#if i have to read one more 1000 word meta on why them fighting was okay

[ianenjoyer]

the fact that so many people seem to think fighting is a normal/okay part of their relationship and are still okay with shipping them is worrying........

#i mean what the fuck😭 #if i have to read one more 1000 word meta on why them fighting was okay #i will start biting people #anyways i’m sick of talking about this new gifset dropping in a few minutes 😁

[recurring-polynya]

What comparisons can be made between renruki and Ichiruki? I often wondered about this.

This is such a hot button issue that as soon as I received this (perfectly polite) ask, my body tensed up and my brain went Am I being trolled?

It’s honestly a shame that there is so much bad blood behind this, because it is, in fact, a very interesting thing to talk about, and I am going to attempt to do so in good faith, because I love thinking about this kind of thing. Even though I am very openly a Renruki shipper, I love all three of these characters very much, and I think that Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship is very important! I am doing my best to be neutral, although I have not read very much Ichiruki fanfic/meta, so please give me a benefit of a doubt. Obviously, I can’t stop anyone from reblogging this and putting their own comments on it, but I have no interest in getting in debates over it, so don’t be surprised if I don’t engage.

This is both long, and I am sure some people don’t care, so I’m gonna put the rest under a cut. I have tried to hard to write this in a way that will not make anyone mad, but if you think it will make you mad, please give yourself the gift of not clicking on it.

So, what is the same between Ichigo and Renji? Lots, actually. Physically, they are both tall, strong, and have ridiculously colored spiky hair. They are outwardly grumpy, but secretly have soft, gooey centers. Neither one of them is dumb, but they are both dumbasses. They are protectors: they would rather take any amount of pain or damage onto themselves than see a loved one hurt. Their friends are everything to them, and that goes triple for Rukia.

How are they different, then? There are three major bullets:

- Ichigo is alive. Renji is dead. Perhaps this is a little flip, but Renji belongs to same world that Rukia does, and Ichigo does not. This is not a value judgment, it is just a fact: If Rukia ends up with Renji, she stays where she is. If she ends up with Ichigo, either Rukia or Ichigo have to make a huge change. I will get back to this.

- Youth vs. Experience. Ichigo is a 15-year old boy, as we are told about 1000 times. There is some mystery over how old Rukia and Renji are, but they have graduated from secondary education and are currently employed. I think it’s safe to assume that they are roughly close in age to each other, but I think Rukia may perceive Renji as seeming older than herself-- he graduated from school, and she didn’t; he’s on his third squad transfer, whereas she’s hasn’t budged from her initial, entry-level job, and he’s now middle management. However, the arc of the story we don’t get to see, is that over the timeskips, Rukia not only catches up to, but surpasses him. Also, not for nothing, but I think that in the same way Rukia is immediately drawn to Ichigo because of his resemblance to Kaien, I think she is also drawn to him for his resemblance to Young Renji-- a grumpy, prickly young man, leaking self-doubt from every pore, whom she is more able to be generous towards through the lens of age and experience. (And I think this comparison could support either ship)

- Ichigo is the protagonist. Rules don’t apply to him. Fate breaks on his sword. He represents the triumph of love or hard work or dreams or what have you over the cruel millstone of the world. Renji, on the other hand, is firmly bound to the rules of the world in which he inhabits. In fact, that is arguably the entire purpose of his character. Renji’s fights are often used to set the stakes of the conflict-- ah, Renji got mangled, this guy must be tough. In the Soul Society Arc, he is an antagonist because he is doing what he is supposed to. In the TYBW, Kubo literally throws the two of them in a pit to fight some asauchi just to make the point that Renji is a shinigami and Ichigo is something else.

Let’s jump over to Rukia for a moment. Rukia is a great character, one of my favorite characters in any media. Rukia contains multitudes. She is tough and strong, but often melancholy. She can be beautiful and elegant, but she also lies and breaks rules and tried to put Kon in a dead cat once. Emotionally, she likes to present a cool front, but she has a big, loving heart, and she feels deeply. As a character, all of this makes her very easy to project onto, which is why I think so many people OTP her with someone, no matter who.Some people choose to try to make her into one of these things or another, and some people try to keep her as the full bundle of contradictions that she is.

There is no romantic content in canon Bleach. There is no romantic content in canon Bleach. There are many, many scenes that can be interpreted romantically, but no one goes on a date, no one kisses. Ichigo gazes longingly into the eyes of all his friends, it’s just a thing he does. Orihime does explicitly proclaim at one point that she loves Rukia, although I suspect that in the original Japanese, it’s the word for “friendship love” and not the very-rarely-used “romantic love.” I have seen a scene-for-scene comparison of IchiHime “romantic moments” only it’s Chad and Uryuu (which I choose to believe supports IshiChad, rather than negates IchiHime, but we may all choose for ourselves!) My point is that shipping in Bleach is a DIY craft, which, when we’re all having a good time, is what makes it so fun.

So, bringing all of this together, given that Ichigo and Renji are fairly similar characters, why are the ships so different, and what makes one appeal to some people and be abhorrent to someone else?

I think about romance stories a lot. I actually took a class on romance novels in college and I just really like to think about the mechanics of stories. In the truest sense of the word, “romance” is about extremes-- about sailing the high seas and wearing ostentatious shirts and shouting off a cliff in a rainstorm. When we talk about romance as a genre, the characters tend to behave in a way that we would not prefer our actual romantic partners do, but the over-the-top nature of it makes us swoon and our hearts drop -- except when it doesn’t. What is heart-breakingly romantic to some people can be a huge turn-off to others. The biggest fight my husband and I have ever had was over a kdrama. The male lead was hiding his identity from the female lead in order to help her, and I found it all to be deeply, deeply romantic, and my husband turned to me and said “He is being dishonest with her and I think it’s morally wrong” and I almost died.

So, let’s break down some of the themes of the two ships, which I think gets at the meat of what you were asking. Now, like I said, shipping is very participatory, and anyone may have their own ideas of how these relationships would be, and I am a big fan of “a great writer can get away with anything”, but in broad strokes, I think that these are the themes of the two ships:

IchiRuki:

Love conquers all/ Love is enough to overcome differences of class, age, lifestyle, geography, etc.

Instant connections/Love at first sight

Love is a force of the universe that cannot be denied or defeated

Young love

Grand gestures

Your partner changes you (in a positive way)/You effect change in your partner

Your partner is the center of your world

Your partner is the one person who can get through to you/You are the one person who can get through to your partner

Banter

Dumbassery

RenRuki:

Love takes work

Best friends to lovers

Second chances/Broken things can be repaired

Love is a choice

You improve with age

Shared experiences build love

Pining

Working together with your partner to create a mutually satisfying life together

Your partner enriches your world, but your independence is maintained

Banter

Dumbassery

There is also some degree of character interpretation at work, too-- there seems to be a huge degree of disagreement between fans as to whether:

a) Ichigo enjoys his normal, human life, and even though he do anything to protect what he loves, he would prefer to live a human existence with his human friends and family. He credits Rukia will helping him realize his strength and powers.

b) Ichigo is unsatisfied with his human life and that meeting Rukia opened the doorway to a life of excitement and adventure, on top of being given the strength to protect his loved ones.

As far as Ichigo pairings go, I think that most IchiHime people fall in category (a) and most IchiRuki (and GrimmIchi) shippers fall in (b). In both cases, peoples’ ships align with their view of what makes Ichigo happy. Most IchiRuki content I have seen  seems to feature Ichigo moving to Soul Society, rather than Rukia moving to Karakura. Rukia pretty explicitly indicates at the end of the Soul Society Arc that she wants to stay in Soul Society, plus she’s got a pretty established life there. Contrast that to the story of Isshin and Masaki-- Isshin seems pretty flippant and disaffected about his life in Soul Society; it doesn’t seem like it was a particularly hard choice for him to give up being a shinigami. Also, it’s pretty clear that what Isshin did was illegal, and I’m not sure there would be an easy way for Rukia to just say “WELP, I’m off to live as a human, smell you jerks later.”

To try to wrap things up, I think the actual dynamics of an IchiRuki or RenRuki relationship would be very similar, actually. They would banter a lot and dive headfirst into danger and support each other no matter what. Byakuya would treat either guy with the vaguest, most grudging amount of respect. The primary perpetual, unresolved argument between Rukia and Ichigo would be “The Living World is dumb/Soul Society is dumb”, whereas with Rukia and Renji, it would be “Squad 6 is dumb/Squad 13 is dumb wait no I didn’t mean that Captain Ukitake is an angel.”

Personally, I headcanon Renji as being more able than Ichigo to step back and be the support person in the relationship (see that bullet about Ichigo being the protag), so I think that RenRuki could manage to run a functional household, whereas Ichigo and Rukia would just go on adventures until they got arrested for tax evasion.

*For the record, I am very pro-IchiRenRuki, except that they would be even worse at running a household. It’s just Renji trying to explain how a chore wheel works while Rukia and Ichigo walk out the door on him.

#shipping discourse #they're just all very shippable! #with each other! #with anyone! #may god have mercy on my soul for venturing this close to the third rail of bleach discourse

[janiedean]

Amazing how you can erase and twist everything someone says and not even bother to check things before launching in your 1000 words answer where you repeat the same things over and over again. When I say “Theon’s story is about destroying death”, I AM talking about his trauma and abuse. I’m not saying that Theon is a superhero, I’m saying that Theon’s story is literally about surviving and saying no to the dying of light, he’s always been trapped between life and death. How is that less meaningful than Jon being AA just because he’s special. Jon is stereotypical, not matter how much you deny it. He is the bastard son of the “good” Ned Stark that everyone seems to venerate, he becomes important, he’s actually a prince, and heir to the kingdom, he’s going to come back from the dead and apparently it’s not enough because he’s also AA. Also “I search for AA and see only Snow”, how is that not a red flag? Didn’t you think that it could be about Ramsay hiding Theon? I didn’t say that everything is about mythology and ancient literature, I said Theon has a lot of connections to it, connections that are hard not to notice, that actually make sense and are not taken out of nowhere like everyone in this fandom does. Theon’s story is about himself, not about Bran or any Stark, you’re just obsessed with throbb. Theon is connected to magic and to the gods, Theon is the rightful king of the Iron Islands, so why it’s so amusing to people when someone suggests that Theon has something to do. I’m not saying that Theon has to be important for his story to count, but why it’s so amusing to people the idea that Theon is an abuse and rape victim and at the same time he has something to do. When it comes to female victims, they want them to do great things, when it comes to Theon they constantly reduce him to poor say boy, but Theon is not like that, Theon is in pain and he wants everything to end, but he’s also angry and he wants to be free. I didn’t say that he has to explore the sea because he’s an Ironborn, you said that, not me. I think that that’s something Book!Theon would want to do if he survives everything. Because he would be free and he would go into the unknown. That’s not true Theon has no connection to the sea, the Drowned God himself wants him as king and he likes ships, there’s also the fact that he never learned how to use a ship because he was kidnapped at 10. Also what’s so wrong about him connecting with his culture? He could change things, he wouldn’t be a viking, he would be an explorer. The way you talk about it, it’s like dealing with trauma means closing himself in an house. And about the prophecy, what’s so amusing about saying that Theon has a lot that fits? I know that the prophecy is vague, but Davos and Stannis don’t come close to it as Theon does. Theon died in almost every possible way and managed to come back on his own. He keeps saying that he died in Winterfell. Read the last chapters in ACOK, it’s all there and it all happens at the same time, and still there’s so much more, so many things. And it’s like this HAS to be true, but you say no to everything, you don’t even think that he has something to do with the Iron Islands, you just think he has to “atone” to Bran, so how are you different from D&D? Theon doesn’t have to atone to Bran, Robb or anyone else called Stark, his story is about identity. And Bran is talking to Theon and yes, Theon took Winterfell, but it’s not the only reason their stories are connected, Theon taking Winterfell from Bran was a foreshadowing to them interacting in the future for different more important reasons, that was always clear to me

... anon never mind that I hadn't talked about this in ages so like you came into my inbox with some 500 words of replying at 8 am on a sunday morning and idk how *I* am supposedly twisting things when

you brought this out of nowhere

I hadn't talked about the AA thing nor anything wrt theon's ending in like... a year

you are basically making up half of what I said or didn't because like 'oh I didn't say he had a tying to the sea because he's an ironborn' but two lines later you say 'what's the issue if he reconnects with his ancestry' which.... means that he'd have a tie to the sea because he's an ironborn so what's the truth here

'you're obsessed with throbb' I didn't mention robb once in my entire answer nor throbb nor I have written throbb meta recently like... I ship throbb but I don't see how that has any relevance to an answer where I literally didn't mention it and I said theon's sl can't be just about the starks

idk why you seem to think I have great stakes re jon snow and 'he's stereotypical no matter how much you say he's not', I'm saying that for a chosen one archetype he's a deconstruction so he's not stereotypical in the way h*rry p*tter is or aragorn is or whatever and it's like objective text and honestly I have fic to write and stuff to do and I could have like completely ignored your ask and said 'I think you're wrong' instead yesterday I spent half an hour answering you like... you don't need to sound that aggressive or come at me with this entire block of text when I wasn't even the one starting this conversation

what’s so amusing about saying that Theon has a lot that fits?

anon I explained in those 1k reply or whatever all the reasons why everything theon has that fits is something every single other character has at that point dany has the exact same reasons for fitting it and I told you all the reasons why jon has extra things that fit that no one else has, like.... it's my opinion, I haven't changed my mind since 2012 on it, you aren't going to change it and no one is until grrm writes different, you don't need to convince me or look for me to validate your reading because you can have whichever reading you want and no one stops you, I just don't think it's correct, the end

The way you talk about it, it’s like dealing with trauma means closing himself in an house.

anon you keep on saying I say that but you are aware that if I say I want char X to get their little house in the village/woods/city of their choice and grow strawberries with their loved ones and be happy I'm not saying what you said and I'm talking abt endgame? jaime and brienne both also deal with trauma and when I say that I hope they get married on tarth have fifteen kids and never set foot in a court again I'm not saying having children is the only way to deal with trauma like.... one thing is the endgame one thing is how you get there, where did I say theon is gonna lock himself in a cottage in wow and stay there until ados? nowhere, like.... please a bit of chill here? you read a thing and arbitrarily decided it meant stuff it doesn't mean but I am the one twisting and erasing? like sorry but it sounds like you want a fight about it or smth and believe me fighting about who is AA is not on my list of to-do things for today, also 'I died in winterfell' is like... yeah, theon greyjoy died in wf then he became reek then he became theon again, it's metaphorical, jon literally died, also like if AA wasn't a main fiver then it'd probably be someone completely out of left field that no one gaf about and for that matter there's a character who has been dying and coming back to life who has a flaming sword since like acok, but do I see you telling me it's textual proof beric is AA? no, but that would make more textual sense than theon imvho so *shrug*

in short: anon sorry but it sounds like being that theon is your fave - which... I mean he's in my top three so I agree that he's a great fave choice - you want him desperately to have the main role in the main storyline which is imvho not the case and again... even if jon was stereotypical (which we can argue on but like... from your wording I think you hate jon ngl which fair enough everyone has their dislikes) it wouldn't make the textual evidence less evidence and like... idk how to say it nicely but not liking the protagonist is more common than not and if you don't whatever but that doesn't mean he's not and that the textual stuff indicating he has the mystical hero storyline doesn't exist, I'd suggest you make peace with that concept and with the concept that your fave doesn't need to have any specialness in their sl to be a legitimate fave, also like... in asoiaf everyone who is special™ has a shit life and when grrm says he wants a bittersweet ending like in lotr, do I have to remind anyone what was lotr's ending? samwise gamgee goes back to his little house and children and wife in the shire and says he's home and we're all happy that the dude who deserved it most got it great, if that's what he's aiming for I really don't think presuming everyone gets the magical great™ storyline is in the cards X°D but most of all: again, everyone who's had a sl being full of magic prophecies and shit in these books has had a crap life and hated every second of it that was related to those prophecies and I want theon to be happy at the end so in lack of any imvho text proof that says it's anyone but jon I'll stick with that because it means none of my faves is in line to hate their life, which is exactly what happens to jon if he's AA and exactly what I think is gonna happen and I don't particularly like that for him either bc I do want jon to have nice things but idt he'll get them, doesn't mean I'm trying to find any textual reason to decide on my own that AA is dany (a char I care a lot less about) so that she gets the brunt of it because that's now how it works, I made peace with it too X°D

#1 #2 #34 #5 #6 #anonymous #ask post #ch: theon greyjoy #ch: jon snow #honestly anon i'd ask myself why you're so invested in this you're looking for a fight #bc that's how you sound like #*shrug* #peace

[kanohivolitakk]

Have you done Krekka for the ask game? I know you're a huge Nidhiki fan, curious if you have any thoughts on his partner?

