Why do people hate essos?

[Arrow of the Morning]

I think you are generalizing a little bit. Not everybody hates Essos, there are plenty of readers who do enjoy it. However most people is more invested in Westeros, but I think the main gripe what is about Meeren.

In my case, despite Westeros being my favorite part I enjoyed Dany chapters in the first three books. But I couldn't stand Dany chapters or care abou the politics of Meeren. I didn't enjoy Quentyn's chapters either, but enjoyed Arya in Braavos and likee Tyrion chapters for the most part.

[Son of Man]

This is another disingenuous thread to encourage negative posts on Dany.  I have been visiting Westeros.org for years and the stunts employed by the Dany haters have never been effective at silencing her fans. It never will be.  

The scenes which take place in Essos and the story here, Essos, are the best in these books.  I am partial to these scenes, I know.  Anything like a plot orbiting around Dany, her Dragons, and Barristan are always the ones who make reading very rewarding.  It is those dreaded Sansa, Samwell, and Jon chapters which bring on the boredom.  

[Daendrew]

Westeros is medieval realpolitik, while Essos is sword and sorcery.

I am much more interested in realpolitik.

[Adam Targaryen]

On 5/4/2022 at 4:54 AM, Daendrew said:

Westeros is medieval realpolitik, while Essos is sword and sorcery.

I am much more interested in realpolitik.

I thank you for using the Old Tongue (AKA Swedish) in your post. As a Swede, it makes me glad to see.

[SeanF]

Westeros is more familiar, has multiple points of view, and makes more sense as a society. 

Most Eastern societies are grotesquely evil, and the Dothraki are a caricature of Mongols/Plains Indians.

As against that, I found Dany’s chapters prior to ADWD immense fun.  Much less so in ADWD, until Daznak’s Pit.  In effect that’s where her story picks up again, with the preceding chapters being mostly filler.  And her behaviour in those chapters, her strange passivity in the face of slaver aggression, seems oddly out of character.  The Dany of ASOS would have burned Yunkai to the ground, the moment she found out its leaders were moving against her.

Tyrion’s chapters could have been cut in half, giving us the conclusion to the Battle of Meereen.

[Vaegon the dragonless]

I would disagree that people hate Essos. That most people dont enjoy it as much as Westeros seem true. Everyone as its own reason but for me it is the world building.

Westeros makes some kind of sense, it has many flaws but it works as a fictionnal country, society, ect. It helps that all our POV are from Westeros and are of Westerosi culture (exept Areo).

Essos on the other hand seems to work only at the surface level. I do find the Far East of Essos interesting, Qarth, Yiti and Asshai but we know next to nothing of them exept for surface level stuff and rumors. The same goes for most of the Free City's we know they have they're own way of doing thing, they're own history but we do not know much, so again it is mainly surface level stuff. 

They're is kind of 3 exception tho, Braavos, the Dothraki and Slaver's Bay. Braavos we only see as the background for Arya training and it looks like it could work as a society, but even tho Arya is here, she is outside of the normal braavosi society so we only given surface level information about Braavos.

Where it begins to crumble for me is the Dothraki, they seem to be a monolith society, they do one thing and that is all. They raid, pillage and conquer but other than that they dont do much, they kind of work as a eastern threat but they're society outside of the Dosh Khaleen seem to just being violent raider's and have been since they arrived on the scene after the Doom 400 years ago. Even tho Dany stay's a whole book with them and continues to have dothraki supporter and calls herself Khaleesi we dont really know anything about Dothraki culture and she doesn't either.

Then for me comes the main problem, Slaver's Bay. It seem again like a monolith society, they are evil slaver's and that is all. Sure we gets some variations and the characters are actually interresting in the sense that they are character's. But once you go deeper than surface level it does not work. Slaver's Bay is suppose to be the center of Slave Trade for the whole world but it is not clear why, since the Dothraki who seem the main provider of slave can just sell them in the free city's that we know they visit. Outside of that they have nothing of note to offer. The region is quite desolate with scarcely anything that grows. They seem most likely self sufficient so I believe that wheat or other grains grow in the hinterlands, we are told that olive's also grow and grape but the wine they give is bad. Outside of that the whole region as nothing to offer other than slaves. And since the whole culture of Slaver's Bay is centered around slavery well once that is ended (a good thing) well the whole region as nothing to offer. 

