My biggest issue with the finale is that they tried to make us feel guilty for supporting Daenerys' journey.

[JagLover]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

I think the bigger problem is Dany ended slavery, for no other reason than she "doesn't like it" and then didn't think to put into place a system for the slaves to get a fair wages and honest work. 

She also had probably something similar planned for Westeros (the breaking the wheel she kept talking about) which would  logically be the ending of the feudal system. The showrunners couldn't show that though because suddenly she would be a grey character again rather than a blonde Hitler. So we got lots of talk of liberation and breaking the wheel with no detail on what that actually meant.

Hence why she is a metaphor for communism, upending the existing social order, leading to drastic social changes and mass death, but supposedly (t least for some of its adherents) with good intentions. 

[rustythesmith]

15 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

That was before Dany won the climactic battle and ordered Daario to enforce her peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daario_Naharis#Season_6

Wiki's misrepresent information all the time, especially GoT wikis. They're written with no attempt at objectivity. I just watched the scene. Dany didn't create peace in Slaver's Bay. She only says there is peace in Meereen.

How do you imagine Mr Butchers or Meat is doing with regards to keeping the peace? "Fuck Meereen. Fuck the people." -Daario Naharis

[Cas Stark]

I see Dany as more of a message that blundering in to a foreign country/culture, even to right terrible wrongs, is a fool's errand, when you don't have any strategies beyond 'free the people' and you naively expect that once you've righted the wrong, it will all work itself out.  We saw in Meereen that lack of a plan for how to structure a new future was deadly to everyone, slave and slaver.

[Hodor's Dragon]

4 minutes ago, rustythesmith said:

Wiki's misrepresent information all the time, especially GoT wikis. They're written with no attempt at objectivity. I just watched the scene. Dany didn't create peace in Slaver's Bay. She only says there is peace in Meereen.

How do you imagine Mr Butchers or Meat is doing with regards to keeping the peace? "Fuck Meereen. Fuck the people." -Daario Naharis

Daenerys to Daario: "Specific orders will be left for you regarding the welfare of Meereen and the Bay of Dragons."

The force invading Meereen was represented to be the slavers' entire military force.

[rustythesmith]

1 minute ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

Daenerys to Daario: "Specific orders will be left for you regarding the welfare of Meereen and the Bay of Dragons."

The force invading Meereen was represented to be the slavers' entire military force.

We have no reason to believe that slavery has been abolished anywhere except Meereen. Which rulers occupy Astapor and Yunkai to make sure the people don't revert back to the only systems they know? What do you imagine those people are going to eat now that they aren't producing enough money from slavery to buy food? Their economies are based on slavery not farming.

Let's not overlook the fact that tens if not hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered or had to die because Fire and Blood was the extent of Dany's plan to change the world.

I think you just have to face the fact that Slaver's Bay is in ruins with no identifiable way forward that doesn't involve mass famine and additional war. And they all have Dany to thank for it. But as long as they get to starve to death as free men then I guess that's preferable to us yeah? You might want to try it yourself first.

[divica]

8 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I see Dany as more of a message that blundering in to a foreign country/culture, even to right terrible wrongs, is a fool's errand, when you don't have any strategies beyond 'free the people' and you naively expect that once you've righted the wrong, it will all work itself out.  We saw in Meereen that lack of a plan for how to structure a new future was deadly to everyone, slave and slaver.

That is one of the reasons the show is a piece of crap. We have danny "conquering/freeing" mereen, the slaves are super happy and se is dealing with the ex-slavers, people start disliking her and the harpies appear, she tries to adapt to their culture in order to stop the unhappyness, she becomes miserable and the people keep disliking her, she leaves on drogon.

Then she returns, burns the slavers armies and everybody is sudenly happy? For some reason the people in mereen now love her and everything is ok in the city? The objective of mereen is for her to learn how to rule! What to do after conquering a place… And in the show she learned nothing!

[Hodor's Dragon]

Just now, rustythesmith said:

We have no reason to believe that slavery has been abolished anywhere except Meereen. Which rulers occupy Astapor and Yunkai to make sure the people don't revert back to the only systems they know? What do you imagine those people are going to eat now that they aren't producing enough money from slavery to buy food? Their economies are based on slavery not farming.

