It honestly makes me laugh that people try to use the “loot train attack” (what kind of name, seriously) and the following scene (wherein she burns the Lannister soldiers) to claim that she’s going insane.
“She’s gonna be the new Mad Queen just like her father was the Mad King!”
Let’s, first of all, clear this up, okay? The Mad King was not at war. The Mad King burned people alive for his own amusement, and laughed while watching them burn.
As opposed to her lunatic father, you have Daenerys, setting fire to the Lannister troops and their supplies. Daenerys is at war. She decimates the enemy’s force and resources but avoids killing civilians, and this displays that she’s going mad?
What should she be doing? Twiddling her thumbs while her enemies gain ground? Bring only her army to fight the Lannister men because “It’s unfair that she has dragons”? If you were at war - I repeat, at war - and your enemies had bows and arrows and you had guns, I’m sure that you would say, “I have the advantage but for the sake of keeping things fair, I’ll use bows and arrows like my enemies instead! I’m such a good person guys.”
Not only does this not make a lick of fucking sense, it will also cost you more lives of your own men. Forgive me if I don’t think badly of Daenerys for using a tactic that cuts losses on her side and enhances losses on her enemies’ while she’s at war.
While you’re hating on Daenerys for using her dragons, people, why don’t you also say, “Jon should not use Longclaw in battle because Valyrian steel is better than normal steel” and “Arthur Dayne should not use Dawn in battle because it was made of better metal than normal swords”?
Now we have the scene where Daenerys burns Dickon and Randyll Tarly alive for not bending the knee to her. Again, it is hilarious that people claim Daenerys is going mad for this. She gave them the chance to live, it’s them who chose not to take it. Aegon the Conqueror did the same thing as Daenerys in Harrenhal - he set an entire castle on fire - and no one calls him mad. Ruthless and brutal, yes, but not mad. Even more ridiculous, I don’t seem to recall Jaime even bothering to offer a chance to the people of High Garden while he was sacking it. No one calls him mad.
And another thing - Daenerys has the right to treat the Tarlys as traitors for siding with the Lannisters, since Olenna has already pledged herself to Daenerys’ cause, and the Tarlys are a vassal house of the Tyrells. The most common punishment for traitors in GoT is instant death. Ned did it, Robb did it, Jon did it. And yet Daenerys gives these traitors a chance, not only to live but to keep their titles and lands. And people want to use this situation as evidence that she’s going insane?
Bonus: In that same episode, Davos comments on Tyrion killing his son with wildfire and no one says shit about that.
I’m not sorry to say it: The whole “burning the Lannister soldiers and the Tarlys shows that Dany will become the Mad Queen” argument is shit and completely ignores all context and circumstance.
