So, it was a war crime of singular responsibilty to an unprecedented genocide . But, c'mon, let's not get carried away, as if rises to the horror of gender sterotyping.
8
This fan reaction to Daenerys' torching of Kings' Landing really baffles me. She has always been like this. Every time someone defied her, either she burned them or crucified them. Every season, she has gone genocidal on some group or another. She is not just the breaker of chains, she is the slayer of everyone who had anything to do with making those chains.
So, all alone on her dragon, she refused to be merciful, because she has never shown mercy to anyone. She wanted wholesale revenge, and had every intent to rule with fear, as a tyrant would.
There are plenty of reasons for her to have turned out this way, readily shown in season one, but she's a narcissistic, power-seeking person, and always has been. That's why she pretty much has to die next episode, or evil will have won. Yes, sorry, Dany is evil, and there are plenty of factors that caused her to be so, none of which is madness.
37
where does all this detail come from? the books? because only a small portion is explored on the show.
or is there another resource that covers the history of Westeros that the show and book only show a sliver of?
5
Murders a million people.
The NYT, 'Dany is being judged in part because of gender-based stereotypes'.
She's being judged because she claimed to be a better ruler, not her dad, and not a tyrant, then committed wholesale murder.
Go defend her. then defend Irma Grese, she too was ' judged in part because of gender-based stereotypes' I am sure.
13
@AutumnLeaf Dany has been ruthless and vengeful from day one. She’s no more mad now than she has been all along. She has also explicitly threatened—all along—to burn cities to the ground in order to unite the 7 kingdoms under her rule.
10
I always have seen Dani as a Jungian archetype- anima the bright shinning woman mother of all, but then the show is not guided by Jungian archetypes (As Starwars was, for example) Honestly this season seems to be more f the product of puerile Hollywood writers than the more historically derived earlier seasons.
So anything could happen, but Arya has gotten a lot of narrative time, specially lately. The white horse often associated with the sun chariot, with warrior-heroes, with fertility (in both mare and stallion manifestations), or with an end-of-time saviour, but other interpretations exist as well.
The Starks (the Saxons?) were the first characters we met in 1/1, have been the moral core, and hosts of the narrative so their redemption and ascent to power could end up being the arc of the story.
We never saw Cerece actually dead...
6
How the heck did that dragon dodge so many giant arrows? Why didn't they have any devices hidden and brought out and fired when the dragon was torching the city? No backup plan to kill the dragon?
5
@David Folts:"How the heck did that dragon dodge so many giant arrows?"
Electronic jamming and cyber warfare that we're always hearing about.
6
Have you forgotten this is fiction?
4
Have you forgotten this is fiction?
1
The moral of the story: karma trumps vengeance. One character is figuring that out and she may inherit the Earth.
Calling a massacre of innocents a war crime doesn’t excuse the madness behind it, and the previous immolations she’s exulted in point to a pattern that can’t be explained away situationally.
Rooting against her now
6
Beware of those declaring it is their destiny to rule. How terribly horrific, but can we be really surprised with everything we've already been through? GOT managed to bring the terse unapologetic brutality of the nature of man to the fantasy realm which was before filled with fanciful endings and unsoiled heroes. I for one am thankful despite the terrible losses and disappointments experienced along the way.
Is Dany crazy? After what she's done I'd prefer to believe so. I suspect in the next episode she will look inward to what she has done and kill herself, after all... what would Sir Jorah say.
Jon Snow the reluctant, will wear a heavy crown and live a long lonely and sad life, but will see his watch through after having ignored his instinct and duty. (The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men/Women Do Nothing.)
6
The talk of misogyny has to end.
Her tendency towards violence has been part of her character since we met her.
Her advisors have constantly mentioned the need to control her impulses.
Clearly, she was as violent as she
was in S8E5 because of her recent personal losses, Jon’s unrequited love, no advisors around to caution restraint, loss of her claim to the throne and in the heat of battle.
I think she is not mad, just angry and vengeful.
21
I feel like a lot of pure like we're watching a different character all these years. Perhaps they were projecting themselves onto their hero, the mother of dragons? The Dany I know is predisposed to abject cruelty, massively haughty and entitled, and is absolutely power-hungry and ruthless.
9
Dany and Tyrion want to break the wheel. I can think of no better way than to destroy Kings Landing, the seat of that "wheel."
2
Burning the city instead of going straight for the Red Keep was not the action of someone calculating to reign.
