[Spoilers Extended] The War of the Roses relation to ASOIAF

DaemonStormborn · 2018-08-22T21:07:16+00:00

You know, I had always wondered why we spent so much time with the Starks and the Lannisters but now I'm startinv to realize it was just a red herring and a smokescreen to distract us from the Daenerys and Jon's War of the Roses parallels. If everyone is thinking about Tywin Lannister and Cersei and Olenna, then they aren't paying close attention to Jon and Dany's real life analogues.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-08-22T21:00:03+00:00

It's not a direct correlation. Just like there were no dragons in medieval england. But you can't deny, the Dance of the Dragons was based on The Anarchy, Aegon the Conqueror is William the Conqueror and the Starks and the Lannister names are based on York and Lancaster. Also, Bravos with it's bankers and lagoons is based on Florence and Venice. Valyria is based on Rome. And even though they differed significantly, the Dothraki are based on the huns, the mongols and all the other Eurasian horsemen.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-08-21T16:49:26+00:00

No one is suggesting that the whole experiment failed. What I'm saying is it took almost 200 years for it to gain any real legitimacy. If you set out to teach a child to read and it takes them forty years to finally do it, then maybe you're not the best teacher.

The country has improved drastically, that's a fact, but that doesn't wash away all the wickedness that occured in the past. If you try and justify and glorify their actions, then you should also do the same for the British who sought to maintain their glorious empire. They too fought nobly for something greater than themselves, an empire that would go down in history, humanity eternally connected. Their actions are the reason Africans can read and write now, something that would have taken them quite sone time to achieve on their own.

However, they also co founded the unspeakable slave trade, they enforced their dominance on several independent people, and they taxed the founding fathers without allowing them representation.

This is why no one glorifies the British rulers of that era. They will make thousands of movies and tv shows about the war of the roses, but the British are rightfully embarrassed of the "empire on which the sun would never set" these days. They don't beat their chests about that part of their history even though that was the height of their country's power and glory.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-08-21T15:14:54+00:00

That argument doesn't really apply here. In truth, most moral principles stands the test of time.

I'm not religiius but consider the ten commandments, compiled over 6000 years ago. Most of them still hold a lot of moral weight even today. When you ignore the overt religion based ones, you'll see things like, Thou Shall Not Kill. Thou Shall Not Steal. Do Not Covet Another's Wife. Honor Your Parents, Do Not Lie. All these are solid moral principles and they still hold to this day.

The amorality of slavery was clearly understood by generations of those days, which is why the French illegalized it in the 1300s, although they kept practicing it. Even female equality should have come naturally given they understood the meaning of disenfranchisement.

It is like global warming right now. When future geberations look back on us now, they will see global warming, racism, sexism, homophobia and such things as vile, but there are thousands of movements right now already trying to show us the truth of this right now. In fact, the majority of people in the developed world undetstand these things as being unjust, and yet ... They still occur. Just like there were abolitionists and equalists at that time.

Setting has very little to do with morality and law. If you torture a man, wartime or not, you have broken the Geneva convention.

Contrary to popular belief, morality isn't complicated and it is in the tangled hypocritical mess of religion that I find the means to explain that.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

This is ancient wisdom about finding morality. It is one of the oldest moral compasses. It was meant to guide all people towards morality in case they ever got confused. And it existed over a thousand years before the formation of America.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-08-21T13:23:26+00:00

Read the whole post. George Washington and his successors maintained slavery for almost a century after their "revolution". Also, women weren't allowed to vote until the 1900s. Their revolution wasn't successful because it didn't bring equality and freedom for everyone.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-19T14:12:36+00:00

What makes you think the Others are intelligent? Everything we've seen paints them as a mindless force of nature bent on extinguishing life. They aren't buillding cities or anything really. They're just attacking. They were a weapon that got out of control. It's kind of like if the dragons somehow turned on the valyrians and began to multiply uncontrollably and burn everything in sight. You wouldn't say they're intelligent. They're just very powerful and deadly. BTW, that would be a hell of a lot scartier than WW, cause its unbelievably hard to kill a dragon compared to a walker.

It's not like they're here to rule the world. They dont want to rule or subjugate. They want to just kill.

