Who Said Anything About A HIM?

My space for anything related to books, movies, series and art.

[qveenofthorns]

The North Remembers (color version)

[kit-harington]

[cantinasband]

What do we say to the God of Death? Not today.

[lyannasnow]

Daughters of Winterfell

[turtle-paced]

So, why exactly (book)Cersei loves Joffrey so much, to the point of being furious when Robert hits him for gutting a pregnant cat? I get that she's a mother and all, but she has to be at least somewhat aware how fucked up that was and explain it to him?

She does not have that awareness. When Cersei recounts the incident, she describes it as “some mischief with a cat.” (Tyrion VI, ASoS) Robert hit Joffrey so hard that he knocked out two of Joffrey’s baby teeth; I don’t think Cersei’s at all unreasonable for the being angry bit, just about describing Joffrey’s actions as “mischief.”

See also Cersei and Joffrey post-Red Wedding, the incident that led to a broader discussion of Joffrey’s cruelty.

“They should all be put to the sword,” Joffrey declared suddenly. “The Mallisters andBlackwoods and Brackens… all of them. They’re traitors. I want them killed, Grandfather. Iwon’t have any generous terms.” The king turned to Grand Maester Pycelle. “And I want RobbStark’s head too. Write to Lord Frey and tell him. The king commands. I’m going to have itserved to Sansa at my wedding feast.”

“Sire,” Ser Kevan said, in a shocked voice, “the lady is now your aunt by marriage.”

“A jest.” Cersei smiled. “Joff did not mean it.”

“Yes I did,” Joffrey insisted. “He was a traitor, and I want his stupid head. I’m going to make Sansa kiss it.”

[…]

Cersei put a protective hand on her son’s shoulder. “Let the dwarf make all the threats he likes, Joff. I want my lord father and my uncle to see what he is.”

Lord Tywin ignored that; it was Joffrey he addressed. “Aerys also felt the need to remind men that he was king. And he was passing fond of ripping tongues out as well. You could ask Ser IlynPayne about that, though you’ll get no reply.”

“Ser Ilyn never dared provoke Aerys the way your Imp provokes Joff,” said Cersei. “You heardhim. ‘Monster’ he said. To the King’s Grace. And he threatened him…”

- Tyrion VI, ASoS

That’s the incident with the cat writ large and all the more politically troublesome, and it’s clear that Cersei has no clue that this is messed up. If Tywin and Kevan Lannister think you’re going too far with your cruelty…

Cersei’s got a very limited and warped view of what strength is. It’s a big part of her establishing thought processes in AFFC.

This might be the work of Stannis Baratheon, through some catspaw. It could well be the prelude to another attack upon the city. She hoped it was. Let him come. I will smashhim, just as Father did, and this time he will die. Stannis did not frighten her, no more than MaceTyrell did. No one frightened her. She was a daughter of the Rock, a lion.

“No one is to enter or leave without my permission,” she told them. The command cameeasily to her. My father had steel in his voice as well. 

Within the tower, the smoke from the torches irritated her eyes, but Cersei did not weep, nomore than her father would have. I am the only true son he ever had.

Should I scream and tear my hair?They said Catelyn Stark had clawed her own face to bloody ribbons when the Freys slew herprecious Robb. Would you like that, Father? she wanted to ask him. Or would you want me to bestrong?

- all from Cersei I, AFFC

But you just have to go back to the Starks to see how shallow this notion of strength is.

Bran thought about it. “Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?”

“That is the only time a man can be brave,” his father told him.

- Bran I, AGoT

And the reader knows perfectly well that Catelyn didn’t just claw her face to ribbons and cry during the Red Wedding, but tried to bargain for Robb’s life, crossbow bolt in her back and all.

To Cersei, strength is “smashing” people, quashing any and all disagreement by force, and never being disgracefully emotional. She’s got “strong” confused with “vicious.” Forget establishing thought processes, this is one of her most infamous establishing character moments.

