#unsullied

Kraznys smiled again when he heard that. "Tell the old man that he smells of piss, and needs a stick to hold him up."

"Truly, your worship?"

He poked her with his lash. "No, not truly, are you a girl or a goat, to ask such folly? Say that Unsullied are not men. Say that death means nothing to them, and maiming less than nothing." He stopped before a thickset man who had the look of Lhazar about him and brought his whip up sharply, laying a line of blood across one copper cheek. The eunuch blinked, and stood there, bleeding. "Would you like another?" asked Kraznys.

"If it please your worship."

It was hard to pretend not to understand. Dany laid a hand on Kraznys's arm before he could raise the whip again. "Tell the Good Master that I see how strong his Unsullied are, and how bravely they suffer pain."

Kraznys chuckled when he heard her words in Valyrian. "Tell this ignorant whore of a westerner that courage has nothing to do with it." (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys II)

~

"He will not come," Kraznys said.

"There is a reason. A dragon is no slave." And Dany swept the lash down as hard as she could across the slaver's face. Kraznys screamed and staggered back, the blood running red down his cheeks into his perfumed beard. The harpy's fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash, but she did not pause to contemplate the ruin. "Drogon," she sang out loudly, sweetly, all her fear forgotten. "Dracarys."

The black dragon spread his wings and roared. (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III)

And the fact that the liberation of the Unsullied takes place in the Plaza of Punishment:

The Plaza of Pride with its great bronze harpy was too small to hold all the Unsullied she had bought. Instead they had been assembled in the Plaza of Punishment, fronting on Astapor's main gate, so they might be marched directly from the city once Daenerys had taken them in hand. There were no bronze statues here; only a wooden platform where rebellious slaves were racked, and flayed, and hanged. "The Good Masters place them so they will be the first thing a new slave sees upon entering the city," Missandei told her as they came to the plaza.

[...]

Then the Plaza of Punishment blew apart into blood and chaos. The Good Masters were shrieking, stumbling, shoving one another aside and tripping over the fringes of their tokars in their haste.

[...]

"Dracarys!" they [the Unsullied] shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. (A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III)

Their discipline is actually fairly remarkable in pre-professional army times. Couple that with their remarkable defeat of the Dothraki (who stupidly charged upon the thicket again and again), it's unsurprising that, with a little authorial fiat, that they would be esteemed so highly.

If I were a Westerosi commander, I'd pin them with infantry and sweep their flanks. If they formed a ring on high ground, I'd surround them and pelt them with arrows until their formation lost cohesion.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

The Starks. Gods, I hate show Starks so much. They have literally turned into the Lannisters and they can't even see it. Only wanting to trust themselves, their "family" and practically having no allies. Literally just like the Lannisters. Cersei stated only she and Jamie could be trusted and that is no different than the Stark's mentality at the end.

And then there's Sansa. She's the worst of the Starks. She is pretty much what all her stans are like - so jealous of Daenerys. She can't stand the thought of not being queen. And Starks don't do well in the South, but sure let Bran be king, living in the South. And Arya and Jon leave. Make it make sense.

Idk why Dany is seen as such a mad queen when her instincts were right on everything. She knew that the misogyny would win if everyone found out Jon was half Targaryen. And yup. Ofc, everyone would want him because he's a male. Varys admitted it in this ep.

Plus, the North and the 7 kingdoms are xenophobic. We've seen it time and time again at how Northerners looked at Grey Worm and Missandei. Even when Missandei smiled politely at young children. They just stared at her like some thing and walked away from her.

Tyrion and Varys act as if Cersei can be reasoned with. Oh, but "the people." Bitch, Cersei doesn't care about anything other than maintaining power for herself. They knew full well she was just using the people to shield herself from fire and blood. Sure, let's talk to her so she'll release Missandei. And look how it all turned out.

The asshats of Dany's advisors want to "avoid" bloodshed, but they just cause more of it. Because of them an innocent died in chains. Chains she had been freed from.

