The character assassination of Daenerys

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Yeah I disagree with that speculation because I think Arianne is going to be shown to be as smart as, or smarter than Dany, and not be fooled by Aegon. She has doubts about him and knows about all the Blackfyre failures, and she has no desire to be Queen of Westeros. She just found out she is heir to Dorne and wants to do right by it. Aegon's group also expects Arianne to join them; I think there is a twist coming on that. He won't get Dorne that easily since they have a history of making Targaryens look like fools. 

Arianne is full of resentment towards Daenerys in her sample chapter, as well as half-hoping that Quentyn will perish, and  at the same time, feeling immense guilt that she can wish  such a thing.

[Rose of Red Lake]

55 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Arianne is full of resentment towards Daenerys in her sample chapter, as well as half-hoping that Quentyn will perish, and  at the same time, feeling immense guilt that she can wish  such a thing.

She just thinks the idea of him as king is ridiculous because he's a dork. Also, she's distant from him like Asha is to Theon because he was a ward. But the real motive is that Quentyn is dead anyway and she'll find out that Dany rejected him. She's not stupid enough to join Aegon as a reaction to that because Dany would kill her. I think she lives. Prince of Dorne my ass. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

1 hour ago, Jaghen said:

I don't see why Aegon, even if fake, would not be able to ride a dragon, Blackfyre did ride dragons as well, and all of Valyria's rulling class back in the day. It's not a Targ privilege.

I find it funny that everyone willingly believes Jon is Rhaegar's son but rejects Aegon. I used to as well, Jon is a hero, two hidden sons of Rhaegar are too much. After what transpired in the show though, I wonder a lot more now. But don't think it would be as obvious as not being able to ride dragons.

I think GRRM is saving that moment for Jon who has no other way to prove his parentage. The plot doesn't work without dragon riding as a paternity test. And...Aegon is fake as hell in comparison to Jon. The true heir of Rhaegar vs. a distant Blackfyre bastard? Come on, Jon gets all the special points loaded up. He's a POV character and Aegon is a plot device.   

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

She just thinks the idea of him as king is ridiculous because he's a dork. Also, she's distant from him like Asha is to Theon because he was a ward. But the real motive is that Quentyn is dead anyway and she'll find out that Dany rejected him. She's not stupid enough to join Aegon as a reaction to that because Dany would kill her. I think she lives. Prince of Dorne my ass. 

I'm sure the story she'll receive is that Dany murdered Quentyn, the same way she thinks she murdered Viserys.

[Rose of Red Lake]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

I'm sure the story she'll receive is that Dany murdered Quentyn, the same way she thinks she murdered Viserys.

Maybe, but she does expect Dany to take Quentyn's offer, because she thinks Dany knows her Dornish history and would recognize how hard Dorne is to secure as an ally. It would be shocking to her that Dany refused but still expects to invade and win Westeros. She'll know she's dealing with a dangerous and ignorant person, a terrible mix.

[JakeStarkey]

Dany was an inbred descendent of the House Targaryen.

She had tendencies toward madness, megalomania, paranoia, and like the Mad King, she loved to use fire on her enemies.  In the latter example, she is similar to Melisandre, the Red Priestess of the Lord of the Light.

Jon did the noble act.

[ummester]

Just going to chime in here at the end - posters earlier mentioned duty vs love.  I think they get it. That is what this whole saga was about, The human heart in conflict with itself. The masculine vs the feminine. Honor vs emotion. Duty vs love. Pride vs forgiveness and so on.

I have been away from the boards, trying to write my own fantasy masterpiece (that I was planning way before ASoIaF/GoTs) but I think the themes touched on above are integral to all heroic fantasy. The human heart has basic conflicts - sexually, politically, emotionally - we need to embrace these and write about them - expose them in their raw honesty, for all to see. Fuck modern diversions like political correctness - get to the heart of real heroic fantasy storytelling - what is it about, what are we trying to say? The arm vs the beauty, the vag vs the cock - they can oppose or combine.

I love and hate GoTs - it is the most inspirational fantasy storytelling of the last score of years and it is also the worst. An author too gutless to finish. Show runners too gutless to be honest. A saga that could have been. As the human heart is in conflict with itself, so is GoTs/ASoIaF a mess.

[SeanF]

Now we know that D & D described her as "Her Satanic Majesty" as Drogon opened his wings behind her, in the final episode.  

The implication is that she was a demon, who had disguised herself as an angel of light, come to do the Devil's work on Earth,  or (in purely secular terms) a murderous, lying, hypocrite, who duped honest people into serving her.  That ties in with Tyrion retconning her anti-slavery campaign as evil.

So, if you're asking whether her character was assassinated, I'd say Case Closed.

[Rose of Red Lake]

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

Now we know that D & D described her as "Her Satanic Majesty" as Drogon opened his wings behind her, in the final episode.  

