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Daenerys & Mirri Maaz Duur


Lyanna<3Rhaegar

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8 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't know that Daenerys expected gratitude.  She expected not to be betrayed.  Perhaps that was foolish of her.

Unclear if she was betrayed. Its certainly more interesting if she wasn't and Mirri's only crime is harsh words that Dany didnt like, and people fell into the POV trap. I wonder if Marwyn can shed some light on this since he knew Mirri. Or it could just be one of those forever debatable things.

Also Dany expected her to do her bidding and resurrect her husband. She even said this could buy Mirri's freedom as a slave. So I guess she expected more than gratitude, she expected supplication and favors.

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Just now, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

What, specifically, do you think the groundwork is for that in Dany's case? I'm not disagreeing, just curious to know what the "signs" are for you. 

What about her makes you uncomfortable? 

Do you think your feelings for her will/would change if she does not become corrupted by power? Either because she doesn't ever get that power or because she doesn't let it corrupt her? 

There have been plenty of Targ's through the years, with dragons who were not corrupted by the power they hold & while I've agreed Dany certainly could be wandering down that path I don't think the series is a case study on how power corrupts. 

Certainly, Dany can be vindictive and vengeful, that's obvious (it's true too of other sympathetic characters).  And, warfare does tend to brutalise even the best of people (we were employing tactics by the end of WWII which we would certainly not have employed at the start of it).  And, I think a great many temptations will be put in her way in TWOW to achieve her ends brutally.  So, her story could go in that direction.

OTOH, plenty of military leaders are not monsters, even if a certain level of ruthlessness does come with the territory.

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Just now, Rose of Red Lake said:

Unclear if she was betrayed. Its certainly more interesting if she wasn't and Mirri's only crime is harsh words that Dany didnt like, and people fell into the POV trap. I wonder if Marwyn can shed some light on this since he knew Mirri. Or it could just be one of those forever debatable things.

Also Dany expected her to do her bidding and resurrect her husband. She even said this could buy Mirri's freedom as a slave. So I guess she expected more than gratitude, she expected supplication and favors.

I don't think it does Mirri much justice if she didn't betray her. 

She asked her to save her husband, not resurrect him (although it is unclear what actually happened) & Mirri agreed. She could have simply said she didn't know how or it couldn't be done, Dany wouldn't know the difference. 

What Daenerys offered was a trade, she did not ask for supplication & favors. I think Sean has the right of it & essentially all she expected was not to be betrayed & harmed by this woman

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3 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Unclear if she was betrayed. Its certainly more interesting if she wasn't and Mirri's only crime is harsh words that Dany didnt like, and people fell into the POV trap. I wonder if Marwyn can shed some light on this since he knew Mirri. Or it could just be one of those forever debatable things.

Also Dany expected her to do her bidding and resurrect her husband. She even said this could buy Mirri's freedom as a slave. So I guess she expected more than gratitude, she expected supplication and favors.

It's more than harsh words, though.  It's claiming the credit.  And, why would Mirri not take the chance to strike at a hated enemy?

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Certainly, Dany can be vindictive and vengeful, that's obvious (it's true too of other sympathetic characters).  And, warfare does tend to brutalise even the best of people (we were employing tactics by the end of WWII which we would certainly not have employed at the start of it).  And, I think a great many temptations will be put in her way in TWOW to achieve her ends brutally.  So, her story could go in that direction.

OTOH, plenty of military leaders are not monsters, even if a certain level of ruthlessness does come with the territory.

Agreed. I don't think Dany showed much vindictiveness or vengefulness prior to burning Mirri though. 

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11 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Agreed. I don't think Dany showed much vindictiveness or vengefulness prior to burning Mirri though. 

Well, I've read people who blame her for the death of Viserys and the wine seller who tried to poison her, but I find both sets of arguments very silly.

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1 hour ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I just don't get how stopping men from raping a woman can be construed as a bad thing. She saw it, she stopped it. She didn't stop them before they started, no, but she didn't see them start either. I don't get why it would be unreasonable or "white feminism" to think someone might be grateful for that (or at the very least not try to cause you harm) 

I don't begrudge Mirri her feelings & understand where she is coming from but her anger is misdirected. It doesn't make any sense to me for her to be pissed off that someone stopped a 5th & 6th & 7th rape. Nor do I understand why that speaks of feminism, white or otherwise. Maybe you could clarify that?

Yes, her ultimate fate was worse than what she would have had if she had just not tried to cause Daenerys harm, not tried to trick her, etc but there are those (probably not a small number) that would feel as if dying is a better fate than being raped umpteen times (though death by fire would probably even the playing field a little) 

I can't find it within myself to feel as if Mirri was the only one wronged here. She watched her people die, she suffered abuse, she sought revenge on those who played a part & those who didn't. Dany lost her loved ones & some people, she suffered abuse & sought revenge on the woman who inflicted it upon her. Why is Mirri's cause so much more righteous than Dany's? 

What do you mean by "cause"? Dany's urging is one reason they are there to raid her village, so they can afford ships for conquests that Dany wants. Mirri may not know the exact details of why they are there, but she knows not to trust Dany too much. Her interactions with her are wary. And, Dany proved her right - she shouldn't be trusted because she burns people alive. We like to think Dany only does this to people who "deserve" it but Dany also makes the call in a snap judgement, with a possibility for inaccurate info about who is betraying her and how. On top of this, Dany always had power over Mirri, it was never an equal relationship.

There is another fact here. There was already a raid going on at that village by Khal Pono. Mirri could have been raped by those guys as well. I don't think Mirri cared who was who. And, I think Dany intervening is more about her own guilt, than how much she cares for people in general. She switches to cruelty to people underneath her, far too quickly, in that chapter. 

Its not bad that Dany stopped rape but its more complicated than that. Mirri isnt letting Dany take the high road, aka the "savior" role in that situation - it just seems ridiculous for her to have it since Dany is complicit in the village raid and ends by burning a person alive so she can get new pets.

Liberal white feminism usually involves naive women who have power trying to "help" people without power, but ending up not really helping in the long run because they dont understand the power differentials. Its just a short term, shallow form of help. The idea that all women face the same oppression is also a white feminist view. I'd say Sojourner Truth is the first woman to call out white feminism.

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I find the short arguments against my first post completely inadequate. The whole arc of the assassination-attempt chapter, from start to end, establishes that Dany and Jorah used the attempt together to successfully convince Drogo into wanting to invade Westeros.

Whether or not Dany wanted to rule the IT herself is irrelevant. She sold the IT from the start as something that was Rhaego's by right and she mentioned many ships that could help get the whole khalasar to travel the poisoned waters (the gang in the OP's anology of mine that was quoted), and Drogo promising the Iron Throne to his unborn son is in direct lineary consequence of it, not something he came up with on his own. 

Whether or not Dany turned out to be naive about Dothraki warfare is irrelevant.

But the argument was made that Westeros is not the Lhazareen village, and Dany could not have foreseen that. It was also argued that she therefore is not a complicit to the attack of the Lhazareen, even if some at least can admit that she would have been a complicit in getting the Dothraki rape and pillage Westeros if Drogo had succeeded in acquiring ships to sail his khalasar to Westeros.

I maintain however we have indications that Dany was not surprised by the attack on the Lhazareen village, nor initially showed any signs against this. Here's the opening passage of the chapter:

 
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When the battle was done, Dany rode her silver through the fields of the dead. Her handmaids and the men of her khas came after, smiling and jesting among themselves.
Dothraki hooves had torn the earth and trampled the rye and lentils into the ground, while arakhs and arrows had sown a terrible new crop and watered it with blood. Dying horses lifted their heads and screamed at her as she rode past. Wounded men moaned and prayed. Jaqqa rhan moved among them, the mercy men with their heavy axes, taking a harvest of heads from the dead and dying alike. After them would scurry a flock of small girls, pulling arrows from the corpses to fill their baskets. Last of all the dogs would come sniffing, lean and hungry, the feral pack that was never far behind the khalasar. (aGoT, Dany VII)

 

 
Now it's certain that Dany herself and her handmaids and the men of her khas (her retinue) remained at a safe distance from the actual battle. She witnessed it from afar. We know that her retinue are a gossiping bunch who informed and relate to Dany what the ways of the Dothraki are. They would have done the same, well before any confrontation occurred.
 
