Dany the Mad Queen was a terrible idea

[Hodor's Dragon]

15 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I dont see any evidence for the show suggesting that dragonfire is more merciful because its hotter while regular fire is more inhumane. Where do they even discuss this, and why are you invested in arguing from that point of view?

Varys didn't make a sound. The Tarleys each briefly went "AH!" but really only for maybe 1/4 of a second. This is c/w the depiction of dragon fire in the show as an incredible force that blasts castles to pebbles.

Also bear in mind that in this milieu one of the great houses of Westeros displays a flayed man as its sigil--for a reason. Subjecting rebels who refused to bend the knee even after you defeated them in battle to a quarter-second second of excruciating pain was not even the sort of faux pas that would be commented on in polite society.

I never have quite gotten how people put the Tarlys' execution as some sort of justification for Dany going off the hook later. It was a completely ordinary action in-period.

 

[Tyrion1991]

5 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

It is consistent enough for me. Dany kills people she doesn't know and who haven't done anything to her personally. The Starks kill people who did things to them personally; the Freys for wiping out Robb, Ramsay for Sansa's rape and torture, and Olly for Jon's murder. It's still killing. But it's quite boring to collapse everyone into the same bucket of morality. Otherwise we'd have nothing interesting to discuss and we'd have dichotomous white/black characterization.

Arya could have been Dany if Arya wanted to rule over people, but she didn't. Arya gave up on Nymeria and let her run free; Dany still wanted to keep her magical pets and use them as beasts of war. Arya turned away from that path of vengeance, and gave up on her life's goal in the end. Dany couldn't give up on her life's goal and killed other people to get it. Arya would have had to kill a pregnant woman anyway. Yikes.

I think its just in the cards that Dany was always going to be the Starks' antagonist so. . . she'd do something beyond the pale.

 

The Starks killed large numbers of Bolton, Karstark and Umber soldiers. That’s a lot of widows and orphans they just made there. How many children have to be told that their fathers had to die so that Good King Jon could plant his backside in Winterfell? The Starks have killed very many people not personally involved in attacks on them. Think about the women hanged by Rob Starks men. Their self righteous honour and poorly thought out vengeance has snuffed out hundreds of thousands of lives like so many maggots. The show never called them to account for this. Ned and Cat started the war by abducting Tyrion and launching a coup against Joffrey; as well as revealing Joffreys illegitimacy to Stannis and Renly.

They are by definition feudal tyrants. Parasites who are living on the backs of their peasants. It is hypocritical for them to be presented as heroes whilst Dany is demonised as a monster. 

Yeah she “turned away” after having killed everyone on her list and knowing the last one was certain to die. This is not a compelling story arc for Arya. It’s a cop out. She got everything she wanted and got to waddle off into the sunset. Never mind that she should have just killed Cersei in season 7 and prevented A LOT of problems. Another crime committed by idiot Starks.

[It_spelt_Magalhaes]

7 minutes ago, Lord Stackspear said:

I’m just describing what the show depicted.  You’re free to imagine that the show depicted something else, but I don’t see evidence in the show for the argument you’re making. 

Actually, on the absurdity of discussing something as moronic to real life experience any of us can claim as being burned by dragon fire?

Not even the show gives us a set of pattern of behavior for it.

When you’re supposed to condemn it, it's all slomo and partially burned, screaming people.

When you’re supposed to go 'rah, that was awesome!', it explodes stonewalls and the occasional human shade seen through the flames is more like Oh, aye, he’ll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye, than even proper 'flash of light, searing pain then you're a pile of ash'.

I doubt the people of Westeros don't have the collective memory of dragons and their power.

And yet claiming that an execution through dragonfire had the 'purpose' of causing pain is to impose historic, rl collective memory of burnings. Stake burnings. Used as public torture slash capital punishment in public?

The purpose in those scenes is to kill them. 

She passed the sentence. She cannot swing a broadsword. She cannot just let one of the dothraki take her kill, it would be weak of her.

Anything else is a judgment by those who witness or are told of the event. The perception of fire and dragons for the Westerosi is not a good one.

But I'm still not seeing a viable alternative there.

We're repeatedly shown characters choosing between a bad option and a worse one.

If she wanted to torture them I'm sure we could get the in!verse invention of 'Dracarys!' 

