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Episode 173: A STORM OF SWORDS, DAENERYS II: "Legion, Part 2" SHOW NOTES!
🕑 Added 2022-02-07 15:01:03 +0000 UTCHello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.
And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.
Welcome to the one hundred and seventy-third episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “Legion, Part 2: An Analysis of ASOS, Daenerys II,” in which somehow Jorah Mormont gets away with having the best lines yet again.
This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:
- Hand of the King WolfmanZack
- Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
- Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
- Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
- Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
- Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
- Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
- Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
- Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
- Lord Micah, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
- Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
- Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
- Lady Xena Valyrian
- Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
- His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
- Laurence, Prince of Dorne
- Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
- Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
- The Blue Winter Rose Knight of Highgarden
- Lady Stephanie
- Lord Carlos
- Lord Andrew the Restless, a Priest of the Drowned God
- Ser Sourcedelica
- Sugar Tits Dent the Troglodyte Warrior
- Lord Penchant for Nostalgia
- Queer Alex, Beyonce's Favorite Stan, Herald of Cher, and Bastard of Chromatica, Exalter of Black Lives and Defender of Trans Lives, Rainbow Commander of the Theydes and Gentlethems and the Not A Cast’s Nonbinary Not an Army.
- Haldivar, The Waiter for TWOW
- Lieutenant Glenn Lord of H town
- Vanerys of the House Colgaryen, the First of Her Name, Princess of Dragonstone, Mistress of Art, The Overworked, Queen of the Pencils, the Eraser and the First Draft, Queen of Monochrome, Devotee of the Great GOT, Portraitist of the Realm, Lady Realist of the Seven Kingdoms, Blender of Paints, Maker of Drawings and the Michaelangelo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Lord Adam T
- Lady Alexandra of Tarth
- Ser Kristoph Logas, Bloody Scorpion of the Red Field, Defender of the Letter of Kin, and the Wolverine of house Qorgyle
- Lady Elizabeth, Mistress of Horse (Faced Lesbians)
- Ser Josh Snow Bastard Bounty Hunter of the North
- Ser Veyor, Chief of Parties in the Frozen Wastes
- Lord Peter
- Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
- Holdup, the holder of cups
- Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
- Lord Nick
- Thucydides, Lord of Plagues
- Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen’s Sad Prophecy Boys Club
- Lady Anna, The Lovely Castellan
- Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
- Joe Snow “King of the Metro North and protector of the Tri-State”
- Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
- Lord Kyle
- Lord Samuel Seaworth
- Ser Max, Lord Commander of the Constitutional Guard
- Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
- Lady Jemisa, She Who Suggests That Coconuts Migrate
- Lord Kristoff of Arendelle, official ice master and deliverer, the valiant pungent reindeer king, keeper of feisty pants, and prince consort to his ginger sweet love Queen Anna (Pronounced Ah-nuh)
- Lord Sir Septon Ruthers
- Ser Grizzly Adams, the King’s Justice, Warden of the Kingswood and Sheriff of the Seven Kingdoms
- Lord Anonymous II
- Lord Tyler, the prince that promises to wait patiently, for the winds of winter
- Lord DB
- Sister Winter, Hopeful Romantic & Unrepentant Shipper
- Lord Moncef
- The severed head of a Targaryan prince, rotting on the council walls
- Ser Small Paul, Guardian of the Stone Haven, Defender of Dunnottar Castle
- James of House Keene, Lord of the Forest City, Admiral of the Cuyahoga, and Warden of the Western Reserve
- Lord Timothy Marshall, Master of Roads and Bridges
Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!
Synopsis
Dany climbed into her litter frowning, and beckoned Arstan to climb in beside her. A man as old as him should not be walking in such heat. She did not close the curtains as they got under way. With the sun beating down so fiercely on this city of red brick, every stray breeze was to be cherished, even if it did come with a swirl of fine red dust. Besides, I need to see.
Daenerys thinks that Astapor is strange. And that’s saying something coming from someone who has seen all the shit Dany has seen. The streets were also made of the red brick. The pyramids too. But it’s all old and crumbling and dusty. Totally not a metaphor.
The Dothraki call the Astapori to give way to Dany. When Jhogo goes for his whip to make this happen, Dany tells him no. Not here. This place has heard too many sounds of whips. To highlight this point, Dany watches her surroundings, noting the naked child staring at ants, brittle laughter from guards and the red dust everywhere.
An old city, this, she reflected, but not so populous as it was in its glory, nor near so crowded as Qarth or Pentos or Lys.
The litter comes to a halt as a group of chained slaves are led across the street with whips. These weren’t Unsullied but common men and women. No children. And they were all naked. Behind them, a noble Astapori man and woman laugh, paying no mind to all the brutality around them.
"Bricks and blood built Astapor," Whitebeard murmured at her side, "and bricks and blood her people."
"What is that?" Dany asked him, curious.
