S08.E05: The Bells

[LadyPenelope]

I hate to be this asshole, but I loved Jaime and Cersei’s deaths. They really are the show’s fucked up OTP and I love that/them.

I also loved that this episode was filmed like the Lannisters were the heroes, with the camera cutting from Tyrion’s horror to Jaime desperately trying to make it to Cersei’s side to Cersei watching the city burn as she cried. I was anti-mad Dany but fuck it - I’m 100% here for the tragic tale of the Lannister kids. I hope Jaime is drinking wine with two hands in one of the seven heavens, laughing at the idea he needed redeeming for spending his entire life unflinchingly loyal to the woman he loved. 

In conclusion, S8 is GoT fan fiction as written by Jaime Lannister and I am all in. 

[Raachel2008]

46 minutes ago, GiuliettaMasina said:

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.

But I never said Dany didn't deserve any credit. I said, and I quote that "everytime people say Dany and Jon did nothing in the BoW, I want to scream. Arya was almost killed several times, now imagine if all those walkers/whights the dragons killed weren't around. They all would have been dead". That's in my first reply to you. 

[AuntieMame]

1 hour 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:

Changes in the zeitgeist? Like the fact that we are back to unadulterated sexism after a short period of thinly disguised sexism? The writing on this show exemplifies the confusion. The women are written as a mystery unless they're tomboys who like (stereo)typically male things. Then they're written as proto/faux males. 

The one thing I did love last night was Sandor and Arya and Sandor pulling Arya into a moment of clarity. That and Tyrion and Jaime's farewell scene was earned and poignant. But both of these were well set-up in Martin's writing. The Hound really did protect and care for Arya, not to mention trained her for the world she was in, when Arya was still too young to protect herself. He was also good to Sansa even if conflicted. And while Sandor might not get showily heroic about it, I think he would have disgust and cynicism at the slaughter of innocents which replaces the resignation of previous seasons. 

Edited May 13, 2019 by AuntieMame

[Andromeda]

9 hours ago, lucindabelle said:

If they’re women you mean.

this is a very male idea of women not being able to handle their emotions. Hysteria, as someone on twitter pointed out.

D&D come off like ill-informed frat boys, who have no concept of the history of mental illness applied to women. There used to be a "women-only" illness called hysteria (which is a word based on the Greek word for uterus), that men used for anything under the sun they could pin on women. Men used it to have their wives locked away. Now we have Dany going whackadoo AND Cersie turning into a blubbery mess, neither of which is in character.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Andromeda
Typo. Greeks are not Green.

[Dobian]

54 minutes ago, Notwisconsin said:

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

Okay, she drove her dragon into the teeth of a hundred scorpions and was able to steer him through dozens of crossbolts coming at him at once from all different angles by tugging at the spines on the back of his neck at the precise moment. Whatever.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Dobian

[GiuliettaMasina]

12 minutes ago, Raachel2008 said:

But I never said Dany didn't deserve any credit. I said, and I quote that "everytime people say Dany and Jon did nothing in the BoW, I want to scream. Arya was almost killed several times, now imagine if all those walkers/whights the dragons killed weren't around. They all would have been dead". That's in my first reply to you. 

Yep, I know; I'm agreeing with you there. My original post was responding to the idea that Dany only fought the white walkers because she HAD to. Based on what we saw--no, she did not have to fight the Army of the Dead. Both the NK and our heroes were using the battle between the armies as distraction from the real battle: that between Bran and the Night King. I still see no reason why Dany's armies in particular needed to be there; the entire episode could have played entirely the same with just the Northern armies if only Arya figured out her purpose earlier. 

Edit: And if they had thought a little harder, they mightn't have needed any army at all. 

Edited May 13, 2019 by GiuliettaMasina

[arty]

1 hour ago, Bryce Lynch said:

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

Didn't Plato write about tyrants that when they first appear they are protectors? One is not mutually exclusive of the other in literature, IMO. (For the record I don't think that Dany was a tyrant in waiting all this time, at least in her mind.)

[enoughcats]

1 hour ago, aemom said:

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.

Raising hand tentatively:

Cersei, alone, is trying to find her way underground.  A partial building collapse drops her to the subcellar where prisoners are walled in.  Cersei smells a horrible smell and sees a grinning barely alive Ellaria Sand.  

[Chris24601]

34 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

But her brother was an abusive asshole.

But, but, but. Excuses, excuses excuses. The asshole victim trope doesn’t change that Dany’s always favored extreme violence in dealing with anyone she feels has wronged her and has from the beginning.

”She’s always been a monster. You loved her anyway.”

