69 replies to this topic

[Ser Lepus]

Qhorin Halfhand and Yoren, on 24 March 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

So for parallels. Both Jon and Danny try to rule in ADWD. Their rule and views are pretty unpopular from a part of the people they are ruling. And In ADWD we witness attempts against the lifes of both Jon Snow and Daenerys being made. I would say that Jon Snow's leadership is more effective in terms of having a very important objective and actually doing what needs to be done to achieve it, making very hard but necessary decisions and not being as how to put it lacking deciciveness as Danny was though him being targeted for assassination does put some doubts on Jon's leadership. Still I think Jon removed the boy and was the man more than Danny removed the teenage girl and became the woman leader.

Yes; Jon knows what kind of menace he is facing, has a fairly good idea of what he has to do in order to fight that menace, and takes that steps regardless of the price; his main problem is that he fails to convince the other people who share his objetives, or to predict their negative reactions.
Dany, on the other hand, easily manage to convince her people to do even crazy things. but she doesn´t fully understand what she has in her hands, doesn´t know what to do to fix her problems, and takes half-measures, stepping back and having doubts all the time.
They are almost polar opposites.

Qhorin Halfhand and Yoren, on 24 March 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

Joseph Campbell did a great job putting this all together, and Wiki has a good synopsis: ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth}

Be warned: GRRM loves subverting tropes, and the Journey of the Hero is essentially the oldest trope of all...

Edited by Ser Lepus, 24 March 2012 - 10:19 PM.

[Tumnas the Torpid]

Ser Lepus, on 24 March 2012 - 09:20 PM, said:

Yes; Jon knows what kind of menace he is facing, has a fairly good idea of what he has to do in order to fight that menace, and take that steps regardless of the price; his main problem is that he fails to convince the other people who share his objetives, or to predict their negative reactions.
Dany, on the other hand, manage easily to convince her people to do even crazy things. but the doesn´t fully understand what she has in her hands, doesn´t know what to do to fix her problems, and takes half-measures, stepping back and having doubts all the time.
They are almost polar opposites.

Interesting choice of words.  Did you do that on purpose?

If Jon is Ice and Dany is Fire (which I imagine is what this thread is really getting at), and these designations are meant to be reflected in their approaches to exercising power (as opposed to just their heritage), what does it mean that they have both clearly failed by the end of ADwD?

This all goes out the window if Jon is Ice and Fire, but there are other threads for that...

[Winter's Knight]

Tumnas the Torpid, on 24 March 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

Interesting choice of words.  Did you do that on purpose?

If Jon is Ice and Dany is Fire (which I imagine is what this thread is really getting at), and these designations are meant to be reflected in their approaches to exercising power (as opposed to just their heritage), what does it mean that they have both clearly failed by the end of ADwD?

This all goes out the window if Jon is Ice and Fire, but there are other threads for that...

I have this theory that Ice and Fire are meant to work together-fire toburn away the Others and Ice to cool the burn?

That is, Dany shall die in defeating the Other and Jon shall then knit the realm together.
<citation needed>

Edited by Winterbreath, 24 March 2012 - 09:41 PM.

[master]

I wonder if martin is setting them up for a joint rule.

jons cold practicality joined with danys burning idealism would be a good match. if it works out at least. if it doesnt...

[Teal'c]

I wondered that as well. Is it Volantis where they have the three rulers at the same time?

[Tumnas the Torpid]

Teal, on 24 March 2012 - 09:54 PM, said:

I wondered that as well. Is it Volantis where they have the three rulers at the same time?

Yeah, the Triarchs, I think?  Whatever they're called, they're definitely Volantene.

[ManyFacedOne]

Another one I saw pointed out in another thread is their companion's sayings:

It is known.
You know nothing.

[chris999]

They are twins, separated at birth. Dont deny it, you know it is going to be true.

[chris999]

The Children of the Forrest are evil, and Jon has to find his long lost twin sister so that they can combine their fire(dragons) and Ice(The Others) powers to destroy the CotF.

[Apple Martini]

Qhorin Halfhand and Yoren, on 24 March 2012 - 09:09 PM, said:

I would say that Jon Snow's leadership is more effective in terms of having a very important objective and actually doing what needs to be done to achieve it, making very hard but necessary decisions and not being as how to put it lacking decisiveness as Danny was [b\though him being targeted for assassination does put some doubts on Jon's leadership.[/b] Still I think Jon removed the boy and was the man more than Danny removed the teenage girl and became the woman leader.

Given what Jon was doing and who attempted to assassinate him, I think that the attempt on his life proved how effective he was actually being. I get the impression that Bowen and Co. actually viewed Jon's attempts at rocking the status quo as being game-changing, whereas the Green Grace/Harpy in Meereen probably sees Dany as more of a nuisance than anything. Slavery restarted in Astapor nearly as soon as she left and Meereen would be no different (actually Meereen still has a slave trade that Dany herself profits from).

butterbumps!, on 24 March 2012 - 09:18 PM, said:

I agree with this.  Especially in light of some of the recent Dany discussions, it really does seem like she's put into far more morally compromising situations (frequently involving observable and extended corporeal harm to babies/ children).   I think it's fair to say that Dany's situation is so unlike anything we've really seen in Westeros, and that we don't see the same kind of hard choices coming up for other characters (at similar scales and complexity, I mean).

