If I look back I'm lost @jonsknown - Tumblr Blog

I know I've complained at length before but it really bother me that Arya is a major character, to the point where she is the only one with a Pov in all of the books and has the most chapters out of all the female characters in the books, with both magical and political influences and foreshadowing but when it comes to theories for her character, the fandom completely draw a blank ?

I've been looking at theory videos and there almost nothing directly related to Arya's storyline (indirectly, there are a lot of things because she does have influence over the plot) and it's just makes me so sad, that girl has an army of wolves waiting for her in Westeros that she can command through Nymeria and nobody wants to talk about it ? Really ?

And to be fair, a lot of those theory videos and writing are about prophecies and Arya is not (as far as we know so far) part of any so she is kinda the wild card of Westeros. The person no one see coming (Arya Underfoot,quiet as a shadow).

But come on.. she can command an army of wolves,taugh herself to skinchange and warg a direwolf a continent away, has foreshadowing for Dragons all over the place and is the main point of view on Valyrian downfall because of where she is right now with the faceless men, communicated in some way with the weirwood trees in Harrenhal and his the main parallel to Lyanna, the girl who is part of the main tragic couple that is at the heart of the story.

Stop calling Arya "too far gone" and just give Arya something.

sereneioflys-deactivated2023050

SPOILERS FOR HOTD

according to viserys i, aegon dreamed of the war for the dawn and he called his dream ‘the song of ice and fire’, a prophecy that every targaryen king passes to his heir. when aegon was born, rhaegar did the exact thing every targaryen before him: ‘he has a song, his is the song of ice and fire’. what about prophecy obsession now, when it’s nothing more than your duty, to pass it onto the next generation? heeeheeeheeee

sereneioflys-deactivated2023050

BUT ALSO THE WAY RHAEGAR PASSED IT TO DANY THROUGH HER VISION, COULD THIS RELATIONSHIP BE EVEN MORE PERFECT???

imusthavefireinmyeyes

This. 😭😭😭😭

The fact that it was Rhaegar, instead of getting a vision of Aerys. The fact that she believes he LOOKS AT HER AT THE END AS HE SPEAKS.

FEELINGS 🥰🥰🥰🥰

jonsknown

Shivers down my spine

windmill-ghost

I’ve seen people pass around the “hold up, I’m googlin’ something” image but it cropped out the part where he was googling “how many guys can one guy take”

windmill-ghost

this page, in isolation, is possibly the funniest thing i have seen in any manga

tits-n-trix

jonsknown

ashstfu

being insane is just a part of my charm

aboveallarescuer-deactivated202

With so many different theories predicting Dany’s downfall and death, it can be easy to forget that, by successfully waking dragons out of stone, Dany was established as Azor Ahai Reborn/Prince that Was Promised, Drogo as her Nissa Nissa and the dragons as her Lightbringer. Also, as a result, the Fridged Woman trope was gender flipped; while the male protagonist’s female love interest is most often killed off for the sake of his development (the trope is even played straight with AA/NN to be contrasted with Dany/Drogo), in Dany’s story her husband is sacrificed to further her development and to allow her to save the world.

So, to bring attention to how GRRM played with the trope, I commissioned a fanart from @kill-a13 depicting Daenerys Targaryen literally driving a flaming sword through her husband. Some notes that I gave to the artist:

I asked them to show Lightbringer glowing with red and black flame (the color of the dragon that Dany ultimately rides) while Drogo is stabbed to represent the fact that the dragons (which are heavily implied to be Lightbringer; like the Red Sword of Heroes, they are drawn from the fire and described as “hot to the touch” and “a flaming sword above the world”) were born partly thanks to his sacrifice. Pretend that the flames are there.

I asked them to draw Dany wearing armor, just like in her dragon dream from AGOT Daenerys IX. In that scene, we’re primed to expect Rhaegar to be “the last dragon” wearing armor, but then Dany lifts the visor and sees herself instead. That moment breaks our expectations and is representative of Dany succeeding her brother and becoming a leader and a hero in her own right. So I thought it’d be fitting to have her wearing armor because both her dragon dream and this piece highlight her tendency to surpass her male relatives in everything.

