The Fandom and Defending Atrocities

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

Honestly, I just came back because I wanted to talk with people who love this series, too. I was very happy about many of the responses to my previous Catelyn topic and I want to make this clear, the people I am talking about are in the minority, perhaps 1 in every 10 users here. However, they are exhausting. Horribly exhausting. Listen. These books take place in a very violent universe. They do. However, as I said, around 90% of the people here can talk about these topics and I feel like we could probably go gleefully on our way, but then there is always that 10% who start defending selfish acts of murder, selfish acts of rape, or selfish acts of torture. Honestly, I know what I should do, which is to ignore these people. To pass by their comments or topics and live happily. But, I just can't. I don't know. I can't not respond to someone defending some heinous action or some person who is obviously acting selfishly, and callous of others lives or autonomy. I get that the world we are reading about is violent, but....I see plenty of people here thinking along the same lines (from the point of view of characters in that kind of world) but still not defending cruelty or violence. I myself often discuss with my partner and my close friend about these books. We often try to put ourselves in the shoes of the characters..and never once have we had to defend some horrible act of violence...because...excusing violence is....well, to be blunt, a bad thing to do. 

You know, I grew up around a lot of "moderates" and conservatives, and I often find these 2 groups have an opinion that I never shared, which is essentially that everyone will do the right thing, and that atrocities of the past won't happen again because (well some nonsense about capitalism or christianity or something). Moderates believe everyone will act justly or with good intent. Conservatives believe equating something to Nazism or Fascism or some other Totalitarianism is ridiculous (even when you can point directly to how the things are similar). However, yes, I'm saying this : I think how this 10% in this forum reacts to violence and cruelty is very telling. It has shown me how ordinary people even SLIGHTLY removed from there normal life will quickly start defending evil actions. I think this also explains how transphobia has exploded in areas where most of the people just didn't care about trans people a few years ago (in real life). People are too easily swayed to defend horrible things, to attack people who different than them, and to think selfishly essentially. Think that any action done to "protect oneself" is excusable even when those actions are horribly evil and cruel; and the thing they are defending against isn't even that threatening.

Anyways, I honestly think I will probably quit the forum. I don't know, maybe y'all can convince me to stay. But I just can't handle it. I don't want to spend time in my life telling people that evil actions that everyone should know are bad..are evil. I don't want to explain that rape or murder or torture are...bad things to people who for some reason have decided they are acceptable actions. It's just too much. 

[Craving Peaches]

Please don't quit! 

I really enjoyed your thread and it was good discussion. 

3 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Honestly, I know what I should do, which is to ignore these people. To pass by their comments or topics and live happily. But, I just can't.

You might already know this, but if you use the 'ignore' function, you don't even have to overlook what they posted, you can't even see it.

3 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

I don't want to spend time in my life telling people that evil actions that everyone should know are bad..are evil. I don't want to explain that rape or murder or torture are...bad things to people who for some reason have decided they are acceptable actions.

I think some people are just trying to be contrarian for the sake of attention and don't really think those things are acceptable. Or they mistakenly (in my opinion) believe that anything goes because it's just how things are in the world of the books.

[Targaryeninkingslanding]

not to be morose, because I honestly dont know what posts your talking about in particular and am too lazy to investigate, but when discussing characters and events, many readers view the stories and characters through a lens of moral relativity. right and wrong do not particularly play into it as much as what an action gains the principle actor. we dont have to agree with what a character does or how they act morally, and that act can be both "evil" and the best move a character can make. 

Cersei murdering Robert is "evil", but also the best way she can ensure her children inherit the crown, and to that goal is therefore the "correct" move. it is a result of her selfish affair, but also the best way to ensure her children's future.

Dany crucifying the slavers is "evil", or at least very cruel, and the correct thing to do to avenge the mutually murdered slaves. while the slaves may view this a cruel, her free slaves might view it a just and right.

When a character does an act like this, they do it because they think it is the right and logical thing to do, and this is sometimes best understood and explainable through a veil that seems like justification, when is is simply recognizing a person, even an "evil" person, doing what they think is right. selfishness is relative to the person, and just as the characters of asoiaf disagree on religion and therefore morality, so too do they disagree on what is right.

I understand your moral objections to this, but you have to understand that the issue you seem to be raising is a debate that has gone on for all of time. you dont have to agree with a characters immoral action, are allowed to condemn it, but you are not the character, and what you believe is right and what the character believes is right is not the same, and imposing your own moral standers on a character where like moral standers are not applicable is unfair.

[Gilbert Green]

- Yes, some people will defend anything.  The world is a wicked place.  Why should fandom be any different?

- But, you know, sometimes condemnations and accusations go too far, and those who give a little pushback have a point.  You don't say what specifically you are referring to.   So how can I have an opinion?

