Aegon as a king

[Hodor the Articulate]

9 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

There is nothing about the "war" in that conversation.

"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

weary of war

WAR

9 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Most of the quotes you're using to justify your interpretation arent even quoted fully. You thought that turning away from "her children" in the last chapter was referring to the freedmen.

A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

a mother to thousands. Her children

MOTHER TO THOUSANDS

9 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Quote the whole thing. She's trying to convince herself that she should return to Meereen, but she doesn't want to because Hizdahr doesn't excite her passions like riding Drogon does.

A stream, Dany decided. Small, but it would lead her to a larger stream, and that stream would flow into some little river, and all the rivers in this part of the world were vassals of the Skahazadhan. Once she found the Skahazadhan she need only follow it downstream to Slaver’s Bay. [...] She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband [...] If I look back I am lost. She might live for years amongst the sunbaked rocks of Dragonstone, riding Drogon by day and gnawing at his leavings every evenfall as the great grass sea turned from gold to orange, but that was not the life she had been born to [...] I should get up, she told herself. I have to walk. I have to follow the stream.

Seriously, start your own thread about Daenerys if you want to continue to be wrong about this. This is a thread is only for you to be wrong about fAegon.

[Pontius Pilate]

Just now, Hodor the Articulate said:

"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

weary of war

WAR

A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

a mother to thousands. Her children

MOTHER TO THOUSANDS

Seriously, start your own thread about Daenerys if you want to continue to be wrong about this. This is a thread is only for you to be wrong about fAegon.

[frenin]

39 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Then he gets civil unrest and his potential allies flock to Stannis or Tommen or Dany or Euron. It isn't just debts, but regular expenses the crown won't have the coin for.

He already has civil unrest and most of those potential allies already are his sworn enemies, what he gets by honoring a debt with the Iron Bank when the Iron Bank has already signed a contract sealed with blood to finance Stannis's campaign?? Absolutely nothing, he will stop whatever payments he has to do and make the world clear that there is a new management they have to deal from now on. Such as?? Regular expenses are overcome by the debts, it's a vicious circle, take away the debts and you suddenly find with more money, less expenses and less responsibilities.

 

42 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I'm sure some Reach lords will be convinced to join Aegon, or that hint wouldn't have been dropped into the story. But so long as there is no benefit for Highgarden to do the same, they will stick with their pliable boy king, and so will most of their bannermen.

That remains to be seen, Aegon will play the prodigal son card, which usually is very effective with a bunch of dissatisfied lords and at Storm's End, he is going to face Mace Tyrell. A wildly ineffectual military leader against one of the finest armies in the world... I can't see how that is going to be wrong. Aftersaid battle, we'll see what Aegon and the Tyrells have as a leverage. Why would most of their bannermen stick with Mace?? If they believe him a lost cause, they are going to jump the ship.

If they stick with their pliable boy king, they risk to lose it all, the rest of the kingdom certainly won't and Kevan was the last barrier.

 

47 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I'm not sure what Euron=Voldemort means to you, but he is being set up as a powerful villain. He's going to take Oldtown with sword and sorcery and won't be stopped by a barely tertiary character like Aegon. Not only would be like Hot Pie defeating Cersei, it makes all the IB chapters a complete waste of time. It's just wishful thinking.

It's a complete waste of time to those who buy into Euron's hype, even during the IB chapters, more rationale people like the Reader or Asha keep calling Euron's words for what so far they seem to be, absolute bs. So, ofc if you think Euron is going to summon Ctulhu it seems wishful thinking.

So far, what is just wishful thinking is Euron taking Oldtown, he doesn't have neither the manpower, nor the resources to overcome its defenses. And on top of that, Leyton is also involved with "sorcery".

 

 

51 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

All the way back in AGOT, huh? Doesn't this undercut your argument, since the Tyrells backed Renly? The situation you propose with Aegon would be similar - both sides are offering to continue to honor debt repayments but only one side is offering a huge Tyrell influence in court. This further supports Tyrells sticking with Tommen.

It's there where we're informed about the debt and the multiple creditors.

Renly as Robert's succesor does inherit Robert's debt, Aegon does not inherit said debt. The Tyrells might stick with Tommen and if they do that, they are going to lose it all. They are sticking with a failing dynasty that everyone reviles and no one really buys the kid  is trueborn, they are literally one  "abomination" scream from everything crumbling under their feet.

 

 

 

55 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

He's not going own any of that land unless he conquers it. And he's not going to conquer all his enemies.

He is going to conquer several enough however, he is going to have enough lands to give away and enough lords to attaint.

 

 

[Hodor the Articulate]

3 hours ago, frenin said:

He already has civil unrest and most of those potential allies already are his sworn enemies, what he gets by honoring a debt with the Iron Bank when the Iron Bank has already signed a contract sealed with blood to finance Stannis's campaign?? Absolutely nothing, he will stop whatever payments he has to do and make the world clear that there is a new management they have to deal from now on.

I can't tell what your position is. Are you just stating a possible motivation for Aegon to not try for alliances and placate the IB, or are you arguing that pissing everyone off is a good idea?

3 hours ago, frenin said:

Such as?? Regular expenses are overcome by the debts, it's a vicious circle, take away the debts and you suddenly find with more money, less expenses and less responsibilities.

I have no idea what you're asking here - examples of the crown's expenses? I'm not talking just about the various loans. It's just stuff like wages for the Gold Cloaks and servants.

3 hours ago, frenin said:

That remains to be seen, Aegon will play the prodigal son card, which usually is very effective with a bunch of dissatisfied lords and at Storm's End, he is going to face Mace Tyrell. A wildly ineffectual military leader against one of the finest armies in the world... I can't see how that is going to be wrong. Aftersaid battle, we'll see what Aegon and the Tyrells have as a leverage. Why would most of their bannermen stick with Mace?? If they believe him a lost cause, they are going to jump the ship.

If they stick with their pliable boy king, they risk to lose it all, the rest of the kingdom certainly won't and Kevan was the last barrier.

If you mean the Stormlands, their loyalties should be divided between Tommen and Stannis, the only Baratheons left. I think any dissatisfaction they're experiencing right now is coming from being captured by Aegon's sellswords. They're sure to have plenty of dissatisfaction in the near future too, when Aegon marries a Dornish woman.

Mace isn't leaving KL until the mess with Margaery gets settled, and his sons have gone off to deal with Euron. They have no reason to believe Aegon is going to win against the Lannister-Tyrell alliance with just Dorne and a few Reach lords (I decided to leave the Vale, the Stormlands, and the Riverlands out because there's too much uncertainty with those regions).

3 hours ago, frenin said:

It's a complete waste of time to those who buy into Euron's hype, even during the IB chapters, more rationale people like the Reader or Asha keep calling Euron's words for what so far they seem to be, absolute bs. So, ofc if you think Euron is going to summon Ctulhu it seems wishful thinking.

So far, what is just wishful thinking is Euron taking Oldtown, he doesn't have neither the manpower, nor the resources to overcome its defenses. And on top of that, Leyton is also involved with "sorcery".

So what is the point of Euron then? Why has GRRM positioned him in the Arbor/Oldtown, preparing some sort of magic ritual if he's just going to be taken out like a chump? Why have all this foreshadowing in Dany's chapters?

3 hours ago, frenin said:

It's there where we're informed about the debt and the multiple creditors.

Renly as Robert's succesor does inherit Robert's debt, Aegon does not inherit said debt. The Tyrells might stick with Tommen and if they do that, they are going to lose it all. They are sticking with a failing dynasty that everyone reviles and no one really buys the kid  is trueborn, they are literally one  "abomination" scream from everything crumbling under their feet.

If you think Renly wasn't going to honor Robert's debts - fine. But it just further weakens your argument. I mean, if the Tyrells backed Renly despite having their money tied up with the Lannisters, they're also not going to care that Aegon may or may not repay their loans.

I don't know why you're arguing that Tommen's rule is tenuous when the picture you paint of Aegon's rule will be the same. According to you, his potential allies are going to be his enemies and he's going to continue the civil unrest and economic chaos. Sprinkle in doubt about his identity and you've created the perfect recipe for a riot.

3 hours ago, frenin said:

He is going to conquer several enough however, he is going to have enough lands to give away and enough lords to attaint.

You realise all those lords he's just displaced are going over to other factions right? And it still doesn't give him enough to fill coffers. Again, the crown currently has money coming in from all but one region, and it's barely enough for the expenses, even when you don't count their debts.

[frenin]

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I can't tell what your position is. Are you just stating a possible motivation for Aegon to not try for alliances and placate the IB, or are you arguing that pissing everyone off is a good idea?

Nope, just stating the obvious, he gains nothing by being nice to the Iron Bank, they have already thrown their lot with another, why pay them?? How is he going to piss everyone off, the IB is already provoking unrest. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I have no idea what you're asking here - examples of the crown's expenses? I'm not talking just about the various loans. It's just stuff like wages for the Gold Cloaks and servants

But those are difficult to pay because the debt, It just adds another burden. I'm talking about getting rid of one burden.

 

 

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

If you mean the Stormlands, their loyalties should be divided between Tommen and Stannis, the only Baratheons left. I think any dissatisfaction they're experiencing right now is coming from being captured by Aegon's sellswords. They're sure to have plenty of dissatisfaction in the near future too, when Aegon marries a Dornish woman.

No, I mean the Reach, the Stormlands are pro Baratheon but they don't like nir trust the Lannisters and or Tommen, it's the Reach Aegon needs to aim at. Pulling the "I'm dearest Rhaegar's son, follow me", hardly is going to work in a land that loved Robert's and the Baratheon guts but it should have a certain sway in the Reach.

 

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Mace isn't leaving KL until the mess with Margaery gets settled, and his sons have gone off to deal with Euron. They have no reason to believe Aegon is going to win against the Lannister-Tyrell alliance with just Dorne and a few Reach lords (I decided to leave the Vale, the Stormlands, and the Riverlands out because there's too much uncertainty with those regions).

That mess it's going to be solved soon one way or the other. After that, he does have the intention of marching against Storm's End and defeating the rebels.

As long as an incompetent as Mace is leading them, they are going to fail.

 

 

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

So what is the point of Euron then? Why has GRRM positioned him in the Arbor/Oldtown, preparing some sort of magic ritual if he's just going to be taken out like a chump? Why have all this foreshadowing in Dany's chapters?

Don't know, maybe that even Voldemort can fail?? I don't really know nor do i care much, Euron being Sauron is something i'll believe when i see it written.

Euron may have success against Arbor but unless he summons a Kraken capable of tearing down Oldtown's walls, the city is not going to fall.

If Euron can just sorcery his way to victory, why does he need Dany's baby dragons at all?? He just has to repeat the cheat trick.

 

 

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

If you think Renly wasn't going to honor Robert's debts - fine. But it just further weakens your argument. I mean, if the Tyrells backed Renly despite having their money tied up with the Lannisters, they're also not going to care that Aegon may or may not repay their loans

I don't really know how you get that out of my words. 

I said that Renly as Robert's heir, does inherit Robert's debt. The Tyrells backed Renly because they were going to get paid regardless, either by Joffrey or by Renly. They don't have that with Aegon, Dany or whomever.

 

 

2 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I don't know why you're arguing that  Tommen's rule is tenuous when the picture you paint of Aegon's rule will be the same. According to you, his potential allies are going to be his enemies and he's going to continue the civil unrest and economic chaos. Sprinkle in doubt about his identity and you've created the perfect recipe for a riot.

Well, Tommen's rule is tenous and as long as Aegon is liked, he has a better ground than him. Tommen's rule rests solely  in the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, which is a big advantage, but only if the right person is in charge, if Kevan lived Aegon wouldn't have a single chance but with an infant King, a widely disliked royal family, a disgraced/ depised/ incompetent ruler, a wannabe general and the poison gift the Sand Snakes are, it's easy picking. 

And as long as people want to believe he is who he is, there is little trouble, Joffrey and Tommen got to be kings after all.

