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[anon-foreverandever]

On the other hand, the wealthless, nameless, meaningless, powerless woman got her revenge in the most spectacular way possible.

It is Roose’s coldness and Domeric learning what brotherhood meant while fostered at the Redfort (by the way, Red-fort, Red-King, Dread-fort, just saying...) that leads Domeric to want to visit Ramsay

Roose suspects that Ramsay did the poisoning... but what if the wealthless, nameless, meaningless, powerless woman actually did it? Having bred Ramsay, learnt about the substance Reek carried and knowing how he was leads to Domeric’s death...

Then Roose is forced to co-opt Ramsay for his House’s survival. And we know how THAT will turn out.

The poor woman loses a son... but gains the most spectacular revenge. And Roose couldn’t possibly foresee this, because it would mean something akin to a soup actually had something to say.

IT’s also a cautionary tale, because even if a downtrodden woman, her injustice and willingness to play “the game of thrones” takes out an innocent, proving that “innocent suffer most, when you high lords play the game of thrones”

The most disturbing thing to me (besides everything) about the story Roose tells Theon regarding Ramsay’s conception and upbringing is how equivalently Roose treats everyone and everything in that story, save himself. 

The story starts with Roose hunting a fox along the Weeping Water - and, as such, well within the jurisdiction of Roose’s lands. This is Roose exercising his lordly privilege of hunting, and while there is little information on what animals are reserved for the nobility versus available for smallfolk to hunt, it’s very possible if not probable that Westerosi jurisprudence would consider that fox Roose’s fox, to be hunted at his leisure. Roose then goes on not only to note that he wanted the miller’s wife but that she was “his due”; the property language he employs with respect to her is as obvious as it is awful. By marrying his new wife without Roose’s leave or knowledge, the miller “cheated” Roose of what Roose considers his lawful property (and note how even Roose’s evaluation of the miller’s wife is more akin to the way someone would review a work animal than a fellow person.- Roose emphasizes that she was “a tall, willowy creature, very healthy-looking”, and that emphasis is his, not mine). Roose murders the miller based on a custom made illegal centuries prior, and there is no sense of passing judgement or handing down a legal punishment (which, of course, there could not be for what had not been a crime since the days of Jaehaerys I); to do so would be to imply that Roose were dealing with a person, and Roose very clearly saw this miller as less than human. Roose not only equates his horse’s lameness with the escape of the fox and the disappointing (to him) rape of the miller’s wife, but even complains that the rape was not worth the rope he used to hang the miller; in Roose’s eyes, the miller’s wife’s value (exclusively sexual, in his mind) does not even reach that of a strand of rope. When Ramsay is born, Roose considers whipping his mother (no coincidence that whips are so often used in the novels on animals and slaves) and murdering Ramsay, and stays his hand only because Ramsay is literally marked as his property, by sharing his Bolton eyes; the mark recalls to me the specific slave tattoos sported by some slaves in and around Volantis, specifying the individual entities that own them (a turtle for the slaves who serve at the Painted Turtle, a crude rendition of the figurehead for the slave sailors of the Selaesori Qhoran).

The fox, the miller’s wife, the miller, the horse, Ramsay, the miller’s brother … every single living entity in this story apart from Roose himself is equal in Roose’s cold eyes. They are all his property, as much as the non-living mill and hanging rope, to be used and disposed of as he saw (and sees) fit. He claims them as his “right” when and how he likes, and he decides when they live and die. None of these creatures (as they are in Roose’s mind, explicitly so with the miller’s wife) are supposed to have wills of their own, and when any of them shows one, it’s a source of annoyance to him: the fox getting away adds to the “dismal day” Roose had raping Ramsay’s mother; when the miller’s brother beats his sister-in-law for giving birth to Bolton’s child, Roose takes both the mill and his tongue from him specifically because he was annoyed; and he complains to Theon that the miller’s wife disobeyed him by encouraging Ramsay to think of himself as a Bolton, instead of making him “content to grind corn”. Roose doesn’t use the term “slaves”, but that is absolutely how he thinks of the people on his lands; he is a slaver as much as the formally named slavers of Essos, treating the people on his lands as equivalent to (and indeed, in some ways less than) the animals on it.

