Game of Thrones begins....

[grumbler]

Oh that happened but there is a context and she leaves lots of them alive, which then leads to a rebellion against her rule. She talks tough and takes hostages to stop the rebels but then cannot bring herself to actually hurt them.

But she leaves the slavers and nobles alive in the other cities and they march on Meereen forcing her to compromise.

Basically her soft heartedness makes everything a clusterfuck. I have seen no evidence she is especially cruel, quite the contrary she is trying to be different and do the right thing in a very unjust world. Now maybe all this shit eventually teaches her to be a monster but that has not happened yet.

This is in addition to her always trying to protect people the world normally preys upon going back to Game of Thrones (the book)

So, again, the whole idea she is especially cruel is laughable....at least in the books. I haven't watched much of the show, at least past season 2. 

Exactly.  She only crucifies the ones that have tortured their slaves, and fails to take into account that the others are just as opposed to her as the ones who tortured others.

She is motivated by the best of ideals, which makes the heel turn so unbelievable.

The whole "we will wage war until everyone is freed" bit at the end of the show is in character, and having an ending where Jon has to kill her because she is too good even for him in that sense would have been an outstanding way to off her and end the show.

[The Minsky Moment]

The question is whether they wrote it the crappy easy way because they were lazy as writers or out of contempt for an audience they thought incapable of grasping the slightest of subtleties.

[Berkut]

The question is whether they wrote it the crappy easy way because they were lazy as writers or out of contempt for an audience they thought incapable of grasping the slightest of subtleties.

Yes

[Eddie Teach]

They were being lazy in either case.

[crazy canuck]

The question is whether they wrote it the crappy easy way because they were lazy as writers or out of contempt for an audience they thought incapable of grasping the slightest of subtleties.

Yes

[saskganesh]

The question is whether they wrote it the crappy easy way because they were lazy as writers or out of contempt for an audience they thought incapable of grasping the slightest of subtleties.

yea. They were in a hurry to get to a Star Wars contract, which is a shit show of a franchise anyway.

[Sheilbh]

Dani was always cruel to her perceived ennemies.  What's problematic is that it was too subtle during the last 2 seasons.  But I wouldn't say burning people alive is "nice".

Not really. If anything she politically screws up by trying to be too nice...at least in the books. I mean I guess compared to 21st century hippies she is cruel, in the world of ASoIaF she isn't by any reasonable comparison to her contemporaries. Again, though, that is in the books.

Yeah on the TV, having binged it while stuck at home it's not a huge shift. I agree burning a town after it's surrendered is a bit far, but I'd say maybe every 2-3 episodes there's something where you're a bit like :eeesh: but she normally gets talked out of it by someone (and on a dragon its herself alone, or only with her dragon/power). It's not cruelty, it's normally vengeance (in the series).

[Razgovory]

I think the problem of the that many people have with the ending of the show is that there were three main plots:  The Rise of Daenerys Targaryen in the east, the civil war in Westeros and the White Walker threat to the north.  The first and second plot lines merge together fairly well, but the third one doesn't fit well with the rest.  The first and second storylines were easily the most interesting, and I think they were the main reason why the show had wide appeal.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe in the early seasons - I was bored at Daenerys's challenges of governing post-slavery society, while the white walker plot picked up and got more engaging (but too late in my view so a lot of ground had to be covered very quickly in the end).

[Admiral Yi]

This thread is so 2010s retro.

[Josquius]

Dany reaching the west was a natural outcome of her plot.
The trouble then was the north and the south represented two totally different paths which didn't really have much to do with each other.
The north leapt way too quickly from a free folk and nights watch problem to an all the realms problem.
More logical would have been a reversed order I think. Both for danys plot, her character, and overall pacing and logic.
The white walkers were the big threat. The serious danger.
Cersei should have been on the ropes by then. Her power was spent. The battle for kings landing was way too much of a video game style final battle where miraculously your enemy fields it's strongest force whilst more realistically if should have been the battle of Berlin. Which Incidentally would have made for a more sensible heel turn for dani.
Stuff in the south sorted the people then realise they missed their chance to bite the walker threat in the bud and have to move north.

[Razgovory]

Martin really liked the "Scouring of the Shire", in Return of the King and wanted to do something similar.  The problem is that it the "Scouring of the Shire" sucked.  It's antclimatic for the evil wizard to run off, form a street gang and tyrannize people who are only the size of kindergartners.

[Oexmelin]

I've always liked The Scouring of the Shire. It is intended to be anticlimactic, if the climax is only the destruction of the ring. There are two narratives intertwined in Lord of the Rings: the epic narrative, that concern greater-than-life heroes; the Edwardian tale, that is about the value of banal, ordinary happiness. Its constant presence in the story magnifies the epic, which you admire even more because it's out of your own ordinary. The Scouring of the Shire is the closing of *that* tale, about the sort of mediocre evil - but no less evil - we are liable to confront. I like it even more because it addresses what so many Hollywood movies brush aside: the aftermath. While it is a three quarter concession to the happy end (everything is *almost* right), the price paid by Frodo, and by the world generally, cannot easily be addressed by a big party at the end.

The problem with Game of Thrones, is that it was intended almost as the reverse: a secular, nasty world embroiled in socio-political intrigue that was progressively "re-enchanted". If Martin wanted a "Scouring of the Shire" type of ending, it needed to be bleak (it's why I thought Daenerys should have won, and her dragons died). Hope for an enchanted world may indeed have continued with a couple of exiled characters.

[The Brain]

Well we have Arya Columbus. That's pretty fucking bleak.

[Iormlund]

I've always liked The Scouring of the Shire.

I did as well, mainly because it showed the growth (hehe) the characters had experienced during their travels.

If anything, the last season of GoT is an example of how to destroy the characters you've been building.