Daenerys 'Stormborn' Targaryen: The Breaker Of Chains, Mother Of Dragons Etc

[VCRTracking]

Well now we know why the season 8 scripts made Emilia Clarke walk around in the rain after reading them!

Emilia Clarke wandered around “aimlessly” after reading the final Game of Thrones scripts

I feel bad but I think if she knew from beginning where the character was going, while it might have made it easier for her, she would have played Dany very differently.

[Spartan Girl]

17 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

Well now we know why the season 8 scripts made Emilia Clarke walk around in the rain after reading them!

Emilia Clarke wandered around “aimlessly” after reading the final Game of Thrones scripts

I feel bad but I think if she knew from beginning where the character was going, while it might have made it easier for her, she would have played Dany very differently.

Both she and Dany deserved better than this shit show.

[arty]

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

Another painful thing that made me angry about the Dany/Jon scene is that when she asked, "Is (your queen) all I am to you?" he could have said, "No, you're my blood, my family. We're all that's left." Even if he was squicked out by the incest, he could have said that much, made her feel a little less alone. But he didn't.

He told her that he loved her, which should be the most powerful words he can say to reassure her that she is not alone in the world. But I take your point, and I wonder why neither of them, especially Dany, ever brought up and took comfort in the fact that they are family. It should be all the more important to Dany, I would think, as she has been mourning the loss of family since Drogo and Rhaego died. I don't think Jon ever felt quite as alone in the world as Dany did almost her entire life.

[Minneapple]

1 hour ago, VCRTracking said:

Well now we know why the season 8 scripts made Emilia Clarke walk around in the rain after reading them!

Emilia Clarke wandered around “aimlessly” after reading the final Game of Thrones scripts

I feel bad but I think if she knew from beginning where the character was going, while it might have made it easier for her, she would have played Dany very differently.

All of the actors said similar things. They all took long walks, they all found it creative and brave and brilliant.

[RobertDeSneero]

1 hour ago, VCRTracking said:

I feel bad but I think if she knew from beginning where the character was going, while it might have made it easier for her, she would have played Dany very differently.

I don't think they wanted her played differently.  They wanted her played in a way that was consistent with a heroic arc.

[Hana Chan]

I have no question that from the start, the show runners wanted us to sympathize with Dany, even through her end was always going to go dark. It's a real tragedy that someone who launched her quest for the throne with the best of intentions and a real desire to transform the world. Presenting us with a beautiful, young, sympathetic figure to root for and then watch her lose sight of what she wanted to accomplish as queen is heartbreaking. And that's totally the point.

[BooBear]

14 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

Presenting us with a beautiful, young, sympathetic figure to root for and then watch her lose sight of what she wanted to accomplish as queen is heartbreaking. And that's totally the point.

They problem is they didn't show that. As recently as Episode 3 she was same old normal Dany. Frankly I wish she went after the army of the dead like she did at King's Landing last night.

Pros to this plot line:
- you tube snark is hysterical;

- All those people named Dani or Kalessi are like whoops.

- Cersi is finally dead.

- Euron is dead.

- Calling up xfinity and cancelling cable early - priceless.

Cons

- well just about everything else. 

[VCRTracking]

51 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

I have no question that from the start, the show runners wanted us to sympathize with Dany, even through her end was always going to go dark. It's a real tragedy that someone who launched her quest for the throne with the best of intentions and a real desire to transform the world. Presenting us with a beautiful, young, sympathetic figure to root for and then watch her lose sight of what she wanted to accomplish as queen is heartbreaking. And that's totally the point.

Yeah, thinking about it, the scene of a dragon burning cities and killing innocent people you'd expect a monster riding it like the Night King. Instead it's this beautiful doll-like young woman.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, arty said:

He told her that he loved her, which should be the most powerful words he can say to reassure her that she is not alone in the world. But I take your point, and I wonder why neither of them, especially Dany, ever brought up and took comfort in the fact that they are family.

Words are cheap.  His words said "I love you". his actions said otherwise.  

And by the time they could have brought up comfort in family, they had already changed gears into turning her into Dany Hitler.  Also, it was clear that Jon's family didn't like her, even though she tried to make nice with Sansa.

I actually used to like Sansa until this season, now I can barely stand to look at her.

[ShellsandCheese]

Upon rewatch, I can see that Dany didn’t destroy the whole city. Mostly, the areas around The Red Keep. Yeah. She wanted to make sure Cersei didn’t escape. I’m sure she knew that Tyrion was trying to help his sister to the very end. 

[rmontro]

37 minutes ago, ShellsandCheese said:

Upon rewatch, I can see that Dany didn’t destroy the whole city. Mostly, the areas around The Red Keep. Yeah. She wanted to make sure Cersei didn’t escape. I’m sure she knew that Tyrion was trying to help his sister to the very end. 