I haven't gotten Krekka yet actually. So far I only done Toa Ignika and Axonn for the Bionicle ask game (which Im still accepting). That being said great choice. Krekka isn't necessarily a big favorite of mine (partially because I'm not that fond of the "dumb brute" archetype barring a few exceptions), but I have to admit I do have a soft spot for the big guy. Krekka is a relatively simple character when it comes to characterization/backstory/role in the story (especially when compared to Nidhiki), but that doesn't mean I don't have any "deeper" thoughts regarding him or that there isnt stuff worth discussing.

Anyways some thoughts/headcanons/general musings:

This is a weird thing to start with but... Krekka is kinda adorable for me. I think its kinda this ...overgrown puppy (bulldog??) vibe due to his loyalty and dumbness. I admit BOADH is a big reason for me feeling this way since it gave him a few moments that made me go "AWWW he's so cute". Just..love his loyalty so much.

His undying loyalty makes him stand out for me across the other dark hunters. While many dark hunters we ha e are opportunistic and schemy, Krekka is just...very loyal. Maybe too much so. But I love that he is loyal. Feels refreshing tbh.

And now I cant help but feel that TSO is just "guys stupid but at least he wont double cross me and is easy to keep in check" when it comes to him.

Not to go woobifying villains but I genuinely dont think the guys that bad. Hes just really stupid, overly loyal and doing his job. Its kinda like w Lariska being a decent person despite being a knife happy murder girl although to a much lesser extent since guys a literalminded fool and also just smashy boy.

I do like his backstory of being a former guard who lost his job and started wreck havoc until one day a dark hunter found and hired him. It isnt anything too complex but it works well for his character and explains why he is so loyal to Dark Hunters. It also helps bringing a bit more light to his homeland and I love when we get more info of places through character backstories, makes the world feel more real that way.

Also can Gorast please stop hurting charaxters I like. This is the reason shes my least favorite character in the 2001-2008 storyline that isnt just a glorified extra or a plot device.

When it comes to Krekka, one scene I always think of when I think of him is in BOADH where he temporarily forgot to fly and Nidhiki was just "WAIT A MOMENT LARISKA TOLD ME YOU CAN FLY????" and Krekka just goes "whoops I forgot". That was adorable honestly. You dumb idiot, forgot you could fly.

Also, I know he's kinda "the idiot character", and while I am NOT saying he isn't, I do think its worth pointing out that he's basically literal minded. In BOADH (again) when Nidhiki tried to do that training scenario Krekka basically was like "wait I’m here, there’s nothing there why should I move there". This is

Another thing I really like about Krekka is that how, despite being an absolute idiot and tool, he still is willing to sometimes not take Nidhikis bullshit, see preventing him from getting the Zamor launchers (geez BOADH did a lot for this guys characterization lmao)

I sometimes call him truck boy because his name is one letter off my languages word for truck.

Also unless canon/word of Greg says otherwise I don't think every member of his species is as stupid as him. Like possibly on similar level but still.

It is made pretty clear that Nidhiki couldn't stand Krekka at all, but I do genuinely wonder how Krekka feels about Nidhiki. Based on the little we have I'd say he liked him to some extent or at the very least, didn't hate him to the same degree. I also have to wonder how aware he was about Nidhikis haterd towards him.

I also love the idea that when Nidhiki was mutated, Krekka just...wasnt afraid of him at slightest, no fear in this dumb boy. (I also like the idea he didnt recognize him at first and Nidhiki just, had to explain to his thick skull who he was. It took a while but eventually he got it.)

On a related note, I find it interesting how the LOMN website describes him working with Nidhiki because guy knows where to get the good jobs or something rather than being his goverment (read TSO) assigned partner The way the twos relationship were described makes it feel that by this point the staff hadnt figured out what they wanted to do with Dark Hunters , or if it even was an organization or just these two tools.

Its really interesting for me how Krekkas characterization not only varies between the books/comics (where hes more intimidating and him being a simpleton isnt as pronounced) and the movie (where hes more of a dumbass) but also how his characterization evolved. Like, his loyalty wasn't that pronounced trait but now I feel its just as important part of him as him being a dumbass (which is to say, very interesting)

I remember how the aftoermentoined Metru Nui movie website described that Krekka hated toa to the point wouldve hunted them for free if Nidhiki didnt make sure the two would get paid. I feel this is somewhat early installment weirdness as it isnt mentioned anywhere else but at the same time Krekka being willing to fight without payment sounds 1000% in character if you ask me

Something I have been confused over: when exactly was Krekka recruited to the dark hunters??? The timeline is very vague about this and I wish we knew.

It's been AGES since I watched my home countrys dub of LOMN but what I recall I really liked Krekka's voice in that dub. He sounded more badass and I loved it, the VA had a pretty unique sound. Sadly dont think there is any clips of the LOMN dub, which is a shame. UPDATE: I rewatched the dub and I love the voice itself but felt the voice direction made him sound kinda inconsistent

This is more a "Nidhiki and Krekka related thought" rather than just Krekka related but one thing I really like about Krekka and Nidhiki is that how they are like a more serious and competent take of "those two evil henchmen with contrasting personalities" trope. Often these types of villains are rather goofy, but these two could be rather dangerous as well and I really like that. I also like their dynamic of just doing Nidhiki being done with Krekkas bullshit. One of the main reasons I wish LOMN was a miniseries rather than a movie is because I really wanted more screentime with the two.

On a related note can I JUST SAY I LOVE the way the two compliment/pararell each other. From design (Krekka being bulky mostly blue colored, Nidhiki being slender and monstrous, mostly green colored) to personality (Krekka being foolish and simpleminded but loyal Nidhiki being cunning and ambitious but treacherous) to powersets (Krekka being strong physical attacker, Nidhiki being weaker(??) but faster and more special attacker).Heck, even their backstories have similarities as they both lost their orginal purpose in one way or another and didnt have anywhere to go but Dark Hunters (the main difference being that Nidhiki inflicted his fate upon himself by betraying the toa while Krekka didnt really do anything iirc)

Now for something crossovery, Krekkas and Nidhikis dynamic reminds me a lot of Kronk and Yzma from Emperors New Groove. Yes I have drawn a parody of the "pull the lever kronk" meme, yes I intend to make more screencap redraws. They also remind me a lot of Mummymon and Archenemon from Digimon 02, partially due to the dynamic (smug spider that tries to be cunning and intimidating but gets outclassed by most other villains in that + loyal blue dumb boy) partially due to their ultimate fate being rather similar.

I don't know how familiar you are with the franchise, but Krekka reminds me a fair bit of Gamel, one of the four villain generals in Kamen Rider OOOs, mainly because "the dumb brute major villain that's kinda cuteish and loyal a f while everyone else is an asshole".

I remember reading a p good oneshot fic that was just him accidentally killing a civilian when all he wanted was a hug and...honestly that is p much what I imagine him being like. Guy may be strong, reckless and a fool but like I said I dont think hes all that bad and just a puppy. An overgrown, moronic puppy but a puppy nontheless

For AUs, I remember I have thought once of "What if Krekka survived but Nidhiki died" and just ...guy wouldve been very lost and confused and unsure what to do tbh. He would most likely returned to Dark Hunters but Mata Nui knows how say TSO wouldve felt about that. Its not too complex au yet but I am thinking of developing it further one day.

Thank you for asking.

Sorry this took longer than expected. I had too many thoughts and half of them were deleted so. I hope its worth the wait tho. I do have a lot of Krekka thoughts and tbh wasnt sure if I was even able to get them all here.

(I am still doing the ask game so if anyone wants to send me a bonkle I will try to give thoughts, meta and headcanons on them)

#ask game #bionicle #Krekka

[aboveallarescuer]

How Dany assesses the counsel she receives and makes her own choices (& Character analysis) - Liberation of the Unsullied

This will be a series of posts meant to show that Dany is open to receiving advice and criticism, but that she doesn’t act solely based on what other people tell her to do. On the opposite, GRRM makes great effort to write a Dany who most often merges different viewpoints and/or finds her own solutions to the problems she’s facing. I won’t include every single decision she ever made (e.g. her decisions at court are often made without counsel and her execution of the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs was already exhaustively and deftly analyzed by other people), but there will be plenty of instances in this series that will prove my point nonetheless. The metas will always have four items: in which chapters the events mentioned take place; what advice she receives and from whom; what were her actions; the verdict (whether she followed other people’s advice, ignored/rejected them or did both at the same time).

Since this meta got very long, I'm putting the verdict above so that people who don't want to read the entire meta can at least find its synthesized points right away.

Chapter (s): 

ASOS Daenerys I, II, III

The advice Dany receives:

Jorah advises Dany to turn to Astapor and buy the Unsullied so that she doesn't have to rely entirely on Illyrio. He recommends that she pretends to not know Valyrian. He later says that spilling blood will be inevitable in Westeros and that the Unsullied are known for not raping nor pillaging, so she'll cause less damage if she buys them. According to him, trying to be idealistic and noble gets you killed.

Barristan advises Dany to leave Astapor and hire mercenaries in the Free Cities or even expect the support of the Westerosi lords. He's firmly against trading a dragon for an army and tries to publicly intervene.

Verdict:

a) Intelligence and skills

Knowledge of Astapor, Old Ghis, the Free Cities and Essos in general

Dany retains the information Jorah gave her about Old Ghis's history to the point of articulating it in her own words and applying it to the harpy of Astapor (which she differentiates from the one from Old Ghis) to grasp its symbolic meaning.

Dany pays attention to the slave soldiers and identifies on her own where each came from, displaying her knowledge of the Free Cities and Essos in general.

Dany compares the treatment of the Unsullied to the Dothraki's treatment of their slaves, for she already knows a lot about the Dothraki's culture and organization at this point.

Dany notices that there are many other slaves in the city and that they also have varied traits and origins.

Dany pays special attention to the social hierarchy among the masters indicated in their tokars' fringes after Groleo tells her about it, which shows that she can memorize and apply information well.

Dany correctly guesses that the masters won't resist her offer of one dragon because she is aware that Old Ghis was defeated by the Valyrian Freehold five times precisely for that disadvantage.

Growing social awareness

In ASOS Daenerys I, Dany is unaware of the number of casualties and the level of dehumanization that come with the maintenance of slavery. At this point, she thought they were servants just like any others. Also, she didn't have the power and influence to be able to help others (or to think about the ways she could do so). Witnessing the training of the Unsullied will change her mind, similar to how she thought she was okay with the war's collateral damage until she saw the Lhazareen women being assaulted and tried to stop it.

Dany doesn't let Jhogo crack the whip in Astapor to announce her presence because she knows that it is used to subjugate slaves.

After seeing the cruel and horrific treatment of the Unsullied firsthand, Dany can no longer look at all the other slaves in the city and think that what's happening is okay. She observes how pervasive slavery is in Astapor twice. 

Like with the whip, Dany already pays attention to the tokar and how symbolically tied it is to the masters.

Dany's growing awareness of all these social issues and her empathy for the slaves' plea stem from the fact that she lived their experiences too: she was also forced to leave her homeland and was later sold as a sex slave.

Dany's refusal to eat dog indicates her refusal to be complicit in the masters' oppression of the Unsullied.

Dany refuses to talk to Jorah about the Unsullied as if their treatment was not dehumanizing, so she tells him to not call them men to not become desensitized to the issue.

 Emotional inteligence: restraint and assertiveness as a leader

Dany pretends she doesn't understand the number of insults that Kraznys is throwing at her and later asserts her heritage and titles as a response.

Dany hides her vulnerability and focuses on her political goals while talking to Barristan. She empathizes with Barristan later and reinforces her authority when she tells him that he's free to counsel her ... when they are alone. He is frank by telling her that he thinks she made a mistake by trading a dragon for an army, but Dany still shows self-assurance.

Dany reminds Jorah to call her by her title rather than her name.

Dany restrains her fear once more when she enters the gates of Astapor.

 Asking for and gathering knowledge

Dany asks Kraznys if the Unsullied has officers and what is their gear.

Dany notices that Astapor lacks guards and questions why the Dothraki still haven't sacked the city.

Dany confirms with Missandei the reliability of the information Kraznys shared with her and makes more questions about the Unsullied.

Dany creates hypothetical situations in her questions to Kraznys and Missandei to conceal the possibility that she might apply the answers to fight the masters.

 Actions during the negotiation for the Unsullied and the exchange

Dany gives everyone (her bloodriders, Jorah and Barristan) in her circle something to do while she meets with Kraznys.

Dany uses a Qartheen gown to negotiate with the slavers.

Dany brings her advisors and her khalasar with her during the negotiation in order to look more impressive (and, consequently, to seem able to pay for all of the Unsullied).

Dany already expected that she would have to offer her ships and one dragon.

Dany takes the necessary steps (based on what she heard from Kraznys and Missandei) to guarantee that the Unsullied will fight on her side and her leap of faith pays off.

Dany throws the whip aside and her draconic force is linked to freedom.

 b) Character motivations and past experiences

Why she chose to go to Astapor

Dany wanted to make sure she wouldn't have to rely on other people (whose help is never certain, as she learned very well in Qarth).

She didn't think hiring mercenaries in the Free Cities was a good idea because she'd already seen how that failed for Viserys.

She is unsure of whether the Westerosi will rise to her.

As it's been already said, she thought that the Unsullied were treated as ordinary servants.

 Empathy

Witnessing the training of the Unsullied radically changes Dany's initial plans.

Her growing awareness of all these social issues and her empathy for the slaves' plea stem from the fact that she lived their experiences too: she was also forced to leave her homeland and later sold as a sex slave.

Dany empathizes with Barristan and reminds him that he's free to counsel her ... when they are alone.

Dany refuses to talk to Jorah about the Unsullied as if their treatment was not dehumanizing, so she tells him to not call them men to not become desensitized to the issue.

Dany frees Missandei right after the latter is given as a gift (though she'll find out later that Missandei doesn't have a better option).

Dany's past experiences inform her reflections on what grounds should she be ruling and her later rebellion against the masters.

