Did GRRM really say Meereen would end like Iraq?

[Rose of Red Lake]

“Like Tolkien I do not write allegory, at least not intentionally. Obviously you live in the world and you’re affected by the world around you, so some things sink in on some level, but, if I really wanted to write about climate change in the 21st century I’d write a novel about climate change in the 21st century. Sometimes things happen that are hard to believe. You have to remember I’ve been writing these since 1991, in a couple of the recent books Daenerys Targaryen wielding the massive military superiority offered to her by three dragons has taken over a part of the world where the culture and ethos, and the very people are completely alien to her, and she’s having difficulty ruling this land once she conquered it. It did dawn on me when George W Bush started doing the same thing that some people might say, ‘Hmmm, George is commenting on the Iraq War’, but I swear to you I planned Dany’s thing long before George Bush planned the Iraq War, but I think both military adventures may come to the same end, but it’s not allegory.”

http://nerdalicious.com.au/books/george-r-r-martin-on-the-end-of-thrones/

Is this account legit? Even though it does confirm my beliefs about the way Daenerys is written in Essos (an alien conquerer with supreme military power, will never positively transform a society that she doesn't understand), it seems sketchy. 

[The Young Maester]

You could say Dany is the western powers. They came in and invaded a land they don’t understand and left it an even bigger mess than it already was.

Only difference between the US and Dany, is that she had good intentions. But it seems like the same scenario to me. 

[rotting sea cow]

Depends on whom you ask. 

If you ask the slavers you'll get one answer.

If you ask the former slaves you will get quite another. 

 

[Rufus Snow]

That's the thing with history, though, it never does come to an end... it's just keeps on keeping on.

9 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

(an alien conquerer with supreme military power, will never positively transform a society that she doesn't understand)

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me Pity so few militaristic adventurers understand it.

 

[Lord Varys]

Oh, the US definitely did accomplish their goals in Iraq. Not to goals the government publicly declared they had, but those were not the reason why they were doing it.

But Dany isn't thinking geostrategically like the guys in the State Department, so she definitely did create more of a mess. But unlike those goons, Dany actually tries to do something good for the majority of the people in Slaver's Bay. And for them it is likely going to be better than anything they had under the Ghiscari slavers.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, the US definitely did accomplish their goals in Iraq. Not to goals the government publicly declared they had, but those were not the reason why they were doing it.

But Dany isn't thinking geostrategically like the guys in the State Department, so she definitely did create more of a mess. But unlike those goons, Dany actually tries to do something good for the majority of the people in Slaver's Bay. And for them it is likely going to be better than anything they had under the Ghiscari slavers.

 

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, the US definitely did accomplish their goals in Iraq. Not to goals the government publicly declared they had, but those were not the reason why they were doing it.

But Dany isn't thinking geostrategically like the guys in the State Department, so she definitely did create more of a mess. But unlike those goons, Dany actually tries to do something good for the majority of the people in Slaver's Bay. And for them it is likely going to be better than anything they had under the Ghiscari slavers.

70 - 80% of Meereen's population were slaves.  Now, they're free.  There are economic hardships, but they can no longer be killed, raped or tortured at will, their marriages are now valid, their families can no longer be split up.  THey have the chance to work on their own account, enter guilds etc.  Plainly, life is better for them.

Life has got worse for the freeborn who lost much of their property (the slaves) and/or face economic competition from the freed slaves of Yunkai, and Astapor.  Tough.

Implicit or explicit in a lot of criticism of Daenerys is the belief that the way of life of major slaveholders is somehow sacrosanct.

[SeanF]

On the military side, it looks as if the slaver coalition are about to be kerb-stomped, in TWOW, by Barristan, Victarion, and Tatters, so that's good news, too.

[Rose of Red Lake]

26 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Implicit or explicit in a lot of criticism of Daenerys is the belief that the way of life of major slaveholders is somehow sacrosanct.

Implicit in comments like this is an ad hominem attack, just anyone who criticized GWB was called a "terrorist sympathizer." Because people who criticize Daenerys must enjoy slavery. That makes so much sense! :eyeroll:

21 minutes ago, SeanF said:

On the military side, it looks as if the slaver coalition are about to be kerb-stomped, in TWOW, by Barristan, Victarion, and Tatters, so that's good news, too.

