne, and then she went too far and asked him to not to tell his family. Which is reaching at best.

It's not the Oppression Olympics.  Both Daenerys and Sansa experienced horrible suffering.  But, in the end Daenerys failed and Sansa succeeded.  

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Give Sansa three dragons and the only difference is Jon probably would not have killed her.  Sansa's suffering does not negate Daenerys.  I only brought up Sansa to refute the idea that wealth prevented abuse.   Even Cersei is abused to some degree by Robert (going by memory here).    We could conceivably argue about all the women who married out of duty, not for love, and not even necessarily an arranged marriage that was arranged with the best interests of the bride and groom in mind.  

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1 hour ago, RYShh said:

 

Consider this,

Sansa suffered the worse from Ramsay, yet she never try to usurp Jon's right as KitN.

Dany didn't experience Ramsay, she still wanted to usurp Jon's right to the throne, and then she went too far and asked him to not to tell his family. Which is reaching at best.

I don't think it helps to compare and contrast who suffered worse. Looking at it that way reduces Dany and Sansa to mere victims. They were more than that. All their actions do not have to be (and were not) governed by the abuse they endured.

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I don't think they were governed by it.  There are people who are abused, have power, and don't misuse it.  But to argue that the signs of Dany abusing power were not there would be mistaken.  I think what we should really be discussing is how different Jon Snow was than basically all the other nobles in that he was genuinely impacted by the destruction of Kings Landing.  

I mean the Lannister army was burnt by the Aegon? the Conqueror.  Harrenhall was burned.  The iron throne that they all knelt before had been borne out of conquest and those swords were the swords of armies defeated in conflict.  No Stark thrones in the throne because by the time they got to the North it was obvious they couldn't win and fighting would just rain fire and destruction down.  We keep looking at the sack of Kings Landing through modern eyes and we were shown it through the eyes of the characters it impacted the most.  But Arya and Jon were also the least like the rest of the nobility of the seven kingdoms.  As others noted much earlier no one really cared.  

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10 minutes ago, RFL said:

I don't think they were governed by it.  There are people who are abused, have power, and don't misuse it. 

And there are people who aren't abused, have power and don't misuse it (or do). Looking at a person's actions through the prism of their abuse reduces them to mere victims.

10 minutes ago, RFL said:

We keep looking at the sack of Kings Landing through modern eyes and we were shown it through the eyes of the characters it impacted the most.  But Arya and Jon were also the least like the rest of the nobility of the seven kingdoms.  As others noted much earlier no one really cared

We will look at everything in the show through modern eyes because the show is meant for a modern audience and not a medieval audience. And as for Jon being distraught about the destruction of KL, well yes. He killed Dany after seeing it. And people with power not caring about those that don't have power, it's not a surprise as it happens till date.

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I don't think that is the intent.  But we cannot argue that the signs that Dany would end up destroying King's Landing were never given us.  At this point I am left wondering if it really SHOULD have surprised any of us  

Ignoring the concept of abuse and its role in perceived mental illness (the flip of a coin in regards to Targaryen's going mad) Dany grew up in a world where might makes right and she had a tremendous amount of might.  She also grew up in a time were mercy was seen as a sign of weakness and her showing mercy had brought tremendously bad consequences - one could argue Drogo, the Stockholm Syndrome love of her life, died because of her mercy.  Her negotiations that allowed the fighting pits created an attempt on her life.  Meanwhile history, as it is remembered in Westeros, notes Aegon the conqueror brought in relative stability through conquest and destruction.  The only thing that seems "out of place" is the entire breaking the wheel speech she gave which was supposed to show us how far her descent into madness had gone.  In her world the destruction of Kings Landing was simply an effective means of showing Westeros what would happen if they did not rise up and support her.  

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26 minutes ago, RFL said:

I don't think that is the intent.  But we cannot argue that the signs that Dany would end up destroying King's Landing were never given us.  At this point I am left wondering if it really SHOULD have surprised any of us  

Ignoring the concept of abuse and its role in perceived mental illness (the flip of a coin in regards to Targaryen's going mad) Dany grew up in a world where might makes right and she had a tremendous amount of might.  She also grew up in a time were mercy was seen as a sign of weakness and her showing mercy had brought tremendously bad consequences - one could argue Drogo, the Stockholm Syndrome love of her life, died because of her mercy.  Her negotiations that allowed the fighting pits created an attempt on her life.  Meanwhile history, as it is remembered in Westeros, notes Aegon the conqueror brought in relative stability through conquest and destruction.  The only thing that seems "out of place" is the entire breaking the wheel speech she gave which was supposed to show us how far her descent into madness had gone.  In her world the destruction of Kings Landing was simply an effective means of showing Westeros what would happen if they did not rise up and support her.  

What did she do which showed you that she was going mad in Meereen?  I genuinely can’t find a single example. Her breaking the wheel speech wasn’t madness. She was going to do it without resorting to violence. 

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55 minutes ago, RFL said:

I don't think that is the intent.  But we cannot argue that the signs that Dany would end up destroying King's Landing were never given us.  At this point I am left wondering if it really SHOULD have surprised any of us  

Ignoring the concept of abuse and its role in perceived mental illness (the flip of a coin in regards to Targaryen's going mad) Dany grew up in a world where might makes right and she had a tremendous amount of might.  She also grew up in a time were mercy was seen as a sign of weakness and her showing mercy had brought tremendously bad consequences - one could argue Drogo, the Stockholm Syndrome love of her life, died because of her mercy.  Her negotiations that allowed the fighting pits created an attempt on her life.  Meanwhile history, as it is remembered in Westeros, notes Aegon the conqueror brought in relative stability through conquest and destruction.  The only thing that seems "out of place" is the entire breaking the wheel speech she gave which was supposed to show us how far her descent into madness had gone.  In her world the destruction of Kings Landing was simply an effective means of showing Westeros what would happen if they did not rise up and support her.  

