I have imagined voryn physically appearing in the mortal plane by first emerging from the heart itself, it reminded me of hatching imagery (like how divine vehk is born in their sermons) or insect metamorphosis
I gave voryn slight hint of insect wings to show his divinity and his tie to Lorkhan (also called The Scarab) as well as him obviously being the symbolic sixth house three-eyed beetle ((bug)))
I made the mask look different, because i think it originally belonged to (maybe) Kagnerac and resembled his own face, voryn changes it later, this has its own implications but i wont get into it
I read somewhere that theoretically its kind of plausible that the bones of voryns mortal body survived through the heat (becoming ceramic), i now realize it probably makes no sense and i dont know what im talking about, but hey again it just looks cool
Nerevars corpse in distress is self explanatory, sword hints at voryns retelling of events - that he was struck down by nerevar, i usually dont inform of why i put things in a piece, but i decided that this time i want to
one thing that's great about the song of ice and fire books is the way nobody ever knows what the fuck is going on. like somebody in a bar will be like "long live good king renly!" and somebody else will be like "oh he died. like a month ago. yeah lady catelyn stark stabbed him" and somebody else will be like "actually I heard he was stabbed by a shadow his brother fathered on a priestess" and a fourth person will be like "wait didn't renly literally just win the battle of king's landing last week" and then they're all like "well, whatever. long live good king whoever it is now. next round's on me"
the funniest one to me was when catelyn was having a sit down with stannis and renly and stannis was like "renly I don't care how cute you are, you are not the rightful heir 😤" and catelyn was like "um... neither are you? joffrey is next in the line of succession? we're all rebels here?" and stannis is like 👀 and renly is like "lol bro guess she didn't get your raven memo about all of cersei's kids being incest bastards" and catelyn is like "cersei's kids being what now"
This beautiful and, in a way, breathtaking (at least in my opinion) artwork has been in my mind in concept for at least a year, and has been beautifully brought to life by Liesl. I have always felt that there was an almost biblical element to Robb Stark’s arc and his betrayal, by Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, and most pointedly, Theon Greyjoy (though the latter was done with less malice, but then again, that is not a prerequisite to betrayal). Robb Stark is a young king with good intentions, wanting the best for his people, but whether from greed, a want for revenge, or a wish for belonging, he was killed. His murder in of itself was at the hands of Roose Bolton and Walder Frey’s men, but being that those men were not particularly close to Robb nor was the king fond of them, the impact of their betrayal comes mostly from the shock and gore of it all, as well as the disregard for the revered tradition of guest right. Roose Bolton and Walder Frey have a direct hand in Robb Stark’s death, but Theon Greyjoy’s betrayal of his self-proclaimed “brother” has an indirect part in it too (it is to be noted, when I say betrayal, I do not mean to imply that Theon owes loyalty to the Starks, the family that took him from his home as a boy; I am not of the opinion he does, but Theon describes his own actions as betrayal, for personal loyalty to Robb). It is a matter of debate if Theon would have been able to return to Robb without being intercepted by his father if he had chosen to try and warn his friend that the Ironborn were preparing to launch an attack instead of allying with the North. What is not up for debate is that Theon’s capture of Winterfell weakened the North and its morale, bringing into question how they should move forward. On a more personal level, Theon’s claim of having murdered Robb’s younger brothers, Bran and Rickon, was devastating to the young king. The grief was what inadvertently led Robb to sleep with and ultimately marry Jeyne Westerling. While the Freys likely would have tried to betray Robb at some point, if Robb had followed their plan to marry a Frey girl, he would have probably lived for some time, at least to ensure a Frey/Stark heir. Theon does not have full responsibility for all these acts, but his betrayal certainly weakened Robb. Robb and Theon were close as Jesus and Judas were, despite the “kings” being warned or otherwise knowing better. Judas betraying Jesus is more impactful than the other apostles, just as, in my opinion, Theon betraying Robb is more impactful than Roose and Walder doing the same. On a more general note, while Robb did not die on a literal cross, I do not find it to be a coincidence that he died at a dinner. Robb’s story likely is purposefully inspired by biblical elements, along with being informed by various other historical figures, which I will elaborate on below.
