Will Daenerys go mad? If so how?

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Even on her current society she could have simply walked away from her 'claim'

Been a good khalassi to drogo and shut up about westeros  or done her duty as widow  and went to vaes dothrak, settled one of the ruined cities in the red waste and made it flourish ,gone east to really learn how to control her beasts (iv already gone into how dangerous bringing back these things to breed without knowledge to control them is onnother threads) etc

Any one in this tale could opt out of the Game and become a Maester or a Septon or Septa, but why should they? It’s not part of the value system of this world. And, where would be the interest in such a story?

Jon could forgive and forget the Red Wedding, but why should he?  The Martells could forget about Elia and her children, but why should they? Robb could have given fealty to Joffrey but why should he?  Ned could have just accepted Joffrey as king, but why should he?  Arianne could have settled for being disinherited, but why should she?

[Aldarion]

16 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Nor can I believe that anyone who’d had half their family massacred, and was subject to a murder attempt, would feel anything other than intense hostility towards those responsible.  I’m quite certain I’d feel much the same way if I’d been driven from my native land.

No one expects Jon or Arya to forgive those responsible for harming their family and why should they?

And it is natural, but what is natural does not necessarily make for a good rule. And yes, Jon should (have) forgive(n) people responsible for harming his family, considering he (was) supposed to be Lord Commander of Night's Watch.

[astarkchoice]

10 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Any one in this tale could opt out of the Game and become a Maester or a Septon or Septa, but why should they? It’s not part of the value system of this world. And, where would be the interest in such a story?

Jon could forgive and forget the Red Wedding, but why should he?  The Martells could forget about Elia and her children, but why should they? Robb could have given fealty to Joffrey but why should he?  Ned could have just accepted Joffrey as king, but why should he?  Arianne could have settled for being disinherited, but why should she?

Im not saying itd be a more interesting story no but we are taking about mania ,  if she walked away from this mania to rule westeros  its be good for all.

 

Plus Unlike the others dany has had time and distance to put it behind her and unlike the others she now  knows her dad was insane thus got what was comming to him..she has no longer any righteous anger or vengance  to motivate her

Edited January 14, 2023 by astarkchoice

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Im not saying itd be a more interesting story no but we are taking about mania ,  if she walked away from this mania to rule westeros  its be good for all.

 

Plus Unlike the others dany has had time and distance to put it behind her and unlike the others she now  knows her dad was insane thus got what was comming to him..she has no longer any righteous anger or vengance  to motivate her

The pull of one’s homeland is a powerful one.  Even in the modern world, plenty of ethnic groups dream of recovering their lost lands.

Edited January 14, 2023 by SeanF

[SeanF]

30 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Even in her current society she could have simply walked away from her 'claim'

Been a good khalassi to drogo and shut up about westeros  or done her duty as widow  and went to vaes dothrak, settled one of the ruined cities in the red waste  with her followers and made it flourish ,gone east to really learn how to control her beasts (iv already gone into how dangerous bringing back these things to breed without knowledge to control them is onnother threads) sold the dragon eggs at quarth and start a trading empire, take up the offer to sail far east to the jade sea etc etc

That’s really just saying you want her to  be written out of the story.

Edited January 14, 2023 by SeanF

[astarkchoice]

4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That’s really just saying you want her to  be written out of the story.

No way essos is my fav part of the books was just talkig about her mania

 

Essos is facinating, In many ways it sorta feels like we are getting the pov of the least developed part of the world in westeros! 

[Corvo the Crow]

2 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Because that is how her supporters often describe her. That, and she quite often comes off as a massive hypocrite (establishes rule of Meereen via conquest, refuses to recognize Baratheon rule via conquest; kills Masters for what they did, yet refuses to recognize that Starks and Baratheons had a right to rebel over breach of feudal custom; and quite few more I can't be bothered remembering; claims to want to be a good ruler, but shuts up Barristan whenever he mentions crimes of her family).

Honestly, that hypocrisy bothers me more than most things about her, because it has direct implications for how she will rule once in Westeros. It is easy for her to look good in Slaver's Bay with its black-and-white morality, but what will she do in Westeros?

