You misunderstand me. I meant that he followed his father's path as the power behind the throne, if only unintentionally. I didn't mean any further than that.
Spoilers Game of Thrones: The Final Season
- Thread starter The Nth Doctor
- Start date
I believe this has parallels in British history (Martin likes to parallel history). When Parliament wasn't happy with James II, they invited William of Orange to come to England and become king. They passed the Bill of Rights a year later and England developed into a constitutional monarchy, in which the (limited) power of the monarch is derived from the consent of Parliament, and through them the people. They haven't had a tyrant since then.
The Six Kingdoms will probably have houses of legislature soon, with representatives from every part of the kingdoms and positions like Lord Chancellor, Speaker, and Prime Minister. The monarchs they choose will never have enough power to cause any trouble.
And I would like to remind the jury that the 10 year old that Jon Snow executed was literally guilty of murdering him as part of a military coup.
And? Are you saying that Jon's vindictiveness overcame his supposed mercifulness because he was personally the victim?
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And this is basically why people call it bullshit that she turned evil. The viewpoint she was any less entitled than any of the other characters or any more ruthless.
Daenerys had been indoctrinated from an early age to believe that the entire world was hers by right and that anyone who stood in her way deserved to be destroyed. And that's how she was always portrayed. Westeros owed her and her family absolutely nothing and yet she treated its lands and people as if they were her property through birthright. Ironic, considering her stance on slavers. Her stance in Essos wasn't so much that people owned slaves, it was that other people owned slaves. So, I would counter that she didn't suddenly "turn evil" so much as the evil that had already been long growing finally showing itself. The evil of "divine right" or believing one's own bullshit.
There was no vindictiveness there. Jon was following the law as written and performing his duty as taught to him by Ned Stark. There is no comparison between Jon hanging Olly (after giving Olly an opportunity to repent) and Dany burning thousands of innocent children to death (along with tens or hundreds of thousands of adults.)
And what right Ned Stark had to the North? The 'reason' for that right was same than Daenerys' right to the Iron Throne, the birthright. Sure, by modern standards that's bullshit, but that's how the whole setting operates. And sure, that right was taken from the Targaryens by force, just like the North was taken from the Starks by force by the Boltons. And completely unsurprisingly neither just shrugged and let it go, but did their utmost to reclaim what they considered theirs.
In their legal system the penalty for treason is death regardless of who the victim is. That wasn't vindictiveness, that was duty.
Ned Stark had the support of virtually every person in the North. Later Robb Stark was proclaimed King of the North by the very people he would be ruling. That's just a little teeny tiny bit different than Dany's right to a throne because of her last name.
That's the crazy escape clause she always seemed to have with these things. There was always some weird circumstance behind something that made her decisions seem to have a moral cover.
That's probably why to some she has the illusion of being a do gooder because her heart was in tdhe right place.
With Varys, The train attack, the crucifixions, the good masters, all of them gave her some reason or other to do them.
Until she went full dictator mode in the end.
Just like Daenerys did with the Tarlys.
Indeed there isn't and that is not the comparison I'm making. I am comparing Daenerys' behaviour before her abrupt murder spree in Bells to behaviour to other characters.
Dany is no more or less entitled to the throne than Jaffrey, Stannis, Renley, Jon, Cersei, Viserys or anyone else who claimed right to it. That doesn't make brutal ruthless actions any more acceptable.
I agree, but Turtletrekker specifically brought up the point that Jon himself was the victim of the crime for which Olly was executed.
The difference is, the other characters were doing it for their self interest and Dany took pleasure in it. The other characters didn't care whether it was right or wrong. Dany was absolutely certain it was right.
So exactly what comparison were you making?
Right. So do you think the Starks were entitled and brutal when they just didn't let the Boltons to keep the Winterfell? Think all the poor people who died in the Battle of Bastards, think poor Ramsay Bolton who was brutally fed to the dogs (certainly unusually cruel way to kill someone even by the standards of the setting.)
Jon killed Olly for self interest? I don't think so.
Well, it is an odd situation when one executes one's own murderer, but my larger point was that this ten year old wasn't some innocent little waif. He was guilty of multiple capital crimes. He made adult decisions and was treated as such by the law.
Discussion was about whether Dany's sudden murder spree in Bells was something that was in line with her previous actions. I say it isn't nor did she behave any more 'evilly' before that than many of the other characters in the setting.
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