The negotiation scene shows that Dany had many, many options that she could have chosen and did not simply because she wanted to free all of the Unsullied:

If she just wanted an army, she could have offered all the trading goods in the ships and get the 1000 Unsullied that Jorah advised her to get.

If she just wanted an army, she wouldn't have offered to pay double for the untrained boys.

If she just wanted an army, she could have given the trading goods and the ships and left with 2000 Unsullied.

If she just wanted an army, she wouldn't have thought that she must have them all" and that "[i]t was [her] only choice" to offer them a dragon.

 Hints that Dany plans on rebelling in ASOS Daenerys II

Dany betrays her uneasiness about what is happening several times (multiple passages below).

Dany makes a hypothetical question to Kraznys, seemingly in an attempt to find a way to offer freedom to the Unsullied.

Dany asks how many Unsullied the master has to sell (because she wants to rescue them all), not how large an army she wants.

Dany thinks she will take more than a hundred, if any at all.

When Barristan urges her to leave the city, Dany thinks she can't do so. She later tells Jorah the same thing.

 Dany's steps to make her plan work in ASOS Daenerys III (and hints that she has the details worked out)

Dany already expected that she would have to offer her ships and one dragon during the negotiation.

Dany makes it clear to Groleo that the Unsullied are more important than ships (because of themselves, not their value as an army).

Dany probably shared her ideas with her bloodriders and Jorah.

Dany was using a Qartheen gown (represents inequality, flattery and falsehood) in the negotiation. In the exchange itself, she uses Dothraki clothing (represents war, equality and honesty).

Dany knows that there will be several deaths as a result of what she is doing.

Dany takes the necessary steps (based on what she heard from Kraznys and Missandei) to guarantee that the Unsullied will fight on her side and her leap of faith pays off.

Dany throws the whip aside and her draconic force is linked to freedom.

 c) How Dany assessed the advice she received

Jorah

Jorah advises Dany to turn to Astapor and buy the Unsullied so that she doesn't have to rely entirely on Illyrio.

Dany takes his advice, but not before being thoughtful and making many questions and expressing many concerns: how will she buy them? Is it okay to "betray" Illyrio? What about the dangers on the march? What if Captain Groleo doesn't obey? She's not passively and blindly accepting things.

He recommends that she pretends to not know Valyrian.

Dany follows it with seemingly no reservations.

He later says that spilling blood will be inevitable in Westeros and that the Unsullied are known for not raping nor pillaging, so she'll cause less damage if she buys them.

At first, she slaps him for normalizing the Unsullied's training and talking about them as if they were objects to be sold. Later, she still tries to differentiate the attack against targeted combatants from the systematic attack against almost all of the city's population, save for the nobles.

According to him, trying to be idealistic and noble gets you killed.

More on that below.

 Barristan

Barristan advises Dany to leave Astapor and hire mercenaries in the Free Cities or even expect the support of the Westerosi lords.

She thinks to herself that she can't leave the city now that she saw what she saw. To Barristan, she replies that the former option didn't work for her brother and that she can't rely on uncertainties.

Barristan is firmly against trading a dragon for an army and tries to publicly intervene.

Dany empathizes with him, but still reminds him that he's only supposed to question her privately and that she means to prove a few things of her own.

 Overall

Neither Jorah nor Barristan can take credit for primarily motivating Dany's decision to free the slaves, though they certainly helped her in different ways.

Jorah thought it was okay for her to buy the Unsullied and be complicit in a process that dehumanizes them to the point that people can't even tell them apart or consider them men. As Dany said, "if he were her true knight", he wouldn't think that there was nothing wrong with that to begin with. Dany, on the other hand, refuses to be desensitized by it because she is a true queen.

Barristan empathized with the slaves' plea and doesn't want to be involved in slave trade, which is fair, but he doesn't think that there's anything he or Dany can do about it.

Like with Viserys and Drogo, Dany is influenced by both of their recommendations and apply them in different ways while forging her own path: she will not help to maintain the oppression of the slaves like Barristan advised her, but she won't play by the rules (because they view human beings as objects to be sold and invalidate her moral values, so they shouldn't be acknowledged as such to begin with) like Jorah advised her: she will break the rules because of her moral duty (as she sees it) to free the slaves.

 Dany's actions:

In ASOS Daenerys I, Jorah is trying to have Dany distrust Barristan, Groleo and Illyrio. As usual, because of Dany's critical thinking skills, she filters his advice - she admits that it's strange that Barristan is "too old to be a squire, and too well spoken to be serving that oaf of an eunuch", but, at the same time, she laughs when he suggests that Barristan and Belwas are conspiring with the assassin to win her trust. The discussion becomes a bit more heated when Dany realizes that he's infantilizing her, but then he proposes a plan: change course to Astapor and buy Unsullied. At this point, 14-year-old Dany has not yet seen their inhuman training nor did she come to empathize deeply and viscerally with them nor does she have the power that allows her to think about how to help others:     

Dany was not certain she liked the sound of that at all. Everything she’d ever heard of the flesh marts in the great slave cities of Yunkai, Meereen, and Astapor was dire and frightening. “What is there for me in Slaver’s Bay?” (ASOS Daenerys I)

She also doesn't understand how slavery is a systemic issue that affects different people on different levels and is still, nonetheless, inherently wrong:

“...In Astapor you can buy Unsullied.”

“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons, and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride horses, and most of them are fat.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

But how can this person make this sort of comment and then become an abolitionist figure by the end of the book? I want to contextualize that right away to avoid any confusion. ADWD Daenerys III will give us two reasons as to why Dany changed her mind (aside from her empathy and proactivity, of course):

As she will explain to Xaro, his slaves "seemed well treated and content" (which also explains why she didn't react negatively to Illyrio's either) and she changed her opinion witnessing "how Unsullied are made and trained". At this point, she thinks that slaves are treated like normal servants.

Also, she thinks to herself that she was only a beggar queen when she visited Qarth, so there wasn't much she could do. At this point, in the beginning of ASOS, her situation is still similar to the one from ACOK: Dany still has no considerable resources of her own and is being carried around by someone else's ships. It makes sense, then, that she thinks firstly about how to help herself before she considers that she might be able to help others.

It must also be said that the seeds for Dany's character development were planted way back in AGOT, when she thought she was okay with going to war until she realized she couldn't let the Lhazareen women be collateral damage of her actions. Here, she will think she's okay with buying the Unsullied until she goes to Astapor and realizes that no one deserves to be systematically tortured and brainwashed and sold the way they were.

Anyway, back to ASOS Daenerys I. Dany's response to Jorah's suggestion that she should buy Unsullied stems from ignorance - she thinks that the Unsullied are all too fat to ride horses because these are the only ones she saw in Pentos and Myr. To convince her that they are worth buying, Jorah tells her the Tale of the Three Thousand of Qohor, which is basically about a khal who had his khalasar utterly defeated by the Unsullied (bought as an afterthought by the Qohorik). After realizing their effectiveness, Qohor would only employ the Unsullied as city guards. Using that story to convince Dany was a very clever move from Jorah, who must've inferred from Dany's successful cultural assimilation and love for Drogo that she respects the Dothraki's strength (she does, but she's critical as well).

Dany admits that there is wisdom in what he's counseling, but she also notes that her crown is her only possession of value. Jorah responds that the Astapori may offer her gifts the way the Qartheen did or she can sell the trade goods that Illyrio's men took on. Dany is still reluctant because she says she considers Illyrio a friend to House Targaryen (though that's not how she assessed him before), but Jorah argues that a true friend will help her to buy "the beginnings of an army". Dany becomes more excited, but still considers the dangers on the march, and Jorah argues that there would be dangers at sea as well. Finally, Dany wonders if Groleo might refuse to change course; for Jorah, that is all the more reason to ask him to do so, for she will find out where his (and Arstan's and Belwas') true loyalty lies.

It's only then that Dany decides that she will command Groleo to set course for Astapor. The author took pains to make sure that Dany wouldn't just passively sit and listen to Jorah's advice and follow it. He has her making questions and gathering knowledge and forming her own conclusions. Just because hers matched with his (only for now) doesn't mean that she is not being an active player as well.

In ASOS Daenerys II, Dany arrives in Astapor. As we can see in this passage, she is able to retain Jorah's knowledge about its history, articulate it in her own words and apply it well enough to correctly identify the harpy of Ghis and grasp its symbolic meaning just by looking at its statue:

The harpy of Ghis, Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people; these Astapori were mongrels, Ser Jorah said. Even the Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.

Yet the symbol of the Old Empire still endured here, though this bronze monster had a heavy chain dangling from her talons, an open manacle at either end. The harpy of Ghis had a thunderbolt in her claws. This is the harpy of Astapor. (ASOS Daenerys II)

In Missandei's very first appearance, we find out how the Naathi are commonly perceived. Such a description seems to signal the author's thematic intents (namely, that war, rather than the peace, is the righteous path in this particular case) right away, as @rainhadaenerys already pointed out in this amazing meta:

The girl spoke the Common Tongue well, for one who had never been to Westeros. No older than ten, she had the round flat face, dusky skin, and golden eyes of Naath. The Peaceful People, her folk were called. All agreed that they made the best slaves. (ASOS Daenerys II)

While she negotiates with Kraznys, Dany follows a smart idea from Ser Jorah:

It had been Ser Jorah’s suggestion that she speak only Dothraki and the Common Tongue while in Astapor. My bear is more clever than he looks. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Some minor points: we get a very emasculating description of Kraznys to make sure his "looks" are as pitiful as his moral values, something that I've already criticized here. And Astapor is described as if it were Hell itself, though that's an aspect that's been discussed elsewhere and I won't belabor here.

Then, Dany gets to hear about the Unsullied's training. I'll give you a brief summary of its numerous cruelties, for they will, as I already showed above, dictate Dany's actions for the rest of this book and ADWD:

They don't have names because they're changed every dawn so they can remember that "they are vermin" and "more dogs than sheep".

They are castrated in order to have discipline, obedience, loyalty and fear and to no longer feel sexual desire.

They're chosen at five years old for "size and speed and strength" to be trained "from dawn to dusk" until they master the shortsword, the shield and the three spears.

As boys, on the day that they are cut, they are given puppies whom they are forced to strangle, otherwise they are killed and fed to the surviving dogs.

Only one boy in three survives the training.

To win their spiked caps, they are forced to "go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother's eyes".

They are forced to stand "for a day and a night, with no food nor water". It is said that, even after 99 of the 100 Unsullied collapse, the last one will stand until his death.

They won't move or defend themselves even after you lash their faces with a whip or cut their nipples off. That's because they drink the "wine of courage" regularly to feel less and less pain and endure any kind of torture.

And that's not even counting the numerous times Kraznys felt that he was entitled to lash Missandei. It's clear that GRRM strives to make Dany's future cause be as righteous as he can.

While Arstan and Kraznys are arguing with each other, Dany pays attention to the slave soldiers and identifies on her own where each comes from. It's a moment that displays both her knowledge and the fact that she's lived in Essos for her entire life:

Ignoring them all, Dany walked slowly down the line of slave soldiers. The girls followed close behind with the silk awning, to keep her in the shade, but the thousand men before her enjoyed no such protection. More than half had the copper skins and almond eyes of Dothraki and Lhazerene, but she saw men of the Free Cities in the ranks as well, along with pale Qartheen, ebon-faced Summer Islanders, and others whose origins she could not guess. And some had skins of the same amber hue as Kraznys mo Nakloz, and the bristly red-black hair that marked the ancient folk of Ghis, who named themselves the harpy’s sons. They sell even their own kind. It should not have surprised her. The Dothraki did the same, when khalasar met khalasar in the sea of grass.

Some of the soldiers were tall and some were short. They ranged in age from fourteen to twenty, she judged. Their cheeks were smooth, and their eyes all the same, be they black or brown or blue or grey or amber. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Dany often connects the warriors she meets or hears about with the Dothraki, about whom she has mixed feelings but was influenced nonetheless. In this chapter, her critical views of the Dothraki are brought to the fore. Not only she recalls that they sold "their own kind", she also tells Arstan that she herself was sold, which is a huge deal for a few reasons that I'll point out later.

Throughout her interactions with Kraznys, Dany betrays her uneasiness about what's happening several times:

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.”

~

Then he jabbed the swordpoint in beneath a wide pink nipple and began to work it back and forth.

“What is he doing?” Dany demanded of the girl, as the blood ran down the man’s chest.

“Tell the cow to stop her bleating,” said Kraznys, without waiting for the translation.

~

“They feel no pain, you see.”

“How can that be?” she demanded through the scribe.

“The wine of courage,” was the answer he gave her.

~

“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what the Good Master said? They have no names?”

Her most visceral reaction comes when she finds out that infants are slain as part of the Unsullied's training, partly because that's too personal for her:

Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that. Did he see, or is he blind as well as cruel? She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say, “Whose infants do they slay?”

“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness left in them.”

She was feeling faint. The heat, she tried to tell herself. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”

Then we get an indication that she's already thinking of a plan to free the Unsullied at this very moment:

“The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted with coin or flesh,” Dany told the girl, “but if some enemy of mine should offer them freedom for betraying me ...”

“They would kill him out of hand and bring her his head, tell her that,” the slaver answered. “Other slaves may steal and hoard up silver in hopes of buying freedom, but an Unsullied would not take it if the little mare offered it as a gift. They have no life outside their duty. They are soldiers, and that is all.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

I also find it interesting that Dany doesn't ask how large an army she wants (though she admits she needs soldiers), but rather how many Unsullied he has to sell:

“It is soldiers I need,” Dany admitted.

“Tell her it is well she came to Astapor, then. Ask her how large an army she wishes to buy.”

“How many Unsullied do you have to sell?”

“Eight thousand fully trained and available at present.[”] (ASOS Daenerys II)

Which already hints at her desire to rescue them all (not her interest to buy an army), even she must go to extreme lengths to do so.

In any case, after she makes the question above, Dany asks if the Unsullied have officers and what is their gear. Then, Dany solicits Barristan's advice, who, obviously, says she shouldn't buy them. Dany tells him to elaborate on his answer because she wants Kraznys to hear his outrage:

“Why?” she asked. “Speak freely.” Dany thought she knew what he would say, but she wanted the slave girl to hear, so Kraznys mo Nakloz might hear later. (ASOS Daenerys II)

The squire explains that slavery is illegal in Westeros and that she will lose her public support and honor if she arrives with a slave army. Dany emphasizes that she must have an army to conquer Westeros, but Barristan believes that she'll have the support of half of the Westerosi because of Rhaegar (while mincing his words when he praises Aerys). Dany is not so sure, however:

“Those same high lords who abandoned my father to the Kingslayer and bent the knee to Robert the Usurper?”

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the return of the dragons.”

“May,” said Dany. That was such a slippery word, may. In any language. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Another passage hints at her future actions for suggesting that she will either save the Unsullied or leave them behind if she can't be of help, for she won't take part in the slave trade:

Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any at all. (ASOS Daenerys II)

And she reminds Kraznys of her heritage and titles, which is more than warranted considering the numerous insults that he threw at her (while she had to feign ignorance, no less). He's not impressed and even accuses Dany of running to her man, which sounds like the author throwing shade at his sexist readers, especially since, despite other people's help, Dany will ultimately forge her own path.

