[eddardism]

my favourite thing about asoiaf is how it refuses to let you hate characters in a vacuum like yes they commit terrible wrongs but the narrative also hands you their reasons the grief the hunger, the fear the warped love that make those wrongs human it doesn’t justify them it doesn’t erase the harm but it complicates it in a way that feels so painfully real grrm is basically like here’s humanity in all its contradictions now sit with it and i think that’s weirdly so beautiful

[eddardism]

theonweek day 1 identity

thinking abt theon greyjoy as one of grrm’s most devastating studies in identity like he’s not just a “turncloak” he’s a man in an identity freefall theon’s whole existence is built on contradiction he’s both hostage and ward, both stark and greyjoy, both prince and prisoner and when the world collapses, so does the scaffolding of who he thought he was.

the “turncloak” moment isn’t betrayal as much as it is a reaction, a desperate, feral attempt to pick a self to belong somewhere but the tragedy is he betrays the starks to prove he’s greyjoy, and the greyjoys reject him anyway identity as a loop with no exit

then “reek” god reek the reek persona isn’t just imposed by ramsay it’s theon’s final surrender the man who once tried to perform belonging now performs survival “reek, it rhymes with weak” the inverse of theon’s old arrogance he was never weak until he had to be omg

and yet, there’s this hope, this slow, painful reclamation when he starts calling himself “theon” again it’s not the return of the old self, it’s the birth of a new one not stark or greyjoy, but something in-between a fractured, liminal identity that finally belongs to himself

like idk maybe theon’s arc is about what happens when you’re made to live in the gap between two names and maybe the most radical thing he ever does isn’t choosing one it’s realizing he can be both, even broken he’s the boy who was both prisoner and traitor, lord and ghost, victim and villain and somehow, all those eras coexist theon’s identity isn’t linear; it’s shattered glass that somehow still reflects a face

[eddardism]

thinking abt ser lyonel baratheon in a knight of the seven kingdoms and how he’s just so baratheon like he’s laughing mid-charge, knocking guys off horses for sport, decapitating heraldic symbols just to yeet them into the crowd that’s baratheonism that’s the genetic blueprint

he literally joins a sacred, once-in-a-century trial of seven not out of piety or justice or even politics just bc some random egg child poured wine on his head and he thought, “lol. sounds fun would annoy a prince i’m in”

stannis baratheon could never (affectionate) stannis wishes he had that kind of clownish divine spark lyonel is baratheonism distilled pure thunder in human form, no ideology, just vibes omg

[eddardism]

reading the hedge knight and you're telling me that ser duncan the tall is only seventeen??? he should've been at the club💔

[eddardism]

do you read fanfic at all? apologies if this is rather forward but I'm writing a "Ned survives execution and goes to the Watch" fic that very much matches a lot of what you find fascinating in Ned, that's an exploration of his fossilised grief and his commitment to his vows and honour and his inability to look at the truth when it is most painful as a coping mechanism, and explores his relationship with Jon in particular. Very much a character study that's interested in exploring Ned in more depth, in a new and painful situation. Let me know if that's something you'd like to read and I can link you :)

oh god i would absolutely love to read that!!! you're a genius for coming up with such a painfully beautiful idea <3 please please do link your fic!!!!

[weirwoodwed]

“A snowflake danced upon the air. Then another. Dance with me, Jon Snow, he thought. You'll dance with me anon.”

ac: My comm, art done by @cj-k [Cj_KhalifP on twitter] !!

[eddardism]

what made you love ned lol i don't think i have seen a dedicated ned blog

literally everything about ned is what makes me love him??? #haha like he’s the most classically tragic figure in asoiaf a man whose virtues (honor, loyalty, integrity) are also his fatal flaws he’s repressed to the point of silence, carrying the weight of his father + brother’s deaths, lyanna’s loss, a war he never asked for, and suddenly a lordship that was never meant to be his… and still his first instinct is always love, always family the way he tries so hard to reconcile his principles with the ugliness of politics and fails not because he was stupid but because he was too human, too good that’s peak literature to me he breaks my heart and that’s why i’ll defend him forever🥀

[ivorysansa]

a game of thrones, george r.r. martin.

