RobOsevens Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 35 minutes ago, A Song of Ass and Fire said: "International poisoners" - in his beliefs, the people he was exterminating were guilty of poisoning his society. He was wrong, but then, Daenerys is wrong in believing that she has a divine right to rule other people based on her birthright. Whether it balances is based on how much weight you put on his evil and how much weight you put on his good. If you don't apply much weight to Daenerys' tortures and mass executions, but give a lot of weight to her good intentions and desire to help the slaves, then it's balanced. If one treats Hitler as Daenerys is treated, and play down his evil acts and give justifications for them, and play up how kind he was to animals and sensitive to the needs of his own people, it's balanced. I don't think so, myself. I think Hitler's evil far outweighs his good. I feel the same way about Daenerys. Man two posts ago you said " Hitler was one of the most evil people in modern history, and yet he had many good traits that balanced his evil. " Why would you ever treat or compare the two?????? Hitler is a real person responsible for the Holocaust. Dany is a fictional character and yes she has done some bad things all leaders have and do especially in GRRM's world it doesnt mean you compare them to Hitler, it is just plain ignorant to do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobOsevens Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 6 minutes ago, TeamWhiteWalkerz said: Come on now... I hate Dany, but she's definately not comaprable to Hitler. THANK YOU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melisandre's White Pubes Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 When I said "balanced", I did not mean that they were of equal weight. You can balance something very heavy with something very light, if you give the light part a lot of leverage. Some things just can't be balanced - I assign an infinite weight of "evil" to some acts, and no amount of good can justify them. Genocide. Torture of innocents. Child molestation. If someone is guilty of any of those things, it doesn't matter how good they are, how many awesome things they did, or why they think it was justified. It can't be balanced. Nothing is comparable to Hitler, but some of the arguments in favor of Dany are very comparable to the arguments in favor of Hitler. "She did it for noble reasons", "She had a rough upbringing", "Her culture taught her that her evil acts were not that evil", "She did so many good things for other people". All applicable to Hitler, none of which excuse her crimes. Once someone justifies the torture of innocents, mass murder of children, and other heinous acts, anything can be justified to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobOsevens Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 3 minutes ago, A Song of Ass and Fire said: Nothing is comparable to Hitler, but some of the arguments in favor of Dany are very comparable to the arguments in favor of Hitler. "She did it for noble reasons", "She had a rough upbringing", "Her culture taught her that her evil acts were not that evil", "She did so many good things for other people". All applicable to Hitler, none of which excuse her crimes. Once someone justifies the torture of innocents, mass murder of children, and other heinous acts, anything can be justified to them. You are right nothing is comparable to Hitler so why do you keep doing it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melisandre's White Pubes Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 4 minutes ago, RobOsevens said: You are right nothing is comparable to Hitler so why do you keep doing it? Selective bolding there, the very next sentence tells you what I am actually comparing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobOsevens Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 21 minutes ago, A Song of Ass and Fire said: Selective bolding there, the very next sentence tells you what I am actually comparing. I could've bolded the whole sentence and it wouldn't change anything, who makes arguments in favour of Hitler? There are no arguments in favour of Hitler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A spoon of knife and fork Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 55 minutes ago, A Song of Ass and Fire said: When I said "balanced", I did not mean that they were of equal weight. You can balance something very heavy with something very light, if you give the light part a lot of leverage. Some things just can't be balanced - I assign an infinite weight of "evil" to some acts, and no amount of good can justify them. Genocide. Torture of innocents. Child molestation. If someone is guilty of any of those things, it doesn't matter how good they are, how many awesome things they did, or why they think it was justified. It can't be balanced. Yeah I don't really believe things work that way. But then again I don't believe people are evil or good or redeemable/irredeemable anyway. So we are probably going to talk past each other forever. Stannis isn't perfect by any means but I agree with what he told Davos. A good act does not wash out the bad, NOR the bad the good. Dany should be praised equally for good things she does (and the good intentions she has) just as we condemn for the bad. Like anyone. So Even if you assign "infinite evil weight" to the crucifixion of the slaver leaders her good acts will still have helped people. That's true no matter what you think of her "on balance". Personally I think of her thusly. This is a person with a compassionate heart who is filled with rage upon seeing the suffering of the downtrodden. So much so that she becomes vengeful very easily. When she is feeling this righteous anger, she is prone to being thoughtlessly cruel. If she wants to be the leader she should be she has to learn to channel her rage in more constructive ways. I don't