Jhogo intends to crack his whip in the air to announce the Mother of Dragons's presence, but Dany, after witnessing how Kraznys uses the whip to subjugate others, tells him not to use it. This moment shows how, like with the tokar in ADWD, Dany understands the symbolic meaning of the whip (which is also why it's so significant that she uses it to punish Kraznys later):

But when he uncoiled the great silverhandled whip that Dany had given him, and made to crack it in the air, she leaned out and told him nay. “Not in this place, blood of my blood,” she said, in his own tongue. “These bricks have heard too much of the sound of whips.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Astapor was once part of the Old Empire of Ghis and we see in this chapter that so much of its culture is informed by their pride of their former glory. However, nowadays, the description of the city shows that it's no longer a flourishing place (it is Hell, as I said above). Dany showcases her knowledge of the other cities she visited by associating Astapor with them:

An old city, this, she reflected, but not so populous as it was in its glory, nor near so crowded as Qarth or Pentos or Lys. (ASOS Daenerys II)

She pays attention to the fact that the Unsullied are not the only slaves in Astapor; they are everywhere in the city:

Her litter came to a sudden halt at the cross street, to allow a coffle of slaves to shuffle across her path, urged along by the crack of an overseer’s lash. These were no Unsullied, Dany noted, but a more common sort of men, with pale brown skins and black hair. There were women among them, but no children. All were naked. Two Astapori rode behind them on white asses, a man in a red silk tokar and a veiled woman in sheer blue linen decorated with flakes of lapis lazuli. In her red-black hair she wore an ivory comb. The man laughed as he whispered to her, paying no more mind to Dany than to his slaves, nor the overseer with his twisted five-thonged lash, a squat broad Dothraki who had the harpy and chains tattooed proudly across his muscular chest. (ASOS Daenerys II)

As we see above, Dany notices the slaves' varied traits and origins as they pass by fastened together and how slavery is so normalized that she is not the only one that the masters don't pay attention to, they don't pay any attention to their slaves either. Dany also picks up on the fact that the man is wearing a tokar (like Kraznys was), and I'm sure this will later inform her discomfort using it and her eventual (and righteous) rejection of it in ADWD.

Arstan murmurs an old rhyme and feels sympathy for the slaves and how the entire city is built upon their blood and suffering. However, he never advises Dany to do anything about it: he urges her to leave the city "before [her] heart turns to brick". Dany thinks something that also foreshadows her eventual rebellion:

“...Sail this very night, on the evening tide.”

Would that I could, thought Dany. (ASOS Daenerys II)

But she doesn't allow herself to share her anxieties and vulnerabilities with him because she's his liege, so she focuses on her political goals instead:

“When I leave Astapor it must be with an army, Ser Jorah says.”

Arstan counter-argues that Jorah was a slaver himself and that she could find an army in the Free Cities. That's not how it went for her (and Viserys), though. Even in Qarth, where people were awed by her dragons, it was still not reason enough to get their support:

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

(On ADWD Daenerys III, she will also remember that Viserys tried to negotiate with the Golden Company and that they mocked him, which might or might not be foreshadowing for TWOW, in which she's likely to confront Aegon and the Golden Company.)

Arstan says that it's better to be a beggar than a slaver, which leads to the most powerful moment of the chapter and also one of my favorites of the entire series:

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and
I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

I've seen people trying to argue that Barristan was the one who convinced Dany to rebel against the slavers, and this passage, to which @irrationalityi pointed in her wonderful meta, shows exactly that that's not the case: that was Dany's choice and only Dany's.

Barristan, despite feeling empathy for the slaves, never asked for Dany to do anything to help them. Instead, as I showed above, he had only focused on the political ramifications of being a slaveowner.

Barristan had lived his whole life in Westeros up until recently, Dany has lived her whole life in Essos. Barristan has a problem with slavery not only because it is wrong, but because it's not the Westerosi way (Dany is not entirely immune from that, but there's much more to it), similar to how Ned is judgemental of Varys partly because he doesn't follow the Northern way. Meanwhile, as I showed above, Dany pays attention to the slaves and is able to make guesses as to where they came from because her history was that of a refugee who was forced to run away from her homeland as well. Of course her empathy runs deep and of course her desire to do something about the injustice she's perceiving runs deep. No one needs to remind her of her own history.

As @irrationalityi aptly puts, "dany is saying that while ser barristan may have an abstract knowledge that slavery is wrong, and a culturally ingrained distaste for it, she has lived it. she’s not angry at him because he is implying she is doing something morally wrong; she is angry because he is acting as if she doesn’t already know that. she is telling ser barristan that she is not the person the op believes she would be were it not for ser barristan; she is considering purchasing the unsullied because she believes she must to achieve her political aims, but she understands well what slavery is and the consequences of the decision she is trying to make–that for her to own a slave army would be a stain, not on her honor, but on her conscience and her moral character".

Also, if Dany once thought that marrying the Lhazareen women to the Dothraki was a good option, now she's able to acknowledge the injustice of being sold and feeling afraid in general. She no longer thinks that giving the slaves to a better master is a viable alternative, she'll free them altogether.

Which brings me to the way Dany talks about Drogo here. It's very interesting, and I want to make speculations tied to her characterization so far.

In Dany's very first chapter, we find out two things: Dany knows a) that her brother is ineffective and short-sighted and b) that she is a slave in all but name. Even so, she couldn't say these things out loud. In fact, her feelings about Viserys in her thoughts did not match those in her spoken words and actions. Later, something similar would happen with Drogo: she would no longer acknowledge that she was his slave, but rather see him as "the shield that kept her safe". In both cases, Dany avoids to look back and see the full picture and be consistent about her beliefs and opinions because it would hurt too much to challenge her two main sources of emotional support.

However, this eventually changes with Viserys. In AGOT Daenerys III, Jorah admits to Dany how he feels about Viserys - to him, he's "the shadow of a snake". With his support (not that I think Jorah himself wanted to guide her, far from that), Dany says it out loud for the first time in her life that she doesn't think Viserys will ever take back the Seven Kingdoms, not even if he had the military strength to do so. However, because she loves him, she still tries to rationalize his actions and see the better in him in the next chapter. Her goodwill ends after he threatens to kill her son, and she's much more aware of who he was in ACOK and ASOS.

As for Drogo... In ACOK Daenerys III, Jorah, in a vicious attempt to isolate Dany from other men, reminds her that Illyrio sold her to Khal Drogo, which was something hard for her to confront and acknowledge because she was still grieving for him.

In ASOS Daenerys II, however, Dany is able to articulate to Barristan that yes, she was sold and she did feel afraid and she won't let anyone talk about it as if she didn't know these things. I wonder if Jorah (unwittingly) helped her to put things in perspective here as well like he did with Viserys.

Anyway, Barristan is quick to apologize for what he said and Dany forgives him:

“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” Dany patted Arstan’s spotted hand to reassure him. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Because Dany admires his "good face" and "great strength", she seeks his counsel, which is why she'd asked him to accompany her to meet Kraznys and see the Unsullied:

The old man had not wanted to sail to Astapor; nor did he favor buying this slave army. A queen should hear all sides before reaching a decision. That was why Dany had brought him with her to the Plaza of Pride, not to keep her safe. Her bloodriders would do that well enough. Ser Jorah Mormont she had left aboard Balerion to guard her people and her dragons. Much against her inclination, she had locked the dragons belowdecks. It was too dangerous to let them fly freely over the city; the world was all too full of men who would gladly kill them for no better reason than to name themselves dragonslayer. (ASOS Daenerys II)

As we see in this passage above, Dany naturally acts like a leader by thinking of which purposes each person might better serve her and organizing them accordingly. She also leaves her children belowdecks, which was most likely the best choice. As she will learn in ADWD, there really are men who take it on themselves to be dragonslayers or, as she'll put it, "heroes".

Dany returns to the ship and Strong Belwas offers her dog meat, which she refuses because "all she could think of was the Unsullied and their stupid puppies". As @thatprettymuslimgirl's post and my addition show, dogs are associated with slavery in ASOS and will later be connected to Hizdahr, the nobles in general and the false peace in ADWD. I'm not really sure if GRRM was thinking about all of this (though he did write big chunks of ADWD Daenerys IX shortly after he finished ASOS), but it's subtext that makes it clear, along with everything else I've already analyzed above, that Dany is rejecting the slavers' way of thinking right away. She might try to make peace with them later, but only because she was tired of war and carnage; her anti-slavery stance was always clear and consistent.

When Jorah finds her, he asks how many Unsullied the Astapori have for sale and Dany responds irritated:

“None.” Was it Mormont she was angry with, or this city with its sullen heat, its stinks and sweats and crumbling bricks? “They sell eunuchs, not men. Eunuchs made of brick, like the rest of Astapor. Shall I buy eight thousand brick eunuchs with dead eyes that never move, who kill suckling babes for the sake of a spiked hat and strangle their own dogs? They don’t even have names. So don’t call them men, ser.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Here, Dany recognizes that no human being should ever have to undergo the sort of systematic abuse and torture that the Unsullied were forced to experience in order to become as subservient as they are. Dany recognizes how dehumanizing and unacceptable that sort of treatment was for making them "like one man" meant for sale (or "not men" at all) - that's why she tells Jorah to not call them men: she asks that he doesn't erase their suffering and talk as if the way they were treated was, in any way, acceptable.

Jorah doesn't understand any of this, though. While his advice for Dany to go to Astapor ultimately paid off because of Dany's actions, we should remind ourselves that he did her no favor. I've already shown in another post how he still has no problem with slavery even after being exiled, and you can see that in the next passage below: he can't understand why would Dany be angry at him for advising her to go to Astapor to buy them nor why would she be appalled by how they are treated, so he tries to normalize the situation by focusing on how effective as a force they can be ("the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained..."). That's enough for Dany, who rightfully slaps him in the face:

“Khaleesi,” he said, taken aback by her fury, “the Unsullied are chosen as boys, and trained—”

“I have heard all I care to of their training.” Dany could feel tears welling in her eyes, sudden and unwanted. Her hand flashed up and cracked Ser Jorah hard across the face. It was either that, or cry.

Mormont touched the cheek she’d slapped. “If I have displeased my queen—”

“You have. You’ve displeased me greatly, ser. If you were my true knight, you would never have brought me to this vile sty.” If you were my true knight, you would never have kissed me, or looked at my breasts the way you did, or ... (ASOS Daenerys II)

She makes it clear here: if he were her true knight, he wouldn't have brought her to Astapor. (And that he forced a kiss on her and looked at her breasts without her consent makes her anger even more pronounced, rightfully so.) Thankfully, Dany is a true queen, but not because of him.

(Also, Barristan explicitly called Jorah a slaver in this chapter, and I wonder if that also heightened her rage in the exchange above, for she's realizing that he does, indeed, talk like a slaver.)

Jorah says that he'll ask Groleo to send them somewhere else (which does not get to the root of the problem), but Dany stops him. Now that she saw what she saw, she can't remain passive about it, she feels it in her guts that she needs to do something:

“As Your Grace commands. I shall tell Captain Groleo to make ready to sail on the evening tide, for some sty less vile.”

“No,” said Dany. Groleo watched them from the forecastle, and his crew was watching too. Whitebeard, her bloodriders, Jhiqui, every one had stopped what they were doing at the sound of the slap. “I want to sail now, not on the tide, I want to sail far and fast and never look back. But I can’t, can I? There are eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale, and I must find some way to buy them.” And with that she left him, and went below. (ASOS Daenerys II)

In this moment, we see that Dany wishes she could do what Barristan told her to do: go west and pretend she didn't see what she saw (hence why it's so ludicrous to argue that he convinced her to free the slaves). But she "must find some way to buy them" now, not just the amount of soldiers she needs, but all the "eight thousand brick eunuchs for sale". As I said it before, she is already thinking about how she might free them.

Dany refuses to become desensitized by slavery, which she instinctively notices is pervasive throughout the entire city:

She stood by the rail and looked out over Astapor. From here it looks almost beautiful, she thought. The stars were coming out above, and the silk lanterns below, just as Kraznys’s translator had promised. The brick pyramids were all glimmery with light. But it is dark below, in the streets and plazas and fighting pits. And it is darkest of all in the barracks, where some little boy is feeding scraps to the puppy they gave him when they took away his manhood. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Interestingly, even here, Dany already seems opposed to the fighting pits.

Jorah shows up and tries to relativize the morality of the situation: if she will spill blood in Westeros, why not here in Slaver's Bay? Dany responds:

“The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eight thousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangled dogs.” (ASOS Daenerys II)

While there is something to be said about the parallels between the slavers and the feudal lords and about the collateral damage that Dany will inevitably inflict on the smallfolk when she fights for her birthright (for she seems ignorant of it in this moment), overall, she is correct: you can't compare the attack against targeted combatants with the systematic attack against almost all of the city's population, save for the nobles.

Jorah remembers the human impact of the Sack of King's Landing and points out that the Unsullied will cause less damage than a normal army would, so they'd be useful if she wants to defeat "the Usurper's dogs" and spare lives at the same time.

Then Dany will question why the city, which lacks protection, has not been invaded by khalasars yet:

Dany gazed off at the soft colored lights and let the cool salt breeze caress her. “You speak of sacking cities. Answer me this, ser—why have the Dothraki never sacked this city?” She pointed. “Look at the walls. You can see where they’ve begun to crumble. There, and there. Do you see any guards on those towers? I don’t. Are they hiding, ser? I saw these sons of the harpy today, all their proud highborn warriors. They dressed in linen skirts, and the fiercest thing about them was their hair. Even a modest khalasar could crack this Astapor like a nut and spill out the rotted meat inside. So tell me, why is that ugly harpy not sitting beside the godsway in Vaes Dothrak among the other stolen gods?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

I've showed some signs above that Dany is already thinking of how to free the slaves and, if she wants to do so, she needs to gather information about the city's defenses. She makes questions that get to the point of the matter, as Jorah responds that a) anyone who would want to attack Astapor would have to face the Unsullied, who are renowned ever since what happened at the gates of Qohor, b) Meereen, Yunkai, Lhazar and the eastern hinterlands have no reason to attack the city and c) the Dothraki provide slaves to the Astapori slavers. If the latter give gifts to the Dothraki in turn, the horselords will find it more convenient to ride on rather than fight. What other function their captives would have if there aren't slavers to sell them to, after all? Dany wishes her situation in Westeros could be resolved as easily as that of the Astapori and the Dothraki (by offering gifts and not fighting).

Dany recalls her brother Rhaegar, her main source of inspiration:

“Prince Rhaegar led free men into battle, not slaves. Whitebeard said he dubbed his squires himself, and made many other knights as well.”

“There was no higher honor than to receive your knighthood from the Prince of Dragonstone.”

“Tell me, then—when he touched a man on the shoulder with his sword, what did he say? ‘Go forth and kill the weak’? Or ‘Go forth and defend them’? At the Trident, those brave men Viserys spoke of who died beneath our dragon banners—did they give their lives because they believed in Rhaegar’s cause, or because they had been bought and paid for?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Of course, Dany never knew who Rhaegar really was, so these statements are about her leadership style and her moral system rather than his.

Once again, Jorah maintains his position: trying to be idealistic gets you killed. Playing dirty makes you win. It's not so different from Cersei's "when you play the game of thrones, you win or you die".

Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably, Rhaegar died. (ASOS Daenerys II)

Jorah didn't really know who Rhaegar was, so I don't think this sentence is necessarily reliable. The spirit of his advice is simple, however: Jorah is trying to normalize the training of the Unsullied and the existence of slavery in general as necessary evils if Dany is to win the game of thrones.

