Jon killing Dany doesn’t work for me

[RFL]

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).

 

Dany seemed to know you could rule through love or through fear.  I am not certain she was good at combining the two and not making it all or nothing.  Of course her crucifixion of the masters while being loved by some of the people could argue she was.  Ultimately though she wanted the people to love her, at least until episode 5 when betrayal was all around her and Jon pulled away.  "Fear it is"  Had she continued on that theory, having believed Jon betrayed her, she would have been fine because there is no way a fully armed Jon approaches her alone in that throne room.  But she wavered back to a need to be loved.  

Love is what gave her ambition.  Where would she had been if she had never loved Drogo and had been left a life living as his property?  But Drogo loved her and promised her the world, she bought into the prophecies of the stallion that would mount the world, and she dreamed.  Her conquest in hand (she was going to take Kings Landing) she felt no one loved her (her advisers were turning on her, Messindai and Jorah were dead, and Jon had turned from her and betrayed her by telling her secret).  She was ready to rule through fear.  She might have been successful.  

Jon killing her, someone who was able to create the fear in the nobility that would temporarily pause the wheel with her at top, likely created chaos in the realm and ultimately a breaking of the remaining kingdoms because no one has enough power or influence to hold it together.  

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, RFL said:

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).  

Well, she did save his life, twice.  And, got shanked in return.  So, it's clear who gained and who lost overall.

[CrypticWeirwood]

2 hours ago, Kaapstad said:

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. 

Not only doesn't she care about killing people, she brutally crucified more than eight score, including innocents like the father of her future husband and king, Hizdahr. Crucified? Hello? How much more evil can you get? What does the act of crucifiction signify in our collective cultural mind? Go ahead, think it through. 

And she allowed the city to be sacked when she took it, where many were robbed and raped and killed.

And she randomly burns to death a man convicted of no crime simply to sow terror and fear.

I don't know what you mean by "mad", but she is clearly a brutal murderer and a conscience-free slaughterer of innocents, one who not only showed no signs of ever reforming but who was actively making plans to continue her killing streak of destruction and suffering.

After he came to see that this was who she was, Jon's honor, just like Jamie's, allowed no other course than to save millions the only way he saw open to him: via tyrannicide. 

[the trees have eyes]

52 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Not only doesn't she care about killing people, she brutally crucified more than eight score, including innocents like the father of her future husband and king, Hizdahr. Crucified? Hello? How much more evil can you get? What does the act of crucifiction signify in our collective cultural mind? Go ahead, think it through. 

Whatever you may read into it it's symbolism, it was remarkably straightforward retaliation in equivalent manner for the crucified slave children.  I don't say it's right but she punished those she thought responsible for an atrocity and paid them back in the same coin.  A life for a life.

If you want to go "how much more evil can you get" you would have to start with Dany's unprovoked crucifying of 163 Meereenese children caught in the countryside as her forces marched on a peaceful and utopian Meereen in order to terrify the inhabitants into submitting.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Not only doesn't she care about killing people, she brutally crucified more than eight score, including innocents like the father of her future husband and king, Hizdahr. Crucified? Hello? How much more evil can you get? What does the act of crucifiction signify in our collective cultural mind? Go ahead, think it through. 

And she allowed the city to be sacked when she took it, where many were robbed and raped and killed.

And she randomly burns to death a man convicted of no crime simply to sow terror and fear.

I don't know what you mean by "mad", but she is clearly a brutal murderer and a conscience-free slaughterer of innocents, one who not only showed no signs of ever reforming but who was actively making plans to continue her killing streak of destruction and suffering.

After he came to see that this was who she was, Jon's honor, just like Jamie's, allowed no other course than to save millions the only way he saw open to him: via tyrannicide. 

In the show, she did not sack Meereen.  It fell to a slave uprising.

[NymeriaWarriorQueen]

Remember when the liberated slaves hissed at her when she executed the freed slave Mossador after he murdered a terrorist she was holding prisoner?  Her new followers didn’t understand her new kind of justice. They only understood that she was just another oppressor instead of a savior. She was killing one of their own which made her just as bad in their eyes as a slave master.  Furthermore she disregarded Barristan Selmy’s advice earlier in the episode when he was telling her how her father burned the common folks villages and towns when they rose up and revolted against him.   He advised her against executing the insubordinate slave. He told her that sometimes the justice you think people deserve isn’t the right kind of justice to do.  Obviously, the kind of justice she inflicted on Kings Landing wasn’t merciful or the right kind.   She was just another bad ruler to be and she would never be loved by them.

[CrypticWeirwood]

26 minutes ago, SeanF said:

In the show, she did not sack Meereen.  It fell to a slave uprising.

