Dark and Full Of Spoilers (GOT Season 8 Spoiler Thread Part 2)

[deuterio12]

It wasn't stupid to not surrender. She only had 1 dragon left and last time they saw her they shot a dragon down with little difficulty and zero casualties.

Not their fault they didn't read the patch notes nerfing Scorpions and buffing dragons.

As soon as the dragon proved superior they DID try to surrender.

No, they didn't. This is how it actually went:

Daenerys: "Ok, you rolled a bunch of natural 20s in a row but I basically control most of the seven Kingdoms and have tens of thousands of Dothraki itching for a fight and Unsullied so I could just zerg rush the crap out of you."
King's Landing: "Lol we have Euron's unstoppable magic fleet we fear nothing!"
Daenerys after burning Euron's fleet : "Will you surrender now? You have zero mobility now, I could just watch you starve."
King's Landing:" NOPE! WE STILL HAVE THE WALL'S SCOPRIONS! WHO CARES IF WE HAVE NO FLEET ANYMORE!"
Daenerys burns down the city wall's scorpions: "Ok, now you have zero scorpions that I can see. Surrender?"
King's Landing: "WHO NEEDS SCORPIONS ANYWAY? DO YOUR WORST FILTHY FOREIGNER!"
Daenerys: "Ok."

(blows up the gate and lets the Dothraki and Unsullied and Northeners in)

Daenerys went out of her way to burn down the anti-dragon weapons with minimum collateral damage, and still King's Landing refused to show any sign of surrender. That it took troops rampaging through the streets as well for somebody to shout "ring the bells" doesn't speak very well of King's landing average wis score.

In particular when it was just ringing some bells.

The High Septon 300 years ago didn't put all his hopes in that some ding dong would save Oldtown, instead he went out himself to annoint the dragon rider with blessed oils, a proper show of surrender and respect.

[pendell]

Was "The Stallion who mounts the world" a prophecy ? It was Khal Drogo who said that, and he was neither prophet or seer. That looked to me more like a statement of his own desires and intentions for his son. That was certainly what he intended to do, but that's just a human mortal talking smack; it wasn't as if either the old gods or the new were speaking to him. So it doesn't count in this discussion, I think. It's a human stating intentions, which another human acted to thwart. This is a thing that occurs in real and imaginary worlds all the time and excites no comment. If Drogo's ambitions go unrequited that tells us nothing about prophecy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dr.Samurai]

Re: Surrender

It seemed to me that the Golden Company and the forces in the city near that gate weren't aware that the fleet was destroyed. Cersei wasn't aware from her vantage in the Keep and she has the highest lookout in the city. So I didn't take it as "they didn't surrender until the last moment". Rather:

Dany uses the sun to her advantage, allowing her to destroy the Ironborn. This allows her to attack the Gate from the other side, catching the Golden Company and (more importantly) the Scorpions completely by surprise. Once the Gate is blown open and the Golden Company destroyed, Dany's armies march in. They receive extremely little resistance. No one raises a weapon, though they don't throw them down. But as soon as the bells toll, they surrender.


All that said... I agree with the overall sentiment (I think). Once people see the fleet burning and the dragon flying overhead, someone will likely start ringing bells. Which begs the question, who cares? If any rando on the street can ring the bells what does it really mean?

But again, we see the Lannister forces stand but not fight. They are pretty demoralized and are just waiting for the order to stand down.

[deuterio12]

It seemed to me that the Golden Company and the forces in the city near that gate weren't aware that the fleet was destroyed. Cersei wasn't aware from her vantage in the Keep and she has the highest lookout in the city. So I didn't take it as "they didn't surrender until the last moment". Rather:

Dany uses the sun to her advantage, allowing her to destroy the Ironborn. This allows her to attack the Gate from the other side, catching the Golden Company and (more importantly) the Scorpions completely by surprise. Once the Gate is blown open and the Golden Company destroyed, Dany's armies march in.

That they thought that placing the Golden Company outside King's Landing walls and have zero lookouts and runners to transmit urgent reports just further shows how retarded the city had become.

King's Landing is a port, keeping watch of the waters is pretty important and even if they didn't see the dragon coming, they would see all the boats sinking one after the other.

Spoiler: Plus the smoke from their wrecks can be seen from pretty far

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And after that Daenerys takes her time completely circling the city to take out all the wall scorpions. It's even more impossible that those inside didn't see all their towers being lighted on fire unless they all have -5 spot modifier total from having dumped wisdom to the ground.

Plus rewatching the scene, Daenerys blows up some wall scorpions, blows up the gate, burns some more Golden company remants, then goes back to blowing up wall scorpions, and King's Landing is still all "DEATH BEFORE SURRENDER!"

They receive extremely little resistance. No one raises a weapon, though they don't throw them down.