It's no use trying to defend her, the writers have decided to paint her as evil.  And not just evil, the ultimate evil.  I like one poster who said that for them, Game of Thrones ended with episode 03 (The Long Night).  Personally, I don't really want to acknowledge these last three episodes either.  It's like an episode of The Brady Bunch where Mike comes home to find that Carol has killed all the kids.  "Well, Carol had it in her all along.  She was selfish, that's why she had Alice do all the housework".  I'm just not accepting it.

[Umbelina]

59 minutes ago, rmontro said:

Words are cheap.  His words said "I love you". his actions said otherwise.  

And by the time they could have brought up comfort in family, they had already changed gears into turning her into Dany Hitler.  Also, it was clear that Jon's family didn't like her, even though she tried to make nice with Sansa.

I actually used to like Sansa until this season, now I can barely stand to look at her.

If anything they were comparing Dany to people who burnt down whole cities indiscriminately.

His actions were probably like most of ours would have been if we realized we had unknowingly banged our aunt or uncle, and that the aunt or uncle, after also finding out, wanted to keep banging us.

[sistermagpie]

11 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

They all thought of her as the foreign invader so that is what she became. She brought the Essos vengeance to Westeros. Her Unsullied and Dorthaki were more than happy to follow their Queen. 

I know Dany wouldn't be The Queen, I expected that. I just wanted it to be written well and make sense. This was so rushed and OOC. Dany has killed her enemies as has most of the other characters.

When Sansa murdered her abuser Ramsey with hounds and watched and smiled that was justice. When Dany watched her abusive brother get murdered by her husband, she didn't smile or gloat. But she's cruel while Sansa's a hero. Arya killed the Freys and fed them to their father, then killed him for revenge. She's another hero, when Dany kills slave owners for killing children she's cruel and going mad. Because those are some of the excuses I've seen for proof that Dany was always mad and cruel.  The only difference is Dany has access to stronger weapon than a sword or hounds. 

9 hours ago, ursula said:

D & D cited Dany's reaction to Viserys's death as her first sign of madness. Arya effectively committed genocide, and force-fed a man the corpses of his children. Sansa smiled at the sounds and sights of her ex-husband being torn apart by dogs - something that is a fond memory even now. Yet Dany is the mad one because she was expressionless at the death of a brother who had abused her, sexually threatened her, sold her and who had just threatened to cut open her womb?

I'm sorry but my brain broke at that. It's clear that  D & D never understood or even particularly liked the character, or the overall story they were telling. This is not the ending that GRRM planned for her story but the tragedy is that with the TV show preceding the books, this is the ending that most people will take as true.

I don't think it's really that different. Sansa and Arya aren't considered heroes in those moments when they're feeding people to their relatives or their dogs. They're just getting revenge and since the audience is on their side it's satisfying. Dany wasn't always like this, she just always had the potential for it just as Sansa and Arya had the potential to be what they are in those scenes.

But Arya, especially, is an example of getting pulled back from that. And also their particular shadow selves weren't the same as Dany's because she was the only one who was the queen with people cheering her etc. So they all have different weaknesses and Dany's is more spectacular, because so is Dany. Arya's dark self is up close and intimate violence. Sansa's is more distant and cold.

But the Starks had each other to pull them back. They also had relationships with other people that were important--Sam, the Hound, Theon. Relationships that would affect them positively even after the person was dead. Dany lost the people she felt closest to--though she also lost them in pursuit of her ambition.

She's not an ultimate evil, imo. She's just another of the many monarchs that ruled through fear. I think Cersei is rightfully more hated than Dany. Dany isn't even hated by the people on the show, more just feared. (Tyrion says the people hate Cersei.)

[Minneapple]

1 hour ago, BooBear said:

They problem is they didn't show that. As recently as Episode 3 she was same old normal Dany. Frankly I wish she went after the army of the dead like she did at King's Landing last night.

It was actually at the end of 8x02 that I began to believe in the theory that Dany could be the Big Bad of this season, because of the way she reacted to Jon's news. Not "oh my God you're my nephew, we're family, what do we do now," but "your claim to the throne is better than mine." She's not really been on solid ground ever since she came to the North; no one greeted her like a conquering hero as she expected.

There's all this talk about maybe 10 episodes and 10 seasons and whatnot, but really I don't think that was necessary. If D&D had tightened up the writing in season 7 and this season, things would have gone better. As of now 8x03 feels like a wasted exercise on CGI, and the visuals were really fucking cool, but did we really need to see Drogon destroy King's Landing for 20 minutes? Can't these things be cut down in favor of character development instead? Like just cut 10 minutes from Drogon so we can see Sansa and Arya's reaction to Jon's parental reveal. Things like that. I would have given a lot to see a scene between Jon and Arya like the one between Jon and Sansa where they reminisce about Nan's meat pies. Or a real scene with all four Starks not arguing about Dany. Or a scene with Dany and Missandei that would maybe make Missandei's death a bit more meaningful and about Missandei, not just about Dany.

[Umbelina]

Yes, and allow realistic scenes with dialogue if they want to sell the romance between Dany and Jon pre-reveal kinship.