That's actually one of my problems with Dany's storyline — in terms of our own morality, there's very little obvious "gray" there. At face value, she's fighting slavers and child murderers and puppy eaters. She's fighting comic book villains, basically. It's a shakeup of society, but it's a society that's so obviously capital-E Eeeeeeevil that it just seems to lack a lot of complexity. Whether by accident or design, the people in Slaver's Bay seem very homogenous, one weirdly named person after another, with little to distinguish them. They're either on Dany's side or they're not. I think Jon's situation on the Wall is far riper for legitimate moral analysis, given that the people there have more layered motives and loyalties.

Edited by Apple Martini, 24 March 2012 - 10:40 PM.

[Winter's Knight]

Apple Martini, on 24 March 2012 - 10:37 PM, said:

That's actually one of my problems with Dany's storyline — in terms of our own morality, there's very little obvious "gray" there. At face value, she's fighting slavers and child murderers and puppy eaters. She's fighting comic book villains, basically. It's a shakeup of society, but it's a society that's so obviously capital-E Eeeeeeevil that it just seems to lack a lot of complexity. Whether by accident or design, the people in Slaver's Bay seem very homogenous, one weirdly named person after another, with little to distinguish them. They're either on Dany's side or they're not. I think Jon's situation on the Wall is far riper for legitimate moral analysis, given that the people there have more layered motives and loyalties.

That is because, the men on the Wall come from different parts of the Kingdom-Oldtown, Gultown, Riverlands, Highgarden, the North, KL and so on.
Whereas the people in Meereen have probably been there for generations upon generations.

[Apple Martini]

Winterbreath, on 24 March 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

That is because, the men on the Wall come from different parts of the Kingdom-Oldtown, Gultown, Riverlands, Highgarden, the North, KL and so on.
Whereas the people in Meereen have probably been there for generations upon generations.

Perhaps. That doesn't change the fact that the Slaver's Bay plotline is full of almost ridiculous violence. It borders on being one giant strawman. On the one hand you have Dany and on the other a bunch of obscenely violent slavers — if you, like me, are disgusted with Dany's methods in various cases, are you automatically on the side of the slavers? Do I have any other alternative in Slaver's Bay with whom to side? Compare that with Westeros where people may have very good reasons to root for the Starks, the Lannisters, the Tyrells, the Baratheons, the Martells, etc.

Edited by Apple Martini, 24 March 2012 - 10:49 PM.

[Howling Mad]

Teal, on 24 March 2012 - 09:14 PM, said:

<sup>SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED ADWD

Both are following the familiar pattern of the epic hero. That is why their patterns seem similar, and also why their courses seem familiar to us, because we see the pattern in so many instances in literature, mythology, religion, and film/television.

Not every hero will have every one of these steps, and they may be in a different order:</sup>

I thought I was rereading Iron John for a minute

Edited by Angalin, 25 March 2012 - 01:20 AM.
snipped quote for length

[Harle The Handsome]

Quote

That's actually one of my problems with Dany's storyline — in terms of our own morality, there's very little obvious "gray" there. At face value, she's fighting slavers and child murderers and puppy eaters. She's fighting comic book villains, basically. It's a shakeup of society, but it's a society that's so obviously capital-E Eeeeeeevil that it just seems to lack a lot of complexity. Whether by accident or design, the people in Slaver's Bay seem very homogenous, one weirdly named person after another, with little to distinguish them.

The cities of Essos are not  cartoonishly evil as you call them, but different.  As Tyrion mentioned the lives of a slave and Westerosi peasant are not all that different and it was surprisingly easy to fall in and accept the life of a slave.  You see more nuance in events at the wall because they are more familar. Certainly to a Mereenese Tyrells, Martells and Baratheons are all weirdly named people with little to distinguish them as well.

To say that the Slaver's Bay plotline is full of almost rediculous violence is peculiar.  There is a revolution going on and very few revolutions aren't exceptionally violent. The Brazen Beasts of Mereen remind me of the Iraqis who helped US troops during the transition, since both had to wear masks because they couldn't let their enemies know who they were.

Both Danys' and Jon's situations are ripe for moral analysis and examination of wisdom and efficacy.

Edited by Harle The Handsome, 25 March 2012 - 12:10 AM.

[Apple Martini]

ManyFacedOne, on 24 March 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

Another one I saw pointed out in another thread is their companion's sayings:

It is known.
You know nothing.

Notice too that when "It is known" is used, it's after some crazy sort of bullshit. It's even a running joke on here.

Harle The Handsome, on 25 March 2012 - 12:09 AM, said:

The cities of Essos are not  cartoonishly evil as you call them, but different.  As Tyrion mentioned the lives of a slave and Westerosi peasant are not all that different and it was surprisingly easy to fall in and accept the life of a slave.  You see more nuance in events at the wall because they are more familar. Certainly to a Mereenese Tyrells, Martells and Baratheons are all weirdly named people with little to distinguish them as well.

