SeanF
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Posts posted by SeanF
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1 hour ago, Moiraine Sedai said:
That’s just an awful ending. Robb and the Tullys forced Walder to make a decision when they marched an army to his gate. Walder gave Robb a better deal than that Stark boy deserved. Robb repays by betraying and insulting the Freys. The Starks should admit Robb’s guilt and forgive the Freys.
Walder was Edmure Tully's vassal. Strictly speaking, he was entitled to nothing, for fulfilling his obligation to fight on behalf of his liege lord, Hoster Tully, and alongside liege lord's ally, Robb Stark.
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The destruction of the slaver coalition outside Meereen, and the revolt in Volantis, likely mean the game’s up for slavery in Western Essos (Myr, Lys, Tyrosh are not big military players, and would be quite isolated).
Steppe peoples tend quite rapidly to become settled peoples, once they acquire lands. Many of the Dothraki who followed Dany, likely form a ruling caste, in parts of Essos, like the Goths and Vandals.
The city states no doubt go to war with each other, and they have their own tyrants and strongmen, who clash with the more democratic elements, within those states.
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Dany. What happens when she confronts Khal Jhaqo? I'd like him and his riders to get a blast of Dracarys, but without him being killed outright. Dany tells him she's leaving him for the wolves, shadowcats, vultures and other predators to finish off. When he begs for the mercy of a quick death, she tells him: "I am not a merciful woman. You, the slavers, my Sun and Stars, have cured me of that folly."
Melisandre (who I think will be the first POV at the Wall). Did Jon die? If so, how is he revived? What happens to the conspirators? Are Shireen and/or Gilly's child sacrificed to revive Jon?
Asha. What is the outcome at the Battle of Winterfell? Do we get to see the Freys falling through the ice on the lake?
Tyrion, Barristan, Theon are POV chapters I would very much like to see, but we already have them in some form.
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On 4/2/2024 at 12:39 AM, Ser Not Appearing said:
Never read it.
And now I never will. Hard pass.
It turns out at the end, he was being affected by an evil wizard, but it’s a nauseating first impression.
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10 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:
I'm pretty sure that was in spite of them not because of them, they were in most respects more like one step forward three steps back, in particular the rights of most people suffered rather than improved, though in France the law was much codified it did not actually improve things for most people.
Not during the Terror, but subsequently. Things like religious toleration, an end to antiquated feudal privilege, decriminalisation of sodomy, Jewish emancipation, legislative elections (even if the franchise was limited), the notion that government is accountable to the people, were irreversible changes - and some of these things impacted on the rest of Europe.
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To my mind, both the English and French revolutions had permanent beneficial impacts, despite the bloodshed. Progress is at best, a two steps forward, one step back, affair.
That’s the best one can hope for in the East, that crushing the slaver coalition, outside Meereen, and revolt in Volantis, make slavery increasingly untenable in Western Essos. But, it won’t magically end all forms of tyranny.
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19 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:
I mean, yes, the lowest life expectancy at birth, in Europe, was in 1860's Prussia.
I mean, we can bounce off each other on technicalities, but I think what you mean to signify is that serfdom was a social contract between two sides, where both benefited from it (ideally, or "on paper"), unlike slavery. They were both, however, enslaved to the will of their owners/lords. Yes, they were allowed ownership of certain things, could seek justice, etc, but this was mainly the product of their situation, where they were tied to a piece of land, they were a part of the property their feudal overlords owned. Their situation developed from agricultural slavery to serfdom not because it was beneficial for them (altough it was), but because their owners benefited too from this transition of societal progress.
It ultimately comes down to the level of exploitation the serfs are subjected to, and, wether we like it or not, the drastic drop in their quality of life predated the industrial revolution. They were both technically and legally the closest thing to the various forms of slavery, and that's what I meant.
The population of the Western Roman empire fell sharply, with the plagues and wars of the Third Century. And, while military victories might bring the occasional influx of slaves, taken as prisoners of war, there were no great conquests any longer. That meant labour became valuable. It was no longer feasible just to work fieldhands ot death, and then replace them with fresh slaves. So, something similar to serfdom took the place of slavery.
