ashara dayne stan

#1 brandon/ashara defender (main blog is @commiebeatle, that’s where i’ll follow back from!)

[moonyvvamp]

There's just something about Ned being kind and courteous as expected of him to everyone. Even when it's someone he doesn't like or is opposing he isn't half as cruel as he could be.

The most prominent example I have is how he treats Cersei after finding out about the bastards. He invites her to the Godswood, he touches her face where Robert struck her and politely but firmly gives her the option of leaving. That scene stuck with me because you can feel Cersei softening. I felt myself understanding her more because Ned treated her like a person and held the belief that she was capable of doing the right thing.

It just made me like her a lot more because up till that point all we saw was a stony-faced Queen, Tyrion's japes and children who held hyperspecific views of her that did not align with reality.

The way that Ned interacts with everyone makes you have sympathy for them. Robert especially, the fact that I felt some semblance of empathy even after he hit Cersei and went on and on about killing Dany who mind you, is his second cousin and a literal child, is mostly thanks to Ned and his perspective.

Point is Ned somehow makes even the objectively worst people seem likeable and loveable which is kind of amazing.

[rhaegars-cervix]

the knight of the laughing tree

art ref. under the cut

[ghostinwinterfell]

“If the dish smelled especially choice, he would send it to one of the lords on the dais, a gesture of friendship and favor that Maester Luwin told him he must make . . . He sent sweets to Hodor and Old Nan as well, for no reason but he loved them.” (ASOS, Bran III)

bran is literally the sweetest thing ever. like he doesn’t even have to try, he’s just so naturally full of love.

[weltenwellen]

Louise Glück, from “A Myth Of Innocence”, Poems 1962-2012

[daenystheedreamer]

sometimes u think about theon and u just gotta laff

[alliluyevas]

The head bounced off a thick root and rolled. It came up near Greyjoy’s feet. Theon was a lean, dark youth of nineteen who found everything amusing. He laughed, put his boot on the head, and kicked it away.

“Ass,” Jon muttered, low enough so Greyjoy did not hear. 

~

The hunters strode into the hall, all but Ben Bones, who was cursing at the dogs to stop them fighting over the severed head.

Big Walder followed him into the stables, leading his own mount. Reek stole a look at him as he removed Blood’s bit. “Who was he?” he said softly, so the other stablehands would not hear.

[kingsmoot]

no we skipped over this a little too quickly what do you mean "her knife"? her knife that sansa keeps on her bedside table?? knife???

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Yeah, her knife! Everybody in ASOIAF has a knife, even kids. They carry a dagger around to eat their food. Like in Sansa's case, she took her knife to the godswood to meet her mysterious letter-sender (who turned out to be Dontos), and that's the same knife she cut up her sheets with.

And yeah, it's based on actual history, but this "literally everybody carries around a knife" thing is why in F&B, Lucerys Velaryon (when he was 5 - five fucking years old) had a dagger to cut Aemond's eye with. It is one of the most frankly insane bits of worldbuilding that nobody ever talks about.

[aneurins-barnard]

JACOB COLLINS-LEVY as HENRY VII THE WHITE PRINCESS Episode 5 Traitors

[tragicdeadgirl]

Happy birthday, @diaryofanobsessivefangirl!!

“Tears, tears, tears,” she sobbed hysterically. “No need for tears… but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us! And I wrote Catelyn and told her the Lannisters had killed my lord husband, just as you said. That was so clever… you were always clever, I told Father that, I said Petyr’s so clever, he’ll rise high, he will, he will, and he’s sweet and gentle and I have his little baby in my belly… Why did you kiss her? Why? We’re together now, we’re together after so long, so very long, why would you want to kiss herrrrrr?”

[shebsart]

POV characters: AFFC

-

[agot]

[acok]

[asos]

[brucelinas]

You are my lucky star

[lmaowh-at]

Im not gonna finish her so why not post this brienne here

Ref was sir galahad by george frederick watts

[branwinged]

ned being held up as the metric for moral goodness in asoiaf is absurd like did you not read bran i, agot in which he beheads a man on the run from the others because he must fulfill his fedual oaths and he carries out the execution through his family's ancestral sword which was definitely forged for the exact opposite purpose, i.e. in defense of the north against the others. and then he uses ice again to behead the direwolf which was meant to protect his daughter. is it any wonder that he also meets his end the same way, through it, after spending the rest of the book in king's landing in service to a failed king, desperately trying to reassure himself that they are not repeating history. bran i is saying ice was already metaphorically broken long before tywin melted it down because the starks have forgotten their magical history yes, but also because ned represents an older, failed generation in service to hollow chivalric ideals. and it is now up to his children, the ones coming of age in a world destroyed by the previous generations—it is up to bran, sansa, arya, and jon to reforge their family legacy, away from contradictory oaths and in service to hollow paradigms. (and in a way ice is already currently being remade through brienne, who is not a knight of the songs but still the closest thing to the idea of a true knight)

