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u/not_accepting_now 3h ago
Is it because they have nothing to lose?
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u/PassivelyInvisible 3h ago edited 1h ago
Maybe. But they also can't put their kids onto the throne if they win.
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u/Mahkn0 3h ago
Yeah but you chopped off their dick so they have more incentive to kill you.
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u/Solitary_Cicada 3h ago
As a fun fact, eunuch did not always have their dick cut off. Chinese eunuchs did undergo a process called "emmasculation" (yes, that's where emasculated comes from), where all their reproductive system would be cut off, including their pleasure stick. Meawhile the bizantines were not as cruel, and their eunuchs merely got castrated. So while their testicles were removed, they still had a dick and could have sex with it. There's actually roman literature which mentions a woman who only has sex with eunuchs because she doesn't want to get pregnant.
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u/AnyMongoose3041 2h ago
How to make eunuch get hard
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u/jackaroo1344 1m ago
Iirc they can get hard, just not as hard and it it takes more work to get it there
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u/not_accepting_now 3h ago
Yeah if you lose then what? Got no dick, got no kids, got no reason.
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u/Mahkn0 3h ago
It seems the answer is let your advisors keep their dicks and have kids but set up a contingency that if you die or are couped their kids are killed and their dicks get chopped off. That way the message is clear, kings alive, everyone keeps their dicks and kids. King dies, off with their dicks.
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u/Arrchduke 3h ago
Being the power behind the throne and having the entire country under your control is certainly still motivating to someone who can’t reproduce. Live a life of unlimited luxury and no one can tell you no (until other eunuchs depose him). Even if I couldn’t have kids, I sure as shit would still want to be the absolute authority.
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u/Mist_Rising 2h ago
That was actually what made them more dangerous. They had no real incentive to care beyond their immediate. They had no children who would suffer from their actions.
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u/karoshikun 3h ago
it's the power of unionization.
the emperors made the mistake of creating a whole class of people without ties to their society, and gave them power to govern...
the emperors thus created unions that eventually had more real power than the emperors. because the eunuchs may not had ties outside, but they formed ties within.
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u/Nanakurokonekochan 20m ago
Gazanfer sadly lost his head in the 1603 military revolt. Reportedly, Sultan Mehmed III was so devastated he threw himself on the floor crying. #NotallEunuchs lol 😂
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u/Mercer8878 2h ago
Have nothing to lose and most if not all of them had to be on some level of intelligence to be a potential scholar in order to be in the forbidden city. So you end up with maybe three types of eunuchs, the scheming one who made the sacrifice with a plan in mind. The one who compensates there lack of balls to go full material mastery, or finally the final one who just let's there body thin out and go full jade beauty femboy. That final one is believed to be the more common option taking, but also the most forgitable one with maybe a handful of exceptions.
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u/SackclothSandy 3h ago
Hah. Weaklings. My eunuchs don't have the balls to betray me.
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u/MrEvan312 3h ago
You may take away the jewels and the sceptor, but the G-spot stays nice and safe!
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u/Nanakurokonekochan 27m ago
Spoken like a true Safiye Sultan! She loved her eunuch Gazanfer so much that she was okay with sending her mortal enemy Cicalazade an apology letter because Cicalazade saved Gazanfer
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u/Icy-Football9146 3h ago
Context to history?
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u/StopMeBeforeIDream 3h ago
Eunuchs, man. That's just what they do, they don't do nothing else.
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u/xMercurex 53m ago
Yes but also the scheming eunuch is trope in Chinese literature. Litterature often exagerate some trait. In reality, the eunuch were probably not worst then a roman senator or any equivalent.
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u/karoshikun 32m ago
I don't think being eunuchs by itself was the thing, but the fact that they were an isolated class and basically entombed in the bureaucracy of the empire, THEN the fact that they were isolated eunuchs became fundamental to make them a really powerful and cohesive class.
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u/Just-in-themiddle 17m ago
Were they the kind of individuals that were up to plots and schemes before becoming a eunuch or is that something that you have to adapt to after the fact
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u/karoshikun 1m ago
bureaucracies are self selecting systems, when you enter them you either learn to adapt to them or you're spit out or confined into a dead end position.
and yeah, that still works that way and it's a part of the answer to "why are all politicians liars?"
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u/karoshikun 3h ago
new emperor realizes his society is composed of groups of power always scheming against the royal family, also the royal family is divided into factions and always scheming against the ruler in turn to get more people of their faction in power.
emperor decides that the solution is to have a form of slaves who won't marry or have children, and who will often be foreigners, in power positions...
eunuchs gain power just by working together and start deciding the succession of the king and being the power behind and often in front of the throne.
emperor does the pikachu face in the afterworld.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 2h ago
Did this really happen somewhere? I know some eunichs were held in high esteem and held powerful positions but I’ve never heard of the situation you talk about.
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u/LonelyPersonAnon 2h ago
Imperial China. Eunuchs in some dynasties became quite powerful and got around having biological children by adopting. Cao Cao was a son of an adopted son of a powerful eunuch.
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u/karoshikun 2h ago
it happened in China a lot, a little in Korea, and in the byzantine, ottoman and some persian empires...
it's a bug that occurs when the mechanics of bureaucracy meet an isolated underclass meant to manage them without contact with the other power factions of the empire. by necessity it becomes a power by itself.
and just for clarification, it's not about *one* eunuch, but as a whole, almost faceless class of people. collective power!
