The Captain from BBC Ghosts for the character ask, please and thank you. 👀
What I love about them: I think I like Cap's curiosity the most. He likes to get into things and get excited, even though his usual mannerisms (and his leg, bless him) don't necessarily jive with modern sensibilities. I think of all the ghosts Cap would adapt the best to living in the present, and it makes me a little sad, but also I'm happy he's around to see it, at least.
What I hate about them: Excuse me?
Favorite Moment/Quote: "I shall miss you, Havers." 😭 That line broke me.
What I would like to see more focus on: I want an episode featuring an mlm couple who can help the Captain come to terms with his own feelings. Also more Cap reviewing modern fashion, please.
What I would like to see less focus on: Idk, for the most part this show has a good balance of everything.
Favorite pairing with: Havers.
Favorite friendship: Pat.
NOTP: Cap/sadness.
Favorite headcanon: It was definitely a love letter.
100% honesty and apologies in advance for asking... how bad has GoT and SW dinged you up, faith and hope-wise, on SanSan in ASoIaF?
I’ll be completely honest, it’s got me pretty wary. GoT not so much, because that was all a massive fanfic and not reflective at all of George’s work. What’s got me worried more is how SW turned out -- TROS was written and directed by the same man who wrote and directed TFA, meaning the person who CREATED this new setting and new characters. I don’t care how much he tries to blame Rian Johnson for leaving him “nothing to work with” (utter bullshit and everyone knows it), he had all the tools he needed to craft a satisfying conclusion; he just decided not to. I’d HATE to see the same thing befall GRRM and ASOIAF. I don’t think it will, though, because the time it’s taking to finish alone should indicate that he is very serious about getting this right. If he doesn’t reunite Sandor & Sansa, or make them endgame, I just hope he has a REALLY justifiable reason for it, because everything he’s written so far just screams that they need to find each other again. GRRM has a much larger capacity for payoff than JJ Abrams does, so my hopes are high... but yeah TROS kinda broke me. :-/
Has anyone asked you your thoughts on book!Euron, separate from the show, just curious?
Book!Euron terrifies me. We see a lot of cruel and ambitious characters in the books, but nothing like Euron, who literally cares about no one and is hellbent on achieving chaos and power. He doesn’t care about his legacy, he doesn’t care about his family, and he doesn’t care what it is he has to do to get what he wants. What’s worse is that he’s charismatic, that people like him, and that his successes are nothing to sneeze at. He’s committed rape, theft, murder, kinslaying, torture, and has very little qualms about doing any of these things again. He has dark magic, a fleet, a loyal crew, a dimwitted brother who’s strings he pulls effortlessly, a dragon horn, and he’s absolutely, undoubtedly fucking insane. He is truly terrifying and worthy of every ounce of fear he draws out from people.
Lauren, more of your thoughts on that first taste of Fire and Blood pleaaaaaaaase.
These are only some thoughts on the excerpt on GRRM’s website, because I don’t have the book yet, but I think this excerpt, more than anything else GRRM has published so far, underscored the most important theme of ASOIAF for me:
We were never meant to do this alone.
The fantasy genre is inundated with stories of a “chosen one” – the key player who has to stand alone against the tide. Sure, that person may have help, but they stand at the center of it all, and if they fail, the world falls with them.
But ASOIAF isn’t like that, and this excerpt … it was a lot.
A few days later, the queen convened her women’s court in Lord Manderly’s own hall, a thing hitherto unheard of in the North, and more than two hundred women and girls gathered to share their thoughts, concerns, and grievances with Her Grace.
That’s a staggering number of women for an author who sometimes forgets that medieval women can … like … exist in groups. It was like George hit me with a sledgehammer to the chest when I first read that. As people like @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly have speculated, this women’s court probably led to the banning of the practice of first night. All of these brave women stood together and spoke out, and they made a difference for other women across the North, and across the Seven Kingdoms too. The meaning stood out to me: We’re stronger together.
