Oh my GoT.
What is going on with season 8?
I think we all felt excited after the season premiere, but ever since that episode, the threads woven over the course of the show have slowly been unraveling. Speaking of, episode five of the final season brought us the complete unraveling of beloved Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains.
While some fans claim to have seen this coming, others have argued that this plot twist didn't have enough buildup to make it feel justified. This season has felt rushed in so many ways. And even if you thought that Daenerys' burning of the Tarly family was a sign of madness, she at least gave them a choice.
Having her just completely burn the city with no regards to the innocents felt forced.
It's not the Daenerys that was built up over the last seven seasons. In season 4, when Daenerys was traveling to the city of Mereen, she orders her men to bury the slaves that mark each mile to Mereen. This is the same person who leaves charred child corpses in the streets of Kings' Landing?
Daenerys encounters a child's corpse.HBO
While we can understand some of the points in this season and in this episode that would have led up to this moment, it still just feels like a last minute decision, not one carefully crafted over the last decade.
But I think the biggest disrespect of all came from the post-episode interview with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. In episode five's 'Inside the Episode' featurette, Benioff states, "Even when you look back to season one, when Khal Drogo gives the golden crown to Viserys and her reaction to watching her brother's head melted off, he was a terrible brother -- so I don't think anyone out there was crying when Viserys died -- but there is something chilling about the way Dany has responded to the death of her enemies".
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
This is where I draw the line. Is there an unedited version of this interview? Does he explain more instances where they supposedly were building Khaleesi up to be a villain? Because if they're going to sit there and say to the faces of the millions of people watching that we should have seen Dany's descent into madness coming because she didn't react to the death of her abusive brother, then by that token, ALL of the remaining protagonists of the show should be spinning off into complete and total madness by the end of the series.
Viserys abused Daenerys. He sexually harassed her and in his final scene, he threatens to cut out her unborn child. Viserys looked at her as his property to abuse or hand out to others whenever he pleased. Many viewers were pleased to watch that character go down.
We saw a similar scene play out when Sansa Stark got to unleash Ramsay Bolton's hounds on him at the end of season 6. He was also despicable and abusive towards her. But I don't see Weiss and Benioff driving Sansa into madness before the series ends. In fact, we even got a moment in episode four where she basically says her abusers made her stronger...
And if it's supposed to be more troubling because it's her sibling? Well, Tyrion killed his own father. And while he may not be making the wisest decisions this season, he seems to be shown as a voice of reason against Daenerys' choices.
And beloved Arya. I know she's a trained assassin, but they're not giving her descent into madness storyline, even though we've seen her kill many characters, sometimes even with a look of sheer delight. Sansa watched Arya kill Baelish, just as Daenerys watched Drogo kill Viserys.
I mean, Arya, go off. But it's not okay and it's lazy to try and tell your audience that the signs were there for Daenerys when EVERYONE in the show has had a moment like this.
Benioff and Weiss are just looking for ways to justify their poor writing. If the signs had really been there from day one, fewer people would be shocked. No one was surprised to see Cersei spiral into madness, because even though you could respect and understand her at times, there were always signs.
We watched Daenerys' journey from the beginning. We saw her go through a lot of crap and help a lot of people. The resolution they have created for her character just feels like a half-assed attempt at a shocking twist. But sometimes, shocking doesn't always mean well written and good (I mean, Benioff and Weiss, have you never seen the last episode of Dexter? This feels like that).
