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butterflies-dragons · 4 years ago

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Hi. You said in your Jon and women meta that Lyanna is a combination of both Sansa and Arya. Can you give her parallels with both girls?

Hello Anon,

Yes this past week I’ve said that Lyanna Stark was a mixture of the Stark Sisters.

I also said that I always thought that the Sansa from the original outline was very similar to Lyanna Stark:

Now ¿How marrying the heir of the Iron Throne/King of the 7K is supposed to be an act of dubious loyalty? Because GRRM has stated that in high nobility there is no marriage without the Lord Father of the bride’s blessing. Furthermore, from the wedding the bride belongs to her husband’s house, that’s all the fuzz with the cloaking ceremony, going from the maiden’s cloak to your husband’s cloak. You left your paternal house to belong with your husbands house. Sansa’s loyalty was with her husband, and more important, Sansa’s love and loyalty was with her baby boy. So, how choosing his baby over her paternal house could be seem as an act of dubious loyalty then? And even if she wanted to come back to her paternal family, does she really get a chance without the risk of being captured, separated from her baby, accused of treason and executed, leaving her baby boy motherless?

Oh I get it, there was an enmity between Starks and Lannisters. So, Or Joffrey abducted Sansa? Or Sansa eloped to marry Joffrey? How very Shakespearean of you George! This is Romeo and Juliet all over again. Or even better, this is Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark oll over again.

Original Outline Sansa was Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and mother of the heir to the Iron Throne.

It is implied by the fandom that this Sansa dies because the outline says that Jaime dethrones and kills Joffrey and “everyone ahead of him in the line of succession” (Sansa’s baby). Well, Sansa was not in the line of succession, but it’s probable that Jaime had to kill her to get to her baby boy, which reminds me of Elia Martell & her babies’ tragic and devastating deaths.

And landing more on the subject, I said that: Arya and Sansa play different roles in Jon’s life: Sansa is the distant half sister, the archetype of the princess in the tower, that he thinks he would never get. While Arya is the closest sister, the comfortable presence of a girl with less feminine inclinations. And both of them resemblance different aspects of Lyanna Stark. While Arya got Lyanna’s spirit and physical features, Sansa Stark got the less known romantic nature of Lyanna, after all, Lyanna cried while listening Rhaegar playing the harp, eloped with him, bore him a son, found herself trapped in a tower, and unwillingly caused the death of her father and older brother. Like a Lady in a sad and beautiful song.

We can draw parallels between Lyanna and her two nieces, but there are also parallels shared by the three of these She-wolves of Winterfell. Let’s see:

LYANNA & ARYA

Appearance:

“You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her." "Lyanna was beautiful," Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya. "She was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

Carrying a sword:

"Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. —AGOT - Arya II

The wolf-blood:

“Arya, you have a wildness in you, child. The wolf blood, my father would call it. Lyanna had a touch of it."—AGOT - Arya II

"She was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

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." —AGOT - Arya II

Punching annoying brothers & friends:

Now two children danced across the godswood, hooting at one another as they dueled with broken branches. The girl was the older and taller of the two. Arya! Bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. But that couldn't be right. If the girl was Arya, the boy was Bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. And Arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him. She slashed the boy across his thigh, so hard that his leg went out from under him and he fell into the pool and began to splash and shout. "You be quiet, stupid," the girl said, tossing her own branch aside. "It's just water. Do you want Old Nan to hear and run tell Father?" She knelt and pulled her brother from the pool, but before she got him out again, the two of them were gone. — ADWD - Bran III

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. —AGOT - Arya IV

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. —ASOS - Bran II

"My lady?" Ned looked embarrassed. "I'm Edric Dayne, the . . . the Lord of Starfall." Behind them, Gendry groaned. "Lords and ladies," he proclaimed in a disgusted tone. Arya plucked a withered crabapple off a passing branch and whipped it at him, bouncing it off his thick bull head. "Ow," he said. "That hurt." He felt the skin above his eye. "What kind of lady throws crabapples at people?" "The bad kind," said Arya, suddenly contrite. She turned back to Ned. "I'm sorry I didn't know who you were. My lord." —ASOS - Arya VIII

Half-horses:

"You ride like a northman, milady," Harwin said when he'd drawn them to a halt. "Your aunt was the same. Lady Lyanna. But my father was master of horse, remember." —ASOS - Arya III

Horses … the boy was mad for horses, Lady Dustin will tell you. Not even Lord Rickard's daughter could outrace him, and that one was half a horse herself. —ADWD - Reek III

"Brandon was fostered at Barrowton with old Lord Dustin, the father of the one I'd later wed, but he spent most of his time riding the Rills. He loved to ride. His little sister took after him in that. A pair of centaurs, those two. —ADWD - The Turncloak

This is a contrast with Sansa: "I hate riding," Sansa said fervently. "All it does is get you soiled and dusty and sore." —AGOT - Sansa I

LYANNA & SANSA

Beauty:

Both Lyanna and Sansa are considered beautiful:

Lyanna:

"She [Lyanna] was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

Lyanna had only been sixteen, a child-woman of surpassing loveliness. Ned had loved her with all his heart. Robert had loved her even more. She was to have been his bride. —AGOT - Eddard I

"The maid's a fair one," Osha said. —AGOT - Bran VII

The northern girl had a wild beauty, as he recalled. —ADWD - Epilogue

Sansa:

Sansa’s needlework was exquisite. Everyone said so. “Sansa’s work is as pretty as she is.”

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily.

Worse, she was beautiful. Sansa had gotten their mother’s fine high cheekbones and the thick auburn hair of the Tullys.

“I saw Sansa at the court, the day Tyrion told me his terms. She looked most beautiful, my lady. Perhaps a, a bit wan. Drawn, as it were.”

Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was.

“You are very beautiful, my lady,” the seamstress said when she was dressed.

Ser Kevan told her she was beautiful, Jalabhar Xho said something she did not understand in the Summer Tongue, and Lord Redwyne wished her many fat children and long years of joy.

"Ser Ossifer speaks truly, you are the most beautiful maid in all the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Had we known such beauty awaited us at the Gates, we would have flown,” Ser Roland said. Though his words were addressed to Myranda Royce, he smiled at Alayne as he said them.

Inner Strength:

"You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath”. —AGOT - Eddard VII

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. —ASOS - Sansa V

Pleading Ned to protect part of themselves:

He could still hear Sansa pleading, as Lyanna had pleaded once. —AGOT - Eddard IV

Lyanna was pleading to her brother Ned to protect her son, while Sansa was pleading to her father Ned to protect her direwolf, Lady, part of Sansa’s soul. Later, Ned regretted failing Sansa...

Knights & Queens of Love and Beauty:

Lyanna was a Mystery Knight AND was crowned Queen of Love and Beauty at the Tourney of Harrenhal.

Lyanna as the Knight of the Laughing Tree:

But late on the afternoon of that second day, as the shadows grew long, a mystery knight appeared in the lists. Bran nodded sagely. [...] “It was the little crannogman, I bet.” “No one knew,” said Meera, “but the mystery knight was short of stature, and clad in ill-fitting armor made up of bits and pieces. The device upon his shield was a heart tree of the old gods, a white weirwood with a laughing red face.” [...] “Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called.” —ASOS - Bran II

Lyanna as the Queen of love and beauty. Rhaegar wearing rubies (red) gave her a crown of winter roses (blue):

The Targaryen prince armored all in black. On his breastplate was the three-headed dragon of his House, wrought all in rubies that flashed like fire in the sunlight. —AGOT - Eddard I

Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost. —AGOT - Eddard XV

Sansa attended the Tourney of the Hand at Kings Landing, met Petyr Baelish who told her that Catelyn was his Queen of Love and Beauty, and received a (red) rose from Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, who was wearing an armor adorned with sapphires (blue). During the second day of the tourney, Sansa wore the red rose in her hair:

"Your mother was my queen of beauty once," the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. "You have her hair." His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away. —AGOT - Sansa II

