Game Of Thrones: Final Season --SPOILERS!

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh I know, I just meant maybe showing her become unhinged while across the sea only to reel herself back in at one point, and try and fight the Targaryan madness in her blood before finally succumbing. I have no problem with this being the culmination of her arc, I just think they could have really mined her descent for some interesting stuff.

See, this is what I hate- the idea that she has "Targaryan madness in her blood", that by her heredity she is fated to be a one note Mad Queen. Funny how no one says that about Jon. Not all Targaryens are mad. Its bad enough when fans turn characters into caricatures (like Evil Dumbledore, for a classic example)- here they've done it to a whole fucking family (except for the male ones other than Aerys), and then the show made it canon.

I think with Jon it's less about him being a man and more about him being half Stark Blood, while all other Targeryan royals were products of brother/sister incest.

And you could say that Dany's brother was rather insane as well and obviously he was male.

I don't think show Rhaegar qualifies as mad, though granted some fans ignore that too. Book Rhaegar is more ambiguous, I think, depending on who you ask?

Also, what about the Night Watch Maester? Male Targaryen, not half but full, sane as hell despite what must have been a hell of a stressful life.

I mean, we have canon proof of lots of sane Targaryens. Even with Tyrion and Varys, the saying was "the gods flip a coin". So "She's Targareyn, therefore she must be mad" is a really weak justification for this plot.

[Vympel]

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/13/game-o ... ch-earned/

Amanda Marcotte:

“There’s a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand.”

Those are the words of wisdom that Jorah Mormont, advisor to Queen Daenerys Targaryen, imparts both to his queen and to the audience in season three of "Game of Thrones." "War is hell" is a common theme in literature and in Hollywood, but few if any fantasy stories have been as unrelenting about deromanticizing warfare as this show and "A Song of Ice and Fire," the book series by George R.R. Martin from which the HBO series is adapted.

And yet, fans of the show exploded in outrage Sunday night when Daenerys, her blood up during the invasion of King's Landing, lost her mind and decided to burn down much of the city, killing an untold numbers of civilians. To make it worse, she did this after Queen Cersei and the Lannister army surrendered. There was a massive sense of betrayal for many fans, who argued that Daenerys's heel turn was unearned and sudden and didn't make any sense.

But as with many things in this last season of "Game of Thrones," it seems the fans simply aren't paying attention. The show has spent 8 seasons signaling the ways that war makes monsters out of people and that Daenerys in particular has a deep capacity for cruelty that is only checked when her ego is being sufficiently fed. That Daenerys is motivated by revenge and ego has been seeded from the very beginning of the show.

To be clear, Jorah wasn't entirely wrong to see a "gentle heart" in his queen. There's no reason to believe her opposition to slavery, for instance, is insincere. But loving Daenerys and rooting for her, from the beginning, has meant ignoring the constant reminders that she not only has a strong capacity for cruelty, but that nothing drives her to murder faster than sensing that someone doesn't worship the ground she walks on.
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This is the same woman, after all, who was in love with Khal Drogo, a murderous warlord whose life was literally about sacking villages and towns to kidnap people to sell into slavery. And it's in that storyline that we first see that Daenerys expects people to see her as a savior figure and if they express skepticism, she lashes out with a murderous rage of her own.

That would be, of course, the story of Mirri Maz Duur, a Lhazareen priestess whose village is ransacked by the Dothraki and who is about to be raped when Daenerys intercedes, and takes her on as a personal slave. Daenerys clearly believes that Mirri should be grateful to her and Drogo, and so is caught completely flat-footed with Mirri, pretending to offer medical care, does some mojo that leaves Drogo comatose and Daenerys's newborn son dead.

When Daenerys confronts Mirri about this, saying Mirri should be grateful that she "saved" her, Mirri points out that she'd been raped three times, she "saw my god's house burn" and the streets were piled with the corpses of people she knew and loved.

"Tell me again exactly what it was that you saved?" she finished.

In response, Daenerys burns Mirri to death.

In doing so, she creates the magic that allows her to hatch dragon eggs. It's so wondrous that the audience basically forgets that they just saw a woman burned alive for resisting captivity. But now it is clear to see that the ingredient needed to make the magic work, to bring forth dragons, was Daenerys's will to power and cruelty.

