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dontbotherwiththepronunciation · 8 months

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EDIT UPON LAST READING:

This was written on the 30th of may mostly because I got in trouble with a subset of sansa fans at the time and I felt like I should try to joy in her character again. I am no longer sick, I no longer feel like talking about romance, I no longer feel like talking about Sansa but doing this was fun and I am always curious

For the sake of this post, and only this post, I will refer to the term "ship" or any derivatives of the word as "feeling interested by a dynamic's fanon, semi- or canon romantic connotations".

Can't believe I have to say this but god people can get so unnecessarily mean. Before people start being pedantic about something as harmless as rarepairs, it seems like I really will have to say: I don't believe in any of these options possible canon endgames. Many of these have not even interacted. I deserve to have fun with stuff as trivial as dumb inconsequential fanon ships.

Under the cut I wrote down my preferences + linked some fanwork simply because I’m in a shipping mood after reading some folkloric myths and I don’t really have any strong opinions on ships, and the few NOTPS I have are more about the way fandom treats the ship than the actual ship on itself, but I am completely ill and not healthy enough to do anything more serious and rarepairs are fun. You don’t have to read it or write one yourself, I just feel like talking and recommending fanfics.

On the other hand, if you do want to recommend me fanwork of any type, or share a prompt or show me a wip or just simply hype your rarepair please do so! Everything goes as long as it's a rarepair (less than 500 fics on ao3).

1. Sansa Stark x Brienne of Tarth

Listen, were it not for Brienne and Jaime being clearly written to be read as semi-canon-going-canon and were this book not written by a straight cis white male US American baby boomer democrat, I would be delusionally screaming this is going to be the one canon ship! This would be my protagonist endgame ship for which I would take the mildest coincidence as foreshadowing and die on that hill.

I am coming for you, Lady Sansa. Be not afraid. I shall not rest until I've found you. - Brienne I, AFFC

(Subversions of lady/princess & knight/prince where both are women and one of them is searching for the other and I'll become her Prince and save her! and-)

I just really love how so many of Brienne's issues are tied to her femininity. She does not fit into the traditional idea of womanhood, she wishes she would, she does not want to, she is rejected by the concept and she rejects the concept. And yet, when she distances herself from every possible reminder of her own femininity and takes up a man's armour and sword, she is reminded of her place as a woman and told to conform to her gender.

And then we have Sansa, who romanticises stories about Ladies and Knights; first out of genuine love and admiration for them, and later as a coping mechanism when cruel reality tells her that those ideals are sadly nowhere near true.

This is her knight. This is her strong, brave knight.

My only problem with Briennsa is how we shippers sometimes tend to put Brienne in a position of servitude to Sansa or the Starks and ignore how she is the heir to an island, has a father whom she loves and wishes to see again, and is still on a quest. Hell, she might be Azor Ahai, with her weirwood dream in which she fights White Walkers + her father's sword Lightbringer, out of all the Azor Ahai tinfoil theories this is the one I think has the most canon support. She is not a Hyle Hunt type of errand knight who is just walking around Westeros for the sake of traveling and finding a job, and once the war is over and she has kept her oath, it would be nice to see her going home and proceeding with her life and independence, maybe taking Podrik with her. I would like her to see her father again and see there being love between them.

My nonsensical fantasies involve Brienne being like "Alright, I found one of the Stark girls, still have to find the other one. I'm taking her to Tarth where she'll be safe and have no creeps around who would bother her." and Sansa just completely falling in love with Brienne on the way there.

Also, I would die for the comedic potential of Brienne of Tarth, mockingly refered to as "Brienne the beauty", having a trail of people fawning over her. This post is one of my favourite posts in the world.

To be honest, while I do enjoy the idea of Sansa going North to reunite with her family, I also have a strong fondness for the concept of her actually staying South. I know this is an unpopular opinion that Sansa fans seem to particularly dislike because of the whole "SaNsA iS nOt A rEaL sTaRk" thing, but there is something about lands of childhoods being unretournable. Stepping out of home means never seeing it again. "I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell" perhaps, but the walls of Winterfell were burned and the one Winterfell native who got to go back to Winterfell didn't get to be strong or safe.

I would like to be wrong though, and I think I will be wrong! But still, it would be nice for her to discover a South that is closer to the dreams of chivalry and court she had and perhaps Tarth could be that place, even if only for a short time.

Well, here is a canon-divergent AFFC fanfic in which Brienne finally makes it to the Vale. It has a lot of fairy tale imagery and an interesting characterisation between the Sansa-Alayne personas.

2. Sansa Stark x Jeyne Westerling

"That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother's head." A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head." - Sansa VI, AGOT

You know how Catelyn and Ellaria both at least got to say goodbye to the remains of their loved ones? Jeyne didn't. Neither did Sansa.

My weird fantasy involves Jeyne Westerling (MY Queen in the North) finally getting Robb's head, even if it's just the skull, and showing it to Sansa. A subversion in a way. Joffrey would have done it in malice and sadism, Jeyne would do it it with care, maybe a feeling of responsibility over what remains of her husband's family.

I have a lot of issues with Robb Stark and the way he is perceived in fandom, I keep hating him until I read the source material again and realise "oh wait, fanon≠canon", but I just think his relationships with the women surrounding him are fascinating and they don't get explored a lot. Sansa doesn't know about him cutting her out of the inheritance line and I wonder how she and Jeyne, the other woman who is a Stark but would no longer be accepted as one by a majority of the Northern lords, would feel about him. I wonder how love, resentment, grief and guilt would mix between the two. I don't think Jeyne is pregnant, but if she somehow ends up caring for Robb's heir (be it Jon, Sansa, or an eventual child we refer to as his) I would love that. I like imagining that Jeyne could learn more about Robb, the boy, since she seems to have only gotten to know Robb, the man and King. I like daydreaming of Sansa and Jeyne talking about Catelyn, whom both admire.

I think both of them, based on what we know of Jeyne, share some similitudes in the way they behave conforming to their gender and what is considered a Lady's attitude while still having moments of defiance and I think Sansa could maybe appreciate that. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, she speaks of "madness taking over her" and, in my opinion, this is usually when she steps out of her own safety to be brave or bold (standing up to Joffrey, trusting Dontos, trying to hide her first menstruation) and I think it could be nice to see her realising these are not things she should be ashamed of. It always reminds me of Jeyne tearing up her clothes and fighting her mother. Jeyne Westerling, like most Jeynes, doesn't get treated very well in fandom. I hate how the interpretation of Robb breaking his vows to marry her is always one putting him as a selfless saint who practically sacrificed himself for a girl he didn't even love when the fact this all plays so mysteriously can open so many possibilities.

And it seems to me people forget how metal she became.

Sometimes Sansa's f/f ships tend to get simplified to "girls being girls and doing girly things together" and I understand why people enjoy that and they are valid for doing so, but in my case I usually prefer to have a little more conflict to it and I think this ship can balance the "girls making flowercrowns and braiding each others hair" and "exploration of complex feelings and estrangement" well enough for me to find it interesting.

Here is a fanfic I'd recommend that takes place in Winterfell with a reluctant Queen Sansa and lots of survivor's guilt + an edit done for said fanfic!

3. Sansa Stark x Garlan Tyrell

When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. - Sansa I, AFFC

(Yes, I know all those allies are kind of perpetuating her misery too, but she seems to have some affection for them. The reasons behind the affection can be discussed and dissected to examine whether that affection should be there or not, but as of now I don't want to talk about that. People can cherrypick to their own wishes.)

Not something I like to visualise as an endgame because Garlan seems to be quite happy with Leonette and I honestly think Margaery and Sansa's break up/middle school betrayal might not be as easily solvable as we wished, but I like thinking about Sansa & Garlan.

I like Sansa but she is fetishising a gay man who just lost the love of his life when she has a broader shouldered, bearded, straight person who looks very similar to said gay man who is called Garlan the Gallant and how can she be so blind? Why is her unrealistic teenage crush so poorly chosen? Garlan is so humble and his name is so fitting. He is more chivalrous and mature than Lawrence and he is so strong and agreeable and he treats her and Tyrion with respect. He takes her out to dance and makes her laugh and if going by how she describes the Tyrells, then he is so very handsome too and- Why are you laughing? - My father, swooning over Garlan the Gallant on the phone

I do like imagining her having a bit of a very one-sided mild crush sometimes, not something serious but one of those light early adolescent crushes you won't ever act on. Sansa finding moments to daydream and cherish in the hell of a life she is living in King's Landing where se feels cared for, even if it is by someone who is not particularly invested in her. Admiring Leonette and wondering how happy she must be, without ever being truly envious or malicious but simply wishing she had something similar. So, less actual romantic interest but more of a one-sided "I wish" in response to unexpected and (hopefully) genuine emotional help.

I usually prefer gap fillers in fanfiction and I am so eagerly waiting for a gap filler of Sansa's time in King's Landing where she gets to interact more with Garlan and Leonette. Where we see her being wistful and melancholic, longing for her dreams of courtship, chivalry and the sort of love that would be a mix between that which she has heard in songs and witnessed between her parents. Having small moments of joy feeling like a girl again for allowing herself those dreams and realising they can be true.

It's a pity there aren't many fanfics or fan art focusing on their canon or fanon dynamic. I like them a lot.

4. Sansa Stark x Myranda Royce

This is the light to C€rsei x Ta€na's darkness. I love them as friends and I would rather keep them as friends, and for some reason I ship Myranda x Mya, but I enjoy the ship A LOT! Out of the female connection's Sansa builds as the story goes on, I think their dynamic is the most endearing one, and I live in fear of GRRM turning Myranda into Sansa's new villain. I talked a bit about them in the later part of that one post, and I don't have a lot more to add, I just genuinely enjoy their dynamic and how natural Sansa's friendship with her is. I think Myranda embodies certain aspects of Margaery and Jeyne, but until now she is more genuine than Margaery was, and Sansa is also more mature in her treatment of her compared to Jeyne. I just like them.

So, if Myranda gets to wake up the sapphicness in Sansa, I would not complain. She spends so much time flirting with her! I love her for that. "You do turn such a pretty shade of pink.”, "So you're brave as well as beautiful, "I can see how virtuous you are just by looking at those rosy cheeks and big blue eyes of yours."

