How Dany assesses the counsel she receives and makes her own choices (& Character analysis) - Liberation of the Unsullied
This will be a series of posts meant to show that Dany is open to receiving advice and criticism, but that she doesn’t act solely based on what other people tell her to do. On the opposite, GRRM makes great effort to write a Dany who most often merges different viewpoints and/or finds her own solutions to the problems she’s facing. I won’t include every single decision she ever made (e.g. her decisions at court are often made without counsel and her execution of the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs was already exhaustively and deftly analyzed by other people), but there will be plenty of instances in this series that will prove my point nonetheless. The metas will always have four items: in which chapters the events mentioned take place; what advice she receives and from whom; what were her actions; the verdict (whether she followed other people’s advice, ignored/rejected them or did both at the same time).
Since this meta got very long, I'm putting the verdict above so that people who don't want to read the entire meta can at least find its synthesized points right away.
Chapter (s):
ASOS Daenerys I, II, III
The advice Dany receives:
Jorah advises Dany to turn to Astapor and buy the Unsullied so that she doesn't have to rely entirely on Illyrio. He recommends that she pretends to not know Valyrian. He later says that spilling blood will be inevitable in Westeros and that the Unsullied are known for not raping nor pillaging, so she'll cause less damage if she buys them. According to him, trying to be idealistic and noble gets you killed.
Barristan advises Dany to leave Astapor and hire mercenaries in the Free Cities or even expect the support of the Westerosi lords. He's firmly against trading a dragon for an army and tries to publicly intervene.
Verdict:
a) Intelligence and skills
Knowledge of Astapor, Old Ghis, the Free Cities and Essos in general
Dany retains the information Jorah gave her about Old Ghis's history to the point of articulating it in her own words and applying it to the harpy of Astapor (which she differentiates from the one from Old Ghis) to grasp its symbolic meaning.
Dany pays attention to the slave soldiers and identifies on her own where each came from, displaying her knowledge of the Free Cities and Essos in general.
Dany compares the treatment of the Unsullied to the Dothraki's treatment of their slaves, for she already knows a lot about the Dothraki's culture and organization at this point.
Dany notices that there are many other slaves in the city and that they also have varied traits and origins.
Dany pays special attention to the social hierarchy among the masters indicated in their tokars' fringes after Groleo tells her about it, which shows that she can memorize and apply information well.
Dany correctly guesses that the masters won't resist her offer of one dragon because she is aware that Old Ghis was defeated by the Valyrian Freehold five times precisely for that disadvantage.
Growing social awareness
In ASOS Daenerys I, Dany is unaware of the number of casualties and the level of dehumanization that come with the maintenance of slavery. At this point, she thought they were servants just like any others. Also, she didn't have the power and influence to be able to help others (or to think about the ways she could do so). Witnessing the training of the Unsullied will change her mind, similar to how she thought she was okay with the war's collateral damage until she saw the Lhazareen women being assaulted and tried to stop it.
Dany doesn't let Jhogo crack the whip in Astapor to announce her presence because she knows that it is used to subjugate slaves.
After seeing the cruel and horrific treatment of the Unsullied firsthand, Dany can no longer look at all the other slaves in the city and think that what's happening is okay. She observes how pervasive slavery is in Astapor twice.
Like with the whip, Dany already pays attention to the tokar and how symbolically tied it is to the masters.
Dany's growing awareness of all these social issues and her empathy for the slaves' plea stem from the fact that she lived their experiences too: she was also forced to leave her homeland and was later sold as a sex slave.
Dany's refusal to eat dog indicates her refusal to be complicit in the masters' oppression of the Unsullied.
Dany refuses to talk to Jorah about the Unsullied as if their treatment was not dehumanizing, so she tells him to not call them men to not become desensitized to the issue.
Emotional inteligence: restraint and assertiveness as a leader
Dany pretends she doesn't understand the number of insults that Kraznys is throwing at her and later asserts her heritage and titles as a response.
Dany hides her vulnerability and focuses on her political goals while talking to Barristan. She empathizes with Barristan later and reinforces her authority when she tells him that he's free to counsel her ... when they are alone. He is frank by telling her that he thinks she made a mistake by trading a dragon for an army, but Dany still shows self-assurance.
Dany reminds Jorah to call her by her title rather than her name.
Dany restrains her fear once more when she enters the gates of Astapor.
Asking for and gathering knowledge
Dany asks Kraznys if the Unsullied has officers and what is their gear.
Dany notices that Astapor lacks guards and questions why the Dothraki still haven't sacked the city.
Dany confirms with Missandei the reliability of the information Kraznys shared with her and makes more questions about the Unsullied.
Dany creates hypothetical situations in her questions to Kraznys and Missandei to conceal the possibility that she might apply the answers to fight the masters.
Actions during the negotiation for the Unsullied and the exchange
Dany gives everyone (her bloodriders, Jorah and Barristan) in her circle something to do while she meets with Kraznys.
Dany uses a Qartheen gown to negotiate with the slavers.
Dany brings her advisors and her khalasar with her during the negotiation in order to look more impressive (and, consequently, to seem able to pay for all of the Unsullied).
Dany already expected that she would have to offer her ships and one dragon.
Dany takes the necessary steps (based on what she heard from Kraznys and Missandei) to guarantee that the Unsullied will fight on her side and her leap of faith pays off.
Dany throws the whip aside and her draconic force is linked to freedom.
b) Character motivations and past experiences
Why she chose to go to Astapor
Dany wanted to make sure she wouldn't have to rely on other people (whose help is never certain, as she learned very well in Qarth).
She didn't think hiring mercenaries in the Free Cities was a good idea because she'd already seen how that failed for Viserys.
She is unsure of whether the Westerosi will rise to her.
As it's been already said, she thought that the Unsullied were treated as ordinary servants.
Empathy
Witnessing the training of the Unsullied radically changes Dany's initial plans.
Her growing awareness of all these social issues and her empathy for the slaves' plea stem from the fact that she lived their experiences too: she was also forced to leave her homeland and later sold as a sex slave.
Dany empathizes with Barristan and reminds him that he's free to counsel her ... when they are alone.
Dany refuses to talk to Jorah about the Unsullied as if their treatment was not dehumanizing, so she tells him to not call them men to not become desensitized to the issue.
Dany frees Missandei right after the latter is given as a gift (though she'll find out later that Missandei doesn't have a better option).
Dany's past experiences inform her reflections on what grounds should she be ruling and her later rebellion against the masters.