So, how about Mirri Maz Dur, a slave that Dany burned alive because the slave had killed the leader of the band of murderers and rapists who burned her village, killed her family and friends and gang raped her?

Mirri’s village was slaughtered by Khal Drogo to get a ships to take his horde to Westeros to conquer it for Dany. One of his victims fought back and Dany burned her alive for it because, from Dany’s perspective, Mirri Maz Dur had wronged her.

Go ahead. Tell me why she deserved to die if Dany was truly the Breaker of Chains and truly cared for those oppressed instead of as means to an end? She may remove the physical chains, but the yolk of fear and terror has always been her hallmark.

Dany’s claims of doing it for the common folk have always been lip service to justify her desire for the Throne. She’s long since forgotten Jorah’s words to her...

“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. They never are.”

That’s left in PEACE, Dany. Not left in PIECES.

If she’d had the slightest care for the common folk she’d have stayed in Mereen and built a better world there. Instead it was just a stepping stone left in the care of a man who didn’t care a wit about it. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Daario’s restarted the slave trade in her absence.

Now that the facade can’t help her she methodically razes the city targeting every side street to maximize the carnage. In her mind this is for the greater good... so that future generations will know the “prosperity” of living under her every whim; to terrified of her wrath to do more than scrape the ground and obey.

Next will come the purges. They always do in a reign of terror. All who were insufficient in supporting the “glorious revolution” must be removed; only they won’t be marched to the gullotine, but before the dragon to burn alive. To remind everyone of the penalty for failing to worship the Queen.

Tyrion for releasing his brother. Jon for refusing to slaughter innocents and being a threat to her rule. Sansa for not wanting to live as one of her glorious subjects.

The more I think on it... Dany’s story is exactly that of Anakin Skywalker. She started as a slave, then gained a power (dragons/the Force) that let her choose her course and at first seemed to use it for good ends, but there was always the undercurrent of darkness (the slaughter of the sand people as revenge for his mother). Last night was her decision to give in to the darkness to get what she most wanted... this was her slaughter of the Younglings moment. The moral event horizon she’d stood on the precipice of for years, but from which there is now no escape.

[staphdude]

People have been speaking about tropes in fantasy...It seems to me that the unlikely misfit (usually a man/boy) with no claim to any special powers that turns out to be essential to the safety of the realm is classic and applies here nicely. Dany was just a distraction. Jon was meant to rule. 

[Couver]

5 hours ago, RealReality said:

I have a problem with the tarly death because there is a difference in how you kill good guys vs. how you kill bad guys.

If you must kill a good guy you can do so in a dignified way.  You need not burn them alive.  I wouldn't call Randal tarly good because he treated Sam shitty, but he made an honorable choice.

Dickons choice wasn't logical, but it was honorable.  His father's choice was honorable too, even though it wasn't a choice Dany liked.

There was no need to kill them in gruesome way.  

The show didn't present the Tarlys as honorable though. I suppose some wiggle room is there for viewers interpret them in our own way.

But they betrayed Olenna who they had sworn oaths to. Randall did it purely to get Highgarden in the bargain. His betrayal lead to a lot of dead Tyrells.

And both were given a choice between life and death.

Again I suppose the method of execution is the issue here. To me the dragon fire is no different than Ned or Robb behading people who disobeyed them. It's certainly not the level of torture Cersei inflicted on people like Ellaria and Septa Unella. That is prolonged suffering. Dragon fire seems to have it over and done with in seconds.

[Umbelina]

10 hours ago, ACW said:

Also: WTF weren't there some scorpions mounted on the Red Keep?

Drogon took those out first. 

10 hours ago, kieyra said:

Does anyone have any thoughts on why we spent so much of the episode watching Arya stumble around KL, fall, get up, fall, get up, fall, connect with some randos and watch them die, fall, get up, fall, get up, etc? 

I mean, I have a few theories but none of them feel quite right:

--Showrunners wanted us to a have a ground-level view of the destruction and carnage. Okay, sure. But we didn't need Arya there for them to show it to us. The carnage would still be there, and in fact might have been more affecting without us wondering "why the hell is Arya stumbling around in the middle of it?"

--Showrunners wanted us to see Arya realize that War is Hell. But Arya just fought in a gigantic battle for all life on the planet against hordes of screaming zombies and then knifed their leader. She's already seen plenty of death. She already knows that War is Hell. 

--Showrunners wanted us to think that Arya (after witnessing the carnage) is now going to be the one to kill Dany, their new Big Bad. Nope, no way do they give both the NK and Dany's deaths to Arya. 

?? I'm open to other ideas. 

Mostly salty because it made what was already a mess of an episode even more badly paced. 

