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little-tyrant-gortash · 3 months

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Oathbreaker

Pairing: fem!Tav x Enver Gortash, fem!Tav/Astarion

Tags: Emotional Manipulation, Manipulation, Manipulative Relationship, Paladin Tav (Baldur's Gate), Vaginal Sex, Penis In Vagina Sex, Drunk Sex, Unrequited Love, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Scars, Blood and Injury, Injury, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Torture, Psychological Torture, Implied/Referenced Torture

Word count: 2,217

Ao3 here.

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 12.

Chapter 13.

Chapter 14.

Chapter 15.

Chapter 16.

Chapter 17.

Chapter 18.

Chapter 19.

Chapter 20.

Chapter 21.

Chapter 22.

Chapter 23.

Chapter 24.

Chapter 25.

Chapter 26.

Chapter 27.

Chapter 28.

Chapter 29.

Chapter 30. ⬇

Chapter 31.

Chapter 30: The Enemy of My Enemy…

She woke up with steel cold determination to kill Orin the Red.

Gortash already got up and got ready; Tav was still lying on her side under the blanket, staring forward, the nausea making her want to skip breakfast once again. Even though she was hungry last night, things didn't turn out the way she wanted them to; especially with how Enver broke down. It seemed now that he felt fine. Tav glanced up at him, watching him in silence for a while as he pulled his coat up on his body.

"Good morning", he told her when he noticed she was awake.

The words made Tav smile. It sounded so... domestic. None of what happened with them settled in yet; that they were engaged and expected a new life of their own making. She finally had a chance to think beyond curing her tadpole; she had a future she wanted to actually see. For so long, there was nothing but vengeance, a life of service... until Astarion came. It was true that she screwed up everything with him – and she sunk deep, too deep after that –, but it seemed the gods still had plans for her. When she was in her deepest misery, they've at least sent someone to drag her out of it.

Perhaps, she'd be able to rest and just enjoy her life, even if it would be spent on a tyrant's side.

Not much of a price to pay if she thought of what would've happen to her if she never let Enver get so close to her. He could make her dreams come true; having a child, a home, a future. And that was all she ever wanted.

"Good morning", she replied.

"You're awfully pale", he walked over to her, then reached for her chin. His fingers felt warm against her skin as he turned her head up a little, their eyes meeting once again. "Are you feeling sick again?"

"Yeah", she murmured, "I guess I'll stay here today."

"Sounds good." Gortash didn't really agree with her plans, but he didn't mention it. He'd allow her a day or two to gather herself before he inevitably pushed her towards her fate. He had to allow them both a few days. He wasn't ready to lose her just yet. "Rest up. I'll send you a suitable breakfast."

"That's so very kind of you, Your Grace, thank you", she took his right hand in hers, then closed her eyes as she kissed his palm.

Gortash felt a shudder running across his body at her words and especially, the sensation of her warm, soft lips against the skin of his palm. He'd been wearing his gauntlet and rings as protection; to avoid people touching him directly. But the way her gentle lips came in contact with his palm made him realise that perhaps her touches would be welcome. This little gesture certainly made him feel safe... and surprisingly... aroused.

"I need to go", he whispered as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Rest all you need."

"Alright."

She wouldn't rest at all.

Once he left and she cleaned herself up, she ate a little from the breakfast he sent, which was nothing too complicated; a rather bland selection of finger foods that went easy on her stomach. He really did research her state, it seemed, and it made her smile again.

Now, getting out of there was easier thought than done. There were Fists and Steel Watchers literally everywhere. Sneaking around was always Astarion's expertise, not hers, but she tried to remember all the lessons the pale elf taught her in the past. She just hoped she could pull it off well.

Throughout the city, she was very careful to choose dark alleys and small corridors that were out of the view of the guards. It was a miracle everything went down without a hitch. By the time Gortash realised she was gone, she'd be halfway down to the temple. Or so she hoped. She prayed to whatever gods were listening to let her go through with her plan unscathed. And without an Archduke absolutely enraged.

"Wake up guys!" She shouted as soon as she got back to camp, knowing they were relatively far away from the rest of Baldur's Gate's citizens.

"Gods, it's so early", she heard Wyll complain.

The rustling from all directions made her laugh lightly. It was usually Gale who woke up early - and prepared breakfast for them as well -, so it was nice to see that for once, she got to see their sleepy heads.

But the smiles quickly turned to frowns as she saw Gale as he stumbled back into their camp. His clothes, bloodied. Tav didn't even notice how she hurried to assist him; holding out her hands for him to rely on.

"Are you alright? What happened?"

"Orin! Orin happened!" Gale wheezed. "I could barely escape her! You need to run - she's after you, and everything you hold dear! Leave the city, save yourself!"

"What are you talking about?" Tav steadied the wizard, looking deep in his eyes. "Gale, I'm not running away."

"She said she can't wait to carve you open - as she carved me open as well! You can't even imagine the agony! She stowed her crimson blade in my guts and sliced me open, filled a cup with my blood and- and-"

Gale doubled over. Tav, mortified, got a hold of his shoulders, thinking he'd go into a shock. But then, he started to laugh. Quietly first, then louder and louder until his voice was roaring across the camp.

Tav released his shoulders and took a step back. Gale straightened himself and looked in her eyes; his own lacking all the warmth he always had in them whenever he looked at her.

"You should see your face", he still chuckled. "Ah, I can't keep this up." He reached for his own head and snapped it to the side, his form morphing into Orin. "I've taken your precious little pup to the Temple of Bhaal - he's waiting for me to cut, to slice, to carve and sacrifice him to Father even now. But I have a proposition, a way to save your pet. An alliance, if you will."

Tav's ears were pounding, loud, with blood and rage. The thought that she could kidnap and take Gale down to the Temple of Bhaal changed everything; she wouldn't waste a moment to go down after him.

"If you kill the tyrant", Orin purred, "I'll spare your friend. You come down to the temple with Gortash's Netherstone, where we will fight each other for the ultimate power – to perform a Perfect Slaughter for Bhaal!"

Orin didn't know.

She had no idea of the relationship she had with Gortash, of the state she was in. That was all the advantage she had. Because this way, Orin wouldn't even think she wouldn't do what she asked.

Her head started pounding with the pressure, with the vision of Gale held captive, possibly tortured. Suffering. Alone.

Her hands twitched at her sides. If she had the Blood of Lathander within arm's reach, she wouldn't hesitate. No. She'd need to do this the hard way.

"Hurt Gale and you'll know what real agony is."

She couldn't stop the words that escaped her, making Orin laugh mockingly in her face.

"Choose. The tyrant or your friend. You have time until dusk."

And with that, she vanished.

Tav was shaking as she turned around, meeting the eyes of her other companions, concern written on their faces.

"Get ready", she snapped. "Now! We need to hurry!"

She made her way to her tent and started to put on the Reaper's Embrace. Thankfully, the Fists Gortash promised last night hadn't been to her camp yet to take her equipment. She chose the Blood of Lathander and the Knife of the Undermountain King as her weapons, as well as Firestoker.

"Gale was supposed to come with us", Karlach mentioned, "who should come in his stead?"

"Shadowheart", she glanced at the Cleric, who must've sensed Tav wanted to take her as she was already dressed for battle. "He might be injured. And in that case, we'll need a healer."

"I would've came anyway", Shadowheart told her with a small smile. "Can't have you go on a dangerous journey now." The way Tav looked back at her made the Cleric laugh. "Don't worry. We'll be fine."

"I couldn't help but hear what happened…"

Tav stopped in her tracks, cursed "shit", then turned around to stare at Astarion.

"Why do you keep showing up in our camp?" She spat at him. "I've had enough of you trying to manipulate us!"

"Oh I've came to have fun", Astarion tilted his head, motioning at Tav and the others. "For the sake of old times, you know. I've been… missing it."

"You've been missing it", Tav echoed in a deadpan tone. "Missing sleeping in the filth and the dirt."

"Well, obviously, not that part, but I did miss travelling with our little group of weirdos."

Tav could still see a small glimpse of her rogue within him. The old Astarion still was in there somewhere; the one who slipped flowers in her hair and kissed her so sweetly. The one who took her out to a meadow to look at the stars together. The memories made her heart ache, and her mind wandered to Gortash, her balm to her wounds – would she be forced some day to kill her previous partner, too, because they've changed too much?

It hurt a thousand times that she knew the cost of his Ascension and she still let it happen because she wanted him to feel safe. To never be afraid, of anything, ever again. But he'd changed. He was drunk with power. And he wanted her too much. And he couldn't understand no.

She wished he stopped the moment she said no the first time.

Her hand rested on the pommel of the Blood of Lathander which hung from her waist. If it came to that, she wouldn't hesitate, just as Enver didn't hesitate, either. The lengths she'd go to keep him safe was alarming, and it was even more insane that it was mutual.

"I find it hard to believe you're here to offer your talents to help us with anything", she snapped then, her voice unnaturally cold. She wanted to go down as soon as possible; Gale could've been suffering as they were wasting time speaking. "What do you really want, Astarion?"

He tilted his head and observed her posture, her body language, her expression. It was visible he did not want to say much, but at the same time, it was obvious he wanted to have allies. What for, only he knew.

"Do you remember that girl I was with? My little… consort?"

Tav felt nothing. She expected she'd feel a stab of jealousy that Astarion mentioned another girl to her, but she felt absolutely nothing. Even as he used the word consort; a title he said he wanted her to have. That was when she realised she really, truly moved on. And that was a relief.

"I remember her", Tav confirmed coolly.

"Last night, while I was outside, I left her in our chambers. She's not opening the doors for anyone other than me, of course, but it seemed that whoever wanted to come inside found a way to do just that. I've found her, dead, gutted and hung from the chandelier in my chambers when I arrived home." Astarion paused. Tav could see a fraction of guilt and pain over his loss. It was fading quickly, but it was there. "The note on the bed made it pretty obvious who did it. Now – nobody escapes unpunished if they take something that's mine, you know that. I mean to avenge her; to make Orin scream and beg for mercy before she breathes her last." He paused again. "I know we had our… disagreements in the past. But please, believe me this once: I truly, honestly, want to help."

Tav stared up at his beautiful face, almost… glowing in the early sunlight. She recalled what Gale had told her after Astarion ascended: a powerful ally to have at our side, and a powerful enemy should our intentions diverge.

She needed an edge against Orin, and perhaps, a Vampire Ascendant – one of his kind, way more powerful than just a mere Vampire Master –, was that edge. Frankly, she could use all the help she could get. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or so they said. She glanced at the others; they've said nothing, they wanted her to decide. After all, it was her who had to endure whatever Astarion put her through. If she could tolerate him being near her, they'd tolerate him, too.

"Fine", she decided, then spun on her heels and started walking towards the closest manhole. "But if you so much as breathe in my personal space, I'm going to bash your head in with the Blood of Lathander. We'll see how you like some sunlight directly in your pretty face."

"Oh, my little love", Astarion almost purred as he followed her, "I've missed you so, so much."

#Oathbreaker #little tyrant [enver gortash]#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg 3 #enver gortash #archduke enver gortash #lord enver gortash #fanfic #Oathbreaker fanfic

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klkirbles · 9 months

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9 ship songs

i got tagged by @omgkalyppso who shared a tav/origin (étoile/astarion) playlist they made. so i am doing the same lmao

i don't have anyone explicitly to tag so if anyone is interested, go ahead! you have my blessing!

the ship is my tav (i still need to fkin name him) and astarion. i've finished his personal quest and romance so it was fun to spend the day making this while i'm still fresh in my feelings.

'metaphor' by the crane wives ( stfy / yt ) astarion pov. the two meet for the first time. tav is more goody at this point, and so astarion acts very superficial towards him.

I've gotten good at leaning on metaphors I've gotten good at living on someone else's page I cut my teeth on second hand sentiments You can't trust a single thing I say I keep my closet free of skeletons 'Cause I'm much better at digging graves But I always dig up bones in your sympathy I can't trust a single thing you say Don't look too hard, 'cause you won't like the scars he left in me

2. 'something in the way you are' by kimbra ( stfy / yt ) tav pov. post-bite has tav very interested in the vampire. relevant to their first intimate encounter.

I'm wondering about your childhood Wonder if you were misunderstood I'm watching you inside your head I wonder if you know how long I can And I can feel it in my bones I love all of the sticks and stones And every little word you say You're breaking me in the best way

3. 'thunder lightning' by iamamiwhoami ( stfy / yt ) astarion pov. his behaviour doesn't seem to deter my tav. in fact, he seems to mostly go along with it.

Got to break the stillness for a while Need to see dеstruction to feel alive And when I say sorry I’m full of lies Got a violеnt streak I'm not ashamed Are you beat yet? Pressure keeps rising high Nothing thrills me like a savage game

4. 'snakeskin' by rina sawayama ( stfy / yt ) relates more to my oathbreaker tav and the influence astarion had in that outcome. he 'sheds' the oath like a snakeskin and follows a new path with his love

Looking for forgiveness I ran into your madness Shutting off my brain just to spite my heart You're slithering, slithering, slithering into my heart, yeah You're changing my, changing my, changing my, changing my mind, yeah I'm shedding, I'm shedding, I'm shedding, I'm shedding my snakeskin You're wearin' it, wearin' it, wearin' it every day, yeah

5. 'daffodil' by florence and the machine ( stfy / yt ) astarion pov. very much an 'oh no i didn't mean to fall in love' song.

I never thought it would get this far This somewhat drunken joke Sometimes, I see so much beauty I don't think that I can cope There is no bad, there is no good I drank every sky that I could Made myself mythical, tried to be real Saw the future in the face of a daffodil

6. 'fade' by lewis capaldi ( stfy / yt ) tav pov. oh look another 'i didn't mean to fall in love' song. this one is more my tav reacting to what happens in astarion's personal quest.

