How to “fix” Game of Thrones season 8

Explore Daenerys’ state of mind

And here’s a much simpler idea: have Daenerys talk about how she’s feeling. Like I said, the final season relied heavily on Emilia Clarke’s performance to convey what Dany was going through, and while Clarke gave it her all (I think she should have won an Emmy for season 8), it still wasn’t enough to sell Dany’s big turn. I get that the writers wanted to show rather than tell, but in this case, I think a bit more telling was in order.

I have an idea for a scene set after Missandei is captured by Cersei but before she is executed. We’re on Dragonstone. Grey Worm is sitting alone in his room, worried, and Daenerys comes in to comfort him. They both love Missandei and reassure each other that they will get her back, neither of them quite believing it.

Grey Worm, the last of Dany’s close advisors who met her on Essos, points something out to her in his own moment of doubt: Westeros kind of sucks. Nothing’s gone right, the people don’t want or appreciate them, and things were a lot clearer and more productive on Essos. They were making more of a difference. Whatever happens with Missandei, why don’t they go back there?

This is more or less what Tyrion suggested to Daenerys when they first met back in season 5. She acknowledged that she’d done good work on Essos, “[b]ut this isn’t my home.”

But is Westeros her home? I think she grew up up thinking it would be, but now that she’s here, she’s not so sure. Daenerys is at a low ebb, perhaps thinking that she doesn’t have a home anywhere…except…

There’s a thread throughout the A Song of Ice and Fire books where Daenerys remembers when she, Viserys, and their protectors were living at a house with a red door in Braavos. It’s a vague memory, but she recalls it as one of the only places she was happy, one of the only places that felt like home. I think this scene would be the perfect place for her to bring it up. The house with the red door would serve as a symbol of the home Dany will never find again.

This scene would underline Dany’s deepening sense of isolation and despair, which directly influence her choice to torch King’s Landing. Also, I think it’d be a good idea to give us a vulnerable moment where we sympathize with Daenerys, since so much of the season keeps her at a distance.