The Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains would never, they insisted. Sure, she'd burned and crucified and sieged her way to Westeros, but that was different. Those guys deserved it. And for Daenerys to go crazy and murder a bunch of innocent civilians out of nowhere, well, that wasn't just lazy writing; fans decided it was an act of misogyny, a snide commentary on the unfitness of women in leadership roles and a sexist slap in the face to everyone who saw Daenerys as a feminist hero.

For a certain contingent of politically minded Game of Thrones fans who'd just seen their feminist fantasies crushed by the 2016 election, the hunger for good-guy Daenerys was particularly fierce: Cersei Lannister might rail against the patriarchy of Westeros, but Daenerys Targaryen promised to smash it permanently. Here was a ruler who not only promised to look out for the little guy but to "break the wheel," dismantling the corrupt and terrible system from whence all the suffering stems. Here was a woman so good, so moral, that she insisted on burying every last child murdered by the Masters to mark her approach to Meereen—but not before looking thoroughly on the horror.

"I will see each and every one of their faces," she said.

Let's not forget that Daenerys had spent the past seven seasons promising to take the throne "with fire and blood," while also wantonly killing anyone whom she perceived as an obstacle to that goal. In truth, that people could credibly claim to be shocked when she arrived in King's Landing and performed exactly as advertised is a testament to Game of Thrones' quality (and to Emilia Clarke's acting abilities). It's not easy to disguise a villainous egomaniac as a plucky underdog, let alone to keep the illusion from cracking all the way down to the end.

The best and most memorable example of this arc is only a few years old: the Mr. Chips-turned-Scarface evolution of Breaking Bad's Walter White. Like Daenerys, Walt started out powerless and put-upon, so that you couldn't help but root for him. Like Daenerys, Walt's early acts of violence felt righteous, a reclamation of the personhood that others had tried to take away. And like Daenerys, Walt's quest for power never took out anyone who didn't deserve it—or so we assured ourselves, even as the bodies piled up.

But this is what antiheroes do. They make you believe you're on the same side, making it that much harder to accept it when the opposite turns out to be true. The Daenerys who burned King's Landing is the same woman who watched with cold eyes as her brother was murdered, clearing a path for her to take the throne; who burned Mirri Maz Duur and Pyat Pree for their treason; who massacred the soldiers and slavers at Astapor, crucified the Masters at Yunkai and incinerated Vaes Dothrak; who executed the Tarlys when they weren't instantly subservient. It was just our mistake to assume that all of this was for the best, to root for Team Daenerys because we thought Daenerys herself stood for something bigger.

She doesn't. And looking back, she never has. Daenerys is driven, above all, by a fervent buy-in to her own hype. When she insisted on looking into the faces of those dead children on her way to Meereen, what she saw, beyond the horror, was a flattering image of herself as a righteous conqueror marching to liberate a grateful city. But scratch the surface of her savior fantasies, and there's nothing underneath, particularly when it comes to her quest for the Iron Throne. She holds little concern for the people of Westeros, and few plans for how she'll govern them—but honey, you should see her in a crown.

So, what happens when Daenerys looks down from the back of her dragon and sees nothing but hatred, terror and desperation in the eyes of the people who were supposed to greet her as a savior? We could've guessed. Adore her, and she'll love you back. Fear her, and she'll give you something to scream about.

In a truncated season plagued by pacing issues, a fair criticism is that the buildup to the Mad Queen moment (along with everything else) should have been given more time and space to play out. But it's nothing we couldn't have seen coming, and it's certainly not misogyny. What would have been sexist, on the other hand, is to draw back at the last moment from letting Daenerys rain down fire on King's Landing—to deprive her of the good-guy-gone-bad arc that we wouldn't think twice about giving to a man.

Game of Thrones has always weathered harsh criticism about how it treats its female characters, and sometimes, the critics have a point. The world it depicts is brutal, volatile and realistically governed by the old-school rules of a medieval patriarchy. It's not a safe or friendly place—for anyone—but it's a place where women are particularly vulnerable and suffer particular horrors, the kind that not everyone wants to invite into their living room on a Sunday night.

But in this final season, the outrage has more often centered not on women's pain, but their imperfect humanity. When Sansa eyed Daenerys with disrespectful suspicion from the moment she arrived in Winterfell, fans called it a "catfight" and complained of misogyny—never mind that after years of captivity in Cersei Lannister's Red Keep, Sansa knows a power-hungry narcissist when she sees one (and knows that Jon, bless his heart, tends not to notice this sort of thing until it's too late). When Brienne wept, begging Jaime not to return to King's Landing, fans called it sexism that she'd display such open despair—as though the strongest and bravest among us wouldn't be wrecked by the sight of a beloved friend choosing to die rather than stay. The urge to protect female characters from harm has morphed into something else: an urge to protect them from being fully human, with all of its flaws, horrors and emotional extremes. They deserve better. So do we.

And Daenerys Targaryen, having taken what was hers with fire and blood, still has time left as of this writing to consider another past promise: "I am not here to be Queen of the Ashes." The door is open for redemption, an opportunity she may take … or not. Like every woman—and every person—in the Game of Thrones universe, Daenerys Targaryen contains multitudes.

So if you thought she was the good guy, you haven't been paying attention. But if you think that makes her a badly drawn character, you should think again.