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The character assassination of Daenerys


Areisius

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23 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Without Daenerys, the world would have died.  I think most of us, in her position, would expect "a little f*cking gratitude" for it (as Tyrion put it to his father after the Battle of the Blackwater).  If we must criticise entitlement, then surely criticise the entitlement of those who expected Daenerys to save their hides, at the risk of her life and those of her men, without having to offer anything in return.  

I actually think the series' theme was that "Honour is stupid"  There was certainly nothing honourable in the way that the Stark children behaved towards Daenerys, or in the manner of her murder.

I would agree that beyond Jon, none of the Stark children maintained and lived with honor. Sansa directly - and likely Arya and Bran indirectly, played a huge part in Dany's downfall and, I would agree with you, did this out of spite and a lack of gratitude for Dany sacrificing her quest to assist with Jon's.

Of course, the flip side is that if Dany didn't help defend the north, the walkers would have (supposedly - because Episode 803 is possibly the biggest heap of shit television I have ever seen) conquered all of Westeros - and then Dany would have had nothing to rule. So, logically, Dany had no choice but to side with Jon's quest.

Dany was a tragic villain, like Lucifer or Thanos or so on. I think it was a stroke of writing brilliance that GRRM made her an adorable little dragon princess with righteous, progressive ideals, as kind of a commentary on the misguided idealism that sets in when civilizations start to rot. This makes me think GRRM is really, really intelligent and understood the complicated points he was trying to make - but as I have expressed elsewhere, I think he has become afraid to finish.

The only two characters I would say were truly honorable were Jon and Brienne. Jamie aspired to it and almost attained it but was too vain to see it through. Ned forsake it in his last moment for his daughters - family.

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Just as an aside, from the little I know about GRRMs formitive past (and I could be wrong, so please, correct me if I am) he was raised by a drunken ex soldier for a father and had a tragic love life involving a triangle of writers (reminded me of Lovecraft's, actually). To survive mentally, he escaped into fantastic tales of adventure. So it makes a kind of sense for him to see honor as a reasonable ideal to live by.

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11 hours ago, ummester said:

I would agree that beyond Jon, none of the Stark children maintained and lived with honor. Sansa directly - and likely Arya and Bran indirectly, played a huge part in Dany's downfall and, I would agree with you, did this out of spite and a lack of gratitude for Dany sacrificing her quest to assist with Jon's.

The show portrayed Dany as a victim, of people pushing her into madness, but I believe this is poor writing if it solely focuses on how characters were "wronged." Self-inflicted is the gold standard for tragedy. If Dany is afraid of being alone, the reality is that Dany is alone by her own design. If Dany is afraid of becoming her father, the reality is that she repeats his mistakes. If Dany is afraid of being the last Targaryen, the reality is that she's afraid of another Targaryen existing. She wants to be exceptional, she doesn't see anyone as an equal to herself, and sees her perspective as the only one that's right. These are qualities Sansa and Arya and Sam most likely saw in their interactions with her, flashing like a danger sign. The failure isn't that characters didn't believe in her, or failed to thank her. Failure is in her perspective and lack of self-reflection. Neither Sansa nor Arya have hubris on the same level as Daenerys. It's her belief in her own specialness based on blood and name - almost to the point of being divine - that makes her regressive for civilization even as she markets herself as progressive. The lack of awareness is particularly galling. But Dany chose to think that way and no one else forced her into this perspective. 

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On 8/17/2019 at 12:27 PM, ummester said:

If anything, I'd say GoTs/AsoIaF is pro honor - I think the overall narrative shows all other ideals/beliefs/emotional attachments such as love, self worth, entitlement, family, greed, desire (you name it) ad being more corruptible than good old fashioned honor.

