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[TWoW Spoilers] Aeron I (Balticon)


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2 hours ago, Sinnie said:

 

Euron I would say is not psychopathic.....

 

.....our dark lord is born evil, acts evil and dies evil - all they do is evil. For starters, Euron would not have been born evil, no one is, that's absurd. There may will be circumstances that cause his brain to be wired differently, but it is not a sure route to evilness. If you take Euron to be genuinely mentally unwell, hallucinating that he is the God of the world, the great Kraken, that the Others whisper to him - whatever. Consider that cutting out people's tongues plays to some kind of master plan in his head.

You people are unwell.  He killed his brothers when they were babies.  He rapes, tortures and kills at will, and enjoys it.  He molests children.  He is the ULTIMATE psychopath and a very, very, very, terrible person and any red-blooded reader of the books knows it.

I've read enough of this thread to call BS on all the Victarion is awesome, Euron is awesome, my favorite character, etc. etc.  Stop it.  I know Sinnie is just troll baiting being his first post and all but this thread is going off the rails.

These are very bad people who routinely do bad things, and everyone including GRRM admits it.

Stop making excuses for it.

 

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On 6/4/2016 at 1:46 PM, Equilibrium said:

This was very, very effective chapter, maybe one of the best chapters in the series in my opinion. Why? Well because it played me. No correct that, it showed me how previous chapters played me. 

See thing is, I really liked Euron, not necessarily wanting him for buddy, but he was awesome character, the kind of villain you really root for because he is awesome, like evil Jack Sparrow or every good Magnificent Bastard villain. To put it in story context character I viewed him similarly to Li

That is a thing, this chapter has showed me that I have been played, as Ironborn have been played, to like Euron because he is awesome and larger-than-life while ignoring the clues pointing to the fact he is evil beyond comprehension. And clues were there but were minor, ambiguous and uncertain, and were overlooked because of Euron's charismatic flamboyancy. "Maddest of them all" is the one I remembered immediately, I thought that referred to his unconventionality and eccentricity but now I see it does not, he really is the maddest and not just of Greyjoys.

 

 

Just curious.  I'm not moralizing and actually really am interested in your truthful answer.   What exactly  pushed you over the edge, here?  

You thought he was awesome before when you knew he was:

(a) Raping his younger brothers as children

(b) Raping his sister in law, resulting in Victarion killing her in shame

(c) Mutilating his crew

(d) Raping the children of House Hewitt in front of their parents

(e) Killing thousands of civilians the world over

(f) Dismembering Baelor Blacktyde for not bending the knee

What pushed you over the edge from your previous position?  Mutilating Pyatt Pree?  Cutting out Falia's tongue?  Being mean to poor ol' Aeron?  What was the bridge too far here?

I really, really, really want to know.

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Is there any reason the three main visions in Dany's HOTU "bride of fire" can't correspond to the three heads of the dragon? Dany. Aegon, Jon? 

That's still a possible vote for the prow sanding corpse to be Jon Con.

 There's no way Dany is "marrying" Euron. He's twisted and savage. Also, why, if the corpse is supposed to be representing Euron (vis a vis Aeron?)  is it sadly smiling?  The image seems to me to express accomplishment at a price. 

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The woman in white is not Dany.  No way no how.  I'm no Dany fan, but no way she's going to be complicit in Euron's crimes.  She'll use him to cross the ocean, but even that would be too much for her.

Sean T Collins / Stefan Sasse over at boiledleather.com thought the white woman could be the same one who seduced the original Night King.   My thoughts are that it could also be Melissandre, somehow corrupted.  I'd wager on the female Other, but since the TV show hasn't made a single mention of it, the person can't be that important.  Maybe the Great Other is a woman, and that's what it signifies.

 

 

 

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Quote

You people are unwell.

What a nice, lovely and mature thing to say. Welcome to the forum?

7 hours ago, Mark the Red said:

He killed his brothers when they were babies.  He rapes, tortures and kills at will, and enjoys it.  He molests children.  He is the ULTIMATE psychopath and a very, very, very, terrible person and any red-blooded reader of the books knows it.

I've read enough of this thread to call BS on all the Victarion is awesome, Euron is awesome, my favorite character, etc. etc.  Stop it.  I know Sinnie is just troll baiting being his first post and all but this thread is going off the rails.

These are very bad people who routinely do bad things, and everyone including GRRM admits it.

Stop making excuses for it.

 

I don't recall mentioning Victarion once, or using the word awesome. I'm not sure you fully understood the point of my post.