The whole place seem only to exist to be a place that Dany can find a army, learn to rule or fail to do so and let her Dragon grow before she leaves for Westeros. But she now cant just really leave because what will happen when she leaves ? She detroyed the old slaver society but since that was all the region had, the whole bay most likely will just become a backwater or revert to they're old ways.

So to summarize, Essos seems to only work has a background place where you can just explain a whole society in a couple phrases and not think too much of it. But it crumbles as soon as you look too deep in to it. It also does not help that we only really have Dany there, people who dont like her or dont care for her have no reason to have any interrest in Essos. Even the people who like Dany can see Essos as just a place keeping her from Westeros, the center of the story.

[SeanF]

17 minutes ago, Vaegon the dragonless said:

I would disagree that people hate Essos. That most people dont enjoy it as much as Westeros seem true. Everyone as its own reason but for me it is the world building.

Westeros makes some kind of sense, it has many flaws but it works as a fictionnal country, society, ect. It helps that all our POV are from Westeros and are of Westerosi culture (exept Areo).

Essos on the other hand seems to work only at the surface level. I do find the Far East of Essos interesting, Qarth, Yiti and Asshai but we know next to nothing of them exept for surface level stuff and rumors. The same goes for most of the Free City's we know they have they're own way of doing thing, they're own history but we do not know much, so again it is mainly surface level stuff. 

They're is kind of 3 exception tho, Braavos, the Dothraki and Slaver's Bay. Braavos we only see as the background for Arya training and it looks like it could work as a society, but even tho Arya is here, she is outside of the normal braavosi society so we only given surface level information about Braavos.

Where it begins to crumble for me is the Dothraki, they seem to be a monolith society, they do one thing and that is all. They raid, pillage and conquer but other than that they dont do much, they kind of work as a eastern threat but they're society outside of the Dosh Khaleen seem to just being violent raider's and have been since they arrived on the scene after the Doom 400 years ago. Even tho Dany stay's a whole book with them and continues to have dothraki supporter and calls herself Khaleesi we dont really know anything about Dothraki culture and she doesn't either.

Then for me comes the main problem, Slaver's Bay. It seem again like a monolith society, they are evil slaver's and that is all. Sure we gets some variations and the characters are actually interresting in the sense that they are character's. But once you go deeper than surface level it does not work. Slaver's Bay is suppose to be the center of Slave Trade for the whole world but it is not clear why, since the Dothraki who seem the main provider of slave can just sell them in the free city's that we know they visit. Outside of that they have nothing of note to offer. The region is quite desolate with scarcely anything that grows. They seem most likely self sufficient so I believe that wheat or other grains grow in the hinterlands, we are told that olive's also grow and grape but the wine they give is bad. Outside of that the whole region as nothing to offer other than slaves. And since the whole culture of Slaver's Bay is centered around slavery well once that is ended (a good thing) well the whole region as nothing to offer. 

The whole place seem only to exist to be a place that Dany can find a army, learn to rule or fail to do so and let her Dragon grow before she leaves for Westeros. But she now cant just really leave because what will happen when she leaves ? She detroyed the old slaver society but since that was all the region had, the whole bay most likely will just become a backwater or revert to they're old ways.

So to summarize, Essos seems to only work has a background place where you can just explain a whole society in a couple phrases and not think too much of it. But it crumbles as soon as you look too deep in to it. It also does not help that we only really have Dany there, people who dont like her or dont care for her have no reason to have any interrest in Essos. Even the people who like Dany can see Essos as just a place keeping her from Westeros, the center of the story.

A single port like Delos or Bristol could sustain itself through slave-trading, but a whole region can’t.  From an economic point of view, it would make more sense for vast numbers of slaves to be imported, and worked to death, growing cash crops for export, like cotton, sugar, and coffee.  

[Aldarion]

23 hours ago, Vaegon the dragonless said:

The whole place seem only to exist to be a place that Dany can find a army, learn to rule or fail to do so and let her Dragon grow before she leaves for Westeros.

This. Slaver's Bay is badly thought out, badly designed, makes no sense at all, and looks like Martin decided that "Daenerys needs to have a bunch of assholes to stamp out" and so made an over-the-top carricature but put absolutely zero effort in making it, well, believable. Why should readers care if the author doesn't?

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

This. Slaver's Bay is badly thought out, badly designed, makes no sense at all, and looks like Martin decided that "Daenerys needs to have a bunch of assholes to stamp out" and so made an over-the-top carricature but put absolutely zero effort in making it, well, believable. Why should readers care if the author doesn't?

