#oh grrm

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

As a fandom old-timer, when did you realize that twow were taking a bit too long? I came here in 2014 and people were already complaining, but it seems unserious to me now (three years? oh my sweet summer children)

Oh seriously, I was a sweet summer child already complaining in 2012. IIRC that post was written after an interview with Anne Groell, GRRM's editor, where she said TWOW was "years" away. Though obviously it would be years, IDK how I managed to think it could be imminent only a year after ADWD was published, when GRRM didn't even make a promise like this one in the afterword for AFFC:

Because, of course, he knew better once he finished ADWD in April 2011. Much, much better. So how had I managed to convince myself the moshiach was coming any day, um I mean, that TWOW was just around the corner? I do not know. Too excited from the ADWD release high, I guess.

Anyway, after that reality check, I think I stayed fairly patient for a long while. The TWOW preview chapter drops helped - Theon in December 2011, Arianne I in January 2013, Mercy also in January 2013, Alayne in April 2015, Arianne II in May 2016, and also the Forsaken con reading in May 2016, and the rest. Sansa's chapter was especially helpful to me (and the fandom) since May 2015 was when I dropped GOT like a hot poisonous rock, since it helped clarify the annoying rumors about a "controversial" Sansa chapter that had been annoyingly swirling since mid-2013 when Elio annoyingly described it that way (my posts 1 2 3), when people were like "what the hell, that's not controversial at all". Turned out Elio thought certain shippers might think it was controversial (we didn't) and he said he'd've never used that term once he had read the far more sexual and disturbing "Mercy" chapter.

But anyway! While I was very much "we need TWOW" in May 2015, I wasn't really concerned yet. Again, ADWD had taken 6 years, we didn't need to worry until mid-2017, right? Right? Well, that date came and went, but that year also coincided with the insane surge in fandom wank and Dany vs Sansa stan/anti hate and fucking stupid theories after Jon slept with Dany on the show that season. So you could imagine, I was a little bit distracted! Sure GRRM dropping the book could definitely help, but I didn't think anything could solve the problem of the fandom insanity, really. (I still don't.)

I did get more worried over the following year and a half of the s7-s8 hiatus, especially when Fire & Blood dropped in November 2018 and I realized that GRRM had spent a lot of time after the publication of TWOIAF rewriting his "sidebars" and adding new historical material for that book. (Also it's no coincidence that F&B was published a year after the theoretical TWOW deadline. Publishers have a certain hold over their authors, and if you can't publish the one, then you get what you can.) And then in 2019, well, there was GOT s8 and of course its ending, double the fandom insanity, quintuple it, ten times more, bring in mass media and everyone in the world asking where's the damn book.

And I think, for me personally, I rejected this feeling? Not that I didn't want TWOW, of course I did, but people being so fucking obnoxious about it got my hackles raised. (I'd say probably 75% of my twitter block list, besides spambots racists magats and terfs, is douchebags replying to GRRM tweets.) The show's ending is not the books. (It isn't!) GRRM can finish in his own time. And TWOW won't solve the GOT ending problem anyway, it's not the last book. No need to make it my problem, I have enough worries of my own.

But then, the pandemic. And GRRM spent a lot of 2020 in his mountain cabin in peace trying to finish TWOW. One of the issues with GRRM's writing pace is that he can only write on his own computer with its DOS interface and obscure ancient word processor, he can't while he's traveling. So I was like, all that time alone but for an assistant, he's for sure on his way, right? Almost done, right? It's good news, right? But no news came. And then GRRM started to lose many of his dearest friends to death and you could see his depression rising with every blog post. And then the pandemic was over and he started traveling again and he's allowed to travel and live his life but then the promos for HOTD started and he loved HOTD until he didn't and it's been 5 years now. Nearly 6 years since the end of GOT. 9 years since the vague not-really-a-deadline. 14 years in total.

So yeah, I do still have hope. I'm sure GRRM is closer to the end, he's sounded a lot more cheerful about his writing in the past couple of months than he has in an age. I do not think he will die before he finishes TWOW, at least, and it's especially obnoxious when people say that. But if you want an exact date from me? I think it was in late 2021/early 2022 where I was like, I refuse to be one of those people, I understand writer's block (believe me, I suffer from it myself), I will never be the sort to complain or bitch at his other projects, but this is. This is ridiculous. Sorry. And I was talking with a friend during the time of GRRM's blowup at HOTD last year (see my post on that subject) where we said he really needs therapy, not in the least for his writer's block but also for that especially, and we truly hope he's getting some. But like I said in that post, if GRRM is worried about his legacy, it does not matter what HBO did with GOT or HOTD or AKOTSK or any other adaptation or related project. It’s just GRRM’s own words in the end… if he has them.

