Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

I mean, the difference is that possible scenerario is that actually, The Empire would be returning to democracy due to a Civil War, rather than becoming democratic by themselves.

Issue is, I don't think that even the famine post-Daenerys is a issue compared to the brutal slave system. The Unsullied alone are a systematic torture and mass murder of children.

There's no positives for Mereen, their upper class are basically just a Asshole Victim made to trick the audience into unconditionally support Daenerys (a trick that worked well actually) while also building up her eventual authoritarianism.

Yes which is a disgusting message, "she went after slavers and thus planted the seeds of her tyrannry" sounds like the kind of bile that neo-confederates would devise.

Slave Liberation is one of those tropes where I think deconstruction — in particular, the all encompassing kind of ASOIAF — does more harm than good. When you spend reams of pages harping about the problems and difficulties of freeing slaves, while keeping a discussion of the good that was done as a perfunctory aside, the narrative wraps around into becoming an anti-liberation argument, a la "Look how many problems freeing them causes, better that the shackles remain so that stability is maintained." Even the Star Wars sequels do it — Kanjiklub, in the lore, is a criminal cartel made up entirely of freed slaves of the Hutts, the implication being that their liberation removed the shackles from a wholly unscrupulous group that occupied the power vacuum once inhabited by their masters.

If you're going to talk about Slave Liberation, use Lincoln or Glory as the model for narrative and tone, not Birth of a Nation. Don't even think about deconstructing it or give a more jaundiced view of it. Extol it and move on.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Sep 13th 2019 at 4:04:33 AM

Maybe go the length about reconstructing the trope? I wouldn’t mind a realistic look on it if we also keep the narrative focused on the joy brought to the slaves by their freedom or, if we don’t mind being more cynical, make it perfectly clear that slavery IS still the worst alternative.

I don't take that view. I read Dany's whole mess as being a warning against going in with good intentions, but having no effective ideas on how to actually do what you want to do, let alone a concrete plan.

Dany sees a problem... and leaps in to fix it knowing nothing about how to. Heck, it's partly why she leaps in: to do on-the-job work experience before heading to Westeros. Except, she picks, like, the final dungeon level of ruling difficulty to start her lessons with. Without even stopping to ask herself if using flamethrowers on armies made of conscripts and slaves is a good idea or not.

The way the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay are depicted leaves little to the imagination: chattel slavery is several shades of bad and, quite rightly, should be abolished. Dany is not wrong about that.

But... trying to impose abolition from a position of knowing bugger all about the people or places you're "helping" is just as bad an idea as sitting back and doing absolutely nothing about it at all is, too.

There are not-so-subtle hints that Braavos has been chipping away at the problem for centuries. With setbacks and periods of lull and disagreement of course, but... still. If she truly wanted to get to grips with ending slavery, she knew where to go to find tutors on the difficulties and economics of it. She used to live there, after all.

Then there's Quaithe not-so-subtly trying to get her to learn about dragons and magic before doing anything stupid by heading vaguely Asshai-wards. (Well, maybe; the woman is about as clear as mud as to why Dany should head to the Shadow.) Yet... Dany picks conquest before learning about her dragons' abilities and liabilities in a place that is known to be all about dat magic stuff.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 13th 2019 at 9:39:02 AM

@Spartan: Neo Confederates will use anything to justify themselves. Knowing George, it likely was ironically a criticism to American Foreign Policy.

@Euo: Yeah, Dany treated changing a entire society as a practique. That's like...What the eff?

Personally, the strange thing about George R.R. Martin is that Daenery's problems are primarily due to not going FAR ENOUGH. Basically, Daenerys didn't destroy the Mereneese ruling class and if she had then things would have been fine. She tried to deal with slavers peacefully and it backfired.

I'm pretty sure that, had she asked Braavosi leaders about the topic, they would have told her that there were definitely less effective ways than flying in and thoroughly flaming the top of the slavery economic pyramid in every city, one after another.

But, going guerrilla-style, hit-and-run tactical strikes would be one way to get results quickly.