Psychopathy is not the description for every single person who does things we may not like. My point was that the word 'evil' and 'psychopath' are being passed out to describe all of these characters without considering any of the nuance to their particular presentation.

Have you ever met any people in real life who have done any of these things? The most striking thing about teenagers who have raped children, murdered members of their family, hurt others for fun is just how normal they are. Often they are scared, vulnerable, lonely and had such terrible experiences that they are completely unsure of which way is up. I am aware that these are books and aren't going to mirror real life exactly in that level of detail. But it is quite an important distinction to make that just because someone does things that are completely outside of what is acceptable, does not mean the whole person is evil, full of hate and can only do bad things. In my post, I also suggested considering the context of their society, it affords certain freedom to act to those in power while also setting some expectations on ruthlessness; therefore a higher level of distasteful acts are going to be seen and accepted.

The original comment was that Euron was too flat as a character, simply the cartoonish dark lord. That was taking him as being 'evil', doing 'evil' things and having no redeeming qualities. I'm trying to say that there is no single person alive, ever, who is born evil, or is wholly evil. I'd consider Euron to be more mentally unwell than psychopathic, he appears to be blending fantasy with reality much more than Joffrey or Ramsey do. This may not  change anything in terms of how Euron comes across on the page, perhaps GRRM is making his character too flat. but I'd be surprised if his inspiration for the character and what he knows about what is bubbling under the surface is purely "Euron is evil". We haven't seen enough of him on the page yet to divine his intentions, what his previous experiences have been and what internal drivers are at work for him. But my guess is that he is hallucinating, having extreme fantasies, or is being manipulated by an outside force.

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7 hours ago, Mark the Red said:

 

Just curious.  I'm not moralizing and actually really am interested in your truthful answer.   What exactly  pushed you over the edge, here?  

You thought he was awesome before when you knew he was:

(a) Raping his younger brothers as children

(b) Raping his sister in law, resulting in Victarion killing her in shame

(c) Mutilating his crew

(d) Raping the children of House Hewitt in front of their parents

(e) Killing thousands of civilians the world over

(f) Dismembering Baelor Blacktyde for not bending the knee

What pushed you over the edge from your previous position?  Mutilating Pyatt Pree?  Cutting out Falia's tongue?  Being mean to poor ol' Aeron?  What was the bridge too far here?

I really, really, really want to know.

He is still awesome, I just don't like him as I did before. I never thought him to be morally good or even gray, I knew he was bad. I found some of his actions deplorable but it was him revealing utterly psychopathic and sadistic underlaying persona that put me off. But to tick off your questions just the same.

(a) We didn't know he raped his brothers, it was far from certain, it's easy to pretend now it was obvious all along.

(b) We still don't know he raped Victarion's sister, he most likely didn't, as he could as well seduced her, come on would it be difficult for Euron to do so. It would much more fit his modus operandi as Victarion was the target there and it would be much more devastating move.

(c) Actually not bothered by this, they most likely knew what was going to happen when they joined and were more then compensated for it. If all of his crew were mutilated by force someone was bound to give him Mexican necktie, you can't be pirate captain if all your crew hates you.

(d) He didn't rape or order a rape. Come on they are Ironborn it's not like the rest of then are choir-boys, it would be extremely unpopular decision to actually stop them from raping. Actually scratch this one completely, whole scene was Falia's idea.

(f) Another one I don't see all the fuss about, Euron was declared king in as fair as manner as it could happen and the Baelor decided not to acknowledge him, treason if there is one, dismembering him afterwards would be a thing English law would prescribe up to 19th century.

Only the first one is a thing that could make me really reproach Euron and it was FAR FROM CERTAIN, yes, there were few vague hints, but nothing certain, and look at the boards before the chapter, lots of people didn't think he was raping them.

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10 hours ago, Mark the Red said:

The woman in white is not Dany.  No way no how.  I'm no Dany fan, but no way she's going to be complicit in Euron's crimes.  She'll use him to cross the ocean, but even that would be too much for her.

Sean T Collins / Stefan Sasse over at boiledleather.com thought the white woman could be the same one who seduced the original Night King.   My thoughts are that it could also be Melissandre, somehow corrupted.  I'd wager on the female Other, but since the TV show hasn't made a single mention of it, the person can't be that important.  Maybe the Great Other is a woman, and that's what it signifies.

