Even more absurd was the undead Viserion destroying the Wall with ice breath but that can be dismissed with “magic”.
Fire breath isn’t supposed to be magical in the GoT universe (I don’t think) so the amount of kinetic energy a fully grown Drogon can unleash to disintegrate the fleet and very solid masonry structures just defies any reasonable suspension of disbelief.
I disagree. This is been foreshadowed since the very beginning. It’s been well-established that Targaryen’s are prone to insanity and evil. She has been shown to be on edge many times in 8 seasons. Her advisers, her family Apple is been there to keep her on track. But Selmy is dead. Jorah is dead. Missandei is dead. Varys betrayed her. Jon betrayed her. She doesn’t trust Tyrion. Grey Worm is a bred killing machine now only filled with hate. There is no buffer between her and her worst instincts. She has been set up to be the mad queen since the beginning and given plenty of reason to make the turn. You might not like how they did it specifically But if you don’t think this was set up from the very beginning you haven’t been paying attention.
The director of that episode explicitly said the undead dragon’s breath was still fire, not ice, and it was melting the wall. He wanted a different color for the breath because the dragon was now undead, and green was already taken by wildfire, so he chose blue.
Regardless how much heat and melting was going on in that scene, though, there was clearly a very strong force component to it as well.
I’m not saying she’s right. Or that her analysis is objective and dispassionate. She’s always been power-hungry (natural response to her powerless, desperate childhood) and now she’s paranoid and isolated. Passively accepting surrender and leaving her shot at the throne dependent on others’ goodwill isn’t an option she’s going to pick.
My sense while watching was that Drogon was causing caches of wildfire to ignite as he fire bombed King’s Landing
Sometimes in a visual medium they are going to do things just because they look cool. The blue fire looked really cool. Sometimes it’s best not to look too deep at it.
Im pretty stone will explode if its heated by 2000 degrees in a second.
I do agree there seems to be an artistic disconnect since sometimes people go up in flames, sometimes they instantly turn to ash, leaving their bodies in the same pose, and then stone explodes but people don’t?
On a different subject…the hysteria over this season is off the rails (not here so much. As i’ve said before, you all are generally a level-headed lot)…but man in the rest of the interspace???
But not the fleet or the gate. Wildfire is another thing that’s just poorly written. The significance of Wildfire in the story turned out to be… a force multiplier for the side with the airforce.
It really feels like the writers are trying to check all the plot points that Martin scribbled on a napkin and have no idea how to get from point A to point B.
Well she still has the Unsullied and whatever Dothraki are left.
Basically similar level of protection as Aegon the Conqueror, I’d imagine.
They did mention it in show as well - Aerys II opened the gates of the Red Keep to Tywin Lannister, thinking he was coming to help Aerys against Robert, who was marching to the city (Tywin had not yet declared for a side yet). Tywin was not. He came to overthrow help Aerys (or rather to be the on the ‘winning side’).
They made the stone explode because it looked cool, its canon that it should melt instead.
Yes, I mentioned it in a previous post. That she could be horrified of what she has done. Because I assumed that it was some psychotic break. But plenty of people are arguing now that it was a calculated move, with some convincing arguments. In which case, of course, she isn’t going to commit suicide.
Hopefully, we’ll learn in a week what her true motivations were. I’ll be a bit pissed if the writers don’t provide in some way an explanation and we’re left to guess.
Next week is an even numbered episode, so ballistas will have a 100% kill rate vs dragons. One ballista will be sufficient.
She’s not “killing random people for fun”. She is enraged because of all the shit that’s been building up, but in particular because of the death of Missandei and Dragon #2. In Danny’s mind, she is the rightful queen (Jon’s claim notwithstanding) and even her allies are either betraying her (Varys), giving her attitude (Sansa) or simply inept (Tyrion). She can barely get the people to support her rightful claim, and yet the population of King’s Landing lets Cercei sit on the throne. So IOW, it’s their own damn fault they made her torch their city.
Some people have pointed out that if a dragon breath is so powerful that it can collapse the walls of a fortress, people hit by it should be send flying 20 meters above the ground, rather than staying on their feet burning.
It seems to me that a number of people wondered if she could turn to be like him. Or am I imagining that?
They’ve grown since.
Yes. Yes. I’m very aware that there are cheap attempts at giving motivation to her character’s radical shift.
And in the hands of a semi skilled writer, I’m sure it could be less jarring by adding any sort of ambiguity to the build up.
She SAID in the previous episode exactly why she was doing what she did - she realized that the people of Westeros would never love her, and Jon rejecting her meant she could not marry into Westeros and become loved that way. Her status had been reduced to that of a usurper or conqueror. So if you can’t rule by having the people love you, you have to rule by fear. And the best way to rule by fear is to start out with a gigantic object lesson in what will happen to you if you don’t obey.
Far from being ‘cheap’, it’s an incredibly common way to rule. History is full of cities being razed to inspire fear in the population so that they’ll behave. Entire rebellious regions have been starved to death as a lesson to others.
Daeneris was probably right - if she really was to take back the seven kingdoms and hold it, she either had to do it as a beloved liberator, or as a feared conqueror. When Jon rejected her she lost her last opportunity for the people to love her, so rule by fear was all she had left. I think she intended to burn down King’s Landing at the moment she said to Jon, “Fear it is, then.”
I know you’re somewhat joking, but Dany did use very similar logic in this very episode, claiming that it was Sansa’s fault that Varys turned traitor because Sansa let Jon’s secret out. “It was Sansa’s fault I had to kill Varys!”
They are not “cheap attempts at giving motivation”.
She implicitly stated from the start that her goal is not just to regain the Iron Throne, but the “break the wheel”.
She implicitly states that since the poeple of Westeros will not love her then she will rule by fear.
She implicitly states that if the people of KL wanted to be spared they would rise up and drag Cearsi before thier true Queen (her) and views this failure as a betrayal.
She knows that she cannot trust Tyrion and Jon, so having them be the champions for “accept surrender if the bells ring” is not a winning move for her.
She tells Grey Worm that he will know when to press the attack and having a dragon fry a street full of Lannisters and civilians is a pretty unambiguous signal.
Sorry but that doesn’t make sense given what she actually did. If she was going to burn down King’s Landing no matter what why did she wait until after they surrendered the city? if that was her plan she had plenty of chance to do it during the battle. What they showed was Dany having a breakdown, not following a plan.