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What 'needed to be done'?


Tianzi

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17 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Thanks for pointing that out, Julia H. I'd forgotten it.

Per the bolded...a little slip of the keyboard? :P I'm actually good with Mance writing the PL (makes the most sense to me) but the important thing here is that Jon thinks it was Ramsay.

LOL. Yes, a slip of the keyboard - and I don't even have a strong opinion on who wrote the Pink Letter! :D Thanks for pointing it out, I have corrected the post now. 

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23 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

The point is that someone cannot blame Robert for sending an assassin after she had already actively started to conspire against him, because she knew what she was doing and she was ok with that, because of how young she was when she had no problem to order genocide, mass murder of children younger than she was during AGOT.

You seem determined to stick to this position, but you can’t honestly argue that her marriage with Drogo was her decision, it’s demonstrably shown in the books that Viserys forced her into it. It does astonish me how people can get so wrapped up in their dislike of particular characters they throw all reason out the window. You can dislike Dany and condemn all her actions, that’s fine, but you must see how your statements are at odds with what is actually written in the books. It’s not a matter of opinion that Dany was forced into the marriage, it’s fact.

That Dany in the future killed children doesn’t prove it was right for Robert to try to kill her, it just might show that she’s no better than him. That’s fine, but not the issue. The issue is whether Robert’s actions were right or wrong based on his own situation, the information he had at the time, and his personal motivation.

Now, you can make an argument that given the possibility of her or her unborn child leading an invasion it’s reasonable to kill her in advance. We can debate that on an ethical and pragmatic level, but you seem to be twisting the material to fit your opinions.

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4 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

snip

I still don't see it. If he wanted to kill the Targs children before they started to conspire against him then he would be wrong. But they were conspiring to attack him and he had to protect himself and the Realm from the hordes of the barbarians. I see nothing wrong with that. There is no reason why he had to wait for them to attack him and then fight back.

Just nitpicking tho it wasn't Rhaego the one who was going to attack, it was Drogo.

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11 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I still don't see it. If he wanted to kill the Targs children before they started to conspire against him then he would be wrong. But they were conspiring to attack him and he had to protect himself and the Realm from the hordes of the barbarians. I see nothing wrong with that. There is no reason why he had to wait for them to attack him and then fight back.

I think what was wrong with it was that it was based on the assumption that the Dothraki were a threat, when until the assassination attempt Drogo was patently uninterested in invading. Furthermore, like I’ve said from the beginning, killing a teenage girl as a preventative measure is extreme to me. Even if you can justify it on pragmatist grounds, it’s still a shitty thing to do, especially as she’s not the main mover in the plot, but a pawn of her brother.

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1 hour ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I think what was wrong with it was that it was based on the assumption that the Dothraki were a threat, when until the assassination attempt Drogo was patently uninterested in invading. Furthermore, like I’ve said from the beginning, killing a teenage girl as a preventative measure is extreme to me. Even if you can justify it on pragmatist grounds, it’s still a shitty thing to do, especially as she’s not the main mover in the plot, but a pawn of her brother.

Pawn or not the marriage happened in order for them to have an army. Hence Robert was right to attack them since they were conspiring to attack him. It may look extreme to you but you are not the King or Westeros, you don’t have to protect the Realm.

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4 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

I think what was wrong with it was that it was based on the assumption that the Dothraki were a threat, when until the assassination attempt Drogo was patently uninterested in invading. Furthermore, like I’ve said from the beginning, killing a teenage girl as a preventative measure is extreme to me. Even if you can justify it on pragmatist grounds, it’s still a shitty thing to do, especially as she’s not the main mover in the plot, but a pawn of her brother.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Pawn or not the marriage happened in order for them to have an army. Hence Robert was right to attack them since they were conspiring to attack him. It may look extreme to you but you are not the King or Westeros, you don’t have to protect the Realm.

 

I'm going to weigh in here with the opinion that whether Dany was actively conspiring against Robert or not is irrelevant to the question at hand. Dany is not the actual threat here. Her children are. From Robert's POV, all Targs must be eliminated in order to bring peace to the realm, so therefore killing her is something that needed to be done.

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On ‎2‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 3:49 PM, Lady Blizzardborn said:

That's a matter of opinion. Jon was not destroying the Night's Watch to save his sister. He couldn't meet Ramsay's terms, and if he didn't Ramsay promised (assuming Ramsay even wrote the letter) to come to him. The Bolton forces would have marched on Castle Black in all their strength and killed everyone, taking out one-third of the Watch and leaving the world far more vulnerable to the Others. Jon's decision to take a personal issue Ramsay had against him and change the field of battle to a place where the men of Castle Black wouldn't be harmed was a choice to SAVE the Watch. And he didn't ask anyone to go with him either. 

Ramsay was the one who issued the challenge. Jon was going to do what was necessary to save both the Watch and the world. 

Bowen Marsh was more concerned about the politics of Westeros than the real threat coming down from the North. Seems he forgot that the Watch is not supposed to take part in those squabbles. And don't bother saying Jon was taking part, he wasn't--he allowed Mel to send Mance, that's not the same as actively getting in the middle of things.