Spoiler: Lannyster soldiers do raise their weapons

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Spoiler: Multiple times

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Spoiler: There is a dragon flying overhead and the Lannyster soldiers are still out for blood

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Spoiler: Grey Worm is spearing them and Jojo Snow just keeps walking calmly

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Spoiler: Then the northener in front of Jojo Snow got killed by a Lannyster soldier coming the other way and the Warden of the North revenge kills him

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They only stop when they meet a more solid clump of lanyster troops trying to hold a chokepoint later, those were the ones who were holding back a bit once they realize charging head on is kinda suicidical so they're trying to set up a defensive formation, but plenty of Lannyster soldiers did raise their weapons and resisted to the bitter end rather than showing any sign of surrender with at least one almost got Jojo Snow himself if not for some random northener meat shield.

And just look at how chill Daavos is as people die all around him. The Onion Knight truly doesn't care, it's like he's taking a walk in a park in the mid of the fire and blood!

[pendell]

I think that Cersei wasn't in full possession of her facilities at the moment. I think what the showrunners were going for was Hitler in his bunker raging and demanding phantom armies march to the relief of Berlin. At that point, he was almost entirely delusional. I think Cersei is in the same shoes. The best vantage point in the city means nothing if the brain behind the eyes can't process the data.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[deuterio12]

I think that Cersei wasn't in full possession of her facilities at the moment. I think what the showrunners were going for was Hitler in his bunker raging and demanding phantom armies march to the relief of Berlin. At that point, he was almost entirely delusional. I think Cersei is in the same shoes. The best vantage point in the city means nothing if the brain behind the eyes can't process the data.

Except you know, plenty of his troops were going "screw orders" and surrendering on their own when they realized their leader was completely delusional.

The Lanyster soldiers meanwhile are all too retarded to realize their queen has gone completely delusional and keep following orders to the bitter end. "Yeah the gate is blown up, we lost the fleet and all scorpions, the mercenaries that sank us into debt are barbecue, enemy ground troops filling the streets and an angry dragon overhead spewing fire, but we trust super competent Cersei has some new super weapon up her sleeve to save the day and shall not surrender on our own! Aaannnny minute now..."

[pendell]

The Lanyster soldiers meanwhile are all too retarded to realize their queen has gone completely delusional and keep following orders to the bitter end. "Yeah the gate is blown up, we lost the fleet and all scorpions, the mercenaries that sank us into debt are barbecue, enemy ground troops filling the streets and an angry dragon overhead spewing fire, but we trust super competent Cersei has some new super weapon up her sleeve to save the day and shall not surrender on our own! Aaannnny minute now..."

"Lannister", but that's a quibble.

All I can say to your post is that is not what I saw on screen. I saw the dragon break the gate and annihilate the Golden Company. I saw the combined Northern/Unsullied army confront the Lannister army inside the city.

I saw the Lannister soldiers in the front rank throw down their swords, clearly a moment of rationality breaking out.
The bells ring. The city has surrendered.

I saw Daenerys refuse to accept their surrender.

I saw Grey Worm take his cue from her, and stab an unarmed Lannister soldier in the back.

I saw the Lannisters hurriedly scoop their weapons back up, since they knew they'd be slaughtered like sheep otherwise.

I saw a burning and a sack of King's Landing.

This is clearly a very different thing from what you saw, and I don't know how to bridge the gap from my understanding to yours, so I'll just make note of it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Gallowglass]

"Lannister", but that's a quibble.

All I can say to your post is that is not what I saw on screen. I saw the dragon break the gate and annihilate the Golden Company. I saw the combined Northern/Unsullied army confront the Lannister army inside the city.

I saw the Lannister soldiers in the front rank throw down their swords, clearly a moment of rationality breaking out.
The bells ring. The city has surrendered.

I saw Daenerys refuse to accept their surrender.

I saw Grey Worm take his cue from her, and stab an unarmed Lannister soldier in the back.

I saw the Lannisters hurriedly scoop their weapons back up, since they knew they'd be slaughtered like sheep otherwise.

I saw a burning and a sack of King's Landing.

This is clearly a very different thing from what you saw, and I don't know how to bridge the gap from my understanding to yours, so I'll just make note of it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Yeah I saw the same thing you saw. Because, you know, that's what was actually shown on the screen.

Isn't it amazing how fast revisionist history develops?

[The Pilgrim]

The Pilgrim, I think it would be best if we agreed to disagree. Words are the basis of communication. They are the means by which ideas are transmitted from mind to mind. Assigning different meaning to the same words is nothing but a recipe for miscommunication. There can be no meaningful dialogue unless both parties are listening to what the other wants to say, rather than what they want to hear.

We are not assigning different meanings to the same words. You understood quite perfectly what I meant with "the villian breaks the status quo, the hero restores it". A cyclical timeline model.

Our disagreement comes from the fact that you consider the cyclical model to be bad storytelling, while I reminded you that the cyclical timeline model is the most common one used in all literarian traditions.

The show, again, kinda forgot about the prophecy in the later seasons. The last mention was from that Red Priestess who, quite reasonably, proclaimed Daenerys Azor Ahai and helped Tyrion stabilise Meereen. After that, nothing. Not even Melisandre mentioned anything about Azor Ahai when she returned to Winterfell, sans the promised reinforcements. It is as if the showrunners knew they couldn't possibly twist the prophecy to fit Arya, and so they didn't even try. In the process, they made everyone who ever cared about these prophecies seem really, really stupid. They may congratulate themselves that they managed to subvert the audience's expectations and outsmart everyone, but that is the exact opposite of how to construct a good story, where the characters feel human and effect always follows a cause.

