Is Dany a White Savior?

[Oana_Mika]

Here is Mr  Martin answering to your question : 

 

[Corvo the Crow]

6 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

So this is ok to you??

 

Not as much as this is ok to you it would seem 

Quote

We have no slaves for sale," said Dany.

"My queen?" Daario stepped forward. "The riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the flies."

Dany was shocked. "They want to be slaves?"

"The ones who come are well spoken and gentlyborn, sweet queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be tutors, scribes, bedslaves, even healers and priests. They will sleepin soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they have lost all, and live in fear and squalor."

"I see." Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. "Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman." She raised a hand. "But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife."

But thanks for reminding of your presence, it would seem I forgot to block you last time.

Edited March 12 by Corvo the Crow

[Oana_Mika]

26 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Not as much as this is ok to you it would seem 

Where did I say or imply that I'm ok with that?

 

26 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

But thanks for reminding of your presence, it would seem I forgot to block you last time.

 

I did not know I was banned from answering and enaging in this fandom. It seems to me that if you make a post, people will engange. Wasn't that your goal? Or it did not have the wished results/answers? And yeah, feel free to use the block botton, though I think I may still be allowed to comment on your posts.

Edited March 12 by Oana_Mika

[Craving Peaches]

5 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

nor a man his wife."

Does this mean a wife can sell her husband into slavery?

Edit before people get upset: Yes I am well aware that the reason Daenerys specifies husbands cannot sell wives is because the wife was seen as the weaker partner in the marriage, had to obey husband etc. but on the other hand it seems to be a lacuna here which could be exploited...

Edited March 12 by Craving Peaches

[Oana_Mika]

Just now, Craving Peaches said:

Does this mean a wife can sell her husband into slavery?

It seems to me she thought a woman wouldn't and couldn't do that, given how misogynystic their society is.

[Oana_Mika]

5 hours ago, Corvo the Crow said:

"Any man who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman."

Oh, you meant this.

 

I never said it was a good decision of hers to allow people to sell themselves into slavery. You atribute ill intent to that, where she only respected people's wishes, something she is accused of not doing. And she also disincentivized that by taking Missandei's advice of taxing it and using said money to help Meereen to have an economy not based on slavery

Edited March 12 by Oana_Mika

[Corvo the Crow]

2 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Does this mean a wife can sell her husband into slavery?

Edit before people get upset: Yes I am well aware that the reason Daenerys specifies husbands cannot sell wives is because the wife was seen as the weaker partner in the marriage, had to obey husband etc. but on the other hand it seems to be a lacuna here which could be exploited...

I’d think not but with Dany you can’t really know. This is the person who has to say don’t kill any children below 12. They literally had to cut that bit(she says harm no child instead) in the show, this is how problematic it is and some people here defend it.

 

[SeanF]

The argument that inaction is the best course of action "cements evil" in the words of former German President, Joachim Gauke.

JS Mill put it equally well:

"Let no one think it sufficient that he takes no part and forms no opinion.  All that is needed for evil men to compass their ends is that good men look on and do nothing."

Being "melanine-advantaged" (a ghastly phrase) does not exempt one from one's obligations towards the rest of humanity. The argument that it does is reaction, dressed up in PC-sounding language.

Edited March 12 by SeanF

[Oana_Mika]

2 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I’d think not but with Dany you can’t really know. This is the person who has to say don’t kill any children below 12. They literally had to cut that bit(she says harm no child instead) in the show, this is how problematic it is and some people here defend it.

 

Haven't you thought that maybe in the show she only says "harm no child" because the character/actress is older, unlike in the books where she is 14-15?

And why is there a plot point of her not killing her child hostages if she is willing to kill children? 

 

Why does she think of these characters as "only boys"?

 

A boy came, younger than Dany, slight and scarred, dressed up in a frayed grey tokar trailing silver fringe.[...]

"Enough, Belwas," Dany called. "Release him." To the boy she said, "Treasure that tokar, for it saved your life. You are only a boy, so we will forget what happened here. You should do the same." (ADWD,Daenerys I)

 

"A boy," said Dany. "He was only a boy."

"Six-and-ten," Hizdahr insisted. " (ADWD,Daenerys IX)

 

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I’d think not but with Dany you can’t really know. This is the person who has to say don’t kill any children below 12. They literally had to cut that bit(she says harm no child instead) in the show, this is how problematic it is and some people here defend it.

 

Does anybody give orders to spare Jon Snow, Robb Stark, Joffrey, Podrick Payne, Daenerys herself, or countless squires and grooms, because they are aged under 16?