The showrunners actual answer this in the Inside the Episode.  They wanted someone we knew in jeopardy, not just randoms.

The rest is book stuff, so I'll leave it out here.  Feel free to PM me if you want.  (It doens't spoil the show)

10 hours ago, Kanner said:

I haven't read the whole thread so if someone brought this up already, sorry.  Why do you think Dany told Tyrion that Jaime was captured?  Do you think she was testing him? If she was, he definitely failed. It just seemed like weird timing.  But every character seems to tell people information at the oddest times.

So Lena could get another emmy scene.

Period.

9 hours ago, One Tough Cookie said:

I gotta be honest.  This episode reminded me too much of 9/11 and  I''m still not over that.

I think it was supposed to remind us of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or of Dresden in WWII.

Also, I'm so sorry.

[caracas1914]

19 hours ago, RedHawk said:

I also hoped for them to die in each other’s arms. What I wanted to see was Jaime holding on as he pushed her/them out of the tower. A fitting echo of pushing Bran out of the window as well as Tommen’s suicide. 

“Cersei it’s time for us to die now.  It’s over.”

”You useless idiot, we still have other ways to defeat that Dragon bitch.  Let go of me!”

Cercei cursing Jaime as they plunge to their death.

[millennium]

I just can't get worked up about the fiery deaths of fictional villagers we never met in the series -- unless of course we consider some of these were the same assholes slinging shit at Cersei as she walked naked from the Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep.  Which still doesn't make me feel sorry for them.

Instead I feel sorry for us, the audience, because the full-blown emergence of Dany Dark Side will reverberate through past episodes all the way back to Season 1.   Every scene will be redefined by the new context.   All the vicarious exhilaration and inspiration we felt as the music swelled and the slaves gathered round her calling "Misa, Misa," or the awe as she strolled unharmed out of the Dothraki inferno will evaporate because now, rather than a liberator/saviour/heroine, we will be watching the rise of a murderous tyrant and war criminal. (I saw an article today musing about the reactions of the 3500 or so parents who have named their daughters "Danaerys" and "Khaleesi" over the years GoT has been on the air).

But Ramsay warned us: "If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."

Edited May 13, 2019 by millennium

[Absurda]

Quote

Which makes the creative decision of Dany from all people legitimizing the guy who has some sort of claim even more stupid. D&D really didn't give a fuck, did they? If they did, they could have written a scene where Jon asks Dany to legimitize Gendry, something like "he fought with us, he is one of us the good guys, being a bastard is the worst thing etc", she does it to test Jon while getting even more paranoid. 

Or not do it at all. Her entire plot was about "I'm the rightfully heir, everybody else isn't", legitimizing Gendry was just dumb.

Yeah, except Gendry is not legitimate if Dany is not queen.  It is Dany's position as queen that makes it possible for her to do this. 

Quote

I don't think people are ignoring the hints that they've dropped about Dany over the years.  The dots are there if you WANT to connect them, or if you are a WRITER who wants to bring about a certain conclusion.  But bottom line is, I just don't buy it.  The show failed to sell it to me.  Dany was a force for good for the vast majority of the show, and the main reason she turned villain at the end is because the writers wanted her to.  That's what it feels like.  Not because it's the natural progression for the character. 

I totally agree with this.  We've seen Dany be ruthless and violent, but it's always been specific and targeted.  It's never been whole sale destruction of huge numbers of innocent people.  Folks are pointing to her burning of the Tarly's as a sign of her madness.  She burned them because they did not surrender or bend the knee.  She did NOT burn all the soldiers who did.  The Tarly's didn't just choose a second, legitimate option.  They chose to be her enemies, refused to surrender and died as a result.  Perfectly legit.  We've never seen Dany unleash on people who did surrender.  That's why this feels completely unearned.

To me, this just felt like something they were doing to prop up Jon as The Last Righteous Man who must be the self-sacrificing hero who takes on the mantle of unwanted kingdom.  And so, when he does that, and when he (or Arya) kills Dany it will be seen as Right, and Good and Just rather than a betrayal of her, 'cause Starks don't betray people.  This is where all the signposts are pointing.  If they really want to upend tropes or go for the surprise twist, they'd have Dany ruling and no one taking the throne from her.

Quote

Something else the show hasn't established is that everyone loves Jon.

Some Northerners and Wildlings may love Jon, but that doesn't mean the rest of the Seven Kingdoms would support him.

