Poll: Is Daario actually Euron?

[Amris]

No.

[Platypus Rex]

19 hours ago, Back door hodor said:

I mean more that if there was something there to notice...someone would have, since no one has in my opinion, the coincidental evidence we do have is not enough, like I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be Silence, that's just the first thing that came to mind,(and I think it parallels nicely with stranger, the other evidence is suspect but stranger puts it over the top for many people, a sighting of Silence, would do the same, at least for me.) it could be anything. 

There is not enough there yet to prove this for me, baring a future reveal. Just because something could be possible from timeline wise doesnt mean it is. 

Also for the record I personally do not find thier personalities all that similar, definitely not as similar as you seem to think so. Dario seems to me to have the brash arrogance of a young man, while Eurons confidence comes more from the effect he has on others(he knows people fear him) and seems slightly older in when he talks and how he acts(again opinion).

The only argument I am seeing here is a general observation that if the theory was true I ought to have more evidence, because GRRM would give us more clues.   The idea seems to be that GRRM would WANT everyone to know, so he would not be subtle at all with his clues

The "someone would notice" argument is really "GRRM would have told us that someone noticed" argument.  Otherwise, you have provided no coherent argument that any particular POV character would have noticed anything.  Barristan, for instance, is not in the middle of the ocean where Euron would presumably sail, nor is he in Euron's secret pirate cove, where he might perhaps hide his ship.  He is not even hanging out at the docks every day keeping his eyes peeled for galleys that might happen to have red decks (why would he?)  So why would he notice anything?  Same goes for any other POV character you might name.

You don't find their personalities similar?  But you give no specifics.  But sure, if they are different people, they presumably have different personalities.  But that's entirely circular.  Falise, in her own point of view, did not think Euron was a cruel man who would ever hurt her.  He seemed different to her.  She was wrong.  If she can be wrong about Euron, why can't Dany be wrong about Daario?  Why can't you be wrong?  How well do you really know Daario?  Why would Daario necessarily play all his "evil" cards all at once?

Do you think he was a nice guy because he was caught trying to cut down those murdered children in order to spare Dany's feelings?  But dude, what if that wasn't what he was doing?  What if he was stringing up those murdered children (who he murdered) in order to enrage Dany's feelings?  Doesn't that whole story, of his being caught cutting them down, seem a bit fishy to you?   

By the same logic, you presumably believe that their facial features are not identical either.  But again that is circular.  

So Daario has the brash arrogance of a young man, you say?  And what kind of brash arrogance does Euron have?  Oh yes, I have it.  He has the brash arrogance of a middle-aged man who looks younger than he actually is, but is otherwise just as brash and arrogant.  Yes, I see what you mean.  It is totally different except that it LOOKS exactly the same.

And as for there being more evidence, we're just going to have to make our bets, because I see no reason why I should not be intrigued by the evidence I already have.  Just one example -- no-one has tried to explain those salt stains on his boots.  What does that sneaky little detail signify?  That he is, secretly a pirate or a sailor ... but NOT Euron?

An evil blue-eyed, beautiful, pale-skinned, smooth-skinned, bearded, Greyjoy-nosed, brash, arrogant, porn-star-in-bed, tongue-ripping, pirate ... except that he is NOT Euron.  Okay man.  Let's just take our bets then.

[kissdbyfire]

14 minutes ago, Platypus Rex said:

The only argument I am seeing here is a general observation that if the theory was true I ought to have more evidence, because GRRM would give us more clues.   The idea seems to be that GRRM would WANT everyone to know, so he would not be subtle at all with his clues

 

No, that’s not it. Martin is subtle, very subtle, most times. But subtle clues are one thing... using the absence of proof to the contrary to support an idea quite another. 

[Platypus Rex]

18 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

No, that’s not it. Martin is subtle, very subtle, most times. But subtle clues are one thing... using the absence of proof to the contrary to support an idea quite another. 

Are you saying that's what I did?  

No.  I am convinced by the clues I see.  I am unconvinced by the counter-argument that there should be more clues or better clues.

[Back door hodor]

7 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

The only argument I am seeing here is a general observation that if the theory was true I ought to have more evidence, because GRRM would give us more clues.   The idea seems to be that GRRM would WANT everyone to know, so he would not be subtle at all with his clues

The "someone would notice" argument is really "GRRM would have told us that someone noticed" argument.  Otherwise, you have provided no coherent argument that any particular POV character would have noticed anything.  Barristan, for instance, is not in the middle of the ocean where Euron would presumably sail, nor is he in Euron's secret pirate cove, where he might perhaps hide his ship.  He is not even hanging out at the docks every day keeping his eyes peeled for galleys that might happen to have red decks (why would he?)  So why would he notice anything?  Same goes for any other POV character you might name.

You don't find their personalities similar?  But you give no specifics.  But sure, if they are different people, they presumably have different personalities.  But that's entirely circular.  Falise, in her own point of view, did not think Euron was a cruel man who would ever hurt her.  He seemed different to her.  She was wrong.  If she can be wrong about Euron, why can't Dany be wrong about Daario?  Why can't you be wrong?  How well do you really know Daario?  Why would Daario necessarily play all his "evil" cards all at once?

Do you think he was a nice guy because he was caught trying to cut down those murdered children in order to spare Dany's feelings?  But dude, what if that wasn't what he was doing?  What if he was stringing up those murdered children (who he murdered) in order to enrage Dany's feelings?  Doesn't that whole story, of his being caught cutting them down, seem a bit fishy to you?   

By the same logic, you presumably believe that their facial features are not identical either.  But again that is circular.  

So Daario has the brash arrogance of a young man, you say?  And what kind of brash arrogance does Euron have?  Oh yes, I have it.  He has the brash arrogance of a middle-aged man who looks younger than he actually is, but is otherwise just as brash and arrogant.  Yes, I see what you mean.  It is totally different except that it LOOKS exactly the same.

And as for there being more evidence, we're just going to have to make our bets, because I see no reason why I should not be intrigued by the evidence I already have.  Just one example -- no-one has tried to explain those salt stains on his boots.  What does that sneaky little detail signify?  That he is, secretly a pirate or a sailor ... but NOT Euron?

An evil blue-eyed, beautiful, pale-skinned, smooth-skinned, bearded, Greyjoy-nosed, brash, arrogant, porn-star-in-bed, tongue-ripping, pirate ... except that he is NOT Euron.  Okay man.  Let's just take our bets then.

Very well, the evidence is enough for you in this case, for me, it's not. 

To be clear, yes, I believe though Barristan, Jorah or someone else Dani's entourage, we would be given a little more, even at this stage. And it really doesn't have to be one of them, our friends on the Cinnamon Wind(whose names escape me unfortunately) for example could have made a comment that Sam did not fully understand but the reader did, Placing Silence anywhere but where its supposed to be at a given time.

No I don't think either of them are nice, just slightly different kind of assholes. Dario while not nice by any means, seems more practical and grounded in his concerns, manners, and actions, I would compare him more to Bron.

Euron is a lot more grandiose conversely, also probably addicted to a mind altering pyscoactive and possibly magical substance. Seems much less stable and more introverted than Dario.(also another great example of would be proof that isn't there, Darios lips,).

And how do you know that's not the Harlaw nose? Haha(kidding)

[Platypus Rex]

18 hours ago, Back door hodor said:

Very well, the evidence is enough for you in this case, for me, it's not. 