The negotiation scene shows that Dany had many, many options that she could have chosen and did not simply because she wanted to free all of the Unsullied:
If she just wanted an army, she could have offered all the trading goods in the ships and get the 1000 Unsullied that Jorah advised her to get.
If she just wanted an army, she wouldn't have offered to pay double for the untrained boys.
If she just wanted an army, she could have given the trading goods and the ships and left with 2000 Unsullied.
If she just wanted an army, she wouldn't have thought that she must have them all" and that "[i]t was [her] only choice" to offer them a dragon.
Hints that Dany plans on rebelling in ASOS Daenerys II
Dany betrays her uneasiness about what is happening several times (multiple passages below).
Dany makes a hypothetical question to Kraznys, seemingly in an attempt to find a way to offer freedom to the Unsullied.
Dany asks how many Unsullied the master has to sell (because she wants to rescue them all), not how large an army she wants.
Dany thinks she will take more than a hundred, if any at all.
When Barristan urges her to leave the city, Dany thinks she can't do so. She later tells Jorah the same thing.
Dany's steps to make her plan work in ASOS Daenerys III (and hints that she has the details worked out)
Dany already expected that she would have to offer her ships and one dragon during the negotiation.
Dany makes it clear to Groleo that the Unsullied are more important than ships (because of themselves, not their value as an army).
Dany probably shared her ideas with her bloodriders and Jorah.
Dany was using a Qartheen gown (represents inequality, flattery and falsehood) in the negotiation. In the exchange itself, she uses Dothraki clothing (represents war, equality and honesty).
Dany knows that there will be several deaths as a result of what she is doing.
Dany takes the necessary steps (based on what she heard from Kraznys and Missandei) to guarantee that the Unsullied will fight on her side and her leap of faith pays off.
Dany throws the whip aside and her draconic force is linked to freedom.
c) How Dany assessed the advice she received
Jorah
Jorah advises Dany to turn to Astapor and buy the Unsullied so that she doesn't have to rely entirely on Illyrio.
Dany takes his advice, but not before being thoughtful and making many questions and expressing many concerns: how will she buy them? Is it okay to "betray" Illyrio? What about the dangers on the march? What if Captain Groleo doesn't obey? She's not passively and blindly accepting things.
He recommends that she pretends to not know Valyrian.
Dany follows it with seemingly no reservations.
He later says that spilling blood will be inevitable in Westeros and that the Unsullied are known for not raping nor pillaging, so she'll cause less damage if she buys them.
At first, she slaps him for normalizing the Unsullied's training and talking about them as if they were objects to be sold. Later, she still tries to differentiate the attack against targeted combatants from the systematic attack against almost all of the city's population, save for the nobles.
According to him, trying to be idealistic and noble gets you killed.
More on that below.
Barristan
Barristan advises Dany to leave Astapor and hire mercenaries in the Free Cities or even expect the support of the Westerosi lords.
She thinks to herself that she can't leave the city now that she saw what she saw. To Barristan, she replies that the former option didn't work for her brother and that she can't rely on uncertainties.
Barristan is firmly against trading a dragon for an army and tries to publicly intervene.
Dany empathizes with him, but still reminds him that he's only supposed to question her privately and that she means to prove a few things of her own.
Overall
Neither Jorah nor Barristan can take credit for primarily motivating Dany's decision to free the slaves, though they certainly helped her in different ways.
Jorah thought it was okay for her to buy the Unsullied and be complicit in a process that dehumanizes them to the point that people can't even tell them apart or consider them men. As Dany said, "if he were her true knight", he wouldn't think that there was nothing wrong with that to begin with. Dany, on the other hand, refuses to be desensitized by it because she is a true queen.
Barristan empathized with the slaves' plea and doesn't want to be involved in slave trade, which is fair, but he doesn't think that there's anything he or Dany can do about it.
Like with Viserys and Drogo, Dany is influenced by both of their recommendations and apply them in different ways while forging her own path: she will not help to maintain the oppression of the slaves like Barristan advised her, but she won't play by the rules (because they view human beings as objects to be sold and invalidate her moral values, so they shouldn't be acknowledged as such to begin with) like Jorah advised her: she will break the rules because of her moral duty (as she sees it) to free the slaves.
Dany's actions:
In ASOS Daenerys I, Jorah is trying to have Dany distrust Barristan, Groleo and Illyrio. As usual, because of Dany's critical thinking skills, she filters his advice - she admits that it's strange that Barristan is "too old to be a squire, and too well spoken to be serving that oaf of an eunuch", but, at the same time, she laughs when he suggests that Barristan and Belwas are conspiring with the assassin to win her trust. The discussion becomes a bit more heated when Dany realizes that he's infantilizing her, but then he proposes a plan: change course to Astapor and buy Unsullied. At this point, 14-year-old Dany has not yet seen their inhuman training nor did she come to empathize deeply and viscerally with them nor does she have the power that allows her to think about how to help others:
Dany was not certain she liked the sound of that at all. Everything she’d ever heard of the flesh marts in the great slave cities of Yunkai, Meereen, and Astapor was dire and frightening. “What is there for me in Slaver’s Bay?” (ASOS Daenerys I)
She also doesn't understand how slavery is a systemic issue that affects different people on different levels and is still, nonetheless, inherently wrong:
“...In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”
“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.” (ASOS Daenerys I)
But how can this person make this sort of comment and then become an abolitionist figure by the end of the book? I want to contextualize that right away to avoid any confusion. ADWD Daenerys III will give us two reasons as to why Dany changed her mind (aside from her empathy and proactivity, of course):
As she will explain to Xaro, his slaves "seemed well treated and content" (which also explains why she didn't react negatively to Illyrio's either) and she changed her opinion witnessing "how Unsullied are made and trained". At this point, she thinks that slaves are treated like normal servants.
Also, she thinks to herself that she was only a beggar queen when she visited Qarth, so there wasn't much she could do. At this point, in the beginning of ASOS, her situation is still similar to the one from ACOK: Dany still has no considerable resources of her own and is being carried around by someone else's ships. It makes sense, then, that she thinks firstly about how to help herself before she considers that she might be able to help others.
It must also be said that the seeds for Dany's character development were planted way back in AGOT, when she thought she was okay with going to war until she realized she couldn't let the Lhazareen women be collateral damage of her actions. Here, she will think she's okay with buying the Unsullied until she goes to Astapor and realizes that no one deserves to be systematically tortured and brainwashed and sold the way they were.
