#“there's no mention of arya” robb pointed out (miserable) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

atopvisenyashill · 6 months ago

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general thoughts

i do love the way robert is clearly manipulating ned in the opening of ep 6 but ned is just so high and pissed off and now deeply triggered he’s just like “alright whatever you say i guess.”

emilia is not good enough to sell this “i’m doing instinctive and kinda dodgy morally speaking blood magic” scene. i really love the way they link dany’s weird magic to bran’s weird magic by having bran have his own “instinctive and morally dubious magic ingrained in his bloodline” moment, once again, they do a really good job linking parallel storylines & concepts with the way they order the scenes. i’m very curious to know when this stops lmao

“where’s bran?” “i don’t know i’m not of your house” this entire exchange is exactly why Jon hates Theon so much akskdj

“you don’t have the right-“ “to what to save your brother’s life? it was the only thing to do and I did it!” i really like this exchange, i think it would hit more if robb looked like a 15 year old and theon looked like a 19 year old but they both do a really good job here.

that muttered “fuck off” from mord really cracks me up

doreah trying to stand in front of dany when viserys holds the sword out at her…

the way robert’s parting words to his son and heir are “you’re a shitty ass heir, i really fucked you up lmao. now leave.” and joffrey goes from looking devastated to closing himself off and stomping out.

cersei keeps staring at ned to see if he suspects anything in the background it’s kinda funny

this entire scene with jon throwing a tantrum is exactly why theon hates jon so much akskskkdkskksjdjdjd

sam asking pyp to sing for him and pyp angrily stomps away……..i love these boys so much. kit’s acting is sooooo bad in these scenes omg.

damn is this a safe space. can i say something about khal drogo and jason momoa in this part. aksjdj.

actually……..is this a safe space can i say something about [redacted]/drogo & dany………………………….

all the acting in the scene where the stark girls are taken is really good. framing of it and jumping between the two is really good, juxtaposing not just septa mordane & syrio forel as mentors to the girls, but also what the two will face next - sansa the unwanted attentions of the men around her while living as a hostage, arya the fear and desperation of living among the smallfolk in general but especially during times of war. the minor tweak with septa mordane here is good.

the toner they got on emilia in the dothraki lands is so fucking bad like it looks soooo obviously like she’s wearing makeup

“who do you really serve” “the realm my lord, someone must” this would hit harder if i didn’t know where varys goes in this show.

i know i keep saying this but lena headey never winning for this is crazy. sophie turner only being nominated one time is crazy. sean bean not getting a nomination for this is crazy.

i know i know WHY but WHY is alliser thorne allowed to publicly beef with a teenage boy and when that teenage boy gets mad, it’s HIS fault. why isn’t ALLISER confined to quarters for purposefully going to a kid who is worried his dad & sisters are gonna be executed and laugh at him and make fun of his fear of his family dying 😭 jeor mormont why are you a BITCH just like jorah

i really love the way drogo phrases dany pushing against his own power. “look at my son inside her, makes her grow fierce.” undercutting both the point she’s making and the anger she’s expressing, and praising himself while he does it. what a vain, self involved idiot lmao.

but also. can i say something about khal drogo again.

“there’s no mention of arya” “no,” robb said miserably. richard really got that miserable look down.

the way that joffrey leans forward to petulantly spit “you’re too old to protect anybody” and slooooooowly leans back with a sneer as cersei takes over. the little jump when barristan throws the sword down. the slight slowing down showing us everyone laughing at barristan and the cut to sansa’s devastated face at the scene. but then he cuts pycelle off for sansa, and it’s all,,,,,, oh but he’s nice to me that must mean something!! it’s so good.

changes i noticed

cutting the fever dream is the dumbest thing this show ever did

i know george hated that boar hunting scene bc “it wouldn’t just be six dudes hoping to meet a boar” and he’s valid but i do love renly snapping at robert even tho it’s all a bit too ooc to take seriously. i like that they wanted to make this point about “nostalgia is a liar” and the only person who could make that point to robert’s face and not die is renly & ned and NED sure isn’t gonna do it, it’s just that they had to rework renly a LOT in order to make it work. altho i don’t feel like they rewrite his reputation - brienne & loras still idealize him, margaery & olenna seem to think he was goofy as hell, so it’s not imo a TERRIBLE reworking of him. we’ll see how i feel when we get to stannis i guess.

i love theon begging ros to try to get her to stay and be his mistress but she’s keeping it professional the whole time, just completely refuse to play into his fantasies about her. i feel like it really speaks to how pathetic theon’s status is as a hostage but it also feels like their own take on tyrion/shae which misses the point there a bit. it’s fine i love ros lol.

on god the littlefucker sexposition scene is worst scene in the show. like, yeah petyr evil monologuing to some of the sex workers tracks with how they’ve characterized him but it’s just so unsubtle and also, the way they characterize him is a deep departure from the book where he’s a lot more subtle than this in how he gets away with his nonsense.

theon feels bad about himself after being snapped at, and losing ros, so he goes to antagonize osha only osha cannot be antagonized, and sees right through to his worst insecurities and pokes at them. i also love the constant wildling dig about everyone else being southerners also makes theon as curmudgeonly as it does jon snow lmao.

it’s so annoying how horny they make sam. exactly like the weird change to tyrion.

richard madden has grown as an actor imo because while he has the Big Dick Energy down, he doesn’t quite nail the moments where robb is talking about his fear. tbf it could also be bc they cut the scene where they really dig into robb’s fears when he and bran cry in the dark in his room, and i feel like if they had asked more of him, he might have risen to the job.

that said, there’s a clear reframing here where we follow robb’s pov and not theon’s or bran’s in many of these winterfell scenes, and that sure is annoying. like the scene opens on robb, follows his face, follows his thought process. instead of focusing on theon’s reaction, or bran’s bewilderment with northern politics. i think showing us scenes that Could exist that we wouldn’t be privy too early on is fine (ie the cersei & robert talks, the boar hunt) but they should make an attempt to keep the framing book accurate. am i nitpicking. i think i’m nitpicking. richard does a good job with the “golden child” thing, you can really understand why the starklings and theon all orbit around him.

#rani liveblogs game of thrones

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weirwoodking · 4 years ago

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I have a small headcanon that Sansa has already skinchanged into a bird without her knowledge once before. This passage about Marillion in the sky cells in particular:

“When she closed her eyes she could see him in his sky cell, huddled in a corner away from the cold black sky, crouched beneath a fur with his woodharp cradled against his chest.”

What do you think?

Oh, absolutely. I do think that she’s experienced her powers in some way, she just hasn’t thought about them.

George does leave these little subtle hints in the text that point to the Stark kids abilities, the earliest being in chapter one:

Halfway across the bridge, Jon pulled up suddenly.

“What is it, Jon?” their lord father asked.

“Can’t you hear it?”

Bran could hear the wind in the trees, the clatter of their hooves on the ironwood planks, the whimpering of his hungry pup, but Jon was listening to something else.

“There,” Jon said. He swung his horse around and galloped back across the bridge. They watched him dismount where the direwolf lay dead in the snow, watched him kneel. A moment later he was riding back to them, smiling.

“He must have crawled away from the others,” Jon said. (Bran I, AGOT)

While on horseback, and halfway across the bridge, already far away from where a mute direwolf puppy was, Jon was able to “hear” him. Obviously, he didn’t hear Ghost, he sensed him. Already, he was bonded with Ghost, even though this was about a year and half before Jon had his first “true” wolf dream. And furthermore, it takes a while before he’s able to clearly remember these dreams:

The wolf dreams had been growing stronger, and he found himself remembering them even when awake. (Jon I, ADWD)

So, yes, I definitely think that Sansa could already be having skinchanging dreams with a bird/birds. She just might not remember it. Also, she doesn’t have to have been having direct dreams, but moments of using the bird’s senses. Not fully in the animal, just sharing it’s space for a moment.

Unlike the sh*w, where skinchanging is an on/off switch (you’re either inside the animal or not inside the animal), skinchanging in the books is more nuanced. Jon is able to brush his hand up against Ghost and tap into the wolf’s senses, without fully warging him. He can even taste blood in his mouth after Ghost kills, and he can feel the wolf’s hunger. The most notable instance of this “one mind in two bodies simultaneously” thing is with Arya and the Braavos street cat:

That night she dreamed she was a wolf again, but it was different from the other dreams. In this dream she had no pack. She prowled alone, bounding over rooftops and padding silently beside the banks of a canal, stalking shadows through the fog. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

The tavern was near empty, and she was able to claim a quiet corner not far from the fire. No sooner had she settled there and crossed her legs than something brushed up against her thigh. "You again?" said the blind girl. She scratched his head behind one ear, and the cat jumped up into her lap and began to purr. Braavos was full of cats, and no place more than Pynto's. The old pirate believed they brought good luck and kept his tavern free of vermin. "You know me, don't you?" she whispered. Cats were not fooled by a mummer's moles. They remembered Cat of the Canals.

[...]

The Lyseni took the table nearest to the fire and spoke quietly over cups of black tar rum, keeping their voices low so no one could overhear. But she was no one and she heard most every word. And for a time it seemed that she could see them too, through the slitted yellow eyes of the tomcat purring in her lap. One was old and one was young and one had lost an ear, but all three had the white-blond hair and smooth fair skin of Lys, where the blood of the old Freehold still ran strong. (The Blind Girl, ADWD)

"It is good to know. This is two. Is there a third?"

"Yes. I know that you're the one who has been hitting me." Her stick flashed out, and cracked against his fingers, sending his own stick clattering to the floor.

The priest winced and snatched his hand back. "And how could a blind girl know that?"

I saw you. "I gave you three. I don't need to give you four." Maybe on the morrow she would tell him about the cat that had followed her home last night from Pynto's, the cat that was hiding in the rafters, looking down on them. Or maybe not. If he could have secrets, so could she. (The Blind Girl, ADWD)

While Arya is not fully outside of her body and in the body of the cat, she’s able to use the cat’s eyes as her own. And she isn’t even aware that she’s doing it, it’s just occurring naturally. I do believe that the same cat she dreams as in AFFC is the tomcat that she sees through in ADWD.

So, yes, I do believe that Sansa could be looking through the eyes of a bird. She’s just not aware of it.

It does seem like the Stark kids are much more powerful than the average skinchangers/wargs, immediately bonding to the wolves without realizing it, and already connecting with other animals. Arya is able to warg Nymeria from an entirely separate continent, which probably isn’t standard behavior, especially not for someone who doesn’t even know what they’re doing and has no training. Even Varamyr, a man who has mastered the control of five animals, recognizes Jon’s power:

The gift was strong in Snow, but the youth was untaught, still fighting his nature when he should have gloried in it. (Prologue, ADWD)

So, the Starks seem to be pretty powerful. And that includes Sansa, as GRRM has confirmed that she is still a skinchanger, meaning that he’s definitely going to have a bond with an animal at some point. It would make sense for him to have already been leaving little hints about it.

A very important component to Sansa’s character, which could be affecting her skinchanging powers, is her memory. The way that Sansa’s mind has coped with her trauma is by suppressing and rewriting certain distressing, scarring, and confusing memories. This is something that all the Stark kids do, in different levels. For example, Bran believes that Rickon intentionally suppresses the memory of Ned being dead:

"Tell Robb I want him to come home," said Rickon. "He can bring his wolf home too, and Mother and Father." Though he knew Lord Eddard was dead, sometimes Rickon forgot... willfully, Bran suspected. (Bran V, ACOK)

Bran himself does this as well:

The dream he'd had... the dream Summer had had... No, I mustn't think about that dream. He had not even told the Reeds, though Meera at least seemed to sense that something was wrong. If he never talked of it maybe he could forget he ever dreamed it, and then it wouldn't have happened and Robb and Grey Wind would still be... (Bran IV, ASOS)

Sansa does this the most out of her siblings, it’s her primary coping mechanism. One example is how remembers (or tries not to remember) Jeyne Poole:

Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again. She tried not to think of them too often, yet sometimes the memories came unbidden, and then it was hard to hold back the tears. (Sansa II, ACOK)

She tries to not to think of her, because it’s too traumatic for her to do so.

Another example is how she’s trying to process the situations she’s in at the Eyrie.

I am not your daughter, she thought. I am Sansa Stark, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's, the blood of Winterfell. She did not say it, though. If not for Petyr Baelish it would have been Sansa who went spinning through a cold blue sky to stony death six hundred feet below, instead of Lysa Arryn. He is so bold. Sansa wished she had his courage. She wanted to crawl back into bed and hide beneath her blanket, to sleep and sleep. She had not slept a whole night through since Lysa Arryn's death. (Sansa I, AFFC)

He is serving me lies as well, Sansa realized. They were comforting lies, though, and she thought them kindly meant. A lie is not so bad if it is kindly meant. If only she believed them...

The things her aunt had said just before she fell still troubled Sansa greatly. "Ravings," Petyr called them. "My wife was mad, you saw that for yourself." And so she had. All I did was build a snow castle, and she meant to push me out the Moon Door. Petyr saved me. He loved my mother well, and...

And her? How could she doubt it? He had saved her.

He saved Alayne, his daughter, a voice within her whispered. But she was Sansa too... and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle... but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she'd known at King's Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei's ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as his little finger for her.

Except to get me out. He did that for me. I thought it was Ser Dontos, my poor old drunken Florian, but it was Petyr all the while. Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. (Sansa I, AFFC)

Sansa knows deep down (not even that deep, just down) that Petyr is untrustworthy. She knows he’s fed her lies, but she wants to believe them. She wants to be able to trust him. She wants to feel like she can be safe with him. She wants to be safe. It bothers me a lot whenever people say Sansa is “stupid” for trusting Petyr, or “uncaring” for not thinking often of Jeyne. She isn’t stupid or uncaring, she’s a traumatized thirteen year old whose brain is trying to cope with what she’s gone through and what she’s currently going through.

So, she has built a wall. And behind that wall are the memories of Lysa’s death, the truth about Jon Arryn’s murder, and Jeyne Poole. I think it would make sense if skinchanging, something that involves the mind, is also something that she’s subconsciously repressing. I talked about this sometime a while ago, but I believe that a big moment for Sansa in TWOW is going to be her confronting her memories. And most significantly, confronting Baelish about what happened to Jeyne Poole and exposing the truth of Jon Arryn and Lysa’s deaths. Thus, defeating Littlefinger, the mockingbird.

It would make sense if this coincided with her skinchanging abilities truly awakening. As her mind opens, her powers become stronger. I’m pretty deadset on Sansa’s bird being a falcon, not just for the House Arryn connection and because she’s gone hawking with a falcon before, but also because of the symbolism. Falcons symbolize “vision, freedom, and victory. Hence, it also connotes salvation to those who are in bondage whether moral, emotional, or spiritual”. I think that Sansa bonding with a falcon and “flying free” would be perfect for the conclusion of her caged bird arc.

Sorry, this got really long, it just kind of turned into all my thoughts about how skinchanger-Sansa might come to be in TWOW. I think it’s going to be an important part of her story, as you don’t just give four of your POV characters the ability to control animals with their minds and not have that matter. (And, it’s already an important part of Jon, Arya, and Bran’s stories, so it most likely will be for Sansa, too.)

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #sansa stark #twow #the winds of winter #twow speculation #asoiaf speculation #long post #ask #jeynearrynofthevale

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esther-dot · 3 years ago

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When Sansa was called to write letters for Robb, the council consists of Cersei, LF, Varys and Pycelle. All of them had exploited and abused Sansa in further books.