Wish somebody would've told me That I'd end up so caught up in need of your demons That I'd be lost without you leading me astray Guess I'm such a fucking fool for the way that you caught me You make my heart break more every day But don't fade away Well, I know that we've been hardly holding on To tell the truth, I can't believe we got this far

7. 'francesca' by hozier ( stfy / yt ) tav pov. post astarion personal quest. he was there for him since the beginning of their journey and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Do you think I'd give up That this might've shook the love from me Or that I was on the brink? How could you think, darling, I'd scare so easily? Now that it's done There's not one thing that I would change My life was a storm, since I was born How could I fear any hurricane?

8. 'superstar' by marina ( stfy / yt ) they have seen each other at their absolute lowest and overcome some incredible adversaries. they are ride or die.

We'll stick together Make it through the storm You and I Whoever said we couldn't have it all? I love the way we worked so hard Yeah, we've come so far Baby, look at me, you're my superstar When I'm afraid, when the world's gone dark Come and save my day, you're my superstar

9. 'finding you' by kesha ( stfy / yt ) endgame. a nice conclusion for my brain sickness that is this ship.

I know forever don't exist But after this life, I'll find you in the next So when I say "forever, " it's the goddamn truth I'll keep finding, finding you I'm gonna search for your love Right through Hell and Heaven Millions of years yet to come And in all dimensions I know that you'll always be My happy ending

#oc tag #my ocs #bg3 #tav #astarion #ship playlist #long post #haven't made character playlists since my 8tracks fanmix days #this was fun

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grapecaseschoices · 4 months

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in another bout of nat can't decide for herself ..

Spoilers for bg3 [Wyll!romance, durge!PT]; Details Below.

So, I'm undecided if I should have Kaeliana [my durgewyll PT/Tav] a) take the deal with Gortash and become an Oathbreaker. OR b) save Ulder Ravengard for her boo thang [after breaking the pact with Mizora].

On the one hand, for all Kae does want power she has been fairly [sorta] mindful of her oath/being a Paladin. It is basically the only thing that is HERS and she remembers. And I don't know if I want that for her, BUT I think the path of using the darkness in you/doing bad things for a 'good' ending/result fits her [ie, my only tadpole consuming Tav]. I also want to see the fuss between DurgeTash [It's been kind of disappointing so far? Is it fandom hyping it up or does good shit happen?]

As for Wyll, well she is Team Let Ulder Die [because this fits her get the cake and eat it too dreams: Having her prince charming and having influence/power]. And I know [I believe?] apparently he will die anyway [fuck you Mizora]. BUT I hear you get a quest with him alive that gives good lore [I'm assuming with Wyll. I hear you CAN do it if he dies, but it is BETTER if he lives].

I mean I have other PTs and other characters who would easily say fuck you Gortash. [I MAY do another durge!PT in the future] But I only have one durgewyllmance.

tl:dr: I guess it's a three part poll:

Take Gortash's deal and become an oathbreaker

Don't take Gortash's deal [forever considering it] but don't save Ulder

Save Ulder and lose the deal

So, make my decisions for me please and thanks.

#grapecase plays bg3 #grapecase polls #like i said i don't know if i want oathbreaker for her -- at least not for this. tho this would be the second time i almost made her an #oathbreaker so why not go for it?#[both times. 1. releasing sazza 2. alliancing with gortash her thoughts was ima use you for the/my greater good. but the paladin dude #operates very clear cut. and while it wouldnt be ooc. in retrospect i feel maybe she would get that and not take him up.]#BUT it could be real intriguing and i do like the way the powers work with her path #also wyll. i feel i could def save ulder in at least another PT so it isnt like i'd miss out as a player but narratively it is very 'things #you do for love' to burn a potential ally for that person's greater good #wyll and power are pretty much even for kae. wyll MIGHT edge more. so. it isn't like you NEED gortash to beat ass. it would probs make shit #easier tho.#halp me!#bg3 polls #sigh #bg3 #long post

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noyoucannotpushthevoid · 1 year

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Six of Crows Characters as DnD Characters: now complete with backgrounds!

Tired, on my sleep meds me better fucking appreciate that I can remember the idea I had

We'll go from easiest to hardest to parse (as if any of them were hard to figure out. They're fantasy characters, they were all but made to be categorized this way lol /hj)*

Kaz Brekker: A Mastermind Rogue with the Urchin Background Do I really need to elaborate? He is the large rat that makes all of the rules... He makes the plans; he's hard to get a jump on; he can sleight of hand like nobody's business. When his allies are near and acting as distractions, he can deal epic sneak attack damage. He's quiet on his feet. CRIME

Jesper Fahey**: Gunsliger Fighter with the Gambler Background Again, fairly self-explanatory. He has guns, but he's not really a crafter of guns***. There is an argument for a different background****; I am not going to entertain it here. Gambler, though his background is still a vital part of his character*****; It's more so than any education or criminal activity he's done.

Matthais Helver+: Beast Master Ranger that multiclasses into an Oathbreaker Paladin with the Zealot Background Arguably the worst class for my (second) least favorite character (of the ones covered in this post, though I'll happily do one of these for the villians/antagonists)++. Starts as a Beast Master Ranger, because of his wolf. Though he very quickly multiclasses into Paladin, but by the time he gets a subclass in that class he has to take Oathbreaker+++. Zealot is self-explainitory, the only other Background I would entertain is if there was an Occultist one (which there probably is, but Zealot is still the more apt option).

Inej Ghafa++++: Soulknife Rogue with the Entertainer Background (her routine specifically being Acrobat, which I don't see as an option, but I'm making an option right now) I can see the argument for Monk or Paladin+++++, but it's the stealth that really cements her as a Rogue. And it's the same deal as Kaz when it comes to canon sneak attacks. While Scout or Assassin could work well as her subclass, maybe even be more on track that Soulknife, I have to go with Soulknife. Like Jesper's gambling that just makes the Gambling Background more fitting than any other, Inej's knives are an integral part of her character. They are the only weapons she uses. So why don't we give her infinite knives? As well as, the fact they are psychic can be flavored to fit into the fact that she is a very religious character who links her knives to her religion by naming each one after one of her saints. Finally, the Entertainer Background. Criminal is a cop-out. Outlanders tend to be solo. Pirate can't count because that's the future.

Wylan Van Sunshine /s^: Bard that multiclasses into an Artillerist Artficier^^ with the Noble Background He doesn't take enough levels in Bard to get a subclass. He probably took 2, decided he disliked it, but his DM wouldn't let him just reflavor the whole character so he multiclassed as fast as he fucking could. Artificer, need I say more? Artillerist because, "An Artillerist specializes in using magic to hurl energy, projectiles, and explosions on a battlefield". Bomb. I rest my case. He was a "noble" like 3 months ago or so, though it should definitely be flavored as like a disgraced noble or something. Homebrew I guess. It took me a while to get here, but once the ball got rolling there was no stopping it. His character just fell into perfect place.

Kuwei Yul-Bo: Pyromancy Sorcerer with the Inheritor Background Again, a class I dislike for a character I dislike. He was very boring to me, very useless despite being at the heart of both books' plots. I literally forgot about him for the majority of Crooked Kingdom. He reminds me of a pc from the last campaign I dmed for a specific group. The player was barely there, and when he was, refused to do anything. I'm not a fan of magic classes if you can tell, but the only thing I truly remember about Kuwei is some inherent link to fire. Thus the idea for Kuwei the Pyromancy Sorcerer was born. He's a Sorcerer and has the Inheritor background for the same reason: his father. He became valuable when he inherited his father's work.

Last but not least, Nina Zenik: A Way of Mercy Monk who multiclasses into an Order of the Ghostslayer Blood Hunter with the Cloistered Scholar Background Originally she was only going to be a Blood Hunter, but then I remembered a character of mine who's a Way of Mercy Monk and how they get this dual ability to both heal and harm. This felt very apt for Nina as a Heartrender, and how she uses her abilities throughout, particularly book one. She multiclasses at the end of that book specifically lol. While I am a diehard fan of the Order of the Lycan and just the absolute range of horror that can come from it, Order of the Ghostslayer is much much more accurate to Nina's abilities. Her abilities after parem are still her old ones, just mutated and screwy. Which, what is a Blood Hunter if not someone whose abilities have become warped and fucked up? Blood Hunters in general are very akin to Heartrenders in my opinion as both can take a physical toll on the user. As well as both deal heavily with the body and utilizing/fucking with its various parts. Ghostslayers are the oldest, historically, order of Blood Hunters, which in combination with the previous sentence makes it perfect for Nina as she has her roots in a very old type of magic. Ghostslayers also focus on fighting the undead, which is another link to her new abilities as Blood Hunters are deeply connected to that which they hunt, so her being able to utilize the dead but them also being her sworn enemy is fitting. Finally, she gets her background from the fact that she was raised, secluded away, in the Little Palace, effectively just studying her craft.

I'm glad to see I got more in-depth, therefore unhinged, as this went on.

*It's been a while since I read the books, pardon any inaccuracies **He was the first one to come to mind lol ***This will come back when we discuss Wylan and how their skills complement each other ****One of the ones that has to do with being a student. Or like criminal, but that's a fucking cop-out, ALL of these motherfuckers (besides Wylan and Kuwei, whom I will be including solely because I did have an idea for him) could have the criminal background *****If this were Hunter the Vigil it'd be his Vice +Surprisingly easy ++I've heard the arguments in his favor, everyone else is just naturally better than him in terms of me liking them +++These guys aren't that old lol ++++She surprisingly took some thinking when it came to a subclass +++++If you know more about Paladins and would like to make an argument, I'd love to hear it, the only Paladin I've played is a pathetic and useless excuse for one (on purpose) ^My beloved little bastard. Everyone infantilizing him or disregarding his sarcasm and willingness to make literal bombs can fight me in a game of Zombie Dice (I am not strong, me and Wylan are premium members of the Scrawny Club) ^^This is what I meant about his and Jesper's abilities complementing each other. Unlike Kaz and Inej who are cut from the same cloth, or-as you'll learn-Nina and Matthais who are effectively 2 sides of the same coin, they really build on each other

#dnd #six of crows #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #nina zenik #inej ghafa #wylan van eck #matthais helvar #I cannot spell Mr. Helver's name.#I should specify #the books #i've never watched the TV show #This became mostly asides...I'm a bit disappointed in myself smh /hj

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rohirric-hunter · 3 years

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Not to get too literary in my analysis of the writing of an MMO, or to dig too deeply into a narrative about autonomy in any video game, but I’m also having some thoughts about choices in Volumes III & IV, especially around the Dunland portion of the quest.

I’d always thought it was a little odd that they divided Dunland into the two distinct regions of Enedwaith and Dunland, and I guess for a long time I assumed it was to fill up space and that was more or less all. There are a fair number of side quests which seem reasonably fun, but the main quest stays there for... half an hour? Maaaaaaaybe an hour? Most of which is spent riding between Harndiron and Zudrugund. And then you leave with a bitter taste in your mouth. There are essential events, of course, the Forsaken Road and the introduction of Nona, but basically there’s no reason these things had to happen there, rather than in Dunland proper.

But there are certain thematic story beats, largely centered around the revelation of Saruman as the major villain of Vol. III, and it ties into the regional barriers. You’re aware of the risk Saruman poses, of course, but up through Enedwaith there’s this hope that maybe you’ve slipped under his radar. The moment you discover you haven’t is also the moment you move on out of Enedwaith into Dunland, where you proceed to hear of little else except for Saruman for a good long time.

Yes I said this was a narrative about autonomy. I’m getting to it.

One of the early Vol. III quests is the first Epic quest, if memory serves, to allow you to choose to influence events, when you can encourage Halros to either go with the Grey Company or stay behind. Of course when you are presented with this choice, there’s no possible way to guess how this will effect events down the road. After that you don’t make any choices for yourself for a while, but everyone else is making choices: Corunir chooses to invite Golodir to join the Grey Company even though you were explicitly told not to invite him. Halbarad chooses a lot of things, most of which end badly. I give Halbarad especially a hard time over some of his choices, but I’ll come back to that. For the first bit of Vol. III, everybody’s choosing something.

In Enedwaith, the choices start to dwindle. You are told to do this, and that, to slay traitors in memory of Wadu, to go fetch herbs to make a draught for Nár, to track down messengers and seek out books and so on and so forth. None of these things are objectionable things, but the quests do become a bit. Cluttered? Busy? Running from one little thing to the next, never suspecting that all these tasks are perhaps distracting you from something else? *cough*Tinnudir-Mordrambor-Amarthiel-Tadan*cough* You start to lose your ability to make wise choices in the chaos, and before you know it you’re knocking on the front door of a bunch of cursed undead oathbreakers, and that goes... quite a lot better than can be expected, actually, all things considered, and Corunir asks the real question:

Frithgeir did not want to, but at the end I gave him no choice, and he has brewed the drink and given it to Nár.

Hurry! Go now to Nár and ask him, once again, how he knows of the Oath-breakers! Ask him how he knows the words of Elrond concerning the Paths of the Dead! Ask him why my friends are dead!

Go! We will leave Zudrugund, but first I want to know why all of this had to happen!'

(Oh, there it is again, choice.)

Why did this happen? Why didn’t any one of a number of potentially better choices get made? And you learn your answer: because Saruman meddles. Because there’s a wizard at hand who thinks he has the right and the power to make choices for other people. Théoden will say, “were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit as you desired,” and Saruman will not answer, but he disagrees, quite strongly.