And in ADWD, Daenerys basically unlearns everything she learned, or rather, decides to learn the wrong lesson - "ruling is too hard, making compromises is tiring and never works, I need to go all fire and blood".

She literally commits genocide, in the name of slave liberation but later reinstates slavery in Yunkai and Astapor, and though in a milder form that people can only be sold by themselves, even in Meereen. Not only does she commit genocide by killing every freeborn above 11 years old, she also kills slaves(soldiers and overseers in Astapor, soldiers of Meereen and Yunkai), people she uses as her excuse to commit her atrocity. A few days ago I shared a medieval population pyramid saying that over 13 is about %70 of a medieval population so Dany killed more than %70 of the Astapori freeborn considering she only  spared those below 12.

 

Quote

Kraznys turned back to his fellows. Once again they conferred among themselves. The translator had told Dany their names, but it was hard to keep them straight. Four of the men seemed to be named Grazdan, presumably after Grazdan the Great who had founded Old Ghis in the dawn of days. They all looked alike; thick fleshy men with amber skin, broad noses, dark eyes. Their wiry hair was black, or a dark red, or that queer mixture of red and black that was peculiar to Ghiscari. All wrapped themselves in tokars, a garment permitted only to freeborn men of Astapor. 

It was the fringe on the tokar that proclaimed a man's status, Dany had been told by Captain Groleo. In this cool green room atop the pyramid, two of the slavers wore tokars fringed in silver, five had gold fringes, and one, the oldest Grazdan, displayed a fringe of fat white pearls that clacked together softly when he shifted in his seat or moved an arm.

As can be seen, Tokar is permitted to only freeborn men. Men, here obviously not meant as of the male sex since we see women in Tokars as well and nor does it mean only the "nobility" since all freeborn are allowed a tokar, but the fringes of their tokars depend on their social status. Pitiful excuses such as Tokar isn't a working garment is useless. All freeborn are allowed tokars and only the fringe is dependent entirely on the status. Probably entirety of the Astapori society is dependent on slave work, but while slave owners will be so many, slavers are a handful bunch. Though she didn't deal in them(as far as I can recall) Dany herself was a slave owner, should she be murdered over it?

Quote

The red brick streets of Astapor were almost crowded this morning. Slaves and servants lined the ways, while the slavers and their women donned their tokars to look down from their stepped pyramids. They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of, and their children's children. It made her wonder how many of them would ever have children.

And what was the order Dany gave? 

Quote

"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!"

To slay the Good Masters, who are the families that deal in slaves, they may own slaves but not all freeborn are slavers. Slay the soldiers, who are slaves themselves apart from the officers with their crazy hairstyles. Every man who wears a tokar, which are all the freeborn, people who may own slaves but are not slavers, which was exactly the situation Dany was in herself, a slave owner who did not sell slaves. Every man who holds a whip, as we can see it is not just the freeborn of Astapori who hold whips.

Quote

Her litter came to a sudden halt at the cross street, to allow a coffle of slaves to shuffle across her path, urged along by the crack of an overseer's lash. These were no Unsullied, Dany noted, but a more common sort of men, with pale brown skins and black hair. There were women among them, but no children. All were naked. Two Astapori rode behind them on white asses, a man in a red silk tokar and a veiled woman in sheer blue linen decorated with flakes of lapis lazuli. In her red-black hair she wore an ivory comb. The man laughed as he whispered to her, paying no more mind to Dany than to his slaves, nor the overseer with his twisted five-thonged lash, a squat broad Dothraki who had the harpy and chains tattooed proudly across his muscular chest.

 

Her whole "anti slavery campaign" is filled with hypocricies from start to finish. It is the work of either a mad person or one that uses it as an excuse. She sees no problem in killing the enslaved Dothraki but won't kill the baby murdering killing machines that are the Unsullied. Hypocrite.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Corvo the Crow

[Ser Lepus]

On 1/14/2023 at 9:42 AM, astarkchoice said:

Normal for  the 0.001% you mean

As I said, "everybody with power...".

