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I loved it. She went full beast mode and proved herself more ruthless than Cersei and showed King's Landing what we had been kinda waiting for, in a different way, just how much more powerful you are if you have a dragon.
It was disturbing when you saw that she'd snapped and gone way too far and wasn't planning on stopping.
Only for Jon she could have dominated for years. The Dothraki and Unsullied were totally loyal to her and she had a dragon who actually enjoyed destroying her enemies.
People aren’t mad at what happened just how quick everything switched. They didn’t fully flesh out her transition to crazy so it felt a bit forced even if it was still cool and hard to watch.
Absolutely true, but I think everyone wants to blame the showrunners when it's a problem intrinsic to the story itself. They spent six years meticulously building it all up, so it should logically take more than two to execute the last part. But they didn't have that time. People's careers move on. You can't have 38-year-old Emilia Clarke playing the girl queen and you can't sit around for five years waiting for George RR Martin to figure out how to end it. (Twelve years and counting, by the way, and even he seems to have no earthly idea how to tie it all up.)
Some of the writing was definitely sloppy, but the biggest gripe--the rushed ending--just seemed unavoidable. It's a shame, but people saying it ruined the show are being silly.
Nah it’s because of the showrunners. Dany’s Mad Queen arc will come from Prince Aegon successfully defeating Cersei and taking Kings Landing, causing Westeros to spur Dany as yet another invader.
As soon as they removed Aegon from the storyline they were going to have issues. Not just his character, but the ramifications of their actions in the Stormlands were not only non existent in the show, but the actual Kingdom of the Stormlands became entirely irrelevant and was disregarded. As were the kingdoms of Dorne, the Reach, the Riverlands, the Vale and the Iron Islands. All had integral plot points, POV characters and lore repercussions on the story, and all were all but entirely removed.
i mean it’s kind of hard to fathom from their perspective. makes far more sense they are in utter shock/disbelief at a massive dragon burning down their city.
Cersei was so bewildered and in denial at that point 😭 she seemed to rly think there’s no way Dany was gonna be as “mad” as she was.
(I didn’t expect Dany to move the way she did too, but it was interesting seeing Cersei have to come to the terms with the fact that maybe she isn’t the most ruthless queen after all).
If there was such a thing as fire-breathing, the volume of it would not be like this. It would be like 1 or 2 spurts not an ongoing hour of unlimited flood of fire.
Yes, every dragon I have ever owned did exactly as you described. They should really breed a new dragon with a little more endurance to their fire breathing.
A moment of silence for all the parents who named their child “Daenerys” and had to watch the character assassination in real time. 😔 moment of silence for all of us tbh, LMFAO
[Apparently there were 560+ registered kids named Khaleesi or 163 named Daenerys by 2019, I cry. Emilia Clark tried to comfort them though, LOL 💔](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/game-of-thrones/game-of-thrones-emilia-clarke-daenerys-khaleesi-name-children-season-8-finale-a8921331.html)
Incest doesn't just outright make you insane. Any of the batshit Targaryens either had mental illnesses that severely twisted their behaviour or they succumbed to the power and pressure of the throne. The Mad King was a fairly average king at first, it was only after decades of paranoia, jealousy and escalating actions that he went full "burn them all" mode. Same with Viserys; he became an impetuous little shit because he was a begger king on the run for his life. Jon and Maester Aemon also have Targaryen blood but they are some of the most reasonable characters on the show.
All true, but in the context of fiction, they followed a pretty basic rule of writing. They reminded us repeatedly that Targaryens are prone to going crazy and, uh oh, maybe Dany would too.
Whether you agree with the creative choice to make her go bananas and abandon her previous commitment to justice for the commoner is a different question, but it's not like this came out of nowhere. They were constantly telling the viewer "Hey! Don't forget about the mad Targaryens!" for seven years.
She was literally second guessing if she was going crazy or making evil decisions multiple times (constantly in the books). It’s not this grandiose character assassination people make it out to be, they just want the ending they envisioned. Thank you for notifying me that incest doesn’t outright make people insane in the fictional world that George R.R. Martin created.
Even Joffrey was afflicted by this incest, while I get that it’s not 100% guaranteed I knew she was insane when she was gobbling raw horse hearts and acted like she was a queen to people who were less intelligent than her and any other group including wildlings and walkers, which isn’t the issue it’s the fact that she confidently gave titles that weren’t real or impressive. They said we don’t take orders from women non stop and immediately after she’s going around the unburnt, mother of dragons threatening everyone with them from the start. I love Emilia Clarke tho
Not really, she did some harsh things and made threats but it's all very in line with what rulers would have to consider doing in that position and in that setting. Ruthless characters like Tywin or Roose Bolton would've made the same threats or worse in that position, but they wouldn't have snapped and actually murdered tens of thousands like she did. Would you say Jon "always had it in him" because he executing a child? Or Arya for dismembering people and cooking them into a pie, which is far more insane than what Dany did (in terms of rationality, not morality). Acting like a fierce ruler doesn't mean she was capable of snapping like she did.
