Game Of Thrones Season 8 Breakdown: What 'The Bells' REALLY Means

8. The Mad Queen

After a few episodes teasing Dany's "heel turn" to borrow the parlance of wrestling for a moment, the show pulled the trigger, having her live the destiny she hoped so dearly she would be able to avoid. The deaths of her closest friend and her "son" Rhaegal were too much and having seen her allies depleted or distanced from her by betrayals and political machinations, she was isolated, volatile and emotionally broken.

Add a couple of days without sleep and food and you have some indication of Dany's mental condition as she's planning her raid on King's Landing and then everything we see bubbling up inside her as she sits on top of Drogon on the King's Landing rooftops.

As she rains fire down on the innocent residents, shockingly, Dany has ultimately relived her father's story. She is the Mad Queen and there's no way she could ever rule now with love. As she says herself, it will be fear.

And while it could prove disastrous, it's understandable: we are meant to see her and Grey Worm's tragic pay-offs as unavoidable because of what was done to them. In the grand model of cause and effect in Westeros, this was bloody retribution in action.