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bloodbenderz · 3 years

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humaniterations (dot) net/2014/10/13/an-anarchist-perspective-on-the-red-lotus/ this article from oct 2014 is very dense — truly, a lot to unpack here, but I feel like you would find this piece interesting. I would love it if you shared your thoughts on the points that stood out to you, whether you agree or disagree. you obv don’t have to respond to it tho, but I’m sending it as an ask jic you feel like penning (and sharing) a magnificent essay, as is your wont 💕

article

i know this took me forever 2 answer SORRY but i just checked off all the things on my to do list for the first time in days today so. Essay incoming ladies!

ok im SO glad u sent me this bc it’s so so good. it’s a genuinely thoughtful criticism of the politics in legend of korra (altho i think its sometimes a little mean to korra unnecessarily like there’s no reason to call her a “petulant brat” or say that she throws tantrums but i do understand their point about her being an immature and reactionary hero, which i’ll get back to) and i think the author has a good balance between acknowledging like Yeah the lok writers were american liberals and wrote their show accordingly and Also writing a thorough analysis of lok’s politics that felt relevant and interesting without throwing their hands up and saying this is all useless liberal bullshit (which i will admit that i tend to do).

this article essentially argues that the red lotus antagonists of s3 were right. And that’s not an uncommon opinion i think but this gives it serious weight. Like, everything that zaheer’s gang did was, in context, fully understandable. of course the red lotus would be invested in making sure that the physically and spiritually and politically most powerful person in the world ISNT raised by world leaders and a secret society of elites that’s completely unaccountable to the people! of course the red lotus wants to bring down tyrannical governments and allow communities to form and self govern organically! and the writers dismiss all of that out of hand by 1. consistently framing the red lotus as insane and murderous (korra never actually gives zaheer’s ideas a chance or truly considers integrating them into her own approach) 2. representing the death of the earth queen as not just something that’s not necessarily popular (what was with mako’s bootlicker grandma, i’d love to know) but as something that causes unbelievable violence and chaos in ba sing se (which, like, a lot of history and research will tell you that people in disasters tend towards prosocial behaviors). so the way the story frames each of these characters and ideologies is fascinating because like. if you wanted to write season 3 of legend of korra with zaheer as the protagonist and korra as the antagonist, you wouldn’t actually have to change the sequence of events at all, really. these writers in particular and liberal writers in general LOVE writing morally-gray-but-ultimately-sympathetic characters (like, almost EVERY SINGLE fire nation character in the first series, who were full on violent colonizers but all to a degree were rehabilitated in the eyes of the viewer) but instead of framing the red lotus as good people who are devoted to justice and freedom and sometimes behave cruelly to get where theyre trying to go, they frame them as psychopaths and murderers who have good intentions don’t really understand how to make the world a better place.

and the interesting thing about all this, about the fact that the red lotus acted in most cases exactly as it should have in context and the only reason its relegated to villain status is bc the show is written by liberals, is that the red lotus actually points out really glaring sociopolitical issues in universe! like, watching the show, u think well why the fuck HASN’T korra done anything about the earth queen oppressing her subjects? why DOESN’T korra do anything about the worse than useless republic president? why the hell are so many people living in poverty while our mains live cushy well fed lives? how come earth kingdom land only seems to belong to various monarchs and settler colonists, instead of the people who are actually indigenous to it? the show does not want to answer these questions, because american liberal capitalism literally survives on the reality of oppressive governments and worse than useless presidents and people living in poverty while the middle/upper class eats and indigenous land being stolen. if the show were to answer these questions honestly, the answer would be that the status quo in real life (and the one on the show that mirrors real life) Has To Change.