 

 

Quote

You realise all those lords he's just displaced are going over to other factions right? 

As long as his armies their ramies don't follow, he is fine, this is the way of civil wars, he can't make everyone happy and he certainly can't make his enemies happy over his own followers.

 

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And it still doesn't give him enough to fill coffers.

Again, the coffers are relatively full, if he frees himself from the debt he has enough room to maniobrate.

 

Quote

Again, the crown currently has money coming in from all but one region, and it's barely enough for the expenses, even when you don't count their debts.

But that's simply not true.

 

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“Though large, the crown incomes are not large enough to keep abreast of Robert’s debts. Accordingly, I have decided to defer our repayment of the sums owed the Holy Faith and the Iron Bank of Braavos until war’s end.” The new High Septon would doubtless wring his holy hands, and the Braavosi would squeak and squawk at her, but what of it? “The monies saved will be used for the building of our new fleet.”

Remove the debts, remove the problem.

[Aldarion]

18 hours ago, SeanF said:

That was a cruel and spiteful order on Daenerys' part, given under the stress of her friend's murder.  However, it was Daenerys who ordered an end to torture, because she concluded it was producing no valuable information.  She's probably the first person in this world to have reached that conclusion.  Jon Snow, Stannis, Lord Manderly, Qhorin Halfhand, Mance Rayder, Jon Arryn, have all resorted to torture on occasions, let alone the more obviously bad guys. In coming to that conclusion, she's well in advance of the standards of her world.  

I must say I'm still not following the ethics of butchering peasants = soldiers' duty, butchering slave-drivers = morally outrageous.  The average peasant is far less culpable than the average slave driver, at least in my opinion.  When Meereen was taken by storm, the slave-drivers' lives were at Daenerys' disposal.

You are not following because you are not understanding my standards. It is not just a question of killing masters - in fact, that part is what I have the least problem with. It is more of a question of how she did it.

Butchering peasants is done in order to wipe out enemy's economic base. It is not midless cruelty or angry revanche; it has military logic to it. When Daenerys crucified Masters, she did so as an act of revenge, with no logical or practical basis.

These decisions by Daenerys are not logical, they are emotional - no matter how you try to justify them. And we see Daenerys be ruled by her emotions on multiple occasions. But what is worrying here - and I also pointed out that to Hodor - is that she has had time to go back on these decisions, yet she did not. Not only did she not go back on them, she did not even modify them at all.

18 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That Tolkien quote is about goodness seeming evil when people are forced to do good. I'm struggling to see how it applies to your argument.... unless your trying to say Dany will muscle everyone to be good and everyone will hate it. In which case, the people should get over themselves.

"Innate tendency towards cruelty" sounds a lot like "innately cruel and violent". And whatever cruelty Dany conjures up is comparable with that of the other characters.

As for this argument that she's more cruel when she's angry, that's just normal human behavior. Does Jon not start wailing on Emmett because he got all emotional? Did Robert not strike Cersei when he got upset with her? Let's not forget our boy Aegon ordering Tyrion to pick up the cyvasse pieces he knocked over when he threw a tantrum. What would be concerning is if she got off on violence and cruelty, like Maegor or Joffrey or Aerys. How GRRM has portrayed tyrannical characters is markedly different from how he's written Daenerys.

Yes, I do think she will attempt to muscle everyone to her views. That is why she has dragons.

Forced goodness is no better than innate evil. First, you can only force somebody to do something by either a) forcing or b) brainwashing them, which in itself is evil. Second, it depends on one person's view of good and evil. And when you conclude that a group is evil, what is stopping you from slaughtering them? That is how Nazis and Communists did things.

There is difference between outburst in anger and actual cruelty - literally everything you have listed belongs to former category, not latter. If Daenerys had killed a Master in anger, that would be former; crucifixion however is latter. She had time to reconsider and modify her decision - even just to hanging or beheading - yet she did not. Those situations you listed have absolutely nothing in common with what Daenerys did.

18 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That Tolkien quote is about goodness seeming evil when people are forced to do good. I'm struggling to see how it applies to your argument.... unless your trying to say Dany will muscle everyone to be good and everyone will hate it. In which case, the people should get over themselves.

"Innate tendency towards cruelty" sounds a lot like "innately cruel and violent". And whatever cruelty Dany conjures up is comparable with that of the other characters.

As for this argument that she's more cruel when she's angry, that's just normal human behavior. Does Jon not start wailing on Emmett because he got all emotional? Did Robert not strike Cersei when he got upset with her? Let's not forget our boy Aegon ordering Tyrion to pick up the cyvasse pieces he knocked over when he threw a tantrum. What would be concerning is if she got off on violence and cruelty, like Maegor or Joffrey or Aerys. How GRRM has portrayed tyrannical characters is markedly different from how he's written Daenerys.

If he had dragons, those dragons would be inherited by his successors. End result would be that instead of power concentrated in hands of lords you would have power concentrated in hands of a king. At least lords get in each other's way; but who will get in the way of a King able to enforce his will with dragons?

Why so many people here think that dictatorship is solution to all world's problems?

I have already shown how the Throne can counter great lords without relying on dragons: by relying on commoners and on minor nobility. That was done by Basil II in Byzantine Empire, by Matthias Corvinus in Hungary, by Vlad III Tepes in Wallachia, by Ivan III in Russia. All of them were very good rulers. And the reason why they were good rulers was precisely because they were forced to rely on commoners and minor nobility to counter the magnates. If it weren't for that imperative - say, if they had dragons - chances are that none of them would have made half the good things they did, and would have ended up more similar to Tamerlane than anything else.

The only question is why such a thing had not happened alredy. Logically, the Iron Throne - with very limited lands  - should be rather worried about the power of Lords Paramount. And it should be able to count on support by commoners and minor nobility against lords paramount. The only answer I can think of is that it worked because of dragons, and it kept working after dragons died out because of inertia. Which reinforces my case that dragons are, socially speaking, not a good thing.

Check this list, and see what all of these leaders have in common:

https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/11/top-10-cruelest-rulers/

Hint: it is not feudalism.

19 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Yeah you did. You said Aegon was an awesome motivational speaker, and used this as an example of the diplomacy he will supposedly rely on.

Your only other suggestion was "hope", but what you describe sounds more like vengeance. And as I said, even the most vengeful expected to be rewarded in lands and/or betrothals, etc. Since he is short on resources, Aegon will have to resort to tyranny, which is pretty much what he's giving the Stormlands right now.

Speeches are part of diplomacy, not entirety of it. At any rate, my point was that Aegon has to rely on diplomacy or he will not get the Iron Throne (let alone last on it for any amount of time), unlike Daenerys who will be coming with dragons and a huge army. That automatically makes him better option.

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Dany's dragons have nothing to do with her decision to torture people for information or how she dealt with the slavers in the wake of them crucifying children.

I never said Daenerys Targaryen would be the best possible queen for the Seven Kingdoms; at this point I think she is the best alternatives to the travesties that are Stannis, Tommen, and Euron.

And I don't think Aegon has to be bad by default. I think they could be great together. I just think him having not dragons and Dany and the legitimacy that came with that is going to mean he will face multiple problems and his inability to resolve them will turn him into a tyrant.

Dany is not even going to be the one to start this Second Dance - he and his people will. And then they deserve what's coming for them.

Dragons are a great thing, by the way - as long as only one person/faction has them. If there are as many as there were during the reign of Viserys I they become a danger.

Dragons are never a good thing, and as far as I am concerned, Daenerys can be a saint but possession of dragons still makes her the worst choice for a ruler. That is simply too much of concentration of power. My ideal option would be Aegon + Daenerys w/o dragons, but well...

Aegon may well become a tyrant from nobles' perspective - after all, if there is opposition, it will most likely come from nobles. But at the same time, that opposition may well force him to make some very necessary reforms. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, this had nothing to do with scaring people into obedience. It was vengeance for the murdered children, satisfaction for their parents and other kin who could do nothing to stop the slavers doing this, and, too, for Dany herself who knew those children were murdered because of her and so she had to watch them all on the way to Meereen.

It is perfectly okay within the context of this world to demand repayment in blood for shit like that - just as it is great to feel joy at the sight of crucified slavers.

Guess what - everybody has the propensity to make cruel decisions when angry. That is perfectly okay. Dany would have a problem if she would make cruel decisions all the time or if she was angry all the time.

Look at how her anger is described. She doesn't feel just angry, but also righteous. This:

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She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next. The
anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an
avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their
moans and smelled their bowels and blood...
Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did it for the children.

Look at her thought process:

1. She sees slaves crucified by the Masters.
2. She gets angry and vengeful.
3. She has randomly-selected Masters crucified afterwards.
4. She feels good doing it.
5. She regrets her previous decision.
6. She justifies her ordering crucifixion.

It is not just that she made cruel decision when she was angry; but also that she later justified it as "just" and "for the children" when she started feeling uncomfortable. She did something cruel on impulse, and then ran away from responsibility by justifying it instead of facing it. It may be bit unjust of me towards Daenerys, but the scene and that thought process immediately reminds me of Communists killing millions for "good of the people". And it is not the only time she ran away either: whenever ser Barristan tries telling her about Aerys' madness, she either gets insulted or runs away:

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“Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was a... a good knight... chivalrous, brave... he spared my
life, and the lives of many others... Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years
before he was fit to rule, and... forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth... even as a child,
your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father’s son, in ways that Rhaegar never did.”
“His father’s son?” Dany frowned. “What does that mean?”
The old knight did not blink. “Your father is called ‘the Mad King’ in Westeros. Has no one
ever told you?”
“Viserys did.” The Mad King. “The Usurper called him that, the Usurper and his dogs.” The
Mad King. “It was a lie.”
“Why ask for truth,” Ser Barristan said softly, “if you close your ears to it?” He hesitated, then
continued. “I told you before that I used a false name so the Lannisters would not know that Id
joined you. That was less than half of it, Your Grace. The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a
time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were not...”
“... my father’s daughter?” If she was not her father’s daughter, who was she?
“... mad,” he finished. “But I see no taint in you.”
“Taint?” Dany bristled.

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 “Forgive me, Your Grace. It was only... now that you know who I am...” The old man hesitated.
“A knight of the Kingsguard is in the king’s presence day and night. For that reason, our vows
require us to protect his secrets as we would his life. But your father’s secrets by rights belong to
you now, along with his throne, and... I thought perhaps you might have questions for me.”
Questions? She had a hundred questions, a thousand, ten thousand. Why couldn’t she think of
one? “Was my father truly mad?” she blurted out. Why do I ask that? “Viserys said this talk of
madness was a ploy of the Usurper’s...”
“Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much as she could. Your father always
had a little madness in him, I now believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his
lapses were forgiven. His reign began with such promise... but as the years passed, the lapses
grew more frequent, until. ..”
Dany stopped him. “Do I want to hear this now?”
Ser Barristan considered a moment. “Perhaps not. Not now.”
“Not now,” she agreed. “One day. One day you must tell me all. The good and the bad. There is
some good to be said of my father, surely?”
“There is, Your Grace. Of him, and those who came before him. Your grandfather Jaehaerys
and his brother, their father Aegon, your mother... and Rhaegar. Him most of all.”

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Torture can give good information, but even if it did not - people in this world believe torture is part of their policing and justice system. Take it up with George if you don't like it.

There is no reason to use different standards on somebody with dragons or 'a fanatically loyal army'. Next you are saying Castamere is wrong because Tywin is richer than everybody else, or the Tyrells should use fewer soldiers because they are 'naturally overpowered', etc.

I am talking about moral standards here. Greater power means greater potential for evil, which means that person with more power should be judged more strictly.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

She is a Targaryen. Taking the Iron Throne is the only thing she'll need if she can also dispatched of the other pretender(s). If not, she will have to hunt them down, of course. But there is no reason to believe Westeros would on principle rebel against her or she would have to face a peasant rebellion or stuff like that.

This is the weird misguided notion that Targaryens will have to conquer everything - the whole factionalism and regionalism is going to die now that all the pretenders in the game want everything, not just a piece of the cake.

