Daenerys Targaryen is known by many titles, and on the latest episode of Game of Thrones, she gained another one, a name she insisted she would never take on, as long as she could help it. Here’s how the twist went down and what it all means. Daenerys admits she has only known fear in Westeros, not the love that her nephew, boyfriend, and potentially rival claimant to the Iron Throne Jon Snow has come to receive. This realization, combined with her newfound knowledge that her Master of Whisperers Varys committed treason against her in shifting his loyalty to Jon, plus the recent death of her trusted adviser Missandei, pushes Daenerys past her breaking point. The Mother of Dragons dives head-first into the madness that her father, the so-called “Mad King,” suffered when he sat on the Iron Throne amidst Robert’s Rebellion. In Episode 5, Dany became “The Mad Queen,” destroying King’s Landing and killing thousands of innocent men, women, and children on her mission to unseat Cersei Lannister and take the Iron Throne herself. Dany time and again has stated that she’s not a carbon copy of her father, and she wouldn’t make the same mistakes he did. But that’s exactly what wound up happening during this latest episode, in a moment many viewers felt was a wild twist. However, in the eyes of Game of Thrones showrunners, Daenerys going mad wasn’t exactly a big shock. David Benioff and Dan Weiss explained during the show’s “Inside the Episode” featurette
[More]
