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In Game of Thrones S08E05, after

Daenerys starts burning down King's Landing with Drogon

we can see that

Dothraki riders and Northermen (and perhaps Valesmen?) start ravaging the city and killing helpless people at random.

Are there any scenes in which we see the Unsullied also doing the same, or apparently are they not taking part in the act?

For the Dothraki, such action is an integral part of their culture, so no surprises here. For Westerosi soldiers, it is considered a cruel thing to do, but it's still somewhat acceptable in times of war. But the Unsullied were former slaves, who have fought to free the common folk of Astapor, Yunkai, and Mereen from their masters. While I think it is still acceptable for them to

kill Lannister soldiers who have surrendered

as they are still enemy combatants, it would much more surprising if they had done the same to the commonfolk.

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2 Answers 2

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No, we don't (at least, not on-screen)

Just rewatched the episode and I couldn't see clearly any Unsullied killing "helpless people"; they just kill the soldiers (maybe someone with better eyes will be able to spot them).

One could argue that the Lannister soldiers that surrendered were also helpless people, but it's debatable since the soldiers had weapons and could fight back.

The only ones that kill any civilians are the Northmen and the Dothraki.

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  • You should use the term 'civilian' in the last sentence, as 'helpless people' is, as you admit, not a well-defined term. May 16, 2019 at 7:20
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    "the soldiers had weapons" You mean the swords laying on the ground?
    – walen
    May 16, 2019 at 8:08
  • They specifically threw their swords on the ground to shocase their non-combatant status. They couldn't fight back (any more than any civilian could).
    – Flater
    May 16, 2019 at 9:17
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    @Logarr: And a civilian under attack, with a sword nearby, wouldn't pick it up?
    – Flater
    May 16, 2019 at 15:36
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    @Logarr That would be after Greyworm has chucked his spear through the torso of one of them. May 17, 2019 at 15:56
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I think this is just a tactical choice to start killing defending soldiers.

There are tactical reasons for killing both civilians and soldiers

  1. She did not accept the surrender: when someone surrender, his foe does not have to accept the surrender. It was implicit in Daenerys' behavior that the surrender was rejected.

  2. The defending soldiers dropped weapons of their own accord, but if the surrender is rejected they know they will have to fight again. Dany's army was faster taking the initiative, and don't give them the time to react.

  3. Avoid getting pushed by the crowd. As long as everything starts burning, crowd could become dangerous to an army. I think the population to soldiers ratio is something like 100:1, so unless they kill everyone in sight, they risk to become trapped by thousand of people, running and eventually catched in fire.

  4. There is just one way out of the city, they keep it clean for retreat when fire become even worse.

But to directly address the question

We don't clearly see if Unsullied doing the same of the Dothraky

But we can safely assume, they do it:

  • Dothraki riders actively seek for civilians to kill
  • Grey worm is clearly angry with Jon Snow when he tries to hold soldiers back
  • The orders were probably to raid the city unless Dany's accepted surrender
  • We can also assume Davos and Jon Snow are disobeying Daenerys' orders by saving civilians
  • I think Unsullied are not actively seeking civilians and just focusing on military forces, but we can assume every civilian that comes to near to a Unsullied will be get killed anyway.

At around minute 46:20 we see a civilian on ground pierced by a weapon, it could much more look similar to a spear than to a sword. But it is not clear. I looked almost frame-per-frame the battle, there is not direct evidence of Unsullied killing civilians (except for maybe that one or two frames where you can't recognize the weapon killing a civilian)

  • Also the riders are on their own way, out of Unsullied range, but we see dead civilians all around Grey worm

  • Probably the Unsullied are the ones killing the least amount of civilians, but they are doing that.

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    Good point about accepting the surrender. In fact, we could argue that sacking the city had been the order since before the battle began, and only the acceptance of surrender could prevent the execution of that order. So no further instruction were needed. This does not answer my question, unfortunately.
    – lukas84
    May 15, 2019 at 16:05
  • I edited to answer and rewatched the episode. Thanks for the feedback :) May 15, 2019 at 16:38
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    Tyrion asked Davos a favor, and it was probably about Jaime and Cersei, to help them escape if needed. May 15, 2019 at 16:43
  • @GustavoGabriel he's going to pay for that (almost).
    – JJJ
    May 15, 2019 at 17:31
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    When Cersei, Qyburn and the rest leave their vantage point overlooking the city it is because Qyburn informs Cersei that the Unsullied, and he specifically says the Unsullied, have breached the gates of the Red Keep. Based on that, it is clear that at least most of the Unsullied stayed focused on the mission and did not get distracted by sacking the city.
    – krb
    May 16, 2019 at 5:12

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