Was Daenerys freeing the Unsullied was Astapor down fall?

[Mal Malenkirk]

Frankly, your conclusions already made that obvious. But I invited you to go back and re-read those chapters, this time with an eye to Dany's military decisions, which are numerous, decisive, and without exception correct. She is a decisive, in-charge tactical commander.

Oh. I just finished re-reading these parts. It was worse the second time.

I agree that GRMM might want us to see tactical brillance in Dany. But what his intent and what is the result of what he wrote are two different things. To me, it felt as if George needed Dany to be Queen of Meereen in a handful of chapter and ended up having to rush it with underwhelming results. It's the weak part of the saga.

Not a single one of her decision seemed crafty, it's her opposition that looked mentally challenged.

Buy all the unsullied for one dragon and then take back the dragon when the slavers no longer have an army? Won't work unless the slavers are the stupidest men alive. Oh? They are? Good for her.

Give a lot of wine to the Titan's bastards troops and hope they drink themselve silly before the battle? Won't work unless they are stupid and have zero experience. Even in a freaking garage hockey league players have enough discipline not to go on a binder just before the tournament, and their lives are not even on the line. Oh? So the Titan's troops are that moronic? Good for her.

Enter Meereen through the sewers. Seriously? Historically, everyone saw that as a weak point in the few walled cities with sewers, so of course the access points are well secured and defended. What? Not in Meereen? Good for her.

What you call tactical brillance I see as a bunch of bumbling buffoons lining up to make blunder after blunder. One I could have accepted but it's basically non-stop until she finally rule Meereen. A lot of decisions were in fact near suicidal if the opposition wasn't terminally stupid. That Sewer assault was nothing short of suicide if it had been properly maintained and designed, for example.

And the story once she rules Meereen is good and feels necessary, but how she got there feels silly and rushed. As if the Author said 'Fuck it, I need her in charge in six chapters, let's get this done.'

[Nictarion]

Jesus Christ, did you read these books? If there is one person Martin clearly wants us to see as a military genius, it's Daenerys. She's an untrained tweener girl, she plans all the battles herself, and everything goes off clean as a whistle even when she apparently had no chance.

Agreed. I had lol at "a military idiot like Dany". Yeah....NO.

[Wmarshal]

Jesus Christ, did you read these books? If there is one person Martin clearly wants us to see as a military genius, it's Daenerys. She's an untrained tweener girl, she plans all the battles herself, and everything goes off clean as a whistle even when she apparently had no chance.

Yeah no, not hating on her, bu she is no military genius, she just comes up with things only military backward idiots would not be able to predict. Her foes are far from the only ones that suffer from it, but, seriously, they are idiots.

[OldGimletEye]

Edit: Found it, it's a translation of the French coup d'oeil.

Now that I know what it is, it's exactly what Dany does. She's the one who arrives at two cities she has never seen before and creates detailed attack plans leading to rapid victory. If that's not coup d'oeil militaire, who in the series has it?

As the fruit of a young girl with (apparently) little or no military training, Daenerys' Slaver's Bay campaign, when considered solely as a military campaign, is beyond impressive and into outright genius. She is daring and decisive and every military decision she makes is spot on the money.

To date, Dany's main military tactic has been fucking over her enemies during negotiations.This little tactic is probably not going to work against a competent enemy field commander with a reasonably decent army. At some point, Dany might actually have to face soldiers that can march and chew bubble gum at the same time, without hurting themselves. She might have to face an army that, oh fuck I don't know, actually knows how to practice reasonable field security.

The outcome of The Battle of Yunkai was never in doubt. Dany enjoyed both qualitative and numerical superiority over the Yunkai forces. Jorah makes this quite clear. Now to Dany's credit she did try to resolve the battle without engaging in a potentially costly frontal attack. However, this is hardly the mark of a tactical mastermind.

Before the Battle of Yunkai, Barristan is teaching Dany how to count enemy troops. It would seem that knowing how to count enemy troops would be a basic tactical skill. Yet, it is a skill that Dany does not know before she sends her forces against the Yunkai. Yet, you would have us believe that Dany is some kind of brilliant tactician.