It ended being presented like a bad soap opera, not the gritty realism we use to see in the show. A bunch of moral platitudes targeting modern viewers revulsion for violence(and indirect incest) which didn't represent how things would actually operate.

Realism would have been Jon marrying Dany and starting a new empire. Realism would have been the north immediately giving Dany their loyalty after the long night. The destruction of KL would be irrelevant to everyone in power.

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5 hours ago, Kaapstad said:

I would say it took hell of a lot of trouble for Jon to become King of the North than it took Dany to become a prospective queen. Jon did not have 3 dragons. He had to suffer through betrayals, walk through enemy territory and save his enemies and become friends with him. He won the North through sheer hard work and he willingly gave it up with a smile. What did Dany do? Use her dragons whenever she was threatened or whenever she wanted something. The fact that he gave up his crown and she didn’t shows who is the better leader. 

Jorah had to go through hell to win back her mercy. He almost died thanks to her stupidity. She flies off the handle very quickly unlike Jon can comes to conclusions faster. 

 

He wandered around a few castles going “please!” on his knees and only convinced a few of them. Then he almost gets the whole army killed by suicidally charging and abandoning his position. He only had an army because of Tormund and because he tried (strong emphasis on the word tried) to help them out at Hardholm. He is a bungler, like a drunk floundering from disaster to disaster. He never once achieved anything without being bailed out by somebody else. A pig could have become King of the North if Tormund and Sansa had backed it.

Hes then King of the North for like a handful episodes before leaving for Dragonstone. It was never a big deal for him. He never cared about being King of the North. So it’s not a huge sacrifice to give it up.

Especially not when the Warden of the North is King in all but name. Dany becomes nothing if she gives up the Iron Throne. Dragonstone? It’s not remotely equivalent and the idea that Jon expected her to spontaneously support his claim as soon as he mentioned it is beyond arrogant. Jon kept all the power but just scratched out the title. Dany does not have that luxury. He never sacrificed anything.

I think choosing your leader based on his disinterest and apathy is a bad idea. If you don’t care for the power people invest in you then you obviously don’t respect them. 

Jorah was part of a conspiracy to kill her and her child. That’s a big deal. Dany did not kill him but exiled him. Now in a normal story, her coming to forgive somebody who did that would mean “well Dany is capable of mercy”. But no, despite having met Jorah it seems Sam does not put two and two together. 

 

 

 

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The list of Jon's successes, especially successes in leadership, is pretty short.  One could argue that Tormund and the wildings are so easy to take him as a figurehead because he really lacks the capability to be more.  

We complain about Dany not listening to her advisors.  What of Jon?  Letting the wildings through the wall, going to Hard Home, seeking Dany for help... time an time we are shown where he disregards the advise of those around him.  By the way the whole going to Dany for help?  What did it gain him.  An ice-dragon as an enemy capable of tearing down the wall. 

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Just now, RFL said:

The list of Jon's successes, especially successes in leadership, is pretty short.  One could argue that Tormund and the wildings are so easy to take him as a figurehead because he really lacks the capability to be more.  

We complain about Dany not listening to her advisors.  What of Jon?  Letting the wildings through the wall, going to Hard Home, seeking Dany for help... time an time we are shown where he disregards the advise of those around him.  By the way the whole going to Dany for help?  What did it gain him.  An ice-dragon as an enemy capable of tearing down the wall. 

Pretty sure that was more a byproduct of "let's capture a zombie to show to Cersie because she will obviously join Dany to fight zombies".

I don't remember who thought that up but if your argument is Dany was a net loss to Jon you're completely wrong.

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5 minutes ago, RFL said:

The list of Jon's successes, especially successes in leadership, is pretty short.  One could argue that Tormund and the wildings are so easy to take him as a figurehead because he really lacks the capability to be more.  

We complain about Dany not listening to her advisors.  What of Jon?  Letting the wildings through the wall, going to Hard Home, seeking Dany for help... time an time we are shown where he disregards the advise of those around him.  By the way the whole going to Dany for help?  What did it gain him.  An ice-dragon as an enemy capable of tearing down the wall. 

Dany's downfall was due to the fact that she listened too much to her advisors (though to be honest, it's just down to really poor plotting by D & D).

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I think there can be an argument that Dany was a net loss to Jon in the battle of Winterfell against the Night King.  I'm not certain its a correct argument but I think it can be a compelling argument. 

Dany did hand over the Night King a dragon.  Without that dragon its conceivable the fight is at the wall rather than in Winterfell but that is hypothetical.  

The Dothraki charge did not gain anything

The Unsullied did not gain anything.  Remember the Night King ended up re-animating not just his own dead but also all the other fallen.  I think this might be a key point to.  If your enemy can reanimate the dead (over and over) bringing him more potential bodies to reanimate is a bad idea.  Recall that this was part of Jon's reasoning for sailing to Hard Home.  

The dragons did not seem to do anything in that battle because they were too busy looking for the Night King and his dragon so let's call that at best a wash (though the Night King having a dragon to use on the wall definitely was useful to him).  

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