If Dany had attacked King's Landing back in season 7, everything would have been different. Literally, all that needed to be done was just fly to the Red Keep and get Cersei's ass. Drogon can fucking fly over the city. Be so fucking real. There was no fear of him burning any city down. If there had been any scorpions or whatever to take drogon down, those would be attacked first. Those weapons weren't even anywhere near the people in King's Landing anyway when Dany did attack King's Landing in the show next ep. So, again. No danger to the people at all.

But no. Have to make Dany look so insane for wanting the Iron Throne like every character on the show. Make Dany look insane for rightfully being angry at watching her long time friend die in chains and grieving said loved ones she has lost. Make Dany look insane for being upset at not receiving credit for bringing back dragons after hundreds of years and everyone appluading Jon when SHE was the first dragon rider in hundreds of years. Make Daenerys mad queen because she believes in destiny when it is confimed in show that she IS the Prince that was Promised, destined to fight the white walkers. She who without everyone would have died. Make Dany look insane for not wanting to wait and wanting to attack before her enemies had a chance to strike back. Again, Dany had all the right ideas, but nooo. Her advisors are so "smart" and "right" and self righteous.

23_Tormenta de espadas_Daenerys II

—¿Serán igual de ignorantes todos los cerdos de Poniente? —se quejó—. Todo el mundo sabe que los Inmaculados dominan el arte de la lanza, el escudo y la espada corta. —Dirigió a Dany una amplia sonrisa—. Dile lo que haga falta, esclava, y date prisa. Hace mucho calor. 

«Por fin dice algo que no es mentira.» Una pareja de esclavas situadas a sus espaldas sostenían sobre sus cabezas una marquesina de seda a rayas, pero incluso a la sombra, Dany se sentía mareada, y Kraznys sudaba copiosamente. La Plaza del Orgullo llevaba cociéndose al sol desde el amanecer. Pese a las gruesas sandalias, sentía en los pies la temperatura de los adoquines rojos. Las ondulaciones del calor se alzaban trémulas de ellos y hacían que las pirámides escalonadas de Astapor que rodeaban la plaza, parecieran casi oníricas. 

Prelude: Reports from the East

Early 205 AC

The first reports came from the East in fragments.

Not declarations. Not treaties. Fragments. A Qartheen ship arriving weeks late and half-empty. A Volantene merchant complaining too loudly over wine that the old routes through Slaver’s Bay had become dangerous. A Braavosi factor refusing to write certain names in ink. A Lysene trader lowering his voice before speaking the word no one in King’s Landing liked to say aloud. And beneath all of it, the stranger rumor. Dragons. Not one report said it the same way twice. One captain swore he had seen a shadow pass over the sun outside Meereen, too large for any bird. Another claimed that smoke rose from a pyramid after a woman with silver hair walked out of the flames. A third insisted there were two beasts, not one, circling above the Gulf like living storm clouds with wings.

Most men in King’s Landing laughed at that part. Dragons belonged to old bones, black skulls, dead kings, and stories told by nurses when children were too restless to sleep. Men believed more easily in rebellion, plague, pirates, and profit than in the return of fire made flesh. So the dragon rumors were copied into margins, underlined by nervous clerks, and dismissed by men who preferred the world dead in familiar ways.

Slave trade. In Westeros, men preferred cleaner phrases. Trade disruption. Eastern instability. Market irregularities. Anything but the truth beneath it. By the third raven, the pattern could no longer be ignored.

Astapor had fallen. Then Yunkai. Then Meereen.

The old masters were dead, fled, crucified, or imprisoned. No two reports agreed cleanly on how many had been taken alive and how many had been left nailed beneath the sun, but every account agreed on the shape of it. The men who had made a market of human agony had discovered that the market could answer. Auction blocks had been torn down. Unsullied were no longer sold like livestock. The Gulf of Grief itself seemed to shudder beneath the weight of something new.

The Small Council discussed it once. Only once. Rain struck the windows of the council chamber while the Master of Coin spoke of tariffs and expected losses with the solemn grief of a man personally offended by interrupted profit. The Master of Ships complained about delayed cargoes. The Master of Laws called it regrettable instability.

Brynden Rivers said very little. That was usually when wise men became nervous. Bloodraven sat pale and still beside the king, one red eye fixed upon the reports spread across the table. A silver-haired conqueror. A Valyrian witch. A liberator queen. A dragonrider, if the sailors were drunk enough to be believed.