On the other hand, these words were also useful in another sense: sometimes you can't play by the rules if you intend to succeed, especially not if these rules and conventions and institutions treat other people as interchangeable objects to be sold and invalidate your sense of morality. Barristan's advice was also helpful, not in the sense that she should leave the city, but rather that she should not be a part of the slave trade. And so, like with Viserys and Drogo, she will find a solution that was informed by both of these men's advice while also being her own: by refusing to view the slaves as objects to be traded, Dany considered the deal illegitimate and sparked an abolitionist campaign that would influence an entire continent. In other words, Dany did not play by the rules (like Jorah advised), but not by compromising her moral principles, but because of her moral principles (like Barristan advised).

I got ahead of myself her, but I felt that this was the most appropriate place to try to grasp to which extent these men influenced Dany and to which extent she acted on her own.

Now let's go to ASOS Daenerys III. At this point, Dany has already devised her plan to free the Unsullied. She tells the Good Masters that she intends to buy all of them. To appease them, she shows more skin:

She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Also, in order to show that she is not just a beggar queen and is actually capable to buy all of the Unsullied, Dany brings her khalasar and advisors with her:

Each of the eight brokers was attended by two or three body slaves ... though one Grazdan, the eldest, had six. So as not to seem a beggar, Dany had brought her own attendants; Irri and Jhiqui in their sandsilk trousers and painted vests, old Whitebeard and mighty Belwas, her bloodriders. Ser Jorah stood behind her sweltering in his green surcoat with the black bear of Mormont embroidered upon it. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Groleo told Dany that the fringe on the tokar indicates the social hierarchy amongst the masters, so she pays special attention to each master's fringe's tokar:

In this cool green room atop the pyramid, two of the slavers wore tokars fringed in silver, five had gold fringes, and one, the oldest Grazdan, displayed a fringe of fat white pearls that clacked together softly when he shifted in his seat or moved an arm. (ASOS Daenerys III)

GRRM is trying hard to show that Dany is doing what she is doing for selfless reasons. They tell her that she might get all of the 8600 Unsullied if she has enough gold, but not the 2000 that haven't been properly trained, because they don't want to risk losing their credibility in case the latter fails in the field. But Dany insists:

“Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

If Dany was really doing what she was doing just for the sake of an army, she wouldn't have made that offer. Still, they say no.

Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.”
(ASOS Daenerys III)

She says she'll pay double to get all of them. One of the slavers remind her that she isn't Queen of Westeros yet, so she should be certain if she has enough gold and trading goods to pay for them all. Dany replies that they should know that better than her, for they've inspected her ships. The Good Master says she would normally have enough resources to pay for 1000 of them, but only 500 if she'll pay double. One of them says she could give them her crown and get 100 of them, but she says no for personal reasons:

“My crown is not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown, the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. (ASOS Daenerys III)

If you'll recall, she does the same thing back in ACOK Daenerys III. What she does differently here, on the other hand, is to put one of her children in jeopardy. Back in that same chapter, Dany describes the dragons as "all the difference" for her to eventually become more than a beggar queen, so the weight of the risk she's about to take is heavy.

Besides her crown, Dany won't sell neither her people nor her people's goods and horses, but she can offer Illyrio's three ships to the slavers. Now, they say she can buy 2000 Unsullied.

Have in mind that this was Jorah's advice back in ASOS Daenerys I:

“That is what you will find in Astapor, Your Grace. Put ashore there, and continue on to Pentos overland. It will take longer, yes ... but when you break bread with Magister Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.” (ASOS Daenerys I)

Now look at the scene from ASOS Daenerys III that we're in:

The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much, but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being great.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

If all Dany wanted was to get an army, she could have stopped right here. She already had twice the number of Unsullied Jorah originally advised her to buy. In fact, she could've stopped earlier when she offered "every bead of amber and jar of saffron", because they were worth 1000 Unsullied, but she chose to pay double if this meant that the masters would change their mind and give her all of the slaves, both Unsullied and untrained boys.

But she doesn't want an army, she wants to free every single Unsullied. This is why the next moment is so meaningful:

Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she must do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

That Dany "had considered long and hard and found no other way" reveals two things:

It reveals that Dany already expected that her resources and ships wouldn't be enough for the slavers to close the deal and give her all of the slaves, so she was prepared to offer one dragon, hard as it would be to risk a child.

It reveals that Dany is willing to go to any length to free the slaves. She "found no other way"? Of course she had! Again, she could have left the city and hired mercenaries in the Free Cities as Barristan advised her, she could have bought 1000 Unsullied as Jorah advised her, she could have bought the 2000 Unsullied. But Dany feels that it is her moral duty to free all of these men. That's why "[t]wo thousand would never serve for what she meant to do"; that's why she "must have them all"; that's why Dany thinks that "[i]t is my only choice", just like Brienne thinks "[n]o chance, and no choice".

Barristan tries to intervene and to persuade Dany to take another course of action (and there are still people crediting him for Dany's choices, sigh), but she is determined and asks for Jorah to remove him. She waits for their answer, but she already knows what it will be:

She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut, but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young, and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none. (ASOS Daenerys III)

For all that Dany is criticized for her lack of Westerosi historical knowledge, we see in moments like this that she is able to retain whatever facts she learns from other people (we don't know if Jorah, Barristan, Viserys or Groleo told her) and apply them to better contextualize and grasp the problems she encounters. In this case, I also imagine that the Qartheen's reactions to her dragons factored into her conjecture.

And so, as Dany expected, the deal is made - all of the Unsullied and the untrained boys for her in exchange for all her goods (save for her crown and clothes), the three ships and Drogon, the largest dragon, for them. Missandei is given as a gift to Dany.

Dany empathizes with Barristan, even if he still disrespected her authority in public:

Arstan Whitebeard held his tongue as well, when Dany swept by him on the terrace. He followed her down the steps in silence, but she could hear his hardwood staff tap tapping on the red bricks as they went. She did not blame him for his fury. It was a wretched thing she did. The Mother of Dragons has sold her strongest child. Even the thought made her ill. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Like she did in the previous chapter, Dany makes it clear to Barristan that she wants his advice, but she reminds him of her position as well:

“Whitebeard,” she said, “I want your counsel, and you should never fear to speak your mind with
me ... when we are alone. But never question me in front of strangers. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said unhappily.


“I am not a child,” she told him. “I am a queen.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Barristan is frank and says that even queens can make mistakes, for a dragon is worth more than any army, as Aegon proved in the Field of Fire. Dany shows self-assurance by responding:

“I know what Aegon proved. I mean to prove a few things of my own.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Then, Dany talks to Missandei one-on-one for the first time. Missandei is surprised to find that Dany is actually fluent in High Valyrian. Dany frees Missandei and explains that she will serve as a handmaid, cross another continent and face wars with her if she chooses to stay, which she does because she doesn't have better options. Unfortunately, that's something Dany still hasn't learned, but the next chapter will have her start to understand that very lesson.

Then they start talking about the Unsullied. Dany knows that Kraznys may have lied to impress her, so she makes a few questions to confirm the reliability of the information he gave her:

“Are these Unsullied truly fearless?”

~

“...Is it true they feel no pain?”

~

“And they are obedient?”

Missandei confirms everything Kraznys had previously told Dany - they really are fearless, they really feel no pain, they really are obedient.

Dany makes new questions from now on. First, what will she do with them once her war is over? Missandei suggests keeping them as watchmen, reselling them or even asking them to kill themselves. Second:

“If I did resell them, how would I know they could not be used against me?” Dany asked pointedly. “Would they do that? Fight against me, even do me harm?”

“If their master commanded. They do not question, Your Grace. All the questions have been culled from them. They obey.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

In the previous chapter, as I showed (waaay) above, Dany had asked Kraznys what would happen if an enemy (herself) offered the Unsullied freedom for betraying their master. Kraznys replied that the enemy (herself) would be killed for it.

Now, in the moment from ASOS Dany III above, Dany words the question differently: if the Unsullied were sold from one person (masters) to another (Dany), would they fight against their former owner? Missandei answers that they would and echoes Kraznys's words by emphasizing that they do not question, they obey.

It's also worth pointing out that Dany never reveals to be asking these questions for her own sake. In fact, she creates hypothetical situations to conceal the possibility that she might apply that knowledge against the masters. So, by gathering these two pieces of information, Dany now knows what she needs to do in order to begin a successful rebellion: she needs to wait for the transaction to be made and to be acknowledged as their new owner. Only then it'll be possible for her to rebel and offer the Unsullied freedom.

Later, Groleo has another argument with Dany, who is vehement about getting the Unsullied (for the noble reasons I've already discussed above):

“Magister Illyrio is not here,” she finally had to tell him, “and if he was, he could not sway me either. I need the Unsullied more than I need these ships, and I will hear no more about it.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany calls her bloodriders and Jorah to her cabin.

Afterward she called her bloodriders to her cabin, with Ser Jorah. They were the only ones she truly trusted.

She meant to sleep afterward, to be well rested for the morrow, but an hour of restless tossing in the stuffy confines of the cabin soon convinced her that was hopeless. Outside her door she found Aggo fitting a new string to his bow by the light of a swinging oil lamp. Rakharo sat crosslegged on the deck beside him, sharpening his arakh with a whetstone. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Considering that the author emphasizes that "they were the only ones she truly trusted", shows Aggo and Rakharo preparing their weapons for the next day (and they will begin to attack the masters before the Unsullied do) and has Jorah telling Dany that the next day will be a difficult one, I assume she shared her plan with them to make sure it would work out.

Then, she goes up in deck, Jorah finds her and they have a powerful exchange in which Dany reflects on why she calls herself queen in the first place:

“Khaleesi. You ought to be asleep. Tomorrow will be hot and hard, I promise you. You’ll need your strength.”


“Do you remember Eroeh?” she asked him.

“The Lhazareen girl?”

“They were raping her, but I stopped them and took her under my protection. Only when my sun-and-stars was dead Mago took her back, used her again, and killed her. Aggo said it was her fate.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah said.

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.”


“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

These lines have already been analyzed in so many ways and quoted by so many people that I feel that I don't have anything new to add. I will quote @khaleesirin and myself to touch upon two particular aspects, however:

Dany’s storyline stands in contrast with the whole narrative surrounding the existence of The Others because when it comes to her, the realization we should be having is not that we need to gather / forge light (the heroes) to ready for a the fight against the real, ultimate darkness that’s about to come; Dany, as a hero and a revolutionary, came into view because in Arendtian terms, we have been, and are already in dark times. [...] There’s a reason why Dany’s character is so closely read as a revolutionary figure whose consciousness to fight for change, to end slavery, happens not because of her predetermined role, but because of the experiences she accumulated. (x)

~

Among her “contemporaries,” she’s the only one who actively sought for a universal sense of social justice, she’s the only one who actively appealed for the humanity of the repressed. (x)

~

The main takeaway is this: in terms of learning how to lead, Daenerys’ journey is not simply about how to be a ruler but on what grounds she should be ruling. (x)

~

What happened to Eroeh is not only something that fuels Dany’s anger and need for vengeance. It also fuels her desire to be just and fight for equality. This shows that negative feelings and sense of fairness can feed off each other (and let me be clear that the latter is a much stronger force on Daenerys). Dany had no agency once; she knows how that felt like. Now she, another rape victim to whom the narrative actually cares about giving a voice, will strive to give other people their agency because she can’t stand watching these injustices passively if she can do something about them. After what happened to me, this became so much more meaningful. She makes me feel like I can recover and succeed and be proactive too. (x)

Dany as a proactive hero is inspiring to me for the reasons expressed above:

She chose to fight for a cause that she had no any moral obligation to fight for nor any social ties to the group being oppressed (she transcended feudal loyalties before anyone else did) nor did she think she had a predetermined role to play. She did it all simply because her deep empathy and her own experiences as someone who's been oppressed before led to her development of a universal sense of social justice ("Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?")

Also, as any marginalized group can tell you in real life, we're always met with human opposition like her cause was (unlike the Others' threat, which necessarily involves everyone, but no social movement ever managed to do that). We're angry and traumatized and scared. Dany had all of these feelings too, but she sublimated them into an abolitionist campaign. She is both relatable and a power fantasy. The scene above encapsulates all the key reasons why Dany's character, leadership and overall development matter so much to so many readers.

It's also worth noting that the chapter links Dany's anti-slavery crusade with the War for the Dawn, even if Dany is unaware of that.

Morning finally arrives. Like she did many times before, Dany restrains her emotions here in order to be respected, to be able to act as a political leader and to carry out her plan effectively:

If I look back I am lost, Dany told herself the next morning as she entered Astapor through the harbor gates. She dared not remind herself how small and insignificant her following truly was, or she would lose all courage. (ASOS Daenerys III)

In Qarth, Dany wore their gowns as a way to appease them, but then ultimately chose her Dothraki vests in the docks as her way to rebel against them and leave the city. In this chapter, she does the same: the Qartheen gown was used to flatter the slavers, but her "horsehair pants and painted leather vests" are her preferred option, signaling her choice of war and "honesty" and equality:

Today she rode her silver, clad in horsehair pants and painted leather vest, a bronze medallion belt about her waist and two more crossed between her breasts. Irri and Jhiqui had braided her hair and hung it with a tiny silver bell whose chime sang of the Undying of Qarth, burned in their Palace of Dust. (ASOS Daenerys III)

I don't think it's a coincidence that, in ADWD, Dany wears a tokar (which bears similar functions to those of the Qartheen gown; both are associated with adulation and falsehood and are villainized partly for being feminine-coded) while trying to find common ground with the slavers and then meets with the Dothraki at the end of the book when she decides to reject the peace. Both ACOK and ASOS already had Dany using Dothraki clothing for the purpose of revolting against socially established practices. It's also fitting because Dany's experiences with the Dothraki inform both her sense of equality and her leadership style.

To hammer home the parallels between Dany's choices of outfits in ACOK and ASOS, GRRM mentions the "Undying of Qarth" and also compares the Astapori with the Qartheen:

They are not so different from Qartheen after all, she thought. They want a glimpse of dragons to tell their children of, and their children’s children. It made her wonder how many of them would ever have children. (ASOS Daenerys III)

This passage also highlights a few things: by now, Dany knows that people are awed by her dragons and will try to look at them or even possess them if they can. It also foreshadows that her actions, righteous as they might be, will inevitably result in violence, for she doesn't know which of them will come out alive to have children.

Unlike the day before, now Dany is bringing her entire retinue. She organizes them in a conscious attempt to make them look more imposing than they really are:

She put the oldest and weakest on the inside of the column, with the nursing women and those with child, and the little girls, and the boys too young to braid their hair. The rest—her warriors, such as they were—rode outside and moved their dismal herd along, the hundred-odd gaunt horses that had survived both red waste and black salt sea. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Karmically speaking, Dany's rebellion begins in the most appropriate spot. The Plaza of Punishment, which was where slaves once suffered for trying to fight for their dignity, is now where a successful anti-slavery rebellion against the masters takes place:

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.

At first glimpse, Dany thought their skin was striped like the zorses of the Jogos Nhai. Then she rode her silver nearer and saw the raw red flesh beneath the crawling black stripes. Flies. Flies and maggots. The rebellious slaves had been peeled like a man might peel an apple, in a long curling strip. One man had an arm black with flies from fingers to elbow, and red and white beneath. Dany reined in beneath him. “What did this one do?”

