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Daenerys the Terrible?


Rikard

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On 6/5/2019 at 3:56 PM, Apoplexy said:

It's still genocide, not part and parcel of war.

It was a battle for conquest. The victims are all fiction. Lets not paint a battle for conquest out to be "genocide". The city was under siege and everyone and their mama knew there was dragons on the enemy side. Imagine 1m kingslanders pouring through the gates abandoning Cersei and siding with Dany - do you think they'd still be burned?

They came willingly on Cersei's request forming her human shield - so they are not equivalent to your average civilian, whether knowing it or not Cersei made them part of the war and they obliged her.

 

As a side note I'd like to think most people would chose 3 sec of burning over starving to death or being worked to death in some camp.

On 6/3/2019 at 4:14 PM, Apoplexy said:

How exactly would unarmed civilians achieve this against a battle ready army that Cersei had? ALso, no one could've anticipated being burnt to crisp. 

How exactly? what could they do to dethrone her. Also, why would they attempt to do it?

Well the High Sparrow accomplished quite a deal before being blown up so its not as impossible as all that. It would have been enough to riot and break through the gates, which they've never shied away from before. They are suddenly nothing more than a plot-grease for Dany's "madness".

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14 minutes ago, Sigella said:

It was a battle for conquest. The victims are all fiction. Lets not paint a battle for conquest out to be "genocide". The city was under siege and everyone and their mama knew there was dragons on the enemy side. Imagine 1m kingslanders pouring through the gates abandoning Cersei and siding with Dany - do you think they'd still be burned?

They came willingly on Cersei's request forming her human shield - so they are not equivalent to your average civilian, whether knowing it or not Cersei made them part of the war and they obliged her.

 

As a side note I'd like to think most people would chose 3 sec of burning over starving to death or being worked to death in some camp.

Well the High Sparrow accomplished quite a deal before being blown up so its not as impossible as all that. It would have been enough to riot and break through the gates, which they've never shied away from before. They are suddenly nothing more than a plot-grease for Dany's "madness".

Another good point.

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1 hour ago, Caligula_K3 said:

Just to correct your history here, which I think vastly oversimplifies things: true, someone like Caesar was not assassinated for his treatment of the Gauls. But, before the civil wars, his rivals and opponents did want to put him on trial for, among other things, waging war against allies and peaceful tribes without the permission of the senate and people of Rome, cruelly enslaving and slaughtering many Gauls, etc... 

On a bigger level, your post is conflating a siege during civil war with a siege during a foreign war. ...

Killing lots of your own people in civil wars has always been a dangerous game. I don't know that we have a case in which someone like Jon Snow killed someone like Dany specifically because they were cruel, but then again, archtypical fantasy heroes like Jon Snow tend to be pretty absent from ancient and medieval history, as do weapons of mass destruction like Drogon that far outstrip other technology.

Agree, certainly I over simplified. People tend to do that when making a point. Mea culpa. History is always more nuanced. But the point is valid, victors are rarely punished for their victories, however great the enemy’s death toll, civilians included. Now Pyrrhic victories can prove problematical.

I do, however, question the view that Daenerys was waging a civil war. It was a dynastic war or war of succession. All the same to the dead, but we should keep the terms straight. Daenerys had already created an independent realm in Essos, and was determined to extend her rule to Westeros with her foreign army and reptilian auxiliaries. The situation is more akin to the Hundred Years War than to the Wars of the Roses.

In GOT only Tyrion, Arya and Jon seem particularly upset by the burning of King’s Landing. And only Tyrion was intent on killing Daenerys for her actions. Judging from his responses to Tyrion’s arguments, Jon was finally convinced only by the fanciful threat to Sansa and Arya. The real civilian deaths were not enough for him to betray his Queen. So despite the general condemnation of Daenerys in these forums, Jon had a personal reason for murdering his lover. 
 