When the Knight of Flowers made his entrance, a murmur ran through the crowd, and he heard Sansa's fervent whisper, "Oh, he's so beautiful." Ser Loras Tyrell was slender as a reed, dressed in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to a blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots. The commons realized in the same instant as Ned that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires; a gasp went up from a thousand throats. Across the boy's shoulders his cloak hung heavy. It was woven of forget-me-nots, real ones, hundreds of fresh blooms sewn to a heavy woolen cape. —AGOT - Eddard VII

Her eyes were only for Ser Loras. When the white horse stopped in front of her, she thought her heart would burst. To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. "Sweet lady," he said, "no victory is half so beautiful as you." Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser Loras had ridden off. —AGOT - Sansa II

The boy from Highgarden did something with his legs, and his horse pranced sideways, nimble as a dancer. Sansa clutched at his arm. "Father, don't let Ser Gregor hurt him," she said. Ned saw she was wearing the rose that Ser Loras had given her yesterday. Jory had told him about that as well. —AGOT - Eddard VII

At this point in the Books, Sansa, as Alayne Stone, is organizing a Tourney to elect the members of Robert Arryn personal guard, named the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights. As the daughter of Petyr Baelish, Lord Protector of the Vale, Alayne Stone could be crowned as the Queen of Love and Beauty.

This is a contrast with Arya who thinks tourneys are stupid: "I don't care about their stupid tourney." —AGOT - Arya II

Failed betrothal to a Baratheon:

Both Lyanna and Sansa were betrothed with a Baratheon, Lyanna with Robert and Sansa with Joffrey:

If Lyanna had lived, we should have been brothers, bound by blood as well as affection. Well, it is not too late. I have a son. You have a daughter. My Joff and your Sansa shall join our houses, as Lyanna and I might once have done. —AGOT - Eddard I

There is also this parallel between Jenny of Oldstones, Lyanna & Sansa [I wrote about it here]:

Note the parallels between Duncan Targaryen, his betrothed Baratheon and Jenny of Oldstones & Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark and her betrothed Robert Baratheon: A Targaryen prince breaking an engagement with a member of House Baratheon that then originates a rebellion.

And this: Sansa was betrothed with Joffrey “Baratheon” and the engagement was broken in the middle of a war with Robb Stark leading an army against King Joffrey, and Jon almost breaking his vows to join Robb’s army to avenge Ned’s death and rescue their sisters. All of which makes me think about these parallels: Sansa being a hostage in King’s Landing & Lyanna’s “abduction”, Ned’s death & Rickard’s death, Robb’s death & Brandon’s death. And that leaves Jon to possibly play the role of Ned Stark in the future.

Basically if Jon and Sansa happens, they will parallel two stories: Rhaegar and Lyanna, a Targaryen/Stark couple; and Ned and Cat, a Stark/Tully couple.

And right now in the Books, Sansa Stark, under the disguise of Alayne Stone, is betrothed with a Robert-like young man: Harry Hardyn.

The Rose of Winterfell:

This is the tale:

According to free folk legend, Lord Brandon Stark, the liege of the north, once called Bael a coward. To take revenge for this affront and prove his courage, Bael climbed the Wall, took the kingsroad, and entered Winterfell under the guise of a singer named Sygerrik of Skagos. ("Sygerrik" means "deceiver" in the Old Tongue.) There, he sang until midnight for the lord.

Impressed by his skills as a singer, Lord Stark asked Bael what he wanted as a reward, but he requested only the most beautiful flower blooming in Winterfell's gardens. As the blue winter roses were just blooming, Brandon Stark presented him with one. The following morning, the maiden daughter of Lord Stark had disappeared, his only child, and in her bed was the blue winter rose.

Lord Brandon sent the members of the Night's Watch looking for them beyond the Wall, but they never found Bael or the girl. The Stark line was on the verge of extinction, when one day the girl was back in her room, holding in her arms an infant: they had actually never left Winterfell, staying hidden in the crypts. Bael's bastard with Brandon's daughter became the new Lord Stark.

Thirty years later, Bael was King-Beyond-the-Wall and led the wildlings' army south, and he had to fight his own son at the Frozen Ford. There, incapable of killing his own blood, he let himself be killed by Lord Stark. His son brought back Bael's head to Winterfell, and his mother who had loved the bard, seeing the trophy, killed herself by leaping from the top of a tower. The son was eventually slain by the Boltons.

[Source]

Ygritte told this story to Jon in ACOK - Jon VI, and it resembles Jon’s own story: Bael/Rhaegar (both harp players/bards) abducting/eloping Brandon's daughter/Lyanna, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell’. Immediately after this chapter, comes ACOK - Sansa IV, where she flowered for the first time, next chapter is Jon again. (Jon-Sansa-Jon).

Also take note that Sansa was “abducted” by Petyr Baelish, a known deceiver, whose surname has a resemblance with the name Bael.

Ladies of Winterfell

Lyanna’s and Lady’s bones are buried at Winterfell, what makes them literally Ladies of Winterfell:

"She was more beautiful than that," the king said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna's face, as if he could will her back to life. Finally he rose, made awkward by his weight. "Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?" His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. "She deserved more than darkness …" "She was a Stark of Winterfell," Ned said quietly. "This is her place." —AGOT - Eddard I

Shortly, Jory brought him Ice. When it was over, he said, “Choose four men and have them take the body north. Bury her at Winterfell.” “All that way?” Jory said, astonished. “All that way,” Ned affirmed. “The Lannister woman shall never have this skin.” —AGOT - Eddard III

Bran felt all cold inside. "She lost her wolf," he said, weakly, remembering the day when four of his father's guardsmen had returned from the south with Lady's bones. Summer and Grey Wind and Shaggydog had begun to howl before they crossed the drawbridge, in voices drawn and desolate. Beneath the shadow of the First Keep was an ancient lichyard, its headstones spotted with pale lichen, where the old Kings of Winter had laid their faithful servants. It was there they buried Lady, while her brothers stalked between the graves like restless shadows. She had gone south, and only her bones had returned. —AGOT - Bran VI

I wrote about this before:

Now, back to Lady’s death. We know that this event is a turning point in Sansa’s arc, but other than that, the paragraphs leading to the direwolf’s execution are laden with symbolism and foreshadowing, not only for Sansa, but for Ned as well.

During the “trial”, Ned decides that he will take Lady’s life himself, in order to avoid having a butcher like Ilyn Payne do the execution. Then, before he struck, he pronounced her name in the same fashion Robb and Jon called the name of their direwolves before they both died. This for me foreshadows Ned’s own death. Also, before Lady’s death, Ned pleads King Robert to change his decision on putting down the direwolf, appealing to the memory of Lyanna, the woman Robert loved. Similarly, before Ned’s execution at the steps of the Sept of Baelor, Sansa pleads King Joffrey to spare her father’s life, appealing to the love he has for her. As we know, both pleas fell on deaf ears and both Lady and Ned lost their lives; bringing the story full circle, as Ilyn Payne himself cut off Ned’s head.

Another interesting thing is that before Lady’s death we have direct and indirect references to Lyanna Stark. We have the direct reference when Ned appealed to the love Robert Baratheon bore Lyanna, in order to save Lady’s life, and the indirect one when he ordered Jory to choose four men to return Lady’s body to the north, to bury her in Winterfell. This order Ned gave to his men alludes to his own decision to take Lyanna’s body to Winterfell to be buried in the crypts, after her demise, brought on by her doomed love affair with Rhaegar Targaryen.

Dubious Loyalty?

Both Lyanna and Sansa got infatuated by Golden Princes: Rhaegar Targaryen and Joffrey Baratheon, and because of that they both unintentionally played a part in the deaths of their fathers and older brothers, Rickard and Brandon & Ned and Robb. They both also ended trapped in towers regretting their doomed romances.

As I mentioned before, I always thought that the Sansa from the original outline was very similar to Lyanna Stark. That Sansa was described as member of dubious loyalty for her family; but while Lyanna is glorified by the fandom, both Outline Sansa and Asoiaf Sansa are unfairly vilified for committing the same actions that Lyanna did.

