* THE LOST LORDS. @lost-lords - Tumblr Blog

I found your top 5 post in the ttgot tag and it definitely tickled my brain! Awesome analysis of underrated characters :) You mentioned that you didn't save Beskha from the dragon on the first go but you would now, and Royland being the better sentinel, are there other in-game decisions you feel set on?

i need it on record that i was so excited to get this ask, like ridiculously so. so much so that i’m embarrassed to give specifics. thank you so much for sending this in, and i'm so sorry for the wait on this. i may have gotten so excited that i replayed the game three or four times ( by the time this has posted, probably seven or eight! ) and combed through youtube videos of all the choices and tried to make a list of every single one that i even remotely cared about. unfortunately, that's not exactly sustainable for an ask that didn't really ask for that, so i'll try to refrain from rambling too much. before that, though, i wanted to say — thank you for giving me a reason to replay and obsess over this game! since my wife and i started the game last july ( july 7, 2025, to be precise! ), this game has been a huge source of love, care, and comfort for me. so, again … thank you! for giving me an avenue to think about and explain my interpretations of this media. put simply, i’m a writer first and foremost. i’ve been writing fiction basically since i was able to write at all, and i’ve always been fascinated by the intricacies of the craft, especially where it concerns character. that said, many of the choices in ttgot that i feel set on are the ones that i feel are most consistent with the characters or the ones that i feel best serve the narrative. i will say that i am a completionist by nature, so there will never be a choice that i just don’t make, but there are a bunch of choices that i like to make, or prefer to make over others, or that physically pain me when i don’t make them. for the sake of not making this a breakdown of every choice i lean towards, i’m going to try and let go of some of the smaller dialogue choices unless they really matter to me. again, i do apologize for the wait on this answer, but considering how much i'm talking about within this response, i hope you'll forgive me for that!

ethan choices

our first instance of controlling ethan is when he’s playing in the groves with his siblings. i always have ethan come out of hiding when ryon is afraid during the game by telling ryon that he found him. i'm sure i have other dialogue choices in the grove that i prefer, but for the sake of saving my rambles, i'll continue on to when talia asks ethan if he'll change. he says that he doesn't want to change, and when royland comes to fetch ethan, he decisively leaves the grove. this all sort of comes down to the fact that ethan is embracing the fact that his life is going to change now that he’s lord, and he takes that responsibility seriously. i think that’s a really important part of his character, this sense of being forced into adulthood and responsibility, and knowing intrinsically that he can’t afford to be very immature about it. idk!! it’s just my thought process. obviously, there’s room for some immaturity at the beginning, but i can’t really see ethan making either of the previous two decisions carelessly.

i'm very passionate about how my boy decimates this 50 smth year old geezer! but here are the choices that i particularly care about in that interaction: he shakes his hand > don't test me > calm yourself (old man) > i handled it > it's over > do as you like.

ethan grants mercy to erik! my wife said something really fascinating on call with her nephew about ethan that i do wholeheartedly agree with and it is what fuels my decisions with his choices, which is ‘ethan is really ruthless with his enemies but he’s kind to his people’. which. yeah! obviously he doesn’t mind defying and being rude to ludd, at least as much as he can get away with … but erik is a totally different story.

when ethan is allowed to roam ironrath, he visits with everyone! i think there’s a lot of character to be found in these interactions. one specific dialogue option that i always choose is in malcolm’s conversation, where he tells malcolm that elissa is his mother, and that he knows how to speak to her. ethan promises royland the bracer of the sentinel before calling the meeting, and at the meeting, ethan bestows it upon him. when royland and duncan start to fight, he tells both of them to stop bickering. the plan that ethan decides on is to fight and to meet ramsay in the great hall — with my reasoning being that ethan would want to combine the approaches of royland and duncan, seeing merit in both courses of action. and when duncan tries to leave, ethan commands him to sit down.

during the elissa scene, ethan ultimately makes the decision to send for asher to come home. to me, it’s important for both ethan’s and asher’s characters for ethan to be the one to call asher back to ironrath. it feels somewhat cheap for elissa to go behind ethan’s back like that, especially since i think duncan should be the only one to actually do so. would elissa undermine him? maybe. but it’s significant that duncan actually does, and, to me, it’s a big part of the reason why ethan didn’t make duncan his sentinel. for elissa to do this would cause a fracture in hers and ethan’s relationship, and im not super into that as a concept when ethan has so little time to mend that relationship.

before meeting ramsay, ethan says the most haunting line in all of gaming cinema by being like, the gods haven’t favoured us, have they? and during the ramsay meeting itself, ethan routinely wards ramsay away from ryon and talia without any pretence, hence him saying, “leave them be,” and doubling down when ramsay focuses on talia. finally, when ramsay grabs talia, ethan grabs her back from him, earning him the title ‘ethan the brave’.

gared choices

in general, i characterize gared as polite, humble, and dedicated. he doesn’t question others, tries not to complain, and does as he’s told. he also really doesn’t fuck with the wall, so i generally avoid the options where gared drags his feet on his ironrath duties for the sake of his vows. to me gared was crossing his fingers when he said them <3

gared sacrifices bowen and kills both soldiers. sacrificing bowen sets up gared’s one-track mindedness regarding the forresters and specifically builds up gared’s negative character arc where it concerns killing people for house forrester. obviously he’d want to save bowen, but bowen wouldn’t even be a thought in his head at that point — only finding rodrik and warning gregor. besides, i find bowen’s inclusion in the ensuing fight scene to be distracting at best and hilarious at worst. not a good thing to feel during the red wedding! and, of course, the decision to kill the whitehill soldier instead of showing mercy is equally crucial to me. i don’t particularly care for sparing him — it does virtually nothing for the plot, and it makes gared’s later ruthlessness with britt feel strangely contrived, since gared was clearly able to regulate and control his emotions in the heat of the moment, let alone months later. and, again, it’s his first act of cold-blooded murder, albeit of someone who deserved it, but it sets him up to later sacrifice someone who doesn’t deserve it … i.e. cotter.

anyway, since gared has actually very few choices in episode one outside of these ones, i’ll rapid-fire them here! gared says, ‘aye you’ll have it’ about the greatsword. it’s just the coolest line. sorry. also, i didn't know this was technically skippable, but i do have gared take the poultice and bandages from maester ortengryn to use on cotter later on. i think it's ridiculously hilarious for gared to tell everyone and their mother about the north grove, but canonically he would very obviously honour gregor's last wishes. i personally like it better when gared stays still to avoid ramsay snow, because running seems a little goofy. and that’s it for episode one! it’s a little sad how meagre gared’s pickings are in this episode, but he thankfully makes up for it in future episodes.

when gared gets to the wall, he specifically introduces himself to frostfinger as a squire from ironrath, and is truthful about having killed two men. he’s kind to cotter, and later protects him from finn.

as for the initial scene with finn, i have gared ignore him until cotter shows up, i have him say ‘you fuck potatoes?’, and ‘let me tell you MYstory…’ ; to me, this just results in the most gared scene. him ignoring finn feels really right for his character. my wife and i had chosen it in our first playthrough because finn was pissing us off, but to me it makes sense for gared to ignore him. he’s not really the type to get easily riled up or to get aggressive for his own sake — even with bowen, he didn’t really care to say much besides like, shut up and do your job. so i think it makes a lot of sense for gared to just silently stand his ground. oh, but him joining in the conversation so brightly being like oh, this is why i’m at the wall, is soooo cute. um, for the sake of brevity, i’ll leave it there, but i will say that i specifically dislike doing the bow test first. idrc what order the others come in, but bow test needs to be middle or last otherwise it irks me. gared promises cotter he won’t tell finn that he took his knife, and he keeps his word, which gets him into finn’s bad books. later, when gared has his first proper conversation with jon in the elevator, the only choice that i remember off the top of my head is when he tells jon that the boltons/freys killed his lord, rather than talking about his family. you know. i think it says something about gared’s character that this is the more devastating blow to him than the deaths of his blood family.

in his next scene, gared tells cotter that protecting him is what friends do, and doesn’t chastise him for the trouble with finn. later, when talking to finn, he is kind and not literally evil ( ‘no one will miss you’ is a crazy fucking option … hello??? edit: so i found out that apparently this is like the World’s Worst Option? like it makes finn not forgive you and hate you forever??? which. damn i’m going to have to play that route sometime. obviously this isn’t canon to me but it’s still interesting! ) this one might be obvious, but he does protect cotter’s secret and he is open-minded when cotter does tell him about his true identity. um, when britt comes in later, i like gared telling him, welcome to the wall, brother, because it’s important to me that britt is the one coming in crazy and gared just meets his crazy with crazy. you feel me? also, i used to feel like this next dialogue choice was out of character for gared, because my wife and i used to play him as really trying to cozy up to jon, but it’s become such an iconic thing for gared to do that we just always pick it! so when jon is like hey what’s up, it’s sooo important that gared is like, I Cannot Promise Not To Kill Britt Whitehill I Mean Warrick. not just because gared is going to ruthlessly kill britt here, but because i think it’s so important for jon to specifically tell gared that he understands that anger and that he’d say the same if he were in that situation. ( obviously, gared has told jon that this guy murdered his family. )

i am very particular about the confrontation with britt! this is one of the hypest scenes in the game and i physically can’t play it another way. right out the gate, gared hits britt with a “the wall’s a dangerous place. people slip off all the time.” peak foreshadowing from my man <3 obviously, then, gared attacks britt at the first opportunity. even if britt weren’t employing that classic whitehill boasting about the forresters’ dead family members, i do think gared would have attacked, but i think that considering what britt was saying, gared was SO well within his right for that. and then we have the iconic quote, "you're going to die for what you did!" because it is objectively just the coolest line. ( this, in-game, i believe is the “you’re going to pay” option. ) when britt asks for mercy, gared hits that man with a “fuck you. you never showed my father any mercy”. when gared pins britt to the floor, he starts bashing his head in like a maniac, and then when he kicks britt down again, he damn near cuts britt’s arm off. again, i choose these particular options because they’re the most violent and brutal ones. i think gared is really fascinating for having issues with anger and violence, sue me! and then, of course, we HAVE to choose to kick britt off the wall because gared is STONE COLD for being like “don’t piss yourself on the way down”. god i love this scene so bad and no other iteration of it is anywhere near as satisfying.

i don’t particularly care for gared’s opening scene in episode four, but i will say that telling jon that frostfinger is wrong goes HARD. it’s about jon being like “IS THERE NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE?” and frostfinger calling his ass out for being a hypocrite ( seeing as jon’s about to go and kill black brothers traitors Right Now ) and then jon immediately being like 😬 gods be with you gared. it’s just truly a really fun and kind of heartwrenching scene! and … yeah! i know there’s some dialogue between gared and cotter in the cell, but i don’t think there’s anything wild in there; obviously, we’re nice to our friends who are breaking us out of jail. like. yeah. more importantly, gared makes the choice to take finn with him beyond the wall! even though i am so sad about how dirty finn was done, i still think it's weird for gared not to take him. all of those dialogue options are so strange?? when you tell finn no, gared starts breaking out the "my minds made up" and "parhaps you're right", and you can just tell that no one was expecting you to make this choice.

when the free folk attack cotter, gared listens to him and doesn’t attack until he has to. oh, and he doesn’t tell finn that cotter is from beyond the wall, so finn is blindsided too. when the woman runs off with their food, gared listens again to cotter and doesn’t shoot her. when gared meets sylvi, he’s generally nice to her and not racist!

finally, gared chooses to use cotter for blood magic and leaves the north grove to march for ironrath. these choices are critically important to me, and gared really doesn’t feel like gared to me unless these two choices are made. i know it’s tempting to have gared show restraint for the whole game. after all, it’s the morally correct thing to do. but to me, if you play gared as always pulling his punches, there’s nothing for him to learn or gain from the end. gared’s whole story has been building towards this, and it’s the final culminating answer to the question, “how far would you go for house forrester?”. while the timing of the choice to leave or stay is a little foolish in-game, as the player already knows that ironrath has fallen, gared obviously doesn’t, and would never dare risk assuming that it has. especially after killing cotter, which is just such a haunting and horrible scene, there is no going back for gared, and it’s what makes him so absolutely fascinating to me.

