Daenerys & Mirri Maaz Duur

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, sweetsunray said:

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.

 

Drogo struck a bargain with Illyrio and Viserys.  Dany was to be handed to him, in return for thousands of Dothraki.  Dany was not party to that bargain, and everything suggests she would rather not have been handed over to Drogo.  That bargain was struck quite independently of Daenerys.

But, she pressed him to keep it.  However, it's not a crime to go to war, in and of itself, either in-universe, or in our world, so long as the diplomatic niceties are observed. Drogo probably regarded the murder attempt as a declaration of war by King Robert.   It's certainly possible to commit crimes during the course of a war, but if we want to pin these crimes on Daenerys, I think something a good deal weightier and more specific is required.

 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

37 minutes 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.

No, Dany was willing to pay the price even if it was her own life. She didn't know it was going to be another human, Dany says my life? Mirri says Not your life... Bring me his horse. How does that suggest or imply it will be a human life? And if it doesn't suggest or imply that how was Dany to know? 

[kissdbyfire]

6 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

My view is, I'm not waiting to criticize her when/if she does. If its a case study in how power corrupts then the author would have to lay the groundwork for that very early on. So, thats where I think she's going, just like some people think X character is ending in Y story arc because of Z clues.

Also...Dany herself makes me uncomfortable.

So the idea is to judge and crucify the character for something they might do in the future? I don’t get that, but to each their own, I suppose. 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

4 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

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

To me it's very simple. Daenerys did not order the attack on the Lhazareen, she did not participate in attacking the Lhazareen, she did what was within her power to lessen the suffering. There is not a jury in this world (other than on this forum) that would convict someone in that situation. Furthermore I think you would be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor to even take the case. 

For some reason there is a tendency on this forum to think if they don't like a character or if a character has done something wrong or morally questionable that everything they've ever done, before & after, are wrong, morally questionable or inherently evil. Then there are those that take it a step further & attribute blame to the character for things they didn't even do. I mean no offense by this, I read a great many of your posts & they are generally well thought & insightful. I think you are missing the mark here though, respectfully.

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

 

 

10 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

So the idea is to judge and crucify the character for something they might do in the future? I don’t get that, but to each their own, I suppose. 

It's a bit like Minority Report.

[kissdbyfire]

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 

It's a bit like Minority Report.

Yeah, only w/ less actionable info, so worse and more biased.

[Rose of Red Lake]

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

So the idea is to judge and crucify the character for something they might do in the future? I don’t get that, but to each their own, I suppose. 

Nope, I'm criticizing her for what's in the text, her outlook and her actions. I just think these textual signs are all leading to something bad. You can wait 40 billion years until the final book comes out to "reserve judgment" or whatever, but I'm not. I think the signs are already there. It's called foreshadowing.  

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Nope, I'm criticizing her for what's in the text, her outlook and her actions.

That’s not what you said, though. Your words were:

”I'm not waiting to criticize her when/if she does.”

 

1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I just think these textual signs are all leading to something bad. You can wait 40 billion years until the final book comes out to "reserve judgment" or whatever, but I'm not.

1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I think the signs are already there. It's called foreshadowing.  

Actually, no, it isn’t. You can’t actually say something that hasn’t happened yet was foreshadowed. We can say there’s foreshadowing for Ned’s death, for instance, or for the Red Wedding. But one can’t say there’s foreshadowing for head canon or something that may not happen. You’re welcome.

[Rose of Red Lake]

24 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

That’s not what you said, though. Your words were:

”I'm not waiting to criticize her when/if she does.”

Yeah, because I argued that there is enough to criticize her in the text already. Nobody has to stay neutral on a character. 

26 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Actually, no, it isn’t. You can’t actually say something that hasn’t happened yet was foreshadowed. We can say there’s foreshadowing for Ned’s death, for instance, or for the Red Wedding. But one can’t say there’s foreshadowing for head canon or something that may not happen. You’re welcome.

