growing strong

[very-straight-blog]

The way Charlie continues to put the (delulu part of the) fans of this ship on their place is my favorite thing ever, please don't stop.

[quististrepes]

This is an Aegon (HotD) simp and that character is a rapist. As they said, they don't care that Aegon raped a maid. The audacity to police Haladriel fans for romanticizing Haladriel because it's abusive this while this blog does the same thing with a rapist.

[joannalannister]

I’m writing this post because I want to organize a few of my recent thoughts on women in fiction and ASOIAF that were inspired by reading this analysis from the LA review of books (which was about that show). I talk a lot about gender in ASOIAF and ships I like. 

Keep reading

[quististrepes]

very interesting. ambivalent on some of mesle's thoughts. the show is terrible but i agree partially on dany acquiescing to male heroism and that's because a) this was always going to be her story and b) i can see grrm doing some form of bending to male heroism in order to make dany switch gears from her pursuit of the IT and decide to take up arms against the others. maybe it won't be as tightly woven in with a romantic relationship, but something will have to catalyze dany looking away from the IT temporarily and i can't see it being quaithe or prophecy that spurs book dany to actively go after the others tbh. if the town crier comes in the form of jon/the nw, won't that also be dany taking up his cause, converging with his male heroism?

so i'm wondering at what point in time would it become dany's hero story as well, separate from jon's? does her own vision of the enemy and her acting as what book stannis did when he responded to the nw - save the kingdom to wear the crown - make it her own story? when does her idealism and sense of duty come into play and make it her narrative because i can't picture any dany seeing the truth of the others and not deciding 'these are my people I will protect them'?

then there's show dany's being spurred on by the death of her child. she cites viserion's death at jon for screwing up their plans so has it become her pursuit separate from jon's when she has her own reasons to fight the others? dany mentions coming to save the north so has her own sense of duty to the people she wants to rule been invoked? so even if it inevitably started as dany bending to jon's cause (the way the show set it up with jon Being A Lone Voice In The Wilderness much like the book nw it was inevitable) , i suppose i'm interested when it becomes her own cause.

the tit for tat does occur with jon bending to dany's sovereignty. so does that change anything when it doesn't cost jon his own purpose - though trouble looms - like it divides dany's quest for the IT? so jon's cause has stayed the same for seasons and books and inevitably due to the crux of the conflict set up by the author, those that are narratively required to be part of the conflict do have to fall in line with the cause. the point you made about the night's king is a great one. if the show need to have a final boss, the quest cannot be visually jon's alone as it was in 7x06.

i hope you don't mind this post - most of my rambling thoughts are rhetorical - though i do disagree with dany being a helpmeet in jon's war, at least by the finale. watch the show not give dany any agency in her choices in s8, have her own confrontation with the show's representative of final boss, and thus prove me wrong.

[quististrepes]

point 1. “jon is not a man who would fall in love w a woman who has disrespected his father, his family, his home,HIS people”

.the only moment that dany references ned to jon is when she asks a rhetorical question about whether ned knew that robert tried to kill dany as a baby. this is a justified question to ask from dany’s POV. she doesn’t know ned stark. she does know that ned didn’t abandon robert despite robert’s sanctioning of dany’s niece and nephew’s murders. 

jon is a man who would fall in love with a woman who disrespected his people. he fell in love with ygritte.

jon fell in love with ygritte after knowing she was a spearwife who murdered his night’s watch brothers. she murdered an innocent old man in front of him and jon continued loving her. ygritte raided villages as a wildling spearwife and while she saved gilly, she killed plenty of innocents. ygritte looked down on kneelers and what exactly do you think the north was? the first argument jon and ygritte have is her challenging his perception of the northern people who put up a wall to separate themselves from the wildings. 

and, dany has never in her life taken pleasure from burning someone alive. she’s murdered people just like jon, jaime, arya, everyone  has. but she has never taken pleasure from it. 

point 2. “jon is not a man dumb enough to look at the mistakes his brother made and continue to make those mistakes.”

robb marrying talisa/jeyne has zero similarities to jon falling for and allying with dany.

jon and dany’s alliance brings the north 64,000 warriors along with 2 dragons. the north has less than 10,000 men to defend it against cersei and against the white walkers. robb’s marriage to jeyne/talisa brought robb no advantages. in fact, he broke alliances for that marriage. jon has broken no promises. in fact, he’s secured the best possible way for the north to survive once the white walkers get there. as sansa said, the northern lords are weather vanes who shift every which way. once the white walkers show up on their doorstep and dany comes to protect their asses, what are the northern lords going to be but be grateful for their king saving them from inevitable doom?

point 3. “d&d are possibly the worst writers and have made grrm’s great story into a bad fanfiction. jon snow deserves better.”

finally, we can agree that d&d are not good writers. but they did not make grrm’s great story into a bad fanfiction because jon is falling for dany. grrm is 100% going to have jon and dany fall in love. accept it. or don’t. but it’s not fanfic because george is going to do the thing too. he’s 100% going to do it better and differently, but it’s happening.

