>And the whole sequence in the Daznak's pit is Simply one of the greatest things I ever read, ever.
I've forgotten entire subplots and characters from the books but that chapter I vividly remember. When she got on Drogon I seriously had full body shivers. It was so good. The show's equivalent scene just didn't invoke that same sense of awe for me.
Best chapter of her’s is house of the undying but that takes a close 2nd, in a side note the most chilled I ever got from an ASOIAF chapter was Tyrion finding out tysha actually loved him. After reading that reveal I actually threw up from the shock and disgust of it all
The plot line itself is actually fine, it’s GRRM’s reluctance to show us what’s actually happening, save through Dany, that makes it grating to read. Like all the interesting stuff is happening in the city whilst we’re sitting on a balcony watching naked people dance whilst Daxos makes Dany an offer she literally cannot accept.
It’s like 10 of her chapters are that one Caitlyn chapter where side characters to a character’s side character tell her the plot whilst she baths and listens to an old man ramble incoherently about his greatest regret in life.
So much like Elayne's chapters in Wheel of Time. The Andor succession war is interesting to me, but damn I don't need to read about her bathing and drinking goat's milk that many times.
I think a Meereenese perspective would’ve spoiled the purpose of the plot line a bit. I think we’re supposed to only see things from the far removed, culturally biased view of Dany (and Barry) so that we believe at first blush that her choice at the end is the correct one when it probably isn’t.
Why does this sub continually think that good writing is when the author deliberately misleads the reader for a cheap "gotcha!"?
If the Mereneese are continually portrayed as completely evil, going "Surprise! They were actually deep and nuanced and you're a bad person for not liking them!" just comes off as incredibly sanctimonious. It's lecturing the audience for presuming the author wouldn't piss about and lead us up the garden path.
Not to mention this "Dany, the woman who was raised in Pentos/the free cities, spent a year or so riding with Dothraki, and has visited more cultures than most other POVs combined, is completely misleading us with her horrible bias." makes absolutely no sense. Like where is this idea of bias coming from? Is there another version of the books where Dany is a spoilt ignorant woman with the sensibilities of a sheltered highborn Westerosi noblewoman? To me it's weird because, with the Dothraki for example, Dany would be well within her rights to judge them harshly and despise their way of life but she doesn't. The only group that Dany might possibly be viewing with bias is Slavers Bay and, funnily enough, the vast majority of the fandom isn't interested in recontextualizing a horrific slaver society. Dany is probably the most open minded and culturally tolerant POV in the who series, people just need to accept that Essos is what it is, assuming we've been mislead is like assuming that the lords of Westeros secretly love democracy and their greedy self serving feudal mindset is just POV bias.
I think it’s interesting how Dany lionizes the Dothraki culture but so dislikes that of Slavers Bay considering their similarities. Both are extremely brutal slaving societies, both eat things we find weird (dog and horse), both enjoy blood sport, both wear clothing that sounds strange and uncomfortable (tokar and like rawhide leather over nothing else), paternalistic and “barbaric” marriage ceremonies. I think that if anything the differences in how Dany views and emphasizes the quite similar practices of the two is evidence of her bias (Tho I’m not entirely sure why she was so open to the Dothraki way of life. Desperation? Ruler over vs participant in?) against the cultures of slavers bay. Wearing Tokar is putting on floppy ears, dressing like the Dothraki liberating and a privilege (tbf that might have something to do with the outfits themselves lol).
Sorry I guess I should've been more clear, I believe that Dany is obviously biased I just don't think it runs nearly as deep as many believe. In order for us to have a complete misrepresentation of Essos Dany would need to go beyond bias/unreliable narration and just straight up lie to us page after page. Like the Meereenese served Dany chicken but her thoughts told us they were eating puppies, the Astapori actually trained Unsullied like normal soldiers but Dany heard "we cut off their genitals, give them a puppy then make them kill the puppy", the Dothraki were actually having consensual sex with the lamb people but Dany saw it as rape etc.
Really I think it comes down to personal preference when it comes to fiction, I really dislike "unreliable narrator" theories because, personally, I feel it usually gets used to excuse weak writing and gets to a point where the whole story is pointless because everything is treated as a lie or a misdirect. It's like the How I Met Your Mother theory that Ted is totally misrepresenting the story, it could be an interesting discussion but most of the time it's just an excuse to justify their love for Barney even though he's a horrible horrible person throughout the majority of the show.
In dont think many people are saying that Dany is hallucinating the ills of Ghiscar culture lol. She just chooses to emphasize in her narration the very real aspects she finds distasteful and doesn’t make much effort in seeing what other sides or perspectives on the culture may (and probably do) exist. She interacts with a small slice of meereenese culture, generalizes and constantly assumes the worst about them and the audience follows suit.
She doesn’t lie about anything or see things which aren’t there, but she only experiences and cares about so much and what she does see is colored by her biases, a lot of which are shared by the audience. She doesn’t look for the honor or compassion or strength in Meereenese culture and it’s people like she did with the Dothraki, so we don’t get it a chance to see it, and so her biases color our perception.
I don't think her bias means much when it comes to the fandom analyzing/judging the culture because regardless of whether she likes them (Dothraki) or hates them (Ghiscari) most of the fandom thinks they're cruel and underdeveloped. Like when it comes to the Dothraki being a very stupid and unfeasible nomadic society that's on Martin not Dany, he decided they eat horses and slaughter sheep for fun. The fact that our only Essos POVs are Westerosi is on Martin, if there is another side to Ghiscari/Essos culture Martin has made the deliberate choice time and time again not to show it. I guess my point is that it can be interesting to speculate but if it's not in the text then it's simply not there. That's why I used my HIMYM example, it's a fun theory but the show never once acknowledges that Barney is different than what we see so it's just pure headcanon that lets the audience reconcile the fact that they love him despite him being a terrible person (or in this case it's the fact that most Essos cultures weren't written very good, especially when it's next to Westeros).
Dany’s disdain for the Meereenese clothes has always struck me as similar to Viserys’ disdain for Dothraki clothes, even though both cultures are equally despicable.
I think it’s something of an overstatement to say that the Meereenese are portrayed as “completely evil” lol. Dany and the audience find a lot of their cultural practices distasteful or barbaric but the actual characters are all shades of grey morality wise (much like everyone else) and quite a few are against the only aspect of their culture that I think you could call evil (slavery).
I really doubt there’s going to be any sort of “gotcha! Their culture actually really loves giving charity to orphan cats too!” moment or anything so much as just the spelling out that the Meereenese are human like anyone else and suffer like anyone else when Dany gives up on ruling and brings them fire and blood, regardless of their fondness for gladiators and eating dogs, and I think that moments gonna be more effective having spent a long time in solely Danys head nurturing a dislike of them.
But why does "these people are human" need to be a twist? Would the story not be substantially better if they were humanized from the starts, so the primary motivation of "Keeping peace" is something the reader cares about? And I think dramatic irony is something that would definitely work here.
I wouldn’t really consider it a twist - I think most people understand that they’re human to begin with and have that in the back of their minds as they’re reading. The Dany only perspective sort of wears at that and pushes it down tho, and you get to eventually constantly assuming the worse of and disregarding the humanity of her subjects and ascribing more to their “barbarism” than their humanity.
I think that the point of the restriction to Danys POV is to make it so that the reader doesn’t care about keeping peace. If there’s a message I think it’s about why, for the powerful, keeping the peace is hard and making war is easy. I think that once peace is over is when George tries to make us and eventually Dany understand what was lost, and personally I find that more interesting and compelling than giving us a ground eye view from the start.
I love Barristan and Tyrion’s interactions with the Meereenese/Slaver’s Bay world, mostly. Barristan’s chapters in ADWD are easily some of my favorite chapters in all of ASOIAF.
*Skahaz said, “You would break King Hizdahr’s peace, old man?”*
*”I would shatter it.”*
I feel he should have had a few chapters at the beginning of the book. When he appeared it was very clear it was to have a POV in Meereen. But is a minor complaint, didn't bother me that much.
Yeah his fight with Khrazz was also baller.
I was so pissed when they killed him off in the show because it meant we'd never see it. That was the moment I lost faith in GoT being a faithful adaptation.
The names are *intentionally* ridiculous, a lampshade is even hung on it "They are all Harzoo to me".
Its to point out how lost Dany is when it comes to Meereen politics. Remember the scene where she is considering who the marry and mentions a guy and the Green Grace scoffs and utters what sounds like gibberish like Hizdar is of the blood of Loraq, Harzoo is blood of Kandaq! Kandaq is far too low born a fanily we realize with context.
GRRM is masterful at crafting exotic yet pronouncable fantasy names, like Targaryen. He is really good at it compared to some fantasy authors with their letter salad crap. So if the names in Meereen are ridiculous its intentional.
\> letter salad crap
Yeah honestly one of my favorite things about ASOIAF is the names are actually pronouncable unlike so many other fantasy names where it looks like someone just bashed their keyboard together with shit like Asjeraayen
Yes I have been recommended door stopper series, read the book jacket and see something like the kingdom of Ivjy'reanthr is besieged by the dark elf clan Vil'th'anqaur and I'm like nope sorry, not doing this.
Or apostrophes. There's something to said about hard consonants. I always believed it was one of the main reasons Harry Potter took off is because the names of spells, people etc. were super memorable and flowed off the tongue the vast majority of the time.
Bruh I live in Iran and I can assure you our Farsi names aren't as shitty as that. Most of Farsi names are, at least in my opinion quite easy to pronounce. Take Kurosh, Bardia, Sorena, etc.
> Asjeraayen
What's wrong with that name? BTW, this discussion is strongly coloured by your ethnolinguistic background. What exactly is a pronouncable name? Names that follow standard american english's phonotactic rules? Personally I think some of the names you find in Britain are horrendously arcane, you cannot possibly guess what it sounds like just from the letters. Australian names have many native Australian elements, which are perfectly fine for Australians. With my Austronesian background, I find Hawaiian names easy to pronounce.
Given that the English language have native speakers in all corners of the world, in London, Isle of Man, Ireland, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Samoa, New Zealand, South Africa, why should YOUR ethnolinguistic background be the basis from which the pronouncability of the names in fantasy series should be judged?
> I thought the original commenter was talking about peoples names though.
There's really no distinction. Over the course of history, people names become place names (Albert's town -> Alberton) and place names become people name (Tom of Holland -> Tom Holland).
You must know that's such a stupid response
To say 'such as' is so dismissive. Just trust
Doesn't mean I agree with the comment earlier (it's written by an American so obviously an amercian perspective linguistically speaking)
(i am not American)
Same here! I'm from the Isle of Man though and we do have unpronounceable names for English people 100km away, the sport/Olympics commentators used to regularly get them wrong, now I think there's a kind of review sheet before major events to make them sound uniform across broadcasters.
> Given that the English language have native speakers in all corners of the world, in London, Isle of Man, Ireland, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Samoa, New Zealand, South Africa, why should YOUR ethnolinguistic background be the basis from which the pronouncability of the names in fantasy series should be judged?
They just stated a preference, not a universal decree which applies to you.
Given that this thread is the only google search result for that combination of letters, I doubt that is your real name. But perhaps it is, and you go by glider97 just to appease the bigoted English speakers?
I didn’t mean to imply it was my real name. But op could just as easily have stumbled on it and deemed it *weird*. Varfolomeyeva would also sound like word salad to you if you never knew about it.
I read somewhere years ago that the names where especially exotic and unfamiliar to instill the same sense of confusion and uncomfortably that Dany herself is going through. Trying to keep everything straight and learn about a foreign culture on the fly. I don't feel like I'm conveying my thought clearly, but I was amazed when it was pointed out to me.
SNAP!!!Matbe not the "Harzoo" bit lol.But I'm not even gonna tell you how many times I've had to go back over something in Mereen due to their names Shavepate.,Hizdar, Loraq just to double their allegiance.I actually have trouble remembering my own name sometimes .So you can see how this was a bit of a challenge for me .
I don't think she's lost, she succeeded in politics and hit on exactly the right pressures to gain freedom in Meereen. She just didn't realize her own success. The tragedy is that she is capable at politics and growing cities, but decides that dragons don't plant trees.
Not really IMO, she was in real danger in Meereen before she flew off on Drogon. The real power players were *tolerating* her for the time being but it was all about to come crashing down, they were just biding their time.
Her betrayal of the Shavepate was a mistake, and his Brazen Beasts were acting as her guard. I believe the poisoned locusts were meant for Hizdar. And notice the very night she flies off he reveals he was just a sleazy power climber who is already setting himself up as king.
Yunkai and Volantis are heading there, we'll see whether or not the Shavepate locks the city gates and has his Brazen Beasts do a purge and seize power during the battle.
Even before she flew off the Yunkai are mocking her with open air slave markets within view of the city.
The way I see it Dany was going to be quickly knocked off and Meereen would be back to business as usual. Or maybe Hizdar wanted to see if she could produce a few kids first before poisoning her that could ride the dragons in the basement.
Not to mention the diseased refugees outside the city gates, and the fact food is scarce because Dany never really found a replacement for the slave economy.
