What Happened to Daenerys?

*SPOILERS!!!

As the show nears its end I can't help but to feel disheartened by the character development of one of my favorite contenders of the throne. I know Dany isn't one of the most popular characters from the show mainly because of her ruthlessness, but I've always had a soft spot for Daenerys.

One of the main things that drew me to this character was her tremendous character growth in season 1 through 6. She started off as a timid girl who barely knew her roots and would submit to the whims of the men surrounding her to a fierce, powerful, and cunning leader. In the beginning her motivations were to essentially save the 7 kingdoms from itself.

I don't necessarily agree with this motive because I feel it is short cited and naive, but I could absolutely see where she was coming from. I loved watching her grow into her power and voice with the Dothraki and utilize her strengths as a Targaryen via fire resistance and dragon power. The show did a great job of showing how Dany was able to manipulate large populations of people and turn herself into some kind of prophet. This is why I grew to respect her intelligence.

Unfortunately, nobody is perfect and we got to see Daenerys' weaknesses. These weaknesses mainly surrounded her arrogance and pomposity. This didn't deter me from liking her character because turning her into a messiah would basically turn her into a caricature. The main thing that kept my interest was her way of handling her weaknesses. Unlike Cersei who would refuse to double down and engage in her selfish desires, Daenerys would listen to her advisors after seeing her mistakes and realize that maybe she doesn't know everything.

One prime example of this is shown when she executes a slave in Meereen. Because Dany comes from a traditionally brutal background, she felt it was the correct thing to do a public execution on anyone that went against her rules. In this case it was a tough decision because she wanted to make an example out of him, but the advisors felt it would be too harsh. She quickly learned that this was not the way to handle executions and the difficulties of making divided populations happy.

Later on we see her handle the Suns of Harpy situation. Instead of publicly executing the slave masters that might have been the main culprits you see her punishing them in the pyramids with her dragons. Her capacity of forgiveness is also seen when Tyrion lacks to see the major differences between the seven kingdoms and Slaver's Bay. Instead of having him fired or punished severely, she looked over it believed that he can be trusted outside of his mistakes.

This is the main reason why Varys believed her to be a great ruler to begin with. The marginalized loved her and she had shown a lot of growth in her leadership. My problem is when she steps foot in Westeros she suddenly becomes this ruthless leader with no sense of empathy. You begin to see her using entitled language and forcing the captured to "bend the knee." To me this was out of character because in the past she would just "flex" her strength to show others she is not one to be fucked with.

She also stopped listening to her advisors and became more stubborn. Her relationship with Tyrion greatly changed and she started visibly belittling his advice. This was extremely out of character for me because, like I said before, she forgave him for his mistakes and basically said she trusted him in the finale of season 6.

I could see that they trying to set up the Mad Queen trope from then on, but I felt like it was lazy writing on their half. We've all read books with "infallible" characters that slowly became unreliable overtime. I usually love this type of progression because extremely good writer put small hints of delusion throughout the progression of the story line. I didn't really see this with Daenerys and I watched the entire show twice in 2 years.

I would have loved it if they showed Daenerys making more and more severe decisions with no sense of remorse, but instead she showed self reflection and self defeat every time she made a major mistake. You could see she loved the people she ruled over and would sacrifice her own happiness. This was showcased in the episode when she chose to marry a former slavers son in her advisory over the man she loved. Even Tyrion, one of the wisest and loved characters, told her she was going to become a good leader because she was willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

That's why the shift they chose for her in the 7th season was so heartbreaking for me. I could see that they were setting up her death and trying to make it justifiable for the audience. This doesn't really make sense to me because the reason why fans fell in love with the show was its realism and it's refusal to reward honorable characters. We are shown time and time and again that fairytale endings do not exist in any capacity.

I would have preferred if Daenerys was lead on an exponentially positive path and then unexpectedly brutally murdered because that would have fit her character arc, but instead we got an abrupt turn that essentially turned her into a scapegoat. I personally believe when GRRM was helping D&D write her character he was helping them set her up for a different destiny, but as soon as he left writing room D&D were left to fend for themselves, and they decided to go on another path.

Even though I wrote a whole essay of critique, I still admire this show greatly. No work of art is perfect and I definitely don't expect that from any movie or show. I will finish this series and still hold it dear to my heart. I will miss waiting for new episodes every week and watching my favorite characters grow over time. Hopefully the finale will be sentimental and heartbreaking in the GOT's fashion that I grew to love.