acharlie1377

This is why I don't play Civ 5 or Civ 6 anymore. I don't like playing for military victory because I find it one-note, but if you play anything else you're essentially playing a veeeeeeeeeery slow-moving board game, where every upgrade either takes 10 turns, or is functionally useless. It becomes a game of micromanaging workers and re-organizing artifacts in your museums and trading for priceless art, which could be fun, except you spend about 30 seconds doing this and another minute waiting for enemy turns to resolve. I think this is an inherent problem in a lot of 4X games; Endless Space alleviated that for me a little, but it still devolved into making numbers go up very slowly.

I honestly never knew premium membership came with ad-free podcasts; they're such an insignificant and skippable thing that I never even considered anyone at GB would ever be tasked with creating two versions of the same podcast for people who can't bear to listen to two people joking about seat belts. I feel like if the 40-80 hours of premium content every month isn't worth the 5$, but ad-free podcasts make it worth it, there's a weird set of priorities at play.

@deathstriker: The fact that he was in denial after that is almost as bad as Grey Worm actively supporting it. If Jon had never spoken to Tyrion, it's very possible that Dany would have never been stopped, because Jon was too in love with her to do anything without someone telling him point-blank that she was evil. Also, he and Gendry are commanders, good at fighting and not necessarily much else; they're good people, but that alone doesn't make them good leaders. I think Davos would have been pretty good, but I don't think he would be taken seriously--even when voting on Bran, he comments that he's not sure if he gets a vote. Just like how the idea of democracy was laughed out of the room, Davos as king would never be given serious thought.

Bran doesn't need to have empathy or leadership, because he shouldn't be out fighting battles in the first place. After all this destruction, the people need a king with knowledge--knowledge of the present to know how to move forward, and knowledge of the past to know how not to move forward. Tyrion and all of the advisors have a strong knowledge of the present, while Bran has infinite knowledge of the past.

Lastly, Jon is still a Targaryen, and that information probably won't stay secret for long (if it even is a secret anymore); after thousands of innocent people were slaughtered in King's Landing, no one would be happy with yet another Targaryen on the throne.

@deathstriker: The Unsullied were already mad that he was even alive--making him king would have started more wars, which Tyrion wanted to avoid. Plus, Jon would have made a terrible king--he's too naiive and loyal, so much so that he almost let Dany slide after she burned down King's Landing.

I think Bran is kind of a "Tetris is the best video game" pick for king. Anyone else would cause a war, or just be laughed at like poor Edmure. People would kill Sansa just because she's a woman. Bran feels like the only safe compromise pick, which is senisble but also unsatisfying.

@seikenfreak: That's exactly how I feel. It didn't excite me, but I don't know what would have improved it. At the end of the day, all these pieces needed to settle into place, and it was going to take up most of the episode.

@north6: I might be remembering incorrectly,but I think your examples are somewhat inaccurate. First, Dany only chains two of her dragons; the other, the one that definitely did burn a villager's child, is kind of just missing. The fact that one of her kids is basically a full-blown murderer is already a bad sign. Second, I don't think she was against attacking Qarth, and if she was it was because she wouldn't have succeeded. In fact, as soon as she's turned away, she threatens to burn the city as soon as she's in power. Third, she never went out of her way to free slaves; all of the slaves she freed were of service to her in some way, whether as soldiers or as people she knew would idolize her. Also, all of the freed slaves belonged to cities she was already trying to conquer.

I've written a huge amount of words on the subject, but my points can be summarized by the fact that pretty much nothing Danaerys does is done for purely selfless reasons, all of her methods involve death and destruction, and the way people have idolized and deified her throughout the show falls closely in line with a cult. She's only seen as a good person because the people she has burned to death, crucified, and fed to dragons are shitty people; the moment she steps onto Westeros, she demands Jon Snow bend the knee after flaunting her seventeen titles at him, and burn two soldiers to death just because they refused to bow to her.

Daenerys is a hero by circumstance, not by character.

@notnert427: People are convinced to join cults when they're vulnerable or depressed, and looking for purpose. Every single person who allied with Dany did so at a time when they were in some way lost or dejected--Jorah had been exiled from his homeland, Ser Barristan was just removed from the Kingsguard, Tyrion had just killed his father and lover, Jon was facing an unstoppable army of the dead and is also a naiive idiot (see Ygritte), Varys had just witnessed the worst person in all of Westeros become king (Joffrey), and Missandei and Grey Worm were in a life of slavery. In other words, they came to Daenerys (or were approached by Daenerys) at significant low points in their lives, and were given the opportunity to be a part of something greater. It's easy for someone to overlook all of a leader's flaws, when that leader has been shaped as the sole driver of purpose in the person's life. The only person to ally themselves with Dany wholeheartedly, without doing so from a place of loss, was Daario Naharis, and we both agree that his existence is plot convenience at its worst.