Anyway, back to ASOS Daenerys I. Dany's response to Jorah's suggestion that she should buy Unsullied stems from ignorance - she thinks that the Unsullied are all too fat to ride horses because these are the only ones she saw in Pentos and Myr. To convince her that they are worth buying, Jorah tells her the Tale of the Three Thousand of Qohor, which is basically about a khal who had his khalasar utterly defeated by the Unsullied (bought as an afterthought by the Qohorik). After realizing their effectiveness, Qohor would only employ the Unsullied as city guards. Using that story to convince Dany was a very clever move from Jorah, who must've inferred from Dany's successful cultural assimilation and love for Drogo that she respects the Dothraki's strength (she does, but she's critical as well).
Dany admits that there is wisdom in what he's counseling, but she also notes that her crown is her only possession of value. Jorah responds that the Astapori may offer her gifts the way the Qartheen did or she can sell the trade goods that Illyrio's men took on. Dany is still reluctant because she says she considers Illyrio a friend to House Targaryen (though that's not how she assessed him before), but Jorah argues that a true friend will help her to buy "the beginnings of an army". Dany becomes more excited, but still considers the dangers on the march, and Jorah argues that there would be dangers at sea as well. Finally, Dany wonders if Groleo might refuse to change course; for Jorah, that is all the more reason to ask him to do so, for she will find out where his (and Arstan's and Belwas') true loyalty lies.
It's only then that Dany decides that she will command Groleo to set course for Astapor. The author took pains to make sure that Dany wouldn't just passively sit and listen to Jorah's advice and follow it. He has her making questions and gathering knowledge and forming her own conclusions. Just because hers matched with his (only for now) doesn't mean that she is not being an active player as well.
In ASOS Daenerys II, Dany arrives in Astapor. As we can see in this passage, she is able to retain Jorah's knowledge about its history, articulate it in her own words and apply it well enough to correctly identify the harpy of Ghis and grasp its symbolic meaning just by looking at its statue:
The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people; these Astapori were mongrels, Ser Jorah said. Even the Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.
Yet the symbol of the Old Empire still endured here, though this bronze monster had a heavy chain dangling from her talons, an open manacle at either end. The harpy of Ghis had a thunderbolt in her claws. This is the harpy of Astapor. (ASOS Daenerys II)
In Missandei's very first appearance, we find out how the Naathi are commonly perceived. Such a description seems to signal the author's thematic intents (namely, that war, rather than the peace, is the righteous path in this particular case) right away, as @rainhadaenerys already pointed out in this amazing meta:
The girl spoke the Common Tongue well, for one who had never been to Westeros. No older than ten, she had the round flat face, dusky skin, and golden eyes of Naath. The Peaceful People, her folk were called. All agreed that they made the best slaves. (ASOS Daenerys II)
While she negotiates with Kraznys, Dany follows a smart idea from Ser Jorah:
It had been Ser Jorah’s suggestion that she speak only Dothraki and the Common Tongue while in Astapor. My bear is more clever than he looks. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Some minor points: we get a very emasculating description of Kraznys to make sure his "looks" are as pitiful as his moral values, something that I've already criticized here. And Astapor is described as if it were Hell itself, though that's an aspect that's been discussed elsewhere and I won't belabor here.
Then, Dany gets to hear about the Unsullied's training. I'll give you a brief summary of its numerous cruelties, for they will, as I already showed above, dictate Dany's actions for the rest of this book and ADWD:
They don't have names because they're changed every dawn so they can remember that "they are vermin" and "more dogs than sheep".
They are castrated in order to have discipline, obedience, loyalty and fear and to no longer feel sexual desire.
They're chosen at five years old for "size and speed and strength" to be trained "from dawn to dusk" until they master the shortsword, the shield and the three spears.
As boys, on the day that they are cut, they are given puppies whom they are forced to strangle, otherwise they are killed and fed to the surviving dogs.
Only one boy in three survives the training.
To win their spiked caps, they are forced to "go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother's eyes".
They are forced to stand "for a day and a night, with no food nor water". It is said that, even after 99 of the 100 Unsullied collapse, the last one will stand until his death.
They won't move or defend themselves even after you lash their faces with a whip or cut their nipples off. That's because they drink the "wine of courage" regularly to feel less and less pain and endure any kind of torture.
And that's not even counting the numerous times Kraznys felt that he was entitled to lash Missandei. It's clear that GRRM strives to make Dany's future cause be as righteous as he can.
While Arstan and Kraznys are arguing with each other, Dany pays attention to the slave soldiers and identifies on her own where each comes from. It's a moment that displays both her knowledge and the fact that she's lived in Essos for her entire life:
Ignoring them all, Dany walked slowly down the line of slave soldiers. The girls followed close behind with the silk awning, to keep her in the shade, but the thousand men before her enjoyed no such protection. More than half had the copper skins and almond eyes of Dothraki and Lhazerene, but she saw men of the Free Cities in the ranks as well, along with pale Qartheen, ebon-faced Summer Islanders, and others whose origins she could not guess. And some had skins of the same amber hue as Kraznys mo Nakloz, and the bristly red-black hair that marked the ancient folk of Ghis, who named themselves the harpy’s sons. They sell even their own kind. It should not have surprised her. The Dothraki did the same, when khalasar met khalasar in the sea of grass.
Some of the soldiers were tall and some were short. They ranged in age from fourteen to twenty, she judged. Their cheeks were smooth, and their eyes all the same, be they black or brown or blue or grey or amber. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Dany often connects the warriors she meets or hears about with the Dothraki, about whom she has mixed feelings but was influenced nonetheless. In this chapter, her critical views of the Dothraki are brought to the fore. Not only she recalls that they sold "their own kind", she also tells Arstan that she herself was sold, which is a huge deal for a few reasons that I'll point out later.
Throughout her interactions with Kraznys, Dany betrays her uneasiness about what's happening several times:
It was hard to pretend not to understand. Dany laid a hand on Kraznys’s arm before he could raise the whip again. “Tell the Good Master that I see how strong his Unsullied are, and how bravely they suffer pain.”
~
Then he jabbed the swordpoint in beneath a wide pink nipple and began to work it back and forth.
“What is he doing?” Dany demanded of the girl, as the blood ran down the man’s chest.
“Tell the cow to stop her bleating,” said Kraznys, without waiting for the translation.
~
“They feel no pain, you see.”
“How can that be?” she demanded through the scribe.
