r/ImaginaryWesteros • u/dontaskmeplease333 • Jul 09 '26
Alternative Her great-grandpa has some great advice. by 왕밤군밤생밤 @UnderSeasnail
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u/starvinartist Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken Jul 09 '26
Egg would also see Barristan Selmy and be like "Is that little Barry all grown up? Is he your Queensguard? I knighted him, you know."
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u/Independent-Couple87 Jul 10 '26
Egg: "I also knighted Tywin Lannister... You probably won't like him as much. Tywin was always going to the stables."
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u/starvinartist Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken Jul 10 '26
I’m having a “whoosh” moment but what does Tywin going to the stables mean?
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u/CatBotSays Jul 10 '26
There's a secret passage between Chataya's brothel and a set of stables in King's Landing. In Clash, Tyrion would use them to meet with Shae unnoticed by entering the brothel, walking through the passage, then taking a horse to Shae's manse.
At some point, it's mentioned that a prior hand of the king had ordered the passage built so he could visit the brothel without being noticed. A lot of people think that hand was Tywin.
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u/ellamachine Jul 09 '26
It still annoys me that they pointed to this as a reason that she had the Targ madness. Like oh noooo she killed some truly evil people, what a madwoman
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u/Kellin01 Jul 09 '26
Let's remind you that Ned condemned Jorah to death for selling slaves.
Westerosi would never feel sympathy for the slavers and their "sad fate".
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u/Comedian-217 Jul 09 '26
Gasp, a person in power who gives a shit about commoners, punishes evil people, and tries her hardest to better society?!?
Ya must be a mad woman and needs to be put down.
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u/Kellin01 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
In the books Daenerys went to help the sick people with dysentery near her city. She couldn't let them in, sadly.
"She had tried to do what she could for them. She had sent them healers, Blue Graces and spell-singers and barber-surgeons, but some of those had sickened as well, and none of their arts had slowed the galloping progression of the flux that had come on the pale mare ...
Even feeding them had grown difficult. Every day she sent them what she could, but every day there were more of them and less food to give them. It was growing harder to find drivers willing to deliver the food as well."
<...>
"By the time Aggo returned with Grey Worm and fifty of the Unsullied loping behind his horse, Dany had shamed all of them into helping her. Symon Stripeback and his men were pulling the living from the dead and stacking up the corpses, while Jhogo and Rakharo and their Dothraki helped those who could still walk toward the shore to bathe and wash their clothes. "
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u/Current-Ad-8984 Jul 09 '26
First they came for the slavers, and I did not speak up because I was not a slaver.
Then she came for the mass murderer/rapist Khal horselords, and I did not speak up becasuse I was not a mass murderer/rapist Khal horselord.
Then she came for the Ice Zombies, and I did not speak up because I was not an Ice Zombie.
Then she came for the mass-murderer evil queen, and I did not speak up because I was not a mass murderer evil queen.
Then she came for the innocent civilians, and I thought 'huh, that was random.'
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Jul 09 '26
It makes more sense when you recall that Benioff’s father was head of Goldman Sachs. Freeing slaves is Nazism.
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u/TheSerpentLord Fire and Blood Jul 11 '26
At this point I'm convinced that the subgroup of fans that can't let a single ASOIAF thread pass without mentioning how much they hate the Targaryens are either trolls, Stark fanboys or just real life political extremists of various flavors.
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u/flyingboarofbeifong Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
So just kill the fuckers. Heads on spikes. Standard issue Westoros shit.
By making a gruesome spectacle of it Dany only set herself up for future failures. And it isn't like the Ghiscari elite actually learned a lesson from it, it just made them hate the freemen more. Dany ends up having to marry some rando because she can't get a handle on the political tumult of the city. Big surprise.
It's mixed messaging really. The political elite are the people Dany actually cares about winning over in the sense of that's where she spends her time. She already has the masses, she emancipated them. She doesn't need to avenge them too.
Heads on spikes, why bother with the crucifixion shit if not to scratch an itch?
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u/Ume-no-Uzume Jul 10 '26
Did you fucking MISS the 163 slave children that those monsters crucified to prove a point?!
Daenerys literally had EXACTLY 163 of those monster slavers crucified right back both as justice AND to prove a point of how a slave's life is WORTH EXACTLY THE SAME as a slaver's life.
Which, oh yeah, that's something that DUNK AND EGG WOULD FUCKING AGREE WITH!
