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atopvisenyashill · 4 months

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So I came upon your blog while looking through the asoiaf tag and explored it a bit. Would you please explain to me how are you against Targaryen incest, but find Jonsa fine? I’m genuinely curious, as I’ve just started reading the books (I’m half-way through a storm of swords) and find nothing fine about any form of incest, whether it is or not considered as such in-universe. I also find little to no Jonsa moments. Could you help me? Thank you!

okay so first of all i got sent an ask forever ago about what the appeal of jonsa is and i’ve been working on explaining basically where i see the plot going and why it’s thematically relevant and is2g i’m still actually putting it together it’s just doing that in a middle of a reread is tough bc my ideas are kinda all over the place lmao (just like this ask is about to be sorry!) (also once again, sorry if my tone comes across very weird, i swear i reread like twelve times to make sure i don’t sound too snarky and wasn't just vomitting up a thousand words of nonsense lmao!!).

BUT. Well there’s three points to this: what the characters may feel, what i feel about jonsa, and what i feel about targ incest. so first the characters:

I think it’s important to point out that first cousin marriage (and auncle/nibling marriage, esp if it’s a “half” relation) are not considered true incest in westeros and in many parts of our world. rickard and lyra, ned’s parents, are cousins. joanna and tywin lannister are first cousins. jonnel and sansa and edric and serena are uncle/nieces, and you’ll note that when alys karstark comes to jon for help, he is disgusted that her uncle is trying to steal her inheritance and not that he’s her uncle attempting to marry her. i point this out because not only is there nothing legally stopping a jonsa marriage, the characters themselves may also see it that way (as not incest). and if your next point is “well they grew up thinking they’re siblings” my answer is - yes and? One of the influences on this series is Mervyn Peake, who wrote gothic medieval stories, and both incest and pseudo-incest is very much a big part of gothic stories! A lot of the storylines in this world are dedicated to exploring incest as a force of socialization and romanticism, from Naerys pleading to live “as brother and sister” and Aegon insisting “we already are” to Alysanne’s “Alyssa is meant for Baelon” to Jaime’s “he heard none of it" in the sept. I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch to posit that two characters we have POVs for will fall in love and grapple with what that love says about them, about society, about their role in the world - and in fact, about half of Jon’s most popular ships are between him and a female relative. Sansa makes more sense to me because she’s closer to his age than Arya, has a more troubled relationship with him, is involved in the political aspects of the story just as much as he is, and isn’t likely to immediately start setting people on fire after they meet.

Now as for me, basically - i think both types of incest are the result of socialization + extreme trauma, and I fully expect that if Jonsa goes canon it will have a tragic ending. I think Jonsa takes some of the inherent misogyny of targ incest and plays around with it - Jon having significantly less societal privilege than basically every other Targaryen and what that means for Sansa as an heiress - but just because I think an exploration of that dynamic will be interesting, doesn’t mean I don’t expect it to be rife with problems.

because the problem with incest is the power dynamic ultimately, and you cannot escape that power dynamic bc people don’t exist in a vacuum. For all the Starks have some fucked up skeletons in their closet, Lyanna doesn’t show up in Ned’s bed naked and ask him to stop her betrothal to Robert, does she? This is the fundamental difference between targ incest and Jonsa or even Lannicest; Lannicest is rampant with toxicity from both of those deranged weirdos but they feel entitled to each other's bodies because of their own trauma surrounding their tumultuous childhoods (and probably some normalization of incest from their parents and proximity to Aerys/Rhaella/Rhaegar), but no one is saying "Jaime you are owed Cersei's body" or "Cersei your womb belongs to your brother and your brother alone." So I don't feel the need to sit here and go "Lannicest is toxic" like yeah? Clearly, lmao, these two feel like they are so damaged, and made so special by that damage, that they can only love one another, that's not what anyone would call healthy. I don't think it's necessary to sit here and explain that dynamic has abuse problems; it's right there in the text!

"well what about the power dynamic between jon and sansa?" YES WHAT ABOUT IT. that's the point! i'm interested in how a dynamic that is inherently abusive will play out between two people who were raised to believe some types of incest are okay but not others, who are victims of abuse and societal alienation themselves. because at the same time that i condemn targ incest, there are obviously real feelings and genuine care in these relationships and in these people, because again, people don't exist in a vacuum. daemon backs rhaenyra into this corner and then crucially does not kill any of her children because he realizes that's a step too far, she'd never forgive it, perhaps even because he grew to love them (i mean, Lucerys and Joffrey likely barely remember any other father but Daemon!). maegor is a monster who very specifically never harms rhaena's daughters! aemon is a useless pos but it seems likely he had a hand in raising naerys' son to be better than aegon because he could see the harm he and his brother were doing to naerys even if aemon was too much of a coward to actually stop that harm in any meaningful way! the difference, to me, is that jon will see that this relationship built on trauma and grief may be the only love he and sansa will ever allow themselves to feel but it is not healthy for them, and jon will leave! and sansa will realize she is not the impassive, frozen, detached symbol that the men around her want her to be, but a living, breathing person with her own wants and desires and agency, and will let him go!

Ultimately, while i think romanticizing and sexualizing the taboo is fine and even healthy, for me, there has to be some acknowledgement that you are in fact romanticizing the taboo. This is why the shitty dudes in asoiaf work for me in a way shitty dudes outside of asoiaf don’t usually - my general bitching about parts of the narrative that don’t click for me aside, there’s firm condemnation of the people engaging in these behaviors, from cersei sexually abusing lancel to sandor creeping on sansa. just because the narrative also shows us and wants us to feel empathy for sandor and cersei and why they’ve become bad people doesn’t mean what they’re doing isn’t bad. that’s what i like! i don’t want a story that holds my hand and drags me to the moral nor do i want a story that presents a god awful person who is supposed to be morally upright and not mean for us to dig deeper into them!

(this is why i like the pt but not the st of star wars, if you want an example - for all the prequels are um. flawed. lucas has an overreaching story about the effects of war, slavery, and interpersonal abuse that he’s dedicated to, and we are meant to be horrified by anakin choking padme just as surely as we’re meant to mourn their relationship and love for each other when palpatine gleefully tells anakin she’s dead and ani destroys the room in grief. vs like. what were the sequels even fucking doing man).

So the thing here is that I actually do in fact find Targaryen incest interesting while being morally repugnant as a practice, and I'm positive Jonsa will play around with both the morality of incest and the romanticism of it in a way that I find just as interesting, varied, romantic, and fulfilling as like, the Jaime/Cersei(/Brienne/Tyrion) mess or the Daemon/Rhaenyra/Laena/Harwin debacle! I like incest and I also hate it! I contain multitudes!

#asks #anti targaryen #jonsa #stone and snow remains #AND CAVEAT. I LOVE AND RESPECT MY JONSA MOOTS WHO BELIEVE IN HAPPY JONSA. i am not about to play these fandom games #of 'well i'm not like those bad jonsas who only care about their ship' absolutely not. i think happy jonsa atp doesn't make narrative sense #TO ME. but i GET the people who see the path. i'm not about to posit myself as the 'rational jonsa' bc that's stupid.#(not saying anon is doing that but i am saying i see that happen a lot and i think it's annoying!!)#this is just a rant. i am so sorry. i cannot figure out how to cut it down.

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patrocles · 1 year

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What are your thoughts on the Martells and Starks and a potential North/dornish alliance ? I must admit I'm biased as those two are my favorites houses, yes there are no "good guys" but that who we would should be rooting for imo. For me they both represent the struggle of indigenous people and a satisfying end for both of them should be their freedom. They're far from being friends but as a reader it's so frustrating to see because they have no actual reasons to not work together, quite the opposite. A lot of their goals align, and they have for a while and it's even more obvious with the Stark/Lannister war. And I must admit I love Preston Jacobs dornish master plan videos. I might not agree with all of it but I love the depth and importance it gives dorne and the Martells, one that should've been Central in the series imo. I can't help but think of an alternative version where Robb survives and somewhat ends up alone in Dorne. A Robb x Arianne relationship/alliance would've been amazing to see, they would learn so much from each other.

And ofc he/him lesbian older sister Robb otherwise it's not fun skskskskks

A stark/martell alliance is literally my AU of AUs. like will it plausibly ever happen in the story, no but it's something I've always wanted!

i think one of the big failings of GRRM is not significantly establishing the North/First Men as essentially an indigenous culture, because... they are! They're meant to be wholly different than the rest of the country and that's how they're codified in the text both in how their culture differs from the rest of Westeros and how they're perceived. But no, the most that we get is Fur and York Accents.

I think also it matters to the Starks in how they individually relate to their culture; you have Catelyn as the outsider, they way in which the kids all take after her, except for Arya. I think for Sansa as well, the one who embraces her mother's culture the most, who would essentially "pass" as Southron yet still feel so othered and pushed back to her Northern heritage-- I think there would be so much to explore by really fleshing First Men culture as more than just ideals about honor and justice.

The opportunity to draw from Central Asian influences was RIGHT THERE george. THE EASTERN SLAVS ARE RIGHT THERE GEORGE.

Not to mention, the Red Wedding should really be regarded as genocide, not just war crimes. I mean, EYE personally view it as a such, as the point of it was to break the power of the North, wipe out its next generation and humiliate them beyond repair. Not to mention the desecration of Robb Stark was meant to mock the entire identity of the North, not just a specific family

And then you think of the history the Dornish conquests, which blows an entire hole in the "Targaryen Imperialism is Good Actually".

But yeah, I really wish the Dornish have more cultural details besides just hair and skin colors and how they’re just saurrrr excotique and sexy~ (I want regional accents and languages George, I want region-specific clothing, food, music, all of it!!) But I think the Dornish and Northern code of ethics compliment each other well despite how fundamentally different they still are! I would love to see how these two groups would interact. Actually, put Dacey and Obara together in a locked room and lets see what happens

It is interesting to think about how the Starks and Martells suffer very personal losses at the hands of the Lannisters and never being able to have vindication for it. My dream AU is an Alliance of “You Hate the Lannisters, We Also Hate the Lannisters, Lets Have a Pact of Mutually Hating the Lannisters Together”. And then Oberyn rescues Sansa before she can marry Tyrion, just SOMETHING.

Robb ending up in Dorne would also be insane because it would be the third time a Stark was there-- Rickon, son of Cregan who died. Jon who was born, and now (girl) Robb who lives. Things would probably get just a wee bit messy with the Young Griff alliance BUT ARIANNE HAS TWO HANDS. And also Robb and Sansa can reunite there and that could be rly sweet too.

god im sorry this went so off topic but STARK/MARTELL ALLIANCE, I LIKE IT!!

#asoiaf #long thots #asoiaf ask

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jackoshadows · 1 year

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Do you think it's possible Sansa decision to spill the beans about Jon's parentage on the show comes from the books, foreshadowed by Jon and Arya's "Don't tell Sansa!"? I think it's possible several of the plot beats in the final episodes did come from GRRM (i.e., Sansa spills the secret, Dany dies, the Starks are separated as Bran becomes king and Jon goes back to the Wall), just not in the way he planned since D&D decided to neglect Arya. None of the Starks being together at the end of the series stands out to me the most, as the script for the last episode states during their goodbyes that it'll be the last time he'll ever see Arya and implies it'll be hard for him to forgive Sansa.

