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Forgive one of the following?


Moiraine Sedai

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I'd have to say Jaime Lannister, he only threw Bran out the window for self preservation, and the preservation of his family. Sandor Clegane would be too but being true to your question, and choosing only one, he is less deserving than Jaime. Mirri Maz Duur should also be forgiven since she has already faced justice for her crimes (dead). Theon Greyjoy and Darkstar are the only people who don't deserve forgiveness. Theon does feel remorse for what he did, but only because he was caught and his plans didn't work out. I will say he is slowly atoning for what he did, but only life can pay for death. Darkstar is just the Vulture King come again. As Stannis says, “A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward.”

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2 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

1.  Theon Greyjoy

2.  Jaime Lannister

3.  Mirri Maz Duur

4.  Sandor Clegane

5.  Gerold Dayne

** Theon - he seems to have been punished adequately and is trying to redeem himself. He knows what he did, and is being additionally punished for what he didn't do. Put him on the list.

Jaime - doing better, but not terribly repentant yet. Maybe later.

Mirri Maz Duur - Daenerys will never forgive her, but I can see her perspective entirely. She's a hero; nothing to forgive. Build that woman a statue.

** Sandor - already in repentance mode, doing penance, and re-thinking his life, it looks like. Has figuratively died and been reborn. Definitely forgive.

Gerold "Darkstar" Dayne - does he even think he's done anything wrong? I doubt it. But then, we know so little about him. Without confession and renunciation of sin, plus longing for grace, there's no reason to offer forgiveness.

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3 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

1.  Theon Greyjoy

2.  Jaime Lannister

3.  Mirri Maz Duur

4.  Sandor Clegane

5.  Gerold Dayne

What makes you think that person is more deserving than the other four?

 

No contest, Mirri. She saved the world from a Dothraki warlord who would have been worse than Genghis Khan if he had half the chance. Plus if she hadn’t done that, Dany would never have freed the slaves in Slaver’s Bay.

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Sandor Clegane.  He was told a lie.  His prince was hurt and the butcher's boy did it.  It was too brutal but this is medieval times.  I choose to forgive Sandor Clegane.   No, a nice man he is not but he has more morals than the other choices.

The others do not deserve forgiveness.  Let me explain.

  1. Jaime is a repeat offender.  He murdered his king, fucked the new king's wife, and tried to kill an innocent kid.
  2. Mirri had cause to murder Drogo.  She did not have an excuse to murder an innocent Prince Rhaego.  Rhaego was is the most innocent victim in this discussion.
  3. Theon behaved like a wolf.  He betrayed his words to Robb Stark in order to support his own blood family.  That pack mentality again.
  4. Gerold tried to murder an innocent pawn of a girl.  
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9 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

1.  Theon Greyjoy

2.  Jaime Lannister

3.  Mirri Maz Duur

4.  Sandor Clegane

5.  Gerold Dayne

What makes you think that person is more deserving than the other four?

 

It's an easy choice for me:  Theon Greyjoy.

  1. He was a hostage.
  2. He only dumped on the Starks.
  3. He suffered enough from Ramsay.
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Easy choice, Mirri. I always thought she got a raw deal. I can't decide if she orchestrated the whole thing, or she was just opportunistic after Drogo refused her advice, but either way, I feel she was justified. She manipulated Dany into sacrificing Rhaego, but it was Dany's choice at every step. I really don't have it in me to blame Mirri for taking out a Dothraki prophesied to be a great leader of the men who had just destroyed her world.

Sandor is a close second, as his biggest sin was serving Joffrey. He was a shit prince and a shit king and a better man would have seen that and decided not to serve him. The world is filled with imperfect beings, however. He carried out questionable orders, Bronn would have done the same. Sandor has since come around and is in the process of letting his anger go. It started with Sansa, thenn Arya, and I can't wait to see what the Quiet Isle does to him.

As far as understandable motives, I pick Theon over Jaime. The whole time Theon was doing his thing, I understood it. I hated it and he did unforgivable things, but I understood where his misguided actions were coming from. He had divided loyalties and identities.

 Jaime ... I like Jaime a lot, but he tried to kill a child to cover his crimes. Since when is that ever an excuse that works? Jaime is my favorite character, I love him to bits, but he's a fool - was a fool, more importantly. He willingly committed the crime of treason with Cersei. He didn't push Bran to save his family - he did it to save himself and his lover. He never has fatherly thoughts about their kids until much later in the book because Cersei discouraged it. It was a selfish act, not a selfless one.