That this informing happened indeed is confirmed by the manner in which George has Dany's POV use 3 different time tenses. First Dany describes the scene in the completed past tense (aka what had happened before she arrived at the scene itself: the trampling of the rye, lentils and arakhs and arrows killing people) then she describes what she witnesses in the past present tense (horses dying screaming, wounded men moaning and praying, mercy men beheading the dead and dying). Finally Dany uses the future past tense to inform us what she knows will happen afterwards.
 
Furthermore there is an indication that she's perfectly fine at this point for the Lhazareen being the moral collateral damage cost she's willing to pay to fund her invasion of Westeros.
 
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The women and children of Ogo's khalasar walked with a sullen pride, even in defeat and bondage; they were slaves now, but they seemed not to fear it. It was different with the townsfolk. Dany pitied them; she remembered what terror felt like. Mothers stumbled along with blank, dead faces, pulling sobbing children by the hand. There were only a few men among them, cripples and cowards and grandfathers.
Ser Jorah said the people of this country named themselves the Lhazareen, but the Dothraki called them haesh rakhi, the Lamb Men. Once Dany might have taken them for Dothraki, for they had the same copper skin and almond-shaped eyes. Now they looked alien to her, squat and flat-faced, their black hair cropped unnaturally short. They were herders of sheep and eaters of vegetables, and Khal Drogo said they belonged south of the river bend. The grass of the Dothraki sea was not meant for sheep. (aGoT, Dany VII)

 

 

While yes, Dany feels pity for them, her pity does not just stem of remembering what terror feels like. She's very much looking at them through Dothraky-way eyes. We know this, because George contrasted the Lhazareen prisoners against the Dothraki ones. All are slaves now, but the rival's khalasar ones carry themselves with pride, while the Lhazareen men taken prisoner that aren't crippled or grandfathers are called cowards by Dany. By deeming them cowards, Dany is applying Dothraki POV onto these people, even though she's cultured enough to know that they must be peasants and artisans who are completely untrained in warfare. George emphasizes this by describing the Lhazareen as having the same fenotype as the Dothraki, but to Dany they look alien and she notes specifically how they keep their hair short (long hair with the Dothraki is a sign of not having known defeat), which is just another reference to further evidence for Dany that the Lhazareen are a cowardly people.

This is Dany's mindset when she surveys the village. There's just no way that Dany ever questioned Drogo's intention to attack the Lhazareen or disagreed with it. She was completely fine with it. George seals this with Dany matter of factly observing a boy trying to run away ending up as sport of the Dothraki riders until they get bored and kill him with an arrow in his back. The scene itself is utterly heart wrenching to the reader, but it is wrong to for example project our own disgust of the scene onto Dany's feelings about it - for she has no feelings about it whatsoever. She watches the whole scene from start to finish without an emotion.

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Dany saw one boy bolt and run for the river. A rider cut him off and turned him, and the others boxed him in, cracking their whips in his face, running him this way and that. One galloped behind him, lashing him across the buttocks until his thighs ran red with blood. Another snared his ankle with a lash and sent him sprawling. Finally, when the boy could only crawl, they grew bored of the sport and put an arrow through his back. (aGoT, Dany VII)

You may think I'm too harsh on Dany's absence of emotional response to this scene, that absence of mentioning emotions is not evidence that she lacks them or isn't disturbed by it. But given that she thinks highly of the Dothraki who were taken prisoner since they walked with pride, the running boy ought to be seen as furhter evidence of how the Lhazareen are a corwardly people in Dany's eyes who deserve their lot.

And yes, this paragraph is still fit into the coward-brave contrast, because the next paragraph is Dany meeting up with Jorah and Dany elaborating in thought how the Dothraki called Jorah a coward for donning armor, and Jorah swearing and insulting the Dothraki right back, dueling with the Dothraki and killing him.

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Ser Jorah met her outside the shattered gate. He wore a dark green surcoat over his mail. His gauntlets, greaves, and greathelm were dark grey steel. The Dothraki had mocked him for a coward when he donned his armor, but the knight had spit insults right back in their teeth, tempers had flared, longsword had clashed with arakh, and the rider whose taunts had been loudest had been left behind to bleed to death. (aGoT, Dany VII)

Just by contrast, Dany's POV implies the running boy is a coward to her, Jorah and the Dothraki are not.

And well as soon as Jorah mentions her "lord husband" Dany has this response.

 
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"Drogo took no harm?"
"A few cuts," Ser Jorah answered, "nothing of consequence. [...]" (aGoT, Dany VII)

 

 
Dany just witnessed a boy being cornered and sent in various directions, chased, whipped, harmed until all he could do was crawl, and ending up with an arrow in his back and there is no response whatsoever from her. But Drogo is mentioned and she immediately asks "Drogo took no harm?" Not to mention how she makes a scene about Drogo's wound being taken care of much later.
 
The boy was a coward in her eyes, and an alien, and the arrow in his back when all he could do was crawl his just deserve?
 
But there is nothing brave about grown men trained in war chasing a kid, beating and lashing him and ending him with an arrow in his back. To me as a reader the manner in which they kill him is the cowardly way. But so far, in this chapter, Dany does not see that yet. 
 
The nail in the coffin about the argument that Dany did not ride into the Lhazareen town as a morally complicit party is the paragraph where we learn that Khal Ogo had been attacking the town.
 
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Ogo's khalasar had been attacking the town when Khal Drogo caught him. She wondered what the Lamb Men had thought, when they first saw the dust of their horses from atop those cracked-mud walls. Perhaps a few, the younger and more foolish who still believed that the gods heard the prayers of desperate men, took it for deliverance.  (aGoT, Dany VII)

George presents a seeming argument to wash Dany from any blame: the Lhazareen would have been caught, raped and pillaged anyway. But he immediately follows it up with Dany wondering about the nasty irony of what the Lamb Men might have thought when Drogo's khalasar (and she) appeared on the horizon. Calling whomever believed that deliverance was on the way "foolish" is hardly a sympathetic thought.

We're not meant to jsut be disgusted by the Dothraki way in these first three pages, but disturbed by Dany's POV.

People also argued about Dany being naive. All the above quotes make clear that Dany was not naive when she entered the destroyed town. She felt that both Dothraki and herself were superior to them. Her attitude only alters when she's confronted with a girl of similar age than her being raped and raped and raped, by Dothraki after Dothraki. Where she did not require to harden her hard or remind herself she's the blood of the dragon when it came to the running boy, Dany has to do this when facing the gang-rape of the girl that will turn out to be Eroeh. 

 
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Across the road, a girl no older than Dany was sobbing in a high thin voice as a rider shoved her over a pile of corpses, facedown, and thrust himself inside her. Other riders dismounted to take their turns. That was the sort of deliverance the Dothraki brought the Lamb Men.
I am the blood of the dragon, Daenerys Targaryen reminded herself as she turned her face away. She pressed her lips together and hardened her heart and rode on toward the gate. (aGoT, Dany VII)

 

This is the first person Dany starts to truly empathize with, because she's too much of a reminder that she could have experienced a similar fate. And then Jorah tells her the following

 
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"Most of Ogo's riders fled," Ser Jorah was saying. "Still, there may be as many as ten thousand captives."
Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver's Bay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what it looks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne. (aGoT, Dany VII)

 

 
I highlighted the seeming most insignificant line of information in these paragraphs - that most of Ogo's riders fled. However, I would say this is perhaps the most important line that helps Dany in cracking. Many paragraphs before, she thought of those same captives as fearless and proud, even though they were slaves now, and that in comparison to the cowardly Lhazareen. The Dothraki were in every respect superior to the Lamb Men, even when they ran down the boy who tried to run away and shot him in the back when he could only crawl.
 
