Aegon the Conqueror and Tywin Lannister

[Humble Maester]

Aegon the Conqueror was playing the Game on easy-mode, while Tywin had a bit of harder time. Both were remarkable men, though I would value Tywin's achievements a lot higher than Aegon's.

And I do agree with some of the previous posters in that both men did some actions that were clearly more on the evil side.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

11 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Genocide is the intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religiousgroup) in whole or in part. The hybrid word is a combination of génos ("race, people") and -cide ("to kill").^[1] The United Nations Genocide Conventiondefines it as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".^[2][3]

^{Its not genicide. Genicide is the the attempt to wipe a culture out based on race or ethnicity. It is not what she did. Right or wrong, it was not genicide any more than what Tywin did.}

What it seems that you cannot understand is that in a place called Slaver's Bay, slavery is a cultural aspect. If someone went to Ancient Greece and killed all the Athenians it would had been genocide since the Athenians were a different culture from the rest. 

She wanted to take revenge about the slaves but she ended up killing innocent people without a trial just because they belonged to Meereenese nobility. She killed people because they belonged to a specific cultural group and the worst thing is that she felt no regret. 

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

1 minute ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

What it seems that you cannot understand is that in a place called Slaver's Bay, slavery is a cultural aspect. If someone went to Ancient Greece and killed all the Athenians it would had been genocide since the Athenians were a different culture from the rest. 

She wanted to take revenge about the slaves but she ended up killing innocent people without a trial just because they belonged to Meereenese aristocracy. She killed people because they belonged to a specific cultural group and the worst thing is that she felt no regret. 

She felt constant guilt over Astapor. 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

2 minutes ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

She felt constant guilt over Astapor. 

One out of three! What a great person! She killed countless innocent people, countless innocent children and ordered the torture of at least two innocent people and because she felt bad about one of the three cities she destroyed.

[BlueNightzx]

i don't think tywin is evil, he is a feudal lord, i never saw him getting out of his way to be specially cruel to anyone
and don't forget that the reynes and tarbecks wwere plotting to usurp the lannisters of their position.

i've seen targaryens and starks commit much more cruel and heinous acts than tywin.

[dornishdragon]

Both Tywin and Aegon the Conqueror were men that had a big impact on Westeros history however Tywin was more ruthless perhaps even evil in his treatment of Tyrion and others. 

[Wall Flower]

8 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

What it seems that you cannot understand is that in a place called Slaver's Bay, slavery is a cultural aspect. If someone went to Ancient Greece and killed all the Athenians it would had been genocide since the Athenians were a different culture from the rest. 

She wanted to take revenge about the slaves but she ended up killing innocent people without a trial just because they belonged to Meereenese nobility. She killed people because they belonged to a specific cultural group and the worst thing is that she felt no regret. 

Well, the ancient Athenians weren't without sin in that regard themselves. I recall that Euripides wrote the 'The Trojan Women' after the Athenians murdered or enslaved the entire population of Milos for being unwilling to become effectively a colony of Athens. That might qualify as genocide, or perhaps just ruthless conquest. 

However, I find it hard to agree with an argument that is based on defending slavery as cultural practice. As other posters have pointed out, the Masters of Astapor and Mereen were a small elite dominating the rest of the population of both slaves and freemen. There was no homogenous population with the same concerns and issues. Dany's attack was on that small elite who were both free and rich enough to wear tokars all the time. To me, the Masters are more like the French aristocrats before the revolution, lording it over and exploiting those in the classes below, except that the exploitation of slaves is probably far more brutal.

To get back on topic, I think even with Aegon's conquest there were houses who benefited from getting onside with the new regime and the Riverlanders were no doubt glad to see the end of Harren the Black, one of the most brutal and evil rulers in Westerosi history.

 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

17 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

Well, the ancient Athenians weren't without sin in that regard themselves. I recall that Euripides wrote the 'The Trojan Women' after the Athenians murdered or enslaved the entire population of Milos for being unwilling to become effectively a colony of Athens. That might qualify as genocide, or perhaps just ruthless conquest. 

Only we don't analyze about the morality of a culture. We examine a genocide

17 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

However, I find it hard to agree with an argument that is based on defending slavery as cultural practice.

This is hypocritical. People are equal when it comes to their right to live. When our preferences of who is good or moral enough, according to our personal beliefs, stops? Does the fact that those children belonged to a specific culture means that they were not good enough to live? Personally I hate the Valyrian culture, does it means that all the Valyrians had to die simply for being Valyrians because I found them abominable? Why Dany was a victim when Robert sent an assassin after her and when she killed children she was right? I am not saying that punishing those who actually killed the slaves was wrong, I am saying that mass murder and genocide is as foul as what the slavers did to the slaves.