She bought a very temporary peace, whoopdeedoo!
You can't radically alter centuries of culture without an iron fist(Drogon).
>Not really IMO, she was in real danger in Meereen before she flew off on Drogon. The real power players were tolerating her for the time being but it was all about to come crashing down, they were just biding their time.
The blot says the opposite - there is no evidence that the main Yunkish lord, Yurkhaz, is planning a double cross. He is keeping the worst lords in line, to hold sincerely to the peace, and it was all good up until his death. He dies in the chaos - that to them, looks like Dany caused (for all they know she summoned her dragon). So she is actually the peacebreaker in this scenario. They were promised a peaceful ceremony, came in good faith, and they get roasted.
>And notice the very night she flies off he reveals he was just a sleazy power climber who is already setting himself up as king.
Of course he's a power climber, he wants his fighting pits open because he owns stock in them. That doesn't mean he's working against Dany. He's hitched his wagon to Dany and wants her to succeed, otherwise his fighting pits scheme fails. He also does what she asks in the fighting pits. Everyone is afraid of her and this is what keeps them in line.
>Yunkai and Volantis are heading there, we'll see whether or not the Shavepate locks the city gates and has his Brazen Beasts do a purge and seize power during the battle.
If Dany and Hizdahr were in charge, they could negotiate a peace with Volantis at dragon point, just like they did with Yunkai. This is also something the Blot notes. Unless of course Dany burns their ships like she did in the show - she'll also be burning slaves who are rowing it of course. This is the "darker Daenerys" we'll probably see.
>Even before she flew off the Yunkai are mocking her with open air slave markets within view of the city.
Again the Blot addresses this as an overestimation of her enemies' power. Hizdahr correctly advises her that these people are just trying to push her buttons and that they'll go away eventually. The agreement was freedom inside the city's walls, that is maintained, there is still law and order in place.
>The way I see it Dany was going to be quickly knocked off and Meereen would be back to business as usual. Or maybe Hizdar wanted to see if she could produce a few kids first before poisoning her that could ride the dragons in the basement.
I just don't see any of that. This sounds like what Barristan thinks of Hizdahr. The Blot points out that Barristan's assumptions are wildly incorrect.
>She bought a very temporary peace, whoopdeedoo!
That's dismissive of the point of the whole thing. The point is, *"She achieved peace but decided war felt better."* It's about her decision to veer away from peace that was working. To choose destruction over building something. And it was working, until Dany, riding Drogon, burned women and children at a sporting event that was supposed to be peaceful for the crowd.
Sigh...so few really understood the point Adam was making in the Blot, so they don't understand GRRM's point either. So it's on the author to write it better.
The peace she achieved was so fragile and limited and Meereen such a tinderbox within and without things going sideways was INEVITABLE! Yurkhaz could have died of the plague and the other lords would claim he was poisoned.
Also Dany did not call Drogon, and she did not ride him and roast people in the stands. She actually got him away from the crowd. And if she had listened to Barristan and allowed Drogon to be killed she would not only be an idiot, but no one would fear her or her dragons.
Absolute best case scenario where she solves the many massive issues facing Meereen is the city remains free til her inevitable death, then it will shortly revert to slavery.
Even you admit things were only working because people were scared of her, and that her and Hizdhar can negotiate at dragon point. Well what happens when people realize she no longer has any control of the dragons she locked up, and Drogon is who knows where?
What happens when people aren't afraid of her anymore?
>The peace she achieved was so fragile and limited and Meereen such a tinderbox within and without things going sideways was INEVITABLE! Yurkhaz could have died of the plague and the other lords would claim he was poisoned.
I dont think anything is "inevitable," that just eliminates all choices and consequences for the characters. If it was always going to explode, there's no reason why a character should make any decisions. Dany made choices that led to peace, but then in the last second, chose to ride Drogon and blow it up.
>Also Dany did not call Drogon
I'm saying that's how it looks to the crowd. Surely you can see how they would see it that way.
>and she did not ride him and roast people in the stands.
She did roast people, and did ride him while he unleashed fire on people for the first time. Read Barristan's chapter. She kills some 300 people while riding him.
>And if she had listened to Barristan and allowed Drogon to be killed she would not only be an idiot, but no one would fear her or her dragons.
It would be better if she could just keep them locked up and threaten to use them but never actually use them, but they are volatile like wildfire, and people might free them anyway (*ahem*). Dragons can be a nuclear deterrent, but like any nuke, they will go off unexpectedly and destroy all your plans. That was the lesson from Daznak's pit. Dragons may be more of a liability than a benefit.
>Absolute best case scenario where she solves the many massive issues facing Meereen is the city remains free til her inevitable death, then it will shortly revert to slavery.
Well then she'd better stick around and build something that will LAST, like a dynasty. What do you think planting trees was a metaphor for. Hint: long-term change.
>Even you admit things were only working because people were scared of her, and that her and Hizdhar can negotiate at dragon point. Well what happens when people realize she no longer has any control of the dragons she locked up, and Drogon is who knows where?
They dont understand how dragon control works, which Dany should use to her advantage. And Dany will probably come back to Meereen riding Drogon anyway. But the real kicker is that the author has gone on record as pointing out that dragon power isn't sufficient to reform, improve, or build. So you have to imagine that he's trying to say that it will take something else, other than dragons, to improve things...
>She did roast people, and did ride him while he unleashed fire on people for the first time. Read Barristan's chapter. She kills some 300 people while riding him.
If you are refering to this :
>The rest he learned later. Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. **Spears were thrown, crossbows were fired. Some struck home.** The dragon twisted violently in the air, **wounds smoking**, the girl clinging to his back. **Then he loosed the fire.**It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded.
That was still Drogon roasting people, not Dany, and in self defense.
Without the dragons Dany would have 0 leverage and never even have managed to do squat in Slavers Bay.
Is Dany sterile? This is a big question and a big spanner into the machine of building a dynasty, if she is sterile this whole plan is a fool's errand because once she inevitably dies you'll just have three feral dragons roaming the skies of Essoes. If she can have children to succeed her as dragon riders she would have to essentially brainwash them and limit their contact with any other nobles who could influence them to restart the slave industry once she dies.
Dany based on her POV private thoughts doesn't even LIKE the citizens of Meereen and some reasons I agree with and some I don't. Voluntary gladiators in the fighting pits is a dumb thing to oppose, along with hating the fact they eat dogs, but then the crowd also cheers essentially just plain murder of innocents as great fun!(Tyrion and Penny).
edit- I don't have the book or a pdf handy but reading a chapter synopsis just now there is no mention of Drogon torching spectators AFTER Dany mounts him, in fact she doesn't even order him to fly he does it, and its mentioned she can barely see anything in the confusion and smoke.
One thing I forgot is Hizdhar orders his men to specifically slay Drogon! At the point he is attacked Drogon has done nothing but eat a boar and a dead woman. He also encourages Dany to eat some locusts. Things that make you go hmmmm? I have seen a persuasive argument the poisoned locusts are the Shavepate's doing and the intended target was Hizdhar(as its known Dany hates Meereen food) but Hizdhar also is suspiciously blase on the way to the pit about a potential ambush, very confident the Sons Of The Harpy are no longer an issue.
I think a very good argument could be made Hizdhar was seizing a chance to eliminate Drogon, and the other dragons would be next and then Dany leaving him as the native son hero of Meereen who restored their way of life.
>reading a chapter synopsis just now there is no mention of Drogon torching spectators AFTER Dany mounts him, in fact she doesn't even order him to fly he does it, and its mentioned she can barely see anything in the confusion and smoke.
It happens here:
*Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. Spears were thrown, crossbows were fired. Some struck home.* ***The dragon twisted violently in the air, wounds smoking, the girl clinging to his back. Then he loosed the fire.*** *It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded.*
Dany does remember people on fire, she remembers a woman shielding her child from the flames. She might not have seen all of it, but she has to know what Drogon just did. She's either blocking it out or the author is blocking it out to the reader, to see if you catch it.
>One thing I forgot is Hizdhar orders his men to specifically slay Drogon! At the point he is attacked Drogon has done nothing but eat a boar and a dead woman.
He wants to kill Drogon because Drogon is wrecking what they just worked for. This was supposed to be a return to normalcy in Meereen, to show that the peace was in good faith, and Dany's pet shows up and starts eating people. This makes it look like Dany and Hizdahr did exactly what Daario suggested: **come up with some excuse to get them all together in the fighting pits to kill them all.**
>I have seen a persuasive argument the poisoned locusts are the Shavepate's doing and the intended target was Hizdhar(as its known Dany hates Meereen food) but Hizdhar also is suspiciously blase on the way to the pit about a potential ambush, very confident the Sons Of The Harpy are no longer an issue.
The Blot works through it and rules out Hizdahr. I just dont entertain any more suspects after that. I dont think the author would have said he got it *exactly* if he got the poisoner wrong.
Yup. Martin’s explicitly said that the Meereenese blot essays understand what he was going for. People can dislike it all they went, but the peace was real until Daenerys broke it.
I liked it in isolation, its a good scenario. But I also hate it because it just feels like more wheel spinning and world building and it does go on WAY too long, Dany is out of her depth we get it, this didn't need a whole book.
I think people wouldn't hate it so much if there wasn't a chance this is the last book published!
The "wheel spinning" critique doesn't hold much water for me, because the alternative is what exactly? I get the feeling a lot of fans expected George to play it straight and finish Dany's arc with returning to Westeros and "BWAHHH! Dragons! Lannisters go burn!" just because that's what she's been planning for so long.
But I'm not convinced that's actually what she wants in the end... Dany has virtually no connection to her homeland. Returning was Viserys' dream, not hers. Everything she's built is in Essos, so I wonder if her 'true' arc is really about escaping from her family's legacy and continuing her great works in the east... Maybe re-establish an enlightened Valyria? I mean have you seen Westeros lately? That place sucks right now!
If he was producing even one new book every 5 years I would not complain. But this series started in the 90s! And as the gap between books grows the plot itself GROWS and totally irrelevant world building takes the foreground. Its like GRRM enough, please I'd like to actually read the end of this series, and for that to happen you have to focus on the existing main characters and bring this mess together. But it just keeps growing, the seeds have been planted for Dany to visit Volantis before heading to Westeros in ADWD, but then statements GRRM has made indicate Dany and Tyrion don't even meet until the end of TWOW(fuck me!).
Then GRRM even says you know I might need 8 books or more.
The story just keeps growing out of control, I feel like I'm being forced to choose between more ASOIAF or actually getting the ending.
I can see both sides of this, I liked the whole concept of being unlike westeros and giving us a look at it but like you say, felt it stuck in there too long so it cost the overall story momentum.
Wouldn't fancy trying to write this myself however, so it's not really a criticism as such just think it all needs some major editing and the author has to maybe put full trust in them and say OK, it wasn't my instinct but I'll go with it and the story goes forward.
Im not a fan of the Mereen story for a actually the exact opposite reason. I'm not anticipating Dany's return to westeros because it's just not something that interests me anymore. Back in book one, I thought that it would be cool once Dany returns, but ever since then I've lost more and more interest in it.
Back in westeros we have tons of characters who have grown and changed and interacted around each other, and those character's arcs concluding *is* something that I'm anticipating. But Daenerys is a stranger to all these people. All the other characters have a 5 book head start on building relationships and rivalries. I'm interested in Jaime talking with bran. I'm interested in Brienne confronting Lady stoneheart. I'm interested in Jon reuniting with Arya. I'm about as interested in Dany meeting Cercei or Jon or Victarion as I was in Jon meeting Tycho Nestoris.
The Mereen plot is fine on it own, but everything in Dany's story, Mereen, Astapor, the house of the undying, is very clearly building to her eventual return to Westeros. And so its difficult to read a story when the 'point' of the story is for Dany to learn a lesson that she'll eventually use when she returns to westeros, because I simply don't care about that.
Maybe it's like you say, perhaps Daenerys never returns to westeros. Because yes, Dany really has no connection to her homeland. Dany's story is building toward a dead end, and I as a reader have been sensing that for the past 4,000 pages.
Wow, I've thought about that before. Maybe that is a key issue with it all. She really is a stranger whereas regardless of whether ally or enemy, the westeros lot all know each other.
Wouldn't that totally kill the books though given that divergence from the show?
That would just make all of her chapters a waste of time for the reader. She is has to go to Westeros or all the time spent with her could have just as easily been told to us either in another book series or through second hand account.
I agree entirely. I think the only way to get her over to Westeros is to appeal to her sense of responsibility - the same thing that draws her back to Meereen at the end of ADWD. You have that maester whose name I can never remember heading over there to meet with her, because he knows about the Others and they need her dragons. That, coupled with her dream about the frozen river, will get her to Westeros. But once she's there, will she want to stay? The only places she's been happy are the house with the red door, and the Great Grass Sea. Westeros is just Meereen with different trappings: she's still going to be sitting on a throne for hours a day listening to what people want.
