#Xaro Lodge

[gabrielaaufreisen]

Okavango Delta u. Moremi Reservat

Die Tsodilo HIlls in Botswana mit ihren jahrhundertealten Felsmalereien, die Xaro Lodge auf einer Insel im Okavango und das Moremi Wildreservat sind unsere letzten Stationen auf unser Reise durch Botswana.

Auf dem Okavango im Okavango Delta fahren, zu den Tsodilo Hills und zum Schluss der Reise ins Moremi Wildreservat, so füllen wir die letzten fünf Tage unserer Rundreise, die an den Victoria Fällen begann, Namibia berührte und in Botswana endet. Die Tsodilo Hills Botswana ist durch seine Lage rund um das Okavango Delta ein sehr flaches Land. Daher werden die Tsodilo Hills im Norden der Kalahari…

[aegor-bamfsteel]

How do you think Rohanne’s perception of slavery changed from her time in Westeros? And how would the westerosi handle slavery during their exile?

Xen, could you go back to asking me which of the Great Bastards is ticklish? Because this is a hard one. It involves knowing about both Rohanne’s personality and background, of which we have no information. It also has me make assumptions about the history of Golden Company based on very scant information from A Dance with Dragons. For the first question, I will try to suggest some factors that may have contributed to Rohanne’s views of slavery, and how they may have changed in Westeros. For the second, I’m going to take what I assume about the character of the first generation of Westerosi exiles and compare it to information about the asoiaf-era Golden Company.

Question 1: How do you think Rohanne’s perception of slavery changed from her time in Westeros?

I think that Rohanne’s views on slavery before she got to Westeros were influenced by her:

Social status: We know very little about Rohanne’s background other than that the Archon was responsible for arranging her marriage, suggesting  that he was something like her paterfamilias or male head of house. As a high status woman in a city that lives off of the slave trade (so says Xaro Xhoan Daxos. I’m rolling my eyes at how unhistorical that a tiny island with no arable farmland has a population of 3 slaves for every 1 free person, but that’s the world building GRRM has created), she almost certainly came from a family who owned slaves. GRRM seems to base his slavery off of the ancient Roman model (it isn’t ethnically based, there doesn’t seem to be a ban on slaves reading/holding specific occupations, there is a reasonable chance of gaining one’s freedom), so if she were the lady of her household, she would have been responsible for tending to the basic needs of all of the slaves of her house—their food, clothing, physical health, and lodgings; even if she weren’t, her older female relatives would have taught her. Rohanne must have lived in a house mostly managed by slaves, and interacted with them on a personal level in her day-to-day life; would have been tutored by a slave in mathematics/science, her family accounts were seen to by a slave, her family’s agents were likely mostly slaves, and all the domestic chores were done by slaves. Perhaps she even had a personal maidservant from girlhood who slept beside her bed on a mat, as upper-class Roman women did. Due to her education, she may have developed a maternalistic attitude toward slaves, in which she considered it her moral duty to tend to her family’s dependents. However, she may not have necessarily considered them inherently inferior because…

Family background: Rohanne does not have any surname, let alone one with the Tyroshi-Valyrian “-is” suffix (Quaynis, Uhuris, Tumitis, Naharis), which might mean any number of things: that she was not of immediate Valyrian descent (likely, as the name “Rohanne" does not look or sound like any Valyrian names that we know, whereas the name “Kiera” is similar to the Lysene/Targaryen-Valyrian names Shiera and Shaera) or that her family was originally of a lower class that only recently reached the upper echelons of power (in Westeros if not in Tyrosh, a lack of a surname indicates smallfolk status; since Tyroshi culture is based on wealth rather than birth, those families which do have surnames could be Valyrian “old money,” although much reduced in circumstances). I don’t know if her lack of a surname definitely means that Rohanne’s family were originally slaves themselves; in Planetos, many ex-slaves don’t have surnames (though some like Rylona Rhee, Marq Mandrake, and Tumco Lho do have last names that belong to their own Ghiscari or Westerosi or Naathi culture, although these people were born free. If Rohanne’s ancestors were born slaves, they may not have surnames), but neither do most of the Myrish (close to Tyrosh, also many not of Valyrian descent). What it does mean is that she likely came from a “new money” family, and that doubtless had an effect on how she saw slaves. To clarify, the Valyrians believed themselves superior to all other peoples on the basis of blood, and many of their descendants (the Volantenes, the Lyseni, and the Targaryens) adopted the same attitude; Rohanne did not belong to this “in-group” and may have even faced passive-aggressive snubbing because of it, so she could have had a very different point of view on slavery than the “old money” families. Like many slaveowners who came from poor or even ex-slave backgrounds, she might have had the understanding that slaves were not enslaved because they were naturally morally/intellectually inferior, but were subjected to slavery through kidnapping or being born to a slave mother. The idea that slavery was a moral rather than an economic institution might have already seemed strange to her before her arrival in Westeros. 

