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Illyrio & Varys: untruths and exaggerations


rotting sea cow

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I've always struggled with the fact that Illyrio seems to trade in slaves while Varys seems to have every reason to hate slavers... Varys says he hates magic too, and yet it is Illyrio, who trades in dragon bone and whatnot, who gave Dany the eggs. Even if he had no idea what he was doing (another mystery), it's hard for me to reconcile the two men to the same intents/designs. If Varys hates magic, why would he help return the dragon queen when dragons seem to empower magic?

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On 4/9/2017 at 4:59 PM, Lord Varys said:

Influencing Aerys II very directly would have been very difficult, though. The man was paranoid already, and not exactly a very outgoing people person from the mid-270s onwards, even before Duskendale. It is easily imaginable that Varys and Illyrio would have been able to infiltrate the Targaryen bureaucracy on the lower or mid-levels but the idea that one of their agents gained the favor and trust of the king himself is very difficult to believe.

The members of the Small Council are named by the king himself. The Hand might suggest members but it is the king who picks them, and in Varys' case we know that Aerys definitely hired him.

Whatever the full story there is we don't know it yet.

No we don't know yet, but the idea that Illyrio's agents approached Steffon about Varys’s talents is supported by the points you make above. 

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Just found this thread and had a random thought.  So although it's a sculpture rather than a painting, the description of Illyrio's statue reminded me of Caravaggio's various paintings of beautiful young men/boys and it also struck me that the younger Varys might have been considered a good subject for the same type of work, so maybe that had some role in their meeting?

In any event though, it seems reasonable enough that the handsome and poor young Illyrio made for a good artist's subject and then the fat and rich older Illyrio later bought the work which depicted him.  The sculptor probably wouldn't even have recognized him/made the connection between the two, unless Illyrio brought it up himself.

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1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

It's not a direct contradiction but a bit inconsistent when Varys tells Tyrion that he was an orphan boy apprenticed to a traveling folly. Are orphans born into slavery apprenticed to mummer's troupes? 

Slaves are definitely apprenticed. There are several examples in the novels, but the one most similar is the story Penny tells of her father (ADWD-Chapter 33):
 

Quote

 

"My mother used to sing to us when we were children. My brother and me. She always said that it didn't matter what your voice was like so long as you loved the song."

"Was she...?"

"...a little person? No, but our father was. His own father sold him to a slaver when he was three, but he grew up to be such a famous mummer that he bought his freedom. He traveled to all the Free Cities, and Westeros as well. In Oldtown they used to call him Hop-Bean."

Of course they did. Tyrion tried not to wince.

 

In a society that depends so heavily on slaves, even in highly skilled positions, some of them are going to have to be trained. And an apprentice is essentially a trainee. I can provide other examples if you like.

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57 minutes ago, bent branch said:

Slaves are definitely apprenticed. There are several examples in the novels, but the one most similar is the story Penny tells of her father (ADWD-Chapter 33):
 

In a society that depends so heavily on slaves, even in highly skilled positions, some of them are going to have to be trained. And an apprentice is essentially a trainee. I can provide other examples if you like.

A slave is not the same thing as an apprentice. An apprentice is free to leave, a slave is not. And your example does not prove otherwise.

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1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

No we don't know yet, but the idea that Illyrio's agents approached Steffon about Varys’s talents is supported by the points you make above. 

Whoever has that idea assumes a lot. Steffon was Aerys' old buddy but also one of the great lords of the Realm and the king's own cousin.The idea that a man like that would have presented the idea to hire a filthy, lowborn foreign eunuch and make him the Master of Whisperers of the Seven Kingdoms does not strike me as very likely. That is the same category as the idea of making a known whore the king's paramour.

Not to mention that Steffon seems to have spent no time at court before Aerys called to KL and then he left pretty quickly again to go to Volantis to find a bride for Rhaegar. And in addition he seems to have been a capable and not exactly overly ambitious guy, making it very unlikely that he had any intention to fuel the paranoia and madness of his royal cousin by providing him with a master spy.

If there was some go-between there on the Small Council level then men like Staunton, Chelsted, or Merryweather are much more likely. Especially the latter since he may have been Aerys' Master of Coin before he was made Hand after Tywin's resignation. The Master of Coin is the most likeliest candidate to actually interact with Illyrio's men or have professional contacts in Pentos.

But the simple truth is that we don't know how Varys got his position. What we know is just the official story, the story Varys and Aerys told the world. The story about a mad king and the famous eunuch he brought in from the outside. But we don't know what actually happened.

