i like that ‘why did criston support aegon?’ and ‘why did bittersteel not support daemon blackfyre ii?’ are both posed as historical mysteries nobody knows the answer to when it’s extremely clear the answers are ‘criston fucking hated women’ and ‘bittersteel fucking hated gay people’. if bittersteel wasnt racist and criston didn’t believe in the inherent wickedness of bastards they’d be like this 🤞 in hell

yeah i understand these books

The gay characters in ASOIAF having the most romantic quotes was an incredible writing decision by GRRM:

“When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.”

— A Storm of Swords, Tyrion II

I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell.

— A Dance With Dragons, The Griffin Reborn

Do y'all have any favorite card games?

Can I speak my truth. I don’t think Brienne is even a little gay. I think she’s a kinsey zero who false positives on everyone’s radar. I think if you dropped brienne into new age 2024 she would get treated as a lesbian in her day to day life but whenever a woman liked her she’d be like. Ummmmmmm I’m really sorry but I don’t. Feel like that. I think she’d give lesbianism the good old college try bc of the direness of her male love life and come down firmly on the side of not attracted to women. I think she is quintessential pnw woman who you think is a slam dunk homerun lesbian based on everything about her who drops the word husband on you. I think she gets clocked on sight and mentions a partner named Jaime which makes people go. Okay. Partner i know that game. Jamie easily the name of a lesbian. Easily. And then she drops the he pronouns and you go. Well. Could still be a weird lesbian. And then Jaime is a business major in a frat with generational wealth. And HE is the kinsey five in the relationship.

Huh... I wonder if pale and lonely Rhaegar was the Moon to Elia's Sun in another telling of the Qartheen origin myth of dragons?

Although that myth had two moons, which would equate here to polygamy (easily done), except... if Elia is the sun then it would need to be polyandry. And I can't think who her "other moon" would be.

Rhaegar could certainly have said to have shattered, but that's about it. Just some familiar elements, I suppose; dragons, suns, and pale lonely moons.

"my sister, elia, she married prince rhaegar and became the princess she already was."

a dornish-valyrian wedding between the dragon and the sun

i have some follow-up questions???

happy if i look back i am lost sunday from snoopy

oh nothing, just thinking about how Robb chose duty over love when he refused to trade Jamie for Sansa and Arya and got killed and how Jon chose love over duty when he was going to desert the night watch to go save his little sister from her abusive husband and he too got killed. Theres just no winning, whatever you chose.

Tyrion is the Luigi, Jaime is the Wario, Cersei is the Waluigi of Tywin’s Mario. Discuss

us contemplating this

True

See, the fact that this is in a Bran chapter (the first Bran chapter) is certainly significant, but... I don't know if it sets up "King Bran" so much as "the thesis of ASoIaF". Which would also be appropriate for the first full chapter of the series.

I feel this makes a good case for Bran being the protagonist closest to the core beliefs of ASoIaF. Perhaps even a case for him being the protagonist. But one could just as easily see this as foreshadowing to him encountering, criticising, and supplanting/ousting Bloodraven.

Topics of abusing power, employing middle-men and intermediaries, how such estrangement from both humanity and consequences leads to evil, and - ultimately - how someone who is not a king (a "paid executioner", Eddard, Bloodraven, and Bran) can still mete out justice.

But where does that justice come from? The answer cannot be a king, and thus there isn't really a connection drawn between Bran and kingship through this meditation on justice.

Or rather, the only connection I can really see is a rejection of kingship in favour of justice. Because Gared's execution, remember, is wrong.

But who knows!

Now that I am rereading AGOT, I feel like Bran is set up to be king since the first chapter.

This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brother to see the king’s justice done.

The whole theme of the chapter is to introduce Bran to the responsibilities of a ruler. Well actually the whole series starts with Bran being introduced to the duties of a leader. Not to mention his chapter comes straight after the final villain of the books have been introduced so we know that he will be instrumental in defeating them from the get go. There’s a reason he named his direwolf Summer but I digress. The chapter continues on to Ned’s famous lesson

“…and we hold the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

This is clearly more metaphorical than it is literal. It reminds me of Gandalf’s philosophy from the Lord of The Rings

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.

It is the same message, life is precious and violence is barely ever the answer. So King Bran might not swing the sword on his own but will remember what his father had said when meting out justice.

The most apparent foreshadowing I found in this chapter was Ned directly talking to Bran, teaching him, and preparing him for a ruler role, though as Robb’s bannerman but a ruler role nonetheless.

“… and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.”

The last line is as plainly as it could be said. You will be a ruler Bran, be a just one.

And that is all I could find in the first chapter.

!!! SWEET ROBIN !!!

2024 vs 2019 - I think I’ve improved!

… at least I hope I have.

Tyrion IV ASOS / Portrait of A Lady by Remzi Taşkıran / Eddard XV AGOT / Portrait of A Lady by Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee / War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy / Semper Vivit Amor by Eugen von Blaas / Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Cher / Penitent Magdalene by Antonio Ciseri / The Colossus by Sylvia Plath / Sunspear by Juan Carlos Barquet

Martell Week Day 1 - Favorite Martell: Princess Elia Nymeros Martell of Dorne

Cersei and Taena are much gayer than I remember, damn