"Even GRRM never wrote parent/child incest. They've gone too far."
Crastor's Keep
Tywin watching his son Tyrion rape Tysha
Aegon IV possibly taking a daughter as one of his mistresses
I understand why people are more squicked by parental incest than any other form of incest because of the inherent imbalance and abuse of power a parent can have over a child (and how a parent-child relationship is held up as more "sacred" than other familial relationships). But I don't think the HotD writers are "going too far" when parental incest has in fact been used in the source material to portray a character as uniquely twisted and depraved. They're using a tool that's already in the source material's toolbox.
Not to sound like a broken record talking about nomadic v settled lifestyles in HOTD, but an interesting dynamic that has come of the Daemon-Harrenhal sideplot is between him, the castle, and Alys and Ser Simon Strong, is what they represent as manifestations of the Neolithic agrarian revolution.
Daemon’s time at Harrenhal is spent oscillating between the two factions. Simon represents the foundations of a settled society. He dictates Daemon’s waking hours and daily schedule (against his will), keeps him tied to his political duties, and goes so far as to impel Daemon to guarantee the longevity of Harrenhal by commencing its reconstruction - affirming a settled and regulated lifestyle.
On the flip side Alys represents nomadic life, occupying the halls of the castle much like a ‘ghost’, only affecting circumstance through cerebral happenstances, whilst also showing a marked affection for the natural world and ancient natural structures (Wierwoods), and repeatedly identifies with the natural world via totemism (calling herself a barn owl). She is the history of Westeros and the First Men made manifest, and personifies a nomadic lifestyle which has been lost to to the regions south of the Wall.
By having Daemon constantly tossed between Ser Simon and Alys - settled and nomadic, polytheism versus paganism, agriculture versus shepherding, he occupies a liminal space and is caught between the refractions of history, and through his tumultuous residence, is implicitly drawn to question the true strength of monarchy, settled lifestyles, and all forms of contemporary power structures; for Alys, and her associated phantasmagorical neolithic ways, are clearly established to have had a far more substantial and cerebral impact on Daemon’s psyche. This is substantiated by his being shown to feel conflict and guilt over his perpetuation of Targaryen ethnocentric incest, his failure to fulfill his duties to his faction (be it the Blacks or his children/wife), amongst others, following his arrival at Harrenhal, suggesting that through her presence as an all-encompassing totem of nomadic conducts, his deep-rooted pride in Targaryen legacy, “the establishment” and all things modern, rapidly unwinds.
No honestly this is the most intelligent HOTD close reading post I have read in the godforsaken tags in the longest time, I'm tired of team stanning and media illiterate people complaining about what on earth is happening to their fantasies of people who are, first and foremost, historical characters that GRRM has already established as portrayed flawed by an unreliable history book.
The one thing I have sincerely realized and hated about at least half of the HOTD fandom here in Tumblr ever since Season 2 started is how media illiterate they are and how they're taking the worst of the Star Wars fandom mentality of "muh fanfic muh fantasy muh canon" instead of, you know, engaging with the argument based on its own terms and then maybe propose an appropriate counternarrative instead of "they ruined"
Every goddamn time. It is almost as if fandom is a fucking mistake.
I doubt H*laemond will be anything romantic since the actors themselves said they were confused at how far the theories went. But then again the slightest interactions between them will be enough to fuel shippers fantasies lol
It's kind of funny seeing that scene last night and how Helaena looked at him with utter contempt, her little fists all clenched up. She knows what that bitch did to their brother.
Truly a shame they got rid of Helaena being a brilliant dragon rider. Because Dreamfyre was big. She was slightly bigger than Vermithor. She wasn't a war dragon, but could definitely do some serious damage. A whole Aemond vs Helaena plot would have been fascinating. Helaena being determined to not let this monster take anything else from her. Aemond not wanting to hurt her but he wouldn't hesitate to get her out of his way if he has too.
i remember adults telling me, as a kid, to listen to doctors and get my flu vaccine and any shots i could because they remembered Before.
then they started fighting Covid precautions.
i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that the ozone was disappearing and the earth was dying and we needed to recycle and save the planet.
now my parents think climate change is a myth.
i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that racism was a plague, that we had to love and accept everyone, that we should never judge before walking a mile in their shoes.
then they told me that protesting for my Black siblings was wrong.
i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that we needed to give to the poor. working at soup kitchens. making quilts. collecting food and money and supplies. building houses. because it was the christian and just plain right thing to do.
now they look at me, on food stamps with their grandchildren, and lament the "welfare state".
i remember adults telling me, as a kid, that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and that any rich man, especially an immoral one, should never run our country.
you can guess who they voted for.
i remember adults telling me, as a kid, so very much.