Dany had created this idealized superior vision about the Dothraki - brave, proud, because they'd never run. And now Jorah informs her that most of Ogo's riders (comparable to any of Drogo's men doing the raping and killing and sporting with boys trying to escape), the supposed brave warriors, fled and ran on their horses, leaving their own khalasar to be taken as prisoners to be sold as slaves in Slaver's Bay. If such men running away aren't "cowards", then neither can the Lhazareen by called cowards anymore. For one last moment she clings to "this is the price of the Iron Throne".
 
 
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"I've told the khal he ought to make for Meereen," Ser Jorah said. "They'll pay a better price than he'd get from a slaving caravan. Illyrio writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them."
Behind them, the girl being raped made a heartrending sound, a long sobbing wail that went on and on and on. Dany's hand clenched hard around the reins, and she turned the silver's head. "Make them stop," she commanded Ser Jorah. (aGoT, Dany VII)

 

 

The fact that Dany reminds herself and thus always thought of the Lhazareen as a prize to pay for the Iron Throne, further shows that Dany knew why Lhazareen would be attacked, and she didn't have any issue with it, as long as she could consider the Dothraki (and herself as the dragon) a superior race over these Lhazareen. Once it turns out that those big men with long hair, arakhs and arrows are cowards who fled, this simple world view falls to pieces for her, and then children being sold for brothels finally becomes unbearable to her. Only then it becomes a situation where the price she was willing to let an innocent third party pay for the Iron Throne is too high, and that's when her humanity finally boils over and for a while puts the "dragon to sleep".

That we ought to see what occurs before her "stop" as something her dragon condones is made clear with George having Dany think "I am the blood of the dragon". It refers to "the Usurper waking the dragon" in the previous chapter.

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If I were not the blood of the dragon, she thought wistfully, this could be my home. She was khaleesi, she had a strong man and a swift horse, handmaids to serve her, warriors to keep her safe, an honored place in the dosh khaleen awaiting her when she grew old … and in her womb grew a son who would one day bestride the world. That should be enough for any woman … but not for the dragon. With Viserys gone, Daenerys was the last, the very last. She was the seed of kings and conquerors, and so too the child inside her. She must not forget.

[...]

"You and the child," Ser Jorah said, grim.
"No. He cannot have my son." She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself … (aGoT, Dany VI)

 

 

Now, I do think that when Dany tells Jorah "make them stop" she in fact wants to stop everything, that she doesn't want anyone being sold into slavery anymore (men, women, boy and girl child). And of course it's too late for that. She can only try to salvage what she does make an explicit effort over. What worries me though much later is that Dany sort-of boasts over that effort to Mirri.

Anyhow, when it comes to Dany's naivity, it's not so much about the Dothraki warfare way. The first two pages of the chapter dispell any such notion for me. On top of that she saw her brother die in front of her and she felt good about having the wine-seller be dragged by her own horse, until likely completely unrecognizable. Dany was not naive about any of that. Instead she had a naive belief about Dothraki riders being brave and anybody else a coward. Only when she learns that Dothraki riders fled after being defeated does the "these cowardly Lhazareen are alien to me" perception crumble. She was also naive about herself. She thought of herself as a dragon, and forgot for a long while there was a human being inside her.

And imo the stance of "she's not complicit", "she was naive", and "she didn't feel guilty" and "she didn't know" and "what could she have done anyway" and "the Lhazareen were gonna die and be raped anyway" completely misses out on the subtle and nuanced writing of George, and does Dany a tremendous disfavor. He wrote her arc here to be morally murky, both by making her partial complicit in successfully convincing Drogo to invade Westeros, her acceptance how a third completely innocent party will literally "pay" for this invasion, her identifying and accepting the Dothraki way as the brave/superior one initially, to then jump back from that to a certain point by trying to salvage some of the victims when her humanity wins out over the dragon.

 

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

It's more than harsh words, though.  It's claiming the credit.  And, why would Mirri not take the chance to strike at a hated enemy?

She didnt claim credit though. She didnt say, yes, I forcibly aborted your child and tricked you into that. She just rubbed salt in the wound of her loss. Dany even thinks Jorah had something to do with it, not Mirri. Mirri may have tried to kill Drogo with a poisoned poultice. But then Drogo takes it off so...we didnt see it work completely. He could have just been a bad patient. If she did try to kill Drogo, her ire wasnt misdirected. If she didnt, I can see why, because she's a slave in the middle of a huge khalasar and has no power, so best try to use healing arts (be useful) to stay alive.

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On 1/30/2020 at 3:36 PM, Nagini's Neville said:

@Lyanna<3Rhaegar and @SeanF the only power she might have had was through having magical sex with him or something :rolleyes: or doing something, that would have reminded Dorgo, that it's for sure his son influencing her and therefore, he should maybe pay attention :bang: :ack:

What the fuck are raving about?

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As to the whole Mirri was guilty-farce... total bollocks. Reposting what I posted 4.5 years ago.

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There's no denying that Mirri performed a blood magic ritual. But there is no evidence that she targeted Dany's child. There were dead spirits in the tent. Once Dany was carried inside, the dead spirits claimed Rhaego for the sacrifice. It seems to me that once the spirits are summoned they act like a vortex. 
 
The Dothraki were hostile to any type of non-Dothraki healing. I get the impression they'd even call a maester a maegi. And it's little surprise Drogo's bloodriders would become violent for anyone to use magic on their Khal. Even the whole violent episode outside the tent does not fall outside what was to be expected as a reaction. It surprised Dany they started to stone her for it... but the way they were hostile from the start it isn't. Still, even without magic violence and agression has an almost "magical" ability to jump from one to the other in real life. It's not magical in real life of course, but it can spread like wildfire in the right conditions, pulling everyone in, indeed like a vortex (just have to point to the mob in KL). The scene is ambiguous enough to suggest that perhaps the spirits in the tent egged the "air" on for mob violence.
 
And it is that Mirri knew imo. She knew that the blood ritual and spirits would demand more blood. She did not know which blood, but there would be more. This was the reason that Mirri explictly ordered Dany out beforehand and telling her not to enter once the singing started for no reason. That she did this should be evidence enough that she had no intention of killing Rhaego. It defies all logic for Mirri to order her out if she intended to abort Rhaego. If she wanted to con Dany for that, she would have conned her into staying. Mirri was clear enough about it that Dany indeed tried to tell Jorah not to carry her in.
 
I don't think Rhaego was even targeted by the spirits, not until she fell and the fall and anxiety induced labour. On top of that the Dothraki healers refused to help her. Those mud smearing Dothraki healers refused to help her, because they called her cursed. I doubt that was caused by Mirri or the dead spirits in the tent.
 
From the get go, the whole plot shows free will after free will by others that led to Dany ending up in the tent.
 

  • Drogo drinking milk of the poppy which would have tarried the healing process (and there's for Drogo not being that "macho" about pain after all). This is Drogo's decision.
  • Then the poultice did what Mirri had told him beforehand - it would itch and burn. He ripped it off and had bacteria filled mud packed on it, because it feels more soothing. This is Drogo's decision and free will, and it the reason why developed gangrene (near the heart, no less)
  • Dany asks Mirri whether she doesn't know some magical way to save his life, and despite the contrary advice against it, she orders Mirri to do it. This is Dany's decision.
  • Mirri warns her not to enter the tent, not for any reason. It's Jorah who decides to carry her in. This is Jorah's decision.
  • The bloodriders behave violent to Dany, shove her. These are the bloodriders' decisions. Qotho said he would kill her.
  • The Dothraki start to pelt Dany with stones. These are the Dothrakis' decisions.
  • Dany's labor begins and the birthing women refuse to help her.  They say she's cursed. These are the Dothraki healers' decisions.
  • Irri and Doreah urge Jorah to carry her to the maegi. And Jorah carries her in.

