GoT and Feminism: What Happens Now?

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

You're making a whole bunch of assumptions here.

Name one. 

[SeanF]

18 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

And Dany turned 21 in prison, doing life without parole

No one could steer her right, but Tyrion tried, Tyrion tried

Tyrion tried to teach her better, but his pleading she denied

That only leaves Dany to blame 'cause Tyrion tried

In reality, a beautiful, charismatic, 21 year old, able to afford the best lawyers, psychiatrists, and publicists, would surely be able to get away with a few years of therapy, before being released.

[OldGimletEye]

7 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

Name one. 

I think I can do better than just one.

1.  The others endorsed it, - we have no idea who endorsed it.

2. went through with it - we have no idea who wanted to go through with it.

3. and had it worked  - we have no idea about anyone's specific actions

4. everyone would have benefited from the action - we don't know this either.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

In reality, a beautiful, charismatic, 21 year old, able to afford the best lawyers, psychiatrists, and publicists, would surely be able to get away with a few years of therapy, before being released.

LOL. You're probably right. I don't think Merle Haggard had a  beautiful, charismatic, and rich 21 year old in mind.

[Saturno]

1 hour ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

Grand Master is an official title given to slave masters with political power. It's in the books that Grand Masters rule the city. If Dany killed Grand Masters' friends, family, chess buddies, etc, then it would be collective punishment. She orders the deaths of 163 officials who would undoubtedly be responsible for the decision to kill those children, even if they are not the ones who went out there and hung the bodies on the crosses. 

That's not what I understood about her chapters in the Slaver's Bay. From what I remember Dany killed 163 random nobles which she had no idea were guilty or innocent of the killings. If I recall correctly I think some character even explains that it is almost impossible for all 163 nobles to be guilty, the probability being that there was a considerable number of innocents among them.  So I always took this as a demonstration of superficial and hollow "justice", being so only nominaly but not being actual justice.
 

[Demetri]

This thread is such a shitshow

[Varysblackfyre321]

14 hours ago, ummester said:

What percent of the human (or even animal) populations is gay? 5 or something like that? I honestly don't know exactly but its not high. Is there more chance that your athletes, soldiers, wizards, orcs - whatever you are writing about that you are trying to relate for a modern human audience - be gay or hetro?

Yeah, a character’s sexuality shouldn’t being the thing that determines he or she is relatable. And, 4-5 percent is the amount of people who have freckles. It’d be rather ridiculous to complain about the fact a character like Ygritte has freckles when only have such a thing.

14 hours ago, ummester said:

I don't care if a story has a gay character in, honestly does not bother me either way - the Renly/Loras element of GoTs was interesting enough and added to the overall narrative - but an author should not go out of their way to add a gay character in, is all I am saying.

Shouldn’t you think the author should do what he or she feels is right regardless of what offense it may cause who are offended at the level of depiction of certain groups? 

If he or she wants to write a character having the trait of being gay without it’d being majorly important why should they care if jives with the reader?

14 hours ago, ummester said:

If a seduction scene or something similar is needed between two characters of the same sex, make em gay because it ads to the story. Just don't try and write a story around sexually diverse characters, purely to exhibit diversity - Jeez, its not hard to work out?

21 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Or you could make them gay and not waste time having to justify showcasing a biological trend in nature of members of the same-sex, copulating.  There no more reason for why sexuality should be justified than other traits that aren’t shown by the majority. 

14 hours ago, ummester said:

A narrative should have a point, IMO. It should deliver an overarching message via its plot and characters. If gay characters are needed to make that point, then good. If not, then it doesn't really matter and I would argue if the sexuality is irrelevant it's always better to go with the default (hetro). Arguably, one of the main narrative points in GoTs is how power is attained and wielded among human kind - the gay characters added to this by showing how they used their sexuality to exert power over themselves and others, so their sexuality was additive to the story's purpose.

 No not really. Renly, Loras, and Yara’s sexuality aren’t things that they use to assert power over others. It’s just presented as a part of them.

14 hours ago, ummester said:

A lot can. How does a cliche become a cliche anyway?

No, Jews aren’t naturally greedy, atheists aren’t naturally evil, and not all gay men are feminine. 

14 hours ago, ummester said:

No, only that the way you talk about things makes me feel like you lack real world experience and just have a head full of ideals.

