ShellsandCheese

She's not insane though, that's just it. These were not the actions of a mad or insane woman. She did it deliberately. You could see that she was hesitant when the bells were ringing and then her face changed it was like fuck it - I'm going to burn this shit down. She was pushed to her limits and used what she had to reign down vengeance; unfortunately, for everyone else, her weapon was Drogon. Although, I gotta say, this episode kind of made all of season seven and most of this season pointless. Dany could have done that at the end of season six or the beginning of season seven. She didn't even need the other two dragons. I don't think she was even thinking about civilian casualties, she just wanted that city to burn. I loved it when Drogon broke through the gates of Kings Landing, that was nice.

Tyrion did in a very exaggerated way, I knew at that moment, she was going to totally disregard the bells and reign down fire and blood. The best part of the episode was Drogon coming out of the shadows to dispatch of Varys. Also, Jon's a pussy. I've never seen a show ruin all of their main characters in such a short period of time: Jaime, Tyrion, Dany, Jon; and don't get me started on the secondary characters such as Grey Worm, Varys, et al Unbelievable.

Dany still isn't mad. She did that shit on purpose. It's insulting to suggest that she's gone mad, she has not gone mad and she is not mad. She's angry, hurt, and upset about everything she's lost but she's not mad. I know I'm supposed to hate her after this episode, but I can't even be bothered. Varys, Tyrion, Sansa, etc - none of them really care about the regular folk. She should have burned it all down and said fuck it and went back to Essos.

I'm over it. We got eight seasons of Cersei being Cersei, and she gets a tragically romantic ending in the arms of Jaime (who should have been dead after that first stab wound). I cannot even be mad at Dany at this point. In fact, the only thing that would redeem the show for me would be if she got away with it. Let her sit on the throne. She took that shit by conquest because she could, just like her ancestors. At first I was like, uh, she realizes she isn't going to get the throne so she's like whoever is going to rule is going to rule over a wasteland. But now I'm not so sure. Also, this episode basically rendered most of this season and last season irrelevant. Dany and Drogon could have fucked Kings Landing up at the end of season six or beginning of season seven and been done with that. WTF show? WTF?

Rhaegar and Dany have the same father. The former was never described as mad, and thus it goes to my point that Dany is not doomed to go mad just because of who her father was. And again, there's a huge difference between being ruthless, furious, and even murderous and mad. Aerys II descent into madness at least in the books is pretty fleshed out - and Dany's behavior doesn't even compare.

I think people also forget that not all Targaryen's ended up going mad. Here's the quote: "Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." Just because someone was a Targaryen it didn't mean with 100% certainty that they would go mad. That's why I'm not buying the show version of Dany goes mad - because there has been little to no concrete buildup. Ditto for the books. In fact, there's a long list of Targaryen's who didn't go mad, including Aemon and Rhaegar, so it's totally cheap to suggest that just because Dany and Jon are Targaryen's that they will or must eventually go mad. Also, I don't see any of the Starks (at least Ned's kids) having children. Arya doesn't seem interested, it's been implied that Sansa has some sort of permanent damage due to Ramsay Bolton, and Bran is well......Bran. I think that would be a great bittersweet ending, the current pack survives but there is no next generation.

I wonder if The Last War will be the episode title.

I believe they were referring to changes made on the show vs. the book. Book Jaime never rapes Cersei. Show Jaime did, I’m guessing to make Cersei more sympathetic or perhaps because the writers really liked to use rape as a plot device. That’s actually my biggest disappoint with some of the spoilers I’ve heard related to the Dothraki going on a raping spree in one of the last two episodes. Ugh.

On what planet is Tyrion honorable though? And I don’t think Sansa is just either. Tyrion has done one of two things over the course of the last three seasons: 1. Been a shitty hand who demonstrated poor judgment and a true failure to understand his opponent and give his Queen sound advice -OR- 2. He’s been in cahoots with his family the whole time and has worked to keep a real usurper on the throne. Either way he’s not honorable and I think he’d make a lousy King. Ditto Sansa but for entirely different reasons.

I hated Ellen Page in TUA. Which also had Tom Hopper aka Dickon Tarly version 2.0. That being said Dark Phoenix looks like garbage and I know Emilia Clarke gets a lot of flack but I don’t think Sophie Turner can act at all. Tis a pity with these new X-Men movies because McAvoy and Fassbender are perfection - the youngins not so much.

I’d love if skewered the dragon replaced jump the shark after that mind boggling illogical idiotic way Rhaegal was disposed of. Ugh.

Ruthlessness is not the same as madness. And if Dany were truly ruthless, she would have quit listening to Tyrion’s bad advice and would taken King’s Landing at the beginning of season seven. The fact that he’s still her hand is just mind boggling.

