Letâs take a look at the case of Mad Queen and Dark Dany, shall we?
On the one hand we have the allegation that Daenerys decided, with full conscience, to burn Kingâs Landing to a crisp in advance to the attack, during her âLet it be fearâ scene with Jon Snow.
(Dumb&Dumber did say that it was a shift that happened in that moment and was not planned, butâŚ.. at this point do I even need to elaborate???)
This is the woman who lost her husband and baby and stepped into a fire with three dragon eggs. The woman that got her people out of the Red Waste alive only to have them all be slaughtered. The one that found herself captive to the Dothraki and escaped captivity as their fucking leader, in the most badass throw-me-to-the-wolves-and-Iâll-return-leading-the-pack moment of female empowerment.
Daenerys is the goddamn comeback Queen.
Sheâs been brutalised, abused, sold and raped. Sheâs lost more people than anyone. Sheâs been through everything. Thereâs nothing you can throw at her she hasnât already known.
And you expect me to believe that what breaks her is Jon Snow being loved and idolised by a bunch of Northerners and wildlings that are coincidentally his buddies?
Daenerys Stormborn, the Breaker of Chains, the mhysa worshipped by her people was so incredibly jealous of Jon Snow, whom no one outside the North has even heard of, she decided to go completely berserk? She goes to the region thatâs notorious for being isolationist and obstinate, sees them demonstrate the predictable, xenophobic attitude they have towards anyone that isnât them and she just falls into despair? Does she plan to move the capital to Winterfell and worries about how sheâs gonna cope? She literally doesnât need to set foot in this wasteland for the entirety of her reign.
Do you expect me to believe that Dany was one breath away from her lifeâs goal achieved, with Kingâs Landing surrendering without the blood of a single innocent shed, and she just went âfuck it, letâs throw this all in the garbage. Three days spent with a bunch of elitist Northern little shits have convinced me that Iâm a completely useless leader that will never be loved by anyone, even though my entire life I have found myself navigating cultures completely foreign to me, managing to adapt and integrate, and ultimately win the peopleâs love and respect. If I donât have the Northern Stamp of Approval Iâm nothing! â?
Do you expect me to believe Daenerys, who has lost so many people in her life just couldnât stand the idea of Jon Snow not loving her? Do you really expect me to believe Daenerys Stormborn went full Ophelia/Lady MacBeth combo because.. a man rejected her? Thatâs it?! A man she knows for no more than a few weeks and has cost her near everything while giving her nothing?
Wasnât everyone crying about Dany being powerhungry and obsessed with the Throne until yesterday? So how the everliving fuck can they seriously consider a plot that has her throw her victory and lifelong dream away, in any way believable?
Wasnât everyone crying about Danyâs notorious dark side and Targaryen ruthlessness? So why didnât she go straight for the Red Keep to take her revenge by taking down the woman that murdered her best friend, the woman whoâs family ordered the massacre and brutalisation of her niece, nephew and sister-in-law and tried to decimate the entire Targaryen House?
âBut thatâs what made her lose it! She couldnât handle it and turned mad! The Targaryen genes! The inbreeding!â
Five Targaryens have gone mad in three centuries. Five. And many others went down in history as some of the kindest, most benevolent rulers of the Realm.
You want to talk about her father, whom everyone loves bringing up with their smartass I-told-you-so comments? The man whom it took years to descend into madness and become the Mad King? The Nero of Westeros, that wanted to burn Kingâs Landing because he thought that would make him a fucking dragon? Thatâs the parallel youâre going for? Based on what?
How is a Pavlovian switch from sanity to madness, caused by bells of all things, a plausible depiction of a character descending into madness?
Dany was enraged, and she had every right to be so. She had every right to unleash holy hell to those who wronged her. Go full fire and blood.
I absolutely love Danyâs darkness, and I will defend the harshness with which she punishes her enemies, the slave masters and rapists and abusers, until my dying breath. I would have loved to see her every bit as ruthless getting her revenge from Cersei and her cronies, a living reflection of Visenya Targaryen, a dragon breathing fire herself.
But burning a city full of innocents to the ground is not how someone overcome with grief and rage that seeks revenge acts.
Itâs not how any damn person acts, let alone the showâs posterchild of protecting the innocent and bringing justice. The woman that found a way to liberate Yunkai without shedding a drop of blood. The woman that refused to attack Kingâs Landing straight away, as any clever leader would do, to spare the innocents, lost her alliesâ forces because of it, was willing to put everything on hold to save the North costing her dramatically, and negotiated with the devil for the umpteenth time to save those damn civillians.
Who has ever even done that? Stannis Baratheon that was about to sack the capital with his fleet? Robert Baratheon when he overthrew the Targaryens? Honestly what kind of conqueror bends over backwards, and turns their backs to an easy and certain win so that civillians wonât get hurt?
Daenerys fucking Targaryen did.
Meanwhile, every character weâve spent seasons watching sit idly by as atrocities are committed, that have done their fair share of actually horrific shit in their day are suddenly clutching their pearls every time that Dany so much as voices the wish to finally fucking do what they came here for.
The gaslighting of Daenerys this past two seasons has been beyond outrageous. Cersei could literally throw her in a cell and Tyrion would be like âYour Grace, maybe itâs not wise, to move right away and release youâŚ. Think of the innocent peopleâŚ. The weatherâŚ.. The omensâŚFlower powerâŚ.â
She had to put up with all this patronising bullshit, suffer detrimental losses in her forces (that were then magically recovered but I am not getting into that shit) because of people that treated her as a mentally unstable liability and just take it.
And she did. She fucking took it all. She singlehandedly won Kingâs Landing with no civillian getting hurt after postponing the attack a million times already.
And Iâm expected to believe that she threw it all away and just started burning everyone alive? Is this the Twilight Zone?
This clusterfuck was neither Dany embracing her fire and blood side nor going mad. It was merely a clownery meant to provide shock valur, that gave the audience the worst case of whiplash in the history of television and the character assassination of one of the most iconic female characters in fantasy.
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