Even if readers didn't figure out how these adults were manipulating Sansa on their own, and even if LF and Pycelle didn't go on to molest her, we already know who Cersei is, so I'm not sure how they decide that actually, it is Sansa who is the villain here. And then, you'd think that Cat outright stating the situation would clue them in:

"There was a letter," Robb said, scratching his direwolf under the jaw. "One for you as well, but it came to Winterfell with mine." He went to the table, rummaged among some maps and papers, and returned with a crumpled parchment. "This is the one she wrote me, I never thought to bring yours."

Something in Robb's tone troubled her. She smoothed out the paper and read. Concern gave way to disbelief, then to anger, and lastly to fear. "This is Cersei's letter, not your sister's," she said when she was done. "The real message is in what Sansa does not say. All this about how kindly and gently the Lannisters are treating her … I know the sound of a threat, even whispered. They have Sansa hostage, and they mean to keep her."

"There's no mention of Arya," Robb pointed out, miserable. (AGOT, Catelyn VIII)

The way that the adults use her as a pawn breaks my heart. Can't wait until she's safe in the North!

#ask dot

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alleyskywalker · 3 years ago

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Throbb (or gen whatever) Day 2? 💙

Read on AO3

Robb stares at the letter the raven had brought in utter disbelief. This could not be true. This could not be real.

His sister could not possibly be…

He can’t finish the thought. It is too awful, too painful. And it still feels surreal – two years of war, first to rescue his father, then to avenge his father, then a wild dash to rescue Sansa, at least. (No one believes, at this point, that the Lannisters have Arya. Not alive at any rate.) For all of his initial hesitation to trade her for Jaime Lannister, Robb had never thought that any real harm could come to her. Certainly not that the Queen would… Not while they had her brother…

But that is the rub, isn’t it? I should have left the Kingslayer at Riverrun when we marched on King’s Landing. Instead, he had left his mother, claiming that it would be too dangerous for her, too arduous. She had fought him on this, had fought him on taking Lannister, but Robb thought he knew better.

They spent weeks on forced marches, fighting through hordes of the Crown’s loyalists—Only for Lannister to make another run for it, assisted by some trickery and treachery that was no doubt the Imp’s work once again, but this time more successful than the first.

They’d given chase, but the man seemed to have vanished.

Of course. This close to the capital, there would be far more lords as well as smallfolk willing to aid a Lannister over a Stark than in the Riverlands.

And now. Now… Gods, Sansa, if I’d known…I’m so sorry…if I’d known—

Robb feels the sob pressing up against the back of his throat, the parchment in his hand crumples up, and he hurls it against the far wall of the tent. But there’s no real strength in it, no true anger. He’s got no one to blame but himself.

Games of chicken are risky affairs, and he has blundered his way through this one to a lethal conclusion. I should have traded for her when I had the chance. I should have… There are so many things he should have done.

It still feels unreal. Like a bluff. Like someone’s cruel joke.

“Robb?”

He startles, turns around, finds himself faced with Theon, who’s standing in the entrance of the tent, tentatively holding the flap open over his head. There’s another one of his mistakes. He’d listened to his mother about this one, about not sending Theon to Pyke. And what has it gotten him? A dead envoy, an ironborn invasion of the North, no ships, and he and Theon have been on the outs for months. That he’s still here, still fighting at Robb’s side, even when they’d had to put the hostage situation to rights before someone like Karstark or Bolton smelled too much blood in the water, was incredible enough on its own.

But while Theon continues to support his cause, they haven’t had a real conversation in forever. Not to mention anything else, and just when Robb had begun to hope…

But what did it matter? What did anything matter anymore?

There’s a lump in his throat and he can’t speak even as Theon cautiously makes his way into the tent. “I heard about… About Sansa.”

Robb wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to fucking murder someone. A Lannister, preferably. “If you’re here to tell me that my mother was right about trading her, or that if I’d only let you go get us your father’s ships—” Robb starts defensively, though he can’t manage to put any real bite into his tone. His head is spinning miserably. It’s all my fault anyway. Gods, if he can’t even face Theon, how will he ever face his mother?

But Theon only shakes his head, cutting him off. “I’m not here to tell you off.”

“You’re not?”

Theon slips into the tent and lets the entrance flat fall closed behind him. He gives Robb a serious, sad look. “You did the best you could with what you knew at the time. About Sansa, anyway, and Lannister.”

Robb stares down at his feet, the boots caked with mud, worn out over the long campaign. He was thinking just the other night he should make arrangements to get new ones. That felt so silly now. Who cares about boots? “If you’re not here to tell me off, why are you here?”

Before the Pyke debacle, Robb might have thought Theon was here to comfort him. After all, that’s what he did when Robb’s father died. Robb wishes it could be so easy again – just to walk into Theon’s arms and know he would be understood and taken care of. But that had ended the day he changed his mind about Pyke. And if that had not been enough, then the mess after the ironborn invasion was certainly the nail in the coffin. Robb has no right to ask Theon for comfort, not to mention for anything more, nor would his pride ever allow him to beg.

Theon walks over to the table beside Robb and pours two cups of wine, then hands one to Robb. “Drink.” When Robb hesitats, he pushes the cup into his hands hard enough for Robb to grab at it instinctively. “I thought…you might want someone to talk to. Or to just…not be alone. Someone who knew her well. Better than the others, anyway.”

Robb wonders what Theon remembers of Sansa. Shamefully, he sometimes wonders if he truly remembers his own sister either, or just an idealized made-up image of her as he supposes she must have been. Jon had been the companion of his childhood. Bran – a younger brother he could enjoy mentoring in riding, fighting, and all the other activities Robb enjoyed himself. Arya was such a firestorm it was impossible not to pay attention to her, and besides she was always tagging along after Jon, far more interested in boyish pastimes than needlework or dancing lessons. But Sansa… Sansa had been apart from them, a lady from the moment she could walk, always sewing and singing and talking about knights and courtly romance. Robb loved her – of course he did – but how well did he truly know her? How much did he remember? Would he actually miss her, or did he only feel guilty and fear his mother’s grief?

“Look,” Theon says when Robb doesn’t give him any kind of answer, just stares blankly into the cup of wine as though he could find some answer in its depths. “You couldn’t have known. It was a risk, but what else could you do but give her up for dead?”

Robb flinches, then laughs, hard and bitter, an awful, brittle sound. “Perhaps that would have been better. She was still alive, after all.”

Theon puts a hand on his shoulder, gives it a small squeeze – an awkward comfort, so unlike what he might have expected before. “I’m sorry.”

Robb looks up, meets his eyes. Fuck it. To hell with the fact they haven’t been normal around each other for months. Robb needs him. “What now?” His voice sounds small to his own ears, pathetic and powerless, the small boy he had once been coming out from some hiding place – and here Robb thought he’d managed to kill that part of himself along the way.

Theon shakes his head and shrugs. “There’s nothing to stop you now. Go to the capital. Have your vengeance, as much as you want. You at least have that.”

At least. He used to have a father and two sisters. Now he has vengeance. What is the point?

Robb doesn’t realize he’s moving, but suddenly he finds himself with his arms wrapped around Theon’s waist, his face buried into his shoulder. “She’d dead, Theon, Sansa’s dead. They killed her and it’s all my fault.” Somehow saying it makes it real, and Robb gasps through the rest of his confession, chocked, silent sobs wracking through his chest. “I tried to rescue her, I did. I tried so hard. But not hard enough. Because I wanted revenge for Father. Because I needed my bannermen to respect me. Because—because— I failed and now she’s dead.”

Theon had frozen when Robb latched onto him and for a moment, Robb fears that he’ll be pushed away and left to freeze alone in the wasteland of his grief and guilt and regret.

Then, Theon breathes out a long-suffering sigh and hugs him back. “You couldn’t have known,” he says against Robb’s temple, quiet and familiar, almost tender if Robb lets his imagination wander a little. “You did your best.”

So many mistakes. So many things he should have done, could have done, would have done, if not for his stubbornness and pride and stupidity…

“I’m sorry I didn’t send you to Pyke,” he mumbles against Theon’s shoulder.

“Don’t. Seeing how much my father apparently values my life, I doubt it would have gone much better.”

“It’s not even that.” Robb shifts, nuzzles plaintively against Theon’s collarbone. “You wanted to go home. You wanted to make your own choices. And I didn’t let you. You’ve resented me ever since.”

Theon sighs. “At least I’m not dead.” Robb flinches and Theon winces, realizing. “Sorry. Maybe not the best joke at this time…”

Robb closes his eyes against the stinging behind his eyelids. “I can barely believe it’s all even true.”

There’s a long pause, before Theon finally says, “Anything I can do?”

“Just stay here?” Robb asks. It’s not quite begging. And Theon seems willing to call a truce. At least for tonight.

Fuck knows Robb needs it.

#robb stark #theon greyjoy #throbb #asoiaf #febuwhump #fanfic #theon x robb #febuwhumpday2 #febuwhump2022 #asked and answered #op

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janiedean · 3 years ago

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if you ever wrote that rant about grrm making jon his chosen one deconstruction i'd be very happy to read it 👀

hello anon sorry for the lateness but here we go *deep breath*

sssooo, I had once ranted about it though not mentioning the thing I mentioned in those tags so lemme see if I can find the op and like... cp the main argument and amend it bc it was long, but okay so I found it, original anon asked me: why is Jon considered to be one of the most special characters grrm created? Why is he not the typical hero of fantasy books?, my original answer was here if anyone wants to go there but basically lemme just cp the first part making it shorter and then I'm adding:

first thing, the Typical Post-Tolkien Chosen One With A Shitty Life Before He Finds Out He Is Chosen™ character (I’m saying post-tolkien because every fantasy writer in existence who copies tolkien thinks that lotr went like that and instead it didn’t) usually goes through the following steps: his life sucks up until the beginning of the series, his family generally hates him/her or doesn’t appreciate them or abuses them or anyway doesn’t make their life easier and they’ve never known any different, but *something* never quite worked right and they always knew something was missing in their life, they just didn’t know why. suddenly someone who knows they were Chosen™ shows up and tells them that they’re actually Special because of this this and that and they have a quest to go on to save the world or something. our hero/heroine obviously is finally validated and while their quest is hard and full of hardships and maybe they lose a few friends along the way, finding out that they were Chosen gives their life meaning, they usually find love/friends/everything they didn’t have before until they fulfill the Prophecy™ and live more or less happily ever after, possibly after hooking up with the Person Of Their Dreams with whom they had UST up until the last twenty pages of the book. basically: being Chosen™ in regular fantasy novels is a good thing because suddenly you’re special and all the crap you suffered acquires a new meaning and in the end it made your life better.

jon snow is a complete overhaul of about everything in this sense because

instead of having a family who hates him he has a family who actually mostly loves him, and with ned it’s arguably so much that he risks royal treason by keeping him hidden from his *best friend* - sure, there’s cat and peripherally sansa, but his issues stem from the fact that he feels lesser because he’s a bastard (as far as he knows) and it’s a *class* issue, not a *my family hates me* issue not counting catelyn obv but that's what gives him freudian issues more on that in the emended part later

no one actually knows that he’s Chosen™ - like mel could get there and probably will and someone will put two and two together when his parentage comes out in the open, but he doesn’t have a gandalf or mentor who shows him The Way Towards His Quest

so instead of going from ‘my life sucks but I’m going on a quest which is gonna be a+’ he actively chooses to leave a fairly decent situation (a household he knows, siblings who love him - ned actually hoped he’d become robb’s counselor or right hand man or something from what we can gather) because he feels like he has to prove he’s better than his name and goes to the Crappiest Place In Westeros. like idk if people grasp it, but the wall is basically a prison and at the ripe age of fourteen he decides that it’s totally a good and honorable choice (his only choice actually) to go defend the realm in the freezing cold along with a bunch of criminals/derelicts/rejects of society

at which point he makes friends among said rejects and let’s remember that it’s the point where he actually has to do his first an only privilege when donal noye made him go like hey you were brought up with nobles these ppl are here because they stole bread, and that helps making him more into the person he is rn but like your tyopical fantasy hero who has had a shitty life doesn’t usually have to acknowledge that other people might have had it worse

then he goes on the Quest where he finds his first One True Love, and that’s where it turns even worse because usually the quest is where things start to go right for the Hero™, instead for jon they start to go wronger, because first he has to go undercover which pretty much tests most of his belief/code system, he falls in love with a girl he has to betray, half of his friends and his lord commander die along the way, while he’s off doing his thing winterfell gets taken/burned and robb dies when jon openly stated that he also was going to the wall to defend his family and keep them safe (yeaaah worked out real well), when he goes back to the wall he has to fight the people he lived with for months, the woman he loves dies in his arms and he can’t do anything about it and he’s aware it couldn’t have gone any other way, people put defending the wall on him and then put his loyalty in question, when stannis shows up with a legitimization (which is everything he ever wanted) he refuses because he doesn’t want to accidentally steal his siblings’s inheritance (which was what cat was so worried about hahaha) and actively chooses the crappy defending the realm life all over again. also in all this time his being Chosen™ hasn’t manifested or helped him in any way whatsoever - actually all his honor-moral code related baggage is what moral dilemmas come from that. like, your usual chosen hero™ would always take the right decision and it all turns out good eventually, jon takes the morally right decision and it all turns SOUR eventually

at this point he finally gets elected LC, thanks to his friends also pitching in, which is about the one fantasy hero™ thing that’s happened for now. should be good, yes?

lol no, because he ends up with THAT hellish responsibility at sixteen, since he thinks that he has absolutely to be even better than that now and he has very specific notions about how you should lead and he knows he has to take unpopular decisions/decisions that he doesn’t necessarily like, he ends up either having to send his friends away forreal (sam) or detaching from them (pyp/grenn/the likes) and when as far as he knows he learns that his sister is married to ramsay he can’t do anything about it

never mind that it’s the same situation as when he had to pick the watch or robb in book one - he went there to defend his family and now being there actually prevents him from helping them in person. ops. meanwhile he’s trying to implement a new vision of things which is modern and smart and actually makes sense because why fighting the wildlings when you have ZOMBIES coming. your usual Chosen One™ would get people to approve just because he’s the Chosen One

instead jon gets stabbed to death - okay, that was also because he wanted to go get arya but it was the last straw, people were pissed over the wildlings plan first and foremost

so basically he’s gone through all the Chosen One™ steps but in reverse - he loses his family which did love him instead of finding another one that makes the first pale in comparison, he does find a new one who loves him but has to alienate most of its members for responsibility reasons as a consequence of what should have been the crowning achievement of his life choices (which eventually is NOT one), he falls in love and they don’t drag the UST forever but they never get a chance to be together without small print in between, he chooses the admittedly most masochistic life he could for his family as well and half of them die and he can’t do a thing for the other half, every other mentor-like figure he runs into after ned dies, instead of finding validation he ends up having to isolate himself and on top of everything HE STILL DOESN’T FUCKING KNOW HE’S THE CHOSEN ONE™

so instead of his life going better the more he learns stuff and matures as a person, he gets murdered. by the people he trusts and who were supposed to be his new family. haha?

never mind that when he finds out he’s the Chosen One™ it won’t bring him closure because all he ever wanted was being full stark like his father/siblings and then bam he’s going to find out his father’s actually targaryen and what does that even mean to him?