“The wine of courage,” was the answer he gave her.
~
“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?”
Her most visceral reaction comes when she finds out that infants are slain as part of the Unsullied's training, partly because that's too personal for her:
Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”
“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”
She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”
Then we get an indication that she's already thinking of a plan to free the Unsullied at this very moment:
“The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh,” Dany told the girl, “but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me ...”
“They would kill him out of hand and bring her his head, tell her that,” the slaver answered. “Other slaves may steal and hoard up silver in hopes of buying freedom, but an Unsullied would not take it if the little mare offered it as a gift. They have no life outside their duty. They are soldiers, and that is all.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
I also find it interesting that Dany doesn't ask how large an army she wants (though she admits she needs soldiers), but rather how many Unsullied he has to sell:
“It is soldiers I need,” Dany admitted.
“Tell her it is well she came to Astapor, then. Ask her how large an army she wishes to buy.”
“How many Unsullied do you have to sell?”
“Eight thousand fully trained and available at present.[”] (ASOS Daenerys II)
Which already hints at her desire to rescue them all (not her interest to buy an army), even she must go to extreme lengths to do so.
In any case, after she makes the question above, Dany asks if the Unsullied have officers and what is their gear. Then, Dany solicits Barristan's advice, who, obviously, says she shouldn't buy them. Dany tells him to elaborate on his answer because she wants Kraznys to hear his outrage:
“Why?” she asked. “Speak freely.” Dany thought she knew what he would say, but she wanted the slave girl to hear, so Kraznys mo Nakloz might hear later. (ASOS Daenerys II)
The squire explains that slavery is illegal in Westeros and that she will lose her public support and honor if she arrives with a slave army. Dany emphasizes that she must have an army to conquer Westeros, but Barristan believes that she'll have the support of half of the Westerosi because of Rhaegar (while mincing his words when he praises Aerys). Dany is not so sure, however:
“Those same high lords who abandoned my father to the Kingslayer and bent the knee to Robert the Usurper?”
“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”
“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. In any language. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Another passage hints at her future actions for suggesting that she will either save the Unsullied or leave them behind if she can't be of help, for she won't take part in the slave trade:
Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. (ASOS Daenerys II)
And she reminds Kraznys of her heritage and titles, which is more than warranted considering the numerous insults that he threw at her (while she had to feign ignorance, no less). He's not impressed and even accuses Dany of running to her man, which sounds like the author throwing shade at his sexist readers, especially since, despite other people's help, Dany will ultimately forge her own path.
Jhogo intends to crack his whip in the air to announce the Mother of Dragons's presence, but Dany, after witnessing how Kraznys uses the whip to subjugate others, tells him not to use it. This moment shows how, like with the tokar in ADWD, Dany understands the symbolic meaning of the whip (which is also why it's so significant that she uses it to punish Kraznys later):
But when he uncoiled the great silverhandled whip that Dany had given him, and made to crack it in the air, she leaned out and told him nay. “Not in this place, blood of my blood,” she said, in his own tongue. “These bricks have heard too much of the sound of whips.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
Astapor was once part of the Old Empire of Ghis and we see in this chapter that so much of its culture is informed by their pride of their former glory. However, nowadays, the description of the city shows that it's no longer a flourishing place (it is Hell, as I said above). Dany showcases her knowledge of the other cities she visited by associating Astapor with them:
An old city, this, she reflected, but not so populous as it was in its glory, nor near so crowded as Qarth or Pentos or Lys. (ASOS Daenerys II)
She pays attention to the fact that the Unsullied are not the only slaves in Astapor; they are everywhere in the city:
Her litter came to a sudden halt at the cross street, to allow a coffle of slaves to shuffle across her path, urged along by the crack of an overseer’s lash. These were no Unsullied, Dany noted, but a more common sort of men, with pale brown skins and black hair. There were women among them, but no children. All were naked. Two Astapori rode behind them on white asses, a man in a red silk tokar and a veiled woman in sheer blue linen decorated with flakes of lapis lazuli. In her red-black hair she wore an ivory comb. The man laughed as he whispered to her, paying no more mind to Dany than to his slaves, nor the overseer with his twisted five-thonged lash, a squat broad Dothraki who had the harpy and chains tattooed proudly across his muscular chest. (ASOS Daenerys II)
As we see above, Dany notices the slaves' varied traits and origins as they pass by fastened together and how slavery is so normalized that she is not the only one that the masters don't pay attention to, they don't pay any attention to their slaves either. Dany also picks up on the fact that the man is wearing a tokar (like Kraznys was), and I'm sure this will later inform her discomfort using it and her eventual (and righteous) rejection of it in ADWD.
Arstan murmurs an old rhyme and feels sympathy for the slaves and how the entire city is built upon their blood and suffering. However, he never advises Dany to do anything about it: he urges her to leave the city "before [her] heart turns to brick". Dany thinks something that also foreshadows her eventual rebellion:
“...Sail this very night, on the evening tide.”
Would that I could, thought Dany. (ASOS Daenerys II)
But she doesn't allow herself to share her anxieties and vulnerabilities with him because she's his liege, so she focuses on her political goals instead:
“When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”
Arstan counter-argues that Jorah was a slaver himself and that she could find an army in the Free Cities. That's not how it went for her (and Viserys), though. Even in Qarth, where people were awed by her dragons, it was still not reason enough to get their support:
“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
(On ADWD Daenerys III, she will also remember that Viserys tried to negotiate with the Golden Company and that they mocked him, which might or might not be foreshadowing for TWOW, in which she's likely to confront Aegon and the Golden Company.)
Arstan says that it's better to be a beggar than a slaver, which leads to the most powerful moment of the chapter and also one of my favorites of the entire series:
“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)
I've seen people trying to argue that Barristan was the one who convinced Dany to rebel against the slavers, and this passage, to which @irrationalityi pointed in her wonderful meta, shows exactly that that's not the case: that was Dany's choice and only Dany's.
Barristan, despite feeling empathy for the slaves, never asked for Dany to do anything to help them. Instead, as I showed above, he had only focused on the political ramifications of being a slaveowner.
Barristan had lived his whole life in Westeros up until recently, Dany has lived her whole life in Essos. Barristan has a problem with slavery not only because it is wrong, but because it's not the Westerosi way (Dany is not entirely immune from that, but there's much more to it), similar to how Ned is judgemental of Varys partly because he doesn't follow the Northern way. Meanwhile, as I showed above, Dany pays attention to the slaves and is able to make guesses as to where they came from because her history was that of a refugee who was forced to run away from her homeland as well. Of course her empathy runs deep and of course her desire to do something about the injustice she's perceiving runs deep. No one needs to remind her of her own history.