1998′s book release of a clash of kings where dany was called the bride of fire juxtaposed with jon snow (who will likely be resurrected by fire in the books as he was in the show) told you where this was going. the vision where a flower growing in a chink of a wall of ice juxtaposed with dany’s third husband “the one to love” told you where this was going. 

as for jon snow deserving better, everyone has deserved better harkening back to season 2. jon’s canon characterization as the snarky, savvy, grey character he is hasn’t been seen except in rare moments. i won’t speak of the many other characters who also deserve better.

Some of the recent interviews that bust up this idea further that Jon and Dany is fanfiction from D&D’s heads:

It’s been foreshadowed over and over again, and those who know the books know it’s inevitable...but he [GRRM] did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and the convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series. (Source)

“But he knew from the very beginning where he was driving and now we're starting to see that come to fruition. We know that it's circling tighter and tighter on Dany and Jon and their partnership is starting to form, you know, "fire and ice." I can't say much more about what [Martin] said about where we're going with Dany and Jon because that leaps ahead into the next season, but to me the revelation was that, at the time, we had a hundred characters and yet he knew it's about these two. (Source)

Q: Is the Daenerys and Jon Snow romance inevitable at this point?Yeah, I think it’s kind of hard to see that not happening. When we were shooting Season 1...George R.R. Martin came to visit and he was being quite open about his plans. He said something: That it really is all about Dany and Jon. I was surprised because at the time, you know, I thought, well Robb Stark’s going to be king next, probably. And who knows where this story’s going? But it was absolutely clear to him that within this sprawling scale the whole story was coming down to this partnership. (Source)

[quististrepes]

this might be a coincidence but grrm has stated that he chooses names for the characters with purpose and to evoke a feeling. jon snow doesn't sound like john doe, a man whose identity is unknown, for no reason. bran means raven in welsh, for example. daenerys backwards is syrenead as in serenade as in a song. a song of ice and fire, maybe?

[dagna]

i’m searching for answers too. but how we look for them doesn’t matter, as long as we look for them together - you and me.

[quististrepes]

i’ve recently seen some arguments about jon being the representative of ice and fire alone. and i’m going to throw a few ideas out there to maybe complicate this debate. i am neutral on these ideas. these are not new, but i’ve never seen them mentioned on tumblr.

jon is ice and fire by himself (a well accepted idea that doesn’t need explanation)  

and, dany is also ice and fire by herself.

see below the cut.

when The World of Ice and Fire companion book was released in 2014, stark and targaryen family trees were included. that’s how we found out about uncle/niece marriages in the stark family.

well, the family tree also shows that aegon v (egg) married betha blackwood. he’s maester aemon’s brother. this makes dany 50% blackwood.

elio of westeros.org stated that “That’s George. No way in hell would we have proposed additions to the Targaryen family tree. George has had Egg as married to Betha Blackwood since 1999 at the latest.“

the most prominent person with blackwood and targaryen dna in our story, besides dany and jon, is bloodraven whom the show called the three eyed raven. his father was a targaryen king and his mother another blackwood.

bloodraven was the last greenseer before bran showed up. bloodraven is heavily associated with the north, skinchanging/warging, children of the forest, the old gods, and basically ice magic.

the blackwoods were originally a northern house that worshipped the old gods. they had the blood of the first men just like the starks. the lineage of the first men is where bloodraven’s powers come from and where bran’s powers come from. this is how the wildling wargs and skinchangers get their power. in the books, both jon and arya have also warged.

currently, it’s unclear whether ice means ‘of the first men’ or specifically ‘the starks.’ it’s also unclear whether fire means specifically ‘targaryens’ or ‘of valyrian blood.’

if ice means ‘of the first men’, george has built a backdoor for dany to be very fire oriented in her story, but also have ice as part of her genetics. jon is very ice oriented in his story, but he has fire as part of his genetics.

tl;dr this is how dany could also be ice and fire.

edit: i feel like george is someone who likes to complicate and provide ambiguities in his story. he doesn’t like make prophecies easy. for example, if george was the one writing harry potter, i don’t think we would have ever gotten dumbledore telling harry that he’s the chosen one and that neville is not because of voldemort. i feel like dany being descended from a blackwood and it being planned as far back as the 90s must have some significance, even if it’s not for ice and fire purposes.

