[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Rhaenyra's Victory

The "nobody won the Dance" argument is so ridiculous and just flat out wrong. Certain fans (read TG stans), constantly argue that, because Rhaenyra and Aegon both died, the Dance had no victor. GRRM clearly disputes this in both F&B and ASOIAF.

In F&B, the end of the Dance is clearly in favor of the Blacks, despite Rhaenyra's murder. Cregan Stark and the rest of the Black forces took KL, forced the last of the Green supporters to surrender, and placed Aegon III (Rhaenyra's oldest surviving child) on the throne. After that, the last of Aegon II's line died with Jaehaera, leaving Rhaenyra's as the only legitimate and surviving royal line. That means, in simple terms, Rhaenyra's family won the war. They were the survivors of the war and ruled for the rest of the Targaryen Dynasty.

Speaking of the rest of the dynasty, there's a second way GRRM makes Rhaenyra's victory clear, and that's through Daenerys Targaryen. Despite the Blacks winning the final conflict of the Dance, male primogeniture was accepted and reinforced throughout the following kings' reigns. Baela and Rhaena were passed over as options to be Aegon III's heirs before his marriage to Daenaera. Daena and her sisters were passed over in favor of Viserys II and his children. Vaella was dismissed in favor of Aegon V. The first woman to be named heir to the IT since Rhaenyra was Dany, something done purely because she was Viserys III's final surviving relative (no, the relatives in other houses don't count).

No matter the reason Dany was named as heir, she eventually succeeded her brother as the head of House Targaryen and the rightful ruler of Westeros. After becoming the head of the house, she awoke dragons from stone and became Khaleesi of her own Khalasar. Dany then began a conquest across Slaver's Bay and eventually conquered Meereen and became its queen. Thus she became a conqueror and queen in her own right.

Despite House Targaryen embracing the sexist Andal traditions about succession, the future of the house now rests on the shoulders of a woman. Dany is the final ruler belonging to the house, a queen regnant who overcame every man who stood in her way. Not only that, but she awakened dragons from stone, thus beginning to heal the damage done by the Dance and the greens' misogyny.

Dany, a woman, is the savior of House Targaryen and arguably one of its most powerful rulers to date. She not only is continuing its legacy, but is bettering it. Rhaenyra's legacy is her female descendant who will save not only the house but the whole goddamn world. Dany enacts radical social change in Essos, rules her city well (as much as she can with the slavers' interference), and brought dragons, the key to defeating the Others, back into the world. Daenerys is Rhaenyra's final victory over the greens' misogyny and treason.

[book-daenerys-deactivated202601]

Marc Simonetti: On the ADWD cover for Brazil, I put Daenerys at the top of the stairs of the Meereenese pyramid. I had undoubtedly been, unconsciously, influenced by the series. And George [R. R. Martin] told me that Daenerys wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people, so I had her climb down to keep it consistent.

George R. R. Martin to the NYT: By Season 5 and 6, and certainly 7 and 8, I was pretty much out of the loop. [...] My ending will be very different.

(in/s/p.)

[thelustybraavosimaid]

A reminder that Robb was willing to exchange a hundred men to excuse Jon from his service at the Wall to make him his successor.

A reminder that Bran suggested having a bastard rule Lady Hornwood's lands because he thought of Jon.

A reminder that both Robb and Bran wanted to go on an adventure to the Wall and show up just to greet him.

A reminder that Arya thinks of him constantly, and that Needle is the tether that keeps her from becoming No One.

[aching-vellichor]

daenerys is azor ahai

ill never understand why ppl dont believe dany is azor ahai.

she's already fulfilled the prophecy before we as the readers even learn abt it. there are no more events to fill in the blank spots of the prophecy bc all of those spots have already been filled by her.

[aryastarksource]

Canon Arya Stark Week (2018) || Day Seven: Supernatural

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

D&D saying that one of their favorite plots from the books is the Boltons in Winterfell is a massive sign of their sexism. Now, for anyone one else, I'd probably not care, in fact, I'd agree it's a very interesting part. However, when it comes to the showrunners who needlessly wrote in excessive rape and violence against women, I see it as a red flag. That's compounded by the way they wrote it.

From the beginning of the show, D&D sabotaged the storyline by removing Jeyne Poole. Keep in mind, ADWD was released in 2008, while GOT premiered in 2011, meaning there was no possible way for D&D to not know everything necessary to bring about that specific plot. Add to that the fact that GRRM was heavily involved in season one, them blatantly ignoring Jeyne makes even less sense if they truly cared about adapting it properly.

