Well there had been clues sprinkled throughout the show that it was possible for Daenerys to become evil. Just you had to have been looking for those clues as the show preferred to completely hide the twist instead of rewarding observant viewers.
Animorphs did the opposite with Rachel. The book series fully acknowledged that she was wavering between succumbing to her bloodlust and staying true to her humanity. So when she made her choice it made absolute sense.
Daenerys Targaryen never had a chance at a normal childhood. This due to her being born near the end of Robert's Rebellion. Robert Baratheon believed Lyanna Stark, his wife to be, had been kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen. Aerys Targaryen the Second didn't help matters with his unstable mind that earned him the nickname the Mad King.
So when Robert was able to overthrow the reign of House Targaryen, he sought to kill every member of the House that existed in Westeros. This meant that to protect the two remaining Targaryen royals, Daenerys and Viserys were sent to the continent Essos.
In Pentos both Daenerys and Viserys found sanctuary with Illyrio Mopatis. During that time of her life, the younger Targaryen found herself in constant fear of her brother due to how often he abused her.
After years and years of suffering abuse at the hands of Viserys, Daenerys gained a very subservient nature. She might bring up concerns, but she would never be upfront about any disagreements she had. When she first appeared on the show you had no idea how deadly she would eventually become.
Before that fateful night when the teenage Rachel met the dying Andalite Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul and was given the ability to morph so that she could help fight the Yeerks, one of her biggest joys in life was shopping. She had perfected a series of equations so that she could always get the best deals.
Plus she always liked to be stylish which made people think she was just another dumb blonde that loved spending time at the mall. But she did not let her looks define her. In Animorphs #1 The Invasion we get a taste of what Rachel was like before the war. Shortly before deciding to go through the abandoned construction site, she angrily retorts to Jake about not needing a man once he implies she's weaker because she's a woman.
Cassie, Rachel's best friend, manages to diffuse the situation as she has an innate ability to be a peacemaker.
Yet against all odds the two are extremely close.
Rachel's home life included divorced parents. She lives with her mother who is a lawyer which is probably where she gets all her money for shopping. Her father, on the other hand, is a news anchor. Up until Animorphs #7 The Stranger, Rachel's father lived close by.
Rachel wasn't an only child as she had two younger sisters.
Viserys Targaryen wanted to take back the Iron Throne and so needed an army. To get funding he managed to get a deal with Khal Drogo by offering him Daenerys Targaryen. The Dothraki were well known for being savages and so Viserys was well aware that his younger sister could be broken beyond repair. He knew Daenerys could very well be raped by not just the Khal but also his most loyal men aka his bloodriders.
Luckily for Daenerys, though, Khal Drogo was more progressive than other Dothraki. So instead of being constantly raped, the much abused Targaryen finally learned what it meant to be loved and cared for. She was able to experience a part of life she had been missing.
Daenerys' relationship with Drogo also allowed her to find an inner strength she never thought she had. Being outside of Viserys' control allowed her to start to realize that she was not just a plaything, she was a strong person that was more than worthy of her Targaryen heritage.
What Daenerys did know was the the disgraced man from Westeros gave her information on the people she was now forced to live with. He was also there to give her advice whenever she needed it. And when needed, he was there to defend her.
One day Viserys slapped Daenerys to the point she fell over. He thought so little of his own blood that he didn't think anything of his sister even when she was the khaleesi. So he thought disrespecting Khal Drogo's wife and endangering Khal Drogo's child was the same as how he had abused Daenerys back in Pentos.
So it was Viserys' actions to Daenerys and his impatience of being paid by the Dothraki that made his death a forgone conclusion. When he was killed she didn't look away, even when offered the chance by Jorah.
The showrunners of Game of Thrones use the fact Daenerys didn't look away from her abuser's execution as a sign she was always destined to be evil. However, as someone who has been emotionally abused in the past, this doesn't make any sense. If Viserys was a kind man and Daenerys was still okay with him dying, I'd say that clue to her madness made sense.
Though her look when Viserys died made me uneasy for some reason. However, I never took Daenerys' reaction to her brother's death as a sign she was going mad.
Daenerys had to kill the love of her life or subject Drogo to a fate worse than death. The choice was not easy for the Targaryen but she defeated her unease and allowed her husband to find peace.
During this series of events Daenerys also loses her unborn son and becomes unable to have anymore children. If having sex with Daario Naharis and Jon Snow multiple times doesn't result in a pregnancy, I'm pretty sure that means she can never have children again.
