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

ATHANASIOS , they/them , 25+

lost-lords , a blog exploring telltale’s game of thrones and the musings associated . potentially triggering content to be found here , browse at your own discretion . no harassment will be tolerated — as manny mua would say , if you don’t like me , don’t fucking watch me . :)

my wife cheating on me with our fucking cat 😑

#im literally right here wanting to spend time with her and she’s here giving our cat kisses #she’s talking to him SOOOO nice and im like. talk to ME!!!! about SHIPS!!!!!!!!!#she’s asking him for onions or tomatoes . he’s literally a kitty cat #IM A HUMAN BEING WHO HAS COMPLEX THOUGHTS ABOUT TTGOT

god said i was too powerful so i was nerfed by being unable to answer any asks without making it a 20k response 😔

#i am so sorry to anyone who’s waiting on a response #i have this really amazing lowstakes ask …. which then turned into like this humongous rambling #that was SO daunting i had to write it in my notebook #because to write it digitally felt like it was too much. so i need to now TRANSCRIBE it #but even then i still have *checks wrist* like four more paragraphs to go after that?#(laughing as i fall backwards into water)

lambjock

me when i shall be playing ttgot tomorrow with the spouse ❤️

lambjock

on top of this they’re talking about ttgot on twitter … love it when this game briefly goes viral

#literally about to CRY over this #literally i love asher so bad I can’t handle that asher SUFFERED #screams like a banshee #alex jordan please just one look alex jordan #anyway we are perilously close to playing ttgot. SO close I can feel it

was gripped by a disease on the way back from the coffeeshop so have this hastily-made table comparing some core traits of ttgot women

#ttgot #mira forrester #elaena glenmore #talia forrester #gwyn whitehill #feel free to ask me about this … teehee <3 #and yes this is all a hasty attempt for me to be able to articulate more about elaena in a way that doesn’t repeat myself

lambjock

hauling some very old ttgot thoughts onto my new blog and the asher-rodrik dying together bad end always gets me. it is well and truly such a fascinating and horrific concept that i think would be so fun to explore … can you imagine the forresters functioning afterward. completely doomed in this war because rodrik and asher made a conscious decision to refuse to leave the other’s side, and thus, screwed over the rest of their family? like their lives had so much value and were so necessary, and they threw that all away ( the future of ironrath away ) just to die together in an ambush that rodrik meant to stop. like. it’s insanity.

lost-lords

no but it is about how well and truly selfish this choice is. it’s about how rodrik and asher doom their family to unimaginable horrors and they do it with a smile on their face. like??? rodrik literally tells elaena that horrible things happen to women in war, and royland tells rodrik and elissa point-blank that the forresters would suffer unimaginably if the whitehills got their hands on them. not to mention that the pit fighters would just be left purposeless and leaderless in a strange country, with no one but a grieving beskha and royland to keep them in check. and then just like … they look into each others eyes and they just forget this <3 it’s so absolutely absurd of them and yet it feels correct, in a silly way. rodrik and asher are so magnetically drawn to each other and you can tell that they’re in each other’s orbit bad. for example, the tense way they interact with each other, with asher only ever acknowledging the visible threat of a whitehill soldier and the other person he’s highly codependent with ( beskha ), all while rodrik is absolutely dead to the world outside asher. and it’s even visually shown when you make the choice to leave a brother behind, with only the character’s face shown, surroundings blurred by red, and the faraway and echoing shouting of a near-forgotten loved one. it’s kindaaaa crazy! in my humble opinion. to me it’s clear that the two of them have always imagined that they would live together, fight together, die together, and that they’re still, subconsciously or otherwise, hoping for that in their heart of hearts.

#ok i know this is about the fallout of that choice which IS interesting in its own right #especially about how history would remember them oddly #there’s no real glory in a double sacrifice and it does inherently doom their whole family #to death? probably not. but certainly to servitude and perhaps even to forced marriage #elaena would also suffer from this i imagine especially if she was carrying rodrik’s child #and like it’s about that kind of resentment.#from beskha and royland from directly being left behind but also from Talia and elissa and elaena who are left defenceless #and ryon??? like i can’t imagine. MIRA???????#her coming home and finding out her fucking brothers died in a gay sacrifice for each other and she’s just not in on it #oh she’d be devastated having survived all that she did and then realizing that not all of them were on the same page #she’d hate that rodrik and asher could give up and die in each others arms or whatever and she has to just keep on fighting #ANYWAY. this is all very intryiging and i love it

lambjock

Hii, fellow GOTT enjoyer. I was always bummed about Mira´s alive! ending.

If you play Mira as heroic and honorable, refusing to marry Morgryn is interesting and makes sense.

Now, if you want to play Mira as cunning and ruthless, accepting to marry Morgryn is a loss as well, and arguably a bigger loss than dying since you´re giving up your agency and freedom and even sort of betraying your House in giving its power and lands to Morgryn. You´re giving exactly what he wants and it is his biggest victory. Also, you sacrifice Tom. All for a extremely cheap price. Being a cunning backstabbing bastard should have had a bigger reward in King´s Landing.

Now, I wouldn´t have (much) problem with this ending if the writers posed this as a cliffhanger about Mira having the potential to out-smart him eventually and playing as her again, but since Mira doesn´t appear in the playable characters menu after the end of the final episode, it pretty much signals that´s a loss without hope for Mira, as well. And since we all know about how Telltale hands determinant characters, well....

