GoT S3E4: Daenerys's First Conquest
Sep. 18th, 2022 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerSeason 3 Episode 4 of Game of Thrones was quite an episode. It's full of great scenes. Some are great on a small scale: spymaster Varys showing Tyrion how he's about to achieve revenge on the person who mutilated him year earlier, and Lady Olenna besting Varys at verbal repartee. Then some are great on a great scale. Daenerys wins her first battle— with a not just a military victory but a moral victory.
Daenerys is in the city of Astapor in the realm of Slavery's Bay, an area where slavery is legal and common. She has just finished purchasing an astonishing 8,000 slaves trained as elite soldiers. She had previously agonized over the morality of buying slaves so it's a sign of a new moral direction for her character that she's completed the deal. She's decided that doing something evil, like perpetuating slavery, is okay if you intend it for just outcomes, like winning back your throne. The ends justify the means.
But then Daenerys surprises everyone by ordering the slave soldiers to kill every single slave master in the city. She adds that they should break the chains of anyone held a slave and take care to harm no innocent person. The mass of soldiers seem seem hesitate at first, as if still parsing the queen's shocking words to ensure they understand them correctly, then lift their spears en masse and begin slaughtering the entire slave-master class that rules the city.
The chapter ends with huge columns of now-freed soldiers marching through the gates, loyal following Daenerys, while smoke rises from the city behind them.
In a series where it's a purposeful theme that evil wins most of the time it's so awesome to see someone win, big, while doing the right thing.
Daenerys is in the city of Astapor in the realm of Slavery's Bay, an area where slavery is legal and common. She has just finished purchasing an astonishing 8,000 slaves trained as elite soldiers. She had previously agonized over the morality of buying slaves so it's a sign of a new moral direction for her character that she's completed the deal. She's decided that doing something evil, like perpetuating slavery, is okay if you intend it for just outcomes, like winning back your throne. The ends justify the means.
But then Daenerys surprises everyone by ordering the slave soldiers to kill every single slave master in the city. She adds that they should break the chains of anyone held a slave and take care to harm no innocent person. The mass of soldiers seem seem hesitate at first, as if still parsing the queen's shocking words to ensure they understand them correctly, then lift their spears en masse and begin slaughtering the entire slave-master class that rules the city.
The chapter ends with huge columns of now-freed soldiers marching through the gates, loyal following Daenerys, while smoke rises from the city behind them.
In a series where it's a purposeful theme that evil wins most of the time it's so awesome to see someone win, big, while doing the right thing.