'But slowly.'

[Tyrion1991]

TBH the show and George have always applied modern morality. 

It’s not that it doesn’t happen. It’s that every character always seems so surprised and shocked that it exists. They don’t just view it as a matter of course that marching 10,000 hungry and angry young men across a country creates problems. Far more problems than the burning of two pompous nobles. The idea that Rob could have reigned his men in is an absurd notion because the army would starve to death otherwise. It’s as if all the characters have modern sensibilities and view these as aberrant.

[Nowy Tends]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I worry about people who try to make the argument that dragonfire is more humane. 

Please don't let it come to this.

If you can't see the difference between an equivalent of a pyroclastic flow and a long ordeal on a pyre… 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroclastic_flow

Do you think the people of Pompei and Herculaneum twisted in pain for several minutes? No they didn't. They were killed instant.

[Rose of Red Lake]

22 minutes ago, Lord Stackspear said:

The show depicted dragon fire killing people instantly.   No words were ever uttered about execution by dragon fire being more or less humane than any other form of execution.  There were words uttered about being burned at the stake and actions taken by Jon Snow to prevent such an execution.  That’s all the show depicted.   I think arguments can be made both ways about how execution by dragon fire might have been viewed, but we don’t have any evidence from the show  

 You seem to be arguing that because being executed by dragon fire involves fire and because being burned at the stake also involves fire and was viewed negatively in the show, it therefore must follow that execution by dragon fire would be viewed the same.  There is no evidence for this in the show, although you can certainly make the argument.  The evidence against this argument and the one I find more believable is the instantaneous nature of death by dragon fire - it does not depict a death with any more suffering than death by beheading.  You can try to apply 21st century logic if you want, but this is a faux-medieval fantasy world.   Dragons are fantasy.   Their fire melts stone and steel and blasts through walls like bombs.  Some of the dragons during the Targaryen dynasty breathed different colors.  Their fire wasn’t any ordinary fire.   

Not gonna lie, you're creeping me out. 

It is an agonizing death and you're trying to make it sound like Dany is being "merciful" and more "humane" when she herself hasn't even argued that. 

Think about what you're saying - that everyone Dany has burned, passed away instantaneously and it was fine. 

Dany doesn't even have to inflict suffering under your scenario--one that you've artificially constructed because the show isn't even asking us to debate these gory details. 

Maybe Varys refused to scream like the buddhist monks in Vietnam who were trying to make a point? Or maybe the show always cuts away because its too gruesome. 

Either way it is not a dignified death or a painless one. 

The show showed us one execution method where the dragons burned the prisoners then ate them. Oh yeah this woman will definitely bring the Enlightenment to Westeros. So humane. No matter how you spin it, Dany cooked people alive as her execution method. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

 

1 minute ago, Nowy Tends said:

If you can't see the difference between an equivalent of a pyroclastic flow and a long ordeal on a pyre… 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroclastic_flow

Do you think the people of Pompei and Herculaneum twisted in pain for several minutes? No they didn't.

Lets just execute everyone with nuclear bombs then. Should be fine. Just pull out any weird ass argument so we don't have to question the Almighty Khaleesi. 

[Lord Stackspear]

9 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Not gonna lie, you're creeping me out. 

It is an agonizing death and you're trying to make it sound like Dany is being "merciful" and more "humane" when she herself hasn't even argued that. 

Think about what you're saying - that everyone Dany has burned, passed away instantaneously and it was fine. 

Dany doesn't even have to inflict suffering under your scenario--one that you've artificially constructed because the show isn't even asking us to debate these gory details. 

Maybe Varys refused to scream like the buddhist monks in Vietnam who were trying to make a point? Or maybe the show always cuts away because its too gruesome. 

Either way it is not a dignified death or a painless one. 

The show showed us one execution method where the dragons burned the prisoners then ate them. Oh yeah this woman will definitely bring the Enlightenment to Westeros. So humane. No matter how you spin it, Dany cooked people alive as her execution method. 

Whatever.  Be creeped out all you want.  I have a different opinion about the depictions of dragons in a piece of fantasy fiction and I've given my reasons.  Dragons and dragon fire are not real - they are fantasy.  And, in this fantasy world of Westeros, I don't see a significant moral difference between Dany executing by dragon fire and execution by beheading.  I respect that you have a different opinion, and we'll just have to leave it at that.  

