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If Dany becomes mad, it will cement the idea that all westerosi queens in their own right are unworthy.


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10 hours ago, Targaryen Peas said:

The thing is, Europe had a religion that said woman can't rule. Westeros doesn't, at least not to my knowledge. 

Westeros has a law that says the male heir always takes precedence over the female, regardless of the respective ages. That law was fully supported by Westeros' main religion, the faith of the Seven.

That was actually extremely important in the history of Westeros. There were wars of succession fought because of this. In Dorne a woman has the right to rule as much as any male. They retained this law as one of the conditions set to join the rest of the kingdoms under Targaryen rule (they did via marriage). In the books, the dornish planned to use Myrcella as their own candidate for the Throne because their law allowed the female heir to be considered for the Throne and therefore gave her a better claim thanTommen's.

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6 hours ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

If this is show only event shame on D&D, and if George is going to have Dany succumb to her volatile tendencies and have her become mad as well, Im not sure I want ro read it. It will be repetitive, just as Rhaenyra lost her claim ans died, excluding are future female Tarf rulers. It will be Mad Quenn 2.0 after Cersei, and Dany despire of all ending like her father and brother. If she has to die, as honestly thought she would, have her go in a noble way, in a sacrifice for her people or her love or even in childbirth. Dany a crazy queen and Jon, a last minute secret heir reveiled to  world would be a stupid unsatisfying ending.

Just like in rl Middle Ages the peoples of Westeros have different views on male and female social roles and different succession laws. The Andals for example are patriarchal while Targaryens initially were not. GRRM narrates their story unreliably, usually from Andal or otherwise patriarchal perspective and one of the most important themes in his writing (at least to me) is women struggle with patriarchy, sexism and tradition.

Behold how carefully the Targaryen family tree has been built: most females who could potentially contend with men for power are immediately married to men of the main line - starting with Visenia and possibly ending with Danny. Else they are married to Valyrian families like Velaryon or Baratheon and then their female descendants back into main Targaryen line. It is the rule and all of exceptions end bad, further fueling prejudice against women.

Maegor, Rhaenyra, Daemon Blackfyre, Robert Baratheon to name the most important ones.

Ppl keep saying that Jon has better claim but this is Andal law and patriarchal thinking. Rhaegar was never crowned king so the claim passed to his brother and then to his sister. Disregarding her in spite of her obvious merit (she did save Seven kingdoms) is sexist. In the show it has been said quite plainly: “cocks do matter”.

I also don’t like the D&D threat of history repeating itself with females failing yet again.

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20 minutes ago, TwiceBorn said:

Just like in rl Middle Ages the peoples of Westeros have different views on male and female social roles and different succession laws. The Andals for example are patriarchal while Targaryens initially were not. GRRM narrates their story unreliably, usually from Andal or otherwise patriarchal perspective and one of the most important themes in his writing (at least to me) is women struggle with patriarchy, sexism and tradition.

Behold how carefully the Targaryen family tree has been built: most females who could potentially contend with men for power are immediately married to men of the main line - starting with Visenia and possibly ending with Danny. Else they are married to Valyrian families like Velaryon or Baratheon and then their female descendants back into main Targaryen line. It is the rule and all of exceptions end bad, further fueling prejudice against women.

Maegor, Rhaenyra, Daemon Blackfyre, Robert Baratheon to name the most important ones.

Ppl keep saying that Jon has better claim but this is Andal law and patriarchal thinking. Rhaegar was never crowned king so the claim passed to his brother and then to his sister. Disregarding her despite her obvious merit (she did save Seven kingdoms) is sexist. In the show it has been said quite plainly: “cocks do matter”.

I also don’t like the D&D threat of history repeating itself with females failing yet again.

Do I need to point out how Visenya was older than Aegon the conqueror and yet he was crowned king despite her being better with a sword than he was AND probably being able to use magic as well?

It's true the Targaryens were not as patriarcal as the Andals (and probably the first men, although the wildlings are the closest things to their descendants and they have spear-wives) but they still seemed to favor the male heir (that said, Targaryens were NOT a really important family in Valyria, they were actually a minor house, who had a member with a prophetic vision that warned them of the Doom. They sold their possessions in the Freehold and placed their seat in Dragonstone. Then the Doom happened and they were the only fully fledged Valyrian noble family to survive unschated).