But let’s consider modern times. Okinawa was won only at enormous cost to America. The plan for invading the Home Islands projected losses an order of magnitude greater. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were accomplished at no cost to America and to the extent they precipitated Japan’s surrender spared innumerable American lives. Only much later did President Truman receive much revisionist criticism for his decision. At the time nobody demanded his impeachment for killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese non-combatants. He did catch the ire of Republicans for firing General MacArthur. Now MacArthur was a piece of work.
 

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1 hour ago, Sigella said:

It was a battle for conquest. The victims are all fiction. Lets not paint a battle for conquest out to be "genocide". 

I use the word genocide because Dany started burning people after her enemies had surrendered. The battle was won. She just burned people because she felt like it.

1 hour ago, Sigella said:

The city was under siege and everyone and their mama knew there was dragons on the enemy side. Imagine 1m kingslanders pouring through the gates abandoning Cersei and siding with Dany - do you think they'd still be burned?

The lannister army was still in KL. Why would people fight trained soldiers? They didn't know staying in the city was certain death.

1 hour ago, Sigella said:

They came willingly on Cersei's request forming her human shield - so they are not equivalent to your average civilian, whether knowing it or not Cersei made them part of the war and they obliged her.

If the civilians didn't consent to being a human shield, they are your average civilians, no more and no less.

1 hour ago, Sigella said:

As a side note I'd like to think most people would chose 3 sec of burning over starving to death or being worked to death in some camp.

Most people would choose not dying!! Why are we working under the assumption that the people of KL had to die??

1 hour ago, Sigella said:

Well the High Sparrow accomplished quite a deal before being blown up so its not as impossible as all that

The high sparrow was organized and had trained and armed followers. He wasn't the average civilian.

2 hours ago, Sigella said:

It would have been enough to riot and break through the gates, which they've never shied away from before. 

Again, if they felt they were safe in their homes with the doors barred, why would they break through the gates?

2 hours ago, Sigella said:

They are suddenly nothing more than a plot-grease for Dany's "madness".

I agree that Dany's madness came out of blue in season 8. But the act of burning civilians was indeed mad and cruel.

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13 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

I use the word genocide because Dany started burning people after her enemies had surrendered. The battle was won. She just burned people because she felt like it.

They yielded after the battle had begun. Cersei had played dirty throughout - common sense would be to mistrust her turning under the gallow.

13 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

The lannister army was still in KL. Why would people fight trained soldiers? They didn't know staying in the city was certain death.

If they can riot and attack Joffy plus retinue over bread they could storm the gates over dragon threat. Why do you pretend like rioting against Cersei is such an impossible act when its happened just 3 seasons before? Just because convenient argument?

14 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

If the civilians didn't consent to being a human shield, they are your average civilians, no more and no less.

They are not. They have agency and they perceived it better to stand with Cersei. So no.

14 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

Most people would choose not dying!! Why are we working under the assumption that the people of KL had to die??

Ofc, but you keep going on about how burning is so very cruel and Dany's a monster for doing it, which was what I responded to.

14 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

The high sparrow was organized and had trained and armed followers. He wasn't the average civilian.

The most successful riot was the storming of the dragon pit. It was mostly drunkards from Fleabottom and they killed like six (?) dragons.

14 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

Again, if they felt they were safe in their homes with the doors barred, why would they break through the gates?

Because it wasn't safe, and you'd have to be pretty stupid to seek refuge in the middle of the battle.

14 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

I agree that Dany's madness came out of blue in season 8. But the act of burning civilians was indeed mad and cruel.

I'm not saying it was good. But I imagine we don't let someone recently traumatised control the atomic bombs for this very reason.

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Why are we so shocked that we that we liked Dany and didn't pick up on her ruthless side until it was too late?  We have a set of ideals we want to achieve.  The revolutionaries tell us we can have it now if we just organize behind them.  We support them and encourage them.  They get ever more ruthless and go ever further past the bounds of conventional morality in order to achieve that goal.  We continue to encourage them.  A feedback loop forms and pretty soon the revolutionaries reach the point where they feel no morality binds them and that to achieve our goals they can be completely ruthless.  Those of us who start to think they have gone too far pushing beyond the bounds of morality become the enemy and need to be eliminated just like those "other people".  Then it turns into a dictatorship.