Knowing this, that D&D themselves sabotaged their own story, the way it was handled makes a bit more sense, though not nearly enough. Without Jeyne there to play the part of fake Arya, a new bride for Ramsay was needed. Sansa was D&D's favorite character, they were unsatisfied with the story GRRM had written for her, they wanted more screen time and plot relevance for her. It seemed like making Sansa take Jeyne's place was a good solution to both these issues.

Except it wasn't. Littlefinger sending Sansa out of the Vale to marry Ramsay makes no sense. Not only is Sansa the object of Littlefinger's obsession, a replacement for Catelyn in his mind, she also was important to Littlefinger getting the Vale on his side (in the show). She was charming the lords and knights, balancing their intense dislike for him with their desire to help/protect her. Not to mention she was his only alibi to save him from accusations of Lysa's murder. Sending her away from the Vale harms Littlefinger's plans. She also would definitely not be "protected" from Cersei; after all the Boltons were loyal to the Lannisters and hated the Starks, what's to stop them from killing Sansa or handing her over once the Northern lords are more settled?

Speaking of the Northern lords, D&D removed the Northern Conspiracy. Throughout the book plot, the Northern lords are plotting to save Arya and depose the Boltons (in a nutshell, it's actually much more complex, but I'm not going into that rn). It's an excellent expression of how the Northerners loved the Starks and hate the Boltons. In the show, the lords are a bit disgruntled, sure, but they have no interest in deposing the Boltons and saving Sansa.

Another major part of the storyline minimized by the show is Theon/Reek. Theon's struggle with identity is a major part of his character throughout the series, and ADWD is no different. He's been stripped entirely of his identity by Ramsay's torture and Theon's own choices. Part of his arc in this book is discovering himself apart from the Starks and the Greyjoys.

That's definitely not what the show did. As I said earlier, Sansa is D&D's favorite character, so naturally she became the center focus of this arc, while Theon was pushed aside. He's essentially reduced to the method of Sansa's escape and goes on track to return to his pre-season one perception of himself: a Stark. This is a massive disservice to his character, Theon isn't a Stark; his life with them is important to his storyline and will definitely inform what he becomes, but it's not the true culmination of his arc. Basically, Theon was turned into a side character in his own story. It's through his pov we see this story, he's the character most tied to Ramsay. Obviously Jeyne is important and a main character in her own right for this arc, but she is not the central character we see the story through. So why is Sansa? She has no stake in this story, Jeyne is forced there after being sex trafficked and Theon is a captive.

So what does this leave for the show version of the plot? There's no conspiracy, Theon's pushed to the side, and politics and overall story are sacrificed. Well that leaves torture and violence against Ramsay's bride. Without the many moving parts of that storyline, it's just a story of a woman being abused horribly by her husband and eventually escaping. However, the escape isn't even the main aspect of the story focused on, that's always the abuse. It's also purely Sansa's abuse, not Theon's or the many people tortured and murdered by Ramsay, Sansa is the sole focus.

So basically, D&D took a plotline that's filled with the inner workings of Northern politics and the complexities of battling identity loss and reduced it to another excuse to show a woman be raped and abused on screen. The desire to turn this stroy into another way to make Sansa suffer is disturbing, and to make matters worse she fucking thanks Ramsay later on?? This whole storyline in the show is disgusting and yet another sign of how sexist D&D are.

[katy-89]

The way certain Stark stans are trying so hard to deny or diminish Jon's Targaryan heritage is pretty sad (except when they want to give him a dragon uhm)

This character is overcoming prejudice toward peoples on the outside, is a character that is all about conciliating opposing things but he will not be capable of conciliating his Stark and Targaryan heritage? sure, Jon is gonna hate the Targaryens, his BLOOD, even if in the books he looked up to Daeron, he respected and loved Aemon, he spoke highly of Alysanne and he wished he had dragons during battle.

He's gonna hate Daenerys because....she's a good person, she cares about people, she killed slavers and she's the best hope against the others?

Or he's gonna hate his bio father because he was the only person who took seriously the threat of the others or because he chose love over duty? Oh shit, this is also what Jon did in the books with Arya :O

This fandom give zero fucks about how the characters are WRITTEN in the books. Y'all are just projecting your headcanons onto them.