IMO both show and books are against rigid honor. Rigid honor like Ned Stark possessed is NOT a good thing because it stops you from doing the right thing for the greater good. Ned could have stopped part of the War of the 5 Kings if he had taken Renly up on his offer. Instead Ned stuck with honoring the proper succession and thousands died for it. His own children went through hell (and continue to go through hell in the books) because of it. IMO it also shows the dangers of letting your personal hangups prevent you from acting the way you should. Ned warning Cersei to get out with her children was a monumentally stupid action that was facilitated by Ned's own trauma with dead children. Rigid honor and the inability to put aside your own drama/trauma, and the wrong decisions you make as a result, seems to be a theme.

On 8/17/2019 at 1:12 PM, SeanF said:

Without Daenerys, the world would have died.

Without Dany, the Wall would never have fallen to begin with. The Others/WW had no way of getting over, through or around the wall in the show, otherwise they would have done so. So Dany coming to Westeros in the first place was a bad thing. Because no dragons = the wall stays up.

On 8/17/2019 at 1:12 PM, SeanF said:

I think most of us, in her position, would expect "a little f*cking gratitude" for it (as Tyrion put it to his father after the Battle of the Blackwater).  If we must criticise entitlement, then surely criticise the entitlement of those who expected Daenerys to save their hides, at the risk of her life and those of her men, without having to offer anything in return.

Gratitude for what? I still have yet to see Dany fans giving a plausible counter to why she deserves gratitude for the very basic...CLEANING UP HER OWN MESS. The wall being down is ON HER. She kept a dumbass and two-timer looking out for his family's best interest for an advisor (Tyrion) and listened to him. She gave the ok to the 'wight plan'. The final say was hers as the Queen. There would be no WWs and Army of the Dead south of the Wall if Dany had never come over to Westeros in the first place. And considering how the battle in Winterfell eventually played out, Dany wasn't needed even with her giant army (Dothraki KO in the first 2 minutes, Unsullied fared as bad as the other soldiers) and dragons. Apparently all that was needed was the 3ER as bait and a Arya as the magical, teleporting boss assassin.

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14 minutes ago, Mystical said:

IMO both show and books are against rigid honor. Rigid honor like Ned Stark possessed is NOT a good thing because it stops you from doing the right thing for the greater good. Ned could have stopped part of the War of the 5 Kings if he had taken Renly up on his offer. Instead Ned stuck with honoring the proper succession and thousands died for it. His own children went through hell (and continue to go through hell in the books) because of it. IMO it also shows the dangers of letting your personal hangups prevent you from acting the way you should. Ned warning Cersei to get out with her children was a monumentally stupid action that was facilitated by Ned's own trauma with dead children. Rigid honor and the inability to put aside your own drama/trauma, and the wrong decisions you make as a result, seems to be a theme.

Without Dany, the Wall would never have fallen to begin with. The Others/WW had no way of getting over, through or around the wall in the show, otherwise they would have done so. So Dany coming to Westeros in the first place was a bad thing. Because no dragons = the wall stays up.

Gratitude for what? I still have yet to see Dany fans giving a plausible counter to why she deserves gratitude for the very basic...CLEANING UP HER OWN MESS. The wall being down is ON HER. She kept a dumbass and two-timer looking out for his family's best interest for an advisor (Tyrion) and listened to him. She gave the ok to the 'wight plan'. The final say was hers as the Queen. There would be no WWs and Army of the Dead south of the Wall if Dany had never come over to Westeros in the first place. And considering how the battle in Winterfell eventually played out, Dany wasn't needed even with her giant army (Dothraki KO in the first 2 minutes, Unsullied fared as bad as the other soldiers) and dragons. Apparently all that was needed was the 3ER as bait and a Arya as the magical, teleporting boss assassin.

So, why was there ever any need to worry about the White Walkers, at all?  If they can't get past the Wall, without Viserion, then they're never going to be a threat to humanity.  Jon Snow was plainly an idiot to ask Dany to come North, or to mine dragon glass,  or at attempt to capture a wight, or even to warn people about the White Walkers in the first place.

