On Daenerys, Colonisation and Race Discourse within the ASOIAF Fandom
This has been on my mind for a good long while and honestly, as much as I would like to leave discourse in the pits, it has been bugging me intermittently over the past few weeks.
Far too many of you get on here and call people who like the fictional dragon-riding family, neo-Nazis and that sentiment is so prevalent, that white people feel comfortable telling me a black woman that I am a neo-Nazi for rooting for Daenerys Targaryen. I am upholding neo-Nazi power fantasies for wanting to see a little girl live at the end of a story. I am a neo-Nazi for wanting to see the rape survivor have the family she aches for and children with the man (or men) she loves.
Then, those same people go on spiels about how the systemic erasure of those who sing the song of the earth and other old races is not colonialism. That their removal from their home is not displacement but an agreement between two equal parties. The fact that the only place where those who sing the song of the earth exist in the present timeline is north of the wall, surrounded by the bones of their dead, is not a travesty. That the expulsion of the old races from their home isn't that bad and should not be condemned.
Instead, people argue, completely seriously, that the harm that the First Men and Andals have caused is centuries in the past, so essentially the slate has been wiped clean. The logical leaps that are required to arrive at such a boneheaded conclusion are truly mind-boggling, and those who make such arguments are not good people.
I am unsure how one could read those books and come away with the impression that the old races do not mourn the loss of their home. I am unsure how one could read The Last of the Giants[1] and Ygritte’s reaction to both the song and Jon’s dismissal of the ethnic cleansing of the giants then believe that the old races and the free folk have moved past their displacement.
In Westeros, from the Wall to the broken arm of Dorne, they all speak one language despite the fact they are all different ethnicities and they all landed on the shores at different times. That is not the case in Essos, we have been introduced to at least six languages and in A Dance with Dragons, Tyrion notes that the Valyrian spoken in the Free Cities has evolved into nine distinct dialects, and they are well on their way to becoming different languages.
How would a continent as large and diverse as Westeros maintain its hegemony over the people if not for forced assimilation, discriminatory practices and violence? The brutal repression required to keep one house in power for thousands of years is nothing to sniff at. The suppression required to keep the vast majority of Westeros worshipping one (or seven) gods. The systems in place ensure that language does not grow or evolve amongst the highborns at least.
Centuries before Aegon's Landing the maesters were the definitive educational authority and even now centuries after, nothing has changed. The grey rats still decide who learns what and when they learn it. There's one in every highborn home, all correspondence passes through them, they are the healers and the councillors.
The circular logic gets even more blockheaded when you factor in the fact that Daenerys is far from the only white character in the books. She is not the only character who wishes for home. She is not the only character who draws strength from her ancestors, her bloodline and her magical creatures.
Cersei draws strength from her family’s iconography, and the Stark children (Jon included) all draw strength from their direwolves, their home and their blood. Sansa, Arya and Bran wish to return home and their home was built on the indiscriminate murder and displacement of the indigenous peoples. Their home is built on centuries of rape, murder, exclusionary practices and sexual slavery.
However, if we give the nonsensical argument that time erases crimes air; the Starks, Lannisters and Tullys are warring to settle personal grievances in the present timeline. As a consequence of that war, thousands (a modest guesstimate) of small folk, minor nobles and even some major ones have been raped, tortured, maimed and killed.
Despite all this, no one writes meta after meta about how Sansa and her siblings must surely die for justice to be had for those who sing the song of the earth, the free folk, the giants and all the old races that fled beyond the wall.
People write meta about Cersei and how she must die, but those are typically more misogynistic nature. They typically argue that she must die not for the “crime” of being Lannister, but for the “crime” of being Cersei and “ruining” Jamie.
I would not mind criticisms of Dany and her peace-focused approach to ending slavery because the approach is naïve and she gives the slavers far too much ground. However, she is learning, growing and self-critiquing. At the end of A Dance with Dragons, she has decided to embrace fire and blood, her knight is breaking the false peace which is a necessary step forward.
What I find offensive is people saying that she should have planned better before she abolished slavery. And that the death, violence, and sickness that arises from her quest to eradicate slavery is somehow worse than the death, violence, and sickness that already existed in Slaver’s Bay.
This argument often downplays the horrific conditions and suffering that exist(ed) under the slave system in Slaver's Bay. Such arguments are often in poor taste and prioritise the lives and comforts of the slavers more than the people they have enslaved.
I would not mind criticisms of Dany if people applied that same critique even-handedly. The same people who believe that Jon and Bran have done much to rectify the evil that their ancestors perpetuated believe that Dany has not done anything to right the wrongs of her ethnic kin. They praise them for the non-existent steps that they have taken, but in the same breath, they condemn Dany for not being able to immediately end the plague that is slavery.
It is perfectly alright to not like fictional characters, no law requires you to like certain fictional characters over others. However, what is not right is making broad accusations about those who do, it is beyond the pale. It is disgusting, and annoying, and trivialises real-world issues to score cheap points against fictional characters.
Equating the survival of a teenage survivor to the restoration of a fascist house or neo-Nazi power fantasy when such designations do not exist in the world of ice and fire is strange behaviour. Saying that the teenage survivor will eventually be manipulated and raped (again) before ending up dead on her manipulator's blade is also strange behaviour.
