'Game of Thrones' showrunners on why Daenerys's rage consumed her in last night's episode

Daenerys - or Game of Throne's new resident baddie - divided audiences during last night's episode of GoT. She became the long-theorised Mad Queen, ignoring the surrender bells of King's Landing, and burning everything in her path, including women and children who cowered in terror.

Her actions also sealed the fate of some of the show's central characters - including Cersei, Jaime, the Mountain, the Hound, Qyburn - oh, and she incinerated Varys earlier in the episode.

Naturally, the people of Twitter were up in arms about the twist, arguing that it renders Dany's character development redundant.

However, Game of Thrones' show-runners, D.B Weiss and David Benioff, defended the choice to unleash Bad Dany in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

Benioff told the publication that this version of Dany had been in the works since season 1. "Even when you look back to season one, when Khal Drogo gives the golden crown to Viserys and her reaction to watching her brother's head melted off, he was a terrible brother—so I don't think anyone out there was crying when Viserys died—but there is something chilling about the way Dany has responded to the death of her enemies," he said.

He also explained that Daenerys only snapped because she had lost so much: "If circumstances had been different, I don't think this side of Dany ever would have come out. If Cersei hadn't betrayed her, if Cersei hadn't executed Missandei, if Jon hadn't told her the truth [about his identity and his having a better claim to the Throne]—if all these things had happened in any different way, then I don't think we'd be seeing this side of Daenerys Targaryen."

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"And she's very much alone. And that's a dangerous thing for someone who's got so much power, to feel that isolated. So at the very time when she needs guidance and those kind of close friendships the most, everyone's gone," Benioff continued.

Explaining that Dany still has a conscience, Weiss chimed in: "I think that when she says, 'Let it be fear,' she's resigning herself to the fact that she may have to get things done in a way that isn't pleasant, and she may have to get things done in a way that is horrible to lots of people."

"I don't think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did," he added. "And then she sees the Red Keep, which is, to her, the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It's in that moment on the walls of King's Landing, when she's looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal."

And make things personal she did...