Gilbert Green

Daario is evil. He casually boasts about betraying his companions and cutting their heads off. He casually boasts about ripping tongues out and feeding them to dogs as a blood magic ritual. He has murdered countless men and raped countless women. Okay okay. He soft peddles it a bit. He does not say "murdered" and he does not say "raped". Those are morally-charged terms and Daario does not believe in morality, and so does not use such language. But we can read between the lines. And yeah, he's a mercenary. He kills for money. But okay. Never mind all that. I see you would rather view him through the all-encompassing lens of class warfare. He's lower class, so, how dare Dany not fuck him.

I'm not that interested in debating why women like "bad boys". I guess they do to some extent, and who am I to argue with a million years of evolution? Sometimes, I guess, their women's instincts are not too far wrong, and the bad boy is not so bad after all, and besides, has the aggressive instincts that enable a man to protect his woman and his family. At other times, however, the bad boy really is bad. Sometimes -and maybe too often - a woman's romantic delusion that the bad boy will be good only to her because she is special gets exploded, and she finds herself just one more of the bad boy's victims. This happened to poor Falia Flowers. Daario? He's bad news. Dany, not quite so dumb as Falia, even knows on some level that Daario is bad news. Problem is, Daario is hot, and Dany has the hots for him. So she can't quite seem to stop herself from acting against her better judgment. If there will be a twist to Daario, I guess it will be that he is even worse news than Dany realizes. Yes, Daario is hot, and Dany has the hots for him. We all understand that. Yes, he does woo Dany. He brings her severed heads as gifts and 'rapes her with his eyes'. The next thing we hear, they are already lovers. Details unavailable. Is she? If the severed heads gift does not count as the first move we have no details at all. Next we hear, they are lovers already. She keeps sending him away for months on end, because she does not feel in control of him or of herself. My guess is Daario is fine with this, because he has places to go and things to do, which Dany does not need to know about. In Daario's mind, Daario is calling the shots. Even Dany understands, in her saner moods, that Daario is at least a potential threat. Certainly she does not trust him. Daario does not seem to consider herself Dany's boy toy. He is not happy at all with her "I command you to eff me" joke. He gives her a dirty look, says he has things to do, and walks away. He certainly does not obey. My guess is, he fully intends to make her pay for that joke. None of the above is bad. "Being assholds" is bad, I guess, but you say that is not a defining trait. Why even call them "bad boys" if they are defined by doing good things? Why not call them "good boys". You makes no sense.

Only if there isn't enough room in Hell.

"Aye ... the the gods hate incest. Look how they brought down the Targaryens." -- A Clash of Kings Spoken by a knight (that is, a member of the Faith) over 240 years after the Doctrine of Exceptionalism was first preached. The religion of the people does not die or change just because you bribe and/or threaten a few top officials.

You are obviously a heretic. That's exactly what a heretic would say. You might expect such things to occur. It does not follow that such things would be mentioned in a very short history, written by an ass-kisser of the Targs. Do you think the brave heroes who stormed the Dragonpit were believers in Targaryen exceptionalism? Maybe not, eh? Why doesn't Maester Ass-kisser do a better job explaining their grievances and motivations? Because he leaves things out, that's why. And so he leaves you to understand that they are just really mean people who want to throw away their lives just to kill a few cuddly pets, none of whom ever stole a cow or a sheep, much less a daughter. But there is obviously more to the story. I'm not going to pretend I know exactly what that is, or that it is necessarily just one thing. But there is obviously more to the story. Baelor was attracted to his sisters. Why did he not just marry them, if he was so convinced it was okay? Possibly - plausibly -- there was another point of view, and it still persisted within the Faith, even if they sometimes kept their tongues when the King's Soldiers were marching by. How many High Septons (or Low Septons) actually endorsed Targaryen Exceptionalism, as opposed to (maybe) keeping a strategic silence at times? We don't know. But when you're the ruler of the realm, you can always find somewhere a heretic septon to bless your incestuous union.

Dany's longing for the red door is also a longing for family. Because she does not want to be left howling forever alone in the darkness. Because the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. And three mounts must she ride.