Sometimes I see this small fraction of fandom being mistrusting of Myranda and I honestly think we are just falling into Littlefinger's trap when we do that. If Petyr tells Sansa not to befriend Myranda, then I will 100% hope Sansa has the common sense to befriend Myranda. Don't take Myranda's derogative comment about Alayne's "Bastard breasts" as genuine, her literal bff/girlfriend is a bastard herself. Nah, but seriously, do we really think that Mya Stone who has been struggling with feelings of abandonment since before we even met her would be "as close as sisters" with Myranda Royce if she truly were a classist evil schemer? I honestly think Littlefinger might be a little afraid of her. She is shrewd, she might not be on board with her father's alliance with Petyr. Maybe that is why she is being threatened by her father to be married to a suitor she wouldn't approve of.

I might be wrong though, who knows. I do understand how her constant bawdy jokes could have also been a method for disorienting and questioning her but the twow preview chapter made me doubt it. For some reason I find her more genuine than Margaery, but as said I'm open to being very wrong about this.

Anyway, here is a small Drabble + art someone made and it's cute and Myranda is funny. I love Myranda.

5. Sansa Stark x Harrold Hardyng

I didn't have a strong opinion on them but then I was sold on them by a fanfic. It seems like this is where canon might be heading and I'm honestly happy for Sansa if she gets to have her high school movie annoyance to lovers romance with a handsome-popular-everybody-wants-him Prep/Jock guy. Good for her. I don't think Harry is an evil person and I hope it remains that way. Depending on which approach GRRM takes to their relationship it could be very comedic while still holding the political plot for the Vale. Their interactions during the Alayne TWOW preview chapter were gold and everything I would expect from the high school AU set in the Middle Ages, this post encapsulates it, I want them to be cringe and weirdly out of place. All the important lords and ladies are talking politics while these two are constantly making everyone uncomfortable with weird one liners.

On the other hand, depending on how long Sansa has to keep up with the Alayne farce, it could also provide for some angst and explorations of identity issues. Lady Waynwood agreed to the betrothal on the condition that Harry himself would agree to it and find "Alayne" to his liking. And I will admit there is something that would be so sweet about Sansa being loved by Harry THE HEIR, as Alayne Stone, some petty lord's bastard.

It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. - Sansa VI, ASOS

I would be so genuinely happy if she is proven wrong. And yes, the Alayne persona is not simply Sansa with another hair colour and name, but it is still part of her. It is a mask of her own face, smoother and only presenting that which she wants to present. It would be interesting to see an actual love story blossom out of this, while she is still painfully aware of their union being a machination of Littlefinger, maybe feeling guilt and insecurity over Alayne being made to play the seductress while Sansa is still underneath that facade wanting to be loved, being loved but not fully aware of it.

Anyway, here is a light angst fanfic about the Sansa-Alayne identity and Harry! It's probably one of my favourite Sansa fics ever, but warning for Petyr Baelish being himself!

+ I think people sleep on the concept of us readers getting to see Littlefinger "losing the girl" for the supposed prep/jock fuckboy again, that would be great.

Not a favourite, because I don't know a lot about Harrold except for that he is kind of a jerk, but I am a very canon person, so I'll probably end up tolerating/liking it if it actually gets to happen.

6. Sansa Stark x Myrcella Baratheon

I feel very weird about this one because I personally tend to distance myself from the captive x captor (including captor's family) ships in asoiaf when they are portrayed as something positive (nothing against those who like them, it's just a personal preference), but maybe because in this case both of them experience the position of hostage/ward and they didn't get to spend a significant amount of time together (two years at most), I am less appalled about possible scenarios in which they meet again in the future. Myrcella being passed off as legitimate when she is a bastard, Sansa being passed off as a bastard when she is legitimate, becoming pawns in political intrigues of others, being isolated from their families at a young age. Dorne treats Myrcella significantly better than King's Landing treated Sansa, but it still is the place where she was maimed and almost killed.

+ The fact that Myrcella is supposed to look almost exactly like Cersei (someone Sansa admired and wanted to emulate only to come to fear and hate her) but has none of her cruelty could be very interesting and torturous to explore if people want to write angst and get into Sansa's psychology. You can make this dark and macabre without having to open the bag with the dead dove.

Here is a (sadly abandoned) post ados fic in which Myrcella travels North as a ward to Lady Sansa, Warden of the North, sent by Queen Daenerys. Othe ships are also tagged, but since it was discontinued they don't appear. It has a very entertaining characterisation for Myrcella and it doesn't bash any of the girls mentioned, so I liked it.

7. Sansa Stark x Lancel Lannister

So, imagine a universe where Sansa chooses Lancel over Tyrion.

At the time, Lancel is still recovering from his wounds, if I remember correctly, and is experiencing his religious awakening. Imagine how different Sansa's arc would have been. Would she be the one seeking for some sort of connection between her and her husband? Lancel would probably have no interest in any possible romance, but he might be less indifferent with Sansa than he was with Amerei given how she aided him when he was wounded even when he had always been a passive participant in her abuse. Would she keep plotting and hoping for an escape with Dontos? Or would Lancel take her away from King's Landing? If he's not marrying Amerei, then he is not getting Derry, but perhaps Sansa could become a claim to Riverrun post-Red Wedding and that would be interesting to see. Sansa in her mother's home, retracing the steps of her parents, but this time differently, as an unwilling usurper to her uncle. Would she meet Jeyne once the Lannisters retake Riverrun?

Would there be a religious conflict between the two? I am an agnostic theology enthusiast, so I really love seeing how religion plays out in the story and since Sansa believes in the Seven Gods and the Old Gods, I think her dual faith would be interesting to see in opposition to Lancel's devotion for and indoctrination by the faith of the Seven.

+ both have Cersei related trauma and I am a sucker for "we share an abuser" dynamics.

I actually really love this possibility, but didn't came up with any of it on my own! What I wrote above is based on conversations between @team-mom-wannabe, @selkiewife and @nosafeanchorage. They created an entire AU for these two, with an astonishing amount of details and care, and then I had to go through the disappointment that is realising no one has ever written a fanfic centred on their possible marriage.

8. Sansa Stark x Val the Wildling

I really like Val. I know some people hate her because they claim she is "not like other girls" or because she wants Shireen to be killed, but I hate the way nlog rhetoric has developed and I come from a continent where 95% of the population was killed by foreigner's diseases (and also by the foreigners themselves of course), so yeah, I will never hold that against her. I understand why that is upsetting to others, but I'm different.

It's weird to me that although show!Sansa was given traits and storylines from many erased female characters and was kind of deprived of her own (and I still hate that show for that and so many other things), they never teased the concept of giving her a wildling partner! Tormund was a completely different character compared to his book counterpart, he was much younger, conventionally attractive and acted as the main leader of the Free Folk after Mance, so I thought they would maybe merge him with Sigorn and tease him and Sansa, but that didn't happen (I don't remember what happened to him. Did he die?). And I won't deny that the lack of a wilding/northerner marriage lead me to have some thoughts about how interesting it could be for her to meet someone from the free folk. And then, because I'm very very sapphic, Val came to my mind, another cool woman they erased. Beautiful and deadly. A subversion of the princess in a tower.

It's fun to see how both, Sansa and Val, are considered the keys to the North/the Free Folk when their titles are practically honorary; Val is not a real princess and the Free Folk wouldn't submit to anyone who forcibly married her, Sansa has been cut out of the inheritance line because she was made to marry an enemy whom the North would never allow into its territory. I think it would be entertaining to see them meet and observe possibly feelings of mutual respect grow and I just really like seeing people from different cultures interact. Free Folk's beliefs around courtship and how romance and marriage are always meant to carry some sort of violence are fascinating to me. The idea of being "stolen" is a concept I initially associated to non-consensual dynamics, but in fairy tales we often have characters saving the female heroine/love interest by stealing/rescuing them. The way women are often made to be objects of conquest or rewards in most folkloric stories and fairy tales conditions their rescue as theft, since they often belong to the villain only to be passed to another male character. This also is somewhat true in Sansa's case specifically with Tyrion and Petyr, although I would argue Petyr is a lot worse for Sansa than Tyrion. Anyway, I would really like to see how Sansa, who has always been on the edge of rape but has managed to avoid it (she has still been mistreated and fondled in situations of dubious consent, but not violated like Jeyne or Dany), would react to their customs.

+ depending on whether you believe in Sansa's possible complicity in the poisoning of Sweetrobin there could be soooo much room for projection and angst if she gets to see Val being motherly and so very loving to "her nephew" (even when it's not really her nephew and she knows) while still advocating for Shireen's death. Oh, that could be very very fun to read.

9. Sansa Stark x Podrick Payne

awwww he is crushing on his boss's wife! :D

I feel weird about this one being so low given how it's the only one in this bunch with some canon support. This is uncommon for me. It's probably simply because I find her dynamic with Tyrion more interesting, but this is cute anyway!

I do wonder why no one has thought more seriously about them in canon given how Pod is Brienne's traveling companion and might come to meet Sansa again sometime soon (if they survive LSH (on that note, I'd love it if he gets to tell her about Catelyn/LSH)).

I don't know. Podrick is a good kid and Sansa deserves good things. I just haven't found a lot of thematics in their possible dynamic that interest me, but I'm open to them.

+ Sansa's weird traumatic dreams involving Ilyn Payne. Someone make something out of this.

Sadly haven't found many fanfics that have sparked my interest, but I really like this gif-set!

10. Sansa Stark x Tristifer Botley

I had been wondering about this concept for a while and thought that in another universe where the war didn't happen or the possible Iron Islands/The North alliance was settled in terms that included more marriages between them, this could have been interesting, albeit improbable since House Botley isn't as relevant as House Stark, but interesting! And then I came across this really sweet post-ados fanfic by @/alleyskywalker in which Sansa is married to him to build bonds with the Islands since all realms are now independent again and I thought it was cute. Tris was lovely and I liked reading him. He is a character I feel conflicted about, but I don't think he is evil, I just didn't like the way he approached Asha. I jokingly refer to him as a nice guy™, but honestly he is just an actual nice guy with a gentle nature and romantic tendencies and I really love how he is a character whom Asha deems "too sweet for the Iron Islands", and still he is part of the Iron Islands and is accepted as one by the other Ironborn. Her claim is never backed on by anyone else.

