Is the series really as morally grey as has been made out?

[Arland]

Dark Heart

There is a big difference between Westerosi serfdom and Slaver's Bay slavery. Examples of serfs abuse you mentioned were all extreme cases - exemption of the rule, while horrible treatment of slaves in Slaver's Bay was the undisputed norm. (at least with regard to certain class of slaves).

Daeneris actually states this in her discussion with Xaro. When he asks why she didn't try to free his slaves in Qarth, she says that she saw that they were well treated and content there, and only when she reached Slaver's Bay she saw the real horror of it.

So I would say that the issue if Slaver's Bay kind of slavery should have been stoped is pretty much clear cut issue. The question how to deal with it, afterwords is much more complicated one.

[danm_999]

Tyrion sees ranks but that hardly makes the slavers better people. It just dwells on the mechanics and a sort of divide and rule mentality; owing to the slavers building a petty hierachy.

The point is that Tyrion makes some pretty astute comparisons between slavery and serfdom, and thinks about his father's words "only fools and children believe they're free".

Reducing or constraining a human being to that level of childlike dependence and to the extent that they see their bondage as a good thing... is abominable. If a slave was kidnapped as a child and only knew such a life; then that merely makes them victims of the worst kind. It only serves to highlight the injustice of the slavers and what they do. You get more a sense of tragedy that any human being would say that and understand just how unpalatable what they are doing is.

That's your opinion though, and it's not one shared by everyone in the series. Again, many wildlings choose to lose their freedom because they don't want to die and rise as wights.

To them, these academic distinctions we'd make about being victims and dependents in a social system are superflous because they're starving and being chased by ice monsters.

Not only that, but Tyrion never, ever, sees a single slaver who tries to truly justify the treatment or existence of slaves

Err, Nurse does. He gives them this whole speech about how lucky they are to be owned by Yezan, since they'll live and eat better, and be better protected, than almost anybody else. And given what we see in Astapor, how many people do you think would want to trade places with Tyrion?

I'm willing to bet a lot.

Morality has nothing to do with practical considerations. Martin merely breaks the sort of mechanics you have in, say, Bioware video games, where if you take the good option you still win and get to act morally; whilst the bad option lets you win but you're evil.

It's difficult to talk about Bioware games in general; Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are vastly different to, say, Mass Effect, of to Dragon Age, which has no morality system to speak of.

Of RPGs, I'd say ASOIAF is closest to the Witcher series actually.

Instead he allows that taking the moral line has negative consequences and is not always the way of power; but he does not truly question the morality of, say, slavery. He, through Xaro, only says that it is profitable; which is an inherently immoral argument. Especially when external or circumstantial reasons deny any alternative and contribute far more to making the situation bleak.

But this is fundamentally a moral argument; the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Freeing people from slavery is not necessarily moral, many characters posit, because they die. Again, you may disagree with that, but Martin certainly makes a strong case for it.

These sort of morality arguments are rife in the series; another example why is it acceptable to kill a thousand men in a battle, but not a hundred at dinner?

[danm_999]

Dark Heart

There is a big difference between Westerosi serfdom and Slaver's Bay slavery. Examples of serfs abuse you mentioned were all extreme cases - exemption of the rule, while horrible treatment of slaves in Slaver's Bay was the undisputed norm. (at least with regard to certain class of slaves).

Tyrion actually does dispute this;

“Ghazdor’s collar,” the old man boasted. “Known him since we was born. I’m almost like a brother to him. Slaves like you, sweepings out of Astapor and Yunkai, you whine about being free, but I wouldn’t give the dragon queen my collar if she offered to suck my cock for it. Man has the right master, that’s better.”

Tyrion did not dispute him. The most insidious thing about bondage was how easy it was to grow accustomed to it. The life of most slaves was not all that different from the life of a serving man at Casterly Rock, it seemed to him. True, some slaveowners and their overseers were brutal and cruel, but the same was true of some Westerosi lords and their stewards and bailiffs. Most of the Yunkai’i treated their chattels decently enough, so long as they did their jobs and caused no trouble … and this old man in his rusted collar, with his fierce loyalty to Lord Wobblecheeks, his owner, was not at all atypical.