Yet, that would seem to me to go against the main thrust of the series.

In reality, I think they would have found a way through, or past the Wall, with or without Viserion.

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3 hours ago, Mystical said:

Because no dragons = the wall stays up

That’s not entirely true. I think the dragons were not supposed to pass the wall (Lady Alysanne’s Silverwing wouldn’t fly over it, if I’m not wrong) so probably the WW just have to blow somebody’s horn (I don’t remember who’s) to break the wall. 

I can live with  Dany’s character assassination, but did they have to turn her into this Justin Bieber of dragon warfare?

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It's worth remembering that Dany got her army in the 3rd season, she becomes queen of Meereen in the 4th season, so her arc from bullied powerless sister to dragon queen breaker of chains is about 35 episodes, give or take.  Almost 4 full seasons.

When looking at her deconstruction and descent into villainy, she suffers her first real losses in season 7 in the 2nd episode, so it's only about 10 episodes where she goes from totally powerful, the world is her oyster, breaking the wheel and helping the people as her secondary goal....to a plan for Freedom By WarTM, and if you don't agree, dracarys. And it doesn't help that these last two seasons were a significant drop in quality as well as really rushing her fall.  Those missing 7 episodes would have added another apprx. 30% of story to the last 2 seasons.

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9 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It's worth remembering that Dany got her army in the 3rd season, she becomes queen of Meereen in the 4th season, so her arc from bullied powerless sister to dragon queen breaker of chains is about 35 episodes, give or take.  Almost 4 full seasons.

When looking at her deconstruction and descent into villainy, she suffers her first real losses in season 7 in the 2nd episode, so it's only about 10 episodes where she goes from totally powerful, the world is her oyster, breaking the wheel and helping the people as her secondary goal....to a plan for Freedom By WarTM, and if you don't agree, dracarys. And it doesn't help that these last two seasons were a significant drop in quality as well as really rushing her fall.  Those missing 7 episodes would have added another apprx. 30% of story to the last 2 seasons.

And she suffers those losses because she lets Tyrion and others talk her out of her battle plan - namely to fly to the Red Keep and incinerate it.  That would have finished the war against Cersei in 30 minutes.  In real life (let alone in a medieval setting) no one would object to something so obviously sensible.

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17 hours ago, SeanF said:

So, why was there ever any need to worry about the White Walkers, at all?  If they can't get past the Wall, without Viserion, then they're never going to be a threat to humanity.  Jon Snow was plainly an idiot to ask Dany to come North, or to mine dragon glass,  or at attempt to capture a wight, or even to warn people about the White Walkers in the first place.

Yet, that would seem to me to go against the main thrust of the series.

In reality, I think they would have found a way through, or past the Wall, with or without Viserion.

In the show, there was no need to worry. We've seen the WW and their army on the move since literally the first scene of the first episode of the show. We saw them marching to and at the wall several times. And they did nothing. It was never hinted at there being a way for them to get over or around the wall. They've had a couple thousand years to think of a way but nothing ever happened. So the only way presented in the show, was undead dragon. Hence yes, Jon was an idiot to be so panicked about it, to capture a wight etc.. And Westeros would have been fine if Dany had never come or panic-over-nothing Jon hadn't gotten her involved.

All they had to do was show the WWs trying to find a way, or just hint at it. In the early Seasons they have shown several times how the temperature drops when they are close, even S8 had the NK come in with a blizzard. So why not show them at the end of S6 or beginning of S7 near the edge of the wall where the ocean is? Due to it finally being winter (white ravens end of S6) plus their ability to make it even colder, they show the ocean at the shore freezing up. But since that takes a bit of time it would be a slow progress until the army can make it around the wall and into Westeros. Then have someone from Eastwatch for example or even vision Bran come to Winterfell and tell everyone. And then have Jon go to Dany because now he has a reason to need dragon glass and dragons. Have them go north and Dany melts the ice with her dragons, halting the invasion (also taking out a good chunk of the undead army). But in the process of doing that, she loses a dragon. Then the NK resurrects the dragon and blows up the wall. But as it stands in the show, Jon made a fuss over nothing and that set a chain of events in motion that lead to Jon and Team Dany being the cause for the army of the dead marching on Westeros. At which point Dany coming north to fight was not something worthy of praise but simply her responsibility of cleaning up her own mess.