His courteous and polite ways could probably match Sansa's dreams of chivalry very well. It would also be fun to see her adapt to the Islands, considering the Northerners' mistrust (and also some bigotry) for the Ironborn and how different their culture is compared to that of the southern courts that Sansa dreamed of and idealized. It could be fun.

My honour mentions in no particular order

Sansa Stark x Harras Harlaw

For similar reasons to Tristifer Botley, but although we know less about Harras' personality, we know he is a salt son and a knight, something most of his fellow Ironborn frown upon. To me, that is odd and fun to think about. Does he worship the Seven Gods AND the Drowned God simultaneously? His mother is a Serret of the Westerlands. Could she have been the one to make him be more fond of southern culture? I don't know, but I like to think that is the case and if so, I think him and Sansa could possibly have some things in common.

Sansa Stark x Mya Stone

Not one I'm actively searching stuff for, but I get a visit from my good ol' friend Sarah Tonin whenever I stumble upon it and I can understand why people are into it:

Baratheon x Stark (but f/f)

Bastard x Noble (but f/f + subverted because "Alayne")

Mya's connection to Catelyn (Lady Stoneheart would approve)

There is also the fact that Mya is one of the most honest and frank characters Sansa has met ever since the story began. I will defend Myranda but I think she is shrewd, Margaery...well we know how that ended...Mya is different! She doesn't seem to be hiding any secrets or have any ulterior motives in her friendliness. Her abandonment issues would be interesting to explore among with Sansa's overall introspection + her isolation in King's Landing and her new (and sadly well) founded mistrust for others.

Honestly, my favourite daydream just involves them having a conversation about Sansa's parents and Mya telling her all she can remember and consoling her, while being open about her own issues, but sadly I don't have any creative abilities and can't come up with anything beyond that.

Here is a short, but interesting, fanfic that takes place post AFFC, but was written before the TWOW preview chapters came out. I thought it was lovely.

Sansa Stark x Jeyne Poole

Kind of an obvious one and one I struggle with because I can see the appeal of childhood friends torn apart by war and then reuniting after both went through different hells, but the way fandom treats it often just annoys me. I think there are a few unaddressed issues that make it more difficult for me to enjoy the way it's portrayed in fanon. I guess we could say I like it as a rhænicent that never got truly toxic and just remained bittersweet with a few kneeps of resentment, feelings of inferiority and maybe some misplaced anger coming from Jeyne . There is a fanfic though that I think is unmatched when it comes to what I would like : (1) + (2) but warning for canon compliant Jeyne storyline fucked upness + mild ambiguous Theyne (the Jeynsa is ambiguous too, but in my opinion less than the theyne, and it is just as important, not a side-ship. Overall one of my favourite fics ever).

Rolly Duckfield

"He is as tall as Griff now. Three days ago he knocked Duck into a horse trough." "I wasn't knocked. I fell in just to make him laugh." - Tyrion III, ADWD

I love Duck. He reminds me of my best friend and I think Sansa could use someone like that in her life. I have nothing else to add.

#I’m only really invested in Sansa x Brienne and Sansa x Jeyne W (romantically) but I really like putting her with uncommon suitors #just for the sake of having fun with it.#sansa stark #asoiaf #speaking #fanfic rec #I think W€x P¥ke could be nice too but if I'm shipping him with a northern girl it will be W¥lla because of the potential for #comically uncomfortable inconveniences for the0n.#I am tagging the ships just in case someone has blacklisted some of them sorry for spamming #sansa x brienne #sansa x garlan #sansa x harry #sansa x jeyne #(w)#(p)#sansa x lancel #sansa x myranda #sansa x myrcella #sansa x Podrick #sansa x tris #sansa x val #sansa x harras #sansa x mya #sansa x duck #some of these are probably not blacklisted but it would be very funny if someone randomly decided to hate sansa x duck #I have blacklisted ships that are very well loved but this would be even funnier #I would applaud that audacity!

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pearly--rose · 1 year

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Ok @venisehiatt commented on this post that I should link some Quiet Isle fics, and they are absolutely right! Here’s a few I had in my bookmarks and to-be-read list, that either take place entirely on the Quiet Isle or feature it in some way. (Please feel free to reblog and add to this list!)

I Should Live in Salt by dreadwulf ( @dreadwulf ) - Rated M Jaime and Brienne have survived the confrontation with Lady Stoneheart, at a terrible price.

From This Day Until the End of My Days by dreadwulf ( @dreadwulf ) Jaime Lannister should have returned to King's Landing weeks and weeks ago. Instead he brought an injured Brienne to the Quiet Isle and somehow ended up married to her. Now he's riding for the Vale with a strange assortment of companions on an impossible search for Sansa Stark, and Brienne won't even look at him anymore, and why does that bother him so much? Why is he even here? He should just go home. He'll do it any day now.

A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action Please by earthwindandfiber ( @sapphiresandsunlight ) - Rated T Everyone who's anyone knows you can't shack up at the Quiet Isle if you're not married. So, Brienne's posse of Dudely Hangers-On decides to do the next-best thing, and set up camp right outside her door for an all-night jam sesh. What could go wrong?

Honor Thy Regard by SigilBroken - Rated E Everyone’s favorite post-ADWD series, taking Jaime and Brienne from Stoneheart, to the Quiet Isle, to the Vale.

None But the Lonely Heart by OccasionalAvenger - Rated T featuring: the quiet isle, chekhov’s wolfpack, someone's bloody wedding, brienne in king's landing, a messy custody battle, dad jaime, a long night that lasts considerably more than a night, and endgame.

Yield by PrettyThief ( @pretty--thief ) - Rated T Five times Jaime and Brienne fight one another and one time they both lose.

dream deep heavy sleeper (dream light heavy heart) by djelibeybi - Rated T Five nights Jaime and Brienne break the Quiet Isle's rules, and one night they don't.

pieces of me (are pieces of you) by SeeThemFlying - Rated T Banned from seeing Brienne, Jaime spends his time on the Quiet Isle mulling over his feelings for his wench......and looking after Podrick.

Presents and Promises, or The 7 Days of Cronemas by greyathena - General Audiences In which somehow, after the events of existing book canon and taking care of the Lady Stoneheart situation, Jaime and Brienne and Podrick (Ser Hyle . . . has gone somewhere) have found themselves looking for Sansa together . . . and have ended up passing through the Quiet Isle at precisely the wrong time. Or the right one.

(and finally, yeah, I’m gonna be completely shameless and link my own fic) Hesitate by pearly_rose - Rated M He had never known her to be an adept liar. Too righteous, too…good. Right now, she wears her guilt like a shroud. It’s written all over her, in how stiffly she holds her shoulders, in the way she won’t quite look him in the eye. Still he follows her into the Riverlands without question, with the same swirling intensity in his stomach as when he galloped back to Harrenhal to save her from the bear pit.

#jaime x brienne #fic recs #quiet isle #asoiaf

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esther-dot · 10 months

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What do you think about song Bear and the Maiden Fair? While the bear is described as brown and black with hairs while the maid described as honey in her hair and pure. Many think that song is about Hound and Sansa because he saved her when other knights couldn't but the bear in song didn't seems to saver as it tastes the honey of maid when she was shrieking and kicking. Seems like forced touching just like Hound forcing on Sansa. Tyrion, Penny and Jorah had played the characters in Meereen.

I also received this ask about the song:

(These are so old, neither of you may be around anymore, but I finally typed up some thoughts on this. Sorry for how belated this is! 😬)

I would assume that the reason so many relationships have a connection to the song is that Martin has an interest in developing relationships between extremes. At one point or another, he’s formed a relationship between youth/age, brother/enemy, beauty/ugliness, life/death, love/hate and I totally forgot the big one and had to circle back to add: ice and fire! Lmao). “Beauty and the Beast” is based on the interest in the juxtaposition of extremes, The Bear and the Maiden Fair offers something similar, so it makes sense to me that he repeatedly utilizes it.

The placement of extremes in relation to each other is an aesthetic thing some find compelling (created via The Hound’s size and scars against Sansa’s remarkable beauty and youth, Dany’s size, eye and hair color contrasted with Drogo or Jorah’s…), but more importantly, a thematic thing. We see the contrast vividly with Brienne and Jaime as well as Sansa and the Hound. Their appearance is at odds, of course, but what really matters are how their values are contrasted. Sansa’s beliefs and her nature are entirely opposed to the Hound’s, and if you think of Jorah as the knight exiled for being a slaver and the shame of his house helping the woman who attempts to end slavery (until she needs it) and restore her house…well, you get a version of that there too.

Being that Martin has stated he played with the Beauty and the Beast angle with Sansa and the Hound, but was surprised people shipped it, we should accept that Martin uses tropes/references for different purposes, not necessarily to signal an endgame romance or mutual interest even if that is the initial thought by the reader. Martin likes the inside/outside view of things, likes to examine ideas from multiple perspectives, and a character occupying different roles throughout the story allows him to extract a lot of meaning. Fans like to focus on how Sansa is wrong about a certain character, but the main intent behind all of this is the author challenging his reader when he forces us to examine and re-examine who characters are and what he is saying with them. The lyrics of the song twists our perception of things, so, even if I reject how it’s often applied, I agree that the concept behind the song is being discussed in these relationships.

