I'm talking about the fan outrage rn. She can rule thru fear now

Oh god, this episode was the worst yet. Like I'm still in shock at how stupid it is.

Daenerys' switch was not built up correctly at all and her actions make absolutely no sense.

Good God, I can't wait for it to be over next week. How the show has fallen.

People are PISSED off lmao. I don't think I've ever seen a reaction like this when it comes to this show. It kind of makes it impossible to look at all the previous seasons in the same way, when you're rooting for Daenerys so much and now you know what she's going to end up doing... I think this could affect the way the show is remembered. She's such a central part of it and someone that had so much goodwill and now she turns out to be basically a mass murderer.

I think dramatically this makes sense and sets up the series as a tragedy. She was supposed to break the cycle but she ends up being another tyrant. It's happened many times in history, she's almost an allegory for communism especially with her constantly going on about freeing the oppressed and crushing the wheel.

But I also understand why people are pissed, the change happened a bit too suddenly even if they've been dropping hints that she's not all there mentally throughout the seasons.

EDIT: actually the more I think about it the more I'm convinced Daenerys's whole character is really an allegory for Maoism, which also believes one must destroy the previous society in order to create a new one, through whatever means necessary. I'm much more satisfied with the episode if I look at it through this lens lol.

It is a huge bummer to see a character I’ve rooted for turn evil like that. They had already won. I feel like I did after the episode where Stannis killed his daughter. Shocked and appalled, but not in a way that makes the story more interesting ala the Red Wedding or Ned’s Head.

The episode was a spectacular production though and delivered some great moments that people would be talking about if it wasn’t for the thousands of civilians roasted by one of our heroes.

I thought the episode was interesting. Sure some things were disappointing (Cersei basically not doing anything this season is frustrating) but I don't see how the show is ruined now for so many people.

Responding to a sneak attack on your navy with the annihilation of an entire city is a very American thing to do.

Some of the biggest arguments from fans is that the episode dehumanized Daenerys and humanized Cersei. I've always had this tinge of doubt that Daenerys would be a heroic character in the end. And if you stack up everything that has gone wrong for her, all she has left is to rule and she took everything that Cersei stood for down, innocents be damned.

And the show didn't humanize Cersei. If anything, they re-dehumanized Jaime. But his love was always for Cersei. It's just that they evolved him for the past eight seasons. In the end, when the world was literally burning, his true loyalty stayed with her. I'm actually glad he didn't end up killing her but went down with her instead.

I do feel like I'm defending something that shouldn't be defended, because I read many, many comments after the episode that tore it apart. I also think it's silly to blame D&D entirely and praying for George RR Martin to right the wrongs with the books. Umm... if the man could have wrote a better ending, he would have by now. People assume he has had zero input with these stories.

Girls calm down, Danny's madness has been established during its entirety run.
But can we really expect people like zwackerm to get all the little hints? Of course this comes as a shock or out of the blue for people not paying attention.
Dany has been doing this forerever, it's just that she had been doing this to people we were supposed to hate.

But that would require people like him to have a brain. Lmao

I definitely could have seen her slaughtering innocents to take the throne, but slaughtering innocents after they’d won was completely illogical.

Outstanding episode, on every possible level.

And I'm really happy what they have done with Dany. It takes balls to do this. Yes, it's going to alienate a lot of people, but this show has always been about making bold, unpredictable choices.

The fact is, since Season 2 at least her primary motivation has been a desire for power. She has been willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to reach that goal. And now he has already lost all of her closest friends, he distrusts the loyalty of Jon and Tyrion, and she knows the people of Westeros have no love for her. So she tries to gain their fear instead. And she wanted to get her revenge on Cercei.

She's always been ruthless, and driven by her endless desire for power. Frankly, I saw all of this coming a long time ago. I thought that she was eventually going to turn to the dark side.

A lot of people didn't want that to happen, because she also has had a lot of heroic moments and redeeming qualities. And she's played by a very charming and beautiful actress.

But her story is a tragedy. And for many seasons already, it's been often hinted that way.

And the show has always been about the Starks being the moral compass of the series, thus the heroes. We just saw Cersei as the villain in contrast, but where did Daenerys fit into all of that? She wasn't just going to swoop in and things were going to go smoothly.

Essentially...

GOT fans: What a terrible way to end the Night King story. Didn't make sense, unexpected, didn't line up with my personal expectations and predictions.

Also GOT fans: What a terrible way to go with Dany. Of course they went the mad queen path with her, totally expected, didn't surprise me, awful way to go with the character.

The GOT hate meme has become the meme itself.

I have no issue with Dany turning heal. This was I guess expected for some time now and I'm sure GRRM will end his story the same way. I'm sure Jon will kill her to fulfil the bitter sweet ending.

But you can't deny how poorly this episode has been written and executed. Yes there are great scenes scattered throughout but the writers seem like they just want finish up and go home. Good storytelling be damned.

