She’s not insane in the sense of making irrational decisions. But she’s a bit sociopathic in being impervious to the suffering of others who she thinks have wronged her or deserve it. Her expression on witnessing her brother Viserys receive his “golden crown” in season 1 is quite chilling. Yes, Viserys was a total shit who mistreated her and threatened her, but he was her own brother dying in agony. She doesn’t turn away or flinch but looks on in total satisfaction. I think from the beginning she’s actually enjoyed having the excuse to burn people.
In contrast, Jon has always shown extreme conflict when forced to execute or kill, and is always distressed and unhappy about it afterwards. Dany has never shown the slightest second thoughts about incinerating or crucifying anyone.
I wasn’t sure if she had planned the fire bombing of King’s Landing in advance, but the discussion here has convinced me, especially her comments about “Let it be fear” and “Mercy is weakness.” However, I’m not sure if she was fully committed to it before the battle. Once she got into blasting the defenses and her blood was up she just couldn’t stop.
I’m pretty sure in the final episode she’ll show absolutely no remorse or second thoughts, but will continue to justify it if confronted by Jon or Tyrion (if they get the chance).
According to 8 seasons of canon Daenarys’ purpose is to remove the usurpers and restore the rule of House Targaryen to the Iron Throne. Right? So were supposed to believe that after she ostensibly achieves her goal destroying the city to steady some loyalties is a rational course of action? OK…
A better historical parallel would be if a Roman general had ordered Rome leveled after liberating it from Hannibal.
But maybe her actions will be better explained in the next episode. It’s probably just a weak ass resolution to Tyrion’s story arc.
As RickJay has pointed out, a tyrant’s view of a rational course of action differs from most people’s. There have been innumerable examples of tyrants instituting reigns of terror in order to subdue a populace, and they often work for a time, sometimes decades. Talk about rationality to Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, or Genghis Khan. They killed millions of their own people or recently conquered ones. Such policies worked for them.
Pot Pot ordered Phnom Penh abandoned after his victory, and had many thousands of its residents executed. As has been said, the Mongols often butchered the populations of cities they conquered. Aside from her family background, Dany came to power among the Dothraki and the cities of Slaver’s Bay, where power was maintained through utter ruthlessness.
The episode was awesome, and I totally agree that they failed in using Series 7 to build towards the climax of this and several other story lines.
But I don’t know what you mean by “arbitrary” here. Dany wasn’t torching King’s Landing on a whim. She had a very clear motivation for doing so. She’s decided to rule through fear. Proper fear. Terror, you might say. She doesn’t want her position on the throne to rely on people feeling a little trepidatious about outright rebellion. She wants people to feel that anything other than unquestioning obedience is not only suicide but a death sentence for their extended family. Establishing that you don’t have limits is an excellent way to win terrified obedience, so once you’ve decided that terrified obedience is how you are going to rule, there’s nothing arbitrary about mass slaughter of innocents.
This was set up - to a degree - by the fate of the Tarlys. Sure, they were (or had recently been) enemy combatants. It’s not a perfect set up. But she burned them to death because they wouldn’t kneel. They weren’t slavers, rapists or murders or particularly bad (Tarly Sr’s early exit from the Westeros’s Greatest Dad qualifying rounds not withstanding). They were just a relatively normal middling noble family who picked the wrong side and stayed loyal to it. And, at the point of execution, unarmed prisoners who could have been dealt with in a dozen different ways.
But Dany burnt them. Because they wouldn’t kneel to her. And because once she’d done that, everyone else would. And did.
It feels rushed, like everything else in the last two seasons. But for me, it’s within the scope of who Dany has shown herself to be.
I don’t think this particular detail has been brought up, and I just re-watched the scene to make sure I remembered it right.
When Tyrion makes his final plea to Danaerys in the presence of Grey Worm (“if they ring the bells, please call off the attack!”), she thinks for a moment, then nods. But in the direction of GW. She does not answer Tyrion, she does not nod in his direction. I think she had a discussion before with GW, in which they concluded that the city must burn, no matter what (triggered by Messandei’s last word and fate). A nod in the direction of Tyrion would have clearly signaled she agreed with his proposal (and an “alright then” would not have hurt either if she agreed with him). A nod to GW could well mean, we follow our plan A. GW later also does not register any surprise when Danaerys starts burning the city after the surrender.
It’s interesting that there are three somewhat separate theories for what Dany did:
(1) She’s insane like her father and/or just loves fire
(2) She was just pissed off and snapped
(3) She has realized that the seven kingdoms will never bow to her willingly and never love her, so she has made the arguably-rational-but-definitely-cruel decision to cow the entire continent with one act of mass slaughter
I hope we see enough of her perspective in the series finale to get some leverage on which of those it is. I lean towards (3), which I think is far more interesting, but the fact that this debate is ongoing suggests that the show itself has done a poor job of communicating what’s actually going on.
It’s actually really telling that in the scene with her and Grey Worm with Missandei’s slave shackle, she speaks to Grey Worm in Valerian when Jon walks in. She wasn’t saying anything secret, but it demonstrates the link those two have while keeping Jon on the outside. GW and Dany share a history, the more so now that it’s just the two of them. GW probably didn’t need a direct order about violating any surrender. He and Dany are of one mind on this. As soon as she starts burning the city, he’s right there for her.