 

 

 

I'm not saying it is Dany, but we have learned he can charm women, he isn't gonna break the ice by admitting he raped, tormented and killed his brothers & other atrocious acts. Also, it's a vision, if it's indeed Dany it may only reflect that she will conquer Westeros beside him, not that she will become as sadistic as him. The true monsters try to appear good to those they wish to deceive, we only know the point of views of his brothers who know better than to be fooled, even dumbass Vic..

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^Also I've been lurking on this thread for a while now, and someone mentioned how Dany has never taken a good guy for a lover.
Khal Drogo and Daario may look like puppies next to Euron, but they do and condone some pretty terrible stuff themselves.
Couple that with Euron outright lying to Dany + using his charisma, he's going to get her on board for sure.

I don't think the woman in white is symbolic of Dany though, I think she'll ditch him after coming to Westeros and/or learning what he truly is. I rather like the theory about her being symbolic of the Others. Cersei has always been referenced with green so I don't think it's her, but I spose she isn't off the table. Val has always been white but I don't think that quite fits either.

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On June 6, 2016 at 6:11 AM, chrisdaw said:

There's a relationship here, something brewing in the imagery, wording and naming that creates an association between Euron, Tyrion, the Ninepenny kings, the white flame woman and (white) worms.

I think Euron is going to create an alliance like the Ninepenny kings, and they're the dwarves capering for his and his mate's amusement.

Quoting from the wiki because I'm lazy, but any money this character is foreshadowing for the pale fire woman.

Daemon would be Euron in this instance. Rhaenyra Dany. Note Daemon gave her a dragon egg, but they had to give it back. And that she lost Daemon's child during a storm. Storm can either refer to Euron, the first and last storm, or Dany the Stormborn.

This sounds intriguing; an alliance of pirate lords who are just going to come in and take everything that's lying around after the war. Euron will probably hide his true nature and just appear as the badass, charismatic Ironborn captain, winning stragglers to his cause.

If Mysaria is foreshadowing the Pale Fire Woman as an advisor (and not Dany; please Dany, don't fall for this guy! Don't choose fire! You've got your own! :( ) I wonder who that might be? I've heard Quaithe and Cersei suggested, although I can't see the latter as just an advisor.

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As for the discussion of evil, we've all heard the notion that no one see themselves as evil, but the hero of their own story. Euron's story might very well be him just taking what he can, when he can, and having whatever he considers "fun" (ick) along the way.

Guys like Littlefinger, Tywin, and Joffrey do a lot of evil things. Littlefinger could objectively be the worst, because he avoids complicity and pretends to be a nice guy. Tywin at least is unafraid (bolstered by his name and Lannister pride) to say, "Yes, I did this." Joffrey was a kid, but was clearly not improving with age. They were all willing to partake in mass murder at some point to achieve their goals. What makes them "evil," especially if characters with more benevolent goals (Dany's anti-slavery campaign) perform similar acts? (Astapor) I feel like the answer to all these questions is part of the story. 

Euron being unapologetically evil (at least to his brother, he might play the part differently when recruiting others) could be cathartic for us readers, in a way. Who can argue Euron's actions as good or necessary? Whether he was born as what pop psychology deems a sociopath is hard to say at this point. Would he be more satisfying as a character if his abhorrent actions were influences by failed green dreams or other outside influences? I'm not sure about these answers myself, but my opinion is that, for now, Euron stepping up as a Big Bad (if not The Big Bad) is exciting. 

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On 02/06/2016 at 0:18 AM, LordToo-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse said:

i think there is about 0 probablyt of that happening.

 

On 02/06/2016 at 0:45 AM, Lord_Ravenstone said:

Really? Because I'd put it at 90 % chance of him being beheaded 

Bran seems to want it to happen, it's thematically appropriate and the show had it so Theon was at the kingsmoot and failed 

Hell show Theon wants Asha to be queen

 

I've got this feeling too (not the tv show part). I think Theon will die. Asha did nothing to try and save him and Stannis is under pressure to have something done with Theon. 

On 02/06/2016 at 1:40 PM, DarkSister1001 said:

 

I can only see a few possibilities.  Either Theon voids the KM as you say, or he stands for Asha and agrees to be her Hand.  I don't see the IB voting his way, they seem to be suspicious of his "Greenland" nature. 

I don't see them backing Theon up either. I have the impression they just don't care a bit for him. Plus, he can't have heirs anymore if that counts for being "king".

----

If Euron is so eager to conquer everything, why did he give the horn to Victarion? 

