'[p]seudo-sibling-incest foil with a cousin marriage escape clause' Rouka we love your work. Amazing incredible spectacular showstopping.
It's so funny how those elements you describe are what makes Jonsa work, but so many of the criticisms are founded on precisely that!
(post referenced)
Thank you anon!
The thing about Jonsa is that - yes - it is incest angst. That's the big test of character, the dark temptation, the heart in conflict between love and duty, the impossible desire.
RLJ isn't about two surprise cousins suddenly losing their sense of sibling relationship because it's now legal to marry. It's not about paving the way and then falling in love. It's not about avoiding the taint of incestuous love. It's not about the Starks being "above" such damning transgressions.
It's about a look inside the abomination. And finding innocence in it.
They believe each other to be siblings, they refer to each other this way. But they won't feel about each other this way. And that's a big conflict. Jaime and Cersei, and the more zealous Targaryens, are not conflicted about incest. They like it. They want to be with the closest possible iterations of themselves. It is one aspect of their toxic world view, the way they have been damaged by it.
Jon and Sansa do not. That's why GRRM made them look like the parental Stark marriage counterparts, not like each other. We are invited along on a journey inside the problem, from the perspective of two people who understand it's a problem. Who do not blithely act, but who persist in romantic love.
It's about being sucked into that tragedy, about having to deal with that mix of joy and heartbreak, about being as faithful to one's impossible love as one can be without becoming a monster in the process. It's about dealing with the darkness inside in a way that is accepting and noble.
And because this is a song: It's about a miracle occuring to make the impossible, dark, damning and tragic dream... possible.
Because in their society, being cousins is the "get out of jail free" card. What noble is going to care if they knew about RLJ beforehand or not, if they grew up as siblings, as long as they are not now. They can spin this story to make it work. (And if their siblings want to judge them for the shape of their love, let them cast the first stone if they haven't been guilty of worse.)
This is the narrative point of that twist of the parentage reveal. It's the hidden reward. The one thing that is made possible in a positive way by this revelation.
Not Jon suddenly embracing some kind of Targaryen identity, riding a dragon and gaining status. He has a wolf and a Stark identity, he doesn't gain anything he wants on that front.
Not Jon being the prophetic savior, son of Saint Rhaegar the Visionary. He is not the magical key to either apocalyptic threat, and his existing contributions are not related to his parentage.
I've been having these random writing thoughts about pacing and proportions and pay off, particularly in relation to ship fic. I guess I'm meditating on how hard it is sometimes to satisfactorily balance the build up and angst with the proper amount of pay off? Like, as I'm reading fics, I'm often aware that some fics have such lovely build up and carefully paced slow burn or angst or whatnot, but they always seem to end too quickly? Like this lovely journey or song but then the needle just kind of gets ripped off the record at the last moment. On the other hand, I'm also aware of how some stories just. keep. going. and really should have ended earlier. I guess I wonder what the perfect balance really is. And I know it is rather subjective and each reader will prefer different things, and each writer has to feel their own way around pacing. For me, I'm realizing I want some sort of...proportion. Like, if you make me go through twelve chapters of slow burn, I want more than the one chapter where they get together and then a quick epilogue. I want just as much care and build up of the togetherness. The "we spend many chapters on all the things keeping them apart" balanced with "check out how they work it out and work together."
"It was Ser Gregor Clegane who smashed Prince Aegon's head against a wall and raped your sister Elia with his blood and brains still on his hands."-Tyrion(ASOS IX). "She heard loud splashing and looked back to see Stranger pounding after her, sending up gouts of water with every stride. She saw the longaxe too, still wet with blood and brains."- Arya(ASOS XI). The way Hound was chasing Arya is really life threatening. Mention of blood and brain is similar in both passage.
It certainly is.
It doesn’t just connect to Arya, either. There’s a curious and intentional parallel between Aegon and Rhaenys, Arya and Sansa, and Tommen and Mycrella, I believe, which I have looked at in a post before.
My guess is that both the Stark girls and Cersei’s children are expressing narrative echoes of the horrific ccrime done to Elia and her children.
The Lannisters are likely facing a cruel narrative punishment visited upon their own innocent children. What Tywin sowed, they will reap.
