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Thank Mhysa for “Freedom”


Mithras

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I'm not claiming anything of the sort. Merely that the Dothraki will not take or sell slaves under Dany's rule, They're still going to kill thousands and bring destruction. I just don't see rape and slavery being allowed. And if they see her as TStMtW, I think they will obey her.

I am sorry if reality doesn't work the way you would like it to. You just don't change people's opinions in a couple of months. The Dothraki see the right to slave and to rape as part of their payment (and they don't even acknowledge it as being morally wrong). Dany might convince some of them not too, but not all. Dany's use of the Dothraki troops isn't going to be the tidy and neat affair that Dany fans hope.

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Destruction of something evil AND replacing with something good is a good thing.

Destruction of something evil AND creating chaos is not a good thing.

To be quite fair, my view is not that black-and-white. Look at the French Revolution - Bloody, Corrupt and Chaotic, that supplanted the Old Regime. It wasn't a bad thing going Good, it was a destruction of something bad and replaced by something chaotic, that ended up with Napoleon's rise to Power and his Empire. Does that mean the French Revolution wasn't of uttermost importance to us? That the Values it preached don't touch every corner of our everyday life? Things something have to be chaotic - And every change in power is chaotic. I don't approve of several decisions of Daenerys Targaryen, but she has created a new concept of government and freedom in a region that has always lived with slavery, and that is literally called "Slaver's Bay". Of course It's messy - She is changing an entire system - and she's prone to emotional judgments, but she has freed slaves, and that's the point. Even if Dany government fails in Meereen, at least it created a notion of something different. That is personally important, for me. I think there's even a thread where the discussion is not Daenerys the Person, but the symbol. Sometimes the symbol matters more than the person per se.

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Somewhere in my heart, I die when a slavery-based way of life is seen as having legs to stand on, as deserving to survive and prosper, to continue. It was a way of life for the slavers, a prison for the slaves.

Fair point, "way of life" was bad wording on my part. What I meant to write was more like "basis of/for life". Many of the slaves were dependent on the system they lived in for their sustenance, they wouldn't be able to survive in a post-slavery economy, and yet they're not asked whether they wish to "be free". Many of them probably did, but not all of them, and yet the decision was made arbitrarily by Dany, in much the same way decisions were made for slaves by their masters.

Let's not tell others how to post please.

I'm not "telling", I'm simply asking whether we can keep the discussion flowing rather than fill it up with nodding emoticons, which I've seen too many times before.

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Some of these arguments that freeing the slaves so suddenly was a bad idea sound like the excuses the South was using in the Civil War for not freeing the slaves.



Freeing them was a mess, it impoverished large swaths of the population, but it was the right thing to do.



Daenerys is not only dealing with the challenge of finding employment for freed slaves but also is facing an insurgency within the walls and open war without. Her battle against slavery is more than just a battle with people's mindsets.



Also some may argue that one always has a choice between slavery or death and disparage the slave, but perhaps the slave is just hoping for a chance at freedom later on and doesn't want to go for the final solution of death just yet. I'm reminded of the movie 12 Years a Slave, where the guy never gave up hope, which is why he remained a slave for so long. Sure, he could have succumbed to death at any time, but that was the easy way out.


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Some of these arguments that freeing the slaves so suddenly was a bad idea sound like the excuses the South was using in the Civil War for not freeing the slaves.

quod erat demonstrandum

Thank you for empirically proving my previous point ;).

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Let's not turn this into a quote-fest circlejerk, please? :)

Oh, but we need to say how very, very, very, very, very brilliant that post was...

She brought peace by making a sacrifice and marrying Hizdahr.

Drogo's blood riders were not old or sickly, and they went against a sacred custom by choosing not to follow Drogo into the Night Lands.

Remind me when exactly Drogon came into a pit, and what exactly you argued just a post or two ago...

How many there are of Dany's bloodriders? 10 000? Again, your argument is flawed because you equalize things that can't be equalized... The maneuvering of 100-men khalasars and thousands of skilled warriors is not the same.

To be quite fair, my view is not that black-and-white. Look at the French Revolution - Bloody, Corrupt and Chaotic, that supplanted the Old Regime. It wasn't a bad thing going Good, it was a destruction of something bad and replaced by something chaotic, that ended up with Napoleon's rise to Power and his Empire. Does that mean the French Revolution wasn't of uttermost importance to us? That the Values it preached don't touch every corner of our everyday life? Things something have to be chaotic - And every change in power is chaotic. I don't approve of several decisions of Daenerys Targaryen, but she has created a new concept of government and freedom in a region that has always lived with slavery, and that is literally called "Slaver's Bay". Of course It's messy - She is changing an entire system - and she's prone to emotional judgments, but she has freed slaves, and that's the point. Even if Dany government fails in Meereen, at least it created a notion of something different. That is personally important, for me. I think there's even a thread where the discussion is not Daenerys the Person, but the symbol. Sometimes the symbol matters more than the person per se.