[urielisko]

 

On 11/1/2016 at 6:21 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Only we don't analyze about the morality of a culture. We examine a genocide

We don't. You don't, either. None of the actions Dany has ever taken comes remotely close to any definition of the crime of genocide recognized by any institution of any relevance. You yourself do not constitute an institution relevant to common understanding of a legal term.

A bit of advice: when you repeatedly fling shit at someone in hopes some of it sticks (which is precisely what you are doing by stubbornly writing post after post structured around placing words Dany and genocide beside each other), you really should notice the fact that it does, indeed, stick. To your hands.

Slavery is not culture. It's a societal cancer. I can see why someone would call surgical removal of single instance of a cancer genocide, but I don't think this means I need to start discussing surgical procedures in terms of war crimes.

On 11/1/2016 at 6:21 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

This is hypocritical.

Anyone who ever read about Wormtongue accusing various horsemen of lying and found the character implausible, really needs to read this.

On 11/1/2016 at 6:21 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

People are equal when it comes to their right to live.

I take it you really hope for time machine to be invented in your lifetime so you can go back to Nuremberg trials and tell the judges just how wrong they were.

On 11/1/2016 at 6:21 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Does the fact that those children belonged to a specific culture means that they were not good enough to live?

Which children? The tokar-wearing Astapori under 12 that Dany specifically ordered to be spared? Or the 163 children that the slavers of Meereen crucified? Oh wait, it's Dany you're trying to hitler, not the poor innocent slavers and their culture of killing ten actual children to produce 1 Unsullied. Tricky.

People over 12 are teenagers. In the world of Planetos, which you so fervently try to present as incompatible with our modern Western morals ("slavery is culture") when it suits you, 12yo girls are married off and bear children while 12yo boys go to brothels and wars without raising anyone's eyebrows. Either they "were children" or they "belonged to a specific culture", but very certainly not both.

I have to say that while very much not a Dany fan myself, I'm amazed with the sheer intensity of rabid hate towards fictional characters that some people develop.

Now, what was the topic of this thread? Oh, Tywin Lannister and Aegon the Conquetor.

Tywin Lannister, through decades of titanic efforts, has effectively ended the House Lannister as one of dominant power centres in Westeros. He left no lasting legacy that could lead to a restoration. As an extra bonus, we can soon expect the extinction of House Bolton and disintegration of House Frey.

Aegon the Conqueror should not be compared to Tywin. He had dragons. Dragons are a game-breaking cheat unless you play against other dragonlords. Yes, Dorne prevailed. Killing a dragon was only one several reasons for that. Aegon did, however, leave a legacy. One that actually lasted longer than the dragons and led, in the end, to Drogo's pyre and Varys' deconstruction of post-rebellion order of the realm.

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

5 hours ago, urielisko said:

 

We don't. You don't, either. None of the actions Dany has ever taken comes remotely close to any definition of the crime of genocide recognized by any institution of any relevance. You yourself do not constitute an institution relevant to common understanding of a legal term.

A bit of advice: when you repeatedly fling shit at someone in hopes some of it sticks (which is precisely what you are doing by stubbornly writing post after post structured around placing words Dany and genocide beside each other), you really should notice the fact that it does, indeed, stick. To your hands.

Slavery is not culture. It's a societal cancer. I can see why someone would call surgical removal of single instance of a cancer genocide, but I don't think this means I need to start discussing surgical procedures in terms of war crimes.

Anyone who ever read about Wormtongue accusing various horsemen of lying and found the character implausible, really needs to read this.

I take it you really hope for time machine to be invented in your lifetime so you can go back to Nuremberg trials and tell the judges just how wrong they were.

Which children? The tokar-wearing Astapori under 12 that Dany specifically ordered to be spared? Or the 163 children that the slavers of Meereen crucified? Oh wait, it's Dany you're trying to hitler, not the poor innocent slavers and their culture of killing ten actual children to produce 1 Unsullied. Tricky.

People over 12 are teenagers. In the world of Planetos, which you so fervently try to present as incompatible with our modern Western morals ("slavery is culture") when it suits you, 12yo girls are married off and bear children while 12yo boys go to brothels and wars without raising anyone's eyebrows. Either they "were children" or they "belonged to a specific culture", but very certainly not both.

I have to say that while very much not a Dany fan myself, I'm amazed with the sheer intensity of rabid hate towards fictional characters that some people develop.

Now, what was the topic of this thread? Oh, Tywin Lannister and Aegon the Conquetor.

Tywin Lannister, through decades of titanic efforts, has effectively ended the House Lannister as one of dominant power centres in Westeros. He left no lasting legacy that could lead to a restoration. As an extra bonus, we can soon expect the extinction of House Bolton and disintegration of House Frey.

