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triviavenus · 1 year

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A response to @stargareed's comments, he has deleted (or don't show up anymore because he has me block lol) and his response to @theblackqveen's post.

His comments:

First off all, what an absolute clown do you have to be to come here, guns a-bazing, snippy and condescendingly insinuate that I would block you or erase a hypothetical "refutation" of yours when you not only have i) spammed my comment section without adressing any of the arguments and facts in my reblog contradicting your bending and rewriting of the laws of inheritance so they might support your wish of a) Jon having any claim whatsoever to the Iron Throne and b) Daenerys having none, but then proceed to ii) delete your comments and/or block me ? Excuse me??

@lives4lovesworld If I reply to your long response to me, are you gonna leave it up or block me so people can't see it?

Before I begin to yet again refute all this nonsense, I have to say; I have never seen a person writing so much nonsensical fallacious bullshit that does i) neither adressed the points I have made prior ii) nor support their own nor iii) matter in the discussion to begin with and then iv) continues to write a response in which he contradicts himself??

So besides you not even addressing, let alone try and disassembled all the facts (such as the laws of inheritance, the workings of absolute monarchy and validity of king regardless of his mental state) that refute your brazen inaccurate statements of Jon (as a secret bastard) to have any claims, and Daenerys supposedly losing her claim for further rewriting how laws of inheritance work and your (deliberate, dare I say so) misunderstanding of Daenerys and her position in AGoT, you also did not answer any of my previous questions: What purpose Robb's declare than has (besides removing Sansa from the succession) if a bastard has claims regardless if he legitimized or not? Or if Sansa, by your logic, has lost all her claims to Winterfell as well, because she had "alllowed" her betrothal to kill her father? if Catelyn by your incredibly flawed preception has "allowed" her brother's father-in-law to murder her son?

@theblackqveen Dany was complicit in Viserys's death. She didn't even try to stop her husband through Viserys was begging her to. A Westerosi lord might say, "So your husband killed Viserys, and you didn't even try to stop him? That's pretty convenient, isn't it? Almost like you're unfairly profiting from your brother's death."

Yeah... Viserys was also threatening Daenerys not mere seconds ago. If you argue Daenerys should have fought harder for her king, than Viserys should have protected and respected her as person, as his sister and as his heir. If you argue Aerys's valdity as king can be dismissed (so you can and everbody else should dismiss his decree) because he was obviously not of sound mind than Daenerys can dismiss Viserys as her king too, because he was obviously not sound of mind too.

Fortunatly, this is NOT HOW INHERITANCE WORKS (for the chaos that would be legtimized that way would out to TWot5K). All heirs "profit" from their testator's death, so one can accuse them all for "unfairly profiting" from them. But no one does, beacuse that's not the world ASoIaF is. And even if there would be lords to share your opinion, these lords could not argue that Daenerys has lost her claim on a legislative level, BECAUSE THAT'S NOT HOW THEIR LAWS WORK. I don't know how somebody has to articulate it to you that a person's reaction and actions surrounding AND to his testator's death is not of concern when it comes to his position as heir, when a person can literally murder his testator without losing his rights as said testator's lawful heir.

It's your personal opinion that a person should not inherited from someone if they fail to prevent the testator's death or are in your eyes a "complict" or fail grieve them a certain way. THAT'S YOUR PERSONAL OPINION, NOT THE LAW. Although given the fact that Daenerys tried to prevent his deathh by pleaded Viserys to sheath his sword, and offered him her dragon eggs (her most prized property) it is apparent that you want to disinherited Daenerys soley because she did not meet YOUR expectations on how she "should" have acted.

@music-of-dragons It could depend on why the Mad King made Viserys his "new heir". If he did so because he was pissed at Dorne…then his rationale might not apply to non-Dornish Jon. And we know he was very pissed at Dorne: "When the news reached the Red Keep, it was said that Aerys cursed the Dornish, certain that Lewyn had betrayed Rhaegar. He sent his pregnant queen, Rhaella, and his younger son and new heir, Viserys, away to Dragonstone. . . ." (TWOIAF)

AGAIN as already stated you have yet to adress and try to disassembled the stated facts from my reblog that stated that JON as unknown secret bastard DOES NOT HAVE ANY CLAIM. For Jon to have a claim he would have needed to publicly acknowledged and then legitimized by a royal decree. There is no tHen hIs raTionAle mIght nOt aPply tO non-D0rnIsh JoN.

JON DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY HAVE A CLAIM BECAUSE HE IS RHAEGAR'S SON AND A DECREE TO DISINHEIRT THE TRUEBORN HEIRS DOES NOT SIMULTANEOUSLY GRANT ANYONE ELSE/A UNKNOWN BASTARD CLAIMS.

The royal decree to disinherit Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen and apppointment of Viserys as new heir is alo sure as hell not phrased that "ONLY Rhaegar's line that is part dornish is hereby disinherited" because it would make no sense. The disinheritance is not against Rhaegar's children's dornish heritage, it is about the preventation of Rhaegar's line to ascend the Throne and Visery's ascend (and it being made as secured as legally possible) PERIOD. And most imporantly, why would the decree be written in this specific way (worded to prevent only Rhaegar's DORNISH heirs), when no one thought he even had any other children??? (children with indisputable claims!) That would be a explicitness no one would have ever come to in this scenario.