With the iconography in my commission, my intention was for the piece to contain iconography that could pass as something you could find either in a Bible from times past or a Westerosi history book. Liesl’s art is beautiful and too polished, given modern methods, to pass for something found in a medieval manuscript, but it does look like it could be a descendent of such a thing. Medieval art is too archaic for my liking so I had purposefully set out with this compromise in mind, and Liesl’s art style was the closest to my vision. The weirwood is specific to Westeros and the in-world religion of Robb, but the halo is more biblical in nature. My intention was not to portray Robb as perfect or pure-intentioned, certainly not as selfless as the Christian depiction of Jesus. The iconography is meant to be more saintly in nature. Saint is not synonymous with perfect, anyone who knows an extensive amount about saints knows that there are saints canonized that weren’t particularly good people in their lifetime. My particular inspiration was Edward the Martyr, king of England. Edward died at the age of 16 under guest right. He was killed by a group of guards, his own people, on his stepmother’s estate. His death, too, was described as Christ-like. Here is a quote from a recount of his death:
“Those magnates had agreed among themselves a wicked plot: they were possessed of so damnable an intention and so murky and diabolical a blindness, that they did not fear to lay hands on God's anointed. Armed men surrounded him on all sides… The venerable king had with him very few soldiers, since he did not suspect anyone, trusting "in the Lord and in the might of His power"… him — it was just as the Jews once surrounded our Lord… They were seized by a single madness, an equal insanity ... The soldiers laid hold of him: one on his right-hand side drew him towards him, as if he wished to give him a kiss; another grabbed his left side firmly and gave him the death blow.
I love the idea of Robb as a figure similar to Edward the Martyr. He is a boy-king, and not particularly religious or impressive in feats (though Robb, having bested Tywin thus far in the story, is significantly ahead of Edward in terms of his military). Their death is tragic and they are exceptional, not for being great men, but for being innocent children thrust into a role and then martyred. Thus their stories turn to legends and they are seen as holy or saint-like in nature. Though Robb worshipped the Old Gods, due to his maternal family’s legacy and beliefs, it is not all that far fetched he could have a cult dedicated to him or be revered by the Faith of the Seven later on in Westerosi history.
Concerning other symbolism, I will acknowledge that Robb’s youth is exaggerated here to drive home the point of him being little more than an innocent child. He has not grown his beard yet and he is dwarfed by his furs. His clothes are meant to intimidate, make him look regal and intimidating. But really, it makes him look like a kid. Theon is portrayed as an adult, five years Robb’s senior. He is not meant to be malicious and his love for Robb is not false. He still betrays him all the same, that’s the tragedy of it. Robb knows he is king, knows he should keep a distance from Theon, many have told him. But yet he is informal here, having removed his glove so Theon can hold him. Robb is not relaxed, but that is not due to a lack of affection or some sort of stiffness around Theon, but rather to create an effect of a dead boy walking, rigor-mortis. Theon’s clothes aren’t meant to have any symbolism about him. I looked at all sorts of biblical art and depictions of the Kiss of Judas to decide what colors I wanted Theon to wear. I saw a lot of reds and whites, but I didn’t like that for Theon. I saw gold as well, but we didn’t want to default to House colors as that is overdone. The result was giving Theon the most luxurious clothes possible. Black was an expensive color and velvet an expensive fabric. His garb is more expensive and showy than the King’s himself. That is because Theon is exceptionally vain and Robb is not. Theon has all sorts of jewelry and even has pearls on his boots. Who does that???? It’s so gaudy and impractical, I love it for Theon. The pearls will eventually fall off and he will have wasted a fortune, but Theon does not think about practicality like that. He is a guarded person decorating himself with bits and baubles to give himself some sort of purpose or comfort that is not there. He subconsciously wishes to trick people into thinking he is secure and has value, when he feels no sense of belonging anywhere. No wonder his father bullied him.