We were never meant to do this alone.
If you read the excerpt, you can see this theme everywhere. It’s in how much Jaehaerys relied on Alysanne: “Queen Alysanne provided the solution. She would go ahead as planned, alone”. ( @goodqueenaly reported from the GRRM Q&A tonight that Jaehaerys I is GRRM’s favorite king, and I can’t help but think that this great partnership between him and Alysanne plays a part in that.) It’s in the Free Cities, asking for help from an outside mediator as they come together as they sue for peace. It’s Alysanne, “ever desirous of binding the Seven Kingdoms closer together”.
Whether it was ruling, diplomacy, social change, we were never meant to do this alone.
But coming together is hard. It’s so hard. Look at Alaric Stark’s initially cold reception of Alysanne, look at how the peace talks between the Free Cities drag on and on. “When His Grace attempted to strike a balance, both sides accused him of favoring the other.” We’re stronger together, but coming together is hard.
Which brings us to the Wall.
(GRRM’s writing of this little excerpt is masterful, if I may say so.)
Anyone who’s read even the first book can tell you, the Wall is magic. And as GRRM tells us, “sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.“ The Wall is no exception; it cuts both ways, uncontrollably. It helps us, and protects us … for a time.
But it hurts us too. It divides us, so that our first line of defense, the men of the Night’s Watch, forgot who the true enemy was. The Starks forgot too. We all forgot.
The relative security of the Wall let us forget (I told you, it cuts both ways), and the people born on the wrong side of that Wall became the enemy, and the Others became a story to frighten children. Being born on the wrong side of a wall … it’s as arbitrary a divide as being born on the wrong side of a sheet. As Jon Snow tells us, Val was not wrong when she said that “Men are men and women women, no matter which side of the Wall we were born on.”
But ooh, is that divide real to some. Jon Snow dies trying to bridge that divide.
Because coming together is hard.
But just because something is hard does not mean it is not worth doing.
Remember those 200 women. Think of the hardships they endured to cross the North (the largest and least populous of the Seven Kingdoms) and come together at White Harbor. Think of what they (almost certainly) achieved. Together.
There can be no more arbitrary divides among us when The Winds of Winter blow at last. The Wall must fall.
As @moonlitgleek said:
The Others are “the Sidhe made of ice” while the dragons are “fire made flesh” so if there are spells woven into the Wall that prevent the Others from crossing to the other side, it could be that the same magic also keeps the dragons on their side of the Wall. For exactly what purpose, I’m not sure. It certainly creates some kind of balance and raises the stakes since the three heads of the dragons wouldn’t be able to simply do a preemptive strike and hit at the Others while the rest of humanity sits safely behind the Wall. Humanity is gonna have mystical fire-breathing dragons on their side but if they can’t be used unless the Wall falls, that’s a completely different ballgame. Perhaps the Wall needs to fall to allow for ice and fire to actually clash.
When Sam said a month ago, “It certainly creates some kind of balance” I was like, YES! THAT’S IT! And I was so excited, and I regret not saying so at the time, so I am saying it now that @moonlitgleek is brilliant.
Like Jaehaerys at the bargaining table trying “to strike a balance” between Pentos and Tyrosh, Bran the Builder (or whoever built the Wall) had to strike a balance, to keep the ice demons away. But I think the Wall was only a stopgap measure.
I think there is a Wall we can see, made of 700 foot high ice. But I think there is a magical forcefield that goes much higher (and lower), something that repels ice creatures and fire creatures.
I never thought it was the case that Silverwing refused to cross the Wall. My understanding was that Silverwing couldn’t. But still it tried.
Silverwing “does not like this Wall.” Though it was summer and the Wall was weeping, the chill of the ice could still be felt whenever the wind blew, and every gust would make the dragon hiss and snap. “Thrice I flew Silverwing high above Castle Black, and thrice I tried to take her north beyond the Wall,” Alysanne wrote to Jaehaerys, “but every time she veered back south again and refused to go.”