It is especially a bummer since just about every important player says that Mira is cunning, smart, and dangerous. Cersei, Tyrion, Morgryn....

Margaery can even be oblivious to Mira playing her like a fiddle.

I guess it´s because I read somewhere that Mira was supposed to survive for >>three<< seasons, but other director wanted Mira to die, but want to give a choice about her surviving but at the cost of her agency and freedom. So yeah, Mira´s time as a player of the Game is severely undercut.

They shouldn´t have dropped Mira as a playable character so soon. Kings´s Landing is arguably the most important part since the wrong word or action can doom House Forrester than any battlefield could. But it can also save House Forrester. And who has the most personal stakes than Mira Forrester?

Imagina Mira experiencing events like Margaery´s arrest and Cersei becoming Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The way I played Mira, she would absolutely betray Margaery and flee to Cersei´s side. It also helps that Cersei is the one who actually did something to help Mira in this game.

TDLR : Mira losing the Game was such a bummer to me, considering the political part of King´s Landing is arguably the most important part about saving or destroying House Forrester. Mira could have been the only hope for the surviving Forrester in a Season 2, but Mira surviving is arguably worse for the Forrester than her dead, so idk....one would think refusing Morgryn is actually the smarter choice, since it saves her House from another potential enemy and makes her "win" by ruining his plans...

thank you so much for this ask! unfortunately, i’m not the sort of person to debate the character endings in this way — i find pretty much every character’s ending ridiculous to varying degrees, and i know that this is largely due to outside factors in ttgot’s production. it’s not like the writers wanted to write the game this way, but executive meddling forced them to rush the plot, introduce new elements, and make characters die where they really didn’t need to. however, i do politely disagree with your claims here. i understand feeling frustrated that mira didn’t do more. i’m frustrated about that, too! but even in my rewrite of the game, i wouldn’t change this choice so much as i would change some of the circumstances around it. for mira to end up in this position is pretty inarguably stupid. morgryn, as a merchant lord with no lands, should not be able to hold influence over mira in the way that he does. there is no way that he would be able to just pardon her of her crimes and protect her from the lannisters. and mira refusing to marry him isn’t even really thwarting any plan of morgryn’s, because he wasn’t smart enough to court her in the first place. he wanted to kill her! she gave him the idea to marry her because he was so idiotic he couldn’t even rub two brain cells together to come up with the plan that probably any man or woman in king’s landing would consider the first course of action. not to mention that no matter how you play things, house forrester still has two surviving male heirs that would come before mira in the line of succession, and the whitehills are going to occupy ironrath anyway. morgryn would need to fight a war to win it back because of conqueror’s rights, and i mean … he can’t even buy a keep. where is he going to get an army like that? but the gripes presented here aren’t about the ludicrousness of the situation, but rather about the unfairness of mira’s ending. and as a ‘mira lives’ truther, i feel the need to defend it.

it’s important to me that the writers fought for this to be a determinant ending. execs wanted mira to just die, so to have a choice where she can escape execution is meaningful and adds a certain modicum of hope to her tale. by this point in production, everyone knew that ttgot wouldn’t be getting a season 2. and either way, no one on the executive team would let mira become a playable character, especially if she could die in the previous season. in my opinion, this ending is the writers’ way of saying, “we are giving you the reins to interpret mira’s fate as you wish, because we’re not allowed to do with her as we wish”. while yes, i agree that it would make a very interesting story for mira to survive for three seasons, i also wouldn’t change her marrying morgryn. though mira is cunning and smart and dangerous as you say, she does still have limited power in king’s landing due to her status as a northern woman, and with the political situation becoming more and more unstable, there’s no feasible way for mira to continue being in king’s landing, especially as margaery’s handmaiden, without creating continuity choices that would change got canon and subjecting mira to what i would consider basically torture. telltale has never been the sort of company that tries to rewrite canon. usually, they create ocs that they place within a canon world, with just enough canon interaction that it’s interesting but not so much that it would impact the narration of canon events.

i think its one exception would be tales from the borderlands, but even that is set post-canon, with mostly ocs, and with the explicit caveat that this is non-canon and kind of just for fun. it wasn’t telltale that made tales from the borderlands canon to the borderlands universe, it was the borderlands company that made that decision after seeing the massive success of the game. but with ttgot taking place in the middle of canon, there just isn’t a way for them to drastically change the events. mira’s inclusion in king’s landing has sort of always been doomed because of that — or, if not doomed, then destined to be cut short. i sincerely believe that mira was probably planned to have fled king’s landing, possibly with a marriage under her belt, at the end of season one. there just isn’t anything else for her to do there besides get hurt. even mira understands this; by the end of the season, she isn’t even trying to play “the game”, she’s just trying to escape king’s landing and go home relatively unscathed. i think she knows at this point that she doesn’t have many options left in king’s landing, with her only ally being a coal boy who’s being paid by someone to keep her safe and, at this point, is at his wit’s end trying to figure out how to do so with all the hot water she’s in.