The fact that you do not like when Prophecies in a story are not fulfilled, doesn't means those stories are bad. You pointed two traditional roles of a Prophecy in a story, in which the fulfillment of that Prophecy is mandatory. But there are many other roles a Prophecy can have, which doesn't call for the Prophecy to be fulfilled.

In the Game of Thrones TV Series, they already told us that Prophecies are to be taken with a grain of salt, specially the ones that come from Red Priestesses, when Stannis burnt his daughter for absolutely nothing.

I'm sorry if you failed to get the memo, but it was delivered in tall flamming letters.

[Max_Killjoy]

Stannis = "her"?

[Dr.Samurai]

That they thought that placing the Golden Company outside King's Landing walls and have zero lookouts and runners to transmit urgent reports just further shows how retarded the city had become.

No it doesn't.

It shows that the writers weren't concerned with having this make perfect sense.

King's Landing is a port, keeping watch of the waters is pretty important and even if they didn't see the dragon coming, they would see all the boats sinking one after the other.

And yet, they didn't. We see Bittersteel confused at the noise, and he doesn't know that Dany is coming from behind them. Same thing with the men on the walls. They are all looking forward paying close attention to the army standing outside their gate.

Not even Jon and Grayworm know what Dany is going to do. She just tells them "you'll know when to act" or something along those lines.

And after that Daenerys takes her time completely circling the city to take out all the wall scorpions. It's even more impossible that those inside didn't see all their towers being lighted on fire unless they all have -5 spot modifier total from having dumped wisdom to the ground.

Yes but once Dany starts taking out the wall/gate/scorpions the city is mostly demoralized.

Plus rewatching the scene, Daenerys blows up some wall scorpions, blows up the gate, burns some more Golden company remants, then goes back to blowing up wall scorpions, and King's Landing is still all "DEATH BEFORE SURRENDER!"

No it isn't.

Those images are nice but what they confirm is that Jon and Grayworm and their army walked very easily straight into King's Landing and killed a handful of soldiers along the way.

That is extremely little resistance.

They only stop when they meet a more solid clump of lanyster troops trying to hold a chokepoint later, those were the ones who were holding back a bit once they realize charging head on is kinda suicidical so they're trying to set up a defensive formation, but plenty of Lannyster soldiers did raise their weapons and resisted to the bitter end rather than showing any sign of surrender with at least one almost got Jojo Snow himself if not for some random northener meat shield.

Not at all what happened. That group *is* the Lannister resistance and they didn't want to fight. And they threw down their swords. They surrendered right up until Grayworm impaled one and the rest of the soldiers decided to kill them. Then they grabbed their weapons to defend themselves.

I think that Cersei wasn't in full possession of her facilities at the moment. I think what the showrunners were going for was Hitler in his bunker raging and demanding phantom armies march to the relief of Berlin. At that point, he was almost entirely delusional. I think Cersei is in the same shoes. The best vantage point in the city means nothing if the brain behind the eyes can't process the data.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

All the more disappointing then; that our two powerful, ambitious, and daring queens made it aaaaaaaaaall the way to the end only to both succumb to delusion and be killed.

Consider my expectations subverted, and color me unimpressed.

[Narkis]

Was "The Stallion who mounts the world" a prophecy ? It was Khal Drogo who said that, and he was neither prophet or seer. That looked to me more like a statement of his own desires and intentions for his son. That was certainly what he intended to do, but that's just a human mortal talking smack; it wasn't as if either the old gods or the new were speaking to him. So it doesn't count in this discussion, I think. It's a human stating intentions, which another human acted to thwart. This is a thing that occurs in real and imaginary worlds all the time and excites no comment. If Drogo's ambitions go unrequited that tells us nothing about prophecy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AacImm1SHTg

Khal Drogo stays completely silent in that scene. It is the crone who proclaims Daenerys's son as the Stallion who Mounts the World. The books go into more detail (the show may have as well, but I don't remember enough to search for more) It is an ancient Dothraki prophecy, kinda like the Azor Ahai of their culture.

[pendell]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AacImm1SHTg

Khal Drogo stays completely silent in that scene. It is the crone who proclaims Daenerys's son as the Stallion who Mounts the World. The books go into more detail (the show may have as well, but I don't remember enough to search for more) It is an ancient Dothraki prophecy, kinda like the Azor Ahai of their culture.

Okay, I stand corrected. Nonetheless, I question if this was truly a prophecy. After all, it's an old woman giving a prophecy in Khal Drogo's presence. I imagine saying something other than what he wanted to her wasn't healthy. You can't say "Oh, he's going to be dead in two months". Or, "Oh, he's going to be a completely boring and average Khal". No, you've got to make it grand and exciting, the bigger the better, and if it doesn't quite work out that way, well, who cares?

This could be your basic fortune-telling spiel in which you spin some yarn and get a gold coin for your troubles, instead of being burned alive.

