spare me Stannis

Game of Thrones/aSoIaF musings

[racefortheironthrone]

Where did Stannis get his naval command experience prior to the battle off Fair Isle? There was no Targaryen fleet to oppose him when he took Dragonstone, and there was no great naval threat in the years between Robert's and the Greyjoy Rebellion for him to hone his skills, afaik. Do Baratheon sons receive some kind of basic naval training, given their proximity to the sea?

There was a Targaryen fleet opposing him, it just got wrecked in the storm. Regardless, overseeing the construction of an entire fleet and then coordinating that fleet on a successful amphibious attack in those circumstances is a hell of an entry-level work experience gig. 

Afterwards, Stannis was the Master of Ships and Lord of Dragonstone, and we know from ADWD that he was extremely active in fighting pirates, which would give him lots of smaller-scale experience. And of course, Stannis being Stannis, odds are that he read and memorized manuals of naval warfare as due diligence for his new job. 

[cabbagefuneral-deactivated20160]

Lyanna, Arya, & Jon | Grimhel

[moynal]

Ah, wonderful to have more art done by the fantastic Enife.:D

[lyannas]

do you think any relationship with an age gap like 16 yo lyanna and 24 yo rhaegar is inherently abusive or harmful?? (im not trying to argue or start a fight, im just curious because i was with a 24 year old when i was 16)

I’m not here to offer any sort of opinion on your relationship, as obviously I know nothing about it. I will say it’s a major red flag for me to see men who are in their twenties and pursue girls who are still in high school.

As for Rhaegar and Lyanna specifically, what makes it so harmful goes beyond the age gap. Marriages of convenience often involve age gaps, some as extreme as the one between Lysa Tully and Jon Arryn, some that are not so bad. An age gap in a marriage doesn’t automatically mean it’s unhealthy. It’s actions that make a marriage unhealthy. Age becomes more significant when you examine women like Rhaella, who was married at 12/13 which is too young for anyone in any society to be getting married and having children, even though Aerys was only a year or two older than her. When one partner in the relationship is just too young, either by society’s standards or by biological standards, it becomes a concern.

Rhaegar’s goal with Lyanna was undoubtedly to produce a third child. That much is virtually indisputable by this point; whether you think they were in love or not is a separate conversation. Rhaegar met Lyanna when she was 14, at the Tourney at Harrenhal. He ran away with her when she was 15, at which point he knew that Elia would not be able to carry a third child (she almost died giving birth to Aegon ffs). Lyanna died at 16, after giving birth to Jon.

It is common knowledge to everyone that having pregnancies at young ages is dangerous. It should have been especially clear to Rhaegar, whose own mother struggled with miscarriages throughout her whole life, and whose wife was older than him yet still had trouble with births/pregnancies due to her health. Thus it is not some big mystery as to why Lysa had her own miscarriages (early pregnancy + bad abortion), or Rhaella, or why Lyanna died shortly after giving birth to a child. It is taking a gamble to get someone under the age of 16 pregnant. In fact, being sixteen or under is pregnant is considered a high-risk pregnancy in our day and age, where we have considerable medical advances over Westeros.

So that’s strike one against Rhaegar. Strike two comes from the position he put Lyanna in. I cannot stress enough how incredibly predatory it is to not only take a young girl away from her family, but to then put her in mountain pass in a remote tower that not very many people know exist in a land that it really only known best by its inhabitants. Oh, and not inform her family that he had taken her to this remote place, not inform anyone at all, actually. He literally put her in isolation, where her only company would have been people loyal to him. This left Lyanna with no means to contact the outside world, no way to escape without his permission and his help, and no chance to change her mind. He exercised total control over her and kept her 100% dependent on him. That is predatory and fucked up.

