Black Aly, Lady of Winterfell

An ASOIAF side blog. Previously oldghiscari/oldtongue. I follow and like with carolinamello. I write meta occasionally. I try to use this side blog to keep in touch with the fandom but I'm an incurable lurker, sorry.

[e-doro]

due to a really excellent conversation im having right now i have been moved to create the most important piece of greyjoy meta the asoiaf fandom has ever seen: how each of them would be to cuddle with

balon: literally nothing will make me believe balon doesnt sleep with a board between himself and alannys. he does not believe in cuddling. trying to embrace him would be like hugging a statue thats disappointed in you. 1/10

euron: why would you try to cuddle with euron, is it because you hate yourself? euron would probably be okay at the actual mechanical act of cuddling (as long as you have no desire to be the big spoon, because thats not happening) and has the advantage of caring about his looks and therefore presumably his hygiene slightly more than the rest of the greyjoys, but his breath probably smells like weirdo psychedelic tree juice. he has cold hands and would put them on you and laugh, and eventually get bored and kick you out of his bed. where are you going to sleep? he doesnt care. sleep on the floor. shut up and leave him alone. 2/10

victarion: would breathe really hard and have no idea where to put his hands and be really awkward about it, and also probably thinks cuddling is unmanly. doesnt understand why you would cuddle unless its immediately post or pre-coital, and will probably bitch to you about how much he hates his brother the whole time. may beat you to death afterwards, or possibly just lock you in his room until he feels like seeing you again. 2/10

urrigon: is dead. you want to cuddle a corpse? go cuddle coldhands, at least hes a living corpse. 0/10

aeron: literally the worst greyjoy to cuddle. aeron lives on the beach and hasnt taken a bath in ten years, there are entire ecosystems of parasites living in his beard and hair that would gladly colonize your unsuspecting body and bedding, assuming you could get him to sleep in a bed instead of on the beach (unlikely). the best part of his personal odor is ‘old seaweed’. his body is 40% elbows, 40% knees, and 20% hair. would talk to you about god the entire time and probably insist you be drowned first. 1/10

asha: probably smells really nice, like, in an active outdoorsy kind of way? lacks all of her shitty uncles’ cuddling flaws but would also probably get really bored really quickly. 5/10

theon: not a bad cuddler but way too clingy, if you cuddle with theon he is going to follow you around like a lost puppy for the rest of his life or until youre mean enough to him he decides to act like he doesnt even CARE about physical intimacy. always wants to turn cuddling into sex and will sulk if you say no. little spoon, this has nothing to do with the rating but im never getting over how its literally canon. 5/10

[him-e]

Lady by Smirtouille

[nikaerin]

she’s beauty, she’s grace

[hannah-willustration]

Sansa praying in the godswood. 

[joannalannister]

hey, what are your thoughts on the symbolism of the song the bear and the maiden fair? i'm rereading asos right now and literally there's a point somewhere around the middle when almost every chapter has a mention of the song, it's almost like i'm being bludgeoned over the head with it. do you have an idea as to why GRRM has gone to such lengths, or am i just overthinking it? thank you, and i'm so sorry if you've answered something like this before! (ps you got me into tywin/joanna ngl)

Some people (including the wiki) believe that the song relates to various romantic pairings in ASOIAF. nobodysuspectsthebutterfly has a nice discussion of the song here. But I think one of the best analyses of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” is this one on reddit (you should click the link and read it). 

I agree with the reddit analysis, that it’s not so much a secret puzzle that we’re meant to decode, but rather that it’s a song about romanticized rape culture. I don’t think it’s a song about saving a fair maiden, considering that the Maiden refuses the Bear and he then carries her away by force while she’s kicking and wailing, and does sexual things to her. The song seems to have a happy ending, but like I said, it’s heavily romanticized. To quote Butterfly ironically, as this wasn’t the meaning she intended, it’s a popular song and “everybody (both nobles and common folk) knows the words and everyone’s happy to sing along.” (Well, not everybody’s happy about Westerosi rape culture, obviously, but it’s the tune that Westeros marches to.) 

I think GRRM is bludgeoning readers over the head with the song in ASOS because that’s the book where I think ASOIAF really starts to examine institutionalized rape culture. As Barristan tells Daenerys, Robert was fond of singing the song when he was drunk (and only when he was drunk):

Robert liked songs that made him laugh, the bawdier the better. He only sang when he was drunk, and then it was like to be ‘A Cask of Ale’ or ‘Fifty-Four Tuns’ or ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair.’ (ASOS)

And we know what else Robert liked to do while drunk:

Those had been the worst nights, lying helpless underneath him as he took his pleasure, stinking of wine and grunting like a boar. Usually he rolled off and went to sleep as soon as it was done, and was snoring before his seed could dry upon her thighs. She was always sore afterward, raw between the legs, her breasts painful from the mauling he would give them. […] For Robert, those nights never happened. Come morning he remembered nothing, or so he would have had her believe. Once, during the first year of their marriage, Cersei had voiced her displeasure the next day. “You hurt me,” she complained. He had the grace to look ashamed. “It was not me, my lady,” he said in a sulky sullen tone, like a child caught stealing apple cakes from the kitchen. “It was the wine. I drink too much wine.” (AFFC)

In Sansa’s first ASOS chapter, Butterbumps sings the song quite loudly while Olenna conspires to marry Sansa off, and as Sansa later figures out, “Tyrell or Lannister, it makes no matter, it’s not me they want, only my claim.” In Sansa III, she’s being married off to Tyrion, and the only reason she isn’t raped is because Tyrion decided he wasn’t going to rape her. Westeros normalizes and condones rape (especially marital rape) as an acceptable strategy in the political arena. 