Compare that also to October Revolution in Russia and you will see that not all change of bad regime is good... From Romanovs to Stalin, who is better there. My point wasn't black-and-white, it opened space for quite discussion of what destruction of one system brings. Something that poster I replied with that post didn't allow.

Now, what is the new concept of government she created? She is an absolutist, who rules alone... And how is that difference from the system in which we had only chosen one can rule? Yes, her abolition ideas can be seen, and I do see them, as changing the system. I do believe in well intentions of her, as I also don't argue here that slavery shouldn't have been ended. Her freeing the slaves is not the whole point. And Martin is quite clear about that. OK, they are free now, what happens next? Some readers basically read Dany's arc as LOTR, "and Aragorn ruled wisely..." And GRRM built entire ASOIAF on the "what does that "wisely" mean?", "what comes after destroying Mordor?", "what is his tax policy?" The point is that she had a revolutionary idea, that she hit into the core of the system, a bad system, and that she now has to rule with the system she enforced? But, how good is she? What type of ruler is she? How are her reforms working in practice? All these questions matter. She did an admirable first step, but we can't ignore what happens next. Meereenese knot is specifically created to show us that this is not LOTR and that Dany is not Aragorn... This is a series where concept of ruling does matter. That is why some of us insist on analyzing what happens next after slaves are freed.

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I am sorry, as much as I know there are people who like Ser Creighton and his work (Corn Code, ahem ahem), that was simply just bad post... With quite numerous fallacies... I understand, Dany fans don't want to discuss 163 killed people in Astapor, AND her enforcing the torture AND her making differences between slaves AND her problematic reign AND her delusions about RR AND political chaos she created in SB AND whole bunch of things

Once again, prime example of intellectual dishonesty...

Actually no...

Destruction of something evil AND replacing with something good is a good thing.

Destruction of something evil AND creating chaos is not a good thing.

I'll reference one of the most recent case of abolition, the American one. After slavery was outlawed it wasn't all roses and peaches. The chaos that followed was expected because for a long time there was constancy in this existence, a constancy declared either silently or audibly, where the citizens agreed to perpetuate an injustice . Be it at the cost of human dignity or rights, Americans agreed as a society to allow the issue of slavery to plague their country for 4 centuries if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure there were people who tried to abolish it but failed, then came Lincoln and his crew.

Did it go smoothly with Lincoln? No! he met with opposition from all sides of the country, of the government. Did the crew give up? No. Slavery was abolished. Guess what happened to Lincoln? He got a bullet in the back of his head. Guess what happened to America during the whole slavery debacle. It plunged into a civil war. Guess what was still happening in America less than a century ago. The freaking Civil Rights Movement.

Only in Shangri-La does the Lincoln crew abolish slavery and the former slaves and slavers live happily ever after, starting from the moment slavery is abolished. Only in Utopia where unicorns roam the fields and true knights save fair maidens from monstrous hags and dragons.

I can make the same case with my own country which had its own kind of remixed and striped down version of slavery.

EDIT: Guess what? Without the black-and-white guys who see the wrongs of the world and want to change it, things like slavery, apartheid and whatever version of human right violation is happening, those those things never go away. Without the Danys and the Lincolns of the world, we're still in the year 2014 and there is still slavery in America. You know why? Because we sit like this and debate "oh no, the world isn't black and white." I'm sorry but some things are just plain black. As black as black gets. Slavery is among those things.

I can speak from the experience of the people in my own country just how limiting slavery is, in whatever form it comes. The cool Tyrion version or the unsullied Kraznys one. If you can say slave...and grey...in the same sentence...

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I am sorry if reality doesn't work the way you would like it to. You just don't change people's opinions in a couple of months. The Dothraki see the right to slave and to rape as part of their payment (and they don't even acknowledge it as being morally wrong). Dany might convince some of them not too, but not all. Dany's use of the Dothraki troops isn't going to be the tidy and neat affair that Dany fans hope.

Did you miss the part where he said thousands of people would still die and the Dothraki will still cause destruction?

