Is Dany a White Savior?

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Aldarion said:

Why not? Tyranny comes in many shapes.

 

Fair point.  

Actually, a good example of a non-racist, brutal, military dictatorship in literature is Nilfgaard, in the Witcher series.  People who have only played the games  can get the impression that Nilfgaard is a relatively liberal society, given that there is not a lot of legal discrimination against non-humans in their society (casual discrimination does exist however), and some women achieve commissioned rank  in their armies.

While that's also true in the books, and the Northern realms that Nilfgaard threatens are ruled by a bunch of racist thugs, Nilfgaard is a conquering, imperialistic, very brutal power, that inflicts appalling levels of cruelty upon the people it subjugates.

[Aldarion]

19 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Fair point.  

Actually, a good example of a non-racist, brutal, military dictatorship in literature is Nilfgaard, in the Witcher series.  People who have only played the games  can get the impression that Nilfgaard is a relatively liberal society, given that there is not a lot of legal discrimination against non-humans in their society (casual discrimination does exist however), and some women achieve commissioned rank  in their armies.

While that's also true in the books, and the Northern realms that Nilfgaard threatens are ruled by a bunch of racist thugs, Nilfgaard is a conquering, imperialistic, very brutal power, that inflicts appalling levels of cruelty upon the people it subjugates.

That is similar to Rome in a lot of ways, really, as well as the Ottoman Empire. Both of these societies get a rather rose-tinted view treatment today because they were not racist... but even if they weren't*, that doesn't change the fact that they engaged in genocide at a drop of the hat.

* Not something I would put my hand in the fire for.

[SeanF]

Just now, Aldarion said:

That is similar to Rome in a lot of ways, really, as well as the Ottoman Empire. Both of these societies get a rather rose-tinted view treatment today because they were not racist... but even if they weren't, but that doesn't change the fact that they engaged in genocide at a drop of the hat.

Similarly the Mongols get praised for their religious tolerance, which is a point in their favour, but does not outweigh the rest.

[Morte]

54 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

There is also the fact that bugs did kill millions of people in an unprovoked attack, kept attacking, and... well, we have never seen (at least in the first movie - didn't watch the others in a long time) Federation do anything obviously bad. The worst thing about the movie-verse Federation is their ridiculous military incompetence, but I have never noticed anything that some people accuse them of. The only thing suggesting Federation to be bad is the Nazi aesthetics used (uniforms being rather blatant example), but that is rather thin evidence.

I don't think getting bug-POV would have changed much.

I think Verhoeven wanted to show how this conflict is used by the leaders of earth in their favour. We don't know if there was an unprovoked attack, or just an accident on behalf of the bug - or even pure bad luck (an asteroid hit earth). We have an "othering" of the antagonistic party, but we essentially know nothing about the nature of the conflict. And neither we nor the protagonists are told anything - that's the one point Verhoeven wanted the viewer to realize above all, and that it doesn't need to be some evil nazi dictatorship to do such a thing. Funny thing, a lot of people did not like him using shades of grey, they wanted the film to be a blunt critique on militarism (it is a critique of that, but not blunt and simple), and were disappointed then they didn't get a simple black and white picture.

[Aldarion]

1 hour ago, Morte said:

I think Verhoeven wanted to show how this conflict is used by the leaders of earth in their favour. We don't know if there was an unprovoked attack, or just an accident on behalf of the bug - or even pure bad luck (an asteroid hit earth). We have an "othering" of the antagonistic party, but we essentially know nothing about the nature of the conflict. And neither we nor the protagonists are told anything - that's the one point Verhoeven wanted the viewer to realize above all, and that it doesn't need to be some evil nazi dictatorship to do such a thing. Funny thing, a lot of people did not like him using shades of grey, they wanted the film to be a blunt critique on militarism (it is a critique of that, but not blunt and simple), and were disappointed then they didn't get a simple black and white picture.

Maybe, but that is making a lot of assumptions that are not necessarily supported by the movie itself. We know from later events that Bugs are intelligent, capable of gaining enemy intelligence (by sucking out brains), and capable of destroying starships with ground-to-orbit plasma weapons. There is no reason to assume that the Federation is lying about the asteroids.

As for "othering" of the antagonistic party, that is just normal human behavior which you can see everywhere.

[SeanF]

7 minutes ago, Aldarion said:

Maybe, but that is making a lot of assumptions that are not necessarily supported by the movie itself. We know from later events that Bugs are intelligent, capable of gaining enemy intelligence (by sucking out brains), and capable of destroying starships with ground-to-orbit plasma weapons. There is no reason to assume that the Federation is lying about the asteroids.