"An old rhyme a maester taught me, when I was a boy. I never knew how true it was. The bricks of Astapor are red with the blood of the slaves who make them."
"I can well believe that," said Dany.
"Then leave this place before your heart turns to brick as well. Sail this very night, on the evening tide."
Dany wishes she could, but she has to leave with an army so says Jorah. Yeah, but Jorah was a slaver, according to Bar-stan. She should hire sellswords from the Free Cities instead. Dishonorable work but not slave work. That didn’t work out for Viserys according to Dany. All he got out of it was shame and humiliation, a beggar. Beggar > slaver per Barry.
Dany snaps that Barristan doesn’t know what it means to be a beggar or a slaver, but she knows what it means to be a beggar and to be sold. She was sold to Drogo by Viserys, and then Viserys got crowned. She knows what it’s like to be afraid. Arstan starts to apologize, but Dany says she’s just got that ol’ dragon’s temper. She wants honest counsel. Barristan - well, shit, I can’t just come out and say it - Arstan says he’ll try to remember.
He has a good face, and great strength to him, Dany thought. She could not understand why Ser Jorah mistrusted the old man so. Could he be jealous that I have found another man to talk to? Unbidden, her thoughts went back to the night on Balerion when the exile knight had kissed her. He should never have done that. He is thrice my age, and of too low a birth for me, and I never gave him leave. No true knight would ever kiss a queen without her leave. She had taken care never to be alone with Ser Jorah after that, keeping her handmaids with her aboard ship, and sometimes her bloodriders. He wants to kiss me again, I see it in his eyes.
For her part, Dany doesn’t know what she wants. Jorah’s kiss had awoken something in her that hadn’t stirred since Drogo. She wonders what a man would feel like, and she imagines the dude who might be it. Not Jorah. Her lover was younger and handsome, his face a shifting shadow. Who might this person be, you ask. Quaithe, I answer. One night, it got so bad that Dany decided to give it the whole handsy-feely thing and found that she was saucy down southy. She started to touch herself until Irri woke up and saw what she was doing. And then her handmaid helped out until Dany orgasmed. Irri then went immediately back to sleep. And the next day it felt like it was a dream that had nothing to do with Jorah or Irri, only Drogo. But her sun-and-stars was dead, and she must never allow Jorah to work her up like that again.
Dany flashes back to the present, sees the great pyramids by the shore amidst another large harpy still holding a chain. Aggo helps Dany down, and she sees Strong Belwas who asks her if she wants some of the dog he’s eating? She does not even if she’s had dog before. All she could think about was the Unsullied and the puppies.
Dany reaches the ship and sees Jorah who sucks there. He tells her that the slavers went over the ship and took note of everything they have. He inquires how many Unsullied are for sale.
"None." Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? "They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don't even have names. So don't call them men, ser."
"Khaleesi," he said, taken aback by her fury, "the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained-"
"I have heard all I care to of their training." Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.
Jorah starts babbling about whether he displeased Dany, and Dany’s like, yeah, you slaving asshole bitch, you have displeased Dany.
“If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty." If you were my true knight, you would never have kissed me, or looked at my breasts the way you did, or . . .
"As Your Grace commands. I shall tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail on the evening tide, for some sty less vile."
But Dany says no. She wants to sail, but she can’t. She has to figure out some way to buy the Unsullied. Dany blows past everyone and heads down to her dragons. Viserion tries to perch on her shoulder, but Dany shrugs him off and tells him he’s too big. But Viserion just holds onto Dany’s arm, and Dany gives up and gets into Groleo’s chair.
Irri tells Dany that the dragons were wild while Dany was away. Drogon even tried to escape when the slavers saw them and even bit Irri. Dany asks if the dragons tried to burn free, but they didn’t. The slavers didn’t come near the dragons as they were blowing fire. Dany says she’s sorry Drogon bit Irri, but dragons are not meant to be locked away. Same with horses, Irri says. And their riders. None of the Dothraki want to be in this boat, and they don’t like the salt sea. Dany agrees, and Irri asks if Dany is sad.
"Yes," Dany admitted. Sad and lost.
"Should I pleasure the khaleesi?"
Dany stepped away from her. "No. Irri, you do not need to do that. What happened that night, when you woke . . . you're no bed slave, I freed you, remember? You . . . "
"I am handmaid to the Mother of Dragons," the girl said. "It is great honor to please my khaleesi."
"I don't want that," she insisted. "I don't." She turned away sharply. "Leave me now. I want to be alone. To think."
Dusk settles over the ship, and Dany looks over Astapor from the deck of the ship as the stars come out. She sees that the silk lanterns are out, and everything looks beautiful. But it’s definitely dark in the barracks where a boy was feeding scraps to a puppy after the slavers castrated him.
