etherealdany:etherealdany:Dany is actually very notable for telling The Unsullied not to target any

etherealdany:etherealdany:Dany is actually very notable for telling The Unsullied not to target any slaver under the age of 12 (again we know that they’re slavers because they’re waring the tokar) because it’s very normal in this feudalist society for a monarch/commander to kill prisoners of war unless they have some value as a highborn captive lol. Stannis is considering hanging the rest of the Greyjoy men who aren’t highborn because they have no use to him. Now imagine if Dany did that when she fought the slavers in Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen?  Going to expand on this a bit further. Typically in ASOIAF, and we can expand this to feudalist history in general, monarchs and their commanders are not going to be lenient toward enemy soldiers and prisoners-of-war unless there is some utility (being a highborn captive, for example, or politically useful). You may think that “spare the women and children” is an adage that feudalist armies follow, but in actuality, as we have seen in both history and in ASOIAF, women are routinely and habitually raped during war and children are butchered anyway. Arya’s experiences in the Riverlands and Harrenhal throughout ACOK, Brienne’s observations and journey throughout the Riverlands in AFFC, Jaime’s observations and journey throughout the Riverlands in ASOS and his ruminating in AFFC, and more all show us detailed examples of women and children NOT being spared by the marauding, raiding habits of the official armies of these various kings and liege lords as well as the unofficial armies (sellswords, hedge knights, random hired killers, etc). For example, Brienne hears a story from Septon Meribald about a woman who is brutally gang raped and who dies from her wounds, a woman who blames her liege lord for failing to protect her because he barricaded himself rather than fighting for his people. At Harrenhal, women like Pia who “served” Lannister soldiers (Pia was actually gang raped by Lannister soldiers) were turned into living sex slaves by the Northmen who took over after the Northern coup, where they were kept naked in public to be used “freely” by Northern soldiers as punishment. This is a direct source of sexual enslavement that is normal to the wars and conflicts in ASOIAF. In addition to the sexual slavery and wartime rape, as well as the murders of children, commanders are not wont to sparing lowborn soldiers who come by the thousands. They offer no political utility and would just be more hungry mouths to feed if imprisoned. The idea that commanders are going around routinely forgiving or sparing enemy soldiers in ASOIAF is a myth. Stannis is not alone in killing off the lowborn remaining Greyjoy forces; it’s quite a normal act for a commander of his time. This is why it infuriates me when people look at Dany telling The Unsullied to spare any slaver under the age of 12 and conclude that Dany is “killing children”. This is part of the Dany Paradox phenomenon, where a good thing Dany does in canon is reversed and turned into something bad through fandom interpretation. GRRM has Dany saying such a thing because he’s making a point to show that Dany is unique as far as monarchic commanders go, because she has a proto awareness of certain protected classes: namely, children, and that she puts this awareness into practice. Dany is 14 when she gives this order that ostensibly implicates 13 and older Astapori slavers, so the idea that she’s sanctioning the killing of children is idiotic at best because she’s only a year older than the supposed “children” she’s allegedly killing in her war in Astapor. More to the point, notions of adulthood in ASOIAF are vastly different from ours. Dany was the same age as those Astapori slavers (the 13 year olds) when she was sold to Drogo. She was deemed old enough to be sold to Drogo and deemed old enough to bear his child. In ACOK, when Sansa “flowers”, as in has her period, she dreads Cersei finding out because she knows that it means her captors will consider her an adult and thus “fit to bear children” for Joffrey, which is exactly why she tries to burn the sheets (to no avail). In ASOS, when Tyrion is repulsed at the notion of bedding her, Tywin points out that “she is flowered” as a justification for requiring him to consummate the marriage. There is clearly a notion among the more radical, against-the-status quo characters (Dany, Tyrion) that such treatment of children, even if they are forcibly labeled as adults, is wrong, but it is not an awareness or a notion that applies universally, especially not an attitude endorsed by most of the commanders, monarchs, or lords in the series. Thus, that Dany makes it a point to have The Unsullied SPARE 12-year-olds and under in Astapor, even if they are slavers (indicated by their tokars), while other commanders like Stannis do NOT make it a point to spare lowborn soldiers, showcases that Dany has an awareness and understanding of a proto-human rights framework, and puts it into practice, in such a way that her counterpart monarchs and leaders do not. Let’s be clear here that if 13+ year olds are part of the fighting forces to defend Astapor, then they are definitely part of the fighting forces in all the myriad armies in Westeros that we see fight in the wars of the series. Do you see any other monarch, then, making it a point to spare those younger than 12? That was one of Dany’s acts of immense compassion and radical awareness of the inherent worth of all humans, which is why it’s irritating that it’s twisted into something different. Dany doesn’t see 13+ year olds as children because she, someone who herself was 14 (only a year older) at the time, went through horrific experiences when she was a child and then when she was 13, married off and pregnant at 14. Dany was forcibly made into an adult too, so naturally she’s not going to see other people her age as mere children. Even so, the fact that she differentiates between children and adult as classes, making it a point to spare children as a protected class, while the other knights, lords, and monarchs of the series allow children as a class to be murdered, is immensely important, especially when contrasted with the reality that monarchs tend to spare only those who are highborn and important to their political ambitions.  -- source link
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