Let's remember too that in the book Dany starts out as a thirteen year old girl. Her harsh treatment of Mirri is NOT justifiable, but I'm not sure it's meant to be. This is the desperate action of a trauamatized, terrified and greiving child.
@@ajae... She didn’t do that in either medium. If you’re talking about Dany saying she was a slave and a victim of rape, she very much was. She was quite literally sold to a rapist for the price of an army. As for her treatment of Mirri, it’s not right but I don’t think anyone in that scenario was right - but all understandable. Fair enough for Mirri, killing the Khal who enslaved her and aborting the baby who would conquer the world. Fair enough for Dany she wanted revenge. But she didn’t. She tells Mirri it’s not her screams she’s after. Dany isn’t a rash child acting out, she learned all the things Mirri taught her about blood magic. “Only death can pay for life”. Mirri’s death is purposeful: she need her life to wake a dragon egg. She had already sacrificed Drogo’s life, which wakes Drogon, and Rhaego’s life which wakes Rhaegal. If she hadn’t burned Mirri then Viserion would not have hatched.
@@Sheija Yeah, she did it in the show. No doubt. She married Khal Drogo. Called him the love of her life and took on being a proud Khaleesi when that was convenient. Then she was a raped slave when that served her to appeal to actual slaves or boosted her story. She didn't think of herself as a slave until she understood how it could prove her sincerity or worthiness to lead former slaves. Marrying some man and having sex with him to advance your family whether or not you wanted to was the norm. No one would have considered that rape at the time, so going around claiming it was wouldn't have made sense to anyone. She was never enslaved by him or the Dothraki. She damned sure didn't announce herself as Drogo's victim when she was running around Qarth trying to find investors and killing her sex slave. Miri"s story was powerful. She meant that shit and was ready to die on it. Probably ended Drogo because of it. She would never had lived as one of their wives. Show Daenarys never stopped using the misery of slaves to advance herself. But it started with Miri.
@@ajae... You need to rewatch the show. She didn’t “marry Drogo and call him the love of her life” at first. She begged her brother not to make her marry him because she was terrified, and he told her he’d happily allow Drogo’s entire army and herd to gang r*** her in exchange for what he wants. We literally see her crying and repeating the word “no” on her wedding night, and the next episodes show her being ignored by Drogo in the day and r***d at night. She’s miserable and enslaved. Dany doesn’t turn the tables until she takes control of their sex life and makes Drogo see her as a queen. She manipulates her way out of slavery, but that does NOT take away from her situation (obviously). As for her not proclaiming herself as a victim and instead claiming Drogo when she meets the Khalasaar: 1) Dany obviously internalises some abuse and does genuinely fall in love with Drogo, regardless of how it started. It’s a complex story, and there’s plenty of real examples of slaves falling in love with their masters in the real world. 2) Even if she didn’t, she’s obviously not an idiot. Why would she come to the khalasaar from a position of weakness, when she KNOWS the culture.
@@Sheija You need to rewatch the show, JJ. But maybe after learning how oppression works. A woman who considers herself enslaved by a man would never think of him as her great love. Daenarys willingly married him, even though she didn't want to. No one would have thought of that as slavery because most women were married who the men in their family told them to marry. They wouldn't have considered consummating the marriage with a man you don't want to fuck to be rape either. So going around announcing that she was enslaved and raped was nonsensical. Even if I believed she was raped, none of her peers would. If anyone asked for details they would have disagreed with her. For Miri it was clear, and everyone would have thoughts the same. Daenarys used the better story and blurred it up to match hers. My assessment of show Daenarys on this point is true and accurate. You fell for her line about herself, I didn't. Her whole approach to enslaved people was rather foul. Miri, Missandei, Grey Worm, the Unsullied, and the whole of Slavers' Bay included. I'll throw in that Khalasar whose temple she burned down, too. I get that you might not understand why that is. IYKYK.
For me the overall issue I have with show Daenerys vs book Dany is her loss of empathy. Even though her chapters are fewer in the books it always struck me how she seemed to be genuinely kind despite all that she had gone through. She wasn't always nice or patient but her POV sticks out to me as someone who is trying to be calculated about making choices that benefit the majority, vs show Dany who is more often short tempered girl boss with great posture. To be clear I enjoy both, but to me show Dany is not at all the same character as book Dany. Also it's a tiny thing, but I wish they'd been brave enough to leave her bald after the ritual! 😆
Yesss. I always imaged how cute she be with a bald head but have dragons. Its a small price pay. I would take it with pride. The show could had her with very short hair and grey tipped highlights. They could have done something too afraid of everyone not looking pretty.
I also was totally disappointed when they didn't make her bald, I guess they couldn't with the idea of her being less attractive somehow. I was even more disappointed when they chose a perfect body doble for Cersei too... it is pretty important for the character losing her youth and beauty, and it is kind of a pivot moment for her character in that way too. An aging lion without her main... sorry my brain went somewhere else haha but they totally discarded something that tells you something just because they didn't want her "ugly"
Same, at least on the books she seemed more human. I don't know why they made her more angry and less empathetic in the show. Probably because they already had a plan on how they wanted her character to go, since D&D admitted since season 3 that they decided Jon was going to kill Dany in the show, without grrm's input
Plus, they misinterpret Meereen. They still think Hizdarh means peace when he doesn't, he and the Green Grace represent trying to compromise with slave-owners to get rid of slavery. It doesn't work because those over-privileged fuckers don't want to lose free chattel labor. They instead show a forceful Daenerys rather than a "these people are fucking monsters but I need to work with them in order to try to fix this systemic problem"
She cared so much about the common people she kept herself busy paddling the pink canoe to Daario while there was a legit humanitarian crisis at her doorstep (created by her rank incompetence, btw).
When Dany burns the Tarlys, it could have helped to have someone from across the Narrow Sea with her to counter Tyrion’s horror. If they just see “Khaleesi’s justice” where Tyrion sees the Mad King, it could have setup an interesting narrative of conflicting perspectives borne of cultural differences.
They basically do that with Missandei in the very same episode, where she expresses to Jon and Davos a very cult-like glorification of Dany shortly after the scene in which Tyrion council's her against burning the Tarlys. I don't understand why everybody feels the need for things to have been done so explicitly in order to count. There's tons of subtext throughout the show that achieves the things people think D&D failed to do with Dany... but these things WERE done. It seems people just can't put 2 and 2 together. Y'all need 4 handed to you on a silver platter.
What’s wrong with killing your enemies when they don’t surrender? Are people actually holding her to higher standards than everyone else? What’s she meant to do, let them live another day so they can get the chance to kill her in the future?
@@AWSVids Are you seriously trying to argue that D&D were so smart that their subtle intelligent decisions went over everyone’s heads? 💀 Maybe you can shed some on how these genius men not only teleported a whole khalasar to the mainland without ships but somehow had them spawn halfway across the continent in a single day… :D
@@joshuaadams6565 yk the usual punishment for hostages is… being held hostage, don’t you? Plus, the westerosi method of execution is beheading, not being burned alive. She made the show of burning a father AND his son so everybody bends the knee and nobody dares to challenge her. She’s literally threatening a horrible death if you do not do anything she wants, she said so multiple times in all 8 seasons (they can live in my new world or they can die in their old). Plus, she can’t even execute them in charges of treason, because she’s effectively a foreign invader with slaves and pillagers in their army, and they owe no loyalty to her.
Something that always bugs me is when she goes back to the dosh kaleen, they call her stupid for believing the prophecy, like what??? Aren't the dosh kaleen like a super important religious figure? Shouldn't that make them question like their whole worldview? Or at least make them question what went wrong?
Maybe I missed something, but reading the first book, I definitely had the belief that the Dosh Kaleen made most of that stuff up in order to flatter Khal Drogo, the big bad warlord himbo who just rolled into town. Them calling Dany a moron for believing their prophesies seems totally legit to me, even if the rest of that tv plotline was nonsensical.
@@chrisrubin6445 that’s what you might think on a first read, but go read that prophecy again. Instead of thinking about it referring to Rhaego, remember that she becomes the Mother of Dragons. What they say is actually quite prophetic, particularly when it comes to Drogon, and I expect more of it will come true. Also, the Dosh Khaleen use blood in their foretelling - we know in the story that blood magic is very real, and we see Maggie the Frog give Cersei a true prophecy in AFFC
@@Sheija GRRM seems to be replicating how Greek prophecies worked. Only by knowing the prophecy will it happen, Cersi's paranoia allows Maggie's prophecy to happen. So in the long run, no prophecies are true when they are made, they are made true by people acting in fear of the prophecy.
She believed the prophecy of some Lhazareen witch instead of the proper Dothraki prophecies coming from the Great Stallion. Dothraki are henotheists, meaning that while they acknowledge the existence of other gods, they find them unworthy of being worshipped.
I always had a hard time with the Tarly deaths being her “mad queen prequel” because like… what about Blackwater? Not the fire part, but the part where captives that didn’t kneel to Joffrey were killed. But her killing the Tarlys was too far. It’s more directly spoken about in the books but still, people get executed all the time, especially war criminals ie the enemies. It does have any bite in comparison to Miri who gave a much better grey area to the situation.
Right it’s difficult to parse out the violence in the show. Almost every main character in the show is violent. Jon, Rob, Jamie, Ned, Tyrion, Sansa and on and on. And there seems to be understandable reasons (up until King’s Landing and maybe Ramsey) for the choices of those acts of violence. And yet Dany’s actions are somehow worse than anyone else’s in a world where violence is common? This point, for me anyway, is a big mistake in the show lore.
@@lynnshort1635It's not even the show that bothers me, it's the people who are so unreflective that they bring this shit up about Danny as if it proves she's evil when Arya LITERALLY killed an entire family and carved them and baked them into a pie to feed to their father! Yeah, it was revenge, but number one, she had no idea which members of the family were involved, and two, it's fucking crazy. People complain about Danny crucifying the Wise Masters, but the same logic applies. Yet Danny is treated one way (in hindsight mind you) and Arya and others get a free pass. All because of the framing of the final two seasons. It's ridiculous. Refusing to bend the knee gets execution. And burning people alive is considered cruel but it's not like a fucking war crime or something. This is a medieval fantasy land. It's really not the worst thing that could happen to you lol.
@@IshtarNike “This is medieval fantasy land. It’s really not the worst thing that could happen to you.” Right? Considering the Bolton’s acts? Or Qyburn?
@@IshtarNike it is the framing. When Tyrion kills and burns ships in season two (or when Danny does it in seasons five) we don't see these scenes from the inside character (at least not really) while in the burning of King's landing we see it from the POV of mostly those being killed.
'I always had a hard time with the Tarly deaths' I always had a problem with their deaths bc it doesn't make sense. Cersei just blew up their Vatican and their liege lord and his family, Lannisters killed Starks at the wedding, why would they be faithful to her, when she and her house are so damn unstable and crazy?
Jon and Dany’s romance fell incredibly flat. Compared to Jon & Ygritte and Dany only marrying men for advantage, or Dario who was cunning it made 0 sense. They were cordial and made deals that would benefit them politically but somehow fell in love? They weren’t compatible and they seemed like they didn’t even really seem to respect one another, much less trust one another. Dany going to the North wasn’t just for Jon she needed the North to back her claim and that was the forefront throughout her stay in Winterfell. Jon wanted her dragons, and her army to defeat the others. It was an awful element to add a love story in there. Also Kit and Emilia didn’t have chemistry imo
I vaguely remember a youtube video where a guy explained they had no chemistry because they're both used to being pursued and seduced by their love interests (Jon by Ygritte - even Melisandre tried to seduce him - and Dany by Drogo and Dario) so they were both waiting for the other to make the first move before they could reciprocate, and their interactions fell flat as a result. Basically: they're both submissives when it comes to love. 😂
the problem I have with Dany burning the Tarlys is the framing: She's framed as being morally wrong or even brutal for executing them. Yet the problem is, the world of GoT is just that; brutal. I think Lindsay Ellis said it best as the showrunners hold Dany to an unfair and hypocritical standard given she executes traitors (remember, the Tarlys were bannerman to House Tyrell, whom they betrayed) same as other characters like Jon or Sansa or even Ned Stark. She just uses a dragon to execute people instead of a big-ass sword.
"She just uses a dragon to execute people instead of a big-ass sword." - Which is exactly the problem with it. "The (wo)man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die." Using her dragon allows her to keep her hands clean, which is basically a page from Littlefinger's book and it makes the killing easy on a personal level. Compare it with Jon ordering Janos Slynt to be hanged, only to realise that he needs to do it himself.
I agree. Honestly, I was more bothered by her threatening to burn the common soldiers if they didn't follow her. Executing Tarly for treason was pretty much fine, though burning alive by dragonfire probably wasn't the best image. Not that it wouldn't be extremely quick, it's dragonfire after all.
@@irena4545 That's really only a concept in the North, though, and even then, mainly just the Starks. It's a nice sentiment, sure, but really no other culture in Westeros follows it. Kings, Queens, Lords, and Ladies have always had headsmen/executioners that handle that. Jon was raised on those principles because he was raised as a Stark. Same for Robb when he executes Lord Karstark. Wasn't really a custom the Targaryens adhered to, even the Targaryens that were considered good kings and queens.
@@FlyingFox86 Same. The method of execution might give off an unsettling image, but the actual action itself (relatively quick and painless because dragonfire) and the reason behind it (treason) were honestly no worse than the kind of things we've seen from other characters, and not just over-the-top vicious examples like Joffrey. We see plenty of characters who are clearly intended to be viewed as the more moral and humane figures in the setting doing pretty much the exact same thing, just in a way that doesn't tend to LOOK as frightening. It's not tyrannical or a symbol of falling from grace (relatively speaking at least), it's just a pretty typical punishment for that particular offense in this setting.
Of all the stories in ASOIAF that suffered from having a lack of nuance in the show, Dany's is almost certainly the biggest victim, because hers is a story ABOUT nuance. She spends several books doing almost nothing except learning that sticking to absolutes doesn't work in a complex world, so compromising on principles is the only way to survive and thrive as a ruler, as a friend, and as a person. This is essentially the same lesson as Jon (for all the obvious reasons), but he learns these lessons from others, while Dany figures out everything in her own head. Jon's development was easy to translate onto the screen; Dany spent entire POV chapters doing nothing but talk to herself. It's interesting that for all the changes the show runners made - which of course is necessary to translate the story to a new medium - they barely deviated Dany's story from the book, merely truncating it for pacing. Unlike others where they made changes in order for the CHARACTER to land where it needed to for certain story beats, they only played with the TIMING of Dany's story so that it hit Westeros when it needed to. The result was that Dany became a caricature, not a character.
Yeah that's a pretty good explanation, without her internal thoughts, so, so much is missing. If they were really struggling to convey it through characters, they could've at least thrown in a few dreams sequences or something. There were a lot of opportunities where that would have been plausible
Every character got done dirty by the terrible show writers. Dany was butchered, but I think Stannis was the worst. His was terrible from start to finish and a complete failure to understand the source material.
@@LC-wv7tz I didn't invest in the show, so I can't really speak from a TV perspective, but in terms of adapting from the book I find it hard to get worked up about any non-POV character. Through all the books released, has Stannis ever been more than the third most important character in any scene? He's as much a prop as he is a character. So, I'm okay with the show taking liberties to fit him in however it works (which isn't to say they did make it work). Dany has entire nations that exist for the sole purpose of service her story. She's one of the central characters of the series, long before the show passed the book timeline by and she actually started interacting with all the Westerosi arcs. If there's one character they could have created a made-for-TV adapted mini universe to serve the story of, it's Dany. And they didn't make even the slightest effort to do so. That's what grinds my gears.
The main problem is that the show completely dropped the Young Griff storyline. D&D basically gave Daenerys JonCon's plotline and his trauma with the bells, a character and overall story the show completely left out. Kings Landing will certainly burn, but it will be because of JonCon, who, apart from suffering from trauma due to what happened at the battle of the bells, also has grayscale, which is said to drive you nuts after a while, and Cersei, who has repeatedly been compared to the mad king and is obsessed with Wildfire, some of which is still hidden beneath the city when Aerys wanted to blow up KL at the end of Robert's Rebellion, so any spark can lead to a chain of events that set the caskets ablaze and blow this entire city into smithereens. All of these pieces were dropped from the show, which led to this noncencical mad Dany plotline of burning KL because she heard the ringing of the bells which set her off. Now, I do think Dany is going to burn some shit, but most of it will be set in her crusade against slavery, like Volantis, for example, which has already been set up for a potential Harrenhal 2.0 moment with the Black Wall and the Widow of the Waterfront sending her a message to come there. I think Daenerys biggest concern in Westeros will be more so the threat of the others and Euron rather than her campaign for the throne. Cersei certainly won't be much of a factor because you already have Young Griff's crew clashing with Cersei's forces. Dany isn't really much of a factor in this storyline, like she was in the show.
I legit think that JonCon might even burn things to kingdom come Cersei style if he ever realizes that Young Griff was never Rhaegar's son, both he and the kid were lied to all along for the entire kid's life. That would be, well, a reason for him to lose the plot
Dany has always been compelling and interesting to me, as someone who is trying to do good in the world and by her people (and who is 'her people' are is something that changes and expands), but who lives in a world where violence is extremely normalized, has conflicting legacies weighing on her, and of course has her own feelings and is also a young teenager learning on the fly. And the show's treatment of Dany, not giving her interiority and sort of just letting her be carried around by the actions and opinions of those around her, plus the greater emphasis on her "savior-ness" rather than getting in on her doubts and failures and learning, is part of what kept me from getting into the show (which turned out to be a good call in hindsight)
A little detail I recall from the show with that scene, where they talk about blood magic, when Mirri assured Dany that it wasnt her death as the cost, Mirri glanced down, as if she was looking at Dany's pregnant belly. I always considered that to be show not tell. It goes by quickly, but for me i always imagined Mirri doing the same thing in the books. Its not explicitly said but that small detail in the show says alot. It was telling that Mirri had malintent (which in her mind in justified as she wanted to end Drogos line so that no one else suffers what Mirri herself had endured by Drogo's khalasar). For me, I think Dany realised the true cost was her son, not the horse. Its one cruel and harsh lesson Dany learned about the world she lives in. Her anger was further fueled by her grief of losing her son and her Sun-And-Stars. Thats how i always saw it to be honest. I also agree with your assessment of Dany not having any agency. I love the books, its been a while since i read them. It bothered me that they took Danys agency away as she herself came up with the plot to incapacite the Second Sons and the Stormcrows (Correct me if im wrong, book readers. Its been a while for me lol) with the wine. He knew they would bicker about her deal and while Daario killed the other captains, the Unsullied and some of her freedmen fought and won. It was her idea. To the point that Jorah compared her to Rhaegar and Barristan agreed (which they rarely do in the books). Not to mention how they striped her agency and emotional intelligence in Qarth as well. In the books, shes active and trying to be more methodical but in the show, they made her throw a tantrum and threatened to burned them if they didnt give her what she wanted. For the life of me, i dont know why they did that to Dany. Shes not my favourite character any means but that was a great disservice to her. I too feel as if that the Meereense plot is vital for her character as well. Every compromise is a bond on her. She hates that shes around people she'd sooner kill but wants to be a good queen and ruler. Shes understanding that compromises means you have to overlook many things and due to her own moral compass, someone who understands what it means to be sold off as a slave (How Viserys practically sold her to Drogo for an army), she doesn't want that for anyone else. But that system is steeped deep in parts of Essos and shes yet to find a system to put into place and slowly change it from the inside. Book Dany has alot to learn and she's very much self aware. Again, the stripping of her agency in the show hurt her character more than it helped her in my opinion. She's an idealist yet, but she needs to be alot more pragmatic and the temptation to just burn everything to the ground is understandable. I love how George made that aspect of her character a devil on her shoulder that she's trying to ignore but the angel route she's taking is suffocating her more than she can stand, yet she still persists. George is brilliant. Im curious to see how her story would end in the books. I believe that she will be unfairly labeled the Mad Queen as well due to her choices when she gets back to Westeros. It doesn't help that what she did to Astapor, Yunkai and the Sacking of Meeren has already spread to Westeros. If Cersei (who definitely is the true Mad Queen but it's understandable how she got there as she's unravelling rapidly), does ascend the throne after Tommen dies (perhaps poisoning from the Sand Snakes, idk) , she will use that to her advantage to rally Westeros against the 'foreign queen.' I see Dany being very disillusioned when she arrives at Westeros. Maybe she accidentally sets off the wildfire or Cersei sets it off when Dany is near the Red Keep and blames Dany for the damage and chaos.. Either way, fantastic video as always! I'm especially happy that you mentioned the Meereenese Knot Essays. It's great stuff! Anyone who is a huge ASOIAF fan, I recommend it. A very interesting and fascinating read that gives you food for thought. 😁
I agree with most of what you said here, but personally I don’t think Cersei will still be on the throne when Daenerys arrives. In the books Daenerys has a vision in the House of The Undying (which was much more interesting in the books) of a cloth dragon swaying on poles amidst a cheering crowd. She says it’s a mummer’s (actor’s) dragon, an enemy to give the heroes something to fight. There’s another character who was cut from the show that I think MASSIVELY messed up the plot: Aegon Targaryen. Varys and Illyrio are working together and they say that this kid is Rhaegar and Elia’s son who they saved and switched with another baby when the Lannisters seized King’s Landing. There are theories that Aegon is not who he claims to be, and Varys grew up with a troupe of mummers in the Free Cities and is known to use disguises, making Aegon the most likely candidate for The Mummer’s Dragon. He’ll probably show up in Westeros and take down Cersei, an unlikeable and self-sabotaging tyrant, and when Daenerys turns up in Westeros she’ll have to fight a POPULAR king who might even steal one of her dragons and has a few powerful players on his side, not an unpopular queen with no real way to fight her living nukes who drinks on her balcony all day.
' It was telling that Mirri had malintent ' Yes, because if you want to kill the unborn child of the wife of the genocidal warlord who murdered your people, the smartest thing to do is to TELL this wife to stay out of the tent while you're performing your ritual AND glance at her belly while she is in your presence. The glance was clearly intended to be seen by Dany, a discrete nod to Dany that she would be putting her child's life at risk if she entered the tent.