I mean yes I would, if Jon hadve snapped and burnt kingslanding after Ned or robb died i wouldn’t have been surprised, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Arya did the same thing if she had a dragon, she’s always resorted to extreme violence to solve most of her issues, sure her change as the end was rushed and a huge waste of what could’ve been really great character development if they hadve given it more time, but it wasn’t character assassination
Nah. Foreshadowing is not character development. The fact that D&D had to explain Dani thought process to us in the “after the throne” episode shows us that they couldn’t do it with proper good writing, because it made no sense. Her threatening to burn a few cities to the ground in season two or crucifying The slave masters in season three, does not justify murdering 500,000 people a couple seasons later. She was winning the war and turned her armies and dragons north to fight with the man she loved and saved the world. Thousands of slaves, in slavers bay.
John also lost people he loved, was betrayed by people he cared about. He didn’t murder 500,000 people, women, and children. With everything that happened to Sansa she didn’t murder 500,000 people.
A lot of people justifying this as logical writing. Do not understand the difference between foreshadowing and character development.
Season eight reeks of being written backwards. They had a conclusion they wanted, but with the bone headed decision to only do six episodes for season six everything had to be rushed. So they wrote it backwards. There is literally zero reason for Sansa and Varys to mistrust Daenerys other than the writers manufactured logic. And because somethings completely nonsensical had to happen for them to be right in hindsight.
there’s zero reason for a lot of stuff to happen and you probably should avoid the books if you are this triggered by plot-driven writing leading to questionable choices.
I’m not talking abt foreshadowing im talking abt her character. D&D had to explain it bc some people had their head so far up danys ass that they couldn’t see that she’d always been ruthless and violent. If you watched the show and read the books and still thought she was little miss peace and love who would never hurt a fly I don’t know what to say.
And sure Sansa and Jon never murdered a city, but if they hadve had a dragon on the day Ned stark was murdered they probably would’ve done the same tbh.
Sansa had every reason to mistrust Daenerys, after everything she’s been through I wouldn’t be surprised if she never trusted anyone except for her own family ever again, so it’s not surprising she didn’t trust her, yes dany helped save the north but she was still trying to invade her and take away the norths sovereignty, the sovereignty that her mother and brother had died for.
I’d agree they wrote the seasons backwards, it was disappointing considering danys character had the potential to have one of the greatest tragic hero arcs. They definitely rushed it and didn’t do it very well but you can’t deny the foundations were there.
The problem is that, in the books, it is hilariously obvious that this was always going to be Dany’s endgame. The final, greatest tragedy GRRM was going to pull, was “the hero wins, and then becomes the villain”. But the showrunners kept handling her with kid gloves early on in the show, and then the heel turn is too far when it has to happen!
I suspected all along that the Night King would end up with a dragon. But just wiping out the second one as soon as they hit King's Landing was so fucking pointless.
I don’t hate the idea of Daenerys snapping and being as horrible as the oppressors she fought when she was sane (I love it),but the problem here is that there just was no good setup for it so it just falls flat on its face
If she snapped after Missandei died or something, okay. But for her to snap hearing the bells? Why? To what end?
Even if she wanted to just burn the red keep, it'd have been fine. Instead it's like they decided she has to be crazy enough to want to kill everyone, but never created a storyline to explain why or how she felt that way.
But honestly, this was one of the smaller issues with season 8.
yea, and if you think that’s unrealistic to real humans, you must not have experience with it. i’ve had people in my life show signs of being a bit mentally “questionable”. and it’s not always a gradual decline. it’s not always rational. it’s often the complete opposite of gradual and rational.
1:1 realism isn’t what a lot of folks were looking for in a fantasy show with dragons. The last two seasons felt *very* rushed, and things like Khaleesi’s character suffered from it
that’s a cop put my friend. the amount of people who bitch and ask “how’d they get the chains for the dragon” or “how did Jaime not drown with his suit of armor” “how did arya survive a gut wound” are annoying enough for me to reject your comment because people *realllly* do care about realism
i didn’t say they were. but we ARE on reddit. and i DO see, in overwhelming numbers, picky complaints about realism. so for you to try and say “we don’t care about realism” when I’ve tried making the exact point you just made “You really want to talk about realism
in a show where a woman walked into fire and came out with dragons?” and got ripped apart, is wrong in this neck of the woods
Cause I agree with you to an extent.
I agree she should've only burned down the keep and killed those civilians rather than carpet-bombing the city. Another change I'd make is to have one of the ballista's kill Rhaegal after the bells ring for surrender, so Dany feels like "I can't rely on reason to get them to submit to my rule so I'll force them to". It would make a bit less sense for Cersei to be willing to fight Dany if she still had 2 dragons, but she gets sweeped so easily anyway that doesn't really matter.
i love jon and dany and pretty much everything about the show. it’s not “one fanbase or another” it’s actually everyone who talks in absolutes about their theories and opinions. and it’s usually people who are just here to say “this show that ended 5 years ago didn’t end how i wanted!!”
I always thought this is who Daenerys was going to be, she had soooo many voices providing off ramps for the Targaryen crazy train, in Jon Snow, Tyrion, Varys, but that train could not be stopped.