[Alester Florent]

15 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Anyways, I honestly think I will probably quit the forum. I don't know, maybe y'all can convince me to stay. But I just can't handle it. I don't want to spend time in my life telling people that evil actions that everyone should know are bad..are evil. I don't want to explain that rape or murder or torture are...bad things to people who for some reason have decided they are acceptable actions. It's just too much. 

There are a number of posters on this forum who will take a deliberately contrary and self-evidently terrible position for reasons which are difficult to understand. In some cases I think it's their own entertainment; in other cases it appears to be motivated by spite at how the TV show ended and seeking to somehow alter that by crapping on everyone else's enthusiasms? I don't know.

There are some others who seem to genuinely believe the crap they spout about might makes right and moral relativism essentially excusing any atrocity (many of the Tywin stans, now thankfully diminished in number, were/are some such). They are more concerning, but I don't think there are many of them. If there are people whose apparently sincerely-held views genuinely unsettle you, then by all means block them.

But don't let those people drive you off the forum. We need more people like you around here, and fewer like them. After a while I would hope you'll be able to tune them out.

[Nathan Stark]

17 hours ago, Lord of Raventree Hall said:

Honestly, I just came back because I wanted to talk with people who love this series, too. I was very happy about many of the responses to my previous Catelyn topic and I want to make this clear, the people I am talking about are in the minority, perhaps 1 in every 10 users here. However, they are exhausting. Horribly exhausting. Listen. These books take place in a very violent universe. They do. However, as I said, around 90% of the people here can talk about these topics and I feel like we could probably go gleefully on our way, but then there is always that 10% who start defending selfish acts of murder, selfish acts of rape, or selfish acts of torture. Honestly, I know what I should do, which is to ignore these people. To pass by their comments or topics and live happily. But, I just can't. I don't know. I can't not respond to someone defending some heinous action or some person who is obviously acting selfishly, and callous of others lives or autonomy. I get that the world we are reading about is violent, but....I see plenty of people here thinking along the same lines (from the point of view of characters in that kind of world) but still not defending cruelty or violence. I myself often discuss with my partner and my close friend about these books. We often try to put ourselves in the shoes of the characters..and never once have we had to defend some horrible act of violence...because...excusing violence is....well, to be blunt, a bad thing to do. 

You know, I grew up around a lot of "moderates" and conservatives, and I often find these 2 groups have an opinion that I never shared, which is essentially that everyone will do the right thing, and that atrocities of the past won't happen again because (well some nonsense about capitalism or christianity or something). Moderates believe everyone will act justly or with good intent. Conservatives believe equating something to Nazism or Fascism or some other Totalitarianism is ridiculous (even when you can point directly to how the things are similar). However, yes, I'm saying this : I think how this 10% in this forum reacts to violence and cruelty is very telling. It has shown me how ordinary people even SLIGHTLY removed from there normal life will quickly start defending evil actions. I think this also explains how transphobia has exploded in areas where most of the people just didn't care about trans people a few years ago (in real life). People are too easily swayed to defend horrible things, to attack people who different than them, and to think selfishly essentially. Think that any action done to "protect oneself" is excusable even when those actions are horribly evil and cruel; and the thing they are defending against isn't even that threatening.

Anyways, I honestly think I will probably quit the forum. I don't know, maybe y'all can convince me to stay. But I just can't handle it. I don't want to spend time in my life telling people that evil actions that everyone should know are bad..are evil. I don't want to explain that rape or murder or torture are...bad things to people who for some reason have decided they are acceptable actions. It's just too much. 

I think it would be a shame for you to leave just because of a small but vocal minority of Twitter Blue people about. We need more people here interested in good faith critical analysis, not less. 

I can't help but agree with @Craving Peaches that a lot of the folks defending evil actions in the text here are being contrarian just for the sake of it. That's in vogue nowadays, it seems. 

[SeanF]

A big hazard with studying military history (my field) is that one does tend to set aside moral considerations in favour of “was this atrocity successful or was it counter-productive?”

Because the atrocities carried out by the Mongols, or the winners of the Thirty Years War, or Caesar, were successful, they tend not to attract much condemnation.

Edited July 28, 2023 by SeanF

[Alester Florent]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

A big hazard with studying military history (my field) is that one does tend to set aside moral considerations in favour of “was this atrocity successful or was it counter-productive?”

Because the atrocities carried out by the Mongols, or the winners of the Thirty Years War, or Caesar, were successful, they tend not to attract much condemnation.

I don't know about the Thirty Years War. Those atrocities were widely condemned even at the time, and the whole structure of postwar Europe, indeed arguably the concept of "the state" as we understand it and the Enlightenment that followed was arguably a direct response to the horrors of the TYW. Although yes, from a strictly military history perspective, effectiveness does tend to take priority in all cases.