Unless some decide to opt out of the system. Though that is less likely under Targaryens, true.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

She is a Targaryen. Taking the Iron Throne is the only thing she'll need if she can also dispatched of the other pretender(s). If not, she will have to hunt them down, of course. But there is no reason to believe Westeros would on principle rebel against her or she would have to face a peasant rebellion or stuff like that.

This is the weird misguided notion that Targaryens will have to conquer everything - the whole factionalism and regionalism is going to die now that all the pretenders in the game want everything, not just a piece of the cake.

Actually, that would make her a bad ruler. Unless it is something which cannot be avoided at all.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Stannis believed Cersei's children weren't Robert's and that she murdered Jon Arryn to keep this a secret. He believed that Robert would turn against Cersei - in fact, he and Jon Arryn wanted to persuade Robert to believe Cersei's children weren't his to destroy Cersei and Jaime and, perhaps, even the innocent children - if he ever found out the truth, just as he believed that Cersei murdered Robert when she did. He does not believe his brother Robert died an accidental death, does he?

Stannis had a legal and moral duty to tell Robert what he thought he knew - and he had a legal and moral duty to inform the king about the murder of Jon Arryn. Instead he did nothing of that sort, ran away, and prepared for war.

That I actually agree with. I just wanted to point out that he had reasons for doing what he did: he did not believe Robert would believe him with Jon Arryn dead, so he decided to ensure his own safety first and foremost.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

To exactly the same thing as Stannis' own usurpation on the basis of nonexisting evidence about the twincest. Or the thing Robert pulled with his own usurpation. Renly was even nice to Stannis - he only demanded his fealty, not his head.

 

And Stannis offered to make Renly his heir. How is that any less nice?

Fact is, Renly's whole argument was based on "I have a bigger army, s*** my d***".

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Stannis believed Cersei's children weren't Robert's and that she murdered Jon Arryn to keep this a secret. He believed that Robert would turn against Cersei - in fact, he and Jon Arryn wanted to persuade Robert to believe Cersei's children weren't his to destroy Cersei and Jaime and, perhaps, even the innocent children - if he ever found out the truth, just as he believed that Cersei murdered Robert when she did. He does not believe his brother Robert died an accidental death, does he?

Stannis had a legal and moral duty to tell Robert what he thought he knew - and he had a legal and moral duty to inform the king about the murder of Jon Arryn. Instead he did nothing of that sort, ran away, and prepared for war.

IS. Doesn't mean she will stay that way.

And there is foreshadowing of her going Maegor-like:

Quote

She lifted her head. “And I am Daenerys Stormhorn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the
blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the
dragon’s daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal
Drogo.”

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

She lifted her head. “And I am Daenerys Stormhorn, Daenerys of House Targaryen, of the
blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel and old Valyria before them. I am the
dragon’s daughter, and I swear to you, these men will die screaming. Now bring me to Khal
Drogo.”

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Dragons have nothing to do with blood as such. They are fire made flesh, not blood made flesh. The blood part in the saying has to do with Valyrian sorcery being rooted in blood and fire and with the dragonlords believing/knowing they literally have/are 'the blood of the dragon', i.e. being descended from birth humans and dragons or at least having dragon-like qualities themselves thanks to the blood magic their ancestors did to bind themselves and their descendants to dragons.

This has an aspect of 'how human/normal am I' in Dany's mind because she and her family are definitely not like other normal people, but it has nothing to do with sadistic or cruel tendencies. Dragons don't torture people, either. They might kill prey when they have to/want, but they are not monsters like human psychopaths.

See the citation I have provided before. She directly compares herself to an "avenging dragon".

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, no. Dany's troubles in Meereen have nothing to do with there being 'different societies'. It has to do with her controlling a city (state) full of terrorists and traitors.

Dany is never going to have to deal with terrorists and traitors in Kl, butchering other Kingslanders to send them a message, nor is ever going to bother how the lords of Westerosi exploit or brutalize their peasants.

There is a cultural and political difference between Dany and the slavers that cannot be resolved peacefully - which is not going to be the case in Westeros. There all she has to do is to kill the other pretenders and people will fall in line.

It also has to do with her not understanding Meereenese customs, helping slaves but then not addressing underlying issue...

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But she will get Westerosi support because she has symbols of great power in the dragons as well as in her army. She has a strong claim to the throne, too, meaning people will flock to her banner no matter what she does ... just like they flocked to the banner of a monster like Maegor.

This idea that the Westerosi will support a dragonless Aegon more than the Mother of Dragons is just nonsense.

She will have an army of barbarians. That will kinda counter the propaganda claim of three dragons.

I do agree that many will flock to her banner, simply because without it she will not have conventional forces capable of achieving anything in Westeros. But it will not be a walkover, and she will not get overwhelming support just based on her having dragons.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That I'd contest. The only reason Westeros worked as united Realm is because it was forged into one by dragonflame. Nobody else could have done that, and the Targaryens remained after the dragons died because people had grown accustomed to how great things were under this united, peaceful regime - and how powerful one could be as a lord when one served on the Small Council or as Hand.

You see how batshit crazy the Baratheon dynasty is - no stability, no unity in the royal family nor the Realm at large, no sense of responsibilty, just narcissism, laziness, decadence, and repressed ambition.

Aegon the Conqueror forged the throne with dragonfire, but he held onto it with diplomacy. Again, conquering is one thing, ruling is completely another.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That I'd contest. The only reason Westeros worked as united Realm is because it was forged into one by dragonflame. Nobody else could have done that, and the Targaryens remained after the dragons died because people had grown accustomed to how great things were under this united, peaceful regime - and how powerful one could be as a lord when one served on the Small Council or as Hand.

You see how batshit crazy the Baratheon dynasty is - no stability, no unity in the royal family nor the Realm at large, no sense of responsibilty, just narcissism, laziness, decadence, and repressed ambition.

I am not saying that "Aegon just expressed something they all wanted to at that point". I am saying that he was the only one who provided an actually doable proposition which was not "sit tight and pray that Daenerys decides to come to us".

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

LOL, that is because this series isn't finished so far. We know the story grew out of proportion as written, and the big conflict, the only conflict that matters in the end is the one which didn't really develop since the very first Prologue - the Others and who they are, what they are about, and how they can be defeated.

You do know the original conception of the story - AGoT: about the pointless Lannister-Stark conflict culminating in the deaths of Robb and Catelyn, ADwD: Dany's conquest of Westeros, TWoW: fight of the survivors (Daenerys included) against the Others.

We are still stuck between book 1 & 2 of the original conception. Dany's conquest of Westeros will now be the Second Dance, one assumes. But as we are saying all this time - this cannot really work if the Others cut short that plot. As soon as the Wall is breached the sane people won't continue to fight for the chair.

I am aware of the original conception -and you will notice that 2/3 of story is fight for the Throne. It may not be the endgame, but it is far from pointless.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Iron Throne has nothing to do with a Ring of Power. Absolutely nothing. George doesn't have Tolkien's warped Christian view on power and stuff. To him, actions and choices make a good or bad ruler, not instruments. It is childish, superstitious view to believe that the mere methods how you do something will corrupt you, even if you do something good.

This is very much illustrated by the Aragorn example - Tolkien's Aragorn is a good king because he is the rightful king, the one with the dragons healing hands, longevity, special palantír control, magical blood and divine ancestry, etc. He is not a good king because of his choices, decisions, character, etc. What he is is rooted in his ancestry and blood and racial legacy - this is what brings forth great kings - whereas George makes it perfectly clear that his royal and noble families bring forth good and bad apples. There are no Orcs among his people, nobody who is bad or irredeemable by birth or upbringing.

And now I have to explain Tolkien to you...

1) Ring of Power and Iron Throne are essentially the same, story-wise: both are a "reward" to which power-hungry people flock to like moths to a flame, but which destroys them in the end. Both represent power, and both serve to bring out darkest in people.

2) Tolkien rooted his story in mythology. That is true. But you are only half-correct here: yes, Aragorn is a good king because he is "the rightful king, the one with the dragons healing hands, longevity, special palantír control, magical blood and divine ancestry". But he is also a good king because of his choices: he chooses to resist temptation of the Ring and instead help Frodo, he chooses not to push his claim until it could be done without bringing Gondor into massive peril, he chooses to prioritize his people over the throne (he was ready to go with Frodo to Mordor), he chooses to only crown himself after Sauron is defeated. He is a good king because of his character, and his upbringing as much as anything else. If your argument was correct, Castamir would have been a good king, yet he turned tyrant, while half-Numenorean Eldacar, his son and especially grandson (Hyarmendacil II) all proved to be capable kings.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Iron Throne has nothing to do with a Ring of Power. Absolutely nothing. George doesn't have Tolkien's warped Christian view on power and stuff. To him, actions and choices make a good or bad ruler, not instruments. It is childish, superstitious view to believe that the mere methods how you do something will corrupt you, even if you do something good.

This is very much illustrated by the Aragorn example - Tolkien's Aragorn is a good king because he is the rightful king, the one with the dragons healing hands, longevity, special palantír control, magical blood and divine ancestry, etc. He is not a good king because of his choices, decisions, character, etc. What he is is rooted in his ancestry and blood and racial legacy - this is what brings forth great kings - whereas George makes it perfectly clear that his royal and noble families bring forth good and bad apples. There are no Orcs among his people, nobody who is bad or irredeemable by birth or upbringing.

Because he was a good person? But:

1) how do you know he would have stayed a good person if he had had dragons?

2) how do you know next dragonrider(s) would have been a good person? Dragons live longer than humans.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You mean, like Aerys II lacking dragons couldn't become a tyrant? Or Aegon II lacking any dragons after his restoration at the end of the Dance? You think just because somebody should use diplomacy means he will or has to use it? That just makes no sense.

Robb also shouldn't have made himself king because that meant he would inevitably fail. Yet he and his people still went through with that, triggering the eventual Bolton-Frey betrayal which would have never happened had Robb not proclaimed himself king.

The idea is that Aegon having too much success too fast is going to make him drunk with power and his own self-importance. I don't think he will be particularly cruel - not at first, but when he is going to face betrayal and rebellions and starts to realize that the blows hit closer to home each time he will try to stop things by making examples out of traitors - meaning heads on pikes, destruction of entire noble houses, people being burned with wildfire, that sort of thing. And I actually think this could work up to a point. Cruelty and brutality can give people pause.

Aerys II had been ruling for a long time before he became a tyrant, and was eventually deposed. Who will depose a dragonrider? What I'm saying is that if a king has no dragons, he either rules well enough or is deposed. When a king has a fuck-off-big fire-breathing reptile, deposing him becomes much more difficult.

Yes, cruelty and brutality can give people pause. But they still need to be opposable.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

You are not following because you are not understanding my standards. It is not just a question of killing masters - in fact, that part is what I have the least problem with. It is more of a question of how she did it.

Butchering peasants is done in order to wipe out enemy's economic base. It is not midless cruelty or angry revanche; it has military logic to it. When Daenerys crucified Masters, she did so as an act of revenge, with no logical or practical basis.

These decisions by Daenerys are not logical, they are emotional - no matter how you try to justify them. And we see Daenerys be ruled by her emotions on multiple occasions. But what is worrying here - and I also pointed out that to Hodor - is that she has had time to go back on these decisions, yet she did not. Not only did she not go back on them, she did not even modify them at all.

 

In my view, killing people who have done terrible things, out of righteous anger,  is much less bad, ethically, than killing innocent people out of cold, pragmatic, calculation.  Murdering Elia and her children, and the women and children of the Reynes, were examples of the latter.  Are you truly saying such murders were more justifiable than the executions of the Great Masters? 

I, too, would feel great anger, if I encountered 163 dead children, crucified by enemies.  I too would take the view  that an eye for an eye was an entirely fitting response to such an enormity.  I would consider that in fact there is something rather wrong with a person who does not feel great anger at the sight of crucified children, together with a desire to avenge them..

