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Remorseful Jaime, Unrepentant Dany


Krishtotter

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27 minutes ago, Raksha 2014 said:

Actually, serfdom had been outlawed in Russia for some time (?100 years or 50 years) before Nicholas II's reign.  But most of the Tsars were hardly model rulers. 

You are absolutely right, in 1861. 

What the Bolsheviks claimed in 1917 was that the malignant residue of feudalism hadn't been expunged from Russia, and that this was evidenced by the dire poverty of most of the country, and that the liberal Kerensky regime which had initially replaced the Tsars was but the front for a corrupt class of capitalists imposing what Lenin called "wage-slavery". In the Marxist-Leninist mind, a capitalist economy was a new type of slavery or serfdom. 

Lenin's actual words were: "Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. The modern wage slaves - the majority of the population - owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, are debarred from participating in social and political life. Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich - that is the democracy of capitalist society." (Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917). He cast both the Tsars/aristocracy and Kerensky. representing the bourgeoisie liberals, as slave-owners.

So the Bolsheviks claimed that their Revolution was "liberating" Russia from wage-slavery and thus the final residue of the old serfdom/feudalist system, towards a new proletarian, classless paradise. 

Of course, the resulting Soviet Union turned out rather differently. Lenin turned out to be a demagogic rascal, motivated by a cult of materialist-teleological-utopian violence, who committed a slew of extrajudicial atrocities against the very peasants he had claimed to be fighting for against the Tsarist, and then liberal-capitalist Russian state. He was the midwife of totalitarian Stalinism, the KGB and its mass murder of millions of defenceless people, not to mention its ethnocide and forced relocation of minority nationalities, as well as the gulag terror system that decimated so many lives from Lithuania to Kazakhstan

The basic point being, that there are many prototypes/archetypes of Daenerys in real world history and they aren't exactly positive role models, to say the least (attractively moralistic ideals aside).  

Robespierre and Lenin started out with the most wonderful of visions for human betterment. And it all ended in bloody, totalitarian tragedy. 

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13 minutes ago, Krishtotter said:

You are absolutely right, in 1861. 

What the Bolsheviks claimed in 1917 was that the malignant residue of feudalism hadn't been expunged from Russia, and that this was evidenced by the dire poverty of most of the country, and that the liberal Kerensky regime that had initially replaced the Tsars was a corrupt class of capitalists imposing what Lenin called "wage-slavery". In the Marxist-Leninist mind, a capitalist economy was a new type of slavery or serfdom. 

Lenin's actual words were: "Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. The modern wage slaves - the majority of the population - owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, are debarred from participating in social and political life. Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich - that is the democracy of capitalist society." (Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917). He cast both the Tsars/aristocracy and Kerensky. representing the bourgeoisie liberals, as slave-owners.

So the Bolsheviks claimed that their Revolution was "liberating" Russia from wage-slavery and thus the final residue of the old serfdom/feudalist system, towards a new proletarian, classless paradise. 

Of course, the resulting Soviet Union turned out rather differently. 

The basic point being, that there are many prototypes/archetypes of Daenerys in real world history and they aren't exactly positive role models, to say the least (attractively moralistic ideals aside).  

It's grimly amusing that the Soviet Union was so dependent upon slave labour.

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1 hour ago, Krishtotter said:

Um, such a thing as allegory? 

I'm talking about the effect of the conquering impulse on the psychology of the conqueror which is anything but trite.

Even Roman philosophers wrote treatises about the corrisive impact of absolute power and indeed the New Testament is a collection of books from antiquity that dwell on the subversion of power in the person of Christ, king of kings dying on a cross as a powerless victim of the Roman imperium.

I think you may underestimate ancient and medieval people.

Also, why the snark? Let's keep this civil rather than ad hominem.

 

Allegory and ad hominem in one post?  Clearly I am out of my depth.

Of course ASOIAF is not an allegory, and an allegory pointing out that oppressive power is bad would be just as trite as another form of story saying the same thing.

And, to the extent the New Testament is meant to criticize the "corrosive impact of absolute power" (I'm not at all convinced that it is), it offers such criticism only in favor of a an even more absolute and brutal power which demands expiation in blood.