Aegon the Conqueror should not be compared to Tywin. He had dragons. Dragons are a game-breaking cheat unless you play against other dragonlords. Yes, Dorne prevailed. Killing a dragon was only one several reasons for that. Aegon did, however, leave a legacy. One that actually lasted longer than the dragons and led, in the end, to Drogo's pyre and Varys' deconstruction of post-rebellion order of the realm.

Everything you said is right on. I absolutely agree with all of it.

On 11/1/2016 at 0:30 AM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

One out of three! What a great person! She killed countless innocent people, countless innocent children and ordered the torture of at least two innocent people and because she felt bad about one of the three cities she destroyed.

 

She tries to rule Meereen and frees countless slaves in Yunkai...and Astapor. Her goal was the liberation of a people. Tywin feels no femorse for slaughtering people in King's Landing or the Riverlands...and to be quite honest, there was barely a reason to sack King's Landing...and I think his brutality in the Riverlands has partially directly led to the rise of the Faith Militant and the downfall of his house...and he felt absolutely no remorse for killing and raping innocent children, men, women, EVERYONE IN HIS PATH

[Lion of the West]

5 minutes ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Everything you said is right on. I absolutely agree with all of it.

She tries to rule Meereen and frees countless slaves in Yunkai...and Astapor. Her goal was the liberation of a people. Tywin feels no femorse for slaughtering people in King's Landing or the Riverlands...and to be quite honest, there was barely a reason to sack King's Landing...and I think his brutality in the Riverlands has partially directly led to the rise of the Faith Militant and the downfall of his house...and he felt absolutely no remorse for killing and raping innocent children, men, women, EVERYONE IN HIS PATH

I tried to keep out but I couldn't.

For the first thing, feeling remorse or not feeling remorse is a mark of character but certainly don't bring the dead back or mend ruined lives.

Also the thing is that we don't know what Tywin feels. I don't think he feels much remorse for hurting his enemies in war, but we do have a Daenerys POV but not a Tywin POV and that naturally makes us more sympathetic to Daenerys since we see her actions from her eyes, rather than from her enemies' eyes.

Also in regards to sacks I see no difference between Tywin sacking King's Landing and Daenerys sacking Meereen. Both were enemies cities filled with enemies and both were taken by storm, a sack follows that as night follows day, and both resulted in a new and hopefully better rule than had been before. I don't think we've actually seen a city captured by storm in Westeros which wasn't sacked.

Also do note that Tywin didn't kill or rape the Stormlords and Reacher lords following the Blackwater, he didn't kill off the Riverlords after the Red Wedding, he offered chances to surrender to both Tarbeck and Reyne before they were brought down, he didn't seek to destroy House Frey despite the fact that the Freys fought for Robb Stark and was instrumental in Robb's defeat of Jamie, and so on and so on. The "everyone in his path" comment is a lie. Tywin uses violence and brutality to be sure, but he does so as a tool to reach a desired result and against his enemies and loads of people had stood in his path and never been more harmed by him for it than they would have been by Eddard Stark.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

None of the actions Dany has ever taken comes remotely close to any definition of the crime of genocide recognized by any institution of any relevance.

That is your opinion. Doesn't mean that you are right and I am wrong or the other way around.

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

A bit of advice: when you repeatedly fling shit at someone in hopes some of it sticks (which is precisely what you are doing by stubbornly writing post after post structured around placing words Dany and genocide beside each other), you really should notice the fact that it does, indeed, stick. To your hands.

Again your opinion.

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

Slavery is not culture. It's a societal cancer. I can see why someone would call surgical removal of single instance of a cancer genocide, but I don't think this means I need to start discussing surgical procedures in terms of war crimes.

Utter BS. Let me guess those 12 years old were not children, yes in Westeros they were children and had no power, were not worthy to live and they were cancer cells. 

Incest is also a cultural aspect and an abomination. Let's kill all the characters that are born from an incestuous relationship.

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

Anyone who ever read about Wormtongue accusing various horsemen of lying and found the character implausible, really needs to read this.

Boring  veiled personal attack is boring.

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

I take it you really hope for time machine to be invented in your lifetime so you can go back to Nuremberg trials and tell the judges just how wrong they were.

Utter bs.

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

The tokar-wearing Astapori under 12 that Dany specifically ordered to be spared? Or the 163 children that the slavers of Meereen crucified?

Why the 12 years old that Dany kills worth less that the slaves?

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

People over 12 are teenagers. In the world of Planetos, which you so fervently try to present as incompatible with our modern Western morals ("slavery is culture") when it suits you, 12yo girls are married off and bear children while 12yo boys go to brothels and wars without raising anyone's eyebrows. Either they "were children" or they "belonged to a specific culture", but very certainly not both.

