Why Mad Queen Dany is a terrible idea

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 hour ago, butterweedstrover said:

In the books she never crucifies the wise masters

I'm sorry, have you read the books. As we don't see the actual sack, yes we don't see hear crucifying them, but we see her recollecting about it at the end of ASOS.

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Isn't that like one of the most universally accepted facts about TWOW?

I’m sure he’ll have a honeymoon period, but Jon Con and the Sand Snakes won’t be taking prisoners.

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

I'm sorry, have you read the books. As we don't see the actual sack, yes we don't see hear crucifying them, but we see her recollecting about it at the end of ASOS.

Great Masters.  

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

I’m sure he’ll have a honeymoon period, but Jon Con and the Sand Snakes won’t be taking prisoners.

So what? Tywin did far worse and never had any problems for it.

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

So what? Tywin did far worse and never had any problems for it.

If say, they kill Tommen and Margaery, I expect their popularity would take a nosedive. 

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

If say, they kill Tommen and Margaery, I expect their popularity would take a nosedive. 

Not if the Faith declared them bastards. And they will

[Nathan Stark]

Well, I'm not gonna pin the riot in KL on Tyrion because he didn't cause any of the problems people were angry about. The smallfolk did, however, primarily blame Tyrion for their situation. Aegon the Unconvincing might start out hugely popular, but there are a multitude of ways for him or his handlers to botch that situation completely. Nothing is settled.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 minute ago, Nathan Stark said:

but there are a multitude of ways for him or his handlers to botch that situation completely. Nothing is settled.

And there are countless in which it will be just fine, until Dany comes round. The whole point of Aegon disapers if he isn't a just ruler. Remember the people are happy towards the mummer's dragon int he prophecy. The point will be that Dany will be in the wrong on this one.

[Nathan Stark]

We'll have to wait for TWOW to be completely sure what the point is. But so far it seems to me that Aegon is being set up to fail spectacularly. I wonder if he will be blamed for the looming greyscale pandemic, for instance. George never makes things as simple as what you are laying out here.

[butterweedstrover]

2 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

I'm sorry, have you read the books. As we don't see the actual sack, yes we don't see hear crucifying them, but we see her recollecting about it at the end of ASOS.

In Astapor?

[Trigger Warning]

2 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Isn't that like one of the most universally accepted facts about TWOW?

I mean more about Aegon actually being a genuinely positive influence on the Kingdom before being destroyed, not just that they'll fight or that he'll be popular. 

[Alyn Oakenfist]

1 hour ago, butterweedstrover said:

3 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

I'm sorry, have you read the books. As we don't see the actual sack, yes we don't see hear crucifying them, but we see her recollecting about it at the end of ASOS.

In Astapor?

In Mereen. The last Dany chapter before the storming of Mereen ends as she realizes she can send Barry and Jorah into the sewers and the next is several days later after she has taken the city and crucified the Maesters.

[butterweedstrover]

19 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

In Mereen. The last Dany chapter before the storming of Mereen ends as she realizes she can send Barry and Jorah into the sewers and the next is several days later after she has taken the city and crucified the Maesters.

huh. I completely forgot about that. 

The Wise Masters in ADWD seem to have certain freedoms and a right to their own pyramids. Was it only the worst of the slavers? 

I reread books four and five, and I'm finishing up book 1. I still have a Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords to reread so my memory is not that great. 

[Azarial]

6 hours ago, James Steller said:

The fact that GRRM is writing as a series of unreliable narrators does make it a bit understandable that he goes on about eugenics. It’s a historical philosophy which we have thankfully moved away from. The mysteriousness of magic and how it’s supposed to work gives one the benefit of the doubt.

 

6 hours ago, Trigger Warning said:

I don't think she's going to go "crazy" so much as she's going to do bad things thinking she's justified. My personal pet theory is that Aegon's going to take the throne whilst being a pretender and basically be a good king before Dany comes in and annihilates him for the sake of her birthright renewing the cycle of war and destruction. 

I agree with both of these. 

I don't think the coin flip thing in regards to Targaryens is supposed to be literal, it's just a saying and hints at how the public could view Aegon vs Dany. We are only told of a couple truly mad Targaryens, and even then only Rheagal really seems mad in the traditional sense, though harmless and maybe Aerion, though I suspect psychopathic more than mad in his case. I don't think Aerys was mad, I think he had post traumatic stress that Varys used to manipulate him, combined with visions (that turned out to be true! He was killed by a lion with a golden blade, and he was taken down by the very families he was suspicious of) And that's the point. She may be ruthless, but sane and some in world may view her as mad. Just like Cersei is viewed as sane when we all know she's not. It's not about what is true, it's about what others in world perceive to be true. And the stories of Dany in Westeros so far aren't great. Aegon has no stories of him in Westeros, no dark perceptions that need to be corrected. He has people of power backing him and verifying his claim. So if she comes out and says he's a fake, Vary's and co could spin it as she's mad. Facts are irrelevant. and Cersei being mad but perceived as sane and Dany being portrayed to the public as mad while actually being sane aren't the same thing, they are inverse parallels.  Why when GRRM has played with perception vs reality from the prologue do people think that any issues with Dany's image in Westeros will be literal and true? That's absurd.