Anywho, when you move on to Dunland proper a few veils are pulled back. In Galtrev many of the people are enslaved, and the slavers think you’re on their side, and while you choose not to use their methods, you’re all still a part of Saruman’s war machine (and it’s unclear how much this changes at the end of the Galtrev questline). You move on to Tûr Morva and there are a lot of uncomfortable things happening, but one that stuck out to me was Radanir -- Radanir will muck out ox-pens whether he chooses to or not. The people of the Falcon Clan... well, they do as Lheu Brenin does. And as for you, you do as Lheu Brenin says, and there’s a certain contrast, you know, between him and Théodred. Théodred is rash with his words and makes no secret of some of his thoughts that perhaps ought to be kept private, but he lets you go and do as you please, and even his ruder comments are born from genuine respect and concern, the hope that maybe you will take his opinion into account while making an informed choice.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the game says, silently. “Yes, these people are just ridden with details that make them suspicious, but you don’t have a choice. You don’t. Have. A choice. You need allies.”

That ends... much worse than could have been expected.

All the veils are pulled back and now you’re in Isengard and you’re a slave, and ironically you quickly start to have more autonomy than you have in some time. It’s a game of making the Uruk-hai look the other way long enough to get something done, working to make them underestimate you in order to leverage the choices you do have. And there you meet Acca, who never understood, not really, and didn’t think of power and rings and great kingdoms, but he knew, on a given day, in a given situation, the difference between wrong and right, and insomuch as he knew, he made his choice, and he paid for it dearly.

And after that there is no choice, truly this time -- you escape Isengard, and you return to Tûr Morva, and you begin reaping the rewards of your previous choices: the supplies you gathered for the Falcons, the traps you laid for them, their warriors you helped train. Halbarad does not say it, but he is reaping those rewards too, when the survivors gather outside the prison caves and he performs a head count, and he’s aware, he doesn’t need an irate player to remind him, that it was his choices that led him there.

Then, Troubled Dreams. You choose to follow the dream, to head north.

Horn chooses to offer Nona what aid he can, even when everyone is telling him not to.

Horn and Corudan choose to travel with you.

Nona chooses to move on from the ghost of her brother, and find something for herself.

You choose to follow Éomer to Edoras.

When the time comes you choose to ignore your banishment.

And then a wrench is thrown in the words: a seer. Is there choice, when the future has been seen?

Horn believes there is. Nona believes there is not.

Horn rides to Minas Tirith. You reap the rewards of the choice you made in the beginning of Vol. III. And the volume ends with Horn, if he survives, wondering. Why did he survive when Halros did not? What choices led Halros there, to that moment where he gave up his own life for that of a stranger? Why did he make that choice? And what does it mean? What does all the sacrifice mean, in the end? What do all the choices mean?

If Horn does not survive, according to the Wiki, Elfhelm celebrates the sacrifice of Golodir, who avenged his fallen son, never knowing the bloody, bloody choices that led him to that moment, every single one of them the wrong one, somehow.

At this point the PC is offered the wonderful gift of being able to pass the making of decisions off to Aragorn and Gandalf.

#lotro #im sorry its all overbearing analysis now #aragorn has some line at the beginning of two towers #he says something along the lines of 'it seems all my choices today have gone amiss'#and he keeps on lamenting that for some time #anyway i do think that was the vibe they were going for

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

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5e Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant build (League of Legends)

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

K-POP IS TEMPORARY; IRON STANDS ETERNAL!

Guess I just don’t really want to make nothing but K-Pop builds. Been playing Morde a lot and he’s fun, and Morde in D&D is actually a build I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I don’t have to use Tasha’s content either for this build so I figured I’d make something other than eGirls in anticipation for Pentakill’s comeback album.

Please for the love of god give us a new Pentakill Mordekaiser skin, and actually turn his mace into a guitar!

GOALS

Shed the frailty of flesh; embrace the cold edge of iron - The iron revenant needs iron, with a giant mace and armor that can block even the strongest sword. For iron stands eternal.

In my clutches! - Those who try to flee will be brought back by Death’s Grasp. There is no escaping fate.

Accept your demise - Tired of your foes running? Bring them to a Realm of Death where they’ll have to fight.

RACE

I know that Mordekaiser is technically a revenant but in my continued attempts to make my builds “Adventurer’s League legal” while not using Adventurer’s League rules we’re going to go with a Warforged, because of course we’d pick the race made of metal. As a Warforged your Constitution increases by 2 and you can increase another stat of your choice by 1: bump up your Charisma to be just a little bit scarier.

As iron stands eternal you have Constructed Resilience for advantage against being poisoned, resistance to the poisoned condition, immunity to disease, and no need to eat, drink, or breathe. You also don’t need to sleep and can’t be put to sleep by magic: instead to sleep you enter a Sentry’s Rest, where you stand motionless for hours but are still fully aware of your surroundings.

But most importantly to resist all blows you have Integrated Protection. It flat out increases your AC by 1, and also makes it so that instead of “wearing” armor you integrate it into your body. While the armor is integrated into you it can’t be removed by any means.

Finally you have Specialized Design for a skill, tool, and language of your choice. For your skill I opted for Performance to show that you’re the chosen: you are the guardian, the guardian. (But feel free to take something more practical.) For your tool a Lute is the closest you’ll get to a guitar to lead a Yordle city destroying band. And for your language choose whatever you think the spirits of the dead would speak: I opted for Abyssal personally. Definitely not because Abyssal is the first option alphabetically.

ABILITY SCORES

15; STRENGTH - Iron stands eternal, and iron is heavy.

14; WISDOM - Morde speaks in very sagely ways, and this is a rather big requirement for one of our classes.

13; CHARISMA - Charisma is tied directly to being the scariest revenant around, and indirectly tied to kick-ass guitar solos.

12; CONSTITUTION - Twice slain and thrice reborn doesn’t happen if you’re not a sturdy fella.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Being alive for eons means that you would know a thing or two about history.

8; DEXTERITY - Iron stands eternal, and iron is heavy.

BACKGROUND

There’s a lot of potential backgrounds for Mordekaiser (I honestly really like the Knight background because Retainers are fun) but the most accurate one for abilities and lore would be a Soldier. You gain proficiency in Athletics but I’m going to suggest swapping Intimidation out for History proficiency, since you’re an ancient being who was around for many wars. You also gain proficiency with land vehicles and a gaming set of your choice, both of which don’t matter much: see if you can maybe grab another metal instrument instead.

Your background with a Military Rank means that your followers recognize you as their general (or possibly a lower rank if your DM isn’t a fan of OP level 1 backstories.) They defer to you if they are of lower rank, and you can use your military influence to requisition supplies as needed.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - PALADIN 1

An oath sworn to death is still an oath. Paladins get proficiency in two skills from the Paladin list: this is where we’ll actually be grabbing Intimidation, and we’ll also take Religion. Yeah turns out that Morde’s obsession with death is actually a religion.

Regardless Paladins at level 1 have Divine Sense. You can spend an action to sense any celestial, fiend, or undead within 60 feet of you that is not behind total cover. You know the type of being but not its identity, and you can also use this ability to determine if an area has been consecrated or desecrated. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier plus one, and regain all uses at the end of a Long Rest.

You also have some healing for your Indestructible body with Lay on Hands. You have a pool of healing power equal to five times your Paladin level that you can spend to heal anyone you touch (including yourself.) You can spend any number of your remaining hitpoints on the heal, or you can spend 5 hitpoints to cure a disease or neutralize a poison. You can stop multiple poisons and diseases at a time (spending 5 hitpoints for each) but seeing as iron resists poison and disease you should be fine. Your puny allies however may need the help.

Now may also be a good time to mention what weapons and armor to take. For a giant two-handed mace take a Maul, and for heavy armor take heavy armor. For now that will just be Chainmail (granted by default with Paladin starting equipment) but you can transition to Platemail in the future hopefully.

LEVEL 2 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins get to choose their Fighting Style to augment their non-abilities. To be completely unbreakable take Defense for another +1 to your AC.

You also get access to Spellcasting. You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Charisma modifier plus half your Paladin level (rounded down.) The main spell we’re here for is Compelled Duel to force foes to face you and make it a lot harder for them to fight. It’s not a full 1v1 dimension but it works pretty well. Other than that if you want some Nashor’s Tooth damage Divine Favor will make your strikes a lot more painful, and if you want even more defense Shield of Faith will block any blow that may come your way.

Of course you can ignore all this and Obliterate your foes with Divine Smite, spending a spell slot and turning into magic Radiant damage. A smite with do 2d8 for a first level slot plus an additional d8 per slot above first, up to a maximum of 5d8 with a 4th level slot. If you hit an undead or fiend however the damage increases by another d8, for a maximum of 6d8.

LEVEL 3 - PALADIN 3

Third level Paladins get Divine Health which literally doesn’t impact you since you’re a Warforged, so instead we’ll talk about your Sacred Oath. As fun and flavorful as an Oathbreaker would be that subclass is kinda... bad? So instead look to the Oath of Conquest to shatter your foes!

You get the Armor of Agathys spell for some Thornmail, and the Command spell for Death’s Grasp. Telling someone to approach doesn’t have the same impact as grabbing them with a spooky ghost claw but it works just as well. You also get two Channel Divinity options. Conquering Presence will make everyone near you frightened, and Guided Strike will let you add +10 to an attack roll which will guarantee that you’ll hit in most if not all situations.

LEVEL 4 - PALADIN 4

4th level Paladins get an Ability Score Improvement: seeing as our Strength is uneven we can take a Feat like Heavy Armor Master, increasing our Strength by 1 and making it so that our foes’ puny non-magical weapons bounce off us like nothing.

You can also prepare another spell but we’re going to wait a bit on that.

LEVEL 5 - PALADIN 5

5th level Paladins get an Extra Attack, giving you enough attack speed to swing Nightfall twice before your opponent starts to run.

You also get access to second level spells. Oath of Conquest gives you Hold Person to keep your foes in place and Spiritual Weapon for a ghostly soldier to fight alongside you. You can also prepare a spell like Aid to further boost your health, making it even harder to slay you once more.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - CLERIC 1

Despite being a big metal man Mordekaiser is an AP champ, but he also hits people quite a lot with his mace. Hence we’re going into the AP class that also hits people with a mace. Now you may think that we’d want to go into Death Cleric for a revenant... THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE WRONG FOOLISH MORTAL! IRON STANDS ETERNAL! FORGE DOMAIN! At level 1 you get Blessing of the Forge allowing you to turn a weapon or piece of armor into a magical +1 weapon or armor. My tip? More armor. Iron stands eternal.

As a Cleric you also get Spellcasting that relies on your Wisdom instead of your Charisma. You also actually get cantrips! You are the master of death and you choose when people die, so take Spare the Dying to make them not die. To make sure your subjects hear your words Thaumaturgy will let all hear you. And just because Mordekaiser is a melee champ doesn’t mean you can’t have a ranged damage option, so take Toll the Dead so none can escape what comes for all.

Check page something-or-other to see how many spell slots you have, but what’s important to know is that you can prepare a number of spells equal to your Wisdom modifier plus your Cleric level. As a Forge Cleric you also get Identity to find the perfect weapon, and Searing Smite to seal your foes away with Nightfall’s Kiss. To keep usurpers away Protection from Good and Evil will make it nye-impossible for them to harm you, and to command your allies as an army Bless will strengthen their weapons and resolve. Other than that? I mean someone should probably have Detect Magic. Truthfully there isn’t much we need from first level spells.

LEVEL 7 - CLERIC 2

Second level Clerics get Channel Divinity options that use the same Channel Divinity charges that your Paladin Channel Divinity uses. Luckily these ones are a little more situational: Turn Undead lets you... turn undead. (Please just read the ability’s description as I’m sick of explaining it in every Cleric build I make.) Artisan's Blessing meanwhile lets you craft something from eternal iron... or whatever other metal you may have. The cost can’t exceed 100 gold, but you can arm your soldiers with weapons and armor... within reason.

You can also prepare another spell but we’re going to wait for...

LEVEL 8 - CLERIC 3

Third level Clerics can prepare second level spells. As a Forge Cleric you have Heat Metal innately prepared, as well as Magic Weapon. This is why I suggested you use your Blessings of the Forge on your armor, because Magic Weapon will let you improve Nightfall. And Heat Metal is surprisingly one of the best spells to counter you, so good thing you have it in your arsenal.

Speaking of arsenal: for the power to carry all that iron Enhance Ability will make you the perfect being for anything you may wish to do. Warding Bond is perhaps not as useful for you, but strengthening your allies strengthens you through relation.

LEVEL 9 - CLERIC 4

4th level means more Ability Score Improvements. Strength is tied to just about everything we do currently (and is notably needed if we want Platemail) so increase that by 2, making Nightfall all the deadlier.

You could also prepare another spell but there isn’t much to take from second level either, so it would be good to wait for third level spells. You do get another cantrip though and even the strongest warriors can use some otherworldly aid, so take Guidance for that aid.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 10 - CLERIC 5

5th level Clerics can Destroy Undead of CR 1/2 with their Turn Undead Channel Divinity. Perhaps it’s odd for a revenant to destroy undead, but I’d rule it as culling the weak.

But more importantly you can prepare third level spells! Forge Clerics get Elemental Weapon for an upgrade to Magic Weapon, and Protection from Energy for an Adaptive Helm. May you rest in peace in Season 11. We’ve yet to get our passive yet, so to make Darkness Rise take Spirit Guardians to damage foes near you. And you know what we don’t have a lot of as an undead revenant? Undead minions. Animate Dead will bring forth your legion, so they can’t bring you down easily.

LEVEL 11 - CLERIC 6

6th level Clerics can use their Channel Divinity twice per Short or Long Rest, which is nice because this also affects your Paladin Channel Divinities. Additionally Forge Clerics get the Soul of the Forge for resistance to Fire damage and EVEN. MORE. AC!