After her arrival in Westeros and marriage to a Crownlands knight, Rohanne’s position on slavery may have further changed due to…

The Faith of the Seven: Daemon followed the Faith of the Seven, and while he did not spend a great deal of his time with septons, he was considered such an exceptional knight (who was required to take oaths based on each of the Seven) that his prowess was tied to the religious figure of the Warrior; whatever Yandel might say about his apathy to religion, he seems to have been bound up in Faith principles to a considerable degree. We don’t know whether or not Rohanne converted to the Seven before or during her marriage, as other interfaith marriages did not require the bride to convert (Catelyn Tully didn’t convert to worship of the Old Gods when she married Eddard Stark. In fact, he built her a sept for her worship, hired Septon Chayle as a librarian, and had Septa Mordane educate his daughters), although she may have done so to better integrate with the King’s Landing elite, especially due to the influx of septons in Daeron II’s court. If she did convert, she may have been taught that slavery was wrong on a moral basis, as all men belong to the Seven and owning them was to equate oneself to the divine (that was the argument of the 4th-century CE Christian bishop Gregory of Nysa, the only known abolitionist in antiquity). Even if she did not convert, the Faith was still present in her daily life because it was the religion of her husband, children (her daughters would have been educated by a Septa), smallfolk, and was centered in the nearby capital, so she would have been familiar with its teachings. Yet at the same time, her views on slavery might also have been influenced by…

The smallfolk: Tyrion Lannister observed that the smallfolk were similar to slaves because of the cruel treatment they suffered at the hands of their masters/lords with no hope for justice, but I believe the smallfolk have more rights than slaves. It seems that they were treated even better than serfs in at least one aspect; Brynden Rivers ordered them back to their lands following the Great Spring Sickness, indicating they had the right to move around and seek better employment as they wished. That leads into another point that gives smallfolk an advantage over being slaves: as primarily agricultural workers, smallfolk are spread out over a wider area and certainly don’t see their local lord on a day-to-day basis, whereas in tiny Tyrosh all of the slaves would have been familiar to their masters because everyone lives so close together. Rohanne may have even thought that the relationship between lord and smallfolk was rather distant for this reason, or she wondered why Daemon was not keeping his smallfolk close by in order to avoid potential rebellions. As she spent more time in Westeros, it may have occurred to her that the reason they didn’t rebel (and in fact raked their lives to pay tribute to him after his death) was because he was an honest man who made a fair liege; they had the freedom to follow him out of love, and were all the more loyal for it.  People are willing to fight for the preservation of that freedom. She could observe that the economic arguments for slavery she’d learned—that it was an integral part of the economy, that slaves would become lazy when freed, that fear of harsh punishments was needed to keep them obedient—just didn’t apply in this society. So I believe that Rohanne would have become less maternalistic toward her servants (as she now realized that they were capable of not causing trouble when independent) and may have come to see enslavement as a moral wrong due to the influence of the Seven/her family/her tenants (rather than just a “misfortune of circumstances”).

Question 2: How would the Westerosi handle slavery in their exile?

In the asoiaf era, the Golden Company disallows slaves from joining, calling themselves a “free brotherhood;” however, one of their prominent members is an ex-slave, Marq Mandrake (who has a hole in his cheek where his branding scar was), so they don’t appear to discriminate against men for having slave backgrounds. On the other hand, the Yunkish attempted to contract them by offering a “slave for every man in the company, ten for every officer, and a hundred choice maidens for the captain-commander” plus twice of what Myr would give them, so they obviously don’t have problems working for slaving cities. At the same time, it’s not made explicitly clear that the Company accepts slaves as a form of payment (Harry Strickland only pretended to think about the offer because he thought a blunt refusal would make their real plans too obvious); it would make more sense if they didn’t, since it’s said that they wear their wealth in gold and that their itinerant profession makes it hard to keep slaves. One could say that they have a sort of mercenary (heh) attitude toward slavery: they don’t mind if a slaver is willing to pay them to do a job, and they don’t care what a man’s background is as long as he is currently free, but don’t own slaves themselves for largely pragmatic reasons.

I assume that they felt differently in Aegor Rivers’ time; as many of Daemon I’s supporters were born in areas where the Faith has a greater presence (the Reach areas around Oldtown, the Riverlands close to the Crownlands where the Faith is centered, the Vale where the Andals first landed), and were loyal to the him in part because he embodied the knightly ideal of fairness and honor, they must have found the slavery reprehensible. Jon Connington’s words indicate that the grandfathers and fathers of the present members held more to Westerosi and Faith-inspired notions of chivalry and mercy than their descendants. Yet even by the asoiaf-era they still pay tribute to the legacy Aegor Rivers left behind, as breaking a contract is still seen as a stain upon the honor of the Company; it could be that the original members objected to slavery on moral grounds, but over time their prohibition became more pragmatic and a nod to tradition.