Strike three comes from the fact that he then left the tower, and a pregnant Lyanna, so he could stand opposite her brother on a battlefield. Whether he told her he would be doing so or not is unclear, but this is a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation. If he told Lyanna he was going to fight her brother, perhaps kill him or at least leave his fate in limbo, then he lost any sort of tenderness he might have had from Lyanna. If he didn’t tell Lyanna that’s what he intended to do, then he’s pulled yet another fast one on her by lying by omission. This is compounded with the fact that Lyanna may have already known about what happened to Brandon and Rickard. She already lost one brother while she was in the tower; it would have been horrible to learn that Rhaegar had intended to fight yet another. There is no reason to believe that Lyanna’s love for Rhaegar could have forgiven him for putting Ned’s life in danger. Just as there’s no reason to believe that Lyanna could have possibly approved of the Kingsguard making their last stand against Ned, a battle in which Ned would nearly lose his life had it not been for Howland Reed.

Strike four and five relate to age and status. Rhaegar was an adult; Lyanna was a “child-woman”. He was married. She was betrothed. He was the crown prince. The onus was on him to both initiate the relationship, or end it. Lyanna had no means of her own to pursue a relationship with him. He had considerable social and political power over her, as well as resources she did not in order to initiate the relationship. The power imbalance is built into their relationship, and it is unavoidable. It might be nice to gloss is all over with ~they were in love~ but that doesn’t change the fact that Rhaegar was in a position that would have earned him considerable privileges over Lyanna socially and politically.

These are things that make their relationship harmful and unhealthy. Not just the simple fact of an age difference.

[sparemestannis]

Although I'm going to go ahead and say that 24yos generally don't look at high school students as their dating pool - so unless there's an exception in which a 16yo and college graduate are in a social situation in which they are peers (say working at the same job with a similar amount of experience, or taking the same community college class over the summer), it's not likely that the older person has reasonable motives.

(sorry for the hijacking, but Rhaegar literally proves it)

[turtle-paced]

To what extent do you think Littlefinger's attraction to Sansa actually have anything to do with Sansa? We know for sure that there's significant projection of his feelings for Cat but I think there's also some kind of twisted revenge against Ned. Like, he's mad that Ned married Cat and they were happy, so he'll get revenge by sleeping with his daughter. What do you think?

I think that the “revenge against Ned” aspect of Littlefinger’s relationship with Sansa is primarily expressed through having her take up the guise of his own bastard daughter.

“What if Lord Nestor values honor more than profit?” Petyr put his arm around her. “What if it is truth he wants, and justice for his murdered lady?” He smiled. “I know Lord Nestor, sweetling.Do you imagine I’d ever let him harm my daughter?”

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard’s daughter and LadyCatelyn’s, the blood of Winterfell.

- Sansa, AFFC

That’s part of Littlefinger’s fantasy where he’s the one who got to marry Catelyn and have children with her. In this, he’s trying to make Sansa his daughter rather than Ned’s, as a means of denying that Ned and Catelyn were ever happy together.

“There was a time when Cat wasall I wanted in this world. I dared to dream of the life we might make and the children she wouldgive me… but she was a daughter of Riverrun, and Hoster Tully. Family, Duty, Honor, Sansa.Family, Duty, Honor meant I could never have her hand. But she gave me something finer, a gifta woman can give but once. How could I turn my back upon her daughter? In a better world, youmight have been mine, not Eddard Stark’s. My loyal loving daughter…”

- Sansa V, ASoS

This conflicts obviously and very creepily with his desire to make Sansa his replacement Catelyn.

[goodqueenaly]

I guess this kind of goes with my last question, but if the old gods give people with greensight red eyes, why do neither Bran or Jojen have red eyes?

I’m afraid there’s some misunderstanding. For one, the quote to which you’re referring was made about greenseers among the children of the forest:

“I thought the greenseers were the wizards of the children,” Bran said. “The singers, I mean.”

“In a sense. Those you call the children of the forest have eyes as golden as the sun, but once in a great while one is born amongst them with eyes as red as blood, or green as the moss on a tree in the heart of the forest. By these signs do the gods mark those they have chosen to receive the gift. The chosen ones are not robust, and their quick years upon the earth are few, for every song must have its balance. But once inside the wood they linger long indeed. A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. Greenseers.”

Jojen himself denies that he is a greenseer:

“Then you teach me.” Bran still feared the three-eyed crow who haunted his dreams sometimes, pecking endlessly at the skin between his eyes and telling him to fly. “You’re a greenseer.”