I remember adults telling me, as a kid that girls can be equal to boys in all fields including athletics. Now, they consider girls to be delicate flowers who could never hope to compete against boys.
Shogun really came out today with Episode 6 and said "we are coming for House of the Dragon's 'ex-besties turned rival and war crimes' throne this year" (no dig on HOTD btw, I am fully subscribed to both)
Also: I am here to once again uncritically say that Fumi Nikaido is everything I expected her to be in this role and more--and amazingly it's even more explicitly sympathetic to what would make the historical Chacha/Yodo as ambitious and grasping as she tends to be in other fiction.
One of my first (but hopefully not last) contributions to the emerging trivia on Shôgun:
Lady Ochiba / Ruri, the mother of the Taiko's heir Yaechiyo, is based on Lady Yodo/Chacha (1569-1615), niece to Oda Nobunaga and second spouse of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. We see her here as the primary moving force shoring up her son's position and the patron of Toranaga's rival Ishido.
Fumi Nikaido as Lady Ochiba, Shôgun, 2024
What makes the casting of this one very interesting is that Fumi Nikaido has played the actual role of Yodo/Chacha in a similar period production, the 2014 NHK taiga drama Gunshi Kanbei (which was primarily about Kuroda Kanbei, the strategist of Hideyoshi played by Junichi Okada).
Fumi Nikaido as Yodo, Gunshi Kanbei, 2014
While there's enough hype for Toranaga (especially as he is portrayed by public favorite and producer Hiroyuki Sanada--rightfully so), I wish to highlight Fumi Nikaido's return to this role as it does help highlight the differences between how Lady Yodo is portrayed in fiction. (It does help that we have no shortage of it now--even if it's mostly in videogames like Samurai Warriors, Sengoku Basara or the more historically-faithful Nioh).
The material we have of Lady Ochiba so far is of a proud, haughty, even disrespectful woman--and perhaps it's not exactly far off from how Chacha is portrayed even in Japanese media. To some extent, even Gunshi Kanbei conceded to this especially in the episodes I'm referring with this photo--what with it precisely being the moment Yodo is fearing coming to pass. A mother seeking to protect her son's patrimony (and by extension, her agency and regency), it's a universal trope in feudal drama. What Shôgun does not give her yet (but Gunshi Kanbei took pains to establish) is the recognition that she is as much a victim of the warring era, turning her into a self-loathing monster only able to survive trying to make sense of it all, and maybe recover their agency in it. Clavell rightfully gave it to his main focus character, Lady Mariko (played very layered and well by Anna Sawai compared to her more recent outings--herself based on Hosokawa Gracia).
It truly amazes me that 10 years has yet to make much of a difference for Fumi Nikaido and this role. The woman whose position at the top was only made possible by misery and her playing by the cruel game of chaos, she portrays both versions with the edge, anxiety and palpable will of a woman who's lost everything before and is at the doorstep of losing them again.
