S08.E05: The Bells

[aemom]

Dany is angry that so many people will not bend the knee to her.  It has never even crossed her mind to rule together with Jon.  She wants to be the sole ruler, the Queen that everyone bends the knee to - so much so that she barbequed Varys for spreading the information about Jon's true heritage. I think that she was starting to see that winning KL was not enough to get everyone to accept her as Queen and so she decided to force them to accept her with fear.  Fear that she was another psycho Targaryan who would kill them for any reason whatsoever.

Jon tends to know nothing, so he really didn't see this side of her coming.  But he does now.  He realizes that she will stop at nothing to be the sole ruler of all of Westeros.  If you don't bend the knee willingly, you'll bend it by force, or die.

Bran is kind of the wildcard here because they have insinuated that he knows how it all ends.  He gave Arya the dagger that she killed the NK with and he patiently waited for the NK to show up and kill him because he knew that Arya would defeat him.  If he already knows how all this is supposed to go down, then he's being rather useless and could potentially save a lot of lives.  They seem to have painted themselves into a corner with this character.

I'm not terribly surprised that Jaime wanted to save Cersei because she is his kryptonite.  I believe that despite everything that she has done to Tyrion, deep down he still has a soft spot for her and just wanted her to go away forever.  However, Cersei deserved a far worse fate than the one she received.  Even if she died by being crushed by a building and not a horrible death via someone, she deserved to die terrified and alone for all the crimes she has committed.

I'm guessing that Dany is going to take out Winterfell next, so Jon better plan out his next steps VERY carefully.

[Dobian]

The "battle" itself (slaughter actually) was another tactically stupid affair following the NK battle in episode 3.  So after the disaster in episode 4, Dany learns nothing and once again flies her dragon head-on into the teeth of scorpion fire, only this time all 100 of them miss because Dany knows how to duck and weave?  Really? This was the equivalent of a video game where you type in a god mode cheat.  So D&D couldn't have Yara already there with her fleet so we not only get a naval battle that makes sense, but lets her have a final showdown with Euron instead of his stupid fight with Jamie.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Dobian

[Bannon]

52 minutes ago, terrymct said:

This was sending a message to all the seven kingdoms and to folks overseas, as well.  Fear her and do not challenge her.   That's how she thinks she's bringing peace.

She could have sent a better message; "Hey, commonfolk, anywhere you are, listen up! I'll spare your health, homes, fields, and livestock (absent 13 sheep per day for dragon feeding), and all you have to do is be happy while I barbeque the creep who lives in the castle next to you, like I quickfried that nutter Cersei!"

[meep.meep]

3 hours ago, Scaeva said:

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?

.........

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.

I agree - this has been laid out from the start.  She let Drogo kill her own brother in front of her.  That brother,  just because he was a man, had a better claim to the throne than she did.  It's been there from season 1.

The thing that bothered me about this episode was how effective Drogon was when just last week, Cirsei, Qyburn, and Euron's defenses were way too much for our gang.  Suddenly Drogon is able to sneak up on them, take out all of Euron's ships, take out all the wall-based weapons, and then start in on the buildings and people of KL.  That was the plot ridiculousness.

[VCRTracking]

I am going to miss Leslie Jones GoT commentary:

[ulkis]

19 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

Great thread. GRMM and D&D knew from the beginning that Dany was going to go this way but they didn't reckon how much she'd become a pop culture icon of female empowerment in the meantime:

And on that note:

I feel like naming a kid Daenerys is about the same risk as getting a boyfriend or girlfriend's name tattooed on you.

[MissLucas]

11 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

I am going to miss Leslie Jones GoT commentary:

Her commentary made this episode almost enjoyable.

After watching her clips I do wonder: was the horse just one of a Dothraki or was it as Leslie said the horse with the great hair aka Harry Strickland's horse ('You're not Jon Snow' when he was facing the oncoming charge made me laugh out loud.)

[Amarsir]

21 minutes ago, Dobian said:

So after the disaster in episode 4, Dany learns nothing and once again flies her dragon head-on into the teeth of scorpion fire, only this time all 100 of them miss because Dany knows how ti duck and weave?  Really? This was the equivalent of a video game where you type in a god mode cheat. 