[blogforasoiafevents]

You know, I get that we often see women not getting along in media and it's annoying but the solution is not to just write every relationship between two women as "they just love each other uwu" imo, it's just to add nuance to them not liking each other. You get why Sansa and Arya do not understand or like each other, they are wildly different, and that's very compelling to me because I'm wildly different to my own sibling so I understand Arya's frustration of not being able to have a relationship with her own sister. Even if eventually Sansa does feel bad about the way she treated Arya and apologises they could never be besties tbh, they are just too different and by that I don't even mean just their personalities, their entire worldview is different, their experiences are different, they maybe could reach a point where they could respect each other but they will never be friends imo. Like I don't think I could ever be friends with my sibling, I respect them and we share some trauma being raised in the same awful household, but just like Arya I care too much about many things to be friends with someone who only cares about themselves for the most part.

[queen-of-andor]

If Ned Stark the brother of the supposed " abducted and r*ped by Rhaegar, Lyanna" has no bad things to say about the man, then maybe it's your own bias that makes you see him as the ultimate monster.

That or you are literally King Bob Baratheon who makes hate posts about Rhaegar and Targaryens while being drunk.

[queen-of-andor]

Asoiaf fandom be like: let's make fun of Arya and Jon for being snob while doing chores.

Meanwhile those two are the only Stark kids who have done labor in their lives and are okay with it. I dare to say that 95% of the rest POV characters would endlessly complain if they were in Arya and/or Jon's shoes.

[krnielk]

"jon and arya are the only stark kids who have done labor" ???????

iirc the FIRST thing we see sansa doing is embroidery, aka needleWORK, aka making and finishing textiles for use in winterfell. skilled, important labor that needs done (and at which she excels)

also wtf are bran and rickon supposed to be doing, shoeing horses?

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Life at Castle Black followed certain patterns; the mornings were for swordplay, the afternoons for work. The black brothers set new recruits to many different tasks, to learn where their skills lay. Jon cherished the rare afternoons when he was sent out with Ghost ranging at his side to bring back game for the Lord Commander's table, but for every day spent hunting, he gave a dozen to Donal Noye in the armory, spinning the whetstone while the one-armed smith sharpened axes grown dull from use, or pumping the bellows as Noye hammered out a new sword. Other times he ran messages, stood at guard, mucked out stables, fletched arrows, assisted Maester Aemon with his birds or Bowen Marsh with his counts and inventories. (Jon IV, AGoT)

--

Weese used Arya to run messages, draw water, and fetch food, and sometimes to serve at table in the Barracks Hall above the armory, where the men-at-arms took their meals. But most of her work was cleaning. The ground floor of the Wailing Tower was given over to storerooms and granaries, and two floors above housed part of the garrison, but the upper stories had not been occupied for eighty years. Now Lord Tywin had commanded that they be made fit for habitation again. There were floors to be scrubbed, grime to be washed off windows, broken chairs and rotted beds to be carried off. (Arya VII, ACoK)

--

She got along well enough with the cook. Umma would slap a knife into her hand and point at an onion, and Arya would chop it. Umma would shove her toward a mound of dough, and Arya would knead it until the cook said stop (stop was the first Braavosi word she learned). Umma would hand her a fish, and Arya would bone it and fillet it and roll it in the nuts the cook was crushing. (Arya II, AFfC)

--

[Are highborn ladies trained to a lot of practical things, like serving guests, making cheese, and so on?] Sansa is more than just a young lady. She's the daughter, not just of a noble, but of one of the most powerful nobles in Westeros. The great houses stand far above the lesser nobles, as the lesser nobles do above the smallfolk. She would not make cheese, no. But Arya might think it would be fun.

[Source]

[jackoshadows]

Did that person just say that the needlework the girls were learning was actual labour going towards making textiles for Winterfell? Rather than it being a hobby for the highborn ladies? As in it's Sansa who is making textiles for Winterfell?! 😬😬😬

[thelustybraavosimaid]

YES I cannot I just CANNOT—

And the tags....

[queen-of-andor]

Anyway, when Arya and Dany meet it will be a big win for feminism.