I think that’s not a common take, but after seeing the show and reading a little bit of the books, I think it actually was a reasonable narrative choice to have Tommen choose to jump out of that window? i don’t know if he has much of a personality yet in the books, or how old he is exactly. But in the show it definitely seemed like what a determined, dutiful idealist like him would do considering the dire position he was in
The last season was already so bad but Dany taking Kings Landing with very few casualties before going “Mad Queen” mode was really the icing on the cake. Like the whole point of her doing all this extra shit instead of attacking KL was to win the war without the death of civilians and she took the city in like 10 mins which would’ve saved so many more lives. I could write 10 essays on how much I hate the last 2 seasons of the show.
We should’ve known what was going on once the show decided not to include Vaes Tolorro and made Dany go to Qarth and threaten them to let her in instead of her being invited like in the books.
I have gripes even in season one but this is the moment for me, too. Vaes Tolorro is a really important start to her grappling with being a leader and "mother" both. The constant conflicting feelings of wanting to protect her people, wanting to nurture and plant trees, and wanting to take up her brother's dream of returning to Westeros and claiming her birthright with fire and blood. George's classic "conflict of the heart".
@@WatashiMachineFullCycle Exactly, we see Dany able to lead and build, which is very important considering her monologue in ADWD about a dragon being able to destroy but not build, not able to truly help people.
Season’s 2 handling of Daenerys was a clear indication that they were not going to be faithful to her story arc. Book Daenerys and show Daenerys are two different characters. In the book Daenerys constantly questions if she’s a monster and wonders if she’s doing the right thing. In the book it’s her advisors that want her to be more violent and it’s her pushing back against the violence. Daenerys in the book is and always was, self away. Book Daenerys is a very much a mother figure, nurturing but forceful. She is a grey character. I’m still of the belief that Cersei is the Mad Queen and that it will be her and or Aegon that destroy King's Landing. Either Cersei will do it with Wildfire to stop Aegon or Cersei could accidentally set it off a chain reaction when she (if the show is to be believed) blows up the Sept and or trick Aegon into doing it. I don’t see how Daenerys could do it. She has too much ground to cover in Essos. She still has to deal with the Dothraki in the Great Grass Sea and the Dosh Khaleen in Vaes Dothrak (and if the show is to be believed) traveling with her new found khalasar back to Meereen is going to take some time, like months. Then when she does get back to Meereen she has to deal with the Meereenese knot (Victarion, The Green Grace and The Harpy’s and the whole of Slaver’s Bay, Quentyn “death”, Tyrion, Jorah, taming her dragons etc) and then after that find “a 1000 ships” to get to Westeros, which again will take months to achieve and then you have to factor in the sailing across to Westeros with that large of a fleet will again take months. Realistically, which GRRM likes to try and do in his writing, be as realistic as possible, I honestly can’t see Daenerys getting to Westeros until the 7th book and by then one would think the Long Night would have started. If so at the point I could see Jon or whoever greeting Daenerys at the ports asking her to come north and help with the Other’s. But GRRM says they’ll be a 2nd Dance of Dragons, whether or not he meant literally or figuratively is tbd.
I think the showrunners were too interested in what would look "cool" or "badass" and play well with a TV audience and not interested enough in consistent characterization or satisfying pay-off for arcs. I also think that if they weren't in some way beholden to matching the main points of the show ending to GRRM's planned book ending that they wouldn't have bothered showing Dany as a villain at all. She would have been played completely straight as a heroic figures audiences should be pumping their fists for--because that's fun for audiences to watch and gets good TV ratings. At the end of the day, that was their biggest concern: their ratings, not the story's actual themes or ideas.
I really don't get how Dany's violent acts in that kind of situations could be seen as "mad" or "criminal". Dany's father was considered mad because he killed without a reason, out of fear and paranoia. The same goes with Joeffrey, who enjoyed the violence and refused to follow any political strategy. But killing a traitor, getting revenge, showing your power with violence is a valid option in GoT world, it is often the only way to face some situation and keep your life and power. It's not logical to judge a character from that world with our standards.
Absolutely. In a story rife with killing for revenge, betrayal or to protect others there are so many other examples of characters who have done (up until Dany burning KL) similar acts without it being seen as a character flaw. And for women in this particular world, they have far fewer choices when it comes to power. I suppose margaery tyrell (show version) would be the example of one woman who had the political savvy to balance power. Cheers
Exactly! Look at what Tywin did to house Reyne or what Arya did to house Frey in the show. Incredibly brutal and yet the narrative never frames them as _mad_ . This is why I don’t think Dark Dany would have ever worked in the show. In the books it could work because something seems to be off with Dany and her sense of time as well as her memories that could be hinting towards some kind of mental illness, but yeah, calling her mad because her tactics can be brutal sometimes is off in the GOT world.
Except Aerys, while he was paranoid, wasn't without reason to burn the Starks, and then call for Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark's heads. The Starks usually marry into other Northern houses, or at least other houses with strong First Men ancestry. They almost never marry outside of that. Now all of a sudden, Lyanna Stark is betrothed to Robert Baratheon (a family related to Targaryens probably from Aegon the Conqueror's time and very much not First Men ancestry), and the heir to Winterfell Brandon Stark betrothed to Catelyn Tully (again, not known for First Men ancestry), that alongside Lysa Tully being betrothed to Jon Arryn, there was clearly an alliance being brokered for some reason. He'd heard whispers of Rhaegar wanting to overthrow him which is probably why he unexpectedly showed up to the tourney at Harrenhall in the first place but I'd have to check that. Then when Brandon Stark came barging into the Red Keep, demanding Rhaegar's blood for supposedly kidnapping Lyanna, he was arrested, and as far as Aerys is concerned that's reason enough to execute someone, threatening his heir. He summoned Rickard Stark to answer for Brandon Stark's crimes, and when Rickard demanded a trial by combat, unwilling to let the Starks escape justice for threatening his son, chose wildfire for a champion and burned Rickard alive while Brandon strangled himself trying to do something to save his father. I suppose he thought it might be seen as a similarly brutal act like what Tywin did to House Reyne that nobody would mess with him again, but fearing retaliation anyway he called for the heads of Ned and Robert to put an end to this powerful alliance forming between the Starks, Baratheons, Tullys and Arryns. Turns out in a way he was right to fear retaliation, Jon Arryn basically said if you want Ned and Robert, come get them, and raised his banners and had Ned and Robert raise their banners too, negotiating with the Tullys to have Ned marry Catelyn instead now Brandon was dead. Aerys took things to an extreme, but there was always a reason behind it. That's the whole issue with madness, more often than not there's a reason behind their actions, it's just the actions are extreme. Some of Dany's actions, both show and book, are extreme compared to the reason, maybe not as extreme as her father's, but extreme nonetheless
@@hannahsmart4494 you’re right that aerys wasn’t mad because he was paranoid about potential paranoia, especially considering that Rhaegar was openly scheming against him. The problem is that Aerys wasn’t considered mad because of what he did during _Robert’s Rebellion_ , he was already considered insane at that point (which is _why_ Rhaegar was planning on deposing him). The reason his paranoia was considered madness is because after Duskendale he refused to leave the Red Keep for four years, and he started expecting everyone around him of betrayal without cause, which ironically alienated those around him and made betrayal more likely. He executed wet nurses and the family of his mistress for no reason, he refused to groom himself, and he was roasting people alive because it arose him sexually to watch people burn alive. Aerys didn’t simply do rational things in a slightly cruel way. he was called mad because after duskendale he descended into deluded paranoia that alienated him from all his allies. That’s not comparable to Dany or even to Tywin, who although brutal, clearly have their reasoning faculties in tact.
I think D&D never truly understood who Dany was, honestly. There's a video by David Lightbringer that breaks her character down that I mostly agree with, definitely check that out if you haven't! Also THANK YOU for mentioning the whole "Targaryan genetic madness" thing. It drives me nuts when people point to that as a justification for her mad queen thing in the show. With one or two exceptions (and only because we know so little about them tbh) most of these "mad" Targaryan kings had plenty of reasons behind their behaviours. And now that George has revealed Aegon I being a dreamer is in fact canon it's heavily implied that misinterpreted prophecy is to blame for a lot of these "mad" acts too. Thinking about Aerion drinking wildfire because he *believed* it would turn him into a dragon, just as one example.
D&D were way out of their depths when they took on GOT. Even from the get-go. And they even admit it themselves. The problems with the show go beyond it with these issues of hiring not the best writers for the job and then said writers not willing to step down and let others take over for the final few seasons made for a cluster fuck of issues.
I forgot to mention about breaking the wheel... Use the code TREE for 40% off World Anvil with the link worldanvil.com/?c=mltt Or else try it out for free!!
I love the 5th book. I know it can feel a bit of a drag, but I love it. And I think it's absolutely crucial for Dany. For Jon too, by the way. ADWD is very much important for both of them. I think there is a breaking point there. The beginning of a big turn, if you like, for both of them. By the way, re-Mirri Maz Duur. I think Dany, in the books, killed Mirri not for revenge. That was a bonus, if you like. No, she knew what she was doing when she prepared the pyre, and that was about the hatching of the Dragons. Remember, she had that dream about the Dragons, prior to this moment. The, we have this in the book: 'The godswife did not cry out as they dragged her to Khal Drogo’s pyre and staked her down amidst his treasures. Dany poured the oil over the woman’s head herself. “I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur,” she said, “for the lessons you have taught me.” “You will not hear me scream,” Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing. “I will,” Dany said, “but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.” Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth, but made no reply. As she stepped away, Dany saw that the contempt was gone from the maegi’s flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star.' And then, they see the comet: 'Jhogo spied it first. “There,” he said in a hushed voice. Dany looked and saw it, low in the east. The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon’s tail. She could not have asked for a stronger sign.' 'The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her. She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough.' 'She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder. Only death can pay for life.' This was blood magic and Dany knew. She had a purpose, Dragons. Revenge had little to do with it, if anything.
thank you for your comment… for both your measured thoughts and for the beautiful and apropos excerpt from the books your comment makes me want to read all five books all over again…but I think I’ll keep waiting for Winds of Winter (WoW) to finally arrive and read them again once WoW is in hand. I realize that sounds incredibly foolish: it’s been so long not sure if GRRM will ever finish WoW and I think we can safely assume that A Dream of Spring (putative ASOIAF Book 7) will never see the light of day. Oh well 🤷♀️
I saw the first season before reading the books, then consumed the books before season 2 came out, so I'm a bit of a weird mix of book-first and show-first experience. But I think the show's framing of Dany burning Mirri really blinded me for a bit, and it took me a while to realize that Mirri was absolutely in the right. Killing Drogo saved thousands and thousands of lives, and she says so explicitly. Mirri Maz Dur may have done more for the common folk than any other character in the books, and Dany, supposedly the champion of the commons, tortures her to death for it. Also you're being too kind to book Jorah. He is an absolute scumbag. He is an unrepentant slaver and a groomer and repeatedly tries to manipulate Dany into marrying him. Although he professes to love her, he has absolutely no respect for her attempts to be principled. He just wants her because he's super into Valyrian-looking tweens. His motivation is essentially that he thinks he's too good for Bear Island and pursues the girls who make him think of royalty. His Hightower wife and then Dany. David and Dan made the same mistake with Dany and Salsa: turning them into generic girlbosses to try to appeal to the cultural zeitgeist. When in reality Dany's story is a complicated tale about how to deal with childhood abuse, and how difficult it is not to repeat the cycles of violence that colored your childhood.
Mirri was not in the right and neither was Danny, that was the beauty of GOT in the first 4 seasons no one was above criticism, there were no good or bad characters, just well written ones. Danny took Mirri in as her slave to stop Drogo's men from raping her, she did not make her work as a slave. Mirri and Tywin were both in the right from their perspective - Tywin killing the Starks to put the war to a stop. It may have been spiteful of Danny to kill Mirri, but I'm sure if many women in in the same predicament had the chance to take revenge on the the person who killed their husband and child they would do it, so her actions comes across as true to life.
I would be interested in your perspective as a psychologist: what does being the Mad Queen actually MEAN? The show treats "madness" (which is largely portrayed as senseless cruelty) as an inheritable trait. In real world terms, is the implication that the Targaryens have a genetic predisposition towards some type of mental illness? Aerys was paranoid and cruel. Is the show suggesting that Dany inherited psychopathy from him? Part of why I found season 8 to be so frustrating was this loose definition of "madness," which seemed like a very hand-wavey explanation for an extreme change in Dany's character.
I don't think "in real world terms" is something that cleanly applies to the Valyrians. Given the background details of Planetos, it seems as if being Valyrian means you're not quite entirely human. Multiple Targaryens had visions of the future, and several of them were driven to irrational acts by those visions, but the visions seem to be legitimate as far as having provided real flickers of what the future held (which is something that's never happened in the real world).
The thing is, in the book, the idea of Targaryen madness is almost certainly propaganda, or at least highly exaggerated. Most of the "mad" Targaryens deal with traumas and actual mental health issues that can explain everything they do. Take Aerys for example - he was a normal guy until he was kidnapped and tortured by rebels. After he was rescued he became incredibly paranoid, which then led to him starting to burn everyone he saw as an enemy.
The problem with Dany is they treat her dragon as an errant part of her to be subdued and chained, because ooooh fireandblood! When in reality, she IS the dragon, regardless of what she does. Whether she takes the diplomatic path or the violent path, all paths are the path of the dragon. Setting people on fire, while horribly violent, isn't uncalled for in all situations. She needed an advisor to guide her not to agonize over her mistakes, to accept the consequences of her actions, good and bad, and grow through her experiences to be the kind of leader worthy of the adoration thrown her way. When someone like Cersei is your adversary, scorching some earth is inevitable. War makes it impossible to always take the high road; and she is not a monster for taking the fire and blood route when no better option is available.
The thing is that a thing the show leaves out is that they really show that “Targaryen madness” is nothing but propaganda. If you look at the actual family tree, hardly any Targs actually went “mad.” Hell, even Dany’s father only went “mad” after being tortured.
An added complexity of Dany giving the Second Sons wine outside of Yunkai is that it happens at around the same time as the Red Wedding, where the Freys get Robb Stark's army outside the castle super drunk to more easily slaughter them. So there's the PoV trap here: is this a fun clever strategy when Dany gets her enemies drunk and attacks during a truce, but its reprehensible when the Freys do more or less the same thing to the Starks? You get sucked into each PoV's perspective, but then you're forced to take a step back when the shoe is on the other foot for a different protagonist. Not sure is the show was always very good at capturing and paralleling these little things...
Danny was playing the Game Of Thrones like any other player. Jon killed a child, Arya killed a child in s1, Sansa fed Ramsay to his dogs. So, why is Danny suddenly mad? Marri cost her child and taunted her. Her brother abused her and wh*red her off to fit his own ends
There are theories that it will be Tyrion who will help bring out the violent side of her when she finally arrives in Westeros and I definitely agree. Especially with the way his character was being developed in the books. And given that the show probably swapped the order of the attack on King's Landing and the Long Night, I think it's very likely that she will sacrifice herself in order to save the world. It makes for a more satisfying arc for Dany in my opinion, but I guess we won't know until Martin finishes the series. If he ever does, of course.
I don't understand why that is a more "satisfying" arc. You mean it's the more standard fantasy hero arc. Sure. Which is exactly why I doubt that GRRM would go this way. He likes to subvert expectations and GoT is quite cynical with its characters.
@@oerthling I’m not sure about the long night stuff, but one of our favourite characters going full rage-fuelled pessimist warmonger, poisoning the ear of a young woman with 3 nuclear warheads at her disposal I don’t think is standard fantasy tropes.
@@blackdragon6 I think a core problem is that many people believe that Dany's character was "ruined". That's because they think of her as a badasses dragon princess savior. I think we actually saw the origin story of a super-villain. Instead of entering the story where the beautiful but mass-murdering evil queen "cleanses" her empire with fire and then get backstory about her tragic messed-up upbringing, we chronologically followed her story from victim, through badass liberator to evil queen. Start with Vader, then go back to Annakin and you start knowing that it will end badly for this cute little boy-genius. But start with the promising little boy-hero and move towards Vader and your hero gets ruined.
I never understood why so many people took Dany's side in this situation in the TV show, especially when Mirri started talking about all the people Khal Drogo had killed in her village and would've killed in the future
Basically because of the framing. We're invited to see Dany as the hero and Mirri as the villain...even when the facts literally say the opposite. It shows just how easily humanity can be misled, really
Because as soon as Daenerys saw it she stopped it & did everything in her power to protect the women she could. She didn’t invent Dothraki culture nor did she want to be married to Khal drogo & as she said her child was innocent. I understand Mirri ofc but I also understand Daenerys. She was trying to change drogo & the customs from within asking could the women be wives. & again her child was innocent if mirri had just killed drogo I wouldn’t have been on Daenerys’s side
@@tytybaby06 1) Dany wasn’t the creator of Dothraki culture, but she was very much happy of Drogo pillaging to get money for her quest for the throne. 2) she can’t possibly protect all slaves of the Dothraki, just because a slaver brings some enslaved people into her home it won’t make the situation better for them. 3) she wanted those enslaved girls married to their rapists because she thought they would fall in love like Drogo and her. That’s not making the situation of those girls better. 4) Miri gave very specific instructions for the care of Drogo’s wound and he disobeyed causing the wound to fester. That’s on him. 5) Mirri also prohibited everyone from entering the tent she was working on and Jorah took Dany anyways. That’s on him. 6) Rhaego would’ve miscarried anyways. Dany was 13-14, not fit for childbirth, and Rhaego was said to be lizard-like, those babies being common in Targ family history and always dying. 7) Mirri died as a slave in a horrible manner, burned by her master. That’s not fair no matter what.
@@Valentinianist again the original comment says “TV show” & you are talking about the book details I’m talking about how it was framed in the show. 1. She didn’t know what it took to get money . 2. She’s a little girl as you said so it’s naive but she tries. At 12-13 how would she know how to truly help anyone? She’s learning as she goes cause she’s a child as you said
@@Valentinianist drogo wasn't the first, but the second khalasar to raid the lhazareen (mirris village). In fact they fought the first khalasar off and then took what was left. To blame the dothraki culture on dany is purposefully misguided. 2. Yes. But that is the only way she has any power to protect them. By claiming them as hers. 3. No she wanted them to marry them so they would only have to be with one man. Which is so sad, but when you see how grateful she is that she is only being raped by Drogo and not his entire blood riders, you see it for what it really is. 4. Yes 5. Yes 6. Then why does mirritake responsibility for his death? We know that those previous examples of such childbirth also have reason to believe that those were also tampered with by other "witches" 7. Yes. It was horrible and that is why dany finally sees that slavery must be ended
For me it's the nonsense the "fans" of the show keep saying that she was supposed to go mad. Hence the coin flip, they mention way too many times for my liking. What bothers me about that "coin toss" is that we look at what Jon did with the Night's Watch in Thorne, and Olly. Then we look at Robb with Karstark. Jon with Ramsey. Stannis and what he allowed to have happen to Shireen. Even Ned in the very first episode with the defector from the Wall. Then we have Tyrion murdering his own father and Shae. Then Cersei and her blowing up The Sept, having Ser Gregor and the torture of Septa Unella. All of them did what they did and were congratulated for it. Dany burns the Tarleys and suddenly that's the lynch pin of the argument she's going to go buggo. Same with the slavers at Mereen. Just because everyone kept saying it in the show, the "coin toss," suddenly everyone is repeating it like a parrot and actually believing that turn is going to happen. When others in the show did almost the same things, but they're not buggo. One could argue what Jon did to Thorne and Olly is that coin tossing. He looked pretty mad doing that. He could have shown mercy, but he hung them. No different than Daenerys and the Tarleys. But nope. She's "Mad Queen. That coin tossed, and she's mad." I don't understand the hatred against Dany for doing exactly the same thing all the other MALE leaders did in the show. Heck, people even think Cersei is sympathetic but offer none to Dany.
Yeah I feel like calling her "mad" is something people within Westeros might deem Dany, because that's the narrative that has built up in public opinion about the Targaryens, but literally saying "she was always mad because she's Targaryen" just doesn't really make any sense
DO you know what moment ruined Daenerys Targaryen for me? Dany going psychotic and unjustly murdering the innocent population of King's Landing and her death at the hands of Jon Snow. I'm glad she stood up to Khal Moro and killed him. He was so disrespectful towards her, and he threatened to have all his Dothraki warriors brutally rape her. D.B Weiss and David Benioff ruined and failed her in the final season.
@@heretopissyouoff8439she got mad at Cersei so she murdered random townspeople and it’s in character because she’s always been mean to other characters like rapists and slavers of esos 🙏 if only she was cordial with the Meereen slavers
what always bothered me about Danys story line, is how "easy" it was to free slaves. Especially with the Unsullied. as if being brought up as an obedient little solider from birth wouldn't mess with you head. But in the eyes of the story tellers, it's just a matter of "hey, just be a free thinking independent person from now on ok?"
i don't think thats true. you see in the show that grey worm doesn't understand the concept for a long time. and is somewhat eventually brought out by missande. i think it would be the case of all the unsullied their fierce loyalty is part their upbring as slaves and not knowing anything else. as wells as being loyal to her for getting rid of the salvers.
There's a thing from the first book that people never mention when talking about Dany being complex: she kinda saves Mirri from rape (even though in reality she only saves her from one of the rapists), but it's also mentioned that one of Drogo's bloodriders regularly rapes Dany's own servants, and Dany doesn't think much about that. Obviously, that detail is also missing from the show.
She doesn't think of it largely because the same thing is happening to her. I realize her relationship with Drogo has been romanticized by a lot of people, but Drogo was her rapist. He may have coaxed her on the first night, (a 13 year old girl who had to please him or risk Viserys' wrath) but after that he takes her violently in the nights, hurting her. To her that is just a part of the life she is leading, and if it happens to her then it happening to Irri or Doreah it isn't a red flag to her.
@@tsuritsa3105 She was his wife and she did not resist him. And he actually was very tender with her, stopping and asking her if she's okay. That is not rape. You can't cite statutory because of her age, because it was the custom to marry that young given the short life span.
@@Eladelia OK. So you're going around arguing both sides of the issue with different people and making wild accusations about the kind of person they are based on their comments for shits and giggles. I see you.
5:25 Did you see that pause though, afters he says "No, Khaleesi, not your death?" To me, it appears that she looks down at Daenerys' abdomen, at Rhaego, and then she looks up and says "bring me his horse."