5
Early on around the time Arya started taking fencing lessons, I thought she might be the One. That prospect dimmed until this past episode when in a world full of reasons to be vengeful, Sandor implored her not to go that route.
Dany may have devolved into her baser instincts which have been building for sometime now but Arya went the other way, dropped her single minded mission to avenge her family, and began trying to save enemy civilians. Maybe it was no accident she ended the episode as the last one standing with a lone horse to carry her forward.
12
Watch: in the next episode Dany will try to annihilate the North. Jon and Sansa also betrayed her and nobody in Winterfell loves her, so they must also die. She cannot be the ruler of all of the seven kingdoms with Jon alive and the North against her. But I don't know if she will succeed. It is possible that the dragon who knows who Jon is will turn on the woman and favor the male. The title of this season is "The Last of the Starks" and the series might be destined to return to the need to turn all the tables of who is good and who is not. Total destruction! Kingdoms, Kings, Queens, "Popes", etc., will be destroyed. Sam and the Three Eyed Raven, will be left to pick up the pieces. BTW I hope all the Maesters also meet a dire end. The dark ages follow.
3
Nicely constructed piece.
My take: her violent actions are rooted in the losses that you indicate, but also in the loss of John Snow as a lover, and his elevation to being the likely future king of Westeros. Her comment: "let it be fear then" is an indicator of rational thinking in pursuit of achieving her 'birthright' to be queen. If the battle had simply ended when the bell rang, John would certainly have been ruler. The dragon onslaught after that certainly will make Dany feared enough to be queen.
If she survives long enough. We haven't seen the last of Arya. And she didn't like all that slaughter at the end.
53
Arya takes out the queen. Jon Snow is not accepted as king once the word is out that he is a Targaryen and has the potential for madness - maybe he takes himself out of the running. Arya is the Queenslayer and Sansa is Queen. The cycle starts again.
26
@Wayne Jacobson, all that in one episode? I guess it's possible with the precipitousness the writers are showing this season, but having two sitters on the Iron Throne in one episode still seems unlikely. My prediction for the last episode:
- Dany kills Jon;
- Arya kills Dany (wearing the face of whoever);
- Arya sits atop the Iron Throne, a wise and compassionate ruler, after seeing the hard reality of the aftermath of war in S8E5;
- Sansa becomes Arya's hand;
- Ser Brienne continues to protect and serve both Stark women (with a possible future break for maternity leave);
- Bran hangs around being semi-creepy-but-helpful, and looking like he's staring into the middle distance (yes, I know he can't help it).
10
I am not sure why people are so surprised.
When I think of Dany, I am reminded of Oedipus. Oedipus finds out he killed his father and married his mother. Dany finds out her lover is her nephew and that he is the rightful heir to what she considered her birthright. Oedipus self-destructs and so does Dany. Sure, she doesn't necessarily care about the nephew thing, but to know that she is not who she thinks she is--to know that everything she has been working for is not rightfully hers--is destabilizing. There is a whole literary tradition behind this theme, i.e that finding out you aren't who you thought you are can lead to self-destruction and lashing out.
To know that her whole life she was aiming for the throne and to find out that now, after she has nearly secured it, her future subjects are terrified of her...To know that the people of Westeros prefer her nephew/lover/the rightful heir to the throne...To know that her closest advisers and friends have died helping her secure her throne...To experience the deaths of two of her dragons--her children and the source of her strength...To see that everything she ever wanted is escaping her grasp...
When Dany hears the bells, I think she realizes the lack of satisfaction the throne brings her. She has lost nearly everything in pursuit of the throne and she thus resents it. I also think she fears losing the throne now that she has it. She is paranoid: her advisers and lovers have betrayed her and she is not the rightful heir.
86
@EL
In my opinion, this is one of the most brilliant turns the show has ever made. This is classic tragedy. This is not a matter of madness (she hasn't lost her grip on reality), this is textbook self-destruction. I mentioned Oedipus, but Macbeth is another good example: power and the fear of losing it makes him paranoid and corrupt.
I think people resent the show because they like the character and the show made her descend into a dark place.
People say this wasn't set up well, but I beg to differ. She has become increasingly paranoid and unstable over recent episodes. She basically threatened to kill Sansa in episode 1 of this season. She has regularly threatened to kill Tyrion and Varys (and she finally did kill Varys). It seemed like she was going to execute Gendry before she made him a lord. Her reaction to Jon's revealing his identity was disturbing at best.