The last title earned a scoff. “She will be dead by winter,” one lord said. No one argued strongly. The East bred saviors the way marshes bred fever. They rose hot and loud and vanished quickly. A woman might take one city through surprise.

Perhaps two through fear. Three through dragons, if dragons truly still existed.

But the dragon rumors would not die. They changed shape instead. One week, the beast was black and crimson. The next, silver. Then pale as moonlight. Then blue-winged. Then there were two of them. Then a Lysene oarsman claimed the smaller of the two was still large enough to swallow a warhorse whole, though no one could explain why a dragon would inconvenience itself with horse bones when men were softer.

Each telling sounded absurd. Together, they became difficult to ignore.

But holding them?

Impossible. Especially with Dothraki. Horse lords were useful as a source of terror, not governance. They raided. Burned. Took tribute, wives, and gold. They did not build. The council expected collapse. The slavers would regroup. The freedmen would riot. The Dothraki would turn. The Gulf of Grief would correct itself.

King Daeron said little. Prince Baelor Breakspear, already Hand of the King, said even less. But he kept the reports. That was his habit. Some men discarded warnings because they had not yet learned how to bite. Baelor stored them carefully and waited to see which ones grew teeth.

Bloodraven collected different reports. Not cargo tallies. Names. A Tyroshi cousin with suspicious correspondence. A sellsword broker arrested outside Yunkai. Volantene financiers disappearing into new prisons. Yet even those reports had begun to change. Not in content at first. In rhythm.

A message that should have crossed the Narrow Sea in twelve days arrived in twenty. A name came without the house attached. A dock number without the ship. A death without the manner of it. Some of his eastern eyes still wrote, but late, careful, and strangely clean, as though their words had learned to wash their hands before touching parchment.

Others did not write at all. Bloodraven did not need sentiment to understand why. Many of his best informants in the East had been servants, debtors, dockside workers, pleasure-house attendants, scribes no one looked at twice, and slaves clever enough to survive by selling what they overheard. He had given them coin and secrecy.

Kyarina was offering something he could not. Names restored. Wages. Protection. Law. A world in which their children might not need to sell whispers to survive. Nothing clean enough to present before the council. Nothing certain. But patterns rarely arrived announcing themselves as patterns. They arrived disguised as coincidence.

Then, stranger reports followed. Children learning letters in courtyards where slaves had once been inspected. Former servants sitting behind trade desks. Granaries guarded instead of plundered. Pleasure houses still open, but no longer permitted to own the bodies within them. And from the Gulf itself came the strangest rumor of all: the cities that had once trained Unsullied through torture, mutilation, and terror no longer sold soldiers. They trained men. Not boys stolen from their mothers. Not children cut and broken until obedience replaced the soul. Men. Freedmen, volunteers, guards, and soldiers from across the new territories gathered beneath instructors who had survived the old way and refused to reproduce it. Discipline remained. Formation remained. Spear-work, shield-work, endurance, pain tolerance, silent movement, and battlefield obedience remained.

The horror did not. No knives between a child’s legs. No puppies killed to harden the hand. No wine of courage. No names stripped away and replaced like collars. If the Unsullied had once been proof that men could be manufactured through suffering, these new guilds appeared to be an answer written in drill yards and clean barracks:

Discipline did not require cruelty. Nor were the training cities only military now. Healing houses had begun growing beside the barracks. Former battlefield surgeons, midwives, bonesetters, herbalists, temple healers, poison-tasters, horse doctors, wet nurses, fever women, and physicians from cultures that had never willingly shared the same room were being gathered beneath common standards. Ghiscari salves, Dothraki wound craft, Qartheen tinctures, YiTish pulse readings, Rhoynish birthing knowledge, Valyrian blood cautery, Myrish lens work, and the plain stubborn wisdom of old women who had kept villages alive with weeds and boiled cloth all found places in the same ledgers.

What worked was taught. What failed was studied. What nearly worked was improved. No one in King’s Landing knew what to make of that. And beneath every rumor, one truth repeated itself:

The ports were stabilizing. That frightened Bloodraven far more than fire ever could. Conquerors were easy to understand. Builders were not.