mira choices

i’m going to be honest, despite mira being the very first character i latched onto in ttgot, i really struggle to explain who she is as a character. the more i analyze her, the more that her route stands out as a carousel of canon characters that was very bizarrely strung together. however, despite this, mira still is able to exist as a character that feels like a character, and thankfully, she still makes some choices that inform her route! ( unlike asher, who will be talked about soon! ) i generally play mira as being much more truthful and kind than she is ruthless and cruel. she tends to choose positive dialogue options for sera and tom. with regards to tom specifically, i feel as though mira subconsciously chases male allies and the concept of male protection. mira was my first ttgot baby, so i’ve done some extensive thinking on her character in particular, and i find that her actions really feel like a clamouring for safety. and it makes complete sense that mira would trust men to protect her, since she has two older brothers that are most definitely the types to be protective. now, i don’t want it to sound like mira isn’t smart. she is. i think it’s less about her being unable to determine that tom could be a threat and more about an active attempt to forge a relationship in a place that seems so cruel. i think there’s a bit of a dichotomy present in mira, where she has that inherent highborn classism against bastards and smallfolk, which bleeds out in interactions with sera for sure, but also i think for tom, but she also seems to seek out the attentions of those who are of a lower social status. think how she seeks help from a dwarf, a coal boy, a merchant lord, and a bastard. it’s interesting to see how perhaps asher’s love for smallfolk has led mira to believe that those on the down-and-out are inherently more trustworthy than her highborn peers … or perhaps mira is just built like that! anyway, we’re not here for mira ramblings! we’re here for the choices i love most of all.

there’s a very specific set of dialogue options that i pick in the throne room, because i like what it implies about mira. however, i really do like virtually all of the choices in this scene; these are just the ones i feel most attuned to: kneel to cersei > 'we serve king joffrey' > 'they were our wardens' > 'he is the new warden' > 'to our mutual benefit' > 'i won't dishonor myself' > 'i'm sure she regrets it' > 'i am loyal to margaery'. first of all, my wife and i spent such a long time agonizing over this scene on our first playthrough, trying to pick the right options that would please cersei. we had no idea who joffrey was, and i distinctly remember my wife being like, 'no, the king isn't joffrey, the king is robb! the king in the north!' so we picked 'the one true king' and subsequently learned that oh, there's more than one king. ttgot is wild for people who don't know shit about got, i'll tell you that. in any case, the above choices were what we eventually settled on in our first playthrough, and i like that cersei's assessment of mira is that she'd say almost anything to get what she wants ... because that's true! i’ve talked a lot on my blog about mira’s bluntness and some of her blindness in social situations, but i don’t want to discount the savviness that mira displays here. i really love how tyrion compliments mira and defends her when she says these things — how he’s like “she has a talent for answering questions while saying nothing at all” and then highlighting, “she did name joffrey as the one true king”. he knows exactly what mira is saying and doing to manipulate cersei and leave the situation without consequence. in our first playthrough, we said that we would serve the king, thinking that this would be what margaery wanted, but then once you realize more about margaery's and cersei's dynamic ( which mira does know ), you can pick apart this question as being far more about hurting margaery's credibility than it is about proving mira's loyalty. a ruse that mira would see through and combat. besides this, i like having mira accept tyrion’s offer of a deal, if for no other reason than it flowing better when he forcibly invites her to a meeting with the whitehills that inevitably leads to the plots on her life.

while i won’t detail every dialogue choice with sera, i will say that i definitely play mira and sera as friends, though somewhat at odds with each other due to their conflicting values and upbringings. for example, a favourite line of mine is when mira says “i don’t want to be queen no matter who i’d have to marry”. while it’s clear from this line that the two girls are very different from each other, at the beginning of the game, there’s definitely more friendliness between them. mira indulges sera somewhat, but does scold her when she’s doing silly frivolous things ( i’m saying that in a more general way, like, i’m moreso talking about how i see their pre-canon relationship; unfortunately, there’s only one time that mira actually scolds her for said silly frivolous things in-game, since her relationship with sera does change due to the Bastardry Reveal tm very early on ). despite disapproving of the girlish risks sera takes, she always takes the blame for the other handmaiden … until, of course, she doesn’t <3 i’ll try to highlight some of the places where there would be notable changes to the mira-sera dynamic moving forward! for now, count mira and sera to be decidedly friends, or at least, mira having a positive view of sera.

in margaery’s chambers, mira tells margaery 'it's hard to please', which is my 100% canon forever line for mira because rragh! i love her. she's like, 'if you showed cersei your true heart, she would stab it with a fork!' which, first of all, is sooo cutie. but beyond that, it really starkly illustrates the difference between mira and sera. sera naively hopes to reassure margaery and say what she thinks margaery wants to hear. whereas mira is refreshingly northern, not avoiding the grim realities of the situation and speaking frankly to margaery. in-line with the choices i’ve made prior, which paint mira as a generally cautious and level-headed individual, she doesn’t ask margaery for help, but instead brings up that her mother had wanted her to ask. i always have mira not ask for help because i really can’t see mira asking margaery for a favour at this juncture. but one thing that i really love that is shared in both of these routes is that mira very obviously blames the request on her mother, which, to me, hints at some interesting nuggets about their relationship. but that’s really the only thing that i super love about asking margaery for help, besides just getting the opportunity to use her seal later and a couple of offhand comments about the lore of the world that you just don’t get otherwise. to me, that’s not really worth sacrificing mira’s characterization at this point ( she’s not desperate yet! to me, ethan’s death is the catalyst for her sudden and really intensely desperate actions ) and it’s not worth landing us in hot water with margaery.

that’s about it for episode one! since we don’t ask for help, there’s only one scene with tom after this, which is quite short and doesn’t really provide much in terms of riveting choices. in episode two, because i love love love mira’s and elissa’s relationship, i like having mira tell margaery that elissa asks too much. it’s just a really strong overcorrection for the help that’s being asked, a kind of frantic trying to place herself on the side of the good, and i think it’s very interesting … but also cute of mira. and i think margaery has to love mira a lot because good god is this girl obvious about trying to act like a competent social player. in any case, i don’t have mira forge a letter to the glenmores because, well … i just don’t like how that impacts the betrothal scene!

so we move on to the scene with sera in the garden. i mentioned above that mira only really ever scolds sera for moving the pieces in margaery’s seating plan. i think in earlier playthroughs, i’d have mira scold sera for stealing the wine because it just makes sense for her character to do this. but personally, i like mira being like, “is there enough for two?” because it has a little more character in it! and i like the subtle hint that mira is changing due to her grief over losing her father and rodrik, that she’s more willing to be a little reckless, but not too reckless yet. i like having mira not drink any of the stolen wine. it’s enough of an oddness to really tickle me; this idea that mira would eagerly accept the wine, but still not get her hands dirty with it. however, the more important aspect of this scene is that mira promises sera not to tell her secret, even before she knows what it is. i think mira as a person would be more likely to accidentally dodge the question, since she would want to know what she’s promising not to tell, and had sera brought this up in highgarden or earlier on in their relationship, that’s probably what mira would have done — given a little, “just tell me!” but mira’s a bit more well-versed in social niceties and courtesies, so she does promise. oh, and she agrees to help sera with margaery! besides that, i don’t really have much to say about this scene! i don’t have an opinion on what excuse mira would give to tyrion about the wine, but she definitely wouldn’t blame sera. and all of the non-sera options end up basically the same anyway.

when she attends the meeting with tyrion, she introduces herself as mira forrester and states that her purpose is to sell forrester ironwood. this is important to me because the way that she introduces herself is very indicative of, like, her mental state. her other options are very self-diminishing, identifying herself as a friend of tyrion’s or “just a handmaiden”. but it’s important to me that mira’s first act of self-identification is using her family name. despite all of her posturing, she is, at her core, a forrester, and she clearly views that identity with pride. it’s like she’s telling these men, yes, i have a seat at this meeting, because not only am i a forrester, but i negotiate on behalf of my house. i also love love love her telling andros “tell whomever you like” because it’s SUCH a little callback to ethan being like “do as you like lord whitehill”. i’m like ah!!!! ethan-mira parallelisms … my beloveds. in the ensuing scene with tyrion, i like her choosing the following options: let us supply the ironwood > i have to take that risk > what is it you want? to me, this creates the most … mira-esque scene. she’s very blunt, but she’s not pleading. she still maintains a lot of that frostiness that her lady mother is known for. i like the way this scene rolls out, you know?

the next important mira scene, and the last one of episode two, is the scene in the gardens. while there are certainly dialogue options i might like a bit more over others here, this is one of those scenes where i don’t have any strong preference! the most important choice to make here is to have mira kill damien. in my last playthrough with my wife, we finally decided to see what happens when mira doesn’t kill damien, and it is the only choice in the whole game that i literally CANNOT see the consequences for. it makes me so sick and there just is no world where mira would not save a little boy from drowning, especially after her little brother just got BRUTALLY MURDERED. like, i don’t care how scared she was, mira would have boxed the shit out of damien even if she wasn’t grieving. she’s built like that!!! mira’s scrappy idk what to tell you!!!!! i say, about a woman killing an armoured soldier of house lannister. whatever. anyway, i don’t really care what mira does with the knife, but i typically have her throw it away. i like the idea that she has it, though. just a little keepsake from her murder night in the gardens. <3

alright! we’re on to episode three. mira, i think, is a little dissociative during this scene with sera, so she’s focused on people-pleasing. so she agrees to let sera run off with tarwick, and she’s just kind of distantly agreeing that the wedding will just be so lovely, etc. however, i do always have mira pick “we have to stick together” with sera, because the other options are, like, weirdly ominous?? she could be like, be careful who you trust. or, my trust doesn’t come free. and i’m like girl. you need to calm down. i know you JUST killed a man and you wanna be like, “be careful who you trust because i trusted a mysterious man in the gardens who broke into my room and left a note and then he tried to KILL my ass”, but you can’t be acting crazy. this is also near the point where sera starts royally pissing me off. she’s very hot-and-cold and seems to flip on a dime about how sympathetic she is to mira. which, from a story perspective, makes perfect sense! she and mira are both in really tense situations. sera’s just revealed something life-altering to mira, and mira has just had to suffer through immense turmoil re: her family members dying and one coming back to life somehow. so i don’t blame either of them for being testy. but sera flips on a dime so intensely that it’s hard for me not to get pissed off. for the player and for mira, sera’s problems don’t feel anywhere near as important as mira’s … but for sera, this is the culmination of her entire life. she will literally be set for life if she can just play her cards right for a couple of weeks. but because of this testiness really impacting how much empathy mira would be able to have for her, i try to avoid having mira anger sera too much in this section of the game.

when tom arrives, mira is obviously kind to him! she goes to him, she asks if he’s alright, she asks for his name … and while that’s not something she’d normally do ( she’s much more someone who tends to get down to business ), i think mira is uniquely worried for tom given the circumstances. despite this, i like the inherent meanness of the “thank you for saving me!” comment mira makes to sera, so i have her make it. to me, it highlights her performativity and the way that she sort of expects other women to talk, women as vapid as she considers sera to be. of course, it backfires, as social performativity often does for women like mira ( autistic women ).

i am tentatively going to say that i don’t care about anything that happens in the throne room, not because that’s true, but because i feel like it has no actual impact on anything moving forward. i think i’ll just leave it at saying that mira is really insistent that nothing is going on between her and tyrion, because margaery can bring that up at the wedding later on. and speaking of! mira’s next scene is the purple wedding! i kind of flip-flop on whether or not i want to have mira go with tyrion or not. there are aspects i like of both scenes. i like mira being able to learn of how tyrion is helping her family when it’s just the two of them, and i like how refreshing it feels to have her speak with him! as always, tyrion is a delight, and having a break from margaery’s sudden derision is nice. but i also do relish in the awkwardness of tyrion spilling mira’s business and asking her for a dance right in front of margaery’s salad! i know it doesn’t really matter in the end, so maybe i’ll leave it alone. i truthfully don’t know … i am a shameless little tyrion/mira shipper. i like them being alone together, but i also like the idea that tyrion joked about cashing in his very useful favour with mira for a dance at the royal wedding.

mmh, the scene with sera requires specific dialogue options, and not in a good way. she gets very testy here at the wedding, and it takes a lot for me to manufacture my specific little route where mira actually has faith in sera after the wedding. my choices here are i’m sorry, sera > tyrion approached us! > please help me. it’s at this point that morgryn enters the fray and says all sorts of crazy shit. when mira interacts with him … oh god. in my first playthrough, i kind of shipped mirgryn a bit. i liked that he came to her rescue, that he seemed to respect her, and that he’s implied to have a bit of influence in court! however, a lot of morgryn fell apart for me once i learned a bit more about asoiaf and realized that morgryn is really just Some Dude tm. waaaaay below mira’s station, for sure. and for him to imply that he knows cersei like that is delusional at best. like, huh?? anyway, in the conversation with morgryn, mira is quite sweet. quite nice, actually! here are the options i typically choose: thank you > that’s my family’s ironwood > he expects something in return > what’s in it for me? in this way, i have mira be a little fawning over morgryn, but not sugary-sweet — since i don’t think mira is a very sugary-sweet kind of person. at this point, joffrey dies, and the only thing left to do is get the decree from tyrion’s room! i will say, i like mira telling tom that the decree isn’t worth his life, because the line he says in return is sooo endearing to me. but besides that, the only choice left here is to burn the decree! my wife and i have entertained some little exciting tidbits about what could have happened if mira had kept the decree, but none of that is canon and i don’t really see why mira would keep a document like that when she was really firmly convinced that she would be executed as a traitor for having it! ned stark continues to haunt the narrative, i say, and mira wouldn’t see any reason to keep such an incriminating document.