“No,” said Jojen, “only a boy who dreams. The greenseers were more than that. They were wargs as well, as you are, and the greatest of them could wear the skins of any beast that flies or swims or crawls, and could look through the eyes of the weirwoods as well, and see the truth that lies beneath the world.[”]

Now, that’s not to say that humans who possess greensight, even though they are not necessarily greenseers, can’t be similarly marked. Jojen, after all, has greensight, and his eyes are described in a similar manner to what Bloodraven says:

Her brother was several years younger and bore no weapons. All his garb was green, even to the leather of his boots, and when he came closer Bran saw that his eyes were the color of moss, though his teeth looked as white as anyone else’s.

But I don’t think it’s necessary that all human greenseers follow the same rules as all greenseers among the children of the forest. If Bloodraven, a strong magic user and greenseer himself, acknowledges that Tully-looking Bran was born a greenseer, then I’m willing to believe that merely having blue eyes is no impediment to being a greenseer.

[sparemestannis]

I'm pretty sure Meera also has green eyes anyway

[goodqueenaly]

Did Varys know about the wildfire plot?

I doubt it. Varys was still a relatively new installation at the Targaryen court, and presumably had not yet created the extensive spy network he has in the main narrative. Add to that the fact that “[e]verything was done in the utmost secrecy”, and I could very well imagine that Varys knew nothing about Aerys’ scheme to blow the city to kingdom come.

Now, whether Varys STILL doesn’t know … I don’t know. After all, given how extensive his network is now, and the fact that he’s ferreted out many of the Red Keep’s secrets and hidden passages (and the fact that there was wildfire stored in the cellars of the Red Keep itself), you’d think he would have run into some of these caches over the years; moreover, given the volatile shelf life, so to speak, of wildfire, you’d think Varys would have guessed that these were not old stores, but had to have come from a relatively recent government. My suspicion, however, is that even if Varys found some of this wildfire, he has no idea of the extent of Aerys’ plot; I think that knowledge belongs exclusively to Jaime (and Brienne).

[sparemestannis]

It's not exactly common knowledge that wildfire "goes bad" though - only the pyromancers (and Tyrion) are aware of this. So even if he knows about some caches of Aerys (which I doubt would be a surprise for him), he probably would just tell his little birds to avoid them, and otherwise put them out of his mind.

(Tyrion however is aware both that there are secret wildfire caches in the city, since he was informed about the one under the Dragonpit, and that wildfire becomes more volatile with age. Granted he had other concerns at the time he found this out...)

[poorquentyn]

Care to give your thoughts on teh last Davos chapter in ASOS? I just read it again and it really struck me just how good of a leader Davos can be when he's confident in himself.

Love to! Davos VI ASOS is a favorite of mine. 

The onion knight thinks of himself as a simple man, “no fit man to be a King’s Hand,” but don’t believe it. As he will go on to demonstrate in spades in ADWD, Davos Seaworth is as skilled a politician as any in ASOIAF. As soon as he’s named Hand, he quietly goes about securing himself some allies (a ragged coalition who call themselves “king’s men”), and in Davos VI, he puts them to use in rescuing Edric Storm. 

Our hero’s final chapter in ASOS is about Davos confronting Stannis about what kind of king he wants to be, a question that resonates across the book, from Robb to Dany to Mance to Joffrey. Stannis’ back is against the wall (heh), facing the near-collapse of his campaign at the Blackwater and tempted by Melisandre to take a dreadful shortcut to power. Davos’ argument doesn’t focus on the immorality of sacrificing Edric; he already made that case in Davos V (“everything”) and it’s been rendered moot by Davos smuggling the lad off Dragonstone. Instead, Davos makes an affirmative case for what he has done and what he believes Stannis should do, rooted in his philosophy of leadership. 

The Hand argues that when he swore to protect the king’s people, that included from the king (a direct refutation of what Jon Darry told Jaime as Aerys raped Rhaella), and that if Stannis fails to recognize this, he is not worthy of the crown. But Davos believes that he is, and gives him a chance to prove it by reading Maester Aemon’s letter. In this way, Davos links the duty of protecting the individual to that of protecting the realm as a whole–he has accomplished the former, and is using that as a springboard to arguing on behalf of the latter. What Stannis must do, Davos declares, is act as king, instead of simply asserting that he is king. Rather than take the crown in order to later do justice, he must demonstrate to the realm that justice is his aim, and thus conclusively separate himself from the likes of the Lannisters, the Greyjoys, and Littlefinger. 