Compare that to every other alliance made during the show's time period. When Robb Stark asked for the assistance of his bannermen, they agreed because they had already pledged loyalty to the starks, and people like Jon Umber, the Karstarks, and the Freys put up some resistance. When Catelyn Stark approached Renly Baratheon, she didn't do so out of weakness, she did so out of strategic merit. When Davos asked his pirate friend to assist him in the battle of Blackwater, the pirate only did so on the condition that he got to fuck Cersei. Jon Snow convinced the wildlings to follow him while they were weak, but their alliance never rested on undying and unquestioning allegiance to him--it was always portrayed as tenuous at best, and several wildlings AND Night's Watchmen were strongly opposed to the idea. When Jon Snow is preparing for the fight against the dead, his decisions and interests are questioned almost constantly.

The exceptions to this rule also align with the fear/zealotry angle. People followed the High Sparrow without question, but that's never portrayed as anything but a cult of personality. No one (except the aforementioned High Sparrow) ever truly questioned Joffrey or Cersei's rule, because they were too afraid of the consequences. The only leaders who are never challenged by their advisors are the ones who are exceptionally feared or idolized to the level of godhood, and Daenerys is no exception.

In short, all of the "good/likable" characters who "legitimized" Daenerys' rule did so at the lowest point in their lives, when the opportunity to ally with her gave them a chance to redeem themselves, and when all of their other options inevitably led to worse lives. I think that, at the very latest, the showrunners came up with the Mad Queen conclusion before the beginning of the sixth season; you can see her at her most ruthless there, feeling smug about her seventeen titles in front of Jon Snow, demanding he bend the knee before she helps save the world, roasting the Tarlys because they didn't want to bend the knee, etc. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mad Queen idea came at any point before then, either; regardless of when they had the idea, the actual turn towards madness wouldn't have happened towards the end of the show anyways.

I'll definitely admit it was rushed, and it feels like the audience is meant to fill in the blanks for some of the 8th season, but that doesn't mean it was unplanned or unjustified, just that the showrunners had to cut some scenes to fit the last season into 6 episodes.

You've just described a cult leader. Hell, most of those attributes could be applied to the High Sparrow, and I don't think anyone is jumping to call him a hero. Most of them would also apply to Charles fucking Manson. The last thing isn't even a heroic attribute, it's just lazy writing.

People who follow someone without question and without doubts are doing so either out of zealotry or fear. Every other "good" leader in the show is challenged by their underlings at some point, and have to justify their position; the evil leaders, on the other hand, are never questioned, because people either fear them too much or idolize them too much. Nothing you've described is inherent to a hero.

For what feels like the hundredth time, my argument is not that this was planned from the very beginning, my point is that NOTHING was planned from the very beginning; from episode 1, she had the potential to be a benevolent leader and an insane tyrant. She has been shown as caring, and she has been shown as cruel, and both those sides of her have been on display numerous times throughout the show.

That said, that quote could literally be applied to any character in a work of fiction who ends up turning bad. Anakin Skywalker, Captain Ahab, Kurtz from Heart of Darkness--all of these are people who started out decent, but fell prey to their worst impulses. There's no reason Dany should be considered any different.

@notnert427: I understand that point, but your conclusion rests on the premise that the show was pushing Dany as a hero of this story; that it built her up in a certain way, only to tear all that down in a way that felt unsatisfying. You've made that clear.

But my point isn't that your conclusion is false based on that premise, it's that the premise itself is false. You say yourself that Dany's heroic arc was never believable; if that's the case, what makes you think the show was trying to convince you she was a hero? If you admit that the possibility of madness was already there, why is it impossible that the show wasn't trying to convince you she was a hero? Was there an interview where the showrunners told us she's meant to be a hero? Is there a line in the books that describe her as the hero of prophecy? Unless I'm mistaken, it's all been open to interpretation, and her role has never been explicitly defined by the author or the showrunners. You assumed the show wanted you to think a certain thing, and then got mad based off of that assumption.

However, if you remove the assumption that Daenerys is supposed to be a hero, there's no evidence in the show that proves she is supposed to be one. She kills all her enemies without the slightest remorse, she crucifies, burns, and feeds people to dragons, and any challenge to her authority is met with swift and brutal retaliation. She doesn't negotiate, and unlike other characters in the show, when she executes people, she frequently does it in the most painful ways imaginable. Cersei locked up Ilaria and forced her to watch her daughter die, and that was an act of unnecessary cruelty; when Daenerys locks Xano Xhoan Daxos in a vault and forces him to suffocate or starve to death, that was also an act of unecessary cruelty. Her closest advisors repeatedly mention that she keeps them around to temper her worst impulses, which heavily implies that without them, she would be a crueler and less forgiving leader.

That being said, there's also no evidence in the show that proves she's supposed to be a villain. She may need others to prevent her from being a villain, but she did choose to surround herself with those types of people. She agrees to help Jon in the fight against the dead. She obviously cares for people like Jorah and Missandei.

My point is that, if you don't assume anything about the show's desired path for Daenerys, then her character is neither unilaterally good nor unilaterally bad. If she had listened to Tyrion, listened to those who were put in place to temper her, she would be a hero, who ultimately rose above her worst impulses. But she didn't; she ignored the advice of those meant to keep her human, and in doing so made it easier for her to unleash the dragon. Your argument is based on the idea that the show "wanted" you to think of Daenerys as a hero, but there isn't evidence to suggest that. If you never thought of her as a hero for 7 seasons, I wouldn't consider that a failure of the writers--I would consider that a strength of Daenerys' characterization.