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Danaerys' hint of madness made me like her more


Uilliam

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I don't condone her genocide of the King's Landing rabble, but in earlier seasons I did find something wooden about Danaerys' messianic character. From season 3 onwards she seemed a bit one note. 

However, the acting of Emilia Clarke really gave the character a whole new dimension in season eight. You can see Danaerys has a 'tick in the brain' as Wendy Williams would say. Something slightly off kilter. There's something bold and unpredictable in her that makes her compelling as a character. Not outright madness as some posters are saying, but just a whiff of it, enough to make her fearsome and I intriguing at the same time. Her manic idealism also looked interesting, it's just a shame the writing team of dumb and dumber were so god awful and didn't explore these raw elements of her character in previous seasons.

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10 hours ago, Uilliam said:

I don't condone her genocide of the King's Landing rabble, but in earlier seasons I did find something wooden about Danaerys' messianic character. From season 3 onwards she seemed a bit one note. 

However, the acting of Emilia Clarke really gave the character a whole new dimension in season eight. You can see Danaerys has a 'tick in the brain' as Wendy Williams would say. Something slightly off kilter. There's something bold and unpredictable in her that makes her compelling as a character. Not outright madness as some posters are saying, but just a whiff of it, enough to make her fearsome and I intriguing at the same time. Her manic idealism also looked interesting, it's just a shame the writing team of dumb and dumber were so god awful and didn't explore these raw elements of her character in previous seasons.

I think the great thing about the Dany character is that she is the ultimate grey character. GOT's villains are actually quite conventional for a show that prides itself on exploring the moral grey area. For example, they are either outright evil like Aerys II, Cersei, Bolton, Frey, Joffrey, Lorch, LF, and Gregor etc., or only care about themselves or their House (i.e. Tywin, Tyrells etc.). On the other hand, the good characters (i.e. Sam, Gilly, Jon, Ned) are mostly portrayed as saintly. 

Daenerys is the only character to commit, at great personal trouble and risk, to abolitionism out of idealism, even though it got her on the wrong side of all of Essos and mired her in an insurgency. Anyone else  would have simply fled from Slaver's Bay with the Unsullied army after sacking Astaphor, seized a suitable city on the west of Essos and waited for the dragons to grow big enough to reconquer Westeros.

Moreover, she was the only Southern Monarch to commit to fighting the Night King, at great expense to herself, thus honoring the Protector of the Realm part of her title. She could have easily abandoned Jon and the North (thus saving Viserion) and quickly taken KL and consolidated the South. Afterwards, all she has to do is bottle up the Night King's army at Moat Cailin and figure out a plan with the Red priests. This course of conduct would also eliminate Jon's claim to the throne.

Also, she is the only blue blooded character to not harbor prejudice based on race or class, and to respect and employ Tyrion and not mock his condition .

It is arguable that what happened at KL was the direct result of her sacrifices against the Night King and desire to be peaceful and honorable. If she had "been a dragon" as Olenna suggested or dracarys Cersei and Euron during the dragon pit meeting, she could have won just there. 

So even thought what she did to KL is cruel and cannot be waived off or overlooked, she was kind of set up. The North, Varys and Tyrion don't seem to be particularly grateful of the fact that she took them in and sacrificed her position for the North's benefit. The more of the "right thing" she kept doing, the more she loses and the greater her psychological stress. 

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The world of the Show divides people into mad or sane, whereas in reality, there is a wide spectrum.  Some people with mental health issues are very high achievers, often willing to think outside the box and daring things that most people would not dare to do.

There was a very good story to be told about Dany gradually going off the rails, but it needed 20 episodes, not three.

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1 minute ago, SeanF said:

The world of the Show divides people into mad or sane, whereas in reality, there is a wide spectrum.  Some people with mental health issues are very high achievers, often willing to think outside the box and daring things that most people would not dare to do.

There was a very good story to be told about Dany gradually going off the rails, but it needed 20 episodes, not three.

I actually thought that having her snap so suddenly was quite realistic. Oftentimes when someone snaps , a lot of family and friends come out and say they can't believe that this good friend and upright neigbour would do this. There were always  bits and pieces of clues, but the snap itself often comes like a sucker punch. 

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3 minutes ago, Br16 said:

I actually thought that having her snap so suddenly was quite realistic. Oftentimes when someone snaps , a lot of family and friends come out and say they can't believe that this good friend and upright neigbour would do this. There were always  bits and pieces of clues, but the snap itself often comes like a sucker punch. 

I'm going by my own experience of a relative who has bi-polar disorder.  You can see it coming, when this relative is going to have a mood swing.  A lot of assistance dogs are actually trained to recognise the signs, and to alert the patient to take the necessary medication.