To be clear, yes, I believe though Barristan, Jorah or someone else Dani's entourage, we would be given a little more, even at this stage. And it really doesn't have to be one of them, our friends on the Cinnamon Wind(whose names escape me unfortunately) for example could have made a comment that Sam did not fully understand but the reader did, Placing Silence anywhere but where its supposed to be at a given time.

No I don't think either of them are nice, just slightly different kind of assholes. Dario while not nice by any means, seems more practical and grounded in his concerns, manners, and actions, I would compare him more to Bron.

Euron is a lot more grandiose conversely, also probably addicted to a mind altering pyscoactive and possibly magical substance. Seems much less stable and more introverted than Dario.(also another great example of would be proof that isn't there, Darios lips,).

And how do you know that's not the Harlaw nose? Haha(kidding)

Okay.  So your argument is that there would have been a clue in Samwell's Cinammon Wind chapters.  But what about those Ironborn that tried to pass as Tyroshi, because the crew all dyed their whiskers all sorts of colors?    Remember how the gig was up, when observers hailed the ship in Tyroshi, and NOBODY ANSWERED.  Mutes, maybe?  Oh, is that not obvious enough?  Maybe they just don't speak Tyroshi? Okay.  Maybe.

But what other character do we know, with salty boots, who likes to dye his beard and pretend to be Tyroshi?  Oh yeah, that's Daario.  The guy whose nose is the same shape as Asha Greyjoy and Aeron Greyjoy.  "Even his beard wears false colors", complains Ser Jorah.  So it's not like no-one notices anything fishy.   And if Ser Jorah's suspicions are not enough, GRRM tells us right out in an SSM that there is more to Daario than meets the eye.

So obviously, there is a mystery here.  What theory do you have to explain the mystery?  Whatever your answer is, you must have lots of clues for it, that are much better than my clues.  Because isn't that your argument?  That there should be more and better clues?  So where are those clues?  Solve the mystery, then.  Because there definitely is one, according to GRRM.

So now Daario is practical and grounded, but Euron is not?  And Daario is somehow more "brash and arrogant", but Euron is somehow more "grandiose"?  I'm trying to wrap my head around these fine distinctions, that seem to vaguely contradict each other.  How has Euron managed to survive all these years, if he is not, in at least some respects, practical and grounded?  Is it simply that the Storm God smiles on all his random chaos and makes sure it all works out for him?   I don't think so.  As I previously pointed out, those black sails and red deck are not just random chaotic style choices.  They serve practical purposes.

In any event, Daario sounds pretty grandiose to me, when he claims that "the days that I have lived are as numberless as the stars in the sky".   Doesn't that almost sound like he imagines himself to be something more than mortal?  Surely, Daario (assuming he is not yet 50, and did not start slaying foes and bedding women on a daily basis till he was at least 12) knows that there are more than 13,000 stars in the sky?   Or how about this:  "I would tell you all the names of all the men I have slain, but before I could finish, your dragons would grow large as castles, the walls of Yunkai would crumble into yellow dust, and winter would come and go and come again."   Okay, so if he can only rattle off 20 names a minute, and only keeps going for 12 hours a day, he would be up to 10.5 million names in one year alone, and the walls of Yunkai would still be standing.  Yes? 

Okay, so maybe it's not exactly the same as Euron saying "I am the Storm - the First and the Last".  Maybe it's not as explicitly mego-maniacal as openly asking to be worshipped as the god of slaughter, by his own brother? But must Daario/Euron really give away the game completely by saying the exact same thing in the exact same words?  If Daario imagines himself to be the incarnation of a god of death and slaughter, like Euron evidently does, would not that help explain Daario's words to Dany?

But what about Daario' lips? , you ask.  And Euron's use addiction to magical substances?

Uh, what about it?  According to Euron, he only just recently captured the Qartheen warlocks and their stash of Shade of the Evening.  And these are evidently the same 4 warlocks that set out in pursuit of Dany, who they thought was headed for Pentos, 2 weeks after Dany left Qarth.  So Euron captured these warlocks, give or take maybe some weeks or even months, at around the same time that Dany first meets Daario.  There is no way to determine, from the info GRRM gives us, which of these events come first.

So Daario/Euron, when we first meet him, may not have yet started drinking the Shade of the Evening.  And if he had started, he may not have been drinking it long.   Not that he has much to hide.  Euron's lips are described as looking "bruised and blue".  Would anyone bat an eye if Daario's lips looked bruised?

But the other colors Daario wears are distracting, and can make bluish lips seem more normal.  When Dany first meets Daario, his mustache is gold.  Then, for he first leaves her (supposedly for Laazar) he has died them purple.  Later, when he returns, they are dyed gold again.  Then his mustache is dyed BLUE.  And his beard is always PURPLE.  Would this not all this distract from his blueish lips (assuming the effect does not wear off ever)?

And of course, she has a dream about being kissed by a man with blue lips, only to wake up with Daario beside her.

Oh and it is not (just) the Harlaw nose, because Aeron also has that nose.  But sure, it could be more an Ironborn trait than a Greyjoy trait.  Not that it makes much difference for our purposes here.

[kleevedge]

I suppose Daario's beard is blue for all the shade of the evening he spills? No, Daario is not Euron. I'm more apt to believe Daario is the harpy.

[the trees have eyes]

On 3/1/2019 at 11:36 PM, kissdbyfire said:

No, that’s not it. Martin is subtle, very subtle, most times. But subtle clues are one thing... using the absence of proof to the contrary to support an idea quite another. 

And, let's not forget explicitly rejecting the text when it doesn't fit whatever flight of fancy is being proposed, sort of like this:

On 3/1/2019 at 11:17 PM, Platypus Rex said:

Do you think he was a nice guy because he was caught trying to cut down those murdered children in order to spare Dany's feelings?  But dude, what if that wasn't what he was doing?  What if he was stringing up those murdered children (who he murdered) in order to enrage Dany's feelings?  Doesn't that whole story, of his being caught cutting them down, seem a bit fishy to you?   

The very idea that this is included in a rebuttal (and really a rather condescending lecture as is your m.o.) to someone to justify why you can't find any evidence to convince them of your argument is rather telling and very ironic.  Attack is the best form of defense I suppose.

[Platypus Rex]

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

The very idea that this is included in a rebuttal (and really a rather condescending lecture as is your m.o.) to someone to justify why you can't find any evidence to convince them of your argument is rather telling and very ironic.  Attack is the best form of defense I suppose.

My remarks were addressed to Back door hodor, who, judging from his remarks, was open to discussion.  Back door hodor (unlike you) has NOT taken the position that I have presented absolutely no evidence in support of my position.   Rather, his position is that there ought to be MORE evidence if the theory was true.  That's part of why I am exchanging ideas with him.   He seems to listen to and respond to what I actually say.

I pointed out a certain possibility to him, and asked him "Doesn't that seem fishy to you?"  It was an honest question.  If he had said "No, that does not seem fishy", then we just would have had to agree to disagree.  I would have accepted it as his honest opinion.

You are of course welcome to interject your own opinion on this point.  But instead remaining on topic, and saying that it does NOT seems fish to you, you have attacked me as "condescending" for merely asking the question.   By asking the question I have engaged in "attack".  Really?  

What if my suspicions are right?  Seems to me, that if it really was Daario nailing up those children, then he really is every bit as mad and cruel as Euron.  I hardly think the point is completely irrelevant, since Back door hodor's objections were based on distinctions in Daario's and Euron's respective personalities.

