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#why can't the asoiaf be like that?!

sweetestpopcorn · 2 years

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Hey, are you doing any new stories lately? Like updating the Spring Prince or something new? Also, do you like AvatarTLA or ever watched it?

Hi there! 🤗

How much time do you have? X'D

Let me give you a list of everything I am currently working on and will have ready in a short to medium future:

-Next update to "The Blacks & the Greens"; I am also finishing revamping part 1 and will move to doing the same on part 2;

-A oneshot I am gifting to alinahams on AO3 (queen I'm sorry I can't find you in here!) about a genderbend AU where Daemon is Daena and Rhaenyra is Rhaegar, and he crowns her Queen of Love and Beauty (I'm like 5k words in on that one). This will be like a company piece to her fic "Siblings Rivalry"

-Next update to "The Blacks & the Greens - The King of the Stepstones";

-Name day gift for my queen @delightfulmakertidalwave which will be a modern AU where Daemon is the hot rockstar and Rhaenyra the overachiever daughter to Westeros's president or something X'D (no they won't be related on that one, sorry wincest fans);

-I still have to write a gift for twrgaryen over on AO3 (I'm so so sorry for this delay, queen!!!!! I will get to it I promise!!!!!) which will either be Daemon and Rhaenyra's wedding in canon or their last meeting before he goes to f_ck up Aemond - I haven't decided yet though I have stuff written for both;

-A oneshot for my main fic "The Blacks & the Greens" which is just self-indulgent as f_ck because I can, with Daemon and Rhaenyra chilling with their OTB (one true baby) at Dragonstone, and some of his companions going to visit (so yeah it will be funny!), and Rhaenyra finally finding out the name of Daemon's mysterious ex-lover (aka Mysaria). She was very intent on doing this in "The King of the Stepstones" but she never does find it. And she does tell Daemon how she knows who Mysaria is on chapter 49;

So far these are my plans X'D I honestly wish I had more time but writing is becoming more and more time consuming and demanding. I just pay a LOT more attention and thought to everything now so I don't write as fast. Adding to this I have a very busy life :/ oh well :D

Also no I don't know it. Besides the asoiaf series I am a big potterhead and have been for many years. I think those are my two main addictions.

#rhaenyra targaryen #daemon targaryen #the blacks & the greens #daemon x rhaenyra #yeah it will pretty much just be more daemyra content now I look at it XD #oh well someone has to make them justice #and how I wish that person wasn't me #the hp community has such great fics!#why can't the asoiaf be like that?!#popcorn answers

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fromtheseventhhell · 2 months

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"It's normal for siblings to fight" Okay well it's not normal to be extremely classist and look down on your sister for being non-conforming. Or to go to the woman who ordered the death of your pet to tell her about your father's plans, when he specifically warned you against doing so, because you want to marry the boy you saw attack your sister and her friend (contributing partially to said father's death and your sister being unable to escape on the ship he chartered). Or to think of your sibling as unsatisfactory in comparison to another when you believe her to be dead. I notice that none of the "Sansa and Arya are going to reunite and instantly have no issues" crowd ever acknowledge any of this, which makes it seem like they don't actually believe what they say about their relationship being normal and easily reconciled. People wanting them to have no issues simply because they're siblings is another example of how fandom likes to flatten complex characters and relationships. They get reduced to being bickering siblings when their conflict runs deeper than that. If the author is telling you that they have "deep issues" to work out [X], I don't understand being so adamant about ignoring said issues. I also get the sense it's about ignoring the capacity for a certain character to be flawed, but that isn't going to change the fact that her "slip of the tongue" is very likely to be revealed and a source of further conflict 🤷🏾‍♀️

#arya stark #sansa stark #house stark #asoiaf #also if it's so normal for siblings to fight then why are you guys losing your minds over us theorizing they won't get along??#the amount of condescending /that's just how siblings act/ takes I see 🙄#sorry I guess? that we read the book and don't just delete parts of the story because we find it convenient?#it's not even like takes about them being enemies is widespread the most I see is that they aren't instantly bffs when they reunite 😭#some people theorize they'll never be close but guess what? that's a completely fair and valid assumption based on their relationship!#personally I think they'll have a sweet reunion before the issues they have inevitably surface again because while they've been through #a lot they haven't fundamentally changed as people or the values they hold #and I think that's going to be very interesting to read about!#I can't figure out why people always take the most boring bland route for how things will play out #mostly because people seem to be unable to swallow the concept that Sansa is a flawed character who isn't perfectly sweet all the time #and the fact that their conflict is instigated by Sansa's classism #which is funny cause in the grand scheme of things her being mean to Arya is such a mild thing that opens the door to a ton of growth #never seen anybody but stansas equating her being a bully to her sister to her being evil/a villain #all we do is point out that it exists in the story...people in this fandom have no concept of nuance I stg 😭#anyways they're both complex characters and their conflict is interesting and I hope we get to see how it plays out #cause it's definitely going to be better then that trash d&d came up with 🙏🏾

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ladystoneboobs · 3 months

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no of fence to jon snow fans who for some reason care about his exact age, but these discussions just annoy me no end. not only bc there's no way any weirwood flashbacks bran has to rhaegar/lyanna will come with time/datestamps, but also bc there's always comments like this:

SEVERAL turns of the moon (ie, months)?! have these people never seen a human baby before or just have no concept of their ages? even if we take into account travel time from the toj to wf, meaning jon was not a newborn too fresh out the oven when catelyn and robb arrived, there's still a difference between a newborn and a 3mo and an even bigger difference between those infants and an older baby 5-7mo. there's very good reasons these lines were cut. whatever birthdates can be worked out internally for jon and robb from when they're first mentioned as 15 and 16 don't matter in the end, bc grrm doesn't care about a consistent timeline and the actual text of catelyn's pov and ned's convo with robert about cheating on her should outweigh any guesstimates about jon's official nameday wrt robb's. catelyn may not have cared for jon, but she would sure as hell have noticed his nameday if it came before robb's and made him ned's firstborn. if jon's birthday canonically came before robb's then either ned's cover story would not involve adultery (not impossible for him to sire a bastard before his wedding), or he'd just give jon a new nameday along with his new name to fit the adultery lie. it makes no sense for him to lie about one and not the other, undermining the big lie with a little public clue of his story not adding up. whatever else she was as a stepmother, cat wasn't stupid and a bastard who was actually the eldest son being raised alongside her trueborn heir could be an even bigger insult than whether he was born of adultery or not.