Despite his alleged parentage -- and more than a few would be skeptical of if it given the nature of  that evidence and who provided it -- he'd still be seen as a Northerner.  I don't think most Southerns want a Northerner as King, particularly one who hangs out with Wildlings (it's kind of too bad that Randyll Tarly is dead, because I'd like to see him struggle with choosing between Dany the foreigner and Jon the Wildling Lover Who Abandoned the Night's Watch). I'm sure Dorne won't cotton to the living embodiment of Rhaegar Targaryen's disrespect for Princess Elia Martell of Dorne

I've been wondering this mysefl!  It would be truly ironic if the people of Westeros, hearing that Jon Snow was the true heir were all "Jon Who?, eh, yeah, no thanks, we'll take the lady with the dragons."

[magdalene]

I still can't believe Jaime chose a woman who put a hit out on him over a woman who genuinely loved him.  What a dumb ass - and worse,  an inconsistent dumb ass.

I should have never watched a TV adaptation of an incomplete book series finished by hacks. You are bound to get such unpleasant surprises. 

[ulkis]

3 hours ago, sumiregusa said:

This one got me in the giggle dick. Kinda says what I've been saying.

The person in this video asks if Roose Bolton would be considered crazy. I wanna say yeah?

Their bewilderment about 5 minutes in cracks me up though.

[Clanstarling]

5 hours ago, sumiregusa said:

Perfectly willing and acting on that will are two different things. By that same stretch, every single person on this show is a piece of shit due to their natural impulses. It's a slippery slope to roast one person for that and not any of the others.

Well, when it's the one person who roasts thousands of innocents, maybe not so slippery.

Besides, people have been torching Sansa for basically not smiling, being an idiot when she was a child, and having the audacity to dislike and distrust Dany.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Clanstarling

[BitterApple]

I think the episode should've been titled: "How To Destroy All Your Main Characters In 90 Minutes Or Less."

Dany's descent into madness was too rushed to be believable. She went from risking her life to fight at Winterfell to slaughtering innocents in a matter of what, two weeks? 

Jon: completely useless. 

Arya: ran around the city doing nothing because the showrunners wanted a POV character. 

Varys: the smartest, most cunning man in Westeros never even attempted to get out of Dodge once it was obvious Tyrion wouldn't back Jon for the Throne

Cersei: the smartest, most cunning woman in Westeros didn't have an escape plan ready when it was clear the battle was going to shit

Jaime: seven seasons of slowly built character development flushed down the drain. Sorry Brienne, you never stood a chance.

Greyworm: turns out he was just a heartless, foreign savage afterall. It's nice the writers didn't go for the obvious stereotype....

The Hound: dies to kill his brother...who likely would've died anyways considering the Red Keep was collapsing all around them.

Tyrion: racking up L's like the New York Knicks. 

[ulkis]

I mean, I can believe it, but if they were going to do that, they should have had Jaime and Brienne get together in season 4 and then had Jaime run back to Cersei and killed him off then. Did he move any of the plot in the seasons since?

[Bannon]

1 hour ago, enoughcats said:

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.  

If KL's popularion exceeds 1 million, that means Westeros in normal times produces significant  food surpluses, because large cities can't exist without them. People dont move from rural to urban living in large numbers until they have a way to generate wealth in the city which exceeds their ability to do so in rural life. Paris didn't hit 1 million people until 1835.

The reason why KL has 1 million people is because they have figured out a way to generate wealth. They have more value alive.

[Otherkate]

3 hours ago, kittykat said:

I'm pretty sure once Jon killed the would be rapist his face read "I'm gonna have to take this shit job after all aren't I?"

😂😂😂

[kieyra]

5 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

Well, when it's the one person who roasts thousands of innocents, maybe not so slippery.

Besides, people have been torching Sansa for basically not smiling, being an idiot when she was a child, and having the audacity to dislike and distrust Dany.

You forgot that she also disagreed with Jon in public.

[Advance35]

Quote

But, but, but. Excuses, excuses excuses. The asshole victim trope doesn’t change that Dany’s always favored extreme violence in dealing with anyone she feels has wronged her and has from the beginning.

”She’s always been a monster. You loved her anyway.”

So, how about Mirri Maz Dur, a slave that Dany burned alive because the slave had killed the leader of the band of murderers and rapists who burned her village, killed her family and friends and gang raped her?

Mirri’s village was slaughtered by Khal Drogo to get a ships to take his horde to Westeros to conquer it for Dany. One of his victims fought back and Dany burned her alive for it because, from Dany’s perspective, Mirri Maz Dur had wronged her.

Go ahead. Tell me why she deserved to die if Dany was truly the Breaker of Chains and truly cared for those oppressed instead of as means to an end? She may remove the physical chains, but the yolk of fear and terror has always been her hallmark.

If only I could like a post more than once.