You can look at previous seasons too. She was unemotional about leaving Daario in Mereen. She threatened to have Jorah executed a number of times. She said she would burn down cities in season 2. She burned and crucified slave masters. She threatened to kill Tyrion for being a Lannister when they first met. She locked a man in a vault to die. She fed a man to a dragon...If you look back, you will see dozens more examples.
When you combine this violent streak with the things I mentioned in the previous comment, I don't think this turn seems unjustified at all.
And to add to it all, I think Dany may be pregnant
92
@EL
That last remark is the most interesting on this thread (at present).
6
@EL
"And to add to it all, I think Dany may be pregnant"
Wow.
4
It seems doubtful that we mere humans can accurately distinguish between (i) an insane person ruled by irrational thoughts, and (ii) a mentally competent criminal guided by evil intent.
We certainly do not do a particularly good job of it in our criminal "justice" system.
Often, crazy is as evil does.
3
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” —Nietzsche
5
Come on, everybody! Dany's personality change does not diminish the quality of this show. There has never been a leader, in fiction or reality, to satisfy the masses. Someone will always grumble. And don't forget that HBO may mess with us again and at the very end just go to... black: It's just TV, folks.
5
@Alice It’s not TV. It’s HBO.
2
@Alice what personality change?
3
Her father was a man, tried to do the same thing, and is literally called "The Mad King". He's the only reason anyone is using the term "mad" in the first place! It's not as if Daenerys is the first woman to do anything violent on the show (far from it) and everyone just started calling her crazy out of the blue.
7
"How different is it from the terrible things we’ve seen done by many men in this narrative (on a smaller scale, because they didn’t have dragons)? "
It isn't. But the Dragon Queen was crowing earlier about how men had left the world worse off. She was going to change that. I guess population control is always a good thing. And there is still one episode left.
Maybe it'll all have been a bad dream and Daenys will wakeup in bed with Cersei Lannister, with whom she is in a same-sex marriage. For breakfast they will have roasted male. Could be.
4
Interesting comments here, but do not forget that GOT is essentially our own medieval world, and one may consider whether what she did to King's Landing, "let it be fear," is all that different from what Richad the Lionheart did in the horrible massacre of Ayyadieh. Richard, they said, could not even understand why Saladdin was upset about his genocide. Is she the Queen? We shall see...after all, it is the Game of Thrones.
6
I agree with Silvio in addition to Dany's harrowing experience of losing 2 of her children in horrific manner and 2 trusted friends in her world of little trust of anyone.
Dany wasn't exactly dealing with her angst and loss either. 2 gigantic wars back to back, Cersi mocking her, her feeling very alone in Winterfell and wondering if she made a mistake with Jon/Aegon. Her lover is her chief rival for the throne. Her 'hand' is a friend of Varys, who she thinks of as a traitor. I don't know I'd be a little crazy too. Being an alpha female with Targaryan blood coursing through her veins...she done had enough and will take matters into her own hands. Why are women this strong always evil, crazy, distrusted? She decided on fear as her weapon. The men can get crazy but not a women who has cause? To my way of thinking not one person still living THAT she trusted to guide her really used good sense and loving kindness in dealing with her. YES she is a special case.
6
Dany isn’t crazy. She just decided that King’s Landing did not spark joy, so she decided to get rid of it.
58
This is pure Targaryen propaganda and the New York Times should be ashamed of itself for it's part in furthering the goals of a bloody tyrannical conquering dynasty. Where to begin?
Maegor's madness could have indeed been brought upon or worsened by his injuries, no one can debate that. But that's where the truth ends and the spin begins.
Once we move on from there and take a look at Baelor, well, I'm afraid it was the madness itself that propelled him to the messianic notion that the gods would protect him through that nest of vipers (they didn't). Any injury after the fact to his cognition, while possible, does not eliminate the implied hereditary genes for mental illness being on display prior to this injury.
Trying to infer that Rhaegal was just a nudist based on the text because, "who knows?" doesn't make it evidence. The lack of detailed accounts doesn't make the uncertainty a check mark against incestuous-inspired mental illness.
And my final counter point, King Aerys II was noted to have turned after a period of "normalcy," but pawning this off on the Duskendale experience is just too convenient of an argument to make. It's Aerys's and others very turn to madness that has everyone holding their breath for the result of the coin toss on Daenerys.
The breaker of chains has committed genocide over the people she was destined to rule and swore to shield from tyranny. If this is not indicative of a Targaryen-like turn, what is?