Rhaego was introduced for everyone (including the audience) to become The Stallion Who Mounts The World, even non-Dothraki Mirri knew of this prophecy and the horrors Rheago would bring.. and chose to get rid of him by tricking Dany. that's how i always saw it from the book perspective. funny that Mirri didn't forsee that The True Stallion will be the black egg
Mirri basically says that it was never going to work. She never blames Dany for entering the tent, she tells Dany that the death of the baby was the price to pay for Drogo's life and claims that deep down inside, Dany knew all along. That's not saying "the ritual went wrong because X" that is saying, "this is result you paid for, should have checked the fine print." And for the record, Dany did not make Mirri Maez Duur a slave, she was already a slave, Dany took her under her own protection, and the distinction is important because Dany is essentially a slave herself! She was sold to Khal Drogo and has almost no agency or choices. Drogo is relatively decent about her wishes regarding sex, but if he chose to force her on their wedding night, he could. If he wanted to let his bodyguards use her sexually, she has no choice. Everything she has is a gift from Drogo. Her power over Viserys or anyone else in the khalasar exists simply because Drogo wishes to indulge her. She is only able to protect Mirri and Ereoh because Drogo is amenable to her wishes and even her strength of will is attributed to his child inside her. That being said, among the tone-deaf changes being made on the show in season 2, was how she started acting really entitled when she reached Qarth. First there was her demand to be allowed into the city, at the head of a group of people known for terrorizing the Qartheen and trying to rob them. They were willing to make an exception for her based on her possession of dragons, but she refused to so much as lift the flaps on the cart to show that she did indeed possess dragons. Then, later, when she is trying to get support from the Spice King for her return to Westeros, she seems to think that shrieking at him and demanding ships is an appropriate method of making a request and that there is something wrong with this guy for not wagering a fortune on her magic dreams coming true. When she coopts the Unsullied, she only throws down the whip that is the symbol of her ownership of them at the end of the scene, after she led them to massacre their former owners and effect a revolution and start marching to her next destination. In the books, she throws down the whip after telling them to fight the masters and free the slaves. Basically, she gives up the symbol of ownership after she has everything she wants in the show and the Unsullied have chosen to follow her, and in the books she gives it up as part of declaring war on slavery. Even before that, there was her smug little "but we are not men" reply to Missandei quoting that all men must die. It's not like, for instance, the prophecy of the Witch King in Return of the King, who cannot be slain by man, only to end up fighting a woman and a hobbit. Is Daenerys saying she is immortal because she's a woman? The phrase is supposed to be a moment of cleverness, but the actual implication is that she doesn't think the rules apply to her. There was, I believe, no real intention of foreshadowing any downturn in Daenerys' character or heroism, just a lot of incompetently rendered scenes of alleged badassery and then when they were writing the last season, they realized it could all justify her flip to villainy. Tyrion's claims that she was bad when fighting the slavers are rather risible considering he was absent for most of her campaigns in Slaver's Bay, and then botched it when he took over Meereen in her absence, needing to be rescued by her, when his appeasement strategy blew up in his face for disregarding the advice of Dany's closest advisor (Missandei) and most loyal general (Grey Worm). Furthermore, the show completely botched the adaptation of her character arc in Meereen. In Meereen, driven by a desire to do something beneficial and productive, instead of just destroying evil, only for other evils to replace them, Daenerys stays to rule the city, rather than let new tyrants take over, as in Astapor, or for the slavers to continue their course as soon as her back is turned, as in Yunkai. Her one moment of atrocity, ordering the executions of random slavers, was in reprisal for a war crime of their own, and hers at least was perpetrated against the guilty class, rather than innocent victims she knew would hurt her enemies, as they did. She makes every effort to compromise, to end the bloodshed and wrongdoing, only for her enemies to take advantage of her good faith and neutralize her liberation movement and murder her followers and the beneficiaries of her reign, until slaves are being traded beneath the very walls of the city and she is forced to allow bloodsports with at best, very dubious consent from the participants in the city itself. As with the 163 Masters she crucified in retaliation for the slave children they similarly tourtured to death, her change of heart at the end of Dance With Dragons, that "a dragon plants no trees" and her resolution to embrace Fire & Blood going forward, is understandable and a reaction to extremely bad faith tactics by her enemies. The show cut out a lot of Danys' efforts at compromise and made her own actions look bad, especially in comparison to the spokesman of the slavers, whose father was benevolent and had opposed the child-massacre, and who was not clearly plotting against her and in league with her enemies, unlike Hizdahr, her husband in the books. Rather than a police force of loyalists and freedmen, the brass-masked men are the recidivist slaver insurgency. Her flying off on Drogo is not framed as choosing to be herself and a rejection of Meereenese culture with its baked-in slavery, just a thing that happens, possibly an escape from danger. It was all nonsense. There are plausible ways she could burn down Kings Landing in the books, without going all villain, which have been seeded at least since book 2, but which seem like they are there to confront her Targaryen heritage and what it means to be "a dragon". I find it impossible to believe that fighting for the Iron Throne will be the climax of the end of the series. I think that will come before Dany goes north, and the destruction of Kings Landing and melting of the Iron Throne (from all the wildfire her father planted in the city, for which Jaime killed him) is what will make her realize the futility of fighting over thrones, instead of saving the kingdom, and she will go north to face the Others, instead of giving fascist-coded speeches in the ruins.
I’ve noticed agency being taken away from female characters in book to show/movie adaptations. Such as true blood, sookie stackhouse, many times, is surprisingly well read and clever. She has a lot of knowledge of certain things, that surprise many around her, such as maenads, but in the show, they take this aspect away from her. This is problematic. It frames them so differently. Changes them from their depths and struggles that have shaped them. Sookie, for example, may be a blonde waitress who can read minds, and her attempt to overcompensate for this makes her seem stupid or crazy to most people, but she’s the exact opposite, a book worm, why do female characters always have to have intelligence taken away to seem less threatening, and more sympathetic? No, really
I think your observations other "The mad queen" issue are really highlighted in HotD. There are a lot of potential "mad" Targaryons in HotD, but for all of them, you can see how their temperaments, societal pressures, and/or trauma intersect to lead to those "mad" actions. Crucially, without going on a literary analysis rabbit hole - in is all clear text.
I’m glad others notice that the writers of the show did start laying the groundwork for mad Dany. But they also definitely dropped the ball. They didn’t balance it out properly and by the time they ran out of source material they were stuck. They had this path for her already outlined and they butchered the end of it. If they had made the 8th season longer or added a couple extra seasons, they probably could’ve redirect the thought process and story to be more organic.
Danny is one of my favourite characters, because she can adapt so well. She always learns from her experiences and grows with them. Of course the book Danny is way better and fuller character and of course partly that is due to us (the reader) being in her head. Now, the moment when she looked them in the safe was very troubling for me, no matter the way they frame it, but that may not be everyone. They could have use that scene better, to start the groundwork for her cruel side, but you are right - they missed it. Still for me that was unnecessary cruel act and the book solves it better, I think, by her simply leaving the city. At that point I feel this is more what she would do, rather than the revenge thing. The Mirri Maz Dur burning is different, there she is probably doing it a bit to get even, but her main purpose is to fulfill her dream, she know at that moment that the dragons will be born if she sacrifices someone and she simply chooses the most convenient person. That is more rational decision than a heat of the moment revenge thing.
For showrunners they seem to misunderstand film language at a pretty basic level. Either keep the triumphant music while she's commiting genocide (It mantains it's victorious for her) or always use eerie music when she does morally dubious shit (so we're always wary of her brutal streak). It's not that hard. Mostly the problem I think is that they didn't know where the story was going to make consistent/cohesive choices.
It would be too obvious what they were doing if they used music to signpost how awful she really was. We shouldn't need to be told that killing people left, right and centre is bad, we should just know that.
@@guyselway4865well you've made another mistake because she didn't kill people left right and centre until the very end. If you compare her actions to others in the show without the hindsight of season 8 there's almost no difference. The main difference is that she's establishing her "house" so there's more direct killing. But all the other houses in Westeros, yes including the Starks, got that way through the exact same means as Danny and they maintain their power through the same means. Killing. There is no moral difference between most of them for about 7 seasons. The difference is in framing and in what we're shown versus not shown. Robb Stark purposely sent 2000 men to get slaughtered in a feint so he could capture Jamie Lannister at the Whispering Wood. Is that better than dragon fire burning 2 lords who won't bend the knee? Or Arya killing an entire family, a big family, and baking them into a pie? Many "good" characters do disgusting reprehensible things but we cheer them for it because of the framing of the show. As to the music, if they did it right they could have done eerie but triumphant in such a way that the audience didn't quite notice. But given their skill they'd have probably fucked it up.
@@IshtarNike I think you hit the nail on the head when you say she's the same as everyone else, the problem is that she thinks she's different when she's just another lord using violence to get her way. I'm not familiar with Robb's tactics but Arya is pretty awful for what she did to the Freys.
My problem with labeling Dany as crazy because of the bad things she did do is because she didnt do anything anyone else, besides Ned, wouldve done in a position of power, having lived the life she lived. And some do similar...for no reason other than to appease the red god *cough*stannis*cough...
Also going to point out that Dany burning the Tarlys was literally no different than Aegons tactics during his conquest...and Targaryen madness wasnt even a thing when he did it. He wasnt mad...he was an ambitious man...with dragons. This is why when people point out things like that, it looks like a reach for sexism. You ignore the men that do the same exact things, calling it the ways of war...but when its a woman...oh, she must be crazy! Funny thing is, Cersei is legit going insane...and not a single video or discussion tries to talk about that. Not sure why. But is strange Dany is always the "picture" of madness while she, who is going mad, isnt...and neither are any men who do the same things, for the same reason.
Also, also, before this is brought up, lets not sit here and pretend burning a admitted traitor (Varys) alive is better than being quartered...you know...our own real life way of punishment in our own real life medieval history...and people went to those like they were the hottest new movies of the week, cheering along for the event to go on....
I always felt like Sansa got what Dany was supposed to get. Sansa actually gets meaningful revenge that isn’t framed as “badass”. When Dany gets revenge it is always portrayed as something “badass” or is proceeded by fanfare from everyone around her.
The scene with Ramsay being fed was badass but I hated how the show runners went out of their way to have Sansa and Arya who are their favorite characters just hate dany for no reason. In the books dany is rather tragic and lonely she wants a home and family the show doesn’t touch upon the magical aspects of her character
@@ACinemafanatic But they had very valid reasons. As much as they might want to meet a queen of dragons, she was a very real threat to their power and to their plans for revenge. They had their own agendas and by the point they meet her, she is pretty much the only thing that can stop them or help them get what they want so they can move on from it and start their lives.
@@wwaxworkyea... but at the same time she is there kind of saving their asses from the frozen zombies so... I don't know. If the absolute certain dead by zombies wasn't knocking their doors I would understand 🤷♀️
I pretty much agree with everything you said! 🙂 In general the show was too adamant on painting fan favorites as "good" characters instead of gray. You mentioned Jorah. They also did the same thing with Tyrion who in the books becomes a much darker character after he flees Kingslanding (and actually already before that), while in the show he is a fan favorite nice guy. With Dany that bites them in the ass in the end when they suddenly have to switch her to the dark side (like "let's do the right thing!"-Anakin suddenly becomes "kill all the younglings!"-Darth Vader within 5 minutes screen time). ^^
I think you captured the feel of what is wrong with Daenerys in the show, especially in the Agency section. I would also add that the Breaking Of The Wheel paradox didn't make her storyline any favors, other than forcefully combine her two sides of her character, creating further confusion. I mean, in the books Daenerys can distinguish the two sides of her character, and ultimately in the end she consciously chooses Fire and Blood. In the show she doesn't know what she is ( heck she needs Dario to tell her she is a Conqueror), trying to romantice her invasion as savior's mission...
I thought it started with her brother's death. They left out her desperately trying to get him to leave the tent, telling Jorah to give him the dragon eggs, any indication of the "horrified despair" she felt when he drew a blade knowing it doomed him, or her reaction to his death, which was numb, not cold as in the show. She was also stated to have not smiled for weeks afterwards. She tried to save him and didn't want him dead, yet you don't get any of that in that particular episode of the show.
Thank you so much for this video! I had always had an inkling that the Meereense arc was more important than I was seeing, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. THIS. This is what the important part is.
So in the books we have the “young Griff” character. Aegon Targaryen or “Faegon” to a lot of book readers. The absence of this character was a huge oversight by the show runners in going from where they had Dany. To where they wanted her to go. Having Faegon show up in Westeros first and getting houses and bannerman to his cause before her. Would have helped with the framing of Dany being the villain. I also think Tyrion was meant to be a more corrupting influence on Dany. Help to play up the fire and blood side of her personality. He is in a very dark place in book 5. The show decided after season 4 that Tyrion needed to be a good guy, the audience avatar. Which was a mistake.
Even in the show I was firmly on Mirri's side. Even if she deliberately made Drogo half-alive in that coma like state, she had every right to do that. Dany crucifies some slave masters who treated their slaves cruelly later on. Guess what, Drogo was a slaver who led the attack on Mirri's village. But it's all fine when Dany does far worse brutality to those masters but when Mirri does comparatively more restrained retribution, burn her alive? I despised what Dany did
@@mylittlethoughttree Yes, that is exactly true. You have to step outside and look at the totality of the story. Beyond the surface level. Some stories are all about immersion, all about the emotional experience. Others are all about the 'meta' level, about the rational contemplation of the moral messages and the themes of the story. The audience made a fatal misjudgment as to what kind of a story Game of Thrones was.
@@SerbAtheist Yes, they thought it was a good story when it was actually a bad one. Presumably the finished books will resemble a portion of the hypothetical that you describe.
While I agree with a lot of what you say, there are a couple of points where I have some quibbles. 1) Mirri's price: Even in the book, it is very clear that Mirri always intended to sacrifice Dany's child. You even brought up the line "That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price." This is clear-cut proof imo that Mirri was enacting her own agenda. I don't think this justifies burning her alive. But it does make it so that Dany's feeling of betrayal is completely justified. 2) Untangling the Meerenese Knot: These essays make too many assumptions to be considered credible imo. It is obvious that the writers have bias in their analysis. One prime example is them bringing up that Dany forgot the name of the burnt child "Hazzea" and claiming that this is somehow proof that Dany is wavering in her resolve to protect innocents. I'm sorry what? That is a ridiculous leap of logic. And in any case, Dany still remembers "Eroeh" who she failed to protect in aGoT. Another prime example is the interpretation that Dany is struggling between two personas; "Mother of Dragons" and "Mhysa". To choose one is to abandon the other, according to the essay. This is false. These two personas are one and the same as exemplified by aSoS where Dany successfully embodied both at the same time and managed to upend the entire slave economy of Planetos.
I really like the bare bones of the mereneese knot essay. Even George himself has read it and said he felt pleased that someone understood the character arc, so the bare bones have to be accurate
@@mylittlethoughttree sure, the barebones are about Dany’s immense personal struggle between enacting (someone brutal) justice and wanting to avoid bloodshed. That is fine. However, the essay asserts (or at least heavily implies) that the “peace” she achieved in aDwD is somehow better than going scorched earth against dishonest actors, most of some are fighting for slavery. What? You could use that very same logic to justify the practices of the American South during the Civil War. The problem being that you assume that there can be any peaceful resolution between two diametrically opposed sides, with one side already showing themselves to be ok with committing violence. What are the Sons of the Harpy, if not a parallel to the KKK? No, that “peace” is only good for the slavers. It is a disaster for the enslaved. And guess which of these are Dany’s people?
@@syedshahrukhraza2923I do not think that Mhysa and Mother of Dragons are contradictary, but it is hard to be both. Dany dreams of home she will never have. She tries to make one, but she feels like an outsider everywhere. Dany dreams of a world which she won't ever achieve. I am White woman from the centre of Europe, so take my view with grain of salt and as simply my opinion and nothing more, but I doubt that one person alone can end slavery in one lifetime, even if they posses the power she has. I symphatize with her, but her cause seems doomed. She is more open towards other cultures than for example Barristan, but she still struggles. She was good at conquering and it makes sense that to keep herself somewhat content she wants to return to conquest and violence instead of peace-keeping and approaching slavers with a smile, especially if the cost of peace was so high and the peace not worth it. She is not "a mad queen". She Will never be one, but she will potrayed as such and she will fail.
I‘m gonna stop you right there. Like you‘re probably not wrong about all this stuff, like sure, the ambiguity comes across better in the books, yada, yada. But the main issue is the completely moralistic attitude combined with double standards and misunderstanding what kind of world they are writing in. This is a world where killing people with impunity is like the least surprising thing for a leader to do. They all do it (well, the successful ones). When Tywin and Stannis have their enemies killed in brutal fashion, that‘s considered statesmanlike. Burning King‘s landing is over the top for Dany (she has no actual reason to), but in the right context would not even be at all surprising for someone to do. George R. R. Martin makes sure to show us that this is a mean world where violence is not just „politics by other means“, politics IS violence. Often extreme, indiscriminate violence meted out with impunity by the powerful. In practice, there is zero Reason why someone who does all these things Dany does might not still be a very effective and successful ruler and even one that ultimately upholds the common good. It‘s certainly unlikely that someone will be removed from power just because they killed some people. Kill the wrong people at the wrong time? Sure, that‘s gonna backfire (just ask Aerys II). But killing people in general, meh. It‘s assumed that George R. R. Martin will send Dany down a pretty dark path, and we‘ll have to see how it pans out. But either way, chances are whoever ends up on the Iron Throne has to climb over a lot of corpses to get there. If that ends up being Dany (and it very well might) then there‘s a good chance it will be despite or even because of her darkness. The idea that doing bad stuff will mean losing the game of thrones literally contradicts the entire concept of these books. That‘s the BIG problem with Dany‘s arc in the show.
Something Martin does in the books is frame justice and revenge in relation to each other. Take the Martels: most of them openly say they want "revenge" against the Lannisters. But there is a single exception: Oberyn Martel. Never once does he say he wants "revenge", only ever "justice", and he has a LOT of time to talk about wanting one or the other. Tywin Lannister believes that revenge itself IS justice, and thus excuses himself for so many moral failures. This is the key to understanding the difference between how Dany is portrayed in the books vs the show. Book Dany wants justice; a sometimes harsh and bloody justice, but she still sees it as justice, thus doing the "right thing" in all her judgments. In the show, this element is lost, or at best replaced with Tywin's understanding that revenge itself is justice.
I'd go so far as to say that I think a failure to distinguish between justice and revenge on the part of the showrunners is the root of most of the problems with the Game of Thrones show. It's a major theme of the books and one the show seemed disinterested in.
Of all the terrible decisions that were made in season 8 the treatment of Dany actually bothered me the least honestly but that’s probably mostly due to the fact I never really saw her as some empowering figure and pretty much always knew we were gonna end up with some kind of mad queen arc. When Arya killed the Night King is when the show well and truly died for me. There was no coming back from that.
@@Aydan2108 what I’m really curious of is how you thought this story would end. They just deal with the others no problem? Dany goes down to kings landing and kills Cersei becomes queen and happily ever after? The Night King should have never been a thing in the first place but since they insisted on creating him and heavily foreshadowed a confrontation with Jon maybe have him kill him? I mean shit I would’ve still been fine with Arya getting the killing blow if it were at least a collaborative effort. The fact they had one of their lead stunt people playing him and he never once had a proper fight is criminal to me. As for mad queen Dany there is evidence throughout the story to support the idea that she will do anything to gain power. The set up in the show was very poorly done but I could see a scenario where she see no other option to get the iron throne than to say to hell with any collateral damages and just goes for it. The shows mistake was having her systematically moving street by street murdering anyone and everyone possible.
@caseyhart4999 the show ended with the iron throne as the focus which is wrong cuz the real threat which are the others should have been the focus, dany was supposed be azor ahai and probably sacrifice herself to end the long night and die in it, she is the only character that fulfilled the prophecy such as being born again amidst smoke and salt and waking dragons from stone under a bleeding star, and your evidences about how she is going to be "the mad queen 🤓" are all lame, if you think daenerys will hurt innocent people just for that stupid chair than you did NOT understand her character at all.
@@Aydan2108 I agree it was wrong to have the iron throne as the focus and I would have liked it if either Dany or Jon was azor ahai with the other being Nissa nissa but to suggest Dany would never harm an innocent person is patently ridiculous. She will hurt whoever is in her way of achieving her goals and she demonstrated that again and again throughout the series.
@caseyhart4999 how?, her goal and her most important reason to take the iron throne is to give the people a better life, she had the power to leave to Westeros buy she still stayed for her people, tell me your evidence of when she killed innocent people for power?
I think the ending that I always imagined for Dany was for her to die sacrificing herself. What I wanted to see was her walking that line between righteous justice and abusing her power for the most part of the show, making us wonder which way she'll sway in the end. I wanted to see her be cruel to her enemies, but still have that need to save the innocent, which motivated her for the majority of her time in the East. And at the end I wanted to see her face a choice: continue to kill her enemies to win the throne or put her life on the line for the innocent (preferably during the battle with the dead), and finally to choose the thing that, in the end, mattered to her more, which is to end suffering rather than to sit on the throne, especially since in the book she mostly yearns for home, not power. I wanted Dany to be a mystery and for her "good" side, the side that made her free the slaves to win in her final moments, thus breaking the cycle violence and abuse that made her suffer so much in the first place.
Bit surprised you didn’t mention biggest change: Danny being fireproof all the time. GRRM said the funeral pile was only survived because of burning a witch. She’s not an X-Men, in the books.
Good channel, btw. If you’re taking requests: what was Jaimie’s story supposed to be? It seems like they sent him to die with Cerci because GRRM was gonna have him there but other than her shift, it’s the least explicitly unclear as a narrative. How’d they end up with a quick change in a single scene!
I only have to say that, except for pleasing the algorithm, please don't worry about a show or movie being "relevant" if you have something worthwhile to say about it (hell, the Breakfast Club isn't a hot topic, but those videos are great). To the contrary, I find that older media incites less emotional fervor, so it's easier to discuss and be analytical about.
i don’t think mirri or dany are to blame for what happened in the end of the first book. mirri was right to get revenge against drogo but she was wrong for killing dany’s baby that obviously did not deserve to be punished for his father’s crimes. and dany was not wrong for punishing mirri, because, as i said before, she did murder dany’s unborn child. you can see both their perspectives and take both sides. it’s not right to villanize the child bride who just had her innocent baby murdered or the woman who had her life completely destroyed by savages.