Let's not overlook the fact that tens if not hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered or had to die because Fire and Blood was the extent of Dany's plan to change the world.

I think you just have to face the fact that Slaver's Bay is in ruins with no identifiable way forward that doesn't involve mass famine and additional war. And they all have Dany to thank for it. But as long as they get to starve to death as free men then I guess that's preferable to us yeah? You might want to try it yourself first.

From my perspective, anything, any risk was a better way going forward than allowing Slavers' Bay to stay as it was. Slavers' Bay had lived in slavery for over 3,000 years and there was no hope at all for anything to ever change. Slaves had zero rights and could be raped, tortured and murdered at their master's whim. 

[divica]

1 minute ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

From my perspective, anything, any risk was a better way going forward than allowing Slavers' Bay to stay as it was. Slavers' Bay had lived in slavery for over 3,000 years and there was no hope at all for anything to ever change. Slaves had zero rights and could be raped, tortured and murdered at their master's whim. 

But she should only leave the área after she has dealt with the problems. Burning the slavers armies doesn t really solve anything… She is suposed to learn something from that ordeal… learn how to rule when people don t simply love her...

[rustythesmith]

23 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

From my perspective, anything, any risk was a better way going forward than allowing Slavers' Bay to stay as it was. Slavers' Bay had lived in slavery for over 3,000 years and there was no hope at all for anything to ever change. Slaves had zero rights and could be raped, tortured and murdered at their master's whim. 

Like I said, try starving to death yourself and see if you prefer it.

Why do you think slaves were begging Dany to sell themselves back into slavery? What do you think those scenes were about?

Slavery is not the torture-fest that you're making it out to be. Dany is served by slaves everywhere she goes. They draw her baths, bring her food, brush her hair and build her fires. Illyrio's slaves are not generally strung up like Theon and tortured for their master's sadistic pleasure. This is the way Team Dany likes to characterize slavery and it's just false.

And no, this is not a "slavery is good" argument. This is a "you're blinded by your sense of moral superiority" argument. If you want to take the problem of ethics seriously, you have to put yourself in the shoes of other people and extend your sympathy to people who are different than you, who you do not understand, with the genuine goal of understanding them before you pass any judgements.

Neither Dany nor Team Dany seem to understand the people whose suffering they are justifying. The inescapable truth is that if you were born into this slave society and into a slave family, you would absolutely be a slaver too. You would not see anything particularly wrong with having slaves. You would think it's the natural way of the world, as Xaro describes to Dany. And most importantly, you would not believe yourself worthy of execution, burning, or crucifixion simply for having been born into a society that Dany doesn't sympathize with.

Until Team Dany can admit that their own sense of morality is subjective and not some kind of universal fact about ethics, they're never going to understand what Dany's story is really about. The whole reason the books are written from a first person POV is specifically to nurture bias in the reader towards the POV characters.

That's how the problem of moral relativity is BAKED into the books from beginning to end. It's why Arya looks at Needle and sees a sword while Sam looks at Needle and sees a knife. Everything is a matter of perspective. Especially morality.

[Hodor's Dragon]

1 minute ago, rustythesmith said:

Like I said, try starving to death yourself and see if you prefer it.

Why do you think slaves were begging Dany to sell themselves back into slavery? What do you think those scenes were about?

Slavery is not the torture-fest that you're making it out to be. Dany is served by slaves everywhere she goes. They draw her baths, bring her food, brush her hair and build her fires. Illyrio's slaves are not generally strung up like Theon and tortured for their master's sadistic pleasure. This is the way Team Dany likes to characterize slavery and it's just false.

And no, this is not a "slavery is good" argument. This is a "you're blinded by your sense of moral superiority" argument. If you want to take the problem of ethics seriously, you have to put yourself in the shoes of other people and extend your sympathy to people who are different than you, who you do not understand, with the genuine goal of understanding them before you pass any judgements.