I'm inclined to believe that both Varys and Illyrio did indeed become reasonably famous. You don't rise through the rank to the pinnacle of Pentoshi society without people talking about you. But that in and of itself isn't a sufficient explanation (even if we assume they had agents at court in place) to explain how Varys, personally, gained the trust and favor of Aerys II.

2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

It's not a direct contradiction but a bit inconsistent when Varys tells Tyrion that he was an orphan boy apprenticed to a traveling folly. Are orphans born into slavery apprenticed to mummer's troupes? 

We have been over this already. Slaves can be apprentices, too, especially in Essos. Or do you assume all those Volantene and Ghiscari slaves learn their craft magically when they get their tattoos? Slaves can be both apprentices and masters of a trade and still be slaves. Many a smith, tutor, teacher, weaver, carpenter, etc. in the Free Cities would be a slave.

And that kind of thing should even be more prevalent among actors and mummers who were basically working in the same kind of environment as whores in antiquity and the middle ages.

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9 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

A slave is not the same thing as an apprentice. An apprentice is free to leave, a slave is not. And your example does not prove otherwise.

The only apprentice we meet is Gendry. And he lives in a society where slavery is outlawed. But then, had he been a thrall on the Iron Islands he could have been an apprentice smith just the same, unable to leave, right?

And Varys never calls himself an mummer apprentice, just that he was apprenticed to a traveling folly. He refers to the guy in charge there as 'our master', and he tells Tyrion that the sorcerer effectively bought him from said master ('One day at Myr, a certain man came to our folly. After the performance, he made an offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse.').

If that was supposed to indicate that Varys was a free boy then George should have chosen different words. If Varys had been free his master wouldn't have had the right to sell or deliver him to the sorcerer.

The much better explanation would be that he was, in fact, still a slave. Perhaps he was even born to a woman owned by said traveling folly or his original owner sold him to that folly because he or she had no use for him. 

Nothing in that story contradicts the claim that Varys was born a slave in Lys. Even if we would entertain the idea that Varys may have been a free boy by the time he traveled with the folly he could still have been born a slave in Lys. Say, he is born a slave and then he runs away and catches the eye of the master of mummers who then take him like Ser Arlan took Dunk in.

There is no reason to believe in weirdo conspiracies there. The text very much seems to indicate that George wants reveal Varys' origins and story piece by piece throughout the books and there is no reason to believe that he includes red herrings among those. The whole thing about the deep voice and the changed attitude when Varys is not playing a role (when talking to Ned, Tyrion, and Kevan) strongly indicates that the man is telling the truth in those circumstances (although not necessarily the whole truth).

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29 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

A slave is not the same thing as an apprentice. An apprentice is free to leave, a slave is not. And your example does not prove otherwise.

Here is the most basic definition of apprentice: a person who works for another in order to learn a trade. At the same time Varys is telling Tyrion he was apprenticed to a troop of mummers, he tells Tyrion that the head of the troop sold him to someone else. If he was not a slave at the same time he was an apprentice, how was he sold? It is obvious in the world GRRM has created that slaves are apprentices, sometimes to other slaves. As Lord Varys says above, they have to get their training somehow.

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1 hour ago, bent branch said:

Here is the most basic definition of apprentice: a person who works for another in order to learn a trade. At the same time Varys is telling Tyrion he was apprenticed to a troop of mummers, he tells Tyrion that the head of the troop sold him to someone else. If he was not a slave at the same time he was an apprentice, how was he sold? It is obvious in the world GRRM has created that slaves are apprentices, sometimes to other slaves. As Lord Varys says above, they have to get their training somehow.

An apprentice can be a slave but he/she doesn't have to be. Apprentice is a professional status while Slave is a legal status. They are unrelated and not the same.

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1 hour ago, bent branch said:

Here is the most basic definition of apprentice: a person who works for another in order to learn a trade. At the same time Varys is telling Tyrion he was apprenticed to a troop of mummers, he tells Tyrion that the head of the troop sold him to someone else. If he was not a slave at the same time he was an apprentice, how was he sold? It is obvious in the world GRRM has created that slaves are apprentices, sometimes to other slaves. As Lord Varys says above, they have to get their training somehow.

Tohbo Mott sold Gendry to Varys. Gendry wasn't a slave.

Just because Varys was sold to the magician doesn't mean he was a slave either. It could easily mean that the magic man just bought Varys out of his contract. Varys, like Gendry, could have easily just walked away; but, like Gendry, he may have felt he didn't have any better option than to follow this new path that'd been laid out for him. Of course, in this scenario Varys would have no idea that the fellow was going to lop his nuts off. Possibly the master mummer didn't know either.

