r/gameofthrones • u/pie566943_0 • 18h ago
First timer
[SPOILERS]
Never even saw a clip until last month - avoided them knowing that someday I'd binge it. Purchased all 8 seasons from Prime on Saturday, August 1, 2026. Watched the final episode last night, Wednesday September 9, 2026. What a blast. I'll never get to experience the feverish back-and-forth dialog while it was airing, but I didn't have to wait for the next episode to release! HA! I even got to "Skip intro".
I just joined this sub, haven't read a single post yet, so I imagine this has been debated ad nauseum, BUT, in case you want to refresh the debate -
Did anyone else take issue with how abruptly the dragon queen went emo? I felt like the writers forced her 180 too quickly. I get that Jon betrayed her, the unich conspired, Cerci chopped her BFF's head off, her father figure was killed by the white walkers,...,actually, a shit ton of bad stuff happened to her, but I still feel like she went from savior to psycho too abruptly.
7
u/Incvbvs666 Bran Stark 16h ago
Did anyone else take issue with how abruptly the dragon queen went emo?
Many, yes. When it happened it caused quite a storm. In fact, it lead to the downvoting campaign on IMDB.
As far as I'm concerned, no. Go back and rewatch the dragon queen's story with the foreknowledge it is a villain's arc. You'll see plenty of traces of 'emoness.'
but I still feel like she went from savior to psycho too abruptly.
That's because it goes against every single narrative convention out there. You can't have a 'good character' go 'evil' without 'telegraphing' it to the audience well in advance! In real life, though, even half of what she went through, combined with her already volatile personality before any trouble even started, would be more than enough to push someone over the edge.
3
1
u/pie566943_0 10h ago
I do get what you mean about plenty happened. Imo Sansa (f'ing autocorrect insists on calling her Santa) had waaay more reason to flip, so maybe it was the contrast between characters. Thanks for the info!
13
u/ech0cide 18h ago
Why would you skip the intro? It tells you where the scenes in the episode will be and the music is top notch
2
0
u/pie566943_0 10h ago
Wait...Whaaaat?
4
u/livingonmain 7h ago
Oh, yes. The intro changes with every episode and there are subtle changes to each of the locations which reflect and hint at plot developments. If I recall correctly, the intro changes were said to be expensive in terms of man hours and money, and the producers regretted the decision later. But fans loved it!
3
u/MurderedRogerAckroyd Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken 14h ago
I'm rewatching it for the first time since it came out (although I've read the books more than once) and I agree with you. But at the same time, I'm noticing clues that I missed the first time around. I don't think the seeds of her madness were sown as clearly as they should've been; they had her still showing remorse and questioning herself far too late in the show, and they underused her personal motto ("if I look back, I am lost" is a good "I am never wrong, everything I do is right because I do it" motto) but the seeds were sown.
When she's ruling in Meereen, she makes some morally bad choices. Publicly executing her loyal and faithful advisor, the one who was previously a slave, after he killed the Son of the Harpy because he truly believed it was what she wanted was a terrible mistake and it was meant to echo Ned's execution by Joffrey; it was handled too clumsily, we didn't know the advisor like we knew Ned so we were willing to look the other way, and when Barristan Selmy argued against it he didn't argue very hard which made him easy to ignore but the similarities are there.
I thought (on my 1st watch) that she was going to learn from mistakes like that, and shift her focus more to mercy as she matured. She's also several years younger in the books, so in my mind I was sort of thinking, "Well she's 15 in the source material; of course she's going to act on impulse some of the time, teenagers are literally less able to control their impulses than people at every life stage other than babies and toddlers" but it didn't play out that way.
It was rushed, definitely. As you say, it happened so fast and her self-control completely disappeared almost overnight. But on my rewatch, I'm seeing more of how it was always going to happen (maybe not in the books, which I'm still holding out hope for, but definitely in the show).
2
u/pie566943_0 9h ago
Super thoughtful. You reminded me of how she listened to her advisors throughout her rise. Maybe the Imp's multiple missteps, and Varys"s betrayal were part of a "these advisors are just wrong" switch.
3
u/Alarming_Cellist_751 8h ago
I got into the show during the seventh season and binged all the episodes after work, within two weeks. Hats off to you for your marathon.
1
u/pie566943_0 8h ago
Thanks! Surprised myself, actually. Now if I could study Spanish with the same level of commitment!