As @irrationalityi aptly puts, "dany is saying that while ser barristan may have an abstract knowledge that slavery is wrong, and a culturally ingrained distaste for it, she has lived it. she’s not angry at him because he is implying she is doing something morally wrong; she is angry because he is acting as if she doesn’t already know that. she is telling ser barristan that she is not the person the op believes she would be were it not for ser barristan; she is considering purchasing the unsullied because she believes she must to achieve her political aims, but she understands well what slavery is and the consequences of the decision she is trying to make–that for her to own a slave army would be a stain, not on her honor, but on her conscience and her moral character".
Also, if Dany once thought that marrying the Lhazareen women to the Dothraki was a good option, now she's able to acknowledge the injustice of being sold and feeling afraid in general. She no longer thinks that giving the slaves to a better master is a viable alternative, she'll free them altogether.
Which brings me to the way Dany talks about Drogo here. It's very interesting, and I want to make speculations tied to her characterization so far.
In Dany's very first chapter, we find out two things: Dany knows a) that her brother is ineffective and short-sighted and b) that she is a slave in all but name. Even so, she couldn't say these things out loud. In fact, her feelings about Viserys in her thoughts did not match those in her spoken words and actions. Later, something similar would happen with Drogo: she would no longer acknowledge that she was his slave, but rather see him as "the shield that kept her safe". In both cases, Dany avoids to look back and see the full picture and be consistent about her beliefs and opinions because it would hurt too much to challenge her two main sources of emotional support.
However, this eventually changes with Viserys. In AGOT Daenerys III, Jorah admits to Dany how he feels about Viserys - to him, he's "the shadow of a snake". With his support (not that I think Jorah himself wanted to guide her, far from that), Dany says it out loud for the first time in her life that she doesn't think Viserys will ever take back the Seven Kingdoms, not even if he had the military strength to do so. However, because she loves him, she still tries to rationalize his actions and see the better in him in the next chapter. Her goodwill ends after he threatens to kill her son, and she's much more aware of who he was in ACOK and ASOS.
As for Drogo... In ACOK Daenerys III, Jorah, in a vicious attempt to isolate Dany from other men, reminds her that Illyrio sold her to Khal Drogo, which was something hard for her to confront and acknowledge because she was still grieving for him.
In ASOS Daenerys II, however, Dany is able to articulate to Barristan that yes, she was sold and she did feel afraid and she won't let anyone talk about it as if she didn't know these things. I wonder if Jorah (unwittingly) helped her to put things in perspective here as well like he did with Viserys.
Anyway, Barristan is quick to apologize for what he said and Dany forgives him:
“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” Dany patted Arstan’s spotted hand to reassure him. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Because Dany admires his "good face" and "great strength", she seeks his counsel, which is why she'd asked him to accompany her to meet Kraznys and see the Unsullied:
The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. Her bloodriders would do that well enough. Ser Jorah Mormont she had left aboard Balerion to guard her people and her dragons. Much against her inclination, she had locked the dragons belowdecks. It was too dangerous to let them fly freely over the city; the world was all too full of men who would gladly kill them for no better reason than to name themselves dragonslayer. (ASOS Daenerys II)
As we see in this passage above, Dany naturally acts like a leader by thinking of which purposes each person might better serve her and organizing them accordingly. She also leaves her children belowdecks, which was most likely the best choice. As she will learn in ADWD, there really are men who take it on themselves to be dragonslayers or, as she'll put it, "heroes".
Dany returns to the ship and Strong Belwas offers her dog meat, which she refuses because "all she could think of was the Unsullied and their stupid puppies". As @thatprettymuslimgirl's post and my addition show, dogs are associated with slavery in ASOS and will later be connected to Hizdahr, the nobles in general and the false peace in ADWD. I'm not really sure if GRRM was thinking about all of this (though he did write big chunks of ADWD Daenerys IX shortly after he finished ASOS), but it's subtext that makes it clear, along with everything else I've already analyzed above, that Dany is rejecting the slavers' way of thinking right away. She might try to make peace with them later, but only because she was tired of war and carnage; her anti-slavery stance was always clear and consistent.
When Jorah finds her, he asks how many Unsullied the Astapori have for sale and Dany responds irritated:
“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
Here, Dany recognizes that no human being should ever have to undergo the sort of systematic abuse and torture that the Unsullied were forced to experience in order to become as subservient as they are. Dany recognizes how dehumanizing and unacceptable that sort of treatment was for making them "like one man" meant for sale (or "not men" at all) - that's why she tells Jorah to not call them men: she asks that he doesn't erase their suffering and talk as if the way they were treated was, in any way, acceptable.
Jorah doesn't understand any of this, though. While his advice for Dany to go to Astapor ultimately paid off because of Dany's actions, we should remind ourselves that he did her no favor. I've already shown in another post how he still has no problem with slavery even after being exiled, and you can see that in the next passage below: he can't understand why would Dany be angry at him for advising her to go to Astapor to buy them nor why would she be appalled by how they are treated, so he tries to normalize the situation by focusing on how effective as a force they can be ("the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained..."). That's enough for Dany, who rightfully slaps him in the face:
“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”
“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.
Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”
“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” If you were my true knight, you would never have kissed me, or looked at my breasts the way you did, or ... (ASOS Daenerys II)
She makes it clear here: if he were her true knight, he wouldn't have brought her to Astapor. (And that he forced a kiss on her and looked at her breasts without her consent makes her anger even more pronounced, rightfully so.) Thankfully, Dany is a true queen, but not because of him.
(Also, Barristan explicitly called Jorah a slaver in this chapter, and I wonder if that also heightened her rage in the exchange above, for she's realizing that he does, indeed, talk like a slaver.)
Jorah says that he'll ask Groleo to send them somewhere else (which does not get to the root of the problem), but Dany stops him. Now that she saw what she saw, she can't remain passive about it, she feels it in her guts that she needs to do something:
“As Your Grace commands. I shall tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail on the evening tide, for some sty less vile.”