The rationale for her action is obvious.  She wants to show that the life of a slave child is worth just as much as the life of a Great Master.  It is just, according to the standards of the majority of Meereen's population.

 I am talking about moral standards here. Greater power means greater potential for evil, which means that person with more power should be judged more strictly. The moral standard by which people are judged should be consistent.  No one is required to pull their punches, simply because they are more powerful than their opponent.  In both cases, the use of force should be proportionate to the threat which is faced.  Western allies  were under no obligation to pull their punches in 1944/45, despite being more powerful than Germany or Japan.

1) Ring of Power and Iron Throne are essentially the same, story-wise: both are a "reward" to which power-hungry people flock to like moths to a flame, but which destroys them in the end. Both represent power, and both serve to bring out darkest in people.

The Ring inevitably corrupts those who use it.  In-universe, we've seen numerous reasonable rulers who have sat the Iron Throne.  That analogy simply does not work.

[Hodor the Articulate]

1 hour ago, frenin said:

Nope, just stating the obvious, he gains nothing by being nice to the Iron Bank, they have already thrown their lot with another, why pay them?? How is he going to piss everyone off, the IB is already provoking unrest. 

So you think it's a good idea to ditch the Iron Bank then? Like, Cersei was right to rebuff them?

1 hour ago, frenin said:

But those are difficult to pay because the debt, It just adds another burden. I'm talking about getting rid of one burden.

1 hour ago, frenin said:

But that's simply not true.

Quote

“Though large, the crown incomes are not large enough to keep abreast of Robert’s debts. Accordingly, I have decided to defer our repayment of the sums owed the Holy Faith and the Iron Bank of Braavos until war’s end.” The new High Septon would doubtless wring his holy hands, and the Braavosi would squeak and squawk at her, but what of it? “The monies saved will be used for the building of our new fleet.”

Remove the debts, remove the problem.

I think you missed the part where it says Cersei used up all the money to build dromonds. Note that she stopped repayments. Yet, the crown is still in need of money after that.

"Gyles knew of our dire need for gold. No doubt he told you of his wish to leave all his lands and wealth to Tommen." Rosby’s gold would help refresh their coffers

Further evidence is Harys Swyft suggesting they use Myrish banks to pay off the IB debt AND take out new loans (to pay sellswords).

2 hours ago, frenin said:

No, I mean the Reach, the Stormlands are pro Baratheon but they don't like nir trust the Lannisters and or Tommen, it's the Reach Aegon needs to aim at. Pulling the "I'm dearest Rhaegar's son, follow me", hardly is going to work in a land that loved Robert's and the Baratheon guts but it should have a certain sway in the Reach.

They like Tommen just fine. They fill his court, after all. It's the Kingslanders, and maybe some Riverlanders, who are the true Targ loyalists. The Reach lords aren't going to flock to Aegon just because he says he's a Targ, especially when there's so much doubt about that claim. He'll get them through the GC's connections. It won't be that many though.

2 hours ago, frenin said:

That mess it's going to be solved soon one way or the other. After that, he does have the intention of marching against Storm's End and defeating the rebels.

As long as an incompetent as Mace is leading them, they are going to fail.

I doubt it. I think Mace will have his hands tied, first with Marge, and then with Euron. In fact, this is probably what will allow Aegon to gain access to KL.

2 hours ago, frenin said:

Don't know, maybe that even Voldemort can fail?? I don't really know nor do i care much

Just because you don't care for the character, doesn't mean he's just going to disappear. GRRM wouldn't have invested chapters on this guy if he wasn't going to affect the plot in a big way.

2 hours ago, frenin said:

Well, Tommen's rule is tenous and as long as Aegon is liked, he has a better ground than him. Tommen's rule rests solely  in the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, which is a big advantage, but only if the right person is in charge, if Kevan lived Aegon wouldn't have a single chance but with an infant King, a widely disliked royal family, a disgraced/ depised/ incompetent ruler, a wannabe general and the poison gift the Sand Snakes are, it's easy picking. 

And as long as people want to believe he is who he is, there is little trouble, Joffrey and Tommen got to be kings after all.

But the Aegon you've argued for isn't going to be well liked. You said yourself he's going to make enemies of potential allies.

The Lannisters at least always have the Westerlands to fall back on.

[frenin]

24 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

So you think it's a good idea to ditch the Iron Bank then? Like, Cersei was right to rebuff them?

The Iron Bank has already ditched all the other pretenders, Cersei created a problem that didn't exist, Aegon/Dany whomever is coming when the Iron Bank already has a pretender.

Why should anyone pay them  when the Iron Bank is already paying Stannis to defeat them??

26 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I think you missed the part where it says Cersei used up all the money to build dromonds. Note that she stopped repayments. Yet, the crown is still in need of money after that.

"Gyles knew of our dire need for gold. No doubt he told you of his wish to leave all his lands and wealth to Tommen." Rosby’s gold would help refresh their coffers

Further evidence is Harys Swyft suggesting they use Myrish banks to pay off the IB debt AND take out new loans (to pay sellswords).

She used the money destined for some debts to build the drommonds, the money keep coming however it's just that that money is already destined to pay the debts. Which is the original sin.

 

 

32 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

They like Tommen just fine. They fill his court, after all. It's the Kingslanders, and maybe some Riverlanders, who are the true Targ loyalists. The Reach lords aren't going to flock to Aegon just because he says he's a Targ, especially when there's so much doubt about that claim. He'll get them through the GC's connections. It won't be that many though.

They use Tommen just fine, Tommen- Lannister rule is widely reviled, the only Riverlanders that are revealed as true Targ loyalists are the Darrys and an old man that happened to meet Arya, the rest are the same as the Reach, everyone that have a grudge against the Lannisters are going to use Aegon to free themselves from them.

Besides, the Tyrells can be defeated and as long as Mace is the one leading them.

 

 

38 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I doubt it. I think Mace will have his hands tied, first with Marge, and then with Euron. In fact, this is probably what will allow Aegon to gain access to KL.

Mace himself has made his plans clear and his own sons are already dealing with Euron.

 

 

39 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I think you missed the part where it says Cersei used up all the money to build dromonds. Note that she stopped repayments. Yet, the crown is still in need of money after that.

"Gyles knew of our dire need for gold. No doubt he told you of his wish to leave all his lands and wealth to Tommen." Rosby’s gold would help refresh their coffers

Further evidence is Harys Swyft suggesting they use Myrish banks to pay off the IB debt AND take out new loans (to pay sellswords).

Just because you do care for the character doesn't mean he is going to be a next villain, GRRM has invested chapters in this guy as she has invested chapters in Aegon and Griff, you're the one given them roles, not Martin. And Euron has already been called out, that's also Martin's.

 

 

41 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

But the Aegon you've argued for isn't going to be well liked. You said yourself he's going to make enemies of potential allies.

Why?? Because he is going to not be too nice with the Tyrells?? He is going to face them one way or the other.

 

 

42 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

The Lannisters at least always have the Westerlands to fall back on.

Casterly Rock?? Sure, the Westerlands?? I don't really think the Westernmen are going ti throw their lot with Cersei of all  people. She's a disgraced woman whose competency is always been called to question and they now have certifiable proves of it.

[Hodor the Articulate]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Yes, I do think she will attempt to muscle everyone to her views. That is why she has dragons.

Forced goodness is no better than innate evil. First, you can only force somebody to do something by either a) forcing or b) brainwashing them, which in itself is evil. Second, it depends on one person's view of good and evil. And when you conclude that a group is evil, what is stopping you from slaughtering them? That is how Nazis and Communists did things.

So you think forcing slavers to give up slavery is no better than innate evil? Abolitionists = Nazis and communists?

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

There is difference between outburst in anger and actual cruelty - literally everything you have listed belongs to former category, not latter. If Daenerys had killed a Master in anger, that would be former; crucifixion however is latter. She had time to reconsider and modify her decision - even just to hanging or beheading - yet she did not. Those situations you listed have absolutely nothing in common with what Daenerys did.

"The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood . . "

It literally says she did it in anger.

I don't see much of a difference between crucifixion and hanging or beheading. The latter two can be pretty torturous and gruesome as well. You don't die immediately from a hanging, and it can take multiple swings to properly lop a head off (as we see when Robb and Theon tried it).

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

If he had dragons, those dragons would be inherited by his successors. End result would be that instead of power concentrated in hands of lords you would have power concentrated in hands of a king. At least lords get in each other's way; but who will get in the way of a King able to enforce his will with dragons?

If dragons meant the reforms stuck, I don't see the problem. I don't care about the nobility having power and I don't think George does either. He depicts them as a bunch of assholes who toy with the lives of the smallfolk.

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Speeches are part of diplomacy, not entirety of it. At any rate, my point was that Aegon has to rely on diplomacy or he will not get the Iron Throne (let alone last on it for any amount of time), unlike Daenerys who will be coming with dragons and a huge army. That automatically makes him better option.

Except he hasn't relied on diplomacy at all so far. And he has little to offer the lords (which is what diplomacy is all about).

[Hodor the Articulate]

5 minutes ago, frenin said:

The Iron Bank has already ditched all the other pretenders, Cersei created a problem that didn't exist, Aegon/Dany whomever is coming when the Iron Bank already has a pretender.

Why should anyone pay them  when the Iron Bank is already paying Stannis to defeat them??

To make them switch allegiance, which would starve out Stannis, calm the realm, and allow you to take out new loans for armies or ships or whatever?  I mean, why do you think Stannis took on Robert's debts?

9 minutes ago, frenin said:

She used the money destined for some debts to build the drommonds, the money keep coming however it's just that that money is already destined to pay the debts. Which is the original sin.

Did you just ignore everything I wrote after the first sentence? The crown was in need of gold even after Cersei deferred repayments.

12 minutes ago, frenin said:

They use Tommen just fine, Tommen- Lannister rule is widely reviled, the only Riverlanders that are revealed as true Targ loyalists are the Darrys and an old man that happened to meet Arya, the rest are the same as the Reach, everyone that have a grudge against the Lannisters are going to use Aegon to free themselves from them.

Besides, the Tyrells can be defeated and as long as Mace is the one leading them.

Use/like - same diff. So long as Tommen is in power, so are they. Which means the biggest names in the Reach are going to stick with Tommen. If people were as desperate to get rid of him as you say, they would have sent ravens to Stannis already.

16 minutes ago, frenin said:

Mace himself has made his plans clear and his own sons are already dealing with Euron.

He likely won't get a chance to go with his original plan. If Euron starts moving more inland, this will be his priority.

18 minutes ago, frenin said:

Just because you do care for the character doesn't mean he is going to be a next villain, GRRM has invested chapters in this guy as she has invested chapters in Aegon and Griff, you're the one given them roles, not Martin.

I'm not claiming Aegon is irrelevant to the plot, though.

18 minutes ago, frenin said:

And Euron has already been called out, that's also Martin's.

Just like the Others have been called out?

25 minutes ago, frenin said:

Why?? Because he is going to not be too nice with the Tyrells?? He is going to face them one way or the other.

YOU said he's going to make enemies of potential allies. Do I really have to explain why having enemies instead of allies = unpopular?

Both noblemen and merchants are having financial crises right now, and will continue to under your version of Aegon's reign because of him. King making me poor = me no like king.

25 minutes ago, frenin said:

Casterly Rock?? Sure, the Westerlands?? I don't really think the Westernmen are going ti throw their lot with Cersei of all  people. She's a disgraced woman whose competency is always been called to question and they now have certifiable proves of it.

What is your evidence for this ridiculous claim?

[frenin]

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

To make them switch allegiance, which would starve out Stannis, calm the realm, and allow you to take out new loans for armies or ships or whatever?  I mean, why do you think Stannis took on Robert's debts?

But they have already signed with their blood, doesn't seem like the type of deal that can be easily broken. 

Stannis had no choice, he is Robert's heir, which means that he not only gets to inherit his throne but aslso his responsibilities, so he is trading a lifesaver for a debt that he is obliged to pay regardless...