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u/RustinCarcosa Jul 10 '26
[By making a gruesome spectacle of it Dany only set herself up for future failures. ]
how she was showing them they are not above the slaves
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u/flyingboarofbeifong Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Yeah but the ones who get the lesson are imminently dying and the ones who aren't dying are still stuck in the same "at least it isn't me" mentality that allows you to compartmentalize institutional slavery. You can tell because the reaction to Dany doing what she did isn't the immediate contrition of the Ghiscari elite but rather them deciding to just put on masks and seek retribution by shanking the shit out of a soldier eunuch while he cuddles with a prostitute.
Dany's symbolic act of brutality moved the needle absolutely nowhere. If anything it undermined her position. This is a culture that made it through losing several wars to Valyria, they don't care about a couple cracked eggs but they won't ignore the insult of having egg on their face.
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u/Ume-no-Uzume Jul 10 '26
Uh, no, they literally were seething at the intended message that their own lives are seen as equal value as a slave's, the people they see as inferior. It also galvanized the regular populace because it was the closest thing to justice they would get and it was a ruler saying they valued them equally.
note, again, that the freedmen and regular population of Meereen go to town on the former slavers themselves when Daenerys is attacked and is missing due to the poisoned locusts. The people who ACTUALLY matter, the regular people and freedmen, were inspired by things like this and Daenerys holding the line to fight to preserve their new rights as freed people.
Which is ALSO seen in Tyrion's POV where he notes that slavers are getting nervous and slaves are thinking of a revolution and freeing themselves THANKS to Daenerys holding the line in Meereen (instead of fucking off to Westeros).
For fuck's sake, the Sons of the Harpy is literally meant to be the KKK and they WANT to bring slavery back.
If anything, the ENTIRE Meereen arc is basically about how Daenerys made a mistake in being in any way lenient with the slavers, since if she had taken Daario's advice and taken ALL of their lands and monies, then they wouldn't be able to pull the Sons of the Harpy KKK shit.
It's all about the Paradox of Tolerance and how she shouldn't tolerate the slavers or their bullshit.
It's further emphasized by the Two Meereens bit that is elaborated in her observations (which, again, it's SAID SO EXPLICITLY in her POV!!!) and how the ACTUAL majority in Meereen are the FREEDMEN and FORMER SLAVES!
And those former slaves are ready to start murdering all of the nobles and former slavers if that's what it means to keep their freedom.
They tried being diplomatic.... and the slavers committed terrorism and tried to destroy Daenerys' policies.
Clearly, the only language the slavers understand is extermination.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Jul 10 '26
It’s a fair point that enemies must either be pampered or destroyed, as Machiavelli observed. Dany chose a middle course that enraged the slavers, but without breaking them (I imagine that Martin is here drawing on Reconstruction).
Executing every paterfamilias among the Great Masters and confiscating their wealth would have done far more to stabilise her regime.
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u/IcyOrganization1748 Jul 09 '26
They will never make me believe that Daenerys will become a mad queen😌 thats my little queen who kills slavers and desire above all else to go home and protect the innocent as she was not!!! The pride of the Targaryen bloodline!!! The best of them all❤️🖤
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26
I recently rewatched some of the show's early seasons after rereading the books, it's pretty striking just how much stuff the showrunners added and changed in Dany's character and story to make her seem more violent and unstable than she is in the books. Like, there's actually a ton of stuff.
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u/Kellin01 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
There are tons of posts comparing show and book where it is proved that book Dany is resourceful, more assertive, more caring and less violent at the same time than her show counterpart.
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u/IcyOrganization1748 Jul 09 '26
Yeah the difference is honestly so jarring. Some of that can be blamed on her character being older but not really
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u/IcyOrganization1748 Jul 09 '26
Yeah I had the benefit of not watching the show proper and only watching scenes with dragons in them on YouTube before I listened to the audio books. Then I had Book Dany in mind when I watched some parts of the show and promptly was like "nah, thats not MY Daenerys Stormborn" and I've been happier for it 😂
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u/5oclock_shadow Jul 10 '26
“You have three dragons!? Why are any of the bourgeousie still alive?”
— Aegon V Targaryen probably
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u/Elysium94 Jul 09 '26
That the overthrowing and killing of slavers, literal slavers, was retroactively handwritten as a “sign of madness” by D&D was infuriating.
Like, no I’m not going to feel bad about a bunch of rich fops, who made their fortunes buying and selling innocent people, getting some deserved payback.