and she can’t simply “flee to cersei’s side” because house forrester’s lands and assets are simply too valuable for the crown to pass up post-war. everyone would want forrester ironwood. everyone does want forrester ironwood. and cersei would not help mira truly, nor would she be able to do so. from this point on in the story, cersei becomes obsessed with margaery and becomes so sloppy about her plans that she gets herself arrested due to her paranoia about a prophesied young and beautiful queen. yes, i wanted mira to have more with cersei in game, but there’s no way that would be a long-term solution at all. one of margaery’s handmaidens tries this, and not only is she raped by cersei, she’s constantly aware that if she pisses cersei off or makes the wrong move, she will be sent to be tortured and experimented upon by qyburn in the black cells. it’s not exactly a great thing for mira to be cozied up to cersei, who is getting worse and worse, who struggles herself with gaining the power she wants, and is losing control of everything around her. not to mention, mira knows that everyone hates the lannisters and that cersei is, at the very least, rumoured to be in an incestuous relationship with her brother. why would mira think this is a good ally to be close to, especially at the risk of angering the tyrells and potentially even her own family?

but i can’t blame anyone for wanting mira to just be so very clever and cunning and to “win” at the broken system of king’s landing. after all, the game is based in show canon, and so much of mira’s arc suffers for it. i could rant for a long time about the show’s misogynistic writing, but for the sake of being concise, i’ll just say that female characters are much more complex and understandable in the books than in the show. there’s so much more of an emphasis on “girlbossing” in the show, or being cold and unfeeling and ruthless and sexy and whatever, and i think those sorts of traits contribute to boring, sexist writing. the books are feminist because they constantly explore the patriarchy of westeros and have women work within the constraints of their station to achieve their goals.

for this reason, i’d say that the game does the most justice by gwyn whitehill, who is the most interestingly written westerosi woman in ttgot and everyone can fight me about it. she is written to be a character rather than a woman, but the writers never strip her of her womanhood, either. it’s clear that gwyn still has some nostalgia, if not lingering romantic feelings, for asher, but that never defines her as a character. she is constantly disgraced by the forresters and branded a seductress, but there’s a certain understanding that this is ridiculous of them to do. of course gwyn and asher loved each other and were children who were victims of their family’s blood feud. gwyn’s motivations are her own as well — with her wanting peace not simply for asher’s sake, but for her fascination with the once-shared history between their families. she has influence with her father and is always angling for power in their dynamic, but she still is somewhat naive about what atrocities her father is capable of. like, she has reasonable flaws and she has reasonable successes. it would be stupid to say that gwyn “plays the game” and kills her father and gryff and just commands highpoint, because gwyn loves her family and doesn’t want that. and yet, when her family goes too far, gwyn allows asher to kill gryff right in front of her, and she’ll allow it because she’s finally understood what ugliness this feud has wrought, not only in the forresters, but in her own family. telltale did so well with gwyn because they understood what she could reasonably do within her station as the eldest and only daughter of lord whitehill, who is a character that canonically loves and respects his children very much. it’s not like gwyn just convinced ludd to pursue peace because she’s just so cool and smart. instead, she spends a long time arguing and convincing until he agrees to… sit down and have a talk. and then when she tells rodrik that it took a lot to convince ludd to do this, rodrik can literally just be like, “well, i do what i want lmfao”. there is nothing unbelievable about gwyn and what she does in game. what people don’t seem to understand is that feminist actions in westeros look completely different to feminist actions in our world.

in the books, it’s so clear where mira is supposed to land in these endeavours, being a woman in king’s landing. not to mention that mira’s fate is very normal for westerosi women. elaena, who is probably the most obviously “show-written” woman in the story, is the exception and not the rule. her ability to choose who she can marry is so deeply abnormal and unbelievable, as well as the idea that she’s marrying for love rather than political or economic benefit. that’s just not how westeros works. so many women and girls in westeros are married to strangers and used as breeding cows. i find girlboss interpretations of mira deeply boring, because the fact of the matter is that the systems of power in westeros are broken and there is no true “winning”. the political games of king’s landing have never been the point of the overarching story, and i think it’s obvious that all of westeros is going to be flipped on its head by the end of the series. i don’t even think there will be an iron throne to claim by the time the wights start walking, and everyone who’s still playing “the game of thrones” is missing the point.

but i digress.

writing mira as some sort of girlboss who don’t need no man deliberately undercuts what i believe is an extremely important aspect of her character. in my opinion, it is critical to understand that at any point, mira could have secured a marriage and solved most of her problems with that alliance. willas tyrell, for example, is absolutely an option available to her, and this would solidify a tyrell alliance and provide her with the gold to hire an army large enough to push back the whitehills, all for a wonderful dowry of a cut of ironwood profits. after all, remaining a maiden in king’s landing as the firstborn daughter of a rich yet dying house is like bleeding in a shark-infested ocean. it would be safer and smarter to seek power within her station, like sera does ( and i would argue that sera is extremely smart for what she does and that the only mistake that robs her of her goal is telling mira about her bastard origins ). but instead of doing so, mira insists on playing the role of man, heir, and lord. which, a) no one asked her to do, b) she isn’t technically allowed to do, and c) is exactly what gets her into trouble! mira’s meddling in a business meeting, a place for lords and merchants and men, is exactly what paints a target on her back and has morgryn sending damien after her to kill her. mira’s biggest mistake is seeing herself as politically neutral when she simply isn’t. too many eyes are on her for her to be able to flawlessly play the game. even margaery, who does this better than most, is only able to do so because she has been raised from birth to be the future queen. mira is instead thrust unexpectedly into this situation and has to find her guile as she goes. obviously, she will make mistakes. and honestly, i’d much prefer for her fate to be because of mistakes she actually made instead of feeling like this random unimportant merchant lord with no lands somehow outmaneuvered her. mira was always meant to “lose”, but i also think it’s important for her to “lose” via a marriage, or for her to deliberately choose to marry to save her life.