The queen regarded him coolly. “I had not thought you so niggardly. The king I’d thought to wed would have laid a wolfskin across my bed before the sun went down.”

Robert’s face darkened with anger. “That would be a fine trick, without a wolf.”

“We have a wolf,” Cersei Lannister said. Her voice was very quiet, but her green eyes shone with triumph.

- Eddard III, AGoT

Yeah, she sure showed the Starks. They were quaking in their boots after that one, rather than keeping in mind that Cersei’s contemptible and cruel and needed opposing. Afraid of her, yes, but brave with it.

With this confusion between strong and cruel, she thought Joffrey - yes, Joffrey - was strong.

Tommen did as he was bid. His meekness troubled her. A king had to be strong. Joffrey would have argued. He was never easy to cow.

- Cersei II, AFFC

Tommen’s eyes were filled with tears. “Weep quietly,” she told him, leaning close. “You are a king, not a squalling child. Your lords are watching you.” The boy swiped the tears away with the back of his hand. He had her eyes, emerald green, as large and bright as Jaime’s eyes had been when he was Tommen’s age. Her brother had been such a pretty boy … but fierce as well, as fierce as Joffrey, a true lion cub. 

- Cersei II, AFFC

Joffrey would have seen through [Margaery’s] schemer’s smile and let her know her place, but Tommen was more gullible. She knew Joff was too strong for her, Cersei thought, remembering the gold coin Qyburn had found.

- Cersei VI, AFFC

She doesn’t love Joffrey in spite of his cruelty, she loves him because of it. She is neither willing nor able to correct this behaviour.

“The king is my son!” Cersei rose to her feet.

“Aye,” her uncle said, “and from what I saw of Joffrey, you are as unfit a mother as you are a ruler.”

- Cersei II, AFFC

[sansalayned-deactivated20141117]

Sansa Stark & Cersei Lannister | parallels and differences (requested by bolondkalap)

[eliaamartell]

HOUSE TYRELL

MACE TYRELL, Lord of Highgarden, Warden of the South, Defender of the Marches, and High Marshal of the Reach —his wife, LADY ALERIE, of House Hightower of Oldtown, —their children:

—WILLAS, their eldest son, heir to Highgarden, —SER GARLAN, called THE GALLANT, their second son, newly raised to Lord of Brightwater, —SER LORAS, the Knight of Flowers, their youngest son, a Sworn Brother of the Kingsguard, wounded on Dragonstone, —MARGAERY, their daughter, twice wed and twice widowed,

—his widowed mother, LADY OLENNA of House Redwyne, called THE QUEEN OF THORNS

[rejectedprincesses]

The Master List of Historical Women in Combat

On a regular basis, readers will write in saying their family, friends, or colleagues are convinced women aren’t fit for combat.

Which drives me fucking insane, because women have been doing this for literally all of recorded history. So here’s a (totally non-comprehensive) list of women in combat roles going back to 1500 BCE. If someone starts on a “women can’t be in the military” rant, print this list out and start hitting them with it until they stop moving.

Some ground rules:

History is goddamn difficult. The texts we rely on are flakey, the historians imperfect, and the farther back you go, the more riddled with inaccuracies it can get.

I’m focusing on women in combat, not spies or people in command roles. Exceptions being leaders who went into combat.

I’m not a historian. I just read a lot. Most of y’all know this, but hey.

I haven’t done extensive research on most of these people; most of this is yanked from my to-research list.

Any number of these may be future Rejected Princesses.

The most recent I’m willing to get on this is World War II – but if you can’t find examples of women in combat post-WW2, seek help.

This will be updated here and there and will be linked in the FAQ.

Read More

[greengableslover]

favorite character meme  ► one character

♕ sansa stark

[cesei]

cersei | circe

George R R Martin clearly took some inspiration for the character of Cersei Lannister from the Greek mythological figure Circe. Aside from the obvious connection with their names, there are a few other links between the two characters that will be explored in this post. Circe was an enchantress in a Greek mythology who is often thought to be a witch.