Even if it WAS, JON AS UNKNOWN NON-ACKNOWLEDGED, NON-LEGITIMIZED BASTARD HAS NO CLAIMS. That is trueborn siblings lost theirs doesn't suddenly grant him ones.

@theblackqveen First, there were instances of Dany telling Drogo "no" or defying Dothraki custom and Drogo allowed her to do so even if he disagreed at first. So he definitely listened to her.

You deliberately continue to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Daenerys and Drogo's relationships.

Drogo listens to her in some instances because he wanted to. Like when she try to persuade him to do different sex positions or claiming the Lhazareen women for herself. And even in the later instance, Daenerys fears if she had dared to much. In none of these instances Drogo listened to Daenerys because she had the authority to bend him to her will.

And whether her protests worked with Viserys is not important. The important thing is that she at least try to protect her king. But she didn’t. And so others may naturally conclude that she unfairly profited from his death and shouldn't inherit from her.

You are just repeating yourself, bringing up an supposed "argument" that doesn't disinherit Daenerys as Viserys’s heir. AGAIN there could be as many as they want that can "naturally conclude that she unfairly profited from his death and and shouldn't inherit from her". It still doesn't change the law. But given the fact that NO ONE in 6 books have mused anything of this sort, refutes your hypothesis that there will be any to argue (like this).

The only one to speculate in a similar manner about the circumstances of Viserys’s death are Arianne Martell and Daemon Sand;

The secret pact that Prince Doran had made all those years called for Arianne to be wed to Prince Viserys, not Quentyn to Daenerys. It had all come undone on the Dothraki sea, when he was murdered. Crowned with a pot of molten gold. "He was killed by a Dothraki khal," said Arianne. "The dragon queen's own husband." "So I'veheard. What of it?" "Just… why did Daenerys let it happen? Viserys was her brother. All that remained of her own blood." "The Dothraki are a savage folk. Who can know why they kill? Perhaps Viserys wiped his arse with the wrong hand." Perhaps, thought Arianne, or perhaps Daenerys realized that once her brother was crowned and wed to me, she would be doomed to spend the rest of her life sleeping in a tent and smelling like a horse. "She is the Mad King's daughter," the princess said. "How do we do know -- " "We cannot know," Ser Daemon said. "We can only hope." - Arianne I, TWoW

And even here, the focus lays only on whenever or not Daenerys might be "her father's daughter". Not a word about Daenerys not being Viserys's heir due to the circumstances around his death is muttered here. And mind you this from a women that envisioned herself as Viserys's queen.

excerpts of @stargareed's response to @theblackqveen post:

GRRM made the rightful claimant issue a clusterfuck of ambiguity so that Stannis/Shireen, Dany, (f)Aegon, and Jon all have colorable claims to the Iron Throne.

i) Robert Baratheon justifys is claim to the Iron Throne through his great grandmother Rhaelle Targaryen (although we all know Robert's won/stole the Iron Throne with his war hammer (x)). Even Stannis, who derives his claim to the Iron Throne from him being Robert's brother, states that Robert IS an usurper.

ii) If we collectively disregard Aerys's decree as you do it, then yes the unquestionable son of Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen would have indeed a better claim than Daenerys. But Young Griff/"Aegon" and his kingmakers know, should they fail to match a marriage between him and Daenerys, he will forever be mocked as a pretender (x). Therefore debating how the claim of the true, indisputable Aegon would still out trump Daenerys, despite there being a royal decree that says otherwise, is redundant because the circumstances demand from this boy to resign himself as only her mere consort, because otherwise no one will believe "Aegon" is who he says he is.

iii) FOR THE 100TH TIME; NO PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND NO LEGITIMIZATION BY OFFICIAL ROYAL DECREE MEANS NO CLAIM FOR SECRET BOI JON.

It’s almost like a law school exam where you can easily argue why multiple characters have the strongest claims. So when someone posts in the Jon tag that Dany has a 100% better claim than Jon, I’m gonna push back (in a civil manner of course).

You have yet to "easily argue", adress and try to disassembled the laws of inheritance I have quoted from AWoIaF. So how exactly have you "push[ed] back"? You have yet to refute anything.

I agree that Drogo had the ultimate authority in their relationship. And that though Drogo listened to Dany in some things (e.g. allowing Dany to have some control over their sex life or prevent Dothraki warriors from taking certain Lhazareen women), there’s a very good chance Drogo would have killed Viserys despite Dany’s pleas because Viserys threatened Drogo’s unborn son.

Here you start to contradict yourself. First you say Daenerys should have prevented Viserys��s death (insinuating that she has that kind of power over Drogo to begin with because Drogo indulge a few pleas od her) and now you (finally) admit Drogo would have done as he pleased, regardless of Daenerys's pleas.

Which doesn't matter anyway, because you still insist on trying to pass off your personal opinion on inheritance as the law:

But to the extent Dany wants to inherit from Viserys, she should have at least tried to prevent the death of her supposed king. Instead, she was complicit in his death. After Dany translated Viserys’s words to her husband, the following occurred: [excerpt of Daenerys V, AGoT] So, Dany translates Viserys’s ill-fated words to her husband, knows her husband is about to kill Viserys, puts her arm around Drogo in a sign of approval, and then ignores Viserys’s pleas to intervene on his behalf.