This is a Bolshevik recruiting poster where each level is one step further along the evolutionary path of ruthlessness.  Guess what the Bolsheviks did to their follow travelers when they achieved the dictatorship of the people.  They didn't shake their hands and say "good job, we all did it together.'  No, they had all the members of the other parties shot.  If anything they became more ruthless to their follow socialists then they were to the tsarists in the first place.

Socialism believes that only because of private property are there people who have large fortunes. That is why socialism, in order to put an end to such things, demands the abolition of private property…. Citizen Cossacks! We are all socialists, except that we don’t understand it and don’t want to understand it out of obstinacy....

Socialists, like Christian believers, are divided into many schools and parties.… But remember one thing: the ultimate goal of all these parties is the remaking of society in accordance with the principles of socialism. It is toward this goal that various parties are taking different roads. For example.

The Party of Popular Socialists says: we will have given the people land and freedom and rights before 50 years have passed.

The Party of the Right Socialist Revolutionaries says: we will have given the people land and freedom and rights before 35 years have passed.

The Party of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries says: we will have given the people land and freedom and rights before 20 years have passed.

The Party of the Social-Democrats-Mensheviks [minority wing] says: we will have given the people land and freedom and rights before 10 years have passed.

But the Party of the Social-Democrats-Bolsheviks [majority wing] says: You can go to hell with your promises. The people should get the land, the freedom, the rights, and the power right now, not in 10, 20, 35 or 50 years! Everything to the working people, everything at once!

 

 

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3 hours ago, Sigella said:

They yielded after the battle had begun. Cersei had played dirty throughout - common sense would be to mistrust her turning under the gallow.

Except cersei didn't surrender. Her forces did. They laid down their weapons. There was no need to kill the Lannister army, let alone the civilians.

3 hours ago, Sigella said:

If they can riot and attack Joffy plus retinue over bread they could storm the gates over dragon threat. Why do you pretend like rioting against Cersei is such an impossible act when its happened just 3 seasons before? Just because convenient argument?

And if you remember what happened then, a lot of the people who rioted died. Attacking a handful of guards is not the same as attacking a battle ready army. This is just victim blaming.

3 hours ago, Sigella said:

They are not. They have agency and they perceived it better to stand with Cersei. So no.

Explain how. They have zero agency over who governs them because they cannot vote.

3 hours ago, Sigella said:

Ofc, but you keep going on about how burning is so very cruel and Dany's a monster for doing it, which was what I responded to.

Your argument is that the people of KL would die no matter what, and you were talking about a preferred method. My argument is that there was no need to sack/burn the city. Doing would be amoral by westerosi standards and the person sanctioning it is cruel and amoral.

3 hours ago, Sigella said:

The most successful riot was the storming of the dragon pit. It was mostly drunkards from Fleabottom and they killed like six (?) dragons

Was there an entire army guarding the dragons??

3 hours ago, Sigella said:

Because it wasn't safe, and you'd have to be pretty stupid to seek refuge in the middle of the battle.

Battles don't always entail sacking cities. Working under the presumption that they do is inaccurate. 

3 hours ago, Sigella said:

I'm not saying it was good. But I imagine we don't let someone recently traumatised control the atomic bombs for this very reason.

If we are saying that Dany was indeed mad, then the only solution was to kill her, which was what Jon did. 

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3 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

If we are saying that Dany was indeed mad, then the only solution was to kill her, which was what Jon did. 

Mad? I don't know what "mad" means these days, so I’ll let others make the call on that one.  What I do know is that:

  • Dany had come to revel in murdering people using unimaginably painful fire to make them suffer the most.
  • She got off on this particular cruelty — just as her father did in the end.
  • She showed no remorse afterwards over killing innocents, even little children, this way. 
  • She dreamt up lame excuses for this after the fact which nobody believed when she was confronted with it
  • She loudly proclaimed her intent to carry this murderous fire-and-blood campaign to the ends of the known world fully aware that she would cause the deaths of multitudes.

