I hope there is no 'Aegon's Prophecy' Retcon in the Books

[SeanF]

The Targaryens were similar to people like Sven Forkbeard, and Cnut, in their conquest of England.  The English were not treated as a subject race, rather the ruling dynasty changed.

There’s also a similarity with the House of Wessex, who over the course of 40 years, conquered London, East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria and converted them into England.

I view the Targaryens as simply the most successful of a group of competing warlords.  Even the princess of Dorne was prepared to offer aid to Aegon in return for territorial gains.

[frenin]

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 But before the Dragon’s Peace, as the last two decades of his kingship were later called by the maesters of the Citadel, came the Dragon’s wars, the last of which was as cruel and bloody a conflict as any ever fought in Westeros.

 

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 By then Dorne was a smoking desert, beset by famine, plague, and blight. “A blasted land,” traders from the Free Cities called it. Yet House Martell still remained Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken, as their words avowed. One Dornish knight, brought before Queen Visenya as a captive, insisted that Meria Martell would sooner see her people dead than slaves to House Targaryen. Visenya replied that she and her brother would be glad to oblige the princess.

 

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  Dorne was a blighted, burning ruin by this time, and still the Dornish hid and fought from the shadows, refusing to surrender. Even the smallfolk refused to yield, and the toll in lives was uncountable.

Not genocide because of... well reasons.

[Morte]

8 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

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A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

So it does fit.

Sorry, but because this is getting way too close to historical revisionism for my liking, I have to interfere.

You put the emphasis on the wrong parts, the emphasis is:

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A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Without the intent to destroy a group of people as such, because they are who they are, it's not genocide, it's mass murder atrocities, war crimes, etc.

I know that the phrasing became blurry in the past decades, but it is imho important to remember where the blur is originally coming from: From Alt- and Neonazis trying to frame the Shoa as "nothing special" or "not that bad", because others have killed just as many or more people.

Just remember: War crimes, mass murder, atrocities don't become less horrible just because one can't mint them as genocide. Inflationary using it on mediaeval or ancient warfare (with or without dragons) takes the historical revisionism even farther than it inventors dared. There is no need to water down the therm, by doing it, one just makes genocide look less horrible than it is.

So. Sorry - and thank you.

[Craving Peaches]

20 minutes ago, Morte said:

There is no need to water down the therm, by doing it, one just makes genocide look less horrible than it is.

I'm not trying to water it down, I'm well aware of the part you quoted, but I fail to see how it is historical revisionism when Aegon I is killing the Dornish because they are Dornish? How does he not have the required intent? I admit it is difficult to draw the line between genocide and 'just' mass murder.

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Although Dorne was a blasted, burning ruin from the Red Mountains to the mouth of the Greenblood, 

It just really seems like an effort to wipe out at least part of the Dornish people to me... Because the villages were targeted too, not as part of any military campaign, but because he was angry at the Dornish people for killing his sister...

Edited April 9, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

Whether it was genocide or not, I view the treatment of Dorne as being as bad as William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North.

We know it was very bad from Domesday Book recording most of Yorkshire and Durham as “waste”, 16 years after the event.

We also know it went beyond contemporary military norms, because William’s generally admiring biographer, Orderic Vitalis, made a point of describing it as awful and indefensible.  He said it was the one thing William did that he could not justify.

The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. This made a real change. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people perished of starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him.

Although 100,000 deaths may be an exaggeration, (England's population was about 2 million at that point), and Orderic was writing in the 1120's, primary sources and archaeology both point to a very high death toll.  The academic consensus is that the population of Yorkshire and Durham had fallen by about two thirds, between 1066 and 1086.  

I have no real issue with the conquest of the Six Kingdoms, which was done with limited loss of life, and produced benefits.  But, the Dornish war was a real stain on the record of Aegon and his sisters.

Edited April 9, 2023 by SeanF

[Morte]

2 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I'm not trying to water it down, I'm well aware of the part you quoted, but I fail to see how it is historical revisionism when Aegon I is killing the Dornish because they are Dornish? How does he not have the required intent?

That's why I said it's difficult to use it (and one maybe should not) on warfare in such a setting (mediaeval fantasy world, philosophically on the level of ... say, the Pliocean). It is a very brutal conquesting war of Dorne, that's why they are killing Dornish, but would they continue if Dorne would yield? Would Dornish be used as cattle? Forbitten higher education? Culled into special quarters? Do they start the war because the Dornish are Dornish?