She was always a monster.  It's just that a majority of the people she destroyed were Monsters too.  Now she is directing her wrath on people who are innocent with the same veracity.  

Her sense of superiority and inhumane entitlement is why she is able to slaughter people in mass with no remorse.   All who don't worship the ground the monster walks on, deserve whatever she gives them, in her eyes.  Varys saw this, Sansa saw this.  Tyrion and Jon are now seeing this.

She's a rabid animal and hopefully someone does something.

[markx]

I loved it. I liked it making the point that war is hell - even when the invaders think they are liberating. I didn't see this as any kind of plot twist or that she was meant to have turned mad. I was more annoyed when people thought that she was wonderful. Her fight against slavery is a very good part of her character, but take it away, and I'd argue we'd have had far less reason to have viewed her on the good side. Game of Thrones has most characters being shades of grey.

It wasn't just Daenerys - Grey Worm attacked those who surrendered, and northerners were committing rape against women.

I wonder if the reaction would have differed if we hadn't have seen the effect on the ground - just the dragon destroying buildings from above. I think there's a parallel with the way that western countries justify "collateral damage" - I can imagine Daenerys justifying it similarly: not someone who has gone mad, but believing it's a necessary action to kill enemy forces.

We've seen Dany be ruthless and violent, but it's always been specific and targeted.  It's never been whole sale destruction of huge numbers of innocent people.  Folks are pointing to her burning of the Tarly's as a sign of her madness.  She burned them because they did not surrender or bend the knee. She did NOT burn all the soldiers who did.

"But she didn't burn all of them to death!" doesn't seem a ringing endorsement!

They had surrended. They were burned to death for not bending the knee.

Dany's descent into madness was too rushed to be believable. She went from risking her life to fight at Winterfell to slaughtering innocents in a matter of what, two weeks?

These are not mutually exclusive - she was risking her life in this episode too. In her mind, both were battles to be won (and she's long made it clear that she cared more about the Iron Throne than the Night King).
 

[ToniG]

Nothing to see here.

Edited May 13, 2019 by ToniG
Mistake.

[steelyis]

6 hours ago, Macbeth said:

Robert Baratheon's army raped and murdered citizens of King's Landing after the gates were opened and it was his last act before he won the throne.

Dany burned them to the ground. 

There are no surgical strikes.  Civilians are the victims whenever there is war.  There is no safe place to hide.  And any survivors, like Arya, are thinking of revenge.

When armies are used - people are not being liberated but are being conquered.

I liked this episode as it was a reflection of modern warfare.  I thought of bombs not dragon fire.  All of those ashes.  Like ashes from a nuclear bomb.  Like ashes from 9/11.  Like ashes from the wars in Iraq and Syria.

But that's just it: It was as close to a flawless victory as anyone could have hoped for! In mere minutes Dany had Drogon take out the entire Iron Fleet, the scorpions on the walls and the gate with zero (onscreen) civilian casualties. If Dany had stopped attacking after the bells rung, for generations people would sing songs about her taking King's Landing so easily that it must have been divine providence.

But she didn't stop, and now she's going to be remembered as just another kill-crazy Targaryen.

2 hours ago, Macbeth said:

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

I don't see how.

And it's not likely Cersei could've left the Red Keep to personally deliver the surrender to Dany. No surrendering Queen or King should have to do something that dangerous. Ringing the bells make a hell of a lot more sense, IMO.

Edited May 13, 2019 by steelyis

[kieyra]

Randomly ...

Does anyone remember how Tamzin Merchant was originally cast as Dany? The forum rumor at the time was that they chucked her because of book-fan outrage that she wasn’t attractive enough. 

I wonder if another, less perfectly beautiful/elfin and tiny actress might have fared better with convincing us of a “Mad Queen” arc. Yes, superficial, but ... hard not to play the what-if game today. 

[paigow]

 Burning the Tarlys was simple math...How can you easily recruit a thousand experienced soldiers? BBQ their General and his idiot son in front of them...

[sumiregusa]

31 minutes ago, Clanstarling said:

Well, when it's the one person who roasts thousands of innocents, maybe not so slippery.

Besides, people have been torching Sansa for basically not smiling, being an idiot when she was a child, and having the audacity to dislike and distrust Dany.

You missed the context of what I was actually responding to but...cool. 

I love how Sansa has to be mentioned any time Dany is even when no one is talking about her.

Edited May 13, 2019 by sumiregusa
Spellerizing is hard

[heisenberg]

20 hours ago, HeySandyStrange said:

God I hope not, but I suspect it to. Sorry, Jaime does not deserve to gave his legacy live on through the Brienne. Her awesomeness, if it mixes with anyone, deserves something better then a weak man like Jaime, who choose his terrible sister over a great person like Brienne. Fuck, even Tormund would be a better baby daddy.

