#seashellknight

[sanrixian]

Ser #maynardwesterling the #seashellknight returns! #inktober2018 . . . #sanrixian #sketchbook #dailydrawing #pendrawing #brushpen #inkdrawing #ASOIAF https://www.instagram.com/p/BqqVJEzH0NO/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=fpi0uen1m2kg

[seashellknight]

Open Starter - King's Landing/Prisoner AU

Raynald woke to the sun insistently shining on his face.  He rolled over, only to recoil as his face met not the fine sheets he was used to, but straw stinking of sweat and piss.  

"Gods," he swore, spitting bits of straw out of his mouth. 

He opened his eyes, knowing he would see the same sight he had for the last...week, was it?  Or more?  A cramped cell in King's Landing, with a small window showing him only a scrap of sky.   

He wondered how long it had been, since he'd first been taken prisoner at the Twins.  He'd tried, tried so hard to fight, to die in service of his King, yet there had been too many Freys, swarming around him, and they'd easily overpowered him.  They had not killed him, though.  

Lord Walder himself had appeared before him, and told him he'd been spared for his mother's sake.  But it had not been for mercy, no, far from it.  The Freys had not given Lady Catelyn any mercy, he knew.  No, his mother had betrayed King Robb, and expected him to do the same.  But he had not.  He had renounced any loyalty to the Crown or Casterly Rock.  But even then they had not killed him.  No, they had sent him to King's Landing as a prisoner, instead.  

Raynald heard footsteps approaching his cell door, and a key turning in the lock.  He sat up straight as the door creaked open...

[lowgarden]

Re Cersei/Lancel, he's SO sex-averse post-Cersei, not even consummating his marriage, that I do tend to see him as a sex abuse victim. His blaming himself doesn't mean he wasn't abused; many victims do that, especially men abused by women, for even in RL, many people assume "women can't rape men". Also we see him through a Jaime POV, and Lancel assumes Jaime still loves Cersei, and is afraid Jaime will kill him for what he did; of course he'd grovel and beg forgiveness, not blame Cersei.

That’s really interesting. I can see what you mean - Lancel’s relationship with Cersei definitely took a serious toll on his mental health. I don’t think I’d blame Cersei for that aspect of their affair, though, because (as far as we know) she never pressured him to do anything that he didn’t want to do. From what it sounds like, he was initially very eager to get with her. It was only after finding religion, following his near death experience, that he “realized” it was a sin and began to blame himself for it. So he's a victim of sex abuse, but he didn't feel that it was abuse when it happened because that wasn't his mindset, if that makes sense? 

[lowgarden]

Re your take on Book!Cersei as "evil" and "horrible", I totally agree AND I find that refreshing coming from a feminist. Many feminists seem to see Cersei as merely a victim of the Westerosi patriarchy, who's just doing what she can to strike back, and give her a free pass for everything she does. This may be a reaction to extreme misogynistic Cersei-hate, but Cersei the innocent victim of patriarchy is just as extreme. She can be a victim AND an oppressor, most people in GOT (even RL) are.

I agree. I know what you mean; I’ve had encounters with diehard Cersei stans who refuse to give her enough agency to make her own mistakes and have actual flaws. It’s frustrating, but every character has their worshippers. Lord knows Jaime has plenty. 

I try treating all the characters equally, without making excuses for one that I wouldn’t make for another, regardless of gender. Feminism comes into play, for me, when I look at a text or a film or whatever from a meta standpoint. Seeing Doreah get locked up, for example, isn’t necessarily sexist when you look at it in isolation. But taking into account GOT’s prior treatment of female characters, the original book text, and how society as a whole views sex workers, it is pretty sexist. 

So, yeah, it’s pretty rare that I’ll say “You don’t like [female character]? You must be sexist.” I would have to have a good reason for it. Example: Skylar White on Breaking Bad. Walter White does terrible things (that I won’t get into because I don’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t watched the show), yet a lot of guys who watch the show love him. They hate Skylar, however, and when asked why, offer up flimsy excuses like “Oh, she did xxxxxx, which was a bad thing.” Even though xxxxxx is nothing compared to what Walt had done, or in some cases the exact same thing that Walt had done. 

For real, though, if anyone wants to talk about sexism and Breaking Bad, hit me up. I’ve got a lot to say about that, but I don’t want to start posting BB spoilers on here. 

