What were Dany's biggest mistakes in Slaver's Bay

[SeanF]

11 hours ago, Nevets said:

163 masters:  This event really poisoned the well for her relationship with the slavers.  I would guess that many of those chosen had little or nothing to do with the atrocities Daenerys was punishing, and their families are going to hate her for what they likiely feel is unfair treatment.  Much better to find out who is really responsible, and punish them.  All this did was get things started out on a bad footing.

 

 

163 children did not nail themselves to crosses. If you are a leader in a slave society, you have everything to do with it.  If you're looking for innocent slave-drivers, you will be looking a very long time.

The reason that they hate her is because they do not consider the murder of slave children as a crime - they don't recognise them as human beings.  Not, that they didn't do it.  Nobody says "Well, X had nothing to do with it."

If you're searching for those who are "really responsible" you'll be nailing up a lot more than 163.

[frenin]

5 hours ago, Rose of Red Lake said:

Also every single person in the same social class ordering child crucifixions is so cartoonishly evil

I mean... Isn't Slavers Bay cartoonishly evil??

 

[SeanF]

39 minutes ago, frenin said:

I mean... Isn't Slavers Bay cartoonishly evil??

 

There's not a lot of nuance in the depiction of the Good/Wise/Great Masters.  They look just as bad through the eyes of Tyrion, Quentyn,  Barristan and Maester Yandel, as through the eyes of Daenerys.  There's nothing to suggest they're just misunderstood or have different values.  Tolkien's orcs are depicted more sympathetically.  It's like searching for the good points in Vargo Hoat or Ramsay Bolton.

[El Guapo]

She didn't give the slavers enough fire and blood. Thankfully the last chapter in ADWD she remembers who she is and her house words.  She will not that mistake again going forward.

[Wall Flower]

5 hours ago, SeanF said:

There's not a lot of nuance in the depiction of the Good/Wise/Great Masters.  They look just as bad through the eyes of Tyrion, Quentyn,  Barristan and Maester Yandel, as through the eyes of Daenerys.  There's nothing to suggest they're just misunderstood or have different values.  Tolkien's orcs are depicted more sympathetically.  It's like searching for the good points in Vargo Hoat or Ramsay Bolton.

I hated the show's Not all Slavers approach so much that I've come to appreciate the depiction of the slavers a bit more. The author is not giving us any room to think of slavers as good guys. I do think that the Green Grace is an interesting villain, with some subtlety.

[Only 89 selfies today]

She didn't kill enough of the masters.  She should have killed the cupbearers.  The end will justify the means. 

[broken one]

18 hours ago, SeanF said:

The reason that they hate her is because they do not consider the murder of slave children as a crime - they don't recognise them as human beings. 

This is why the punishment is incomprehensible. Why were they punished for sth absolutely normal? Plus number of the punished - the scale only increased hostility and caused resistance. In her place I would have found the directly responsible for the deed ( a few goverment/council members) and punished them... not for torturing and killing children (wtf?) but for insulting me. Me - the godlike Targaryen. Even letting them get away with it completely would have been wiser than what she had done. There must be some moment zero from which new order applies.

Utter extermination of the slavers class also would have beed wiser than the 163. Short sighted but safer.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, broken one said:

This is why the punishment is incomprehensible. Why were they punished for sth absolutely normal? Plus number of the punished - the scale only increased hostility and caused resistance. In her place I would have found the directly responsible for the deed ( a few goverment/council members) and punished them... not for torturing and killing children (wtf?) but for insulting me. Me - the godlike Targaryen. Even letting them get away with it completely would have been wiser than what she had done. There must be some moment zero from which new order applies.

Utter extermination of the slavers class also would have beed wiser than the 163. Short sighted but safer.

I think it's important to see it from the slaves' point of view, rather than the slavers' .  They would see it as establishing that a slave's life was worth exactly the same as the life of a great master. 

 

12 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

I hated the show's Not all Slavers approach so much that I've come to appreciate the depiction of the slavers a bit more. The author is not giving us any room to think of slavers as good guys. I do think that the Green Grace is an interesting villain, with some subtlety.

D & D had a political point to make, for sure.  No wonder they wished to produce Confederate.  Given the current state of political debate,, it's probably just as well that Martin depicted the slavers as he did.

[Bowen Marsh]

13 hours ago, Wall Flower said:

I hated the show's Not all Slavers approach so much that I've come to appreciate the depiction of the slavers a bit more. The author is not giving us any room to think of slavers as good guys. I do think that the Green Grace is an interesting villain, with some subtlety.

The show,and the reason why I cancelled my hbo subscription, was partial towards the slavers.  I am a Targaryen fan and really disliked the direction that hbo took the story. 

[Bowen Marsh]

In any case, what is happening in slaver's bay is to be expected given that the masters are keen on getting their "property" back.  I am not one to advocate for the killing of an entire class of people but I might consider taking away all of their property, which is ill-gotten to start with, and distributing it to the slaves.  I would separate the masters' parents from children, and disperse them throughout the world.  Let them make their own way and start from nothing.  Many will die and become victims of people like the ironborn and the Dothraki but many others will build new ways of life.  Scattering them will destroy their culture for the good.  You can destroy the culture without killing them all.  No doubt many will make it slaver cities like Volantis but they get there penniless.  Give the green light to the widow of the docks to gather the slaves and Volantis will rise for the slaves. 