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Did you just ignore everything I wrote after the first sentence? The crown was in need of gold even after Cersei deferred repayments.

No, did you ignore the quotes?? Cersei deferred repayments from two of the crown's many creditors. Which means that even if  Cersei stopped paying back the Iron Bank and theFaith, there are half a dozen, if not more, creditors that still are getting their money. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Use/like - same diff. So long as Tommen is in power, so are they. Which means the biggest names in the Reach are going to stick with Tommen. If people were as desperate to get rid of him as you say, they would have sent ravens to Stannis already.

Not at all the same, and it's a big factor when arguing how much are they going to stick around went things start  going wrong,  Stannis is a disliked man, Aegon is shiny and vigorous young man and "looks good on a horse". 

And right up until Kevan's death, the Lannisters had capable leaders.

 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

He likely won't get a chance to go with his original plan. If Euron starts moving more inland, this will be his priority.

If Euron moves inland, he is going to be defeated by Mace's sons, again where the man gets the manpower to do all that, his only advantage is the sea and he is waiting to Dany's dragons to turn the tide. Mace is an overconvident man, it's within his character to ignore Euron because Ironborn suck at land. Storm's End seems kinda personal anyway.

 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

I'm not claiming Aegon is irrelevant to the plot, though.

Neither i'm claiming Euron is, Aegon defeating Euron is relevant to the plot.

 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Just like the Others have been called out?

Comparing Euron and the others is like comparing Tyrion and Gregor, they both live in Westeros continent.

Again, until  Martin writes it, Euron being Voldemort is wishful thinking. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

YOU said he's going to make enemies of potential allies. Do I really have to explain why having enemies instead of allies = unpopular?

No, i said this.

 

Quote

He is going to conquer several enough however, he is going to have enough lands to give away and enough lords to attaintt.

 If those lords were potential allies they would not be attainted and even then, you need to punish someone to reward your own men. 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Both noblemen and merchants are having financial crises right now, and will continue to under your version of Aegon's reign because of him. King making me poor = me no like king.

Yep and Aegon can use it against a common enemy, mainly the Lannisters.  

And there are other banks in the world, banks Aegon can negotiate with in the name of Westeros, even the Lannisters are trying that.

 

 

4 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

What is your evidence for this ridiculous claim?

 

Quote

“Whatever Cersei may have done, she is still a daughter of the Rock, of mine own blood. I will not let her die a traitor’s death, but I have made sure to draw her fangs. All her guards have been dismissed and replaced with my own men. In place of her former ladies-in-waiting, she will henceforth be attended by a septa and three novices selected by the High Septon. She is to have no further voice in the governance of the realm, nor in Tommen’s education. I mean to return her to Casterly Rock after the trial and see that she remains there. Let that suffice.” The rest he left unsaid. Cersei was soiled goods now, her power at an end. Every baker’s boy and beggar in the city had seen her in her shame and every tart and tanner from Flea Bottom to Pisswater Bend had gazed upon her nakedness, their eager eyes crawling over her breasts and belly and woman’s parts. No queen could expect to rule again after that. In gold and silk and emeralds Cersei had been a queen, the next thing to a goddess; naked, she was only human, an aging woman with stretch marks on her belly and teats that had begun to sag … as the shrews in the crowds had been glad to point out to their husbands and lovers. Better to live shamed than die proud , Ser Kevan told himself. “My niece will make no further mischief,” he promised Mace Tyrell.

 

Quote

The novices who attended her reported that she spent a third of her waking hours with her son, another third in prayer, and the rest in her tub. She was bathing four or five times a day, scrubbing herself with horsehair brushes and strong lye soap, as if she meant to scrape her skin off. She will never wash the stain away, no matter how hard she scrubs

 

Quote

It was not as if his brother had never done the same. In their father’s final years, after their mother’s passing, their sire had taken the comely daughter of a candlemaker as mistress. It was not unknown for a widowed lord to keep a common girl as bedwarmer … but Lord Tytos soon began seating the woman beside him in the hall, showering her with gifts and honors, even asking her views on matters of state. Within a year she was dismissing servants, ordering about his household knights, even speaking for his lordship when he was indisposed. She grew so influential that it was said about Lannisport that any man who wished for his petition to be heard should kneel before her and speak loudly to her lap … for Tytos Lannister’s ear was between his lady’s legs. She had even taken to wearing their mother’s jewels. Until the day their lord father’s heart had burst in his chest as he was ascending a steep flight of steps to her bed, that is. All the self-seekers who had named themselves her friends and cultivated her favor had abandoned her quickly enough when Tywin had her stripped naked and paraded through Lannisport to the docks, like a common whore. Though no man laid a hand on her, that walk spelled the end of her power. Surely Tywin would never have dreamed that same fate awaited his own golden daughter. “It had to be,” Ser Kevan muttered over the last of his wine. His High Holiness had to be appeased. Tommen needed the Faith behind him in the battles to come. And Cersei … the golden child had grown into a vain, foolish, greedy woman. Left to rule, she would have ruined Tommen as she had Joffrey.

 

 

-She is woman, which is already a con in Westeros. 

She has proved to be terribly incopetent and her family has said so more than once no doubt the rest of Westeros think that too, the very notion that Cersei was the one calling the shots at KL was what keeps Davos breathing.

- And the walk of shame disgraced her. 

 

It's not really hard to see that no one is going to be eager to follow Cersei to the bathroom, let alone to war. Kevan devised the walk especifically to break Cersei's power... So what makes you think that hr power isn't broken??

The question is... Why are the westernmen going to fight for Cersei?? Cersei is not Kevam, Tywin, Jaime or Tyrion,  no one is going to follow a doomed lord unless they are heavily invested on him, so far the westermen are good.

 

@Aldarion

 

Quote

It is not just that she made cruel decision when she was angry; but also that she later justified it as "just" and "for the children" when she started feeling uncomfortable. She did something cruel on impulse, and then ran away from responsibility by justifying it instead of facing it. It may be bit unjust of me towards Daenerys, but the scene and that thought process immediately reminds me of Communists killing millions for "good of the people". And it is not the only time she ran away either: whenever ser Barristan tries telling her about Aerys' madness, she either gets insulted or runs away:

 

This is absurd, there is a big difference between not wanting to hear a hard truth and being a genocide in the making, this claim is simply to absurd to be considered.

Especially when considering that this a warring period and Dany'sactions are not different that literally everyother leader with an army.

[Rose of Red Lake]

13 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

weary of war

WAR

Again, you're quoting out of context (and even doing that to my quotes). You said she's "napping during a war" but the war in Meereen is not EVEN the subject of her deluded conversation. She is not having a conversation with herself about abolitionism or slavery or the war against slavery. She is trying to JUSTIFY to herself, why she's not in Westeros. 

"IT IS SUCH A LONG WAY." To Westeros. The whole paragraph is an excuse for why she stayed in Meereen and didnt go to Westeros. 

In the end, she concludes that she is a Queen in Westeros and that she cant forget her House words. This is the third time she has reaches a conclusion like this. They're all formatted exactly the same. Pay attention to the patterns of her thoughts at major decision points. 

13 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

A girl might spend her life at play, but she was a woman grown, a queen, a wife, a mother to thousands. Her children had need of her. Drogon had bent before the whip, and so must she. She had to don her crown again and return to her ebon bench and the arms of her noble husband.

a mother to thousands. Her children

MOTHER TO THOUSANDS

1) Thats not a thought about the injustice of slavery. She doesn't even use that word. She should be thinking about the commitment to freedom...but nope. This statement is neither a commitment, nor is it ideological stance for the fight against slavery -- its more like a cult leader thinking about her cult followers. A person who truly cared about freedom would NEVER put  slaves back in the CHILD position, because that was how slave masters saw them and how they justified slavery. 

2) Again you miss the context, because she doesnt really want to go back. She is trying to do her duty but she fails. You didnt follow the arc. She concludes later that Meereen isnt her home. Freed slaves, or current slaves, is not her concern, her #1 concern, is Westeros. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

5 hours ago, Aldarion said:

There is difference between outburst in anger and actual cruelty - literally everything you have listed belongs to former category, not latter. If Daenerys had killed a Master in anger, that would be former; crucifixion however is latter. She had time to reconsider and modify her decision - even just to hanging or beheading - yet she did not. Those situations you listed have absolutely nothing in common with what Daenerys did.

Right, manner of execution does indicate cruelty in a person's psychology, and suggests a serious flaw. GRRM on strangling:

Quote

With Shae, it’s a much more deliberate and in some ways a crueler thing. It’s not the action of a second, because he’s strangling her slowly and she’s fighting, trying to get free. He could let go at any time. But his anger and his sense of betrayal is so strong that he doesn’t stop until it’s done and that’s probably the blackest deed that he’s ever done. It’s the great crime of his soul along with what he did with his first wife by abandoning her after the little demonstration Lord Tywin put on. (x)

I think killing people randomly, and cruelly, by social caste is terrifying for the future. Cruelly executing prisoners of war without trial or chance to show fealty, is now a norm. And yeah, it sounds like communist dictatorships that all started with a noble goal then descended into tyranny and atrocity. Pol Pot launched a justified revolution against colonial rule then later committed mass genocide. Stalin and Mugabe also started on the same path. The end result was mass murder. 

[frenin]

38 minutes ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

I think killing people randomly, and cruelly, by social caste is terrifying for the future. Cruelly executing prisoners of war without trial or chance to show fealty, is now a norm. And yeah, it sounds like communist dictatorships that all started with a noble goal then descended into tyranny and atrocity. Pol Pot launched a justified revolution against colonial rule then later committed mass genocide. Stalin and Mugabe also started on the same path. The end result was mass murder. 

Well comparing abolitionsm with genocide and warmongerism, i enjoy reading you much but when it comes to Dany, you only see red...

[Lord Varys]

Guys, again, especially @Rose of Red Lake and @frenin this isn't a thread about Daenerys and slavery nor about Cersei and the financial problems of the Iron Throne. Insofar as your points are relevant to the topic at hand, it is okay to post them, but this is getting out of hand.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

You are not following because you are not understanding my standards. It is not just a question of killing masters - in fact, that part is what I have the least problem with. It is more of a question of how she did it.

Butchering peasants is done in order to wipe out enemy's economic base. It is not midless cruelty or angry revanche; it has military logic to it. When Daenerys crucified Masters, she did so as an act of revenge, with no logical or practical basis.

These decisions by Daenerys are not logical, they are emotional - no matter how you try to justify them. And we see Daenerys be ruled by her emotions on multiple occasions. But what is worrying here - and I also pointed out that to Hodor - is that she has had time to go back on these decisions, yet she did not. Not only did she not go back on them, she did not even modify them at all.

Your standards are utterly twisted. Butchering slavers the type of the Great Masters is a great thing, whereas brutalizing peasants is always wrong, no matter how you justify it.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Yes, I do think she will attempt to muscle everyone to her views. That is why she has dragons.

Which is utterly silliness since your view on dragons being 'evil' or 'wrong' is stupid if you consider their size. Dany's dragons are shiny objects in ACoK and dangerous pets in ASoS. In ADwD they are dangerous predators but neither of them is going to defeat or even seriously threaten an army.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Forced goodness is no better than innate evil. First, you can only force somebody to do something by either a) forcing or b) brainwashing them, which in itself is evil. Second, it depends on one person's view of good and evil. And when you conclude that a group is evil, what is stopping you from slaughtering them? That is how Nazis and Communists did things.

There is nothing wrong with butchering slavers. Especially after they crucify children and had had ample warning that they should free their slaves or suffer the consequences. Dany doesn't just teleport to Meereen - she gave them ample choice to change their ways and not crucify children. They wouldn't listen and now they rot on poles. Good riddance, I say!

And you view is pretty warped on her - it is a humane and normal thing that Dany after seeing rotting slavers on crosses realizes that this was a little bit much ... but guess what: Those slavers aren't Senelle or Falyse being handed to Qyburn for monstrous experiments. They are people who deserve this kind of shit.