If this is the case I think it probably would've fit better once upon a time with romantic!Jonyra, ultimately because I feel like GRRM would've had one last twist up his sleeve to separate them rather than a straightforward romantic ending; Jon's parentage being both something that should've allowed them to be together but also has to be kept a secret for plot reasons and thus leading to a bittersweet parting where they can't be together. Unfortunately I think D&D wrecked the ending by completely ignoring the importance of Jon and Arya's relationship, romantic or platonic.

I will only say, that everything post season 5 on the show is D&D's version of the story and is show only canon with no resemblance to the books. From GRRM's various interviews outlined here, it's clear that he thinks the show went in a completely differerent direction and should be viewed separately as show canon and not book canon.

Is it possible that Jon and Sansa will clash over Winterfell in TWoW or ADoS? Yes, and it's possible that when that happens in the books it will be organically written because of the set up for these characters rather than the utter garbage we got on the show.

IMO, the 'Don't tell Sansa' between Jon and Arya is simply foreshadowing for the readers about Sansa being a tattletale and her actions towards the end of AGoT where she lets Cersei in on all of Ned's plans to get the girls out of KL.

And later it’s Arya once again who thinks of ‘Don’t tell Sansa’ when she remembers home and family. Sansa’s tattling of Ned’s plans for getting the girls out of KL had big consequences for Arya. Instead of being on a ship to Winterfell, she ended up having to escape by herself and be on the run from the Lannisters.

And as GRRM says, Sansa’s actions are partially responsible for Ned’s execution. GRRM has also mentioned the sisters having deep issues to resolve. So if anything I think the ‘Don’t tell Sansa’ aspect is more relevant to the resolution of the Arya/Sansa relationship than anything to do with Jon.

#asks

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aboveallarescuer · 3 years

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I love that Daenerys Targaryen has significant parallels with all the major ASOIAF characters (as well as with many of the minor and the historical ones too). I love that comparing and contrasting her with them almost always highlights her epicness and/or how special her place in the narrative is.

Daenerys Targaryen is not just a queen, she’s a queen regnant and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, i.e., a she-king. This means that she can be compared and contrasted not only with Cersei and Margaery or with Alysanne and the other Targaryen queens consort, but also (in fact, especially) with Stannis and Robb or with Aegon the Conqueror and the other Targaryen monarchs that succeeded him.

Daenerys Targaryen is not just a claimant to the Iron Throne like Stannis, Young Griff and Renly, she’s the only one of them who is a POV character.

Daenerys Targaryen is not just one of the POV rulers, she also happens to be the only POV ruler with power in her own right and who isn’t in a subservient position in any way (Jon is Lord Commander, but he’s also the king’s advisor and is running the equivalent of a penal colony, so the stakes are much lower than Daenerys ruling a city and dealing with opposition from half the world; Tyrion and Ned are Hands of the King; Cersei is queen regent, which means that her power stems from Tommen’s kingship). Also, Daenerys has the clearest parallels with Aragorn and her ADWD storyline was deliberately written by GRRM as a response to the lack of information from Tolkien about what makes Aragorn a good king. Finally, if one compares her ADWD storyline with Jon’s, one can see how many roles she occupies at the same time: the administrator (Jon), the monarch (Stannis), the most magical character linked to fire and prophecies (Melisandre) and the leader of the disenfranchised (Mance; note that Daenerys was forced to leave her homeland, was enslaved and currently doesn’t belong anywhere - that’s the exact same situation of many of the former slaves of Slaver’s Bay, who come from different places and have different races, ethnicities and backgrounds. Daenerys empathized with them right away because she is one of them. Her detractors may accuse her of being an outsider, but that’s because they prioritize the viewpoint of the Ghiscari slavers. The freedmen, like Daenerys, come from many different places and are outsiders to the noblemen too).

Daenerys Targaryen is an extraordinary conqueror and strategist. Aegon the Conqueror made the Westerosi bend the knee with the help of his dragons, 15-year-old Daenerys Targaryen overthrew the slave masters primarily thanks to her own battle plans, not her dragons. Robb Stark captured castles in the westerlands motivated by personal injury and his actions had local impact; Daenerys Targaryen conquered three cities motivated by her desire to abolish slavery and her actions had worldwide impact.

Daenerys Targaryen is not a typical member of her family, she is the main leader and representative of House Targaryen in a way that Jon/Bran/Arya/Sansa or Cersei/Jaime/Tyrion can’t ever claim to be. Their fathers Ned Stark and Tywin Lannister had large roles in the main story and, in the Starks’ case, their older brother Robb is more well-remembered than any of them (at least so far). Meanwhile, Daenerys’s father Aerys II was already dead before she was born and before the main story began, which allowed her to carve her own path outside of his influence. Moreover, her accomplishments are already greater than both of her older brothers’. She became the face of her family in a way that matches (in fact, even surpasses) Ned with House Stark and Tywin with House Lannister.

Daenerys Targaryen is not a typical mother, she’s both Mother of Dragons and Mhysa. Her motherhood is transcendental in a way that Catelyn’s or Cersei’s aren’t because it is not related to blood ties or to her fertility. Instead, it’s associated with her unprecedented feat of reviving an extinct species, with her ability to make up the magic as she goes along, with her leadership, with her revolutionary nature, with her compassion for thousands of people. Additionally, unlike the other major mothers, Daenerys is the only one who isn’t doomed to go “mad” despite all the losses and hardships she faced.

Daenerys Targaryen is a hero, which is especially clear when her actions are contrasted with House Stark’s, whose brand of “heroism” has been mostly to react to personal injury so far. Ned Stark participated in Robert's Rebellion because his father and brother were killed. Ned’s son Robb wanted Northern independence because his father was killed. Ned’s vassals want to start another war in the name of the Starks because of their loyalty and their outrage about the Red Wedding. Their motivations, sympathetic as they may be, have never involved the commoners. In contrast, GRRM had Daenerys empathize with the former slaves, start a war in their name and abolish slavery despite them not being associated with her through oath of fealty or blood relations or lands. She was specifically singled out by the author as the one leader who “wants equality for everyone”. It’s a stark contrast (pun intended) to the actions of the main family (at least as a unit) of the story. Sadly, it’s easier (for some fans) to root for the heroes mostly reacting to personal injury who never made any mistakes of large scale consequences since they never got to be in authority. Or for the heroes fighting against ice zombies (though, to be fair, Jon haven’t even faced them in ADWD, his main challenge was to conciliate the Free Folk and the Night’s Watch, so the stakes of his storyline are much lower when one compares his problems with Dany dealing with enemies from all over Essos raising armies to defeat her). It’s harder to do the same with the hero who takes an active stance against social injustices and who wrestles with hard questions about when political violence is justified (which never have easy, clear-cut answers) and all the negative ramifications that come with them.

Oh, and have I mentioned that Daenerys Targaryen is the character with the most overt clues of being Azor Ahai/Prince That Was Promised/Stallion Who Mounts the World? Like with the birth of the dragons, uniting all the khalasars and then leading humanity to victory against the Others will be two more unparalleled feats of hers among the characters of the current timeline. Additionally, as she becomes surrounded and influenced by prophecies, we get to see how Daenerys has a healthy relationship with them in contrast to other characters like Cersei and Stannis.

All these attributes and accomplishments are made even more remarkable when one contrasts them with what doesn’t necessarily make Daenerys Targaryen unique. Yes, Daenerys became the most powerful person in her world, but she also lived in poverty among lowborn people without the privilege of a castle or a formal education, which lends itself to comparisons with Davos and Melisandre. Yes, Daenerys is a queen, but she’s also a young girl who loves songs and stories and idealizes her family members, which lends itself to comparisons with Arya, Brienne and Sansa. Yes, Daenerys is a loving, compassionate mother, but she was also raised by her abuser throughout all of her formative years, which lends itself to comparisons with dysfunctional families like the Lannisters, the Greyjoys and the Cleganes. And so on.

Daenerys Targaryen has a very special place in the narrative, which I think should be acknowledged not only to appreciate her character, but also to understand why GRRM chose to isolate her from everyone else. Why would GRRM be confident that his readers would still be interested in Daenerys despite the fact that she doesn’t interact with any of his other major characters for most of the story? Is it merely because of her dragons, as her detractors say?

No.

It’s because, as the list above showed, Daenerys’s narrative importance and accomplishments are unmatched. They had to be. Daenerys’s character and storyline had to be connected to pretty much everyone else’s in significant, thematic ways in order for her to earn an entire continent, as well as her place as the Fire of ASOIAF. That is why Daenerys is guaranteed to have a major role in all the three main plotlines of ASOIAF. That is why Daenerys is so iconic and represents this book series in a way that no individual Stark could ever do. That is why Daenerys has to be so many things at the same time: a POV character and a claimant to the Iron Throne, a mother and the main representative of her family, the most powerful person in her world and a former slave, a ruler and a conqueror, a she-king and a young girl, quite possibly the story’s main hero and savior. That no other ASOIAF character can come close to her narrative importance or to her in-universe accomplishments is kind of the point because Daenerys had to encompass everything that is great about ASOIAF in order to carry her own storyline. And I'm excited for TWOW because, as she moves closer to Westeros, her importance will only increase more and more.

Daenerys Targaryen is like fine wine. She gets better and better the more time passes, the more you think about her and the more you realize how all the other ASOIAF storylines somehow lead back to hers. Dany’s storyline almost always looks that much more epic and greater in comparison to them because she carries her storyline on her own, so the author had to make sure she caught our attention.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #asoiaf speculation

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cappymightwrite · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on Ned Stark ?

Hi!

I have conflicted feelings on Ned. Probably just below Stannis, he's the Westerosi man most in need of therapy, in my opinion. Actually, that's an interesting comparison — Ned and Stannis, which I know has been commented on before. They're alike in many ways, in terms of reserve etc., which makes the fact that Robert saw Ned as his true brother all the more painful to Stannis (though of course this is never explicitly stated). But anyway, back to Ned.

There's certain things I struggle with in regards to Ned, even though I understand the reasoning behind his actions, or rather, inaction. So, it makes thinking back on him in a wholly positive and fond light somewhat difficult, as I suppose it must be for Sansa in a way, as well as for Jon, once his parentage is revealed. I don't wholly dislike him though, I actually value him a lot, I just take issue with:

Him never apparently trusting Catelyn enough to be honest about Jon's parentage (+ the way he avoids telling Jon, to some extent)

No matter how loving they were... there is this unresolved (and now forever unresolved) barrier at the heart of their relationship, an unequal exchange of trust, which was within Ned's power to lift, to make fully mutual. But he didn't. Now, he had his reasons, self-sacrificing and seemingly honourable as they may appear, and certainly the narrative required this secret to be kept. But even so, in terms of how I regard his character? It rubs me the wrong way because he never gave her the opportunity to sympathise and fully understand him, he cut himself off from that. And yeah, maybe it might not have improved Jon's situation all that much, but he never gave Cat the opportunity to think of him differently, in a way that wasn't dictated by the social mores of their world:

It had taken her a fortnight to marshal her courage, but finally, in bed one night, Catelyn had asked her husband the truth of it, asked him to his face.

That was the only time in all their years that Ned had ever frightened her. "Never ask me about Jon," he said, cold as ice. "He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady." She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne's name was never heard in Winterfell again.