But to return to my point--GRRM is not writing this series to remind us that representative government is better than authoritarianism. That is not his thesis, nor would he undertake to write so much to remind us of something so well established as to be trite. (As an aside, this last bit should offer some indication why my last comment was not in any sense ad hominem.)

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2 hours ago, Pandean said:

But which one is the true Targ and which is the Blackfyre? 

Also I love that the male dragon thought it's name was Cordelia (because Angel kept saying it in his unconscious state)

Dude Jon would definitely wear eyeliner. I can see him getting a few piercings. In his early Winterfell days, his hair is that emo style and everything. He just broods and listens to Papa Roach's Last Resort and glares at everyone.

Hard to say, I'd go with Spike though he's blonder :P.

I don't know, I think Jon would be more into The Cure or Joy Division for his brooding :wacko:.

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1 hour ago, Forlong the Fat said:

Allegory and ad hominem in one post?  Clearly I am out of my depth.

Of course ASOIAF is not an allegory, and an allegory pointing out that oppressive power is bad would be just as trite as another form of story saying the same thing.

And, to the extent the New Testament is meant to criticize the "corrosive impact of absolute power" (I'm not at all convinced that it is), it offers such criticism only in favor of a an even more absolute and brutal power which demands expiation in blood.

But to return to my point--GRRM is not writing this series to remind us that representative government is better than authoritarianism. That is not his thesis, nor would he undertake to write so much to remind us of something so well established as to be trite. (As an aside, this last bit should offer some indication why my last comment was not in any sense ad hominem.)

I'm only saying that there is no need to insult the intelligence of the person you are debating with, although I accept that you don't think you were, even though that is how it came across to me. 

My point was not that ASOIAF as a whole is an "allegory" but rather that there are time-honoured literary techniques which can be used to make a narrative set in a medievalesque society have contemporary relevance, and yes 'allegorising' is one such method. 

In terms of the New Testament, I raised that particular collection of first century A.D. (obviously of unique importance to later medieval people) literature to illustrate something that is the bete noire of medievalists and classicists: the tendency to echo the Tarantino assumption of "getting medieval on your ass", that the middle ages were this irredeemably uncivilised and 'dark' period in human history with little to offer us, as seemed to be implicit in your remark about Daenerys not being culpable for her brutal means of imposing her rule given that, hey, there were no 'just' rulers from our perspective from such eras.  

I personally regard the, "Well, Genghis Khan did it" approach to be a notably weak argument in defence of Dany. 

In fact, this does a great disservice to the complexity and sophistication of medieval political theory, although I recognise that it is useful in making GRRM's depiction of Dany that much more palatable. "The thought and practice of the Middle Ages," notes the historian GR Evans, "thus produced two related concepts limiting the rule of princes: the idea of their implied or explicit contract with their subjects; and the idea of the higher law above the state, represented in the prerogatives of the church. Kings who violated either could be resisted." i.e. 

 

http://www.nlnrac.org/classical/late-medieval-transformations

 

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Late medieval and early modern theories that derived legitimacy from popular consent were associated with the emergence of representative institutions. Part of the argument was historical, basing the king’s authority on a supposed original transfer of authority from the people to the ruler. That transfer was itself justified by natural-law arguments supporting the original freedom and equality of all men, arguments that constituted an alternative to theories of hierarchical rule based on superior wisdom, virtue, or designation by God. An early figure in the development of such theories was the fourteenth-century Franciscan theologian William of Ockham (1280–1349)...

Ockham’s writings on natural law are significant for the ideas of both individual rights and consent to government. He drew on statements from Roman and canon law about man’s original freedom and equality in order to explain the establishment of legitimate rule in both state and Church through the consent of the governed. 

The most detailed and nuanced version of conciliarism was The Catholic Concordance by Nicholas of Cusa, a German canon lawyer and humanist (1401–1464). Along with the other conciliar writers he argued that the pope could be deposed by the council and that consent, normally expressed through representative bodies, was necessary in order to elect Church officers and to adopt legislation at every level. He also called for increased power for the German Reichstag as well as judicial and tax reform in the Holy Roman Empire. His arguments were based partly on the Bible and on the history of the Church and the Empire. More fundamentally, he derived the necessity of consent from natural law doctrines of original freedom and equality and from the “equal natural rights” of all mankind. 

