#naerys and sansa parallels | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

atopvisenyashill · 5 months

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connections between naerys and sansa?

There’s plenty! She’s very much in a Naerys/Aegon scenario in ASOS & ACOK, where she has no ability to leave the capital, no one doing anything meaningful to protect her, and a King that is obsessed with sexually humiliating her. There’s a lot of romanticism and chivalry surrounding her character and how other people react to her character, the same as Naerys.

But also, Sansa makes the comparisons to Naerys herself, and she does it before she realizes what kind of person Joffrey is! In fact, it starts with her very first chapter where she compares Joffrey interrupting Ilyn Payne & Sandor Clegane to Aemon demanding a trial by combat against Ser Morgil:

A whole day with her prince! She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

She will compare Joffrey to Aemon and herself to Naerys again later, to Ned:

"Father, I only just now remembered, I can't go away, I'm to marry Prince Joffrey." She tried to smile bravely for him. "I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies."

(lowkey she’s so fucking funny for that “i only just now remembered” comment, idk how ned kept a straight face for it)

She then uses Aemon (and the Cargyll twins) to make Tommen feel better and dunk on Joffrey:

Prince Tommen sobbed. "You mew like a suckling babe," his brother hissed at him. "Princes aren't supposed to cry." "Prince Aemon the Dragonknight cried the day Princess Naerys wed his brother Aegon," Sansa Stark said, "and the twins Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk died with tears on their cheeks after each had given the other a mortal wound." "Be quiet, or I'll have Ser Meryn give you a mortal wound," Joffrey told his betrothed.

Again, there’s a focus on Aemon’s romantic relationship with Naerys because that's what appeals to Sansa. But when people say "Sansa sees the world through stories" it's not just about how she romanticizes or idolizes knighthood, nobility, and chivalry - she thinks through information by comparing it with similar historical events or stories and analyzing it. She clearly sees the problem with Loras protecting Margaery from Joffrey by comparing him to the Toynes instead of Aemon, and Joffrey (once again) to Aegon the Unworthy:

She is so brave, Sansa thought, galloping after her . . . and yet, her doubts still gnawed at her. Ser Loras was a great knight, all agreed. But Joffrey had other Kingsguard, and gold cloaks and red cloaks besides, and when he was older he would command armies of his own. Aegon the Unworthy had never harmed Queen Naerys, perhaps for fear of their brother the Dragonknight . . . but when another of his Kingsguard fell in love with one of his mistresses, the king had taken both their heads. Ser Loras is a Tyrell, Sansa reminded herself. That other knight was only a Toyne. His brothers had no armies, no way to avenge him but with swords. Yet the more she thought about it all, the more she wondered. Joff might restrain himself for a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does . . . The realm might have a second Kingslayer, and there would be war inside the city, as the men of the lion and the men of the rose made the gutters run red.

She’s also not wrong in her assessment here because the Tyrells (my guess is Garlan and Olenna) are so worried about this outcome they just murder Joffrey and install Tommen; like Bethany Bracken, Margaery is groomed (with all the implications that are included in such a loaded term) to be sexually available to the King because her father wants power and doesn't care if his daughter is sexually abused to get it. Like Terrance Toyne, Loras is considered attractive, skilled, and has several brothers more than willing to start a war to avenge his death. I think it's incredibly intuitive that Sansa ultimately comes to the same conclusion as two seasoned political players like (presumably) Olenna and Garlan come to, and she makes this judgement call very quickly!

And Sansa also hits on a lot of (correct) similarities when she makes these comparisons between Joffrey's court and Aegon the Unworthy's court; Aegon and Joffrey both have wild, violent temperaments while being notoriously difficult to control. It’s not just Naerys that attempts to get Aegon to stop marital raping her; Aemon’s useless tears aside, Viserys does do the bare minimum here in sending Aegon away so Naerys can heal from her miscarriages, Daeron got shitty with the Brackens about being tacky over Naerys' marital rape and ill health, Baelor fasts himself to death over Naerys’ miscarriages, etc etc. All of the “authority figures” around Aegon think his behavior is wrong but Aegon proves stubbornly difficult to control or kill. Joffrey falls along these same lines - Cersei, Robert, Tyrion, Tywin, and even Varys all struggle to get some control over Joffrey but like Aegon, he knows once he’s of age and has that crown he doesn’t have to answer for SHIT and stubbornly resists every attempt to curb his behavior. Joffrey is a hell scenario waiting to happen because like Aegon, he’s petty and petulant enough to pull the stunts Aegon pulls like pitting his true born kids against his bastard born ones and causing another violent succession crisis. I say this as like, the ultimate Joffrey Apologist here, lmaooo, he has reasons for being a nasty piece of shit but the Tyrells are right to look at him and go “oh that’s trouble” because he is a ticking time bomb. And the crazy thing is, it’s not just Sansa who compares Joffrey to Aegon the Unworthy:

"A king can have other women. Whores. My father did. One of the Aegons did too. The third one, or the fourth. He had lots of whores and lots of bastards." As they whirled to the music, Joff gave her a moist kiss. "My uncle will bring you to my bed whenever I command it." Sansa shook her head. "He won't." "He will, or I'll have his head. That King Aegon, he had any woman he wanted, whether they were married or no."

Joffrey makes the comparison himself. He's a piece of work just like his hero and he is directly threatening to rape Sansa the same way Aegon raped Naerys and poor Bethany Bracken. He is directly admitting he is "unworthy" and practically daring all of KL to overthrow him for it because he thinks they'll blink before he does (and he is unfortunately deadly wrong in this assumption).

And when you extrapolate out from there, you can see other, similar patterns between Naerys' life and Sansa's, beyond the Joffrey-Aegon, Margaery-Bethany, Loras-Terrance, and Sansa-Naerys parallels. Tyrion himself aspires to be a sort of Viserys II type player (see: "It should have been called the Lives of Five Kings" rant he gives to Oberyn); a power behind the throne directing his crazy family to do what's right or smart or proper. There's an interesting echo in Viserys taking direct action in sending Aegon away from Naerys and Tyrion stopping Joffrey in his assault of Sansa - like Viserys, he can see the monster in the king he is raising, makes an attempt to stop it, but fails because he underestimates just how dangerous and erratic his little king has become. Like Viserys, Tyrion is suspected of poisoning his own nephew in an attempt to get closer to power and the throne (and Viserys, like Tyrion, is probably innocent - the sort of fasting that Baelor was doing regularly is hard on the body!).