I don't accept the premise that the Faith is extremely stable. I just think that GRRM has not chosen to spend his time writing a 7-volume history of the Faith. He does not write of theological disputes because he thinks they will not much interest his readers. But we can still presume they have occurred. I don't accept that it is insanely organized either. The Faithful are spread out over thousands and thousands of miles, and don't even control their own raven network or weirwood network. Knighthood is a tradition of the Faith. And the tradition that any Knight can make a Knight is anything but hierarchical. I wonder if the Septons have a similar tradition. And at least one heresy is mentioned, specifically the foul heresy of Targaryen Exceptionalism, wherein the pure doctrines of the Faith are corrupted by the diabolic philosophy of Might Makes Right.

F&B was an okay book. I say that with slight reluctance, because I think he ought to have been writing WINDS instead. But maybe the first dance with the dragons was a practice run for the second. And maybe his practice writing fake history will help him fast forward through certain slow points in the remaining plot.

I take the simple view that the Blackfyres are villains. I'm not saying GRRM does not humanize them to some extent, which is simply good writing. Villains are people too. But they are Villains nonetheless.

Not everyone agrees with Churchill's proposal. And GRRM might be one of them.

I suggest erring on the side of the silent "s". That way there is a remote chance you will be pleasantly surprised, but at least you won't be disappointed. If GRRM really had 100 print pages and roughly 150 manuscript pages to go, we'd be hearing alot more pleasant noises from him. Instead, he comes across as still struggling. As I read it, his early estimate of maybe 1100, maybe 1200 included very rough material. That's why it was so vague. But his current estimate covers material that is in a somewhat more completed state. So he states, more definitely and with less hesitation, that he has 1100 pages.

Maybe some day GRRM will give us a Gargon POV. And then we will learn that Gargon felt sorry for himself too. I'm not saying there is nothing to what you say. But you seem to be losing track of what happened to Tysha. It's not just about what happened that day. Tyrion has spend the last 13 years feeling sorry for himself. And not lifting a finger to look for or make things up to the girl he helped gang-rape. Because, as one of the other posters here put it, what's in it for him? I'm not saying we can't have a small amount of sympathy for persons who have done terrible things. I'm not saying that some villains cannot be redeemed and forgiven. But are we not losing track of what he did to Tysha? Sure, we could take his youth and immaturity into account. If he had shown any sign of turning into a better person in the 13 years since. But has he?

I can't take credit for Lemongate. Also, GRRM confirmed Lemongate 8 years ago, so it isn't even a theory any more. Unless you mean particular versions of it. But yes, the other one is mine. You did a good job summarizing it so as to make it sound ridiculous, without actually being inaccurate. But I stand by it. Cheers.

I never saw "Breaking Bad". But it is called "Breaking Bad". The entire premise, as understand it, is that the protagonist is, or is becoming, a villain

