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Martin confirms Dany's coin lands good.


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I think Dany will end the series in a good place despite the bad/questionable things she has done or allowed but I think that other characters will have a hard time believing or accepting it. Which makes for a massive misunderstanding that can get very ugly.

19 hours ago, SeanF said:

You might want to read a bit about Hitler, before trying to compare the two.

Try Ian Kershaw's Nemesis and Hubris.  Hitler was not someone who started off by freeing slaves, before going a bit OTT.  Hitler's blunt philosophy of racial subjugation and extermination was there from a very early stage.

If Daenerys were to become a tyrant, then I think someone like Robespierre or Dessalines would be a far better comparison than Hitler.

Anyone who compares Daenerys to Hitler is an idiot. There's no there there. The two are complete opposites to the core.

Like you said, Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte or even Mao Zedong are more align with Daenerys Targaryen should she break bad and become a tyrant. And even then, Mao and especially Napoleon did lots of great things and made lots of revolutionary decisions that continue to impact us to this day.

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On 12/30/2019 at 5:50 PM, SeanF said:

You might want to read a bit about Hitler, before trying to compare the two.

Try Ian Kershaw's Nemesis and Hubris.  Hitler was not someone who started off by freeing slaves, before going a bit OTT.  Hitler's blunt philosophy of racial subjugation and extermination was there from a very early stage.

If Daenerys were to become a tyrant, then I think someone like Robespierre or Dessalines would be a far better comparison than Hitler.

Oh I don't think she's 1:1 Hitler, it's more like a mix of tyrants, dictators, mass murderers, and cult leaders all in a blender. The author slipped some casual racism in Daenerys' chapters that young Hitler would have smiled at, especially her views on exceptionalism of health/fitness of the Targaryens through blood purity. And I don't really think freeing slaves has much to do with her development as a tyrant, mainly because Fidel Castro started off with similar revolutionary ideals (except I don't think Fidel was on his way to buy slaves in the first place). Essos just seems like a stomping ground for her to practice murdering people, build armies, grow her cult, and develop a messianic beliefs about herself.

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1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Oh I don't think she's 1:1 Hitler, it's more like a mix of tyrants, dictators, mass murderers, and cult leaders all in a blender. The author slipped some casual racism in Daenerys' chapters that young Hitler would have smiled at, especially her views on exceptionalism of health/fitness of the Targaryens through blood purity. And I don't really think freeing slaves has much to do with her development as a tyrant, mainly because Fidel Castro started off with similar revolutionary ideals (except I don't think Fidel was on his way to buy slaves in the first place). Essos just seems like a stomping ground for her to practice murdering people, build armies, grow her cult, and develop a messianic beliefs about herself.

I guess Dany's "racism" is why she welcomes people of all races into her inner circle.

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29 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I guess Dany's "racism" is why she welcomes people of all races into her inner circle.

Does she really "welcome" them though? She certainly makes sure they know their place (which is, beneath her). Even though Irri and Jhiqui are Dothraki and she is not, she snaps back that “Rakharo is blood of my blood. His life belongs to me, not you" and she shoves Irri away who is simply trying to do her sex slave duties. She slaps Eroeh, fails to understand Mirri's point of view, and what do you know-- the Lamb Men who Drogo conquers look alien to her, their hair "unnaturally" short. She is shocked Brown Ben would have Valyrian blood based on his mongrel appearance--such welcoming words. She thinks the Ghiscari look better without their hair and tries to convince herself that Daario has purple eyes, probably because deep down she wishes she could be with someone who looks like herself. 

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5 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Does she really "welcome" them though? She certainly makes sure they know their place (which is, beneath her). Even though Irri and Jhiqui are Dothraki and she is not, she snaps back that “Rakharo is blood of my blood. His life belongs to me, not you" and she shoves Irri away who is simply trying to do her sex slave duties. She slaps Eroeh, fails to understand Mirri's point of view, and what do you know-- the Lamb Men who Drogo conquers look alien to her, their hair "unnaturally" short. She is shocked Brown Ben would have Valyrian blood based on his mongrel appearance--such welcoming words. She thinks the Ghiscari look better without their hair and tries to convince herself that Daario has purple eyes, probably because deep down she wishes she could be with someone who looks like herself. 

