Scaeva

I don't think Daenerys has gone mad. I doubt it will be revealed this Sunday that's she has started hearing voices, or exhibiting some other symptom of a break from reality. She knew exactly what she is doing and made an active choice to base her rule of Westeros upon fear. Was she mad when she suggested burning cities around Slaver's Bay?

People who are angry that Dany took a heel turn haven't been paying attention to the series. She's been threatening to destroy cities for several seasons now. Is it really shocking that she finally did it? Sure, the leaders of those Essos city-states were totally unsympathetic slavers (which is why both characters in the story and fans of the show ignored Daenerys' ruthlessness or even confused it for righteousness), but had she carried out those threats it would have played out exactly like King's Landing, with thousands of innocent civilians being roasted alongside the noble lords and ladies or their soldiers. It would have included slaves as well, since you can't be discriminate and simultaneously reduce a city entirely to ash. Dany's first intincts have always been toward genocide. When she departed Mereen as if it were nothing more than a trial-run for Westeros, she left it in the hands of a ruthless mercenary who openly stated he did not give a f--k about Mereen. If Daario manages to rule at all, it will be as a despot, and Daenerys should know that. She just didn't care. This was not a character assassination. A bloody-minded tyrant is who Daenerys has always been. The difference between now & past seasons is that Dany was more secure in her position in that she had not yet lost two dragons, hadn't yet been met by smallfolk who were largely ambivalent to her rule, and had not yet encountered the revelation that her claim to the Iron Throne base on birthright rested on a shaky foundation. Perhaps more importantly she always had voices of reason around her who could talk her out of giving into those first instincts toward violent solutions. Now most of those advisers are dead except Tyrion and Grey Worm, she no longer trusts the former, and as an Unsullied Grey Worm would never question an order to destroy King's Landing even without Missandei's death. That the closest thing Daenerys had to a friend among her inner circle called for King's Landing to be destroyed with her dying breath probably did not help. King's Landing being the final stage for her House falling into ruin also makes opposition there more personal than it would have been with any of the city-states of Slaver's Bay. I do think that her final pivot toward villainy could have been developed better and more gradually, and I expect that will be the case with the books (Guarantee that Dany the Destroyer is 100% Martin), but the turn itself should have come as a shock to no one. The writing has been on the wall for several seasons now.

While Dany might have been partly motivated by altruistic desires in going north with her army, it was probably not entirely without self-interest. Had she not gone north in a timely manner it is quite likely the Night King wins and succeeds in destroying all of Westeros, since Cersei wasn't going to budge from her position and lend aid to anyone else, even if the north fell. Daenerys needed to go north in order to preserve the kingdom she hoped to rule.

Arya killing Cersei would be too much after having offed the Night King and most of the Freys. She's already teetering on the edge of Mary Sue territory. and that would surely push her over. On that note I sincerely hope she's not the one who offs Dany.

If the series were written by audience committee no doubt every villain would get what they deserve and every character we've been rooting for several seasons would get to live happily ever after in a utopia governed by an always just monarch. It would also be terrible TV. There is a reason why network TV is a steaming pile of garbage. There the execs are more beholden to focus groups and giving the audience what it supposedly wants.

Grey Worm is not higher up in the organizational hierarchy than Tyrion. Hands of the Queen/King are second *only* to the monarch in terms of the power they wield. Grey Worm was merely the commander of some of the military forces, and not even all of them, as a good portion of that army is there because of Jon. Grey Worm is high up in the hierarchy for sure, but he's below Tyrion. Hands are always the senior members of the small councils.

The writer of that article simply hasn't been paying attention to the series. There were plenty of warning signs that Dany was a ruthless queen. Her first instincts have often been toward violent solutions to problems and she's been threatening to destroy cities for several seasons now. Is it really that shocking that she finally did the thing she's been threatening to do for years? Sure, she's often listened to advisers and pulled back from some of her worst instincts. But the fact remains that those instincts have always been there. It is who she's always been. The difference now is that most of those advisers are dead - and one of them called on Dany to destroy King's Landing with her dying breath - as are two of her dragons, and she's been confronted by a civilian populace that is much more ambivalent toward her rule. They're not slaves, so they're not going to throw open the gates and proclaim her the breaker of chains. To them she's just one more bloody-minded claimant in a long list of them. The revelation that Jon has a better claim to the throne than her has not helped. It is not a bait and switch that when now faced with the more adversity in the form of isolation (dead/untrustworthy advisers), lost dragons, lost legitimacy of her claim to the throne, lost love (a marriage could keep Jon subordinate, plus his severing their romantic tie adds to her increasing isolation), and a civilian populace that isn't rolling out the welcome mat that she expected, that she finally gave into her worst instincts. Could it have been handled better by the writers, with her transition being developed better? Absolutely, but it is not a bait and switch. The writing has been on the wall for several seasons now that Daenerys had the potential to be a tyrant.