 
Nowhere is it ever Mirri's decision. Meanwhile

  • Mirri performs all the necessary medical steps: she removes the arrow, disinfects the wound with boiling alcohol, she puts a pale green paste on the wound, before covering it with his flap of skin. Both the color and the related healing symptoms suggest that what she smeared on him was a disinfectant or anti-inflamatory... If any germ got into the wound anyhow, the paste would have killed it. Yes, and on an open wound it would cause a burning sensation; heck even non-broken skin. Any women out there who have ever applied a facial mask? Some of those feel hot, burning and itchy... it's because of disinfecting stuff in the product. She later says she made a paste of "firepod" and "sting-me-not". The latter sounds something like nettles, which would have anti-inflamatory effects. The firepod sounds like it might have the same purpose. Usually wounds contain both aerobe as well as anaerobe germs. Both need to be tackled, not just the one time, but as long as the wound is open.
  • Mirri gives all the necessary medical advice to help it heal fast, explains that there will be a burning sensation and itching (actually itching is a common sign of skin healing anyway)
  • Mirri states the most obvious - with the gangrene on his chest and it already having affected his general vitality and consciousness implies it's in his blood system for all his body. Drogo is dying.
  • She confirms she knows a blood magic ritual that may heal his gangrene, but she warns her that it's hard, dark, and death would be cleaner. She also mentions she paid dear for the lesson in Ashai. And she mentions only death can pay for life.
  • She tellls Dany to go outside, who initially refuses to go. Mirri says she must. She informs that powers dark and old will be conjured up, that the dead will dance inside, and no one living must look at them.

The accusations against Mirri

  • That she cursed Drogo with some malicioius spell in her temple. And yet she used no magic, but common medical tools. We know that spells don't work that easily. Spells come with a price. Mirri performed no physical sacrifice for any spell to work. On top of that, there was no comet yet and dragons weren't yet born. Magic was still weak. And gods aren't real either. It's common in most healing of religious cultures to utter prayers while applying medical procedures. Even Christians did this not so long ago. It's superstition. Even if Mirri said stuff like "let it not work at all," then her words have no more power than Cat telling Jon it should have been him.
  • That possibly she poisoned the poultice as some long con, so that Drogo would rip it off, and use Dothraki healer mud. Well the easiest way to con Drogo, without having a bloodrider tell you that her fate is tied to Drogo's fate, is to not offer any medical assistance at all. Or to apply some "soothing mud" full of germs, and do exactly the same thing that those Dothraki healers do. It wasn't poison that caused gangrene. He was blood poisoned by his own people. If you wish to poison someone, whether food or medicine, you won't use something that tastes awful or itches and burns.
  • That she performed the magic with the specific intent to turn Drogo into a vegetable. Hello, he was dying. Silliest con ever - someone is hours away from dying, but the best revenge is to heal his body? And I think those arguments made about Drogo not being in an outright vegetative state, but possibly still physically traumatized and in recovery, and it was too early to make any such conclusion actually might be right. His body was basically completely shell shocked from the blood poisoning that ran throughout his body and brain.
  • That she performed the magic with the specific intent to abort Rhaego. But all those involved leading up to Dany being carried into the tent make such a conclusion beyond begging the belief. Since when does Mirri have magical control over Drogo's bloodriders, over Dothraki hurling stones at Dany, over birthing women's opinions, over Irri, Doreah and Jorah? Furthermore, it would have been so easy for her to con Dany into staying if Mirri intended Dany to lose her child. Heck, she could have just do no ritual at all, be at her side for the birthing and botch it up. There is no evidence that Mirri wanted to kill Rhaego, not even a confesstion.
  • It's argued that she confessed. She did nothing of the sort. What she said was that Dany knew. What she said was that Mirri was glad Rhaego would not grow up to be the Koeblai Khan of Essos and Westeros. What she said what that her own life was no life at all. None of it is a confession. Was it harsh? Was it venomous? Was it twisting the emotional dagger into Dany's emotions wounds? Yup, totally. Is it a confession? Nope.

If Mirri is guilty of what she's accused of, I find it contain the worst series of plot holes. But only because Dany cannot look back or she's lost, because what she asked for came with too high a price and not the result she wanted, and believes Mirri did it all on purpose, and still believes it (If I look back I'm lost), it must be so. Because dragons were born out of killing the woman she ordered to do what she wanted, somehow Dany must be right? She could have put someone else on the pyre and the dragons would have been born just as well.

As to the so-called "confession": raeders reason, "she didn't deny it, and in absence of denial she confessed [to this thing she cannot possibly be guilty of]". Hello? They completely ignore that she never says "Yes, I killed Drogo and Rhaego". We ought to presume innocense over guilt. The argument of "absence of denial" is reversing it - it presume guilt requiring evidence of her being innocent. Well we have 2 chapters of evidence of innocense spread across 3 chapters: it was everybody else, but Mirri. And of course, Tyrion's "confession" to Jaime makes a confession laughable evidence when everythign else points to the contrary.

The other argument about her guilt, beyond "confession" is that Mirri has motivation and hatred. I agree she has the motivation and hatred for it. But motivation alone is not evidence of guilt. It can only explain why someone who's guilty did it. But all the factual evidence makes everyone else but Mirri guilty. So, even if she has the strongest motivation, it still doesn't make her guilty.

I hope that many here never ever sit as jury on any murder trial.

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2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

What do you mean by "cause"? Dany's urging is one reason they are there to raid her village, so they can afford ships for conquests that Dany wants

We already talked about this but you didn't respond. I think it's been pretty well laid out that Daenerys is, in no way, shape, or form, responsible or to blame for the raid on their village. 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Mirri may not know the exact details of why they are there, but she knows not to trust Dany too much

Right, Mirri would assume correctly that they are there because the Dothraki do this and while she is right to be suspicious of Dany, because Dany is among them she isn't right to repay Dany's kindness with betrayal. 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Her interactions with her are wary. And, Dany proved her right - she shouldn't be trusted because she burns people alive

This is suggesting Mirri got burned alive for being "wary" of Daenerys, which isn't the case. Had she only been wary of Daenerys she would probably still be alive today. She was burned for her betrayal & the harm she claimed to cause against Dany & her loved ones. 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

We like to think Dany only does this to people who "deserve" it but Dany also makes the call in a snap judgement, with a possibility for inaccurate info about who is betraying her and how. On top of this, Dany always had power over Mirri, it was never an equal relationship.

"We" don't like to think anything but I would say, of the two? (That's all I recall) she burned alive (Mirri & Kraznys) they both earned death. I don't know if anyone deserves to be burned alive, that's pretty inhumane but neither of them were Innocents. 

She knew exactly why & was correct about why she burned Kraznys, she knew exactly why she was burning Mirri also & IF she was incorrect about it, it's because Mirri herself gave false information. To suggest Daenerys has burned people alive with out figuring out the situation first is simply false. 

You're correct that Dany always had the power in the relationship but I would say all the more reason for Mirri to NOT betray her considering she was kind to her or at the very least make more effort to not get caught betraying her. 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

There is another fact here. There was already a raid going on at that village by Khal Pono. Mirri could have been raped by those guys as well. I don't think Mirri cared who was who

She probably didn't care or notice who was who & I understand why she wouldn't & that certainly isn't something I would expect of her but it also isn't Daenerys's fault. 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Mirri isnt letting Dany take the high road, aka the "savior" role in that situation - it just seems ridiculous for her to have it since Dany is complicit in the village raid and ends by burning a person alive so she can get new pets

She isn't complicit in the raid, she didn't burn someone alive so she could get pets, and she isn't trying to take the savior role. 

She was present at the raid & proved herself different than the rest of them, she burned someone alive for their betrayal & confessed murder, & we have her inner dialogue; when/where does she think of herself as this "savior" when/where does she try to claim that role? When she says "I saved you"? Hardly. 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

And, I think Dany intervening is more about her own guilt, than how much she cares for people in general. She switches to cruelty to people underneath her, far too quickly, in that chapter. 