If that dragon were me and my rider tried to crash me into a magical forcefield wall I knew was there, I would just sit the fuck down until my rider fucked right off. But that’s not what Silverwing did. Under Alysanne’s command, Silverwing flew at that Wall again. And again.
Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this, and maybe GRRM will prove me wrong, but I thought that dragon was ready. That dragon was so fucking ready it almost crashed into that wall three fucking times trying to get north.
But humanity wasn’t ready.
Like @moonlitgleek said, nobody gets to sit this one out.
The War for the Dawn is about all of us.
Not only does GRRM have multiple ~“chosen ones”~ (Azor Ahai, the prince(ss) that was promised, the last hero, “the dragon must have three heads” etc), but everyone has to take part. GRRM has his group of “top tier” heroes like Bran Stark or Daenerys Targaryen, and then he has the less magical heroes like Brienne, and everyone is so important in this fight.
“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.“
That’s Jon in ADWD (quite literally Jon - his direwolf pup was found apart from the other babies in AGOT, he tries to become the lone wolf in adwd by sending all his friends away and he dies), it’s Arya, it’s Sansa, it’s “the dragon must have three heads”. Like, I could go on here but …
We were never meant to do this alone.
Humanity isn’t about being alone.
Humanity is about being together.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Miscellaneous thoughts:
Even before dismounting to bend the knee, Lord Alaric looked askance at Her Grace’s clothing and said, “I hope you brought something warmer than that.”
Is Jon Snow as sensitive to the cold better than other people? I honestly can’t remember. Like, I know he gets cold, but does he get as cold as other people? But anyways it sounds like Alysanne was not wearing heavy clothing and idk if it was just for the #aesthetic or if Targs aren’t as sensitive to the cold. idk this was more a question than anything else.
“Here the world ends”
^^that is a great fuckin line and idk why i haven’t seen it more in the fandom, like if i was makin a promo trailer for an ASOIAF adaptation that would be my tagline, it’s great
Once you settle down, the dust clears and that Avengers high ebbs to a manageable level... Endgame thoughts? ^v^
I liked the movie a whole lot.
I think Infinity War is an overall better film, but Endgame is a satisfying conclusion to that film, so that counts for a lot. There are some choices I wouldn’t have made with Endgame but it generally worked out in the end so I’m cool with it.
Right from the start this movie rests on the assumption that it wouldn’t exist if you needed to have your hand held through Marvel movie continuity, and that saves some storytelling energy but makes for some curious introductions. Clint’s family vanishes without anyone establishing who he is or that he’s an Avenger. (That he uses the word “Hawkeye” would only be illuminating if the series hadn’t avoided calling him “Hawkeye” for eight years.) Tony provides some exposition in his farewell message but not nearly enough. Captain Marvel rescues Nebula and Tony and brings them back to the Avengers compound without explaining how the Avengers know Captain Marvel or that any of them know to look for Tony at all. I’ve never liked this sort of inaccessibility and I’m not going to change my tune now that it’s happening in my own yard, as it were.
The decision to have Thanos auto-destruct the Infinity Stones made sense (why allow anyone a chance to undo his masterstroke?), although it sent the story in some odd directions. In the heat of the moment, Thanos’s victory leaves you wondering if there’s some way to take it back, or at least go into overtime. So the whole “let’s take the stones and snap his snap away!” thing makes sense. But the reason the five-year jump is so shocking is because it removes us from that heat of the moment, and the idea that anyone is still debating whether to move on at that point is silly. I suppose that’s why it makes sense that Ant-Man (who skips over the five year gap) is the one looking for an instant undo. But after five years, the idea that undoing the snappening is “right” and undoing anything else is “wrong” seems…odd, somehow.