I don't think any of this is coincidental or accidental either, because of that haunting scene where Joffrey destroys the gift Tyrion got him. Here's the scene, excuse the wall of text, but it's important:

He plays the gracious king today. Joffrey could be gallant when it suited him, Sansa knew, but it seemed to suit him less and less. Indeed, all his courtesy vanished at once when Tyrion presented him with their own gift: a huge old book called Lives of Four Kings, bound in leather and gorgeously illuminated. The king leafed through it with no interest. "And what is this, Uncle?" A book. Sansa wondered if Joffrey moved those fat wormy lips of his when he read. "Grand Maester Kaeth's history of the reigns of Daeron the Young Dragon, Baelor the Blessed, Aegon the Unworthy, and Daeron the Good," her small husband answered. "A book every king should read, Your Grace," said Ser Kevan. “My father had no time for books.” Joffrey shoved the tome across the table. “If you read less, Uncle Imp, perhaps Lady Sansa would have a baby in her belly by now.” He laughed … and when the king laughs, the court laughs with him. “Don’t be sad, Sansa, once I’ve gotten Queen Margaery with child I’ll visit your bedchamber and show my little uncle how it’s done.” Sansa reddened. She glanced nervously at Tyrion, afraid of what he might say. This could turn as nasty as the bedding had at their own feast. But for once the dwarf filled his mouth with wine instead of words... [Joffrey gets a Valyrian sword and figures out a name for it, Widow's Wail, it's a few pages, it's not relevant here] Joffrey brought Widow’s Wail down in a savage two-handed slice, onto the book that Tyrion had given him. The heavy leather cover parted at a stroke. “Sharp! I told you, I am no stranger to Valyrian steel.” It took him half a dozen further cuts to hack the thick tome apart, and the boy was breathless by the time he was done. Sansa could feel her husband struggling with his fury as Ser Osmund Kettleblack shouted, “I pray you never turn that wicked edge on me, sire.” “See that you never give me cause, ser.” Joffrey flicked a chunk of Lives of Four Kings off the table at swordpoint, then slid Widow’s Wail back into its scabbard. “Your Grace,” Ser Garlan Tyrell said. “Perhaps you did not know. In all of Westeros there were but four copies of that book illuminated in Kaeth’s own hand.” “Now there are three.” Joffrey undid his old swordbelt to don his new one. “You and Lady Sansa owe me a better present, Uncle Imp. This one is all chopped to pieces.”

God I love that passage so much. There's a lot there but what's relevant is a) both Oberyn and Garlan are trying to get a measure of who Joffrey is, and have some child murdering plans potentially in the works during this scene. Watching Joffrey destroy a priceless tome of history given as a well thought, well meant, incredibly generous (and pointed) gift from his uncle is more than enough proof for either man to decide Joffrey is not worth the headache, and please note Garlan is the only person to call Joffrey out to his face, and Oberyn is a few pages later the only person to acknowledge this was a fantastic and kind gift from Tyrion that Joffrey reacted absolutely deranged towards for no reason. and b) Tyrion is almost literally saying to Joffrey "I can be your Viserys, I can make it so you're remembered as a great king the way Daeron II or Baelor are, or a great warrior like Daeron I, but you have to understand the reason why I'm worried about your behavior" and Joffrey does the most destructive, unworthy thing he can possibly do - he quite literally destroys priceless, useful historical knowledge and wisdom with his bare hands, in favor of senseless, petulant violence. As Catelyn would say, Joffrey's real bride is not Margaery, but the war he's fighting and the crown on his head.

All of this to say - there's a lot of parallels between Sansa's situation in KL and Naery's life and these parallels are drawn not only by Sansa herself, but also by several people around her. However, I hope for better things for Sansa than what poor Naerys got - I hope for an Aemon the Dragonknight that will do more than just cry while she's raped, but actually step into that room and defend her, or else give her the power to defend herself. Despite the long wait for The Winds of Winter, I also think it's likely we will get some sort of Dragonknight, devoted sworn sword for Sansa and this person will help protect her, and Sansa will have agency that Naerys could only ever dream of.

#valyrianscrolls #sansa stark #naerys targaryen #aemon the dragonknight #aegon the unworthy #joffrey baratheon #tyrion lannister #margaery tyrell #loras tyrell #olenna tyrell #garlan tyrell #terrence toyne #bethany bracken #courtly and chivalric love #i'm not knocking tyrion for not quite seeing how dangerous joffrey is. *no one* sees it bc Systemic Patriarchy and Feudal Violence.#whether its brienne arya jon bronze yohn fucking podrick i do believe we will get a knight for sansa tho!!!#once again sorry this took so long. i had a lot more to say than i expected.#also. thank you so much for this ask this was sooooooooo much fun to write out. we are analyzing themes babeeeeee #getting on my soap box #knighthood and oath keeping #true knights #fuck i think that's all my tags #i had another section about how the show really styles her to look pale and sickly during season 3 and 4 but i had trouble phrasing it #so i just cut it. but that scene where margaery gives her the red and yellow rose and sansa looks like death? naerys vibes fr!!!#naerys and sansa parallels #jon and the aemons

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babybells123 · 18 days

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A compilation of my favourite Jonsa metas <3

Pre/post-series source material:

Jonnel 'One Eye' Stark x Sansa Stark (original post).

Some more words on Jonnel and Sansa:

The Black Prince With The White Guardian (aka as the best Ashford Tourney analysis ever.)

More Ashford Tourney (dispelling anti-arguments):

Ashford champions:

The original outline & GRRM's red-haired love interests:

The Pact of Ice and Fire:

Sansa Stark/Queen Alysanne parallels:

A mini-compilation of historical pairings/couples from the songs & Jon and Sansa:

Literary/artistic influences:

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn & Jon and Sansa:

The human heart in conflict with itself:

Lord Byron & Jon and Sansa:

Jon Snow is a Byronic hero:

Sansa Stark & the Pre-Raphaelites:

The incest motif in conjunction with thematic influence:

Romanticism:

Book foreshadowing & clues:

A Time for Wolves (the case for Jon and Sansa). (2013)

The parallel journey of Jon Snow and Sansa Stark:

A compilation of every book hint, from the start of the series:

Chapter transitioning:

Jon 'One Eye' Snow & Sansa Stark.