Just like how the U.S. kerb-stomped the bad guys, all their problems were solved, and a wonderful happy society bloomed.

If he says he thinks they'll both end the same way, it's probably not good.

26 minutes ago, SeanF said:

70 - 80% of Meereen's population were slaves.  Now, they're free.  There are economic hardships, but they can no longer be killed, raped or tortured at will, their marriages are now valid, their families can no longer be split up.  THey have the chance to work on their own account, enter guilds etc.  Plainly, life is better for them.

That was Daenerys' progress on the non-fire and blood route--remember, the one you said was pointless because she didn't immediately stop the slave trade world wide. So now we assume she's abandoned that tactic and is playing like the U.S., shock and awe style as a foreigner with a culture she doesn't understand, and on top of that she looks down on (correction: "despises") the Meereenese, great and small alike. 

[SeanF]

 

There's a big difference between *may* and *will*.

Dany's ability to bring change to Meereen depended upon her using violence against the slavers, when she captured the city and its hinterland.  Subsequently, the Slavers resorted to terrorism against the Freedmen, and Qarth, Volantis,  Yunkai, Mantarys, Tolos, and New Ghis declared war, so I'm afraid they deserve everything that's coming their way.  They could after all, have chosen not to declare war on Meereen.

Dany despises customs like throwing children and dwarves to wild animals, and gladiatorial contests.  I think that's fair.

[Rose of Red Lake]

8 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There's a big difference between *may* and *will*.

Dany's ability to bring change to Meereen depended upon her using violence against the slavers, when she captured the city and its hinterland.  Subsequently, the Slavers resorted to terrorism against the Freedmen, and Qarth, Yunkai, and New Ghis declared war, so I'm afraid they deserve everything that's coming their way.

The terrorist attacks made sense for that world, since she was a foreign invader appearing to do  exactly the same things to the Ghiscari as her slaving Valyrian ancestors did. She had to alter that image by marriage, which resulted in a treaty and a day of peace that she immediately ruined. Killing everyone in a tokar means she becomes exactly like them; a person without regard for human life. 

31 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Dany despises customs like throwing children and dwarves to wild animals, and gladiatorial contests.  I think that's fair.

that's not what I'm talking about. There is a line about how she despises the smallfolk of Meereen, the people she's supposed to be protecting or whatever.

Also, something is suspicious when the story could have been about a slave girl from Meereen who reformed her society from within because she understood their customs and history and loves her heritage, but Daenerys is an outsider who looks down on them, finds everything alien, and doesn't even like their hair texture for christ sake. 

It's like an ignorant white girl who lives in India for 6 months, telling the people how she knows what's best to solve their domestic violence problem . . . now imagine if the ignorant white girl is an imperialist nation state riding a 500 megaton bomb. 

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

The terrorist attacks made sense for that world, since she was a foreign invader appearing to do  exactly the same things to the Ghiscari as her slaving Valyrian ancestors did. She had to alter that image by marriage, which resulted in a treaty and a day of peace that she immediately ruined. Killing everyone in a tokar means she becomes exactly like them; a person without regard for human life. 

that's not what I'm talking about. There is a line about how she despises the smallfolk of Meereen, the people she's supposed to be protecting or whatever.

Also, something is suspicious when the story could have been about a slave girl from Meereen who reformed her society from within because she understood their customs and history and loves her heritage, but Daenerys is an outsider who looks down on them, finds everything alien, and doesn't even like their hair texture for christ sake. 

It's like an ignorant white girl who lives in India for 6 months, telling the people how she knows what's best to solve their domestic violence problem . . . now imagine if the ignorant white girl is an imperialist nation state riding a 500 megaton bomb. 

Most of the Ghiscari were slaves (before Daenerys arrived) and freedmen afterwards.  They are the people that the Sons of the Harpy murdered.  The Sons of the Harpy represent a selfish elite who want to restore slavery, or failing that, keep the freedmen firmly at the bottom of society.  They're like the original KKK.  The Ghiscari majority don't think that Daenerys is a foreign invader at all.  They see her as their liberator.  Do their opinions not count?

