Arya killed a bunch of murderers. You can argue that's wrong, but it's hardly comparable to murdering hundred or perhaps even thousands of innocent women and children. Arya wants revenge yes... but she's not nuts. THe fact that she was able to walk away from her vendetta against Cersi while Dany ended up destroying an entire city over it illustrates the difference pretty clearly.
I'm not arguing against someone saying what Dany did was okay. I'm arguing against someone comparing Arya's actions to Danys. Yes, they both killed people but there's a darn good reason people are a LOT harder on Dany than Arya and it's not because she's the show runners pet.
As far as build up goes... what build is is there showing someone snapping. When you watch on the news some allededly bullied high school kid shooting a dozen kids in school, did he shoot just 1-2 the prior week to build up to it? Probably not. You can see signs that something is WRONG with that person (and you did see that in Dany in the initial part of the episode), but as far as kills go no she doesn't start killing a smaller number of innocent lives before ramping up. She freaking snapped. That can happen with minimal warning.
Prior to S8 E5, Dany and Arya’s kills are comparable in terms of justification.
For starters, they could have given more thought to the events leading up to her downfall. Having Missandei get captured and killed and Rhagal get killed all in the same episode is too fast. There was very little focus on how these things impacted Dany. We had maybe 2-3 scenes of her being sad or angry over it. Dany’s descent would have been more meaningful if we could have seen it play out over an entire season.As far as build up goes... what build is is there showing someone snapping. When you watch on the news some allededly bullied high school kid shooting a dozen kids in school, did he shoot just 1-2 the prior week to build up to it? Probably not. You can see signs that something is WRONG with that person (and you did see that in Dany in the initial part of the episode), but as far as kills go no she doesn't start killing a smaller number of innocent lives before ramping up. She freaking snapped. That can happen with minimal warning.
Snapping isn't the same as going mad tho, I feel that people are getting the two confused. I wouldn't doubt that's how it's written in universe tho. If I'm to take anything from that, it's that history is biased. Ned's battle with Auther Dayne proved that. So I'm guessing that the prequel show will do the same with the history of the WW and the children of the forest.....we hope lol.
I think things happening so fast actually makes Dany losing it more justifiable. If she had more time to process and deal with the loss, she might not have done what she did. She didn't get the time she needed to deal with her own emotions, and they spilled over into the invasion. This just happened... it's raw. She doesn't have anyone close to her helping her to cope with her loses, since the ONLY person right now in the position to do so basically turned down hooking up with his aunt. That was relatively new too... if they had more time they could possibly deal with that too, but they didn't.
Still, if this were not the final season sure... things might have slowed down. Though again, I don't think they necessarily want to make Danys ultimate fate too obvious... you want some shock value there for effect, even if you simotanously want to foreshadow. It's a tricky balance.
So much of the angst is built on "this is what I thought the character was building to" but that is exactly the sort of thing GRRM liked to twist on itself. People are sad they aren't getting the ending they wanted and that is the wrong way to think about it.
I'm not saying I'll like how the ending is handled, but I'm striving not to "want" anything in particular.
Meanwhile at the neck....
"Dad? Haven't you got any of the messages from Winterfell?!" Meera exclaimed
"Nope!" Howland said, while chewing on a frog loudly
"Half the starks are dead. There were multiple wars, including a fight with the undead. Dragons, ALL KINDS OF SHIT DAD!! WHERE WERE YOU?!"
Howland looked at her in shock, half a frog leg sticking out his mouth, "Whaaaat?"
It can still be a twist and seeds can be planted. I think show-watchers have really bought into Dany as the hero of this story. Maybe the medium of television has made that more pronounced, but I think it can be true that this has been building and it be a twist of the knife to expectations.
GRRM is also quite forward that much of the prophecy and foreshadowing in his books is deliberately nonsense with no purpose. That should factor too, I think. Personally, I think anyone arguing this is the "obvious" way of going is overstating it.