[csuszka1948]

On 1/12/2023 at 11:28 PM, chrisdaw said:

The same way Rhaenyra went "mad". She'll take the throne and begin leaning towards violence and tyranny as Westeros defies her rule, causing many to abandon her, causing her to become paranoid, causing many to abandon, causing her to become paranoid, and so the cycle downwards until the people chuck her out.

 

 

 

Except something like this happened in ADWD, a secret organization murdering her council on the streets, Astapor falling into ruins, a new plague appearing, and she never went paranoid or lean towards violence and tyranny, she started doing the opposite - trusting people she shouldn't trust and appeasing slavers to achieve peace.

It's difficult to see how could it get worse in Westeros, unless she decides to abolish feudalism altogether, there won't be such an internal opposition to her potential rule (not that there is narrative place in 2 books for Dany to rule Westeros).

 

For Rhaenyra going 'mad', see Cersei.

Edited June 24, 2023 by csuszka1948

[csuszka1948]

On 1/14/2023 at 9:19 AM, Aldarion said:

 establishes rule of Meereen via conquest, refuses to recognize Baratheon rule via conquest

 

 

 

 

 

Because the Baratheons usurped the Throne, keeping the same system in place. Dany conquered a system from the outside and set up a new system:

''As conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference, that an usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation, but where one is got into the possession of what another has right to. This, so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the government: for if the usurper extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes, or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation.'' - John Locke

On 1/14/2023 at 9:19 AM, Aldarion said:

kills Masters for what they did, yet refuses to recognize that Starks and Baratheons had a right to rebel over breach of feudal custom

 

 

 

 

 

1) Does she know what the Baratheons and Starks rebelled over? I don't think she does.

2) There is no textual support that the Starks and Baratheons rebelled over breach of feudal customs; they rebelled because Aerys - who has been breaching accepted customs for years, for example by his treatment of the Darklyns (or murdering family of wetnurse, or cutting out Ilyn Payne's tongue) - wanted their heads. Stannis' quote over Aerys remaining a rightful King despite the atrocities he committed certainly indicate that such feudal contract didn't exist between the IT and its vassals and most of the rebels (except Ned) had no desire to change it, just install Baratheons in place of Targaryens.

On 1/14/2023 at 9:19 AM, Aldarion said:

and quite few more I can't be bothered remembering; claims to want to be a good ruler, but shuts up Barristan whenever he mentions crimes of her family).

 

 

 

 

 

She already knows that her father was mad and wonders whether she has the 'taint'.

When did she shut him up? Perhaps once, when she realised that she is no better than Usurper's dogs because of the death of Hazzea.

Mostly, it's GRRM wanting Tyrion to reveal her the complete truth in the most dramatic manner.

On 1/14/2023 at 9:19 AM, Aldarion said:

And in ADWD, Daenerys basically unlearns everything she learned, or rather, decides to learn the wrong lesson - "ruling is too hard, making compromises is tiring and never works, I need to go all fire and blood".

 

 

 

 

 

Honestly, I am not sure that's what she learns (Dragons plant no trees is not something she is saying, it's what 'Jorah' is saying to her). The result of her internal journey will only be revealed in TWOW.

 

'Fire and Blood' is Aegon's principle: first conquer, and only then set up the new system.

Dany realises that she should not give up her values and sell out her soul as 'compromises' with her bitter enemies (slavers) when she has superiority in fear of harming a few innocents in the process when she uses the weapon that gives her superiority and when these compromises harm far more innocents.

Is it a wrong lesson? I think the direction is good*, but she will go too far (just as every main character - Dany, Bran, Arya, Sansa, Jon - are heading down a darker path in TWOW and Tyrion is already on it) and have to backtrack and reevaluate at the end (for Bran this will be probably Hodor's death).

*This is the opinion of the slaves on her compromises:

She had taken a Meereenese slaver as her king, as wealthy as he was noble, and when the peace was signed and sealed the fighting pits of Meereen would open once again. Other slaves insisted that the guards were lying, that Daenerys Targaryen would never make peace with slavers. Mhysa, they called her. Someone told him that meant Mother. Soon the silver queen would come forth from her city, smash the Yunkai'i, and break their chains, they whispered to one another.