Also, Dany's tactical dispositions before Yunkai are strange. For some odd reason she decides to hurl 30 Dothraki against something like 4000 Yunkish infantry. Granted the quality of the Yunkish infantry is awful, as they are, apparently, bed boys rushed into battle, but, still, sending only 30 mounted men against 4000 seems a little absurd. Also, her decision to send the Unsullied on wide ranging flanking attacks seems a little strange, particularly when you consider that surprise is a big component of her plan.

After the Battle of Yunkai is concluded it seemed that Dany had little conception of what she was trying to achieve in SB, other than meandering about with her army to god knows where. This is not the kind of the thing that one associates with a great planner or an operational mastermind.

At Mereen, Dany decides to take the city, largely for logistical reasons. When she arrives at Mereen with her army, it was pretty apparent that Dany hadn't put one iota of thought into what it would take to conduct a large scale seige operation. She, apparently, decides to have a conversation about seige equipment with Jorah at the time her army arrives at Mereen. Dany, apparently, never decided to broach the issue with one of her main advisers before arriving at Mereen. This does not inspire a lot of confidence in Dany's planning ability. And it clearly shows that Dany has little of knowledge of seige operations. Had it not been for the Merenese stupidity of being unaware of a huge security gap in their defenses, Dany would have never taken Mereen. Luckily for Dany, the Merenese, not being a particularly military people, like the rest of their Ghiscari brethen in Slaver's Bay, were completely unaware of the undefended sewer into their city. Because Dany lacked seige equipment, she had little choice but to use the undefended sewer. Her use of the sewer system is hardly a mark of military genius, but more like one of desperation because of her own bad planning.

I know that there is this argument, among some, that Dany's victories in SB proves she is a military mastermind. In my view, the argument is akin to saying that someone is great heavy weight boxer because they went down to the local nursing home and then slapped around a few elderly people on oxygen tanks.

When you think about the different areas of military command, typically you think about 1) tactical Ability, 2) skill at the operational art, 3) strategic planning and 4) administration and logistics. Dany hasn't not shown herself to be particularly skilled at any of these areas. In fact, her main military talents, such as they might be, appears mainly to be the ability to find spare armies and navies when she happens to need them.

One of these days, Dany might actually have to face a field commander that is competent and has resources that are reasonably close to what seems to be her ever growing amount of prodigious resources. Should this occur, then Dany is probably fucked.

Of course, why would we expect Dany to be a military mastermind? The answer is we wouldn't. She hasn't any training, nor can she boast of any lengthy experience. I simply do not believe that military geniuses are simply born. It is true of course that some people might have more natural talent at military command because of intelligence and temperament. But, I am seriously skeptical of the idea that somebody with little experience or training would become a military genius. Even people that we would call military geniuses typically had some kind of training period. In Alexander The Great's case, it was spending time around his father's army since the day he was born and being given some commands by Phillip. In Napoleon's case it was, apparently, his spending every spare hour in the military library, absorbing every bit of military theory he could, as a young artillery subaltern, along with a few commands, before he appeared as a twenty-six year general in charge of the Army of Italy.

Dany might be a lot of things. But, military genius isn't one of them. And I don't think you really understand what coup d'oeil means. Dany has never shown an ability to utilize terrain to the greatest advantage. Nor has she shown any ability to make tactical adjustments while engaged in battle. Finally, she has never demonstrated the remarkable sense of timing that great field commanders often have.

[Nictarion]

Yeah no, not hating on her, bu she is no military genius, she just comes up with things only military backward idiots would not be able to predict. Her foes are far from the only ones that suffer from it, but, seriously, they are idiots.

There was nothing Meereen could have done to stop her siege. She made battering rams out of her ships, and sent a sneak attack through the sewers which was basically a suicide mission. Their "idiocy" had nothing to do with it.

[Wmarshal]

It was militarily impossible to defeat Yunkai and Meereen, yet she did it, and quickly. The plans were entirely hers.

