[Spoilers Extended]Hints for that one Daenerys theory

Mad or Vilain Dany is quite a controversial subject especially after the fiasco that was season 8,There is still a lot of discource

But there was a good reason it's was one of the most popular theories before the series started for a good reason there is simply many hints in the books about it in the text

>The Dothraki were muttering and giving her strange sideways looks from the corners of their dark almond eyes. They thought her mad, Dany realized. Perhaps she was. She would know soon enough. If I look back I am lost.

>"I have a gift for you as well." She slammed the chest shut. "Three days. On the morning of the third day, send out your slaves. All of them. Every man, woman, and child shall be given a weapon, and as much food, clothing, coin, and goods as he or she can carry. These they shall be allowed to choose freely from among their masters' possessions, as payment for their years of servitude. When all the slaves have departed, you will open your gates and allow my Unsullied to enter and search your city, to make certain none remain in bondage. If you do this, Yunkai will not be burned or plundered, and none of your people shall be molested. The Wise Masters will have the peace they desire, and will have proved themselves wise indeed. What say you?"

"I say, you are mad."

Am I?" Dany shrugged, and said, "Dracarys."

>Dany felt shabby and barbaric as she rode past them in her lionskin robe with black Drogon on one shoulder. Her Dothraki called the Qartheen "Milk Men" for their paleness, and Khal Drogo had dreamed of the day when he might sack the great cities of the east. She glanced at her bloodriders, their dark almond-shaped eyes giving no hint of their thoughts. Is it only the plunder they see? she wondered. How savage we must seem to these Qartheen.

And the biggest one in A Game of thrones:

>As she climbed down off the pyre, she noticed Mirri Maz Duur watching her. "You are mad," the godswife said hoarsely.

"Is it so far from madness to wisdom?" Dany asked. "Ser Jorah, take this maegi and bind her to the pyre."

"To the … my queen, no, hear me …"

"Do as I say." Still he hesitated, until her anger flared. "You swore to obey me, whatever might come. Rakharo, help him."

The scene in ADWD, Chapter 11 with the wineshop owner and his daugthers show us things quite well

>Grey Worm answered. “Your servants were set upon as they walked the bricks of Meereen to keep Your Grace’s peace. All were well armed, with spears and shields and short swords. Two by two they walked, and two by two they died. **Your servants Black Fist and Cetherys were slain by crossbow bolts **in Mazdhan’s Maze. **Your servants Mossador and Duran were crushed by falling stones** beneath the river wall. **Your servants Eladon Goldenhair and Loyal Spear were poisoned at a wineshop** where they were **accustomed to stop each night upon their rounds**.”

***Mossador***. Dany made a fist.**Missandei and her brothers had been taken from their home on Naath by raiders from the Basilisk Isles and sold into slavery in Astapor. Young as she was, Missandei had shown such a gift for tongues that the Good Masters had made a scribe of her. Mossador and Marselen had not been so fortunate. They had been gelded and made into Unsullied. **“Have any of the murderers been captured?”**

“**Your servants have arrested the owner of the wineshop and his daughters.** They plead their ignorance and beg for mercy.”

****They all plead ignorance and beg for mercy*****. “**Give them to the Shavepate**. Skahaz, keep each apart from the others **and put them to the question**.”

**“It will be done, Your Worship. Would you have me question them sweetly, or sharply?”**

**“Sweetly, to begin. Hear what tales they tell and what names they give you. It may be they had no part in this.”** She hesitated. “Nine, the noble Reznak said. Who else?”

There have been several murders. Two pairs of Dany's guys were ambushed and murdered on the streets, and one pair was poisoned in a wineshop where they stop every night during their rounds.

Dany's guards have not been able to locate any potential witnesses or possible suspects other than the wineshop's owner and his daughters, she wants them all merely questioned (they might be innocent after all).

>**“Three freedmen, murdered in their homes,”** the Shavepate said. “A moneylender, a cobbler, and the harpist **Rylona Rhee. They cut her fingers off before they killed her**.”

**The queen flinched.** Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany’s councils. **“We have no captives but this wineseller?”**

Three more murders, one of them a servant Dany cared about, now it's personal. But there are zero leads other than the wineseller and his daugthers.

>**“None, this one grieves to confess. We beg your pardon.”**

*Mercy*, thought Dany. *They will have the dragon’s mercy\*. **“Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply.”**

The only thing that has changed between Daenerys wanting the guy questioned and wanting to have him tortured, is that she got the news of another completely unrelated murder in-between those two decisions, but one that made her furious.

All the killings are seemingly random attacks across the city where opportunities presented themselves at night, Daenerys has not been able to locate a single viable suspect.

The two who were poisoned went to the shop every single night as part of their routine, if anything there is nothing pointing towards the wineseller at all other than the fact that those two really liked his shop and that he had the misfortune of Daenerys coming up completely empty otherwise.

>**“I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him.”**

**“Do as you think best, but bring me names.” Her fury was a fire in her belly.**

Instead, Skahaz goes MUCH further, he now wants to torture the man's daugthers instead while he is forced to watch. And Dany agrees, she literally tells him to do whatever he wants, as long as he brings her names.

There is no reason to believe the man is involved, and Dany just ordered unlimited torture against his daugthers to get names he 99% doesn't even know.

We don't even know how many daugthers or how old any of them actually are.

\>\*My enemies are legion\*. “Hizdahr zo Loraq is a persuasive man with many friends. And he is wealthy. Perhaps he has bought this peace for us with gold, or convinced the other highborn that our marriage is in their best interests.”