And you can prepare more spells! Want to keep your domain safe? Glyph of Warding will deter anyone trying to stop you before you can awaken again.

LEVEL 12 - CLERIC 7

Level 7 in Cleric? Level 4 in spells. Forge Clerics get Fabricate to craft tools of war. But more importantly you can stop people from interrupting your 1v1s with a Wall of Fire! People can still butt in, but being surrounded by flames definitely makes it harder!

Additionally you can grab Death Ward, to stop anything from taking you down... at first. You may crack iron, but you can never break it.

LEVEL 13 - CLERIC 8

Level 8 gives another Ability Score Improvement which means it’s finally time to max out your Strength! This is great because you now also have Divine Strike to make Nightfall do an additional d8 of Fire damage on hit!

And how about more spells? Banishment is like your ultimate but you can’t join them in the Death Realm. And without you there isn’t much death. It’s honestly fairly harmless. But at least if they don’t belong in this realm you can hopefully lock them away for good.

Oh and your Turn Undead now can Destroy Undead of CR 1 or lower. So mind your minions.

(Artwork by Teddy Tarnando.)

LEVEL 14 - CLERIC 9

Who likes 5th level spells? As a Forge Cleric you know Animate Objects to bring unholy life to iron, and Creation to create said iron. For a burst of darkness that does Radiant damage Flame Strike is a good tool to level any battlefield.

LEVEL 15 - CLERIC 10

10th level Clerics may be blessed with Divine Intervention. You may pray to the god of death (or I guess the god of the forge too) for assistance before rolling on a percentile die. If you roll a number equal to or lower than your Cleric level, the gods intervene. If you receive aid you can’t use this ability for 7 days. If you aren’t heard the ability comes back on a Long Rest.

You know what else comes back after a Long Rest? Spell slots. You know what doesn’t come back after a Long Rest (normally)? The dead. So grab Raise Dead to bring the dead after a notably Long Rest. You can also add another cantrip to your list, and for times when iron doesn’t stand eternal you may want some Mending.

LEVEL 16 - CLERIC 11

11th level Clerics can prepare 6th level spells. Blade Barrier is perhaps not the most practical spell but it’s metal as fuck in more ways than one, blocking your foes with whirling death. Say it with me now: iron stands eternal! You can also now Destroy Undead of CR 2.

LEVEL 17 - CLERIC 12

At level 12 you get another Ability Score Improvement or a Feat... hey wouldn’t it be funny if we literally completely ignored our spellcasting modifiers in favor of just hitting things harder with our mace? This perhaps would’ve been stronger to take earlier but we’re finally grabbing Great Weapon Master for the hardest, most deadly strikes with Nightfall’s Kiss.

And more spells prepared? Well it’s perhaps not the most practical more undead minions from Create Undead will serve you well.

(Artwork by Sunny Pandita, Concept Artist at Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - CLERIC 13

13th level presents you with 7th level spells and damn there are a lot of good ones, but I’m actually going to suggest Regenerate to keep you or any allies in the fight.

LEVEL 19 - CLERIC 14

Another level, another spell. Even though there’s some really great stuff at 7th level you don’t have many spell slots there, so I’d instead suggest going back to fountain to resupply. Word of Recall (a 6th level spell) can help in a pinch to escape from danger and retreat to regroup.

Your Turn Undead now can Destroy Undead of CR 3 or lower. But most importantly: your Divine Strike now increases to 2d8 fire damage! So if Nightfall is a regular maul it’s doing 2d6 bludgeoning and an additional 2d8 fire damage on your first hit!

LEVEL 20 - CLERIC 15

15th level gives you an 8th level spell! You’ll only have one of these so make sure it counts! Clerics don’t have that many 8th level spells to choose from but you may be surprised to hear that I’m suggesting Holy Aura. Why? It’s the ultimate spell to stand eternally, making your foes attacks bounce off you like nothing while the weapons of your legion strike hard and strong!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Flesh constrains; iron liberates - You know what’s fun? Having 20 AC with just (+1) Chainmail, and up to 22 AC with standard (+1) Plate! All I can say is that your DM will be thanking the gods that you didn’t decide to grab a shield.

Thus begins the slaughter - Ha ha Nightfall go bonk. If your sick of hearing people say that Martial classes don’t do a lot of damage show them a Martial character with Smites, Divine Strike, spells to boost their weapons, and Great Weapon Master to add a flat +10 to your damage! Not to mention that Guided Strike practically guarantees that you’ll land your blows, and you have two Channel Divinities per Short Rest!

I’m actually making a second paragraph for this: the most damage you can do in a turn (using two fourth level spell slots on Smites, a 7th level Elemental Weapon spell applied to your weapon, and assuming you use Great Weapon Master on both attacks) is... 4d6 + 36 Bludgeoning damage, 2d8 Fire damage, 6d4 Elemental Weapon damage (of your chosen damage type), and 10d8 Radiant Damage. This, on average, will do 130 damage! (Not accounting for Resistances.) To put this into perspective: Tiamat has 615 HP. A lot of resistances too yes, but not accounting for those resistances you in-theory are doing 20% of Tiamat’s health in one attack!

Power eternal - You may not have 9th level spells but you have 9th level slots, and tons of spells that will level the battlefield no matter how likely they are to hit. Buffing spells work regardless of your spellcasting modifier, and do so to great effect.

CONS

A fleeting delay of the inevitable - Hey you know what’s good to do as a spellcaster? Cast spells. Both your spellcasting modifiers are at the bare minimum required to multiclass. Perhaps see if you can build this character with Point Buy so you can dump every stat except for Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma. (Well Constitution is still good too.)

Such meaningless struggle - Dumping ability scores also means that your own saving throws are subpar, and unlike usual with Paladins you don’t have Aura of Protection to save you. Notably a -1 to DEX means you won’t be dodging any skillshots anytime soon.

Enter the crucible of anguish - You are a big, slow, bulky lad who needs to rely on a big smacc sticc to do just about everything. Anyone who can outrun you will quickly make you useless as you have to get closer to beat the shit out of people.

But you needn’t come to them: death shall befall them either way. They can stay away and hide from the inevitable, or approach and accept their fate. Nothing will break you, nothing will stop you. Twice slain, thrice reborn, you are Mordekaiser, and you stand eternal. Along with your kickass metal album.

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

#dnd #dnd 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Mordekaiser #Mordekaiser #dnd paladin #dnd cleric #iron #stands #eternal #Iron stands Eternal #heavy #metal #heavy metal

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lonely--shine · 3 years

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Oathbreaker: Thyia templates

Guess who's been obsessing over Oathbreaker by Rinmaru/ @larkylabs lately?

You're right, that would be me! This, combined with the fact that I really wanna get rid of my same face syndrome and worring lack of diversity, inspired my to draw Thyia's different templates all with different facial traits to practice ^^

Anyway, I mainly used humanphenotypes.net as reference to do this. It's a lovely site and I really should use it more. For the colours, I took them all directly from the original templates . Also, the background is inspired by the menu screen of Oathbreaker s1 (obviously, it was the only right way to do it).

So, yup. I don't know if I had anything more to say, tbh xD I really should make more fanart of this game because it's amaaaaziiing!! <3

Should I do this same thing with the templates for s2? I feel like I may do in the future... No promises tho xP

#artists on tumblr #oathbreaker #rinmarugames #larkylabs #thyia #art #digital art #artwork #illustration #study #fanart

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paperanddice · 4 years

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Spectral Guardian

Spectral guardians are another ghostly undead. They are stronger and more effective fighters than ghosts, with fewer special abilities to keep track of in general. One feature that works strangely for me is its Withering Miasma. The ability only takes effect if a creature starts its turn in the guardian’s space, which mixes with the movement mechanics a little weirdly. I guess that there’s an assumed part of its incorporeal movement allowing it to end a turn in another creature’s space, like what swarms and elementals have. Even with that though, I like the dynamic of the guardian sweeping through a creature’s space to deal damage, rather than having to stop its movement and just hover in place. As for whether the monster was necessary, I do like having a stat block distinct from the howling and possessing ghost for a tomb guardian and it’s a bit distinct from the wraith, so I’m sure someone will appreciate it.

The Oathbreakers from the Lord of the Rings could be represented by this monster, as they are bound to the world in punishment for cowardice or betrayal. That doesn’t line up perfectly with their Tomb Bound effect, which locks them into one place while the Oathbreakers traveled far to fulfil their promise.

Curses can be laid by the cruel and unjust just as much as the good, as evidenced by the fate of a valorous knight. Sworn into service to a deceptive lord, he refused to follow orders to slaughter dissenting peasantry and was put to death for treason and oathbreaking. His soul was dragged back by the oath, bound into service to the lord once more and now the spectral guardian has become the lord’s executioner, charged to serve until every peasant that escaped the lord’s wrath thanks to his betrayal is properly slain.

An ancient path through the mountains is haunted by dozens of spectral guardians. They hunt down anyone who tries to follow the trail, leaving their bodies as a warning to future intruders. The guardians are bound by an ancient curse for their cowardice, when they fled an oncoming force of giants rather than defend the pass, and allowed the giants to lay waste to the towns they were supposed to guard. Now their souls are trapped here, bound to fix their last error. Until giants attack again for them to fight against, they cannot pass on.

A young sorcerer pledged to try and seal a ragged tear to the elemental plane of fire. Her attempted ritual goes haywire however, and results in her death along with many others. As the planar overlap rips wider her soul is dragged back as a guardian, trying to hold off the elementals starting to pour through in a last effort to fulfil the promise she made.

#D&D #DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #5th edition #D&D5e #Tome of Beasts #Kobold Press

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thetigershymn · 4 years

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The Way Things Are Gonna Be From Now On (And Why I’m Back And Shit)

Part One: Why I’m Back And Shit

(a repost)

When I was a young child, someone made the mistake of letting me find out about Greek mythology and honestly I think we can all agree that’s about the time shit got real messy real fast.

When I was a teenager, more people made the mistake of letting me find out that it was not, in fact, impossible to worship the Greek gods, as I had been informed, that it was, in fact, something people still did, and that it was, in fact, permitted in polite society. This was also some messy fucking shit.

When I was a young adult, nobody mistakenly let me decide to stop fucking around permitting other people to dictate what the gods were to me and what I was to them. That one was on me. It was hot fucking mess levels of shit.

And so there I was, careening blissfully and explosively through life with my secondhand candles and dumb shitty Greek pronunciations, living my life like a burnt out alcoholic who just discovered a bigger, stronger fix and is All About It, and then came the Light. And He was fixed, and rooted, and eternal, and certain, and the greatest absolute. And suddenly He was the only thing that mattered. The only thing at all. I knew nothing except that He would never leave me. And so I broke all the rules, and leapt.

Now, that was not a mistake. A hot mess? Of course. The most absolute bull fucking shit on multiple levels? Certainly. But of all other things in my life, this one thing, a mistake? Never. Never.

And for a while, I was anchored, I had my island in the storm. I built my home there, shaped my life around it, embraced it as the source of all good things. But I got cocky. I spent so long on my happy protected island that I forgot the sea was stormy. I took my island for granted.

This is not the sort of story where the rug gets pulled out from under me and I lose everything and realize a valuable life lesson about appreciating what I have before it’s gone. I’ve lost nothing. My island is still there, better than ever, as eternal and as absolutely certain in His ways as ever. I just got lost for a while. To violently beat this dead extended metaphor into the ground, I let the island grow wild. The grass huts got moldy, the coconuts went unharvested, the hibiscus did that thing where you stop cutting them back and they turn into weird lanky trees instead of bushes. And the island never stopped doing its island thing. It never stopped sharing its bounty, protecting me from a storm I had long since forgotten was there, letting me live the good life.

Y’all know the island in the storm is Ares, right? We’re all on the same page here? Right. Cool. I thought so. Anyway, moving on.

Time proceeds. Life is good. Life is GREAT, actually. Problems I had dealt with for years evaporated for good, opportunities opened up so fast I was turning them down because sorry, I’ve already accepted this other opportunity over here first, thanks anyway, fucking Character Growth occured, shit was wild. I was doing things, AM doing things that three years ago experts in those things told me were impossible for me, and would always be impossible for me. And I was BUSY, yo. Living that good life, counting that coin, pursuing those all those opportunities.

And I changed. Repeatedly and aggressively, over and over and over and over. I reached so many levels away from that person who was nothing but scar tissue and loss, looking for a parent and a savior and a great love and a new project and an easy out all wrapped into one, that I didn’t even recognize who that person was anymore. I didn’t feel that desperate keening hunger for someone else, Someone Else, to sweep in and take away all that pain, all that fear and confusion and blind wandering, because I didn’t feel those things anymore. They weren’t part of my life, and hadn’t been for so long that I didn’t really remember that they ever were. The little fucked up shitbird had turned into a beautiful shitswan and flown the coop or whatever. The…swan coop. Look, roll with it.

And was I oblivious to that? Of course not. But “oh man once we clean up this mess and I stop being in danger of self-immolation literally every second of my existence, boy, Him and me, we’re gonna do some great things” slowly shifted into “I’ve gotta get some money in my pocket for, like, basic survival, and I’ve got so much new scary shit to deal with and juggle right now, He understands, otherwise He never would have sent me all this shit to juggle.” And eventually of course that turned into “What matters right now is getting out of basic survival mode and getting to a place where I’m planning a future and building a life, it sucks that He’s taking a back burner but He’d want me to be practical about this” which evolved into “shit, fuck, like, yeah man, I should like, DEFINITELY probably do something about Him, but like……………idk dude, I know I said I was focusing on getting my practical shit straight for a while and then I’d sort it out, and things ARE pretty straight right now, but like, I COULD get my shit EVEN STRAIGHTER so…..”