The same shortage of labour helped eliminate serfdom itself, in Western Europe, in the wake of the Black Death.
Where labour is cheap, abundant, and easily replaceable, the condition of the labourers is going to be awful.
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11 hours ago, frenin said:
When discussing Mereen there hasn't been a shortage of people that straight up advocated for keeping slavery in the worst cases or a a "gradual reduction of it" (never giving a timeframe) because people would die an using violence means hypocrisy yadda yadda yadda.
There's some of what you're saying but i think that much like Martin and his over the top "realistic" depictions of the middle ages, most of us fans have taken the stance, consciously or unconsciously, that the most cruel and amoral the better while also adhering for some to certain planetos beliefs (Fans almost inmediate dislike for any bastard not named Jon for example).
Slavery just becomes the weirdest hill to play pretend being Machiavelli but...
Yes, I've seen you challenging such people on Reddit. But, you'll also get people arguing that Tywin is firm but fair, and arguing that the murder of Elia and her children was justified; that Ser Kevan, Jaime and Tyrion are more or less decent people; that Cersei is a feminist; that Catelyn is a monstrous step-mother, who started the War of the Five Kings; that Arya is a psychopath who has to be put down like a rabid dog; that the Freys, Boltons, and Bowen Marsh are unsung heroes; that Janos Slynt is a martyr etc.
But yes, slavery is strange hill to die on.
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The Others have reasons for their actions, of that I have no doubt.
But, it seems plain that they are malign towards human beings. They raise humans from the dead, as thralls.
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1 hour ago, frenin said:
I find fans stance on the matter more odd that Martin's tbf. Especially the vocal advocate of master's rights.
I don't really believe there is a reason to correlate his fictional work with his political stance.
Nor have i followed him enough outside his work to grasp his political views really.
Brett Devereaux points that there is a huge bias towards the elite, among students of history. People tend to assume that they would be senators, knights, owners of slaves (but perfectly nice towards their slaves, of course), high lords and ladies, had they lived in the past.
Whereas, the statistical likelihood of this is extremely low.
It makes it terribly easy to empathise with Eastern masters, while just seeing the slaves as an amorphous mass.
Among some of the fandom, the crucifixion of 163 slave children is seen as nothing special. Not worth troubling about. But the crucifixion of 163 *masters* (ie real people), in retaliation, is seen as an atrocious act.
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50 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:
nobody ever knows for absolute certain that its going to be their head on the block but you can be certain they know which crimes make it very likely and which do not.
insuboordination in a military setting absolutely is one of them, its classed with desertion and mutiny
In a modern setting, imprisonment, and dishonourable discharge, would probably be Slynt's fate - but being sent to the Watch is essentially a suspended death sentence, which leaves death as the only option.
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30 minutes ago, The Commentator said:
An approval from Stannis is not a sign of anything good. The execution was unjust and Jon made a tyrant of himself. The execution of the slavers who murdered the children was completely appropriate for the situation because what they did was an act of war against Dany and against the children. The masters used bad tactics to support a bad cause.
"He is, despite everything, a righteous man" according to the author.
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On 4/3/2024 at 1:13 PM, Ser Arthurs Dawn said:
"Together we do whatever it takes, we're in this pack for life. Awoooo! We're wolves! We own the night!"
And then she gets on all fours and charges at Walder's neck.
Actually, there should be a paragraph before my last one.
"Sansa pulled the trigger, and the bolt flew straight and true, burying itself in Lame Lothar's black heart. He collapsed to the floor, wheezing.
"You are one goddam cowardly bitch", shrieked his father, "you just shot an unarmed man!
Should've thought to arm himself, before he decorated my brother's body with his direwolf's head."
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9 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:
Indeed. But the absolute bestest part of this lunatic “interpretation” of the story is that these diehard Targ fans aka TARGAs/Stark haters is that they think Dany of all people would condone the actions of Walder Frey, Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton and other villains just b/c these nasty arseholes took action against the Starks. And what makes this so fucking hilarious is that these readers claim to be Dany fans but they don’t get the character at all!
