#democracy in Westeros

[chicken-wayng]

My mother didn't deserve what she went through but neither did I

I remember praying for her happiness because if she was happy all would be fine

She was anger and sadness and terror

She let the darkness overtake her

I don't want to be like my mother

I want to be happy before I die

My mother didn't deserve what she went through but neither did I

-rose brik

(Credits go to rightful owners, but thanksya @asappywriter for making the second line/Sept gifs for me💜)

[leupagus]

Am I writing the Meereen scenes as essentially "1776" with less singing and more threats of burning each other alive? Look,

x

Just then a group entered the library, arguing at and over each other. They were the most unlikely hodgepodge collection of people Tyrion had ever seen in his life: a young man in the rough spun smock favored by Meereen's freedmen, a tall bearded fellow wearing ornate robes that identified him as a member of one of the "great families," a woman dressed in the silk sleeveless tunic of a prostitute, and a half-dozen others, each more surprising than the last.

"All I am saying, my lord Hizdahr," said one woman, wearing a flowing dress and the choker that signaled her status as a Red Priestess, "is that your ridiculous notion of religious 'persecution' is so broad as to render any religious judgement meaningless!"

The tall bearded one slammed the door shut behind them and followed the group as it meandered its way over to a large oval table near a window, piled high with scrolls and books and half-written sheets of paper. "And all I am saying, my lady Kinvara, is that reducing the population via pyrotechnics is directly contradictory to achieving peace and stability, as well as freedom for all Meereenese!"

"Both of you shut up," sighed the man in the smock as they all settled into what seemed to be their usual seats. Thus far none of them had taken notice of either their queen or of him. One of the group, an old man with a white beard and a limp, got up almost immediately to totter over to one of the bookshelves, pulling out an alarming number of tomes with a thoughtful expression on his face. "And stop calling each other 'my lord' and 'my lady' when you're irritated, it makes my hands itch and I just want to wrap them around your throats."

"And you would be free to do so, were we followers of the Drowned God," snapped the one called Hizdahr as he rose to his feet, striding over to the old man and taking the pile of books. This evidently didn't put much of a damper on his ability to argue, however, as he twisted round to glare at the Red Priestess. "Any blood shed by a faith is fine, so long as it's your own devout you're killing? That seems to be your definition of 'religious freedom.'"

"Does the Drowned God punish its criminals by strangling them?" asked a young person surrounded by papers, fingers blue from ink and scribbling madly. "I thought it would be. Well. Drowning."

This seemed to side-track the conversation for a bit, and Daenerys moved away toward the door at the opposite end of the library.

"Who in the hells are they?" asked Tyrion as he followed her, before remembering his audience and wincing.

"Meereen's new Governance Charter Council," replied Daenerys, looking torn between annoyance and amusement. "They're drawing up a new system of laws and regulations for the city, as well as a system to choose their leaders."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does," she added, somewhat reluctantly. "But tyranny has its advantages."

"For the tyrant, certainly," he agreed, and winced again.

Fortunately, she laughed. "Certainly. But I mean for everyone. A just form of government will still fail its people, after all. And then who do they blame? Themselves, for choosing their own leaders? At least with me, Meereen has someone to hate."

"Do they hate you?" asked Tyrion, somewhat surprised. Granted, he'd not had much chance to mingle among the hoi polloi, but the crowd at the fighting pits had seemed quite approving of their new queen.

"They don't love me."

Tyrion rolled his eyes. "Well, love. That always fades in the end, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Daenerys looked thoughtful. They had arrived at the other door and a librarian opened it for them. She did not bow, he noted; simply nodded and closed the door behind them. Daenerys seemed not even to notice, mulling over his question as though it had been a serious one.

[kingsmoot]

welcome to the night's watch a noble thousands year old institution run with the most hairbrained bullshit scam artist election fraud voting system ever conceived

[natividadmoon]

I do not deny that the greens have oversold the love speech to Helaena. But to believe that this love of the people does not exist, when Helaena is inspired by Elia Martell to whom her people do not stop crying out. Apart from that as a person in a country where there are conflicts every 7 months, it is easy to side with the greatest loss (if your son is beheaded in front of your eyes, it is a greater trauma than dying on the road, even if it sounds ugly to say it ) Rhaenyra had more support than Aegon and Aemond at the beginning, but the fact that at that time in the eyes of the people she had done questionable and cruel things cost her her political career with a versus against Heleana.