So they avoid answering these questions honestly in order for the thesis statement to be that the status quo is good. and the only way for the show to escape answering these questions is for them to individualize all these broad social problems down into Good people and Bad people. so while we have obvious bad ones like the earth queen we also have all these capitalists and monarchs and politicians who are actually very nice and lovely people who would never hurt anyone! which is just such an absurd take and it’s liberal propaganda at its best. holding a position of incredible political/economic power in an unjust society is inherently unethical and maintaining that position of power requires violence against the people you have power over. which is literally social justice 101. but there’s literally no normal, average, not-politically-powerful person on the show. so when leftist anarchism is presented and says that destroying systems that enforce extreme power differentials is the only way to bring peace and freedom to all, the show has already set us up to think, hey, fuck you, top cop lin beifong and ford motor ceo asami sato are good people and good people like them exist! and all we have to do to move forward and progress as a society is to make sure we have enough good individuals in enough powerful positions (like zuko as the fire lord ending the war, or wu as the earth king ending the monarchy)! which is of course complete fiction. liberal reform doesn’t work. but by pretending that it could work by saying that the SYSTEM isnt rotten it’s just that the people running it suck and we just need to replace those people, it automatically delegitimizes any radical movements that actually seek to change things.

and that’s the most interesting thing about this article to me is that it posits that the avatar...might actually be a negative presence in the world. the avatar is the exact same thing: it’s a position of immense political and physical power bestowed completely randomly, and depending on the moral character and various actions of who fills that position at any given time, millions of people will or won’t suffer. like kyoshi, who created the fascist dai li, like roku, who refused to remove a genocidal dictator from power, like aang, who facilitated the establishment of a settler colonial state on earth kingdom land. like korra! she’s an incredibly immature avatar and a generally reactionary lead. i’ve talked about this at length before but she never actually gets in touch with the needs of the people. she’s constantly running in elite circles, exposed only to the needs and squabbles of the upper class! how the hell is she supposed to understand the complexities of oppression and privilege when she was raised by a chess club with inordinate amounts of power and associates almost exclusively with politicians and billionaires?? from day 1 we see that she tends to see things in very black and white ways which is FINE if you’re a privileged 17 yr old girl seeing the world for the first time but NOT FINE if you’re the single most powerful person in the world! Yeah, korra thinks the world is probably mostly fine and just needs a little whipping into shape every couple years, because all she has ever known is a mostly fine world! in s1 when mako mentions that he as a homeless impoverished teenager worked for a gang (which is. Not weird. Impoverished people of every background are ALWAYS more likely to resort to socially unacceptable ways of making money) korra is like “you guys are criminals?????!!!!!” she was raised in perfect luxury by a conservative institution and just never developed beyond that. So sure, if the red lotus raised her anarchist, probably a lot would’ve been different/better, but....they didn’t. and korra ended up being a reactionary and conservative avatar who protected monarchs and colonialist politicians. The avatar as a position is completely subject to the whims of whoever is currently the avatar. and not only does that suck for everyone who is not the avatar, not only is it totally unfair to whatever kid who grows up knowing the fate of the world is squarely on their shoulders, but it as a concept is a highly individualist product of the authors’ own western liberal ideas of progress! the idea that one good leader can fix the world (or should even try) based on their own inherent superiority to everyone else is unbelievably flawed and ignores the fact that all real progress is brought about as a result of COMMUNITY work, as a result of normal people working for themselves and their neighbors!

the broader analysis of bending was really interesting to me too, but im honestly not sure i Totally agree with it. the article pretty much accepts the show’s assertion that bending is a privilege (and frankly backs it up much better than the original show did, but whatever), and i don’t think that’s NECESSARILY untrue since it is, like, a physical advantage (the author compares it to, for example, the fact that some people are born athletically gifted and others are born with extreme physical limitations), but i DO think that it discounts the in universe racialization of bending. in any sequel to atla that made sense, bending as a race making fact would have been explored ALONGSIDE the physical advantages it bestows on people. colonialism and its aftermath is generally ignored in this article which is its major weakness i think, especially in conjunction with bending. you can bring up the ideas the author did about individual vs community oriented progress in the avatar universe while safely ignoring the colonialism, but you can’t not bring up race and colonialism when you discuss bending. especially once you get to thinking about how water/earth/airbenders were imprisoned and killed specifically because bending was a physical advantage, and that physical advantage was something that would have given colonized populations a means of resistance and that the fire nation wanted to keep to itself.

