Do you think Martin justifies slavery in ADWD?

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Somehow I knew you'd say that.

The emancipation of slaves in America in the 1860s is generally thought to be a success despite coming in the midst of a terrible war and leaving lots of problems for afterwards. You don't like Dany so the fact that things are a mess now leads you to conclude the whole idea was hilarious/wrongheaded because it's not the product of a long term plan and sows problems in its wake. It would have been pretty easy to say the same in 1863. It's never going to look good at the time it happens, that sort of socio-economic system dies hard.

The difference being that Lincoln and most people at the time probably fully recognized that it would take time and were willing to acknowledge that and work toward it. He knew that emancipation was a means, not an end. That's where he and Dany differ — Dany sees emanicipation as an end unto itself and looks flummoxed when that obviously isn't the case. If there was any evidence at all that Dany had any sort of long-term game plan at work here, I might feel differently. But she doesn't and that's why she's in a mess.

[TheMysteriousOne]

Aye, it appears he's already moved on...

So, he basically just K'ed us.

[total1402]

I'm not sure what you mean. The author "has" to present a third way?

How about "Dany stays in Vaes Tolorro for a few years while the dragons grow (and therefore become actionably effective "big sticks") and learns to rule there, fully understanding how ruling works before trying to rule over a massive region." A fourth idea is "Dany is not actually meant to be seen as a ruler, but rather an agent of change, and trying to shoehorn her into the role of a traditional ruler is missing the point of her arc."

Um, yes thats a very clear example of taking the wrong path. Dany should have stayed in Vaes Toloorro but instead went to Qaarth. She even reflects back on this as the wrong decision. An alternate way of managing the slaves or economy would need to have been suggested to her or by another POV character. Lacking that theres only a straight forward slavery or no slavery.

[LuisDantas]

I am refering to the way Yunkai bounces back after Dany took 100,000 slaves off them; thus cutting their income off and promised to take all their gold as well before she took the city. Which makes its recovery and ability to wage a war pretty demonstrative of how better slavery is. Yunkai lost all of its specialised workforce BTW.

Waging war takes determination and manpower, perhaps despair. It is not a matter of being an efficient manager.

Did you expect Yunkai do simply starve quietly, and do you therefore conclude that their reaction is evidence of economic resilience?

Sorry, but that isn't really a very logical conclusion.

[TheMysteriousOne]

Um, yes thats a very clear example of taking the wrong path. Dany should have stayed in Vaes Toloorro but instead went to Qaarth. She even reflects back on this as the wrong decision. An alternate way of managing the slaves or economy would need to have been suggested to her or by another POV character. Lacking that theres only a straight forward slavery or no slavery.

No, there was another choice, one she chose not to make. Her forgetting about Westeros and then staying in Slaver's Bay to fix everything even if it takes her whole life.

[The Great Walrus]

So, he basically just K'ed us.

Speak of the devil...

[TheMysteriousOne]

Speak of the devil...

LOL.

[total1402]

Waging war takes determination and manpower, perhaps despair. It is not a matter of being an efficient manager.

Did you expect Yunkai do simply starve quietly, and do you therefore conclude that their reaction is evidence of economic resilience?

Sorry, but that isn't really a very logical conclusion.

You need money to wage war and hire sellswords and borrow money in order by servicing the debt on your income. Of which the Yunkai have none. So logiclly their economy did recover unlike Mereen.

[Porcelain Steel]

Is Martin trying to justify slavery?

No.

Is Martin trying to show us that it's naive to believe an institutional problem like this can be fixed overnight, and that everyone will be happy with the changes?

Yes.

A better question is not whether slavery itself is justified but whether or not Dany herself is justified in trying to be the person to affect this change.

I A fourth idea is "Dany is not actually meant to be seen as a ruler, but rather an agent of change, and trying to shoehorn her into the role of a traditional ruler is missing the point of her arc."

This!

[straits]

Um, yes thats a very clear example of taking the wrong path. Dany should have stayed in Vaes Toloorro but instead went to Qaarth. She even reflects back on this as the wrong decision. An alternate way of managing the slaves or economy would need to have been suggested to her or by another POV character. Lacking that theres only a straight forward slavery or no slavery.

It is an instance of the character taking a wrong path, rather than the author channeling his ideals into the story. Dany's mistake is a defining part of her character, not an external flaw of the author.