Dany read the patch notes. "Scorpion accuracy decreased 95%."

[Raachel2008]

21 minutes ago, GiuliettaMasina said:

Arya is a trained assassin with a bag full of faces; they needn't have had a battle at all. See: Arya running unseen past 50 white walkers to attack the NK. Why didn't she just do that the night before?

How so? The dead were after the living, using someone's else face wouldn't change it. I agree a 110% that we should have see Arya trying to reach Redwood, but I sustain my point. 

[Quark]

This was a depressing episode, but Cersei walking past the Cleganes was absolutely hysterical.

[Amarsir]

57 minutes ago, QuinnM said:

When Tyrion tells her about the bells he is begging her not to destroy KL.  She is making a case for it.  Then Tyrion tells his Jaime when he's freeing him that the life of one dwarf is a good trade for thousands of innocent lives.  So Tyrion thought she was going to burn them all.

Doesn't that indicate Tyrion thought she wouldn't burn them all if he could successfully arrange the bell being run? The fact that she did it anyway may indeed have had seeds since the beginning, but the show didn't build it to a climactic turn. In that moment there was no reason to expect that kind of rampage.

[cambridgeguy]

11 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

That brother,  just because he was a man, had a better claim to the throne than she did. 

He was also her OLDER brother.  Of course he had a better claim than she did according to the rules of inheritance.  If Dany was Daniel instead she still would have been behind him.

[Growsonwalls]

22 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

I agree - this has been laid out from the start.  She let Drogo kill her own brother in front of her.  That brother,  just because he was a man, had a better claim to the throne than she did.  It's been there from season 1.

The thing that bothered me about this episode was how effective Drogon was when just last week, Cirsei, Qyburn, and Euron's defenses were way too much for our gang.  Suddenly Drogon is able to sneak up on them, take out all of Euron's ships, take out all the wall-based weapons, and then start in on the buildings and people of KL.  That was the plot ridiculousness.

But her brother was an abusive asshole. This time Dany didn't go after the abusive asshole Cersei who was just standing on that balcony. She deliberately went after innocents after they surrendered. Even if you think that the "mad queen" has always been there from the start, that she has a sense of entitlement about ruling (she does), it's just too huge of a leap of character. 

Another thing is the mothering of the dragons. In the past we saw Dany was a strict mother of the dragons. She did not let her dragons run wild. It was out of character for the DRAGONS to kill everyone in sight when they've been taught by their mother to respect life.

[Law Mom]

Someone on twitter called this a No Bell Peace Prize. Outstanding. By the way, how many times did Tyrion say out loud "When you hear the bell, it means stop fighting?" Like 85 times? Did anyone NOT figure out that wasn't happening?

Don't forget: Bell=Stop Fighting. Got it? Everyone on board? Dany, what's the bell mean?

[Bryce Lynch]

41 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

6 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

The human shields didn't work.  Dany took out the main gate, the Golden Company, the Iron Fleet, all the scorpions and many Lannister soldiers with Drogon, with precision strikes, little to no collateral damage. 

It was only after the battle was won that she started slaughtering innocents, against whom she had no beef.  Absurdly bad writing.  

But that specific part isn't bad writing, it's intentional. 

Nearly all writing is intentional, though sometimes a writers forgets to think of something that makes it not make sense.  Intentional and absurdly bad are by no means mutually exclusive. 

It was absurdly bad writing to turn the woman who was heartbroken when one of her dragons might have accidentally killed an innocent child, and chained and locked the other two that were with her in a dungeon, into a monster who would hunt down innocent women and children to roast alive.  

Daenerys was never perfect, but she was a defender and avenger of innocent women and children, not a butcher of them.  

[Constantinople]

The fight between Sandor and The Mountain went on too long, and their long fall out of the window into the flames was absurdly cheesy

[Macbeth]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

Except in modern warfare, generally once a city has surrendered, the fighting/bombing stops.

However, the leader of the city, Queen Cersei, did not surrender. And Dany knew that.  

[Uncle JUICE]

27 minutes ago, ulkis said:

I feel like naming a kid Daenerys is about the same risk as getting a boyfriend or girlfriend's name tattooed on you.