Since then, the story lured audiences into rooting for Daenerys by making her mission — to end slavery in Essos — an undeniably admirable one. But the show also portrayed her motivations as less than selfless, including that controversial scene at the end of season three, when Daenerys is held up by a crowd of mostly brown-skinned people chanting "Mhysha" — the Valyrian word for "mother" — while she basked in the adoration and in her white savior complex.

Loving Daenerys as a savior figure required ignoring a whole bunch of signs of her unchecked ego and her cruelty. She gets into repeated conflicts in Qarth and Astapor and Yunkai, often killing her enemies in breathlessly cruel ways, including burning, starving them to death, and crucifixion. She liberates people but then grows bored of the thankless work of governing, abandoning cities she's conquered over and over again.

Many of her vicious executions are easy to forgive, because the people she kills really are jerks, such as the slave masters, the warlocks of Qarth and imperious Dothraki horselords. But sometimes it's a lot harder to stuff the killings down the memory hole, such as with Mirri's murder or the killing of Randall and Dickon Tarly, whose main crime was being skeptical of accepting the rule of a foreign invader.

This is literally the woman who insists on being called "Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons." The show has not hidden that she has an ego, and there is nothing sudden about this.

The burning of King's Landing, then, is no different than the burning of Mirri in the first season. Daenerys is frustrated that the people of Westeros don't love her and she's explicitly said so repeatedly. She's frustrated that she led the army that defeated the Night King, but that most people don't know or care. She wants the people of Westeros to carry on their shoulders yelling "Mhysha," and since they won't do it, she's furious.

Fans lived in denial for the same reason that the almost exclusively male characters that surround Daenerys — Tyrion, Jorah, Jon — live in denial: She's young and she's pretty and she embraces the nurturing title of "Mother." It's tempting to see her good side and ignore her bad side, and the same fans who are scorning Jon Snow for not seeing it before fell into the same trap that ensnared him.

What's important to remember in all this is that Daenerys's conquest of Westeros is illegitimate. Yes, she happened to land on Dragonstone at a time when Queen Cersei, a tyrant who murders her own people, is in charge, and so it makes it easier to root for Daenerys. And certainly, people who want to oust Cersei — such as Jon and Tyrion and Varys — for their own reasons are happy to back Daenerys because it's politically convenient for them to do so.

But despite all her high-minded rhetoric, Daenerys comes to Westeros as a conqueror and not a liberator. She made the move to invade when she did not because she heard Cersei was bad and she wanted to help, but because that just happens when she had amassed enough resources to make her move. It's easy to imagine an alternate history, where the War of the Five Kings never happened and Daenerys is siding with the Lannisters to wrest power away from King Robert Baratheon and his hand, Ned Stark. In the end, her alliance with the good guys was always just the luck of the draw, and not any testament to her character.

Daenerys is the same person she's been from the beginning of the show, a woman motivated by a desire for revenge and a thwarted sense of entitlement. This is the woman who thrilled to hear Drogo announce he would "take my Khalasar west to where the world ends" to "rape their women, take their children as slaves and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak."

This is the same woman who swore to the leaders of Qarth that, "when my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who have wronged me! We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground! "

Daenerys being motivated by a violent desire for vengeance for perceived wrongs against her and a sense of entitlement to the throne is nothing new. Audiences underestimated her cruelty because she's a pretty young woman who has some genuinely decent impulses at times. Instead of lashing out in a Daenerys-like rage, perhaps it's time to ask why it was so easy to ignore all the signs that pointed to this ending.

[Lord Revan]

See, this is what I hate- the idea that she has "Targaryan madness in her blood", that by her heredity she is fated to be a one note Mad Queen. Funny how no one says that about Jon. Not all Targaryens are mad. Its bad enough when fans turn characters into caricatures (like Evil Dumbledore, for a classic example)- here they've done it to a whole fucking family (except for the male ones other than Aerys), and then the show made it canon.

I think with Jon it's less about him being a man and more about him being half Stark Blood, while all other Targeryan royals were products of brother/sister incest.

And you could say that Dany's brother was rather insane as well and obviously he was male.

I don't think show Rhaegar qualifies as mad, though granted some fans ignore that too. Book Rhaegar is more ambiguous, I think, depending on who you ask?

The other brother, the one killed in season 1 Viserys or something like that.