I disagree. Again, we have her inner dialogue & we know she stops it because she cares. I would contend though, that even if she stopped it out of guilt it is better than not stopping it at all. 

Too quickly?! She has lost her husband, son, entire "home"; everything she cared for & has a woman in front of her taking blame for it all. How is that too quickly? 

2 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Liberal white feminism usually involves naive women who have power trying to "help" people without power, but ending up not really helping in the long run because they dont understand the power differentials. Its just a short term, shallow form of help. The idea that all women face the same oppression is also a white feminist view. I'd say Sojourner Truth is the first woman to call out white feminism.

I know what it is, I'm asking how it applies here? Dany did help her in the long run, whether she thinks so or not. She stopped several more rapes & likely much more abuse & possibly death. I think you would be hard pressed to find a woman of any color in the same situation as Mirri saying Dany's help was "white feminism" or a shallow, short term form of help. 

 

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2 hours ago, redriver said:

What the fuck are raving about?

90% of the time I think you are hilarious, even when you are being a little mean so this does not come from a place of hatred or anger, I genuinely want to know: why do you pick on her so much? 

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

I find the short arguments against my first post completely inadequate. The whole arc of the assassination-attempt chapter, from start to end, establishes that Dany and Jorah used the attempt together to successfully convince Drogo into wanting to invade Westeros.

Whether or not Dany wanted to rule the IT herself is irrelevant. She sold the IT from the start as something that was Rhaego's by right and she mentioned many ships that could help get the whole khalasar to travel the poisoned waters (the gang in the OP's anology of mine that was quoted), and Drogo promising the Iron Throne to his unborn son is in direct lineary consequence of it, not something he came up with on his own. 

Whether or not Dany turned out to be naive about Dothraki warfare is irrelevant.

But the argument was made that Westeros is not the Lhazareen village, and Dany could not have foreseen that. It was also argued that she therefore is not a complicit to the attack of the Lhazareen, even if some at least can admit that she would have been a complicit in getting the Dothraki rape and pillage Westeros if Drogo had succeeded in acquiring ships to sail his khalasar to Westeros.

I maintain however we have indications that Dany was not surprised by the attack on the Lhazareen village, nor initially showed any signs against this. Here's the opening passage of the chapter:

 
 
Now it's certain that Dany herself and her handmaids and the men of her khas (her retinue) remained at a safe distance from the actual battle. She witnessed it from afar. We know that her retinue are a gossiping bunch who informed and relate to Dany what the ways of the Dothraki are. They would have done the same, well before any confrontation occurred.
 
That this informing happened indeed is confirmed by the manner in which George has Dany's POV use 3 different time tenses. First Dany describes the scene in the completed past tense (aka what had happened before she arrived at the scene itself: the trampling of the rye, lentils and arakhs and arrows killing people) then she describes what she witnesses in the past present tense (horses dying screaming, wounded men moaning and praying, mercy men beheading the dead and dying). Finally Dany uses the future past tense to inform us what she knows will happen afterwards.
 
Furthermore there is an indication that she's perfectly fine at this point for the Lhazareen being the moral collateral damage cost she's willing to pay to fund her invasion of Westeros.
 
 

While yes, Dany feels pity for them, her pity does not just stem of remembering what terror feels like. She's very much looking at them through Dothraky-way eyes. We know this, because George contrasted the Lhazareen prisoners against the Dothraki ones. All are slaves now, but the rival's khalasar ones carry themselves with pride, while the Lhazareen men taken prisoner that aren't crippled or grandfathers are called cowards by Dany. By deeming them cowards, Dany is applying Dothraki POV onto these people, even though she's cultured enough to know that they must be peasants and artisans who are completely untrained in warfare. George emphasizes this by describing the Lhazareen as having the same fenotype as the Dothraki, but to Dany they look alien and she notes specifically how they keep their hair short (long hair with the Dothraki is a sign of not having known defeat), which is just another reference to further evidence for Dany that the Lhazareen are a cowardly people.

This is Dany's mindset when she surveys the village. There's just no way that Dany ever questioned Drogo's intention to attack the Lhazareen or disagreed with it. She was completely fine with it. George seals this with Dany matter of factly observing a boy trying to run away ending up as sport of the Dothraki riders until they get bored and kill him with an arrow in his back. The scene itself is utterly heart wrenching to the reader, but it is wrong to for example project our own disgust of the scene onto Dany's feelings about it - for she has no feelings about it whatsoever. She watches the whole scene from start to finish without an emotion.

You may think I'm too harsh on Dany's absence of emotional response to this scene, that absence of mentioning emotions is not evidence that she lacks them or isn't disturbed by it. But given that she thinks highly of the Dothraki who were taken prisoner since they walked with pride, the running boy ought to be seen as furhter evidence of how the Lhazareen are a corwardly people in Dany's eyes who deserve their lot.

And yes, this paragraph is still fit into the coward-brave contrast, because the next paragraph is Dany meeting up with Jorah and Dany elaborating in thought how the Dothraki called Jorah a coward for donning armor, and Jorah swearing and insulting the Dothraki right back, dueling with the Dothraki and killing him.

Just by contrast, Dany's POV implies the running boy is a coward to her, Jorah and the Dothraki are not.

And well as soon as Jorah mentions her "lord husband" Dany has this response.

 
 
Dany just witnessed a boy being cornered and sent in various directions, chased, whipped, harmed until all he could do was crawl, and ending up with an arrow in his back and there is no response whatsoever from her. But Drogo is mentioned and she immediately asks "Drogo took no harm?" Not to mention how she makes a scene about Drogo's wound being taken care of much later.
 
The boy was a coward in her eyes, and an alien, and the arrow in his back when all he could do was crawl his just deserve?
 
But there is nothing brave about grown men trained in war chasing a kid, beating and lashing him and ending him with an arrow in his back. To me as a reader the manner in which they kill him is the cowardly way. But so far, in this chapter, Dany does not see that yet. 
 
The nail in the coffin about the argument that Dany did not ride into the Lhazareen town as a morally complicit party is the paragraph where we learn that Khal Ogo had been attacking the town.
 

George presents a seeming argument to wash Dany from any blame: the Lhazareen would have been caught, raped and pillaged anyway. But he immediately follows it up with Dany wondering about the nasty irony of what the Lamb Men might have thought when Drogo's khalasar (and she) appeared on the horizon. Calling whomever believed that deliverance was on the way "foolish" is hardly a sympathetic thought.

We're not meant to jsut be disgusted by the Dothraki way in these first three pages, but disturbed by Dany's POV.

People also argued about Dany being naive. All the above quotes make clear that Dany was not naive when she entered the destroyed town. She felt that both Dothraki and herself were superior to them. Her attitude only alters when she's confronted with a girl of similar age than her being raped and raped and raped, by Dothraki after Dothraki. Where she did not require to harden her hard or remind herself she's the blood of the dragon when it came to the running boy, Dany has to do this when facing the gang-rape of the girl that will turn out to be Eroeh. 

 

This is the first person Dany starts to truly empathize with, because she's too much of a reminder that she could have experienced a similar fate. And then Jorah tells her the following

 
 
I highlighted the seeming most insignificant line of information in these paragraphs - that most of Ogo's riders fled. However, I would say this is perhaps the most important line that helps Dany in cracking. Many paragraphs before, she thought of those same captives as fearless and proud, even though they were slaves now, and that in comparison to the cowardly Lhazareen. The Dothraki were in every respect superior to the Lamb Men, even when they ran down the boy who tried to run away and shot him in the back when he could only crawl.
 