on top of that being AA will just be a pain because I don’t believe for a second he’s not going to get leftover ptsd and who the hell is gonna help him deal with it? or how is he ever getting over his *brothers* murdering him? and people are going to ask stuff of him all over again and he’s gonna have to go slay a mythical monster and if I know grrm it’s not gonna be fun, pretty or cathartic FOR HIM

on top of that, Chosen Hero™ fulfills the prophecy and gets a realm to rule and everyone lives happily ever after. money is that if jon does get that realm (and I think he is because he has the best claim if he's legitimate and most likely it'll turn out he was on the targ side but ROBB also legitimized him so he has double the legitimization), he’s going to hate every second of it and he’ll take it because a) duty, b) literally no one else is available, and like this guy didn’t want to rule a realm or be a king or anything he just wanted to be a stark, and instead he’s going to have to after all that shit thanks to Magical And Noble Heritage he hadn’t even known he had and probably didn’t even want up to that point because since when jon wanted to be a targ? yeah since never

obviously I hope he manages to be somewhat happy regardless because the alternative is too miserable, but basically being a Chosen Hero™ is what makes jon’s life worse rather than better and the fact that hew went through all the regular self-discovery journey for the fantasy hero list doesn’t mean he’s not flipping that over in his sl. the fact that he stayed a decent person more or less throughout it and that he hasn’t turned into a bitter asshole also doesn’t change the main point XD

tldr: jon snow is not a typical fantasy hero because he deconstructs that trope into tiny little bits same as robb deconstructed the arthurian flawless king hero trope

now ^^^^^ THAT was what I originally wrote for that meta but adding on to what I said in those tags

okay so... there is a certain tendency to also make the chosen one™ special in the sense that he's kind of goals - good looking, rich or set to inherit, gallant, takes the initiative, he's like.. social or anyway immediately makes friends etc and all that jazz which jon... doesn't really fit

like jon is an introvert who immediately makes friends just with outcasts and his siblings also bc he feels like one but he's hardly a social butterfly and charms everyone wherever he walks by

I mean ffs says all that the only person he charmed in that sense is stannis who is the literal only person in charge in the books who is more introvert than him and has worse communication issues and appreciates ppl going straight to the point

on top of that in the book he looks like ned.... and arya looks like ned and ned isn't described as being particularly handsome that was brandon so he's not even like... I mean kit h. is v. pretty and I think he was a good choice for the role and I'll die on the hill that he was born to play that character and he did it well but book!jon doesn't have that kinda pretty face so the concept that he's the HOT alternative to anyone to me is kind of iffy bc he's not

he's shit at social interactions and at PR which is why robb and him would have been a key winning ticket like he has a better idea of the larger picture but robb would have actually made sure ppl didn't turn against them bc he actually was good at that but like he doesn't go around rallying armies in his name does he

the one time he's been with a girl it was ygritte and like he courted her without realizing it and then she had to pursue him and he barely knew wtf to do on top of the fact that they slept with ghost in the middle of them like a sword which..... is.... I mean sleeping with the sword in the middle was a thing to make sure the maiden stayed a maiden and he's the one who is like i CAN'T HAVE SEX WITH HER EVEN IF I WANT TO BECAUSE I'M TECHNICALLY SPYING ON THEM like... he's not... gallant-knight coded

never mind that the moment they do the do she basically does everything until he decides to try the oral which I mean... isn't exactly alphadominatingmale out of jon which is not a given with the trope he's supposed to represent like he's not smooth he's not suave he's like WHAT THE FUCK when ygritte tells him he has a pretty face bc most likely no one else told him that and he like... doesn't pursue people like that in general which is also not exactly 100% what that trope usually goes for

we can add that he has a lot of passive-aggressive little shit sarcasm in him that they didn't let him go for in the show but like... usually chosen heroes™ don't think what he thinks about selyse in general

we can also add that he's not automatically above being better than his position like... he doesn't take winterfell bc ygritte is dead but he did think he'd have taken the deal sansa or not if stannis had said he could marry her and not val and if she wasn't dead, he basically went off the rails at the dude he was fighting with thinking about robb telling him that he couldn't be lord of wf because he was a bastard and he's absolutely not in the frame of mind of 'well I was born a bastard who cares it doesn't define me'

he's obsessed to the point of unhealthy with actually being defined by it which is why he was better off with the wildlings aka the only idiots in the realm who don't gaf about that

and that's like... I mean usually if chosen ones™ have parental issues it's like 'you were an orphan and raised by asses who weren't your parents but your parents loved you and you'll find out at some point and you'll be happier for it and make your own family', jon is like... he has the mommy freudian issues of the century bc of how cat treated him, on the other side he's obsessed with living up to ned's/his father's name and he hates that it makes him not-belonging or that he feels like he doesn't even if he does with his siblings, and at the same time when the truth about it comes out he's going to get the cold shower of the century bc like - he's spent all that time thinking BUT DID MY MOTHER WANT ME WHO WAS MY MOTHER and he's going to find out of who it was and how he was born and honestly considering that lyanna most likely did regret running with rhaegar the moment he finds that out and that she died birthing him how is he going to feel? - also he spends his life wanting to live up to his 'father's' name aka ned aka someone known to be honorable to a fault and then it turns out his bio father is... the dude who started that entire rebellion not doing a very honorable thing? - also if jon*erys is a thing idt that he'd take 'I fell in love with my aunt' so nonchalantly as he did in the show tldr: he's never gonna get over his parental issues in a short time and when that particular brick hits him in the face it won't be pretty

like the entire point of jon is that he goes through all the chosenone™ cursus honorum as we'd call it in high school when studying latin but each step that means smth good for the usual chosenone™ to him is something bad, being one is not going to make his life better and throughout the entire thing he does not fit that stereotype when it comes to look, personality, basic traits and familial history and like hell he's going to have the happy ending tied up with the bow - like I think he gets a bittersweet one and eventually goes off with the wildlings bc he belongs there after being jon snow first of his name (bc like hell he's not reclaiming his bastard background at the end of this entire mess I'm eating my hat if he doesn't) after splitting the seven realms and fixing things but that's hardly the neat happy ending the chosenone™ usually gets so that's my two cents

... christ this was long *raises hands*

#jon snow #tagging for the lulz i guess #janie writes meta #ch: jon snow #long post for ts #tldr jon snow is a kurt cobain stan in disguise in westeros and chosenones™ aren't nirvana stan coded #and i'm dying on this hill xD

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wolfsneedles · 3 years ago

Text

My Re-read of a storm of swords and i just cant get over how interesting it as book with iconic lines and carefully crafted dialogues and some miserable important deaths of some of my fav characters. Like this book, is really the iphone of asoiaf lol. A fine wine. Arbor gold. It starts from same events left incomplete in clash of kings but only that now every person meets their consequences and disastrous results of wrong moves & mistakes end so perfectly and painfuly in conclusive way. A feast for crows obviously focuses more on king's landing events and some of the riverlands with brienne and jaime. Might say it isn't my fav book yet since im reading it too apart from some breathtaking prophecies and aemon declaring how prince that was promised could be --> dany

However, ASOS is best best book ever. So much mess and bittersweet endings.

You see catelyn, robb and riverlands arc ending in the most tragic way as result of all small excusable mistakes to the reader that piled up and finally execution of red wedding with bangs and drums, not to mention this event was so catatonic and an irreversible tragedy that almost all characters had visions and dreams of it (patchface, Ghost of high heart, theon, daenerys, jon perhaps later) knowing half of these characters never met the victims of the red wedding.

This event also meant - northern power of houses and faith of independence and somewhat retribution they deserved or wish they had is thwarted now and almost all of them die there esp strength of dustin, manderlys along with boltons betraying them and roose coming out as an iconic cold hearted brute and villain somewhat.

This book also shows how stark sisters had their paths turned after the tiring chasing and running away like arya through war torn lands and sansa finally fleeing KL to Vale with littlefinger - in a way a complete revival again of her and arya embarking on to braavos with an entirely different name now and somewhat purpose we dont know yet also ends her arc of sadness and despair she felt when chasing and running towards her lady mother and robb at the twins. kind of tragic tbh more for her how she saw or heard almost every death of a stark. near to her or family, she saw horror unfolding in front of her eyes.

You have lannisters coming off as victorious ( not really then...) since tywin and tyrion's last scene is iconic. Its like how the might of house lannister which in case tywin refers to himself is broken on a freaking privy - somewhat bittersweet ending since we know cersei and jaime are already not so in a good mental state to make up for heir of casterly rock - and then we have tyrion fleeing too again, once more, finally, to essos as we know. This ending of his arc in KL is also imp since he entered this city like tywin as hand of the king and is leaving like a prisoner. Idk seems perfect to me how he runs and tywin who came as hand of king replacing his son, now goes back in ehh coffin...glory indeed.

You have bran and rickon already parting in ACOK, BUT now the most importent part of brans journey also begins somehow. and therefore him abandoning winterfell and that side of north for further journey is too sad for me too in a lot of ways. His connection to his own home as the last stark who was residing there has ended too (prob bloodraven has more action for my boy i hope).

You have Lysa Tully in the Vale before sansa arrived there with baelish, and she also ultimately gets too much of frightening end in same castles and doors she never opened for anyone - even refusing to help her sister during war because now i wonder had the vale signed for stark side, how different circumstances would be but then tywin wanted to play rains of castamere so bad (i hate him sorry)

Jaime and Brienne still were busy in their road ventures and romantic comedy but him arriving as cripple and maimed to KL, is again of uttermost importance since he in his thoughts lose a lot of confidence in himself now not really making him a perfect candidate for so many things,,, again he has to sort out some issues with his big of bully sister and not-so-accommodating power hungry deluded father but he chose to argue and decline offer for heir of rock and also confessed his utter disregard for poor kids he have, joffrey especially. Idk im so confused what this golden lion & a trained chivalrous warrior is onto since jaime's chapter is like a realistic slap on your face & we see his POV in ASOS only and then he just goes thru huuuge turmoil lol. (not good day or year for him tbh)

Lastly we have daenerys who then vows to settle in mereen making it evident in way how she isn't obsessed with utter power and throne of her ancestors as some ppl speculate, ofc she appears in ADWD again but her freeing slaves and singing dracarys is my another fav momet of ASOS, since dany is really not a frightened confused child she was, she is getting hold of things in realistic way too, and meets barristan, gets to know abt their betrayals, basically gets Unsullied, idk a major iconic moment if u see in contrast to how everyone is losing war now in westeros and wo5k is coming to kind of an end, with balon dying, robb and joff dead, and stannis...(well he is another spiritual case) going to the wall, we see how horrifying brutal war did come to an end in ASOS in the end eventually with tywin also dying. So dany getting an army of unsullied opposed to all other armies kind of dissolving in westeros is quite a distinction. ( bonus points she is young and woman and alone and has 3 dragon )

On the Wall - jon plays and practiced swords with emmett and then struck by memory of him and robb playing & above all how he wants to be lord of winterfell. In the end Jon Snow wins the vote in a landslide victory and is named the 998th Lord Commander. His entire journey from start of ASOS was with ygritte and Wildlings and then finally giving up on mance and returning to Wall with no expectations of him being commander after having spent moments alone and with wildlings and others with him just a ranger.

Realising in the end now, how storm of swords puts people in power like jon and dany and others like boltons and freys in north & riverlands, at the same time starks and lannisters are in way battered and struck by at a time tragedies. Half of people who were away from their families unite or return back like jaime while other half return somewhere more far (arya sansa at vale and braavos with bran more far from winterfell, rickon too), most of the 5 kings are dead too. Also aftermath of war at end of ASOS and AFFC also describes perfectly the attitude and responses of smallfolk towards whoever results in being the king of no concern to them. Most of the small roads and inns were damaged and plundered with woman and children killed or raped and men usually dead too. When we see arya or jaime and brienne usually, we read their POVs, we also see the wrenching elements of war too and how main message could also be that lords play their game of thrones but peasants suffer dreadfully more, we also see how smallfolks have no trust or loyalties towards any house or liege lord. They usually refer to starks and lannister conflict as 'wolves came...or lions did this'. Major point i noticed.

not to mention again, in essos and on the wall 2 different realities and places that mid westeros, we see dany and jon and their ingrown different experiences and attitudes towards smallfolks. freeing of slaves and getting some loyalties tied to you, while living with wildlings and seeing how they rule and eat and sleep like a commoner is so important. The Wall also gives meaning to how real breathing humans are segregated from westeros and other houses as result of prejudice and inborn enmities. The slaves in chains indicate how their little lives in Yunkai is not of importance when they are...utterly children. some of them.

ASOS has major shifting thoughts and stories tbh. Its like gospel of asoiaf for me.

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agentrouka-blog · 3 years ago

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Isn't Arya's training in Braavos except the sleath killing very similar to Sansa's training in courtly charm and intrigue ?

Hi there!

I wouldn’t necessarily say so.

The training Sansa received in courtly charm, i.e. “courtesy”, happened at home. It was imparted at the hands of Catelyn and Septa Mordane. To both girls, btw, although Arya is more than once mentioned to struggle with remembering it. This encompasses basically all the rules of social custom, from formal adress to rituals of greeting and all the formulaic steps of mutual reassurance that make their society run smooth, as well as the structures of hierarchy. They all know the rules and not adhering to them is its own kind of language. Watch Tyrion complain about lack of courtesy from Robb in Winterfell. Empty, cool and false courtesies are frequently mentioned, but their importance as a social “lubricant” is absolutely universally recognized.

The “training” Sansa receives in intrigue is mostly as its object for the longest time. She doesn’t conspire with the Hound and Littlefinger doesn’t teach her anything until he is overwhelmed with glee when he successfully pulled her into his power at the very end of ASOS. It’s strictly her own observations and her own mistakes that she grows on. Much like Arya, who watches endless cruelty and feels miserable for keeping her head down and lies out of necessity and learns to do it really well.

Arya’s training in courtesy is not very fruitful, but it makes her more well-spoken than a boy like Gendry when she has need for it. But her training in Braavos is nothing like that. Thanking someone for a slap across the face because she forgot to control her facial muscles is not what courtesy is about. Being unreadable is not a social lubricant, not a shared language to fall back on. It is an icy demand to be truly false in order to disguise true intentions and reveal nothing. It is not constructive or protective. It is predatory. It cannot be separated from the stealth killing because that is its entire point.

Courtesy is expressive. Arya is not taught to connect to people, she is taught to control herself in order to manipulate them. It is the much darker, crueller version of Syrio’s training in self-control that had her practicing standing on one leg, or walking blind-folded. What was about self-awareness and ability with Syrio is about self-erasure with the Faceless Men. They truly blind her. They send her out to kill.

Courtesy is a lady’s armor. It protects Sansa. The faceless men don’t want to arm Arya of House Stark. They want to destroy her to make use of her.They teach her only enough to be of use to them.

Which is a lot closer to what Littlefinger wants with his “training” of Sansa as well. He may be obsessed with her, but he doesn’t care about her as a person. Only as a tool for his self-gratification. And he only teaches her what he wants her to know about intrigue. He is not a benevolent mentor. Sansa’s true teacher are her own observations. Just like Arya keeps her true self close to her heart, so does Sansa.

That’s the real similarity.

#rouka queue #asoiaf #arya stark #sansa stark #courtesy #faceless men #training arc #dark mentor

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jackoshadows · 4 years ago

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I know you're pretty into Jonerys as a pairing, and you mentioned that the show's special treatment of Sansa, at Jon's character's expense, bothered you. Did you feel this way towards Daenerys/Jon during season 7 and early season 8? As a Jon stan as well, I felt like they just casted him aside/made him her sidekick. I've always loved Dany but that bothered me at that time, did it bother you? Why or why not?

This is a bit long so under the cut it goes ....

First, I think I have made it clear what I think of the trash writing for show Jon. It’s been terrible from season 6 onwards where D&D basically gave him nothing. His parentage amounted to just making Dany paranoid, his white walker storyline ended with him yelling at a dragon while Arya got the big kill and his King In the North arc was more about how he should listen to Sansa because she’s Always Right. All Jon got was jokes about his height and how he was stupid and did not want anything.

If Jon stayed dead at the end of season 5, we could have still got to the same ending because ultimately he contributed nothing. I wish Jon had stayed dead on the show – it would have been a far more satisfying ending to his story arc then being used as a prop to advance the storylines of other characters.