The Stark girls escape this fate, because Ned disapproved of the murders, because he argued against murdering Daenerys. (Though because he forgave Robert for the murders, his children do suffer terrible things.)
The original escape of Aegon creates a fascinating twist and a mirror to Jon Snow. What Jon is to Lyanna, Aegon is to Elia: a legacy on the mother’s side that can stand up to the dragon father’s.
And the boy who died in Aegon’s place - whom Aegon is keen to brush aside as the “pisswater boy” - he is calling for narrative justice, too. Pycelle’s death echoes his, brains bashed in, just as Kevan’s death echoes that of Rhaenys. (stabbed a lot by lowborn children.) The blood and brains of that anonymous child will reappear in Aegon’s arc, when he realizes that a person died in his place, and he has a duty to live up to that sacrifice.
Honestly, these original child murders are one of the best examples of how GRRM works his long game of narrative balance, reward and punishment. They are the best argument for why the series is neither grimdark nor morally all that grey. No matter how long it takes, there is always a consequence to cruelty.
The very flaws that you criticise Ned for are also present in Sansa 🤭 .
Really? While I agree that they do share some of their avoidant coping mechanisms, the things I criticize Ned for are usually related to how he uses (and abuses) the power has has over other people. Like Catelyn, Jon, Sansa, Theon. Or how his inability to communicate makes him his own worst enemy. I mean, the impulse is born from trauma and denial - like Sansa - but his specific actions are utterly beyond Sansa because she has no power.
I'm really looking forward to seeing Sansa grow beyond Ned's limitations. The way he never had to because he had all the political and legal power over his family, his household and his people, while Sansa is facing consequences for the same hang-ups as a child, as a girl, as a prisoner, as a fugitive, and being smarter and braver for it, before she is ever handed any power in the first place.
@istumpysk is bullying me* to get back to my plum meta of Foreshadowing Poetic Justice and my old draft is malfunctioning because it’s too large to handle the amount of purple truth.
(* bullying = mentioning it like twice in the span of a week)
I’ll have to break it up into individual character plums. There are absurdly many.
So instead of something insightful and organized and thorough, like what you may expect from our heralded @butterflies-dragons or @batterydeaddotdot or @fedonciadale or @cappymightwrite (YOU, when are you coming back? I want Byron!), I will make small disorganized posts like a toddler proudly waving around their dried pasta art project.
Just so nobody gets any ideas. If you want quality research, citations or handsome pictures, you go read their metas. Mine are for people with a small attention span and low standards. And a thirst for justice.
First up, the really easy one: Pycelle.
This is the one that really solidified my faith in the power of the plum. The power as a signifier of thematic endgame foreshadowing within a scene, that is. Or just for consequences or poetic justice for the characters involved.
If a plum shows up, it’s time to pay attention.
This plum-heavy scene with Pycelle also involves Tyrion, but we are ignoring that one for now. What we are looking for are hints for Pycelle’s narrative crime. and Pycelle’s narrative just desserts.
Tyrion goes to visit Pycelle to scheme, and soon they appear.
In the airy chambers beneath the rookery, his girl served them boiled eggs, stewed plums, and porridge, while Pycelle served the pontifications. “In these sad times, when so many hunger, I think it only fitting to keep my table spare.”
“Commendable,” Tyrion admitted, breaking a large brown egg that reminded him unduly of the Grand Maester’s bald spotted head.
(ACOK, Tyrion IV)
A head like an egg? Or an “Egg”?
This breakfast is the backdrop for Tyrion’s “test of loyalty”, where he plays merry-go-round with Myrcella’s potential betrothal. Pycelle’s test involves, not coincidentally, Dorne.
"Dispatch them now. Stewed plums will keep. The realm may not."
Stewed plums will keep, i.e. a delayed consequence. So Pycelle will be paying for a crime long ago.
Pycelle is uncomfortable keeping Tyrion’s plans from Cersei.
"Ah," the old man muttered into his plums. "Doubtless you have the right of it, my lord. It is most considerate of you to . . . spare her this . . . burden."
“That’s just the sort of fellow I am.” Tyrion returned to the unsatisfactory porridge. “Considerate. Cersei is my own sweet sister, after all.”