You should go back and re-read the chapter about the defeat of Yunkai, starting with Dany's decisions to chat with her foes, and the timings of the chats. It's a study in how to conquer an impregnable city quickly when you have to or else your army starves. Totally brilliant, and her plan from start to finish was quite complex and interlocking.

The only other person in the series who wins an "impossible" victory was Theon, and if you think Dany didn't plan fully for victory, well, you would be right, but that's nothing compared to Theon. Look what victory got him. Maybe Dany will wind up reaping a similar reward, but as for now she has two impossible victories to her credit and she ain't captured yet.

How? She outnumbered them and outclassed troop wise the Yunkai'i. As to Meeren, again idiots, they are incredible backwards and idiotic.

[Wmarshal]

There was nothing Meereen could have done to stop her siege. She made battering rams out of her ships, and sent a sneak attack through the sewers which was basically a suicide mission. Their "idiocy" had nothing to do with it.

Lack of proper defense. The sewers should have been blocked in away for men to enter, slaves running away should have made that a factor.

[TheMysteriousOne]

LOL I'm pretty sure that GRRM deliberately included the conversation between Jorah and Dany in ASOS to explain why no one had ever tried to conquer Astapor before.

"You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser - why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?" She pointed. "Look at the walls. You can see where they've begun to crumble. There, and there. Do you see any guards on those towers? I don't. Are they hiding, ser? I saw these sons of the harpy today, all their proud highbom warriors. They dressed in linen skirts, and the fiercest thing about them was their hair. Even a modest khalasar could crack this Astapor like a nut and spill out the rotted meat inside. So tell me, why is that ugly harpy not sitting beside the godsway in Vaes Dothrak among the other stolen gods?"

"You have a dragon's eye, Khaleesi, that's plain to see."

"I wanted an answer, not a compliment."

"There are two reasons. Astapor's brave defenders are so much chaff, it's true. Old names and fat purses who dress up as Ghiscari scourges to

pretend they still rule a vast empire. Every one is a high officer. On feastdays they fight mock wars in the pits to demonstrate what brilliant commanders they are, but it's the eunuchs who do the dying. All thesame, any enemy wanting to sack Astapor would have to know that they'd be facing Unsullied. The slavers would turn out the whole garrison in the city's defense. The Dothraki have not ridden against Unsullied since they left their braids at the gates of Qohor."

"And the second reason?" Dany asked.

"Who would attack Astapor?" Ser Jorah asked. "Meereen and Yunkai are rivals but not enemies, the Doom destroyed Valyria, the folk of the eastern hinterlands are all Ghiscari, and beyond the hills lies Lhazar. The Lamb Men, as your Dothraki call them, a notably unwarlike people."

"Yes," she agreed, "but north of the slave cities is the Dothraki sea, and two dozen mighty khals who like nothing more than sacking cities and carrying off their people into slavery."

"Carrying them off where? What good are slaves once you've killed the slavers? Valyria is no more, Qarth lies beyond the red waste, and the Nine Free Cities are thousands of leagues to the west. And you may be sure the sons of the harpy give lavishly to every passing khal, just as the magisters do in Pentos and Norvos and Myr. They know that if they feast the horselords and give them gifts, they will soon ride on. It's cheaper than fighting, and a deal more certain."

Cheaper than fighting, Dany thought. Yes, it might be. If only it could be that easy for her. How pleasant it would be to sail to King's Landing with her dragons, and pay the boy Joffrey a chest of gold to make him go away.

[Wmarshal]

LOL I'm pretty sure that GRRM deliberately included the conversation between Jorah and Dany in ASOS to explain why no one had ever tried to conquer Astapor before.

This doesn't make them any less, idiots, they are notable well of cities with alot of trade and outsiders coming and going, to trust that a pirate won't just come and take the dragon and their money is ridicules.

[TheMysteriousOne]

This doesn't make them any less, idiots, they are notable well of cities with alot of trade and outsiders coming and going, to trust that a pirate won't just come and take the dragon and their money is ridicules.