i think that’s the best lens thru which to analyze bending tbh! like in the avatar universe bending is a tool that different ethnic groups tend to use in different ways. at its best, bending actually doesn’t represent social power differences (despite representing a physical power difference) because it’s used to represent/maintain community solidarity. like, take the water tribe. katara being the last waterbender, in some way, makes her the last of a part of swt CULTURE. the implication is that when there were a lot of waterbenders in the south, they dedicated their talents to building community and helping their neighbors, because this was something incredibly culturally important and important to the water tribe as a community. the swt as a COLLECTIVE values bending for what it can do for the entire tribe, which counts for basically every other talent a person can have (strength, creativity, etc). the fire nation, by contrast, distorts the community value of bending by racializing it: anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is inherently NOT fire nation (and therefore inherently inferior) and, because of the physical power that bending confers, anyone who bends an element that isn’t fire is a threat to fire nation hegemony. and in THAT framework of bending, it’s something that intrinsically assigns worth and reifies race in a way that’s conveniently beneficial to the oppressor.

it IS worth talking about how using Element as a way to categorize people reifies nations, borders, and race in a way that is VERY characteristic of white american liberals. i tried to be conscious of that (and the way that elements/bending can act in DIFFERENT ways, depending on cultural context) but i think it’s pretty clear that the writers did intend for element to unequivocally signify nation (and, by extension, race), which is part of why they screwed up mixed families so bad in lok. when they’ve locked themselves into this idea that element=nation=race, they end up with sets of siblings like mako and bolin or kya tenzin and bumi, who all “take” after only one parent based on the element that they bend. which is just completely stupid but very indicative of how the writers actually INTENDED element/bending to be a race making process. and its both fucked up and interesting that the writers display the same framework of race analysis that the canonical antagonists of atla do.

anyway that’s a few thoughts! thank u again for sending the article i really loved it and i had a lot of fun writing this <3

#this is 2.1k words LMFAOO #asks #analysis #do i have an analysis tag?#crit #lok crit

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turtle-paced · 6 years

Text

Revisiting Chapters: Jon IV, ADWD

We all love a good chapter devoted to our PoV character attending meetings.

The story so far…

Jon has a lot of guests at the Wall. Some of them are staying, some of them are going to march on the Boltons. Now Jon has to work out how and whether to help them all.

Winter Is…Not Adequately Provisioned For

We start our chapter with a literal taking stock.

Jon, Dolorous Edd, Bowen Marsh and Wick Whittlestick venture into Castle Black’s granaries and cold storage to work out what exactly they have and how long it might last. Sensibly for a castle located in the climate it’s located in, Castle Black has a lot of underground tunnels so that the Watch doesn’t get snowed in. With Jon, we tour Castle Black’s granaries, root cellars, smokehouses, at least four miscellaneous storerooms, a spice locker, and finally the freezer. That last is located inside the Wall itself - the room is as long as Winterfell’s great hall, according to Jon, but no wider than the tunnels that brought them there. Even in the most mundane use of the great working of magic that is the Wall, there’s something not exactly natural about the place.

He could feel his fingers sticking, and when he pulled them back he lost a bit of skin. His fingertips were numb. What did you expect? There’s a mountain of ice above your head, more tons than even Bowen Marsh could count. Even so, the room felt colder than it should.

Like magic. Icy, icy magic.

It doesn’t take long to learn that Jon is very much a summer child.

“It is worse than I feared, my lord,” Marsh announced when he was done. He sounded gloomier than Dolorous Edd.

Jon had just been thinking that all the meat in the world surrounded them. You know nothing, Jon Snow. “How so? This seems a deal of food to me.”