Of course you can say what you think you're reading is foreshadowing. This is theorizing. Would you like to tell everyone on the forum to put their keyboards down about what Stannis is going to do next, what will happen to Littlefinger, and the identity of the prince who was promised? It's basic literary analysis just with an eye to a predictive character arc, and what makes sense for what the author is trying to do.

[SeanF]

59 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

That’s not what you said, though. Your words were:

”I'm not waiting to criticize her when/if she does.”

 

Actually, no, it isn’t. You can’t actually say something that hasn’t happened yet was foreshadowed. We can say there’s foreshadowing for Ned’s death, for instance, or for the Red Wedding. But one can’t say there’s foreshadowing for head canon or something that may not happen. You’re welcome.

Based upon actions to date (end of ADWD), Jon or Arya would be as likely, or as unlikely, to turn out to be mass murderers as Daenerys.  Tyrion, rather more so than any of them.

[Rose of Red Lake]

27 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Based upon actions to date (end of ADWD), Jon or Arya would be as likely, or as unlikely, to turn out to be mass murderers as Daenerys.  Tyrion, rather more so than any of them.

They dont have nuclear weapons though - pretty efficient for killing lots of people. But credit to you SeanF, at least you disagree with my predictions, rather than telling people they can't even make them. 

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

They dont have nuclear weapons though - pretty efficient for killing lots of people. But credit to you SeanF, at least you disagree with my predictions, rather than telling people they can't even make them. 

I don't necessarily think you're wrong.  But, you aren't necessarily right either.

I think there are quite a few different paths that Daenerys can travel down.

[Rose of Red Lake]

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I don't necessarily think you're wrong.  But, you aren't necessarily right either.

I think there are quite a few different paths that Daenerys can travel down.

Well that's the only thing we can do, be wrong or right. But we'll probably never get an ending, and the limbo will be endless. 

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Well that's the only thing we can do, be wrong or right. But we'll probably never get an ending, and the limbo will be endless. 

Whether you find Daenerys sympathetic or not (and obviously I do) I think most people would agree that she's the most likely to be killed, of the main six, towards the end of the story.

I think she will fight  against Arianne, and fAegon, kill them and win the Iron Throne.  Which is a pity, because I like Arianne as well.  I think she will play some heroic role in the fight against the Others.  If you were to ask me what will bring her down, I'd suggest it would be trying to enact Egg's reforms, with the firepower that he never had, and then going to far in bringing fire and blood to the nobility.

 

[sweetsunray]

Just now, SeanF said:

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

No, she did not take Rhaego's life. She sent Dany out of the tent. Jorah carried her in. Are you saying that Mirri is such a powerful wizard she can control a horde of Dothraki, Jorah, etc. If she could do that, why didn't she use such power to defend the Lhazareen village. Hell, if Mirri had wanted Rhaego to do, all Mirri had to do was do nothing: not do anything for Drogo, just let him die. His bloodbrother would have cut his son right out of Dany.

It's absurd.

I'm saying that Mirri warned her that the price would be death, and that Dany immediately understood it to be someone's life in response to your argument that Mirri should have told her in full detail what would happen. More absurdness. Mirri couldn't tell exactly what would happen or who'd die, because she did not have that power, nor knew herself. 

[sweetsunray]

5 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

No, Dany was willing to pay the price even if it was her own life. She didn't know it was going to be another human, Dany says my life? Mirri says Not your life... Bring me his horse. How does that suggest or imply it will be a human life? And if it doesn't suggest or imply that how was Dany to know? 

Incorrect. This is the conversation

 

Quote

 

"You'll have gold, horses, whatever you like."

"It is not a matter of gold or horses. This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life."

"Death?" Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. "My death?" She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.

"No," Mirri Maz Duur promised. "Not your death, Khaleesi."

Dany trembled with relief. "Do it."  (aGoT, Dany VIII)

 

 The horse comes after. Dany says "do it," before any horse is asked or brought in. Dany asked whether it would be her death. Mirri assures it won't be her life. Dany never asks whose other life then. She says, "Do it," believing someone else will die for it, btu at least it won't be her.