The producers were not interested in 1-2 more seasons to develop the character of a Mad Queen because they are starting Star Wars. We ended with Dany becoming The Mad Queen within few episodes of the final season. Seven seasons they showed us a character who locked up her children (dragons) because they killed one child and now within few episode she is burning hundreds of children. She was so interested in the people's service she was meeting them one by one to receive their complaints (over 200 citizens in one day at Mereen) and now within few episodes she is burning them alive. There are so many examples of her character in the first 7 seasons that totally contradicts what we see now within few episodes. This was my favourite TV show , this season does NOT make sense to me. It took them 6 seasons to develop the characters of Arya and Sansa and it made sense. But within few episodes a character who made the choice to fight for the living become the worst villain of GOT. How many she killed and how many the Night King Killed? The character development according to the writers? She was not emotional when Khal Drogo killed her brother. The brother who abused her and was fine for the Dothraki horses to...her. That was madness according to the writers!! She killed the slavers and that was madness because slavery is good? So Arya when killed the Freys was madness? I can go on and on with this madness of character development and it's about being a GOT fan and not a Dany fan.
11
@Basel i agree that this concluding season is way too briskly paced and not up to the depth of earlier seasons. Sorry they rushed it.
7
I agree that the season is rushed, but I was not stunned by the turn of events. Yes, Dany sympathized with slaves and chattel because that’s how her brother treated her. But does anybody remember her reaction long ago to her brother’s hideous death, performed in front of her by Khal Drogo? It was, “Thanks, honey!” This is a woman who dreamed that she could survive throwing herself on a funeral pyre and hatching dragons. Then it came true. Daenerys believes in herself as the chosen one. She trusts her own instincts over advice, following the advice of a wise old lady: Be a dragon. Yes, she tried regular old leadership, a political marriage, and putting up with distasteful customs and was almost done in by the sons of the Harpies. Her ability to employ her quickly freed dragons saved her. She never locked them up again. Her fundamental ability to be vicious was intensified by learning that her destiny is challenged by Jon’s very existence. She tries one last time to bind Jon, her only rival, to her sexually, and when that fails, she only has one move left, to make defiance so unthinkable that no one will ever challenge her again, certainly not to put Jon Snow on the throne. The question is whether the Starks, apparently the only children raised by a moral person in the history of the seven kingdoms, can overcome her. I have long thought Sansa was the brains of the family. Let’s see how she deals with a newly empowered and pretty irritable Dany next week.
10
@Basel the people of Mereen were different because they accepted her as their queen mother. We have seen—all along—how Dany treats people who refuse to BEND THE KNEE (light em up)
5
I think it's silly to be making anything about her gender. Whether it was a man or a women; creating a massacre of unarmed civilian, men, women, children and animals, with or without a dragon makes one a horrible being, and to do it personally makes one insane. And yes a war crime was committed.
9
About half of my father's side of the family suffers from severe mental illness. I also recognize these genes are in my older brother and nephew and assume this has been happening for a very long time, just like the crazy, incestuous and murderous Targaryesns.
5
Since Daenerys exhibits zero symptoms of insanity, let’s just substitute “evil” for “mad.”
8
@Paul McBride
I concur. Although I suggest "Daenerys the Dreaded" if she survives her Caesar-esque demise with Jon Snow leading the dagger soiree. (Personal Fan Theory)
3
I would say that burning to death thousands of her own (she claims) people, and doing it when she'd already won the battle, qualifies Dany for the title of Nuttiest Fruitcake in GOT history. King Joffrey was a misunderstood kid in comparison. Tyrion's judgment has proven less than worthless lately. Jon the Clueless spends so much time feeling sorry for himself that he couldn't be bothered to save the people of King's Landing. The only survivor of the royals who is both sane enough and smart enough to rule is Sansa, with Arya to watch her back.
This is so much fun, after reading the rest of the front page of the NYT.
8
@writeon1
Well, I think the point of Jon's ineffectiveness during the siege is that, once you're part of a huge campaign of organic violence, it's hard to stop or even divert the machine one it gets going.
Jon made a choice thinking it was the right thing to do, but when things fell apart and Dany led a massacre, there was little that he, Tyrion or Sea Davos could do to stop it. It's an old story: war is, by definition, a crime against humanity, and only rarely does it produce the intended results or have true moral clarity.
5
@writeon1, I don't understand what any of the pro-Sansa brigade thinks Sansa has done to merit the Iron Throne.
Arya gets stuff done. Why does Sansa deserve to rule instead of Arya?