All of the original five Animorphs had different reactions to being thrown into an intergalactic war. The two most ready to become child soldiers were Tobias and Rachel. The former because he felt an intense connection with the dying Andalite Prince and the later because...well...she was not going to back down from a fight.
Rachel was so sure of being in the war that she never left her fellow Animorphs once. This was not the case for her friends. Marco was going to leave as he had never wanted to fight. This due to the fact his mother had died years ago and his father was a mess because of it. He only didn't quit the fight because he found out his mother was Visser One's host.
Jake grew sick of being the leader near the end of the war and left for a short time. After Tobias made his first kill as a red-tailed hawk he left the group as he felt his hawk mind had taken over. Cassie's pacifism eventually led her to leave the group for a short time.
Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, aka Ax, wanted to rejoin his people but that plan failed and so he was forced to stay on Earth with the Animorphs. Though nearly every other time the group runs into other Andalites his loyalty to his human friends wavers.
While this is ultimately useless, Rachel finds that Melissa is suffering when she doesn't need to. Melissa doesn't know about the Yeerks but she does realize that her parents love her less and that makes her depressed. At least she thinks they love her less. When Visser Three wants her to become a Controller, her parents resist their Yeerks because they do love her. In fact, Mr. Chapman willingly gave up his freedom so that Melissa could stay free.
Rachel decides that she doesn't want anyone else to be in a situation like Melissa's. She wants kids to never have any doubt about their parents' love. She also wanted to make sure those like Melissa would eventually have their parents back.
Even while fighting a war, Rachel didn't give up her love of shopping and fashion. Since Cassie is her best friend and lacks any sense of fashion, Rachel states numerous times about her friend's lack of fashion sense. Though sometimes her fashion sense is a boon to the group such as when Jake needs to find a good gift for his mother's birthday.
Okay, there are two things there that are popular headcanons among Animorphs fans. The truth of the first is that it's never revealed in canon whether or not Tobias meant to get trapped in morph. The truth of the second is that it's never confirmed in canon if Rachel really meant to trap Tobias in human morph.
While Khal Drogo ignited the fire inside Daenerys Targaryen, it was the birth of her dragons that transformed her into something else. Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal showed the world and herself that she was destined for great things. Even if she had wanted to live a simple life, she would still have to defend the freedom of her children.
Once Daenerys' dragons hatched there was no returning to the woman she had been. So she set her sights on claiming the Iron Throne for House Targaryen.
But before Daenerys could truly start her reign, she had to battle the harsh conditions of Essos. Traveling through the Red Waste is not an easy task and has a high risk of failure. Yet she was able to go against the odds and survive to reach the city of Qarth. It was in that city that she found something much harsher than the Red Waste: keeping ownership of her dragons and independence.
As the dragons are still hatchlings and Daenerys does not have any grandiose rumors about her, others felt like they could take advantage of her. If not for Jorah Mormont and those Dothraki loyal to her, she would not have lasted long. Besides not doing any great deeds yet, she was still naive to the world around her.
Jorah had originally fled into exile after selling people into slavery. By serving Daenerys he was able to put that part of him far into the past. At first he had told his queen that she should only focus on the Iron Throne but later fully supported her decision that freeing people from slavery was more important than going to Westeros.
Both Daenerys and Jorah changed each other to better versions of themselves. Even if you don't think of them as being together in a romantic sense, them just being friends is just as meaningful.
No one that matters is going to argue that ending slavery is wrong. No one that matters is going to say that some people deserve being in chains. But there is a right way to end slavery and a wrong way. The right way isn't merely to end the institution of slavery but to offer slaves another way of life. You have to give slaves a system that will help support them after being free.
Daenerys decided on freeing slaves but never gave them a society to live in afterwards. This meant a lot of times after she left a city the old ways of life would just get reinstated. If there is no way for the former slaves to support themselves and no punishments for anyone wanting the old ways of life to resume, slavery will return.
Upon conquering Meereen, Daenerys decided to stay in the city. While she had freed slaves in the past, she had never stayed in one place for long. So she decided to stay in one city and start making her better world. Just like the other places she ended slavery, she didn't give any real thought to the type of world that would greet the former slaves afterwards.
People being unsure of the future made some decide to go against their queen. This rebellious group became known as the Sons of the Harpy and they did a very good job at usurping Daenerys. It got to such a point she even considered burning the city to the ground. If not for Tyrion Lannister's wise words, that fate would have fallen over the city.