“No,” said Dany. Groleo watched them from the forecastle, and his crew was watching too. Whitebeard, her bloodriders, Jhiqui, every one had stopped what they were doing at the sound of the slap. “I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” And with that she left him, and went below. (ASOS Daenerys II)
In this moment, we see that Dany wishes she could do what Barristan told her to do: go west and pretend she didn't see what she saw (hence why it's so ludicrous to argue that he convinced her to free the slaves). But she "must find some way to buy them" now, not just the amount of soldiers she needs, but all the "eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale". As I said it before, she is already thinking about how she might free them.
Dany refuses to become desensitized by slavery, which she instinctively notices is pervasive throughout the entire city:
She stood by the rail and looked out over Astapor. From here it looks almost beautiful, she thought. The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Kraznys’s translator had promised. The brick pyramids were all glimmery with light. But it is dark below, in the streets and plazas and fighting pits. And it is darkest of all in the barracks, where some little boy is feeding scraps to the puppy they gave him when they took away his manhood. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Interestingly, even here, Dany already seems opposed to the fighting pits.
Jorah shows up and tries to relativize the morality of the situation: if she will spill blood in Westeros, why not here in Slaver's Bay? Dany responds:
“The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.” (ASOS Daenerys II)
While there is something to be said about the parallels between the slavers and the feudal lords and about the collateral damage that Dany will inevitably inflict on the smallfolk when she fights for her birthright (for she seems ignorant of it in this moment), overall, she is correct: you can't compare the attack against targeted combatants with the systematic attack against almost all of the city's population, save for the nobles.
Jorah remembers the human impact of the Sack of King's Landing and points out that the Unsullied will cause less damage than a normal army would, so they'd be useful if she wants to defeat "the Usurper's dogs" and spare lives at the same time.
Then Dany will question why the city, which lacks protection, has not been invaded by khalasars yet:
Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. “You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?” She pointed. “Look at the walls. You can see where they’ve begun to crumble. There, and there. Do you see any guards on those towers? I don’t. Are they hiding, ser? I saw these sons of the harpy today, all their proud highborn warriors. They dressed in linen skirts, and the fiercest thing about them was their hair. Even a modest khalasar could crack this Astapor like a nut and spill out the rotted meat inside. So tell me, why is that ugly harpy not sitting beside the godsway in Vaes Dothrak among the other stolen gods?” (ASOS Daenerys II)
I've showed some signs above that Dany is already thinking of how to free the slaves and, if she wants to do so, she needs to gather information about the city's defenses. She makes questions that get to the point of the matter, as Jorah responds that a) anyone who would want to attack Astapor would have to face the Unsullied, who are renowned ever since what happened at the gates of Qohor, b) Meereen, Yunkai, Lhazar and the eastern hinterlands have no reason to attack the city and c) the Dothraki provide slaves to the Astapori slavers. If the latter give gifts to the Dothraki in turn, the horselords will find it more convenient to ride on rather than fight. What other function their captives would have if there aren't slavers to sell them to, after all? Dany wishes her situation in Westeros could be resolved as easily as that of the Astapori and the Dothraki (by offering gifts and not fighting).
Dany recalls her brother Rhaegar, her main source of inspiration:
“Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”
“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”
“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” (ASOS Daenerys II)
Of course, Dany never knew who Rhaegar really was, so these statements are about her leadership style and her moral system rather than his.
Once again, Jorah maintains his position: trying to be idealistic gets you killed. Playing dirty makes you win. It's not so different from Cersei's "when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die".
Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably, Rhaegar died. (ASOS Daenerys II)
Jorah didn't really know who Rhaegar was, so I don't think this sentence is necessarily reliable. The spirit of his advice is simple, however: Jorah is trying to normalize the training of the Unsullied and the existence of slavery in general as necessary evils if Dany is to win the game of thrones.
On the other hand, these words were also useful in another sense: sometimes you can't play by the rules if you intend to succeed, especially not if these rules and conventions and institutions treat other people as interchangeable objects to be sold and invalidate your sense of morality. Barristan's advice was also helpful, not in the sense that she should leave the city, but rather that she should not be a part of the slave trade. And so, like with Viserys and Drogo, she will find a solution that was informed by both of these men's advice while also being her own: by refusing to view the slaves as objects to be traded, Dany considered the deal illegitimate and sparked an abolitionist campaign that would influence an entire continent. In other words, Dany did not play by the rules (like Jorah advised), but not by compromising her moral principles, but because of her moral principles (like Barristan advised).
I got ahead of myself her, but I felt that this was the most appropriate place to try to grasp to which extent these men influenced Dany and to which extent she acted on her own.
Now let's go to ASOS Daenerys III. At this point, Dany has already devised her plan to free the Unsullied. She tells the Good Masters that she intends to buy all of them. To appease them, she shows more skin:
She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed. (ASOS Daenerys III)
Also, in order to show that she is not just a beggar queen and is actually capable to buy all of the Unsullied, Dany brings her khalasar and advisors with her:
Each of the eight brokers was attended by two or three body slaves ... though one Grazdan, the eldest, had six. So as not to seem a beggar, Dany had brought her own attendants; Irri and Jhiqui in their sandsilk trousers and painted vests, old Whitebeard and mighty Belwas, her bloodriders. Ser Jorah stood behind her sweltering in his green surcoat with the black bear of Mormont embroidered upon it. (ASOS Daenerys III)
Groleo told Dany that the fringe on the tokar indicates the social hierarchy amongst the masters, so she pays special attention to each master's fringe's tokar:
In this cool green room atop the pyramid, two of the slavers wore tokars fringed in silver, five had gold fringes, and one, the oldest Grazdan, displayed a fringe of fat white pearls that clacked together softly when he shifted in his seat or moved an arm. (ASOS Daenerys III)
GRRM is trying hard to show that Dany is doing what she is doing for selfless reasons. They tell her that she might get all of the 8600 Unsullied if she has enough gold, but not the 2000 that haven't been properly trained, because they don't want to risk losing their credibility in case the latter fails in the field. But Dany insists:
“Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
If Dany was really doing what she was doing just for the sake of an army, she wouldn't have made that offer. Still, they say no.
Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.”
(ASOS Daenerys III)
She says she'll pay double to get all of them. One of the slavers remind her that she isn't Queen of Westeros yet, so she should be certain if she has enough gold and trading goods to pay for them all. Dany replies that they should know that better than her, for they've inspected her ships. The Good Master says she would normally have enough resources to pay for 1000 of them, but only 500 if she'll pay double. One of them says she could give them her crown and get 100 of them, but she says no for personal reasons:
“My crown is not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown, the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. (ASOS Daenerys III)
If you'll recall, she does the same thing back in ACOK Daenerys III. What she does differently here, on the other hand, is to put one of her children in jeopardy. Back in that same chapter, Dany describes the dragons as "all the difference" for her to eventually become more than a beggar queen, so the weight of the risk she's about to take is heavy.