A peace which leaves the regional superpower, Volantis, free to invade and restore slavery, and the Sons of the Harpy free to murder whenever something happens which they don't like, is not really a peace that is worth having.  Daenerys did not even break that peace, such as it was.  The Yunkish chose to resume fighting, once Hizdahr had been overthrown. 

I'm sure it would have been great if a slave girl from Meereen could have peacefully persuaded the Great Masters to give up slavery, and everyone lived in peace and harmony as a result, but it's not that kind of story.  The Great Masters had hundreds of years to reform their society from within, but chose not to.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Implicit in comments like this is an ad hominem attack, just anyone who criticized GWB was called a "terrorist sympathizer." Because people who criticize Daenerys must enjoy slavery. That makes so much sense! :eyeroll:

It is not an ad hominem when you actually do come across that way. In fact, you do come across as a right-winger ethnopluralist at times, with your crap about Dany being a 'foreigner' giving her no right to intervene in the slavers business. That's just apartheid bullshit, even more so considering that Daenerys Targaryen is more Essosi than Westerosi, anyway. She was born on Dragonstone and raised in the Free Cities of Essos. She has culturally more in common with the Essosi than the Westerosi. And ancestry-wise she is a Valyrian.

5 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Just like how the U.S. kerb-stomped the bad guys, all their problems were solved, and a wonderful happy society bloomed.

The US never had any intention to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq or any other country they bombed in the stone age. And the people using a policy of scorched earth were - you know, hardly a surprise - the slavers. They torched the olive groves of Meereen before they retreated behind their city walls.

5 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

That was Daenerys' progress on the non-fire and blood route--remember, the one you said was pointless because she didn't immediately stop the slave trade world wide. So now we assume she's abandoned that tactic and is playing like the U.S., shock and awe style as a foreigner with a culture she doesn't understand, and on top of that she looks down on (correction: "despises") the Meereenese, great and small alike. 

There is nothing to understand about Ghiscari culture. It is a perversion that has to go. All they do is to exploit and brutalize and torture and murder people for fun and personal gain.

And unlike the shitty Westerosi culture which is scarcely better it is made quite clear that the Ghiscari culture is bad and the people running the show are monsters as a collective. There are no redeemable or good slavers in the Ghiscari cities - the progressive people they have did reform and join Daenerys. Everybody else is going to die, and this is not a problem.

4 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

The terrorist attacks made sense for that world, since she was a foreign invader appearing to do  exactly the same things to the Ghiscari as her slaving Valyrian ancestors did. She had to alter that image by marriage, which resulted in a treaty and a day of peace that she immediately ruined. Killing everyone in a tokar means she becomes exactly like them; a person without regard for human life. 

LOL, those terrorist attacks are attempts to restore slavery. They are not ridiculous 'freedom fighters' fighting off a 'foreign invader', they are counter-revolutionary elements trying to restore slavery and oppression in Meereen.

And the Ghiscari taught Valyria slavery, not the other way around. Culturally, the Ghiscari conquered Valyria, even if they lost the wars, not the other way. Daenerys Targaryen is now righting that wrong by ending Ghiscari-Valyrian slavery for good.

4 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

that's not what I'm talking about. There is a line about how she despises the smallfolk of Meereen, the people she's supposed to be protecting or whatever.

She despises collaborators and people who conspire against her and murder her soldiers. Dany went as far as chaining her own dragons just because one of them may have killed an innocent child. She goes out of her way to satisfy and accommodate those people, at the expense of the lives and well-being of her own people, which are murdered and betrayed. It is her unwillingness to make use of her dragons what causes Brown Ben Plumm to side with the Yunkishmen.

Dany isn't a cruel monarch, she is very much a weakling in Meereen - like her ancestor King Aenys she is always eager to please, trying to satisfy and accomodate people whose only goal it is to kill her and her people and enslave the survivors.