Even though Daenerys did a less than perfect job, she made the changes she wanted. She abolished slavery and decided to change the name of Slaver's Bay to Dragon's Bay to reflect there being no more slaves.
Before leaving to Westeros she left Daario Naharis in charge of Meereen and trusted him to make sure Essos didn't revert back to slavery.
Out of her fellow Animorphs, Rachel is the most bloodthirsty one. The others don't need the war like she does. The others need time out of the war while she lives off of it. The only time she could be said to take time out of the war was when she had amnesia. But even with no idea of who she is, there is a warrior that just keeps fighting.
Rachel's battle morph for the first six books is an African Elephant and afterwards she changes her battle morph to a Grizzly Bear. Both animals are extremely intimidating and not easily defeated.
One of the times Rachel was used as an assassin was in the case of David. The boy had discovered that the Escafil Device, that hadn't actually been destroyed, in the abandoned construction site. Unfortunately the Animorphs were unable to take the device from the boy before Visser Three arrived on the scene. They were able to get David away from the chaos that ensued and were so given a choice: make him an Animorph or allow him to get infested so they could keep their secret.
They chose to make him an Animorph and soon things went downhill. David felt fine in killing someone who was in morph and so Jake discovered a dead red-tailed hawk that the new member had killed. Thinking it was Tobias' corpse, the leader then sent Ax to get Rachel to kill David if need be.
David is a really interesting topic but, sadly, it isn't fitting to cover him more in this post.
Back to the topic at hand...all that is known about the god-like being Crayak is that he was chased from his own galaxy and has a tendency towards bloodshed. I like the fan theories where he was chased from his home galaxy by The One, basically something even worse than Crayak, and appears so hateful because he is only trying to give the Milky Way Galaxy the best chances at survival.
Crayak finds himself paying attention to Rachel purely because of how ferocious she is in the war against the Yeerks. She isn't average in her need to fight or else the being wouldn't pay her that much mind. The only other Animorph Crayak seems to show an interest in is Jake and that's only because he's leading the human resistance against the Yeerks. Plus Jake's actions led to the destruction of the Howlers, Crayak's shock troops.
Essos was a continent where to gain power you needed brute strength. While there were times you needed to have a keen political mind, you mostly needed brute strength to rise up to any great position. This was a lesson that Daenerys Targaryen had taken to heart and so eventually accumulated followers that were willing to die for her.
Besides gathering armies while in Essos, Daenerys managed to create a mythos around herself. People had witnessed what she had done and had told others on the continent what they had seen. So the Targaryen was able to make people love and fear her because of that.
But once Daenerys came to Westeros her strengths were taken from her. The land she wished to rule differed from Essos in how politics were decided. There was much more political scheming in the Seven Kingdoms and less focus on brute strength. And since politics weren't her strength in Essos, she is even less ready to deal with the political landscape in Westeros.
Also in Westeros there was no one that had witnessed any of the things Daenerys had done. No one had been close by to any of the cities where she had freed slaves. There were no freed slaves that could tell others what had happened. People knew who Daenerys was in Westeros but not to the same extent as those in Essos.
So by crossing the Narrow Sea, Daenerys didn't have the large mythos she had built up over the years. She would, therefore, have to sway people by the deeds she did in Westeros.
What really didn't make any sense when Daenerys reached Westeros was the fact she was a horrible conqueror. She was always at her best when she was claiming cities and extending her rule. It was only when she tried to rule that there were problems. Besides her already great conquering skills, she had Tyrion Lannister as her strategist. So the fact she had no major victories doesn't make sense.
Even though Daenerys' whole existence proves that things of myth can be real, she doesn't believe Jon when he speaks about the Night King's army. Or maybe I'm being too harsh on her and she only believes in what she can see. In which case she believes she is immune to fire because she has never been burnt and she believes in dragons because she's raised three.
In any case she believes in the dead once she goes to rescue Jon, Jorah Mormont, and others from the clutches of the wights. Her rescue of her allies results in Viserion's death and so she is now on a mission of vengeance for her child.
Daenerys had started a sexual relationship with Jon Snow while traveling to Winterfell and found relief in their relationship. However, Jon stopped their relationship shortly after arriving at Winterfell. This because he found out he was Daenerys' nephew. Now the majority of Westeros accepted incest to a point and so he was disgusted about how similar his blood was to Daenerys'. Jon breaking off their relationship made Daenerys feel even more isolated than she had before.