And also of course, this is assuming that Varys is telling Tyrion the truth.

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54 minutes ago, Makk said:

An apprentice can be a slave but he/she doesn't have to be. Apprentice is a professional status while Slave is a legal status. They are unrelated and not the same.

I find nothing to disagree with here.

41 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Tohbo Mott sold Gendry to Varys. Gendry wasn't a slave.

Just because Varys was sold to the magician doesn't mean he was a slave either. It could easily mean that the magic man just bought Varys out of his contract. Varys, like Gendry, could have easily just walked away; but, like Gendry, he may have felt he didn't have any better option than to follow this new path that'd been laid out for him. Of course, in this scenario Varys would have no idea that the fellow was going to lop his nuts off. Possibly the master mummer didn't know either.

And also of course, this is assuming that Varys is telling Tyrion the truth.

Have you heard of the word indenture? You are acting like the difference between slave and free is a bright clear line. You are also acting like an author can't make what ever rules they want for their fictional world. GRRM mixes and matches things from our world in a unique combination. These combinations sometimes don't make sense, but GRRM does it anyway. For instance, he mixes a land tenure system with a private property system. This makes no sense, but he does it anyway. We can only accept the world he gives us.

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8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We have been over this already. Slaves can be apprentices, too, especially in Essos. Or do you assume all those Volantene and Ghiscari slaves learn their craft magically when they get their tattoos? Slaves can be both apprentices and masters of a trade and still be slaves. Many a smith, tutor, teacher, weaver, carpenter, etc. in the Free Cities would be a slave.

Just to emphasize this, because is very important. Slaves in Essos are not only unskilled labor to plant cotton fields as we tend to think when relating slavery. Slaves in Essos are also (but not only) highly skilled labor. They include translators (like Missandei), musicians, dancers, scribes, builders, soldiers (including the Volantine tigers and the Unsullied), priests, etc, etc, etc. They are fundamental for the economic system in Essos. They are slave societies, not societies with slaves.

I'd go even further and propose that the reason why the fall of the Slaver's Cities was a big hit to the whole economic system is that they were the main providers of highly trained and obedient slaves, whilst slaves in other Free Cities tend to be trained in lesser jobs, with the exception of Lys and its pillow houses, which still seems to be behind the Yunkai sex slaves.

The whole system is so sickening that I'd be mad if the books end without these cities biting the dust under Dany's sandal. Fuck the the Iron Throne, burn Volantis, Lys, Myr, Tyrosh, Qarth, Yunkai, etc.

 

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1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

Slaves in Essos are not only unskilled labor to plant cotton fields as we Americans tend to think when relating slavery.

FIFY. Slavery in Essos has more in common with the Arab and ancient slave trades than with slavery in the New World, I know. I promise I'm not failing to consider that Essosi slavery includes the professions, nor am I denying that those slaves in the skilled trades and professions would require a long period of training under an experienced supervisor. I just think that "apprenticeship" is the wrong word to describe that experience. And - bringing it back to Varys - if he was a slave, then "I was an orphan boy apprenticed to a travelling folly" is deliberately misleading. But I have a feeling we're all going to have to agree to disagree here.

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9 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Tohbo Mott sold Gendry to Varys. Gendry wasn't a slave.

Just because Varys was sold to the magician doesn't mean he was a slave either. It could easily mean that the magic man just bought Varys out of his contract. Varys, like Gendry, could have easily just walked away; but, like Gendry, he may have felt he didn't have any better option than to follow this new path that'd been laid out for him. Of course, in this scenario Varys would have no idea that the fellow was going to lop his nuts off. Possibly the master mummer didn't know either.

And also of course, this is assuming that Varys is telling Tyrion the truth.

I take it you mean Varys sold Gendry to Tobho Mott?

He paid the money for Gendry's apprenticeship. Mott is one of the finest armorers in Westeros and one of the wealthiest denizens of King's Landing. You don't learn with a man like that just because you have talent. You have to buy yourself into the trade.

Go back and reread the text in question. Varys admits he was terribly afraid of the chap his master had sold him to. He did not want to go with the man because he feared he would be used as a sex slave. Both the master and Varys himself knew that this guy was up to no good.

3 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

The whole system is so sickening that I'd be mad if the books end without these cities biting the dust under Dany's sandal. Fuck the the Iron Throne, burn Volantis, Lys, Myr, Tyrosh, Qarth, Yunkai, etc.