As for "othering" of the antagonistic party, that is just normal human behavior which you can see everywhere.

Dealt with very well, in Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy.

The spy chief, Pike, explains to his lieutenant that of course, a soldier must otherise and demonise the enemy.

But, he and she are intelligence officers.  They work with the enemy, live among them, drink with them, befriend them, even sleep with them.  They know that they are human beings, many of them admirable, and overall, no better nor worse than anyone else.

But, for people fighting the bugs, that won’t ever be an option.

 

[Aldarion]

38 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Dealt with very well, in Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy.

The spy chief, Pike, explains to his lieutenant that of course, a soldier must otherise and demonise the enemy.

But, he and she are intelligence officers.  They work with the enemy, live among them, drink with them, befriend them, even sleep with them.  They know that they are human beings, many of them admirable, and overall, no better nor worse than anyone else.

But, for people fighting the bugs, that won’t ever be an option.

 

Agreed. When leaders engage in that type of thinking, it is an issue because it can lead to false conclusions and irrational actions. But for soldiers, it is basically a psychological necessity.

[GZ Bloodraven]

8 hours ago, Morte said:

The author has already told us, that his metatextual aim is to deconstruct the young-and-clueless-saviour-troupe in fantasy, in which the saviour is a saviour simply because they are, and everything they touch works to the benefits of everyone and nothing ever backfires or has a price. That's why both Jon and Daenerys fail initially, even though they are right in what they aim for. For all his flaws in worldbuilding and researching on historical subjects he's using, GRRM does this one really well.

Beside: Can Daenerys even be "read as 'white' in our world"? She was a de facto pauper all her life - and then sold to a Dothraki khaal... Would you read Sally Hemings as "white"?

The young-and-clueless savior trope is just the white savior trope with a young person. Jon is "saving" Wildlings, other white people. Dany is "saving" the Ghiscari, mostly POC people. 

Sally Hemings wasn't white. Dany, being a Valyrian princess, has social benefits because of her pale white skin and her status as a Valyrian descendant. She did live as a pauper her whole life, and spent much of it as a slave, but she still would be read as "white" in our world.

If people are hung up on "Dany isn't white, she isn't a white savior" we can call her a Valyrian savior if you wish. It doesn't change the fact that the liberation of the Ghiscari is told only from her perspective, someone who is not Ghiscari, intentionally so.

5 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

I think you're a bit hung up on this.  Story telling and fantasy, in particular, have dealt with heroes and prophecy since forever.  Whether it's the boy who pulls a sword from a stone or the man who rides a worm these are individuals fulfilling an in story role.  Whether it's Dany, Jon or the three heads of the Dragon who will save the world - or not if it's all distraction and GRRM is going to totally deconstruct the prince that was promised / Last Hero trope - viewing Dany, ASOIAF or fantasy in general via this white saviour lens as if that's all the author is trying to write about seems really limiting.  And once you start off that way you don't seem able to see much else.

He isn't only writing about Dany as part of the white savior trope. He's writing about imperialism, reconstruction, the ethics of conquest, the moral pit that is slavery, historical cross-cultural influence, the perils of young Turkish warlord love, vengence, cultural assimilation, the myth of the hero etc. etc. White saviorism is one of the things he is writing about when writing Dany. This seems like the most basic and least controversial take about Dany's narrative, I do not understand how a white woman saving POC people, told only from the white woman's perspective and in reference to the furthering of her arc, is not a white savior trope. If she's not white in-universe, she certainly is in our world, and if you don't think that, she can be a Valyrian savior. But this "white savior is bad and trope-y and George doesn't write bad and trope-y things, and so labelling the obvious white savior narrative as a white savior narrative is fitting a square peg into a round hole and you are hung up on this" seems, as I've said, ignorant and missing the point of the story.

[Alester Florent]

2 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

He isn't only writing about Dany as part of the white savior trope. He's writing about imperialism, reconstruction, the ethics of conquest, the moral pit that is slavery, historical cross-cultural influence, the perils of young Turkish warlord love, vengence, cultural assimilation, the myth of the hero etc. etc. White saviorism is one of the things he is writing about when writing Dany. This seems like the most basic and least controversial take about Dany's narrative, I do not understand how a white woman saving POC people, told only from the white woman's perspective and in reference to the furthering of her arc, is not a white savior trope. If she's not white in-universe, she certainly is in our world, and if you don't think that, she can be a Valyrian savior. But this "white savior is bad and trope-y and George doesn't write bad and trope-y things, and so labelling the obvious white savior narrative as a white savior narrative is fitting a square peg into a round hole and you are hung up on this" seems, as I've said, ignorant and missing the point of the story.

