(ADwD Spoilers) Dany the Mad Queen

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Over the past 4 books, she's been developing in the wrong direction LOL!

The innocent, naive little girl has grown, in my opinion, into a hypocritical, impulsive, irrational, narcissistic, emotionally motivated, megalomaniacal nitwit with dragons. Now if by some miracle GRRM manages over the next 2 books to transform her into a well balanced, logical, reasonably self-aware, intelligent person (my minimum requirement), then I'll re-consider my opinion of her. Until then, with everyone's kind permission or without it, I'll reserve the right to loath her and her ridiculous little world of comic villainy.

There. I feel better now. :D

+1. Preach it.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

I'm not sure you read my post.

I laid out how Mereen, Yunkai, and Astapor in particular can still sell the same "goods" in a system where slavery does not exist. What they are selling is the knowledge of the professions that they formerly trained slaves in. They can still sell this same knowledge to the freed men themselves. Exactly the same (if not more) economic activity will be generated. To clarify (using the example of prostitution):

Old system:

Slaver enslaves/buys young boy/girl <- initial investment

Prostitution tutor (probably a slave also) trains boy/girl in the arts of love

Training occurs... <- value added

Slaver sells prostitute to highest bidder <- economic activity generated in the city

New system:

Young man/woman decides they want to pursue prostitution, saves up some money for prostitute training.<- initial investment

Several tutors compete for the business of the prostitute-to-be. Young man/woman chooses one, and pays tuition. <-economic activity generated in the city

Training occurs... <- value added

After graduating, prostitute sells their services to whomever they wish (at a much higher rate than if they hadn't paid for training)

Well, if some young man/woman from let's say the Lamb Men chooses to be a prostitute, if they are ready to leave their family and friends behind and travel hundreds if not thousands of miles to be trained in Yunkai, if they have the money to pay upfront, if they later travel farther to let's say Volantis, if the Volantenes are willing to pay a decent wage and keep human working circumstances and if he/she pasy back his/her debts while not dying of some sexual disease, then there may be some small value to be gained. If there is indeed some secret education instead of just breaking new slaves to the whip, ready to do anything.

Over the past 4 books, she's been developing in the wrong direction LOL!

The innocent, naive little girl has grown, in my opinion, into a hypocritical, impulsive, irrational, narcissistic, emotionally motivated, megalomaniacal nitwit with dragons. Now if by some miracle GRRM manages over the next 2 books to transform her into a well balanced, logical, reasonably self-aware, intelligent person (my minimum requirement), then I'll re-consider my opinion of her. Until then, with everyone's kind permission or without it, I'll reserve the right to loath her and her ridiculous little world of comic villainy.

There. I feel better now. :D

Perfect summary.

[iamthedave]

Old system:

Slaver enslaves/buys young boy/girl <- initial investment

Prostitution tutor (probably a slave also) trains boy/girl in the arts of love

Training occurs... <- value added

Slaver sells prostitute to highest bidder <- economic activity generated in the city

New system:

Young man/woman decides they want to pursue prostitution, saves up some money for prostitute training.<- initial investment

Several tutors compete for the business of the prostitute-to-be. Young man/woman chooses one, and pays tuition. <-economic activity generated in the city

Training occurs... <- value added

After graduating, prostitute sells their services to whomever they wish (at a much higher rate than if they hadn't paid for training)

I think there's a serious problem with at least part of this.

The kind of people who choose to be prostitutes are not generally people with a lot of money. In fact, the kind of people who choose to be pit fighters aren't either. They go to the pits in order to become wealthy (in a free system, that is).

The only way this could work is if the training of each slave cost the slave as much as they would theoretically be sold for, because that's the step wherein the city is generating income. I can't see them having the massive numbers of people with enough money to pay for the training to make that work. I don't believe specific numbers are ever given, but it's certainly implied that bed slaves are worth a lot.

And in this format, I think there's entire populations you instantly lose. The Lamb Men don't seem to have much of an economy, and thanks to the Dothraki they contribute a fair bit to the slave trade, and isn't Missandei's home frequently raided because they're peaceful?

[Gogossos]

Over the past 4 books, she's been developing in the wrong direction LOL!

The innocent, naive little girl has grown, in my opinion, into a hypocritical, impulsive, irrational, narcissistic, emotionally motivated, megalomaniacal nitwit with dragons. Now if by some miracle GRRM manages over the next 2 books to transform her into a well balanced, logical, reasonably self-aware, intelligent person (my minimum requirement), then I'll re-consider my opinion of her. Until then, with everyone's kind permission or without it, I'll reserve the right to loath her and her ridiculous little world of comic villainy.

There. I feel better now. :D

I'm glad you feel better and I'm also glad you have pointed it out that it's only your opinion that Dany is a "hypocritical, impulsive, irrational, narcissistic, emotionally motivated, megalomaniacal nitwit with dragons." Now, I'd appreciate if you don't force that opinion down my throat and also accept that I, instead, view her as a "well balanced, logical, reasonably self-aware, intelligent person."

[Lord Godric]

Over the past 4 books, she's been developing in the wrong direction LOL!

