The dark turn of Daenerys Targaryen is Game of Thrones' most controversial choice, but when did the show clearly foreshadow her villainy?
Although Game of Thrones is still one of the most popular TV shows of all time, the reaction to the end of the series was mixed at best. There were many aspects of the show's conclusion that fans criticized and disliked, but undeniably the most controversial part of the grand finale was the dark turn of Daenerys Targaryen.
However, while Daenerys was presented as one of the great heroes for the majority of the show's run, there were actually many indications that all was not as it seemed with her. As early as season 1, Game of Thrones had plenty of foreshadowing that Daenerys was a villain all along.
Viserys may have only been around for the first few episodes of the series, but no one was sad to see him go — including Daenerys. She certainly can't be blamed for wanting her abusive brother gone for good, but her bizarre lack of affect when she watches him die a horrific death was strange. It was also one of the earliest indications that perhaps Dany wasn't the hero everyone wanted her to be.
Most people would flinch at such a gruesome end regardless of whose death it was, so the fact that Daenerys coldly and unblinkingly watched her only remaining family member die was pretty unsettling.
While many prophetic dreams and visions are meant to be more metaphorical than literal, one of the most blatant instances of foreshadowing when Dany's dark turn on Game of Thrones is her vision in the House of the Undying.
Although Daenerys and the audience have no idea what exactly this vision means, in retrospect, it's obvious that Game of Thrones showed everyone exactly how Dany's story was going to end very early on. Her visions match Daenerys' last scene in the throne room after King's Landing has been destroyed nearly identically.
One of Daenerys' worst traits on Game of Thrones was her penchant for brutality over diplomacy throughout her journey towards the Iron Throne and Westeros. One of the most overt examples was when she chose to crucify the masters of Meereen despite being advised against it.
Putting aside the cruelty of the act, the show went out of its way to tell the audience that she had been exceptionally injudicious in her choice. Because of her rashness, she wound up crucifying people like Hizdahr Zo Loraq's father, someone who actually spoke out against the crime that Daenerys wound up killing him for.
This is actually one of the most interesting rarely noticed parallels in the entirety of Game of Thrones, but surprisingly, Daenerys and her relationship with Hizdahr mirrors the betrothal between Joffrey and Sansa in many ways.
Hizdahr's father was a Meereenese nobleman who was executed for a crime that he didn't commit, and Daenerys commanded her own engagement with Hizdahr in order to keep Meereen under her control. And, given that in this parallel story, Daenerys plays the role of Joffrey, it should have been a clue that she was headed down a dark path.
Daenerys was undoubtedly posturing a bit when she tried to intimidate the Thirteen into letting her through the gates of Qarth, and she can also be forgiven for lashing out in frustration when she knew that she and her people would surely die if they were turned away.
However, it says a lot that as soon as Daenerys felt endangered, her immediate reaction was to threaten to burn cities to the ground. And it says even more that this became a consistent theme for Dany from that point forward — nearly every time she's frustrated or looking for an easy way out, her first thought is of mass destruction.
Daenerys' point of view in Game of Thrones is a fascinating bit of narrative trickery. Viewers tend to see her as the hero because she sees herself as one, and they also tend to see the people that she kills as villains because she sees them that way.
However, the episode where Daenerys burns the khals and seizes their power is definitely telling, because she directly states that she is killing them because they have power that they're unworthy of, which she thinks she deserves. They might be bad guys, but she's not killing them because they're evil or because she wants to liberate the Dothraki — she's killing them because they have something she wants and she has the strength to take it.
Daenerys loves for people to see her as a hero, but her reaction to Jon Snow when they first met seems to indicate that she loves power a lot more. After all, Jon tells her a lot of shocking and bizarre things, but the only thing she seems to focus on is that he's a king and she wants the power that he has.
While it doesn't come as an enormous surprise that she might not believe him at the start, Daenerys is one of the few people in the world who knows for an absolute fact that magic is real, and it's a sign of things to come that she doesn't seem remotely concerned about a potentially apocalyptic threat that could be facing "her people" in Westeros.
Daenerys bringing all of her forces to King's Landing for the "negotiation" at the Dragon Pit is a little over the top and unseemly for someone who is supposedly acting in good faith. But what's really strange about this is that it's even happening at all.
After losing Viserion to the Army of the Dead, Daenerys agrees to fight against them before Jon even bends the knee. And yet, she is still trying to negotiate a truce with Cersei when the end of the world is coming, which seems to be an obvious indication that the throne still matters far more to her than saving lives does.
It's entirely understandable that Dany was incredibly frustrated that, despite being the most powerful person in the world, Cersei Lannister was simply outplaying her in their war. However, the Mother of Dragons was clearly prioritizing revenge over common sense when she attacked the Lannister and Tarly forces.
She went out of her way to burn the supplies that the Lannisters had looted instead of taking it for her own forces or saving it for the people of Westeros who will desperately need food in the winter. This seems to be an incredibly obvious foreshadowing that Daenerys is more concerned with her own power than she is with being a good queen and leader for her people.
The death of Randyll and Dickon Tarly was one of the most obvious foreshadowing moments of Daenerys' dark turn. It showed that she will kill anyone who doesn't want her to be their queen, regardless of who they are or why they don't want to be ruled by her.
Randyll Tarly was a terrible person and Dickon could be a bit of a snob, but they almost certainly didn't deserve to be killed so brutally. But more importantly, Daenerys didn't know if they deserved it or not. She knew nothing about them outside of the fact that they wouldn't bend the knee, and their executions seemed to be a clear indication of what she would do to anyone in Westeros who rejected her.