Especially, given it's the Lannisters, not the Starks, who bear the blame for what befell her and her family.
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1 hour ago, Aldarion said:
Unfortunately, not really. There is nothing believable about the Slaver's Bay states, except perhaps for cruelty, but even that is far more excessive than in real-life antiquity.
Main problem I think is that George misunderstands the main issue of slavery: slavery is not the product of cruelty. Rather, slavery is a product of cold calculus of profit... cruelty then comes as an effect of slavery, not its cause, because dehumanization always produces cruelty.
Not in the least. While you may find cases where serfs were treated as badly as slaves were - early modern Russia, for example - by and large, serfdom was far more humane than slavery was. It was also far more humane than many things that had followed it (just look at urban workforce during and after the Industrial Revolution!). And the reason is simply that it is nothing like slavery, mostly due to one fundamental detail: serf was personally free. Serfdom was, in fact, a negotiated contract between the serf and the lord: usually however a village would negotiate as a collective, in order to have the weight behind it.
And from that followed a slew of other rights, such as a right to sue in court. What you (and most other people here, I suspect) probably don't know is that it was possible for a serf to sue his lord in a cour of law. Sure, it was unlikely to succeed, but it was technically possible - besides, try suing state in a court of law, you probably won't end well either unless you are a large corporation. And if suing at manorial court failed, it was (legally at least) possible for a serf to go to a higher court, such as land court and ultimately all the way to the king. Usually however, when a serf sued in the court, it was to sue his neighbour for minor offenses.
Mostly I agree. But, I think the masters’ commitment to slavery (in this world and real life), goes beyond economics (important though that is).
In order to justify to oneself, treating people as chattels, one has to get into the mentality of thinking of them as subhuman. Hence you got the South Carolina master replying “slaves ain’t horses”, when asked why he beat his slaves, but never his horses. To him, they were lesser than horses.
Feudalism is the economics of the Mafia. Income flows upwards (and in this world, income often means personal service), in return for protection from above. The Boss acknowledges that those below him need to wet their beaks a little. Their prosperity is in his interest.
Chattel slavery is more like the economics of a labour camp. Other than a minority of overseers, and privileged household slaves, the slaves are worked to death, then replaced with fresh slaves.
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Outside of Braavos (and possibly Lorath and Ibben and the Summer Islands), Westeros has more social mobility and is less violent than Western Essos and Slavers Bay.
The social pyramid in Myr, Pentos, Qarth, Lys, Tyrosh, Volantis and of course, Slavers Bay, is a very steep one. 75-85% of people are chattels. The 15-25% who are free, range from poor to middling, who own a slave or two, to the super-rich, who own vast numbers of slaves. As in Rome, among the free people, the definition of poverty likely means inability to afford even a single slave.
Life for many household slaves, or skilled artisans, soldiers, or overseers, may be tolerable. Their skills mean it makes sense for their masters to treat them with some humanity, as well as using them to oppress the majority. Some of them may be set free. For the majority, fieldhands, millworkers, dung collectors, miners, prostitutes, quarrymen, life will be horrendous. They’re just worked to death, and replaced with fresh stock.
The free cities generally seem to have a technological edge over the West. But, Slavers Bay produces nothing culturally or technologically.
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“Sansa stared coldly down at the Lord of the Crossing;
“I’ve killed women and children. I’ve killed everything that walks or crawls at some point. And I’m here to kill you, Walder Frey, for what you did to Robb.”
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3 hours ago, CamiloRP said:
I don't know if sending him to the ice cells wouldn;t have been the better move, because he looks like he's executing Slynt for personal reasons, and Slynt has no insignificant support in the Wall.
But I'm not judging him for executing Slynt, I cheered the first time I read it, I'm just saying he's less desserving of an execution than the slavers.
