#omgellendean

[bidonica]

👀

I always meant to polish and post this Arthur Dayne... and then I didn’t

Bonus with Ashara

[rainhalydia]

For unpopular opinion: Young Giff would be an ok king if he weren't so doomed, and he IS a mostly ok kid

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I remember a meta writer (not quoting here because I’m not sure who it was, but the idea is not mine) who had a specific problem with Varys’ training montage because in the end it was fake, not the real deal, etc., and thus would not be able to prepare Young Griff to truly be a king... to which I say, why is putting someone through literal hell the better alternative? What do we even gain from that? You know, I think it’s pretty clear Dany is the real deal in contrast with Aegon, she’s been through real trauma and danger, nothing of that training montage bullshit, and she’s still currently going darker and making mistakes left and right at this point of the story. I don’t really hold those against her, I think she’ll be a hero by the end, but, hmm, how do I put this? Maybe it’s actually okay to give the kid who is expected to have a lot of responsibility on his shoulders something like a support system of experienced, competent people who care about him and are willing to support him, and also to give him room to make mistakes with little consequence, so when he inevitably fucks up it’s not life or death. That sounds good to me.

The thing is, even if he’s been raised with some entitlement and grand ideas about himself, the fact that he had an alternative to hard labour and living like a commoner doesn’t change the fact that he did work and live simply, and he does have a perspective of the struggles of the lower classes that hardly any other noble has. That it’s still not enough doesn’t mean it’s not a good try. Aegon does internalize some ideas abour fairness and rewarding loyalty over birth, for example, and he acts on them. If it’s not enough, maybe we should be criticizing, idk, absolute monarchy as a system rather than scoff at this literal teenager doing his best when we have rulers like Joffrey and Roose Bolton in the same books.

About him being mostly an okay kid, I think people’s harshness towards him come from that one scene where he’s mean to fandom favorite Tyrion... everyone conveniently forgets that Tyion is actually going out of his way to provoke and needle him at the moment. I’m not even mad at Tyrion there, he’s young too, he’s just been through hell, he kinda wants to kill himself... but why is the teenager being needled expected to be the bigger person here, especially as he knows nothing about Tyrion’s situation? I think it says everything that Tyrion still likes Aegon after that incident.

[coffereadsasoiaf]

@omgellendean ha risposto al tuo post “I never understood why Rickard Karstark was so insistent in wanting...”

I think Rickard is supposed to look unreasonable to readers. His sons weren't some random squires, the both were adult men and more than that, they were Robb's bodyguards. Risk of being killed in the battle is literally part of their job. 1/2

2/2Adding that every time we see the Karstarks other than Alys, they act like dumb assholes (including said killed sons), and that Rickard will do many stupid and bad things till his very end, yes, I think we are meant to find that Rickard's behaviour is over the top. Basically, imho, Karstarks are northern Brakens — they are here to be annoying.

[hereeatthiskitten]

omgellendean mentioned you on a post “So there’s no switch-off for the infinite scroll in this new...”

@hereeatthiskitten​ hm, I have xkit, but don't see where to turn off the scroll, weird.

If you have new-xkit running, you can go into settings -> dashboard settings and click on “use the old dashboard”

[shebsart]

Your Theon wears earrings, how cool!

Yes! I give the Ironborn hoop earrings and ear piercings!

It’s totally not a self insert lol 👀 I LOVE hoop earrings

[janiedean]

Alysanne & Jonquil are Cat & Brienne v1.0, you can't change my mind, lol. I mean, Alysanne is basically Cat in a silver wig and with (arguably) happier fate. Also, Alyssa x Baelon is what Jon x Arya would've looked like, had GRRM stick with his plan.

I 100% AGREE ON THAT you won’t find me trying to change your mind u__u and dskljgks they also give me vibes of ‘jb if she didn’t gaf about her looks and if he actually didn’t have all of that trauma’ but that’s also a good catch XD

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hey, maybe you have already seen the new Targaryens' family tree but in case you haven't, 7kingdoms shows it in the latest post. I didn't notice anything particularly different, other than Rhaena marrying for the third time after Maegor (you go, girl!) and Alyn Velaryon's "issue" getting an actual name. But you most likely will see something interesting! 7kingdoms (.)ru /wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Fire_And_Blood_Illust_scene00253(.)jpg

Thanks so much for sending me this link, much appreciated! Let’s take a look and see how it differs from the last time we got a preview of Fire & Blood’s Targaryen family tree…