Edited June 24, 2023 by csuszka1948

[csuszka1948]

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

She literally commits genocide, in the name of slave liberation

It's not genocide since the slaver elite is not an ethnic group.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

but later reinstates slavery in Yunkai and Astapor

you are talking about the Yunkai and the slaver coalition, right?

Dany just doesn't have teleporting armies and doesn't think (although she is probably wrong about it) that she can stop them without Meereen rebelling.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

and though in a milder form that people can only be sold by themselves, even in Meereen.

A few former slavers ('gently spoken ones') sell themselves abroad because they want to be high quality slaves over doing hard work as freemen. It's a mistake, but it's scale is incredibly small, that's why Xaro complains that slave trade is not flowing.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Not only does she commit genocide by killing every freeborn above 11 years old

She doesn't. She explicitly orders not harming everyone who is looking like a child (under 12 - in practice, the Unsullied determine it by looking at whether they look like a child), not every freeborn above 11. If GRRM wanted her to kill every freborn above 11, he would have written it as Dany giving the order: "Kill every freeborn above 11".

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

she also kills slaves(soldiers and overseers in Astapor, soldiers of Meereen and Yunkai)

Is there proof that this is true in Astapor?

For Meereen and Yunkai, it's killing those who serve slavers in battle, she has little choice in that regard.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

people she uses as her excuse to commit her atrocity. A few days ago I shared a medieval population pyramid saying that over 13 is about %70 of a medieval population so Dany killed more than %70 of the Astapori freeborn considering she only  spared those below 12.

No, she ordered avoiding even harming those below 12 (in practice, those looking like a child). 

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

 

As can be seen, Tokar is permitted to only freeborn men. Men, here obviously not meant as of the male sex since we see women in Tokars as well and nor does it mean only the "nobility" since all freeborn are allowed a tokar, but the fringes of their tokars depend on their social status. Pitiful excuses such as Tokar isn't a working garment is useless. All freeborn are allowed tokars and only the fringe is dependent entirely on the status. Probably entirety of the Astapori society is dependent on slave work, but while slave owners will be so many, slavers are a handful bunch. Though she didn't deal in them(as far as I can recall) Dany herself was a slave owner, should she be murdered over it?

It's not useless. GRRM expanded on who are wearing tokars in ADWD, probably because he didn't make it clear enough in ASOS:

"It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work. The tokar was a master's garment, a sign of wealth and power."

"The bidders sat on wooden benches sipping fruit drinks. A few were being fanned by slaves. Many wore tokars, that peculiar garment beloved by the old blood of Slaver's Bay, as elegant as it was impractical."

It's only the wealthy elite that donned tokars.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

And what was the order Dany gave? 

To slay the Good Masters, who are the families that deal in slaves

Yes.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Slay the soldiers, who are slaves themselves apart from the officers with their crazy hairstyles.

Because she thinks they would oppose slave liberation. 

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Every man who wears a tokar, which are all the freeborn, people who may own slaves but are not slavers, which was exactly the situation Dany was in herself, a slave owner who did not sell slaves.

No, it's the wealthy elite, those slavers who aren't doing any work, as it is made clear in ADWD.

This order also makes it clear that she only orders killing men, so adult-looking males.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

Every man who holds a whip, as we can see it is not just the freeborn of Astapori who hold whips.

The overseers are holding whips and possibly opposing slave liberation.

Would all of them oppose it? No, I don't think so. However, she is in a dangerous situation, in the middle of a city filled with enemies, she has to give a clear and simple order quickly before the masters can react. She is giving an order that she deems the most effective in liberating slaves and killing as few true innocent as possible while keeping her army intact.

On 1/14/2023 at 11:42 AM, Corvo the Crow said:

 

Her whole "anti slavery campaign" is filled with hypocricies from start to finish. It is the work of either a mad person or one that uses it as an excuse. She sees no problem in killing the enslaved Dothraki but won't kill the baby murdering killing machines that are the Unsullied. Hypocrite.