There is also the showrunners' tendency to put important named characters in situations where everyone dies *except* them. Euron being the only one to survive his ship sinking, Arya being the lone survivor among her group of fleeing civilians, ect How convenient. Valyrian steel couldn't pierce that plot armor.

Good post. A quest for vengeance also ultimately destroyed Robb & Catelyn Stark.

While it is very possible that Tyrion will be revealed to be a Targaryen in the books, I agree that the show probably isn't going to go there. I don't believe the TV series laid down any groundwork for that. IIRC unlike the books it was never mentioned in the TV show that the Mad King lusted after Joanna Lannister.

Daenerys reducing the city to ash wasn't completely out of left field. She's been threatening to do that to cities for several seasons now, it's just that before she always had advisers who could pull her back from her worst instincts. Now most of those advisers are now dead, the one she was closest to called for the city's destruction with her dying breath, and she's no longer listening to the one remaining voice of reason. (Tyrion) That said I do think the TV series did not handle Dany's final break bad moment well. She's had moments of ruthlessness and has threatened to do destroy cities, but in the big picture she's usually been the "just" queen by crapsack medieval fantasy world standards. I'm totally cool with Dany massacring the people of King's Landing without justification, but he show needed to set that up better. Perhaps having Lannisport sacked during Daenerys' campaign in the Westerlands could have been used as a warning shot. The city resists her and is utterly destroyed in the sack, but the situation is a bit murkier than King's Landing in that there was no surrender attempt and the city's garrison was fighting amongst the civilian populace. The scale of the destruction & slaughter among the civilians plants seeds of doubt in Varys' mind about her character, and his KL plotting is to "prevent another Lannisport," while Tyrion still clings to a thin hope that his city being left a ruin was collateral damage rather than his monarch's intent all along. Fast forward to King's Landing and her true character is revealed when that city attempts to surrender, but gets annihilated just the same.

Daenerys is doomed, and it probably is going to be Jon who kills her. When Beric Dondarrion died during the Battle of Winterfell Melisandre said he had fulfilled his purpose, implying that her god resurrected him only to save Arya's life so that she could shortly afterward kill the Night King. What then is Jon's purpose? He was also resurrected by the same magic, or at least according to Melisandre by the Lord of Light. Maybe his purpose is to dispatch Daenerys, who in a single stroke may have even killed more innocent people than the Night King.

While I don't think Dany's breaking bad was handled well by the TV writers, it wasn't completely out of left field. Sudden yes, but not completely without warning. Her instincts have always tended a bit toward ruthlessness, it's just that other people were usually able to talk her down. Now Jorah, Missandei and Varys are dead, and she's no longer listening to Tyrion.

Dany destroying King's Landing is probably 100% Martin, but the TV series did not do a good job of presenting her pivot toward outright villainy. It felt sudden. Maybe it was a consequence of the short season. If this is how it will go in the books, her character development will no doubt be handled more deftly. Martin's twists never feel unearned.

Daenerys needs to die. In a singe day she became a worse monster than Cersei and the Night King combined. I'd be willing to bet that Mad Queen Dany is 100% Martin, but the show didn't really do a good job of selling her pivot toward villainy. Maybe it is a consequence of the short season.

Simply torching the Red Keep would be different. That's a precision strike, not carpet bombing. Varys, Tyrion, ect should be okay with that. *If* Daenerys destroys the entire city she would be building the foundation of her rule entirely on fear, and that would be a shaky one. The moment she stops inspiring enough of it, she ends up like Caligula.

I don't think anyone is expecting a battle at King's Landing to be devoid of civilian casualties. There is a difference however between collateral damage and intentionally giving the entire city the Dracarys treatment. Perhaps the show is faking out the viewers, but right now Dany seems poised to order the latter. It absolutely makes her tyrant. She'll have killed more innocent people than Cersei. Fear alone isn't enough to rule. If it were the Mad King might have died peacefully in his bed.

That still doesn't justify Daenerys destroying the city and killing everyone in it. She has other options, more in fact than the people she'd be reducing to ash. On what basis besides fear does anyone owe Daenerys fealty if she destroys the largest city in Westeros and most of the people within it? If that's the route she takes all the prattle about breaking wheels was a lie, and she's no different than Cersei, the Mad King, or Ramsay Bolton. She'd be much worse even, based on the butcher's bill. She'd make the atrocities of all three of those people combined look like child's play. Torching King's Landing may even kill more people than the Night's King offed.