[SeanF]

40 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

No, she did not take Rhaego's life. She sent Dany out of the tent. Jorah carried her in. Are you saying that Mirri is such a powerful wizard she can control a horde of Dothraki, Jorah, etc. If she could do that, why didn't she use such power to defend the Lhazareen village. Hell, if Mirri had wanted Rhaego to do, all Mirri had to do was do nothing: not do anything for Drogo, just let him die. His bloodbrother would have cut his son right out of Dany.

It's absurd.

I'm saying that Mirri warned her that the price would be death, and that Dany immediately understood it to be someone's life in response to your argument that Mirri should have told her in full detail what would happen. More absurdness. Mirri couldn't tell exactly what would happen or who'd die, because she did not have that power, nor knew herself. 

Why would Mirri need to get her into the tent, to destroy Rhaego?  It seems clear to me that Mirri wanted Rhaego destroyed, to end the threat that he posed to the world, in her eyes.  He was already rotten, monstrous, even before Dany went into labour.  And, she wanted to make Dany suffer, as she had suffered.  She got everything that she wanted.

Perhaps Mirri might be claiming powers that she does not possess, as some magicians do, but she wanted Daenerys to believe that she had killed the child.

As to the final paragraph, yes, one should be told whose death is required.  Rhaego's, the horse's or some random bystander.

[sweetsunray]

7 hours 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)

George never showed us the conversation that Dany had with Drogo, before Jorah made his helpful comment. I don't think you cannot say that Dany did not gave the assist to the soccer ball to Jorah, before he kicked it in.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

The point is that her thoughts are supportive of what is happening, even though she already sees atrocities happening.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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.

It does, because she can emote fairly well in later passages.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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)

Yes, we do, because she knows what will happen next, before it happens. She already knows that while people are cutting off heads that little girls will come to take out the arrows.

It's not baseless speculation... it's literary analysis.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

How can a future past tense telling what will happen after the present is somethign she's seeing in the present. If George had wanted her to tell us something she's seeing in her present, he would have used present past tense the same way he did with the head-cutters.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

Exactly my point: she's seeing things like a Dothraki, and in her eyes, people with the same fenotype than Dothraki but short hair (symbol of defeat) are alien to her. And no I don't think that's necessary normal.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

She speaks her mind to Drogo plenty, before and when she wants to make the raped women her personal slaves, and wants Dothraki men to wed the slaves they want to bed. Why do you keep ignoring the fact that Dany can speak her mind and with passion, privately and publically, and that in fact Drogo listens to her?

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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? 

You misunderstood my whole point - Dany was fine with it (hence she did not speak up), until she was not (and then she spoke up). But pity is not the same as the empathy she comes to feel later on.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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.

Actually that's not true. Plenty of people with empathy can witness things without emotions or empathy. We all have the ability to turn off our empathy when empathy inconveniences us. Or do you feel empathy for every person you pass by with a cup and a cardboard asking for money? No, most people do not, especially when they cannot or do not have the intent to give that person money. Feeling empathy inconveniences us in such a moment, nor can we always give everyone money. So, people see the person, walk by and feel nothing. And I don't consider people selfish or unempathic or a sociopath for that. They're sociopaths when they kick such a person or kick the cup with change. 

The paragraphs of the boy are contrasted against the bravery of Jorah, against her "Drogo didn't take any injury?"

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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

The boy is set against her thoughts of Jorah teaching any Dothraki a lesson when they call him a coward for donning armor.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

The literary contrast and the continuing theme of cowardice and eventually the running away of Ogo's riders, and that's when she breaks and wants to stop the raping are indication of it. It's subtext. George does want the reader to continue to sympathize with Dany. The moment he writes her having her think, "coward" for running, a huge part of the readership would have turned on her.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

She's already complicit by persuading Drogo to invade Westeros, and it shows that she was okay for a third party being sacked to fund the invasion.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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.

