Daenerys Targaryen is officially the Mad Queen, but she deserved a better journey to become that AB Follow May 15, 2019 · 8 min read

A lot of things went wrong with Game of Thrones Season 8. They made us wait for the season for two years only to tell us that the Night King was not the real threat and shoved his back story out of the window just like Jaime threw Bran in season 1. Bran is still useless and Jaime has been reduced to a fuckboy. Jon hasn’t done much apart from saying “My Queen”.

Tyrion, Sansa, and Arya are the only characters who seem to be doing good so far. Varys has already paid the price for guessing things correctly.

But all of this is nothing compared to what the makers of the show have done to the two queens: Cersei and Daenerys.

Let’s begin with Cersei.

What do we know about the evil queen? She’s diabolical, calculative, crazy, doesn’t give a damn about anyone but her kids, selfish to the core, can be short-sighted but comes up with cruel plans anyway. And let’s face it, she has always been the most fun to watch. Or at least she was, till the time she sat on Iron Throne.

In the past, she has poisoned her husband Robert Baratheon — who at that time was the king, openly told people she’ll have them strangled in their sleep, falsely accused Tyrion of Joffrey’s murder, got Loras and Margery arrested by High Sparrow and then blew up the Sept of Baelor with wildfire.

And we have simply gotten used to the fact that we love to hate her.

But in Season 8, she was disappointing. She had sex with a horny pirate called Euron Greyjoy and then stared out of the window.

I was seriously expecting some wildfire action at Dragonstone which left most of Daenerys’ people and army dead. Instead, they killed Rhaegal and captured Missandei. Neither was necessary at that point. When King’s Landing was getting sacked, Cersei ultimately relied on the fact that Red Keep has never fallen to save her. On a scale of zero to Cersei, that move was actually negative.

But then, I would still give her credit for one thing: If she couldn’t get the throne, she in a way also made sure that Daenerys wouldn’t get it either, even if she didn’t live to see it.

Let’s look at Daenerys’ journey in Westeros so far to see why she behaved the way she did and how Cersei managed to ensure that if the crown isn’t her’s, Dany wouldn’t get it too.

Ever since Daenerys has come to Westeros, Cersei chose to not attack her because she knew that she didn’t stand a chance on the battlefield.

She only harmed those who supported her. Ellaria, Yara, Olenna, and then finally Missandei. She told the lords of Westeros in Season 7 that Daenerys was just like her father and then twisted all of her Essos achievements to make her look like a tyrant. When Daenerys burnt the Tarlys, she confirmed that what the Lannisters said about her was right. And that news spread as quickly as wildfire throughout the seven kingdoms.

Needless to say, even though people realised that it is not wise for them to be against Daenerys, most people who joined her were either there because of their hatred for Cersei.

And then came the Starks.

Here comes a quick fact: Only one Stark actually likes Daenerys, and he is actually a Targaryen. The North clearly does not like any Southern monarch and she wasn’t an exception. The Stark sisters weren’t any good either. One was completely indifferent to her and the other did not “respect her queen.”

Going to the North gave Daenerys the reality check that she would never have the kind of love in Westeros that Jon, Sansa and Arya have. The scene where Theon and Sansa reunite as she looks is a big indicator of that. Even after the battle, she gives an envious look to Jaime and Tyrion and then turns to see Tormund talking about Jon.

To be fair, it’s not her fault that she lived on the other side of the sea her entire life, but maybe if she didn’t always remain in ‘I am your rightful queen, I will tell you what to do and you will do it’ mood, people would have warmed up to her.

Coupled with feeling like an outsider is her newfound knowledge that she isn’t the rightful queen of Westeros. And what made it worse, it was Jon Snow who stole it from her. The only person who made her feel less lonely in Westeros.

After this, Cersei takes down her dragon, kills her best friend and makes sure the commoners don’t find out that Dany’s fought for them in the North.

She instead portrays her as a usurper and offers them a safe place in the Red Keep. And what does Dany do to prove Cersei wrong?

She goes there, destroys the Iron fleet, burns the scorpions and the Golden Company.

Soon after, the bells ring. But it seems like a joke to her.