Before Daenerys made it back to King's Landing she found herself without most of those closet to her which caused her to feel even more isolated. During the Battle of Winterfell Jorah Mormont protected her and only allowed himself to die once the battle was over. When he lay dying in her arms she finally realized that she loved him romantically, a thought that had never consciously crossed her mind before.
For all those who hate Jorlessi (aka the ship of Jorah and Daenerys), Emilia Clarke said that when Daenerys looked at Jorah when he was dying that she was imagining a future that could never be. That along with her support of Jorlessi in the past makes me believe Daenerys truly fell in love with Jorah at the moment of his death. And I really love my ships sailing and sinking in the same instance like that.
Right as Daenerys approached Dragonstone Euron Greyjoy killed Rhaegal by shooting a scorpion bolt at him. She became enraged at this and nearly lost control to the point she attacked the Iron Fleet. Though how Euron was able to make that shot and she didn't see him is a rant for another day.
In the fight that happened after Rhaegal was killed, Missandei was captured by Euron and given as a gift to Cersei Lannister. When Daenerys and her forces met Cersei, the Lannister Queen murdered the Targaryen's friend. It was at this death that Daenerys found herself coming to the point of no return in her decision to be evil or good.
Scholastic demanded that K.A.Applegate release one Animorphs book per month. This workload meant she had to bring in ghostwriters. All the ghostwritten books weren't bad and some of them were even some of the best in the series. Animorphs #33 The Illusion was ghostwritten and handles Tobias' character flawlessly.
But not all the ghostwriters understood the main characters and so sometimes forgot to include the many layers each of them had. Such as many viewed Rachel as nothing more than someone in love with the war and so ignored the complexity of the character.
The book that tarnished Rachel's character the worst was Animorphs #37 The Weakness. That book was ghostwritten by Elise Smith. This particular ghostwriter forgot that while Rachel did rush into situations, she was able to think things through before acting. It was her who was able to figure out where the Kandrona was. That required her to examine all the clues laid out by the Ellimist which took time.
Yet in The Weakness Rachel is unable to plan at all which causes problems that shouldn't have happened. I can understand that the book's premise is to show why she wouldn't be a good leader, but it could've be done so much better than it was.
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Another role she plays is getting her hands bloody when the others won't. Rachel doesn't accept this task because she wants to but because she feels moved to make sure her friends come out of the war better than she will.
The facade Rachel makes for herself also creates a distance from Cassie. While they had been best friends at the start of the series, during the course of the war they become ever more distant. At one point Cassie reveals she thinks of her best friend as a monster which, well, doesn't make her best friend feel all that good.
The role Rachel has for herself is one she both revels in and fears. She loves the war to the point she is frightened by how much she needs it. While it would've been more than easy for Animorphs to have Rachel's character be very straightforward in how much she loves the war, K.A.Applegate had a very different idea for the character.
The best books narrated by Rachel are those where she questions her love of the war and when we see a more vulnerable side to the character. Such as in Animorphs #7 The Stranger where Rachel is devastated by the fact her father will be moving out of state which affects how she fights. Also Animorphs #22 The Solution where she is highly disturbed by the fact Jake sent her to murder David and questions how her fellow Animorphs view her.
As mentioned before, Rachel's battle morph was an African Elephant and later a Grizzly Bear. While it is more than easy to look at her choices as showing how deadly she is, there is another thing people should look at.
Rachel chose the Grizzly Bear morph when she felt utterly helpless. Her father was leaving town but she had to stay in order to save the world. Added to that was a god-like being called the Ellimist said humanity was doomed and that the Animorphs had to choose whether or not to send some people to a paradise planet. To make herself feel better she acquired a Grizzly Bear in the hopes that she could lose herself in its fearlessness.
It's safe to say that Rachel chose an African Elephant as a battle morph in order to forget her fear. If only for a little bit.
But The Separation shows other characters who Rachel actually is by splitting her into two halves. The first is nicknamed Nice Rachel who is constantly afraid, extremely girly, and has the ability to think long term. The second is nicknamed Mean Rachel who is gung ho, can't see the bigger picture, unafraid, and is all of the things people usually think Rachel is.
By the end of the book Rachel understands why she needs both sides of herself and how they work together. She understands that even though there is a part of herself that loves the war to an insane degree, she is not a lost cause. There is still humanity within her that can live beyond the war with the Yeerks.
While it isn't out of character for Daenerys Targaryen to end up as a villain, Game of Thrones did her turn to evil wrong. The showrunners did her turn to evil so poorly that any attempt to use canon to explain why she gave up being a hero is a lost cause. All you can do is guess at what was going on inside her head.