She was the daughter of Helios, the sun god, and Perse, a nymph. The parallels drawn with the sun god are significant in that the first known Lannister, Lann the Clever, was described as having “stolen gold from the sun to brighten his curly hair”, a distinctive and renowned Lannister trait.

Circe’s brothers were Aeetes, keeper of the Golden Fleece (which could potentially be interpreted as the key to winning the Iron Throne, with Daenerys representing Jason in this example):

and Perse, who, interestingly, usurped the old king and killed him.

Circe was renowned for using magic to transform those who offended her into wild beasts.

She was also responsible for the death of her husband, the Prince of Colchis:

In some versions of the mythology, she destroyed her home on the island where she lived after she was punished for her actions:

This home was a beautiful mansion on an island:

and it was reputed to be surrounded by “strangely docile lions and wolves, the drugged victims of her sorcery”, which can obviously be interpreted as a foil for two of the great houses of Westeros, Stark and Lannister.

She was also said to drink from an enchanted cup as she wove her spells around her victims:

These are just a few of the more explicit parallels between the character of Cersei from A Song of Ice and Fire and the renowned figure from Greek mythology, but there are still others, such as their daughters being shipped off to be married and having their champions restored to life after having been killed (in Cersei’s case, this obviously refers to the Mountain).

[dreamofspring]

5.09|7.06

[poorquentyn]

Men’s Lives Have Meaning, Part 7: Conclusion

Full series here

A Dance with Dragons begins, appropriately enough, from the point of view of a dragon. 

Before Mance, Varamyr Sixskins had been a lord of sorts. He lived alone in a hall of moss and mud and hewn logs that had once been Haggon’s, attended by his beasts. A dozen villages did him homage in bread and salt and cider, offering him fruit from their orchards and vegetables from their gardens. His meat he got himself. Whenever he desired a woman he sent his shadowcat to stalk her, and whatever girl he’d cast his eye upon would follow meekly to his bed. Some came weeping, aye, but still they came. Varamyr gave them his seed, took a hank of their hair to remember them by, and sent them back. From time to time, some village hero would come with spear in hand to slay the beastling and save a sister or a lover or a daughter. Those he killed, but he never harmed the women. 

That’s what Varamyr was: an archetypal monster-in-a-cave, the classic village dragon that every RPG needs. The Sixskins preyed on all life within a prowl’s reach, his entire life a tribute to domination of others on every possible plane, breaking every border that a human being might think to set around themselves. He began feeding on those unlucky “dozen villages” after killing his mentor and eating his fuckin’ heart, and they’ve been living with the monster in the woods ever since. It’s not something anyone ever has to talk about. It’s something that everyone simply knows, out here in this particular stretch of the wild. A fact of life, a splinter in your mind, a fire behind a shadowcat’s eyes, and the fire whispers walk with me…

Varamyr thus combines the ruthless exploitation of your average feudal lord with supervillain powers and a serial killer’s personal life; even the Boltons would have to doff their caps at the pain-racket the skinchanger had going north of the Wall. Mance shoulda killed him and threw his head at the villagers’ feet, but the temptation to use him as a weapon proved too strong. After all, who needs the real Horn of Winter when you have an apocalypse that walks like a man, the closest approximation we get to the nuclear-fired cthuloid maw of a Euron Crowseye POV? Varamyr was It, Pennywise the goddamn dancing clown, for a generation of wildlings across a dozen villages. He was the darkness at the edge of town, feeding off of them and among them at will. He’s there to…what’s the phrase…ah yes: “to give the heroes something to fight.”