Instead, they just crammed that story in among dragons, battles, and war conferences, and added a waterfall but again, with almost no bonding, no slow burn, or even fast burns.  Just Dany rescuing him from yet another battle and presto!  Love!  Bending the knee!

This needed more than Dany seeing his wounds from being dead, or glances.  It needed words and time to breathe away from the CGI. 

[RobertDeSneero]

46 minutes ago, rmontro said:

It's no use trying to defend her, the writers have decided to paint her as evil.  And not just evil, the ultimate evil.  I like one poster who said that for them, Game of Thrones ended with episode 03 (The Long Night).  Personally, I don't really want to acknowledge these last three episodes either.  It's like an episode of The Brady Bunch where Mike comes home to find that Carol has killed all the kids.  "Well, Carol had it in her all along.  She was selfish, that's why she had Alice do all the housework".  I'm just not accepting it.

That's as silly as ending The Lord of the Rings with Aragorn becoming king.

[jeansheridan]

52 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

Words are cheap.  His words said "I love you". his actions said otherwise.  

I think Jon is careful with his words. Too careful maybe. But he means what he says. He does love her. He also was upfront about telling his family. 

What if Dany had chosen to be open about Jon's background with everyone? What if she announced that he was her beloved nephew restored to her and he backed her claim? What if Dany chose candor over secrecy? 

[Umbelina]

29 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

I think Jon is careful with his words. Too careful maybe. But he means what he says. He does love her. He also was upfront about telling his family. 

What if Dany had chosen to be open about Jon's background with everyone? What if she announced that he was her beloved nephew restored to her and he backed her claim? What if Dany chose candor over secrecy? 

For the record, that is not my quote.  My quote about that is this:

His actions were probably like most of ours would have been if we realized we had unknowingly banged our aunt or uncle, and that the aunt or uncle, after also finding out, wanted to keep banging us.

[rmontro]

2 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Yes, and allow realistic scenes with dialogue if they want to sell the romance between Dany and Jon pre-reveal kinship.

They did a terrible job of building up any sort of romance between Jon and Dany.  Maybe they wanted to avoid getting to heavy into it because of the incense thing, although that didn't seem to stop them with Jamie and Cersei.  I really am left somewhat confused about what Jon's feelings were.  I guess there was a romance kindling there, until the "we're family" reveal, that squished it for him.  But for all we were shown, it could have just as easily been a sexual dalliance for him.

1 hour ago, RobertDeSneero said:

That's as silly as ending The Lord of the Rings with Aragorn becoming king.

Didn't Tolkien have Aragorn turn evil at the end and burn down Minas Tirith?  What, you mean he didn't?  I wonder if we were given the Aragorn turns evil ending if anyone would have even heard of Lord of the Rings?  Tolkien at least had the good sense to not try and pass that garbage off on to his readers.

[Maximum Taco]

11 minutes ago, rmontro said:

Didn't Tolkien have Aragorn turn evil at the end and burn down Minas Tirith?  What, you mean he didn't?  I wonder if we were given the Aragorn turns evil ending if anyone would have even heard of Lord of the Rings?  Tolkien at least had the good sense to not try and pass that garbage off on to his readers.

No he had Frodo turn evil at the end. 

[spaceghostess]

7 minutes ago, rmontro said:

They did a terrible job of building up any sort of romance between Jon and Dany.  Maybe they wanted to avoid getting to heavy into it because of the incense thing, although that didn't seem to stop them with Jamie and Cersei.  I really am left somewhat confused about what Jon's feelings were.  I guess there was a romance kindling there, until the "we're family" reveal, that squished it for him.  But for all we were shown, it could have just as easily been a sexual dalliance for him.

Didn't Tolkien have Aragorn turn evil at the end and burn down Minas Tirith?  What, you mean he didn't?  I wonder if we were given the Aragorn turns evil ending if anyone would have even heard of Lord of the Rings?  Tolkien at least had the good sense to not try and pass that garbage off on to his readers.

Absolutely agree that the J/D "romance" was half-assed as hell. Still, I took Jon at his word that he loved her, mostly because he doesn't do dalliances because bastards. Of course, he want against that with Ygritte, but he does (did?) seem to take intimacy pretty seriously.  He looked pretty besotted during BoatSex, I thought. Meh, what do I know? I didn't even realize Dany'd been teetering on the brink all along.

[rmontro]

29 minutes ago, Maximum Taco said:

No he had Frodo turn evil at the end. 

Frodo got better.

[Umbelina]

Vanity Fair has several reviews of this episode and of characters posted this week.

This is an in depth look at Dany.  It's good, comparing book Dany to show Dany, mistakes and misleads, issues with transferring an internal dialogue to screen, the show runners addiction and different approach to shock value.   https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/game-of-thrones-mad-queen-daenerys-hints-clues-book-shock-betrayal

[Spartan Girl]

8 hours ago, rmontro said:

Words are cheap.  His words said "I love you". his actions said otherwise.  