[thehauntingofharrenhouse]

if stannis and renly had been born 200-300 years later they would be thomas massey-massey and the guy who called him thotide tidey-tidey

[raidark]

One thing I find funny from Show Dany haters is how much they call her an egomaniac tyrant who just wanted to control everything and everyone to obey her, that she only cared about the throne and power. How much they laugh at the idea of her trying to help common people, break the system and in general, give power to powerless people, etc. That she would only want power for herself and would loathe democracy more than any other character.

These people are also the ones who laughed along Season 8 Sansa, Tyrion, Arya and others when Sam proposed democracy as a system for Westeros at the end of the show.

To all that people, I'd like to kindly remind that before leaving for Westeros, Daenerys established democracy in Meereen (and the rest of the Bay of Dragons, I suppose). She and Tyrion spent some undetermined time to plan it and then left Daario and the Second Sons to keep the peace while people chose their rulers and a new government was appointed.

Now, while I'm sure we all would have liked to know the aftermatch of that, how things worked there after her leaving and especially after her death, we won't ever know thanks to certain writers who kinda forgot about it after S6, only remembering the Bay when deciding that slaying slavers was apparently a sign of madness and evilness ?¿

If you ask me, with Dany dead, most of her army destroyed as well, and no one else strong enough to protect the Bay, slavery will return and way worse. But that wasn't something D&D wanted people to think about because that would add some grey to the situation and they wanted Dany to be irremediably unjustifiable in her acts and her death the only option with only good consequences. Just to be clear, I think S8 Dany, a total different character from previous seasons, deserved to die after what she did. But go and visit the Bay in ten years, Jon and Tyrion, and ask them if what you two did was good. Surely and certaintly there were consequences.

In any case, since we'll never know what would happen, the series ends with Daenerys being the only ruler who actually cared for her people enough that she actually gave them total power to choose who should rule them... just 12 episodes before the writers decided she should mass murder innocents for literally no reason at all

She remains the only one who established real democracy that considered people no matter their origins or status (and not merely in a organization like the Night Watch) while the high nobles of Westeros laughed and considered the idea ridiculous. What a tyrant, right?

I'd have liked Sam to know the one who actually established his idea in a different place was the queen he hated so much, while all the others laughed. I'd have also liked if he was told what his family did and how many people died because of their betrayal, how many chances were even then offered to them, rather than just "they didn't bend the knee so i killed them lol". But the goal in Season 8 was always to paint Dany as a villain with no gray in the middle, just like they made Jon lie to his family and the lords and say Dany forced him to bend the knee in order to help the North when she actually swore to defend it without any commitment to her cause the moment she realized the threat was real and no fantasy. Yet no one, not even Dany, ever blinked an eye about this. Like it was retconned to frame her as evil.

[asongofstarkandtargaryen]

I see some fans saying that Targaryens represent the "old way" of doing things so in order for a new era to rise, they all have to die or at least none of them to end up on the Iron Throne.

The thing is, that even if Dany or Jon or - insert your favourite secret Targaryen theory here- any other Targaryen won't end up on the throne, things will remain exactly the same. Things remained the same when House Baratheon controlled the Iron Throne, and continues to be the same now that House Lannister controls it. After all, Westerosi Noble Houses are part of the so called "old way" of ruling which is based on feudalism. So no, if your favourite noble ends up as King or Queen nothing will magically change just because Targaryens won't be the ones with power.

In order for Westeros to abandon their so called "old ways " they should overthrown monarchy all together and embrace democracy But that would mean that none of your favourites will end up Lord or Lady of any region of the Seven Kingdoms. Personally, I would be fine with such ending but I really doubt that's what Martin has on his mind, judging by the foreshadowing on his books and his opinions on his interviews.