[The Romulan Republic]

And you (and the author of the article) don't see how "Woman loses control of her emotions because she isn't loved, thus proving herself unfit to rule" is a misogynist trope? This is classic sexist boiler plate- "Women are unfit to rule because they're too emotional." Put it that way, I'm almost surprised they didn't include a scene showing it was "that time of the month" to justify Danny going Mad Queen.

And Danny doesn't burn Miri because Miri didn't love her. That is such a twisted interpretation of the scene that I consider it an outright lie. She does it because Miri tricked her into sacrificing her child to turn her husband into a vegetable. If you have to twist facts that much to justify your argument, its a sign that your argument isn't that great.

I am also pissed as hell at the article asserting that people just like Danny because she's pretty and calls herself "mother". They're just basically responding to allegations of sexism with "I know you are but what am I?" That's the level of debate they're operating at. The kindergarten level. And, FYI, if I were going off of looks, I'd be rooting for Cersei for Queen.

Also: Fuck whether Danny's claim is "legitimate". Her ability to rule is far more important than whether she falls in the right place on the family tree, unless we're actually going to say that we still believe in "Divine Right of Kings". Jon probably would be a better king, if you take the dragons and ability to control they realm that they convey out of the picture, but not because he's the "rightful" king. Because he's an almost supernaturally decent man.*

Also, note that the only reason Jon's claim is more "legitimate" is that he, you guessed it, has a dick between his legs. So saying "Danny as mad queen is justified because her claim is illegitimate" is this article explicitly endorsing male-only succession, which is, you guessed it, sexist.

*If I were going off of who would be most fit to rule morally/personality-wise, prior to the last two episodes: Davos, Jon, Ned, Brienne, then Jaime if Cersei dropped dead, in that order. By ability to actually take and hold power: Danny before contrived nerfing, then Jon, then Renly (if not for shadow babies).

[Vympel]

And you (and the author of the article) don't see how "Woman loses control of her emotions because she isn't loved, thus proving herself unfit to rule" is a misogynist trope? This is classic sexist boiler plate- "Women are unfit to rule because they're too emotional." Put it that way, I'm almost surprised they didn't include a scene showing it was "that time of the month" to justify Danny going Mad Queen.

The idea that the story of Dany's downfall is "woman loses control over her emotions" is laughable. What happened to her is rooted in her origins and who she always has been. She was never fit to rule. And also - no one is, actually.

And Danny doesn't burn Miri because Miri didn't love her. That is such a twisted interpretation of the scene that I consider it an outright lie. She does it because Miri tricked her into sacrificing her child to turn her husband into a vegetable. If you have to twist facts that much to justify your argument, its a sign that your argument isn't that great.

The argument is completely sound. She expected Mirri to be grateful to her for 'saving' her. That's right there in the episode. But why the hell should she? Khal Drogo was a piece of shit and he deserved exactly what he got, and is it any surprise whatsoever she wouldn't be super keen on the idea of Rhaego, the Stallion Who Mounts the World? After Rhaego's father slaughtered her people and presided over her getting raped repeatedly?

I am also pissed as hell at the article asserting that people just like Danny because she's pretty and calls herself "mother". They're just basically responding to allegations of sexism with "I know you are but what am I?" That's the level of debate they're operating at. The kindergarten level. And, FYI, if I were going off of looks, I'd be rooting for Cersei for Queen.

Also: Fuck whether Danny's claim is "legitimate". Her ability to rule is far more important than whether she falls in the right place on the family tree, unless we're actually going to say that we still believe in "Divine Right of Kings". Jon probably would be a better king, if you take the dragons and ability to control they realm that they convey out of the picture, but not because he's the "rightful" king. Because he's an almost supernaturally decent man.*

That's a misreading of the argument. Her argument about Dany's illegitimacy has nothing to do with divine right - that's Dany's position. The argument is that she's a conqueror invading a land she has absolutely nothing to do with purely because she thinks its her possession:

What's important to remember in all this is that Daenerys's conquest of Westeros is illegitimate. Yes, she happened to land on Dragonstone at a time when Queen Cersei, a tyrant who murders her own people, is in charge, and so it makes it easier to root for Daenerys. And certainly, people who want to oust Cersei — such as Jon and Tyrion and Varys — for their own reasons are happy to back Daenerys because it's politically convenient for them to do so.