No absolutely not. The story wouldn't work if we couldn't empathise with both, however the show also does everything it can to excuse Dany's actions and frame them like there isn't anything wrong at all. Whereas the book says "burning someone alive is not good, let's understand why and how it happened, and hope Dany grows from this"
which is stupid statement btw why behading someone is better than burning both is obv bad but does book also hints behading also bad? @@mylittlethoughttree
Dany became a villain when she killed the magi, walked into the flames and then walked out with dragons, the Dothraki and the slaves nearby prostating themselves as if she was a God. The road that concluded with her murder began there. The writers of the show did not miswrite her path and conclusion. She was becoming a tyrant from the begining.
@saraa.4295 Every time she stated "I will take back what was rightfully mine", when she stated she was a queen, when she demanded absolute loyalty from those who followed her, when Jon Snow needed to remind her that he was a king and not her subject -- she revealed entitled attitude. And, she felt entitled to rule her subjects absolutely. Bran and Jon Snow became kings. They did so from a sense of duty, not entitlement. Dany wanted to break the wheel without knowing what the wheel was.
@@sdzielinski apart from jon and maybe bran (his motivation is unclear) every king who wanted the iron throne was entitled, demanded total loyalty and was willing to have ppl die for them in order to get/keep the throne. This may be bad behaviour by our modern standards but within the context of the show? She was just another claimant to the throne, no better or worse than robert, stannis or renly
@@saraa.4295 But the series concluded with the wheel broken. Gone were right by succession and conquest. In their place was an elective monarchy. Dany had no place in the new Westros
@@sdzielinski well, might is right could still wheel his ugly head once bran dies, we don't know that yet. But her not being the right ruler for westeros, which i kinda agree to, seeing she never lived there, is another issue then claiming her path to despot and tyrant was well developed and forshadowed in the series. In the book, i suppose it will be, seeing as she will not go against the worst monarch who ever monarched, but against the peoples darling....
I really liked Danny when I started reading the books, but by a storm of swords i started having concerns about her. After a dance with Dragons i considered her more of a antagonist if not an outright villain. Most of her story arc is her conquering cities, brutally murdering any who oppose her, then leaving the city in shambles. I kinda get why people were pissed about how she ended up in the show, but it was kinda par for the course with her. The writers just did a bad job of handling it.
@zer0phasez She conquered Meereen and instantly murdered a bunch of people. So, I'm not sure how that counters my argument. Yeah, she hung around for a bit, but it didn't go well for her, her friends and advisors, or the people of meereen. Imma double down; compare Danny's style of leadership and rule to Jon as Lord Commander vs. Cersei as Regent. Ignore their personalities and just look at their actions. Which does she most resemble? You could sum up Dannys story as "Worship me or burn."
Locking those two in the vault didn't bother me, not because of how much I like her character, but because they kidnapped her children. It's cruel, but justified.
I think you miss the main point: while the show was framing her actions a certain way, her actions were still cruel, brutal and often unnecessary. Anyone who watched, and didn't see that, was blind. I remember watching her early seasons, and thinking that I was wondering where she was going. Everything, including the burning of King's Landing was foreshadowed. It was the watchers, who were used to having a "hero" to root for, who fell for that ruse. It reminded me a lot of a theory of the epic theatre, where - contrary to the classical theatre - you are not meant to identify or empathise with the protagonists, but you are supposed to watch and analyse them. (Look at say, "Mother Courage" by Brecht, if you want an example). Dany's fall was not bad writing, it was long in the making, but the fans wanted her as an empowered heroine. Nothing of her actions was empowered. At first it was survival in a brutal society, then it became habit, and ultimately she did not wish to end the violence, but went further and further, which consequently ended in her destroying King's landing.
Right, I remember hearing from someone at one point the first relatively direct clue we got of her questionable character was when she ordered the children under 12 be spared... she didn't see herself as a child and didn't see the children her age as children either and ordered their deaths. It's not like the unsullied were going to ask the age of a child looking between 11 and 13 how old they were before killing them. Definitely needed better planning on the series creators' parts in slowly building up to her demise... if that was indeed the case from the beginning. I think this was one of those cases where the female lead's desirability took precedence over character and plot building. As a result they failed to A.) Make her as believable and compelling as she could have been and B.) Properly lead up to her meltdown.
I'm glad you brought this up. More needed to be said about both Mary and Daenerys in this situation. Daenerys is very very young at this event. She's pregnant and she thinks the Horses life/sacrifice will keep her husband alive. It's not irrational, but Mary didn't say anything specific about which life and which death were being equated. We excuse Daenerys for burning Mary because she felt manipulated and lied to, and holding back that piece of information from Daenerys, is a manipulation which causes us (fans/viewers) and Daenerys to suspect her intentions to begin with.
I'm glad that you mentioned that there were no slaves in Westeros, as in the show D&D somehow managed to imply that Dany was at least annoyed about that fact - there was no one she could truly liberate, plus her dragons in the end did more harm than good against White Walkers (due to that daft "let's catch a wight and show it to Cersei" adventure plot she agreed to - only to lose Viserion, thus providing the Night King with means to make a hole in the Wall and flood through it into mainland)... so the fact that nobody cheered for her or was happy to see her (except Jon Snow, occasionally) drove her mad. In my circle of friends, we used to joke about what drove Dany mad, and one of two winners was (I'm translating it from my mother tongue, I'm sorry it won't be funny or rhyme as the original, but at least I hope to get the point across): "What a disappointment Westeros was for Dany - a continent without slaves. More than anything else, it was that 'no slaves - no glory' thing that drove her mad, so she decided to create some, in order to have some people to liberate later", i.e. she ran out of people who would cheer for her and follow her around like pets.
I think a big issue with Dany's storyline is the show seemingly being scared of the whole myth and prophecy part of asoiaf as well. The house of the undying was gutted, she didn't have dragon dreams, the azor ahai stuff gets brought up and then doesn't become relevant again. It is a fantasy show deeply uncomfortable with being one it feels like.
In the books after killing his father Tyrion is feeling pretty wretched. There's a dark side to him not shown on the TV version and in the books following his trial he is on the warpath. He fully intends to return to King's Landing and kill them all. Dany can be a bit "Targaryeny" at times but for the most part listens to the better angels of her nature. I think Tyrion is going to be the devil on her shoulder. He's going to use Dany as his weapon of vengeance and he'll do it by encouraging Dany to "be a dragon" more and more. So yes a "Mad Queen" arc is on the cards for Dany it just has to be done better than what we got in the show.
She should have just flown to Kings Landing First with all 3 dragons. Get Cersi to surrender and then She becomes queen of the 7 kingdoms and THEN they fight the night king as the final battle with all 3 dragons.......just my take on how it should have ended
It would have been perfect if there was a scene where Dany was forced to confront her dubious acts and she denies ever doing wrong. Then she becomes overconfident and attacks kings landing out of fear of being a bad person.
When she got op dragons and started to see herself as a self-richeous crusader, she was ruined That witch 100% infected Drogo wound. She even hints that she did, as vengeance. A cut cant be that deadly, if not those warriors would die like flies.
It very much can. Tetanus will kill you stone dead within ten days, all you need is a scratch from a rusty/dirty nail or blade. The reason it doesn't happen much now is that we're all vaccinated against it as children.
I think the writers weren't quite sure where to go, and then had to rush to get to the end point. It's quite common when the source material runs out. I think trying to make her a symbol isn't as helpful as trying to write her as her character. Honestly, I'm kind of on Miri Maz Duur's side - the Dothraki are murdering, raping, pillaging bastards. Doreah may have betrayed her, but yes, I always thought that was particularly bleak.
lol Danny seemed justified in all her actions and did not come off as mad at all😅 from start to end . The problem was how other characters were reacting to it
I haven’t finished the video yet, but I already have thoughts lol. There are a lot of minor changes that I feel contribute to Show Daenerys’ odd characterization. The biggest change is cutting the big house with the red door which outlines Dany’s entire motivation for her actions instead of her just being entitled because she’s a Targaryen. The way she’s written in the books isn’t perfect, but for one she’s portrayed as a lot more politically savvy and strategic in the books and is more passive in the show (and oddly feels more bratty in Season 2 despite being aged up in the show). When she meets with the envoy from Yunkai and the leaders of the sellsword companies, she sets terms for each of them, offering some large amounts of wine and giving them a few days to agree, and when they’re gone she calls her advisors to her tent and tells them they should attack after nightfall. They’re all confused, and she tells them they’re going to sneak attack in the dark while the sellswords are drunk and lays out ways that they can attack. She’s more of a general in many ways, especially in Book 3 before she takes Meereen and has to learn to compromise. She’s learning to count the numbers of an enemy camp and is eager for her dragons to grow so she can lead her own troops to battle. Even in Astapor when she’s given the whip to signify her ownership of the Unsullied, she actually whips the slave master across the face herself. In the show it’s more her advisors and followers who do a lot of the planning and work unless her dragons are needed. Book Daenerys is suspicious of Illyrio being so generous to them and of the Qartheen being very welcoming. She doesn’t claim she was betrayed by Xaro. She knew he wasn’t her friend from the beginning. She’s very naive and optimistic in many ways but she starts the story at 13 years old. Sansa is only two years younger than her and she’s incredibly childish. TLDR they changed her a lot and didn’t have much reason to which screwed up her character in the show.
In my belief, throughout the entire show you get hints that Dany isn't all there in the head. So her destruction of Kings Landing shouldn't come as a great surprise.
I personally think the mad queen ending wasn't a million miles away from being well done. The whole show until s7 she is surrounded by people who wouldn't bat an eye at the atrocities she commits. The dothraki go around pillaging and slaving all the time. Her killing the Witch lady isn't exactly that brutal in the eyes of the dothraki, they're used to it. Jorah himself is hated by honorable people such as Ned Stark for his slaving ways. Jorah is objectively a bad person who is also in love with Dany, he wouldn't see a problem with anything she does. Grey worm and Missandei are freed from slavery by her and are almost definitely treated better by her than by their former masters. When tyrion and varys arrive, they are both full of hope in dany being the saviour of westeros and only really witness the slaughter of terrorist groups and slavers. It's only when the things she's been doing her whole life continue in westeros that people like varys and tyrion speak out against it. She was always this way.
I never viewed Dany's brutality as anything more than what European leaders did during earth's medieval period. Our history, in fact, is way way more brutal. Including female rulers. But with Dany's character arc in GoT, the audience is confronted with conflicting, modern, stereotypic values - between the triumph of a beleaguered ingenue and true female empowerment. Then, ultimately, both matters are resolved by a hastily constructed, supposedly "mad" adult villain. It was deeply disappointing. Not just for the poorly developed character arc, but for patronizing the audience so blatantly.
Tbh I’m not much of a fan of the Dany arc in the books either, but I do find the book version far more endearing than the show. This is not because she isn’t well written but because her story is such a drag. I found Aegon and Jon Connington and (spoiler alert) the Martell’s to be better pro-Targaryen counterparts.
I think It’s bullshit that the writers are trying to make us view Dany burning the Tarleys as this morally reprehensible thing but Sansa killing Ramsey is supposedly not wrong and Jon killing the people who murdered him isn’t wrong. It’s just such a double standard. Sansa is a girl boss (which she is in this moment) for killing her abuser but Dany is a monster for burning men who tried to kill her after they refused her offer to join her. Jon is a leader for executing the men who killed him including a child but Dany is the one who is wrong for executing two men who both willingly choose to die. It’s so hypocritical.
I assume Dany goes to Vaes Dothrak in the show because that's where she'll go in the book. Which is a major problem with the later seasons where D&D feel a need to hit certain story beats from the future books without considering whether it still worked in the diverged narrative of the show, so they just sort of clumsily shoehorn it in. King Bran has got to be the most obvious example.
i think it would have been interesting if they had written it so that Daenerys' court continues to slowly becomes the rejects of the world, people like Tyrion or Jorah or anyone who came with her from essos, where they really can't leave her because in her service they've pissed off basically everyone and leaving her would likely end in them being killed. from that base they could have written it where they are noticing Daenerys actions gradually becoming more careless of human deaths/cruel/blunt but they really can't do anything about it but they really can't do anything about it. at least from that point you could have some explanation for it and have it be a gradual enabling process where even if there is pushback to her decisions in the form of argument the argument still always ends in them letting her do what she's gonna do regardless of the human cost.
I agree with your points and overall they didn’t do Dany justice. However, given the trajectory she was already on, it bothered me that when Cercei killed Missandei- that’s when Dany should have reacted. Not at the very end. Not sure it would have made the ending a whole lot better, and it certainly wouldn’t have fixed her arc. But that would have been a more believable reaction at least.
I remember during the shows runtime many people were hating on Dany because she is too goody too shoes And just too perfect as a character and it doesn’t make her compelling When In reality she was a such a complex character who was neither good or evil She thought she was in the right and tried to do good but often did the opposite She’s much more of a deep character than people give her credit for If she would’ve become a villain with more development and progression than she would’ve probably been a top 5 villain of all time with a great descent into villainy
The simple explanation is that whenever Dany supposedly did something right, like nailed all those slavers to crosses, it's all played as heroic/ positive on the surface, even in the music, when in fact it's really wrong under the surface coz that's not what a 'better, greater' ruler would do if u really think about it. There are shades of her doing good like forgiving Jorah in S6 which is likely the only moment she shows proper mercy while in most other times if she feels you're guilty, you're dead. Yet she keeps insisting she's here to be a better ruler - how does burning people make her better? Same goes with burning the Tarlys. People claim, she gave them a choice when in fact that's not a choice at all. It's really worth pointing out that it's been confirmed that D&D always knew her ending (rather the whole ending) bcoz GRRM told it to them as early as season 3. So it's important for lotsa people to revisit the whole series from beginning like I did to better see lol the subtle layers that have been seeded in rather than expecting there to be overt in-your-face scenes that flat out slap it to our faces that she's mad in order to get season 8. Putting aside biased confirmation is also key, mind u.
Dany's arc in westeros fell flat on it's face because the show had no faegon. Cercei and euron are hatesinks, no one would rally behind them, so to make it more of a challenge they had to dumb Danaerys's team wayyyy down. And no e of her losses should turn her against the commons, as none of them supported cercei. But Faegon will probably be loved by the commoners, they will cheer for him.. She could compromise, marry him and bring peace...or she could be a dragon, but then she would need to rule by fear, as she can never have the love of the people of she kills their saviour (which he probably will be, saving or at least freeing kings landing from cercei...)
I think the problem with Dany being one dimensional is that other characters coming in contact with her becomes one dimensional as well. In the first few seasons she was on her own arch. When her arch met with other characters that were more complex it didn't mix well.
Sorry, But the Tarlys death, was totally justified. They rebelled against their liege lords, Help kill them I might add. Then they are both given the chance to bend the knee. Or go to the wall they refuse. So what is supposed to Nobody said Aegon was mad when he did a Field of Fire or The burning of Harrenhal. So also, don't forget the Randel Tarly threatend to kill his eldest son. But let's just say 7 season and 8 were sh**t. Still they made Dany a to much a white hero instead of the Grey one she is. Also having Baristen killed was stupid, he supposed to be the who we see Dany as. For a outside perspective. But they killed him off the idiots.
Don't need to apologise. In many ways, that's the point I was making: it's incredibly weird to frame their death as this terrible, terrible thing when way worse stuff has already happened and the show even goes out of its way to make the Tarly's death as understandable as possible
@@mylittlethoughttree They also both explicitly chose that death. But i found Randyl pretty shit anyway. He prides himself so much with his loyalty. And then switches sides to the murderer of his liegelord (And his heirs), and then directly participate in invading his liegelord's castle, killing not only the remaining Tyrell forces and household, and then proceeds looting the spoils. But the Sept of Baelor is one of the biggest issues the show has. It has pretty much no consequences for Cersei. And the smallfolk, where Faith and the Tyrells were VERY popular seemingly forgot about that too. The Westerlands and the Reach should have been in open rebellion after that, including the Tarlys, and King's Landing becoming a burning shithole. And I guess, it is pretty easy to add 1+1, the Sept blew up... with Cersei and Tommen being absent. But pretty much the most prominent lords of the loyal great houses being present. Yeahhhhh. That stinks.
I would have bought it if Dani lost it and went after Cerci and her pals not caring who got in the way but going out of her way to kill random King's Landing inhabitants really wasn't believable.
I think the best way to help show that shes a traumatised human would have been to have a scene where she talks about when she left kings landing as a kid. if they had it so she remembers exactly what happened and the brutality of how her family was slain, even if it didnt actually happen in the books, it would have brought you right back to the point where she is an extremely dysfunctional person who experienced extreme trauma in her childhood before becoming the victim of family abuse at the hands of her brother, then drogo. Shes got a domino affect her whole life of abuse and when she was pregnant she was given respect and power. i thought that was an intersting aspect as well, they never really credited her for her growing confidence, it was "the baby inside her". For most of her life, she was abused. People who grow up in those kinds of environments tend to seek out those kinds of relationships or act in similar ways as their abusers because its all they know. We didnt get to see any of this in Dani.
Another thing that was missed - Dany was told that the mad king simply gave people the punishments he thought they deserved. he was dishing out what he saw as fair justice. and each time he burned someone alive or punished them, he felt MORE powerful and MORE right. its the same for dany. she started off small, burning herself. then burning others through proxy (having drogo burn her brother to death by pouring molten gold on his head). and she felt powerful in that moment. she felt powerful even when she was able to threaten him chopping his hands off or having the dothraki beat him or tie him up. all of these were her first tastes of power and in that situation, we may feel it was right because of what he had done, but the theme is that dany learned never to answer injustice with mercy, but with revenge. and that revenge got more and more severe, while the infractions against her became less and less personal and even only slight. she starts reacting in bigger ways to the smallest of perceived attacks. this is all throughout the 8 seasons you see this. I saw it and realised in season 2 she was headed for villainy. anyway, the warning abuot her father was a foreshadowing of her own story. that she would punish people severely by burning them alive, and feel more powerful and more right evry time, making the next time worse (bigger punishment, bigger sense of being right, smaller or even imagined infraction against her)..."Until the very end". that was what she was told. her father was just doing what he thought was right and what secured his power until the very end when it all bew straight to hell and everyone suddenly understood that he was mad. Jaime was loyal to the targaryen king until he saw the final descent into madness and realise he was the only person who could save the 7 kingdoms. jaime and john are similar in that way. both loyal to a fault, both gentle souls, both propositioned by their close relative for sex, both faced in the end with a hard choice to kill the one they were loyal to or watch the whole world burn. there are key differences, but they are similar. and thats why we feel for jaime in the end. Jaime may even be a foreshadowing of what may happen to john after losing his honor by killing his queen, as jaime was never involved with his siter, and never engaged in dishonorable things until that moment. John is the queenslayer.
Yeah, I absolutely agree. My criticism is that they got the balance completely wrong causing it to feel contrived. The books handles it much better. You do root for her and empathise with her and very gradually it starts to peel back ever so slightly. In the show they go so hard on making her this empowering saviour achetype that it actually becomes more difficult to empathise with her as a person and makes the eventual reveal of "villainy" so much more flat
Danny tricking the slavers to get the Unsullied, and conquering the slave cities, showed her brilliance. But nailing all those men to the cross, and leaving them there, did kinda show she has a very spiteful side, right? She really didnt have to kill the Tarley's, she could have easily changed at least the son's mind. Tyrion's plans kind of sucked. They were too extra, and then it cost her at least 1 dragon and 1/2 of her armies. I know people that lose their mind if they dont get ketchup with their KFC orders. I can believe that she gets frustrated to the point where she wants to make someone pay for all of her loss. D&D just phucked it up pacing wise. They needed maybe 3 or 4 more episodes to really flush it out.
Let's remember too that in the book Dany starts out as a thirteen year old girl. Her harsh treatment of Mirri is NOT justifiable, but I'm not sure it's meant to be. This is the desperate action of a trauamatized, terrified and greiving child.
Did she steal Miri"s story and make it her own in the books? Because that's what she did in the show, and that was messed up.
@@ajae... She didn’t do that in either medium. If you’re talking about Dany saying she was a slave and a victim of rape, she very much was. She was quite literally sold to a rapist for the price of an army.
As for her treatment of Mirri, it’s not right but I don’t think anyone in that scenario was right - but all understandable. Fair enough for Mirri, killing the Khal who enslaved her and aborting the baby who would conquer the world. Fair enough for Dany she wanted revenge. But she didn’t. She tells Mirri it’s not her screams she’s after.
Dany isn’t a rash child acting out, she learned all the things Mirri taught her about blood magic. “Only death can pay for life”. Mirri’s death is purposeful: she need her life to wake a dragon egg.
She had already sacrificed Drogo’s life, which wakes Drogon, and Rhaego’s life which wakes Rhaegal. If she hadn’t burned Mirri then Viserion would not have hatched.
@@Sheija Yeah, she did it in the show. No doubt. She married Khal Drogo. Called him the love of her life and took on being a proud Khaleesi when that was convenient. Then she was a raped slave when that served her to appeal to actual slaves or boosted her story. She didn't think of herself as a slave until she understood how it could prove her sincerity or worthiness to lead former slaves. Marrying some man and having sex with him to advance your family whether or not you wanted to was the norm. No one would have considered that rape at the time, so going around claiming it was wouldn't have made sense to anyone. She was never enslaved by him or the Dothraki. She damned sure didn't announce herself as Drogo's victim when she was running around Qarth trying to find investors and killing her sex slave.
Miri"s story was powerful. She meant that shit and was ready to die on it. Probably ended Drogo because of it. She would never had lived as one of their wives. Show Daenarys never stopped using the misery of slaves to advance herself. But it started with Miri.
@@ajae... You need to rewatch the show. She didn’t “marry Drogo and call him the love of her life” at first. She begged her brother not to make her marry him because she was terrified, and he told her he’d happily allow Drogo’s entire army and herd to gang r*** her in exchange for what he wants.
We literally see her crying and repeating the word “no” on her wedding night, and the next episodes show her being ignored by Drogo in the day and r***d at night. She’s miserable and enslaved.