A certain amount of practicality is necessary, moralising over everything won't help you start a revolution, but moralising can help you drag down into stopping a revolution halfway as she did in ADWD and it was a mistake from her part (even if a certain amount of moralising is necessary).

[Aldarion]

8 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

Because the Baratheons usurped the Throne, keeping the same system in place. Dany conquered a system from the outside and set up a new system:

 

And why is one rightful and the other is not?

8 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

1) Does she know what the Baratheons and Starks rebelled over? I don't think she does.

2) There is no textual support that the Starks and Baratheons rebelled over breach of feudal customs; they rebelled because Aerys - who has been breaching accepted customs for years, for example by his treatment of the Darklyns (or murdering family of wetnurse, or cutting out Ilyn Payne's tongue) - wanted their heads. Stannis' quote over Aerys remaining a rightful King despite the atrocities he committed certainly indicate that such feudal contract didn't exist between the IT and its vassals and most of the rebels (except Ned) had no desire to change it, just install Baratheons in place of Targaryens.

1) OK, fair.

2) Rebellion began after Aerys murdered Lord Stark and decided to kill everybody else without trial. Your ruler trying to murder you kinda obviates any obligations you have towards him.

Also, "breaching accepted customs" =/= "breaching feudal contract". Feudal contract is fundamentally based on protection: I obey you, and you protect me from threats I cannot protect myself from. Aerys' treatment of Darklyns was bad, but it is understandable why it caused no reaction - it was Darklyns that had breached the feudal contract first, by imprisoning Aerys when he went to hear their petition.

Feudal contract is the basis of feudalism itself - just the fact that feudal system exists in Westeros shows that feudal contract must too.

8 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

She already knows that her father was mad and wonders whether she has the 'taint'.

When did she shut him up? Perhaps once, when she realised that she is no better than Usurper's dogs because of the death of Hazzea.

Mostly, it's GRRM wanting Tyrion to reveal her the complete truth in the most dramatic manner.

Yet she refuses to even listen about what her father actually did, refuses to discuss it, and so while she may be accepting that Aerys was mad on an abstract level, she is still holding onto the lies that Viserys had fed her.

Every time Barristan brings up Aerys and his crimes, she at best redirects the discussion away.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

And why is one rightful and the other is not?

1) OK, fair.

2) Rebellion began after Aerys murdered Lord Stark and decided to kill everybody else without trial. Your ruler trying to murder you kinda obviates any obligations you have towards him.

Also, "breaching accepted customs" =/= "breaching feudal contract". Feudal contract is fundamentally based on protection: I obey you, and you protect me from threats I cannot protect myself from. Aerys' treatment of Darklyns was bad, but it is understandable why it caused no reaction - it was Darklyns that had breached the feudal contract first, by imprisoning Aerys when he went to hear their petition.

Feudal contract is the basis of feudalism itself - just the fact that feudal system exists in Westeros shows that feudal contract must too.

Yet she refuses to even listen about what her father actually did, refuses to discuss it, and so while she may be accepting that Aerys was mad on an abstract level, she is still holding onto the lies that Viserys had fed her.

Every time Barristan brings up Aerys and his crimes, she at best redirects the discussion away.

Because, based upon the information she has, she can see that the masters are operating a cruel and vile system.

WRT Robert’s rebellion, even if she knew the truth of what her father was, there would still be the butchering of Elia and her children, the sack of a peaceful city, her and her brother’s exile, and the attempted  murder of her and Rhaego to account for.  She would still be entitled to view the overthrow of her dynasty (and the attempt wipe them out) as wrong, while seeing the use of force against slavers as right.

Edited June 25, 2023 by SeanF

[SeanF]

8 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

It's not genocide since the slaver elite is not an ethnic group.

you are talking about the Yunkai and the slaver coalition, right?

Dany just doesn't have teleporting armies and doesn't think (although she is probably wrong about it) that she can stop them without Meereen rebelling.

A few former slavers ('gently spoken ones') sell themselves abroad because they want to be high quality slaves over doing hard work as freemen. It's a mistake, but it's scale is incredibly small, that's why Xaro complains that slave trade is not flowing.

