Is Dany actually the ANTAGONIST?

[ab aeterno]

well at least Asha seems to have the impression that it was not exactly an isolated incidents. She mentions quite a couple of guilty looks, also from the higher-ranked members of Stannis host... Isn't it quite the happy coincidene that Stannis managed to catch the lowborn perpetrators and not the higher-ranked ones?

True, but this is only Asha's supposition. They might have looked guilty because they considered it or wanted to do so, they might have looked guilty because they partook and they might have looked guilty for other reasons. Also, a few guilty looks among a host of thousands hardly puts his entire army in jeopardy.

On top of this, I realize you're big on equality, but of course it is more likely that the lowborn get caught. If Stannis had caught the highborn he would have punished those too. He has before and he will again. If Davos was as elitist as most in Westeros Davos wouldn't be his Hand.

[NotSoSilentSister]

The higher ranking individuals eat pretty good--even Asha, so they have no reason to eat the dead.

But they obviously knew of and condoned the practice.

[The Idiots Lantern]

I think Jon reanimating as The Great Other and taking command of the Ice Zombies as they invade Westeros would be a nice subversion of the "chosen hero" trope, if that quote from George RR Martin is serious.

....don't think it'll happen, but it'd be METAL! :drunk:

[PatrickStormborn]

Which goes away in terms of "rightness" once he starts using torture. The fact is, Dany and Stannis are both part of the committee for torture, along with Ramsay, Cersei, Gregor, the Shavepate and the Tickler. This speaks volumes about the objective goodness here; by virtue of the fact that they engage in torture, they both compromise any and all highground that went into their decisions to torture anyone.

It doesn't matter in terms of objective rightness whether people are tortured because someone is pissed off, vengeful, enjoys it like a sick fuck or believes he's doing justice. The reasoning behind why they use torture makes these characters variously more sympathetic, but it does not make the fact that they used torture right or justified.

I'm not arguing against you here, but I think it's interesting that you only mentioned "villians" when talking about torture, whilst other characters who we would not call villains such as Asha and Qhorin Halfhand both use torture as a means of extracting information. I'm 100% anti-torture of course, but I do think it's worth noting that torture is used widely in the world of asoiaf, and not just by the characters with the darkest morality.

[NotSoSilentSister]

Also, I'm talking mainly of the middle-management here .... guys who didn't quite get to sit at Stannis table and were more exposed to the hunger situation and well tempted to lunch on a corpse but still considerable less convenient for Stannis to burn than those three poor suckers he got.

[NotSoSilentSister]

Going to look up the passage now.

[Lady Tippy Wolfsbane]

But they obviously knew of and condoned the practice.

Even if this is true, they are not the king and will not condone it in his presence.

Also, I'm talking mainly of the middle-management here .... guys who didn't quite get to sit at Stannis table and were more exposed to the hunger situation and well tempted to lunch on a corpse but still considerable less convenient for Stannis to burn than those three poor suckers he got.

If Stannis caught them he would burn them too.

[Lord Bronn Stokeworth]

Ok, time out for a second.

There is no reason in the world to torture someone. Torture done for any reason, is inherently unjustifiable. Burning 100 Ramsays alive who are guilty of being Ramsays is not right.

However, the rationale behind why some people use torture varies, and this makes them more sympathetic than others in their choices to torture people. That Stannis does this out of a misguided justice makes him more sympathetic in my eyes than the motivations behind Dany's crucifixions. But it doesn't absolve the problematic morality of his use of torture over anyone else who has used torture.

I really haven't seen anyone support torture.

But, I and others, are saying murdering random people is bad. Your absolutely right. Anyone who tortures Ramsay to death is doing a terrible thing. In that respect, their crimes are the same.

I condemn them Dany and Stannis on that account. And they are the same.

However, I consider the question of whether the people are guilty or not as a different crime. And on that, Dany is guilty. It does not mean Stannis's crime is lessen. It does not mean Stannis did a good thing for burning people. It means Dany was guilty of something Stannis was not.