Tokyo 2022 Pre-Conf. Day -1: Finding Shibuya After this morning's technical rehearsal, what we mostly have here are photos of me taking the transpo across Shinjuku City to Shibuya City, which isn't really much. I should perhaps thank being exposed to the Nagoya train system for 2 years that the confusion and congestion of Tokyo underground is no longer too intimidating to me. (The one thing perhaps I can say is that when it comes to the casual fashion of the youth and regular commuters I am following, clearly *Jujutsu Kaisen* wasn't exactly exaggerating.) That being said, today isn't specifically about aimless wandering. We actually managed to squeeze in two major sites for this afternoon before I went back to hotel, to be shared separately. Also: it is perhaps an indication of my continued looking for the familiar that the one moment I found a Shakey's, I immediately sat down and gobbled it for dinner. (at Shibuya City) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClV3IdSpE5v4fZWwnI-8jicKRVC9SR1VtLUMQc0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
The Road to PSCJ 2022 Tokyo: Pre-Event Day -2 Today's holiday (Labor Thanksgiving Day) became a good opportunity to travel to Tokyo and maximize my stay (not only for conferences, but actually seeing the area). Sadly, the rain doesn't let up as per forecast, so much of the road trip is staying in the bus and watching prepackaged shows. (Who knew watching French historical drama is very doable when you're stuck inside a bus.) So, once again, I land in a Shinjuku drenched with rain and unceasing billboard lights. I know there are recent conversations about how Japan is not (and should not) be defined by its continued usage in cyberpunk sci-fi settings, but considering it was most likely born in Shinjuku it is inevitable. We just need to make sure we don't catch any cold or illness here. We have a purpose after all. (at 歌舞伎町) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClTQOPOJH7oIiuCLgN-HGA_v9dxw_boeR-IhZk0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
The opportunity to binge #KamenRiderBlackSun came to me the past weekend and I finished it today.
The series is an unapologetic attack and commentary on contemporary Japanese societal issues, the undercurrents of #unseenjapan that #cooljapan probably tried to paper over throughout the Olympics and decades of LDP rule, and it just grew keener with the assassination of Shinzo Abe and the near-interminable desire to demand change in a society unable to accept it. It is an attempt at portraying, through fiction, that Japan is more multicultural than it tends to see itself, it is harming its soul by denying that, and it deserves better by listening to its youth, and it better do so before they swallow them and their most vulnerable.
Perhaps it is inevitable that this will be another battleground in the role of political commentary/applicability especially when it is appearing in long-running franchises. This is currently the biggest dilemma of franchises like the ones owned by Disney (Marvel and Star Wars), not to mention fantasy (the recent tussles between House of the Dragon and The Rings of Powder for ex.). The fact that *Kamen Rider Black Sun* is in Amazon Prime further highlights this. And yet if Japanese fiction can begin coming to terms with contemporary issues through the medium of its classical heroes (the way *Shin Godzilla* and *Shin Ultraman* already did, not to mention *Shin Kamen Rider* will do soon again), why not this way?
It is a testament that *Black Sun*, based off *BLACK*, probably the most successfully exported Kamen Rider before the Heisei period, is the best way to do this unbridled revisioning. (I personally grew up on BLACK on IBC13 in the Philippines.) This series speaks not only to the child who grew up with Kotaro Minami/Kuya Robert, but to the man, scholar & advocate I grew up as.
This is an unrivalled opportunity to revisit how Kamen Rider stories are told, what kind of storytelling the original creator Shotaro Ishinomori is interested in, and what can heroism possibly mean in a post-nuclear, heavily polarized and infuriating time. It is finding your lines, those who will hold your hands and back, and passing them on.
I have this theory (idk if thats the right word) about House of the Dragon and Fire and Blood and House Velaryon.
Its established in Fire and Blood that this book is an in universe historical account told by collecting different accounts to create a complete timeline of events. However we also know that all these narrators and contributors are unreliable and biased. We also know that they are all white men.
However the TV show, we are told is the actual true account of what happened. We are watching the story as it unfolds that Gyldayn is trying to piece together many many years later. This is why book to show changes actually have an in universe reason. Details get lost to history.
But there’s also this interesting social commentary I’m starting to notice more and more with the changes the show has made from the book in how it adds dimension to female characters that wasn’t there before. Rhaenyra and Alicent genuinely loved each other. Their falling out was more than just about two petty girls in want for power. Alicent is more than just an archetypal evil step mom, actually she was the same age as Rhaenyra and forced to seduce a old man for her father’s ambition. These are the actual stories of women who to the in universe audience of Fire and Blood have been villianized by history because one dimensional, hyper emotional, shrewdly ambitious is how many men see women. And history is written by men.