And so here we sit. The high-functioning success story for divine intervention who definitely, DEFINITELY hasn’t done jack shit to warrant it in like…….six years, easy. An oathbreaker? No, not really, but only through dumb blind luck. An oath-forgetter, sure, yeah. Literally, I can’t remember like 60% of what my oath said or what day I swore it on. Oops, my bad.

And yet. And yet and yet and yet. The island stands eternal. The ship’s still anchored in the storm. More tropical metaphors. The Big Guy watches, and waits, and soothes, and helps. The deity-only Get Out of Jail Free card in our oath remains unused. I remain the Unpunished and Affectionately Tolerated. Why is that? What do I offer? Are standards so low? Is the Ares Fan Club so empty? He could leave. He’s not stuck in this. I built that in. He’s always been free to leave, free to change His mind, free to nullify everything in a heartbeat.

To this day, when I mention that part of the oath, a wave of outrage and repulsion at the thought rolls across me from the outside. Nice to know some things remain constant, I guess.

So….what is this? My apology, I guess. Not to you people, fuck y’all, you’re just witnesses. My apology to Him. He deserves better. He’s always deserved better, throughout all of time and history He’s deserved better, but now, in this, yes, He deserves better. And the truth that I knew instinctively in my core all those years ago is the same truth I know instinctively today: that I could spend the rest of my life trying to fill my debt to Him and it would never, ever be filled. I’m not sure why He doesn’t seem to understand that imbalance, or why He doesn’t care. Why He doesn’t seem to consider that debt to even exist. Over six years I’ve spent waiting for the plot to start, waiting for the debt to get called in, waiting to find out what the fucking POINT is, what’s so fucking necessary about me, why I’m being kept around, what the Great Work is. Over six years I’ve gotten back shhh, this is enough, this is fine, stop looking for meaning when you are enough as you are.

He deserves better. You deserve better, Ares. Maybe not better than me, since that’s such a loathsome idea apparently. But better than I have been. You deserve better. And since You refuse to trade me in for a flashier model, I guess that means I’ll just have to be the better that You deserve.

So what’s that got to do with fuckin’ Tumblr? Oh, nothing whatsoever. Yeah, nah, I’m fucking with y’all, I just need someplace to dump some thoughts and store some notes as I spend the next year getting my fucking priorities straight.

It’s time to grow the fuck up.

#pagan #pagan*#Hellenic polytheism #ares #ares*#the big guy #paganblr

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roerloos · 5 years

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Answer these 21 questions and tag people you want to get to know better.

Was tagged by @lacevingflies , thanks for the tagggg (and sorry for the late answer haha)!

1. Nickname: Gert

2. Zodiac sign: Scorpio

3. Height: 1m83

4. Last thing searched: my timetable for my lessons next week

5. Favourite musicians: the bands amenra, oathbreaker, wiegedood

6. Song stuck in your head: wiegedood - de doden hebben het goed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXguRkXHAhA

7. If you had a time machine, would you go back in time or visit the future? I would like to go back in time to see how life was back then

8. Do you get asks? now and then, but not a lot haha

9. Following: i follow like 2300 blogs (but i guess most of them are inactive now, i’ve been here for a while haha)

10. Would you rather be rich or famous? richhhh

11. Amount of sleep? 7-8 hours

12. Lucky numbers? 6, 11

13. What are you wearing? a sport short (because it’s so comfy) and a t-shirt

14. Dream job? I graduated as a physiotherapist last June... but idk, i really like plants and coffeeshops and bookstores, so maybe like having a coffeeshop/bookstore/b&b-kind of thing hahahah

15. Dream trip? Iceland! also Sweden, Norway

16. If I were an animal I’d be: a panda

17. Favourite food? pastaaaaaaaaaaa

18. Favourite books/films/shows/games? I really liked the Harry Potter books! and my favourite shows are how i met your mother, the big bang theory, the office, ....

19. Do you play any instruments? I can play the basics on a guitar haha

20. Languages? Flemish/Dutch, English, a bit of French and a little bit of German

21. Describe yourself as aesthetic things: nature,plants, gardens, art, statues, paintings, books, tattoos I tag @c-capturethesun, @neverignoreabutterfly, @tunnelvisi0n and everyone who wants to do this!

#personal #me

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toaquiprashippar · 6 years

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To those who say Jonerys will never happen in the books, just a quick reminder Dany has been dreaming of him, even if she has not seen his face yet...

Lying abed in her narrow bunk, she found herself wondering how it would be to have a man squeezed in beside her in place of her handmaid, and the thought was more exciting than it should have been. Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow. Daenerys, ACOK

He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life –however long that might be– he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name

Jon, AGOT

The flames crackled softly, and in their crackling she heard the whispered name Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain.

Melisandre, ADWD

Jon’s face and presence is often referred to as being in the shadows, he’s always been the outsider, watching the Stark children play and even if he did play himself sometimes, he tried his best to avoid irritate Lady Stark, so he kept it to himself, as the bastard he was pained to be.

Melisandre’s visions of him, from R’hllor himself is described as Jon’s shadow hidden...It’s not SO subtle how he’s always referred to be hidden there.

A quick reminded that when he died, she listened to Ghost’s cries...from across THE NARROW SEA...

“Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold … “

Jon, ADWD

“Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep.“

Daenerys, ADWD

These chapters happen at the same time, how can Daenerys Targaryen, in Meeren, listen to Jon’s murder at the Wall, North of Westeros, if not for the bond they have...without ever meeting. Call it soulmates, fate, whatever you want. Martin does not use words he does not think necessary nor he adds information that the story does not need. If you ever read one his books, you’ll know he’s sharp and everything means something, even the puzzles and riddles thrown our way. Daenerys heard his soul, Ghost’s cries (perhaps his own, warg ones), and she felt sad over it, not even knowing why.

A reminder that when Dany was at the House of the Undying, she only saw important, relevant things. Not only to herself, but to the realm: the rape of Westeros, The Red Wedding, the madness of Aerys Targaryen demanding to burn Kings Landing, Rhaegar and Elia talking of Aegon and his promised song, the fake dragon (Faegon, am I right?), Hardhome, what her son’s future would have been like, White Walkers, Rhaegar’s murmuring a woman’s name right before he died (we all assume is Lyanna’s, I guess we’ll find out eventually), and there are others, but to me it means a lot that one of these visions is:

a blue flower growing from a chink in a wall of ice, filling the air with sweetness.

Daenerys, ACOK

Oh, she also sees the red door of the house she loved and she remembers growing up, and she believed it was in Braavos. She only had important sights for the realm and herself, yet she sees a blue flower growing at the wall (if you don’t think this means Jon Snow growing at the Wall, we can’t be friends and you can’t even read this, bye! JK haha...but come on, Lyanna is said to have loved winter roses, which are blue...the same ones that composed the crown Rhaegar Targaryen crowned her with, as The Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney of Harrenhal. Jon lives, works, serves at the Wall, it doesn’t get any more obvious than this, y’all...only if Martin wrote she saw a ‘hot northmen with gorgeous hair at Castle Black, really...”).

(whoever did this second gif, thank you so very much, this is beautiful <3)

So not only does this shows how important Jon is to the realm (remember how her visions are all important, not only to her but also to Westeros? *inserts my theory of them both being AA* But he’s also important to her, the flower is not just THERE, it also fills the air with sweetness, it pleases her. Do I need to say more?

This one is very meaningful if not very telling, to me. They both feel alone, like something is missing. One can even say “they feel alone cause they are alone”, but they were not. It almost feels like there is someone out there, a better match.

Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bedclothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone.

Daenerys, ADWD

Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black, or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone.

Jon, ASOS

their story is a never ending parallel.

Not to disrespect Ygritte, cause I think she was necessary to Jon’s growth. She was a great character and I do believe Jon loved her, at some point. But just like Daenerys, this love was not a choice, it was almost like a survival choice, they made the best out of a bad situation.

He had to be with Ygritte, or Mance would have killed him, he would not believe Jon had really deserted the Night’s Watch. Ygritte wasn’t Jon’s act of rebellion, like I once read at a meta, no, she was, at first, his sacrifice/way to fill his mission. But somewhere along the way, he fell in love with her, she was strong, funny, and she awoke the sexuality in him. Again, he had to be with her, to prove himself, but it also wasn’t like he didn’t like it.

Daenerys loved Khal Drogo? Yeah, but it was as forced as was Jon and Ygritte. One can say it was even worse for she did not go willing, she was pushed into it, sold like a slave, to get her brother an army (we do have to thank karma cause his army never came, boo-ya, sucker!). She was given to a stranger, a savage (comparing to her culture; it’s funny even to see the parallel here, both had to be with people that are considered savages, wildlings where they come from) in return of an army, and she made the best of her situation, she learnt his language, his manners, bore his child (even if the baby never came to live), she fell in love with him cause for the first time in a very long time (or forever?), she was treated with care and love (the way Drogo knew how to love) by the man in her life.

A sweet reminder of how Daenerys thinks of her family and how she would have married Rhaegar’s son, had he lived. Rhaegar’s son, who’s Jon’s daddy again?

Plus, we’ve seen on the show that Jon was named Aegon Targaryen too, we do not know if he will have the same name on the books but I honestly do not think they would change something so important.

So, just another beautiful “easter egg” to ya:

Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him. “

Daenerys, ADWD

Who says you still won’t, sweetie? Hold on, Melisandre will bring him back or he was warging Ghost, let’s just wait a bit longer, okay?

Their journey is a never ending parallel, and their path is clearly to each other.

I don’t think the history is called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ without a cause, Jon may be blood of the dragon, but he’s also a Stark, and Daenerys is a Targaryen through and through...

*the lord of light aka george r.r. martin speaks through melisandre*

I’m back to reading the books and even if I’m still at AGOT, I just felt like making this, had a really bad day and making this made it a little better.

What are your thoughts? <3

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sheikah · 7 years

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There are non stop metas in Jon's tag about why J*nsa is endgame. Could you please explain why Jonerys is actually endgame? Just something to counter this irritating stream of J*nsa

Hi anon! I don’t think that people writing meta for their ship is irritating. But I do think Jonerys is endgame. My answer is under the cut because it is absolutely enormous. This took a lot of time but I hope it offers you some reassurance.

First I am going to address book foreshadowing. A lot of this is going to be rehashing some of the points brilliantly made by my good friend @oadara who has spent a lot of time and effort discussing this.

It’s no secret to most people in our fandom that Jon and Dany have been heavily foreshadowed in both book and show canon.

I think the most famous instance of this is Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying in ACOK. The three visions below are widely accepted to be references to her three husbands (remember she marries Hizdahr in book!canon). The image in bold refers specifically to Jon. His mother Lyanna liked blue roses and was given a crown of them at a tourney by Jon’s father, Rhaegar. Ned reflects on this in AGOT:

Promise me, Ned, his sister had whispered from her bed of blood. She had loved the scent of winter roses.

Jon spent the most pivotal years of his life so far at The Wall. He is the blue rose in the wall of ice that Dany sees in HOTU:

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness… mother of dragons, bride of fire …

What I think is also important about this quote is that the flower fills the air with “sweetness” which makes it sound like a positive image. He and Dany will not just be together like she was with Drogo or Hizdahr, but they will be in love.

To further connect this quote to Jon we can look at the passage from ADWD when Jon is with Val:

The light of the half-moon turned Val’s honey-blond hair a pale silver and left her cheeks as white as snow. She took a deep breath. “The air tastes sweet.” / “My tongue is too numb to tell. All I can taste is cold.“

Her smelling the sweet air is a callback to Dany’s vision, and Val is connected to Dany in this moment by looking like her with “pale silver” hair. Additionally, the moonlight could be a contributing factor since it is what colors her hair like Dany’s and Dany was Drogo’s “moon of my life.”

Jon’s response to Val above about only being able to taste the cold reminds me of his death scene in ADWD:

Jon fell to his knees. He found the dagger’s hilt and wrenched it free. In the cold night air the wound was smoking. “Ghost,” he whispered. Pain washed over him. Stick them with the pointy end. When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold …

Also in ADWD, Dany hears a howling wolf that tells me that some sort of bond between them allows her to be aware of Jon’s death even though they don’t know one another. She hears this mournfully howling wolf, which we can associate with bad things happening to the Starks since the direwolves howled after Bran’s fall and we heard Ghost howling at castle black in season 6 after Jon died.

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep.

So this passage could mean that Dany sort of felt Jon’s death in a way. It reminds me of people sensing each other in Star Wars haha. But I definitely think it’s further foreshadowing of a momentous relationship between them.

Jon’s and Dany’s loneliness is also something that foreshadows the love and companionship that will only come when they find each other.

Dany in ADWD:

Jon in ASOS:

Other book foreshadowing placing theme together can be found earlier in ACOK, when Dany is thinking of a lover whilst alone in her bed:

This vision is probably referring to Jon, as it is too early for her to have met Daario, and we know that relationship ends. Additionally, we get this quote from Jon in AGOT:

Tyrion Lannister had claimed that most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it, but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life –however long that might be– he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name

This is significant not only because Jon is likely the shadowy man from Dany’s dreams but because Jon is ashamed of his true name, but shouldn’t be, as we know that he is not a bastard but a Targaryen, and a legitimate one at that. Since we know this, it makes Jon’s marriage to Dany even more likely. Consider this quote from Dany in ADWD:

Five Aegons had ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

There would have been a sixth, but the Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the breast. If he had lived, I might have married him.

Here, Dany considers that she would likely have been betrothed to Rhaegar’s son, who was named Aegon. Well guess what, anon? According to Lads leaks which have so far been true, we’re going to learn in episode 7 that Jon, Rhaegar’s legitimate son, was actually officially named AEGON.