No matter whether she was "mad" or not, it was Dany’s refusal to turn back from that dark path that ultimately signed her own confession and sealed her own death warrant.  All that then remained undone was for her rightful king to execute that death warrant as his duty commanded and his love demanded — meaning his love for his sisters, his home, and his people, not his love for a pretty murderess no matter how good of a lay she was. Those are two different loves.

When two contrary loves do battle within one human heart, which of the two prevails — and at what cost?

That's what the entire saga has always been about. It wasn't just at the end that it arose. It's been what the whole drama has always been about, right from the very start and at every meaningful juncture. It's the one thing that Martin thinks is worth writing about. And he did.

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39 minutes ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Mad? I don't know what "mad" means these days, so I’ll let others make the call on that one. 

The numerous posts by the Dany-haters brings to mind this exchange in the 1939 RKO film, Gunga Din, based on the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name, directed by George Stevens, screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur:

Sgt. Archibald Cutter, a British soldier held prisoner by the Thuggee, played with aplomb by Gary Grant: You're mad!

Thuggee Guru, played with wide-eyed theatrics by Eduardo Ciannelli: Mad? Mad. Hannibal was mad, Caesar was mad, and Napoleon surely was the maddest of the lot. Ever since time began, they've called mad all the great soldiers in this world. Mad? We shall see what wisdom lies within my madness. For this is but the spring that precedes the flood. From here we roll on. From village to town. From town to mighty city. Ever mounting, ever widening, until at last my wave engulfs all India!

In the film Guru makes some elementary tactical errors and is quickly defeated by the British Army. Clearly he was insufficiently mad.
 

Hey guys, it's just an HBO series, loosely based on some pretty good books.

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1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

Mad? I don't know what "mad" means these days, so I’ll let others make the call on that one.  What I do know is that:

  • Dany had come to revel in murdering people using unimaginably painful fire to make them suffer the most.
  • She got off on this particular cruelty — just as her father did in the end.
  • She showed no remorse afterwards over killing innocents, even little children, this way. 
  • She dreamt up lame excuses for this after the fact which nobody believed when she was confronted with it
  • She loudly proclaimed her intent to carry this murderous fire-and-blood campaign to the ends of the known world fully aware that she would cause the deaths of multitudes.

 

I am ambivalent about whether she was indeed 'mad'. But if everything you say above is true, what do you suggest should've been done to curb the above tendencies.

1 hour ago, CrypticWeirwood said:

No matter whether she was "mad" or not, it was Dany’s refusal to turn back from that dark path that ultimately signed her own confession and sealed her own death warrant.  All that then remained undone was for her rightful king to execute that death warrant as his duty commanded and his love demanded — meaning his love for his sisters, his home, and his people, not his love for a pretty murderess no matter how good of a lay she was. Those are two different loves.

When two contrary loves do battle within one human heart, which of the two prevails — and at what cost?

That's what the entire saga has always been about. It wasn't just at the end that it arose. It's been what the whole drama has always been about, right from the very start and at every meaningful juncture. It's the one thing that Martin thinks is worth writing about. And he did.

If the story was about Jon's choice between a ruthless murderer and his own family, I find it a rather boring story. If the choice between right and wrong is as easy as that, there isn't much room for conflict within the human heart, as Martin had put it. Hopefully the books are more nuanced than that. 

 

And as we had began the discussion with whether Dany was justified in burning all the people in KL, based on what you say above, she clearly wasn't.

 

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20 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

Except cersei didn't surrender. Her forces did. They laid down their weapons. There was no need to kill the Lannister army, let alone the civilians.

And if you remember what happened then, a lot of the people who rioted died. Attacking a handful of guards is not the same as attacking a battle ready army. This is just victim blaming.

Explain how. They have zero agency over who governs them because they cannot vote.

Your argument is that the people of KL would die no matter what, and you were talking about a preferred method. My argument is that there was no need to sack/burn the city. Doing would be amoral by westerosi standards and the person sanctioning it is cruel and amoral.