History then is also written by white people. And white people white washing history to make them the center? Thats unheard of! So I present this idea about the race difference between HotD and F&B. House Velaryon was always black, and ok maybe by the time of Robert’s Rebellion generations had gone by and they weren’t noticeably melanated, but this was always what House Velaryon looked like during the Dance. However white people gonna white people (real or fictitious) and so when retelling this even they retold the story of the Velaryons as white.
I think that would be realistic and sad parallel for real life and how white our history has been made to be.
House of the Dragon’s “White Hart”: A History Lesson
TL:DR: the usage of the White Hart is a blending of both European and Asian symbologies of monarchy. It’s very fun to unpack.
Quick note for everyone in here: Fire and Blood did not have this plot point. The White Hart only ever appeared in the first two books of ASOIAF as an alleged magical creature within Westeros. However, using the White Hart as a symbol is harkening back to hundreds of years of medieval warfare--especially considering the Ice and Fire franchise owes a lot to English medieval history.
First, for the English reference: the White Hart has notable royal heritage. To quote its Wikipedia page it was:
“... the personal badge of Richard II... In the Wilton Diptych (National Gallery, London), which is the earliest authentic contemporary portrait of an English king, Richard II wears a gold and enamelled white hart jewel, and even the angels surrounding the Virgin Mary all wear white hart badges.
Pretty straightforward, right? However, this gets additional layers when you take into account the personal history of King Richard II.
Richard II was a fore-runner in his time within the Plantagenet dynasty for culturally and politically asserting the idea of divine right--centuries even before James VI of Scotland wrote about it in his The True Law of Free Monarchies. There’s a reason William Shakespeare devoted the first play of his Major Tetralogy/Henriad to him, if only because the deposition of this king (however bad or inadequate he may be) poses massive questions regarding the justice or necessity of kingly rule altogether--if overmighty subjects can overthrow a king, what do we need a king for?
If overmighty subjects can overthrow a king, what do we need a king for? Is this not, indeed, the ultimate fate of House Targaryen? If one minor house such as the Hightowers can pervert and creep upon their authority--what does prevent other Houses from trying so? What prevents a Great House from subsequently asserting its claim--either of independence or the Iron Throne itself? The Storm Kings that descended into House Baratheon and the Stark Kings of Winter already gave us the answer in Game of Thrones.
But we go further. Let’s return to Richard II and the White Hart--and more importantly, how he turned into a tangible symbol of his political power--even at the expense of the unifying rule of the monarchy. See the Wilton Diptych:
The angels here are shown wearing the badge of the White Hart. As it happens, the White Hart was also recorded to be the livery badge of an armed man serving Richard II directly. Livery badges became identifiers of loyalty to a lord or knightly household retaining a fighting man for their services--in contrast to the traditional “feudal ideal” of land, lord and serf.
This informs Shakespeare’s own creative turn of phrase in the play:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord.
For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
God for His Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.
--- Richard II, II.3.55-63.
Armed service and knightly duty, therefore, is now equated to financial pay, not traditional values. To once again quote from Wikipedia:
These were badges in various forms made for a leading figure bearing his personal device, and given to others who would demonstrate by wearing them that they were in some way his employees, retainers, allies or supporters. They were especially common in England in the age of "bastard feudalism" from the mid-fourteenth century until about the end of the fifteenth century, a period of intense factional conflict which saw the deposition of Richard II and the Wars of the Roses.
The Diptych is therefore an artistic representation of Richard II’s megalomaniacal assumption of royal authority: he is not only king by right of men, but also by God--to the point that angels themselves are under his personal pay--the very definition of bastard feudalism. This referred to the phenomenon of standing armies maintained not in service to the realm, but to the highest bidder--the very phenomenon that sustained and won House Lannister its hegemony (at great cost) during the War of the Five Kings. We are given a more plain yet apt description of it by Robert Baratheon himself:
Robert Baratheon : Which is the bigger number, five or one?
Cersei Lannister : Five.
Robert Baratheon : [holds up his left fingers] Five... [clutches his right fist] ... one. One army, a real army, united behind one leader with one purpose. Our purpose died with the Mad King. Now we've got as many armies as there are men with gold in their purse, and everybody wants something different...