We see the same beast/knight ideas with the Hound and Sansa as with Jorah and Dany. Both Dany and Sansa have these guys who are associated with specific animals (bear, hound), who function as protectors at some point even though they also betray them. Jorah’s betrayal is labeled as such in the book, but the Hound going from rescuing Sansa to assaulting her is a betrayal as well. Both men develop loyalty to the girls, they offer some protection, both have a sexual interest in the girls and both sexually harass them (Jorah kisses Dany without permission, the Hound assaults Sansa). I suppose Sansa and the Hound fit a little better with parts of the song because the girl is initially frightened by the bear while Jorah presents quite differently despite all the bear references. The bear-ish description of Jorah isn’t just the bear sigil, we also get all the hair stuff:

"I shall wish to speak with Ser Jorah before the night is done," her brother said. Dany found herself looking at the knight curiously. He was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. Instead of silks and cottons, he wore wool and leather. His tunic was a dark green, embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs. (AGOT, Daenerys I)

“He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there was none left for his head.” (AGOT, Daenerys III)

and of course, he is referenced as a bear pretty often:

“Ser Jorah, her gruff old bear” (ADWD, Daenerys VI) and he’s referred to as her “bear knight” (ADWD, Daenerys III) and “My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear” (ADWD, Daenerys X).

I selected those from ADWD because to me, that’s when it for sure was deliberately connecting back to the song as Tyrion puts Jorah in the role of the bear:

"That one is part of our show. The bear and the maiden fair. Jorah is the bear, Penny is the maiden, I am the brave knight who rescues her. I dance about and hit him in the balls. Very funny." (ADWD, Tyrion X)

So, we begin the story knowing Jorah is a bear (Mormont), that he’s described as bear/beast, called a bear/bear knight, and then eventually, he’s playacting the bear from the song. Interestingly, the "knight" who fights the bear is acted by someone Martin has called a villain. I could never argue that the author isn’t being intentionally self-referential, he clearly is. However, we do have the fact that Jorah betrayed/molested Dany, and this:

Jorah Mormont's face was dark with anger, but he answered. "To serve her. Defend her. Die for her, if need be."

That made the widow laugh. "You want to rescue her, is that the way of it? From more enemies than I can name, with swords beyond count … this is what you'd have the poor widow believe? That you are a true and chivalrous Westerosi knight crossing half the world to come to the aid of this … well, she is no maiden, though she may still be fair." (ADWD, Tyrion VII)

I’m uncomfortable with the emphasis placed on virginity in the books and hate to use that (or beauty) as a determining factor in which couple the song is “really” about, but we have this line which I see as direct guidance from Martin about interpreting the Dany and Jorah relationship as a straight up version of The Bear and the Maiden Fair. The way it’s presented and challenged indicates that while in a particular dynamic or in a specific scene a character fulfills a certain role, that isn’t necessarily their overall role. To me, looking at the story as a whole, Brienne’s role is true knight, more so than maiden. Just as the idea that Dany is the maiden/damsel is present in her interactions with Jorah, but that isn’t her role in the story as a whole, no more than Jorah is the true knight. (He’s a slaver ffs).

As for the Jaime and Brienne of it, Jaime protecting Breinne from a bear slots him into the knight role, but as they struggle over who is fighting the bear, there’s a play on who is in the knight role and who is in the “maiden” role. Also, Brienne is mockingly called beauty and Jaime is described as a beast, and while those characters are being cruel to Brienne, to the reader, we know Jaime has done horrible things (attempted kid killing = monstrous), and we know Brienne is the purist soul (goodness=beauty), so taking a step away from the superficial, we are getting a layered play on the trope. And yes, Brienne is a virgin and Jaime a knight, we can leave it there, but Brienne is a knight in the truest sense and Jaime is beautiful, so I think the best way to look at this question of who this song is “about” is to accept that the trope being discussed is getting a rotisserie chicken treatment. We’re allowed to see it from every juicy angle, not limited to one. After all, Jorah is a knight and a bear.

Of course, as I already said, since the author likes to reference things without implementing them the way people expect, this doesn’t necessarily mean romantic endgame, but saying that doesn’t mean I’m dismissing Braime because I do think Martin wrote in the romantic stuff deliberately. The whole knights/fools etc is at play in that scene too:

"What are you doing here?"

"Something stupid. Get behind me." He circled toward her, putting himself between Brienne and the bear. (ASOS, Jaime VI)

Brienne is referenced as the maid in this scene, but later she reads like a knight on a quest to save the fair maiden --Sansa. We even get some “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” singing there. If they ever meet, I would expect some beauty/beast discussion to crop up just as part of this continuing conversation about roles, part of the characters revolving through them to allow the author to thoroughly analyze the ideas and evolve what fairytales are/say. In their pairing, Brienne would be the knight to Sansa’s maiden to allow for Martin to contrast Brienne with all of our failed knights.

We get a lot of duality with these characters/their roles which means we can ask, who is the knight/who is the bear and come up with many, many answers. All of them true in a certain light, only to then turn them on their head. Sometimes, a failed knight rises to the occasion, and sometimes the maiden saves the knight, and sometimes, the knights are evil, sometimes the knight isn’t a true knight. Sometimes salvation comes from where you least expect it, and sometimes, rescuers are also a threat. The roles are there, but Martin is playing with them, challenging them, so the multiple ways we can read these characters and dynamics is very much intentional. All of that being said, it’s undeniable that there is one maiden for whom the song is particularly relevant.

Sansa fits the maiden role in a much more overarching way than our other contenders. Not only because she’s a virgin, not simply because of her interest in romance or because so much of her story has been driven by various people’s sexual/political interest in her/marrying her, but because she represents certain attributes, foremost of them, mercy. We get in trouble when talking about how beautiful she is, but it can’t be disregarded because she represents hope, innocence, compassion, peace. Martin made her beautiful not just as a physical thing, rather, because she is representative of ideas; she is the beauty of certain ideals.

The Hound who laughs at killing children is moved to protect her, can’t follow through on his own desire to harm her. Dontos tells her,

"A knight?" Joffrey had decreed that he was to be a knight no longer, only a fool, lower even than Moon Boy. "I prayed to the gods for a knight to come save me," she said. "I prayed and prayed. Why would they send me a drunken old fool?"

"I deserve that, though . . . I know it's queer, but . . . all those years I was a knight, I was truly a fool, and now that I am a fool I think . . . I think I may find it in me to be a knight again, sweet lady. And all because of you . . . your grace, your courage. You saved me, not only from Joffrey, but from myself." (ACOK, Sansa II)

Personification is a thing and even though she is a multidimensional character, I think the way Martin has written Sansa makes it clear that he is calling back to old archetypes here which is why, when you hear “maiden fair,” Sansa is the referenced character in an overarching way, not just in a specific dynamic, not just in a specific chapter or one book, but in the series, this is who she is in a way that no other character is.

Her role in the story is notably the tropey damsel in distress/princess in the tower (in a way that Dany and Brienne are not), and even with the revision of what that means by a modern author, even with the idea growing and evolving into something new, with the girl having far more agency and inner life than in older stories, it’s so clear this is who she is that even her haters know it. They call her a princess in a tower to show their disdain, but all they’re doing is admitting that even they recognize who she is in the story.

And of course, there is the fact that Sansa is referred to as a fair maiden, even in her TWOW chapter, that her beauty is often remarked upon, and that she has some parallels with Persephone which seems pertinent due to the Beauty and the Beast/Hades and Persephone/Death and the Maiden connection:

Petyr cut a pomegranate in two with his dagger, offering half to Sansa. "You should try and eat, my lady."

"Thank you, my lord." Pomegranate seeds were so messy; Sansa chose a pear instead, and took a small delicate bite. It was very ripe. The juice ran down her chin. (ASOS,

LF is her uncle (by marriage), he spirits her away from KL and is clearly intent on making her his, and as we know, he’s orchestrated destruction for her family/the realm, so he fits in here as a kind of Hades (death) to Sansa’s maiden which is relevant considering how loosely related death and the maiden is to the beauty and the beast idea.

However, the thing that feels the most like the author directing us to a specific conclusion must be reading her first chapter in ASOS which might as well be called “the Bear and the Maiden Fair chapter” because we finally get the lyrics to the song, and it’s interspersed into a scenario that is kinda telling a similar story. Sansa wants a beautiful knight (Loras), but is offered a stranger instead (Willas). We’ve also just read a speedrun through all the fake knights/bears/suitors/“love interests” Sansa (or fans) have selected for her:

Sansa wondered if Joffrey knew of this supper. For all she knew, it might be his doing. That thought made her fearful. If Joff was behind the invitation, he would have some cruel jape planned to shame her in the older girl's eyes. Would he command his Kingsguard to strip her naked once again? The last time he had done that his uncle Tyrion had stopped him, but the Imp could not save her now.

No one can save me but my Florian. Ser Dontos had promised he would help her escape, but not until the night of Joffrey's wedding. The plans had been well laid, her dear devoted knight-turned-fool assured her; there was nothing to do until then but endure, and count the days.

[…]

Even so, she must accept. She was nothing now, the discarded daughter of a traitor and disgraced sister of a rebel lord. She could scarcely refuse Joffrey's queen-to-be.

I wish the Hound were here. The night of the battle, Sandor Clegane had come to her chambers to take her from the city, but Sansa had refused. Sometimes she lay awake at night, wondering if she'd been wise. She had his stained white cloak hidden in a cedar chest beneath her summer silks. She could not say why she'd kept it. (ASOS, Sansa I)

So, we have the prince who turned out to be a monster (Joffrey), the guy everyone thinks of as a monster who protects her (Tyrion), a knight who she saved but sexually harasses her (Dontos), a man who threatens her but ended up saving her only to then turn around and be a threat himself (The Hound). See what I mean about multiple roles? My gosh, it’s almost like the author has intentionally been writing variations of the song into Sansa’s story all along, or even, dare I say it, he's written Sansa’s story into a song, only, none of these match up perfectly, so we are still waiting for the true(est) incarnation of this song to manifest into her story.

Or, all of that shorter:

"I CALLED FOR A KNIGHT, BUT YOU'RE A BEAR! (ASOS, Sansa I)

"I prayed to the gods for a knight to come save me," she said. "I prayed and prayed. Why would they send me a drunken old fool?" (ACOK, Sansa II)

So, if Sansa is the maiden of the song, the maiden fair of A Song of Ice and Fire, who is the bear, who’s the knight? More importantly, where is this poor girl’s hero?

Y’all, this is getting ridiculously long. Now, I’ve never not done something for a silly reason like not wanting to appear ridiculous, but I can’t post seven thousand words all at once. tumblr staff will deactivate my account to save me from myself! I will get to Jon and the Jonsa of it all in part two.

