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nomnomzombies · 5 years

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8x06: Identity and Sigils, The Three Eyed Raven and King Bran

**this disappeared somehow in editing. idk what’s happening guys. i don’t really know how to use Tumblr. so if you saved this and it’s different for the third time I’m so sorry**

This is in response to @dr-doomsduck ‘s post

I noticed the Raven sigil and I’m honestly not sure exactly how I feel about it. On one hand, there’s all of the pride for Bran, and this feeling of coming into his own. However, when you look at the surviving Starklings, their journey has been a process of identity conflict and reclamation, but Bran adopting the Raven sigil breaks the trend of the other Stark children. Jon and Bran are the most similar in their mentor-apprentice relationships as both of them embraced their mentors’ teachings as opposed to Arya and Sansa, who modified the “curriculum” to adhere to Stark morals and teachings.

When you look at the whole brood, when they’re ultimately faced with the decision of cloaking or adopting another sigil (as a form of concealment or denial), every single one of them has picked Stark. The only exception would be Theon (who is an honorary Starkling), but even though he donned his Kraken and fought alongside his sister, he still died for the Wolves.

Jon, who was trained by a Bear (and adopted those teachings and integrated them into his Stark-ness), was put into the position of refuting the Wolf sigil only once (although his time with the Wildlings put him in crisis in terms of his Night’s Watch oath, it never required him to strip himself of his Stark identity). I’ve discussed before how the death of Rhaegal indicated his inability to adopt a Targaryen identity, but the other part of it is his process of being susceptible to Targ indoctrination via Dany. There was a brief opportunity for Jon to be vulnerable enough to be sucked into the “fire and blood” teachings, but ultimately it just wasn’t there. He refuted Dany as a potential “mentor” for fostering the Targaryen identity, and thus there was no hope of the Dragon developing within Jon.

When Sansa was in King’s Landing, her colour changed to mauve (the melding of Lannister crimson and the blue tones of the North) and the lion began to appear in her costume decisions. Although the lion overtook the wolf in terms of visible sigils, her Northern roots never disappeared, but rather integrated into her Southern influence for strategic cloaking. When she left King’s Landing, Sansa’s clothes began to mimic Littlefinger’s in terms of colouring and cut--her infamous “Dark Sansa” dress integrated feathers into the decor, as Littlefinger’s sigil is the mockingbird. When she escapes Ramsay’s captivity, her dress is grey, and her cloak is unassuming. It’s not until she rides south with Jon to rally the northern houses that she completely reclaims the Stark fashion, and we finally see her don the Direwolf for the first time in the series. (Season 6)

As Arya is in the Riverlands, after escaping King’s Landing in season 1, she’s completely stripped of her Stark and highborn identity. In Braavos, she’s forced to abandon all things Arya Stark, but she can’t part with Needle. She dons the clothing of the House of Black and white and begins her training. In the end, though, she refutes the teachings of her mentor. When given the opportunity to become “no one,” Arya tells Jaqen to fuck right off--”A girl is Arya Stark.” Bran, on the other hand, completely adopts all teachings from the Three Eyed Raven.

This whole thing may seem moot, because I’m ultimately arriving to the point which the character himself has been pushing onto us for the last two seasons and Meera confirmed in season 7–“You died in that cave.” Bran has been saying, “I’m not Bran Stark anymore.”

Some theorists say that Bran has become a vessel for Bloodraven—but book readers know that the “three eyed raven” (at face value) is much closer to a collective conscience. The parallel that I’ve drawn for people in the past is much like an AI, where the singular conscience becomes a node in the collective once it’s integrated into the “system” aka Weirwood net (or, weirwood.net). Bran Stark the individual disappeared once he uploaded to the collective.

This is why I’m having a very hard time being happy for “Bran”—and a very critical issue that I have with his kingship. Because... this isn’t Bran. This is the Three Eyed Raven. We don’t have any information to suggest that the Three Eyed Raven has been particularly ambitious in the past, but it’s now integrated into two high-profile and highly magical bloodlines (Stark and Targaryen.

The narrative also proposes that the Three Eyed Raven has been attuned to the possible timelines, and has been slowly adjusting course to eventually end up in a seat of power. **I’m asserting this based on our understanding from the show, not the books.

The Three Eyed Raven has been saying things to make itself as unassuming and non-threatening as possible, even going so far as to adopt the consciousness of Brandon Stark—who was already paralyzed when the Three Eyed Raven first started appearing to him. We know that the Three Eyed Raven has been appearing in childrens’ dreams for a long time, as it’s stated in the books that the Raven appeared to Euron Greyjoy as a child, but didn’t appear to Bran until after his fall. Was Bran’s disability a deciding factor to him being chosen as the successor?