Restoring Winterfell:

Jon is never far from Sansa's suitors.

If I give him sons he may come to love me/If I wanted her love she might give me children: (or the domestic desire):

Lyanna/Sansa parallels:

Jon Snow/Prince Aemon the Dragonknight parallels:

Sansa Stark/Queen Naerys parallels:

Roses & Jonsa (and hope):

Jon/Waymar Royce:

Sansa.looked.radiant.

The Girl in Grey theory:

Additional Girl in Grey references:

More Girl in Grey:

The 'willowy creature' and repressive desires: (aka Jon Snow is a romantic.)

Sansa Stark & Targaryen imagery:

Sansa Stark & the white cloak:

Jon Snow, Sansa Stark & Winterfell:

Jon Snow is the silent, unconscious answer to Sansa's prayers:

Jon’s foils:

Anvilicious desires:

AFFC Alayne II (Arriving at Snow and leaving behind Stone) - chapter analysis.

TWOW Alayne I: Who she was, Who matters, and Who it will be: - chapter analysis.

Allusions to Jon through Sansa's dance partners in TWOW:

Dance with me anon (Jon ADWD):

A hero from the songs:

There are no heroes/Edd, fetch me a block:

Sansa, Jon & sweetness:

A sight so lovely & dark honey hair:

A ghost wolf, big as mountains:

An enchantment:

Blood superiority & how Jon and Sansa differ from the rest:

Of Ghostly Silences, Bats, Brimstone and a Ghost Wolf, Big as Mountains.

Some thoughts on Jon and Sansa:

Extra tidbits:

The Jonsa compendium (aka the holy website that compiles all the major evidence)

Kissing cousins (google doc):

Why Jon and Sansa are so uniquely compelling.

Game of Thrones hints written by the man himself - (The Bear and the Maiden fair):

Wish fulfilment (gif):

Visuals: The wolves will come again.

The original outline & how Jon and Sansa encapsulate hope and literary subversion: (my meta).

GRRM's use of foreshadowing:

Fandom stupidity regarding foreshadowing:

Textual analysis:

Why Jon and Sansa are so intriguing: (my meta).

GRRM about Jonsa:

#jonsa #jon x sansa #meta #jonsa meta #holy shit this took me so long to compile #anyway!#by no means is this a full list by the way!

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chemtrailsoverthesun · 4 months

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A thread of parallels between Elia Martell and Sansa Stark:

1. Elia is the older sister to Oberyn. Sansa is the eldest stark sister.

Art by Melrosing

2. They are both described as gentle.

"Princess Elia was a good woman, Your Grace. She was kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit.” - Daenerys

“Was there ever a wedding less joyful? she wondered until she remembered her poor Sansa and her marriage to the Imp. Mother take mercy on her. She has a gentle soul.” - Catelyn

Art by elvishness & vesubia-jugorum

3. Both were excited to leave their home.

"Elia found it all exciting. She was of that age, and her delicate health had never permitted her much travel.” - Tyrion

“She had last seen snow the day she'd left Winterfell… off to see the great wide world.” - Sansa

Art by the-lady-rae

4. Both were betrothed to the crown prince.

“Early in the year 279 AC, Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, was formally betrothed to Princess Elia Martell” - TWOIAF

“She had to wed Joffrey, they were betrothed, he was promised to her, she had even dreamed about it.” - Sansa

Art by amaati

5. Elia and Sansa were both held as hostages by Mad kings.

“The king reminded Lewyn Martell gracelessly that he held Elia and sent him to take command of the ten thousand Dornishmen coming up the kingsroad.” - Jaime

“They have Sansa hostage, and they mean to keep her." - Catelyn

6. Cersei blames them both for taking someone from her- Rhaegar and Joffrey.

“It had to have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin's daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest.” -Cersei

"I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf…She helped murder my son.” - Cersei

7. Elia and Sansa witnessed the death of a family member in front of them, both pleaded for their loved one to be spared.

“Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes.” - Daenerys

“Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father." - Arya

8. Both were romantics.

“A pretty lad, and my sister was half in love with him.” - Tyrion

“I love him, Father, I truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian.” - Sansa

Art by the-lady-rae

9. Victims of the Lannisters.

“Some said it had been Gregor who'd dashed the skull of the infant prince Aegon Targaryen against a wall, and whispered that afterward he had raped the mother, the Dornish princess Elia, before putting her to the sword.” - Tyrion

“When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well." - Sansa

Art by amaati

Conclusion: Both deserved better

Art by Elia illustration

#elia martell #asoiaf #sansa stark #a song of ice and fire

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dyannawynnedayne · 1 month

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Which character parallel do you like the best?

Jon and Sansa: art by elenyaart, Jon and Sansa

Areo and Barristan: Fantasy Flight Games

Propaganda is Encouraged!

Jon and Sansa

Fanciful

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. “I’m Prince Aemon the Dragonknight,” Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, “Well, I’m Florian the Fool.” Or Robb would say, “I’m the Young Dragon,” and Jon would reply, “I’m Ser Ryam Redwyne."

ASOS, Jon XII

She gazed at Joffrey worshipfully. He was so gallant, she thought. The way he had rescued her from Ser Ilyn and the Hound, why, it was almost like the songs, like the time Serwyn of the Mirror Shield saved the Princess Daeryssa from the giants, or Prince Aemon the Dragonknight championing Queen Naerys's honor against evil Ser Morgil's slanders.

AGOT, Sansa I

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Barristan Selmy and Areo Hotah

Out of their depth

"Simple vows for simple men, the bearded priests had said. He had not been trained to counsel grieving princes."

AFFC, The Captain of Guards

"I am no Hand, a part of him wanted to cry out. I am only a simple knight, the queen's protector. I never wanted this."