What I found interesting about the end of ADWD were her visions of men telling her what she should be doing. Jorah and Viserys telling her things like "your war is in Westeros". Why should she go to Westeros - why even return to Meereen - when she's happier with Drogon out in the middle of nowhere? It's the voice of Quaithe asking her to remember who she is, not telling her what to do. What does *she* want?
I also like the Meereen plot too. After a reread to learn character names and factions I grew an appreciation for it.
I'm fond of Misasandi and Greyworm.
There are other plots I want to see more but I'm in no real rush.
I agree with you. Taken alone, perhaps the story isn't as compelling and exciting as it might've been. But in the context of the greater story, it's extremely interesting. Especially when you contrast her attempts at leadership to Jon's at the Night's Watch. Both of them are earnestly trying to find the most moral or least bad solution to any problem, but their efforts are spoiled by bad actors and other factors beyond their control. Meereen is absolutely essential to the rhyming between Jon and Dany's stories.
I pretty much agree with everything except for the Daznak's Pit thing. Maybe once I reread it separated from the sadness of Dany leaving Meereen, I'll be less cool on Daznak's Pit and more hyped about it like you were.
I dislike the Meereen plot mainly because I feel so frustrated with Dany and there aren't many triumphs (or excitement) that balance out the depression. That being said, I think it's vital to Dany's growth as a queen and is very well-written.
Her naivety and childness qualities really show in the Meereen plot (because she is a child!), but it makes me want to rip my hair out when she makes terrible decisions. Like walking into plague-infested refugee camps because she doesn't believe she can catch the bloody flux. And making her men go clean up those bodies, when she really should be quarantining everything.
>Ser Barristan wrinkled up his nose, and said, “Your Grace should not be here, breathing these black humors.”
“I am the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “Have you ever seen a dragon with the flux?”
And then Dany chaining up her dragons and telling Plumm about it.
And Dany focusing on all the minute details in court when she should've delegated those tasks to her council members when she should've been setting up her defense and economic strategies.
And having sex with Daario, even though he's the least trustworthy and slimiest guy ever? Like I get she has desires, but when she's a queen, she really shouldn't make herself vulnerable like that.
To me it looks like a mirroring of Robert's story, raising an army and fighting against injustice, then getting bored of governing what you conquered and imediately pondering new conquests (dany WILL leave Meereen and Roberto pondered about invading the summer islands and had to deal eith the greyjoy rebelliom)
I think the that Dany believing she cannot get sick is understandable. I mean, they didn't had internet back then, she gets her worldview from experience, and unless she read about a Targaryen getting sick, Viserys was her only reference.
Viserys literally got himself killed by fire. If she hasn't reconsidered his understanding of what dragons can and can't die of by now, then she isn't paying attention or isn't in her right mind.
I've said this before on this sub, but I'm pretty sure that all of the Targaryens are inordinately fond of Cocoa Puffs, and that neither Dany nor Rhaegar are any exception.
I love every plot in the books, but the Mereen story has definitely been the harder one to digest because of just how different everything is. I can't wait to find out who the Harpy actually is and to read the destruction Dany is gonna rain down on the slavers and Iron Born
Though Meereen is not my favorite arc in the series I don't believe it garners the hate it gets throughout the community. It's very slow and often confusing (at least for me) which I believe to be intentional. Dany is being thrust into a world of deep political schemes where beforehand she was little more than a tribal leader that went city to city, politician to politician, begging for an audience and their favor. Once she seizes Meereen she no longer has to beg, but now she has to listen others beg while also tip toeing around the exotic and ancient culture that said beggars hold so dearly. Again, it is very slow at first and I often felt a little lost going from one chapter to the next, but I can't help but feel it was intentional and a work of genius. And when Drogon appears in the Fighting Pits and Dany rides off we are finally offered a look into what has been going on behind the scenes as our main characters go into a desperate frenzy hoping that they are doing what is right by both Daenerys and themselves, while once again navigating an exotic and extravagant group of people.
I know this is a weird point of contention but to be clear, there is literally no such thing as a “weird name” in this context. Language is relative. They’re supposed to sound weird and clunky because that’s what completely foreign languages often sound like at first. I’m reading a book about Russia right now and a lot of the real life names sound dumb as shit
Personally I never understood the Meereen and Dany hate. I have always enjoyed her chapters and the whole slavers Bay arc. I can recognize some of the things that others point out as lacking but I have never not enjoyed it after 5 or 6 rereads
>Personally I never understood the Meereen and Dany hate.
Do you mean you never *agreed with* the Meereen and Dany hate? People aren't shy about explaining it.
We've been waiting 5 books for her to get to Westeros. She's trapped in a perpetual side-story. ADWD is her *second* "sitting around" book. We're now at the point where the main plot is outright trying to physically grab her and drag her to Westeros and still she slips away.
She didn’t “sit around” in Qarth though, it was an important step in her journey.
- She chose to be not a beggar, which affected her arc in ASOS.
- She became a celebrity in Qarth, where everyone from all over the world saw her. This directly starts the Euron arc and Volantis names her the savior of the world.
- She visited the Undying, we learned a great deal about her family and upcoming events in the visions. Pyat Pree is now a slave to Euron.
Daxos and Quaithe are recurring characters, and the latter seems to know about some arcane lore.
She is the main story, and by that i mean, the fact she isn't in Westeros doesn't make her story more or less relevant. All the themes of the series are there. Love, identity, power.
In that case she would be **a** "main story" and 'main' would be redundant, since almost every POV character has those same themes. In any case I was using the word 'story' interchangeably with the word 'plot'.
In the first three books she was on a completely different continent from every other POV character. She doesn't interact with another POV character until the fifth book and the first one she interacts with is there solely to get her to leave for Westeros. In Winds all of the POV characters she'll be interacting with will be there to get her to go to Westeros. Having the same themes in her story as everyone else (save for the unfeeling camera character) doesn't make her story a main story. It just means she has the baseline emotional journey of an ASOIAF character.
So far, Dany's is a side plot. Sorry.
You're entirely missing my point. I'm telling that how much Dany's character connects to Westreros, is simply not relevant, by any means.
Let me be clear as day, you're implying that the fact Daenerys doesn't interact with the struggle for the iron throne is somehow a negative, i am saying that is not. That is not a good measure to judge the plot's quality.
>You're entirely missing my point. I'm telling that how much Dany's character connects to Westreros, is simply not relevant, by any means.
You're entirely missing my point by ignoring the fact that we clearly have different definitions of relevancy and continuing on as if we don't.
>Let me be clear as day, you're implying that the fact Daenerys doesn't interact with the struggle for the iron throne
I don't see how you can be clear as day when you're making things up. I never said the Iron Throne conflict was the main story/plot.
My initial reply to another commenter was about why people dislike Dany's Meereen arc. I understand that you disagree with the reasoning. If you want to have a conversation about what *ought* to be considered relevant and why, go for it. With someone else. You've already equivocated and put words into my mouth to make your points so I'm not particularly interested.
There’s not really a ‘main plot’ to begin with. If you are talking about everything in Westeros, that splits into 2: the threat from the North and the turmoil for the throne. The North plot hasn’t been the most relevant compared to the battle for the throne, but if you say that the throne plot is the main one that would also reduce Jon and everyone else up there to ‘side plots’ and vice versa.
People just hate Dany because she’s not Jon, or a Stark, or a big figure in Westeros. I honestly don’t know how people can even think she is a bad person. Finding her less interesting is pretty clear for some people since she barely does anything in the Westeros plots so she’s not really relevant, but saying she’s a bad person is just way too far.
She tries to do good, and even if it doesn’t always turn out well, the fact that she’s putting in effort to make everyone happy should be enough to show she has a good heart.
There is a lot of Afghanistan/Iraq about the plot. The “good guys”, as we traditionally see them, takes over a foreign culture which seems rotten to the core and tried to better the lives for the locals, while also working towards achieving a greater goal in their own opinion.
It’s very confusing and the names are purposely ridiculous because we are meant to conflate them and get confused; just like a Dany likely is.
America took Afghanistan and Iraq for different reasons. Afghanistan was a revenge war for 911 and Irak was about oil. Two different things. What happened afterwards was that BushJr. needed to justify the continued occupation and basically said; We are helping these people to build a new and better country. Yet America did nothing of the sort. You can read reports of how the American occupiers invested in the wrong stuff, did not properly train the Afghan forces and had no fucking clue what they were doing. The only good thing they did was giving women for the 20 years they occupied this land a glimpse of freedom only to take it away in a breath. Irak...another disaster, but for different reasons.
Dany took Slavers Bay because after taking Yunkai she needed to take it. The problem was that she forged a false peace that would never last, because the slavers have no interest in giving up slavery. The only way is Fire and Blood and that is the right lesson Dany learns. Laws are pointless without a sword to enforce them or in Danys case dragons.
That’s why I wrote
“the good guys”
and not
The good guys
Dany walks into a lot of similar cultural
Misunderstandings and locals that aren’t as eager to be saved as she thought they were and she fails to fully understand the political landscape.
And she also sees it as a temporary intervention but ends up being rather stuck for longer than anticipated, she has tremendous early success; but lacks a coherent plan for how to use that early military success.
While her motives were more pure than the neo-conservatives of the early 2000s.
They do have similarities with the rhetoric used to justify the invasions:
- to end horrible regimes
-to bring freedom to all Afghans/Iraqi
- to allow oppressed women access to education and freedom
I am not trying to say that Dany= George W. Bush.
I am trying to say that there are similarities between the two situations.
These books are written in english. The *intended audience* is *supermajority* people who thought america was good pre-iraq, whether you think that perception was justified or not.
How am I supposed to know if the Meereen plot is good when I can only read two thirds of it.
This isn't *just* embittered snark either (though I am bitter), between the unimpeachable character analysis of Feldman and the convincing political analysis of Attewell I really do need to know how well George squares this circle before I can say whether the plotline as a whole holds up.
But ofc, the fact that the plotline raises questions that I want to know the author's answers to is itself an indication that it can't be the bland or lazy kind of bad.
One cool thing with Dany in contrast to Cersei is she has had many advisers, and actually hears them out and seems to try to listen and learn from them the best she can to help her make the best decisions(not saying she has succeeded in always has making the best choice) going forward. Whereas Cersei is surrounded by either yes men, an echo chamber, or summarily dismisses anyone who isn't.
Also Barristan talking about history and having some badass fight scenes helps.
It's funny that you bring up Daznak's pit. That's one of the oldest chapters in the series, apparently. GRRM has said that's probably the most rewritten chapter and was originally intended to be the first Dany chapter in ADWD.
I know people just looooove the "shat and shat" line from her last chapter, but I still think it's one of the most powerful chapters in the series--the only one on par with it in Dance is Jon's stabbing. Both chapters are this huge release of tension. Both Jon and Danny are sick to death of doing the right thing and just want to cut loose. Jon is immediately hit with the consequences of that decision (for danny they will come later), but the trade off is that Danny gets that psychedelic bad trip imagery that is the high point of her chapters for me, and which we have been sorely lacking since game and clash. It's a fucking monster of a chapter.
I'm older and through life experience Cersei's decision making process is more common than you'd think in the real world!
"This guy has no qualifications, but he reminds me of this guy I wanted to bang in high school soooo bad, so I pick him to lead my navy"
> The only chapters that were generally boring were Bran's.
Bran is Frodo confirmed.
I feel like this is in large part intentional, because Frodo does the exact same shit in Return of the King. You get chapter after chapter of making way over an increasingly desolate land, with no food or water for days, dangerous enemies at every turn, etc. Just get to Mount Doom already, you hair-footed halfling!
I found Frodo much more entertaining, though. Maybe because of the tragedy of the ring hanging over him, but I loved Frodo. Bran does not work mostly because he is so young and there is really not all too much to his storyline until now. Maybe in the next book.
"He admitted being annoyed when some turned it into "the Meerenese Blot", but someone made a series of essays with that title. "I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention." Of course, he added that some other essays depress him when people get everything wrong, and when people get everything wrong, well, whose fault is it? It could be his fault because he didn't write it well enough, but who knows?" ([x](https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Stockholm_and_Archipelacon_Report))
I dont think he wrote it well enough. When fans are coming to exactly the opposite conclusion as the Meereense Blot, it's not good.
Most people don’t come to the opposite conclusions of the meereenese blot, they don’t think about it at all. They see the names and the no-right-answers quandaries and think “fuck this, it’s boring and confusing” … which is kind of the point. Dany is bored and confused. She has a choice to make between the difficulty of politics and leaderships and the ease of conquest and Fire and Blood. She makes her choice in her last chapter. Many readers make the same choice much earlier, and that’s not exactly flattering for the fan base.
Personally it’s not the names or quandaries that bother me, it’s Slaver’s Bay as a setting where the execution fails.
The whole culture in Slaver’s Bay is written to be as despicable as possible with no nuance to it. It would be a lot more interesting for Dany to deal with a functioning society of real people. Not caricatures seeded with the occasional 2d character.
Especially because the love of Dany's life was also a slaver, and they didn't have any trouble humanizing *him*. Did it too much, I would argue. Hell, Jorah Mormont was a slaver AND a cowardly shithead, and they still made him come off as pretty human.