Also, as it was pointed out before, Rickard Stark and Catelyn Stark both saw their firstborn sons murdered in front of them, while convinced that their daughters were far away being raped and abused by cruel princes, and then were brutally murdered themselves.

Dead before their time:

"She [Lyanna] was," Eddard Stark agreed, "beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time." —AGOT - Arya II

And so many others were missing. Where had the rest of them gone? Sansa wondered. Vainly, she searched for friendly faces. Not one of them would meet her eyes. It was as if she had become a ghost, dead before her time. —A Game Of Thrones, Sansa V

Lyanna and Lady (part of Sansa’s soul) both died in the south, before their time.

Lyanna’s ghost has haunted Cersei: Cersei wanted to marry Rhaegar but ended married with Robert. Both Rhaegar and Robert loved Lyanna.

Lady is mentioned in the Books as a “shade”, a synonym for ghost. And after Ned’s death, Sansa became a ghost at the Red Keep’s court.

And to finish this section, here some gifsets that illustrate some of the Lyanna & Sansa parallels that were mentioned:

Sansa Stark and Lyanna Stark + parallels

Pleading

She-wolves of Winterfell

Beautiful, Captivating Child-Women

Hidden Metal ft. hair parallels

Broken ‘Baratheon’ Engagements ft. more hair parallels

Fair Maidens

LYANNA & ARYA & SANSA

The wolf-blood:

I have already mentioned this aspect of Lyanna and Arya above, but Sansa has the wolf-blood too. It’s subtle, but it’s there:

"I've never seen an aurochs," Sansa said, feeding a piece of bacon to Lady under the table. The direwolf took it from her hand, as delicate as a queen. Septa Mordane sniffed in disapproval. "A noble lady does not feed dogs at her table," she said, breaking off another piece of comb and letting the honey drip down onto her bread. "She's not a dog, she's a direwolf," Sansa pointed out as Lady licked her fingers with a rough tongue. "Anyway, Father said we could keep them with us if we want." The septa was not appeased. "You're a good girl, Sansa, but I do vow, when it comes to that creature you're as willful as your sister Arya." She scowled. "And where is Arya this morning?" —AGOT - Sansa I

"It won't be so bad, Sansa," Arya said. "We're going to sail on a galley. It will be an adventure, and then we'll be with Bran and Robb again, and Old Nan and Hodor and the rest." She touched her on the arm. "Hodor!" Sansa yelled. "You ought to marry Hodor, you're just like him, stupid and hairy and ugly!" She wrenched away from her sister's hand, stormed into her bedchamber, and barred the door behind her. —AGOT - Sansa III

Jeyne yawned. "Are there any lemon cakes?" Sansa did not like being interrupted, but she had to admit, lemon cakes sounded more interesting than most of what had gone on in the throne room. "Let's see," she said. The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya. —AGOT - Sansa III

After my name day feast, I'm going to raise a host and kill your brother myself. That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother's head." A kind of madness took over her then, and she heard herself say, "Maybe my brother will give me your head." —AGOT - Sansa VI

Knights protect the innocent:

Lyanna, as herself and as the Knight of the Laughing Tree, defended Howland Reed, a bannerman of House Stark:

"None offered a name, but he marked their faces well so he could revenge himself upon them later. They shoved him down every time he tried to rise, and kicked him when he curled up on the ground. But then they heard a roar. 'That's my father's man you're kicking,' howled the she-wolf." "A wolf on four legs, or two?" "Two," said Meera. "The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen. There he met her pack brothers: the wild wolf who led them, the quiet wolf beside him, and the pup who was youngest of the four.

(...)

“Whoever he was, the old gods gave strength to his arm. The porcupine knight fell first, then the pitchfork knight, and lastly the knight of the two towers. None were well loved, so the common folk cheered lustily for the Knight of the Laughing Tree, as the new champion soon was called.” —ASOS - Bran II

Arya defended Mycah, the butcher’s boy:

Mycah shook his head. "It's only a stick, m'lord. It's not no sword, it's only a stick." "And you're only a butcher's boy, and no knight." Joffrey lifted Lion's Tooth and laid its point on Mycah's cheek below the eye, as the butcher's boy stood trembling. "That was my lady's sister you were hitting, do you know that?" A bright bud of blood blossomed where his sword pressed into Mycah's flesh, and a slow red line trickled down the boy's cheek. "Stop it!" Arya screamed. She grabbed up her fallen stick. Sansa was afraid. "Arya, you stay out of this." "I won't hurt him … much," Prince Joffrey told Arya, never taking his eyes off the butcher's boy. Arya went for him. Sansa slid off her mare, but she was too slow. Arya swung with both hands. There was a loud crack as the wood split against the back of the prince's head, and then everything happened at once before Sansa's horrified eyes. — AGOT - Sansa I

Sansa, as a lady armored with her courtesy and wits, defended a defenestrated knight turned fool:

The king stood. "A cask from the cellars! I'll see him drowned in it." Sansa heard herself gasp. "No, you can't." Joffrey turned his head. "What did you say?" Sansa could not believe she had spoken. Was she mad? To tell him no in front of half the court? She hadn't meant to say anything, only . . . Ser Dontos was drunk and silly and useless, but he meant no harm. "Did you say I can't? Did you?" "Please," Sansa said, "I only meant . . . it would be ill luck, Your Grace . . . to, to kill a man on your name day." "You're lying," Joffrey said. "I ought to drown you with him, if you care for him so much." "I don't care for him, Your Grace." The words tumbled out desperately. "Drown him or have his head off, only . . . kill him on the morrow, if you like, but please . . . not today, not on your name day. I couldn't bear for you to have ill luck . . . terrible luck, even for kings, the singers all say so . . ." Joffrey scowled. He knew she was lying, she could see it. He would make her bleed for this. "The girl speaks truly," the Hound rasped. "What a man sows on his name day, he reaps throughout the year." His voice was flat, as if he did not care a whit whether the king believed him or no. Could it be true? Sansa had not known. It was just something she'd said, desperate to avoid punishment. Unhappy, Joffrey shifted in his seat and flicked his fingers at Ser Dontos. "Take him away. I'll have him killed on the morrow, the fool." "He is," Sansa said. "A fool. You're so clever, to see it. He's better fitted to be a fool than a knight, isn't he? You ought to dress him in motley and make him clown for you. He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death." The king studied her a moment. "Perhaps you're not so stupid as Mother says." He raised his voice. "Did you hear my lady, Dontos? From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley." —ACOK - Sansa I

She-Wolves of Winterfell:

Lyanna and Arya are often referred as She-Wolves in the Books, but in a very subtle and poetical way, Sansa is referred as a She-Wolf too:

He smiled at her. "Now, wolf girl, if you can put a name to me as well, then I must concede that you are truly our Hand's daughter." —AGOT - Sansa I

"I forgot, you've been hiding under a rock. The northern girl. Winterfell's daughter. We heard she killed the king with a spell, and afterward changed into a wolf with big leather wings like a bat, and flew out a tower window. But she left the dwarf behind and Cersei means to have his head." —ASOS - Arya XIII

"May the Father judge him justly," murmured a septon. "The dwarf's wife did the murder with him," swore an archer in Lord Rowan's livery. "Afterward, she vanished from the hall in a puff of brimstone, and a ghostly direwolf was seen prowling the Red Keep, blood dripping from his jaws." —ASOS - Jaime VII

"Your Grace has forgotten the Lady Sansa," said Pycelle. The queen bristled. "I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf." She refused to say the girl's name. "I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son. —AFFC - Cersei IV

What a kick-ass reputation: Sansa, the wolf that killed King Joffrey!