Lots of kings had sycophantic seers or mystics whose primary job was reflecting back their own wishes and desires in dressed-up language. The job of telling the truth to people who don't want to hear it has always been a verry tricky one.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[GloatingSwine]

This could be your basic fortune-telling spiel in which you spin some yarn and get a gold coin for your troubles, instead of being burned alive.
.

In another story maybe. But A Song of Ice and Fire is absolutely riddled with prophetic dreams and visions, and magical seeing and dreams of things that have happened half a world away.

If they’re mentioned in the story, they come true. Not always in the way the people who hear them expect, but they always happen.

[Xyril]

All the more disappointing then; that our two powerful, ambitious, and daring queens made it aaaaaaaaaall the way to the end only to both succumb to delusion and be killed.

...except they didn't. Dany wasn't delusional. She was paranoid in the sense that she perhaps overestimated the quantity and the strength of those people working against her, and certainly in the sense that until the last 45 minutes of the series, she seriously underestimated what a decent guy Jon Snow was and how committed he was to her. However, people actually were out to get her. Some of her own advisers turned against her. While we, the quasi-omniscient audience, can infer that Tyrion was motivated both by a desire to save the people of King's Landing and a sincere belief that preventing a bloodbath was in the best interest of his Queen, strictly speaking he was going behind her back, helping a prisoner escape and sneak behind enemy lines in order to bring about that surrender--and he explicitly helped Jaime to try to save Cersei, even though it should have been pretty clear that Dany had both political and personal reasons to want Cersei dead. Dany was right about Arya and Sansa being a threat--if anyone was being delusional about that, it was Jon.

Dany's choices at the end weren't the smartest (especially in hindsight,) and in my opinion the way she got there, narratively speaking, was a bit rushed, but they weren't the product of delusion. She had a good sense of her strategic and tactical position--far better than she usually does, really. In fact, I think that one reason she's so paranoid about legitimacy is that she knows that with the Night King and Cersei neutralized, the only real threat to her would be a plot from within her own ranks. Her choice to burn the city wasn't the product of delusion--it was partly a very ruthless, amoral, and somewhat dispassionate and premeditated action meant to achieve a specific goal of solidifying her position, reinforced by understandable sense of rage and desire for revenge that was still unsatisfied when the bells started ringing.

And as immoral and abhorrent as we find the idea of killing a bunch of innocent people so that we can make a better world for future generations, sometimes it actually works, so I find it hard to file that under the "delusion" category either.

[Xyril]

In another story maybe. But A Song of Ice and Fire is absolutely riddled with prophetic dreams and visions, and magical seeing and dreams of things that have happened half a world away.

If they’re mentioned in the story, they come true. Not always in the way the people who hear them expect, but they always happen.

I think that's a bit of a strong statement considering what is remains unwritten (or at the very least, unpublished.)

Honestly, I've never really understood the implicit assumption many folks make that if prophesies come true in a setting, then all prophesies must come true, or that if some gods are real and intervene tangibly in the plot, then all gods must do so. If anything, it seems like a setting where the Red God has shared pearls of prescient and provably accurate wisdom with random people would be a perfect opportunity for all sorts of charlatans and hucksters to take advantage.

In the books, even the many prophesies that have "come true" are a bit vague and open to interpretation. The Azor Ahai prophesy, in broad strokes, only really predicts that the prince/princess will defeat the dead (a pragmatic guess, since wights won't complain about the prophesy failing to come true.) Several candidates have been put forth, all with some royal connection--while this wasn't an obvious prediction, it wasn't a particularly outlandish one given the nature of most folks who become military or political leaders. More importantly, it's vague enough that you can really stretch it like crazy and make a lot of events work. I recall seeing one random post that argued that Jon Snow wasn't Azor Ahai, but that his father was, and that Jon--as the third son of Aegon, assuming the books confirm that theory--was actually the third "sword' of Azor Ahai, the one that didn't break in a small part of the prophesy that I honestly didn't even remember from reading the books.

[GloatingSwine]

Dany's choices at the end weren't the smartest (especially in hindsight,) and in my opinion the way she got there, narratively speaking, was a bit rushed, but they weren't the product of delusion. She had a good sense of her strategic and tactical position--far better than she usually does, really. In fact, I think that one reason she's so paranoid about legitimacy is that she knows that with the Night King and Cersei neutralized, the only real threat to her would be a plot from within her own ranks. Her choice to burn the city wasn't the product of delusion--it was partly a very ruthless, amoral, and somewhat dispassionate and premeditated action meant to achieve a specific goal of solidifying her position, reinforced by understandable sense of rage and desire for revenge that was still unsatisfied when the bells started ringing.

Except burning the city does absolutely nothing to solidify her position against a threat from within her own court.

The amoral ruthless way of doing that would be to have her fanatic legion of troops execute Jon Snow, Tyrion, Gendry, and any remaining Starks.

The excuses people are making to try and make it not woeful writing are less compelling than the wacky “Bran made her do it because he’s Professor X now” theory.

(A common feature of terrible writing especially at endings is a horde of fixfic theories and justifications. See also: Mass Effect Indoctrination Theory).

