>>212525929You're getting a lot of shit, but Aegon the Conqueror shows up to Harrenhal and is like "hey surrender and you'll be treated well." The Lord at the time goes "no lol fuck you." and Aegon proceeds to burn them all alive and extinguish their entire lineage. It's possible that while they were burning to death they were saying "wait wait, we changed our mind, we surrender!" but at that point, it's too late and it's all about establishing and maintaining precedent.
When you show up, it's time for your opponent to surrender and if the people currently in charge don't, the people under them better rise up and make them surrender or everyone is fucked. Tywin did the same shit to the Reins and Tarbecks. What Dany did is absolutely, 100% understandable and justified in the context of the story. It wasn't the best way of handling things, but it also wasn't entirely crazy. The people of Westeros are scum that respond a lot more to the stick than the carrot.
Look at the conduct of the Iron Islands, look at Sansa and her secessionist amibitions, look at the sheer debauchery of the Eyrie, the debauchery of the Westerlands, the chaos of Dorne, the behavior of the Freys, and it really just goes on and on. Westeros is a pile of shit that was better off destroyed by the Others and forced into a complete reset by the point it was at. Dany's mistake was ever returning and saving it, but given that she did, everyone of those people's lives were on loan from her.