I mention all of this because These are all fairly undeniable book foreshadowings that I don’t think GRRM would have bothered including unless it was for a reason, and that reason is to build up to a Jonerys romance and alliance. If it is this important, if their journeys for five books and thousands of pages are toward one another, why would that happen only for them to break up and be with someone else very briefly just in time for “end game?”

But the books aren’t all we have to go by. I think we have plenty of good evidence in the show now as well.

First, the visual parallels in the show are well-known, and again these are things that connect Jon and Dany together even when they’re across the world from one another.

credit: @sweetorganza

credit: @jondaenerysdaily

This sort of thing is done intentionally. It lingers in the audience’s mind. It reminds us that they are on parallel journeys, have faced the same types of struggles, and want the same thing for the realm.

We can also see this in parallels of their actions and values in the show.

Both of them are leaders of their people–unwanted or downtrodden people (slaves, wildings). Both of them tragically lost their first loves.

credit: @sweetorganza

Just from this season, we have several interesting parallels to look at.

In episode 1, Jon insists that he won’t punish a child for the sins of of his/her father. In episode 3, Dany asks Jon not to judge her for the sins of her own father, the Mad King, as I pointed out in this gifset (the way I arranged the dialogue in this gifset would make it inconvenient to load them into a text post so I linked).

Also in episode 1, Jon asks for the allegiance of Ned Umber and Alys Karstark in the same way that Dany asked it of the Dothraki a few episodes prior:

credit: @annabelleebythesea

They are both successfully earning the love and admiration of the people.

In episode 2, Varys told Dany that she is the best hope for the people. Littlefinger told Jon that he is the best hope. It’s because they both are.

Also in episode 2, Dany said Jon sounded like “quite a man,” the same thing Sam said about Dany when discussing her with maester Aemon, right before Jon walked in conveniently as Aemon said Dany is a lone Targaryen.

credit: @annabelleebythesea

In episode 4, Dany impressed Jon by repeating the speech he gave to Mance Rayder in season 5 when he implored him to kneel for Stannis to save the wildlings.

credit: @stevedoritoss

And this is just from these first 4 episodes of season 7. If you look here, here, and here you can see even more parallels in their lives and styles of ruling and leadership from throughout the series. And I’m sure there are more.

All of these set them up as compatible co-rulers who despite their early disagreements in 7.03 share a lot in common and will be compatible together. In this ask I talk a lot about why i think they will work well together and have a healthy relationship.

Furthermore, I strongly believe that they are going to get married. Last season Dany herself said the best way to make alliances is with marriage. In 7.04 Jon says that he can’t swear to her because his people won’t accept a Southron ruler. Dany’s reply is important: “They will if their king does.” If Jon accepts her and loves her and they unite in marriage, then the people of the North will be more open to Dany.

Additionally, we know a few important things from the plot leaks concerning the future of their relationship. In 7.06 Dany will save Jon and his men near Eastwatch. She believes Jon to be dead but he returns and they have a bonding moment on the voyage back to Dragonstone. Jon offers to kneel to Dany if only he wasn’t so injured. Instead of accepting his kneel/the submission of his title as KitN, Dany says, “But what about your peolple?” Already, she is concerned about his people and about their perception of him. This looks forward to them ruling together and both of them caring for the citizens of both the North and South.

Finally, Jon and Dany are going to have sex in 7.07. I personally believe this is going to be a way to tell the audience, among other things, that they’re having sex so that the writers can set up a pregnancy plot.

We also know that apparently Jon and Dany will discuss her infertility and then Dany will tell Tyrion she discussed it with Jon. So it is mentioned twice. This reminds me of how Jon was discussing being a bastard with Missandei in 7.04, explaining that his parents were not married when in fact we know that in 7.07 Rhaegar and Lyanna will get married in a flashback. So the writers set us up to be shocked. They are setting us up to be shocked when Dany gets pregnant.

As I discussed in this meta, I don’t believe Dany is truly infertile. In addition to the points I made there, I want to point out something an anon mentioned to me. While at the Citadel we saw Sam flipping through a book that featured the sort of globe thing we see in the opening credits and we saw hanging in the library when Sam first arrived. The pages he flipped through featured this and also had the planets and possibly deal with planetary alignment/etc.

Additionally, when Bran has the vision being discussed in this reddit thread, a commenter pointed out something interesting:

As the screenshots of the tree progress from the start to end in Bran’s vision the sun is rising and setting from west to east. I’m reminded of Mirri Maz Duur’s prophecy about Daenerys “when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east…” I’m not sure what it could mean but the scene being shot that way has to be relevant somehow.

So it’s possible that the trauma of The Wall falling in 7.07, which happens apparently right during or immediately after Jon and Dany have sex, is powerful enough to throw the planet out of joint in some way. After all, we know The Wall has magical properties. All of this together points to Dany getting pregnant with Jon’s child.

So far I’ve tried to establish that Dany and Jon have been heavily foreshadowed, that they are similar and thus compatible, and that they will probably get married and have a child. The last thing I want to mention is that they are ice and fire of the Song of Ice and Fire.

They are the important couple. They are the two opposing parts that will come to together and unite not just kingdoms but continents under their banner. They are the two people who will bring humanity out of the Long Night and launch the next “dynasty that could last a thousand years” that Cersei mentions in episode 1. Their sex scene is going to be cut with Rhaegar and Lyanna, whose love tore the realm apart. By contrast, Dany’s and Jon’s love will put the realm back together again.

We can confirm the importance of their union now. It has always seemed obvious that the woman who is fire made flesh and the man from the North whose last name is Snow are ice and fire but now we know it. Melisandre said it to Varys in 7.03 and never told Jon or Dany that either is TPTWP because they are both chosen. Only together, a word Jon constantly used and emphasized with Dany in 7.04, can they save the world; so they WILL be together.

Lastly, just from a simple storytelling perspective, if we know they are going to be together at all (which we do now, because the leaks have been confirmed by 4/7 episodes so far. We can trust Lads) then we can trust that they are going to only be together. Season 7 is short. Season 8 is shorter. We should think of them as one long, final season that is merely broken in half like shows like TWD do.

If Jon and Dany have 5 episodes of buildup this season, there is no time for them to break up in a believable way and move on to another romantic partner in the only 6 episodes remaining next season. Before anyone brings it up, no. I do not think that the revelation of Jon’s Targaryen heritage means they will fight or break up. I discussed in this ask what I think will happen IF they learn the truth, and I am not even convinced they will.

In any case, with the war with the WW and the war with Cersei going on, there would not be time for Jon or Dany to break up and find another person to be with. They are going to constantly be in each other’s proximity during this time, and it wouldn’t make sense for them to break up and have time to get together with anyone else. It just doesn’t seem possible.

And I don’t think it’s in either of their character to move on to another romance quickly in the last season anyway.

Jon Snow is a man of character and conviction. He’s loyal. He was loyal to Ygritte even after her death and he will be loyal to Dany because he will love her. And he especially wouldn’t desert Dany if/when she is pregnant. He will want to be around in the life of his child. Even if Dany dies, which I know the antis are praying for, I don’t think Jon will just hop in bed with someone else immediately. Certainly not his sister. What reason would there be? To produce an heir? That argument stops making sense when you consider that like I said, Jon and Dany are almost certainly having a child, so that child will be the heir they need to carry on the Targaryen name and their legacy of peace and egalitarian rule.

And of course, if Dany does get pregnant, that means she at the very least has to live long enough to carry that baby to term and have it. Because we know that Cersei has a miscarriage plot. I think this will be our only miscarriage plot. Because while Cersei represents doom and destruction for the realm, Dany represents life and rebirth. So if she does die, I don’t see it happening until the very end anyway.

Last season Tyrion told Dany that Daario wasn’t the first to love her and he wouldn’t be the last. Because Jon will. :) So Jonerys will be endgame. One or both might die. But in terms of couples and romance, I believe that Jon and Dany are each other’s last love.

#jonerys #jon x dany #jonerys meta #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #got #got spoilers #myjd #answered

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vardasvapors · 7 years

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@berrysphase replied to your post: berrysphase replied to your post: ...

So, perhaps oddly, I agree with your statement about the wholesale stuff as concerns the greater legendarium, but not LOTR? In LOTR, considered within its own boundaries, I come away with the deeply uncomfortable sense that the restoration of Gondor’s kingship, the mystic strength in the true line of Elendil, the high and fading virtues of Numenor (transmitted in the germline), are all unquestioned good.

but in the greater legendarium all these things are complicated and much more nuanced, especially the colonialism issue re Numenor.

eventually there are topics I just can’t think too hard about (especially in-world Valar-related morality questions and the infernal question of Numenor and how far its colonialism is ‘justified’) or it all falls apart and I have to go lie down – I mean, there’s a lot of quicksand

I guess what I am saying is *hands* it would be very illuminating and interesting to hear about one of your lines! because to me they are either not clear, or only clear if I carefully avoid looking at them

OH YEAH THAT IS A REALLY GOOD EXAMPLE. I think that would definitely qualify as a line -- in my opinion, LOTR is undermined as a story if Aragorn’s reign is Actually A Bad Thing, because the alternative-subplot that springs into existence under that reading is....uh....I guess “boring pointlessness tacked onto to a story that’s actually about Frodo etc” is a good way of putting it. But otoh the, like, Actual Lines of Dialogue The Characters Say in support of said Aragorn subplot are also.....what’s a better way of saying ‘irredeemably racist’? So it’s not like just “ignore it! it’s fantasy!” or some shit, but it IS one of those things that for me (though other people might feel totally differently) is much more satisfying to reconcile, rather than wholesale resist or overturn.

Anyway this might be making a mountain out of a molehill-sized solution, but I’m too tired to edit myself down in length so:

(uh.....before the cut....heads up i wrote this at top speed without testing for argumentative rigorousness/accuracy so.....fair warning)

Actually I think this is a much more easily fanwankable problem than some? Mostly because, imo, Aragorn’s character arc and the moral worth of his arc already HAS two alternative justifications right in canon! One is prophetic, and essentially is a 90%-blind prediction of the sequence of events that makes up the plot of LOTR. “either you will become greater than any of your ancestors since Elendil or fall into darkness with all your kin,” says Ivorwen and Elrond and Gandalf. The other is the whole Heir of Isildur renewal of the ~pure bloodline of kings bullshit, which doesn’t lend a single whit to the legitimacy of Aragorn as a person or to the readers opinion of him -- but it matters a lot to the in-universe Dunedain characters of Arnor and Gondor, including Aragorn himself. It’s the whole justification for them ushering him through the loophole and onto the throne. So I’d say, if you want to read Aragorn’s reign and arc as worthwhile - which I do too, because otherwise that subplot of LOTR is a vastly inferior and duller story at best, if not a complete and utter waste of time at worst - one could always go for the idea that the reason it has worth doesn’t need to be the same reason - the True Numenorean King stuff - that the characters of LOTR think it has worth.

Like, the first step is, LOTR’s timespan is so short. REALLY short. Substantively, one could just..pick another 6 month timespan in the legendarium, any 6 month timespan that overlaps a major political shift. or a 120 year timespan too, if you’re thinking Aragorn’s whole reign, in the Silmarillion. in the Akallabeth. in the unfinished tales. LOTR is a blip, time-wise -- it’s a personal story that intersects with the Silm-tier stuff for a brief, if pivotal, skip of time, and incorporates the brief, hindsight-less impressions of the people alive at that moment of time right into the reader’s POV, in a way that the Silm doesn’t do.

So when taking into account how limited the timeline and POV of LOTR characters are, comparatively speaking, I think of Aragorn’s crowning and the restoration of the line as not “inherently good,” but good because it happened to be the right thing at that one period of time.

I definitely think that...even the text, not just my headcanon, very strongly implies that the reason Aragorn’s king bid turned out successfully is because he lived most of his adult life with that prophecy over his head, and therefore practiced all his life to become an actually genuinely good king -- the whole bloodline/heirship stuff is just kind of...justification, in terms of personal/family/numenorean honor, and political plausible deniability -- Aragorn’s sincerely-felt path and reasoning to get there that isn’t just “either you’ll become king or everyone is doomed, because the future says so!” + “here’s a legal loophole to become king!”

And, I think, the in-universe reason the people of Gondor supported Aragorn becoming king is partly because coincidentally Denethor and Boromir were dead and Faramir didn’t reject him; partly because he had the bloodline loophole excuse; and partly (mostly) because everyone was so impressed with how he helped save the world.

But the reason Aragorn managed to wind up in a position to help save the world, and make the right choices to help save the world, is mostly that he was the type of brave and selfless and sincere person who would sacrifice his dream in order to rescue Merry and Pippin, or sacrifice his life to get Sauron to attack him and disregard Frodo and Sam. The sort of person who understands how much worth his people have, who knows what is deckchair-rearranging and what is a beam of true hope be it ever so slender, who accepts the sheer smallness and simplicity of what he needs to do for the greater good, and who respects and can influence his people enough to insist that they accept and understand all of this as well. Which are, like, actually good qualities in a king!

And the whole reason he became such a good person is....because he strove to be so, and because the people around him believed in him and helped him become so, and because of his and their own personal desire to restore the kingship and glory of his people. Uh. sorry. I already just said that.

It’s a circular thing. The myopic tribal hereditary reasons the characters/narrative assigns bloodline-related worth and authority to Aragorn have jack shit to do with the actual reasons he has real moral worth and earned authority, but his own priorities and desires that led to him developing that worth and authority are myopic and tribal and hereditary too.