Neither Dany nor Team Dany seem to understand the people whose suffering they are justifying. The inescapable truth is that if you were born into this slave society and into a slave family, you would absolutely be a slaver too. You would not see anything particularly wrong with having slaves. You would think it's the natural way of the world, as Xaro describes to Dany. And most importantly, you would not believe yourself worthy of execution, burning, or crucifixion simply for having been born into a society that Dany doesn't sympathize with.

I don't wish to engage your arguments on the the relative morality of slavery. I'm perfectly happy to just stand on my prior position and let others judge your points as they are expressed here.

But, leaving moral and political issues aside for the strictly factual, I must say this: Dany never had a slave. That's ridiculous. Missandei takes care of her personal needs and is explicitly not a slave but rather a high-ranking advisor. 

[Cas Stark]

7 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

I don't wish to engage your arguments on the the relative morality of slavery. I'm perfectly happy to just stand on my prior position and let others judge your points as they are expressed here.

But, leaving moral and political issues aside for the strictly factual, I must say this: Dany never had a slave. That's ridiculous. Missandei takes care of her personal needs and is explicitly not a slave but rather a high-ranking advisor. 

No one here is arguing that slavery is moral.  No one.  

Dany was certainly served by slaves when she was at Ilyrio's palace and as khaleesi when Drogo was still alive.

As for Missy, it doesn't look like Dany was paying her any wages if all she had after Dany's stint as Queen of Meereen was her old slave collar.

[rustythesmith]

2 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

I don't wish to engage your arguments on the the relative morality of slavery. I'm perfectly happy to just stand on my prior position and let others judge your points as they are expressed here.

But, leaving moral and political issues aside for the strictly factual, I must say this: Dany never had a slave. That's ridiculous. Missandei takes care of her personal needs and is explicitly not a slave but rather a high-ranking advisor. 

I'm perfectly happy to let my points stand on their own merits too.

I never said Dany had a slave. This is another one of Team Dany's favorite strategies. Misrepresent what somebody said in an attempt to discredit them.

I said Dany is served by slaves. The difference between owning a slave and benefiting from slavery is not a particularly important one, and Season 3 Dany would agree with me. When Jorah tried to convince Dany to sail for Astapor, Dany refused because she didn't want to use a slave army.

"The distinction means a great deal to some people."
"Do those people have any better ideas about how to put you on the Iron Throne?"

Jorah led Dany into an uncomfortable position where she felt forced (notice that she wasn't ACTUALLY forced. She only FELT forced) by her circumstances to buy the slave army. Dany was faced with two options:

1. Leave Astapor without an army.

She didn't like this option because she wanted power and she was afraid that without power she would end up like her brother Viserys.

2. Buy the slave army.

She didn't like this option because she's against slavery.

So what did Dany do? She invented a third option.

3. If I'm freeing them, then I'm not "using" them.

Rather than genuinely holding true to her ideal, she found a way to TECHNICALLY hold true to her ideal by imposing an unfair cost on the cities and people she killed.

[Hodor's Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

No one here is arguing that slavery is moral.  No one.  <snip>

The hell you say. The post I was responding to had about 4 or 5 paragraphs about how slavery wasn't so bad as "Team Dany" thinks. It is about exactly what I said it is about, "the relative morality of slavery." 

Here are a few of its postulates:

• Slaver is not so much of a "torture-fest."
• Some slavers treat their slaves well. The personal servants of an extremely wealthy slaver are used as an example. 
• As assumption is made that I haven't "put myself in the shoes of other people" because I pass judgments on slave owners.
• People who grow up in a slaveholding society don't see anything wrong with having slaves and think it's the natural way of the world and, in fact, " would be a slaver, too," if I grew up there.

Like I said before, those are arguments I don't even want to engage. They miss the inescapable central point of being a slave, which is that somebody else is making all your decisions for you and has every legal right to humiliate or even injure you however they see fit. And especially of Slavers' Bay slavery, where you know your descendants for 50 generations will face the same condition, without hope of recourse, living in a society where grotesque mistreatment of human beings isn't even met with social opprobrium.

If Arya Stark's vengeance justifies the death of every Frey, what level of vengeance is justified here?

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

The hell you say. The post I was responding to had about 4 or 5 paragraphs about how slavery wasn't so bad as "Team Dany" thinks. It is about exactly what I said it is about, "the relative morality of slavery." 