Dany doesn’t turn the tables until she takes control of their sex life and makes Drogo see her as a queen. She manipulates her way out of slavery, but that does NOT take away from her situation (obviously).
As for her not proclaiming herself as a victim and instead claiming Drogo when she meets the Khalasaar:
1) Dany obviously internalises some abuse and does genuinely fall in love with Drogo, regardless of how it started. It’s a complex story, and there’s plenty of real examples of slaves falling in love with their masters in the real world.
2) Even if she didn’t, she’s obviously not an idiot. Why would she come to the khalasaar from a position of weakness, when she KNOWS the culture.
@@Sheija You need to rewatch the show, JJ. But maybe after learning how oppression works. A woman who considers herself enslaved by a man would never think of him as her great love. Daenarys willingly married him, even though she didn't want to. No one would have thought of that as slavery because most women were married who the men in their family told them to marry. They wouldn't have considered consummating the marriage with a man you don't want to fuck to be rape either. So going around announcing that she was enslaved and raped was nonsensical. Even if I believed she was raped, none of her peers would. If anyone asked for details they would have disagreed with her. For Miri it was clear, and everyone would have thoughts the same. Daenarys used the better story and blurred it up to match hers.
My assessment of show Daenarys on this point is true and accurate. You fell for her line about herself, I didn't. Her whole approach to enslaved people was rather foul. Miri, Missandei, Grey Worm, the Unsullied, and the whole of Slavers' Bay included. I'll throw in that Khalasar whose temple she burned down, too. I get that you might not understand why that is. IYKYK.
For me the overall issue I have with show Daenerys vs book Dany is her loss of empathy. Even though her chapters are fewer in the books it always struck me how she seemed to be genuinely kind despite all that she had gone through. She wasn't always nice or patient but her POV sticks out to me as someone who is trying to be calculated about making choices that benefit the majority, vs show Dany who is more often short tempered girl boss with great posture. To be clear I enjoy both, but to me show Dany is not at all the same character as book Dany. Also it's a tiny thing, but I wish they'd been brave enough to leave her bald after the ritual! 😆
Yesss. I always imaged how cute she be with a bald head but have dragons. Its a small price pay. I would take it with pride. The show could had her with very short hair and grey tipped highlights. They could have done something too afraid of everyone not looking pretty.
I also was totally disappointed when they didn't make her bald, I guess they couldn't with the idea of her being less attractive somehow. I was even more disappointed when they chose a perfect body doble for Cersei too... it is pretty important for the character losing her youth and beauty, and it is kind of a pivot moment for her character in that way too. An aging lion without her main... sorry my brain went somewhere else haha but they totally discarded something that tells you something just because they didn't want her "ugly"
Same, at least on the books she seemed more human. I don't know why they made her more angry and less empathetic in the show. Probably because they already had a plan on how they wanted her character to go, since D&D admitted since season 3 that they decided Jon was going to kill Dany in the show, without grrm's input
Plus, they misinterpret Meereen. They still think Hizdarh means peace when he doesn't, he and the Green Grace represent trying to compromise with slave-owners to get rid of slavery. It doesn't work because those over-privileged fuckers don't want to lose free chattel labor. They instead show a forceful Daenerys rather than a "these people are fucking monsters but I need to work with them in order to try to fix this systemic problem"
She cared so much about the common people she kept herself busy paddling the pink canoe to Daario while there was a legit humanitarian crisis at her doorstep (created by her rank incompetence, btw).
When Dany burns the Tarlys, it could have helped to have someone from across the Narrow Sea with her to counter Tyrion’s horror. If they just see “Khaleesi’s justice” where Tyrion sees the Mad King, it could have setup an interesting narrative of conflicting perspectives borne of cultural differences.
They basically do that with Missandei in the very same episode, where she expresses to Jon and Davos a very cult-like glorification of Dany shortly after the scene in which Tyrion council's her against burning the Tarlys. I don't understand why everybody feels the need for things to have been done so explicitly in order to count. There's tons of subtext throughout the show that achieves the things people think D&D failed to do with Dany... but these things WERE done. It seems people just can't put 2 and 2 together. Y'all need 4 handed to you on a silver platter.
I agree.
What’s wrong with killing your enemies when they don’t surrender? Are people actually holding her to higher standards than everyone else?
What’s she meant to do, let them live another day so they can get the chance to kill her in the future?
@@AWSVids Are you seriously trying to argue that D&D were so smart that their subtle intelligent decisions went over everyone’s heads? 💀
Maybe you can shed some on how these genius men not only teleported a whole khalasar to the mainland without ships but somehow had them spawn halfway across the continent in a single day… :D
@@joshuaadams6565 yk the usual punishment for hostages is… being held hostage, don’t you? Plus, the westerosi method of execution is beheading, not being burned alive. She made the show of burning a father AND his son so everybody bends the knee and nobody dares to challenge her. She’s literally threatening a horrible death if you do not do anything she wants, she said so multiple times in all 8 seasons (they can live in my new world or they can die in their old). Plus, she can’t even execute them in charges of treason, because she’s effectively a foreign invader with slaves and pillagers in their army, and they owe no loyalty to her.
Something that always bugs me is when she goes back to the dosh kaleen, they call her stupid for believing the prophecy, like what??? Aren't the dosh kaleen like a super important religious figure? Shouldn't that make them question like their whole worldview? Or at least make them question what went wrong?
Maybe I missed something, but reading the first book, I definitely had the belief that the Dosh Kaleen made most of that stuff up in order to flatter Khal Drogo, the big bad warlord himbo who just rolled into town. Them calling Dany a moron for believing their prophesies seems totally legit to me, even if the rest of that tv plotline was nonsensical.
@@chrisrubin6445 that’s what you might think on a first read, but go read that prophecy again. Instead of thinking about it referring to Rhaego, remember that she becomes the Mother of Dragons. What they say is actually quite prophetic, particularly when it comes to Drogon, and I expect more of it will come true.
Also, the Dosh Khaleen use blood in their foretelling - we know in the story that blood magic is very real, and we see Maggie the Frog give Cersei a true prophecy in AFFC
@@Sheija GRRM seems to be replicating how Greek prophecies worked. Only by knowing the prophecy will it happen, Cersi's paranoia allows Maggie's prophecy to happen. So in the long run, no prophecies are true when they are made, they are made true by people acting in fear of the prophecy.
She believed the prophecy of some Lhazareen witch instead of the proper Dothraki prophecies coming from the Great Stallion. Dothraki are henotheists, meaning that while they acknowledge the existence of other gods, they find them unworthy of being worshipped.
@@SerbAtheistThe prophecy about a great stallion that will cover the whole world was made in Dosh Khalin, not Mirri Maz Durr
I always had a hard time with the Tarly deaths being her “mad queen prequel” because like… what about Blackwater? Not the fire part, but the part where captives that didn’t kneel to Joffrey were killed. But her killing the Tarlys was too far. It’s more directly spoken about in the books but still, people get executed all the time, especially war criminals ie the enemies. It does have any bite in comparison to Miri who gave a much better grey area to the situation.
Right it’s difficult to parse out the violence in the show. Almost every main character in the show is violent. Jon, Rob, Jamie, Ned, Tyrion, Sansa and on and on. And there seems to be understandable reasons (up until King’s Landing and maybe Ramsey) for the choices of those acts of violence. And yet Dany’s actions are somehow worse than anyone else’s in a world where violence is common? This point, for me anyway, is a big mistake in the show lore.
@@lynnshort1635It's not even the show that bothers me, it's the people who are so unreflective that they bring this shit up about Danny as if it proves she's evil when Arya LITERALLY killed an entire family and carved them and baked them into a pie to feed to their father! Yeah, it was revenge, but number one, she had no idea which members of the family were involved, and two, it's fucking crazy. People complain about Danny crucifying the Wise Masters, but the same logic applies. Yet Danny is treated one way (in hindsight mind you) and Arya and others get a free pass. All because of the framing of the final two seasons. It's ridiculous. Refusing to bend the knee gets execution. And burning people alive is considered cruel but it's not like a fucking war crime or something. This is a medieval fantasy land. It's really not the worst thing that could happen to you lol.
@@IshtarNike “This is medieval fantasy land. It’s really not the worst thing that could happen to you.” Right? Considering the Bolton’s acts? Or Qyburn?
@@IshtarNike it is the framing. When Tyrion kills and burns ships in season two (or when Danny does it in seasons five) we don't see these scenes from the inside character (at least not really) while in the burning of King's landing we see it from the POV of mostly those being killed.
'I always had a hard time with the Tarly deaths' I always had a problem with their deaths bc it doesn't make sense. Cersei just blew up their Vatican and their liege lord and his family, Lannisters killed Starks at the wedding, why would they be faithful to her, when she and her house are so damn unstable and crazy?
Jon and Dany’s romance fell incredibly flat. Compared to Jon & Ygritte and Dany only marrying men for advantage, or Dario who was cunning it made 0 sense. They were cordial and made deals that would benefit them politically but somehow fell in love? They weren’t compatible and they seemed like they didn’t even really seem to respect one another, much less trust one another. Dany going to the North wasn’t just for Jon she needed the North to back her claim and that was the forefront throughout her stay in Winterfell. Jon wanted her dragons, and her army to defeat the others. It was an awful element to add a love story in there. Also Kit and Emilia didn’t have chemistry imo
I vaguely remember a youtube video where a guy explained they had no chemistry because they're both used to being pursued and seduced by their love interests (Jon by Ygritte - even Melisandre tried to seduce him - and Dany by Drogo and Dario) so they were both waiting for the other to make the first move before they could reciprocate, and their interactions fell flat as a result. Basically: they're both submissives when it comes to love. 😂
the problem I have with Dany burning the Tarlys is the framing: She's framed as being morally wrong or even brutal for executing them. Yet the problem is, the world of GoT is just that; brutal. I think Lindsay Ellis said it best as the showrunners hold Dany to an unfair and hypocritical standard given she executes traitors (remember, the Tarlys were bannerman to House Tyrell, whom they betrayed) same as other characters like Jon or Sansa or even Ned Stark.
She just uses a dragon to execute people instead of a big-ass sword.
"She just uses a dragon to execute people instead of a big-ass sword." - Which is exactly the problem with it. "The (wo)man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die." Using her dragon allows her to keep her hands clean, which is basically a page from Littlefinger's book and it makes the killing easy on a personal level. Compare it with Jon ordering Janos Slynt to be hanged, only to realise that he needs to do it himself.
I agree. Honestly, I was more bothered by her threatening to burn the common soldiers if they didn't follow her. Executing Tarly for treason was pretty much fine, though burning alive by dragonfire probably wasn't the best image. Not that it wouldn't be extremely quick, it's dragonfire after all.
@@irena4545 That's really only a concept in the North, though, and even then, mainly just the Starks. It's a nice sentiment, sure, but really no other culture in Westeros follows it. Kings, Queens, Lords, and Ladies have always had headsmen/executioners that handle that. Jon was raised on those principles because he was raised as a Stark. Same for Robb when he executes Lord Karstark. Wasn't really a custom the Targaryens adhered to, even the Targaryens that were considered good kings and queens.
@@caleb972 Sure but the contrast was introduced for a reason. Plus, we're talking not the response of Westeros but that of the viewers.
@@FlyingFox86 Same. The method of execution might give off an unsettling image, but the actual action itself (relatively quick and painless because dragonfire) and the reason behind it (treason) were honestly no worse than the kind of things we've seen from other characters, and not just over-the-top vicious examples like Joffrey. We see plenty of characters who are clearly intended to be viewed as the more moral and humane figures in the setting doing pretty much the exact same thing, just in a way that doesn't tend to LOOK as frightening. It's not tyrannical or a symbol of falling from grace (relatively speaking at least), it's just a pretty typical punishment for that particular offense in this setting.
Of all the stories in ASOIAF that suffered from having a lack of nuance in the show, Dany's is almost certainly the biggest victim, because hers is a story ABOUT nuance. She spends several books doing almost nothing except learning that sticking to absolutes doesn't work in a complex world, so compromising on principles is the only way to survive and thrive as a ruler, as a friend, and as a person. This is essentially the same lesson as Jon (for all the obvious reasons), but he learns these lessons from others, while Dany figures out everything in her own head. Jon's development was easy to translate onto the screen; Dany spent entire POV chapters doing nothing but talk to herself.
It's interesting that for all the changes the show runners made - which of course is necessary to translate the story to a new medium - they barely deviated Dany's story from the book, merely truncating it for pacing. Unlike others where they made changes in order for the CHARACTER to land where it needed to for certain story beats, they only played with the TIMING of Dany's story so that it hit Westeros when it needed to. The result was that Dany became a caricature, not a character.
Yeah that's a pretty good explanation, without her internal thoughts, so, so much is missing. If they were really struggling to convey it through characters, they could've at least thrown in a few dreams sequences or something. There were a lot of opportunities where that would have been plausible
Every character got done dirty by the terrible show writers. Dany was butchered, but I think Stannis was the worst. His was terrible from start to finish and a complete failure to understand the source material.
@@LC-wv7tz I didn't invest in the show, so I can't really speak from a TV perspective, but in terms of adapting from the book I find it hard to get worked up about any non-POV character. Through all the books released, has Stannis ever been more than the third most important character in any scene? He's as much a prop as he is a character. So, I'm okay with the show taking liberties to fit him in however it works (which isn't to say they did make it work). Dany has entire nations that exist for the sole purpose of service her story. She's one of the central characters of the series, long before the show passed the book timeline by and she actually started interacting with all the Westerosi arcs. If there's one character they could have created a made-for-TV adapted mini universe to serve the story of, it's Dany. And they didn't make even the slightest effort to do so.
That's what grinds my gears.
@@mylittlethoughttree They could have literally just had her talk to someone about what she was thinking. Like normal people do. Even Queens.
@@wwaxworkexactly. But going by the last few seasons, dialogue obviously isn't their forté.
The main problem is that the show completely dropped the Young Griff storyline. D&D basically gave Daenerys JonCon's plotline and his trauma with the bells, a character and overall story the show completely left out.
Kings Landing will certainly burn, but it will be because of JonCon, who, apart from suffering from trauma due to what happened at the battle of the bells, also has grayscale, which is said to drive you nuts after a while, and Cersei, who has repeatedly been compared to the mad king and is obsessed with Wildfire, some of which is still hidden beneath the city when Aerys wanted to blow up KL at the end of Robert's Rebellion, so any spark can lead to a chain of events that set the caskets ablaze and blow this entire city into smithereens. All of these pieces were dropped from the show, which led to this noncencical mad Dany plotline of burning KL because she heard the ringing of the bells which set her off.
Now, I do think Dany is going to burn some shit, but most of it will be set in her crusade against slavery, like Volantis, for example, which has already been set up for a potential Harrenhal 2.0 moment with the Black Wall and the Widow of the Waterfront sending her a message to come there. I think Daenerys biggest concern in Westeros will be more so the threat of the others and Euron rather than her campaign for the throne. Cersei certainly won't be much of a factor because you already have Young Griff's crew clashing with Cersei's forces. Dany isn't really much of a factor in this storyline, like she was in the show.
I legit think that JonCon might even burn things to kingdom come Cersei style if he ever realizes that Young Griff was never Rhaegar's son, both he and the kid were lied to all along for the entire kid's life. That would be, well, a reason for him to lose the plot
The basic problem devolved down to "foreshadowing is NOT character development!"
Dany has always been compelling and interesting to me, as someone who is trying to do good in the world and by her people (and who is 'her people' are is something that changes and expands), but who lives in a world where violence is extremely normalized, has conflicting legacies weighing on her, and of course has her own feelings and is also a young teenager learning on the fly.
And the show's treatment of Dany, not giving her interiority and sort of just letting her be carried around by the actions and opinions of those around her, plus the greater emphasis on her "savior-ness" rather than getting in on her doubts and failures and learning, is part of what kept me from getting into the show (which turned out to be a good call in hindsight)
A little detail I recall from the show with that scene, where they talk about blood magic, when Mirri assured Dany that it wasnt her death as the cost, Mirri glanced down, as if she was looking at Dany's pregnant belly. I always considered that to be show not tell. It goes by quickly, but for me i always imagined Mirri doing the same thing in the books. Its not explicitly said but that small detail in the show says alot. It was telling that Mirri had malintent (which in her mind in justified as she wanted to end Drogos line so that no one else suffers what Mirri herself had endured by Drogo's khalasar). For me, I think Dany realised the true cost was her son, not the horse. Its one cruel and harsh lesson Dany learned about the world she lives in. Her anger was further fueled by her grief of losing her son and her Sun-And-Stars. Thats how i always saw it to be honest.
I also agree with your assessment of Dany not having any agency. I love the books, its been a while since i read them. It bothered me that they took Danys agency away as she herself came up with the plot to incapacite the Second Sons and the Stormcrows (Correct me if im wrong, book readers. Its been a while for me lol) with the wine. He knew they would bicker about her deal and while Daario killed the other captains, the Unsullied and some of her freedmen fought and won. It was her idea. To the point that Jorah compared her to Rhaegar and Barristan agreed (which they rarely do in the books). Not to mention how they striped her agency and emotional intelligence in Qarth as well. In the books, shes active and trying to be more methodical but in the show, they made her throw a tantrum and threatened to burned them if they didnt give her what she wanted. For the life of me, i dont know why they did that to Dany. Shes not my favourite character any means but that was a great disservice to her.
I too feel as if that the Meereense plot is vital for her character as well. Every compromise is a bond on her. She hates that shes around people she'd sooner kill but wants to be a good queen and ruler. Shes understanding that compromises means you have to overlook many things and due to her own moral compass, someone who understands what it means to be sold off as a slave (How Viserys practically sold her to Drogo for an army), she doesn't want that for anyone else. But that system is steeped deep in parts of Essos and shes yet to find a system to put into place and slowly change it from the inside. Book Dany has alot to learn and she's very much self aware. Again, the stripping of her agency in the show hurt her character more than it helped her in my opinion. She's an idealist yet, but she needs to be alot more pragmatic and the temptation to just burn everything to the ground is understandable. I love how George made that aspect of her character a devil on her shoulder that she's trying to ignore but the angel route she's taking is suffocating her more than she can stand, yet she still persists. George is brilliant.
Im curious to see how her story would end in the books. I believe that she will be unfairly labeled the Mad Queen as well due to her choices when she gets back to Westeros. It doesn't help that what she did to Astapor, Yunkai and the Sacking of Meeren has already spread to Westeros. If Cersei (who definitely is the true Mad Queen but it's understandable how she got there as she's unravelling rapidly), does ascend the throne after Tommen dies (perhaps poisoning from the Sand Snakes, idk) , she will use that to her advantage to rally Westeros against the 'foreign queen.' I see Dany being very disillusioned when she arrives at Westeros. Maybe she accidentally sets off the wildfire or Cersei sets it off when Dany is near the Red Keep and blames Dany for the damage and chaos..
Either way, fantastic video as always! I'm especially happy that you mentioned the Meereenese Knot Essays. It's great stuff! Anyone who is a huge ASOIAF fan, I recommend it. A very interesting and fascinating read that gives you food for thought. 😁
I agree with most of what you said here, but personally I don’t think Cersei will still be on the throne when Daenerys arrives. In the books Daenerys has a vision in the House of The Undying (which was much more interesting in the books) of a cloth dragon swaying on poles amidst a cheering crowd. She says it’s a mummer’s (actor’s) dragon, an enemy to give the heroes something to fight. There’s another character who was cut from the show that I think MASSIVELY messed up the plot: Aegon Targaryen. Varys and Illyrio are working together and they say that this kid is Rhaegar and Elia’s son who they saved and switched with another baby when the Lannisters seized King’s Landing. There are theories that Aegon is not who he claims to be, and Varys grew up with a troupe of mummers in the Free Cities and is known to use disguises, making Aegon the most likely candidate for The Mummer’s Dragon. He’ll probably show up in Westeros and take down Cersei, an unlikeable and self-sabotaging tyrant, and when Daenerys turns up in Westeros she’ll have to fight a POPULAR king who might even steal one of her dragons and has a few powerful players on his side, not an unpopular queen with no real way to fight her living nukes who drinks on her balcony all day.
' It was telling that Mirri had malintent '
Yes, because if you want to kill the unborn child of the wife of the genocidal warlord who murdered your people, the smartest thing to do is to TELL this wife to stay out of the tent while you're performing your ritual AND glance at her belly while she is in your presence. The glance was clearly intended to be seen by Dany, a discrete nod to Dany that she would be putting her child's life at risk if she entered the tent.
I think that’s not a common take, but after seeing the show and reading a little bit of the books, I think it actually was a reasonable narrative choice to have Tommen choose to jump out of that window? i don’t know if he has much of a personality yet in the books, or how old he is exactly.
But in the show it definitely seemed like what a determined, dutiful idealist like him would do considering the dire position he was in
The last season was already so bad but Dany taking Kings Landing with very few casualties before going “Mad Queen” mode was really the icing on the cake. Like the whole point of her doing all this extra shit instead of attacking KL was to win the war without the death of civilians and she took the city in like 10 mins which would’ve saved so many more lives. I could write 10 essays on how much I hate the last 2 seasons of the show.
We should’ve known what was going on once the show decided not to include Vaes Tolorro and made Dany go to Qarth and threaten them to let her in instead of her being invited like in the books.
I have gripes even in season one but this is the moment for me, too. Vaes Tolorro is a really important start to her grappling with being a leader and "mother" both. The constant conflicting feelings of wanting to protect her people, wanting to nurture and plant trees, and wanting to take up her brother's dream of returning to Westeros and claiming her birthright with fire and blood. George's classic "conflict of the heart".
@@WatashiMachineFullCycle Exactly, we see Dany able to lead and build, which is very important considering her monologue in ADWD about a dragon being able to destroy but not build, not able to truly help people.
Season’s 2 handling of Daenerys was a clear indication that they were not going to be faithful to her story arc. Book Daenerys and show Daenerys are two different characters. In the book Daenerys constantly questions if she’s a monster and wonders if she’s doing the right thing. In the book it’s her advisors that want her to be more violent and it’s her pushing back against the violence. Daenerys in the book is and always was, self away. Book Daenerys is a very much a mother figure, nurturing but forceful. She is a grey character.
