herman said:
Well executed episode, even if the journey to pushing Dany into madness was so, so poorly handled (like Anakin Skywalker level).
See, here's the thing about this. What we just saw wasn't madness. Forgive me for the length of this but I'm up late and this is fresh in my mind.
The idea that you can rule via fear instead of love isn't crazy. It's straight out of Machiavelli. There are countless examples throughout history. Danerys herself states this as her goal. She's seeing everyone around her silently plot in favour of Jon who is a big deal in Westeros, is the legitimate heir to the throne and, as toasty Varys pointed out, carries a sword. So, up on her Dragon, she decides that she's going to burn King's Landing and rule via the fear of her armies and dragon.
So it's not crazy. What it is, though, is evil. And while a turn to evil may seem strange or out of the blue...it's really not. Danerys has always been a bad person with bad goals. Hereditary monarchies are bad. Dictatorships are bad. Yes, throughout the series they've contrasted her freeing slaves with Joffrey torturing prostitutes, but it's still bad. She's always been willing to start a huge war where thousands of people were inevitably going to die so she could be a dictatorial ruler. This is, without wanting to get too deep into Hobbesian concepts of her literal Leviathans, a very bad thing for someone to do. Sure, maybe the season long diversion into Zombie-killin' had people thinking she was something else but a single minded dedication to winning the throne whatever the cost is incredibly consistent with the character.
We were all basically on board with the idea of siege warfare, which if anyone is unaware is the mass starvation of the people we just saw her burn. I appreciate that we get used to the idea of these feudal nobility treating the lives of people and soldiers like they don't matter because, well,that's how we think of history but it's like the scene from season one where(I may have the characters completely wrong) where Danerys' brother is all like "I hear people back home are secretly praying for my return and retaking the throne" and Jorah's all "Nobody back home gives a crap about you. They're praying for good health and crops. They've got they're own stuff". Tyrion and Varys for a while thought she was the best option and they could steer her towards benevolent rule but I think crafty fellows like that would agree that any system that relies on the whims of decency of a dictator for life is pretty inherently flawed.
Yes, the various betrayals and losses clearly affected Danerys' emotional state but her willingness to put the lives of basically everyone she meets at risk for her personal power has been a constant throughout the show. If next week she hops off her dragon and says she burned everyone because they were secretly possessed by backwards weasel-goblins, sure...doubt her sanity but until then all we've seen is that she's just lousy. The same way all of these rich jerks are. Robert, Viserys, Cersei, Stannis...they were all a bunch of hyper-privileged dingbats willing to cause all sorts of death if it furthered their aims.
TL
R?
Burning people - Bad
Monarchies - Bad
Conquerors - Bad
Danerys has always been willing to conquer to establish a monarchy - she's bad
Westerosi Proletariat - Rise up, seize means of production, guillotines for the bourgeoise nobility.