The slavers are often criticised as cartoonishly evil, but I don’t see that as a problem.  Chattel slavery is cartoonishly evil, in real life.  As @Zorralput it, “there’s no floor of awful” when you read up in detail about it.  Absurd levels of conspicuous consumption at the top, combined with grinding misery at the bottom, are features of a society where 85% of the inhabitants are owned.

But, a Slavers Bay that was like 18th century Haiti, or other sugar colonies, or the most brutal parts of the US South, would be more believably evil.

[Vaegon the dragonless]

34 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The slavers are often criticised as cartoonishly evil, but I don’t see that as a problem.  Chattel slavery is cartoonishly evil, in real life.  As @Zorralput it, “there’s no floor of awful” when you read up in detail about it.  Absurd levels of conspicuous consumption at the top, combined with grinding misery at the bottom, are features of a society where 85% of the inhabitants are owned.

But, a Slavers Bay that was like 18th century Haiti, or other sugar colonies, or the most brutal parts of the US South, would be more believably evil.

I would not say chattel slavery is cartoonishly evil, it is evil with out a dount but they're is a reson to it, cash crop need alot of hands, espiacially sugar, and its hard and dangerous work. So slaves are a "easy" solution since they are expendable and cheap, you can justify slavery in the cash crop colonies (the justification is still horrible).

But for slaver's bay they're is no justification, not even a bad one, they deal in slaves because they always did, and that is that. And outside of Astapor's Unsullied it is not like they bring anything that other of the Free Cities could do themself.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

In a nutshell, it distracts from the main story.

[Aldarion]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

The slavers are often criticised as cartoonishly evil, but I don’t see that as a problem.  Chattel slavery is cartoonishly evil, in real life.  As @Zorralput it, “there’s no floor of awful” when you read up in detail about it.  Absurd levels of conspicuous consumption at the top, combined with grinding misery at the bottom, are features of a society where 85% of the inhabitants are owned.

But, a Slavers Bay that was like 18th century Haiti, or other sugar colonies, or the most brutal parts of the US South, would be more believably evil.

Look, there is evil and then there is cartoonishly evil. Slavers in real life may have been evil, but they weren't stupid. Firstly, slaves in majority of history weren't treated that badly - chattel slavery seems to be an exception rather than rule. The only ones who had it real bad were ones in the mines, but other tasks? They often had it easier than freemen, if you only count the difficulty of living. Household slaves especially could not just have a materially good life, but even had a degree of authority. And both custom and laws allowed the slave to buy his freedom - and because slaves were able and allowed to earn their own money, that was in fact eminently possible.

Popular perceptions of slavery are shaped by the chattel slavery of the American South, which is what George is likely basing Slaver's bay on... except, 1) he is making a caricature of that, and 2) in everything else, Slaver's Bay is basically an ancient society, which means that it should be an ancient society in terms of slavery as well. What he is doing is equivalent to creating a medieval army and then replacing their knights with Leopard 2 main battle cats... it is a fist in the eye, figuratively speaking.

In general, historical slaves lived the life that media portrays for the serfs, and serfs lived the life that media portrays for the free peasants. Yes, masters may not have cared about slaves as people... but they sure cared about the economy and finance. Slaves were expensive, even if cheaper than freemen, and many slaves in fact had specialist training which served to drive the cost up even more. Why do you think Romans waged so many wars to get slaves? So while slaves may be more expendable than free citizens, they were by no means expendable. Add into that how important slaves were - many slaves were physicians, providing health care for example.

And then there is the fact that there is no economic justification for the Slaver's Bay that we see. Sure, many historical societies had slaves - especially before discovery of horse collar (without horse collar, human labor on the field is actually more efficient than horse labor, meaning it actually pays off to have slaves tilling the fields; when horse collar was discovered, it allowed horses and oxen to be used as draft animals, meaning that an dependant peasant with a horse was actually cheaper than number of slaves that would be able to do his work). But there is difference between having slaves and having whole society built around providing the slaves for everybody else. We already have Dothraki for this, so what is justification for the Slaver's Bay?

[SeanF]

19 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Look, there is evil and then there is cartoonishly evil. Slavers in real life may have been evil, but they weren't stupid. Firstly, slaves in majority of history weren't treated that badly - chattel slavery seems to be an exception rather than rule. The only ones who had it real bad were ones in the mines, but other tasks? They often had it easier than freemen, if you only count the difficulty of living. Household slaves especially could not just have a materially good life, but even had a degree of authority. And both custom and laws allowed the slave to buy his freedom - and because slaves were able and allowed to earn their own money, that was in fact eminently possible.