I’m still of the belief that Cersei is the Mad Queen and that it will be her and or Aegon that destroy King's Landing. Either Cersei will do it with Wildfire to stop Aegon or Cersei could accidentally set it off a chain reaction when she (if the show is to be believed) blows up the Sept and or trick Aegon into doing it.
I don’t see how Daenerys could do it. She has too much ground to cover in Essos. She still has to deal with the Dothraki in the Great Grass Sea and the Dosh Khaleen in Vaes Dothrak (and if the show is to be believed) traveling with her new found khalasar back to Meereen is going to take some time, like months. Then when she does get back to Meereen she has to deal with the Meereenese knot (Victarion, The Green Grace and The Harpy’s and the whole of Slaver’s Bay, Quentyn “death”, Tyrion, Jorah, taming her dragons etc) and then after that find “a 1000 ships” to get to Westeros, which again will take months to achieve and then you have to factor in the sailing across to Westeros with that large of a fleet will again take months.
Realistically, which GRRM likes to try and do in his writing, be as realistic as possible, I honestly can’t see Daenerys getting to Westeros until the 7th book and by then one would think the Long Night would have started.
If so at the point I could see Jon or whoever greeting Daenerys at the ports asking her to come north and help with the Other’s. But GRRM says they’ll be a 2nd Dance of Dragons, whether or not he meant literally or figuratively is tbd.
I believe Dany will maybe arrive at the end of winds of winter and change the tide in the war against the others and maybe even die
I think the showrunners were too interested in what would look "cool" or "badass" and play well with a TV audience and not interested enough in consistent characterization or satisfying pay-off for arcs. I also think that if they weren't in some way beholden to matching the main points of the show ending to GRRM's planned book ending that they wouldn't have bothered showing Dany as a villain at all. She would have been played completely straight as a heroic figures audiences should be pumping their fists for--because that's fun for audiences to watch and gets good TV ratings. At the end of the day, that was their biggest concern: their ratings, not the story's actual themes or ideas.
I really don't get how Dany's violent acts in that kind of situations could be seen as "mad" or "criminal". Dany's father was considered mad because he killed without a reason, out of fear and paranoia. The same goes with Joeffrey, who enjoyed the violence and refused to follow any political strategy. But killing a traitor, getting revenge, showing your power with violence is a valid option in GoT world, it is often the only way to face some situation and keep your life and power. It's not logical to judge a character from that world with our standards.
Absolutely. In a story rife with killing for revenge, betrayal or to protect others there are so many other examples of characters who have done (up until Dany burning KL) similar acts without it being seen as a character flaw. And for women in this particular world, they have far fewer choices when it comes to power. I suppose margaery tyrell (show version) would be the example of one woman who had the political savvy to balance power. Cheers
Exactly! Look at what Tywin did to house Reyne or what Arya did to house Frey in the show. Incredibly brutal and yet the narrative never frames them as _mad_ . This is why I don’t think Dark Dany would have ever worked in the show. In the books it could work because something seems to be off with Dany and her sense of time as well as her memories that could be hinting towards some kind of mental illness, but yeah, calling her mad because her tactics can be brutal sometimes is off in the GOT world.
@@kk8490yeah, they call Daenerys mad and cruel but think Tywin is such a badass only cause he’s a man. So tiring
Except Aerys, while he was paranoid, wasn't without reason to burn the Starks, and then call for Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark's heads.
The Starks usually marry into other Northern houses, or at least other houses with strong First Men ancestry.
They almost never marry outside of that.
Now all of a sudden, Lyanna Stark is betrothed to Robert Baratheon (a family related to Targaryens probably from Aegon the Conqueror's time and very much not First Men ancestry), and the heir to Winterfell Brandon Stark betrothed to Catelyn Tully (again, not known for First Men ancestry), that alongside Lysa Tully being betrothed to Jon Arryn, there was clearly an alliance being brokered for some reason.
He'd heard whispers of Rhaegar wanting to overthrow him which is probably why he unexpectedly showed up to the tourney at Harrenhall in the first place but I'd have to check that.
Then when Brandon Stark came barging into the Red Keep, demanding Rhaegar's blood for supposedly kidnapping Lyanna, he was arrested, and as far as Aerys is concerned that's reason enough to execute someone, threatening his heir.
He summoned Rickard Stark to answer for Brandon Stark's crimes, and when Rickard demanded a trial by combat, unwilling to let the Starks escape justice for threatening his son, chose wildfire for a champion and burned Rickard alive while Brandon strangled himself trying to do something to save his father.
I suppose he thought it might be seen as a similarly brutal act like what Tywin did to House Reyne that nobody would mess with him again, but fearing retaliation anyway he called for the heads of Ned and Robert to put an end to this powerful alliance forming between the Starks, Baratheons, Tullys and Arryns.
Turns out in a way he was right to fear retaliation, Jon Arryn basically said if you want Ned and Robert, come get them, and raised his banners and had Ned and Robert raise their banners too, negotiating with the Tullys to have Ned marry Catelyn instead now Brandon was dead.
Aerys took things to an extreme, but there was always a reason behind it.
That's the whole issue with madness, more often than not there's a reason behind their actions, it's just the actions are extreme.
Some of Dany's actions, both show and book, are extreme compared to the reason, maybe not as extreme as her father's, but extreme nonetheless
@@hannahsmart4494 you’re right that aerys wasn’t mad because he was paranoid about potential paranoia, especially considering that Rhaegar was openly scheming against him. The problem is that Aerys wasn’t considered mad because of what he did during _Robert’s Rebellion_ , he was already considered insane at that point (which is _why_ Rhaegar was planning on deposing him).
The reason his paranoia was considered madness is because after Duskendale he refused to leave the Red Keep for four years, and he started expecting everyone around him of betrayal without cause, which ironically alienated those around him and made betrayal more likely. He executed wet nurses and the family of his mistress for no reason, he refused to groom himself, and he was roasting people alive because it arose him sexually to watch people burn alive.
Aerys didn’t simply do rational things in a slightly cruel way. he was called mad because after duskendale he descended into deluded paranoia that alienated him from all his allies. That’s not comparable to Dany or even to Tywin, who although brutal, clearly have their reasoning faculties in tact.
I think D&D never truly understood who Dany was, honestly. There's a video by David Lightbringer that breaks her character down that I mostly agree with, definitely check that out if you haven't!
Also THANK YOU for mentioning the whole "Targaryan genetic madness" thing. It drives me nuts when people point to that as a justification for her mad queen thing in the show. With one or two exceptions (and only because we know so little about them tbh) most of these "mad" Targaryan kings had plenty of reasons behind their behaviours. And now that George has revealed Aegon I being a dreamer is in fact canon it's heavily implied that misinterpreted prophecy is to blame for a lot of these "mad" acts too. Thinking about Aerion drinking wildfire because he *believed* it would turn him into a dragon, just as one example.
Yeah I’ve watched that video. I like David’s work.
D&D were way out of their depths when they took on GOT. Even from the get-go. And they even admit it themselves. The problems with the show go beyond it with these issues of hiring not the best writers for the job and then said writers not willing to step down and let others take over for the final few seasons made for a cluster fuck of issues.
I forgot to mention about breaking the wheel...
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I love the 5th book. I know it can feel a bit of a drag, but I love it. And I think it's absolutely crucial for Dany. For Jon too, by the way. ADWD is very much important for both of them. I think there is a breaking point there. The beginning of a big turn, if you like, for both of them.
By the way, re-Mirri Maz Duur. I think Dany, in the books, killed Mirri not for revenge. That was a bonus, if you like. No, she knew what she was doing when she prepared the pyre, and that was about the hatching of the Dragons. Remember, she had that dream about the Dragons, prior to this moment. The, we have this in the book:
'The godswife did not cry out as they dragged her to Khal Drogo’s pyre and staked her down amidst his treasures. Dany poured the oil over the woman’s head herself.
“I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur,” she said, “for the lessons you have taught me.”
“You will not hear me scream,” Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing. “I will,” Dany said, “but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.” Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth, but made no reply. As she stepped away, Dany saw that the contempt was gone from the maegi’s flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star.'
And then, they see the comet:
'Jhogo spied it first. “There,” he said in a hushed voice. Dany looked and saw it, low in the east. The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon’s tail. She could not have asked for a stronger sign.'
'The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her. She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough.'
'She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder. Only death can pay for life.'
This was blood magic and Dany knew. She had a purpose, Dragons. Revenge had little to do with it, if anything.
thank you for your comment… for both your measured thoughts and for the beautiful and apropos excerpt from the books
your comment makes me want to read all five books all over again…but I think I’ll keep waiting for Winds of Winter (WoW) to finally arrive and read them again once WoW is in hand.
I realize that sounds incredibly foolish: it’s been so long not sure if GRRM will ever finish WoW and I think we can safely assume that A Dream of Spring (putative ASOIAF Book 7) will never see the light of day. Oh well 🤷♀️
I saw the first season before reading the books, then consumed the books before season 2 came out, so I'm a bit of a weird mix of book-first and show-first experience. But I think the show's framing of Dany burning Mirri really blinded me for a bit, and it took me a while to realize that Mirri was absolutely in the right. Killing Drogo saved thousands and thousands of lives, and she says so explicitly. Mirri Maz Dur may have done more for the common folk than any other character in the books, and Dany, supposedly the champion of the commons, tortures her to death for it.
Also you're being too kind to book Jorah. He is an absolute scumbag. He is an unrepentant slaver and a groomer and repeatedly tries to manipulate Dany into marrying him. Although he professes to love her, he has absolutely no respect for her attempts to be principled. He just wants her because he's super into Valyrian-looking tweens. His motivation is essentially that he thinks he's too good for Bear Island and pursues the girls who make him think of royalty. His Hightower wife and then Dany.
David and Dan made the same mistake with Dany and Salsa: turning them into generic girlbosses to try to appeal to the cultural zeitgeist. When in reality Dany's story is a complicated tale about how to deal with childhood abuse, and how difficult it is not to repeat the cycles of violence that colored your childhood.
Dany and Salsa? lol Who's Salsa?
@@bonbonvegabonSansa (hit by auto correct most likely)
@@bonbonvegabon Salsa Stork, the Queen in the North
Mirri was not in the right and neither was Danny, that was the beauty of GOT in the first 4 seasons no one was above criticism, there were no good or bad characters, just well written ones. Danny took Mirri in as her slave to stop Drogo's men from raping her, she did not make her work as a slave. Mirri and Tywin were both in the right from their perspective - Tywin killing the Starks to put the war to a stop. It may have been spiteful of Danny to kill Mirri, but I'm sure if many women in in the same predicament had the chance to take revenge on the the person who killed their husband and child they would do it, so her actions comes across as true to life.
I love Salsa!
I would be interested in your perspective as a psychologist: what does being the Mad Queen actually MEAN? The show treats "madness" (which is largely portrayed as senseless cruelty) as an inheritable trait. In real world terms, is the implication that the Targaryens have a genetic predisposition towards some type of mental illness? Aerys was paranoid and cruel. Is the show suggesting that Dany inherited psychopathy from him?
Part of why I found season 8 to be so frustrating was this loose definition of "madness," which seemed like a very hand-wavey explanation for an extreme change in Dany's character.
Not only that most Targs was completely sane. Some might be cruel but they were almost mostly sane.
I don't think "in real world terms" is something that cleanly applies to the Valyrians. Given the background details of Planetos, it seems as if being Valyrian means you're not quite entirely human. Multiple Targaryens had visions of the future, and several of them were driven to irrational acts by those visions, but the visions seem to be legitimate as far as having provided real flickers of what the future held (which is something that's never happened in the real world).
The thing is, in the book, the idea of Targaryen madness is almost certainly propaganda, or at least highly exaggerated. Most of the "mad" Targaryens deal with traumas and actual mental health issues that can explain everything they do. Take Aerys for example - he was a normal guy until he was kidnapped and tortured by rebels. After he was rescued he became incredibly paranoid, which then led to him starting to burn everyone he saw as an enemy.
The problem with Dany is they treat her dragon as an errant part of her to be subdued and chained, because ooooh fireandblood! When in reality, she IS the dragon, regardless of what she does. Whether she takes the diplomatic path or the violent path, all paths are the path of the dragon. Setting people on fire, while horribly violent, isn't uncalled for in all situations. She needed an advisor to guide her not to agonize over her mistakes, to accept the consequences of her actions, good and bad, and grow through her experiences to be the kind of leader worthy of the adoration thrown her way. When someone like Cersei is your adversary, scorching some earth is inevitable. War makes it impossible to always take the high road; and she is not a monster for taking the fire and blood route when no better option is available.
The thing is that a thing the show leaves out is that they really show that “Targaryen madness” is nothing but propaganda. If you look at the actual family tree, hardly any Targs actually went “mad.” Hell, even Dany’s father only went “mad” after being tortured.
An added complexity of Dany giving the Second Sons wine outside of Yunkai is that it happens at around the same time as the Red Wedding, where the Freys get Robb Stark's army outside the castle super drunk to more easily slaughter them. So there's the PoV trap here: is this a fun clever strategy when Dany gets her enemies drunk and attacks during a truce, but its reprehensible when the Freys do more or less the same thing to the Starks? You get sucked into each PoV's perspective, but then you're forced to take a step back when the shoe is on the other foot for a different protagonist. Not sure is the show was always very good at capturing and paralleling these little things...
Danny was playing the Game Of Thrones like any other player. Jon killed a child, Arya killed a child in s1, Sansa fed Ramsay to his dogs. So, why is Danny suddenly mad? Marri cost her child and taunted her. Her brother abused her and wh*red her off to fit his own ends
There are theories that it will be Tyrion who will help bring out the violent side of her when she finally arrives in Westeros and I definitely agree. Especially with the way his character was being developed in the books. And given that the show probably swapped the order of the attack on King's Landing and the Long Night, I think it's very likely that she will sacrifice herself in order to save the world. It makes for a more satisfying arc for Dany in my opinion, but I guess we won't know until Martin finishes the series. If he ever does, of course.
He'll die and we'll have a quarter finished novel and a bunch of notes scrawled on the walls of his bedroom til the end of time
I don't understand why that is a more "satisfying" arc. You mean it's the more standard fantasy hero arc. Sure.
Which is exactly why I doubt that GRRM would go this way. He likes to subvert expectations and GoT is quite cynical with its characters.
@@oerthlingat this point we don't know what the expectations are to begin with. 🙄😒
@@oerthling
I’m not sure about the long night stuff, but one of our favourite characters going full rage-fuelled pessimist warmonger, poisoning the ear of a young woman with 3 nuclear warheads at her disposal I don’t think is standard fantasy tropes.
@@blackdragon6 I think a core problem is that many people believe that Dany's character was "ruined". That's because they think of her as a badasses dragon princess savior.
I think we actually saw the origin story of a super-villain.
Instead of entering the story where the beautiful but mass-murdering evil queen "cleanses" her empire with fire and then get backstory about her tragic messed-up upbringing, we chronologically followed her story from victim, through badass liberator to evil queen.
Start with Vader, then go back to Annakin and you start knowing that it will end badly for this cute little boy-genius.
But start with the promising little boy-hero and move towards Vader and your hero gets ruined.
I never understood why so many people took Dany's side in this situation in the TV show, especially when Mirri started talking about all the people Khal Drogo had killed in her village and would've killed in the future
Basically because of the framing. We're invited to see Dany as the hero and Mirri as the villain...even when the facts literally say the opposite. It shows just how easily humanity can be misled, really
Because as soon as Daenerys saw it she stopped it & did everything in her power to protect the women she could. She didn’t invent Dothraki culture nor did she want to be married to Khal drogo & as she said her child was innocent. I understand Mirri ofc but I also understand Daenerys. She was trying to change drogo & the customs from within asking could the women be wives. & again her child was innocent if mirri had just killed drogo I wouldn’t have been on Daenerys’s side
@@tytybaby06 1) Dany wasn’t the creator of Dothraki culture, but she was very much happy of Drogo pillaging to get money for her quest for the throne.
2) she can’t possibly protect all slaves of the Dothraki, just because a slaver brings some enslaved people into her home it won’t make the situation better for them.
3) she wanted those enslaved girls married to their rapists because she thought they would fall in love like Drogo and her. That’s not making the situation of those girls better.
4) Miri gave very specific instructions for the care of Drogo’s wound and he disobeyed causing the wound to fester. That’s on him.
5) Mirri also prohibited everyone from entering the tent she was working on and Jorah took Dany anyways. That’s on him.
6) Rhaego would’ve miscarried anyways. Dany was 13-14, not fit for childbirth, and Rhaego was said to be lizard-like, those babies being common in Targ family history and always dying.
7) Mirri died as a slave in a horrible manner, burned by her master. That’s not fair no matter what.
@@Valentinianist again the original comment says “TV show” & you are talking about the book details I’m talking about how it was framed in the show. 1. She didn’t know what it took to get money .
2. She’s a little girl as you said so it’s naive but she tries. At 12-13 how would she know how to truly help anyone? She’s learning as she goes cause she’s a child as you said
@@Valentinianist drogo wasn't the first, but the second khalasar to raid the lhazareen (mirris village). In fact they fought the first khalasar off and then took what was left. To blame the dothraki culture on dany is purposefully misguided.
2. Yes. But that is the only way she has any power to protect them. By claiming them as hers.
3. No she wanted them to marry them so they would only have to be with one man. Which is so sad, but when you see how grateful she is that she is only being raped by Drogo and not his entire blood riders, you see it for what it really is.
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. Then why does mirritake responsibility for his death? We know that those previous examples of such childbirth also have reason to believe that those were also tampered with by other "witches"
7. Yes. It was horrible and that is why dany finally sees that slavery must be ended
For me it's the nonsense the "fans" of the show keep saying that she was supposed to go mad. Hence the coin flip, they mention way too many times for my liking. What bothers me about that "coin toss" is that we look at what Jon did with the Night's Watch in Thorne, and Olly. Then we look at Robb with Karstark. Jon with Ramsey. Stannis and what he allowed to have happen to Shireen. Even Ned in the very first episode with the defector from the Wall. Then we have Tyrion murdering his own father and Shae. Then Cersei and her blowing up The Sept, having Ser Gregor and the torture of Septa Unella. All of them did what they did and were congratulated for it. Dany burns the Tarleys and suddenly that's the lynch pin of the argument she's going to go buggo. Same with the slavers at Mereen. Just because everyone kept saying it in the show, the "coin toss," suddenly everyone is repeating it like a parrot and actually believing that turn is going to happen. When others in the show did almost the same things, but they're not buggo. One could argue what Jon did to Thorne and Olly is that coin tossing. He looked pretty mad doing that. He could have shown mercy, but he hung them. No different than Daenerys and the Tarleys. But nope. She's "Mad Queen. That coin tossed, and she's mad." I don't understand the hatred against Dany for doing exactly the same thing all the other MALE leaders did in the show. Heck, people even think Cersei is sympathetic but offer none to Dany.
Arya and the pies. That seems straight up bizarre to do.
Yeah I feel like calling her "mad" is something people within Westeros might deem Dany, because that's the narrative that has built up in public opinion about the Targaryens, but literally saying "she was always mad because she's Targaryen" just doesn't really make any sense
Yeah but none of those people presentet themselfs as "the braker of chains" and great liberators
THANK YOU!!!!
@@benjaminsfiligoj6348so? lol
DO you know what moment ruined Daenerys Targaryen for me? Dany going psychotic and unjustly murdering the innocent population of King's Landing and her death at the hands of Jon Snow. I'm glad she stood up to Khal Moro and killed him. He was so disrespectful towards her, and he threatened to have all his Dothraki warriors brutally rape her. D.B Weiss and David Benioff ruined and failed her in the final season.
But it was literally in character, she literally murdered those who refused her way of life and judged them based on it
@@heretopissyouoff8439she got mad at Cersei so she murdered random townspeople and it’s in character because she’s always been mean to other characters like rapists and slavers of esos 🙏 if only she was cordial with the Meereen slavers
what always bothered me about Danys story line, is how "easy" it was to free slaves. Especially with the Unsullied. as if being brought up as an obedient little solider from birth wouldn't mess with you head. But in the eyes of the story tellers, it's just a matter of "hey, just be a free thinking independent person from now on ok?"
i don't think thats true. you see in the show that grey worm doesn't understand the concept for a long time. and is somewhat eventually brought out by missande. i think it would be the case of all the unsullied their fierce loyalty is part their upbring as slaves and not knowing anything else. as wells as being loyal to her for getting rid of the salvers.
There's a thing from the first book that people never mention when talking about Dany being complex: she kinda saves Mirri from rape (even though in reality she only saves her from one of the rapists), but it's also mentioned that one of Drogo's bloodriders regularly rapes Dany's own servants, and Dany doesn't think much about that. Obviously, that detail is also missing from the show.
Wow. I don't even remember this. That's fucked. It's definitely time for a reread.
She doesn't think of it largely because the same thing is happening to her. I realize her relationship with Drogo has been romanticized by a lot of people, but Drogo was her rapist. He may have coaxed her on the first night, (a 13 year old girl who had to please him or risk Viserys' wrath) but after that he takes her violently in the nights, hurting her. To her that is just a part of the life she is leading, and if it happens to her then it happening to Irri or Doreah it isn't a red flag to her.
@@tsuritsa3105 She was his wife and she did not resist him. And he actually was very tender with her, stopping and asking her if she's okay. That is not rape. You can't cite statutory because of her age, because it was the custom to marry that young given the short life span.
@@vittoriacolona I'm sure you also believe that Nabokov's "Lolita" is a grand story of romance. Most people don't agree with you (including Nabokov).
@@Eladelia OK. So you're going around arguing both sides of the issue with different people and making wild accusations about the kind of person they are based on their comments for shits and giggles. I see you.
5:25 Did you see that pause though, afters he says "No, Khaleesi, not your death?" To me, it appears that she looks down at Daenerys' abdomen, at Rhaego, and then she looks up and says "bring me his horse."
Rhaego was introduced for everyone (including the audience) to become The Stallion Who Mounts The World, even non-Dothraki Mirri knew of this prophecy and the horrors Rheago would bring.. and chose to get rid of him by tricking Dany. that's how i always saw it from the book perspective.
funny that Mirri didn't forsee that The True Stallion will be the black egg
Mirri basically says that it was never going to work. She never blames Dany for entering the tent, she tells Dany that the death of the baby was the price to pay for Drogo's life and claims that deep down inside, Dany knew all along. That's not saying "the ritual went wrong because X" that is saying, "this is result you paid for, should have checked the fine print."