Fond of Flowers:

Lyanna, Arya and Sansa are linked with flowers:

Ned could recall none of it. "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers." —A Game Of Thrones - Eddard I

None of which stopped Arya, of course. One day she came back grinning her horsey grin, her hair all tangled and her clothes covered in mud, clutching a raggedy bunch of purple and green flowers for Father. Sansa kept hoping he would tell Arya to behave herself and act like the highborn lady she was supposed to be, but he never did, he only hugged her and thanked her for the flowers. That just made her worse. Then it turned out the purple flowers were called poison kisses, and Arya got a rash on her arms. —AGOT - Sansa I

It was enough that she could walk in the yard, pick flowers in Myrcella's garden, and visit the sept to pray for her father. Sometimes she prayed in the godswood as well, since the Starks kept the old gods. —AGOT - Sansa V

"Do you require guarding?" Marillion said lightly. "I am composing a new song, you should know. A song so sweet and sad it will melt even your frozen heart. 'The Roadside Rose,' I mean to call it. About a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her." — ASOS - Sansa VII

Songs:

While Arya likes songs about heroes and adventures:

Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs. —Bran II - AGOT

She could stay with Hot Pie, or maybe Lord Beric would find her there. Anguy would teach her to use a bow, and she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs. —ASOS - Arya XII

Lyanna and Sansa are linked with singers and romantic songs and stories that move them to cry.

As I said before, the story about Bael the Bard and the Rose of Winterfell resembles Jon’s own story: Bael/Rhaegar (both harp players/bards) abducting/eloping Brandon's daughter/Lyanna, ‘the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell’. Sansa is also linked with this story, as was explained above.

The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle. —ASOS - Bran II

Later, while Sansa was off listening to a troupe of singers perform the complex round of interwoven ballads called the “Dance of the Dragons,” [sung in High Valyrian] Ned inspected the bruise himself. “I hope Forel is not being too hard on you,” he said. —AGOT - Eddard VII

She pulled a chair close to the hearth, took down one of her favorite books, and lost herself in the stories of Florian and Jonquil, of Lady Shella and the Rainbow Knight, of valiant Prince Aemon and his doomed love for his brother’s queen. —AGOT - Sansa IV

After the meal had been cleared away, many of the guests asked leave to go to the sept. Cersei graciously granted their request. Lady Tanda and her daughters were among those who fled. For those who remained, a singer was brought forth to fill the hall with the sweet music of the high harp. He sang of Jonquil and Florian, of Prince Aemon the Dragonknight and his love for his brother's queen, of Nymeria's ten thousand ships. They were beautiful songs, but terribly sad. Several of the women began to weep, and Sansa felt her own eyes growing moist. —ACOK - Sansa VI

So the singer played for her, so soft and sad that Arya only heard snatches of the words, though the tune was half-familiar. Sansa would know it, I bet. Her sister had known all the songs, and she could even play a little, and sing so sweetly. All I could ever do was shout the words.—A Storm of Swords - Arya IV

Once, when she was just a little girl, a wandering singer had stayed with them at Winterfell for half a year. An old man he was, with white hair and windburnt cheeks, but he sang of knights and quests and ladies fair, and Sansa had cried bitter tears when he left them, and begged her father not to let him go. “The man has played us every song he knows thrice over,” Lord Eddard told her gently. “I cannot keep him here against his will. You need not weep, though. I promise you, other singers will come.” They hadn’t, though, not for a year or more. Sansa had prayed to the Seven in their sept and old gods of the heart tree, asking them to bring the old man back, or better still to send another singer, young and handsome. But the gods never answered, and the halls of Winterfell stayed silent. But that was when she was a little girl, and foolish. She was a maiden now, three-and-ten and flowered. All her nights were full of song, and by day she prayed for silence. —A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

This is a contrast with Arya who thinks love songs are stupid: Another stupid love song. Lanna was always begging the singer to play her stupid love songs. —AFFC - Cat Of The Canals

So there you have it. There is more to say, but I think I covered the basics.

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #sansa stark #arya stark #lyanna stark

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mssr-moony-esq · 4 years ago

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Remus J. Lupin ~ A Christmas Story in Three Acts

Act I

Christmas Eve - 2001

He is six years old and everything hurts. It's the day after the first full moon after his father left, and it's been the worst one yet. The scar across his nose that becomes the most recognizable aspect of his body is fresh and new, loaded up with a ton of muggle antiseptic and the smell is stinging his nose. Mum is in the kitchen and she keeps crying. Remus does not. He's a big boy and daddy is gone so he can't cry. He has to be strong. Mum wants that from him.

Remus sits by the Christmas tree and fiddles with the lights strung across it and looks down. He sees the meager collection of presents under the tree and scowls when he see the one marked "Daddy" in his uneven letters. It's a book and he picked it out himself, with Mum at the bookshop. It's Call of the Wild and Remus had liked the dogs on the front cover. He liked the idea of a story about sled dogs, he likes them being free in the wild. It calls to something new inside of him. He doesn't know enough to feel bad about being a werewolf, and maybe if his dad can read a nice book about sort of wolves he'll stop being sad all the time.

But it's pointless now, his father is gone and mum won't stop crying and every part of his body hurts and hurts and hurts. Remus picks up the package and and tosses it into the fireplace with a kind of recklessness that he would only very rarely display. It's still burning when his mum comes back into the room with a fakely cheery "Happy Christmas" and holding a plate of cookies and hot chocolate. Remus is six but he knows how to lie already and he smiles at her and listens to the crackle of burning paper behind him.

Act II

Christmas Day- 2008

He is thirteen years old and he's at Hogwarts for Christmas. The moon had fallen on Christmas Eve exactly this year, and there was no way he could have gone home, even if his mum was desperate to have him. It was two year away from knowing exactly why, his mum didn't want him to grow up quite that fast, regardless of the fact that he already was quite grown up. He might be more or less alone on Christmas, but he doesn't mind, so much. Hogwarts feels more like home than any other home ever has. He has friends here, people that make an effort to understand him, that care about him. They may be home with thier families, but they love him anyway, he knows because they send him letters and gifts. It's new. Remus feels like it will never stop being new.

Like always, Madam Pomfrey is there when he wakes up, standing at the door of the shack with her medical bag and a robe. Today she's wearing a little Santa hat and smiles brightly at him, like he's not a naked, gangly teenager with blood dripping down into his eyes and a gash torn deep into the flesh of his right thigh. "Happy Christmas, darling," she says brightly and wraps him up. She chatters on while she tends to the worst of his wounds talking about how cheery the castle looks this morning and the fine feast waiting. When Remus doesn't respond, she falls silent and and just hums under her breath, some half remembered Christmas carol from before life went upside down.

He doesn't know he's crying until Madam Pomfrey wraps him up into a tight hug and runs her fingers gently over her hair. "No, no I'm fine," he says a few moments later, and it's true. He's just realized that he'd never felt more accepted, more himself in his entire life. There is no judgement, there is no hiding, not in this moment, not with his friends and when he goes back into the castle there will be medicine for the pain and there will be meals and there will be owls from his friends and it will be the best Christmas yet.

{ Madam Pomfrey stays the whole day with him. First it's just medicine and breakfast, and then it's her singing softly while he plays Christmas tunes on the violin. She watches him open his Christmas letters and presents, fondly and easily, with none of the caged anxiety his mother always watched him with. Later, they have spiced hot cider and and Remus tells her secrets that he always wanted to but never felt like he could tell her mother, fragile as she was. He cries again, several times, but when he's tucked in at the end of the day, he has a smile on his face. It was a good day. }

Act III

Christmas Night - 2015

He is twenty years old. Mum had a bad reaction to the current course of chemo overnight and she had to be admitted. The hospital is all fake cheer and brightly painted horror. The nurse gives his mother another dose of the Zofran, and she stops vomiting a few minutes later. She looks pale and wan though, and the nurse says its because she's dehydrated and that's what the fluids are for. Remus knows. It's not magical medicine, but he still knows. He did the research, he knows how it works. He used magic to look into his mother's chart earlier, the things he wasn't supposed to see. He knows her white blood cell count is low, too low. They will give her CSFs for that. Her red blood cell count is low too, and soon they will be hanging bags of blood and plasma and platelets so she doesn't bleed out the new blood they'll be pumping into her. He knows that every progress note the doctor writes ends with PROGNOSIS POOR. Remus has met with a Dr. Golden who works for the palliative care department and he talks about quality of life and pain control and time frames with and without treatment. He is twenty years old and he is an adult, but this feels too much for him, to be asked to make decisions for his mother who can't do it herself because the metastasis and the drugs make her hazy and forgetful and not herself.

