Daenerys wants to bring fire and blood to King’s Landing and all of her enemies. Cersei would rather burn cities to the ground than submit to hers. Now the two stand against each other for the right to rule over King’s Landing…a city sitting on a cache of wildfire. With each queen willing to do anything and everything to stop the other, the Mad King’s dream to “burn them all” might finally come true.
A Mad Daughter
Despite saving it from annihilation, Daenerys didn’t gain any allies or power when she went North. With many Unsullied and Dothraki killed, she actually lost a lot of what she had. That’s even before Rhaegal was struck down by the Iron Fleet. With Cersei growing stronger than ever in her absence, and Jon’s secret emerging, Daenerys’s dream she has fought so hard for is fading. As her prospects wane, her fury rises.
But with King’s Landing fortified by dragon-killing crossbows, her greatest weapon, Drogon, might be completely neutralized. The Mother of Dragons can’t risk putting her last child on the front line. However, a Targaryen can still bring fire and blood to her enemies when her father stocked wildfire beneath King’s Landing. Daenerys can succeed if she can fulfill her father’s promise to “burn them all”. All it would take is one servant, smuggled in by Davos, to turn the capital and its ruling queen into a green smoldering ruin.
A Vengeful Queen
Only one person has ever actually used the Mad King’s hidden wildfire, and that is Queen Cersei, First of Her Name, who blew up her enemies and hundreds of innocent people at the Sept of Baelor. Her murder of Missandei shows she has no intention of surrendering. Whether she’s really pregnant or not, she would rather see everyone die before giving into the younger, more beautiful queen. Maggy the Frog warned her about this as a child.
If her cause looks lost and Daenerys and Jon are on the verge of taking King’s Landing, she won’t hesitate to destroy everyone and everything the way the Mad King intended after he lost the city. With nothing but vengeance to live for, mutual destruction, even if it means killing a million people along the way, would be a final act Cersei would happily oversee as she takes her last sip of wine.
The “Allies” Who Can Stop Them
If you want to sneak into King’s Landing, you turn to Davos. But if you want to sneak around King’s Landing you turn to Varys. He knows the secret passageways around the city better than anyone. If Daenerys plans to keep Drogon away but still burn the city, she’ll ask the Spider about the hidden wildfire.
It’s a plan he won’t carry out. He’s already preparing to kill Daenerys and replace her with Jon Snow merely for thinking about destroying King’s Landing. If she gives the order to fulfill her father’s promise, Varys won’t hesitate to act on behalf of the Realm.
Cersei doesn’t have such a principled adviser by her side though. There’s no one to quash her worst instincts the way Daenerys has Tryion. Even if Qyburn realized the folly of such an order, he’s in no position to stop Cersei. Not when her subservient zombie dog the Mountain is always by her side. There won’t be a member of the Kingsguard to stop her the way the Mad King was stopped by Jaime.
Unless Jaime himself saves the city once more. He is heading to King’s Landing after hearing another dragon died and Daenerys might destroy her sister in her wrath. Cersei loved him enough to let him go off and betray her, so she might let him get close to her now. He thinks Cersei is carrying their child, but even if that is true he won’t be able to save her or their baby if she orders the wildfire attack. Jaime was mortified by what happened at the Sept of Baelor. He already saved many lives when he put his sword in the Mad King’s back. No matter what he said to Brienne, he is a good man. Why wouldn’t he stop another mad ruler from burning them all now?
The explosion at the Sept of Baelor proved the Mad King’s plan would have destroyed the entire city. With two queens – one of whom is his daughter intent on bringing fire and blood, the other the only person to ever use his wildfire – his dream to “burn them all” might still happen.
Images: HBO