Jorah steps up behind Dany and asks if he could speak frankly to her. Dany refuses to face him - which I totally agree with, thinking that she was so confused she could do anything. She finally tells him to speak his mind. On his mind is the history of the Seven Kingdoms and how the Vale, Rock and Reach kings didn’t just give Aegon a crown. He had to take it by force.
Blood and fire, thought Dany. The words of House Targaryen. She had known them all her life. "The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs."
"Your Grace," said Jorah Mormont, "I saw King's Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they'll kill are those you want dead. And you do have some dogs you want dead, as I recall."
Dany remembers she wants to kill the Usurper’s dogs. She asks why the Dothraki never sacked Astapor. Even a weak khalasar could take this city. As to that there are two reasons. The first is that the Unsullied would kick the Dothraki’s asses, and the Dothraki haven’t attacked Unsullied since Qohor. The second reason is that the Dothraki need to sell their captives somewhere. If they sacked Astapor, they wouldn’t have any place to sell their captives. Beyond that, the Astapori buy the Dothraki off just like the Pentoshi did.
Dany realizes that bribes are cheaper than wars, and she fantasizes about going to King’s Landing with her dragons and then giving a chest of gold to make Joffrey go away. Jorah the fucking creep then touches Dany’s arm, and Dany shrugs his probably-still-sticky fingers off. She says Viserys would buy as many Unsullied as he could, but she was like Rhaegar according to Jorah. Jorah remembers saying this. Well, Rhaegar led free men into battle. Whitebeard said that Rhaegar dubbed squires as knights himself. That’s true. A great honor.
"Tell me, then-when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? 'Go forth and kill the weak'? Or 'Go forth and defend them'? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners-did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar's cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?" Dany turned to Mormont, crossed her arms, and waited for an answer.
"My queen," the big man said slowly, "all you say is true. But Rhaegar lost on the Trident. He lost the battle, he lost the war, he lost the kingdom, and he lost his life. His blood swirled downriver with the rubies from his breastplate, and Robert the Usurper rode over his corpse to steal the Iron Throne. Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died."
I’m still upset that Jorah Mormont continues to get the best lines. But that is the synopsis of ASOS, Daenerys II, Part 2. Boy do I love a good setup chapter, and this one is truly that! What did you think, ser?
Depth
Last week, we covered the introduction to Astapor, Dany and the reader alike soaking in the horrorshow of it all. This week, we’re covering how Dany and her followers react. What are we going to do about this place? Should we take part, or not, or is there a third option? As Dany demonstrated last week by bringing along Barristan, she wants to hear from all possible perspectives before making a decision. She wants to understand Astapor, although as we see with her deliberations on sex and romance, she doesn’t even fully understand herself. It’s all about what Dany wants v. what Dany needs, her personal desires v. doing the right thing. There are no easy answers, and so Dany gradually, deliberately builds to her answer, which we’ll explore in Dany III.
In 2020, George talked about splitting and combining chapters in TWOW as that was always part of his process. I think here we’re seeing a fusion of several different plot and character threads which leads me to think that this may have been two or even three different chapters during its journey to publication. We have the Kraznys scene which we covered last week which anchors the chapter around the conflict of Dany between the brutal slavery practiced in Astapor and Dany’s need for an army. There’s the Barristan mini-Aerys arc you pointed out so well last week that we’ll continue to cover here in a moment, and then there’s Jorah Mormont implying that Dany is like Rhaegar, but now she needs to become more ruthless -- unlike her brother. Though these may have started as disparate strands, George does a great job of weaving them all together into one dynamic chapter. This chapter does a marvelous job and makes us care about this spot in Dany’s arc; so we’re excited to see what Dany’s choices are thereafter.
- Barristan’s arguments
- As Dany heads back to her ships, George widens the scope a bit to show us the rest of Astapor. On one hand, we see the splendor and might
- There are elephants with latticework litters, mounted warriors with their hair twisted into fantastic shapes. Dany compares them to demons out of hell, again establishing the Red City as the most hellish place on earth
- But she also takes note of a kid who’s playing with ants and picking his nose. He watches the riders for a bit, and then gets right back to it
- This undercuts the performance of power, exposing it as a temporary distraction, after which the city returns to rot. As Dany thinks, this might be an old city like the Masters boasted, but it’s past its glory day, not nearly as populous or rich as the other cities she’s visited in Essos
- How do the city’s movers and shakers deal with their decline? Same as they do anywhere: by not thinking about it. Dany watches a well-dressed couple laugh and flirt, paying no mind to their slaves. If they can ignore the people around them, they can ignore that their city is crumbling
- That’s the only way Dany could take part in all this: pretend it’s not real. To do so, Barristan argues, would be turning her heart to brick
- He’s right! But his solution is to just leave, which would also be turning away from what she saw here, as Barristan turned away from Kraznys
- There’s also this deep dissonance between what’s happening and how the free people of Astapor respond.