“He raised a hand against his owner.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

All the trade goods are brought forward to be exchanged for the Unsullied and Kraznys makes another nasty advice on how best to use them. Finally, Dany hands the end of Drogon's chain to Kraznys, who gives her the whip in turn. With the knowledge she extracted from Missandei and Kraznys, Dany is aware that she needs to be acknowledged as the Unsullied's owner if she wants them to fight for her. She makes questions to guarantee that the deal is done and makes it plain to the Unsullied that they are now hers:

“Is it done, then? Do they belong to me?”

“It is done,” he agreed, giving the chain a sharp pull to bring Drogon down from the litter. (ASOS Daenerys III)

~

She stood in her stirrups and raised the harpy’s fingers above her head for all the Unsullied to see. “IT IS DONE!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “YOU ARE MINE!” She gave the mare her heels and galloped along the first rank, holding the fingers high. “YOU ARE THE DRAGON’S NOW! YOU’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!” (ASOS Daenerys III)

She prepared the ground very well. Now she is ready to atack. The slavers are unable to control Drogon, and Dany explains why:

“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. (ASOS Daenerys III)

Chaos ensues, the other two dragons are unchained, the Good Masters can only shove one another aside in panic and the Astapori demon-horned warriors are swiftly defeated by Dany's khalasar. Old Grazdan, the Good Master with the highest level of authority, tries in vain to order the Unsullied to attack Dany. The Mother of Dragons's leap of faith pays off and the Unsullied side with her instead:

The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watch him die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air ... and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!” she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they 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. (ASOS Daenerys III)

And the chapter ends triumphally. Dany is finally confident enough to throw the whip aside as the narrative links her draconic force to freedom.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #dany and her choices #valyrianscrolls #a storm of swords

[sineala]

Captain America: Patriot

This isn't really an organized meta post or review so much as a few half-finished thoughts I wanted to get out after I read a Cap miniseries a few weeks ago that I can't really stop thinking about, because it had a scene that really stuck with me and that I think we could use more of in current comics and also with Steve, because even though it was a relatively recent mini it wasn't about Steve.

Captain America: Patriot is a 2011 miniseries about the third Captain America, Jeff Mace. For those of you who are more familiar with the MCU, I should probably explain something about 616, which is that Steve Rogers' identity as Captain America was not public during the war; it wasn't public until after 9/11, although generally his fellow superheroes knew. This meant that when Steve died -- well, as far as the Allies knew -- during World War II, what they did was conceal Captain America's death entirely. So they started putting other men in the Cap suit. It's important to note that none of these people were super-soldiers or superhuman in any way. They just wanted to keep morale up by making the world believe that Captain America was still alive. (Also Bucky. There are a bunch of Buckys too.)

The second Captain America was a guy named William Naslund, and he fought alongside what remained of the Invaders for about a year before dying in battle -- see above, re: not actually a superhuman. Coincidentally, Jeff Mace happens to be the guy who finds him on the battlefield, and Naslund actually dies in his arms.

Now, Mace isn't superpowered, but that doesn't mean he's not a superhero. Previously a Daily Bugle reporter, he decides to put on a costume and fight injustice as the Patriot, backed by the All-Winners Squad, which is how he manages to be around a battlefield to find Naslund dying.

And then basically the government says, "Hey, would you like to be the next Captain America?" and Jeff Mace here, despite having no superpowers whatsoever (there is in fact a plot thread about how he's the only baseline human on the All-Winners Squad and is worried about keeping up) and knowing that the last guy only lasted a year... well, he says yes. Of course he does.

But that's not really the part of this miniseries I want to talk about.

No, what I want to talk about is the subplot involving Jeff's friend Jack Casey. They were coworkers together at the Bugle before the war; Jack was a photographer and then served in the Navy during the war, took some great photos of him as the Patriot that made it into Life magazine, and so on. And then Jeff finds out that Jack was discharged from the Navy and committed suicide. He tells his superhero friends he'll go to the funeral and give a eulogy for him as Captain America.

And they say, no, Jeff, you can't do that. And when he asks why, they say it's because Jack was blue-ticketed.

A blue-ticket discharge can mean a lot of things (as Jeff points out while trying to wrap his mind around this), but it's pretty clear from context here that Jack Casey was gay. ("Did he ever have a girlfriend?" asks the Whizzer.)

Jeff says that it doesn't matter, that he's going to the funeral anyway, that he doesn't care if they take the Captain America uniform away from him.

The rest of his friends tell him he can't do that. Because the rest of the world is a terrible and homophobic place, he needs to remember that he's not the only Captain America, and if he does this, he'll destroy the world's trust in any Captain America who ever comes after him, or the ones before him. They point out that people will lose all respect for Captain America.

So he goes as the Patriot. His original identity. He lets the world keep respecting Captain America, and he sacrifices the identity that is actually his, and his dead gay friend gets a very touching eulogy.

Afterwards, he puts his Cap uniform back on, and hands his old Patriot costume to Torch to burn.

And then Namor, of course, tells him he is stupid: "Your loyalty is admirable, Mace, but clearly you've killed the Patriot and gained nothing in return! No opinions were changed, no legacies redeemed -- no mark left of any kind!"

This is when Jeff Mace demonstrates that he is truly the ally we all need and PUNCHES NAMOR RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE, breaking his hand in the process. (The new Bucky has to help patch his hand up.)

Right. So that's a thing you can read in a comic.

And mostly I just wanted to mention it because I keep thinking about it, both because I think it's absolutely what Steve Rogers would have done if it had been him in the uniform instead, and also because it demonstrates a really heartening amount of -- I don't know what to say, solidarity, maybe -- that I feel like I don't see in comics a lot these days. There's something really nice in knowing that Captain America would stand up for people like you, you know? (Especially when you, say, read Marvel #1000 and find that Waid's Cap speech was edited to make it less overtly political.)

We all know that Steve has demonstrated nothing but respect and affection for his queer friends and teammates, as far back as the storyline that introduced Arnie Roth, Steve's childhood best friend, way back in 1982 in Cap #268. Despite the fact that no one in this comic is actually allowed to say the word "gay" (ah, Comics Code, how I don't miss you!), Arnie is definitely gay, and at one point Steve explicitly compares the relationship Arnie has with his, ahem, roommate Michael, to the love he feels for Bernie, whom he's dating at the time. So that was also nice.

(Steve also has canonically gay teammates from World War II -- Brian Falsworth (Union Jack) and Roger Aubrey (The Destroyer) were a couple, but this was retconned into canon much later so to the best of my knowledge we never see Steve interact with them as gay characters during, say, the 70s Invaders series.)

Spencer's recent run actually gave us a few more glimpses at queerness, even if Steve wasn't really himself. There's a panel of Sam on a Pride float, and longtime sidekick Dennis Dunphy (D-Man) actually came out, but, of course, we don't know what the real Steve thinks about that, or if he's ever gone to Pride.

So at that point I was getting kind of frustrated, because, I mean, yes, Marvel has plenty of actually canonically queer characters elsewhere and I love them too, but it would sure be nice to see that Captain America stood for me too once in a while, you know?

The most satisfying recent issue I can point to is Tini Howard's recent Cap annual. It's a World War II-set story about Steve and Bucky helping out some injured people in need of assistance, and one of them eventually confesses that he's gay, expecting that Steve won't still want to help him and of course Steve does. It's really, really sweet, but I feel that it lacks the immediately extremely public stance that Jeff was unhesitatingly willing to take for his friend, knowing that people would hate him for it, which I think is part of why the Patriot miniseries keeps sticking with me. Steve's support here was very nice, but it was also... very quiet. No one else is going to know, which is not the case for what Jeff was willing to do and for what he eventually did.

Plus, Jeff got to punch Namor in the face.

So I guess I just keep thinking that I want more of... that. I want Marvel to write Steve standing up and just doing the right thing, dammit, even if it's the unpopular thing -- the essence of no, you move, I guess, and I think maybe these days they're... not.

Anyway, yeah. Captain America: Patriot. I recommend it.

#posts i actually wrote

[jq37]

[obligatory recap ask]

**spoilers for subway skirmish and borough of dreams**

@kickmuncher3 and @galfast: ty for your asks, I’ll use them for the next two recaps. this is probably the least efficient way for me to handle this but I want to keep all of these visually consistent dammit. 

One of the funniest things about this season of D20 is most if not all of the cast has lived in NYC which manifests as very specific references and in character complaints that you just know come from a place of truth and experience. Which is to say we got a lot of that in these episodes.  

Also, this has nothing to do with anything but living in NY update: On Sunday, I saw a man hanging upside-down from a tree--by his feet--and playing the flute. And barely anyone registered it at all. So I really cannot stress enough how much New York is Like That.

Pete opening the fight by blasting a fireball and then telepathically calling out Kingston is--como se dice--a Power Move.

Brennan *immediately* channels the opposite of whatever energy Emily's on and goes right for Ricky's dog to the horror of everyone at the table and his absolute delight. Like, it's a spectral dog but still. Bro. Dog. 

Kingston taking the heat metal damage to get Epona to drop him is so raw. But then, for the rest of the fight, he doesn't say a single thing except for his Command spells which is a very different kind of raw. 

Question: Is Riz's mom the only good cop that exists in D20?

I know this was an RP ep and I know they knew it was gonna be an RP ep but I wonder what would have happened if they had pretended to cooperate with Epona to get more info. Probably just an extended RP ep that would have segued into this same fight eventually. But I'm curious about what information they let get eaten by a swarm of rats.

Misty's Irresistible Dance spell is very clutch. 

The gators from the last fight are back in the form of Kug's summons and one of them still has a grudge against Misty. Misty is all, "send me your resume!" because she appreciates the spunk. I was starting a sentence about what the hell play this sentient gator is going to be in but as soon as I hypothetically asked it my brain was like, "Peter Pan. Next question."

Y'all, this really was Kug's fight. Between calling the roaches, crocs, and gators, channeling Moonshine to call lightning, and killing Epona within 40 mins of the ep, he truly was on fire. Good for him. He also turns into a bear but specifically a bear that would have escaped from the zoo. It's the little details that make this show great. 

Brennan putting his foot down on tying rats together not being acrobatics is the eternal DM mood. 

Back to Epona for a second, do we think she was working for Robert directly? Someone connected to him? Something else? When her shadow split after Ricky's attack was that meaningful or just flavor? Where did that badge come from? Has it always existed? What does destroying it mean? It didn't seem to help. The bad cop ghosts were still around, just no one could control them at that point. If they had yoinked that badge, could they have had a summoning item that hey could use? Or is it bad karma to use something like that? Is it still bad if you're forcing the bad cops to do good stuff? Did Brennan anticipate this or is the Coach Daybreak 2: Electric Boogaloo? Lots of questions.

Misty's cutting words to the cop (saving Ricky) making the Law and Order "DUN DUN" noise is great. 

Emily ends up not needing to roll to make rat nunchucks because her health goes low enough that her magic ring activates but I feel like she low key wanted rat nunchucks. 

Wild that Kingston went down for just long enough for it to be cinematic before being revived by Misty ("Get up, old man,")

Also wild that this whole fight only took about 45 seconds of in game time. It makes sense if you think about it the way you would a movie and that's how most D&D fights are but that's so much play time for so little game time and it hit me this ep because I was actually keeping track of rounds. 

Anyway, I have not mentioned up until this point that the whole crux of this fight is to last long enough for Alejandro to roll high enough to summon the train to Nod but, long story short, Pizza Rat shows up to save the day. Does that make more sense in context? Marginally. 

I like that the train to Nod shows up on the wrong side of the tracks. Like I said, man. Details. 

Oh and to my above point about the cast making comments about NY as people who have lived in NY, I loved Brennan looking directly at the camera when he was going off on people who just stand at the door like idiots while you're trying to get in and then Siobhan pokes like half her head into frame so she can also stare directly into the camera. Mood.

When Ally said Pete shoots Kingston I half believed it for a good couple of seconds. I was right there with Lou. 

OK, so I don't know how many of you have watched Sharkboy and Lavagirl (and, if you haven't feel free to skip this bullet) but no movie has brought me more enjoyment overall than SB&LG. Not because it's good because it's not. But it's so insane that it's amazing. It's right in the sweet spot. I always say, if it was any better, it would be Spy Kids 3 and, therefore, unwatchable (SK 1 + 2 are dope as hell though, for the record). I bring it up because the way Brennan describes Nod reminds me a lot of Drool in SB&LG. Like, the rollercoaster subway car def could be in the same universe as the Train of Thought. This is all to say that I think Brennan could have written a version of SB&LG that was better without being worse. Idk if that comes across as complimentary, but it is, and to both parties actually. 

From the way Nod (the kid) is being framed (in this ep and the next) I know we're not supposed to mistrust him but, put in that situation, there is no way I would trust the gray faced, black eyed, creepily gliding dream child. 

Post fight, Kingston wants to offer an apology for what he said about Pete and Nod wants to apologize for putting Pete in his current situation. Also, the group decides to be more open in general. Kug, as most of us guessed, got beauty and the beasted for white collar crime by his business partner (Gabby) who is Esther's mom and a witch (also, Ricky thinks his crush on Esther is a secret which is just adorable and completely incorrect).  

Brennan cuts sharing time off because this is the combat episode dammit! Save it for next session. But, because I'm behind, next session is now! Let's get into The Borough of Dreams.

Misty, as a faerie, is instinctively mistrustful of vising other magical worlds and eating the food or taking things at face value. I love that she's playing a character where she can ask these questions and not be meta-gaming because I had some of the same concerns. 

Wildly, WALLY walks out of the train as he just happened to be on it (as conductor) at the time. Kug bursts out with the fact that he's his dad and Wally takes this to mean that Rat Jesus is his bio dad but, even after being left alone for so many years, he claims Bruce as his real dad. He's wrong but he's sweet. 

"I thought you were mad at me." Brennan, you didn't have to do that.

Murph clearly trying to not accidentally call Wally a piece of shit because that's his go to Kug way to describe things is so funny.

"We could turn me into a rat." WALLY

Kingston and Misty looking at each other like, "These absolute children," while Pete and Soph are making Brittney Spears references. 

So we find out what all of the magic stuff they picked up does. Misty's mirror can see invisibility. Pete's grill helps with persuasion. The thousand hour energy makes you immune to sleep for 42 days(!) The bagel can be used for divination or to essentially kill a person but spread their essence throughout the universe  (which low key sounds like a sacrifice someone might make to help cancel the spread of say an undead presence or a money virus). 

I want Ricky and Wally to be friends forever. 

Kingston's lack of connection to the dream world is so sad. Like, he's no nonsense but he's like NO NONSENSE. Like no nonsense possible. So he's just walking around like Eddie Valiant in Toontown. 

And, at the same time, the rest of the party is doing the MOST nonsense. Mary Poppins-ing into the sky. Misty is making out with the moon. Wild. 

SOBER SALAD

Ally drops the ketamine on the tomatoes line and Brennan fully breaks

Very sweet for Pete to bring Kingston a salad, even though that's such a random food to just have in your pocket(???). Why does salad keep coming up on this show? One more time and it's officially a motif.

So the dream world basically works on Sharkboy and Lavagirl/Xanth/Phantom Tollbooth/Wonderland/Toontown logic. If you've seen/read any of those, you basically have it down. 

"Only people with Sprint have service."/"Oh, amazing!" Brennan threw that softball out for anyone who wanted it and Emily, as usual, hit it out of the park.

Brennan very clearly knows his NY history. The mob boss (lucky Luciano, no not that one) that he mentioned during the sleeping with the fishes bit is a real dude and basically the dude who brought organized crime to the US (in the form we know it now). 