And by the time they could have brought up comfort in family, they had already changed gears into turning her into Dany Hitler.  Also, it was clear that Jon's family didn't like her, even though she tried to make nice with Sansa.

I actually used to like Sansa until this season, now I can barely stand to look at her.

Exactly. It's what he DOESN'T say. He doesn't even give her the speech about how he can't help still loving her but it's confusing and complicated now. He does not even explore the fact that that they're family because he doesn't really consider her family the same way he considers Arya and Sansa family. Yes, he only just found out, but he doesn't explain any of that. He only says "I love you (as my queen)", kisses her, and pushes her away. So not only is he rejecting her as a lover, he's rejecting her as family too. And that's got an extra sting for Dany.

But let's not kid ourselves. D&D weren't interested in developing the relationship as anything more than a vehicle for angst for Dany, and another factor for pushing her off the deep end. All the "foreshadowing" in season 7 that they'd get pregnant was just yet another red herring to screw with the audience.

[RobertDeSneero]

5 hours ago, rmontro said:

Didn't Tolkien have Aragorn turn evil at the end and burn down Minas Tirith?  What, you mean he didn't?  I wonder if we were given the Aragorn turns evil ending if anyone would have even heard of Lord of the Rings?  Tolkien at least had the good sense to not try and pass that garbage off on to his readers.

My favorite part of the books in The Scouring of the Shire .  GRRM is also a fan.  Tolkien was grounded in myth, so he has Aragorn be the winner of the final battle who becomes a wise and just ruler.  Martin is grounded in history.  For him, outcomes shouldn't be so neat because that's not what happens in the real world.  Defeating the Night King doesn't lead to the end of the game of thrones and the establishment of a golden age of Westeros.  The wheel keeps spinning.  Breaking the wheel is the new draining the swamp.  For all of her rhetoric, Daenerys is still part of the same game.  Dany is just another warmonger who is quick to choose violence as her path.  (Note that Martin was a conscientious objector during Vietnam.)

If we follow this to its logical conclusion, Jon either needs to be a game player or he becomes the next Ned Stark, unless another player (Sansa?) finds him to be a useful tool.  Or maybe he can head north beyond the Wall with the Wildlings and leave the game altogether.  Maybe Dany's best path is to abandon the game and go back to Essos.

Dany believes she can rule through either love or fear.  She is not loved in Westeros, so she chooses fear.  Arguably, this is the correct choice if she cares about ruling.  She decides that the way to be feared is to go with shock and awe now, that being merciless in the present will be a mercy to those in the future who she won't have to kill to maintain her power.  The show would be better off making her choice one that was reasoned rather than a moment of madness for a crazy woman with a weapon of mass destruction between her legs.  I wish the show would present her as a "Mad Queen" who isn't really mad, who may be well-intentioned but who chooses means that we find abhorent to justify an end that we thought we wanted.

[Sakura12]

I know the set up of Dany being Mad and not being The Queen was there, it's the rushed set up to get her there that bothers me. We should've seen more evidence of her madness. Burning slave owners and people during a battle are not signs of madness, or most of the characters are mad. 

I would've liked to see her start to unravel and not just have men working against her tell me she is. That's been happening to women forever.  Then they will probably have Jon the last person she loves and trust be the one to kill her. Which they will tell me is some kind of justice. The woman who lost everything because she listened to men dies by the man she loves. Yes that will be tragic but not the sad tragic ending they think it is. Its tragic in showing a woman that dared to have more power than men struck down by men because they think they are better. 

Jon's a Targaryen how come no one thinks he could go mad? For me Jon's madness is how naive and dumb he is. Book Jon shows signs of the Targ ruthless. But Show Jon is pure and light. I don't think he'll wear the crown either but the sexism is strong this season. 

[Portia4844]

11 hours ago, Umbelina said:

Yes, and allow realistic scenes with dialogue if they want to sell the romance between Dany and Jon pre-reveal kinship.

Instead, they just crammed that story in among dragons, battles, and war conferences, and added a waterfall but again, with almost no bonding, no slow burn, or even fast burns.  Just Dany rescuing him from yet another battle and presto!  Love!  Bending the knee!

This needed more than Dany seeing his wounds from being dead, or glances.  It needed words and time to breathe away from the CGI. 

Jon was written as incapable of having an actual conversation with Dany after finding out who he was.  He was reduced to "You're my Queen, I love you" but nothing of any significance.  Dany was reduced to "They love you more than me."  

The citizens of KL didn't know Jon so couldn't possibly love him more than Dany.  Once she won the city it would have left the other Houses to deal with so it makes no sense for her to burn the entire city to the ground without any concern for her allies/armies being fried along with them.  Apparently that's the insanity part.  The only way that works is if she flies off, rests her dragon, and then heads off to burn every other House in the Kingdom.  But again, the insanity will be that she lets Jon or anyone else within stabbing distance of her.  

[Constantinople]

1 hour ago, Sakura12 said:

Jon's a Targaryen how come no one thinks he could go mad?

