What show has not had people all mad about the last season or 2? I know Dexter and Sopranos people were not happy with the final few seasons.
The point I struglle with is why she didn’t just fly over and torch the Red Keep. There’s no rational reason to destroy the rest of KL that I can see.
One of my biggest issues with the past few seasons is that they fell in love with killing named characters for what seems to be no good reason(s). Now a lot of the audience seems to think that death is the only way for a character to leave the storyline. I’m happy Tormund, Sam and Ghost were all allowed to survive but gone are the days of characters like Hot Pie simply saying enough is enough and walking away to live whatever passes for a normal life in that world.
We’ve discussed it ad nauseum in the other thread. Some thoughts:
-Honoring Missandei’s final wish: “Dracerys” she said, or “Burn this motherfucker down.”
-Fury at the people of Kings Landing for letting Cersei stay in power long enough to kill her dragon and her bestie.
-General fury at the people of Westeros for not welcoming her as the beloved savior she’s convinced herself she is.
-Removing a power base from which King Jon fanbois can operate.
-Demonstrating to the rest of Westeros that if your city refuses to accept Dragonlady as the rightful queen, you’ll be put to the torch. (This one has some support from some military historians, who point out that folks like Alexander the Great used similar sack-the-city-after-it-belatedly-surrenders tactics to great effect).
-Some combination of the above, which is how I interpret it.
She’s not rational. She’s sane ‘to a point’.
Another thing being missed here is that…to Dany, THESE are the foreigners and the culture she doesn’t understand. Does everyone here really cry for each child and casket bearer, and ring bearer that the last few Presidents blew into chunks of meat??
Doubt it. And part of it is because its not our culture. Its weird names and numbers.
Dany was raised in Essos. And when she liberated a city they raised her on their fucking shoulders and called her “Meesa”. Here? To her unstable mind by clinging to that monster Cersei, she lost a kid (two if she conflates the whole thing). She saved the fucking world and has only got shit for it.
Whats funny is…that now that we’re in the last ep…it will slow down to the same speed most eps had. And it could have been ghost written by GRRM himself and no matter what happens…it will be shit on by a huge amount of people.
Good point. How many good people have met nasty ends? The notion that she should somehow get a grand comeuppance, be burned by Danaerys or fall to the blade of Someone Important in a great show of Justice! is a conventional-trope expectation. Instead we have her losing all and breaking down in the end, saying she does not want to die like this – in the dark, powerless, all that she fought for destroyed, buried alive maybe to be called lost and not accounted for.
The Unsullied are on her side.
The Dothraki are on her side.
The unbelievably powerful wild dragon is on her side.*
People who don’t want their home burned to ash with their family in it are on her side.
People who gravitate to power and are not overburdened with morals are on her side. Even in the haven of altruism that is Westeros there may be one or two individuals who fit this profile, although I grant this is hardly supported by anything we’ve seen in the show so far.
But this is quibbling. Of course Dany has a made a mistake here. Of course she’s going to be confronted. She’s betting she can intimidate and/or burn the people unhappy with her, and she’s probably going to lose that bet. But “character makes bad judgement, gets bitten by it” is not a new departure for the series. It is in fact the essence of the show.
Ned gives Cersei a chance to live - gets the consequences
Catelyn releases Jamie - gets the consequences
Robb marries for love - gets the consequences
Stannis sacrifices his daughter - gets the consequences
Joffrey gives full, visible reign to his sadism - gets the consequences
Tywin antagonises the son pointing a crossbow at him - gets the consequences
Etc. etc…
People getting the consequences of their in-character but badly judged actions is the recurring theme and plot catalyst of GoT. I completely get why some people find the immolation of KL out of character for Daenerys. But the objection that a GoT character would never make a decision that would lead to difficulties down the road isn’t consistent with the show.
Dany, as she saw it, had a choice between:
- Accepting the surrender of KL and hoping that her weakened claim would prevail in the face of a) the nobles preferring Jon, b) the North’s stated desire to be independent, c) the illegitimacy of her claim being widely known and d) total lack of popular support all while e) people she trusted were proving unreliable and/or treacherous
- An overwhelming display of power and cruelty that would force the issue.
She made her choice, and not out of cold calculation but while in the grip of strong emotions. Now, she will face the consequences.
Exactly! So many of the quibbles are, “How can this character act in a suboptimal way? I’d be MUCH smarter!”*
But Tyrion is blinded by his conflicting feelings about his family, and keeps making idiotic decisions because Lucy keeps holding out the football and he keeps kicking it.
And Jon is blinded by his adoration for his adopted father and his adopted father’s rigid moral code, and keeps throwing the world to hell in order to uphold honor.
And Dany is blinded by her belief that she’s the warrior-queen-messiah, and burns a city when they fuck up their bit parts in her epic story.
As I’ve said elsewhere, a lot of show give characters flaws that are little more than quirks. This show believes in fatal flaws, and leans hard into the idea. And I kind of love that.
- #notallquibbles
I don’t know that she will be confronted. And i’m 99% sure she will not explain or justify her actions. Tyrion will probably be confronted with Jaimes hand and will let himself be killed at that point for his reallllllly backing the wrong horse.
Jons more of a ‘can we talk alone guy’ and he had his chance too. I don’t see him confronting anyone without at least Yaras fleet, an army of Dornishmen and a crippled greensear. to supplement his forces.
Damn 870 000 as I write. That’s a lot of whinging. It’d be hilarious if it topped the viewership of the show!
I doubt that’s remotely possible. The most recent episode had 17.4 million viewers.