Darkstar's just a dick.

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1. I am not of the opinion that torture improves people's character. Theon felt guilt over what he did before. Big deal. He mostly feels bad for how things turned out, but unlike many people in the series he literally brought it on himself. He is still a vicious wretch who should be put out of his misery. 

2. Jaime is charming and has an excellent self-deprecating sense of humor. He is also capable of empathy and kindness. He also was and continues to be motivated by his vanity, has very little in the way of conscience and never stops a whim by thinking his actions through. He is easily one of the most dangerous characters in ASoIaF. Would he really refrain from killing a child now? I don't think so. 

3. Mirri Maz Duur either fought against her barbarian captors with the only means at her disposal or simply did as she was commanded and took the blame when said captors screwed up the explicit instructions she gave them. I don't see Mirri Maz Duur being in need of forgiveness for anything. It really was a wonder how her captors expected loyalty and gratitude because she wasn't raped quite as many times as she might have.

4. Sandor spent much of his life doing his masters bidding he bears the responsibility for following his orders. He has had enough we need to see what he makes of himself now. 

5. Why would Gerold Dayne for maiming a child in an attempt to kill her? 

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(edit: this is a response to the 2nd post above this)

I've seen this answer a lot (some here, other threads too). I don't quite understand how the amount of suffering someone goes through equates to deserving forgiveness. It's what the suffering does to a person - making them examine their actions, consequences, the different perspective they gain and empathy it engenders - that's the important part. I know that they are often closely linked, but it's the introspection, IMO, that makes a person deserving of forgiveness or not. If Theon escapes Ramsey and doesn't think twice about Jeyne on his way out, does he still get our sympathy? He suffered every bit as much, but he didn't learn anything or change much from it. If he regains his arrogance and entitlement in the near future, would we still care about him or just say, fuck it, he's an ass. 

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There's a difference between "who committed the greatest crime/sin", "who deserves the harshest treatment" and "who is the most deserving of forgiveness".

How can I forgive a fictional character? Should I assume I am the VICTIM of their sins, i.e. I am in position of Daenerys, relating to Mirri Maz Durr?

15 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

What makes you think that person is more deserving than the other four?

As it is, the question is not clear enough to me. But at least I can easily discard Gerold Dayne because he doesn't ask for forgiveness, he doesn't feel remorse and definitely isn't repenting. Jaime, while charismatic, attempted to murder Bran Stark to hide his crimes. And Theon arguably brought the most suffering out of the five contestants with warfare, pillage, betrayal and deceit. Mutilation at hands of Ramsay left his mind frail, but it doesn't mean he is truly regretting, and his sins are just awful.

So, it would be between Mirri Maz Durr and Sandor Clegane.

I still can't believe Daenerys trusted a shadowbinder whose world was destroyed by the very person she's supposed to cure. Moron.

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Not forgive so much as acquit Mirri Maz Duur.  Mirri did nothing wrong. As a godswife charged with caring for all the lamb-god's flock, she provided competent medical care to Khal Drogo, and sage advice. He chose not to follow that advice. and consequently the wound from Khal Ogo's bloodrider festered, with the help of the bloodflies that were left in Khal Ogo's wake.

Khal Drogo's 'saving' the village, like Dany's 'saving' the women, was really a matter of claiming it for himself. He was stealing slaves from Khal Ogo and sons, and fighting to build the reputation and size of his own Khalasar, to show his dominance over Khal Ogo.

Khal Drogo's decisions were not Mirri Maz Duur's business, she gave competent care, to the best of her ability, and he brought on his fate by ignoring and undermining the care of his wife's slave.

Quote

Each time Dany reined up, sent her khas to make an end to it, and claimed the victim as slave. One of them, a thick-bodied, flat-nosed woman of forty years, blessed Dany haltingly in the Common Tongue  ... "These women are our slaves now, to do with as we please.
“It pleases me to hold them safe,” Dany said

(AGoT, Ch.61 Daenerys VII)

Daenarys' pleasure is not a contract, Mirri Maz Duur's blessing is not an oath of loyalty. Mirri is a slave, not free, and therefore not free to enter into a contract of service or to swear loyalty to Daenarys.  The understanding is between the Khaleesi and her husband, and is only he will enforce her right to forbid his kos their right to rape the slaves she claims as her own.