[GloatingSwine]

I think that's a bit of a strong statement considering what is remains unwritten (or at the very least, unpublished.)

Honestly, I've never really understood the implicit assumption many folks make that if prophesies come true in a setting, then all prophesies must come true, or that if some gods are real and intervene tangibly in the plot, then all gods must do so. If anything, it seems like a setting where the Red God has shared pearls of prescient and provably accurate wisdom with random people would be a perfect opportunity for all sorts of charlatans and hucksters to take advantage.

It’s the law of conservation of detail.

If most prophecy comes true, then if some don’t then the reason why needs to be really important, or they were a waste of time to include at all.

If a prophecy in ASoIaF turns out to be a fake, the fact that it is fake needs to be critical to some character’s fate, because so many haven’t been.

[Xyril]

Except burning the city does absolutely nothing to solidify her position against a threat from within her own court.

Except that's not part of the absolutely not part of the definition for delusional. I'm not arguing that Dany is any sort of Machiavellian genius--in fact, I'm not sure anyone here is. Like I said, she knows her position, she knows her strengths, and she vaguely knows where she wants to be--all factual assessments, and all assessed pretty accurately on her part. You and I know that Jon will be loyal pretty much right up until the point somebody goes full Grand Moff Tarkin, that Tyrion's willing to be a bit more ruthless so long as the end result balances out better for the people of Westeros, and that Varys is more fickle in his loyalties to anyone except his own idea of what's best for the small folk. The audience sees everything, and because of that we all had a pretty good idea of exactly how far she could push her Westerosi advisers and allies before she lost them, an so we think that we could have made smarter decisions with respect to balancing the need to be ruthless in order to beat her enemies, and the need to avoid being ruthless in order to keep her allies. Dany didn't have access to all of that information.

More importantly, her plan actually almost worked. She was riding high on her victory, surrounded by her very alert and very loyal military forces, and even after the massacre she had the absolute loyalty of the Dothraki (who somehow survived their charge in much higher numbers than I realized), Unsullied, and the Ironborn--unsurprising, since two of the three really had no qualms about the rape/pillage/burn thing even before Dany. Her actions in the last few episodes resulted in two of her closest and most trusted advisers showing their hand immediately, while they weren't in a particularly strong position to actually succeed, rather than biding their time and turning against her later, after consolidating their power and taking more time to set up an effective plan, thus eliminating those future threats.

Really, the only reason she failed at the end was that she suddenly went from seriously overestimating the threat that Jon posed to her and underestimating the level of his love and devotion, to suddenly going all the way to the other end of the spectrum, and letting him next to her, alone and unprotected, with a weapon, pretty much right after two of her last surviving advisers had turned against her. At this point, she was arguably delusional in the sense that she didn't notice how upset he was that she wouldn't show clemency to Tyrion, who had been friends of a sort with Jon for longer than either had known Dany, and that she couldn't tell how increasingly horrified he was hearing her describe her plans for the future conquest of the world. Even then, being self-absorbed to the point of being completely unable to read obvious social cues or and non-verbal communication is certainly a handicap, but it's not one we always classify under the umbrella of "delusion."

[Ramza00]

In another story maybe. But A Song of Ice and Fire is absolutely riddled with prophetic dreams and visions, and magical seeing and dreams of things that have happened half a world away.

If they’re mentioned in the story, they come true. Not always in the way the people who hear them expect, but they always happen.

Not always. Remember we also have dreams by main characters such as Jaime who fall asleep on weirwood stump, and so on. Are we to take these dreams as prophecies or just the person battling with your their subconscious as dreams?

[Xyril]

It’s the law of conservation of detail.

If most prophecy comes true, then if some don’t then the reason why needs to be really important, or they were a waste of time to include at all.

If a prophecy in ASoIaF turns out to be a fake, the fact that it is fake needs to be critical to some character’s fate, because so many haven’t been.

Except that's not really an immutable natural law. It's a good guideline for good writing in media that is designed to fit within certain constraints (i.e., movie length, or a casually readable novel.) That's something that's arguably applicable to Game of Thrones, but not really true for ASOIAF, which my comment was referring to. One thing I love about the books is that they meander a bit. Many things--maybe most things--will come together to serve the core plot in some way by the end, but a lot of it just fleshes out the world, or serves as a distraction or blind alley of some sort. Considering how much of the series is about ambiguity, I'm rather disappointed that GRRM hasn't put more red herring prophesies.

As you say, it would be great if being a fake is key to some main character's story, but we already have so many other arguably extraneous details that--in my eyes--contribute to the quality and the enjoyability of the works while being, at best, tangential to the POV characters' arcs. Showing that the visions of an exceptionally insightful but not divinely-inspired character gleaned from Valyrian peyote were coming true enough to draw a small following before they started failing in big ways would have been both a great little world-building detail, and a fun way to subvert the fantasy genre a bit (not that GRRM likes to do that), while also helping to explain why only some of the characters bother to take the important prophesies seriously at all.