The showrunners have only themselves to blame for the widespread hate they’ve caused by deliberately hiding from the show viewers the myriad clues to the endgame that the books so carefully lay out.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

The showrunners have only themselves to blame for the widespread hate they’ve caused by deliberately hiding from the show viewers the myriad clues to the endgame that the books so carefully lay out.

There's plenty that's both good and bad about Daenerys in the books.  Her coin is still spinning.  Based on the ending we've been given, I expect she will break bad or mad, but it will be earned.

[CrypticWeirwood]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There's plenty that's both good and bad about Daenerys in the books.  Her coin is still spinning.  Based on the ending we've been given, I expect she will break bad or mad, but it will be earned.

Does "break" mean "go mad" or "become mad" or "turn out mad"? What is "break"?

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Does "break" mean "go mad" or "become mad" or "turn out mad"? What is "break"?

It's taken from the Show of the same name.  Itmeans someone of good intentions steadily becoming corrupted.

[Tyrion1991]

I couldn’t understand the rationale Sam was proposing in season 8. Dany has put the realm before her ambition by risking going North to fight the Undead. That is a test of character and one Cersei, the Lannister, Iron Born and Reach lords doesn’t follow. Dany is risking her throne to save people, there’s no two ways about that. 

We know this because Cersei tells us that even with a win they could be in no position to challenge. Now, they are massively incorrect in this although had Dany lost all her dragons this could have happened.

Genuinely I could not relate to or understand the attitude that the other characters or people had towards her. Either they should be terrified of her because she has a dragon or impressed by the fact that she saved them. If these things impress us the audience then why do they not impress the characters and NPC’s? 

It required a massive contrivance that nobody in Westeros would be pro Dany to convince her the people couldn’t ever love her and for her enemies to continue fighting as long as they did. Surrender and desertion should have broken the Lannister army long before it ever escalated that much. 

 

[RYShh]

8 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

I couldn’t understand the rationale Sam was proposing in season 8. Dany has put the realm before her ambition by risking going North to fight the Undead. That is a test of character and one Cersei, the Lannister, Iron Born and Reach lords doesn’t follow. Dany is risking her throne to save people, there’s no two ways about that. 

 

Did she?

She lost so many allies (Dorne, Highgarden, Iron Islands) and she could win the North by helping them.

And secondly, if the dead wins, she has to deal with a larger army of the dead, and we know she couldn't defeat them without any ally.

Also, Dany specifically said if she goes to North, Cersei would gain the advantage, she only accepted it because she thought Cersei was going to help them as well.

 

 

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

I couldn’t understand the rationale Sam was proposing in season 8. Dany has put the realm before her ambition by risking going North to fight the Undead. That is a test of character and one Cersei, the Lannister, Iron Born and Reach lords doesn’t follow. Dany is risking her throne to save people, there’s no two ways about that. 

We know this because Cersei tells us that even with a win they could be in no position to challenge. Now, they are massively incorrect in this although had Dany lost all her dragons this could have happened.

Genuinely I could not relate to or understand the attitude that the other characters or people had towards her. Either they should be terrified of her because she has a dragon or impressed by the fact that she saved them. If these things impress us the audience then why do they not impress the characters and NPC’s? 

It required a massive contrivance that nobody in Westeros would be pro Dany to convince her the people couldn’t ever love her and for her enemies to continue fighting as long as they did. Surrender and desertion should have broken the Lannister army long before it ever escalated that much. 

 

In the end, I think we're all trying too hard to rationalise plots and characterisation that make no sense.

[TheNecromancerofMirkwood]

I think the last scene between Jon and Daenerys could have gone a LOT better (and it requires the alternate scenario where Jorah Mormont survived). In fact, I'd almost wager that Jon should have gotten to the throne room FIRST and, after a moment, sat down on the throne. Daenerys and Jorah come in, and she sees him sitting and gets pissed off (literally making her vision in the House of the Undying a metaphor, snow on the Iron Throne). She comes over and Jon stands, before she runs her hands over it and sits, only for it to cut her (signaling she was unworthy to take The Iron Throne). Jon and Dany get into a incredibly heated argument to the point where Daenerys physically lashes out at Jon just in time for Jorah to shank her.

[Tyrion1991]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There's plenty that's both good and bad about Daenerys in the books.  Her coin is still spinning.  Based on the ending we've been given, I expect she will break bad or mad, but it will be earned.

 

Not if you know the ending. You won’t have the anxiety of not knowing and that foreknowledge would distance you from what you’re reading. You would recognise foreshadowing and see the red herrings. His books rely heavily on the unexpected and the twists; without them the events will just be compared to the show.