I do not regret my iron coin of bravos tattoo. Some shit is just true! 

[Bryce Lynch]

2 minutes ago, Constantinople said:

The fight between Sandor and The Mountain went on too long, and their long fall out of the window into the flames was absurdly cheesy

It reminded me of the overly long light saber battle between Obi Wan and Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.  

[ShellsandCheese]

It's a fictional TV show based on a fictional / fantasy incomplete book series; it's not as though people are naming their child Hitler - although people have done that. 

Also, multiple things can be true at once. One could argue that there was foreshadowing that Dany would go "mad" (although I don't think she went mad) and also argue that her big madness reveal was rushed and sloppily handled. There are also multiple ways to interpret a work of fiction like this, some people see Dany's actions and read it as it's inevitable that she'll go bad. Others see it and are like, nope she was totally justified and here's why. 

Side note: there have been lots of things hinted out throughout the show that didn't come to pass, so people who don't believe that Dany going mad should have been an obvious conclusion are not missing something - they are just interpreting things differently. It doesn't help the last few years of GoT have involved a whole lot of telling and not showing - and the showrunners have used the Inside the Episodes after the episodes to expand on or provide an explanation for things that should have been made clear during the episode. 

I actually have no problems with Dany destroying King's Landing, if the writers are prepared to follow it through and not end there - but they don't have the guts to do that, so she'll end up getting killed by Jon next week most likely. 

[Bryce Lynch]

4 minutes ago, Macbeth said:

However, the leader of the city, Queen Cersei, did not surrender. And Dany knew that.  

Edited May 13, 2019 by Bryce Lynch

[Beachdreamer]

Cersie is a fighter.  Had any of our better liked characters confronted her to kill her, she would have fought back, at least verbally.  She would have gone done smug and swinging.  This way she was stripped of all dignity.  I'm content with this ending for her.

[Bryce Lynch]

31 minutes ago, ulkis said:

I feel like naming a kid Daenerys is about the same risk as getting a boyfriend or girlfriend's name tattooed on you.

I had an employee who named one of her twin girls Khaleesi, back around season 1 or 2 (I had no idea what it meant).  But, she changed it before making it official because her father couldn't pronounce it.  Dodged a giant crossbow bolt with that one. 

[whoknowswho]

29 minutes ago, MissLucas said:

Her commentary made this episode almost enjoyable.

After watching her clips I do wonder: was the horse just one of a Dothraki or was it as Leslie said the horse with the great hair aka Harry Strickland's horse ('You're not Jon Snow' when he was facing the oncoming charge made me laugh out loud.)

Nope, not Harry's horse, he had a different bridle on.  And he had 2 twisted back legs when last seen.

[Amarsir]

2 minutes ago, Macbeth said:

However, the leader of the city, Queen Cersei, did not surrender. And Dany knew that.  

Which would be a justification for attacking the Red Keep itself. But she clearly went after a city that was no threat to her and only got around to the castle on a later pass.

6 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

It reminded me of the overly long light saber battle between Obi Wan and Anakin in Revenge of the Sith.  

Daenerys had the high ground. It all makes sense now!

That also explains why the scorpions were suddenly aimed by stormtroopers.

[Bryce Lynch]

4 minutes ago, Amarsir said:

Which would be a justification for attacking the Red Keep itself. But she clearly went after a city that was no threat to her and only got around to the castle on a later pass.

Daenerys had the high ground. It all makes sense now!

That also explains why the scorpions were suddenly aimed by stormtroopers.

Well, I was talking about Sandor and Gregor, but feel free to run wild with the analogy. :)

I think Rhaegal would be the first Death Star, which I guess would make Urine, Luke Skywalker.  

Edited May 13, 2019 by Bryce Lynch

[GiuliettaMasina]

1 minute ago, Raachel2008 said:

How so? The dead were after the living, using someone's else face wouldn't change it. I agree a 110% that we should have see Arya trying to reach Redwood, but I sustain my point. 

