Rose of Red Lake

I'm not following - genocide? What do you mean. Yeah, she should be doing a lot of things. Just because Jon knelt doesn't mean she's secured anything. I mean, the Northerners pretended to humor Theon when he said he was the Prince of Winterfell. But, Jon told her that his people wouldn't bend to another southern ruler. He was pretty firm on that. Then says, "they'll see you for what you are?" Okay...that's a stretch. Then he kind of smirks at the cold reception and basically says "I told you so" when they arrive. And in a deleted scene he also smirks when a Northerner spits in front of her?? It's just weird. Personally going evil is more fun. I wish more people would loosen up and learn how to be villain stans. Well since she promised Iron Islands their independence, I guess its more like 6? Although, she's pretty driven in the book toward living up to a Targaryen image, that she imposes on herself. That includes ruling like the Targaryens did in the past.

Sansa wanted Jon to be king, because she trusts people she knows, not strangers. She opposed Dany because they had just gotten Winterfell back, and Jon had just been declared king. She warned him before he left that Dany wanted the North to kneel to her. It isnt about Sansa's position. It's who she supports to represent the North. Obviously independence mattered to her.

I just read a theory about Elia Sand eloping with Aegon, it just makes sense to me now. Otherwise, what's the point of her tagging along, kissing boys and getting into trouble? Arianne as an exasperated chaperone instead of a wife would be a great twist.

The lore and history of the series is there to learn from the lore and history, and Dany is willfully ignorant of it. She doesn't know about the second Daenerys, so the lesson from that historical moment is lost on her. Result: she rejects both marriages (Quentyn and Hizdahr). She doesn't know about the history of Qarth and the Dothraki, or ponder why that dragon carcass was in the Red Waste. So she's not understanding why Qarth might not want to support her, or would even try to kill her. She doesn't understand how the cities in the Red Waste died but doesn't want to create dead cities herself. Girl how are you gonna do that if you're ignorant of how said cities died in the first place? She doesn't think about how Valyrians with dragons enslaved the Ghiscari in the past, and that they're afraid of this happening again in the present. The Green Grace has to tell her this. Her historical igorance is a problem. GRRM said, "Maybe if she understood a few things more about dragons and her own history in Essos, things would have gone a little differently." There is no balance between ruling personalities when she's so off base with history. If she's not learning from it she's going to repeat the worst of it. The lesson she learned from the books Jorah gave here were that "dragons are fire made flesh." Wow. Revelatory.

Why does this matter? Rebels from the Iron Throne's POV...independence declared from the North's POV. It lasted two seconds, then muh kween.

They fought them and won without dragons before, although the show doesn't get into that. They probably think fire arrows will do the trick.The show also complicated things by having dragon glass be used on wights when all they need is a lantern to the face.

I think Tyrion has more of a chance to "fix" Volantis, since he actually has some grasp on the history of the place. But even then he was just dropped in there to get a quick history lesson. There's just no way a person can change things for the better, while being historically ignorant. Just like Americans failed in Afghanistan because they failed to understand the history and culture, among other things (drone bombing children).She'll fail in Westeros too if she doesn't fly directly to the Citadel and start hitting the books. She didn't even know that there were other Targaryens who shared her name, or that she was reading about Baelor in that children's book Jorah gave her.

Pretty sure her reasons for opposing Dany made sense, they had just won their independence and she knew Dany wanted to take that away. It would be different if the alliance was actually, you know, an alliance - where countries help each other without expectations of fealty afterward. Sansa seems to be dragging Westeros into something more like NATO/the EU where states can have mutual alliances but not necessarily give up sovereignty. And yes, I do think GRRM cares about sovereignty still, as a concept. Anyway the whole thing was just a demonstrate of, can people who dislike each other work together to prevent the apocalypse? The answer was yes. Sansa played along but wasn't going to be a pushover, either.