Not only is Jon not old enough to have much experience with this sort of stocktaking in general, the only winter he’s lived through was a short one when he was still a very young boy. Short rations are not a thing he’s overly familiar with to start with; short rations for years is even more alien. This is why the you know nothing is there - Jon is reminding himself that his perspective is narrow and he’s speaking to someone who knows more than he does. You know nothing, Jon Snow, and certainly not how much people eat.

The food situation Bowen Marsh outlines is a dire one. With current and projected residents at Winterfell, all that food porn will only last them a year. After that, it’s turnips and pease porridge. After that, horse blood. Marsh had expected this to be enough to last the Watch three to four years of winter, never once anticipating the sudden influx of people.

So what to do? Marsh is the expert, and he has a range of measures Jon could use. First, the Watch’s herds need to be butchered save for a few breeding pairs; while that means they’re going to have scurvy at the Wall, but scurvy is better than starving. Second, they need to go on winter rations effective immediately. Third, they should consider buying food from the south. Fourth, and preferably, Jon kicks all the extra mouths out.

This is where the politics comes in. The Watch simply does not have enough food. They cannot kick Stannis out:

“We cannot leave King Stannis and his men to starve, even if we wished to,” Jon said. “If need be, he could simply take all this at sword-point. We do not have the men to stop them.”

Jon refuses to let the Free Folk starve, because he’s a humanitarian and not in the sense that Dolorous Edd jokes about. Buying food poses a problem.

We could, thought Jon, if we had the gold, and someone willing to sell us food. Both of those were lacking. Our best hope may be the Eyrie. The Vale of Arryn was famously fertile and had gone untouched during the fighting.

If only, Jon, if only. This from the guy who once wished for a dragon or three to help fight the Others.

Hunting to top up food storage is hypothetically possible.

“We can always hunt if need be,” Wick Whittlestick put in. “There’s still game in the woods.”

“And wildlings, and darker things,” said Marsh. “I would not send out hunters, my lord. I would not.”

No. You would close our gates forever and seal them up with stone and ice.

And this is a massive split within the Watch itself. As Jon points out, it’s roughly fifty-fifty as to sealing the Wall off, and the individual orders within the Watch are factionalised. The builders and stewards are pro-sealing gates. The rangers are in favour of leaving the Wall relatively open, since the Watch doesn’t have the men to defend the whole Wall. This would seem to reflect the degree of knowledge the respective orders have of the Free Folk and conditions beyond the Wall; the rangers are familiar with the Free Folk, and are certain that if the gates are sealed off the Free Folk will either climb or go around, while the builders and stewards trust in the Wall itself, which they’ve spent years maintaining.

Jon, being Jon, noticed the professional split. His career has tended more towards the duties of a ranger and his sympathies are towards the rangers, despite being nominally a steward, and he too hews to the ranger/builder-steward split. His sympathy to the opposing position is minimal. Here we also see Jon refusing to adopt the winter rations measure that Marsh suggests, without giving his reasons for not doing so. The working relationship between Jon and Marsh is not in a good place, even now. It’s only going to get worse.

Ranging South

As soon as Jon’s done with that job, another appears in the form of Devan Seaworth, summoning Jon to a meeting with Stannis (requesting, that’s how Edd would put it, requesting). As the wrong-way rangers have reutrned, it’s time to make some more concrete plans. Politically, this is a busy chapter, as Jon tries to catch up on the internal machinations of Stannis’ camp, while simultaneously dealing with Stannis’ campaign and his own organisation’s problems. And Jon does not have Davos’ ACoK and ASoS chapters to help him out.

Let’s try and tackle this issue by issue.

First, Stannis’ camp. Jon has made himself familiar with them, and he’s taken note of their factionalism as well. The prominence and status of the queen’s men is obvious, given that they wear flaming hearts in addition to the Baratheon colours. Jon’s noted that there aren’t many king’s men around the king, something something back in ASoS.

Unfortunately, the queen’s men boast a few prominent, religiously bigoted, xenophobic assholes.