The natural law doctrines of original freedom and equality remained as a set of arguments available to opponents of royal absolutism, and the example of the deposition of the rival popes by the Council of Constance (1414–17) was cited as late as the 17th century in England.

 

 

Many entertain the pernicious myth that the middle ages were the 'era of absolutist rule', when in fact that was the 17th - 18th century, the age of absolutism. The medieval period, especially after the 12th century Renaissance, actually had a very fertile intellectual landscape characterised by the emergence of proto-liberal ideas about the natural rights, and claims, of the individual subject over against the sovereign; corporation theory; civic republicanism in the Italian city-states etc. The medieval historian Brian Tierney has explained how, between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Catholic canonists and decretalists of the medieval church, relying on early church sources, “worked out a series of definitions of ius naturale (natural law) as subjective right” that limited monarchical authority.

Even in the New Testament, we have a critique of the social hierarchy and many of the social mores. To quote another scholar, the intellectual historian Professor Quentin Skinner of Cambridge University in his book The Foundations of Modern Political Thought:

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It was from the perfect law of liberty of the Gospels that Ockham developed his notions of the natural rights of individuals and his subsequent understanding of the origin and limits of all institutions with jurisdiction over men's lives

 

To quote Professor Tierney again:
 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aqyWwF5YA1gC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=But+the+canonists+who+wrote+around+1200,+reading+the+old+texts+in+the+context+of+their+more+humanist,+more+individualist+culture,+added+another+definition.+In+their+tierney&source=bl&ots=IKCH5MJq0S&sig=7iVMn3OPXvSixCIljQPTVWSwTac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw-bqalqTaAhULasAKHWTJC_MQ6AEwAXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=But the canonists who wrote around 1200%2C reading the old texts in the context of their more humanist%2C more individualist culture%2C added another definition. In their tierney&f=false
 

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The twelfth century was an age of renaissance, of new vitality in many spheres of life and thought. This was the age of the first great gothic cathedrals and the first universities. New networks of commerce grew up and with them a revival of city life. 

In religious life there was a new emphasis on the individual human person—on individual intention in assessing guilt, individual consent in marriage, individual scrutiny of conscience. And in the everyday life of the time there was an intense concern for rights and liberties...

Around 1250 Pope Innocent IV wrote that ownership of property was a right derived from natural law and that even infidels enjoyed this right, along with a right to form their own governments. Other natural rights that were asserted in the thirteenth century included a right to liberty, a right of self-defence, a right of the poor to the surplus wealth of the rich. 

By placing these rights squarely within the framework of natural law, the jurists could and did argue that these rights could not be taken away by the human prince. The prince had no jurisdiction over rights based on natural law; consequently these rights were inalienable.

 

 

As such, I am not convinced by the lazy 'hand-waving' argument that justifies Daenerys' actions based upon the implicit, or explicit, assumption of medieval barbarism. 

In Essos, we know that there are republics and other models of government. We know how shocked many were by the Bolton and Lannister violation of guest right hospitality in slaughtering the Starks at the Red Wedding, and we have been shown ample occasions where advisers to Daenerys - Selmy, Tyrion, Varys - have expressed concerns about the arbitrary nature of her executive decisions.  In 41 AC, when Aenys wed his daughter Rhaena and son Aegon to one another, the Faith Militant uprising began. The High Septon sent Aenys a denunciation, addressing him as "King Abomination"; pious lords and smallfolk, who had once loved Aenys, turned against him. And we, of course, have Robert's Rebellion against the Mad King and then the High Sparrow's theocratic revolution in the name of equity and justice for the poor, and his putting the nobles on trial like commoners. 

So Westeros and Essos are not the unmitigated lands of backward tyranny that they are portrayed, just like the real middle ages. But Dany seems not to have paid any attention to her own history books, given her high-minded arrogance.

Westerosi moral systems and societal mores are nowhere near as advanced as our contemporary, liberal states - but if Westeros is even meant to be a pale reflection of the real middle ages (and I have seen enough evidence to suggest that it is and that Martin did his homework), then I cannot accept that Daenerys is to be blithely excused based upon the times she lived in. 