'Saving'  Mirri Maz Duur from gang rape and probably consequent death, makes Mirri her slave, but no less a slave. Mirri's feet are blistered and bleeding from limping behind the khalasar, not because she chooses to follow them, but because the Dothraki with their whips and random acts of violence from Maegi-hating Kos like Haggo, compel her to.

Mirri does acknowledge a contract she has made of her free will, as a godswife:

Quote

“All men are one flock, or so we are taught,” replied Mirri Maz Duur. “The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them.”

(AGoT, Ch.61 Daenerys VII)

True to her calling, she offers her healing skills to Khal Drogo. 

Dany misinterprets her offer:

Quote

“She will do no harm.” Dany felt she could trust this old, plain-faced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all.

(AGoT, Ch.61 Daenerys VII)

Note, this is Dany's feeling, not Mirri Maz Duur's decision. Mirri is a slave. When she is called before Dany, Dany can claim her as one of her slaves, and demand that she is not harmed. Of course, even that doesn't stop Qotho slapping Mirri, demanding that her tongue be cut out, threatening to skin her. It doesn't stop Aggo hold a knife at her throat, hitting her, kicking her, all in front of Dany.  Dany can only demand they stop it, and be listened to, sort of, eventually.  Mirri has no say in any of this, whether or not Dany is there to make demands. To the Dothraki she is a slave, a maegi that should have been killed, not saved.

But she does keep the oath she made to the sheep-god, to heal all men regardless of allegiance. Thanks to her care, the wound from the Lhazareen arrow heals completely. The man that staggered into her temple on his wife's shoulder, jumps off the healing alter and leads the way out. 

Then Drogo, who never had any inclination to do what the slave maegi told him, chooses the healing methods of his own people. Unluckily, just as they come to the marshy country of the bloodflies.

Quote

The flies circled Khal Drogo slowly ... Mirri Maz Duur’s poultice had itched and burned, and he had torn it off six days ago, cursing her for a maegi. The mud plaster was more soothing, and the herbwomen made him poppy wine as well. He’d been drinking it heavily these past three days; when it was not poppy wine, it was fermented mare’s milk or pepper beer.

(AGoT, Ch.64 Daenerys VIII)

So, Khal Drogo opened the wound made with by the bloodrider's arakh, tore off the anti-bacterial plaister, put on one that soothed but didn't heal, and palliated the pain by drinking exactly the things that Mirri Maz Duur had warned him would reduce his body's ability to heal. None of this is Mirri Maz Duur's doing. None of this is consistent with her explicitly stated intentions and advice. As a wise woman, Mirri might have foreseen that the Great Rider would prefer to follow the ways of his own people, that he would not heed a slave. There are hints, from the start, that Mirri foresaw her fate:

Quote

“Remember, maegi, as the khal fares, so shall you.”
“As you say, rider,” the woman answered him, gathering up her jars and bottles. “The Great Shepherd guards the flock.”

(AGoT, Ch.61 Daenerys VII)

She may well have seen herself burning with the Khal, one way or the other. But what could she have done? While Drogo was palliating the pain (ironic, that he couldn't or wouldn't bear the burning of the poltice - bit of a wuss, really, at odds with the guy that boasted that an arrow through the arm was a fly-sting, and a severed nipple just a scratch. Also at odds with the guy who clenched his teeth and had the arrow drawn out, and the scar sewn up, without sedative.) and pretending the necrosis wasn't getting worse, where was she? When he tore off the firepod poltice, where was she? When the flies started circling, where was she?

Quote

“Find Mirri Maz Duur,” she told him. The godswife would be walking among the other Lamb Men, in the long column of slaves. “Bring her to me, with her chest.”... Mirri Maz Duur entered, bowing low. Days on the march, trailing behind the khalasar, had left her limping and haggard, with blistered and bleeding feet and hollows under her eyes.

(AGoT, Ch.64 Daenerys VIII)

She was exactly where Dany demanded she be - in the long column of slaves that trailed behind the khalasar, while Dany rode at the front, with her Khal, oblivious to how the maegi was treated. That Mirri lived to limp after the Khalasar was thanks to Dany - if it had been left to Drogo's kos, the maegi would have died in her own town. But as far as being able to observe and tend to Khal Drogo's healing - well, she couldn't. It was only when it was too late that she was summoned.