You have also tried to insinuate that I am somehow morally contemptible for defending my position in argument.  Dude, relax.  You outnumber me 20 to 1 here.  

[SFDanny]

No

[the trees have eyes]

4 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

You have also tried to insinuate that I am somehow morally contemptible for defending my position in argument.  Dude, relax.  

Eh, don't mistake disagreement and exasperation with your approach for something more serious like contempt.  The irony of a "hypothetical" restatement of the text, and let's be honest it's a deliberate contradiction, in a discussion about the absence of compelling evidence is pretty glaring.  No, i don't think there is anything to suggest Daario did this and I find it odd that none of the Merreenese protested their innocence when Dany demanded a very specific number of their lives in reprisal.  You can make any stuff up and then say "it's not specifically contradicted in the text and I find it likely / appealing so it's a valid approach" but that's a rather pointless game: much better to actually follow the text and support what you argue (even provocative hypotheticals) with something solid.

But I guess theoryworld would be a smaller place if that were the case.

[Platypus Rex]

2 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

No, i don't think there is anything to suggest Daario did this and I find it odd that none of the Merreenese protested their innocence when Dany demanded a very specific number of their lives in reprisal.  

There was no opportunity to "protest their innocence".  Dany made no accusations, as far as we know.  She just declared, in response to  the sobbing old woman's question, that she would kill 163 of them.  And then she carried that out.

I guess your theory is that all 163 of them are guilty.  And that, moreover, that all 163 of them said "It's a fair cop; just nail me up and slash out my bowels; I totally deserve it; all 163 of us did it, contributing one slave child apiece," merely because nothing to the contrary is specifically mentioned, in the text.  Had they actually been accused with anything (AFAIK they were not) I would find it "very odd" that they did not protest their innocence, even if they WERE guilty.  But I guess you and I have very different ideas about human nature.

Obviously. this was collective, symbolic punishment, or revenge.  Individual guilt or innocence was irrelevant.  And, as far as I can tell from the text, no specific Meereenese culprits were ever identified.

What exactly was the motive for this weird crime anyway?  I'd love to have been a fly on that wall.  "Hey, I have a great idea.  Let us, all 163 of us, murder one innocent child apiece, in the most horrible way possible, just to prove that we are EVIL EVIL EVIL.  That way, Dany will be especially eager to conquer the city, and when she does, and kills us all, which we totally deserve, we will all go straight to Hell."  "Great Idea, I always wanted to go to Hell."  "But wait!  What if she just wants to butcher 163 random people in revenge, instead of holding a thorough investigation and a fair trial."  "Oh, well, in that case, we'll just have to volunteer.  I assume none of us will want to miss out on being nailed to a post with our bowels slit open."

 

[Platypus Rex]

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

But I guess theoryworld would be a smaller place if that were the case.

"She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing to the next.  The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon.  But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, and she heard their moans and smelled their bowls and blood, …

Dany put the glass aside, frowning.  It was just.  It was.  I did it for the children."

Yup.  That's right, Dany.  Move along.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.  It was just.  After all, you did it for the children.  Never mind that you just murdered 163 random people without even an investigation -- without even an accusation -- merely because you were pissed.  It was JUST.  You did it FOR THE CHILDREN.  How can anyone suspect Daario.  After all, he is totally HOT.

That nice nice Daario was just trying to SPARE YOUR FEELINGS, when he was found nailing up -- oops, I mean cutting down -- those poor children.  Move along.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.  It was JUST.  After all, you did it for the children.

It is just by chance that mystery-man Daario just happened to be the one who was riding ahead and "found" those children first.  It was purely by chance that GRRM did not have Barristan ride ahead and find the children first.  Nothing being set up here.  Nothing being set up here at all.  Just a random detail by GRRM that does not mean anything.  There's no way your decision to murder 163 random people could POSSIBLY come back to haunt you.  You only did exactly what GRRM would have done in your place.

Clearly, it is just my overactive imagination that causes me to think there is something a little off about this whole situation.

[Back door hodor]

On 3/2/2019 at 6:11 PM, Platypus Rex said:

Okay.  So your argument is that there would have been a clue in Samwell's Cinammon Wind chapters.  But what about those Ironborn that tried to pass as Tyroshi, because the crew all dyed their whiskers all sorts of colors?    Remember how the gig was up, when observers hailed the ship in Tyroshi, and NOBODY ANSWERED.  Mutes, maybe?  Oh, is that not obvious enough?  Maybe they just don't speak Tyroshi? Okay.  Maybe.

But what other character do we know, with salty boots, who likes to dye his beard and pretend to be Tyroshi?  Oh yeah, that's Daario.  The guy whose nose is the same shape as Asha Greyjoy and Aeron Greyjoy.  "Even his beard wears false colors", complains Ser Jorah.  So it's not like no-one notices anything fishy.   And if Ser Jorah's suspicions are not enough, GRRM tells us right out in an SSM that there is more to Daario than meets the eye.

So obviously, there is a mystery here.  What theory do you have to explain the mystery?  Whatever your answer is, you must have lots of clues for it, that are much better than my clues.  Because isn't that your argument?  That there should be more and better clues?  So where are those clues?  Solve the mystery, then.  Because there definitely is one, according to GRRM.

So now Daario is practical and grounded, but Euron is not?  And Daario is somehow more "brash and arrogant", but Euron is somehow more "grandiose"?  I'm trying to wrap my head around these fine distinctions, that seem to vaguely contradict each other.  How has Euron managed to survive all these years, if he is not, in at least some respects, practical and grounded?  Is it simply that the Storm God smiles on all his random chaos and makes sure it all works out for him?   I don't think so.  As I previously pointed out, those black sails and red deck are not just random chaotic style choices.  They serve practical purposes.

In any event, Daario sounds pretty grandiose to me, when he claims that "the days that I have lived are as numberless as the stars in the sky".   Doesn't that almost sound like he imagines himself to be something more than mortal?  Surely, Daario (assuming he is not yet 50, and did not start slaying foes and bedding women on a daily basis till he was at least 12) knows that there are more than 13,000 stars in the sky?   Or how about this:  "I would tell you all the names of all the men I have slain, but before I could finish, your dragons would grow large as castles, the walls of Yunkai would crumble into yellow dust, and winter would come and go and come again."   Okay, so if he can only rattle off 20 names a minute, and only keeps going for 12 hours a day, he would be up to 10.5 million names in one year alone, and the walls of Yunkai would still be standing.  Yes? 

Okay, so maybe it's not exactly the same as Euron saying "I am the Storm - the First and the Last".  Maybe it's not as explicitly mego-maniacal as openly asking to be worshipped as the god of slaughter, by his own brother? But must Daario/Euron really give away the game completely by saying the exact same thing in the exact same words?  If Daario imagines himself to be the incarnation of a god of death and slaughter, like Euron evidently does, would not that help explain Daario's words to Dany?

But what about Daario' lips? , you ask.  And Euron's use addiction to magical substances?

Uh, what about it?  According to Euron, he only just recently captured the Qartheen warlocks and their stash of Shade of the Evening.  And these are evidently the same 4 warlocks that set out in pursuit of Dany, who they thought was headed for Pentos, 2 weeks after Dany left Qarth.  So Euron captured these warlocks, give or take maybe some weeks or even months, at around the same time that Dany first meets Daario.  There is no way to determine, from the info GRRM gives us, which of these events come first.