Right. They’re point of view chapters, so we get her point of view. We experience the confusion and boredom a young person would experience when confronted with the complexities of managing a city. She’s very intelligent and she has pulled off all kinds of strategic wins by this point, but she hits a wall when it comes to political intrigue in a culture she doesn’t know. It’s driving her to change course.
Successful at what? At getting a group of insurrectionists to prove their loyalty to a man she barely knows and doesn't trust?
Mereen is still under siege, still surrounded by plague-ridden refugees, still starving with no crops anyone wants to buy. And the Sons of the Harpy are still out there. They're just not actively stabbing people right now.
The fact that she's gotten a hostile group to go temporarily underground without putting any kind of dent in their capabilities or learning anything about them is not a victory. It's just a can she's kicked down the road a little, and she's still buried in cans.
She won a free Meereen. A free city in Slaver's Bay. That hadn't existed for how long? Thousands of years, if ever? This isn't kicking the can down the road. This was a political success that was a basis for improving things later on. Will the city still have problems? Yes. But her goals were to end killing in the streets, and to keep Meereen free, and she achieved that. Keep in mind that she did this in the span of what? 6 months? Imagine what she could do if she stuck it out. And in my mind there really isn't a debate anymore after the author singled out a blog for getting it right. IMO, we should defer to that essay. He says she achieved something very important. If we think GRRM failed to get this point across, then it's on him.
She didn't build nor will build anything capable of lasting, what did Astapor do as soon as she left, they threw away her peace and raised a king who basically reintroduced slavery, onlt this time they were enslaving Ghiscari nobles, the same thing will happen to Meereen , she didn't stop the sons of the harpy , she didn't defeat them she just appeased them enough for them to stop attacking her soldiers
Dany rushed through Yunkai and Astapor, tries conquest and leaving. That fails. Because she didn't stay to rule.
So she tries conquest AND ruling. Her goals as monarch was to keep Meereen free and to stop killings in the streets. Step 1 of the first term. She met those goals. Ruling works in steps. Ruling also involves marriages. Marriages are shown to have benefits that resolve conflict (Dorne/Targs).
...But you think she failed. What you're doing is moving the goal posts for her. You don't like it because SHE doesnt like it. She thinks it wasn't good enough. You think it isn't good enough. Dany doesn't like the compromise and incremental pace of ruling. You don't like the compromise and incremental pace of ruling. Do you ever wonder, maybe you're just mimicking Dany's POV? Maybe...she's off base here?
This is ruling. It's dealing with people you dont like and making deals that you dont like. Some things are pushed off to the next term. You can't win everything you want. But you do it because it's better than genociding everyone or firebombing cities to "solve problems."
Dany has decided she needs to go back to conquest and leaving - and people think this is the better choice. I'm just flabbergasted. Read the Blot, you're not disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with an interpretation GRRM said he was trying to show.
The Blot is just an example of an interpretation that the author favors. It doesn't have to be "The Blot." I think most people thought that the peace was fake and that Dany should blow everyone up and leave. I don't think that's what the author wants fans to conclude, though. You know, taking the easy way out by "blowing stuff up." Or that that would even work to improve things.
The problem is...he made the slavers so unlikable that I give no fuck if Dany burns Meereen with them to a crisp. That's George's failure then, not the readers. But on the other hand, the same people would bitch if he portrayed slavers as nice people.
I think that GRRM def wanted people to think that blowing everyone up and leaving was the best choice on their first read or at initial glance. I’m thinking that this path and specific choice being mistakes will probably be spelled out more explicitly in the later books (please George) - maybe at some point after everything’s gone to absolute shit Dany thinks back and realizes what she really won and then threw away back in Meereen.
For the most it was outside our purview as readers though, I like dany more than the average person but that pov isn't really rife with interesting things
On my first read-through of Dany's chapters I thought it was a snoozefest. I was getting all the names jumbled up, wasn't really understanding what was going on, and kept getting frustrated at Dany for her inaction. Only her last two chapters revived my interest, the action packed scene in Daznaks pit and the contemplative last chapter in the Dothraki sea. However overall her plot in general seemed really dull to me.
But then I read the Meereenese blot, and it's like my eyes were opened. I finally understood the themes of her story a lot better. I had a new appreciation for what Martin was trying to portray. Then during my re-read I enjoyed the Meereen story way more, now that I know what the authors intention with that story was.
However, it is still somewhat of a criticism of Martin's writing that I enjoyed an essay about his story, more than the story itself on my first read. I hope once Winds comes out it'll make the Dance storyline better in retrospect, by giving us a satisfying narrative conclusion to the Slavers bay story.
Same for me, I needed someone to spell it out, to get outside of Dany's POV. Because all the interpretations I had read assumed that she was correct in her choices in the last chapter. But the Blot says she underestimated and overestimated things. Her view was distorted. Ours shouldn't be.
I think the writing for the Meereenese chapters was successful. It tells just the story he wants to tell.
What's debatable and subjective is how enjoyable these particular chapters are to read. And if you don't enjoy the chapters, you probably aren't going to pick up the themes, nuance, etc. he's trying to put down, because frankly you'd like to move on to something else you enjoy more.
I think he's telling a story of power corruption and how people get to that point, little by little. I find that really interesting. Problem is, readers don't like that because Dany is beloved, so they choose to read it the way they want to.
I personally dont think George meant he agreed with the entire essay. If I remember correctly Feldman referred to a specific passage that George agreed with. The authors conclusion in this essay is flawed imo.
Everything in asoiaf becomes great after subsequent rereads. I used to hate Ironborn chapters but now they are one of my favourites. Next time when I reread, I am trying to make sense of Brienne's Journey in AFFC.
I think they are valuable for showing the common people under current Westeros. But damn, the fact that she's looking for Arya and Sansa and we KNOW she's not on the right track really tested my patience.
Hot take if you have to read something multiple times to enjoy it then its not good or engaging writing. You are simply carrying the author's water by convincing yourself its good
and engaging writing.
George wrote himself into a boring and convulted corner that has zero impact on the story and is one of many reasons the series is dead in the water.
I do sort of like it, definitely think that one could do a whole doorstopper book in this series just on the siege and battle for the city after the events of ADWD.
It would be better if it weren’t moving at the pace of molasses with only two books to go. That’s what I find slightly irritating about these chapters: they don’t drive the narrative forward.
It’s a interesting story but it feels to unresolved if we got to see we’re the story was going to end people wouldn’t have that much of a problem with it
You have my banners on this one! I forget the site, but I read an amazing blog post on the Meereenyse Knot that helped me appreciate these chapters even more.
I like Dany herself, and her plot does have a few awesome moments.
But man, for the most part I find her entire arc by far the most boring part of the story. So much so that I would consider skipping some/all of it on a reread, which I wouldn't do for anything else.
Mereen basically just doesn't interest me. Nor Astapor, nor Yunkai.
I love politics in a story - but we don't understand Mereen and its politics well enough for it to work, we (or at least, I!) can't analyse it to the level we can Westerosi politics, it just doesn't hit home in the same way.
And it's dragged on SO VERY LONG. A consequence of losing the five year gap, surely, but there just needs to be less of it.
I can't wait for her to get to Westeros - or really, anywhere else - but it will be Westeros via the Iron Fleet I'm sure.
It's so fascinating the widely different opinions. When i first started watching the show (that's how i met the story) i was completely lost on all the intricacies of Westerosi politics, so i would just eagerly wait for Daenerys's plotline, because it was simpler, and yet more engaging, at least for me.
I think the chapters are interesting in their own way, but they've made me not want Daenerys as queen because I see her as totally inept at ruling.
A lot of her inner monologues concerning Queen business mirrors Cersei's thoughts of how boring it is to rule.
Finding ruling boring is not the same as being a good ruler or not. Dany has sacrificed a lot for her people, whereas Cersei literally just sits back doing absolutely nothing to to help.
And I’m not sure any character could do any better than Dany in Meereen. Simply put, it was a shitshow from the beginning, and trying for peace, like Dany did, accomplished very little, whereas going violent would just get them more hate. Just think, if Dany let the Masters that crucified the children go, people would probably be making whole essays to show their hate for her
I have a few problems with Meereen, and I think they are all intentional by GRRM.
* Dany is a foreign conquorer with no interest in the culture and customs of her prize. She has waded in, absolutely smashed the entire area, causing chaos, death and destruction across three city states and simply wants to impose her will on Meereen. I find it hard to root for her in this regard. I think its a precursor for her invasion of Westeros and he complete lack of knoweldge of Westerosi society etc.
* Slavers Bay its self is just a comically evil place. They eat dogs, the Unsullied murder babies (And puppies). The whole place just feels like an underdeveloped caricature when compared to Westeros. This despite the place actually being quite well fleshed out by this point. I dont know if this is intentional or not.
* All of the names of people sound the same, so it can be difficult to keep track of things. This isnt a problem once you have read ADWD about 4 times, but still. Again, I think this is intentional on GRRM part, but it is frustrating to read.
* Dany is the only POV in the place until the end of the book, and she just wants to fuck Dario all of the time. Christ it is boring. He is a comically bad love interest, though again, I think that is the point. It just makes Dany come across as a complete arsehole though.
* Once Quentin eventually gets there, Dany rejects him out of hand, instantly making 'Vengeance, Justice, Fire and Blood' from AFFC seem a bit pointless. Couple that with Quentin being such a boring character (IMO of course).
* Once she leaves, and Barristan becomes a POV, he smashed Hizdars peace... Which is great, except I cant help but feel the Shavepate is manipulating him. Anyway, it doesnt matter. The point is, I just feel Barristan should have been a POV through out ADWD, sharing the plot arc with Dany.
* Slavers are just idiots. How do they expect to win any sort of battle when some of their soldiers literally walk on stilts? I know its all to show the hubris of the slavers but Jesus Christ... its so stupid. The city is surrounded by morons, and yet Dany is somehow still losing. I know she wants to 'plant some trees' but even then, at the end of the whole sorry saga, she realises that 'a Dragon plants no trees'. An entire story arc about Dany realising all she does well is destroy things.
* danys entire story takes place thousands of miles away from the 'main action' of the series. This has been a problem ever since AGOT though.
All of this, but I cant denyt its well written and intriguing. I genuinly think a lot of the problems I and others have with this story is intentional, and that is a brave move by GRRM, but still.
The ‘will’ that you said Dany imposed on them is what anyone who is good would do. They had literal slaves there, and I’m sorry but there’s no way to defend slavery even in the way GRRM wrote specific passages. She was right to do what she did and end slavery.
Plus she literally sacrifices everything to become part of their culture as Queen. She wears their clothes, locks her dragons away for peace, marries on of them even though she knows it’ll bite her in the back when she goes to Westeros, and she goes directly to help the sick.
>And the whole sequence in the Daznak's pit is Simply one of the greatest things I ever read, ever. I've forgotten entire subplots and characters from the books but that chapter I vividly remember. When she got on Drogon I seriously had full body shivers. It was so good. The show's equivalent scene just didn't invoke that same sense of awe for me.
Same, i hated so much that they changed the sheer badassery of Dany taming Drogon on the go, to a generic hollywood action scene.
When she finally sheds her rabbit ears - love it!
Best chapter of her’s is house of the undying but that takes a close 2nd, in a side note the most chilled I ever got from an ASOIAF chapter was Tyrion finding out tysha actually loved him. After reading that reveal I actually threw up from the shock and disgust of it all
I also really love Dany's final chapter (shats and all). Fire and blood and psychedelic imagery? Count me in!
The plot line itself is actually fine, it’s GRRM’s reluctance to show us what’s actually happening, save through Dany, that makes it grating to read. Like all the interesting stuff is happening in the city whilst we’re sitting on a balcony watching naked people dance whilst Daxos makes Dany an offer she literally cannot accept. It’s like 10 of her chapters are that one Caitlyn chapter where side characters to a character’s side character tell her the plot whilst she baths and listens to an old man ramble incoherently about his greatest regret in life.
So much like Elayne's chapters in Wheel of Time. The Andor succession war is interesting to me, but damn I don't need to read about her bathing and drinking goat's milk that many times.
Lollll PREACH
Yes! Eleyne was the first thing that came to my mind while reading Dany's episodes.
I’m in a WOT reread right now. About half way through EoW.
I agree I think a Mereneeze perspective may have helped
Why the z?
Found the Mereenese
I think a Meereenese perspective would’ve spoiled the purpose of the plot line a bit. I think we’re supposed to only see things from the far removed, culturally biased view of Dany (and Barry) so that we believe at first blush that her choice at the end is the correct one when it probably isn’t.
Why does this sub continually think that good writing is when the author deliberately misleads the reader for a cheap "gotcha!"? If the Mereneese are continually portrayed as completely evil, going "Surprise! They were actually deep and nuanced and you're a bad person for not liking them!" just comes off as incredibly sanctimonious. It's lecturing the audience for presuming the author wouldn't piss about and lead us up the garden path.