Popular perceptions of slavery are shaped by the chattel slavery of the American South, which is what George is likely basing Slaver's bay on... except, 1) he is making a caricature of that, and 2) in everything else, Slaver's Bay is basically an ancient society, which means that it should be an ancient society in terms of slavery as well. What he is doing is equivalent to creating a medieval army and then replacing their knights with Leopard 2 main battle cats... it is a fist in the eye, figuratively speaking.

In general, historical slaves lived the life that media portrays for the serfs, and serfs lived the life that media portrays for the free peasants. Yes, masters may not have cared about slaves as people... but they sure cared about the economy and finance. Slaves were expensive, even if cheaper than freemen, and many slaves in fact had specialist training which served to drive the cost up even more. Why do you think Romans waged so many wars to get slaves? So while slaves may be more expendable than free citizens, they were by no means expendable. Add into that how important slaves were - many slaves were physicians, providing health care for example.

And then there is the fact that there is no economic justification for the Slaver's Bay that we see. Sure, many historical societies had slaves - especially before discovery of horse collar (without horse collar, human labor on the field is actually more efficient than horse labor, meaning it actually pays off to have slaves tilling the fields; when horse collar was discovered, it allowed horses and oxen to be used as draft animals, meaning that an dependant peasant with a horse was actually cheaper than number of slaves that would be able to do his work). But there is difference between having slaves and having whole society built around providing the slaves for everybody else. We already have Dothraki for this, so what is justification for the Slaver's Bay?

I’d dispute that about the ancient world.  There’s a reason why servile wars were common.

Household slaves were relatively privileged, and could gain freedom, especially in Rome.  But most slaves were fieldhands, or working in mines, quarries, mills, and they were there to be worked to death and replaced.  Old Cato wrote the manual for it.  Once they reach a point where they can’t work any longer, you stop feeding them.  
And all slaves were liable to be used for sex by their masters, or forced into prostitution (Plato’s friend, Phaedo, was a male sex slave).  Rates of suicide among slaves were very high.

IMHO, the last 150 years of the Republic were an utter horror show for Rome’s neighbours, as their generals enslaved millions.  I accept, things did improve for slaves in the Imperial period, but even then, you had incidents like Nero ordering the execution of 400 slaves, because one of their number slew his master.

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I’d dispute that about the ancient world.  There’s a reason why servile wars were common.

Household slaves were relatively privileged, and could gain freedom, especially in Rome.  But most slaves were fieldhands, or working in mines, quarries, mills, and they were there to be worked to death and replaced.  Old Cato wrote the manual for it.  Once they reach a point where they can’t work any longer, you stop feeding them.  
And all slaves were liable to be used for sex by their masters, or forced into prostitution (Plato’s friend, Phaedo, was a male sex slave).  Rates of suicide among slaves were very high.

IMHO, the last 150 years of the Republic were an utter horror show for Rome’s neighbours, as their generals enslaved millions.  I accept, things did improve for slaves in the Imperial period, but even then, you had incidents like Nero ordering the execution of 400 slaves, because one of their number slew his master.

There’s also torture. In Ancient Rome torture of slaves was not only allowed by law, it was encouraged by law. For example whenever a crime happened in a household, or anywhere slaves might have witnessed or about which they might possess important knowledge. As slaves were considered chattel, they could not be trusted. Therefore slaves could not be questioned, either as witnesses or suspects, until they had been tortured. And as free men could be tortured after conviction, in order to again underline the differences in class, the tortures chosen for slaves had to be more brutal and gruesome than those to which convicted freemen were subjected. So basically the first step taken any time a crime or suspected crime occurred was the torture of all slaves who might or might know something relevant. This applied to household slaves as much or in fact more than, say, mine slaves because mine slaves were rarely in scenarios where crimes against Roman citizens might occur, whereas household slaves were pretty much always nearby. 

Tangent: The Romans spent a freakish amount of time developing absolutely horrible means of torture, and part of the reason was that when a freeman or slave was sentenced to torture and death, the torture was considered to be the punishment and the death a release from the punishment which was why so many Roman torture innovations or adoptions stressed days, even weeks of unending suffering before death…quite a few involve being slowly eaten alive by maggots or parasites, birds or insects. Or setting up scenarios where an animal like a rat would be compelled to eat it’s way to escape through the living body of the condemned. Being buried alive in a tomb or bricked into your house was another common one. Things like this plus their insatiable thirst for (and brutality at) war has made many modern historians explore explanations for Roman behaviour such as long term lead poisoning through the aqueduct system or dietary toxins, etc. 