Firstly, as already said, Daenerys's behavior does not change her position as Viserys's heir, and she did try " to prevent the death of her supposed king.

Secondly, you continue to force your personal interpretation as objective truth; "puts her arm around Drogo in a sign of approval" Daenerys's action to put her arm around Drogo could just as easily be a sign of her seaking his proximity for protection.

I’m not saying Viserys didn’t deserve to die. It’s also understandable that Dany didn’t intervene on Viserys’s behalf considering he just threatened her unborn child. But as understandable as Dany’s actions are, they also could be used against her to prevent her from inheriting from Viserys.

Again, no one does so other than you (and probably your friends).

Let’s do a hypo: Let’s take Season 8 Dany and Jon, but change it so that instead of being the rightful heir, Jon is just a Targaryen bastard. So, there’s no question that Dany is the rightful queen, while Jon is just her heir (as there are no trueborn folks with Targ blood remaining in this hypothetical).

I refuse to even adress a hypo in which one of the most nonsensical show is being used as gateway. (One of the many reasons of it being nonsensical is the fact that D&D tried to pass off the secret, dusty dairy entry of an unknown generic maester talking about "annulling" the Crown Prince's lawful, fruitful marriage to his highborn wife and "marrying" Rhaegar Targaryen to bethrothed Lyanna Stark in SECRET, which supposedly makes their secret child the "rightful heir" WITH NO WITNESSES, TWO DECADES AFTER EVERYONE IS DEAD as a lawfully-binded FACT, which everbody will unquestionable believe.) But hey, at least you are consistent in your fuckery, to say s8Jon should be allowed to inherited shit from s8 Daenerys (from a moral stand point)

Now, I’ve caught a lot of grief because, as much as I don’t like Season 8 Jon, I think he was justified in killing Season 8 Dany after she murdered 100,000 people and implied that she’d continue killing, including Jon’s own family. However, though I think S8 Jon was ethically justified in killing Dany, a strong argument could be made that he should not inherit from her because he killed her and would be unfairly profiting from her death.

Again, totally your personal opinion, stop passing yours off as ASoIaF's legislature.

If you agree that S8 Jon shouldn’t inherit from S8 Dany, why should book!Dany inherit from Viserys when there was even less justification for Viserys’s death? The only difference is that Drogo did the actual killing in the books, but it was with Dany’s full blessing.

The hereditary feudalistic laws of inherintance, espescially if there is one only one "trueborn" close relative left, is not a matter of arguments. If the laws of inheritance allow Tyrion Lannister to murder his father and still remain his heir, than s8!Jon is s8!Daenerys's heir the same way Daenerys is Viserys's heir. The succession of the Starks is currently a matter of arguments because no one know were Jon Snow as legitmimized bastard stands in this line (before or after Brandon and Rickon?), not the Iron Throne's. She is even more so because she did not kill him. Her acting as translater is not of concern, because his fate was sealed the minute he started to threatened a khalessi with steel in the Dothraki's sacred city.

Ultimately, I don’t think Dany being complicit in Viserys’s death is dispositive of Dany’s lack of claim. However, it is one argument that could reasonably be used to invalidate her claim. Just as Jon’s bastardy and (f)Aegon’s identity could be used to invalidate their claims.

i) AGAIN, it's only YOU to argue like that, ii) AGAIN, Jon's bastardy (explicitly the fact that he was never acknowledged as Rhaegar's bastard and never legitimized by a royal decree as Targaryen) is the fact why he doesn't have any claim to begin with iv) (f)Aegon's dubious identity is the reason why the vast majority of people will doubt that he is who he says he is. These people won't grant him a claim to the Iron Throne for that uncertaintiy. And for those that acknowledge Aerys's decree, (f)Aegon could be indeed Rhaegar and Elia's son, he still won't have a claim in their eyes.

AGAIN, he needs the marriage to Daenerys (possible one to Arianne Martell may sufficient as well) to not be seen as a pretender.

As for the matter of @brideoffires being a "white racist" (ilamo) I share @theblackqveen already summerized my feelings. And the fact that you compare "white dany stans' denial over [her] blatant racism" to fucking 13 year old sex slave child bride stockholm syndrom suffering Dany and her raping, warmongering owner tops every generalizing comments from @brideoffires

@lives4lovesworld @theblackqveen Lmao, when did @brideoffires ever "destroy" me in an arguement? Show me receipts!!!

As for the "receipts", unfortunately tumblr search does show me your discourse with her since you have blocked me, I will not spent further hours on you scrolling through multiple blogs to find these posts (about a matter I frankly do not care)

#{ fandom } asoiaf #in defense of daenerys #talks of succession #fandom bs

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triviavenus · 1 year

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Robb’s Will is often lamented as the most disregard royal declare since sansa stans (that make seemingly 80% up of the fandom on all social platforms) refuse to accept that she has been disinherited as it puts an end to all their rIgHtfUl QitN headcanons, but there is one that tops it; King Aerys’s declare to disinherited Rhaegar’s line after his death and appointment of his second son as his heir.