what makes mira’s ending horrifying is that it’s an irrefutable reminder of the station she has been trying so hard not to confront. she has made it clear that she’s wanted power by other means, and that this act is in and of itself a dishonouring of herself. this is her red wedding, her ramsay snow, her exile. it’s a reality for all women, yes, but it’s a slap in the face for mira. i think about ned’s fate a lot when it comes to mira. ned is a wonderful parallel to mira, and it’s touching and personal when ned chooses love over duty, when he lies and spits on his honour and plays into lannister hands because he thinks it will spare his daughters. any man would lie to save his life or the life of his family. that’s really not that special. but it’s unique for ned because of his values, and to see ned be unrewarded for that is devastating. this is the same setup for mira. she chooses to live, chooses dishonour and a lifelong fate she doesn’t truly want, and all because she loves her family and she wants to see them again and she knows, deep down, that they would prefer her alive and soiled over dead and desecrated any day. sure, her death is “noble” and all, but there’s beauty in choosing to live out of some desperation for things to get better, for there to be some way out of an impossible situation.

i like mira wanting to see her family and her home so badly that she would impulsively choose to live. it’s beautiful and makes me cry when i see her solemn nod while “i would do anything — anything — just to hold him again” still echoes in my ears. hot take, i think mira’s life matters even if she doesn’t end up helping her family? there’s never any debate of “rodrik/asher should just die at the end because it’s not like they helped their family win the war”, and it makes me miserable to see the codex lowkey imply that it would be better for mira to die. i think it’s crazy to say that mira deserved to be beheaded right after andros, with her body certainly not sent to the forresters for a proper funeral, in front of a crowd who doesn’t give a shit about her or could potentially be cheering for her death. that this is somehow more satisfying and fitting for her character than being a breeding cow and raped and being “damaged goods” but still holding out hope that she could one day see her home and family again. i find a lot of mira opinions really icky for this reason. there’s this weird implication that mira is just some object for her family, that everyone would prefer her to die than to live, and that she’s just kind of broken and useless if she’s raped. as a sexual assault survivor myself, it just feels dirty. is what i went through truly so unsurvivable that it would have been better for me to die? to never meet people that would understand? to never touch the lives of people who have gone through similar things? to never just achieve my goals and try to love myself instead of defining myself by the assault?

mira was the first character i attached myself to in the story, and i think her ending is absolutely devastating, but it’s full of hope too. i love that mira, who has been unfairly used by her family just like gared, rodrik, asher, and ethan, finally gets a chance to choose her own safety and her own life, and that this doesn’t negate her love for her family or her house. i love that she can “lose” and i can still imagine her outsmarting morgryn in the end and escaping — not unscathed, but not broken. she is tragic, yes, but not hopeless. after all, as ser royland would say: from that which seems hopeless comes strength.

lordblackwood00

Eh, I would disagree with a few things.

Yes, marriages are a natural thing, but in Mira´s case, it´s presented as a pretty much a one-sided trade that benefits Morgryn exceedingly MORE. Yes, Mira is alive and with her head intact, yet....Morgryn can physically abuse her (We see that he´s capable of that in that litter scene) and is emotionally abusive as well. He doesn´t shy away to make Mira´s live more miserable and isn´t shy about on how her live will totally suck and that she won´t get the opportunity to stab him or escape. Why making perjure against Tom needed? He just wanted to make Mira suffer. I don´t put past him to break Mira´s leg, arms or make her bleed, only seeing her womb and what she can give him. Also, he lock her up. Is NOT an alliance. What stops Morgryn from killing Mira when she secures his heirs and his claim to Ironrath?

Whereas Sera and Margaery marriages....

Well, Sera´s marriage with Tarwick is more like an alliance. Sera pretty much says that Tarwick can give her a better life and he seems like a nice husband who won´t take away her freedom. It benefits both sides.

Margaery´s marriage dispenses words. She will be Queen with again, her freedom intact, her family will benefit greatly of it and she definitely has more power because she can manipulate her husbands and make it like she´s the true power behind the throne. Again, it´s an ALLIANCE thing that both the wife and the husband benefits from the arrangement.

Whereas Mira´s marriage with Morgryn...really, the only benefit there is that we as players hold onto dear hope that Mira will inevitably escape from this situation and best that ironwood merchant. "Death is truly the end, whereas life is full of possibilities.".

And I can´t see Mira marrying Morgryn as ensuring her "safety". Like I said, Mira doesn´t have freedom, has a physically and emotionally abusive husband who is totally a sociopath that don´t shy away from making her life a true nightmare.

Yes, I´am a Alive!Mira truther as well, only because it´s the only way to continue Mira´s story with the hope of Mira getting out of this situation. A executed Mira is truly the end for Mira´s story. Alive! Mira ends on a somewhat cliffhanger.