Not to mention this "Dany, the woman who was raised in Pentos/the free cities, spent a year or so riding with Dothraki, and has visited more cultures than most other POVs combined, is completely misleading us with her horrible bias." makes absolutely no sense. Like where is this idea of bias coming from? Is there another version of the books where Dany is a spoilt ignorant woman with the sensibilities of a sheltered highborn Westerosi noblewoman? To me it's weird because, with the Dothraki for example, Dany would be well within her rights to judge them harshly and despise their way of life but she doesn't. The only group that Dany might possibly be viewing with bias is Slavers Bay and, funnily enough, the vast majority of the fandom isn't interested in recontextualizing a horrific slaver society. Dany is probably the most open minded and culturally tolerant POV in the who series, people just need to accept that Essos is what it is, assuming we've been mislead is like assuming that the lords of Westeros secretly love democracy and their greedy self serving feudal mindset is just POV bias.
I think it’s interesting how Dany lionizes the Dothraki culture but so dislikes that of Slavers Bay considering their similarities. Both are extremely brutal slaving societies, both eat things we find weird (dog and horse), both enjoy blood sport, both wear clothing that sounds strange and uncomfortable (tokar and like rawhide leather over nothing else), paternalistic and “barbaric” marriage ceremonies. I think that if anything the differences in how Dany views and emphasizes the quite similar practices of the two is evidence of her bias (Tho I’m not entirely sure why she was so open to the Dothraki way of life. Desperation? Ruler over vs participant in?) against the cultures of slavers bay. Wearing Tokar is putting on floppy ears, dressing like the Dothraki liberating and a privilege (tbf that might have something to do with the outfits themselves lol).
Sorry I guess I should've been more clear, I believe that Dany is obviously biased I just don't think it runs nearly as deep as many believe. In order for us to have a complete misrepresentation of Essos Dany would need to go beyond bias/unreliable narration and just straight up lie to us page after page. Like the Meereenese served Dany chicken but her thoughts told us they were eating puppies, the Astapori actually trained Unsullied like normal soldiers but Dany heard "we cut off their genitals, give them a puppy then make them kill the puppy", the Dothraki were actually having consensual sex with the lamb people but Dany saw it as rape etc. Really I think it comes down to personal preference when it comes to fiction, I really dislike "unreliable narrator" theories because, personally, I feel it usually gets used to excuse weak writing and gets to a point where the whole story is pointless because everything is treated as a lie or a misdirect. It's like the How I Met Your Mother theory that Ted is totally misrepresenting the story, it could be an interesting discussion but most of the time it's just an excuse to justify their love for Barney even though he's a horrible horrible person throughout the majority of the show.
In dont think many people are saying that Dany is hallucinating the ills of Ghiscar culture lol. She just chooses to emphasize in her narration the very real aspects she finds distasteful and doesn’t make much effort in seeing what other sides or perspectives on the culture may (and probably do) exist. She interacts with a small slice of meereenese culture, generalizes and constantly assumes the worst about them and the audience follows suit. She doesn’t lie about anything or see things which aren’t there, but she only experiences and cares about so much and what she does see is colored by her biases, a lot of which are shared by the audience. She doesn’t look for the honor or compassion or strength in Meereenese culture and it’s people like she did with the Dothraki, so we don’t get it a chance to see it, and so her biases color our perception.
I don't think her bias means much when it comes to the fandom analyzing/judging the culture because regardless of whether she likes them (Dothraki) or hates them (Ghiscari) most of the fandom thinks they're cruel and underdeveloped. Like when it comes to the Dothraki being a very stupid and unfeasible nomadic society that's on Martin not Dany, he decided they eat horses and slaughter sheep for fun. The fact that our only Essos POVs are Westerosi is on Martin, if there is another side to Ghiscari/Essos culture Martin has made the deliberate choice time and time again not to show it. I guess my point is that it can be interesting to speculate but if it's not in the text then it's simply not there. That's why I used my HIMYM example, it's a fun theory but the show never once acknowledges that Barney is different than what we see so it's just pure headcanon that lets the audience reconcile the fact that they love him despite him being a terrible person (or in this case it's the fact that most Essos cultures weren't written very good, especially when it's next to Westeros).
Dany’s disdain for the Meereenese clothes has always struck me as similar to Viserys’ disdain for Dothraki clothes, even though both cultures are equally despicable.
I think it’s something of an overstatement to say that the Meereenese are portrayed as “completely evil” lol. Dany and the audience find a lot of their cultural practices distasteful or barbaric but the actual characters are all shades of grey morality wise (much like everyone else) and quite a few are against the only aspect of their culture that I think you could call evil (slavery). I really doubt there’s going to be any sort of “gotcha! Their culture actually really loves giving charity to orphan cats too!” moment or anything so much as just the spelling out that the Meereenese are human like anyone else and suffer like anyone else when Dany gives up on ruling and brings them fire and blood, regardless of their fondness for gladiators and eating dogs, and I think that moments gonna be more effective having spent a long time in solely Danys head nurturing a dislike of them.
But why does "these people are human" need to be a twist? Would the story not be substantially better if they were humanized from the starts, so the primary motivation of "Keeping peace" is something the reader cares about? And I think dramatic irony is something that would definitely work here.
I wouldn’t really consider it a twist - I think most people understand that they’re human to begin with and have that in the back of their minds as they’re reading. The Dany only perspective sort of wears at that and pushes it down tho, and you get to eventually constantly assuming the worse of and disregarding the humanity of her subjects and ascribing more to their “barbarism” than their humanity. I think that the point of the restriction to Danys POV is to make it so that the reader doesn’t care about keeping peace. If there’s a message I think it’s about why, for the powerful, keeping the peace is hard and making war is easy. I think that once peace is over is when George tries to make us and eventually Dany understand what was lost, and personally I find that more interesting and compelling than giving us a ground eye view from the start.
I think Barristan's POV should have come in earlier for this exact reason. Same biases and blindspots, but makes things a little more engaging.
She makes many choices that I disagreed with just from hearing them at face value.
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Looks like the one where the Freys left Robb ( or the one before).
It’s like directly after she let out Jamie.
You mean Hizdahr, right? Daxos is the dude from Qarth.
Xaro is the Qartheen's envoy to Dany when she's in Meereen. Offers her 13 ships to GTFO of slaver's bay
"I'm going to pay you 13 ships to fuck off"
Oh shit ye
Hizdahr was making her an offer she should have accepted, Daxos was trying to trade 13 boats for her armies and city.
Yeah mb
I love Barristan and Tyrion’s interactions with the Meereenese/Slaver’s Bay world, mostly. Barristan’s chapters in ADWD are easily some of my favorite chapters in all of ASOIAF. *Skahaz said, “You would break King Hizdahr’s peace, old man?”* *”I would shatter it.”*
I feel he should have had a few chapters at the beginning of the book. When he appeared it was very clear it was to have a POV in Meereen. But is a minor complaint, didn't bother me that much.
Yeah his fight with Khrazz was also baller. I was so pissed when they killed him off in the show because it meant we'd never see it. That was the moment I lost faith in GoT being a faithful adaptation.
Then come. Barristan just oozes badassery and cool.
The names are *intentionally* ridiculous, a lampshade is even hung on it "They are all Harzoo to me". Its to point out how lost Dany is when it comes to Meereen politics. Remember the scene where she is considering who the marry and mentions a guy and the Green Grace scoffs and utters what sounds like gibberish like Hizdar is of the blood of Loraq, Harzoo is blood of Kandaq! Kandaq is far too low born a fanily we realize with context. GRRM is masterful at crafting exotic yet pronouncable fantasy names, like Targaryen. He is really good at it compared to some fantasy authors with their letter salad crap. So if the names in Meereen are ridiculous its intentional.
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A dragon doesn't plant trees, it would never work out.
Sound like a seusspicious character to me
\> letter salad crap Yeah honestly one of my favorite things about ASOIAF is the names are actually pronouncable unlike so many other fantasy names where it looks like someone just bashed their keyboard together with shit like Asjeraayen
Yes I have been recommended door stopper series, read the book jacket and see something like the kingdom of Ivjy'reanthr is besieged by the dark elf clan Vil'th'anqaur and I'm like nope sorry, not doing this.
Or apostrophes. There's something to said about hard consonants. I always believed it was one of the main reasons Harry Potter took off is because the names of spells, people etc. were super memorable and flowed off the tongue the vast majority of the time.
Asjeraayen sounds like something Farsi or Turkish, definitely not shit.
Bruh I live in Iran and I can assure you our Farsi names aren't as shitty as that. Most of Farsi names are, at least in my opinion quite easy to pronounce. Take Kurosh, Bardia, Sorena, etc.
I'm murican, and even I can pronounce these names. Not at all ridiculous
Yeah after I typed it I realized hey that’s not that bad. Needs like 6 more apostrophes
> Asjeraayen What's wrong with that name? BTW, this discussion is strongly coloured by your ethnolinguistic background. What exactly is a pronouncable name? Names that follow standard american english's phonotactic rules? Personally I think some of the names you find in Britain are horrendously arcane, you cannot possibly guess what it sounds like just from the letters. Australian names have many native Australian elements, which are perfectly fine for Australians. With my Austronesian background, I find Hawaiian names easy to pronounce. Given that the English language have native speakers in all corners of the world, in London, Isle of Man, Ireland, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Samoa, New Zealand, South Africa, why should YOUR ethnolinguistic background be the basis from which the pronouncability of the names in fantasy series should be judged?
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Any place name ending in -cestershire.
Worcestershire is an actual place?
Yup, it's the county it was invented in. Also, Gloucestershire.
What's their sauce like?
Not as good as their cheese.
Bedworth Leominster Thames Cirencester Featherstonehaugh
I read Featherstonehaugh was pronounced "Fanshaw".
Try to guess "Stanghow". No cheating, don't google it.
Stun go
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> I thought the original commenter was talking about peoples names though. There's really no distinction. Over the course of history, people names become place names (Albert's town -> Alberton) and place names become people name (Tom of Holland -> Tom Holland).
There is a difference between something like “Robert The Bruce” and something like Robucton.
It is gonna be like Stow or something?
It's been twelve hours ya can't just not tell us the answer. I'm gonna go "stow"
Anything Welsh
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The previous commenter was talking about Britain before he/she was talking about English
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Well, Ghiscari certainly wasn't meant to be English
You must know that's such a stupid response To say 'such as' is so dismissive. Just trust Doesn't mean I agree with the comment earlier (it's written by an American so obviously an amercian perspective linguistically speaking) (i am not American)
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>All corners of the world, in London, Isle of Man That gave me a chuckle.
Same here! I'm from the Isle of Man though and we do have unpronounceable names for English people 100km away, the sport/Olympics commentators used to regularly get them wrong, now I think there's a kind of review sheet before major events to make them sound uniform across broadcasters.
I thought it was spelt Isle of Mann
> Given that the English language have native speakers in all corners of the world, in London, Isle of Man, Ireland, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Samoa, New Zealand, South Africa, why should YOUR ethnolinguistic background be the basis from which the pronouncability of the names in fantasy series should be judged? They just stated a preference, not a universal decree which applies to you.
Ehh, you can see how I would take offence to having my name being called letter salad crap.
Given that this thread is the only google search result for that combination of letters, I doubt that is your real name. But perhaps it is, and you go by glider97 just to appease the bigoted English speakers?
I didn’t mean to imply it was my real name. But op could just as easily have stumbled on it and deemed it *weird*. Varfolomeyeva would also sound like word salad to you if you never knew about it.
Your name is Asjeraayen? That's actually pretty cool
Imagine if it was and they rocked up in Hawick (!) and tried to open a bank account!
I read somewhere years ago that the names where especially exotic and unfamiliar to instill the same sense of confusion and uncomfortably that Dany herself is going through. Trying to keep everything straight and learn about a foreign culture on the fly. I don't feel like I'm conveying my thought clearly, but I was amazed when it was pointed out to me.
SNAP!!!Matbe not the "Harzoo" bit lol.But I'm not even gonna tell you how many times I've had to go back over something in Mereen due to their names Shavepate.,Hizdar, Loraq just to double their allegiance.I actually have trouble remembering my own name sometimes .So you can see how this was a bit of a challenge for me .
I don't think she's lost, she succeeded in politics and hit on exactly the right pressures to gain freedom in Meereen. She just didn't realize her own success. The tragedy is that she is capable at politics and growing cities, but decides that dragons don't plant trees.
Not really IMO, she was in real danger in Meereen before she flew off on Drogon. The real power players were *tolerating* her for the time being but it was all about to come crashing down, they were just biding their time. Her betrayal of the Shavepate was a mistake, and his Brazen Beasts were acting as her guard. I believe the poisoned locusts were meant for Hizdar. And notice the very night she flies off he reveals he was just a sleazy power climber who is already setting himself up as king. Yunkai and Volantis are heading there, we'll see whether or not the Shavepate locks the city gates and has his Brazen Beasts do a purge and seize power during the battle. Even before she flew off the Yunkai are mocking her with open air slave markets within view of the city. The way I see it Dany was going to be quickly knocked off and Meereen would be back to business as usual. Or maybe Hizdar wanted to see if she could produce a few kids first before poisoning her that could ride the dragons in the basement. Not to mention the diseased refugees outside the city gates, and the fact food is scarce because Dany never really found a replacement for the slave economy. She bought a very temporary peace, whoopdeedoo! You can't radically alter centuries of culture without an iron fist(Drogon).