But despite all her high-minded rhetoric, Daenerys comes to Westeros as a conqueror and not a liberator. She made the move to invade when she did not because she heard Cersei was bad and she wanted to help, but because that just happens when she had amassed enough resources to make her move. It's easy to imagine an alternate history, where the War of the Five Kings never happened and Daenerys is siding with the Lannisters to wrest power away from King Robert Baratheon and his hand, Ned Stark. In the end, her alliance with the good guys was always just the luck of the draw, and not any testament to her character.

Again: her claim is based on nothing more than blood right and will to power. "I will take what is mine." No more, no less. Her 'ability to rule' (remember how she abandoned Mereen?) doesn't change that.

Also, note that the only reason Jon's claim is more "legitimate" is that he, you guessed it, has a dick between his legs. So saying "Danny as mad queen is justified because her claim is illegitimate" is this article explicitly endorsing male-only succession, which is, you guessed it, sexist.

The article has nothing to say on the legitimacy of male-only succession, that is a total invention. It's entirely about Dany and who she is.

[The Romulan Republic]

The idea that the story of Dany's downfall is "woman loses control over her emotions" is laughable. What happened to her is rooted in her origins and who she always has been. She was never fit to rule. And also - no one is, actually.

Except that is literally your and the article's argument- she went mad because she wasn't loved and couldn't handle it.

Also, what do you mean by "her origins"? Are you just going to repeat "She's Targaryen, therefore Mad Queen" after I just listed a bunch of cases of sane (male) Targaryens?

If you mean "She always wanted power", that's false too. Danny at the start of book/season one didn't give two shits about ruling. She just wanted to go home and not be raped. Then she wanted to try to live the life she'd made for herself with the Dothraki. It was only after she lost all that, after she was shown that she couldn't rely on anyone else to protect her and her people (and had Robert's assassins sent after her), while simultaneously being handed extraordinary power and proof of her special heritage in the form of dragons and fire immunity, that she began to pursue the throne in earnest.

When you have to twist canon this much to justify your argument, that's a strong indication that its a weak argument.

The argument is completely sound. She expected Mirri to be grateful to her for 'saving' her. That's right there in the episode. But why the hell should she? Khal Drogo was a piece of shit and he deserved exactly what he got, and is it any surprise whatsoever she wouldn't be super keen on the idea of Rhaego, the Stallion Who Mounts the World? Dany didn't give two shits about what Drogo was going to do to the Seven Kingdoms, so long as she got the throne. This is right there in the show, in the open.

Yes, she expected gratitude. That was naive and short-sighted of her. But t go from that to "she killed Miri because Miri wasn't grateful", and ignoring the whole murdering her husband and child thing, like you and this article are doing, is dishonest.

That's a wilful misreading of the argument. Her argument about Dany's illegitimacy has nothing to do with divine right - that's Dany's position. The argument is that she's a conqueror invading a land she has absolutely nothing to do with purely because she thinks its her possession.

That's illegitimate. Her 'ability to rule' (remember how she abandoned Mereen?) doesn't change that.

I see you're not even going to try to defend the article's claim that people only like Danny because she's pretty and calls herself mother. Good. Concession accepted.

As to her being a conqueror- Bull Shit she had nothing to do with Westeros. She was born there to Westrosi parents, she was raised by Westrosi, she was to her knowledge the last Targaryen between Viserys's death and Jon's revelation, and the King of Westeros sent assassins after her and her unborn child.

The article has nothing to say on the legitimacy of male-only succession, that is a total invention. It's entirely about Dany and who she is.

Being next in line in succession is usually what people mean when they refer to a King or Queen's "legitimacy". And if not that, then the article has no argument, because Danny absolutely was not a foreigner with nothing to do with Westeros.

Edit: Expanded on Danny's ties to Westeros.

[PREDATOR490]

Apparently the details of the next episode have been leaked.

If those details are accurate, this series is going to go out with a solemn whimper.

[The Romulan Republic]

Who cares? They already screwed the pooch.

Only good thing is it makes my disappointing with Endgame seem mild in comparison. Endgame merely fumbled the ball at the end. Game of Thrones dropped the ball in shit and then shot it full of holes.

I'm afraid to watch Star Wars IX now, out of fear that this year will go three for three on fucking up SF franchises I love at the last minute.

And yup, looks like the big leak being rumoured is Spoiler

Jon killing Danny (spoilered for those who still give a shit). I'm sure the incels will be just giddy when Jon impales his former lover/woman who didn't know her place Mad Queen on his long hard sword, so he can assume his rightful throne as Male Heir.