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

There’s also torture. In Ancient Rome torture of slaves was not only allowed by law, it was encouraged by law. For example whenever a crime happened in a household, or anywhere slaves might have witnessed or about which they might possess important knowledge. As slaves were considered chattel, they could not be trusted. Therefore slaves could not be questioned, either as witnesses or suspects, until they had been tortured. And as free men could be tortured after conviction, in order to again underline the differences in class, the tortures chosen for slaves had to be more brutal and gruesome than those to which convicted freemen were subjected. So basically the first step taken any time a crime or suspected crime occurred was the torture of all slaves who might or might know something relevant. This applied to household slaves as much or in fact more than, say, mine slaves because mine slaves were rarely in scenarios where crimes against Roman citizens might occur, whereas household slaves were pretty much always nearby. 

Tangent: The Romans spent a freakish amount of time developing absolutely horrible means of torture, and part of the reason was that when a freeman or slave was sentenced to torture and death, the torture was considered to be the punishment and the death a release from the punishment which was why so many Roman torture innovations or adoptions stressed days, even weeks of unending suffering before death…quite a few involve being slowly eaten alive by maggots or parasites, birds or insects. Or setting up scenarios where an animal like a rat would be compelled to eat it’s way to escape through the living body of the condemned. Being buried alive in a tomb or bricked into your house was another common one. Things like this plus their insatiable thirst for (and brutality at) war has made many modern historians explore explanations for Roman behaviour such as long term lead poisoning through the aqueduct system or dietary toxins, etc. 

There were professional torturers who were hired to discipline slaves.

When discussing the ill-treatment of slaves, it's easy to overlook the most common form of ill-treatment;  routine rape of women and boys. It's horrific, really, to imagine women and boys being stripped naked before a group of buyers, all bidding for the right to rape them.

[BlackLightning]

On 5/3/2022 at 9:54 PM, Daendrew said:

Westeros is medieval realpolitik, while Essos is sword and sorcery.

I am much more interested in realpolitik.

This is a really good way of putting it.

 

[sifth]

It just feels so disconnected from most of the events in the story. For example it takes Dany until the middle of the second novel to even learn that Robert has died. This news is beyond old for the reader, so learning about it only feels hollow. 

[Julian Rayne]

Several reasons for me personally.

1. I like Medieval European setting. Or quasi medieval European in this case. Essos is this weird Rome/Carthage/Byzantium thing that I've never liked.
2. I don't like the people there. Daenerys was never one of my favorite character. Neither were the Dothrakhi. Nor Jorah. Tyrion was interesting in the first three books but I really don't like him in Book 5. Which happens to coincide with his time in Essos.
3. Meereen is not going to be relevant to the conclusion of the series. At least I don't think it will. The whole thing feels like a giant "trapped by mountain lions" irrelevant detour. Now I'm not saying that everything has to be relevant to the main storyline. I enjoy reading for reading's sake. But not Essos. I just don't find it interesting.
4. I'm slightly dyslexic. The first time I read LotR I kept mixing up Sauron and Saruman. The first time I read AGoT I'd keep mixing up Tyrion and Tywin. I still can't keep track of the Kettleblacks. And those are characters I actually like. All the "mo"s, "ko"s and "ro"s in Meereen all blend into a giant, boring blob for me.

[King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd]

I don’t hate the Essos storylines but I do kind of find them dull tbh. Like Daenerys is easily the good guy over there. There is really no moral complexity. Her antagonists are for the most part pretty bad people. So you either root for her or your root for slavers. It isn’t a hard call. And personally the parts of Essos we DO see pale in comparison to things we never will. I doubt we’ll ever see Asshai or Yi Ti in ASOIAF. Nor Ibbn, Ruins of Valyria, etc. All places I’d rather explore than the dry conflict in Slaver’s Bay. But I don’t hate it, just don’t enjoy reading it as much as Jon’s, Arianne’s, Bran’s, or Reek’s. I also don’t really care for many of the characters in Slaver’s Bay. Jorah specifically annoys me, and I kinda wish he’d just go away. 

[James Fenimore Cooper XXII]

My favorite characters, locations and scenes are in Essos.  I like the complexity of the revolution going on in Slaver's Bay.  It will be thrilling to see how the Harpy will be rooted out.  I am anticipating the reunion of Daenerys and the Dothraki.  Slaver's Bay is a larger stage and a bigger story.