CHILD OF DUST AND ASHES

What do you think is the intended takeaway from Daenaerys' plotline/the Meereen plotline in ADWD? I can see the argument that Jon's plot (and to an extent the Dornish stuff) is about how peace is hard, emotionally unsatisfying, and involves dealing with some people you find abhorrent, but is ultimately the right thing to do compared to the easy path of going to war.

And I can see how it would be strange for Dany's plot to fly completely in the face of that.

But on the other hand the Sons of the Harpy and the Yunkish & allies are just so absolutely lacking in any redeeming features whatsoever that it's very hard to root for peace and reconciliation with them, especially when they kind of take the mick in what they ask for vs what they're willing to give in return. So I kind of hope that we aren't supposed to feel pained at their impending demise.

The important thing here is that the moral of Jon's ADWD story cannot be imported wholesale over to Dany's.

Jon's trying to make a peace between two groups of people who both, basically, want to live. They have radically different ideas about the best way to do it and a mountain of grievances between them, but there's a fundamental commonality, too. They're all people and they're all staring down the winter alike. It's clear to the reader because it's clearest to Jon Snow - it is worth trying to bridge this gap and trying to pull together.

Dany, however, is not dealing with that sort of situation. She's got one group of people who wants to live. And also she has another whose entire goal is the exploitation and subjugation of others. Which cannot be compromised or reconciled in any way, shape, or form. As Dany comes to realise by the end of ADWD, there's no making peace with this, not without compromising the heart of what she set out to do in the first place.

I think the author will still leave us with a few questions about "how far is too far" when it comes to collateral damage, not to mention the inevitable point that there's no magic fix for the generations of violence that the slaving class started, but there's no peace with slavers either. Not a worthwhile one anyway.

This is a point where Jon's plot in ADWD and Dany's plot in ADWD are meant to be contrasted. Both are about the difficulties of making peace, yes... but Jon's is about where peace can and should be made despite the difficulties, and Dany's is where peace can't and shouldn't.