Introduction

I have no idea why I am doing this. The thoughts just came into my mind and I decided to write them down. Anyway, let’s lay out the scenario I have decided to go with.

Everything is the same as GOT show canon until after the Long Night. After that is when I am going to meddle, but I am keeping some things from the final three episodes, like Daenerys burning King’s Landing and Jon killing her. Bite me, Dany stans.

We’re going to go kingdom to kingdom here, starting from beyond the Wall and descending southwards. Let’s go!

Beyond The Wall

This stays mostly the same, if I’m honest. I actually really liked Jon returning to the Wall and beyond. It was where he seemed happiest. But in my ending Jon and the Watch/Wildlings regularly trade with the North and Jon is allowed to visit Winterfell whenever he wants.

The North

We’re sticking with Sansa as Queen of the North and Northern Independence here. But Arya and Bran stay in the North. Not necessarily in Winterfell- maybe Bran goes to Greywater Watch with Meera? And Arya gets her own keep, Bear Island? Dreadfort? Karhold? Last Hearth? There are many she could choose from.

I know the topic of Sansa and marriage is a controversial one, but realistically either she or Arya is going to have to marry someone. There’s going to need to be more little Starks eventually and I’m not sure Bran can father any children, so it will have to be either Sansa or Arya.

I’m 50/50 on whether Sansa should marry again. On the one hand, she has so much marriage related trauma that she probably doesn’t want to marry again. On the other hand, I think it would be nice if she got a chance for a loving husband. Not sure who said loving husband would be. A Northern man, though.

A Glover? Or Tallhart? Cerwyn? Manderly? The show’s never explicit on who among the Northern noble houses died or even exists in show canon, so I don’t know who is and is not alive.

The Iron Islands

The Iron Islands should be an independent kingdom. There is no reason for Yara to just agree to be ruled by Bran. Though, she was stupid enough to think Daenerys would allow her (Yara) to rule the Iron Islands independently, even though she (Daenerys) proclaimed herself the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms every other second. Maybe Yara’s just stupid. She is Theon’s sister, after all.

(I joke. I love Theon, he’s one of my favourite characters.)

But, yes, Yara should be Queen of the Iron Isles.

The Vale

While I think the North, Iron Isles and Dorne should all be independent, I don’t think the Vale, Riverlands, Westerlands, Stormlands, Reach and Crownlands should be independent.

They all worship the same religion and have roughly the same culture, unlike the North (different religion and culture), Iron Isles (different religion and culture) and Dorne (same religion* but different culture).

So Robin Arryn, obviously, is the Lord of the Vale with the assistance of Lord Yohn Royce, who was nowhere near badass enough in the show. We were robbed of Badass Bronze Yohn.

…I don’t really have much more to say here. I could discuss who Robin should marry, but that’s far more speculative and headcanon-y than I want to get here. Let me know if you want me to write a GOT/ASOIAF ships essay.

*I’ve always thought it was odd that the Rhoynar didn’t seem to bring their religion to Dorne? They brought and kept their system of rulership but no religion? Odd.

The Riverlands

I don’t have a whole lot to say about the Riverlands. Edmure is their lord. They’re not independent.

I do have one thought about what I’d want the Riverlands to do: border defences! The Riverlands don’t have mountains or the Neck or any other natural border defences, but after being used as a battleground over and over again they can, and should, build manmade defences. Have watchtowers every so often along the borders. Build a big fence. Something!

The Westerlands

The big question for the Westerlands is who is the Lord? Jaime, in my ideal ending, went back to kill Cersei, not save her, and died while doing so, fully redeeming himself in death. All of their children are both bastards and dead, and Kevan and his sons are all dead too.

I can’t remember if the show includes the existence of Tywin’s sister Genna and her offspring, but if they did they’re likely all dead too as they were Freys and, well, winter came for them.

So the only living Lannister of the main branch is Tyrion. Who murdered the last lord and betrayed all of the kingdoms by advising Daenerys during her conquest attempt. I do not think he should be awarded for that.