- I’m not sure if the couple is pretending it’s not real, or if the sounds of whips and crying of enslaved people being beaten is white noise or maybe background noise to everyday life.
- The practice of slavery is so deep in the lifeblood of this city, that the sounds of human suffering are just a part of life.
- I think that’s the real insidiousness of the slave system as seen in Astapor and what occurred in America.
- The beatings, the castrations, the murders of infants, the tossing of children into bear pits are heinous enough.
- But the insidiousness is found in how the people just don’t give a shit about it all. Or they pretend it’s not happening.
- Dany brought him along as a counterweight to Jorah, so she makes him respond to Jorah’s argument: Dany needs an army to take Westeros
- Barristan reminds her that Jorah himself is a slave trader–he turned his heart to brick a long time ago. Does she really want to join him?
- Ok, well, what’s the alternative? Barristan advises she hire sellswords in the Free Cities. It’s dishonorable, but it’s better than slavery
- But Dany doesn’t want to play that game, either. It reminds her too much of Viserys: begging for mercenary support from uncaring foreigners
- More to the point, it reminds her of Qarth, and this is where that subplot pulls its weight in her story: Qarth left Dany frustrated and angry
- She played by the rules there, taking part in all the little rituals Xaro Xhoan Daxos told her to, and it got her nothing. She felt like a pet, a plaything
- Bowing and scraping like that grinds you down, shredding your sense of self-worth. As Dany says, it starves the soul even if it feeds the belly
- So what’s worse: to starve your soul by begging, or turn your heart to brick by slaving? Barristan says the latter is worse, and I 100% agree!
- It’s such a hard choice though for Dany and for readers -- especially having come off the heels of the last Jaime chapter which had sellswords committing atrocities in the Riverlands.
- That’s the reader's perspective though, and it’s an important one. We’ve had the context of what sellswords do in Westeros.
- George, instead, nests Dany’s perspective in very personal terms, and I think it’s a great literary choice!
- Dany’s response, though, is less about the substance of the argument and more about perspective. She says that this is all abstract for him
- After all, Barristan has been neither beggar nor slave. What does he know? Dany knows: she was sold to Khal Drogo
- This is an important moment for Dany’s story, summing up the contradictions and complexities of her character
- Dany is right that she knows better than Barristan what it’s like to be treated as property, but it’s unclear what exactly that means
- Is she saying that she can better empathize with the Unsullied? Maybe, maybe not. Dany says that Drogo eventually treated her well, but he easily could not have, and she lived with that reality, the fear of it
- Viserys was the one who sold her, but Dany can’t bring herself to reject him entirely. The Dothraki take part in this slave system (they spot a Dothraki overseer whipping a line of slaves), but Dany leads a Dothraki khalasar, and she came to Slaver’s Bay to take part herself
- Dany is reminding Barristan and the reader that she can’t take her position of power for granted. She must always remember what fear feels like
- It’s a powerful statement…but it’s also a dodge. It doesn’t actually resolve the question about whether they should do business with the slavers
- All Dany has really said here is that because she has been victimized, it’s not OK to frame her as a victimizer. That idea, unfortunately, has only become more relevant since the book came out
- It’s the idea that suffering from one kind of abusive power gives you a blank check for how you handle any other kind of abusive power
- Dany has been put in a powerless situation in terms of gender–she was at Viserys’ mercy as her brother and then Drogo’s mercy as her husband
- She was at the bottom of their little pyramids. But here in Astapor, she’s at the top–at least, relative to the Unsullied
- She’s the one who gets to decide their fate. She was kept cool in the shade with the Masters while the Unsullied sweat under the sun
- You can see this dichotomy throughout the series. Jon felt like he was at the bottom of the pyramid in Winterfell, but then Donal Noye told him that he was a contemptuous elite in the eyes of his fellow Watch recruits
- Cersei is both powerful and powerless at the same time, depending on how her wealth, her political status, her gender, and her sexuality interact
- Power is a complicated thing. Not because there’s any nuance to abusive actions, but because there are so many kinds of power. Sometimes they overlap, and sometimes they don’t, like a Venn diagram
- Even as Dany declares she knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end, she’s lashing out at Barristan with what she calls “the dragon’s temper”
- On reread, we know that’s exactly what he’s worried about–that she’ll lose her temper like Aerys did. This isn’t a fair one-to-one comparison, just as Dany isn’t the moral equivalent of the Masters of Slaver’s Bay
- Instead, I think it’s worth keeping Mirri Maz Duur’s example in mind. Dany tried to help her with the best of intentions, but MMD wasn’t about to ignore the context of their relationship: the destruction of her village
- Dany’s suffering doesn’t mitigate the suffering of the Unsullied. She empathizes with them; great! What’s she gonna do with that empathy?
- Precisely! Empathy in and of itself is not enough to undo the wrongs of the world. There has to be action.