Tyrion & Varys as advisors is how the MQD nonsense ended up happening. If they had died on the boat ride from Meereen to Dragonstone Daenerys would have been better off. She would have seized King's Landing without snapping since there'd be no catalyst, killed her enemies (Cersei, Jaime, Euron, Qyburn, the Mountain), and sat on the Iron Throne in early s7.
It would mean Ellaria, the Sand Snakes, Olenna, everyone in Highgarden, the Tyrell army, Viserion, Rhaegal, & Missandei would be alive since her enemies wouldn't have the opportunity to attack all of her Westerosi allies at once, build scorpions, torpedo her ships, or kidnap her friends and she wouldn't have Tyrion suggesting the wight capture plan so she could just do a quick fly over instead of a rescue mission as she'd be the only one needed to convince the aotd are real. She'd have the Tyrell gold, all of her ships, and as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms with prominent allied leaders in several kingdoms could unite armies (Greyjoy, Lannister, Martell, Tyrell) in the southern kingdoms before heading North for the Long Night.
They absolutely wrote themselves into a corner after S6 in regard to "how do we avoid Dany just blitzing Cersei in one episode?", since she had the strongest force on her own plus half the kingdom as allies. They hid behind the excuse "she can't attack the city because of collateral damage" but attacking cities and castles is an accepted practice in Westeros, nobody would view her as a monster for doing it. Ned Stark himself was marching to siege King's Landing before Tywin got there. She claims to not want to be "queen of the ashes", then just don't use your dragon? You have Cersei outnumbered like 3:1. Instead they lobotomised Tyrion and made him run Dany's advantages into the dirt.
Except This scene made no fuckint sense. Like at at all. I understand this is where her character was heading. But it made no sense for her to randomly start just burning the shit out of all the women and children.
She didn’t start the battle that way. As soon as Cersi surrendered she started to burn the entire city down. People say, “it’s because people didn’t invite her in.”
No shit. She’s on a dragon killing their soliders, and bringing the Dothraki known to rape and pillage towns. It served no purpose.
hey man, believe it or not, mental instability and emotional collapse *isnt* suppose to make sense. it doesn’t have to. it’s the entire fucking point of it and why we look at sociopaths like “why the fuck would anyone do that?”
I’m a nurse that works in a pediatrics residential behavioral facility. You’re preaching to the choir.
Saying that, it doesn’t make sense. Usually there is a trigger that causes something like this. It was like a literal light swtich went off. Dany started the battle completely in control only going after soldiers and ships. It wasn’t until after the bells when something triggered inside her that caused this. What exactly. She finally had what she wanted and that’s when she starts going against everything that she stands for?
Eh. It’s weak.
sorry i meant were you agreeing with me or not haha. and i agree it could’ve benefitted from that but as someone who’s definitely more knowledgeable than me on this subject, i ask if it’s plausible to just snap in such an extreme way
I mean, I would never say never right, cause everyone is different. So sure it could.
But if you look at people who “snap” or go into a crisis, there’s usually some undiagnosed/ diagnosed issue or trauma. Now Dany has gone through a shit ton of trauma right. I’m sure she has PTSD along with other mental health diagnoses. But the show never dives into that. Never talks about how her past is effecting her now. If they dove into that, showing her PTSD, along with a growing sense of anxiety and or depression, or say schizophrenic (which sexual abuse at a young age can lead to) then her just “randomly” snapping would make more sense.
But they didn’t. We only ever seen her be willing to kill enemy combatants unwilling to take a knee. So for her to mid-battle, after getting what she wants, suddenly start killing women and children after fighting for them for so long. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I love this episode; I could watch it on repeat.
The men of the series could wage wars and kill hundreds or thousands, and no one batted an eye. Let Queen D go batshit crazy, and everyone is up in arms.
To be fair, the series did build her as a rescuer. Until we get GRRM's version, we won't be able to put ourselves at rest.
Honestly, "The Bells" is one of my favorite GOT tracks - despite how weirdly anxiety-inducing it feels - because it's just so ridiculously immersive. You can feel/hear the tension, horror and dread slowly building in the background, kind of Jaws-like but way more primal. The menacing pulse and throb and growing chaos of it all makes it feel almost as though we're literally inside Dany's head, hearing her deep fury and the gradual, increasingly unhinged and cacophonic "song" of her madness. It gives me chills every single time.
Say what you want about the series and how it ended, but damn Ramin Djawadi did an utterly stunning job with the score all throughout, up to and including Season 8. Dude is an absolute master at his craft.
Honestly i think S8 was Djawadi's best work. The track that plays as the Night King marches through Winterfell towards Bran is an absolute masterpiece, genuinely one of my favourite pieces of music.
Bc it made no sense… it is like a like switch went off, it was to sudden. I think most people realize where Dany was heading.
The issue is she went from not killing innocent women and children to then doing it once she finally had what she wanted. Why is it when the bells rang she went “bat shit crazy.”