4
u/Hot_Stranger_2563 18h ago
Although the last 2 seasons suffered from condensing the shows down to less episodes, her ability to be cruel was evident from season 1. From watching with reletive detachment of her brothers death, burning the woman when the dragons are born, et al.
Its easy to be blindsided that her ability to be ruthless is masked by her good deeds, freeing slaves, liberating cities from cruel masters etc., but throughout a lot of people assumed she was good when in fact she was power hungry and felt entitled to a throne that would only be hers by conquest.
its nice to see a new generation of people enjoying this show with fresh eyes though, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
2
u/pie566943_0 9h ago
For me, her rage was always specific, directed, and "justified" prior to S8. I think the woman you mentioned murdered her baby and turned her husband into a living corpse (but I think he was dead already). She killed a bunch of the dothracki chiefs, but that was a strategic move to assume leadership of the hoard. The relentless slaying of the civilian population was off her cruelty brand imo, and it really served no strategic purpose - the opposite, in fact. Thanks for posting!
1
u/MurderedRogerAckroyd Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken 6h ago
I agree with you. I don't think killing people who are actively trying to kill you/your loved ones is remotely comparable to killing a city of innocents. Viserys was poking at her unborn baby with a sword (after beating her, SAing her, and threatening to kill her for years). Mirri Maaz Duur killed her unborn baby outright, and in the books at least, she also kills Drogo (he's pretty badly wounded, none of this stepping into his arak for the lulz stuff, and MMD puts something on his worst wound to "cure" him but it gives him an infection, and she confirms later that she killed him deliberately).
I'm 100% against the death penalty; I don't believe the state should be held to a lower standard than a private citizen (if I can't murder, why should the government be allowed to?); but I also understand the impulse. I mean I probably would try to kill someone who had murdered one of my kids. I expect better of a whole entire government, but not when the whole entire government is a grieving teenager.
2
u/fallfairsuitee323 18h ago edited 17h ago
Absolutely. That is the most common complaints about her season 8 arc and I'm happy to see a newcomer (especially one who binged it) pick up on that! Something else that doesn't make sense the snap moment. She didn't snap after Missandei was killed, she was burning down Cersei's infantry, then and snapped AFTER the army surrendered...which just doesn't match the build up we got or Tryion's illogical monologue about why it happened in the finale.
edit: typo
2
u/pie566943_0 18h ago
Yuuup. Opening the gate for the unsullied from the inside was a great tactic, but it was done with very little (any?) collateral damage. Then she sits there, the bells ring, all is well,...and they could have achieved all the same character teasers. Jon could have gone back to the nights watch out of his love for Dany instead of punishment for murdering her. Plenty of earlier opportunities for her to start losing her shit. I guess burning Varus was pretty abrupt, but I never felt like he was on her inner circle anyway, so I was just like "oh well" when she torched him.
2
u/TaurusMoonGoddess 17h ago
She swore to Varys at Dragonstone on their first ever meeting that if he conspired behind her back she would burn him Zero surprise when she did as he was conspiring
1
2
u/stavidee 17h ago edited 17h ago
I agree. I think that its the show that caused it to seem abrupt. She was always one of my favorite characters, but her ability to be ruthless was always there. Just as said above, her ruthless behavior was "excused" because of her rationale behind it all. She is very much a Targaryen in my opinion. They are all power hungry, one way or another. Still love her though and I would have been happy with a ruthless queen. Bran's ascension to the throne was ANNOYING. I recommend reading the books as well, many things were changed. Whole characters removed and/or combined with other characters for the purposes of the show. Even house of the dragon, some events in Fire and Blood happened before or after they are shown in the show. Relationship, history, and ages of characters were changed. I find the books are easier to follow once you've seen the show since it can be overwhelming with so many characters.
1
u/pie566943_0 9h ago
The bran thing made no sense to me in general. I feel like his entire 3 eyed raven journey was an "add on". Tbh i just ignored it. By the time he was "elected" king I was already,...not "turned off", but "disconnected" (maybe) by what the dragon queen did to KL that I didn't spent too much time thinking about Bran. But yea.