She goes to sleep around ten pm and Remus knows he should stay with her, but he also can't. He feels like his skin is too tight and it'll start spilling out his insides on to the cold white tile.

So he leaves. He goes to James and Lily's first. He talks to Lily in halted tones about what he knows, what he fears, how impossible it is for him to know what to do. He doesn't cry then, but his fingers tremble and his voice feels like cut glass crawling out of his throat. Lily wants him to stay and he almost does, but their house is almost too bright and too happy and he loves them so, but he can't take it anymore, he can't be a burden on a happy day for them.

He goes to Sirius then, wanders outside his window and refuses to say anything until he's spotted because of course he is, who paces back and forth in front of someone's window like that in the middle of the night? Remus doesn't tell Sirius anything at all. He sits down on the curb out front and Sirius sits next to him. Eventually Remus pulls out a cigarette and hardly smokes it, watching the ash burn down to his fingers. At some point he leans his head on Sirius's shoulder. It's everything and not enough all at once.

He leaves when dawn starts to light the sky, and everything cuts at him like knives, the cold that's seeped down into his bones, the ache of his heart that feel fractured. He goes back to the rundown cottage he and his mother share, and knows then on some level that it will be his alone soon. Five years they say, five years at the most and they will be painful they will be hard. One year without treatment, but kinder and maybe Remus is a monster, but he want's everything done, he can't lose her too not now. Not ever, but especially not now. But nothing will change the fact that she's going to die. And soon, sooner or later.

He thinks about screaming, watching the snow melt off the windows from the kitchen sink. But then he remembers Lily and the soft way her hand clutched his, and James with his awkward but endearing concern watching from the doorway, knowing well enough not to intrude on the world that Remus and Lily could so often create around themselves. He remembers Sirius who just lets him exist in the quiet fucked up way that he is, even though it probably killed him not to try and fix it.

It occurs to him that if (when) his mother dies he won't actually be alone. It's a strange thing, a strange gift as Christmas Day faded into the odd time after Christmas and before the beginning of the New Year. He has people. He has family. It's something he probably ought to have known already, but this is honestly the first time it's occurred to him.

He's twenty years old, and he is old and young and alone and more connected than he has ever been in his life. It's everything and he looks out at the snow falling around him and smiles through tears.

#~i long for the raised voice the howl of rage or love~remus lupin #headcanon #luxrpchristmas

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weirdletter · 5 years ago

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In the Company of Wolves: Werewolves, Wolves and Wild Children, edited by Sam George and Bill Hughes, Manchester University Press, 2020. Info: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk.

In the company of wolves presents further research from the Open Graves, Open Minds Project. It connects together innovative research from a variety of perspectives on the cultural significance of wolves, wild children and werewolves as portrayed in different media and genres. We begin with the wolf itself as it has been interpreted as a cultural symbol and how it figures in contemporary debates about wilderness and nature. Alongside this, we consider eighteenth-century debates about wild children - often thought to have been raised by wolves and other animals - and their role in key questions about the origins of language and society. The collection continues with essays on werewolves and other shapeshifters as depicted in folk tales, literature, film and TV, concluding with the transition from animal to human in contemporary art, poetry and fashion.

Contents: Preface – Sam George Introduction: from preternatural pastoral to paranormal romance – Sam George and Bill Hughes Part I : C ultural images of the wolf, the werewolf and the wolf-child 1. Wolves and lies: a writer's perspective – Marcus Sedgwick 2. 'Man is a wolf to man': wolf behaviour becoming wolfish nature – Garry Marvin 3. When wolves cry: wolf-children, storytelling and the state of nature – Sam George 4. 'Children of the night. What music they make!': the sound of the cinematic werewolf – Stacey Abbott Part II: Innocence and experience: brute creation, wild beast or child of nature 5. Wild sanctuary: running into the forest in Russian fairy tales – Shannon Scott 6. 'No more than a brute or a wild beast': Wagner the Werewolf, Sweeney Todd, and the limits of human responsibility – Joseph Crawford 7. The inner beast: scientific experimentation in George MacDonald's 'The History of Photogen and Nycteris' – Rebecca Langworthy 8. Werewolves and white trash: brutishness, discrimination and the lower-class wolfman from The Wolf Man to True Blood – Victoria Amador Part III: Re-inventing the wolf: intertextual and metafictional manifestations 9. 'The price of flesh is love': commodification, corporeality, and paranormal romance in Angela Carter's beast tales – Bill Hughes 10. Growing pains of the teenage werewolf: Young Adult literature and the metaphorical wolf – Kaja Franck 11. 'I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself': the metafictional meanings of lycanthropic transformation in Doctor Who – Ivan Phillips Part IV: Animal selves: becoming wolf 12. A running wolf and other grey animals: the various shapes of Marcus Coates – Sarah Wade 13. 'Stinking of me': transformations and animal selves in contemporary women's poetry – Polly Atkin 14. Wearing the wolf: fur, fashion and species transvestism – Catherine Spooner Bibliography Index

#book #essay #weird essay #horror essay #gothic essay #weird studies #horror studies #werewolf #werewolf essay #werewolves #werewolf in popular fiction

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corvidics-blog · 5 years ago

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RWBY OST starters. (Vol. 1)

Red Like Roses

“Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest.”

“White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test.”

“Black the beast descends from shadows.”

“Yellow beauty burns gold.”

Mirror, Mirror

“Tell me who’s the loneliest of all?”

“Fear of what’s inside of me.”

“Tell me can a heart be turned to stone?”

“Mirror, mirror, what's behind you?”

“Save me from the things I see!”

“Why won't you let me hide from me?”

“I'm the loneliest of all.”

I Burn

“I’m more than meets the eye.”

“You think that you’ll break me.”

“You're standing too close to a flame that's burning.”

“Sending out your army, but you still can't win.”

“Listen up, silly boy, 'cause I'm gonna tell you why.”

“I burn!”

“Can't hold me now!”

“And you're not stopping me!”

“Swing all you want.”

“Like a fever I will take you down”

“Reign supreme? In your dreams.”

“You’ll never make me bow.”

“Kick my ass? I'm world-class.”

“You're starting up a fight that you just can't finish.”

“High as you can go, but I'm the one who's gonna soar.”

“I get what I want, so don't bother and just watch me burn.”

“Hotter than the sun.”

“Feel my fire.”

“Human Torch, can't fuck with me.”

“Strike 'em quick, lightning fast.”

“Melt them bitches down to ash.”

“Strike a match, ignite the scene.”

“Shit will never be the same.”

“Feel the fury of my flame.”

“Beg for mercy: it won't help.”

“Embrace the ending you were dealt.”

“Seems you fucks will never learn.”

“Now sit back and watch me burn.”

From Shadows

“All we wanted was a chance to live our lives.”

“Taking everything we want and we will rise.”

“From shadows, we'll descend upon the world, take back what you stole.”

“We'll reclaim our destiny. Set our future free.”

“Above the darkness and the shame.”

“Above the torture and the pain.”

“Above the ridicule and hate.”

“Above the binding of our fate.”

“Call us liars.”

“Tired of being pushed around and we will fly.”

This Will Be the Day

“They see you as small and helpless; They see you as just a child.”

“Surprise when they find out that a warrior will soon run wild.”

“Prepare for your greatest moments; Prepare for your finest hour.”

“The dream that you've always dreamed is suddenly about to flower.”

“We are lightning, straying from the thunder.”

“Miracles of ancient wonder.”

“This will be the day we've waited for.”

“This will be the day we open up the door.”

“I don't wanna hear your absolution; hope you're ready for a revolution.”

“Welcome to a world of new solutions.”

“Welcome to a world of bloody evolution.”

“In time, your heart will open minds.”

“A story will be told.”

“And victory is in a simple soul.”

“Your world needs a great defender.”

“Your world's in the way of harm.”