And he's actually been an honest to goodness slave, unlike Daenerys' who was sold in a transaction more remniscant of a marriage alliance in Westeros.

[Arland]

danm_999

And Tyrion is very much wrong... The biggest irony of it all is that he was supposed to be eaten by lions, thanks to his very nice master, just for the sake of amusement and the only one who saved him was Daenaris.

Sure there were nice slaveowners besides those who , lets see... forced slavegirls to be raped by a giant, used to breed slaves like cattle , cut slaves genitalia, put innocent slave children on mileposts and cet.

Sure, some Westerosi lords were also cruel, but only really few reached the level of cruelty in Essos and they all were regarded to be monsters. And serfes in Westeros had much more protection then slaves in Essos - the mere fact that Roose Bolton was afraid that the woman he raped will tell the tale to Starks is the best proof of it.

[Jaime4Lyfe]

Morality and truth is in the eye of the beholder. Walk a mile in another man's shoes...you know the rest. Either way, I believe the story is grey (gray?), but that characters and, to a some extent, houses tend to lean more towards white or black.

[Blisscraft]

Answering this question is like trying to answer the question: "how many sides does a circle have?"

[Dark Heart]

Dark Heart

There is a big difference between Westerosi serfdom and Slaver's Bay slavery. Examples of serfs abuse you mentioned were all extreme cases - exemption of the rule, while horrible treatment of slaves in Slaver's Bay was the undisputed norm. (at least with regard to certain class of slaves).

Daeneris actually states this in her discussion with Xaro. When he asks why she didn't try to free his slaves in Qarth, she says that she saw that they were well treated and content there, and only when she reached Slaver's Bay she saw the real horror of it.

So I would say that the issue if Slaver's Bay kind of slavery should have been stoped is pretty much clear cut issue. The question how to deal with it, afterwords is much more complicated one.

I'm not arguing that slavery is better then serfdom.

The only point I'm trying to make is that things are not clean cut.

It's gray and realistic.

A lot of other fantasy books would go "Slaves freed > Instantly happy former slaves > New free society without any (big) problems.".

That's not the way it went here.

Dany is (mostly) seen as a "good" character but she some of the things she did to free the slaves are horrible.

In a clear back/white series that wouldn't happen.

I don't think that commoners have much rights at all. Take for example the Red Viper taking his child from her mother.

Do you think she (the mother) could have demanded that her girl is returned to her?

But maybe you're right and all of those are extreme cases.

Still they all happen is system supported by "good" people.

Doesn't it automatically makes it gray?

And I'll again bring "salt-wives" as example.

After the rebellion they could have made the stop.But they didn't.

[Frey Pie]

I think theres places where the story is grey, as it is elsewhere in other stories. However, much of the story is not grey, as shown by the OP. I myself made a thread just like this, but more character based then this. The greyness of the story and characters is IMO far overrated

[Arland]

I think "salt wives" is bad example. Thralls and salf wives are slaves, with only exception being that their children are born free. The fact that Westerosi kings don't do anything about it out of political reasons is another matter (modern governments also not rush too do much about atrocities committed by "allies")

[Frey Pie]

I think "salt wives" is bad example. Thralls and salf wives are slaves, with only exception being that their children are born free. The fact that Westerosi kings don't do anything about it out of political reasons is another matter (modern governments also not rush too do much about atrocities committed by "allies")

Unless im mistaken salt wives are an old way reborn only in the last few years. I dont think they were taking salt wives over the last 300 years, only since Balon declared a return to the Old Ways

[Wouter]

Contrast Robb with Davos who risks his own life to rescue Edric Storm from being burnt to death. Edric is nothing to Davos, Davos is moved purely by the moral consideration that it is wrong to burn a child to death and out of concern for Stannis' moral position. That to my mind was a good deed. I don't see an equivelent on Robb's side who basically does what society requires of him. Arguably he has one good deed - marrying Jeyne Westerling, but then that's balanced by a bad deed - breaking his oath.

