Dany's Dangerous Trip

[Aegon VII]

15 hours ago, khal drogon said:

The very definition of Deus Ex Machina disagrees with you. Not going to argue further if you disagree with that notion itself.

You haven't really started to argue. You've basically just said I don't know the definition of deus ex machina.

15 hours ago, khal drogon said:

Deus ex machina's are plot devices that exists that suddenly change the tide that looks like divine intervention.

This is true but it's an incomplete definition. Furthermore, I worry your confusing yourself and others by use of "divine intervention".

In stories that involve gods, those gods intervening is not necessarily a deus ex machina. God kicking adam and eve out of the garden of eden was divine intervention, but not a deus ex machina. In order to talk about the other aspect of DEM, I will copy the first line from the wikipedia page,

"The term has evolved to mean a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object."

 

So it's not necessarily just divine intervention, more so it is a resolution that seems to come out of nowhere and has not previously been hinted at in the story. The dragons being born was unexpected intervention that completely saves Dany.

15 hours ago, khal drogon said:

Dragons are huge part of the plot. They don't exist just to solve a plot problem. They move the plot themselves.

 This has nothing to do with the fact that their birth was a DEM. A DEM does not have to solely exist to solve a problem and they also can move the plot. DEM speaks solely to how the plot device is introduced, there is nothing that says it can't be an integral part of the story. Dany was royally screwed and had zero options. If those dragons weren't born she was either dead or a dosh khaleen. There was no previous examples of people walking into fires to birth Dragons. We do have examples of people failing when trying to do so, which makes it less of a DEM. But eod, a girl who just lost EVERYTHING walks into a fire and walks out as the most powerful person in the world. Same as when Dany is buying the unsullied, same as when she's in the HotU, same as when she's in the fire pit. All DEM examples. Due to the dragons, Dany has been handed everything and more often than not, it's a DEM that saves her.

We have plenty of pages on ships crashing at see. It is a risk the reader is aware of and therefore is not a DEM. Now if 99% of dany's army gets killed at sea, yeah i'd be willing to call it a DEM, but if it's 60% or less I have to think it doesn't come as a surprise.

15 hours ago, khal drogon said:

That is not DEM. If you still can't agree then agree to disagree.

If you'd like, I'm happy to keep discussing.

[khal drogon]

23 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

You haven't really started to argue. You've basically just said I don't know the definition of deus ex machina.

This is true but it's an incomplete definition. Furthermore, I worry your confusing yourself and others by use of "divine intervention".

In stories that involve gods, those gods intervening is not necessarily a deus ex machina. God kicking adam and eve out of the garden of eden was divine intervention, but not a deus ex machina. In order to talk about the other aspect of DEM, I will copy the first line from the wikipedia page,

"The term has evolved to mean a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the inspired and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object."

 

So it's not necessarily just divine intervention, more so it is a resolution that seems to come out of nowhere and has not previously been hinted at in the story. The dragons being born was unexpected intervention that completely saves Dany.

 This has nothing to do with the fact that their birth was a DEM. A DEM does not have to solely exist to solve a problem and they also can move the plot. DEM speaks solely to how the plot device is introduced, there is nothing that says it can't be an integral part of the story. Dany was royally screwed and had zero options. If those dragons weren't born she was either dead or a dosh khaleen. There was no previous examples of people walking into fires to birth Dragons. We do have examples of people failing when trying to do so, which makes it less of a DEM. But eod, a girl who just lost EVERYTHING walks into a fire and walks out as the most powerful person in the world. Same as when Dany is buying the unsullied, same as when she's in the HotU, same as when she's in the fire pit. All DEM examples. Due to the dragons, Dany has been handed everything and more often than not, it's a DEM that saves her.

We have plenty of pages on ships crashing at see. It is a risk the reader is aware of and therefore is not a DEM. Now if 99% of dany's army gets killed at sea, yeah i'd be willing to call it a DEM, but if it's 60% or less I have to think it doesn't come as a surprise.