[Hodor's Dragon]

15 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Not gonna lie, you're creeping me out. 

It is an agonizing death and you're trying to make it sound like Dany is being "merciful" and more "humane" when she herself hasn't even argued that. <snip>

You're factually wrong about dragon fire as depicted in the show. Even if we accept your idea of Varys' manly stoicism, how did you account for the stifled 1/4-second "AH!" from each of the Tarlys, who then crumpled lifelessly and almost formlessly to the ground as the camera lingered?

Most likely Varys simply didn't have the stamina to last the quarter second they did.

[CrypticWeirwood]

12 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You may think it unoriginal, but there are far more stories where good character doesn't go mad with power. Also, Daenerys going mad with power is thematically appropriate - the Iron Throne is essentially Martin's version of Tolkien's One Ring, it is something that people obsess over, that gives them power but at the same time also corrupts them and eventually destroys them. And what had she been obsessing over for a long time? That's right - the Iron Throne. If there is a Gollum in ASoIaF, it is Daenerys (that being said, she is not the only Gollum around, just the most prominent).

I do agree that Mad Queen Daenerys was a terrible idea within the context of the show. And that is an issue: Dumb and Dumber couldn't handle morally gray(ing) character, it was black or white with them (notice how they made Stannis into Satan, Jon Snow into Saint, Cersei into Satan... it is a black and white world with them). So they made Daenerys into a hero, especially once they outran the books... but Mad Queen is the endgame, it was most likely provided by Martin himself, so they couldn't avoid it. And since they had no groundwork, they had to jump from SaintlyAngelDany to MadTyrantDany with no in-between, no logical path connecting two characters. 

They never made her "mad". That is not what they had her do, and the actress herself has repeatedly asked that we not call her that. It's insulting, stupid, and wrong. 

She let her cruelty get the best of her, which combined with her sense of entitlement, flash temper, and unthinking short-sightedness made her do brutal things. 

But she was never mad. Stop saying that.

But why should I expect civility from brutes who use insulting pet names for people they don't even know? Useless drivel from raging teenagers who need their mouths washed out with bleach.

[The One Who Kneels]

6 hours ago, RYShh said:

It's not about claim, it's about swearing fealty. Randyll swear fealty to Cersei, not to Daenerys or to IT.

That's the point, Daenerys couldn't execute prisoners for betrayal, Robb could do that to Rickard and Greatjon, they swear fealty to Robb, while Randyll never swear any fealty to Daenerys.

What she could do is beheading Randyll and keeping his son as a hostage, or keeping both as hostage. As Robb was doing it with the Lannisters prisoners.

No he plainly swore fealty to the Iron Throne. Cersei is not pretending to be Queen of the Rock and Reach. 

Greatjon could not have sworn any oaths to Robb at the time Robb threatened to hang him since Robb was not even Lord of Winterfell (Ned was still alive) yet. Lords aren't released from their oaths with an option to renew every time their feudal superiors die and are succeeded by their heirs. If you back one claimant and the other one crushes your army and takes you prisoner you are going to end up bending the knee to the other claimant or you will cease to be a lord one way or another. If you then reject one way you can cease to be lord (exile) you are going to end up going the other way (execution). 

Which is what she was doing until Dickon marched up and demanded to be allowed to be executed too. Then Tyrion tries to dissuade Dickon by pointing out how stupid this is but he refuses to reconsider, When Janos Slynt defied Jon Snow's orders did Jon just have him locked up in an ice cell until he rethought his actions? Of course not. He executed him even as Janos Slynt cried and begged for mercy and forgiveness. It is ridiculous and completely out of the norms that Westeros operates in to expect Daenerys to not execute lords who openly defy her rule and spurn any alternatives to execution. 

The Tarly incident was a total failure if it was supposed to be foreshadowing or another step on the progression into Mad Queen Daenerys. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

48 minutes ago, The One Who Kneels said:

The Tarly incident was a total failure if it was supposed to be foreshadowing or another step on the progression into Mad Queen Daenerys. 

I think its a failure on the audiences' part because audiences keep making the wrong comparison.

