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The Meereenese Blot


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I've read them and agree with some of the things like the Shavepate behind the locusts but disagree with the peace being actually real, the peace was more of a sham.

This is also my take. I think the essays get some stuff right, like the Shavepate, but I think it overestimates how legitimate the peace really was. If it could be broken by a bowl of locusts, no matter who the poisoner was, then the peace was a sham. And even though Dany got what she wanted out of it, a stop to the violence, it still involved her more or less selling out: opening the fighting pits, marrying Hizdahr and capitulating to what the Green Grace wanted her to do.

The Blot essays don't particularly impress me; I've seen better analyses on here, of both Dany and Jon.

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During the Daenerys re-read, it became clear the peace was not real. There was a peace party among the Slavers (eg Yezzan, Hizdahr), but the Volantenes have been promised huge plunder, and a massive Armada has set sail.

Breaking the truce before the Volantenes got there was very much in the Shavepate's interests.

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tl;dr :-)



Does it explain why Hizzy didn't eat the locusts? Or the point of poisoning food that Dany, given her eating preferences, was bound not to eat? I don't think it could be supposed that she would have felt obliged to try at least one bite just because she was offered. I know I wouldn't, and I'm not a queen used to having my way in next to anything.



I do agree with one point: the whole affair stinks.


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Just reread the analysis on Jon. The stark (pun intended) contrast between his peacemaking with the wildlings and his provocation of the Boltons is something I had completely missed. Some serious hypocrisy in Jon's actions, the pink letter surprised me at first but in hindsight it was just waiting to happen.



Hizdahr did manage to stop the sons of the Harpy assassinations though. That wasn't peace with the Volantenes, nor some grand cultural unification between the different factions in Meereen. But it was a very definite step toward a more stable Meereen, which Dany accomplished through compromise by agreeing to marry Hizdahr. I don't think calling that peace a sham is quite accurate, it's a very real improvement, but the situation remained fragile enough that it could revert to chaos easily.





The Blot essays don't particularly impress me; I've seen better analyses on here, of both Dany and Jon.




Could you maybe provide any links? I'm new to this forum but would be amazed to read even better essays





Does it explain why Hizzy didn't eat the locusts? Or the point of poisoning food that Dany, given her eating preferences, was bound not to eat?




I haven't read the Daenaery's one for a while so can't say. I would guess Hizdahr was an intended target, the more chaos caused the better from the Shavepate's view. But the locusts wouldn't actually need to kill Dany or Hizdahr to cause chaos, they would just need to kill somebody, causing more distrust and threatening the peace is in the Harpy's favour. Just by poisoning Belwas, the locusts spurred Barristan to put Hizdahr in jail, reigniting the nightly assassinations. Poisoning Dany or Hizdahr would've just been a bonus


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Just reread the analysis on Jon. The stark (pun intended) contrast between his peacemaking with the wildlings and his provocation of the Boltons is something I had completely missed. Some serious hypocrisy in Jon's actions, the pink letter surprised me at first but in hindsight it was just waiting to happen.

agreed.

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Agree with some parts, disagree with others. I don't think the Shavepate is a traitor, but Daario as GRRM's representation of war/brutality in Dany's arc is pretty insightful.



If she had listened to his advice and just massacred the slaver aristocracy at her wedding, I think the entire Mereen arc would have been saved :cool4: (then again that may have been one wedding massacre too many...some other trap perhaps?)


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I haven't read these and tbh am much less tuned in to Mereen story lines than most seem to be, but just to comment on a comment I've seen made twice: I don't think you can judge a recently made peace as real or fake based on how it handles an assassination attempt on one of the parties involved.

Not sure we can ever call a peace deal or fake except in retrospect...some peace agreements were thought by all parties to be temporary or 'fake' but lasted anyways, other peace accords made by sincere believers on all sides quickly fell apart, so it's a really tough call...but imo most versions of peace would be seriously strained if quickly after they are made one of the signatories suffered an assassination attempt.

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Just reread the analysis on Jon. The stark (pun intended) contrast between his peacemaking with the wildlings and his provocation of the Boltons is something I had completely missed. Some serious hypocrisy in Jon's actions, the pink letter surprised me at first but in hindsight it was just waiting to happen.

I actually find the Jon analysis to completely miss the point.