So I will use pieces of canon to analyze Daenerys' turn into the Mad Queen.
When Daenerys made it to Westeros she began to feel alone. She was in a land she didn't have any real ties to and events took those closest from her. She saw those she cared for die in front of her eyes. In Jorah Mormont's case he died in her arms after defending her from the dead.
So instead of accepting her mostly peaceful victory, Daenerys took out all her rage on the innocent people of King's Landing.
Daenerys' rage wasn't merely content to destroy, it also needed to make sure Queen Cersei Lannister suffered. She wanted the Lannister to see everything she had fought so hard for burned away and turned to ashes. Hence she didn't just fly to the Red Keep. If Daenerys killed Cersei quickly then the other queen couldn't suffer.
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While the final Animorphs book is #54 The Beginning, Rachel's character arc is completed in Animorphs #48 The Return. The book sees the return of the antagonist David who is now in league with the god-like being Crayak.
This is not the strongest book in the series. It feels a little silly and is held up from being a bad book for two reasons: Rachel facing her dark side and the ending that will leave you feeling lost for days afterwards. The book basically ends on the question on what makes a good person without giving the reader an answer.
So what does this god-like being want? For the promise of absolute power, all Rachel has to do is kill Jake.
Rachel is dearly tempted by the offer. Crayak even allows her to test out her new morphing powers on Visser Three. Instead of having to touch a creature to morph it, Rachel is able to change into anything her mind can imagine. And, of course, she can only keep her new morphing powers if she agrees to Crayak's terms.
In the end Rachel refuses Crayak's offer. She realizes that if she is given so much power eventually she will become everything she fears about herself. Instead of stopping after defeating the Yeerks, she will continue to fight anything that dares challenges her.
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At the end of the book David begs for her to kill him and Rachel debates if killing him would make her a good or bad person. She doesn't know if killing him will be a show of mercy and thus make her a good person or if killing him will be an act of revenge and thus make her one of the bad guys.
So while refusing Crayak's offer obviously made her a good person, she finds herself again faced with doing the good action. As I said, this book is the end of Rachel's character arc as all her inner turmoil is resolved.
Well...sort of.
Animorphs #48 The Return doesn't answer if Rachel actually kills David or not and the rest of the series never brings up this situation ever again. This leave various questions for the reader to ponder: Did Rachel kill David or not? What makes a good person? Is killing David the right action? Is Rachel strong enough to take the right action?
After Daenerys Targaryen burned King's Landing to the ground, she found her rage still unsatisfied. She rationalized the destruction of the city as freeing the people. So in her speech to the Dothraki and Unsullied she says that she will cleanse all of Westeros like she did King's Landing. Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow are both present for the speech so they know how far gone their queen has gone.
Though how Tyrion and Jon understood Daenerys is a plot hole. But the show says they understood her so that's canon.
Tyrion for the past two seasons had doubted Daenerys' right to rule. After she burned the Tarlys he realized she might not be different from her father but still thought there was good in her. However, once she burned King's Landing and made her speech, he knew it wasn't right to be her Hand anymore. So he publicly denounces her and she decides to lock him up.
Sometime later Jon visits Tyrion. The bastard doesn't want to kill Daenerys, most likely because he still harbors some feelings for her. But after a conversation with the Lannister he is forced to realize that she can't live any longer. If she does then all of Westeros will suffer for his inaction.
After Jon talks with Tyrion he makes his way to Daenerys in the Throne Room. As the guards allow him in with weapons, he could easily kill her without hiding his intentions. But he still talks with her to see if there is any chance she will not decide to have a reign of utter destruction. She reveals that she won't stop her plan of 'freeing' Westeros as she believes she is the one who gets to decide what is right.
The thing that finally convinces Jon to kill Daenerys is when she threatens his siblings Sansa and Arya Stark.
As Jon is just starting to mourn killing Daenerys, Drogon shows up. At the time of the Series Finale's airing there were theories Drogon burned the Iron Throne and not Jon because the dragon understood symbolism. However, once the script for the Series Finale was uploaded online those theories turned out to be false. Drogon didn't kill Jon because.
After burning the Iron Throne, Drogon flew away with Daenerys' corpse which meant there was no sign of what Jon had done. But the bastard decided to tell what had happened and his reward was exile to the Night's Watch that still exists for some reason.