[anon-foreverandever]

Loras: You know, Renly met someone like you once... we still hear his teeth grinding at night.

Jaime: oh so you joined the Kingsguard at 17?? Well I joined the Kingsguard at 15!!! I was YOUNGER than you and BETTER than you and STRONGER than you and FASTER than you and BIGGER than you 😤😤

Loras: ok boomer

[anon-foreverandever]

Wouldn’t this be akin to Tywin having Tyrion?

Although of course since Robert is not a Lannister, infanticide would not be out of the question, since it was Joanna’s blood (besides his own of course) that made Tywin do every effort to spare Tyrion’s life by sending him to the Wall, therefore, if Tywin had Tyrion by any other spouse, would he have infanticided him?

And another question, if you answer to this reblog: Would Cersei have killed a child of hers and Jaime if it had dwarfism or anything that would consider it “lesser” in the eyes of the rest, or hers?

What would of happened if Cersei had given Robert a son (like an older sibling to the incest ones)? I know that if she were to have a child by him, she wouldn’t be her, what what if tho? Since Robert was horrible to Cersei I doubt she would of liked her kid from him.

This course of events would necessarily entail Cersei believing that she could not possibly be pregnant by Robert, which isn’t outright impossible. (We know from her affair with Lancel that she thinks her partner pulling out will do to prevent pregnancy.) So I can deal with this hypothetical.

Right up until it ends with infanticide, that is.

[anon-foreverandever]

There is one miscellany left: “Jaime cupped his hands” I suppose that’s a blooper from GRRM, given that there isn’t any metal hand and only an “ugly stump”... but in an episode where so much reference is made to having hands again in every single one of his dreams, and how bad he feels of having been “emasculated”, well, it is quite curious isn’t it?

Revisiting Chapters: Jaime VI, ASoS

Finally got the time to finish this one! Memorable chapter, too.

The story so far…

With a Bolton escort to get him from Harrenhal to King’s Landing and his wrist healing clean, the end of a harrowing journey is in sight for Jaime. Brienne will not be joining him.

Seguir leyendo

[anon-foreverandever]

How come no pun about Stannis the Iron Man defeating the Iron Men (with also both standards) who are Iron Born and Iron Man being essentially a “Stark” man? And Stannis the Iron Man being denied the Iron Throne by Joffrey, Tommen, and next by Aegon and Daenerys?

How come Stannis is both a truly just man and a monstrous man? Because he is double faced just like his standards.

Stannis IS double standard: Everyone is good and bad, and every good action must be rewarded and bad action punished. Curiously he thinks of humans like Davos does, and utterly unlike Melisandre. Yet he trusts both at the same level. Double standard.

How come Stannis gets both heart flags AND stag flags when he attacks Mance Rayder? Isn't that a double standard?

A+

[anon-foreverandever]

Speaking of murdering Jon Arryn and getting away with it... Pycelle said to Ned that Cersei and the children were on a trip to Casterly Rock in AGOT, but in ACOK Pycelle tells Tyrion that Cersei looked at him with... the same eyes Cersei saw Jaime when he flung Bran from the ruined tower. In other words, either Pycelle lied to Ned or GRRM got away with this Early Installment Weirdness and no one ever doubted him for it even if for other things.

So then we get to Ned’s “stupidity” but then we get to Ned’s memories of Tywin’s brutality and it makes all the more sense that he suspects him even if Cersei isn’t suspect of it (after all it says “Cersei and the children” not Jaime or Tyrion, though it would be strange). Also it is this brutality to children that makes Ned so disgusted at the order to kill Daenerys and Rhaego that he rejects the Handship and therefore “allows” Jaime to attack him (because now he is a Lord Paramount on the same stance that Tywin, and not the buddy of the King) but people prefer to ignore context and directly blame whoever they prefer.