By your logic there was no problem that Robert sent his assassin to 13 years old Dany. 

On 3/11/2016 at 1:57 PM, urielisko said:

I have to say that while very much not a Dany fan myself, I'm amazed with the sheer intensity of rabid hate towards fictional characters that some people develop.

And why I should care about it? 

On 3/11/2016 at 7:51 PM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

She tries to rule Meereen and frees countless slaves in Yunkai...and Astapor. Her goal was the liberation of a people.

True, she wants to set the slaves free, until they sell themselves and she takes their money becoming a slaver herself. Feeling bad doesn't stop her from ordering the death and torture of children.

On 3/11/2016 at 7:51 PM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Tywin feels no femorse for slaughtering people in King's Landing or the Riverlands...and to be quite honest, there was barely a reason to sack King's Landing...and I think his brutality in the Riverlands has partially directly led to the rise of the Faith Militant and the downfall of his house...and he felt absolutely no remorse for killing and raping innocent children, men, women, EVERYONE IN HIS PATH

You have Tywin's PoVs? That's amazing!

[The Wolves]

On 10/31/2016 at 4:24 PM, BlueNightzx said:

i don't think tywin is evil, he is a feudal lord, i never saw him getting out of his way to be specially cruel to anyone
and don't forget that the reynes and tarbecks wwere plotting to usurp the lannisters of their position.

i've seen targaryens and starks commit much more cruel and heinous acts than tywin.

To the bolded there was many times that Tywin went out of his way to be especially cruel to someone. 

Examples: Having a 12 year old innocent girl gang raped by his guards for daring to marry above her social class. Never mind the fact that the girl had no power to reject a Lannister. Forcing his 13 year old son to participate in the gang rape of his wife. Forcibly stripping his Father's mistress and having her walk naked through Lannisport for 14 days confessing that she was a whore and than on the last day making her take a walk of shame because he had fucking daddy issues. Then he sent the mister Gregor Clegan to kill a baby and he ended up smashing that baby's head against the wall and than raping his mother with his brains were all over him. He sent a brutal man like Amory to stab a 3 year old 50 times and when all that was done this monster wrapped their bodies in crimson cloaks and presented them to Robert as a fucking gift to show his loyalty. He then had Kings Landing sacked which resulted in many innocent rapes and murders. He attacked the Riverlands, setting crops ablaze, setting his monsters like Gregor loose on the smallfolk all because a Tully took the son he didn't give a shit about. 

Tywin spent much of his life being cruel to nearly everyone especially the people not named Lannister because he wants to overcompensate for his father's weaknesses. Tywin Lannister was a monster the worst one in the series IMO. 

And when have we seen the Targs and Starks commit such heinous, inhumane, evil acts against humanity that Tywin have done over and over? 

[Wall Flower]

On 02/11/2016 at 5:21 AM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Only we don't analyze about the morality of a culture. We examine a genocide

 

This is hypocritical. People are equal when it comes to their right to live. When our preferences of who is good or moral enough, according to our personal beliefs, stops? Does the fact that those children belonged to a specific culture means that they were not good enough to live? Personally I hate the Valyrian culture, does it means that all the Valyrians had to die simply for being Valyrians because I found them abominable? Why Dany was a victim when Robert sent an assassin after her and when she killed children she was right? I am not saying that punishing those who actually killed the slaves was wrong, I am saying that mass murder and genocide is as foul as what the slavers did to the slaves.

I disagree with a number of Dany's actions in Astapor and Mereen and I believe I've said in previous posts that I think she acted from vengeance rather than justice in the massacre of Masters in Astapor (some of which were children of 12 or over) and the crucifixions in Mereen. The torture of the wine sellers daughters and the acceptance of slave money represent moral and policy failures on Dany's part.

However, your arguments seem to be centred solely on those 12 years old and over at Astapor. I agree they have a right to live but so do the slave children of Astapor and Mereen. Whatever Dany's flaws, she is clearly motivated by horror at what she hears of the Unsullied training regime and the sight of 163 crucified slave children. The slavers are motivated by profit and a complete disregard for the lives of those that they own.

The Unsullied are only children when they are mutilated and forced into a training regime of unbelievable brutality, where they are killed (as boys) if they fail any step of the training and finally required to buy a slave baby and kill it in front of the baby's mother. This is not just a one off brutal event but represents child killings that occur year after year, not for cultural reasons, but to produce an extremely profitable commodity. Dany isn't alone at Astapor - the Unsullied turn on their former masters despite commands and pleas to protect them. Dany may have lit the spark but what happened in Astapor was a long time coming.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

49 minutes ago, Wall Flower said:

However, your arguments seem to be centred solely on those 12 years old and over at Astapor. I agree they have a right to live but so do the slave children of Astapor and Mereen. Whatever Dany's flaws, she is clearly motivated by horror at what she hears of the Unsullied training regime and the sight of 163 crucified slave children. The slavers are motivated by profit and a complete disregard for the lives of those that they own.

