There are a lot of Game of Thrones theories out there. Most of them involve prophecies and tangled family trees, pissed off siblings, and awkward teenagers who can see the past and future. But if we're to consider this is vaguely a George R.R. Martin story, one thing he was great at was turning villains to heroes, heroes to villains, and writing characters that are neither wholly good or absolutely evil.
One thing that should be obvious in these post-George R.R. Martin seasons is that most of the show's nuance has vanished. Seasons Six and Seven have largely become a linear rush to a conclusion, but were Martin writing this, it's logical to believe that he'd still have some character development planned for the final 3,000 pages of books. Although this is now a show thirsty to please its fans, it's worth considering that Daenerys might not remain the hero of Game of Thrones.
Let's consider something she said to Jon Snow in their first meeting during Season Three:
"Our two Houses were allies for centuries. And those were the best centuries the Seven Kingdoms have ever known. Centuries of peace and prosperity with a Targaryen on the Iron Throne, and a Stark as Warden of the North."
This isn't exactly true, as those years were filled with war and atrocities that eventually led to Robert's Rebellion. But, this also kind of sounds like the spoon fed delusion that Viserys would say, proof she's capable of the same blind arrogance as her brother. Certainly, Daenerys isn't evil like her brother or the Mad King, but she has definitely made some massive mistakes during her quest for power. She's freed slaves and liberated cities, but along the way she has killed countless innocent people in the process (even her dragons have inadvertently committed murders that would have been atrocious coming from Joffrey). Let's not forget that Drogon torched a three-year-old child and no one batted an eye.
Now Dany finds herself in Westeros, waging a war against Cersei and the Lannisters for the Iron Throne. She has believed the Iron Throne is her birthright her entire life. She's hungry—obsessed even—for power. She's tried—thanks to the advice from Tyrion and Varys—to avoid a siege of King's Landing that would kill more innocent people, but she's running out of options after her plans have been foiled by Euron and Jaime. Previews for Sunday's episode show Dany becoming desperate, on the advice of Olenna Tyrell, she's going to take control on her own. What option does she have left other than invade King's Landing?
Let's consider the speech back in Season One, in which King Robert (RIP) outlined how a Dothraki horde could easily trap them within King's Landing and "go from town to town, looting and burning, killing every man who can't hide behind a stone wall, stealing all our crops and livestock, enslaving all our women and children."
Now, that doesn't sound like Dany's style, but war is messy, and there's no way she would get away with such a maneuver without some casualties. There was another interesting moment in Season Seven, when, during court, Cersei was spitting some mad propaganda about Daenerys, calling her a ruthless foreign invader who would rape and pillage the city. Now, this is certainly an exaggeration, but she's right about one thing: Daenerys is a foreign invader. If you think about all the shit that's been going on from a commoner's perspective (which would make for a great stand-alone episode), Dany has landed from a strange land with a scary barbarian army to overthrow their home. Sure, Cersei sucks and blew up an entire church full of fancy people, but it's an accident as far as they know. The commoners aren't privy to the comings and goings of ruling class as we are—they're just trying to make an honest buck. In their eyes, Dany is the villain.
But, from that conversation last week, we also learned something else. Dany isn't sympathetic to the real problem, which is the murderous undead White Walker army marching south to destroy humanity. Her war, and her lust for power, is a distraction from the real threat facing Westeros. Technically, by not helping resolve the main conflict in this story, Dany is kind of our antagonist until she gets on the same page as Jon.
Again, it's not likely that Game of Thrones would do something bold that would piss off fans, but this show has done worse. So it's something to at least consider.