If you'd like, I'm happy to keep discussing 

Dragon eggs hatching is not unexpected though. There are multiple attempts to hatch dragons in history and even it has involved fire like summerhall. The point is everyone had failed and Dany's attempt had succeeded. Dany clearly expected it before she walked into the pyre and that's the huge problem in your argument. That's a huge gamble on her part and few may even question her sanity for it. But she walked into the pyre  clearly expecting it and was even confident that she will come back. The readers were purposely kept in black so that the event looks surprising. But if you look at the clues for it, it is meant to happen. Dragon eggs are already Chekhov's guns. You don't introduce them if they aren't going to get hatched. It becomes obvious later. Also that's why it is not godly intervention(where it is really the author's way to solve a plot problem) because DEM are often poorly connected to the plot and poorly explained. Dragon birth is itself a plot. It depends on the fact that Dany has hatched the dragons, a task many failed at and she gained it because she did the deed herself. Proper DEM would be something like the eggs hatching themselves suddenly without any effort from the character and the author uses the plot device to affect the character. Here she knew what would happen if she walked in to the fire and knew death pays for life. 

Your argument is faulty where you said Dany would have died if not for the dragons. No she wouldn't have. She was still alive with followers after all other Dothraki left. She could have escaped with Jorah or joined the Dosh khaleen. Both are not bad fates. There are far worser fates she could have had. But it is she herself who chose the fate she had. She was not left under the mercy of the author to introduce a plot device to save her. It is not abrupt too as DEM has to be. There are literally dreams about waking dragons throughout AGOT and the birth of the dragons is the culmination of that. 

If you think getting the Unsullied is DEM then you clearly have a poor understanding of the term. You clearly don't give credit to the character there. Because it is Dany who plans it. You are trivializing whatever Dany did there because clearly there it was her who was moving the plot not her dragons. 

There were previous mentions of storms but if the author moves her entire army through the sea and uses the storm as a plot device to affect her and then it is DEM. Because it's an abrupt plot device and the characters could not have expected or affected it.

[LordManderlyAsDragonRider]

Even with Vic's fleet, I don't think Dany has enough ships, especially if she does convince the Dothraki to follow her. It also seems to me that we are not finished with Volantis, so I assume that at least part of her forces go overland, so they attack Volantis from the sea and the land. I agree that the storms have been build up to be a very large part of the story, i will almost be dissapointed if the Stormborn doesnt encounter some storms. I would love an epic sea battle between Dany ans Euron, fought in the middle of a storm, dragons and krakens in the mix.

And the birth of the dragons are for me a textbook example of a Deus ex machina. But it is all about how you read the books, if Khal Drogon so a lot of foreshadowing for Dany bringing Dragona into the world, then for him it was not a DEM. I didn't see any foreshadowing for that, and when Dany walked towards the pyre, I really had no idea what would happen, I could have put down my book and speculated for day, but would not have come up with dragon birth or Dany developing momentarily fireproof ability. So for me it was as classic Deus ex Machina as it gets, just replace gods with dragons and it was a Greek classic. 

As a mimunum, all reader must see that Dany becoming fireproof was a DEM, even if you somehow predicted dragons, no one could have predicted that. 

[Lord Vance II]

On 6/3/2017 at 0:02 AM, snow is the man said:

My question is how would she get the dragons across the sea? They can't just hang out on the boat and I doubt they could cross the sea without landing.

They can totally fly for that long. It can't be more than a few hours travel by air. 

 

On 6/3/2017 at 3:38 AM, khal drogon said:

I think Volantis will fall from the Inside which is massive slave revolts but this time those slave soldiers will not follow her instead stay there itself under the rule of the widow. For ships I don't think Volantene fleet will be enough.

I think there is a chance Volantis tries to get out ahead of Dany and institute reforms before her army gets there. I feel like if her army was moving West, the writing would be on the wall that she will end them if they don't do something, and they can't hope to fight.. Possibly present a slave freedom plan (sudden and total emancipation, as we've seen, can be a disaster) and offer her a fleet to get her going and the Masters retain some of their power. Not as fun as a massive uprising, of course. 

 

[Mon ami]

That the trip will be dangerous is an understatement.  Daenerys has greatness in her and she will overcome the distance and the danger with her brilliance.  She outsmarted the Masters and the sellswords.  If anyone can figure out a unique way to get an army across, it is Daenerys Stormborn, the rightful ruler of westeros.  The land is suffering from all the incompetence of the likes of Robb Stark, Jon Snow (who betrayed the wall), Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, Robert Baratheon, Balon, and Renly.  It is time for a Targaryen restoration (Not Jon Snow).