I don´t see the problem on wanting to Mira win in the game of thrones. Mira´s arc is presented as literally that. Mira is the one about political intrigue, alliances and scheming. Of course players would like her to win in these situations presented to her. Both of her endings make her lose the game of thrones, and I don´t see the problem of wanting a Mira who can effectively win the Game of Thrones. If you win, both your and your family situation is in a better place, whereas losing is a defeat for both you and for your family. It´s not just about "helping her family". Mira could end up in a better place if she´s smart.

The arguments for Mira dying is also about her well being and not just "her family". Of course people wouldn´t want to see this resourceful and strong female character being forced into a life long of sexual slavery mixed with a prison-like marriage.

Yes, in your opinion, Mira shouldn´t have messed with more powerful people, but she couldn´t just let her family being screwed up, right? King´s Landing is just as dangerous as the battlefield for House Forrester. Why would Mira just let an ironwood merchant making deals with Ludd Whitehill to buy sellswords to march against Ironrath? Why Mira wouldn´t want to best the ironwood merchants and make a deal with Tyrion Lannister to help her House?

Yes, Mira should also marry to someone else who could make the arrangement a true alliance for her. Morgryn´s marriage is...not that. I can totally see on why players would gravitate more towards her being executed. It´s also worry about Mira and her future as a wife in a prison like marriage and baby machine. The game pretty much implies that marrying him is a "life worse than death" and I couldn´t really disagree, but Mira marrying Morgryn is still a ongoing arc for Mira. Mira could still triumph in the end, whereas death is truly the end of an arc for her.

lost-lords

hi, this is the spouse here to weigh in on this! as someone who helped write this post, i’m a little bit confused as to where some of these disagreements are coming from. i don’t think we ever said that mira benefits from the morgryn marriage or that it’s at all fair to her. she does not gain anything from marrying a merchant lord with no lands or dowry besides her life, and that’s the point. that’s part of why this is all so tragic for mira. at any point, she probably could have secured a more politically beneficial marriage — think willas tyrell, if he existed in the show, or really any other southron lord who could pay a sufficient dowry — but she doesn’t. she flies outside of what is expected of her as a woman and a handmaiden, and thus she ends up stuck with the man who is infuriated by her personhood. morgryn is the personification of the patriarchy, so obviously she would end up trapped by him. he’s constantly on some ego shit about making her suffer because he's still focused on how some little handmaiden ( read: a woman ) could steal an ironwood deal from him. that's why he's so volatile with her and why, in my opinion, his plans are so inconsistent.

but again, we never really said that morgryn wouldn't abuse mira. he makes it obvious that he will, though i sincerely doubt he'd go as far as to break her bones or severely harm her. he does care about appearances, after all, and takes a sort of perverse pleasure in seeming like a decent man, at least by my read of things. on top of that, mira isn't utterly defenceless in the face of his physical abuse. during both confrontations with morgryn, mira can and will get physical with him herself : she is able to overpower him when he's pinning her head against the carriage and also socks his throat for good measure, as well as potentially punching him in the cell. and what does morgryn do? he merely restrains her or gets her away from him. one of the people who worked on the game even implied mira to be the stronger, physical force between morgryn and herself in this post here, which muses on old pitches and says "i think a physical fight breaks out, morgryn loses and his face bloody,". while i agree that morgryn would eventually see her harmed, and that mira wouldn't always be able to fend him off, i doubt it'd be 'breaking mira's leg, arms' level. the true harm has always been, in my eyes, the forced sexual violence and the mental torment. both of which are just as horrid as physical abuse, yes, but at least mira can heal from the latter two — unlike a beheading. but yeah, absolutely he'd kill mira after she gave him male heirs. i don't think we ever implied or stated that mira marrying morgryn would keep her safe forever, just that, like you said, she'd have a chance to escape, whereas she would just die otherwise.

with regards to the whole alliance thing … i mean, yes? technically speaking? but these two examples are wildly different from mira's own and are also not precisely indicative of the general reality of marriages. usually, marriage betrothals are determined by lord fathers, as was the case with margaery. and these betrothals are arranged to suit their house and add to their house's power … not to personally empower these women. while many women in westeros make their peace with that, that also doesn't stop their husbands from abusing them, neglecting them, emotionally manipulating them, or basically doing whatever they want with them. and while yes, there are times where houses go to war over the mistreatment of their daughters, that's usually in really extreme cases. you won't see a house going to war because a man struck his wife one time or was unfaithful to her. would there be bad blood? perhaps. but war? highly unlikely. nothing would happen to get that woman out of the situation. most of the time, the power of whatever alliance is struck is more important to the lord fathers than the treatment of his daughter. i won't even really get into the margaery claims here because i find them rather reductive and it would take a long time to break it down, and, truly, we didn't talk much about margaery in our original post and there is simply no way that mira could be like margaery, who was literally raised to be the future queen of the seven kingdoms. anyway, in the case of sera, we really don't know that much about tarwick to make that sort of claim, but we also know that he would not marry her if he knew she was a bastard. the whole point is that sera knows that she is trapping tarwick into a marriage that has no benefit to him because she is refusing to be honest with him. and if she were honest with him, he would leave her and find a better prospect. this doesn't exactly seem like a mutually beneficial arrangement to me.