 I have never seen this BoN and don't really care to

 If you think all ideas could be treated with tolerance when they’re espoused then you’re being naive at best. Some ideas such, as genocide, ethnic etc are deplorable. The people who think they are good ideas are deplorable and people aren’t wrong at finding offense at the idea it’s ok to mistreat someone because of their race, sex or sexuality.

So, since you haven’t even seen part of the movie I referenced or seemed to have cared to give a quick google search of it, perhaps you could theighn not to get aggrevied people got offended and called it racist without having read the minds of the people who made it. Just a thought.

14 hours ago, ummester said:

Focus on fixing problems closest to you before trying to solve the ills of the world. Its part of the problem of the information age - everyone wants to rant about the latest great injustice they have discovered but no-one is getting out and helping their neighbors

This is basically apropos to nothing to you’re quoting. You’ve said don’t think people should find any type of ideas offensive. That’s patently absurd.

14 hours ago, Panos Targaryen said:

And I would agree with you, if those on the other side of the argument were allowed to make their points on this forum with the same vigour as you guys do. If, say, for every thread calling GRRM a racist and a sexist, ASOIAF a fantasy series "made for white men" (as if that is a bad thing by default), "problematic" when it comes to its depiction of women, etc., there was a thread harshly calling out people for trying to inject their radical leftist identity politics into a discourse about a freaking fantasy series which was never meant to have anything to do with their neo-Marxist worldview, nor is it morally supposed to. I don't want to break any forum rules and talk about things I shouldn't talk about, but let's just say this isn't the case. 

Point to 4 threads declaring Martin some sort of bigot in its title or the OP is centered around specifically calling Martin a bigot. If you merely meant post despite, you’re insistence on total censorship of those who express anti-leftist sentiment the fact that I am able to quote this post at all kinda negates your point. 

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

14 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

1.  The others endorsed it, - we have no idea who endorsed it.

2. went through with it - we have no idea who wanted to go through with it.

3. and had it worked  - we have no idea about anyone's specific actions

4. everyone would have benefited from the action - we don't know this either.

1. The Grand Masters are a group, not one person. They are like a members of a corporate board, or more specifically, the rulers of an oligarchy. So how do they come up with ideas? Someone obviously has an idea and others show support for it, else the idea is shot down. That's simply how groups work. You don't have to assume anything. Individual endorsements of ideas, as you say, is not a sure thing of course. But when a group takes an action, that means it has universal or majority support, or otherwise they wouldn't do it. If someone doesn't like it, they can leave the group. Anyway what I'm trying to say is that all members are responsible for group action that benefits all members. 

2. I mean they actually executed the plan. They ordered their underlings to go crucify the kids to teach Dany a lesson. It happened. 

3. I mean if the plan worked, as in deterred Dany from her warpath. If it did, all the GM get to keep their slaves and land without risking their safety. So regardless of who liked the plan or not, if it worked, every single one of them would have benefited without a doubt. That's just how group action works. 

4. Yes we do. The idea was to scare Dany, but it backfired. Of course each GM would have benefited if Dany hadn't sacked Mereen. Why would there even be a doubt about this? Did some of them secretly want to be conquered and executed for their sins? That's just far-fetched speculation not worthy of considering here. 

As I explained before, collective guilt and proportionate revenge. You seem to go with the individual guilt thing, which I don't agree with here because we are talking about a group that takes singular action. I think you are trying to say that GM are part of a team and maybe some members of the team decided to go crucify the children. Like during Robert's Rebellion when Tywin orders his minions to kill Rhaegar's children. Ned doesn't know about it or endorse it, though other rebel leaders do. If Dany had killed two rebel leaders, including Ned, to exact proportional justice, that would be wrong right, given that Ned had no knowledge of it? 

But the great masters of Mereen are not a hastily put together group that works from different parts of Essos. They are more like the Council that oversees Westeros. That's what's in the books, that they are the ruling class. So when the council takes an action, the members can't pretend to be ignorant of the actions, as they are responsible for coming up with them.

In the books, Dany says in her POV chapter  the GM is what's responsible for the children's deaths. Not some GM or one GM, but just GM. So Dany orders an equal number of them executed to match the number of dead children. 

To go with the original point you were trying to make, how does Dany's this particular action in Mereen somehow make her a bloodthirsty tyrant? She didn't do it on impulse or accuse random people of child murder. She pinpointed to the guilty group and took an action that the time and place deems proportionate.