3
Game of Thrones is a made up story. She cane be whatever George R. R. Martin wants.
7
GoT shows us the thin line that those in power tread when they finally win and see what and whom they have conquered. Dany is human, all too human. For all those venting their understandable frustrations on Episode 5 remember there is another episode coming that will once and for all TRY to make sense of all that has happened. But if it will reflect real life, it is possible not to make any sense at all, not even a true ending.
2
War (huh, yeah)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Daenerys didn't 'snap' - there have been hints all along (and not subtle ones) that she had a violent streak, one that was tempered throughout her ascent by her closest advisors - which, by the beginning of the assault on King's Landing, had all disappeared.
She is a tyrant who has risen to power by force (admittedly against staggering odds), resorting to violence regularly. She is a dragon, as Olenna Tyrell astutely observed.
She has always seen the throne as her birthright and herself as a messiah. Neither is true: she is behind Aegon "Jon Snow" Targaryen in the line of succession, and she has left chaos in her wake at Astapor, Yunkai, and, for all we know, Meereen.
We like her, we relate to her, she has provided a strong female role model to viewers at many times during her plot line. She is a compelling protagonist!
She is also a war chief and a tyrant, who failed at winning the hearts and minds of the Westerosi (in spite of delivering them from the Night King) and understood that earning their fear was the only way to gain their fealty.
15
I'm not surprised that the comments trend towards blaming women-fearing men for Dany snapping. Let's be real here- Dany's downward spiral is not a perpetuation of patriarchal stereotypes. It's simply her fulfilling her destiny to repeat history as a Targaryen.
I am however, surprised to see not just the comments, but the authors of both the episode recap and this article try and defend her by saying she's "just upset". Many of the women I work with that watch the show are similarly disillusioned- the character they championed and viewed as the gold standard benchmark for a strong women leader turned out to NOT be the breaker of chains they all thought they would be, and they're struggling to deal with that.
There seems to be an en messe effort to deflect blame away from Dany's character here, in order to preserve the woman we were rooting for going all the way back to the beginning. But that woman is gone now. And it's not the patriarchy's fault. Don't blame the writers or accuse them of sexism- they saw the characters through to the end, plain and simple. Dany is a monster. Full stop.
13
@FandangoPenguin Agreed! So sick of hearing her behavior blamed on sexism. She did it for outright revenge in my opinion.
6
I thought the devastation of King's Landing was intended to show the full horror and irrationality of war. Not only Dany but the soldiers on the ground succumbed to the viral state of mind that impels the destruction of the enemy.
There's also the perspective that maybe Dany finally realized that the "Game of Thrones" is not a game worth playing. One sure way to avoid future struggles for control of the Iron Throne is to do away with the throne itself, and all the institutional "cruft" that has grown up around it.
That millions of innocents perished in the conflagration reminds us that at all times in history (now included) the lower echelons of the social strata are deemed expendable as part of some greater good. Maybe that's why the repeated strafing of the city (which called to mind the napalm attacks in the Vietnam War) is so disturbing: it holds up a mirror to us and shows a dimension of humanity we'd rather not see.
9
@Silvio Nardoni She also resolved to rule by fear. So once she was "all in", she was all in. If this is what it was going to take to cement her leadership, she was both willing and able.
4
Enough with the fixation on Game of Thrones!
The production does not merit much, if any, attention in the NYTimes.
8
As the most viewed show on television I would say it does warrant attention in The NYT.
14
Then why are you reading the articles and taking the time to comment on them?
14
@Yeahyeah
PROTIP: If you don't click on the Game of Thrones links, it's almost as though they didn't exist. Try it.
14
OMG murdering one million innocent civilians is Nazi level war crimes. Anyone male or female qualify equally.
Totally ruined an otherwise good role model for a powerful woman leader in the story arc.
5
@Bernard Shaw
Though, judging from Arya's ashen, blood-smeared Noh mask, I'd say the producers were bringing a little Hiroshima comparison into the mix as well...
5
Comments are funny! But let's get a little real..... Did you think that the men writing this were going to write in an all-powerful mother of dragons, never mind all the strategy and strength she displayed getting there, allow her to rule! This is America and we still do not trust women with the Presidency nor the rights to determine what goes on in her own body even after years of dealing with hellish periods! Maybe I am reading too much into this? Not!
30
I am so over all this endless GOT talk. End it already.
#GOTGIANTASTEROID !