I guess my point was less about the faces and more about the assassin skills. They spent a whole night anticipating the NK's attack--ample time for her to use them. Melisandre couldn't have showed up a couple hours earlier and put that flea in Arya's ear before the battle started? I'm not convinced that if she had peaced out after Bran told her Viseryon was undead, they couldn't have found another way to kill the NK. I'm pretty raw so I'm rankling at the idea that Dany not deserving ANY credit for doing the right thing and fighting the White Walkers. I'm not buying that she only ever acted in self-interest.

[Bryce Lynch]

9 minutes ago, whoknowswho said:

Nope, not Harry's horse, he had a different bridle on.  And he had 2 twisted back legs when last seen.

Maybe it's the same white horse that Arya and The Hound  Sandor stole from Polliver and his crew, along with their chicken dinners.   

Edited May 13, 2019 by Bryce Lynch

[tennisgurl]

So after all this time of people questioning of women were capable of leading, especially about Dany, I guess the answer is...nope! Between Cersei and Dany, we need some dicks on that throne ASAP!

I guess I will have to see where Sansa and Arya end up, because yeah, the optics of this are not great. And all those parents who named their daughter Daenerys must be feeling pretty stupid right about now! No female empowerment here y'all! Bitches, am I right?

But for real, I do think that the story of Dany going dark could have worked given the right amount of time and build up. Dany, while basically a well meaning and decent person who wanted to use her power to save innocents and liberate enslaved and abused people, did have tendency towards violent vengeance, like when she burned that witch woman in season 1, her dealings with the slave owners in the past, burning them alive and crucifying the people who crucified those slave children, and certainly always had a "I am Daenerys Stormborn and I will have my throne through fire and blood" vibes, and has threatened to burn down cities and such, so its not 100% out of nowhere...but it all happened so fast, that it feels hilariously out of character and rushed, like they had an idea and wanted to get to Mad Queen Dany, but had no time to actually get there. They should have spread this out and had more episodes this season, have it really sink in that her friends who tempered her darker impulses were gone, that two of her children were dead, her continued frustrations that people are not instantly worshipping her as the rightful queen returned in Westeros the way I think she expected, have people betray and plot against her, have her romance with Jon slowly implode, it could have worked. I might not have liked it, and it still might have been rather problematic, but it could have still worked from a story perspective, and could have even been interesting. Take this character who has clearly done many violent and scary things, but to bad people we hate, so it was alright, and have her become slowly corrupted by these choices, and by the dark world where she lives, and make her tragically become the very oppressor that she hated the most, and also do the classic GoT deconstruction of tropes, in this case, the One True Ruler comes home from exile to rule with justice and fairness. Its such a trope, with Dany being the pretty princess with the cool pets and the silver hair, her becoming the most perfect queen ever, and her and Jon creating the perfect ice and fire dynasty, is almost too perfect. So of course that wouldn't work out. The problem is that its happened so fast, it all seems so random. Like "Uggg I hate those bells I have a headache I WILL KILL EVERYONE!!!"

And now she is apparently "mad" instead of just really ruthless like Tywin or past Targ kings and queens, who were seen as evil but not often as incompetent or mad, so...what is going on? Honestly, its so bizarre to me, because D and D could have basically had anything they wanted for this show. They could have had more season, they could have had a full ten episodes this season, its one of the most popular shows on television, they could have had times to do this better. Instead, they decided to do this short season to wrap up a billion stories and characters, so everything just seems rushed and half assed, even its main characters and how their journeys end. It honestly feels like a show that got unexpectedly cancelled or had a main cast member leave or die or be involved in a scandal and written out, and they had to wrap everything up super quickly, even if it didnt totally make sense, just to have it done by the time the show ends. When that happens, I can cut shows some slack. But with this, this was their CHOICE. They choose to rush everything, and its now coming off as super rushed, all because they took a story that should have had tons of time to develop, if this is really what was supposed to happen, and gave us the cliffnotes. I feel like we are missing several chapters of a book, or a whole season of TV. The way its been shown, this just makes no sense to have gone from the women who cried over the dragons killing one child and locked them up for it, to her happily slaughtering thousands of children and innocents. 

[Notwisconsin]

1 hour ago, Dobian said:

o after the disaster in episode 4, Dany learns nothing and once again flies her dragon head-on into the teeth of scorpion fire, only this time all 100 of them miss because Dany knows how to duck and weave?  Really?