So Daario/Euron, when we first meet him, may not have yet started drinking the Shade of the Evening.  And if he had started, he may not have been drinking it long.   Not that he has much to hide.  Euron's lips are described as looking "bruised and blue".  Would anyone bat an eye if Daario's lips looked bruised?

But the other colors Daario wears are distracting, and can make bluish lips seem more normal.  When Dany first meets Daario, his mustache is gold.  Then, for he first leaves her (supposedly for Laazar) he has died them purple.  Later, when he returns, they are dyed gold again.  Then his mustache is dyed BLUE.  And his beard is always PURPLE.  Would this not all this distract from his blueish lips (assuming the effect does not wear off ever)?

And of course, she has a dream about being kissed by a man with blue lips, only to wake up with Daario beside her.

Oh and it is not (just) the Harlaw nose, because Aeron also has that nose.  But sure, it could be more an Ironborn trait than a Greyjoy trait.  Not that it makes much difference for our purposes here.

I did not mean to make Dario sound simple or not intelligent, the comparison to Bron was meant as a compliment. I do think something is up with him obviously, if for nothing other than Dani trusts him way too much. So to answer your question I think it is more likely that he is a spy for Ilyrio/Varys or his is working for/is the Harpy. 

We are now getting into very interesting territory, the Dario quote you provided clearly reminds you of Euron, with the quote from Euron Gould provided reminding you of Dario. While I understand why you would make this connection, I didn't and still don't.

It is a sell sword bragging that he's killed a lot of people.(granted, he does it in a very poetic way, one might even say grandiose if they were inclined to haha), Euron also says he kills a lot of people, with a healthy dose of blasphemy thrown in, but his speech is more about the affect he has on those still living,(From Ibb to Asshai people see my sails and pray)than bragging about past accomplishments.

So I read a couple of the other responses and want to say that personally I took no offense to anything you said to me. 

[the trees have eyes]

On 3/4/2019 at 1:26 AM, Platypus Rex said:

There was no opportunity to "protest their innocence".  Dany made no accusations, as far as we know.  She just declared, in response to  the sobbing old woman's question, that she would kill 163 of them.  And then she carried that out.

Your fiction that the Grand Masters did not have 163 children nailed up on every milepost on the way to Meereen to taunt Dany once they knew she had freed the slaves of Astapor and Yunkai is bizarre and frankly silly.  You can play devil's advocate and say that Daario did this in complete secrecy and that the poor Meereenese had nothing to do with it but that is not an argument supported by a shred of whisper of a hint anywhere in the text, nor one that should be given more than a second's consideration before calling it the pure bull that it is.

The author shows what he wants and needs to for us to comprehend the guilt of the Meereenese and this is clearly established.  There is of course plenty of opportunity for the Meereenese to protest their innocence but absolutely no need to include any further text establishing that they not Daario  were responsible for the atrocity.  Quick disclaimer to say "they" being certain members of the elite, not all of them and the entire episode is well set up by GRRM to make us see how revenge only begets more conflict: quite simply two wrongs don't make a right.

On 3/4/2019 at 1:26 AM, Platypus Rex said:

I guess your theory is that all 163 of them are guilty.  And that, moreover, that all 163 of them said "It's a fair cop; just nail me up and slash out my bowels; I totally deserve it; all 163 of us did it, contributing one slave child apiece," merely because nothing to the contrary is specifically mentioned, in the text.  Had they actually been accused with anything (AFAIK they were not) I would find it "very odd" that they did not protest their innocence, even if they WERE guilty.  But I guess you and I have very different ideas about human nature.

Way to go champ, erect a strawman and batter it down like a true righteous internet hero.  Except I never said any of that of course.  This is pure fabrication and quite absurdly ad hominem.  Take your own advice: "Dude, relax",  remember?

And by the way this fabrication is actually fairly contemptible.  You have a real habit of shifting the argument and going on the attack when your arguments are empty but it's a fairly sly debating ploy that I have little time for.

On 3/4/2019 at 1:26 AM, Platypus Rex said:

What exactly was the motive for this weird crime anyway?  I'd love to have been a fly on that wall.  "Hey, I have a great idea.  Let us, all 163 of us, murder one innocent child apiece, in the most horrible way possible, just to prove that we are EVIL EVIL EVIL.  That way, Dany will be especially eager to conquer the city, and when she does, and kills us all, which we totally deserve, we will all go straight to Hell."  "Great Idea, I always wanted to go to Hell."  "But wait!  What if she just wants to butcher 163 random people in revenge, instead of holding a thorough investigation and a fair trial."  "Oh, well, in that case, we'll just have to volunteer.  I assume none of us will want to miss out on being nailed to a post with our bowels slit open."

Don't be childish or unusually stupid.  Taunting an enemy is fairly common in warfare, as with the Yunkai pissing off the battlements to show their contempt for and lack of fear of Dany's ragtag army.  It shows defiance to the enemy thus boosting morale and resolve on your own side while either dispiriting the enemy when they realise they are in for a hard fight rather than a surrender or, even better, enraging them and causing them to make poor tactical decisions.  The Meereenese believe they are impregnable behind their walls (and indeed Dany has to send a strike party in through the sewers to free the slaves in order to take the city from within), that murdering children will demoralise her ex-slave followers as they see what grizzly fate waits for them also and will bait Dany into launching an ill-considered frontal assault out of rage / to save more slaves that they will easily repel.

Of course they do succeed in enraging her and she does lose her temper and her judgment but not in the way they were hoping for....

So far you have reacted to a number of comments that you lack evidence for your argument with the imposition of an ass pull (Daario did it), a pretty contemptible strawman on collective guilt and now another manufactured and childish parody of how the Meereenese acted rather than actually attempting to understand their actions.  It's a pretty poor showing all round.

On 3/4/2019 at 4:07 AM, Platypus Rex said:

"She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing to the next.  The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon.  But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, and she heard their moans and smelled their bowls and blood, …

Dany put the glass aside, frowning.  It was just.  It was.  I did it for the children."

Yup.  That's right, Dany.  Move along.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.  It was just.  After all, you did it for the children.  Never mind that you just murdered 163 random people without even an investigation -- without even an accusation -- merely because you were pissed.  It was JUST.  You did it FOR THE CHILDREN. 

If you could only follow through the passage you quote selectively with such close-minded certainty and see the doubt in her mind as to what she had ordered and the beginning of regret and remorse you might have a more balanced picture of her frame of mind but no one would make the mistake of accusing you of objectivity here.

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys VI

"We will rid ourselves of the corpses, then. Starting with those in the plaza below. Grey Worm, will you see to it?"

"The queen commands, these ones obey."

"Best bring sacks as well as shovels, Worm," Brown Ben counseled. "Well past ripe, those ones. Falling off those poles in bits and pieces, and crawling with . . ."

"He knows. So do I."

Dany remembered the horror she had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh justice is still justice.

Your Grace," said Missandei, "Ghiscari inter their honored dead in crypts below their manses. If you would boil the bones clean and return them to their kin, it would be a kindness."

The widows will curse me all the same. "Let it be done."

 

None of this exhonerates the particular Meereenese who gave the orders or incriminates Daario so it seems rather a bit of distraction and Dany bashing you wanted to get off your chest rather than a considered argument.

 

On 3/4/2019 at 4:07 AM, Platypus Rex said:

How can anyone suspect Daario.  After all, he is totally HOT.