[OldGimletEye]

9 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

1. The Grand Masters are a group, not one person. They are like a members of a corporate board, or more specifically, the rulers of an oligarchy. So how do they come up with ideas? Someone obviously has an idea and others show support for it, else the idea is shot down. That's simply how groups work. You don't have to assume anything. Individual endorsements of ideas, as you say, is not a sure thing of course. But when a group takes an action, that means it has universal or majority support, or otherwise they wouldn't do it. If someone doesn't like it, they can leave the group. Anyway what I'm trying to say is that all members are responsible for group action that benefits all members. 

What if some members dissented? 

 

9 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

2. I mean they actually executed the plan. They ordered their underlings to go crucify the kids to teach Dany a lesson. It happened. 

Who planned it? We don't know. Who gave the order? We don't know. Who after dissenting from it, just walked away doing nothing else? We don't know.

9 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

3. I mean if the plan worked, as in deterred Dany from her warpath. If it did, all the GM get to keep their slaves and land without risking their safety. So regardless of who liked the plan or not, if it worked, every single one of them would have benefited without a doubt. That's just how group action works. 

What if some people didn't think it would work?

9 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

4. Yes we do. The idea was to scare Dany, but it backfired. Of course each GM would have benefited if Dany hadn't sacked Mereen. Why would there even be a doubt about this? Did some of them secretly want to be conquered and executed for their sins? That's just far-fetched speculation not worthy of considering here. 

And what if some people thought it wouldn't scare Dany? What if some thought it would backfire?

9 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

As I explained before, collective guilt and proportionate revenge. You seem to go with the individual guilt thing, which I don't agree with here because we are talking about a group that takes singular action. I think you are trying to say that GM are part of a team and maybe some members of the team decided to go crucify the children. Like during Robert's Rebellion when Tywin orders his minions to kill Rhaegar's children. Ned doesn't know about it or endorse it, though other rebel leaders do. If Dany had killed two rebel leaders, including Ned, to exact proportional justice, that would be wrong right, given that Ned had no knowledge of it? 

But the great masters of Mereen are not a hastily put together group that works from different parts of Essos. They are more like the Council that oversees Westeros. That's what's in the books, that they are the ruling class. So when the council takes an action, the members can't pretend to be ignorant of the actions, as they are responsible for coming up with them.

In the books, Dany says in her POV chapter  the GM is what's responsible for the children's deaths. Not some GM or one GM, but just GM. So Dany orders an equal number of them executed to match the number of dead children. 

To go with the original point you were trying to make, how does Dany's this particular action in Mereen somehow make her a bloodthirsty tyrant? She didn't do it on impulse or accuse random people of child murder. She pinpointed to the guilty group and took an action that the time and place deems proportionate.

You are basically trying to jam a square peg into a round hole here.  You keep trying to use a bigger mallet to make it work. But, it still doesn't work.

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

44 minutes ago, Saturno said:

That's not what I understood about her chapters in the Slaver's Bay. From what I remember Dany killed 163 random nobles which she had no idea were guilty or innocent of the killings. If I recall correctly I think some character even explains that it is almost impossible for all 163 nobles to be guilty, the probability being that there was a considerable number of innocents among them.  So I always took this as a demonstration of superficial and hollow "justice", being so only nominaly but not being actual justice.

Here's the quote from ADwD:

Quote

She had not forgotten the slave children the Great Masters had nailed up along the road from Yunkai. They had numbered one hundred sixty-three, a child every mile, nailed to mileposts with one arm outstretched to point her way. After Meereen had fallen, Dany had nailed up a like number of Great Masters.

The Great Masters are the rulers of the city. They own the pyramids and run the slave business and the city. There's apparently a whole lot of them. They make up an oligarchy that makes decisions for Mereen like the Council does for Westeros. So the GM are not random nobles. 

The point is GM came up with the idea to kill slave children to make Dany fearful of them. It was their war defense strategy that backfires on them. When Dany overtakes Mereen, she wants justice and vengeance for the dead kids. The GM killed 163 of them, so she kills 163 GM. This is called eye-for-an-eye justice, as in it's proportionate to the crime committed in the medieval sense. 