#{ fandom } asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #in defense of daenerys #talks of succession #fandom bs

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triviavenus · 1 year

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One of the antis Dany arguments that really upsets me the most (besides their bullshit about slavery) is blaming her because of Aerys II. You can’t just go around blaming children for their parents’ actions. Good for you if your whole family was amazing, but that doesn’t make you a good person. Because you’re not your father, your mother, your brother or your sister. You’re your own person and you make your own choices. You can turn out to be a terrible person even if your father won a Nobel Peace Prize, and you can turn out to be a good person even if your father was a serial killer and a rapist. Imagine meeting someone and asking them about their parents to judge if you should befriend them or tell them to go to hell.

#{ fandom } asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #in defense of daenerys #fandom bs

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triviavenus · 1 year

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In thinking about how some people claim that Dany’s actions in Essos (outlawing slavery and rape) are orientalist, or colonial, I suddenly realized that this reaction on the part of certain fans is something GRRM may have actually intended as a historical critique of real life slavery.

See, the thing is that these reactions to Dany’s abolishment of slavery in Essos reminds me very explicitly of the US South’s reactionary backlash to the abolitionist movement. They seceded and went to war to protect their slave-based political economy and culture. Southerners proclaimed that to abolish slavery was an attack on the very heart and soul of Southern life. They claimed that the North was trying to “force its values” on the South, to force the South into the yoke of Northern control.

To this day, you have white Southerners who argue that statues of Confederate generals shouldn’t be taken down because those are “inherent parts of Southern culture” and we’d be “attacking Southern history and culture” if we advocate for their removal.

GRRM is intimately aware of this. He’s written about slavery in his other books, and his stance on slavery needing to be removed with moral violence is pretty clear at this point. So I think it’s absolutely intentional that GRRM has Essosi slavers acting simultaneously like victims and plotting to take down Dany’s reign in Meereen. That’s exactly how Southern leaders in the US reacted, to the point of seceding from the Union and fighting a war to preserve slavery. And the way GRRM has written the slavers’ reactions to Dany directly parallels both pre-war and postbellum US:

Southern leaders spread slanderous propaganda about abolitionists > Essosi slavers spread propaganda about Daenerys

Southern leaders began fearing slave revolts and rebellions > Essosi slavers begin fearing slave revolts and rebellions

The underground railroad was an active anti-slavery mechanism by which people were freeing slaves > Essosi slaves are actually starting a movement, inspired by Daenerys (”tell her we are waiting”)

Southern leaders proclaimed that abolishing slavery is an attack on Southern culture and an imposition of “foreign” or “outsider” values > Essosi slavers hail the 8,000 year long period of slavery and how “grand” it has made the cities of Slaver’s Bay, and claim that Dany, a foreigner, doesn’t understand it and needs to live it alone

Negotiations such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which established a 36 degree 30′ line and Compromise of 1850 failed to prevent the outbreak of war > Dany realizes at the end of ADWD that negotiating with the Meereneese elite will not maintain the abolishment of slavery in Essos

Southerners argued that slavery is good for slaves because they “take care of their slaves” > Essosi slavers argue slavery rather than freedom is better for slaves

North and South fought a war over the preservation of slavery > Dany is actively at war with slavers throughout ASOS and ADWD

“Neutral” Northerners who didn’t support slavery nevertheless did not want its abolishment because the Southern slave economy was the foundation of the Northern industrial economy > The so called innocent 163 Meereneese nobles whom Dany crucified may not have owned slaves necessarily but profited it from it nonetheless

Abolishment of slavery collapsed the core of the Southern slave political economy > Abolishment of slavery collapsed the core of the Meereneese economy

Reactionary, antiblack racial backlash to abolishment (Jim Crow) that lasted for a hundred years after the war > Reactionary backlash on the part of the slavers who are plotting for Dany’s downfall and the reinstatement of slavery

The parallels are overt, outstanding, and clear. The world of ice and fire is definitely that of a feudalist, medieval era, and the slavery in ASOIAF is one similar to Roman slavery, not American chattel slavery, but it’s undeniable that GRRM applied his studies of US slavery and the US civil war to create the political conflicts in Essos centered around slavery and the reactions the slavers have to Dany.

That’s why when people say that Dany is “forcing” her values on Essosi slavers, or “ruining/destroying” their culture, it really concerns me, because it shows me that you guys either haven’t picked up on this direct historical parallel, or worse, you’re buying into blatant white supremacist rhetoric that exists TO THIS DAY in the US (since most ASOIAF readers are Americans and are applying their lens to this series). If you’re parroting rhetoric that fictional slaveowners in Essos and real life historical slaveowners and white supremacists have said throughout American history, then you should be concerned about where your priorities lie, what your understanding of history is, and what your interpretation of this book’s themes are. One thing that’s abundantly clear about GRRM is that he is not condemning or criticizing Dany for freeing slaves. The fact that he’s included all of these parallels between one of the worst atrocities of US history and this situation in his book is telling.

Please hate Dany if you believe she is overly idealistic, or if you think she made life “worse” for the former slaves, but don’t get so extreme in your hatred of Daenerys that you end up parroting actual slavery apologism or copying what real life white supremacists say.

#{ fandom } asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #about: the imperalist colonizer bs #in defense of daenerys #fandom bs #amazing response!

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triviavenus · 1 year

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triviavenus · 1 year

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How Dany’s inability to recall Hazzea name and her reaction to Viserys’s death are shamelessly twisted for a narrative of her as a heartless monster, another “seed” to her descend into madness by others, and how it’s incredibly hypocritical of them:

Continuar lendo

#{ fandom } asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #in defense of daenerys #fandom bs #anti stansas

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The Web of Slavery in ASOIAF

Something that often goes unnoticed is that Dany is the first named victim we meet of the continent wide Essosi slave system that we learn about in more detail in her ASOS arc.

