𝐇𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔱𝔢

[princepscivitatiss]

i saw an article about house of the dragon earlier that described it as nihilistic and i think “nihilism” has become one of those words the fandom uses so much it’s basically turned into a bumper sticker.

something sad happens. nihilism.

a good person dies. nihilism.

characters make terrible decisions and then have to live with the consequences. somehow, also nihilism.

i’ve just never read grrm that way.

if asoiaf were actually nihilistic, there’d be no point in characters like ned, davos, brienne, sam, or dunk existing ( just to name a few) in the first place. they aren’t there to prove that goodness is pointless. they’re there to ask whether goodness is still worth choosing when it comes with a cost. and that people do!

that’s fundamentally a very different question!

ned dies because of the sort of man he is, but the books spend the next several thousand pages showing that his choices mattered. not because they saved him, but because they shaped the people he left behind.

the same goes for davos. for brienne. for dunk. none of them are rewarded in the way fantasy usually rewards its heroes or good guys. sometimes, actually, pretty much always, they’re punished for trying to do the right thing.

but grrm never implores us to think they were fools.

if anything, he infers and the opposite.

i’ve always thought the point of asoiaf is that goodness isn’t easy. it isn’t safe. it isn’t guaranteed to change the world. but it still matters.

i don’t think that’s nihilism.i think that’s hope and goodness refusing to take the easy route it often does in other fantasy stories.

it just underlines that the house of the dragon reporters and writers really don’t get it, at least that’s what i think.

[maidensmelancholy]

The poetry you see in life does not diminish the profanity I see in mine. You look toward heavens; I see only the abyss. I cannot contain my tragedy. I cannot swallow it. It would be raw and tearing, like barbed wire at my throat.

Do I ask you to swallow your joy? No. I smile for you, even though that smile stretches the darkness, lengthening the shadowed corridor I must walk.

[greenfirees]

I am so brave for doing the bare minimum under duress.

[haunted-mindset]

One thing I would love to have seen in ASOIAF is all of the big players in the Game of Thrones finding out that Jon is actually a Targaryen and they got duped by NED FUCKING STARK OF ALL PEOPLE!? Can you imagine Tywin Lannister finding out and realising he got played and there was a Targaryen right in front of him. Or Olenna trying to marry Margrey to him. I know some of these characters are dead by this point but still, just imagine the chaos....

[vesper-the-solitaire]

A random thought while rereading about Jaehaerys I and Alysanne as parents: I wonder if the reason why, starting with Vaegon, they handled their children progressively worse, is due on the one hand to the fact that the years were advancing, the children too... but on the other hand to the fact that with the first group they were so lucky to have no idea how to handle a "normally problematic" child.

Daenerys lived only six years and was a pure ray of sunshine. Aemon and Baelon were the definition of perfect princes. Alyssa was a tomboy, but she never seemed to cross that fine line from "cute little brat" to "red alert: problem," and it certainly helped that she got married appropriately and had a kids without obietions, so her "duty as a woman" did it. Maegelle was that kid you never had to remind her of the rules, she never cries at night, and she ate all her vegetables (I mean, Daella adored her).

I'm sure at that point Jaehaerys and Alysanne were like, why do so many people say parenting is hard? We raised five kids with no problems. And then the second batch comes along and suddenly...problems. And Jaehaerys and Alysanne are like, "Oh, that's why they say that!".

[wedandbedmystoat-deactivated202]

☕️ worst asoiaf theories

Oh boy, what a great question.

I had an arch nemesis of sorts (he probably doesn’t even remember me) that had a truly incredible theory

The Others do not exist

His honest theory was that when characters believe they are interacting with The Others. they are in fact having a delusion brought on by their minds hallucinating the nightmares they heard of in their youth, like seeing a boogeyman in a shadow.

People see the wights and they “know” that The Others control wights, so people see them. The Prologue, The Fist, Sam/Paul/Gren? All shared hallucinations.

They were extremely serious (we spoke multiple times, across Reddit and two different discord servers) and he would even create sock puppets to post Tobias Fünke style “wow, anybody heard this interesting theory?” posts and discussion topics.

Even weirder was he did attract and have adherents to his theories! I already hear the obvious rebuttal “Dig, you just said he used sock puppets!” and sure, but these were real people with account histories and registered emails that talked about various topics. It really goes to show that in the ASOIAF fandom there is no belief too asinine for someone to treasure.

My “favorite” argument of his was that in the Prologue, Ser Waymar stumbled across a giant piece of dragonglass and mistook his own distorted reflection as an Other and that’s why his sword broke and it made a weird sound. Actual snippet of our convo:

Me: i'm sorry, is this a shitpost? Ser Waymar fought a reflection while confused? What?