She doesn't. She explicitly orders not harming everyone who is looking like a child (under 12 - in practice, the Unsullied determine it by looking at whether they look like a child), not every freeborn above 11. If GRRM wanted her to kill every freborn above 11, he would have written it as Dany giving the order: "Kill every freeborn above 11".

Is there proof that this is true in Astapor?

For Meereen and Yunkai, it's killing those who serve slavers in battle, she has little choice in that regard.

No, she ordered avoiding even harming those below 12 (in practice, those looking like a child). 

It's not useless. GRRM expanded on who are wearing tokars in ADWD, probably because he didn't make it clear enough in ASOS:

"It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work. The tokar was a master's garment, a sign of wealth and power."

"The bidders sat on wooden benches sipping fruit drinks. A few were being fanned by slaves. Many wore tokars, that peculiar garment beloved by the old blood of Slaver's Bay, as elegant as it was impractical."

It's only the wealthy elite that donned tokars.

Yes.

Because she thinks they would oppose slave liberation. 

No, it's the wealthy elite, those slavers who aren't doing any work, as it is made clear in ADWD.

This order also makes it clear that she only orders killing men, so adult-looking males.

The overseers are holding whips and possibly opposing slave liberation.

Would all of them oppose it? No, I don't think so. However, she is in a dangerous situation, in the middle of a city filled with enemies, she has to give a clear and simple order quickly before the masters can react. She is giving an order that she deems the most effective in liberating slaves and killing as few true innocent as possible while keeping her army intact.

A certain amount of practicality is necessary, moralising over everything won't help you start a revolution, but moralising can help you drag down into stopping a revolution halfway as she did in ADWD and it was a mistake from her part (even if a certain amount of moralising is necessary).

The point that gets overlooked (wilfully) is that teenage boys work and fight.  Westerosi armies are full of teens.  Jon, Robb, Joffrey and Dany are teens.  And in a fight, teens are considered legitimate targets. Arya, for example, kills two teenagers in fights, and the author calls her a hero.

Among the soldiers, overseers, slavers and their followers, there will be teenagers.  Slavers and the elite work.  They just don’t do manual labour.

Edited June 25, 2023 by SeanF

[Aldarion]

13 hours ago, SeanF said:

Because, based upon the information she has, she can see that the masters are operating a cruel and vile system.

 

Which is not the distinction he made. Also, good =/= legal and legal =/= good.

13 hours ago, SeanF said:

WRT Robert’s rebellion, even if she knew the truth of what her father was, there would still be the butchering of Elia and her children, the sack of a peaceful city, her and her brother’s exile, and the attempted  murder of her and Rhaego to account for.  She would still be entitled to view the overthrow of her dynasty (and the attempt wipe them out) as wrong, while seeing the use of force against slavers as right.

All these things would merely call for perpetrators to be punished - they wouldn't, in and by themselves, invalidate regime change.

[chrisdaw]

On 6/25/2023 at 7:50 AM, csuszka1948 said:

Except something like this happened in ADWD, a secret organization murdering her council on the streets, Astapor falling into ruins, a new plague appearing, and she never went paranoid or lean towards violence and tyranny, she started doing the opposite - trusting people she shouldn't trust and appeasing slavers to achieve peace.

It's difficult to see how could it get worse in Westeros, unless she decides to abolish feudalism altogether, there won't be such an internal opposition to her potential rule (not that there is narrative place in 2 books for Dany to rule Westeros).

 

For Rhaenyra going 'mad', see Cersei.

It's not difficult to see how it could get worse because as has been run through in many a topic the universe is conspiring against Dany's Westeros rule. The lessons she has taken from Meereen, her ADWD arc, is that her approach was the wrong approach, she chained her dragons in a literal and symbolic sense, forgot who she is, when she returns to Westeros it will be all fire and blood and dragons plant no trees.

[King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd]

I don’t see her going but, as she did in the show. But I could totally see her going to Westeros as a tyrant. 
 

Also seeing all the toxic Dany/Targ fans on Twitter and tiktok cry about it would be so cathartic.