Is Sansa good? I'd say human and grey. She saves Ser Dontos, but equally is colluding with Littlefinger's lies.

The Lannister squires that got murdered by lord Karstark also were nothing to Robb, just like Edric would be nothing to Davos. Yet he still alienated the Karstarks over it, because he felt murder is wrong and it needed to be punished. I don't think Robb is very different from Davos, and certainly very different from Joffrey (and quite distinct from Stannis and even Renly, too). I think there is no doubt Martin intents him as the one the reader should naturally root for in the war of the five kings (and thus his death is meant to be a kick in the shins).

Sansa is not grey because she is "colluding" with LF's lies. Lying is not inherently bad - when Ned lied about Jon it was actually a rather heroic deed, for example. Sansa was merely acting out of self-preservation and also to avoid a devastating war that could result for the Vale if she was unmasked. I don't call that "grey" because she had no real choice in the matter. And moreover, Martin made it relatively easy by making sure that Marillion was actually a known rapist, all-around arsehole and by also making him complicit in Lysa's attempt to murder Sansa. Now, if Sansa becomes knowingly and willingly involved with slowly poisoning her young nephew (now that she knows LF is counting on Sweetrobin dying pretty soon), that would be grey.

No, he's made them seem monolithic to Daenerys, which is an important distinction.

Remember this book uses unreliable narrators, so what we see isn't necessarily an accurate representation of truth. We only see Slaver's Bay from the perspective of outsiders, and these outsiders lump all Meereenese and slavers into a single entity, just like people in Essos lump all Westerosi into a single entity

I don't think Daenerys can be considered an unreliable narrator when it comes to Astapor and the "whatever masters" that were involved with the Unsullied "training". The speech delivered by the slaver and (in a "cleaned" version) translated by Missandei leaves nothing to the imagination, and the reader can hardly claim that Dany dreamed that thing up.

Meereen may be one thing, but Astapor was deliberately made into a very black-and-white situation, with the slavers on comic book levels of over-the-top villainism.

[Quiet Isle]

Well yeah, there are characters that are good relatively speaking like Ned and Davos. There are also monsters like Ramsay. Morally gray to me refers to other main characters, particularly Tyrion and Jaime. Maybe Dany joins that list in the book as well

First of all, let me say that i'm not actually disagreeing with you, but GRRM has said in interviews that NO ONE in his books is a real monster. he compares it to adolph hitler - he loved dogs. there was SOMETHING morally redeemable. having said that, Arya and Nymeria need to hunt Ramsay down, and arya needs to flay him upside down and let the wolves eat the skins. Some folks aren't fit to live, even if their fathers weren't "nice" to them.

[total1402]

First of all, let me say that i'm not actually disagreeing with you, but GRRM has said in interviews that NO ONE in his books is a real monster. he compares it to adolph hitler - he loved dogs. there was SOMETHING morally redeemable. having said that, Arya and Nymeria need to hunt Ramsay down, and arya needs to flay him upside down and let the wolves eat the skins. Some folks aren't fit to live, even if their fathers weren't "nice" to them.

Um, its not morally grey to say that Hitler was a human being. Pretty obvious. In fact making a human being do the things Hitler, Stalin and others did only makes their actions more morally disgusting than if they were just monsters bound to their natures (hence innocent as an animal or bolt of lightening). I'am pretty sure most moral judgements only apply to people anyway. Its kind of a given.

[Larry of the Lawn]

I think this is a really subjective question, but...

While I think that the five Stark children (and Jon Snow) are clearly the protagonists of ASOIAF and are more lily-white than most other houses on a whole, I think that the bulk of the characters in the series aren't clearly good or bad. You could make an easy case that Davos, Sam, and Brienne are pretty 'good' and that Ramsay, Gregor, Rorge, are 'evil' but after that it gets complicated.