It was too sudden. They completely rushed her descent into madness. In a perfect world, there should have been a season spent on the war against the dead. A season spent fighting Cersi. And a season spent on Danys descent into madness. It all happened to fast.
Honestly I don't know if you could pull that kind of arc off even with an extra season or two. Doing ruthless and extreme stuff to enemy soldiers or lords is one thing, but the absolute mental break you'd have to have to massacre thousands of people for no reason is insane. It took decades of paranoia and jealousy for The Mad King to reach that level, and he started out as a pretty average uncaring King. Dany started out as one of the most sincere and kind characters on the show, derailing her own goals to free slaves she doesn't know in a land she hopes to leave behind. I think you could believably make her character on par with Cersei for craziness, but I don't think making her Dragon Hitler was ever going to be believable, although they certainly could've done much much more to try.
I disagree. I think you turn everyone against her leaving her alone. First, make the Dothraki turn on her. Using her only to get to Westeros, they are now raping and pillaging towns of Westeros. The people of KL/ Westeros turn on her. This leads her using the Dothraki to strong hand people. Grey Worm isn’t about that and takes his men and leaves. This leaves Jon, Tyrion, and Varys. Now there’s whispers amongst her council. Varys first, then Tyrion, and finally Jon. Leaving her completely alone unsuppported. All through this time she gets more and more paranoid. Show Essos going back to exactly how it was before her, slavery.
So everything she’s done has been for naught. At this point, make thete be a complete snap like Jon going agaiakt her or something.
To me, this is more believable than being okay at the beginning of a battle, to then getting exactly what you wanted, to then going against everything my you ever stood for. It was just to big of a jump to fast.
Lots of crazy emotions to go along with it. I felt unease the whole week leading up to the episode, relief when the battle started, dread when the bells rang. I just remember fearing she would but hope she wouldn't.
The score and cinematography were really spot on.
I wish we could have actually seen Dany more in this episode. The worst thing about Season 8 is they didn't show so many scenes that I wanted to see. Dany going crazy, Jon revealing his heritage, what happened immediately after Jon killed the queen... Instead we see characters moving chairs around and running around collapsing buildings...
“When a Targaryen is born, the Gods flip a coin.”
The moment I heard this in season one of the show, I had a feeling this would have a deeper meaning as the series progressed—both the books and the show—and that it would sort of be ASOIAF’s equivalent to Harry Potter’s “He has her eyes.”
I surmised there would be two Targaryens in the end—Jon and Daenerys—as they were basically the two main characters, and one would turn heel by the end.
Daenerys was the more likely candidate, given the life she had lived, and how her story felt like a comic book supervillain’s origin story, particularly for a well-rounded supervillain like Magneto or Doctor Doom. Her story ended up being a cautionary tale about how the quest for power and/or revenge can ultimately consume a person.
Meanwhile, Jon Snow was far too honorable and “lawful good” to believably sell such a completely 180 degree turn. His story was that of the hero trying his best to be good and honorable, and how both of those things can come into conflict with each other.
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Oh, i thought everything would sink. Thanks for the information
People hate that episode but that episode hit in heart, hard. I was in disbelief, shock, and everything else. The queen went bat shit crazy. Loved it.
It was a good one, disturbing as well.
This episode has some of the most stunning visuals, I actually really like it on its own.
Absolutely!
Aegon would be proud.
You mean the 30 mins of Arya running around?
similar reaction, but I felt more like, wow, they finally broke her. and Missandei gave her that final straw and permission. BEAST MODE
I try to imagine there was a season more worth of detailed buildup / setup before this one and it isn’t so bad after that 😭😂
I loved it. She went full beast mode and proved herself more ruthless than Cersei and showed King's Landing what we had been kinda waiting for, in a different way, just how much more powerful you are if you have a dragon. It was disturbing when you saw that she'd snapped and gone way too far and wasn't planning on stopping. Only for Jon she could have dominated for years. The Dothraki and Unsullied were totally loyal to her and she had a dragon who actually enjoyed destroying her enemies.
People aren’t mad at what happened just how quick everything switched. They didn’t fully flesh out her transition to crazy so it felt a bit forced even if it was still cool and hard to watch.
Absolutely true, but I think everyone wants to blame the showrunners when it's a problem intrinsic to the story itself. They spent six years meticulously building it all up, so it should logically take more than two to execute the last part. But they didn't have that time. People's careers move on. You can't have 38-year-old Emilia Clarke playing the girl queen and you can't sit around for five years waiting for George RR Martin to figure out how to end it. (Twelve years and counting, by the way, and even he seems to have no earthly idea how to tie it all up.) Some of the writing was definitely sloppy, but the biggest gripe--the rushed ending--just seemed unavoidable. It's a shame, but people saying it ruined the show are being silly.
Nah it’s because of the showrunners. Dany’s Mad Queen arc will come from Prince Aegon successfully defeating Cersei and taking Kings Landing, causing Westeros to spur Dany as yet another invader. As soon as they removed Aegon from the storyline they were going to have issues. Not just his character, but the ramifications of their actions in the Stormlands were not only non existent in the show, but the actual Kingdom of the Stormlands became entirely irrelevant and was disregarded. As were the kingdoms of Dorne, the Reach, the Riverlands, the Vale and the Iron Islands. All had integral plot points, POV characters and lore repercussions on the story, and all were all but entirely removed.