You've applied a reductio ad absurrdum line of reasoning to the Merreenese and now you infantilize Dany's thinking.  Seems everyone is dumb or easily manipulated except the shining beacon of perspicacity that is you. Give over.  It would help to present credible arguments rather than lampoon the characters in order to discredit what they do or think.  Once gain, attack is the best form of defense it seems.

On 3/4/2019 at 4:07 AM, Platypus Rex said:

That nice nice Daario was just trying to SPARE YOUR FEELINGS, when he was found nailing up -- oops, I mean cutting down -- those poor children.  Move along.  Move along.  Nothing to see here.  It was JUST.  After all, you did it for the children.

Where did Daario happen upon 163 children, did he have them in his saddle bags?  Did the Merreenese leave groups of children conveniently along the way with bags of nails and hammers so Daario could do this at the drop of a hat?  Or did he steal children from Dany's entourage and no one was the wiser or noticed?  What need did Daario have to win favour with Dany when he had already won Yunkai for her by bringing the Stormcrows over to her side and earning her trust and favour?

On 3/4/2019 at 4:07 AM, Platypus Rex said:

It is just by chance that mystery-man Daario just happened to be the one who was riding ahead and "found" those children first.  It was purely by chance that GRRM did not have Barristan ride ahead and find the children first.  Nothing being set up here.  Nothing being set up here at all.  Just a random detail by GRRM that does not mean anything.  There's no way your decision to murder 163 random people could POSSIBLY come back to haunt you.  You only did exactly what GRRM would have done in your place.

What a complete mystery that the only trained cavalry that Dany possesses should go on scouting missions rather than Barristan leading a platoon of Unsullied on foot.  What a total and utter mystery, I'm dumbfounded by it Like any poor conspiracy theorist you overlook the obvious and entirely logical explanation because you want something more edgy.

On 3/4/2019 at 4:07 AM, Platypus Rex said:

Clearly, it is just my overactive imagination that causes me to think there is something a little off about this whole situation.

Good.  The first part of dealing with a problem is admitting you have one.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

[Alexis-something-Rose]

No. He's not Euron. 

Honestly, I think there are more hints that Daario could be the Blackfyre in the story than him being Euron who is west of Westeros.

[Platypus Rex]

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

Your fiction that the Grand Masters did not have 163 children nailed up on every milepost on the way to Meereen to taunt Dany once they knew she had freed the slaves of Astapor and Yunkai is bizarre and frankly silly.  

The only hard evidence we have it that SOMEBODY committed this atrocity.  It was committed on such a scale that the culprit must have been backed by a substantial military force.  

The obvious suspects, on a macro scale, are (1) the invading forces; and (2) the defending forces.  As a general rule, it is more likely to be invading forces that massacre local populations.  The only evidence we have that it was the defending forces is Dany's assumption that nobody associated with her army could possibly do such a thing.  But leaders cannot necessarily control the dogs of war that they unleash.

On an INDIVIDUAL level, no culprits have been identified.  The ONLY obvious suspect we have (on a purely INDIVIDUAL level) is Daario.  He was caught red handed at the scene of the crime, giving weird out-of character excuses for his behavior.

Is that an airtight case?  No.  But it is many times more than anything you have against a single one of the 163 slave masters butchered by Dany in revenge.  

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

The author shows what he wants and needs to for us to comprehend the guilt of the Meereenese and this is clearly established.

How exactly is it clearly established?  Just because Dany makes certain assumptions?  By that logic, Sandor is "clearly" dead; and Jon Snow is "clearly" Ned's son by Wylla.

You can present not one iota of evidence that a single one of the 163 men that Dany revenge-murders had any responsibility whatsoever for this atrocity.  Which is a very curious situation if you think about it.  If GRRM is trying to fool us with red herrings, he is not even trying that hard.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

There is of course plenty of opportunity for the Meereenese to protest their innocence but absolutely no need to include any further text establishing that they not Daario  were responsible for the atrocity.  Quick disclaimer to say "they" being certain members of the elite, not all of them and the entire episode is well set up by GRRM to make us see how revenge only begets more conflict: quite simply two wrongs don't make a right.

Your position, I thought, was that they must be guilty because none of them denied it.  Now you're backing off of that it seems.  Now, it seems, only a few Meereenese were guilty, and you have no idea how many (if any) of these elite killers were among the 163 that Dany murdered.  So I guess a lot of them must have denied their guilt, and you have no idea how many. 

There goes your "proof" up in smoke.  Obviously, the fact that she murdered them is not proof that they are guilty; either collectively or individually.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

Way to go champ, erect a strawman and batter it down like a true righteous internet hero.  Except I never said any of that of course.  This is pure fabrication and quite absurdly ad hominem.  Take your own advice: "Dude, relax",  remember?

And by the way this fabrication is actually fairly contemptible.  You have a real habit of shifting the argument and going on the attack when your arguments are empty but it's a fairly sly debating ploy that I have little time for.

Was it not YOUR argument that the Meereenese must be guilty because none of them denied it?  

All I am doing is exploring the logical implications of YOUR argument.

Never worry.  I never accused YOU of being capable of following the logical implications of YOUR argument. 

So what is it?  Were they all guilty; or were some of them innocent?  If at least some of them were innocent, then some of them must have denied it.  And if some of them denied it, your argument is based on a false premise.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

Don't be childish or unusually stupid.  Taunting an enemy is fairly common in warfare, as with the Yunkai pissing off the battlements to show their contempt for and lack of fear of Dany's ragtag army. 

There's taunting and then there's taunting.  Obviously, there are easier ways to taunt your enemies, that make more actual sense.  Like, for instance, pissing off the battlements.

I suppose there are also even harder and more uncomfortable ways of taunting your enemies.  For instance, the slave masters of Meereen could have chopped off their own genitals, and nailed them up at every mile-post, pointing the way to Meereen.

The atrocity committed here is not quite THAT inconvenient.  But it still does not make much sense.  Maybe if we had specific evidence against the Meerenese we could overlook that.  Obviously, somebody committed the atrocity, whether it makes sense or not.  If we had specific evidence that the Meerenese decided to slaughter a part of their own population, we could worry about the motive later.  Maybe they're just insane.  

But you've got nothing.  Just Dany's assumption that nobody on HER side committed the atrocity.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

So far you have reacted to a number of comments that you lack evidence for your argument with the imposition of an ass pull (Daario did it), a pretty contemptible strawman on collective guilt and now another manufactured and childish parody of how the Meereenese acted rather than actually attempting to understand their actions.  It's a pretty poor showing all round.

I pointed out a suspicious situation - and a possibility you had not considered.  One that Dany did not consider in her dangerous rush-to-judgment.  Why is the burden of proof on me?  There are two suspects for this atrocity - the Meereenese forces, and Dany's advanced forces led by Daario.  

You cannot prove that Daario is innocent by yelling and screaming at me, and telling me I have no evidence.  Did I ever suggest that Daario be summarily executed without a trial or an investigation?   YOU are the one trying to prove that Daario is innocent by assuming that the other suspects are guilty.  And where is YOUR evidence?   At the very least, I have Daario caught red handed at the crime scene making weird excuses.  You don't even have that, against the Meereenese.  

For you, the Meereenese HAVE to be guilty, because the only other plausible suspect is Daario and his advanced forces.  You are arguing from ignorance.  