mira’s first scene in episode four is just a conversation between her and tom, and i don’t feel very strongly about it. while mira has some childishly catty lines ( looks at “i know things she wouldn’t want told” ), i think mira would generally be decently kind.

more interestingly, we move to tommen’s garden party! while it’s not mandatory for mira to eavesdrop on every conversation, i just think she would. i think she’d find it rather fascinating to do so, especially after she’d overheard so many interesting snippets while waiting for tom. i think she had it as her little fancy for a while … i couldn’t blame her, truly <3 this is the scene where mira is sort of at the height of her folly, i think — where she truly feels powerful and invincible. she’s able to accomplish so much even though margaery isn’t helping her and barely even calls on her anymore. rather than stew on that, mira’s instead focusing on the high of independence. when talking to morgryn, i enjoy mira being like, “wouldn’t you like to know?” i think it’s just mysterious enough without being over-the-top, and i like that coquettish vibe from her. if there was any time that i’d consider mira to be actively flirting with morgryn, it would be here, when she’s at her most … ough, i want to say manic, but i feel like people would read that wrong. i’ve been doing a lot of work on bipolar recently, so i’m struggling to find the right word. i’m thinking specifically of the recklessness caused by delusions of grandeur. you know. hopefully you know. anyway! when mira speaks to lyman, i’m very specific about the choices she makes both times. at least for the first time, this is what she says: let me help > you look like you need company > i respect that. i like her being really, really faux-nice to him here, because i think that mira is mainly playing at two roles when she’s being sly: her soft-spoken wide-eyed sweetheart, and her conniving femme fatale.

she lies to tarwick to vouch for sera, thus ensuring her marriage, and then she lies again to tarwick by saying she won’t tell anyone about lyman’s secret. as for why mira keeps sera’s secret, i can’t imagine her ruining sera’s life on purpose at this venture. despite her not really understanding how tough it is to be a bastard in westeros society, she still does care about sera and believes her to be in a precarious situation, just the same as mira is. i don’t think she ever views sera as ruthless or cruel or even unreasonable until sera asks to distance herself from mira — which is a little petty of mira. she’s only really mad because she’s the only reason sera is marrying tarwick in the first place, hence her very pointed “i don’t need friends who get so easily overwhelmed” comment.

the second time mira talks to lyman, i make sure that she specifically talks to him with all sorts of faux sweetness, keeping up her act from before. she points out that he’s shaking and then says that she’s sorry about what happened to him. it’s so very … like, conniving! and very fake. i really love it for her! and when andros comes over to confront mira, of course i must choose “you’re afraid of a handmaiden?” even though i also LOVE don’t be so bloody dramatic … she is SOOO cutie.

i am very passionate about the mira and cersei conversation in episode five, so i’m very specific about the choices i make! i find that mira and cersei are interesting mirrors of each other, and i like the mutual sense that these women have that they’re using each other, when, in actuality, neither of them have succeeded in doing very much of that at all. i think i’ll probably make a post about this at some point, because my interest in this scene spans a lot more than just the dialogue and i’d like to really highlight what i love about the cersei-mira parallels. in any case, these are the dialogue choices i make in this scene: i have been here > i’ve done what i had to > i asked a friend… > for my family > i have and i will > i will try… later, when visiting tyrion in the black cells, she tells him the truth immediately. she doesn’t bother to hide her intentions nor the fact that cersei sent her. i wish there was an option to do this more subtly, but that’s something to spruce up in my ttgot rewrite, i suppose! i really love the specific choice of “i brought you wine”, btw. i just love the little catlike look mira makes and the way she shakes the bottle. oh, she also drinks with tyrion when asked. i looove how she’s like “i suppose i’ll have just a little”. OH AND. AND. WHEN TYRION IS LIKE. YOU’RE HERE TO BREAK ME OUT OF PRISON. she HASSS to be like. i’m ready whenever you are! it’s soooo cute. god i’ve missed mira talking to people like a human person. and then and then. she NEEDS to be like “back OFF, lucan!” okay, i’m realizing i’m going to end up listing every dialogue choice, so let me just: i can’t refuse her! > i don’t care what she thinks > i need something better.

now, we find ourselves at the conclusion of mira’s story! it’s very crucially important to me that mira lies and betrays sera to keep her position with margaery. mira’s very absolute, and i think when sera turned her back on her, mira became adamant about not sticking her neck out for sera anymore. on top of that, i’m sure that she felt really worried after her conversation with tyrion and sought to keep margaery’s protection. i also just think it’s really important for mira to burn her bridges completely by the end of the story. she’s been slowly doing so over the course of the game, but without betraying sera, her development as a character feels like it falls flat. it’s sort of like gared sacrificing cotter in that way! the only dialogue option in this scene that matters to me after this is the “you’re like a sister to me” line because … well, i just find it the most intimate! sue me.

when mira and tom are fretting and panicking, mira tells tom that she wants to go back to ironrath, which is why he directs her to godwyn at the colliers store on muddy way. after he gets arrested, mira flees the keep and runs into morgryn. phew … rubs hands together. it’s very important to me that mira is like, “lovely to see you!” it’s the only option where she clutches his arm like a maiden, and i think her acting this way when she’s at the very end of her rope and has no allies left is important. in the litter, i make the following choices: nothing, just minor trouble > andros is just the beginning > and i plan to take full advantage > you piece of shit! > ludd will turn on you. i have her stay silent with lucan, because i hate those two men leering at her. ugh.

we come to our final mira scene of the game. i do have her putter around the cell every time i play. i love her little, oh gods! those are human teeth! and i find it charming when she puts the entire torch in her ass and then doesn’t knock morgryn out with it. okay, well. it’s less charming than it is frustrating. and like, i get it! even if she could have killed him with it, she’d never get past the lannister guards or whatever. but WHY give mira the upper arm strength to lift up that heavy ass torch and put it in her inventory??? anyway, when mira speaks to the woman in the cell across from her, she specifically tells her to make peace with the gods. first of all, it’s a banger reference to essos, but it’s also just really fucking haunting when the woman is led to the block.

morgryn then enters the cell, and mira immediately boxes him in the face and then gears up to box him a second time. this is CRITICALLY important!!! i also think she is SO cute when she’s like, “i’m new to courting, but i imagined less violence and intimidation!” ( this is the “not my idea of courtship” option, btw ) she also MUST tell him that her brothers will kill him, because this is INTEGRAL to her character. and she needs to threaten to kill morgryn in his sleep because all the other dialogue options suck ass and she would never say them.

this comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my posts, but mira marries morgryn to avoid being executed. given more time, mira probably wouldn’t have made this choice, but her instinct to survive and her deep desire to go home clouds her judgement here. of course, she’s not doing this so that morgryn can get ironrath. i don’t even believe she was thinking beyond hearing the prayers of the woman before her as she was led to the chopping block echoing in her head. people do all sorts of things that are against their morals when it’s their lives on the line, and i believe that’s what mira does here. i do have my gripes about mira’s plot, but i do think it’s fitting for it to end tragically for her and for her to have the least agency out of all the playable characters. she doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room as a woman, period, let alone as a northern girl in king’s landing just after the red wedding. and because i do think mira is out of her element ( though not painfully naive! ), it makes complete sense for her to make a decision that’s against her morals and against what her family would have wanted, solely due to her very human fear response. i have a million things i could say about her here, but alas, that shall be saved for more posts in the future!

asher choices

our next playable character is asher, who is a remarkably difficult character to comment upon. this is largely due to his aimlessness in terms of plot and his lack of variability where his character is concerned. for all the other playable characters, these two factors are always relevant in their choices. take, for example, ethan — he has “plot” choices such as whether he will have ramsay wait at the gate or meet him in the great hall. but he also has personality or morality choices such as his choice to spare, maim, or exile erik. this choice follows ethan’s specific pattern of trying to discern his priorities and character as lord. similarly, mira has her morality/personality choice of how ruthless she is willing to be to secure her family’s safety, gared has his morality/personality choice of his compliance with the wall and his propensity for violence, and rodrik obviously has a choice to consistently make between aggression and submission. asher may have plot decisions, but he never goes through any true conflicts of personality. his “morality/personality choice” would likely be whether he prioritizes malcolm or beskha, but this dichotomy doesn’t really have the same gravity as the others do, especially since there’s so little consequence for asher’s choices. even in asher’s dialogue, there’s very little variability in his implied personality. and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with asher having very distinct values and personality traits, this makes commenting upon asher’s route somewhat difficult.

what i will say in terms of the choices i typically make is that i consistently have asher dodge and avoid leadership. there are a myriad of reasons for this, but one of the more obvious ones is that this characterization falls in line with two particular canonical descriptions of asher — elissa’s and malcolm’s. elissa tells ethan that asher has never been interested in being a lord… which one could argue has changed, if not for malcolm’s line in episode three, in which he remarks, “you’ve grown older, but you haven’t grown up.” implying that asher hasn’t done a lot in the way of emotional maturity or taking responsibility for things. croft even says in that same episode that asher has “never understood consequences”, which i believe is not hidden behind a choice and is thus true for asher no matter what. so considering asher’s lack of maturity, his unwillingness to take responsibility, and his natural apathy towards leadership positions, i feel pretty confident in having asher try to pawn off responsibility wherever he can. where asher’s loyalties between malcolm and beskha are concerned, i almost always have asher choose beskha. considering that asher has been exiled for years with beskha as his sole consistent companion, i can’t see asher forsaking her for the sake of an uncle who won’t even give her a chance. i can’t see asher ever agreeing with malcolm’s views without negating the very arc he’s supposed to have. in a sea of pov’s who prioritize house forrester over all else, including their lives and those of their friends, it’s interesting and refreshing to have a character who’s been failed by that restrictive family system and then struggle with his love for his family and his values, which have always conflicted with those of his family.

asher’s first scene is an establishing one, and thus i have many opinions about how it should go. first things first, i always have asher explore every inch of the room, starting with picking up his axe. this is a mindset choice for me, because i believe that asher’s rather dangerous life as a sellsword who pisses off everyone he meets necessitates that he stay alert and aware. asher and beskha are also constantly in armour, which only adds to the idea that asher prefers to be armed more often than not. obviously, i’m not going to do these choices every single time i play the game, but i do find that when i replay this scene, i like to have asher look at everything and to get all of beskha’s dialogue about him pacing as a result … it just feels very organic to me, so i like having it unfold that way! it’s definitely a different feeling from the very exposition-heavy dialogue that he and beskha have once the scene starts proper. speaking of which, there are a couple of choices that i really like here. for one, i love when asher kicks the slave master, if only for the foreboding ass line beskha says being like, “oh, are you scared? you should see him when he’s angry.” i really like all the little hints that the game gives to asher’s more volatile nature, and i wish we could have gotten to see him go sicko mode! but i digress. this choice is a bit sillier to care about, but i like having asher toast “to us”. it’s so weirdly special to me that i even have his mii on tomodachi life say “to us.” before he eats or drinks anything! it’s one of those intimate moments between him and beskha, akin to lines like “together till we’re dead.” it just highlights their relationship!

when the lost legion enter, asher insists that the payment should be eight hundred dragons. he starts the fight by flipping the table and ends the fight by killing tazal. while escaping yunkai, asher kills the lost legion soldier against malcolm’s wishes. i don’t really care what he says or does afterwards, but i do generally prefer it when asher doesn’t immediately volunteer to lead the army! while asher is gifted at leadership, i don’t think he’s ever really wanted to be a leader, and i always find it strange that he’d just … volunteer. i don’t mind if he tries to pass it off to beskha or to malcolm, but i would rather pick one of those choices than him offering himself up. also, it’s imperative to me that asher smiles his little grin and is like, “i’ll be charming!” when it comes to the question of how he’ll convince croft to help their cause. just based on how asher acts without player input and how he’s generally characterized, this seems like the most logical course of action for asher to take! despite him being painted as a more violent person, it seems like asher in essos is more reserved about his violence than he is about his wisecracking.

oh, btw, asher NEEEEDS to say “he was gutter trash and i bloody felt like it” about snapping tazal’s neck. it just feels so emblematic of his attitude and character! anyways, he always lets beskha drink the last of their water. he also defends beskha to malcolm and malcolm to beskha. when he encounters the corpse near the cave, he loots it for its gold. he never attacks drogon and instead focuses on fleeing. and, of course, he chooses to save beskha from the dragon. i just can't imagine that he would think that malcolm wouldn't be able to take those couple of soldiers ... and besides, beskha is facing a literal dragon, and she's been at his side all this time. to me, it's an easy choice!