So I think this specifically isn’t a case of “either Aragorn’s kingship is good because it is a restoration of the line of Elendil, or it isn’t good because the restoration of the line of Elendil is a morally vacuous cause.” It’s a case of causal connections that are really important but are far more circumstantial than the characters (or the narrative) acknowledges -- people interpret the restoration of the kingship as something Racially And Normatively Appropriate and Special And Right, which...is a) lmao plz, but also b) the Numenoreans and the line of Isildur specifically DO have evidence-based racially-based advantages. It’s just that those advantages don’t confer any inherent worth of any kind --- Aragorn’s bloodline just happened, in this case, to be SUPER USEFUL, because it’s ancient fairy-tale magic that lets him do SUPER USEFUL things in the context of weaponizing Middle Earth’s lingering scraps of fairy tale magic against Middle Earth’s lingering scrap of fairy tale horror. It lets him troll Sauron with a palantir that he could properly use -- due the fact that the Palantir DOES operate on ridiculous ancient morally vacuous bloodline-magic. Or lets him make the oathbreaker ghosts help him out with the corsairs, because the oathbreaker ghosts too, are ancient lingering equally morally vacuous Soulbinding Promise Magic. The whole concept of the Restoration of the Line of Elendil IS, of course, a morally vacuous cause on its own, as anything other than an in-universe stamp of political legitimacy -- but it appears to also have been an essential in-universe motivation and tool for getting the characters into the places they needed to be, in order for the intricately-woven web of events that make up LOTR to come out in the wash the way it did.

For the in-universe characters, saying that there’s something Inherently Good about the renewal of the line of kings and stuff is actually just....it’s only important to them. It’s this stopgap period, post-Ring-Destruction: re-righting the boat and kind of having this adjustment period of fairy-tale magic to kind of ease people from the pre-ring destruction world where there are dark lords and elves, to the post-ring-destruction world. Everyone in-universe goes “rah rah this isn’t just good because circumstances lined up in such a way so that it was good, as prophesied, it’s Totally Also Inherently Good independent of circumstances.” And it isn’t. At all. But it makes sense why they think that, and want to think that, and why the real explanation would not be sufficient for them. The idea that Aragorn’s one and only world-saving action was distracting Sauron from his destroyers, and that the only reason Sauron was destroyed was because of three hobbits and a mixed handful of coincidence and grace swirling together in an Augustinian whirlpool, is not a super crowdpleasing national myth.

And then, the period after he becomes king DOES imo involve like, a bunch of colonial-reminiscent shit that kind of plays into the people’s expectations and view of themselves -- the racial superiority and suggestions of imperialism-flavored actions regarding all the vague mentions throughout the early 4th age timeline of quelling rebellions in various corners of the world (though imo these are not as conclusive or devoid of wiggle-room as some people interpret them). And I REALLY DISLIKE THIS PART because I’m perennially like...yo, what a massive wasted opportunity there Tolkien...because the irony of Aragorn the hereditary king in exile being restored in such a roundabout way that has so little to do with his heirship is a plotline that would be SO MUCH BETTER to acknowledge and focus on than the bald OMG Heir Of Isildur The True King With Pure Ancestry Has Come!!! thing that happens in canon with only a tiny bit of wink-winking about how much dumb luck it actually was. It would have made a really wonderful story!

In fact, I occasionally do wonder -- from the Appendices and the Prologue of LOTR, the supposed “real” “historical” book which the in-universe character of “JRR Tolkien: Not An Author, Only A Translator” translated, is purported to be a copy of a copy of the Red Book of Westmarch that was edited and translated by the scribe Findegil of Gondor, as copied from Pippin’s copy, of Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam’s copy. And one can imagine it’s not too big a stretch that Frodo and Sam might have been more on-the-money regarding Aragorn and the whole kingship restoration plotline in their original story, but Findegil obscured their insights a bit -- even just from good-faith well-intended biased interpretation due to his understanding of Gondor’s renewal histories.

But still....even with all the undertones and overtones of the restoration of old colonial stuff -- does that mean restoration of old colonial shit in perpetuity? I don’t think THAT’S a necessary extrapolation. For one, imo there’s no testament of proportionality. Elements of recurrences of old colonial shit seem to have been present! -- but for how long, how impactful or destructive, compared to how much tables-turning revolutionary awesome genuine improvement stuff, given everything Sauron had been doing? I mean could be shittier than anything like is often is IRL, but this is as outsode of RL as you get. So. A drop amid a flood? Could be. Who knows? Not much is specified, but not much is precluded either. You can fill in that 120 year gap with almost anything. If someone wanted to fill it with some fantasy of a historical-fiction Realpolitik aesthetic, instead of actually making up something new from the unlimited amount of creative potential conferred by an ahistorical post-dark-lord fantasy setting, that’s legit, but it’s still just conjecture.

Going back up 5 paragraphs to when I thought this was going to be a short answer (LOL) -- 120 years is both very long AND very short -- i.e., 120 years is a nose-to-the-ground view vis-a-vis Silmarillion times, but otoh vis-a-vis RL timelines, there’s just so much TIME and room for....i mean 120 years ago today was 1897? Before World War I? How vastly has world and domestic policy has changed since then? Or like...pick from your choice of other 120 year periods in pre-modern history too, if that’s not a good comparison. Even if there isn’t much concrete reliable evidence, there’s still a lot of room, even before Aragorn’s death - but even more room after it! - for the people of the Reunited Kingdom to potentially, if you so choose, have their day in the sun comforting themselves about how great they are and how their ancestral royal line is restored, and then just slowly move on, change, grow, progress, decide some of their earlier ideas were dumb, reverse themselves in various political and foreign policy arenas (like they had already started to do in some cases during the LOTR timeline), quietly purge themselves of their racist bullshit -- over the course of a few generations, as is the way of mortal realms. And most importantly, to finally let go of the past, because they’ve been able to taste the satisfaction of a fairy tale, and have come through it, and their children’s children have now lived to see a time where they don’t need it.

(This assumes that The New Shadow is non-canon. Which. HELL YES. It is fucking non-canon, because it’s stupid and even Tolkien thought it was depressing and mean-spirited, which is seriously saying something.)

#berrysphase #athrabething #FAIR WARNING THIS IS SOOOOO LLOOONNNGG #and i also don't know if it makes any sense whatsoever bc i didn't edit #lord of the rings #aragorn

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GAME OF THRONES SEASON 7 EPISODE 4 THE SPOILS OF WAR

In my opinion, the ending to this episode was one of the best! What a follow up to Episode 3. So far, the best season yet. I did have one complaint. It was only about 50 minutes long. We need more!! Anyone disagree? And as usual, I intended this to be short, but here I go again. I just cannot help myself.

HIGHGARDEN

We start with the Lannister army leaving Highgarden as Jamie opens one of the wagons and hands Bronn a bag full of gold for his “fee” in helping defeat the Tyrells. The spoils of war. They banter back and forth as Bronn senses that despite the big victory, something is bothering Jamie. Of course we know from last week what it is. When Bronn tells Jamie to confess, I liked the line that he only confesses to the High Septon, which of course is gone. So no more confessions from The Kingslayer. Bronn wants more than gold, he wants a castle. In the books, he actually got one. And Jamie is certainly sullen with Bronn when he orders him to help collect the grain from any reluctant farmers. He has a heart.

KING’S LANDING

From the gold at Highgarden, we switch to Cersei and Tycho Nestoris, the representative from the Iron Bank. He is impressed with Cersei as he says he had never seen such a large debt paid in one lump sum. But the gold has not arrived in King’s Landing, it is merely on its way. He offers to help finance Her Grace’s overture to the Golden Company which has about 10,000 sellswords. They have a reputation of never breaking a contract. A couple of interesting facts. One, in the show, it is suggested that Jorah Mormont once fought for the Golden Company, although that is not in books. But think of how Jorah’s knowledge of that army of sellswords could help the Mother of Dragons. Two, who else was a sellsword? Daario of course, and he did break his contract when he switched sides to help Daenerys. So I think we will see him return. I like how the scene ended with Tycho telling Cersei that she can count on the Iron Bank’s support “as soon as the gold arrives” and Her Grace’s cold stare back. Cersei is certainly the queen of cold stares!

WINTERFELL

From a manipulating Cersei, we travel to Winterfell. There we see a Valyrian steel dagger and hear the voice of perhaps the greatest manipulator, Lord Baelish, as he says to Bran “This belongs to you.” And what BS Littlefinger spews as he says he would have taken the knife to his heart to save Bran’s mother and will do anything to protect the Starks, all Bran has to do is ask. So what does Bran ask: “Do you know who this belonged too?” Bran knows that Baelish is lying when Littlefinger says no, but Littlefinger keeps prying as he needs to know what Bran knows. So he says that he cannot imagine what Bran has seen, things that most men would not believe, and to return to such chaos. Bran sleeves the dagger and looks at Baelish and says “Chaos is a ladder.” That stuns Littlefinger as he told that to Varys in private in Season One. It began “Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.”

His lordship knows that Bran is a threat to expose him. They are interrupted by Meera Reed. All seeing Bran knows that she is leaving and has come to say goodbye. Quite the breakup. Bran telling her that he doesn’t need her anymore, and Meera clearly upset “That is all you have to say?” to the person who saved his life and whose brother gave his life to save Bran. But there was something that she said that could turn out to be important. She is going back home to be with her family, and her father is Howland Reed, who was with Ned at the Tower of Joy when Jon Snow was born. So presumably, he knows that truth of who Jon’s parents are. And when Meera says that Bran died in that cave, wasn’t she at least part right as Bran is now the Three Eyed Raven and almost devoid of feelings?

From a breakup, we go to another reunion we have all been waiting for. As Meera left, did you notice that Bran turned his head as if he knew someone was coming? From the head turn we see that Arya has arrived at Winterfell. Arya hesitates and stares at her home. Did anyone think that she might change her mind and head back to kill Cersei? She arrives at the gates, but the guards do not believe that she is who she says she is. In the first season, when Arya was in the tunnels under King’s Landing, she tries to re-enter the Red Keep, and the guards there did not believe she was a Stark. She threatened them in the same way she threatened the guards here. Back then, if they didn’t let her in to the Red Keep, they would have to answer to her father, the Hand of the King; this time, it would be her sister, Sansa. They let her in, tell her not to move, but being the cat that Syrio Forel taught her to be, she disappeared. But Sansa knows where Arya went, to the crypt to see her father. Awkward at first, but they share a long embrace, certainly better than the one Sansa had with Bran. Did you like Sansa’s line that when Jon returns and sees her “his heart will probably stop.” Well, we know it did once already and Arya was his favorite. They talk about how they both wanted to kill Joffrey and Arya tells Sansa about her death list. Sansa laughs in sort of the same way the Lannister troops did last week. They share something in common, their stories of getting home are long and not pleasant. But as Arya says, and Sansa agrees, their stories aren’t over yet. One could argue they have only just begun.

After saying that, Arya throws herself into Sansa’ arms and this time, she hugs her sister with feelings. Isn’t that the reunion we were hoping for? As they separate, Sansa tells Arya that Bran is home too, and for the first in a very long time, Arya breaks into a genuine smile. They both go outside to meet Bran, who is, of course, sitting by the wierwood tree. Did you notice the sound of the crows in the background? Bran can sense them coming and when Arya hugs him, he acts the same way as he did with Sansa. Bran tells Arya that he saw her at the Crossroads, and that he sees a lot of things now. For those that don’t know, the Crossroads is where the inn where Hot Pie works and where Arya made her decision to come home. Bran says he thought she might go back to King’s Landing, so Sansa asks why, to which Bran replies because Cersei in on Arya’s list. Kind of creeps Arya out that Bran knows that, but it proves he has visions. Sansa smiles and want to know who else is on the list. But later on, she seems troubled with Sansa’s killer abilities.

Then it gets more interesting. Bran shows his sisters the dagger and explains that Littlefinger gave it to him. You had to notice the look of disgust on Arya’s face when she learned Baelish was at Winterfell. Sansa asks why would Littlefinger give him the dagger and Bran explains it was the one meant to kill him. Arya, being observant, wants to know how a cut throat could get a Valerian steel dagger and Bran said “somebody very wealthy wanted me dead.” Was it Baelish or Joffrey? I am now leaning toward Baelish because he loved Cat and she never would have left Winterfell with Bran stuck in bed there. So Bran was in his way. And remember, after Summer rips out the cut throat’s throat, (nice pun, right?) Bran wakes up. No coincidence. Sansa knows that Littlefinger does not give anything away without wanting something back. Bran says it doesn’t matter, but his answer to Sansa’s question as to why it doesn’t matter, doesn’t add up. He says it is because he doesn’t want the dagger and gives it to Arya. And when he does so, something passes between them. I think it doesn’t matter because Bran “knows” that Littlefinger is going to be killed and I further think it will be by Arya with the dagger. Any thoughts on that?

As they head back into Winterfell, we hear the solemn violin music as Brienne and Pod see Arya arrive. As usual, Brienne has a hard time taking a compliment from Pod, who says she has filled her oath to Lady Stark. She does have her Valerian steel sword Oathbreaker and I am sure, it will play a role in the future. As this all happens, we see Littlefinger looking down at them, and a crow– or could it have been a raven in the background delivering a message to him as he is smiling.

DRAGONSTONE

At Dragonstone, Missandei is worried that there has been no word from the Unsullied, but Daenerys tells her not to worry and that Greyworm will come back to her to which Missandei replies, “he better.” Her Grace smiles as if Missandei said it out of her love for Greyworm, but it could have been taken as threat. He better or else… Jon appears and he leads Daenerys into a cave. Standing at the entrance is Davos with a torch. I think this is the same cave where Davos, with his lantern, was with Melisandre. The cave was barred, which was new, and this is where Melisandre gave birth to the shadow monster that killed Renly.