He's a grandson of the Mad King

And let's face it, his biological father's reasoning wasn't exactly state of the art either

[AuntieMame]

15 hours ago, Hana Chan said:

I have no question that from the start, the show runners wanted us to sympathize with Dany, even through her end was always going to go dark. It's a real tragedy that someone who launched her quest for the throne with the best of intentions and a real desire to transform the world. Presenting us with a beautiful, young, sympathetic figure to root for and then watch her lose sight of what she wanted to accomplish as queen is heartbreaking. And that's totally the point.

Yes, it would be if the writing supported this arc. I would love to watch a good person be compromised by ambition and circumstances and fatal flaws. Even better to have a portrayal of a person who goes bad without being a psychopath to begin. That would be brilliant and genuine art. That would teach us about ourselves and where we go wrong and right. This is not that. 

[Colorful Mess]

23 hours ago, GraceK said:

And this is why this reads as  misogynistic to me. Because they made Jon Snow this noble hero incapable of bad acts, and Daenerys this evil , cold hearted fire harpy, when that’s not true. Canon Jon Snow has the blood of the dragon in him, just like her. He has made morally questionable decisions. He has done DARK shit. He is interesting, strong, brave . He is a wolf and a Dragon. Onscreen Jon is a bitch who can’t lie and apparently can’t stand war , while Dany revels in fire and blood and needs to put down, while Canon Dany goes out amongst the sick and nurses them, and dreams of a house with a red door, and is a mother to her people. It’s sickening what they have done. Show Tyrion is gentle and anti war, while Canon Tyrion is a rapist who wants to murder Jaime and rape Cersei before he kills her, and Show Varys is all about the realm, when canon Varys cut out the tongues of children , his “ little birds”, and conspired to keep the Mad King “ mad”, and murdered countless people to keep the realm in chaos. All the villainous men have been made heroic and Daenerys has been vilified. How is that not misogyny???

Even the darker aspects of those male characters doesnt compare to what Dany did. You're asking for Jon, Tyrion, and Varys to commit war crimes on a massive scale. They would have had to commit atrocities, attacking a city that had surrendered, and would have to have enough firepower to turn people to ash in seconds. They don't have this, in book or show, so Dany's capacity for cruelty was always in the foundation of the book. There is ruthless, which is what Tyrion and Varys were expecting and what they have done, and then there is Dany acting irrationally cruel with huge consequences. 

There are many more book scenes that D&D left out that make her even more dark than she already is in the show. Her bright moments are still what separates her from Cersei throughout the books, but she ends being the same as her. Furthermore she was always inconsistent and self-contradictory in the books, from helping people but being the cause of their suffering at the same time. I don't think that's bad writing: that's just who she is. It's her character trait. 

There is a lot of bad writing in this show but I think Dany is actually the best adapted out of all the characters.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Colorful Mess

[jeansheridan]

When Jon executed his own murderers it wasn't depicted as a purely just act. He hung a child. And I don't remotely blame Dany for executing Varys. He tried to poison her. That's just too much. 

Sorry Umbelina my quoting was off.

[AuntieMame]

On 5/13/2019 at 7:51 AM, jeansheridan said:

I also want to give Dany some credit for using Drogon so effectively against the weapons. Using his speed to confuse the scorpion shooters mounted on the walls was smart. They were too heavy to pivot fast. She did get lucky against the Iron Fleet. But again, using the sun against them, understanding Drogon's skills, her own willingness to fly through a broken gate with stone flying. Just cool. She wields him like Arya carries Needle.

The only problem with Drogon being so effective in King's Landing is that it makes you wonder why the other two dragons were ineffective during other battles and seemed easy to kill. One day the Iron Fleet is successful in a ridiculously transparent ambush and kills a dragon easily; the next battle and the Iron Fleet is easily beaten and with one less dragon. None of it makes any sense. 

[jeansheridan]

4 hours ago, Sakura12 said:

would've liked to see her start to unravel and not just have men working against her tell me she is. 

On the season opener my friend noticed immediately that Dany was way too smug rolling into Winterfell. Not necessarily a sign of madness but her inability to read the room so to speak, to put her smug gameface on, was noticeable to her. I personally found Sansa to be way too smug & chilly as well. Which is why I was bummed we never saw Arya chatting Dany up. I mean, dragons! How can Arya not want to know everything about them? And in turn Dany gets Jon stories from a beloved little sister. 

[Maximum Taco]

7 minutes ago, AuntieMame said:

The only problem with Drogon being so effective in King's Landing is that it makes you wonder why the other two dragons were ineffective during other battles and seemed easy to kill. One day the Iron Fleet is successful in a ridiculously transparent ambush and kills a dragon easily; the next battle and the Iron Fleet is easily beaten and with one less dragon. None of it makes any sense. 

Something should be said for being prepared. 

Dany was returning to Dragonstone with Drogon and Rhaegal, she didn't expect to be ambushed (that's what makes it an ambush), and was flying a slow meandering course back home in order to plot the downfall of Cersei. Was this stupid of her? Most definitely, any reasonable person would have expected Cersei to be planning an ambush when she vacated Dragonstone. But if you take into account that she was ambushed it makes the success of the attack make much more sense. 