Whoever Jon's mother had been, Ned must have loved her fiercely, for nothing Catelyn said would persuade him to send the boy away. It was the one thing she could never forgive him. She had come to love her husband with all her heart, but she had never found it in her to love Jon. She might have overlooked a dozen bastards for Ned's sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him. Somehow that made it worse. – AGOT, Catelyn II

"It was the one thing she could never forgive him" — yeah, me too honey! Ok, sure, we don't know for sure if Cat might have "overlooked" Jon's uneasy place in their household "for Ned's sake", if she knew he was actually her nephew — the world would still believe him to be Ned's, so to outward appearances the awkwardness is still there. And yeah, we don't know if she could have "found it in her to love Jon", but the truth certainly would have made it far more likely! But Ned decided that it had to be this way, that only he could participate in carrying this secret. So, I hurt for Cat AND Jon really.

I get why he doesn't tell Jon the truth. I understand his warped logic, how the trauma of his past informs this sort of self-punishing mentality of I must keep this honourable promise made of love till the day I die even though to the outside world it will appear as a stain upon that very honour... and to punish myself further for failing Lyanna I will never unburden myself to anyone, this is my cross to bear alone. I understand that, it's very manpain-y. But the problem is... it doesn't just punish Ned, it punishes Cat and Jon, and his other children too! Because they are by no means blind to this elephant in the room of their parent's marriage, and it's hard to rationalise:

He looked at her uncomfortably. "My aunt Allyria says Lady Ashara and your father fell in love at Harrenhal—"

"That's not so. He loved my lady mother." – ASOS, Arya VIII

Your father loved your mother, but he also had a child with another woman, whose identity he would never talk about. Your father loved your mother, but his dedication to this secret ultimately trumped being fully honest and open with her. It's hard not to feel that Ned's present came second to making up for the "sins" of his past. This is why he desperately needed therapy, lol, because (to take a line from my Byronic Hero meta) Ned's "traumatic past informs his present life," and to the detriment of that present life and those present relationships as well. But hey, that's the tragedy.

Also, I think his whole I'll tell you the truth when I next see you to Jon is really sketchy, because when exactly might that be, Ned? An avoidance tactic if I ever saw one. But really, I don't think he'd be emotionally equipped to have that conversation anyway... he might have said he'd tell him someday, but deep down, I'm sure he hoped he may never have to. And then he conveniently dies, taking the secret with him (or so we think)!

Allowing the death of Lady

Bran's wolf had saved the boy's life, he thought dully. What was it that Jon had said when they found the pups in the snow? Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord. And he had killed Sansa's, and for what? Was it guilt he was feeling? Or fear? If the gods had sent these wolves, what folly had he done? – AGOT, Eddard IV

"And for what?" Yes, quite. I don't really have much to say on this... I think this passage speaks for itself. There's probably some other things I could talk about, but those are my main two gripes.

That being said... what I value about Ned are his words of wisdom

The thing about Ned, for me, is that despite the unmaliciously meant pain he inflicts on his loved ones (which I do understand the reasoning behind, the trauma that informs it etc)... he's still ultimately a figure of hope to me, a notably flawed, but no less significant, ideal within the narrative too. And I think you need that — we need the memory of Ned as readers, and so do the Starklings. So, I love him more for what he represents, rather than his parenting and lacklustre husbanding skills. I value the fundamental truths he emphasises through his words, and the legacy of those words, embodied within his children.

For example:

"Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa… Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you… and I need both of you, gods help me." – AGOT, Arya II

Honestly, people can "squabble" about which Stark sibling is more important, more this, more that, till the cows come home. But that's what it is... "squabbles", and it misses the mark completely about why the Starks are the heart of the series. They are the Starks, plural. They may be different from one another, but they are "pack", and come winter, (TWOW, to be exact), once reunited they will "protect one another, keep each other warm, share [their] strengths", because those are the values Ned taught them.

These are the things to remember, despite all the hellishness. This is why Ned's death wasn't in vain, it wasn't an edgy twist, or the first whiff of grimdark... because his legacy didn't end with him, it lives on, it is felt throughout the series, right up until the most recent book:

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel. That was when Stark said, 'In this world only winter is certain. We may lose our heads, it's true… but what if we prevail?' My father sent him on his way with his head still on his shoulders. 'If you lose,' he told Lord Eddard, 'you were never here.'" – ADWD, Davos I

I love this line so much, and I love that it comes from Ned, that just as we are gearing up to head into the darkest parts of the series (because Winds is apparently going to be very dark)... we have this light, this hope, this "what if we prevail?" And it's connected to this repeated refrain about the certainty of winter — "in this world only winter is certain" vs. "winter is coming" — which is closely tied to Ned as a character. So, yes, "winter is coming", but don't be decieved into thinking that that spells disaster, that no warmth can be found, for there is always darkness before the dawn, just as there is always a winter before the spring... and in the winter the wolves shall "keep each other warm", they will "prevail."

In conclusion

Whatever his flaws and mistakes, and there are several, at the end of the day... I will love Ned for giving us hope, for reminding the readers, and characters, of what is really important — to take strength from your loved ones, to give them strength in return, and to not give into despair, no matter how harshly the snows might fall and white winds blow. Yes, it's not certain whether they'll live, but likewise, it's not certain whether they'll die either... and that's where you find the hope, the light against the grim dark.

So, for me, he's a character who makes my heart sink, but then he makes it swell again. That's the duality, and it's a choice which you put most stock in... I'll choose the hope he inspires every time ;)

#ned stark #eddard stark #cappy's thoughts #starklings #anti grimdark all the way babeyyyy

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stormcloudrising · 3 years

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I agree with you on Jon Dany being a show only thing. There are too many plotlines and too many characters' arc that need to be closed off , that too within the space of 2 books.

The amount of plot that has to be covered to get to a romantic story between the two of them is one of the biggest signs that their romantic relationship was a show only thing. That and the horrible way it was written.

In my opinion, the many clues George has dropped about the future conflict between the Wolf and the Dragon is pretty much totally ignored. Jon is also a Wolf and when he returns from the dead with part of Ghost in him, that will be more obvious than ever before.

Wolves are pack and unless run off, they always remain pack. George is always true to the symbolism he has laid out. Theon was raised by the wolves but he never allowed himself to become part of the pack. That is why he was able to betray them so easily. There will be no conflict in within Jon over which side he is on, which is why that bit of indecisiveness on the show was pure foolish nonsense.

I’ve suggested on many previous occasions that I think that the blue winter rose in the crack in the wall has been misinterpreted by many in the fandom when it comes to a supposed romantic relationship between Jon and Dany. As with practically everything in his story, GRRM has layered the blue rose in the wall with symbolism.

The blue rose represents Lyanna and is a big clue that she is Jon’s mother. What it does not represent is Jon. The blue rose always and I mean, “always,” represent the daughters of House Stark. It has never represented the men of the House. So while it’s a big clue that points to Lyanna being Jon’s mother, Jon is not the blue winter rose in the Wall.

With the myths and legends he has woven throughout his tale, George has set up the blue rose as one of the most important motifs in the entire story…past and present. Lyanna is dead when the story begins and so we know that she won’t be playing the role in the story proper. As the only two Stark daughters in the story, the position of the Blue Winter Rose falls on the shoulders of Arya and Sansa. No one else!

Ok, now let’s talk about the infamous crack where the rose is positioned in Dany’s dream. Keep in mind how George writes his foreshadowing via the visions he gives to the characters that have been so far revealed as being connected to magic…this includes Dany, Bran, Aeron, Jojen, GOHH etc. All of their visions are revealed in symbolic terms. It’s never B/W and obvious. It’s only after the event takes place that it becomes clear to the reader what was meant by the visions.

It’s been foreshadowed throughout the books that the Wall will fall and the Others will invade. There are many fandom theories about the circumstances that will lead to this event but everyone agrees that the Wall will fall. It’s the biggest McGuffin in the entire story.

One of the obvious events that will have an impact on the fall of the Wall and the invasion of the Others is Jon’s assassination by his fellow brothers of the Night’s Watch. There will be no Lord Commander to lead the Night’s Watch when the wall falls but more importantly, the murder of Jon is sure to split the brotherhood in two. Also keep in mind that the Wall is not just a gigantic, tall piece of ice. The Wall is also the Nights Watch. They are symbolically the wall that’s supposed to stand between the world of men and the Others.

Consider what led to Jon’s Nights Watch brethren decision to murder him. He opened the gates to the Wildings and allowed them to come south of the Wall. Many of Jon’s NW’s brothers disagreed with him allowing this. They were likely even plotting against him but they made no effort to move against him until Jon decided to abandon his post and oath and use the Watch to wage war on one of the Lords of the Realm.

This move by Jon pushed his brothers over the edge and he was killed by them immediately after he made this decision to betray his oath.

Jon decided to use the Watch to take back Winterfell but what pushed him to this choice? The infamous Pink Letter. The contents of the letter pushed Jon to march south to retake Winterfell but more importantly, he wanted to find and rescue his “sister,” Arya.

“I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …”

ADWD Jon XIII

As Lyanna’s son, we can see how Jon started the crack that divided the brotherhood and will eventually lead to the fall of the Wall. However, it was to save “Arya,” one of the two Blue Winter Roses in the story, from Ramsay Bolton, which led to Jon’s betrayal of his oath. This action was the immediate cause of his assassination by his NW brothers. So we can see that symbolically in this instance, Arya was the Blue Winter Rose that created the crack in the Wall. This is just one of the many examples of how George uses symbolism to tell his story.

Yes, Dany saw the blue winter rose in the crack, but it does not specifically have anything to do with her. Symbolically what she saw was Jon’s decision to abandon the Wall to rescue his sister, the Blue Winter Rose. This decision started the crack that will eventually lead to the fall of the Wall. It’s also a decision that will reverberate across the landscape and through the ages.

Dany’s vision has to do with Jon and the daughters of House Stark. Not every vision she saw in the HOTU specifically relates to her…case in point, the Red Wedding. In my opinion, what Dany’s visions in the HOTU are lynchpin events that will have an impact on the entire story and as such, will tie into her individual arc in some manner but not all will affect her on a visceral/personal level.

Now before someone goes, what do I mean that the vision of the blue winter rose has nothing to do with Dany, let me say that I’m not saying that Jon won’t tie into her storyline or have any impact on it. That would be kind of silly to suggest. I think that he most certainly will have an effect on her story but just not in the way many imagine.

By the way, I also think that the blue rose in the crack in the Wall also clues us into events of the ancient past. I’ve proposed that Jonquil was the original Blue Winter Rose and I think that we will eventually find out that she was the Corpse Queen to Florian’s Nights King and was also the original crack in the wall of the brotherhood. However, that discussion is for the Florian and Jonquil essay series where we will further discuss why Sansa is the most important Blue Rose on the board.

Thanks for the ask!

#thoughts on this and that #ask stormcloud #blue winter rose #daughters of house stark

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caithyra · 4 years

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I’m suuuure he’s shocked /s

GRRM: “Oh woes! I have created a perfect and supporting family for my main characters and I need conflict to make it interesting! What could possibly ruin a good family?”

GRRM: “Ah! A girly girl, of course!” *Creates Sansa.* “And a traitorous bitch at that who would chose to support and protect her child over her birth family who do not rely on her for protection! Surely all shall realize what a bad person she is! It’s not like her own mother would be condemned for abandoning a child that’s not even her own!” *Creates first outline.* “But wait! She shall be prepubescent at the start of the story...” *Starts creating the actual story.* “I shall introduce her through the resentful tomboy’s perspective! And I shall have grown men slobbering over this prepubescent girly girl because we all know that’s ~*historically accurate*~! Oh, people do not like her? I am shocked! Shocked!”

