The First 35 Minutes of “The Bells”

Published May 13, 2019 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hey Guys,

I thought it was brilliant for the first 23-35 minutes or so. Daenerys was finally doing what she should’ve done the moment she landed on Westeros. The utter destruction of Lannister armies and the Golden Company at the hands of Drogon (the Dread?) were truly a sight to behold.

However, following her complete victory at King’s (soon to be Queen’s) Landing, she, for no reason at all, decides to destroy the entire city street by street. If fear was her main goal, as stated earlier in the episode, she definitely had that after her complete dismantling of Cersei’s defences. Furthermore, D&D failed to give a reason for why she ultimately snapped, which made her descent into “Madness” all the more unbelievable. I would have much preferred a situation where Cersei filled the Red Keep with civilians and Daenerys had to choose to kill all these civilians to get to her, or use her army and risk losing many of her precious Unsullied, etc. Sort of like the “A Bomb decision.”

Sadly, they completely ruined Jamie’s arc and character development in an unredeemable fashion. They want us to actually believe that he went back to Cersei for love? Completely ridiculous.

Varys’s execution was completely justified in my mind – he openly betrayed her and tried to find people to collaborate in his coup. In S7 Daenerys told him the consequences and he accepted them.

The fact that Euron washed up on shore to fight Jaime is insanely stupid. I mean wtf D&D?

I want to love this episode so much because Daenerys is my favorite character. However, it is impossible to escape the fact that D&D have totally lost their way in terms of writing and storytelling. This isn’t a case of the ending simply not turning out the way I wanted – it’s that it seems like D&D don’t even know these characters they’ve built and created. They continually do things they never would and none of it makes any damn sense.

Where’s the payoff for 8 seasons of viewership (and subscription?!)?

Some things to think about: Has Daenerys actually gone “mad”? Is this not exactly what Aegon the Conqueror did to Harrenhall? Did she “break the wheel” by destroying the Red Keep, Iron Throne, and the capital city her family built 300 years prior? In a sense, has the city been “cleansed” by fire so that they can all create something new? Will Arya inevitably kill Daenerys?

Let me know what you think and keep up the amazing work!

Justin M

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