The Unsullied are only children when they are mutilated and forced into a training regime of unbelievable brutality, where they are killed (as boys) if they fail any step of the training and finally required to buy a slave baby and kill it in front of the baby's mother. This is not just a one off brutal event but represents child killings that occur year after year, not for cultural reasons, but to produce an extremely profitable commodity. Dany isn't alone at Astapor - the Unsullied turn on their former masters despite commands and pleas to protect them. Dany may have lit the spark but what happened in Astapor was a long time coming.

Alright, I'll try giving my perspective as to why I don't like what she did in Astapor.

Let's recall, in AGOT, Dany and Viserys were staying at Illyrio's manse, being (presumably) tended to by slaves (we get confirmation of this in ADWD from Tyrion), living a life of apparent comfort. How old was Dany then? That's right, 13. She was above 12.

Did she have any power to speak out against Illyrio? Did she even feel that slavery was wrong then? Did she realise that those servants might be possibly slaves? I think we can all say the answer is no. We obviously can't hold it against Dany either.

Now, what would have happened if a dictator with dragons came to Pentos, and had ordered all individuals above 12 who were staying in slave-staffed manses to die? 

Would 13 year old AGOT Dany deserve to die in this instance?

That's the point @Jon's Queen Consort is trying to get at here - the training of the Unsullied was horrendous, but a far more prudent approach on the part of Dany would have been to ask the Unsullied to kill whoever trained them. What really happened that day was - she killed thousands of unsuspecting people, many of whom would not even have realised what crime they were dying for. Especially 12-16 year olds. 

Do you think every slaver in Astapor treated his slaves badly? Do you think the children and adults who grew up knowing nothing other than slavery would suspect it's wrong, when that not what they've been told all their lives? Specially if their slaves were treated well? Does each and every tokar-wearer deserve to die, without even being given a chance to realise what they're doing is wrong?

Because if you believe that, then you must also believe that the Dothraki, for being a parasitic rape-and-loot culture should be all wiped out, and the Ironborn as well. This would include Irri, Jhiqui, Asha, Rodrik the Reader, everyone. 

Note: I am in no way condoning slavery here. But branding an entire culture and every single individual in that culture worthy of death because of the crime of being born into the culture, and having grown up in it, is not the right way, sorry. It's very close to being tyranny.

[Wall Flower]

31 minutes ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Alright, I'll try giving my perspective as to why I don't like what she did in Astapor.

Let's recall, in AGOT, Dany and Viserys were staying at Illyrio's manse, being (presumably) tended to by slaves (we get confirmation of this in ADWD from Tyrion), living a life of apparent comfort. How old was Dany then? That's right, 13. She was above 12.

Did she have any power to speak out against Illyrio? Did she even feel that slavery was wrong then? Did she realise that those servants might be possibly slaves? I think we can all say the answer is no. We obviously can't hold it against Dany either.

Now, what would have happened if a dictator with dragons came to Pentos, and had ordered all individuals above 12 who were staying in slave-staffed manses to die? 

Would 13 year old AGOT Dany deserve to die in this instance?

That's the point @Jon's Queen Consort is trying to get at here - the training of the Unsullied was horrendous, but a far more prudent approach on the part of Dany would have been to ask the Unsullied to kill whoever trained them. What really happened that day was - she killed thousands of unsuspecting people, many of whom would not even have realised what crime they were dying for. Especially 12-16 year olds. 

Do you think every slaver in Astapor treated his slaves badly? Do you think the children and adults who grew up knowing nothing other than slavery would suspect it's wrong, when that not what they've been told all their lives? Specially if their slaves were treated well? Does each and every tokar-wearer deserve to die, without even being given a chance to realise what they're doing is wrong?

Because if you believe that, then you must also believe that the Dothraki, for being a parasitic rape-and-loot culture should be all wiped out, and the Ironborn as well. This would include Irri, Jhiqui, Asha, Rodrik the Reader, everyone. 

Note: I am in no way condoning slavery here. But branding an entire culture and every single individual in that culture worthy of death because of the crime of being born into the culture, and having grown up in it, is not the right way, sorry. It's very close to being tyranny.

Fair enough. As I've said repeatedly I don't agree with Dany's actions but, then again, I don't know how I would react if faced with the sight of 163 crucified children or the Unsullied. I can understand her rage without condoning it, while I find the callous business model of Slaver's Bay much harder to comprehend. Mass murder is never justified but that doesn't mean that the tokar wearing adults of Astapor and Mereen aren't responsible for the evils that their society is built on. They represent the ruling elite of these cities, not the whole population, and are those who have most enjoyed the wealth and comfort that the profits of slavery have bought.