at croft’s camp, asher tells malcolm that he owed beskha, which is the only choice that malcolm accepts as the truth, even if my own thought process is similar to what asher says when he claims that he thought malcolm was tough. after all, beskha was up against a literal dragon! in comparison, malcolm seems to be in much less danger. still, i prefer asher being more unambiguous about his loyalty to beskha, because it further highlights just how deep their devotion for each other goes … even if i don’t exactly like him saying that they’ve only been together for four years. after fessing up to malcolm, he promptly dismisses his uncle by telling him to stop lecturing him <3 we love to see it! my wife has mentioned this in posts about asher, but i am always flabbergasted at how utterly dismissive asher is of both beskha’s and malcolm’s emotions. really, everyone’s emotions, but it’s most obvious here, when he’s interacting with an uncle who basically raised him and the woman whose hip he’s been glued to for years. i think it’s so telling how asher asks malcolm in complete genuine frustration why he’s making such a big deal out of what malcolm has explicitly told him he understands as asher leaving him to die. but asher acts like malcolm is lecturing him about, like, staying out too late or something. this sort of devil-may-care attitude without regard for consequences follows asher into the next scene, where croft is clearly raving at asher for having the nerve to come to him for help after what asher’s done to him. this isn’t an analysis post, but … it’s storytelling, okay? okay. in any case, to be in-line with the framing of the scene here, i always have asher be a little bit belligerent to croft. my favourite lines for him to say are: “is that all you got?”, because croft’s reaction there is just hilarious and asher’s immediate panic over this is so absolutely telling, and then for asher to — albeit nervously — tease croft. he’s vaguely sure that croft is joking, so he jokes back, tells him to cut his hair and announcing, “fuck you!” when it really seems like croft is serious.

once it’s clear that croft is really joking, however, i don’t see asher as in a particular mood to be vulnerable. he never really is, but to be actually afraid of the man and for that to show on his face is vulnerability enough. so while i love what asher says in the “my family needs help” and “my family will die” options, they’re just not feasible to me in a “canon” playthrough, of sorts. i prefer him saying, “you’re the best fighter i know,” and then proceeding to offer him the gold he looted from the dead man at the cave entrance. croft pocketing the gold and refusing to help is a nice touch to that interaction that feels very essosi. finally, as proof for having seen dany’s dragon, asher decides to show croft the dragon tooth. i don’t love him using his uncle’s injuries as some sort of talking point, because i truly don’t think asher is the kind of person who speaks for others. just like how he wouldn’t sell beskha out or humiliate her, i don’t think he’d tell malcolm to show croft his burns to prove a point — not when he has other, perfectly valid evidence to show.

on to episode four! which … for asher’s part, i have a love-hate relationship with. i don’t especially love his interactions with daenerys because they feel rather shallow compared to the interactions other characters get with canons, and since dany doesn’t actually impact asher’s story at all, it’s hard to care about how he treats her. this section of asher’s arc is also, in my opinion, where the flaws in his storytelling are the most obvious. we’re in episode four by now, and when you look at the other playable characters, asher has done comparatively very little. he’s been generally tossed about and forced to react to situations unfolding effectively beyond his control. even the lost legion chasing asher doesn’t really feel like it’s because of something asher did, because they are truly chasing you anyway, regardless of what asher does or doesn’t do to tazal. then we have this rather pointless interaction where, truthfully, asher’s behaviour changes nothing. there’s nothing unique about asher that would earn him the meereen mission. if beskha weren’t there to have a history with meereen, asher truthfully would have been shit out of luck. this feels really cheap and unsatisfying to me! you can’t impress daenerys, nor can you bring up your branfield heritage to gain some points with her. it’s all just … so pointless that it’s hard to feel like asher is growing at all, since he’s barely making any actual choices! even ethan got to choose erik’s fate, got to choose his sentinel, got to choose what he would do to protect his family before he died! asher’s done basically nothing!

in any case, i still have a certain way i like to have asher interact with dany, even though none of it really theoretically matters. in general, i have asher be a little flippant and curt with dany, very much like i’ll-do-what-you-want-if-you-give-me-what-i-want kind of attitude. there’s no fawning over her, but there also isn’t any outright antagonizing. when daenerys offers that asher pet viserion, asher does, because i just don’t think he’d back down from a challenge like that — he’d see it as weak to decline. he shows dany the dragon tooth again to prove to her that he’s seen drogon, and he is very specific about not revealing beskha’s secret or speaking on her behalf.

we then have one of the best scenes in the entire game, and i’m very particular about how asher interacts with beskha specifically here. before asher knows that anything is especially wrong, he sort of eggs croft on, continuing to play rather than scolding beskha. i simply don’t think he would criticize beskha in front of others. it’s reminiscent of twdg season four, episode two, where ( and i’ll be vague in case anyone hasn’t played this masterpiece ) clem is very fierce about defending aj to the other kids when they’re all ganging up on him, but in private, she’s like, “aj, what the fuck?” it’s natural to want to put up a united front with someone that you view as family against those you perceive as threatening outsiders. and so when asher says that croft can do better than that, it’s specifically done in a way to get croft off beskha’s ass so that asher can confront her privately. when they are finally alone, i think it’s so, so critically important that asher doesn’t fight back against beskha, if only because we get a more intimate view of their bond here. this is abnormal for asher and beskha, and this scene is so charged that i truly don’t think it matters what asher says. the only thing i really, truly care about asher doing is giving beskha more to drink and then reassuring her that he knows she won’t fuck up the mission. truthfully, everything else is so masterfully written that i would play this scene a million times and choose different options every time. it’s just that good!

the meereen mission is also really great! i have some specific ways that i like to play it, like having asher let beskha kill her slave master. it’s interesting how every option here is in-character for asher, but this one is just my favourite and the one asher seems most likely to do, considering his hatred for slavers and his love for beskha. he knows about her backstory, so why would he deny her this justice and hand it over to a queen that beskha clearly doesn’t trust or respect? however, this makes him even more determined to respect croft’s leadership, as he’s really put himself on the line for beskha’s sake! for that reason, i like to have asher ask croft what they should do rather than decide for himself if he’d rather kill the soldiers above or operate the crossbows below. as a bonus, though, asher can use the fact that he stuck his neck out as licence to deny beskha’s later request to dispatch the soldiers riskily — aka refusing to stray from croft’s plan. i just don’t love asher being like, fuck yeah let’s do a sloppy job when my family’s whole survival relies on this! and maybe that’s very … (talia voice) rodrik of me, but it just doesn’t feel good to have asher be so irresponsible. besides, i like him having this sort of boundary like — well, i let you kill your slave master, so let’s do things my way this time. as if “beskha’s way” and “his way” are at all comparable. as if beskha’s gripe was as simple as “well i want to kill the soldiers this way”.

the last asher scene of episode four is very blah and i have my own specific gripes about how the mission debrief is handled and the consequences you get from it. putting that aside, though, the dialogue options i choose here are: “there were some difficulties” > “we killed a slave master” > and then he chooses to keep beskha’s true identity a secret. he ends up, obviously, getting no gold from daenerys, which sucks because i feel like dany truly should have known that beskha was a slave just based on how she’s been acting, but WHATEVER. i like the pit fighters scene when you’re goldless anyway, because it truly shows off how strong asher’s charisma and leadership skills are.

anyway the pit fighters …… omg ……….. wrow …………… i actually really love the pit fighters and the scene that accompanies their introduction, which is surprising because i don’t think i cared for them too much upon first playthrough. however, what i didn’t realize is that the pit fighter scene can actually be so ass. thankfully, my wife and i made generally more reckless choices in our first playthrough because, well, it was cathartic! these might not exactly be the choices that we made the first time around, but we’ve replayed this scene countless times and i most definitely have favourite lines from it! when approaching the building, beskha warns asher about the behaviour of the fighters, and asher reassures her with the dialogue choice “we’ll be fine”. again, i like asher’s dismissiveness as a character trait and enjoy him not really meaningfully grappling with beskha’s anxiety, since he’s so generally emotionally avoidant. when meeting beast, i make the following choices: i’ll take the lead > you’re fat enough already > [headbutt]. and i know, i don’t usually like fatphobic lines, but it yields the beast quote of ALL TIME!!!!! like, “my master only fed me when i won. i won a lot.” is SOOOOOO iconic!!! i obviously also like that asher is able to impress beast, since it’s one of the few things asher can actually do, but i also just like the sort of immediate kinship asher feels with beast. it’s sort of similar to croft. this sort of sadistic and violent sense of humour they have.

when speaking to amaya and the rest of the pit fighters, these are the choices i make: i come with an offer > leave beskha alone > i need great warriors > your way of life is over > amaya? > i’ve fought worse > … . so! lots to unpack here. these lines are my favourites, but sometimes i can interchange them, save for “your way of life is over”. to me, this is just the most logical argument and the one that asher would truly make. it’s also the one that seems to strike the pit fighters the hardest, this sort of brutal honesty from asher that feels so emblematic to asher. but while asher does inspire more hope from his people, he also doesn’t sugarcoat the situation, per se. so i really, really love that line! also, having him ask for amaya to fight him and beast laughing in his face is just a really nice lore touch that makes you kinda go, huh, so like … amaya isn’t the best fighter among them? why is she the leader then? and, of course, the “i’ve fought worse” and the “…” when he tries to tell beskha his dying wish are just. like. CUTE asher lines, ok????? they’re CUTE. similarly, in the pit with bloodsong, the CUTEST asher line is “i don’t want to kill you” — seriously, if you haven’t done this line, go do it because it is LITERALLY the cutest thing EVER — but technically my favourite line is, “i kill to live”.

( ok, my wife is going to burn me at the stake for this, but i’m also going to talk about the weapon order, because the fight phases are slightly different depending on the weapon. i’ve tentatively decided that i would use the scythe/hoe thing first, then the spiked bat, and then that weird pointy brass-knuckle-esque thing … but this is really tentative, and i also never play it this way because i just choose whichever weapon i see first. but i think playing it in this order probably gives you the most organic-feeling fight. probably. )

anyway! once bloodsong is defeated, asher specifically chooses to spare bloodsong, but kick him while he’s down. because that goes hard as fuck, sorry, and also because it showcases a willingness to engage in the culture of the pit fighters while still not fully assimilating to it, and i think that’s really important! finally, asher announces to the pit fighters that he offers them a new life, and he also tells them, “i will unleash you” because i frankly find it so funny that he tells them that there are no rules. i’m just imagining rodrik being like, you told them WHAT??? also, i just like the callback to beskha’s line being like “they’re animals you unleash”.

okay this is so important. when asher leaves on the boat, he HAS to tell malcolm, “don’t you mean fire and blood? that’s what the targaryens say.” because it is just CHILLING. whether asher dies in the game or not, it’s just chilling fucking last words to leave your uncle with, truly. on the boat with beskha, asher only has one dialogue choice, but i absolutely ADORE when he says “they will follow rodrik”. it’s just such an absolutely sweet line that just reeks of like, younger sibling adoration. he literally is like, it doesn’t matter if he can’t fight like he used to 🥺🥺 all men learn to love rodrik 🥺🥺🥺 like, you can just tell that asher loves rodrik so fucking much forever?????

but, um. but then they make landfall.

allow me to address the elephant in the room. i find that the ttgot fandom at large REALLY cares about who lives and who dies in episode five, whereas i … really don’t? that is to say, i find the whole debate rather silly. i like both rodrik’s and asher’s routes, and i generally find having to choose between them to be a ridiculous choice that does the story a disservice anyway. i’ll talk a bit more about my choice when we get there, but i wanted to put this up as a disclaimer of sorts.

we get a really brief scene with rodrik and asher here, and i obviously care about this loads considering my adoration towards them and their relationship. so of course, it’s critically important that asher chooses to say the thing that pisses rodrik off the most: “good to see you my lord.” and i actually think this is the only thing asher gets to say before The Choice. now everyone shut up because this IS asher’s choice ok. it’s really important to me that before this point, the player was making choices as asher, not as rodrik. while the game positions it as a neutral choice, it really doesn’t sit right with me to view it as such. for this reason and for a more personal reason, i technically am a “rodrik lives truther”. i just can’t see a world where rodrik would suggest that “someone” has to stay behind and that asher wouldn’t stop rodrik from sacrificing himself. but i can’t deny that there’s a bit of anchoring bias at play here, since this was the choice my wife and i made on our very first playthrough of ttgot a year ago. and though we agonized for a long time over who should live when we first played it, it wasn’t for the reasons the fandom does and it was certainly not for the reasons the writers intended. at the time where we were playing ttgot for the first time, we were in a really rough situation, and while we rapidly got invested in the story, we got really frustrated with the story at about episode four. as people who are quite rejection-sensitive, we HATED that all of our allies seemed to suddenly hate us for one choice we made ( beskha and the dragon ) or for no reason at all ( margaery ). it was starting to hit us full force that our choices didn’t matter, not even really by telltale standards, where you can at LEAST foster positive or negative relationships based on your choices. so when the decision came to let rodrik sacrifice himself or to volunteer to die in his place, we argued and agonized over it for quite some time before i finally said, “if asher lives, probably nothing interesting is going to happen anyway, because he’ll just become a model-swapped rodrik.” and while that’s not entirely true, it is true that very little of what i wanted to see from an asher back at ironrath actually comes to fruition in his route. chapter six is also just far more horrifying from a rodrik pov. even if it loses its punch upon multiple replays, the injustices done upon rodrik’s family ( including elaena ) are hard to forget and even harder not to react to.