- That’s in contrast to Barristan. Recall what he thinks in ADWD:
- He had seen things that it pained him to recall, and more than once he wondered how much of the blood was on his own hands.
- Barristan had empathy in the court of Aerys II Targaryen. He was very likely in the throne room when Rickard and Brandon Stark were murdered and witnessed Aerys’ atrocities at Duskendale.
- He even felt guilt and culpability for the evil that he witnessed.
- But he didn’t do anything. The question for Daenerys is whether she will be different from Barristan in this.
- It’s interesting that amidst all of this rumination here and later in the chapter with how slavery is practiced, that Daenerys doesn’t connect what happened at the Lhazarene town from AGOT with what’s occurring here in Astapor.
- But she really should! Recall what Jorah told her back in AGOT:
- "I've told the khal he ought to make for Meereen," Ser Jorah said. "They'll pay a better price than he'd get from a slaving caravan. Illyrio writes that they had a plague last year, so the brothels are paying double for healthy young girls, and triple for boys under ten. If enough children survive the journey, the gold will buy us all the ships we need, and hire men to sail them."
- Now, Dany’s cognitive disconnect here is entirely normal. We don’t want to think of ourselves as the villain here, as part of a cycle that inflicts the human suffering that Dany sees in Astapor.
- Dany & Irri
- So now George shifts from the political to the personal, as Dany thinks about her frustrated sex drive and how she's been dealing with it
- I think her sexual relationship with Irri is something of a missed opportunity. It never really develops; they sleep together again later in ASOS and in ADWD, but we never learn more about Irri to distinguish her from Jhiqui in terms of personality or backstory
- She's a secondary character, of course; she's never going to be explored to the extent of Dany herself, that's just the way of it. But these scenes could make us more intimate with the Dothraki characters, and they don't
- It does tie into Dany's arc in terms of how she balances her individual needs with her political responsibilities
- She set sex aside after Drogo died; all her attention has been elsewhere. Jorah's kiss changed that--not because she desires him, but because it reminded her of desire in general
- She tries masturbating one night, and the dragons stir in response--they're her id, the drives she keeps hidden, even from herself
- It’s the dragons that wake up Irri, making Dany’s internal processes tangible and visible. Irri knows what to do without being told
- She makes Dany cum, but as most people learn at some point, orgasms don’t necessarily cure loneliness. It is loving sex between equal partners that Dany misses, which is what Jorah was hinting at
- As Dany realizes, this isn’t really about Jorah or Irri–it’s Drogo. He was her first, and the intensity of that dynamic is hard to live up to
- It’s only all the more complicated by the fact that, as she told Barristan, Drogo bought her like property. Her personal desires can’t be kept separate from the political and economic structures around her
- She locks her complex feelings about Jorah the individual away beneath the simple rule that he presumed too much as a knight upon his queen
- When Irri offers to pleasure Dany again, Dany insists that Irri doesn’t have to do that because she freed her; Irri is no longer a bed slave
- What does that practically amount to, though? Irri’s got nowhere else to go, and her privileged position here depends on making Dany happy
- On reread, it reminds me of the people in Meereen who try to sell themselves back into slavery–scribes and bedmaids, not hard laborers
- Dany takes over the khalasar and spearheads a revolution in Slaver’s Bay, but new structures need constant reaffirmation; otherwise, people slip back to the old way because it’s what they know, it’s tangibly rewarding
- So her relationship with Irri overlaps with what she saw in Astapor; she can’t bear the idea that exploitation could exist within her own camp, because she identifies more strongly with the Unsullied than the slavers
- But given her rarified position as Queen, Mother of Dragons, Unburnt etc., who even would be an equal to her? The more powerful she gets, the more isolated she gets, which is so tragic because for her, power is a means to an end: finding a home, a way to not be lonely any more
- Power inherently causes loneliness, and that’s what Dany experienced here — even before she tells Irri that she’s sad.
- Dany can’t be sure that the people around her actually care about her or whether they’re just paid help or being the way they are to her because that’s what’s expected, rather than doing what they must do out of obligation.
- I think the way that Irri talked about it being a great honor to serve her khaleesi was a spot that unnerved Dany, because it showed that even those closest to her are playing parts, rather than being genuine.
- In a way, it’s the role that Dany occupied in Khal Drogo’s khalasar. Sure, she eventually came to love Drogo, but even when she occupied a place of some equality with Drogo, she was still the lesser partner, subservient to his will. And she had to play the part of khaleesi to Drogo’s khal role.
- FWIW, I don’t think Irri harbors any ill-will for Dany, and I think she genuinely likes Dany and thought she was doing what was best for her khaleesi.
- But it lends evidence to the Stannis maxim that kings have no friends. Only subjects and enemies.
- Can kings or queens have friends? It’s kind-of a hard question to answer!
- Renly had plenty of “friends”, but when he died, all of his former bannermen turned to Stannis or Joffrey.