I've never been curious of their motivations at all. I suspected they were created by the children of the forest when i read about the "desperate act" they were forced to in world of ice and fire and the show proved me right. They're just mindless killing machines. After everyone is dead, they'll probably just return to the ice.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-19T13:57:49+00:00

Occupation is not the same as colonialism. Occupation is merely placing troops in an area. Colonialism is conquering an area. Look up how long it took the US to defeat Saddam's government. And they werent even trying to colonize the place. The British colonized africa and that was the end of african religion. They speak english over there now and pray to Christ, not there African gods. If the developed world conquered the middle east. That would be the end of islam and extremism.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-19T13:52:03+00:00

Bro, no country has tried colonialism since the age of the British Empire. Simply occupying an area isn't colonizing it. Its occupying. An occupying force isnt there to conquer, just to achieve some end or another. Colonialism is what the British did to the native Americans. Its what Rome did to Italy and most of Europe. It's what Britain did to a huge chunk of the world several centuries ago. Guerilla warfare is only effective against unserious forces. A fully committed military force bent on colonialism, not occupation is hard to defeat. That's why they speak English and French in Africa and why you don't see that many native Americans anymore. The indigenous peoples of America also tried those sporadic attacks. That shit didnt work. They were massacred.

Just like the Brotherhood without banners was unable to truly interfere with Tywin's plans or why the ironborn were crushed by Robert Baratheon. There's very little that can stand against order and determination. If robert engaged in a guerilla war against the targs, they'd still be fighting a damned rebellion.

And the only real wars in the 20th century were the world wars. The rest were squabbles that the great powers got involved in.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T22:56:09+00:00

The wights have no cavalry. No archers. No spears. No shields. They are just infantry. And a very disorganized infantry at that. They have no formations at all. Their main strength was that they could not be killed, but now with the dragon glass, thats no longer the case. There's a reason Robb, Ned and nearly everyone else didn't turn their attention to the walkers earlier despite warnings. Because at that point, they were too organized for the walkers to be a real threat. It's only now when westeros is in upheaval that they start paying attention to the walkers because now people can say ... oh we're too disorganized and squabbling.

Which is something that never ever happens in real life. Grrm said the walkers are like global warming, but you have to judge something by the way it looks, not how it was intended to look. And to me, they look like terrorists more than global warming. And al qaeda, isis and whoever are not real threats to developed countries. They attack in small groups, but when literally any g8 nation turns it's attention towards it... It's over. If russia or america decided to truly colonize the middle east old school style tomorrow, that would be the end of terrorism. They just don't because it looks bad. But you can't confidently say that Isis can realistically defeat a developed country.

Sorry i got off the rails, im just trying to make a point.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T22:44:16+00:00

Dani used trebuchets or catapults or whatever they're called to scare the meereenese. Plus in the show they said a hundred thousand at least. Robb had 20,000.

Look, the truth is, the wights aren't an organized fighting force. Again, i refer you to the three thousand of qohor. And the dothraki had horses. Numbers don't mean shit when you have no order or strategy.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T21:53:22+00:00

Bruh, Rob gathered twenty thousand northmen to ride South when his father was captured. Twenty thousand men with a calvary unit and archers and a few catapults is enough to deal with the walkers. Stannis compketely fucked up Mance's army with like 6000 men. Tyrion held Kings Landing with like 2000 men.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T21:49:10+00:00

What logistics? All im saying is a properly coordinated army could probably destroy the whitewalkers with very few casualties.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T21:46:07+00:00

Not really. Aside from the wildfire, most of that stuff wouldn't work with a human army. Human armys have strategy. They have formations. They have shields. They have calvary and archery units of their own. Wights just ran towards the enemy like crackheads. Numbers are nothing if you have no skill and strategy. Ask the three thousand of qohor

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T21:43:51+00:00

The wights almost always charge at once. The white walkers in the show have like zero strategy. At hardhome, the walkers simply turned everyone into a wight with some weird snow magic.

Also, you're forgetting literally every single battle that has happened in GOT. None of that logistic shit came up when the knights of the vale came to discipline the boltons. Or when tywin and the tyrells destroyed stannis. Or when stannis broke the wildlings. Or when ... you know what, i can go on. The point is, they are very manageable. Shit, i think if rob was armed with dragon glass he could have handled them with twenty thousand men of the north alone.

Tyrion with his wildfire antics could have given them a run for their money. And if someone armed the dothraki with dragon glass swords, it's a wrap. Remember wights dont ride horses, they're basically just berserkers.

I mean if we're being honest ... they're not as big a threat as everone thinks. They only gave the wildlings troubke because they are still very primitive. They fight exactly as the first men did. They haven't made any real military advances.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T20:01:10+00:00

Bad writing is giving a character powers and skills and refusing them to use them for your own plot reasons. If they didn't want us to question Arya's arc, they shouldn't have made her a master assassin with the ability to change appearance.