Here are a few of its postulates:

• Slaver is not so much of a "torture-fest."
• Some slavers treat their slaves well. The personal servants of an extremely wealthy slaver are used as an example. 
• As assumption is made that I haven't "put myself in the shoes of other people" because I pass judgments on slave owners.
• People who grow up in a slaveholding society don't see anything wrong with having slaves and think it's the natural way of the world and, in fact, " would be a slaver, too," if I grew up there.

Like I said before, those are arguments I don't even want to engage. They miss the inescapable central point of being a slave, which is that somebody else is making all your decisions for you and has every legal right to humiliate or even injure you however they see fit. And especially of Slavers' Bay slavery, where you know your descendants for 50 generations will face the same condition, without hope of recourse, living in a society where grotesque mistreatment of human beings isn't even met with social opprobrium.

If Arya Stark's vengeance justifies the death of every Frey, what level of vengeance is justified here?

None of those bullet points is an argument that slavery is moral.  Certainly, not all slaves were tortured throughout history or in the books and the show, this is a fact.  A slave being treated well doesn't diminish the fact that slavery itself is immoral, it simply means that not all slave holders are raging Evil Sadists Who Deserve Immediate Brutal Death.  And I would also agree, that overwhelmingly a person who was born into a slave holding society is going to view it as the natural order of things, indeed, again, we have thousands of years of real history to show us this is true, not everyone, but most this again is not any argument that slavery is moral, it's an argument that people are molded by the cultures and societies and norms in which they live. 

[Areisius]

They turned Dany into a full blown sociopath in 1 episode. 

[Hodor's Dragon]

8 minutes ago, rustythesmith said:

I'm perfectly happy to let my points stand on their own merits too.

I never said Dany had a slave. This is another one of Team Dany's favorite strategies. Misrepresent what somebody said in an attempt to discredit them.

I said Dany is served by slaves. <snip>

I didn't misrepresent anything.

You said this:  "Dany is served by slaves everywhere she goes. They draw her baths, bring her food, brush her hair and build her fires. "

Whenever we see Dany, after Season 2, she is surrounded by her own people, in her personal quarters or headquarters. Excuse me if you meant to say that other people's slaves were sneaking into her quarters or headquarters to serve her.

And this "Team Dany" crap is hogwash. I'm me. Address me for my ideas. Nobody's paying me for this and I don't have meetings with somebody to dream up strategies. And by the way, this basic concept of thinking of people as members of their group instead of as individuals with their own thoughts and dreams certainly wound its presence felt in your slavery arguments above.

[Hodor's Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

None of those bullet points is an argument that slavery is moral.  Certainly, not all slaves were tortured throughout history or in the books and the show, this is a fact.  A slave being treated well doesn't diminish the fact that slavery itself is immoral, it simply means that not all slave holders are raging Evil Sadists Who Deserve Immediate Brutal Death.  And I would also agree, that overwhelmingly a person who was born into a slave holding society is going to view it as the natural order of things, indeed, again, we have thousands of years of real history to show us this is true, not everyone, but most this again is not any argument that slavery is moral, it's an argument that people are molded by the cultures and societies and norms in which they live. 

You keep talking about an argument that slavery "is moral." That misses the point. There's not an on/off switch to morality. The arguments I was responding to were very much an argument to the effect that hey, nobody is saying slavery is good but it isn't THAT bad. Which is exactly how I described it: as an argument about the relative morality of slavery. Not an argument that slavery is good, but an argument that it is only bad to a certain level and you shouldn't exaggerate it by saying it's worse than it really is.

I completely reject that as missing the  meaning of what it is to be a slave and to know that your children will be slaves, and not just your children but all your issue, for ever, slaves. And I go back to what I originally said: any risk with a legitimate chance of succeeding--and you can't deny Dany had a chance--is better than to let Slavers' Bay go on for another 3,000 years.