As for the patriarchy vs women in Martin's fiction: of course they struggle, Westeros is a medieval-like society with middle-ages Europe values. The fact they HAVE to struggle against social conventions is what creates conflict and allows us to understand the greatness of many of such characters despite them not prevailing, keep in mind the same can be said for Jon, Robb or Ned. They are good and honorable... and they fail to accomplish their lofty goals because of this and the rigidity of their values. Personally I like this as I admire people who stick to their convinctions even when faced with great personal danger, but it's undenaible Martin makes a point of showing us how that way of doing things can and does have terrible consequences for the ones making the decisions and for those who depend on them.

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Dorne is as egalitarian as they come. The wildlings (both in the Vale and beyond the Wall) are profoundly egalitarian AND meritocratic. The First Men in the North have a male-preference thing going on but they have no issue with daughters ruling in their own right or widows assuming control of their late lord-husband's estate. And both are actually pretty common.

The rest of the country. Staunch sexists. Some parts (the Iron Islands) worse than others (the Vale). Female lords are rare in the South and seem to be the last resort. In fact, female lords aren't even allowed to pass on their family name to their children if they have married a highborn man from a different family.  It is even common practice for men to brazenly usurp the lordly rights of their wives. The Boltons are trying to do that in the North but it's not working very well. Many in the North not only want to save Arya but they are open to idea of making her the Queen in the North. Lady Stoneheart, who has not lost any of her intelligence after death, seems to think it's a damn good idea to make Arya Queen and Lady Stoneheart knows the North well.

It's still very strange that the Targaryens went from having a good balance between male-preference inheritance laws and championing female warriors, dragonriders and generals...all the way to forbidding females from learning how to fight, lead and war. They barely even allowed their women to take a strong position at court in King's Landing.

Even the other southerners see the wisdom and the justice in honoring the daughters over the brothers.

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2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

t's possible that this idea of Dany being branded CRAZY for doing what every other conqueror in the history of Westeros has done is a false leak, it

the problema is that the person who leaked it was 100% right about the plot in ep 4. The actors interview indicate that they are also discontent. Emilia says that she is upset that her last scene Will the last flavor in people mouth about Dany. That indicates that is 95% true that the leaks are true. You could say they are trolling but previos seasons and experience indicate the contrary.

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Just now, AlaerysTargaryen said:

What genocide? Executing prisoners of war is ok in their society, let not examine her with modern morals.

Ned was an executed prisoner of war. 

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7 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

What genocide? Executing prisoners of war is ok in their society, let not examine her with modern morals.

Actually... it depends. Prisoners of war IF highborn were usually treated well and with curtesy, kept as hostages and exchanged with other prisoners of war and/or ransomed. Lowborn prisoners of war... there was no such thing most of the time. They were usually killed or taken as serfs.

Keep in mind, in medieval times life was cheap. An horse or a good hunting dog were often considered more valuable than a serf.

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45 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

What genocide? Executing prisoners of war is ok in their society, let not examine her with modern morals.

she's basically an edgy teenager who has instigated the wholesale slaughter of the have's by the have-not's not unlike what pol pot did in cambodia with similarly disastrous results. it didn't even matter to her if some of the people she killed were actually decent and kind to their slaves and/or simply murdered for the crime of having wealth. she's proven on numerous occasions just how godawful her leadership is. every society that she's "liberated" is either broke or fallen back into slave trading. and it's primarily due to the fact that the vast majority of her decisions are emotionally driven without providing long term solutions for her people. she completely turns economies upside-down and ass up and then just....leaves.

 

45 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

Executing prisoners of war is ok in their society

not true.

 

45 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

let not examine her with modern morals.

you've just described the vast majority of her defenders. slavery was more than common in medieval times, but that doesn't stop her base of insufferable sjw fans to ignore her idiotic behavior over the fact that b-b-but she's a liberator!

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13 minutes ago, the red god said:

you've just described the vast majority of her defenders. slavery was more than common in medieval times, but that doesn't stop her base of insufferable sjw fans to ignore her idiotic behavior over the fact that b-b-but she's a liberator!