It does if that person told you his plans and you were indifferent to it when he told you and when he executed his plan.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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'm not saying it's odd. I'm saying it's set as a contrast.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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.

Blame is not the same as being complicit. I use the latter term, not the first. It sure as hell does not make her innocent.

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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. 

You don't think "cowards" and "fools" are words of judgment on people?

7 hours ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

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?

I didn't say it was wrong for her to feel empathy for a girl being raped.

 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

47 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Incorrect. This is the conversation

 

 The horse comes after. Dany says "do it," before any horse is asked or brought in. Dany asked whether it would be her death. Mirri assures it won't be her life. Dany never asks whose other life then. She says, "Do it," believing someone else will die for it, btu at least it won't be her.

Yep, I was wrong that she said do it before she said bring me his horse, but she says she would die for him if she must. So it was incorrect to say Dany didn't agree until she said it wouldn't be her. 

[sweetsunray]

22 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Why would Mirri need to get her into the tent, to destroy Rhaego?  It seems clear to me that Mirri wanted Rhaego destroyed, to end the threat that he posed to the world, in her eyes.  He was already rotten, monstrous, even before Dany went into labour.  And, she wanted to make Dany suffer, as she had suffered.  She got everything that she wanted.

Because Dothraki went mayhem against Dany, shoved her and caused her to go into premature labour, pelted her with stones, and Horah carried her in.

Quote

"Maegi," Haggo growled. And old Cohollo—Cohollo who had bound his life to Drogo's on the day of his birth, Cohollo who had always been kind to her—Cohollo spat full in her face.

"You will die, maegi," Qotho promised, "but the other must die first." He drew his arakh and made for the tent.

"No," she shouted, "you mustn't." She caught him by the shoulder, but Qotho shoved her aside. Dany fell to her knees, crossing her arms over her belly to protect the child within. "Stop him," she commanded her khas, "kill him."

[...]

Dany felt a sharp pain in her belly, a wetness on her thighs.

[...]

The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human, Quaro pleading for water as he died. Dany cried out for help, but no one heard. Rakharo was fighting Haggo, arakh dancing with arakh until Jhogo's whip cracked, loud as thunder, the lash coiling around Haggo's throat. A yank, and the bloodrider stumbled backward, losing his feet and his sword. Rakharo sprang forward, howling, swinging his arakh down with both hands through the top of Haggo's head. The point caught between his eyes, red and quivering. Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. "No," she wept, "no, please, stop it, it's too high, the price is too high." More stones came flying. She tried to crawl toward the tent, but Cohollo caught her. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. "My baby," she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead. Aggo's arrow took him under the arm, to pierce his lungs and heart.

[...]

"The maegi," someone else said. Was that Aggo? "Take her to the maegi."

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

 

"The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed," Irri said. "She said so, I heard her."

[...]

No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! she screamed. The dancers!

Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

(aGoT, Dany VIII)

Dany's vision of Rhaego's death (consummation by fire), being blasted out of existence, only occurred when Dany entered the tent. Dany felt him alive and kicking outside of it.

 

Quote

She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogo's copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. And he smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.

[...]

Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. "My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent," she said. "I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born."

"That may be as it may be," answered Mirri Maz Duur, "yet the creature that came forth from your womb was as I said. Death was in that tent, Khaleesi."

[...]

Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew. He had done what he did for love and loyalty, yet he had carried her into a place no living man should go and fed her baby to the darkness. He knew it too; the grey face, the hollow eyes, the limp. (aGoT, Dany IX)

 

 

22 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Perhaps Mirri might be claiming powers that she does not possess, as some magicians do, but she wanted Daenerys to believe that she had killed the child.

Did she want to make Dany believe that? Did you get your hands on Mirri's POV?

22 minutes ago, SeanF said:

As to the final paragraph, yes, one should be told whose death is required.  Rhaego's, the horse's or some random bystander.

Dany commanded her slave to do it without requiring any further clarification, beyond that it wouldn't be her death. Dany didn't have any need to be told.