She wasn't "driving" the dragon that was killed. Either time. Last night, she WAS.

[Constantinople]

If I'm not mistaken, Arya, Daenerys, Sansa and Tyrion are now the only characters who appeared in the pilot, in every season and who never died

[penelope79]

Had to watch the episode a second time because my mom didn’t have the chance to watch it yet. I hated even more.

In one thing D&D were really successful, I.e. in episode #3 I was afraid that: 

1) my favourite characters could die  

2) Seeing my fave characters die could’ve been the worst thing happening in GOT.

2 episodes later and now:

1) Killing physically off characters is not the worst thing that can happen (character assassination is definitively worst)

2) I don’t even care who dies, survives or sit on the Iron Throne. 

So... thank you, D&D. I officially no longer care about GOT. I never thought this day could come.

[MJ Frog]

2 hours ago, Bannon said:

Yes, but the point is that doing so was completely, obviously, unnecessary. There has not been any indication that Dany is different from any other absolute monarch in this regard; as long as the monarch's hold on power is not threatened by obtaining greater wealth,  the monarch would prefer being richer to being poorer. In this case, the sound argument is that sparing the civilians of KL gives her more allies against those who will be more naturally inclined to resist her rule, the northeners. So we are left again with the essential idiocy of Dany. Too freakin' stupid to understand that destroying the physical and human capital of KL makes her kingdom considerably less wealthy, without strengthening her hold on power, and possibly weakening it.

Note to writers: making Dany a halfwit was not a sound strategy for writing an interesting finish to this story.

It was never necessary, and yet she said it anyway. One would certainly think that capturing a capital city is always more profitable and practical than destroying it, and yet history is littered with examples of kings and conquerors who did exactly that. Probably to make a point, or show dominance, or for revenge, or just plain old blood lust. Not the most rational thing, but there it is.

Now, what Dany's motivation was here, I don't really know, but it also wasn't rational. Don't know if that makes her a halfwit, but it definitely makes her human.

Edited May 13, 2019 by MJ Frog
Word order is important.

[Andromeda]

16 hours ago, ulkis said:

On the up side, I could see the prospect of swooping in to "fix" the show inspiring GRRM to start writing again.

Maybe so, but unless the ending is completely rewritten, I'm not going to spend hours reading it. There are plenty of fantasy sagas out there that haven't dashed my expectations.

[Dobian]

9 hours ago, Scaeva said:

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.

This wasn't about getting a happy ending, this was about getting an ending that makes sense.  Let it be a terrible ending, but write it well and keep the characters in character and consistent with their story arcs.  Jamie's behavior at the end erased seven years of his story arc.  Tyrion went from being a genius the first six seasons to an idiot and then a snitch.  Varys passed on subtly steering Dany to defer to Jon to simply betraying her.  Arya skipped out on assassinating Cersei because of a single monologue from the Hound, turning the clock on her character development back to season one.  Dany goes nuts and Hiroshimas Kings Landing.  She had no beef with the people, her beef was with the Lannisters.  The rationalization that she had proven to be ruthless in the past is irrelevant.  She was always ruthless toward people who deserved it, almost all of them were complete assholes.  She never slaughtered innocents indiscriminately.  She was always a champion of the people.  You want that arc for her, fine, but you write that arc over a couple of seasons, you don't spring it at the last minute because she heard bells ringing and went loco.

This whole conclusion was just a poorly conceived and realized disaster by a writing team that didn't even want the full ten episodes from HBO so they could rush to the new Star Wars trilogy.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Dobian

[UNOSEZ]

4 hours ago, Uncle JUICE said:

Dignity is subjective, I'll give you that, but you're underselling Tarly's treason against his liege lord, Danerys's ally, Olenna. Without Tarly turning cloak on her, Highgarden has a better chance fighting off the Lannister army. He didn't choose to follow someone other than Danerys, he chose to betray the Tyrells (I believe he did so in order to become Lord of the Reach, too), and that's very simply treason, and that led at least in part to Dany's forces being hobbled, significantly. Gold and food and forces, all gone too easily because the Tarlys and their forces didn't keep their oath. 