believe that is whitewashing the character. It is describing her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melisandre's White Pubes Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 1 hour ago, RobOsevens said: I could've bolded the whole sentence and it wouldn't change anything, who makes arguments in favour of Hitler? There are no arguments in favour of Hitler It's not an argument in favor of Hitler, it's an argument against the justification of evil because someone did good. Do you believe it would be possible for Hitler to do something so good, it made up for his evil? Let's say some aliens came and were going to destroy the entire human race, and Hitler sacrificed himself to save humanity, would his saving billions make up for the 12 million who died needlessly and for stupid reasons? I don't…for one thing, it's not THAT good of an act to sacrifice yourself to save others. I don't think of myself as a good person, but I would sacrifice my life without question to save just one of my children, and of course if the entire world was threatened I would do the same. I've known some really bad people who loved their kids and would do anything for them. Being good is natural, as is being evil. Dany really hates slavery. So? That's a pretty common thing. Dany will work hard and risk and sacrifice much to protect the people who are looking up to her. So will practically any military leader. What spectacularly good things has Dany done? At what point did she ever offer to sacrifice her own life? When did she volunteer to be tortured so another would not be harmed? When did she throw away everything she has to help someone else? She's done some good things, but nothing that would be considered as far up on the good scale as torturing children to get their father to confess is down on the evil scale. It's not even that her evil couldn't be balanced, she just hasn't really done anything far outside the human norms of goodness. Even if she just crucified one innocent person, what great sacrifice did she make that could compare to that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durran Durrandon Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 4 minutes ago, A Song of Ass and Fire said: When did she throw away everything she has to help someone else? She's done some good things, but nothing that would be considered as far up on the good scale as torturing children to get their father to confess is down on the evil scale. It's not even that her evil couldn't be balanced, she just hasn't really done anything far outside the human norms of goodness. Even if she just crucified one innocent person, what great sacrifice did she make that could compare to that? It was a shitty moral decision, no doubt. I would say it was the single worse moral decision Daenerys has made. She made it due to bad advice, feeling under extreme pressure to stop the murder of her people, and yes she was pissed off. But let's put it in context. Over half of Americans believe it is okay to torture terrorist suspects. . . suspects. So that means they think it is okay to torture people who may be innocent. Drawing a line on which innocent people it is okay to torture seems to avoid the moral question. I think they are wrong, but I don't think they are evil. Most Americans believe in capital punishment.(I don't.) Certainly some people who executed as the result of capital cases are innocent. Are most Americans evil? Daenerys is just closer to the instruments of power and stuck with rough decision. That's all, I wish Arya had been there to rant a rave about the torture of innocent people in the Riverlands and threaten to kill Daenerys if she allowed anyone to be tortured, because I think Daenerys would have listened to her, but most of the time she has shit advisers So, I think this is a low point for her, for sure, but it isn't worse than the crap Rob's forces were doing in the Westerlands or Ned executing a crazy guy who abandoned the Night's Watch or Tyrion fornicating with sex slaves. Hell, most of us have come to terms with the fact that Jaime pushed a little boy out a damn window. Most people with any power in this story have hurt people or caused people to be hurt for whether for selfish reason or for what they perceived to be the greater good. We have yet to see wanton violence from Daenerys. Maybe she will loose it and we will. I think her character is deliberately written with that possibility either because Martin is planning on taking it there or just to add suspense and having her not loose it be more gratifying. So far though, she has made more efforts to mitigate harm from her actions than most other rulers in the plot. Why did she acquire they unsullied? Because having your army rape innocent women is wrong. Why did she free them? Because slavery is wrong? Why did she lock up her dragons? Because letting your dragon eat children is wrong? Why hasn't she moved on to Westeros? Because she sees how her actions unintentionally screwed up Astapor, and letting the same thing happen in Meeren would be wrong. When did she risk herself? When she went to the refugee camps outside of her city and tended to people with the bloody flux. Sorry for the rant. I hope we are all having fun here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeeves Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 I really, really do not want Jon to become the ruler of anything. I'd prefer if he just stayed dead. Barring that, let him just live north of the wall as a wildling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddard Scissorhands Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 -Stannis still alive. (Love Stannis, but in this context he's gone...) - Mel learning how to revive Jon in 1 episode (altough ice cells can be a bit too obvious) -Davos dying Mance style for real at the hand of some Manderly replacement/composite/Ramsey. -Sansa being course corrected to book story and and rapidly dismmissing the Bolton