I think there are two arguably more pressing issues. Firstly, they took place a long time ago, history isn't adequately studied, and therefore people aren't familiar with them. Secondly, the past is long and full of horrors, and if you stop to condemn all of them in the terms they deserve you probably won't ever get round to doing anything else. I think (or rather, fear) by the end of the century, the Holocaust will no longer cast such a social shadow because enough time will have passed (i.e. everyone who lived through it will be dead, as will everyone who spoke to someone who lived through it) and it'll seem like ancient history: arguably, the effects of that process are already visible. I've been dismayed at how blasé people of the generation below mine are about things like the Yugoslavia civil war that happened only 30 years ago, because they don't remember it and it isn't in the curriculum so it can't have been that serious, right?

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

I don't know about the Thirty Years War. Those atrocities were widely condemned even at the time, and the whole structure of postwar Europe, indeed arguably the concept of "the state" as we understand it and the Enlightenment that followed was arguably a direct response to the horrors of the TYW. Although yes, from a strictly military history perspective, effectiveness does tend to take priority in all cases.

I think there are two arguably more pressing issues. Firstly, they took place a long time ago, history isn't adequately studied, and therefore people aren't familiar with them. Secondly, the past is long and full of horrors, and if you stop to condemn all of them in the terms they deserve you probably won't ever get round to doing anything else. I think (or rather, fear) by the end of the century, the Holocaust will no longer cast such a social shadow because enough time will have passed (i.e. everyone who lived through it will be dead, as will everyone who spoke to someone who lived through it) and it'll seem like ancient history: arguably, the effects of that process are already visible. I've been dismayed at how blasé people of the generation below mine are about things like the Yugoslavia civil war that happened only 30 years ago, because they don't remember it and it isn't in the curriculum so it can't have been that serious, right?

Had Hitler defeated the Soviets, the US and UK would probably have come to terms, and Hitler would now be lauded as a great statesman who saved Europe from communism.  The Holocaust would be treated as an act of war, brutal but inevitable.

[Craving Peaches]

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

or the winners of the Thirty Years War

8 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

I don't know about the Thirty Years War. Those atrocities were widely condemned even at the time

They also tended to backfire somewhat on those who carried them out later on. For example, I read that Sweden lost a fair few troops in subsequent conflicts, who were taken out by local peasants in the HRE, as they remembered what they'd done in the Thirty Years War, and that even today people in certain areas don't look favourably on the Swedes...

Edited July 28, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Corvo the Crow]

@Lord of Raventree Hall I don’t know if you are specifically talking about a particular group of people -a group known by all the frequent users- or in general, but you are spot on!

On 7/27/2023 at 12:48 PM, Craving Peaches said:

I think some people are just trying to be contrarian for the sake of attention and don't really think those things are acceptable. Or they mistakenly (in my opinion) believe that anything goes because it's just how things are in the world of the books.

12 hours ago, Nathan Stark said:

I can't help but agree with @Craving Peaches that a lot of the folks defending evil actions in the text here are being contrarian just for the sake of it. That's in vogue nowadays, it seems. 

I disagree. Yes, there’s that group of Targ apoligist Stark haters that seemingly do it out of being “attention courtesans” but they are a small group. There are a whole lot more people that are moderate or at least not extreme as these Hates-Everything-Stark group but are quite OK with all the violence that’s going on when it’s their favorite character that’s doing the violence and people that they don’t like who’s on the receiving end. They aren’t just ok with the violence but go to great lengths to justify it.

[SeanF]

35 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

They also tended to backfire somewhat on those who carried them out later on. For example, I read that Sweden lost a fair few troops in subsequent conflicts, who were taken out by local peasants in the HRE, as they remembered what they'd done in the Thirty Years War, and that even today people in certain areas don't look favourably on the Swedes...

True, but Sweden was the big winner out of the war, along with France.

[Craving Peaches]

6 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

quite OK with all the violence that’s going on when it’s their favorite character that’s doing the violence and people that they don’t like who’s on the receiving end.

What do you mean? Are you talking about Daenerys?

5 minutes ago, SeanF said:

True, but Sweden was the big winner out of the war, along with France.

They were but I don't think they won because of the atrocities, they won because they had a good army and leader. Everyone was carrying out atrocities (although the Swedish ones seem to be particularly bad...)

Edited July 28, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

What do you mean? Are you talking about Daenerys?

 

The war in Slavers Bay is atrocious.  That’s because the masters, and their followers, are terrified of slave revolt, and the slaves have much to avenge.

I doubt if it’s more atrocious than TWOT5K, where the Lannisters, Boltons, and Ironborn  employ mass murder and rape as terror tactics, and where everybody uses pillage, arson, and starvation as weapons of war.