Though I loved the scenes Dany wipes out KL defences and the Golden Company who turned out to be absolutely useless.

This has been foreshadowed and theorized since Season 1.

This episode was rather overwhelming.

Just to step back from the storytelling for a second, the killing of innocent "extras" and non-characters was done flawlessly here. I felt the pain of it. The Walking Dead does this a lot, and I'm supposed to be affected by actors with no lines getting eaten by walkers, but I never am cause it's never done right. But I was devastated by the chaos here. I felt the pain.

Queen of the ashes had been foreshadowed yes, but always as a choice that Dany would have to make. What’s more important; her own ambitions for power or the good of the people she’s sworn to protect from “tyrants.” But her turn was “that was too easy and I’m still upset about my homie Missandae so guess what, everyone gets to die! You get a face full of dragon fire, you get a dothraki rapist, etc...” Totally agree with X that the biggest problem is that they forced themselves into this rushed ending. Dany going mad like this should have had an entire seasons worth of development, but just two episodes ago she had chosen to fight The Night King, potentially sacrificing her destiny for the greater good. And now it just looks like she’s thrown the most violent hissy fit of all time.

And they finally had a good battle plan too! Just let Drogon do everything, Kawhi Leonard style.

This one bothers me a lot. I'm not saying D&D are great writers, or even good ones, but they've done a good job adapting GRRM's work, and I haven't read anything yet that suggests GRRM has had zero input in the last two seasons. D&D don't have a finished product to adapt, but my understanding has been he has told them where the story goes. Whether that's true or whether they've went that path 100%, I don't know for sure.

Despite what he says, GRRM will 100% edit the parts that went over poorly on the show. Dany will still go bad, but it will now be in a way that makes the viewer still sympathize with her. Same with Shireen, who I'd guess will now be burned by Melly without the consent of Stannis.

Oh yeah they definitely accomplished what they were going for. They only have one episode left to sell us on why it needed to happen thematically though. Seems like a tall task along with everything else.

Yasss! Queen burn it all

They killed all the people you actually cared for (Jorah,Missandei) and 2 of your dragons. BURN THEM ALL!

Tyrion & Jamie goodbye actually made me cry. Damn! can Dinklage act.

The hate is real holy shit lmfao

We cared even more seeing it through Arya’s eyes. Made the impact hit harder.

Maybe these "innocents" were brainwashed or fell for propaganda but instead of running out to plead mercy from the north and the foreign armies they ran into the fake protection of the city sealing their loyalty to there own crazed queen who not to long ago they spat and threw lettuce at. It all had to go from Dany's eyes in order to start over.

Thoughts:

Dany going Mad Queen isn't an out of nowhere outcome; it just need some more character development. It's difficult to accept going from defending the North and holding off on taking the Throne, to then demolishing all of King's Landing in just two episodes (which was only 2/3 weeks in the show). Again, it's not a "bad" result (Dany's character is conflicted, even if she's leaned more toward sympathy), it was just very rushed and should have been properly established over the years.

I think Jon's character has been the worst of the season. He has truly done nothing. He'll probably get his moment in the finale, but he's become uninteresting, and him taking the Throne is uninteresting, even if he decides to do away with it.

Jamie/Cersei ending up together was my preferred outcome for their characters. Yes, Jamie had come a long way, and having him go back to his character from seven seasons ago seems to have butchered his arc, but... that's just Jamie. And Cersei. The two characters being together and dying together was the appropriate outcome, I believe. Their death scene was just a little lame.

Arya started off as one of the best characters, and that has remained true to the end (unless something extreme happens in the finale).

And to be fair to D&D, trying to conclude a series of this size was going to be difficult with no material to follow. They could have fleshed out the narrative more, yes (definitely), but that's the problem with going from an "adapted" series to a more "original" series. I don't know how much involvement GRRM has had the past two seasons, I imagine he at least provided them with a guideline of some kind to follow, but maybe he should have been more directly involved in the writing to help them get to their outcomes. And all the fans going, "I can't wait for GRRM to finish the books!", are hopefully disappointed even more when/if he finishes them. I doubt any of the character arcs actually change much from the shows.

Now, as for the finale...

It seems very likely that Dany will attempt to execute Tyrion, but Jon will intervene and stop it. At least Jon should. I don't think we'll get a one-on-one scene between Dany and Jon for him to do it (at least, it wouldn't make much sense...), so other than a ridiculous twist of having Drogon betray Dany for Jon, I don't really know how he'll get to her. I feel like they'll have to kill Drogon first. Even if Jon (or someone else) could manage to kill Dany, I doubt Drogon would just fly away... So, he has to be dealt with first.

And I love Arya, but I really hope they don't decide on having her kill Dany instead. Killing the Night King was fine, the perfect choice in my opinion, but it'd just feel super cheap for her to either disguise herself as Grey Worm (or a random soldier) to reach Dany or to sneak up on her instead to do it...