[csuszka1948]

On 6/25/2023 at 9:01 AM, Aldarion said:

And why is one rightful and the other is not?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because the Targaryens set up the system, they built the Red Keep, the Iron Throne, the concept of Westerosi (technically absolute) monarchy is tied to them, the Baratheons are just a common Westerosi house.

It's not that the Targaryens are actually superior people (they are not really, they can be exceptional or exceptionally awful - greatness and madness), but they managed to sell such a myth and it allowed them to rule with relatively strong legitimacy despite possessing small lands. The Baratheons don't have this same legitimacy.

This is seen in Robert's fear of the remaining Targaryens and the Greatjon saying "it was the dragons we married, and the dragons are dead" and declaring independence.

On 6/25/2023 at 9:01 AM, Aldarion said:

2) Rebellion began after Aerys murdered Lord Stark and decided to kill everybody else without trial. Your ruler trying to murder you kinda obviates any obligations you have towards him.

Also, "breaching accepted customs" =/= "breaching feudal contract". Feudal contract is fundamentally based on protection: I obey you, and you protect me from threats I cannot protect myself from. Aerys' treatment of Darklyns was bad, but it is understandable why it caused no reaction - it was Darklyns that had breached the feudal contract first, by imprisoning Aerys when he went to hear their petition.

Feudal contract is the basis of feudalism itself - just the fact that feudal system exists in Westeros shows that feudal contract must too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, this is a common misconception.

There is no evidence in the text that such feudal contract exists between the IT and its vassals. No one brings it up as a reason for Rebellion (even Ned Stark only talks about 'putting an end to the murder of children') and nobles who joined in rebellion did it out of personal grievances (Robert, Ned, Jon Arryn, later Tywin) and benefit (Hoster, later Tywin). 

Stannis - who probably knows law very well - states that Aerys remained his rightful King despite his actions against Rickard Stark and his duty and oath would have compelled him to follow him if he was anyone but Robert's younger sibling. 

 

I see why you think that the lack of feudal contract is nonsense, but I don't think it is: the IT was built on the power of dragons, and as such Aegon could have demanded absolute loyalty from the lords in exchange for allowing them to keep their lands without open obligations to defend them. Jahaerys realised that isn't maintainable long-term after Maegor's reign, but besides swearing an oath to protect the Faith he didn't offer direct oaths to defend his lords.

The entire Dance was about the King's right to name his own heir even if it wildly goes against previous rulings and Westerosi customs, and for some (somewhat difficult to explain) reason the king's technical power wasn't restricted after that.

Even GRRM admits this:

"the Kingdom was unified with dragons, so the Targaryen's flaw was to create an absolute monarchy highly dependent on them, with the small council not designed to be a real check and balance. So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos. "

I am not saying that this absolute monarchy is a positive, but the rebels didn't aimed at overthrowing the system because it's wrong and install Robert B (or Aegon with a Regency Council) in a monarchy where the King's rights are more limited and his obligations are more numerous, they wanted to overthrow the Targaryens and replace them with the Baratheons and forgiven and rewarded the murders of Targaryen children. From this point, it's difficult to see how much they are morally superior, and how is the desire of Martells/Targaryens to overthrow them is any different from the desire of the rebels. 

On 6/25/2023 at 9:01 AM, Aldarion said:

Yet she refuses to even listen about what her father actually did, refuses to discuss it, and so while she may be accepting that Aerys was mad on an abstract level, she is still holding onto the lies that Viserys had fed her.

Every time Barristan brings up Aerys and his crimes, she at best redirects the discussion away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When did Barristan bring up that Aerys burned people on stage? Because these are the crimes that would show him to Dany in a horrible light, but this would bring up Barristan's own responsibility.

Wasn't she listening to him last time (when Barristan talked about Aerys' actions with Joanna), when they got interrupted? I think this was an intentional authorial decision to have Dany hear the truth from Tyrion. 

 

I think it's pretty bad that she over-romanticizes her family though, even if she is not alone in that (but hers is the worst case, bc Aerys was horrible). Arya was unwilling to believe that his father would dishonor his mother with Ashara Dayne and she happens to be right about it (just like Dany probably happens to be right about Rhaegar), but she really had no reason to disbelieve it.