ADWD, the Queensguard

#fave parallel poll #round one #group a #polls

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transdimensional-void · 1 year

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jonsa, “children of dune,” & women’s disenfranchisement

this is basically a part 2 of this meta i posted last night. if you haven’t read that, i recommend reading it before this one to get the full context! a certain anon (hi!) challenged me to expand upon my thoughts by demonstrating how jonsa might be a response to and/or critique of the ideas presented in the dune series.

i’ll put the rest of the post below the cut for those wanting to avoid dune spoilers!

westerosi historical parallels

i think one of the strongest arguments for linking jonsa (and specifically the bran/sansa/jon trio) to children’s leto ii/ghanima/farad’n resolution is the fact that grrm has sprinkled variations on this relationship throughout westerosi history.

if we look for the pattern of “woman is married to one man but her children are fathered by a different man,” we of course find it several times in the series:

laenor velaryon/rhaenyra targaryen/harwin strong - rhaenyra’s velaryon children were in fact fathered by her lover, harwin strong--apparently because laenor was gay and had no interest in sleeping with his wife. (or going by hotd canon just couldn’t impregnate her for undisclosed reasons).

aegon iv/queen naerys/aemon the dragonknight - while the truth of the accusations against naerys and aemon is dubious at best, the idea that the two of them were secret lovers and that he might have fathered the heir to the throne remains firmly rooted in collective westerosi memory.

robert baratheon/cersei lannister/jaime lannister - this is the most important iteration of this pattern for the main series. we have confirmation from both cersei and jaime that all three of her children are his and not robert’s.

honorable mentions for: the possibility that aegon the conqueror’s two sons might not have been his due to infertility on his part, and the possibility of at least some of aegon ii’s children with helaena actually being aemond’s.

you’ll note that all of these examples echo leto ii/ghanima/farad’n (right down to the prevalence of sibling incest within them) in one or more ways.

you’ll also note that the majority of these led to disputed successions and that all of the children produced by these relationships were involved in succession disputes in one way or another.

the bastardy of rhaenyra’s sons was used as a reason to deny her place in the succession. the alleged bastardy of queen naerys’s son was used as justification for the blackfyre rebellions. and, of course, cersei’s children’s bastardy led to the war of five kings. aegon the conqueror’s son maegor usurped his niece and nephew’s claim to the throne, and aegon ii’s children were caught up in the dance of the dragons.

this leads us to the question, if the arrangement between leto ii, ghanima, and farad’n was shown to be such a useful solution to a succession crisis in children, why do similar relationships show up over and over again in grrm’s series as causes of succession crises?

bastardy and women’s rights

i think what we are seeing is grrm responding to--and likely critiquing--the position of women in dune’s society by focusing on the issue of bastardy.

in the society in which the dune series takes place, a child need not be born of a legal spouse in order to inherit its parent’s position, title, wealth, etc. for example, paul atreides himself is the son of his father’s concubine, jessica. paul’s father, duke leto atreides, never married jessica but kept her instead as a concubine. similarly, paul’s own heirs are the children not of his legal wife princess irulan but of his concubine, chani kynes.

the society’s lack of interest in ensuring heirs are born of recognized legal unions is what allows the arrangement between leto ii, ghanima, and farad’n to be successful. nobody cares that ghanima’s children weren’t fathered by her husband. they’re atreides princes and princesses regardless of their biological parentage, which means that farad’n’s fatherhood (and therefore the children’s corrino ancestry) can be openly acknowledged and leveraged for political benefit.

but that has not been the case in many real societies, and for good reason.

legally disinheriting bastards is a form of protection for the rights and positions of married women in strongly patriarchal societies.

we see within the world of dune itself how men exploit the society’s laissez-faire attitude toward bastardy to disenfranchise women.

duke leto atreides never marries his concubine jessica because keeping the position of his legal wife available gives him political leverage. he can dangle the possibility of a marriage alliance in front of potential allies to draw them in. refusing to marry jessica benefits him politically. and the fact that he can easily name paul as his heir without marrying jessica means that he can use her to give him the heir he wants without offering her the legal rights and privileges that becoming the wife of a duke would afford her.

similarly, paul himself exploits the non-existence of bastardy to disempower his wife princess irulan (and to deny his beloved chani the position of empress consort). he uses irulan’s claim to the throne to gain legitimacy for his rule but by fathering his heirs through chani, he ensures that irulan’s position remains an extremely weak one.

the first book in the series, dune, famously ends with jessica consoling chani by telling her that history will remember them as wives. irulan gets erased despite having the legal title, but while chani is paul’s wife in many real senses, she is denied the legal position and its attendant privileges and protections. both of the women in paul’s life end up in weakened legal and political positions due to his choice of heirs.

in grrm’s series, we see through catelyn’s eyes that the prospect of a husband’s bastards usurping his legal heirs’ position is a very real fear for women in this type of feudal, patriarchal society. in such societies, a woman’s position in the world is determined first by her father, then by her husband, and ultimately by her son. if one of catelyn’s own children succeeds ned, catelyn can be assured of protection, support, and a position in society even after ned’s death. however, if ned’s bastard son, jon snow, inherits, where does that leave cat? she’s no longer the mother of the lord or lady of winterfell, a position that guarantees her a safe future. she has to hope that one of her children, at least, is still in a position to support her--or throw herself on the mercy of another family member. her future becomes incredibly precarious.

we see over and over again in a song of ice and fire that grrm is centering this issue of bastardy, of how it affects questions of succession, yes, but also how it affects the lives of those it touches. we very much get jon’s perspective on how awful it is to shackle a human being with this social position of bastard--but we also get the flipside: how awful it is that women are so disenfranchised that they have no choice but to fear their husbands’ illegitimate children.

furthermore, while these societal structures allow men to exploit women’s bodies to create the children they want, when women try to take control of their own bodies to create the children they want, the society punishes them. we see that in the examples of rhaenyra, naerys, and cersei. in dune, we get a taste of it with jessica, who is derided by her bene gesserit sisters for choosing to give birth to a son instead of the daughter they ordered her to have... except that jessica chose to have a son because it was what leto wanted, and she wanted to make her lover happy. either way, jessica’s body and its reproductive possibilities are not hers to use as she desires. they are meant to be tools for others.

as i have explained, these issues very much exist in both dune and a song of ice and fire, and yet frank herbert seems fairly uninterested in exploring how they affect women and, through them, the wider society. jessica, irulan, and chani’s perspectives are largely sidelined to focus on the men’s stories.

jonsa as a response

in a song of ice and fire, grrm made the crucial world-building choice to have the majority of westerosi society make a legal distinction between the rights of legitimate and illegitimate children. (perhaps someone else has spent some time musing on the somewhat different attitudes of dorne? if so, i’d love to hear your thoughts). if he is writing in response to the ideas presented by herbert in dune, this would be a deliberate choice and a key difference between the societies presented by each.