And for the record, Dany did not make Mirri Maez Duur a slave, she was already a slave, Dany took her under her own protection, and the distinction is important because Dany is essentially a slave herself! She was sold to Khal Drogo and has almost no agency or choices. Drogo is relatively decent about her wishes regarding sex, but if he chose to force her on their wedding night, he could. If he wanted to let his bodyguards use her sexually, she has no choice. Everything she has is a gift from Drogo. Her power over Viserys or anyone else in the khalasar exists simply because Drogo wishes to indulge her. She is only able to protect Mirri and Ereoh because Drogo is amenable to her wishes and even her strength of will is attributed to his child inside her.
That being said, among the tone-deaf changes being made on the show in season 2, was how she started acting really entitled when she reached Qarth. First there was her demand to be allowed into the city, at the head of a group of people known for terrorizing the Qartheen and trying to rob them. They were willing to make an exception for her based on her possession of dragons, but she refused to so much as lift the flaps on the cart to show that she did indeed possess dragons. Then, later, when she is trying to get support from the Spice King for her return to Westeros, she seems to think that shrieking at him and demanding ships is an appropriate method of making a request and that there is something wrong with this guy for not wagering a fortune on her magic dreams coming true. When she coopts the Unsullied, she only throws down the whip that is the symbol of her ownership of them at the end of the scene, after she led them to massacre their former owners and effect a revolution and start marching to her next destination. In the books, she throws down the whip after telling them to fight the masters and free the slaves. Basically, she gives up the symbol of ownership after she has everything she wants in the show and the Unsullied have chosen to follow her, and in the books she gives it up as part of declaring war on slavery. Even before that, there was her smug little "but we are not men" reply to Missandei quoting that all men must die. It's not like, for instance, the prophecy of the Witch King in Return of the King, who cannot be slain by man, only to end up fighting a woman and a hobbit. Is Daenerys saying she is immortal because she's a woman? The phrase is supposed to be a moment of cleverness, but the actual implication is that she doesn't think the rules apply to her.
There was, I believe, no real intention of foreshadowing any downturn in Daenerys' character or heroism, just a lot of incompetently rendered scenes of alleged badassery and then when they were writing the last season, they realized it could all justify her flip to villainy. Tyrion's claims that she was bad when fighting the slavers are rather risible considering he was absent for most of her campaigns in Slaver's Bay, and then botched it when he took over Meereen in her absence, needing to be rescued by her, when his appeasement strategy blew up in his face for disregarding the advice of Dany's closest advisor (Missandei) and most loyal general (Grey Worm). Furthermore, the show completely botched the adaptation of her character arc in Meereen.
In Meereen, driven by a desire to do something beneficial and productive, instead of just destroying evil, only for other evils to replace them, Daenerys stays to rule the city, rather than let new tyrants take over, as in Astapor, or for the slavers to continue their course as soon as her back is turned, as in Yunkai. Her one moment of atrocity, ordering the executions of random slavers, was in reprisal for a war crime of their own, and hers at least was perpetrated against the guilty class, rather than innocent victims she knew would hurt her enemies, as they did. She makes every effort to compromise, to end the bloodshed and wrongdoing, only for her enemies to take advantage of her good faith and neutralize her liberation movement and murder her followers and the beneficiaries of her reign, until slaves are being traded beneath the very walls of the city and she is forced to allow bloodsports with at best, very dubious consent from the participants in the city itself. As with the 163 Masters she crucified in retaliation for the slave children they similarly tourtured to death, her change of heart at the end of Dance With Dragons, that "a dragon plants no trees" and her resolution to embrace Fire & Blood going forward, is understandable and a reaction to extremely bad faith tactics by her enemies.
The show cut out a lot of Danys' efforts at compromise and made her own actions look bad, especially in comparison to the spokesman of the slavers, whose father was benevolent and had opposed the child-massacre, and who was not clearly plotting against her and in league with her enemies, unlike Hizdahr, her husband in the books. Rather than a police force of loyalists and freedmen, the brass-masked men are the recidivist slaver insurgency. Her flying off on Drogo is not framed as choosing to be herself and a rejection of Meereenese culture with its baked-in slavery, just a thing that happens, possibly an escape from danger. It was all nonsense. There are plausible ways she could burn down Kings Landing in the books, without going all villain, which have been seeded at least since book 2, but which seem like they are there to confront her Targaryen heritage and what it means to be "a dragon". I find it impossible to believe that fighting for the Iron Throne will be the climax of the end of the series. I think that will come before Dany goes north, and the destruction of Kings Landing and melting of the Iron Throne (from all the wildfire her father planted in the city, for which Jaime killed him) is what will make her realize the futility of fighting over thrones, instead of saving the kingdom, and she will go north to face the Others, instead of giving fascist-coded speeches in the ruins.
Thank you!!!!
I’ve noticed agency being taken away from female characters in book to show/movie adaptations. Such as true blood, sookie stackhouse, many times, is surprisingly well read and clever. She has a lot of knowledge of certain things, that surprise many around her, such as maenads, but in the show, they take this aspect away from her. This is problematic. It frames them so differently. Changes them from their depths and struggles that have shaped them. Sookie, for example, may be a blonde waitress who can read minds, and her attempt to overcompensate for this makes her seem stupid or crazy to most people, but she’s the exact opposite, a book worm, why do female characters always have to have intelligence taken away to seem less threatening, and more sympathetic? No, really
I think your observations other "The mad queen" issue are really highlighted in HotD. There are a lot of potential "mad" Targaryons in HotD, but for all of them, you can see how their temperaments, societal pressures, and/or trauma intersect to lead to those "mad" actions. Crucially, without going on a literary analysis rabbit hole - in is all clear text.
I’m glad others notice that the writers of the show did start laying the groundwork for mad Dany. But they also definitely dropped the ball. They didn’t balance it out properly and by the time they ran out of source material they were stuck. They had this path for her already outlined and they butchered the end of it. If they had made the 8th season longer or added a couple extra seasons, they probably could’ve redirect the thought process and story to be more organic.
Danny is one of my favourite characters, because she can adapt so well. She always learns from her experiences and grows with them. Of course the book Danny is way better and fuller character and of course partly that is due to us (the reader) being in her head. Now, the moment when she looked them in the safe was very troubling for me, no matter the way they frame it, but that may not be everyone. They could have use that scene better, to start the groundwork for her cruel side, but you are right - they missed it. Still for me that was unnecessary cruel act and the book solves it better, I think, by her simply leaving the city. At that point I feel this is more what she would do, rather than the revenge thing. The Mirri Maz Dur burning is different, there she is probably doing it a bit to get even, but her main purpose is to fulfill her dream, she know at that moment that the dragons will be born if she sacrifices someone and she simply chooses the most convenient person. That is more rational decision than a heat of the moment revenge thing.
For showrunners they seem to misunderstand film language at a pretty basic level. Either keep the triumphant music while she's commiting genocide (It mantains it's victorious for her) or always use eerie music when she does morally dubious shit (so we're always wary of her brutal streak). It's not that hard. Mostly the problem I think is that they didn't know where the story was going to make consistent/cohesive choices.
It would be too obvious what they were doing if they used music to signpost how awful she really was. We shouldn't need to be told that killing people left, right and centre is bad, we should just know that.
@@guyselway4865well you've made another mistake because she didn't kill people left right and centre until the very end. If you compare her actions to others in the show without the hindsight of season 8 there's almost no difference. The main difference is that she's establishing her "house" so there's more direct killing. But all the other houses in Westeros, yes including the Starks, got that way through the exact same means as Danny and they maintain their power through the same means. Killing. There is no moral difference between most of them for about 7 seasons. The difference is in framing and in what we're shown versus not shown. Robb Stark purposely sent 2000 men to get slaughtered in a feint so he could capture Jamie Lannister at the Whispering Wood. Is that better than dragon fire burning 2 lords who won't bend the knee? Or Arya killing an entire family, a big family, and baking them into a pie? Many "good" characters do disgusting reprehensible things but we cheer them for it because of the framing of the show.
As to the music, if they did it right they could have done eerie but triumphant in such a way that the audience didn't quite notice. But given their skill they'd have probably fucked it up.
@@IshtarNike llzs
@@IshtarNike I think you hit the nail on the head when you say she's the same as everyone else, the problem is that she thinks she's different when she's just another lord using violence to get her way. I'm not familiar with Robb's tactics but Arya is pretty awful for what she did to the Freys.
The problem is also framing her as a bad guy while doing the same thing others aren’t framed as bad guys for. You can’t contradict your own story.
My problem with labeling Dany as crazy because of the bad things she did do is because she didnt do anything anyone else, besides Ned, wouldve done in a position of power, having lived the life she lived. And some do similar...for no reason other than to appease the red god *cough*stannis*cough...
Also going to point out that Dany burning the Tarlys was literally no different than Aegons tactics during his conquest...and Targaryen madness wasnt even a thing when he did it. He wasnt mad...he was an ambitious man...with dragons. This is why when people point out things like that, it looks like a reach for sexism. You ignore the men that do the same exact things, calling it the ways of war...but when its a woman...oh, she must be crazy! Funny thing is, Cersei is legit going insane...and not a single video or discussion tries to talk about that. Not sure why. But is strange Dany is always the "picture" of madness while she, who is going mad, isnt...and neither are any men who do the same things, for the same reason.
Also, also, before this is brought up, lets not sit here and pretend burning a admitted traitor (Varys) alive is better than being quartered...you know...our own real life way of punishment in our own real life medieval history...and people went to those like they were the hottest new movies of the week, cheering along for the event to go on....
I always felt like Sansa got what Dany was supposed to get. Sansa actually gets meaningful revenge that isn’t framed as “badass”. When Dany gets revenge it is always portrayed as something “badass” or is proceeded by fanfare from everyone around her.
You don't think the scene with the dogs was framed as being "badass"?
The scene with Ramsay being fed was badass but I hated how the show runners went out of their way to have Sansa and Arya who are their favorite characters just hate dany for no reason. In the books dany is rather tragic and lonely she wants a home and family the show doesn’t touch upon the magical aspects of her character
@@ACinemafanatic And show Arya, who so admired the dragon queens of the past, gets the chance to meet a modern-day one and has no interest.
@@ACinemafanatic But they had very valid reasons. As much as they might want to meet a queen of dragons, she was a very real threat to their power and to their plans for revenge. They had their own agendas and by the point they meet her, she is pretty much the only thing that can stop them or help them get what they want so they can move on from it and start their lives.
@@wwaxworkyea... but at the same time she is there kind of saving their asses from the frozen zombies so... I don't know. If the absolute certain dead by zombies wasn't knocking their doors I would understand 🤷♀️
I pretty much agree with everything you said! 🙂
In general the show was too adamant on painting fan favorites as "good" characters instead of gray. You mentioned Jorah. They also did the same thing with Tyrion who in the books becomes a much darker character after he flees Kingslanding (and actually already before that), while in the show he is a fan favorite nice guy.
With Dany that bites them in the ass in the end when they suddenly have to switch her to the dark side (like "let's do the right thing!"-Anakin suddenly becomes "kill all the younglings!"-Darth Vader within 5 minutes screen time). ^^
I think you captured the feel of what is wrong with Daenerys in the show, especially in the Agency section. I would also add that the Breaking Of The Wheel paradox didn't make her storyline any favors, other than forcefully combine her two sides of her character, creating further confusion. I mean, in the books Daenerys can distinguish the two sides of her character, and ultimately in the end she consciously chooses Fire and Blood. In the show she doesn't know what she is ( heck she needs Dario to tell her she is a Conqueror), trying to romantice her invasion as savior's mission...
I thought it started with her brother's death. They left out her desperately trying to get him to leave the tent, telling Jorah to give him the dragon eggs, any indication of the "horrified despair" she felt when he drew a blade knowing it doomed him, or her reaction to his death, which was numb, not cold as in the show. She was also stated to have not smiled for weeks afterwards.
She tried to save him and didn't want him dead, yet you don't get any of that in that particular episode of the show.
Thank you so much for this video! I had always had an inkling that the Meereense arc was more important than I was seeing, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. THIS. This is what the important part is.
23:29 Which is ironic, considering the difference in ages between the show and books.
“The only lives that truly matter are those who respect the lives of others”.
So in the books we have the “young Griff” character. Aegon Targaryen or “Faegon” to a lot of book readers. The absence of this character was a huge oversight by the show runners in going from where they had Dany. To where they wanted her to go.
Having Faegon show up in Westeros first and getting houses and bannerman to his cause before her. Would have helped with the framing of Dany being the villain.
I also think Tyrion was meant to be a more corrupting influence on Dany. Help to play up the fire and blood side of her personality. He is in a very dark place in book 5. The show decided after season 4 that Tyrion needed to be a good guy, the audience avatar. Which was a mistake.
Even in the show I was firmly on Mirri's side. Even if she deliberately made Drogo half-alive in that coma like state, she had every right to do that. Dany crucifies some slave masters who treated their slaves cruelly later on. Guess what, Drogo was a slaver who led the attack on Mirri's village. But it's all fine when Dany does far worse brutality to those masters but when Mirri does comparatively more restrained retribution, burn her alive? I despised what Dany did
In many ways, that's the problem. To agree or empathise with Mirri, you feel like you have to step outside the story itself
Drogo killed innocent people and dany killed slave masters, how is that the same?💀
@@mylittlethoughttree Yes, that is exactly true. You have to step outside and look at the totality of the story. Beyond the surface level.
Some stories are all about immersion, all about the emotional experience. Others are all about the 'meta' level, about the rational contemplation of the moral messages and the themes of the story. The audience made a fatal misjudgment as to what kind of a story Game of Thrones was.
@@SerbAtheist Yes, they thought it was a good story when it was actually a bad one. Presumably the finished books will resemble a portion of the hypothetical that you describe.
Thank the gods for this series. And 'er relaxing intro sequence!
While I agree with a lot of what you say, there are a couple of points where I have some quibbles.
1) Mirri's price: Even in the book, it is very clear that Mirri always intended to sacrifice Dany's child. You even brought up the line "That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price." This is clear-cut proof imo that Mirri was enacting her own agenda. I don't think this justifies burning her alive. But it does make it so that Dany's feeling of betrayal is completely justified.
2) Untangling the Meerenese Knot: These essays make too many assumptions to be considered credible imo. It is obvious that the writers have bias in their analysis.
One prime example is them bringing up that Dany forgot the name of the burnt child "Hazzea" and claiming that this is somehow proof that Dany is wavering in her resolve to protect innocents. I'm sorry what? That is a ridiculous leap of logic. And in any case, Dany still remembers "Eroeh" who she failed to protect in aGoT.
Another prime example is the interpretation that Dany is struggling between two personas; "Mother of Dragons" and "Mhysa". To choose one is to abandon the other, according to the essay. This is false. These two personas are one and the same as exemplified by aSoS where Dany successfully embodied both at the same time and managed to upend the entire slave economy of Planetos.
I really like the bare bones of the mereneese knot essay. Even George himself has read it and said he felt pleased that someone understood the character arc, so the bare bones have to be accurate
@@mylittlethoughttreeWhere did say that?
@@charlinethom1624 this is the best source I can find, I'm afraid
twitter.com/westerosorg/status/614443544300912641
@@mylittlethoughttree sure, the barebones are about Dany’s immense personal struggle between enacting (someone brutal) justice and wanting to avoid bloodshed. That is fine. However, the essay asserts (or at least heavily implies) that the “peace” she achieved in aDwD is somehow better than going scorched earth against dishonest actors, most of some are fighting for slavery.
What?
You could use that very same logic to justify the practices of the American South during the Civil War.
The problem being that you assume that there can be any peaceful resolution between two diametrically opposed sides, with one side already showing themselves to be ok with committing violence. What are the Sons of the Harpy, if not a parallel to the KKK?
No, that “peace” is only good for the slavers. It is a disaster for the enslaved. And guess which of these are Dany’s people?
@@syedshahrukhraza2923I do not think that Mhysa and Mother of Dragons are contradictary, but it is hard to be both.
Dany dreams of home she will never have. She tries to make one, but she feels like an outsider everywhere.
Dany dreams of a world which she won't ever achieve. I am White woman from the centre of Europe, so take my view with grain of salt and as simply my opinion and nothing more, but I doubt that one person alone can end slavery in one lifetime, even if they posses the power she has. I symphatize with her, but her cause seems doomed. She is more open towards other cultures than for example Barristan, but she still struggles. She was good at conquering and it makes sense that to keep herself somewhat content she wants to return to conquest and violence instead of peace-keeping and approaching slavers with a smile, especially if the cost of peace was so high and the peace not worth it.
She is not "a mad queen". She Will never be one, but she will potrayed as such and she will fail.
I‘m gonna stop you right there. Like you‘re probably not wrong about all this stuff, like sure, the ambiguity comes across better in the books, yada, yada. But the main issue is the completely moralistic attitude combined with double standards and misunderstanding what kind of world they are writing in. This is a world where killing people with impunity is like the least surprising thing for a leader to do. They all do it (well, the successful ones). When Tywin and Stannis have their enemies killed in brutal fashion, that‘s considered statesmanlike.
Burning King‘s landing is over the top for Dany (she has no actual reason to), but in the right context would not even be at all surprising for someone to do.
George R. R. Martin makes sure to show us that this is a mean world where violence is not just „politics by other means“, politics IS violence. Often extreme, indiscriminate violence meted out with impunity by the powerful.
In practice, there is zero Reason why someone who does all these things Dany does might not still be a very effective and successful ruler and even one that ultimately upholds the common good. It‘s certainly unlikely that someone will be removed from power just because they killed some people. Kill the wrong people at the wrong time? Sure, that‘s gonna backfire (just ask Aerys II). But killing people in general, meh.
It‘s assumed that George R. R. Martin will send Dany down a pretty dark path, and we‘ll have to see how it pans out. But either way, chances are whoever ends up on the Iron Throne has to climb over a lot of corpses to get there. If that ends up being Dany (and it very well might) then there‘s a good chance it will be despite or even because of her darkness.
The idea that doing bad stuff will mean losing the game of thrones literally contradicts the entire concept of these books. That‘s the BIG problem with Dany‘s arc in the show.
Something Martin does in the books is frame justice and revenge in relation to each other. Take the Martels: most of them openly say they want "revenge" against the Lannisters. But there is a single exception: Oberyn Martel. Never once does he say he wants "revenge", only ever "justice", and he has a LOT of time to talk about wanting one or the other. Tywin Lannister believes that revenge itself IS justice, and thus excuses himself for so many moral failures. This is the key to understanding the difference between how Dany is portrayed in the books vs the show.
Book Dany wants justice; a sometimes harsh and bloody justice, but she still sees it as justice, thus doing the "right thing" in all her judgments. In the show, this element is lost, or at best replaced with Tywin's understanding that revenge itself is justice.
I'd go so far as to say that I think a failure to distinguish between justice and revenge on the part of the showrunners is the root of most of the problems with the Game of Thrones show. It's a major theme of the books and one the show seemed disinterested in.
Of all the terrible decisions that were made in season 8 the treatment of Dany actually bothered me the least honestly but that’s probably mostly due to the fact I never really saw her as some empowering figure and pretty much always knew we were gonna end up with some kind of mad queen arc. When Arya killed the Night King is when the show well and truly died for me. There was no coming back from that.
Bro what?, how was she meant to be the mad queen?💀, and who do you think should've ended the long night
@@Aydan2108 what I’m really curious of is how you thought this story would end. They just deal with the others no problem? Dany goes down to kings landing and kills Cersei becomes queen and happily ever after? The Night King should have never been a thing in the first place but since they insisted on creating him and heavily foreshadowed a confrontation with Jon maybe have him kill him? I mean shit I would’ve still been fine with Arya getting the killing blow if it were at least a collaborative effort. The fact they had one of their lead stunt people playing him and he never once had a proper fight is criminal to me. As for mad queen Dany there is evidence throughout the story to support the idea that she will do anything to gain power. The set up in the show was very poorly done but I could see a scenario where she see no other option to get the iron throne than to say to hell with any collateral damages and just goes for it. The shows mistake was having her systematically moving street by street murdering anyone and everyone possible.
@caseyhart4999 the show ended with the iron throne as the focus which is wrong cuz the real threat which are the others should have been the focus, dany was supposed be azor ahai and probably sacrifice herself to end the long night and die in it, she is the only character that fulfilled the prophecy such as being born again amidst smoke and salt and waking dragons from stone under a bleeding star, and your evidences about how she is going to be "the mad queen 🤓" are all lame, if you think daenerys will hurt innocent people just for that stupid chair than you did NOT understand her character at all.
@@Aydan2108 I agree it was wrong to have the iron throne as the focus and I would have liked it if either Dany or Jon was azor ahai with the other being Nissa nissa but to suggest Dany would never harm an innocent person is patently ridiculous. She will hurt whoever is in her way of achieving her goals and she demonstrated that again and again throughout the series.
@caseyhart4999 how?, her goal and her most important reason to take the iron throne is to give the people a better life, she had the power to leave to Westeros buy she still stayed for her people, tell me your evidence of when she killed innocent people for power?
👉👉👉She is not the mad queen
i started hating her in season 4 when she started demanding that if people didnt bend the knee she would kill them.
I think the ending that I always imagined for Dany was for her to die sacrificing herself. What I wanted to see was her walking that line between righteous justice and abusing her power for the most part of the show, making us wonder which way she'll sway in the end. I wanted to see her be cruel to her enemies, but still have that need to save the innocent, which motivated her for the majority of her time in the East. And at the end I wanted to see her face a choice: continue to kill her enemies to win the throne or put her life on the line for the innocent (preferably during the battle with the dead), and finally to choose the thing that, in the end, mattered to her more, which is to end suffering rather than to sit on the throne, especially since in the book she mostly yearns for home, not power. I wanted Dany to be a mystery and for her "good" side, the side that made her free the slaves to win in her final moments, thus breaking the cycle violence and abuse that made her suffer so much in the first place.
Bit surprised you didn’t mention biggest change: Danny being fireproof all the time. GRRM said the funeral pile was only survived because of burning a witch. She’s not an X-Men, in the books.
