#is in fact towards the show version of her who just objectvely sucks as a character and also the annoying fans.

[atopvisenyashill]

Dany's reaction at Viserys's death and later on her guilt over it is perfectly understandable and is one of more tragic parts of her story. As someone who believes in her show ending, I despise that particular scene is taken as her foreshadowing for madness. She was an abuse victim and anyway she reacted was valid. And I don't even think she will ever truly go mad because I believe targaryen madness is extreme obsession with any particular thing (be it dragons or power or prophecy or supremacy or incest) so that all targaryens (even 'normal' ones like aemon, rhaegar, jaehaerys) have this tendency and it can go on to become full on lunacy if not curbed.

Yeah, like what Viserys represents is Dany's ability to completely recast her own memories, a way of showing memory is very fallible (i've mentioned that a lot with Ned, Bran, Theon, Sansa, and Dany is a big example of that as well) wherein she really recasts herself as having so much more agency while she's Drogo's wife than she actually had (something we see echoed in a lot of the wives of very domineering husbands see also: alysanne and jaehaerys, or the annoying way barth talks about alyssa velaryon). I think dany (and the audience) really put the blame for this on her when in reality like......genuinely what was she supposed to do here. Viserys violates a very deeply held social and religious custom of the Dothraki by baring steel in Vaes Dothrak, and Dany is one (1) person with not a lot of influence, no martial training, and no dragons. Beyond that, he has physically assaulted her while she's pregnant once already and now he's holding a deadly weapon to her face. Like. What was she supposed to do to stop this even if she wanted. What on earth could she have done, really. "Please kill him in a slightly more humane way" Drogo is not fucking listening to that and like, it's not to say that the way Viserys dies isn't violent as fuck but like...the alternative is like, dragging him out of Vaes Dothrak to cut off his head, which may technically hurt less but is probably much more traumatic on the whole, or just straight beating/strangling him to death which is also like, incredibly violent and will take much longer anyway. So it's sort of like, well even if she wanted to save him she has no ability to do so!

And beyond that, imo, it's the same as Cersei killing Robert or Arya killing the boy in the stables. Do I worry about the way becoming an out and out murderer will affect them psychologically? Yes, because regardless of why you're killing someone, taking another person's life has a massive affect on your mental and emotional state for a reason. But do I blame either one for this action? No not even a little. Arya is panicked, she knows it's likely if she's caught at best she's a hostage, but who even knows what's going to happen if she gets caught because she's not totally sure what's happening right now. She panics, she kills the boy mostly accidentally, she runs off. That's clear cut self defense right there. And as for Cersei, again, what the fuck is she supposed to do. Her husband is beating and raping her and she has no recourse for this because it's not a crime for a husband in general to beat and rape his wife, and it's certainly not a crime for the King to do it. Her father will not help her because he does not care. If she lets Jaime kill Robert, they are completely fucked. Yeah, hell yeah she kills him, she doesn't have another option if she wants his abuse of her to stop.

It's the same here. Yeah, I think Viserys being murdered in Dany's name has a massive and terrible affect on her psychologically because it's another nail in the coffin of "safety and strength = violence and cruelty" conflation in her mind, and this is her last tie to home, it's her last tie to her family, to her house, to her mother, to Westeros, and that "last dragon" sequence that follows I think is her psychologically accepting that like, To Be The Last Dragon, To Be Any Dragon means you must accept violence and cruelty as your first and main tool to protect yourself (and violence and cruelty can certainly be useful tools but they should not be your only ones. but how could she ever know this when every mentor she's ever had has shown her that the only effective tools are to be cruel before someone else can be cruel to you). But Viserys' death is not her fault, it's not anything she could have stopped, and it doesn't inherently doom her because she is purposefully detaching her emotions from this moments and dissociating over the fact that her last known living relative was just brutally murdered by her husband in her name in front of her, and then her husband promises her what she has always wanted which is a home and a protector and an advocate.

The person responsible for Viserys' death is first and foremost Viserys himself for being a complete idiot and secondly Drogo's fault. Dany cannot stop it, she has nothing to do with it, and she shouldn't be blamed for feeling some sort of relief that a man who regularly physically, sexually, and psychologically abuses her is dead. Who gives a shit man, she literally murders her slave several chapter later.

And as for the Targaryen madness, it's like......idk why it's just so hard to grasp for so many people (this isn't a dig at you, specifically anon, obviously) that mental illnesses often run in a family, incest often makes this worse because you're not introducing anything new to the gene pool, and trauma of any sort can set off severe mental illness issues in just about anyone. As I said before, I think Dany's problem (very similar to Rhaenyra which is why I again find it mind boggling that people will be like "nyra is a tyrant but dany is a hero" when these women have the exact same issue) is that she has consistently conflated cruelty with strength in her mind. She has very little control of her temper, and often rationalizes her actions and the actions of the people around her as being necessary despite there being a lot of other, better options available. She doesn't think long term as much as she should. She has access to a "weapon" of sorts that can do an extreme amount of damage in a very small amount of time, with the added problem that she has an emotional and magical link to that weapon. The dragons only seem partially sentient and that "part" that is sentient is like a manifestation of their dragon rider's id.

That's just so much cooking in her mind, psychologically, and she's kind of born already screwed because her family has a history of mental illness. And tbc I don't think this means that like, mentally ill people should be shut out and barred from society because um, that means MY ass would not be allowed out but it does mean that in a world where certain people are granted certain massive privileges like access to an army or fantasy nuclear launch codes, and there's no check to that power, and there's no safety net, and everyone is using you and your dysfunction for their own gain, the worst parts of your psyche can be enabled until there's a snowball effect of violence. this isn't even like, something just this series; look at the large amounts of disabled and mentally unstable monarchs we've had in history, ask any millennial on lexapro with divorced parents how they feel about their mom's drinking or their dad's bipolar disorder, and you'll get the idea that without support, in a society that enables our worst behavior, someone with a family history of illness can find themselves in a really fucked up situation and that's just like, the tragedy of being alive.

Dany, Theon, Cersei, Ned, Tyrion, Aerys, Aegon II III and IV, on and on, they are of course responsible for the harm they cause, and they are all really screwed from the start and that's tragic, but it's not inevitable that they fail or lose their minds so much as it's an indictment of the way we treat each other as a species.