Dany had created this idealized superior vision about the Dothraki - brave, proud, because they'd never run. And now Jorah informs her that most of Ogo's riders (comparable to any of Drogo's men doing the raping and killing and sporting with boys trying to escape), the supposed brave warriors, fled and ran on their horses, leaving their own khalasar to be taken as prisoners to be sold as slaves in Slaver's Bay. If such men running away aren't "cowards", then neither can the Lhazareen by called cowards anymore. For one last moment she clings to "this is the price of the Iron Throne".
 
 

 

The fact that Dany reminds herself and thus always thought of the Lhazareen as a prize to pay for the Iron Throne, further shows that Dany knew why Lhazareen would be attacked, and she didn't have any issue with it, as long as she could consider the Dothraki (and herself as the dragon) a superior race over these Lhazareen. Once it turns out that those big men with long hair, arakhs and arrows are cowards who fled, this simple world view falls to pieces for her, and then children being sold for brothels finally becomes unbearable to her. Only then it becomes a situation where the price she was willing to let an innocent third party pay for the Iron Throne is too high, and that's when her humanity finally boils over and for a while puts the "dragon to sleep".

That we ought to see what occurs before her "stop" as something her dragon condones is made clear with George having Dany think "I am the blood of the dragon". It refers to "the Usurper waking the dragon" in the previous chapter.

 

Now, I do think that when Dany tells Jorah "make them stop" she in fact wants to stop everything, that she doesn't want anyone being sold into slavery anymore (men, women, boy and girl child). And of course it's too late for that. She can only try to salvage what she does make an explicit effort over. What worries me though much later is that Dany sort-of boasts over that effort to Mirri.

Anyhow, when it comes to Dany's naivity, it's not so much about the Dothraki warfare way. The first two pages of the chapter dispell any such notion for me. On top of that she saw her brother die in front of her and she felt good about having the wine-seller be dragged by her own horse, until likely completely unrecognizable. Dany was not naive about any of that. Instead she had a naive belief about Dothraki riders being brave and anybody else a coward. Only when she learns that Dothraki riders fled after being defeated does the "these cowardly Lhazareen are alien to me" perception crumble. She was also naive about herself. She thought of herself as a dragon, and forgot for a long while there was a human being inside her.

And imo the stance of "she's not complicit", "she was naive", and "she didn't feel guilty" and "she didn't know" and "what could she have done anyway" and "the Lhazareen were gonna die and be raped anyway" completely misses out on the subtle and nuanced writing of George, and does Dany a tremendous disfavor. He wrote her arc here to be morally murky, both by making her partial complicit in successfully convincing Drogo to invade Westeros, her acceptance how a third completely innocent party will literally "pay" for this invasion, her identifying and accepting the Dothraki way as the brave/superior one initially, to then jump back from that to a certain point by trying to salvage some of the victims when her humanity wins out over the dragon.

 

 Since you referenced a jury in your next post, I'll raise these points:-

1.   What position did Daenerys have in Drogo's chain of command?

2.  Did she carry out a massacre on his orders?

3.  Did she order a massacre at the village?

4. Were the men who carried out the massacre under her orders?

5. Did she participate in the massacre at the village?

6. Did she take any steps to prevent atrocities at the village?

7. Did Drogo discuss his plans with her to carry out a massacre at the village?  

8. Did she assent to them?

Because those are the questions that any judge would be putting to you.  And, I doubt if your case would even get to the stage of being put to a jury.  It would be chucked out within a couple of hours.

Being married to a war criminal (particularly when you have no choice in the marriage) does not make you a war criminal.  Otherwise, we'd be condemning people like the women of the Freys, Joanna Lannister, and half the women of Westeros for the activities of their men.

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3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

As to the whole Mirri was guilty-farce... total bollocks. Reposting what I posted 4.5 years ago.

As to the so-called "confession": raeders reason, "she didn't deny it, and in absence of denial she confessed [to this thing she cannot possibly be guilty of]". Hello? They completely ignore that she never says "Yes, I killed Drogo and Rhaego". We ought to presume innocense over guilt. The argument of "absence of denial" is reversing it - it presume guilt requiring evidence of her being innocent. Well we have 2 chapters of evidence of innocense spread across 3 chapters: it was everybody else, but Mirri. And of course, Tyrion's "confession" to Jaime makes a confession laughable evidence when everythign else points to the contrary.

The other argument about her guilt, beyond "confession" is that Mirri has motivation and hatred. I agree she has the motivation and hatred for it. But motivation alone is not evidence of guilt. It can only explain why someone who's guilty did it. But all the factual evidence makes everyone else but Mirri guilty. So, even if she has the strongest motivation, it still doesn't make her guilty.

I hope that many here never ever sit as jury on any murder trial.

If Mirri had said to Daenerys "I'll take the life of your child, and in return I'll ensure that your husband remains alive in a vegetative state" and Daenerys had assented to that, then I think it would be very poor of Daenerys to then turn around and blame Mirri for what occurred.

But, that's not what happened.  At the very least, she strongly implied that she could heal Drogo, through a blood ritual.    Sure, Daenerys probably ought to have dotted the I's and crossed the t's, but by that point she was desperate.  One would expect the healer at that point to explain that Drogo would only be restored in a vegetative condition.  But, she did not.

Not only does Mirri claim that the death of the child was a part of the ritual "That was a lie you told yourself ", (implying that Daenerys knew all along the child would die) "You asked for life, and you have paid for life", (implying that the price was the life of the child) "the stallion who mounts the world will burn no temples now" (implying that she did it to save people in the future)  , she also claims the credit for rendering Daenerys barren "When your womb quickens and bears a living child.  Then he will return and not before."

She may have been lying about all of this.  She may have meant nothing but good to Drogo and Daenerys, in which case, she was a damned idiot to say what she said.  Daenerys can be forgiven for believing her, especially given that she possessed motive to hurt, and means to do so.

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2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

find the short arguments against my first post completely inadequate. The whole arc of the assassination-attempt chapter, from start to end, establishes that Dany and Jorah used the attempt together to successfully convince Drogo into wanting to invade Westeros

I agree, they used the attempt to convince Drogo, or more accurately, Jorah used the attempt to help convince Drogo at Dany's behest. (Dany didn't chime in here but had tried to convince him before)

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Whether or not Dany wanted to rule the IT herself is irrelevant. She sold the IT from the start as something that was Rhaego's by right and she mentioned many ships that could help get the whole khalasar to travel the poisoned waters (the gang in the OP's anology of mine that was quoted), and Drogo promising the Iron Throne to his unborn son is in direct lineary consequence of it, not something he came up with on his own

Again, I agree but would add Drogo would only think in terms of his son one day ruling because he would never be able to comprehend a woman ruling. 

But I agree it's irrelevant. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Whether or not Dany turned out to be naive about Dothraki warfare is irrelevant

Not in it's entirety IMO. It would have irrelevant in terms of what happened to Westeros or to the Lhazareen (they could have cared less who knew or didn't know what kind of terror was going to be reigned down upon them) but it's isn't irrelevant when speaking on Dany's complicity in the Lhazareen at the least. After that she could no longer, not know, because she just witnessed it. Prior to that she knew the Dothraki were a savage people, she knew war = killing etc but she wouldn't have known the details nor how it would affect her personally, witnessing it. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

But the argument was made that Westeros is not the Lhazareen village, and Dany could not have foreseen that. It was also argued that she therefore is not a complicit to the attack of the Lhazareen, even if some at least can admit that she would have been a complicit in getting the Dothraki rape and pillage Westeros if Drogo had succeeded in acquiring ships to sail his khalasar to Westeros

Precisely my stance, yes. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

maintain however we have indications that Dany was not surprised by the attack on the Lhazareen village, nor initially showed any signs against this. Here's the opening passage of the chapter

Surprise has nothing to do with it. We know she has never witnessed such a thing before. Furthermore that passage doesn't give any indication to Dany's feelings on the matter whatsoever, it is merely facts. I don't think this shows anything in re to how she regards the situation personally, let alone to say she wasn't against it. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Now it's certain that Dany herself and her handmaids and the men of her khas (her retinue) remained at a safe distance from the actual battle. She witnessed it from afar. We know that her retinue are a gossiping bunch who informed and relate to Dany what the ways of the Dothraki are. They would have done the same, well before any confrontation occurred