Edited June 28, 2023 by csuszka1948

[Craving Peaches]

9 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

There is no evidence in the text that such feudal contract exists between the IT and its vassals.

I get what you are saying but there is also no evidence for quite a lot of other important stuff that one would assume would be there, such as certain crimes being crimes, whether small council members are paid or not, what the master of laws actually does and so on. In this case it makes sense to assume something is there, rather than nothing.

The Targaryens ruled 150 years without any dragons as well, and if the initial 'offer' of Aegon being king really didn't include any obligations on his part, and so was essentially saying that him and his descendants could do whatever they want and the lords better just hope they were in a good mood, I think we would have seen more resistance.

[Aldarion]

8 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

Because the Targaryens set up the system, they built the Red Keep, the Iron Throne, the concept of Westerosi (technically absolute) monarchy is tied to them, the Baratheons are just a common Westerosi house.

It's not that the Targaryens are actually superior people (they are not really, they can be exceptional or exceptionally awful - greatness and madness), but they managed to sell such a myth and it allowed them to rule with relatively strong legitimacy despite possessing small lands. The Baratheons don't have this same legitimacy.

This is seen in Robert's fear of the remaining Targaryens and the Greatjon saying "it was the dragons we married, and the dragons are dead" and declaring independence.

8 hours ago, csuszka1948 said:

Yes, this is a common misconception.

There is no evidence in the text that such feudal contract exists between the IT and its vassals. No one brings it up as a reason for Rebellion (even Ned Stark only talks about 'putting an end to the murder of children') and nobles who joined in rebellion did it out of personal grievances (Robert, Ned, Jon Arryn, later Tywin) and benefit (Hoster, later Tywin). 

Stannis - who probably knows law very well - states that Aerys remained his rightful King despite his actions against Rickard Stark and his duty and oath would have compelled him to follow him if he was anyone but Robert's younger sibling. 

 

I see why you think that the lack of feudal contract is nonsense, but I don't think it is: the IT was built on the power of dragons, and as such Aegon could have demanded absolute loyalty from the lords in exchange for allowing them to keep their lands without open obligations to defend them. Jahaerys realised that isn't maintainable long-term after Maegor's reign, but besides swearing an oath to protect the Faith he didn't offer direct oaths to defend his lords.

The entire Dance was about the King's right to name his own heir even if it wildly goes against previous rulings and Westerosi customs, and for some (somewhat difficult to explain) reason the king's technical power wasn't restricted after that.

Even GRRM admits this:

"the Kingdom was unified with dragons, so the Targaryen's flaw was to create an absolute monarchy highly dependent on them, with the small council not designed to be a real check and balance. So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos. "

I am not saying that this absolute monarchy is a positive, but the rebels didn't aimed at overthrowing the system because it's wrong and install Robert B (or Aegon with a Regency Council) in a monarchy where the King's rights are more limited and his obligations are more numerous, they wanted to overthrow the Targaryens and replace them with the Baratheons and forgiven and rewarded the murders of Targaryen children. From this point, it's difficult to see how much they are morally superior, and how is the desire of Martells/Targaryens to overthrow them is any different from the desire of the rebels. 

Targaryens did not set up any system that we know of. They literally came, conquered the seven kingdoms, said "you will obey us now"; and that's it. Beyond unifying Westeros, we do not see any changes.

Targaryens were not absolute monarchs. I don't care what Martin says they were, matter of the fact is that the system he has described in the books, even under Targaryens, is not an absolute monarchy - at the very least, once the dragons died, absolute monarchy became impossible even in theory.

To put it simply: If Westeros were an absolute monarchy, there will have been no feudalism. Nobility may have retained its titles, but its power would depend entirely on proximity to the monarch and titles granted by said monarch.

Yet what we see is feudalism: power of noble stems not from the monarch and the state, but from the land and the juniors that had sworn him loyalty. Power is also hereditary, which again will not have been the case in absolute monarchy. And even when Targaryens had dragons, they still let lords do basically what they wanted.