Queen of the Ashes

The past shapes your future. It's common knowledge that by the time someone gets to a point in their life where they are committing horrible acts for seemingly little reason there is a long history of bad things happening. Your actions are usually a slow build up. Unless of course you are crazy, but aside from that most people are pushed into positions where they commit evil acts.

Which is why the latest episode of Game of Thrones felt so odd, Daenerys has at no point in her past over the last seven seasons exhibited any of the mad queen antics that we saw in this episode. Sure, she burned people and killed people, but never women and children. She went out of her way to avoid that. Now we are supposed to believe that she turned or "made it personal" as the writers of the show state. It doesn't make sense.

This may have been the path George RR Martin wanted to go down and will eventually go down in his books, but I guarantee when it happens in the books, it will seem authentic. You will have felt her fall to the dark side, and when she finally decides to roast an entire city alive, you will not be sitting there wondering what the fuck just happened.

Over the last eight seasons, we followed Daenerys, who can now add the queen of the ashes to her long list of titles as she freed slaves, stopped people from being raped and acted like someone intent on breaking the wheel. Now that she has burned the wheel and everyone riding in the carriage it doesn't seem like the rest of the series is worth it. I hope they pull something out of the ashes for the last episode, but I'm not going to count on it.

It seems to me that the writers of the show got bored with the last season and are just looking to get it over with. I think they should have handed the reins over to someone else who could have taken us through a few more seasons to the same result but with a feeling that it was a logical path for Daenerys.

Before I end this rant, I want to comment on one more thing I just heard. Star Wars is being handed over to these two. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that all the excellent storytelling for Game of Thrones came from George RR Martin. When D&D got past the books, the show started slipping. GRRM takes the time to think about each character and why they do what they do. The show felt authentic. I may not have been happy when they killed off the characters, but the actions felt authentic. It was great storytelling. There was no doubt in your mind when Joffrey decided to behead Ned Start that that was precisely what he would have done. It was sad and jarring, but it felt right. It was the complete opposite of what Daenerys did. Her actions felt wrong. Watching her burn women carrying babies in their arms was not what she would have done.

I hope that Disney comes to their senses and does not hand Star Wars over to those two. All they seem to want to do is shock people. Star Wars should be a good story, but it should not feel like Game of Thrones, and it really shouldn't feel like the recent episode of Game of Thrones.