Of course, Jon’s not the only character to have been totally assassinated in terms of plot and characterization. What D&D to Jon Snow is nothing compared to what they did to Bran Stark – arguably GRRM’s central character of the series. They had him sit out a season, gave his WF/North leader role to Sansa, and he had nothing at all to do in defeating the White Walkers other than sit under a tree. They gave him absolutely nothing. And then D&D had the gall to have Tyrion say that Bran had the best story? Fuck D&D and their trash show.

‘Bothered me’ is too understated lol. I loathe show Sansa - one of the most badly written, garbage, self-insert Mary Sue, trash characters ever written for a TV show. The difference between Dany and Sansa is that we have been following Dany’s development over several seasons where she has actually ruled city states, fought at the head of her army and planned battles. She has earned her position as Queen. Sansa on the other hand has done fuck all and then D&D decided that her brain suddenly grew 2 sizes after being raped by Ramsay Bolton and she was now super intelligent and an expert in everything – from armor making to defense planning.

The thing is, we know that Sansa is propped up at Jon’s expense because we have the source books. Jon is a capable and intelligent administrator and politician in the books – taken away on the show to prop up Sansa and give her something to do. It was Jon who rallied the wildlings to go attack the Boltons – taken away on the show to prop up Sansa. Jon is well adept in Northern politics and diplomacy – taken away on the show so that Sansa can ‘advise him’ and call him stupid. If Jon becomes KITN he does so by Robb’s will and as Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell – taken away on the show to put Sansa in charge of WF and deny Jon an arc as an actual ruler of the North.

Now coming to Jon and Dany in season 7. I admit I did enjoy their interactions. Neither character was propped up at the expense of the other in my opinion and there was the thrill of these characters finally meeting. Jon and Dany meet as equals even though Dany is the more powerful monarch and Jon has gone there to ask for aid. They argue and debate (With Tyrion in the mix) and neither give way. It’s only natural that Dany would not believe and Jon understands this – as he explains to Tyrion. At the same time Dany is charmed by Jon and allows him to mine for Dragonglass. Jon continues trying to convince Dany of his mission.

Jon walks around Dragonstone meeting people like Missandei who tells him that Dany is a good Queen. When Missandei tells Jon these things, we know it to be true. Missandei was rescued by Dany and is now a Queen’s interpreter and councilor. She has genuine reasons to like and admire Dany. Compare this to Arya telling Jon that he should listen to Sansa because she is like the Smartest Person In the World! What has Sansa done to earn that qualification and why the hell would Arya think this after they spend season 7 trying to kill each other?

Jon starts to be equally charmed by Dany at this point. And then Tyrion’s plans fail miserably and Dany loses Highgarden. She rejects Tyrion’s explanations and who does she turn to for advice? Jon Snow. He gives his advice as a suggestion (Instead of making it sound like an order like Sansa does) and she takes it �� not attacking KL, but instead the Lannister/Tarly armies.

In contrast Sansa thinks that Jon should do only what she says and compares him to Joffrey when he doesn’t follow her idiotic orders. That’s the difference between Jon and Sansa and Jon and Dany. Jon and Dany’s interactions are that of two monarchs who respect each other’s leadership and intelligence. Sansa on the other hand is a whiny, petulant, selfish brat who constantly undermines Jon before the other houses because she thinks she’s the expert at ruling and therefore wants to be queen. She even mocks Davos who has been a far knowledgeable and capable adviser to Jon than she ever was.

And then we have the end, with the idiotic wight hunt ending in disaster. Dany rushes to rescue Jon and the others, pledges to help defeat the dead and Jon sees what a generous ruler of the people she is and bends the knee.

The whole thing was rushed with hardly any time spend on them, but what we got made sense and I thought they matched each other perfectly in their idealism and desire to help their people.

As for season 8, yeah, I got nothing. It was trash and everyone was trashed. Was Jon sidelined? Yes, he was. But maybe that’s better than what they did to Dany? Because Jon was basically used to seed betrayal and make Dany paranoid and drive her down a path of madness and destruction and finally death. At least Jon got to be free and happy beyond the wall with his true family - the loyal freefolk - and Ghost.

Ultimately Dany is a major character in the series with her rise paralleling Jon’s at the other end of the world on the Wall. They are Fire and Ice and their meeting and uniting to defeat the Others along with Bran and Arya will be a big part of their story and I thought season 7 reflected that even if it was rushed. On the other hand I doubt Sansa and Jon even meet again, seeing as their stories and characters are least connected in the books

Show Sansa was dumped into Jon’s book plot and it then becomes Sansa’s story with Jon as a side character. This happened because D&D found Sansa’s book plot in the Vale to be boring and wanted Sansa at the center of the more interesting North plot in the books. This happened because D&D were writing for Sophie Turner instead of book Sansa. This also lead to the undermining of Jon’s relationships with his other Stark siblings like Arya and Bran. We got Arya supporting Sansa over Jon!! – that’s how shit the writing for the Starks became after D&D centered everything around Sansa. Show Sansa was propped up not just at Jon’s expense but at Bran, Arya and Rickon’s expense as well.

As for shipping, I have always maintained that both Jonerys and Jonarya is possible in the books. There is foreshadowing for both relationships in the books. There is the original outline and GRRM stating he is still heading for the same ending he came up with in the early nineties. But the show also hints at a possible Jon-Dany relationship. So we will have to wait for the books to see where GRRM is headed. Hopefully the next book will give us some more clues.

#Jon Snow #Daenerys Targaryen #Jonerys #anti Show Sansa

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she-wolf-of-highgarden · 5 years ago

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All the times Arya mentions “Home”

*Arya mentions wanting to go home every book so far (or 44 times), so this is a long one y’all...*

“I do not mean to frighten you, but neither will I lie to you. We have come to a dark dangerous place, child. This is not Winterfell. We have enemies who mean us ill. We cannot fight a war among ourselves. This willfulness of yours, the running off, the angry words, the disobedience … at home, these were only the summer games of a child. Here and now, with winter soon upon us, that is a different matter. It is time to begin growing up.” - Arya II, AGoT

“It was very dark right now, she realized. She hugged her bare knees tight against her chest and shivered. She would wait quietly and count to ten thousand. By then it would be safe for her to come creeping back out and find her way home.” - Arya III, AGoT

“The memory made Arya smile, and after that the darkness held no more terrors for her. The stableboy was dead, she'd killed him, and if he jumped out at her she'd kill him again. She was going home. Everything would be better once she was home again, safe behind Winterfell's grey granite walls.” - Arya IV, AGoT

“All she wanted was to go home, but leaving King's Landing was not so easy as she had hoped. Talk of war was on every lip, and gold cloaks were as thick on the city walls as fleas on … well, her, for one. She had been sleeping in Flea Bottom, on rooftops and in stables, wherever she could find a place to lie down, and it hadn't taken her long to learn that the district was well named.” - Arya V, AGoT

“She's still here," Arya blurted. The longshoreman gave her a queer look, shrugged, and walked away. Arya ran toward the pier. The Wind Witch was the ship Father had hired to take her home … still waiting! She'd imagined it had sailed ages ago.” - Arya V, AGoT

“When at last she slept, she dreamed of home. The kingsroad wound its way past Winterfell on its way to the Wall, and Yoren had promised he'd leave her there with no one any wiser about who she'd been. She yearned to see her mother again, and Robb and Bran and Rickon . . . but it was Jon Snow she thought of most. She wished somehow they could come to the Wall before Winterfell, so Jon might muss up her hair and call her "little sister." She'd tell him, "I missed you," and he'd say it too at the very same moment, the way they always used to say things together. She would have liked that. She would have liked that better than anything.” - Arya I, ACoK

“A she-wolf. Arya sloshed her beer, wondering. Was the Gods Eye near the Trident? She wished she had a map. It had been near the Trident that she'd left Nymeria. She hadn't wanted to, but Jory said they had no choice, that if the wolf came back with them she'd be killed for biting Joffrey, even though he'd deserved it. They'd had to shout and scream and throw stones, and it wasn't until a few of Arya's stones struck home that the direwolf had finally stopped following them. She probably wouldn't even know me now, Arya thought. Or if she did, she'd hate me.” - Arya II, ACoK

“A man must be ashamed of the company he keeps, Arry," the handsome one said. "This man has the honor to be Jaqen H'ghar, once of the Free City of Lorath. Would that he were home. This man's ill-bred companions in captivity are named Rorge"—he waved his tankard at the noseless man—"and Biter." Biter hissed at her again, displaying a mouthful of yellowed teeth filed into points. "A man must have some name, is that not so? Biter cannot speak and Biter cannot write, yet his teeth are very sharp, so a man calls him Biter and he smiles. Are you charmed?” - Arya II, ACoK

“He is not," Arya declared. My father only had one bastard, and that's Jon. She stalked off into the trees, wishing she could just saddle her horse and ride home. She was a good horse, a chestnut mare with a white blaze on her forehead. And Arya had always been a good rider. She could gallop off and never see any of them, unless she wanted to. Only then she'd have no one to scout ahead of her, or watch behind, or stand guard while she napped, and when the gold cloaks caught her, she'd be all alone. It was safer to stay with Yoren and the others.” - Arya III, ACoK

“I wish I was home," she said miserably. She tried so hard to be brave, to be fierce as a wolverine and all, but sometimes she felt like she was just a little girl after all.” - Arya III, ACoK

“I don't care. I want to go home." - Arya III, ACoK

“Arya was remembering the stories Old Nan used to tell of Harrenhal. Evil King Harren had walled himself up inside, so Aegon unleashed his dragons and turned the castle into a pyre. Nan said that fiery spirits still haunted the blackened towers. Sometimes men went to sleep safe in their beds and were found dead in the morning, all burnt up. Arya didn't really believe that, and anyhow it had all happened a long time ago. Hot Pie was being silly; it wouldn't be ghosts at Harrenhal, it would be knights. Arya could reveal herself to Lady Whent, and the knights would escort her home and keep her safe. That was what knights did; they kept you safe, especially women. Maybe Lady Whent would even help the crying girl.” - Arya IV, ACoK

“Arya found herself with Gendry, Hot Pie, and Lommy. Squat, kettle-bellied Woth had pulled an oar on a galley once, which made him the next best thing they had to a sailor, so Yoren told him to take them down to the lakefront and see if they could find a boat. As they rode between the silent white houses, gooseprickles crawled up Arya's arms. This empty town frightened her almost as much as the burnt holdfast where they'd found the crying girl and the one-armed woman. Why would people run off and leave their homes and everything? What could scare them so much?” - Arya IV, ACoK

“He was going to take me home, she thought as they dug the old man's hole. There were too many dead to bury them all, but Yoren at least must have a grave, Arya had insisted. He was going to bring me safe to Winterfell, he promised. Part of her wanted to cry. The other part wanted to kick him.” - Arya V, ACoK

“She nodded. "Yoren was taking me home to Winterfell.” - Arya V, ACoK

“The Lannisters had taken everything: father, friends, home, hope, courage. One had taken Needle, while another had broken her wooden stick sword over his knee. They had even taken her stupid secret. The storehouse had been big enough for her to creep off and make her water in some corner when no one was looking, but it was different on the road. She held it as long as she could, but finally she had to squat by a bush and skin down her breeches in front of all of them. It was that or wet herself. Hot Pie gaped at her with big moon eyes, but no one else even troubled to look. Girl sheep or boy sheep, Ser Gregor and his men did not seem to care.” - Arya VI, ACoK

“Arya climbed. Up in the kingdom of the leaves, she unsheathed and for a time forgot them all, Ser Amory and the Mummers and her father's men alike, losing herself in the feel of rough wood beneath the soles of her feet and the swish of sword through air. A broken branch became Joffrey. She struck at it until it fell away. The queen and Ser Ilyn and Ser Meryn and the Hound were only leaves, but she killed them all as well, slashing them to wet green ribbons. When her arm grew weary, she sat with her legs over a high limb to catch her breath in the cool dark air, listening to the squeak of bats as they hunted. Through the leafy canopy she could see the bone-white branches of the heart tree. It looks just like the one in Winterfell from here. If only it had been . . . then when she climbed down she would have been home again, and maybe find her father sitting under the weirwood where he always sat.” - Arya IX, ACoK

“Arya went to her knees. She wasn't sure how she should begin. She clasped her hands together. Help me, you old gods, she prayed silently. Help me get those men out of the dungeon so we can kill Ser Amory, and bring me home to Winterfell. Make me a water dancer and a wolf and not afraid again, ever.” - Arya IX, ACoK

“I can't. I have to go home. To Winterfell.” - Arya IX, ACoK

“The lord and maester swept from the room, giving her not so much as a backward glance. When they were gone, Arya took the letter and carried it to the hearth, stirring the logs with a poker to wake the flames anew. She watched the parchment twist, blacken, and flare up. If the Lannisters hurt Bran and Rickon, Robb will kill them every one. He'll never bend the knee, never, never, never. He's not afraid of any of them. Curls of ash floated up the chimney. Arya squatted beside the fire, watching them rise through a veil of hot tears. If Winterfell is truly gone, is this my home now? Am I still Arya, or only Nan the serving girl, for forever and forever and forever?” - Arya X, ACoK

“Warm and dry in a corner between Gendry and Harwin, Arya listened to the singing for a time, then closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. She dreamt of home; not Riverrun, but Winterfell. It was not a good dream, though. She was alone outside the castle, up to her knees in mud. She could see the grey walls ahead of her, but when she tried to reach the gates every step seemed harder than the one before, and the castle faded before her, until it looked more like smoke than granite. And there were wolves as well, gaunt grey shapes stalking through the trees all around her, their eyes shining. Whenever she looked at them, she remembered the taste of blood.” - Arya III, ASoS

“Lord Beric Dondarrion. Arya remembered all she'd heard at Harrenhal, from the Lannisters and the Bloody Mummers alike. Lord Beric the wisp o' the wood. Lord Beric who'd been killed by Vargo Hoat and before that by Ser Amory Lorch, and twice by the Mountain That Rides. If he won't send me home maybe I'll kill him too. "Why do I have to see Lord Beric?" she asked quietly.” - Arya III, ASoS

“A stream barred her way. She splashed down into it, through water choked with wet brown leaves. Some clung to her horse's legs as they climbed the other side. The undergrowth was thicker here, the ground so full of roots and rocks that she had to slow, but she kept as good a pace as she dared. Another hill before her, this one steeper. Up she went, and down again. How big are these woods? she wondered. She had the faster horse, she knew that, she had stolen one of Roose Bolton's best from the stables at Harrenhal, but his speed was wasted here. I need to find the fields again. I need to find a road. Instead she found a game trail. It was narrow and uneven, but it was something. She raced along it, branches whipping at her face. One snagged her hood and yanked it back, and for half a heartbeat she feared they had caught her. A vixen burst from the brush as she passed, startled by the fury of her flight. The game trail brought her to another stream. Or was it the same one? Had she gotten turned around? There was no time to puzzle it out, she could hear their horses crashing through the trees behind her. Thorns scratched at her face like the cats she used to chase in King's Landing. Sparrows exploded from the branches of an alder. But the trees were thinning now, and suddenly she was out of them. Broad level fields stretched before her, all weeds and wild wheat, sodden and trampled. Arya kicked her horse back to a gallop. Run, she thought, run for Riverrun, run for home. Had she lost them? She took one quick look, and there was Harwin six yards back and gaining. No, she thought, no, he can't, not him, it isn't fair.” - Arya III, ASoS

“Do you swear?" she asked him. Yoren had promised to take her home too, only he'd gotten killed instead.” - Arya VII, ASoS