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Theon won't fight Euron or anything, but he is going to be there to pick up the pieces when Euron is gone and finished screwing his men. He'll rule, though this chapter made me think there's a possibility of a salt king (Theon) and rock queen (Asha) ruling together in the future.

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19 hours ago, Sinnie said:

 

What a nice, lovely and mature thing to say. Welcome to the forum?

I don't recall mentioning Victarion once, or using the word awesome. I'm not sure you fully understood the point of my post.

Psychopathy is not the description for every single person who does things we may not like. My point was that the word 'evil' and 'psychopath' are being passed out to describe all of these characters without considering any of the nuance to their particular presentation.

Have you ever met any people in real life who have done any of these things? The most striking thing about teenagers who have raped children, murdered members of their family, hurt others for fun is just how normal they are. Often they are scared, vulnerable, lonely and had such terrible experiences that they are completely unsure of which way is up. I am aware that these are books and aren't going to mirror real life exactly in that level of detail. But it is quite an important distinction to make that just because someone does things that are completely outside of what is acceptable, does not mean the whole person is evil, full of hate and can only do bad things. In my post, I also suggested considering the context of their society, it affords certain freedom to act to those in power while also setting some expectations on ruthlessness; therefore a higher level of distasteful acts are going to be seen and accepted.

The original comment was that Euron was too flat as a character, simply the cartoonish dark lord. That was taking him as being 'evil', doing 'evil' things and having no redeeming qualities. I'm trying to say that there is no single person alive, ever, who is born evil, or is wholly evil. I'd consider Euron to be more mentally unwell than psychopathic, he appears to be blending fantasy with reality much more than Joffrey or Ramsey do. This may not  change anything in terms of how Euron comes across on the page, perhaps GRRM is making his character too flat. but I'd be surprised if his inspiration for the character and what he knows about what is bubbling under the surface is purely "Euron is evil". We haven't seen enough of him on the page yet to divine his intentions, what his previous experiences have been and what internal drivers are at work for him. But my guess is that he is hallucinating, having extreme fantasies, or is being manipulated by an outside force.

 I guess we'll just agree to disagree here.  I don't believe your premise that there is no such thing as evil, and that all people are born good and made bad by externalities.    Current events with ISIS are a great salient example: Thousands of pampered and wealthy Muslims have left happy families in the West and gone through considerable travel difficulties / efforts to partake in sadistic murders  of unarmed civilians and gang rapes of  girls, many under the age of 10.  GRRM has no qualms whatsoever about making villains evil, and I cant think of a greater evil than the rape of children.

Don't be so naive about Victarion apologists either.  There are fanboi's here who actually think he is Azor Ahai.  Really.  I'm serious.

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Dragons krakens and sphinxes.  Does this mean fAegon, Ironborn and Dornish will bow to him before he is stopped?

What/who does the tall woman with pale fire hands represent?? thoughts??

 

So Euron captured a galleas out of Qarth with 4 warlocks.  This was after Dany burned down the HotU, but not long after because they had just set sail after her I guess.   He fed one warlock to the other 3.  This was Pyat Pree's ship, he told Euron all about Dany.  Euron cut his legs off, and still holds him prisoner correct?

He tied his pregnant woman, Falia, to the prow of his ship as a sacrifice to the drowned God right? probably another tip he picked up from tales of Dany birthing the dragons I bet, 'she sacrificed her husband and son to bring forth the dragons' is the story I imagine Euron would have heard.........

He has gone totally off the reservation and wants to kill all the gods yet sacrifice to them at the same time???

Has anyone read Bernard Cornwell's Arthur trilogy? He is just like Nimue towards the end.  She even has one eye....

Edited by Suzanna Stormborn
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3 minutes ago, Mark the Red said:

 Don't be so naive about Victarion apologists either.  There are fanboi's here who actually think he is Azor Ahai.  Really.  I'm serious.

Certainly, that's as preposterous as the other side of the spectrum claiming Victarion is the evilest of evil characters in ASOIAF. He's certainly done fucked up things (top of which would be the murder of his salt wife, which still torments him BTW), but he's got redeeming qualities, unlike Euron as far as we know.

I'm totally on board with the idea that certain individuals are indeed "born" evil or, better put, are evil from the age children usually can tell right from wrong. Whether Euron falls into this category remains to be seen. For those craving for "nuance" in every single character, the "failed greenseer" probable backstory is certainly one. As is being raised in a culture like the Ironborn and being Balon's heir during his youth, both of which would provide a good environment for his psychopathic tendencies to thrive. It's very likely Quellon paid too much attention to his first born in detriment to all his other kids, which would be another factor (TWOIAF's relation of Balon as a precocious overachiever and that Aeron's and Urrigon's abuse went unpunished support this).