I make no apology for my "childish" parody of the 163 hypothetical Meereenese child-murders.  If I am not allowed to make fun of insane sadistic  child-murderers, who am I allowed to make fun of?  And if you agree with me that all 163 are unlikely to be guilty, then you understand at least part of the point of the parody.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

If you could only follow through the passage you quote selectively with such close-minded certainty and see the doubt in her mind as to what she had ordered and the beginning of regret and remorse you might have a more balanced picture of her frame of mind but no one would make the mistake of accusing you of objectivity here.

Everybody selectively quotes.  Nobody quotes the entire book.  So what?  How do Dany's doubts and guilty conscience prove the guilt of her victims?    They don't.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys VI

"We will rid ourselves of the corpses, then. Starting with those in the plaza below. Grey Worm, will you see to it?"

"The queen commands, these ones obey."

"Best bring sacks as well as shovels, Worm," Brown Ben counseled. "Well past ripe, those ones. Falling off those poles in bits and pieces, and crawling with . . ."

"He knows. So do I."

Dany remembered the horror she had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh justice is still justice.

Your Grace," said Missandei, "Ghiscari inter their honored dead in crypts below their manses. If you would boil the bones clean and return them to their kin, it would be a kindness."

The widows will curse me all the same. "Let it be done."

What is the point of quoting the passage at me?  There is not an iota of evidence here that any of the 163 men that she murdered were guilty of the crime she executed them all for.

Her conscience is bothering her AS IT SHOULD.  She is trying to convince herself "... surely they deserved it", but even she does not sound so sure.  And GRRM is using this passage to remind us that the men she murdered had wives, who understandably hate Dany for murdering their husbands.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

None of this exhonerates the particular Meereenese who gave the orders or incriminates Daario so it seems rather a bit of distraction and Dany bashing you wanted to get off your chest rather than a considered argument.

None of it incriminates them either.  You're just assuming they must be guilty because Dany murdered them in a fit of rage.  You're arguing from ignorance. 

I can't prove it was Daario, therefor it must have been the 163 men Dany murdered in revenge.  That's your argument in a nutshell. 

Not very logical.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

You've applied a reductio ad absurrdum line of reasoning to the Merreenese and now you infantilize Dany's thinking.  Seems everyone is dumb or easily manipulated except the shining beacon of perspicacity that is you. Give over.  It would help to present credible arguments rather than lampoon the characters in order to discredit what they do or think. 

 

So I'm not allowed to criticize Dany for trusting Daario?  Or for murdering 163 men without a trial or an investigation?

But I bet it's okay when YOU say it, right?

Strange that I can't make fun of Dany without you going into attack mode.  But she just torture-murdered 163 people without a trial or an investigation.   She's either stupid, crazy or evil … maybe all 3.  Surely, if I am to make excuses for her at all, I must at least be able to point out that she is not thinking straight. 

Well, we can see 2 of the things that are interfering with straight thinking (1) dead children make her see red; and (2) Daario is hot.   What excuses SHOULD I make for her?

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

Once gain, attack is the best form of defense it seems.

That seems to be YOUR philosophy, anyhow.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

Where did Daario happen upon 163 children, did he have them in his saddle bags?  Did the Merreenese leave groups of children conveniently along the way with bags of nails and hammers so Daario could do this at the drop of a hat? 

You realize that the region Daario is invading is, or at least WAS, inhabited, at least until very recently.  

A city like Meereen will not necessarily evacuate ALL of its peasant/serf/slave farmers to the safety of the city.  In many cases, the lowest classes (farming serf/slave families, for instance) will be left outside to face the wrath of the invading forces.  And the first of these invading forces were Daario and his men.

Hammers and nails are not rare in inhabited regions, even assuming Daario's sellsword company does not carry a supply of this highly useful tool with them, which they probably do.  Meereen has practiced a scorched earth policy on the area, to deprive the invading forces of food supplies.  But I imagine that confiscating all the hammers and nails would not be a priority.  The invading army cannot eat hammers and nails.

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

What a complete mystery that the only trained cavalry that Dany possesses should go on scouting missions rather than Barristan leading a platoon of Unsullied on foot. 

GRRM set it up this way.  And Barristan is a cavalry man.  He COULD have been in charge of the advance forces, if GRRM had wanted the advanced forces to be anyone we could trust not to commit atrocities.

But one way or the other, if GRRM had wanted us to have ACTUAL evidence that the Meereenese were guilty, he could have provided such evidence.  But there is none.  All we have is Dany's assumption that her own forces, and particularly the shifty, vicious, bloodthirsty thug caught red handed at the scene of the crime, cannot possibly have been the culprit.

 

On ‎3‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 10:19 AM, the trees have eyes said:

What a total and utter mystery, I'm dumbfounded by it Like any poor conspiracy theorist you overlook the obvious and entirely logical explanation because you want something more edgy.

You're just engaged in ridiculous name calling here. 

How does calling ME a conspiracy theorist, somehow prove that suspect A is guilty and suspect B is innocent?  Call me all the names you want.  There is still more evidence against suspect B (Daario) than against any of the 163 men that Dany murdered.

God forbid that I might suspect that GRRM would ever be tempted to do anything "edgy".  Clearly, I've got the wrong author.

[Platypus Rex]

7 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Honestly, I think there are more hints that Daario could be the Blackfyre in the story than him being Euron who is west of Westeros.

Thank you for your vote.

Maybe that's another theory.   If you feel so inclined, I would be interested in what these hints of this alternate theory are.  

 

[the trees have eyes]

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

The obvious suspects, on a macro scale, are (1) the invading forces; and (2) the defending forces.  As a general rule, it is more likely to be invading forces that massacre local populations.  The only evidence we have that it was the defending forces is Dany's assumption that nobody associated with her army could possibly do such a thing.  But leaders cannot necessarily control the dogs of war that they unleash.

No, this is simply a false paradigm.  The "invading" army in this case is actually a liberating army which is made up of ultra-disciplined Unsullied, a handful of Dothraki, hordes of ragtag former slaves who are hot for justice against slavers (and some revenge too) and equally hot for freeing the poor buggers held in slavery as they were so recently and some mercenaries who understand all too clearly where Dany's sympathies lie and, after both Astapor and Yunkai, what she wants to achieve.

They would be fine with butchering a few Ghiscari elite or soldiers, but entirely not so with murdering slave children.  And if they were so inclined for the lulz both they and we know very clearly what fate would await them if Dany found out what they were doing.  It's an absurd and unnecessary risk.  Dany already intends to capture Meereen so there is nothing to be gained by riling her, except of course if you were a defender seeking to demoralize her forces and bait her into a mistake.

Nor do the defending forces in this case give a shit about the slave element of the local population, slaves not being part of the population but it's prisoners and victims who they routinely train and have fight to death in the fighting pits for their amusement.  The Meereenese don't see their slaves as human beings while conversely Dany's forces are either indifferent (at worst) or see them as valued assets to be protected, a position normally reserved for the defenders.

I'm sure you are aware of all this and it's frustrating to waste time in correcting these breathtaking distortions of obvious facts so please try and be remotely real in the situations you portray in order to make your case.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

On an INDIVIDUAL level, no culprits have been identified.  The ONLY obvious suspect we have (on a purely INDIVIDUAL level) is Daario.  He was caught red handed at the scene of the crime, giving weird out-of character excuses for his behavior.

Is that an airtight case?  No.  But it is many times more than anything you have against a single one of the 163 slave masters butchered by Dany in revenge.  