Compare Tyrion’s inability to speak Valerian to the guard later. It’s a division between West and East. Whoever wobbles in their loyalty to Dany next week, it won’t be GW. They’ll have to kill him if they want to depose Daenerys.
Re-watched a chunk of the episode yesterday, and a question for those who say Dany’s decision was logical and warranted (from her viewpoint, anyway):
I get the strong implication that if Jon and others hadn’t started yelling “Fall back!” when they did, and subsequently ran out of the city, Dany and Drogon would have just kept on burning everything in sight. So forget the innocents she was slaughtering indiscriminately – does it make sense that she would also kill some of her own soldiers and leaders? Granted, she probably couldn’t tell exactly who was where, so she may not have known that Jon, Grey Worm, Davos and others were in the vicinity … but doesn’t that make her actions even more over the top? For all she knew, her troops were in the midst of the Lannister troops.
Again, I don’t have an issue with Dany doing what she did in the context of the show. My problem is that it feels forced, rushed, not well choreographed.
It feels as though the writers and showrunners have had all these conversations and plotting sessions about the show and what will happen (as they have), so in their minds all this makes sense. They’ve forgotten that we, the viewers, haven’t been privy to all that back and forth, though. All we have is what we see on the screen … and for many of us, that’s not a overly coherent narrative.
From the standpoint of a narrative work, we want things to be clear cut: one of these should be the correct answer, and the other two must be wrong. But real life isn’t that way, and I don’t think GoT is following the clear-cut narrative in this case either.
People have a variety of reasons for the things they do. Dany has a little insanity in her - not the psychotic, hallucination type, but certainly severe narcissism, megalomania, and difficulty with empathy. She was obviously very pissed off after Missandei’s death and the perceived betrayal of Varys, Jon, and Tyrion. And she realized she needed to rule by fear. All these things contributed to the destruction of King’s Landing.
Clearly Dany needed a talking baby dragon that she could have expository conversations with and whose antics and asides to the camera would provide much needed comical relief.
It would have been a boon to Dany had Jon died in the battle. Then he can’t challenge her. It would be awkward and further fray the relationship with Sansa if it was due to “friendly” fire, but still better then him being alive, IMO.
I don’t remember if there were any Unsullied near Jon when he gave the order to fall back. If they had mysteriously disappeared by that point, it would be a good indication that it was all part of Dany’s plan, and taking care of Jon and the northmen was intended.
What exactly did Dany say about ‘mercy’ before the battle? That little monotone monologue she gave in the throne room-- They’ll all get my mercy once I’ve killed them all-- couldn’t have been that. Can a clip or the dialog be found? I’d look for it but I my googlefu does not include how to find scripts for current shows.
I don’t remember if trailer stuff is or isn’t allowed in this overly persnickity thread. Here’s a question regarding the trailer in a spoiler box. Moderate this response as you all feel necessary. Were there Northern troops cheering with the Dorthraki and Unsullied when Dany starts taking her victory stroll?
When he gave the order, no there weren’t any Unsullied with him but I don’t think they “mysteriously disappeared”. I think all the other troops just got busy pillaging and the Unsullied pushed to the Red Keep, as we’re told they had breached the gates there prior to Cersei finally deciding to flee. So Dany was definitely wreaking destruction while loyal troops were right there.
It is something regarding mercy for future generations for not having to be ruled by a tyrant - basically not mercy for the folks already living in KL, but for the people who come afterwards not having to be ruled by Cersei.
What she said was basically to the effect that the “mercy” would be for the future generation(s) who don’t have to live with a cruel and unjust leader. The ends justify the means, basically, and a wee bit of tragedy today will prevent much more tomorrow.
I was out of town when the episode first aired, and wasn’t able to watch it until yesterday. I’ve read most but not all of this very long, very fast-moving thread, so some of my thoughts may be repeats of what others said. And also, I downloaded it via my cable company DVR to my iPad and watched it in-flight so some things weren’t as clear on that small screen as they could have been. Did we see the Iron Throne (the actual physical chair) at any point in the action? Because I doubt it survived and really at this point it doesn’t matter. And it occurred to me to wonder at how much fuel that dragon was carrying, because she was burning stuff for what seemed a long time.
And of course there’s the irony that Dany destroyed King’s Landing in pretty much the same way her father intended to.
Yeah, I don’t think she mentions Cersei at all, though. I want to remember what her thoughts on how mercy works were before the battle. Thinking of good phrases to search with to see if I can find it anywhere.
I agree. Unless her father who falls under the DSM criteria for “mad”, Daenerys would just seem to be suffering from intense rage from the loss of her friend, her dragons and her legitimate claim on the throne, in conjunction with her unyielding sense that her rule is ultimately better for Westeros because she is “right”.
Of course, Dany has fallen into the common trap of Westerosi leadership. As we have seen over the past 8 seasons, all manner of conflict,hardship and suffering has been caused by various rulers exercising their “claim” and doing what’s “right”.