Yes! Agreed. Jon didn't ask for it. He's the LC of the NW, and he had to protect them from that psychopath Ramsay. Ramsay brought the threat to Jon, not the other way around.

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16 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Pawn or not the marriage happened in order for them to have an army. Hence Robert was right to attack them since they were conspiring to attack him. It may look extreme to you but you are not the King or Westeros, you don’t have to protect the Realm.

 

13 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I'm going to weigh in here with the opinion that whether Dany was actively conspiring against Robert or not is irrelevant to the question at hand. Dany is not the actual threat here. Her children are. From Robert's POV, all Targs must be eliminated in order to bring peace to the realm, so therefore killing her is something that needed to be done.

All this is true, which brings it down to a question of a. the pragmatism of the decision, and b. the ethics of it. 

a. While the general “all Targs must be destroyed” perspective seems pragmatic, there are some problems with it.

To begin with, Drogo showed no interest in attacking the 7K, and actually only became convinced as a direct result of the attack. While Robert did not know the former, and could not know the latter, it still shows that the decision was a mistake (or at least it was risky and it backfired).

Second, the Dothraki had never crossed the sea, and Robert did know this (Ned points it out). Therefore, the threat at the time, as he perceived it, was much smaller than he thought.

Finally, the decision Robert made was not made out of hard headed pragmatism, but born out of hatred of Targaryens, which Ned himself noted. In fact, the guy was raging drunk in the meeting the decision was made.

b. Really, the ethical judgement only comes into play once the pragmatic basis is set. Personally, even if all you said is correct and not sending an assassin to kill Dany would definitely lead to an invasion attempt, I’d still be against it. Knifing a pregnant teenager’s just not cricket.

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Murdering a woman, even one who is an enemy, violates the ethics by which the nobility and knights of Westeros are supposed to live.  Rhaenyra spared both Helaena and Alicent Hightower, when she had them in her power. Murdering a teenage girl would be even worse.

That's even before we consider whether Dany merited being murdered.  Given the injustices that had been inflicted on her since birth, and the predicament she found herself in, I'd suggest not.

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53 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Given the injustices that had been inflicted on her since birth, and the predicament she found herself in, I'd suggest not.

This is actually another good point, and is a good counter-argument to this:

19 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Pawn or not the marriage happened in order for them to have an army. Hence Robert was right to attack them since they were conspiring to attack him.

That Dany was forced into the marriage against her will by an abusive psychotic brother, as opposed to doing it willingly actually does matter from an ethical perspective, as you are essentially punishing her for something completely out of her control.

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5 minutes ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

This is actually another good point, and is a good counter-argument to this:

 

That Dany was forced into the marriage against her will by an abusive psychotic brother, as opposed to doing it willingly actually does matter from an ethical perspective, as you are essentially punishing her for something completely out of her control.

 

And Robert is, in part, responsible for those injustices.  He would undoubtedly have killed Dany and Viserys killed if he had caught them on Dragonstone.  At no stage did he offer them any kind of amnesty, even if he was not actively hunting them down.

 

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On ‎3‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 9:31 PM, Jon's Queen Consort said:

That is even worse.

She could say no. No?

She knew what was going on so the motive was clear and since she said yes and no "no" she was ok with it.

What do you think would have happened to her if she said no?.  Viserys would certainly have beaten her, and she'd have just been wed at sword point in any case.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

At no stage did he offer them any kind of amnesty, even if he was not actively hunting them down.

The trickiness with that is that it would mean keeping a potential rival. Leaving them to waste away in poverty in exile seemed to be a good compromise. 

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8 hours ago, Shouldve Taken The Black said:

 

All this is true, which brings it down to a question of a. the pragmatism of the decision, and b. the ethics of it. 

a. While the general “all Targs must be destroyed” perspective seems pragmatic, there are some problems with it.

To begin with, Drogo showed no interest in attacking the 7K, and actually only became convinced as a direct result of the attack. While Robert did not know the former, and could not know the latter, it still shows that the decision was a mistake (or at least it was risky and it backfired).

Second, the Dothraki had never crossed the sea, and Robert did know this (Ned points it out). Therefore, the threat at the time, as he perceived it, was much smaller than he thought.

Finally, the decision Robert made was not made out of hard headed pragmatism, but born out of hatred of Targaryens, which Ned himself noted. In fact, the guy was raging drunk in the meeting the decision was made.

b. Really, the ethical judgement only comes into play once the pragmatic basis is set. Personally, even if all you said is correct and not sending an assassin to kill Dany would definitely lead to an invasion attempt, I’d still be against it. Knifing a pregnant teenager’s just not cricket.

Nice analysis, but I would still argue for pragmatism in this case. Whether Drogo intended to attack originally or only later or whether Dany was complicit or not, the fundamental situation is this: as long as the Targaryen line remains unbroken it is a threat to peace in the realm. Even if Dany or any of her descendants renounced their claim to the throne, they could still be used by others as pawns to overthrow the new dynasty.

It is the same situation as the Blackfyres, which kept rising every decade or so as new BFs replaced the old. It was only when the last Blackfyre was killed that that particular threat stopped.