Good thing that I was not saying that then. I was anticpating this objection and already admiting that it is a valid one to make. Both Stannis and Dany are hypocrites, which is something I've been saying from the start.

I noticed but I misunderstood your point. After rereading, I think I understand your point. I disagree with it still, but withdraw my greatest "mental acrobatics" comment.

[NotSoSilentSister]

“Too few fish and too many fishermen,” Lord Peasebury said gloomily. He had good reason for

gloom; it was his men Ser Godry had just burned, and there were some in this very hall who had been

heard to say that Peasebury himself surely knew what they were doing and might even have shared in

their feasts.

[ab aeterno]

Also, I'm talking mainly of the middle-management here .... guys who didn't quite get to sit at Stannis table and were more exposed to the hunger situation and well tempted to lunch on a corpse but still considerable less convenient for Stannis to burn than those three poor suckers he got.

Eh, Stannis has killed or imprisoned some of the most senior lords in his service for their crimes. I don't think he would make any distinction, other than perhaps to wait until the battle was over.

[Lord Bronn Stokeworth]

Your point? Nothing in that says Stannis knows Peasebury is guilty of cannibalism. Just that soldier gossip says he might have been.

[NotSoSilentSister]

If Stannis caught them he would burn them too.

If he caught them....

And you know what, I actually think that if Stannis were personally in charge, he would probably make the same effort to catch them. But it's a thing he probably delegates (has to, really, that's not my dig against him). And as such, it's very very much less likely that those get caught. Because that might easily doom the campaign.

It's just a reality of the situation. And Stannis is conveniently blind to it.

[Lady Tippy Wolfsbane]

Gossip, and has no bearing on Stannis punishing men of higher rank, or men openly continuing with the cannibalism after the punishment.

[Lady Tippy Wolfsbane]

If he caught them....

And you know what, I actually think that if Stannis were personally in charge, he would probably make the same effort to catch them. But it's a thing he probably delegates (has to, really, that's not my dig against him). And as such, it's very very much less likely that those get caught. Because that might easily doom the campaign. Footsoldiers are fairly easy to burn; burn your own bannermen you things will get tricky.

It's just a reality of the situation. And Stannis is conveniently blind to it.

Following your logic, how is he 'conveniently' blind to it if he doesn't know? That is an assumption that has no basis in the text. From what we know of Stannis he would kill high lords the same as small folk when it comes to the law.

[David Selig]

Following your logic, how is he 'conveniently' blind to it if he doesn't know? That is an assumption that has no basis in the text. From what we know of Stannis he would kill high lords the same as small folk when it comes to the law.

We have a counter example in one of Mel's guards. It's specifically mentioned he should have been hanged by Stannis's own admission, but was spared, because his father and brothers were nobles loyal to Stannis.

[tze]

In my opinion, in the end it will come down to Others vs humans anyway. Even if by that time it may be seen as mere background for the human dramas that preceed and follow the struggle.

The problem with that argument, though, is that "Others vs humans" is the very definition of "externalizing the struggle", so that "the heroic protagonists" (humanity) "need only smite the evil minions of the dark power" (the Others) "to win the day"---exactly what GRRM said he doesn't want to do. We don't actually know what the Others want, whether they can be bargained/reasoned with, whether they bring darkness/cold or if the darkness/cold comes for other reasons and the Others are just taking advantage of favorable (to them) weather conditions. Hell, there are plenty of things in the books that could very well point to the North ending up allying with the Others by ADOS.

If the whole point (as GRRM said) is for it to be difficult to know who's "good" and who's "evil", then it can't end with "an existential conflict between humanity and the Others", because that's the exact opposite of "the battle between good and evil" being "fought chiefly in the individual human heart". And the books haven't actually been inextricably building toward a Humanity/Other conflict---not just because the Others have been off-screen for a truly staggering amount of time, but also because, come on, they're literally called "The Others"---and we've seen multiple people and groups in this series "Other-ize" those they don't understand (the Freys do it with the Crannogmen, the southerners do it with the Northerners, the Northerners do it with the wildlings, everybody does it with the Dornishmen, the Westerosi do it with the Essosi, the Essosi do it with the Westerosi, Dany does it with the slavers, the slavers do it with Dany, on and on and on). I sincerely doubt the end message of the series will end up being "treating your enemies like some alien Other-figures is helpful, positive, and correct".