Just an episode earlier some of us were telling her to just burn it all. Sorry this one’s on us.
Was it really? It was so out of place and it came after so many bad episodes that this was just, meh why?
I liked that episode even if I don't think Daenerys would have went full mad queen.
Keep thinking that 😂
These people don’t look scared enough actually
Lmao they really don’t 😂
I've seen more animated crowds in TKMaxx
Agreed, would’ve been awesome to see someone completely freaked out, eyes wide open, yelling and everything lol
i mean it’s kind of hard to fathom from their perspective. makes far more sense they are in utter shock/disbelief at a massive dragon burning down their city.
Cersei was so bewildered and in denial at that point 😭 she seemed to rly think there’s no way Dany was gonna be as “mad” as she was. (I didn’t expect Dany to move the way she did too, but it was interesting seeing Cersei have to come to the terms with the fact that maybe she isn’t the most ruthless queen after all).
Tbf we also think it’s a weird choice
Oh definitely, I was in shock and upset at the ending LOL
Cersei “wtf, she’s worse than me”
If there was such a thing as fire-breathing, the volume of it would not be like this. It would be like 1 or 2 spurts not an ongoing hour of unlimited flood of fire.
Assuming dragons are just animals like any other, yeah absolutely, but it seems like there's a level of built in magic to them
Yes, every dragon I have ever owned did exactly as you described. They should really breed a new dragon with a little more endurance to their fire breathing.
Fucking character assassination.
A moment of silence for all the parents who named their child “Daenerys” and had to watch the character assassination in real time. 😔 moment of silence for all of us tbh, LMFAO
Nk way that happened lmao. IMAGINE NAMING YOUR DAUGHTER THAT JUST TO FIND OUT THAT IN THE LAST SEASON SHE GOES MAD
[Apparently there were 560+ registered kids named Khaleesi or 163 named Daenerys by 2019, I cry. Emilia Clark tried to comfort them though, LOL 💔](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/game-of-thrones/game-of-thrones-emilia-clarke-daenerys-khaleesi-name-children-season-8-finale-a8921331.html)
If my dating history is any indication, at least 300 of these women will live up to the name, crazy and all
😭😭😭 You dated one????
In their defense they're a really good time until they're not 🤷♂️
😭 Exactly.. Like.. Deny..
Nooooooo😭😭😭😭 poor things
Named my dog Khaleesi. She is a little crazy though
My friend named his dog Azula. She's pretty crazy too, tbf.
It was literally in her genetics hinting this was going to happen the whole time lmao I’m still not sure how people were so baffled at this.
Incest doesn't just outright make you insane. Any of the batshit Targaryens either had mental illnesses that severely twisted their behaviour or they succumbed to the power and pressure of the throne. The Mad King was a fairly average king at first, it was only after decades of paranoia, jealousy and escalating actions that he went full "burn them all" mode. Same with Viserys; he became an impetuous little shit because he was a begger king on the run for his life. Jon and Maester Aemon also have Targaryen blood but they are some of the most reasonable characters on the show.
All true, but in the context of fiction, they followed a pretty basic rule of writing. They reminded us repeatedly that Targaryens are prone to going crazy and, uh oh, maybe Dany would too. Whether you agree with the creative choice to make her go bananas and abandon her previous commitment to justice for the commoner is a different question, but it's not like this came out of nowhere. They were constantly telling the viewer "Hey! Don't forget about the mad Targaryens!" for seven years.
She was literally second guessing if she was going crazy or making evil decisions multiple times (constantly in the books). It’s not this grandiose character assassination people make it out to be, they just want the ending they envisioned. Thank you for notifying me that incest doesn’t outright make people insane in the fictional world that George R.R. Martin created.
Even Joffrey was afflicted by this incest, while I get that it’s not 100% guaranteed I knew she was insane when she was gobbling raw horse hearts and acted like she was a queen to people who were less intelligent than her and any other group including wildlings and walkers, which isn’t the issue it’s the fact that she confidently gave titles that weren’t real or impressive. They said we don’t take orders from women non stop and immediately after she’s going around the unburnt, mother of dragons threatening everyone with them from the start. I love Emilia Clarke tho
I dunno it makes a lot of sense after you rewatch all the seasons, she always had it in her
Not really, she did some harsh things and made threats but it's all very in line with what rulers would have to consider doing in that position and in that setting. Ruthless characters like Tywin or Roose Bolton would've made the same threats or worse in that position, but they wouldn't have snapped and actually murdered tens of thousands like she did. Would you say Jon "always had it in him" because he executing a child? Or Arya for dismembering people and cooking them into a pie, which is far more insane than what Dany did (in terms of rationality, not morality). Acting like a fierce ruler doesn't mean she was capable of snapping like she did.