BUT, the unknowability of jon's true birthday is not the only reason this annoys me, it's bc this is all based on the assumption that jon must be older since rhaegar/lyanna ran off together before ned married cat, as if both boys must have been conceived asap as robb canonically was when his parents consummated their marriage. and that's not how human reproduction works! even if you don't understand how fast babies grow in the first year, you should know that people who get pregnant do so through ovulation cycles and a lucky sperm finding an egg and all that, not just immediately getting knocked up as soon as one has p-in-v sex for the first time. not unless you only know mean girls sex ed where if you have sex you will get pregnant and die. (even tho lyanna did die, there's plenty of canon examples where pregnancy did not lead straight to death. also examples of people who did not get pregnant right away and even some who are/were sexually active and childless without always having moon tea on hand.) we can't know how long lyanna was having sex before that sperm+egg match happened or even how long she was with rhaegar before losing her technical virginity. if they were married, doesn't it make sense to think they didn't consummate their relationship until the wedding night either? that's the only leverage there is to ensure a status as wife rather than just mistress.

and while i just said grrm doesn't care about exact timelines and a lot is still foggy surrounding the rebellion and esp rhaegar, there is one timemarker wrt robert's rebellion he voluntarily threw in, time and time again: that stannis was besieged at storm's end for almost a whole year. that siege, which mind you, did not match the duration of the entire war. it only started after robert won his battles at gulltown and summerhall, returned to storm's end, and then went out and lost the battle of ashford, leaving his homeland open to the reachermen. the same siege which only ended when ned made a detour there after the sack of king's landing, before going to the toj. even if lyanna may not have given birth that exact day ned found her, she could only be waiting in that bloody bed for weeks at the most, not months. so if rhaegar knocked her up the very same night he carried her off and jon was still a newborn when ned found her after the siege of storm's end had ended, wouldn't that mean lyanna was pregnant for well over a year? that's not how human pregnancy works either! so, maybe that's proof that jon and robb, whichever order they were actually born in, were actually very close in age as babies, much closer than if they were both conceived asap.

and really, jon's actual birthdate does not matter imho, when he was raised not just as the bastard to robb's trueborn heir, but with robb also known by catelyn and the world as ned's firstborn (which he was, in any case, as jon was ned's nephew by birth). what difference could a birthdate before robb's make (even were there some means of discovery) after ned, cat, and robb are all dead? if one is looking only at his birth parents then he's only a firstborn child on lyanna's side, but definitely a second son on rhaegar's side. maybe he was always meant to be a second son with a not much older half-brother! even if the aegon fka young griff is not in fact rhaegar's son, he'll still be known as aegon vi targaryen, meaning jon will never be known as any father's elder son. if i may reference mean girls again, it's not going to happen.

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf #asoiaf meta #robb stark #jonathan snowflake starkgaryen #i want him to succeed me as king in the north #jon snow #ned stark #lyanna stark #like this isn't prompted by anyone except that reddit post and its comments this has just annoyed me for so long #that's why i made that show!robb/show!jon coming of age gifset years ago bc narratively jon is always a second son #bc robb did everything first as elder bro and the only milestones jon will hit first will be the those robb can't since he's dead for good #(obviously starting with jon being first male stark to be brought back from the dead)#not that everyone interested in this debate thinks this way but it just feels tied to the idea of jon being a trueborn heir #not only was he never a bastard he was an eldest boy! eldest surviving boy with those pesky half-dornish sibs gone! point missed.#sorry i just dont think grrm means for a targ restoration with king jon any more than fake eldest boy kendall roy could win his succession #(c)lsb #i had to look up all the quotes on the big storm's end siege bc it makes me feel like i'm taking crazy pills #thinking what abt stannis starving for a year while others are like we just can't know how long rr was. was it even 9mons?#like yeah lollys's pregnancy doesn't add up but bc grrm really slowed the tl down postacok prob w/o really thinking #thats diff from repeatedly saying something lasted almost a year when he didn't have to give such a timeframe!

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nightswatchdisbandmentera · 8 months

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It's so so disingenuous to claim that Dany should have taken the time to separate xyz privileged persons in Meereen because "not everyone sanctioned the murder of those 163 children 😞". Oh ok. So that very wealthy, very influential man did not personally give the order. Maybe he doesn't even have slaves. But riddle me this: Where did their wealth come from? What are the historical foundations of their political power? In a society that continues to practice oppression (and a society where wealth and status is defined by it), how is it that they continue to hold as much influence and social capital as the "direct evil"? None of this is happening in a vacuum. And like....this is a society where the dehumanization of slaves is systemic. It runs policy and economics. And the people in power obviously know each other and support each other (considering the fact that they can keep wealth and influence!!!). So does it matter if xzy didn't give the order? Does it matter if they were not the ones nailing those kids to the posts? What matters is that they saw oppression, did absolutely nothing in the face of it, and continued to benefit from it. They are not innocent. Evil isn't just related to the guy pulling the trigger. The devil is also the one who's standing in the back, watching, and counting his coffers. And it terrifies me to think about what some of you would be saying in the real world, in the face of oppression. "I cannot be held accountable because I wasn't the one who pulled the trigger"....but you continued to benefit from the privilege afforded to you by the oppressive system AND DID/SAID NOTHING. By turning a blind eye, you have taken the side of the oppressor. So I'm sorry sweetie but you 👏 are 👏 part 👏 of 👏 the 👏 problem 👏 big time!

#saw something and got terribly triggered by it - like I had a whole awoop jumpscare! moment #can't believe this has to be spelled out lmao but everyday I'm reminded why I dread going into 90% of the discussion regarding dany #it's so so tiring #oops hot take ->#IF ONE CONTINUES TO KNOWINGLY AND WILLINGLY BENFIT FROM PRIVILEGE THAT IS BORN OUT OF AND THRIVES IN AN OPPRESSIVE SYSTEM #THEN THEY ARE AN OPPRESSOR #and yeah I have a very emotional reaction to slaver's bay because well *gestures vaguely* I'm bla-#we have these discussions all the time in the real world whether it's about capitalism racism other forms of bigotry etc #it's not even about being a slave master apologist but trying to say that those who knowingly and willing benefit from oppressive systems #shouldn't be held accountable - this is so strange to me and so disheartening #how people talk about slaver's bay is a good litmus test me thinks 🙃#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #my stuff #ramblings and rants #le sigh

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hollowwhisperings · 11 months

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The Kids Are Alright: What's In "Blood Stew"?

In preparation for my efforts on crafting some Meera Reed meta & in support of my "Jojen Is Fine, Actually" post, I will be Preemptively Addressing the subject of "Blood Stew" in the Bran POV chapters in ADWD.

CW: spoilers for ASOIF & D&E, reference to cannibalism, hunting of animals (& probable extinction), logistics of meat production, harm to children, suicidal ideation (Jojen), arson (including to religious sites, i.e. Old Gods), possible xenocide, body horror (Brynden), cult behaviour & indoctrination, drugging & grooming of minors (Bran, by the Singers), blasphemy (consistent usage of religious terminology for an in-setting cult of faith).

