Chidorambles

Started as a place to dump my ramblings ended up as a mostly asoiaf/hotd blog. Will still have other shit when the urge strikes

[hylialeia]

easy to forget but book jon snow is great actually. he gets so drunk he cries in his first chapter. he's 16 years old and laser focused on loan negotiation. he keeps getting promoted against his will. he's the chosen fantasy protagonist with the worst genre awareness ever. he implements pro immigration social reforms. he has a giant albino pet wolf. he cuts a guy's head off. he thinks he invented cunnilingus. he's been dead for 15 years.

[visenyaism]

this is gonna get me put on a list somewhere but if Rhaenyra and Daenerys could have met they would not end that interaction as friends Rhaenyra would be putting Daenerys in the SJW cringe compilation

[visenyaism]

this is such a good way of putting it she has no family and everything she knows about their legacy was from viserys who was romanticizing everything to cope and NOT a reliable source so dany is running around saying things like i must be like my ancestors and end slavery. because she just does not know

[visenyaism]

These are all so good

[visenyaism]

Under no circumstances do you have to hand it to Rhaegar Targaryen. however. Clapping the traumatized 17 yr old nepo intern knight you are leaving as sole protector of your wife and kids against your certifiably insane father the king in the middle of a civil war you caused that you are losing on the shoulder and going “well sport, i’m gonna be honest. I’m starting to get the feeling that some of this…is bad. and I prob should’ve changed things a while ago but I forgot to get around to it (oopsie daisy) anyway we’ll fix it when I get back” has got to be one of the funniest things to say before immediately dying in said civil war and leaving said intern with the dilemma of regicide or atomization-by-wildfire

[visenyaism]

First Democrat Targaryen

[alayne-stones]

my favorite genre of asoiaftwt

[visenyaism]

okay discourse over we’ve settled it now

[branwinged]

my one and only sansa opinion i think is that everyone within the story who has repeatedly told her that she's stupid and wrong to have dreams and want good things for herself, then made this 'naivety' out to be the reason for her victimisation by the selfish ambitions of men and women around her and the readers who interpret her character like this, are wrong. that is, i don't accept the premise of a young girl being punished for her innocence and idealism and said qualities being something that needs to be crushed to give birth to a more hardened mindset because the world is a cruel place etc. like that message might belong in a nihilistic series but asoiaf is not that. sansa to me, is a character defined by her idealism and that needs to be cherished. i don't want her to end the series as a skilled player of 'the game' or as a schemer or a stone cold competent manipulator or whatever, i want littlefinger to be proven wrong. when he told her yes, it's all lies and lies and lies (except for you and me of course!) and that she was wrong to dream of a better world. he was lying.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

knowing that the past tense of "hang" is "hanged" when it's a method of execution can be very entertaining because you'll be watching a horror movie and someone goes "local legend says a woman was hung in these woods" and you're like "👀 good for her I guess"

[intrepid-fictioneer-7]

One of the funniest passages in ASOIAF:

[scredgirl]

“I am Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the Rock, the rightful queen of these Seven Kingdoms, trueborn daughter of Tywin Lannister. And hair grows back.” 

[ static version ]

[visenyaism]

house of the dragon season 3 predictions (important)

Jake plot: going to doggy heaven. Unavoidable.

Corlys Alyn and Adam plot about the festering resentment of finally meeting your highborn father only when all his legitimate heirs are dead and he wants to turn you and your baby brother into weapons of war: not nearly enough

Aegon plot: larys I wish I was a girl

Aemond plot: ser Criston I don’t know what you’re talking about this woman seems perfectly normal to me. Anyways would you like any of the weirwood ghb she gave me I find it quite calming. Am I the messiah. I’m never going back to kings landing btw. Also everything needs to be on fire right nowwwwwwwww

Helaena plot: the prophecy dagger is telling me that war is bad. And also that it’s time to look real sad out the window for 5-6 episodes before it’s time to die. Oh well

Daemon plot:

Baela plot: looking very sad on screen to the left at jakey’s funeral :/

Rhaena plot: idk but I am sure will get mad about the nettles of it all regardless

Criston plot: how quickly do I have to st. sebastian martyr myself for the cause afterwards to redeem myself for the sin of being a deadbeat pseudostepdad and also doing hand stuff with my queen’s knight brother on the road. Anyway why are the trees howling all of a sudden

Alicent plot: Rhaenyra war is baddddd this isn’t you🥺also can yuo put that out on me can we run away together this can still work. Don’t call mysaria back

Rhaenyra in King’s Landing Plot:

[visenyaism]

the whole point of the Kingsguard is that they’re unbelievably fucking washed like zero heroic deeds on the board just morning noon night overtime fraud aura farming. Complicit in every act of patriarchal violence of the monarchy. Not even that good at fighting. Hypothetical victories only. Like “noooo Arthur Dayne would’ve—” except Arthur Dayne lay down his life to stop a pregnant 15 year-old dying in childbirth from seeing her big brother on her deathbed and then got fucking hosed by teenage Ned Stark and his gay best friend who does not hit 5 foot two. “Ohhhhhh aemon the dragonknight” kept his sister in that damn cage for decades and then died in the service of his brother which is dickrider behavior. Bystanderan Selmy? Washed.