This is a world in which prominent people have servants.  Working for Daenerys is about as good as it gets for a servant.  They live well, have light duties, and get on well with her.  Rakharo is her blood rider.  She's used to the hairstyles of the Dothraki, not the Lamb Men. She was unlikely to appreciate Mirri's point of view after being subject to a forcible abortion, and left in the wilderness with a comatose husband.  The point about Meereenese hairstyles is that they are the attribute of a class of oppressors.  

She treats Missandei as a younger sister, and plenty of her close advisors are people of colour, like Grey Worm, Brown Ben himself ( till he changes sides) the Shavepate, Marsalen, so the accusation of racism is very ill-founded.

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9 hours ago, SeanF said:

This is a world in which prominent people have servants.  Working for Daenerys is about as good as it gets for a servant.  They live well, have light duties, and get on well with her.  Rakharo is her blood rider.  She's used to the hairstyles of the Dothraki, not the Lamb Men. She was unlikely to appreciate Mirri's point of view after being subject to a forcible abortion, and left in the wilderness with a comatose husband.  The point about Meereenese hairstyles is that they are the attribute of a class of oppressors.  

She treats Missandei as a younger sister, and plenty of her close advisors are people of colour, like Grey Worm, Brown Ben himself ( till he changes sides) the Shavepate, Marsalen, so the accusation of racism is very ill-founded.

Most of this post reeks of white saviorism and blind stanning. You call her grey but defend every single problematic passage that suggests something is off with her. That's why I called these examples of casual racism, because the majority of racists aren't actively lynching people. Might want to do some re-thinking about these passages in light of the tyrant she turned out to be. 

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13 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Most of this post reeks of white saviorism and blind stanning. You call her grey but defend every single problematic passage that suggests something is off with her. That's why I called these examples of casual racism, because the majority of racists aren't actively lynching people. Might want to do some re-thinking about these passages in light of the tyrant she turned out to be. 

No offence, but you're the one who comes over as justifying slavery, murder, subjugation of lesser breeds, while claiming "progressive" reasons for these enormities.

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On 12/28/2019 at 12:24 AM, The Lord of the Crossing said:

We have long suspected that. D&D wrote it to please the Stark fans.  Probably because Benioff is a Stark fan.

Sure you Dany fans can believe whatever you want. My entire watch party enjoyed seeing her skewered on our 60 inch TV. And if this is the only ending we get (likely, george is old), I'm fine with this, while you have to choke on it for all of eternity lol.

And lmao about Benioff being a Stark fan. He made Bran and Jon memes of their book selves in favor of dragons and "yes kween" CGI. Where are their bonds with their direwolves? Their skin changing abilities? Jon and Arya's bond?  Bran's entire character? Yet Dany gets 24/7 fire immunity even if that isn't even a thing, defeats Khals and the Slavers in 5 minutes (they have to be stupid so Dany can have another yes kween moment). Even if Benioff detoured the story to screw Dany over, it surely isn't because of their love for the Starks.

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On 12/31/2019 at 1:57 PM, BlackLightning said:

I think Dany will end the series in a good place despite the bad/questionable things she has done or allowed but I think that other characters will have a hard time believing or accepting it. Which makes for a massive misunderstanding that can get very ugly.

Anyone who compares Daenerys to Hitler is an idiot. There's no there there. The two are complete opposites to the core.

Like you said, Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte or even Mao Zedong are more align with Daenerys Targaryen should she break bad and become a tyrant. And even then, Mao and especially Napoleon did lots of great things and made lots of revolutionary decisions that continue to impact us to this day.

How many people died in the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution"?  How much blood does a tyrant have to shed to be put into the "Bad guy" column?

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9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How many people died in the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution"?  How much blood does a tyrant have to shed to be put into the "Bad guy" column?

I imagine most French people would deny that Napoleon and Robespierre were tyrants at all.  Probably, plenty of Chinese would say the same of Mao.

