Now they’re all dead, and King’s Landing, we can safely assume, is no longer strictly habitable
Her propensity for blood was always tempered by the advisers who pleaded with her for mercy, who reminded her of what she might become if she gave in to the desire for fire and blood. (Also, repeat after me: This does not mean that Jon Snow becomes king.) What matters is that Daenerys’s snarly hell-raising is in keeping with the character we’ve known since she ate a horse heart to satisfy her warlord husband. And good God, who would really want that? It’s just as flat and uninspired an idea as the emo boy who’s a secret prince. What matters isn’t whether Daenerys lives up to some 21st-century ideal of a female conqueress who slays the patriarchy in a feel-good one-two dragon-claw punch. What once looked like strength has been a trail of bread crumbs leading to narcissism and madness, instead. If you’re wondering how long this has been building, go back and rewatch Daenerys burn Mirri Maz Dur in season one, watch her burn Pyat Pree in season two, watch her burn Astapor in season three, watch her crucify the Masters in season four, watch her burn the slave owners of Meereen in season five, Vaes Dothrak in season six, the loot train and the Tarlys in season seven.Īnd after this episode, rewatch how easily she burns Varys alive without a trial, without a conversation, without remorse. Crowds of angry viewers are going to revolt against the fact that this single woman isn’t keeping their feminist fantasies alive, that the showrunners would dare do something so complex as have a woman with rather questionable DNA, a devout belief in her divine rights, a propensity for crucifixion, a long storied history of being talked out of vicious acts by her advisers, and a savior complex the size of Wun Wun actually do the logical thing and go HAM. How can they drag a good woman down? the Twitterverse will wail. In the days to come the battle among viewers will revolve around one big idea: Daenerys the Mad Queen giving in to her worst impulses and torching an entire city and its people to the ground.
(See Euron appearing out of the water onto the exact same slot of beach Jaime is on just so the two can duel over a woman only one of them loves.) It dragged down not one but two queens, with my personal GOT lord and savior Cersei dying under the weight of what she thought might protect her, and Daenerys using the weight of what protects her to send other people to their deaths. With that said, “The Bells” stands out as massively uneven, brilliant in moments (Lena Headey takes all the cake), but often abysmally fan service-y. Because Game of Thrones threw some of our ideas about narrative out the highest window of the Red Keep, we hoped it would somehow be able to bypass the laws of storytelling physics, to resolve all the loose ends without it feeling spick and span, to blow up our idea of what television means without taking too much with it, to let our favorites die but Wait, no, not that one!
GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 EPISODE 5 ONLINE SERIES
A series like this one - and its universe - can only expand for so long, can only broaden its scope and dig new tunnels under its characters’ psyches until it inevitably needs to contract, especially if the ending the show is hurtling toward is to declare one new monarch, one ruler over an entire continent. The very nature of narrative doesn’t allow it.
We were never going to be happy with the way this show ended. You can’t say Daenerys didn’t warn us that she was going to break the wheel.
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