Yeah getting Randyl Tarlys was a coup for the Cersei faction.. But he basically broke faith with lady Olenna because of Dany.. Because she was bringing the Dothraki and the Unsullied.. He was defending his homeland from invading savages

[Bannon]

9 minutes ago, MJ Frog said:

It was never necessary, and yet she said it anyway. One would certainly think that capturing a capital city is always more profitable and practical than destroying it, and yet history is littered with examples of kings and conquerors who did exactly that. Probably to make a point, or show dominance, or revenge, or just plain old blood lust. Not the most rational thing, but there it is.

Now, what Dany's motivation was here, I don't really know, but it also wasn't rational. Don't know if that makes her a halfwit, but it definitely makes her human.

Well,  Ghenghis Khan, for instance,  would spare cities which surrendered, and  it's not crazy to suppose that if he had a dragon which could surgically kill the opposing leader, leading to surrender by everyone else, it's a tactic he would have employed over and over. He like getting unwrecked stuff and live bodies to to do stuff. 

The really dumb Dany and the dragons stuff was letting enemies continually launch successful sneak attacks, despite only she having aerial observation abilities.

[Bryce Lynch]

13 minutes ago, Constantinople said:

If I'm not mistaken, Arya, Daenerys, Sansa and Tyrion are now the only characters who appeared in the pilot, in every season and who never died

I think that is correct.  Ghost almost made the list, but the goodest boy didn't appear in Season 7.    

[shireenbamfatheon]

Replying to comments several pages back now:

Dany is called a White Savior by some because her story in Essos is the most blatantly offensive orientalist adventure I can recall in modern pop culture. The story of the benevolent Westerner taming the brutal brown savages to teach them the ways of civilization because their culture is inferior in every way imaginable, and saving the infantilized masses who play no part in creating change because they fully rely on the Westerner to oversee it, is a classic orientalist trope, and one that has been, and still is, peddled to wage war in the real world. Just consider for a moment that Dany spent two seasons in Meereen and didn't think to create a Meereenese council until after she decided to ditch the city. Or that legit old brown people heralded this young white teenager as their mother. Or that the only two Meereenese that were allowed any voice for two and a half seasons were Mossador, who was executed early, and Hizdahr, who was mocked at every turn. The books bear a lot of responsibility for this as well, though at least according to some there's a case to be made that Dany's POV restricts us from seeing some of the less abhorrent aspects of Meereenese culture. No excuse can be made on the show. 

In the five seasons she spent in Essos, every single person except Mirri and Hizdahr was either a hapless, passive slave or a brutal, sniveling barbarian. And the show still treats Mirri as some evil cackling witch. Even where Missandei and Grey Worm are concerned, 99% of their hopes, dreams, motivations, priorities, and personalities have revolved around their loyalty to Daenerys. It wasn't until 8x02 that they were shown to have separate dreams from those of Daenerys. Having the super disciplined Grey Worm and the Unsullied deliberately partake in the slaughter of innocents given everything they've been through was just one big insult and destroyed any sympathy I had for them. Either they have free will and went "fuck these innocent people", or they've replaced Mhysa as their master and can't envision not following her orders regardless of how monstrous the command. I don't know which is better for the characters.

The closest the Starks came to a similar situation was Jon's time with the wildlings, a foreign people with different cultures than the established ones, and who were considered savages. Except the wildlings were multidimensional characters with sympathetic motives, their cultures weren't one-dimensionally evil, they were willing to accept change in the way they went against tradition to choose Mance as their king, and they were willing to change their ways and refrained from rape, pillage and murder once they joined the NK. And all this without Jon ever civilizing them or being worshipped by them. Even after he died for letting them through the Wall, they still weren't on board with going to war with him against Ramsay until Tormund and Wun Wun convinced them. 

The Starks have never been White Saviors on this show, unless someone takes that to mean saviors who happen to be white. 

[Popples]

50 minutes ago, Law Mom said:

Someone on twitter called this a No Bell Peace Prize. Outstanding. By the way, how many times did Tyrion say out loud "When you hear the bell, it means stop fighting?" Like 85 times? Did anyone NOT figure out that wasn't happening?

Don't forget: Bell=Stop Fighting. Got it? Everyone on board? Dany, what's the bell mean?