The implication is that she was a demon, who had disguised herself as an angel of light, come to do the Devil's work on Earth,  or (in purely secular terms) a murderous, lying, hypocrite, who duped honest people into serving her.  That ties in with Tyrion retconning her anti-slavery campaign as evil.

So, if you're asking whether her character was assassinated, I'd say Case Closed.

It's a figure of speech, I don't think there's much use in overanalyzing it.

She's fallen from grace. Great... moving on.

My critique of that scene is that having her dress in black with wings opening up behind her was amateurish and heavy-handed. They should have stuck with the light/white and had her look angelic, to play with audience expectations.

[BlackLightning]

It's simple. D&D are jokes.

There's a reason why they couldn't show their faces at Comic Con...

[ummester]

D&D are indeed jokes - writing hacks of the highest order. But let us not forget that GRRM has gone quiet after season 8,

Dany was always set up as 'Her Satanic Majesty' - it is only because the modern West has recently dived into the bizarre world of victim hood and Marxist indentity crap that we can't see this simple facet of the saga for what it is. Dany was entitled, as evidenced by her ridiculous list of names. She never knew honor or accountability and thus became a force for oppression. None of it is that hard to work out if you look beyond the daft modern lens the decadent West has tried to subvert us with... Baizuo indeed. Even a communist country like China realizes when Marxism has gone nuts. Anyway, that aside, even though I think it is emotionally relevant that Dany was a woman, let's forget that and just admit her character was designed, form the onset, as a selfish shit who would always default to being mean when she didn't get her own way.

Simple question - who was more selfish, Jon or Dany?

If you answer Jon, I am afraid you are already lost to propaganda and there is no saving the liberation of your mind.

[SeanF]

On 15 August 2019 at 2:04 PM, ummester said:

D&D are indeed jokes - writing hacks of the highest order. But let us not forget that GRRM has gone quiet after season 8,

Dany was always set up as 'Her Satanic Majesty' - it is only because the modern West has recently dived into the bizarre world of victim hood and Marxist indentity crap that we can't see this simple facet of the saga for what it is. Dany was entitled, as evidenced by her ridiculous list of names. She never knew honor or accountability and thus became a force for oppression. None of it is that hard to work out if you look beyond the daft modern lens the decadent West has tried to subvert us with... Baizuo indeed. Even a communist country like China realizes when Marxism has gone nuts. Anyway, that aside, even though I think it is emotionally relevant that Dany was a woman, let's forget that and just admit her character was designed, form the onset, as a selfish shit who would always default to being mean when she didn't get her own way.

Simple question - who was more selfish, Jon or Dany?

If you answer Jon, I am afraid you are already lost to propaganda and there is no saving the liberation of your mind.

Dany had self-interested aims and altruistic aims.  She was less altruistic than Jon, more altruistic than Tyrion or Sansa.

[Mystical]

9 hours ago, SeanF said:

Dany had self-interested aims and altruistic aims.  She was less altruistic than Jon, more altruistic than Tyrion or Sansa.

Was Dany really more altruistic than other characters? Was her desire to free slaves really all that altruistic or did it, in the words of Cersei, 'make her feel good'? She freed the Unsullied from slave masters and gave them a choice. But is it really a choice when you have known no other life? It's not like we saw Dany getting them any kind of alternative way of life. Bring in a musician, maybe some of those Unsullied would be talented singers or good with instruments. Or maybe painters, translators, farmers, builders etc.. She never showed them another way of life because soldiers is what she wanted/needed.

The same can be said of the slaves in the cities that she freed. She liberated them but she did it in such a poor fashion that you have to wonder if she actually cared about these people at all. You don't go in and overthrow a system without a plan as to what to replace said system with. Especially when it concerns economy. She freed slaves in one city only to move on to the next right after. She didn't establish a stable government or new economy and she didn't leave any soldiers behind to ensure that these things would be enforced. It's pretty much 'I freed you, now you figure it out for yourselves.'. Even in Mereen, she did nothing to establish a new economy or get the slaves any kind of alternative occupation (similar to the Unsullied) in order to make a living. Instead she apparently build shelters where slaves were abusing each other to the point that some even wanted to go back to their masters because life was better for them then. She never came up with an alternative economy. The former masters of the cities she 'liberated' created an uprising (Sons of the Harpies) that killed many innocent people. And they were only able to do that because she had abandoned those cities. She had no understanding of their culture (see fighting pits). She pretty much forced a man to marry her.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Mystical said:

Was Dany really more altruistic than other characters? Was her desire to free slaves really all that altruistic or did it, in the words of Cersei, 'make her feel good'? She freed the Unsullied from slave masters and gave them a choice. But is it really a choice when you have known no other life? It's not like we saw Dany getting them any kind of alternative way of life. Bring in a musician, maybe some of those Unsullied would be talented singers or good with instruments. Or maybe painters, translators, farmers, builders etc.. She never showed them another way of life because soldiers is what she wanted/needed.

