A great comment I read elsewhere is, it's like looking at a test where someone was given all the answers but didn't know how to show their working.

A lot of people seem to want credit for "predicting" the twist that she burns the city because the show spent 1.5 episodes telegraphing it with little war councils where people try to talk her out of attacking the city and an absolutely baffling scene where Tyrion gets her to agree to not attack if the bells ring(??? this scene made no sense as written, why would Tyrion think that she WAS going to attack after the city surrendered?).

So yes, they foreshadowed it. Then at the moment of truth, they REALLY laid it on thick with the ADR "ring the bell!" from offscreen town criers post-surrender and shots of Tyrion staring at the bell tower with a weird expression on his face while Dany just waited perched on a tower, the scene was acting like there was still dramatic tension even after the Lannisters had surrendered.


But like, that doesn't make it good storytelling. People are criticizing both the decision to make her turn heel and the execution of that heel turn, and those people are both right.

Killing the second dragon so easily with a 3/3 hit rate was also a massive mistake, it should've been one lucky shot or something during a big battle, but now there's really no reason for the rest of the kingdom to bow down to Dany, they just need to build their own scorpions.

Euron and his idiot pirates managed to kill one from thousands of feet away off a ****ing boat and she only has one left.

So many people itt don’t understand the difference between foreshadowing and story structure.

Here's a post from reddit I recommend reading which I think makes this point the most eloquently I've seen it made. Titled The issue isn't the lack of foreshadowing. The issue is the foreshadowing.

Good addendum from the comments as well:

Apparently in the behind the scenes, one of the showrunners said that when Dany barely reacts to Viserys's death, that's a sign that she's eventually going to go mad.

Not reacting when someone kills your brother who is completely insane, threatening to turn the khalasar against you, sells you into marital slavery, tells you he'd let the whole khalasar and their horses **** you if it meant he got his crown, and is constantly violent and abusive to you: a sign of madness.

Grinding up your enemies, cooking them into pies and serving the pies to members of their family: totally awesome and cool, yay go Arya, what a badass.

Vary's death should have had something to do with the little girl he sent to poison Dany. Seasons 1-5 would have went something like her getting caught and Varys tries to save her by confessing then Dany torches them both.

Did we know if Jon told Dany about his convo with Varys?

I think that Dany's best move is to kill Jon plus everyone she thinks knows the truth about Jon's claim to the throne. She doesn't know Sam knows and he brings her down. (I hate Sam so this makes sense)

She knows Sam knows. In E4 she begged Jon to make Sam and Bran swear to secrecy (before he told his sisters). But maybe D&D will forget that she knows this.

Yes all of this (original link as well) is correct. Plus what Fly is saying.

Only minor quibble (from reddit thread) is while the intent may have been sexist, given the other gaffes I'm leaning towards never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.

Which podcast?

I forget because I've listened to so many in the past two days but they cited the actor who plays Barristan Selmy saying the new books could be out really soon.

I already made this prediction a while ago and again at the beginning of this season. We knew Tyrion was a Targareon in season/book 1.

GRRM said it wasn't true

Some people are just a little bit surprised.

The problem with Dany going nuts is that she was depicted very sympathetically throughout the show, so it is jarring to the audience to see her go mad, even though it makes perfect sense.

Like I don't think D&D are sexists but this story they did where invading King's Landing AT ALL is beyond the pale... Like I definitely couldn't swear in a court of law that Dany's gender has nothing to do with that, put it that way. And not just her gender but the fact that (unlike Arya and Brienne) shes a feminine character. The difference between "ruthless" and "crazy" seems to be a lot more finely balanced for her than it was for, say, Stannis.

Because they didn't lead us there properly, but they hammered us over the head with the fact it was going to happen in a hamfisted way.

It is quite obvious to everyone the showrunners don't understand the source material and don't even remember their own show.

I feel like the bar is getting set a little too high on the Bells stans here. I don't think anyone denies that the wheels came off the show a long time ago, and that's it's not technically good TV any more. (Similar to how the books are not actually good books after Storm, give or take.) My own view is that the last two episodes, taken on their own, are actually pretty good, and much better than anything that has been on the show recently. Of course that can't retroactively change the fact that she spent the last season gallivanting around north of the wall fighting zombies rather than campaigning in the Stormlands or something. But relative to the current actual facts of her world, the way Dany acts makes sense, and to the extent that she shocks and baffles the viewer because she's a been cast as a Good Guy and is acting like a Bad Guy, that's a plus (or at least interesting) as a commentary on genre expectations. In particular, Dany doing Bad Guy stuff to win the game of thrones is a fair bookend to Ned doing Good Guy stuff and losing the game of thrones in S1. People who believe Dany should have just accepted the surrender of KL need to at least ask themselves what she's supposed to do next. There's a lot in the text saying that she thinks there is no path forward for her from that point and that she will get overthrown, and there's good reason to believe that is a correct, or at least rational, assessment.

I don't watch the behind the scenes things, but I will admit to being a bit mystified about the bits I have seen. To be clear, I don't think it would be a good storyline if Dany saw the Red Keep, got really mad, and then burned everything down because Targaryen. I just don't think that's the actual story that was presented. I dunno if it's the bones of GRRM's story poking through the haze of the show or if there's a renegade faction of writers who are surreptitiously putting good scenes in under their noses, but it's very confusing.

Were we ever told of a specific event that happened at the Red Keep that may have "triggered" Dany? Was the Mad King killed there? Did Dany grow up there before he was killed?

It was pretty obvious that she went to the dark side after Jon grossed out on the kiss. It looked like they even changed her make-up to make it obvious.

Believe the Mad King was killed in the throne room which is in the Red Keep. Dany was born in Dragonstone and I don't believe she was ever in Kings Landing

nobody cares that she went to the darkside. People are fine with this. Its the writing and what happened after the bells which makes 0 **** sense. No idea why people keep saying "it was obvious she was going mad, look at quote X in previous season". I mean no **** **** it was obvious. Everyone knew it was happening. Tormund line to jon made it super obvious so nobody is surprised

This season has been "good TV" in a lot of superficial ways. Well, not really superficial ... It's grand spectacle and exciting action and boy are there "surprises."

What's not happening are logical progressions or actions from well-known characters who are supposed to be smart and character arcs that are YEARS in the making just make no sense.

"It represents everything that was taken from her" blah bla