Team "Cave Kids": Setting the Scene

Going into WoW, Team Bran (Bran, Summer, Walder, Meera & Jojen) will have lived as guests of the Cave Singers for near up to a year: their lodgings lay within a vast & labyrinthine underground cave system, crawling with weirwood tree roots from the Haunted Forest above, and home to More Skeletons Than A Natural History Museum. All the humans (& Summer) share sleeping quarters. Summer pops out to Hunt and Do Wolf Leader Things (GRRM has subscribed his direwolves to Ye Olde Alpha Wolfe society); Jojen Worries Meera and sometimes goes Exploring; Meera and Walder are more cautious in their movements, when Bran isn't Bodysnatching Walder for his own explorations; Bran himself is carried by Singers to & from the shared sleeping chamber to Brynden's Vertigo Cave for "Flying" Lessons.

This entire region is named by the ASOIAF Wiki as "the cave of the three-eyed crow": as I always do, I Take Issue With That Name (I got sidetracked enough to move my thoughts to a separate draft).

Instead, [Team Bran] are guests of the Singers living in "the Caves [Beneath the Haunted Forest]". The Cave Singers are Singers, not Children of the Forest, though I do use Bran & Meera's nicknames for individual Singers.

Brynden is just "Brynden": he was, once, "Lord Commander"; a "Lord Hand" twice-over; and a "Master of Whispers" both before & after his ever receiving the position "officially". More hilariously, Brynden is very definitely the Distant Cousin (mayhaps even a many-times great Uncle) of every living Stark in the series. All courtesy of one Lady Melantha Blackwood of Winterfell (and GRRM's continued Indifference to the maternal sides of family trees, To Be Doylist About It).

Bed & Breakfast

My Grievances with Non-Existent Titles, Leaf's Suspect Math & Unspecified Maternal Lineage aside, let us return to "blood stew".

"And almost every day they ate blood stew, thickened with barley and onions and chunks of meat. Jojen thought it might be squirrel meat, and Meera said that it was rat. Bran did not care. It was meat and it was good. The stewing made it tender." (Bran III, ADWD)

Jojen and Meera are probably both right, sometimes at the same time: Bran is aware of Summer's freely exit the caves to Hunt & Summer likely donates the odd "squirrel" (or pieces thereof) to the Cave Kitchens, when he can. The Supernaturally Colder climate induced by the Others does make Summer's hunting an unreliable food source, in the long run: what little game still remains in the Haunted Forest is unlikely to have any offspring to replace the current population. The ever diminishing returns of Summer's hunts are a major factor in his Direwolf Mother travelling South for her pregnancy in the first place. That she, a Giant Direwolf, somehow got as far South as Winterfell's Wolfswood? Brynden is in the neighbourhood and Invested in House Stark, if only in Bran & Jon: his "Divine Intervention" is the most plausible explanation. Directing a local direwolf to Stark lands is well within his canonically established capabilities (whether this was easier than Rigging Jon's Election is a Fun Thought Experiment).

Local vermin and Summer's potluck contributions alone could not sustain the Singers, let alone their (fragile!) human guests: it is a different sort of meat that makes up most of their Blood Stews, one Greatly Speculated upon and one of Shocking Audacity... so what is the primary ingredient of Blood Stew?

Cave Goat. :D

The Kids Are Alright

The Singers canonically keep Goats for milk, used for cheesemaking. The Singers themselves are Omnivorous (they eat mushrooms & fish) so they probably eat their goats too. Given that the Cave Settlement has existed for 1 million years (Leaf's Math, GRRM's lacking a sense of Scale), the Singers have had a long time to familiarize themselves with lactose tolerance & the butchering of goats for meat. These goats have likely lived alongside the Singers for a very long time: they're never mentioned leaving the Caves to (not) graze, meaning they too live entirely in darkness. Brynden might be called upon, now & then, to skinchange into wild Flock Queens from Above (googling "do goats have leaders" has informed me that goats are Matriarchal) & thus bring "Fresh Blood" to existing herds.

Speaking of Blood, the "blood" in Blood Stew is probably goat blood preserved after slaughter in That Most Ancient Form Of Sausage... black pudding. Blood spoils too quickly otherwise, even if the Singers have "freezers" in the form of cold caves. While GRRM never says as much, the Singers certainly have the means to "farm" salt to aid in meat preservation. There is at least one underground river in the Caves (the black one with blind fish) that is never specified as "salty" or "fresh". Assuming the Singers weren't just "mining" rock salt (solar evaporation would be Rather Difficult, what with the Complete Absence of Sunlight), the Caves almost certainly boast several brine springs.

The access to salt and [cold caves] enable the Singers to "stretch" each goat slaughtered, making them the most reliable source of meat. Given that the Singers personally tend to their goat herds, the "hygiene" of their goat meat makes the goats a much safer offering for their even the most fragile of their human guests (Bran & Jojen). Goats are safer for the Singers too: Leaf gives a population count of "three-score" for her people, and there any implications that they are an "aging population". Singers are small in size, limited in number and their mobility is likely decreasing. The "strength" of any individual Singer is never really expanded upon, beyond their ability to carry Bran around (which... doesn't really say much, given that he's a malnourished nine-year old) and historic difficulties facing humans head-on (bronze weapons & fire, yes, but larger sizes too). Slaughtering domesticated goats would be within the physical capabilities of the Singers we see moving around, hunting bigger (or more aggreesive) game would be Difficult unless Skinchanging was involved (keeping an animal docile enough to restrain and drug with shrooms, the skinchanger leaving before the actual slaughter).

So, shockingly, the "blood" in Blood Stew is just goat sausages (blood, intestines, grain & salt). The "hunks of meat" are Also Goat, for the most part, with Summer's hunts and local vermin (rats, bats, probably not ravens, any safe-for-humans bugs).

Supplementary Protein

Fish are another source of "meat": the Caves have at least one river, home to blind white fish eaten by both Singers & their human guests (differentiating "fish" from game meat would be difficult, given the primary goatiness & the "Stone Soup" vibe of any communal stew).

As Meera speculated, any vermin capable of surviving the supernatural cold, are likely additional ingredients for "Blood Stew". Vermin would be an issue in the Caves, drawn to the Singers having grain stores (oats and barleycorn): these are cold climate crops, making them farmable even This Far North (barley doesn't freeze to death 'til -8° C) though how the Singers could grow these crops in their Caves can only be Handwaved By Magic (For Safety Reasons, skylights or aboveground gardens are Unlikely). That or the Singers used ravens to facilitate Trade with freefolk, when they still lived in the area (the lands of the Thenns are North-West of the Haunted Forest). Magic ravens migjt even be foraging wild grain on the behalf of the Singers: they are fey folk, even without their keeping (stealing) the odd human to act as their personal Eldritch God-Tree Wizard.