When Qotho sees the state of his khal's wounds, he is quick to blame Mirri, to hit and kick her, but Mirri sees the truth of what has happened to the khal, his preference for his own people's medicine, for burning with fever rather than with firepod. She reminds them of his attitude towards her healing skills as she observes him for the first time since she treated him, and observes that she has been called too late:

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“You do not ask a slave, you tell her.” She went to Drogo burning on his mat, and gazed long at his wound. “Ask or tell, it makes no matter. He is beyond a healer’s skills.”

(AGoT,Ch.64 Daenerys VIII)

Although, of course, if Drogo had been capable of dismounting or of staying up on his horse, he would still be leading the khalasar, and she would still be limping along behind it. Mirri might have foreseen this, but she could not pre-empt it. Drogo would not ask a slave, and he did not ask for her.

But Dany did ask her

Quote

This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.”
“Death?” Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. “My death?” She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.
“No,” Mirri Maz Duur promised. “Not your death, Khaleesi.”
Dany trembled with relief. “Do it.”

... "In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage. This is the same. The same.”

(AGoT,Ch.64 Daenerys VIII)

I think Dany indicates non-verbally that she knew whose death would pay for Drogo's life, and clarified that it would not be her own, even as she told herself that she would have paid with her own life, if that had been required. Khal Drogo's last words are "No, no. Must ride." - telling Dany's slave to the end. But he has fallen from his horse and Dany was in charge.

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She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash.

...

“The khal lives,” Irri answered quietly … “The boy … he did not live, Khaleesi.”
...She had known somehow. She had known since she woke the first time to Jhiqui’s tears. No, she had known before she woke. Her dream came back to her, sudden and vivid, and she remembered the tall man with the copper skin and long silver-gold braid, bursting into flame.

...
 “They say the child was …”
...“Monstrous,” Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. “Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years.”

...

“My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent,” she said. “I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born.”
“That may be as it may be,” answered Mirri Maz Duur, “yet the creature that came forth from your womb was as I said. Death was in that tent, Khaleesi.”
“Only shadows,” Ser Jorah husked, but Dany could hear the doubt in his voice. “I saw, maegi. I saw you, alone, dancing with the shadows.”
“The grave casts long shadows, Iron Lord,” Mirri said. “Long and dark, and in the end no light can hold them back.”
Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew.

(AGoT, Ch.68 Daenerys IX)

There are a couple of interesting things here - one is that Ser Jorah has seen the shadows that no living man was meant to see. Another is that Dany does not initally blame Mirri Maz Duur for the death of her son, she blames Jorah.

We know that Mirri has in fact saved Dany's life, after drawing a dead thing from her womb. She has used her healing powers and her birthing skills to give Dany life. There is no sign that Mirri has left Dany barren. That also is a self-deceiving interpretation Dany makes when Mirri explains that Drogo is going to return from the dead in his full strength:

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“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” said Mirri Maz Duur. “When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.”

Dany's rage at Mirri, is this

Quote

“You knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it.”

She feels she was cheated. But Mirri had informed her truly - that some would say death was cleaner than the life that her blood magic could give, that the price would be death, for life. Not her death, but a commensurate death, one more than a thousand times more valuable to her than the horse's.

Dany knew Quaro, Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo's deaths were not part of the price either, nor Eroeh. She counts them as part of the price, though. She swears a crueler fate than Eroeh's awaits Mago  and Jhaqo, that they will die screaming. As she has just seen "what life is worth, when all the rest is gone" we can guess the revenge she contemplates to be terrible, if and when it comes to pass.

Really, Dany killed the Khal. Killed him with a pillow. Killed him with her failure to fetch Mirri until he was too weak to resist, until it was too late. Really, Drogo was fated to die when Ogo's bloodrider slashed his chest. In the ways of the Dothraki, it was his fate. He killed Ogo and Ogo's son, but their blood rider reached out from the grave and avenged them with that cut, which was his fate, and his son's fate.

Mirri knew that her fate was to burn with him and his son. And she knew that Dany couldn't do the blood magic without her spell-songs

Quote

“It is not enough to kill a horse,” she told Dany. “By itself, the blood is nothing. You do not have the words to make a spell, nor the wisdom to find them. Do you think bloodmagic is a game for children? You call me maegi as if it were a curse, but all it means is wise. You are a child, with a child’s ignorance. Whatever you mean to do, it will not work. Loose me from these bonds and I will help you.”