#dot chat #jonsa #and all of these for filtering:#anti the hound #anti sansan #anti jorah #anti jorleesi #anti Tyrion #anti Littlefinger

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ilynpilled · 11 months

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idk if my ask got swallowed by beast that is tumblr or you ignored it so i'll just ask again: do you think ser waymar royce in the prologue is a jaime parallel? he's a commander, young and handsome, cocky and snarky, and a son to a lord, who takes a final stand against the dark and dies bravely fighting an Other with no one else but the reader knowing of his deed.

nah imo. these parallels are pretty surface level. as for the these themes present in the prologue it is not exclusive to a single pov (especially would not say jaime) like this it just permeates the series as a whole. im going from memory here but waymar royce’s whole deal to me is mostly about class/feudalism/meritocracy (more like the lack of), westerosi primogeniture, and the tragedy of young men trying to put meaning to their existence in ‘war’ when there is no place else for them, see the NW also functioning as a place to shove the many knights, lords, criminals, smallfolk etc. with no land/income/resources because nothing is distributed in a sensible way in this feudal society. courage/cowardice/gallantry is significant in the chapter too (what is brave? what is practical? what is selfish and egodriven? is dying for nothing but some personal triumph of overcoming fear like this anything but tragic? is the inherent meaning within that action enough? is it more admirable to try to live to tell the significant tale which would actually save lives? and so on)

these themes r not exclusive to jaime (he likely was not even fully realized as a character by this point anyway), and i dont even think he deals with them in the same way. i do like the idea of jaime’s heroism not being known in whatever form that takes when it concerns endgame because it is poignant with him and his story, and if you want jaime’s story to end thematically on true bravery (i pretty much want the same) then for him imo it wouldnt really be about some gallant fight and ‘dignity’ in the face of death. like even if he falls against the others, at a deeper level it wouldnt really be about that. the text frames bravery as something that can only exist when one is afraid. jaime doesnt fear death. it is reinforced by his actions as well as two clear and sincere statements. especially death in battle. jaime does not want to live that bad, he is consumed by despair enough to not fear losing his life. jaime repeatedly being referred to as courageous by other characters is therefore deconstructed (gets overt especially when he is called craven by brienne during a very important scene), because he isn’t truly brave yet. jaime is afraid to “live.” more specifically standing up and facing despair and the horrors and contradictions of the world. that is what he keeps running away from, and why he stagnated so hard post aerys. he is terrified in the dream. and he is not terrified of powerful figures coming at him with swords, but them coming at him with contradicting oaths, his guilt, and complex truths. he is scared of loss and abandonment. his own darkness. and it is that terror of his light going out when confronted with these things and that truly leaving him in darkness that really scares him. that would mean all purpose being destroyed, and existence being rendered meaningless. “why would the stars want to look down on such as me?” is emblematic of that feeling. it would be the final push into complete nihilism. “choices”, the thesis of his arc, becoming meaningless. this is a big part of him never confessing the aerys situation, because if the result of the confession is like the one in the dream, then that is what will happen. it is deeper than ned, u see him expecting him to come out, but it is not him “it was never him.”everything would become meaningless if that choice of his, in its full context, would be rejected by his ‘heroes’. the whole thing is symbolic of an idealist burning out with his “flame” literally being withered by the complicated reality of what feels like a fundamentally unjust world.

which is why it is so meaningful that he jumps into the pit willingly and kills the beast. it mirrors the abyss that he is shoved into screaming in the dream. if you are not in the pit, you will never confront what you fear most. accepting the horrors of the world and and refusing to fight it under the guise of cynicism and nihilism is cowardice on his part. if you dare to have hope be reignited, it might result in the flame dying out for eternity. and there is no greater risk than that. that is what reconstructing “the brave knight” is about. this is also why he is only really afraid, and tyrion (who says he has never seen jaime afraid like this when talking about the similarities between his and joffrey’s eyes during the latter’s death, as well as repeatedly noting jaime’s bravery) notices it and is taken off guard by it, when he is confessing the tysha situation. imo, him being truly brave is confronting truth, confronting the darkness, and being brave enough to not let the light go out, just like the example brienne shows, and allowing hope to exist. allowing yourself to still care despite the horrors that rendered you so cynical. not letting that flame be withered and destroyed by them (is that flame your humanity, hope, or whatever else of the sort? i think the symbolism is ambiguous enough to allow and encourage interpretation, but i read it as deeper than just literal ‘life’. it is purpose to existence) as far as dying is concerned, i dont really care atp. it is kinda open still with cersei saying “you will die when the flames die” and brienne’s still burns, so there is light in “his darkness.” but i can see his arc potentially building up to some kind of tragedy/death. i just hope to see him believe in and understand true heroism by the end of his story, and know that his choices hold meaning despite the contradictions and that the horrors can and should be fought, no matter the cost, personal pride and fear and despair be damned. no more going away inside.

feast makes it clear that the vows cannot compromise, so it is time to choose. brienne is the key representation of that for him. and there is a reason her sword keeps burning. there is a reason he dreamed of her. a reason he dares to dream again. there is a reason he comes back.

and i think all that can still exist in a ‘tragic’ or a bittersweet ending.

#ask #been a while since i’ve read it though so

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reginarubie · 3 years

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The younger, more beautiful Queen - Cersei and Sansa (and Daenerys and Margaery; and Brienne of Tarth)

When Cersei recalls Maggy the Frog's prophecy about her being casted down by a younger, more beautiful queen we were all ready, thinking that younger, more beautiful Queen was supposed to be Sansa; then Margaery entered the picture and how could anyone actually ignore the dragon queen in the east and the threat she posed to Cersei and everything she stood for?

At which point many theorized each and every of three girls, younger and all described as beautiful may be the younger, more beautiful queen and would fulfill a part of Cersei's prophecy, each taking something she cared for from her. Which has many merits, especially thinking about how much Martin dislikes prophecies and likes playing around with them nudging towards the realization that we as people are the one who make our own destiny with Cersei being the real catalyst of everything Maggy the Frog prophetized for her.

Under the cut, my own personal vision of this prophecy and why I think that, no matter who will actually cause Cersei's downfall directly, Sansa (assuming she ending as QitN is also book!endgame, which we have good reason to believe it shall be so) is actually the younger, more beautiful queen.

People way more talented than me have already talked about this matter, but I wanted to give my input about it as well because I like to talk and this has been sitting in my files way too long and now I've decided to share with you all to see what you think about it.

Beneath her golden curls, the girl's face wrinkled up in puzzlement. For years after, she took those words to mean that she would not marry Rhaegar until after his father Aerys had died. "I will be queen, though?" asked the younger her.

"Aye." Malice gleamed in Maggy's yellow eyes. "Queen you shall be ... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear."

Anger flashed across the child's face. "If she tries I will have my brother kill her."

Maggy 's prophecy has haunted Cersei all these years since first the words had been uttered and it's no wonder. Now, we know Cersei married the king - Robert Baratheon, first of his name - after he had won the Realm through conquest and we also know that the other part of Maggy's prophecy, about Cersei having three children and the King many more than her. So it stands to reason that this part may also come to be true in some way or the other.

Though show!canon has derailed and distanced itself from book!canon, it must hold some kind of importance that Cersei asks Jaime to find Sansa and kill her especially if we connect it with what child Cersei told Maggy the Frog "if she tries I will have my brother kill her"; while she easily, in the show, decides she will be the one to cause Margaery demise as well as Daenerys's.

But let's break the prophecy and try to determinate what exactly it may mean to Cersei now.

Maggy tells her that she will be the Queen for a time, which we know to be the truth, and that she will have three children while the king (Robert) will have over seventeen. She also tells Cersei that one day another may come, that she will be younger and more beautiful.

Note, the first person we know Cersei describes as beautiful, by her words, is Sansa both in show and the book.

In the very first episode of the series, when Martin was still very much part of the writing process of the episodes, Cersei comments on Sansa's beauty and on how it would be wasted in the North (foreshadowing in my opinion Sansa growing past her enamourment with beauty and return North to stay, but I digress).

While in Sansa VI, AGOT, she states "such a beautiful child. I do hope you know how much Joffrey and I love you"

Also, note that this is said about Margaery Tyrell in AFFC in Cersei III: “When all the vows were spoken, the king and his new queen stepped outside the sept to accept congratulations. "Westeros has two queens now, and the young one is as beautiful as the old one," boomed Lyle Crakehall, an oaf of a knight who oft reminded Cersei of her late and unlamented husband.”

(Guess maybe it can’t be Margaery after all tho I do remember someone saying someone else, someone younger — Catelyn about Sansa — would grow even more beautiful than she was and though she did not mean to confront Sansa with Cersei, but with herself, the phrasing did stuck me as strange)

So this girl coming to cast Cersei down will be younger (and all candidates for the place are younger than Cersei) and more beautiful (now this could be as simple as a math count of how many times each candidate is described as beautiful and confront that number with Cersei's).

The counts now stands as following:

Sansa: 18 times (without sharing those times with anyone, all on her own; 2 times she is defined as more beautiful than someone older)

Drawing by @innocent-enyo; sorry I took your pics, I fell in love with them! If it bothers you I will take them down!

Cersei: 17 times (thyo sometimes shared with Margaery so the counts, if we count the shared times with Margaery goes up to 20)

Drawing always by innocent-enyo.

[honorable mention] Brienne of Tarth: 8 times (wouldn’t it be just perfect if Brienne did manage of convince Jaime to fuck loyalty and follow her instead of Cersei? Oh wait… that’s already show canon) after all if every girl can be the another younger, more beautiful who will take (something) everything from Cersei why not Brienne the Beauty?, especially since it’s said sarcastically yet she is far more fair and beautiful in character than Cersei is. I would appreciate the irony and the twist, all I am saying 🤷🏼‍♀️

Drawing by Lucas Werneck.

Margaery: 7 times(of which 3 shared with Cersei)

Margaery Tyrell by innocent-enyo as well.

Daenerys: only 5 times (?! I am surprised as well, tho to be fair she is described as the most beautiful woman in the world once and she was asked if she had grown more beautiful in a lapse of time, but never confronted to another older)

Daenerys Targaryen by innocent-enyo again!