still though, i love asher’s route because it’s so much more story-rich than rodrik’s. it more accurately shows off what grrm probably would have written if he’d written ttgot. asher’s story feels like it’s a more fitting end to the tale, if the tale had to end as poorly as it does. so for that reason, i still want to go through episode six and talk about my asher choices, because truly, neither asher lives nor rodrik lives is canon to me. if i had my way, they would have both died in that ambush romeo and juliet style. sorry!

we begin episode six with our extremely sexy side of the road whitehill-killing scene! i like having asher give the order to take no prisoners, but truthfully any one is fine; it’s the same idea anyway. more importantly is that asher needs to beat the shit out of that one ginger ass soldier and he cannot stop. like it needs to be rt-rt-rt-rt-rt all the way down, no hesitation, no restraint in sight! it just makes it all the better for when he’s like … rodrik …… :(((( i love all of what asher says here, but my favourite lines here are “thought he was unbeatable” and “only until ironrath is safe”. while i love “rodrik was meant to be lord” because of the rodrik lore and mentions, i personally think the ironrath line is more in line with asher’s personality, feelings, and actual goals here.

when asher gets to ironrath, he tells elissa “his heroism saved us” because elissa’s LINE is just absolutely banger in response. the way she delivers this line is so heartwrenching! it’s also the only dialogue option that yields any elissa dialogue, so sue me! in any case, then they start talking about the supposed terms of war, and, putting my misgivings about said terms aside, asher responds to the notion that the forresters have already lost the war by actually not saying anything at all. i do like him saying fuck the boltons and fuck ramsay snow, but i find talia showing up for asher and being like, asher can lead us! to be very sweet and, funnily enough, like … character-consistent with asher literally dodging leadership until the last. anyway, “ludd will die at any cost” is my favourite little rallying speech because i just love the way asher is like I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS. it’s a very specific way he says it. and i also just love the rage that asher is feeling being turned outwards to the whitehills. because while i LOVE asher namedropping rodrik and being really sad ( “i will avenge your lord” being my second favourite line for basically this reason ), i really do appreciate the way asher leads the smallfolk here.

in the next asher scene, i am very particular about asher’s dialogue. i always have him choose you’re a coward for using ryon > [idc about any of the dialogues for the ramsay’s terms thing] > i see an army, not gwyn > my dead brother is not enough. the next one is such a tough choice to make, because the “he deserved better” line is truly so so so heartwarming and one of my favourite things asher says ever in game, like it makes me tear up, because im a little filthy rodrik lover. but i think canonically, what asher would say would be along the lines of “maester, prepare the body”. i guess i can put both of these lines down as the ones i’d choose because, well, the second one is more in-character, considering asher would really want rodrik to have a proper forrester funeral before the war ( and they only have an hour before the battle! ) so that he can make sure rodrik’s soul is properly laid to rest and the whitehills can’t desecrate his body if they storm ironrath … but on the other hand, when i actually play the scene, i always choose “he deserved better” because the line makes me sniffle and tear up. so yeah! and, of course, i choose to put poison in ludd’s wine every time! i find the ambush rather goofy, and poison was what my wife and i chose the first time! also, there isn’t really any good reason not to poison ludd, besides that when we poison ludd, we truly do just break guest right, but it’s not like apparently any of the characters care about that, so!

and then we come to the very final asher scene! i don’t really care what asher says to gwyn because i think all of his dialogue is fine there. mostly, i’m just happy that they finally get to interact! but when it comes down to it, the final proper choice of the game … i would say that, THOUGH I LOVE BOTH ENDINGS, and while calling off the plan gives gwyn a much more satisfying end to her arc, i have to go with what i affectionately call the purple erik ending. when my wife and i first played this on the couch of the airbnb we rented in august, literally at the choice point of our lives and late at night, we made this choice when playing asher’s route for the first time. and we were, idk, we were hyper or something, because we were having a grand old time imitating ludd and doing all sorts of voices, and it was a jolly old time. now, we always sacrifice bowen, and so when elissa died from drinking the poison with ludd, there was no one to save asher during the harys segment. except … for purple erik. PURPLE. URPLE. ERIK. he was literally erik’s sprite, but purple all over like some kind of zombie. and as SOON as purple erik touched asher, asher’s hair turned like SKUNK??? it was like STARK black and white recolouring all over. and my wife and i could not take the scene seriously after that. we were in absolute crying hysterics. and first of all, i want to know if anyone else got this ending and the glitches we did. but second of all, having that kind of really surreal experience with my then-fiancée just really endeared this ending to me. i have such fond memories of it ( and elissa’s poisoning is just so well-done ) that i can’t help but prefer this ending over the other. but let it be known that i do absolutely love, love, LOVE gwyn’s ending, and i would definitely consider it to be canon-canon if season two had ever aired. like, it’s THE canon ending of all time in my opinion, and i definitely think it’s the ending grrm would have written for ttgot. like, especially where it puts gwyn’s character to rest. having gwyn not only stab a whitehill soldier, but actively standing aside as asher kills her brother? it’s peak. it’s her realizing that she can actually realize her dream and that her family has been too closed-minded to see that. but … yes. i can’t help but choose purple-urple-erik. it’s just far too sentimental to me!

during the wedding feast, i choose i humbly welcome you > it’s just a chair, ludd ( though “fuck, this is difficult” is a personal fave of mine ). i usually have asher toast to his brothers, which is just a heartwarming choice all around, but i have to shout out saying “to gwyn” when you decide to poison ludd, because the way that asher is EVIL for that, and the way that elissa won’t even SAY “to gwyn” and she says “to asher” instead??? personally i think gwyn deserves to stab asher after that.

there aren’t many choices after this, and the last one i’m going to briefly touch upon here is that asher always chooses to protect the smallfolk over protecting the gate! asher has always been a smallfolk supporter, so it just makes the most logical sense. in any case, now we’re going to move on to my true ttgot blorbo … (ramsay voice) RODRIK!!!!

rodrik choices

considering that a lot of rodrik's big choices fall into a very specific dichotomy of, like, 'submissive' vs 'defiant', i'm just going to go ahead and say that i'm firmly in the defiant camp. this is probably predictable considering that i largely prefer duncan as traitor and, obviously, duncan has nothing to say to you if you're submissive. but it runs deeper than just that. i actually really dislike the submissive rodrik choices because they just don't feel like rodrik, especially not the way that he's described and treated by both his family and the whitehills. you also get way more personality from him if you play him 'antagonistically' and the game just becomes so much more enjoyable. so many other playable characters don't have any agency, so giving rodrik some small wins goes a really long way. in any case, here are the choices that i make that fall into the 'defiant' camp: refuse to kiss ludd's shiny ring, stand up to gryff, beat in gryff's eye with his cane and continue to beat him until he is physically stopped, and try to stab ramsay snow.

rodrik’s introduction scene! i know most of the choices in this scene don’t really matter, but, um, well … they do to me. imo, so much of rodrik’s character is determined by player choice, even so far as his core personality and values. he’s the one playable character where you could have completely wildly different opinions of him depending on the choices you make. ( technically, gared could count too, but he does indeed viciously kill britt and deserts the wall no matter what you do, whereas rodrik can actually truly be completely different depending on player choices. ) is your rodrik cautious or reckless? is he caring or stern? is he cowardly or brave? does he value family or power? … etc etc. and because of this, i get a lot more defensive about rodrik choices. his introduction scene is deeply traumatizing for him, so naturally, as a writer, i have considered some small choices in the corpse cart scene to be “canon” because they’d impact rodrik’s psyche differently … take, for example, the choice to actively roll gregor’s body over vs his body getting rolled over by a bump in the road. i like rodrik using his minimal strength to first check this body that looks suspiciously like his father. i love the horror and dread of this choice! i love that rodrik can’t handle not having that closure, can’t handle not knowing. it invokes a sense of humanity and also shows that rodrik is a determined person who can steel himself to do hard things. i also always have him say “i’m home” when he sees ironrath, since it’s a very proper thing for him to say and it says more about him than any of the other dialogue options. yes, all the forresters have a home in ironrath, technically … but which of them would actually call it so? the younger three find more of a home in the groves than within the keep, asher is exiled, and mira is far away … but rodrik belongs there, and he always has. then, when threatened to be dumped in the river, of course our determined hero tries to actively pull himself out of the corpse cart, using the rest of his strength to do so. rodrik is the sort of man who takes charge, who takes an active role in what’s happening around him … though as we’ll see later, he’s better at dealing with threats than he is with some of the more interpersonal affairs. and … okay this one genuinely has no plot reason, i just LOOOOVE the way he goes, “it’s me …. rodrik.” CUTIE OF ALL TIME!!!!

rodrik will always refuse the milk of the poppy. you get a very clear picture painted for you here, with rodrik having auditory flashbacks to the red wedding and immediately looking for a weapon at his bedside. why would he drink a substance that’s being offered to him after that? besides, duncan does say 'that's rodrik for you' when you refuse the milk of the poppy, whereas he doesn't when you drink it willingly. just another example of how the game kind of reinforces defiant rodrik as being the rodrik that is more accurate to his personality! i also think it’s really heartbreaking for elissa to see her son so wracked with pain that he’s blacking out, and it really makes us fear for rodrik and his grievous wounds! granted, i love elissa’s reaction if you drink the milk of the poppy and find it equally if not more heartwrenching, but that’s just because elissa kills it in everything she does.

okay i PROMISE im going to stick to plot relevant choices from here on out ( they were lying ). anyway rodrik hugs talia and he cracks a joke to ease her mood. i initially didn’t know how to feel about making rodrik do this considering he’s stated to be serious to a fault, but i think this actually reveals something important about … well, rodrik and asher. i think asher was the tension-breaker and the joke-maker typically, but i also think rodrik was prone to pranks and jokes as a child. though i think rodrik making jokes about his appearance here is his way of trying not to seem so scary. almost mimicking asher to a degree, attempting to calm the twins after some great fight or another. it’s something to think about, but i really like rodrik’s line there and what it means for his and talia’s relationship, so i wouldn’t necessarily change it.

um … okay i know. i KNOW it’s not plot relevant … but also … rodrik says “they’ve already seen me”. OKAY BUT THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT. because it highlights rodrik’s mental state! the game doesn’t really harp on how rodrik’s confidence and self-worth gets crippled along with his body. for a man whose worth has always been piled into his prowess as a fighter and as a physically imposing lord-to-be, this kind of disability is debilitating. he can’t stand or walk without help, and his face is scarred and infected. i’m sure rodrik has never been able to look at his face and see it for how it is ever again. i’m sure he’s always dysphorically seeing himself half-dead, how he looked when he had dragged himself off the corpse cart. i think him saying, “the damage is done” is so telling! rodrik is admittedly being defeatist here, but i like this private moment of weakness, witnessed by only his younger sister. it feels very … robb crying to bran before he marches off to war. at the small council meeting, he’ll project his strength and act with confidence, not letting his weakness show. but right now, he allows himself this small moment of grief. it’s poetic. to me!!!

i actually have never seen what happens if rodrik walks by himself to the small council meeting because i, like rodrik, would rather fucking die than have the whitehills watch me fall on my face and eat ass. like, what if someone shoulder-checked me? my ass would be grass and i fear i’d never pick myself up and out of the mud.

now, let’s talk about elaena. i always have rodrik win the betrothal back, because if elaena spurns him and asks for help later, I just can’t imagine rodrik would muster up any goodwill. i write rodrik as quite prideful, and for him to be as vulnerable as to either basically beg elaena to marry him because he loves her or because his family would die if they don’t wed, he would not be able to tolerate that no. being practical was the easiest thing for rodrik to do in that moment, and thankfully, that’s what works! iirc, there are only two elaena choices after this … rodrik comforts elaena after arthur’s death, which leads to their passionate five-week lovemaking session ( 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 ) and then he refuses to send elaena away at the end of the game. i just can’t imagine that rodrik would go against elaena’s wishes like that, especially not as cruelly as to say that she has no place at ironrath. which means, unfortunately, that elaena would get captured by gryff and his men.