[wildchildalr]

The dragon lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.

She did not look anything like a humongous lizard, as dragons are often pictured, being smaller and possessing five long slender toes, and bearing that oldest, wildest grace that horses have never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery. Her neck was long and slender, making her head seem smaller than it was, and she had pointed ears and thin legs, with wings of white that shone and shivered with their own seashell light even in the deepest midnight. She was invisible to all but the pure of heart unless she chose otherwise.

One day it happened that two men with long bows rode through her forest, hunting for deer. The dragon followed them, moving so warily that not even the horses knew she was near. The sight of men filled her with an old, slow, strange mixture of tenderness and terror. She never let one see her if she could help it, but she liked to watch them ride by and hear them talking.

“I mislike the feel of this forest,” the elder of the two hunters grumbled. “Creatures that live in a dragon’s wood learn a little magic of their own in time, mainly concerned with disappearing. We’ll find no game here.”

“Dragons are long gone,” the second man said. “If, indeed, they ever were. This is a forest like any other. Isn’t it?”

“Then why do the leaves never fall here, or the snow? I tell you, there is one dragon left in the world – good luck to the lonely old thing, I say – and as long as it lives in this forest, there won’t be a hunter who takes so much as a titmouse home at his saddle. Ride on, ride on, you’ll see.”

They rode on a short distance.

“Let’s turn around and hunt somewhere else,” the second hunter said abruptly.

The dragon stepped softly into a thicket as they turned their horses, and took up the trail only when they were well ahead of her once more. The men rode in silence until they were nearing the edge of the forest, when that second hunter asked quietly, “Why did they go away, do you think? If there ever were such things.”

“Who knows? Times change. Would you call this age a good one for dragons?”

“No, but I wonder if any man before us ever thought his time a good time for dragons. And it seems to me now that I have heard stories – but I was sleepy with wine, or I was thinking of something else. Well, no matter. There’s light enough yet to hunt, if we hurry. Come!”

They broke out of the woods, kicked their horses to a gallop, and dashed away. But before they were out of sight, the first hunter looked back over his shoulder and called, just as though he could see the dragon standing in shadow, “Stay where you are, poor beast. This is no world for you. Stay in your forest, and keep your trees green and your friends long-lived. Good luck to you, for you are the last!”

The dragon stood still at the edge of the forest and said aloud, “I am the only dragon there is?” They were the first words she had spoken, even to herself, in more than a hundred years.

That can’t be, she thought. She had never minded being alone, never seeing another dragon, because she had always known that there were others like her in the world, and a dragon needs no more than that for company. “But I would know if all the others were gone. I’d be gone too. Nothing can happen to them that does not happen to me.”

Her own voice frightened her and made her want to be running. She moved along the dark paths of her forest, swift and shining, passing through sudden clearings unbearably brilliant with grass or soft with shadow, aware of everything around her, from the weeds that brushed her ankles to insect-quick flickers of blue and silver as the wind lifted the leaves. “Oh, I could never leave this, I never could, not if I really were the only dragon in the world. I know how to live here, I know how everything smells, and tastes, and is. What could I ever search for in the world, except this again?”

But when she stopped running at last and stood still, listening to crows and a quarrel of squirrels over her head, she wondered, But suppose they are hiding together, somewhere far away? What if they are hiding and waiting for me? In need of my help?

From that first moment of doubt, there was no peace for her; from the time she first imagined leaving her forest, she could not stand in one place without wanting to be somewhere else. She trotted up and down beside her pool, restless and unhappy. Dragons are not meant to make choices. She said no, and yes, and no again, day and night, and for the first time she began to feel the minutes crawling over her like worms. “I will not go. Because men have seen no dragons for a while does not mean they have all vanished. Even if it were true, I would not go. I live here. There has never been a time without dragons. We live forever! We are as old as the sky, old as the moon! We can be hunted, trapped; we can even be killed if we leave our forests, but we do not vanish.” She then remembered from centuries past when her brother, thirsty for more territory left his forest and terrorized the surrounding area. He had been shot down with a giant black arrow by a fearsome horse lord.

Perhaps a similar fate had befallen the rest of her kind. “Am I truly the last? ”

But at last she woke up in the middle of one warm night and said, “Yes, but now.” She hurried through her forest trying to look at nothing and smell nothing, trying not to feel her earth under her taloned claws. The animals who move in the dark, the owls and the foxes and the deer, raised their heads as she passed by, but she would not look at them. I must go quickly, she thought, and come back as soon as I can. Maybe I won’t have to go very far. But whether I find the others or not, I will come back very soon, as soon as I can.

