The Meerenese Knot and Danny`s growth as a ruler

[Dukhasinov]

This started out as a simple comment in another thread, but I got a lot of positive feedback on it, and thought it deserved its own thread. This is actually the first thread I have ever started, so, bear with me.

Many people like to compare Danny`s campaign in Slaver`s Bay to America`s adventures in the Middle East, and, at first, this seems accurate, but the analogy doesn`t stand up to much scrutiny. America`s counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan is fundamentally different from Danny`s Mereenese quagmire, in that the U.S. is not trying to impose her rule over the middle east, but is trying to foster a workable government that can stand on its own in the region. Danny is trying to assert herself as a direct ruler over Meereen, so it is really more like Alexander`s conquest of Persia.

Alexander knocked the capstone off of the Persian Imperial hierarchy and installed himself in place of the Achaemanid King. He largely left local institutions alone, and paid respect to his new subjects by emulating the trappings of Achaemanid rule and preserving their administrative and cultural institutions. He co-opted the existing Medo-Persian aristocracy, giving them no real reason to prefer Achaemanid rule over his own. This worked so well that he was able to take the bulk of his army, as well as himself, away from his new conquests and continuing east into Bactria and India, confident in the stability of the new order in Persia. Danny makes several steps in this direction, by adopting the tokar dress, re-instituting the fighting pits, and marrying a local noble. But she is paying lip service to the trapping of Meerenese society while still being determined to uproot its core socioeconomic institution, so these gestures are ultimately pointless.

Danny`s approach in fundamentally different. She cannot accept and accommodate Meerenese society as it is. The institution of slavery in irreconcilable to her, and its dismantling necessitates the dismantling of the cornerstone of Meerene`s economy and their entire social hierarchy. In this way, I suggest the Bolshevik takeover of Russia as a better parallel of Danny`s position. Unlike Alexander, Danny is unwilling to let Meereen`s existing socioeconomic structure stand. She is intent on overthrowing Meereen`s core social and economic institution, making herself a mortal enemy of the Slaver ruling class. She cannot co-opt the local aristocracy, because her reforms are an existential threat to the very foundations of their power and wealth. It`s not simply that they WILL never accept her rule. They CANNOT accept it for their very survival. Therefore, Danny must destroy them completely if her new order is to succeed.

Let`s go back to Aegon the Conqueror. He overthrew or subjugated all of the native rulers of the 7 Kingdoms, but he left alone the core political and economic institutions of Westeros. He continued the native tradition of Feudalism, adopting the 3 headed dragon as the sigil for his "House," which was not a concept native to Valyrian custom, reconfiguring as a feudal dynasty familiar to his new subjects. Most importantly, he submitted to the spiritual authority of the native Faith if the Seven, being anointed as a lawful king by the continent`s dominant religious authority. Imagine if Aegon had found the feudal system unacceptable and insisted on remaking Westeros as a republic, like the fallen Freehold of Valyria? This would have greatly raised the stakes for the great Lords. Would Torhen Stark still have bent the knee, knowing that he would be stripped of his lands, wealth and titles, his subject to be made free voting citizens? In this case, Aegon would have been an existential threat to the great Houses of Westeros, rather than merely a threat to their dominance and independence. They would have no choice but to fight Aegon to their last breath, dragons or no.

Many people have suggested hunting down the leaders of the insurgency, or instituting a "Tit-for-Tat" system of reprisals for terrorist attacks, but these are all half-measures. Danny cannot identify and hunt down the leaders of the Sons, and even if she could, new ones would rise in their place. What she CAN do, and what she MUST do, is identify and neutralize the very DEMOGRAPHIC that supports the Sons of the Harpy. She has to wipe out the Meerenese aristocracy as a social class and societal institution, through a campaign of exile, execution, confiscation, and imprisonment. Just as the Bolsheviks, in order to fundamentally re-create Russian society, knew they had to break the back of the Russian nobility.

In place of the current aristocracy, she must raise up a new one that is beholden to her. Maybe the high-ranking slaves who served as the city`s bureacracy could be elevated as its new social elite. They already run most of the day-to-day governance of the city, and, as the highest ranking slaves, they stand to lose much from their "Emancipation." The wealth and property confiscated by Danny could be bequeathed to them, perhaps only in trust, (like a feudal fief) to ensure their loyalty. It is also likely that there are wealthy merchant families in the city who have previously been restricted in their social status by their lack of noble blood, who would be grateful (and beholden) to the new regime for facilitating their elevation of status.

Of course, this whole process would likely take decades to stabilize, require the deaths of tens of thousands, and create years of economic and social chaos. Sorry, Danny, but "Them`s the Breaks." Fundamentally re-creating an entire society isn`t something that can be done nicely or quickly. Many will (correctly) point out that this course of action will leave Meereen a wasteland. I am suggesting that Danny should not only uproot Meereen`s core economic institution, but also kill off everyone who knows how to make the economy and government work. However, like the Bolsheviks or I am comparing her to, Danny and her followers are a revolutionary government trying to solidify her control over a great and complex society, in competition with an ancient, ruthless, and entrenched ruling order. Political stability must always be a higher priority than economic prosperity. It is popular for WWII buffs to criticise Stalin for purging the officer corps of the Red Army, executing or imprisoning many of his most experienced or talented officers. But, what good are talented generals if they are plotting to overthrow you? Wouldn`t you rather have mediocre officers whose loyalty are beyond question? Danny is effictively holding a wolf in a headlock; If she loosens her grip, she will be mauled and devoured. Her only chance of survival is to strangle it and wrestle it into submission.