alright, now back to chronology. since rodrik refuses to kiss ludd’s shiny ring, he meets gwyn at the funeral. it makes the most sense to me that rodrik treats her with suspicion and some rudeness rather than being very sweet and diplomatic. i don’t think any forrester would be assuming that a whitehill would have good intentions here. not to mention that, by default, rodrik isn’t exactly nice to gwyn when she arrives, and all without player input. he brings up gwyn’s past with asher in a rather blaming tone, patronizing and scolding even. talia and elissa are also both quite put off by gwyn, so it just doesn’t make much sense for me that rodrik would stand apart from the crowd so obviously. in his mind, gwyn was the reason that asher was exiled, after all! his words to her are very pointed, and certainly shift the blame entirely to her, rather than to asher, or even to ludd. and again, i know it’s not an important choice, but i’ve always found it significant when rodrik later talks to elissa and she asks rodrik to kill every last whitehill down to the babes in their beds. the most interesting response to me here is having rodrik say she’ll go crazy thinking like that, specifically because he himself shares elissa’s same view — if not now, then certainly later. but he’s so much more aghast hearing it from his mother than holding that view for himself. it’s so fascinating to have a character voice something that they don’t actually believe themselves ... can you blame me? i just like a little narrative splash here and there, is all. in any case, the only other thing during the funeral scene that matters to me is that rodrik SPECIFICALLY names ethan a true lord, which is incredibly significant given his own position, and it’s just the highest possible honour he could bestow on his brother.

while i don’t feel as strongly about this choice as the others, i do think rodrik would choose to save ryon over expelling gryff. this is technically a character-inconsistent choice, since i usually have rodrik prioritize ironrath over individuals, but i think with the funeral still being so raw and his mother being so broken up over ryon, rodrik didn’t see another option. besides, there wasn’t any proper way to expel gryff at that point, considering that they couldn’t even stop him from walking into their great hall. it would be easier to rescue ryon, in a sense, because it would probably require less brute manpower and more strategic sneaking, even if neither feat is technically possible at the moment. i also like how this choice irks duncan, because it’s a subtle hint to his identity as the traitor. i also like what this sort of ... does for rodrik, where it concerns his slowly changing identity. rodrik has been heavily shaped by his father's expectations, and considering duncan's borderline worship of gregor and his leadership, it makes sense that duncan would espouse the same ideals. and yet, rodrik is hardly a perfect copy of duncan or even gregor. he is so much more aligned with royland's choice of action when he's actually tested on them. playing the long game, biding his time ... none of that is what rodrik is particularly good at or interested in. he's far too prideful! so even though he holds the same value as duncan ( preserving ironrath ), he is, at that time, far more interested in bringing whatever family he can home ( which is aligned with what royland cares for! ) anyway. i just think it's interesting despite me believing that rodrik really could go either way here.

GWYN MEETING WOO!!! i love this scene so much. not only is the little exploring scene with rodrik on red rob's farm my favourite explore scene in the whole game, i just find rodrik's and gwyn's meeting to be so tense and so very indicative of who they are as people. i actually went back and replayed this scene for the purposes of this post so that i could get the exact dialogue options i like, because i love how rodrik interacts with gwyn here. rodrik doesn't take the knife to meet gwyn, which is actually his default choice if you let the timer run out, and i really like this because it sort of highlights how he does trust gwyn to a degree. despite all of his bluster about how she’s a whitehill and she was the reason asher was exiled, he still literally believes in everything she says and he just naively believes that she won’t be armed. i also just like how flustered gwyn gets because she was totally expecting rodrik to bring a knife. anyways, here are his dialogue choices: his actions cannot go unpunished > let's just get to business > we're not here to discuss asher > peace at what price? > i'm not afraid of gryff > then let's be quick > why are you telling me this? > who is it? > it's up to gryff.

after rodrik meets gwyn, he tells elissa the truth that he had met with gwyn whitehill and that she told him there was a traitor in their house. i don’t see why rodrik would ever suspect his mother of being the traitor, not with ryon at highpoint. especially considering that rodrik planned to rescue ryon! elissa would never tell ludd of those plans.

rodrik does not show restraint when the whitehill soldiers mock ethan and he strikes one with a goblet. as he should! i will say this about the goblet scene — i do think gwyn’s meeting with rodrik made him think about playing it safe with the whitehills. he did consider trying to keep the peace here. but upon seeing the mockery the soldiers were making of ethan’s death, especially in front of his grieving mother, rodrik couldn’t help but strike him. and then from there on out, he basically just said fuck it we ball!

rodrik’s next scene is the stand up scene! which, if the way i’ve named it is any indication, is apt because i have rodrik choose to stand up to gryff. side note, i like to choose rodrik’s most misogynistic lines here — i.e. “what happened here?” because he is grinning like an asshole over the idea that a grown ass man could actually let himself get bit by a little girl, and “afraid of a child?” because he LITERALLY is like “( laughs ) are you afraid of a young girl???” and i’m like RODRIK ….. way to show off your MISOGYNY smh!!!! oh, and, this isn’t about rodrik’s ingrained misogyny as a product of the patriarchal society of westeros, but he chooses to punch gryff instead of helping talia out of the mud, since he doesn’t see talia as being under any specific threat that’s greater than his need to punish gryff. he also tells royland that he’s fine ( like, specifically the line where he all but shouts, “i’m fine, royland! i’m fine!” because it just KILLS me how protective royland is of rodrik and how hastily and desperately rodrik is trying to rein him in so he doesn’t get hurt. AUGH!!!!! ), so royland doesn’t end up restrained. rodrik would still rather fight his own battles, after all! oh, and totally unrelated, but i love it when rodrik ends the stand up scene by being like “are we done here?” it’s just sooo disrespectful and it’s perfect.

in a similar vein to the stand up scene, in which rodrik takes matters into his own hands, rodrik doesn’t just let the glenmore guard take care of gryff — he specifically ensures that he uses the move royland taught him to disarm gryff before he calls in the guard. as mentioned above, he then beats gryff as badly as he’s allowed before elissa stops him from killing him. he also spits in gryff’s mutilated eye … i think him disrespecting gryff so utterly like that, and subsequently dishonouring himself by stooping so low, is important. rodrik’s pride has been routinely wounded by gryff: he’s been humiliated, beaten, mocked, etc. like any man, rodrik lashes out the second he has power, and takes it ‘too far’.

when arranging to go to highpoint, rodrik chooses to take royland and leave the glenmore guard to protect ironrath. this is for a couple of reasons! at this point, rodrik simply trusts royland more than duncan, who has been somewhat reserved in his opinion and has disagreed with rodrik on multiple occasions. rodrik would also generally prefer that talia and their prisoners be kept safe, meaning he’s inclined to keep the glenmores at ironrath, so he wouldn’t want to then travel ( in his eyes ) completely unprotected to highpoint, another reason he takes royland. he wouldn’t really trust duncan to do what was needed if things went awry, which he fully imagined they would considering that he had gryff and the garrison held hostage. also, it just makes more sense for the glenmores to stay at ironrath, because then it’s much more believable for ramsay to have actually gotten ahold of arthur so that he could flay him. if arthur returns with rodrik, the timeline just becomes really confusing, as ramsay is clearly with talia already when arthur leaves the group. it takes away some of the narrative punch, in my opinion.

speaking of narrative punch, rodrik is at his most confident and insufferable during the highpoint scene, i’m afraid. like, he’s really out here being like “he’s locked in our darkest cellar along with your entire fucking garrison”, and he says it, like, SO smugly??? i also always have rodrik call ludd’s bluff at highpoint. ‘a whitehill is still a whitehill’ coming back is so peak and every other option just pales in comparison. the fact that even gwyn thinks ludd would hurt or kill ryon and that he’d let gryff die is so … AAAA!!! this is truly the best choice in that scene hands down.

the ramsay scene in episode five is highly underrated, in my opinion. seeing the bastard of bolton in our halls again is so ugly, especially considering he has talia by his side. this, incidentally, is what rodrik is the most preoccupied with. despite him not being there for ethan's murder, rodrik still holds his fair share of hatred for the man, and he would heavily fear for talia's life even if he doesn't think ramsay would take it. i think it's so interesting that rodrik doesn't even try to gamble about this, unlike how he calls ludd's bluff at highpoint. he immediately orders ramsay to get away from talia, and he forgoes any attempts at politeness. ( ethan parallel 🥺🥺 ) the thought of ramsay marrying anyone in his family is deeply repulsive to rodrik for obvious reasons, but i think it's more fun to play rodrik as being unable to mask that revulsion. to me, it's sort of a reckless move ( cue duncan vc : because you're reckless, rodrik! ), and very stupid considering he's still recovering from the twins and really and truly can't stop ramsay without having all of house bolton at his doorstep. and yet, rodrik is curt and blunt and rude because he simply can't help himself in the face of all of this hatred. it only gets worse when arthur is flayed for simply helping rodrik expel gryff. in this moment, i always have rodrik tell ramsay to hurt him instead, because i truly do think that rodrik believes he is responsible for arthur's death. despite the idea to expel gryff being the glenmores' doing ( actually, they wanted to kill him, which is even worse! ), rodrik does genuinely feel remorse for ever having humoured them, to the point where a part of him believes that he was the one who asked them to help, not the other way around. rodrik is the lord of the house and would view this as his duty regardless, but i think the specificity of it being arthur tugs at his heartstrings bad. there's just something about a younger brother being punished for his devotion that hits different for rodrik, for some reason! teehee. anyway ... as mentioned in the beginning of the rodrik section, rodrik always tries to kill ramsay. first of all, i just hate the alternative. ramsay isn't interested in rodrik in the slightest if you don’t threaten his life, so i fail to see why he would even entertain the idea of letting the whitehills and forresters have a war at all. surely, if he saw no inherent value in rodrik, going as far as to think him cowardly, he would just kill rodrik and let ludd have the grove. but with rodrik daring to try and kill ramsay snow, despite his family name, despite being crippled ... let's just say thank god rodrik didn't get reek'd.

i talked briefly about how i prefer duncan as the traitor, and truthfully, there’s a lot of my writer’s brain talking when it comes to this choice. i feel like the fandom generally agrees that the traitor royland route is weird and poorly written, but even if royland made an excellent traitor who made complete sense, i’d still prefer duncan! however, before i talk about duncan’s traitor scene, i want to talk about the chat rodrik has with talia. i think whether you promise talia to kill the traitor or not, it’s a valid choice to make and not out of character for rodrik to do. i myself have gone back and forth on this choice! but i think when talia specifically says, “i’m asking you as your sister,” it strikes a chord in rodrik. i don’t actually think he would promise her unless she had made this particular sentiment clear. it’s important to establish that rodrik has always been raised to be a lord, and that this has always taken priority over his brotherhood. knowing as well that rodrik has internalized a lot of westeros’ narratives on women, there would be a natural desire for him to say something along the lines of, “it’s not your place to determine what should be done, it’s mine”. because that is true, and i believe that rodrik is the kind of character who would skirt that promise even if he holds the same perspective — and he does. i personally believe that as soon as talia says that the traitor is like family, rodrik knows who he is. and all of that betrayal and hurt would come up for him, and i’m sure rodrik means to kill duncan here. but it’s when talia asks rodrik to make her this promise as her brother that rodrik can put aside his need to correct her as her lord and brings him back down to her level. and that is why he promises talia to kill the traitor, because he is finally speaking to her as her brother and not her lord.

in any case, the duncan confrontation still makes me scream, cry, throw up, etc. it devastates me every time i play it. these are the very specific choices i make during this scene for its full emotional impact: what did ludd offer you? > you sent gared to the wall! > you’re not family. > [strike duncan] > kill duncan. now, i need it on record that if you have not played the scene like this, YOU NEED TO PLAY THE SCENE LIKE THIS. it is so insane. rodrik starts off up to eleven by being like, oh what did ludd offer you? titles? a lordship? — basically being like, so what was soo important to you that you’d sell us out? and then when duncan is like, nothing! then rodrik is SO audibly aghast and appalled, being like, so you turned your cloak freely then! and like, when you bring up sending gared to the wall, the dialogue between the two men just keeps escalating and escalating so that the “because you’re reckless, rodrik!” just reaches its full emotive impact. like it makes sense that duncan would shout that! and then, oh god, and then rodrik says the one thing that actually CUTS duncan to the bone: “you’re not family. you’re not blood.” and duncan is like (odysseus epic voice) how could you say that ….. i built that wedding bed with my blood and sweat ………. but in all seriousness, it’s insane, like. duncan is like I HELD YOU WHEN YOU WERE A BABY!!!!! he truly truly views himself as family to the forresters so i know this wounded him. but THEN duncan goes on his whole rant about how beastly and violent rodrik is and then when rodrik punches him. oh god it gives me chills. all duncan has to say to that is, “as i said…” like OK??? KILL ME THEN???? and then i choose to kill duncan because otherwise royland dies, but … i’m probably going to fudge some things around when my wife and i actually do our rewrite, because i don’t really find duncan’s arc to be complete and i’d love to see an element of redemption for him. just not at the expense of royland, though.