Like, it says a lot about a narrative that when the author wants to create conflict and shake up a healthy family dynamic in a supremely patriarchal world, that he introduces a prepubescent, feminine sister who is unfavored by her father compared to her tomboy sister (even Sansa’s betrothal is a sham even if it would have made her future queen-in-waiting. If everything went as Ned planned, her virtue would have been ruined on the Trident and after he breaks the betrothal with Joff by accusing him of being a bastard, Sansa’s play-acting at love and having been alone with Joff would have ruined her for good, future prospects and the best she would get is either a disinherited second son who no one else wants to marry or a jumped up house who wants some blue blood like the Freys, Baelishes or Westerlings-Spicers that no one important likes.

Arya, by being younger, and more like Lyanna, would have gotten the queenhood and crown prince by Robert’s second wife after Cersei is disposed of, since Robert really wants to marry his child to Ned’s children, so no one better tell me that Ned ever put Sansa ahead of Arya the same he puts Arya ahead of Sansa. He freaking hides behind his prepubescent daughter’s skirts while investigating what he believes are ruthless murderers who had no qualms killing the most powerful men in the realm in a hyper-patriarchy! And it is the other daughter he warns about dangers and gives lessons in fighting! Like what was Ned thinking would happen with Sansa? Did he even care? Did he think he could just sweep it under rugs and forget it? She will need to marry within recent memory of her scandalous conduct since she’ll be twenty in less than a decade! And marriageable age in Westeros is 16! And yet the fandom goes “Poor Ned to have that traitorous bitch for a daughter~” “She should have listened to Ned who never spoke to her and explained himself or the world wouldn’t be ending~” “I don’t hate Sansa but she was sooo stupid for not blindly obeying her loving father who punishes her for her sister’s sins and never explains himself~” is it any wonder my patience with Ned Stark’s parental fuck ups ran out? Congrats, fandom, you made me hate him by excusing his fuck ups and blaming them on his daughter all the time!).

GRRM tries to make it gray, but he knows full well what kind of audience he writes to when he writes the relationships between Cat and Jon, and Arya and Sansa and should have compensated.

Hell, he should have made Joff a good person, prince and promising future king that most girls would like to marry, only to show that’s not what Ned cares about (after all, unless Ned wants Sansa to be abused like half the fandom, he had no idea that Joff was bad when he betrothed them), he cares about birth and truth and “High As Honor” over practical things like “Winter is Coming and Staying for Ten Freezing Years and Does Not Care Who Sits On the Throne So Lets Not Start a Civil War with One of the Most Powerful Families in the Realm, hm?”.

I mean, no one likes Drizzt Do’Urden’s sisters/mother/the matriarchy as a whole, do they? The Dark Elf Trilogy predates ASoIaF by six years, and should have shown a competent writer exactly what the state of womanhood in the Fantasy genre was like. And if you’re going “well, the matriarchy is evil!” I would like to point out that people hate Cattie-brie who is not part of that matriarchy. Yeah. There’s a reason why Menzoberranzan could be written that way and published and become popular, and it was not that Fantasy readers love and support and makes the effort to identify with and understand female characters (nor does most authors, come to think of it... see female friendships in ASoIaF that are without any sexual, incest, or abusive~ Like Arianne and Tyene being as close as sisters in the Later Books Which Are Not Early Installment Weirdness... Oh wait...).

Heck, in the Belgariad, another series predating both of them, things were more subtle but hardly better for female characters; Polgara is a mother figure who gets to have a moment of being imperfect, but to anyone reading the story, it is clear that Garion is the true victim in the circumstances and conspiracies Polgara’s family has woven around him, and that his anger is the immediate reaction of finding out the truth (he just found out how/why he was orphaned and now has the world on his shoulders! And the characters bag on him for not being understanding of the 1000s of years old woman who lied to him and now is sulking. It is blatantly obvious to the readers that it is not the male character in the wrong). The less said about Ce´Nedra (half hyper-sexual dryad, spoiled princess who wants bigger breasts, et cetera) the better. Heck, the less said about the lovable oaf of the hero group committing marital rape on his estranged wife to cure her of being a bitch and turn her loving the better.

The Narnia books predates even that, and Sansa’s direct parallel is Susan, and, yeah... “A silly and vain young woman” with “Plenty of time to mend” sounds very familiar when you hear how people blame Sansa and wants to force her into abusive marriages with repulsive men to mend her.

Not to mention that in Lord of the Rings and related works women are either paragons of virtue, evil, unnamed or are chastised for being ambitious, with a few, notable exceptions allowed to make “wrong” choices, and, well, just see the Elwing discourse in fandom and how her murderers who kidnapped and kept her children (Elrond and Elros, yes, that Elrond for those not familiar with Tolkien’s Legendarium and only watched the movies) as hostages are their ~*real parents*~ after committing a third almost-genocide against her people.

Yeah, no. GRRM doesn’t get to pretend he’s shocked and/or confused by his readers’ reception to Sansa (and Cat). He does not live, read nor write in a vacuum. This shit has been part of Fantasy fandom since long before ASoIaF was an errant idea in his head.

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falconstarfall · 4 years

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Grrm made Sansa arya's foil in agot. Look how they like different things in that book. But he uses Sansa to prop up Arya n made Arya underdog. Jeyne Sansa's friend said Arya horse face implies that jeyne is bad n Arya is good for not mean to her bcoz jeyne is below station to Arya. He continuously using Sansa n jeyne to prop up Arya.

I’m taking the liberty of answering these together, so as not to spam people too much. I think two are from the same anon anyway, so I hope that’s okay.

My short answer is that yes, I think it’s perfectly clear that he did that. GRRM does seem to have a preference for the classic fantasy warrior-tomboy-princess-trope that I think is the reason why he makes readers sympathize with Arya at the expence of Sansa. But I also think it’s a mistake when people (*cough* antis) take this to mean that Sansa is a villain, or just insignificant and only in the story to support Arya’s arc.

GRRM indisputably starts out by POV trapping Sansa. She is also the only Stark POV that doesn’t get any Winterfell chapters. No interactions with siblings other than Arya (how about Bran who she seems to have been closer to? Or Robb, her much admired older brother?) to soften Arya’s biased description of her. And in her chapters with Arya - who is supposed to have the reader’s sympathy - he always seems to write Sansa as being in the wrong.

We don’t get insight into Sansa’s anticipation and fears about leaving Winterfell, or how anxious she is to give a good impression and please the people that are going to control her future - GRRM doesn’t spell this out, but just leaves it to the reader to figure out (or not figure out) that she must be feeling all these things (and this is how we get such enlightened takes as “Sansa doesn’t have any insecurities or self esteem issues, because she knows she is beautiful”). I think the one thing the show did better in regards to Sansa (and Ned’s character too) was showing that Ned was actually aware of the predicament Arya’s fight with Joffrey had put Sansa in.

GRRM doesn’t just use Sansa to set her up against Arya, though. He also uses her very deliberately to move some of his POV characters to where he needs them. I won’t get too much into this, but Sansa going to Cersei wasn’t necessary for Ned’s downfall. It was, however, a method to get both Sansa and Arya where he wanted them - a way that seemed more realistic than Ned just being so oblivious that he didn’t even try to get them out of KL at all. And GRRM spends a significant part of Sansa’s chapters on building up her motivations for this to happen.

I think that when antis talk about how Sansa is a foil for Arya, what they really mean is that this is the thing that defines her character, and that the only reason she is in the story at all is to be pitted against Arya and eventually loose. It clearly isn’t.

Even as early as AGoT, GRRM does put some effort into Sansa’s character development, especially towards the end. He shows the reader her courage in begging for her father’s life. 11 years old, and in a room full of hostile people. You think Arya is brave for fighting? This might be a different kind of bravery, but no less valid! He also shows us her anger and spite when she contemplates killing Joffrey.

And the thing is: GRRM always knew that there were going to be more books in the series. Sansa certainly seems to have grown on him more once he began developing her more a sympathetic character. But even early in AGoT it seems clear to me that he is laying the foundations for developing Sansa further (as a sympathetic POV character) in the following books.

Sansa clearly wasn’t meant to come across to the reader as the most sympathetic in AGoT. But least sympathetic among the four Stark children POV’s is actually a pretty high bar. If GRRM had really intended Sansa to be just the mean girl archetype - the evil step sister to Arya’s Cinderella that fandom seems to think she is - he could have easily written her that way. But then he didn’t.

There are so many examples of how GRRM - even when he is pitting Sansa against Arya or having her accidentally spill Ned’s plan to Cersei - is always giving the reader amble explanations to why this is happening. Explanations that have nothing to do with Sansa being mean or selfish. Let’s look at the following:

He could have written her being antagonistic with Arya in Arya I. But he didn’t. He made it into a textbook example of the POV trap instead. Sansa is nice to Beth, answers Arya’s (pretty rude) comments politely, tries to deflect. The only thing she does that can be perceived as... not so nice is call Jon out on his jealousy. The rest is all happening in Arya’s head.

He could have written Sansa trying to force Arya to “conform to patriarchy” the way antis say. Instead he gave us Sansa acting out the septa’s orders, rather annoyed and sure she is going to fail. And he showed us how the Septa is putting down Arya in front of Sansa to give the reader a very clear reason to why Sansa is thinking about Arya the way she is.

GRRM could easily have had Sansa be mean to Arya before Lady died. But he didn’t include Sansa when Arya thougt about Jeyne calling her “Horseface” (I’m still not sure about why he changed this later). Instead he used Lady as a catalyst to make their relationship worse, and the only textual examples we have of Sansa being antagonistic with Arya happened after Lady’s death when she was traumatized by the loss of her bonded “spirit animal”, and couldn’t bear to place the blame where it belonged.

GRRM put a lot of work into Sansa’s motivations for going to Cersei for help to stay in King’s Landing. Already in Sansa I we see how Sansa doesn’t understand that Ned isn’t correcting Arya the way her mother surely would have. We see how she loves life in King’s Landing, the tourney, going to court. We also see Ned wording his orders to Sansa in a way that never lets her know that there is any danger to them. We get the final - from Sansa’s POV - of Arya being allowed the things she wants, while Sansa is denied.

If GRRM meant for Sansa to be an antagonist in AGoT, I have to call Death of the Author, because that wasn’t what he wrote.

I think this is why antis are so focused on twisting GRRM’s words into meaning that he created Sansa as a villain (which is a word he never used about her himself - I think the worst he ever said was that she was “the least sympathetic”).

It’s hard to guess at GRRM’s original intentions with Sansa, because he is always deliberately vague when answering questions. But I have to say that if there had been no “original outline” where Sansa died, it would never have occured to me that he didn’t always intend to develop her in the way he did.

“But the outline!” The one about which GRRM said he was just making shit up to feed his publisher? At what point in the process was this written? Must have been pretty early, because already AGoT seems to deviate from it. Furthermore I’ve never really been able to grasp how people got villain!Sansa from that outline? Choosing her child over her family seems to me more like a tragic character that the readers would be supposed to sympathize with.

“GRRM said he came up with Sansa to create conflict!” I’ve never seen the actual quote where he said this. I have read it here, where it seems like someone is paraphrasing what GRRM said. The word “villain” (or “foil” for that matter) isn’t mentioned. To me it sounds like him describing how he was trying to create the Starks as a family with a realistic dynamic, not that he intended one particular child to be the instigating source of all discord.

