SeanF

The problem was the Targaryen thread was hijacked by criticism of the moderators. The poster in question knows what he did, and why the moderators acted as they did.

If we see it in purely contractual terms then Robb entirely made good his breach of contract, by offering a lord paramount as husband. And, not even the Code of Hammurabai treatsg the murder of 3,500 as a just response to breach of contract.

The fact that slavery was race-based, was the Deep South’s (and West Indies’) unique contribution to the practice. The notion of slaves being chattels, however, goes way back into antiquity. Privileged household slaves, who often gained their freedom, were a small minority of the total at all times. Most slaves were fieldhands, most of whom were kept in prisons, closely guarded, tortured if they stepped out of line, and who had a very low life expectancy. Slaves in mines, mills, and quarries had it even worse. Rome, and Greek States, especially Sparta, practised institutionalised terror against their slave populations. Those slaves had little prospect of freedom. Death was all they could hope for. Likewise for slaves taken by the Vikings or Arabs, life was mostly nasty, brutish, and short. And in every case, ancient or modern, rape of slaves was routine. What’s unrealistic about SB is slave-trading being so economically important. SB’s elites would be, more realistically, working their slaves to death growing cash crops, mining for ore, growing food, and constantly replacing them with fresh stock. Slaves that ceased to be able to work would just be left to starve. That’s how one gets the maximum return from owning slaves, by working them to maximum capacity and then replacing them. The overall cruelty of SB’s elites is nothing unusual, compared to real life. Edit: I suppose the other unusual feature of Southern slavery was portraying it as a positive force for good. Every ancient writer was honest enough to admit that being a slave was a bad condition.

Killing the Tickler and Raff, and the four bloody mummers (as Nymeria) was performing a public service.

There are probably people who understand siege technology among the sellswords. And some of the slavers would likely trade their skills in return for their lives. For that matter, Barristan and Tyrion would understand siegecraft. As you say, the Mongols were hugely aided by the fact that the Caliph, the Jin, and Mohammed Shah were all at odds with their subjects.

I'd have given Joffrey the Edward II treatment. He's not just a bully, but a revolting little sadist. Father Joseph Furniss wrote The Sight of Hell, in 1847, a charming book for children. This is how I imagine Joffrey's fate. "You are going to see again the child about which you read in the Terrible Judgment^ that it was condemned to Hell. See ! it is a pitiful sight. The little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. You can see on the face of this little child what you see on the faces of all in Hell — despair, desperate and horrible "

I was fine with Slynt's head getting walloped off, just as I'll be fine with Bowen & Co. feeding R'hllor's fires. Those are not even guilty pleasures for me. Simply pleasures. I suppose my main guilty pleasure is the Frey Pies, objectively awful, but bloody funny.

Honestly, i thought Joffrey deserved worse.

Joffrey is so revolting, though, that I felt no pity at his end.

The problem was that one poster devoted a lot of time to criticising the Moderators.

Meereen (unlike Astapor) will have a standing army, when she goes West, the companies of freedmen. The regional Big Brother for the Slavers, Volantis, will have seen the Old Blood overthrown. I expect that the remaining Wise Masters of Yunkai, and Great Masters of Meereen will have been put to death. There’s not going to be a slave master within hundreds of miles of Meereen, still less, a slave master with an army. Just leave someone like Skahaz in charge as viceroy.

The grounds for which we consider that people may legitimately wage war have altered, following the growth of nationalism and democracy. The methods? Much less. Our own leaders raze cities, deport populations, starve civilians. At least, if the stakes are high enough.

I do feel athat lot of the Meereen storyline is just wheels spinning. It really makes little sense (given what had been established hitherto about her character) that she was so desperate to make peace (almost at any price) with the slavers. In TWOW, I presume she'd barbecue them, but she ought to have been barbecuing them in ADWD.

I expect the direction of travel will be Meereen - Volantis, then Volantis - Pentos, then Pentos - Dragonstone/Crownlands. The ships will come from shipyards in Slavers Bay, the Iron Fleet, and vast numbers of captured slaver vessels.

I’m not a Catholic myself, but none of the Catholics of my acquaintance have any desire to suppress other religions. Catholics have, of course, practised persecution, but there were also medieval societies (like Poland/Lithuania, Spain, Sicily) that were fairly tolerant of other religions, as Westeros is. Baelor was very much an outlier, if indeed, he intended to forcibly convert the North. As to Ned, I think it’s very much a point in his favour that he does not require his wife or children to practise his religion.