but i digress, because that wasn't the point of the post either. i'm really confused by your use of the phrase "game of thrones" here. i'm under the assumption that this is about winning the iron throne, which surely … surely you're not proposing that mira should try and become queen of the seven kingdoms? i honestly think she'd have better chances with and be more interested in just surviving and being able to return home to ironrath. she has so much more to worry about than becoming queen, and she has never expressed an interest in such things. i assume you're using this phrase loosely, but i don't quite understand then what you're hoping mira would "win". if you mean a crown deal, then she did indeed achieve that goal. it is not mira's fault that those dealings were dashed in the wake of tyrion's arrest, nor does this negate that achievement. she also succeeds in ridding andros of his lannister help, and even rids the world of the latter — successfully culling ludd's sellsword army. mira, technically, 'wins' at all she sets out to do, but all of it is at the cost of many other important things ; margaery's protection, sera's help/friendship, etc. and while mira is indeed incredibly smart, capable, and wise, she is still very young and unprepared for the politics of king's landing. many characters compliment mira's smarts, but tyrion repeatedly remarks on some of mira's failings as well in the cell. she is being foolish in trying to play both cersei and margaery, and is incredibly blind to margaery being her only safety. similarly, tyrion, cersei, and margaery never truly 'win' either. playing this game is doomed to fail even if not immediately and in massive ways. margaery is locked up and killed in the show, tyrion is arrested and becomes a slave for a long time, and cersei is imprisoned and publicly shamed on top of losing all her children — two of these characters die in-show with only tyrion getting a 'happy' ending, but only after leaving king's landing in a bad way for a time. repeatedly we are shown that this is a game doomed to fail in the long run, so mira winning this nebulous 'it' and coming out unscathed is just an impossibility. as much as i loathe a lot of mira's arc myself, there is an amount of realism in her endings, all plot inconsistencies aside.

on a similar yet different note, i’m not totally grasping what the problem is with being disappointed with mira’s endings. of course we all wanted mira to succeed in her goals and to fulfill her purpose. i also wanted asher to return to ironrath and reunite with his family, and for rodrik to preserve ironrath, and for ethan to live, and for gared to return to ironrath with an undead army and a snow bear. but none of that came to fruition because house forrester was doomed and so was everyone in it. was i disappointed? yes, of course. but was i saying that mira shouldn’t have tried, or that she wouldn’t want to make the choices she did in canon? well, no. just like with ned, the honourable intentions and carefully-laid plans don’t magically save her from an institution as poisonous as king’s landing. mira’s ending isn’t satisfying, but neither is the ending of really any other character. none of them actually accomplish what they set out to do. i think this is a flaw with the writing of the game overall and i believe that deserves more discussion, however it's still a different discussion entirely. lamb and me were not discussing our woes and irritation about mira's arc, but rather defending the morgryn-marriage aspect of it because we've seen a lot of misogynistic and unfair takes on mira 'choosing herself' so to speak. and because the game, be it via the codex or literal crowd during mira's death scene, really tries to make you feel as though you picked wrong. if mira doesn't just accept her death and die 'nobly', she is seen in a weird, cowardly light by a multitude of sources. the post was about that, and the weirdness of the handling of women and feminism in telltale game of thrones, since lamb herself has already discussed a lot of her grievances with the general story writing in depth on her account.

we’ve already talked about the sexual purity aspect of mira’s ending in the initial answer, but i continue to assert that it is problematic and weird to claim that it would be better for mira to die than to be in a prison-like marriage and to be treated like a breeding cow. again, no one is cheering for mira to be in this position. but given the two options, i would choose the one where mira lives because it is weird to say that between the choices of being “dirtied” by a man or dying, that you should prefer to die. that is weird. while i can understand fans not wanting mira to suffer, there is a very odd implication that death is somehow 'better' than a life of abuse. that, somehow, mira is supposed to find her safety and freedom in death. the things that would happen to mira are horrible, but they would not be the end of her, or make her so fucked up that death would then be a 'mercy'. and from what you're saying, i think you agree somewhat. overall, i found this whole response really confusing and not exactly in line with what lamb and i were saying at all. it's fine to agree to disagree, though!

#mostly replying to this to reaffirm some of the post’s points! i hope i don’t seem mean or anything!#this is also a topic i’m very passionate about as lamb said #mira is my favorite character and one i strongly relate to #and i’ve thought about her plot and writing and stuff the most #so i have a lot of things to say and to keep saying #but tldr : mira’s endings are disappointing but there’s still merit in exploring in what we have in canon #and it’s interesting to explore the strife for a character who is disadvantaged by society and is therefore ‘doomed’#it is gripping to see where mira can prevail and shine and to see her gain skills she never would have before #and i’d rather mira still have those experiences even if the cost is something as tragic as a forced marriage #if that makes sense

this week’s episode of realizing with horror that you’re becoming your father, featuring: mira and rodrik!

#absolutely miserable chat. just absolutely terrible circumstances

lambjock

tis lesbian visibility week … i should write something for this

lambjock

so. about that.

#EVERYONE GO READ THIS MASTERPIECE #i cannot wait to get so excited about this fic all over again

lambjock

Hii, fellow GOTT enjoyer. I was always bummed about Mira´s alive! ending.