Essentially, what we learn in ASOS is that there are several stakeholders within this system who play different roles:

The “broker:” These are the stakeholders who actually procure the slaves. Two very common examples in the text are Dothraki, who pillage villages and cities and take survivors as slaves, and pirates from the Basilisk Isles, who also sail around Essos to kidnap people and sell them into slavery.

Illustrations of “brokers” in Essos:

She dare not turn north onto the vast ocean of grass they called the Dothraki sea. The first khalasar they met would swallow up her ragged band, slaying the warriors and slaving the rest. The lands of the Lamb Men south of the river were likewise closed to them. They were too few to defend themselves even against that unwarlike folk, and the Lhazareen had small reason to love them. She might have struck downriver for the ports at Meereen and Yunkai and Astapor, but Rakharo warned her that Pono’s khalasar had ridden that way, driving thousands of captives before them to sell in the flesh marts that festered like open sores on the shores of Slaver’s Bay. “Why should I fear Pono?” Dany objected. “He was Drogo’s ko, and always spoke me gently.” (Dany I ACOK)

The Dothraki are one of the biggest brokers of slaves mentioned in the text.

Mossador. Dany made a fist. Missandei and her brothers had been taken from their home on Naath by raiders from the Basilisk Isles and sold into slavery in Astapor. Young as she was, Missandei had shown such a gift for tongues that the Good Masters had made a scribe of her. Mossador and Marselen had not been so fortunate. They had been gelded and made into Unsullied. “Have any of the murderers been captured?” (Dany II ADWD)

Raiders and pirates from The Basilisk Isles sail around Essos (and worldwide), kidnapping people to sell them into slavery. This is exactly how Missandei and her brothers are sold to Kraznys and the Great Masters of Astapor.

The “slaver:” The broker and the slaver are roles that certainly overlap, but not always. While the broker is the agent that procures slaves, such as by kidnapping people from villages or waging war and taking prisoners, the slaver obtains those colonized people and sells them in the markets. These slavers also may be responsible for training specific subsets of slaves for a specific labor pool or need.

Illustrations of “slavers” in Essos:

“The Wise Masters have assembled a slave army to meet us.” “A slave in Yunkai learns the way of seven sighs and the sixteen seats of pleasure, Your Grace. The Unsullied learn the way of the three spears. Your Grey Worm hopes to show you.” (Dany IV ASOS)

The Wise Masters of Yunkai own and train the bedslaves that Yunkai is famous for and deals in.

And like to grow richer, if I grant his petition. When Dany had closed the city’s fighting pits, the value of pit shares had plummeted. Hizdahr zo Loraq had grabbed them up with both hands, and now owned most of the fighting pits in Meereen. (Dany I ADWD)

Hizdahr zo Loraq, one of the foremost nobility of Meereen, purchases all the shares of Meereen’s fighting pits when Dany closes them and abolishes slavery, and thus becomes the new slaver responsible for the fighting pits when Dany is forced to re-open the pits.

The “slaveowner:” This is a very broad category because it does not just include the intermediaries (the brokers and sellers/slavers) but also any nobleman or person wealthy enough to have bought a slave. As we know from the series, many wealthy people in Essos own slaves, but there are other ways to own slaves as well, most notably as sex slaves or bridal slaves.

“The best calumnies are spiced with truth,” suggested Qavo, “but the girl’s true sin cannot be denied. This arrogant child has taken it upon herself to smash the slave trade, but that traffic was never confined to Slaver’s Bay. It was part of the sea of trade that spanned the world, and the dragon queen has clouded the water. Behind the Black Wall, lords of ancient blood sleep poorly, listening as their kitchen slaves sharpen their long knives. Slaves grow our food, clean our streets, teach our young. They guard our walls, row our galleys, fight our battles. And now when they look east, they see this young queen shining from afar, this breaker of chains. The Old Blood cannot suffer that. Poor men hate her too. Even the vilest beggar stands higher than a slave. This dragon queen would rob him of that consolation.” (Tyrion VI ADWD)

As Qavo Nogarys, himself a slaver, points out, slaves do everything in Essos: they produce and cook food, they clean homes and streets, they teach the youth, they are guards and soldiers, they are sailors and scribes. The slave mode of production in Essos penetrates every facet of life. Slaveowners own slaves for a variety of labor needs.

A thin film of ice covered the surface of the pool beneath the weirwood. Theon sank to his knees beside it. “Please,” he murmured through his broken teeth, “I never meant …” The words caught in his throat. “Save me,” he finally managed. “Give me …” What? Strength? Courage? Mercy? Snow fell around him, pale and silent, keeping its own counsel. The only sound was a faint soft sobbing. Jeyne, he thought. It is her, sobbing in her bridal bed. Who else could it be? Gods do not weep. Or do they? (The Turncloak, ADWD)

A different approach to the question of owning “human” property is, of course, bridal slavery and sexual slavery, which comes in many different forms in this series and is relevant to understanding how Dany is a victim of the continent-wide Essosi slave trade.