I suppose this is why I was never wild about the time travel rumors that surrounded this movie. It’s one thing to make a story about time travel that climaxes with using it to avert disaster. But introducing time travel for the sole purpose of overturning or redoing the climax feels like a cheap stunt. Endgame deserves credit for confronting this by giving us a reason (Tony’s daughter) to not want the five years erased outright. But that issue could have been addressed without annihilating the Infinity Stones, so that the movie’s epic scavenger hunt would be set in the present. The time travel concept only really adds the fanservice of revisiting key moments in Avengers movie history, at the expense of muddying the scope of the mission.
On that note, let me stop here to discuss a key plot point: Thanos is beheaded within the first thirty minutes of the movie, but then the Avengers’ time traveling attracts the attention of 2014’s Thanos, who follows them back to the present to be the villain of the last sixty minutes. The idea, I presume, is to shock us with the idea that “avenging” Thanos’s victims is all too easy and unsatisfying, but to then nevertheless get a satisfying feeling of defeating Thanos in the third act. It mostly works but it’s clunky, especially when the Avengers are venting their frustrations from Infinity War on a guy who basically missed that movie. This exemplifies the net negative effect of introducing time travel to the plot–I suspect The Lord of the Rings would not be improved by replacing Sauron midway through with a second, backup Sauron. (I am now worried Tolkien nerds will come tell me this actually happened.)
Around the time Captain America was literally admiring his own ass I was starting to wonder if Endgame had gone off the rails, and if I was watching the franchise fall apart in the home stretch a la Spider-Man 3. Don’t get me wrong, the “time heist” stuff is fun and I enjoyed it, but it’s not the epic “Avengers vs. Thanos” showdown I was expecting. Black Widow’s death seemed to rein in the tee-hee tickle party, although it mainly reminded me how much I disliked Gamora’s death in Infinity War.
The un-snappening (that is, Bruce Banner/Hulk using the Infinity Stones to undo Thanos’s “snap” that wiped out half the life in the universe) was unexpectedly dull. Infinity War had a post-credits scene thousands of miles away from the Avengers, with suddenly unmanned cars and helicopters crashing, and it really drove home the Rapture-like devastation of the event. I think Endgame needed a similar person-on-the-street moment, but instead we just got crowd shots of un-dusted people the Avengers personally know. This touches on a quibble I have about the tendency of superhero stories to become self-absorbed–Superman saves Lois and Jimmy so much that you start to forget he has an equal obligation to everyone else. The Avengers movies had generally avoided that trap up to this point, so I was a little disappointed about it.
So, having said all of that...I think the set piece battle with 2014!Thanos pulls the whole movie together. In spite of my misgivings, the first two acts of the movie effectively set up the emotional payoff of “the Avengers reunite, save their friends, and kick Thanos’s ass once and for all.” I’m loathe to judge a movie by its set piece fight scenes, but the four Avengers movies have really elevated the concept--it’s Just What They Do, on a level no solo superhero movie could, and it’s satisfying to see them top themselves again and again.
Perhaps I can explain this feeling in gif form (h/t sheisraging)
omg is he gonna say it? he has to say it
sayyyyyyy iiiiiiiit
AW HELL YEAH this was worth the price of admission for all these damn movies
As far as the ending goes, I’m cool with where the characters are left for future stories. Tony’s death is sad but the character was basically finished. It’s ridiculous that Natasha died to make Tony’s big sacrifice play possible, and he gets a giant funeral while she’s barely mentioned, but in a weird way it fits Tasha’s nihilistic attitude about her significance outside of supporting her team. I was moved by Thor’s emotional breakdown and gradual recovery, even if I’m not thrilled by the movie’s decision to handle this by turning him into Dude Lebowski. Clint wrapped up his shit two movies ago and deserves to finally get to retire in peace. I missed Banner as savage Hulk but it was probably time to explore smart Hulk since there’s nowhere left for Mark Ruffalo to go with the character. Cap’s decision to return to the mid-20th century raises a lot of questions about how he can truly be happy there, but I’m satisfied that he somehow is/was. By the end of the movie I was ready to let these characters go, and move on to non-Avenger-y things, which is probably for the best.