“Gendry ignored that. "At least your father raised his bastard, not like mine. I don't even know my father's name. Some smelly drunk, I'd wager, like the others my mother dragged home from the alehouse. Whenever she got mad at me, she'd say, 'If your father was here, he'd beat you bloody.' That's all I know of him." He spat. "Well, if he was here now, might be I'd beat him bloody. But he's dead, I figure, and your father's dead too, so what does it matter who he lay with?” - Arya VIII, ASoS

“Arya turned on Tom and Lem. "If you hadn't caught me, I would have been there. I would have been home.” - Arya VIII, ASoS

“The villagers were building a wooden palisade around their homes, and when they saw the breadth of the Hound's shoulders they offered them food and shelter and even coin for work. "If there's wine as well, I'll do it," he growled at them. In the end, he settled for ale, and drank himself to sleep each night.” - Arya XII, ASoS

“No," he said, "you couldn't." He gave her back her coins. "It would make no difference if you could, child. The north has nothing for us. Ice and war and pirates. We saw a dozen pirate ships making north as we rounded Crackclaw Point, and I have no wish to meet them again. From here we bend our oars for home, and I suggest you do the same." I have no home, Arya thought. I have no pack. And now I don't even have a horse.” - Arya XIII, ASoS

“The star of home," said Denyo.” - Arya I, AFfC

“The star of home. Arya stood at the prow, one hand resting on the gilded figurehead, a maiden with a bowl of fruit. For half a heartbeat she let herself pretend that it was her home ahead.But that was stupid. Her home was gone, her parents dead, and all her brothers slain but Jon Snow on the Wall. That was where she had wanted to go. She told the captain as much, but even the iron coin did not sway him. Arya never seemed to find the places she set out to reach. Yoren had sworn to deliver her to Winterfell, only she had ended up in Harrenhal and Yoren in his grave. When she escaped Harrenhal for Riverrun, Lem and Anguy and Tom o' Sevens took her captive and dragged her to the hollow hill instead. Then the Hound had stolen her and dragged her to the Twins. Arya had left him dying by the river and gone ahead to Saltpans, hoping to take passage for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, only . . .” - Arya I, AFfC

“Supper was her favorite time. It had been a long while since Arya had gone to sleep every night with a full belly. Some nights the kindly man would allow her to ask him questions. Once she asked him why the people who came to the temple always seemed so peaceful; back home, people were scared to die. She remembered how that pimply squire had wept when she stabbed him in the belly, and the way Ser Amory Lorch had begged when the Goat had him thrown in the bear pit. She remembered the village by the God's Eye, and the way the villagers shrieked and screamed and whimpered whenever the Tickler started asking after gold.” - Arya II, AFfC

“You lie," he said, "but you may keep your secrets if you wish, Arya of House Stark." He only called her that when she displeased him. "You know that you may leave this place. You are not one of us, not yet. You may go home anytime you wish.” - Arya II, AFfC

“Then stay . . . but remember, the House of Black and White is not a home for orphans. All men must serve beneath this roof. Valar dohaeris is how we say it here. Remain if you will, but know that we shall require your obedience. At all times and in all things. If you cannot obey, you must depart.” - Arya II, AFfC

“Cat always stank of brine and fish by the time they pushed off for home again. She had grown so used to it that she hardly even smelled it anymore. She did not mind the work. When her muscles ached from lifting, or her back got sore from the weight of a cask, she told herself that she was getting stronger.” - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

“Braavos was a city made for secrets, a city of fogs and masks and whispers. Its very existence had been a secret for a century, the girl had learned; its location had been hidden thrice that long. "The Nine Free Cities are the daughters of Valyria that was," the kindly man taught her, "but Braavos is the bastard child who ran away from home. We are a mongrel folk, the sons of slaves and whores and thieves. Our forebears came from half a hundred lands to this place of refuge, to escape the dragonlords who had enslaved them. Half a hundred gods came with them, but there is one god all of them shared in common." - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

“I know what Blind Beqqo puts in the hot sauce he uses on his oysters," she would say. "I know the mummers at the Blue Lantern are going to do The Lord of the Woeful Countenance and the mummers at the Ship mean to answer with Seven Drunken Oarsmen. I know the bookseller Lotho Lornel sleeps in the house of Tradesman-Captain Moredo Prestayn whenever the honorable tradesman-captain is away on a voyage, and moves out whenever the Vixen comes home.” - Cat of the Canals, AFfC

“The blind girl did not know whom the voice belonged to. One of the acolytes, she supposed. She did not remember ever hearing his voice before, but what was there to say that the servants of the Many-Faced God could not change their voices as easily as they did their faces? Besides her, the House of Black and White was home to two serving men, three acolytes, Umma the cook, and the two priests that she called the waif and the kindly man. Others came and went, sometimes by secret ways, but those were the only ones who lived here. Her nemesis could be any of them.” - The Blind Girl, ADwD

“I saw you. "I gave you three. I don't need to give you four." Maybe on the morrow she would tell him about the cat that had followed her home last night from Pynto's, the cat that was hiding in the rafters, looking down on them. Or maybe not. If he could have secrets, so could she.” - The Blind Girl, ADwD

“He had guards. Two of them, a tall thin man and a short thick one. They went with him everywhere, from when he left his house in the morning till he returned at night. They made certain no one got close to the old man without his leave. Once a drunk almost staggered into him as he was coming home from the soup shop, but the tall one stepped between them and gave the man a sharp shove that knocked him to the ground. At the soup shop, the short one always tasted the onion broth first. The old man waited until the broth had cooled before he took a sip, long enough to be sure his guardsman had suffered no ill effects.” - The Ugly Little Girl, ADwD

#Arya Stark #A Song of Ice and Fire #asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #quote dump #meta refrences #asoiaf meta #maybe #this hurt to write

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fierypen37 · 5 years ago

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The Oasis: Chapter 14

Sorry of the long absence, my friends! Enjoy!

Rage was an acid burn in the back of his throat. His hands shook with it. He staggered into the bathroom, holding a dishtowel to his throbbing eye. That tricky little cunt! How had she held onto that pen knife? Ramsay let the soaked towel thump on the bathroom counter, watching thick drops of blood patter in the sink.

“Fucking Lorathi bitch,” he muttered, peering at the damage in the rust-spotted mirror. It was a fucking miracle that whore Shae hadn’t blinded him. The pen knife had sunk in and stuck just above his right eyeball, jiggling around in the socket. Each jiggle sent a bolt of white-hot pain arching through his skull. Under normal circumstances, if a target had pulled something like that, Ramsay would have taken them home. Played all sorts of fun games with them until they begged for death. Shae’s little stunt had surprised him though, and he’d snapped her neck.

Too quick.

Not to mention he didn’t get the answers his boss wanted. Add to that leaving buckets of his blood at the crime scene . . .

Ramsay snarled a string of foul words. He held a wad of petroleum jelly-soaked gauze in one hand. With the other, he grasped the hilt of the pen knife. Pain arched like lightning through his skull. The blood made the handle slick. A quick yank---fuck! His hand slipped. Ramsay bit down on the bloody dishtowel and yanked again. The penknife fell free along with a hot trickle of blood running down his face. His boss wanted that bitch Daenerys Targaryen dead, and Ramsay never forfeited a contract. Her and Jon fucking Snow would die slow. Ramsay would flay them living, like his ancestors before him. Just because one lead had burned out didn’t mean the trail was cold. Just like his beautiful vicious dogs, he’d pick up the scent. It was just a matter of time.

As the sun set, there was little to look at to occupy her mind. Just darker landscape framed against a dark sky. Nothing but an eerie stretch of highway lit by the car’s headlights. The silence within the car was leaden. She couldn’t find words to ease the tension. Barry was dead. He’d been a steady, comforting figure in her life. He’d been her father’s bodyguard since she was a toddler—the only one Vis held in any esteem. So when they at last had enough capital to require and afford a security detail, a then-retired Barry Selmy was first on their list.

Daenerys felt the press of Jon’s anxious glances. Her misery deepened. Jon. Gods, what danger had she put him in? If Barry Selmy, a decorated war veteran and professional bodyguard couldn’t stay alive around her, then what would happen to Jon?

“We’re still about twenty minutes from the cabin. Maybe try and rest,” Jon said. A half dozen snarky comments rested on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back. She was too anxious to sleep, too miserable to be any sort of companion.

“I don’t think I can sleep.” Her voice sounded weak and small. Daenerys studied his profile in the murky half-dark. A frown lingered on his brow, his generous mouth thinned into a hard line. Jon glanced over at her, his eyes as black as the sky beyond.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. Daenerys blew out a steadying breath.

“Well, De—Detective Seaworth said that Rakharo is doing ok. Vis is safe; he’s staying at Dragon with his security detail. Missy and her husband Grey are ok. There haven’t been any more threats or leads. And . . . and Barry’s family are t—taking him home to Harvest Hall for burial.” Tears clogged her throat. Going over it in such bloodless detail made it sound so bleak. Her life was in fucking shambles. Jon reached for her hand. Daenerys wove her fingers through his, squeezing his hand gently.

“Hey, it’ll be ok. They’ll figure it out. It’s their job,” Jon said. They drove in silence for a time. The tires made a low whoosh against damp pavement.

“Did the detective say anything else? Do you know if anyone’s been by my apartment? Checked on Sam and Gilly?” Daenerys thumped her forehead against the window. What kind of self-centered ass was she? Jon had no less at stake than she did.

“I’m sorry, Jon. Yes, they’re fine. The detective has a Watchman stationed at your apartment complex just in case.” Jon tugged her captive hand up to drop a kiss on the back. His beard was a ticklish counterpoint to the softness of his lips. The casual intimacy of the gesture made her heart flutter.

“It’s ok. You’ve got a lot on your mind.” The silence that followed was a warmer one. Daenerys groped for conversation.

“How long has it been since you’ve been to the cabin?”

“I came north for Bran’s nameday, but that was at Winterfell. The cabin . . . hm, it’s been six, seven years? Since before my dad died.” Daenerys felt a pang. Orphans, the both of them. Ned Stark’s death had been all over the news, but Daenerys couldn’t remember the details.

“Was he ill?” she asked. A muscle fired in Jon’s jaw.

“Brain aneurysm. He died on route to hospital.” The suddenness of it was couched in the abrupt sentence. Much like her own father’s death by violence. Like Barry.

“I’m so sorry, Jon.” He gave an uncomfortable shrug and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

“It’s ok. It was a good trip. The last time we were all together. Sansa came home for the weekend, Arya had just graduated and was headed to uni, Robb brought Margaery and her brothers, Bran was finally finished with physical therapy and Rickon won a sailing medal on the lake.” Daenerys blinked in surprised pleasure.

“Rickon sails? What type?”

“Uh I’m not really sure. A fast one?” Daenerys giggled at Jon’s aggrieved expression.

“I sail too. Does she have a cabin? Is she designed to sail on open water?” In the greenish light of the dashboard, a trace of a bemused smile graced Jon’s face.

“I think Rickon’s boat is . . . sloopy?” Daenerys snorted.

“Sloopy?” Laughter embroidered her voice. Jon grinned and offered a one-shouldered shrug.

“I don’t know anything about boats.”

“Does he still sail?”

“Not as much. His mother has him enrolled in one of those prep schools for college.”

“Is this the same stepmother who denied you your inheritance?” Daenerys asked. Another uncomfortable shrug was her answer.

“The same,” he said. Daenerys kicked herself. The stepmother was a touchy subject. She couldn’t imagine what it had been like growing up as a motherless boy despised by the only female role model left in his life. Chewing on her lower lip, she offered a tepid apology.

“Don’t sweat it. I’m used to dealing with her,” Jon said, squeezing her hand. Daenerys stroked his knuckle with her thumb. Jon negotiated another turn.

“We’re here at last.”

The pitted concrete road gave way to a smooth asphalt drive. ‘Cabin’ was apparently a relative term. A two-story log structure lorded over neatly manicured grounds. A balcony wrapped around the second floor. Daenerys looked around slack-jawed as the two of them parked and walked up the drive. The lake was a sheet of black glass roughly a hundred yards from the house. Threads of mist clung to the ground. The air smelled of crisp pine and lake water. Insects chirped and far away, she heard the hoot of an owl. The cool peace of it soaked into her soul.

“So, the ‘cabin,’ huh?” she said, framing the operative word in air quotes. Jon cracked open the fake rock holding the spare key, side-eyeing her with a raised brow.

“Is there a problem, ‘Dany Steele?’”

Daenerys snorted.

“Fair point.”

The door creaked open and Jon flicked on the light. Daenerys trailed after Jon as he moved toward the kitchen, drinking it in. Warm blond wood floors, exposed beams overhead, soft lighting, gleaming granite countertops in the kitchen . . . the understated beauty soothed her ragged edges. She turned at the sound of Jon’s low curse.

“What is it?”

“Robb and Margaery. They stocked the place for us, and they uh . . . went a little overboard,” he said, riffling through the fridge, “filet mignon with truffle butter, roasted asparagus, lobster, turtle soup, chocolate covered strawberries--” The subtext was clear: decadent food for a romantic getaway. Daenerys bit back a rush of surprised pleasure. Even if it was meant in a teasing manner, it was a tacit approval from Jon’s brother.

“I told them all we needed some food and clothes. Typical,” he said dryly. Daenerys chewed on her lower lip. In the heat of passion, he claimed her as his. In the cool of parting, he asked her on a date. Why is he so irritated now? Breaking the silence, she cleared her throat.

“Mm, clean clothes sound wonderful. I think I’ll take a shower,” she said. Jon took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. His expression softened.

“Of course. The master is on the second floor, last door on the left.”

The rest of the house was as rustically chic with polished hardwood floors, stained glass windows, and glass doors leading to the balcony garbed in room-darkening curtains. The large bed beckoned, smelling faintly of laundry detergent. How sweet, they thought to change the linens. Shopping bags on the dresser bore a post-it note with ‘Daenerys’ written in looping feminine script. Daenerys peered inside.

“‘Overboard’ is right,” she said under her breath. Inside was a heap of blouses, sweaters, jeans, socks, sneakers, heels, and a tangle of what could only be described as slutty lingerie. A flush washed over her. A note was pinned to a sheer black lace bra:

Daenerys,

I got you a couple different sizes. I hope our Jonno is treating you right. Robbie and I would be delighted to have you both out at Highgarden once all this mess is dealt with.

Warm Regards,

Margaery

Daenerys breathed a soft laugh, clutching the note and bra to her chest. A giddy rush burst in her chest. How surreal could things get? She was on the run for her life from a shadow human trafficking organization, she’d been swept up in the arms of her god-like masseur-turned-bodyguard Jon Snow, and now Margaery Tyrell—an award-winning actress—was buying her lingerie. Daenerys plucked her favorites from the bag of goodies and hurried to the bathroom.

Twin vanities in granite countertops, rustic sconces over the large oval mirror, a faint tang of cleaning chemicals. Robb and Margaery really had thought of everything. The shower boasted two shower heads, the walls made up of grey river rock. Blissfully hot water undid the knots in her muscles. The nature of her life and work made finding female friends difficult, she thought as she shampooed and scrubbed. Even Missy who she considered her closest friend was her masseur at first. So the thought that someone like Margaery Tyrell would be interested in her relationship with Jon was an odd one. Cherishing her crush on Jon, it was easy to spin a fantasy of making their leisurely way south. Stopping at charming bed and breakfasts on the way, taking a barge down the Mander, a wine tour of the Reach district . . .

She stepped out of the shower and toweled off, taking special care to comb and moisturize and primp with all the lovely products Margaery left for her. Ah, the silky glide of high-end moisturizer. It felt good to blow her hair dry until it fell in a fluffy silver cloud around her face. The lingerie was she chose was robin’s egg blue stretchy lace panties and matching bra. Daenerys smiled coyly at her reflection. In between all the madness of being on the run, they hadn’t discussed little things like Jon’s favorite color. Would he like it?