I think it's also worth pointing out that nobody here is saying, I think, that GRRM created a white saviour narrative intentionally. Few authors do in this day and age, and those who do tend to have alarming political views. "White saviour-ism" in media is generally something which is done unintentionally, and is usually done with the best of intentions.

The point is whether GRRM has brought his own unconscious biases and prejudices to his portrayal of Dany's story arc, not whether "all the author is trying to write about" is the white saviour business. And while I agree that while boiling down everything written to this kind of debate is reductive and limiting, deliberately ignoring it - indeed, looking only at "what the author intends" - is limiting in its own way.

[the trees have eyes]

On 3/26/2023 at 8:18 PM, GZ Bloodraven said:

He isn't only writing about Dany as part of the white savior trope. He's writing about imperialism, reconstruction, the ethics of conquest, the moral pit that is slavery, historical cross-cultural influence, the perils of young Turkish warlord love, vengence, cultural assimilation, the myth of the hero etc. etc. White saviorism is one of the things he is writing about when writing Dany. This seems like the most basic and least controversial take about Dany's narrative, I do not understand how a white woman saving POC people, told only from the white woman's perspective and in reference to the furthering of her arc, is not a white savior trope. If she's not white in-universe, she certainly is in our world, and if you don't think that, she can be a Valyrian savior. But this "white savior is bad and trope-y and George doesn't write bad and trope-y things, and so labelling the obvious white savior narrative as a white savior narrative is fitting a square peg into a round hole and you are hung up on this" seems, as I've said, ignorant and missing the point of the story.

See, Dany is not an invading conqueror.  The Unsullied who rise up and likewise the freedmen are the victims of the Ghiscari. These are her forces.  She poaches their mercenaries, true, but she did not bring them like an invading colonist, they hired them themselves. The story is one of liberation not imperialism.  And you did say this was an allegory on Iraq when GRRM published ASOS before the Iraq War so Idk if I'm ignorant or missing the point of the story.  I certainly don't have the fixation you do.

On 3/26/2023 at 8:18 PM, GZ Bloodraven said:

The young-and-clueless savior trope is just the white savior trope with a young person. Jon is "saving" Wildlings, other white people. Dany is "saving" the Ghiscari, mostly POC people. 

This is what I mean.  Heroes and prophecies are the universal stock in trade of the fantasy genre.  For you to say the young blundering hero theme is just a subset of the "white saviour" trope is all wrong.  You've got it backwards at best.

[Alester Florent]

2 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

See, Dany is not an invading conqueror.  The Unsullied who rise up and likewise the freedmen are the victims of the Ghiscari. These are her forces.  She poaches their mercenaries, true, but she did not bring them like an invading colonist, they hired them themselves. The story is one of liberation not imperialism.  And you did say this was an allegory on Iraq when GRRM published ASOS before the Iraq War so Idk if I'm ignorant or missing the point of the story.  I certainly don't have the fixation you do.

The vast majority of Cortez's army in Mexico was made up of natives rebelling against Aztec overlordship. It doesn't make Cortez not a conqueror.

[Oana_Mika]

3 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Dany is "saving" the Ghiscari, mostly POC people. 

Where does it say that they are mostly POC? The slaves from Slaver's Bay come from all over the world.

[Craving Peaches]

3 hours ago, Oana_Mika said:

The slaves from Slaver's Bay come from all over the world.

I mean Doreah has pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes...the slaves are clearly a multi-ethnic group, more like the slave trade of antiquity than the transatlantic trade.

[Oana_Mika]

27 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I mean Doreah has pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes...the slaves are clearly a multi-ethnic group, more like the slave trade of antiquity than the transatlantic trade.

Yep, that's what Martin said too :

 

„This scene where Daenerys is hailed by the slaves is drawn from the books but in the books I made it very clear that the slavery of slavers bay is not racially based“

„it’s not american slavery which was strictly race based. That’s certainly what I depict in the books and I think that‘s what is meant to be depicted in the show too“

 

 

[GZ Bloodraven]

On 3/27/2023 at 4:26 PM, the trees have eyes said:

See, Dany is not an invading conqueror.  The Unsullied who rise up and likewise the freedmen are the victims of the Ghiscari. These are her forces.  She poaches their mercenaries, true, but she did not bring them like an invading colonist, they hired them themselves. The story is one of liberation not imperialism.  And you did say this was an allegory on Iraq when GRRM published ASOS before the Iraq War so Idk if I'm ignorant or missing the point of the story.  I certainly don't have the fixation you do.

