Savannah Steyn as Lady Laena Velaryon House of the Dragon | 1.05 "Driftmark"

One of the greatest crimes of Rhaegar that rarely anyone talks about is the reproductive abuse he did to Elia and Lyanna. He endangered both their lives just so he could have his prophecy children (Elia was bedridden after Rhaenys's birth and he impregnated her again too soon, and Lyanna was fifteen aka not physically mature enough). And how he abandoned them both without providing them what they actually needed, Elia needed good protection and Lyanna needed good healthcare. He was failure as a son, as a husband and as a prince. A complete loser.

He was a failure as a son, as a husband and as a prince. A COMPLETE LOSER!!

BRIDGERTON | SEASON 3

First look at Simone Ashley as Kathani Sharma and Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton

it's actually insane to me how arya stark gets so often misinterpreted as a character when she's so easy to grasp. she often gets criticized for being a 'not like other girls' type of character when she's just supposed to be a tomboyish girl living in an extremely patriarchal society that refuses to accommodate or accept people like her without trying to fundamentally change them. it's literally just it, a very basic concept, but she always ends up getting treated like she's a female misogynist somehow when that is simply not in the text.

arya never looked down on other women for being feminine; rather, she looked down on herself for not being feminine enough. she doesn't reject traditionally feminine pursuits, she's simply not interested and not good at them when she tries. she's introduced literally trying and failing to sew, then running away almost crying when she gets made fun of for it. she knows she's compared unfavorably to her sister and she resents that, being the 'ugly' one, being constantly mistaken for a boy. later in the series, when she says she's 'not a lady', unlike her sister and mother, it's because she thinks she's beneath the title, not the opposite.

this happens in great part because of how game of thrones adapted her (badly, she literally says 'most girls are stupid' at one point lol), but it bleeds into discussions of the novels as well and it always annoys me. i also think this stems from the urge to defend sansa from the undeserved criticisms her character frequently gets, which makes people more inclined to interpret arya uncharitably in comparison, but that's missing the point. both arya and sansa suffer under the patriarchal society of westeros and pitting them against each other in this context is laughable. the main reason why they could never understand each other when they lived together was precisely that, the pressure they felt to be good proper ladies (with arya 'failing' and sansa 'succeeding' at it) driving them apart

IN DEFENSE OF CATELYN STARK

Ayama and the Thorn Wood, The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo// Venetian Ladies Listening to the Serenade, 1909 by Frank Cadogan Cowper // A Game of Thrones, Chapter 31, Tyrion IV.

lyanna stark || elia martell || sansa stark || arya stark || alicent hightower || jaehaera targaryen || cersei lannister || myrcella baratheon || joanna lannister || aemma arryn || catelyn stark || sansa stark (2) || margaery tyrell

for @tell-them-the-north-remembers, for this post (analysing ned loves my hair. gosh it took some time to find but i rembered that i had it in my drafts. for when i'd do catelyn. hope you like it)

GRRM did AFFC so good actually. Flipped the male-centric series on its head with majorly female PoVs and then started the book with our resident paranoiapilled Cersei Lannister convinced that her killer is hiding in the walls of the Red Keep. He introduced the first true knight of the series, keeping an oath to a dead woman. No chance, no choice. Asha fighting centuries of patriarchy to fight for her throne. “Balon let her believe she was a man.” “Your father made the same mistake with you.” Sansa and the whole Vale arc? Arya’s Cat of the Canals arc?? Hello? We have been served female characters on a platter here and I for one am eating. it. up. He truly snapped here tbh.

literally my go to response when I don't want to give a long winded explanation justifying why I hate hate hate this theory of nettles' erasure and hate hate hate hate even more people who support it!!

Simone Ashley will receive this year’s International Golden Nymph for Most Promising Talent award from the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. The British actress, who is best known for playing Kate Sharma in the extremely popular Netflix drama Bridgerton, will be presented with the award at the festival’s opening ceremony on June 14.

Ashley has had a meteoric rise in recent years after breaking through in Netflix’s beloved British teen drama Sex Education. The actress has featured in a number of high profile Hollywood projects, including a key supporting role in Disney’s recent live-action remake of The Little Mermaid and a lead role in the upcoming Amazon MGM Studios feature Picture This. Ashley will reprise her role as Kate Sharma in Bridgerton when the highly anticipated third season debuts in May.

I love Sansa's soft heart. I love her snark. I love her courage. I love her vulnerability. I love her dignity. I love her anger. I love her nerdiness. I love her intelligence. I love her inner beauty. I love her naivety. I love her artistic side. I love Sansa Stark.

Pre-AGOT Arya doodles!

Close-ups under the cut

i think the reason why house of the dragon's treatment of alicent breaks my brain is because it's unironically written from the perspective of, like, a tyrion bro, but hidden under the cover of (targaryen) women's empowerment.

it's written from the position of not simply someone who identifies with tyrion as a nerdy misfit, but rather someone who would sympathize with tyrion more than sansa in their marriage to an absurd degree. someone who would valorize a grown man for resisting his attraction to a thirteen-year-old hostage and vilify said hostage for resisting or humiliating him during their wedding/marriage.

to them, a man being inconvenienced is worse than a woman (or girl) being abused. a wife resisting a husband's wishes is worse than the husband maritally raping her. a teenage girl with zero social capital surviving courtly intrigues is weak and annoying, but a girl burning all her problems away by dragon is badass. it's this exact brand of misogyny that is not only passively woven into hotd but also actively informs how the characters' actions are endorsed or condemned.

the most generous excuses are made for daemon and viserys because the show views them as victims of alicent's nefarious manipulations (because politicking is evil when a woman does it but clever and funny when a man does it). daemon realized it was wrong to groom rhaenyra as a teen... after bringing her to a brothel and molesting her there... so he's really a good guy. viserys chose to marry the 15-year-old over the 12-year-old so he's really not that bad. meanwhile alicent is the true misogynist for going along with her father's plan and getting married. it's like reading 2015 asoiaf reddit but in $10m-per-episode form

House of the Dragon, "The Lord of the Tides"

nettles being one of the very few survivors of the dance is so important because so much about her characterisation makes her "disposable". smallfolk. bastard. orphan. daughter of a whore. the only thing that makes her valuable to these people is her dragon and she uses it to get to safety in the very end. love that for her!

The Dragonseed Nettles

Some dissented. Rhaenys herself was the first to raise objection. “You would rob my son of his birthright,” she told the king, with a hand upon her swollen belly. Her husband, Corlys Velaryon, was so wroth that he gave up his admiralty and his place on the small council and took his wife back to Driftmark. Lady Jocelyn of House Baratheon, Rhaenys’s mother, was also angered, as was her formidable brother, Boremund, Lord of Storm’s End.

Jocelyn Baratheon & Rhaenys Targaryen, The Queen Who Never Was