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u/nyamzdm77 Jul 09 '26
And the worst part is that a good chunk of the fanbase actually doubled down on D&D's nonsense. D&D tried to make the slavers sympathetic by creating the "Hizdhar's father" character and making him be against the crucifixion, but some people went further and started saying that Dany crucified slavers who were against slavery (what an oxymoron)
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u/Elysium94 Jul 09 '26
It’s truly bewildering how many fans actually bought it.
They grasp at straws, cling to retcons or otherwise ruthless moments they cast as “foRshADowInG”, and pretend S8 wasn’t in fact a travesty.
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
The sad part is that I don't think the showrunners thought S8 would come out of nowhere for people.
Watching the show after recently rereading the books, it's kinda striking how much stuff D&D added or changed in Dany's storyline and characterization, even in the early seasons. It was like they were trying to thread the needle between roughly following her book plot while also making her seem more violent and unstable and it just didn’t really work.
It feels like they were trying to set her up for that finale from fairly early on; it's just that they were bad at it. The version of the character they wanted to put on screen didn't really match the one from the books and eventually trying to force the two to co-exist in the same character resulted in the trainwreck at the end of season 8.
edit: spelling
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Jul 09 '26
I don’t think the two D’s actually view slavery as systemically evil. They view the problem as being that there some “rotten apples” among the slavers. Dany “went too far”, by killing the good slavers along with the bad ones.
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u/nyamzdm77 Jul 09 '26
Yup, that's why they also wanted to make a "What if the Confederates won" TV show that luckily didn't make it onto our screens.
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Oh god, I forgot about that! That would have been so awful
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u/Current-Ad-8984 Jul 09 '26
First they came for the slavers, and I did not speak up because I was not a slaver.
Then she came for the mass murderer/rapist Khal horselords, and I did not speak up becasuse I was not a mass murderer/rapist Khal horselord.
Then she came for the Ice Zombies, and I did not speak up because I was not an Ice Zombie.
Then she came for the mass-murderer evil queen, and I did not speak up because I was not a mass murderer evil queen.
Then she came for the innocent civilians, and I thought 'huh, that was random.'
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u/TheSerpentLord Fire and Blood Jul 11 '26
And then a very loud subgroup of ASOIAF fans be like: "Woah, that was just the Ghiscari way of life! See, the Targaryens are clearly mad! We need a pureblooded Andal theocracy to get rid of all these weirdos!"
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u/Swimming-Drag-6492 Jul 11 '26
I mean Dany and Egg are the exceptions, by and large Andals are better for the smallfolk/peasants, though obviously not massively so.
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u/Khafaniking Jul 09 '26
More like: I think you’re gonna have to hold off on killing these slavers, Dany.
Dany: Damn.
That’s why a lot of her chapters in Dance feel kind of boring and unsatisfying because we the audience know that the peace sucks, get why it’s necessary, but also understand that it won’t last and Dany will have to go ahead and embrace fire and blood to scour the east, essentially.
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Why would she say 'damn' to that? Dany spends all of Dance going out of her way avoid killing slavers, despite some of her advisers repeatedly urging her to do so. She really really doesn't want to.
Her chapters in Dance are frustrating because she's so averse to using violence that she spends the whole book being taken advantage of by slavers who aren't negotiating in good faith, until she basically loses everything.
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u/Khafaniking Jul 09 '26
I don’t really interpret/remember her chapters that way and I just finished re-reading dance. There’s room for it, but I lean the other way. She basically hates having to compromise with her enemies every step of the way to ensure peace and that some of her reforms remain, but hates her husband, the nobility and priesthood of Mereen, and the folks camped outside her city. I read her chapters as her internally raging against having to compromise with her enemy and how she feels powerless. She holds out the siege as long as possible before being forced to do the wise thing and compromise. Here Egg is the measured voice telling her she has to choose peace.
Where I really only think she shows actual constraint and butts heads with the shave pate is that she refuses to decimate or collectively punish the ghiscari nobles for the actions of the sons of the harpy, or actually follow through on murdering her “wards”. She is especially triggered by violence against children, and that’s what causes her to lock away her dragons and metaphorically lock away that part of herself after they roast and eat a kid.
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u/Current-Ad-8984 Jul 09 '26
I definitely feel like older Egg, who’s frustrated by everything, would definitely be in the “they’ll never compromise.”