There is some irony, perhaps, in that the very symbol used in the real-life perversion of unifying monarchy is the one used to highlight the purity and royal majesty of the pre-Conquest kingship(s) of Westeros. However, there’s another straightforward usage of the idea of the “symbolic beast showing itself to the rightful ruler of the realm”.
Enter the Japanese kirin / Chinese qilin ( 麒麟 ).
The kirin is more like a mystical hodgepodge creature, not unlike an East Asian dragon. However, it is a matter of traditional folklore that the kirin is supposedly only shown to a strong warrior or ruler who promises to eventually unite a torn realm.
This very plot point pops up in a number of Japanese popular fiction involving the notorious Warring States/Sengoku Period of Japan--from something as straightforward as the 2020 NHK Taiga Drama Awaiting Kirin (Kirin ga Kuru), which portrays the tragic dream of the Ashikaga Shogunate and Akechi Mitsuhide to return to samurai valor--much as it is faced by the growing ambition of the relative upstart Oda Nobunaga...
... and even as family-friendly a franchise as Pokemon Conquest (where you seek to capture Arceus, the God of the Pokemon universe and the most kirin-like of all of then to unite a pastiche nation of the Sengoku Period in the Pokemon Universe).
All of this, then, once again casts the wasted pursuit of Viserys I and Rhaenyra’s effortless encounter with the Westerosi White Hart in greater symbolic light.
Practically the whole realm supports--and perverts--the process of the hunt in order to hand and guarantee that Viserys I will capture and kill the White Hart as a symbolic good omen for his newfound male “heir” Aegon II. Yet all they have to show for it is killing a base (albeit still impressive) brown deer. Viserys can’t even kill it with own strength of body--failing, faltering, necrotic and overdrunk as he already is.
Rhaenyra, after having a night of adventure with Criston Cole and proving that they are both worthy people, not just by the titles they were granted (Princess of Dragonstone and Knight of the Kingsguard), but by their own skills, encounter the White Hart for themselves. They have just proven themselves as capable hunters (if not even better), yet they eventually decide the better of it and let this majestic beast go. They respect the omen and their connection with the Realm. Their encounter with this beast of omens shows to us, the viewers, that they are perhaps to symbolically and emotionally attach to.
And yet, all the same, we are reminded of the gut punch: this is not medieval England. This is not Sengoku Japan. This is not real life, history or current. This is Westeros--where the worthiest are not granted power save what they can scrounge for themselves. Where the best intentions and attempts at peacemaking (even that of the still-kindly but increasingly-caught in the middle Alicent) are not rewarded with gratitude. Where the crows will feast on corpses because the high lords play their game of thrones. This is the Westeros at the eve of the Dance of the Dragons--where armies bought by the gold and steel of great houses will fight and die and burn in the name of loyalty to two competing claimants--one of whom was once the Realm’s Delight. Yet this still-hopeful princess is forced to go up against a realm that Rhaenys Targaryen aptly said would “sooner put itself to the torch” than accept a woman’s rule.
This is not real life. But it is a mirror of the ugly histories of men, of feudalism and the world that took us centuries to move away from, and yet still seem to be enthralled by in our fantasies that we inadvertently bring them back to the real world.
Jason Lannister gives me the impression that he has Tywin’s position and sense of politics, a dab of Jaime’s charisma, a touch of Cersei’s sense of flair and Tyrion’s Season 1-3 seedy sketchiness. I can definitely see this man being the ancestor to all of them.
I did not expect this crossover hahaha
Seriously, if they existed in the same universe I don’t think they might even stand a chance against handsome creepo Kirigan
There’s so much to be said about this episode (not to mention the significant badass upgrade Laenor Velaryon got here compared to the source material), but my real question is:
Since this is the first proper look we had of Seasmoke, is it just me or is this the first dragon that looks actually related to Daenerys’s dragons? Seasmoke’s body shape basically looks like a leaner, more eagle-like Drogon. I was under the impression that Daenerys’s dragons were descended from another (Dreamfyre’s, unless I am mistaken).