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I'll reference one of the most recent case of abolition, the American one. After slavery was outlawed it wasn't all roses and peaches. The chaos that followed was expected because for a long time there was constancy in this existence, a constancy declared either silently or audibly, where the citizens agreed to perpetuate an injustice . Be it at the cost of human dignity or rights, Americans agreed as a society to allow the issue of slavery to plague their country for 4 centuries if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure there were people who tried to abolish it but failed, then came Lincoln and his crew.

Did it go smoothly with Lincoln? No! he met with opposition from all sides of the country, of the government. Did the crew give up? No. Slavery was abolished. Guess what happened to Lincoln? He got a bullet in the back of his head. Guess what happened to America during the whole slavery debacle. It plunged into a civil war. Guess what was still happening in America less than a century ago. The freaking Civil Rights Movement.

Only in Shangri-La does the Lincoln crew abolish slavery and the former slaves and slavers live happily ever after, starting from the moment slavery is abolished. Only in Utopia where unicorns roam the fields and true knights save fair maidens from monstrous hags and dragons.

I can make the same case with my own country which had its own kind of remixed and striped down version of slavery.

Which is why we need to argue these things, not pretend like they don't exist. Even though I am not American and that I am not that knowledgeable about abolition, I do understand what you're saying. But, the feeling here, and I speak solely of the impression I have, is that we can't discuss Meereenese plot without being accused of pro-slavery, even in that "very brilliant" post, that simply is just prime example of what is rotten when it comes to discussing Dany in general.

We can't pretend that after initial blow, comes the entire list of problems that needs fixing, and that it is natural that Dany has some issues with solving it. But, pretending it doesn't exist is doing disservice to Daenerys' arc. I have no problem of praising her abolition, but I also have to raise questions about some of the moves she made, some lines she said. If that makes me a hater is some circles' eyes, then OK, that's their prerogative. But, I won't transform Daenerys into Aragorn and close an eye to all the issues she is having and some problematic decision she made. As well as I will fight all those "very brilliant" strawman arguments that divide this fandom into fanboys and haters... Simply, that kind of thinking doesn't work with me...

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Martin likes us to ask questions, but he isn't going to feed us answers. As he puts it (albeit in a different context) "You have to exercise those intellectual muscles".



So, yes, it's reasonable to ask whether Dany has done more harm than good in Slavers Bay. That question hasn't yet been settled. And, I doubt if that question will be settled in TWOW either. Suppose she gets thousands of Dothraki onside, her supporters smash the Slavers outside Meereen, she invades Western Essos, and smashes the slave trade for good. That's a good thing, and thousands of people will revere her for it.



OTOH, her armies will likely slaughter thousands, burn cities, and thoroughly loot the areas they pass through. She may be able to stop the Dothraki and Ironborn from tormenting and raping captives for sport. She won't stop them from taking young female captives as wives and salt-wives. She may stop them from enslaving people. She won't stop them from taking captives to ransom, or to labour as prisoners of war. She won't stop her men from seizing estates or property. In all likelihood, freed slaves will seize the chance to brutalise their former masters.



So, it will still be a moot point whether Essos is better or worse off for her actions.

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I'll reference one of the most recent case of abolition, the American one. After slavery was outlawed it wasn't all roses and peaches. The chaos that followed was expected because for a long time there was constancy in this existence, a constancy declared either silently or audibly, where the citizens agreed to perpetuate an injustice . Be it at the cost of human dignity or rights, Americans agreed as a society to allow the issue of slavery to plague their country for 4 centuries if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure there were people who tried to abolish it but failed, then came Lincoln and his crew.

Did it go smoothly with Lincoln? No! he met with opposition from all sides of the country, of the government. Did the crew give up? No. Slavery was abolished. Guess what happened to Lincoln? He got a bullet in the back of his head. Guess what happened to America during the whole slavery debacle. It plunged into a civil war. Guess what was still happening in America less than a century ago. The freaking Civil Rights Movement.

Only in Shangri-La does the Lincoln crew abolish slavery and the former slaves and slavers live happily ever after, starting from the moment slavery is abolished. Only in Utopia where unicorns roam the fields and true knights save fair maidens from monstrous hags and dragons.

I can make the same case with my own country which had its own kind of remixed and striped down version of slavery.

EDIT: Guess what? Without the black-and-white guys who see the wrongs of the world and want to change it, things like slavery, apartheid and whatever version of human right violation is happening, those those things never go away. Without the Danys and the Lincolns of the world, we're still in the year 2014 and there is still slavery in America. You know why? Because we sit like this and debate "oh no, the world isn't black and white." I'm sorry but some things are just plain black. As black as black gets. Slavery is among those things.