“And a woman, to be sure,” Grand Maester Pycelle said. “A most uncommon woman, and yet . . . it is no small thing, to tend to all the cares of the realm, despite the frailty of her sex . . .”
House Lannister is a House divided, so Pycelle literally can’t win! In spite of his sexist reassurances, Pycelle fails Tyrion’s test, which is revealed in the following chapter. Plum!
Let her flay half my face, it will be a small price to pay for her consent to the Dornish marriage. He would have that now, he could sense it.
And certain knowledge of an informer too . . . well, that was the plum in his pudding. (ACOK, Tyrion V)
And another chapter later, Tyrion goes to visit Pycelle with his mountain clan friends to confront his informing ways, punishing him for being loyal to his own House, and learning a very interesting fact.
Pycelle's breathing was rapid and shallow. "All I did, I did for House Lannister." A sheen of sweat covered the broad dome of the old man's brow, and wisps of white hair clung to his wrinkled skin. "Always . . . for years . . . your lord father, ask him, I was ever his true servant . . . 'twas I who bid Aerys open his gates . . ."
That took Tyrion by surprise. He had been no more than an ugly boy at Casterly Rock when the city fell. "So the Sack of King's Landing was your work as well?"
"For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king . . . I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly . . ."
(ACOK, Tyrion VI)
This is the revelation that the plum conversation and loyalty test were leading toward.
The realm needed a king. And baby Aegon was too young. We know he died at Tywin’s orders. Pycelle was loyal to Tywin. Pycelle could guess what would happen, and he worked to make it so. After all, he has certain realm-related philosophies:
Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. "My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?" He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. "Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?"
"Kinder," Varys said. "Oh, well and truly spoken, Grand Maester. It is so true. Should the gods in their caprice grant Daenerys Targaryen a son, the realm must bleed." (AGOT, Eddard VIII)
So Pycelle (who is a lying liar about his loyalties) thinks a little murder of innocent children can be a just thing, if it means ensuring a greater good for the realm. This is what I would identify as the actual crime seeking consequences. Pycelle made himself an accessory to child murder. And he keeps justifying the concept. Pycelle’s fortunes wax and wane in the course of the series, but he’s doing alright again by the end of ADWD.
So if the plum indicates that the punishment should fit the crime, will the child murder participation be reflected in his ending?
In the above quote, we have an ironic agreement here from our friend Varys.
And this is our last glimpse of Pycelle:
Then he saw. Grand Maester Pycelle was seated at his table, his head pillowed on the great leather-bound tome before him. Sleeping, Kevan thought … until he blinked and saw the deep red gash in the old man’s spotted skull and the blood pooled beneath his head, staining the pages of his book. All around his candle were bits of bone and brain, islands in a lake of melted wax. (ADWD, Epilogue)
That egg-head has just been broken, hasn’t it? But why?
“Varys?”
The eunuch set the crossbow down. “Ser Kevan. Forgive me if you can. I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice. It was for the realm. For the children.”
The same reason Varys gives for shooting Kevan likely applies to Pycelle.
There are many like you, good men in service to bad causes … but you were threatening to undo all the queen’s good work, to reconcile Highgarden and Casterly Rock, bind the Faith to your little king, unite the Seven Kingdoms under Tommen’s rule. (...) Doubt, division, and mistrust will eat the very ground beneath your boy king, whilst Aegon raises his banner above Storm’s End and the lords of the realm gather round him.”
“Aegon?” For a moment he did not understand. Then he remembered. A babe swaddled in a crimson cloak, the cloth stained with his blood and brains. “Dead. He’s dead.” (ADWD, Epilogue)
Pycelle’s sin is showing up again. When he counseled Aerys to open the gates out of loyalty to Tywin, he could guess what would happen to Elia, Aegon and Rhaenys. He rationalized it as serving the greater good of the realm. Or at least House Lannister, none of whom ever care to appreciate it.
But the stewed plums have kept, and his loyalty to House Lannister ultimately lead him here. Killed “for the good of the realm”, to pave the way for the return of that very Aegon. Not so differently to how Aegon was supposedly killed, head smashed in.
Even more ironically, the plums and egg were served by a girl who is a spy for Varys. That same girl served Ned his sweet milk in Pycelle’s office. That same girl opens the door to Kevan in the ADWD epilogue. She really ties it together.