Godry the Giantslayer guffawed. “I had forgotten that you northmen worship trees.”

“What sort of god lets himself be pissed upon by dogs?” asked Farring’s crony Clayton Suggs.

Ser Godry was amused by that as well. “What names these northmen have! Did this one bite the head off some whore?”

Given that these guys are going to be stuck in a Northern setting for the foreseeable future…their intolerance and crude religious chauvinism already spell trouble. No you know nothing is getting through those skulls.

Second, there’s the situation Stannis is heading into. He’s trying to get the Northern lords on side and not doing spectacularly well. The first topic of conversation is Mors Umber, leader of half of House Umber, and the price Mors demands for his support of Stannis. While Jon argues with Godry, Stannis sits back and grinds his teeth, before unveiling his grand plan: while Ramsay’s turned away to open Moat Cailin, take the Dreadfort.

It, uh, it’s a plan that needs some work. Concept’s good. It falls apart in practice. To take the Dreadfort, Stannis would have to cross potentially hostile Umber lands, where he knows nothing and the Umbers know just about everything. He won’t be able to make it to the Dreadfort before the castle’s warned in any case, thanks to ravens and beacon fires. That would turn the siege of the Dreadfort into a race, where if Stannis loses his retreat is cut off and he’s outnumbered five to one. Stannis is nevertheless resolved to this plan despite the risk, but not so resolved that he’s blind to its flaws. Nor is he unwilling to consider alternatives.

Finally, the issue of the Free Folk. We see that Stannis includes them in his meeting - not just “Rattleshirt,” but the Magnar of Thenn as well. Stannis quickly punts the issue of Rattleshirt to Jon (or so he perceives it), much to Jon’s irritation. Jon can make no use of Rattleshirt. He can neither keep him at Castle Black nor send him away.

Melisandre spoke softly in a strange tongue. The ruby at her throat throbbed slowly, and Jon saw that the smaller stone on Rattleshirt’s wrist was brightening and darkening as well. “So long as he wears the gem he is bound to me, blood and soul,” the red priestess said. “This man will serve you faithfully. The flames do not lie, Lord Snow.”

Perhaps not, Jon thought, but you do.

Not even real magic - perhaps especially even real magic - can induce Jon to think of Rattleshirt as anything but a dangerous liability.

As for the other VIP, Val the “wildling princess,” Jon gets to look after her as well. Nobody but him in this meeting seems to really grok that the Free Folk don’t consider her a princess.

Stannis initially plans to take the Free Folk who’ve crossed the Wall as part of his own forces. The men, anyway. Jon quickly realises that this is going to get these people killed uselessly, and argues to keep them. Eventually, he ends up trading knowledge of the hill clans in order to keep the Free Folk out of Stannis’ forces. His reasons are both practical - he can use the men on the Wall; the Free Folk really will piss off the Northern lords - and humanitarian.

It’s also worth noting that we see some of the best of Stannis here, who really has come a long way since the start of ACoK and not just in the sense he’s a few hundred miles north of where he started. He hears out Jon’s criticism in full, and when Jon’s plan turns out to be better than his own, he adopts it, recognising Jon’s superior knowledge of the North. When Jon tells him to suck it up and ask nicely for the mountain clans’ support, Stannis sucks it up.

“For three thousand men, I suppose I can endure some pipes and porridge,” the king said, though his tone begrudged even that.

I mean, not gracefully or anything, but he does.

Take No Part

Underpinning all the exposition and planning in the meeting is Jon’s internal conflict. He wants to help Stannis. He wants Winterfell liberated from Bolton control. He wants the Starks restored to their seat. Now, he’s in a position where he might, he just might, be able to meaningfully contribute to such a state of affairs.

And all that stops him are his vows.

Since vows and honour matter to Jon, he doesn’t just say “screw it” and start aiding Stannis. He bends his oath first.

The Night’s Watch takes no part, Jon thought, but another voice within him said, Words are not swords.

