â#asoiaf#hated this scene btw#âohhhhh his slaver father spoke out against crucifying slave children! what a great guy!â oh my god shut the fuck up#hwhy are we both sidesing slaveryâ
It gets worse. Large parts of the ASOIAF fandomâŠ.Fell for it. So many people quote this godforsaken scene and use it as âevidence for Danyâs MaDNeSsâ. Every single anti-Dany meta will be like âShe ruined the economy! She executed slavers without trial! She didnât make sure to kill only the ones who allowed it! See! She killed innocent people!â
Literally, they will quote Confederacy talking points, NEARLY WORD FOR WORD, straight out of the KKK handbook, as a reason to hate Dany.
Completely forgetting that 1. The man was still a slave master and 2. Itâs a show only scene. And itâs worse because itâs the complete and utter opposite of the themes in GRRMâs books. Which makes sense since D&D infamously said âThemes are for fourth grade book reportsâ. But itâs so painful to see it be twisted. GRRM once wrote a book where a character says this
âYou know I never held much with slavery, even if I never done much against it neither. I would of, but those damned abolitionists were such Bible-thumpers. Only I been thinkinâ, and it seems to me maybe they was right after all. You canât just go . . . usinâ another kind of people, like they wasnât people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but itâs got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe thatâs what them abolitionists been sayinâ all along. You try to be reasonable, thatâs only right, but if it donât work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.â
And somehow, one fucking scene in a tv show he had no control over made so many in the fandom actually DEFEND SLAVERY!
Being a black woman in this fandom is exhausting and was agonizing in 2019.
This scene and the racism of the fandom feel so horrible and insidious. It makes me angry just thinking about it
I've started seeing the people who fell for it, in my adventures into the reddits and the occasional anti Dany post that shows up in her tag. (Although i've noticed that on Tumblr people tend to call her a colonizer rather than explicitly defending the slavers. Which definitely says something about Tumblr's particular brand of racism)
It's disgusting how close they sound to confederates. I'm sure it's not an accident either. I don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they dont know what they're doing. When it's that close to confederate talking points, there's no room for excuses.
Bringing up the economy and hand-wringing about trials feels so deeply evil to me. As if ending slavery doesn't take precedence over the economy. It's such a conservative, neoliberal, and anti-revolutionary idea.
Funnily enough most of the anti-dany stuff i've seen comes from show only scenes. I've seen people say her killing Doreah and Xaro was a sign of her madness. Which is crazy because she didnt even do that in the books! Maybe i'm just a book purist, but I dont think you can use show only scenes to prove that she's going to be evil in tbe books. (But it does go to prove my theory that D&D hate her for some reason)
I'm genuinely going to lose my mind over them saying "themes are for fourth grade book reports!" What a bunch of hot garbage! And its so disrespectful to the intelligence of the viewer, and to GRRM's writing.
It also just screams "centrist fence-sitter" to me. It's the sort of thing someone who doesnt believe in anything would say. Someone who tries to make their show seem vaguely progressive (with things like #gayally Jamie) but still creates a space where fans are able to openly regurgitate confederate propaganda. Maybe i'm being dramatic, but I think i'm right.
I love that quote. Makes me want to read the book it's from. "It's got to end, even if it has to be with fire and blood," is so powerful, and so accurate to so much of our history. And its so deeply intertwined with the themes of Asoiaf as well.
What a complete failure of an adaptation. There should be no room in this fandom for the defense of slavery, and D&D should be shamed for creating a space where that can prosper, and for creating a space where fans of colour aren't safe.