Belting the sash of a terry cloth robe, she saw the heap of her discarded clothes. A thrift store shirt and bloodstained jeans. Stained with Barry’s blood. The happy bubble popped with startling violence. The cost was too high. Already an innocent woman had been violated and killed, then Barry, not to mention the countless people—including Jon—put in harm’s way after the attack in King’s Landing.

“Am I really worth all this?” she asked her steam-blurred reflection. The shadows in her violet eyes held no answers. A soft rap on the door made her start.

“Come in,” Daenerys said, clutching the folds of the robe tight to her chest. Jon appeared in the doorway, his curly hair damp. His dark eyes were fathomless behind the lenses of his glasses. The plain grey t-shirt stretched taut over the bulk of his shoulders, athletic shorts showed off the length thigh and calf. He really was more beautiful than any man had a right to be.

“Do you uh, have everything you need?” he asked. Daenerys hid a rush of hurt. When he suggested the master, she assumed they would be sharing a bed. But maybe time to cool off is what they needed. After hearing about Barry, gods knew she felt depressed and clingy. Not a good look for her.

“Yes, thank you,” she said. Cool and polite, she thought, inwardly congratulating herself. Jon lingered in the doorway, cracking his knuckles one at a time. A nervous habit, she’d noticed.

“Are you hungry? It’s probably a crime in culinary circles, but I could nuke some of the steak.” Daenerys grinned at the weak joke.

“I’m fine, just tired.”

“Right. Me too.”

A short, uncomfortable silence.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

It wasn’t until he turned to leave that her thin bravado gave way. As inviting as the bed looked, the thought of the long hours until dawn with nothing but her thoughts to occupy her made her stomach clench. That, and she’d gotten far too used to the sound of Jon’s heartbeat lulling her to sleep.

“Jon,” she said. The naked hope in his face calmed her worries.

“Stay. Please,” she whispered. Jon exhaled a breath and gave her a relieved smile.

“Of course. I just didn’t want to impose . . .”

“Impose? Are you joking? We’re standing in your family’s cabin and I’m wearing clothes your brother’s girlfriend bought for me. If anyone is imposing, then it’s me,” she said. Jon closed the distance between them and cradled her cheek.

“You’re worth it,” Jon assured her. Daenerys felt a big, stupid smile stretch her face. She turned into his hand and kissed his palm, tasting salt. A shy silence fell between them as they turned down the bed and drew the curtains. Daenerys slid into the bed with a happy sigh. Cool sheets over a downy mattress and a heap of pillows. Better than simple creature comforts was the underlying release of tension. Here the two of them were safe. Safe and hidden in their own private paradise. Jon’s gaze wandered over her with a familiar sleepy heat.

“I like the clothes,” he whispered huskily, trailing a knuckle over the lacy strap of her bra. Daenerys gave him a coy smile.

“Really? Does it give you any ideas?” she said. Jon’s hand disappeared beneath the duvet.

“Lots of fun ideas,” he said with a wicked smile.

#fp37 fic #jonerys #snowstorm #the oasis #massuer!Jon #CEO!Daenerys

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thebluelemontree · 6 years ago

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Hi, this is lyastark (i changed blogs), you responded to my ask here: /post/175700394682/. i wanted to say that i loved your meta! i was thinking more of their relationship in the purpose of the story. for me, no one knowing about this interaction has to serve some plot purpose. b/c of this, i think that sandor is going to be the one to tell her about LF shitty behavior towards her. her relationship with him is the ONLY one that LF doesn't know about. we know he doesn't b/c he NEVER mentions (1)

sandor to sansa. he was quick to dismiss tyrion, loras, wilas, margaery, etc but he said nothing about sandor. i also believe that sansa has gotten to the point where there’s no one “new” she has met that she would 100% trust with something this big. sandor is someone she explicitly trusts not to lie to her, and is someone she associates with safety and her old life. he’s her hidden dagger, if you will

Hey, glad you liked it.

Yeah, I’m in agreement that Sandor will be crucial to Sansa reclaiming her identity in a few ways, and it will pay off that their relationship has flown under the radar for all this time. While Jeyne Poole is also an alternate possibility or an addition to that, I think Jeyne is on course to meet with (perhaps travel with) Arya first. It may take all of TWOW, maybe to the beginning to ADOS, for Arya and Sansa to reconnect. One thing I’m reasonably sure of is that things will start happening pretty quickly in TWOW for wrapping up Sansa’s training arc. With only two books left, it’s time to start moving all the remaining characters into the final act.

I’m just going to put the rest under the cut. This isn’t so much a coherent meta, but me just riffing because I have a lot of feelings about this topic XD

Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King’s Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she’d hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr. – Sansa I, AFFC.

“She would have fled them both…” if she had another option available to her. If she had another friend nearby, but in her mind, she doesn’t.

For Sansa’s training arc to end, her sense of isolation and dependence on Littlefinger have to be overpowered. It is a psychological obstacle as much as it is a physical one. Sansa has seen Littlefinger literally get away with murder and come out in a stronger position than he was before. He seems to always be a step ahead of his enemies. He has already bribed and extorted his way to power among the Vale lords. He’s iced Yohn Royce out of political influence. He’s planted seeds of doubt in Sansa toward Myranda Royce before she even met her. (On a side note, Myranda does know Sansa’s real identity, but has never confronted her about it and nor has she used that information against her). So LF’s locked down all the potential allies or troublemakers that he can see. But we know there are things he can’t see, like the possibility of Sansa winning Lothor Brune’s loyalty from him. Nor does he seem to be aware of Lyn Corbray’s seething resentment over being ousted as his brother’s heir thanks to Littlefinger’s marriage brokering. Not to mention he’s hired a bunch of hedge knights for his household guard not suspecting for a moment that they are there to steal Sansa from him. Littlefinger’s hubris has made him blind to things that are right in his own backyard.

While I’m 95% sure Sandor will be at the center of Sansa reclaiming her identity, I definitely don’t think he will be her only trusted ally or source of support before it’s over. That comes from Sansa herself in doing what she does best: being kind and empathetic to win people over. I see her cultivating her own little band of helpers to escape rather than (as some speculations suggest) Sansa simply name-dropping at the tourney and all the Vale lords instantly pledging their swords to her as their new regent/leader/whatever. That makes for a dramatic turn of events but is also pretty unrealistic as I see it. I think she will eventually be in a position to receive Yohn Royce’s military support, but I strongly disagree that it’s going to be as easy as name-dropping. Littlefinger has too much backing of his leadership right now. The Vale lords at the tourney are already on board that gravy train of gifts, gold, and glory. He has custody of Robert Arryn. No one really gives a shit about Lysa’s murder and everyone is looking toward the future with the more robust young falcon, Harrold Hardyng. IMO, Sansa needs to get with Yohn Royce before the rest of the Vale falls in line. He’s against the ropes right now (and being kept far from the tourney for a good reason I think), but he is the one that is most likely to wrest back political power from Littlefinger once Sansa is no longer his pawn. Then she would have powerful backing of her own. The trick is getting her to Yohn Royce and for that, she needs a persuasive reason and the confidence to flee from LF.

Where Sansa is in the story right now, I think she already possesses most of the individual puzzle pieces to what Littlefinger has done. She just hasn’t been able to bring herself to put all those pieces together into one complete, horrifying picture. There’s a lot of trauma and suppression of painful thoughts wrapped up in the things she’s seen and experienced. Things part of being Sansa Stark that will shatter the tenuous safety she finds in being Alayne Stone. She knows on one level that Littlefinger did something with Jeyne. She’s buried that memory and thinks about Jeyne only in more innocent times. She hasn’t dared to ask probably for fear of the answer and for fear of the repercussions from asking. And there’s the fact that she’s trapped with her abuser, who has muddled help and safety with exploitation and pushing her moral boundaries. She’s under a lot of pressure to marry HtH, which has been framed as her best and only chance to go home, even if it comes at Robert Arryn’s expense. All she has to do is let go of her empathy and see people as objects she can use to further her interests, and then she can not only feel safe but powerful and untouchable as well. No one will ever hurt her again. Littlefinger’s philosophy is terrifying, but there are parts of it that are very seductive to someone who has been made to feel powerless, stupid, and vulnerable. In a way, Sansa is being tempted with adopting a cynical worldview similar to what the Hound was for Sandor. Narratively speaking, what better person to bring her back from the edge of losing her humanity than by the person she inspired to reclaim his own? Sandor and Sansa have been saving each other all throughout their story. The first moment they met was defined by Sansa looking Ilyn Payne, the persona of death, in the face and falling backward into Sandor’s hands (ugh, my heart!). Many times he just seems to appear out of nowhere to catch her. So yeah, Sandor as a “hidden dagger” works really well not only for literally saving her life, but saving Sansa Stark’s identity and her core values. But that also comes with unpacking a lot of unpleasant things.

The missing piece of the puzzle and the one thing that will be the final straw should be learning that her father’s arrest and execution was orchestrated by Littlefinger. Sandor was a present for all that. He’s the best person to tell her, and yes, she would believe him. That forces Sansa to start looking at all puzzle pieces she has avoided putting together. Turning against LF will not just be a triumphant moment, but it’s probably going to be ugly and painful. Sansa has a lot of suppressed guilt and shame over what LF has made her complicit in. While she was never a willing participant and shifting responsibility on to her was a key feature of LF’s abuse strategy, Sansa has played a role to some degree in the cover-ups of LF’s crimes. Some people think the unkiss is a symptom of PTSD. Nope. This situation right here puts Sansa at risk for PTSD. It will be shattering to know she ever called Petyr a friend, trusted him, and sometimes helped him while he did awful things. There’s your dark night of the soul that a few people reasonably predict for each of our major POVs in TWOW, especially if an innocent like Robert Arryn dies (I’m 50/50 on that). She’ll need someone who can relate (think of Sandor’s dying anguished confessions of his sins), someone who won’t judge, and someone that can help guide her back to being Sansa Stark because right now, that identity comes with a lot of traumatic baggage. Just as being Sandor Clegane did. (UGH, MY HEART!)

I could go on about how similar both Petyr and Sandor’s backgrounds and origins are, how cynism plays into their world views, and the divergent paths they took. They don’t have to speak of each other or share a scene together, but they have always been opposing philosophical forces with Sansa between them. One embodying sweet lies and the other blunt honesty. But I think the most telling passage about these three is in Eddard VII:

Sansa said, "I knew the Hound would win."

Littlefinger overheard. "If you know who's going to win the second match, speak up now before Lord Renly plucks me clean," he called to her. Ned smiled.

Littlefinger bet against Sandor and lost. Daddy approved.

#ianxmickey #sansan meta #sansa stark #sandor clegane #littlefinger #petyr baelish #bluelemons speculates #twow speculation #sorta meta?#does emotional vomiting count as meta?

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ourmrsreynolds · 5 years ago

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Jon, Arya and the Childhood BFF to Lovers Trope: Or, why everyone ships J0nsa

I had an argument with my sister which was precipitated by her quipping “nobody likes childhood BFFs” and “hot new guy is always endgame.” I almost flipped a table. I sat there and I seethed for 30 seconds and then I texted her back PIRATES OF THE MOTHERFUCKING CARIBBEAN and I gotta say I was p pleased with myself because yes, Elizabeth and Will end up together even though Jack Sparrow exists and is indisputably hot.

My sister and I are reading Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. This is a story that sets out to deconstruct the trope of “It was always gonna be you and me,” and while my sister can crow all day about how Hot New Guy Gets the Girl, I want to examine why it makes thematic and structural sense for that to be endgame. I think it comes down to the protagonist, who seldom ventures out of her comfort zone and has trouble letting herself want things. The combination of extremely deep feeling and almost pathological constraint is what makes her story so compelling—because in the course of the novel she learns to unabashedly want things, to reach out and take them: and what she wants is the sardonic lacrosse-playing jock, not the Boy Next Door she’s had a crush on since forever. One of the running gags in the background is her nine-year-old little sister inventing increasingly far-fetched reasons she should be allowed to have a puppy, because the kid “knows what she wants and will do anything it takes to get it.” The contrast with hyper-repressed Main Character could not be more pronounced. I ask you, who does Main Character remind you of? Not Arya, for a surety. This is one thousand percent Sansa.

After the finale aired Jenny Han and some other YA authors were dragged on twitter for openly shipping J0nsa, which, I mean (a) it was more “ugh fan fiction” and “ew incest” and “think of the children!!1!” than anything specific to J0nsa (b) of course she ships J0nsa. Of fucking COURSE. J0nsa is not a childhood BFFs ship, because the whole point is that Sansa’s character development leads her to see Jon in a new light. It’s above all about Sansa’s arc and the scales falling from Sansa’s eyes and there isn’t room for someone who has always seen the value in Jon, who has always loved him best. Because that would not be sufficiently Pride & Prejudice-y. Allow me to remind everyone that Pride & Prejudice is (1) the ur-Romance novel and (2) about people changing their minds and revising their initial judgments. Ffs it was originally titled “First Impressions.” This is the dominant narrative wrt romantic love, then—that one must fall in love, that it must be accompanied by major character development and reevaluation of preconceptions. This is the appeal of Enemies-to-Lovers.

Listen, I don’t ship a pairing because I think it’s endgame; I ship it because I think it’s interesting. What I’m trying to do here is formulate a theory as to why so many people find Jon & Sansa’s dynamic interesting, as compared to the small handful of us who find Jon & Arya’s dynamic interesting. I’m not engaging with the people who are anti-incest on principle (if you’re not into incest this is maybe not the fandom for you). I think it has a lot to do with the sort of romantic stories we elevate and validate. Gendrya is a wildly popular ship, and it falls very much in the Childhood BFFs mold, but I think we can all agree that Gendry & Arya are not a finished product—they have a lot of stuff to work on, and what shippers are interested in is the process of them hammering it out. Jon and Arya though? They’re already president of each other’s fan clubs, where’s the tension or drama in that? The obstacles to their relationship are external and plot-driven rather than internal and character-driven. And I say unto you: This is Arya’s creation myth: Before there was anything, there was Jon. That’s it that’s my kink that’s the kind of all-encompassing bond I’m about. The absolute trust they repose in each other gives me LIFE. I’ve seen some J0nsas parry the “she’s not even his favorite sister” argument with “because she’s his wife not his sister” and like ... ok valid ig but the whole reason I’m interested in Jon/Arya is because they set no boundaries on their love?? They are each other’s e v e r y t h i n g. I mean if you want to read about two strangers fumbling their way towards feelings that’s fine but do not pretend to me that J0nsa is some kind of underdog ship. It’s the most basic of ships -- it’s a Pride & Prejudice ship. (Gendrya otoh is Persuasion, which is the best Austen novel don’t @ me.) For in-universe reasons why J0nsa undercuts Jon and Arya’s unconditional love this is a great post, but I’m going to stick to the meta reasons people ship what they ship.

Here is the thing I will die mad about: Everybody takes childhood BFFs for this hegemonic trope and wouldn’t it be so eDgY to subvert it by making her fall for a HANDSOME STRANGER instead. Jfc have you seen the biggest young adult franchises of the past decade? They are: Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments. Spoiler alert none of the heroines end up with their childhood bffs. I know the love triangle is hardly the point of The Hunger Games but facts are facts. It’s been 150 years and the Little Women fandom is still generating twice as much Jo/Laurie fic as Jo/Bhaer fic because Louisa May Alcott did Jo March dirty by not letting her marry the man she clearly belonged with. I just think the idea of there being someone you belong with, always have and always will, is ultimate #goals and this is the hill i will die on.