in the dune series, while leto ii loves his twin sister ghanima deeply (in fact, they both hint that when they are older their love might have a romantic dimension), she ultimately becomes little more than a pawn in his millennia-long plan to save humanity. to put it bluntly, he breeds her with farad’n as a step toward fixing certain genetic traits within the atreides line.

ghanima accepts her part in all of this, but that’s really all she can do. while ghanima may have preferred to have a true marriage with leto (or perhaps some other life entirely), refusing leto’s plan would mean refusing to help him save all of humanity! how could she be so heartless? herbert characterizes her as weaker than leto, both in terms of their prescient abilities but also in terms of moral fiber. ghanima lacks the strength of will to make the sacrifice that leto does and undergo the physical transformation that removes him forever from normal humanity--she must settle for making the “lesser” sacrifice of becoming a pawn in his breeding scheme. (there’s a lot of gender essentialist bullshit happening within dune, as well, but that’s a whole can of worms i don’t have the time to open right now).

in the end, ghanima is no less disenfranchised than her grandmother jessica, her mother chani, or her stepmother irulan. her life and her body belong to leto and his golden path, not to herself. (anyone picking up on the rhaegar/lyanna parallels?)

at the heart of each of the westerosi parallels i mentioned earlier is also a disenfranchised woman. rhaenyra must marry the man her father chooses and somehow give them both heirs even when he doesn’t want to sleep with her. naerys, too, is forced into marriage with her very awful brother aegon when it seems likely she would have been much happier with aemon (helaena seems to be in a similar position with aegon ii and aemond). cersei is married off to robert, who calls her another woman’s name in bed, physically abuses her, and fathers countless bastards while married to her.

but the trio of bran, sansa, and jon will be different.

first of all, the close, loving family relationships among the starks set them apart from virtually every other family we see presented throughout the series. this will be key in making the bran/sansa/jon balance work. precisely because of the relationship they formed with jon while growing up, bran and sansa will know that they can trust him to support their rule without threat of usurpation. similarly, because bran and sansa love and trust each other (heh heh see what i did there) as siblings, they can share power without the need for a marriage alliance.

unlike leto, bran will have no need to marry sansa in order to control her and her claim. this removes the need for sansa to marry one man while having children with another. and unlike farad’n and ghanima, jon will be someone that sansa has already formed a bond of love and trust with at the point that they marry--and someone that she wants to marry.

this is why the romance between jon and sansa will be a key factor in differentiating their relationship from the previous patterns. their love for each other will allow them to break the mold because their marriage will give them what they both dream of having rather than denying them what they’ve always wanted.

unlike the women in the previous examples in westerosi history (and unlike ghanima), sansa’s marriage will empower her. sansa will be queen in her own right, not consort. she will be her brother’s equal in position and power, not his pawn and certainly not his baby-making machine. sansa will be able to have children with both her husband and the man she loves, because they will be the same person. and, crucially, sansa will be able to have the children she has dreamed of having: stark children, to replace the family she lost and fill winterfell again with the love and laughter she remembers from her childhood.

there is also the element of this arrangement resolving catelyn’s fears, though catelyn herself (even as stoneheart) will likely never experience this resolution. jon yields his potential claim not once, but twice, to catelyn’s children. and yet, jon still gets winterfell, gets to be a stark, and his children will have a legitimate claim to the home he loves.

king bran/queen sansa/consort jon might very well be grrm’s answer to the issues inherent in herbert’s trio of leto ii/ghanima/farad’n. it would almost certainly be an answer to the parallels grrm himself has placed into westerosi history of rhaenyra, naerys, cersei, and others.

this is why i think that jonsa will be part of grrm’s end game: because it works not only politically but also romantically...and corrects the wrongs we have witnessed over and over again in previous relationships within the series.

#jonsa #jonsa meta #i know the ideas i'm presenting here have been evaluated by other jonsa metas previously #but hopefully the comparisons with dune offer a unique perspective!

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esther-dot · 6 months

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What do you think about Jaime's fate? Is he doomed by a narrative? Is he doomed because of the show? Or does he stand a chance?

Personally I'd like to believe that he would live. As far as I can remember (I could totally be wrong though) the most evil thing he does in the series is the Bran thing. And westerosi karma already held him responsible - he loses his ability to do that one thing that he loves the most and becomes disabled just like Bran. He's not the kindest, bravest, most noble etc person in the westeros but he's far from being evil like ramsey or tywin or cersei. Imho he's way better than fan favourite boy tyrion and not so favourite boy stannis - for a bunch of reasons. I just don't want him to die although chances are, well, questionable.

So how do you see his chances to survive?

Hope you're having a nice - or at least decent - day!

It's lovely weather, and I took a long walk first thing which means, it's a great day in my book. Thank you!

I can't remember what specifically convinced me, but somewhere along the line I accepted that Jaime and Cersei would die together, so I believe D&D got that from Martin. I wrote at the time that Jaime is a better man for returning to his sister/lover/mother of his children than leaving her to die alone, so I didn't share the opinion of the rest of the fandom there. It's really easy to project our feelings about a character onto a different character, and I think that happens a lot with those two.

Anyway, since then, @istumpysk has collected all the book foreshadowing for them to die together (here, a long google doc about it, more here), so I give him no chance of survival.

Ramsay is cartoonishly evil, so I don't think he's particularly interesting. Tyrion is Martin's fav and will likely benefit from that, Stannis is doomed, but Jaime really is an interesting character. My controversial take is that I don't think he's more deserving of a happy ending than Cersei who all the fandom recognizes will die. Yes, this a) reads like foreshadowing for King Bran, and b) also reads like karma:

"Does the sight of my stump distress you so?" Jaime asked. "You ought to be pleased. I've lost the hand I killed the king with. The hand that flung the Stark boy from that tower. The hand I'd slide between my sister's thighs to make her wet." He thrust his stump at her face. "No wonder Renly died, with you guarding him." (ASOS, Jaime V)

but I didn't think Jaime fundamentally changed as a person as far as values go? That's a severe punishment for him, I'm not gonna minimize what it means to him, but I did laugh in the show when he's facing Bran and unapologetic because to me, that's Jaime. Martin writes kid killing as a big no-no. Jaime is pretty cavalier about it:

Jaime got to his feet. "Your wife may whelp before that. You'll want your child, I expect. I'll send him to you when he's born. With a trebuchet." (AFFC, Jaime VI) Ask Edmure how chivalrous I am, thought Jaime. Ask him about the trebuchet. Somehow he did not think the maesters were like to confuse him with Prince Aemon the Dragonknight when they wrote their histories. Still, he felt curiously content. (AFFC, Jaime VII)

Now, I don't think dying with Cersei is necessarily meant to be read as karma for Bran, but I included the above for two reasons.