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3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I imagine most French people would deny that Napoleon and Robespierre were tyrants at all.  Probably, plenty of Chinese would say the same of Mao.

On what basis could anyone claim that Robespierre (author of "la terreur") wasn't a tyrant?  Napoleon was a dictator but I can see how some would claim he wasn't a tyrant.

 

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2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

On what basis could anyone claim that Robespierre (author of "la terreur") wasn't a tyrant?  Napoleon was a dictator but I can see how some would claim he wasn't a tyrant.

 

I had that discussion with a couple of French posters.  In their eyes, Robespierre was a hero who simply did what was necessary.

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11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I had that discussion with a couple of French posters.  In their eyes, Robespierre was a hero who simply did what was necessary.

I'm sorry but that's nuts in my view.  Once you start killing former allies for not being "radical enough" you've gone off the deep end.  Robespierre was a tyrant drunk on the blood of his victims.  Robspierre killed more than fifteen thousand people.  No, that cannot reasonably be justified without completely devaluing human life.

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5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm sorry but that's nuts in my view.  Once you start killing former allies for not being "radical enough" you've gone off the deep end.  Robespierre was a tyrant drunk on the blood of his victims.  Robspierre killed more than fifteen thousand people.  No, that cannot reasonably be justified without completely devaluing human life.

It's an interesting question overall.  

After all, our own leaders in WWII had a lot of blood on their hands, not all of it that of guilty people.  But, few of us would view them as tyrants.

Robespierre's defenders would say his behaviour was justified by the fact that France was at war.

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14 minutes ago, SeanF said:

It's an interesting question overall.  

After all, our own leaders in WWII had a lot of blood on their hands, not all of it that of guilty people.  But, few of us would view them as tyrants.

Robespierre's defenders would say his behaviour was justified by the fact that France was at war.

No.  There is a difference between casualties as a result of bombing.  Robespierre removed the heads, a deliberate choice not an "opps I was aiming at someone else", of more than fifteen thousand people.  That's a tyrant. 

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No.  There is a difference between casualties as a result of bombing.  Robespierre removed the heads, a deliberate choice not an "opps I was aiming at someone else", of more than fifteen thousand people.  That's a tyrant. 

There's a difference, but I don't know how much of a difference.

Terror was one of the intended effects of incendiary bombing (precision bombing is a different matter).

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This thread is doing a great job of illustrating just how dangerous charismatic leaders such as Daenerys are when they veil their ambition in good intentions and pretend to be fighting for some higher ideal. How far is Dany allowed to go before her actions become indefensible? The murder of 12-year-old Astapori boys or profiting from the slave trade outside Meereen wasn't enough for some book readers. Feeding a random man to her dragons before admitting she didn't care whether he was innocent or not (he was) before threatening to kill Hizdahr as well, imprisoning him, letting him believe he was dragon fodder and then forcing him to marry her, after randomly crucifying his father, wasn't enough for some show fans. Will her actions always be defensible to some people because she claims to have good intentions? Is there really no such thing as good or bad in her case because she freed slaves once? Going by some of the discourse I've seen on other sites such as reddit, some people are already preemptively justifying Dany nuking King's Landing in the books "for the greater good."

I want to point out the hilarity of singling out book!Dany as some great anti-slavery revolutionary who'll have to choose fire and blood to eliminate slavery, because that worked out so well in Astapor. The truth about slavery in Slaver's Bay is that it's so ingrained in the economic and cultural structures of the region that it'll take more than just violent interventionism to change its foundation. Even book!Dany finds herself partaking in slavery when she 1) allows a flourishing slave trade outside the gates of Meereen because the refugees are desperate, 2) profits from the aforementioned slave trade, and 3) enforces slave labor because it's "necessary" and justifies it because they're "paid" with food and shelter. Show!Dany allows former slaves to sell themselves back into slavery in season four because they're homeless, terrified and desperate.

I'm sure someone will do a perfunctory job of explaining how this isn't slavery, how Dany is very different from all the other slavers (in the books), how slavery was totally necessary for those situations, or how fire and blood over diplomacy will create more jobs, stability, homes, food sources, and economic stability. 