And it works. Stannis listens and acts, and thus is rejuvenated when we meet him again atop the Wall in Jon XI, a man and king reborn. He speaks with philosophical clarity about the fire Davos lit in him, and how it has inspired him to take the far-sighted step of letting the wildlings through the Wall. Stannis fought Mance not because Mance is his enemy, but because Mance’s army posed a serious threat to the Night’s Watch and the people of the North; now that the immediate threat is nullified, Stannis believes it’s his duty to protect the wildlings as well. They are part of the realms of men he is sworn to defend…and of course, Jon is coming to that exact same conclusion. 

At the beginning of ASOS, Stannis’ cause seemed hopeless. “My idols are dead and my enemies are in power.” Across the bay, the Tyrell-Lannister court flourished, all gold and roses; Dragonstone is bleaker than ever, full of ghosts (as Davos notes in his second ASOS chapter). But all that is gold does not glitter, and Tywin’s impressive image is revealed by both his horse after the Blackwater and his final moments as, quite literally, shit. By book’s end, Joffrey and Tywin are both dead, Tyrion and Oberyn have called out the latter’s heinous legacy for what it is in front of everyone, and Cersei is left to bring Dad’s hoped-for regime down around herself in AFFC. Meanwhile, the king everyone counted out is back on his feet and saving the day. When the Lannister court learns that Stannis has sailed from Dragonstone, Cersei and Pycelle assume he’s gone into exile, while Tywin suspects he’ll try to raise Dorne or the Stormlands. None of them even imagine he’ll sail to the Wall, because they would never think to do that, which is why none of them are “the king who still cared.” 

But of course, it’s our POV’s triumph as well, the culmination of his arc in ASOS. He began it as a dying man on a rock, stricken by grief as much as deprivation, ready to give up this mortal coil. Even when Davos returns to Dragonstone, his first thoughts are of taking it all out on Melisandre. But both he and Stannis rise above; Davos appeals to the king’s better nature regarding Claw Isle, and so is raised from prisoner to Hand. In Davos VI, he entreats Stannis to listen in the name of the bond they forged at Storm’s End. It is in that memory that Davos finds himself again, and realizes that he was the right choice to be Hand after all. Not in spite of having been a smuggler, because he was a smuggler–Lord Seaworth protects the king’s people, but it was the kid from Flea Bottom who knows how to spirit away precious cargo like Edric Storm on a boat.

[racefortheironthrone]

Why didn't the Mountain Clansmen haul their asses over to help the Watch in ASOS ? Had the wildlings broken through, their lands would have been affected first. Plus almost all their warriors were still in the North.

Because A. Ironborn invasion, and B. no Stark in Winterfell to mobilize. 

[sparemestannis]

Do they even have maesters?

[goodqueenaly]

Good Queen Aly, I have a couple of questions. I'll admit I only read AFFC once and that was a VERY long time ago, but I can't remember, why did Baelish broker the marriage of Lord Corbray with a commoner? Even though she was the daughter of a rich merchant. And second, were the wives of great-grandpa Baelish and granddad Baelish of noble blood or probably daughters of merchant? What rank do you think Petyr's mother Alayne comes from? Is she even of noble blood?

The arrangement of Lord Corbray’s marriage is part of Littlefinger’s overall consolidation of power scheme in the Vale. Littlefinger hit upon the real fact that, for all their preening and pride, many of the great families of the Vale are rather cash poor, the Corbrays included. By arranging Corbray’s marriage to a Gulltown merchant’s daughter with a “staggering” dowry, Littlefinger neatly solves the Corbray financial difficulties - and, of course, when Lord Lyonel remembers that he no longer has quite the debt some of his Vale neighbors have, he’ll also remember that it was good old Littlefinger who helped him out of that rather sticky wicket. At the same time, Littlefinger ensures that, if Lyonel Corbray marries a merchant’s daughter, he does not gain any lordly allies (with substantial armies) which could encourage the Lord of Heart’s Home against the Lord Protector of the Vale. The Lord of Heart’s Home might have been a more than fair prize for a daughter of the Vale (whose family might have been staunchly anti-Littlefinger, and pulled Corbray away from Littlefinger’s influence); by binding him to a merchant family of Gulltown, where he is “well loved”, Littlefinger both isolates Corbray from the Lords Declarant and their allies and binds him to a less militarily potent, and more pro-Littlefinger, sector of the Vale.

