Jump to content

Will Dany burn Essos on the way to Westeros?


Jon The Dragon

Recommended Posts

Mantarys is said to be evil.  That means slavers.  I don't think she will necessarily battle every city in between Slaver's Bay and Westeros.  She will inspire the slaves to free themselves from their masters.  The slaves outnumber the slavers in Volantis.  All they need is a spark of hope to push them towards freedom.  Yeah so the slaves will free themselves.  They are watching what will happen in Mereen.  A successful liberation in Mereen is the green light they need.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's the question.  Dany will become more ruthless in TWOW, I'm sure.  But does that mean ruthless like Stannis;. Like Aegon and his sister; like Tywin, or like Genghis Khan.  Those are varying levels of ruthlessness.

I think Volantis will burn, if not on her orders, due to internal revolution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Daenerys will have a violent turn in Winds of Winter. She has embraced fire and blood now. Meereen will burn. Next is Yunkai. Next is Mantarys. Next is definitely Volantis. Next is Pentos because Daenerys will want to find Illyrio. The sack of Pentos (a city that has done nothing against Daenerys) will show us that Daenerys is a more dark character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe she has the ruthlessness of all 4, like Stannis at the head of a foreign religion spurred on by duty and rights, like Aegon and his sisters invading with dragons, like Tywin arriving at a city gates under false pretences to sack a city and like Ghengis in the way the Dothraki culture mirrors his.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Jonthedragon said:

Will she burn the cities in the area of the Old Valyrian Freehold on the way to Westeros? I do wonder if she will travel along the Devil Road which she saw as the road home on her flight on Drogon. She would be massively feared upon arrival with god knows how many people she frees / follow her.

What do you mean with burn? Burning them to the ground leaving nothing behind? Unlikely. Will she conquer these cities on Drogon's back with an army of Dothraki and freedmen behind and violently uproot their ruling classes? Highly likely.

Will any of these cities be spared? We don't know. But Pentos and Volantis will fall with certainty. Same with Yunkhai.

Qohor is at the edge of the Dothraki sea, so it's unlikely to be spared.

What will happen to the Three Sisters (Lys, Myr and Tyrosh) is more unclear but I'd be surprised they do not fall too.  My pet theory is they enter as coalition in war against Braavos, before Dany reaches them.

More interestingly is Qarth. It suddenly came back to the story in ADWD (without plot necessity)  and declared war against Dany. Qarth has been always out of reach for the Dothraki, so I think that after uniting the khalasaars in Vaes Dothrak, Dany will head there.

Destroying all these major cities is the only way to ensure that slavery do not return (massively) again to western Essos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Jonthedragon said:

Maybe she has the ruthlessness of all 4, like Stannis at the head of a foreign religion spurred on by duty and rights, like Aegon and his sisters invading with dragons, like Tywin arriving at a city gates under false pretences to sack a city and like Ghengis in the way the Dothraki culture mirrors his.

I meant, different degrees of ruthlessness.  Stannis burns traitors without compunction, and employs torturers.  Had Kings Landing fallen, it would have been sacked.  OTOH, he does rein in his men when he can, punishing those who rape and murder.  And, he refused to hold Lord Celtigar's people responsible for the defection of their lord.  He's at one end of the spectrum.

At the other end, you have Genghis Khan.  Massacring entire populations, including women and children, whose leaders refused to surrender, or who defected.  Ordering his men to commit mass rape as a tactic of terror.  Using thousands of prisoners as human shields to soak up enemy fire.  Using human fat as an incendiary device.  

I would hope Dany is closer to the Stannis end of the spectrum than the Genghis Khan end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I meant burning as in attacking with dragon fire, not necessarily burning down a city to the ground, just the inhabitants. Maybe they are the nations that get trampled into dust.

We don't know how ruthless she'll get yet, Dany could be better or worse than them all, she has the power to do so.

Does anyone think its possible for a land bridge to be created over the Broken Arm of Dorne if the seas up north freeze? She could invade by land, sea and air then

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can't end slavery without spilling blood.  The evil slavers will either do the moral thing and release their slaves or they will have to die.  It's better if slavery ends peacefully but we know that will not happen.  The slaves themselves will either revolt and slay their masters, which is justice in my opinion, or the Free People's Armies will come in with dragon support and force the ending to slavery.  But to be honest, Daenerys has enough on her plate.  The slaves outside of the bay will have to fight their own way to freedom. 

On 11/24/2019 at 9:38 PM, Targaryen Restoration said:

Mantarys is said to be evil.  That means slavers.  I don't think she will necessarily battle every city in between Slaver's Bay and Westeros.  She will inspire the slaves to free themselves from their masters.  The slaves outnumber the slavers in Volantis.  All they need is a spark of hope to push them towards freedom.  Yeah so the slaves will free themselves.  They are watching what will happen in Mereen.  A successful liberation in Mereen is the green light they need.