To all you guys: Search for 'torture' in ASoIaF and notice how normal it is in Westerosi culture (the Manderlys do have torturers in their dungeons, for instance, and the atrocities of the Boltons are well known which have been tolerated by the Starks for centuries and millennia) but the most interesting mentions are those torture chambers beneath the pyramids of Meereen where slaves were regularly tortured and branded and skinned alive and a lot of other things.

The idea that people authorizing this, people growing rich and fat on a trade that necessitates that kind of shit deserve any mercy is beyond me.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

There is difference between outburst in anger and actual cruelty - literally everything you have listed belongs to former category, not latter. If Daenerys had killed a Master in anger, that would be former; crucifixion however is latter. She had time to reconsider and modify her decision - even just to hanging or beheading - yet she did not. Those situations you listed have absolutely nothing in common with what Daenerys did.

You are reading things in there that aren't there. There is nothing wrong with crucifying those people - not when she first gave the command, and definitely not when she was seeing what she did. Dany gets as close to a good old First Men king as she can as a 15-year-old girl - she stands there and watches how the people she condemned to death die. She doesn't hide like Cersei and never actually looks what it means to hand somebody to Qyburn.

Your argument is like Ned shouldn't have hacked off Gared's head when he was there at the bloc or Jon Snow should have reconsider the execution of Slynt or Robb that of Rickard Karstark. No, it was good that those men died.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

If he had dragons, those dragons would be inherited by his successors. End result would be that instead of power concentrated in hands of lords you would have power concentrated in hands of a king. At least lords get in each other's way; but who will get in the way of a King able to enforce his will with dragons?

Man, this is about power - of course, power can be abused, but Westeros is a shitty place because you have a lot of lords mistreating and brutalizing their peasants in their pointless little wars. Things like Webber vs. Osgrey mustn't happen. That is barbarism and lawlessness, basically.

Yes, a bad king can also mean abuse of power, but it won't mean trouble for a majority of the population. Unlike with there being potentially thousands of corrupt, cruel, and evil lords out there.

We get George's vision of the ideal ruler in FaB - Jaehaerys I. A man with the power to crush his enemies and the ability to keep his lords in line without feeling the need to abuse his powers.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Why so many people here think that dictatorship is solution to all world's problems?

I have already shown how the Throne can counter great lords without relying on dragons: by relying on commoners and on minor nobility. That was done by Basil II in Byzantine Empire, by Matthias Corvinus in Hungary, by Vlad III Tepes in Wallachia, by Ivan III in Russia. All of them were very good rulers. And the reason why they were good rulers was precisely because they were forced to rely on commoners and minor nobility to counter the magnates. If it weren't for that imperative - say, if they had dragons - chances are that none of them would have made half the good things they did, and would have ended up more similar to Tamerlane than anything else.

Those comparisons would matter if George had built his world on Eastern Europe stuff - but he did not. He doesn't make a principal difference between great lords and petty lords - it doesn't matter whether Roose Bolton or Rohanne Webber/Eustace Osgrey abuse their smallfolk. It is wrong in any case. In George's world the king and the idea/concept of kingship protect the weak and innocent, not the lords/noble class. They are the problem, not the solution.

This is the entire theme of the story - the pointless wars that ruin Westeros are all started by pompous petty nobles - Eddard, Robb, Tywin, Cersei, Stannis, Renly, Balon, Mace, you name it. They are all shitheads collectively - some are less brutal, less vapid, less self-involved that others, but all follow crappy and wrong values, especially in light of the dangers the Others pose.

But even without that - a huge point of the books is to show how war destroys people, and how it matters not why people go to war. It doesn't matter if they go to war for noble reasons or selfish reasons.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

The only question is why such a thing had not happened alredy. Logically, the Iron Throne - with very limited lands  - should be rather worried about the power of Lords Paramount. And it should be able to count on support by commoners and minor nobility against lords paramount. The only answer I can think of is that it worked because of dragons, and it kept working after dragons died out because of inertia. Which reinforces my case that dragons are, socially speaking, not a good thing.

The thing, is the great lords don't have that much power. This is not a realistic setting, it is a fantasy setting. In a realistic setting there wouldn't be an Iron Throne. One deludes oneself if one believes things like all the North or all the West following a single lord in a rebellion is the rule - it is the exception since the Starks traditionally have a lot of authority in the North and Tywin is a very capable lord and leader lords all over Westeros fear and respect. Anybody resembling Stannis or Tytos could count on less to no support in a similar situation, regardless of the formal authority he wields.

If you look at history then the Targaryens of old didn't even bother with the great houses when they wanted armies - they just commanded that they be raised, and their lords answered. That's how Maegor did it, how it was done (for the most part) during the Dance, how it was during the Blackfyre Rebellions we know of, etc.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Speeches are part of diplomacy, not entirety of it. At any rate, my point was that Aegon has to rely on diplomacy or he will not get the Iron Throne (let alone last on it for any amount of time), unlike Daenerys who will be coming with dragons and a huge army. That automatically makes him better option.

Aegon hasn't made any diplomatic overtures so far. He is just attacking people without even properly declaring war. He is a bandit, basically, not even an honorable enemy. There will be diplomacy with Dorne and perhaps some of the Reach lords, but he will have to conquer the throne. And he will have to defend it by force against his enemies in Westeros.

In fact, he is most likely never using diplomacy at all aside from his negotiations with Arianne and, perhaps, the Vale because most Targaryen loyalists/Targaryen friendly people will join him/declare for him without him making any offers. If he gets his throne that way, he is not going to think he will need to give the Lannisters and Tyrells and Ironborn and Stannis/Northmen and whoever may still oppose his rule good terms. Instead, he will give the ultimatums.

He has come to avenge his father and grandfather and restore the honor of House Targaryen, his Hand has come to end the Baratheon line, and the Dornishmen will join him so they can destroy the Lannisters. And with them already knowing what Cersei wanted to do with Trystane - and them soon learning the truth about 'Ser Robert Strong' - they will definitely want her head, too.

The thing with Aegon is that he is just an empty shell. A symbol, a figurehead people won't rally around because they know him to be a great and competent and good guy, but because they hope/believe he will be. He will be cheered by a crowd for pretty much no reason besides the fact that he claims to be Rhaegar's son. That is what the entire prophecy of the mummer's dragon is about - the is a reason why it is a cloth dragon on a pole, and not an actual dragon sitting in the midst of the cheering crowd.

They won't follow him because of anything he actually does, but what they hope he will do in the future. And when he is in power and starts to actually make decisions then nobody will like them because he isn't going to deliver on any front.

He won't feed the people in winter, he won't end war but continue it, he will bring a pandemic to Westeros, he will antagonize many people by favoring people he shouldn't have favored from their point of view, he will raise the taxes and make himself unpopular this way while burning lots of money for his coronation and wedding feast. He will fight costly and pointless war which will at best turn out to be pyrrhic victories, etc.

Aegon is the antithesis of a truly competent leader and this is already hinted at in ADwD.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Dragons are never a good thing, and as far as I am concerned, Daenerys can be a saint but possession of dragons still makes her the worst choice for a ruler. That is simply too much of concentration of power. My ideal option would be Aegon + Daenerys w/o dragons, but well...

The kind of dragons they have are not really that much of a military asset. They don't give Dany any military power so far. In ten or twenty years they might be monsters, but more likely only in fifty years or so.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Aegon may well become a tyrant from nobles' perspective - after all, if there is opposition, it will most likely come from nobles. But at the same time, that opposition may well force him to make some very necessary reforms. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

He is not going to be able to make any reforms while he doesn't even control all of the Seven Kingdoms.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Look at how her anger is described. She doesn't feel just angry, but also righteous. This:

Look at her thought process:

1. She sees slaves crucified by the Masters.
2. She gets angry and vengeful.
3. She has randomly-selected Masters crucified afterwards.
4. She feels good doing it.
5. She regrets her previous decision.
6. She justifies her ordering crucifixion.

It is not just that she made cruel decision when she was angry; but also that she later justified it as "just" and "for the children" when she started feeling uncomfortable. She did something cruel on impulse, and then ran away from responsibility by justifying it instead of facing it. It may be bit unjust of me towards Daenerys, but the scene and that thought process immediately reminds me of Communists killing millions for "good of the people". And it is not the only time she ran away either: whenever ser Barristan tries telling her about Aerys' madness, she either gets insulted or runs away:

That comparison makes no sense at all, because Dany is quite clear she is avenging people who were murdered with her executions. She doesn't do it to better the world, but to rectify a past wrong done by the slavers. Vengeance and justice are the same in this world - as a nobleman or royalty you are not just allowed to exact vengeance when you are wronged, but it is expected of you. It is what defines you as a member of the ruling class. If accept an insult or a slight or an attack on you or your own you are seen as weak, impotent, no ruler at all. Your own people would lose respect of you, would no longer follow you, which in turn means you and the people who remain would be at the risk of being killed.

Those slavers don't die for the future of the world, but for the past. But to be honest, I don't have problems with people killing people if that's necessary to build a better world. A new social order cannot be build by just telling people to behave differently - the old guard has to go, physically. Sometimes even that isn't enough, but it is always a start.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I am talking about moral standards here. Greater power means greater potential for evil, which means that person with more power should be judged more strictly.

I don't accept that arbitrary logic, but even if I did -  we have really no way to determine whether the clansmen and queen's men following Stannis or outlaws following Catelyn or Ironborn following Euron, etc. are less fanatical than the Unsullied or later the Dothraki.

One could use the old Spiderman routine there - great power means great responsibility - but guess what: So far Daenerys didn't use her dragons in battle, and certainly not indiscriminately. When they apparently started to devour innocents, she imprisoned them instead of just shrugging it off as collateral damage. When she sacked Astapor, she had the Unsullied do that, who don't rape or torture unless commanded to do so.

She is the most decent and thoughtful general we met so far.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Unless some decide to opt out of the system. Though that is less likely under Targaryens, true.

It is also less likely in winter when people start to freeze and starve.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

That I actually agree with. I just wanted to point out that he had reasons for doing what he did: he did not believe Robert would believe him with Jon Arryn dead, so he decided to ensure his own safety first and foremost.

There is no textual evidence for this claim. Stannis never says he left because he feared Cersei/Jaime would kill him (or that he feared them at all), nor does he say he ever thought that after Jon Arryn's death he thought Robert wouldn't buy his story.

All he says is that he feared Robert wouldn't believe him if he came to him with this story and that's why he went to Jon first so he could approach Robert. Now, after Jon is dead - a man Robert loved as a second father - Stannis would have had more 'evidence' for his case then just his gut feeling, a book, and the looks of 3-4 of the king's bastards. He would also have Jon's mysterious death. He could have Cressen come over to take a look at Jon's corpse, he could have asked Cressen and other maesters how Jon may have been poisoned, etc.

The very idea that Robert would have just shrugged this off makes no sense. Even if we assume Stannis feared he would do that. Which he never actually says.

Instead, we do know why he left - he left because Robert didn't ask him to become the new Hand and instead left court to search out his old buddy Eddard Stark and make him the Hand. And then Stannis left court while Robert was away to sulk on Dragonstone the way Maekar left court when his brother made Bloodraven Hand. Unlike Maekar, though, Stannis took the royal fleet with him, prepared for war on Dragonstone, and did not answer any of the letters Ned sent to him during his time as Hand never mind that it would have given him the opportunity to inform the man about the twincest and what he believed to be the truth about Jon's murder.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And Stannis offered to make Renly his heir. How is that any less nice?

Because he came there to actually kill him and steal his army. But I'm not saying Renly is a great guy, I just say he is nicer than Stannis because he did not insist he had to be king over the dead body of two of his brothers.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Fact is, Renly's whole argument was based on "I have a bigger army, s*** my d***".

Sure, and he is following Robert's example there. Robert also stole his throne, so why cannot Renly steal the throne of Robert's children/brother. Robert himself saw himself as a king by virtue of biggest war hammer - why cannot Renly be king by virtue of the largest army?