GRRM might have overestimated his readers, especially the part of them that are used to reading more simplistic, tropey YA, but I think it’s a mistake to conclude that him POV trapping Sansa and using her as a tool to push the plot along in AGoT means that he didn’t already intend to develop her further at this point.

Of course it doesn’t really matter what he originally intended at all, so I can only assume the antis’ obsession with this is caused by a hope that if they can establish that Sansa was originally intended to end up evil and/or insignificant, then that must still be his intention. Nothing GRRM has said seems to indicate this. The show ending certainly didn’t indicate this. And isn’t that more important than what he said about how he developed his characters before he wrote them, or how he introduced Sansa in the first book?

#sansa stark #anti sansa antis #anti arya stans #anti arya stark #i seem to be calling her a fantasy trope a lot lately #i better elaborate a bit on that at some point #anyway grrm is a sexist old guy too #so no wonder if sansa wasn’t the first to catch his liking #i consider it rather a victory that she seems to have grown on him anyway #anonymous

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sdwolfpup · 3 years

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I honestly believe JB have more of a chance at a happy ending together than A*ya/Gend*y or S*nSa* since the former reads as a first love than than a life-long love while the latter is creepy to me. And to be honest, George not doing the time skip probably killed these ships happening in canon and not just as a note in an epilogue.

At this point, I feel the ships that have the most chance at being canon (and possibly a happy ending) are JB, Asha/Whichever Boy Toy She Choose Though I Think She Should Choose Alysane Mormont, Theon/Jeyne Poole, Arianne/Daemon Sand, Edmure/Roslin, J*n Sn*w/D*ny (:/, you did a whole incest is bad thing George, why backtrack here) and either Arianne/fAegon or Elia Sand/fAegon (Aegon super doomed though). I’ve heard arguments about Tyrion/Penny so I’m interesting in seeing where that’s going.

I would like to see Loras find a second love because I think he deserves to be happy and not devote his life to a celibate service that will force him into ethically comprising positions.

Let me lead off with: thank you for this ask! It’s been really interesting to think about. It’s been sitting in my box for a few days because every time I think about it, my mind kind of skitters away from how to respond and I realized this morning it’s because I think that in a lot of ways George doesn’t care about shipping in terms of the romance being the point beyond how it affects his larger plot. Yes, even Jaime/Brienne. I know that’s not a popular opinion in this fandom, but my sense of the books (YMMV, IMO, etc. etc.) is that he is writing to the plot and the relationships drive parts of that plot but they are stepping stones to get everyone where he wants them. I think Jaime and Brienne’s relationship is important to him because of the changes it causes for each character, but then I also think he’s taking that next step to use those changes to further drive plot. This isn’t a criticism of George’s writing on this front, btw, just that I don’t think George thinks about the time skip or how he’s going to shape things in terms of “is this going to get JB together towards a happy ending” so much as “is this going to get Jaime and Brienne to where I need them to be to accomplish the things I want in the story.”

So the question I ask myself is: are they being together in the canon before an epilogue something he wants for this plot, and I think it is. To what purpose, I honestly can’t say, but the Long Night and their swords are significant. Beyond that, I truly don’t know. I have seen so many theories that I just throw my hands up at this point. It could go several different ways, but it all depends on what George has in his head and he’s, unfortunately, the only one who knows that.

But that original question is the one I ask myself for all of these pairings - does GRRM want Arya and Gendry together before the end of the book for some reason that will serve his larger plot? I could see it, if Gendry being a Baratheon does becomes a significant part of his story. Although Arya is a child in the books so I don’t anticipate that being consummated exactly. Same for Sansa and Sandor - I think Sandor’s love for her will be a plot-relevant thing, but especially given the age problem with them (she’s SO YOUNG in the books), I don’t see that being consummated in any way in the series itself. Unless he shoves the time jump in somewhere else, which again: who the heck knows.

For the others -- I could see them all, but only in passing and only as they become relevant to the sprawling plot he’s trying to bring together. He doesn’t have space to spend time on shipping, so “making it canon” is going to be limited at best, and anything extensive is going to focus on major POV characters, and is going to be how it impacts the plot (which is why I could see Jon and Dany being a Thing).

I DO honestly think the response to the end of Game of Thrones might be affecting him, and he might change some of the ideas he’d had before to fit a new and (I suspect) better path. But then again he may just be a stubborn fuck and double down. I love everyone’s speculation, but I have come to this calm pool of “only GRRM knows what GRRM meant, and we’re not gonna know unless he tells us.” That doesn’t invalidate people’s meta, btw, just that in a sense of “being canon,” that’s on George. Seeing as we’re never gonna get ADWD at this point (and also probably not TWOW let’s be real), canon is quantum and all things are possible and frankly I love that for fandom. Tyrion’s your valonqar and Sansa marries Jon and Bronn gets skewered by Brienne’s sword? Great. JB end up on Tarth and Arya lives a roving and restless life occasionally meeting up in nameless inns with Jaquen when she’s older and Sansa becomes queen in the north and eventually marries her long-time guard Hyle? Well. Some of us think it happens like that. *shifty eyes*

Though personally I think Loras is gonna die. I have no snippets or plot-based reasons to back that up, it’s just a ~feeling~. I don’t want him to (or not to), but it feels like he will. Grandly.

#asoiaf #asks answered #anonymous #meta #my sansa/hyle end game headcanon has spun out of control y'all #the loneliest island

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aerltarg · 3 years

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2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 26, 27 from ask game

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

oh, it's actually hard to answer bc pretty often my otps can work as brotps for me as well. it also means that when i can't ship some characters they don't work for me as friends either. not to mention that in asoiaf i'm open to many ships, and if i'm not very passionate about some it's not a sign i can't see them in romantic light.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

may i say any sansa ship? 😭 as well as sansa herself lmao. idk generally i can't ship characters i don't like because i'm just not interested. and it's not to say i don't like book!sansa (show!sansa is another case 💀), i just don't find her arc as intriguing and epic as arcs of some other characters. however, it's absolutely her obnoxious fandom's fault that i don't want to touch anything about her now, pairings including. sansaery? pass. sansan? i used to have a soft spot for them in my heart but now? nah. sansa x anyone? pls have mercy, she's already a fandom bicycle.

and jonsa ofc. i would never mind some crack ship as i do this one if not for their obnoxious stans that did way too much to list there right now. but this burning desire to persuade every rock on the street that your crack ship is canon will never stop being ridiculous lmao

also braime. tbh i used to low-key like them but some of their stans weirded my away lol. i get that not all of them are like that but still. it's generally my great pain when i see braime/brienne/jaime stans who are also dany/targ antis. every time i see them i cackle and run away as fast as i can crying from disappointment lmao. it's really a pity because i'm either very neutral or like in my own way all three of them.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

jonrya it is! i never hated them, you know, but they never were more than siblings and brotp to me. however, later i encountered the deluded crack ship fandom that shall not be named and understood that if there is any possible romance for jon with any of his sisters-cousins we all know which one it will be lmao. also their stans are very sweet and i really like many of their takes on arya and jon! i generally love relationships of jon and arya very much so it wasn't that difficult in practice to see them in a quite different light.

7. Is there anything you used to like but can't stand now?

meta culture lmao. reading different analysis and interpretations of the text used to be very interesting to me (and still is tbh but in other fandoms) though asoiaf is a different case. imo many people aren't honest in their so called theories and analyses. i get that all of us are biased but some "meta writers'" denial of their own biases influence fandom in a bad way. it looks like too many people run to them to get answers to their questions about any minor detail as if they were grrm himself. yk instead of using their own reading comprehension lmao. you see how this meta culture ruined fandom just looking at the most delusional stans and shippers who spread their agenda by writing endless text posts full of nonsense and bullshit but styled as oh so intellectual and thoughtful analysis. it's insane how many people actually buy it and don't check canon accuracy of such claims themselves. it got to the ridiculous point when random people try to argue with you with some far-fetched embarrassing "theories" as if they were canon facts or quotes straight up from a fanfic because they read somewhere some other confused soul's post and got from a context that this quote is canon (despite the fact that it wasn't written in grrm's style at all but some people can't use their brains even if their lives depended on it it seems).

anyway it's become too long and rambly already so tldr. because of such "neutral unbiased" analyses i got the habit of fact checking almost everything i see in such posts. there's only a small amount of meta writers from targ/dany/jon/arya stans that i trust because i know by practice and following them for some time that they don't pull anything out of nowhere, back up everything they say with canon quotes, don't decontextualize anything and (that is the most important thing to me) are reasonable and open to discussion unlike so many bnfs nowadays.

8. Have you received anon hate? What about?

ah, not in this fandom yet, god bless! i think i'm not loud enough for the needed amount of time to deserve it lol. but since i'm not going anywhere soon maybe one day i will 😂

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

robert baratheon and tywin lannister, obviously. tbh it's pretty hard for me to hate any characters because you know. they're fictional lmao. just lines on paper, they can't hurt you. and even such dudes as tywin or robert don't get real distaste from me if they're written well enough. my problem with them lies not only in their canon crimes and shitty consequences of those but in fandom's (or at least some parts of it) unwillingness to acknowledge that they're canonically written as shitty, not as stan/pity/worship material. tywin isn't as clever as some think and robert is a coward outside of battlefield, not to mention some absolutely disgusting denial of his nature from targ antis only because the man happened to be the most vocal targ hater in-universe so these folks feel like he is their main book representative and whitewash him completely lmao

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

uugh idk even. i'm either low-key interested (or used to be at least so i can stay pretty neutral for the sake of nostalgia lol) or too indifferent to really care.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

all my faves have their own crowd of haters i'm afraid 😭 but let me say rhaegar. even among some dany/targ stans my man is so misunderstood lmao. it's not even his fault i dare say it's fanon about his half-imagined crimes that somehow got widespread to the unbelievable degree. and when i say they're half-imagined i'm being very generous actually. ofc he isn't perfect, no one in asoiaf is. and yes, he's a pre-series dead minor character but almost all little information about him is actually positive, not to mention the narrative itself that doesn't paint him as a villain or just a shitty dude. on the contrary, he's an idealized to some degree dead prince who could've been a good king (like some other historical targaryens, jacaerys, baelor breakspear, aemon son of jaehaerys, etc.), a mysterious yet tragic figure. i have much to say about why it's so popular to shit on him in fandom but yeah. his haters should send their complaints to grrm instead, no one forced the man to write him like that lol. and i mean that no one has to like him ofc. but it's misinterpretation of the text to claim he was intentionally written as a villain or smth by grrm.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn't? Why?

i don't know if it counts as unpopular but i would say tyrion's arc as a whole because i enjoy his character and like in my own way. i can get why some people don't like him but this man will always have his own place in my heart i must admit.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

is this unpopular tho?.. ok but renly wouldn't make a terrible king. i dare say he would be better than both robert and stannis. yes, he wasn't shown as perfect and i don't claim this. he wouldn't be the best or the most brilliant or the most just or noble. yet still better than his brothers. his flaws weren't anything other high lords didn't have, his mistakes weren't anything other lords and kings didn't do. in many ways he would make a better job than robert or stannis, too bad he died so early, even though i get why it was important for the narrative.