The ravens themselves can probably be ruled out as ingredients in Blood Stew: these ravens are Sapient and Divine Envoys besides. There's also the IRL precedent of corvids Holding Grudges: incurring the Wrath of the local avian hivemind would be Enormously Stupid of the Singers. The Murders vastly outnumber the Singers, making peaceful relations Rather Important. Ravens that die prematurely or of injuries (not of sickness: fragile humans are fragile, after all) might be "Fair Game" but, knowing GRRM, the Cave Ravens are probably cannibalistic carrions.

The Cave Ravens would be much more relaxed by Singers harvesting their eggs, outside Mating Season at least. All birds eat their own eggs, making them less "taboo" than one might think. Eggs function as "external food storage" for birds, adults eating unfertilized eggs they lay & babies eating their way out from the egg they hatch from. I could not speculate on how Singers prefer their eggs: in Blood Stew, I could only guess that raven egg yolk would help in "tendering" the goat blood sausages after cold storage.

For all the food sources available to the Singers, the Blood Stews being served "almost everyday" does indicate that Rationing is at play: a Long Night looms and exhausting any food source means losing that food source permanently. Goats, fish, Summer's donations, raven eggs (&/or ravens), vermin and bugs make up the actual "meat" in Blood Stew. The general confusion of the humans as to what their meat is may be further muddled by some "hunks" actually being mushrooms or cheese.

But Humanitarianism!

While zombies are an Awkwardly Plausible Convenience (Coldhands has killed Night's Watch deserters in the vicinity of the Caves & wights were Hidden in the snow surrounding one of its entrances)... consider the state of these wights. The vast majority are rotting, even in the supernaturally cold temperatures and, since Freefolk traditionally burn their dead, the wights that are reanimated likely died in Unsavoury Manners. Even "fresh" or "preserved" corpses are quickly riddled with Unappetizing bacteria and insects. The frozen wights are old, the murdered or forgotten, and all of them Decidedly Unhygienic. Human wights might be safe enough for carrion birds or even the Singers themselves... but they are not safe for their human guests.

Consider the Efforts, the Sacrifices, that enabled Bran's getting to the Singers at all: even with Brynden's "Divine Intervention" (getting the Starklings bodyguards in the form of direwolves, prompting their awakenings as Wargs; encouraging Jojen & thus Meera to meet Bran at Winterfell; bidding Coldhands to save Sam & Gilly, enabling easier passage North via Creepy Eldritch Door, on time to give the kids a "Lift" on his Great Elk), the likelihood of Bran dying was always higher than his surviving. Readers know Bran has Plot Armour but, in-universe, his continued survival has been costly. Getting Bran safely to the Singers was an expensive undertaking, one requiring a great many moving pieces (some of them arguably "moved" before Bran was even born: each Starkling held Potential, some moreso than others, and none of their parents were originally intended for each other).

It is almost certain that Bran was not the first child Brynden Lured North: popular fanon names Euron Greyjoy as an "abandoned" attempt, whilst Jojen was canonically [granted audience? scouted?] only to be "ruled out" (being "only" a greendreamer, Jojen was instead used to Better Bran's Odds of Survival).

While greendreamers and skinchangers are Statistical Anomalies, with persons who are Both being even rarer, Westeros is large enough that having a handful of potential greenseers within generations of each other is a Fair Estimate. No, the issue is the Rarity of Potential Greenseers AND the deadly nature of any "pilgrimage". That only Brynden and Bran are ever named seems to indicate that their managing both trials makes them "worthy" of Reverance, even before "earning" the title of "greenseer". That Bran survived was miraculous and, indeed, Brynden certainly worked "Overtime" in his Acts of Divine Intervention. Even then, Bran (& Jojen's) survival was very much dependent on Summer and Meera's presence in the group: the Singers owe every single member of Team Bran a debt, all of them serving vital roles in getting them a Shiny New God-Tree for their collectiom.

What does Divine Intervention and Debts of Hospitality have to do with Blood Stew, with an "Exciting" Opportunity for Hypothetical "Humanitarianism"?

Simple: Bran is too important to the Singers for them to Risk his health by their serving "Bad Meat". Imagine going to such great lengths to find a Fresh Godling, the relief that This Godling survived to meet his destiny... only for their Godling to get killed by food poisoning.

"And They Were Roommates"

The only meal noted as being Separately Prepared for any of the humans is Bran's Weirwood Paste: what one of them eats, all of them eat. That means that one of the humans getting sick (Jojen being the most susceptible), risks all of them catching ill. While each of the humans does "disappear" now and then, exploring or generally doing their own thing, the extreme cold of their environment (their extended time traumabonding with each other) means that they all share the same sleeping chamber. They share furs, body heat, breath.

While the Singers could very easily isolate the humans from each other (if only for quarrantine purposes), keeping them together is "safer": the humans would recognise sickness or distress in each othed before the Singers could and the humans already know how to take care of each other. The Singers being Good Hosts is in their best interests, not only in currying favour with their new god-in-training but also to ensure said godling survives to do any "Ascending".

Children Are Fragile: Why "Bad Meat" Isn't An Option

Grand Futures of Kingship & God-Treehood aside, at this point in time, Bran Stark is nine-years old. Human children, even Super Magical Starklings, are still children. And children are fragile.

Bran is still recovering from Attempted Murder, with his injuries limiting his independent mobility in ways his society cannot truly accomodate (not as a Prince of Winterfell & definitely not as a half-frozen cave kid). An inability to walk isn't the greatest danger of Bran's disabilities: thermoregulation of half his body is. Bran's friends are better able to recognise Bran's symptoms of physical distress than Bran is, than the Singers could. The humans also have greater strength and mobility: the Singers only seem to have three fingers on each hand and, while Bran is unlikely to grow much bigger given his environment, he will be getting some growth spurts soon. It's unknown how long Bran is expected to need "training" from Brynden, how long he will be carried to & from the communal sleepchamber and his weirwood throne. The Singers might just Graft Bran to his Throne once he's too big for them to safely carry but, again, there is no timeline given for Bran's progress. Better to keep "Hodor" about, thinketh the much tinier Singers.

Jaime's Murder Attempt also put Bran into a prolonged coma, one he was Fortunate to awaken from. That Bran has not exhibited any of the more "inconvient" (or dangerous) consequences of a longterm coma is almost certainly Brynden's "Divine Intervention" at work. Surprising lack of cognitive issues (temporary or longlasting) aside, Bran's coma & his subsequent state of "perpetual bedrest" has left his body much weaker the average child. He's already malnourished, traumatised and struggling to stay warm: Bran getting sick, even a "minor" sickness like a cold or bout of mild food poisoning? That could kill him.