In Bran’s first raven dream, he sees the corpses of all of the children that “couldn’t fly.” It’s hard to say if these corpses represent physically murdered children, or if they’re more likely to represent a death in the subconscious—the “death” that would leave those people susceptible to madness. Was Euron as a child one of the broken bodies in Bran’s Raven dreams? Moreover, the Raven dreams are very triggering for Bran--the Three Eyed Raven (Three Eyed Crow in the books) is a very sinister entity, and continues to make Bran relive his trauma every time. Bran refers to the Raven dreams as his “falling dreams.”

@sayruq wrote a post, citing book quotes, as to why Tyrion providing the moniker of “Bran the Broken” completely goes against Bran’s character and monumentalizes one of Bran’s greatest sources of internal pain in the books. He laments being “broken.”

My initial thought on the matter was that it was just shitty writing, and the point of it was supposed to illustrate that Bran has reclaimed his identity as a paraplegic—much like Sansa’s dialogue was likely meant to illustrate her reclaiming her identity as a trauma survivor. The more I thought about it,though, the more I pieced together that “Bran the Broken” was a moniker that doesn’t go against Bran’s character because it’s not Bran anymore. It’s the Three Eyed Raven, who doesn’t have the same relationship to the word that was very triggering to Bran Stark.

The Three Eyed Raven has gone to great lengths to make themself seem as innocuous as possible with statements like, “I don’t really want anymore” and “I can never be the Lord of anything,” and integrating with a paraplegic boy. Moreover, before the Battle for Winterfell, the Three Eyed Raven even said that he “didn’t know” if their plan would work, even though we have other reasons to believe that they can see the future. They tipped their hand with the line, “Why do you think I came all this way?” So, yes, in some way, the Three Eyed Raven understood that becoming King was a possible outcome of the Great War, and maneuvered in such a way that they were in the ultimate seat of power.

Allowing the North to secede was likely of little consequence to them because there’s bigger things at play--as demonstrated by the Three Eyed Raven’s preoccupation with finding Drogon.

Putting corrupted people in the seats of power only further drives home the point that the Three Eyed Raven in power bodes ill for the people.

Sam is poorly trained despite being one of the most morally “good” characters on the counsel, and even though he’s shown to have the drive to stand up for what’s right, Sam clearly respects the Three Eyed Raven.

Brienne is also a “morally good” character and she’s the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard—because she broke her oath to Sansa—so she has little say over actual matters of state. But the fact that the Three Eyed Raven was able to convince either Brienne or Sansa to break that oath makes me uncomfortable. Not only do we not know how it happened, but the end result is that Sansa is alone in the North—she doesn’t have a single loyal and true adviser at the beginning of her reign.

Tyrion is not a good person, and will likely be easy to control as Tyrion has also showed great respect for them—even so far as to personally nominate them for King.

Lastly, I’ll refer to the part that bothered me most about the Small Council scene. As Bran is leaving, every member stands at attention and after Tyrion proclaims, “We serve at the pleasure of Bran the Broken...” everyone attempts to synchronize “Long may he reign!” and Tyrion says, “That will improve.” Implying that this proclamation will happen every time the Three Eyed Raven leaves the room. Formality is expected for a monarch, but we didn’t even see that level of regime-quality salute in the presence of Dany as she emerged to be a dictator.

So, yeah, tl;dr I think that Bran adopting the Raven sigil for his kingsguard is way, way more deeply encoded than at first glance.

#game of thrones #got spoilers #asoiaf #got #house stark #starklings #three eyed raven #brynden rivers #bran stark #sansa stark #jon snow #anti daenerys #got meta #my meta #jonsa fam

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stardustandsuffering · 7 years

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King’s Cage Review

Let me just start off saying that I forgot how much I loved Mare.

(spoilers below)

The beginning was very hard to read through. While I understand that it was necessary and that the ending wouldn’t be anywhere near as satisfactory it was still a very long read. The first half (two thirds?) of the book was mainly detailing Mare’s suffering and her abuse at the hands of Maven and the other Silvers. You could slowly tell that Mare was changing as you read. You could see her give up and then tentatively start to hope and fight back again. It was nice to see Mare get back the spark that she had lost in Red Queen (pun intended). And my god was it satisfying to have Mare get her lightening back and raise a little hell after those agonizing first chapters.