I can speak from the experience of the people in my own country just how limiting slavery is, in whatever form it comes.

Once again, thanks for proving my point.

I guess it is now very obvious why these discussions are pointless at the end. They are anachronistic and too much based in one's personal background.

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Compare that also to October Revolution in Russia and you will see that not all change of bad regime is good... From Romanovs to Stalin, who is better there. My point wasn't black-and-white, it opened space for quite discussion of what destruction of one system brings. Something that poster I replied with that post didn't allow.

Now, what is the new concept of government she created? She is an absolutist, who rules alone... And how is that difference from the system in which we had only chosen one can rule? Yes, her abolition ideas can be seen, and I do see them, as changing the system. I do believe in well intentions of her, as I also don't argue here that slavery shouldn't have been ended. Her freeing the slaves is not the whole point. And Martin is quite clear about that. OK, they are free now, what happens next? Some readers basically read Dany's arc as LOTR, "and Aragorn ruled wisely..." And GRRM built entire ASOIAF on the "what does that "wisely" mean?", "what comes after destroying Mordor?", "what is his tax policy?" The point is that she had a revolutionary idea, that she hit into the core of the system, a bad system, and that she now has to rule with the system she enforced? But, how good is she? What type of ruler is she? How are her reforms working in practice? All these questions matter. She did an admirable first step, but we can't ignore what happens next. Meereenese knot is specifically created to show us that this is not LOTR and that Dany is not Aragorn... This is a series where concept of ruling does matter. That is why some of us insist on analyzing what happens next after slaves are freed.

I'm sorry Mladen, I didn't actually read the poster that you replied to. But regarding your original, it wasn't black and white, true, though you had made a bold statement. That said, I do agree with your point about the October Revolution, and I can't say I qualify to judge who's better between a semi-feudal royal family in Russia or a military genocidial leader. I'd have to say the Romanovs because at least I feel bad for their execution in Siberia. Of course, Russia remains a mess, so no arguments there.

I understand what you're trying to say - And hell, I agree with it. These questions matter. And the answer I will give them, I'm sure are the same points you've given here. But I'm saying that for me, the failings of Dany's ruling, which are many, as you have pointed out, are weighted out between her symbolic status as Mhysa. I care about the idea she envisioned, because I have as a certainty that her government is a failure. I don't ignore such questions, but I already have their answers, which were all given here. That's why I have moved to the discussion of her symbolic status and her bringing a new idea. Other than that, I quite agree with everything you said about people's expectations and regarding Aragorn and LOTR, that is the whole point of the Meereenese Knot.

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Martin likes us to ask questions, but he isn't going to feed us answers. As he puts it (albeit in a different context) "You have to exercise those intellectual muscles".

So, yes, it's reasonable to ask whether Dany has done more harm than good in Slavers Bay. That question hasn't yet been settled. And, I doubt if that question will be settled in TWOW either. Suppose she gets thousands of Dothraki onside, her supporters smash the Slavers outside Meereen, she invades Western Essos, and smashes the slave trade for good. That's a good thing, and thousands of people will revere her for it.

OTOH, her armies will likely slaughter thousands, burn cities, and thoroughly loot the areas they pass through. She may be able to stop the Dothraki and Ironborn from tormenting and raping captives for sport. She won't stop them from taking young female captives as wives and salt-wives. She may stop them from enslaving people. She won't stop them from taking captives to ransom, or to labour as prisoners of war. She won't stop her men from seizing estates or property. In all likelihood, freed slaves will seize the chance to brutalise their former masters.

So, it will still be a moot point whether Essos is better or worse off for her actions.

I agree. We won't know unless we jump ahead, so we have no idea how Dany's actions might affect the future of Slaver's Bay. I'd say Astapor is done, though.

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Since the Aragon LotR thing keeps getting brought up I will just say I personally like that we see Dany struggle to be a good ruler. As GRRM says ruling is hard. I'm not interested in reading about some perfect ruler that makes all the right calls at every turn. I love Dany despite all the mistakes she's made. I'm not going to bash her for not being a better ruler. I'm sure many think Jon or Stannis would have done much better in Meereen. I don't. It's easy to single out Dany considering she and Cersei are the only povs we've seen ruling on a large scale. GRRM hasn't shown us a exceptional ruler yet, and I'm not sure he's going to.