Stannis is making a fool of himself insisting 'the law' matters in all of that - his own brother only sat on the throne because Robert and Stannis pissed on the law back then and made him king instead of Viserys III.

Stannis sort of has the grace to admit his hypocrisy there when Davos confronts him about that, but that doesn't change the fact that he didn't uphold the law when Robert was made king.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And there is foreshadowing of her going Maegor-like:

Oh, come on, she cites whose blood she has to make herself impressive and important. That is not going to mean she is going to be like Maegor.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

See the citation I have provided before. She directly compares herself to an "avenging dragon".

 

It also has to do with her not understanding Meereenese customs, helping slaves but then not addressing underlying issue...

She will have an army of barbarians. That will kinda counter the propaganda claim of three dragons.

And I don't have any issue with that - just as I don't have problems when Cersei is compared to a lioness, Ned claims his brother, sister, and daughter have 'wolf's blood', Sandor Clegane being proud of being a dog, etc.

Dany's rule over Meereen has nothing to do with 'customs'. It has to do with there being terrorist in the city who murder with impunity and she doesn't have the means to capture them without hurting bystanders. I mean, that's pretty much Northern Ireland with Dany being the British oppressors and the IRA the slavers - with the exception that Dany does only oppresses people who deserve it whereas the slavers have no right to murder people with impunity.

The idea that any state would suffer this kind of terrorism - especially in this world - makes no sense.

Those barbarians will give Dany strength, not weakness. Yes, people might also fear her, but fear is good to convince people not to march against her in battle. And nobody thought that having Dothraki on board would be bad for the reputation of Viserys III or Aegon.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I do agree that many will flock to her banner, simply because without it she will not have conventional forces capable of achieving anything in Westeros. But it will not be a walkover, and she will not get overwhelming support just based on her having dragons.

Nobody ever said anything about it being a walkover although I expect it to be. There may be one battle that Dany is going to quickly win, and not some back and forth stretching over 2-3 books or stuff like that. There may be a naval battle on the way to Westeros, one to take KL, and then perhaps another to crush Aegon.

And then the Others should come. We won't have time for Dany to get popular or unpopular as a mundane ruler.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Aegon the Conqueror forged the throne with dragonfire, but he held onto it with diplomacy. Again, conquering is one thing, ruling is completely another.

Aegon ruled with an iron fist, not with diplomacy. And neither did Jaehaerys I for that matter. He could afford to be nice because he was riding Vermithor and people couldn't say no to him.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I am not saying that "Aegon just expressed something they all wanted to at that point". I am saying that he was the only one who provided an actually doable proposition which was not "sit tight and pray that Daenerys decides to come to us".

Which was a mistake.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

I am aware of the original conception -and you will notice that 2/3 of story is fight for the Throne. It may not be the endgame, but it is far from pointless.

Of course those battles are ultimately about nothing. Because they weaken the people who should work together against the common enemy. It is irrelevant who avenges what (imagined) injustice when everybody is about to be killed.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

And now I have to explain Tolkien to you...

1) Ring of Power and Iron Throne are essentially the same, story-wise: both are a "reward" to which power-hungry people flock to like moths to a flame, but which destroys them in the end. Both represent power, and both serve to bring out darkest in people.

The One Ring isn't a reward, it is an instrument of power and oppression and inherently evil because it was created by the Devil's lieutenant. It is something that cannot be used for good even if the people who are using it are good and want to do good.

The conception as such silly because if I want to do good then I do good, no matter what I use to accomplish it.

The Iron Throne is just a throne. It has no metaphysical or magical properties and doesn't symbolize a world view.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

2) Tolkien rooted his story in mythology. That is true. But you are only half-correct here: yes, Aragorn is a good king because he is "the rightful king, the one with the dragons healing hands, longevity, special palantír control, magical blood and divine ancestry". But he is also a good king because of his choices: he chooses to resist temptation of the Ring and instead help Frodo, he chooses not to push his claim until it could be done without bringing Gondor into massive peril, he chooses to prioritize his people over the throne (he was ready to go with Frodo to Mordor), he chooses to only crown himself after Sauron is defeated. He is a good king because of his character, and his upbringing as much as anything else. If your argument was correct, Castamir would have been a good king, yet he turned tyrant, while half-Numenorean Eldacar, his son and especially grandson (Hyarmendacil II) all proved to be capable kings.

None of Aragorn's choices make him a good king, though. Resisting the Ring, helping Frodo, waiting for his throne doesn't make him a good king. One can perhaps say it makes him a good guy, but there are many other good guys in the story - many other people resist the Ring and are good, yet that doesn't make them kings. Only royal ancestry, magical blood, healing hands, special palantír control, and an Angel of the Lord make kings in Tolkien's world (Faramir does the same thing as Aragorn, all things considered, yet he lacks the blood and magical powers to be king). There is no indication that something like upbringing figured into Aragorn being a good king - how could Elrond possibly teach Aragorn to rule a vast empire when he was ruling over a couple of dozen people in the middle of nowhere?

Castamir was a usurper and as such by definition no good king - because usurping the rightful king is one of the most grievous sins in Tolkien's world, starting with Melkor trying to usurp Manwe's place as Elder King. Sauron does the same thing by styling himself 'Lord of the Earth', Saruman is trying to usurp the place of the rightful rulers of Rohan, etc. You also see that with Pharazôn usurping the throne as his first great sin, etc.

George has no problem with usurpation on principle, in fact, his entire series is about that people who are not good people per se could be great rulers, people seemingly unsuited to rule could rise to the challenge and be exceptional rulers. There is nothing of that kind in Tolkien.

Ideologically, Tolkien has great bloodlines/families/people bring forth great people who do great deeds, not individuals overcoming challenges, making great decisions and being shaped by their choices, experiences, and deeds to become great people. Aragorn is always who is - the rightful king. From the moment he is introduced. Him not pressing the claim doesn't mean he isn't the king.

George uses those classic fantasy tropes of families and such as background material, but Dany isn't a prototypical Targaryen - or Bran a prototypical Stark, etc. - she is exceptional as an individual, not as a member of a given race or family. That is an enormous difference between those two works.

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Because he was a good person? But:

1) how do you know he would have stayed a good person if he had had dragons?

2) how do you know next dragonrider(s) would have been a good person? Dragons live longer than humans.

That is pretty much a non-argument. Giant wealth, an inherited army or crown also give you great power and nobody can foresee how his grandchildren or great-grandchildren deal with the kind of power they inherit.

We have just a difference in degree here, not a difference of principle. Dragons give you more power than just armies and money, but they don't give you a different kind of power. And, in fact, George never paints it as if dragons really give you a different set of power.

I mean, I recall how I imagined the Targaryen dragon days before we got TPatQ. I thought we would have a completely different system of government where there were the king and the queen at the top, and the dragonriders as a sort of extended ruling body between the king and his government, meaning the council and the officials and the lord would not only have to report to the king but to (the dragonriders of) House Targaryen collectively, with the king being the guy leading this clan of powerful rulers. We would have a situation where the king had to rule by consensus and had to ensure that his dragonriding family members would be on board with major decisions to prevent them from using their dragons against him.

That would be a system where the special status and power that comes with being a dragonrider would have been adequately depcited. Instead, we got the hilarious thing that the most powerful Targaryen king ever - Viserys I - wasn't even a dragonrider yet we have to believe that he could rule over and keep dragonriders in check. Which, from a realistic point of view, is ludicrous.

But it certainly confirms that George actually thinks a guy with a crown and the authority to assemble armies has more power than the people who control Vhagar and Caraxes and Syrax and Meleys, etc. In fact, he even thinks such people can sideline and exile such dragonriders rather easily (also seen with King Aenys pushing Maegor into exile, never mind that Quicksilver wasn't impressive compared to Balerion, and Visenya/Vhagar were on Maegor's side in the entire affair).

4 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Aerys II had been ruling for a long time before he became a tyrant, and was eventually deposed. Who will depose a dragonrider? What I'm saying is that if a king has no dragons, he either rules well enough or is deposed. When a king has a fuck-off-big fire-breathing reptile, deposing him becomes much more difficult.

Dragonriders are deposed just as easily as dragonless kings - think of Maegor the Cruel, Aegon II, and Rhaenyra. Maegor shows how little use a big dragon is if the people just don't want to follow you. I don't like that story very much - in fact, I find Maegor's end pretty unbelievable unless we imagine he was murdered since he still had Balerion and could have toasted Storm's End and the children there, and then people should have fallen back in line - but we have to deal with the fact that having a big dragon doesn't mean people will be more loyal to you than we don't have a dragon.

In fact, a lot of dragonless Targaryens pulled a lot of shit, good or bad, the dragonriders did not - the Young Dragon and Baelor were very powerful, Aegon IV terrorized people without having dragons, etc. By comparison, Aenys and Jaehaerys I and Viserys I were nice guys.

[frenin]

14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

nor about Cersei and the financial problems of the Iron Throne. Insofar as your points are relevant to the topic at hand, it is okay to post them, but this is getting out of hand.

One of the arguments to support that Aegon would be forced to become a tyrant was the fact that he'll find no money, it does seem relevant to the matter.

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, frenin said:

One of the arguments to support that Aegon would be forced to become a tyrant was the fact that he'll find no money, it does seem relevant to the matter.

Not to the degree that it is discussed now, and especially not in what's Cersei going to do later, etc.

[Aldarion]

16 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

So you think forcing slavers to give up slavery is no better than innate evil? Abolitionists = Nazis and communists?

 

It is not a question of what, it is a question of how and what consequences. I would have no problem with Daenerys forcing Masters to let all the slaves go - provided that she actually went to the end, and also forced them to pay slaves (with money or land) for the work they had done so far.

But one way or another, I definitely do not support mass executions without trial. No matter the cause.

16 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

"The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood . . "

It literally says she did it in anger.

I don't see much of a difference between crucifixion and hanging or beheading. The latter two can be pretty torturous and gruesome as well. You don't die immediately from a hanging, and it can take multiple swings to properly lop a head off (as we see when Robb and Theon tried it).

1) Again, crucifixion is not something which can be done straight away. She had time to reconsider.

2) Crucifixion is literally meant to torture. When you hang or behead someone, torture can happen as a side-effect - but purpose is execution, not torture. With crucifixion, torture is the purpose of execution.

16 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

"The anger was fierce and hot inside her when she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard their moans and smelled their bowels and blood . . "

It literally says she did it in anger.

I don't see much of a difference between crucifixion and hanging or beheading. The latter two can be pretty torturous and gruesome as well. You don't die immediately from a hanging, and it can take multiple swings to properly lop a head off (as we see when Robb and Theon tried it).

Except he doesn't, or at least not always. Starks are definitely not depicted that way, and neither are Martells.

16 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Except he hasn't relied on diplomacy at all so far. And he has little to offer the lords (which is what diplomacy is all about).

His campaign has only started, but that does not change my point.

If he truly has little to offer the lords, he will fail. As simple as that.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Your standards are utterly twisted. Butchering slavers the type of the Great Masters is a great thing, whereas brutalizing peasants is always wrong, no matter how you justify it.

 

Stop getting off-rails. Again, it is not a question of killing or not killing Great Masters. It is a question of how she did it.

First, it was essentialy a judicial decision. If Daenerys truly is a great reformist she is presented as, she should have given them a court of law - if even just a Kangaroo one. We don't see that.

Second, manner of execution. She executed them in literally the cruelest way possible. What do you know about how person dies on a cross?

Third, her own feelings when she did it. Yes, decision to execute the Masters was not wrong - but that does not mean that it was made for the right reasons.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Except he hasn't relied on diplomacy at all so far. And he has little to offer the lords (which is what diplomacy is all about).

Even if that is true, it still doesn't change the fact that she is introducing dragons back. They may not be too dangerous during her lifetime, but can we be certain all three dragons will die during War for the Dawn?

