Is Dany a White Savior?

[Corvo the Crow]

Firstly, for those who don't know what it is:

White savior - Wikipedia

She is white, whiter than white to the point of being whiter than your average white european, is delivered as a messianic figure, especially to people she liberated, liberates "people of color" (old gods I hate this, I'll say people of melanine advantage for them and melanine disadvantage for whites).

So Is Daenerys a white saviour? Pretty much confirms to the trope I think.

[Craving Peaches]

It does seem a bit stupid that the slaves are seemingly incapable of revolting or doing anything until she shows up, even though they outnumber all the slavers like 5-10:1 and they make up the military as well, and yet we never see or hear of any revolts. But I think this is more to do with oversights in writing. While I think Daenerys may fit the trope I don't know if that was the author's intention. Daenerys does try to include native people on her council and her concern is not based on wanting to 'civilise' Slaver's Bay in a colonial way, but to liberate slaves, which is something that is not a value restricted to one culture.

[Corvo the Crow]

9 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

It does seem a bit stupid that the slaves are seemingly incapable of revolting or doing anything until she shows up, even though they outnumber all the slavers like 5-10:1 and they make up the military as well, and yet we never see or hear of any revolts. But I think this is more to do with oversights in writing. While I think Daenerys may fit the trope I don't know if that was the author's intention. Daenerys does try to include native people on her council and her concern is not based on wanting to 'civilise' Slaver's Bay in a colonial way, but to liberate slaves, which is something that is not a value restricted to one culture.

Remember this is the same author who asks about Aragorn's tax policy and goes harsh on one of the fathers of, if not the father of fantasy genre who was dead for two decades when he released the first book of still unfinished series and yet fails to implement even basic concepts on economy.

[the trees have eyes]

I think she just tackles injustice where she finds it.  She got dragons so she has some levers.  Her objective is to go to Westeros ("home") but in the mean time she adapts to Dothraki culture, wears Qartheen gowns and her "floppy ears" in Meereen.  I doubt she gives racial background a thought and I don't think we should give her racial background any thought either.  See her character, not her appearance, as that's the part that matters.

[Corvo the Crow]

1 minute ago, the trees have eyes said:

I think she just tackles injustice where she finds it.  She got dragons so she has some levers.  Her objective is to go to Westeros ("home") but in the mean time she adapts to Dothraki culture, wears Qartheen gowns and her "floppy ears" in Meereen.  I doubt she gives racial background a thought and I don't think we should give her racial background any thought either.  See her character, not her appearance, as that's the part that matters.

Umm... but the trope is about the appearence, you know. Dany coming from a long line of racial supremacist inbreds who were also slavers makes it even more so. Like, the "white saviour" who is most likely from a country that formerly had slavery and the slaves were not melanine disadvantaged people but melanine advantaged ones and the "whire saviour" is now saving melanine advantaged people.

[Alester Florent]

In short: yes.

However, and in if not defence exactly, then at least mitigation of GRRM's writing in this respect, it's worth noting that this is an area in which the narrative has developed a long way relatively quickly, and some things which are now both common knowledge and taken as gospel in the media-analysis community were barely blips on the pop-cultural radar twenty years ago.

If you look at the history of the white saviour trope as an identified and condemned trope, while it was doubtless kicking around in some form previously, most of the references to "white saviour" as a trope come from around the last ten years, in particular following the Kony backlash in 2012. The two most apposite TVTropes pages, Mighty Whitey and White Man's Burden, were created in 2013 and 2011 respectively (despite the latter being a longstanding literary and cultural trope known by that very term since 1899!)

Dany conquered Astapor and Meereen and freed the slaves in 2000. ADwD came out in 2011, and if we look at things from this perspective, it's not hard to see that the approach to the Ghiscari and Dany's relationship with them has changed dramatically in those eleven years. In ASoS she was a nigh-infallible saviour-queen and the Ghiscari largely faceless and almost always villainous characters whose demises we applauded; in ADwD we are introcued to several more complex characters, we see Dany trying (and often failing) to adjust her cultural-supremacist thinking to the reality of the situation, we see the magnitude of the fallout of her "I've fixed it now, on you get" attitude in Astapor. And while some of the ingredients of that were there in ASoS, it's really brought into focus in ADwD.