“You want a romantic life; a fairytale that's full of charm.”

“Beware that the light is fading; beware if the dark returns.”

“This world's unforgiving, even brilliant lights will cease to burn.”

“Legends scatter.”

“Day and night will sever.”

“Hope and peace are lost forever.”

Gold

“Dream of anything; I'll make it all come true.”

“Everything you need is all I have for you.”

“I'm forever always by your side.”

“Whenever you need a friend, I’m never far behind.”

“If the stars all fall, when there's no more light, and the moon should crumble, it will be alright.”

“Don't you worry about the dark, I will light up the night with the love in my heart.”

“I will burn like the sun, I will keep you safe and warm.”

“Like the smell of a rose on a summer's day, I will be there to take all your fears away.”

“With a touch of my hand, I will turn your life to gold.”

“Let's have everything.”

“Nothing we cannot do.

“Every heart just beaming.”

“Every sky turns blue.”

“I'm so happy, just to have you here.”

“When the days turn dark, and we start to fall,

I will pick you up and we will fix it all.”

“Don't worry, I've got you.”

“Nothing will ever harm you.”

“I'm close by, I'll stay here.”

“Through all things, I will be near.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Don't you cry.”

“Love's around you.”

“In time, you'll fly.”

I May Fall

“There's a day when all hearts will be broken.”

“When a shadow will cast out the light.”

“And our eyes cry a million tears.”

“Help won't arrive.”

“There's a day when all courage collapses.”

“And our friends turn and leave us behind.”

“Creatures of darkness will triumph.”

“The sun won't rise.”

“When we've lost all hope, and succumb to fear.”

“As the skies rain blood.”

“And the end draws near.”

“I may fall.”

“But not like this – it won't be by your hand.”

“Not this place, not today.”

“Bring it all – it's not enough to take me down.”

“There's a place where we'll stand outnumbered.”

“Where the wolves and the soulless will rise.”

“In the time of our final moments.”

“Every dream dies.”

“There's a place where our shields will lay shattered.”

“And the fear's all that's left in our hearts.”

“Strength and our courage have run out.”

“We fall apart.”

“There's a moment that changes a life when we do something that no one else can.”

“And the path that we've taken will lead us.”

“One final stand.”

“There's a moment we make a decision not to cower and crash to the ground.”

“The moment we face our worst demons, our courage found.”

“When we stand with friends and we won't retreat.”

“As we stare down death.”

“Then the taste is sweet.”

Red Like Roses pt. II

“I couldn't take it, couldn't stand another minute.”

“Couldn't bear another day without you in it.”

“All of the joy that I had known for all my life was stripped away from me the minute that you died.”

“To have you in my life was all I ever wanted.”

“But now without you I'm a soul forever haunted.”

“Can't help but feel that I had taken you for granted.”

“No way in hell that I can ever comprehend this.”

“I wasn't dreaming when they told me you were gone.”

“I was wide awake and feeling that they had to be wrong.”

“How could you leave me when you swore that you would stay?”

“Now I'm trapped inside a nightmare every single f'ing day.”

“It's like a movie, but there's not a happy ending.”

“Every scene fades black, and there's no pretending.”

“This little fairy tale doesn't seem to end well.”

“There's no knight in shining armor who will wake me from the spell.”

“I know you didn't plan this.”

“You tried to do what's right.”

“But in the middle of this madness, I'm the one you left to win this fight.”

“Red like roses.”

“Fills my head with dreams and finds me.”

“Always closer to the emptiness and sadness that has come to take the place of you.”

“I know you're broken down by anger and by sadness.”

“You feel I left you in a world that's full of madness.”

“Wish I could talk to you, if only for a minute.”

“Make you understand the reasons why I did it.”

“I wanna tell you that you're all that ever mattered.”

“Want you to know that, for eternity, I'm shattered.”

“I tried so hard just to protect you, but I failed to.”

“And in a prison of abandonment I've jailed you.”

“I never planned that I would leave you there alone.”

“I was sure that I would see you when I made it back home.”

“And all the times I swore that it would be okay.”

“Now I'm nothing but a liar, and you're thrown into the fray.”

“This bedtime story ends with misery ever after.”

“The pages are torn, and there's no final chapter.”

“I didn't have a choice, I did what I had to do.”

“I made a sacrifice, but forced a bigger sacrifice on you.”

“I know you've lived a nightmare.”

“I caused you so much pain.”

“But, baby, please don't do what I did.”

“I don't want you to waste your life in vain.”

“You're not the only one who needed me; I thought you understood.”

“You were the one I needed, and you left me as I always feared you would.”

“Would I change it if I could?”

“It doesn't matter how.”

“The petals scatter now.”

“Every nightmare just discloses.”

“It's your blood that's red like roses.”

“And no matter what I do, nothing ever takes the place of you.”

Wings

One life, is not a long time.”

“When you're waiting for a small sign.”

“Patience is hard to find.”

“Shadows seem to fill your life.”

“Don't be disappointed.”

“Don't let your heart break.”

“Don't spend another minute in this way.”

“It's okay.”

“Dry your eyes now, baby.”

“Broken wings won't hold you down.”

“You'll take flight soon, baby.”

“You'll be lifted up, and you'll be there.”

“Twelve hours is a long night when you're searching with no hope in sight.”

“I know that it seems pointless.”

“I know that it feels fake.”

“I know you can't stand the thought of being stray.”

“One more day.”

#rp meme #roleplay meme #rp starters #roleplay starters #roleplay sentence meme #lyric meme #;; out of uniform (ooc)

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loveoaths · 6 years ago

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It’s upsets me that Haku died in like the first episode thank you for bringing him back

THE SIX IMPERFECT LIVES OF HAKU YUKI.

CW: character death, hospitalization, suicidal desires, ambiguous self-harm mentions.

cursed.i. he makes it as far as sarabetsu before they catch him. the survivors of what will one day be called the shimamaki slaughter but is currently whispered about as the curse follow him to a pitiful den he’s dug in the side of a snowback & haul him out by his ankles. he is too weak to fight back. they lash him to a tree, leaving him for the wolves. one less survivor.

faithful.ii. he wants naruto to kill him, he does, but he wants zabuza to live more than he wants to die. senbon burrow through the still-developing tendons in naruto’s neck & legs, cutting off the boiling red chakra; snuffing out a flame. haku does not stop to cry or honor his opponent. enough time has already been wasted. his fingers flash through the seals before the mist swallows him up once more. two more young lights to blow out. then it will be all over.

timeless.iii. involuntary in-patient stays are bothersome & boring. as soon as he’s able haku takes to walking the halls of st. mercy hospital, one hand plucking at his bracelet as the other trails along walls as smooth & white as eggshells. it gets him a few odd looks, but he doesn’t care. either they’ll release him soon or he’ll escape; he’s yet to find a facility capable of restraining him. he’ll be here a month, at most. but then he takes a wrong turn into the terminal ward & meets kimimaro & suddenly the countdown reverses. he needs more time. they need more time. but once again the universe ignores his pleas.

found.iv. zabuza kills people for a living, which ought to scare a ten year old kid shitless, but haku doesn’t seem to mind. he knows most of them are bad people like the ones zabuza snatched him from, & besides, he’s come to enjoy the wild freedom of it all: traveling town to town across the country, falling asleep to bump ‘n jump of zabuza’s pickup truck over forgotten roads, smelling the buttery cloy of gun oil when it was his turn to wipe the tools down & immediately thinking home. it doesn’t hurt that he doesn’t have to go to school, neither.

half-baked.v. yuki haku treasures & respects haruno sakura, but truth be told he really fucking hates her friends. like, yeah, haku knows he’s kind of neurotic & particular & fastidious in his own way just like everyone else on the pre-med track, sakura included, but it’s not until sakura invites him & some of her college & high school friends to her family’s cabin in the woods for winter break that he realizes there are three new categories of crazy he’s never witnessed before: sasuke, naruto, & sai.

royal.vi. his name is yuki haku, but according to twitter his fans have recently started calling him the ice prince. it’s not his favorite title by a longshot, & he’s not certain he loves the imperialist connotations, but when he’s out there on the ice, shifting seamlessly from lutzes to salchows to axels to spins, he is 100% in his element. the rink is his domain. winter, his dominion. he is an untouchable force, an extension of water disguised as a young man, & every time he takes center stage he has only one command: dance, water, dance.