No, because teenagers bear arms, and peform adult occuptions, in this world.  That is why teenage soldiers, overseers, and slavers were killed at Astapor.

[Craving Peaches]

2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

No, because teenagers bear arms, and peform adult occuptions, in this world.  That is why teenage soldiers, overseers, and slavers were killed at Astapor.

I've said this before but according to Roman Law a boy becomes a man when he turns 14. Assuming Valyria had similar laws and these were adopted in Astapor, the 'children' potentially at risk were those aged 12-14, however this assumes that the Unsullied can perfectly tell everyone's age which seems unlikely.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

I've said this before but according to Roman Law a boy becomes a man when he turns 14. Assuming Valyria had similar laws and these were adopted in Astapor, the 'children' potentially at risk were those aged 12-14, however this assumes that the Unsullied can perfectly tell everyone's age which seems unlikely.

The tokar is essentially the toga virilis.

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

The tokar is essentially the toga virilis.

We however do see someone wearing a tokar who is in Daenerys' own words a boy so...?

Quote

• grey with a silver fringe, owned by the son of a Great Master^[2]

Quote

A young boy tells her how two of his father's houseshold slaves had killed his father and older brother, and raped and killed his mother. He request they be hanged, but Daenerys has to deny him, as she had declared a blanket pardon for all crimes committed during the sack, and will not punish slaves for rising up against their masters. The boy attempts to attack her upon hearing her decision, but fails when he trips on his own tokar.

[Oana_Mika]

3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The tokar is essentially the toga virilis.

The garment was a clumsy thing, a long loose shapeless sheet that had to be wound around her hips and under an arm and over a shoulder, its dangling fringes carefully layered and displayed. Wound too loose, it was like to fall off; wound too tight, it would tangle, trip, and bind. Even wound properly, the tokar required its wearer to hold it in place with the left hand. Walking in a tokar demanded small, mincing steps and exquisite balance, lest one tread upon those heavy trailing fringes. It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work.  (ADWD, Daenerys I)

 

It's obvious that whoever weares a tokar, they can't perform any work.

[Craving Peaches]

Who was killed depends on what order the Unsullied prioritised first. The two orders were:

• Slay every man who wears a tokar - does man mean people of age or all males? Presumably it means the former since the boy wearing the tokar was still alive, but we don't know how old he is, and unless the Unsullied are 100% accurate in judging ages it could be possible that some children (in the in-world sense of the word, not just our own) were killed. Also presumably excludes woman as we see it is the women and the boys among the elites who are left in Astapor.
• Harm no child under 12.

The difficulty arises were you have aged 12-14 male tokar wearers, likely still legally considered children but not afforded the protection children get from the command as the cut off is at 12.

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

It is about those melanine advantaged people being stupid and incompetent to the degree that some random melanine disadvantaged person is so above them s/he becomes “white saviour”. Ask yourself this why the hell do these people are not able to do anything without this “white savior”

Fear and lack of power. Let's be real, sometimes evil is rooted into tradition so deep and people are educated to think a certain way, they can't possibly imagine the status quo being destroyed. Take for example North Korea. I think most of us can agree that Kim Jon Un is evil and threats the majority of his people very, very poorly. So why haven't they rebelled against him. The same can be said about Russia right now; Putin is not a very popular "President", who is currently waging war on a country, for no reason other than his own ego, yet I don't see any massive rebellion forming in Russia to over turn him.

Just my 2 cents though.

[SeanF]

2 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Who was killed depends on what order the Unsullied prioritised first. The two orders were:

• Slay every man who wears a tokar - does man mean people of age or all males? Presumably it means the former since the boy wearing the tokar was still alive, but we don't know how old he is, and unless the Unsullied are 100% accurate in judging ages it could be possible that some children (in the in-world sense of the word, not just our own) were killed. Also presumably excludes woman as we see it is the women and the boys among the elites who are left in Astapor.
• Harm no child under 12.

The difficulty arises were you have aged 12-14 male tokar wearers, likely still legally considered children but not afforded the protection children get from the command as the cut off is at 12.

I don't doubt that there must have been some people who died at Astapor who did not deserve to die.

As against that, 48,000 people were liberated, and another 5,500 were spared castration, and being subjected to a form of training that would kill two thirds of them, and require the survivors each to kill a baby. 

[Oana_Mika]

13 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

We however do see someone wearing a tokar who is in Daenerys' own words a boy so...?