Could you maybe provide any links? I'm new to this forum but would be amazed to read even better essays

I suggest looking in the re-reads subforum for Dany and/or Jon threads. The Jon re-read in particular is handled by a group comprising some of the best writers on here. As a whole, the Jon project organized by Butterbumps and her crew runs circles around the Blot.

The only, and I mean only, part of the Blot, involving both Jon and Dany, that I found even marginally illuminating was the concept of the Shavepate as the poisoner. I'll give him that. The rest of it ... meh. If you haven't read better essays than that, you haven't looked hard enough.

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I actually find the Jon analysis to completely miss the point.

I suggest looking in the re-reads subforum for Dany and/or Jon threads. The Jon re-read in particular is handled by a group comprising some of the best writers on here. As a whole, the Jon project organized by Butterbumps and her crew runs circles around the Blot.

The only, and I mean only, part of the Blot, involving both Jon and Dany, that I found even marginally illuminating was the concept of the Shavepate as the poisoner. I'll give him that. The rest of it ... meh. If you haven't read better essays than that, you haven't looked hard enough.

Disagree.

While Meereenese blot isn't great, it definitely beats Butterbumps'

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I haven't read these and tbh am much less tuned in to Mereen story lines than most seem to be, but just to comment on a comment I've seen made twice: I don't think you can judge a recently made peace as real or fake based on how it handles an assassination attempt on one of the parties involved.

Not sure we can ever call a peace deal or fake except in retrospect...some peace agreements were thought by all parties to be temporary or 'fake' but lasted anyways, other peace accords made by sincere believers on all sides quickly fell apart, so it's a really tough call...but imo most versions of peace would be seriously strained if quickly after they are made one of the signatories suffered an assassination attempt.

Well the assassination attempt isn't the only thing the points to the peace being a sham, there is also the case of the Volantene fleets coming to Meereen. If the peace was actually real I wouldn't expect Volantene fleets to be coming to Meereen.

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Well the assassination attempt isn't the only thing the points to the peace being a sham, there is also the case of the Volantene fleets coming to Meereen. If the peace was actually real I wouldn't expect Volantene fleets to be coming to Meereen.

Also, add to that all the slaves the Yunkaii promised:

The Lost Lord

The Yunkishmen. The envoy that they sent to woo Volantis has already dispatched three free companies to Slavers Bay. He wishes us to be the fourth and offers twice what Myr was paying us, plus a slave for every man in the company, ten for every officer, and a hundred choice maidens all for me. Bloody hell. That would require thousands of slaves. Where do the Yunkishmen expect to find so many? In Meereen.

The Yunkaii never said anything to Dany about this in their "negotiations".

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Just reread the analysis on Jon. The stark (pun intended) contrast between his peacemaking with the wildlings and his provocation of the Boltons is something I had completely missed. Some serious hypocrisy in Jon's actions, the pink letter surprised me at first but in hindsight it was just waiting to happen.

Hizdahr did manage to stop the sons of the Harpy assassinations though. That wasn't peace with the Volantenes, nor some grand cultural unification between the different factions in Meereen. But it was a very definite step toward a more stable Meereen, which Dany accomplished through compromise by agreeing to marry Hizdahr. I don't think calling that peace a sham is quite accurate, it's a very real improvement, but the situation remained fragile enough that it could revert to chaos easily.

I do not think, that marrying Hizdahr was such a great political step. To me, it looks like Hizdahr (or someone related to him like the Green Grace) was the head of the whole Harpy-organization and by marrying him Dany essentially caved in to blackmail.

If she had figured out who the Harpy was she would not have needed to marry Hizdahr.

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During the Daenerys re-read, it became clear the peace was not real. There was a peace party among the Slavers (eg Yezzan, Hizdahr), but the Volantenes have been promised huge plunder, and a massive Armada has set sail.

Breaking the truce before the Volantenes got there was very much in the Shavepate's interests.

Vic also confirms that the Volantenes are on their way. So the peace was more or less fake.

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I'm very much favour of the Blot and its take on Jon and Dany. A large part of that is no doubt because I largely agree with it. On this board the blot is up against a prevailing view of Jon and Dany which, put crudely, is much more positive wrt Jon and much more negative wrt Dany. That's why it tends to inspire controversy and no small amount of dislike and bad grace from some posters.


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I agree with everyone here. I too think that the peace was a sham and the blogger is wrong about it. But the blogger is right about Shavepate, as also during my initial read I noticed that sometimes he was telling Barristan a flat out nonsense. His complete control over Brazen Beasts is suspicious as well for me.


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