Tyrion and Sansa would to be better

Edited May 13, 2019 by heisenberg

[Hana Chan]

10 minutes ago, steelyis said:

But she didn't stop, and now she's going to be remembered as just another kill-crazy Targaryen.

That's exact the reason why she will never be able to rule Westeros except as the worst, most repressive tyrant. Because there was zero reason for her to have launched that second attack. The city had surrendered, the Golden Company was obliterated and the Lannister troops had laid down their arms. It would have been a breeze to march on the Red Keep and capture/kill Cersei. 

And it's one thing to kill soldiers after they surrender. That's a war crime and a violation of all military norms, but it can be excused (to a degree) as an excess of war and being expedient at removing an enemy force. But killing civilians.... Accidentally that would have been a horror, but Dany deliberately targeted civilians. There is no way to excuse or justify that. I'm sure that if we dig hard enough, we'll find that one man she burned alive beat his wife, and other may have cheated on his taxes. But mothers and children were running in terror. Even though I have some sympathy for the hardships that Dany had endured in life, there is no way to handwave this away.

Congratulations Dany... you managed to do what your father couldn't. You blew up King's Landing. All Hail Daenerys  Targaryen, First of her Name. Mother of Dragons. Enslaver of Westeros and Queen of Ashes.

[Umbelina]

Dany is not the only ruler who has burned and killed thousands of innocents in order to win a war by fear.

That kind of thing doesn't just happen in Westeros.

I don't think she was "mad" as in "insane."  I think she was mad as in "furious."  Even then though?  This was the fastest and surest way for her to ensure no more resistance from the rest of Westeros.  Who would want to risk that? 

She had the biggest weapons, she used them.  As have many, many people.  She is also not the only one to do such a thing as warning to others after surrender was in the bag.

Edited May 13, 2019 by Umbelina

[whyamiwatchingthis]

 

 

1

21 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

I was so disappointed by Jaime’s conclusion.  His redemption added up to nothing in the end.  

Cersei deserved a worse death.  At minimum, she should have died alone with Jaime not reaching her in time. 

Amen. Cersei's death was particularly difficult for me to swallow given that Varys got a personal incineration appointment and children were turned to blackened chicken in the streets while she spent her final moments chilling out in the basement with her brother. I half expected someone to pop in and offer her some Dornish wine to pass the time. I never expected her to reckon with the monster she was, but at least an equal-opportunity death would have synched with the devastation that surrounded her.

I can't even talk about Jaime's relapse.

Overall, there's a fine line between subverting expectations and insulting the viewers' intelligence, and D & D didn't know how to walk it, imo.

[Hana Chan]

Just now, Umbelina said:

She had the biggest weapons, she used them.  As have many, many people.

It's one thing for her to use them in active battle. I have no issue with her using Drogon to wipe out the Iron Fleet and raize the battlements. 

Using Drogon to burn her way through the city, targeting not only soldiers that have already surrendered, but civilians... I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way to justify that.

[JennyMominFL]

46 minutes ago, magdalene said:

I still can't believe Jaime chose a woman who put a hit out on him over a woman who genuinely loved him.  What a dumb ass - and worse,  an inconsistent dumb ass.

I should have never watched a TV adaptation of an incomplete book series finished by hacks. You are bound to get such unpleasant surprises. 

You cant choose who you love. I dont think he made a choice. I think it just was. I actually think he really wished he didnt.

[GiuliettaMasina]

11 minutes ago, kieyra said:

Randomly ...

Does anyone remember how Tamzin Merchant was originally cast as Dany? The forum rumor at the time was that they chucked her because of book-fan outrage that she wasn’t attractive enough. 

I wonder if another, less perfectly beautiful/elfin and tiny actress might have fared better with convincing us of a “Mad Queen” arc. Yes, superficial, but ... hard not to play the what-if game today. 

Interesting. The entire Essos crew (Greyworm, Missandei, Qhono included) is impossibly attractive. I'm shallow, so I can't guarantee that this didn't play a part in my love for them. 

[Umbelina]

5 minutes ago, Hana Chan said:

It's one thing for her to use them in active battle. I have no issue with her using Drogon to wipe out the Iron Fleet and raize the battlements. 

Using Drogon to burn her way through the city, targeting not only soldiers that have already surrendered, but civilians... I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way to justify that.

There are real world comparisons to others doing exactly that though.

[Hana Chan]

Just now, Umbelina said:

There are real world comparisons to others doing exactly that though.