26. Most shippable character?

well generally for me it's the ones i love the most lol. jonerys/snowstorm is my never dying otp but i admit my sins, sometimes i just see dany with other characters (often from other fandoms pls don't @ me). however, since dany is THE fave of mine it means i would rather twist the other guy or girl to fit into the good match for her than twist her for another character in my new born crack ship lol. and i never stay for too long with the ships with which i feel they don't really fit and don't do justice for each other lol. maybe that's the reason i'm not much of a rare shipper / crack shipper afshdjdb

27. Least shippable character?

everyone i don't like? 😭 as i've said sansa for the reasons above lol. you can insert many others in her place lmao

#thanks for the ask!#.txt #mypost #ask game #anonymous #*answered

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daenerys-targaryen-moved · 4 years

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how can you still ship jonerys?

I don’t know if this was meant to be snarky or a genuine question but I’ll answer it anyways

I love Kit and Emilia, I think they did a phenomenal job with what D&D gave them and allowed them to do. I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for the show, because I spent nearly a decade of my life watching it, supporting it, theorizing about it, making editing blogs and editing Instagram accounts for it, watching it with a dedication I did with nothing else, watching YouTube videos and theorizing online, joining online fandom and making so many friends, listening to the soundtrack at school and at work and on my walks and going to the concert Ramin put on, going to comic con and meeting Emilia Clarke and thanking her and telling her just how much Daenerys means to me... I’ll always hold just a little piece of love in my heart for the show for all of those reasons. Yes, it’s a bittersweet taste on my mouth due to the final season tearing up everything I loved about the show and tossing it out the window, but still, I’ll always look back on my teenage years and young adulthood with fond memories of adoring the show.

Season 7 was the shit for me. I ate it up. I mean, my two favorite characters getting together to save the world? Come on, that’s peak fantasy romance for me.

You have to understand that to me, in my heart, season 8 quite literally doesn’t exist. I’ve processed that season like a literal death. It’s not canon to me because.. of everything. GRRM has said that there are things that happen in the show that cannot happen in the books because the show took out and changed many plot points that exist in the books.

That’s not my Daenerys. That’s not my Jon. That’s not my Arya. That’s not my Bran. What we saw in the last few final seasons of Game of Thrones is not representative of what the final books of A Song of Ice and Fire will be.

Book!Jon and book!Daenerys have always been superior than their show counterparts. Book!Jonerys always been superior than Show!Jonerys. The parallels, the foreshadowing, the dreams, the sense of loneliness, the magic they share. The books are why I loved them.

I still ship jonerys because the things that happened in the show won’t happen in the books - at least, not in the same exact way. Daenerys won’t go mad and destroy King’s Landing in a rage of grief and sorrow. Cersei won’t be the Big Bad, the Others will be. Jon and Daenerys will save the world together. I don’t believe that Jon will kill Daenerys, I think it’s possible for sure, GRRM has done something revolutionary with Daenerys but I won’t put it past him to end her story in a misogynistic way like that. I’m one of the few blogs on here that thinks that Daenerys could and will live - I know, start the clown music. There are too many things that would be for nothing if she died in my opinion.

Anyways I still ship them because I love them both dearly and I believe that they will be one of the most important relationships within the series and I believe it will affect how the story ends and where everyone ends up. I don’t know if this really answers your question or if it makes any sense but they’re my babies and I love them.

#long post #love letters only #jonerys #asoiaf

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brianwilly · 5 years

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Game of Thrones did the thing that a couple of shows do where...it likes feminism. It understood that feminism is important. It wanted to be feminist. It was cognizant of the fact that its setting was brazenly and intentionally misogynistic, and so it was even more important for its independent narrative to empower its female characters instead of mindlessly reinforcing the toxic beliefs of its own fictional world. The whole point of the story, after all, was “this society is toxic, can our heroes survive it?” and so the narrative was voluntarily self-critical.

And so it knew to give us badass assassin Arya. It knew to give us stalwart knight Brienne. It gave us the pirate queen and the dragon queen and the Sansa getting revenge after revenge upon all the men who’d wronged her, and far more besides, and it talked big about breaking chains and how much men fucked things up and how great it would be if only women were in charge and et cetera et cetera. And it’s, in fact, all actually really good that it had those things. And because there were so very many moving parts of this story, it was super easy to look at those certain moving parts and think, yeah, they’ve done it! They done good!

And it’s easy to forget and forgive -- to want to forget and forgive -- all the dead prostitutes that were on this show and the rapes used as motivation and fridgings and objectifications and the...y’know, whatever the hell Dorne was and Lady Stoneheart who? It’s easy to forget that this show actually played its hand a long time ago in regards to, like, what its relationship with feminism was going to be, and then kept playing the same hand again and again, to disappointing results.

Game of Thrones likes feminism. It wanted to be feminist. But its relationship with feminism was still predicated on some of the same old narratives and the same old storytelling trends that have disempowered female characters in the past, and so any progressive ideas it might have about women in its setting were nonetheless going to be constrained by those old fetters. As a result, its portrayal of women varied anywhere from glorious to admirable to predictable to downright cringeworthy.

New ideas require new vessels, new stories, in which to house them. And for Game of Thrones, the ultimate story that it wanted to tell -- the ultimate driving force and thesis statement around which it was basing its entire journey and narrative -- was unfortunately a very old one, and one very familiar to the genre.

“Powerful women are scary.”

(Yes, I’m obviously making Yet Another Daenerys Essay On The Internet here)

So we have this character, this girl really, a slave girl who was sold and abused, and then she overcomes that abuse to gain power, she gains dragons, and she uses that power to fight slavery. She fights slavery really well, like, she’s super hella good at it. Her command of dragons is the most overt portrayal of “superpowers” in this world; she is the single most powerful person in this story, more powerful than any other character and the contest is not close.

But then...something really bad happens and oops, she gets really emotional about it and then she’s not fighting slavery anymore...she’s kinda doing the opposite! This girl who was once a hero and a liberator of slaves instead becomes an out-of-control scary Mad Queen who kills a ton of innocent people and has to be taken down by our true heroes for the good of the world.

That’s the theme. That’s the takeaway here. That’s how it all ends, with one of the most primitive, archaic propaganda ever spread by writers, that women with power are frightening, they are crazy, they will use that power for ill. Women with power are witches. They are Amazons. They will lop off our manhoods and make slaves of us. They seduce our rightful kings and send our kingdoms to ruin. They cannot control their emotions. They get hot flashes and start wars. They turn into Dark Phoenixes and eat suns. They are robot revolutionaries who will end humanity. Powerful women are scary.

And let me emphasize that the theme here is not, in fact, that all power corrupts, because the whole Mad Queen concept for Daenerys actually ends up failing one of the more fundamental litmus tests available when it comes to representation of any kind: “would this story still happen if Dany was a man?” And the fact is that it would not. And indeed we know this for a fact because “protagonist starts out virtuous, gains power in spite of the hardships set against him, gets corrupted by that power, and ends up being the bad guy” didn’t happen, and doesn’t happen, to the guys in the very same story that we’re examining. It doesn’t happen to Jon Snow, Dany’s closest and most intentional narrative parallel. It doesn’t happen to Bran Stark, a character whose entire journey is about how he embroils himself in wild dark winter magic beyond anyone’s understanding and loses his humanity in the process. In fact, the only other character who ever got hinted of going “dark” because of the power that they’re obtaining is Arya, the girl who spent seven seasons training to fight, to become powerful, to circumvent the gender role she was saddled with in this world...and then being told at the end of her story, “Whoa hey slow down be careful there, you wouldn’t wanna get all emotional and become a bad person now wouldja?” by a man.

(meanwhile Sansa’s just sitting off in the side pouting or whatever ‘cuz her main arc this season was to, like, be annoyed at people really hard I guess)

‘Cuz that’s the danger with the girls and not the boys, ain’t it? Arya and Jon are both great at killing people, but there is no Dark Jon story while we have to take extra special care to watch for Arya’s precious fragile humanity. Dany has the power of dragons while Bran has the power of the old gods, but we will not find Dark Lord Bran, Soulless Scourge of Westeros, onscreen no matter how much sense it should make. “Power corrupts” is literally not a trend that afflicts male heroes on the same level that it afflicts female heroes.

Oh sure, there are corrupt male characters everywhere, tyrants and warlords and mafia bosses and drug dealers and so forth all over your TVs, and not even necessarily portrayed as outright villains; anti-heroes are nothing new. But we’re talking about the hero hero here; the Harry Potters, the Luke Skywalkers, the Peter Parkers. The Jon Snows. They interact with corruptive power, yes; it’s an important aspect of their journeys. But the key here being that male heroes would overcome that corruption and come through the other side better off for it. They get to come away even more admirable for the power that they have in a way that is generally not afforded towards female heroes.

There are exceptions, of course; no trends are absolutely absolute one way or the other. For instance, the closest male parallel you’d find for the “being powerful is dangerous and will corrupt your noble heroic intentions” trope in popular media would be the character of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequel trilogy...ie, a preexisting character from a preexisting story where he was conceived as the villainous foil for the heroes. Like, Anakin being a poor but kindhearted slave who eventually becomes seduced by the dark side certainly matches Dany’s arc, but it wasn’t the character’s original story and role. And even then?...notice how Anakin as Vader the Dark Lord gets treated with the veneer of being “badass” and “cool” by the masses. A male character with too much power -- even if it’s dark power, even if it’s corruptive -- has the range to be seen as something appealingly formidable, and not just as an obstacle that has to be dealt with or a cautionary tale to be pitied.

And in one of the few times that this trope was played completely straight, completely unironically with a male hero -- I’m thinking specifically of Hal Jordan the Green Lantern, of “Ryan Reynolds played him in the movie” fame -- the fans went berserk. They could not let it go. The fact that this character would go mad with power because a tragedy happened in his life was completely unacceptable, the story gained notoriety as a bad decision by clueless writers, and today the story in question has been retconned -- retroactively erased from continuity -- so that the character can be made heroic and virtuous again. That’s how big a deal it was when a male hero with the tiniest bit of a fan following goes off the deep end.

To be clear, I’m not here to quibble over whether the story of Dany turning evil was good or bad, because we all know that’s going to be the de facto defense for this situation: “But she had to go mad! It was for the sake of the story!“ as if the writers simply had no choice, they were helpless to the whims of the all-powerful Story God which dictates everything they write, and the most prominent female character of their series simply had to go bonkers and murder a bajillion babies and then get killed by her boyfriend or else the story just wouldn’t be good, y’know? Ultimately though, that’s not what I’m arguing here, because it doesn’t actually matter. There have been shitty stories about powerful women being bad. There have been impressive stories about powerful women being bad. Either way, the fact that people can’t seem to stop telling stories about powerful women being bad is a problem in and of itself. Daenarys’ descent into Final Boss-dom could’ve been the most riveting, breathtaking, masterfully-written pieces of art ever and it’d still be just another instance of a female hero being unable to handle her power in a big long list of instances of this shitty trope. The trope itself doesn’t become unshitty just because you write it well.