Almost this entire paragraph is baseless speculation. The only part I can see any basis for is that they would have stayed a safe distance from the battle. She likely wouldn't have witnessed it at all, we have no evidence she was told what would happen prior to the attack (not that it makes much difference IMO, hearing is not seeing)

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

That this informing happened indeed is confirmed by the manner in which George has Dany's POV use 3 different time tenses. First Dany describes the scene in the completed past tense (aka what had happened before she arrived at the scene itself: the trampling of the rye, lentils and arakhs and arrows killing people) then she describes what she witnesses in the past present tense (horses dying screaming, wounded men moaning and praying, mercy men beheading the dead and dying). Finally Dany uses the future past tense to inform us what she knows will happen afterwards

Not at all. The past tense are things she is seeing the aftermath of, therefore she knows what happened. The present tense are things she is seeing happen right now & I see no "Future past tense" only more of what she is seeing. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Furthermore there is an indication that she's perfectly fine at this point for the Lhazareen being the moral collateral damage cost she's willing to pay to fund her invasion of Westeros

Where is this indication? 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

While yes, Dany feels pity for them, her pity does not just stem of remembering what terror feels like. She's very much looking at them through Dothraky-way eyes. We know this, because George contrasted the Lhazareen prisoners against the Dothraki ones. All are slaves now, but the rival's khalasar ones carry themselves with pride, while the Lhazareen men taken prisoner that aren't crippled or grandfathers are called cowards by Dany. By deeming them cowards, Dany is applying Dothraki POV onto these people, even though she's cultured enough to know that they must be peasants and artisans who are completely untrained in warfare. George emphasizes this by describing the Lhazareen as having the same fenotype as the Dothraki, but to Dany they look alien and she notes specifically how they keep their hair short (long hair with the Dothraki is a sign of not having known defeat), which is just another reference to

I agree to an extent but would note the reason behind her being able to differentiate between them, when once she could not have is because she has spent time with the Dothraki, she is much more familiar with their faces than before. This is a normal concept & nothing shameful or malicious. She is starting to see things through "Dothraki" eyes, as most would having been forced to marry a horselord & left with the option of conforming or dying. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

This is Dany's mindset when she surveys the village. There's just no way that Dany ever questioned Drogo's intention to attack the Lhazareen or disagreed with it.

Of course she didn't. She wasn't asked her opinion nor would her opinion have been permitted. She holds a high position, for a woman among the Dothraki but is still a woman among the Dothraki. I don't understand why anyone would presume she would be permitted to interject her opinion, let alone her opposition. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

She was completely fine with

There is no evidence for that statement & there is evidence against it. 

If she were completely fine with it why did she pity them? Why did she stop the rapes? Would that not indicate she was not completely fine with it? 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

George seals this with Dany matter of factly observing a boy trying to run away ending up as sport of the Dothraki riders until they get bored and kill him with an arrow in his back. The scene itself is utterly heart wrenching to the reader, but it is wrong to for example project our own disgust of the scene onto Dany's feelings about it - for she has no feelings about it whatsoever. She watches the whole scene from start to finish without an emotion

We aren't given her emotion, indifferent or otherwise. I would assume George writing this through Daenerys's eyes would think most of us would read that passage, understand how horrific it is, & understand how Daenerys is feeling there. She is not a robot, nor is she a Dothraki. If she were thinking through a Dothraki mind set here there would be a justification of sorts in her thoughts. The lack of her written emotion cannot be used to equate she had no emotion. Only a sociopath with no empathy to be had would witness that without emotion & she is not one. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

You may think I'm too harsh on Dany's absence of emotional response to this scene, that absence of mentioning emotions is not evidence that she lacks them or isn't disturbed by it. But given that she thinks highly of the Dothraki who were taken prisoner since they walked with pride, the running boy ought to be seen as furhter evidence of how the Lhazareen are a corwardly people in Dany's eyes who deserve their lot

She clearly makes a differential between the MEN walking with pride. She does not hold this boy to the same standard as the men. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

The boy was a coward in her eyes, and an alien, and the arrow in his back when all he could do was crawl his just deserve?

This is ridiculous & contradicted by your own quote. She speaks of the women & children of Ogo's khalasar walking with pride, without fear & contrasts that to the "few men" of the Lhazareen being crippled, old, or cowardly. Nothing to indicate she feels this way toward this child. 

2 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Just by contrast, Dany's POV implies the running boy is a coward to her, Jorah and the Dothraki are not

I think you are stretching very far here to say the least but for arguments sake let's say she thinks the boy a coward; how does that make her complicit in the khalasars raid? It makes her warped to say the least, indoctrinated, maybe a sociopath, but not complicit. Her feelings toward the matter do not dictate whether or not she is responsible for it. 

Sometimes I see on the news that a child molester got a dose of street justice & I'm pretty indifferent about it because I think child molesters cannot be rehabilitated. Maybe that's a harsh view, maybe it's not morally right, but it certainly doesn't make me complicit in whatever "justice" they were served. 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Dany just witnessed a boy being cornered and sent in various directions, chased, whipped, harmed until all he could do was crawl, and ending up with an arrow in his back and there is no response whatsoever from her. But Drogo is mentioned and she immediately asks "Drogo took no harm?" Not to mention how she makes a scene about Drogo's wound being taken care of much later

Is this really that odd? If you were walking through the aftermath of a battle that your significant other participated in, would you not first question his well being? Even after witnessing atrocities committed on others? 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

But there is nothing brave about grown men trained in war chasing a kid, beating and lashing him and ending him with an arrow in his back. To me as a reader the manner in which they kill him is the cowardly way. But so far, in this chapter, Dany does not see that yet

I agree it's cowardly but we aren't told what Dany's thoughts are on the matter. I can agree that she is likely viewing things much more from a Dothraki perspective than a Lhazareen perspective but that is kind of to be expected & how most people work. Still doesn't give her any blame though. 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

George presents a seeming argument to wash Dany from any blame: the Lhazareen would have been caught, raped and pillaged anyway. But he immediately follows it up with Dany wondering about the nasty irony of what the Lamb Men might have thought when Drogo's khalasar (and she) appeared on the horizon. Calling whomever believed that deliverance was on the way "foolish" is hardly a sympathetic thought

Not a sympathetic though but a true one. The irony is nasty & I would argue the fact that Dany is presenting it to us in this manner is evidence that she recognizes & sympathises with the nasty irony. 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

We're not meant to jsut be disgusted by the Dothraki way in these first three pages, but disturbed by Dany's POV

I disagree 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

People also argued about Dany being naive. All the above quotes make clear that Dany was not naive when she entered the destroyed town. She felt that both Dothraki and herself were superior to them. Her attitude only alters when she's confronted with a girl of similar age than her being raped and raped and raped, by Dothraki after Dothraki. Where she did not require to harden her hard or remind herself she's the blood of the dragon when it came to the running boy, Dany has to do this when facing the gang-rape of the girl that will turn out to be Eroeh

This is your own bias. The quotes do nothing to show Danys naivety, most of them are just her stating facts about what she sees around her. The Dothraki clearly are superior from a "war" or "battle" stance. Other than that she is noting differences in the two peoples. 

So it's wrong she didn't have to "harden her heart" when she witnesses the little boy but also wrong for her to attempt to harden her heart against the raping of a girl her age & eventually stop not only that rape but every rape she witnesses after that? 

3 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Now, I do think that when Dany tells Jorah "make them stop" she in fact wants to stop everything

An odd thing to want from someone who not only knew the attack was to happen, was complicit in the attack, but also was "completely fine" with all of it going on no? 

I don't mean to cut out some of your text but I have to get going. I'll reply to the rest later. 