Him: Ever stay at a new or unfamiliar place and be in the dark, turn around, and scare yourself because you forgot there was a mirror there?

Me: Have you ever been up a tree and looking down at a guy smacking a slab piece of obsidian with a sword and confusedly thought it was a group of people laughing and jeering about a duel?

God, what a time to be alive

[myownsummerhall]

very lukewarm opinion but the riverlands probably has the most interesting & cool characters of any region in westeros. just such a wide scope of everything there. literally any distinct faction of audiences could find a batch of appealing riverlands characters. the more medievalist catholic or historical battle tactics people have the tullys & freys (also mallister/vance/piper), the strongs for the f&b crowd, a massively long list of significant ladies and knights, the whole blackwood-bracken feud, and just house blackwood in general, house darry and their targaryen loyalism, and then don’t forget the magic & mysticism! brynden rivers, the ghost of high heart, harrenhal, isle of faces/green men, mad danelle lothston as well as beric & lady stoneheart in the current story. not forgetting about jenny of oldstones either! there’s just so much developed story there that the other regions (even the north) don’t have as much of, to where the riverlands’ prominence is apparent to *any* kind of reader.

[overripeornge]

I love how the Lannister twins separately came to the conclusion that Margaery and Loras are literally them but younger despite not really knowing them. Projecting final bosses fr.

[ferretteeth]

One of my fave minor character in A Dance With Dragons is the guy who’s misogynist to Asha while trying to kill her and then apologizes to her for being sexist. He doesn't apologize for trying to kill her.

Which first of all. Finally someone telling Asha "my condolences about misogyny" I feel like she needed to hear that

Second of all. "I'm sorry for calling you a cunt" is basically Judith Butler levels of feminism for Westerosi men. Stannis was running that crew like the navy

[greenfirees]

My brain: do not say it. Me: says it, with flourish and conviction.

[dreadbirate]

Cersei telling Sansa "You may never love the King, but you will love his children." is crazy work when you remember that Cersei, very intentionally, never had any of her King/Rapist's children, and only had children with the man she loved. Its bad advice that buys into patriarchal expectations regardless, but its also clearly bullshit advice that Cersei doesn't believe in (at least for herself).

[greenfirees]

I don’t want ‘closure’; I want a sequel where I’m proven right.

[greenfirees]

I’m not avoiding responsibility. I’m letting it mature like a fine wine.

[blxckfireposts]

Maybe Caligula was onto something when he planned to make his horse a consul. I would elect a horse over most politicians nowadays.

[hyalins]

theon week day 3: childhood / home

[visenyaism]

There is something real to me about Melisandre looking to Stannis as The Warrior to save the world and wield the flaming sword to guard the light but functionally it’s her the whole time. The fires are hers, the sword and power are hers, she views it as her responsibility to prevent this, and she is willing to make any sacrifice necessary to stop the long night. She is trying to guard the little children in the broad global sense and sometimes even when it’s hypocritical in specific instances like Daven and “Arya.”

Davos is often cast as The Father because he is the older man who provided for Stannis when times were the darkest, because he is constantly thinking of his own children, and because he gets told to pick right from wrong. But Davos keeps rejecting the paradigm of right and wrong, and refuses to go home to his children there and cannot protect the ones with him. Stannis is The Father, portrayed in the series in the context of judging right from wrong, stern before he is ever loving. His greatest strength and greatest weakness is his rigid moral compass and refusal to ever compromise it. As the only non-pov of the three. Stannis is also literally unknowable in the way that fathers so often are in Westeros.

Stannis looks to Melisandre as The Crone, who holds her golden lamp up to guide the way. But Melisandre is kind of defined by her struggle to correctly interpret her visions and her advice is often what Stannis wants to hear. This is because The Crone is Davos. As a smuggler, it’s his job to literally find the way out of an impossible situation, on and out of Storm’s End, or to Skagos to guide Rickon home. But metaphorically he is also the one to point the way. His reappearance after Blackwater is the light in the darkness for Stannis, and it’s Davos who guides them to the Wall to the real threat. He is the one true advisor on Dragonstone.

[readorsigh]

I've been seeing a lot of people revert to talking about Bran just being in a tree far in the north forever and I just have no patience for this shit anymore.

He's the main fucking character of the series. The story began from his perspective. It's literally the first thing the author came up with. He is central to the narrative and he can't be central to the narrative if he's separated from the rest of the entire ensemble cast forever.

For the love of god, let this idea die already.