The incident isn't a parallel to Janos Slynt. It's a parallel to Stannis with Mance and a contrast to Jon with the wildlings. Jon executing people at the Wall has nothing to do with what Dany did. Jon was Slynt's commander; Dany wasn't Randyll's. Also, it's the Wall. The rule is, if you disobey an order, it's the last stop for you because there's no where else to send you. Dany still had an option to send them to the Wall so she had an opportunity to show mercy. She also could have just executed their leader, like Stannis did with Mance - but she made the excessive choice. This came back to bite her because now she lost a potential ally with Sam. 

The fact that Dany forced them all to kneel as a group is also a foil to Jon. The show tells us this, when Jon says he's also executed men, Sam reminds us: "You've also spared men. Thousands of wildlings when they refused to kneel." 

Jon showed mercy to prisoners who lost on the battlefield. Even Stannis did too, to some degree - he said he didn't want to "slaughter beat dogs." Dany used excessive use of force to completely destroy them and still used fear even afterward. This ties into to her choice later in S8 "Let it be fear, then." She's already been doing that, just on people who seem like assholes. Keep in mind, Dany didn't kill Sam's dad for being a bad dad. Audiences have to learn how to disassociate these affect/emotional ties, but they're not doing that. 

So any random execution-to-execution is not the accurate comparison, it is prisoner-of-war-to-prisoner-of-war, and what to do with beaten people who don't want to kneel to you. 

Sam and Jon never found out the execution method. Dany doesn't mention that they were burned alive.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Add the show runners to it then? 

Emilia Clarke Watched Speeches by Hitler and Other Dictators to Prepare for Game of Thrones Finale

Dany = Hitler or Satan is certainly hammered home in Ep. 6.  The problem is that until she decided to burn thousands of innocents in Ep. 5 for no good reason, there was no reason to suppose she was Hitler or Satan.  

It was established that she had a huge sense of entitlement, as well as a cruel streak to her character.  She could also be compassionate and thoughtful. But, there's nothing, prior to Ep. 5, to suggest she's different (in terms of cruelty) to people like Richatrd of York or Henry Tudor or Bolingbroke.  She certainly doesn't rank (prior to Ep. 5) with the nastier English Kings, like John or Henry VIII.  Nor is she even portrayed as being like William the Conqueror, or Edward I or III, in terms of ruthlessness towards civilians.

[King Wyman]

I think the biggest issue is the show just handled it poorly. 

Every contributing factor seemed to be poor writing, rather than natural character development or good storytelling.

You had Tyrion and Varys constantly making out-of-character mistakes, Jon lost all agency, Sansa and Arya didn’t like her because reasons, the north was ungrearful again because reasons, Bran withholds a ton of crucial info and comes off as an unintentional villain... It made everyone else look like assholes, when that wasn’t the intent (hence why everybody but Jon got a Disney ending).

Then you have her go mad in the most heavy-handed way possible so every single person watching would know she went mad and needed to be put down.

I don’t really care how she looked after her brother’s death, targeting innocent people on her dragon for 15 minutes before going to the Red Keep isn’t fitting of the character, and GRRM would never do something so obviously evil. 

And this all happened in the 2nd to last episode, and she was killed almost immediately after. That’s a massive waste.

My guess is happens at the end of book 6.

She will hit KL hard with dragons (but not after they surrender and no genocide attempts), kill a ton of key people (like Harry the Heir so Sansa’s beef is legit), she’ll publically execute fAegon with dragon fire, and then she’ll begin her reign as a cold and ruthless queen who rules through fear.

She will be considered a major antagonist to Westeros, but internally she will struggle with what she’s become.

 

[Rose of Red Lake]

6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Dany = Hitler or Satan is certainly hammered home in Ep. 6.  The problem is that until she decided to burn thousands of innocents in Ep. 5 for no good reason, there was no reason to suppose she was Hitler or Satan.  

It was established that she had a huge sense of entitlement, as well as a cruel streak to her character.  She could also be compassionate and thoughtful. But, there's nothing, prior to Ep. 5, to suggest she's different (in terms of cruelty) to people like Richatrd of York or Henry Tudor or Bolingbroke.  She certainly doesn't rank with the nastier English Kings, like John or Henry VIII.

Bookwise the author made her part of a family that practiced blood purity to create an artificial human hierarchy with themselves at the top. It's not a 1-to-1 comparison but that should trigger something...The author also brought up the Nazis when he described the two threats of ice and fire. 