I guess I got a bit cranky because I feel like JQC is giving greater weight to the lives of the Masters and their children than to those of the slaves and their children, who come fairly close to being dismissed as collateral damage of the Slaver's Bay culture.

[Little Scribe of Naath]

18 minutes ago, Wall Flower said:

Fair enough. As I've said repeatedly I don't agree with Dany's actions but, then again, I don't know how I would react if faced with the sight of 163 crucified children or the Unsullied. I can understand her rage without condoning it, while I find the callous business model of Slaver's Bay much harder to comprehend. Mass murder is never justified but that doesn't mean that the tokar wearing adults of Astapor and Mereen aren't responsible for the evils that their society is built on. They represent the ruling elite of these cities, not the whole population, and are those who have most enjoyed the wealth and comfort that the profits of slavery have bought.

I guess I got a bit cranky because I feel like JQC is giving greater weight to the lives of the Masters and their children than to those of the slaves and their children, who come fairly close to being dismissed as collateral damage of the Slaver's Bay culture.

Yes, it's a very complex issue - but an incredibly clever piece of writing intended to incite revengeful righteousness on the part of readers as well (Atleast on first read). I don't think anyone would condone slavery, neither do I think the Unsullied's masters did not deserve death for their cruelty and inhumanity.  But we don't know if the entire tokar-wearing population of Astapor supported these methods of creating the Unsullied, or not.

While judging Dany, I guess it's more the concept of "collective guilt" at play here which gets a lot of readers uncomfortable, as well as the realization that there's major conditioning which comes with growing up in a certain culture and you simply can't condemn every single person who's grown up with a certain belief to death, without trying to change it first.

[urielisko]

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

That is your opinion. Doesn't mean that you are right and I am wrong or the other way around.

Aye, UN General Assembly, Raphael Lemkin, Yehuda Bauer and several others who share my view on the matter are just a bunch of random guys with some opinions. Clearly their opinions on what is and what isn't genocide are just as good as yours. Let me know when you present your opinion regarding a definition of genocide to an international tribunal and they take it just as seriously as opinions of those other random opinionated guys I named.

Yeah.

Thanks for openly naming yourself a troll, it always makes life a bit simpler and a lot more enjoyable.

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Again your opinion.

Yeah, yeah, sure  Opinions, all opinions.  Inventing your own personal definition for the word genocide and repeatedly accusing someone (a fictional character in this case) of genocide based on your personal definition of the word is basically a sound dialectical practice.

Yeah

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Let me guess those 12 years old were not children

Is that what you want to guess? Well, for me 12yos are children. it's not a guess. In my head-canon it's a fact. You could say it's my opinion. Are they not children for you? Is that what you have guessed? What does it mean? Do you deny them their childhood wrt their eligibility for military mobilization? Or maybe wrt your choice of sex partners? Shall I notify appropriate authorities?

Well, for now perhaps I just shall not let you make your guess and keep my opinion on who is a child and what is genocide.

From the text of ASOIAF it would appear that in Essos the threshold age is 12, since this is the age Dany gave her new army. Obviously, we could assume that she took 3 6-sided dice, rolled them and saw 12 eyes. We could. If we were open trolls like you. I don't. Guess why. I hereby let you.

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Incest is also a cultural aspect and an abomination. Let's kill all the characters that are born from an incestuous relationship.

No, I don't let you (whoever those mysterious "us" of your are, they certainly don't include me). Stop it right now, you genocidal child-killer.

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Boring  veiled personal attack is boring.

Passive-aggressive response is passive-aggressive.

Veiled? Where?  I don't recall putting any veil in place. Did it get here by accident?

Boring? Horribly, to be sure. The size and tone of your response proves just how utterly boring it was.

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Utter bs.

Don't like the taste of your own medicine? How quaint.

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Why the 12 years old that Dany kills worth less that the slaves?

"Why"? Did you just consider them worth less and now just look for reasons? Or are you trying to slap such assumption on me? Good luck.

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

By your logic there was no problem that Robert sent his assassin to 13 years old Dany. 

Actually, it's by yours. After all, using possibly unsavoury means to stop a genocidal child-murderer shouldn't be seen as such a big deal. Hillary's "can't we just drone him?" comes to mind. See, I can also make some random statements and claim that they are your ridiculous opinion. It makes for wonderful discussion. Shall we now proceed to start cutting selected fragments out of each other's posts to make them look even more ludicrous?

15 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

And waty I should care about it? 

18 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Oh you shouldn't, of course. Too bad you do, at least enough to excrete another post.

 

17 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

Also in regards to sacks I see no difference between Tywin sacking King's Landing and Daenerys sacking Meereen.

