Game of Thrones: Was Daenerys always going to be the Mad Queen?

Was the writing on the (crumbling) wall there from the very beginning? All signs point to yes. Game of Thrones spoilers ahead!

Game of Thrones was a doozie Sunday night – mainly because Daenerys decided to light King’s Landing on fire and kill a lot of innocent people. It was absolutely shocking to watch, but at the same time, I didn’t think it was all that surprising.

Daenerys has had to defend herself against critics of her father, “The Mad King,” since the beginning of the series. She has repeatedly said, “I’m not my father.” And for the most part, she’s proved not to be her father.

But then her beloved dragon Viseryon died, was brought back to life by the Night King, and then used as a weapon against the living. She later found out that she is in love with her nephew, who happens to be the true heir to the Iron Throne. Then, in quick succession, she loses a huge chunk of her army, another dragon, and her two most trusted and loyal friends/advisors, Jorah and Missandei.

And to make matter worse, the word is spreading that she’s doesn’t have as much claim to the throne than Jon does.

One of these could trigger someone to go a bit crazy. But all of them so close together? BOOM!

It was enough for me to write tweet this yesterday, addressing those who were so devastated that the show would take the story here.

I guess a lot more people named their daughters Khaleesi than I thought. I will feel a bit strange wearing my Khaleesi shirt to the Game of Thrones finale party this weekend.

But, like I said before, the signs were all there from the very beginning. As Entertainment Weekly points out, there are years of foreshadowing and groundwork lain by Game of Thrones. You’ll see a lot of these, in the beginning, were her most badass moments. But I guess there is a thin line between badass and lunatic. Here are eight times Daenerys showed signs of madness.

More from Game of Thrones

• HBO greenlights Game of Thrones prequel The Hedge Knight
• New Game of Thrones prequel? Is HBO working on Aegon’s Conquest?
• House of the Dragon Season 2 release date, cast, updates and more
• 10 instrumental TV theme songs we can never skip, from Succession to Game of Thrones
• A classic Thanksgiving dinner as Game of Thrones characters

1. The vision in the House of the Undying

Early in season 2, after Daenerys, Jorah, and her people wandered through the desert, they happened upon the affluent city of Qarth. At first, they wouldn’t let her in, to which she replied that she’d “burn cities to the ground!” Later, while Daenerys looked for her dragons in the House of the Undying, she had an illusion of a destroyed Great Hall. At the time, we all assumed that the room was covered in snow and that winter had come. But now that King’s Landing and the Red Keep is all but destroyed, it’s most likely ash from all the fire.

2. Showing no mercy in Meereen

When Daenerys arrived in Meereen in season 4, she found 163 crucified children. Even though Ser Barristan advises her against it, she crucifies 163 masters, whether they were guilty or not. Later in the season, to avenge Ser Barristan’s death, she has her dragon burn a master alive to “send a message.” Again, the man may not have been guilty, but it didn’t matter to her.

3. Escape from Dosh Khaleen

This is one of those badass moments I was referring to earlier. To escape Vaes Dothrak, she burns all the khals alive. Then, she convinces the Dothraki to follow her across the sea to Westeros. Yeah, most of them get killed in the Battle of Winterfell pretty quick.

4. Close call in Meereen

After her escape from Dosh Khaleen, Tyrion has to talk her out of crucifying more masters and basically burning the city to the ground. Instead, the dragons take out their fleets, and Grey Worm kills two of the masters to send another message…because they must not have received the first one.

5. Killing Sam’s dad and brother

Tyrion, again, tries to talk her out of burning Lord Tarly and Dickon Tarly alive for staying loyal to Queen Cersei after the sneak attack on the Lannister army. She doesn’t take his advice this time. Later, when she meets Sam, and he finds out what happened to his family, he’s distraught; yet, Daenerys doesn’t seem to have compassion. That’s not normal.

6. A crazy request

When Jon and Daenerys finally talk about the big elephant in the room (Jon’s parentage), she begs him not to tell anyone. He thinks it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t want the throne anyway, but she disagrees. Just asking something like that of him is irrational, but her ambition for the throne so blinds her, she doesn’t see any other way.

7. Planning the King’s Landing attack

Even though the majority of her advisors, including Jon and Sansa, want to rest their army before attacking King’s Landing because they just battled a bunch of zombies and almost died. But Daenerys disagrees and wants to move forward anyway.

8. The preview before “The Bells”

Before every episode, HBO airs a “Previously on Game of Thrones” set of clips. Sometimes, they’ll even call back moments from seasons prior. If you watched Sunday night, they showed a clip from episode 4, after Missandei was killed, and a close up of Daenerys’ twitching face as various voiceovers play:

• “He has the better claim to the throne…” – Varys
• “Every time a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin…” – Cersei
• “The Mad King gave his enemies the justice he thought they deserved…” – Jaime
• “Children are not their fathers…” – Tyrion
• “Be a dragon!” – Olenna
• “You have a gentle heart.” – Jorah
• “A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing” – Maester Aemon
• “You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?” – Viserys

The music build up sounded as though it came from a horror movie. This might be our greatest warning that Daenerys had gone to the dark side.

What do you think? Is the show brilliant or did it jump the dragon?

The series finale of Game of Thrones is this Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO.

(Source: Entertainment Weekly)