“The Bear and the Maiden Fair” is also sung at the Red Wedding, shortly before Roslin is bedded, “crying” and “stiff with terror”. Some of Roslin’s reaction undoubtedly has to do with the massacre that’s about to take place, but I think some small measure at least has to do with the bedding. So I think on it’s surface, “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” is just a silly song that we aren’t supposed to be looking at, thinking, “Now which character represents the goat?”. But I think a closer examination suggests that this song is a part of GRRM’s commentary on Westerosi society as a whole with it’s romanticized violence, and how terrible that is, considering some of the instances when the song is used in the text. 

[dorodraws]

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.

[gotgifsandmusings]

Some thoughts on the dislike for AFFC/ADWD

Yes, it’s about sexism. Bear with me.

A friend and I have been emailing back and forth about GoT and ASOIAF, and she wrote this excellent point yesterday:

Do you think the dislike of the last two books could have anything to do with how the men have little plot progression, and the women seem to step into more focus leading/strong/action-based roles now a space has opened for them to use political power?

Kinda ties in to the Dany/Tyrion scene [in the show] being moved up. They [Benioff and Weiss] don’t care that Dany is gaining power and doing things what did Tyrion do? He should reach his goal… They can identify more with HIM. He shouldn’t be pushed back for her to rise up…They don’t care that she literally represents FIRE…because… men are heroes, I guess.

This is something I never thought about in these terms before, but I think it relates so well to this post that I saw shared recently about how the show gave us Talisa instead of Jeyne:

And to isolate the issue: we really have to see this as a matter of relationships to male characters. To them [Benioff and Weiss], Robb is the most important person in this storyline, and a romantic relationship is better to show for a male character than a relationship where he’s the son to a mother character that is meant to have dignity and influence. Because one does not emasculate him and the other will.

In our media, we are used to men being the focal point. They’re the ones with the agency, and the women depicted are contextualized by them. And like, clearly there’s exceptions, but the overwhelming pattern in what we consume is pretty damn obvious.

AFFC receives the most flack, and it is clearly skewed towards female PoVs:

Cersei Lannister - 10 chapters Brienne of Tarth - 8 chapters Jaime Lannister - 7 chapters Samwell Tarly - 5 chapters Arya Stark - 3 chapters Sansa Stark - 3 chapters Aeron Greyjoy - 2 chapters Victarion Greyjoy - 2 chapters Arianne Martell - 2 chapters Asha Greyjoy - 1 chapter Areo Hotah - 1 chapter Arys Oakheart - 1 chapter Pate - 1 chapter (Prologue)

Female chapters: 27/47 (57.4%) Male chapters:  20/47 (42.5%)

Keep in mind all the studies that have been done where people view conversations as being dominated by women if they speak only 30% of the time, but are “equal” when women speak 15% of the time.

It’s no secret I love AFFC/ADWD. And I’ve thought a lot about why it is that people seem to pan on them. But I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that our cultural norms and media are heavily skewed towards male-dominated narratives, and the last two books delivered something else. 

Btw, I’m not saying you’re sexist if you didn’t enjoy the last two books. I’ll I’m saying is that the narrative mold we’re used to consuming was broken, and as a result there might be a few ingrained barriers to enjoying it that we’re likely unaware of. Just a shade that colored our perception.

[alyblackwood]

Although I see other weak points in AFFC/ADWD that have nothing to do with gender (Greyjoy plot, Quentyn), that is a very interesting point that should be considered. I never considered it, but it is true that the characters in these books that seem to actually get somewhere plotwise are female.

[ruebella-b]

Queen in the North

[alyblackwood]

oldghiscari > oldtongue

So I changed my username from a dead tongue to an almost dead one. Yes, I’ve got linguistic boners. And yes, I like the old ones better. 

Anyways, do you like it? I’m very indecisive, please help?

[kallielef]

The Mother gives the gift of life, and watches over every wife. Her gentle smile ends all strife, and she loves her little children.

I’ll be revealing all of the pieces next week, but wanted to share one of them today. 

[mustamirri]

The Kraken’s Daughter

[ladycyprus]

Game of Thrones POVs, A Clash of Kings POVs & A Storm of Swords POVs by mustamirri

[fuckyeahiamcurious]

The North 1. The Wall 2. Winterfell 3. White Harbor 4.Greywater Watch All images by  Lukas Banas

[amplifyme]

Sandor Clegane by bubug

Private Collaboration

Second in a series of three portraits. Each focusing on an individual character, and their stories told through both singular and multi-layered symbology.

Portrait #1: Tywin Lannister

[kateryz]

Sansa

[cycloalkane]

He used to mess my hair and call me “little sister”, she remembered, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

[beelphazoar]

doomed youth club

Young Griff, Robert Arryn, Myrcella Baratheon, Shireen Baratheon, Jojen Reed, and Tommen Baratheon