It's not too hard to imagine that the changing cultural landscape played a part in GRRM's decision to expand on this stuff in ADwD, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the continuing development in this area and his attempts to stay at least vaguely in touch with it are one of the reasons that he found and continues to find "the Meereenese Knot" so difficult to write.

Overall, I suspect that Dany's arc was intended, on original conception, to be a lot more white-savioury than the one we're actually getting. I also suspect that had the original rate of publication been maintained (i.e. series concluded by about 2010) this would have been much less of a problem and much less remarked-upon than it now would be.

[astarkchoice]

51 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

It does seem a bit stupid that the slaves are seemingly incapable of revolting or doing anything until she shows up, even though they outnumber all the slavers like 5-10:1 and they make up the military as well, and yet we never see or hear of any revolts. But I think this is more to do with oversights in writing. While I think Daenerys may fit the trope I don't know if that was the author's intention. Daenerys does try to include native people on her council and her concern is not based on wanting to 'civilise' Slaver's Bay in a colonial way, but to liberate slaves, which is something that is not a value restricted to one culture.

To be fair a combination of her campaign vs the main slave 'processing centre' and the main slave religion naming her their messiah seems to be the difference.

We dont know if theres been slave uprisings before but any that start would prob be quickly quashed before they can spread because theres an enormous economomic and military  machine against them. From sellsword/sail  companies, assasin cults , new ghis legions, khalassars, slaver pirates ,brainwashed eunuch robo troops and gladiators before we even talk  about all the other states over essos linked to the trade.

[Craving Peaches]

29 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

enormous economomic and military  machine

They make up the military and economy of most of the cities though.

[Corvo the Crow]

2 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

They make up the military and economy of most of the cities though.

Not too relevant but reading this made me remember, the slaves are even able to marry.

Quote

Dany found herself bereft of words, but little Missandei came to her rescue. "Did his first wife give him sons?"

The envoy looked at her unhappily. "Great Cleon has three daughters by his first wife. Two of his newer wives are with child. But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will consent to wed him."

Unless he got triplets out of a breeding slave, and remember cleon himself is not such a slave but was a butcher, they are able to marry. Even lord's sons in westeros don't have it easy marrying

[astarkchoice]

49 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

They make up the military and economy of most of the cities though

Not new ghis legions, khalassars, slaver pirate fleets, the assasins and of course the masses of available sellsword/sellsail manpower though and most of it is already assembled.ready to roll.

The mereenese gladiators too seem to be a grey area (  i think they are volunteers) and of course unsullied  while are technicaly slaves  are a bit really more akin to droids

Id say  can assume the lack of revolutions probably means the slave troops  many cities employed are treated well compared to the rest , volantis def has a caste.system keeping it stable that only the current fire priests preaching about dany  have broken through.

[Corvo the Crow]

26 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

Id say  can assume the lack of revolutions probably means the slave troops  many cities employed are treated well compared to the rest , volantis def has a caste.system keeping it stable that only the current fire priests preaching about dany  have broken through.

Tyrion notes that most slaves would be treated well becaue they are the owner's property. etc. 

 

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, Corvo the Crow said:

Tyrion notes that most slaves would be treated well becaue they are the owner's property. etc. 

To be fair I think Tyrion was being a bit naïve there. He was in a privileged position for a slave. He's says they're better off than peasants but what does he know, he's never had to live as a peasant. Also I think Tyrion would change his mind if he found out he was going to be fed to the lions during the pit games, a fate he only avoided by luck because Drogon showed up.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

It ultimately really depends on where her arc goes (for instance, if she goes dark Nazi lady like in the abomination, which I hope she won't).

But at least so far, yes.

[astarkchoice]

10 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Tyrion notes that most slaves would be treated well becaue they are the owner's property. etc. 

 

True  theres clearly  levels of treatment depending on the  slaves role, slave troops it would make sense to be well fed and kept healthy and  thus loyal.