In conclusion, I have a lot of thoughts about what happened to Steve when he went to put the Infinity Stones back, and I hope to organize them someday...
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?12: What do you like least about this fic?
I was answering this, and Tumblr reloaded, deleted my original answers, and now I’m like half-dead from writing so much and losing it. (I especially lost prime answers for the first question.) Lemme try recapturing stuff.
Going right for the juicy stuff, eh? Ok, let’s see what we’ve got!
6) Its length, lmao. That’s just a joke, but it really is the longest I’ve written.
I think a lot of what makes it unique is it’s kind of an all-encompassing type of story, where it hits a lot of canon material, but presents less explored concepts, and it just delivers it how I like and wanted it to.
So far, I haven’t really written a hero/villain romance that hits the same notes that this one does, and I’ll explore that a little more below with the next question. But, like, the balance struggle for heroics and villainy, the morality between not just the protagonists but the entire cast, that helps drive it so well. And it just captures everyone’s involvement so nicely.
It also relies on a lot of the history that I’ve studied and gained from playing and learning about the Super Mario franchise at large, and it feels as though it hits a lot of series. Fanfics generally pick at canon material that they can utilize and bend around to their will, but what I like doing with ENY is actually rearranging so many ideas into a new scope for them.
Even small things that don’t feel noteworthy can fall into line for this. Sports and spin-offs that I would ordinarily hand-wave as major involvement for the series became a neat background that I explored and exploited not only for Bowser and Mario’s relationship, but Daisy’s general involvement for things. Random encounters from games like Super Mario RPG that involved a super rare and mostly forgettable species (Shamans) ended up getting a huge role increase because of how nicely their utility weaved into the fanfic’s story, what with their special magic powers, the few characters that they seemed to have sired for later spin-offs, and this general mysterious exotic flavor that they can add in.
Those are just a couple of points that I touched on, but like, this kind of story allows that depth and exploration for the franchise at a greater scope. It goes from even the earliest days of the franchise (yes, even touching back to Donkey Kong) all the way to more recent installments (Galaxy games, and very recently Odyssey), while still picking up around the history of the series along the way.
And I don’t think any of my other fanfics capture that same kind of scope, or show that presentation nearly as well. Most stuff that I’ve written kind of goes around ideas, “What-If” scenarios that play out, and don’t have a huge amount to go over. Some are just answers to ideas that people shared on Tumblr, little scribbles that play with similar concepts.
The biggest counterpart fanfic series, my Pokémon stories, also don’t take the same routes to explore the franchise. Whereas my Mario fanfic relies on its history and canon to get involved with everything, my Pokémon fanfics take elements from the series and morph it into something else. That’s not a mistake or a shortcoming at all; it’s just the two different ways that I wanted to write the stories for each franchise.
Finally, I forgot to even mention this last time, but the reader responses are also a huge part of writing for me, and I love the energy, the excitement that people get from this story. And that just really keeps me into it, and I want to keep interacting with people with the story itself. That makes it so fulfilling.
The rest will be below the cut!
10) Years and years ago (I hate that I can use that now, lmao), I used to read a multitude of fanfics, but never had an account. Bowser/Mario stuff was part of it, nothing that I recall very well anymore, but it was part of the collection of things that I had read.
I just remember that none of it reached 10 chapters, nothing delved deep into it, and I was like, “Come on, give me more! This a combination to explore!” But this pairing was so rare compared to the more mainstream (and hetero) counterparts, so it wasn’t an idea a lot of people played with, or were considered weird for doing so, I’d wager.
And yet, hero/villain pairings were something that people really enjoyed around the Internet and in fandoms. I think what tipped me into favor with it was that there were official explorations of dynamics between Batman and the Joker, and professional writers took to exploring Joker’s character as someone that was romantically invested in Batman, obviously to the point of obsession, but like, genuinely into him.
