Thoughts about (spoilers) Dragon Lady from Game of Thrones (y’all know who I’m talking about):
Okay, so I had for at least two seasons on this show predicted that Daenarys Targaryan was on a route to going nutty. However, this last season simply confirmed my ongoing complaint that GoT slew itself by doing everything to excess, for shock value and uber-twist, making it feel fake and like overkill. This has ranged from sex to gore, to vulgarity, and made what would ordinarily have been an intriguing premise distasteful. And it just follows through that the plot, itself, should also suffer from this sort of extremism.
Dragon lady, as we all know, has throughout the story had a near-obsession with reclaiming and ruling Westeros, which she sees as her family birthright. Indeed, her faith in her own “star of destiny” rather reminded me of Napoleon or, even more closely, with Charles Edward Stuart (alias Bonnie Prince Charlie) who gambled everything on his “destiny” to reclaim the crowns of the British Isles and restore the House of Stuart to power. And… everything went to hell in a handbasket.
As a result, I could fully see her downfall being connected with her willingness to put everything (and everyone) second to her goal, and that means being willing to harm innocent people in her quest towards dominance. We’ve seen her vengeful, we’ve seen her violent, and we’ve certainly seen her ambition soar sky-high (although to be fair, pretty much all the main player characters in this show are in the same boat).
But the episode “The Bells”, while cinematically stunning, just doesn’t make sense with what we know of her. I think it would have been sufficient for her simply to burn the Red Keep, and in trying to kill Cersei/cohorts, she also winds up killing a lot of innocent people who had gone there seeking protection. This, to my mind, would have been enough to indicate that she was starting to put her own personal agenda before her concern for innocents, and it would have been in keeping with her goal-driven character.
Also in keeping, would have been having her execute a lot of Cersei’s army officers publicly – as Richard the Lionheart did when he reclaimed the throne. It would have been reasonable enough for a situation to unravel to the point where she loses control of her Dothraki, and they go on a killing/looting spree in the city. It could have been a bit like when the crusaders mounted the walls of Jerusalem for the first time and, in a frenzy, killed pretty much everyone they ran into, until the city streets ran with blood.
BUT GoT has to take things beyond all of that and have Daeny, as an individual, go 100% monster in the course of a single episode, intentionally burning alive almost an entire city of innocent people who are only trying to flee. Never before has she indicated this level of bloodlust for ordinary people, nor is the death of her close friend Missandei seemingly enough to trigger this. Hatred and vengeance toward Cersei and her top brass? Absolutely. But killing everyone, everywhere, without the proper buildup for her descent into insanity? That’s just a hyperbolic twist for a twist’s sake, and smacks of complete and total character assassination.
And btw, I’m not even a Daeny fan. She’s never been on my favorite characters list. I always preferred the Lannister/Stark conflict and wanted to see an imitation of the War of the Roses where the houses ultimately unified via Sansa and Tyrion. I also wanted Jon to maybe wind up with Myrcella, and Jaime to wind up with Brienne, managing to finally break free of the Cersei stranglehold (which, as with most hinted-at redemption arcs in GOT, never came to fruition. Seriously, is there ANYTHING that has changed for the definitive better in the course of this series? Has there been ANYONE to definitely change for the better as a human being?).
Frankly, the entire final season seemed to just veer off a cliff. I’m not even going to go into my sheer level of underwhelmed-ness by the way they threw off a cliff the entire Ice Zombie plotline. Winter came, and went, and made utterly no sense whatsoever, except to Arya – another little ninja moment for no coherent reason. Come on! I mean, I was expecting something actually meaningful – like Bran mystically sacrificing himself and “warging” into the Night King so he could take the minions of doom back across the order, or that the Night King actually almost triumphs because mankind was so busy warring each other, and it served as a living symbol of the sins of men.
But no, no, no, all we get for the grand finale is a crazy dead dragon lady, and then a few other pointless character “arcs”…
Tyrion: “What could be more powerful than a good story? And who has a better story then Bran?” *looks around at just about every other character available with far more interesting back-stories* “Well, whatever, let’s just turn this mess into a last-minute democracy and make him King of the Six Snoozevilles and Sansa-land can just… do its own thing, whatever that is… you got this, ex-babe!” *blows kisses*
Bran: *Eyes turn blue and wargs into an undead ice muffin… the most exhilarating moment of his life*
Jon Snow: “Well, I may have my lady-killer woes… and my entire backstory has been jettisoned in favor of my boring little brother… but at least my dog loves me….” *pat, pat, pat.*
Arya: “I think I’m going to spend the rest of my days butterfly collecting.” *uses needle to pin specimens to boards in her sanitarium*
Sansa: *whining a lot about… everything. Eternally. The North remembers… to put in earplugs*
But anyway *coughs*… yeah, the GoT storyline had genuine potential, but that got fried in the King’s Landing BBQ some time ago, both in the departments of morality and coherence. And I’m seeing no major hope of redemption for its long-term legacy either. Short of my fan-fic babies that is. You go, team! Woot-woot!