It was only natural, then, that they started showing up at his doorstep. Never quite as tall as they thought they were, these heroes, the dragon would sigh every time as he uncoiled and moved towards the door. Never so strong, nor so quick. They must have thought it would feel differently than this, he mused as he approached them. They thought they would be able to hear the songs to be written of their triumph in their ears, rather than their own heart drumming a nervous beat and the shrieks of their companions (those that had made it this far). They thought the gods would guide their hand to strike the beast true, or some such rot, never realizing until it was too late that the gods weren’t home and it was just them and the nightmares. They are (the dragon would always pause to think in the heartbeat before he began bathing in their blood) doing what they think they’re supposed to do, the best thing they know how to do, as far as their cattle brains are concerned. Scared, maybe–certainly–but they were there. They were going to save their lovers, avenge their families, slay the feared and hated Sixskins, or die trying. They were ready, in the name of Story, to dance with dragons. 

The dragon was only too happy to oblige. He killed them as they came, one by one, ultimately putting about as much effort into it as you or I might put into scrubbing dead skin away in the shower. Like the Wild Rabbits, their songs and screams waft together, blurred, intertwined, one amidst the brittle branches, before slipping up, out, and away, caught on the stiff morning breeze. In a tossed-off paragraph, Varamyr offers us a glimpse of dozens of Hero’s Journeys that he personally short-circuited.

Keep reading

[goodqueenaly]

Beautiful.

[poorquentyn]

Men’s Lives Have Meaning, Part 2: Give Your Bride a Kiss For Me

Part 1 here

“Pirates could happen to anyone.”

–Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Shot of Doran at his cyvasse board, eyes burning. 

DORAN: Vengeance.

He takes Arianne’s hand. 

DORAN: Justice. 

Close-up on his fist, as he unravels it to place an onyx dragon in her palm.

Cut to Volantis. We zoom out on Quentyn’s face. 

His eyes are bloodshot. 

His hands are trembling. 

His friends are dead. 

He’s going to die. 

He knows it. 

DORAN: (in voiceover) Fire and Blood. 

As his opening move in Quentyn’s storyline, GRRM elects to rip a gigantic hole in it, disorienting the reader along with the protagonist right from the start. Quent’s first chapter in ASOIAF is not set in Yronwood, where his story “should” begin; nor is it set in Sunspear, receiving his mission from his father; nor is it set in Planky Town, as he sets out on his quest. It is set in Volantis, after Team Quent has already passed through all those others. Why structure it this way? Why open the story on what really ought to be the fifth or sixth chapter? So GRRM could start said story like this:

Adventure stank.

It’s the most meta moment in the series’ most meta storyline. Indeed, it’s a huge sick hilarious fourth-wall-breaking (and heartbreaking) joke, once you know how this story ends. But it’s also Quentyn’s story in miniature. Even more than, say, “he drank his way across the narrow sea,” the opening line of “The Merchant’s Man” throws down a gauntlet for the reader, setting the tone for the rest of the storyline. This adventure is not empowering or exciting or, indeed, successful. This adventure stinks. And what does it stink of?

She boasted sixty oars, a single sail, and a long lean hull that promised speed. Small, but she might serve, Quentyn thought when he saw her, but that was before he went aboard and got a good whiff of her. Pigs, was his first thought, but after a second sniff he changed his mind. Pigs had a cleaner smell. This stink was piss and rotting meat and nightsoil, this was the reek of corpse flesh and weeping sores and wounds gone bad, so strong that it overwhelmed the salt air and fish smell of the harbor.

It stinks of death, that winged chariot which has already visited Quent’s quest before we even meet him, the maw waiting for him at quest’s end. Quent’s death is so horrific you can smell it a book away. It haunts his entire story from the very first words. It’s the end result of every twist of the plot, every decision Quent makes, rendering the experience of reading Quent’s arc the equivalent of watching a dog-eared storybook set suddenly on fire. 

For even before we enter Quentyn’s story, his best friend (Cletus Yronwood) and two of his other companions (Willam Wells and Maester Kedry) are dead, killed in a corsair attack. So the quest is broken before it starts. It’s already all gone wrong, and we have no experience of Quent’s story before that happens. Quentyn’s fantasy tale has torn off its mask and revealed itself as a horror story, and the trapdoors just keep opening up beneath him, falling closer to the fire with each drop. This is a Hero’s Journey in which the Refusal of the Call was absolutely correct, which in and of itself constitutes a radical reshaping of how this sort of story is supposed to go. 