Well, I'd say that it is just gradually somewhat worse than Westerosi society. Ironborn thralls don't have a great life, either, and neither do, say, 80-90% of the Westerosi peasants. It is sure as hell worse if you are just chattel to be bought and sold but servitude and exploitation work just as fine if you are basically the property of your local lord, bound to the soil, forced to live a short and ugly life so that your master can build and maintain some fancy castle.

There may be some yeomen and other wealthy and semi-independent townsfolk in the Riverlands, the Reach, and the five cities of the Realm but the overwhelming majority of the population is pretty fucked up.

3 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I'd go even further and propose that the reason why the fall of the Slaver's Cities was a big hit to the whole economic system is that they were the main providers of highly trained and obedient slaves, whilst slaves in other Free Cities tend to be trained in lesser jobs, with the exception of Lys and its pillow houses, which still seems to be behind the Yunkai sex slaves.

Volantis has five slaves on every freeman. They seem to be training their slaves just as much as the Ghiscari although it doesn't seem that the slave trade is their sole/major trade. You have to keep in mind that while slaves were property they could still own stuff, learn stuff, do business, and actually have a profession. Everything would depend on the laws of the city they live in and on the permission of their master. 

2 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

FIFY. Slavery in Essos has more in common with the Arab and ancient slave trades than with slavery in the New World, I know. I promise I'm not failing to consider that Essosi slavery includes the professions, nor am I denying that those slaves in the skilled trades and professions would require a long period of training under an experienced supervisor. I just think that "apprenticeship" is the wrong word to describe that experience. And - bringing it back to Varys - if he was a slave, then "I was an orphan boy apprenticed to a travelling folly" is deliberately misleading. But I have a feeling we're all going to have to agree to disagree here.

But Varys doesn't tell us that he was in a proper apprenticeship. He says he was apprenticed to a traveling folly. Now, that could mean he was a free boy or a slave boy. There is no reason to believe he would have to use other words if he was a slave apprenticed to a traveling folly.

And again, even if Varys was no longer a slave at this point there is no reason to believe Pycelle's claim that he was born a slave in Lys is false. Quite some time passed between Varys' birth and his days with the traveling folly.

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On 4/11/2017 at 8:07 AM, rotting sea cow said:

He bribed a triarch of Volantis

"Elephants with stripes?" Griff muttered. "What is that about? Nyessos and Malaquo? Illyrio has paid Triarch Nyessos enough to own him eight times over."

and one would imagine that a Volantine triarch is at least as rich as any magister in Pentos. Nevertheless, Illyrio was outbid by the Yunkaii and Nyessos went to war against Illyrio's wishes.

I'm with you here. The vintages may suggest a certain connection. One could imagine that Illyrio desired the friendship of any important merchant in the Narrow Sea and beyond and contacted Lord Redwyne. He expected that maybe the Redwynes would help or at least wouldn't hurt in any plan, but of course people have their own agency as we see with Nyessos. Lord Redwyne may have in the end his own priorities, and these are not necessarily aligned with those of Illyrio. We cannot think that everybody follows mindlessly other people's plans.  We see the contrary in the series where many plans run afoul for not considering human nature.

Nevertheless, the Redwynes themselves are going to be soon in need of help.

 

Are we sure? Illyrio sent a poisoner to draw Drogo out of the Dothraki Sea, perhaps he sent a Volantine fleet to push Daenerys out of Slaver's Bay? 

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22 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Why should it add anything to the narrative? What we learn from that statue is that Illyrio wasn't always fat and may have resembled Aegon rather closely in his youth (unfortunately we never learned whether that's the case or not because drunk and depressed Tyrion never investigated the statue in detail).

That is the point of the statue.

Hopefully, the George is more imaginative than this. 

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10 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Are we sure? Illyrio sent a poisoner to draw Drogo out of the Dothraki Sea, perhaps he sent a Volantine fleet to push Daenerys out of Slaver's Bay? 

Check the time line. When the gang set out they still all believed, Illyrio included, that Dany was on her west. If Connington knew about the bribes - and he did know about them, being the source of our knowledge - Illyrio couldn't have known or expected that Dany would stay in Meereen. Why the hell should she?

7 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Hopefully, the George is more imaginative than this. 

The George is most likely not going to waste any more pages on the decorations in Illyrio's garden. We may never see his manse again. Illyrio has promised to join Aegon in Westeros. And while Dany's people way take Pentos for the Tattered Prince we don't need any POVs there to oversee this. Pentos has no chance against Daenerys' people

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