There is commercial sex slavery, which is a legitimized system of procuring, buying, training, and selling women (and some men) and children for commercial sex: think the bedslaves of Lys and Yunkai, or the Widow of the Waterfront, who was her owner’s bedslave before he fell in love with her and freed her. This is an official method of kidnapping women (unless they’re born in the brothel into commercial sex slavery), training them, and then enabling “clients” to purchase them for however long, be it a night or longer. There is wartime sex slavery, which occurs when armies and militias conquer or pillage a place and commit mass rape of women or take women as their war prizes and prisoners. Naturally this is something the Dothraki are famous for, and even tie back into the first system of sex slavery (selling those women for commercial sex slavery after gang raping them, for instance), but it’s not just the Dothraki Khals that do this. We see in Westeros, for example, that Pia is turned into a sex slave as a prisoner of war, gang raped by Lannister men when they controlled Harrenhal and then gang raped by Northmen when they instituted a coup. Finally, there is bridal slavery, which occurs when a woman is either forcibly sold by some agent to a man who purchases her for the specific purpose of forced marriage and reproduction, with the broker receiving something in return, or when a man (particularly a male family member) forcibly marries a woman for the purpose of sexual enslavement and reproduction. Gilly and her eighteen sisters are examples of this, whereby they are forced to marry their father, who rapes them so that they may produce children. It’s even more insidious because he rapes them to impregnate them for two specific purposes: he wants more girls to carry on his line (more daughters to rape) and do household labor, and he wants sons to give to the Others, to appease them.

It’s important to note that these three modes of sexual enslavement interact with each other. They don’t necessarily exist as discrete, separable systems. A woman who is born into commercial sexual enslavement might be raped as a prisoner of war or as a wartime prize and might then be forcibly married to her owner and forced to bear his children. You might have a child bride forcibly married to a much older man who, upon escaping, is forced into the commercial sex trade because of lack of literacy and job opportunities. In the real world and ASOIAF both, these systems build off each other.

The “merchant”/indirect beneficiaries: These are people who don’t directly make wealth from slavery (by being a broker, seller, or owner of slaves), but who do business with anyone involved in the slaver nexus and obtain a huge source of their wealth from that business. As we know, Dany’s abolition doesn’t just disrupt slavery-reliant economies, it also harms merchants who do business with slavers because it takes away one side of the commercial relationship (if slavers have less money, they don’t have money to buy goods from merchants, goods like wine, for instance). We meet one such merchant, a wealthy man whom Dany puts to work planting beans and irrigating fields in Meereen:

Xaro gave a languid shrug. “As it happens, when I came ashore in your sweet city, I chanced to see upon the riverbank a man who had once been a guest in my manse, a merchant who dealt in rare spices and choice wines. He was naked from the waist up, red and peeling, and seemed to be digging a hole.” “Not a hole. A ditch, to bring water from the river to the fields. We mean to plant beans. The beanfields must have water.” “How kind of my old friend to help with the digging. And how very unlike him. Is it possible he was given no choice in the matter? No, surely not. You have no slaves in Meereen.” (Dany III ADWD)

This interaction is, of course, used against Dany. The fandom seems to think it’s anathema for a merchant to till the fields in exchange for food and shelter, but accepts the fact that Jon Snow obtains food and shelter provided by prisoners laboring for their life at the Wall, or that every single highborn character in ASOIAF can eat food and sleep well at night because they’re eating food provided by serfs tilling the fields. I’m not sure why that brand of feudalism is acceptable for the ASOIAF fandom, but Dany restructuring a labor system so that it’s the formerly wealthy who have to do the very labor they were forcing other people to do is considered unethical.

Anyway, we also meet similar examples of merchants or other beneficiaries of slave-based transaction in Westeros:

“I am to wed Lord Bolton’s son, Ramsay. He used to be a Snow, but His Grace has made him a Bolton. They say he’s very brave. I am so happy.” Then why do you sound so frightened? “I wish you joy, my lady.” Jaime turned back to Steelshanks. “You have the coin you were promised?” “Aye, and we’ve shared it out. You have my thanks.” The northman grinned. “A Lannister always pays his debts.” (Jaime IX ADWD)

Steelshanks is not Jeyne Poole’s owner (that would be Ramsay Bolton). He is not her broker (he’s not the one who enslaved her in the first place; that would be Petyr Baelish). And he’s not her seller (that would be Petyr Baelish and the Lannisters). He’s simply a man who is transporting Jeyne safely North, so that she can get married to Ramsay. Yet he’s benefiting from her enslavement, because he’s being paid for this service.

There are yet more subtle examples as well. For example, Quentyn Martell can use slave labor in Volantis and be transported throughout Volantis because it exists, and he doesn’t have to pay for it. He can take advantage of the slaver war against Daenerys by disguising himself as a member of The Windblown, a company of sellswords whom the slavers have a contract with, to fight against Dany’s armies. Without such sources of slave labor or contracts within the slaver nexus, it would’ve been harder for Quentyn to reach Dany. Note that he’s trying to reach her for the sake of his family’s political goals.