Seguir leyendo

[flowgently-deactivated20190429]

You exist in time, but you belong to eternity.

Osho

(via

eearth

)

[queencersei]

anatomy of the valonqar; cersei and jaime lannister, or "funny you're the broken one, but i'm the only one who needed saving"

Disclaimer: This is a long one. Around the 13K words mark I had to take a break because it was taking a toll on me. Around 17k I started asking myself what was the point of it at all. Eventually I stopped making questions and just wrote. If you manage reaching the end, you are a champion and I salute you.

I have honestly lost count of all the messages I receive on the matter of Jaime and Cersei’s arc following Jaime’s return mid-ASOS. Truth be told, it’s tricky, because to fully appreciate the depth of what happens from now on one must take a more psychological detour of the senses, a less superficial read, a further dive into the already fucked up mentality that is the Lannister pride. But it’s important for both characters, and I’ll go as far as to say it’s important for the reader as well. A first, superficial read might give a certain impression, surely, especially if the reader reaches that point with an already strengthened convinction that Jaime Lannister’s happiness is directly proportional to his separation from Cersei. In short, if you want to believe Jaime stops loving Cersei at some point, or if you want to believe Cersei never loved Jaime as much as he love her, it will not require great mental exercise. All you have to do is close your eyes and only read the bits and pieces you want, and it will be easy enough. After all, Jaime is angry and does not go to Cersei when summoned. After all, Cersei does say “How could I ever have loved that wretched creature”.

Right?

Wrong.

Read More

[secretlyatargaryen]

One difference between Tyrion and Penny is that Tyrion knows how the “big people” think because he’s been raised among the nobility. He knows that being pleasing and compliant is not going to save either him or Penny in the end from people who barely see them as human, because he’s seen it from the opposite perspective.

This is brought into sharp relief in scenes were Tyrion has to assure Penny that they will be kindly treated by the slave masters as he is still bleeding from being whipped. Martin writes these scenes for a reason, for us to realize the hypocrisy of “keep them laughing and they won’t hurt you”, “do what they want and you’ll be left alone.”

Tyrion often gets angry on Penny’s behalf at the way she has accepted the way people treat her. It’s not Penny’s fault that she is trying to survive the only way she knows how, but this is NOT the way things should be, and Tyrion is not wrong for being angry about it.

And it’s not like Tyrion didn’t realize things were bad for people like Penny before. He knew that when he offered extra money to the dwarf jousters at Joffrey’s wedding. Tyrion is actually one of the noble-born characters who is most aware of the suffering of the smallfolk, and does try to do justice for them even if he isn’t always successful, and tries to argue against the treatment of characters like Alayaya, for instance.

So like, what is it that Tyrion’s supposed to learn from Penny? Because he certainly doesn’t learn anything about how it’s better to shut up and be quiet, or to be more positive or any kind of inspirational bullshit that y’all usually want to see from disabled characters. If anything his experiences with Penny make him angrier at the way people like him have been treated, he doesn’t have any sort of “oh, man, I could have had it worse so I should shut up and stop complaining” revelation.

What Penny does do for Tyrion is give him someone to care about, someone to be kind to even when he doesn’t want to be kind or relate to anyone else. She makes him feel less alone when he was raised to believe that his dwarfism made him a pariah. Her love for her family and her open expression of affection towards him actually validate Tyrion’s sense of the injustices done to him by a family that should have loved him, because it puts the lie to the idea that people like him are inherently unlovable.

It’s so important that Tyrion actually gets to meet someone like him and I’d like to see discussion of Penny in fandom that doesn’t praise her as an example of comfortable tropes about disabled characters or pit her against Tyrion via their disabilities or talk about her as a lesson for Tyrion, when she isn’t entirely discounted or called boring.

[bitchfromtheseventhhell]

She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what was about to happen to her.