Ethics and morality are choices, while pragmatism is not. Killing the last recognized Targaryen, innocent as she may be, is the best way to prevent future bloodshed of countless other innocents, as Pycelle noted at the council meeting. Even if Robert agreed with Ned that it was not something that he wanted to do, it was something that needed to be done -- for the good of the realm.

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19 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Nice analysis, but I would still argue for pragmatism in this case. Whether Drogo intended to attack originally or only later or whether Dany was complicit or not, the fundamental situation is this: as long as the Targaryen line remains unbroken it is a threat to peace in the realm. Even if Dany or any of her descendants renounced their claim to the throne, they could still be used by others as pawns to overthrow the new dynasty.

It is the same situation as the Blackfyres, which kept rising every decade or so as new BFs replaced the old. It was only when the last Blackfyre was killed that that particular threat stopped.

Ethics and morality are choices, while pragmatism is not. Killing the last recognized Targaryen, innocent as she may be, is the best way to prevent future bloodshed of countless other innocents, as Pycelle noted at the council meeting. Even if Robert agreed with Ned that it was not something that he wanted to do, it was something that needed to be done -- for the good of the realm.

The death of Maelys the Monstrous didn't end threats to the Iron Throne.  It only ended one particular threat.

The problem with that kind of pragmatism is that it is evil.  Murdering someone, especially a child, because they might be a threat is highly unethical.  And, once you start down that path, where do you stop?  Do you murder Prince Doran, and all the Martells, because they have a claim to the Iron Throne, and have every reason to avenge the massacre of the Royal Family?  Do you murder Brienne and her father because they're descendants of King Maekar?

It's also self-defeating.  In-universe, the murder of children is regarded as evil, and creates enemies.  Robert's regime has never really lived down the murder of Elia and her two children. 

The solution which combines both pragmatism and mercy is for male children of the defeated Royal Family to be inducted into the Faith or Citadel, and for females to be wed to one's own sons.

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7 hours ago, SeanF said:

The death of Maelys the Monstrous didn't end threats to the Iron Throne.  It only ended one particular threat.

The problem with that kind of pragmatism is that it is evil.  Murdering someone, especially a child, because they might be a threat is highly unethical.  And, once you start down that path, where do you stop?  Do you murder Prince Doran, and all the Martells, because they have a claim to the Iron Throne, and have every reason to avenge the massacre of the Royal Family?  Do you murder Brienne and her father because they're descendants of King Maekar?

It's also self-defeating.  In-universe, the murder of children is regarded as evil, and creates enemies.  Robert's regime has never really lived down the murder of Elia and her two children. 

The solution which combines both pragmatism and mercy is for male children of the defeated Royal Family to be inducted into the Faith or Citadel, and for females to be wed to one's own sons.

It's the old conundrum: if you had a chance to kill Hitler as a child, would that be immoral? Or would you weigh that against the 40 million who died because of his actions.

I get what your saying, and I agree with it. But I guess I'm trying to provide a literal answer to the question, "What needed to be done?" And the threat that Dany herself, regardless of her actions but just by virtue of who she is, makes it necessary that she should die, at least from Robert's perspective. I don't think the citadel or the faith would be an adequate guarantee against insurrection -- in fact, I'll bet leaders of both organizations would love to have one of their own sitting the Iron Throne.

So I'm not trying to argue that your contention is wrong, but that it is an answer to a different question than the one posed by the OP.

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11 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

It's the old conundrum: if you had a chance to kill Hitler as a child, would that be immoral? Or would you weigh that against the 40 million who died because of his actions.

Not exactly the same - that old conundrum assumes the benefit of hindsight, which Robert did not have. 

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13 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

It's the old conundrum: if you had a chance to kill Hitler as a child, would that be immoral? Or would you weigh that against the 40 million who died because of his actions.

I get what your saying, and I agree with it. But I guess I'm trying to provide a literal answer to the question, "What needed to be done?" And the threat that Dany herself, regardless of her actions but just by virtue of who she is, makes it necessary that she should die, at least from Robert's perspective. I don't think the citadel or the faith would be an adequate guarantee against insurrection -- in fact, I'll bet leaders of both organizations would love to have one of their own sitting the Iron Throne.

So I'm not trying to argue that your contention is wrong, but that it is an answer to a different question than the one posed by the OP.

Dany is not (so far) comparable to Hitler.  As far as Robert knows, she's a child who has found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If, by the time the story is complete, Dany is indeed a ruthless tyrant, leaving cities in flames behind her, and covering the land with forests of stakes and gibbets, then your point would have merit, although it's not something that Robert could predict.

 

 

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17 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

And the threat that Dany herself, regardless of her actions but just by virtue of who she is, makes it necessary that she should die, at least from Robert's perspective

I know I'm repeating myself, but you're making out that the decision was made out of a sense of pragmatism, but it wasn't. Ned observes that it was born out of the irrational and unquenchable hatred that Robert had for the Targaryens. Even Robert recognised the decision was wrong on his deathbed, when he was thinking clearly.

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