In Star Wars they talk about accelerating to "Attack Speed" because obviously the faster you are going the more difficult it is to hit you. A healthy Drogon flying at top speed and attacking from cloud cover and using the sun to obscure people's vision, and wheeling and changing course on a dime is obviously going to be more difficult to hit then a wounded Rhaegal just trying to get home to Dragonstone to rest. The Scorpions are definitely powerful, and should be respected, but a prepared Dany exposed their weaknesses mainly being they take a lot of time to change where they are aiming and a lot of time to reload. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by Maximum Taco

[jeansheridan]

8 minutes ago, Maximum Taco said:

Was this stupid of her? Most definitely, any reasonable person would have expected Cersei to be planning an ambush when she vacated Dragonstone. B

Dragonstone has always bugged me. Stannis fled back there after his defeat but Tywin didn't pursue? Stannis also left it entirely when he went North, leaving the whole castle and island undefended? Why didn't Cercei move on in? It's this massive fortress and presumably valuable for defense.

I so wish Rhaegel had just been severely wounded (too wounded for an immediate battle). That dragon had a crap life, poor baby. 

[Maximum Taco]

8 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

Dragonstone has always bugged me. Stannis fled back there after his defeat but Tywin didn't pursue? Stannis also left it entirely when he went North, leaving the whole castle and island undefended? Why didn't Cercei move on in? It's this massive fortress and presumably valuable for defense.

I so wish Rhaegel had just been severely wounded (too wounded for an immediate battle). That dragon had a crap life, poor baby. 

Oh it's baffling how little worth it's given in the show. 

In the books Dragonstone is a hugely important tactical location. Hold Dragonstone and you hold the Narrow Sea, you can blockade King's Landing from the sea, you can launch naval attacks to the Stormlands, Dorne, Vale and even the North. It's so important that as soon as Stannis leaves, Cersei's first action is to blockade the island and try to take it back. 

There's a reason why House Targaryen didn't cede the seat after they became Kings, beyond ancestral reasons, Dragonstone is too important to the defense of King's Landing to trust any but the heir to the throne with it. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by Maximum Taco

[AuntieMame]

50 minutes ago, Maximum Taco said:

Something should be said for being prepared. 

Dany was returning to Dragonstone with Drogon and Rhaegal, she didn't expect to be ambushed (that's what makes it an ambush), and was flying a slow meandering course back home in order to plot the downfall of Cersei. Was this stupid of her? Most definitely, any reasonable person would have expected Cersei to be planning an ambush when she vacated Dragonstone. But if you take into account that she was ambushed it makes the success of the attack make much more sense. 

In Star Wars they talk about accelerating to "Attack Speed" because obviously the faster you are going the more difficult it is to hit you. A healthy Drogon flying at top speed and attacking from cloud cover and using the sun to obscure people's vision, and wheeling and changing course on a dime is obviously going to be more difficult to hit then a wounded Rhaegal just trying to get home to Dragonstone to rest. The Scorpions are definitely powerful, and should be respected, but a prepared Dany exposed their weaknesses mainly being they take a lot of time to change where they are aiming and a lot of time to reload. 

The very fact that nobody, nobody even considered the possibility of an ambush given Cersei's actions and ambitions is the problem. You don't have to be Eisenhower to at least consider it as a possibility. And if everyone was too shattered to consider the tactical situation, then the argument that they needed rest before dealing with Cersei is that much stronger. I understand what an ambush is. I also understand defensive tactics and strategy and this just makes them all look like morons. At this point, I don't care who sits on that ugly throne. 

Edited May 14, 2019 by AuntieMame

[Colorful Mess]

41 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

And I don't remotely blame Dany for executing Varys. He tried to poison her. That's just too much. 

It was justifiable. Varys was right.

38 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

On the season opener my friend noticed immediately that Dany was way too smug rolling into Winterfell. Not necessarily a sign of madness but her inability to read the room so to speak, to put her smug gameface on, was noticeable to her. I personally found Sansa to be way too smug & chilly as well. Which is why I was bummed we never saw Arya chatting Dany up. I mean, dragons! How can Arya not want to know everything about them? And in turn Dany gets Jon stories from a beloved little sister. 

Because they could tell she was bad news immediately.

[Maximum Taco]

39 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

On the season opener my friend noticed immediately that Dany was way too smug rolling into Winterfell. Not necessarily a sign of madness but her inability to read the room so to speak, to put her smug gameface on, was noticeable to her. I personally found Sansa to be way too smug & chilly as well. Which is why I was bummed we never saw Arya chatting Dany up. I mean, dragons! How can Arya not want to know everything about them? And in turn Dany gets Jon stories from a beloved little sister. 

Season 1 Arya definitely would do this. She'd probably become Dany's best friend. She's a badass warrior Queen who flies dragons and doesn't take shit from no one. Season 1 Arya would have been all over that shit. She may also have been a bit jealous of her relationship with Jon as well, but I still think they would've gotten on well.