First. this is not a pissing contest about the 163 and Dany's response though you are deflecting it in that direction.  It's about whether there is any reason to suspect that Daario is Euron and whether you can provide any support for that claim.  YOU introduced the wild claim that Daario murdered the children in pursuance of this argument which is a weird response to being challenged on lack of evidence  and is leading us further down the rabbit hole of your assumptions built on assumptions which leads us to

Second, finding a body is indeed not an "airtight case" for that person being the murderer.  God forbid anyone should ever report finding a corpse for fear of your keen nose smelling the whiff of responsibility.  Without going into forensics if you're caught in the act of nailing up a dead child then presumably you would be covered in blood and the wounds would be fresh, unless of course the victim had been dead for long enough for the wounds to have stopped bleeding but then you have to wonder how and when Daario killed this child (and all the others) and how long he kept it (them) without anyone noticing.  That logistical problem leads into the logistical problem of how he nailed a child up on a post on his own (many times over) and why, if he was found at the scene, no one asked him why he had a hammer and a bag of nails - unless of course he nailed them up with his swords?

Means, motive and opportunity.  The Meereenese have all three and plenty of time to do this before Dany's forces arrive.

Daario, acting alone has none of these things however much it appeals to you.  He has no slave children to dispose of, no need to try and curry favour with Dany who is already indebted to him for Yunkai (and attracted to him) or to point her attention at Meereen where it is already fixed, and no opportunity to single-handedly carry out an atrocity on a huge scale over 163 miles in complete secrecy.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

You can present not one iota of evidence that a single one of the 163 men that Dany revenge-murders had any responsibility whatsoever for this atrocity.  Which is a very curious situation if you think about it.  If GRRM is trying to fool us with red herrings, he is not even trying that hard.

It's established in the text.  If you want evidence then you can join the brigade who claim that Rhaegar never died on the Trident because there is no pov that clearly saw his face and recognized him so it's fine to argue it was someone else in his armour.  I've outlined in several posts and above the case for the Meereense as guilty parties that is established by the author (unlike any such case for Daario) and the fairly obvious and reasonable deductions that are not spelled out by the author because the reader can be expected to make them for him or herself.

No, it's not curious.  Meereen has a ruling council not a monarch or commander in chief so the ruling body is who Dany deems responsible.  No Meereense are introduced to the reader until after the sack so for the reader there is no particular benefit or mystery to no individual or group of individuals being introduced / named, blamed and executed in the space of a page.  Afterwards, when we move into the city politics of Meereen there is a point to spending ink in creating and building up Meereenese characters and that is what GRRM does.  There is also a certain grisly symmetry between the 163 Meereenses nobles being as nameless and undifferentiated as the slave children, almost as if their power and wealth made them no more valuable than the children of slaves.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

Your position, I thought, was that they must be guilty because none of them denied it.  Now you're backing off of that it seems.  Now, it seems, only a few Meereenese were guilty, and you have no idea how many (if any) of these elite killers were among the 163 that Dany murdered.  So I guess a lot of them must have denied their guilt, and you have no idea how many. 

No, you're making incorrect assumptions.  What I said in a single half sentence was I find it odd that none of them protested their innocence when she demanded a very specific number of their lives in reprisal.  You seem to find it easier to misconstrue that as a different statement altogether and build a bunch of conclusions around it.  I do believe that the Meereenese who arranged the murders would have known exactly why she was so angry and those who had no idea what she was on about would be desperate to find out and try and save themselves.  If on the other hand it's not a state secret and they do know then they probably didn't waste their breath begging for mercy: the Karstark guard who begged for mercy with the argument that he knew what Rickard Karstark was going to do in murdering the Frey / Lannister prisoners at Riverrun but wasn't involved as he merely watched being a good pointer here as to what to expect.  Unlike the luckless guard the Meereenese could at least fight like cats among themselves for who was to be handed over and who spared.

None of which of course has a whit to do with Daario being Euron.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

There goes your "proof" up in smoke.  Obviously, the fact that she murdered them is not proof that they are guilty; either collectively or individually.

If only that was all there was to it, hey?

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

Was it not YOUR argument that the Meereenese must be guilty because none of them denied it?  

All I am doing is exploring the logical implications of YOUR argument.

Never worry.  I never accused YOU of being capable of following the logical implications of YOUR argument. 

Um, no.  You took a half sentence on one particular point and have tried to make that the main point.  This is distortion not comprehension of what I have said.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

So what is it?  Were they all guilty; or were some of them innocent?  If at least some of them were innocent, then some of them must have denied it.  And if some of them denied it, your argument is based on a false premise.

 No, that's not right.  Clearly some of them took the decision and ordered it, others indeed all of them may have known.  I've elaborated on that above.  You're confusing whether Dany punished innocent as well as guilty parties (almost certainly) with whether the lack of culpability of individual Meereenese nobles is some overall exoneration that adds weight to your indictment of Daario.  It's not and it doesn't.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

There's taunting and then there's taunting.  Obviously, there are easier ways to taunt your enemies, that make more actual sense.  Like, for instance, pissing off the battlements.

I suppose there are also even harder and more uncomfortable ways of taunting your enemies.  For instance, the slave masters of Meereen could have chopped off their own genitals, and nailed them up at every mile-post, pointing the way to Meereen.

The atrocity committed here is not quite THAT inconvenient.  But it still does not make much sense.  Maybe if we had specific evidence against the Meerenese we could overlook that.  Obviously, somebody committed the atrocity, whether it makes sense or not.  If we had specific evidence that the Meerenese decided to slaughter a part of their own population, we could worry about the motive later.  Maybe they're just insane.  

But you've got nothing.  Just Dany's assumption that nobody on HER side committed the atrocity.

Ah, so you continue with the reduction ad absurdum rather than deal with the logic of the taunt, which is bang on the money.   I guess you're the one who's got nothing!

And you continue with the blatant falsehood that the slave children are "Meereenese" and part of the Ghiscari population equally as likely to suffer depredations from the invading army as the Ghiscari elite rather than their release being the reason Dany's liberating army is marching on Meereen in the first place.

Please make credible arguments.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

I pointed out a suspicious situation - and a possibility you had not considered.  One that Dany did not consider in her dangerous rush-to-judgment.  Why is the burden of proof on me?  There are two suspects for this atrocity - the Meereenese forces, and Dany's advanced forces led by Daario.  

While you have attempted to make this case it rests on nothing other than a misrepresentation of the slaves as the "local Ghiscari population" and Dany's liberating army as an "invading army" unable to understand the difference or comprehend why they are marching on Meereen.

This has no merit as an argument and is all too resonant of your attempt to argue that there was equal reason to suspect that Daario is Euron as there is to suspect that the Gravedigger on the Quiet Isle is The Hound.  It's a false comparison and there is no equivalence between the two arguments just as there is no comparison between the Meereenese and the liberating army being equal suspects when it comes to motive however many times you state it as if it were so.

Why is the burden of proof on you? Well, why do you think?  The culpability is established in the text so if you want to present an alternative narrative it's up to you to establish it.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

You cannot prove that Daario is innocent by yelling and screaming at me, and telling me I have no evidence. 

I don't need to prove Daario is innocent any more than I have to prove that Dany didn't nail them up while sleepwalking.  The burden of proof is on you to back up your accusation.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

Did I ever suggest that Daario be summarily executed without a trial or an investigation?   YOU are the one trying to prove that Daario is innocent by assuming that the other suspects are guilty.  And where is YOUR evidence?   At the very least, I have Daario caught red handed at the crime scene making weird excuses.  You don't even have that, against the Meereenese.  