It all ultimately boils down to the very different ways that men and women -- that male heroes and female heroes -- continue to be portrayed in stories, and particularly in genre media. In TV, we got Dany, and then we also have Dolores Abernathy in Westworld who was a gentle android that was abused and victimized for her entire existence, who shakes off the shackles of her programming to lead her race in revolution against their abusers...and then promptly becomes a ruthless maniac who ends up lobotomizing the love of her life and ends the season by voluntarily keeping a male android around to check her cruel impulses. Comic book characters like Jean Grey and Wanda Maximoff are two of the most powerful people in their universe but are always, in-universe, made to feel guilty about their power and, non-diegetically, writers are always finding ways to disempower them because obviously they can’t be trusted with that much power and entire multiple sagas have been written about just how bad an idea it is for them to be so powerful because it’ll totally drive them crazy and cause them to kill everyone, obviously. Meanwhile, a male comic character like Dr. Strange -- who can canonically destroy a planet by speaking Latin really hard -- or Black Bolt -- who can destroy a planet by speaking anything really hard -- will be just sitting there, two feet on the side, enjoying some tea and running the world or whatever because a male character having untold uninhibited power at his disposal is just accepted and laudable and gets him on those listicles where he fights Goku and stuff.

In my finite perspective, the sort of female heroes who have gained...not universal esteem, perhaps, but at least general benign acceptance amongst the genre community are characters who just don’t deal with all that stuff. I’m thinking of recent superheroes like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, certainly, but also of surprise breakout hits like Stranger Things’ Eleven (so far) or even more niche characters like Sailor Moon or She-Ra. The fact that these characters wield massive power is simply accepted as an unequivocal good thing, their power makes them powerful and impressive and that’s the end of the story, thanks for asking. And when they deal with the inevitable tragedy that shakes their worldview to the core, or the inevitable villain trying to twist them into darkness, they tend to overcome that temptation and come out the other side even stronger than when they started. In other words?...characters like these are being allowed the exact same sorts of narrative luxuries that are usually only afforded towards male heroes.

The thing about these characters, though, is that they tend to be...well, a little bit too heroic, right? A lil’ bit too goody-two-shoes? A bit too stalwart, a bit too incorruptible? And that’s fine, there’s certainly nothing wrong with a traditionally-heroic white knight of a hero. But what I might like to see, as the next step going forward, is for female heroes to be allowed a bit more range than just that, so that they’re not just innocent children or literal princesses or shining demigods clad in primary colors. Let’s have an all-powerful female hero be...well, the easiest way to say it is let’s see her allowed to be bitchier. Less straightlaced. Let’s not put an ultimatum on her power, like “Oh sure you can be powerful, but only if you’re super duper nice about it.” Let us have a ruthless woman, but not one ruled by ruthlessness. Let us have a hero who naturally makes enemies and not friends, who has to work hard to gain allies because her personality doesn’t sparkle and gleam. Let her have the righteous anger of a lifelong slave, and let that anger be her salvation instead of her downfall.

In other words, let us have Daenerys Targaryen. And let us put her in a new story instead of an old one.

#Game of Thrones #Daenerys Targaryen #ASOIAF #A Song of Ice and Fire #Jon Snow #Bran Stark #Arya Stark #Dany #GoT #GoTedit #Overthinking #meta #essay

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margoshansons · 4 years

Text

N+A=J, Azor Ahai, and Dawn

Look, before you go and crucify me for presenting and actually believing this theory, just hear me out. I’m not here to convince you or bash on your theory, so please don’t do that with mine.

These are just my opinions and while proof for R+L is stronger and is probably what will happen in the books, I do think that people are missing out on the awesome potential for N+A.

This is not an attempt to prove it. There are people with more dedication and more time on their hands who have tried. I’m only here to discuss why I like this theory from a narrative standpoint better than R+L=J

TLDR: Jon is Azor Ahai and making him a Dayne gives him access to Dawn, cool warg magic, and the potential to be the Sword of the Morning, which I think is pretty sick.

So let’s go!

1. Jon Snow’s Narrative Arc

Jon Snow is arguably the main character of ASOIAF, with Bran and Daenerys joining him as other main protagonists of the series. And it’s no secret why.

All three have very distinct, very important relationships to Magic.

Daenerys has her dragons, Bran is the Three-Eyed Crow, and Jon Snow’s whole storyline is about preparing for the next Long Night. The war against the Others.

It’s been that way since the beginning. We get small bits and pieces of it here and there but once Othar attacks Mormont it’s finally revealed to us and Jon that there are bigger things beyond the wall than wildlings. And we know that this is a complete surprise to Mormont and the other men of the Night’s Watch.

We also know that there is little written about the Others in Westeros at all, seeing as Sam isn’t able to find much on them when he travels to the Citadel.

This leads to the Great Ranging which leads to the Battle of the Fist of the First Men, which leads to the mutiny, which leads to Jon betraying the wildings which leads to the Battle at the Wall, which eventually gets him elected Lord Commander.

My point being, Jon’s storyline at this point has been spent 100% in the North surrounded by magic. There is no indication of him going south, no indication of politics beyond strategy and Stannis, no indication of him doing anything except planning for a battle against the Others and trying to save as many people as possible.

IN FACT! The reason he gets shanked is because he momentarily forgets his duty and puts the same people he promised to save in danger.

Up until Jon gets the pink letter, he never thinks about going south, but then “Arya” is in trouble and he puts NW and wildling men at risk. That is why he gets stabbed, that’s why they say “For the Watch”

Because in doing so he not only forgets his vows, but also the cause the men had pledged themselves to.

Now, all of this next bit is speculation based on what I personally think is going to happen and why I think Jon being Ashara’s son makes for a better narrative.

We know several plot points need to be resolved regarding Jon. I personally think he warged in Ghost, and then Melisandre will give him the last kiss as a priestess of r’hllor, which resurrects him like Beric Dondarrion.

Now, interesting thing here. The last kiss is a common funeral rite for the religion of the R’hllor and there’s another name for it as well.

The last kiss is a rite practiced by the red priests of R'hllor. When a follower of the Lord of Light dies, priests fill their mouths with fire and breathe flame into the deceased, as they believe that fire cleanses and is a bright gift. Harwin and Thoros of the brotherhood without banners refer to it as the kiss of life. (Wiki of Ice and Fire)

So, a kiss of life that is related to fire, that’s interesting. You know what else is interesting?

The exact circumstances of Jon’s death. It’s very different than what happened in the show. The show scene was quoted as being “a bad guy killing a good guy” while the books made it much more morally grey.

The most interesting part of Jon’s death, however, is Bowen Marsh sticking the dagger in Jon. He’s not only the first person to deal a mortal blow, but GRRM describes in detail how much Marsh is weeping, and how tragic this end really is.

Hmmmm, is it just me or is this starting to sound familar?

Flames, saltwater, wow this is really starting to remind me of something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it....

*stares into the camera like I’m on the office*

He’s being set up to be reborn amidst salt and smoke!

And now we get to my main part of the theory (took us long enough) but before that happens I need to make one thing very clear.

The Prince that Was Promised and Azor Ahai are NOT the same person.

Yes, Melisandre refers to them interchangeably, but no offense, she’s wrong...like a lot.

And while we know that Rhaegar knew about TPTWP, it was highly unlikely he knew about the Others, because as stated above, there is little to no information about them in Westeros and they haven’t been seen since the Long Night. So I really don’t have any idea why Rhaegar would think his son was destined to destroy beings that didn’t exist.

He got the details of TPTWP from Valyrian scrolls, and based on the info we have, Valyrians never interacted with the Others.

Azor Ahai on the other hand, is prophecized to directly battle with “the Great Other” which Mel connects to the Others (although this isn’t confirmed). On top of this, here are the two prophecies of Azor Ahai and TPTWP

TPTWP

born of Aerys and Rhaella’s line

born of salt and smoke

prophecised by a bleeding star

has a song of ice and fire

“the dragon must have three heads”

will deliver the world from darkness

will wake dragons from stone

Obviously this is exclusive to Targaryens, and Rhaegar was even thought to be the Prince that was Promised, but I think this applies to Daenerys or Aegon more than Jon even with R+L.

Especially considering Rhaegar used the song of ice and fire line on Aegon before even thinking of Lyanna.

Azor Ahai:

will show up after a long summer

born or reborn amidst salt and smoke

born or reborn after “stars bleed” and “the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world”

will draw forth a burning sword named Lightbringer

will ultimately fight against the Great Other

There’s no mention of dragons, songs, or anything else that most people use to interchange the two. Now the reason I bring this up is because if Jon turns out to be the son of Ned and Ashara, then he not only has a claim to Winterfell through Robb’s will, but he also can claim Dawn, the Dayne’s ancestral sword.

Dawn is a unique sword in the fact that its not made of Valyrian Steel but it’s just as sharp. It’s blade is described as “pale milkglass” and it’s a two-handed greatsword wielded by the Sword of the Morning. It was forged from the heart of a falling star and is the entire origin for House Dayne. It’s even said to glow.

The intesting thing about it? Only a Dayne can wield it.

It’s not passed down from father to son like most Valyrian Steel swords, but is instead given to the knight most worthy of possessing it.

GRRM has always emphasized the importance of Swords, especially Valyrian Steel swords. But I think what’s so interesting about Dawn is that we get its history in the very first book, and Arthur and Ashara Dayne are some of the only named Dornish characters we get from that time period.

(Also, just a fun fact, George has said that if he could wield a sword it would be Dawn, so do with that what you will)

I think that Dawn is Lightbringer, and the fact that George hasn’t given much information about the Daynes (a relatively minor house) when asked, makes me think that they play a much bigger part in the endgame than we think.

They have ties to the First Men, which means they were around during the first Long Night and the Battle for the Dawn. This also means that they potentially have the same warging abilities the Starks do, which would only be heightened if they were joined.

(I have so many theories on the First Men and magic, but that would take longer to get into than this.)

So, if Jon were to be the son of Ned and Ashara, then he could become the Sword of the Morning, which provides interesting imagery when you place it next to “The Long Night”.

It also would create one of my favorite parallels. Ned Stark heads to Starfall to return Dawn to Ashara after killing her brother, The Sword of the Morning. Jon Snow/Stark heads to Starfall to claim Dawn after being declared the Sword of the Morning and Ashara’s son.

Tbh, I just love this theory because magic! And heartbreaking parallels.

In conclusion, ASOIAF is messy and complicated and won’t be solved with a perfect parentage reveal. I think this one is interesting and while I think R+L=J will be what’s revealed (tbh I don’t mind it as long as they don’t romanticize it), I think there’s just as great a story if Jon really is the bastard of Ned and Ashara Dayne.

Please be kind, I am only a lady who likes cool theories with way too much time on her hands.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #a song of ice and fire #jon snow meta #valyrianscrolls #jon snow #ned x ashara #*mine #house stark #house dayne #asoiaf speculation #{I just really needed to get this off my chest}#{please don't yell at me}#{also it's four am and I am very tired so please excuse errors}#{again please be kind}#{I just love magic okay?}

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devertigozation · 4 years

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My matryoshka theory

about this post - https://devertigozation.tumblr.com/post/189485408602/kuma-la-la-i-couldnt-decide-which-version-i and my tags under it.

So. I’ll start right from the top, so as not to miss anything, and will pull this theory forward by strings, so hold on with me, seeing as I don’t know how much of the knowledge on which this theory is based is considered to be common knowledge.

So, let’s start from the beginning. Grrm is fairly well-known for his kill-the-main-character kind of trope (yes, I’m going to take this from beginning-beginning, but this is important so bear with me). He’s been famously criticized for this choice, and to the critics, he has said that even though he kills the main characters, their lines/narratives/arcs don’t just randomly disappear with those murders (so, the deconstruction of the most well-known trope is deserved, grrm argues) - those lines are being inherited or being passed to another character who absorbs the narrative of his predecessor.