[souryam]

fav wolf girlie

[delphianactuallydoodling]

Ned & Cat Stark (2025)

[eddardism]

thinking about theon greyjoy always feels like pressing on a bruise that never heals!!! this passage in adwd where he remembers arya remembers sansa remembers the “child’s fancy” of being bound to the starks not as their hostage but as their kin it’s self destructing bc you see the truth of it he wanted so badly to belong he was raised as a greyjoy in name but grew up under the shadow of winterfell desperate to graft himself into a family that could never fully be his a boy ripped from one identity denied the other and forced to hover in the liminal space between

and that’s why the whole “prince of winterfell” arc cuts so deep (TO ME) it should have been everything he ever wanted the castle the title the power but the crown felt hollow the stones cold because winterfell without robb without the family that gave it meaning was never really his the betrayal wasn’t just political it was an act of self-mutilation theon severing his one real chance at belonging in order to prove himself to a father who didn’t love him either

so when he remembers sansa as “the pretty one” and imagines himself as ned’s son-in-law you just ache for him that little boy in the halls of winterfell who dreamed of being chosen of being loved is still inside him he never stopped being that child never stopped craving what he couldn’t have the tragedy is that in trying to prove he wasn’t a stark he ended up proving that he had always been one in the only way that mattered in his heart \</3

[eddardism]

this cersei line in affc is so telling ppl always flatten her into ‘she sees her children as extensions of herself’ but honestly? that’s the wrong mirror it’s JAIME she can’t separate from she doesn’t just see him as close she sees him as herself

he’s her double her missing half the proof she exists outside the cage patriarchy forced her into the tragedy is that while her kids can individuate jaime can’t not in her eyes he’s not an extension so much as an annexed piece of her identity and when he starts to slip away the ground beneath her collapses

[prongsfass]

Haven’t drawn Jaime in years

[eddardism]

“and me, that boy i was ... when did he die, i wonder? when i donned the white cloak? when i opened aerys's throat? that boy had wanted to be ser arthur dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the smiling knight instead.”

[eddardism]

yes ned stark didn’t have a sneaky political bone in his body but i’ll die on the hill that he wasn’t dumb for confronting cersei about the incest he had the upper hand he was hand of the king his honor carried weight and most importantly ROBERT would’ve 100% believed him over cersei the only reason it collapsed wasn’t some ‘ned didn’t play the game of thrones’ thing it was because robert inconveniently died at the worst possible moment blame the boar not ned lol it was actually his empathy for the children that led him to make this decision

[everayy]

reading adwd for the first time and the lost lord is one of the most upsetting asoiaf chapters i’ve read so far. joncon’s story is essentially not his story, right. it’s the story of the son of the man he loved, and also, ultimately, a story about hiding. joncon disguises himself, and faegon, lemore and tyrion—all for a greater purpose of getting young griff onto the iron throne. but we also see how he hides things that serve no purpose at all—save keeping him from being utterly alone. joncon’s story as a gay man is hinted subtly (as most queer identities in asoiaf are) but the lost lord does not shy away from how much he loved the men he’s lost (rhaegar and myles) and how much he feels responsible for both their deaths (despite it not really being his fault at all). it’s hard for him to deal with the impotence those tragedies project into him, so he takes control back by blaming himself. he can’t control who he loves, either. that ought to be his fault, too. and now he’s sick with a thing, an evil that’ll take control of his limbs and his lungs and his heart. utter madness as the fate for someone so adamant on affirming their control. that’s brutal. that’s insane.

greyscale as a disease usually reminds me much more of leprosy in terms of symptoms but in the specific context of jon connington’s story, the hiv allegory feels very intentional. how cruel to see griff blame himself for his lovers’ deaths. how monstrous to have him see the skull of a friend hanging from the walls when he knows he doesn’t have much time left. he counts the months and years. he grabs the pieces the men he loved left when they fell apart. two years. time enough to cross the sea. as myles toyne dreamt. maybe five. time enough to put rhaegar’s son upon the iron throne. some stone men live for ten. yeah, of course jon connington wears gloves. it’s the greyscale, no doubt. but also that he’s gay and angry and grieving. because he’s trying to bury every single one of these things down. it’s because rhaegar and myles and loss and loneliness, too. being surrounded by community and not really belonging to it

[eddardism]

aenys was basically begging maeagor to wife him up and honestly? targaryen history could’ve been way less bloody if they’d just leaned into the brother/brother marriage thing westeros undone by compulsory heterosexuality once again

[eddardism]

ned stark to his starklings