This turn has been foreshadowed forever. Don't understand how people are shocked. Hell Dany herself has a vision in season 2 of being in the throne room surrounded by ashes. "A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing." -Maester Aemon.
You’re reading too much into it. The citizens of the city were screaming for the bells to ring. It is the surrender signal
Also, just to add...Tyrion told Dany about the bells being surrender signal before he knew about Jamie being captured
I’m not disappointed at all with the concepts behind the ending. I think my biggest issue is probably the way they’ve rushed the season which was the opposite of the series until last season. I agree with the other poster. These two seasons should have been 10 episodes and season 7 should have been the Great War with this season being the descent into madness
I completely agree however Emilia Clarke did a terrible job of developing that side of her. There were countless fan predictions over the years and I dont recall many of them predicting this. It wasnt until this year that the Mad Queen was a thing. From a casual viewers eyes, she flipped.
so I guess ep6 will be teh continuation of a mad queen trying to eliminate all hurdles to the throne until she meets her match, or not.
Dany seemed to nod in agreement with Tyrion to surrender at that signal, too. Sure, you could say it's been foreshadowed that Dany turns into the Mad Queen. But they also foreshadowed that she was a benevolent ruler. She targeted the military targets until they rung the bell. That's when she flipped the switch. Why? I'm fine with her being a Mad Queen, but the progression absolutely sucks.
I wanted her to be the mad queen and I still thought it was weak. This is the same queen who locked up her dragons because they killed one innocent kid. I think they’ve should have stressed her isolation more in past episodes and her paranoia and frustration. I mean we’ve all commented how she’s just rolled with all of the armies being wiped out lol.
Or even just made a notion that the people of Westeros recognize Jon more than Dany as the heir to the throne, that way she would choose to rule with fear. But nope, the writers chose to make the ringing bells her sleeper agent switch.
Thinking back, yeah. I just think hearing those bells simply didn't make her flip, maybe it was staring at the red keep and reminding her what was taken away from her family and put her in exile all these years and the bells were driving that point home while she stared at the red keep. She lost her innocence a long time ago and has a track history justifying her actions against people that wronged her. To add, Jon is another major reason why she's going down that mad descent, he's slowly withdrawn from her realizing they're related, told Sansa who told Tyrion who told Varys who will spread that to put Jon over her. Targbowl upcoming without the swordfight.
They have been portraying Euron as a badass. He has dominated previous fights. But then got his ass handed to him by a man with one hand.
List of things the writers/directors totally disrespected: 1) Night King/Army of the Dead 2) Euron 3) Danys Entire Character Arc 4) The Golden Company 5) Rhaegal 6) Varys 7) Brans Character Arc 8) Dorne 9) Tyrion’s Character You could see the wheels coming off with the whole Sansa/Arya/Littlefinger plot. But they were forgiven. Then again with the laughable let’s send our best warriors to capture a wight for some reason plot. Again, forgiven. Now let’s make our greatest foe go out with a whimper and make one of the protagonists turn heel even though no time in the show did she show signs of doing this. It’s nutty how bad this was.
Oh I think you are right that she went nuts there. I also think she had plenty of reason to be going down this road. We as viewers know that and can rationalize it. I just think the show should have highlighted it more. All of the rest of her actions were quasi-justified. When she burned the Tarlys she offered them their lives by bending the knee and they refused. I mean ANY character in GOT would have to kill them. This is the first time she's ever deliberately killed innocents by choice and without it being "necessary." I wish they would have led her down that road a little more is all. I love that they got here I just think the road here wasn't very well done. Just my opinion.
As far as episodes regarding a dragon destroying a city... I thought it was well done. I know many then ask "why didn't she just do that before if the dragon was that powerful?" Well... there was never a decent threat to the dragons until one got knocked out. That does have a way of providing a wake-up call of how to specifically attack a defense, and we all suspected the dragon(s) had the potential to be this effective. Some of the "complaints" are a little too specific and nit-picky. They can't spend 2+ episodes on Dany in isolation going nuts. Last week's murder was enough to push her and Grey Worm over the edge (which is what I inferred the latter's blood-thirst genesis to come from). Tyrion tried to explain to everybody (including the audience) that the city would fall and fall hard. If anybody had any doubts about her chances after last week's episodes... then the show-writers actually did what they intended to do. They tried to make it seem like the north army/unsullied/dragons weren't as effective as they planned to be... only to end up laying waste and dominating as everybody predicted they would dating back to 2 seasons ago.
Did anyone have doubts? I think we all knew they'd kick ass. I think we all basically expected in our minds that once it was time for Dany to win the Dragons would be unstoppable. Most of us were rolling our eyes at all of the contrived ways they widdled down Dany's army not because we thought she'd lose but because it was silly. However, if they were that unstoppable, why did she let the Iron Fleet totally ravage her fleet and end up getting Missandei killed? If she could have nuked them like that she sure screwed up not doing it last time.