Season 8 Arya doesn't trust her. She's met super cool people and they have let her down again and again. Arya knows that just because you are a badass group of vigilantes led by a man who cannot die, fighting injustice done by Queen Cersei doesn't mean you can be trusted, just like a badass group of face changing assassins can't be trusted. And the same goes for badass warrior Queens. 

For that matter though I think Season 1 Sansa would've gotten on well with Dany as well. 

[lucindabelle]

On 5/13/2019 at 11:57 AM, Couver said:

 .

Since the show is ending with Dany as the villain it has to sell her crimes as worse. For me the optics are just bad because there is a degree of sexism to it (just my opinion)

I will check out the final episode if Drogon gets to ride of into the sunset though. But I highly doubt it. There is no way someone gets near his mother and kills her if he's still alive 😥

Co-signed.

the way they manipulatively and obscenely showed us the innocent people only when it’s DANY doing the killing is obscene- and yes sexist. We have HEARD about other things. Not seen them.

the fake brotherhood killed a religious group. That’s it.

And I will be as angry when drogon dies as I am when all writers can think to do in any animal story is kill said beloved animal. Not gonna watch.

On 5/13/2019 at 1:06 PM, rmontro said:

Bottom line, I don't accept this ending.  Up until The Last Starks, I thought Game of Thrones was the best television show I had ever seen.  Since then it's just another silly TV show, it might as well be Happy Days.  Fonzie jumping over the shark tank to save Arnold's has more gravitas.  I don't buy what they've done with Dany, it wasn't earned, it wasn't necessary.  They can shove the whole lot as far as I'm concerned.

Completely.

episode three was the last good episode and it truly was great.

four was bad and five was obscene. And I’m skipping six.

and I’m someone who got paid to recap this for A Major Newspaper once.

[Umbelina]

57 minutes ago, AuntieMame said:

The only problem with Drogon being so effective in King's Landing is that it makes you wonder why the other two dragons were ineffective during other battles and seemed easy to kill. One day the Iron Fleet is successful in a ridiculously transparent ambush and kills a dragon easily; the next battle and the Iron Fleet is easily beaten and with one less dragon. None of it makes any sense. 

Along with what @Maximum Taco said?  Drogon was always the biggest dragon, and the healthiest because he was never chained up to wither away in the dungeons.

Rhaegal was hurt.  He could barely fly, let alone maneuver.  The first arrow that hit him wasn't a killing shot, but along with his other damage, and inability to fly well, the other arrows were able to hit him until there were kill shots.

I do agree though that it was ridiculous that no one thought Cersei might attack.  Actually, it's beyond ridiculous that Tyrion, Jon, and Varys all ate stupid pills in other to speed this ending along at breakneck speed.

52 minutes ago, jeansheridan said:

On the season opener my friend noticed immediately that Dany was way too smug rolling into Winterfell. Not necessarily a sign of madness but her inability to read the room so to speak, to put her smug gameface on, was noticeable to her. I personally found Sansa to be way too smug & chilly as well. Which is why I was bummed we never saw Arya chatting Dany up. I mean, dragons! How can Arya not want to know everything about them? And in turn Dany gets Jon stories from a beloved little sister. 

Dany always rolls in smug, have you met her?  ;) 

They are sentient WMDs.  They are not pets, they are dangerous and scary beasts.  There is a reason the old tales about dragons are nearly always about the dragon stayer, or those attempting dragon slaying.  No one wanted them around.

I had a friend who rescued big cats.  Now HE could go near those cats, especially the one he raised from a few months old.  No one else could with severe danger of death or maiming.  Just as an example here, imagine that big cat was the size of two semi trucks, and also breathed fire, and under the control of someone you didn't know who wanted to be Queen and ruler of your country?

It's bizarre to think that anyone would LIKE having someone else's dragons around, because no, no we wouldn't.

[Constantinople]

1 hour ago, Colorful Mess said:

Because they could tell she was bad news immediately.

I disagree.

I think they've come to distrust outsiders more given what's happened the last time outsiders visited, or captured, Winterfell, whether it be King Robert, Theon or Roose/Ramsay (Roose/Ramsay may not be an outsider to the North, but he was an outsider to Winterfell)

[sistermagpie]

7 hours ago, RobertDeSneero said:

Dany believes she can rule through either love or fear.  She is not loved in Westeros, so she chooses fear.  Arguably, this is the correct choice if she cares about ruling.  She decides that the way to be feared is to go with shock and awe now, that being merciless in the present will be a mercy to those in the future who she won't have to kill to maintain her power.  The show would be better off making her choice one that was reasoned rather than a moment of madness for a crazy woman with a weapon of mass destruction between her legs.  I wish the show would present her as a "Mad Queen" who isn't really mad, who may be well-intentioned but who chooses means that we find abhorent to justify an end that we thought we wanted.