Under the moon, the road that ran from the edge of her forest gleamed like water, but when she stepped out onto it, away from the trees, she felt how hard it was, and how long. She almost turned back then; but instead she took a deep breath of the woods air that still drifted to her, and held it in her mouth like a flower, as long as she could.

While traveling the dragon meets a spider that reveals that a monstrous stone giant called the Mountain herded her kind to the ends of the earth under the order of King Tywin years before. Venturing further into unfamiliar territory beyond the safety of her home, the Dragon journeys to find them and bring them all back.

Upon her journey, the Dragon is captured by the evil warlock Pyat Pree and is put on display in Pyat Pree‘s Midnight Carnival. As most of the attractions are normal animals with a spell of illusion placed on them (a toothless lion for a Sphynx, a crippled dog for a Direwolf, and a mere snake for a sea serpent), Pree uses a spell to create a pair of shackles that the non-magical carnival visitors can see her, as they are unable to see her real form. Pree keeps the immortal harpy Meereen captive as well and acknowledges the dangers of caging such a monster, but deems the risk secondary to the deed’s recognition and prestige. While held captive, the dragon is befriended by Tyrion an incompetent dwarf magician in the service of Pyat Pree. With the help of Tyrion the Dragon escapes, in the process freeing Meereen, who kills Pree and his henchman Xaro. The Dragon and Tyrion later gain a second traveling companion Jorah Mormont, a careworn former knight who is a member of the highway bandit group called the Brotherhood Without Banners. 

When the Dragon nears the seaside castle of King Tywin, the keeper of the Mountain, she encounters the creature, which turns out to be a monstrous earth elemental. The Mountain chases her around the area attepting to wear her down. At the last moment before her capture, Tyrion uses his unpredictable magic and transforms her into a human woman with white knee-length hair. With her in this guise, the Mountain is uninterested and departs. The Dragon suffers tremendous shock at the feeling of mortality in her body. While Jorah wraps the Dragon’s human form in a blanket, Tyrion states that the magic, not he, chose the form, and promises that he will return her to normal after the quest is complete.

Tyrion, Jorah, and the now-human Dragon proceed to King Tywin’s castle. Tywin is at first unwelcoming, and Tyrion introduces the Dragon as his niece Lady Daenerys. Tyrion requests that the three of them stay there as members of Tywin’s court, only to be told that the only occupants of the castle are Tywin, his adopted son Prince Robb and four ancient men-at-arms. Nonetheless, Tywin consents to lodge the trio, replacing his more competent on-call wizard, Littlefinger, with Tyrion, and setting Jorah to work in his scullery.

Daenerys begins to forget her identity and her reasons for coming to the castle and falls in love with Prince Rob as the result of the mortality of her current form. Caught in her newfound emotions, she struggles with thoughts of abandoning her quest for the sake of mortal love. Tywin eventually reveals to Daenerys that the dragons are trapped in the sea for his own benefit, because the dragons are the only things that make him happy. He then openly accuses Daenerys of coming to his kingdom to save the dragons and says that he knows who she really is, but she has seemingly forgotten about her true nature and her desire to save the other dragons. Yet from the waning magic in her eyes, he has doubts regarding his previous suspicions that she is more than she seems. Meanwhile, Jorah is able to learn the location of the Mountain’s lair from a talking raven.

Jorah, Tyrion and Daenerys are joined by Robb as they enter the elemental’s den, but Tywin attempts to trap them by destroying the way they came in. Tyrion reveals Daenerys’ true identity to Robb after explaining what they are looking for. Robb is unmoved and says that he loves her anyway. This makes Daenerys want to abandon the quest and marry Robb, but he dissuades her. The Mountain appears, but is no longer deceived by Daenerys’ human form and chases after her. As Robb struggles to protect her, Tyrion turns Daenerys back into the Dragon, but she is unwilling to leave Robb’s side. The Mountain drives her toward the ocean just as he earlier drove all the other dragons, but she manages to run away and the Mountain gives chase. Robb tries to defend her, but is trampled by the creature. Enraged, the Dragon turns on the Mountain and forces him into the sea. Carried on the white surf of incoming tides, the other dragons emerge en-masse from the water, causing Tywin’s castle to collapse into the sea as they rush past, with Tywin falling to his death.

On the beach, the Dragon magically revives Robb before departing for her forest. Tyrion assures Robb that he has gained much by winning the love of a dragon, even if he is now alone. He departs to start anew. The Dragon returns to say goodbye to Tyrion, who laments he has done her wrong by burdening her with regret and the taint of mortality, which could make her unable to rejoin her kind in the forest. She disagrees about the importance of his actions, as they helped them to restore dragons to the world; though she is the only dragon to feel regret, she is also the only dragon to know love. Tyrion and Jorah watch the Dragon as she departs for her home in the woods.