She doesn't nail a bunch of rich people in the city just cause she's feeling mad. And no one in the books anywhere calls GM innocent of this particular crime. You can show me the quotes if I'm wrong. 

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

What if some members dissented? 

That is a very interesting what-if scenario to consider. Doesn't make it what happened, but what if. 

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Who planned it? We don't know. Who gave the order? We don't know. Who after dissenting from it, just walked away doing nothing else?

1. The Great Masters. 2. The Great Masters. 3. Not a single mention in the books of any GM dissenting, walking away, or coming over to Dany's anti-slavery side. 

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

What if some people didn't think it would work?

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

And what if some people thought it wouldn't scare Dany? What if some thought it would backfire?

These are all great what-if scenarios to consider. Really, what if people who have been cruel slave masters for centuries suddenly cared for the well-being of children they enslaved?

11 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

You are basically trying to jam a square peg into a round hole here.  You keep trying to use a bigger mallet to make it work. But, it still doesn't work.

I tried to explain how the collective guilt thing works here, given that there's no details in the narrative about the what-of scenarios you mention. I get it that you want to consider individual guilt. I simply don't agree because the GM are the group of rulers of Mereen. There's nothing to show that what Dany does is wrong in this world. It's certainly stupid, given that Dany should have sent them all to prison or something, considering that they are all guilty and continues to engage in slavery-type behavior. 

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

12 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

That is a very interesting what-if scenario to consider. Doesn't make it what happened, but what if. 

We don't know because Dany never bothered to find out. 

In fact, people weren't even offered the opportunity to rebut the presumption of guilt.

12 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

1. The Great Masters. 2. The Great Masters. 3. Not a single mention in the books of any GM dissenting, walking away, or coming over to Dany's anti-slavery side. 

And there is not a shred of evidence they all agreed.  That is just assumed by certain sorts of people.

And not coming over to Dany's side doesn't prove anything.

12 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

These are all great what-if scenarios to consider

These are essential to find out if justice is to be done.

12 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

Really, what if people who have been cruel slave masters for centuries suddenly cared for the well-being of children they enslaved?

We have no idea about the individual motivations. Nor should we assume them. The point is that needed to be found out, among other things.

12 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

I tried to explain how the collective guilt thing works here, given that there's no details in the narrative about the what-of scenarios you mention. I get it that you want to consider individual guilt. I simply don't agree because the GM are the group of rulers of Mereen. There's nothing to show that what Dany does is wrong in this world. It's certainly stupid, given that Dany should have sent them all to prison or something, considering that they are all guilty and continues to engage in slavery-type behavior. 

You're trying to say, it wasn't collective guilt. But it really was. Because punishment was delivered for belonging to a particular group or class. No effort to determine individual culpability was made here.

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

You're trying to say, it wasn't collective guilt. But it really was. Because punishment was delivered for belonging to a particular group or class. No effort to determine individual culpability was made here.

You keep repeating the same thing over and over and over. Now I'm the one saying there was no collective guilt here? Wth? I'm done debating with idiots. 

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

You keep repeating the same thing over and over and over. Now I'm the one saying there was no collective guilt here? Wth? I'm done debating with idiots. 

Here is a line you wrote:

Quote

I simply don't agree because the GM are the group of rulers of Mereen

Now who is the idiot?

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

15 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Now who is the idiot?

You are. You conflated collective punishment with collective guilt. And definitely didn't understand the simple sentence in the context it was written. Or maybe I'm the idiot. I think I'm arguing with an 8th grader in the middle of the night. 

[OldGimletEye]

8 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

You are. You conflated collective association with collective guilt. 

What's the difference again? And how does it advance your argument again?

8 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

And definitely didn't understand the simple sentence in the context it was written. 

And what context would that be again?

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

2 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

. Or maybe I'm the idiot. I think I'm arguing with an 8th grader in the middle of the night. 

Sounds like you're real intellectual legend - in your own mind.

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

6 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

What's the difference again? 

*collective punishment (not association; see edit)

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

*collective punishment (not association; see edit)

Assuming there is a difference in the meaning of the terms, explain them.

And then from that, explain why it makes a material difference.

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

Assuming there is a difference in the meaning of the terms, explain them.

And then from that, explain why it makes a material difference.

I'm not your ethics teacher, go Google it and learn if you don't know what the terms mean. Then go re-read my posts and see if you can get the point I'm trying to make.