(AGoT, Ch.72 Daenerys X)

Dany does not free Mirri from the slavery she has imposed on her, but Mirri helps her anyway. Or maybe Dany's speech to the Dothraki that remain applied to the Lhazareen slaves, and by extension, to Mirri Maz Duur

Quote

“You will be my khalasar,” she told them. “I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one shall harm you. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.”

(AGoT, Ch.72 Daenerys X)

Although Dany doesn't ask for Mirri's hands or heart - she binds her hands and tells her she only wants her life. Dany misunderstands her, what she hears is her screams. Yet Mirri chooses to sing her birthing song for Dany's dragons, and brings them into the world alive. She might not have given her life by choice, but she gave her song.

Quote

Mirri Maz Duur began to sing in a shrill, ululating voice. The flames whirled and writhed, racing each other up the platform. The dusk shimmered as the air itself seemed to liquefy from the heat. Dany heard logs spit and crack. The fires swept over Mirri Maz Duur. Her song grew louder, shriller … then she gasped, again and again, and her song became a shuddering wail, thin and high and full of agony.

(AGoT, Ch.72 Daenerys X)

She doesn't need to be forgiven.

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38 minutes ago, Texas Hold Em said:

I would give Theon Greyjoy my forgiveness.  I don't care about the Starks or Winterfell.  I would have been fine if he had been able to keep that drafty castle.  The Starks would have taken his life if Balon rebelled again.  He owed them nothing.  

Theon also ordered the murder of men under his own command in order to cover up the fraud he had perpetrated with Ramsay's urging. He has never been any more loyal to his biological family and people than he had been to his adoptive one.

@Walda Mirri had also specifically instructed that no one enter the tent. If I recall correctly she mentioned that the dead would dance. She did not mention it casually. And Jorah took Dany into the tent. Both Dany and Drogo did everything she told them not to do. 

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5 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Easy choice, Mirri. I always thought she got a raw deal. I can't decide if she orchestrated the whole thing, or she was just opportunistic after Drogo refused her advice, but either way, I feel she was justified. She manipulated Dany into sacrificing Rhaego, but it was Dany's choice at every step. I really don't have it in me to blame Mirri for taking out a Dothraki prophesied to be a great leader of the men who had just destroyed her world.

Sandor is a close second, as his biggest sin was serving Joffrey. He was a shit prince and a shit king and a better man would have seen that and decided not to serve him. The world is filled with imperfect beings, however. He carried out questionable orders, Bronn would have done the same. Sandor has since come around and is in the process of letting his anger go. It started with Sansa, thenn Arya, and I can't wait to see what the Quiet Isle does to him.

As far as understandable motives, I pick Theon over Jaime. The whole time Theon was doing his thing, I understood it. I hated it and he did unforgivable things, but I understood where his misguided actions were coming from. He had divided loyalties and identities.

 Jaime ... I like Jaime a lot, but he tried to kill a child to cover his crimes. Since when is that ever an excuse that works? Jaime is my favorite character, I love him to bits, but he's a fool - was a fool, more importantly. He willingly committed the crime of treason with Cersei. He didn't push Bran to save his family - he did it to save himself and his lover. He never has fatherly thoughts about their kids until much later in the book because Cersei discouraged it. It was a selfish act, not a selfless one.

Darkstar's just a dick.

Jamie pushed Bran for numerous reasons the main one being to save himself and Cersie BUT, if Robert found out about him and Cersie it would be the end of house Lannister. 

Robert would kill Jamie, Cersie, Tyrion, The three children would either be killed or sent to the wall and silent sisters. Robert would turn into the beast of the trident and demand Tywins head or else he would destroy the Westerlands which if Tywin refused would be the end of the Lannisters 100%. Tyrells would love to help Robert and they so happen to have a beautiful bride to replace Cersie as well. Tywins bannerman would leave him because winning a war against the rest of Westeros would be impossible.

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2 hours ago, Stormking902 said:

Robert would turn into the beast of the trident ...

This actually seems like a reasonable scenario, and I can't say it would bother me much, having seen the Lannisters and their venality and plotting through the rest of the books. Obviously, Jaime would have been against this outcome.

 

4 hours ago, Walda said:

Not forgive so much as acquit Mirri Maz Duur. 

Really good detail! The more I revisit these scenes, the more I'm for Mirri over Daenerys. I never had a strong sympathy for Drogo, but appreciated that he was so good to Dany and taught her leadership and self confidence. But he was a mass killer, rapist, slaver -- something Dany still doesn't let herself truly feel. Let's not even go into "The Stallion That F*cks the Word".

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