Dismissing the horrors of colonialism, especially when the text shows you that the involved parties are still affected by it, is not normal and often veers into real-world imperialism apologia. While criticism and analysis of characters and their actions are valid and even encouraged, it is essential that we do not resort to sweeping generalisations about other people and that we keep criticisms of characters grounded in the text.
[1]
Ooooooh, I am the last of the giants, my people are gone from the earth.
The last of the great mountain giants, who ruled all the world at my birth
Oh, the smallfolk have stolen my forests, they’ve stolen my rivers and hills.
And they’ve built a great wall through my valleys, and fished all the fish from my rills
In stone halls they burn their great fires, in stone halls they forge their sharp spears.
Whilst I walk alone in the mountains, with no true companion but tears.
They hunt me with dogs in the daylight, they hunt me with torches by night.
For these men who are small can never stand tall, whilst giants still walk in the light.
Oooooooh, I am the LAST of the giants, so learn well the words of my song.
For when I am gone the singing will fade, and the silence shall last long and long.
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Events in the Odyssey, ranked by how often they show up in retellings and adaptations
I have read, watched, and listened to many an Odyssey retelling in my day (my day = the last month or so) and I have noticed some Patterns.
Iconic Odyssey Momence™
These are the defining episodes of the Odyssey. Every adaptation of the Odyssey HAS to have:
The lotus-eaters
The Cyclops
Poseidon is Angery
The sirens
Scylla and Charybdis
Mix-n-Match
If there is a little bit more time, a little bit more dedication to faithfulness, or a little bit more mature target audience, these are the important events that fill out the narrative:
Circe
Calypso
the bag of winds
Penelope weaves the shroud
the journey to the underworld
Odysseus returns home and murders the suitors
the Trojan Horse, if the reteller remembers that that story was actually relayed in the Odyssey
Deep Cuts
Really only the completionists include these:
Athena hangs out with Telemachus
Nausicaä
the men eat the sacred cattle of Helios (this is such an important moment in the poem and comes up in adaptations weirdly rarely)
Telemachus dicks around in Sparta
Literally nobody ever includes these
I had no idea these were a thing until I started reading the Odyssey:
raiding the Ciconeans on Ismarus
the Laestrygonians
Telemachus dicks around in Pylos
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plots based on the album ‘something to give each other’ by troye sivan. i will probably add more songs in the future but these three songs have been on my mind for days!
‘One of Your Girls’
muse a and muse b knew there was something between them from the moment they first met. muse a is openly straight— the intimate relationship he forms with muse b something he could never share with anyone. muse b falls for muse a quickly, however muse a is trapped in a cycle of meaningless hookups and loveless relationships to avoid confronting his true feelings for muse b. willing to sacrifice everything for muse a, muse b sits back and watches as muse a openly sees other people while keeping muse b as his little secret knowing he won’t leave. plenty of room for angst— daydreaming together of a universe where it’s them at the end of the day and everyone in their lives supports them, muse b wondering if he’s wasting his time or if muse a really will be with him one day, etc.
‘still got it’
muse a and muse b were in a serious relationship for (x) amount of years. for the entirety of their relationship they were fiercely loyal to each other, passionately in love, predicted to marry. something goes wrong; muse a changes everything muse b loved about them, moves into a new place that holds no memory of muse b, they do their best to leave behind every part of the person muse b loved. now they’re acting like two strangers in the same crowded room, two strangers who inevitably find themselves tipsy in the back of an uber together. hesitant touching and second guesses fill the silence between them for this never-ending ride, neither muse knowing where the night will end.
‘can’t go back’
muse a is a famous musician, muse b is their partner of (x) years who travels on and off the road with them. muse a is having the biggest performance of their career with muse b supporting them as always— however at some point during the weekend muse b cheats while they are supposed to be standing there in the audience (maybe getting too tipsy at the hotel bar pre-show, maybe he’s just a dick, tbd!) cheering their partner on. muse a finds out about the fair after a period of time and ends the relationship ignoring muse b’s pleading apologies, only to spend all of his time processing all of the hard feelings they hold on to. it doesn’t matter how hard they try, muse b is always back in their orbit at the end of the day as they find themselves tangled in a never-ending cycle of ‘this is the the last time’ and ‘i need you, i’m sorry.’
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⚅— New Friends Interaction Call —⚅
{My drafts are building up but this is something I've been wanting to do for quite a while now. I'm still really slowly trying to work my way into interacting with people I haven't dome much with yet, but I am still struggling with it, so this might help.}
{If we're mutuals and haven't interacted with each other before now, please give this post a like ❤ and I'll come to you with some type of interaction. It might be a random ask, a meme, a random starter, or I might just jump into your DMs to talk about our kids.}
{Additionally, if you have something specific in mind that you would like for me, just go ahead and reply to this post to let me know what it is you want.}
{Aaaand lastly, feel free to respond to this post even if we do regularly interact (if you want to, that is!). I am making this so I can break the ice with some of my mutuals that I haven't gotten much of a chance to interact with yet, but I do really love interacting with everyone and I want to hear from all of you!}
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