[ToddDavid]

Anyone with a background in psychology, scratch that- anyone who’s taken a few remedial psychology classes, should be able to recognize through an objective lens that TV SHOW Dany has been a raging Narcissist since S1.  Incredibly evident.  That’s all we need to know about her, yet the show went beyond that and provided significant foreshadowing, as well as informed us multiple times that she might be predisposed to madness.  The Dany fans simply refused to hear it, like a tantrum-throwing 9 year old sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes, and yelling “NA NA NA NA NA NA”.

Raging narcissist + dragons + Unsullied + dreams of conquering the world = bad shit’s eventually gonna happen.  It’s inevitable.

 

How can anyone possibly think that:

a) every single non-slave territory would simply let her march right in and take over? 

... and b) that Dany would respectfully heed the wishes of the free lands she’s wanting to conquer and turn around & walk away?  

 

[rustythesmith]

26 minutes ago, Hodor's Dragon said:

I didn't misrepresent anything.

You said this:  "Dany is served by slaves everywhere she goes. They draw her baths, bring her food, brush her hair and build her fires. "

Whenever we see Dany, after Season 2, she is surrounded by her own people, in her personal quarters or headquarters. Excuse me if you meant to say that other people's slaves were sneaking into her quarters or headquarters to serve her.

And this "Team Dany" crap is hogwash. I'm me. Address me for my ideas. Nobody's paying me for this and I don't have meetings with somebody to dream up strategies. And by the way, this basic concept of thinking of people as members of their group instead of as individuals with their own thoughts and dreams certainly wound its presence felt in your slavery arguments above.

This is a community forum, not a private chat, so I am addressing everyone who is still defending Dany's actions at this point. I was being polite by referring to you in the collective. But if you would prefer that in the future I attribute your naive positions entirely to you then that's agreeable.

I've already pointed out that the distinction between owning a slave and benefiting from slavery is not a particularly important one when it comes to the ethical problem of slavery. And I've already proven that Dany held that exact same position in season 3. So Dany is absolutely served by slavery from episode 101 to episode 806, using a definition given by Dany herself in season 3.

There are patterns of argumentation and patterns of behavior across the set of all Dany defenders. I've already proven the first by listing every argument in their repertoire. I think you're demonstrating the second. These patterns more than warrant some kind of group identification. I've chosen to identify them as Team Dany and I think it's a respectable enough term. If someone were to call me Team Jon it wouldn't offend me in the slightest.

I engage with people as individuals regardless of which groups they belong to. If I've misrepresented you at any point, feel welcome to point it out. I have a tendency to make assumptions about my opponent's positions to save time. Judging from your responses and lack thereof, I don't get the impression that any of my assumptions about your position were misplaced.

[tallTale]

Just now, ToddDavid said:

Anyone with a background in psychology, scratch that- anyone who’s taken a few remedial psychology classes, should be able to recognize through an objective lens that TV SHOW Dany has been a raging Narcissist since S1.  Incredibly evident.

Narcissism does not automatically lead to murderous tyrant.

1 minute ago, ToddDavid said:

That’s all we need to know about her, yet the show went beyond that and provided significant foreshadowing, as well as informed us multiple times that she might be predisposed to madness.  The Dany fans simply refused to hear it, like a tantrum-throwing 9 year old sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes, and yelling “NA NA NA NA NA NA”.

This is an opinion with zero facts to back it up.

1 minute ago, ToddDavid said:

Raging narcissist + dragons + Unsullied + dreams of conquering the world = bad shit’s eventually gonna happen.  It’s inevitable.

Bad things could mean anything.

 

2 minutes ago, ToddDavid said:

) every single non-slave territory would simply let her march right in and take over? 

... and b) that Dany would respectfully heed the wishes of the free lands she’s wanting to conquer and turn around & walk away?  

The question isn't about if the 7 kingdoms will let just bow down to her, the argument is about whether Daeny would become a bloodthristy pycho that targets innocents.

the seven and half seasons prove she wouldn't do that.

She frees slavery from bondage because she sees them as oppressed.

She marries a guy she doesn't even like to be a more fair ruler.

She locks up dragons for killing one innocent person.

She saves the north, even without a guarantee they would bend the knee.

She didn't go blood thirsty insane even when much worse things happened to her in life then her briefly known boyfriend not liking her anymore.