Since Great-Grandfather Baelish was a sellsword from Braavos, come to the Vale to fight for Lord Corbray, I would find it extremely likely that his wife was a very minor commoner from somewhere around Heart’s Home. We know little about the marital prospects of landless hedge knights (I very highly doubt Baelish’s paternal grandmother was an Amerei Frey type, we would have heard of that scandal by now), but I doubt Grandfather Baelish married much better than his own father did (although perhaps his wife was slightly higher status than his own mother had been - maybe from a slightly larger town (or a town at all), maybe from a slightly more notable family from that town). I figure Alayne Baelish was probably a very minor lord or landed knight’s daughter, to match the “smallest of small lords” Papa Baelish - the scion of some vassal’s vassal’s vassal, barely surviving in some tiny corner of the Vale, seizing on Baelish’s lordly status (despite his rather recent elevation to the same) rather than - the horror - marrying a mere commoner.

[racefortheironthrone]

I had a thought on the Crown's debt at the start of AGOT. LF is obviously stealing the Crown blind, but what about the navy? Aren't navies really expensive to build and maintain? They lost a lot of ships off Dragonstone when Dany was born, but had a navy for Stannis to command during Balon's Rebellion. Might that account for some of it?

It’s an issue of scale and scope on the one hand, and accounting practices on the other. Navies are expensive, but they’re less a constant as much as they are a cyclical source of costs.

They’re also not expensive enough to explain why even with a tenfold increase in income, the crown isn’t paying down any of the principal, and is paying the interest by taking out new loans.

[sparemestannis]

Pretty sure Stannis rebuilt the navy before Littlefinger was Master of Coin - he worked in Gulltown for a while, and had other positions in KL prior to his final promotion.

[gameofthrones-fanart]

Burning Of The Seven Gods: Beautiful Digital Painting by Magali Villeneuve

[icesalamander]

Now I ship Ned x Jaime? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good >:D They are my OTP since I was sixteen.

[sparemestannis]

I do not really ship them, but I find that "what if they actually talked to each other when they met in the throne room" interesting...

[lyannas]

But but but but but but explain to me why it is more noble to kill 10,000 men in battle than a dozen at dinner?? /s

Sjdhajdjsjd i hate him for that line

[sparemestannis]

Especially bc they killed like 3000 men at dinner, a few thousand at the Red Fork on the way to dinner, and a few thousand when Bolton sent them to Duskendale...

Wait a minute... Is that...

TEN THOUSAND MEN TOTAL???

[goodqueenaly]

What do you think GRRM is getting at with how distant and opaque Myrcella is as a character? Are we to reflect on how this child is objectified? Is it there to show how Cersei digs her children's graves? His character stuff is normally so good that when he writes one seemingly just to serve a function in the plot and the arcs of others it really stands out, and not in a flattering way. I hope I'm wrong and there's more to it than "very tragic, Cersei so foolish".

I don’t think Myrcella is particularly distant or opaque, though? I mean, we don’t see her extremely often, but I can appreciate the little facets of her character that we do see.

After all, she is certainly happy to hear that Bran would survive his fall:

“Why, only that Tommen may get his wish. The maester thinks the boy may yet live.” He took a sip of beer.

Myrcella gave a happy gasp[.]

Tyrion chewed thoughtfully for a moment and said, “He thinks that if the boy were going to die, he would have done so already. It has been four days with no change.”

“Will Bran get better, Uncle?” little Myrcella asked.