4 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Also, something is suspicious when the story could have been about a slave girl from Meereen who reformed her society from within because she understood their customs and history and loves her heritage, but Daenerys is an outsider who looks down on them, finds everything alien, and doesn't even like their hair texture for christ sake. 

LOL, but that isn't the story. It is Daenerys Targaryen's story - the Ghiscari just feature in her story, they are not the main characters of the story. Of course it might have been interesting to read a story about some slave ending slavery in a fantasy world - but that's clearly not this story, is it? Just as it would be great to read a story how some Northern girl rose up against the pompous Northern asses calling themselves 'lords' and giving them the treatment they deserve ... but unfortunately it isn't a story about the end of feudalism, either.

And Dany doesn't look down on slaves nor on any other races. She frees the slaves, despise slavery as an institution, and actually tries to accommodate the Ghiscari wherever she can.

4 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

It's like an ignorant white girl who lives in India for 6 months, telling the people how she knows what's best to solve their domestic violence problem . . . now imagine if the ignorant white girl is an imperialist nation state riding a 500 megaton bomb. 

India happens to be a nuclear power, too, you know. You don't need to live in a particular culture or understand it in every detail to have the right to criticize shitty customs that are obvious human rights violations.

This doesn't mean you should pretend to wage wars for such reasons (because no nation really does) ... but guess what: Daenerys Targaryen actually did put down the Astapori for the sole reason to free the slaves. She didn't really want to conquer anything there. She just saw what kind of disgusting shitheads those people were and because nobody would stop them she took it upon herself to do it ... and helped the twisted slave soldiers they created to get their revenge and end the culture and society that created them. There is literally nothing wrong with that insofar as motivation is concerned. The execution of the project could have been better ... but so what?

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is not an ad hominem when you actually do come across that way. In fact, you do come across as a right-winger ethnopluralist at times, with your crap about Dany being a 'foreigner' giving her no right to intervene in the slavers business. That's just apartheid bullshit, even more so considering that Daenerys Targaryen is more Essosi than Westerosi, anyway. She was born on Dragonstone and raised in the Free Cities of Essos. She has culturally more in common with the Essosi than the Westerosi. And ancestry-wise she is a Valyrian.

The US never had any intention to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq or any other country they bombed in the stone age. And the people using a policy of scorched earth were - you know, hardly a surprise - the slavers. They torched the olive groves of Meereen before they retreated behind their city walls.

There is nothing to understand about Ghiscari culture. It is a perversion that has to go. All they do is to exploit and brutalize and torture and murder people for fun and personal gain.

And unlike the shitty Westerosi culture which is scarcely better it is made quite clear that the Ghiscari culture is bad and the people running the show are monsters as a collective. There are no redeemable or good slavers in the Ghiscari cities - the progressive people they have did reform and join Daenerys. Everybody else is going to die, and this is not a problem.

LOL, those terrorist attacks are attempts to restore slavery. They are not ridiculous 'freedom fighters' fighting off a 'foreign invader', they are counter-revolutionary elements trying to restore slavery and oppression in Meereen.

And the Ghiscari taught Valyria slavery, not the other way around. Culturally, the Ghiscari conquered Valyria, even if they lost the wars, not the other way. Daenerys Targaryen is now righting that wrong by ending Ghiscari-Valyrian slavery for good.

She despises collaborators and people who conspire against her and murder her soldiers. Dany went as far as chaining her own dragons just because one of them may have killed an innocent child. She goes out of her way to satisfy and accommodate those people, at the expense of the lives and well-being of her own people, which are murdered and betrayed. It is her unwillingness to make use of her dragons what causes Brown Ben Plumm to side with the Yunkishmen.

Dany isn't a cruel monarch, she is very much a weakling in Meereen - like her ancestor King Aenys she is always eager to please, trying to satisfy and accomodate people whose only goal it is to kill her and her people and enslave the survivors.

LOL, but that isn't the story. It is Daenerys Targaryen's story - the Ghiscari just feature in her story, they are not the main characters of the story. Of course it might have been interesting to read a story about some slave ending slavery in a fantasy world - but that's clearly not this story, is it? Just as it would be great to read a story how some Northern girl rose up against the pompous Northern asses calling themselves 'lords' and giving them the treatment they deserve ... but unfortunately it isn't a story about the end of feudalism, either.