Till the time she was trying to win over people and get their love, she was constantly rejected for her father’s crimes or because they saw her as a potential tyrant. And when she became one, they surrendered.

She became the queen of the seven kingdoms, but she sees the city unscathed. Before she could keep her promise and bring the skies to fall upon it, it surrendered. She didn’t expect it to happen so soon.

And she didn’t only hate Cersei at this point, she hated the people of Westeros for not accepting her. For not giving her the love she wanted. For not making her feel like it’s her home and she was missed.

Even when they surrendered, they did it because they weren’t left with a choice. They only wanted to save their lives. Neither did they bring Cersei to her nor did they cheer for her to take the evil queen down. They were indifferent to who keeps their ass on that goddamned Iron Throne. They just wanted the havoc to end because they had had enough of it.

For the precise same reasons, it was not enough for Daenerys, she had lost all the people closest to her to be here, and even then she didn’t get it in a way she wanted. She wanted to punish them for making her unloved. She wanted to give them Fire and Blood not to create fear, but because they surrender out of fear and not because they hero-worshipped her like people of Essos. She wanted to tell her advisors that she no longer gave a fuck about what they have to say since they have all failed her with their ideas of nobility.

With this, Daenerys Targaryen became the Queen of Ashes and at the same time, proved Cersei Lannister right. She is a tyrant. She is her father’s daughter. She isn’t worthy of ruling Westeros. People may bend their knee to Daenerys so that they can continue to live, but they would never love her the way she wanted it. And all because she couldn’t wait to rule them for a year or two, show them a better world and earn their love slowly over time.

Foreshadowing of Daenerys becoming the Mad Queen has been there throughout the series. Small bread crumbs were even there in Seasons 1 and 2. I mean, there is a teenager who has been told that they have been wronged and people want them dead their entire life, and then they suddenly get three nuclear weapons that can be used as many times as they wish to use them. They increasingly become powerful throughout the show. Did you really expect them to not show what happens when that person tries to make use of all the power they have for something wrong? Wouldn’t that leave the story incomplete? It would have actually made Game of Thrones a human version of Lion King. Father gets defeated and killed, his daughter takes back what’s rightfully her family’s and kills the baddies. But the makers could have adopted for a better way to do it. A character like Daenerys Targaryen deserved a better reason to go from a saviour to a mad tyrant. Not that it matters, but here are some potential ways of showing her going mad:

Daenerys burns the city to kill Cersei

Had they shown Daenerys fly to Red Keep to kill Cersei straight away after the bells rang, it would have made more sense. Cersei would have obviously tried to flee the castle. Even if they showed that Dany kills everyone coming out of the Red Keep just to kill Cersei and then goes to the streets to cause the same havoc that she did in episode 5 to make sure Cersei is dead, it would have made so much more sense. Her focus would have been her enemy and others dying because it would have been a collateral loss. Still not justified, but at least there would have been a motive to do it. And even then, she could be called mad.

Daenerys loses it after learning about Jon

They could have had some more instances in Season 8 where she burned people to bring some kind of justice. This shift woulf have looked like a natural one after learning about Jon Snow’s true identity. A little more build-up to this wouldn’t have hurt at all. Preferably, they could have included some scenes of her literally enoying burning people after she learns that she’s not the rightful heir.

She burns King’s Landing after Rhaegal’s death

Another alternative was to make Rhaegal die in episode 5. She could have caused this havoc because of her child’s death. That would have been understandable too. (Not the right thing to do, but still understandable). At least she would have an appropriate trigger of going so mad.

But instead, we got a sudden change of expressions and then an act that can give Cersei some serious complex. She won the kingdom and then destroyed the capital because she wanted to punish the people for not seeing her as their saviour from an evil queen and for their indifference. She saw that they saw her as an evil queen who wanted to replace another evil queen, and not as someone who is bringing them justice.

Maybe that was the last straw for her. After losing her dragons, her rightful claim on the throne, her Dothraki (who magically reappeared in episode 5, thanks to the Lord of Light?) people of King’s Landing took away the tag of a just saviour and a just ruler from her. And they paid a heavy price or it.