This post contains spoilers for Game Of Thrones Season 8 Episode 5 “The Bells“.
The previous episode of Game Of Thrones included a heel-turn for Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons. Now she can add one more title: Queen of the Ashes. In Sunday’s episode, she went medieval on innocent civilians in King’s Landing, reducing them to ashes even after they surrendered. Some people thought her deterioration into the mad queen was abrupt:
https://twitter.com/OnFireGaspy/status/1127794839821508608
Counterpoint:
GoT Fans: hell yeah burn that motherfucker to the ground
Daenerys: *burns that motherfucker to the ground*
GoT Fans: no not like that
— FRO VO (@fro_vo) May 14, 2019
“A Song of Ice and, I can’t stress this enough, Fire”
— Grantpa (@grantpardee) May 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/foxfled/status/1127816003910545408
Hard to say who’d be a worse leader. On one hand, Daenerys laid waste to an entire city for no reason, burning innocent women and children alive, on the other, Jon Snow didn’t pet his dog goodbye
— Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) May 13, 2019
People on twitter also made jokes about what this episode must have felt like to the parents of the estimated 3,562 American children who were named “Khaleesi” or “Daenerys” since 2011:
https://twitter.com/BobbyBigWheel/status/1127753142009987074
pour one out for the kids who years ago got named after a character whose televised arc finally swung around to "does warcrimes" in the penultimate episode of the show
— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) May 13, 2019
“Huh.” – parents who named their daughters Daenerys
— Sean Thomason (@TheThomason) May 13, 2019
The face of all the parents that named their kid Daenerys, Dany, or Khaleesi #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/3MOTy0ZFIJ
— Jesse Johnson (@jestertrog) May 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/WendyMolyneux/status/1128152461603033089
#gameofthrones all the parents of girls named “Khaleesi” watching their daughter’s namesake descend into madness pic.twitter.com/vcXJSvLrwG
— emily (@sprrrks) May 13, 2019
So are any of those parents saying “a girl has no name” now? The New York Post tracked down some of them and asked if they regret the name choice.
Nolan Geary, a 24-year-old stay-at-home dad raising 18-month-old daughter Khaleesi, joked, “I named her after this beautiful independent woman who’s brought freedom to all these places, and she’s turning into a g*ddamn tyrant.” Nonetheless, he didn’t seem to regret it, and neither did Suzy Friot, a 28-year-old nursing home nutrition assistant raising a 14-month-old Khaleesi with fiancé Jesse Vanleuven.
“As the show progressed, we love that her character overcame many obstacles and earned respect and love as a queen, instead of being a tyrant. On top of it all, she was a beautiful, intelligent woman. She is a woman who was going to change the world,” Friot told the Post. She also said the previous episode was “good” and won’t change how she’ll describe the namesake positively to her daughter when she’s older.
But perhaps Friot does have one small regret. “I almost wish I had named her Arya.”
Oh well. YOLO.
“GOOD EVENING COACHELLAAAAAA”#GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/12rHNsmnwV
— Ygor Frëmo (@YgorFremo) May 13, 2019
(Via New York Post)