Its very difficult to relate and sympathise with a persons struggle when you know they kill a million innocent people. This means her downfall would lack emotional weight. For the same reason that foreknowledge of the Red Wedding or Neds death would.

More to the point, I actually doubt I would have signed on for the books or series with foreknowledge that her story is a tragedy intended to subvert the fantasy hero. I assumed that this was a dark, grounded and gritty fantasy drama. That’s not the same thing as being a satire of the fantasy genre.

Whereas, Rand from Wheel of Time for example, overcomes his problem, Dany is set up to fail by George because “well Iam doing the opposite of the done thing”. That’s cute and all if he hadn’t essentially misled people into thinking she was a hero. If I read Fulgrim, I know what Iam in for. Not the case with Dany. The show definitely went further in its marketing and depiction of her. They knew she was going to turn but didn’t make that change until season 8 when the series was wrapping up. 

 

[RFL]

Why necessarily Jorah. More telling if we had more indication of dragons smarter than men. She commands Drogon to destroy Jon but he turns between them and destroys her instead.  Especially if there had been more scenes of understanding between Jon and Drogon

[Tyrion1991]

22 minutes ago, RYShh said:

Did she?

She lost so many allies (Dorne, Highgarden, Iron Islands) and she could win the North by helping them.

And secondly, if the dead wins, she has to deal with a larger army of the dead, and we know she couldn't defeat them without any ally.

Also, Dany specifically said if she goes to North, Cersei would gain the advantage, she only accepted it because she thought Cersei was going to help them as well.

 

 

 

As demonstrated by the Bells, she does not need the North to beat Cersei and Euron. 

She wasn’t expecting the North to join her until Jon bent the knee. By then she had already set herself to helping them.

That doesn’t make her selfish. Her army is much more powerful than the Vale and Northern armies. They need her far more than she needs them.

If it was so strong a condition she wouldn’t have flown up to help Jon n Co. 

 

[RFL]

We said earlier that the Tully’s should have demanded trial by combat. Dany should have uttered “Fire is the champion of house Targaryen” and burned them (not my suggestion on the line but perfect).  What if Dany accused Jon of treason, given him trial by combat, uttered those same words, and had Drogon destroy her.  Of course I’m forgetting the I burnt thing. 

[RYShh]

25 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

As demonstrated by the Bells, she does not need the North to beat Cersei and Euron. 

She wasn’t expecting the North to join her until Jon bent the knee. By then she had already set herself to helping them.

That doesn’t make her selfish. Her army is much more powerful than the Vale and Northern armies. They need her far more than she needs them.

If it was so strong a condition she wouldn’t have flown up to help Jon n Co. 

 

I didn't say she needed them to defeat Cersei,

Davos even mocked with them by saying ''Not to defeat Cersei. You could storm King's Landing tomorrow and the city would fall. Hell, we almost took it and we didn't even have dragons!''

She needed allies to rule the kingdoms, she will rule somewhere right? She can't do it without trusted allies, and she lost those trusted allies.

That was political reason, and the military reason was to they needed to deal with the Night King, as they said the Night King would defeat them if they didn't join forces, and we've seen that Night King killed a Dragon, and then he smiled at Dragon fire, she couldn't defeat the Night King without their help, that's a fact.

She said; ''And give the country to Cersei? As soon as I march away, she marches in.''

Then she only accepted to help them after Cersei lied to them, that's what she believed, otherwise she wouldn't send her armies to the North.

She wasn't sacrificing anything, she lost a Dragon, but did she know Night King could kill one of them? I doubt. After seeing the Night King threat and Cersei's truce, she went to North with her armies.

 

[Charles Stuart]

18 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

I couldn’t understand the rationale Sam was proposing in season 8. Dany has put the realm before her ambition by risking going North to fight the Undead. That is a test of character and one Cersei, the Lannister, Iron Born and Reach lords doesn’t follow. Dany is risking her throne to save people, there’s no two ways about that. 

We know this because Cersei tells us that even with a win they could be in no position to challenge. Now, they are massively incorrect in this although had Dany lost all her dragons this could have happened.

Genuinely I could not relate to or understand the attitude that the other characters or people had towards her. Either they should be terrified of her because she has a dragon or impressed by the fact that she saved them. If these things impress us the audience then why do they not impress the characters and NPC’s? 

It required a massive contrivance that nobody in Westeros would be pro Dany to convince her the people couldn’t ever love her and for her enemies to continue fighting as long as they did. Surrender and desertion should have broken the Lannister army long before it ever escalated that much. 

 

If she had not gone north the realm would have been lost all the same when the nightking showed up at KL with a vastly bigger army. That was the whole point of going north, to save the realm, it wasn’t to just help Jon.