17.4 million was for 8.01. The Bells was even higher.
And actually, season 8 ratings being significantly higher than previous seasons goes a fair way toward explaining the outrage to me. I’m guessing fans got their friends and family excited to watch the final season. After explaining the gist of the show to their new viewer loved ones, they sit down to watch the final season together. And now that awesome dragon lady I told you all about, see how brave she is killing all those zombies? She’s such a badass hero, I told you you’d like it.
[…2 episodes later…]
I DON’T KNOW WHY SHE’S DOING THAT!!! I SWEAR SHE WAS NEVER EVIL BEFORE, THE WRITERS AM DUMB!!!
We still haven’t seen the final episode yet. If it’s truly appalling the petition will get a bit of a boost.
Those who think razing a city makes it impossible for her to rule just need to study a bit more history - especially military history. Not only is destroying a city as a terror tactic routinely done throughout history, it works. There is a theory in warfare that if the civilian population does not feel the effects of the war, it will immediately start fighting back against the oppressors.
One of the reasons WWII commanders demanded total surrender instead of a negotiated surrender is that they believed the lessons of WWI included the fact that if you let your vanquished enemy retain its power structure, you’re just setting the seeds for the next war to come.
Imagine if Daenerys had accepted that surrender. So King’s Landing is intact, as is the entire power structure of Westeros save Cersei. So she comes in, and she’s not feared, and the court intrigue and plots would start immediately. In the meantime, people who haven’t seen her dragon in action will be saying, “Why are we tolerating this foreign interloper in our lands?” Sansa has already shown the way this is going to go - rebellion from the outlying regions. In the meantime, is she going to replace the Knights of Westeros with Dothraki and Unsullied? Do you think the nobles of Westeros are going to be happy about that? And if she doesn’t, what happens to the thousands of Dothraki who suddenly find themselves pushed aside and marginalized? What are they to do? I imagine the Unsullied are disciplined enough to be a good Queensguard or even a standing army for the Queen, but the Dothraki? All they know is raping and pillaging. They are much more useful as a raiding horde used to terrorize population that doesn’t fall into line.
Then there’s Jon Snow. If she allows him to live, everyone will know that she is a usurper who has pushed aside someone with a better claim to the throne. Her one ‘out’ before was to marry him, and rule jointly with her as Queen over all but with him being the Warden of the North and protector. It could have worked. But since Jon will no longer even kiss her, that’s out the window.
So what did she have left? Two options: One is to step aside, recognize that Jon is not only the rightful ruler, but that he knows the people better and has a good heart and a strong sense of justice and would be a moral ruler. Her need to ‘break the wheel’ is no longer valid, and she could just go home to Mereen and rule there. A truly good person would have agonized over this, but eventually realized that taking power under those conditions would be wrong.
But Daeneris didn’t do that. First, she BEGGED Jon to keep his secret hidden so she could still rule. This is the person who spent the first several seasons justifying her right to the throne purely on inheritance - the throne was hers by divine right, and no one would stop her from taking it back. But when she found out it wasn’t legally hers, instead of turning away she begged Jon to let her skip over the divine right she claimed was absolute, and allow her to rule anyway, even though it was clear that the people of Westeros did NOT love her and didn’t particularly need her or her army any more now that the Night King was dead.
But instead she simply ignored Jon and went back to Dragonstone, planning to rule anyway. And after Missandei was killed and Varys started trying to poison her, she became paranoid and even more convinced that Westeros was a pit of vipers and that all of them deserved to be ruled by fire and blood.
Burning down the capital achieved many things - it broke the old power structure and the support system around it. It gave the people an object lesson in what it means to defy her. It gave the lords in other strongholds an object lesson in what happens if you think big stone walls can protect you. It eliminated a number of her enemies in one shot. It made her the unequivocal power base in Westeros.
Now, if she’s smart, the next episode will open with a colder, but still humane-sounding Daeneris. Carror-and-stick. Now that she’s shown what she can do to those who don’t play ball, she could turn on the charm, invite the other lords to come and see her and negotiate. She could offer them friendship and generous terms that allows them to retain their own power so long as they bend the knee. Start rebuilding King’s Landing. Announce that King’s Landing was a den of snakes and had to be culled, but from this day on the old Daeneris is back and she wants to help the poor and downtrodden. But always, behind ever kind offer, will be the memory of what happens to those who don’t accept her kindness - and her ultimate rule.
This is a time-tested method for conquering. You make an object lesson of a city or two, scare the bejeebers out of everyone, then act nice and pretend like it was a necessary thing to raze those cities and no one else ever need feel that pain - so long as they don’t cross the ruler.
What would really throw the audience for a loop is if the ‘old’ Daeneris shows up in the next episode, saying that nothing has changed and she still wants the best for Westeros but razing King’s Landing was necessary and harsh and she never wants to do it again, and starts talking about how to really help the people of Westeros - then one of our ‘good’ guys kills her. Bronn, for example.
The numbers are going to explode… The last episode was simply put pretty bad…
Yeah, that will be a lovely thing, break change.org for the sake of something that will not happen.
But they would not get to choose whether they want to be helped or not. So unauthorized but justifiable abdominal/thoracic surgery it is, from the Most Good of the Good guys.
i wonder if after the ending that was discussed in the show thread and on the tv sites there’s gonna have a million people more signing it tomorrow
It doesn’t matter how many people sign it. It ain’t happening. You may as well sign a petition demanding that George Carlin reprise his role in the next Bill & Ted movie.
Unlike a Season 8 do-over, this is something I’d watch.