I REALLY liked that every (but Mare) was 100% aware of how much of an asshole Cal is. Like dude we get it you’re a racist. And before you cry “But Cal loves Mare!!! He can’t be racist!!!” let’s think about how everyone in Scarlet Guard knows Cal would willingly let Reds die. It’s been stated a few times that Cal only cares about Silver lives and honestly? It’s true. Cal’s not a good guy he’s just obedient. Though only to Silver laws. Cal gets furious whenever anyone in the Guard so much as mentions killing Silvers who have been their oppressors for generations. But he’s seen and let thousands of Reds die and not even batted an eye because at the end of the day he only cares if one Red dies and that’s Mare. And don’t even get me started on how that isn’t romantic in the slightest.

Worldbuilding

It was interesting to see how the Silvers felt about love. As it was implied in the previous books familial love is very important to Silvers. Many Silvers are shown to care deeply for their children and siblings despite their overall cold attitudes toward one another in public settings. It was also interesting to note that they don’t really seem to put much value in romantic love. As most marriages are arranged and if a married person loves someone else it’s seen as socially acceptable for them to have an affair (i.e. the casual mentions of Elane and Evangeline’s relationship).

That being said child abuse runs rampant through Silver society. How Evangeline fears Larentia and is controlled by Volo, Elara literally using Maven as a puppet, and King Tiberias’ apparent neglect of him. Which I thought was kinda strange do the importance placed upon blood (haha) relations. Then again we have similar issues with romantic love and we all know how big a deal that is in our society.

It would have been nice to see how the lgbt community would be treated in Silver society. But all we got was a general lack of reaction to Elane and Evangeline’s love. We also find out that Maven was in love with Thomas (which I kind of thought since Red Queen ngl). But Thomas being a boy had nothing to do with how their relationship went wrong and Maven being bi (pan? poly?) isn’t put in a positive light. It can be assumed that same sex relationships would be frowned upon as marriages in Silver society are meant to produce heirs and there was no reference to any same sex marriages already existing. Going by that logic would it then be socially acceptable for two men/women to marry if they were capable of conceiving?

Lgbt

Three of the four lgbt characters were evil; in other news water is wet. I didn’t appreciate Maven being depicted as bi. Like really??? You pick one of the worst, if not the worst, characters to be your token bi? What does that say to young biromantics/bisexuals? Imagine them reading that Maven is what they have to look forward to becoming. That this boy who is constantly suffering and terrorizing others is the representation they get.

Admittedly I thought that Evangeline might be gay since Red Queen, mainly because of that oddly sexual tension that she had with Mare (and goddamn does that ever come back in King’s Cage). While I didn’t appreciate yet another evil lesbian trope I liked how this book humanized her, and I even think she might be redeemed next book. There’s a lot of room for growth with her but I understand why so many people are upset with another antagonist being gay.

Magically Healed Disabilities

I didn’t like how physical disabilities were treated in this book or the previous ones for that matter. Since Red Queen Mare’s father has been depicted as this miserable man whose life ended the moment he lost his ability to walk. Now all of a sudden he’s got both his legs and is steadily relearning to walk. But why couldn’t he have been happy as he was? Mare’s father was described as being broken until he was healed. He was bitter and resentful and he couldn’t be happy until he could walk again. Then suddenly he was a changed man who smiled and was happy. That’s such a messed up ableist notion. Able-bodied doesn’t equal happiness and people need to stop treating it like does. Frankly the whole “magically healing disabilities” trope is so ableist and disgusting.

Then there was what happened with Sara. Sara was mute up until the end of King’s Cage when another skin healer used their ability to give her back her tongue thus enabling her to speak again. Instead of continuing to magically heal character’s disabilities Sara and those around her could have learned sign language. I would understand the Silvers not needing sign language as an option any longer considering they have people who can magically heal any injury. But surely Reds would still have and use sign language. Think of how useful it would be to the Scarlet Guard to be able to communicate in a language that Silvers have no idea of. Why weren’t they already using it before? Why was Sara just using a pad of paper to communicate? There was so much wasn’t opportunity here.

I did like that Mare’s PTSD wasn’t just washed over. We get to see how scared she is to have something touch her wrist and we actually see her have a few attacks. I’m hoping the next book goes a little more in depth with it but we’ll see.

Considering its flaws I gave King’s Cage a 3 star rating as it’s apparent that Aveyard is trying to improve her writing in terms of diversity.

#red queen #king's cage #look it me #book review

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