It’s a useless plot point by lazy writers. It also violated the laws of physics and human eye sight - unless we are to believe that Dany suffers from intermittent blindness. Along with her intermittent Alzheimer’s, because there’s also this: Dany forgot about Euron’s fleet As one of the comments put it, we should start using “skewered the dragon” instead of “jumped the shark”. That’s how ridiculous that whole scene was.

OMG. I had almost forgot how good season one was. This scene is amazing and shows that Robert wasn’t as clueless as people thought he was and Cersei isn’t nearly as smart she thinks she is. Hmm. They’d been together for 17 years so this got me thinking how much time are we supposed to assume has passed in Westeros since the show started? Also, they could have been a true power couple but Robert couldn’t or wouldn’t get over Lyanna and Cersei couldn’t or wouldn’t stopped banging Jaime. Looking back, I wonder if Robert knew all along that Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love. Jealousy and not getting what he wanted would have turned Robert real mean real fast.

There are so many great ideas being talked about in this thread, makes me sad that we will probably end up with an unsatisfying ending. It's been clear since season seven that the showrunners are totally checked out - and they are clearly more interested in ending the story than telling the story. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the third (have we seen the first two yet?) WTF moment is actually unpredictable, shocking, and one that actually makes sense within the context of what we have seen over the course of the last eight years. Every potential I've read so far about potential endings is not cutting it for me.

Jon would represent the North though, not Sansa. And who says it has to be a Stark anyway. Maybe the first step is to take power away from all the historical houses who have had it. That would be interesting.

Eh. It's a war. That's what war is. You don't get to take breaks. You take breaks and you lose and it's not like the Long Night lasted that long - they weren't fighting the army of the dead for days, weeks, or months. I don't know what the actual length of battle was supposed to be on the show - but I'm guessing it was a few hours tops. It takes about 30 days to get to Kings Landing from Winterfell; or at least it did in season one - in my opinion that's plenty of time to be ready. Also, there should be a commander or commanders of the Northern force - that's who should have been having the conversation with Dany.

I don’t need a fan fiction ending but an ending where Dany was being set up to look like she’d gone crazy when she hadn’t would at least be interesting. Or if we find out that Sansa playing a long con too and was in it the whole time, hence the hostility. That at would at least be different.

Maybe Varys and Qyburn conspire to give her a poison that makes her......drum roll please.....go mad! Episode five can be called The Mad Dragon (could be talking about Dany, Drogo, or both). Hahahaha. I wouldn't mind seeing Drogo and Dany in armor though.

It's not but GRRM has been saying for years, decades that that is what he's going for as far as the end of A Song of Fire and Ice.

Exactly!

Regardless of how this show ends, I don't want to see Tyrion anywhere near a ruling council of any sort. Here's two really good reasons: 1. He refused to see what a monster his sister was and was trying to plead and bargain with her past the point of no return 2. If they really do go the Mad Queen route with Dany, see number one. Someone who is so smart and so invested in the realm should have seen that and shouldn't have aligned himself with such a person. Although with the writers, I'm sure they say on one side of their mouth that Dany was mad along and on the other say, Tyrion had no idea - there were no signs. Simply put, he may be smart but clearly, he has piss poor judgment.

Tell that Queen Elizabeth II. 🙂 Seriously though, I understand why Dany didn't do a succession plan - she doesn't have the throne and she doesn't have any heirs. Tyrion is her advisor and he's "supposed" to be one of the smartest people in all of Westeros. They could have figured out a succession after she ascended to the throne. A fitting end to Dany's storyline would be for her to "break the wheel" and then realize that she doesn't want it and go retire somewhere with whatever (if she has any left) dragons she has remaining. That's a bittersweet ending. Her life's purpose after the death of her brother, Drogo, and Rhaego was all about the Iron Throne and then she realizes it won't make her happy and it's not want she wants and she moves on. Her going mad in the span of two episodes is not a bittersweet ending at all. It seems ridiculous. And I know that some people are all like the signs were there, and I disagree. Especially, when it comes to book Dany who couldn't rule, not because she was a tyrant, but because she was kind of weak and naive and was trying to make everybody happy. As I've said before, I feel like the show has been building up to to there not being an IT. All these people and great houses being wiped out for something that will soon cease to exist; that makes sense and is very bittersweet. Better writers would have figured out way to get to that point without resorting to making one of your lead characters apparently go mad. There could have been ways that they could have hinted that Dany was like dear old dad talking to herself, acting irrationally, killing people for looking at her wrong, displaying paranoia on a regular basis, not having any confidantes because she was so paranoid, etc - this didn't happen. Instead, Dany has been shown as someone who is very willing to let people in and in my opinion she's been too trusting of Tyrion and Varys - who are both snakes.

Convenient plot device. Someone had to be left do all of that raping and pillaging.

That still doesn’t make her mad. Cruel maybe but not mad. And I’ve never seen her derive any pleasure from it either. But I guess people are okay with murder as long it’s done “kindly”. I suppose I should give Cersei a pass for blowing up the Sept because at least people most likely died instantly.