And Dany doesn't look down on slaves nor on any other races. She frees the slaves, despise slavery as an institution, and actually tries to accommodate the Ghiscari wherever she can.

India happens to be a nuclear power, too, you know. You don't need to live in a particular culture or understand it in every detail to have the right to criticize shitty customs that are obvious human rights violations.

This doesn't mean you should pretend to wage wars for such reasons (because no nation really does) ... but guess what: Daenerys Targaryen actually did put down the Astapori for the sole reason to free the slaves. She didn't really want to conquer anything there. She just saw what kind of disgusting shitheads those people were and because nobody would stop them she took it upon herself to do it ... and helped the twisted slave soldiers they created to get their revenge and end the culture and society that created them. There is literally nothing wrong with that insofar as motivation is concerned. The execution of the project could have been better ... but so what?

I expect Dany will be No More Miss Nice Guy when she returns to Meereen.  Rightly so.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I expect Dany will be No More Miss Nice Guy when she returns to Meereen.  Rightly so.

She gives a lot of hints she is going to take such an approach in her last chapter of ADwD. After all, there is a reason why she goes to search out the Dothraki. But then - as things stand she might not get around to do that (or rather: have to do it) because Tyrion, Victarion, Barristan, etc. will beat her to it.

It seems a given to me that Tyrion is going to outmaneuver the Green Grace to eventually feed her to the dragons. He should also be the one to get to the bottom of the plot of the poisoned locusts, punishing the guilty parties. And I'm rather confident that to him 'the guilty parties' will be identical if the old ruling/wealthy slaver elite of Meereen.

Dany might eventually decide to torch and utterly destroy the Ghiscari cities (and not just Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapor, but all the others as well) - but not to kill/punish people but to force them to change their way and accompany her west. In fact, her understanding that to prevent the return of the slave trade she might have to depopulate Essos could be the reason why she might force the Dothraki and the Ghiscari and the surviving people of the Free Cities to accompany her to Westeros.

[Rose of Red Lake]

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

The Ghiscari majority don't think that Daenerys is a foreign invader at all.  They see her as their liberator.  Do their opinions not count?

If they need an outsider they don't really know to liberate them (and she even has a religion surrounding her) she hits all the Dune warnings. "No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a hero" It makes sense that GRRM would complicate revolutionary heroes who start cults, like his contemporary. 

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

The Sons of the Harpy represent a selfish elite who want to restore slavery, or failing that, keep the freedmen firmly at the bottom of society.  They're like the original KKK.

Why is the author saying that parallels can be drawn to Iraq then? He never once mentions the KKK or race based slavery. There is just too much oddball weirdness going on with Dany, like taking the former masters and makes them plow the fields without a wage just inverts the hierarchy like Stalin. There is also something suspect in her "liberatory project" similar to the U.S. and their supposedly benevolent foreign interventions. If GRRM really did say  say he thinks Meereen and Iraq might end the same way this is interesting to me, because the U.S. just made things worse and now Iraq is an unstable hot bed of terrorist activity. 

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The US never had any intention to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq or any other country they bombed in the stone age.

Hmmm debatable. At the helm of GWB, he justified his actions in various ways, to prove that he was tougher than his father, to prove himself to his father, to save the poor oppressed Iraqi women (his wife's argument), to do the "good Christian thing," as a born again fundamentalist, to pursue U.S. oil interests, and to seek vengeance for 9/11 (in a place that had nothing to do with it). In a similar vein, Dany is in Meereen for opportunistic reasons (she wins a cult army), hubristic reasons (to prove that she's better than her father), and for good old white man's burden style altruistism. 

14 hours ago, SeanF said:

A peace which leaves the regional superpower, Volantis, free to invade and restore slavery, and the Sons of the Harpy free to murder whenever something happens which they don't like, is not really a peace that is worth having.  Daenerys did not even break that peace, such as it was.  The Yunkish chose to resume fighting, once Hizdahr had been overthrown. 

