@Malingspann #93080
Shame she turned out to be a villain all along. In a more straightforward fantasy series that didn’t rely on subversion, a heroic Daenerys would have been awesome.
But instead, she exists as a parable about entitlement, imperialism, power corrupting, “white savior” complex, and a bunch of other dumb things we humans must deal with. It turns out that even her high ideals were little more than wanting people to love her and worship her and her approach to conquering tyrants and reform was “Set it and forget it”. You can’t just overthrow a government and lead a void. Frankly, she should have just been happy with being Queen of Slaver’s Bay and focused all her energy on that, instead, she was obsessed with conquering Westeros.
She should’ve stayed where she was. I never watched the show but I’ve read stuff online so I’m bound to be wrong on things but Westeros is not a Valyrian-suited place and the Targaryens tended to earn a bad rep, there. Essos, however, is closer to where Valyria used to be.
Regardless, I do confess that a beautiful, strong “Dragon Queen” is an awesome concept and I can see how many were upset with the mess in the last couple of episodes.
Game of Thrones, like the Star Wars prequels and sequels, suffer from execution problems. These stories often have important ethical, political messages to them. Heck, Song of Ice & Fire and Game of Thrones were all about SUBVERTING high fantasy tropes as well has making statement about the horrors of warfare, conquest, hereditary monarchy, etc. Even the mystical prophecies are subject to reinterpretation and can even be plain wrong or false, like prophecies in the real world.
It also seemed to show why prophecies must be vague as all get out, because they can be thwarted directly, like ‘The Stallion That Mounts The World’ (which directly points to a Dothraki taking over the world and raping and pillaging everything). Even if one reinterprets it as “a Dothraki-associated person with flying reptilian WMDs”, it doesn’t count of the “stallion” getting stabbed to death for being nutzoid.
The Star Wars prequels showed how tyrants can subvert democracy and make it a dictatorship. The sequels show how one must never be complacent after great social reforms have been made (and the importance of nipping reactionary influences early).
Also, Luke, Leia , Han & Lando’s efforts were a success for about 25-30 years so it wasn’t a complete “all for nothing” scenario. You can still cheer for them at their Ewok dance party.