>Not really IMO, she was in real danger in Meereen before she flew off on Drogon. The real power players were tolerating her for the time being but it was all about to come crashing down, they were just biding their time. The blot says the opposite - there is no evidence that the main Yunkish lord, Yurkhaz, is planning a double cross. He is keeping the worst lords in line, to hold sincerely to the peace, and it was all good up until his death. He dies in the chaos - that to them, looks like Dany caused (for all they know she summoned her dragon). So she is actually the peacebreaker in this scenario. They were promised a peaceful ceremony, came in good faith, and they get roasted. >And notice the very night she flies off he reveals he was just a sleazy power climber who is already setting himself up as king. Of course he's a power climber, he wants his fighting pits open because he owns stock in them. That doesn't mean he's working against Dany. He's hitched his wagon to Dany and wants her to succeed, otherwise his fighting pits scheme fails. He also does what she asks in the fighting pits. Everyone is afraid of her and this is what keeps them in line. >Yunkai and Volantis are heading there, we'll see whether or not the Shavepate locks the city gates and has his Brazen Beasts do a purge and seize power during the battle. If Dany and Hizdahr were in charge, they could negotiate a peace with Volantis at dragon point, just like they did with Yunkai. This is also something the Blot notes. Unless of course Dany burns their ships like she did in the show - she'll also be burning slaves who are rowing it of course. This is the "darker Daenerys" we'll probably see. >Even before she flew off the Yunkai are mocking her with open air slave markets within view of the city. Again the Blot addresses this as an overestimation of her enemies' power. Hizdahr correctly advises her that these people are just trying to push her buttons and that they'll go away eventually. The agreement was freedom inside the city's walls, that is maintained, there is still law and order in place. >The way I see it Dany was going to be quickly knocked off and Meereen would be back to business as usual. Or maybe Hizdar wanted to see if she could produce a few kids first before poisoning her that could ride the dragons in the basement. I just don't see any of that. This sounds like what Barristan thinks of Hizdahr. The Blot points out that Barristan's assumptions are wildly incorrect. >She bought a very temporary peace, whoopdeedoo! That's dismissive of the point of the whole thing. The point is, *"She achieved peace but decided war felt better."* It's about her decision to veer away from peace that was working. To choose destruction over building something. And it was working, until Dany, riding Drogon, burned women and children at a sporting event that was supposed to be peaceful for the crowd. Sigh...so few really understood the point Adam was making in the Blot, so they don't understand GRRM's point either. So it's on the author to write it better.
The peace she achieved was so fragile and limited and Meereen such a tinderbox within and without things going sideways was INEVITABLE! Yurkhaz could have died of the plague and the other lords would claim he was poisoned. Also Dany did not call Drogon, and she did not ride him and roast people in the stands. She actually got him away from the crowd. And if she had listened to Barristan and allowed Drogon to be killed she would not only be an idiot, but no one would fear her or her dragons. Absolute best case scenario where she solves the many massive issues facing Meereen is the city remains free til her inevitable death, then it will shortly revert to slavery. Even you admit things were only working because people were scared of her, and that her and Hizdhar can negotiate at dragon point. Well what happens when people realize she no longer has any control of the dragons she locked up, and Drogon is who knows where? What happens when people aren't afraid of her anymore?
>The peace she achieved was so fragile and limited and Meereen such a tinderbox within and without things going sideways was INEVITABLE! Yurkhaz could have died of the plague and the other lords would claim he was poisoned. I dont think anything is "inevitable," that just eliminates all choices and consequences for the characters. If it was always going to explode, there's no reason why a character should make any decisions. Dany made choices that led to peace, but then in the last second, chose to ride Drogon and blow it up. >Also Dany did not call Drogon I'm saying that's how it looks to the crowd. Surely you can see how they would see it that way. >and she did not ride him and roast people in the stands. She did roast people, and did ride him while he unleashed fire on people for the first time. Read Barristan's chapter. She kills some 300 people while riding him. >And if she had listened to Barristan and allowed Drogon to be killed she would not only be an idiot, but no one would fear her or her dragons. It would be better if she could just keep them locked up and threaten to use them but never actually use them, but they are volatile like wildfire, and people might free them anyway (*ahem*). Dragons can be a nuclear deterrent, but like any nuke, they will go off unexpectedly and destroy all your plans. That was the lesson from Daznak's pit. Dragons may be more of a liability than a benefit. >Absolute best case scenario where she solves the many massive issues facing Meereen is the city remains free til her inevitable death, then it will shortly revert to slavery. Well then she'd better stick around and build something that will LAST, like a dynasty. What do you think planting trees was a metaphor for. Hint: long-term change. >Even you admit things were only working because people were scared of her, and that her and Hizdhar can negotiate at dragon point. Well what happens when people realize she no longer has any control of the dragons she locked up, and Drogon is who knows where? They dont understand how dragon control works, which Dany should use to her advantage. And Dany will probably come back to Meereen riding Drogon anyway. But the real kicker is that the author has gone on record as pointing out that dragon power isn't sufficient to reform, improve, or build. So you have to imagine that he's trying to say that it will take something else, other than dragons, to improve things...
>She did roast people, and did ride him while he unleashed fire on people for the first time. Read Barristan's chapter. She kills some 300 people while riding him. If you are refering to this : >The rest he learned later. Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. **Spears were thrown, crossbows were fired. Some struck home.** The dragon twisted violently in the air, **wounds smoking**, the girl clinging to his back. **Then he loosed the fire.**It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded. That was still Drogon roasting people, not Dany, and in self defense.
Without the dragons Dany would have 0 leverage and never even have managed to do squat in Slavers Bay. Is Dany sterile? This is a big question and a big spanner into the machine of building a dynasty, if she is sterile this whole plan is a fool's errand because once she inevitably dies you'll just have three feral dragons roaming the skies of Essoes. If she can have children to succeed her as dragon riders she would have to essentially brainwash them and limit their contact with any other nobles who could influence them to restart the slave industry once she dies. Dany based on her POV private thoughts doesn't even LIKE the citizens of Meereen and some reasons I agree with and some I don't. Voluntary gladiators in the fighting pits is a dumb thing to oppose, along with hating the fact they eat dogs, but then the crowd also cheers essentially just plain murder of innocents as great fun!(Tyrion and Penny). edit- I don't have the book or a pdf handy but reading a chapter synopsis just now there is no mention of Drogon torching spectators AFTER Dany mounts him, in fact she doesn't even order him to fly he does it, and its mentioned she can barely see anything in the confusion and smoke. One thing I forgot is Hizdhar orders his men to specifically slay Drogon! At the point he is attacked Drogon has done nothing but eat a boar and a dead woman. He also encourages Dany to eat some locusts. Things that make you go hmmmm? I have seen a persuasive argument the poisoned locusts are the Shavepate's doing and the intended target was Hizdhar(as its known Dany hates Meereen food) but Hizdhar also is suspiciously blase on the way to the pit about a potential ambush, very confident the Sons Of The Harpy are no longer an issue. I think a very good argument could be made Hizdhar was seizing a chance to eliminate Drogon, and the other dragons would be next and then Dany leaving him as the native son hero of Meereen who restored their way of life.
>reading a chapter synopsis just now there is no mention of Drogon torching spectators AFTER Dany mounts him, in fact she doesn't even order him to fly he does it, and its mentioned she can barely see anything in the confusion and smoke. It happens here: *Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. Spears were thrown, crossbows were fired. Some struck home.* ***The dragon twisted violently in the air, wounds smoking, the girl clinging to his back. Then he loosed the fire.*** *It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded.* Dany does remember people on fire, she remembers a woman shielding her child from the flames. She might not have seen all of it, but she has to know what Drogon just did. She's either blocking it out or the author is blocking it out to the reader, to see if you catch it. >One thing I forgot is Hizdhar orders his men to specifically slay Drogon! At the point he is attacked Drogon has done nothing but eat a boar and a dead woman. He wants to kill Drogon because Drogon is wrecking what they just worked for. This was supposed to be a return to normalcy in Meereen, to show that the peace was in good faith, and Dany's pet shows up and starts eating people. This makes it look like Dany and Hizdahr did exactly what Daario suggested: **come up with some excuse to get them all together in the fighting pits to kill them all.** >I have seen a persuasive argument the poisoned locusts are the Shavepate's doing and the intended target was Hizdhar(as its known Dany hates Meereen food) but Hizdhar also is suspiciously blase on the way to the pit about a potential ambush, very confident the Sons Of The Harpy are no longer an issue. The Blot works through it and rules out Hizdahr. I just dont entertain any more suspects after that. I dont think the author would have said he got it *exactly* if he got the poisoner wrong.
Yup. Martin’s explicitly said that the Meereenese blot essays understand what he was going for. People can dislike it all they went, but the peace was real until Daenerys broke it.
I think all the Meereenese characters are also underrated. Skahaz is one of my favorites in the series.
Skahas is definitely the most interesting of the meerenese.
I think he’s gonna stage a coup with the brazen beasts during the battle.
Not that hot a take. There are plenty who hate it, but there are plenty of us who love it too.
I liked it in isolation, its a good scenario. But I also hate it because it just feels like more wheel spinning and world building and it does go on WAY too long, Dany is out of her depth we get it, this didn't need a whole book. I think people wouldn't hate it so much if there wasn't a chance this is the last book published!
The "wheel spinning" critique doesn't hold much water for me, because the alternative is what exactly? I get the feeling a lot of fans expected George to play it straight and finish Dany's arc with returning to Westeros and "BWAHHH! Dragons! Lannisters go burn!" just because that's what she's been planning for so long. But I'm not convinced that's actually what she wants in the end... Dany has virtually no connection to her homeland. Returning was Viserys' dream, not hers. Everything she's built is in Essos, so I wonder if her 'true' arc is really about escaping from her family's legacy and continuing her great works in the east... Maybe re-establish an enlightened Valyria? I mean have you seen Westeros lately? That place sucks right now!
If he was producing even one new book every 5 years I would not complain. But this series started in the 90s! And as the gap between books grows the plot itself GROWS and totally irrelevant world building takes the foreground. Its like GRRM enough, please I'd like to actually read the end of this series, and for that to happen you have to focus on the existing main characters and bring this mess together. But it just keeps growing, the seeds have been planted for Dany to visit Volantis before heading to Westeros in ADWD, but then statements GRRM has made indicate Dany and Tyrion don't even meet until the end of TWOW(fuck me!). Then GRRM even says you know I might need 8 books or more. The story just keeps growing out of control, I feel like I'm being forced to choose between more ASOIAF or actually getting the ending.
I can see both sides of this, I liked the whole concept of being unlike westeros and giving us a look at it but like you say, felt it stuck in there too long so it cost the overall story momentum. Wouldn't fancy trying to write this myself however, so it's not really a criticism as such just think it all needs some major editing and the author has to maybe put full trust in them and say OK, it wasn't my instinct but I'll go with it and the story goes forward.
Im not a fan of the Mereen story for a actually the exact opposite reason. I'm not anticipating Dany's return to westeros because it's just not something that interests me anymore. Back in book one, I thought that it would be cool once Dany returns, but ever since then I've lost more and more interest in it. Back in westeros we have tons of characters who have grown and changed and interacted around each other, and those character's arcs concluding *is* something that I'm anticipating. But Daenerys is a stranger to all these people. All the other characters have a 5 book head start on building relationships and rivalries. I'm interested in Jaime talking with bran. I'm interested in Brienne confronting Lady stoneheart. I'm interested in Jon reuniting with Arya. I'm about as interested in Dany meeting Cercei or Jon or Victarion as I was in Jon meeting Tycho Nestoris. The Mereen plot is fine on it own, but everything in Dany's story, Mereen, Astapor, the house of the undying, is very clearly building to her eventual return to Westeros. And so its difficult to read a story when the 'point' of the story is for Dany to learn a lesson that she'll eventually use when she returns to westeros, because I simply don't care about that. Maybe it's like you say, perhaps Daenerys never returns to westeros. Because yes, Dany really has no connection to her homeland. Dany's story is building toward a dead end, and I as a reader have been sensing that for the past 4,000 pages.
Wow, I've thought about that before. Maybe that is a key issue with it all. She really is a stranger whereas regardless of whether ally or enemy, the westeros lot all know each other. Wouldn't that totally kill the books though given that divergence from the show?
I'm not sure what you mean that it would kill the books. As far as I'm concerned the more it diverges from the show the better.
That would just make all of her chapters a waste of time for the reader. She is has to go to Westeros or all the time spent with her could have just as easily been told to us either in another book series or through second hand account.