Even if Bran doesn't die from an illness, recovery would be Difficult in such as a Hostile Environment: it is cold, it is dark (no sunlight whatsoever), and [Food Insecurity] is an ongoing reality. If a person is already physically weakened, minor illnesses can very easily escalate into more serious ones. There are no Maesters, no Medicine Women for Bran. The Singers have magic bit they are fey while Bran is (at present) terrifyingly mortal. Keeping Bran alive means keeping him healthy and doing that requires keeping the Other Humans 'healthy" too: serving the "spares" Questionably Sourced Meat is against the Best Interests of the Singers, their Investment in Keeping Bran Alive.

(For now, at least.)

The Jojen Problem

The terrifying fragility of their Future God-King aside, a more "immediate" danger to the continued existence of the Cave Singers is Jojen Reed: that is, Jojen's consistent lack of good health.

Bran was a healthy child who became very vulnerable very suddenly: Jojen, meanwhile, has been "sickly" for Years. Not only is Jojen "small" for his age (14-ish), he is often described as "shaking". IRL, people get tremours for any number of reasons, and comorbid conditions are not unusual. There is valid reason to view Jojen's "shakes" as symptoms of an ongoing, chronic health condition. Jojen might have a chronic illness, lasting side effects from the fever that nearly killed him, and he's had ample opportunity to acquire some [head trauma] over the series. Jojen's "shaking fits" may also be his physiology "teaming up" with psychological trauma: muscular twitches from the stress of hypervigilance, shakiness borne of anxiety & stress, atypically expressed panic attacks (that can resemble seizures in their physicality).

While Jojen's Ambiguous Disorders are decidedly non-contagious (going by IRL counterparts), Jojen's predisposition to "sickliness" makes him just as vulnerable to Death By Minor Illness as Bran, if not moreso given Jojen's Current Psychological State.

The Terrifying Fragility of Jojen Reed

Jojen, for Very Justified Reasons, is Very Depressed. Depression, in fiction & IRL, makes people more susceptible to catching illnesses and makes recovery more difficult. That is true even when a person is not deliberately enabling (or passively "allowing") an illness to harm them.

Jojen "this is not the day I die" Reed is exhibiting every sign of suicidal ideation that Bran, his friend & fellow fragile tiny human, can pick up on. Meera, the Designated Adult of Team Bran at the wise old age of 17 & Jojen's big sister, has become genuinely concerned that Jojen's (passive) Death Wish has become an Active one.

Jojen has long believed that he is Functionally Immortal outside of Greywater Watch: his very first Greendream was, after all, a vision of his own Death. It's not unreasonable to suspect that said Death Dream is a recurring one, that Present Circumstances (Brynden's Body Horror, the complete lack of sunlight) have Exacerbated the frequency of Jojen's Dreaming of Death. Fans of The Song greatly enjoy speculating on Jojen's Inevitable Demise, many assuming he is Already Dead. This is based on his last "appearance" being Bran noting Jojen's Absence: fans fail to extend this state of Already Dead to the Also Absent Meera.

(My tinfoil has One of The Reeds Finding Something while Exploring, grabbing their sibling so as to Convene Privately Elsewhere, & that together they have begun to Conspire An Escape)

If Jojen were to Die Prematurely, far from his Destined Death at Greywater Watch... there goes Meera Reed's Entire Motivation for Being Here, in this Far Away Frozen Helscape.

Meera, obligatory loyalty to House Stark aside, has stated that her primary incentive to follow Bran, to Go North and remain there while Bran [gets made into a tree-wizard]... was to save Jojen from his Death Wish.

Reasons to Fear Meera Reed

Meera is the "healthiest" of all the humans in Team Bran: she's able-bodied, physically mature (short, yes, but strong), lethal with a net & spear... and the primary caregiver of everyone in their group.

Summer (2 y/o) helps, with scouting and hunting and bodyguarding. Walder (17 or older) helps, kind and physically powerful. Jojen (14 y/o) helped, with Uncanny Wisdom and foresight and faith in Bran. Bran (9 y/o) is, of course, the Designated Hero of his chapters (this is Greatly Limited by his being only nine-years old).

Meera (17-ish) did all that and more. Meera hunted, guarded, scouted, foraged, killed, climbed... and did so as a non-magical human, relying on her experience as a crannogmen and her Father's Daughter.

Meera keeps up morale and tells [Very Helpful] Stories, leads where Walder and the children cannot, posseses Common Sense & life experience, mediates when the children are fighting (scolds them for taking their frustrations out on each other), senses Social Danger that Summer might miss, skins prey & butchers it (ensuring none of it goes to waste). Meera is a survivalist, one canny of the Old Ways, a "Modern" example of why the First Men so successfully survived in Westeros.

And the Singers of the Cave are Old. They Know the capabilities of Humans, the single greatest threat the Singers have ever known. The Singers Remember: the Pact, the 4000 years of war before it; the First Men, their axes; the Andals, their iron & blasphemy. The Singers know Human as Invaders and Desecrators and (sometimes) Allies. The Singers also "know" the Consequences of a Human who FeelsToo Much.

Humans, historically, have Little Issue with Seeings Things Burn. Humans, it seems, will respond to Any Strong Emotion with Bronze or Iron or Fire.

Cold? A Human will find a Tree and set it on fire.

Hungry? A human will Kill Something and heat it... over fire.

Dead? Other humans gather, collect the deceased, set the body on fire.

Grieving? A human will find iron, demand answers, find you. And should your "Answers" prove unsatisfactory? Humans will set fire to YOU, your settlement, your Gods.

Meera is very, very "human". She is the most human of her group: Bran is, of course, a God-Tree sapling; Jojen is Greensighted, not long for his human flesh and soon to join You in the Trees; the one called "Hodor" reminds You of the Giants, long ago foes and more recent allies but all but a few Gone to the Earth.

(Summer is a Direwolf.)

Meera is the Single Greatest Threat to the Cave Singers, who believe themselves the "last" of their people. Meera is a Consiserable Threat to the Last Greenseer, whom she has grown to Suspect and Resent. Meera does not, at least, carry on her person any axe (she wields spear and net and shield).

Meera can definitely start a fire. Meera would willingly start a Fire, a pyre for her brother built from the Last Greenseer himself. Meera would gladly burn out the Last of the Singers, for Vengeance and as Sacrifices to stay the suit of wights (of Others) as she Flees South and homeward (taking your Prince, your Shiny New God-Tree, the Last Hope of your People with her for spite alone).

That's All, Folks!