[donewithwoodenteeth]

Hi again! Re Arya/Dany parallels, one darker one is how they both harshly judge "enemies" for atrocities but are much more forgiving of "packmates"; Arya gives water to caged Northmen the BWB found guilty of rape and murder, but I doubt she'd have done that for Lannister men, while Dany pardons the slaves of Meereen for raping and pillaging during the sack. They are FAR from the only characters to be inconsistent like this, but I doubt GRRM means for us just to accept it. Thoughts?

Hey! <3

Did you see my new-ish Dany/Arya parallels really long list? HERE!

Yeah, it’s true. I think I’ve alluded to this one before. You’re right though. It’s unlikely Arya would have given the water to Lannister men. She was willing to dive through fire and risk her life for people like Rorge, Biter, and Jaqen who never did anything to earn her favor. Likely because she considered them as fellow NW recruits to be part of her pack in a way- like Lommy, who also didn’t do anything to make Arya like him.

And Dany is similar. She’s very understanding of those she views as her own people. Even in AGoT when the Dothraki are doing questionable things, she’s very understanding in some ways. She watches them rape all these people and stands against it but doesn’t truly condemn it the way she would for her enemies.

It’s true. It’s also because Dany and Arya have very similar concepts of justice in general. Pay evil unto evil for their enemies, act forgiving for anyone who’s their pack/people and be super protective towards them. They feel duty bound in that regard (wrote about Dany and duty here.)

[ladybastardofcasterlyrock]

Joy, do you really want to marry a Rivers born of the loins of that traitorous Frey, when you could change your name to Westerling?

Do I have a choice? Or are you offering to run away with me, my lord?

[lowgarden]

I think the "Ros was killed off because Esme Bianco didn't want to do nude scenes" rumor is based on (1) Oona Chaplin's comments about a fellow actress not wanting to do nudity anymore and (2) fans assuming after Ros died that it MUST have been Esme because (3) they assume D+D are sexist asses who WOULD fire an actress for that (though you can argue that if she signed a nudity clause they had every right to do that). But I haven't seen any "smoking gun" (or bloody blade) type evidence.

That makes sense. I remember when Irri was killed off, there were a lot of rumors that it was because the actress’s visa had expired. Which kind of said a lot about the racism in this fandom, because no one was wondering if the actress who played Doreah had also had visa problems… 

I doubt we’ll get any sort of confirmation on whether or not the Esme Bianca rumors are true, but I’m sort of inclined to believe that they’re not. It seems like a silly thing to fire her over, especially considering that nudity was becoming increasingly less relevant to her storyline. As for Chaplin’s comments, I vaguely recall Emilia Clarke saying something about not wanting to do much nudity anymore after Season 2? But she did a bit in Season 3, so I’m not sure how serious that was. 

[lowgarden]

seashellknight replied to your quote:Though the time and place is wildly inappropriate...

I suspect some will argue GRRM himself is clueless about consent and rape issues, but I never saw the book scene as rape, mostly because Cersei doesn’t react as an angry rape victim would. Quite different from her reaction to Robert raping her.

Yeah, I know that a lot of people automatically view some of his writing as problematic because he's a guy writing about misogyny-related issues. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some sexism in ASOIAF at times, but for the most part I think he does a very good job with his female characters. He never portrays sexual assault as anything less than an act of utmost evil, and the women who have been raped all react as you would expect their characters to react - in Cersei's case, she bottles up this massive fury that culminates in her arranging Robert's murder (i.e. not just getting over it like it was nothing). 

Unfortunately, the show’s MRA-like take on rape as No Big Deal that women Just Get Over isn’t new. Sansa’s almost-raped twice but doesn’t seem to care. Daisy disappears after Joff’s sexualized assault by proxy. Sigh.

I completely agree. There certainly is a lot of rape in the books, but it's rarely brushed aside like it's nothing. Even minor characters who are raped have very significant reactions to it, like the young woman Arya encounters at Harrenhal who is raped repeatedly by the Mountain's men and ends up trying to kill one of them for it (only to be killed herself, of course, because this is Westeros, the land of unhappiness). 

GOT, on the other hand, just seems to throw rape in for shock value. Sansa at the riot, Daisy and Ros, etc. It completely devalues it and acts as confirmation for the people who think that rape isn't a life-altering event.