After a decade of extreme emotional investment, Game of Thrones’ eighth and final season in 2019 really failed to impress its legion of fans.
While there were a whole host of criticisms, from it feeling “rushed” to having no consistency on previous seasons, arguably the most deafening outcry was aimed at Daenerys Targaryen’s King’s Landing death ride – in which she burned thousands of innocents despite her victory having already been sealed with the rings of the surrender bells.
She got what she wanted, she defeated Cersei Lannister, why did she proceed to murder a whole city?
It didn’t make sense, many argued, with a petition to rewrite the final season notching half a million signatures at the time. Even GoT author George RR Martin admitted writers Dan Weiss and David Benioff went in a different direction than what he would have wanted.
Danny was the heroin of this story. The ethereally beautiful, silver-haired dark horse who rose from the ashes – dragons in tow – to follow her destiny and rule a better Westeros.
She showed empathy throughout her campaign. Moral judgment. She promised to “break the wheel” to her army of oppressed followers of her.
While those things are true, if you were stunned by Dany’s fall from grace in season 8 you simply weren’t paying close enough attention.
UK actress Emilia Clarke told Entertainment Weekly in 2020 she was “flabbergasted” by her beloved character’s fate, but there were a long list of moments that foreshadowed Dany’s destruction.
In the first season, Daenerys watches her brother Viserys die in brutal fashion – appearing stone cold emotionless as he begged for mercy at the hands of the Dothraki.
While, granted, Viserys was an awful person, Dany’s lack of empathy in this moment hinted at her darker side.
And then in season 2, the very early days of Dany’s campaign to the kingdom, she made it clear she was a force to be reckoned with, capable of doing the very thing she did in season 8.
Speaking to The Spice King in Qarth, in a desperate bid to convince him to let her take his fleet, Dany proclaimed: “I am Daenerys Stormborn of the blood of old Valyria and I will take what is mine. With fire and blood, I will take it.”
In the same episode, she declares: “When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who have wronged me. We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground!”
And then, in season 4, Dany crucifies 163 Great Masters in Meereen for their treatment of slave children – never mind that some were innocent. She says: “I will crucify the masters. I will set their fleets to fire. I will kill every last one of their soldiers and return their cities to the dirt. That’s my plan.”
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Season 6 ended in a blaze of glory when Dany burned all the Dothraki lords within the dosh khaleen in one fell swoop after they had taken her prisoner.
Again, these dudes were bad men. But it showed just how much Dany enjoyed burning her oppressors alive.
One of her most brutal moments was in season 7, when Dany was given the choice of either killing or imprisoning the commendable Lord Tarly and his son Dickon after the Unsullied won a battle against Lannister forces. So, what does she do? She burns the duo in broad daylight. She relished in it.
Lord Varys’ death of the same nature in the eighth season was equally hard to swallow.
Having killed countless people at this point, it’s fair to assume the lines will eventually become blurred.
Which brings us to the rest of that fateful season. Dany repeatedly persists on going with her her first instinct – attacking King’s Landing without mercy. She’s talked out of it by Tyrion and co, but she never really seems on-board with taking the high road.
She then witnesses Cersei direct the Mountain to behead her loyal adviser, Missandei, only days after she watched Jorah Mormont die in the bloody battle against the white walkers. At this point, after repeatedly being told to be a good girl in the face of personal loss, she is well and truly on the brink of a psychotic break.
Her finale rampage was clearly a brain snap, which may have felt “rushed” at the moment, but the evidence that she was capable of having one without using her moral judgment was there all along.
The people of King’s Landing weren’t going to support her rule. She knew this. She was hungry for loyal followers. And in that split second, as she had done countless times before, she burned them all.
And a quick look at her lineage shows why the moment wasn’t supposed to make sense.
Dany’s father, King Aerys II Targaryen, who is referenced multiple times in GoT, was known as the ‘Mad King’. His transformation of him from benevolent leader (hello, Dany?) To murderous psycho (looking at you, Dany) was supposedly brought on by an incestuous bloodline – one of which Dany inherited.
Aerys began displaying traits of insanity, sadistic intentions, schizophrenia, and paranoia regarding his own claim to the Throne, and just straight-up burnt people who he thought was against him.
It’s surely not farfetched that the apple ultimately didn’t fall far from the tree.
While Dany was inarguably the pin-up character of GoTand the frontrunner among fans to make it to the top, I would question whether or not we would’ve been satisfied if the credits rolled with her sitting perched on the Iron Throne.
Or perhaps you were on the side who wanted Jon Snow to rule – what do you propose they were they going to do with Dany? She may have loved him, but she was no First Lady, as Tyrion pointed out to Jon in the finale.
So what was the other option? What was going to be a plot twist but also make sense?
The very outcome we were given.
Dany was never going to “break the wheel”. She was simply too desperate for power to lead peacefully. A bit like that rogue lady who led the Hunger Games rebellion.
And as for Jon, well, he never wanted to rule. The humble hero’s final act was thwarting evil, even at a serious personal cost, and he was sent back to the Night’s Watch where he’d spent a lot of time as one of the leading advocates amid the mostly-blind threat of the white walkers . It was a bitter pill, but it was on-brand.
There is a notion that those who are hungry for power aren’t cut out for fair and balanced leadership. Which is why Bran Stark – albeit a tad underwhelming – was the obvious choice at the end.
As for Cersei’s underwhelming death. I hear the argument that one of TV’s most evil villains should have had a more epic demise.
But I found it quite fitting that someone who caused so much anguish died in a rather pathetic fashion – crumbled by falling rocks in the basement of her empire.
Arya Stark already killed the Night King in The Long Night. Having her de ella carry out another big kill just would n’t have carried the same delirium.
And because Cersei’s brother/lover Jamie Lannister – who had a brilliant character arc with moments of redemption – was with her, it did have to have an element of poignancy.
Perhaps Dany’s downfall will make more sense with the upcoming prequel, House of the Dragonwhich focuses solely on just how mad the Targaryen family was around 200 years before the events of GoT.
House of the Dragon premieres express from the US on Foxtel and Binge August 22
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