#cw self harm #cw death #cw hospitalization #idk this has been in my drafts forever it makes 0 sense but here u go thanks for waiting #Anonymous #( complete. )#( drabble. )#lmk if this needs a readmore

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heavenofficialsbl · 6 years ago

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H.O.B. Chapter 7

The Ghost Holds a Wedding, the Crown Prince Climbs Onto the Marriage Sedan part ii

Howdy hi my guys! Hope all is going well. I’m very excited for more Bride!XieLian... Here we go with chapter 7!

The fact that Fu Yao and Nan Feng couldn’t stand on one side of the sedan for fear of tipping it to one side, even with 8 military officials also carrying it, shows how ridiculous their innate strength is compared to humans

Well it totally makes sense that they just want people who they don’t have to worry about if/when they come under attack. With two martial gods gods from Middle Heaven and one martial god from Upper Heaven, there probably isn’t a whole lot that humans can do to help them out, strength-wise

Poor many men, made to carry a bride. I wonder if they know that the ‘bride’ is a man, or if they’re actually going to find this thing to kill it. I want to see their reaction when he takes off the veil!

Fu Yao just can’t loose any possible chance to tease

You remembered the men but forgot the women! Might be for the best, though, the fewer people there when the monster attacks, the better

There’s only one thing worse than a bridegroom.... A child

Ohhhhh spoopy, only Xie Lian can hear. This way, the whole procession doesn’t suspect anything

Oh god, why is it always singing children

Okay, so the reason that all of the attacks were so spread out was because it depended on the reaction of the bride to the song whether or not she lived or died. If she responded the correct way to the song, she would be fine, similar to the ghost Xie Lian fought on the bridge 800 years prior

Its true, though, they want ‘the worst’ to happen. He WANTS to be taken

Xie Lian responded, “Ever since I sat onto the sedan, I’ve never stopped smiling.”

Out of excitement for the coming action? Excited for finally working as a heavenly official again? Excited he got to dress as a bride? They mentioned earlier that it was common for women to cry in the sedan, so maybe he did the opposite to try and attract the bridegroom?

Wild, vicious wolves???? Excellent! We’re in the right spot! Compared to the Wrath level monster they’ll be facing, though, wolves are nothing

It’s at this point that I’ll just ‘nope’ on out of the marriage sedan, thanks

“Base slave”? ... lets see...

It was said that originally, base slaves were human. However, if one looked at them now, even if they were people, one could only say they were deformed humans. It had a head and a face, but they looked vague and unclear. They had legs and arms, but they were too weak to walk on. They had a mouth and teeth, but it would take them forever to bite someone to death.

They seem to be intelligent, since they were once human, and coordinate their attacks in order to get their prey by tangling them in their arms and legs... Hot

Alone they’e not bad, but when attacking with other, they seem to be quite troublesome

Base slaves were truly a very disgusting existence.

I think they’re just misunderstood

JK they sound nasty

Ling Wen sent you guys to figure out what manner of monster was attacking brides! She sent you because she DIDN’T know!

I’m not surprised there are so many, they’ve been attacking people for over a hundred years

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE

Hes pulling a freaking Rock Lee and using his bandages!!! Though its totally different xD

Xie Lian responded, “There would inevitably be exceptions to everything……”

Well I was curious as to how he had been fighting for 800 years. I’m sure he’s learned a lot of ways to make up for his lack of spiritual power

Poor Xie Lian is getting slapped a lot lately

Is he thinking that Xie Lian is using resentful energy? (can you use it without being able to access your core?) I don’t think he’d be so furious for any other reason

Did Feng Xin slap you a lot in the past, Xie Lian? xD

Whaaaaaat, now its Fu Yao being the reasonable one?

So... To a heavenly official, with their high level of spiritual power, base slaves aren’t a problem. To the middle level gods, they’re quite troublesome. However, Xie Lian, even without ANY spiritual power at all, manages to kill nearly a hundred in just moments, where the two younger god were really struggling. I don’t blame them for being confused and on edge

You know, he didn’t ascend to Heaven three times for his cooking or sewing skills

Oh come on, are we being this cheesy?! Is this the love interest?! The red string of fate?!

It could totally not be, but a ‘slender, well defined, pale-white’ sounds pretty love-interest-y to me

Okay I’m so ready to see a handsome man

Lets get it GOING

Alright, well, until tomorrow then! Thanks for reading <3

-Bee

#hob read through #HOB Liveblog #tian guan ci fu #mo xiang tong xiu #heavenly officials blessing

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theheavymetalmama · 7 years ago

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Katie Reviews “Far Cry 5″

Doctor Stupidlove

Another day, another Far Cry game. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing depends on person to person with a laundry list of variables, including but not limited to personal taste and sensibilities, franchise fatigue, whether or not you bought into the glue-huffing guff that this game held a leftist bias pushing an anti-white, anti-American agenda because for the first time in the series the bad guys are an American fanatically religious death cult instead of brown people from imaginary foreign countries, and a myriad of other things I’m probably missing. I’ll say up front that after Primal and a bunch of other bullshit from Ubisoft between now and the infamous ‘women are too hard to animate’ thing I was pretty much done with the series and Ubisoft as a whole. Then the launch trailer for Far Cry 5 dropped and, having grown up in a dead gold mining community chock-full of racist loonies not unlike the one depicted in the fictional Hope County, my interest immediately peaked.

See, the Far Cry games have a strange pattern to them. No game is perfect, but the Far Cry games stand out in that they have one glaring flaw that mars an otherwise damn good game. Far Cry 3 is held aloft as when the series peaked, and for good reason, but the main character was irredeemably unlikable and the main charismatic villain just up and vanishes from the halfway point in the game. Far Cry 4, or Far Cry 3 2 as some call it, fixed the villain problem but the main character was just dull. Primal was...not good, with a boring lead, a boring villain, and an overall boring game. Sure, Blood Dragon was a ton of fun, but part of the charm was that it was completely self-aware of its’ own absurdity and the characters from the hero to the villain weren’t characters so much as they were walking punchlines.

So how does Far Cry 5 compare? Well, when it comes to story, setting, and gameplay, it’s a step up from Far Cry 4 in some ways, blows Primal out of the water, but has its’ own issues and hang-ups that don’t quite make it live up to Far Cry 3. That’s the short version, anyway. The long version?

Let’s start with graphics, location, and aesthetics. Far Cry 5 looks fucking beautiful.

I’m not kidding, everything from the wild lands, the forests, the mountains, the lakes and rivers, the settlements, everything in Far Cry 5 is absolutely gorgeous. It’s not quite up there with Breath of the Wild or Horizon: Zero Dawn in sheer style and detail, but it’s pretty damn close. More often than not I found myself forgetting about the mission and spending a lot of time exploring, hunting, and trying to take in the sights. More on the ‘trying’ part in a bit. The atmosphere sucks you right in, everything from the chirping birds and buzzing bees making the world feel alive. Exploring the woods and hearing cultist singing and chanting far off in the distance, especially at night, is legitimately terrifying. Wildlife always plays a key role in the Far Cry games and this is no exception, from docile deer to the always pleasant wolverine providing plenty of opportunities for hunting. Just don’t get skunked.

The game takes place in Hope County, a fictional region in rural Montana. Now I’ve never actually been to Montana, but I did grow up in Washington state and I can’t help but notice many similarities. The woods, the rivers, the god damned apple farms, exploring Hope County felt like I was going home again. Sometimes not for the better, but that’s neither here nor there. In any case, Hope County is beautifully detailed, from the farms to forest to the interiors of the (ugh...) Spread Eagle bar to the small hunting cabins out in the woods. Hats off to the artists and environmental designers for Far Cry 5, because they manage to tell more story about the world and characters with just a ransacked pumpkin farm and a dog mourning his dead owners than Square Enix and Konami ever could with a 20 minute cutscene and a dictionary’s worth of dialogue for each character.