[Max_Killjoy]

Except that's not part of the absolutely not part of the definition for delusional. I'm not arguing that Dany is any sort of Machiavellian genius--in fact, I'm not sure anyone here is. Like I said, she knows her position, she knows her strengths, and she vaguely knows where she wants to be--all factual assessments, and all assessed pretty accurately on her part. You and I know that Jon will be loyal pretty much right up until the point somebody goes full Grand Moff Tarkin, that Tyrion's willing to be a bit more ruthless so long as the end result balances out better for the people of Westeros, and that Varys is more fickle in his loyalties to anyone except his own idea of what's best for the small folk. The audience sees everything, and because of that we all had a pretty good idea of exactly how far she could push her Westerosi advisers and allies before she lost them, an so we think that we could have made smarter decisions with respect to balancing the need to be ruthless in order to beat her enemies, and the need to avoid being ruthless in order to keep her allies. Dany didn't have access to all of that information.

More importantly, her plan actually almost worked. She was riding high on her victory, surrounded by her very alert and very loyal military forces, and even after the massacre she had the absolute loyalty of the Dothraki (who somehow survived their charge in much higher numbers than I realized), Unsullied, and the Ironborn--unsurprising, since two of the three really had no qualms about the rape/pillage/burn thing even before Dany. Her actions in the last few episodes resulted in two of her closest and most trusted advisers showing their hand immediately, while they weren't in a particularly strong position to actually succeed, rather than biding their time and turning against her later, after consolidating their power and taking more time to set up an effective plan, thus eliminating those future threats.

Really, the only reason she failed at the end was that she suddenly went from seriously overestimating the threat that Jon posed to her and underestimating the level of his love and devotion, to suddenly going all the way to the other end of the spectrum, and letting him next to her, alone and unprotected, with a weapon, pretty much right after two of her last surviving advisers had turned against her. At this point, she was arguably delusional in the sense that she didn't notice how upset he was that she wouldn't show clemency to Tyrion, who had been friends of a sort with Jon for longer than either had known Dany, and that she couldn't tell how increasingly horrified he was hearing her describe her plans for the future conquest of the world. Even then, being self-absorbed to the point of being completely unable to read obvious social cues or and non-verbal communication is certainly a handicap, but it's not one we always classify under the umbrella of "delusion."

From what I could tell, she simply went off the deep end for no reason other than showrunners shrugging and saying "welp, gotta wrap this thing up somehow". Purging the city by fire was... pointless. Slaughtering enemy troops who were at most half-heartedly resisting and looking for a way out was... pointless.

[Mechalich]

Regardless of whether or not Dany's actions in burning the King's Landing in the penultimate episode were delusional or not, her actions in the final episode absolutely are. Her big speech and her discussion with Jon, in particular, reveals that she's become completely unhinged, unable to recognize what's she's actually done and unable to properly imagine what she's going to do. She openly claims that the children she burned were being used as a weapon against her, which is manifestly not the case. Her statement would actually be true if she'd just burned the Red Keep as it is widely recognized that she should have, but as it stands represents a blatant denial of reality. Call her delusional, megolomanical, or whatever you want, her brain stops operating properly from the moment the bells start ringing if not earlier.

I think the best possible explanation is that she went mad due to starvation. Failure to eat can do all sorts of things to your brain chemistry. It's not exactly a strong explanation, but there's a least a path that leads from Rhaegal's death and the lack of anyone trustworthy to talk her out of the grief spiral to mad vengeance. Even with a half-decent explanation though, it's still a weak ending. Late onset madness is a poor storytelling tool at best and robs characters of agency.

[Gallowglass]

I think the best possible explanation is that she went mad due to starvation. Failure to eat can do all sorts of things to your brain chemistry.

Tyrion: "Hey Dany, eat a snickers bar."

Dany: "Why?"

Tyrion: "Because you turn into a real targaryen when you're hungry"

Snickers! Saving King's Landing one bar at a time.

[Lacuna Caster]

Aww, man. That made my day.

*EDIT* In terms of how this went, and how it was expected to, I do expect that GRRM always intended for Dany to slide into villainy. I actually predicted at the start of this season that, based on Season 7, Dany was going to be the final antagonist. I still thought the heel turn was ludicrously over-the-top and out of character. If the books are ever finished, I'd bet it would work out rather better.

If D&D explicitly say "Dany-as-villain and NK dies first was GRRM's idea", I'll believe it. But not before.

[GloatingSwine]

Not always. Remember we also have dreams by main characters such as Jaime who fall asleep on weirwood stump, and so on. Are we to take these dreams as prophecies or just the person battling with your their subconscious as dreams?

That dream does, of course, reference things that subsequently happen. In the dream Brienne begs him for a sword, and he subsequently gives her the Valyrian steel sword made for him.

Other parts of it are also likely to be significant in the future, the nature of Jaime's end in the books is likely in it (a ghost of his past).

So yes. Very often when main characters dream there is significance for the future or events they couldn't otherwise know about in those dreams.