I think political biases of the author are pretty clear in the text. He fights for refugees and wants to open up America's borders - this "bias" is added into the story with the free folk. Since no one really wants to engage with this, I'm going to conclude that Jon is just being his usual dense self. I'm expecting Sam to clarify to Jon that these are refugees who are afraid of his harsh methods, and are taking a huge risk climbing over on their own. Sam has a better grasp on situations like that (see: Jon dismissing Gilly asking for help).

That's not really the outlook. The outlook is GRRM's own, when he angrily defended Syrian refugees on his blog. I think having Jon kill the wildlings who want to come over the Wall is undercutting this message, and it's a simple fix for him to realize that. Taking hostages and valuables is like taking out insurance on good behavior, not shooting people on site who try to come over.

Immigration isn't a moral dilemma, it's only politicians who frame it like that. And two, Jon isn't caught in one in these passages, the conversation is about how wildlings need to be stopped from climbing the Wall or invading Westeros. Both Jon and Marsh are in agreement about that here, the reader isn't asked to question "should Jon really be stopping the climbers?" But I can see your point, maybe an army setting isn't the best place to value human life.

Don't have Jon acting like ICE border patrol, for one. He's basically saying, we have to stop people from climbing the Wall illegally and committing crimes once they're here. Explain that if they're climbing over, they should be treated as refugees. Because they are, right? But Jon wants to shoot them on site. Avoid repeated associations of wildling to criminals. Why put that association in the readers head at all? Instead of saying "they've got some bad eggs, just like us!" focus on how the vast majority want a better life and are willing to work for it for their children. Have Jon at least think that closing off the gates sentences people to die. He doesn't have to verbalize it, but at least think of the human consequences...

I get the immigration metaphor here - So far, so good. But then Jon starts to worry about climbers: So Jon jumps to wildlings killing people, "shoving a spear through your belly," when Marsh is saying that the climbers are actually less dangerous than they are. Why does he do that? He also reflects on the story of Redbeard, which just reiterates again that "wildlings=dangerous" and that the NW has to stop them. Yeah, gotta stop them refugees!! So the message seems to be "not all immigrants are bad, but people like Jon are just here to stop the bad ones." ?? Mkay...that's not actually helping our immigration debates in the U.S. right now. To add to that, why isn't Jon horrified by Marsh's proposition that people will be left to die if they seal up the gate? Instead he's worried that they won't be able to send out rangers. So he's a selective humanitarian? If GRRM is trying to make a comparison to the plight of immigrants, I think he could have done it in a better way.

I dont know but in the show she was corrupted by power and didn't care about those people. Sapochnik said something that made sense to explain it - "She feels empty, it wasn't what she thought it was, it's not enough." And yes, Dany is never satisfied in the books, "That should be enough for any woman . . . but not for the dragon." She also decided to go to war simply because she didn't like Meerenese food, clothing, or housing, which is nothing really (she doesn't mention slavery at all as a reason to choose "fire and blood"). So in the show it's probably that she didn't want a bloodless victory, she wanted to inflict pain and make people pay, just like she did on the Plaza of Punishment and with the wineseller's daughters in the books. Because teaching people the dragon's power feels good to her. And if "it wasn't what she thought it was," then she had decided Westeros wasn't home. They weren't "her" people or even innocents, it was just another place to smash, just like the Dothraki did in Essos. I dont know, it just lines up for me more so than accidents or blood magic.

Any character preaching about "saviors" is going to eat their own words. "Volantis will burn" means Dany kills him and the slaves. Firebombing tends to do that.

Pretty sure the series is exploring the limitations of conquest, not possibilities. Meereen, Volantis, Iraq, Afghanistan...all interchangeable.

the direwolves

This reminds me of the phrase "nation building on the cheap," during the Iraq War years. Usually it meant underestimating the work it would take to rebuild a society after destroying it unprepared for a long, clostly, bloody insurgency no plans for long-term occupation strategy of quickly "bombing targets" and leaving

Yeah, it's obligatory for fantasy novel cardboard which is why it could easily be skipped. "dark evil that threatens the land" "people must band together to fight against it, or die" Not interesting to me at least.

