If the last two episodes of Game of Thrones left a bad taste in your mouth and ruined everything that came before, there is a reason for that. All factions are right. It is in Dany’s character to do what she did, and it is not. The key to understanding any creative product is empathy. Who do the creators ultimately empathize with? There are going to be hella spoilers so consider yourself warned.
Do you watch the little behind the scenes interviews after all but the final episode? I do. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are very open about why they like to do certain things and how they feel about certain people. When they talk about Theon or Jamie, there is so much empathy, understanding and rationalizing about unequivocally bad and inexcusable acts. It goes along the lines of, “Well, Theon had to kill those kids because he felt insecure because of his childhood and wants to prove who he is.” “Jamie only threw a kid out of a window for love. I mean Cersei is his wife.” Dani kills her brother who sold her for an army, was fine with her getting raped then threatened her and her unborn baby. “She was so cold how she reacted when her brother was killed. She was always mad!” Wait, where is all that love and understanding for bad acts? When it comes to the bad boys, we don’t call them mad or just stop with the label. We dig into the motivations to find them interesting.
I actually don’t have an innate problem with seeing Dani that way. I think that it is fair to be disturbed that another person doesn’t blink when their brother gets killed, particularly in such a brutal way, and be suspicious of how that person would react if you’re the one that she perceives as a wrongdoer, but it leaves out important elements. In that story, they emphasize with the victim, but not in the other stories? Why? What is different about them?
Last night’s episode had two casual comments that disturbed me. In every work, there are characters that the creator identifies more with than others. In last night’s episode, they showed that they relate to Tyrion and Bran. Tyrion classified Dani’s Slaver’s Bay victory as wrong. If you recall, Tyrion was not particularly disturbed by slavery and was quite willing to play with people’s lives for a less violent result. Ultimately Tyrion would prefer a world in which the people already in power keep that power. He relates to them, not the slaves. The essence of Tyrion’s argument was that if you have someone who keeps killing bad men, that person will become a bad man, so kill the bad woman. Then Bran said the most chilling comment. He was going to look for Drogon. He is a worg, which means that he is going to possess his body, his power, and pull a Get Out on Drogon. Drogon is a smart, sentient being who deserves his own autonomy and shows that he is different from his mom. And for the first time ever, I wanted to rebuke Jamie for not doing a better job killing that kid when he had a chance.
Benioff and Weiss’ Game of Thrones is not a work innately suspicious of power per se, but power held by people who want it or use it to punish certain wrongdoers because they relate to them. The reason that viewers are angry is because they did not adequately represent that perspective in the way that they depicted Dany. Let’s talk about all her memorable bad ass moments: the last episode of Season 1 when she burns the witch and gets her dragons; the last episode of Season 2 when Dani rescues her dragons, kills a wizard and the guy who overthrew the Qarth power structure to become king; the fourth episode of Season 3 when she burns all the masters including the guy who keep calling her a bitch; Season 6 Episode 4 when she burns all the Dothraki leaders; Season 6 Episode 9 when she stops negotiating with the slave masters; and Season 7 when she singlehandedly defeats an army with Drogon. I can honestly say that I loved these moments, and I think that viewers who retroactively say that they didn’t are lying. Benioff and Weiss empathized with Dani and depicted her perspective during those events. She is harmed, underestimated, fights back and wins against people who are objectively awful and whom Benioff and Weiss do not relate to. They’re all other in a way that Dani is not, and the Season 6 Episode 9 is as much a victory for Tyrion as it is for Dani because he gets revenge for being a slave too—the Slaver’s Bay incident; however most of Season 5, viewers and characters did not like Dani, and only Drogon, not Dani, has a moment of triumph.
Season 5 Dani is the closest that we ever get to Benioff and Weiss’ Season 8 Dani because it is the only time that we see things from her victims’ perspectives, and her victims are shown as the underdog. It shows her killing former slaves and masters alike. She was abusing her dragons. Mhysa was always a problem, but they never sustained that energy until they fumbled it in Season 7 (sorry, if you burn Tarleys who just killed an old lady whom they swore fealty to, I’m not shedding tears for them, and Sam, your brother did not shed a tear when he took your inheritance, and you were sent to face probable death at the wall) then picked it back up and rushed it in Season 8.
Also Benioff and Weiss’ Mad Dany is boring in a way that Joffrey and Cersei never were. They rely on special effects, not acting and human interaction to make their point. Other than Varys’ exit and anything involving a Clegane, there were no memorable acting moments. Dani makes a stank face then we’re off. Drogon has a personality, but they just become depicted as an impersonal force of nature, which if you want to sell making her a villain, isn’t a satisfying way to do it. I watch disaster movies, and the majority of Episode 5 was one note in a way that even the flawed, but satisfying The Long Night wasn’t. It was 2012 set in King’s Landing. It was the night that Game of Thrones became boring.
Even Benioff and Weiss’ version of Mad Dany isn’t crazy. She consciously makes choices, gives warnings then follows through. A part of them is more comfortable with calling her crazy when she isn’t although a definition of insanity is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, and in that way, she can be distinguished from Joffrey and Cersei, but then Dani would not get punished in a court of law, just committed to an insane asylum until she was theoretically rehabilitated.
Game of Thrones isn’t satisfying because at the end of the day, Benioff and Weiss are more comfortable with living in the same corrupt world governed by Bronn and Bran than a world where some innocents are butchered along with the bad men. I wish that they’d show the same energy hating both, but they’re fine with kids dying if bad men do it, not mad women. Don’t be so angry. I’m going to pass on Confederate.