What would have happened, had Dorne gone the "Northern Way"? Would they still try to kill them? Would there be a war? Would there be killing/harnessing/oppression against the Dornish people? Or would it be like everywhere else?

That we do have is idiotic hurt noble pride because the people were fighting back effectively and did not bent. And after the - actually very impressive - killing of Meraxes and Rhaenys, it got personal and the horrible atrocities done by Aegon and Visenya can actually be seen as petty revenge. Which - for me, personal - makes them worse than 'normal' war crimes, as their only reason is to hurt the other because someone hurt the siblings on a personal level. Unfortunately such revenge was quite common in feudal societies.

29 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I admit it is difficult to draw the line between genocide and 'just' mass murder.

No, it isn't, the definition you stated above is actually pretty clear and good, as it also covers genocide within a country/without war.

And it is never "just" mass murder, "just" war crimes, "just" atrocities. It's also never "just" war.

[Ran]

I think one common view of genocide in terms of modern rules of war is if you are deliberately killing civilians as a strategy to force surrender. I think it's entirely correct to say that the Dragon's Wroth era was genocidal on the part of Aegon and Visenya. They were prepared to wipe out the entirety of the Dornish population if the Dornish did not surrender.

[Craving Peaches]

45 minutes ago, Morte said:

And it is never "just" mass murder, "just" war crimes, "just" atrocities. It's also never "just" war.

I know it's not that's why I put 'just' in quotations.

46 minutes ago, Morte said:

No, it isn't, the definition you stated above is actually pretty clear and good, as it also covers genocide within a country/without war.

Well maybe it is not hard for you but clearly it is a less definite distinction for other people, this is why we are having a discussion after all. I think what Aegon was doing was genocide according to that definition, you disagree.

@SeanF With regards to the Harrying of the North I am not sure if it is exactly the same, though a good comparison nonetheless. But weren't the English being killed by other English? I know there would have been Normans too but were they still the bulk of William's army at the time? Was it Normans vs Saxons or South English vs North English?

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I know it's not that's why I put 'just' in quotations.

Well maybe it is not hard for you but clearly it is a less definite distinction for other people, this is why we are having a discussion after all. I think what Aegon was doing was genocide according to that definition, you disagree.

@SeanF With regards to the Harrying of the North I am not sure if it is exactly the same, though a good comparison nonetheless. But weren't the English being killed by other English? I know there would have been Normans too but were they still the bulk of William's army at the time? Was it Normans vs Saxons or South English vs North English?

There were certainly plenty of English who willingly served William.

The replacement of Englishmen with Normans and French only took place at the level of the elite.  Most gentry, prosperous tenants, remained English.

[Morte]

7 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Well maybe it is not hard for you but clearly it is a less definite distinction for other people, this is why we are having a discussion after all. I think what Aegon was doing was genocide according to that definition, you disagree.

Because the first sentence of your definition is the most important, as it tells the difference between genocide and any other atrocity - the intent. All of the physical elements listed are there to achieve the mental element: to destroy a group of people because of what and who they are "as such", without a way for them to convince the aggressor otherwise, without a place where the aggressor would leave them alone if getting hold of them.

It's not about conquest, it's not about stupid hurt noble pride or revenge, mass murderous war tactics, scorched-earth policy, "making an example" (this sounds so harmless in English, I mean it in the sense of "pour encourager les autres"), or that else horrible ideas humanity had and has  - genocide is about destroying people because they are, for no other reason.

I just wanted to say that one should be cautions to use the term for every atrocity one finds especially horrible, to not water the term down until people no longer are able to see how horrible an act genocide truly is. I think it would be better to use the term mass murder with the appropriate contempt.

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

2 hours ago, Morte said:

And it is never "just" mass murder, "just" war crimes, "just" atrocities. It's also never "just" war.

I know it's not that's why I put 'just' in quotations.

I know. Just wanted to emphasize your true statement.

[Craving Peaches]

5 minutes ago, Morte said:

Because the first sentence of your definition is the most important, as it tells the difference between genocide and any other atrocity - the intent.

Thank you for clarifying. It seems that our disagreement is about whether Aegon had the intent. Either way it's still horrible. Thank you for explaining in a clear and rational manner.