The innocent, naive little girl has grown, in my opinion, into a hypocritical, impulsive, irrational, narcissistic, emotionally motivated, megalomaniacal nitwit with dragons. Now if by some miracle GRRM manages over the next 2 books to transform her into a well balanced, logical, reasonably self-aware, intelligent person (my minimum requirement), then I'll re-consider my opinion of her. Until then, with everyone's kind permission or without it, I'll reserve the right to loath her and her ridiculous little world of comic villainy.

There. I feel better now. :D

Thank you! I could never have said it better.

Ever since I read ADwD all I have been able to say is that Dany did not progress at all. She regressed - very, very far. It is possible that in the final lines of her very last chapter she started progressing again, but we will not know because we do not actually see what she decided to do and how she will do it!

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

I'll try to address both iamthedave and blue eyes critiques together.

First the issue of freedmen having enough money to purchase education. In any free market loans are always an option, whether paid in cash or trade, so I don't see that as much of an issue. Plus in a free society everyone will be richer (in time) allowing more to pursue the profession of their choice. As for prostitution being a trade only the poor would pursue, that's hugely cultural. In westeros you would be right, in the summer isles you'd be wrong. In essos we don't know since the slave trade has dominated the market so long.

As to the concerns about getting enough people (blue eyes series of if's) I really don't think there are too few freedmen in meereen at the moment. Besides, a shortage of skilled labor only makes that labor more valuable, not less. Practitioners can charge more for services, and in turn those doing the training can charge more. As employment becomes more lucrative because of the shortage, this will attract more people to the professions, and even encourage immigration. Voilà no more labor shortage.

Iamthedave you say it will only work if the cost of training the labor force is roughly equal to the money that would have been earned by selling the slaves. I agree - that's exactly the price we'd expect the market to come to in the end (minus the cost of the training to the slavers and the cost of acquiring the slave of course).

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

Forgot one

Blue eyes brings up the fact that one bit of value added in meereen that can't be taught and the free market can't match is complete obedience / acceptance of a lifetime of servitude.

First off you're absolutely right - if this characteristic is all that buyers in volantis want then indeed, a society of freedmen will never provide it. However evidence in the books is that far more is taught than obedience. Besides, no slave can ever be considered completely broken, even if they accept their fate for now. There's a reason the pit of punishment exists in astapor.

And may I just say, if utter servitude is something the slave owners in the free cities have come to expect/demand and the illusion of subservience by their servants, along with the improved services they provide simply isn't good enough, may I politely suggest that they can suck it?

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

"The inbreeding is computed as a percentage of chances for two alleles to be identical by descent. This percentage is called "inbreeding coefficient". There are several methods to compute this percentage, the two main ways are the path method^[10] and the tabular method.^[11]

Typical inbreeding percentages are as follows, assuming no previous inbreeding between any parents:

• Father/daughter, mother/son or brother/sister → 25%
  
• Grandfather/granddaughter or grandmother/grandson → 12.5%
  
• Half-brother/half-sister → 12.5%
  
• Uncle/niece or aunt/nephew → 12.5%
  
• Great-grandfather/great-granddaughter or great-grandmother/great-grandson → 6.25%
  
• Half-uncle/niece or half-aunt/nephew → 6.25%
  
• First cousins → 6.25%
  
• First cousins once removed or half-first cousins → 3.125%
  
• Second cousins or first cousins twice removed → 1.5625%
  
• Second cousins once removed or half-second cousins → 0.78125%"
  

So maybe it will not be accapted, after all cousins are more distant relative than an aunt and a nephew. But just because in Westeros it will be generally OK, it doesn't mean to Jon it will be. Jon is highly influenced by the wildling way of thinking, one of the biggest influence in his life or teacher was Ygritte who as well explained to him how incest is seen as really bad thing. Those who want can search for it, but Ygritte definietly spoke against incest.

Thanks you so much for posting this. 25% for a brother-sister pairing is a big deal, and as someone else mentioned, that's for when there has been no previous inbreeding. Those Targs ancestors must have had some superhuman AMAZING genes for their progeny to still be almost entirely functional at this point.

I'm not sure about Jon and Dany. I do believe that they'll end up together before the end, but I don't think Jon will break his vows to do it. I think he's been released from his vows by whatever happened at the end of ADWD. I can only envision Jon breaking the letter of his vows in order to better uphold their spirit. As in, he has to feel that his action better serves and protects the realms of men than sticking to the letter of the vow would. If he can marry Dany within that moral framework, then it could happen.

[RevengeOfTheStarks]

Oh dear, I was reading some four pages previous to this and responded to something from there, not realizing the conversation had moved waaay past that and onto the economics of slave trading, My bad :blushing:

[Sun]

I'm glad you feel better and I'm also glad you have pointed it out that it's only your opinion that Dany is a "hypocritical, impulsive, irrational, narcissistic, emotionally motivated, megalomaniacal nitwit with dragons." Now, I'd appreciate if you don't force that opinion down my throat and also accept that I, instead, view her as a "well balanced, logical, reasonably self-aware, intelligent person."

The fact that you view other people voicing an opinion contradictory to your own on a public discussion forum as forcing their opinions down your throat is a problem, but it's your problem, not mine. So it's up to you to deal with it.