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

[Rose of Red Lake]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I'm fixated on Slavers Bay, because that's what this thread is about, and because Tyrion's "evil men" speech is about how using violence against slavers and rapists inevitably leads to genocide.  That's a line of argument which is very helpful to the slavers and rapists of this world.

It's not exclusively about Slaver's Bay, it's about her journey in total.

Dany killing everyone would have led to genocide and that's not good either.

Also, Dany isn't fighting slavers forever, there is a long trajectory where her "enemies" change and things get murkier. 

Quote

 

Daenerys: One day your great city will return to the dirt as well.

Hizdahr: at your command?

Daenerys: if need be.

Hizdahr: And how many people will die to make this happen?

Daenerys: If it comes to that, they will have died for a good reason

 

I found this scary for both Essos and Westeros, but people gloss over a lot because they think Daenerys never does anything wrong. I guess if people object to every single problematic hint about Dany in book or show, her rampage would appear to come out of nowhere. 

[SeanF]

44 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

It's not exclusively about Slaver's Bay, it's about her journey in total.

Dany killing everyone would have led to genocide and that's not good either.

Also, Dany isn't fighting slavers forever, there is a long trajectory where her "enemies" change and things get murkier. 

I found this scary for both Essos and Westeros, but people gloss over a lot because they think Daenerys never does anything wrong. I guess if people object to every single problematic hint about Dany in book or show, her rampage would appear to come out of nowhere. 

Apart from being proud and bombastic, however, she was not shown as doing much wrong, right up to the point she obliterated Kings Landing.  At least, she did not do much wrong, by the standards of other sympathetic characters within this story - Tyrion, Varys, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Jon, Ygritte, Tormund, all of whom have blood on their hands.  

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Mystical said:

It depends on the purpose and outcome of what one does and whether that can be seen as just or not. I'm pretty sure we are all in agreement that slavery is bad and has to end. However when slavery is the entire economic system like it is in Slaver's Bay, you better have a plan in place to replace the former economy with a new one. That was Dany's biggest mistake and why the situation for the slaves didn't really improve and why I don't see it as 'just'. Slaves were put in shelters where they prayed on each other to the point that we have slaves asking to go back to their masters because life was better. Then there is the resistances in all the freed cities that leads to constant uprisings which leads to even more bloodshed. Cities get bombed which leads to even more death and destruction. Slaves were on the streets with nothing (like that woman and her baby Tyrion gave a coin to).

If Dany had a solid plan for the economy and the foresight to leave a government and army in place to enforce the new system (whatever that is), then her cause might have been just. As it was, she freed a city then moved on with her entire army, no solid new government and the cities were retaken. Even when she decided to stay in Mereen, nothing changed. Tyrion was basically like 'hey masters/leaders, you have x number of years to figure out a replacement economy for slavery to support yourselves'. That is Dany and her government's job. Why not figure out how to best use former slaves and give them education and job training (trade, farming, cloth making, builders etc.) so they can make money to support themselves? I'm pretty sure a lot of them were already to some extend experienced in this. For example cloth making for classes high and lowborn (fine dresses, regular clothes etc.) can be a mass production to then be traded. That's an entire production chain in and of itself.

Unlike Daenerys, we have hundreds of years of work by professional economists to study.

Slavery does not generate wealth.  It redistributes wealth upwards to a tiny elite.  A slave economy is one that is based upon plunder, in the same way that the economy of the Iron Islands is based upon raiding.  Plundering the bodies of free people.  Ending a plunder-based economy is a good achievement, in and of itself.  Over and above that, ending a system in which people can be murdered, tortured, raped at will by their owners is a good thing, in and of itself.  Thinking that people are actually better off as slaves is just buying into the kind of myth that films like Gone with the Wind peddled.

When the British Empire ended slavery, or the USA, there was no economic plan in place to replace slavery, but it was still the correct thing to do.

There's no economic reason why people can't be employed for wages, or work on their own account, in the absence of slavery.  As far as I can recall, we only encountered one ex-slave who wanted to return to a form of indentured labour.