She’s afraid for Tommen when he’s knocked down at Joffrey’s ragtag tourney:

Tommen spilled from the saddle, his new armor rattling like a bag of old pots as he hit the ground. His sword went flying, his pony cantered away across the bailey, and a great gale of derision went up. King Joffrey laughed longest and loudest of all.

“Oh,” Princess Myrcella cried. She scrambled out of the box and ran to her little brother.

She’s clearly fond of her Uncle Tyrion:

Myrcella came running after her brother, and the dwarf picked her up by the waist and spun her in a circle, squealing.

The little man gave the big one a look. One of his eyes was green, one was black, and both were cool. “I was speaking to the king, not to his cur.”

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” said Princess Myrcella.

She has a sweet little crush on Robb during her time at Winterfell:

Jon noticed the shy looks she gave Robb as they passed between the tables and the timid way she smiled at him.

Bran and his brothers and sisters sat with the king’s children, Joffrey and Tommen and Princess Myrcella, who’d spent the whole meal gazing at Robb with adoring eyes.

She’s kind to Tommen when she leaves for Dorne, even though the process is certainly not easy for her emotionally:

To be sure, her smile was a shade tremulous when her brothers took their leave of her on the deck of the Seaswift, but the girl knew the proper words to say, and she said them with courage and dignity. When the time came to part, it was Prince Tommen who cried, and Myrcella who gave him comfort.

And she has one of the funniest lines in ACOK, perhaps the whole series:

“Mother said,” mocked the king. “Don’t be childish.”

“We’re children,” Myrcella declared haughtily. “We’re supposed to be childish.”

And all of that is before we see her again in “The Queenmaker”. So, I wouldn’t say Myrcella is too opaque or merely plot functional; she definitely has a personality, and her death (and she’s definitely dead) will be no less a tragedy for it.

[goodqueenaly]

Lost in the Heavens

Every eye is locked on her.

She is easy to spot. Even in the endless sea of lords, knights, and ladies which fills this cavernous hall inside Harrenhal, Lady Ashara is a commanding presence. Tall for her five and ten years, Ashara moves gracefully through each move, curling black hair bouncing in time to her steps. The silk of her dress fairly shimmers in the flickering candlelight, its violet hue perfectly matching the purple of her eyes.

Princess Elia is among those watching her, though her attention is on the lady’s partner rather than the lady herself. Though older than Lady Ashara, Prince Oberyn matches her energy, managing the quick movements with ease. In the orange and red of House Martell, he seems like living fire next to her, leaping about ready to consume her. Elia’s smile is wide and warm at the sight of them together.

The music ends. Oberyn bows to excuse himself, and in an instant Ashara is beset by half a dozen admirers, all begging the favor of the next dance.

“Really, Elia, it’s unfair,” Oberyn teases, as he settles himself beside his sister. “You and Lady Ashara living up here. All the beautiful women of Dorne are gone.”

“More reason for you to visit,” she replies, matching his playful tone.

Oberyn kisses her hand. “Sweet sister, you are all the reason I need to come north.” He casts a glance at the high throne, where King Aerys is busily picking at one of his scabs and Rhaegar is staring impassively into the crowd of dancers. “Even if some people would rather not have me.”

“You are always welcome with me, she insists. "It has been too long.”

“Indeed it has,” he agreed. “Did I tell you I am a father again?”

“You’ve not taken another septa, I hope,” she asks, only half in jest.

He laughs mischievously. “I promise you, sweetling, she was as eager to escape her motherhouse as I was to assist her. But no, her mother is a Summer Islander.”

Elia does not miss a key detail in his description. “Another girl?”

He grins. “Sarella. My fourth.”

“Are you disappointed?” The question comes from her automatically.

Oberyn gives her a mocking scowl. “Why should I be? We are Nymeros Martells, after all.”

Elia tries to smile, but her mouth soon falls. “Rhaenys …” She trails off and looks up, hoping to meet Rhaegar’s gaze, but his violet eyes are focused elsewhere. “She is not what was wanted.”

Oberyn sniffs. “She is half-Martell, and that’s all that matters. When do I get to see her, Elia? If she’s half as pretty as her mother she’ll be breaking hearts soon enough.”

Elia chuckles despite herself. “She will take after her uncle that way.”