Remember how many time they said the crypts at Winterfell was the safest place to be and we saw how that worked out.

[UNOSEZ]

3 hours ago, Uncle JUICE said:

This is patently not true though: the Targaryens ruled for 300 years with equal measures of peace and war, through summers and winters alike. There were certainly bad rulers, Maegor, Aegon V, several others, but many good rulers in there too. They all had dragons. Some were loved, some were hated, but they didn't all rule strictly by fear. 

Which means Dany came out the womb 50% likely to do exactly what she did.. And then her shitty life happened on top of her genetics.. I mean if were all good with her genes allowing her to be unburnt and to ride a dragon... We gotta be ok with her genes making her a good candidate for some world shaking fuckery 

[enoughcats]

2 hours ago, Bannon said:

Too freakin' stupid to understand that destroying the physical and human capital of KL makes her kingdom considerably less wealthy, without strengthening her hold on power, and possibly weakening it.

Take numbers from the Worst of the Black Deaths and extrapolate a society where only the more rested farm lands are better off. Forests will grow.  Land competition will drop. The genome will change.  

[bmoore4026]

I just thought of something.  If the Red Keep collapsed, does that mean the Dorne queen and the Grey Nun are dead too?

[screamin]

1 hour ago, Growsonwalls said:

Another thing is the mothering of the dragons. In the past we saw Dany was a strict mother of the dragons. She did not let her dragons run wild. It was out of character for the DRAGONS to kill everyone in sight when they've been taught by their mother to respect life.

Dany put two of the three dragons in a dungeon when they had apparently killed a child in Mereen. One of them (Drogon, I think?) was never put in a dungeon. And after the dragons were liberated and Dany used them to defeat the Sons of the Harpy, their possible danger to the civilian population when on their own was never again referred to. IIRC, all Dany said on the subject later was that dragons needed to fly free to grow big and strong and healthy, and that the mistake of the Targaryens of old had been to restrain them. We were never explicitly shown they were trained NOT to eat people unless she was ordering them to. So saying the dragons would refuse to slaughter civilians against Dany's wishes because of some innate dragon morality isn't plausible.

Edited May 13, 2019 by screamin

[ShellsandCheese]

2 minutes ago, UNOSEZ said:

Which means Dany came out the womb 50% likely to do exactly what she did.. And then her shitty life happened on top of her genetics.. I mean if were all good with her genes allowing her to be unburnt and to ride a dragon... We gotta be ok with her genes making her a good candidate for some world shaking fuckery 

This isn't true either. The number of non-mad Targaryen's vastly outnumber the number of mad ones. The whole flip a coin thing, is not meant to be taken literally. 

[sistermagpie]

56 minutes ago, Bryce Lynch said:

Nearly all writing is intentional, though sometimes a writers forgets to think of something that makes it not make sense.  Intentional and absurdly bad are by no means mutually exclusive. 

It was absurdly bad writing to turn the woman who was heartbroken when one of her dragons might have accidentally killed an innocent child, and chained and locked the other two that were with her in a dungeon, into a monster who would hunt down innocent women and children to roast alive.  

Daenerys was never perfect, but she was a defender and avenger of innocent women and children, not a butcher of them.  

Oh I understand that but the post I was responding to made it seem like a mistake of logic instead of intent.

I don't think Dany s reaction to the dead kid conflicts with her here. She didn't consider these people were very innocent and those that were died for the greater good. In her eyes.

Edited May 13, 2019 by sistermagpie

[MJ Frog]

3 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Well,  Ghenghis Khan, for instance,  would spare cities which surrendered, and  it's not crazy to suppose that if he had a dragon which could surgically kill the opposing leader, leading to surrender by everyone else, it's a tactic he would have employed over and over. He like getting unwrecked stuff and live bodies to to do stuff. 

Oh, absolutely. I am not asserting that there weren't plenty of canny conquerors who realized that NOT destroying an enemy city was generally easier and less costly (and helped to convince subsequent people into surrendering). And I fully agree that Genghis Khan would have used his dragon like a smart bomb. But he was a lot better at this than most people, Dany included. And there were plenty throughout history who would have used a dragon just the way she did if they could have.

