If not Dany, then who?

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Not really. Tyrion lacks Aegon IV's petty cruelty and power hungry dickishness. He also isn't a retard that would delegitimize his own heir through rumors and legitimize all his bastards.

I'd say there's a lot of petty cruelty and dickishness in Tyrion.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I'd say there's a lot of petty cruelty and dickishness in Tyrion.

Tyrion is never cruel for the sake of being cruel, and I didn't say about dickishness overall, just power hungry dickishness

[Eltharion21]

On 12/24/2020 at 11:46 AM, Mystical said:

If not Dany, then who?

There's the big mistake right there. One ring...person to rule them all hasn't worked out so great for the continent, now has it? It's one of the many reasons why I side-eye GRRM's ending of King Bran. Part of his story is showing that absolute rule by one person is a bad thing. To me it doesn't even matter who sits on a throne at the end, the story is IMO a failure if it ends with the one ring...person to rule them all.

What is alternative, separate Kingdoms ? You can see how much devastation and wars happened before the Aegon's Conquest if you look history of the realm in The World of Ice and Fire.

Maybe better alternative is building on institution of Great Council and creating deterrents for power of the King/Queen and his potential misbehavior, yet technology or society would need to advance a bit. 

Just look our human society, only 75 years ago was WW II with 70-85 million casualties. League of Nations was fruitless as a tool for peace, nowadays mostly Nuclear deterrent is holding mass conventional wars in check.

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, Eltharion21 said:

What is alternative, separate Kingdoms ? You can see how much devastation and wars happened before the Aegon's Conquest if you look history of the realm in The World of Ice and Fire.

Maybe better alternative is building on institution of Great Council and creating deterrents for power of the King/Queen and his potential misbehavior, yet technology or society would need to advance a bit. 

Just look our human society, only 75 years ago was WW II with 70-85 million casualties. League of Nations was fruitless as a tool for peace, nowadays mostly Nuclear deterrent is holding mass conventional wars in check.

Best alternative would be something akin to Holy Roman Empire.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

6 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Best alternative would be something akin to Holy Roman Empire.

Hell no. Especially with the Sparrows and the Old Gods, we'd have the 30 years war come again in no time at all.

The best solution would be post English civil war style constitutional monarchy.

The second best solution would be royal absolutism.

[Aldarion]

3 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Hell no. Especially with the Sparrows and the Old Gods, we'd have the 30 years war come again in no time at all.

The best solution would be post English civil war style constitutional monarchy.

The second best solution would be royal absolutism.

30 Years War was a consequence of Emperors attempting to impose Catholic absolutism, and other powers attempting to use this to their own advantage. But geography of Westeros makes any attempts at religious absolutism basically impossible (it is too large for one), and there are no other powers to excarbate the tensions.

[CamiloRP]

6 hours ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Tyrion is never cruel for the sake of being cruel

sure he is, he threatens a woman with murdering her just to make her suffer for looking at him with disgust.

 

[SeanF]

27 minutes ago, CamiloRP said:

sure he is, he threatens a woman with murdering her just to make her suffer for looking at him with disgust.

 

Tyrion reacts very badly towards women who mock him or reject him.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

12 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Tyrion reacts very badly towards women who mock him or reject him.

Only in ADWD. Tyrion before has lived his whole live with women mocking and rejecting him, and has become quite jaded in that. However as we see in ASOS that wound never truly healed, and when the faintest glimmer of hope comes along, be it Shae or Sansa he jumps at it desperate for some affection. So by the end, that long scarred over wound, breaks open again.

[Rose of Red Lake]

39 minutes ago, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Only in ADWD. Tyrion before has lived his whole live with women mocking and rejecting him, and has become quite jaded in that. However as we see in ASOS that wound never truly healed, and when the faintest glimmer of hope comes along, be it Shae or Sansa he jumps at it desperate for some affection. So by the end, that long scarred over wound, breaks open again.

I think after being mocked all over Essos for capering around in chains he will be able to handle it better, but he's always going to fit that very particular niche of "good ruler bad person" which makes me roll my eyes.

[broken one]

1 hour ago, CamiloRP said:

sure he is, he threatens a woman with murdering her just to make her suffer for looking at him with disgust.

 

this is cruel, true, but I can see a mitigating factor - total collapse of his world. and the hangover of his life. another one, actually.

[Monster_Under_the_Bed]

On 12/24/2020 at 11:46 AM, Mystical said:

If not Dany, then who?

There's the big mistake right there. One ring...person to rule them all hasn't worked out so great for the continent, now has it? It's one of the many reasons why I side-eye GRRM's ending of King Bran. Part of his story is showing that absolute rule by one person is a bad thing. To me it doesn't even matter who sits on a throne at the end, the story is IMO a failure if it ends with the one ring...person to rule them all.

I suppose it's a big part of what the story teaches, that absolute rule by one person is extremely dangerous and almost always ends badly. Even if by some chance the current king happens to be benevolent, odds are that the next one will not be so. At the same time, not much can be changed in the world that we see. It's not a society ready for any complex form of government.

There is some democracy at play when choosing the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, as brothers actually vote to elect a new leader, but there is no thought that something similar could extend to the entire land. No practical possibility either. The next logical step would be a monarch elected by the nobility and perhaps he would have powers curtailed by his small council as some form of proto-checks and balances. It would be a small step, but a step forward nonetheless.

