Did ‘Game of Thrones’ Sh*t the Bed With Their “Mad Queen Dany” Twist?

Perhaps the biggest controversy to come out of the final season of Game of Thrones has to do with a character arc. After eight seasons of being told that Targaryens often go mad, and that their house words are “Fire and Blood,” fans were treated to seeing their beloved Khaleesi succumb to precisely this fate in last night’s episode, “The Bells.” Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) went full “Mad Queen” on Game of Thrones, choosing to scourge King’s Landing to ash even after the city surrendered to her. It was upsetting, tragic, and according to many irate fans on social media, unearned.

We’ve always known that Khaleesi has a mean streak, but she’s also been merciful, caring, and kind. She stood for freeing slaves and protecting women from rape. She swore to leave the world better than her evil father left it. So what happened to all of that? How did she just snap? According to the Game of Thrones showrunners, there have been signs of Daenerys’s descent into darkness since Season 1, but if so, why are so many fans mad?

The truth is we’ve been told, subtly, since Game of Thrones Season 1 that Daenerys has the propensity to inflict great horror. She barely blinks when her own brother is murdered in a ghastly way by her husband. She ties the witch Mirri Maz Durr to Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre as a blood sacrifice. She burns the wizards of Qarth and locks Xaro Xhoan Daxos and Doreah in an empty vault to die after they betray her. In Astapor, she arranges a false exchange for the Unsullied and then engages her new army to murder the masters of the city. In Meereen, she frees slaves, but murders masters, and plunges the city’s social structure into chaos. She murders all of the Dothraki khals with fire in one fell stroke. When Tyrion’s initial strategy in Westeros goes awry, she flies south to bring the Lannister army to its knees, and then she kills Samwell’s father and brother in a torturous way.

So, technically, yes, we’ve always known that Daenerys has the capacity for great cruelty. Genetic madness aside, she often indulges in a blunt strategy of bringing fire and blood to her enemies. There are attempts at parlay and diplomacy, but when those don’t work, Daenerys gives them dragon fire.

There are two problems, though. (Well, maybe three.) Depending on how you read those moments, each episode could have been translated as an underdog’s triumph. When Viserys dies, Dany’s tormenter is gone. When Mirri Maz Durr perishes, it feels like comeuppance for what she did to Khal Drogo. Same with the wizards of Qarth, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, and Doreah. When we go to Astapor, so much is made of how cruel the masters are to their slaves, that Daenerys’s actions don’t feel horrific, but triumphant. Indeed, between the soundtrack cues and the way she’s been beautifully framed by fire again and again, these moments potentially land as big heroic deeds. She is acting horrifically, but from her perspective, fairly.

The second problem is connected with this one, which is why you could conflate them. As Game of Thrones has risen in popularity, its characters have become pop culture icons. Daenerys’s own image, name, title, and story has been co-opted in merchandise that hails her as the aspirational Mother of Dragons. This all happens outside of the show, and certainly away from the margins of George RR Martin’s books, but branding contributes hugely to how modern audiences absorb these big fictional properties. The t-shirts, wine goblets, soda cans, cookies, dolls, and jewelry sold by affiliates has made Daenerys into a glamorous feminist figure, and not necessarily a potential villain waiting for the right moment to crack. The show’s popularity has ironically subverted its own storytelling.

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Finally, it’s been noted by others that these two truncated final seasons have felt bombastic, but also rushed. With the exception of maybe Season 8, Episode 2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” characters haven’t had a chance to simmer in their emotions in a long time. Every episode has been about pushing the narrative forward to the plot’s conclusion at the expense of not treating each character’s internal story with the same poetic tenderness we saw in early seasons. So even though Season 8 continually isolated Daenerys and left her feeling desperate, angry, and afraid, her snap last night was, in fact, a snap.

It was a snap we should have all seen coming, but not everyone did. The foreshadowing was there from the start, but the nature of Game of Thrones‘s own structure, as well as its own off-screen hype, undermined this clearcut path to “Mad Queen Dany.” If you’re upset about it, that means the show did a great job making you care for a complicated character, but also a poor job of preparing you for the worst.

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