If you play Mira as heroic and honorable, refusing to marry Morgryn is interesting and makes sense.

It is especially a bummer since just about every important player says that Mira is cunning, smart, and dangerous. Cersei, Tyrion, Morgryn....

Margaery can even be oblivious to Mira playing her like a fiddle.

but i digress.

#teehee me when i can FINALLY talk about mira #nobody understands mira like i do. and like lamb does obviously bc we share the same mind #but im SOOOOO happy about this. and also so grateful to be featured on such an AMAZING blog #sighs going to treat myself to some spinach dip for spending five (5) hours on this today #WOOOOOOOO so excited about this post being out in the world i feel high rn 🤪#that AND elissa/catelyn in one day is CRAZEEEEEEEE #oh im so happy

why does rodrik have two comments talking about his ‘handsomeness’ ( both with elaena and talia in the same episode ) if he doesn’t think of himself as particularly handsome?

thank you so much for sending this question in! i think it’s a very interesting one to answer, because rodrik’s personality is a tad difficult to nail down based on his seemingly contradictory choices in-game, so i’m excited to unpack some of why i believe he acts the way he does.

i think where this discrepancy comes in is that people can’t really agree on whether rodrik is humble or proud. and the answer to this is that rodrik is an extremely prideful character. many times, people close to him comment on his pride being a flaw of his, and him placing pride above matters that perhaps should be more important to him ( one of the more prominent examples being refusing to kiss ludd’s ring, even if it means ryon would not attend the funeral ). and even if you don’t play rodrik this way and have him choose all of the humble options, it’s clear that rodrik is gritting his teeth through these humiliations. nowhere is it stated that rodrik is naturally humble. as a matter of fact, all the forresters have a bit of a pride problem. and yes, i know that it’s the whitehills who say that, but based on how the forresters act, it’s clear that there’s at least some truth to that. rodrik in particular is infuriatingly confident in himself in his conversations with people he deems lesser than him — the whitehills, most notably, and especially with gwyn and gryff. he has a bit less of an attitude with his council and family, but his recurring lines like “i’ll do as i please”, “i’m not afraid of some petulant fourthborn”, etc., all read as very arrogant. rodrik’s most obvious character trait is his unflinching confidence in doing the impossible, such as walking to go to the small council meeting, beating gryff, and fighting in a war scant months after his crippling. but for all of his arrogance and pride, i don’t believe rodrik is particularly vain. this is in contrast to a character like asher, who repeatedly hypes up his own handsomeness ( which is SO frustrating, because I want to be like, “you’re not THAT hot,” but then he does his little Asher Grin(tm) and then i succumb so fast ) and clearly believes that he is the hottest shit this side of the sun. in addition, asher makes comments about his appearance and magnetic charm as statements ( “i’ve been told i’m quite handsome”, “i’ll be charming”, etc. ), whereas rodrik frames both of these comments as jokes, and both times, he earns laughs from them. if he were less of a serious man, we might see rodrik employing this joke time and time again, making jokes about how handsome he looks and waiting for people to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, and then it might be more apparent to the audience what these jokes actually mean for rodrik as a character.

in my opinion, rodrik is a deeply insecure person. i always find it odd when people hype up rodrik or cite him as a favourite character and then do nothing to explore his disability. i’ve been reading through asoiaf slowly but surely, and one thing that really jumped out at me is how sympathetically and how often grrm writes disabled protagonists. characters that are disabled not to make them villainous or even to make any particular statement about their character, but because he wants to highlight what life becomes for them in the world of westeros, which favours ability and beauty above all else. bran, a child, has to grapple with the fact that he will never be a knight like he wanted to be, and that he can never climb like he once loved to do. and his struggle with his disability brings interesting insight into his skinchanging later, when he prefers being in summer’s healthy body rather than his own “broken” one. summer is free in a way bran isn’t. similarly, we see how tyrion’s whole character and motivations stem inadvertently from his disfigurement. he has always been treated as lesser, all but disowned by tywin despite being the most competent of his children. i cried when i read that the smallfolk in king’s landing hated tyrion the most of the whole royal procession despite tyrion being the one person trying his hardest to save them. so rodrik’s inclusion in the story, specifically as a disabled man, is incredibly important to me and is one of the things that makes ttgot feel like it’s supposed to be of the same world as asoiaf. while bran and tyrion are disabled from birth or childhood, rodrik instead has most of his life to define his identity around his prowess in battle. it’s what we first learn about him — that he’s uniquely skilled in battle, that he’s a fearsome fighter. and then for rodrik to lose that in one fell swoop, for him to be rolled into ironrath on a corpse cart, probably stinking of his own human waste and unable to move, for all to see how far he’s fallen… it’s humiliating, especially for a character like rodrik.