Starting, probably, with a surprise assault on Volantis (after years of building up and training both an army and her dragons... loudly proclaiming her wish to take the Iron Throne as cover and/or the first step). Because, if there's any group of people who know exactly how to fight and kill dragons, it's the rulers of the inner city of Volantis — taking them out first would be imperative.

Dany has blown that opportunity.

Heck, she's done everything backwards.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 13th 2019 at 10:31:09 AM

I think the problematic thing with Daenerys's arc is moreso that Essos as a whole is a farcical caricature of Far East stereotypes stitched together and Martin clearly doesn't put enough effort into it compared to Westeros. Combined with the weapons-grade arc of Dany's numerous problems ruling Mereen and the Bay of Dragons the story often comes across as saying "this place is a unfixable shithole, just leave and go to Westeros".

This isn't helped by the lack of more morally positive characters in the Essosi side. It's pretty much only Grey Worm and Strong Belwas and everyone else is just decadent and corrupt even by Westerosi standards.

The show moderately helped this by making Daario Naharis and Hizadh Zo Loraq more moral characters who actually stand by Dany. The decision to make Zo Loraq a sort of slow reformer in contrast to Dany's more breakneck pace reformer was one I particularly liked, though I didn't like how his arc ended up.

I'm pretty sure he's the Harpy anyway in the books.

But yes, I think the problem was that there's really no reason to go to Westeros. Daeny has built an Empire in her Essos and until the White Walkers come, it's better for everyone were she to stay there.

Mereen is basically George wanting Dany to "Grind" and have time for her Dragons to grew up.

But yeah, Daenerys should have stayed in Mereen. The entire world would be better if she did.

I stand with Gaon. The whole arc in Mereen works far better if there's some decent people in it.

It's particularly lame when Book Loraq is just "Asshole Mereenese".

You know something that it's making me think? Narco-states. States where not only organized crime is prevalent, but the state is actively working with them.

It's likely due to the Venezuela crisis. Which according to news since the last year, has taken a new level where the rulers are actual cartel members.

It's the biggest Reality Is Unrealistic I've seen.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 13th 2019 at 4:37:12 AM

Hoo boy is this dead horse ever starting to disintegrate from all these beatings.

I'll be back to this thread when the umpteenth flipping discussion of Game of Thrones, specifically the political dynamics of Slaver's Bay, is done.

Keep in mind deconstruction doesn’t have to be negative. It just has to take the trope apart. Showing how slavery being abolished led to a massive amount of wealth being redistributed is also a deconstruction.

Ok

@M84: Your soul is still tied to gravity, take your Colony Drop.

...Huh, thinking about it Zeon's tactics are just like their ideology: "Just one more try".

By the way, I like how the Federation's Mobile Suits are Boring, but Practical. GM are underrated.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 13th 2019 at 5:18:41 AM

I always assumed it meant, essentially, showing why the trope wouldn't work "realistically". Reconstruction, by contrast, means changing it to make it so it would work. Apparently, you are correct, though.

Having said that, though, deconstructing certain tropes in the way I define it above can, in and of itself, be Lighter and Softer if it's a trope that's intrinsically "dark".

For example, War Of The Worlds retroactively deconstructs Cosmic Horror to some extent. The Martians are proto-Eldritch Abominations, both highly alien and unstoppable by us mere mortals. However, for all their supposed superiority, it does not give them any special protection to the humble bacterium, and they die out quickly. Being a "higher lifeform" does not make you invincible. Humans are killed by insects all the time, after all. It's a pretty clever Reality Ensues moment to some extent.

Mind you, it does run into Science Marches On and Reality Is Unrealistic. Realistically, it would work closer to the other way around. Earth pathogens wouldn't know how to survive in a Martian's body initially. Invasive plagues wiping out unfamiliar populations happens between human populations because the disease is familiar with humans, but the immune systems of the victim population is not familiar with the disease.