I`m sure everyone will notice that this is similar to what Danny did in Astapor by ordering the execution of every "Wise Master" over the age of 12. She broke the back of the segment of Astapor that had incentive to resist her, and this worked fine while she remained in the city with her overwhelming military power. The trouble is, she left with her military strength before installing a stable government. She abandoned the city to the tender mercies of whoever was strong and ruthless enough to take power in her absence. She learned (Hopefully) that nation-building is a process of decades, not weeks.

And, in fact, the horrible consequences of of her actions in Astapor are what are paralyzing Danny in Meereen. She is going through a very painful growing process. Whatever else she may be, (Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, heir to Aegon the Conqueror) she is also, fundamentally, a TEENAGER, with all of the awkwardness, idealism, and insecurity that that implies. Like most teenagers, she is just starting to get a feel for her own capabilities and potential, and getting a sense of how the real world works. Also like many teenagers, (up until her conquest of Meereen, at least) she thinks that she has all the answers. The world would be so much better if they would just listen to her. She has so many great ideas about how to do things, and if she just had the chance, she could show everyone how they`ve been doing everything wrong all this time, and everything will get better if they do things her way! If she were a teenager in America today, she might join Greenpeace, Occupy Wallstreet, PITA, Code Pink, or whatever idealistic fringe group whose BLOG she stumbled upon first and gripped her impressionable young mind.

Unlike most teenagers, however, she has the power to enforce her idealism through military force. The awkwardness and embarrassment of her growing pains are plaid out on a geopolitical scale. Imagine a teenager wearing a Che Gueverra shirt who rants on BLOGs about the 1%, Social Justice, the Military Industrial complex, and all of that, all of a sudden had the power to put his idealism to practice; Pretty terrifying, right? Most politically idealistic teenagers get to grow up into pragmatic, cynical adults without leaving a trail of corpses and ashes in their wake.

Also like a normal teenager, Danny has a staggering capacity for cruelty when she feels it justified by her simplistic sense of morality. She calmly orders the extermination of every man, woman and child over the age of 12 among the slaver class in Astapor, largely because of her immature understanding of real human suffering and moral ambiguities. Think of child soldiers in Africa, or the Hitler Youth divisions in WWII, or just any old teenager who is willing to calmly assert that one group of people or another that they do not like should be killed out of hand.

Incidentally, her decision to wipe out the slaving nobility of Astapor was the right decision, politically and strategically, but she made the decision out of her warped sense of righteousness, rather than political savy. Her confidence in her own convictions was what allowed her to act shrewdly and decisively to her short-term advantage throughout her campaign in Slavers` Bay, up until her occupation of Meereen. But now, she has seen the horrific consequences of her idealism. She understands the real human tole of what she has done and what she aspires to do in the future, and she is paralyzed by indecision.

She now understands the cruelty and violence that her return to Westeros would necessitate, so she has resolved to stay in Meereen and fix everything she has broken. She has seen with her own eyes what dragon-fire can do to a human being, and is terrified of the idea of using that power for her own ends, and so locks up her own dragons! She is now too mature to slaughter the Meerenese nobility out of one-dimensional idealism, but she is not mature enough to slaughter them out of political necessity. She is also paralyzed by her sense of responsibility to the freed slaves of Meereen. The coldly pragmatic solution is to sack Meereen bare and move on, leaving it to its fate. But, if Danny did that, she would not be Danny. That`s something Visaerys would have done.

Her newfound sense of concience and empathy that is keeping her from making sound strategic decisions is also what inspires the messianic loyalty of her subjects. And when she learns to make the hard decisions out of necessity, rather than out of righteous anger, she will truely come into her own and be a force to be reckoned with.

[Ser Jonny Loker]

That post is long as F. If you're wondering why no one has responded, the reason is that.

[Grissom]

"Growth"

[Dukhasinov]

Yeah, silly me for thinking that ASOIAF fans were willing to read something long......

[JonSnow4President]

I would counter and say she is becoming the very person she hates if she is willing to murder an entire group of people because of ideological differences, and any move to that would be the death knell to the character traits so many of us initially loved her for. Tywin's way is not the correct way.

I'd also say teenagers in her world are much more "grown up" already than teenagers in our world, so that alone should also not be a perfect comparison. I'd put her more on level with a young adult at the start of the series (saying this as a young adult).

[Mal Malenkirk]

A thoughtful analysis.

I've argued along similar lines in the past. What she's trying to do in Mereen can't be done nicely and quickly and that's what she's been trying to do. Something gotta break.

Personally, I assume that she will give up on Mereen and resume her Westeros Quest. Meanwhile Slaver's bay will become a wasteland and eventually slavery will probably resume.

Unless she stays with her forces in Mereen and undertake a decades long effort to reform the area (which we all assume can't be her endgame in that saga), then there is no happy ending to be had in that part of the world.