- Robb Stark seems like a good enough dude, but his peers - like Torrhen and Eddard Karstark - are dead, and the ones he’s close to are his mom, his wife and his uncle.
- Stannis has Davos for a “friend”, but that friendship is limited by Davos’ subservient role to Stannis -- and we never see the two of them interact on the page after Davos defies Stannis over Edric Storm.
- The only real friendship between a king and a subject was that of Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon who forged a strong bond of friendship before Robert’s Rebellion.
- But with Robert as king, Ned took on the follower role to Robert -- until he defied his king over the ordered murders of Daenerys and Viserys.
- Still, it’s clear from the early Ned chapters in AGOT that Robert just wanted Ned to be his friend again like the old times. The problem is that this wasn’t the old times, and Ned couldn’t precisely occupy the same role as he had prior to Robert’s Rebellion.
- Arguing with Jorah
- What Dany saw in Astapor infects the rest of her relationships as well. She can’t eat roast dog with Belwas because of the Unsullied and their puppies
- “Their stupid puppies,” Dany thinks, which is a lot like Arya: if you belittle the source of your pain, maybe it’ll stop hurting. It doesn’t work, though
- She’s also angry at Jorah, although for multiple reasons. She slaps him not only because he brought her to this “vile sty,” but because he kissed her as well. Really, it’s the combo of the two: the intimacy contrasted with the horrorshow, personal and political. If you loved me, why show me this?
- It’s the same struggle Dany feels when looking at Astapor from her ships. It looks beautiful, the silk lanterns lighting up the pyramids, but Dany knows from Qarth that appearances can be deceiving, and that down in the dark, the next generation of Unsullied are suffering
- Again like Arya, Dany is being radicalized, not by individual acts of depravity but by recognition of the systematic scale of suffering
- She can’t look at beauty without thinking of all the misery harvested to make that beauty possible. It’s the argument XXD makes in ADWD:
- “Ask yourself, if all men must grub in the dirt for food, how shall any man lift his eyes to contemplate the stars? If each of us must break his back to build a hovel, who shall raise the temples to glorify the gods? For some men to be great, others must be enslaved.”
- It’s a familiar scenario for the reader as well. We all take part in economic transactions knowing that exploitation is occurring–sometimes several degrees removed, sometimes right in front of our faces
- It’s easy to ride the railroad and not think about who built it; it’s easy to cheer on your favorite team without looking into how the stadium got built
- Dany’s facing an extreme case of enslavement and dehumanization, but the core question is universal: do I take part in the machine?
- It reminds me of Ursula K. LeGuin’s classic story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, in which a beautiful utopian city is maintained by the suffering of one isolated child, and those who can’t stand that leave
- Dany says the Unsullied have eyes of brick, an evocative description that ties into Barristan’s little rhyme about Astapor. The dead dogs, the dead babies, all of it ripped the hearts out of men and left behind only stone
- Dany’s dragons express the wrath she can’t; upon her return to the ships, she discovers that her scaly children went wild while she was gone
- But they express love as much as anger–I love the moment when Viserion latches onto Dany’s arms like a gigantic cat, knocking her to the bed as she giggles. This is the intimacy she can never seem to find elsewhere
- Again, they’re her subconscious, expressing everything she restrained to maintain her public polite face with the slavers
- It’s that intensity of feeling which has been denied to the Unsullied in order to turn them into something more–or less–than human
- Jorah argues that this is actually an advantage. She’s not going to be able to take over Westeros peacefully, any more than Aegon the Conqueror did
- “Blood and fire,” Dany thinks. Those are her house words. She was never going to be able to avoid them
- This is a complex conversation because they both have half a point. Jorah is right that Dany’s homecoming will mean war. But he’s making a fallacious argument that therefore, she must accept any and all violence
- Dany is right to make the distinction between killing her enemies and killing innocents. But that distinction isn’t as easy to preserve in practice
- What about the soldiers who would be sent out to fight and die for “the Usurper’s dogs?” Are they her enemies or are they innocent?
- They’re not the ones giving the orders…but it was ordinary soldiers who sacked King’s Landing, the Steelshanks Waltons as well as the Gregors
- Jorah describes the horror of the Sack, arriving with Ned Stark’s men to late to stop Tywin. Countless rapes, and so many children butchered
- He believes that’s human nature: the primal beast inside the rational civilized shell of Man. War gives that beast an excuse to come out
- So it’s not even about the commander, according to him. Ned Stark wouldn’t have deliberately sacked the city if he reached it first, and that would’ve made a material difference, but it still wouldn’t have been peaceful; there’s no way he could’ve controlled all his men
- The Unsullied remove that possibility. Their blood doesn’t stir like other men; they won’t rape and slaughter babies unless you order them to
- What a bitter irony, that the Unsullied have only been purged of this instinct by going through hell themselves. It feels like no matter what path Dany takes, responsibility for dead children waits at the end of it
- It’s a question of control. How much control do you really want? Do you want to be able to control your soldiers so thoroughly that they won’t do anything without an order? If not, aren’t you opening the door to atrocities?
