#show!dany

[sunny12th]

what was left for show!dany anyways. what role could she have played besides the only one that was left to her. she's there to answer for their crimes, to atone for the sins of her House. she starts with freeing the Slave Cities, the descendants of the people her ancestors first enslaved, and goes to westeros to stop enslavement from the Others. but she's not in the fight, in the end. Arya kills the night king. Dany's army, these people that have followed her across the world die off-screen as nameless background characters. her dragons, her children, are barely seen in the long night. she has no role in this final fight and so she has no role left in this story.

she can't be the dutiful mother to carry on the targaryen line. Jon isn't even attracted to her after finding out their related (valid but yeesh) so she can't be his pretty little queen. She has no friends, Jorah died. She can't be a sister to Arya or Sansa, they hate her, and Missandei died. She died with a final request/command/advice.

there are no more heros, the final enemy (cold, death, the Others) was defeated early. all that's left is Cersie and her castle and Kings Landing with all those nameless background characters that we are expected to care more about than Dany's fallen.

there was no other role for show!Dany to play. the ending she was meant for didnt play out and the story continued past her, leaving her behind. she's left with no other options besides Mad Queen pt. 2 and then to be the final piece of grief for the beloved male hero.

it's like show!Dany is aware the story doesn't want her in it anymore. the narrative cannot abide a woman that doesn't fit.

[music-of-dragons]

I don't think Daenerys had Targaryen madness as it's described in the books or like her father in the show. She was never paranoid out of turn, all of her fears came true just as she knew they would. She was betrayed by her advisors, people were plotting to overthrow her for a man, she lost multiple allies and close friends, etc.

She managed to attack KL and avoid citizens completely up until the bells rang. Here's the thing though, bells never meant surrender before season 8, and even then Cersei is not the one who rung the bells or gave the order. Cities are sacked even after surrendering, that's just the way of the world in Westeros, especially when the ruler refuses to back down. Daenerys could not see the Lannister army surrendering, she did not know if Cersei was surrendering, and from everything that Tyrion told her and that she experienced first hand she wasn't going to surrender. The soldiers were mingled with the citizens and could not be told apart in the first place. Daenerys needed to ensure her victory and that her enemies were wiped out, a show of power that would prove her will and fierceness to the rest of Westeros. She did, at a terrible cost, but I wouldn’t call that madness. Ruthless, yes, but madness, no.

She was angry in that moment from having lost so much, but her decision was deliberate. She could not trust Tyrion's advice to "call off the attack when they ring the bells" because Tyrion had failed her over and over again. She could no longer trust him or his words after he failed and betrayed her. Her victory was too easy and didn't seem real, it seemed like a trap that could slip between her fingers if she stopped or let her guard down. She was lucid in her final moments, she knew what she did, and being ruthless is not being "mad" when the show and books have shown us that ruthlessness is necessary to win.

Wrote this up in response to a question on whether or not show!Dany was mad. I don't think so. I also don't think book!Dany is going to burn KL like in the show at all. This is just how I choose to interpret Season 8 Episode 5, if I MUST acknowledge it.

[coffereadsasoiaf]

I agree with you. If GRRM ever manages to finish the books, he’ll give it more sense. Dany’s story would’ve been great to show that so much power shouldn’t be given to anyone. That while kings and queens can exist, every monarch or ruler should be responsible with the power they have. But instead all they did was shocking the fans and ended up not delivering her arc properly. Anyway, enjoy the books! In my opinion, ACOK is nice but ASOS is more engaging. Just a thought :)

Totally agree anon. I would have been totally on board with an anti-hero arc about her having too much power (because of the dragons) and losing her initial mission to free people from slavery to power for power’s sake. But even though there might have been a couple of “precedents” in her ruling of Mereen, those moments alone were not enough development to tell this arc. They should have worked much harder in both season 7 and 8 to actually have her take actions that would demonstrate she was losing her focus, instead they had her making always the right decision, choosing the welfare of the many over her own goal to get to the IT, listening the her advisers and generally being very balanced overall. And then the narrative punished her for these decisions with loss and unwarranted betrayal and “people not loving her” (despite the fact she had just helped save humanity) and they told us instead of showing us that she was gonna lose it and that this pain was enough to make her burn a city of innocents alive when she had already conquered what she wanted with basically 0 casualties. 

And not only the narrative did not stand on its own, but the “receipts” that D&D then gave in their interviews just proved that they have no idea what they wanted to write (the most disappointing of course being Dany not crying in front of Viserys dying… what the fuck). Which to me is also very clear because after the turn, in the throne scene there’s not even a proper dialogue with Jon about it. For the longest time I was confused as to why didn’t Jon actually ask her “why did you do it when you had already won?” and now I know why: because D&D didn’t know the real reason and they couldn’t have written it, so they had Jon just accept those two delusional sentences she says and then kill her (and this is another thing I hated, the way they had Jon kill her.. not simply by taking out his sword and doing it, but embracing her, kissing her, declaring his love and loyalty to her and doing it when she is in his arms??? why??? there’s no one in the room, just kill her and that’s it! why do you have to create this romantic scenery?? and Drogon not trying to kill Jon.. I mean I better stop cause I could continue forever). I’m sorry for rambling, I have lots of thoughts on the show ending because even though I could see it wasn’t perfect, the last two seasons really drained my love for the story out of me:( the positive thing is that now I’m reading the books :D

About Clash and Storm: I hear all the time that Storm is the best of the series, so I cannot wait!! I know there’s gonna be a lot of really interesting stuff (and that RW… I really REALLY wanna read it even though I know it will break my heart)! And thanks for the massage anon! 💕

[pujington]

Fixing Game of Thrones Pt.1 (?)