[daenerys-targaryen-moved]

remember when daenerys went out into the streets of meereen to care for her people and deadass cradled the sickly in her arms even though every one of her advisers were telling her that it was too dangerous and she ordered someone to bring the sick man water because he had a fever don’t ever tell me that daenerys targaryen is selfish i’ll literally destroy you

[gendrie]

i think its a shame that arya is so frequently labeled as "independent" bc it fails to capture the duality in her storyline between dependence and independence. contrary to popular belief arya depends on other people and her arc revolves around that profound need in a violent, desperate, wartorn world where connection is difficult (seemingly impossible at times) to maintain.

in the most basic context arya is a 9 year old child in the beginning of the story. she, obviously, depends on other people. in a sane and safe world she would be cared for by her parents - or at least competent adults. but she is forced onto the streets where she has to fend for herself. she goes hungry and risks assault but she is able to survive. when she gets picked up by yoren she becomes a (temporary) recruit of the night's watch where arya herself recognizes that they provide her with protection, food, and company. this is a similar dynamic to the one we see with her friends later. they provide arya with crucial companionship if nothing else. arya highly values gendry and hot pie. she forces them to escape harrenhal with her - she did not flee alone! and she stays with them despite the fact they slow her down and jeopardize her personal goals.

other people can be liability too. they can make you vulnerable and they can leave you. arya knows how it feels to be left behind. most of her family, to arya's knowledge, have been violently murdered. her allies and friends have left in a variety of ways. arya believes she is the lone wolf - not because she wants to be but because she is desperately alone. we see her try to convince herself that she is independent; that she doesn't need friends and that she must accept a life without a pack. these are the thoughts of a depressed and traumatized young girl trying to cope with abandonment. this is the condition arya is in when she arrives at the house of black and white where she will be required to forfeit her life to the god of death.

on a thematic level arya's very identity has been dependent on her family, her pack. the loss of this chips away at her sense of self until arya doesn't even know who she is without her father and mother and siblings and her wolf. nymeria represents arya's soul in wolf form and she has amassed a gigantic pack that she leads. arya holds them close in her heart:

And dreamed. That was the best part, the dreaming. She dreamed of wolves most every night. A great pack of wolves, with her at the head. She was bigger than any of them, stronger, swifter, faster. She could outrun horses and outfight lions. When she bared her teeth even men would run from her, her belly was never empty long, and her fur kept her warm even when the wind was blowing cold. And her brothers and sisters were with her, many and more of them, fierce and terrible and hers. They would never leave her. (Arya, ASOS)

this is the only comfort for arya in the wake of the red wedding: a pack that will never leave her.

arya is able to think and act independently. she has a will of her own and a strong one at that. but she is a deeply social character who depends on community. this is her most consistent character trait. arya thrives on her interactions with others. she wants a stable community and we see her cling to that whether its as arya of winterfell or cat of the canals.

the framing of arya as this independent entity is doing her character a great disservice in fandom spaces. its one of the main reasons speculation for her endgame is so weak tbh. arya going off on her own to be a lone wolf is completely at odds with her character and the themes of her story. yes, other people can hurt. yes, they can leave you. but that is the price we pay being connected to one another. arya's character explores this theme more deeply than any other character, i'd argue. the pack survives is her mantra and hers alone.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

I must be the minority of the minority here but god... HOTD is a mediocre adaptation, I don't understand people who treat HOTD as the new GOT (when GOT was good) the script of this series is poor, getting close to a poorly made fanfic made by Ryan. The characters are not 1% of what they are in the books (Rhaenyra/Alicent/Helaena/Rhaenys are practically new characters) and yes, it was only the female characters that they did that i think.... GRRM needs to stop letting people ruin his work, I thought he learned from GOT but no...

HOTD is definitely a mediocre adaptation. It falls into the traps of all the subpar and straight up bad adaptations do. It fucks around with character ages, it removes important plot points and characters, it changes characters' motivations and arcs, and it tries to cram too much information and too many events into too short of a run time.

The writing is sloppy or at best mediocre, the actors are good, but they can only do so much with what was written. The fundamental and purposeful misunderstanding of the story of the Dance alone shows how much HOTD has failed as an adaptation.

Actually, they did fuck over some of the male characters; Viserys becoming an old creep when he was in his late twenties in F&B when he married eighteen year old Alicent, Daemon murdering Rhea and marrying a teenage Laena, Laenor abandoning his children willingly. But it all is just a sign of how little Condal and Hess care about the actual story of F&B, just their rhaenicent fanfic.

I think this show wasn't GRRM's call, since HBO had already bought the rights to ASOIAF and it's world. He did have some input, as we see from Aegon's Dream, but clearly not very much.

I think one of the only reasons people pretend HOTD is a "good" adaptation is because the bar is in hell for those. Because it is, at the very least, better than the Eragon and Percy Jackson movies. But better than awful isn't anything close to good. Anon if you're in the minority, then I'm right there with you, HOTD isn't a good show.