8
Dany is definitely being treated more critically because she's a Targ, rather than because she's a woman. Maegor isn't a bad example - the things he did were not so unusual, really, (the Wyls did much worse, hell, the Dornish in general), but a royal is held to a higher standard as being a linchpin of the state apparatus, while even a man like Tywin wiping out two houses and all their retainers and smallfolk is still "just" a Lord Paramount and Warden.
That said, while the burning of KL has some precedent in the roasting of Harrenhal, in general it does stand outside the norm of Targ burning. Even as dragonriders, they generally were much happier to intimidate than actually burn population centers. But they did do it, too, from time to time. Again: Dorne.
Imagine if Tywin had burned down KL instead of just sacking it. He'd have been vilified for it (moreso than before) but he wouldn't have been called crazy. Not because he's a man, but because he's not a King and not a Targ, and because his family doesn't have that reputation of "they're either great or they're terrible with no middleground."
6
I don't think Daenarys is crazy. I also don't think she acted out of some emotional meltdown. (When have we ever seen Dany show more emotion than a few sobs for Jorah?) She stopped on the wall, heard the bells, saw the Red Keep in the distance, where she knew Cersei would be standing -- and decided to show Cersei the full might of her power. She *wanted* Cersei to see it all (which is why she didn't just fly to the Red Keep and incinerate Cersei straight off). She *wanted* Cersei to witness the complete destruction of her armies, her fleet, her city, and her people -- and to know herself utterly defeated. Not crazy. Not unhinged. Ruthless, single-minded, and a stone-cold killer.
40
@Patricia I think this is probably right, but the show didn't make her motivations clear enough. Why didn't we see Dany intermittently during her rampage, rather than only at the beginning? Could she have done some kind of power move fly-by past the Red Keep on her way to massacring Cersei's city? She and Cersei never made eye contact or even got close to each other. It was just another example of the show trying to convey motivation in a single scene or piece of dialogue, as if to retroactively justify a shocking twist, rather than dramatically building to those moments
5
This story line is all about white mens' fears. That some lesser - brown people, women - will somehow gain the upper hand.
Those in charge of our culture wish to warn/scare everyone ahead of time - if women/brown people gain that upper hand, everyone will suffer.
This is the point of this entire novel/tv show. Dread and disinformation about how a replacement to mediocre white men will rule.
9
@Dotty
As I white man, I fear dragons and white walkers. Your observation is astute.
2
Nonsense, sorry. Everyone fears someone else getting the upper hand. But dragons and white walkers don't actually exist, and never will.
2
How many men were called crazy in GOT?
Well, importantly, Dany’s father was known as “The Mad King,” so I think that’s a pretty germane example. Do remember that the Mad King was killed by Jamie because he wanted to torch King’s Landing and all its inhabitants. I guess parents really can live vicariously through their children.
But it’s a little scary to see women scramble over the bodies of torched children to rush to a sisterly defense of Dany.
Dany is not being categorized as crazy because she kills a lot of people and is a woman. Everyone on GOT (except for Hot Pie, perhaps) kills a lot of people.
She’s being called crazy because her lineage is considered to have some mental health problems, combined with inbreeding, which may magnify the problem.
Of course, we can pretend that it’s sexism, but what of the other powerful women in the show?
No one calls Sansa crazy, or Arya, and they leave bodies in their wake. The Queen of Thorns was never called crazy, but boy, was she a stone cold killer. Yara Greyjoy? Regular killer, also not called crazy.
Look, when you torch a city full of civilians, you don’t really get to complain when people describe you as brutal, murderous, viscous, cold-blooded, or even crazy. You also shouldn’t have a line of women defending you for it.
I guess one thing is clear. The old girls network isn’t really any more moral than the old boys network.
42
To answer the questions posed by the author, the crimes are just as heinous and I think you'd call any male of a similar bent crazy too (Bolton [Ramses ;P], Euron, etc.). Each in their own way but I'm not as sure that projecting our modern sexism on a fictional medieval world is going to answer our pressing questions.
Dany, and other rulers who made similarly vicious decisions seem to have the common circumstance of lacking romantic love/a relationship (I'm sure there's other commonalities). That moment with Jon not reciprocating at Dragonstone appeared to be the nail in the coffin. I'm not interested in doing a thorough historical piece on GoT yet I'd wager most leaders who led to their own demise in this series were loveless. Robert and Cersei might be a interesting comparison. Technically together, yet not in love and a disastrous result. Just a thought :)
2
Cersei was not a "mad" Queen. Dany is.