Meereenese Blot argues the opposite and lays out the chain of events. I'll go with the essay GRRM approved and pass on yours.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, but that isn't the story. It is Daenerys Targaryen's story - the Ghiscari just feature in her story, they are not the main characters of the story. Of course it might have been interesting to read a story about some slave ending slavery in a fantasy world - but that's clearly not this story, is it?

Dany is an alien to them. I'm fine with using these words if the author did in the quote above. Her outsider status and desire to fix a culture she doesn't understand is a white savior trope. Her Valyrian ancestry doesn't mean she's a local or has ties to them since the Valyrians subjugated that region. And I certainly hope the author does write Daenerys as a tyrannical anti-savior to counter the dumpster fire of white savior storylines. Hollywood and racist fiction writes the same story and over and over: good looking white actors who are natural-born leaders, worthy of the loyalty of those of another color or culture, who are the only ones who can lead/save/change the illiterate brown people. I really don't prefer that GRRM retread these tired stereotypes just so Daenerys can stay winning.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is nothing to understand about Ghiscari culture. It is a perversion that has to go. All they do is to exploit and brutalize and torture and murder people for fun and personal gain.

The author took time to show their society as more complex than it seemed on the surface when Daenerys first landed like an ignorant Christopher Columbus.

I don't really condone any type of cultural genocide from a person who has never set foot there, it's like white people being shocked at head hunters and forcing them to act more like a good Christian, aka more like them.

Almost every tyrant embarks on on a genocidal program to cleans society of [war/drugs/bad people/immorality/ethnic differences/disabilities], believing that human atrocities were necessary to create a better world. I'm not really comfortable with that and I think it's intentional. In fact more people should be uncomfortable.

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is not an ad hominem when you actually do come across that way. In fact, you do come across as a right-winger ethnopluralist at times, with your crap about Dany being a 'foreigner' giving her no right to intervene in the slavers business. That's just apartheid bullshit, even more so considering that Daenerys Targaryen is more Essosi than Westerosi, anyway. She was born on Dragonstone and raised in the Free Cities of Essos. She has culturally more in common with the Essosi than the Westerosi. And ancestry-wise she is a Valyrian.

This comment gave me flashbacks to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us

Her being an outsider is a retread of many colonialist and/or imperialist storylines. Don't really know many people who make colonialist critiques who are also right wingers.

And Dany is more Essosi now? Or  is she more Westerosi when it's convenient? Or maybe Dany is never a foreign invader, she is a local to everyone 

[Wall Flower]

One problem with this analysis is that the culture and population of slaver's bay is not some homogeneous entity that just happens to include slavery in the mix of unfortunate cultural practices. Slaver's Bay is a massive slave trading enterprise that causes devastation well outside its own borders. The Ghiscari culture that they are so proud of only applies to a small, elite percentage of the population and excludes the slaves who make up the majority of people in Slaver's Bay. Many of the slaves, like Missandei, weren't even born in Slaver's Bay but have been stolen from their own homes and cultures to be brutally exploited for profit.

An elite culture that can only be maintained by the suppression and brutal exploitation of the majority is not without echoes of colonialism, probably because the New Ghiscari are trying to emulate their own imperial ancestors and resurrect their dead empire. The one thing that brought down the Ghiscari empire was its lack of dragons, which might be one explanation for the Green Grace's pretence of working with Dany.

The reason that Dany's peace in Meereen seems an illusion is because her chief local adviser, the Green Grace, is not acting in good faith. She is manipulating Dany into more and more comprises, while secretly undermining the peace with terrorist activities to prevent the establishment of an alternative economic base for Meereen. Rather than being Hitler, I keep thinking of Dany as the British PM, Neville Chamberlain, being manipulated into a policy of appeasement by Nazi diplomats while Hitler's government gained the time to prepare for war.

[Hrulj]

People instinctually hate slavery and desire Danny to succeed, but they fail to realize that societal pillars, of both culture and economy cannot be changed overnight, especially when such impetus doesn't come from the people but from a foreign power trying to enforce ideals with military might. In fact it harms natural development of such processes because the ideas become associated with a foreign invading power. 