1.Jaime is a foil to Jon, I believe we're meant to contrast Jon's, morally grey perhaps, attempt to save a child with Jaime's disregard for one, and overall compare what their upbringing, the morals or lack thereof instilled, have formed of these two who had similar dreams, experienced disillusionment, shared the same hero:

They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out... (ASOS, Jon XII)

2. Jaime and Cersei are a variation on the Aemon and Naerys idea, and the parallels between Jaime and Jon, Sansa and Cersei, point to Jonsa being the positive variation of the old tale. So that expectation, in which Jon will successfully save Sansa from a marriage she doesn't want (hello girl in grey prophecy) and they'll fulfill the maiden/warrior vision that Jaime once had of himself and Cersei, the underlying, uh, preoccupation with and loyalty to their sisters (that Jaime has and Jon will have post reunion) means I'm ok with Jaime deciding his fate is to be with Cersei, in birth, in life, even in death. As I thought it worked in the show, returning to Cersei in the books will likewise mean he is able to have some self-respect. I don't think you can read his, I mean, I would say Cersei obsession and believe he'd ever have any peace of mind if she died alone while he had to go on living. We will get a healthier, happier version of the “brother/sister” (in the Targaryen sense) relationship with Jon/Sansa to complete the convo which is important to keep in mind when bemoaning the fate of certain characters--their endgames are part of a much bigger picture.

I thought this was a great write-up of his character which you might enjoy reading:

But what’s so vital about Jaime is that this is who he is - a bad person, a person willing to kill children to achieve his aims - but it isn’t all he is. And the point of introducing him as a POV is to force us to confront this fact, the fact that this would-be childkiller is also a three-dimensional, even sympathetic man with his own heartaches and struggles, with a sense of humor and a sense of honor and the saved lives of half a million people to his name. The good deeds don’t cancel out the bad, but neither do the bad cancel out the good. And instead of allowing us to take the easy path and categorizing him as either ‘purely evil’ or ‘wholly redeemed,’ the story simply pushes us to dwell within the psyche of this complex, broken man who is neither fully one nor the other. (link)

#dot chat

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elegantwoes · 1 year

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Its time we start propagating that third tier side characters like Ygritte and Val, and history figures like Lyanna, Alysanne, Rhaenys and Naerys are the ones being given relevance when we draw parallels between them and a POV main character, also called a central part of the books by the author himself, Sansa Stark. She was created first and is the princess archetype of the story so all the apparent things Sansa stans 'steal' from these characters 💀💀 belong to her first and foremost.

Technically Lyanna shouldn’t be included in there because she isn’t a history figure, but the rest I absolutely agree with you, especially on Naerys. Like Sansa is the only person who even mentions her for the first few books. And Sansa is the one who draws parallel with herself to Naerys and wants her husband to be like Aemon the dragon knight. Like George RR Martin is hammering down that Sansa is the character who has any form of narrative connection to Queen Naerys and the romantic pair Aemon/Naerys is (almost) exclusively tied to Sansa’s romantic storyline. Sansa also deals with an Aegon the unworthy in Joffrey. He even flat out says he wants to be like him and have multiple women:

("A king can have other women. Whores. My father did. One of the Aegons did too. The third one, or the fourth. He had lots of whores and lots of bastards." - Sansa III, A Storm of Swords.

Sansa says she’s Queen Naerys and Joffrey says he wants to be Aegon the unworthy. The only one missing in this equation is an Aemon the dragon knight figure. Now who could this person be? Well I can think of someone. A young man who frequently screamed he was Aemon the dragon knight in his childhood in Winterfell. We got three people saying they are a historical figure that conveniently are stuck in a love triangle. The fandom can deny this till their faces turn blue, but clearly Sansa/Jon are a Aemon/Naerys pair.

And even though George RR Martin is extremely obvious in his parallel still certain people try to take this and make it all about their favorite character and favorite ship. If there ever was case of ‘stealing’ a parallel and storyline then this falls squarely in that category, but antis will never admit to this, because if they did they would be admitting that Sansa has something desirable in their eyes that they want to give to their faves.

Naerys will never be remotely similar to either @rya or D@ny. At most D@ny looks like Naerys in terms in looks, GRRM flat out said that, but he also said that’s where the similarities stop. She may look like Naerys in appearance, but personality wise Naerys is described to be timid and Dany is fiercer. And @rya has zero association with Naerys.

The character who shares the most similarities with Naerys will always be Sansa. Another character who is like Naerys is Cersei, but in her case it’s foil. Cersei is her darker counterpart. She does the very thing Aegon accuses Naerys of (cheating and passing her child as his). Elia Martell is also very similar to Naerys (fragile health, reproductively abused, and humiliated by husband. Rhaegar literally does what Aegon IV wanted to do). Perhaps one could argue that Margaery has a small similarity to her too, since she compares herself to Naerys and Loras to Aemon, but that’s it. There are no other characters like Naerys. Especially not the characters whose fans desperately try to steal this parallel and storyline.

#answered #sansa stark #kinda jonsa #anti dany stans #anti arya stans

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lizzie-queenofmeigas · 2 months

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TG are trying to compare Alicent and Cole to Naerys & Aemon and Ned & Cat, pure insanity.

I have learnt that most TG members are die hard Sansa stans and those are the kind of people known to twist stuff and draw parallels out of thin air.

Nothing wrong if you like the ship, but there is a difference between liking a ship and pretending that it is something that is not.

#anti team green

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jonsastarks · 1 year

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#jonsa #jon x sansa #sansa x jon #I’m scared to tag anything else #so I hope that this reaches j word enjoyers

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jackoshadows · 1 year

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Can I just ask because every now and then I see these ‘eww incest’ posts on the tag. If fictional incest is so taboo and wrong, if it’s a line that cannot be crossed, then how can one be okay with a story set in a world where the author has described Alysanne and Jaehaerys as a ‘great Targaryen love story’? Shouldn’t he be describing that as one of the most disgusting Targaryen love stories given their platonic love for each other as children and siblings clearly turned into romantic and sexual love at some point?