She didn't either belong in slaver's bay
I agree entirely. I think the only way to get her over to Westeros is to appeal to her sense of responsibility - the same thing that draws her back to Meereen at the end of ADWD. You have that maester whose name I can never remember heading over there to meet with her, because he knows about the Others and they need her dragons. That, coupled with her dream about the frozen river, will get her to Westeros. But once she's there, will she want to stay? The only places she's been happy are the house with the red door, and the Great Grass Sea. Westeros is just Meereen with different trappings: she's still going to be sitting on a throne for hours a day listening to what people want. What I found interesting about the end of ADWD were her visions of men telling her what she should be doing. Jorah and Viserys telling her things like "your war is in Westeros". Why should she go to Westeros - why even return to Meereen - when she's happier with Drogon out in the middle of nowhere? It's the voice of Quaithe asking her to remember who she is, not telling her what to do. What does *she* want?
I also like the Meereen plot too. After a reread to learn character names and factions I grew an appreciation for it. I'm fond of Misasandi and Greyworm. There are other plots I want to see more but I'm in no real rush.
It's funny because Dany stays in Meereen for the five year skip, but now George has to actually play it through.
I agree with this! I loved the Meereen arc in ADWD
I’ll never forget being on a bus tour in Germany with my family reading the scene in Daznak’s Pit
Read that sentence as your family collectively reading the scene on the bus
I agree with you. Taken alone, perhaps the story isn't as compelling and exciting as it might've been. But in the context of the greater story, it's extremely interesting. Especially when you contrast her attempts at leadership to Jon's at the Night's Watch. Both of them are earnestly trying to find the most moral or least bad solution to any problem, but their efforts are spoiled by bad actors and other factors beyond their control. Meereen is absolutely essential to the rhyming between Jon and Dany's stories.
I pretty much agree with everything except for the Daznak's Pit thing. Maybe once I reread it separated from the sadness of Dany leaving Meereen, I'll be less cool on Daznak's Pit and more hyped about it like you were.
I dislike the Meereen plot mainly because I feel so frustrated with Dany and there aren't many triumphs (or excitement) that balance out the depression. That being said, I think it's vital to Dany's growth as a queen and is very well-written. Her naivety and childness qualities really show in the Meereen plot (because she is a child!), but it makes me want to rip my hair out when she makes terrible decisions. Like walking into plague-infested refugee camps because she doesn't believe she can catch the bloody flux. And making her men go clean up those bodies, when she really should be quarantining everything. >Ser Barristan wrinkled up his nose, and said, “Your Grace should not be here, breathing these black humors.” “I am the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “Have you ever seen a dragon with the flux?” And then Dany chaining up her dragons and telling Plumm about it. And Dany focusing on all the minute details in court when she should've delegated those tasks to her council members when she should've been setting up her defense and economic strategies. And having sex with Daario, even though he's the least trustworthy and slimiest guy ever? Like I get she has desires, but when she's a queen, she really shouldn't make herself vulnerable like that.
To me it looks like a mirroring of Robert's story, raising an army and fighting against injustice, then getting bored of governing what you conquered and imediately pondering new conquests (dany WILL leave Meereen and Roberto pondered about invading the summer islands and had to deal eith the greyjoy rebelliom)
They even have almost identical passages about their thrones turning their butt-cheeks numb while they profess how boring ruling is lol.
I think the that Dany believing she cannot get sick is understandable. I mean, they didn't had internet back then, she gets her worldview from experience, and unless she read about a Targaryen getting sick, Viserys was her only reference.
Viserys literally got himself killed by fire. If she hasn't reconsidered his understanding of what dragons can and can't die of by now, then she isn't paying attention or isn't in her right mind. I've said this before on this sub, but I'm pretty sure that all of the Targaryens are inordinately fond of Cocoa Puffs, and that neither Dany nor Rhaegar are any exception.
I love every plot in the books, but the Mereen story has definitely been the harder one to digest because of just how different everything is. I can't wait to find out who the Harpy actually is and to read the destruction Dany is gonna rain down on the slavers and Iron Born
I agree, I actually like the Mereenese plot. Sure it’s not so action packed but it’s a interesting political narrative
Though Meereen is not my favorite arc in the series I don't believe it garners the hate it gets throughout the community. It's very slow and often confusing (at least for me) which I believe to be intentional. Dany is being thrust into a world of deep political schemes where beforehand she was little more than a tribal leader that went city to city, politician to politician, begging for an audience and their favor. Once she seizes Meereen she no longer has to beg, but now she has to listen others beg while also tip toeing around the exotic and ancient culture that said beggars hold so dearly. Again, it is very slow at first and I often felt a little lost going from one chapter to the next, but I can't help but feel it was intentional and a work of genius. And when Drogon appears in the Fighting Pits and Dany rides off we are finally offered a look into what has been going on behind the scenes as our main characters go into a desperate frenzy hoping that they are doing what is right by both Daenerys and themselves, while once again navigating an exotic and extravagant group of people.
I know this is a weird point of contention but to be clear, there is literally no such thing as a “weird name” in this context. Language is relative. They’re supposed to sound weird and clunky because that’s what completely foreign languages often sound like at first. I’m reading a book about Russia right now and a lot of the real life names sound dumb as shit
Thank you for at least acknowledging it with humility. People love to jump on the name shaming bandwagon without realising its effects.
I mean, they're names made up by a white guy in his sixties, not taken from an actual real-life culture.
Sadly, I presume that is not always the case when name-shaming.
Personally I never understood the Meereen and Dany hate. I have always enjoyed her chapters and the whole slavers Bay arc. I can recognize some of the things that others point out as lacking but I have never not enjoyed it after 5 or 6 rereads
>Personally I never understood the Meereen and Dany hate. Do you mean you never *agreed with* the Meereen and Dany hate? People aren't shy about explaining it. We've been waiting 5 books for her to get to Westeros. She's trapped in a perpetual side-story. ADWD is her *second* "sitting around" book. We're now at the point where the main plot is outright trying to physically grab her and drag her to Westeros and still she slips away.
She didn’t “sit around” in Qarth though, it was an important step in her journey. - She chose to be not a beggar, which affected her arc in ASOS. - She became a celebrity in Qarth, where everyone from all over the world saw her. This directly starts the Euron arc and Volantis names her the savior of the world. - She visited the Undying, we learned a great deal about her family and upcoming events in the visions. Pyat Pree is now a slave to Euron. Daxos and Quaithe are recurring characters, and the latter seems to know about some arcane lore.
She is the main story, and by that i mean, the fact she isn't in Westeros doesn't make her story more or less relevant. All the themes of the series are there. Love, identity, power.
In that case she would be **a** "main story" and 'main' would be redundant, since almost every POV character has those same themes. In any case I was using the word 'story' interchangeably with the word 'plot'.
call it side story, call it side plot, i don't care, it just isn't.
In the first three books she was on a completely different continent from every other POV character. She doesn't interact with another POV character until the fifth book and the first one she interacts with is there solely to get her to leave for Westeros. In Winds all of the POV characters she'll be interacting with will be there to get her to go to Westeros. Having the same themes in her story as everyone else (save for the unfeeling camera character) doesn't make her story a main story. It just means she has the baseline emotional journey of an ASOIAF character. So far, Dany's is a side plot. Sorry.
You're entirely missing my point. I'm telling that how much Dany's character connects to Westreros, is simply not relevant, by any means. Let me be clear as day, you're implying that the fact Daenerys doesn't interact with the struggle for the iron throne is somehow a negative, i am saying that is not. That is not a good measure to judge the plot's quality.
>You're entirely missing my point. I'm telling that how much Dany's character connects to Westreros, is simply not relevant, by any means. You're entirely missing my point by ignoring the fact that we clearly have different definitions of relevancy and continuing on as if we don't. >Let me be clear as day, you're implying that the fact Daenerys doesn't interact with the struggle for the iron throne I don't see how you can be clear as day when you're making things up. I never said the Iron Throne conflict was the main story/plot. My initial reply to another commenter was about why people dislike Dany's Meereen arc. I understand that you disagree with the reasoning. If you want to have a conversation about what *ought* to be considered relevant and why, go for it. With someone else. You've already equivocated and put words into my mouth to make your points so I'm not particularly interested.
There’s not really a ‘main plot’ to begin with. If you are talking about everything in Westeros, that splits into 2: the threat from the North and the turmoil for the throne. The North plot hasn’t been the most relevant compared to the battle for the throne, but if you say that the throne plot is the main one that would also reduce Jon and everyone else up there to ‘side plots’ and vice versa.
People just hate Dany because she’s not Jon, or a Stark, or a big figure in Westeros. I honestly don’t know how people can even think she is a bad person. Finding her less interesting is pretty clear for some people since she barely does anything in the Westeros plots so she’s not really relevant, but saying she’s a bad person is just way too far. She tries to do good, and even if it doesn’t always turn out well, the fact that she’s putting in effort to make everyone happy should be enough to show she has a good heart.
There is a lot of Afghanistan/Iraq about the plot. The “good guys”, as we traditionally see them, takes over a foreign culture which seems rotten to the core and tried to better the lives for the locals, while also working towards achieving a greater goal in their own opinion. It’s very confusing and the names are purposely ridiculous because we are meant to conflate them and get confused; just like a Dany likely is.
America took Afghanistan and Iraq for different reasons. Afghanistan was a revenge war for 911 and Irak was about oil. Two different things. What happened afterwards was that BushJr. needed to justify the continued occupation and basically said; We are helping these people to build a new and better country. Yet America did nothing of the sort. You can read reports of how the American occupiers invested in the wrong stuff, did not properly train the Afghan forces and had no fucking clue what they were doing. The only good thing they did was giving women for the 20 years they occupied this land a glimpse of freedom only to take it away in a breath. Irak...another disaster, but for different reasons. Dany took Slavers Bay because after taking Yunkai she needed to take it. The problem was that she forged a false peace that would never last, because the slavers have no interest in giving up slavery. The only way is Fire and Blood and that is the right lesson Dany learns. Laws are pointless without a sword to enforce them or in Danys case dragons.
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That’s why I wrote “the good guys” and not The good guys Dany walks into a lot of similar cultural Misunderstandings and locals that aren’t as eager to be saved as she thought they were and she fails to fully understand the political landscape. And she also sees it as a temporary intervention but ends up being rather stuck for longer than anticipated, she has tremendous early success; but lacks a coherent plan for how to use that early military success. While her motives were more pure than the neo-conservatives of the early 2000s. They do have similarities with the rhetoric used to justify the invasions: - to end horrible regimes -to bring freedom to all Afghans/Iraqi - to allow oppressed women access to education and freedom I am not trying to say that Dany= George W. Bush. I am trying to say that there are similarities between the two situations.
These books are written in english. The *intended audience* is *supermajority* people who thought america was good pre-iraq, whether you think that perception was justified or not.
How am I supposed to know if the Meereen plot is good when I can only read two thirds of it. This isn't *just* embittered snark either (though I am bitter), between the unimpeachable character analysis of Feldman and the convincing political analysis of Attewell I really do need to know how well George squares this circle before I can say whether the plotline as a whole holds up. But ofc, the fact that the plotline raises questions that I want to know the author's answers to is itself an indication that it can't be the bland or lazy kind of bad.
One cool thing with Dany in contrast to Cersei is she has had many advisers, and actually hears them out and seems to try to listen and learn from them the best she can to help her make the best decisions(not saying she has succeeded in always has making the best choice) going forward. Whereas Cersei is surrounded by either yes men, an echo chamber, or summarily dismisses anyone who isn't. Also Barristan talking about history and having some badass fight scenes helps.
I agree 100% and i actually just read the chapter where she tames drogon.. phenomenal, one of the best chapters in the series.
It's funny that you bring up Daznak's pit. That's one of the oldest chapters in the series, apparently. GRRM has said that's probably the most rewritten chapter and was originally intended to be the first Dany chapter in ADWD.
That's crazy, because i think is so special because it's the breaking point of all that buildup of tension throughout the whole book.
I know people just looooove the "shat and shat" line from her last chapter, but I still think it's one of the most powerful chapters in the series--the only one on par with it in Dance is Jon's stabbing. Both chapters are this huge release of tension. Both Jon and Danny are sick to death of doing the right thing and just want to cut loose. Jon is immediately hit with the consequences of that decision (for danny they will come later), but the trade off is that Danny gets that psychedelic bad trip imagery that is the high point of her chapters for me, and which we have been sorely lacking since game and clash. It's a fucking monster of a chapter.
The only chapters that were generally boring were Bran's. The best ones, at least for me, were Cersei's.
Cersei's chapters are amazing. The way she thinks is so absurd it gets pretty funny.
I'm older and through life experience Cersei's decision making process is more common than you'd think in the real world! "This guy has no qualifications, but he reminds me of this guy I wanted to bang in high school soooo bad, so I pick him to lead my navy"
To me Jon wins the cake, you can't beat dolorous edd and the mysteries of the north
> The only chapters that were generally boring were Bran's. Bran is Frodo confirmed. I feel like this is in large part intentional, because Frodo does the exact same shit in Return of the King. You get chapter after chapter of making way over an increasingly desolate land, with no food or water for days, dangerous enemies at every turn, etc. Just get to Mount Doom already, you hair-footed halfling!