Nor can one use the fact that slavers resort to violence to reinstate the practice as an argument against ending slavery.  The correct response is to stamp down on the slavers hard, not to just accept that's the way things are.

[Rose of Red Lake]

22 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Apart from being proud and bombastic, however, she was not shown as doing much wrong, right up to the point she obliterated Kings Landing.  At least, she did not do much wrong, by the standards of other sympathetic characters within this story - Tyrion, Varys, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Jon, Ygritte, Tormund, all of whom have blood on their hands.  

Did all of those characters feel even more empowered and self-assured, each time they did something violent? "Each time the Mad King gave his enemies the justice they thought they deserved, and each time it made him feel powerful and right." That line pretty much sums everything up here. 

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Did all of those characters feel even more empowered and self-assured, each time they did something violent? "Each time the Mad King gave his enemies the justice they thought they deserved, and each time it made him feel powerful and right." That line pretty much sums everything up here. 

Arya?  Yes.  Tyrion, yes, up to the point that he became a totally different character to that of the first four seasons.  Varys, absolutely yes, up until he suddenly turned into a pacifist in Season 7.  Neither Tormund nor Ygritte ever showed any regret over their killings.  Jon, however, was not empowered by killing. 

The show runners had to come up with a very Daenerys-specific form of pacifism, at the end, in order to argue that killing was wrong when she did it, but somehow okay when others did it.

 

[Rose of Red Lake]

46 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Arya?  Yes.  Tyrion, yes, up to the point that he became a totally different character to that of the first four seasons.  Varys, absolutely yes, up until he suddenly turned into a pacifist in Season 7.  Neither Tormund nor Ygritte ever showed any regret over their killings.  Jon, however, was not empowered by killing. 

The show runners had to come up with a very Daenerys-specific form of pacifism, at the end, in order to argue that killing was wrong when she did it, but somehow okay when others did it.

I dont think Arya is on that same path because she has a dark mirror, which is the Hound. She'll decide to take a different path and not become like him. That scene was true to character.

We aren't exactly sure how Tyrion will feel at the end, but its reasonable to assume the author will have him face his demons. The show having him come to a point where he doesn't crave power anymore is probably about right. 

And these characters aren't the ones who have nukes that can kill massive amounts of people no matter how "right" they think they are, so I'm fine with more scrutiny on Daenerys.

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I dont think Arya is on that same path because she has a dark mirror, which is the Hound. She'll decide to take a different path and not become like him. That scene was true to character.

We aren't exactly sure how Tyrion will feel at the end, but its reasonable to assume the author will have him face his demons. The show having him come to a point where he doesn't crave power anymore is probably about right. 

And these characters aren't the ones who have nukes that can kill massive amounts of people no matter how "right" they think they are, so I'm fine with more scrutiny on Daenerys.

Fire always has been a part of war, and always will be.  A good deal of the criticism of Daenerys rests on the belief that it is somehow unfair to use fire against one's opponents in war, to which any modern soldier would laugh.  We use incendiaries.  It's unrealistic to expect someone in a Game of Thrones type world to do otherwise.

[BlackLightning]

On 5/22/2019 at 2:25 PM, 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.  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?  

 

Completely disagree with this. I know it's old but dang.

Daenerys a narcissist? Are you sure you're not mistaking her for Viserys?

Maybe the writing for the TV has always been piss-poor. Maybe I'm letting my knowledge of the books (aka Dany's inner world: emotions, memories, dreams, instincts, desicionmaking) get in the way.

But you're going to have to prove how Dany is a narcissist

[BlackLightning]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Did all of those characters feel even more empowered and self-assured, each time they did something violent? "Each time the Mad King gave his enemies the justice they thought they deserved, and each time it made him feel powerful and right." That line pretty much sums everything up here. 

Yes.

Even Jon felt more empowered and self-assured after killing or attacking someone. Case in point: killing the Night's Watch mutineers at Craster's Keep. Or better yet, executing his own murderers.

Honestly I think the key problem of people's understanding of Daenerys is that they are exclusively relying on the TV show. If you read the books, you get a glimpse at the real Daenerys and her inner world: her emotions, her memories, her instincts, her decisionmaking quandaries, 

 

[Mystical]

7 hours ago, SeanF said:

Unlike Daenerys, we have hundreds of years of work by professional economists to study.