How would a pirate just come and take their dragon? Presumably, the dragon could not be stolen without it retaliating against its kidnappers and going back to its master. I would assume that the point of getting a dragon is for defense. The whole reason why the Good Masters lusted so much for a dragon was because, IMO, they realized that a dragon would make up for the loss of all of their Unsullied, not only in financial terms, but also in militaristic terms.

[Kick13]

Stannis is a good commander, Randyl Tarly is a good commander, Dany is average at best. She has never been taught anything about military command until Barristan and Jorah come along.

[Wmarshal]

How would a pirate just come and take their dragon? Presumably, the dragon could not be stolen without it retaliating against its kidnappers and going back to its master. I would assume that the point of getting a dragon is for defense. The whole reason why the Good Masters lusted so much for a dragon was because, IMO, they realized that a dragon would make up for the loss of all of their Unsullied, not only in financial terms, but also in militaristic terms.

Well lets see: Get his crew, stab the master that has it, go. Presmuably, just taking a dragon and hoping it would obey you shouldn't make sense, yet they believe so. Defense, against what? It is a baby, the time it would be avle to defend a city is about ten years, five depending on how much plot is on your side. And that made them idiots, I don't know how you can argue they are not.

[Visenya Stark]

Well lets see: Get his crew, stab the master that has it, go. Presmuably, just taking a dragon and hoping it would obey you shouldn't make sense, yet they believe so. Defense, against what? It is a baby, the time it would be avle to defend a city is about ten years, five depending on how much plot is on your side. And that made them idiots, I don't know how you can argue they are not.

Well, just the idea of a dragon residing in a city would be enough to scare off the pirates. "Dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is power."

[Suzanna Stormborn]

OP,

I like where your heart is, and I think I agree with many points. However I am not sure, because you really need to edit the OP and thread title. Edit for spelling and sentence structure so everyone can be clear.

[Black Dragons]

What makes the Good Masters so idiotic is that

1) they sell their whole army to a stranger in the middle of their city, in front of all their leaders

2) they advice Dany to sack cities with the Unsullied.

3) Even a military idiot like Dany realizes that with no Unsullied a modest khalasar could sack Astapor.

I am thinking that the Good Masters who thought they are getting better part of deal a Dragon! A Dragon is worth a million soldiers or more that why Jorah and Ser Selmy so tick off that Dany had trade a Dragon for a Army. They (the good masters) thought they could train a dragon like a unsullied and like you said maybe Dany would sack cities and take the sons of the cities and sell them to Astapor (A new crop to train as the unsullied)

[Salafi Stannis]

All king Cleon's fault?

Daenerys destroyed the power structure of Astapor which is not a tragedy in itself because of how rotten it was. But then she creates an ad hoc council of people she barely know but think are nice and then leave them to their own device.

Of course, the various factions within the city proceeded to tear themselves apart more thoroughly and quickly than even Irak after the fall of Saddam Hussein because not only did Dany destroy thoroughly the previous power structure, she replaced it with a real half assed structure of her own and then left no millitary strenght to at least try to defend what little she had left behind and enforce its rule. It made no sense, it was a house of cards and it logically fell apart at the first gust of wind and now life in Astapor is actually worse than before Dany came along. Slavery is back with a vengeance with an extra helping of plague and starvation. Whoop-dee-doo.

That's why in Meereen she decided to stay and try to reform the city instead of doing another drive-by reform. It's a somewhat better approach but instead of changing things progressively over at least a decade, she tore the old order down radically and then acts impatiently when things don't rebuild themselves smoothly because she is on a time table and wants to be on her way to Westeros at some point.

It's getting absurd. By the end of ADWD, I hope she has realized that ending slavery in Slaver's Bay is the project of a life time, not some end of semester project you get to rush in a few all-nighter so you can move on with what you really want to do with your life. You want to do it? Abandon all design to return to Westeros and do it progressively. You want to go back to Westeros? Then stop mucking around in Slaver's Bay, you are currenlty making matters worse, which is saying something, given how shitty the area is to start with.

She's a better ruler than most other people else her age in the ASOIAF and real universe.

[Acnologia Targaryen]

I don't think it was fully her fault but she does share the blame. She killed off people that may have been useful to her but hey it was her first sack mistakes happen.