The point here is that the effects of slavery don’t just reach to the grounds people walk on or the food they eat. The effects extend as far as the political and diplomatic alliances highborn lords all the way in Westeros can make and the victories they obtain as a result. We see this, once more, reflected in the tragedy of Jeyne Poole, or with Craster and his daughters. The Lannisters can solidify their claim to the Iron Throne through securing the Boltons as an ally, ruling over Winterfell. Every Lannister, right down to the most innocent ones, benefits from their family being in power, which means every one of them benefits from what happens to Jeyne Poole. The men of the Night’s Watch can do their duty when they had Craster as an ally because they willingly kept silent and allowed him to rape and enslave his wives, in exchange for finding food, shelter, and safe harbor in Craster’s Keep. If they raised any concerns against this, Craster would have kicked them out, and they’d have nowhere to land in the dangerous, icy region North of the Wall.

Let’s now talk about how this web directly involves Daenerys as a victim.

The broker: Illyrio is the main broker in selling her to Drogo. He’s the one who comes up with the scheme to sell Dany to Drogo in exchange for Drogo’s army. He and Varys needed Dany and Viserys as their pawns, either for Drogo’s army directly, or for Dany’s marriage to Young Griff. Illyrio and Varys are the main backers of the Blackfyre scheme to obtain the Iron Throne, and Dany is the cornerstone of their plot.

“I shall treasure them always.” Dany had heard tales of such eggs, but she had never seen one, nor thought to see one. It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illyrio could afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and slaves for his part in selling her to Khal Drogo. (Dany II AGOT)

The surface level material benefits Illyrio purchases by retaining guardianship over Daenerys and brokering the marriage between Drogo and Dany are the goods he obtains, namely horses and slaves, which he will surely use to increase his own wealth. What is left unsaid here, but what comes to light later, is that this marriage is a key part of Illyrio’s scheme, which makes this a second, and yet more important, benefit that Illyrio gains from brokering the marriage. It’s more important because it strikes at the heart of Illyrio’s political ambitions.

Illyrio functions as a slaver in this context as well, because he obtains guardianship over Viserys and Daenerys by inviting them as guests to his manse. However, unlike the cases of labor slaves, Unsullied, or other sex slaves that I outlined above, no slaver (like a Dothraki horde or pirates from the Stepstones) needed to physically kidnap Daenerys to bring her to Illyrio’s manse. Illyrio simply took advantage of Vis and Dany’s lack of a safety net to catalyze his scheme.

The seller: Illyrio is of course the main seller of Dany to Drogo as well. Yet let’s not forget that Viserys is technically the other seller. Though Illyrio doesn’t think highly of Viserys, it’s only with Viserys’ consent that Drogo can marry Dany. And as far as Viserys is concerned, he owns Dany.

“I do,” he said sharply. “We go home with an army, sweet sister. With Khal Drogo’s army, that is how we go home. And if you must wed him and bed him for that, you will.” He smiled at her. “I’d let his whole khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister, all forty thousand men, and their horses too if that was what it took to get my army. Be grateful it is only Drogo. In time you may even learn to like him. Now dry your eyes. Illyrio is bringing him over, and he will not see you crying.” (Dany I AGOT)

Viserys makes it pretty clear that he’s selling her to be raped so that he can obtain his army to get home. This is why he instructs her to please Drogo and look good for him. He also reinforces that there will be dire consequences if she fails to his instructions.

The slaveowner: Viserys transfers ownership of Dany from himself to Drogo. He becomes extremely resentful of this later on. Drogo’s ownership over Dany is established very firmly:

Viserys laughed. “They can’t kill us. They can’t shed blood here in the sacred city … but I can.” He laid the point of his sword between Daenerys’s breasts and slid it downward, over the curve of her belly. “I want what I came for,” he told her. “I want the crown he promised me. He bought you, but he never paid for you. Tell him I want what I bargained for, or I’m taking you back. You and the eggs both. He can keep his bloody foal. I’ll cut the bastard out and leave it for him.” The sword point pushed through her silks and pricked at her navel. Viserys was weeping, she saw; weeping and laughing, both at the same time, this man who had once been her brother. (Dany V AGOT)

The ancient traditions of the horselords demanded that when the khal died, his bloodriders died with him, to ride at his side in the night lands. If the khal died at the hands of some enemy, they lived only long enough to avenge him, and then followed him joyfully into the grave. In some khalasars, Jhiqui said, the bloodriders shared the khal’s wine, his tent, and even his wives, though never his horses. A man’s mount was his own. Daenerys was glad that Khal Drogo did not hold to those ancient ways. She should not have liked being shared. And while old Cohollo treated her kindly enough, the others frightened her; Haggo, huge and silent, often glowered as if he had forgotten who she was, and Qotho had cruel eyes and quick hands that liked to hurt. He left bruises on Doreah’s soft white skin whenever he touched her, and sometimes made Irri sob in the night. Even his horses seemed to fear him. (Dany IV AGOT)

Viserys characterizes Dany as his property, putting her on the same level as dragon eggs (which he believes are ornaments; he is unaware that they could give actual life to dragons). He says that though Drogo purchased Dany, he didn’t pay for her, because he is frustrated that Drogo hasn’t provided him an army to invade Westeros. He also calls Rhaego a foal, dehumanizing him by comparing him to an animal. That Viserys invokes the language of property ownership and transaction showcases unequivocally that Drogo owns Dany. It’s why Viserys is so upset that she gets pregnant, because he no longer has ownership over her and thus can’t use her the way he wants to. We can also note that Dany is aware that if Drogo did want to share her with his bloodriders (which would be gang rape), she wouldn’t be able to say no. She is also unable to interfere with the bloodriders’ conduct toward her handmaids, because Drogo’s bloodriders have more power in the Khalasar than she does, and she is Drogo’s property (and thus has no real power to begin with).