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Monster_Under_the_Bed said:

I suppose it's a big part of what the story teaches, that absolute rule by one person is extremely dangerous and almost always ends badly. Even if by some chance the current king happens to be benevolent, odds are that the next one will not be so. At the same time, not much can be changed in the world that we see. It's not a society ready for any complex form of government.

There is some democracy at play when choosing the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, as brothers actually vote to elect a new leader, but there is no thought that something similar could extend to the entire land. No practical possibility either. The next logical step would be a monarch elected by the nobility and perhaps he would have powers curtailed by his small council as some form of proto-checks and balances. It would be a small step, but a step forward nonetheless.

 

6 minutes ago, Monster_Under_the_Bed said:

I suppose it's a big part of what the story teaches, that absolute rule by one person is extremely dangerous and almost always ends badly. Even if by some chance the current king happens to be benevolent, odds are that the next one will not be so. At the same time, not much can be changed in the world that we see. It's not a society ready for any complex form of government.

There is some democracy at play when choosing the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, as brothers actually vote to elect a new leader, but there is no thought that something similar could extend to the entire land. No practical possibility either. The next logical step would be a monarch elected by the nobility and perhaps he would have powers curtailed by his small council as some form of proto-checks and balances. It would be a small step, but a step forward nonetheless.

The best realistic outcome is perhaps introducing Diets/Estates/councils that represent the commons.

[broken one]

12 minutes ago, Monster_Under_the_Bed said:

 monarch elected by the nobility

I would not recommend it XD

Elected by the great lords, maybe.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

2 minutes ago, broken one said:

Elected by the great lords, maybe.

Even worse. Going form elected by the nobility at large to the great lords is going from the eventual trainwreck of the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth to the dumpster fire of the Holy Roman Empire.

[broken one]

Just now, Alyn Oakenfist said:

Even worse. Going form elected by the nobility at large to the great lords is going from the eventual trainwreck of the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth to the dumpster fire of the Holy Roman Empire.

give me the dampster.

but seriously, towns/cities seem to play marginal role in political life of westeros, not to mention peasantry. where is the economic or military power that could make the councils and estates appear? Cannot see it for now.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

7 minutes ago, broken one said:

give me the dampster.

but seriously, towns/cities seem to play marginal role in political life of westeros, not to mention peasantry. where is the economic or military power that could make the councils and estates appear? Cannot see it for now.

Yeah, continental style balance of powers is not happening in Westeros. The English half absolutism half constitutional solution could still work

[Amris]

On 12/29/2020 at 7:45 AM, Aldarion said:

[snip]

No, he isn't. That is just how he comes off in Lord of the Rings because we don't see his side of the story. But Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales show him to be a rather complex, and I'd argue actually tragic, character. He meant to do good, but because he had no understanding of God's plan and no belief in his creation's ability to govern itself, he strayed into doing evil.

Ironic perhaps that many Daenerys supporters (or rather, dragon-totting-ruler-supporters in general) actually use the exact same arguments Sauron would use.

And that is one of the interesting things of the Daenerys arc to me: that it tells us something about us. Us readers.

How far are we willing to accompany Dany? Which excuses are we willing to accept? Is there a point when we say - no, I can't go there with you? Or will we accept everything she does?

Sometimes I wonder if we are part of a new Milgram Experiment. (That was the guy who famously tested how far people are willing to go to torture others if only an authority figure tells them to.)

It is of course possible that Dany will stay away from giant atrocities and actually offer a viable alternative to the current management in KL. Even in that case the question remains: where do I personally draw the line? What can be accepted for the 'higher cause' even if I dislike it? And that I am willing to accept it: what does that say about me?

[broken one]

Where do you people take the visions of Dany the Pol Pot from? Am I blind? This is fascinating.

[Nathan Stark]

34 minutes ago, Amris said:

And that is one of the interesting things of the Daenerys arc to me: that it tells us something about us. Us readers.

How far are we willing to accompany Dany? Which excuses are we willing to accept? Is there a point when we say - no, I can't go there with you? Or will we accept everything she does?

Sometimes I wonder if we are part of a new Milgram Experiment. (That was the guy who famously tested how far people are willing to go to torture others if only an authority figure tells them to.)

It is of course possible that Dany will stay away from giant atrocities and actually offer a viable alternative to the current management in KL. Even in that case the question remains: where do I personally draw the line? What can be accepted for the 'higher cause' even if I dislike it? And that I am willing to accept it: what does that say about me?

I am familiar with the Milgram experiment. I have to say I don't see the connection here. How far are we willing to accompany Dany on her quest to liberate people from slavery? I'm with her all the way on that one. I don't think there's a way you can turn eliminating slavery into a bad thing. Dumb and Dumber tried, not particularly well. The basic argument I'm reading here is that Dany doing bad things to slave masters makes Dany a bad person. There's more nuance than that.

Dany's crimes, such that they are, come about by not thinking through all of the consequences of her actions. The "Great and Wise" Masters crimes come about through centuries of dehumanizing people and tortuturing people because Ghiscari "culture" says it's okay. Dany wants to put an end to slavery and free people from bondage, while the Masters want the freedom to watch bears devour children. I think on the scale of people who do bad things, Dany comes off relatively light here.