Slavery does not generate wealth.  It redistributes wealth upwards to a tiny elite.  A slave economy is one that is based upon plunder, in the same way that the economy of the Iron Islands is based upon raiding.  Plundering the bodies of free people.  Ending a plunder-based economy is a good achievement, in and of itself.  Over and above that, ending a system in which people can be murdered, tortured, raped at will by their owners is a good thing, in and of itself.  Thinking that people are actually better off as slaves is just buying into the kind of myth that films like Gone with the Wind peddled.

When the British Empire ended slavery, or the USA, there was no economic plan in place to replace slavery, but it was still the correct thing to do.

There's no economic reason why people can't be employed for wages, or work on their own account, in the absence of slavery.  As far as I can recall, we only encountered one ex-slave who wanted to return to a form of indentured labour.

Nor can one use the fact that slavers resort to violence to reinstate the practice as an argument against ending slavery.  The correct response is to stamp down on the slavers hard, not to just accept that's the way things are.

How does slavery not generate wealth? Didn't Dany in the books take cuts from slavery for herself? That's wealth right into HER pocket. And she still has slaves herself. It could also be argued that the Unsullied for example are slaves. I mean she gave them a choice after buying them. But is it really choice when you have known no other life? They literally wouldn't know what else to do with themselves so they continued with the only thing they did know. Why not expose them to other things and see if they want to follow another path? But Dany gladly seems to not want to because their slave profession (slave soldier) is beneficial to her.

[SeanF]

40 minutes ago, Mystical said:

How does slavery not generate wealth? Didn't Dany in the books take cuts from slavery for herself? That's wealth right into HER pocket. And she still has slaves herself. It could also be argued that the Unsullied for example are slaves. I mean she gave them a choice after buying them. But is it really choice when you have known no other life? They literally wouldn't know what else to do with themselves so they continued with the only thing they did know. Why not expose them to other things and see if they want to follow another path? But Dany gladly seems to not want to because their slave profession (slave soldier) is beneficial to her.

I have to work to live.  But that does not make me a slave.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 11/7/2019 at 1:13 PM, SeanF said:

Fire always has been a part of war, and always will be.  A good deal of the criticism of Daenerys rests on the belief that it is somehow unfair to use fire against one's opponents in war, to which any modern soldier would laugh.  We use incendiaries.  It's unrealistic to expect someone in a Game of Thrones type world to do otherwise.

How does fire=nuclear weapons? You seriously don't see the difference? 

Aegon I's host was losing his ground and sea war until they used their dragons, which no one else has. Because they are the only ones who have them, they have greater responsibility and should be scrutinized for ABUSE of that power. They are the most powerful people in the world, and I dont think we should give them a pass just because other people burn down villages too. The scale of destruction that Targaryens can level is like the U.S. Air Force attacking a bedouin tribe. But sure...let's focus on how everyone is equally destructive.

[Rose of Red Lake]

On 11/7/2019 at 1:44 PM, Jabar of House Titan said:

Completely disagree with this. I know it's old but dang.

Daenerys a narcissist? Are you sure you're not mistaking her for Viserys?

Maybe the writing for the TV has always been piss-poor. Maybe I'm letting my knowledge of the books (aka Dany's inner world: emotions, memories, dreams, instincts, desicionmaking) get in the way.

But you're going to have to prove how Dany is a narcissist

I think she is but in more subtle ways than Cersei. This kind of discussion would need a whole new thread though.

It will be interesting to see what her expectations are when she comes to Westeros. Janos Slynt arrived at the Wall expecting to be the next Lord Commander. Will Daenerys Targaryen arrive in Westeros expecting to be the next Queen of the Seven Kingdoms? Will Jon kill them both? This would be a an unexpected parallel. 

[SeanF]

10 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

How does fire=nuclear weapons? You seriously don't see the difference? 