I look at Sansa and Arya’s starting points, when it comes to Jon, and however their arcs resolve in the end I cannot imagine how you could retcon J0nsa into some kind of lifelong attachment?? Here is Sansa in the wake of Lysa’s death, mulling her options:

there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King’s Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she’d hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably.

She lists Tyrion among her potential refuges, without once mentioning Jon! TYRION. Unreal. Even Brienne weighs the possibility of Sansa going North to Jon, and Brienne has literally never even met Sansa:

though all her siblings had been slain, Brienne knew that Sansa still had an uncle and a bastard half brother on the Wall

In case anyone requires reminding, Arya takes every possible opportunity to suggest “hey we could go to the Wall instead of wherever we’re going!”:

"I know where we could go," Arya said. She still had one brother left. Jon will want me, even if no one else does.

Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair

One of these girls has been trying to get back to Jon for going on four books now. The other one thinks about Jon Arryn more times in her POVs than she thinks about Jon Snow (18 Arryns out of 27 total hits for “Jon” in all Sansa chapters). I’m not saying Sansa hasn’t grown and changed, or that her reunion with Jon might not evolve into something interesting; it’s just not a dynamic I personally care about. I’m definitely not saying that authors deserve to be publicly shamed for shipping fictional characters, but I think an author’s shipping preferences are revealing and shed light on their choices as far as which stories they choose to tell. I’m saying I ship Jon/Arya and I accept it’s not the ship dynamic that appeals to most people but here I am.

#jonrya #needleheart #otp: needlework for northerners

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summerseachild · 5 years ago

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Because I am a glutton for punishment, I rewatched season 3.

The story so far: For those of you following along, I’ve been gearing up for watching the GoT I haven’t seen (the back half of season 5 and beyond) by rewatching the stuff I HAVE seen. It’s been... an experience. I’m coping with my fury by squeeing over the things I loved and foaming at the mouth over the things I hated.

The finale aired between my season 2 and 3 rewatch, and I am full of snark, but everything is also hilarious.

3x01

1. GHOST IS THE GOODEST BOY. Also everyone BE NICER TO SAM. Every time I see Kit and Rose together on screen I go, “Awww they’re gonna be married.” So happy this show brought them together.

2. Ciarán Hinds as Mande Rayder was SUCH epic good casting. I want to watch all of Rome now.

3. Davos is a salty old cat with nine lives and I was SO happy to see him alive. And then he RISKS ONE OF THEM being loyal to Stannis. That’s some Ned Stark levels of honor.

4. Michael McElhatton’s voice is so amazingly creepy I love and hate it all at the same time.

5. That first scene we get with Tyrion and Tywin is A LOT. Tyrion just wants a little bit of recognition and it’s SO SAD. (Also how did Tywin have the lions put up in his office so soon? SO EXTRA.) And wtf is up with Tywin intimating that Tyrion might be a bastard? So glad they dropped that. Who ended up Lord of Casterly Rock though? DOes AnYoNE EveN CaRE?

6. Sansa and Shae playing the game with the ships is... so cute. We overly imaginative people have all had that friend like Shae who’s like WHAT IS THE POINT OF PRETENDING.

7. Ok teenage Drogon cooking his food in midair before eating it was pretty cool.

8. Is that the Stranger on the wall of the building where Margaery talks to the orphans? In the middle of the seven pointed star? It looks CREEPY.

9. The epic Queen-off between Margaery and Cersei IS ON. (For the record Cersei’s armor dress is FANTASTIC.) Also, Jack Gleeson saying “charitable” like it’s a word in a foreign language he’s never heard before is GREAT.

10. You can see the seeds of Missandei being a fantastic diplomat for Queen Daenerys. :( Also, I wonder if Jorah knows she speaks Valyrian as he watched all of this unfold...

3x02

1. I wonder if what Talisa says about how Westerosi are viewed across the narrow sea, as barbarians who smell, is accurate. It makes sense...

2. OH SHIT THEON GETTING TORTURED IS IN THIS EPISODE I WAS NOT READY

3. Latest on a List of insults Brienne puts up with from Jaime: “giant towheaded plank.” He is such a shit. And the way he SWITCHES on a dime from so obviously baiting her to being DEAD serious with the “we don’t get to choose who we love” line... so very him.

4. Sansa and the Tyrells! Those gardens are SO incredibly pretty, and Diana Rigg is SO GOOD as Olenna. May I have half her wit when I’m her age. Getting info out of Sansa on Joffrey was SMART.

5. I love that we get a sense that there are different cultures and languages North of the Wall.

6. HOLY SHIT HI MACKENZIE CROOK I FORGOT YOU WERE IN THIS YOU ADORABLE STRING BEAN.

7. Reeeeeds! Jojen and Mira were so exciting when we first met them...

8. BROTHERHOOOOOD Without Banners SO COOL. And underused.

9. Jaime and Brienne are AT A BRIDGE and NOTHING IS OK enjoy the hand while you have it ,Jaime my love.

3x03

1. Lannister family musical chairs is SO GREAT and Tyrion and Cersei have SUCH BITCHY FACES AT EACH OTHER.

2. They tell Chuck Norris jokes about Brynden the Blackfish, don’t they.

3. Stannis: Men have been trying to kill me for years. Me: Well maybe they need to send a WOMAN TO DO IT. (yeeeeaaaaah Brienne)

4. Dany is a woman with a plan and watching Jorah and Ser Barristan freak out about her possibly giving up one of her dragons is kind of funny.

5. I had forgotten how COMMITTED Ramsay is to his “helping Theon” ruse.” Fuuuuuck.

6. Jaime losing his hand DOES NOT GET ANY EASIER TO WATCH.

3x04

1. Jaime Lannister and the No Good Very Bad Deathwish huuuurts meee. It’s so good Brienne was around.

2. Varys and the sorcerer in a box.... SO CREEPY. Do we ever get resolution on that?? Anyway it made me flat out terrified of the implacability of Varys’ revenge at the time, and Conleth Hill PLAYS IT.

3. The Sept is SO PRETTY way to go CGI folks. That whole scene is just GORGEOUS with the light framing Margaery and Joffrey and Cersei moving in and out of shadow...

4. Theon’s “all he had to do was be” re: Robb hit me RIGHT IN THE FEELS also wow show Theon was really Gay For Robb and you will not convince me otherwise. (Watching him pour his heart out to Ramsay makes me physically ill... whYyYYy am I sober...)

5. I still maintain that show Brienne is WAAAAAY meaner than book Brienne about Jaime’s “leave me alone I’m dying” phase in ways that are really out of character and I HATE IT. Also losing a HAND is not “a little bit of misfortune.” And SHE WOULD UNDERSTAND THAT.

6. Cersei being like “I’ve been listening more than your sons” to Tywin. And Tywin being an ASSHOLE in response instead of FUCKING TELLING HER HOW TO DO BETTER with Joffrey makes me so angry.

7. “If Robb Stark falls Sansa Stark is the key to the North” YOU DON’T SAY VARYS

8. I am... sadder than I remember being about Jeor Mormont dying.

9. I. Like. Anguy. What HAPPENED to him? Also Beric is... intense, but I love him. (And Thoros was IN THE KEEP the day the baby Targaryens died?)

10. And ARYA GETTING TO TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT MYCAH TO ADULTS WHO LISTEN YES GOOD.

11. Dany hands that Dragon over COOL AS A CUCUMBER WHAT A QUEEN and theN the reveal that she SPEAKS FLUENT VALYRIAN AND DRACARYS AND I THINK I LOVE HER EVEN MORE OUT OF SPITE THIS TIME

3x05

1. Sandor Clegane trying to CHOP HIS OWN WOODEN SHIELD OFF HIS ARM because it’s on fire... wow. That whole scene is IMPRESSIVE. That was a fight that was TRIGGERY AS FUCK for him with all the fire and he still came out on top.

2. This is the episode where Jon and Jaime both get baths! Jon’s was a lot more fun. He got to have sex first. Jaime’s is preceded by being like “take any more of my arm than you have to and die” to Qyburn and a lot of screaming.

3. I CAN BE YOUR FAMILY ALSHAKDHSAG I AM SO ANGRY ARYA AND GENDRY DON’T END UP IN THE SAME PLACE. IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE SCHMOOPY IT JUST NEEDED TO BE TOGETHER.

4. Every time I see Catelyn looking empty and far away in these scenes I see the Lady Stoneheart that could have been.

5. ROBB DON’T TRY TO BE YOUR DAD LISTEN TO YOUR MOM AND WIFE AND UNCLE. UGH RICHARD’S ACTING IN THAT EXECUTION SCENE THOUGH IT HURTS ME.

6. Beric Dondarion’s voice is amazing. I’m noticing voices more this time around...

7. Shireen Baratheon! What a precious little Princess! Her friendship with Davos is the best thing ever and SHE DESERVED BETTER.

8. Jaime and Brienne in the bath is funny when Jaime’s a shit until it gets very very serious and everything hurts and both of them are better actors than this show deserved. Jaime remembering URGING AERYS TO SURRENDER PEACEFULLY MAKES WHAT HAPPENS IN THE END HURT. He... hasn’t told that story to many people in its entirety and aaaaahhhh my feelings and him telling Brienne MY NAME IS JAIME I CANNOT WITH THEM.

9. Grey Worm is so handsome, and the more I see of Jacob Anderson in the behind the scenes stuff the more awesome he gets.

10. Ugh Cersei my love don’t be so smug about Tyrion and Sansa (Also Tyrion BRINGING UP TYSHA HOLY SHIT I FORGOT) Cersei and Tyrion both look so miserable at the end of that scene I just want to FUCKING THROTTLE TYWIN. Which is how I felt in the books here so KUDOS TO ALL INVOLVED.

3x06

1. I LOVE that we get to hear the Faith of the Seven’s version of “Jesus loves me” and I love that it’s Sam who sings it.

2. Meera holding Jojen while he has his vision/seizure like she’s done it a thousand times before... so sweet. I love that taking care of those who need it is just... part of who she is, and we need more people who are caring AND badass.

3. I forgot that Arya got an archery lesson from Anguy and I love it.

4. Melisandre being like WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU RAISED BERIC SIX TIMES to Thoros is great. Who knows what any of that means now but in the moment wow. Also WTF I FORGOT THEY GAVE GENDRY TO MELISANDRE

5. Ygritte asking Jon if he’s staring at her ass while climbing is so great. Way to know how good you look, girl!

6. Everyone at Riverrun: GROW UP EDMURE.

7. Jaime Being like BRIENNE DO NOT STAB BOLTON I GOT THIS = friendship goals

8. Cersei and Tyrion talking about their impending miserable marriages and not being entirely awful to each other gives me a bit of joy even as I weep for all of them.

9. I laughed for a long time at Varys line calling the Iron Throne “The Lysa Arryn of chairs.”

10. That last shot of Jon and Ygritte kissing is SO PRETTY. Everything at the top of the wall is, really.

3x07: GET BEHIND ME WENCH DON’T YOU SEE THE BEAR

1. Oh GRRM wrote this one. Cool.

2. Brynden Tully calling Walder Frey a wet shit is delightful. I love him so.

3. Do we ever find out if Talisa was telling the truth about writing to her mother? Or any sort of mention of her again since she’s nobility in Volantis and it might be a thing that she got murdered? No?

4. TORMUND TALKING ABOUT FOREPLAY IS HYSTERICAL HE IS THE BOYFRIEND BRIENNE DESERVES

5. Protective Dragons are Protective

6. Please TAKE OUR SHIP AND OUR GOLD AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF ESSOS: the Yunkai emissary, basically.

7. Poor Gendry. What a way to find out your dad was King Robert... Melisandre has a flair for the dramatic.

8. Jaime is bad at goodbyes especially when Brienne called him Ser Jaime instead of Kingslayer.

9. Ygritte threatening to blacken Jon’s eye if he tears her hypothetical silk dress.. THIS is how you write a badass girl who also likes pretty things.

10. Jaime jumping into that ring and continuing to throw his influence around for Brienne... yes good. He’s lucky that bear didn’t get his FOOT TOO though. And that last “Sorry about the Sapphires” to Locke as he’s leaving.... he just can’t help himself he HAS TO POKE PEOPLE VERBALLY EVEN WHEN IT’S DANGEROUS.

3x08: the One with the Other Other Wedding

1. Travels with Sandor and Arya is such a good show.

2. Davos trying to read is SO CUTE. And Stannis coming to Davos for advice and free him says a lot about a Stannis’ character at this point in the show.

3. Hey! It’s the first Daario!

4. Tyrion tried so hard to be kind. I’m glad he and Sansa seem to end on good terms.

5. Cersei being like “I see how you are trying to be my friend and I want NONE OF IT” to Margaery and then telling the story of house Reyne is a power move.

6. Joffrey moving Tyrion’s step stool at the wedding was a DICK MOVE but I love the look Tywin gives people who are laughing. (And Tyrion And Sansa making the best of a bad situation and Sansa weakly smiling at him when he makes the the joke about the wine before the ceremony is sweet)

7. NOBODY CARES WHAT YOUR FATHER ONCE TOLD YOU YES CERSEI MY QUEEN 👑

8. Tyrion pretending to be drunker than he was to get him and Sansa out of that room and away from Joffrey and the bedding ceremony is SO SAD but smart.

9. Sam cooing and fussing over that baby is the sweetest thing ever.

10. SAM KILLING THAT WHITE WALKER IS LIKE NEVILLE KILLING NAGINI CHANGE MY MIND WAIT YOU CANNOT HE’S SO BRAVE AND I LOVE HIM

3x09: The Rains of MY TEARS ABOUT THE RED WEDDING

I have a RUM and coke ready to go let’s do this

1. Robb asking Catelyn’s advice after he didn’t listen toher about Theon and the Ironborn :...(

2. Those POOR FREY GIRLS are they ok? I hope Arya didn’t kill any of them since they didn’t ask to be Walder the Worst’s daughters and granddaughters.

3. Grey Worm stepping into a leadership role ❤️

4. So... was Castle Black abandoned at the END of Jahaerys’ reign? I feel like the castles were mostly manned at the beginning of his reign? Gotta check on that.

5. In which Jon and Arya are both concerned about innocent small folk.

6. I FORGOT HOW CLOSE ARYA GETS TO THE TWINS

7. I ALSO FORGOT HOW CLOSE BRAN AND RICKON GOT TO JON. And... So much warging and direwolf action!

8. Daario Grey Worm And Jorah make a badass team gotta say.

9. HOLY SHIT MY WIFE JUST POINTED OUT THAT ROSLIN IS ANNE FROM THE MUSKETEERS. I knew I loved that face in a way I hadn’t before when she took off that veil!

10. Byyyyyyeeee Shaggy and Rickon and Osha!

11. Robb and Talisa decided to name the baby Eddard right before shit went down and I am NOT OK.

12. Fuck me that song HERE WE GO FOLKS.

13. Ugh Catelyn figured out what was about to happen right before. I had forgotten that. All the things that weren’t ok any of the other times are still not ok.

14. GREYWIND NO and now the crying

15. Catelyn with her knife to that Frey girl’s throat is so desperately sad Michelle Fairley BROUGHT IT and I hate everything

3x10: Of Course I’m watching this right after the Red Wedding what do you suggest I do instead? Sit on the couch and cry? (Because that’s definitely what I was gonna do if I didn’t start the next one.)

1. I never noticed Sandor picking up the FREY banner very intentionally smart man. Which I am choosing to focus on because...

2. if I never see Robb’s body with Greywind’s head again it will be too soon.