The same can be said of the slaves in the cities that she freed. She liberated them but she did it in such a poor fashion that you have to wonder if she actually cared about these people at all. You don't go in and overthrow a system without a plan as to what to replace said system with. Especially when it concerns economy. She freed slaves in one city only to move on to the next right after. She didn't establish a stable government or new economy and she didn't leave any soldiers behind to ensure that these things would be enforced. It's pretty much 'I freed you, now you figure it out for yourselves.'. Even in Mereen, she did nothing to establish a new economy or get the slaves any kind of alternative occupation (similar to the Unsullied) in order to make a living. Instead she apparently build shelters where slaves were abusing each other to the point that some even wanted to go back to their masters because life was better for them then. She never came up with an alternative economy. The former masters of the cities she 'liberated' created an uprising (Sons of the Harpies) that killed many innocent people. And they were only able to do that because she had abandoned those cities. She had no understanding of their culture (see fighting pits). She pretty much forced a man to marry her.

Any virtuous act can be waved away as "just wanting to feel good."  She could have left the place with the gold and ships of the Yunkish, but she stayed.  The producers kinda forgot about Meereen, but it seemed in good shape, by the end of season 6.  

Economically, abolishing slavery would lead to a big rise in living standards, over several years, because free people work far more productively on their own account than slaves who work to escape a whipping., 

[Mystical]

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

Any virtuous act can be waved away as "just wanting to feel good."  She could have left the place with the gold and ships of the Yunkish, but she stayed.  The producers kinda forgot about Meereen, but it seemed in good shape, by the end of season 6.

Not every virtuous act is about just wanting to feel good. And certainly not every such act starts out like that. And she might have stayed but she did little. And what little she did often backfired. Nothing about Meereen seemed to be in good shape and it would be in shambles not long after she left with slavery reigning supreme again. But that's what you would get with leaving a sellsword in charge who once said 'fuck the people (of Meereen)'.

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

Economically, abolishing slavery would lead to a big rise in living standards, over several years, because free people work far more productively on their own account than slaves who work to escape a whipping.,

Only if you establish a new economy that's not based on slavery. And Dany had none in place. The show in fact made it a point that slaves were living in shelters which were maintained badly since no one told Dany of the abuse happening there. All property is probably owned by the rich (slavers, masters etc.). So for the slaves to get property (and better living conditions with it), the slaves would need some kind of income to buy or at least maintain any property. We are also never shown the former slaves getting employment or education to make a living. So the slaves were free but nothing else had changed, they still had no way to make any money (see the woman and her baby) or have productive jobs where they would make something that could be traded.

[ummester]

17 hours ago, SeanF said:

Dany had self-interested aims and altruistic aims.  She was less altruistic than Jon, more altruistic than Tyrion or Sansa.

Tyrion and Sansa were also very selfish characters. For less selfish, I would suggest characters like Brienne, or perhaps Ned (though stubborn adherence to ideals can also be selfish).

Re discussion above, as for whether or not a character's altruism is to make them feel good or not - that is where the entitlement comes in. Dany was designed to be overtly entitled - she was the definition of it with her long list of titles - it showed that she wholeheartedly embraced being acknowledged for her acts. In contrast, even the show made Jon out to be someone who shied away from recognition.

But the bigger point is that a character like Jon (and Brienne) achieved what they did without magical fire-breathing monsters to help them. Jon achieved everything with his own strength and attitude, similar to Brienne. The only relative advantage Jon had (especially in the show) were good looks (which Brienne lacked) and this gave him some sway/power over characters sexually attracted to him, namely Ygritte and Dany. Interestingly, Dany's attraction to him (although badly written by D&D) was obviously part of what drove her to despair and corruption. Had any lover before Jon ever rejected Dany's sexual advances, ever?

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, ummester said:

Tyrion and Sansa were also very selfish characters. For less selfish, I would suggest characters like Brienne, or perhaps Ned (though stubborn adherence to ideals can also be selfish).

Re discussion above, as for whether or not a character's altruism is to make them feel good or not - that is where the entitlement comes in. Dany was designed to be overtly entitled - she was the definition of it with her long list of titles - it showed that she wholeheartedly embraced being acknowledged for her acts. In contrast, even the show made Jon out to be someone who shied away from recognition.

But the bigger point is that a character like Jon (and Brienne) achieved what they did without magical fire-breathing monsters to help them. Jon achieved everything with his own strength and attitude, similar to Brienne. The only relative advantage Jon had (especially in the show) were good looks (which Brienne lacked) and this gave him some sway/power over characters sexually attracted to him, namely Ygritte and Dany. Interestingly, Dany's attraction to him (although badly written by D&D) was obviously part of what drove her to despair and corruption. Had any lover before Jon ever rejected Dany's sexual advances, ever?