And they usually end up (today at least) brought up at the Hague as war crimes.

[Kate47]

54 minutes ago, Absurda said:

 If they really want to upend tropes or go for the surprise twist, they'd have Dany ruling and no one taking the throne from her.

I really really wish we had had a longer season, or a more intricate plot, because I would have loved for this to be a midseason episode, with the back half of the season focusing on how Dany rules.

As it is, we have one episode left to decide if she really is insane or will be a cruel tyrant, or if her scorched earth policy can be understood as a battle tactic. I really wanted Jon to have a few episodes to witness how she is as Queen, struggle with it a bit, and then decide that she has to be taken out.

I'm all for murky motiviations, but I feel like these last two episodes are going to feel like unearned insanity/cold brutality when they could have really looked at what drove Dany over the edge and how she rules now that she has her ashes.

[Clanstarling]

5 hours ago, sarthaz said:

The audience would want Robb and Talisa with three kids in a San Francisco sitcom.

I don't think it's a failure of writing to have the audience root for redemption in every character and not get it. That's the show. "Y'know that schmaltzy, unrealistic crap you've been conditioned to expect. Yeah, we're not going to do that."

I guess it's a failure of writing if most of the people hate it, but wanting it means nothing. I want someone to create a world and tell a story, preferably in a way that stirs some emotional response and challenges me. I don't know what I want until it's been given to me.

That's my attitude as well.

5 hours ago, Constantinople said:

I find most people want a well written story that makes sense, even if it means something bad happens to a fan favorite, whether that be a character people genuinely like, love to hate or just love to see operate.

What happened to Ned, Robb, Talisa, Joffrey, and Tywin made sense

PMS Dany not so much.

As with so many things, mileage varies on what makes sense and is or is not well written.

3 hours ago, Constantinople said:

We don't know their names, but they're just as real as you and I - Varys
A sentiment somewhat undercut by focusing so much on Arya as the everywoman struggling to survive the destruction of King's Landing.
Her scenes after she departed Sandor went on far too long, and just how many times did she survive under a pile of rubble?

The mother and daughter stood in for that sentiment, I think. From the closing gates, to their flight until their terrible deaths.

1 hour ago, arty said:

Didn't Plato write about tyrants that when they first appear they are protectors? One is not mutually exclusive of the other in literature, IMO. (For the record I don't think that Dany was a tyrant in waiting all this time, at least in her mind.)

I agree completely. No one's a villain in their own mind - they all have their reasons for their actions.

[Umbelina]

1 minute ago, Hana Chan said:

And they usually end up (today at least) brought up at the Hague as war crimes.

Sometimes, but not always.

In Westeros though, no other cities WOULD go against Dany after this.  Not for a long long time.  History might expose her as a monster, or it might not, but either way, she ended all wars for control of Westeros with this one move.

Of course, she could still be killed!  Or her weapon destroyed.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

21 hours ago, Brn2bwild said:

Did anyone even bother to explain to Dany beforehand that the bells being rung meant surrender?!  Tyrion seemed to mention it to everyone else except her.

Yes, Tyrion told her and she nodded her head in agreement to the leader of the Unsullied, forget his name.  

[JennyMominFL]

1 minute ago, Hana Chan said:

And they usually end up (today at least) brought up at the Hague as war crimes.

On the behind the scenes show D &B said they wanted it to be shades of Dresden. Funny thing is I have mentioned Dresden before when talking about the dragons. I never liked them in the show mainly because I dont like fantasy but in part because I always assumed Dany would eventually go Dresden with them. 

You cant rally make a show about the horrors of warfare without going there.

[steelyis]

1 minute ago, Umbelina said:

There are real world comparisons to others doing exactly that though.

And very few of them are remembered fondly; those that are either hid their crimes from history, or straight up white-washed them after they won.

[Hana Chan]

2 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

In Westeros though, no other cities WOULD go against Dany after this.  Not for a long long time.  History might expose her as a monster, or it might not, but either way, she ended all wars for control of Westeros with this one move.

I'd pointed this out previously. This was less about winning this particular battle (which was already won) as it was sending a message to the rest of Westeros. Especially the North.

Either way, it's going to end ugly for Dany. She will never be satisfied with just being feared and her dreams of building a just world will fall by the wayside in favor of her keeping power. Breaking the wheel now just meals ripping out the other spokes so that she stays on top and there can be no one to challenge her.

[snickers]

41 minutes ago, millennium said:

But Ramsay warned us: "If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."