I prefer if he stays dead - or, if he was never killed at all. GRRM just has an axe to grind with Tolkien about Gandalf and that's a stupid reason to write in a death/resurrection. I think she had to work at it, but in the books she is being guided by Littlefinger to engage with ALL the lords, the ones who like her and the the ones who don't. She's literally in the thick of it in the Vale, wearing any damn floppy ears that they want her to. She's playing dutiful daughter, doting cousin, charming bastard, quiet steward. The show omitting this was stupid but I could still see they were trying to make up for this in Winterfell. She's giving Jon shit for giving up their independence, pushing back against the dragon queen who wants to be their overlord, making sure they have enough supplies and food, looking out for their well-being even after the battle. I liked that the Lords were prickly and I liked that Sansa had to wrangle with them. This is how things should be accomplished most of the time - through hard work - and violence should be used sparingly.

If she survived, she should at least have a lot of burns. Dany should be looking pretty grotesque at the end of all of that.

Right. To make this more consistent with the theme of Sansa as a dangerous madwoman, Book!Sansa should have stared in fascination as Joff strangled to death and belittled him. "He was no true lion, strangling cannot kill a lion." And of course this couldn't just be an isolated incident. Sansa's default state would be to solve everything with violence, from here on out. No but for real, this was a D&D scene so the actors can "shine." It shouldn't stop your ability to see the book themes already in place. A Sansa vs. Dany juxtaposition exists in the books. True empathy is helping your captors/enemies, like Sansa helped Lancel when he was wounded. Or people who don't worship her as a new leader, like Dontos. Most of the time, when Dany helps someone, there is another component. She also gets power (a slave army), or she gets to assuage her own guilt (the price of the throne, staying in Meereen), or she expects them to be on her side (obligations). Dany's challenge is to have empathy for her enemies and help people without any other obligations. Sansa has shown she can do that. They are mainly foils, with a few similarities here in there. We'll see how Jon reacts to killing the assassins. My guess is that he'll feel a weight, and won't enjoy it. In the show, he tells Sansa he hanged a boy as young as Bran. He acted that scene like he was disgusted and said he was done killing. Later, he's questioning his actions even when he kills a mass murderer and is still unsure if it's the right thing. Also a juxtaposition to Dany. In the books, even when she was disturbed by the people she crucified, she whisks it away! If Dany had killed Jon she'd be like "he was no true dragon." And the bloodthirsty people would have cheered. Those people don't want fiction that challenges their base emotions, they just want blood.

@Adam Feldman

So leaving Meereen would appear to do the same thing. So leaving Meereen would appear to do the same thing. Dany is also turning masters into slaves. Very contradictory. She was solving Meereen's problems, by governing. She ended slavery in Meereen even with her dragons chained up. Her biggest problem will be leaving. Effectively throwing her work in the trash.

The place that is hell on earth? That's a terrible example. It's where a former slave turned the masters into slaves and the highborn boys into unsullied. Weren't you arguing that such a thing would never happen? Somehow I think your answers are a bit too wishful. "You can have the power to destroy but that doesn't give you the power to reform, improve, or build." What you're proposing is that the author write the opposite of the principles he's stated - that she destroys and improvement magically happens just because she destroyed things. The key is governance (Aragorn's tax policy). Which she isn't doing. If you think "leaving it up to the freedmen" is the way forward, we're shown why that's too simple. It's also giving Dany a free pass on responsible rule so she can fly off to another continent. Who knows what cities might rise to power in the future? It's a huge region and no one will be there to enforce rule of law. History isn't a straight line. Slavery came back after ancient Rome. There's also something to be said for the cycle of destruction - see Ghis/Valyria. If Dany destroys these cities it's just a repeat of that.