I agree, by that point it would've been a really bad idea to spare him. I just mention it to prove that Slynt didn't expect to die because of this, and you seem to agree.
Marsh wasn't in Castle Black when that happened and you're right, I had forgotten about that. Anyways, I think they are both sincere in their oposition to Jon executing Slynt, and shocked by Jon's desition.
The slavers’ deaths were much worse than Slynt’s (but so of course, were the slavers’ own actions).
Dany is shown subsequently agonising over their deaths, whereas Jon does not. Dany’s tendency to beat herself up over her decisions is (a) an indicator that she is not a villain (Tywin Lannister loses no sleep over ordering killings) (b) a weakness in a leader, perhaps a fatal flaw.
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3 hours ago, Mithras said:
Abner Marsh lived at a time where most of the civilized world had already abolished slavery. Essos with all its shallow, anachronistic worldbuilding and moustache twirling villains do not equal to the US in 1850s. If GRRM wants to make a direct connection between the two instances, than I would say his history minor is terribly minor.
I think the slavers of Astapor and Yunkai are cartoonishly degenerate and evil, like Jabba the Hutt.
But there’s rather more depth to those of Meereen, and Xaro. They’re more intelligently evil.
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4 minutes ago, House Cambodia said:
What George does so well is make it clear (to me anyway) that there are no easy solutions or even easy compromises. There's no question that George is 'against slavery', but how does he deal with it, narratively-speaking? He admits himself it turned out trickier than he anticipated, and is well-encapsulated by the phrase 'The Meereenese Knot'. This very issue has made me sympathise with him in delaying the completion of TWOW so long. There just isn't a solution that will satisfy the majority of the fanbase.
Agreed.
There is no government in real life that has done a truly good job at ending slavery.
You can have the planters replaced by local tyrants - like Dessalines in Haiti. You can have the slaves freed, but their ex-masters retaining great power, as in the post-Bellum South, Jamaica, and Brazil.
Ideally, masters should be required to make restitution to their slaves - but only Thaddeus Steven’s and a small number of radicals could conceive of such a thing.
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8 hours ago, Darth Sidious said:
Robb and Karstark. There were problems with that. Karstark was an important contributor to the rebellion. It was dumb to kill him. Robb should have pardoned Karstark. Jon made a bigger mistake when he killed Slynt. It was wrong ethically and even more wrong politically. Dany can execute the slavers because of their past crimes against humanity. She conquered them and not bound to accept their old laws. The wine bearing kids should be spared. And she did. The Meerenese lost. They have to accept Dany’s laws. She gets to set the rules.
Karstark murdered prisoners, and murdered Tully soldiers. He had earned death.
Slynt repeatedly defied a reasonable order, given by his commander. At the Wall, that earns an execution.
Mainly, Dany does not punish the Meereenese elite for slaving, or rape, prior to her arrival. She gives an amnesty for crimes committed by masters and slaves.
The exception is the 163 elite, crucified in retaliation for the crucifixion of 163 children, which demonstrates that the life of a Great Master is worth the same as the life of a slave child.
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1 hour ago, Alden Rothack said:
Karstark and Slynt knew very well that they were committing crimes that were punishable by death when they chose those actions, the slavers regardless of how deplorable we find them did not
The slavers would have known well enough what the slaves would do to them, if they lost control. They certainly understand that they are doing harm to others - as Kraznys and Xaro make plain, in their discussions with Dany.
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4 hours ago, KingoftheRiversandtheHills said:
I firmly believe that every Frey will die, maybe except for Olyvar and a few others. What do you think will happen to the bodies? It would be awesome if they impale them on spears, Vlad style, and display them on the path to the Kingsroad from the Twins.
I think the Freys will be treated with great cruelty, by their enemies.
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I suspect the triangle will be Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon.
After dany essos
in General (ASoIaF)
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It was outlawed in England, in the 12th century.
For sure, some ex-slaves will want to start slaving. But, you’ll still have millions of freed people who have no intention of being re-enslaved. The people who were creating the Unsullied are all dead, and many of the Dothraki will have left the supply chain.