Cersei was ruthless and psychopathic like Tywin. Nothing Cersei did was ever out of that character. If Cersei had taken kings landing on a dragon we would have expected her to burn everyone.
Dany's is different. She went insane. She went from a ruler who imprisoned her dragons because they killed a child to murdering an entire city full of children.
To illustrate my point...When Cersei blew up to sept, she was totally calm and cracked a smile. When Dany burned kings landing she was having an emotional meltdown and was in pain.
5
Forgetting the WWE turn by Dany (Maybe they brought in Vince McMahon to punch up the script?) why does everyone assume she won't be on the Throne at the end?
GRRM said the ending would be bittersweet. She kills Jon, Tyrion et al and ends as ruler over a dead pile of ashes with utterly terrified subjects, and slowly realizes what she has become.
Michael Corleone at the end of Godfather 2. ALONE. Hated and feared. And that drives her crazy.
2
Danny has a reason. She says that generating terror now will somehow protect future generations from tyranny. She clearly thinks she can cement her rule and defeat any opposition by committing a slaughter at Kings Landing. The show ought to have had time to explore and explain this bloodthirsty strategy. Given the horrific world they live in maybe she had some basis for this. She is a slip of a girl trying to gain respect from a largely male and very ruthless nobility. It would always be the wrong strategy in this drama but I don’t think it is nescessarily insane. It does, however, completely contradict her well established empathy and concern for the little folk. As such it really seems to be inexplicable and thus needed more script work to show how she reached this “kill them now to spare their grandkids” theory. It isn’t something she’s ever talked about before or that any of her circle have espoused. It isn’t even anything historical Westeros rulers seem to have done.
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@Alexandra Hamilton
Throughout history, tyrants who were demagogues oftentimes laid the institutional populist foundations for the democracies that followed. (Oligarchies, in contrast, are extremely resistant to democratic movements, preferring to rotate power among the competing elites.)
However, tyrants who maintained power through foreign mercenaries (and dragons) have no need for popular support and therefore do not nurture democratic tendencies.
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IRONY- 1 dragon can destroy so much. Second one killed by 2 arrows.
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Varys was trying (and mostly succeeded) poisoning her.
From season one: "I am the dragon's daughter, and I swear to you that those who would harm you will die screaming."
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It seems pretty well established that interpreting episodes or judging the moral arc of any particular character is futile. As it is with history, wait until you can see how events turn out before passing judgement. The writers have mastered the art of embarrassing anyone willing to take the bait and commit predictions (or moral judgements) to writing.
2
With all due respect, Ms. Vineyard strikes me as a person with *way* too much time on her hands.
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@Richard
Nonsense! We all (I hope) like to have fun sometimes.
3
@Richard Pretty sure she's just doing her job. I've really been enjoying her articles every week.
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@ Richard I believe it's her job
1
Billions of years from now, when all historical records have been lost, extraterrestrial beings, or perhaps our own evolved species, will chance upon this article, the sole surviving document of humanity, and they will read in awe, and try to reconstruct the history of homosapiens, by tracing the House of Targaryen.
It is insane.
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Speaking of the Iron Throne, seeing as it probably doesn't exist anymore, at least not in its former state, perhaps the replacement throne will signify a new beginning, with neither Dany nor Jon reigning.
4
Yes, Jennifer, I HAVE rather often seen some of the male characters called "crazy." Not everything on earth needs to be about identity and gender politics.
Leaving that aside, thanks for a well researched, well written, and informative essay. Other than my critique above, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
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The unnecessary spilling of blood of innocents is never justifiable or excusable. Even if motivated by wholly understandable anger and desire for revenge or madness, such behavior calls for retributive justice. Thus the denouement in GOT in final episode must necessarily be a harsh punishment of and end to Dany, who after 7+ seasons changed from an a loving, caring, sympathetic queen to a vindictive, paranoid, cruel and now very unsympathetic one. To expect any other end is like asking a painter not to step on a freshly painted floor after he has painted himself into the corner of a room with no window or or door for exiting. Though with Season 8's paint job, I wish that there is a such window, but only 10 stories up so that the show's writers could jump out headfirst!