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The Yeerk invasion of Earth didn't remain secret forever. Edriss 862's finding of Earth caused her to gain the rank of Visser One. Since she had so much power she decided on the invasion of Earth to be a secret one. Esplin 9466, who had gained the rank of Visser Three due to infesting an Andalite, had been put in charge of the invasion of Earth once Edriss left the planet. He preferred a more direct approach and didn't like the Earth invasion being a secret one.
After Edriss was found to be helping the Animorphs she was demoted and set to be executed. This meant Esplin rose to the rank of Visser One and was able to do away with the secret invasion.
Events had caused the Animorphs to go into hiding with the Hork-Bajir as they continued to fight the Yeerks. Finally the day came when the group was given the chance to win the war. Now I won't be able to explain all the atrocities that happened at this time and can only talk about Rachel's part in the final battle.
Jake had decided to fight the Yeerks because he wanted to free his older brother Tom. But as the war went on it became clear that his older brother might not be able to be freed. By the time the final battle came around Jake had accepted the fact that Tom would have to die because the Yeerk in his head would betray the group.
As Jake not being where Tom's Yeerk expected him to be would raise suspicions, he would have to send another Animorph to do the deed. Rachel was willing to do what the others wouldn't so he asked his cousin in secret to do the deed. She agreed even though she, as well as Jake, knows that it will be a suicide mission.
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The other Animorphs, as well as Visser One, had been watching the fight as the Blade ship was communicating with them. So Rachel is able to look at her friends one final time. During this time Tobias morphs human for the last time so he can cry as his girlfriend is killed.
Besides killing a traitor, Rachel ending Tom's life was meant to stop Tom's group of Yeerks from starting a new Yeerk Empire. But because of Erek King's retaliation by disabling the weapons of the Mother Ship, the Blade Ship was able to escape which meant her sacrifice was wasted.
I don't blame Erek as the Animorphs betrayed him all in the service of defeating the Yeerks. Due to how long this post already is I can't go into breaking down his part in the final battle.
After reading all of the comparisons between the two characters' character arcs, what is the difference? Why did Daenerys Targaryen's character arc go down in flames while Rachel's continues to shine as brightly as it did back in 2001?
Part of the reason Daenerys' character arc ended so poorly was that Game of Thrones framed her as a noble hero instead of a woman walking on the edge of sanity until the final season. Every action she took was framed as the right one with only minor problems at most. Even behind the scenes the showrunners denied she was going mad up until the Season 8 episode "The Bells".
So with nothing clearly stating that Daenerys going mad was a very real possibility, of course fans that didn't buy into her going mad before would be extremely confused.
Now Tyrion Lannister did disagree with the action but that was all the emphasis put on the execution. We didn't even get a scene between Jorah Mormont and Daenerys discussing the morality of such an action. A scene where the man could have pointed out it mirrored an event that helped start Robert's Rebellion.
What would have helped frame the burning of the Tarlys as a sign of Daenerys' deteriorating goodness is a conversation between her and Jon Snow. The man is the moral center of the show as his main drive of the show is to save Westeros from the Night King and he hardly bends from a code of honor.
So Jon disagreeing with Daenerys' decision to burn the Tarlys as well as Tyrion thinking it was the wrong action would have helped to better frame the Targaryen queen's action as immoral. It would've helped to better alert viewers that their hero might actually become the villains.
With the fact that in earlier seasons the showrunners had hampered Daenerys' character arc due to not framing her actions as signs to eventual madness, there was no hope that her turn to evil in the final season would make sense. So there was no chance we could've gotten anything much better than Daenerys going evil within an episode.
But, hey, at least we got a cool action sequence even if it didn't make any sense in context.
Rachel's character arc, on the other hand, was given time to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the girl. Besides that the Animorphs books framed her actions in ways that clearly informed readers of the girl's state of mind even when it didn't make her seem like a hero.
Since Rachel's character arc was well paced and her actions properly framed, by the time Crayak made his offer it makes sense readers don't know if she will take his offer or refuse it. The tension is real because we know enough of the Animorph to realize she might very well lose the struggle she had been waging against herself for so long.
The final results of Daenerys' character arc is a death scene that lacked any heart minus Drogon's pain of losing his entire family. Meanwhile the final results of Rachel's character arc is a death scene that will bring every Animorphs fan to tears with just two words: You Mattered.
Remember you can submit ideas for future posts by commenting on this post. I also talk about other fandoms, so don't feel that you have to only submit ideas for Game of Thrones and Animorphs posts.
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