[quististrepes]

Jon and Dany so far: 1. argue with each other 2. be attracted to each other 3. be frustrated by each other politically. 4. give and take advice 5. be interested in the kind of person the other is. 6. learn how duty bound they feel to other people. 7. learn to trust that a queen would come to the most dangerous part of the world to save a bunch of fool hardy men that went on a mission she didn't agree with and that she wouldn't write them off as already dead. 8. learn to see how heroically brave and self sacrificial the other is. 9. be truly vulnerable. 10. compromise on their original political goals once they saw they could believe in the other's intentions. 11. hold hands. they have gone a distance in their political relationship. they're attracted to each other and drawn to each other. they trust each other now. and, the most they've done truly romance oriented is hold hands up till now. if people want to call their romantic relationship rushed, that's their choice but it doesn't hold up to me.

[quististrepes]

i can understand the perception that jon and dany is happening really quickly. however, this is false. in previous seasons, ships’ scenes were intercut with lots of other plots. characters went episodes without being onscreen. this is not the case for jon and dany. season 7 has converged many plots. jon and dany have had scenes together every episode since their meeting. and, jon and dany have had significant amounts of screen time developing their relationship.

i did a post a few weeks ago anticipating the rushed argument. i compared jon/dany and jon/ygritte’s screentime from first meeting to sex. as of that post, jon and dany had only shared one episode 7x03. jon and dany had 12:25 minutes of screen time developing their relationship in their first episode. jon and ygritte had 28:50 minutes from first meeting to the start of cave sex.

as of their first episode, jon and dany had 43% of the overall ST it took jon and ygritte to get from first meeting to cave sex.

this is the post i referenced above with a scene breakdown of 7x03 jon/dany and a breakdown of jon/ygritte from meeting to cave sex.

http://quististrepes.tumblr.com/post/163809892897/im-already-seeing-arguments-that-jon-and-dany

i stated then that i would update the screen time counts at the end of the season. and, i will. but, having watched jon and dany’s ST from 7x04 to 7x06, i feel confident that their screen time developing their relationship from first meeting to sex will be greater than the 28:50 minutes it took for jon/ygritte to get there.

i say this not as a way to put anyone down. i wanted to combat the false perception and people often use jon/ygritte as a relationship that took its time in comparison to jon/dany.

and, i’m here to tell you that’s wrong.

[xenagabrielleforever]

[quististrepes]

when i hear someone say that there is ‘forced chemistry’ between jon and dany, this is what i hear:

i see this chemistry. but i don’t want to see it.

despite the fact that chemistry is a creation by actors and/or direction, i will say that it is forced that the story is calling for two characters to be attracted to each other. i know that characters do things and react in ways because that’s where the plot is taking them, but that type of plot behavior is not forced at all.

any chemistry that gets written into a story and is meant to develop a relationship is, by definition "forced” by actors and direction, but i will call THIS chemistry “forced” negatively because I don’t like it.

[quististrepes]

How are you watching Game of Thrones if you can’t handle the world’s morality? I believe these are show watchers going into people’s inboxes and making posts about being holy and not shipping incest in Game of Thrones. Book readers, for one, should know better as the books lay out a world where uncle/nieces and cousins get married and it’s not considered incest.

While uncommon, Westeros’ noble families from the Starks to the Baratheons to the Lannisters to the Targaryens have had uncle/niece marriages and cousin marriages. None of these relationships are seen as taboo in Westeros. An uncle/niece marriage was proposed by Victarion for Asha (Yara in the show) in the recent pages for The Winds of Winter. And, it wasn’t shown as taboo, an abomination, or incest. There have been other posts swimming around with examples of the Stark girls who married their uncles, of Arianne Martell crushing on her uncle Oberyn, of Sansa being proposed to marry Robert Arryn, her first cousin. What IS taboo in Westeros is brother/sister and the only reason the Targs got away with it was because they had dragons and seen as above ordinary humans.

People shipping incest (I will unpack this below) in a fictional world has no bearing on real life. Let people ship what they want, especially if the relationships you’re complaining about are not taboo in that fictional world.  No one is telling you to ship what your society has socialized you to see as incest.

And, speaking of real life, to unpack incest in our world, did you know that Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, and various North African, and Middle Eastern communities have cousin marriages? It’s not seen as taboo for those communities.  Did you know that avunculate marriages (uncle/niece and aunt/nephew) are considered in some societies as incest currently, but are legal or common in others? It’s legal in several countries such as Brazil, Malaysia, Australia, Finland, Russia, Argentina, the preferred union among certain Amazon tribes, and it still happens in South Indian communities?

So, people saying don’t ship incest and who’re going into inboxes to shame others for fictional shipping are attempting to impose their own societal standards onto a large international fandom community, some of whom have already said that cousin marriages occur in their communities. If you’re an American making these comments, please stop going into other people’s inboxes to shame them for fictional shipping.

This point is not really about fandom or incest shipping. This point is about the fact that people will have different perspectives based on culture. Your culture may say something is gross as you have been socialized to believe that, but imposing that belief like it’s the only right way and everyone else is gross is cultural imperialism and Americans do that way too much.