[K. A. Pital]

But what if Daenerys murders everyone and still becomes queen? I mean, go on and subvert my expectations!

[The Romulan Republic]

But what if Daenerys murders everyone and still becomes queen? I mean, go on and subvert my expectations!

I mean, its still shitty, because they derailed her character, and at that point its just an exercise in cynicism for her to win.

There is no good ending at this point.

[K. A. Pital]

But why should there be a good ending to this show? Happy ends are only a Hollywood convention, and not one strictly followed at that.

[The Romulan Republic]

But why should there be a good ending to this show? Happy ends are only a Hollywood convention, and not one strictly followed at that.

By "good ending" I mean one that is well-written and not plot/character-derailment or dark for the sake of dark, not necessarily a conventional happily ever after.

[NeoGoomba]

But why should there be a good ending to this show? Happy ends are only a Hollywood convention, and not one strictly followed at that.

A "good" ending of the show WOULD be most of the named characters dying. They are the heads of great houses that have absolutely abused their continent and their people, and show no signs of actually "breaking the wheel". Maybe Dany, in her rage, will actually decapitate the feudal system by incinerating most of the remaining high nobility.

And then let Bronn have Highgarden.

[Alferd Packer]

I think with Jon it's less about him being a man and more about him being half Stark Blood, while all other Targeryan royals were products of brother/sister incest.

And you could say that Dany's brother was rather insane as well and obviously he was male.

In fairness to Dany, her great-grandfather Aegon V did take a dip in the gene pool and married a Blackwood, and his father, Maekar I, married a Dayne, and his father, Daeron II, married a Martell. So there was an attempt, in generations past, to inject a little fresh DNA into the Targaryen line.

That said, Dany is three generations removed from that effort, so she's definitely at greater risk for deleterious or recessive trait expression. I'm just not sure exactly how big the risk is.

[K. A. Pital]

Tarly sits on the throne and Brotherhood without Banners initiates revolution to abolish serfdom.

End.

[NeoGoomba]

Sold

[Vendetta]

Then, she saw the city surrender, and probably realized. "FUCKING HELL, I JUST CONQUERED IT FOR MY EX-BOYFRIEND"

That would make anyone snap.

Eh, I'm not sure that tracks.

Because who is actually in charge after the surrender of a city being assaulted is far from established in the moment of surrender, and whilst Jon might have a claim to the throne (he doesn't, he's taken the Black and technically died), Daenerys is the one with the dragon, and that tends to settle a lot of arguments in a hurry.

Dany's previous pattern of behaviour is to be ruthless and burn things after the alternative has already failed to her detriment, but that isn't what happened in the latest episode. She'd already won, the city had surrendered, and she seems to have then decided to be ruthless and burn things because the script said so.

I'm sure the writers wanted this to be an extension of her extremes of behaviour of the past but it doesn't logically flow from them.

Again: her claim is based on nothing more than blood right and will to power. "I will take what is mine." No more, no less. Her 'ability to rule' (remember how she abandoned Mereen?) doesn't change that.

The problem with this is that by specifically pointing out Dany's claim as illegitimate without addressing anyone else it implies that others might be legitimate. For instance, Jon's claim is descended from the fact that their shared ancestor did exactly the same thing that suppposedly renders Dany's claim illegitimate, and any claim descending from Robert is merely because he was the one who started a bloody civil war against those people.

(Worth pointing out that for all Aegon was the "Mad King", the governance of the seven kingdoms has been worse since he was deposed, with more killed than he could have imagined in the war of the five kings, and in the books there have been suggestions that the smallfolk would rather have him back. Remember the rebellion against him was nothing to do with him oppressing the ordinary people because he didn't seem to bother with that, it was only when the nobles started to feel the bite that they declared him a tyrant.)

[LaCroix]

I think it funny that anybody would latch on "breaking the wheel".

She did complain about the constant infighting putting one or the other faction on top.
I always read it as "I want the power for myself, and make sure than it stays that way."

[Vympel]

Except that is literally your and the article's argument- she went mad because she wasn't loved and couldn't handle it.

No, you tried to make this a gender argument, the article doesn't (and its particular absurd to accuse Amanda Marcotte of all people of doing this, maybe read up on who she is) and neither am I. The "this is an attack on women" deflection is the cheapest and lamest take possible. This is a series full of people being led around by their emotions.