No matter who becomes the King of Thrones, Season 8's bizarre transformation and probable punitive take-down of Dany will leave a stench on the series that will never dissipate. To build up a character for such a length of time and then have her negate everything good and decent she was and stood for and become such a monstrous murderer so swiftly might be a form of Targaryen insanity, but it's simply too cartoonish to be believable. But if GOT is to end with the demise of a great and giving queen and brave woman who finally brought defeat to the evil Cersei, and with the crowning of the weak-kneed, disloyal Jon Snow as King of Thrones, it will be the doing of not the God of Light but the God of bad endings.
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In my opinion, the show has lost it's depth and the pacing has gone sideways ever since they departed from the books.
Here's hoping writers have the courage to still put a woman on the throne (Sansa), because it'd sure be a shame if a man (John Snow) had to step in and take the reins from the women who has let their emotions control them (Cersei, Dany)
Honestly, at this point I think it'd be great if Gendry shows up in a rowboat in the last scene and finds a deserted King's Landing, walks into the keep, and plops down on the throne. Roll credits.
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@Nick Not Gendry. Can't stand him.
1
Not Gendry, he is a Baratheon snake, his father, a usurper. His commoner mother was ok though, as far as I know.
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@ Nick, plus.... what Red Keep and what throne? .......... all a pile of rubble I presume
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Or
The character has, over the course of the entire show, fully grown into the sense of entitlement that comes with myth based power claims.
She’s finally learned the lesson that , in a world of medieval brutality, the effective leader is the brutal one.
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People have been analyzing this show like it’s some ancient Talmudic text.
It’s fiction everyone! Born and died in the minds of the writers who have license to let their characters behave as they please. None of the characters have any psychological profile or special powers except what the writers give them.
But it’s great entertainment!
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And that is significantly different than Talmudic text how?
It is so satisfying to see so many of us engaged in this discussion.
It is after all about the ideas, not the facts, and they are ideas worth thinking about and talking about.
@steveroth
4
"Sometimes, the coin lands on an edge."
Yes. And that is what made Game of Thrones so engaging, up until this season.
The most fascinating aspect of the show is that there are very few "good" or "bad" characters. They are all on some spectrum, full of nuance and surprises, capable of corruption or redemption, and evolved over the course of the series in fascinating ways.
Dany is a great example - a woman who is both unflinchingly violent to slavers but shows tremendous concern for the commoner. In the past few seasons, her unchecked fixation on reclaiming the Iron Throne lead her to a series of strategic blunders and personal anguish. It was a gradual descent into darkness, fueled by relentless ambition.
Until Sunday, that it. She went from "ambitious ruler" to "genocidal mass murderer" in a matter of seconds.
I'd like to sidestep the glaring issues of sexism (we already had one mentally unstable, ruthless Queen for God's sake) and just make a more general complaint: it makes for terrible television. It ruined what we loved about this show - complex, shades-of-grey characters. Now we have a cartoonishly evil Dragon Queen I cease to care about.
I know they needed to wrap up the show, but what a bad way to do it. I am willing to forgive a lot - including the unprecedented carnage of this episode - for good, compelling characters. This season we lost them.
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@Solaris I disagree. Dany has always had a history of not just punishing her enemies but doing so horribly. I found this episode inevitable given her past punishments and ability to rationalize them. She had already started burning good people just for not bending the knee. This show is engaging because it is about human nature and how it can respond to events. We also saw the flip side in the light bulb that went off in Arya's mind when she abandoned vengeance and started saving enemy civilians.
36
@Solaris
Sexism???
Cersei was cruel, but hardly unstable (compare to Tywin).
Joffrey was cruel and unstable.
Stannis burned his own daughter at the stake--hardly a stable guy.
Ramsey was cruel, but perfectly stable.
Robert was indifferent and temperamental.
Viserys was cruel and unstable.
The Mad King was cruel and unstable.
Sansa isn't too cruel, nor is she unstable.
I don't think that either cruelty or stability have much to do with sexism in this show.
If anything, I would question what makes you call Cersei mentally unstable? She seems very pragmatic to me. She is one of the great schemers in the show. She follows in Tywin's footsteps. She destroys her enemies and makes careful calculations that help her win. Ruthless? Yes. Unstable? Hardly.
As far as I see it, the show only has one major female character who is unstable, unless I am forgetting someone.
17
@Deborah Maybe Elaria Sand is still alive.
1
It's clear that Dany has a connection with her dragon. Since she has been flying an increasing length of time, she might be becoming more in sync with her dragon and more and more dragon like especially during the battle. I see it as not being able to access her human self while flying - especially during this battle when her anger is so great.
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@linda That's a cool thought! I wonder if the Starks and their direwolves occupy a similar magical space.
4