So what I try to say is... that shifting blame to ONE person or two for EVERYTHING speaks more of the reader than the character. Many blame Stannis, many other blame Ned, too many blame Catelyn (who did not even want to be recognized by Tyrion), nobody blames Marillion however (and turns out, it would be unfair to blame him, he’s [at this point in the series] just a lowborn trying to earn his pay, and surely has heard of the Lannisters [in]famous wealth so why not? He didn’t even know it was Catelyn) nobody blames Renly, nobody blames Robert (who goes to fucking hunt as two Lord Paramounts are at their throats so that they solve the issue without him), nobody blames Tywin and 100% swallow that he “had no choice but to ride” (without considering why does Tywin massacre a party of knights under the king’s banner neither why he even feels violence against innocent civilians the only way to “even up”)

To sum it up all: It’s a NARRATIVE, and therefore, EVERYBODY COUNTS.

So who should we vent our frustrations on? It’s not who it’s  what, and that is THE SYSTEM. And every BEHAVIOR that compounds it, but not one person, nor two, but the behaviors of those people, for everybody has good and bad, and what must be criticized are the behaviors that allow the horrible system to exist (if a person does it 100% of the time, I suppose we should then criticize that person entirely yes. But if not, then we should only criticize the behavior. Stannis behavior of seeking justice for every deed isn’t bad. Stannis misogyny is exceedingly bad. And so on)

Do you think Catelyn is a shitty sister? She seems to have no clue what went on between Lysa and Littlefinger when they were young and I find this hard to believe which means that she must have been extremely self-absorbed (figures, looking at 6&6 AGoT!Sansa). Additionally, she is always putting Edmure down and treating him like he is incompetent. She is the least stupid of the Tully children (not surprised given the competition) but she definitely contributed to their insecurities.

Let’s split this up.

1. See, I don’t find it hard to believe that Catelyn had no idea what was going on between Lysa and Littlefinger. Lysa didn’t want to compete with Catelyn romantically and wasn’t advertising her interest in Littlefinger to Catelyn; Littlefinger wasn’t interested in Lysa; the key interactions between them took place when Catelyn was not present, and were subsequently hushed up by Hoster Tully. At the same time, Catelyn’s not just hanging out around the house all day - she’s the de facto Lady of Riverrun. She’s got work to do. 

Not hard for a busy, inexperienced young woman to miss something that her sister didn’t want to tell her, and something that her friend didn’t care about. It doesn’t make her unusually self-absorbed, to my mind.

The rest is going under a cut for length.

Keep reading

[anon-foreverandever]

As far as I know North Korea has not one but three political parties, so by your definition of democracy and authoritarian, either North Korea isn’t authoritarian or United States is as well as North Korea.

And all this is considering what democracy truly is as a concept. Power to the people... but the political decisions most of the time favors olygarchies so... there is that.

I say this because dictatorships like the Francoist regime in Spain was called “organic democracy”, supported by the US from the 50s onward. Also the US have been supporting overthrows of legitimate governments in a lot of places and I can’t think of that as anything but authoritarian rulership of the world through proxies.

So either everyone is democrat or everyone is authoritarian, if we use your narrow conception.

If we have political pluralism we are free, despite the fact that the parties are highly corrupt, political careers are full of underhanded favors, and the national policies always favor companies and those rich enough.

I'm really worried about election shenanigans happening in November. Do you think that likely?

Depends on what you mean by shenanigans. Their disinformation campaign isn’t going to go away any more than domestic disinformation will. In the information age, blitzing as much falsehood as possible has long since been an effective weapon against truth. Neither are their polarization campaigns, it’s an effective means to destabilize democracies by fuelling populist resentment and undermining faith in the democratic process. That’s long been a goal of authoritarian nations like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. Not only does it reduce the liberal democracies’ effectiveness at prosecuting their foreign policy ends, it helps sell the idea that democracy itself is a lie to their domestic populations.

As far as hacking is concerned, Microsoft says they just discovered a Russian cyber-incursion. I doubt they’re going to stop. The U.S. is woefully behind the times when it comes to the cyber realm, at least from everything I’ve read.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[anon-foreverandever]

Finally my suggested chapter, and it has been delicious to read.