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Look, no one here is pro-slavery and defending slavers just because of Daenerys (which is what that post implies). That is just one bad strawman argument. When you realize that Dany in ADWD, after entire SB campaign allows many thing that are against slave freedoms, or basically individual human rights, like her making the difference between slaves who are being treated well and those who are ill-treated, her blindspot for some other places where slavery is enforced, her being OK with some questionable issues... Simply, that post is perhaps the best example of using strawman arguments to cover huge fallacies in thinking process. Anyone who is talking about some questionable choices is subjected to accusations of being pro-slavery, slaver fans etc... That is why my opinion about that post is not that high... It had some good snippets, but overall it is a bad strawman discussion, that disallows any creative discussion about Daenerys.

This is an agreeable concern. To me the post sounded purposely biased and forgetful of sane criticism in order to effectively address the particular limited set of people who hate on Daenerys for inconsistent reasons.

People of pragmatism and rationale that are capable to view a character in the entirety of his aspects, positive and negative, should certainly not feel touched by that post.

When it all ends up assessing what is the minor evil, it really sucks. And here we have no other choice.

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It's a pitty that this discussion is so tied with evaluating Daenerys' character (and therefore, becomes a "fans" vs "haters" thing) because, otherwise, it could be very intersting and allow to explore themes from many angles.



The thread moves too fast, so for the moment I'll address only a few issues. Maybe I'll come back for a more complete post if, hopefully, it won't become too ugly meanwhile.




1. People follow Daenerys. Not her cause.




I doubt anyone would have suspected the Dothraki would follow a woman either. Yet after hatching the dragons "Dany had only to look at their eyes to know that they were hers now, today and tomorrow and forever, hers as they had never been Drogo’s".




This is one of the questions that the text triggers: What will happen to her cause if (when) she leaves or, eventually, dies?


We see too often that there's a gap between what she thinks and feels and what her (trully devoted) followers and/or the freed slaves feel and think. From her handmaidens' reaction to watching the fighting pit show (they are excited), to the way some (not all) prefer comfortable slavery to hardship freedom.


The saddest examble is that former slaves in Astapor become slavers themselves, slavers as cruel as their masters were.


So IMO, one of the most problematic aspects is that there is no ideology against slavery and no attempt to create one.


The Red Priests of Volantis, on the other hand, seem to be in a position to assert an anti-slavery ideological dominance. Of course, the way of life they may want to impose could vary from enlighted ;) despotism to tyranical theocracy but hey, in the long term, this phase might as well prove to be profitable for the social evolution...



2. Often it is said "Slavery is evil. End of discussion."


I strongly dislile the word "evil" for its theological background discourages the question "Why?" To us now it may seem self-explanatory, but it hasn't always been. And, what's more, if one attempts to articulate the answers, some interseting points might occure...


Is it "evil" because it's the most extreme and cruel form of exploitation? If we answer this positively, then one could indeed say that yes, it's evil only as far as the slaves are mistreated and that it does hold comparison to the life of westerosi peasants. That seems to be Tyrion's view, and it seems that it's Dany's too (whose reaction to slavery is visceral and either doesn't have the intellectual capacity due to her lack of education or just hasn't bothered to think about it) as can be inferred from her answer to Xaro's arguments.


But if it is "evil" because it takes away from a human being the distinctive qualties of humanity (which is my personal opinion), then I have to say that Ser Creighton's post is hugely problematic. Because, you know what, the principle that makes slavery "evil" in this case, applies equally to torture. Read any paper about the psychological results of imposed bodily pain, or just read Reek's chapters or even read the answer Arya is given when she asks the caged men "whose men are you?"


I don't bring this up to call Dany out for hypocrisy. She does as best as she understands. But I think that we, the readers, are prompted to think about these issues and we can be critical of her views and actions without having to add every.sinle.time. the disclaimer "no I don't support slavery" (personally I don't care to answer to such arguments, I just leave the discussion for being pointless).



(I'll come back for more later, I'm glad to see that the thread keeps going in a polite way :cheers: )

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I think it may be relevant to quote what the author has to say about Daenerys in Meereen. Please forgive me if I'm completely derailing the thread:



"A major concern in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones is power. Almost everybody – except maybe Daenerys, across the waters with her dragons – wields power badly."


- George R. R. Martin on the issue of Aragorn and his wise rule.


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I think it may be relevant to quote what the author has to say about Daenerys in Meereen. Please forgive me if I'm completely derailing the thread:

"A major concern in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones is power. Almost everybody – except maybe Daenerys, across the waters with her dragons – wields power badly."

- George R. R. Martin on the issue of Aragorn and his wise rule.

Uh, was that GRRM's actual words or was it the interviewer's question?

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