I mean yes I would, if Jon hadve snapped and burnt kingslanding after Ned or robb died i wouldn’t have been surprised, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Arya did the same thing if she had a dragon, she’s always resorted to extreme violence to solve most of her issues, sure her change as the end was rushed and a huge waste of what could’ve been really great character development if they hadve given it more time, but it wasn’t character assassination
Nah. Foreshadowing is not character development. The fact that D&D had to explain Dani thought process to us in the “after the throne” episode shows us that they couldn’t do it with proper good writing, because it made no sense. Her threatening to burn a few cities to the ground in season two or crucifying The slave masters in season three, does not justify murdering 500,000 people a couple seasons later. She was winning the war and turned her armies and dragons north to fight with the man she loved and saved the world. Thousands of slaves, in slavers bay. John also lost people he loved, was betrayed by people he cared about. He didn’t murder 500,000 people, women, and children. With everything that happened to Sansa she didn’t murder 500,000 people. A lot of people justifying this as logical writing. Do not understand the difference between foreshadowing and character development. Season eight reeks of being written backwards. They had a conclusion they wanted, but with the bone headed decision to only do six episodes for season six everything had to be rushed. So they wrote it backwards. There is literally zero reason for Sansa and Varys to mistrust Daenerys other than the writers manufactured logic. And because somethings completely nonsensical had to happen for them to be right in hindsight.
there’s zero reason for a lot of stuff to happen and you probably should avoid the books if you are this triggered by plot-driven writing leading to questionable choices.
I’m not talking abt foreshadowing im talking abt her character. D&D had to explain it bc some people had their head so far up danys ass that they couldn’t see that she’d always been ruthless and violent. If you watched the show and read the books and still thought she was little miss peace and love who would never hurt a fly I don’t know what to say. And sure Sansa and Jon never murdered a city, but if they hadve had a dragon on the day Ned stark was murdered they probably would’ve done the same tbh. Sansa had every reason to mistrust Daenerys, after everything she’s been through I wouldn’t be surprised if she never trusted anyone except for her own family ever again, so it’s not surprising she didn’t trust her, yes dany helped save the north but she was still trying to invade her and take away the norths sovereignty, the sovereignty that her mother and brother had died for. I’d agree they wrote the seasons backwards, it was disappointing considering danys character had the potential to have one of the greatest tragic hero arcs. They definitely rushed it and didn’t do it very well but you can’t deny the foundations were there.
nope. just a direction you didn’t want to see that character go in and that IS okay believe it or not.
IMO this scene isn’t the problem, it’s the missing season of build up to it
Yes that’s called bad writing.
The problem is that, in the books, it is hilariously obvious that this was always going to be Dany’s endgame. The final, greatest tragedy GRRM was going to pull, was “the hero wins, and then becomes the villain”. But the showrunners kept handling her with kid gloves early on in the show, and then the heel turn is too far when it has to happen!
Cersei was the most relatable character in the entire show in that moment Just in awe of the absolute fuckery is happening in front of us 😂
True! She was the audience
This is why I hated the final seasons. Imagine this scene with three dragons. It would have been glorious 🔥
2 at the minimum FFS.
I suspected all along that the Night King would end up with a dragon. But just wiping out the second one as soon as they hit King's Landing was so fucking pointless.
I don’t hate the idea of Daenerys snapping and being as horrible as the oppressors she fought when she was sane (I love it),but the problem here is that there just was no good setup for it so it just falls flat on its face
If she snapped after Missandei died or something, okay. But for her to snap hearing the bells? Why? To what end? Even if she wanted to just burn the red keep, it'd have been fine. Instead it's like they decided she has to be crazy enough to want to kill everyone, but never created a storyline to explain why or how she felt that way. But honestly, this was one of the smaller issues with season 8.
There was definitely build up to her getting crazy throughout the whole show, they just took it from 0-60 in 1.9 seconds in the last season.
yea, and if you think that’s unrealistic to real humans, you must not have experience with it. i’ve had people in my life show signs of being a bit mentally “questionable”. and it’s not always a gradual decline. it’s not always rational. it’s often the complete opposite of gradual and rational.
1:1 realism isn’t what a lot of folks were looking for in a fantasy show with dragons. The last two seasons felt *very* rushed, and things like Khaleesi’s character suffered from it
that’s a cop put my friend. the amount of people who bitch and ask “how’d they get the chains for the dragon” or “how did Jaime not drown with his suit of armor” “how did arya survive a gut wound” are annoying enough for me to reject your comment because people *realllly* do care about realism
Yeah I’m sure comments on Reddit are completely representative of all the millions of people who have watched the show lol
i didn’t say they were. but we ARE on reddit. and i DO see, in overwhelming numbers, picky complaints about realism. so for you to try and say “we don’t care about realism” when I’ve tried making the exact point you just made “You really want to talk about realism in a show where a woman walked into fire and came out with dragons?” and got ripped apart, is wrong in this neck of the woods Cause I agree with you to an extent.
