Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
I see no reason in general why Viserys would cleave to the concept of keeping people squalid and lingering in the dirt when he could build a civilization that brings wealth and prosperity to the average man who just had the good fortune to be born under his rule, without having to fear this wealth being taken away from him at the merest whim of his "social superior". Yet...
I guess it's hard to erode that tendency to think of "lofty matters for the nobles" and "mundane matters for the commons", but it won't be necessary if he manages to institute his rule across the planet. Maybe he'll introduce noblesse oblige to the aristocracy? A concept that, frankly, doesn't actually exist in ASoIAF for the most part, there's no social contract over the duties of a ruler and lord, despite there being societal expectations between other nobles not to break certain codes and oaths... upheld between one or more nobles and another.
The closest we hear to this is the concept of a "good king", a "just ruler", but this is always spoken of by either ignorant commoners who's sole barometer with which to measure a good lord is that they don't execute them over perceived slights, rape their wives and daughters and ensure food keeps getting put on the table throughout their lands. Or by other nobles who's sole measurement is skewed away from any kind of social contract between the King and the common people, and focuses more on how the King treats his vassals.
Viserys is the genuine article King that Varys tried to raise artificially in Essos, though that person who claims to understand the plight of the commons had yet still ultimately turned out sheltered.
Every luxury Viserys enjoys however was wrought by his own hard work, and he surrounds himself with people of low birth and can't help but upraise their social status just to justify treating them as equals. It's like some kind of divine comedy. Even when the exact set of circumstances that Varys wanted a ruler to go through in order to "break the wheel", there's just never any guarantee someone with all that power will even want to. Though I guess technically that's just show Varys. Book Varys does a ton of shit that doesn't in anyway give the notion that he gives a crap about the common folk, only that he's a through and through Blackfyre loyalist for... reasons.
[X] Goldfish
I guess it's hard to erode that tendency to think of "lofty matters for the nobles" and "mundane matters for the commons", but it won't be necessary if he manages to institute his rule across the planet. Maybe he'll introduce noblesse oblige to the aristocracy? A concept that, frankly, doesn't actually exist in ASoIAF for the most part, there's no social contract over the duties of a ruler and lord, despite there being societal expectations between other nobles not to break certain codes and oaths... upheld between one or more nobles and another.
The closest we hear to this is the concept of a "good king", a "just ruler", but this is always spoken of by either ignorant commoners who's sole barometer with which to measure a good lord is that they don't execute them over perceived slights, rape their wives and daughters and ensure food keeps getting put on the table throughout their lands. Or by other nobles who's sole measurement is skewed away from any kind of social contract between the King and the common people, and focuses more on how the King treats his vassals.
Viserys is the genuine article King that Varys tried to raise artificially in Essos, though that person who claims to understand the plight of the commons had yet still ultimately turned out sheltered.
Every luxury Viserys enjoys however was wrought by his own hard work, and he surrounds himself with people of low birth and can't help but upraise their social status just to justify treating them as equals. It's like some kind of divine comedy. Even when the exact set of circumstances that Varys wanted a ruler to go through in order to "break the wheel", there's just never any guarantee someone with all that power will even want to. Though I guess technically that's just show Varys. Book Varys does a ton of shit that doesn't in anyway give the notion that he gives a crap about the common folk, only that he's a through and through Blackfyre loyalist for... reasons.
[X] Goldfish
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