Aegon I's host was losing his ground and sea war until they used their dragons, which no one else has. Because they are the only ones who have them, they have greater responsibility and should be scrutinized for ABUSE of that power. They are the most powerful people in the world, and I dont think we should give them a pass just because other people burn down villages too. The scale of destruction that Targaryens can level is like the U.S. Air Force attacking a bedouin tribe. But sure...let's focus on how everyone is equally destructive.

Believe me, you die just as much at the wrong end of a pike or axe as you do at the wrong end of a dragon.  Dragons themselves have nothing like the destructive power of ICBM's.  They're more like fighter-bombers.

As it happens, WOIAF makes plain that there are effective anti-dragon military strategies.  Colonel Beck's analogy applies here.  A dragon v humans is like an elephant fighting an army of ants.  The elephant can kill thousands of them, but eventually the ants will overwhelm the elephant and eat it down to the bone.

[Rose of Red Lake]

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

Believe me, you die just as much at the wrong end of a pike or axe as you do at the wrong end of a dragon.  Dragons themselves have nothing like the destructive power of ICBM's.  They're more like fighter-bombers.

As it happens, WOIAF makes plain that there are effective anti-dragon military strategies.  Colonel Beck's analogy applies here.  A dragon v humans is like an elephant fighting an army of ants.  The elephant can kill thousands of them, but eventually the ants will overwhelm the elephant and eat it down to the bone.

Of course dragons can be killed, but that doesnt mean Daenerys isnt the most powerful person in the world. Every villain and their weapon of choice has to be taken out eventually, it doesnt mean the Deathstar+Emperor is any less dangerous. 

I guess you dont understand the themes the author is working with here. Targaryens will always be shown to be limited to one form of power, which is efficiently killing lots of people, and the story will always come back to the idea that this method is insufficient to rule effectively.

[SeanF]

58 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Of course dragons can be killed, but that doesnt mean Daenerys isnt the most powerful person in the world. Every villain and their weapon of choice has to be taken out eventually, it doesnt mean the Deathstar+Emperor is any less dangerous. 

I guess you dont understand the themes the author is working with here. Targaryens will always be shown to be limited to one form of power, which is efficiently killing lots of people, and the story will always come back to the idea that this method is insufficient to rule effectively.

If you think that genetic determinism is a theme of this story, I suggest you have misunderstood it.

"The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself" is as true for Targaryens as it is for Starks, Lannisters or Martells.

[Rose of Red Lake]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

If you think that genetic determinism is a theme of this story, I suggest you have misunderstood it.

"The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself" is as true for Targaryens as it is for Starks, Lannisters or Martells.

The Targaryens have a specific theme going on with JUST THEM. I didnt say anything about genetic determinism. I'm talking about this:

Quote

“Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen, one of the series’ heroines] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world,” “But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.” - GRRM, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists interview, 2011

which is illustrated in this passage:

Quote

“She was the blood of the dragon. She could kill the Sons of the Harpy, and the sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons. But a dragon could not feed a hungry child nor help a dying woman’s pain.” - Daenerys, ADWD

which is a callback to this opportunity to do something other than destroy, which she turns down: 

Quote

“If devilgrass could grow between the paving stones, other grasses would grow when the stones were gone. They had wells enough, no lack of water. Given seed, they could make the plaza bloom.” … “Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. ” - Daenerys, ACOK

And is related back to what Mirri told her, that she can't save people and destroy at the same time:

Quote

“Saved me?” The Lhazareen woman spat. “Three riders had taken me, not as a man takes a woman but from behind, as a dog takes a bitch. The fourth was in me when you rode past. How then did you save me? I saw my god’s house burn, where I had healed good men beyond counting. My home they burned as well, and in the street I saw piles of heads. I saw the head of a baker who made my bread. I saw the head of a boy I had saved from deadeye fever, only three moons past. I heard children crying as the riders drove them off with their whips. Tell me again what you saved.” - Daenerys, AGOT

which also relates back to this foreshadowing for what she will do to King's Landing, because she will not be able to make her kingdom beautiful by being a terrible conquering Dothraki horselord/dragonlord:

Quote

Her bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father. But before she could do that she must conquer. - Daenerys, ACOK

and this one, when she realizes conquests can't feed people, and how it just continues the cycle of death:

Quote

All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. When word of what had befallen Astapor reached the streets, as it surely would, tens of thousands of newly freed Meereenese slaves would doubtless decide to follow her when she went west, for fear of what awaited them if they stayed … yet it might well be that worse would await them on the march. Even if she emptied every granary in the city and left Meereen to starve, how could she feed so many? The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger. - Daenerys, ASOS

and here again when she realizes she can't save them from disease, which was a chain reaction from her conquests:

Quote

I have no more help to give, Dany thought, despairing. The Astapori had no place to go. Thousands remained outside Meereen’s thick walls—men and women and children, old men and little girls and newborn babes. Many were sick, most were starved, and all were doomed to die. Daenerys dare not open her gates to let them in. She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barber-surgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare. Separating the healthy from the sick had proved impractical as well. Her Stalwart Shields had tried, pulling husbands away from wives and children from their mothers, even as the Astapori wept and kicked and pelted them with stones. A few days later, the sick were dead and the healthy ones were sick. Dividing the one from the other had accomplished nothing. - Daenerys, ADWD

And similarly again, to the point where people hoped for her to be a gentle queen who feeds them, but instead cannibalism has set in:

Quote

The pyramid of Nakloz was despoiled and set aflame by those who claimed that Kraznys mo Nakloz was to blame for all our woes.“"Others blamed Daenerys,” said the weaver, “but more of us still loved you. ‘She is on her way,’ we said to one another. 'She is coming at the head of a great host, with food for all.’ "I can scarce feed my own folk. If I had marched to Astapor, I would have lost Meereen.- Daenerys, ADWD 

Quote

Suffering was the only thing they did not lack. "There is scarcely a horse or mule left, though many rode from Astapor,” Marselen reported to her. “They’ve eaten every one, Your Grace, along with every rat and scavenger dog that they could catch. Now some have begun to eat their own dead.”- Daenerys, ADWD

She know she needs to use soft power, even though she detests her subjects:

Quote

"To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them” - Daenerys, ADWD

"Daenerys was sick unto death of Zhak and Merreq; she was sick of all the Mereenese, great and small alike.” - Daenerys, ADWD

but she doesn't know how to use soft power, until the Green Grace informs her of how she's perceived:

Quote

“Tell me, can this king puff his cheeks up and blow Xaro’s galleys back to Qarth? Can he clap his hands and break the siege of Astapor? Can he put food in the bellies of my children and bring peace back to my streets?” “Can you?” the Green Grace asked. “A king is not a god, but there is still much that a strong man might do. When my people look at you, they see a conqueror from across the seas, come to murder us and make slaves of our children. A king could change that. A highborn king of pure Ghiscari blood could reconcile the city to your rule. Elsewise, I fear, your reign must end as it began, in blood and fire.” - Daenerys, ADWD

And that is why the progress she made in marrying Hizdahr was real because she TRIED to do something other than roasting slavers.

The peace means that she can now receive food by sea trade.

She has to accept the terms of that for now because she can't stop all slave trade everywhere and still expect to feed her people.

Stop slavery outside her walls by using her dragons vs. feeding her people. That's the choice, she can't do both.

The more she uses her dragons, the less she'll be able to solve real problems later, because, as she says above, using dragons is a metaphor for quicksand. 

Her chapters are full of examples of this theme - there's even one where she talks about how she can't fight hunger because it's an invisible foe (but I can't find it).

I didn't even touch on Fire and Blood, this post is too long, but the theme repeats over and over.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

The Targaryens have a specific theme going on with JUST THEM. I didnt say anything about genetic determinism. I'm talking about this:

which is illustrated in this passage:

which is a callback to this opportunity to do something other than destroy, which she turns down: 

And is related back to what Mirri told her, that she can't save people and destroy at the same time:

which also relates back to this foreshadowing for what she will do to King's Landing, because she will not be able to make her kingdom beautiful by being a terrible conquering Dothraki horselord/dragonlord:

and this one, when she realizes conquests can't feed people, and how it just continues the cycle of death:

and here again when she realizes she can't save them from disease, which was a chain reaction from her conquests:

And similarly again, to the point where people hoped for her to be a gentle queen who feeds them, but instead cannibalism has set in:

She know she needs to use soft power, even though she detests her subjects:

but she doesn't know how to use soft power, until the Green Grace informs her of how she's perceived:

And that is why the progress she made in marrying Hizdahr was real because she TRIED to do something other than roasting slavers.