Of course you don't. A "lion of the West" missing the difference between a successful siege and entering a city through the gates open to you by the city's people does not exactly surprise me. The populations of the said cities do seem rather picky then: majority of King's Landing population seems to like the Lannisters very little, while majority of Meereen's population calls Dany "mother". I wonder why could that possibly be.

Oh wait! The gates of both cities have been open! The gates of King's Landing by its inhabitants and the gates of Meereen by the special forces of Dany's army. There clearly is, like, no difference at all. Right?

17 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

Both were enemies cities filled with enemies and both were taken by storm,

Please direct me to a mention of the siege of King's Landing. Especially one where the city was taken by storm, but I can only accept references to text confirmed to have been written by GRRM.

 

 

OK, enough fun with trolls. Funny they are, but there are people in this thread too. 

Now for some actual discussion.

 

8 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

That's the point @Jon's Queen Consort is trying to get at here - the training of the Unsullied was horrendous, but a far more prudent approach on the part of Dany would have been to ask the Unsullied to kill whoever trained them.

Unfortunately, this is not the case:

On 10/20/2016 at 2:07 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Dany has quite a few signs of her becoming what you call a sociopath, she had ordered genocide and she doesn't care about it.

On 10/21/2016 at 2:21 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

she cared very much about those 12 years old and even younger who she ordered to die because of who their parents were,

On 10/22/2016 at 0:56 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

 If  Tywin was a monster for killing two children and breaking a custom what is Dany for torturing and killing numberless so far children and committing genocide?

On 10/22/2016 at 0:56 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

She didn't just kill people, she committed genocide. You blame Tywin for killing the two Targ children and chose not to see the numberless so far children that Dany has killed and tortured.

Time after time, like a broken record: Dany-genocide, Dany-genocide, Dany-genocide. In case she wasn't lying blatantly enough yet, she add san occasional spatter of "she doesn't care" (while GRRM made quite a point of showing just how much the memory of Astapor did haunt Dany) and "she ordered torture of children" carefully interwoven with "genocide" as as to hide the fact that in Astapor Dany specifically ordered children under 12 to be spared from Tokar Massacre and the two girls Dany reluctantly agreed to have tortured were implicated with Sons of the Harpy.

I am not even the first to have finally gotten tired with her genocide BS:

On 10/25/2016 at 11:24 AM, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Look up the word genocide in the dictionary, Daenerys has not done that, at all

Not that it helps. It might have helped in a discussion, not against a persistent troll:

On 10/25/2016 at 0:46 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

What Dany did was a genocide

Yip, who cares about dictionary definitions and the one used by United Nations. I say it was genocide, so genocide it was. Yay!

On 10/26/2016 at 5:35 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

It doesn't matter what she wanted to do, she killed people just for their culture and not their actions hence she committed genocide.

Actually, the definition of genocide used by UN does not list culture as a reason. Nationality, ethnicity, race and religion. Not "culture". Someone must have realized we're nearing the time where you can call a slaver a member of a culture and get away with it without legal consequences.

Still, in a world she lives in, where slavery is culture and genocide can be based off someone's cultural background, her accusation is BS anyway. The "culture of slavery" flourishing in Astapor includes the tokars, minor slavers who dress like people, free commoners with no slaves at all, and finally the slaves themselves. In order to be eligible for accusation of genocide, Dany would have to kill them all. Oh wait, she has her own definition of genocide, so I guess Dany wouldn't have to do anything, breathing was enough.

.....And even then it would be debatable. Dany conquered 3 slaver cities in a particular region of the former Ghiscari Empire. Slavery as "culture" was common in Essos with one exception being Braavos. Dany commited a massacre of a small minority of slavers in a single city. The scale of the atrocity she ordered is not even remotely comparable with any internationally recognized historical case of genocide. It was always hundreds of thousand of victims, always at least across a whole country, always encompassing all social strata.

All the genocide posts had nothing to do with judging Dany's prudence, they were an attempt to paint her as a developing sociopath, guilty of genocide and torture of unnumbered children.

9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Now, what would have happened if a dictator with dragons came to Pentos, and had ordered all individuals above 12 who were staying in slave-staffed manses to die? 

Would 13 year old AGOT Dany deserve to die in this instance?

Just like any unwitting participant with heavily limited agency, Dany would not deserve to die. I'm sure that among any 12yo tokar wearers there were some naive girls who never realized what kind of treatment makes slaves slaves. They obviously did not deserve to die and to be frank hardy anybody ever deserves to die.

All this would never qualify the dictator's action as genocide and Dany's death as a result of mass killing would not be sufficient to consider the conqueror a developing sociopath taking particular pleasure in torturing unnumbered innocent children (which is exactly how JQC tries to paint Dany), especially if he took it like Dany did.