Both Stannis and Dany are hypocrites, which is something I've been saying from the start.

Which I think is the whole point. Stannis is being presented with two conflicting goals: 1) seek the Iron Throne, 2) Defend the Wall against the Others. True, gaining the Iron Throne might allow him a greater ability to defend the Wall against the Others---but pulling men and resources away from the Wall in order to advance his quest for the Iron Throne is a pretty huge risk if he really thinks the Wall is more of a priority than the Iron Throne. Is he intrinsically acting for the greater good, or is he really, deep down, out for his own self-aggrandizement? There are arguments both ways, and it's entirely possible that Stannis's motivations have actually been in flux for a while now.

And as Stannis is not a POV character, we are forced to judge his actions through other people's reactions to those actions (we don't have the same category of POV bias that we have with a POV character like Dany). We know that committing atrocities is a massively slippery slope. We know Stannis almost resorted to cannibalism in Storm's End during Robert's Rebellion . . . but now suddenly he thinks it's a crime worthy of being burned alive? I suspect the truth is that Stannis wants to burn somebody because he's desperate and really wants an excuse to take advantage of the power of the Red Religion. His goal wasn't (deep down) to punish people for cannibalism and ensure it didn't happen again---the point was that he wanted an excuse to burn someone so he could channel magical power and the cannibalism provided him with that excuse.

He's committing an atrocity because he thinks he, personally, will gain a tangible benefit out of it, just like Dany committed atrocities because she thought she, personally, would gain some tangible benefits out of it. And that's exactly why committing atrocities "for the right reasons" is inherently contradictory: the "real" reason someone commits an atrocity is always going to come down to "because I gain some personal benefit from said atrocity", and that just ensures that this person is never going to have a reason to stop committing atrocities. We know what we find at the end of that road.

[ReekReekItRhymesWithLeek]

There is no antagonist. There is not even a single character in every book besides Arya.

[Fleur de Lys]

Dany is an antagonist to Westeros b/c of her claim to the throne. While she may end up the heroine and save Westeros from the Others, her righteousness with regards to her claim as Queen will still put her at odds with the most of the other great houses.

By the end of DoD she was still firmly on the fence with regards to good/evil and even if she seems mostly good, she still makes the darker mistakes like the self-absorbed teenager that she is. So it remains to be seen which side of the fence she will end up on.

GRRM loves the morally ambiguous, trickster type character and that actually reflects how most of us are anyway. Dany is a trickster archetype like Tyrion, Arya, Sandor, Jaime, Jorah and even Jon, who all have both good and evil traits.

I'm sure GRRM will ultimately create many twists of fate and a finale few of us have considered for each of these often morally ambiguous, changeling characters. It thrills me to imagine!

[ab aeterno]

He's committing an atrocity because he thinks he, personally, will gain a tangible benefit out of it, just like Dany committed atrocities because she thought she, personally, would gain some tangible benefits out of it. And that's exactly why committing atrocities "for the right reasons" is inherently contradictory: the "real" reason someone commits an atrocity is always going to come down to "because I gain some personal benefit from said atrocity", and that just ensures that this person is never going to have a reason to stop committing atrocities. We know what we find at the end of that road.

This is true for almost everyone and every character and every person though, if we are cynical about it. People are arguably incapable of doing anything that they don't want to do or that doesn't benefit them.

[Lady Tippy Wolfsbane]

We have a counter example in one of Mel's guards. It's specifically mentioned he should have been hanged by Stannis's own admission, but was spared, because his father and brothers were nobles loyal to Stannis.

Who are we talking about here? What was his crime?