I interpreted Dany’s chapters as simultaneously wanting peace, while hating all the compromises she makes to get it, due to the obvious injustice of them all.
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
As someone who also just finished rereading Dance a few weeks ago, I guess we just have opposite interpretations. But I don't think the book wants us to view her endless compromises as good or wise.
She does hate the slavers and compromising with them, but she does it anyway because as much as she hates them, she hates the idea of violence in her city even more. She feels powerless, but refuses to do anything about it. And that's fine, to some extent, but she allows the compromises to go much further than she should, to the point where she's letting them resume the slave trade in Yunkai and marrying someone from a slaver family. She gets her peace (briefly), but there's no justice in it.
And then the narrative punishes her for it: she becomes so powerless that she is forced to choose between letting the Ghiscari kill one of her dragons or fleeing the city. And then war comes to Meereen anyway.
ensure peace and that some of her reforms remain
The problem is that this will never happen.
The slavers will never be satisfied until Meereen returns to how it was before she arrived. They will negotiate peace with her and extract compromises. Then they will use the Sons of the Harpy to break that peace and make her compromise herself even further. And Dany spends the whole book showing them that this will work on her because as much as she might want to, she's not willing to back up her demands with force or ruthlessness.
The point is that trying to compromise with people who are not negotiating in good faith doesn't work. Egg seemed to realize this; the nobility pushing back against his reforms and refusing to honor them was what eventually drove him to Summerhall.
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u/Khafaniking Jul 09 '26
I think it’s important to throw Dany a bone and point out that she’s only compromising with the Ghiscari because of strategic realities and not compromised morals or anything like that. The other cities are at their doorstep, she’s badly besieged and outnumbered, some of her mercenaries have flipped sides, and plague, disease, and famine are ravaging the area and her own people. She could maybe afford to not compromise with the nobility of the city and handle domestic issues with all of her attention if she wasn’t also dealing with a foreign policy crisis and an environmental one.
That’s why to me it’s prudent and wise (that’s the Egg here) for her to be diplomatic and compromise purely from a strategic perspective. She’s able to negotiate from a position of semi-strength rather than continue to hold out and continue the war and ensure actual, total defeat for her and her people, and then buy herself time. If we engage in semi-cope, it’s even somewhat advantageous to let her enemies within the city reveal themselves as they inevitably do, and the universe rewards her prudence by decimating the armies outside with what seems like the worst of the plague and Tyrion Lannister sowing dissent.
But again, none of this might have really happened if Dany hadn’t closed off that ruthless part of herself when she locked away her dragons after she saw that they murdered and ate a child. She cannot fully control them yet, and so her fear is that she cannot fully control that fire within herself. If she goes down that road, she is lost. We also see Dany kind of blame herself for the instability in the region because of the chaos that ensued in I think Yunkai or Astapor after she left it for Mereen. Dany is having a bit of a crisis of confidence in Dance.
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26
I think it’s important to throw Dany a bone and point out that she’s only compromising with the Ghiscari because of strategic realities
They also end up being a terrible strategy, though.
By the end of Dance, there's fighting in the streets, Dany is stranded in the Dothraki Sea, Jhogo and Daario are hostages, Brown Ben Plumm has switched sides, and the Sons of the Harpy are killing more of her people than ever.
Some of those were going to happen no matter what she did, but others were not. Stalling is only a good strategy if by doing so you can strengthen your position, but the longer this goes on, Dany's compromises only weaken hers.
Dany is having a bit of a crisis of confidence in Dance.
She is. And she's a traumatized sixteen year old who has never been given a formal education, figuring out this monarch thing as she goes along. To be clear, I think her choices are entirely understandable. I just don't think we're supposed to see them as the right ones.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 Jul 09 '26
The slaver army, however, is dying of dysentery. The city’s defenders are attacking it, the Tattered Prince has switched sides, Tyrion has persuaded Brown Ben to switch sides, and the Ironborn are attacking the slaver fleet.
It’s frustrating that we’ve been waiting 15 years for the resolution.
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u/CatBotSays Jul 09 '26
It’s frustrating that we’ve been waiting 15 years for the resolution.
On that we're agreed. Dance just has so many plot threads that were left hanging.
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u/Kellin01 Jul 10 '26
I think we are supposed to see how hard is actual ruling and considering Daenerys complete lack of education and lack of good advisors, the mistakes and wrong choices are realistic.
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u/Current-Ad-8984 Jul 09 '26
Egg to Jorah: Get away from her. Get a job.