Except that's not part of the absolutely not part of the definition for delusional. I'm not arguing that Dany is any sort of Machiavellian genius--in fact, I'm not sure anyone here is. Like I said, she knows her position, she knows her strengths, and she vaguely knows where she wants to be--all factual assessments, and all assessed pretty accurately on her part. You and I know that Jon will be loyal pretty much right up until the point somebody goes full Grand Moff Tarkin, that Tyrion's willing to be a bit more ruthless so long as the end result balances out better for the people of Westeros, and that Varys is more fickle in his loyalties to anyone except his own idea of what's best for the small folk. The audience sees everything, and because of that we all had a pretty good idea of exactly how far she could push her Westerosi advisers and allies before she lost them, an so we think that we could have made smarter decisions with respect to balancing the need to be ruthless in order to beat her enemies, and the need to avoid being ruthless in order to keep her allies. Dany didn't have access to all of that information.

None of that addresses the fact that Dany's actions do not in any way accomplish, and would never predictably by any rational person work towards accomplishing, what you claim she is trying to accomplish by them.

Burning the ordinary citizens of King's Landing is completely irrelevant to any political or military objective, and there's nothing presented in the show which allows us the audience to understand why Daenerys would believe that it would.

It's just bad writing, she did it because she read the script and that told her to.

Except that's not really an immutable natural law. It's a good guideline for good writing in media that is designed to fit within certain constraints (i.e., movie length, or a casually readable novel.) That's something that's arguably applicable to Game of Thrones, but not really true for ASOIAF, which my comment was referring to. One thing I love about the books is that they meander a bit. Many things--maybe most things--will come together to serve the core plot in some way by the end, but a lot of it just fleshes out the world, or serves as a distraction or blind alley of some sort. Considering how much of the series is about ambiguity, I'm rather disappointed that GRRM hasn't put more red herring prophesies.

There's the thing though.

He hasn't put in any. There's an entire page on the wiki for them, all the things that either tell the future or that character see in dreams that they couldn't possibly know.

And this is happening in the context of a story about the magic coming back and upsetting the apple cart.

This whole bent about maybe the prophesies were never meant to be prophesies so it doesn't matter that the writers forgot them all and couldn't be bothered to even half-ass fulfilling them after they ran out of books to tell them how to do it is on to a loser. In the books, prophesies and dreams are significant and in very large part come true. Especially when characters try to prevent them.

[Rodin]

Burning the ordinary citizens of King's Landing is completely irrelevant to any political or military objective, and there's nothing presented in the show which allows us the audience to understand why Daenerys would believe that it would.

It's just bad writing, she did it because she read the script and that told her to.

They do kinda/sorta address it. When begged not to invade in the first place, Dany basically says that removing a tyrant is worth the cost of most of the civilians dying, and the survivors will be better off. She also makes the argument that the common people have been living under Cersei's (and earlier Robert's) rule for years now and not done anything about it, hence they're complicit. She gives a somewhat more unhinged variation when Jon confronts her in the throne room. In a way, it mirrors Aerys's madness that the people of King's Landing will be happier burning to death than living under Robert's rule.

I'm not going to try and defend how it was portrayed (because it was flippin' stupid), but I can get behind the idea of what they were going for. Daenerys has gone right 'round the twist and is convinced that being ruled by her is the only true path, and anyone that doesn't immediately bend the knee deserves death by dragonfire. Even if they're helpless civilians who had no agency in the matter. What's more, she believes she's doing them a favor.

And yeah, none of the arguments make sense. Because she's delusional.

Looking back on it, I think the show-runners decided on this path when they killed off Barristan Selmy during season 5. That was the point when she lost the last good advisor - someone that she both trusted and whom had the clout to stand up to her, and knew her father well enough to council against his mistakes. Once he was out of the picture, all bets were off. Daenerys becomes increasingly isolated, increasingly (if justifiably) paranoid, and increasingly obsessed with her plan to break the wheel at all costs.

[Dr.Samurai]

...except they didn't. Dany wasn't delusional. She was paranoid in the sense that she perhaps overestimated the quantity and the strength of those people working against her, and certainly in the sense that until the last 45 minutes of the series, she seriously underestimated what a decent guy Jon Snow was and how committed he was to her. However, people actually were out to get her. Some of her own advisers turned against her. While we, the quasi-omniscient audience, can infer that Tyrion was motivated both by a desire to save the people of King's Landing and a sincere belief that preventing a bloodbath was in the best interest of his Queen, strictly speaking he was going behind her back, helping a prisoner escape and sneak behind enemy lines in order to bring about that surrender--and he explicitly helped Jaime to try to save Cersei, even though it should have been pretty clear that Dany had both political and personal reasons to want Cersei dead. Dany was right about Arya and Sansa being a threat--if anyone was being delusional about that, it was Jon.

Xyril, I've been the most ardent defender of Dany this season against the "mad queen" theory, saying that her attitudes and concerns are within reason for any character given what the circumstances have been and what the other characters are saying and doing.

So yeah, I agree with what you're saying here. I've been saying it for months now.