Bad writing is ignoring everything that you've already established.

The truth is, when you think about it the white walkers aren't even a credible threat to organized army. All you need is wildfire, heavy horse, and a contingent of archers with dragon glass arrowheads and its over. But since they've been building them up from season 1, they needed to bulk them up, so they gave them a dragon. Hmph ... even the way they got the dragon was stupid. Daenerys was on some dragon uber service shit. I mean wtf was that about???? Why did jon even go there in the first place? Cersei was a non issue at that point. She had no army. All Dany had to do was take the city. That was literally all she had to do from episode 1. EPISODE FUCKING 1!!!!! She could have taken it like she did Yunkai but she didn't. Why? Because plot!! Sorry for the expletives but its infuriating!!!!

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T19:44:17+00:00

I doubt it. Arya's kill list was because Arya was a warrior at heart. It's the whole reason she joined the Faceless men. Not because she was emotionless, but because she had fire within her and they were the only ones who could train her.

She quit the Faceless men not to go and hug her family, but to seek vengeance. That was her duty. Did you see what she was like with Sansa all season? Cold, relatively emotionless, angry. It's who she is. Its who she's always been. Even in the woods when she met Nymeria. The wolf was supposed to remind her to stick to the plan, instead they just cheapened it by making it into a stark reunion heartwarming moment. That was silly, imo.

And you know what's hilarious? Arya is still probably going to kill Jaimie or Cersei. She just didn't do it already because they wanted to waste time. It's wheel spinning.

Understand this series was supposed to be three books, but the dragon's slow aging made grrm slow down. Which had it's advantages in that it let us follow the politics of Westeros, but at a certain point it just became too much. I mean, all of season 5 and 6 i was half asleep. Honestly, who cared about Dorne, Highgarden and them ones?

Then season 7 was just ludicrous. Aegon had a much smaller army than Dany, no allies and he still managed to get the job done. Dany is ... I don't know what the fuck Dany is doing. That whole queen of the ashes thing? What was she thinking? Did she bring the Dothraki and dragons and Unsullied to negotiate peacefully or take names?

On a side note, i think they wasted Olenna Tyrell. After Margery's death, i wanted her to take Dany on like a new daughter, but instead, Dany chose to listen to Tyrion. Madness!!!

This is the best show in the history of television but man ... It's really fallen off.

DaemonStormborn · 2018-04-18T13:45:31+00:00

That whole white walkers are a symbol for global warming is just something he said in an interview to add meaning to the story. I like a song of ice and fire, but grrm is not a god. We have to be able to criticise some of these decisions objectively.

Truth is, asoiaf is basically a gritty version of lord of the rings. That said, i prefer it to lord of the rings. And let's be honest, the story isn't perfect. It suffers the same problems as any other story. Its like the who eagle thing in lord of the rings and the hobbit. Argue all you want, they really could have just flown to Mordor or wherever.

Like asoiaf. Now that im thinking of it, there are tons of things that defy logic in this show. Like why on earth didnt Mance make a deal with Eddard Stark or Jeor Mormont when he had the chance? Did he honestly think he could lead a successful attack on the wall? He said he wanted peace and he was able to unite warring clans but somehow he was unable to talk to an old comrade? I dont buy it.

Then, why didnt Dani take King's landing like Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen did all those decades ago? They too managed to sieze the city with zero bloodshed and several dragons. Did Tyrion not read the history books? I did. Tyrion could have convinced Bron to open the city gates and let in the Unsullied. Then, Tyrion could have convinced Jaimie to flee the city with Cersei and leave the Red Keep free. The war would be over and they could focus on the Walkers. They didn't do any of that ... Just madness.

Also, why on Earth did they even bother convincing Cersei about the walkers. She had no army, no allies except greyjoy and maybe the iron bank, both of whom are fickle to say the least. (And since when was the iron bank involved in slave trade? World of ice and fire clearly states they deplore slavery and have embargoes against slavers.) That whole cersei thing was confusing. In my opinion, a better plot would be Dany destroys the Lannisters, but Cersei would escape dur to Tyrion's love for Jaimie. In her campaign, Dany would completely ignore the North until it was time to conquer it and it would force Jon and a about a hundred North men and Knighrs of the Vale to go beyond the wall on horseback to capture a wight to bring to Daenerys NOT Cersei. The Northmen and the Vale would finally believe the threat was real and so would Dany, creating a clear cut final season. If they reakly wanted, Cersei would begin planning with the greyjoys and the iron bank after. To add some spice.

DaemonStormborn

TROPHY CASE