across-silent-seas

there_will_be_time on ao3 current obsession: asoiaf

[across-silent-seas]

I lowkey need Oscar Tully to build his sept of traitors’ bones because it’s such an insane image. I just imagine Cat showing Ned around Riverrun like “and over there is my great-great-great-great-uncle’s traitors’ bones sept. yeah it’s kind of small bc he only had so many bones to work with.” (of course the reaction to this would be some flavor of What the Absolute Fuck. because that’s not normally the kind of thing that the Faith of the Seven goes for. and also because it is a building made out of bones.) We have a throne made out of swords why can’t we have a sept made out of bones.

[across-silent-seas]

I don’t know a ton about the mad king play, just some spoilers I’ve seen on tumblr, but tbh I think I’m just going to sort of. Take the things I like from it and incorporate them into my headcanons and ignore the things I don’t like. I feel like that’s the way to stay sane about it.

[across-silent-seas]

There’s a mention in AGOT Bran II that the guards used to chase Bran to try to get him down from the roofs when he was climbing, but that they always failed. I find it hilarious and adorable to imagine all of Winterfell’s guards just getting absolutely destroyed at parkour by 7 year old Bran who thinks of this as a game and is having great fun. The guards are not having fun, probably because they’re losing to a 7 year old.

[across-silent-seas]

sometimes you’re just chilling and then you remember that they killed ned stark with his own sword. and then, if you’re me, that makes your brain go “with his own sword? with his own sword. with his own sword. daaaaaaamn” with the exact same rhythm and intonation as the “at his own house” bit in the reynolds pamphlet.

[jeyne-stark]

the North can have a little syncretism. as a treat

[across-silent-seas]

when Varys is first introduced in AGOT Catelyn IV, he’s described as “hairless as an egg”. in The Hedge Knight, Aegon Targaryen, known as Egg, shaves his head to hide his identity. from this, we can conclude that the “Varys is a secret Blackfyre who shaves his head to conceal his heritage” theory must be true; he is hairless, like an Egg. this is how you do literary analysis, right?

[across-silent-seas]

“average Baratheon has 3 bastards” factoid actually just statistical error. Bastards Robert, who lives in King’s Landing and has 16 bastards, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[across-silent-seas]

I’ve seen people attribute Robb marrying Jeyne Westerling to him being a dumb horny teenager, but I really don’t think that’s the case. Him sleeping with Jeyne is some combination of that and not necessarily thinking straight because of grief over Bran and Rickon’s supposed deaths, but marrying her actually demonstrates maturity and responsibility.

It’s very much normalized in Westeros for men to have sex outside of marriage and/or illegitimate children; we see this in Catelyn’s problem with Jon being not that Ned was (supposedly) unfaithful to her, but that he raised his (supposed) bastard in Winterfell, thus putting him on the same level as their legitimate children. This is a society where Robb could have just walked away from Jeyne after sleeping with her and suffered basically no consequences. That’s probably not true for Jeyne; society in Westeros places significant value on women’s perceived virginity, so if people knew about her sleeping with Robb, her marriage prospects and her future as a whole would likely become worse. It’s not just about the abstract concept of Jeyne’s honor — there could quite possibly be material social consequences for her that just don’t exist for Robb.

So Robb faces a decision: he can abandon Jeyne and proceed with the Frey marriage alliance, with very little negative impact on him, or he can marry Jeyne and face the consequences, taking responsibility for his actions. He chooses the latter. Since we don’t have a Robb POV, we don’t know the exact thought process behind this choice, but I don’t think it’s only due to his feelings for Jeyne. Those definitely exist, but I think he also considered the potential consequences of marrying her, and decided that he valued “protecting” her — not leaving her to deal with the repercussions of a decision that they both made — over his own political gain.

Now, is it the best decision for him to have made, given that it severely jeopardizes the Frey alliance and eventually leads to the Red Wedding? I don’t know. I think it’s easy to say, as a reader who knows the tragedy that his decision leads to, that he made the wrong choice. But wouldn’t it also have been the wrong choice to walk away from Jeyne? To me, this dilemma is much more interesting, and much more tragic, than flattening Robb marrying Jeyne into him just being an impulsive teen.