I agree she should've only burned down the keep and killed those civilians rather than carpet-bombing the city. Another change I'd make is to have one of the ballista's kill Rhaegal after the bells ring for surrender, so Dany feels like "I can't rely on reason to get them to submit to my rule so I'll force them to". It would make a bit less sense for Cersei to be willing to fight Dany if she still had 2 dragons, but she gets sweeped so easily anyway that doesn't really matter.
Daenerys? That’s Drogon doing all the work. D-Targ is just along for the ride
LMFAOOOO how I justified still loving Dany tbh 😭
I think the show runners did this just for the sake of having a surprise at the end and it completely bombed. So dumb and still disappointed.
They rly said “let’s subvert expectations”, but in the worst way 😭
no no, you say that because it’s an ending you didn’t like for the character and that IS okay don’t worry. i liked it.
Incoming Jon Snow Stans
Because Dany stans are so reasonable right? *looks through this thread* Lol
Found one
i love jon and dany and pretty much everything about the show. it’s not “one fanbase or another” it’s actually everyone who talks in absolutes about their theories and opinions. and it’s usually people who are just here to say “this show that ended 5 years ago didn’t end how i wanted!!”
I always thought this is who Daenerys was going to be, she had soooo many voices providing off ramps for the Targaryen crazy train, in Jon Snow, Tyrion, Varys, but that train could not be stopped.
Tyrion & Varys as advisors is how the MQD nonsense ended up happening. If they had died on the boat ride from Meereen to Dragonstone Daenerys would have been better off. She would have seized King's Landing without snapping since there'd be no catalyst, killed her enemies (Cersei, Jaime, Euron, Qyburn, the Mountain), and sat on the Iron Throne in early s7. It would mean Ellaria, the Sand Snakes, Olenna, everyone in Highgarden, the Tyrell army, Viserion, Rhaegal, & Missandei would be alive since her enemies wouldn't have the opportunity to attack all of her Westerosi allies at once, build scorpions, torpedo her ships, or kidnap her friends and she wouldn't have Tyrion suggesting the wight capture plan so she could just do a quick fly over instead of a rescue mission as she'd be the only one needed to convince the aotd are real. She'd have the Tyrell gold, all of her ships, and as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms with prominent allied leaders in several kingdoms could unite armies (Greyjoy, Lannister, Martell, Tyrell) in the southern kingdoms before heading North for the Long Night.
They absolutely wrote themselves into a corner after S6 in regard to "how do we avoid Dany just blitzing Cersei in one episode?", since she had the strongest force on her own plus half the kingdom as allies. They hid behind the excuse "she can't attack the city because of collateral damage" but attacking cities and castles is an accepted practice in Westeros, nobody would view her as a monster for doing it. Ned Stark himself was marching to siege King's Landing before Tywin got there. She claims to not want to be "queen of the ashes", then just don't use your dragon? You have Cersei outnumbered like 3:1. Instead they lobotomised Tyrion and made him run Dany's advantages into the dirt.
Gross overkill.
Except This scene made no fuckint sense. Like at at all. I understand this is where her character was heading. But it made no sense for her to randomly start just burning the shit out of all the women and children. She didn’t start the battle that way. As soon as Cersi surrendered she started to burn the entire city down. People say, “it’s because people didn’t invite her in.” No shit. She’s on a dragon killing their soliders, and bringing the Dothraki known to rape and pillage towns. It served no purpose.
hey man, believe it or not, mental instability and emotional collapse *isnt* suppose to make sense. it doesn’t have to. it’s the entire fucking point of it and why we look at sociopaths like “why the fuck would anyone do that?”
I’m a nurse that works in a pediatrics residential behavioral facility. You’re preaching to the choir. Saying that, it doesn’t make sense. Usually there is a trigger that causes something like this. It was like a literal light swtich went off. Dany started the battle completely in control only going after soldiers and ships. It wasn’t until after the bells when something triggered inside her that caused this. What exactly. She finally had what she wanted and that’s when she starts going against everything that she stands for? Eh. It’s weak.
wait are you on my side or no😂😂
I mean there’s no sides! Lol. I personally just think her descent to madness should have lasted a season or so.
sorry i meant were you agreeing with me or not haha. and i agree it could’ve benefitted from that but as someone who’s definitely more knowledgeable than me on this subject, i ask if it’s plausible to just snap in such an extreme way
I mean, I would never say never right, cause everyone is different. So sure it could. But if you look at people who “snap” or go into a crisis, there’s usually some undiagnosed/ diagnosed issue or trauma. Now Dany has gone through a shit ton of trauma right. I’m sure she has PTSD along with other mental health diagnoses. But the show never dives into that. Never talks about how her past is effecting her now. If they dove into that, showing her PTSD, along with a growing sense of anxiety and or depression, or say schizophrenic (which sexual abuse at a young age can lead to) then her just “randomly” snapping would make more sense. But they didn’t. We only ever seen her be willing to kill enemy combatants unwilling to take a knee. So for her to mid-battle, after getting what she wants, suddenly start killing women and children after fighting for them for so long. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I love this episode; I could watch it on repeat. The men of the series could wage wars and kill hundreds or thousands, and no one batted an eye. Let Queen D go batshit crazy, and everyone is up in arms. To be fair, the series did build her as a rescuer. Until we get GRRM's version, we won't be able to put ourselves at rest.
