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Originally Posted by ChrisV
Good addendum from the comments as well:
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.