It's a poor deflection tactic. 

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1 hour ago, Forlong the Fat said:

And, to the extent the New Testament is meant to criticize the "corrosive impact of absolute power" (I'm not at all convinced that it is), it offers such criticism only in favor of a an even more absolute and brutal power which demands expiation in blood.

 

On the New Testament more specifically: 

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Luke 1:46-55 

And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

 

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Matthew 20

25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the kings of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

 

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‘The condition of human life is chiefly determined by its first and last days, because it is of the greatest importance under what auspices it is begun and with what end it is terminated.’

- Valerius Maximus (Memorable Doings and Sayings (“On Deaths out of the Ordinary”) 9.12 praef. LCL 493, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey)

A person’s birth and death, in Roman times, were felt to be an indication of his or her true character.

On both accounts, his birth and death, Jesus 'failed' the test - and very badly - of true Roman manhood and heroism: he was born of peasants in Nazareth (a backwater derided even by Judean Jews "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:43)) and died the most ignoble torture-death. Cicero described crucifixion as ‘the greatest punishment of slavery’ (Verr. 2.5), while Josephus labelled it ‘the most pitiable of deaths’ (War 7.203).

Jesus's "true" character, then, in the eyes of Romans would have been as a piteous 'slave' and insurrectionist against the empire, abandoned by even his closest followers and left to endure the mockery of the crowds as he hung there naked and asphyxiated with a mock crown of thorns on his head.

As Professor Helen K. Bond, an expert on this period, has noted:
 

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"Crucifixion was the most shameful, brutal and degrading form of capital punishment known to the ancient world, reserved for slaves, brigands and any who set themselves up against imperial rule. It was intended to be public, to act both as a deterrent to others and to provide spectacle, even entertainment, to onlookers. 

It was a form of death in which the caprice and sadism of the executioners was allowed full reign, as they devised ever more gruesome ways to ridicule the condemned. Stripped naked, the victim was humiliated and shamed as he suffered extreme agony, perhaps for several days, until, overcome by suffocation and exhaustion, the merciful end would come. 

So offensive was the cross that civilized people preferred not to talk about it, and few Roman writers ever dwelt on any of the details...

There is no getting away from the fact that Mark’s account, particularly in the crucifixion scene, is the very opposite of a “good death”: Jesus dies alone, in agonized torment, with no one to perform even the most basic rites. As Adela Collins puts it, Jesus’ death in Mark is “anguished, human, and realistic.”"

(see also, J. G. Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).



And again:
 

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"...Jesus’ crucifixion was an attempt by the rulers of his day to consign not only his body but also his memory to oblivion. In many ways, Mark’s bios can be seen as an act of defiance, a refusal to accept the Roman sentence and an attempt to shape the way in which both his life and death should be remembered. 

His work takes the place of a funeral ovation, outlining Jesus’ way of life and pointing to the family of believers who succeed him.

While men of higher class and greater worldly distinction might have had their epitaphs set in stone, Mark provides his hero with a written monument to a truly worthy life. Mark redeems Jesus’ death not by casting it as ‘noble’ or conventionally ‘honourable,’ but by showing that it conforms perfectly to his counter-cultural teaching
..."

(Bond, H 2018, 'A fitting end? Self-denial and a slave’s death in Mark’s life of Jesus' New Testament Studies)

 


Given its deeply subversive nature under Roman imperial rule, the 'cross' and the shameful slave death of the "king of kings" who came not to be served but to serve, illustrates the capacity of ancient people to reflect deeply upon questions of power and rule. Jesus' preaching of a "kingdom of God" - which led the Romans, we presume, to fear that he regarded himself as the 'king' of this kingdom - in which the powerful would be cast down and humbled, while the poor, marginalized and oppressed - including women, prostitutes, lepers, disabled people, children, Samaritans - would be elevated in their stead, seems to have provoked manifest fear.

As the New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman explains in his book Misquoting Jesus:
 

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Most scholars remain convinced that Jesus proclaimed the coming Kingdom of God, in which there would be no more injustice, suffering, or evil, in which all people, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, would be on equal footing. This obviously proved particularly attractive as a message of hope to those who in the present age were underprivileged—the poor, the sick, the outcast. And the women...

