re: The Burning of King’s Landing

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think it could have been a brilliant Scouring of the Shire moment if they built it up more than an episode and a half in advance

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That was my whole issue with it. I don't mind her going insane and killing everyone. But don't just randomly push that without any buildup whatsoever. An episode or two before that it was still "my people" and "I am the true heir" and all that shite. Even though I didn't give a single frick about Dany at that point, the problem is that they destroyed the entire character, that had been built upon for 7.5 seasons, in a matter of one or two episodes. They could have easily built up her going mad before then, they just wrote themselves into a corner and had to cram so much shite into the last season (which was like a half season) that they rushed it all.

If you sit back and think about things in S8 objectively, the idea of a lot of it is not all bad. Just the execution was very poor. Hell, even though I hated it, you could have even made a case for Bran to be king had you not waiting until the last five minutes of the series to throw that idea out there. You could've built that up a lot better, and even though I would've probably still hated it, it could have at least made SOME kind of sense.

I remember watching week to week and every week it was like okay that episode had a lot of filler, and they have a lot to wrap up in not a lot of time. And then boom, they just threw everything in the last couple episodes with no real buildup to anything.

I don’t follow Martin or care all that much, but I do follow those who keep tabs on such things & the consensus is that there won’t be any books to follow any time soon. It sounds to me that he has simply lost his desire, having become too enamored with the limelight. He seems to have been distracted and lost his mojo while chasing the fame and basking in the glow that he was getting while the series was relevant and popular. All that has left now, and he seems to be drifting in a dead zone , out in the middle of the ocean.

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Everyone I know of (including myself) would tell someone either to never watch the show no matter how good the first 4 seasons are or to stop watching at the end of Season 6 and just imagine what happens afterwards, because whatever it is it is better than Seasons 7 and 8.

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For someone who allegedly enjoys film and television, film and television appear to make you miserable quite often.

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I disagree. I agree that she was capable of it, and ruthless in that regard. But when it came to her people, she was always, ALWAYS going on and on about protecting them and blah blah blah. She treated her people differently than her enemies. That was one of the biggest bases for her character.

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But who were her people? The people of Essos that worshiped her or the folks of Westeros she had never met that were contented in accepting the reign of the people that murdered her family?

She had no connection to the "small folk" of Westeros other than what was in her head. Her path was set once she figured out how to use her pussy to have her brother viciously murdered.

So, it goes back to the execution of what made her do it. She was always going to do it.

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But who were her people? The people of Essos that worshiped her or the folks of Westeros she had never met that were contented in accepting the reign of the people that murdered her family?

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Yes.

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She had no connection to the "small folk" of Westeros other than what was in her head.

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Of course not. But that was the whole thing though...what she had in her head was not reality. She had delusions of grandeur that she was the savior of Westeros and the true heir to the thrown. Nevermind that her family was insane, and her father slaughtered half the city (or wanted to). In her mind, she was a good leader and she assumed that the people would love her similar to how thd people of Essos that she freed loved her (at least for a while).

She showed us several times throughout the seasons that she could be ruthless. THAT is the setup that she's capable of mass murder. But she was always portrayed to have a soft spot for "her people." She rarely (ever? I don't remember) murdered innocent people. Outside of the Tarlys maybe, but they they were the enemy and would not bend the knee so she even had reason to do that in her mind.

So the whole point of her journey for 7 seasons was to get to Westeros and rule the people there. And then once she finally does, she murders the entire city and would have nobody to rule. It just made zero sense within her character. Even though she showed ruthlessness, it was never anything remotely like that. Like I said, they destroyed everything they had built with her in a matter of episodes.

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Dany’s love for the commoners is completely conditional. She will only love them if they love her in return. She has a moral and arrogant superiority to all those around her and is really quite cruel to anyone who disagrees with her or stands in her way of her end goals. If she doesn’t see you as useful either to her own ends or ego, then she’s a vindictive piece of shite.

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I agree with that.

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She rarely (ever? I don't remember) murdered innocent people.

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She did massacre the Masters at random when she returned to Mereen and crucified them. Really it was probably like 20-30 people in charge, but she massacred like a thousand of them.

Those Maesters were her enemies though, that's the difference you seem to be ignoring.

The people in KL were not her enemies, or certainly not yet. She just killed all of them in cold blood, which she wasn't prone to do. Enemies, sure. Those who went against her, sure. But that's not what happened in KL, and that's the problem IMO. Like someone said on the first page, tehre were very simple fixes to it...making them surrender and then burning them was not the way to do it. Not even close.

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I agree that she was capable of it, and ruthless in that regard. But when it came to her people, she was always, ALWAYS going on and on about protecting them and blah blah blah. She treated her people differently than her enemies. That was one of the biggest bases for her character.

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Exactly. In the show she was a ruthless tyrant toward those she considered her enemies. She never once considered the people her enemies and recoiled in horror every time she saw dead civilians. She was no more or less ruthless than some of the other characters on the show we considered "good" and "decent."

He won't finish. I just re-read the books. To keep the same quality, it would take three of four more books to finish it out right.

He can't even write one.

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The people of Westros and King's Landing did not love her as some savior, so they burned for it.

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But they never even got a chance to though. That's the difference and that's the issue.

Nobody is saying she wasn't capable of ruthless shite. Nobody is also saying they couldn't see that turn coming. What I am saying is that it made exactly zero sense within the character they had spent 7.5 seasons molding. Hell, to use my previous example, even the Tarlys were given a chance to bend the knee before they were ruthlessly burned. The people in King's Landing were just killed, for no believable reason.