The first step is giving Stannis intel. First is a bio of Mors Umber, then details of marriage alliances, and an application of his knowledge of Crowfood’s personality.

“The Ryswells and Dustins are tied to House Bolton by marriage,” Jon informed him. “These others have lost their lords in the fighting. I do not know who leads them now. Crowfood is no lapdog, though.”

We readers might consider this sort of thing fairly innocuous, but this isn’t a society where accurate biographical information is all that easy to come by. There aren’t many people on the scene who would have that sort of knowledge of Mors Umber. This sort of knowledge is very much a benefit of Jon being raised at Winterfell and enjoying a good chunk of Robb’s education. Knowledge of the people in power is an asset in this society. Here we see Jon use it.

But Jon does not stop there. Instead, he moves from giving background detail that Stannis might, just might, be able to get from elsewhere, and turns to giving advice. That, that is a positive contribution to Stannis’ campaign, from Jon.

“Your Grace should have him swear an oath before his heart tree.”

“Your Grace would do well to accept his terms.”

“If it comes to swords, see where Hother’s banner flies and put Mors on the other end of the line.”

He also actively pursues additional information about the status of Stannis’ plans to retake Winterfell. It’s a purely academic interest, we’re sure.

In case there was much doubt that Jon is motivated at least in part by his Northern loyalties, he gets drawn into an argument with Godry.

“A fine plan if what you want is every hand in the north raised against you. Half is more than none. The Umbers have no love for the Boltons. If Whoresbane has joined the Bastard, it can only be because the Lannisters hold the Greatjon captive.”

“The Greatjon has sons and daughters both. In the north the children of a man’s body still come before his uncles, ser.”

Jon speaks as a Northman in this argument, deeply irritated by this arrogant shit of a southerner who’s come up here boasting about killing giants and now proposes to flat up destroy a major Northern house. He’s also still obviously bitter about the Karstark thing back in ASoS.

“A northman.” Better a Karstark than a Bolton or a Greyjoy, Jon told himself, but the thought gave him little solace. “The Karstarks abandoned my brother amongst his enemies.”

This marks him as more than just a Northerner, but a Stark partisan. When Stannis starts talking about who he plans to install as Lord of Winterfell, obviously goading Jon, Jon has only this to say:

Jon said, “Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.”

He’s as adamant as any Northerner, any Stark, that Winterfell belongs to the Starks in general, and now Sansa in particular. His sister. Not half-sister, not trueborn sister. No qualifiers. Just his sister. He loves her, just as he loves Robb and Arya and Bran and Rickon. That’s part of his political problem and the bulk of his internal dilemma.

Jon gives even more specific advice and analysis, meant to give Stannis a better chance of success.

“The boy has shown me his throat. I mean to rip it out. Roose Bolton may regain the north, but when he does he will find that his castle, herds, and harvest all belong to me. If I take the Dreadfort unawares—”

“You won’t,” Jon blurted.

This is incredibly significant, as we discover later that the Boltons were doing their best to lure Stannis into marching on the Dreadfort and into a trap. Jon’s still not done. He reluctantly allows Stannis to take spears and helms from the Watch armoury:

He means to plunder our armory, Jon realized. Food and clothing, land and castles, now weapons. He draws me in deeper every day. Words might not be swords, but swords were swords.

Then he tells Stannis where to find more men. It comes with advice on how to win the mountain clans over, plus guides. He justifies it like so:

The Night’s Watch takes no part, a voice said, but another replied, Stannis fights for the realm, the ironmen for thralls and plunder.

This isn’t a bad argument. Stannis does intend to aid the Watch in a way that the Boltons and the Greyjoys aren’t going to. The Watch would be better served if Stannis took control of Winterfell. Jon never articulates this position to his subordinates. Perhaps for fear that it wouldn’t be very convincing, given his background, and the fact that good arguments aside, those personal reasons for wanting the Boltons out of Winterfell do motivate him as much or more than “for the realm.”