One of Jesus’s characteristic teachings is that there will be a massive reversal of fortunes [in the Kingdom]. Those who are rich and powerful now will be humbled then; those who are lowly and oppressed now will then be exalted. The apocalyptic logic of this view is clear: it is only by siding with the forces of evil that people in power have succeeded in this life; and by siding with God other people have been persecuted and rendered powerless...

In his view, present-day society and all its conventions were soon to come to a screeching halt...Only when God's Kingdom arrived would an entirely new order appear, in which peace, equality, and justice would reign supreme...What mattered was the new thing that was coming, the future kingdom. It was impossible to promote this teaching while trying to retain the present social structure. 

 

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33 minutes ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

Hard to say, I'd go with Spike though he's blonder :P.

I don't know, I think Jon would be more into The Cure or Joy Division for his brooding :wacko:.

What color do they call it? Radioactive?

 

Oh yeah, definitely those two bands for sure. I'm just imagining this scene back when me and my sister were kids and mom denied my sister something so she blasted Last Resort while screaming the lyrics and it was probably the most emo thing ever

Oh and when he's angry at Ned

'YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD!!!'

Ned: *painful expression*

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10 hours ago, MinscS2 said:

Jon and Daenerys met in S703. A season is roughly a year. 
Ergo they've known each other for more than 6 months. 

I don't think Game of Thrones chronology is that easy.

10 hours ago, MinscS2 said:

If anything, Jon and Dany seem to be genuinely good for each other, at least for now.

For now, as you say. Whether she is good for him depends on which side of her wins out - the gentle hearted Dany (which we saw early on), or the arrogant, cold Dany. She is a complex character.

On 4/16/2019 at 8:16 PM, Krishtotter said:

But in the intervening seasons, Jaime has grown as a character and his complex motives have become apparent. He has shown signs of contrition and moral progress. 

 

10 hours ago, Bittersweet Distractor said:

Jamie has a lot to be remorseful for, but killing Aerys isn’t one of them, the one act he is most reviled for is one of the best things he ever did, I’m really interested to see how the next episode plays out with him and Dany meeting.

Jaime's story arc is one of the most interesting in the show, and I hope will end with him repenting of pushing Bran out the window and becoming a truly honorable man. I think his walking away from Cersei at the end of S7 solidified the final leg of his redemption journey.

It is harder to say with Dany. She could still snap out of it with people like Jon, Tyrion and Varys influencing her. (If Varys does still exhibit influence over her.)

You can't expect a monarch (presumed) to show remorse for executing "traitors", which is generally the punishment for such a crime, but Dany certainly could have shown sympathy when she delivered the news to Sam.

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1 minute ago, SansaJonRule said:

It is harder to say with Dany. She could still snap out of it with people like Jon, Tyrion and Varys influencing her. (If Varys does still exhibit influence over her.)

Yep, even I concede this (as I noted earlier).

She is not yet at the tipping point where the Targaryen coin has irreversibly flipped and could, thus, be kept on a more even keel if she is influenced by those three in particular. I'm not saying she's passed the point of no return. 

But I do think she is getting near that tipping point and the omens aren't looking good based on some of her past actions.

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Just now, SansaJonRule said:

I don't think Game of Thrones chronology is that easy.

No it doesn't always seems like it, but the only sources I find regarding how long a GoT-season is all state that it's roughly a year.

That means that 7-8 years has passed since the beginning of GoT. As a viewer you either buy it or you don't.

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1 minute ago, Krishtotter said:

Yep, even I concede this (as I noted earlier).

She is not yet at the tipping point where the Targaryen coin has irreversibly flipped and, could, thus, be kept on a more even keel if she is influenced by those three in particular. 

But I do think she is getting near that tipping point and the omens aren't looking good.  

Agree. As she is now, I DO NOT LIKE HER.

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21 minutes ago, SansaJonRule said:

but Dany certainly could have shown sympathy when she delivered the news to Sam.

The lack of any 'normal' level of human empathy was the real killer here. 