vacation trip without some serious degree of logical follow up. -Frankenmountain wearing that red scarf for no purpose. - Cersei surviving the season -More than one character revived at this point. -Ramsey being smarter and better than everybody, always. - More White Walkers being obliterated by one touch of Kryptonite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallam Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 23 hours ago, RobOsevens said: I could've bolded the whole sentence and it wouldn't change anything, who makes arguments in favour of Hitler? There are no arguments in favour of Hitler True, but if you read a biography of Hitler it is clear that he thought of himself as a most noble and selfless soul. He was utterly unaware of his own self deception. Just as the North Korean mass murderer, Kim Jong-Il thinks of himself as a historic figure, a benevolent, selfless individual. Part of what GRRM is illustrating is the workings of such minds. Robert Baratheon thinks of himself as the wronged hero, so does his brother Stannis. But their actions are hardly for noble ends, it is all just self deception. Danny thinks she is engaged on a noble undertaking to eliminate slavery. But she is using slavers' methods to maintain control. And she isn't very good at it. Tyrion on the other hand is good at using power. In fact he is the only noble alive in the books who has demonstrated competence in exercising power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkerStar Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 I don't want R+L=J to be true. I want Jon to be Ned's son. Plus the tears of those who accept this fan theory as canon will be most delicious. I don't want Aegon to be fAegon. I don't want Robert's bastards to not matter to the rest of the story. I don't want Tommen or Myrcella to die I don't want their parents to live Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallam Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 3 minutes ago, DarkerStar said: I don't want R+L=J to be true. I want Jon to be Ned's son. Plus the tears of those who accept this fan theory as canon will be most delicious. I don't want Aegon to be fAegon. I don't want Robert's bastards to not matter to the rest of the story. I don't want Tommen or Myrcella to die I don't want their parents to live I think you will get about half. Yes the tears of the R+L = J advocates will be most delicious indeed. Yum yum. But the one thing I think we can be certain of is that Ned is not the father. The lack of fAegon in the series and the fact he only comes so late into the books is fairly conclusive that he isn't Aegon or if he is then he gets a spear in the eye fairly soon. Cersei is so obviously doomed it is hilarious. But Jamie must surely redeem himself before a noble death. Same as for Theon/Reek. Though I have a suspicion that Theon might die very early on in WoW but survive to Season 7 or 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yet Another ASOIAF Fan Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 -I don't want Theon to have a meaningless death I either want him to survive, be sacrificed causing something important to happen, or die killing Ramsay. -I don't want Arya to stay No One I would rather she died as Arya then lived as No One -I don't want L+R=/=J It feels like there is too much evidence for it to be a red hearing. I only caught it on my first read through as I knew of the three possibilities and made sure to check for evidence. This one has less to do with pride of being right and more concerned with the quality of writing. Good murder mysteries should not require tinfoil in order to find out who the murderer is, only the clues and logic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cayrouse Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 A Targaryen sitting on the throne. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desire Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Whatever happens in the books that you wish you didn't see the show will be more then happy to ruin your dreams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commentator Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 On 1/28/2016 at 3:08 AM, HairGrowsBack said: Have you read her chapters or the Cliff notes ? This isn't even a matter of debate, saying Daenerys is evil is blatant misreading of the text. I don't think he/she even read the story. More likely listened to a Martian audiobook translation, after it had been edited by Sansa Stark. George wrote Dany as the hero in the story. Everybody else is doing shitty things to protect their families and their own self-interest at the expense of everybody else. Dany chose to postpone her ambitions to take back her kingdom in order to help millions of people win freedom from slavery. Hers is the only truly justified war in the story so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commentator Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 On 1/31/2016 at 9:59 PM, DarkerStar said: I don't want R+L=J to be true. I want Jon to be Ned's son. Plus the tears of those who accept this fan theory as canon will be most delicious. I don't want Aegon to be fAegon. I don't want Robert's bastards to not matter to the rest of the story. I don't want Tommen or Myrcella to die I don't want their parents to live Jaime and Cersei committed a lot of sins. I don't think you have anything to worry about. They will both die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaybeINeverSawACamel Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 19 hours ago, Yet Another Stark Fan said: -I don't want Arya to stay No One I would rather she died as Arya then lived as No One As the girl lay bleeding out surrounded by dead Freys, a dying Baelish asks the young woman , "Who are you?" A grin "I'm Arya of house Stark." Explosions. Valar Morghulis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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