My endless thanks and gratitude to Liesl @shripscapi. I love your work and appreciate you. Everyone should follow her account and check out more of her art because it is beautiful. She is a joy to work with and very thorough and dedicated. She has been very flexible and patient with me in the months making this and my past commissions. I have had nothing but wonderful experiences with her, she is one of my favorite and most respected artists in this community. And thank you for anyone who has stuck here and read this, I obviously a passion for this sort of stuff. I love to ramble and this is my hyper-fixation so I’m very excited about this.
I’ve been asked a few times about a labelled Master List of sigils. There are a ton of them, I know, and it’s frustrating to look back and forth between the individual posts where they are labeled. So have this!
Thinking about the fact that Tyrion suffers from chronic pain but if we didn't have his pov we would never know because he never says a word about it and none of the other characters seem to be aware of it either. They can see he has difficulty walking but have no idea how bad it actually is for him.
I think about this so much and I always find it so interesting when we get a Tyrion pov chapter and he's just overwhelmed with pain and struggling and forcing himself to keep going until his body literally gives out then we get to a different character pov chapter and they observe Tyrion and are like wow look at him effortlessly doing this despite being a dwarf like people in chronic pain become masters at faking being well like holding a straight face when they should by all rights be in bed at the very least and i love that grrm wrote tyrion like this too bc disability and pain are rarely 'visible' but thinking about Tyrion and his acrobatics they must be SO painful for him and yet others see him doing it and think it's so effortless and that he's fine most of the time very rarely do other characters clock he's not ok or in massive amounts of pain but like the signs are everywhere the not being able to sleep so staying up reading all hours (as someone with chronic pain I use this tactic whenever I can't sleep bc of pain and want to try to distract myself if I'm well enough to read) the drinking he's not a lush really but he drinks a lot even for westeros and I wonder if that is self medicating his pain too ? Idk Tyrion and his disabilities are so interesting to me especially his chronic pain
Your father is your father until one of you forgets.
Jon I - AGOT // The Sun Is Also A Star - Nicola Yoon // Saturn Devouring His Son - Francisco Goya ( 1819-1823) // Daniel in his Den - Peter Paul Rubens (1613-1615) Sink- Desireé Dallagiacomo // Jamie V - AFFC // Tyrion XI - ASOS // Game of Thrones S4 E10 titled “The Children” // Elektra - Sophokles (tr. Anne Carson) // Ocean Vuong
i don’t even remember who said that lysa and hoster were convinced that jaime was gay but it remains one of my favorite tidbits from the whole series. you are lysa arryn, 15, fully prepared to be this gay guy‘s pretend wife while he is ACTIVELY having sex with his twin sister. and then he joins a holy celibacy boyband and you get married to westerosi joe biden. sucks to suck ig sorry lysa.
birth year of ASOIAF characters if AGOT took place in 2025:
a lot of the characters in ASOIAF were aged up for the show (with good reason in a lot of cases) but one thing that always strikes me about the books is how YOUNG most of them are.
so here are what their birth years would be if the books started in 2025 (pretend their birthday this year already happened).
this based on ages in AGOT- if we meet the character later I added a year or so depending on the book (also I split groups by decades for ease of reading).
Aemon: 1926
Tywin: 1970
Jorah: 1985
Davos (if ACOK is 2026) and Oberyn (if ASOS is 2026): 1986
Robert Baratheon: 1989
Ned: 1990
Stannis: 1991
Catelyn: 1992
Jaime, Cersei, and Lysa: 1994
Drogo: 1995
Littlefinger: 1996
Sandor: 1998
Tyrion: 2001
Viserys and Renly: 2004
Theon: 2006
Shae and Brienne (if ACOK is 2026): 2007
Loras: 2009
Jon, Robb, Samwell, and Margaery: 2011
Daenerys, Joffrey, and Meera (if ACOK is 2026): 2012
Sansa: 2014
Jojun (if ACOK is 2026): 2015
Arya: 2016
Bran and Myrcella: 2018
Tommon: 2019
Robert Arryn: 2020
Rickon: 2023
please comment if I got anything wrong/forgot anyone! (characters whose ages are too ambiguous I didn't include)