So, no: "Blood Stew" is not made from people. It is not made of Jojen or Meera, it is Goat and Vermin and Bugs. It is occasionally made with Squirrels. The "blood" is black pudding, goat's blood and intestines salted to ensure no goat goes to waste: their hides and furs warm the children, their blood and flesh sustains them, their cheese enables their exercising in philosophy. Wights are just too dangerous, to hunt or serve for supper: Bran (& Jojen) cannot be risked for the sake of morbid convenience. Live humans are right out, too much bigger and stronger than the Singers, or too dearly missed by The Scariest Being North of The Wall.

The Kids are Alright (the human ones, anyway).

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf theories #jojenpaste #blood stew #the last greenseer #i can't believe it's not cannibalism!#why are song fans so obsessed with oblivious humanitarianism #i googled things i never wanted to google in factchecking this #i am not a medical professional nor involved in the food industry #jojen reed meta #meera reed meta #bryndenpaste #to get in the mindset of writing this required me to think like a fey folk #cw cannibalism #cw food #cw suicidal ideation #cw body horror #brynden rivers is his own warning #i am weirdly more sympathetic to brynden after spending so much time in Leaf POV #singers of the earth #cotf meta #three-eyed crow is not a title #life beyond the wall #walder is hodor's actual name #just like brynden is the three-eyed crow's actual name and bran is the winged wolf's #sci-fi writers have no sense of scale #i have cut enough meta while drafting this post to make two more posts #but mostly i just want to never have to discuss “humanitarianism” ever again #guest right #crud i forgot to consider whether guest right would be as strongly respected by singers as by first men

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janiedean · 2 years

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Saw some takes from green stans that the show creator is being too pro black team by not killing Laenor and choosing younger actor for the strong boys and adult actor fron the green childs so it will looks like adults bullying teenagers. While i also see a take fron the black stans swears that the show creator hates the black team SO MUCH by making the greens more dimentional. Thoughts?

(Me myself is not invested in this show so i just watch all of these discourse between green &black stan with popcorns. Love Jace so much though)

I mean, with the premises that:

I think both of those takes are massively idiotic

I am a black supporter since book days not just because jace velaryon > anyone else's faves but mostly because a) rhaenyra was right she was the heir she should have gotten the throne end of story b) any green except haelena in the book was either on my 'you bore me' or 'god I hate you' list so like why would I support the side on which I don't like anyone except one character who barely has any input on what happens poor girl

so like take it the way it is, but argument 1 is stupid because:

daemon actually comes off worse-ish in the show because like in the book he never killed his wife and wasn't implied to/was actually in love with laena way more than it was shown in the tv series and he killed vaemond bc rhaenyra asked him it wasn't his idea just to say the first three things that come on top of my head so like at most they're making rhaenyra look better but we still didn't get to the worst thing team black does so jury's out on that

laenor not dying was... wow THEY DIDN'T KILL THEIR GAYS?? like they had a gay character they decided to take a thing that in the book is not specified bc they said the boyfriend killed him and that IT WAS RUMORED DAEMON WAS BEHIND IT BUT WE JUST DON'T KNOW BECAUSE SOURCES WHAT ARE THEY so they took it and they turned it into he actually gets to be happy, like... wow after they had to kill off joffrey bc the story didn't advance otherwise they decided to not let laenor be miserable and that's the issue? pls come on

the actors' ages is ridiculous because like.... yo aegon was two years old in episode three when viserys tried to marry off rhaenyra to jason and episode five was even later and the timeskip was some ten years so like... aegon and aemond are older than jace who's the eldest of rhaenyra's kids so if they look older it's... just... sensed???? because they are?? also aegon looks his age and the velaryon kids are all accurate, the one who looks older is aemond but honestly considering the shit he pulls most likely next ep or in the finale i 100% guarantee you that it doesn't matter how he looks he's gonna be the worst anyway so like the problem with aegon and aemond is that they're both legit pos and I'll get to it in a second not how old they are, if ppl want to stan their side fair enough but own up to it

like tldr if they think the narrative is pro black it's because rhaenyra's right??? sorry but she is

on to why the other argument is stupid af which will clarify stuff I said before:

saying the creator is pro greens because he gave alicent a personality that's not thrift shop c*rsei written like in the main show is ridiculous because like book alicent has the depth of the shallowest pool in existence and sounds like the wicked witch of the west at every corner, which was why I detested her, and the show did a vast improvement in making her a deeper, way more interesting character and explaining her motivations/showing why she is that way and giving her nuance, like sorry that's improving on the source material which can always happen nothing is perfect (same for viserys tbh show!viserys > book!viserys) so that's imvho ridiculous also because I don't see how making alicent more nuanced like that means that they want you to stan the greens since the narrative is openly stating that viserys wanted rhaenyra to reign and that should have been the end of the question

same for aegon and aemond like... I mean they're both terrible and they were in the book and one thing aegon is most likely gonna do two seasons from now from what I'm gathering is imvho a level of fucked up you don't come back from at any point and he's an asshole before anyway and aemond... I mean I loathed him from the beginning but next episode most likely you're gonna see why as far as I'm concerned he deserves to rot so like I think the show is doing a good job of fleshing them out aemond def. had his moment when he claimed the lizard, but like the thing is that you can flesh them out as much as you want but it doesn't make them any less terrible so idg what's so bad about the writers wanting to have characters in the show and not caricatures differently from what the last seasons of got was like... I hate the greens except haelena but I'm really glad they're not making them cartoon villains thanks I'm watching a show for adults I want my nuance

like complaining that the ppl on the opposite side are actually nuanced characters is the stupidest shit I ever read and honestly I'm really glad they did what they did with alicent because honestly if I had to stand through ten episodes of fakewoke girlbossing the way they did with both c*rsei and show s*nsa I'd have suffered and I want to be entertained not to suffer

also you have excellent taste because jace > everyone else's faves thanks I'm planting my flag on that hill but tldr: the show is black-biased in the way the narrative is because again rhaenyra was crowned heir and she was right end of that shit but it's not doing anything to make the blacks look better™ and honestly if they don't pull punches on the thing I'm dreading that should be in the finale if my calculations are right I don't wanna hear any green stan complaining they get whitewashed because honestly Said Thing is... well y'know the red wedding is the most horrific wtf is this shit moment in asoiaf, okay that Thing is that for f&b imvho so if they actually don't tone it down I dare anyone to say they're making them look better bc there's no way you look good after that shit, the greens being actually well-written characters doesn't make them any less awful (okay maybe alicent is less awful than in the book but still) and it just makes for good writing, laenor deserved to fuck off to the free cities and anyone who says shit about my poor velaryon children gets muted as far as I'm concerned xD and that's my two cents

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eightbots · 5 months

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our translations of the witcher books came out recently and i was so happy they had decent covers for once but it was just the american ones :(

#why can't we have nice sff covers except for like lotr and asoiaf tier stuff #bot noises

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oldshrewsburyian · 16 days

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Hi! I have a question regarding the depiction of gender roles in ASOIAF and how they compare to that of the real medieval Europe, specifically high-to late medieval. I'm aware that the violence against women and misogyny depicted in the books are often justified by fans on the basis of "historical realism".