Dany's choices at the end weren't the smartest (especially in hindsight,) and in my opinion the way she got there, narratively speaking, was a bit rushed, but they weren't the product of delusion. She had a good sense of her strategic and tactical position--far better than she usually does, really. In fact, I think that one reason she's so paranoid about legitimacy is that she knows that with the Night King and Cersei neutralized, the only real threat to her would be a plot from within her own ranks. Her choice to burn the city wasn't the product of delusion--it was partly a very ruthless, amoral, and somewhat dispassionate and premeditated action meant to achieve a specific goal of solidifying her position, reinforced by understandable sense of rage and desire for revenge that was still unsatisfied when the bells started ringing.

And as immoral and abhorrent as we find the idea of killing a bunch of innocent people so that we can make a better world for future generations, sometimes it actually works, so I find it hard to file that under the "delusion" category either.

It's not her actions that make her delusional, it's what she believes and how she feels about her actions.

Meaning... she says she liberated Yunkai and Meereen (where she overthrew the evil slaver masters and freed the slave population) and then she says she "liberated" King's Landing (where she massacred the entire population).

And when people were defending her actions as the only way to solidify her position, I predicted that it would get her killed. And it did. Again, delusional.

It's very clear from her conversation with Jon that Dany has gone crazy in the final episode. She shows no concern or remorse for murdering children (wildly out of character). She thinks massacring the entire population of King's Landing is "liberating" it (totally nonsensical). And she is still trying to woo Jon even after saying she will "liberate" Winterfell.

She is insane. If you want to quibble about whether it's delusion or not, that's fine.

Regarding Cersei... well you didn't go into this. I faulted the episode for the portrayal of Cersei. Whereas she is usually crafty and like an animal backed into a corner, here she was... pathetic, simply put. Totally oblivious about what's going on and reduced to saying totally stupid things to set up the next scene (the Lannister men will fight to the death).

Pendell suggests she is suffering delusion from the impending totality of her defeat. That probably makes sense. But it means that both queens suffered mental breakdowns at the end and were killed. Pretty disappointing end for me.

[johnbragg]

Except burning the city does absolutely nothing to solidify her position against a threat from within her own court.

The amoral ruthless way of doing that would be to have her fanatic legion of troops execute Jon Snow, Tyrion, Gendry, and any remaining Starks.

The excuses people are making to try and make it not woeful writing are less compelling than the wacky “Bran made her do it because he’s Professor X now” theory.

(A common feature of terrible writing especially at endings is a horde of fixfic theories and justifications. See also: Mass Effect Indoctrination Theory).

Burning King's Landing is a message to the lords of Westeros, and most particularly to Sansa Stark, Warden of the North and the prime mover of the conspiracy to put Jon Snow on the throne. To the barons of the Vale, of the north, of the Riverlands, who might be inclined to rally to the banner of a Westerosi Targaryen with a better legal claim.

The burning of Kings LAnding says that the alleged fact (claimed by two sources personally connected to Jon Snow) that Jon Snow is the "true Targaryen heir" means nothing. The true Queen has a freaking dragon, and she's not afraid to use it. Your prophecies and three-eyed-raven visions legal rulings about the relative claims of the posthumous son of the heir apparent compared to the surviving sister of the heir apparent mean nothing to the Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains.

Of course, this logic means the execution of Tyrion Lannister.

There's still a hole in the logic--the reason to not just wipe out Sansa Stark and Winterfell is that they can be subdued and ruled, and added to the Dragon Queen's forces. But that applies so much more to the Lannister army rank-and-file who would likely be willing to swap out their lion livery for dragon livery and stay alive and employed, with a much lower risk of conspring against her.

Although I just remembered one of the showrunners' video quotes that what sparks Dany to burn Kings Landing is seeing the Red Keep and something something it was taken from her.

[Narkis]

Burning King's Landing is a message to the lords of Westeros, and most particularly to Sansa Stark, Warden of the North and the prime mover of the conspiracy to put Jon Snow on the throne. To the barons of the Vale, of the north, of the Riverlands, who might be inclined to rally to the banner of a Westerosi Targaryen with a better legal claim.

The burning of Kings LAnding says that the alleged fact (claimed by two sources personally connected to Jon Snow) that Jon Snow is the "true Targaryen heir" means nothing. The true Queen has a freaking dragon, and she's not afraid to use it. Your prophecies and three-eyed-raven visions legal rulings about the relative claims of the posthumous son of the heir apparent compared to the surviving sister of the heir apparent mean nothing to the Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains.

Of course, this logic means the execution of Tyrion Lannister.

There's still a hole in the logic--the reason to not just wipe out Sansa Stark and Winterfell is that they can be subdued and ruled, and added to the Dragon Queen's forces. But that applies so much more to the Lannister army rank-and-file who would likely be willing to swap out their lion livery for dragon livery and stay alive and employed, with a much lower risk of conspring against her.

Although I just remembered one of the showrunners' video quotes that what sparks Dany to burn Kings Landing is seeing the Red Keep and something something it was taken from her.

I don't think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did. And then she sees the Red Keep, which is to her the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It's in that moment, on the walls of King's Landing, where she's looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to - to make this personal.

I've been looking for a video from this behind the scenes segment that I can easily link to, but I haven't been able to find anything.