OP, D&D didn't have some secret vendetta against Daenerys. If they had, they wouldn't have turned her into some sort of empowered, feminist figure whose actions and consequences were significantly toned down (to the point of turning even Mirri into a more devious character to prop up Dany) to get the audience to root for her. After the allegations of misogyny following Sansa's storyline, do people really believe they'd turn their most popular feminist and female character into a villain against Martin's wishes just to spite a significant part of the audience? 

 

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On 1/3/2020 at 8:51 PM, WolfOfWinter said:

Feeding a random man to her dragons before admitting she didn't care whether he was innocent or not (he was) before threatening to kill Hizdahr as well, imprisoning him, letting him believe he was dragon fodder and then forcing him to marry her, after randomly crucifying his father, wasn't enough for some show fans.

It was excused like readers excuse the more subtle signs in the books. The show had to make it more clear with scenes like this, but since people rigidly adopted a “with her or against her” mentality (just what every regime wants) they couldn’t imagine that someone could be against slavery and view Dany skeptically at the same time. I would have loved to root for Dany like I root for Cersei if people hadn’t justified or excused or denied every problematic thing she did, and continued to do that even after the show concluded. GRRM succeeded a bit too well in illustrating how people come to support tyrants. It’s a good thing Dany isn’t real but there are some lessons there.

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On 1/4/2020 at 2:51 AM, WolfOfWinter said:

This thread is doing a great job of illustrating just how dangerous charismatic leaders such as Daenerys are when they veil their ambition in good intentions and pretend to be fighting for some higher ideal. How far is Dany allowed to go before her actions become indefensible? The murder of 12-year-old Astapori boys or profiting from the slave trade outside Meereen wasn't enough for some book readers. Feeding a random man to her dragons before admitting she didn't care whether he was innocent or not (he was) before threatening to kill Hizdahr as well, imprisoning him, letting him believe he was dragon fodder and then forcing him to marry her, after randomly crucifying his father, wasn't enough for some show fans. Will her actions always be defensible to some people because she claims to have good intentions? Is there really no such thing as good or bad in her case because she freed slaves once? Going by some of the discourse I've seen on other sites such as reddit, some people are already preemptively justifying Dany nuking King's Landing in the books "for the greater good."

I want to point out the hilarity of singling out book!Dany as some great anti-slavery revolutionary who'll have to choose fire and blood to eliminate slavery, because that worked out so well in Astapor. The truth about slavery in Slaver's Bay is that it's so ingrained in the economic and cultural structures of the region that it'll take more than just violent interventionism to change its foundation. Even book!Dany finds herself partaking in slavery when she 1) allows a flourishing slave trade outside the gates of Meereen because the refugees are desperate, 2) profits from the aforementioned slave trade, and 3) enforces slave labor because it's "necessary" and justifies it because they're "paid" with food and shelter. Show!Dany allows former slaves to sell themselves back into slavery in season four because they're homeless, terrified and desperate.

I'm sure someone will do a perfunctory job of explaining how this isn't slavery, how Dany is very different from all the other slavers (in the books), how slavery was totally necessary for those situations, or how fire and blood over diplomacy will create more jobs, stability, homes, food sources, and economic stability. 

OP, D&D didn't have some secret vendetta against Daenerys. If they had, they wouldn't have turned her into some sort of empowered, feminist figure whose actions and consequences were significantly toned down (to the point of turning even Mirri into a more devious character to prop up Dany) to get the audience to root for her. After the allegations of misogyny following Sansa's storyline, do people really believe they'd turn their most popular feminist and female character into a villain against Martin's wishes just to spite a significant part of the audience? 

 

Well, yes.   If you think that slavery is just the way that things are, and only an idiot would attempt to disrupt this severe, but necessary,  institution, then you must think Daenerys is a very bad person.  

Others think differently. Fortunately, in real life, there were people prepared to think like Daenerys.

I don't think that history has dealt kindly with arguments in favour of slavery.

 

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