Also, what do you mean by "her origins"? Are you just going to repeat "She's Targaryen, therefore Mad Queen" after I just listed a bunch of cases of sane (male) Targaryens?

No, I mean "she's Targaryen therefore she thinks she has the right to invade Westeros to rule it because of her blood."

If you mean "She always wanted power", that's false too. Danny at the start of book/season one didn't give two shits about ruling. She just wanted to go home and not be raped. Then she wanted to try to live the life she'd made for herself with the Dothraki. It was only after she lost all that, after she was shown that she couldn't rely on anyone else to protect her and her people (and had Robert's assassins sent after her), while simultaneously being handed extraordinary power and proof of her special heritage in the form of dragons and fire immunity, that she began to pursue the throne in earnest.

When you have to twist canon this much to justify your argument, that's a strong indication that its a weak argument.

Picking gnatshit out of pepper - where she is near the end of Season 1 is perfectly sufficient a starting point for an an analysis of who she is, calling this 'twisting canon' is just obvious flailing.

Yes, she expected gratitude. That was naive and short-sighted of her. But t go from that to "she killed Miri because Miri wasn't grateful", and ignoring the whole murdering her husband and child thing, like you and this article are doing, is dishonest.

There's nothing dishonest in what the article is actually saying at all, you're just being continuously reductive because you don't like its actual argument. The actual point is that Dany's so clueless that she couldn't conceive how Mirri would actually view a murderous warlord and to call this merely 'naive' and 'short-sighted' as opposed to 'hey, Dany is a wilful participant in mass cruelty and thinks she deserves loyalty regardless' is again - reductive.

I see you're not even going to try to defend the article's claim that people only like Danny because she's pretty and calls herself mother. Good. Concession accepted.

More reductive horseshit - the article says quite plainly that in addition to these things, they focus on her good side and her decent impulses more than her obvious bad side. No concession was offered.

As to her being a conqueror- Bull Shit she had nothing to do with Westeros. She was born there to Westrosi parents, she was raised by Westrosi, she was to her knowledge the last Targaryen between Viserys's death and Jon's revelation, and the King of Westeros sent assassins after her and her unborn child.

LOL I can't believe you're actually trying to argue the point with some lame-ass nitpicking about whether she has something to do with Westeros. She has fuck all nothing to do with Westeros. At all. That she was born to Westerosi parents or raised by some random Westerosi knight doesn't entitle her to a war of conquest to rule the kingdom. As to 'the last Targaryen' - who gives a flying shit? Why does that matter? Why is a war of conquest to reinstall some fucking monarch on a throne justified?

"The King of Westeros sent assassins after her and her unborn child" is pretty rich though, that's definitely not something I'd predicted as being deployed. She assembled a gigantic army and invaded Westeros in a war that would kick off untold suffering and deaths of innocents so she could sit the Iron Throne in self-defence against a dead king. There was no other alternative!

Just amazing.

Being next in line in succession is usually what people mean when they refer to a King or Queen's "legitimacy". And if not that, then the article has no argument, because Danny absolutely was not a foreigner with nothing to do with Westeros.

Edit: Expanded on Danny's ties to Westeros.

ROFL, Marcotte's argument has nothing to do with the line of succession, for fuck's sake. It's really fucking simple: Dany is launching a war on Westeros because she wants the throne. Her idea that her family name entitles her to sit the throne isn't a legitimate reason for a war. It's launched as an aggressive war of choice, for the purposes of conquest and attaining personal power. How is this hard to understand?

Just stop and think about the actual implications of fighting for horseshit monarchic rights.

[Vympel]

https://twitter.com/Darren_Mooney/statu ... 99232?s=20

This is a good twitter thread on what the show (with mixed success) is doing with Dany.

But, back to “The Bell.”

This is very much where the story has been going, pretty much from the outset.

The wheel is integral to “Game of Thrones”, and this is the mirror of the Lannister/Baratheon sack of King’s Landing at the end of Robert’s Rebellion.

It’s also recalls the Targaryen conquest of Westeros.

No matter how romantic the fantasy of conquest of Westeros by TWO foreign armies and a dragon, it was always going to end like this.

That has always been how “Game of Thrones” works, teasing fantasy and delivering horror.

Worth noting that “Game of Thrones” is riffing on “Lord of the Rings.” Here, the series is playing with the Scouring of the Shire following the climactic battle against Sauron.

Martin is a big fan of the Scouring.