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Just now, SeanF said:

I'm going by my own experience of a relative who has bi-polar disorder.  You can see it coming, when this relative is going to have a mood swing.  A lot of assistance dogs are actually trained to recognise the signs, and to alert the patient to take the necessary medication.

Since you have direct first hand experience, I will defer to your assessment. Also, IIRC, HBO reportedly offered 2 seasons for D&D to wrap it up, but they refused so they could do Star Wars. Perhaps you are indeed right about the 20 episodes.

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1 hour ago, Br16 said:

I actually thought that having her snap so suddenly was quite realistic. Oftentimes when someone snaps , a lot of family and friends come out and say they can't believe that this good friend and upright neigbour would do this. There were always  bits and pieces of clues, but the snap itself often comes like a sucker punch. 

"Snapping" can be sudden, but even people who snap follow a dark trajectory. When 'Carrie' snapped at her prom after being drenched in pigs blood it was sudden, terrifying and completely logical. When Danaerys snapped in the sky atop a dragon, it came across as outright weird.

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49 minutes ago, Uilliam said:

"Snapping" can be sudden, but even people who snap follow a dark trajectory. When 'Carrie' snapped at her prom after being drenched in pigs blood it was sudden, terrifying and completely logical. When Danaerys snapped in the sky atop a dragon, it came across as outright weird.

If they wanted to show Daenerys snapping it needed a trigger (bells ringing hardly count).  That's why people have suggested that a botched surrender would have been more credible.  Dany does accept the city's surrender, only for someone to shoot her or Drogon (accidentally or on purpose), making her conclude that this is just another betrayal.  But, that would have kept her as a much more sympathetic character.

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I still think that they should have had Cersei kill Miss Sunday at the beginning of the battle, which could then realistically cause Dany to 'snap' and continue the attack.  They also should have had her go to the Red Keep first, maybe she can't find Cersei and then she starts on her grid destruction.  Or, I'm sure there are 50 ways where her actions could have been made to seem more believable without necessarily being excusable. But, no matter what they did for the battle scene, they still needed more episodes, more scenes leading up to the moment to ground Dany's turn toward tyranny more thoroughly.

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2 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I still think that they should have had Cersei kill Miss Sunday at the beginning of the battle, which could then realistically cause Dany to 'snap' and continue the attack.  They also should have had her go to the Red Keep first, maybe she can't find Cersei and then she starts on her grid destruction.  Or, I'm sure there are 50 ways where her actions could have been made to seem more believable without necessarily being excusable. But, no matter what they did for the battle scene, they still needed more episodes, more scenes leading up to the moment to ground Dany's turn toward tyranny more thoroughly.

Fo shizzle, Cas.  Well said.  

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2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I still think that they should have had Cersei kill Miss Sunday at the beginning of the battle, which could then realistically cause Dany to 'snap' and continue the attack.  They also should have had her go to the Red Keep first, maybe she can't find Cersei and then she starts on her grid destruction.  Or, I'm sure there are 50 ways where her actions could have been made to seem more believable without necessarily being excusable. But, no matter what they did for the battle scene, they still needed more episodes, more scenes leading up to the moment to ground Dany's turn toward tyranny more thoroughly.

For some reason your comment made me think of this vid, ha ha ha

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39 minutes ago, sifth said:

For some reason your comment made me think of this vid, ha ha ha

The thing about this statement, is it's in his own program, it's not an off the cuff question someone asked him in a media interview, it is his own program, over which he has 100% control of the content, and this moronic answer stayed in the final cut, which tells me a lot about how GOT must have worked behind the scenes, that no one ever said 'hey, that might strike the audience as a poor answer, even a laughable, embarrassing answer, let's edit this or reshoot a different answer'.  

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Remember when she first came to Dragonstone, she talked about Viserys, she said that if Viserys had 3 Dragons he would fly to KL directly.

That means that she was actually thinking about that Viserys's mentality from time to time. And after she lost her allies and see her friend killed, then lost a dragon, and then lost Jon as her lover and then she sees that Jon has the right to the IT and people believes in and loves Jon more than they love her, she gives up on playing nice and decides to become Viserys. Viserys was always part of her.

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On 6/1/2019 at 7:04 PM, RYShh said:

Remember when she first came to Dragonstone, she talked about Viserys, she said that if Viserys had 3 Dragons he would fly to KL directly.

That means that she was actually thinking about that Viserys's mentality from time to time. And after she lost her allies and see her friend killed, then lost a dragon, and then lost Jon as her lover and then she sees that Jon has the right to the IT and people believes in and loves Jon more than they love her, she gives up on playing nice and decides to become Viserys. Viserys was always part of her.

True, but it should have been done more clearly, over more episodes, and gradually. Because, as it was done, it comes almost out of nowhere unless one had really been paying attention.

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