Let’s look at this through the narrative of the character who has been first victim of this trope, and who’s death (arguably) is one of the most important/purest in establishing the rules by which grrm deconstructs the trope. Ned Stark.

-I’ll hide the rest bc this is growing to be a monster -

Ahead I present you a matryoshka narrative theory.

So Ned’s line - he goes to the South in order to uncover the plot of Arryn’s murder. He uncovers that Robert’s children are not his legitimate heirs, but Jaime’s, which’s why Jon Arryn’s been murdered, and same happens to Ned Stark. So even though (famously) Ned Stark is the reason why the rebellion for Northern independency has begun, Ned himself never wished to set that particular line in motion, never had that goal in himself. But - his work undermined the power of the person who sits on the Iron Throne after Robert’s death. So Ned discovered that the “official” heir to Robert isn’t an actual heir.

This is also grrm and so there are actually some pretty cool moments in which the continuation is foreshadowed - Robert mentions that Ned should’ve sat on the throne, the rebellion against the crowd itself ended well for Baratheons who got the throne, but Starks got nothing (redistribution towards fairness is something that grrm surprisingly tries to do in his story).

Robb Stark who has begun his rebellion, first in the name of his father/demanding freedom to his father+sisters, after Ned’s death has inherited Ned’s line, and continued it - saying that Joffrey isn’t the King for the North. And now, comes the most important part of my matryoshka theory. Even though the real matryoshka dolls get smaller with their uncovering, it is grrm and so the narrative doesn’t get smaller, but each new doll as it opens up gets bigger. Robb Stark, quite naturally, grows that narrative out - and Northern Independence gets added to the line. (So if it isn’t Joffrey, who is the King for the North? Answer gets clear, Northerns can’t support neither Renly, nor Stannis, it must be a Stark).

Next, Robb’s clear heir is Jon, we know it - the books had Robb officially establishing Jon as his heir, and TV-series already hailed Jon as KITN.

How much can we trust the TV-show? Well, obviously lots of changes, but I think some big plotlines were given by grrm and had to be hit - Bran will be King, North will get independence and Sansa will be the Queen in the North. And Jon will be, for a time, a King in the North. (I don’t, by the way, believe how Battle for the Dawn was depicted - like I don’t necessarily believe that this is the way in which it will go, and Arya might not be Azor Ahai, though I’d really like that, I rather really like the idea that Bran is the Night King, y’kno, but that’s not for here…)

So, Jon is Robb’s heir, and he will inherit also Robb’s line, which at this moment is Northern Independence.

This kind of narrative line, which will get with every heir more complicated, and in which every heir will add something to the line, I think will continue with Jon, and subsequently with Sansa (considering the she ends being QITN, she is the natural heir to the Northern Independency narrative). My prediction is that Jon will add another thing to the ~Stark against the Throne/North line~ - he will add the wildings line. (TV-series definitely didn’t explore that, but I think grrm will explore something through wildings - Jon who’s lived with them, Jon who fell for one of them and could even become their king, those things aren’t some empty promises, they lead somewhere). Perhaps Jon will establish North as even greater region (esp. considering that the wall will fall) - it will be North all the way through the wild region.

And now - I consider Sansa to be the true/last heir to that narrative (established and cannoned in TV-series), so what will she add? In my opinion she will be a needed/healing link for North - she will be the person who will at long last establish good relationships with Six Kingdoms (basically established in TV-series), she will end the war between two regions through her connection to both of them. While her predecessors have ripped North away from 7K, she will heal the relationship between the torn regions - while recognizing the need for Independence, she will also recognize the need to stop the war, this is why she is the most ~Southern~ of Starks, her Southerness is important for the North. (Appearance wise, it is a bit interesting, too. In this line we have Ned, first, who looks Northern - and he begins by undermining Southern King in the South; second Robb, who looks Southern - who will start Northern Independence; and the two last ones will flip out the established routine, Jon, who looks most Northern, will add further North to the North line, and Sansa, who looks most Southern, will establish good relationship with the South).

But what is truly cool about this narrative, I write it as I realize it, is that it isn’t some thing that has only the big line in it - Northern Independence, but it has some consequences to the characters themselves and the way in which their lines will progress. And what I mean by that, is that Jon, for example, has struggled to identify himself - he feels a bastard, he tries to establish himself as a brother of the Night’s Watch, becomes a wildings, a lord, he has a chance to become a King of free folk, he declines the chance to be Lord Stark, he will become Targaryen and through it a Southerner, and heir to the Iron Throne, it is a big theme for Jon, the person, - the self-search. The fact that he will be an heir to this line, will either form another question which he will have to resolve for himself - is he the true Stark? Is he the King in the North, after all, or will this become yet another identity which he will try, but that won’t fit him either. I still don’t know what the show’s finale actually meant for Jon - he won’t be, after all, a King in the North, no more than he will be King of Six Kingdoms. Maybe it will be a modern way of grrm establishing that after all, we aren’t meant to be heirs to our identity, getting them from our parents or our guardians, but are meant to establish them ourselves, and this is why, after all searches, he will be a brother of night’s watch. So this self-search will end in realization that we can’t search for who we are, but we have to make choices as to who we will be. Jon’s first choice is the one most important in establishing him as a person. It of course, will require another choice for Jon - he will have to choose Night’s Watch again in the end. It will also be important because for Jon it was actually a very important dream of his - to be his father’s true son, to be Robb’s true brother, to be real protector of Sansa, because she, too, is his sister. For him to be in this line, will be healing for him, and maybe, even more important, is that he will also be able to leave that dream behind him, to have a chance at becoming a true Stark, but choosing to be Jon.

But what is also cool is that to the second most important question of the show (after - who is the best ruler? the answer’s Bran and everything he symbolizes), the - who is the true Stark? (and everything that symbolizes), the answer is - Sansa. And it means a lot to Sansa, the character - who, too, struggled with self-identity (Joffrey’s bride, little bird, Lannister, Alayne, that grey girl?). She will remember that she is a true Stark (ahh let’s imagine a Lion King moment - Remember who you are! will tell her Ned Stark reminding her to kill Littlefinger), but it is even more important to the readers, who fell for Starks above all else, and everything Starks are meant to be - the good family, good morals, perseverance, connection to the nature and culture (First People), inner strength in the face of hardships, survival, etc, for all of the readers who fell for Starks, the answer as to who is the grandest of Starks, who is the true Stark, the answer is - the little girl who dreams, who falls in love and cares for songs and chivalry.

So, not only this narrative explores the grand theme of the plot - North region, it also explores the identities of the characters, but also through that quest establishes some important answers for the readers - that we choose our identities, that there is a great source of strength in dreaming and being kind, through the fact that the heir to the harshest/strongest line is a kind, sensitive girl.

So this is what my tag has been about - “A pretty cool matryoshka-type of narrative in which literally Ned and Robb are literally pulled apart to give way to their heirs”. This is the narrative. And they are literally pulled apart and from it springs their heir.

What I meant by other tags is that similar narrative lines have concluded in some other surviving Starks. For example, the most important question of the show is - who is the best ruler?, explored through Ned Stark, Tyrion, Robert, Stannis, Daenerys, Robb, Jon, Renly, Tywin and the answer to it turned out to be Bran. (!)

I think that Caitlyn’s line is the another important theme for the show/book. It is well known for it’s cruelty, for it’s savageness, explored through (long before Caitlyn) Joffrey, Ramsay and his father, Cersei, Tywin, Mountain, Daenerys will fall here. Caitlyn’s line will establish her as another terror of war - that sometimes the most savage/terrible of the characters are not necessarily bad (like Joffrey and Ramsay). I do think that Caitlyn’s consequent murders will become so graphic and terrible that they will be comparable to Joffrey and Ramsay’s. Plus - a lot of crimes do get committed for the religion and Arya from her little (cult) trip will be an answer to that, too. Arya will inherit and be the last in the line of cruel people, the little girl who’s seen terrors of war, and we will be forced to question just where exactly does the line of good and bad people lie (tv were too cowardly to explore that). Plus - Arya is probably the younger, more beautiful queen from Cersei’s prophecy (Cersei will grow uglier bc of something, this how Arya will be more beautiful, or Arya will pull the face of Lyanna or some other face), she’s been near enough in the show, too, during Cersei’s death, so she is also the heir to Cersei’s line - the cruelty and madness, where it begins and what can we do with it? And I think (though this is one of the under-developed thoughts) that the answer to the theme of cruelty and madness and crimes of war will not only become an answer to that plot, but to Arya herself, and through her - an answer to the readers.

Anyhow, I think, that’s enough, it is already a monster, but please go on asking me about my theories, because this’s been f.u.n.! (ask me about Weasley twins if you’re hp fan)

#got #Sansa Stark #asoiaf #jon snow

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dwellordream · 4 years

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hey i was reading one of the metas you reblogged about the trident incident with Arya and Sansa and it occurred to me that one of the main issues is that people concentrate too much in Jeoffrey and Cersei and Ned and even Sansa (which yes is important for her because she looses Lady and has her first taste of the Real Jeoffrey), But not enough on Arya and Mycah except to victim blame them. people say they shouldn’t have been playing together or that Arya was wrong to intervene (cont)

when i would argue grrm makes a point in his books that staying indifferent or to not do anything in the face of injustice is just as bad as doing the injustice yourself. and i feel people trend to ignore Arya the most in that incident event though that’s one of her shining moments that stayed the most with me in the books. she undoubtedly did the right thing, but her friend still died and she also lost her direwolf and then she has to hear Jeyne Poole making fun of it and Sansa (cont)... saying she wished she had died instead (not here to hate on Sansa but we can’t deny this isn’t one of her best moments, or Jeyne’s, or Ned’s). but somehow any time i see this discussed is in relation of how Arya was wrong and Sansa was right when the truth is Arya was right but Sansa wasn’t even wrong, just scared. like when i think of Sansa and the trident incident is mostly on how it serves her character development because literally a book later she takes the Arya role by defending (cont)... Ser Dontos from Joffrey’s cruelty. i feel that would be an important aspect of Sansa’s character development when the Stark sisters meet again because we often discuss how Arya can learn from Sansa and appreciate her and not enough on the other way around and how Sansa can a) come to stand up for Arya and protect her baby sister, b) come to see the good in her too sorry for the long rant i just feel really strongly about this and is not only with Sansa, (cont)...... but when discussing Arya in metas is all about how she affects other characters and their journeys (Jon, Sandor, Ned, Cat and Sansa specifically) and not her own journey which is bonkers to me because she has one of the highest POV counts and her themes of justice and family are super important (end) I don’t really have anything to add on other than I agree with you that often meta focuses more-so on how Arya affects other characters than on Arya’s individual journey specifically, but I will attach the rest of your message so everyone else can read it too. I hope that when Sansa and Arya do reunite in canon it is not just one-sided in terms of one sister apologizing to the other, and I certainly hope it doesn’t gloss over the genuine loss and hurt Arya felt from the incident at the Trident or just Sansa’s behavior towards her in general. I also hope that GRRM’s writing of female relationships has improved enough by that point for it to come across like a genuine heartfelt conversation (or series of conversations) between the two, and not just as endless ammunition for ‘anti-Arya’ or ‘anti-Sansa’ fans online. I personally dislike the fan theories that A. Arya will not survive the canon series or that B. Arya will never have a ‘true home’ or family again and will spend the rest of her life as a lone wanderer, separated from the other surviving Starks.

#arya stark

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