Nope or at least not in Europe. The Roman Empire was big on slavery but christianity was not. During the middle-ages christianity was basically THE religion of Europe and it discouraged the practice of slavery. It still existed in some areas like Ireland (and outside Europe) but generally speaking it was substituted with serfdom. A serf was not owned by another person but at the same time he/she had very few rights and a lot of suties to his lord and his land. In some ways if you were a skilled slave during Roman Times you had it much better than what a Serf had to deal with in the middle ages...

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2 hours ago, Lady Anna said:

isn't sexist when just this episode we had Sansa's line about justifying her abuse.

Yes. According to them a woman should be a badass warrior, a killer or a schemer, she´s gotta be a YASS Queen.  As a woman I find this riddiculous. Why are tradional femenine qualities despised or considered weak? The men in the show display more emotion and compassion than the women. That is why I loved Sansa in the book. Being a Lady was her  armor and courtesy her weapon. Fine make her learn from LF, but dont change her personality. I hated the scene when she fed Ramsay to the hounds and smiled. If you write such travesty at least haver her cry at her loss of inoccense or at what her experiences have made her do. But that smirk ! I hated it. 

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2 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

. Disregarding her in spite of her obvious merit (she did save Seven kingdoms) is sexist. In the show it has been said quite plainly: “cocks do matter”.

I also don’t like the D&D threat of history repeating itself with females failing yet again. 

Exactly my point. The tale repeats itself. Woman is crazy for doing to the red Keep what Aegon did to HArrenhall. She doesnt deserve the rule because thank to the Seven we have a new Aegon.  Jon , who they want to be King, bend the knee to her. Not only for love, because he sees her as a worthy Queen.

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20 minutes ago, AlaerysTargaryen said:

Yes. According to them a woman should be a badass warrior, a killer or a schemer, she´s gotta be a YASS Queen.  As a woman I find this riddiculous. Why are tradional femenine qualities despised or considered weak? The men in the show display more emotion and compassion than the women. 

Didn't you follow Daenerys arc at all?

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Dany is definitely dying soon. She will go "mad", as in angry rather than crazy. Her thirst for revenge will cause everyone to turn on her, and she will be assassinated. 100% will happen. Cersei has people in the red keep, so the only way to get to her is to kill innocents.

I remember the topic I made called Dany will be hated, Aegon will be loved in 2015.....was talking about Faegon but since he is absent for the show, Jon works just as good I guess.

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10 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It's possible that this idea of Dany being branded CRAZY for doing what every other conqueror in the history of Westeros has done is a false leak, it may be too dumb and destructive even for the dumb and destructive show that GOT has become.  If this is what the show does do though it will enrage the fanbase.  I will even be enraged and I dislike Dany and have wanted Drogon to dracarys her for ages. 

It's funny how the whole fandom has come together in their hatred of this episode. Dany haters are now livid at how much they're butchering her character, Dany fans are now nihilistically in support of Dany going mad and burning this pos down... ironically, they've successfully conveyed the message GRRM was probably going to - that we must put aside our petty differences to overcome the larger threat.

13 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I'm not following. In a show that was praised for having female characters be just as dark as the men, and when the author says he treats women just like men, how is any of this shocking? GRRM isn't writing a feminist bible. It would be hypocritical to have women receive a "happy ending" even if they did the same horrible things men did, just because they're women. Dany HAS ruled. Cersei HAS ruled. So there have been female queens in story. That glass ceiling has already been broken. I'm not sure what else you want from the story, unless its to have women get a special pass because they're women? GRRM was never writing that kind of work.

The problem is there are no worthy queens to contrast these mad evil queens. That was what Dany was supposed to be to Cersei. She was supposed to be the queen who wasn't seeking power for the sake of power, who wasn't misanthropic or enjoyed cruelty, and didn't let prophecies control her life. But if Dany becomes yet another mad queen, instead of the story being about what makes a good ruler, the the story becomes a cautionary tale about women who seek the highest position of power. This will be doubly true if Jon ends up King (or is offered Kingship), as Dany becomes his foil.

This doesn't affect male characters because we have enough examples of good male leaders, that there exists no stereotype of men being poor leaders, either in this series or in fiction in general.

So it's not that women should get a special pass, it's that women shouldn't just be written as stepping stones and foils for the male hero. It sends the wrong message. I have faith that GRRM has more awareness than to do that.