Ricky and the mints. Lord.

Anyway, the one item I didn't mention earlier is the holy grail detergent which can literally clean souls. Which sounds mighty interesting considering some of the other stuff that's come up this campaign. 

(Also, I wonder if you could use the bagel as spell components since it contains everything in the universe in microcosm).

I can't believe Pete was the one saying, "At least eat before you shotgun that 1000 hour energy." By the by, the 42 hour span of the energy drink makes me suspicious. Is that just for humor (and accurate math) or it this a Chekov's Gun kind of an item indicating some kind of time jump at some point? Ricky drinks it later in this ep so, if there's a clock attached to that, it's ticking. I'm prob reading into this but I assume if you're still reading these, this is what you're here for. 

Ally making sawing motions before being told an egg creme has nothing to do with eggs and is in fact a drink.

Pete! OK, so Pete has made some good steps in this ep, starting with promising to start reining in the drug usage. Later he works on his magic and also gets over Priya. This is the most endeared I've been to him all season. Especially his, "I try to do a good job," line. I felt that. 

"It's still open to you." Aw.

Brennan clearly saw the chance for a lore drop this ep and boy did it drop. Let's run through the highlights.

Nod dumped all this on Pete the way they did because it's super super hard to contact a Vox Phantasmus beforehand due the the natural, waking world inclination to brush off dreams. You have to have the job before you can talk to the boss. Cruddy system but that's how it goes. 

When Sophie said the thing about Robert Moses creating spaces that can't be accessed she meant by magic but it's an interesting way to phrase it because the irl Robert Moses is known for (allegedly, but like, it tracks) trying to keep black people out of certain spaces. 

Robert Moses sold his soul to Hell and Faerie which is why he's still alive it seems. No one wants to collect on his soul and anger the other party.

Whoever predicted that the golden door for Emma Laz's poem was the rectangle from episode one, collect your prize because it's confirmed in this ep. 

We learn about the ephemeral axiom which basically says, a dream can be all things but once it manifests, it's a single thing. (you might even say, "it is what it is".)

So another big thing we learn is that if a dream gets so big that manifesting them in the real world would break the game, it's called a Paragon. There are four total: Heaven, Hell, Faerie, and The American Dream. (Wild that The American Dream is the only country specific one that exists. Like, I rep my home team of course but the U.S. is a pretty latecomer to the country party. You'd think someone else might have gotten Paragon status at some point.)

"Was one of them the Grand Canyon?"

Anyway, dragging the American Dream into the waking world would fix the American Dream to mean one thing--I assume making tons of money if Robert Moses has his way. I'll admit, I was a  little fuzzy on the mechanics of this on my first watch-through because pulling the American Dream into the real world sounds like it should be a good thing. But I think, at the most basic level, it's a matter of you shouldn't put magic that shouldn't be in a box in a box. I'm still wondering about the exact implications for the waking world if he succeeds though. Like, how would that manifest? Would everyone suddenly become money hungry (lol, how would you tell)? Would people still want what they want but the American Dream would just be understood to mean making stacks and none of the good Superman-y stuff?

"It's not Protestant work ethic is it?"

Robert Moses is undead and can't get into Nod, so those are good things to note. 

I was so ready for Wally is get dispelled and for him to be a figment of Kug’s imagination or a dream or something. I braced myself so much. I was ready to set up a firing squad for Brennan for doing that to Kug.  

Who tipped the bugsters off to where Pete was gonna be? As far as I can tell, the only people that knew were the gang plus Alejandro and Esther. Maybe someone was scrying on them and that’s what the roll Zac failed during the wedding ep was. 

As soon as Brennan mentions locking the door, Ally immediately makes the connection and goes, "Key to the city." Nod "locks" the American Dream and gets rid of the lock which seems to mean the American Dream is temporarily unavailable. Which seems not good and like it's gonna have collateral damage for sure but I guess you bad is a matter of degrees and Robert getting in would be worse. But still, imagine your immigration papers get declined because some random kid decided to close down the American Dream for a couple of days. 

So, we get some backstory of Misty. She apparently just was straight up not having a good time in Faerie so she stole Titania's shoes (allowing her to be in iron-filled NYC without triggering her fairy vulnerability) and peaced out. 

"She's gonna kill you."/"Only if she can get here and I have her Goddamn shoes." (**A million airhorns in the distance**)

I love that Emily is still on the souls thing. Emily doesn't believe in Occam's Razor. In fact, I'd like to propose a corollary called the Axford Axiom: The coolest path between two points probably isn't the correct one, but it should be! I want her to run a campaign so bad so I can see her be in a game where her crazy endgame is what's going on because she's the one who wrote it. 

Misty: Let's go to hell!

So much like a videogame, the map has opened up and we have three places to check out. The former locations in the dream world of Faerie (Carnagie Hall), Heaven (JFK airport), and Hell (where do you think? Hell's Kitchen). The gang splits up to look for clues (and drinks, in Misty's case). Actually, make that four places: Pete goes to the Met Museum of Memories to basically Avatar mind meld with the other Voxes and get a handle on his magic to a degree (thank God--Nod?). We'll take these in order of appearance, which means we're off to Hell with Kug and Ricky (plus Ox and Wally).

(Focus on the Pizza, baby!)

At first I wanted Ricky, the good boy, to go to Heaven, but the idea of a firefighter in Hell also has appeal. 

Re The rat holding his guts: Gross. 

Ricky holding his axe like a cell phone.

So we and Kug learn that the rat-spell that was cast on him wasn't actually a rat-spell. It was a spell that would make his outsides reflect his insides and his insides happened to suck. I'm wondering if that means that it's a static spell that reflects his outsides at the time it was cast and it would need to be recast to reflect any moral progress made or if it will just revert him once he's made enough progress. 

I'm also wondering (partially bc one of my players asked to do this last session) can a Druid wildshape into a person? I feel like no, but like, did any of you ever read Animorphs? You know how in book 1 Tobias gets stuck as a red-tailed-hawk but then later her gets his morphing ability back and then he can turn back into his human form for 2 hours at a time? What if Kug just started doing that? Just being a rat who is sometimes a dude. 

They also go to the statue of liberty (which has a French accent, natch) who shows them that there's, like, a money/greed virus infecting the Dreaming and the American Dream. Ricky smells undeath again. They think vampires. That's plausible but I'm not sure. 

OK, Heaven. 

WHOOOO, strap in y'all

(Sidenote: I wonder what would have happened if Soph hadn't chose to go to heaven. I feel like she could have easily run into you know who in hell had she chose to go there, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Brennan actually tries to lead Emily into the thinking about Dale mindset but Emily, having reached a note of closure in Soph's character arc, pushes back on that.

honeyougotastormcoming.gif

Brennan,about to wreck her entire life: Cool.

I and the cast keep saying heaven a lot but it's like an all roads lead to Rome situation. It's heaven, Valhalla, Elysium, nirvana. Like, whatever Good Place you believe in. It's the Good Place. 

Sophie, upon being told that if she jumps into the fight at the Pearly Gates she knows nothing about, she might literally die: And what about it?

Emily's face when Brennan says, "And you see Dale," is so much. You can see the entire range of human emotion in her eyes in that moment.

Sidenote: I wonder how much of her backstory Emily planned and how much Brennan dropped on her. Like, she knew Isabella was part of her backstory obv. Did Brennan come up with all of this whole-cloth or did she say she wanted there to be something supernatural and and let him fill in the details. Very curious about the collaborative process.  

 When Dale's character art comes up, it says "Sophie's Angel" for Dale's descriptor so where I thought we were going was that Dale was Sophie's Guardian Angel who wasn't supposed to be romantically involved with her and the reason he was gone is that he was forcibly brought back to heaven. But that may be because I recently watched this.

Dale, is upsettingly sweet with Sophie, calls her "sweetie" the entire time they're together, fights a ton of angels to get to her, and says he got her text message. Emily is about to cry. *I'm* about to cry. I'm sure the only reason Brennan isn't fistpumping is because he needs to stay in character. 

Dale gives this cryptic piece of advice before he is dragged off by angel guards: When you get to the top, I know what it'll seem like, but there is someone there.

Emily, of course: I fight the angels.

The angels, hilariously, don't take it personally that she's fighting them--and very well, but not well enough to beat a nat 20. Sometimes the dice are spooky in tune with the story.

"He's got a job to do here. Who's gonna watch the deer?"

Dale also tells Soph to tell Jackson he said hi which is interesting to say the least. 

Emily gets two very dope lines in a row:

"Let me hold your hand through this Alejandro."

"I'm gonna kill her. And I don't think she's going to the great big airport in Brooklyn."

That's it for her for now, but let's put a pin in that for now and come back to it after we check in with the others. 

Siobhan and Kingston are at the former spot of Faerie, the Glamour Bar.

Zac jokingly (I think) guessing Dr. Doolittle as the thing Siobhan can't remember when she says Eliza Doolittle is so funny. 

Also, her terrible cockney British accent on top of her actual British accent is great.

I love that the two actual Real Adults are the ones who go and get wasted mid-mission. 

Brennan introduces "Bobby Goodfellow" and it takes Siobhan exactly four seconds after Brennan finishes the word "Goodfellow" to be like, "It's Puck." She knew and she knew her character would know it and she hardcore pounced.  

I meant to mention this before but it's super funny that Kingston has been around the magical block but there's still so much he doesn't know. He was surprised by a bunch of stuff in this ep that I'd think he would know about (like the Midsummer's faeries being real) but nah. He's like, "This is my specific brand of magic nonsense. That's what I know about. I don't mess around with any of *that* stuff. I stay in my lane. I stay in my city."

Ty Brennan for teaching me how to pronounce sláinte. This is the first time I'm hearing it out loud. 

I love his Puck voice. Like, the little British street urchin voice.  

No big surprise, Puck sent the mirror on the order of Oberon and Titania (who are not back together but are knocking boots according to him). 

Puck warns Misty, "The world of mortals is not long for this world," and follows it up with a seemingly sincere, "Come home. We miss you," which is an interesting thing to say after announcing that Titania is gunning for her. Who is this we, Puck? Your boss wants to bodyslam her!

Also, what do the faeries know that they're not saying? All of them in the bar seemed to know something was off but none of them said anything and Puck didn't elaborate. 

I've always liked the trope of the person from the otherworldly, magical or super advanced being like, "Idk what you're talking about. Humans are great!" because it's the opposite of the snooty elf/vulcan/whatever trope that I really can't stand. Misty showed shades of that in this conversation but I feel like there's still so much that we're missing in her backstory and I wanna know what it is.  

(Also, this is prob just me being a little pepe silvia but I would be very unsurprised if Misty got an opportunity to betray the party at some point. Don't @ me. It's just something I could see myself offering to a player for the drama of it all). 

Anyway, Kingston is extremely uncomfortable in the bar and makes a hasty exit so let's go to the museum with Pete and Nod.

Ally jumps onto the, "Suggested donations are for suckers" train w/ Siobhan. 

Turns out, Pete f'd up Robert up so much that he has kind of a brain link with him. I wonder how long that's gonna last. 

Pete gets proficiency in arcana and a choice between lesseing wild magic surges or gaining some control over them (2 wild magic rolls on a fail and ally gets to choose which effect takes place). Obv the second one is more fun rp-wise so that's what Ally picks.

It's a memory museum so OF COURSE he gets a chance to look at the memories of the rest of the party. But it's getting late so he only has a chance to check on one person's memories. He, naturally, picks Kingston. Makes perfect sense from an RP perspective but out of character I feel like Misty is the most closed book of the party. 

Pete sees Kingston's life from his childhood to the present (Brennan puts Lou on the spot to do some improv...I mean beyond the improv they're already doing) and it's about what you would expect based on what we know about Kingston but it's very beautifully described (sidenote: did any of y'all ever watch the life and times of juniper lee? where she can't leave the city bc she's like the buffy of that world? I really felt shades of that, except more self imposed).

During that montage, a character is like, "You could make hundreds of millions of dollars--I mean, I'm exaggerating," (s/t like that) and I'm not gonna go back and check but I feel like Brennan (or maybe Lou) made almost exactly the same comment in the first ep of this season in a very similar context.

Oh, also, Kingston gets dubbed Vox Populi by a dragon on Bleecker Street in case you were wondering about logistics. 

Again, Nod says that inviting Liz into his life was basically dooming Liz to be stuck dealing with the Unsleeping City but I feel like unless you have a Vox position or something similar you should be able to, like, opt out. So what you need to ignore some weird stuff day to day? May I direct you to my earlier anecdote about the flute dude in the tree. New Yorkers are good at that. And if she moved away, would it even be an issue?

Actually, that raises another question. Is NY the only place where magic is happening? It can't be because Santa is doing his thing at the North Pole. And NY has the Umbral Arcana which shields magic from muggles. Does that mean that elsewhere, magic just isn't hidden? I'm guessing that works because the bulk of magical happenings are happening in NY. Which, again, if so, couldn't Liz just move if she really wanted to? Or is she actually being *kept* there? 

Ahhhhh, that argument scene with Kingston and Liz. Ow. 

Robert's subconscious is heckling Kingston's memories the entire time. 

The party gets back together, Pete immediately lets Kingston know he was memory spying on him and hugs him (while Misty is drunk a singing over him). Their rift literally caused a kind of rift in NYC which is now healed (which causes Sophie to see the Unsleeping City/Dreaming Yin-Yang sign over their heads).

 Ricky drinks the 1000 hr energy so start the clock I guess. 

Misty, upon hearing that Dale is dead basically does that John Mulaney bit: Hey, do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like [s]he sucks and I will totally kill that guy for you. 

It's the day of Priya's art show which I totally forgot was happening. Before that, Sophie finally goes to see her brother and we can return back to that pin I mentioned earlier.

(Also, it’s the 20th which means we’re getting really close to Christmas)

He says that their family got mixed up with the Confettis and they've been helping to launder magical items that Confetti is paying some rep from Hell (an associate of Robert's).

And by, "Some rep from hell," I mean Isabella Infierno specifically.

Emily, hilariously riffs for a while about how small it was of her to call Isabella a succubus even though she clearly knows at this point that Isabella is some kind of demon. I mean...Infierno. Come on. 

Sidenote: Which demon actually trying to be subtle would pick the last name Infierno? You wanna blow your cover for the aesthetic that bad?

Emily goes, "Oh my (beat) Nod," which I think is the exact way she dropped the first, "Oh Melora," in one of the first eps of Naddpod. 

Anyway, it turns out that Soph's family knew that Isabella was gunning for Dale (he was getting close to realizing something shady was going on) and, while they didn't call the shot, they let it happen.

Oh! He also says Dale was a chosen one from "some monastery" which, of course, fits in with Dale's comment about saying hi to Jackson. Now I'm wondering if his other comment--about there seeming like there's nothing at the top--is about whatever chosen one test he had to take to get the position to begin with. And maybe he was giving a clue to Sophie so that when she takes it, she'll for sure pass and get whatever dope powers or weapons or privileges come with the position. 

"The only reason I'm not going to go after you right now is because I'm not organized enough to give you the fucking revenge you deserve." Soph is cold as ice after hearing about what her family did. 

"Maybe you should have said that to Isabella before she went after me." Another mic drop line from Emily. This really was her episode. You can really see Emily channeling hr genuine emotional reactions into her character.  