I said cartoonishly evil and I meant it. And it's really not about how people in Essos would see the Westerosi, but how readers see people on the two different continents. It makes sense that Westeros is far more fleshed out, because that's the main thrust of the overall story. But Essos' comparative lack of depth from the readers' perspective is, I think, kind of jarring and frankly it's annoying that in Essos, it seems like you're either on Dany's side or the side of a bunch of comic book villains. I choose neither.

Quote

To say that the Slaver's Bay plotline is full of almost rediculous violence is peculiar.  There is a revolution going on and very few revolutions aren't exceptionally violent. The Brazen Beasts of Mereen remind me of the Iraqis who helped US troops during the transition, since both had to wear masks because they couldn't let their enemies know who they were.

I'm not even talking about violence associated with Dany's "revolution." The inherent violence in and of itself is ridiculous. Slavers castrating boys, making them strangle puppies, serving unborn puppies on sticks, running organized fighting pits, impaling people, forcing young priestesses to prostitute themselves, etc. It's like someone sat down and thought, "How can I make this place as morally repugnant as possible?" And as much as I enjoy Martin's writing, sometimes Essos feels like a cheat. If I wasn't betting on Dany's fall from grace at some point, I'd think the use of her against such obviously cruel/incompetent opponents there was far too heavy-handed and obvious. It's still heavy-handed and obvious, just probably for the opposite reason — he's pushing her hard as some emancipating savior only to have a rug-pulling moment in the works.

[Tumnas the Torpid]

What about Braavos?  Metropolitan, cosmopolitan, religiously tolerant, but intolerant of slavery.  Aside from the pastel thugs walking around at night, it seems like the only place in the whole world of Ice and Fire that I might actually want to live (assuming I wasn't highborn).

And isn't eating puppies, born or otherwise, a dietary choice?  What is the moral component there?

[Red Raven]

Quote

I'm not even talking about violence associated with Dany's "revolution." The inherent violence in and of itself is ridiculous. Slavers castrating boys, making them strangle puppies, serving unborn puppies on sticks, running organized fighting pits, impaling people, forcing young priestesses to prostitute themselves, etc. It's like someone sat down and thought, "How can I make this place as morally repugnant as possible?"

And this is worse than what is going on in Westeros?  Beheadings, rapes, murders, poisonings, beatings/domestic violence, heads on pikes, puppies (and cats and fawns) impaled by crossbows and pikes.  At least once a skewered dog was carried as a banner.  Flayings, gibbetings, torturings, "ticklings", being left to starve in cages, getting thrown out doors hundreds of feet above the valley floor, friends of highborn ladies getting sold into prostitution, murder of children and infants just for being King Robert's or King Aerys's progeny, children born with deformities sold to grotesqueries or left to die of exposure, gang rape, whatever horrors have gone on at Gregor Clegane's castle.  Maybe Essos has cornered most of the market on castration but there are a lot of other body parts - hands, tongues and feet in particular - that get chopped in Westeros.  Slaughters, drownings, stranglings, burnings alive...

Methods may vary but the levels are about the same.  If anything, the joke is on Westeros for pretending to be cultured.

As for Jon and Dany, no matter where they are they're both stuck with a violent world.

Edited by Red Raven, 25 March 2012 - 02:11 AM.

[The Annazon]

Apple I have come to know that you are not a fan of Dany, but now I seem to think that you do not like her storyline rather than her .

[kg1982]

Tumnas the Torpid, on 25 March 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

What about Braavos?  Metropolitan, cosmopolitan, religiously tolerant, but intolerant of slavery.  Aside from the pastel thugs walking around at night, it seems like the only place in the whole world of Ice and Fire that I might actually want to live (assuming I wasn't highborn).

And isn't eating puppies, born or otherwise, a dietary choice?  What is the moral component there?

Lamb anyone??  

I do think that Slavers Bay veers into Orientalism and think that Dany's story has been ill-served because Martin has had so much fun writing about Westros politics.  Dany and her dragons are a game-changer and they cannot come to Westros until the end game is in place.  So Martin has had Dany treading in place and making ridiculous decisions while interacting with boring characters with weird names.  Jon has also been on his own side adventure; however, it has been more integrated with the story because he is in Westros and the people he meets, the Wildlings, have a very similar culture to the one Jon grew up in.  I think that her story will get more interesting in TWOW as Tyrion's arrival will make it more integrated with the entire plot line.  The Dany and Tyrion show should be highly amusing.  Dany is in desperate need of some hard truths and unvarnished advice and Tyrion enjoys providing those to young Targaryens, both true (Jon) and false (Faegon).

Edited by kg1982, 25 March 2012 - 02:50 AM.

[Teal'c]

chris999, on 24 March 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:

They are twins, separated at birth. Dont deny it, you know it is going to be true.

I hope not. Way too Luke and Leia.