The “merchant”/indirect beneficiaries:

Illyrio and Varys more directly benefited from selling Dany to Drogo because the sale was the cornerstone of their Blackfyre scheme. I wouldn’t necessarily call them indirect beneficiaries because Illyrio himself was the broker of the marriage, and they engineered the scheme specifically to set a Blackfyre invasion into motion. However, there is a very subtle, greatly understudied indirect beneficiary of the bridal enslavement of Daenerys Targaryen:

“No more than he knew that the Beggar King would die young, or that Khal Drogo would follow him into the grave. Very little of what the fat man has anticipated has come to pass.” Griff slapped the hilt of his longsword with a gloved hand. “I have danced to the fat man’s pipes for years, Lemore. What has it availed us? The prince is a man grown. His time is—” (The Griffin Reborn ADWD)

“Which plan?” said Tristan Rivers. “The fat man’s plan? The one that changes every time the moon turns? First Viserys Targaryen was to join us with fifty thousand Dothraki screamers at his back. Then the Beggar King was dead, and it was to be the sister, a pliable young child queen who was on her way to Pentos with three new-hatched dragons. Instead the girl turns up on Slaver’s Bay and leaves a string of burning cities in her wake, and the fat man decides we should meet her by Volantis. Now that plan is in ruins as well.” (The Griffin Reborn ADWD)

JonCon and the Golden Company had planned for the Blackfyre Invasion initially based on a plan contingent upon Dany marrying Drogo. This is a fact. It’s why Septa Lemore is frustrated with the changes in plans, why JonCon states that they had no way of knowing that Viserys and Drogo would die, and why Tristan Rivers of the Golden Company asserts that the first plan was for Viserys and Drogo to join them with an army of 50,000 Dothraki soldiers. This means that JonCon, the Golden Company, and the adults tasked with raising Young Griff and training him were not only aware that 13-year-old Daenerys would be sold to Drogo, they also had no conscionable objections to it. Keep this in mind: JonCon, Lemore, the Golden Company, Haldon Halfmaester, all of the Kingmakers involved in Illyrio’s scheme are Westerosi. As the fandom is so fond of boasting, the Westerosi are supposed to be anti-slavery. Yet this reveals that most of them actually have a cavalier attitude toward slavery. They don’t care if it’s happening outside of their borders or if it’s happening far away from them.

Why didn’t Septa Lemore, a woman, supposedly a practitioner of the Faith, raise an objection to a woman being enslaved? The Faith is against slavery (at least, it’s supposed to be). Why didn’t Haldon? Or JonCon himself? Why did JonCon have no issue allying with a slaver like Illyrio in the first place?

There is no indication in JonCon’s viewpoint of him interrogating Illyrio for being a slaver. At no point does JonCon feel guilty for allying with a slaver. At no point do Young Griff’s caretakers or The Golden Company express guilt or reluctance to ally with slavers. Indeed, The Golden Company would have entered into a contract with the Yunkai’i!

Yet even more pressing than the awareness and agreement to work with a slaver is the tacit, underlying benefit that JonCon, Young Griff himself, and The Golden Company, would have obtained if the first plan had worked. If Viserys or Drogo survived, they would’ve had 50,000 Dothraki men behind them to invade Westeros. That would’ve been an immense boon to Young Griff’s campaign. No matter what, though, this means that JonCon was okay with Daenerys, at the age of 13, being sold to 30-year-old Drogo, by slaver Illyrio. He’d have known what would happen to Dany. He’d have known that Illyrio would profit. He simply did not care, and we know he didn’t, because never once does he express guilt or even question the ethics of the enterprise. And it’s not just him––no one around or associated with Young Griff questions it either. No one stops to ask if it’s the right thing to do, to ally with a slaver, to let a young girl be sold. They let it happen without a care because they’d benefit from it. Without Dany being sold to Drogo, they wouldn’t get their 50,000 Dothraki, similar to Viserys. The only reason they don’t is because Viserys and Drogo die under circumstances completely unforeseen.

The point here is that Daenerys was collateral under the game of thrones played by Robert and his allies, and later, by Illyrio, JonCon, and the Blackfyre kingmakers. She was sold off as a piece to be used, with no one caring for her safety, not even the man who was a loyalist for her brother. We know JonCon cares for Faegon, but he never once showed that care for his siblings. And you can’t say that they thought it would be a normal marriage. Tristan Rivers calls Dany a “pliable young child-queen,” while Franklyn Flowers calls her “the little queen.” That the Golden Company sees Dany as a child, even when she’s 15, exemplifies that they are all aware that she was a CHILD when she was sold to Drogo, and yet they were fine with it, and even FRUSTRATED that the first plan didn’t work.

I highlight all of this not just as a summary of what people should’ve been able to understand if they read the text properly. I want to emphasize here that Dany isn’t just an abolitionist because of abstract political values. She’s an abolitionist because she herself was enslaved, and every part of the slaver nexus victimized her, because she was treated as property, as a pawn in grown men’s game of thrones, and she was the very kind of collateral written off by players of the game that we learn about in other people’s chapters.

#{ fandom } asoiaf #daenerys targaryen #about: dany as an abolitionist #meta

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