I'm always uncomfortable with people who try to apply the Black-and-White Morality of WW 2 to the One Year War and subsequent attacks because it risks undermining the fact that it's about the humanization of both sides as well as how war is neither glamorous nor glorious but War Is Hell. Indeed, the point of Mobile Suit Gundam is the Newtypes pretty much determine that the best thing to do is remove the evil hearts of the Zeon side so the war can end peacefully. It villifies Gihren and the Zabis (barring Garma) but has a significantly more nuanced view of the Zeon as a whole.

Mind you, the Federation using WM Ds too, which they did, is not something justified. Its considered yet another sign of Not So Different. By the end of the war, both sides are committing atrocities and while Gundam Unicorn is Zeon apologia—we also have the Federation Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in Zeta Gundam and in side stories like the 08th Mobile group.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2019 at 3:57:58 AM

Weirdly, HG Wells justified in the book as the Martians are using humans as a food source. They survive on a liquid diet of blood and use humans to feed themselves so its possible the No Biochemical Barriers resulted in a mutation that spread the disease among Martians.

"The Martians are proto-Eldritch Abominations, both highly alien and unstoppable by us mere mortals."

They are stoppable actually. It takes a really lucky moment and suicidal bravery, but a British ironclad manages to defeat three Tripods before being destroyed by the last one in a mutual kill.

The Martians are not meant to be Cthulhu.

The Martians are meant to be the British Empire.

The British are meant to be Africa.

A bunch of technologically more advanced people come to a ostensibly less developed one, wreck their shit, and proceed to utterly fuck with their sense of superiority as well as future for their children. It's a deliberate Foil story.

"How do you like it? Not so much fun."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2019 at 4:18:51 AM

"Come on Thunderchild!"

On a sidenote, after hearing the Jeff Wayne Thunderchild song, I named a Mecha in my D&D setting after the Thunderchild. It was created to protect the Earth from an alien invasion (by Wot W Martian expies), and currently is The Republic's ultimate weapon. It'll serve as the penultimate boss for the Villain Protagonists of one of the campaigns I'm running.

But back to the main argument, it's more an "overall" thing. It is made pretty clear that humanity can't do a ton to the aliens. The Thunderchild was more of an exception than the rule. Also, Cthulhu has been beaten (temporarily) in a similar manner.

You're right to some degree, but I'd argue it portrays Colonialists as Cthulhu from the perspective of the Natives.

For that matter, while I'm not overly familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos, I have heard someone describe it as also being "a Perspective Flip on colonialism, by someone who was broadly ok with colonialism". Though I can't confirm that as true, for the record.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Sep 13th 2019 at 4:39:23 AM

@Charles: The EF didn't take a policy compared to Zeon. Individual generals might, but they didn't took measures comparable to them.

The Titans were a rogue paramilitar group that was openly opossed for the EF.

Yeah, Zeon individuals can be good. But Zeon, the country, is just a awful nation that's extremely ok with mass murder.

I think that letting the EF off the hook for the Titans is a mistake even if they were eventually made into a Rogue Agent group (because of Char's speech). After all, they were empowered and armed by the EF in the first place.

Interestingly, I always liked the fact Stardust Memory made it clear that a large number of Zeon soldiers weren't actually aware they were committing war crimes. They were just told the poison gas was Harmless Sedation.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2019 at 4:45:19 AM

That still don't means that Zeon as a country had any good future.

Well if Gihren died horribly, Garma and Minerva were okay.

Degwin and Dozle both intended for the nicer members of their family to inherit.

Kycilia is a wildcard in this.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2019 at 5:55:54 AM

Kycilia would be a divisive figure at best. According to Plan to kill Gihren, she actually planned to pin everything in Gihren and give him to the Federation in order to.secure.herself a.place as Zeon's Fed-friendly leader.

Better than Gihren's ruling everyone. But damn that it would be awful.

I'm surprised Zeon wasn't borderline genocidaded Post War. After the literal apocalypse caused for the Colony Drop in the Southern Hemisphere (Fuck You Northerners, we always suffer in your works ), one would expect the Feds to be revenge filled with a rage that would made the Soviet Union in WW 2 look like forgiving saints.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 13th 2019 at 9:00:55 AM