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is nothing wrong with butchering slavers. Especially after they crucify children and had had ample warning that they should free their slaves or suffer the consequences. Dany doesn't just teleport to Meereen - she gave them ample choice to change their ways and not crucify children. They wouldn't listen and now they rot on poles. Good riddance, I say!

And you view is pretty warped on her - it is a humane and normal thing that Dany after seeing rotting slavers on crosses realizes that this was a little bit much ... but guess what: Those slavers aren't Senelle or Falyse being handed to Qyburn for monstrous experiments. They are people who deserve this kind of shit.

To all you guys: Search for 'torture' in ASoIaF and notice how normal it is in Westerosi culture (the Manderlys do have torturers in their dungeons, for instance, and the atrocities of the Boltons are well known which have been tolerated by the Starks for centuries and millennia) but the most interesting mentions are those torture chambers beneath the pyramids of Meereen where slaves were regularly tortured and branded and skinned alive and a lot of other things.

The idea that people authorizing this, people growing rich and fat on a trade that necessitates that kind of shit deserve any mercy is beyond me.

See my previous reply about her executing Masters.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You are reading things in there that aren't there. There is nothing wrong with crucifying those people - not when she first gave the command, and definitely not when she was seeing what she did. Dany gets as close to a good old First Men king as she can as a 15-year-old girl - she stands there and watches how the people she condemned to death die. She doesn't hide like Cersei and never actually looks what it means to hand somebody to Qyburn.

Your argument is like Ned shouldn't have hacked off Gared's head when he was there at the bloc or Jon Snow should have reconsider the execution of Slynt or Robb that of Rickard Karstark. No, it was good that those men died.

None of them crucified people they executed. Again, I wouldn't have much of a problem with Masters being executed if it weren't for the fact that she opted for crucifixion, and that she made decision when angry. And those two facts alone are telling: it wasn't justice, it was revenge.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Man, this is about power - of course, power can be abused, but Westeros is a shitty place because you have a lot of lords mistreating and brutalizing their peasants in their pointless little wars. Things like Webber vs. Osgrey mustn't happen. That is barbarism and lawlessness, basically.

Yes, a bad king can also mean abuse of power, but it won't mean trouble for a majority of the population. Unlike with there being potentially thousands of corrupt, cruel, and evil lords out there.

We get George's vision of the ideal ruler in FaB - Jaehaerys I. A man with the power to crush his enemies and the ability to keep his lords in line without feeling the need to abuse his powers.

Thousands of corrupt, cruel and evil lords will always be out there. And bad king can be quite bad if he manages to centralize the power: it is not just what king alone will do, but also what those under him will do and what example he will set. People are animals, and they tend to follow example of those in power. Saying that "fish stinks from the head" is not meaningless.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The kind of dragons they have are not really that much of a military asset. They don't give Dany any military power so far. In ten or twenty years they might be monsters, but more likely only in fifty years or so.

 

And it is actually precisely that "ten or twenty years" which concern me. She will be coming to Westeros to rule, not just to defeat the Others and then go on a world trip.

But ignoring that, how can we know her dragons will not be much of a military asset? If they won't be, won't that make her pointless as Azor Ahai or whatever? It is a "Song of Ice and Fire", and one of (possible) meanings of that is jutaposition of Others and dragons.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Man, this is about power - of course, power can be abused, but Westeros is a shitty place because you have a lot of lords mistreating and brutalizing their peasants in their pointless little wars. Things like Webber vs. Osgrey mustn't happen. That is barbarism and lawlessness, basically.

Yes, a bad king can also mean abuse of power, but it won't mean trouble for a majority of the population. Unlike with there being potentially thousands of corrupt, cruel, and evil lords out there.

We get George's vision of the ideal ruler in FaB - Jaehaerys I. A man with the power to crush his enemies and the ability to keep his lords in line without feeling the need to abuse his powers.

That much is true.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And I don't have any issue with that - just as I don't have problems when Cersei is compared to a lioness, Ned claims his brother, sister, and daughter have 'wolf's blood', Sandor Clegane being proud of being a dog, etc.

 

To me, Cersei being compared to lioness is delusional. As for Ned, he is describing a psychological characteristic with the term - much like Daenerys is in the example.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Dany's rule over Meereen has nothing to do with 'customs'. It has to do with there being terrorist in the city who murder with impunity and she doesn't have the means to capture them without hurting bystanders. I mean, that's pretty much Northern Ireland with Dany being the British oppressors and the IRA the slavers - with the exception that Dany does only oppresses people who deserve it whereas the slavers have no right to murder people with impunity.

The idea that any state would suffer this kind of terrorism - especially in this world - makes no sense.

I'm not saying she should tolerate terrorists. But how can you rule people if you don't understand them, much less if you despise them?

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Aegon ruled with an iron fist, not with diplomacy. And neither did Jaehaerys I for that matter. He could afford to be nice because he was riding Vermithor and people couldn't say no to him.

 

If Aegon I truly ruled with iron fist, one would expect he wouldn't have left most of old families in power. Not Starks, not Lannisters... nor would he have had his friend marry a Durrandon.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Dany's rule over Meereen has nothing to do with 'customs'. It has to do with there being terrorist in the city who murder with impunity and she doesn't have the means to capture them without hurting bystanders. I mean, that's pretty much Northern Ireland with Dany being the British oppressors and the IRA the slavers - with the exception that Dany does only oppresses people who deserve it whereas the slavers have no right to murder people with impunity.

The idea that any state would suffer this kind of terrorism - especially in this world - makes no sense.

We know that as readers. But try to consider the characters' perspective. GC's staff were getting impatient, and as far as they know Daenerys had given up on coming West and decided to rule Meereen.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The One Ring isn't a reward, it is an instrument of power and oppression and inherently evil because it was created by the Devil's lieutenant. It is something that cannot be used for good even if the people who are using it are good and want to do good.

The conception as such silly because if I want to do good then I do good, no matter what I use to accomplish it.

The Iron Throne is just a throne. It has no metaphysical or magical properties and doesn't symbolize a world view.

It presents itself as a reward.

No, Iron Throne does not have metaphysical or magical properties. But it still represents concentrated power. One Ring is does not mind-control person; it merely convinces them that by using it, they will gain power to achieve their goals. That is no different from IT.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

None of Aragorn's choices make him a good king, though. Resisting the Ring, helping Frodo, waiting for his throne doesn't make him a good king. One can perhaps say it makes him a good guy, but there are many other good guys in the story - many other people resist the Ring and are good, yet that doesn't make them kings. Only royal ancestry, magical blood, healing hands, special palantír control, and an Angel of the Lord make kings in Tolkien's world (Faramir does the same thing as Aragorn, all things considered, yet he lacks the blood and magical powers to be king). There is no indication that something like upbringing figured into Aragorn being a good king - how could Elrond possibly teach Aragorn to rule a vast empire when he was ruling over a couple of dozen people in the middle of nowhere?

1) Elrond was raised by Maglor, who by that point already had some 450 years of experience in ruling

2) Elrond served as Gil-Galad's captain from possibly start of Second Age to its end in 3441 (when Gil-Galad died), and led armies against Sauron at least in 1697 and during Last Alliance.

3) Elrond ruled Rivendell from SA 1695 onwards. And while Rivendell by the end of Third Age only had couple hundred inhabitants, this was not always so. Rivendell was large enough kingdom to field army in the Last Alliance, and also send an army to assist Earnil and Cirdan in destroying the host of Angmar. This war in TA 1975 was the last time Rivendell fielded an army. Overall, Rivendell was a major military power for some 3 721 years (and definitely longer than that, since it did not depopulate immediately after war against Angmar). Your classification of it as "couple of dozen people in the middle of nowhere" ignores vast majority of Rivendell's history.

Regarding Aragorn, these choices do show that he is capable of prioritization, at the very least. He also did command armies of Gondor and Rohan both as Thorongil. And it is true that Faramir does the same things as Aragorn.

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is pretty much a non-argument. Giant wealth, an inherited army or crown also give you great power and nobody can foresee how his grandchildren or great-grandchildren deal with the kind of power they inherit.

We have just a difference in degree here, not a difference of principle. Dragons give you more power than just armies and money, but they don't give you a different kind of power. And, in fact, George never paints it as if dragons really give you a different set of power.

I mean, I recall how I imagined the Targaryen dragon days before we got TPatQ. I thought we would have a completely different system of government where there were the king and the queen at the top, and the dragonriders as a sort of extended ruling body between the king and his government, meaning the council and the officials and the lord would not only have to report to the king but to (the dragonriders of) House Targaryen collectively, with the king being the guy leading this clan of powerful rulers. We would have a situation where the king had to rule by consensus and had to ensure that his dragonriding family members would be on board with major decisions to prevent them from using their dragons against him.

That would be a system where the special status and power that comes with being a dragonrider would have been adequately depcited. Instead, we got the hilarious thing that the most powerful Targaryen king ever - Viserys I - wasn't even a dragonrider yet we have to believe that he could rule over and keep dragonriders in check. Which, from a realistic point of view, is ludicrous.

But it certainly confirms that George actually thinks a guy with a crown and the authority to assemble armies has more power than the people who control Vhagar and Caraxes and Syrax and Meleys, etc. In fact, he even thinks such people can sideline and exile such dragonriders rather easily (also seen with King Aenys pushing Maegor into exile, never mind that Quicksilver wasn't impressive compared to Balerion, and Visenya/Vhagar were on Maegor's side in the entire affair).

Crown alone does not guarantee anything, while army depends on vassals' loyalty - and thus is something of a guarantee of basic competence. Dragons have no such restriction.

Maegor eventually took the crown and ruled as a tyrant - all thanks to his possession of Balerion.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

 

It is not a question of what, it is a question of how and what consequences. I would have no problem with Daenerys forcing Masters to let all the slaves go - provided that she actually went to the end, and also forced them to pay slaves (with money or land) for the work they had done so far.

But one way or another, I definitely do not support mass executions without trial. No matter the cause.

1) Again, crucifixion is not something which can be done straight away. She had time to reconsider.

2) Crucifixion is literally meant to torture. When you hang or behead someone, torture can happen as a side-effect - but purpose is execution, not torture. With crucifixion, torture is the purpose of execution.

Stop getting off-rails. Again, it is not a question of killing or not killing Great Masters. It is a question of how she did it.

First, it was essentialy a judicial decision. If Daenerys truly is a great reformist she is presented as, she should have given them a court of law - if even just a Kangaroo one. We don't see that.

Second, manner of execution. She executed them in literally the cruelest way possible. What do you know about how person dies on a cross?

 

But ignoring that, how can we know her dragons will not be much of a military asset? If they won't be, won't that make her pointless as Az

Daenerys did not round up 163 people at random and crucify them for shit and giggles. There's nothing random about this.  It was not slaves, or freedmen, or the Smallfolk, or women or children who died on the crosses. It was adult male members of the elite ("your leaders").  That elite is collectively guilty for the crimes which that elite carries out.  These people (and the elite of Astapor) were not a group of innocent bystanders who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She imposed upon them exactly the same fate that they imposed upon slave children.  Had the Great Masters hanged or beheaded the children, they would have been hanged or beheaded in turn.  I really don't understand why the deaths of the slave children keep getting handwaved, when discussing the fate of the Great Masters. 

                 "No, Iron Throne does not have metaphysical or magical properties. But it still represents concentrated  

                   power. One Ring is does not mind-control person; it merely convinces them that by using it, they will gain

                   power to achieve their goals. That is no different from IT"

It's very different.  The Ring is sentient.  While it can be (for a time) be controlled by people other than Sauron, it yearns to return to his hand.  We even hear the Ring speak, at one point.  A great being, like a Maia, or leader of the Eldar, can use the Ring to master Sauron, but will be turned into a replica of Sauron in due course.  People of lesser power will just become enslaved by Sauron if they try to use the Ring.

That is very different to the Iron Throne.  There have been corrupt people who sit atop it, and there have been decent people.  But no one is corrupted by it.  Once people sit it, they reveal what they are.