If you're as poor as the people of Fleabottom, you might also die if you leave. Let's say Cersei and Daenerys both give the smallfolk of King's Landing free passage. How do they feed themselves in the countryside? They barely eek out a meager existence as is, and now they're homeless war refugees in a crapsack medieval world with no safety net, wandering through barren fields where the majority of the food and fodder has already been taken into King's Landing in preparation for a siege or gathered up by the army besieging it. Starvation is what likely awaits most in that scenario. In a perfect world there'd be enough food to support them but that's not the world they live in. When Julius Caesar besieged Alesia during his Conquest of Gaul, the defending Gaulish soldiers cast out the civilians who weren't capable of fighting because they were extra mouths to feed, in a city that wouldn't be receiving any more food unless the Romans were defeated. Caesar likewise refused to allow them to pass between his lines, because he had his own army to feed in difficult circumstances. They were essentially caught between two warring armies, left with absolutely nothing to sustain themselves. That's the sort of reality the people of King's Landing could expect even if they were allowed to leave. Staying put does not make them hardcore Cersei loyalists. They're caught between a rock and a hard place and have no good options, and ultimately are nothing more than pawns in the Game of Thrones. They don't get to choose who rules them.

KL *is* under siege. That's what Daenerys' and Jon's forces are doing at King's Landing.

But they are prisoners. Does Cersei strike you as the type to allow people to leave the city and praise Daenerys as their queen? From Cersei's POV they owe her fealty as their rightful queen. Opening the gates of a city under siege also risks the enemy trying to force it's way in.

They don't live in a modern, Western democracy. They live under the rule of an absolute monarchy. They don't have the choice to pack up their bags and leave, and even if the city were not under siege and they could leave, a great many are probably without the means to do so. Most live in abject poverty, with slums like Fleabottom akin to some of the poorest places in the Third World. If Daenerys burns King's Landing she's not torching a foreign city. She's burning her own capital, along with potentially hundreds of thousands of her own subjects, if she is the rightful queen of Western as she claims. At that point she's come to Westeros not as a liberator, but a conqueror who is willing to butcher many thousands of her own people just to wear a fancy hat. Varys, Tyrion, & Jon would all be entirely justified in abandoning her. She's no longer breaking any wheels, she'd be revealing herself to be a yet another blood-drenched Targaryen tyrant in a centuries long list of them. She'd arguably be worse than the Mad King, since he failed in his attempt to reduce his own people to cinders. Dany is one of my favorite characters in the series and I'd love to see her survive and sit on the Iron Throne, but if she orders King's Landing destroyed, she's nothing more than a genocidal tyrant who deserves an Ides of March.

They may be able to change their sex.

In the end no one person really has a "legitimate" right to rule over a nation and it's people as if they're personal property. The whole concept of rightful claims to thrones is nothing more than fiction peddled by the regime in power, or rival claimants, to shore up support for their cause or regime. Jorah had it right in one of the earlier seasons when he told Daenerys, "Forgive me, Khaleesi, but your ancestor Aegon the Conqueror didn't seize six of the kingdoms because they were his right. He had no right to them. He seized them because he could." Ultimately it does not matter who is next in the line of succession. Claims to thrones are seized or held by military force alone. It's all might makes right.

Jon & Daenerys had it right in marching on King's Landing. It is generally a truism in war that ceding initiative to your enemy results in defeat. While many of the army that fought the dead are wounded, winter has already arrived and delaying a march south could mean being snowed into Winterfell. Prior to the modern era (and Westeros is quasi-medieval) armies could not campaign in winter. It was too difficult to find food for the soldiers and fodder for horses and passes could get snowed in. A delay also means that Cersei has more time to gather reinforcements, she maintains control of a capital that is not under siege which provides the appearance of her regime being the legitimate government of Westeros, and it communicates throughout the Seven Kingdoms and beyond that Daenerys/Jon's army is not strong enough to march on the capital. That very likely means that fence sitting lords who will only throw in with the side that appears poised to win will choose Cersei, and entities like the Iron Bank are more likely to extend loans. Both would translate into more soldiers for Cersei come the campaign season, and rather than the final battle being fought at King's Landing, it's probably fought at Winterfell, with Cersei holding all the advantages minus dragons. We aren't told exactly what percentage of Jon & Dany's forces have been rendered hors de combat, but since they were able to march south and besiege King's Landing there was apparently enough healthy soldiers remaining to get the job done. Realistically they should have picked up reinforcements on the way from fiefdoms the army passed through, as those lords would have to choose between declaring for Daenerys or risking their holds being torched, though the TV series' probably isn't going to go into that. In any case that they were able to place King's Landing under siege proves Sansa was not correct in her assessment.