La Gran Gata shows up to let Soph know she has her back to hunt down Isabella. The only other warlocks really seen played are Fjord on CritRole and Leiland on Bloodkeep so it's wild to see a character with such a chill relationship with their patron.

So, Priya's art show. They show up (to a distressingly unsafe building from Ricky's perspective) and it turns out, not only is it performance art (the worst kind) Pete *is* the art.

"I present to all of you: cruelty, a exploration of a relationship. Peter, take my hand."

major barf.

Pete goes OFF

Kingston: Picasso is art, this is bullshit!

Siobhan: Her last name is Danger? I hate this bitch.

Pete gets over Priya instantly which totally tracks because, like I said, barf. 

Sophie stealing Ricky's thing and rooftop jumping. Zac narrows his eyes when she says that.

I love Isabella's title card. It says, "Literal Succubus". It reminds me of the funniest scene in Bedazzled when the Devil (Liz Hurley) gives Brendan Frasier her business card and it just says, "The Devil".

But she's here and she's here to fight! I'm so excited for this one y'all! Unsafe building. Lots of civilians. Sophie (and Emily) going totally feral. I haven’t looked forward to a fight this much since Adaine went for Aelwen. Let's gooooo!

#asks #dimension 20 #the unsleeping city #d20 #riz-gukgak #this is 5k words #aren't I good at utilizing my free time

[andersssandrew]

Fanfic meme (or my opinions about some fanfic tropes)

Thanks to @flo-nelja​, I lost like one hour and half to do this post, you know my weakness for long ass meme. ❤️ on you, it was pretty entertaining.

So...let’s go

1. Slowburn or Love at First Sight: I’m never satisfied with the slow burn I read (or write, for what it's worth). Theorically I prefer slow burn, but it’s never slow enough, or BURN enough. I mean, for me, the slow burn involves some pining/longing, like they are accointances, then friends, then PINING/LONGING happens, then lovers. Probably the reason I love one sided love, because the feelings have time to grow, there is the pining/longing, with a pinch of angst ? 

aNyWaY I love a Love at first sight too, I don’t like it in rom-com, because it’s often without any background, but in fanfic, when you know the characters, you have implicitely the background, so it feels like fate they will be together, because you went to read this fic for your OTP, so it feels right they fall in love at first sight, because you know they are good together (even if they don’t know it yet in the fanfiction). Again, it’s the reason I love soulmate au. 

2. Fake Dating or Secretly Dating: It’s the last one I answered because it needs lof of thinking. Fake or secretly dating ? Hmmmm. I’m not often interested by the “dating” part, and more in the “feelings realization” and all the “confession part”. So Fake dating, I guess ? Like, they start dating and fall in love after ? And it can be funny, like quiproquo and clumsiness ?

3. Enemies to Lovers or Best Friends to Lovers: love shipping rivals and antagonistic relationships

4. “Oh no, there’s Only One Bed” or Long Distance Correspondence: I’m a pure victorian bitch

5. Hurt/Comfort or Amnesia

6. Fantasy AU or Modern AU

7. Mutual Pining or Domestic Bliss: Domestic is boring to me

8. Smut or Fluff: Not a big fan of fluff. I like some cheesy tropes (like Love at First Sight) but I’m tired really quick of fluff, so it needs to be a fic with other elements. And not tooth-rooting fluff.

9. Canon-Compliant/Missing Scenes or Fix-It

10. Alternate Universe or Future Fic: love the AUs. ALL THE FUCKING SUPER WEIRD AUs !!!

11. One Shot or Multi-chapter: It’s very rare a fic manages to stay good (like , interesting and/or coherent with the canon) during a long time, so if the fanfic is 34 chapters, for me, it’s a repellant, because it probably means the chapters are meaningless or the author loses themselves in their universe and forgot totally the canon. In my opinion, a good fanfic (I mean, ideally) has like 3 or 4 chapters, 1000 words at least for each one. So, I love one shot, it’s less risky to be disappointed.

12. Kid Fic or Road trip Fic: I deeply hate kid fic, omg, I hate it with my guts, for me it’s the incarnation of the patriarcal and heterocentric injonctions

13. Reincarnation or Character Death: Again, I hate character death (I mean, major character death - except if it’s canon ?)

14. Arranged Marriage or Accidental Marriage or NEITHER: Hmmmmm I didn’t read a lot of “accidental marriage”. I’m not really fan of “arranged marriage” neither.

In fact, I recently read a Reddie fanfic (1000 nights​), it was in Las Vegas, Richie and Eddie were...plastered and Eddie pushed Richie in the chapel of a casino and they got married by a drag queen priest. Does it still count like an Accidental Marriage ? Because it was pretty funny.

15. High School Romance or Middle-Aged Romance: I feel so old when I read High School Romance fanfiction lol but even when I was 16 I didn’t like it. I like the characters in their own age, so SOMETIMES they are in high school but...hmmm it’s rare I read fanfiction taking place IN a school, it feels weird and more, it feels boring, because school is almost the same for everyone, I mean it’s a totes cliché genre. Also I don’t really like to imagine these fantasy characters becoming boring teenagers with boring occupations, sorry not sorry (but it’s the same with College AU, guys, I will kill someone if I see another art student pining for the annoying fratboy)

(I still read highschool BL mangas btw)

16. Time Travel or Isolated Together: Time travel give me headache. OH GOD I HAVE ONE RIGHT NOW !

17. Neighbours or Roommates

18. Sci Fi AU or Magic AU: aaaah a good supernatural au, like vampire au, werewolves au, demon/angel au, fairy tale au, hpverse au, incubus au or any other ideas. I love how it’s creative, I love how it can be super original, I love the potential in these idea, because magic AUs are very rich in themes, you can play on the medieval fantasy genre, the urban fantasy, the alternative timeline or the past (like victorian vampire AU 👌)

19. Body swap or Gender change: I don’t like Gender change anymore because first, gender is a spectrum, these fanfics are about binary genders, it’s a little bit cringy (but it’s not the real factor I don’t like it), second, (the real reason), it’s often male characters becoming female, and it often to make it “femslash”, so the femslash tags are FULL of gender bending stuffs about male characters, and not actual real femslash with the female characters, it...erases femslash and even if I’m not a reader of femslash, I think it’s sad, because it deserves its own space in the fandom, not everything has to be about the male characters (even the ones I love a lot). 

You can say it’s more a choice driven by my opinions and not my preferences, but it’s kinda the same thing isn’t it ?

20. Angst or Crack: Dude, it’s not a hard choice because I don’t really like crack in fanfic. I like it in fanarts, but you take more times to read a fanfic, and I don’t like crack during a long time. Crack is more a thing you enjoy quickly, it’s something who make you smile for a second then you scroll (or share it if it’s really funny or inventive). But crack in fanfic, it’s like a too long joke.

I don’t talk about crack ships, because crack ships can be interesting. Sometimes, I don’t see WHY you ship it (like Gavin x RK900 in Detroit: become human, or Lestrade x Mycroft in Sherlock BBC), sometimes I TOTALLY see it, but it still fun to see the explanations to put them together, the meta, the fan theories...

In the other hand, about angst...I like the drama, I like the horror genre (if you know my blog, you know I’m currently in the IT fandom, you know, the eating-kids clown thing), I like tears and blood, but...when it’s too much, it’s too much. I don’t like...I don’t know explain it : sometimes, you feel like the author had to get out some dark things they feel, it’s therapeutic for them but you feel kinda uneasy to read it, because it’s so DARK, man, it’s not even about the canon, it’s all about the writer’s feelings, and really, it’s okay, myself, I happen to cope like that. But as a reader, I don’t like it.

So I like some angst, when i’m in the mood, but it needs to have positive things in it too. Or to be short.

21. Apocalyptic or Mundane: At first, I chose Mundane, but now I ask myself. I like the post apo genre, but I don’t like angst too much, like I said in the previous question.. But I still like it a little so...hmmmm it’s tricky. What is meaning mundane, by the way ? Mundane Lord of the Rings fanfiction, what is it ? What is MUNDANE in kids learning to fight with their quirks in a superheroes school ?

I will chose Apocalyptic because I love a good survival (and they have to cuddle to stay warm and save each other and cry by thinking the other is dead but in fact they are not and find a way to cure the zombie plague/find a safe place/kill the aliens XD)

Now, the tagging part (sorry if you were tagged by someone else, and of course feel free to ignore it if you are not interested : @calimera62​, @wilwywaylan​ aaaaand....I don’t know fucking people on this hellsite anymore. Maybe @sleeping-potatoe​ ?

#meme

[corseque]

a long and specific The Last Jedi meta - (spoilers)

Sorry, I’m on mobile for the weekend and so I can’t put this behind a read more.

I’m awake again and I wanted to write a meta for @om-nom-berries to explain the purpose of a certain scene in TLJ, because she was saying she could feel Rian Johnson put it in the movie for a reason, but she didn’t quite get what the point of the scene was.

The scene is the one where Rey stands in front of the mirror beneath the island.

So here’s my take on it. You were right, it’s in the movie for a good reason. I’m glad to see that some of my favorite Star Wars meta writers loved that scene, so I look forward to them writing about it too.

Three things first:

Star Wars is about adolescents embarking on Joseph Campbell-style hero journeys and becoming adults. Like Luke Skywalker’s journey in the original trilogy, Rey is going on the same kind of journey to adulthood. (As is Kylo Ren.)

The Last Jedi is the first Star Wars movie that has been ballsy enough to delve into the sexual awakening/sexual maturation aspect of adolescents becoming adults. The Last Jedi is about sex. The physicality of the island of Ahch-To and the interactions between Rey and Ben take sexual suggestion to a level not seen in this series before.

Rey’s journey is based on the “Heroine’s Journey” which is a little different than Joseph Campbell’s Hero Journey. The step of her Heroine’s Journey that involves the mirror is “The Descent.”

Ahch-To is an island of yonic usymbols - that is, images of female genitalia and sexuality. The tree that contains the Jedi texts has an entrance that looks just like a vulva/vagina. (Someone tweeted this at director Rian Johnson, and he admitted it was purposeful.)

It is only when Rey stops following Luke and enters the vagina tree, when she passes this vaginal threshold, that Rey finally gets to ask about the “something inside her” that she doesn’t recognize but is now “awake.” It’s not just the Force - the “something inside her” is also her own burgeoning sexuality.

In The Force Awakens, we know the “awakening” of the Force happens inside Rey. Adam Driver has also explicitly said the title ‘The Force Awakens’ refers to Kylo Ren as well.

That’s why, in the novelization of TFA, Kylo is the one to seem to recognize Rey (“Who are you...?”) and the reason why at the end, when she calls the lightsaber to her, he says, “It is you.” Because Kylo recognizes that Rey is also the ‘awakening in the Force’ that he and Snoke felt at the beginning of the movie.

They are linked together by their interactions in TFA, their mind-joining, their recognition of each others’ deepest fears, which spark the awakening of the Force in Rey, and which also (as we see in The Last Jedi) create a Force Bond between them.

All of this I mention only to set the stage, because in The Last Jedi, their already established dual Awakening is revealed to be not only an awakening in the Force, but also a dual sexual awakening. So we have to keep in mind, in a large part of this movie, the mysteries of the Force = the mysteries of Sex to the uninitiated. And it’s about both of them, equals and opposites.

It shouldn’t be necessary to say how the interactions between Rey and Ben are sexually suggestive because the movie was so clear, but I will anyway:

Ben ending an interlude with Rey with moisture on his gloved fingers (I mean... this made me gasp in scandalized shock in the theater)

Rey stumbling upon Ben half-clothed and exposed, and Ben refusing to put a shirt on while walking toward her and not breaking eye contact

Long, lingering, direct eye contact while talking and commiserating about their secrets, their experiences and personal struggles

Ben stripping off his glove so he could slowly, deliberately touch Rey’s outstretched hand skin-to-skin

Luke interrupting their hand-holding with a climactic explosion

But the actual sexiest interaction (besides the hand-holding, which happens right afterward) might be when Rey, quiet-voiced, opens up to Ben about her experience in the Dark Cave of Female Sexual Mysteries. The same Dark Cave that Luke was horrified she was attracted by, and shamed her for (spurring her Heroine’s Journey crisis and Descent into that very cave, but I’ll get to that). The words she speaks while she explores the Cave is her confiding about the experience to Ben - the experience is explicitly tied to him.

As if the Vagina Tree wasn’t enough female sexuality imagery on Ahch-To, the entrance to the Dark Cave of The Force/Female Sexual Mysteries under the island is also shaped like a vaginal cavity, complete with what looks like pubic hair around the entrance and moisture (the water Rey falls into). She’s still literally wet from her experience in the Burgeoning Sexuality Cave when she talks to Ben about it, when she touches his hand. It’s all so goddamn suggestive.

Now I should explain about the Descent in the Heroine’s Journey. Here’s an excerpt from Using the Heroine’s Journey:

“Somewhere inside, she begins to realize that something is missing from her life. She feels stretched thin. She looks in the mirror, and isn’t sure she knows the person looking back.”

Rey enters the Vagina Tree and is asked who she is by Luke - her identity, her parents, is a subject that troubles her at the very core.

“The Descent: In stage four, tragedy strikes. [Her allies] tell her she is a coward. Or perhaps that she is selfish, impulsive, or whatever despised quality the masculine attributes to the feminine.”

Rey reaches out in the Force/her sexuality, and is immediately drawn to the Dark Force Sex Cave under the island, which horrifies Luke.

“But she doesn’t hear them. She is already far away, undergoing her own inner turmoil. She begins a period of voluntary isolation, descending into a metaphorical cave. There time passes slowly. It’s dark; there are no sights or sounds to distract her. There she searches for herself. She may have to sift through a maelstrom of emotions. Anger, remorse, and grief may all set upon her. She might be afraid to follow her thoughts and feelings to their conclusion, but she knows she must.”

Alone, Rey falls into the Cave and looks into the Mirror, searching for her own identity, the identity she already knows but is suppressing. She fractures into myriad selves of who she could be. She looks at the approaching figure behind the mirror.

(1000 other people have said this outlined figure looks like Ben Solo before it solidifies into Rey, and I strongly thought the same thing on both my viewings. Rey sees Ben’s outline in the mirror of who she is, her soul mate/twin soul/mirror opposite, and then the figure solidifies into her, merging the two of them. She is also speaking to Ben over this imagery, further linking them together. In the Initiation Cave of Female Sexual Imagery, the two of them merge.)

“Meeting With the Goddess: The heroine begins stage five in her darkest hour. But she is rewarded for her struggle when she encounters the goddess. The goddess symbolizes the true nature of the feminine, and the best of what the heroine left behind. The goddess imparts a great truth to the heroine about herself and the feminine.”

Rey sees herself and is awakened to her female sexuality. Still literally wet, she immediately Skype calls Ben about it, and during that call, after she confides in him, she is the one to reach her hand out to touch him. They see a vision of their future, one where they are together. Immediately after this scene and after confronting Luke, she sheds her hairstyle of triple buns (a hairstyle she had kept the same since she was abandoned as a child) and lets her hair down as that of a sexually mature woman, and changes her clothes, and leaves to go to where Ben is. The subsequent fight scene where they work perfectly in sync has been discussed as it it’s a realized sex scene.

Anyway, this is where my thoughts were at wrt this scene, and it might change when I see the movie again - I’ve only seen it twice and I’m not perfectly clear on the details. Can’t wait to read other people’s thoughts about this scene...

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #TLJ spoilers #Reylo