Tyrion's Thoughts on Slavery

[SeanF]

From Chapter 66 of A Dance with Dragons:

She was not all wrong. Yezzan’s slaves ate better than many peasants back in the Seven Kingdoms and were less like to starve to death come winter. Slaves were chattels, aye. They could be bought and sold, whipped and branded, used for the carnal pleasure of their owners, bred to make more slaves. In that sense they were no more than dogs or horses. But most lords treated their dogs and horses well enough. Proud men might shout that they would sooner die free, than live as slaves, but pride was cheap. When the steel struck the flint, such men were rare as dragon’s teeth; elsewise the world would not have been so full of slaves. There has never been slave who did not choose to be a slave, the dwarf reflected. Their choice may be between bondage and death, but the choice is always there.

This is a curious passage, since Tyrion himself has just survived an attempt to feed him and Penny to lions, and has witnessed a slave being smashed apart by slingers. The lords of the Seven Kingdoms can be pretty selfish and cruel towards the Smallfolk, but feeding them to lions is the sort of thing Ramsay Bolton would do, and he  is widely considered depraved by other lords.  Likewise, Sweets has a well-founded fear that the Yellow Whale's slaves will all be put to death to accompany him in the next world, which is again, completely out of keeping with the norms of Westeros.

The final two sentences are a nasty bit of victim-blaming.  Nobody chooses to be a slave, in reality.  Many might choose it over death, but with a view to escaping/achieving freedom at some future point. In fact, Tyrion well knows that many slaves either have rebelled, or are on the point of rebelling, in Volantis.

What it points to is not that Eastern slaves are quite decently treated (there is overwhelming textual evidence to the contrary).  Rather, what it must point to is just how badly the Lannisters treat the smallfolk, that the lot of an Eastern slave might seem no worse.  It also points to Tyrion's own moral blindness.  He certainly doesn't enjoy being a slave, for himself, but he doesn't see much wrong with with it being inflicted upon others, nor with the treatment that his family subject the smallfolk to.

 

[Craving Peaches]

I agree. I also think Tyrion may partially be basing his view of average peasant life on the time he spent with Tysha.

[SeanF]

6 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I agree. I also think Tyrion may partially be basing his view of average peasant life on the time he spent with Tysha.

Tyrion is quite blind really, to how privileged he is in many ways.

Yes, he gets abuse as a dwarf, and from his ghastly father and sister. But, it’s his money and name that get him out of trouble, far more than his own brilliance.

[Aebram]

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

There has never been slave who did not choose to be a slave, the dwarf reflected. Their choice may be between bondage and death, but the choice is always there.

I would say that Tyrion is technically correct: the choice is always there. But choosing death is something that goes against the survival Instinct that is programmed deeply into the DNA of all living creatures. And there are other considerations. A disobedient slave might be tortured during or before his execution. And there might be children or other family members who would also suffer.

[SeanF]

10 hours ago, Aebram said:

I would say that Tyrion is technically correct: the choice is always there. But choosing death is something that goes against the survival Instinct that is programmed deeply into the DNA of all living creatures. And there are other considerations. A disobedient slave might be tortured during or before his execution. And there might be children or other family members who would also suffer.

The only way that slavery can "work" is by way of the slave owner subjecting to the slave to perpetual violence.   

Tyrion's own arc disproves that it's a "choice", for he does his damnedest to get out of it.  

[John Suburbs]

The mistake that a lot of readers make is assuming that Martin is espousing some great truth by expressing it through a character. This is, in fact, a time-honored element in most literature, but Martin is standing that on its head. Just because a character believes something to be true does not make it so, either factually or as a matter of perspective.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

The mistake that a lot of readers make is assuming that Martin is espousing some great truth by expressing it through a character. This is, in fact, a time-honored element in most literature, but Martin is standing that on its head. Just because a character believes something to be true does not make it so, either factually or as a matter of perspective.

Totally agree.

It’s similar to Xaro’s eloquent apologetic for slavery, earlier on in the book.

Xaro is a skilled, highly educated sophist, who of course can out-argue a semi-educated 16 year old whose argument against slavery is “it’s wrong.”

[Aebram]

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

Tyrion's own arc disproves that it's a "choice", for he does his damnedest to get out of it.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. How is "doing his damnedest to get out" not a choice? No one is forcing him to do it.

[Craving Peaches]

11 hours ago, Aebram said:

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. How is "doing his damnedest to get out" not a choice? No one is forcing him to do it.

Maybe because Tyrion seemed to be presenting it as a binary choice?: Live as a slave or die, which does not account for the possibility of successfully resisting slavery by e.g. running away.

[SeanF]

11 hours ago, Aebram said:

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. How is "doing his damnedest to get out" not a choice? No one is forcing him to do it.

@Craving Peacheshas it right.  You can submit, in order to fight/escape another day.

[Aebram]

Well, that's a good point Escape is a third option, sort of a middle ground between submission and death. But attempting to escape risks death, torture, and the other dangers I mentioned. So it presents a similar dilemma, although not as extreme.  And the existence of a third option actually reinforces Tyrion's point: the choice is always there.

Edited January 24 by Aebram

[TheLastWolf]

Fuck Tyrion being privileged. In this day and age the standard of life we lead with nil exposure to anything resembling those medieval horrors, we are in no position to refute or support his statements. 

I'd like to think what I'd do and how I'd think in his position, but one can never really know until it you stare it in the face.

Sorry been reading too much McCarthy of late

[The Hoare]

I suppose peasants are de facto slaves in Westeros.

[SeanF]

9 hours ago, The Hoare said:

I suppose peasants are de facto slaves in Westeros.

The lot of a chattel slave was usually much worse than that of a colonus/villein/serf, let alone the lot of a freeman.

In law, the former was a thing, whereas the latter, even when unfree, was a person.

The economics of mass slavery are different to the economics of feudalism.  The plantation owner simply works his slaves till they die, before replacing them with fresh slaves.  A handful of household slaves and overseers are privileged, but can expect to be discarded when they reach the end of their working lives.

A feudal lord, OTOH, needs workers.  He has more of a vested interest in ensuring they survive and are reasonably content.  An overlord wants strong family units on his estate, rather than breaking up families for profit.

The lords of Westeros are mainly selfish, but most don’t feed the smallfolk  to animals for fun, or geld them, or make them kill each other for amusement.