I was not talking about how far you can walk, but about how far you can see. I live on a hill. A large double-decker railroad train passes within a half mile of my house every day. Do you think I can ever see an inch of it? Not if a tree is in the way. Vegetation, man. It tends to block things. Okay. So they ride out a few miles and maybe find a kid or two nailed to a mile-post, assuming Daario has strung the kid up yet. They ride back and say "I found a kid nailed to a mile-post". "Who strung him up?" "Dunno." "Ours or theirs?" "Dunno". "Maybe Vatziz-Naehm did it." "Could be, Vatziz-Naehm always was a vicious bastard." So they ask Vatzis-Naehm, who says "Nope, wasn't me. Maybe it was Wadja-Kallum." So what? I find it plausible (though hardly inevitable) that Meereen has a view of portions of the approaching road within one or two miles, so that an approaching army will inevitably pass into view, as it proceeds along the road. It hardly follows that they will see a particular milepost. Mileposts are designed to be visible from the road, and hardly need to be visible from the tops of nearby pyramids. And they are positioned every mile -- and not at points that just happen to be visible from the tops of pyramids. Somebody somehow dragged and killed the children over the whole length of the march. You just have a double standard, where if suspect A is considered no questions need to be answered, but if Suspect B is considered a million questions need to be answered. Fact is, we have 163 dead children, and no witnesses reported in the text. Except, of course, the witnesses who found Daario at the scene of the crime (who don't count, somehow). If you don't like it, complain to GRRM. I imagine there were a few other witnesses, even though the text does not report them. Probably they were hiding, or they would not be alive. What did they see? Dunno. Some masked men slaughtering people, I guess. Maybe weanng false-flags or similar. Were the masked men working for Meereen or for Daario? Dunno. But you are not going to prove one possibility by demanding that I prove the other. That's a double standard. This isn't a made-up crime. Somebody killed the children. And we have, broadly speaking two suspects, Meereen/Slavers and Daario/Stormcrows. You can't prove it was Meereen by demanding absolute proof that it was Daario. That's an argument from ignorance. If I can't absolutely prove that it was Daario that still leaves us with two suspects. And if you can't absolutely prove it was Meereen that still leaves us with two suspects. Meanwhile, Daario was caught at the scene of the crime, and the Meerenese slavers were not. Is it absolute proof? No. But it is small piece of evidence and maybe a clue. If you want absolute proof, I guess you will have to wait for the reveal. They'll need fast horses, to escape the Stormcrows. Daario seems like a risk taker to me. But if something does go wrong, who's got the fast horses? Daario. Some of the kids were alive. But for whatever reason, it does not appear that any of them provided any useful information pointing to ultimate suspects. There could be any number of reasons for that. Like masks. The kids were nailed to the mileposts. The mileposts were already there. Nobody had to fashion crosses. The Stormcrows are always in the field. Always. Funny how GRRM seems to anticipate all of your objections. And it is not as though Daario must use all 500 of his men for special operations. There might even be a few without tongues. Daario has been known to cut out tongues.

It's an oligarchy. Not some alien hive mind. You cannot automatically assume everyone is in the know every time one of them commits a crime. Especially when the crime is committed far outside the shelter of the city walls. Dunno. Maybe to tie her up in Meereen to give him time to go other places and do other things. Which he seems to be doing alot of. To what end did the slavers do it? Oh right. To die horribly. It certainly was a good plan. Daario is also portrayed as cartoonishly evil. He even dresses like a cartoon. Why is it impossible? It's not like there is any rule that he has to fix the posts nearest Meereen first. And he's most likely doing advance scouting operations for a much slower foot army. So yeah. He is, most likely, going and returning, going and returning, going and returning. And reporting. And bringing supplies. He just leaves out the peasant massacres and other details.

Right under the nose? You don't know much about geography do you. Let me ask you - how far away is the horizon, on an open sea? And on land it is typically and plausibly much shorter. The children were strung up roughly every MILE. Not every ten feet up to the gates of Meereen. And the last few miles might have been ski;;ed for all we know. How would he procure them? I wasn't there. But it is has been traditionally a fairly standard practice during sieges for the upper classes to retreat behind walls while the peasants/serfs/farmers (in this case probably members of the slave class) to be left to face the wrath of the invaders. And in this case the invaders first encountered would be Daario and his Stormcrows, riding ahead of the main army. Slaughter the slave/peasant families and sieze the children. But Daario WAS caught with the children. I already told you the suspicious details. You're just angrily refusing to be suspicious. Based on the details I gave, the other commanders certainly OUGHT to have been suspicious. It's not my fault they had other things on their minds. He even admitted to trying to conceal the crime. Innocently, of course. I don't see your point. That's true no matter who kills the children. That's ridiculous. The text never says that none of them protested their innocence. And even if the text had said it it would be so contrary to human nature as to break the suspension of disbelief of any intelligent reader. Murderers almost always protest their innocence, even if 100% guilty. Dany ordered them strung up each pointing a finger at the other. This seems to symbolically suggest that they ALL protested their innocence, however willing they each may have been to divert suspicion to others. Thankee kindly. Just for fun and for the record, can you list a few of my crazier ones? Also, GRRM says that there is more to Daario than meets the eye. Can you suggest any boring, unfun, non-crazy theories for us to consider?