Here’s the point, though. Words are not swords, but Jon’s words in this meeting were more effective than swords. Jon’s words about the terrain and political geography of the North, his knowledge of the Dreadfort, it convinces Stannis to abandon the plan that would have ended with his defeat. How can this level of advice possibly count as “taking no part”?

For all this, there is one bright clear line that Jon draws. One line he won’t cross, or bend.

“You could bring the north to me. Your father’s bannermen would rally to the son of Eddard Stark. Even Lord Too-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse. White Harbor would give me a ready source of supply and a secure base to which I could retreat at need. It is not too late to amend your folly, Snow. Take a knee and swear that bastard sword to me, and rise as Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.”

How many times will he make me say it? “My sword is sworn to the Night’s Watch.”

Night’s Watch vows and love of his family coincide on this point. Jon won’t break his oath to the Watch, and especially not to take the castle and title he sees as belonging to his sister.

Chapter Function

In terms of plot, this chapter is largely dispositive, inching a whole bunch of plot points along rather than radically changing the game on the spot (except in providing that massive “what if,” but even that’s slid in at a meeting). We don’t have a PoV on Stannis; this chapter bridges the gap between him leaving the Wall and him showing up at Deepwood Motte. We know who’s going where and who isn’t - Melisandre, Val, and “Rattleshirt” are all staying at the Wall. Arnolf Karstark’s betrayal is seeded. The coming food shortage is seeded.

The more important part of this chapter is Jon’s character development, which is why we’re at the planning session for a campaign rather than following the campaign itself. Jon’s working relationships with Bowen Marsh and Stannis, especially the latter, are the real focus of this chapter. His interactions with them, the concessions he is and is not willing to make, is the real action here. In parallel to Dany, whichever way Jon turns, he must compromise.

Miscellany

In amongst all the food you’d expect to find in a cold climate (turnips, beets, etc), the Watch also has stores of certain spices, almonds, figs, and olives. Plus Marsh mentions at one point having limes in storage. Those are coming from further south than the Riverlands.

Mance Rayder loves his drama. In Rattleshirt’s guise, he can’t help but poke at Jon for killing ‘Mance,’ nor help drawing attention to the ruby that anchors the glamour Melisandre’s put on him.

“Your Grace will need to go to them yourself. Eat their bread and salt, drink their ale, listen to their pipers, praise the beauty of their daughters and the courage of their sons, and you’ll have their swords.”

Never have I wanted a Stannis PoV more. Or at least a PoV that could watch Stannis trying to do this.

Clothing Porn

The Magnar of Thenn wears a leather hauberk sewn with bronze scales, which by Free Folk standards is incredibly blinged out.

Food Porn

Let’s just blockquote the paragraph.

In the granaries were oats and wheat and barley, and barrels of coarse ground flour. In the root cellars strings of onions and garlic dangled from the rafters, and bags of carrots, parsnips, radishes, and white and yellow turnips filled the shelves. One storeroom held wheels of cheese so large it took two men to move them. In the next, casks of salt beef, salt pork, salt mutton, and salt cod were stacked ten feet high. Three hundred hams and three thousand long black sausages hung from ceiling beams below the smokehouse. In the spice locker they found peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander, sage and clary sage and parsley, blocks of salt. Elsewhere were casks of apples and pears, dried peas, dried figs, bags of walnuts, bags of chestnuts, bags of almonds, planks of dry smoked salmon, clay jars packed with olives in oil and sealed with wax. One storeroom offered potted hare, haunch of deer in honey, pickled cabbage, pickled beets, pickled onions, pickled eggs, and pickled herring.

And that’s before we get to the meat storage, which is way less appetising in frozen form. It’s not quite food porn - more like pantry porn, I think.

Next Three Chapters

Cersei II, AFFC - Jaime II, ASoS - Prologue, ASoS

#ASoIaF #revisiting chapters #jon snow #stannis baratheon #bowen marsh #a dance with dragons

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