Jaime, Tyrion, the Hound, Cersei, Tywin, Mance Rayder, Robert, Stannis, Dany, Jorah, Barristan, Loras & Margaery, Theon, Catelyn even, the Iron Born... these are all characters who don't easily fit into a good/bad, black/white, pigeon-hole scheme.

Out of the Tyrells, Martells, Lannisters, Baratheons - I don't think you can argue that those Houses are good or bad one way or the other. I know that a lot of people think of the Lannisters as the axis of evil or the 'bad guys', but I don't see it that way. And if that is the case then they are the most loveable villains in literature

That said, there seems to be some type of apocalyptic good vs. evil showdown brewing with the Others, in a monster vs. human kind, Long Night type ordeal. But the charactes themselves remain very, very grey.

Even look at Robb. One of the more universally loved characters, and heavily on the white side of the evil-scale at first glance. But is going to war to save his father, at the cost of thousands and thousands of lives really worth it? Also knowing that he's putting his family in grave danger? What's the morally correct decision there? Go to war or bend the knee? It's debateable.

I know that someone already mentioned Septon Meribald's speech, but it's a good way to point out that even the 'good' lords wreak havoc on the realm when they play their power games. Some poster in another thread said something about revenge being "the prominent hobby of Westerosi nobility."

So I'd argue that the decisions that even the whitest protagonist characters are faced with aren't clear right/wrong issues, and that even 'doing the right thing' can have a heavy moral cost in innocent lives attached to it.

Overall, I'd say that yes, this series is as morally grey as it's hyped up to be.

[the titan of westeros]

I agree. what i might otherwise add about house stark is that while the lords of stark are honorable enough while we see them there were much meaner starks before them. I might add that Brandon Stark was a pretty big jerk with the whole taking womens' virginity and never speaking to them again. He was also pretty violent and hotheaded. This attitude of his probably comes from his "lord" training with his father Rickard. Odds are Rickard was probably pretty mean as well, based on the fact that Brandon was willing to marry Catelyn on his orders and Lyanna was too scared to tell him or anyone else that she ran off with Reaghar rather than just letting him know and preventing a war. The only reason Ned was so gentle and honorable was probably because he was ignored as a child for being second born, same as Benjen.

[James Arryn]

Ned is executed for trying to do the right thing and his son comes trying to avenge him; before eventually breaking away with the North like his ancestors against the mad King Joffrey. All of which was engineered by selfish Cersei who had murdered the previous King. The Starks are totally in the right doing all of these things and the Lannister position is wrong. It couldn’t be more black and white.

...until you are told that the current regime is only in power based on the murder of another king, and the subsequent murder of his offspring.

Which really makes royal authority more about getting it than being right in the getting, in which case Cersei's just practicing a variance of established protocol.

The problem with usurpation isn't what happens during, it's what happens after. And after. And after.

Royal authority...isn't. Especially in a world which doesn't believe it stems from Divine Selection.

So really it's a game of Emperor's New Clothes where all the nobility play along because they are profiting in the greater scheme.

As soon as one of you pulls the curtainstring, the whole thing's exposed and it's gonna be hard to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

[danm_999]

danm_999

And Tyrion is very much wrong... The biggest irony of it all is that he was supposed to be eaten by lions, thanks to his very nice master, just for the sake of amusement and the only one who saved him was Daenaris.

Yeah, and how is this different from people being thrown into the bear pit at Harrenhall? Tyrion knows he was supposed to die, but still factors this into his views on how most slaves get by ok.

Sure there were nice slaveowners besides those who , lets see... forced slavegirls to be raped by a giant,

And Gregor Clegane does quite a bit of rape of the smallfolk. Lyn Corbray apparently has a harem of young boys according to Littlefinger. Reek tells us that Umbers still practice the First Night. The Ironborn are notorious rapers of the people they conquer.