So we have a neck-to-neck between Sansa and Cersei.

And tho I do think each girl will fulfill part of the prophecy (to save Margaery from her marriage to Joffrey he is killed, which catalyses the series of events which brings to Tywin’s death and Myrcella’s; Brienne did convince in the show Jaime to leave Cersei behind for a time; Sansa took her legacy in a way becoming the second ruling queen of a kingdom of Westeros; Margaery in a way took away Tommen as well in the show since learning of her death he committed suicide; Daenerys took the throne and the promise of the child in the show) I think Sansa will be in the end the younger more beautiful queen because the stress on the prophecy is put on the fact that this Queen will take everything Cersei’s holds dear…

…what did Cersei want? [note; now we enter in the show only realm and book hypothesis of the story since we have yet to see the last two books]

To save and protect those she loved; she failed by her ultimate fault;

have the younger, more beautiful queen and enemy killed by her brother (lover)

To sit on the throne as queen regnant because she feels she deserves it.

To be with the man she loves publicly.

What did Sansa achieve by the end of the show:

She marched her troops South and managed to get Jon free and her plotting assured that her siblings were safe (they protected her as well)

Her “brother” (lover?, Martin I have faith in you) killed her rival (Daenerys) to protect her and their family.

She gains the North independence and is named Queen in the North and is the queen with the strongest power love and loyalty (“Ned Stark’s daughter will speak for them, she’s the best they could ask for” and “we didn’t choose you to rule us m’lady but perhaps we should have”)

I truly believe in the books she will end up (or it will be hinted at) with a man she loves or will grow to love.

So, imo, while each and every girl may take something from Cersei and perhaps none of them (fAegon I’m looking at you, sweetie) or only one of them will manage to directly cause her death and defeat in the end Sansa will be the younger, more beautiful Queen because all that Cersei held dear and wanted she managed to achieve and she will be remembered the way Cersei wanted to be remembered, which is ultimately imo the true meaning of Maggy the Frog’s prophecy.

#younger more beautiful queen #asoiaf theories #cersei lannister #sansa stark #daenerys targaryen #margaery tyrell #brienne of tarth

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bidonicart · 3 years

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That JB illustration of them joining Roose for dinner just radiates marrieds energy

It’s not my fault if THIS is the text:

It was half an hour before he felt strong enough to stand. After the dim wet warmth of the bathhouse, the air outside was a slap across the face. "M'lord will be looking for him by now," a guard told Qyburn. "Her too. Do I need to carry him?"

"I can still walk. Brienne, give me your arm."

Clutching her, Jaime let them herd him across the yard to a vast draughty hall, larger even than the throne room in King's Landing.

A page earlier, the scene I botched with inking and that at this point I’m determined to redraw::

The next he knew, he was lying on the damp floor with the guards and the wench and Qyburn all standing over him looking concerned. Brienne was naked, but she seemed to have forgotten that for the moment. [...]

"Scrub him and dress him and carry him to Kingspyre, if need be," Qyburn said. "Lord Bolton insists he will sup with him tonight. The time is growing short." "Bring me clean garb for him," Brienne said, "I'll see that he's washed and dressed."

The others were all too glad to give her the task. They lifted him to his feet and sat him on a stone bench by the wall. Brienne went away to retrieve her towel, and returned with a stiff brush to finish scrubbing him. One of the guards gave her a razor to trim his beard. Qyburn returned with roughspun smallclothes, clean black woolen breeches, a loose green tunic, and a leather jerkin that laced up the front. Jaime was feeling less dizzy by then, though no less clumsy. With the wench's help he managed to dress himself. "Now all I need is a silver looking glass."

Oh fuck I forgot the leather jerkin in my drawing

I mean, these two have reached a level of intimacy and just... physical ease with each other that we don’t often see in these books. You know which other highborn lady forgets propriety and goes on to converse stark naked with a maester because there’s shit that needs to be done? Catelyn in her second AGoT chapter right after she sleeps with Ned, and you don’t get more “married couple” than Mom and Dad Stark. Now, I have to be honest with you and say I don’t particularly vibe with post endgame scenarios/au where Jaime and Brienne go on to have a domestic life, like my self indulgent fantasies for them don’t go in that direction, but it’s out of the question that George wrote them as being already close the way lifelong partners are, and they built this over... a couple of months if we go by the fanmade timeline. I guess that being highly compatible people who go through a lot of traumatic shit together and save each other’s life will act as an accelerator!

#jaime x brienne #a storm of swords #Anonymous #replies

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janiedean · 3 years

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why am i like this 🙃 anyway a few days back i went and read up... anti-jaime meta & j/c endgame meta coz i'm an idiot rlly, and like once every month i get these doubts as to whether i'm being stupid? am i blind? so i like to check the opposition and my beliefs. i feel bad for a little while but it never works and i'm always like WHAT foolishness and i've done this like 3 times now and i'm honestly hoping i've learnt my lesson. because WTF

i saw what the other anon was talking about and went and reread that ridiculous meta; and i realised that the j*nsa shipper who thinks j*nsa is the endgame, is also a tw*ncest shipper who thinks... wait for it... JAIME & CERSEI are the hidden Beauty and the Beast?!?!?!

and they said how jaime/brienne would be unsatisfying becz a redemption arc for jaime is unsatisfying, COMPLETELY ignoring the reasons j/c is toxic and the person who's suffered most for it is jaime (manipulated into giving up his birthright & lordship, then traumatized, and they even blamed him for the white cloak in the first place? that he chose it for glory? NO, he chose it after a sleepless night w/ crrsei) AND that his true "redemption" should not be leaving the woman he's been willing to kill & maim for (yeah, just ignore the way he's been loathing himself, and realising how low he'd fallen, and all for nothing) for the first girl who walks up in 5 min. i hate how every jc shipper minimises brienne's importance in jaime's arc. (i mean, HAVE THEY EVEN READ ASOS? Did they see the part where HE JUMPS INTO A BEAR PIT, UNARMED & ONE HANDED, to save the "first girl who comes along in 5min?? WTF and this is even more ridiculous coz jaime has actually been loyal to cersei this whole time, brienne is not the first. he HAS been faithful to her to the detriment of his own chances at life and a family AND THEY PULL THIS BS? HOW?

and ofc, they somehow think jaime is the beauty with two beasts, and that grrm is not going to end with a jb endgame but that jaime's ultimately going to realise he & c are two "beautiful beasts" and die with c. (?????)

(btw pls feel free to ignore my rant i'm so sorry i have no idea why i just dumped all that in your inbox i just had to get it out becz i'm still stewing??? also THANK YOU for the kg jaime did nothing wrong, that cleansed my eyes becz i have recently read scalding hot takes such as "the show was right, he does not give a fig abt the innocents, he only cares for his family, he only killed aerys for his father and he is defo going to die with c" ignoring that uh - like hell tywin was in any danger from aerys, and he did not do it for his father to prove himself,i don't think there's anything jaime could do that would ever make tywin kill him... another was his redemption/arc is shallow becz "he never admits he's doing anything wrong, he only does good to feel selfish and proud, he's deluding himself with goldenhand the just and HA! HE'S NEVER GOING TO ADMIT THAT HE DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL AERYS. HE WAS WRONG TO KILL AERYS. HE WAS A DUMMY 17 YO, he's soo stupid, he cares only for himself and his reputation and just ughhhh how do ppl misread him so badly??

dw anon I mean... I only read that meta when it's incorrectly tagged and there's a reason why I went and blacklisted the shit out of any jc tag ever as in that I was done reading stuff that made me want to punch a wall and you honestly said everything I would have so I don't have much to add but like to address a few of your points

(disclaimer: I'm discussing jc shippers who... have those takes/harass ppl if they think different not anyone who like ships jc in peace bc they like it for what it is just to... make sure it's clear)

a lot of the meta you mention is based on selective reading of some jaime chapters, of all of c's chapters in affc and ignoring brienne's existence the end

also a lot of the people writing it have zero idea of how brienne works as a character/what's her point in the narrative and haven't read her chapters nor have even tried to grow some empathy for her nor having learned from there what grrm wants ppl to learn from reading brienne chapters which i'm 100% not surprised about

like once someone asked me if I really went to therapy bc I was nonstandard attractive that's all I had to see to never be surprised again

also 'the first girl he ran into after five minutes' is someone who literally kept him alive and that he dreams of at night and in those dreams she puts herself in between him and his worst traumas and keeps on saying she'll keep him safe like............ sorry but lmao

(also I'm eating my hat if like cersei had done for jaime what brienne did when they were prisoners together but that's another problem entirely)

'he and c. are beautiful beasts' is like... y'all didn't even get the meaning of the og story did you

also lmao anyone who reads the books and the aerys story and gets the conclusion that he was selfish can't read and I'm dying on that hill bc again you're speaking of 17 yo with vietnamwar level ptsd who just wanted to protect the innocent and ended up being treated like scum because he killed a dude that should have been deposed years before like.... we fucking srs like if you read jaime chapters without coming to the conclusion that 'this is a genuinely nice guy whose life choices/relatives/circumstances/being an abuse victim with at least three different ppl abusing him was shoehorned into cynicism/doing horrid shit/terrible coping mechanism but it still couldn't manage to actually turn him into a truly bad person' then I have nothing to tell you because that's what's written and no amount of twisting/selective reading will change it, the end /shrug

anyway I'm at the point where any show truthing that doesn't recognize that the small council being made of minorities/commoners/discriminated ppl until then is literally the only thing grrm could and would have written for me goes into the trash automatically bc the show made no sense not even within its own continuity so miss me with trying to tell me the books actually end like that X°D

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #only slightly less toxic than chernobyl's ruins #anti-cersei lannister #anti-cersei #anti-lannincest #anti-jaime x cersei #anonymous #ask post #jaime x brienne for ts #otp: i dreamed of you #anti jaime x cersei #anti lannincest #anti cersei lannister #abuse cw #ptsd cw

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homosexualslug · 3 years

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Don't Be Afraid to Change Your Ending: A Tale of Three Series Finales

I was reading @thylaa's great post about how Supernatural wrote its series finale backwards and how that was their downfall. Funnily enough, I think that was the same issue the infamous series finales for "How I Met Your Mother" and "Game of Thrones" had too.