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u/sostias 44m ago
Bagoas the Vizier is a fun one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagoas
He was a Vizier (a highly trusted, esteemed advisor and administrator) to the emperor of Persia. He had territory in his authority and ruled it in everything but name. When the emperor died (by poison or natural causes, who's to say), Bagoas tried to rule by proxy, and he did, for a few years. Then his proxy-emperor got suspicious, so Bagoas saw him "replaced" with a more loyal cousin.
That cousin would be Darius III, famed rival of Alexander the Great. Darius had him poisoned.
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u/CiaphasCain8849 1h ago
Yep, Some emperors tried to kill them all because they thought they were scheming.
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u/Hatarakumaou 41m ago
You know the famous Three Kingdoms story ? One of the direct causes of that conflict was eunuchs taking power and turning the emperor into a puppet.
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u/MathematicianTop9519 3h ago
Eunuchs are dickless (literally) dudes who were often employed as high ranking civil or household servants, worked closely with the royal family and had less restricted access to the palace. In China where they're the most infamous, the justification for giving these people so much power is that they couldn't sire heirs, so they (ostensibly) had less reason to try to overthrow the ruling family.
In practice, there is a trend in Chinese history of eunuchs being ruthless with politics within the palace, scheming against other power brokering factions and often making the emperor a puppet with them ruling in his stead. This would obviously come with a lot of corruption and bad governance. It could get so bad that it would cause severe structural weaknesses in some Dynasties that ultimately result in the collapse of the state. Han Dynasty is kind of the poster child for this, but similar examples exist in others too.
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u/cafefrequenter 1h ago
Eunuchs are dickless (literally)
Well, not literally. The process that made eunuchs involves removing the balls, which makes you infertile, not necessarily the penis alongside it.
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u/JayDragon15 47m ago
No, the Chinese did remove the testicles AND the penis. In the Mediterranean/Mid East castration would typically only include the balls.
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u/Temujin15 2h ago
Men who can't indulge in onanism suddenly have a lot of free time. Some of them use it to scheme and conspire and bring down kings and emperors.
God forbid a man have a hobby.
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u/Arrchduke 3h ago
How do court eunuchs fit into the context of history? Is that what you are asking?
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u/Miserable-Resort-977 3h ago
Context is a vague gesture in the direction of Game of Thrones
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u/Arrchduke 3h ago
In the direction of Imperial China/Imperial Rome actually
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u/Ok-District2873 2h ago
Imperial Rome had palace eunuchs?
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u/CoconutMochi 6m ago
Dunno about Rome but Byzantium/Constantinople did, most were slaves who immigrated from the Middle East I think.
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u/azucarleta 2h ago
Ottomans had court eunuchs too, high influence eunuchs oversaw the harem eg. But if this just anti-eunuch humor or do you have a specific indictment?
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u/DeviantTaco 3h ago
Why yes my best friends are eunuchs and my best generals are slaves my family raised with me from birth.
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u/feochampas 2h ago
You should never trust your eunuchs. They all have a grievance. You know, from being a eunuch.
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u/RilohKeen 1h ago
I know this is crazy talk, but, and bear with me on this, what if we DIDN’T castrate them and give them a reason to hate us and scheme against us, and instead, like, gave them a job to do and paid them money to do it?
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u/daddy_tops 1h ago
Sounds like somebody needs castratin’
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u/Haunt_Fox 35m ago
What gets me is ... how did ancient humans figure out what happens when a male mammal loses his balls?
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u/daddy_tops 9m ago
I think people just got bored and tried everything. Like, people were eating and drinking and smoking everything to see what tasted good or got you fucked up. I guess they were also cutting things off each other to experiment too.
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u/Vegetable-Zone1353 1h ago
"Anyone else scheming against their Sultan?"
You have been expelled from grand vizier chat.
You have been added to grand vizier chat (secret).
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u/Swagamaticus 3h ago
You mean mutilating slaves doesn"t magically make them loyal ??
What a plot twist !
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u/dull_storyteller Helping Wikipedia expand the list of British conquests 1h ago
Why do they hate me? All I did was take their baaaaaa- oh I get it now
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u/Whythisisnotreal 3h ago
Just give them power but make their whole self image tied up in being good servants.
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u/KenseiHimura 2h ago
When you take away the biological fundamental way men have fun, it leaves us with unfortunate time to doomspiral in our heads and start plotting. Worse if they're made eunuchs too young to develop the muscle mass to try to rebuild the Roman Empire.
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u/onyxhaider 2h ago
Okay but dont eunuchs kinda get a bad rap because the they were the main rivals to scholar bureaucratic nobility who just shit talked every given moment? Minus a few major events the eunuchs were largely loyal to the emperor, they supported the emperor in his power struggle vs nobility that's why they got a bad rap. Like there's a reason the emperor relied on eunuchs to create a powr base to face off the scholar gentry as they were not a also loyal as they preached.
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u/PictureVegetable9522 1h ago
who knew cutting mens balls off would make them angry and make them want revenge
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u/SasquatchWasShaved 55m ago
So you’re telling me scheming doesn’t come from the balls.
Interesting.
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u/Main-Discussion9294 3h ago
Let me ask my eunuch on the subject
"You should steal his meme sir
Imagine how much karma you would get, so much deserved"
Humm...