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30 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

I agree, they used the attempt to convince Drogo, or more accurately, Jorah used the attempt to help convince Drogo at Dany's behest. (Dany didn't chime in here but had tried to convince him before)

Again, I agree but would add Drogo would only think in terms of his son one day ruling because he would never be able to comprehend a woman ruling. 

But I agree it's irrelevant. 

Not in it's entirety IMO. It would have irrelevant in terms of what happened to Westeros or to the Lhazareen (they could have cared less who knew or didn't know what kind of terror was going to be reigned down upon them) but it's isn't irrelevant when speaking on Dany's complicity in the Lhazareen at the least. After that she could no longer, not know, because she just witnessed it. Prior to that she knew the Dothraki were a savage people, she knew war = killing etc but she wouldn't have known the details nor how it would affect her personally, witnessing it. 

Precisely my stance, yes. 

Surprise has nothing to do with it. We know she has never witnessed such a thing before. Furthermore that passage doesn't give any indication to Dany's feelings on the matter whatsoever, it is merely facts. I don't think this shows anything in re to how she regards the situation personally, let alone to say she wasn't against it. 

Almost this entire paragraph is baseless speculation. The only part I can see any basis for is that they would have stayed a safe distance from the battle. She likely wouldn't have witnessed it at all, we have no evidence she was told what would happen prior to the attack (not that it makes much difference IMO, hearing is not seeing)

Not at all. The past tense are things she is seeing the aftermath of, therefore she knows what happened. The present tense are things she is seeing happen right now & I see no "Future past tense" only more of what she is seeing. 

Where is this indication? 

I agree to an extent but would note the reason behind her being able to differentiate between them, when once she could not have is because she has spent time with the Dothraki, she is much more familiar with their faces than before. This is a normal concept & nothing shameful or malicious. She is starting to see things through "Dothraki" eyes, as most would having been forced to marry a horselord & left with the option of conforming or dying. 

Of course she didn't. She wasn't asked her opinion nor would her opinion have been permitted. She holds a high position, for a woman among the Dothraki but is still a woman among the Dothraki. I don't understand why anyone would presume she would be permitted to interject her opinion, let alone her opposition. 

There is no evidence for that statement & there is evidence against it. 

If she were completely fine with it why did she pity them? Why did she stop the rapes? Would that not indicate she was not completely fine with it? 

We aren't given her emotion, indifferent or otherwise. I would assume George writing this through Daenerys's eyes would think most of us would read that passage, understand how horrific it is, & understand how Daenerys is feeling there. She is not a robot, nor is she a Dothraki. If she were thinking through a Dothraki mind set here there would be a justification of sorts in her thoughts. The lack of her written emotion cannot be used to equate she had no emotion. Only a sociopath with no empathy to be had would witness that without emotion & she is not one. 

She clearly makes a differential between the MEN walking with pride. She does not hold this boy to the same standard as the men. 

This is ridiculous & contradicted by your own quote. She speaks of the women & children of Ogo's khalasar walking with pride, without fear & contrasts that to the "few men" of the Lhazareen being crippled, old, or cowardly. Nothing to indicate she feels this way toward this child. 

I think you are stretching very far here to say the least but for arguments sake let's say she thinks the boy a coward; how does that make her complicit in the khalasars raid? It makes her warped to say the least, indoctrinated, maybe a sociopath, but not complicit. Her feelings toward the matter do not dictate whether or not she is responsible for it. 

Sometimes I see on the news that a child molester got a dose of street justice & I'm pretty indifferent about it because I think child molesters cannot be rehabilitated. Maybe that's a harsh view, maybe it's not morally right, but it certainly doesn't make me complicit in whatever "justice" they were served. 

Is this really that odd? If you were walking through the aftermath of a battle that your significant other participated in, would you not first question his well being? Even after witnessing atrocities committed on others? 

I agree it's cowardly but we aren't told what Dany's thoughts are on the matter. I can agree that she is likely viewing things much more from a Dothraki perspective than a Lhazareen perspective but that is kind of to be expected & how most people work. Still doesn't give her any blame though. 

Not a sympathetic though but a true one. The irony is nasty & I would argue the fact that Dany is presenting it to us in this manner is evidence that she recognizes & sympathises with the nasty irony. 

I disagree 

This is your own bias. The quotes do nothing to show Danys naivety, most of them are just her stating facts about what she sees around her. The Dothraki clearly are superior from a "war" or "battle" stance. Other than that she is noting differences in the two peoples. 

So it's wrong she didn't have to "harden her heart" when she witnesses the little boy but also wrong for her to attempt to harden her heart against the raping of a girl her age & eventually stop not only that rape but every rape she witnesses after that? 

An odd thing to want from someone who not only knew the attack was to happen, was complicit in the attack, but also was "completely fine" with all of it going on no? 

I don't mean to cut out some of your text but I have to get going. I'll reply to the rest later. 

It's pretty obvious that she's trying to harden her heart, but is unable to do so.

I'll say it again.  Judge Daenerys by what she does when she's the one giving the orders.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

If Mirri had said to Daenerys "I'll take the life of your child, and in return I'll ensure that your husband remains alive in a vegetative state" and Daenerys had assented to that, then I think it would be very poor of Daenerys to then turn around and blame Mirri for what occurred.

But, that's not what happened.  At the very least, she strongly implied that she could heal Drogo, through a blood ritual.    Sure, Daenerys probably ought to have dotted the I's and crossed the t's, but by that point she was desperate.  One would expect the healer at that point to explain that Drogo would only be restored in a vegetative condition.  But, she did not.

Not only does Mirri claim that the death of the child was a part of the ritual "That was a lie you told yourself ", (implying that Daenerys knew all along the child would die) "You asked for life, and you have paid for life", (implying that the price was the life of the child) "the stallion who mounts the world will burn no temples now" (implying that she did it to save people in the future)  , she also claims the credit for rendering Daenerys barren "When your womb quickens and bears a living child.  Then he will return and not before."

She may have been lying about all of this.  She may have meant nothing but good to Drogo and Daenerys, in which case, she was a damned idiot to say what she said.  Daenerys can be forgiven for believing her, especially given that she possessed motive to hurt, and means to do so.

Mirri said the following "Only death may pay  for life," and Dany knew perfectly well it meant a human life. As soon as she learned it wasn't "her life" she pressed Mirri once again to, "do it."

Mirri also said, "Some would say death is cleaner".

That's what happened.

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1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

Mirri said the following "Only death may pay  for life," and Dany knew perfectly well it meant a human life. As soon as she learned it wasn't "her life" she pressed Mirri once again to, "do it."

Mirri also said, "Some would say death is cleaner".

That's what happened.

So, you're saying that Mirri did take Rhaego's life after all, but that Dany assented to this?  

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

 Since you referenced a jury in your next post, I'll raise these points:-

1.   What position did Daenerys have in Drogo's chain of command?

2.  Did she carry out a massacre on his orders?

3.  Did she order a massacre at the village?

4. Were the men who carried out the massacre under her orders?

5. Did she participate in the massacre at the village?

6. Did she take any steps to prevent atrocities at the village?

7. Did Drogo discuss his plans with her to carry out a massacre at the village?  

8. Did she assent to them?

Because those are the questions that any judge would be putting to you.  And, I doubt if your case would even get to the stage of being put to a jury.  It would be chucked out within a couple of hours.

Being married to a war criminal (particularly when you have no choice in the marriage) does not make you a war criminal.  Otherwise, we'd be condemning people like the women of the Freys, Joanna Lannister, and half the women of Westeros for the activities of their men.

She manipulated Drogo into going to war for the Iron Chair, and she was fully aware that this was part of the price for that war and was fine with it, until she wasn't anymore.

And I never said she is the sole responsible. But she does share some responsibility.

Women of the Freys who egged on their husbands to avenge Robb's insult also share responsibility.

If Joanna Lannister egged on Tywin to massacre the Tarbecks and Reynes for Elyn taking her brother hostage, then yes Joanna Lannister shares some of the responsibility.

 

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