So, couple that, with me being like, “But we can do more!” and a bubbling interest in fanfics, to the breaking point where I end up going, “Fine, I’ll do it!” And then I made my account, and tossed up a story where Bowser confesses an interest in Mario, explores a load of things that work in favor of their pairing, tackles everything going against them, and had him go, “Screw all of that, I still want you anyway.”
Then one of my readers went, “Hey, what’s Mario’s reaction to that?” And then I wrote up the counterpart for that. More people were like, “Hey, that’s cool, can we get more?” So, I wrote up the story launching off from there.
Their dynamic is fun to explore, because they seem like a good fit for each other. Even Bowser’s desires of conquest can be twisted in favor of a potential relationship for the two. And it’s great, because you can really, really hit all of the fallout notes not just between the two of them, but their people and world around them. The reactions just keep going, and the longer it takes to finally hit them, the bigger the blowouts can be, or they can be a lot different when you stop to think about them. Because Mario and Bowser are definitely connected deeply to the entire Mushroom Kingdom, so it’s not just a small thing, and it’s not something that people can expect to just happen. That makes it so exciting to follow the two of them.
Also, I discovered that I have a soft spot for Knight/Royal romances. I didn’t realize it at first, and now it’s just kind of a thing I fall into a lot.
12) You know, I don’t know, because I kind of like a lot of it, really. If I had to really pick something, it would end up based off of reception, not really based on what I wrote.
And honestly, I think even then, I still liked what I’ve written so far for the story. If I go back and carefully re-read every little bit, I’ll probably find stuff that’s weak, stuff that’s dated, and other sour notes.
But that means I have to scavenge for it, and off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything that I really don’t like about ENY. It’s kind of been my genuine pleasure to write the story, and I’ve enjoyed all of it.
Maybe that’s a bit of a cop-out? It’s really how I feel though. Even stuff that bubbles to mind now, where I’m like, “Oh wait, that chapter wasn’t great,” or “Oh, people didn’t quite take to that,” that still includes stuff that I enjoyed myself, so I can’t honestly admit to regretting it.
So... I know your wrist is broken, all my sympathies and you don't have to answer right away, but thoughts on that first taste of Fire and Blood?
I’m in a brace now! With only two weeks needed to wear it! And my typing is remarkably improved! I’m so happy. :D And then, while I’m at the doctor’s, GRRM goes and drops an Alysanne excerpt of F&B? eeeeeeeeeeeee. :D :D :D
So! Reactions under the cut:
That is a very nice picture of Jaehaerys and Alysanne. No slight to Magali Villeneuve, but her generically-Targ-pretty pic of J&A and a baby in TWOIAF didn’t really have anything distinguishing them as people. With Doug Wheatley’s, Jaehaerys is wearing his seven-gem crown, Alysanne has her “feminine version” of his crown, and you can really see the love between them. Also, the way Alysanne stares at the viewer, that’s the insight and intelligence she was known for (GRRM compares her to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Katherine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter), not Magali’s distracted-and-pregnant-again-sigh mom. (Moms can be very intelligent, for sure, but the picture didn’t show it.)
58 AC - Jaehaerys is 24, Alysanne is 22. They’ve probably had a few kids (they were married 8 years earlier, when J’s regency ended), but they’re in between them at the moment.
The logistics of a king’s progress when the king and queen can fly but none of the rest of the party can are super complicated. Good plans, though, to send everybody ahead to clear the way
It’s interesting that Tyrosh and Pentos look at Westeros as a neutral party and guarantor of terms. Is it the Valyrian cachet? The fact that the country is so damn big, a nearly united continent? (Especially compared to divided and warring Essos.) When did this stop being a thing? (I’m guessing the Dance, but possibly Aegon IV.)