People still in South Indian communities in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu marry their nieces and their first cousins. These are adults marrying other adults. This 2015 reddit thread from the India subreddit has personal anecdotes and the lines between incest/non incest as told by actual people with knowledge of said communities which is sometimes more informative than data and wiki articles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3al39o/is_cousin_marriage_still_practiced_in_south_india/

Disclaimer: And, no, I am not into incest. My specific South Asian community has socialized me to think that marrying my cousin or my uncle as gross and as being incest. If I know the relation, even 4th or 5th cousin, I see that person as family. But, I’m not imposing my subculture’s beliefs on anyone else’s FICTIONAL shipping.

[quististrepes]

i’m already seeing arguments that jon and dany will have sex too quickly. so, i’ve timed all of jon/ygritte scenes from first meeting to cave sex as a comparison. 

for a good comparison, i had to pick a ship that met onscreen, developed onscreen, and had sex onscreen. preferably, this ship would be one with jon or dany. this ship had to be one where the progression to sex wasn’t seen as too quick by fandom. the show had to be invested in developing this relationship. dany/drogo is out for multiple reasons as is dany/daario. between jon/ygritte and robb/talisa, jon/ygritte is obviously the better choice for comparison as it includes jon and it was a popular ship whose progression to sex was hotly anticipated.

jon & ygritte from 1st meeting in 2X06 to start of cave sex in 3x05 is 28:50 minutes of screen time actually developing their relationship. 

(EDIT: i added 4:33 min i wrote down and didn’t add in for jon/ygritte)

as of 7x03, their first episode, jon & dany have had 12:25 minutes to specifically develop their relationship. i did not include the leaked episode. i will update this post at the end of the season.

see an exact breakdown by episode and criteria below the cut.

jon/ygritte 

S2:

2x06: first meeting TO them sleeping on the ground. the entire scene. 9:46 min.

2x07: ygritte teases jon and leads him into a trap. the entire scene 7:35 min

2x08:  

A) FROM ygritte giving jon to lord of bones TO ygritte telling him they’re even 1:14 min 

B) FROM the halfhand starting the pretense that jon is a nw traitor TO ygritte staring at jon in the snow where the halfhand pushed him 28 secs

2x10: 

A) FROM ygritte whacking jon on the head with longclaw TO jon stating that ygritte looks like a baby with a rattle holding longclaw 32 secs.

(i am not including the halfhand/jon fight because ygritte watches but she and jon do not interact in any meaningful way during the fight - they don’t look at each other etc. she’s not involved in the fight at all)

B) FROM ygritte telling the wildlings to tell mance that jon is the man that killed the halfhand TO the end of the scene where ygritte leads jon to meet the king beyond the wall 1:37 min.

TIME spent on developing Jon/Ygritte in S2: 21:12 min

S3:

3x01 FROM jon arriving in camp TO mance saying that ygritte likes jon anding asking if jon likes her back 4:33 min 

3x02 FROM jon watching orell skinchange TO ygritte asking jon if he’s never seen a warg 10 secs. (i am not including the whole scene as ygritte and jon don’t look at each other or talk to each other at all other than at that moment)

3x03 again, jon and ygritte are in a scene in a group,  not talking to each other nor looking at each other. their relationship is not a central point in this ep as it’s about jon/mance and mance/wildlings/ww. 0 secs.

3x05 FROM the moment tormund and orell question jon about the wall TO jon entering to cave after ygritte. 2:45 min.

as jon entering the cave is when cave sex starts, i’ve chosen that as the endpoint.

TIME spent on developing Jon/Ygritte from the start of S3 to the beginning of cave sex: 7:28 min* 

*this number surprised me tbh. if people want, they can include 3x03 but literally there was nothing not even a look between jon/ygritte*

SO, TOTAL TIME FROM JON/YGRITTE’S MEETING, TO CAVE SEX: 28:50 min.

i’ve included all scenes where they were looking at each other even silently. i’ve included scenes where they helped each other and furthered their relationship. i’ve included scenes with third parties like mance where they talk about ygritte and jon’s relationship. anything to do specifically with furthering their relationship was used in this calculation.

______________________________________________________________________ 

jon/dany

7x03:

A) jon and dany’s first meeting TO the the end of the scene where the dothraki escort jon and davos to quarters. the entire scene 9:55 min.

B) FROM jon saying everyone told him to not answer a summons from the mad king’s daughter TO tyrion saying dany protects people just like jon does 45 secs

C) FROM tyrion going to dany about jon wanting dragonglass TO dany asking tyrion about jon dying for his people 1:45 min

D) FROM jon walking down the steps and saying the dragons are an amazing thing to see TO dany turning back to look at jon walking away 1:35 min

i only included the tyrion scenes with jon and dany that were specifically about him teaching them to navigate a way with each other politically as that is as vital to their relationship as the personal.