[ynnu-64]

cross my heart and hope to die

[jonsawilldanceanon]

I made it to the North for you.

[ladystoneshart]

cat wanting to give ned another child is very in character but also soooo insane when you think about it like girl this is WESTEROS the childbirth death capital of the universe you've beaten the odds 5 times already do you really want to risk it again???? you guys don't even remember rickon exists half of the time I promise you don't need another kid please calm down 😭

[chickren]

the whole brienne deserves better than jaime thing is hilarious in a canon context, especially when people frame it as if it's a result of a self-esteem problem or deliberately choosing unattainable men or whatever. because she canonically rejects two suitors who actively want to marry her, beating one to a pulp and threatening to geld the other. she's like i want the hottest man in a hundred mile radius or i'll die alone actually

[chickren]

shallow brienne with a high value man checklist

[maranwood-deactivated20260602]

“Jory brought us here once, to fish for trout. You and me and Jon. Do you remember?” ...“I didn’t catch anything,” Bran said, “but Jon gave me his fish on the way back to Winterfell. Will we ever see Jon again?”

– Bran & Jon sketch

[weirwoodwed]

“..but Jon was done with denials. He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless and damned.”

— Jon Snow [ comm by Paola Pieretti ]

[drbigsadbabymd-blog]

One of the things that really bothered me about the erasure of Nettles as a character from Season 2 of House of the Dragon is the fact that it murdered one of the best possible plot points they could have done.

[Warning: Fire & Blood book spoilers]

I always really liked the idea that Rhaenyra's eventual hostility towards Nettles is motivated by the discovery that Nettles has no actual blood ties to Valyria; she's just a regular-degular commoner who bonded with a dragon by stumbling her way into a crude form of blood magic with all those sheep she'd been feeding Sheepstealer.

This revelation, that any random schlub can technically become a dragonrider and that it isn't something determined by Targaryen blood alone, would pose a massive threat to the concept of Targaryen supremacy. Their monopoly on these biological superweapons is the foundation upon which they justify and maintain their rule. Furthermore, Nettles' identity as a dragonrider not only poses a threat to the concept of Targaryen divine right, it poses a threat to the feudal system as a whole. You cannot have the peasantry finding out they can become gods among men, that everyone's places in life aren't predetermined by bloodlines and gods. It'll upend society.

So Rhaenyra is obviously anxious to be rid of this threat to her power, but her actions are misinterpreted through a lens of misogyny by the old septons and maesters who document history, dismissing it as "Oh Rhaenyra was fat and 30, she must've been jealous of the hot younger woman her husband obviously preferred, chicks be petty like that". That kind of misogyny has plagued Rhaenyra her entire life, it'd be ironic if the Westerosi scholar class inadvertently did a cover-up of this insanely devastating information because they just couldn't see past their own sexism.

All of this would be so fucking thematically on point for the ASOIAF universe, it would've been SO interesting...but then the showrunners replaced her with a pre-existing character from Valyrian dragonrider nobility.

It's indicative of a lack of foresight, understanding of the source material, imagination, etc. that doesn't bode well for the series. Such a bummer.

[drbigsadbabymd-blog]

God, I didn't even touch on how Nettles would've been a fantastic way to explore the failings of White Liberal Girlboss Feminism.

So far we've had Alicent Hightower embodying the Internalized Misogyny Pick-Me while Rhaenyra is characterized as the Strong Woman Challenging Patriarchy. Within that limited framing, we're obviously supposed to view Rhaenyra as the hero. Hell, Rhaenyra sees herself as the underdog hero because of this framing.

But Nettles fucks that framing up. The moment a common born woman of color's power potentially threatens Rhaenyra's privileged position, she's suddenly extremely ready to crush her to maintain the status quo.

And then Rhaenyra weaponizes the misogyny of the scholar class to cover up the reality of the situation. She's rejected sexist Westerosi gender norms her entire life, but now she's happy to embrace them as long as it benefits herself, like "Ah you know me, I'm just a petty jealous lady, I'm just a girl, I couldn't possibly be eradicating a massive threat to the deeply inequitable hierarchy that grants my family immeasurable power haha ah jeez"

She's basically the Shiv Roy of Westeros.