There are resources available at Slaver's Bay.  This is not the north that we are talking about.  Fishing is available to anybody who can work on a boat.  The Skahazadhan is a river which waters the land.  The foundations are there to build an economic system.  But that will be hard to accomplish until all of the Harpies are dead.  I believe Daenerys can win over the majority of the Meereenese.  But not the Harpies.  Those have to be brought out and exposed, and executed.  I believe in accomodating differences in culture and customs, but those who want to undermine the reforms cannot be tolerated.

[Bowen Marsh]

On 9/7/2020 at 9:31 PM, Moiraine Sedai said:

Americans were killing Americans during the Civil War. Many must have questioned the value of what they were doing at the time. Today, we all know it was worth it.  I see Meereen in the same way.  Worth it.

[The Commentator]

On 9/7/2020 at 2:31 PM, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So it's fairly obvious that Dany's campaign in Slaver's Bay has not gone that well. Personally I would say her biggest running mistake is treating the slavers at int eh worst possible way, letting them retain a lot of power, but royally pissing them off. Like she could try either appeasing them or going for the full Iron Boot on them, both of which would be more effective then what she did in ADWD. So what do you think, what were her biggest mistakes?

Slaver's Bay is a work-in-progress.  It is way too soon to make any judgments on the outcome.  The Civil War lasted for years.  Daenerys Targaryen will put an awesome team together to help her manage the transition from slavery to freedom on such a grand scale.  And locking up the two smaller dragons probably saved their lives.  

I do not believe Daenerys made any mistake.  She is gaining a lot of very valuable experience here.  Experience, not books, is the best teacher.  Don't misunderstand me.  Books are useful.  Especially history books.  But it is experience which is most valuable in learning.  I do not think she will make the same mistake made by Robb Stark.  Which is to alienate the support base and foundation of power.  She has more maturity and discipline than he did.  

Marrying Quentyn would have been a terrible idea.  Q-man was not up to the game.  He had too many daddy issues to be his own man.  

[Sir Tumbleweed]

I think it was a mistake not to question Hizdahrs 90 days of peace. If he has the power to stop the killings it seems to me that he was involved with them from the start.

[GoldenGail3]

1. Remaining in Slavers Bay and ruling over Mereen

2. NOT GOING TO WESTEROS EVEN THOUGH BOTH BARRISTAN AND JORAH TOLD HER TO GO!

[frenin]

15 hours ago, broken one said:

This is why the punishment is incomprehensible. Why were they punished for sth absolutely normal?

Because it's not absolutely normal. That slaves's lives don't mean shit to them, doesn't mean that they don't know that it means somehting for Dany. Why do you think children were chosen??

 

 

15 hours ago, broken one said:

lus number of the punished - the scale only increased hostility and caused resistance.

How so?? Can you tell me where is the correlation?? Because no matter how many times people keep repeating this, it's still a text book Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

 

 

15 hours ago, broken one said:

In her place I would have found the directly responsible for the deed ( a few goverment/council members) and punished them...

How do you know they were a few?? 

 

 

15 hours ago, broken one said:

ot for torturing and killing children (wtf?) but for insulting me. Me - the godlike Targaryen.

What??

 

 

15 hours ago, broken one said:

There must be some moment zero from which new order applies.

There was, after the nailings, Dany pardoned past crimes of the slavers and refused to judge them on the grounds that it had happened before the fall of Meereen.

[Makk]

I think her biggest mistake was compromising too much in the pursuit of peace. Even after she got everything she wanted she was not happy with it. And of course trusting the Shavepate too much. But in general I thought she did a very good job under very difficult circumstances, much better than what people generally think.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

6 hours ago, frenin said:

22 hours ago, broken one said:

lus number of the punished - the scale only increased hostility and caused resistance.

How so?? Can you tell me where is the correlation?? Because no matter how many times people keep repeating this, it's still a text book Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I think the numbers are irrelevant. The problem was the whole vindictive nature of the deed. Was the crucifixion of the children a horrid crime? Yes. But she should have crucified those guilty. That would have been justice, and made the point that she's tough but reasonable. Taking 163 people at random just made her look like a tyrant.

[Hodor the Articulate]

3 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

I think the numbers are irrelevant. The problem was the whole vindictive nature of the deed. Was the crucifixion of the children a horrid crime? Yes. But she should have crucified those guilty. That would have been justice, and made the point that she's tough but reasonable. Taking 163 people at random just made her look like a tyrant.

As has been said by multiple posters already, there was nothing random about it. She asked for 163 leaders to be turned over. They were guilty.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

As has been said by multiple posters already, there was nothing random about it. She asked for 163 leaders to be turned over. They were guilty.

 

The crucifixion of the children was not a deed that was perpetrated in secret by some small cadre, or carried out by brutal underlings acting without orders.  It was a deliberate, open, gesture of defiance, which could only have been planned at a high level.

If there were Great Masters who stuck up for the rights of slave children, I think Martin would have said so in the text.

[frenin]

3 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

I think the numbers are irrelevant. The problem was the whole vindictive nature of the deed. Was the crucifixion of the children a horrid crime? Yes. But she should have crucified those guilty. That would have been justice, and made the point that she's tough but reasonable. Taking 163 people at random just made her look like a tyrant.

Since I'm young enough to have been almost a baby when ASOS came out i don't know when this "Not all the Masters" nonsense but i do feel that it was way before the show took it as its own. 

There is absolutely no reason to believe one of those slavers were innocent. She went after the leaders, not the average master.

Spoiler