Besides her crown, Dany won't sell neither her people nor her people's goods and horses, but she can offer Illyrio's three ships to the slavers. Now, they say she can buy 2000 Unsullied.
Have in mind that this was Jorah's advice back in ASOS Daenerys I:
“That is what you will find in Astapor, Your Grace. Put ashore there, and continue on to Pentos overland. It will take longer, yes ... but when you break bread with Magister Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.” (ASOS Daenerys I)
Now look at the scene from ASOS Daenerys III that we're in:
The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much, but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being great.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
If all Dany wanted was to get an army, she could have stopped right here. She already had twice the number of Unsullied Jorah originally advised her to buy. In fact, she could've stopped earlier when she offered "every bead of amber and jar of saffron", because they were worth 1000 Unsullied, but she chose to pay double if this meant that the masters would change their mind and give her all of the slaves, both Unsullied and untrained boys.
But she doesn't want an army, she wants to free every single Unsullied. This is why the next moment is so meaningful:
Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
That Dany "had considered long and hard and found no other way" reveals two things:
It reveals that Dany already expected that her resources and ships wouldn't be enough for the slavers to close the deal and give her all of the slaves, so she was prepared to offer one dragon, hard as it would be to risk a child.
It reveals that Dany is willing to go to any length to free the slaves. She "found no other way"? Of course she had! Again, she could have left the city and hired mercenaries in the Free Cities as Barristan advised her, she could have bought 1000 Unsullied as Jorah advised her, she could have bought the 2000 Unsullied. But Dany feels that it is her moral duty to free all of these men. That's why "[t]wo thousand would never serve for what she meant to do"; that's why she "must have them all"; that's why Dany thinks that "[i]t is my only choice", just like Brienne thinks "[n]o chance, and no choice".
Barristan tries to intervene and to persuade Dany to take another course of action (and there are still people crediting him for Dany's choices, sigh), but she is determined and asks for Jorah to remove him. She waits for their answer, but she already knows what it will be:
She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut, but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young, and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none. (ASOS Daenerys III)
For all that Dany is criticized for her lack of Westerosi historical knowledge, we see in moments like this that she is able to retain whatever facts she learns from other people (we don't know if Jorah, Barristan, Viserys or Groleo told her) and apply them to better contextualize and grasp the problems she encounters. In this case, I also imagine that the Qartheen's reactions to her dragons factored into her conjecture.
And so, as Dany expected, the deal is made - all of the Unsullied and the untrained boys for her in exchange for all her goods (save for her crown and clothes), the three ships and Drogon, the largest dragon, for them. Missandei is given as a gift to Dany.
Dany empathizes with Barristan, even if he still disrespected her authority in public:
Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child. Even the thought made her ill. (ASOS Daenerys III)
Like she did in the previous chapter, Dany makes it clear to Barristan that she wants his advice, but she reminds him of her position as well:
“Whitebeard,” she said, “I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your mind with
me ... when we are alone. But never question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily.
“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a queen.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
Barristan is frank and says that even queens can make mistakes, for a dragon is worth more than any army, as Aegon proved in the Field of Fire. Dany shows self-assurance by responding:
“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
Then, Dany talks to Missandei one-on-one for the first time. Missandei is surprised to find that Dany is actually fluent in High Valyrian. Dany frees Missandei and explains that she will serve as a handmaid, cross another continent and face wars with her if she chooses to stay, which she does because she doesn't have better options. Unfortunately, that's something Dany still hasn't learned, but the next chapter will have her start to understand that very lesson.
Then they start talking about the Unsullied. Dany knows that Kraznys may have lied to impress her, so she makes a few questions to confirm the reliability of the information he gave her:
“Are these Unsullied truly fearless?”
~
“...Is it true they feel no pain?”
~
“And they are obedient?”
Missandei confirms everything Kraznys had previously told Dany - they really are fearless, they really feel no pain, they really are obedient.
Dany makes new questions from now on. First, what will she do with them once her war is over? Missandei suggests keeping them as watchmen, reselling them or even asking them to kill themselves. Second:
“If I did resell them, how would I know they could not be used against me?” Dany asked pointedly. “Would they do that? Fight against me, even do me harm?”
“If their master commanded. They do not question, Your Grace. All the questions have been culled from them. They obey.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
In the previous chapter, as I showed (waaay) above, Dany had asked Kraznys what would happen if an enemy (herself) offered the Unsullied freedom for betraying their master. Kraznys replied that the enemy (herself) would be killed for it.
Now, in the moment from ASOS Dany III above, Dany words the question differently: if the Unsullied were sold from one person (masters) to another (Dany), would they fight against their former owner? Missandei answers that they would and echoes Kraznys's words by emphasizing that they do not question, they obey.
It's also worth pointing out that Dany never reveals to be asking these questions for her own sake. In fact, she creates hypothetical situations to conceal the possibility that she might apply that knowledge against the masters. So, by gathering these two pieces of information, Dany now knows what she needs to do in order to begin a successful rebellion: she needs to wait for the transaction to be made and to be acknowledged as their new owner. Only then it'll be possible for her to rebel and offer the Unsullied freedom.
Later, Groleo has another argument with Dany, who is vehement about getting the Unsullied (for the noble reasons I've already discussed above):
“Magister Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about it.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
Dany calls her bloodriders and Jorah to her cabin.
Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.
She meant to sleep afterward, to be well rested for the morrow, but an hour of restless tossing in the stuffy confines of the cabin soon convinced her that was hopeless. Outside her door she found Aggo fitting a new string to his bow by the light of a swinging oil lamp. Rakharo sat crosslegged on the deck beside him, sharpening his arakh with a whetstone. (ASOS Daenerys III)
Considering that the author emphasizes that "they were the only ones she truly trusted", shows Aggo and Rakharo preparing their weapons for the next day (and they will begin to attack the masters before the Unsullied do) and has Jorah telling Dany that the next day will be a difficult one, I assume she shared her plan with them to make sure it would work out.
Then, she goes up in deck, Jorah finds her and they have a powerful exchange in which Dany reflects on why she calls herself queen in the first place:
“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your strength.”
“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him.
“The Lhazareen girl?”
“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”
“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.