[Chaircat Meow]

The difference being that Lincoln and most people at the time probably fully recognized that it would take time and were willing to acknowledge that and work toward it. He knew that emancipation was a means, not an end. That's where he and Dany differ — Dany sees emanicipation as an end unto itself and looks flummoxed when that obviously isn't the case. If there was any evidence at all that Dany had any sort of long-term game plan at work here, I might feel differently. But she doesn't and that's why she's in a mess.

Meh, most emancipation edicts/plans could hardly boast the same either. I doubt very much Lincoln's did (although i dunno), I'm more certain Alexander II's was half-baked at best. We planned for fuck all regarding our own abolition laws saving how to compensate people and stop the French gaining.

Dany's a bit of a twit but something about this whole 'abolition must always be a long term process + intricate plans must be laid before' feels divorced from how it's ever actually been done even if it sounds a great idea when you write it down.

Edit: I agree she's pretty clueless, I just doubt it would be very much better if she wasn't.

[butterbumps!]

Um, yes thats a very clear example of taking the wrong path. Dany should have stayed in Vaes Toloorro but instead went to Qaarth. She even reflects back on this as the wrong decision. An alternate way of managing the slaves or economy would need to have been suggested to her or by another POV character. Lacking that theres only a straight forward slavery or no slavery.

But I'm asking what you are looking for here. Martin does in fact offer multiple paths. But I think the hangup here is that you are annoyed that of all the paths she's chosen, she's ended up in a situation of slavery-no slavery, right?

Well, there are other choices within this dilemma. For example, Dany is constantly torn between ruling by force versus ruling by diplomacy. There were things she might have done to create more stability (she doesn't always use force strategically, and she ended up appeasing the wrong members of society).

But I really think the question here is not about what Dany could have done to be a more effective ruler. The way her arc was crafted in DwD tends to suggest the opposite-- that Dany is not so much a ruler-- by innate ability or training. Dany is something else-- she has power, she has some correct moral instincts, and put together, she's a brightly burning agent of chaos and social change, someone who neither enjoys, nor is good at, sitting a throne.

I am not Dany's biggest advocate, but I think that this slavery business is ultimately a good thing.

[mcb]

The books are known for being jaded and arguing that the cruel action is always the most beneficial and prudent thing to do. I don't see why he wouldn't make a similar point here. .

Is it? Then why the few remaining Brave Companions are being hunted down like rabid beasts? Why is Lord Tywin dead? Why it's all but the official hunting season on Freys? No, cruelty is not the automatic winner move, that's gross oversimplification.

Back to the original question: nope, GRRM doesn't justify slavery, even in-universe. It's immoral and in the series it's painted that way. The Good Masters of Astapor were among, if not the, most repulsive creatures in the series, and the bar is set high.

Yes, XXD made a few good points that Dany failed to rebuke. That doesn't mean the author wanted to pass to us a message that slavery was justified. Shit, I thought that "slavery - bad" was one of the least ambiguous themes in the series since Book 1.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Is it? Then why the few remaining Brave Companions are being hunted down like rabid beasts? Why is Lord Tywin dead? Why it's all but the official hunting season on Freys? No, cruelty is not the automatic winner move, that's gross oversimplification.

Back to the original question: nope, GRRM doesn't justify slavery, even in-universe. It's immoral and in the series it's painted that way. The Good Masters of Astapor were among, if not the, most repulsive creatures in the series, and the bar is set high.

Yes, XXD made a few good points that Dany failed to rebuke. That doesn't mean the author wanted to pass to us a message that slavery was justified. Shit, I thought that "slavery - bad" was one of the least ambiguous themes in the series since Book 1.

If anything, that scene shows that Dany is a flaming (no pun intended) hypocrite by continuing to benefit from forced labor, not that slavery is justified or acceptable.

[LuisDantas]

You need money to wage war and hire sellswords and borrow money in order by servicing the debt on your income. Of which the Yunkai have none. So logiclly their economy did recover unlike Mereen.

Not at all. You are jumping to conclusions.

For one thing, it has been stated very plainly that many of Daenerys' foes are being paid by slavers of other cities such as Volantis, not necessarily Yunkai. Their motivation is obvious: they want to protect the status quo that they depend on. Allowing rebellion against slavery to go unchecked is dangerous for them. They will gladly support Yunkai with money as well as long as it is apparent to them that it will save them greater trouble later.