the, um… asher head scene ………… i don’t have a lot to say about it despite it being a scene that really makes my stomach drop and my heart sink. however, i need it on record that THE rodrik line of all time exists in this scene. i’ve always been really disappointed by how little rodrik reacts to and grieves asher’s death, especially since asher’s death is so much more revolting and traumatizing than rodrik’s. and rodrik is very mild about showing his grief, unlike his brother. but i’ve always thought that rodrik is a very angry sort of griever, and we FINALLY found a line that works for this. it’s the dialogue choice “you fucking animal!”, in which rodrik literally just shakes and screams, “you fucking animal! how dare you!” which is SO exactly the energy we needed from him. like, ludd is fucking evil for this. oh my god. anyway! that’s all i wanted to say for that scene but i need it on record that i am so emotionally compromised over this scene every day forever.

ludd vs gryff for rodrik is interesting, if only because gryff’s actions towards rodrik ( and, vice versa, rodrik’s towards gryff ) is more vivid and real than any ludd-rodrik relationship. it makes sense to me why one might send rodrik after gryff instead of ludd! due to the determinant ending of episode five, there isn't really any kind of conclusion to rodrik's and gryff's story. there's no clear winner of the day when gryff doesn't kill rodrik, so it would stand to reason that rodrik killing gryff here would be a satisfying end. um ... but it isn't, though! <3 there are aspects i like about the scene; for example, rodrik choosing to save ryon and beskha's absence making more sense because of this, as well as rodrik holding gryff's severed head by the hair and the minor way he flinches, disgusted, appalled, likely being reminded of asher's head ... but this scene falls flat for me because of the complete lack of interesting chemistry in their fight. gryff starting to pathetically sob doesn't feel gratifying, it's just embarrassing -- and rodrik talks nonstop about killing ludd anyway. it's supposed to be this big, epic final confrontation between rodrik and gryff. gryff, who has tormented rodrik since he set foot in ironrath. gryff, the man who literally killed asher. but it doesn't feel that way at all. to me, the best ending for them, the last "final image", so to speak, is that shot of gryff's mangled, mutilated eye before he's locked up. besides, it’s logical to kill the lord, especially since everyone believes that ramsay said with his mouth that whichever lord dies first loses the war despite ramsay never ever saying that. rodrik is so funny for being so obsessed with the idea of 'smashing the snake's head' by killing ludd and then being so surprised when gryff just takes over the war efforts. bitch, of course he would. that was literally your plan when you were trying to sacrifice yourself … you know, dying so that asher could take over your position as lord??? DUMBASS. all that loving bullying aside though, i can't really see rodrik changing the plan he had already set ( killing ludd and ending the war ) to try and save ryon, even if ludd says to kill ryon if something happens to ludd. despite rodrik’s genuine care for ryon, he has repeatedly endangered ryon’s life and put him last in his list of priorities besides one (1) instance, and i just don't think rodrik was thinking about anything besides killing ludd and getting this war over with. it's not like that scene in episode three where rodrik has the luxury of thinking clearly. he's so tired and worn down, especially after watching asher die so traumatically. so he forgoes thinking too hard about it in the moment and simply sneaks after ludd instead.

i also find the fight more satisfying! we've never seen ludd fight or even be present during a skirmish, so it's thrilling to watch in a way that it isn't for gryff. i like knowing that ludd, when caught off-guard, would resort to using dishonourable tricks, like throwing down objects to stall rodrik’s advancing. rodrik’s and ludd’s battle is deeply hands-on and seems more like a struggle for them both — rodrik using a whitehill soldier as a shield, ludd utilizing anything and everything at his arsenal to win ( as compared to gryff who sticks to his sword and a crossbow ) … my favourite part is ludd stabbing rodrik’s chest shallowly with a spear. mostly because rodrik, realizing he can’t use his weight to his advantage to push ludd away and using the end of the spear to smack ludd off, is not only smart, but amazing. and also minorly because it reminds me of clem and minerva’s fight in twdg s4, where minerva gets clem in the same tight spot with her dagger, and the hype there and the drama is just too good to not feel, even if subtly, in the rodrik-ludd scene. get his ass!! anyway, ludd dying with his dignity and pride is fitting for him and well done. rodrik also shows more personality in this fight himself ; i’m very fond of his absolutely insanely arrogant line of, “call off the attack, swear fealty to house forrester, and i’ll let you live.” i know i clown on rodrik a lot, but my favourite part of his character is his pure confidence in the impossible. he will be so confident about the craziest bullshit, like trying to slit ramsay’s throat, or offering ludd the exact same “terms of peace” ludd offered him back at highpoint. also bonus points for ludd saying, “i underestimated you, cripple.” i just think there’s a lot more there in rodrik’s and ludd’s fight than choosing gryff, and it just seems like what rodrik would do instead of randomly changing targets to a fourthborn he already views as hardly worth his time.

when faced between the lives of the smallfolk and defending the gate, rodrik choosing the gate makes the most sense to me. ser royland says repeatedly they’re fucked the second the whitehills tear through the gate — royland says, specifically, that house forrester will fall and in a earlier conversation ( when he’s worried about rodrik’s plan to go to the whitehill camp ) he even brings up how elissa will die if something happens to rodrik, and more ominously says “and talia …” implying her fate would be even worse. rodrik also usually still has elaena in house forrester despite the danger as well. you see rodrik’s fear about this even in-game, where he sounds genuinely scared out of his mind and almost angry with it when talia leaves the cells to try and ask after their mother … it’s clearly weighing on him and fraying at him quickly. this heavy knowledge that rodrik is all that stands between rape, murder, and imprisonment of the women he loves and wishes to preserve as much as ironrath makes his fixation on the gate even more apt in my opinion. i’ve briefly talked before about rodrik’s obsession with ironrath so i won’t get into it here, but everything rodrik values relies on that damn gate, and he’s not going to abandon that. he needs to win this war. and if that means killing ludd and making sure their gate stays up, then those are his priorities! i don’t necessarily view rodrik not protecting the smallfolk as ‘evil,’ but i do think rodrik’s apathy plays a part in his very quick dismissal of their lives … rodrik’s relationship with smallfolk pales in comparison to asher’s. he isn’t talked of reverently by them nor mourned if he dies in the ambush, and whilst viewed favorably ( talia says they see him as a hero for going to war ), these views can easily diminish or become nonexistent … and they’re still not personal by any means. and unlike ethan, rodrik never deals with his people? he doesn’t try to solve the hunger crisis, he isn’t concerned about them being driven from the groves and into ironrath ( he cares more for the destruction of the forest than their lives ), and so on. it isn’t new for lords of houses to neglect their peasant people, in fact it’s a main theme of the books lol. so rodrik protects the gate, for both sympathetic reasons and also as a flaw in a way.

the dialogue options for what the player and rodrik believes to be his last words are … sure something. there’s a lot i tinker with over it, like why doesn’t rodrik, the most ironrath-centric of them all, get the option to say their house words? why is it ‘the north remembers’ instead? to me, that feels like the weakest option. the forresters in-game are so seperated from the north and are even severed from their most prominent alliance — the starks. we never get any details of that relationship, or house forrester’s strong stark-warden beliefs, or any of that … so rodrik’s very northern saying rings a bit hollow, even if it’s a very post red wedding thing. but i do like him not thinking of his house words in the moment! there’s just something about that … anyway, as sweet as “i’m sorry, brother” is, i’m a “fuck you all!” truther. it’s just so vicious … it’s so angry and deeply resentful, and despite how angry rodrik can be and is, i think it’s such a final straw for him in a sense. he’s dropped the decorum. he’s dropped the superiority and ego. he’s not going out with dignity but as a vengeful, shaking man instead. rodrik is so like asher in this moment, perhaps has been more like asher than he’s ever been before or has ever thought possible — it just feels so vivid and fitting somehow. rodrik having humanity and getting to demonstrate it is something i always want for him … i like rodrik getting to be raw and real and true to himself, as rodrik the man instead of rodrik the lord ( or the rodrik his father and duncan expected and wanted and groomed him to be ). so him just shedding everything because he’s going to die anyway, him believing they’re his last words and wanting them to count and matter, and he just chooses to curse the whitehills with his last breath, to shout “fuck you all!” crudely and with every last ounce of passion left … i find it tragically beautiful. rodrik’s life has been such an uphill battle and he’s been thwarted at every turn, insulted and belittled, and never allowed too big of a win or peace without paying hefty prices … rodrik getting to wallow in that unfairness, in how awful everyone has made his life when it was already so horrid … i could talk forever. fuck you all!!! truly!! i’m right there with him. ( on a more small note, rodrik is also just such a ‘fuck’ person lol — he can say fuck you to ludd, he says ‘fucking’ multiple times and casually … rodrik would throw up the middle finger if he could i promise so he deserves a fuck you all )

and that’s it! thank you so much to all those of you who have made it to the end of this post. i did not expect it to get so ungodly long, but … here it is! i’m obviously still discovering the game, and these might change, but for now, this is how i like to play ttgot! if you have any questions about any of it, please feel free to send an ask and i’ll … try not to make it 19k words this time.

#ttgot #rodrik forrester #asher forrester #mira forrester #gared tuttle #ethan forrester #long post //

asherforrester

okay so i LOVE your thoughts on your blog, it’s so admirable how you analyze the game and the characters in it

what’s your process for getting into the character’s heads? usually i see blogs posting about just one character but you have a really holistic view of like, everyone?? which is so cool and makes for really nuanced takes

so basically i was wondering how you do it since id love to analyze ttgot in that way too without being biased by my faves

aaah, thank you! you’re so, so sweet haha. but before i give some advice or explain my thought process re: analysis, i do just want to say that everyone can think whatever they want forever. there is no ‘bad’ analysis. i may not agree with something but that doesn’t make me inherently more righteous, or whatever. people will always interpret characters or relationships somewhat differently ( or completely differently ) and that’s totally fine! i like that even, for it helps me see new perspectives and cement my own thoughts. i may use strong language in this post or imply i’m more ‘canonical’, but that’s purely because you asked for my advice and what my head looks like. please know there’s always different ways to analyze characters or text because, if there wasn’t, analysis would be rather cut-and-dry instead of collaborative and fun. there are some ttgot blogs i constantly reblog from that have just as amazing opinions ( if not more amazing ) as me!! just … do not mistake my tone as being dismissive of other people’s views or being mean spirited.

although without further ado : i actually feel like i’m not as vast as i want to be when it comes to analysis for the ttgot cast … like. i have favorites. and it does show. i’m very ship-rotting in the brain and it does stunt my analysis a bit, i feel. some parts of the characters are foreign to me, or are entirely out of my reach, or i’m just too shaky in my understanding, too insecure, to delve much further. i think the best thing for analysis is to be subject to change, but also rather firm in the foundations you’ve set and have come to love. if there’s an aspect of the character you adore, stick loyally beside it! build around that with details and things. i find that a lot of the finer stuff stems from a core, and that the core is usually an obvious aspect of the character, meaning it’s less scary … for example, gwyn is obsessed with peace between the whitehills and forresters. this is her core, and therefore informs a lot of her personality, beliefs, and relationships. it’s not all she is, and there’s the question of ‘where did this trait come from?’, but it’s a good place to start, you know? these cores help me stay unbiased, somewhat. these are canon pieces that are unshakable. i try not to change these at all or like … remove them.

i think blogs focus on one character because it’s simply easier and is the most indulgent form of fandom. i also do this so i cannot and do not judge lol. asher is sort of my guy, my center, my ship wheel and the one whose relationships i think the most about … but i understand this is all pure indulgence and so i sort of seperate it in my mind. but like, it does help me, having asher as my favorite. a lot of my understanding of gwyn and beskha has come from the mere fact asher must have Thoughts and Feelings and a relationship with these women. perhaps even thoughts and feelings and relationships i don’t agree with nor like. i think this is where analysis gets tripped up or ‘biased’ ; people just don’t like thinking of things that upset them or irritate them, and so they must devalue those traits or relationships or characters to cope with their dislike. i, however, cannot do this. it feels like a betrayal, almost? it’s my job to instead understand and make these dynamics and characters, lackluster as they are, interesting and human. i find that devaluing characters ( especially due to biases or ship wars or equally petty grievances ) is the quickest way to lose sight of a good analysis. like … i know the fandom loved to devalue gwyn and gwyn/asher, mainly because nobody shipped them or liked gwyn, but in doing so they miss a lot of interesting ideas and themes … i think it’s alright that asher and gwyn genuinely liked each other rather than just having a flirty, impulsive rebellious phase, and because i think this, i can then understand that this avenue makes the most sense because gwyn isn’t a rebellious woman ( in That way, anyway ) and asher already had his avenues of rebellion, and also hates the whitehills. it’s easy to write off a nothing relationship as a nothing and immature thing. but in doing that, gwyn and asher both become uninteresting and dull, and their relationship makes no sense.