[starwarsprincess1986]

View this post on Instagram

GRRM’s Puzzle Box

A Song

A Song of Ice and Fire

It’s a palindrome

[mummer]

oh you dont have to be so OBVIOUS about it

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

@daenystheedreamer replied to the post “allyriadayne: will someone explain to me what the deal is with asoiaf lore?”:

#ok the bellegere thing has got to be grrm being horny right. he wants a princess from the summer islands right.

​(This is in regards to how TWOIAF in 2014 stated that Bellegere Otherys (Aegon IV's mistress) was the child of a Braavosi merchant's daughter and a male envoy from the Summer Isles, which was based on GRRM's notes that he'd given to E&L, but that same year when GRRM released Arya's "Mercy" TWOW preview chapter, he'd changed his mind and Bellegere was now the daughter of a Sealord's son and a Summer Isles princess; and because the books are "more canon" than TWOIAF, later editions were changed to fit:)

Anyway, I'm not sure it's just GRRM being horny that's the reason lol. There's probably a few reasons:

Bellegere has a Braavosi surname rather than a Summer Isles one, and Braavos isn't so feminist-forward that a child would have the mother's surname; and having her father's name further implies that Bellegere was not a bastard herself

There's certain racist connotations re a black man seducing an innocent backwater girl, even if he is a diplomat (or especially if?), which GRRM probably had second thoughts about

If Bellegere's Summer Islander parent educated her in the ways of their sexually free culture and religion, again the connotations are much more creepy if it's her father doing so rather than her mother (see also how the Black Pearl courtesan lineage is passed from mother to daughter)

So yeah, it's a bit hinky, but it's avoiding far greater hinkiness. When it's GRRM trying to balance problematic material (see also him thinking he should've made the Targaryens black and then going: "wait, black invading conquerers who do incest and have a streak of madness is also maybe not so good"), we've got to give him a little bit of credit, at least.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Perfectly placed spambot in the asoiaf tag. 😬😂

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

@mytly4 replied to your photoset “frozenrevenant: Renly’s Peach.”

Renly appears to have green eyes here ... Baratheon seed not strong enough?

Ah, well...

His companion was a man near twenty whose armor was steel plate of a deep forest-green. He was the handsomest man Sansa had ever set eyes upon; tall and powerfully made, with jet-black hair that fell to his shoulders and framed a clean-shaven face, and laughing green eyes to match his armor. Cradled under one arm was an antlered helm, its magnificent rack shimmering in gold. --AGOT, Sansa I

Renly was handsome as Robert had been handsome; long of limb and broad of shoulder, with the same coal-black hair, fine and straight, the same deep blue eyes, the same easy smile. --ACOK, Catelyn II

[GRRM] did note with some amusement that his readers catch his mistakes for him (Renly's eyes being green once, then blue, and then calling them 'blue-green eyes that changed color depending on what he wears' as an out). Ditto with various horse gender oopses. --con report, 2005

@read-everything replied:

Authors are not infallible, neither are their editors. I've seen so many tiny inconsistencies like that in really great books. It happens...

It’s not really the inconsistency that’s the issue (nobody really cares that Bran’s horse Dancer turned from a filly to a gelding), but the fact that so much of an important plot point in AGOT was made of the Baratheon blue eyes, and yet GRRM somehow made Renly’s green. ;)

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

@cleverjonquil reblogged the post “cleverjonquil: Unpopular opinion but...” and added:

Hi. Yes, I’m 100% aware GRRM has control of the story and I wish he’d stop fridging and ignoring the moms/wives. I’m not hating on Dany here; it says outright on my bio I like her. I’m not sure where you got anything about “good victims” (yikes), but it says more about your own views of survivors who didn’t have the privilege of fighting back like Elia and Rhaella than mine.

Your passive-aggressive condescension is unnecessary, thanks, especially for a post that didn’t require a reply that deep to begin with. I’m allowed to care about female characters GRRM and fans deem unimportant, as well as criticize Aerys and Rhaegar and their horrible treatment of Elia (and Dany’s own victim blaming of her) and Dany’s disinterest in learning the truth, but hope she does one day when she’s ready.

Again, considering that 90% of what we know of Elia and Rhaella in the books (excluding TWOIAF) is because of Dany asking questions about them, I really don’t think she’s disinterested. Viserys either didn’t know or had only limited and biased information, and since him she’s had no one to ask except Barristan, who is (a) reluctant to speak ill of the king he served, (b) reluctant to bring up the issue of his own participation in ignoring Rhaella’s abuse and Aerys’s madness, and (c) deeply fanboys Rhaegar. Also, we can’t go entirely Watsonian here, I’m sorry. Because GRRM is unconcerned with dead ladies, or because he prefers to slowly dribble out information about Rhaella and Elia because of secrets/spoilers/writing style -- not to mention information about Aerys and Rhaegar (who Dany has also asked Barristan about) -- therefore the fact that Dany hasn’t asked and received a giant infodump learning everything about everybody and who she should admire or not, is on him. “When she’s ready” unfortunately depends entirely on “when GRRM is ready to tell the readers”.