[SeanF]

@Morte @Craving PeachesSome historians call the Harrying of the North genocide, but I would reject that argument, in favour of calling it an atrocity.

William wanted to rule Western Europe’s most prosperous kingdom.  He had no desire to exterminate the English, or to reduce them to the level of slaves (forget 19th century English nationalist nonsense about “the Norman Yoke”), or to destroy English culture, or to drive them out and replace them with Normans and French.  Norman and French settlers and soldiers probably never amounted to more than 2% of the population, and Englishmen were only replaced in the highest levels of the elite.  Latin and French became prestige languages, and many Englishmen took French names, but English remained a living language, which people wrote (Magna Carta was translated into English).

What he did was to make large parts of the North uninhabitable to prevent any future invasion from Scandinavia, without caring in any way about the human cost that was inflicted on his subjects.  That makes it an atrocity (recognised as such by contemporaries) and a breach of a king’s duty to his people.
 

 

 

[SeanF]

In general, I’d say the kind of warfare that Martin describes is at the worst end of the medieval/early modern spectrum - similar to wars of religion, and crusades against infidels and heretics;  or in the most brutal phases of the Hundred Years War.

Inter-baronial conflict/wars between kings were generally more restrained, with the laws of chivalry making capture for ransom quite common, and some limits being placed upon the treatment of civilians.

But even these conflicts became more brutal after 1260. Edward I bears much blame for that.

[Morte]

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Thank you for clarifying. It seems that our disagreement is about whether Aegon had the intent. Either way it's still horrible.

Yes, it is. It's an atrocity and - as I already said - I think it gets worse by the "Dragon's Wroth" being nothing but personal revenge, and - as @SeanF said - a real stain upon Aegon's and his sister's record.

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Thank you for explaining in a clear and rational manner.

And I have to thank you for your clear and rational questioning my answers. It seems civil conversations are still possible on the internet.

3 hours ago, SeanF said:

What he did was to make large parts of the North uninhabitable to prevent any future invasion from Scandinavia, without caring in any way about the human cost that was inflicted on his subjects.  That makes it an atrocity (recognised as such by contemporaries) and a breach of a king’s duty to his people.

Completely agreeing with your interpretation of the Harrying of the North.

I think Martin did not quite get it right how this would have been seen and - especially - their horror phrased by contemporary chronologists (we have the same refusal one can see from Orderic Vitalis to justify atrocities in certain chronologists of the crusades, they are rightly very harsh and direct in their phrasing), so the whole First Dornish War imho reads too harmless in F&B. And with the burning of the countryside Aegon, too, would have failed his duty as king to his subjects, which he has even toward the Dornish, even if he first has to conquer them to rule.

[SeanF]

3 minutes ago, Morte said:

Yes, it is. It's an atrocity and - as I already said - I think it gets worse by the "Dragon's Wroth" being nothing but personal revenge, and - as @SeanF said - a real stain upon Aegon's and his sister's record.

And I have to thank you for your clear and rational questioning my answers. It seems civil conversations are still possible on the internet.

Completely agreeing with your interpretation of the Harrying of the North.

I think Martin did not quite get it right how this would have been seen and - especially - their horror phrased by contemporary chronologists (we have the same refusal one can see from Orderic Vitalis to justify atrocities in certain chronologists of the crusades, they are rightly very harsh and direct in their phrasing), so the whole First Dornish War imho reads too harmless in F&B. And with the burning of the countryside Aegon, too, would have failed his duty as king to his subjects, which he has even toward the Dornish, even if he first has to conquer them to rule.

Incredibly, I read of one French landowner, granted lands in Yorkshire, who actually handed them back to William, and returned to France, in disgust at what he had witnessed.

Nobody would have condemned William for hanging rebels, or burning villages that harboured them.  It’s the fact he made no attempt to distinguish the guilty from the innocent, and just killed or starved most of the population, his own subjects, that shocked many contemporaries.

[Craving Peaches]

What stops me from seeing the Harrying of the North as the best comparison is that it seems, from what you told me @SeanF, to have been English killing English, whereas the Dornish atrocities were one different ethnicity killing another. It would be more like William carrying out a similar process in Scotland rather than the North of England.