3. Tyrion and Sansa talking about how to get back at people who laugh at them like they’re friends ❤️❤️❤️

4. Any man who must say I am the king is no true king TELL IT LIKE IT IS TYWIN.

5. Tywin: 1 Joffrey: -15 I’ve been waiting for that throwdown for a while now.

6. Tywin really believes what he’s saying about putting family first. And that STORY ABOUT NEARLY DROWNING TYRION OMG.

7. Ugh Sansa knooooows about the RW and Tyrion just walks away because he’s the last “family” she wants to see.

8. Scary stories at the Night Fort! Like the Rat King... Bran’s a good ghost story teller.

9. WHAT A TRANSITION TO WALDER FREY after all that talk of guest right

10. Can’t wait for dogs to eat Ramsay because Theon’s pleas to be killed turns my stomach and make me see red all at once LEAVE HIM ALONE YOU BASTARD

11. Oh jeez this is where we get the Reek thing in the show. Theon says his own name twice before Ramsay hurts him enough he calls himself Reek and Alfie is SO GOOD I HATE IT

12. Oh right Sam & Co are in the Nightfort too!

13. Yarra not being ok with Balon abandoning Theon GIVES ME LIFE. She’s just so disgusted with her dad AS SHE SHOULD BE.

14. Greyjoys DO NOT DO AS THEY ARE TOLD and I love Yarra.

15. Don’t talk too much shit about highborns Gendry You’re gonna be one.

16. Varys and Shae talking is SO INTERESTING. I... think Varys has some points, and I think she should have listened, taken the diamonds, and peaced out of King’s Landing.

17. That Cersei and Tyrion scene where they talk about her children keeping her alive HURTS MY SOUL SO MUCH.

18. Arya stabbing the fuck out of that Frey bragging about sewing Greywind’s head on gives me SO MUCH SATISFACTION. Also Sandor being like “TELL ME next time we’re gonna do murder, ok kid?” Is THE BEST.

19. I love that Davos is the one we get to see reading the letter Maester Aemon writes.

20. DAVOS MAKES A CHOICE AND IT’S THE RIGHT ONE. Do you know how to swim?? No. ... Don’t fall out. 😂

21. Jaime is hoooooome in King’s Lannister and I have Lannister feels spilling ALL OVER THE PLACE.

22. Oh right and Dany has a whole bunch of people calling her mom in whatever variety of Valyrian they speak in Yunkai. That was a thing.

#summersea has feels about got #summersea got rewatch 2019

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bitchfromtheseventhhell · 7 years ago

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Hi! This might sound a little silly, but I've been seeing a lot of gifsets about Ned's quote about Sansa and Arya being as different as the son and the moon and in them Sansa's the sun and Arya's the moon. I understand the aesthetic reason for the sorting, but I was wondering if there was a meta reason for it. I think both of their arcs could have the traditional sun and the moon parallels. Your thoughts?

I also got this anon within about 24 hours of your ask (was there a wank I was blissfully unaware of?):

Hey, I really love your thoughts on the stark sisters. This might be a silly ask, but who do you think reflects the moon better and who the sun? I know Ned’s words were more metaphoric than literal, but I always see edits with one sister being the sun and the other the moon, which always vary on which one is which. I can never decide. Do you have a preference?

Before I get into this, I… don’t really have a horse in this race tbh, largely because I think that focusing on the imagery in that line is missing the point of what Ned is saying. He’s not necessarily saying “one of you is the sun and one of you is the moon,” he’s saying “you are as different as” so I think of it more as a poetic turn of phrase more than anything else.

But since you’re asking here are longer thoughts on the matter, the ones I do have go into symbolism as it appears for Sansa and Arya respectively.

The Quote Itself + Context

“Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me.”

He sounded so tired that it made Arya sad. “I don’t hate Sansa,” she told him. “Not truly.” It was only half a lie. (Arya II, AGOT)

The first time that the reader ever encounters this quote about Arya and Sansa, there’s some very specific context going on.

It occurs in Arya’s second POV chapter in the series, and it’s said by Ned to Arya. It’s not simply a descriptor, it’s a way to try and get Arya to not be angry with her sister.

Arya is angry with her sister. But, more importantly, Arya is upset with her sister:

“I don’t care about their stupid tourney,” Arya said. She knew Prince Joffrey would be there,and she hated Prince Joffrey.

Sansa lifted her head. “It will be a splendid event. You shan’t be wanted.”

Anger flashed across Father’s face. “Enough, Sansa. More of that and you will change mymind. I am weary unto death of this endless war you two are fighting. You are sisters. I expectyou to behave like sisters, is that understood?”

Sansa bit her lip and nodded. Arya lowered her face to stare sullenly at her plate. She could feeltears stinging her eyes. She rubbed them away angrily, determined not to cry. (Arya II, AGOT)

Ned very clearly is frustrated with the way that Sansa speaks to Arya in this moment; that doesn’t prevent Arya from wanting to cry. As the passage continues:

No one talked to Arya. She didn’t care. She liked it that way. She would have eaten her mealsalone in her bedchamber if they let her. Sometimes they did, when Father had to dine with theking or some lord or the envoys from this place or that place. The rest of the time, they ate in hissolar, just him and her and Sansa. That was when Arya missed her brothers most. She wanted totease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her. She wanted Jon to muss upher hair and call her “little sister” and finish her sentences with her. But all of them were gone.She had no one left but Sansa, and Sansa wouldn’t even talk to her unless Father made her. (Arya II, AGOT)

Since they arrived in King’s Landing, Sansa has not spoken to Arya unless Ned makes her. From Sansa’s perspective, the reason is, ostensibly, that she sees Arya’s actions on the Trident as being the reason that Lady is dead (in a later chapter, she screams at Arya: “They should have killed you instead of Lady!”–she places her pain at Lady’s death on Arya because it is easier than confronting the fact that Joffrey is a complete shit and Sansa–throughout the series–is someone who tells herself what the truth should be in order to make reality easier for her to bear.)

But the result of all this is a sense of ostracism. Arya doesn’t feel comfortable around anyone, largely because no one–even Ned–understands her grief at Mycah’s death, and her sense of responsability in it.

Only that was Winterfell, a world away, and now everything was changed. This was the firsttime they had supped with the men since arriving in King’s Landing. Arya hated it. She hated thesounds of their voices now, the way they laughed, the stories they told. They’d been her friends,she’d felt safe around them, but now she knew that was a lie. They’d let the queen kill Lady, thatwas horrible enough, but then the Hound found Mycah. Jeyne Poole had told Arya that he’d cuthim up in so many pieces that they’d given him back to the butcher in a bag, and at first the poorman had thought it was a pig they’d slaughtered. And no one had raised a voice or drawn a bladeor anything, not Harwin who always talked so bold, or Alyn who was going to be a knight, orJory who was captain of the guard. Not even her father. (Arya II, AGOT)

So when Arya flees the dining room for her bedroom, and even contemplates running away she is so miserable, her father’s intercession has weight.

The weight of the passage above to me is not even necessarily about the sun and the moon and how different she and Sansa are–when Ned says “when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives” in the series–the only time he says them to any of his children–it is to Arya about Sansa. He is creating in Arya the undeniable truth: that whatever she currently feels about Sansa, whatever their summertime “squabbles” are, Sansa is her pack, whether or not she likes it.

You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me.

And to drive the point home, he says that he needs them both.

The Sun and the Moon

I feel the context is helpful, largely because of how I think that it fits into greater symbolism in text. If you have “the sun” and “the moon” as explained here, it’s clearly supposed to evoke some imagery. (I like the point that @quentynnymerosmartell made a while back about how the sun and the moon are the main symbols on Brienne’s sigil, which ties back to her vow to Catelyn.)

There’s a lot of imagery–beyond Arya and Sansa–for it to evoke. The onset of winter means that there will be less sun in the sky period; if the long night comes again, it means there won’t be any sun at all. Having both implies a healthy state of the world writ large because you have both light and darkness–not to mention light in darkness.

You may be as different as…

An issue that I think rarely gets talked about in all the #discourse about Arya and Sansa (when there is #discourse about both of them in one go) is that frequently things stop around the “they’re just different” without going into the hows of it.

When it comes to symbolism, parallels, characterization–there are frequent explorations of similar themes but the mechanisms are almost impossible to talk about at the same time because they fundamentally rely on each girl’s approach to the world.

For Sansa, you have a character who approaches the world through narrative. She thinks in terms of songs and stories that she knows–both as regards the world around her and as she regards herself (“Be brave, she told herself. Be brave, like a lady in a song.”) She is a society child. She has been presented with a social infrastructure (Westerosi Patriarchy) and she adheres to it and thrives within it. She doesn’t question it, but when she encounters things that don’t fit in with what she’s been taught, she will adjust narratives around her to accomodate for the ills in society by redefining societal definitions to meet her needs (“He was no true knight.”) She has a recurring motif of birds, but what elemental motifs exist in her arc are depicted through societal structures more than they are depicted through nature itself.

Or, to use Bran’s(/Summer’s) words:

But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. (Bran I, ASOS)

If Sansa “left the wilds,” we have Arya (quoting from this seminal scene) who has a “wildness” in her. She has “the wolf blood.” She is the child who society had no place for and so had to carve her own existence out of whatever place she could find. She fundamentally questions most societal infrastructures and what they are present for and why they are present because she is someone who–even though she holds power on a structural level as a lady and as a princess–is still rejected by society as someone who doesn’t accept the role given her based purely on her gender.

So to me, it’s not just a “sun and moon” opposition, we have going on here, it’s a “society vs wilderness” that we have going on here–and that’s not even touching on things like their respective approach to truth and lies, their coping mechanisms (which are literally! the opposite! of each other’s!) and any number of other contrasts that you have between them.

Society

Let me start this with a point that I’ll come back to: I would argue that the moon is symbolic of nature, of wild, of mystery while the sun is symbolic of society. I look at this in terms of calendars: there are a number of lunar calendars that exist within our world: among them, there is frequently a leap month added every few years (how many years varies between cultures) in order to keep the calendar in line with the seasons. The solar calendar exists for the sake of society (when do you harvest, when do the seasons change) while the lunar exists because the moon exists.

I bring this up because I’m not going to be talking about the sun in any particularly meaningful way. Maybe I’ll come out of my asoiaf reread with a completely different perspective on this, but I don’t actually think that either sister has particularly pertinent sun imagery attached to her (which I think is part of why we have this question to begin with). It becomes, then, a question of how the moon appears in both storylines and what the moon symbolizes on a larger scale. I don’t think the moon represents society, which means that what moon imagery exists in Sansa’s storyline fundamentally challenges her worldview, while also being interwoven with it. It becomes then, in her case, a question of arguing–not for the sun–but rather arguing that the moon doesn’t quite fit, which I don’t think it does.

The main source of moon imagery in Sansa’s arc stems from House Arryn, whose sigil is is a falcon soaring against the moon.

The Vale itself has a ton of moon-related infrastructure, probably for this reason: You have the Gates of the Moon, the Moon Tower, the Moon Door, the Mountains of the Moon. You have this house–an important one for a lot of Sansa’s identity themes, her relationship with her father and with Petyr Baelish, with her aunt and herself–that has taken the moon and used it as a a supplementary part of the house’s symbolism. I say supplemental because I compare House Arryn’s sigil to House Martell’s: the sun is more important than the spear in House Martell’s sigil; the falcon is more important than the moon in House Arryn’s. To me, then, the moon becomes the servant of society, an artful backdrop to the falcon, a piece of nature who has been detached from its nature in order to perform its function.

And so that means that the moon is not so much the moon in Sansa’s storyline so much as the image of the moon. And I think that that very imagery is threatening to some extent.

You have the Moon Door, which is where Sansa almost lost her life and which, in AFFC, she’s still super stressed thinking about, and you have the Mountains of the Moon–where the Mountain Clans of the Vale have been hoping to use Lannister steel since AGOT to reclaim the Vale from the Andal society that wrested it from the control of the First Men thousands of years ago. You even have the simple fact of the lie about Sansa’s identity while she is in the Vale, and what might befall her if her identity is revealed in the wrong way. If you’re looking at symbolism, I see that as the moon challenging Sansa on a symbolic level, because Sansa is a character who operates within society and the moon is not symbolic of society.

But that means that if I have to pick a “sun” and a “moon,” I don’t think it fits that Sansa is the “moon”: I think it means that she is the sun, and that as winter approaches, as the days get shorter and the nights grow longer, she–and society as Westeros knows it–is going to have to adjust to a long winter and a long night where the main source of light is the moon.

Wild

There’s a lot of meat to moon symbolism. It is a symbol of womanhood–the lunar cycle frequently used to symbolize the menstrual–not to mention its ties to the tide and water. But if the sun is symbolic of society and the moon is symbolic of the wild, then “Ah, Arya. You have a wildness in you, child,” lines up evenly.

And it does: there are mentions of the moon in important ways in Arya’s arc. And, more importantly, it’s not symbols of the moon: it is the moon itself. Which means that that moon gets to carry the weight of all its own symbolism, without being detached from it through a sigil.

Arya takes comfort in the moon, even thinks that it is something that she can use as a way to guide her on her journey to wherever she’s going:

She carried neither candle nor taper. Syrio had told her once that darkness could be her friend, and he was right. If she had the moon and the stars to see by, that was enough. (Arya XI, ACOK)

It is associated with her burgeoning magic:

Sleep came as quick as she closed her eyes. She dreamed of wolves that night, stalking through a wet wood with the smell of rain and rot and blood thick in the air. Only they were good smells in the dream, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear. She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled. (Arya V, ASOS)

Except in dreams. She took a breath to quiet the howling in her heart, trying to remember more of what she’d dreamt, but most of it had gone already. There had been blood in it, though, and a full moon overhead, and a tree that watched her as she ran. (Mercy, TWOW)

It as used as a timekeeper during her training at the House of Black and White:

Cat would always find the kindly man waiting for her when she went creeping back to the temple on the knoll on the night the moon went black. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

When the moon was black she was no one, a servant of the Many-Faced God in a robe of black and white. (Cat of the Canals, AFFC)

On a symbolic level there, you have the simple fact that when there was no moon in the sky, Arya ceases to exist: she is “no one” and not any of her other personas, and given the simple fact of the theme of self effacement in Arya’s arc, I think its’s not wrong to say that the moon in the sky means that Arya is Arya. And this not even touching the fact of her wolf dreams (her burgeoning magic once again) as a touchstone for her while she’s blind and keeping her from truly sinking in to being “no one.” The moon becomes just one more part of that theme for Arya, and a part of it that roots her in her own identity.

And, lastly, it is something that is associated with–and which Arya herself associates with the Old Gods of the North:

Shoving her sword through her belt, she slipped down branch to branch until she was back on the ground. The light of the moon painted the limbs of the weirwood silvery white as she made her way toward it, but the five-pointed red leaves turned black by night. Arya stared at the face carved into its trunk. It was a terrible face, its mouth twisted, its eyes flaring and full of hate. Is that what a god looked like? Could gods be hurt, the same as people? I should pray, she thought suddenly. (Arya XI, ACOK)

The moon isn’t challenging Arya’s worldview, it is part of almost every single piece of symbolism in her arc, and is symbolically attached to her identity, her wildness, her magic, her skills in a way that the moon is not for Sansa.

Even innate in that moon symbolism in Arya’s arc, you have it existing in opposition to society and thriving.

So all this is to say…even beyond the optics of it (Sansa having the brighter coloring; Arya having the darker) if forced to, I read the moon as Arya and Sansa as the sun in that comment. I don’t think that the moon imagery in Sansa’s arc holds a candle to the moon symbolism in Arya’s arc, even if I don’t think that either has any particular emphasis on the sun in their arc.

#salazarastark #anonymous #arya stark #sansa stark #meta #arya meta #sansa meta #and i need you both gods help me #that awkward moment when you realize you've been misquoting that line for years #but you're gonna keep your tag bc you're attached #womp womp womp womp wopm lmao

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