Compare when Sam told Jon, "I'm so sorry..." Jon said in response, his face clearly emotional and moved. That's all it takes - Dany could easily have said, "I'm sorry for your loss, as a queen in time of war I must make hard decisions and accept responsibility for them" etc. etc. and shown a bit of warmth on her face, of feeling. Especially since this was the very man who had saved Jorah's life and moments before she'd just been commending him!

But no, she just tells him with plain, emotionless, self-righteous indignation and not a shred of sympathy - oblivious to the trauma he was going through processing this information out-of-the-blue. It was disturbing, and obviously must have been acted with the intent of conveying that. 

The way she delivered this information, no matter your verdict on the original act, was 'abnormal' and cold.

Remember how Jon consoled her when she lost her dragon and was in tears at the bedside? "Dany, I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry..." he even swore allegiance to her in that moment. The difference is "stark" (pun intended).  Jon acted like any 'normal' person would upon seeing another person in tears at losing a loved one.

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1 minute ago, Krishtotter said:

The lack of any 'normal' level of human empathy was the real killer here. 

Compare when Sam told Jon, "I'm so sorry..." he said, his face clearly pained. That's all it takes - Dany could easily have said, "I'm sorry for your loss, as a queen I must make hard decisions and accept responsibility for them" etc. etc. and shown a bit of warmth on her face, if feeling.

But no, she just tells him with plain, emotionless, self-righteous indignation and not a shred of sympathy. It was horrible. 

Yes, it was. She didn't even soften when he started to cry. My heart was breaking for Sam (cuz not only is his brother dead, what does it mean for his mother and sister?) I wanted to strangle her! At least she had the grace to grant him permission to leave when he asked.

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Not sure what response you wanted from her. For her to start crying and tell him she's sorry?
Saying sorry would mean she regrets doing it, and she probably doesn't, at least not in regards to Randall. 
At least she didn't gloat about it either, merely stated it matter-of-factually, as soon as she found out who he was.

My impression from that scene was that she did feel sympathy for Sam ("...not Randall Tarly?") as a grieving brother/son, but couldn't show it at the time. The look she and Jorah gave each other screamed of "Opsie / That could've gone better".

Regardless, I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll see some sort of scene in the next episode which will soothe the tension between these three. 

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38 minutes ago, MinscS2 said:

Not sure what response you wanted from her. For her to start crying and tell him she's sorry?
Saying sorry would mean she regrets doing it, and she probably doesn't, at least not in regards to Randall. 
At least she didn't gloat about it either, merely stated it matter-of-factually, as soon as she found out who he was.

My impression from that scene was that she did feel sympathy for Sam ("...not Randall Tarly?") as a grieving brother/son, but couldn't show it at the time. The look she and Jorah gave each other screamed of "Opsie / That could've gone better".

Regardless, I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll see some sort of scene in the next episode which will soothe the tension between these three. 

Saying "I'm sorry for your loss" is what I'm talking about. The qualifying word is 'your', because it is a loss to him whatever she thinks about the relative merits of taking that decision. She expressed no verbal or physical manifestation of human warmth towards him, as is normal in informing someone that their father and brother have both died brutal deaths. 

I didn't get the slightest hint of sympathy from her in that scene. Jorah's look, to me, was one of confusion and discomfort at why she had handled it in such a poor and uncaring fashion. Alternatively, it could be bad scripting.

But you may be right about the last part. We shall see, I'm still open to being persuaded and as I say, Dany may still 'flip' the other way under the right guidance. She has both possibilities in her - heroism and villainy. 

Only at the end will we be able to look back, in retrospect, at her complicated character progression 'in the round'. None of us know where she will end up. 

Regardless, GRRM has made a very compelling character out of her - as is evidenced by the fact that people can interpret her personality and conduct in such radically different ways. That demonstrates how complex her motives are. 

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1 hour ago, Krishtotter said:

Saying "I'm sorry for your loss" is what I'm talking about. The qualifying word is 'your', because it is a loss to him whatever she thinks about the relative merits of taking that decision. She expressed no verbal or physical manifestation of human warmth towards him, as is normal in informing someone that their father and brother have both died brutal deaths. 