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13 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

The problem is there are no worthy queens to contrast these mad evil queens. That was what Dany was supposed to be to Cersei. She was supposed to be the queen who wasn't seeking power for the sake of power, who wasn't misanthropic or enjoyed cruelty, and didn't let prophecies control her life. But if Dany becomes yet another mad queen, instead of the story being about what makes a good ruler, the the story becomes a cautionary tale about women who seek the highest position of power. This will be doubly true if Jon ends up King (or is offered Kingship), as Dany becomes his foil.

This doesn't affect male characters because we have enough examples of good male leaders, that there exists no stereotype of men being poor leaders, either in this series or in fiction in general.

So it's not that women should get a special pass, it's that women shouldn't just be written as stepping stones and foils for the male hero. It sends the wrong message. I have faith that GRRM has more awareness than to do that.

Asha.

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12 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

It's funny how the whole fandom has come together in their hatred of this episode. Dany haters are now livid at how much they're butchering her character, Dany fans are now nihilistically in support of Dany going mad and burning this pos down... ironically, they've successfully conveyed the message GRRM was probably going to - that we must put aside our petty differences to overcome the larger threat.

The problem is there are no worthy queens to contrast these mad evil queens. That was what Dany was supposed to be to Cersei. She was supposed to be the queen who wasn't seeking power for the sake of power, who wasn't misanthropic or enjoyed cruelty, and didn't let prophecies control her life. But if Dany becomes yet another mad queen, instead of the story being about what makes a good ruler, the the story becomes a cautionary tale about women who seek the highest position of power. This will be doubly true if Jon ends up King (or is offered Kingship), as Dany becomes his foil.

This doesn't affect male characters because we have enough examples of good male leaders, that there exists no stereotype of men being poor leaders, either in this series or in fiction in general.

So it's not that women should get a special pass, it's that women shouldn't just be written as stepping stones and foils for the male hero. It sends the wrong message. I have faith that GRRM has more awareness than to do that.

It depends what she does.  Burning the Red Keep as a last resort is a similar act of ruthlessness to Henry V refusing to allow starving women and children through his lines when he besieged Rouen.  He simply said "they are not there at my command".  He gave the defenders the option to surrender, and save their lives, and the lives of innocents, as Dany did.

Offering your enemy the chance to surrender, but killing them if they refuse, is honourable behaviour in a medieval context.  What would show Dany in a much worse light is if she carried out a mass slaughter that went beyond any needs of war.

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17 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

It's funny how the whole fandom has come together in their hatred of this episode. Dany haters are now livid at how much they're butchering her character, Dany fans are now nihilistically in support of Dany going mad and burning this pos down... ironically, they've successfully conveyed the message GRRM was probably going to - that we must put aside our petty differences to overcome the larger threat

I think the problem is the way they are writing the story is sounding completly depressing. Nobody likes that. There are only 2 eps until the end and if Jon and Danny don t end up together where will be a bit of happiness in the story? 

With Sam? Because all other characters don t seem to have anything good coming to them...

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9 hours ago, elanmorin said:

Do I need to point out how Visenya was older than Aegon the conqueror and yet he was crowned king despite her being better with a sword than he was AND probably being able to use magic as well?

Please do!

The “Andal misconception” starts with Visenia, whom Aegon married for political reasons which made him co-ruler. His first son by Rhaenys - Aenys was heir apparent for 5 years before Maegor was born which created succession dispute. On Aenys coronation day (by Grand Maester and according to Andal law) Maegor was declared co-ruler, heir presumptive (prince of Dragonstone) and presented with Blackfyre, then he claimed Balerion. He was stripped of the titles (in favor of Aenys’ son) and banished when it became obvious that he wants the Visenia line to continue - on basis of Andal law and all in favor of Aenys MALE heir.

Aenys distrupted his daughter’s Rhaena claim by desperately marrying her to her younger brother - an attempt to repeat what his father has done. 

Maegor united the matrilinear claims when he married Rhaena but this ultimately ruined her popularity and forced her to pass the succession to Jaehaerys and not to her daughters!

Jaehaerys objected the idea of women on the Iron throne - which caused discord with his wife who thought otherwise.

The key idea here is that being considered king of Andals is not the same as being considered the head of the house.

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