“If he is not the Harpy, he knows him. I can find the truth of that easy enough. \*\*Give me your leave\*\* to put Hizdahr to the question, \*\*and I will bring you a confession\*\*.”

\*\*“No,” she said. “I do not trust these confessions. You’ve brought me too many of them, all of them worthless.”\*\*

“Your Radiance—”

“No, I said.”

the crucifixion of slavers as well. Shows she has a tendency to see red and will make choices that get people hurt before calming down. Theres a later passage when danaerys sees the slavers on the cross and it turns her stomach iirc. This incident on its own isnt enough to point to her ‘going mad’, but when paired with her agreeing to have the winesellers daughters tortured a pattern starts to emerge.

Also it's easy to imagine that bringing eunuchs, dothraki,The freaking Iron Fleet and essosi mercenaries to westeros she will lose the propaganda war. If her enemies treat her harshly the ground is laid for her to overreact.

A dance with dragons has danaerys at odds with herself. Shes the descendant of a great conqueror of aegon I, but shes also very empathetic to the plight of the slaves in essos. She wants peace in mereen but finds the compromises hard to stomach. the ending of dance shows that she will start to pivot from peace and compromise and let her fury off the leash.

‘Her mask is made of starlight. "Remember who you are, Daenerys," the stars whispered in a woman's voice. "The dragons know. Do you?"’

She keeps believing the word of someone whos feuling her paranoia by telling her not to trust anyone without telling her who. Shes also telling her to be more like her dragons and listen to the motto of her house. ‘Fire and Blood’ ‘Dragons plant no trees’

‘

"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud.

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.

"Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was ... her name ..." Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons."

Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.’

Her not remembering the name of an innocent who died because of her dragons could suggest shes going to charge towards conquest and be held back less by compassion in the future. ‘The grass’ could be quaithe or danys own self conscious thoughts, but ‘you turned against your children’ is flawed. Chaining dragons away after they killed an innocent girl was the morally right thing to do.

‘"I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

"Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.’

‘Planting trees’ is subtext for enjoying the prosperity that peacetime brings, ‘dragons plant no trees’ is ominous to say the least and suggests she will be far more ruthless in her pursuit of her goals in the future taking two routes either the one of Aerys the Mad where it's killing out of insanity or Maegor the Cruel/Rheaenyra Maegor with teats/Aegon the Usurper/Aemond One-Eye were it's will be killing out of sheer pettiness

And let's don't forget the mirror with the setting's other Mad Queen:Cersei Lannister

They are both women trying to gain respect as leaders. Their experiences being either underestimated or disregarded due to gender motivate them to seek power. Both are also haunted by visions of their fates.

The differences are that Cersei seems inherently cruel since childhood while Dany will become more cruel through her experiences. Also Dany is 20 years younger than Cersei, so who’s to say in 20 years Dany would end up like Cersei.

Over-suspicion due to perceived inevitability is also the main similarity. Cersei is overly-suspicious because she sees her children’s deaths and her own as inevitable due to Maggy the Frog’s prophecy. So she mistrusts almost everyone.

Dany is the same, the prophecy of the “three treasons” making her wary of everyone around her.

And Their stories are very similar, we are just seeing Dany's unfold in realtime, whereas Cersei shows us the long term outcome.

Again Dany, right now, is not like Cersei, but Cersei has also had a good 20ish years to fester to the point of the crazy woman we now see. Both were about 13 when they meet a witch who tells them a prophecy. Over the course of ADWD, we see the prophecies Dany has been told coming to the forefront of her mind a lot more often, she just isn't yet at the point of actively trying to prevent it from happening.

Both killed their brutish, warrior husband.

Both have 3 kids that aren't true born.

Both have two brothers.

Both trying to reclaim their father's legacy.

Both like fire.

Both undergo a rebirth walk at the end of ADWD.

Both are bald at the end of ADWD.

There is simply a pattern to see,Is having two Mad Queens(Or two cruel queens,Like there other parallel Rhaenyra) reductive?Yes.is it George's plan by making them similar to each other?also yes

Also She has been told all her life that the throne was stolen from her family and that it is her birthright. She believes that it's her throne. She won't take it well that some won't accept her after travelling across the known world,a lot of people will burn for not loving her

As for what she of jon snow and aegon?again her whole identity comes from believing she is the rightful heir to the iron throne, aegon having it by the time she gets there will really challenge that idea. Rhaegars alleged son would have a far better claim than his younger sister, which would turn her into a usurper rather than a lawful monarch.

Theres also a good chance that aegon will have the faith on his side and win over the lords, whereas dany is a women who already has a foul reptuation from the reports that have trickled back to westeros from slavers bay. As well as the aforementioned dothraki and eunuchs. Aegon will be seen as the rightful king defending the realm from a foreign tyrant bringing barbarians to their shores. This will certainly cause alot of internal conflict for someone who has longed to have a family.

Jon, as her bastard nephew wouldnt threaten her claim so there relationship won't be as difficult but will be unequal af,And it's will cause many problems between Jon and the Northmen as he is bending the knee to a foreign invader and one of the worst Tyrants,And a Targaryen whom the Northmen hate more than anyone in the world But if Rhaegar really made him his heir as some theorize then she may hate him even more than she will hate FAegon.even more if he is actually liked and he is not,her reasoning is "Why would this Dog bastard be more liked than me"?

The Mad Queen/or Maegor with Teats 2.0/Vilain ruthless Dany is a theory with a lot of hints just like Mad Queen Cersei and R+L=J there is a lot of forshadowing in the books for it to happen