- In truth, using the Unsullied doesn’t erase the possibility of war crimes. It just moves the buck to Dany herself: as Jorah says, they’d only do it if you ordered them to. And she has some dogs she wants dead–linking the “Usurper’s dogs” phrase to those dead puppies in Astapor
- Jorah Mormont chooses the Sack of King’s Landing as opposed to the misdeeds of Aerys and the mass slaughter of every Hollard and Darklyn save for Dontos at Duskendale in this depiction, centering his story around an event which evokes Dany’s moral and personal outrage.
- Like Irri, that’s Jorah Mormont playing a role for Daenerys -- feeding her hatred of the usurper and his dogs, rather than filling out a larger picture of the War of the Five Kings.
- Still, the Sack of King’s Landing is the event which soured the justice of Robert’s Rebellion in the end.
- It was a moral outrage for Robert to see the dead children and openly call them dragon spawn.
- And there is a point where the most noble-hearted commander has soldiers who will simply kill, loot and rape despite orders to the contrary.
- With the Unsullied, they wouldn’t kill or loot without a direct order from Daenerys.
- But they got that way by having all of their humanity stripped from them, all of their willpower and independent thought ripped from them by brutality.
- In a way, the Unsullied are similar to the wights that the Others control.
- The wights don’t kill without directive from their Other masters; they can’t. They’ve had life taken from them and been enslaved to fight beyond their conscious lives.
- I think the Unsullied work in a similar lens as the wights: they’re instruments for the powerful, they are nearly video game characters only moving to the whims of the owner’s joystick.
- So, the moral onus is on Daenerys to be the righteous one.
- But if Dany purchases the Unsullied, then she’s legitimizing the murder of more than eight thousand puppies and over eight thousand babies
- (Remember: the babies are killed first, and Kraznys said that Unsullied have a harder time killing the puppies, and those who can’t are fed to the dogs. So more than eight thousand dead babies from this group of Unsullied alone)
- Beyond legitimizing the murder of children, Dany further incentivizes the practice to continue if she purchases the Unsullied.
- If she purchases the eight thousand Unsullied, there will be more money for the slavers in Astapor, more purchase-power for slaves, more Unsullied to be made.
- So, what Dany wrestles with here is beyond the simple moral act of purchasing slaves and the morality of having an army of her own wights: it’s whether she’s legitimizing the entire slave trade for an entire continent and ensuring it will remain profitable and ultimately remain.
- Dany then shifts the discussion back to Slaver’s Bay. If every man is a beast just waiting for the chance to spill blood, why hasn’t Astapor fallen?
- After all, the city is crumbling–George keeps reminding us of that, describing the clouds of dust and the statues falling apart. And the city’s official defenders are clearly puffed-up peacocks, no good in a fight
- Then again, they wouldn’t be the ones defending Astapor from an attack. The Unsullied would be. So they’re not just a product on the market, they’re part of civic defense. Political and economic power have merged, both looking after the other, preventing any challenge; the young noblemen play at war, while the slaves do the dirty work
- But more importantly, no one has any interest in sacking Astapor in the first place. This is my favorite part of the chapter, because George is working hard to establish a systemic understanding of the slave trade
- Dany wonders why the Dothraki haven’t knocked over these crumbling walls, carried the harpy back to Vaes Dothrak with the other conquered gods, because she’s thinking of violence in terms of spectacle
- She’s seen the Dothraki carry people off into slavery. So why aren’t they doing that here? Because, as Jorah asks: carry them off where?
- This is where they bring the slaves! If the Dothraki sack Astapor, the game is over. So this isn’t just about the sinful nature of man, how we love to hurt one another. The Dothraki aren’t just going around enslaving people willy-nilly for the sick thrill of it. They target specific populations and then bring them here. This is about profit: supply and demand in a marketplace
- What’s so chilling about this is that it means not everyone involved in the slave trade has to be a monstrous sadist like Kraznys mo Nakloz
- All you have to do is care more about your salary than the suffering of strangers, and unfortunately, that’s most people, IRL as in-universe
- This is a closed loop. No one’s going to interfere, because no one has any interest in disrupting the supply chain. The Dothraki bring the raw material–aka human beings–to Slaver’s Bay, where they are refined–aka tortured–into products that are then sold to elites from all over Essos
- It’s so important that George cements the status quo in our minds before Dany goes HAM on the masters, because this reality defines her crusade
- On one hand, this is maybe the strongest justification for Dany doing what she does next: no one else is gonna do it. Only the outsider, with no stake in any of it, has the freedom to act. Dany’s the ultimate disruptor!