How does the depiction of traditional gender roles in Westeros such as limitations based on gender-what women can and can't do-and violence against women differ from the real middle ages?

Another question: Cersei is meant to be a deconstruction of the "evil queen archetype", and part of her character is learning at an early age that she has no agency because she's female and that her only value is her ability to bear children, and the only way she's able to get anything done in the books is by influencing men with sex or using underhanded magical means because she's barred from traditional routes of power.

However, does this reflect real medieval queen consorts and noble-women? I've read that the things Cersei does were the sort of nasty stereotypes that existed about women during the period seeking illegitimate power.

Okay, here goes, but I am going to immodestly observe that answering questions like this is usually part of the work I'm paid to do. And there's so much going on here.

To your final question first: no, it does not reflect reality. And also, uh, no. There are a lot of assumptions embedded in that phrase "seeking illegitimate power" (illegitimate how/why?) but anyway. The image of Cersei as sexually voracious and insatiable (and incestuous) may borrow from the charges against Anne Boleyn, but that case is 1) exceptional for a lot of reasons 2) not medieval. Evil Woman Wielding Power Via Sex + Magic is a medieval idea if you count Thomas Malory's Morgan le Fay, I guess? Which is not nothing! But a work of entertainment literature from 1485 ≠ generalized medieval stereotype.

The fact that real medieval queens, and queens-consort, and queens-regent, and noblewomen -- including those known as lords because that's what they were -- wielded power with no one freaking out about it is, in scholarly terms, old news. Joan Kelly's brilliant 1977 article, "Did Women Have A Renaissance?" (brilliantly summarized/contextualized here by Natalie Zemon Davis, thank you @jstor) points out some of the ways this was so. From at least the 1990s on, the work of other scholars, e.g. Bonnie Wheeler, Amy Livingstone, Fredric Cheyette, Miriam Shadis, has expanded our vision of this. And I'm going into this detail in order to illustrate how long this accurate work has been around, and thus available to work into undergraduate coursework, which is where I'm presuming most people have the closest access to up-to-date scholarship.

Three books in, I'm going to say that if Cersei is intended to be a deconstruction of the "evil queen archetype," uh. GRRM could have done better. I do think she's a fascinating character. But she's also, I think, very clearly a woman who would not be evil™ if women could get MBA degrees. Okay, well, she might be a bit evil™, but in a Narcissist With An MBA way. Anyway. In Westeros, she would be a lot less evil/angry if women could just wield power the way they did in the Actual Middle Ages!! FFS!

Taking your first question last: this is one of the things that frustrates me about ASOIAF because it is so far from historical reality that there is no simple answer to this. This question cannot be answered with a checklist, with items. Medieval misogyny existed. It was also very different from modern misogyny. I don't know why GRRM treats sadistic and often sexual/sexualized violence and abuse of women as normative. Women's legal recourse against marital abuse would require Fantasy Canon Law™, which as we have seen, he does not have. And the idea that most medieval people (canon law notwithstanding) were just a lot less uptight about sex than, say, the Victorians does not seem to have entered his head. Also ~traditional gender roles~ my left foot.

I'll close with one story about medieval misogyny. It comes from a miracle collection. A non-elite woman (artisan or peasant, we don't know) was raped by a stranger; "some man of high rank," according to the text. She was deeply traumatized. She was also, and this breaks my heart, "fearful lest her husband have hate for her because of this thing." But here's where it gets better: we know this in part because she told her neighbors! They functioned as a support system, and recommended that she seek healing at a saint's shrine (mental/emotional/physical health being seen as inseparable.) She stayed in that place for nine days, resting, and visiting the shrine, and talking with the friars who managed it. Gradually, her symptoms of trauma improved. She returned home. I don't know the rest of her story; I hope she was okay, and that her husband behaved decently. But the fact that she was treated with compassion both by her community of origin and the community to which she went for specialized help shows a reality very different from that of ASOIAF.

#a medievalist does got #asoiaf #grrm critical #bad medievalism bingo #women in history #tw rape #fantasy canon law™

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aphroditelovesu · 2 months

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˚̩̥̩̥♡₊*｡❝masterlists❞₊˚.*✩

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くくく EXO: Yandere Baekhyun (Romantic), Yandere Suho (Romantic). くくく TWICE: Imagine as Classmates.

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➷°.[✩] Egyptian Mythology ╭⟡;𓂀

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くくく The Lost Queen | Yandere!Alexander the Great ❝You woke up near a military camp without remembering how and why you got there, you didn't understand why they were dressed like ancient Greeks, all you knew was that you weren't safe and you needed to get out of that place as soon as possible. Too bad for you that you found yourself attracting unwanted attention from the Macedonian King and he won't let you go so easily.❞ The Lost Queen Series Masterlist

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くくく The Shadow of the Golden Dragon | Yandere!ASOIAF/GOT/HOTD ❝You have always been an avid reader and your greatest passion was delving into the pages of "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R.R. Martin. You knew every character, every twist and every detail of the Seven Kingdoms as if they were part of your own life. But what you never imagined is that an unexpected encounter with a mysterious antique book seller would change your life forever.❞ The Shadow of the Golden Dragon Masterlist

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duchess-of-oldtown · 1 year

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I think the one problem I have with ASOIAF is the way GRRM sometimes ignores the fact siblings grew up together and those early years in comparison to their relationships now. You can't tell me that Stannis didn't read stories to Renly or Robert didn't give both his little brothers piggybacks. You can't tell me that Asha didn't hold onto Theon for dear life during the Sack of Pyke and tell him everything was going to be alright. You can't tell me that Jaime and Tyrion never pulled pranks on Cersei. You can't tell me that Arya never slipped Sansa food after she raided the kitchen at midnight nor that Sansa never told Arya when she and Jeyne had a falling out. Don't get me wrong, GRRM does complicated relationships very well but he's missing that air of tragedy - of what it once was and why it can't be like that again.