I actually didn’t think your post was a purposeful anti-Dany one (although the “she never thinks of her mom” made me wonder, as well as your apparent belief she sees Aerys as a role model, and this post’s “her disinterest in learning the truth” doesn’t help I’m afraid), and sorry that other people may be thinking such. But certainly people should care about characters that GRRM may not? (Like, the reason I know exactly what Elia and Rhaella info we have, and what POV chapters it comes from, is because I care about them too.) And god knows I’m critical of Rhaegar, let alone Aerys (???), and certainly I think anybody (please, everybody) should feel the same? And in-world, I hope that Dany gets all the info she needs about all her family, whenever GRRM deigns to give it to her, sigh. (Also note, re her learning about Aegon and Jaehaerys et al, that was referring to GRRM's statement that she’d benefit from reading Fire & Blood.)

However, I was very confused by the thought that Dany would do better by emulating Elia and Rhaella’s good qualities, when the good qualities we know they have are ones she already has. Thus, to clarify, the “good victims” paragraphs were a highly sarcastic and confused reach for anything else that could distinguish Elia and Rhaella’s known good qualities from Dany’s own good qualities, my apologies for lack of clarity and bad impressions there. Just a bewildered “the only serious difference I can see is that Elia and Rhaella were silenced and never achieved agency, and you surely can't mean you want Dany to emulate that when she already has achieved agency? I know there are fans out there who say they’d like Dany better if she suffered in silence, if she shut up and sat down and stopped fighting and was a “good girl”, dutiful and quiet, say you're not one of them?” (And yes, sorry, it was written condescendingly as well as sarcastically, because I really dislike those sorts of fans.) It's not intentionally victim-blaming or disparaging the value of survivors who can’t fight back, not in the slightest, but rather, being boggled at the thought of that character element as something for Dany to emulate, when (among many other things) that’s not her character type. (Not to mention being boggled at the thought that Dany sees Aerys as a role model, but I already disputed that.) But I’ve edited in a line for clarification, hopefully.

Nevertheless, apologies for painting you with an anti-Dany brush if that was not your intention. (Though I’m not going to apologize for replying “that deep”, considering that’s just me, lol.) And despite any other distractions in my reply, I hope that you saw that Dany is interested in learning about her mother and sister-in-law, that most of what we know about Elia and Rhaella comes through her POV, and that she also shares their good qualities. She should definitely keep them, while she gathers leadership skills and other qualities of a ruler as well...

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

What do you think happened to Shiera Seastar? We don't have a lot of information about her, is it something GRRM is saving for a Dunk & Egg story or maybe a Bran chapter since hes training with Bloodraven, one of Shieras lovers?

Yeah, we really don’t have much info about Shiera, alas – 95% of it comes from this SSM, most of which didn’t even make it into TWOIAF. Seriously, the description of Shiera as having heterochromia and frequently wearing a sapphire and emerald necklace that matched her eyes? That she preferred silver to gold, that she loved reading and languages and surrounded herself with ancient scrolls? It’s all extra-canon, sigh GRRM. All we have from the actual text is her parentage, the love triangle with her and Bloodraven and Bittersteel, and the rumors of sorcery.

Maybe he’s saving more about Shiera for Dunk & Egg – I can’t see Brynden, aged and tree-like as he is now, expounding on the qualities of his lover to a 10-year-old boy – and I figure there’s got to be at least one story set in the court to show Dunk as a fish out of water, and probably also to show us Elaena (another awesome Targ woman where SSM provides most of what we know). But odds are GRRM probably just doesn’t consider Shiera important to the main plot, except in the way she affected Bloodraven (who affects Bran), except in the way that Barristan can use her as an example that love sucks and only causes wars.

As for what happened to Shiera – I don’t think she’s Quaithe, I don’t think she’s Melisandre’s mother, I don’t think she’s Old Nan. (My god this fandom has way too much time on its hands.) I think, like most historical women who’ve finished the limited role GRRM wrote for them, she just dropped out of the narrative, “she died”. While it would be nice to get something more – some idea that she was still alive during Bloodraven’s mess with Great Council that got him sent to the Wall, some idea that she moved on and went to live her own life somewhere else – I truly, genuinely doubt that GRRM would ever write that. I’d like to hope for more, in D&E or F&Bv2 or maybe even the main books, but all I really hope is that she wasn’t fridged to further manpain.

Sorry to say that, but ah well. Hope that helps!