Her doing things she believes are right, that the Aegon camp tells the small folk, and lords indicate that she is mad is far more interesting than her really being mad. It builds sympathy for her with readers, that madness would fail to do. Only 2-3 hacks would ever do that!

[Trigger Warning]

22 minutes ago, butterweedstrover said:

huh. I completely forgot about that. 

The Wise Masters in ADWD seem to have certain freedoms and a right to their own pyramids. Was it only the worst of the slavers? 

I reread books four and five, and I'm finishing up book 1. I still have a Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords to reread so my memory is not that great. 

The slavers gave up their own so more likely than not it was the least influential offered up as scapegoats. 

[Rose of Red Lake]

23 hours ago, James Steller said:

The fact that GRRM is writing as a series of unreliable narrators does make it a bit understandable that he goes on about eugenics. It’s a historical philosophy which we have thankfully moved away from. The mysteriousness of magic and how it’s supposed to work gives one the benefit of the doubt.

It seemed like he used eugenic logic to make his characterizations of the Targaryens as somewhere between great and mad. It wasn't necessarily about magic when he talked about Baelor or Daeron, for instance.

[Trigger Warning]

On 9/27/2020 at 5:36 PM, James Steller said:

The fact that GRRM is writing as a series of unreliable narrators does make it a bit understandable that he goes on about eugenics. It’s a historical philosophy which we have thankfully moved away from. The mysteriousness of magic and how it’s supposed to work gives one the benefit of the doubt.

In addition to this I'd say it's a pretty disingenuous to use eugenics to describe selective breeding at this technological level. Humans can simply observe the typical results of selective breeding, which is the basis of eugenics and has been practised for thousands of years but the word "eugenics" is very much rooted in the theories of the 20th century that were used to justify mass human rights abuses and steeped in racism and exclusionary cultural opinions on what is superior and what is inferior. 

But at the same time selective breeding can have the desired results so it's not strange that it's part of culture in ASOIAF. People at this technological level aren't thinking of all the potential biological complications and ethical concerns of eugenics, just the culturally desirable traits it can produce which is an observable reality of selective breeding. 

Advising people with recessive genetic disorders not to have children together is technically eugenics but I wouldn't want to apply that label to it, 

[SeanF]

18 hours ago, Azarial said:

 

I agree with both of these. 

I don't think the coin flip thing in regards to Targaryens is supposed to be literal, it's just a saying and hints at how the public could view Aegon vs Dany. We are only told of a couple truly mad Targaryens, and even then only Rheagal really seems mad in the traditional sense, though harmless and maybe Aerion, though I suspect psychopathic more than mad in his case. I don't think Aerys was mad, I think he had post traumatic stress that Varys used to manipulate him, combined with visions (that turned out to be true! He was killed by a lion with a golden blade, and he was taken down by the very families he was suspicious of) And that's the point. She may be ruthless, but sane and some in world may view her as mad. Just like Cersei is viewed as sane when we all know she's not. It's not about what is true, it's about what others in world perceive to be true. And the stories of Dany in Westeros so far aren't great. Aegon has no stories of him in Westeros, no dark perceptions that need to be corrected. He has people of power backing him and verifying his claim. So if she comes out and says he's a fake, Vary's and co could spin it as she's mad. Facts are irrelevant. and Cersei being mad but perceived as sane and Dany being portrayed to the public as mad while actually being sane aren't the same thing, they are inverse parallels.  Why when GRRM has played with perception vs reality from the prologue do people think that any issues with Dany's image in Westeros will be literal and true? That's absurd.

Her doing things she believes are right, that the Aegon camp tells the small folk, and lords indicate that she is mad is far more interesting than her really being mad. It builds sympathy for her with readers, that madness would fail to do. Only 2-3 hacks would ever do that!

Killing slavers won't upset people in Westeros.  But, there probably will be an influx of upper class refugees from Volantis, Tyrosh, Pentos etc. bearing lurid tales of murder, rape and pillage.  

I expect the biggest propaganda weapon against her will be Arianne's claim that she murdered Viserys.

[Fool Stands On Giant’s Toe]

     If GRRM writes it, it won’t be bad. The series so far has had characters you rarely get emotionally attached to in any other book. For me it’s always felt like a documentary of real events. Hard to do in a fantasy world. 
     It saddened me to hear he made adjustments to his story based on people’s reaction to the final episode. Most likely the significance of the bells. I thought it was was terrific if you push the book into the show’s holes.
 

[Azarial]

40 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Killing slavers won't upset people in Westeros.  But, there probably will be an influx of upper class refugees from Volantis, Tyrosh, Pentos etc. bearing lurid tales of murder, rape and pillage.  

I expect the biggest propaganda weapon against her will be Arianne's claim that she murdered Viserys.

Seems plausible, I just know a few rumors have been mentioned in world, and they are not accurate to what happened, and aren't a positive portrayal. I'd have to do a re-read to remember exactly what they say but I believe promiscuity and feeding her dragons humans were two of them? I just know I read it and thought, oh that's not good.