Dany is a wannabe invading conqueror. The Unsullied are not the POV of their liberation. White saviorism is about who, in a story about POC liberation, is being centered and who's character arc and growth is the liberation of POC benefitting. In ASOIAF, unless you want to argue that the Ghiscari are not POC with their dark amber skin and Daenerys is not white with her pale white Valyrian skin, the person growing from the liberation of the POC is Daenerys. 

I don't think I said that ASOS mirrored the Iraq War, I was talking about Afghanistan and some Latin American conflicts (and also the Confederacy and reconstruction etc.), but the Sons of the Harpy, filling a power vacuum left after regime change, is a parallel to the Iraq War in a book published in 2011. I think you are being intentionally ignorant when you say that Dany's story isn't a white savior narrative; I don't have a fixation on this issue, it is one of about a dozen angles of meaning that I find from Daenerys' story, some of which I listed above, but if the most avid readers of ASOIAF cannot recognize that Dany's story is pretty akin to a white savior narrative then I think we have a seriously problem.

On 3/27/2023 at 4:26 PM, the trees have eyes said:

This is what I mean.  Heroes and prophecies are the universal stock in trade of the fantasy genre.  For you to say the young blundering hero theme is just a subset of the "white saviour" trope is all wrong.  You've got it backwards at best.

Are we talking about prophecies? In the Messianic sense? Messiah complexes and white savior complexes are pretty similar, all things considered, especially when the centering of the narrative is not on the POC people that the messiah or young blundering hero is saving, but on the young blundering heroes feelings about the people they are saving, which is what happens when we only see Dany's view. Jon Snow is not a white savior...Daenerys is...both of them are young blundering heroes. One is a white savior. These are two different tropes that overlap in Dany's story. If you think that the young blundering hero theme is a subset of the "white savior" theme in Jon Snow's story, I am afraid that you in fact have it backwards at best. But if you do not think that young blundering hero theme is a subset of the white savior theme in Daenerys' story, I do think you have a narrative blindspot. Which is OK, I guess, we all do.

[Here's Looking At You, Kid]

On 3/11/2023 at 1:38 PM, Corvo the Crow said:

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.

Trope?  The trope is a male getting the iron throne.  A very interesting and compelling story for me is the exiled Princess who brought the dragons back to life, liberated millions of slaves and eradicated the slavemasters, and getting the reward of ruling and rebuilding Westeros for fifty years or more. 

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

Dany is a wannabe invading conqueror. The Unsullied are not the POV of their liberation. White saviorism is about who, in a story about POC liberation, is being centered and who's character arc and growth is the liberation of POC benefitting. In ASOIAF, unless you want to argue that the Ghiscari are not POC with their dark amber skin and Daenerys is not white with her pale white Valyrian skin, the person growing from the liberation of the POC is Daenerys. 

 

It is kind of weird to even take that view since, again, the slaves comes in all colors and ethnicities. And the slavers are Ghiscari, too. They would be POC, too. In fact, a white savior as such only makes sense in a colonial setting or in a postcolonial, post-slavery society like the Americas.

A white savior narrative only works in a setting where the reader/viewer can actually show that the setting as such presents cultural and racial hierarchies, portrays an or multiple culture(s), people(s), or groups as such in need of being saved by somebody from another, more advanced culture/people/race. And even then I'd say this is only problematic if the narrative twists 'inferior' cultures in a clichéd and wrong way. A mere imbalance of power resulting in a more powerful person ending or trying to end a wrong in less powerful, less advanced society is not in itself problematic.

And that simply isn't the case in ASoIaF.

While we can point out the problematic choice of POV characters (mostly Westerosi people of high birth) ... pointing out that doesn't mean all the non-POV character are secondary or tertiary characters with no depth. Varys, Littlefinger, Tywin, Gendry, Stannis don't need POV chapters to have depth. An author can create complex character without allowing the reader a peek in their mind.

George also does a good job to show how the common people do suffer in war and how they can develop agency of their own with the sparrow movement and the Brotherhood without Banners, etc. Of course, there is an imbalance there, a lack of an insider perspective, but we also have no POV for House Tyrell

In ADwD we might not get a freedman POV, but Dany, Barristan, Quentyn, and Tyrion do not just give us their perspective on things. Through their eyes we do see the opinions and issues and emotions of the other characters.