[thelustybraavosimaid]

A reminder that Arya had amassed two packs:

Nymeria and her pack of little grey cousins.

The Northerners marching for the Ned's precious little girl.

[katerina-q]

If you ever feel delusional and stupid, just remember that asoiaf fans are using this FANFICTION quote for their anti Rhaegar and Lyanna agenda and they also think this bullshit is from the books.

I promise you, in the CANON BOOKS, Oberyn never spoke that way about Rhaegar and never slutshamed Lyanna :)

[jackoshadows]

It's baffling how this fandom keeps theorizing that Arya's subplots and role in the story can be replaced by any Stark, specifically Sansa, and it would be just the same when the show did replace fake Arya with another character - and then GRRM specifically refuted that change several times and pointed to that change on the show as where show canon diverged from book canon!

This is a fandom talking point that GRRM himself has refuted and said 'Nah, you can't do that. That plot specifically needs Fake Arya. The story needs fake Arya in the North and when the TV show replaced her with another character, the TV show then diverges from the books and becomes different canon' .

Also GRRM is not talking about the writing for show Sansa in season 6, 7 or 8 and the direction D&D took her character on the show where the only support she gets is from Littlefinger and the Vale army he rallies to help her. In fact GRRM does not even mention Sansa in this interview. He is talking specifically of 'Fake Arya' and how Fake Arya is important to that plot point in the North.

They (D&D) started making changes even as early as season one. And I remember I had discussions with them back in season one. When I was more involved in the process, when we’d discuss things and the fact that they removed Jeyne Poole was a very early thing. They actually said, oh no, Jeyne Poole is in it. You see the girl that’s sitting next to Sansa in the one scene in the feast at Winterfell. Yes, that’s Jeyne Poole, but you never hear a name and she’s not in it, but I did tell them. ‘Yes, but there’s the butterfly effect’, as I called it, deriving from the famous Ray Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder, crush a butterfly the Jurassic and suddenly you changed all of human history from that point forward. Unintentionally. A little change in a long narrative can have big changes further on. And now, Gone with the Wind didn’t have to worry about that, cause those two children that they removed never had any impact on the story. And Margaret Mitchell didn’t go on to write 6 more novels in which the children grew up and became the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever the hell, you know, she might have done with those two boys.

And I think they were both boys, and Rhett’s daughter was a girl. So she didn’t have to deal with the butterfly effect there. You know, when we remove Jeyne Poole from season one, then you don’t have Jeyne Poole to be the fake Arya, as happens in the book. So what do you do then? The butterfly effect has done that. (---)

The butterfly effect can have that, but getting back to the whole issue of canon, the butterfly effect affects the canon. But there’s also sometimes deliberate changes in a show where the showrunners or the writers or the studio, the network, or wherever it comes from, goes in a different direction. So what we’re doing at this point in the history of A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, Westeros, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. We have two canons. We have the show canon, the Game of Thrones canon. And we have the Song of Ice and Fire canon.

GRRM thought Fake Arya was so important he was insisting to D&D way back while filming season one in 2010 to cast Jeyne Poole.

And even D&D realized that the Jon/Arya relationship is so sacred that they didn't even attempt to replicate that with Sansa in the North. They even had show Jon Snow make a suicidal attempt to save his little brother Rickon Stark - which show Sansa advises against because fuck family - but we never got the whole Jon breaking his NW oaths to attack the Boltons for Arya Stark happening on the show with Sansa.

The asoiaf fandom loves appropriating book Arya's plots for Sansa. Jonsa shippers love appropriating her relationship with Jon for their utterly absurd crackship all the while dragging Arya down as 'ugly' 'violent' and 'masculine'.

Non-shippers love to give away all the politicking around Arya to Sansa, take away Arya intelligence and know-how of the North because their sexism only allows them to see one Stark girl as political and leader of the North. It's not about what the author has actually written for these characters, no, it's about which character passes their standard for femininity.

So yeah, one is free to replace Arya with Sansa because one is dissatisfied with Sansa's canonical book story that GRRM has written for the character and instead prefer Benioff and Weiss' show fanfiction or want Arya's book story for Sansa's character because she's conventionally beautiful and a 'real girl' according to the tradfems.

However, keep in mind that GRRM thinks 'Fake Arya' is very important to his story and that's a Northern political sublot that revolves specifically around Arya Stark in the books.

Once again, the Stark sisters and their book subplots are not interchangeable!

[thelustybraavosimaid]

Tags by @queenaryastark perf👌🏿👌🏿