The peace means that she can now receive food by sea trade.

She has to accept the terms of that for now because she can't stop all slave trade everywhere and still expect to feed her people.

Stop slavery outside her walls by using her dragons vs. feeding her people. That's the choice, she can't do both.

The more she uses her dragons, the less she'll be able to solve real problems later, because, as she says above, using dragons is a metaphor for quicksand. 

Her chapters are full of examples of this theme - there's even one where she talks about how she can't fight hunger because it's an invisible foe (but I can't find it).

I didn't even touch on Fire and Blood, this post is too long, but the theme repeats over and over.

Gosh,  leaders actually have to be willing to fight, in this world.  Even if their surname is Targaryen.  The examples you give work against your argument.  They prove that Daenerys is a person who possesses  a conscience, and realises that ruling involves very unpleasant choices, and that war is no light matter.

I think it's naive for people to think that the Masters of Slavers Bay are just going to be won over peacefully to abolitionism.  You're in danger of believing the sort of myth that was peddled by Gone with the Wind, that slavery is essentially benign, and Master and Slave lived in harmony together, until brutal imperialist Daenerys came on the scene.

Horseshit.  Slavers Bay is Mordor for the vast majority.  Daenerys is the first person in centuries to give them hope.     With Volantis coming into the fight, violence will be necessary, to end this evil.

[Rose of Red Lake]

42 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Gosh,  leaders actually have to be willing to fight, in this world.  Even if their surname is Targaryen.  The examples you give work against your argument.  They prove that Daenerys is a person who possesses  a conscience, and realises that ruling involves very unpleasant choices, and that war is no light matter.

All of these quotes are showing the bind she is in. You are ignoring a lot of the dilemmas of hard vs. soft power and focusing on her emotions. And she does treat war trivially in the end. She gave into a destructive dragon flight and decides to choose fire and blood, which is what she was trying to avoid the whole time. Now Meereen won't be getting any food because she broke the peace. We can predict how this will go: Dany storms in to stop slave trade, but people in Meereen starve to death anyway. Using dragons means nothing gets accomplished, it's hardwired into the story.

49 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think it's naive for people to think that the Masters of Slavers Bay are just going to be won over peacefully to abolitionism.  You're in danger of believing the sort of myth that was peddled by Gone with the Wind, that slavery is essentially benign, and Master and Slave lived in harmony together, until brutal imperialist Daenerys came on the scene.

I mean maybe take that up with the author? What do you think the author is talking about when he says that dragons can't reform, improve, or build? You can contemplate that, or ignore that. She can't reform, improve, or build a city by using nuclear weapons. She can conquer people but she can't "save" them. She'll end up right back where she started, which is kind of the whole theme of House Targaryen. They spectacularly failed on both continents. 

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

All of these quotes are showing the bind she is in. You are ignoring a lot of the dilemmas of hard vs. soft power and focusing on her emotions. And she does treat war trivially in the end. She gave into a destructive dragon flight and decides to choose fire and blood, which is what she was trying to avoid the whole time. Now Meereen won't be getting any food because she broke the peace. We can predict how this will go: Dany storms in to stop slave trade, but people in Meereen starve to death anyway. Using dragons means nothing gets accomplished, it's hardwired into the story.

I mean maybe take that up with the author? What do you think the author is talking about when he says that dragons can't reform, improve, or build? You can contemplate that, or ignore that. She can't reform, improve, or build a city by using nuclear weapons. She can conquer people but she can't "save" them. She'll end up right back where she started, which is kind of the whole theme of House Targaryen. They spectacularly failed on both continents. 

I think there's nothing to take up with the author, only with your interpretation.

You think his message is that war is always wrong.  I believe him, when he says some wars are worth fighting.