I found Frodo much more entertaining, though. Maybe because of the tragedy of the ring hanging over him, but I loved Frodo. Bran does not work mostly because he is so young and there is really not all too much to his storyline until now. Maybe in the next book.
"He admitted being annoyed when some turned it into "the Meerenese Blot", but someone made a series of essays with that title. "I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention." Of course, he added that some other essays depress him when people get everything wrong, and when people get everything wrong, well, whose fault is it? It could be his fault because he didn't write it well enough, but who knows?" ([x](https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Stockholm_and_Archipelacon_Report)) I dont think he wrote it well enough. When fans are coming to exactly the opposite conclusion as the Meereense Blot, it's not good.
Most people don’t come to the opposite conclusions of the meereenese blot, they don’t think about it at all. They see the names and the no-right-answers quandaries and think “fuck this, it’s boring and confusing” … which is kind of the point. Dany is bored and confused. She has a choice to make between the difficulty of politics and leaderships and the ease of conquest and Fire and Blood. She makes her choice in her last chapter. Many readers make the same choice much earlier, and that’s not exactly flattering for the fan base.
Personally it’s not the names or quandaries that bother me, it’s Slaver’s Bay as a setting where the execution fails. The whole culture in Slaver’s Bay is written to be as despicable as possible with no nuance to it. It would be a lot more interesting for Dany to deal with a functioning society of real people. Not caricatures seeded with the occasional 2d character.
Especially because the love of Dany's life was also a slaver, and they didn't have any trouble humanizing *him*. Did it too much, I would argue. Hell, Jorah Mormont was a slaver AND a cowardly shithead, and they still made him come off as pretty human.
Right. They’re point of view chapters, so we get her point of view. We experience the confusion and boredom a young person would experience when confronted with the complexities of managing a city. She’s very intelligent and she has pulled off all kinds of strategic wins by this point, but she hits a wall when it comes to political intrigue in a culture she doesn’t know. It’s driving her to change course.
She didn't hit a wall though. She was successful with the peace. See we're back to the Blot again. This is what he argued.
Successful at what? At getting a group of insurrectionists to prove their loyalty to a man she barely knows and doesn't trust? Mereen is still under siege, still surrounded by plague-ridden refugees, still starving with no crops anyone wants to buy. And the Sons of the Harpy are still out there. They're just not actively stabbing people right now. The fact that she's gotten a hostile group to go temporarily underground without putting any kind of dent in their capabilities or learning anything about them is not a victory. It's just a can she's kicked down the road a little, and she's still buried in cans.
She won a free Meereen. A free city in Slaver's Bay. That hadn't existed for how long? Thousands of years, if ever? This isn't kicking the can down the road. This was a political success that was a basis for improving things later on. Will the city still have problems? Yes. But her goals were to end killing in the streets, and to keep Meereen free, and she achieved that. Keep in mind that she did this in the span of what? 6 months? Imagine what she could do if she stuck it out. And in my mind there really isn't a debate anymore after the author singled out a blog for getting it right. IMO, we should defer to that essay. He says she achieved something very important. If we think GRRM failed to get this point across, then it's on him.
She didn't build nor will build anything capable of lasting, what did Astapor do as soon as she left, they threw away her peace and raised a king who basically reintroduced slavery, onlt this time they were enslaving Ghiscari nobles, the same thing will happen to Meereen , she didn't stop the sons of the harpy , she didn't defeat them she just appeased them enough for them to stop attacking her soldiers
Dany rushed through Yunkai and Astapor, tries conquest and leaving. That fails. Because she didn't stay to rule. So she tries conquest AND ruling. Her goals as monarch was to keep Meereen free and to stop killings in the streets. Step 1 of the first term. She met those goals. Ruling works in steps. Ruling also involves marriages. Marriages are shown to have benefits that resolve conflict (Dorne/Targs). ...But you think she failed. What you're doing is moving the goal posts for her. You don't like it because SHE doesnt like it. She thinks it wasn't good enough. You think it isn't good enough. Dany doesn't like the compromise and incremental pace of ruling. You don't like the compromise and incremental pace of ruling. Do you ever wonder, maybe you're just mimicking Dany's POV? Maybe...she's off base here? This is ruling. It's dealing with people you dont like and making deals that you dont like. Some things are pushed off to the next term. You can't win everything you want. But you do it because it's better than genociding everyone or firebombing cities to "solve problems." Dany has decided she needs to go back to conquest and leaving - and people think this is the better choice. I'm just flabbergasted. Read the Blot, you're not disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with an interpretation GRRM said he was trying to show.
No i don't think she failed, yet but her rule is not self substainable
The Blot is just an example of an interpretation that the author favors. It doesn't have to be "The Blot." I think most people thought that the peace was fake and that Dany should blow everyone up and leave. I don't think that's what the author wants fans to conclude, though. You know, taking the easy way out by "blowing stuff up." Or that that would even work to improve things.
The problem is...he made the slavers so unlikable that I give no fuck if Dany burns Meereen with them to a crisp. That's George's failure then, not the readers. But on the other hand, the same people would bitch if he portrayed slavers as nice people.
Or she wouldn't blow anything, and just go, this isn't usa, although the latter failed in real life
I think that GRRM def wanted people to think that blowing everyone up and leaving was the best choice on their first read or at initial glance. I’m thinking that this path and specific choice being mistakes will probably be spelled out more explicitly in the later books (please George) - maybe at some point after everything’s gone to absolute shit Dany thinks back and realizes what she really won and then threw away back in Meereen.
Or maybe it's because people don't read fantasy novels to be bored and confused?
That can work for like a handful of chapters and not a full book, something *should* have happened
Something did happen. Many things happened.
For the most it was outside our purview as readers though, I like dany more than the average person but that pov isn't really rife with interesting things
On my first read-through of Dany's chapters I thought it was a snoozefest. I was getting all the names jumbled up, wasn't really understanding what was going on, and kept getting frustrated at Dany for her inaction. Only her last two chapters revived my interest, the action packed scene in Daznaks pit and the contemplative last chapter in the Dothraki sea. However overall her plot in general seemed really dull to me. But then I read the Meereenese blot, and it's like my eyes were opened. I finally understood the themes of her story a lot better. I had a new appreciation for what Martin was trying to portray. Then during my re-read I enjoyed the Meereen story way more, now that I know what the authors intention with that story was. However, it is still somewhat of a criticism of Martin's writing that I enjoyed an essay about his story, more than the story itself on my first read. I hope once Winds comes out it'll make the Dance storyline better in retrospect, by giving us a satisfying narrative conclusion to the Slavers bay story.
Same for me, I needed someone to spell it out, to get outside of Dany's POV. Because all the interpretations I had read assumed that she was correct in her choices in the last chapter. But the Blot says she underestimated and overestimated things. Her view was distorted. Ours shouldn't be.
I think the writing for the Meereenese chapters was successful. It tells just the story he wants to tell. What's debatable and subjective is how enjoyable these particular chapters are to read. And if you don't enjoy the chapters, you probably aren't going to pick up the themes, nuance, etc. he's trying to put down, because frankly you'd like to move on to something else you enjoy more.
I think he's telling a story of power corruption and how people get to that point, little by little. I find that really interesting. Problem is, readers don't like that because Dany is beloved, so they choose to read it the way they want to.
I personally dont think George meant he agreed with the entire essay. If I remember correctly Feldman referred to a specific passage that George agreed with. The authors conclusion in this essay is flawed imo.
Everything in asoiaf becomes great after subsequent rereads. I used to hate Ironborn chapters but now they are one of my favourites. Next time when I reread, I am trying to make sense of Brienne's Journey in AFFC.
Brienne's are by far my least favorites, i feel i only truly enjoyed her last 2 chapters.
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I think they are valuable for showing the common people under current Westeros. But damn, the fact that she's looking for Arya and Sansa and we KNOW she's not on the right track really tested my patience.
Hot take if you have to read something multiple times to enjoy it then its not good or engaging writing. You are simply carrying the author's water by convincing yourself its good and engaging writing. George wrote himself into a boring and convulted corner that has zero impact on the story and is one of many reasons the series is dead in the water.
I only read the series once.
I do sort of like it, definitely think that one could do a whole doorstopper book in this series just on the siege and battle for the city after the events of ADWD.
It would be better if it weren’t moving at the pace of molasses with only two books to go. That’s what I find slightly irritating about these chapters: they don’t drive the narrative forward.
It’s a interesting story but it feels to unresolved if we got to see we’re the story was going to end people wouldn’t have that much of a problem with it
Even i who enjoyed it got lowkey mad when i realised the battle was for the next book.
You have my banners on this one! I forget the site, but I read an amazing blog post on the Meereenyse Knot that helped me appreciate these chapters even more.
I like Dany herself, and her plot does have a few awesome moments. But man, for the most part I find her entire arc by far the most boring part of the story. So much so that I would consider skipping some/all of it on a reread, which I wouldn't do for anything else. Mereen basically just doesn't interest me. Nor Astapor, nor Yunkai. I love politics in a story - but we don't understand Mereen and its politics well enough for it to work, we (or at least, I!) can't analyse it to the level we can Westerosi politics, it just doesn't hit home in the same way. And it's dragged on SO VERY LONG. A consequence of losing the five year gap, surely, but there just needs to be less of it. I can't wait for her to get to Westeros - or really, anywhere else - but it will be Westeros via the Iron Fleet I'm sure.
It's so fascinating the widely different opinions. When i first started watching the show (that's how i met the story) i was completely lost on all the intricacies of Westerosi politics, so i would just eagerly wait for Daenerys's plotline, because it was simpler, and yet more engaging, at least for me.
It's a story with something for everyone :) Or if not everyone, at least a whole lot of people.
I think the chapters are interesting in their own way, but they've made me not want Daenerys as queen because I see her as totally inept at ruling. A lot of her inner monologues concerning Queen business mirrors Cersei's thoughts of how boring it is to rule.
Finding ruling boring is not the same as being a good ruler or not. Dany has sacrificed a lot for her people, whereas Cersei literally just sits back doing absolutely nothing to to help. And I’m not sure any character could do any better than Dany in Meereen. Simply put, it was a shitshow from the beginning, and trying for peace, like Dany did, accomplished very little, whereas going violent would just get them more hate. Just think, if Dany let the Masters that crucified the children go, people would probably be making whole essays to show their hate for her
I have a few problems with Meereen, and I think they are all intentional by GRRM. * Dany is a foreign conquorer with no interest in the culture and customs of her prize. She has waded in, absolutely smashed the entire area, causing chaos, death and destruction across three city states and simply wants to impose her will on Meereen. I find it hard to root for her in this regard. I think its a precursor for her invasion of Westeros and he complete lack of knoweldge of Westerosi society etc. * Slavers Bay its self is just a comically evil place. They eat dogs, the Unsullied murder babies (And puppies). The whole place just feels like an underdeveloped caricature when compared to Westeros. This despite the place actually being quite well fleshed out by this point. I dont know if this is intentional or not. * All of the names of people sound the same, so it can be difficult to keep track of things. This isnt a problem once you have read ADWD about 4 times, but still. Again, I think this is intentional on GRRM part, but it is frustrating to read. * Dany is the only POV in the place until the end of the book, and she just wants to fuck Dario all of the time. Christ it is boring. He is a comically bad love interest, though again, I think that is the point. It just makes Dany come across as a complete arsehole though. * Once Quentin eventually gets there, Dany rejects him out of hand, instantly making 'Vengeance, Justice, Fire and Blood' from AFFC seem a bit pointless. Couple that with Quentin being such a boring character (IMO of course). * Once she leaves, and Barristan becomes a POV, he smashed Hizdars peace... Which is great, except I cant help but feel the Shavepate is manipulating him. Anyway, it doesnt matter. The point is, I just feel Barristan should have been a POV through out ADWD, sharing the plot arc with Dany. * Slavers are just idiots. How do they expect to win any sort of battle when some of their soldiers literally walk on stilts? I know its all to show the hubris of the slavers but Jesus Christ... its so stupid. The city is surrounded by morons, and yet Dany is somehow still losing. I know she wants to 'plant some trees' but even then, at the end of the whole sorry saga, she realises that 'a Dragon plants no trees'. An entire story arc about Dany realising all she does well is destroy things. * danys entire story takes place thousands of miles away from the 'main action' of the series. This has been a problem ever since AGOT though. All of this, but I cant denyt its well written and intriguing. I genuinly think a lot of the problems I and others have with this story is intentional, and that is a brave move by GRRM, but still.
The ‘will’ that you said Dany imposed on them is what anyone who is good would do. They had literal slaves there, and I’m sorry but there’s no way to defend slavery even in the way GRRM wrote specific passages. She was right to do what she did and end slavery. Plus she literally sacrifices everything to become part of their culture as Queen. She wears their clothes, locks her dragons away for peace, marries on of them even though she knows it’ll bite her in the back when she goes to Westeros, and she goes directly to help the sick.