[sifth]

The Tywin defenders always amuse me. The guy is possibly the worst human in the series, yet you have people thinking he was the greatest hand and the best ruler. The guy is a sexist, baby killer and cares only for power.

[SeanF]

10 minutes ago, sifth said:

The Tywin defenders always amuse me. The guy is possibly the worst human in the series, yet you have people thinking he was the greatest hand and the best ruler. The guy is a sexist, baby killer and cares only for power.

Tywin was a competent administrator, but then, so was Eichmann.

[sifth]

1 minute ago, SeanF said:

Tywin was a competent administrator, but then, so was Eichmann.

I suppose killing babies and raping women, is one way to keep your men in line.

The most interesting thing about Tywin is that he has two faces. The One he shows the public and the one he only shows people in private. I'm always amused when I read the books and see Tywin put on his public face; he almost seems like a sane and decent person...............and then he closes the door and reminds Tyrion how much of a piece of crap he is for being born and how thankful Tyrion should be, that his father didn't drown him the day he was born.

Edited July 28, 2023 by sifth

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

They also tended to backfire somewhat on those who carried them out later on. For example, I read that Sweden lost a fair few troops in subsequent conflicts, who were taken out by local peasants in the HRE, as they remembered what they'd done in the Thirty Years War, and that even today people in certain areas don't look favourably on the Swedes...

Yeah, I gather that there is still a bit of a grudge held in Prague. Which is kind of ironic considering how the war started and all...

[Corvo the Crow]

1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

What do you mean? Are you talking about Daenerys?

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

Yes and no. Daenerys is the most common one right now and perhaps even the only one with the forums being dead but it may very well have been another character whose violence that was excused. The only violence that can be excused is when it's done to defend yourself (whether a person, group of people, state etc.) or aiding one. 

Daenerys' genocide at Astapor(because that's exactly what it is) has no excuse, her attacking Yunkai -and killing a host of slave soldiers btw, death is some form of liberation too I guess!- also has none, sack of Meereen also. Dany, or rather Barristan and co. since she's absent, defending Meereen is right since a peace of sorts has been established and a new way more or less accepted. Tywin's violence has no excuse whereas Robb and Edmure is in the right, Stannis and Renly are both right in raising their armies because of what Lannisters will do to them but Stannis besieging SE is not in defense and unacceptable nor is Renly's "war" to claim the throne for himself, despite Stannis not staking his claim so far.

To go back some more, Jon Arryn is right to declare war against Aerys because he threatened his wards which he was honor bound to protect and even worse he had already murdered Jon's heir Elbert and a subject of his, Kyle Royce. Obviously Robert and Ned too. Hoster too despite acting oppurtunistic to get two marriages to his daughters in return for his help because his allies the Starks had been murdered as well as his subject Jeffory Mallister but there's no excuse for killing Lord Goodbrook's villagers.

[SeanF]

15 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Yes and no. Daenerys is the most common one right now and perhaps even the only one with the forums being dead but it may very well have been another character whose violence that was excused. The only violence that can be excused is when it's done to defend yourself (whether a person, group of people, state etc.) or aiding one. 

Daenerys' genocide at Astapor(because that's exactly what it is) has no excuse, her attacking Yunkai -and killing a host of slave soldiers btw, death is some form of liberation too I guess!- also has none, sack of Meereen also. Dany, or rather Barristan and co. since she's absent, defending Meereen is right since a peace of sorts has been established and a new way more or less accepted. Tywin's violence has no excuse whereas Robb and Edmure is in the right, Stannis and Renly are both right in raising their armies because of what Lannisters will do to them but Stannis besieging SE is not in defense and unacceptable nor is Renly's "war" to claim the throne for himself, despite Stannis not staking his claim so far.

To go back some more, Jon Arryn is right to declare war against Aerys because he threatened his wards which he was honor bound to protect and even worse he had already murdered Jon's heir Elbert and a subject of his, Kyle Royce. Obviously Robert and Ned too. Hoster too despite acting oppurtunistic to get two marriages to his daughters in return for his help because his allies the Starks had been murdered as well as his subject Jeffory Mallister but there's no excuse for killing Lord Goodbrook's villagers.

To be clear then, violence which is unleashed by elites, to pursue their own interests, gain a crown, or to avenge family honour, is legitimate, regardless how many of the smallfolk die in the process. 

But, violence which is unleashed against elites, who are engaged in enslaving, castrating, murdering, and otherwise harming the smallfolk, in order to prevent such actions, is morally wrong.

Tywin would of course, claim that he was acting in self-defenc,e to protect the Lannisters from those would kidnap family members.

Edited July 28, 2023 by SeanF