The prince throws back his head and laughs. “A rake and a reprobate, isn’t that what Lord Edgar called me?”

“You were in bed with his paramour, Oberyn,” she reminds him.

“And I would have bedded her again, if Mother hadn’t sent her away,” he replies. “How the old fool managed to keep such a lively wench in his bed, I’ll never know.”

“Oberyn,” Elia admonishes him, gently.

The prince kisses her hand. “Yes, my dear princess?”

His levity is infections, and she catches it in her tone.  "How are Doran and the children?“

"Arianne will be as formidable as Mother one day,” he prophesies fondly. “She was very disappointed to hear I was going, and demanded to know when she could see you again and hold ‘couthin Rhaenyth’.” He imitates her youthful lisp.

Elia giggles. “And our brother?”

“As disappointed in me as ever,” he remarks lightly. “I told him I was going to go abroad as a sellsword for a while, and he gave me one of his long sighs.”

Her face grows drawn. “You would not, truly?”

“Why not?” He shrugs. “Gallivanting through Essos with no more than a spear in my hand and some coins in my purse? It would be quite an adventure.”

“So far, though,” she comments. “And so dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” He scoffs. “There is not a man born who can touch me, sister.”

“Of course.” She pauses, studying the dark eyes he shares with her and biting her lip.

“Elia?” For once, his tone is soft, with no teasing in it. “What is it?”

She looks briefly back up at the high throne, trying to find Rhaegar, but her husband has already disappeared and she cannot find him in the crowd. Elia lets out a soft sigh and focuses on Oberyn once more. “Will you dance again?”

His brow furrows a moment at the unexpected question, but when he answers his voice is cheerful. “Perhaps.” His eyes fall on Ashara Dayne. “If I can win her away from Stark.”

Elia sees Ashara conversing with the handsome heir to Winterfell; she cannot hear them, but something Ashara has said must have been amusing, because Brandon bears his teeth in a wolfish smile. Beside him stands another Stark - his brother, Eddard, she recalls - with long features made even more solemn by his quietness. “You say it as if it were a challenge,” she remarks.

“Who said it isn’t?” His eyes shine. “Women are the best thing to fight for.”

“You’ll have your hands full.” Elia nods to Ashara and Brandon as the latter introduces another Stark - not so tall, not so handsome, and far more solemn-looking.

Oberyn shrugs again. “Two only makes it more interesting.”

“You will have her, then?” She watches him carefully for his reply.

“Be sure of it, my sweet.” He offers her his most sincere smile.

Elia’s reply is radiant with joy, and she gives him a kiss on the cheek in return. “Then I wish you all success.”

[goodqueenaly]

Don't you think you are too hard on Bloodraven ? That he had many severe flaws is very true- he created a police state that ultimately failed in it's objective, he sullied the throne's reputation by not responding to Dagon's reavings, the murder of Aeny Blackfire was heinous. But overall IMO he is portrayed as a man who thought he was acting in the realm's best interest (though undoubtedly in the worst way possible), & not merely as "arch-authoritarian" who is in it simply for his love of power.

Thinking what you’re doing is necessary for the realm and being an authoritarian are hardly mutually exclusive. Whatever Bloodraven thought he was doing, his actions speak for themselves. In his mind, the realm was best served by building a state of fear, suspicion, and death, a place where its inhabitants felt genuinely unsafe and where any dissent had to be immediately terminated. That’s a far cry of the realm-focused attitudes of, say, Aegon I or Jaehaerys I or even Jon Arryn.

Moreover, I would challenge the genuineness of Bloodraven’s belief that what he did was best for “the realm”. After all, it’s a tough act to claim you’re serving the realm while also actively ignoring part of the realm when it needs help - that is, letting the Starks and Lannisters deal with Dagon Greyjoy’s destructive reaving on their own, without protection from the Iron Throne. No, I think Bloodraven’s mantra was “the realm against the Blackfyres”; if it was not a Blackfyre-based threat, it did not merit his time or attention.

[sparemestannis]

There's a lot of things I like about Brynden Rivers, but he hated Bittersteel so much that he had trouble focusing on anything else...

Varys also claims that he's serving "the realm" with his actions, after all.