The only other way for things to change isn't simply to remove a specific House - aka Targaryen - from this feudalistic system but rather to put a charismatic ruler in charge who will care for the well being of all their people instead of only caring about themselves/ their House's glory/ nobles. Ironically for those fans, the two people who have shown to have this qualities among those who have been in a position of power actually belong in House Targaryen. And yes I'm talking about Dany and Jon.

[daenystheedreamer]

i did not put the lenny face there idk why theres a lenny face option 😭

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

‘daenerys will sacrifice herself at the end’ is something i am sick of seeing

this young female character has been set up by george as a very very progressive ruler who is hellbent on on making lasting societal change

a young female ruler who has the power to make this change, a young female ruler who truly cares about her cause

and yet people want her story to end with her death? how would this ending be thematically consistent? how would this ending benefit the common people in any way?

the people spouting this nonsense always prattle on about how the targaryens being in power at the end of the story is just a continuation of the old power structure

as if asoiaf is some black and white story where the old power structure either resumes or there’s going to be some sort of peaceful democracy after the targaryens are gone

like be so ffr

george has always been upfront that he’s interested in the choices of individuals and how his characters choices can shape the world they live in. so why would he throw away this young female ruler who’s currently smashing the slave trade that has been around for thousands of years in order to go for this bland message that her death will mark the end of the previous power structure?

when i put it that way i am astonished by how stupid it sounds

so, if you actually want societal change in westeros and essos then you better pray every single night that daenerys doesn’t die :)

[horizon-verizon]

Calling Daenerys a “colonizer” or an “imperialist” is actually genuinely insane because both her ancestors and her personally are culturally Essosi, and Valyria was itself a big factor in why slavery exists in Essos at the scale it does at all. While Slavers Bay was part of Old Ghis thousands of years ago, it spent an equally sizable and influencial part of its history being part of Valyria, to the point where several of the masters we encountered spoke Valyrian as their first language. She’s not an outsider, and there is no cultural misunderstanding. Outside of the abhorrent practice of slavery, she is attempting to fit in culturally, right down to wearing a tokar.

Some people already explained how it’s not allegorically operation Iraqi freedom from an authorial standpoint, but also, just from a purely political standpoint, Slaver’s Bay is a massive imperialist force itself. It’s not an unstable developing region, and Daenerys is not an agent of a powerful foreign empire attempting to destabilize it for the enrichment and strengthening of that empire. She is a singular individual and former bridal slave being followed by a truly stateless group of former enslaved people from hundreds of different places who herself has literally nothing to gain by staying there. Any allegory to US intervention in the Global South fundamentally falls apart when you think about it for three seconds, because the Slaver’s Bay itself is more akin to the US than it is to any nation in the Global South. (Which is also why it has so many powerful allies in other slavery-practicing parts of Essos trying to get her gone.) It’s a powerful imperialist machine. It also falls apart because it requires to deliberately misunderstand why the US has the intervention policies it does (hint, it’s not actually to spread freedom and democracy. It’s to steal resources.) There are no resources Daenerys needs in Meereen, and she actually is interested in and working towards the longterm stability and improvement of the lives of the people there, which is why she didn’t just fuck off to Westeros (or at least Pentos until her dragons grew) after Astapor.

And her haters keep regurgitating the “she just killed 163 random slavers and didn’t find out who ackshulllyyyy was responsible” talking point, but contrary to the show, there was no poor sad little Hizdar’s daddy who was really really so sad about the 163 murdered enslaved children. Because that’s not how anything works. Killing 163 children to intimidate Daenerys was not something that a few bad eggs got together and did by themselves, it was an official act of the state. The state in Meereen is collectively run by the masters, and organizing that kind of deliberate, calculated horrific action, from planning to execution, is the collective responsibility of all of the officials in the state. Every single one of them was as guilty as the next and the only problem there was symbolically only killing 163 of them instead of the all of them.

just from a purely political standpoint, Slaver’s Bay is a massive imperialist force itself. It’s not an unstable developing region, and Daenerys is not an agent of a powerful foreign empire attempting to destabilize it for the enrichment and strengthening of that empire...Any allegory to US intervention in the Global South fundamentally falls apart when you think about it for three seconds, because the Slaver’s Bay itself is more akin to the US than it is to any nation in the Global South. (Which is also why it has so many powerful allies in other slavery-practicing parts of Essos trying to get her gone.) It’s a powerful imperialist machine. It also falls apart because it requires to deliberately misunderstand why the US has the intervention policies it does (hint, it’s not actually to spread freedom and democracy. It’s to steal resources.)