Was there an entire army guarding the dragons??

Battles don't always entail sacking cities. Working under the presumption that they do is inaccurate. 

If we are saying that Dany was indeed mad, then the only solution was to kill her, which was what Jon did. 

I feel like you don't understand my arguments:

-Fact is that Cersei played foul throughout - thus expecting her not do to so at the most critical moment is silly. Expecting a person in psychological affect to trust her with risk to lose what little there is left is setting the bar ridiculously high.

edit: I think this is version of your argument, only you equivalent "acute grief" with "big army you have fight" and excuse the smallfolk on the same note that you dispute it for Dany - but here is where you are wrong and it bleeds in what comes next

-Yet they are the many and power resides where people think it resides etc, so nope. Agency doesn't mean "a vote" or democracy.

edit: agency is being capable of act your actions onto the world. It says nothing about consequences or obstacles, or "a vote" or "democracy". Even though the smallfolk was scared of Cersei's army they were still capable of act out their actions. Being in acute grief is a far better excuse to not to set the bar ridiculously high imo because while having it you are like to not think its real or not react normally to stuff. Honestly everyone except maybe the Unsullied were scared this entire series so in your case you'd have to excuse everyone who has done bad stuff in the series ever. Like Walder Frey was scared of Tywin so the Red Wedding was ok?

-My argument isn't that I wan't the smallfolk to die - its the opposite. If you let go of your agenda for a second you might see that.

edit: I'm saying the only people who could have saved the smallfolk from burning were themselves and they didn't.

-An army could never withstand being overrun by the many. Pretending they would is silly and wishful thinking on your part.

edit: the entire army would be defending to outside threats so there any mutineers have an advantage.

-Again you "respond" to something I haven't said... The city was under siege if you recall.

edit: Or obviously preparing for one in any case. People choose to seek refuge in an about to be attacked city under the queen that blew up their church and everyone in or close it. Not smart. Also so was Slavers Bay.

-Your point is that all lunatics should be killed? Yikes. We don't know what would have happened because Jon murdered her. She might have gotten better if she got to grieve her losses and not be knifed in the back for a while? She is in acute grief which isn't a permanent condition.

edit: I get that you don't want all crazies to be murdered but it is what your argument implies so to dispute that cheap shot above you'd need to dispute your own argument if you want to argue logically.

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D&D went out of their way to telegraph how bad was Daenerys' turn by having her commit what was by far the most atrocious act in eight seasons of a show full of atrocious acts and reenact a Nuremburg rally whilst dressed as a Disney villainess, complete with the shot of black wings sprouting from her back. This season was many things, but nuanced isn't one of them. Yes, she was terrible and meant to be terrible.

I thought she was the only one delusional enough not to get that.

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18 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

If the story was about Jon's choice between a ruthless murderer and his own family, I find it a rather boring story. If the choice between right and wrong is as easy as that, there isn't much room for conflict within the human heart, as Martin had put it. Hopefully the books are more nuanced than that. 

I agree, I cant really see the difficulty in this choice, especially if Jon will have known Dany for a relatively short time and what she does is so overwhelmingly awful. Sophie's choice this is not. 

If we're being real here Dany was his duty and his honor was his kneel to her. Family is never duty, its always a love choice. Dany and Jon remind me of Robert and Ned. Ned regrettably followed Robert out of duty to the abstract obligation of "his king" even though most readers were like, why does he keep sticking with him?

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8 hours ago, Sigella said:

I'm saying the only people who could have saved the smallfolk from burning were themselves and they didn't.

I'm going to break this down one by one. Let's take the above argument first.

Explain to me how this isn't victim blaming. Explain why Dany doesn't shoulder the blame for the people of KL dying, they themselves are responsible for it.

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7 hours ago, Anthony Pirtle said:

This season was many things, but nuanced isn't one of them. 

I agree.

5 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

 

I agree, I cant really see the difficulty in this choice, especially if Jon will have known Dany for a relatively short time and what she does is so overwhelmingly awful. Sophie's choice this is not. 