Certainly, Daenerys is entitled, but so is any daughter of a king or great lord.  That's how the system works.  For Daenerys, though, her entitlement is also a means of coping with her life.  She simply has to believe that she's the rightful Queen of Westeros, or else be destroyed psychologically.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Mystical said:

Not every virtuous act is about just wanting to feel good. And certainly not every such act starts out like that. And she might have stayed but she did little. And what little she did often backfired. Nothing about Meereen seemed to be in good shape and it would be in shambles not long after she left with slavery reigning supreme again. But that's what you would get with leaving a sellsword in charge who once said 'fuck the people (of Meereen)'.

Only if you establish a new economy that's not based on slavery. And Dany had none in place. The show in fact made it a point that slaves were living in shelters which were maintained badly since no one told Dany of the abuse happening there. All property is probably owned by the rich (slavers, masters etc.). So for the slaves to get property (and better living conditions with it), the slaves would need some kind of income to buy or at least maintain any property. We are also never shown the former slaves getting employment or education to make a living. So the slaves were free but nothing else had changed, they still had no way to make any money (see the woman and her baby) or have productive jobs where they would make something that could be traded.

Earlier in Season 6, before the Yunkish attacked, Meereen was in good shape.  In fact, Tyrion said that's why the Yunkish attacked, because Daenerys had demonstrated that a city could flourish without slavery.

Although Meereen's economy is barely touched on in the series, I would expect that like most medieval economies, the most important feature was agriculture.  And end to slavery should certainly boost agricultural productivity, as the end of serfdom did in England.  Leaving aside the morality of it, slavery is just hugely inefficient.

[ummester]

31 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Certainly, Daenerys is entitled, but so is any daughter of a king or great lord.  That's how the system works.  For Daenerys, though, her entitlement is also a means of coping with her life.  She simply has to believe that she's the rightful Queen of Westeros, or else be destroyed psychologically.

Yes - I agree entirely - but none of that makes her a well adjusted or stable individual, or an individual that acted out of a true service to her subjects or an ideal greater than herself - which Brienne and Jon both did with honor, an ideal they held up in front of their own wants. This is why Brienne got over being rejected by Jamie and gave him (and even Cersie) some good notes in the gold cloak book - she realized the ideal of honor was more important than her feelings.

And Dany was destroyed psychologically. This happened because she met and fell for someone who was not only more entitled by the system, but more loved by the people, more deserving by their actions and more able to achieve it all without the help of dragons. Her dragons start dying and then, to top it off, the person that she knows was a better ruler than she could be rejected her sexually - and her sexuality was the first method of control/balancing the playing field she learned, with Drogo, even before she even had dragons.

Dany's arc was tragic - but then so was Lucifer's. Satanic Majesty is valid.

If anything, I'd say GoTs/AsoIaF is pro honor - I think the overall narrative shows all other ideals/beliefs/emotional attachments such as love, self worth, entitlement, family, greed, desire (you name it) ad being more corruptible than good old fashioned honor.

[SeanF]

39 minutes ago, ummester said:

Yes - I agree entirely - but none of that makes her a well adjusted or stable individual, or an individual that acted out of a true service to her subjects or an ideal greater than herself - which Brienne and Jon both did with honor, an ideal they held up in front of their own wants. This is why Brienne got over being rejected by Jamie and gave him (and even Cersie) some good notes in the gold cloak book - she realized the ideal of honor was more important than her feelings.

And Dany was destroyed psychologically. This happened because she met and fell for someone who was not only more entitled by the system, but more loved by the people, more deserving by their actions and more able to achieve it all without the help of dragons. Her dragons start dying and then, to top it off, the person that she knows was a better ruler than she could be rejected her sexually - and her sexuality was the first method of control/balancing the playing field she learned, with Drogo, even before she even had dragons.

Dany's arc was tragic - but then so was Lucifer's. Satanic Majesty is valid.

If anything, I'd say GoTs/AsoIaF is pro honor - I think the overall narrative shows all other ideals/beliefs/emotional attachments such as love, self worth, entitlement, family, greed, desire (you name it) ad being more corruptible than good old fashioned honor.

Without Daenerys, the world would have died.  I think most of us, in her position, would expect "a little f*cking gratitude" for it (as Tyrion put it to his father after the Battle of the Blackwater).  If we must criticise entitlement, then surely criticise the entitlement of those who expected Daenerys to save their hides, at the risk of her life and those of her men, without having to offer anything in return.  

I actually think the series' theme was that "Honour is stupid"  There was certainly nothing honourable in the way that the Stark children behaved towards Daenerys, or in the manner of her murder.