Clearly biology and science and sexual attraction works differently in GRRM’s magical fantasy world.

Why are there love songs being written about Aemon the Dragonknight and Queen Naerys in Westeros? These two are also siblings. Here is Sansa talking about her great love for Joffrey and comparing it to the love between siblings Naerys and Aemon:

I love him, Father, I truly truly do, I love him as much as Queen Naerys loved Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, as much as Jonquil loved Ser Florian. I want to be his queen and have his babies.” - Sansa, AGoT

This is Naerys and Aemon

Naerys loved Prince Aemon the most out of her two brothers, as he knew how to make her laugh. Aemon was also more like Naerys in character, while Prince Aegon was not.

By the way, I made a post the other day about how Jon/Arya is a foil to Joffrey/Sansa and left this one out. Here is another example of foreshadowing, where Sansa proclaims that her love for Joffrey is the same as that of Naerys for Aemon when in reality Joffrey is an abusive sadist. Meanwhile Aemon and Naerys’ love for each other as children mirror that of Jon and Arya’s and Jon even cosplays as Aemon the dragonknight as a child.

And Arya…he missed her even more than Robb, skinny little thing that she was, all scraped knees and tangled hair and torn clothes, so fierce and willful. Arya never seemed to fit, no more than he had…yet she could always make Jon smile. He would give anything to be with her now, to muss up her hair once more and watch her make a face, to hear her finish a sentence with him. - Jon, AGoT

Now, I can understand if one is against fictional incest and do not want to engage in it. That’s totally fine. However, why criticize other readers for engaging with fictional romantic incestual ships that are prevalent in this fictional world? When the author is leading us somewhere and we as readers are only following where the author is taking us, why use real world taboos to call out readers because incest is wrong.

And by the way Arya is a skinny little 9/10 years old in ACoK/ASoS and Gendry is likely 14/15 when he meets her in ACoK. Jon Snow keeps referring to her as small and skinny, a child he cannot imagine in Ramsay’s bed. And yet we talk about the romantic nature of Arya and Gendry’s interactions because the author has indeed written in the romantic chemistry there between a 9/10 year old and a 14/15 year old. Why is that okay but incest is the line that should not be crossed?

I repeat, pretty much every major ship in this series is problematic by real world standards. Sansa/Sandor shippers (Sansa is 11 when 27 year old Sandor falls for her) calling Rhaegar/Lyanna creepy and Rhaegar a paedophile must be the funniest thing yet in this fandom. How self-unaware does one have to be to not recognize the double standards there?

Also, note to Jonsa shippers. If your reason for taking all the book material and foreshadowing from Jon and Arya’s canonical relationship and handing it over to Sansa is because ‘Jon and Sansa are not close’ then stop using Aemon/Naerys, Alysanne/Jaehaerys etc to justify your crackship. These characters were siblings who grew up loving each other.

And besides, if one has to go for an incestual relationship where both characters are not close, there is always the superior Jon and Daenerys. Jon and Dany, who have actual canonical, textual foreshadowing for meeting and falling in love, actual parallels as leaders, are close in age and maturity, have had sexual partners, who have loved and lost, who look beyond class and gender, have the same interest to help people, are each other’s type etc.

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness…

Jon and Sansa, despite growing up together, are indifferent to each other for a reason. They are polar opposites. Jon can’t spare a single thought of concern for Sansa’s status and whereabouts, Sansa admits to forgetting that Jon exists. Jon disdains girly girls like Sansa and Sansa holds bastards as being less than high born nobles. Jon didn’t give a damn about Sansa over 5 books and vice versa and that’s not going to suddenly change in the last book because Sansa’s beauty is so overpowering or whatever. He is not there to give Sansa her Disney princess endgame and that’s not the story GRRM is writing.

#Jon Snow #GRRM #asoiaf #fandom wank #Shipping #incest ships #Jon and Arya #Jon and Daenerys #anti Jonsa

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kellyvela · 1 year

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Aemon and Naerys are a terrible "couple" to want to model a ship after! He let her be abused for years and years. The rumors about their entanglement are most likely made up by Aegon because Naerys was extremely pious and wanted to live like actual brother and sister meaning a familial relationship so I doubt she wanted to fuck her other brother. I don't get this fandom's obsession with them as some romantic couple, don't think that was ever George's intentions, if anything it's to show the dark/weak side of chivalry as he does with figures like Sandor. Targcest is bad enough as it is, some people want to force in more when it doesn't exist canonically.

Having parallels or similarities doesn't mean characters or couples are exactly the same. This post already said it better. So we don't want to model jonsa after Aemon and Naerys.

Aemon and Naerys are, maybe, the ASOIAF epitome of coutly love, and that's why Sansa loves their story so much, because it's beautiful but terribly sad at the same time.

I'm not sure if it's right to say that Aemon let Aegon abuse Naerys. The one that ordered Aegon to marry Naerys was their father Viserys (II), with the blessing of Aegon III, and that was the reason why a 17 years old Aemon became a White Knight of the Kingsguard, to be there protecting his sister as much as possible. You can see that he did whatever he could to do that in his quarrels with Aegon, his deeds protecting Naerys's reputation, etc. Should he have done more? Probably. Could he do it? The answer is complicated.

But you are right, Aemon also shares similarities with Jaime and Barristan as White Knights in conflict between their duty and the right thing to do. This doesn't apply to cujo in particular, but in general, I agree.

And finally, take note that the romantic movement or romance, hence courtly love, doesn't equal a consummated sexual relationship.