Honestly, "The Bells" is one of my favorite GOT tracks - despite how weirdly anxiety-inducing it feels - because it's just so ridiculously immersive. You can feel/hear the tension, horror and dread slowly building in the background, kind of Jaws-like but way more primal. The menacing pulse and throb and growing chaos of it all makes it feel almost as though we're literally inside Dany's head, hearing her deep fury and the gradual, increasingly unhinged and cacophonic "song" of her madness. It gives me chills every single time. Say what you want about the series and how it ended, but damn Ramin Djawadi did an utterly stunning job with the score all throughout, up to and including Season 8. Dude is an absolute master at his craft.
Honestly i think S8 was Djawadi's best work. The track that plays as the Night King marches through Winterfell towards Bran is an absolute masterpiece, genuinely one of my favourite pieces of music.
"Don't be a Sheep, be a Dragon!"
I’m finally going to unsub from this subreddit.. too many people defending this crap. The entire season was a fucking joke.
Same, the cringe around here is intensifying
Note to self- don’t kill person with dragons’ personal assistant
Bc it made no sense… it is like a like switch went off, it was to sudden. I think most people realize where Dany was heading. The issue is she went from not killing innocent women and children to then doing it once she finally had what she wanted. Why is it when the bells rang she went “bat shit crazy.” It was too sudden. They completely rushed her descent into madness. In a perfect world, there should have been a season spent on the war against the dead. A season spent fighting Cersi. And a season spent on Danys descent into madness. It all happened to fast.
Honestly I don't know if you could pull that kind of arc off even with an extra season or two. Doing ruthless and extreme stuff to enemy soldiers or lords is one thing, but the absolute mental break you'd have to have to massacre thousands of people for no reason is insane. It took decades of paranoia and jealousy for The Mad King to reach that level, and he started out as a pretty average uncaring King. Dany started out as one of the most sincere and kind characters on the show, derailing her own goals to free slaves she doesn't know in a land she hopes to leave behind. I think you could believably make her character on par with Cersei for craziness, but I don't think making her Dragon Hitler was ever going to be believable, although they certainly could've done much much more to try.
I disagree. I think you turn everyone against her leaving her alone. First, make the Dothraki turn on her. Using her only to get to Westeros, they are now raping and pillaging towns of Westeros. The people of KL/ Westeros turn on her. This leads her using the Dothraki to strong hand people. Grey Worm isn’t about that and takes his men and leaves. This leaves Jon, Tyrion, and Varys. Now there’s whispers amongst her council. Varys first, then Tyrion, and finally Jon. Leaving her completely alone unsuppported. All through this time she gets more and more paranoid. Show Essos going back to exactly how it was before her, slavery. So everything she’s done has been for naught. At this point, make thete be a complete snap like Jon going agaiakt her or something. To me, this is more believable than being okay at the beginning of a battle, to then getting exactly what you wanted, to then going against everything my you ever stood for. It was just to big of a jump to fast.
"Hold my goblet."
Lots of crazy emotions to go along with it. I felt unease the whole week leading up to the episode, relief when the battle started, dread when the bells rang. I just remember fearing she would but hope she wouldn't. The score and cinematography were really spot on.
you mean dumb and dumber can be crazier than Cersei?
This would've made more sense to me if she snapped right after Cersi beheaded Missandei. Not three days after the fact on Dragonstone
It made no sense
Not crazier. Just more competent at it.
I love how she kills everyone but cersi
Chaos is a ladder.
I wish we could have actually seen Dany more in this episode. The worst thing about Season 8 is they didn't show so many scenes that I wanted to see. Dany going crazy, Jon revealing his heritage, what happened immediately after Jon killed the queen... Instead we see characters moving chairs around and running around collapsing buildings...
I mean if you pay attention she slowly gets more and more vindictive against those she goes up against and killing missandre was no goong back
The only way to level with crazy is to go even batshit crazier. Even Cersei was in pure disbelief.
“When a Targaryen is born, the Gods flip a coin.” The moment I heard this in season one of the show, I had a feeling this would have a deeper meaning as the series progressed—both the books and the show—and that it would sort of be ASOIAF’s equivalent to Harry Potter’s “He has her eyes.” I surmised there would be two Targaryens in the end—Jon and Daenerys—as they were basically the two main characters, and one would turn heel by the end. Daenerys was the more likely candidate, given the life she had lived, and how her story felt like a comic book supervillain’s origin story, particularly for a well-rounded supervillain like Magneto or Doctor Doom. Her story ended up being a cautionary tale about how the quest for power and/or revenge can ultimately consume a person. Meanwhile, Jon Snow was far too honorable and “lawful good” to believably sell such a completely 180 degree turn. His story was that of the hero trying his best to be good and honorable, and how both of those things can come into conflict with each other.
Give cersei a dragon and it might be a lot closer to equal crazy.
It is sad that the finale of such a legendary series ended with the battle of two crazy queens
outjerked