14 hours ago, hewman said:

That’s not entirely true. I think the dragons were not supposed to pass the wall (Lady Alysanne’s Silverwing wouldn’t fly over it, if I’m not wrong) so probably the WW just have to blow somebody’s horn (I don’t remember who’s) to break the wall.

The books don't matter here, we are discussing the show. None of what you mentioned is in the show's canon. So it's entirely true.

14 hours ago, hewman said:

I can live with  Dany’s character assassination, but did they have to turn her into this Justin Bieber of dragon warfare?

I can live with it but only because I wasn't heavily invested in Dany. But even I, someone who is neutral about her character, think this was was pile of shit. From the moment Dany touched down in Westeros, her advisors (especially Tyrion) acted as if she was already insane. Like they have read the script for the end of S8 already. And the show used Tyrion (aka the SAINT) to convey to the audience that suddenly Dany's methods were wrong and we should be worried, when before the show constantly painted her acts as applause worthy with the visuals and music and no one opposing her actions, including her advisors. It's just stupid. And that Dany would snap at hearing bells and looking at a building and proceed to torch thousands of civilians (which she has NEVER done before)...I'm not sure there is a word for how stupid that was.

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2 minutes ago, Mystical said:

In the show, there was no need to worry. We've seen the WW and their army on the move since literally the first scene of the first episode of the show. We saw them marching to and at the wall several times. And they did nothing. It was never hinted at there being a way for them to get over or around the wall. They've had a couple thousand years to think of a way but nothing ever happened. So the only way presented in the show, was undead dragon. Hence yes, Jon was an idiot to be so panicked about it, to capture a wight etc.. And Westeros would have been fine if Dany had never come or panic-over-nothing Jon hadn't gotten her involved.

.

So, doesn't that mean the show was a load of gibberish?

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

So, doesn't that mean the show was a load of gibberish?

I thought that's pretty much everyone's opinion now. That how the show ended (really the last few Seasons, especially S7/8) ruined the good that came before and made entire Seasons pointless. It's a domino effect. S8 made S7 pointless and in turn made the entire WW story pointless, especially since in the end the WW story had no effect on Westeros as a whole. This goes for several characters as well.

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19 hours ago, Mystical said:

IMO both show and books are against rigid honor. Rigid honor like Ned Stark possessed is NOT a good thing because it stops you from doing the right thing for the greater good. Ned could have stopped part of the War of the 5 Kings if he had taken Renly up on his offer. Instead Ned stuck with honoring the proper succession and thousands died for it.

Ned forsake his honor in the end, it was not rigid. He lied for his daughters - unlike Jon, who (even in the show's terrible writing) would not lie for a greater good.

Renley was only one option - there were many ways to potentially stop the war of the 5 kings and many other ways, beyond Ned's death, that it could have started. Robert realized the realms were ripe for war because (I think he recognized he had become weak) and the houses were all bitching at each other. Westeros was on the knife's edge of turmoil regardless.

19 hours ago, Mystical said:

His own children went through hell (and continue to go through hell in the books) because of it. IMO it also shows the dangers of letting your personal hangups prevent you from acting the way you should. Ned warning Cersei to get out with her children was a monumentally stupid action that was facilitated by Ned's own trauma with dead children. Rigid honor and the inability to put aside your own drama/trauma, and the wrong decisions you make as a result, seems to be a theme.

Really? If Ned would have died screaming Joffrey is a false king born of incest, rather than swallowing his honor for his daughters, its entirely possible that Sansa would have been executed but that the realm as a whole would have united against the Lannister's pretty quickly.

