"Is slavery really all that bad?"
L0L Written by someone aka troll who has never been a slave.
Eh, I'm in the military. Slavery isn't all that difficult to fathom. And I've seen it. I have actively fought against groups that practice it (though not for that reason).
But yes, is slavery really all that bad? There is a certain order to not having freedom. A freedom from freedom. Sure slavery in many ways stifles the individual, but it does show you your place in the world, and it allows you to fulfill a purpose.
Not all, or even most slaveholders are shown to be violent abusers striking psychotically at their terrified subjects.
And is Dany truly any better? She's probably the worst thing that can happen for the slaves. She hasn't done a single thing to help them (or show that she even understands them). All she did is get butthurt that it happens and decided to rock the boat of a system (a working system) all because she's morally outraged since the world doesn't follow her warped sense of good and evil. And she was terrible at it. She's so inept that all she's done is literally break apart society without replacing it with anything. In Astapor, outright war and chaos has taken hold, with an outbreak of bloody flux killing people by the thousands. And what does Dany do? She ignores them and tells them to deal with their problem themselves. Yunkai falls back under the same leadership as before after Dany leaves. In fact, all she does is ****** them off. Now they're gathering an army to come and wipe her out. And all Dany can think about is 'ARRRRRGGGG FIYAH AND BLUUUUD AHHHHHHHHH BLUUUUUUD OF THE DRAGONNNNN AAAAAAAAAAAA I WILL TAKES WHAT IS MINEEEE OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH **** ME DAARIO!'
And her utterly warped sense of justice.
A lot of the frustration and resistance to Dany is actually resistance to the idea that her ultimate success is being sold (by Martin, possibly (hopefully?) misleadingly on his part, by her fans, what have you) as inevitable. I for one highly dislike the idea of anyone being on an unswerving, inevitable path to ultimate glory because 1. it undermines the urgency of the story, because "well we all know what's going to happen" and 2. it puts Dany's story arc in the hands of some kind of — unearned, unappreciated — godlike power. It doesn't matter how much Dany screws up, how stupidly she behaves, how much cruel and unusual punishment she dishes out, how many enemies she makes or how many deaths she's responsible for, because in the end none of it will matter. The "higher powers" will take care of everything, and she's just along for the ride. That just leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.
Dany has perhaps unknowingly settled her own case, based on a plea she heard in Meereen. A woman whose family had been killed when Dany sacked the city had to flee her house and take shelter with her brother. After she left, the house was turned into a brothel. Dany refused to give the house back to her because she lost the rights to it when she left it. Based on Dany's logic, she lost the rights to Westeros when her family left it. But the rules she sets for others don't apply to her, apparently.
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