I didn't get the slightest hint of sympathy from her in that scene. Jorah's look, to me, was one of confusion and discomfort at why she had handled it in such a poor and uncaring fashion. Alternatively, it could be bad scripting.

But you may be right about the last part. We shall see, I'm still open to being persuaded and as I say, Dany may still 'flip' the other way under the right guidance. She has both possibilities in her - heroism and villainy. 

Only at the end will we be able to look back, in retrospect, at her complicated character progression 'in the round'. None of us know where she will end up. 

Regardless, GRRM has made a very compelling character out of her - as is evidenced by the fact that people can interpret her personality and conduct in such radically different ways. That demonstrates how complex her motives are. 

My take is slightly different.  I think she had some sympathy for Sam, at a human level, but she felt no regrets for what she had done.  

Though John Bradley plainly just sees her as completely callous.  So, perhaps that's how the producers see her.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

My take is slightly different.  I think she had some sympathy for Sam, at a human level, but she felt no regrets for what she had done.  

Though John Bradley plainly just sees her as completely callous.  So, perhaps that's how the producers see her.

he just knows that jon likely wouldnt do it.

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18 minutes ago, princess brittany said:

he just knows that jon likely wouldnt do it.

In that situation, I think Jon would have executed Randyll, as he did Janos Slynt,  but he would have slung Dickon into a cell on  Dragonstone, until he cooled down.  Slynt and Randyll both talked themselves into a death sentence.

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2 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

Saying "I'm sorry for your loss" is what I'm talking about. The qualifying word is 'your', because it is a loss to him whatever she thinks about the relative merits of taking that decision. She expressed no verbal or physical manifestation of human warmth towards him, as is normal in informing someone that their father and brother have both died brutal deaths. 

I didn't get the slightest hint of sympathy from her in that scene. Jorah's look, to me, was one of confusion and discomfort at why she had handled it in such a poor and uncaring fashion. Alternatively, it could be bad scripting.

But you may be right about the last part. We shall see, I'm still open to being persuaded and as I say, Dany may still 'flip' the other way under the right guidance. She has both possibilities in her - heroism and villainy. 

Only at the end will we be able to look back, in retrospect, at her complicated character progression 'in the round'. None of us know where she will end up. 

Regardless, GRRM has made a very compelling character out of her - as is evidenced by the fact that people can interpret her personality and conduct in such radically different ways. That demonstrates how complex her motives are. 

I'm not gonna lie. As much as I want to defend Daenerys, that scene is making me hard it hard for me. 

I personally thought I saw some resemblance of pity in her regarding Sam's reaction, but the way she almost instantly went from "Thank you for saving my oldest friend, name your reward :D" to "I executed your father and brother :mellow:" made her come across as very callous, even by her standards. Almost out of character-so. 

My best explanation otherwise would be that the writers needed Sam to be angry with Daenerys when he 2 minutes later told Jon about his parentage, otherwise we'd miss out on all the potential "you should be king"-drama.
If Daenerys had been on her compassionate mood, with pity, regret and apologies flowing, it would probably be much harder for Sam to be angry with her. So this was the best thing they could come up with. 

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Though John Bradley plainly just sees her as completely callous.  So, perhaps that's how the producers see her.

That was from Sam's PoV though, and not from John Bradley's PoV.
Not surprising at all really, he doesn't know her in addition to everything above.

23 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Slynt and Randyll both talked themselves into a death sentence.

They really did.

I posted it in a different topic, but Dickon's death really felt like a plot-device for me. It was stupid, unnecessary and outright weird.
It was a combination of Dany's callousness, Randall's pride and Dickon's own stupidity that caused it. Remove either of these from the equation and he'd not been executed. Especially Randall's actions after he realized that Dickon would stand by him (out of his own choice!) was strange.
Any sane father would've either bent the knee or taken the black in order to save a son they actually care about at that point but not Randall. 


 

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37 minutes ago, SeanF said:

In that situation, I think Jon would have executed Randyll, as he did Janos Slynt,  but he would have slung Dickon into a cell on  Dragonstone, until he cooled down.  Slynt and Randyll both talked themselves into a death sentence.

yeah he likely would do that. 

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