Re Cersie's children, Jon would have done the same thing - it may be stupid given Cerie's character, but it is the only honorable option.

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1 hour ago, Mystical said:

I thought that's pretty much everyone's opinion now. That how the show ended (really the last few Seasons, especially S7/8) ruined the good that came before and made entire Seasons pointless. It's a domino effect. S8 made S7 pointless and in turn made the entire WW story pointless, especially since in the end the WW story had no effect on Westeros as a whole. This goes for several characters as well.

I’m genuinely surprised at how the show became gibberish. D&D had two years to work all these things out, wrap up plot lines, realistic turning points, edit out Starbucks and water bottles...

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8 hours ago, SeanF said:

And she suffers those losses because she lets Tyrion and others talk her out of her battle plan - namely to fly to the Red Keep and incinerate it.  That would have finished the war against Cersei in 30 minutes.  In real life (let alone in a medieval setting) no one would object to something so obviously sensible.

Absolutely.  The show in the last two seasons did a terrible job with the motivations they assigned in order to get the characters where they wanted.  As was discussed at the time, it was INSANE that Dany didn't simply roll up to KL with her full force and demand Cersei's head, or if she was somehow totally unwilling for any battle, do what Tyrion advised in season 8, blockade the city and starve them out.  And the list goes on, a wight hunt to convince Cersei, who everyone knows will never be convinced. Sansa's irrational hatred of Dany.  Arya killing the NK making the entire battle an exercise in stupidity.  Dany forgetting about the fleet and losing another dragon.  Cersei not killing Dany and her tiny party of people who came to get Missy.....

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2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

I’m genuinely surprised at how the show became gibberish. D&D had two years to work all these things out, wrap up plot lines, realistic turning points, edit out Starbucks and water bottles...

I think the final 2 seasons you could really see the strain this series was placing on D & D.  I don't think they really wanted to do it anymore, hence cutting down the episode orders to bare minimum levels when they needed 10+.  I get it though...I don't think D & D are nearly the idiots they are painted out to be, just think they got overwhelmed with this insanely complex source material and two years isn't really that long when you think about it in comparison to GRRM taking 10 years to write a single book.  I'll always feel a bit sympathetic for them beyond all the awards they've won and money they've made from this, I do honestly believe they only wanted to and signed up to adapt GRRM's works and then got stuck up a creek without a paddle when GRRM stopped writing at a reasonable pace.

The Starbucks and production errors really are crazy...I wonder if due to all the potential spoilers they really cut down on the amount of people who could see the finished product and that played into it, with only a few people being able to spot errors like that.

15 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Absolutely.  The show in the last two seasons did a terrible job with the motivations they assigned in order to get the characters where they wanted.  As was discussed at the time, it was INSANE that Dany didn't simply roll up to KL with her full force and demand Cersei's head, or if she was somehow totally unwilling for any battle, do what Tyrion advised in season 8, blockade the city and starve them out.  And the list goes on, a wight hunt to convince Cersei, who everyone knows will never be convinced. Sansa's irrational hatred of Dany.  Arya killing the NK making the entire battle an exercise in stupidity.  Dany forgetting about the fleet and losing another dragon.  Cersei not killing Dany and her tiny party of people who came to get Missy.....

I don't think it was that insane that Dany didn't roll up to KL, she wanted to and then Jon talked her out of it by appealing to her wanting to be a hero and different from other rulers.

But yeah, the wight hunt was without a doubt the dumbest thing the show ever did.  Season 7 was really written on a house of cards with that concept.