Absolutely, but they'll almost never admit to that (unless it's like that blonde whitey on TikTok who blase said she'd be fine with Southern states integrating slavery) part of U.S. liberalism is disguised conservatism bc white supremacy.

[thestarlightforge]

To start off Disability Pride Month strong and celebrating the continuation of House of the Dragon season 2, I hope that Bran Stark gets so much sex and has so many kids, it ruins Westerosi democracy forever.

Sansa’s accusation of his impotence in the finale was some of the most random, casual, quite possibly inaccurate ableism I’ve ever witnessed. Lots of paralyzed people go on to lead active, fulfilling sex lives, some can still have children, and Ms. Queen of the North is not even a healer, much less a medical expert. Meanwhile, Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven, he can watch any sex scene his wild ass country has ever perpetrated from now till the beginning of time, and he’s had literally all the time in the world to study. He’s the king of a newly united Westeros, the world is his oyster, and by the Old Gods and the New, for all we know, he’s got Podrick’s magic dick.

In this essay I will—

[chicken-wayng]

"Fuck that crown and fuck the Gods! I'm running away." Alicent says her eyes bear true Targaryen Madness as she rebukes the things that were once all she stood for, shocking Nyra with the bravery of her declaration. Then, her eyes soften like they always do upon seeing Her. "Come with me."

"Yes," Rhaenyra said, without thinking.

[rynnthefangirl]

Whenever I think about how annoying the end of Game of Thrones was, I just imagine Bran the Broken's dumbass reign collapsing from all the awful political situations they set up.

A united seven kingdoms is done. Now that the North is independent, the Iron Islands and Dorne will follow soon after. They never wanted to be in the Seven Kingdoms to begin with and have been fighting rebellions and wars for centuries. Particularly after all the recent conflicts, there is no love for King's Landing from those two kingdoms right now. And regarding the Iron Islands, Yara promised *Daenerys* that she'd put an end to the reaving and raping ways of the Ironborn. She made no such promises to Bran.

The Reach will never stand for Ser Nobody of the Blackwater being given HIGHGARDEN over any of the remaining Tyrells or the dozens of smaller houses who all have loyally served as House Tyrell's bannermen for years and have way better and more deserved claims. The show treats it as this fun little fan service moment, but in reality that is a MAJOR political insult. A war-worthy political insult. Give it a month before Bronn is driven from the Reach (if not killed, although I think he is wise enough to give up and flee). Then with the North, Iron Islands, and Dorne having declared independence, I don't see the Reach sticking around for much longer. They are the wealthiest, most prosperous kingdom of Westeros, they can easily thrive on their own. And they'd have way more money and power by controlling the biggest food supply in Westeros and locking down on trade routes. Good luck to Sansa supporting her brother King Bran when winter comes and her people's biggest food supply is now rebelling against the crown.

And with four kingdoms independent, it's really just a matter of time before some lord or another in the remaining kingdoms thinks "hey, why the hell am I bowing down to a Stark that I never even voted for" and jumps into that power vacuum to declare themselves king. Since ya know, they didn't bother to hold a proper Great Council with equal representation and agreement from across the realm, instead just going with House Stark and all their friends and allies.

And what is King Bran going to do about any of this? He has no dragons to unite the Seven Kingdoms as Aegon the Conquerer did. He doesn't have the strength to cow half of the realm rebelling, and even if he did how would he be any better than Daenerys denying the North their independence? It'd be hypocritical to the max for House Stark to tell other kingdoms that they can't have their independence after they committed treason against their Queen over it. His only chance would be to use some Three-Eyed Raven voodoo, which I guess is not out of the question, but literally that would just make him the villain and no better than the Conquerer.

