Daenerys Does Not Enjoy Burning Innocent People

Published May 11, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Guys,
I really appreciate your podcast “On The Thrones” and I look forward to it every week. Your insight and thoughtful responses to emails, etc are a delight to listen to….but, I have a bone to pick with Big D on his idea of Dany’s madness.

First of all, let me say that Dany is one of my faves after Arya and Jon. I have enjoyed her rise from being a virtual slave of her brother to being the powerhouse that she is today.

My problem with Big D’s definition (for lack of a better term) is describing Dany’s madness as her enjoying burning people and that is way too general. She does not enjoy burning INNOCENT people who can’t defend themselves. She enjoys burning monstrous people or people who clearly taken her for a fool, or as being a weak female and just flat out disrespecting her. Her whole arc has been about rescuing people. That doesn’t sound like a mad person to me.

On the other hand, you have Cersei who blew up a sept FULL of innocent people (albeit people who despised her but that is her fault) who did not deserve that kind of death. (Just the High Sparrow and his goons and again, that was her fault for bringing them in.) By your definition of madness, she is the Mad Queen. She laughed at their deaths. Triumphed at them. Tywin, triumphed in killing the Martels and the Starks. Lord Frey, Little Finger, Lord Bolton, and the Freefolks all delighted in killing innocent people. But for some reason, Dany is being labeled “mad”.

Also, you said that she was hearing voices in episode 4 while in the Great Hall. No. That was just the voices of people talking in the Hall. She left because she felt lonely, isolated. Everyone had their little cliques and she was left sitting alone as the foreigner or usurper after she made two good faith efforts to ingratiate herself to the North…oh and also fighting for them at great cost to her. That’s not a mad person. Haven’t you ever been in a crowd as the lone person while others were in their groups? I know that I have.

She is not a flawless character and has done some very questionable things…but she is not MAD (as in crazy) but she is a hot head. Dany is after all “fire” and blood. I know that she is a Targaryen and that they have a history of madness….but not all of them have been.

(Sorry for the length)
And as an aside, I’m really disheartened by how the show has really dumbed down Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen….all in service to make Sansa look super duper intelligent. He was pretty sharp in the earlier seasons. He thought fast on his feet while he was infiltrating the Free Folk. He was smart enough to save Jeor Mormont. He was smart enough to find a way to protect Sam and train his Night’s Watch brothers. He was smart enough to warn the NW brothers about the FF coming to do war with them and lead them to hold back the FF because of the sheer foolishness of Janos and Aliser. He was smart enough to warn the FF that the Night King was coming. And I think that he was pretty smart on his military strategy for the Battle of the Bastards given the small number they had. The problem with that was he let his emotions get to him in his desperation to save Rickon. (And let’s be honest, Jon has some issues about family given that he grew up as a bastard.) And regarding S8E3’s war strategy, I’m not laying that totally at his feet because they had a room full of strategists there (Jaime, Grey Worm, The Veil, Davos, Tyrion, Dany). They are all to blame for that….(mostly the writers but once again, making him look dumb).

What are your thoughts on this?
Hope Hall

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.” –John Wesley

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