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7 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

I think the final 2 seasons you could really see the strain this series was placing on D & D.  I don't think they really wanted to do it anymore, hence cutting down the episode orders to bare minimum levels when they needed 10+.  I get it though...I don't think D & D are nearly the idiots they are painted out to be, just think they got overwhelmed with this insanely complex source material and two years isn't really that long when you think about it in comparison to GRRM taking 10 years to write a single book.  I'll always feel a bit sympathetic for them beyond all the awards they've won and money they've made from this, I do honestly believe they only wanted to and signed up to adapt GRRM's works and then got stuck up a creek without a paddle when GRRM stopped writing at a reasonable pace.

The Starbucks and production errors really are crazy...I wonder if due to all the potential spoilers they really cut down on the amount of people who could see the finished product and that played into it, with only a few people being able to spot errors like that.

I don't think it was that insane that Dany didn't roll up to KL, she wanted to and then Jon talked her out of it by appealing to her wanting to be a hero and different from other rulers.

But yeah, the wight hunt was without a doubt the dumbest thing the show ever did.  Season 7 was really written on a house of cards with that concept.

Torching the whole of Kings Landing was plainly wrong.

But, for the life of me, I can't see what's wrong with torching the Red Keep.  It's an entirely legitimate military target.

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Torching the whole of Kings Landing was plainly wrong.

But, for the life of me, I can't see what's wrong with torching the Red Keep.  It's an entirely legitimate military target.

Of course, I'm not talking about what Dany eventually did.  She became an outright mad villain.  Again, I can't quite remember what Jon said back in Season 7, but it was something along the lines of "showing up with your dragons to burn cities is more of the same."  Of course, burning the red keep wouldn't be burning a city, but it's fair to assume there would be some blurring of the lines there as a surgical operation like that would require there to be no resistance or reaction to a dragon suddenly showing up.  After Jon says that, we see Dany decide against it and instead attack in the "loot train battle" (btw, the dumbest battle name ever :o).  

I think again, Dany in S7 is really into the idea of being a hero, and even in S8 assumes she will be welcomed like a hero to KL.  In my opinion, there was a good story to tell with respect to Dany's descent into madness, it was just insanely rushed.

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24 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

I think the final 2 seasons you could really see the strain this series was placing on D & D.  I don't think they really wanted to do it anymore, hence cutting down the episode orders to bare minimum levels when they needed 10+.  I get it though...I don't think D & D are nearly the idiots they are painted out to be, just think they got overwhelmed with this insanely complex source material and two years isn't really that long when you think about it in comparison to GRRM taking 10 years to write a single book.  I'll always feel a bit sympathetic for them beyond all the awards they've won and money they've made from this, I do honestly believe they only wanted to and signed up to adapt GRRM's works and then got stuck up a creek without a paddle when GRRM stopped writing at a reasonable pace.

The Starbucks and production errors really are crazy...I wonder if due to all the potential spoilers they really cut down on the amount of people who could see the finished product and that played into it, with only a few people being able to spot errors like that.

I don't think it was that insane that Dany didn't roll up to KL, she wanted to and then Jon talked her out of it by appealing to her wanting to be a hero and different from other rulers.

But yeah, the wight hunt was without a doubt the dumbest thing the show ever did.  Season 7 was really written on a house of cards with that concept.

It was.  The people of KL already knew that Cersei wasn't opposed to a little genocide herself.  So, if Dany comes to the gates with, at the time, 3 dragons, the unsullied, the Dothraki, the Greyjoy fleet and the Tyrell army....not an arrow would need to be fired.  Realistically, Cersei's generals and the people would have capitulated.  And if not, she can burn the Red Keep. Or, she can blockade the city until they topple Cersei. Done and done.

It was very strange how they totally changed Tyrion's view of Cersei in the last two seasons.  He tells her she's not a monster, even though she is one of the worst, he cries at her death, he tries to save her and before that, he insanely believes she will not do what she has always done, always, always, always, which is betray X for whatever short term gain she identifies.

ETA, I also don't thinks she went 'mad' having her devolve from mental illness would be a complete waste of her whole story, having her accomplishments and idealism curdle into something else due to trauma+events, there is a message there.

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