SeanF

In general, I’d say the kind of warfare that Martin describes is at the worst end of the medieval/early modern spectrum - similar to wars of religion, and crusades against infidels and heretics; or in the most brutal phases of the Hundred Years War. Inter-baronial conflict/wars between kings were generally more restrained, with the laws of chivalry making capture for ransom quite common, and some limits being placed upon the treatment of civilians. But even these conflicts became more brutal after 1260. Edward I bears much blame for that.

@Morte @Craving PeachesSome historians call the Harrying of the North genocide, but I would reject that argument, in favour of calling it an atrocity. William wanted to rule Western Europe’s most prosperous kingdom. He had no desire to exterminate the English, or to reduce them to the level of slaves (forget 19th century English nationalist nonsense about “the Norman Yoke”), or to destroy English culture, or to drive them out and replace them with Normans and French. Norman and French settlers and soldiers probably never amounted to more than 2% of the population, and Englishmen were only replaced in the highest levels of the elite. Latin and French became prestige languages, and many Englishmen took French names, but English remained a living language, which people wrote (Magna Carta was translated into English). What he did was to make large parts of the North uninhabitable to prevent any future invasion from Scandinavia, without caring in any way about the human cost that was inflicted on his subjects. That makes it an atrocity (recognised as such by contemporaries) and a breach of a king’s duty to his people.

There were certainly plenty of English who willingly served William. The replacement of Englishmen with Normans and French only took place at the level of the elite. Most gentry, prosperous tenants, remained English.

Even in-universe, everyone apart from the Freys sees the Red Wedding as evil. No one outside that family justifies the act on the basis that Robb deserved it, for breaking a marriage contract. Not even Tywin Lannister attempts to justify it as anything other than realpolitik. If contemporaries think that the act was wicked, why on earth would any reader disagree?

Whether it was genocide or not, I view the treatment of Dorne as being as bad as William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North. We know it was very bad from Domesday Book recording most of Yorkshire and Durham as “waste”, 16 years after the event. We also know it went beyond contemporary military norms, because William’s generally admiring biographer, Orderic Vitalis, made a point of describing it as awful and indefensible. He said it was the one thing William did that he could not justify. The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. This made a real change. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people perished of starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him. Although 100,000 deaths may be an exaggeration, (England's population was about 2 million at that point), and Orderic was writing in the 1120's, primary sources and archaeology both point to a very high death toll. The academic consensus is that the population of Yorkshire and Durham had fallen by about two thirds, between 1066 and 1086. I have no real issue with the conquest of the Six Kingdoms, which was done with limited loss of life, and produced benefits. But, the Dornish war was a real stain on the record of Aegon and his sisters.

The Targaryens were similar to people like Sven Forkbeard, and Cnut, in their conquest of England. The English were not treated as a subject race, rather the ruling dynasty changed. There’s also a similarity with the House of Wessex, who over the course of 40 years, conquered London, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria and converted them into England. I view the Targaryens as simply the most successful of a group of competing warlords. Even the princess of Dorne was prepared to offer aid to Aegon in return for territorial gains.

That is one of the most outlandish claims that has ever been posted on here. Characters who are the victims of evil people are bound to be more sympathetic than evil people.

Murdering 3,500 people, because you’re butthurt is evil. i can’t help it if you think that hurting someone’s feelings justifies mass murder.

Rescuing innocents from murder is a lot more heroic than perpetrating murder of innocents. You appear to struggle with that concept.

Five, including Melara. Plus an unspecified number of dwarves, Falyse, Senelle, and the puppeteers. We also know that she wants to torture Sansa to death, and was aroused at the thought of mutilating Arya. She also planned to murder Jon Snow, and actually did murder the High Septon. She also attempts to have Margaery, her cousins, and other innocents murdered. She also tolerated Joffrey’s abuse of Tommen. None of this is done to try and save others, but simply done out of selfishness, spite, and paranoia. Over and above that, she willingly participates in a war that kills hundreds of thousands of smallfolk, in order to keep a psychopathic usurper as king. Ned gave her a viable alternative. All she had to do was pack up her jewels and flee abroad with Jaime and her children. There is no comparison between her and Dany. Human traffickers are well aware of the harm they cause, and they do it anyway.

How would Daenerys go about punishing people like Jhaqo and Maego at that point (her own bodyguards took no part in the killing?”)