White Harbor, a big city with a ton of people come to see the dragon and the queen
Alysanne setting up betrothals to unite Westeros! Alysanne taking on ladies-in-waiting and already having a bunch to begin with! Alysanne and her cupbearer Jessamyn Manderly! Alysanne and her female sworn shield!!!
I need fanart of Jonquil Darke, the Scarlet Shadow (!!!) like yesterday
you don’t need to draw her dueling the wildling girl (who needs a name, GRRM), you don’t need to draw her standing besides the queen with her hand on her sword, just on her own, that’s fine
quick history facts: the Darkes are from Duskendale, kin to the lordly Darklyns, who would provide seven Kingsguard over the centuries. Duskendale is near Maidenpool, home of the legendary Florian and Jonquil (Maidenpool castle even has a Jonquil’s Tower), so it’s probably a popular girl’s name in the area. There was also a Darke who was a squire to a Darklyn Kingsguard at the start of the Dance of the Dragons, and both went over to Rhaenyra (bringing her father’s crown, the crown of King Jaehaerys). Harrold Darke later became one of Rhaenyra’s Queensguard, and died defending her at Dragonstone. Jonquil was probably a relative of his great- or great-great-grandfather. There are no more Darklyns in the present day (Aerys II killed them all after the Defiance of Duskendale), but there’s still plenty of Darkes.
a women’s court! 200 women sharing their thoughts and grievances with the queen! highborn and low! you know the ban of the practice of the first night came from this
unlike the trip to White Harbor, this time the queen just drops in at Winterfell on her dragon and lets her retinue catch up eventually
Alaric Stark, Stannis v0.25 (Maekar is v0.5)
no seriously @poorquentyn read this excerpt and immediately had multiple threads on what Alaric and Alysanne foreshadows for the meeting of Stannis and Sansa, lol (I hope he’s right even though I have doubts, but that’s not important right now)
Alaric is extremely Stannissian in that stiff unbending but really slowly melting hapless charm way, apparently humorless but actually just having a very dry wit, etc
missing the Stannis misogyny though, which is nice (Alaric still a bit unnerved by girly things though, can’t expect everything), and his late Mormont wife sounds marvelous (she needs a name, GRRM)
Alaric is probably still very unhappy about his great-something-aunt who needs a name GRRM married Ronnel Arryn because Queen Rhaenys matched them, and got defenestrated out the moon door (along with him and their kids) by his evil brother
as many as a dozen southern houses that still keep the old gods? Where are they? Just Blackwood bannermen, or what? Have they died off or converted since this time?
I hope Alarra Stark is relevant later in the J&A section of F&B; I hope she’s not relevant because of something bad
fanart of Alarra and Jonquil and Alysanne would also be nice, please
this good relationship between Alaric and Alysanne probably won’t survive the New Gift, alas :(
I wonder how this history – that Jaehaerys was delayed at court and took a long while to even come north – became the story that Bran tells, how “Jaehaerys and Lord Stark were talking business but Alysanne was bored with man stuff so she flew to the Wall”
I mean, I know how, but still
“smaller holdfasts” - yay, Queenscrown
“assembled 800 of his finest men” - sigh, how the Night’s Watch has fallen. though it’s possible it was a larger complement of NW men than usual because of all the Faith Militant who’d gone to the Wall after Maegor’s war with the Faith
mammoth for dinner ugh
no offense, I’m sure it’s filling, I appreciate Alysanne saying it’s nourishing and not demanding more queenly fare, but ugh furry elephant meat ugh (my kosher disgust bells are ringing hard)
I wonder how common mammoth was at the time? Leaf says there’s only a few hundred left now. Though despite them being endangered, mammoth would be very good to feed dragons on, if needs be
what with Silverwing being so bothered by the Wall, and the whole thing about refusing to cross over, I can see why Alysanne thought it was so important that the Night’s Watch be supported in their duty of protecting Westeros from what lies beyond
(note Alysanne herself seemed to have no problem in the North or at the Wall, good for hot-blooded Targs, eh?)