Yeah, I don't like that change either, I wouldn't say it's a big factor in her internal character though, so much as an external trait
Definitely something they’re not addressing in HoD, why the Targarenians aren’t fireproof. But good analysis
Good channel, btw. If you’re taking requests: what was Jaimie’s story supposed to be? It seems like they sent him to die with Cerci because GRRM was gonna have him there but other than her shift, it’s the least explicitly unclear as a narrative. How’d they end up with a quick change in a single scene!
I actually completely disconnected to dany in the novel when she burned murri alive.
That's probably a good sign then, you didn't get suckered in by the narrative powers George was exploring
You mean mryri maz dur?
I only have to say that, except for pleasing the algorithm, please don't worry about a show or movie being "relevant" if you have something worthwhile to say about it (hell, the Breakfast Club isn't a hot topic, but those videos are great). To the contrary, I find that older media incites less emotional fervor, so it's easier to discuss and be analytical about.
i don’t think mirri or dany are to blame for what happened in the end of the first book. mirri was right to get revenge against drogo but she was wrong for killing dany’s baby that obviously did not deserve to be punished for his father’s crimes. and dany was not wrong for punishing mirri, because, as i said before, she did murder dany’s unborn child. you can see both their perspectives and take both sides. it’s not right to villanize the child bride who just had her innocent baby murdered or the woman who had her life completely destroyed by savages.
No absolutely not. The story wouldn't work if we couldn't empathise with both, however the show also does everything it can to excuse Dany's actions and frame them like there isn't anything wrong at all. Whereas the book says "burning someone alive is not good, let's understand why and how it happened, and hope Dany grows from this"
which is stupid statement btw why behading someone is better than burning both is obv bad but does book also hints behading also bad? @@mylittlethoughttree
Dany became a villain when she killed the magi, walked into the flames and then walked out with dragons, the Dothraki and the slaves nearby prostating themselves as if she was a God. The road that concluded with her murder began there. The writers of the show did not miswrite her path and conclusion. She was becoming a tyrant from the begining.
Well, if that descent to tyranny were a marathon, she made maybe two steps for 7 seasons and then sprinted the other 20 miles in one episode....
@saraa.4295 Every time she stated "I will take back what was rightfully mine", when she stated she was a queen, when she demanded absolute loyalty from those who followed her, when Jon Snow needed to remind her that he was a king and not her subject -- she revealed entitled attitude. And, she felt entitled to rule her subjects absolutely. Bran and Jon Snow became kings. They did so from a sense of duty, not entitlement. Dany wanted to break the wheel without knowing what the wheel was.
@@sdzielinski apart from jon and maybe bran (his motivation is unclear) every king who wanted the iron throne was entitled, demanded total loyalty and was willing to have ppl die for them in order to get/keep the throne.
This may be bad behaviour by our modern standards but within the context of the show? She was just another claimant to the throne, no better or worse than robert, stannis or renly
@@saraa.4295 But the series concluded with the wheel broken. Gone were right by succession and conquest. In their place was an elective monarchy. Dany had no place in the new Westros
@@sdzielinski well, might is right could still wheel his ugly head once bran dies, we don't know that yet.
But her not being the right ruler for westeros, which i kinda agree to, seeing she never lived there, is another issue then claiming her path to despot and tyrant was well developed and forshadowed in the series.
In the book, i suppose it will be, seeing as she will not go against the worst monarch who ever monarched, but against the peoples darling....
I really liked Danny when I started reading the books, but by a storm of swords i started having concerns about her. After a dance with Dragons i considered her more of a antagonist if not an outright villain.
Most of her story arc is her conquering cities, brutally murdering any who oppose her, then leaving the city in shambles.
I kinda get why people were pissed about how she ended up in the show, but it was kinda par for the course with her. The writers just did a bad job of handling it.
So you didn't read ADWD and her talking about the destruction she caused and it being the reason why she stayed in Meereen.
@zer0phasez She conquered Meereen and instantly murdered a bunch of people. So, I'm not sure how that counters my argument. Yeah, she hung around for a bit, but it didn't go well for her, her friends and advisors, or the people of meereen.
Imma double down; compare Danny's style of leadership and rule to Jon as Lord Commander vs. Cersei as Regent. Ignore their personalities and just look at their actions. Which does she most resemble?
You could sum up Dannys story as "Worship me or burn."
Locking those two in the vault didn't bother me, not because of how much I like her character, but because they kidnapped her children. It's cruel, but justified.
That old lady told her to be a dragon and guess what she became a dragon!!! NOT THE MAD QUEEN 🤦🏿♂️🎥🍿
I think you miss the main point: while the show was framing her actions a certain way, her actions were still cruel, brutal and often unnecessary. Anyone who watched, and didn't see that, was blind. I remember watching her early seasons, and thinking that I was wondering where she was going. Everything, including the burning of King's Landing was foreshadowed. It was the watchers, who were used to having a "hero" to root for, who fell for that ruse. It reminded me a lot of a theory of the epic theatre, where - contrary to the classical theatre - you are not meant to identify or empathise with the protagonists, but you are supposed to watch and analyse them. (Look at say, "Mother Courage" by Brecht, if you want an example). Dany's fall was not bad writing, it was long in the making, but the fans wanted her as an empowered heroine. Nothing of her actions was empowered. At first it was survival in a brutal society, then it became habit, and ultimately she did not wish to end the violence, but went further and further, which consequently ended in her destroying King's landing.
one note Jorah is just bad he sold slaves just to keep his lifestyle,no amount of doing that for love will make that ok
Yeah, that's fair
Right, I remember hearing from someone at one point the first relatively direct clue we got of her questionable character was when she ordered the children under 12 be spared... she didn't see herself as a child and didn't see the children her age as children either and ordered their deaths. It's not like the unsullied were going to ask the age of a child looking between 11 and 13 how old they were before killing them.
Definitely needed better planning on the series creators' parts in slowly building up to her demise... if that was indeed the case from the beginning. I think this was one of those cases where the female lead's desirability took precedence over character and plot building.
As a result they failed to A.) Make her as believable and compelling as she could have been and B.) Properly lead up to her meltdown.
I'm glad you brought this up. More needed to be said about both Mary and Daenerys in this situation. Daenerys is very very young at this event. She's pregnant and she thinks the Horses life/sacrifice will keep her husband alive. It's not irrational, but Mary didn't say anything specific about which life and which death were being equated. We excuse Daenerys for burning Mary because she felt manipulated and lied to, and holding back that piece of information from Daenerys, is a manipulation which causes us (fans/viewers) and Daenerys to suspect her intentions to begin with.
The part where she freed the unsullied army and into her cause was pretty cunning if you ask me
I'm glad that you mentioned that there were no slaves in Westeros, as in the show D&D somehow managed to imply that Dany was at least annoyed about that fact - there was no one she could truly liberate, plus her dragons in the end did more harm than good against White Walkers (due to that daft "let's catch a wight and show it to Cersei" adventure plot she agreed to - only to lose Viserion, thus providing the Night King with means to make a hole in the Wall and flood through it into mainland)... so the fact that nobody cheered for her or was happy to see her (except Jon Snow, occasionally) drove her mad. In my circle of friends, we used to joke about what drove Dany mad, and one of two winners was (I'm translating it from my mother tongue, I'm sorry it won't be funny or rhyme as the original, but at least I hope to get the point across): "What a disappointment Westeros was for Dany - a continent without slaves. More than anything else, it was that 'no slaves - no glory' thing that drove her mad, so she decided to create some, in order to have some people to liberate later", i.e. she ran out of people who would cheer for her and follow her around like pets.
I think a big issue with Dany's storyline is the show seemingly being scared of the whole myth and prophecy part of asoiaf as well. The house of the undying was gutted, she didn't have dragon dreams, the azor ahai stuff gets brought up and then doesn't become relevant again. It is a fantasy show deeply uncomfortable with being one it feels like.
In the books after killing his father Tyrion is feeling pretty wretched. There's a dark side to him not shown on the TV version and in the books following his trial he is on the warpath. He fully intends to return to King's Landing and kill them all. Dany can be a bit "Targaryeny" at times but for the most part listens to the better angels of her nature. I think Tyrion is going to be the devil on her shoulder. He's going to use Dany as his weapon of vengeance and he'll do it by encouraging Dany to "be a dragon" more and more. So yes a "Mad Queen" arc is on the cards for Dany it just has to be done better than what we got in the show.
She should have just flown to Kings Landing First with all 3 dragons. Get Cersi to surrender and then She becomes queen of the 7 kingdoms and THEN they fight the night king as the final battle with all 3 dragons.......just my take on how it should have ended
It would have been perfect if there was a scene where Dany was forced to confront her dubious acts and she denies ever doing wrong. Then she becomes overconfident and attacks kings landing out of fear of being a bad person.
When she got op dragons and started to see herself as a self-richeous crusader, she was ruined
That witch 100% infected Drogo wound. She even hints that she did, as vengeance.
A cut cant be that deadly, if not those warriors would die like flies.
It very much can. Tetanus will kill you stone dead within ten days, all you need is a scratch from a rusty/dirty nail or blade. The reason it doesn't happen much now is that we're all vaccinated against it as children.
I think the writers weren't quite sure where to go, and then had to rush to get to the end point. It's quite common when the source material runs out. I think trying to make her a symbol isn't as helpful as trying to write her as her character. Honestly, I'm kind of on Miri Maz Duur's side - the Dothraki are murdering, raping, pillaging bastards. Doreah may have betrayed her, but yes, I always thought that was particularly bleak.
lol Danny seemed justified in all her actions and did not come off as mad at all😅 from start to end . The problem was how other characters were reacting to it
I haven’t finished the video yet, but I already have thoughts lol. There are a lot of minor changes that I feel contribute to Show Daenerys’ odd characterization. The biggest change is cutting the big house with the red door which outlines Dany’s entire motivation for her actions instead of her just being entitled because she’s a Targaryen. The way she’s written in the books isn’t perfect, but for one she’s portrayed as a lot more politically savvy and strategic in the books and is more passive in the show (and oddly feels more bratty in Season 2 despite being aged up in the show). When she meets with the envoy from Yunkai and the leaders of the sellsword companies, she sets terms for each of them, offering some large amounts of wine and giving them a few days to agree, and when they’re gone she calls her advisors to her tent and tells them they should attack after nightfall. They’re all confused, and she tells them they’re going to sneak attack in the dark while the sellswords are drunk and lays out ways that they can attack. She’s more of a general in many ways, especially in Book 3 before she takes Meereen and has to learn to compromise. She’s learning to count the numbers of an enemy camp and is eager for her dragons to grow so she can lead her own troops to battle. Even in Astapor when she’s given the whip to signify her ownership of the Unsullied, she actually whips the slave master across the face herself. In the show it’s more her advisors and followers who do a lot of the planning and work unless her dragons are needed. Book Daenerys is suspicious of Illyrio being so generous to them and of the Qartheen being very welcoming. She doesn’t claim she was betrayed by Xaro. She knew he wasn’t her friend from the beginning. She’s very naive and optimistic in many ways but she starts the story at 13 years old. Sansa is only two years younger than her and she’s incredibly childish. TLDR they changed her a lot and didn’t have much reason to which screwed up her character in the show.
In my belief, throughout the entire show you get hints that Dany isn't all there in the head. So her destruction of Kings Landing shouldn't come as a great surprise.
I personally think the mad queen ending wasn't a million miles away from being well done.
The whole show until s7 she is surrounded by people who wouldn't bat an eye at the atrocities she commits. The dothraki go around pillaging and slaving all the time. Her killing the Witch lady isn't exactly that brutal in the eyes of the dothraki, they're used to it.
Jorah himself is hated by honorable people such as Ned Stark for his slaving ways. Jorah is objectively a bad person who is also in love with Dany, he wouldn't see a problem with anything she does. Grey worm and Missandei are freed from slavery by her and are almost definitely treated better by her than by their former masters.
When tyrion and varys arrive, they are both full of hope in dany being the saviour of westeros and only really witness the slaughter of terrorist groups and slavers.
It's only when the things she's been doing her whole life continue in westeros that people like varys and tyrion speak out against it. She was always this way.
I never viewed Dany's brutality as anything more than what European leaders did during earth's medieval period. Our history, in fact, is way way more brutal. Including female rulers. But with Dany's character arc in GoT, the audience is confronted with conflicting, modern, stereotypic values - between the triumph of a beleaguered ingenue and true female empowerment. Then, ultimately, both matters are resolved by a hastily constructed, supposedly "mad" adult villain. It was deeply disappointing. Not just for the poorly developed character arc, but for patronizing the audience so blatantly.
Tbh I’m not much of a fan of the Dany arc in the books either, but I do find the book version far more endearing than the show. This is not because she isn’t well written but because her story is such a drag. I found Aegon and Jon Connington and (spoiler alert) the Martell’s to be better pro-Targaryen counterparts.
I think It’s bullshit that the writers are trying to make us view Dany burning the Tarleys as this morally reprehensible thing but Sansa killing Ramsey is supposedly not wrong and Jon killing the people who murdered him isn’t wrong.
It’s just such a double standard. Sansa is a girl boss (which she is in this moment) for killing her abuser but Dany is a monster for burning men who tried to kill her after they refused her offer to join her. Jon is a leader for executing the men who killed him including a child but Dany is the one who is wrong for executing two men who both willingly choose to die.
It’s so hypocritical.
I assume Dany goes to Vaes Dothrak in the show because that's where she'll go in the book. Which is a major problem with the later seasons where D&D feel a need to hit certain story beats from the future books without considering whether it still worked in the diverged narrative of the show, so they just sort of clumsily shoehorn it in. King Bran has got to be the most obvious example.
King Bran was George's idea.
@@equissage9701 exactly
i think it would have been interesting if they had written it so that Daenerys' court continues to slowly becomes the rejects of the world, people like Tyrion or Jorah or anyone who came with her from essos, where they really can't leave her because in her service they've pissed off basically everyone and leaving her would likely end in them being killed.
from that base they could have written it where they are noticing Daenerys actions gradually becoming more careless of human deaths/cruel/blunt but they really can't do anything about it but they really can't do anything about it.
at least from that point you could have some explanation for it and have it be a gradual enabling process where even if there is pushback to her decisions in the form of argument the argument still always ends in them letting her do what she's gonna do regardless of the human cost.
I agree with your points and overall they didn’t do Dany justice. However, given the trajectory she was already on, it bothered me that when Cercei killed Missandei- that’s when Dany should have reacted. Not at the very end. Not sure it would have made the ending a whole lot better, and it certainly wouldn’t have fixed her arc. But that would have been a more believable reaction at least.
I remember during the shows runtime many people were hating on Dany because she is too goody too shoes
And just too perfect as a character and it doesn’t make her compelling
When In reality she was a such a complex character who was neither good or evil
She thought she was in the right and tried to do good but often did the opposite
She’s much more of a deep character than people give her credit for
If she would’ve become a villain with more development and progression than she would’ve probably been a top 5 villain of all time with a great descent into villainy
The simple explanation is that whenever Dany supposedly did something right, like nailed all those slavers to crosses, it's all played as heroic/ positive on the surface, even in the music, when in fact it's really wrong under the surface coz that's not what a 'better, greater' ruler would do if u really think about it. There are shades of her doing good like forgiving Jorah in S6 which is likely the only moment she shows proper mercy while in most other times if she feels you're guilty, you're dead. Yet she keeps insisting she's here to be a better ruler - how does burning people make her better? Same goes with burning the Tarlys. People claim, she gave them a choice when in fact that's not a choice at all.
It's really worth pointing out that it's been confirmed that D&D always knew her ending (rather the whole ending) bcoz GRRM told it to them as early as season 3. So it's important for lotsa people to revisit the whole series from beginning like I did to better see lol the subtle layers that have been seeded in rather than expecting there to be overt in-your-face scenes that flat out slap it to our faces that she's mad in order to get season 8. Putting aside biased confirmation is also key, mind u.
I'm not a Daenarys fan, anyway. I have always hated her and seen her as a villain.
Dany's arc in westeros fell flat on it's face because the show had no faegon.
Cercei and euron are hatesinks, no one would rally behind them, so to make it more of a challenge they had to dumb Danaerys's team wayyyy down.
And no e of her losses should turn her against the commons, as none of them supported cercei.
But Faegon will probably be loved by the commoners, they will cheer for him..
She could compromise, marry him and bring peace...or she could be a dragon, but then she would need to rule by fear, as she can never have the love of the people of she kills their saviour (which he probably will be, saving or at least freeing kings landing from cercei...)
I think the problem with Dany being one dimensional is that other characters coming in contact with her becomes one dimensional as well. In the first few seasons she was on her own arch. When her arch met with other characters that were more complex it didn't mix well.
This makes it all the more crazy that they wasted Barristan's character.
Great video. D & D ruined a ton of characters in the show. I cant wait for Winds to be released.
Sorry, But the Tarlys death, was totally justified. They rebelled against their liege lords, Help kill them I might add. Then they are both given the chance to bend the knee. Or go to the wall they refuse. So what is supposed to Nobody said Aegon was mad when he did a Field of Fire or The burning of Harrenhal. So also, don't forget the Randel Tarly threatend to kill his eldest son. But let's just say 7 season and 8 were sh**t. Still they made Dany a to much a white hero instead of the Grey one she is. Also having Baristen killed was stupid, he supposed to be the who we see Dany as. For a outside perspective. But they killed him off the idiots.
Don't need to apologise. In many ways, that's the point I was making: it's incredibly weird to frame their death as this terrible, terrible thing when way worse stuff has already happened and the show even goes out of its way to make the Tarly's death as understandable as possible
@@mylittlethoughttree Yeah Jon would have done the same. Even Ned or Robb. He kill one of his bannermen for killing sort to enemies.
@@mylittlethoughttree
They also both explicitly chose that death.
But i found Randyl pretty shit anyway. He prides himself so much with his loyalty. And then switches sides to the murderer of his liegelord (And his heirs), and then directly participate in invading his liegelord's castle, killing not only the remaining Tyrell forces and household, and then proceeds looting the spoils.
But the Sept of Baelor is one of the biggest issues the show has. It has pretty much no consequences for Cersei. And the smallfolk, where Faith and the Tyrells were VERY popular seemingly forgot about that too.
The Westerlands and the Reach should have been in open rebellion after that, including the Tarlys, and King's Landing becoming a burning shithole. And I guess, it is pretty easy to add 1+1, the Sept blew up... with Cersei and Tommen being absent. But pretty much the most prominent lords of the loyal great houses being present. Yeahhhhh. That stinks.
I would have bought it if Dani lost it and went after Cerci and her pals not caring who got in the way but going out of her way to kill random King's Landing inhabitants really wasn't believable.
appreciate how you approach every story and character with the respect, nuance and consciousness that it deserves
No bro if you look carefully the witch had starred into Dany’s stomach implying her baby’s life pays for Drogo
I think the best way to help show that shes a traumatised human would have been to have a scene where she talks about when she left kings landing as a kid. if they had it so she remembers exactly what happened and the brutality of how her family was slain, even if it didnt actually happen in the books, it would have brought you right back to the point where she is an extremely dysfunctional person who experienced extreme trauma in her childhood before becoming the victim of family abuse at the hands of her brother, then drogo. Shes got a domino affect her whole life of abuse and when she was pregnant she was given respect and power. i thought that was an intersting aspect as well, they never really credited her for her growing confidence, it was "the baby inside her". For most of her life, she was abused. People who grow up in those kinds of environments tend to seek out those kinds of relationships or act in similar ways as their abusers because its all they know. We didnt get to see any of this in Dani.
Another thing that was missed - Dany was told that the mad king simply gave people the punishments he thought they deserved. he was dishing out what he saw as fair justice. and each time he burned someone alive or punished them, he felt MORE powerful and MORE right. its the same for dany. she started off small, burning herself. then burning others through proxy (having drogo burn her brother to death by pouring molten gold on his head). and she felt powerful in that moment. she felt powerful even when she was able to threaten him chopping his hands off or having the dothraki beat him or tie him up. all of these were her first tastes of power and in that situation, we may feel it was right because of what he had done, but the theme is that dany learned never to answer injustice with mercy, but with revenge. and that revenge got more and more severe, while the infractions against her became less and less personal and even only slight. she starts reacting in bigger ways to the smallest of perceived attacks. this is all throughout the 8 seasons you see this. I saw it and realised in season 2 she was headed for villainy. anyway, the warning abuot her father was a foreshadowing of her own story. that she would punish people severely by burning them alive, and feel more powerful and more right evry time, making the next time worse (bigger punishment, bigger sense of being right, smaller or even imagined infraction against her)..."Until the very end". that was what she was told. her father was just doing what he thought was right and what secured his power until the very end when it all bew straight to hell and everyone suddenly understood that he was mad. Jaime was loyal to the targaryen king until he saw the final descent into madness and realise he was the only person who could save the 7 kingdoms. jaime and john are similar in that way. both loyal to a fault, both gentle souls, both propositioned by their close relative for sex, both faced in the end with a hard choice to kill the one they were loyal to or watch the whole world burn. there are key differences, but they are similar. and thats why we feel for jaime in the end. Jaime may even be a foreshadowing of what may happen to john after losing his honor by killing his queen, as jaime was never involved with his siter, and never engaged in dishonorable things until that moment. John is the queenslayer.
I particularly believe that the framing of what she is doing is extremely intentional on how easily you root for the villian
Yeah, I absolutely agree. My criticism is that they got the balance completely wrong causing it to feel contrived. The books handles it much better. You do root for her and empathise with her and very gradually it starts to peel back ever so slightly. In the show they go so hard on making her this empowering saviour achetype that it actually becomes more difficult to empathise with her as a person and makes the eventual reveal of "villainy" so much more flat
Danny tricking the slavers to get the Unsullied, and conquering the slave cities, showed her brilliance. But nailing all those men to the cross, and leaving them there, did kinda show she has a very spiteful side, right? She really didnt have to kill the Tarley's, she could have easily changed at least the son's mind. Tyrion's plans kind of sucked. They were too extra, and then it cost her at least 1 dragon and 1/2 of her armies. I know people that lose their mind if they dont get ketchup with their KFC orders. I can believe that she gets frustrated to the point where she wants to make someone pay for all of her loss. D&D just phucked it up pacing wise. They needed maybe 3 or 4 more episodes to really flush it out.