Who, then? Some distant Lannister cousin, I suppose. If memory serves me correctly, the show does mention Stafford Lannister, if only in talking about his death in battle against Robb. Stafford has a son, Daven, who seems like a cool dudebro type guy. Let him be lord. It would be fun.

The Stormlands

Here is where it gets interesting. I’ve said I think that most of the kingdoms should stay under the rulership of one King, but not who that king should be. Well, here it is, step forward King Gendry of House Baratheon, First of That Name.

As there are no legitimate Baratheons left and Gendry is the last of Robert’s bastards left (except maybe Mya and Bella, whom if memory serves the show ignores. Again, we were robbed of Mya, at least. Though Bella seems cool.), he is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, not any Targaryens.

This does throw into question his legitimisation- if Daenerys was never truly queen and didn’t have any right to the throne, does her legitimisation of him actually count?- I suspect most people would be willing to ignore that.

Anyways, if Gendry is King, who is the lord of the Stormlands? I have no idea. One of Robert’s other bastards? The guy had like seventeen of them, there must be others out there somewhere? Or maybe someone like Davos or one of the more trusted lords- Selwyn Tarth? An Estermont?- is lord regent until Gendry’s second son is of age? But that would be close to twenty years, assuming Gendry marries and begins producing offspring pretty quickly and manages to produce two sons straight away.

Who knows.

The Reach

This one is easy. I can’t remember if there’s even a passing mention of them in the show, but regardless we know that at least one of Mace Tyrell’s two older sons must exist in the showverse. Otherwise he wouldn’t allow Loras to join the Kingsguard.

So Willas Tyrell, Mace’s eldest son, is Lord of the Reach.

Dorne

In the show, for unfathomable reasons, they choose to have a random Martell cousin show up at the council deciding who the next king is. Now, there is a Martell cousin in the books, Manfrey Martell, but he’s described as ancient and dude in the show clearly is not. So I’m not sure if that’s meant to be him or a different random cousin the show pulled out of its arse.

I’m sure that at some point the show made reference to Oberyn having eight daughters, so the youngest five Sand Snakes (Sarella, Elia, Obella, Dorea and Loreza) do exist in the show.

I don’t know if a male legitimate cousin comes before a female illegitimate niece in Dorne. They don’t do male first primogeniture and are more lax about bastards, but does that mean a bastard would inherit over a trueborn?

An Aside About the Unsullied and Dothraki

I liked the show’s ending for Grey Worm. Sailing off to protect Missandei’s birthplace? Lovely. But what about the Dothraki? The show just sort of forgets about them, as I recall. And surely not all of the Unsullied want to go to Naath.

Here is where I get quite Daenerys critical, so be forewarned.

Daenerys took quite a lot of the Dothraki’s warriors with her. I assume not all- surely there are khalasars that don’t follow her- but if memory serves she’s got most of them. Even if these Dothraki manage to make it back to the Dothraki Sea- and that’s a long sea voyage and an overland trek without the protection of a ‘queen’ and her dragons- what’s going to be left for them?

We never see any Dothraki women or children in Westeros. Daenerys clearly left them behind. Did she leave any warriors to protect them? Will any returning Dothraki be able to reunite with wives and children or have they all been taken by other khalasars?

So no families left. I doubt other khalasars are going to be willing to accept Dothraki who left their homeland to follow the woman who burned down their sacred temple into their khalasars.

All in all, there doesn’t seem to be much point in these Dothraki returning to Essos. So what to do with them in Westeros?

Ditto for the Unsullied. They’ve got no reason to return to Essos either. They were slaves there and I doubt Daenerys’ no slavery (except for herself and her advisor) policy lasted long after she left.

Daario likely fucked off back to a sellsword company or was overthrown and killed as soon as the dragons were gone, let’s be real.

Now there are lots of areas depopulated after the wars. Many parts of the North and Riverlands don’t have noble houses and probably don’t have many peasants either. Maybe the Dothraki and the Unsullied could set up shop there.

But while the Unsullied might be content to live in one place, the nomadic Dothraki aren’t. So what to do when they inevitably want to roam?

It doesn’t help that the show is confusing as hell about how many Unsullied and Dothraki there are after the Long Night then again after Daenerys’ burning of King’s Landing.

I have no solution here. Something to think on.

Conclusion