Cersei’s backstory is not that of an idealistic young woman who gradually became ruthless. She was bad from the beginning. As to MMD, I can’t imagine many young women just shrugging off the murder of their infant son, in this world, regardless of whether one thinks Rhaego deserved it or not. The crucifixion of slave children was a very deliberate, public atrocity, a group of men publicly bloodying their hands. It was not the work of brutal underlings, operating without their bosses’ knowledge. Daenerys’ fault is that she let so many of the guilty off Scot-free, not that she punished the innocent.

If you can find examples, in the text, of Cersei freeing slaves, or comforting a dying servant, or tending to refugees, or saving dwarves from being eaten alive (as opposed to putting a price on their heads) , please cite them. And, do you think Cersei would spare people who publicly insult her, like Ghael or the young Meereenese noble? Cersei rips out their tongues or sends them to be vivisected. Daenerys is concerned to feed her people, whereas Cersei stuffs her face as they go hungry. Daenerys can be cruel and vengeful, in the main to very bad people (and don’t pretend that the Ghiscari elite were innocents). But she also possesses a compassion which is entirely lacking in Cersei. I can’t think of a single generous act that Cersei ever performed. Protecting one’s children (even if that were her motivation) does not justify killing other peoples’ children.

Genocide only came into use as a legal term, after 1948, and it is now much over-used. Many jurists disliked it at the time. One put it thus, “If I destroy a rabbit warren on my land, and you interfere, *you* are the trespasser.” None of the Allies in WW2 had any issue with widespread ethnic cleansing, with which the term is often used interchangeably. I do wonder if the term actually does add anything to mass murder, murder of prisoners, murder of civilians, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, as legal terms.

A word to the wise. Mass murderers, rapists, people who hunt women for sport, and flayers are not the heroes of this tale.

I’m sure you did, because you admire evil acts and people. ”Evil is attracted to evil”, as Pinhead puts it.

Do I think there’s a danger that Arya will come to see killing as a solution to every problem? Do I think the Faceless Men are manipulating her? Yes. Do I shed crocodile tears over Daeron or the dishonest broker? No. Do I cheer the deaths of Chiswick, Raff, and the Tickler, hell yes!

Speaking personally, I enjoy Cersei's chapters a great deal. She has a fine (if nasty) sense of humour, and her appalling personality and behaviour are a source of endless amusement. So I don't actually hate her as a character. Occasionally, I come close to sympathising with her, as when she recalls her love for Rhaegar, and I found the Walk of Shame a horrible read. But, then she goes and spoils it all by doing something like having innocent women vivisected, or the Blue Bard's teeth wrenched out. The fact that she feels a bit bad about torture is in no way a mitigation of her cruel, spiteful, selfish, and ultimately self-defeating, behaviour.

No one who wields power in this world can be wholly good. Yet there are leaders, as in real life, who are enlightened for their times. But there are characters in this tale who are rotten to the core. Unlike the people who post shit about the Starks, I do understand we are not meant to be rooting for Tywin, Cersei, Lord Walder, the Boltons etc.

What is being done to these women is vivisection, without anaesthetic, to the point that they go insane and die screaming. That is what the Khmer Rouge were doing at Tuol Sleng, under Comrade Duch. Prisoners had their blood drained out to provide transfusions to injured soldiers. Many went mad as they were dying. That is a level of evil which few characters descend to in this tale.

Killing people in self-defence, or to save one’s children from attack, is fair. Murdering innocents, who have not attacked or threatened oneself or one’s children, cannot be justified. Even if one thinks it enhances one’s chances of survival. It is not an example of the trolley problem, where one is forced to choose between two imminent bad outcomes.

When you are in a very senior leadership position, in a murderous regime, you are responsible for the atrocities it commits, even if you do not directly give those orders. This is the modern equivalent of Cersei: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biljana_Plavšić Edit: The fact that you don't give the orders directly can be a mitigating factor. It may make the difference between a hanging (or life without parole) and a lengthy term of imprisonment, but it certainly does not get you off the hook.

Cersei has plenty of responsibility for the body count in the Riverlands (as does Tyrion). She’s the head of the government whose soldiers are conducting the slaughter. She feasts and revels as the people of Kings Landing starve. She and Tyrion are their father’s enablers.

Tywin was “Lawful neutral”, firm but fair.

I think the two D's regarded Carol as a heroine, as Tyrion was a saint.