[Lord Varys]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

I think one common view of genocide in terms of modern rules of war is if you are deliberately killing civilians as a strategy to force surrender. I think it's entirely correct to say that the Dragon's Wroth era was genocidal on the part of Aegon and Visenya. They were prepared to wipe out the entirety of the Dornish population if the Dornish did not surrender.

Problem with such a take is that we have not enough textual evidence. Aegon never actually invaded Dorne again after his original defeat, so all he had to attack the Dornish were his dragons - down to two after the death of Rhaenys. Do we actually believe you can commit or try to commit genocide with just two dragons, no homebase in the foreign territory, and no men on the ground to actually kill people?

I don't think so.

At best Aegon and Visenya can have burned castles and towns and villages - but if there were actually (m)any people in those buildings we don't know. And George doesn't tell us. That Dorne was a blasted ruined wasteland doesn't mean a lot of people died.

I'm not saying nobody died, but I am pointing out that buildings do have cellars and dragons do fly away eventually. We see how Aemond running amok with Vhagar during the Dance caused a lot of problems by way of destroying castles, villages, towns, etc., but he didn't kill thousands and thousands of people.

Targeting civilians is a standard tactic of medieval warfare, especially if you consider how common attacking the baggage train/supply lines was. And also, of course, how okay and accepting the sacking of towns and cities was.

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

I have no real issue with the conquest of the Six Kingdoms, which was done with limited loss of life, and produced benefits.  But, the Dornish war was a real stain on the record of Aegon and his sisters.

There is something to that, but as I said we don't know how bad the dragon attacks were. Without that, I actually think the assassin wars between the Targaryens and Dornish might have been worse. Especially if you count Fawnton into that.

However, it strikes as if Aegon mostly target castles and thus the elite - he wouldn't have the resources to burn most of the Dornish countryside just with two dragons. Even with three dragons that would have been a no-go.

And you have to again consider how long 'the Dragon's Wroth' lasted and how many punitive dragon flights were logistically possible in that time period. Aegon had a kingdom to rule. There is no chance that he and Visenya both could stay away from KL for months or years.

[SeanF]

14 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

What stops me from seeing the Harrying of the North as the best comparison is that it seems, from what you told me @SeanF, to have been English killing English, whereas the Dornish atrocities were one different ethnicity killing another. It would be more like William carrying out a similar process in Scotland rather than the North of England.

It's not a one on one comparison, and in all likelihood, treating the Scots in this manner would have been considered more justifiable to contemporaries, given that they were a foreign enemy, who had raided over the Border on numerous occasions. Also, there's probably a distinction to be drawn between a war of retaliation (in which case, extreme brutality would be inflicted upon the inhabitants) and a war of conquest, where more restraint would be practised.

That said, I'd view Edward I's treatment of the Scots as bad, even by contemporary standards.  Executing people by means of hanging, drawing, and quartering, was Edward's innovation, and worse still, to contemporaries, he inflicted that fate upon nobles.  When he captured Robert Bruce's wife he had her exhibited in a cage from the walls of a castle which again, was not at all how noble ladies were supposed to be treated.

In-universe, one can see that many people from the Reach and Stormlands view the Dornish as scarcely human, the same way that Northmen view the Free Folk.

Edited April 9, 2023 by SeanF

[Craving Peaches]

29 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That Dorne was a blasted ruined wasteland doesn't mean a lot of people died.

Of course it does. Not only does it mean settlements were destroyed but also that food and crops were burned and could not be grown, leading to starvation.

[Hugorfonics]

War is hell. Doesnt make it genocide. That's another thing and to compare other situations to it demeans it. The Nazis tried to eradicate the Jews, the Ottomans the Armenians. Many anglos and latins successfully erased the Native Americans, some were accidental but many were not. Ancient Rome is another good example of ones who erase cultures because of their xenophobic ways. They want land others and using and choose to annihilate them for easy confiscation. This is not what the Conquerer did.

William, like Maegor or Cartman, needed them to respect his authority. He was a vicious tyrant and warmonger but did not seek to replace one entire culture with another, like Tiberius before him he sought to shear the sheep, not rule over a desert.

Aegon, like William but not Cartman, was a medieval warrior and preformed war like medievalists do. If the enemy refuses battle you launch unconventional weapons into the castle, if that doesn't work you harass their subjects as they are their means of potential army and of course their piggy bank.

When Sherman coined the term and controversially burned Atlanta, nobody accused him of genocide. That comes later 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Hugorfonics