I’d only like to add something that maybe you see it as nothing but simply what it says on the tin, but I look it with a deeper meaning (maybe I am looking too much into it) and it is this: “It still angers me. How could he think I would hurt the boy? I chose Robert, did I not? When that hard day came, I chose blood over honor”

Which is immediately followed by the realization from Davos that Stannis constantly avoids to say his name. I couldn’t avoid thinking (not right the first time, but on thinking about it) that maybe, just maybe, Stannis is trying to justify himself that he chose blood, but actually he chose honor. Of course Aerys is talked about, but I am not convinced that Stannis chose against him. Like Ned, he considered other kind of honor. This context is Stannis already knowing that burning Edric would be for a supposed “greater good”. I can’t but see that Stannis maybe is angry because Penrose actually knows him too well and Stannis denies to himself that he did it for honor or justice, instead of blood, only not the honor of honoring your contract (while Aerys was gleefully destroying his part with many other contracts) and therefore, well you get it, Stannis chose Robert because he knew, deep down, that Robert deserved protection, not so much for being his brother.

Of course accepting Aerys was accepting a Mad King who could the next moment flippantly ask for HIS death, but hey, it would have been safer, specially considering Renly's safety. I don’t think Aerys would then have gone for Renly and instead thought of molding him for the future. There is also that Aerys richly rewarded those with him, and Stannis being with him surely would have been rewarded and Renly promised full security. So there is that.

Revisiting Chapters: Davos IV, ASoS

Finally! I finished it! Not for lack of love for the chapter, by the way.

The story so far…

Following Melisandre’s discovery of his plan to kill her, Davos is still cooling his heels in prison. Alester Florent joined him for the crime of trying to arrange peace with the Lannisters using Shireen’s hand as a bargaining chip. One of these prisoners is thinking hard about loyalty and treason.

Seguir leyendo

[anon-foreverandever]

Not exactly, though not far off. Just that I assume LF would enjoy far more at knowing that Ned knows Sansa is LF’s wife.

You say that Ned would have died one way or another because of LF, but couldn't be that Ned's death was vengeance on the LANNISTERS? He already had toyed with Ned, made him known his betrayal and everything. Maybe eventually he'd die in the dungeon but I think the death was meant to mainly screw the Lannisters over, and the reason for this would be rejecting his hand for Sansa. I think LF would enjoy seeing Ned seeing him married to his daughter. Such a petty man. Pettyfinger.

I think that assumes that killing Ned could serve only one purpose, and that Littlefinger’s happy to stop his revenge at betraying Ned and having him thrown in the dungeons.

[anon-foreverandever]

And I am thinking... if Tywin could make popular his own phrase “A Lannister always pays his/her debts”... what phrase would Robert, Stannis and Renly make popular? “Always feasting” “Always brooding” “Always handsome”?

westerosi house words, rated

House Bolton: “Our Blades Are Sharp”

solid but workmanlike house words. good implicit threat. could have been a bit more poetic, but then again, so could most of the Boltons 7/10

House Greyjoy: “We Do Not Sow”

really just a sentence that deserves a polite “oh?” in response 3/10

House Lannister: “Hear Me Roar!”

a good and fearsome lion image, but undercut by the exclamation point which frankly by lannister standards is trying too hard. if you asked tywin lannister about this, he would tell you with quiet irritation that the exclamation point was not his doing 9/10

House Arryn: “As High as Honor”

very poetic and elegant, and a nice reference to the Eyrie. clearly means to instill admiration rather than fear, and it works. unfortunately, also invites humorous drug-related double entendres 8/10

House Tyrell: “Growing Strong”

needs serious reconsideration! implies that house tyrell is not already strong! all for the sake of a weak pastoral pun! 2/10

House Stark: “Winter is Coming”

unbelievably goth. not only promises the destruction of you and all your loved ones but also possibly of the starks and all their loved ones. the ultimate buckle the fuck up house words 11/10

House Tarly: “First in Battle”

nicely aggressive! but ambiguous. does this mean house tarly is first onto the field, or first numerically when the winners are ranked, because that’s not really how battles work. it must also be said that these house words sound like a high school superlative. 6/10