Show-wise they filmed her using techniques in Nazi propaganda films. They gave her a lot of visuals that suggested a power rising that could kill them all: imperial soldiers marching with extreme precision, armies of brainwashed followers who would do anything to serve the Dear Leader, that big ass Targaryen banner put at the top of a pyramid while Dany looks down on the people far below, the Nuremberg 1.0 speech in S6 with the dragons like the Luftwaffe and armies cheering, even her chain of intent looks like the SS strap in the Nazi uniform. This post observes visual parallels between Dany and Nazi imagery. 

I don't get too caught up in how Dany feels about events--that can be manipulative. Her actions matter more. She was shown to be losing her humanity by degrees. The show is a short cut after all for the books and they cant film everything. 

[SeanF]

14 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Bookwise the author made her part of a family that practiced blood purity to create an artificial human hierarchy with themselves at the top. It's not a 1-to-1 comparison but that should trigger something...The author also brought up the Nazis when he described the two threats of ice and fire. 

Show-wise they filmed her using techniques in Nazi propaganda films. They gave her a lot of visuals that suggested a power rising that could kill them all: imperial soldiers marching with extreme precision, armies of brainwashed followers who would do anything to serve the Dear Leader, that big ass Targaryen banner put at the top of a pyramid while Dany looks down on the people far below, the Nuremberg 1.0 speech in S6 with the dragons like the Luftwaffe and armies cheering, even her chain of intent looks like the SS strap in the Nazi uniform. This post observes visual parallels between Dany and Nazi imagery. 

I don't get too caught up in how Dany feels about events--that can be manipulative. Her actions matter more. She was shown to be losing her humanity by degrees. The show is a short cut after all for the books and they cant film everything. 

Plenty of royals and aristocrats have taken the view that the laws and morals that govern the mass of humanity do not apply to them.  Targaryens are prone to extreme forms of behaviour, but it's not really a racist ideology.  

Thanks for the Tumblr post, by the way.  Despite the imagery, Dany has never given any sign that she believes that lesser races must be subjugated or destroyed.

[Techmaester]

A woman who spent her years warring to end slavery across a continent….is actually going to enslave and exterminate everyone on racial grounds. Very compelling! 

[Rose of Red Lake]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Plenty of royals and aristocrats have taken the view that the laws and morals that govern the mass of humanity do not apply to them.  Targaryens are prone to extreme forms of behaviour, but it's not really a racist ideology.  

Thanks for the Tumblr post, by the way.  Despite the imagery, Dany has never given any sign that she believes that lesser races must be subjugated or destroyed.

Well we got into that in the other thread, when I pointed out how she does look down on other races, but of course this would be from her POV so it would be distorted. She would never think of herself that way. Instead she refers to herself as the dragon and everyone else as silly, stupid, unattractive, superstitious, or uncivilized.  

And I dont know of any aristocrats who practice incest for magical blood purity so that only their family can use nuclear weapons.

Did you really think GRRM was going to normalize Targaryens in any form? They dont even want to be seen as normal, in universe. They want to be seen as exceptional. Dany even says this in S7.

[Rose of Red Lake]

5 minutes ago, Techmaester said:

A woman who spent her years warring to end slavery across a continent….is actually going to enslave and exterminate everyone on racial grounds. Very compelling! 

Plato said that citizens should be vigilant of tyrants because they would free slaves and use them as their own personal army. What a perfect way to gain loyalty, right? He also said that the only people who would follow a tyrant would be these freed slaves, exiles, and other paid mercenaries. Did GRRM read Plato when writing Daenerys? He certainly likes to pull from the Greeks.

[Techmaester]

6 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Plato said that citizens should be vigilant of tyrants because they would free slaves and use them as their own personal army. What a perfect way to gain loyalty, right? He also said that the only people who would follow a tyrant would be these freed slaves, exiles, and other paid mercenaries. Did GRRM read Plato when writing Daenerys? He certainly likes to pull from the Greeks.

Clearly we should be concerned about the people who own slaves or facilitated the existence of such a system being oppressed by the tyrants who freed those slaves! 

A tyrant is anyone who breaks the existing system without regard for the people who currently rule it.