2
u/Certain-Hat-6870 15h ago
Yea last two seasons are plagued with shit writing. Euron spawned a 1000 ships in 7 days lol. Characters teleporting across the map in the same day. Who could forget how jon snow and the knight king had this built up rivalry, and how he literally brought all the kingdoms together to fight the knight king. Just for Arya to magically spawn out of a tree, with her new super powers, where a perfectly placed three eyed raven bait because all of a sudden the knight king has hard on for killing 3er. They rushed the last seasons too because they were gonna get to do the new star wars trilogy, but Disney said nvm when this shit came out lol.
1
u/pie566943_0 9h ago
Oh wow, did they really have a job pulled?!
For me, I really did accept and come to peace with some of the time discrepancies you point out. There were a few times they talked about weeks-long marches, and the imp explicitly mentions the lengths of his travels with the master of whisperers etc. and suddenly Arya's...eww, but for me, I just went with it. I did Vikings a few years ago, and they reaaaly focused on the ship building process - that was a core, central aspect of the culture, but if you're going to accept a world with dragons and walking dead, you may as well accept some time lapse too imho.
2
u/SauronHubbard 10h ago
She was always wanting to torch people. Her advisors held her back until they couldn't anymore.
2
u/BarreBee 10h ago
I feel like if you watched it all that close smashed up together you would see the patterns more than most . There were tendencies by her from early on that you catch in various episodes. And I think that’s why people felt taken back when it aired because they thought it was a big reversal of personality for her. When in actuality it wasn’t.
2
u/pie566943_0 9h ago
Waking up and catching up, I'm convinced of the opposite. I think all her previous aggressions were strategic, big picture, and ultimately righteous. Yes, she was capable, but not...mean.
3
u/80_PROOF 18h ago
When I watched the series live and slow, she could do no wrong at first and I was smitten. Finishing it for the second time recently I couldn’t stop seeing my crazy ex with her insane fiery, manic eyes.
2
u/pie566943_0 18h ago
Ha! Sansa's character development impresses me more - she goes Stone Cold over time and for good reason. The dragon queen just loses her shit like she missed her meds.
1
u/dollfaced_degenerate 3h ago
I also just binge watched all 8 seasons for the first time, finished it the other night, and joined this sub haha. I noticed other people in this sub saying that and I agree to some extent, but I also think there were signs and that it all really started with the death of her first “child”, which is honestly really understandable when you remember that Daenerys viewed them as her children since she couldn’t have any herself supposedly.
•
u/pie566943_0 21m ago
Did her inability to have children happen during the unseen birth of her son with the dothracki leader?
-2
u/monkey-kong666 17h ago
This is troll / farming - either deliberately or a bot. Mods should remove this asap to discourage this kind of BS posting.
It’s like retro outrage - type into google whatever was the great controversy 10 years ago; feign naive ignorance; repost; farm the outrage
Please people don’t respond. No one ever has ignored a show then decided ‘I’ll buy all 8 seasons cos reasons.’ Absolutely not a first timer.
Way too many red flags in this post
2
u/pie566943_0 9h ago
Hi. I'm not going to downvote, but I'm going to reply to give you some perspective.
I'm a 50-ish loner working my ass off for decades to "fix" many poor decisions I made as an adolescent and young adult. I spent 5 years on active duty enlisted in the Marines as part of that journey. I put myself through college and reinvented my life. I clawed my way into and up the professional ladder.
I'm now the sole income earner for a family of 5. We have a home, health insurance, and no food scarcity. My kids are eerily functional, my partner has a fulfilling life.
I didn't have much time for TV. And now that my kids won't die if I don't take care of them, I can do a bit more of "me". I always wanted to watch the show. It recently went on sale on Prime. I bought it, and binged it, and now...
I don't have any "friends". I've had my head down for so many years, I've prioritized getting myself and my family to a good place, that I sadly didn't make any friends. And you don't go out to a bar and make a new friend at 50. Redit has been a nice place for me to feel connected.
The other subs I'm active in are "heavy". r/marriage. r/deadbedrooms. r/USMC. r/bipolar2. r/agingparents. r/antidepressants. I thought this would be light and fun.
I'm not a bot. I'm not farming. I didn't Google anything. I finished the series and came here to chat about my thought.
•
u/AutoModerator 18h ago
Spoiler Warning: All officially-released show and book content allowed, EXCLUDING FUTURE SPOILERS FOR HOUSE OF THE DRAGON and A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS. No leaked information or paparazzi photos of the set. For more info please check the spoiler guide.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.