While we are imaging chaos, why should Daenerys' forces just cease to be an issue once their Queen has been murdered? Fuck that, the Dothraki are in Westeros now with no Dany to keep them in check and the Unsullied I guess are going to start their own House (???) which will 100% have intense and burning enmity for the Crown.

The once united realm will break up into seven independent kingdoms, with all the wars and inter fighting that plagued the land before Aegon I showed up. Much happy ending. Yay democracy (oligarchy).

[werewolfetone]

I love asoiaf tumblr so so so so much for the fact that it enables me to spend my entire day in real life writing academically about republican movements and learning about marxism and denouncing the lack of democracy under monarchy and thinking about how I would kill every member of the royal family with my bare hands and then power on my computer and enthusiastically participate in arguments about who the rightful king of westeros is

[darklinaforever]

The hypocrisy of people to act as if the Greens and the Blacks were the same and that the goal is to choose your favorite war criminal... The worst is that they think they are so morally superior and intelligent when in They just look ridiculous spouting this kind of shit. There's no debate that Team Blacks is the one you should support. This is the one that the author supports and most of the characters in Fire and Blood ! The Greens are simply the bad guys, simple as that. And this bullshit about being team smalfolk will always make me laugh. What do you believe ? That GRRM will establish democracy in Westeros at the end of its history ?! The whole point of the dance is misogyny. That a woman has been usurped because of her gender, and those who are team Greens or Smalfolk ignore this to appear morally superior.

[welldonebeca]

The Mother's Day Anthology - (1) Alysanne

Summary: Months after their banishment from Westeros, Alysanne and Jahaerys spend their first Mother’s Day in New Valyria. Set in 1941 WC: 1.3k words Warnings: Modern-ish AU. 1940S. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Family fluff.

Alysanne closed her eyes, fanning herself with her paper fan lazily in the Solar, watching the sun rising on the horizon with the electric fan aimed at her face.

Hot. It was too hot, everything was too hot.

How much hotter was that damn country going to get?!

It was May! What place would be this hot at fucking May? So far, Alysanne had only stepped there in December, to escape Winter in King’s Landing.

And it wasn’t even Summer, gods…

She was cooking alive, that’s what she was.

As if being pregnant wasn’t uncomfortable enough.

She reached for the bowl by her side for more frozen treats, but it was just a puddle of juice now, so she just wavered her fingers to dry them, frustrated.

Not even her frozen treats survived the heat in that damn place.

“My love?” she heard.

Alysanne turned her neck and relaxed a little when Jahaerys walked to her, holding a bowl in his hand.

“You weren’t in your bed,” he pulled himself a chair.

She exhaled, tired.

“My room was too warm,” she groaned. “The fans were just blowing hot air on my face.”

Jahaerys sat by her side, taking her hand and kissing it.

“The sunset is beautiful here,” he hummed against her knuckles.

Her mouth soured.

“It was more beautiful from the window of our room,” she corrected him. “We could see it rising from under the ocean.”

A thousand years.

A thousand years of legacy, gone just like that.

They had worked so hard, tried so hard to establish themselves, and at least stayed home when they started asking for a democracy. Even if they weren’t in the throne – even if there wasn’t even a throne anymore! - but they were banished anyway; isolated, expelled from their home.

Dragonstone was still theirs! They couldn’t take it from them.

They could have lived in it happily, safely.

But no. They had to leave, even though they were the ones who’d unified that damn place, who’d made the Kingdoms into a country!

But they took everything they could take from them.

Their throne, their land, their freedom… her baby, still just a tiny thing in her when she lost him.

Her hand moved to her belly, to rub the swell of her womb. Jahaerys was certain it would be a girl this time, before he was due.

Saera. She would be Daenerys’ best friend.

Jahaerys thought that if they showed the gods their children belonged to them, then they would bless them.

Alysanne highly doubted it.

“It’s temporary,” he affirmed, reaching for her belly, and caressing it softly. “She won’t even have memories of anything but Westeros.”

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