They’ve fixed the error with Aenys’s parentage, good

yes, Rhaena did marry again, to the son of the Farman of Fair Isle who’d sheltered her (who she’d “grown more than fond of” per TSotD), excellent

no further changes to Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s kids

no changes in the Dance of the Dragons-era Targs et al

(which is a pity, as they’re still using that silly leaf symbol to denote a king, while using the code “sat the Iron Throne”, which doesn’t make sense with Rhaenyra)

(did I critique the background before? no? well anyway, Aegon I’s crown, Aenys’s crown, Blackfyre, a dragon, and a bunch of skulls is not IMO the best background for this Targaryen family tree, sorry publishers – it works excellently for the Sons of the Dragon era, but alas not much else. or I think I might have liked it better before, but it’s messier now idky? oh well.)

Alyn and Baela’s eldest daughter is named after Baela’s mother, that’s lovely

Viserys and Larra’s two eldest children have made it to this family tree – Aegon, born 135 AC, and Aemon, born 136 AC – but not Naerys, born in 138 AC. And none of Aegon III and Daenaera’s children are on the tree either (the eldest, Daeron, was born in 143 AC, when his mother was 16).

That tells us that what we’ve heard about Fire & Blood volume 1 is correct – it’s going to end in 136 AC, when the regency ends on Aegon III’s 16th birthday, and he dismisses his regents and his Hand.

That means we’re not going to see Larra leave Viserys and return to Lys in this book, as she didn’t do so until 139 AC – but we will at least see the Lyseni Spring and the Rogare crisis and probably all the various reasons that made Larra want to leave.

We’re also not going to see the death of the last dragon, as that was in 153 AC – but we will see what happened to (most of?) the four dragons that survived the Dance, and possibly we’ll see the small and sickly dragons born and the crisis that will bring.

Hopefully we’ll also see in detail the first several of Alyn’s great voyages, including the one where he stopped in Dorne (and “gained the favor” of the lovely Princess of Dorne), and the one where he went to Lys and found and ransomed Viserys in 134/135 AC.

Anyway… not much that new, but what is new makes me look even more forward to November and Fire & Blood’s release. Thanks again!

[thebluelemontree]

@omgellendean  I can't seem to recall very well...but I believe...

tbh I’m not even sure that “on account of Arya” is meant to reflect on Sansa and isn’t just an awkward wording on GRRM’s part, because, *technically* speaking, Lady was killed in place of Arya’s pet.

She’s basically saying “because of Arya” ... behaving so wild and unruly, doing things she shouldn’t have been doing in the first place, etc. that set off the chain of events.  She knows deep down that is a stretch of logic and isn’t even remotely true.  Lady died because Cersei wanted a scapegoat she could feel triumphant over in retaliation for harm coming to her lying, malicious son.  Add to that fact that Cersei was always gunning for those wolves and would never allow them to come to KL, one way or another, which Arya sensed correctly.  While Ned’s decision to execute Lady himself came from a misguided sense of mercy, not taking into account how much that would hurt Sansa before he opened his mouth, he did prevent Lady’s skin from becoming Cersei’s trophy.  Sansa had told her father the truth about what happened, so she did understand who created the conflict even back then.  It was Joffrey’s decision to torment a helpless smallfolk kid for absolutely no reason other than to show off.  But after that incident, Sansa reverts back to blaming Arya and her father and changes the narrative to “the butcher’s boy attacked the prince.”  

After it becomes clear to her who Joffrey really is, there’s having to admit she sided with the wrong people.  Even basically good human beings will go to great lengths to rationalize their actions and generally resist having to admit they were wrong.  There’s also Sansa’s impressionable age and being exposed to Septa Mordane’s constant blaming of Arya’s inability to perform femininity right and her wild, untamable nature for ruining everything she touches.  That just got hardwired into Sansa’s programming so blaming Arya is almost an automatic, unthinking response most of the time.  Somehow everything is Arya’s fault or related to something Arya did wrong.  We can see in Sansa’s positive memories that this was never a defining feature of their relationship before the septa’s influence.  Unwiring all that takes time, and I think Sansa accomplishes that on her own and she grows in leaps and bounds.  Those types of uncharitable thoughts were few and short-lived after she sees Joffrey clearly for what he is.  I don’t believe she truly in her heart bears any resentment about Lady toward Ned or Arya even if she regresses a very tiny bit a couple of times.  Overall, her love for her family is strong enough to get past the unfortunate incidents that temporarily drove a wedge between them.