[Lord Varys]

20 minutes ago, Hrulj said:

People instinctually hate slavery and desire Danny to succeed, but they fail to realize that societal pillars, of both culture and economy cannot be changed overnight, especially when such impetus doesn't come from the people but from a foreign power trying to enforce ideals with military might. In fact it harms natural development of such processes because the ideas become associated with a foreign invading power. 

There are no invading/outside forces in Slaver's Bay. There is Daenerys Targaryen and handful of Dothraki goons, and some old knights - the rest are former slaves and freedmen and sellswords who turned against their masters.

The idea to frame or interpret this as an invasion is ridiculous.

Also, the desire to change definitely is there - even the Unsullied, slaves indoctrinated to the point to obey every command without question - do want to abolish and overcome slavery. Just as most of the slaves in Slaver's Bay and elsewhere do. Some morons cannot cope well with change, sure, but they don't matter. The slaves do have the numbers on their side, and we see that Volantis is not going to need a foreign invasion to break the shackles and bathe in Old Blood. The Widow of the Waterfront and the red priests will see to that. Dany is at best a catalyst for change, she is not some invasor forcing people to change their ways. The people themselves kill their masters and free themselves, changing society as they go along.

I mean, just go back to the scene in Astapor. You are aware that Dany broke the deal, right? She did not actually give up Drogon - instead she turned him against her business partners. And then she had her Dothraki attack the Astapori before she even asked the  Now, if the Unsullied cared about their Good Masters who shaped them in such fine weapons, if they believed in the institution of slavery and the just rule of the Astapori elite then they would have never obeyed Dany's command to slaughter the Astapori, right?

Because they were there - they witnessed her deception. They are not mindless robots who do have obey commands automatically. They could have chosen to side with the men who created them. But they did not. Nor do they later advocate to reinstate or keep slavery or compromise with the slavers. That really tells us all we need to know.

In fact, even her commands there are rather restrained. She does not command to kill youths or children:

Quote

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.”

She gives an explicit command who not to harm, but that doesn't mean she commands the Unsullied to murder every child who looks older than twelve. She specifies who she wants to see dead - Good Masters, soldiers, men wearing tokars or holding whips. She doesn't want women to be killed, nor men who do not fit the criteria mentioned above, nor males who do not yet qualify as men in the eyes of the Unsullied. And the children under twelve can walk around in tokars and hold all the whips they want - she still doesn't want them to be killed.

42 minutes ago, Wall Flower said:

The reason that Dany's peace in Meereen seems an illusion is because her chief local adviser, the Green Grace, is not acting in good faith. She is manipulating Dany into more and more comprises, while secretly undermining the peace with terrorist activities to prevent the establishment of an alternative economic base for Meereen. Rather than being Hitler, I keep thinking of Dany as the British PM, Neville Chamberlain, being manipulated into a policy of appeasement by Nazi diplomats while Hitler's government gained the time to prepare for war.

Yeah, Dany is a little wimp like King Aenys or Chamberlain. Her desire for peace and understanding is understandable - but it wrong and nearly got her killed. Those people all have to die. And they will die.

[DMC]

22 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, the US definitely did accomplish their goals in Iraq. Not to goals the government publicly declared they had, but those were not the reason why they were doing it.

Uh, no they did not.  The neoconservatives within the administration that composed the Bush doctrine then fomented and conducted the war decidedly failed at their goals, public or private.  (I suppose you could argue Cheney was solely interested in Halliburton's no-bid contracts, but he seems like a pretty big ideologue as well to me.)  For idealistic neocons, the goal was to export democracy to the Middle East to provide for a stable ally in the region.  For realistic neocons the goal was to eliminate a threat.  Either way, it's derived from a "peace by force" approach (which is importantly distinct from traditional realism) that is quite analogous to Dany's incursion in Slaver's Bay. 