House Targaryen: “Fire and Blood”

good use of dramatic standalone nouns. very threatening, if a tad unhinged, which is a decent summation of house targaryen. at least they’re honest about it 8/10

House Martell: “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”

are you tho. 9/10 if read alone but 5/10 when read with the cruel dramatic irony of the series

House Tully: “Family, Duty, Honor”

the worse of the two mottos separated by two commas. unlike “Fire and Blood,” none of these nouns is romantic or exciting enough to inspire my loyalty. sounds vaguely like a westerosi sequel to eat pray love 4/10

House Baratheon: “Ours is the Fury”

the perfect house words. confident, dynamic, and unifying. also thrillingly catchy and filled with the thirst of war itself. would be so satisfying to scream before riding onto a battlefield 10/10 

House Wode: “Touch Me Not”

same. 15/10

[anon-foreverandever]

Aegon’s facepalm is epic, it just screams of: “Man, now you got no escape to the Wall”

Given how much of a troll Bloodraven is in The Mystery Knight, this is pretty much how I imagine the Great Council of 233.

[anon-foreverandever]

Problem being, though, that as you say, Historical denialism is deep and wide: The US had a famine so great... but you don’t see much people throwing that on the system. Also many people don’t seem to read how Russia and China had more famines BEFORE socialism (or “socialism”, since it depends on your point of view about how much the working class is benefited, I would say that yes in general but YMMV, and not in all obviously). This seems like classical selective memory, which has a lot to do with that and with today’s post you wrote about maybe we having an instinct for confirming our bias, so what one blames on communism/socialism doesn’t do so with capitalism when it is painfully obvious... and viceversa, since there will be people which will deny their historical figure doing anything wrong. Maybe that is the point, not so much about systems, but about historical figures and collective identities, a thing not so much apart from what religions are/were

Why do you think that it seems much less taboo to display the hammer/sickle symbol as a political emblem today than the swastika? Both regimes and ideological systems were extremely murderous and violent and on similar scales. I've never heard even any mild criticism of for example student activists using the communist symbol.

Historical negationism, but that’s not a new phenomenon. No one wants to believe that ‘their side’ is capable of great atrocity, war crime and other atrocity denial movements find fertile ground everywhere, from the United States to the Soviet Union, every ideology produces its own revisionism. Psychologically, it’s a defensive mechanism, consuming it is intellectually exhilarating, and it’s believed that exonerating those past actions will aid in the war of ideas. Personally, I find the practice laughable when it isn’t outright horrifying, but that’s just me. Anyone and everyone is susceptible to the practice, it bypasses the rational to reach the emotional parts of the brain. Knowing about it is insufficient, the only defense is open consumption of information and hyper-vigilance.

Historical denialism to exonerate Communism has been around since the Soviet famines in the ‘20′s. George Bernard Shaw and Walter Duranty, for example, were believed to have been sympathetic to the ideas of a workers’ state and so deliberately lied in their findings because they believed that reporting the truth would discredit the idea. The New Left embraced revisionist history in the 1960′s because it better aligned with their beliefs, especially in regards to United States foreign policy in Vietnam and Latin America and produced a lot of writings in that era which portrayed the Soviet Union as largely defensive in nature, the Warsaw Pact nations being used as a buffer to prevent encirclement by the United States and its allies. While the research is largely discredited by newer research and understood to have been ideologically motivated (Gar Alperowitz comes to mind), it still finds plenty of willing readers who desire to have their ideology validated.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[anon-foreverandever]

Impossible by his own choice...

Although given how suspicious he is, it would be near-impossible to even intoxicate him, and he must hate so much alcohol (also because of Robert himself, let’s remember this is the man that shaves his beard just to make a difference with Robert) than he must have an ultra-developed sense of smell that allows him to detect any alcohol in a great radius.

But if you can bypass that, then yeah... except that he gets to tell the problem with Daeron’s campaign then falls down. Ain’t no man to fall fighting and succeeding like Stannis.