First off, I’d like to say that I got a lot of these ideas from some wonderful asoiaf meta blogs like @turtle-paced and @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly

I, like a lot of folks, did not love the GOT final season. However, my reasons for disliking it are rooted in issues I’ve had with the show for a loooong time. In particular, the characterization of two of my favorite characters in the books: Bran and Daenerys. This post will mostly deal with Dany, though someday I’d like to do a whole different one on how dirty D&D did my boy.

Now, I’m not necessarily upset about the fact that Dany burnt down Kings Landing, but rather how and when she did it. I think GOT could have made a relatively simple story change that would have fixed a lot of issues. Dany attacking Kings Landing should be the climax of season Seven and the Long Night battle should be the climax of season Eight. The folks I mentioned above, theorize that this is how it will go down in the books and I have my fingers forever crossed for this.

You wouldn’t even have to change that much about season Seven. Dany is already in Westeros, already gearing up to attack Kings Landing, already wrestling with moral dilemmas (not that the show handles this very well, but still). You can still have Jon come down from the North to convince Dany that she should help in the fight for Humanity. Let her be almost swayed by his argument, but ultimately decide against it. Perhaps this is where a major death in Dany’s squad can happen (not Missandei though, literally your only major woc character, you jerks).

Now Dany is all set up to conquer Kings Landing. I won’t go into too many battle specifics here, but basically instead of intentionally killing a bunch of civilians, Dany (who has been established as a brilliant battle strategist and conquerer) will intend to hit specific, strategically important sections of the city with a bunch of Dragonfire. However, what she doesn’t know is that there are vast amounts of wildfire hidden throughout the city by her father decades earlier. She only has to hit one or two of these to make the entire city go boom.

This means that Dany (the one we know and love, who actually cares about the common people) has to look at the carnage that she has wrought upon millions of innocent people. She has to wrestle with the ramifications of her actions. After doing some serious soul searching, she realizes that the only way to move forward is to give up on conquering Westeros and instead join Jon in the fight to save Humanity. In other words, she gets to be a dynamic character with real agency. Someone who is morally grey, but ultimately trying to do the right thing (just like pretty much every other “good” guy in this story).

This would fix a lot of other issues as well. Cersei’s arc can end in a satisfying way instead of being stuck in a holding pattern for two+ seasons (Lena Headey is fantastic, but she’s had nothing to work with for a while). Tyrion can feel morally implicated as well, since he was aware of the wildfire caches, but did not anticipate the big ol’ explosion. Dany and Jon can connect over the tough decisions they’ve had to make as leaders, instead of just wanting to bone I guess. The Stark girls can have a reason for initially distrusting Dany, but be swayed by her sacrifices during the Long Night. Most significantly, the show has plenty of time to establish and deal with the literal apocalypse in their final season.          

[sakurasblossoms]

Personally I don´t understand people who watch Game of Thrones. I don´t understand the show anymore, like really. I am confused... ehm... they said that Dany was not honest with her words when she talked with Sansa. Like, where the fuckos? what kind of show do they watch? Was Dany honest or not?  What I noticed was that the camera and scenes were on her face. THey wanted to show us - the fake Dany? Or the fake Sansa? 

[silentsundayspecial]

My Problem With Dany

Anyone who follows me knows that this point that I'm not the biggest fan of show!Dany. This is mainly because D&D basically got rid of everything that made her interesting in the books. The problem I have with Dany is the same problem I had with the Sand Snakes. The showrunners took interesting, complex, unique characters and turned them into caricatures of empowered women.

Book!Dany is fascinating, because as extraordinary as her journey and circumstances are, she's such a teenage girl. She's trying to figure out who she is and how she fits into the world. Like most teenage girls, she wants to change the world to fit how she wants it to be. The thing is, she can actually do that. The problems arise because she had the best intentions, but no idea how to achieve what she wants.

And on top of all of that, she's dealing with feelings for the various men in her life, being pulled in a million different directions by feelings and urges she barely understands while still trying to do the right thing, and also being in charge of 3 basically nuclear weapons, one of which keeps running away and doing whatever it wants. But despite all of this, she keeps trying. She pushes onward. She makes the hard choices, and she owns up to them.

Show!Dany. I just cant with this bitch. Nothing is her fault. She burned the Tarlys alive? That's their fault, she gave them a choice. Never mind that it wasn't much of a choice. She doesn't want to go North and save humanity? That's Cersei's fault, she won't stand aside and give me what I want. Everything she does it the right thing. She can't be wrong. She has dragons. No one tells her what to do. She is not a ruler, she is not a queen, she is a dictator. It's boring, its meh, and I just can't care about it.

[coffereadsasoiaf]

Of course Dany will lose in the books. I don’t like using the expression “mad queen”, as I find it disrespectful and unnecessary and I also believe it’s not necessarily “madness” we’re talking about here. But thinking that she won’t do something terrible is plain denial. It will make more sense, sure, but it’ll happen.

Guess I’ll have a proper opinion on book!Dany when I finish the books, but really all I want is for her arc to be dealt in a logical and poignant way (however it ends). I mean that’s really what I want for all characters tbh. 

And I agree, the whole concept of “madness” being associated with evil (first with Aerys then with Dany’s turn) is really questionable and I wish George will tackle it more responsibly (if he even will go there). The main reason why I didn’t like the way they wrote Dany is that I couldn’t understand what kind of story they were trying to tell, it turned out as a really confused and weak mix of commentary on politics gone wrong, too much power taking control of those who have it, personal revenge caused by loss and grief, and a genetic mental illness being triggered all of a sudden.. It was a total mess in my opinion and they did ruin her character by handling her turn this way. 

I do DO hope George will be able to make her story make sense.