^exactly this

So I'm still a Dany fan, always have been, always will be.  I do feel the writers could have done a better job with her storyline, but like others have said, the signs were always there.  The one thing I'm kicking myself about is the fact the SIGN was always there that only 1 dragon was going to actually make it to Kings Landing.  Bran first saw the vision in Season 3 and again in what, season 6?

To see that scene play out yesterday was very cool and come to the realization that it wasn't snow in the house of the undying scene but ash. 

The T's are known for Fire and Blood....I'm fine with them showing that and thought it was really cool...that scene of her on Drogon surveilling the area and doing the star down at the Red Keep, she looked like a true Targaryan and that moment, from the outfit to the dragon she was on causing chaos and fear, and I loved it. 

I just think that part of herself was.....dormant before, but due to the progression of the character, the loses she endured, the "dragon" came out finally.

I also find it interesting no one is talking much about Grey Worm, he went full on "bad" too, yet few are talking about that.  I suppose people think for him his rage is justified eh? And the Dothraki are just wild people right?

I personally don't think Jon Snow will sit on the Iron Throne, I don't think anyone will.  This is my 100% spoiler free prediction because I refuse to be spoiled but, I think with Dany pretty much ending slavery in Essos, I think once she is killed (because it is obvious that is happening) and Jon Snow dies (yes i believe that is happening too) no one will rule because 1. KL is pretty much burned to the ground and 2. I think since the North wants to be independent more kingdoms will want to be as well and there will be an agreement that Westeros will no longer be under 1 ruler anymore.

All of the lands will be "free" so to speak.

The only thing I'm not sure of is what will happen to Drogon, one would think he would just go back to Valeryia and live out his days there.  If he even makes it. 

[JennyMominFL]

1 hour ago, Hana Chan said:

I'd pointed this out previously. This was less about winning this particular battle (which was already won) as it was sending a message to the rest of Westeros. Especially the North.

Either way, it's going to end ugly for Dany. She will never be satisfied with just being feared and her dreams of building a just world will fall by the wayside in favor of her keeping power. Breaking the wheel now just meals ripping out the other spokes so that she stays on top and there can be no one to challenge her.

We bombed Hiroshima ostensibly to win the war. Many Historians think we dropped the bomb on Nagasaki to prove to the USSR that we had more than one bomb, the opening shot in the Cold War so to speak. Sometimes, its definitely about sending a message.

Edited May 14, 2019 by JennyMominFL

[MJ Frog]

2 minutes ago, Umbelina said:

In Westeros though, no other cities WOULD go against Dany after this.  Not for a long long time.  History might expose her as a monster, or it might not, but either way, she ended all wars for control of Westeros with this one move.

Which is what appears to be her reasoning. Countering Tyrion's (?) plea for for mercy, she said that their mercy would be in the form of ensuring a better future for everyone.

Maybe that reasoning works for some people, and maybe it doesn't. But I believe it was Barristan who told her back in Meereen that Dany's father felt justified in what he did as well. To paraphrase another poster upthread, we are all the hero of our own story.

[whoknowswho]

1 hour ago, millennium said:

I just can't get worked up about the fiery deaths of fictional villagers we never met in the series -- unless of course we consider some of these were the same assholes slinging shit at Cersei as she walked naked from the Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep.  Which still doesn't make me feel sorry for them.

Instead I feel sorry for us, the audience, because the full-blown emergence of Dany Dark Side will reverberate through past episodes all the way back to Season 1.   Every scene will be redefined by the new context.   All the vicarious exhilaration and inspiration we felt as the music swelled and the slaves gathered round her calling "Misa, Misa," or the awe as she strolled unharmed out of the Dothraki inferno will evaporate because now, rather than a liberator/saviour/heroine, we will be watching the rise of a murderous tyrant and war criminal. (I saw an article today musing about the reactions of the 3500 or so parents who have named their daughters "Danaerys" and "Khaleesi" over the years GoT has been on the air).

But Ramsay warned us: "If you think this story has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention."

I thought of all those kids called Khaleesi, sometime last night while my jaw was on the floor. 

I'm not just mad at D and D. I'm mad at George RR Martin, too. I've spent so much money, time and braincells on both this show and more importantly the books. Did Daeny going nuclear surprise me? Nope, because I have read the books and watched the series over and over. She did kind of what I expected, she was a dragon.  But the franchise gets no more money from me, I will not buy TWOW or A Dream of Spring if and when they ever come out. I will watch the end next week, wipe my hands and get on with life.

And that's important because why? Well, early this spring I started going to the Y 3 times a week swimming hard, because our FIL died suddenly in Jan. and I didn't want to have a heart attack before GOT ended. Fuckit, I'm going to stroke out just reading comments about this season!

No I'm not. I can walk away and live life.