#Grrm #asoiaf meta #Asoiaf #Asha Greyjoy #theon greyjoy #arya stark #sansa stark #tyrion lannister #cersei lannister #Jaime Lannister #Stannis Baratheon #robert baratheon #renly baratheon #valyrian scrolls

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fromtheseventhhell · 9 months

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Not Arya, Robb, and Jon catching strays for not "warning" Sansa about Joffrey?? As though they didn't all meet him at the same time and have equal opportunity to understand what he was like?? It just blows my mind that somehow everybody can be blamed for her actions regarding Joffrey but Sansa herself. Apparently, she can't be expected to understand anything because nobody sat down and slowly explained everything to her using small words (not even when Ned does just that lol). And then they just ignore the fact that Sansa had a crush on Joffery and actively wanted to marry him? To the point of excusing his behavior when she witnessed his cruelty first-hand? Then they pretend that she was just "coping" with her engagement when she actively argued against Ned breaking it and went to Cersei because she thought she could stop him from doing so. There's no way they like her actual character if this is what they have to come up with to cope with her writing.

#anti sansa stans #none of these words are in asoiaf #we're almost at the point of saying that Sansa had a crush on Joffrey being /anti Sansa/ oh brother #they straight up don't like this girl like there's literally no other explanation for the metas they come up with to absolve her #they hate how she was written and hate that the author doesn't favor her and warp everything around excusing her actions #the /she's just a child/ crowd can't even handle the fact that she was childish and made excuses for Joffrey cause she had a crush on him 😭#I fear for her if George gives her a darker story down the line cause her supposed stans are going to hate it #love how a younger Arya can be blamed but if you say Sansa should've known better then you get called a misogynist #this is all part of an unbelievably long thread of nonsense cause op couldn't cope with Sansa being a bratty child and having a crush #this is why I roll my eyes when stansas cry about the hate Sansa gets cause they want to assign unreasonable blame to every other character

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daenerystargaryensgirlfriend · 4 months

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My villain origin story is D&D completely changing Brienne and Arya attitude towards girlhood.

There is NO WAY Arya would say "most girls are stupid" in the books. Even the Sansa/Arya "hate" is INSANE because book Arya thinks often about her sister and she misses her. The ones putting Arya against Sansa were the people that were comparing them (Sansa looks like her mother and she's more skilled in dancing, singing and knitting, while Arya looks more like her father, so less "feminine" and less cut out for those activities). Also for the record, she never thinks Sansa is dumb or stupid because she's more feminine, but instead feels bad that she can't be like her. She doesn't hate girlish activities or think they are stupid, she just doesn't feel able to do them. Also in the last seasons we see Arya becoming a "killing-robot", while in the books she has a DEVELOPING emotional sphere since SHE'S 9! NINE! at the beginning of the books.

This whole argument can go for Brienne too. We got show Brienne calling Jaime a woman as an insult, while book Brienne would NEVER say that. Like Arya, Brienne suffered from the pressure of not being able to meet those unrealistic standards that rule the lifes of all the women in the asoiaf world, mostly because of her physical appearance. She learned how to fight because she felt like becoming a knight was her only choice.

Why did D&D felt like Arya and Brienne needed to dislike their gender in order for them to be good at swordsmanship? I would REALLY like to know.

#the mischaracterization is crazy #no hate to the actresses #i love them both #arya stark #brienne of tarth #got #grr martin #grrm #girlhood #my thougts #my opinion

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franzkafkagf · 1 month

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okay so i want to hear about your take on aegon i know you like him and all (so do i no matter how much i wish not to) but whyy

yess thanks for asking, I love being insane about him<3

I think Aegon is such a wildly tragic character– many asoiaf characters are but I'm so drawn specifically to him; he didn't want power or responsibility or the crown. It all was bestowed upon him against his will, and he shouldn't; putting on the crown is his definitive death sentence. The coronation scene has got to be one of my favorites in the season– he is quite literally walking up to be butchered like a sacrificial lamb, there are tears streaking his cheeks in the scene! I love the tragedy of it, the way it couldn't have been avoided anyways; his fate was sealed from the very start! He was quite literally dead from the very beginning.

I'm going off a mix from the book and the show but I actually love what they did with the character in the show? The book version does have some hard-hitting moments from him that are missing ("What sort of brother steals his sister's birthright?") but there wasn't that much there in terms of characterization and relationships. And wow, did they deliver on that in the show; I'm gonna give whoever came up with his mommy issues a forehead kiss.

Because YES! He and Alicent are reflections of one another– Alicent suffered under the heavy boot of Otto, turned into the perfect daughter, turned into the perfect queen for him. She recognizes that this was wrong and abusive of him, then she turns around and does the same thing to Aegon– the poison DOES drip through, the wheel is NOT broken!! It's BRILLIANT.

@atopvisenyashill put a GREAT tag under one of my posts–

#he looks like her and he’s weak like her so why can’t he get strong like her.

While Alicent persevered, Aegon crumbled under the pressure. He is miserable when we meet him– and he should be! He is unfit for the role of king, but it is his destiny nonetheless, everybody tells him so. It destroys him.

It's so sad too and I cannot help but to feel bad for him. No one knows where he is in ep 9, I don't think he has anyone to confide in; it must be lonely. Everybody seems to have written him off already– he is a drunk and a failure at being heir, being a son, being a father. He tries to prove them wrong later, and does in some aspects.

His loneliness plays into another aspect of him that I really love; his desperation to be loved. He will never be enough for anybody, he probably knows it deep down.

"[Aegon is] desperate to be loved but destined to be hated." – Tom Glynn-Carney

Obviously there is the carriage scene with Alicent that shows this. But I also really love the moment in his coronation, where he basks in the people's affection and cheers. He is poised to bleed out in front of the throne, he was crying and fighting for his life not to take the crown just minutes before. But now he's here and they love him and he can't help but love that.

He takes the crown to protect his family (the show does hint at that with Alicent telling him as much in ep. 6– in the book it's much more explicit with Criston pressuring him on the day of the coronation itself) and then his son DIES because of it! And he drinks and rages and drinks some more; he must've blamed himself. He goes to battle, flies too high (figuratively), and he FALLS; he burns and falls to the ground. He isn't made to be king. He knows. He does it anyways.

"You have already written yourself into legend, you survived dragonfire" – Larys Strong in season 2 (probably)

He survives, he is gone for over a year, unable to do anything but he SURVIVES. He escapes the capital, takes Dragonstone, he falls AGAIN, he loses most of his family; but he still goes on. Fueled by what? Maybe anger, or bitterness or just pure lust for revenge. It doesn't matter. He must've realized somewhere on the way that this was always meant to go this way, ever since he put the conqueror's crown on. It doesn't matter.

And then he dies and it's not grand or spectacular or anything like that. He drinks poisoned wine, nobody even sees him die, they only find him after. It's so uniquely lonely.

#hotd #house of the dragon #tom glynn carney #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #hotd meta #aegonposting #alicent hightower #otto hightower #omg now im sad </3 #ales.txt #asks

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