[branwinged]

i should've mentioned it in that dragons can plant trees post, but magic in asoiaf is partly being recontextualised through both bran and dany, in bran's case, he's (at least temporarily) inheriting bloodraven's weirwood network which he historically used to run some version of a surveillance state when he was hand. but already bran's involvement with is thematically panning out differently, bran answering theon's anguished prayers to the heart tree in winterfell is saying: this is the new face of the old gods and if they had been cold and unforgiving before, that could change. "gods do not weep, do they?" thinks theon, but we know bran does, "if i cry, will the tree begin to weep?"—now i don't entirely understand where bran's arc is going but also don't think he's meant to fully reject whatever bloodraven and the children are offering to teach him, the way sansa needs to reject littlefinger's overall cynical philosophy but there is benefit to being exposed to the realities of the world, not that it had to happen in such a violent manner. the way arya has picked up valueable skills and knowledge at the house of black and white and eventually rejecting the faceless men does not mean forgetting all that.

similarly, dragons have been historical weapons of war and tools of conquest in the freehold, yes, but already they're, i.e. the last remnant of old valyria is helping dismantle the freehold's imperial and slaveholding legacy. it's a dragon eating its own tail! and what is dany's story if not a cycle of destruction and then after that, rebirth.

[kudriaken]

House Arryn. New ASOIAF fanart for the Great Houses of Westeros. It`s a depiction before the beginning of the story, so John Arryn is included. Also I realized later that Arryns actually had more family members, but they were so in the background in the beginning of the story I completely forgot about them.

[branwinged]

"dragons plant no trees" gets thrown around a lot as fact, but i think the veracity of that claim is still up for debate in the books. because dany (like bran and jon and many others) is a narrative symbol of hope and rebirth within the series because of her connection to dragons and fire, not in spite of it. this is because dragons in asoiaf have a much more expansive narrative function than simply 'nuke metaphor'. the 'exclusively weapons of war' image they have acquired breaks down immediately if you recall that the first thing dany does with them is begin dismantling an unjust status quo. she rallies the unsullied at the gates of astapor with cries of dracarys! dracarys! freedom! <- dragons as a symbol of hope and freedom for the persecuted. and obviously they've been built up as an oppositional force against the others. we're told when the last dragon died summers became shorter. in that respect the dragons, or more specifically, fire which is warmth which is passion—very much embodies life against the numbing, deadening threat of eternal winter that the others represent. but fire also consumes, which simultaneously makes dragons agents of destruction, or as adwd shows: the monsters who eat little girls and leave behind their bones. but when dany found herself chained to a false peace which effectively undid her cause in meereen, it was the dragon that rescued her and reignited her fire to fight back—which is to say that dragons represent a wealth of contradictions within the text and this is likely something grrm means to parallel with the others to some extent, by questioning their apparent narrative role as the one true evil. because i doubt the series is gearing up towards a spectacle-esque battle wherein our heroes get to practice righteous, easy violence on a monolithic army of monsters. that feels like it would undo a lot of asoiaf's preoccupation with investigating violence against socially acceptable targets, even if said target is ice sidhe. and this binary between a one true good and a one true evil, i.e. melisandre's philosophy ("if half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. a man is good or he is evil.") is not something the story takes as given.

instead there's this exchange between bran, jojen, and meera in asos: "but you just said you hated them." / "why can't it be both?" / because they're different. like night and day, or ice and fire." / "if ice can burn. then love and hate can mate."—and i think it's talking about reconciling two conflicting ideas. because the dream of an eternal summer is just as unsustainable as the threat of eternal winter. i think the battle for dawn is more about questions of seasonal harmony. the first line from agot's summary says, "long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance", so it's not totally out of question for the series to end with that seasonal balance restored once more. and that question of balance and how it can be achieved then works as a metaphor for a bunch of other things. because asoiaf at its core is very interested in exploring big contradictions, like love and duty? how do you keep all your oaths without betraying someone you love? how can one hope for a just, rightful ruler in a world where the systems in place can never allow such a thing? how do dragons plant trees?

you cannot frame dany's arc as a binary choice between planting trees or embracing (dragon)fire. because the fire is hers, it is a part of her, that's who she is. and her character has always existed outside of rigid dichotomies. at the end of agot she had two options, resign herself to a life of seclusion as a widow or die with the last of her family in that pyre, instead she performed a miracle. presently, i think grrm means to explore necessary, revolutionary violence with her arc because you cannot deal with institutional slavery by simply negotiating with slavers like she does in adwd. and the consequences thereof because she's also been set up to be more reckless with dragonfire in the future. but i think there will be an eventual reconciliation there, between her dreams "to plant trees and watch them grow." and her role as the mother of dragons, as a revolutionary figure. because if ice can burn, then maybe dragons can plant trees. they'll learn how to.

[sharadayne]

this is pissing me AWF why are these ugly ass dollarstore dresses valued higher than literally the most iconic cersei dress