Besides being three of my favorite shows, the three shows had one big thing in common: all of them wanted a shocking, unexpected ending that they decided on and locked in way in advance.

Supernatural wanted one of the brothers to die permanently and tragically.

HIMYM wanted the ultimate "plot twist!" with Ted realizing he's in love with Robin. They even filmed its big reveal scene as early as Season 2.

George R. Martin's ASOIAF true book endgame was never revealed to us, but most likely it involved: Daenarys going insane and having to be killed by Jon, the Lannisters dying together, Arya killing the Night King, etc.

There is nothing wrong with having a long game plan with writing: in fact some of the best shows happen when they have a clear beginning, middle and ending. The issue? The stories they wrote changed. They became better, deeper, more nuanced. Suddenly, those tropey endings made no sense.

Supernatural became better and stronger BECAUSE it was no longer just the brothers; it created a found family from all the people they saved, expanded the world of hunters and monsters, it made them feel less alone in these big battles. Not just Cas and Jack, but Bobby and Charlie and Garth and Eileen and Jo and Ellen and Kevin. Even former baddies like Rowena, Crowley, Gabriel and Mitch became part of the team.

HIMYM stopped being about Ted and Robin's supposed endgame; the two actually moved on, Robin had stories and arcs of her own instead of always being Ted's "the one that got away", she even fell in love with another main character.

Game of Thrones did so much with an unfinished story. Arya's powerful return, The Battle of the Bastards, Jaime's redemption. Its biggest strength for me was that Daenarys became this strong, powerful, and impactful character that you wanted to root for and not against.

At some point, the writers realized their original "tragic" endings no longer made sense and fixed it in the most awkward and impersonal ways.

Supernatural: Everyone cares about characters outside the brothers? Okay, kill or write out the rest one by one to the point that no one even shows up at Dean's funeral besides Sam and a dog.

HIMYM: Everyone actually wants to see Ted & The Mother and Robin & Barney together after all their build-up (and the last season taking place entirely at Robin/Barney's wedding?) Well, time for an episode-long montage that shows that the Mom died of an unnamed disease and Robin & Barney actually got divorced so it's okay for Ted to still be in love with her!

Game of Thrones: Jaime needs to dump Brienne and leave the good side so he and Cersei can still die together. Daenarys is still a good person/one of the heroes, so let's make up for lost time and have her suddenly lose her mind and burn down a city in the span of two episodes! Oh, right, and Bran is going to King of the Seven Kingdoms; hopefully this Tyrion monologue will explain everything.

Sidenote: One of my favorite movies is "Stranger than Fiction", which like Supernatural involves a writer meeting their character. In the film, Karen Eiffel is a famous author known for killing her characters in tragic, morbid ways.

She experiences writer's block as she tries to figure out the perfect way to kill her newest protagonist, Harold Crick. By the time she finds a way to kill him, however, she learns that Harold is a real person.

Suddenly, she has to choose between giving up her super tragic ending or change it to let this man live. He reads the ending and decides to accept his fate: sacrificing his life for the sake of good storytelling.

This sacrifice changes how she sees him and his story. He became so much more than the character she had created; he became humble, he lived his life to the fullest, he chose to be grateful for the time and people he did have. And so last minute, she rewrites the ending. She found another way to make it poetic, even if it wasn't the despair she was always known for.

Not every character HAS to survive for it to be a good ending, but oftentimes so many writers use Major Character Death as a cop-out to get the most tears or gasps. And it works. No matter how Sam or Dean die, we will cry because Jensen and Jared are damn good actors and we’ve spent so many years with them.

With the proper build-up, Major Character Death can even be the most impactful ending. I personally think "Breaking Bad" wouldn't be the same if Walter White didn't die alone, and "The Good Place" wouldn't be the same if the characters never walked through the Last Door.

Supernatural, HIMYM, and Game of Thrones are still some of my favorite TV shows of all time. It just hurts that they were so focused on staying true to their original endings that they abandoned the beautiful stories they had created along the way.

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melrosing · 3 years

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Hello! Sorry for asking so many questions but I like your meta. What are your favourite and least favourite Brienne takes? How do you think she'll deal with the Stoneheart/Jaime situation? Thoughts on Brienne being some kind of wlw? (I personally hc her as bisexual even if a lot of people see her as het/gay.) Ideal ending for her? Brienne dynamics you'd like to see? Any headcanons about her mother? What punishment should we inflict on GRRM if he doesn't give us information about her? She doesn't even have a name ffs.

Aw thank you! And no worries, I fuckin love talking about Bri so suits me fine lol, only just to let you know this is going to be less meta and more me warbling on about Brienne at midnight

What are your favourite and least favourite Brienne takes?

For fave Brienne takes... I like that she’s essentially both the archetypal heroic knight and the archetypal romantic heroine all whilst being told that she could never be either. living for The Duality of Brienne

For least fave, honestly spoilt for choice. Anything that suggests her key role in this story is just to max out on honour and ascend as some glorified bodyguard, like that’s not exactly how she started out. anything that says she’s just gonna die when they meet LSH so Jaime can have a grief arc before navel-gazing back to KL or whatever. also a take I read the other day which was like ‘Brienne doesn’t really experience sexuality’ like... lord.

How do you think she'll deal with the Stoneheart/Jaime situation?

I have no idea how they get out of the LSH situation, possibly Brienne has a plan up her sleeve or possibly some external factor saves them... and I kind of lean towards the latter because they’re... genuinely in a bit of a fucking pickle!!! (resolve the pickle GRRM)

but either way I feel so sure she’s not even gonna try to defend herself to Jaime and he’s gonna have to find out some other way that Brienne meant to throw away her life for his. and listen I’m gonna be living for that shit

Thoughts on Brienne being some kind of wlw?

I think it’s a cool idea, we don’t really see Brienne interact with many women (besides Cat, who I feel she has a kind of pseudo-parental thing going on with), so it’s fun to speculate what those relationships might look like. I wouldn’t say I personally hc her as wlw, at this point in time anyway, I guess mostly just because I don’t have enough scenes to work with to really run with it? but I honestly love reading other people’s hcs

Ideal ending for her?

god this is such a boring answer but to tell the truth I am so rubbish at speculating endgame!! I can theorise about imminent events but as soon as anyone asks me what I want to happen two books from now I’m like idk :-| it’s just... too far away. I read other people’s theories and let them do the work for me

like basically I want her to be loved and fulfilled and living a life of her choosing and not just in service to X Stark. groundbreaking I know

Brienne dynamics you'd like to see?

anyway despite me just being like ‘I don’t want Brienne just serving X Stark’ I do actually want to see her dynamic with Sansa! which is probably the obvious choice but for real, I want it. Sansa being a character who’s searching for true knights and finding one in Brienne, but also a kindred spirit in that they’re both such romantics and love the songs etc etc, and god I really want them to be able to talk about Cat together. the only person Sansa’s been able to talk to about her loss is like... fucking Littlefinger and I think meeting Brienne would be so cathartic for both of them, cos Brienne grieves Cat too.

but also the awkwardness of their meeting, with Brienne having been searching for her all this time and sort of vaguely imagining this innocent young girl based on what Cat’s told her, yet finding instead someone who’s really coming into her own and might not even accept Brienne’s help immediately, depending on how they meet I guess. much to think about

Any headcanons about her mother?

okay I looooved the conversations that were happening around Mrs Tarth on knifeears’ blog, particularly about her lowkey having a bit of magic going on, like prophetic dreams and a strange relationship with storm gods. and like the idea of her seeing some future for Bri in her dreams (with magic swords etc) but passing away before Bri is old enough to hear it :(

also feel like maaaybe she and Selwyn were a love match? like I’m still not quite sure how a descendant of Dunk’s ended up in House Tarth. it’s possible it was a child of Dunk and a Targ, in which case not all that surprising, but the fact that his shield was just lying around in the armoury at Evenfall and Brienne had no idea whose it was makes me think that someone with a rather opaque background married into House Tarth and brought the shield along with them, and maybe that was Brienne’s mother. I dunno, if there are holes in this feel free to point them out I’m just thinking aloud again

What punishment should we inflict on GRRM if he doesn't give us information about her?

we confiscate his little hats

#brienne of tarth #asoiaf #ask #peetamaellark #sorry this is so much rambling reading back. head full of bri

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dreadwulf · 3 years

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is it bad that as a brienne fan i enjoy her relationship with J*ime n find it fascinating n want it to evolve but can't see it as endgame because j*ime is just.... a horrible person? it's not playing the deserve game. i just can't see brienne trusting him. it's not too difficult for me to see a scenario where brienne goes like "Dude, you're great but i just can't look past the crippling bran thing. how the hell are we supposed to explain that to our kids so sorry but we can't be together bye"

But she does trust him. That’s the thing. She trusts him, already, despite everything.

She was already in the state you describe when they met. She thought Jaime was a horrible person and she judged him harshly for it. She knew all of those things about him from the start, about Bran and the incest and the kingslaying, all of it.

Then they went through an awful experience together and came to know each other on a deeper level, and developed the kind of intimacy that usually comes from years of companionship. She came to understand him, and after that she could no longer judge him the way she once did. Yes, he has made mistakes. But he made every one of them out of love, out of wanting to protect his family and protect KIng’s Landing, even when it essentially ruined his life to do so. Once she saw that, her feelings towards him changed.

After that it really wouldn’t make sense for her to suddenly revert back to the way she was at the start, over something she already knew about at the very beginning. Not to mention that Jaime risked his life to save her, stuck his neck out to keep her safe (sapphires!), when she had been nothing but rude and dismissive of him. He treated her like a real knight, gave her a quest and a sword that any knight in the world is DYING to have, and believed in her in a way that absolutely no one in her life ever has. Brienne is not the type of person who is ever, ever going to forget that. Not to mention part of her character arc in general is to become less judgmental, to go from an idealized conception of knighthood that she can never attain to a much more mixed bag, in a morally complicated world, and Jaime is part of that arc.