it’s stuff like that? like. you must be willing to put bias aside and dislike aside. i think it’s so telling that rodrik lives truthers get asher wrong for example. they are too obsessed with hating asher, with choosing rodrik over him, that they dull asher down comically and almost turn him into a trope ; like rodrik’s yang, his shadow, his antithesis. asher becomes a warmongering devil. uncaring, apathetic, deeply irresponsible, violent, etc. and rodrik is like. sooo logical and perfect at leading and this is his story so rodrik’s a hero, etc. this sort of bitterness towards asher changes him in the minds of the person viewing him, but also it eventually changes rodrik as well … he becomes something he isn’t: a stereotype, the good guy to asher’s bad one, and this also affects their relationship too. i cannot imagine how people who view rodrik and asher like this view their relationship, but i imagine it isn’t one i agree with nor feel like is backed up by canon. like. it’s important to keep a level head, i suppose? don’t get bribed by silly things.

i try not to hate characters as a principle because of this. or, if i don’t like them, i try to see their role in the story and try to be faithful towards it. it makes this all easier, lol. and thankfully i don’t have to be jealous of other canonical ships because i’ve successfully rewritten ttgot in my head to be purely about asher-rodrik-mira and now all their other relationships will always echo each other. that curbs the jealousy and helps me win the ‘ship war’ so to speak, haha. more people should utilize haunting as a means of stomaching ships or dynamics they don’t like, imo. it also helps me find intrigue within other relationships i otherwise would dislike … like, i can write gwyn/asher, and i can write them religiously, because gwyn is so obviously a vassel for mira and rodrik. i can stomach elaena and rodrik knowing that rodrik has some untapped feelings about his siblings and goes into this marriage not out of love anyway ( which, to me, is just canon, seeing as he is pressured to woo elaena for his survival rather than any love they shared / rodrik went to war instead of staying back to marry ). i can stomach toying with mira and her trail of blonde boys or cripple boys because her type is quite literally her Brothers now. it makes characters i would otherwise struggle with due to jealousy reasons bearable.

of course, they can’t just be vassals. they must be characters, fully formed, on their own feet. i think i find this through relationships though … sometimes. i, ah, don’t know how i analyze the characters that i do? for the young three forresters, i just love them so much. i like thinking about them. i also listen to a lot of music too and pace and this helps … it influences me, sort of? so much of ethan’s character and, ryon’s and talia’s by extension, has come from a tale of two brothers remix and also from playing a plague’s tale. sometimes i don’t steal scenes or characterization, just vibes. it’s like. i enjoy hugo’s realistic childishness and one minded view of things, especially surrounding his Caretaker. i see ryon in that. i wish ryon was that too, on top of everything else. reading other media, watching it, listening to music … it helps. i think my constant thought process of ‘how would i have wanted this character thing to play out?’ helps me find answers and, thus, analysis. almost all of my thoughts are based off of cliff notes in ttgot. i wanted rodrik’s insomnia to be a thing, i wanted him unable and unwilling to sleep, always staving it off, always in pain and triggered by nightmares ; using insane means he normally wouldn’t in order to soothe, like nonstop sex with elaena for example. i want this for rodrik because the game has slivers of implication that rodrik’s sleep is a restless one. he wakes to the sounds of the red wedding twice over. he’s found staring at a window after sex with elaena and she mentions how little sleep they’ve gotten, but it’s implied rodrik has gotten even less, because he’s the one up early and she’s not, and elaena doesn’t find this sight odd or concerning. stuff like that.

realizing what disappointed you and why this disappointed you helps. it ties back into canon nicely and makes your analysis feel more realized and real. it means your headcanons are closer to canon than one would think, which feels nice.

besides consuming, i just replay ttgot a lot. not just physically, but also in my head. if there were scenes that tickled me after playing, i replay them over and over. i try to understand why they intrigue me, and when i do, i sort of keep that nugget. it means something and says something about the characters, always. for example, i hate playing arthur’s death. i avoid episode five like the plague. some scenes are just too much for me, or embarrass me, or infuriate me, so i don’t play them often. yet i noticed something while playing those scenes and it haunts me … it’s elaena crying over arthur’s body and saying that her little brother was everything, he was everything. this obviously informs arthur and elaena’s relationship, but how could my brain not wander to rodrik and asher as a result, especially given ep5’s ending and their reunion? this scene haunts me because it sucks, because it’s emotional, but also because it says something … elaena inadvertently kills arthur over her own selfishness and because arthur loved and trusted her and wanted to fight her battles with her. she regrets this tremendously. rodrik inadvertently kills asher over their family’s selfishness and because asher loved his family, especially rodrik, and couldn’t let rodrik die. rodrik regrets ( or should’ve regretted this ) tremendously. the woes of killing your younger brother, who was, by literal dialogue, ‘everything.’ i replay this game scene over and over and mull on it, and thus, come up with thoughts and analysis so to speak … i find the foreshadowing and the irony ( rodrik ‘kills’ elaena’s brother and thus dooms his own — think kenny from twdg, where he kills a son and believes he doomed his own as a result ; also, same company. i find looking at other telltale games ALSO helps with analysis, since a lot of those teams shared writers ) and i extrapolate.

i actually genuinely cannot stress enough how important it is to replay scenes in your mind religiously, scenes that caught your eye and mind for whatever reason. it’s just as important for analysis as replaying the game. like … think. analysis is just thinking about the source material. just think about it as much as you can, turn it over again and again, the same thing, just. on repeat. see every angle and just think. understand it and yourself. most of my thoughts don’t see the light of day and that’s maddening, yes, but every thought — no matter how simple or obvious or silly — helps shape these characters into more solid figures. and, since ttgot is such a meager media, it’s fine to also throw your wants and wishlists in there. who cares. go wild. just … keep important things in mind.

i let thoughts come and go, and more importantly, i approach this cast with wanting to understand and develop them all. i think my approach and eagerness helps my thoughts for everyone flow more nicely. sometimes, if i’m really struggling, i just reach for a random ship for some reason ( a ship that pisses people off and i want to like, suddenly ) and go okay, how would this work. actually, shoving two random characters together might just help develop them, when you’re thinking of all their ins and outs. the old ttgot fandom wasn’t prone to doing this, as don’t most fandoms … they cannot stand multi shipping or ships that don’t fit a mold. every rodrik rper or lover refused to ship him with anyone but elaena for ‘purity’ reasons and because they were ‘so perfect together’ … same for elaena, and they both sort of suffered as a result. more people should’ve shipped something like gwyn and rodrik for fun or for genuine interest, because then maybe so many gywn haters would realize they hate her for petty reasons because she is just so like rodrik lol. maybe they would’ve realized that the real reason gwyn/rodrik is impossible isn’t because gwyn is evil or rodrik is ‘too in love with elaena’ but is actually because rodrik is an insane control freak and gwyn is also one. rodrik is borderline misogynistic. he’s loving, yes, but he is also a lordly heir …. a firstborn … he’s fine with gwyn being helpful and by his side, fine with her politicking, but the second she tries to rise above her station or seems thirsty for his role … the second she shows her ambitions and wants to push rodrik to do something, he Will Flip. this isn’t even addressing the fact that rodrik clearly blames gwyn for asher’s absence. like … the asher of it all … but this all, for one, has to acknowledge gwyn’s and rodrik’s flaws and better strengths and people usually cannot handle that.

people should experiment outside their comfort zone more i say! me being willing to see things keeps me unbiased and helps me comb through a large cast. me also being insane helps. there are no limits or bounds to my creativity … i don’t behold myself to a ‘standard’ of purity and goodness. these characters can be flawed, fucked up, mentally unwell, or evil — i don’t care. i just want them human. thus, my thought process spreads to every corner, entertains every thought. having that freedom and ‘big space’ is so important i fear. don’t clip your wings!!! just think things and try them in your head. you might find something worth while.

this is all fiction and characters are messy and complex and not real. explore them!!! don’t be afraid to do this due to weird binaries you yourself have created. mira only eyeing and being tempted by short, blonde haired men with beards isn’t, on the surface, very queer of her. it’s moreso indicative of her relationship with asher, perhaps. in fact, her relationship with other women is nonexistent and small … but this doesn’t mean you can’t ship mira with a woman or view her as queer, but what does shipping her with a woman mean? what does it do for mira, who has possibly never been in love with a woman? what’s her type? does she not have one, because she’s just fucking around and finding out? etc. think about it all. people’s insistence for their ‘beskha is a man hating lesbian’ hc completely miss the oddness of asher’s and beskha’s super intense, codependent relationship because it implies something they’re not comfortable with. the idea of beskha and asher fucking is horrendous to them. but, like, why? this shackles beskha to this idea that she, somehow, views sex in this super personal light rather than just taking the edge off. it implies that beskha is ‘picky’ or cares more for her attraction to women than her attraction to asher as her comfort object, as an obsession. it’s silly and very uncomplicated. it’s a trope because it keeps people safe and comfortable, and thus refuses to acknowledge beskha as her own person and as a fully formed, complex, flawed woman. instead she is just a Trope People Like. sad. and also makes her feel less 3D. again, nothing wrong with this hc obviously, and beskha can definitely be a lesbian ( i think she is one, most likely! ), but how did she discover this about herself during a lifetime of abuse, being in survival mode and being slowly killed by survivor’s guilt, and while stuck with an ever changing cast of company? does she know she’s a lesbian? it’s okay to experiment and have beskha’s sexuality be unconventional, like the rest of her character is. it’s also okay to see beskha’s sexuality as anything else, since canon doesn’t say anything outside of her having whores.

i guess people are too simple. don’t be simple. be crazy. think about everything with these characters and let it air. sometimes characters feel things or do things or are things that are uncomfortable or are socially unacceptable. gared is quite literally homoflexible which is like, so offensive and probably homophobic to so many people, and yet i can’t pretend his odd chemistry and odd fawning for talia just isn’t there. just like i can’t pretend that the game doesn’t constantly sexually harass gared via men ( like finn, frostfinger, jon ) and use homosexual language to describe him and his relationships lol. he is Gay. but he would also marry a forrester woman asap because he does love them and could bear it and also he wants to be a forrester bad. is this insane? yeah. but oh well …. that’s just who gared is …..

i hope this makes sense, haha. like. just be open minded, be obsessive, think and think even if you’re thinking bad thoughts or ‘awkward’ thoughts … don’t let those thought go, just keep thinking, and i promise they’ll go somewhere and maybe reveal something. consume media and think about the cast. think about your desires and disappointments. think about putting two characters in a room with a blaring ‘fuck or die’ trope and think about what would transpire. put them in a box. put them in an au. think about all their choices and opinions and senses of self. don’t feel bad for cutting things that make no sense / are disappointing but replacing them with something better or what makes more sense to the character you’ve formed. again, ttgot characters are so one dimensional, you can do what you want and still push it as canonical analysis. just love the cast the best you can and try to be open minded, and feed your indulgences often, yes, even the ooc ones, because that helps with remaining unbiased in actual serious analysis. don’t be afraid to change things or have awkward phases for the characters, to let old ideas go. it’s all fine …..

just have fun and be nuts i suppose. that’s where i am at the moment, nutty and fun.

#okay this is really REALLY helpful writing advice lowkey #like i myself have always really admired how you can write things that you don’t like #since i really struggle with that! like it’s HARD for me to come to terms with aspects of characters that i like #but that i don’t personally Agree With.#I’ve sort of always employed the ‘I don’t like it but it’s there but I just won’t write about it’ strategy #but you’re right becayse like! If I don’t engage with it then I can never make it interesting #and like i NEEEEVER would have come around on gwyn if i didn’t force myself to think about her and what i did like about her #because i just was like well rodrik and mira Hate gwyn. and Obviously asher Never Loved Her.#but these sort of ‘easy’ ways of viewing things don’t give way to interesting and complex characterization!#i really appreciated the beskha part because it talks less about sexuality and more about like.#the complexity of human attraction and love and lust and all those things #you can be a lesbian in any number of ways and it all depends on like #your values and your upbringing and your traumas and your personality and all sorts of different aspects!#i was raised to be very puritanical about sex and romance so i have to think harder to come to terms with something like #this character likes sex as a means of blowing off steam AND they use sex as a means to get closer to someone they care for deeply #like there’s nuance there and i find myself rereading this post over and over for more advice #because it’s very. like. radical advice. but it’s so NEEDED to help you expand your mindsets and world views #UGFHHHH amazing post 100000000/10 fr!!!!

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