God I love Alysanne, she’s the best, always and forever
OK! The big question GRRM leaves us with: Why did Silverwing refuse to cross the Wall?
First off, the story that Viserys told his grandkids about Jaehaerys fighting wildlings and giants and mammoths beyond the Wall (as related in TRP and TWOIAF) was only a story, made up for the kids, it didn’t actually happen – so we have no records of any dragon ever crossing the Wall yet
I’m pretty damn certain there were no awakened Others at the time to unnerve the dragon
However it’s apparently a significant plot point that warg senses cannot cross the Wall
The Wall is known to be imbued with spells – the Others and wights can’t cross from their side either (the wight that attacked Jeor Mormont in Castle Black was carried through, apparently a dead body)
Does the Wall block all magical beings? Or just ultimate ice and fire creatures like the Others and Dragons? (Leaf wandered Westeros for many years, but she’s not a magical being, just a COTF who can do magic; the mama direwolf apparently crossed over no problem)
@jimintomystery insists I ask the question – what about going around the Wall? Where does the magic stop? Does it cover the whole latitude of the Wall around the world, or does it stop a mile from its edge?
(that doesn’t bode well for Davos’s trip to Skagos, what with the “dead things in the water” up at Hardhome)
also note that Varamyr skinchanged Orell’s eagle to spy on the Night’s Watch, and it crossed the Wall no problem – is there a height limit to the magic too? if Alysanne had flown Silverwing higher, could they have found an altitude where they could cross?
This is certainly a plot point that GRRM will come back to later!
Gosh, what a lovely excerpt. So looking forward to Fire & Blood now, even more than I was before…
Hi! I'm asking as much of the Children of the Earth (the ASoIaF meta-tumblr community) this... what are/is *the* crucial, essential element(s), if you could be that precise, of ASoIaF that makes you think 'yup, this is a series worth pouring tons of time, words and blood into'? Even through any and all *really* frustrating elements (Dead Ladies Club, undeconstructed misogyny, uncomfortable orientalism, slaver bears and weaker writing points)?Thank you in advance and hope you have a good day!
This isadmittedly mostly what has caught me about the series and what I’venoticed around, but it’s not objectively correct. If someone’sreason is just “dragons are cool” that is also a perfectly goodreason.
The depth and sheer amount of material allows for that great immersion experience. There’s just a lot to think about and discuss, and a lot of angles from which to approach it all. This world with such a heavy sense of history about it is fascinating.
The structure of having so many POV characters is even better than the sum of its excellent parts. Even for the sake of the other POV characters: we know Brienne better for having seen her through Jaime’s eyes, and vice versa. And the characters come from what I think is a grippingly empathetic perspective. I’ve read a couple of interviews with Martin where it really doesn’t sound like he can consciously describe something that is nonetheless incredibly consistent within the story, and I think that kind of gut-level unconscious creation tends to lead to particularly strong characterization.
It’s brilliantly deconstructive in a satisfying way, because it doesn’t conflate “deconstruction” with “destruction.” Deconstruction is about peeling off layers of something to see how the aspects you take for granted actually work, and where it maybe doesn’t make sense. That’s a lot harder than playing “gotcha” but it’s really interesting when it works.
The synthesis of those last two points is that the story does its deconstruction mostly by centralizing the humanity of these characters and their situations. It feels sometimes like an explosion of genre expectations and archetypes because the way we expect to process stories like this is to treat characters who fit into certain tropes as being objects. ASOIAF really forces you to treat them as subjects on their own terms. That’s an interruption of expectations which is very engaging.
IMO the books and the show mutually offer a lot of added benefit. There were some things that I just didn’t connect with when I read the books all at once, but which really packed a punch after they were streamlined and distilled to fit into limited screen time. There are also things that I don’t think I’d have appreciated if I’d only seen them on screen without the layers and layers of detail from the books.