There's loads of rape of the smallfolk by the high lords in Westeros.

used to breed slaves like cattle ,

To their credit, this doesn't really happen in Westeros.

cut slaves genitalia, put innocent slave children on mileposts and cet.

These things do though.

Sure, some Westerosi lords were also cruel, but only really few reached the level of cruelty in Essos and they all were regarded to be monsters. And serfes in Westeros had much more protection then slaves in Essos - the mere fact that Roose Bolton was afraid that the woman he raped will tell the tale to Starks is the best proof of it.

The point was that both slaves and serfs get screwed.

[danm_999]

I don't think Daenerys can be considered an unreliable narrator when it comes to Astapor and the "whatever masters" that were involved with the Unsullied "training". The speech delivered by the slaver and (in a "cleaned" version) translated by Missandei leaves nothing to the imagination, and the reader can hardly claim that Dany dreamed that thing up.

I don't consider her unreliable in relating that guys words, I'd point to the fact that this is only one person, who himself tells a few whoppers.

Meereen may be one thing, but Astapor was deliberately made into a very black-and-white situation, with the slavers on comic book levels of over-the-top villainism.

We only meet one slaver though, and the ambiguity of Astapor is that the city becomes a thousand times worse for the people living there once Daenerys' has left.

[Arland]

The point was that both slaves and serfs get screwed.

If we will go by this line of argument we will reach the same conclusion with regard to free people in our society.

There are people in our society who are de jure "free", but are abused by criminal elements, sometimes as horribly as described in the books. And in our own society we have case of authorities who look the other way, either out of fear or because of bribes, high position of the guilty party and cet.

The examples you brought up are of clear exceptions. You are talking about Mountain and Ramsey who are known monsters. Mountain was protected by Tywin, but he was known by everybody to be a monster. Ramsey was actually told by his father to hide his deeds. We know that Starks clearly prohibited first night. As was already stated many times - Ironborn have different culture then entire Westeros, so you shouldn't mix the two. And you also don't differentiate between what happens during time of war, which brings out all kinds of extreme behaviors and normal conduct. Sure! There are lords in Westeros who abuse their serfs. -exactly as we have rich people in our society who also have "harems of young boys". But it isn't the norm -at least when we are talking about the more horrible kinds of abuse.

What was happening with the slaves in Slaver's Bay was THE NORM. Nobody considered it to be wrong or immoral - NOBODY. Xaro clearly states it and justifies it. The horror of readiness to kill Tyrion is not in the act of killing but in the fact that Tyrion considered his master to be an OK one. Do you really think "an average" noble in Westeros will be ready/able to kill his serf on a whim just for his amusement ? NO , such behavior is saved for Ramseys.

To refer to you lest sentence - everybody get screwed! Slaves, serves, illegal workers and people who have to wear cumbersome costumes in Disney Land. But they are all screwed with different intensity and frequency . And that what makes a BIG difference.

[Dark Heart]

I think "salt wives" is bad example. Thralls and salf wives are slaves, with only exception being that their children are born free. The fact that Westerosi kings don't do anything about it out of political reasons is another matter (modern governments also not rush too do much about atrocities committed by "allies")

So, doesn't that make it gray bu default?

We have good characters (or supposedly good governments in RL) not doing the right thing.

As was already stated many times - Ironborn have different culture then entire Westeros, so you shouldn't mix the two.

Why not?

After the rebellion Ironborn are crushed.

The "Good People" are setting laws (and as Iron Islands are part of 7K the king have full right to do it).

In 7K slavery is prohibited. Giving your serfs to slavers is a capital offense.

So, what's stopping King Bob and Ned from saying "No more thralls and salt wives"?

It's not like the appreciation for the different cultures ever stopped anybody in those books.

Oh, and as for how long they had salt wives?

We know that before the second rebellion, but possibly after the first; Victarion killed his salt wife.

When Theon is going to talk with his father about Robb's terms ( before the second rebellion) he thinks about taking a girl as a salt wife.

So, it's been going on for a while.