I asked them to include the red comet (also unsubtly called the dragon’s tail) because it appears for the first time right before Dany lights the pyre and hatches her dragon eggs (making it extremely likely that it specifically heralds her rebirth amidst salt and smoke to wake dragons out of stone).

I asked them to draw dragon wings coming out of Dany’s back to symbolize her rebirth as the Mother of Dragons (“I know that somewhere out upon the grass her dragons hatched, and so did she”). I told them to paint them red because she’s “a true Targaryen”.

I asked them to show Dany looking unhappy because her husband entered a vegetative state for reasons outside of her control. Her decision to put him out of his misery was nowhere near as morally questionable as Azor Ahai sacrificing Nissa Nissa (in fact, even if 14-year-old Dany had planned to kill him, she would have been justified because she was his sex slave). Neither were the sacrifices of Rhaego and MMD; the former was murdered by MMD and the latter was executed like any noble would have done to punish their child’s murderer.

racefortheironthrone

When did historians and other chroniclers start using BC and AD (and by extension, BCE and CE)? How did they decide which year was Year 1 AD?

This is actually a really interesting question to answer.

Anno Domini wasn't invented until the 6th century, when Dionysius Exiguus came up with it to replace the Diocletian era because he didn't like a dating system that gave such a place to a Roman Emperor who had persecuted Christians.

It started to be used by historians in the 8th century, when the Venerable Bede used Anno Domini (and Before Christ) in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. At roughly the same time, the dating system was taken up by the Carolingian Empire, which wanted to differentiate itself from the dating systems used by the Byzantines.

We don't know how Dionysius Exiguus calculated Year 1 AD.

robotsarecoolaf

scorpius6689

Arya Stark and Daenerys Targaryen, knights of the Seven Kingdoms

Edit of that beautiful painting, "duality", by Indigo Jenar

melrosing

Ok I will certainly agree with those who claim ASOIAF depicts a hyper-patriarchy, like Westerosi society is in many ways more misogynistic and oppressive than any society it’s based on. and there’s a host of conversations to be had about that. But I’m so stumped by these twitter takes claiming asoiaf celebrates that kind of society?? That it’s just this cock fest where the worst of toxic masculinity is exhibited without criticism or contemplation? like!! come on!!!

practically every male POV in the gd series is wrestling with the masculine ideal, and losing. the closer they get to it the more it burns them - quite literally in Quentyn’s case. it’s his efforts to become the powerful man he thinks he ought to be that kills him. the same shit will happen to Victarion: his obsession with power and respect has only ever lost him those exact things. same shit has already happened to Theon, whose power struggle has left him practically the most powerless POV in the cast - his rise is in finding another way to be, outside of that ideal he once aspired to.

and in the men who have achieved it, the masculine ideal is repeatedly shown to be utterly hollow: Jaime realises that as the greatest swordsman in Westeros, he was only a hand - and all the more fragile for it. Robert’s prowess won him nothing but a crown he never really wanted, and as that prowess decays we see all the weaknesses he was hiding. Renly tries to take Robert’s place, and despite all the power he accumulates, all it does is make him more vulnerable to a brother with the same ambitions - and it scatters on impact. Tywin, who is thought of as eternal, who has dedicated his life to constructing and embodying the masculine ideal, is ultimately just as vulnerable as any other man, and trampling the son he always saw as the greatest insult to his image is precisely what kills him. and then there's Gregor, strongest man in the 7K, who is literally just lost in his own violence.

like the only way men survive this narrative is by abandoning their quests for the ideal, and their obsession with their own image and power and strength, and the whole game of fuckin thrones, and embracing a cause beyond them and their house. Sam’s arc isn’t to become the heir his father wanted, Jon’s isn’t to become the heir he never was, Theon’s isn’t to take his place as Balon’s, Jaime’s isn’t to take his place as Tywin’s. they are not meant to succeed to these roles, because nothing about this story suggests that the patriarchy is worth sustaining, or that the men who propelled it were worth being. and there is so much to say on this topic but you don’t get to join in if you have only seen game of thrones!!!

#Yes #the whole series of books is a critique to this society #and the biggest sin of the series is to neglect this #and play as if the game of thrones is the main plot it isnt #the game of thrones weaken the 7k #this ideal of men and power weaken the characters #got sucks