What you describe makes no sense for Brienne, basically. Maybe the Brienne of ACOK. But if you’re a fan of her character journey through ASOS and AFFC, it would be obvious that she has changed. She already trusts Jaime. She already loves Jaime. Whether it works out between them or not, it’s not going to be because she suddenly decides he’s not good enough for her. That’s not Brienne.

And I don’t agree that Jaime’s a horrible person, obviously, but that’s a whole other thing.

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fawnilu · 4 years

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Tagged by @knifeears thank you sm <33

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

1. A Game of Leaks A GoT comic based off of the rumored AU endgame leaks. Starting after S8E3. written by @ginmo @jaimetheexplorer <33 art by me :))

im very proud to be part of this project!

tumblr twitter instagram

2. Gwen in the National Portrait Gallery .

it was fun to draw the girls on the painting 👀👀👀👀 + Gwen shared this one via ig story <3

based on this photos

3.”now do mine!” & “I will shield your back and keep counsel and follow all dragons....I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

how could i not be proud of drawing this little angel??

fan art of the masterpiece ”You Can't Save Her” by @chickren

i love everything i drew for @natty-danai somehow she always commission me scenes i want to draw the most <3

4. 10 year old Jaime x Brienne dancing

I like the dynamics here :))

Same Time, Next Year by Angelowl. love this fic!

commission for @natty-danai <3

5.Lannister-Tarth family

my SS drawing . i love the details of Jaime’s armor and cloak. and baby Jo of course

consider yourself tagged :-)

#ahh this was hard #also b&tb drawings !#gooosh #when was the last time i draw not jb?? loool #tag game #my art #my stuff #asoiaf #got #Gwen #jb fics #long post

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yenslilac · 4 years

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Daenerys Targaryen and Ophelia: An Essay

I wrote this a while back, just after Season 8 ended. After a few edits, I decided to share it with you! Disclaimer: I wrote this fueled with rage at 11 at night for two weeks straight. Don’t judge.

Part 1: The Heroine Goes Absolutely Bats**t Crazy

Ophelia. Known throughout time as That Crazy Chick Who Drowned Herself. What a legacy. And Daenerys: She Who Toasted A City Like Marshmallows And Then Was Offed By Her Nephew/Lover. The sad thing is, these are my heroes. What a life. But the ‘Insane Heroine’ trope is prevalent in many forms of media – Dark Phoenix is another example. At first glance, Daenerys and Ophelia have very little in common; Daenerys is a powerful and assertive leader, and Ophelia is a background love interest. The one thing that unites them – they go crazy because of rejected love. While their descent into madness is slightly different; Ophelia is pitiful, Daenerys aggressive, both end up dying indirectly or directly as a result of their lover. Lovely. Let’s talk first about Ophelia – She is rebuffed Hamlet, the original pathetic sad boy, and at the death of her father, goes insane. After several performances of her insanity, she makes her way to a river where she falls (or throws?) herself into the water and drowns. This is witnessed by Gertrude, who then goes on to tell her brother Laertes of her death. It’s a pretty monologue, describing the flowers and plants growing along the riverbank, and how pretty and peaceful she looked as she sank under water and DIED. Remember this. Then my girl Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men etc. etc. Oh boy. Ohhhhhh boy. What can I say except **************** ***** ** **********. Thank you for your time. But she like Ophelia, was scorned by her Boyfriend Who Felt It Was Just A Little Weird That She Was His Aunt. But like, your paternal grandparents and the rest of your great-whatever grandparents were siblings, and your maternal grandparents were cousins so… But I digress. Wait no, this is what it’s all about. I’m back! I un-digress! So, she goes ‘insane’ cause she can’t get laid (don’t we all?) and roasts a whole lot of people and becomes… Hitler for some reason… So, Boyfriend Who Felt It Was Just A Little Weird That She Was His Aunt And Really Wishes He Can Just Catch A Break For Once Is It Really Too Much Too Ask is egged on by Murder Sister™ and Smarty Pants McGee to kill her. Just like my friends! He makes out with her and stabs her (best of both worlds!) and she dies. Very prettily. Remember this. You know. YOU KNOW I’m going to rant about this.

Part 2: Heroic Man Kills The Crazy Lady Like The Feral Dog She Is (But Feels Sad About It)

Trope as old as time… why is this still fine… surely there’s a better plot deviiiiiice. “Duty is the death of love…” Shut up. Shut up. No, it isn’t. There is a thing called multitasking. You should try it. But let’s recap. Woman goes crazy because of lover/hero of the story rebuffing her because he’s got issues of his own that he doesn’t care to share with her, and close friend/family member is killed. This is when the paths of the Hero diverge. Hamlet does not actually kill Ophelia himself, but his careless actions towards her eventually drive her to suicide. Jon, on the other hand, does kill Daenerys, (no, I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed) by a knife to the heart while snogging her. (I’d like to take the opportunity to say that this was ridiculous and yes, I will die mad about it.) What else is similar? Hamlet holds Ophelia’s (or in some adaptations tries to) dead body in his arms as she is about to be buried and Jon holds Daenerys as she dies. They cry and wish it didn’t have to be this way, but really guys, this is Your Fault.

The problem with this trope in particular (and I’m talking about a lot of other examples here, like Dark Phoenix and Wolverine) is that it renders the killer sympathetic. They didn’t want to do this, but it was for the good of humanity, it was a mercy, blah blah blah. Really? Did someone make you kill her? No, a sense of moral justice does not count. Hamlet abuses and humiliates Ophelia then claims he loved her so much that ‘forty thousand brothers could not…” Creepy. I have to say, creepy. And Jon Snow. “Was it right? It doesn’t feel right…” I’m glad you came to that conclusion. I really am. But I knew this from the moment you stuffed that butter knife into her spleen, so honestly you don’t have any business feeling sorry for yourself. If there’s one lesson that Game of Thrones and Shakespeare has taught me, it is:

(not an artist, don’t judge)

Part 3: Someone Died And The Director Said, “Cool But Like… Make It Fashion.”

Do you remember what I told you to remember? Did you? Cause I’m about to RANT.

Throughout time (like 500 years) men have been painting Ophelia’s drowning – the probable suicide of a tormented young woman – and made sure she looked hot while doing it. True, the description of her death is pretty and all, but depictions of her floating just below the surface, a dramatic and lovely pose and flowers strewn around her glamorise her death – something many other people have taken note on – and give her death something of a peaceful, serene departing note, rather than the death of a woman so deranged she did not appear to understand the gravity of her situation as she sank under water. Daenerys suffers a similar case of SDPS (Sexy Dead Person Syndrome). Let’s go through it step by step, shall we? While in an embrace with someone she loves and trusts, she is stabbed in the heart area (I guess?), and she dies. The End. My respect for white men flew off with Drogon. But I haven’t complained properly yet! Compared to other characters, like Myrcella, Joffrey and Catelyn Stark to name a few, her death was very clean. In these other examples, blood runs down their faces or spurts out of their neck in suitably graphic fashion but Daenerys’ case, two thin lines of blood trickle from her nose and mouth. Pretty, pretty. We get a brief shot of a pool of blood on the snow as Drogon picks her up, but blink and you’ll miss it. She looks shocked and confused as she dies, yet the next shot of her face shows her eyes are closed and an almost peaceful expression on her face. Not only this but we don’t actually get any proper Last Words, when she knows she is about to die. She makes no sound at all. She dies prettily and quietly. We also don’t see the knife at all until she is dead, removing any very graphic nature from the scene. A lot of the camera shots are of Jon’s face. This scene is not about Daenerys Targaryen’s death; This is about Jon Snow’s inner turmoil as he selflessly sacrifices the woman he loves to save the rest of the world. Hold up one second I gotta……

I mean, come on. Daenerys is barely mentioned after her death. She, a woman who freed hundreds, no, thousands of slaves and worked hard to reach her goals (albeit a little dragonfire-y) yet she dies without a whisper and is forgotten almost immediately. She becomes less of a central character and more of a catalyst for other men’s rise to power (see Bran the Broken). Wait, what about Sansa, you cry? Well, at this point, she was so out of character I’m striking her from the narrative. Bye bitch 😊 The same goes for most of the other women in the last season. They become plot devices with a little agency and that’s about it. Missandei? Unnecessarily killed to create the “Mad Queen”. Cersei? A compelling villain reduced to a ‘crying girl who wants to be comforted’. Arya? Kills the Night King and then, I dunno. Sansa? Suspicious of Daenerys because of reasons, betrays her brother/cousin because she doesn’t want Daenerys on the throne, then just ‘forgets’ about this whole thing to become Queen in the North. Brienne? Honourable knight left sobbing after her one (k)night stand left her. Another thing that many of these women have in common (the ones who survived to the final episode anyway) is that none of them have romantic endgames despite this being set up. Arya and Gendry have been close friends in Season 2 and 3, then <3 and everyone (i.e. me) thought that you know, they get together and stuff, because that’s what the writers seemed to be setting up. But nope. Arya’s all like ‘I wanna kill the queen’ (which she never does) and throws all that out the window. (But Gendry was totally on that ship at the end). Brienne and Jaime seemed to finally stop eye fricking and then got straight to the actual fricking but nooooo. “I lOvE CeRseI! WE’re bOTh tERrIble PeOple!” And of course, the crowning glory:

And the woman who actually does come out on top is Sansa, a largely unemotional, suspicious woman whose brother is now the king and made her a queen because she’s his sister. Riiiight. That’s totally not nepotism or anything.

The End: But Boy, Am I Just Beginning

To conclude, the ending of Daenerys Targaryen was largely misogynistic as it painted a brutal and dishonourable murder as an act of mercy and gave the killer (sorry man, I feel like I’m throwing you under the bus here, but it must be said) a sympathetic angle as a heartbroken martyr sacrificing for the greater good. I had high expectations, I really did, but you just took it anD THREW IT IN THE DIRT. Good god. But it’s fine, I have fanfiction anyway.

Thank you for reading this, if you stuck around this far!

#daenerys targaryen #daenerys defense squad #daenerys death tw #ophelia #shakespeare #anti d and d #anti got

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