Your hypothetical situation would still be completely different from Dany's purge of Astapor since no conqueror coming to Pentos would get a crash course in How To Train Your Unsullied.

9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Do you think every slaver in Astapor treated his slaves badly?

Define bad treatment. As I understand, every slave is trained in obedience first. Every slave is conditioned to accept his/her status as property, which is dehumanization, which is bad treatment for me. Astapor is a city specialized in training slaves and most famous for training the Unsullied.

9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Because if you believe that, then you must also believe that the Dothraki, for being a parasitic rape-and-loot culture should be all wiped out, and the Ironborn as well. This would include Irri, Jhiqui, Asha, Rodrik the Reader, everyone. 

Was Jhiqui a free-riding, rape-and-looting screamer? Was she going to grow up into one? It doesn't really make much sense to consider the riders and their property parts of the same culture and think about that culture as something that can be wiped out, whole or not at all, just like the slavers of Astapor are not culture, while you could make such argument for the whole population of Astapor including the slaves.

Still, if someone wiped out the Dothraki - that is the braid-and-bell wearing warriors, it would be considerably less unjust and cruel than the Tokar Extirpation of Astapor, since the whole life of a Dothrak revolved around violence and atrocities; being a Dothrak required murder and rape.

Which Ironborn are we talking about? Only the ones like Asha and Rodrik? Do we include the thralls and salt wives? Do we include people toiling in the mines? No? Just the warriors and lords? No problem here. The whole ironborn "culture" is culture of murder, rape and pillage. Rodrik doesn't seem warlike or cruel, but it doesn't look like his comfortable life of a lord has been earned with his hard work, more like the hard work of his thralls and servants.

12yo ironborn are already quite far in the training, most have already reaved and some have also already raped. Asha is a POV so we completely screw up our judgement. In fact, she's also a killer and a pillager. Huge hats-off to D&D for their scene of Asha's attempted rescue of Theon and her famous thank you. This is when you get to glimpse what Asha Greyjoy is and never forget it. A strong independent woman struggling against constraints of a traditionally gynocentric society she might be, but first and foremost she's an ironborn. She pays the iron price.

The idea of Asha Greyjoy getting killed in an ironborncide bothers me a lot less than any 12yo naive girl in tokar that might have been killed in the sack of Astapor.

9 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

But branding an entire culture and every single individual in that culture worthy of death because of the crime of being born into the culture, and having grown up in it, is not the right way, sorry.

Nobody did that. Dany didn't either. In order to kill everyone born into the "culture" of slavery in Meereen she would have to kill all the free commoners and slaves as well.

In the same way the French Revolution was not a genocide nor anything like you describe, since the post-feudal culture of France included both the perversely opulent nobility and the starving peasants. To kill all people born into that culture you'd have to kill all the peasants too.

 

Now on a completely different subject:

What is my moral judgement of Danaerys Targaryen with regards to her actions in Essos, arbitrarily starting the period under inquest at her arrival to Astapor?

None. I don't presume to judge a teenage girl born to a royal family, then feudal and with millenia-long traditions in outright slavery, who on the continent of Essos - where slaves and their masters are the order of the day - somehow comes to think that slavery is inhuman atrocity and then embarks on an epic journey to stop it, failing time after time in manners that could possibly be not even fully imaginable for an adult grown up in the "First world" of XX century planet Earth. Her attempts to reconcile slaves with their former owners make me want to run up bang my head against the wall and her idolization of Dothraki is pure cringe. For me. A creature of a completely different reality.

Since the settings are so incredibly incompatible, I don't really presume to pass an actual moral judgement.

But I'm not going to read some pyramidal BS about "genocide" without calling it

[Little Scribe of Naath]

 I'm not sure if I'm supposed to respond to the struck out portions..........

[John Doe]

On 10.10.2016 at 6:35 PM, Adam Yozza said:

I can understand where devilish is coming from though. I always read him as someone who'd do his own dirty work either when he had no choice (Reyne-Tarbeck rebellion) or no chance of defeat (Greyjoy Rebellion), but that if he had the opportunity to get someone else to do it for him he would jump at it (Red Wedding, Roberts Rebellion)

No offense, but it's a stupid criticism. Every single lord in Westeros exploits other people to do their work for him. When Eddard Stark was sentenced to death, he drafted thousands of innocent smallfolk from his northern holdings to save his own skin. Robb did the same when his father got beheaded. Blackfish sacks his own lands to prevent Lannister his opponents from living off of them because he wants to die gloriously. And they are pretty popular characters on here regardless of the fact that they let others sort out their shit. 

 

Tywin and Aegon could literally be copy/paste characters, but people would still admire Aegon and hate Tywin because of their respective surnames.