For another, why do you even assume that they have no money yet "bounced back"? The text doesn't really state anything leading to those conclusions, which are even self-contradictory. Daenerys stole their slaves and some of their gold, then she left. There are any number of possible economic scenarios following there. The one thing they all have in common is that they will both attempt to survive and to prune Daenerys' efforts before she becomes an even greater threat. We have little to go on to know how well their economy is actually running now, or how bad a fall it had because of Daenerys. Unless you can mention a few passages?

[Yukle]

The arguments over slavery help to humanise the cities that Dany sacked. It would be easy for her to dwell on her actions if all the slave-owners were evil and malevolent and the slaves were all depressed and distraught.

However, having to constantly reconsider her actions means that Dany is undergoing a much bigger soul-searching experience. Her actions which seemed to be heroic at first make her doubt herself. Things aren't going as easily as she imagined and this creates havoc within her mind.

I don't think that slavery is justified in this, I think it just makes Dany look her age but also helps her to grow up.

[Ser Creighton]

No he is not pro slavery, did Roots justify slavery? Martin is just showing you a pretty good look at how a slave society works. If your society is based on slaves if you remove them you face total economic and social collapse. The society is based on slaves, that's what happens when you remove the income, export, import, and working class who were all slaves from the system. Free labor gone, largest and only major export gone, largest form of trade gone.

One of the reasons the south survived was because after the Civil war, the slaves could migrate north and they had help rebuilding their economic structure. In the case of Merreen they don't really have any place to go and they have no help. Remember while Dany may have freed them they still a large part of a country trying to enslave them and trying to destroy them. They have cut off trade and surrounded the city. It's basically Dany against the slave trade. Surprised Braavo's has not come to her aid. They are a super power with the largesst fleet in the world, they hate slavery, and they sure seem like they want to screw over the current regime in Westeros. What better way then with a Targ princess who has 3 dragons and an army. They are helping Stannis and Dany has a better claim to the crown. I know they had a bad history with the Valyrians but that was a long time ago and I don't recall any problems with t he Targs, plus they hate Slavery and Dany is freeing slaves.

[Djinn]

Bloodbeard(leader of the Company of the Cat) seemed to be purposely trying to sabotage the peace treaty between Yunkai and Meeren because the sellsword companies are intent in sacking Meeren. That could explain how they mange to gather so many sellswords, with the promise of loot. Also, how much gold and slaves did the Yunkai did really surrounded to Danaerys? Besides, the Yunkai masters very likely have credit with various trading partners(Quarth, Volanthis, Tolos, Mantarys, New Ghis, Myr , Lys ,Tyrosh) to re-supply for a profitable military operation. Also, the arrival of new slaves(with Astapor damaged and Meeren out of game) ready to be trained increased the leverage of Yunkai.

Ultimately, GRRM is trying to show that (with Meeren and the Night's Watch situations) social, economical and cultural change is a difficult process, with many pitfalls,and that it's usually a lengthy and tortuous path. Danaerys took the morally right first step, but is taking several political/economical wrong steps after. Obviously, experience is a great asset in these sort of situations.

[total1402]

Not at all. You are jumping to conclusions.

For one thing, it has been stated very plainly that many of Daenerys' foes are being paid by slavers of other cities such as Volantis, not necessarily Yunkai. Their motivation is obvious: they want to protect the status quo that they depend on. Allowing rebellion against slavery to go unchecked is dangerous for them. They will gladly support Yunkai with money as well as long as it is apparent to them that it will save them greater trouble later.

For another, why do you even assume that they have no money yet "bounced back"? The text doesn't really state anything leading to those conclusions, which are even self-contradictory. Daenerys stole their slaves and some of their gold, then she left. There are any number of possible economic scenarios following there. The one thing they all have in common is that they will both attempt to survive and to prune Daenerys' efforts before she becomes an even greater threat. We have little to go on to know how well their economy is actually running now, or how bad a fall it had because of Daenerys. Unless you can mention a few passages?

She took ALL of their slaves. That means no income. She may even have taken all their gold. Whilst the Yunkai currently make up the bulk of the slaver forces and have paid for the most mercenaries; as well as holding command. The windblown tattered prince is clear the Yunkai are in charge of the operations. Volantis has yet to even show up. War and raising new troops is expensive and you need to have a way of paying back any money you borrow. Yunkai clearly did bounce back.

[TrueMetis]

Or your just wrong about Dany taking all of their slaves and money.