[emprcaesar]

im a jory cassel girl to my last breath!

HE LOVED THE STARK KIDS!!!

[across-silent-seas]

glad I’m not the only one who gets Feels about Jory Cassel that are wildly disproportionate to the amount of space he takes up in the narrative 😭

[across-silent-seas]

Bi Ned Stark is basically canon to me. I’m probably biased (pun not intended) bc I’m bi, but describing young Robert as “like a horned god” and his eyes as “blue and clear as mountain lakes” (both quotes from Ned’s POV)… like yes it’s showing Ned’s romanticization of the past, but also. You see it right. Oh, yes, and we can’t forget “muscled like a maiden’s fantasy.” I wonder why that’s the comparison you think of for Robert’s muscles, Ned. (Maybe the maidens weren’t the only ones having fantasies about Robert…) I don’t think GRRM intended it, but I pretty much can’t read it any other way lol.

[gaya-the-k]

"Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle."

[across-silent-seas]

Higgledy piggledy

Poetry’s difficult

Even more so when the

Meter is strange.

But it’s good practice for

Writers of prose and such —

It’s a great way you can

Demonstrate range.

[goldcrescent]

its been said but grrm timelines are wild as hell. The Starks have had an 8,000 year unbroken reign? For 8,000 years. 8,000. Old Valyria rose, made dragons, terrorized the world for thousands of years, and exploded in apocalyptic fashion, but before during and after all that the one constant in the universe was the stalwart guardian of the horrors: a guy named Brandon frowning dourly at his notepad as he counts grain being put away for winter

[timetravellingtyrion]

the theory that ashara dayne is actually jyana reed is very funny to me because coming back from starfall is ned who recently lost his beloved sister and is taking her recently orphaned son back to winterfell, howland reed who just killed the best fighter in recent history with a valyrian steel shotgun and will never discuss it again, and said fighter's sister who thought swamp boy was cute. worst roadtrip of all time.

[timetravellingtyrion]

Winds of Winter 2027. Likes to charge reblog to cast

[patrocles]

🐺ASOIAF Themed Asks 🐉

(feel free to include TWOIAF as well!)

Favorite Great House

A minor (or extinct) house you need more lore on

Favorite sigil/house words

Favorite Valyrian sword

A dead female character you need to save

Which book or character did you not like at first but eventually grew on you?

Which Free City are you retiring to?

Build your own Kingsguard with any characters alive or dead

Build your small council with any characters dead or alive

A quote so good it makes you crazy

Favorite bastard

Who are you traveling the ravaged Riverlands with?

A death that still hurts to think about

Who are you bringing back from the dead with the power of R’hllor?

Favorite parent

Favorite sibling dynamic

Favorite theme

A mystery you need solved NOW

A theory you’ve adopted as canon

A theory you pray never comes true

A moment that made you cry

A character so queer-coded you’d argue it to GRRM’s face

Two characters you need to interact

A ship that gives you the absolute ick

A crackship?

Favorite “problematic” ship

Favorite canon ship

If you write fic, is there a ship or au you would like to write for, but haven’t yet?

If you read fic, what’s a trope or interpretation of your fave that you absolutely can’t stand? Which AU/trope will you read every time?

A POV character you wish wasn’t

Who would you elevate to a POV character?

A fancast you absolutely can’t stand

A fancast that just IS a character

What’s something people get wrong about your favorite character?

A character you just don’t get the hype of

What’s something you wish GRRM handled better? (a character/theme/world building etc)

An event/era in TWOIAF that you would love to see a film/tv adaptation of

Is there a house would you fit in with based off your own looks? A house you would fit in with based off your personality/ideals/vibes etc?

Your Drunk History topic (a character/theory/event/etc)

Be honest, are you still waiting for TWOW?

[across-silent-seas]

The main appeal of any “Ned lives and joins the Night’s Watch” AU is all of the angst that such a scenario carries with it. However, I also like to imagine Ned and Jon both standing on top of the Wall with identical poses and identical brooding expressions. Some random other Watch member sees them standing there and thinks for a second that he’s having double vision.