“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”
“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”
“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
These lines have already been analyzed in so many ways and quoted by so many people that I feel that I don't have anything new to add. I will quote @khaleesirin and myself to touch upon two particular aspects, however:
Dany’s storyline stands in contrast with the whole narrative surrounding the existence of The Others because when it comes to her, the realization we should be having is not that we need to gather / forge light (the heroes) to ready for a the fight against the real, ultimate darkness that’s about to come; Dany, as a hero and a revolutionary, came into view because in Arendtian terms, we have been, and are already in dark times. [...] There’s a reason why Dany’s character is so closely read as a revolutionary figure whose consciousness to fight for change, to end slavery, happens not because of her predetermined role, but because of the experiences she accumulated. (x)
~
Among her “contemporaries,” she’s the only one who actively sought for a universal sense of social justice, she’s the only one who actively appealed for the humanity of the repressed. (x)
~
The main takeaway is this: in terms of learning how to lead, Daenerys’ journey is not simply about how to be a ruler but on what grounds she should be ruling.��(x)
~
What happened to Eroeh is not only something that fuels Dany’s anger and need for vengeance. It also fuels her desire to be just and fight for equality. This shows that negative feelings and sense of fairness can feed off each other (and let me be clear that the latter is a much stronger force on Daenerys). Dany had no agency once; she knows how that felt like. Now she, another rape victim to whom the narrative actually cares about giving a voice, will strive to give other people their agency because she can’t stand watching these injustices passively if she can do something about them. After what happened to me, this became so much more meaningful. She makes me feel like I can recover and succeed and be proactive too. (x)
Dany as a proactive hero is inspiring to me for the reasons expressed above:
She chose to fight for a cause that she had no any moral obligation to fight for nor any social ties to the group being oppressed (she transcended feudal loyalties before anyone else did) nor did she think she had a predetermined role to play. She did it all simply because her deep empathy and her own experiences as someone who's been oppressed before led to her development of a universal sense of social justice ("Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?")
Also, as any marginalized group can tell you in real life, we're always met with human opposition like her cause was (unlike the Others' threat, which necessarily involves everyone, but no social movement ever managed to do that). We're angry and traumatized and scared. Dany had all of these feelings too, but she sublimated them into an abolitionist campaign. She is both relatable and a power fantasy. The scene above encapsulates all the key reasons why Dany's character, leadership and overall development matter so much to so many readers.
It's also worth noting that the chapter links Dany's anti-slavery crusade with the War for the Dawn, even if Dany is unaware of that.
Morning finally arrives. Like she did many times before, Dany restrains her emotions here in order to be respected, to be able to act as a political leader and to carry out her plan effectively:
If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she would lose all courage. (ASOS Daenerys III)
In Qarth, Dany wore their gowns as a way to appease them, but then ultimately chose her Dothraki vests in the docks as her way to rebel against them and leave the city. In this chapter, she does the same: the Qartheen gown was used to flatter the slavers, but her "horsehair pants and painted leather vests" are her preferred option, signaling her choice of war and "honesty" and equality:
Today she rode her silver, clad in horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of Dust. (ASOS Daenerys III)
I don't think it's a coincidence that, in ADWD, Dany wears a tokar (which bears similar functions to those of the Qartheen gown; both are associated with adulation and falsehood and are villainized partly for being feminine-coded) while trying to find common ground with the slavers and then meets with the Dothraki at the end of the book when she decides to reject the peace. Both ACOK and ASOS already had Dany using Dothraki clothing for the purpose of revolting against socially established practices. It's also fitting because Dany's experiences with the Dothraki inform both her sense of equality and her leadership style.
To hammer home the parallels between Dany's choices of outfits in ACOK and ASOS, GRRM mentions the "Undying of Qarth" and also compares the Astapori with the Qartheen:
They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of, and their children’s children. It made her wonder how many of them would ever have children. (ASOS Daenerys III)
This passage also highlights a few things: by now, Dany knows that people are awed by her dragons and will try to look at them or even possess them if they can. It also foreshadows that her actions, righteous as they might be, will inevitably result in violence, for she doesn't know which of them will come out alive to have children.
Unlike the day before, now Dany is bringing her entire retinue. She organizes them in a conscious attempt to make them look more imposing than they really are:
She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red waste and black salt sea. (ASOS Daenerys III)
Karmically speaking, Dany's rebellion begins in the most appropriate spot. The Plaza of Punishment, which was where slaves once suffered for trying to fight for their dignity, is now where a successful anti-slavery rebellion against the masters takes place:
The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor’s main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. “The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city,” Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.
At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might peel an apple, in a long curling strip. One man had an arm black with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”
“He raised a hand against his owner.” (ASOS Daenerys III)
All the trade goods are brought forward to be exchanged for the Unsullied and Kraznys makes another nasty advice on how best to use them. Finally, Dany hands the end of Drogon's chain to Kraznys, who gives her the whip in turn. With the knowledge she extracted from Missandei and Kraznys, Dany is aware that she needs to be acknowledged as the Unsullied's owner if she wants them to fight for her. She makes questions to guarantee that the deal is done and makes it plain to the Unsullied that they are now hers:
“Is it done, then? Do they belong to me?”
“It is done,” he agreed, giving the chain a sharp pull to bring Drogon down from the litter. (ASOS Daenerys III)
~
She stood in her stirrups and raised the harpy’s fingers above her head for all the Unsullied to see. “IT IS DONE!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “YOU ARE MINE!” She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the first rank, holding the fingers high. “YOU ARE THE DRAGON’S NOW! YOU’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!” (ASOS Daenerys III)
She prepared the ground very well. Now she is ready to atack. The slavers are unable to control Drogon, and Dany explains why:
“He will not come,” Kraznys said.
“There is a reason. A dragon is no slave.” And Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver’s face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy’s fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. “Drogon,” she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. “Dracarys.”
The black dragon spread his wings and roared. (ASOS Daenerys III)
Chaos ensues, the other two dragons are unchained, the Good Masters can only shove one another aside in panic and the Astapori demon-horned warriors are swiftly defeated by Dany's khalasar. Old Grazdan, the Good Master with the highest level of authority, tries in vain to order the Unsullied to attack Dany. The Mother of Dragons's leap of faith pays off and the Unsullied side with her instead:
The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.
And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.
“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”
“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!” And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. (ASOS Daenerys III)
And the chapter ends triumphally. Dany is finally confident enough to throw the whip aside as the narrative links her draconic force to freedom.
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