And to bypass it... well, tell Melisandre, a century-old magic-wise woman and the only one who does excite Stannis sexually.

Although it’s impossible considering his personality and stance on frivolity, what do you think Stannis would be like if he got drunk?

*hic* so the PROBlem with Daeron’s campaign in Dorne was *falls over*

[anon-foreverandever]

I wish Stannis’ misogyny was as well grounded. For all the believable flaws GRRM put in him, misogyny just seems to be a very petty one. The only believable part was that his misogyny seems to be very similar to Robert’s barring the lust (they both call any woman who annoys them “Woman”, even Ned does call Cersei “Lannister woman” like Stannis did in the prologue) and even so, it doesn’t explain how Stannis comes to have that view since he was very opposed to Robert. By all rights, Stannis should have become staunch “don’t use their bodies Robert!” instead he bans prostitutes from Dragonstone, the opposition to Robert comes from making his behavior and rule that of “proper” behavior, but he doesn’t get it to the extent of respecting women in full (he does enough to not care what people think of having Mel in his council or in battle since ASOS, he does enough to punish any rape no matter it is to the enemy who is outside his own jurisdiction but he stops there, there isn’t some kind of pointing what is bad or at least that his obsession with banning prostitutes comes from fearing Petyr’s power, there isn’t a hint of this because it is due to prudishness plain and simple)

I think Catelyn's treatment of Jon was a stroke of genius by Martin. It gives a very believable and unpleasant flaw to an otherwise likable and admirable person, giving her a realism which makes her pop out of the page. Too often we get stock character flaws which are either banal or not really flaws ("he cares too much about his friends!!"). Catelyn's (mis)treatment of Jon Snow is an example of good writing and complex characterization.

I agree!

[anon-foreverandever]

I think anon doesn’t know what “neglect” or “psychological abuse” means, maybe he forgot how he treats his sons, how his daughters don’t exist, how he’s always saying the exact same things he says he doesn’t (he does throw them out the chance he gets, whether by marriage, citadel, etc) and most of all, I don’t think anon gets the fine parallels between Walder and Tywin in their relationships with their progeny, which amounts to “a tool for every task, and a task for every tool”

And I don’t really know who genuinely loves Walder Frey. Stevron knew about “family duty” but hardly seemed to have love for him. I don’t think anyone could.

Maybe Dunk liked the kid when he was like 4? He seemed annoying even then, but it might have been hindsight on the part of the readers.

Walder Frey was a very old man, about 90 and very healthy. Why is is bad for him to have many kids? And he seems like a good father, actually. His son said he took care of them all, and we've seen both his trueborns and his bastards, even ones he doesn't like, so he clearly doesn't just forget about them or sends them to Wall/Citadel/septs/etc or just throws them away, they all grow up together. His sons can stand up to him, they respect him, some even seem to genuinely love him.

Anon, I hate to ask this, but - is this a joke? I am honestly confused here.

[anon-foreverandever]

Didn’t Sam or Arya get a half-rotten onion and cut it in two? A nice reference to Davos good and bad nature, to Stannis’ own “nor the bad the good. Each should have its own reward” where it is readily acknowledged that everyone has good and bad things, and the thing tried to be conveyed was that every human has different layers, like an onion, and that what must be done is cut out the bad parts, not throw off the entire entity.

“Freedom is not always a good thing because people could choose evil” is a legitimately terrifying opinion, though, and one that is so, so contrary to the thesis of these books. The ultimate evil in these books is literally a supernatural embodiment of slavery, and if the show’s explanation of the creation of the others is true, they are an embodiment of this idea that mankind does not deserve freedom because they might choose evil, but ultimately that is something that mankind needs to fight against. The whole point of asoiaf is that humanity is worth fighting for, freedom and life are worth fighting for DESPITE the bad, people are not onions and you don’t throw out the whole thing because people might make bad decisions.

[anon-foreverandever]

Well, I HAVE to like it, this goes directly through my heart. Ah the boy he loved...

Stannis and Renly during the siege, as requested by @anon-foreverandever!