[UNOSEZ]

3 hours ago, Bryce Lynch said:

I could get her burning Jon, Tyrion, Varys, Sansa etc.  I could also see her saying, "f it" I'm taking KL today, if innocent commoners die, they die."

But, I cannot see her hunting down tens of thousands of innocent women and children, after the battle had already been won, while nearly allowing Cersei, Qyburn, The Mountain and Jaime to escape.  

Innocent men too... Dunno why but after reading " women and children" all day I gotta say some probably stand up guys also got broiled when Dany decided on Fear

[Bryce Lynch]

7 minutes ago, shireenbamfatheon said:

Replying to comments several pages back now:

Dany is called a White Savior by some because her story in Essos is the most blatantly offensive orientalist adventure I can recall in modern pop culture. The story of the benevolent Westerner taming the brutal brown savages to teach them the ways of civilization because their culture is inferior in every way imaginable, and saving the infantilized masses who play no part in creating change because they fully rely on the Westerner to oversee it, is a classic orientalist trope, and one that has been, and still is, peddled to wage war in the real world. Just consider for a moment that Dany spent two seasons in Meereen and didn't think to create a Meereenese council until after she decided to ditch the city. Or that legit old brown people heralded this young white teenager as their mother. Or that the only two Meereenese that were allowed any voice for two and a half seasons were Mossador, who was executed early, and Hizdahr, who was mocked at every turn. The books bear a lot of responsibility for this as well, though at least according to some there's a case to be made that Dany's POV restricts us from seeing some of the less abhorrent aspects of Meereenese culture. No excuse can be made on the show. 

In the five seasons she spent in Essos, every single person except Mirri and Hizdahr was either a hapless, passive slave or a brutal, sniveling barbarian. And the show still treats Mirri as some evil cackling witch. Even where Missandei and Grey Worm are concerned, 99% of their hopes, dreams, motivations, priorities, and personalities have revolved around their loyalty to Daenerys. It wasn't until 8x02 that they were shown to have separate dreams from those of Daenerys. Having the super disciplined Grey Worm and the Unsullied deliberately partake in the slaughter of innocents given everything they've been through was just one big insult and destroyed any sympathy I had for them. Either they have free will and went "fuck these innocent people", or they've replaced Mhysa as their master and can't envision not following her orders regardless of how monstrous the command. I don't know which is better for the characters.

The closest the Starks came to a similar situation was Jon's time with the wildlings, a foreign people with different cultures than the established ones, and who were considered savages. Except the wildlings were multidimensional characters with sympathetic motives, their cultures weren't one-dimensionally evil, they were willing to accept change in the way they went against tradition to choose Mance as their king, and they were willing to change their ways and refrained from rape, pillage and murder once they joined the NK. And all this without Jon ever civilizing them or being worshipped by them. Even after he died for letting them through the Wall, they still weren't on board with going to war with him against Ramsay until Tormund and Wun Wun convinced them. 

The Starks have never been White Saviors on this show, unless someone takes that to mean saviors who happen to be white. 

I'm not sure you could say the people of Essos played no part in liberating Slaver's Bay.  Dany led and inspired them, but the Unsullied voluntarily followed her after she acquired and freed them and the slaves of Meereen freed themselves with a little inspiration and help from her and the Unsullied.   

As for the Unsullied at KL, I think there is a 3rd option.  They were free soldiers obeying their Queen, and following the lead of their commander, Grey Worm, as soldiers do.   

[Bryce Lynch]

3 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Oh I understand that but the post I was responding to made it seem like a mistake of logic instead of intent.

I don't think Dany s reaction to the dead kid conflicts with her here. She didn't consider these people were very innocent and those that were died for the greater good. In her eyes.

I just don't buy that Daenerys would think that way.  She had strong sense of justice (too strong perhaps at times) and protected the innocent.  I don't see how she could see a bunch of women and children as her enemies or think that slaughtering them served the greater good.

I could understand if she convinced herself that if she needed to kill hundreds of thousands to take KL, it would be for the greater good, as her reign would save many more lives.   But, once the battle was won, I can't see the Daenrys we've known intentionally slaughtering innocents.