The bars are gone and Jon leads Her Grace deeper into the cave and we see a massive amount of dragonglass ready to be mined. That is good news for humanity. But there is more, so much more. Deeper in the caves, there are drawings on the walls, which somehow Jon can interpret. Could Bran have implanted that information into his brain? Her Grace is stunned by what she sees. Jon tells her the Children of the Forrest made these a long time ago, I would guess around 10,000 years ago. Danny seems to know who the Children of the Forrest were and even says they could have been right there before the First Men. But Jon says no, they were there together and shows her drawings deeper in the cave. And when Stormborn asks if they were fighting each other, Jon again says no, they were fighting a common enemy and we see paintings of the White Walkers. Jon actually takes Daenerys by the arm; may be small, but she usually does not allow anyone to touch her. Danny seems convinced that the White Walkers are a real enemy and says she will fight for Jon and the North, when he bends his knee. Jon says his people will not accept a Southern leader, but Daenerys says they will if their king does. Remember when Jon was trying to convince Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall, to convince the Wildings to join him in the fight against the White Walkers and bend the knee. Jon said almost the identical words to Mance, “Isn’t their survival more important than your pride?” So did Jon agree? Should he? An observation: Daenerys seems to trust Jon now, and they seem to look at each other with more affection. Just saying. And could Melisandre have know about the paintings were there and by putting Jon and Danny together at Dragonstone she knew they would go into the cave and thus her mission was complete?

We don’t know if Jon bent the knee because as the exit the cave, Tyrion was there to deliver the bad news. That while they took Casterly Rock, the Unsullied are stranded as the fleet was sunk. Tyrion wants to stick to the plan, which he thinks is right, but the Mother of Dragons is breathing fire when she says the plan has lost them Dorne, the Reach and the Iron Islands. She even calls into question the Imp’s loyalty that maybe he doesn’t want to hurt his family. Could she be right? The talk is interrupted by the dragons as Danny says enough of cute plans as she will fly her three dragons to the Red Keep and destroy her enemies who, as she correctly says, are there. Again, showing her trust in Jon Snow, she asks him what he thinks she should do. She is at war and losing. Jon hears and looks at the two dragons flying over the sea. He says nobody ever expected to see dragons again, (just like White Walkers). He gives an impassioned speech. Her people follow her because she has done the impossible and maybe that will help them believe she can do make other impossible things happen. Make a better world for everyone. But if she uses the dragons to burn the cities and melt castles, she is no different from the previous leaders, just more of the same. With the two dragons screeching, the Mother of Dragons looks at them and seems to have a plan.

A few things. First, we only see Rhaegal and Viserion, and no Drogon. Why? There is always a purpose to things. Could it be the other two riders are on the beach? Did you notice that when Daenerys asked Jon for advice, his first response was “I would never presume to…” Why would the King of the North say that? Did he bend the knee?? Jon’s response is right and wise, don’t melt the castles or burn the cities. As we see later on, she understands Jon’s message. And who said you know nothing Jon Snow!!

WINTERFELL

Back at Winterfell, Brienne is still trying to teach Pod how to fight. In steps Arya who gives Brienne a real run for her money. So the two best sword fighters in Winterfell are now women! Take that you Northern men! Arya says that Brienne beat the Hound so she wants to train with her. As Sansa looks nervously down, Littlefinger looks down with a look I could not figure out, but you could feel the wheels in his brain turning. The two woman go at it to a draw. Brienne is very impressed so she asked who taught her to do that, and Arya replies “no one.” That of course, is a reference to her teachings at the House of Black and White and Syrio Forel, who also was from Braavos and whom some believe was also Jaqen H’ghar.

As the duel ended, we see both Sansa and Littlefinger looking down at them. Not sure what was on Sansa’s mind. Some think she was jealous of Arya’s skills, but I don’t think so. Sansa was meant to lead, and Arya to kill. Could it be that Sansa is upset because her path turned Arya into a warrior killer? And Littlefinger gives Arya a nod of approval. Do you remember the last time Arya saw Littlefinger? It was back in Season 3 at Harrenhal when Arya was serving as Tywin Lannister’s cup girl and spilled some wine. Littlefinger glanced at her with a curious look and we were never sure if he recognized her. I thought he did and he sort of confirmed it when he hinted to Sansa in a later episode that he knew she was still alive. So what was the look? I think it was: Hey girl, I recognized you at Harrenhal and didn’t rat you out to Tywin Lannister, so I can be trusted. Did I say TRUST? Should be interesting moving forward.

DRAGONSTONE

We are back at Dragonstone where when Jon says Daenerys has a big heart, Davos pokes him a little bit by saying he noticed the way he looked at her big heart-implying a little bit of crush? They encounter Missandei, who after some questioning, explains how and why she became Her Grace’s trusted advisor. In the end, wasn’t her explanation almost like the one Davos gave to Danny on how Jon became King of the North? She isn’t their queen because of Stormborn’s heritage to a king they didn’t know. She is their queen because they believe in her, Daenerys is the queen they chose. Again, just like Jon. The Onion Knight gets such great lines, as he now seems convinced Missandei can be, dare I say, TRUSTED as he says to Jon “Will you forgive me if I switch sides?”

That sweet talk is interrupted when a Greyjoy ship appears in the harbor. Can anybody just sail in? If so, as Arya said to Sansa, maybe they need better guards. Theon actually looks strong willed when he pulls his boat ashore, but then he encounters Jon Snow and looks a bit shaken. Even Davos looks confused at the way Jon grabs Theon. Maybe he doesn’t know what Theon did at Winterfell or that Jon still thinks that Theon killed Bran and Rickon. Theon wants the Queen to help her get Yara back from Euron, but Jon says the Queen is gone. HUH? Did we miss something? And when Theon asks where did she go, the scene changes and we know. One more thing I forgot to touch on last week. When Euron was dragging Yara in the streets, she didn’t say anything. Do any of you think he cut out her tongue?

Now we come to the last scene of the episode and, in my opinion, one of the best. We see Jamie and Bronn looking over the spoils of their victory. We learn from Lord Randyll Tarly that the gold is safely in King’s Landing, which is good news. However, Jamie does not like Randyll’s suggestion they should flog their own men if they are lagging behind. Once more, showing he now has a heart. Did you see the look on the mean old bastard’s face? It was like the one Roose Bolton gave Rob Stark when Rob refused to torture and kill his prisoners. Easy to see why Sam hated his father. Bronn and Jamie encounter Randyll’s younger son Dickon, who Jamie again calls Rickon, as in Rickon Stark. What is up with that? Anyway, Jamie praises him for the way he fought at Highgarden but he senses regret. Rickon explains it was his first battle, that his family had been banner men for the Tyrells for ever and that he knew some of the men he killed, had even hunted with them. Jamie was compassionate and showed true leadership. Those men did not deserve to die, but Olenna left them no choice Olenna when she decided to side against the Queen. Remember those words.

It is then that Bronn hears something. Jaime says “what” and Bran says “listen.” It is the sound of horses and Jamie has the look of “oh shit” as he knows it is the Dothraki coming so he commands “spears and shield.” He is a true general. They form a line just as the Boltons did in the Battle of the Bastards. Randyll is barking commands while Jamie looks on in horror at what is coming at them. The Lannister and Tarly armies are vastly outnumbered as a horde of what, I am sure Jamie thinks, is a gang of savages coming at them. Bronn intelligently says Jamie needs to go back to Kings’s Landing, but Jamie won’t leave his men. Good for him. He tells Bronn they can hold them off, when IT happens. They hear and then see Drogon. As the dragon approaches, we can barely see the Mother of Dragons riding him. He is so HUGE!! Daenerys tells Drogon “dracarys” which is High Valyrian for dragon fire. Drogon goes low and a huge flume of dragon fire erupts from his throat and part of the Lannister front line is incinerated. Fire everywhere. Eventually the Dothraki burst through the Lannister lines in almost the same way the Knight’s of the Vale did to the Bolton line. Did you see the similarity in the ways the scenes were shot?

It was a savage “battle’ but the Lannisters had no chance. Out numbered and out dragoned. Drogon’s second pass was worse then the first as he burned so many to death. Regular arrows bounce off Puff the Mighty Dragon and Drogon reigns down another burst of fire. It is then that we learn that magically, Jamie and Bronn have brought along the Dragon Slayer crossbow, which Jamie calls “Qyburn’s Scorpion.” Jamie fights heroically and is even saved by Dickon who spears a Dothraki in the back. We also saw scenes like that in the Battle of the Bastards. Bronn shows his prowess as a fighter and he even kills the Dothraki who was following him with an arrow from Scorpion. A bit of Kim Jong Un’s overkill mentality. But why waste an arrow? Also as the battle ensues, how come none of the Dothraki noticed Bronn opening up the wagon that held the Scorpion? Didn’t make sense.

It is at this point that we see Tyrion looking down at the carnage. This reminded me of Sansa witnessing a different kind of brutality at the Battle of the Bastards, but the view from the high ground was so strikingly similar. Tyrion is obviously shaken by the savagery as it is men loyal to the Lannisters who are being burned to death or beheaded as it does not appear that the Dothraki are interested in taking any prisoners alive. Perhaps as Jamie had so poetically said, they didn’t deserve to die, but war is war. Jamie also looks on in horror as I think we see Lord Tarly go up in flames. Didn’t feel bad for him. Bronn takes a shot at Drogon but misses. As it whizzed by Danny, didn’t you think the Mother of Dragons was going to protect her child and climb higher in the sky? Even the Imp looked concerned. At least at that point, I think he was concerned about Drogon. But Danny shows her hubris and brings her dragon in low and Bronn’s second shot hits him in the shoulder. Not a kill shot, but it brings him down. And Bronn, being the luckiest man alive, somehow does not become a crispy critter.

Daenerys is heart broken as she sees her child suffering and tries to pull out the arrow. Near by, Jamie sees this and Tyrion says to himself “Flee you idiot.” Again, almost the way Sansa said “don’t” when Jon attacked Ramsey after Ramsey killed the real Rickon. As he hurdles toward Danny, he maybe thinking he can add the title “Queenslayer” to his resume. But the Mother of Dragons turns to see her would be killer coming at her when her son, Drogon, lets out a blast of fire. Somebody, and we presume it was Bronn, tackles Jamie as they both go into the water to presumably, live another day.

Ser Lane Abraham made an excellent observation. Earlier this year, The Queen of Thorns advised Daenerys to be a dragon. And Jon advised her not to melt castles or burn cities. So didn’t she follow both paths? She spared innocent citizens and only went after soldiers. She played the part of a dragon as she should. After all, war is hell.

So who won the Spoils of War? Cersei got her gold, but lost her army and maybe her lover and brother. Daenerys destroyed the troops of her Southern enemy, but in so doing, horrified Tyrion and Varys. But now Danny can use her dragons to focus on the White Walkers, so maybe the Spoils of War went to Jon.

Some on think that the arrow that struck Dragon was poisoned and will slowly kill Drogon. I don’t buy it. Besides how much poison would it take?

Do you think The Mother of Dragons went too far when she torched the enemy troops? I say no. They are enemy combatants and war is war. She didn’t toast the innocent people or their castles. Plus isn’t the way to the North much less dangerous?

Will the Iron Bank still finance Cersei’s bid to buy the services of the Golden Company? The odds have changed so it may not be a good investment.

I presume we all believe that Jamie and Bronn survived. So what is their fate? I cannot imagine Tyrion supporting any harm coming to either one of them. And how will seeing Daenerys going nuclear effect him?

Finally, what of Winterfell and the Starks? Will Arya kill Littlefinger? Admit it, we all hope so. And will Jon be heading North to Winterfell to learn his true heritage? From the previews, it seems so.

And when will we see the Night’s King and his army marching toward the Wall?

Anyone want to share their thougts?

Sorry for another long one. Until next week,

Eric, the Lord

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elittman · 7 years

Text

SEASON 7 EPISODE 4 THE SPOILS OF WAR

HIGHGARDEN

KING’S LANDING

WINTERFELL

As they head back into Winterfell, we hear the solemn violin music as Brienne and Pod see Arya arrive. As usual, Brienne has a hard time taking a compliment from Pod, who says she has filled her oath to Lady Stark. She does have her Valerian steel sword Oathbreaker and I am sure, it will play a role in the future. As this all happens, we see Littlefinger looking down at them, and a crow-- or could it have been a raven in the background delivering a message to him as he is smiling.

DRAGONSTONE

At Dragonstone, Missandei is worried that there has been no word from the Unsullied, but Daenerys tells her not to worry and that Greyworm will come back to her to which Missandei replies, “he better.” Her Grace smiles as if Missandei said it out of her love for Greyworm, but it could have been taken as threat. He better or else... Jon appears and he leads Daenerys into a cave. Standing at the entrance is Davos with a torch. I think this is the same cave where Davos, with his lantern, was with Melisandre. The cave was barred, which was new, and this is where Melisandre gave birth to the shadow monster that killed Renly.

A few things. First, we only see Rhaegal and Viserion, and no Drogon. Why? There is always a purpose to things. Could it be the other two riders are on the beach? Did you notice that when Daenerys asked Jon for advice, his first response was “I would never presume to...” Why would the King of the North say that? Did he bend the knee?? Jon’s response is right and wise, don’t melt the castles or burn the cities. As we see later on, she understands Jon’s message. And who said you know nothing Jon Snow!!

WINTERFELL

DRAGONSTONE

Some on think that the arrow that struck Dragon was poisoned and will slowly kill Drogon. I don’t buy it. Besides how much poison would it take?

Will the Iron Bank still finance Cersei’s bid to buy the services of the Golden Company? The odds have changed so it may not be a good investment.

And when will we see the Night’s King and his army marching toward the Wall?

Anyone want to share their thougts?

Sorry for another long one. Until next week,

Eric, the Lord of Pinecrest

0 notes