If we're being real here Dany was his duty and his honor was his kneel to her. Family is never duty, its always a love choice. Dany and Jon remind me of Robert and Ned. Ned regrettably followed Robert out of duty to the abstract obligation of "his king" even though most readers were like, why does he keep sticking with him?

I agree with the parallels. And Robert certainly did a lot of morally questionable things, but this season had dany literally burn down a city that had surrendered. There was absolutely no nuance there.

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14 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

I agree.

I agree with the parallels. And Robert certainly did a lot of morally questionable things, but this season had dany literally burn down a city that had surrendered. There was absolutely no nuance there.

True.

Let alone Robert's obsession towards the Targaryens (and he had a reason for that), Tyrion even says Daenerys surpassed Tywin and Cersei in that regard; 

Tyrion: ''My father was an evil man. My sister was an evil woman. Pile up all the bodies of all the people they ever killed, there still won't be half as many as our beautiful queen slaughtered in a single day.'' 

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15 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

I'm going to break this down one by one. Let's take the above argument first.

Explain to me how this isn't victim blaming. Explain why Dany doesn't shoulder the blame for the people of KL dying, they themselves are responsible for it.

If someone goes and stand in the middle of the road and gets hit by a car do you still blame the driver?

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3 hours ago, Sigella said:

If someone goes and stand in the middle of the road and gets hit by a car do you still blame the driver?

How are those two examples remotely comparable? In Dany's case, she drove her car into people's homes. The people weren't standing in the middle of the road.

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1 hour ago, Apoplexy said:

How are those two examples remotely comparable? In Dany's case, she drove her car into people's homes. The people weren't standing in the middle of the road.

So what about the rest? Or is victim-blame-smearing all you've got?

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5 hours ago, RYShh said:

Tyrion: ''My father was an evil man. My sister was an evil woman. Pile up all the bodies of all the people they ever killed, there still won't be half as many as our beautiful queen slaughtered in a single day.'' 

One of several arguments Tyrion made in his increasingly desperate attempt to turn Jon. This one failed (You were far from the battle, how could you judge?), as did the one about unending, universal war (meh), and the penultimate one, the threat to Jon himself (“Who is more dangerous than the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?” at about minute 24, 8/6). Loyal Jon replied that he would accept the Queen’s judgement. Tyrion says that he also loves Daenerys, though not as “successfully” as Jon, said with a bit of a leer. But duty must kill love. This doesn’t work either. Only when Tyrion plays his last card, the improbable threat to his cousins, Arya and Sansa, is Jon finally swayed.  

It should be remembered that this discussion occurs while Tyrion is awaiting his death sentence for treason. He wanted to live above all else. This colors everything he said. Killing Daenerys was essential to his survival plan. He could have done so preemptively (no stranger to murder), but he had publicly and insolently resigned as Hand. The army noticed; Daenerys had to act. Bronn might have done it but he was too busy appraising Highgarden. Jon was Tyrion’s last, best hope. Too bad if Jon were killed in the aftermath, but it was necessary to keep Tyrion alive. He had previously denounced Varys back at Dragonstone, in a successful bid to save himself.

About that business with Jaime, if Tyrion was really so concerned about burnt babies why did he not try to convince his brother to kill Cersei, the one act that would have saved King’s Landing? The idea of saving Cersei from the wrath of Daenerys was absurd. And he knew his sister; she’d never give up the Iron Throne willingly. In either case fast action was essential. Yet instead of taking the unguarded sea cave entrance to the Red Keep that very night, Jaime inexplicably waits until the next morning to enter through the guarded city gate with a stream of refugees. Only when that gate is shut does it occur to him to use the alternate route. Of course he’s too late to achieve anything, other than killing Euron. But perhaps that was what Tyrion planned all along (less the Euron part, who'd have thought?)  In the end it all it worked to Tyrion's advantage, risky but with a big payoff. Too bad about that pile of bodies. 
 
By the way, I highly recommend Think Story’s clever and satisfying “How Game of Thrones Should Have Ended” on YouTube.
 

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