SeanF

Broadening the discussion again, had I turned 20 in Munich or Moscow, in 1933, I could have ended up doing pretty evil things. Knowing what the Gestapo or NKVD were capable of, I would be taking pains not to offend them.

Slavery could be just as horrific in the ancient world. The last 150 years of the Roman Republic were, IMHO, a horror show. Roman commanders like Aemilius Paullus, Scipio Aemelianus, Caesar became slave hunters on an unprecedented scale. The profits of slavery, and extorting from the Provinces, fuelled a vicious cycle that drove up the costs of a successful political career, requiring politicians to hunt for slaves overseas, in order to repay their debts. Eventually, the Romans turned their cruelty inwards, destroying the Republic. The Viking, Ottoman, Abbasid trades were equally awful. I think what makes slavery hell on earth is when it becomes industrialised, so to speak. A master who works a farm or runs a business alongside a couple of slaves may still view them as human beings. A master who owns vast numbers who work his estates, mines, quarries treats them as chattels, to be worked to death, and replaced with fresh slaves.

The same way, most war criminals are not like Beria or Dirlewanger. They’re “ordinary men”, who fit easily back into society.

I think there are two separate issues. Would I have behaved any better than the average planter, had I inherited 400 slaves, a mansion, and thousands of acres, giving me a fantastic standard of living? Well, I hope I would have set the slaves free, but there must be a good chance that I would not. Greed could easily have outweighed any moral sentiment. Does that excuse the planters? No. The fact that I might have behaved as badly in that situation does not justify them. I do think that @Phylum of Alexandria’s point is a valid one.

I don’t think he’s excusing them, so much as saying lots of people today would do the same, given the same opportunities.

If people were offered the chance to make a huge profit from shipping 500 people overseas, without repercussions, I suspect the proportion who’d give it the nod would be disturbingly high.

Just this morning, I was reading a long article, online, about how being a Southern slave was better than being a factory worker. Apparently, their masters treated them like family members. So, even today, there are people who could not clear that low bar.

What else would one expect of Carlson? He’s so far up Putin’s backside you can only see his heels.

Scarcely any human could match those feats. Not even Aragorn would fight Gothmog or Morgoth, single-handedly. It took Elendil, Isildur, and Gil-Galad to take down Sauron, and two of them were killed. One on one, almost any elf will outclass almost any human. So, humans learned to fight differently. They would send a legion against Gothmog, if they were fighting him.

Put another way, elves study tactics, humans study logistics.

The Elves of the Silmarillion were anything but wise. Gifted, intelligent, brave? Certainly, but those are different attributes to wisdom. In general, men are a lot better at war than elves are, in Tolkien's works. Because they lack the elves' natural gifts as warriors, they have to plan and strategise. Elven military operations never evolve beyond the wild charge at the enemy.

I went to a dinner/seminar tonight at which defence/ Ukraine issues were discussed at length by top analysts. The key takeaways were:- 1. Tactically, the Russian army is dreadful. But, it has always been. Operationally, it is a lot more capable, and it is getting artillery shells in much greater numbers than Ukraine. 2. Russians are willing to suffer, to achieve military success, in ways we don’t fully appreciate in the West. 3. But even Russia can’t defy economic gravity for ever. If Ukraine can keep fighting for 2-3 years, then it will likely win, as Russia runs out of resources. 4. Germany’s commitment to Ukraine is now of vital importance. As well as aid, Germany is now training nearly three times as many Ukrainian soldiers as the UK is. 5. The reduction of the UK’s military capability, starting in 2010, is of real concern, throughout NATO. 6. Contrary to press reports, there is no shortage of people wishing to join the armed forces. The real problem is with Capita, taking up to 14 months to process applications, by which time, they’ve taken other jobs.

The Republicans are basically a Fifth Column.

Actually, I think Oberyn had the right of it, when he attributed the murder of Elia and her children to Tywin’s bearing a grudge. He’s an extremely vindictive man. Unless he’d already put out peace feelers to the rebels, and had been given the nod, he could not know that Robert would welcome their deaths, rather than act like Cregan Stark, and condemn men who had murdered royalty, and who were Robert’s own relatives. As for Jaime, we know that Tywin was willing to write him off, in TWOT5K.

The Targaryens are, overall, no better or worse than any other Great House. They comprise the good, bad, and indifferent. At an ethical level, I see little to choose between Dany, Jon, or the Starks.

I’m certain that the poster is joking. I do think fire is in general, more positive than ice. The Others are a couple of orders of magnitude more dangerous than any dragon. You should always beware the person who goes white with anger more than the one who goes red.

Oh, I’m aware that Putin and his people are completely indifferent to human suffering. It’s just that to me - looking at it in realpolitikal terms - it’s massive cost for minor gain.

Yes, I’d love to see how Sansa’s arc ends in the Vale. Does she bring LF down, or become his Sith apprentice?

Just looking at Jaime and Bronn from the Porne plot and they look like extras from the Life of Brian.

I’m still amazed at the Russians’ willingness to waste lives and equipment on an entirely pointless war.

Yes, it's an odd claim. Aerys wasn't going after children, especially (I've no doubt terrible things happened to the children of the Darklyns, but nobody cared about them). Most people who kill children in this world aren't mad at all - as opposed to acting out of ruthless ambition, and for reasons of state. Apart from Ned, and the Dornish royal family, no one was actually bothered about what was done to Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon. The general attitude was either approval, or indifference.

Yes. Albeit, I can relate to his depression. This has been quite a miserable decade, so far. Although in my case, I find hard work, and writing, helps to take my mind off bad news.

Really tortuous deaths were, if not common, definitely a feature of human society, until quite recently. Some of the people who inflicted them were sadistic, others of the view that on occasion, a terrible example had to be made. Martin thinks Stannis is “despite everything, a righteous man”, yet he burns people and sends them to his torturers. But yes, if Daenerys does something cruel, it’s on-stage. With Stannis or Robb, it’s usually off-stage.

The masters are elite, and the hanged women are random peasants, bluntly. Hanging is actually unlikely to have been a swift death, in a world where the short drop is used. The women probably spent a long time choking, and pissing themselves. The reason I raised this is because it was one of the “good guys”, Ser Marq Piper, who carried out the hangings. But, almost every POV character views noble deaths far more keenly than deaths among the smallfolk. That includes Dany, despite her sympathies for the smallfolk. Nobody apart from Arya is much bothered about the murder of Mycah, for example. I do think we are meant to critique the view that elite lives count for more, but some readers do not. There’s very clearly a section of the fandom who get more upset by the sufferings of masters than the sufferings of slaves.

If you’re referring specifically to Aerys and Rhaegar, I agree. if you’re including Rhaella, Elia, and their children, I’d disagree.