rodrik’s first scene is all about putting on airs, and i’d argue that a lot of rodrik’s character is about that — though most of that arguing will be saved for another post, as it’s not exactly the point of this one. but at its bare essentials, rodrik does need to put on airs. talia even says it herself in rodrik’s bedroom. she knows that, as lord, rodrik needs to project strength. his strength is directly tied to the strength of their keep, and that’s something that’s heavily internalized throughout rodrik’s route. ironrath may be weak, but it appears strong so long as rodrik does. but then rodrik is suddenly broken, a cripple, and his enemies delight in reminding him of that. no longer is he the pride of house forrester, but instead a blight upon it and a reminder of how doomed they all are. i’m surprised that more people don’t connect those dots, considering that every single one of rodrik’s choices in episode two until the elaena scene is about how strong he appears to others, whether that’s his family, the smallfolk, the whitehills, or the small council. there are specific lines such as “they noticed your hesitation” or “they appreciated your confidence”. later on, those choices morph into "will you look strong at the risk of your family's safety or will you look weak at the risk of everyone knowing that you are". rodrik is keenly aware of the need to project strength, and yet he remains crippled and miserable about it. so with women, those women who specifically seek a closer and more vulnerable relationship with him, rodrik makes these jokes. they’re a way to vent that insecurity and share a vulnerability, but in a safe way that won’t threaten them. and it works both times — elaena and talia both laugh and take the joke well, but it leaves rodrik feeling like even more of a cripple. so the jokes are a double-edged sword, in a sense. he’s effectively setting himself up for failure. the jokes are a way to voice his insecurity, but the nature of the way he shares it makes people laugh, because … well, even if they don't agree, it's clearly meant to be a joke, and it's rude not to laugh. and i think it’s important that he only really attempts this in the second episode. after that, rodrik just tries to quietly live with it, though his frustrations at his crippling are, in my opinion, always there and plainly evident. i also headcanon that rodrik has some dysphoria regarding his appearance, and always sees himself as being as crippled as he was when he’d first crawled off the corpse cart rather than seeing and celebrating his recovery. to him, he’s always that weak, he’s just feigning otherwise. just like how he turns his face away from elaena until the last moment, rodrik keeps hiding the way he truly feels about himself, ignoring his despair or joking about it on the rare occasion.

#ttgot #rodrik forrester #again thank you so much for this question!!#i love talking about rodrik and his disability and how that all affects him #and i love love love his first scene for how it handles his disability and ptsd #put simply i LOOOVE rodrik forrester and i love talking about him so thank you so much!#mmm i had a lot to say in this post in general that wasn’t part of what was being asked — like the putting on airs bit #but personally i think it’s absurd to claim that rodrik is always being 100% authentic. he is a lord of a dying house.#but his behavioural discrepancies as compared to the other pc’s is like … notable enough that im like #oh so you’re one of us mentally ill folk who change their whole personality because it’s convenient #WELL. it’s not exactly like that #but it is a little

my fatal flaw is wanting to create intricate posts about ttgot and that taking a lot of time so i just am inactive on here while i work on endless drafts about the game. that being said, i want to talk about them soooooo bad so please send me asks <3

#ttgot #telltale game of thrones #mira forrester #asher forrester #rodrik forrester #gared tuttle #ethan forrester #i won’t … spam the tags too much. but hopefully i’ll get some things to answer more quickly than some of my intense analysis posts

asherforrester

talia’s song is truly one of the best, if not the best, scene in ttgot for many reasons and while one of them is definitely for how amazing the music is, i also think that what that song does for the characters ( especially our playable ones ) is magnificent and underrated <3

#me when i think so hard about how ethan’s death impacts the pcs …#like all of them are devastated but there are such subtle differences in the lyrics ( most notably in the long version )#obviously like there’s not a lot you can glean from ‘and swim the shivering sea’ for gared. but still #i will say i love the bare my neck to ilyn payne line for mira especially considering her ending in the black cells #but like. OUGH #the long version … the way that mira blames the institution of kings landing and their obsession with their crowns #aka the very reason why margaery won’t help her. nobility and status is what sera is obsessed with too. etc #and the praying that they’d drown in the melted metal from their crowns and thrones AUGH #and then GARED with mance sound the horn.#gared’s part focusing on bolton vengeance because there’s a personal element to that too #the boltons took Ethan just like they took his family etc … this utter disdain for the so called wardens of the north #it’s about the LEADING of the free folk to the north … the comparison of gared to mance #you know. a black brother turned deserter #and then of course there’s ashers part which makes me cry #the EMPHASIS on bringing Ethan back from the dead no matter how much blood needs to be shed #the absolute desperation of resorting to blood magic #like I can’t even explain it that grief for asher is so fucking deep and personal and emotional and intense #I literally want to cry every time it gets to that part of the song #ALSO not to be on my rodrik propaganda but it’s very important to me that it focuses on him for the lines #a hero’s grave still iron grows anew still iron grows anew … LIKE #ITS ABOUT RODRIKS DEATH AND ETHANS DEATH AND RODRIKS UNEXPECTED RISING FROM THE DEAD #it is in fact about rodrik jerking awake after ethan dies …. IRON GROWS ANEW!!!!!#anyway im nuts about Talia’s song and what it means for each character and how it spells out their unique grief response #mira obsessed with bringing down an unfeeling institution.#gared obsessed with revenge on the boltons.#asher obsessed with the memory of his brother and attaining what he’s lost.#rodrik obsessed with regrowing their house in ethan’s absence.#LIKE?????#anyway sorry to rant in the tags except no I’m not <3

lambjock

how it feels to be on no-sleep and immediately engaging in long, detailed talks of feminism and female characters and the importance of writing them as women and humans both :