It is not the case, for instance, that Dany and the other Westerosi people only talk about the former slaves and freedmen, reiterating their own prejudices. They interact with and listen to the former slaves. We also see this kind of thing done when the Volantene political system is discussed. Quentyn's gang are not in agreement that only princes and kings can rule, and a Freehold with three annually elected co-ruling triarchs sucks. Nope, we even have characters point out that this political system is actually better than the hereditary monarchy that's common in Westeros.

[Alester Florent]

3 hours ago, Here's Looking At You, Kid said:

Trope?  The trope is a male getting the iron throne.  A very interesting and compelling story for me is the exiled Princess who brought the dragons back to life, liberated millions of slaves and eradicated the slavemasters, and getting the reward of ruling and rebuilding Westeros for fifty years or more. 

So you're not even pretending to engage with the topic under discussion any more?

[the trees have eyes]

On 3/28/2023 at 3:04 AM, Alester Florent said:

The vast majority of Cortez's army in Mexico was made up of natives rebelling against Aztec overlordship. It doesn't make Cortez not a conqueror.

I get that you are trying to point out that the Aztecs were an imperial power (in a regional sense) and that some of the subject cities joined with Cortez to throw off Aztec dominance but you can't really compare Dany with a conquistador!!  That literally inverts her purpose since Cortez plundered and enslaved the natives, rather than liberating them.  He just had local help at the outset, which was in turn enslaved and plundered.  She's a conqueror to the Ghiscari elite, a liberator to the freedmen.  I know GRRM painted this in primary colours but I know which view has more weight for me.

And Cortez would never have achieved what he did without gunpowder, dogs, horses, steel weapons and armour, all of which either terrified the natives or completely outclassed them militarily.  Dany brought nothing militarily and had no leverage until she had the Unsullied.

15 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

Dany is a wannabe invading conqueror. The Unsullied are not the POV of their liberation. White saviorism is about who, in a story about POC liberation, is being centered and who's character arc and growth is the liberation of POC benefitting.

You keep hammering these nails but I do find them misplaced.  Why should the Unsullied be the POV of their liberation any more than the Wildlings be the POV of their desperate attempt to flee south or the Smallfolk of the Riverlands the POV of their desperate struggle for survival?  This is character driven story telling and the author follows his own characters.  You are creating rules for the author to follow based on misplaced racial projections into his work of art.  We see all these groups suffer but we never get POVs from them because that's not the author's technique.  Instead we see their misery reflected through our characters' eyes.  If you are okay with not knowing how the Smallfolk of the Riverlands or The Wildlings felt first hand then I would hope you would be okay with not knowing how the people of Slaver's Bay felt first hand.  But if you stick a POC / white saviour label on it you politicise art say there are different rules for different parts of the author's story or there are boxes he must tick.  In real world social commentary this is absolutely reasonable and perhaps in fiction writing too but to try and impose it in fantasy writing when the author has himself deliberately muddied the racial / cultural groups to prevent this sort of reaction then l do find it misplaced.

16 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

Are we talking about prophecies? In the Messianic sense? Messiah complexes and white savior complexes are pretty similar, all things considered

Why?  Saving people does not carry racial connotations.  The Messiah was the saviour of his own people, not someone who assumed racial superiority to others.

16 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

If you think that the young blundering hero theme is a subset of the "white savior" theme in Jon Snow's story, I am afraid that you in fact have it backwards at best.

I most certainly don't.  You were the one who alleged that the young blundering hero trope was a subset of the white saviour trope in fantasy writing.  I'm glad you don't really think this.

16 hours ago, GZ Bloodraven said:

But if you do not think that young blundering hero theme is a subset of the white savior theme in Daenerys' story, I do think you have a narrative blindspot. Which is OK, I guess, we all do.

Yeah, I don't think that because I think you are mischaracterising her arc.  The young blundering hero is exactly what she is and how much GRRM intends to play on that or deconstruct is tbd. Since we have only had Slaver's Bay / Meereen for twenty years I guess I can see why you could reduce her to this or pigeonhole her purpose as to critique western imperialism or ideas of cultural hegemony this way but it's really off the mark.  The problems of regime change, shifting balances of power and the acceptance of an outsider who is also a forward looking reformer are the themes he plays with in both Dany and Jon's povs (Tyrion's too to an extent).  But breaking this down to a white saviour of POC - despite the author's story-telling technique and the jumbled world he's created - and then critiquing the absence of certain narrative perspectives just seems a to create an artificial stick to beat him with, however lightly.

If you think I should share your assessment and join in your labelling and pigeonholing then I'm ok with disagreeing whether you consider that ignorant or blind.

[Daeron the Daring]

Are there black slavers too?