And with Iraq, that neoconservative approach when applied resulted in a bold and spectacular failure.  Iraq is still not a stable democracy, removing Saddam comprehensively worked against US interests in the region as it strengthened our biggest geopolitical adversary there, Iran, and birthed/emboldened far more extreme fundamentalist and anti-west movements throughout the region.  Pretty sure that's what Martin's getting at, if the quote is accurate (I have no idea).

22 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But Dany isn't thinking geostrategically like the guys in the State Department, so she definitely did create more of a mess.

I mean, I'm sure Powell identifies that UN speech as the greatest regret of his career, but almost all of the neocons that ran the war were at the Pentagon or in the WHO, not Foggy Bottom.

[Hrulj]

47 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

There are no invading/outside forces in Slaver's Bay. There is Daenerys Targaryen and handful of Dothraki goons, and some old knights - the rest are former slaves and freedmen and sellswords who turned against their masters.

The idea to frame or interpret this as an invasion is ridiculous.

Also, the desire to change definitely is there - even the Unsullied, slaves indoctrinated to the point to obey every command without question - do want to abolish and overcome slavery. Just as most of the slaves in Slaver's Bay and elsewhere do. Some morons cannot cope well with change, sure, but they don't matter. The slaves do have the numbers on their side, and we see that Volantis is not going to need a foreign invasion to break the shackles and bathe in Old Blood. The Widow of the Waterfront and the red priests will see to that. Dany is at best a catalyst for change, she is not some invasor forcing people to change their ways. The people themselves kill their masters and free themselves, changing society as they go along.

I mean, just go back to the scene in Astapor. You are aware that Dany broke the deal, right? She did not actually give up Drogon - instead she turned him against her business partners. And then she had her Dothraki attack the Astapori before she even asked the  Now, if the Unsullied cared about their Good Masters who shaped them in such fine weapons, if they believed in the institution of slavery and the just rule of the Astapori elite then they would have never obeyed Dany's command to slaughter the Astapori, right?

Because they were there - they witnessed her deception. They are not mindless robots who do have obey commands automatically. They could have chosen to side with the men who created them. But they did not. Nor do they later advocate to reinstate or keep slavery or compromise with the slavers. That really tells us all we need to know.

In fact, even her commands there are rather restrained. She does not command to kill youths or children:

She gives an explicit command who not to harm, but that doesn't mean she commands the Unsullied to murder every child who looks older than twelve. She specifies who she wants to see dead - Good Masters, soldiers, men wearing tokars or holding whips. She doesn't want women to be killed, nor men who do not fit the criteria mentioned above, nor males who do not yet qualify as men in the eyes of the Unsullied. And the children under twelve can walk around in tokars and hold all the whips they want - she still doesn't want them to be killed.

Yeah, Dany is a little wimp like King Aenys or Chamberlain. Her desire for peace and understanding is understandable - but it wrong and nearly got her killed. Those people all have to die. And they will die.

Slaves of the Ghiscari, while some are certainly Ghiscari, are foreigners as well in large part. They were brought there, not born there. And while slaves are a large group common Ghiscari will see More in common with a Ghiscari noble than a Lyseni bedslave or Dothraki fieldhand. Which is reflected in sons of the harpy. The conflict is not just one between slavery and abolition but one of religion as well, over which Dany tramples. The Harpy is the main god and a slave god of Ghiscari. To whom Dany doesn’t give two thoughts. 
 

The movement didn’t start locally. It is an invasion. Enforced by foreign soldiers and former slaves. 
 

What change can they bring? They’ll all die without sons or daughters to carry on. Slaves were raised toiling in the field and now should magically know how to run a society or design a water mill. You can’t execute the elite and think society moves on. 
 

I am well aware she broke the deal. Something she will no doubt regret since it seems to be her forte. No deal made with her can be relied upon. Nothing she promises can be considered upheld. You and I may debate it but Martin made his view clear. She is a foreigner and she will leave. Slaves will be reinslaved again while they watch her sail away. 
 

That’s another idiocy of Dany. If you kill an entire segment then kill them all. No half measure. You think those younger than 12 are grateful? You think women who grew up and lived in splendor will just shrug their shoulders and enjoy stale bread and even staler water? She made enemies of them all and hen left seeds to grow into revenge.