A free Meereen is the beacon of the light of freedom.  Success there will create the wave to end slavery in Essos. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may end slavery in Essos, but without a system to replace it, surely that can only end up in anarchy, like Astapor. Whatever happens, Essos is due some carnage one way or another in my opinion. A change of tactic would be needed in Westeros as there are no slave masters there, if they hear tales of Essos' destruction they would be very wary of Dany. I can see the 3 treasons and all the bad influences around her tipping her over the edge. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Jonthedragon said:

It may end slavery in Essos, but without a system to replace it, surely that can only end up in anarchy, like Astapor. Whatever happens, Essos is due some carnage one way or another in my opinion. A change of tactic would be needed in Westeros as there are no slave masters there, if they hear tales of Essos' destruction they would be very wary of Dany. I can see the 3 treasons and all the bad influences around her tipping her over the edge. 

There is a real danger of simply taking the more intelligent Slavers' justifications for slavery at face value.  Okay, it's bad, but the economy depends upon it/some people are better off being slaves/for some people to prosper, other must suffer etc.  And, on close examination, their arguments are bullshit.  The same jobs need doing in any society, whether the people are slave or free, and history shows that free, paid, labour is almost always more productive than slave labour. 

Yes, the Meereenese slavers are butthurt, because they've lost a large chunk of their property (the slaves) and there are no easy profits to be made any more from the slave trade.  But the Meereenese freedmen now have opportunities they never had before - as soldiers, weavers, farmers, guildsmen, musicians etc.  Even if they get paid a pittance, they still get paid, and their former masters can no longer beat them or kill them at will.  If the slavers had the wit to see it, they could make money by investing in businesses run by the freedmen (common practice in Ancient Rome), and they could use their ships, and commercial contacts to trade commodities other than slaves across Essos. 

The system to replace slavery is paid labour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Jonthedragon said:

I agree that can and will probably be the end result, my point there was that the change period won't be all rosy, as power vacuums create a different sort of problem entirely all over the world. It seems freedom is purchased with blood. This is assuming there are still cities left to settle in.

I think there's a divide between those readers who see the Eastern storyline as a critique of imperialism, as represented by Daenerys, and those who see it as a critique of slavery.  I think mostly the latter.  I wasn't really sure until books like TWOIAF and F a B came out.  But, it seems plain to me that slavery is destroying the East.  It destroyed Rhoynish civilisation when the Valyrians launched their campaign to enslave them,  It destroyed Valyria (assuming the Faceless Men brought them down).  The Dothraki, raiding for slaves, have turned places where there were cities into large expanses marked "grass" and "desert" on the maps.   Travel by sea is dangerous as corsairs raid for slaves.

Right across the East, slave owners have been building a huge bonfire for centuries.  Daenerys is the spark that lit that bonfire.  But, if it wasn't Daenerys, it would be someone else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slavery is wrong whichever way its portrayed, imperialism isn't great either. I see how the common people always seem to suffer under both systems. The glory days of Essos seems like it was built on the back of slaves, either through Old Ghis, Valyria and the free cities. Whenever any change has happened the common people suffer the most, that's the point I got from the Eastern storyline. How the little guy is affected by the big players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Ygrain said:

I thinhk this might partly depend on the fate of the hostages. If Daario is killed, I can see some fiery retribution.

It would have to be, I suppose, nothing else make sense really. But... I'm kind of hoping something else happens.

At the time Doreah dies in the Red Waste, Dany has become a leader and needs a new tougher, more independent mindset. The seductive, submissive persona she learned from Doreah just falls away, and we don't see it again - it's a nice coincidence at least. Let the girl die and the woman be born, sort of thing.

Death of Daario would be death of a future as butcher queen,  maybe. Hope it happens that way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's sort of interesting with Dany is who wants her to remember who she is. Daario and Quaithe use similar words.

Quaithe tells her to remember who she is and Daario wonders if she remembers who she is. But Daario with his ideas has been like the devil on her shoulder. His idea of a Red Wedding is pretty chilling. But there is also something with Daario with Dany often lamenting that she wished he was better born that stands out.

I think Dany may have been pushed a bit too far. She made a lot of concessions in Meereen and ended up doing things that she did not want to do. She locked up her dragons, she married Hizdhar, the fighting pits were reopened. Quaithe appears to her after she's locked up the dragons, after nine people have been assassinated by the Sons of the Harpy, but apparently, it's more urgent to warn her about the people who are seeking her out than the enemies inside her walls, who are conducting a guerrilla war against her. 

I think the cities that rose against her and penned her up in Meereen are going to get a taste of blood and fire. Tolos, Mantarys, Volantis, Qarth, Yunkai. I don't know that she'd want to attack Pentos, she's already said she did not want to because of Illyrio, but then I'm assuming that the Tattered Prince's backstory will end up being tied to Illyrio since he is the only character from Pentos that we know thus far. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...