You don't address HOW she knows it. She knows it because she knows it because you say so. Seems to me that there's plenty room for assumptions to be wrong. You just don't LIKE the assumptions being questioned. Which is fine. Agree to disagree. Works just as well for Daarion. He did it to manipulate Dany and because he is evil. It seems equally easy to me. LOL, you just agreed with the most ridiculous and unlikely scenario. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Daario absolutely travelled that distance. Ahead of Dany. With his fast horse, he probably had time to do it twice over. I have no opinion on in what order he put the children on posts. Whether he started near Meereen or moved out, or started out and moved in. Or started in the middle and moved in both directions, with the aid of leutenants.

I tell you what the text says, and this is your response? Okay dude. Agree to disagree.

But he WAS riding ahead of the army. Per the text. But he WAS found with dead and dying children.

Ever heard of the Charleston slaver who crucified 163 black childen just to show how evil he was? No? Neither have I. I don't think it would have worked out for him. Yeah, okay. I get that ASOIAF is dialed up to 11, and more over-the-top than real life. Somebody sure murdered those children. So I'm not ruling out the slavers as suspects. It's just that Daario was found at the scene of the crime. And he is a bloodthirsty homicidal maniac. And he is an actual named character in the story. And there is more to Daario than meets the eye, per GRRM. Whereas the 163 slavers are all nameless and faceless.

Well, in that case, I'd say they did not understand the psychology of the situation. The target is Dany, no? Also if you kill random slaves here and there, then the frightened slaves may keep their heads down in the hopes of saving their own children. If you murder 163 children at once just to prove how evil you are, then the slaves will rise up in the hope of saving their own children. As Tywin tried to explain to Joffrey, one must be pragmatic with one's evil deeds. Otherwise no-one has any incentive to bend the knee, and every motive to fight. You're just speculating insane reasons why 163 slavers would simultaneously decide to do an insane thing. I concede that SOMEBODY certainly aid an insane thing. Those kids didn't climb up on those poles themselves. But if we can speculate, we can also speculate about Daario's reasons. Maybe he wanted her to get tied up in Meereen. to buy time for whatever.

She did not know who gave the order. Nobody confessed. The number of victims matches the number of children. It does not match the number of people who gave the order. It does not even match the number of leaders of the slave class. She just killed 163 slavers to avenge 163 children. That's it. The only evidence she has is that some (predictably) pointed the finger at each other in a desperate attempt to save themselves. At least, that's what I conclude from the symbolism of their executions. Why did the slavers do that? To manipulate Dany's emotions? Just to be evil? In a fit of insanity? It's not exactly an easy question to answer no matter who you blame. Especially if you try to blame 163 people at once. But somebody sure did it. "All present? Great. I propose a resolution. Let us crucify 163 children just to show Dany how evil we are so that Dany will be especially determined to destroy our city and then kill us all in an equally painful manner. All in favor? Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye. Great. That's 163 Ayes and zero Nayes. Resolution passes. Lets go murder some children." On the other hand, maybe Daario did it. And for equally insane reasons. He was caught at the scene of the crime. He is a megalomaniacal creature of blood and chaos. And he practices blood magic. But no, he was not stringing the kids up when they caught him. He was trying to cut them down. To spare Dany's feelings. Yes yes yes, that's it. Good story, Daario. Nice save. GRRM says that there is more to Daario than meets the eye. But fans seem to hate any theory that has anything to do with Daario. They just want him to go away. He spends most of his time out of Dany's sight, but nobody has any interest in what he gets up to when Dany isn't looking.

She was performing a type of symbolic collective punishment. The number of 163 victims was symbolic, and unrelated to specific evidence against them. She felt guilty? Sure. But that was her conscience telling her what she did was wrong. Otherwise it means nothing at all. In the end, I expect it will be revealed that Daario strung up the children.

Are you referring to the time Tywin suggested to Tyrion that he gang-rape his own wife, and Tyrion agreed with no coercion whatsoever? Except from Tyrion's cock? Tyrion's cock betrayed him? That treacherous coercive cock? There was no crossbow to the head in that case either. That too is a fan fantasy. I'm not sure what scene you have in mind, but I remember no scene at all where Tywin holds a knife to her throat. And how does she "technically" have more authority than him? Joffrey has no right to be king; and Cersei no right to be regent. But Tywin has a big army to silence those who point this out.