Except in this case the Scouring is the point. Not Sauron.

There’s something effective in how “The Bells” gives the audience something they thought they wanted - a big bad, Cersei gets what she probably deserves, Daenerys taking the throne - and makes it genuinely nightmarish.

Because that’s the point of it. It’s meant to upset.

You see it with Cleganebowl, which a lot of online fans *really, really* wanted.

But it just becomes sad and pathetic. Sandor even seems to realise this, telling Arya as much, but also seeming frustrated at how unsatisfying it is to him during the fight.

There’s no winner.

“Game of Thrones” is far from the first fantasy book to point out the uncomfortable subtext of sci-fi/fantasy novels; the details that are often obscured, the subtext often unarticulated.

“The Iron Dream” always comes to mind, sci-fi/fantasy tropes through the lens of fascism.

A recurring motif of “Game of Thrones” is that it would suck to live in a fantasy world, but especially if you weren’t royalty or a chosen one.

Again, the execution is less than ideal here. It drifted out of focus in the past three seasons, but is always present.

And, again, the execution is flawed.

Indeed, one of the reasons I am as fond of the show’s “difficult middle seasons” is that the diffused focus allows the series to touch on the lives impacted and shaped by the affairs of kings and lords.

It shouldn’t need to be said that monarchy is a terrible way of governing that lends itself to political chaos and brutality, no matter how alluring fantasy makes it seem.

Then again we live in a time experiencing the pull of authoritarianism. So maybe saying it is a good thing.

...

Which brings us to Daenerys, who is interesting as a character.

Martin’s prose is highly subjective, allowing the reader to align themselves with the character in focus.

Television naturally has a harder time doing that, but...

It is notable that “Game of Thrones” is structured to isolate its two most classical heroes until the final act.

Both Jon and Daenerys are kept away from Westerosi politicking and essentially placed in their own plots for a lot of the story.

Jon at the Wall. Dany in Essos.

This has the luxury of leaving them “unsullied” (so to speak) by scheming of other major characters.

It means their stories are largely their own, not shared with other view point characters. Their narratives are also more traditional.

Jon the chosen one. Dany the exiled queen.

Bringing both characters into the main series narrative forces their stories to collide with others.

Jon is the chosen one up North, but he’s a political/military liability as soon as he comes back South.

Dany is the hero of her own story in Essos, but an invader in Westeros.

((And by the way, here I’ll concede nervousness. I don’t think the series will end with Jon on the Iron Throne.

But if it does, then it’s most likely a spectacular disaster. Jon is just as messed up as Dany, the show just tipped its hand with him earlier.))

Here’s the thing.

Dany is the hero of her own story in Essos. Liberator, the people’s champion.

She is that, only because we don’t know or care about the people up against which she comes.

They are non-entities, narratively speaking. Easy villains.

Daenerys talks a good game about “breaking the wheel”, but that’s when it’s both easy for her and it serves her purpose.

Even she doesn’t care about Essos, despite doing objectively good things like ending slavery.

She’s easy to root for, because it’s her story exclusively.

And even then, the show drops lots and lots of hints that maybe it’s not as simple as the narrative that Daenerys is writing for herself and of which nobody stands to contradict.

The show likens her time in Slaver’s Bay to the Iraq/Afghanistan War, most obviously.

And then there’s this scene of Daenerys as a white savior.

At the time, it made a lot people - myself included - VERY uncomfortable.

But, especially in hindsight, it’s clear that this is how Daenerys sees herself. She is a white savior.

It’s very much part of her identity.

Daenerys’ entire claim is based on her name and her family birthright. (She’s VERY into her dragons.) She’s not going to introduce democracy or power-sharing or devolution.

When Daenerys talks about breaking the wheel, she simply means stopping it turning away from her family.

And Daenerys is sympathetic, and well-motivated, and well-developed.

It isn’t an accident that audiences respond to her and care for her. That’s the entire point.

She presents the comforting romantic fantasy of the strong, just, authoritarian ruler. The royalty of fantasy.

You root for Daenerys, like you rooted for Aragorn in “The Lord of the Rings” or even Luke in “Star Wars.”

The one true ruler, robbed of their birthright and exiled. It’s one of the most common fantasy tropes.

Except when you actually think through the implications of it.

...

This approach is upsetting; teasing the audience with what they have been conditioned to expect, only to pull the rig out from expectations.