Daenerys does not order the Unsullied to attack everyone in Astapor, only those who were at the Plaza of Punishment, where the deal was made. These are the people who are in that Plaza and the ones she sees before getting there :

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.
Aggo went before her with his great Dothraki bow. Strong Belwas walked to the right of her mare, the girl Missandei to her left. Ser Jorah Mormont was behind in mail and surcoat, glowering at anyone who came too near. Rakharo and Jhogo protected the litter. Dany had commanded that the top be removed, so her three dragons might be chained to the platform. Irri and Jhiqui rode with them, to try and keep them calm. Yet Viserion’s tail lashed back and forth, and smoke rose angry from his nostrils. Rhaegal could sense something wrong as well. Thrice he tried to take wing, only to be pulled down by the heavy chain in Jhiqui’s hand. Drogon coiled into a ball, wings and tail tucked tight. Only his eyes remained to tell that he was not asleep.
The rest of her people followed: Groleo and the other captains and their crews, and the eighty-three Dothraki who remained to her of the hundred thousand who had once ridden in Drogo’s khalasar. She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red waste and black salt sea.
I ought to have a banner sewn, she thought as she led her tattered band up along Astapor’s meandering river. She closed her eyes to imagine how it would look: all flowing black silk, and on it the red three-headed dragon of Targaryen, breathing golden flames. A banner such as Rhaegar might have borne. The river’s banks were strangely tranquil. The Worm, the Astapori called the stream. It was wide and slow and crooked, dotted with tiny wooded islands. She glimpsed children playing on one of them, darting amongst elegant marble statues. On another island two lovers kissed in the shade of tall green trees, with no more shame than Dothraki at a wedding. Without clothing, she could not tell if they were slave or free.
The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor’s main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked and flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,” Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.
At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might peel an apple, in a long curling strip. One man had an arm black with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”
“He raised a hand against his owner.”
Her stomach roiling, Dany wheeled her silver about and trotted toward the center of the plaza, and the army she had bought so dear. Rank on rank on rank they stood, her stone halfmen with their hearts of brick; eight thousand and six hundred in the spiked bronze caps of fully trained Unsullied, and five thousand odd behind them, bareheaded, yet armed with spears and shortswords. The ones farthest to the back were only boys, she saw but they stood as straight and still as all the rest.
Kraznys mo Nakloz and his fellows were all there to greet her. Other well-born Astapori stood in knots behind them, sipping wine from silver flutes as slaves circulated among them with trays of olives and cherries and figs. The elder Grazdan sat in a sedan chair supported by four huge copper-skinned slaves. Half a dozen mounted lancers rode along the edges of the plaza, keeping back the crowds who had come to watch. The sun flashed blinding bright off the polished copper disks sewn to their cloaks, but she could not help but notice how nervous their horses seemed. They fear the dragons. And well they might. (ASOS Dany III) 

 

 

If she would have killed the slaver's children why on Earth wouldn't they add that to the myriad of things the slavers say about her?

Edited March 12 by Oana_Mika

[Craving Peaches]

5 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

Daenerys does not order the Unsullied to attack everyone in Astapor, only those who were at the Plaza of Punishment

But she never specifies to restrict the scope of the executions to the plaza, so you really can't say that for sure. I don't think Daenerys is a child murderess or anything like that but as Sean F said it is likely that some people who did not deserve to die did.

5 minutes ago, Oana_Mika said:

If she would have killed the slaver's children why on Earth wouldn't they add that to the myriad of things the slavers say about her?

Well she obviously would have had some of the slavers' children killed if they were men over 12 wearing a tokar. Because unless you are a women or under twelve you die if you are wearing a tokar. What I am saying is that these people killed might not be considered to be adults because they are 12 and not fourteen. And you can still be someone's child if you are an adult anyway.

Edited March 12 by Craving Peaches

[Oana_Mika]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

Well she obviously would have had some of the slavers' children killed if they were men over 12 wearing a tokar. Because unless you are a women or under twelve you die if you are wearing a tokar. What I am saying is that these people killed might not be considered to be adults because they are 12 and not fourteen.

I just showed you who were in the Plaza : Kraznys mo Nakloz and his fellow Good Masters, including Grazdan, other wellborn Astapori slavers, the slaves who serve the Good Masters and wellborn Astapori audience members, the mounted lancers who fight for the Good Masters, the 8,600 fully trained Unsullied, the 5,000 recruits in the process of training, and the uncut boys who haven’t been trained yet. There are also dead and dying slaves who have been flayed, racked, and hanged at the Plaza of Punishment. Are you suggesting that the unsullied went on rampage in all Astapor?