Yeah, part of the tragedy is that of course she could rule without love. If she'd taken KL she could have become a leader the people liked, but as was told her her, she was a conqueror more than a ruler. She wasn't Tyrion who got something out of improving the sewage system even if it turned out the people still thought he was evil. She wanted this to be a triumph where everyone was having an extreme emotional reaction to her. To get that it had to be either love or fear--and she wasn't going to get love from these people riding in on a dragon to fight with the other queen they already loathed. She was taking what was hers, as he herself described it.

[jeansheridan]

1 hour ago, Maximum Taco said:

Season 8 Arya doesn't trust her. She's met super cool people and they have let her down again and again. Arya knows that just because you are a badass group of vigilantes led by a man who cannot die, fighting injustice done by Queen Cersei doesn't mean you can be trusted, just like a badass group of face changing assassins can't be trusted. A

That's true. Except what about getting information? Ayra hung out with Tywin for a season so she knows the value of getting to know a person (that is still my favorite change from the books, letting Tywin and Arya hang out).

[Colorful Mess]

24 minutes ago, Constantinople said:

I disagree.

I think they've come to distrust outsiders more given what's happened the last time outsiders visited, or captured, Winterfell, whether it be King Robert, Theon or Roose/Ramsay (Roose/Ramsay may not be an outsider to the North, but he was an outsider to Winterfell)

maybe if Dany was a friendly visitor from Esoss who just wanted to have dinner with them, the "outsider" thing might hold weight. But she did have power over them and expected them to show proper deference. She waltzed in there like she owned the place and expected them to call her queen.

[Spartan Girl]

Dany still tried to make nice with the North and the Starks, which is more than I can say for Sansa and Arya.

I wish we could have gotten a scene of Dany interacting with Ghost. 

[Umbelina]

1 hour ago, jeansheridan said:

That's true. Except what about getting information? Ayra hung out with Tywin for a season so she knows the value of getting to know a person (that is still my favorite change from the books, letting Tywin and Arya hang out).

Arya was an innocent child with Tywin.  She's picked up more abilities on the way.  No one that demands she bends the knee with ever have Arya's trust.

5 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Dany still tried to make nice with the North and the Starks, which is more than I can say for Sansa and Arya.

I wish we could have gotten a scene of Dany interacting with Ghost. 

Flip it.

Sansa and Arya go to one of Dany's conquered cities, arrive and order Dany to bend the knee and turn over everything she holds dear to them.

Sure, Dany would just LUV them!  Like Ayra and Sansa should have loved her when she did that.  Dany would have knelt to them so FAST, and been super loyal to them, and so grateful to them forever and ever.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Umbelina

[Portia4844]

Story Sansa and Arya were never going to like story Dany because she was headed for a major breakdown and the men needed to be warned.  Dany wasn't going to make any friends in Westeros.  Everyone was reduced to snide remarks,  facial expressions, and one-liners to save realm from Dany.  

[arty]

20 hours ago, rmontro said:

Words are cheap.  His words said "I love you". his actions said otherwise.  

And by the time they could have brought up comfort in family, they had already changed gears into turning her into Dany Hitler.  Also, it was clear that Jon's family didn't like her, even though she tried to make nice with Sansa.

How did his actions say otherwise?

In story, I think that Jon's inability to move past their familial connection and, moreso, Dany's inability to see beyond his superior claim doomed them as a romantic couple. I wondered upthread if Dany would have reacted favorably if Jon had suggested that they run away together after defeating the Night King, planting her idea of living by the waterfalls forever into reality. Now, I don't for a second believe she would have seriously entertained the suggestion, but I do think it would have been their best chance at happiness.

Earlier I was thinking about the three men that Dany got involved with in the series. At the end of last season, Jon seemed like the best of them both as an individual and as a partner for Dany. But now, I think she should have let Show Daario stick around. He adored her, she enjoyed his company and found his advice worth listening to, he had no family or claims on her power that would serve as an impediment to their romance, and he would have been perfectly fine with the choices she made this season. And I think he had a pretty good read on her character: "you're a conquerer not a ruler" and "You will get that Throne you want so badly.  I just hope it brings you happiness."

[rmontro]

41 minutes ago, arty said:

How did his actions say otherwise?

He pulled away when they kissed.  A few times now.  He hasn't been able to get busy with her since the reveal that he's her nephew.  I don't doubt that he loves her in some sort of familial/friendly/royal/confused sort of way, but they are no longer lovers.  Which is why Dany said "All right, then.  Let it be fear".

If she's so worried about love, I don't see why she doesn't get on Tinder or something.  She's not a bad looking girl, and this is Westeros.  Jon Snow's not the only fish in the sea.  Given her station, men should be falling over themselves to court her, if not for love or lust, for greed and power.  This idea that she's stuck being alone in Westeros is laughable.  Shoot, she probably could have had Euron if she had wanted.

Speaking of Euron, that dude seemed to get the best story arc out of all of them.  I've never seen anyone die so happily as he did.  He shouldn't get full credit for Jaime's death though, that probably goes to Dany and Drogon.