I'm not trying to do any such thing.  I don't need to prove Daario is innocent as (bearing in mind that's not how trials work as you prove guilt) there is no credible case to argue for his guilt.  What evidence at each of the 163 crime scenes do you have and what assessment of the means, motive and opportunity you must believe he had convince you of his industrial scale of abduction, mutilation, murder and diligent nailing up of corpses in total secrecy?  I'm curious.  All those things can be and have been easily explained for the Meereenese as authors of the act.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

For you, the Meereenese HAVE to be guilty, because the only other plausible suspect is Daario and his advanced forces.  You are arguing from ignorance.  

Nah.  The reasons for the Meereense to act this way and their means, motive and opportunity are very easy to establish.  The idea that I have no reason to consider them culpable other than an ignorant dismissal of the "prime suspect" Daario just indicates how you think about this.  In reality the Meereenese are established as the perpetrators and indeed they are the only logical perpetrators, Daario lacking all of means, motive and opportunity to be the perpetrator as I'm tired of reiterating.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

I make no apology for my "childish" parody of the 163 hypothetical Meereenese child-murders.  If I am not allowed to make fun of insane sadistic  child-murderers, who am I allowed to make fun of?  And if you agree with me that all 163 are unlikely to be guilty, then you understand at least part of the point of the parody.

Nah, the point of the parody is just distraction and obfuscation to avoid having to rebut the very logical argument for the Merreenese to taunt Dany and demoralize her forces.  The fact that you consider Daario actually did this in the sure knowledge that Dany and every single one of her varied followers would believe the Meereenese culpable by following that same exercise in logic shows you understand clearly enough and are just deflecting from being unable to address it effectively.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

Everybody selectively quotes.  Nobody quotes the entire book.  So what?  How do Dany's doubts and guilty conscience prove the guilt of her victims?    They don't.

Well, just so you know, quoting selectively from a single passage while ignoring the inconvenient parts that don't support your argument does precious little to establish any credibility and certainly raises concerns over your objectivity.  

I quoted that part as you seemed to be indulging in Dany bashing by simplifying her reflections on the reprisal killings and ignoring her post hoc realization that she made a mistake.  If there was a point to your passage other than to try and make her appear unreflective (and presumably blind to Daario's duplicity and real nature - something hardly born out be her later internal reflections on him) it was not clear.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

None of it incriminates them either.  You're just assuming they must be guilty because Dany murdered them in a fit of rage.  You're arguing from ignorance. 

Not at all.  Again you act as if that was the whole argument rather than a mere observation that it's odd that none of them protested their innocence.  And again it seems more to illustrate your own thinking: that because Dany had 163 of them killed in reprisal without establishing their guilt then it's ok to assume all of them were innocent and ergo, prime suspect Daario must be guilty!

I mean that is the core of your argument: we have not proven forensically or by confession the guilt of specific Meereenese and Daario is a fishy kind of guy hence he must have done it.  It's amusing you give the Meereenese so much benefit of the doubt but hold Daario to an entirely different standard!

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

I can't prove it was Daario, therefor it must have been the 163 men Dany murdered in revenge.  That's your argument in a nutshell. 

Wut?  No, man, you are expounding your own reasoning for why you think it was Daario not the Meereenese and attributing to me the thought processes that you went through and rejected in reaching that conclusion as if I went through your thought processes but reached a different conclusion.  That's not the argument I'm making.  I'm not obsessed by Daario and I think there are both compelling (and rather obvious) reasons for why it was the Meereenese and why it could not have been Daario and I've outlined them.  Only someone approaching this from your pov on Daario could try and reduce the whole argument to the odd paradigm you did there.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

So I'm not allowed to criticize Dany for trusting Daario?  Or for murdering 163 men without a trial or an investigation?

But I bet it's okay when YOU say it, right?

Strange that I can't make fun of Dany without you going into attack mode.  But she just torture-murdered 163 people without a trial or an investigation.   She's either stupid, crazy or evil … maybe all 3.  Surely, if I am to make excuses for her at all, I must at least be able to point out that she is not thinking straight. 

Well, we can see 2 of the things that are interfering with straight thinking (1) dead children make her see red; and (2) Daario is hot.   What excuses SHOULD I make for her?

Interesting.  All distraction of course but you wanted to justify your approach so meh.

This is not the place for it but as to the bolded I would argue none of the three.  She was angry and thought she was carrying out justice but she was wrong.  Whether that meets your definition of evil is up to you.

However I can't quite help thinking that your hostility towards Dany lends you to both the interpretation that the Meereenese were victims of her "stupidity, craziness and evilness [sic]" and of course the cherry on the top of that line of reasoning, that she was duped by Daario (the true villain) into murdering innocents.  In other words it's not that you really care about incriminating Daario here (sorry, Euron) as much as you do about Dany bashing.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

A city like Meereen will not necessarily evacuate ALL of its peasant/serf/slave farmers to the safety of the city.  In many cases, the lowest classes (farming serf/slave families, for instance) will be left outside to face the wrath of the invading forces.  And the first of these invading forces were Daario and his men.

Hammers and nails are not rare in inhabited regions, even assuming Daario's sellsword company does not carry a supply of this highly useful tool with them, which they probably do.  Meereen has practiced a scorched earth policy on the area, to deprive the invading forces of food supplies.  But I imagine that confiscating all the hammers and nails would not be a priority.  The invading army cannot eat hammers and nails.

Ah, ok, so all of the Stormcrows are in cahoots with this then?  It's not as if there is an awful risk in carrying this out that would see them all brutally executed.  And sellswords are known for their loyalty and closemouthed nature, they are utterly loyal to Daario and will unquestioningly do what he demands rather than betraying him to Dany for favour and advancement much as he betrayed his own two co-captains at Yunkai.  Or...not.

There is even less reason for the Stormcrows collectively to carry out this incredibly risky enterprise than there is for Daario alone as there are no conceivable benefits to them and very terminal consequences should it come to light.  The same analysis applies to Daario acting alone but the advantages of acting alone (secrecy) are more than outweighed by the practical difficulties of sneaking off to carry out wholesale butchery on an industrial scale over an expanded period of time without anyone noticing.

On 3/8/2019 at 12:54 AM, Platypus Rex said:

GRRM set it up this way.  And Barristan is a cavalry man.  He COULD have been in charge of the advance forces, if GRRM had wanted the advanced forces to be anyone we could trust not to commit atrocities.

But one way or the other, if GRRM had wanted us to have ACTUAL evidence that the Meereenese were guilty, he could have provided such evidence.  But there is none.  All we have is Dany's assumption that her own forces, and particularly the shifty, vicious, bloodthirsty thug caught red handed at the scene of the crime, cannot possibly have been the culprit.

Barristan is "Arstan" at this point, a mere squire in service to Strong Belwas.  Only after he kills Mero and  proves himself to Dany in the capture of Meereen does he gain a position of command.

The only real attraction of the argument for Daario given the logistical and practical difficulties and the totally unnecessary risk involved seems to be as a gotcha moment.  He's untrustworthy, sure, and may well be one of Dany's three betrayals, but I don't see how this would have changed the story at all (except to complicate post-conquest government in Meereen and there would have been resistance anyway), any convincing reason for him to have done this (to benefit either as Daario or Euron) or how this whole line of thought helps to argue that Daario and Euron are the same person.  Rather it looks to re-imagine the text in a way you find more appealing while glossing over the very large  problems of doing so.