[Corvo the Crow]

5 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

True  theres clearly  levels of treatment depending on the  slaves role, slave troops it would make sense to be well fed and kept healthy and  thus loyal.

Also they can even marry as seen by Cleos.

[Corvo the Crow]

17 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

To be fair I think Tyrion was being a bit naïve there. He was in a privileged position for a slave. He's says they're better off than peasants but what does he know, he's never had to live as a peasant. Also I think Tyrion would change his mind if he found out he was going to be fed to the lions during the pit games, a fate he only avoided by luck because Drogon showed up.

I agree to a degree, his position was priviliged but didn't he also meet with some old slave who liked his master and was just some normal household slave? Obviously slaves working in the fields etc. would have it worse than a household slave but how good does a Westerosi peasant have it anyway? 

 

Also I didn't remember the lion feeding part 

[the trees have eyes]

5 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Umm... but the trope is about the appearence, you know. Dany coming from a long line of racial supremacist inbreds who were also slavers makes it even more so. Like, the "white saviour" who is most likely from a country that formerly had slavery and the slaves were not melanine disadvantaged people but melanine advantaged ones and the "whire saviour" is now saving melanine advantaged people.

The appearance only matters if you make it matter.  She sees a problem that horrifies her and tries to fix it.  Should we judge her for "coming from a long line of racial supremacist inbreds who were also slavers" when that has no relevance for her character and world view?  I don't think we should hold their birth or ancestry against anyone.  I don't see that it matters what might have been done centuries ago in Valyria and how this relates to how she is written on page or how you perceive the character.  The point is she has been raised to think as a princess and a ruler and now she has dragons to back that up.  Is her arc only acceptable if she has a certain pigmentation?

[Corvo the Crow]

6 minutes ago, the trees have eyes said:

The appearance only matters if you make it matter.  She sees a problem that horrifies her and tries to fix it. 

Again, the trope is exactly this.

6 minutes ago, the trees have eyes said:

I don't think we should hold their birth or ancestry against anyone

When she literally talks and talks about her birthright and Usurper's dogs? 

 

8 minutes ago, the trees have eyes said:

The point is she has been raised to think as a princess and a ruler and now she has dragons to back that up.

Weren't you just saying don't hold her ancestry against her?

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Weren't you just saying don't hold her ancestry against her?

That's upbringing and conditioning though, not ancestry.

[Alester Florent]

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

The appearance only matters if you make it matter.  She sees a problem that horrifies her and tries to fix it.  Should we judge her for "coming from a long line of racial supremacist inbreds who were also slavers" when that has no relevance for her character and world view?  I don't think we should hold their birth or ancestry against anyone.  I don't see that it matters what might have been done centuries ago in Valyria and how this relates to how she is written on page or how you perceive the character.  The point is she has been raised to think as a princess and a ruler and now she has dragons to back that up.  Is her arc only acceptable if she has a certain pigmentation?

I mean I think you have a point but this is a very difficult area generally.

The trope isn't really about skin colour; it's about cultural imperialism. Character A (from civilised, "correct" background, usually the same as the author's) goes to Foreign Place B and is horrified to discover that B does all sorts of things differently to A. They teach B the error of their ways, and this is good and necessary. This may involve A adopting some of the culture of B in the process but never any of the questionable parts.

The problems A has with B might be moral (human sacrifice, cannibalism, slavery) or practical (they are doomed unless they listen to what A has to tell them). But the principle is the same: A is right and B is at best a noble savage awaiting enlightenment, at worst a degenerate who needs to be exterminated.

This trope is common not just because of the desire of a given writer to espouse the supremacy of their own culture, but because if you're having characters of different cultures interacting, in order for there to be a plot there needs to be some sort of clash of values and one of those value-sets is going to win. Otherwise all you have is a guidebook entry. And usually authors instinctively side with the character whose values most closely resemble their own (and their readers') so A tends to prevail over B. Now, it's common for this to be muddied somehow, so that, say, B is shown to be superior in some ways to A, and you might find that A ends up deciding to remain with B rather than return to their own people, but fundamentally the crisis of the story will be resolved by A in a way which wouldn't have happened if they weren't there. They are, for the purposes of the story, the "Saviour".