#anon asks #jonsa

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atopvisenyashill · 7 months

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why do you infantilize Lyanna like she doesn't know her own mind? she's already a grown woman if we go by the standards of Westeros. you might as well say Daenerys ordering the torture of the daughters is done under duress. or joffrey was just a misguided boy in the end. He's even younger than Lyanna. Ygritte would have slit Jon's throat when they were alone if she really wanted to. same with Arya if she married Ramsay. it's in the text that is what they would do and they parallel Lyanna. don't you think the author was trying to tell us that Rhaegar did not rape Lyanna?

again i say your justification in text does not exist.

everything you are mentioning isn’t even remotely similar to what lyanna went through! joff, dany, robb, they are LEADERS making MILITARY CHOICES that involve killing, torturing, burning crops, sacking cities, and harassing peasantry. lyanna is third born, not in any sort of leadership position, and makes a dumb choice for reasons we don’t have any context for. this is like saying alys harroway is responsible for the shitty decisions maegor makes since she agreed to marry an already married man. i’m also not reiterating the arya point beyond - go reread her chapters. seriously, go reread her riverlands arc and watch her, gendry, and hot pie get their asses handed to them over and over again and then tell me that she would be capable without any magical help of killing ramsey.

and think about what you are you saying here - does this mean ramsey never raped jeyne poole because she didn’t kill him? does this mean rhaella was never raped by aerys, because she didn’t kill him? is daenerys not a rape victim, because in order to cope with the horror that was her life married to drogo, she forced herself to fall in love with him and mourns his death? was naerys not almost literally raped to death by aegon, all because she was too sickly to kill him? in the show, alicent is 15 when she marries viserys - are you saying this was fine actually, because according to westerosi standards she was basically a woman grown? sansa parallels lyanna too - does this mean joffrey never abused her, because she romanticizes him in her head for a while?

also, do you want to know ygritte never actually slits jon’s throat (after losing a fight to him, because sometimes you just lose a fight, a fact you have very pointedly ignored to make this silly point)? it’s because jon is nice to her! he doesn’t, for example, keep her under constant watch in a tower guarded by three of the most elite knights in all of westeros, until she dies of a birthing fever while screaming out for tormund to come save her!! we have like three lines of dialogue from lyanna and not a one is about rhaegar! you are citing a source that does not exist!!

and i am ending with - i do not give a single solitary shit that lyanna was considered a grown adult at 16 by westerosi standards. drogo’s marital rape is acceptable by westerosi standards. robert’s abuse of cersei is acceptable by westerosi standards. what EYE think the author is telling us is that sometimes princes do not have the best interests of their people at heart, and sometimes little girls will romanticize the terrors they experience so they can get through the day. what EYE think is that dany, sansa, and jeyne, all very young girls who are married off to powerful men with no choice, all think of killing themselves to escape their lives. because 14, 15, 16, is the age of a CHILD and not an adult.

#i’m so 😭😭#anti rhaegar targaryen #asks

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katshuya · 9 days

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The possibility that Arthur and Elia had a romantic relationship is not impossible, but some people deny it simply because they dislike the idea. Aemon crowned Naerys could be one hint. Arthur didn't. He probably blamed himself over that. His sad smile at the end can be due to his failure in protecting her and regreting that he never married Elia when she visited Starfall and spared her the horrible fate. George loves helpless tragic romance. You have to put that in mind the huge parallel between Aemon and Arthur.

You are absolutely right, Anon. I do not want anything romantic between these two.

I will talk about it from Canon and Fanon's perspective. Because I believe taking a look at the fanfictions helps you understand why these two are hard to be accepted as romantic, especially in Canon since this is also what you are talking about. The possibility of them being Canon.

I do not think Arthur was having any emotional affair with Rhaegar's wife, nor I think Elia did the same with Rhaegar's friend

I understand the hints. The similar parallels with Aegon-Naerys-Aemon's situation.

But one could argue that Arthur was worse to Elia than Aemon was to Naerys.

What did he do for her? We know nothing except that maybe he regretted not marrying her to save her from her fate.

And that would be a regret out of guilt, not love.

I like to think that he regretted not saving her.

Another thing is I always say how I don't trust Gerorge. Shoving the romance between Arthur and the Dornish princess would be a really vile way to get people to be more forgiving with Rhaegar x lyanna COmPLeX romance and see Rhaegar in a better light.

Just because a character thought, "If only I had been with that person, everything would have been better," Doesn't mean it is romance. Shippers are going to ship and make the coolest, most romantic fanarts, which is fine, but it doesn't mean it is oh so romancic just because a character thought of a better outcome that could have been.

Is there a romance between Sansa and Willas? She kept repeating his name, dreaming of marrying him, but is that romantic? It is just a thought of a better outcome compared to the current situation. Of what could have been. I know at least Arthur and the princess knew each other, but still.

Also, Oberyn said that he blames Baelor Hightower out of all Elia's suitors. He never said if only Arthur married her.

Doesn't this imply no romance? Or at least Elia didn't find him suitable/possible for her?

As the Dornish princess, his older brother should be the first candidate, but maybe Arthur was involved too, but from what we know, it wasn't him that she was half in love with at the end. It was Baelor. They left Starfall with no agreement.

Nor I think that Arthur started getting infatuated with Elia after she married Rhaegar. It seems out of reach to me.

but let's say Rhaegar won. . .

Would Arthur have left the kingsguard for Elia, or would he have stayed in a secret relationship with her? In the latter, would Rhaegar have known? Would he have approved? Or maybe Elia was going to go back to Dorne, and Arthur would have followed her? It's kind of obvious.

l think the knight who took his vows seriously would have stayed with Rhaegar instead of risking to humilate his friend and king by messing with his wife and the Queen especially if Rhaegar won, the realm would still be in very problematic state. We don't want more houses criticizing Rhaegar for allowing a kingsguard to be so comfortable with the Queen without punishment now.

Even in a scenario that he at the end told himself, "If only I had married her," this doesn't scream romance. This is guilt. He can't just suddenly prioritize her out of nowhere now. It doesn't mean romance. It is just a thought.

Fanarts and fanfiction will not make it any more romance if we go with the canon scenario and continue on a road where Rhaegar won.

The only scenario that is possible for them to have a logical romance for readers, or at least for me, is that he abandoned the tower and went back to save her, which he didn't. It is not canon,

I also read a few one-shots about them, and I liked them because I wanted to see Elia have some justice. But they never go into details if Rhaegar knew, if anyone knew, or any other things that should be dealt with in order for them to be together.

A whole multi-chapter fanfction is usually very different than the Canon when it comes to these two and how they can be together with few to no realstic scenarios that kills important points in the canon. I'm not trying to sound rude, but the most possible one is where they escape to Essos, but still, I doubt Arthur Dayne would escape.

I'm not shaming. I'm just saying it's hard and complicated unless you ignore the Canon.

That's why I enjoy and read the no details one shot. I still prefer to read realistic things if they are going to be using canon materials.

So no. I see no romance, and if it's going to be romantic, I'm not going to like it, nor I like George's helpless tragic romance, as you said.

#elia martell #asoiaf #rhaegar targaryen #arthur dayne

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