Ideally, your audience asks why they wanted that thing in the first place. However, very often, they wonder why they can’t have it.

“Yeah, that’s you—that’s what you’ve always been,” Sandor remarks as Gregor removes his helmet and reveals a monster.

“The Bell” does that to Daenerys. She is not a liberator, but an occupier. She is not a rightful ruler, but an invader.

She does what empires have always done.

“I will take what is mine with fire and blood.”

The show told us what Daenerys was. We just didn’t want to listen. We would rather believe it was snow than ash falling in the House of the Undying.

...

Incidentally, the reason that “Hame of Thrones” thinks that monarchies are terrible is because they invest absolute power in people.

And people are slaves to emotion and mood. And unchecked, these emotions can have catastrophic consequences when tied to the fate of a nation.

It should be noted as well, in terms of gendering Daenerys’ emotional breakdown, the most level-headed players in the eponymous game at the moment are not Jon or Tyrion. (Both also emotionally blinded.)

But Sansa and (arguably) Arya. Sansa is very much vindicated here.

And, yep.

I’ll be the first to concede that the late-stage development is a little rushed and that it could have been fleshed out more.

The execution is clumsy, undoubtedly. But the idea is sound. And always has been.

By the way, I should mention.

I’ve been caught out a few times by “Game of Thrones.” Once or twice, I’ve wanted a character to “win.”

But that’s the trick. The point is to realise that the game has no winner, and that the board as it stands needs to be flipped.

Anyway, every time anyone asks me who I want to “win” at “Game of Thrones”, I’ve answered with varying degrees of sincerity “Westerosi Magna Carta.”

The part I thought said the most was the "why do you want this thing in the first place?" I think I was pretty convinced that the show was going to end with Dany and Jon ruling together. I actually wanted everything to work out within the confines of the divine right of kings and heredity and the glory of House Targaryen. But ... why? For all Season 8's flaws - and the last two episodes in particular - I think its done a good job of posing that question and exploding that notion, for me.

[Vendetta]

No, I mean "she's Targaryen therefore she thinks she has the right to invade Westeros to rule it because of her blood."

Yes, As far as she's concerned she's the last heir of the true kings and everyone since is a usurper.

ROFL, Marcotte's argument has nothing to do with the line of succession, for fuck's sake. It's really fucking simple: Dany is launching a war on Westeros because she wants the throne. Her idea that her family name entitles her to sit the throne isn't a legitimate reason for a war. It's launched as an aggressive war of choice, for the purposes of conquest and attaining personal power. How is this hard to understand?

Just stop and think about the actual implications of fighting for horseshit monarchic rights.

Except it isn't.

The article is not a broad based rejection of the legitimacy of monarchy as a concept, but of Daenerys as a legitimate monarch specifically. You can tell because of the paragraph after your bolding, where it imagines an alternate universe conflict of Daenerys vs. Robert, implying that Robert's kingship (established through a war) is "legitimate" in contrast.

The thesis of the article is not there are no legitimate monarchs.

(Aggressive war for the purposes of conquest and attaining personal power is how you get monarchs, like leaving sugar on the floor is how you get ants)

[K. A. Pital]

I think the show failed.

People (the audience) wanted a flawed protagonist. For a while, the show had flawed protagonists and Daenerys was the first and foremost of them. Now ratings tanked and people are feeling let down. They did not like that the flawed protagonist is fairly quickly reduced to an antagonist.

This is a success in alienating own fanbase, though! Subversive!

[Tribble]

Wait, I thought a big point of the show was that no one is really capable and/or worthy of being in charge? That the whole concept of the monarchy and the Iron Throne is what's causing most of the chaos? That even the "good" characters have flaws that can fatally undermine them in the end?

There have been quite a few hints over the years that Dany was going to wreck the place. I think it would have been pulled off a lot better had there been more episodes this season to fully flesh the idea out, but it's not like this came from nowhere.

So ya, turns out that the person with a bunch of dragons, a desire to "reclaim" lands via conquest and a penchant for revenge and burning enemies alive may not be the best choice for ruler after all. Go figure

[Galvatron]

Hell, as early as the first season Dany had plans to unleash the Dothraki horde upon Westeros even before all hell broke loose with Robert's death.

[K. A. Pital]

Sure, but those things are often swiftly forgotten in retrospect. Gengis Khan could be the creator of the Golden Horde or he could be the destroyer of Bukhara. In factual history, he is both.