- On the other hand, this is also why she immediately runs into huge problems. There’s more to this than just killing the bad guys; it’s an entire interconnected web of institutions and incentives
- You’re right. I love this, because it really does a great job of worldbuilding for Essos.
- We see how an entire system of economics and government work in Essos, how the wars of the north feed into the slave economic system of the south.
- And then I love the further unfoldings we find out in ADWD when you see the enormous breadth of the slave system that Dany eventually brings down as Qavo Nogarys tells Tyrion and Haldon:
- “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.”
- That’s great worldbuilding, because it connects with character and plot, rather than existing outside of it.
- Worldbuilding in and of itself has never been my primary interest in the series. I do appreciate people who dig deep into the worldbuilding, lore and history of course.
- But it’s always struck me as not that interesting -- unless it’s in the context of character and plot.
- It’s why I’ve been musing recently about why I’m much more fascinated with Robert’s Rebellion than the Dance of the Dragons: there’s personal character stakes attached to Robert’s Rebellion that I don’t feel with the Dance of the Dragons.
- And part of that personal stake is in how seemingly good people fought for an immoral cause: like, say, Rhaegar Targaryen.
- How should Dany, a well-intentioned person who possesses unique power, handle a situation like this? Like anyone else, she needs role models. Unfortunately, her main role model is Viserys, and Dany knows that he would buy as many Unsullied as possible; he wouldn’t care at all about what they’ve been through, what this would say about him
- So instead, Dany has to fall back on the brother she never knew: Rhaegar, the Last Dragon, an image of flawless chivalry in her mind’s eye
- He wouldn’t have done business here. He led free men into battle, knighting many of them himself; he had values, goddamnit
- Jorah’s poetic description of Rhaegar’s fall is interesting because it’s true, but not really relevant. Jorah seems to be implying that Rhaegar died because he fought nobly, valiantly, etc and he should’ve cheated the way Dany is considering doing; that way, he might have beaten Robert
- That’s really not accurate. There’s no indication that Rhaegar was a “noble fool” like Daemon Blackfyre on the Redgrass Fields, for example
- Robert won through sheer physical skill, and also chance, part of every battle. It easily could have gone the other way
- There is no guarantee of victory, no matter what you do. On one hand, that’s liberating: do the right thing regardless. No chance, no choice
- On the other hand, it means there are always limits to your control. The Masters think the Unsullied are property, but will learn otherwise. Dany, too, has to learn that even living up to her image of heroism won’t be enough to change the world. Killing a man is easy; killing a system is hard
- The exciting righteous fury of war ends with the boring maintenance of peace -- something I’m eager to uncover in full for Daenerys come ADWD!
- I think your point is the correct one that Jorah implies that Rhaegar lost because he didn’t fight dirty -- an early echo of what Myles Toyne tells JonCon in ADWD.
- Does Daenerys have to be more ruthless to win? She knows she’ll have blood on her hands by the time all of this is done.
- But what is winning? What did it mean for Rhaegar to take his army to the Trident? What did it mean for Robert to come out victorious in the end?
- And for what end should Dany become more ruthless? We’ve laddled plenty of criticism on Tyrion, Robb and Stannis for promising justice in general but not presenting an agenda in the particulars.
- So far in the series, Dany’s only goal in conquering Westeros has been to avenge her father and rain violence on the usurper’s dogs.
- That’s not a cause worth fighting for, really. There’s no agenda for reform, nothing there worth fighting and dying for.
- Daenerys III and beyond provides that cause. I think it starts with Dany getting a full view of the cruel world and her ability to change it.
- Dany won’t fight nobly, she won’t fight honorably. She will fight valiantly, and she won’t die -- at least not yet. Not in Astapor.
- She’s going to bust this rotten system open, spilling fire and blood all over hell on earth.
- And it’s going to be fucking awesome, and I can’t wait to get to dracarys with you.
- But you’re right to point out the larger issues. Beating the piss out of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen is going to feel great.
- And yet there’s a hard peace ahead, and as peace arrives, it becomes bitter, and slowly the violence Dany will inflict on Slaver’s Bay will sour as the practice of slavery she nobly attempted to eradicate will return in Yunkai and here in Astapor.
- Kind of a bummer note to end on here before we’ve even gotten to all that cathartic violence, but George - loving us, his re-readers, seeing how re-reading rewards the reading experience - wants us to have the full scope of the story in mind when we re-read.
Foreshadowing/Groundwork
Dany’s “dragon temper” comes out in full force in Meereen when Dany feels like an avenging dragon when she crucifies 163 Great Masters in response to the 163 crucified children on every milepost to Meereen
Dany wishes she could just bribe Joffrey to go away with a chest of gold–and that’s exactly what the Masters of Yunkai try to do with her!
Theory/Discussion
Who is Dany’s lover in her dream, the younger, comely one hidden in shadows?
Conclusion
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