(The only real alternative, I think, is for A to accept that actually B is superior in every way and just bow to their inherent betterness. Note that when this type of story is written, it tends to be someone from culture-group B writing it, and really just represents an inversion of the standard trope template. See for instance the (bad) movie The Great Wall).

Now, the actual culture of A and B doesn't really matter and it's a pretty standard trope wherever you have one people who consider themselves the pinnacle of civilisation encountering other people who they think are more backward. A doesn't have to be white. I am not sufficiently familiar with world literature to be able to call up numerous examples, but I am certain that examples exist where A is Chinese, Persian, Indian, Arabic... and probably Mayan or Inca in various lost stories from those cultures, and so on. The reason we talk about "white saviours" though because (a) "white" is considered the dominant group in the US, and US cultural influence is pervasive, and (b) because the overwhelming majority of published stories in any format have been produced in the last 200 years when domination of world affairs and associated colonialism has been by Europeans or European successor states.

But this is fantasy, you cry! Well, yes. But that doesn't necessarily exempt it from the trope. Fantasy is often used intentionally as allegory: you don't really need any training in criticism to spot the message in a film like Avatar even though that takes place on a magic planet with blue people billions of miles away or whatever. And fantasy often takes a lot of its inspiration from the real world. Slaver's Bay specifically, and Essos in general, have been criticised for using generally orientalist tropes to depict the people living there. We get a sense of exoticism from them: they are not of our culture, but there's also a kind of specific exoticism about it. In the way that Westeros is obviously European in inspiration (and principally British at that) Slaver's Bay feels Middle Eastern and the Dothraki feel like steppe nomads. (And of course, Yi Ti feels Chinese, not that we ever go there).

This kind of thing can be present even if not intended. I don't believe, for instance, that George Lucas intended for The Phantom Menace to be racist, but it just so happened that the tropes he was drawing on to depict Watto corresponded so neatly with offensive stereotypes that what he basically gave us was a flying Shylock caricature. In the same way, I don't believe GRRM meant for Slaver's Bay (or Essos in general) to be orientalist, but it is, because what he's done is borrow a whole load of inspiration from a bunch of different middle eastern cultures (and pop-culture versions of said cultures) and mixed it up in a big pot until what comes out is not always obviously any one specific thing from those cultures but is still very obviously of those cultures.

And into that somewhat dubious setting marches Dany, our viewpoint character and protagonist, who is the whitiest whitey who ever whited, with a skin colour that matches GRRM's, and espousing values which we can unhesitatingly agree with because they're our own but which are anathema to the setting's inhabitants. And she tears down the institutions of which she disapproves of (and we cheer her on, because we disapprove of them too!) and becomes a figure of adoration and near-worship.

If this were the other way round, and a (still white, American) GRRM had written a brown-skinned Daznarys zo Tarkarzyn coming to Westeros and busting up their evil slaving cartels, there would be much less criticism on this subject - although some might feel that the intentional aversion/subversion was rather too heavy-handed. But what he's actually written, at least in the first three books of the series, is pretty textbook white-saviour stuff and in the race-hyperconscious era of the 2020s, that engenders comment.

The practical question of what can be done about it, though, is not easy to answer. There are increasing calls for writers to "stay in their lane", i.e. not write about anything outside their immediate cultures or experiences at all, because of concerns about appropriation (or straightforward offence). At the same time, lack of diversity, especially visual diversity on screen, is bemoaned even where such diversity is setting-inappropriate (see for instance, Bridgerton, and really HotD too). I don't know how one can square that circle, and I find the "stay in your lane" advice to be culturally damaging in any event (surely art is meant to be exploratory and challenging rather than confining?) It is probably impossible for an author like GRRM to win. But he could do better. I do think ADwD was a step in the right direction there from where we were in ASoS (notwithstanding that I found the Meereen plot interminable) and I would hope that when we finally leave Essos (hopefully soon in TWoW!) the problem will recede along with that setting. We'll see.