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On 6/7/2016 at 10:51 PM, Thel said:

Is there any reason the three main visions in Dany's HOTU "bride of fire" can't correspond to the three heads of the dragon? Dany. Aegon, Jon? 

That's still a possible vote for the prow sanding corpse to be Jon Con.

 There's no way Dany is "marrying" Euron. He's twisted and savage. Also, why, if the corpse is supposed to be representing Euron (vis a vis Aeron?)  is it sadly smiling?  The image seems to me to express accomplishment at a price. 

I have always suspected that when he has that horn blown it might attract dany to him for a short while as well as one of her dragons.

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20 hours ago, Equilibrium said:

 

(a) We didn't know he raped his brothers, it was far from certain, it's easy to pretend now it was obvious all along.

 

Most serious and credible professional reviewers of these books knew exactly what the rusted iron door implied.   Ironborn fanboi's and apologists can argue plausible deniability here, but that's on them, not me or GRRM.   I guess that's what I like about GRRM, he trusts in the intelligence of the reader.  

For instance, in AFFC a now alcoholic Cersei says she had the serving girl flogged for shrinking her clothes in the wash because they did not fit her anymore.  GRRM did not put an asterisk on that sentence and explicitly say to the reader "Cersei is getting fat".    Your logic above would indeed hold: it IS possible that the serving girl did indeed shrink her clothes, because it was never disproven.  But the story works so much better when you realize what GRRM did here in just one sentence: Cersei is so egocentric and power mad, that she would willingly inflict pain and misery on an innocent serving girl to reinforce her own self-deception and delusion about herself getting fat.

In this "Euron-is-just -misunderstood/ he-a-good-boy/he-dindu-nuffin" thread's example, the story works so much better when you accept that Euron is a diabolically cruel and evil man, and ever has been.  Trust in GRRM here people.  It just works better with everything that's been written and will be released in Winds of Winter.  Life's too short to paddle so strenuously upstream.  Just let it go.  Euron is a bad, bad man.  Let is go....

 

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3 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Dragons krakens and sphinxes.  Does this mean fAegon, Ironborn and Dornish will bow to him before he is stopped?

What/who does the tall woman with pale fire hands represent?? thoughts??

 

So Euron captured a galleas out of Qarth with 4 warlocks.  This was after Dany burned down the HotU, but not long after because they had just set sail after her I guess.   He fed one warlock to the other 3.  This was Pyat Pree's ship, he told Euron all about Dany.  Euron cut his legs off, and still holds him prisoner correct?

He tied his pregnant woman, Falia, to the prow of his ship as a sacrifice to the drowned God right? probably another tip he picked up from tales of Dany birthing the dragons I bet, 'she sacrificed her husband and son to bring forth the dragons' is the story I imagine Euron would have heard.........

He has gone totally off the reservation and wants to kill all the gods yet sacrifice to them at the same time???

Has anyone read Bernard Cornwell's Arthur trilogy? He is just like Nimue towards the end.  She even has one eye....

Huh, I hadn't thought of that parallel - it's certainly a possibility.

And yes, finished the Arthur trilogy last week - she was prepared to sacrifice a King's son to bring back the gods.  I thought there were a fair number of parallels with ASoIaF, as I read.

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7 hours ago, Ser Quork said:

Huh, I hadn't thought of that parallel - it's certainly a possibility.

And yes, finished the Arthur trilogy last week - she was prepared to sacrifice a King's son to bring back the gods.  I thought there were a fair number of parallels with ASoIaF, as I read.

Such good books! Cornwell And Martin are friends apparently and borrow from each other.  So it's no surprise there are some similarities.  But Nimue is the first thing I thought of when I read about Euron in this chapter.....  The books are so good, but I'm sorry there is no way he can get it done in WoW and DoS, there will have to be another between those 2.  Maybe itll be WoW, TIme for Wolves then Dream of Spring.  I mean we are JUST NOW getting prophecies of Euron on the IT, there is still soooooo much to do. And both of the Arianne sample chapters she is only traveling around talking, no action has been taken and she hasn't even spoken to fAegon yet.  I have no problem with the slow pace of the books (they are phenomenal) , but I do not agree he can get it done in 2.

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