Speaking of characters, the Far Cry games are loaded with memorable characters and the locals of Hope County are no exception. Returning character Hurk is back and as redneck-y as ever, and it turns out Hope County is his home. We also meet members of his family, like his pyromaniac cousin Sharky, his promiscuous mother Adelaide and her boyfriend Xander who’s roughly 1/3rd her age, and his racist conspiracy theorist gun-hoarding father Hurk Sr. No wonder he’s so messed up.

But Hurk and his folks aren’t the only people you meet, as the game is packed to the brim with memorable characters that you either love or love to hate, from lovable country boy Nick Rye and half-feral huntress Jess Black to the cartoonishly evil Seed family. More on them in a minute. Oh, and you get a pet bear named Cheeseburger.

Combat and gunplay is as tight as ever, and vehicle control is so smooth it gives Grand Theft Auto a run for its’ money. The soundtrack is pretty damn good, featuring a good mix of licensed and original music and songs. To the surprise of nobody my favorite is the one that plays during the stunt missions.

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Leveling and character progress has been streamlined a bit. You upgrade your skills not by gaining experience, but by completing in-game challenges and finding ‘perk magazines’ that, you guessed it, give you points to unlock...well, perks. Some may not like that, but in my opinion it makes sense because if you gained experience just by killing stuff you’d reach level 50 before your first boss fight. Things like bigger ammo bags and extra weapon holsters are no longer unlocked by animal skins but through perks, and said said skins are now exclusively a form of making money.

So that about covers it for the good, and now it’s time for the bad. The streamlining I just brought up both helps and hurts the game. On one hand it does make progressing a lot less tedious, but on the other hand it does take away a lot of what makes Far Cry stand out from other typical shooters. It feels less like they were trimming the fat and more like they were cutting corners. For starters, areas that contain loot only contain ammo, crafting components, and sometimes money. There’s no more animations for skinning animals, harvesting plants, looting corpses, or even your character opening doors. That’s not so bad, but I really miss how dynamic and, as much as I’ve grown to detest this word, cinematic meeting new characters in previous games were. Take a look at this scene in Far Cry 4 when you meet Longinus, easily one of the highlights of the game.

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And here’s what happens when you meet Sharky in Far Cry 5. (MINOR SPOILERS)

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See the difference? Now one can argue that meeting new characters in real time saves some...well, time and is considerably less pretentious, but it just isn’t as interesting. Far Cry 5 still has plenty of scripted cutscenes, but again, they’ve been stripped down to the bone.

Now remember what I said earlier about trying to take in the sights? This game is packed to the fucking gills with enemy NPCs. Now previous Far Cry games had plenty of enemies as well but this went way overboard to the point that you can’t walk or drive 50 feet before running into a convoy or roadblock or whatever. I speak no hyberbole when I say that by the time you’ve liberated your first region, you’ll have killed more cultists than there are people currently living in real-life Montana as well as hunted and skinned more wolves, cougars, and bears than there are wolves, cougars, and bears currently populating the US west coast. Also, in what universe can a fucking turkey pose a legitimate threat to humans!? Does Far Cry occupy the same universe as fucking South Park?

The story of Far Cry 5 is pretty straight forward, but it definitely feels like there’s some pretty big pieces missing from it. This isn’t just me, critics and players across the board agree that it feels like something was cut from the game at the last minute. This is especially true for the endings, but more on that in a bit. I can’t help but feel that the writers and developers had a lot more to say about racism, gender roles and the enforcement thereof, gun violence and gun culture in America, sexism, religious zealotry, far-right extremism, and of course this tire fire of a presidential administration, because the pieces for all of that are still there. A handful of NPCs mention gender roles for a hot second, several of the guns for hire make disparaging remarks about Trump, the symbol of Eden’s Gate strongly resembles the same symbol the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups use, Hurk’s dad is a caricature of far-right ideals purposefully exaggerated for ridicule and contempt, and there’s even a mission where you meet up with another returning character to find Trump’s pee-tape.

All of the elements are there, but the game says almost nothing about any of it. Why?

When the first trailer for the game dropped it was around the same time Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus was close to release and the same mouth-breathing shitheels who screamed about how killing Nazis in Wolfenstein was pushing an anti-white, anti-conservative agenda did the same thing for Far Cry 5. My guess is that the PR guys at Ubisoft saw the oxygen-thieving wastes of space screaming about how the game was “anti-white SJW propaganda” and then panicked and removed huge chunks of the game so as not to alienate any racist shitheads who may want to buy it. Not only does the game say almost nothing about any of the themes and elements that I mentioned earlier, but the cult of Eden’s Gate is multi-racial and gendered where most of the guys have long hair and hipster beards and all the women barring Faith Seed have short hair and buzz cuts. It’s really jarring and feels like something that was added at the last minute, as the male cultists all sound the same and the female cultists say hardly anything at all.

That brings us to the player character; they’re aren’t a character, they’re an avatar and silent protagonist. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it feels strange. Especially when you play as a female, which I did. Now the character creation itself is fine, especially with the wide variety of outfits, but the rest is pretty bare bones. More to the point, it’s painfully obvious they designed the game with a male lead in mind and then added a gender-switch as an afterthought. Almost everyone in the game refers to you by male pronouns (which to be fair I call my ladyfriends ‘dude’ all the time) but there are a few scenes where you’re found shirtless in the game. Now call me old-fashioned, but I’d have a bit stronger of a reaction than “Oh, you startled me” if I woke up to some weirdo carving the word ‘wrath’ into my tits! I have a sneaking suspicion that they added a gender switch at the last minute because someone reminded them of the time they looked like lazy idiots for claiming your customizable assassin in Assassin’s Creed: Unity couldn’t be a woman because women were too hard to animated.

And now, let’s finally talk about the Seed Family.

We have the leader Joseph Seed, the trainer and disgraced soldier Jacob, the sadistic second in command John, and the seductress Faith. The Far Cry games are known for their charismatic villains and the seeds are no exception, and especially gripping because the second you meet any single one of them you immediately want them dead. The only problem is that, again, they’re so cartoonishly evil that the more you see them the more you want to shove them crotch-first into the mouth of a hungry grizzly bear. Vaas was always one step ahead of you and constantly in your face and Pagan Min was so suave and charming that you kind of wanted to see where he was going with it all.

Not the case with the seeds. When you see them they immediately piss you off, and the more you see them they just keep pissing you off because they keep hiding behind doors, cronies, hallucinations, or plot devices. And hey, that’s fine. As long as you get to shove the barrel of a shotgun right into their mouth and spatter their brains all over the walls of their church then who cares, right?

....

So, let’s talk about the endings of the game.

Once you’ve liberated all three regions of Hope County by killing John, Jacob, and Faith, you return to the main cult compound to arrest Joseph once again. However, once you get there and cuff him you step outside to find your allies under the brainwashing influence of the drug Bliss and a boss fight ensues. When you knock your allies out and revive them, they snap out of their Bliss-induced stupor and turn on Joseph, and once you’ve freed all of them Joseph drops like a hot rock. When Joseph is down and the day is won...this happens.

....no, really.

Right the fuck out of nowhere a nuke lands somewhere in the outskirts of Hope County and you scramble to escape, and pretty soon you black out and wake up in a bunker chained to a bed with Joseph hovering over you saying that you’ll be his first new recruit in the cult. All the allies you previously made die as Hope County is wiped off the map and the game ends, not even giving you a continuation like previous games did and rendering every single thing you did up to this point totally and utterly meaningless.

Now some people have defended this, including the developers, saying that there are radio broadcasts in-game talking about how tensions are raising in Russia and North Korea. I spent hours driving around in the game listening to the radio and I heard no such thing, but if they’re indeed there then this only furthers my suspicion that this was a last-minute change because of the backlash from racist shitbirds and wasn’t the ending the writers and developers originally intended.

For starters, the escalating tensions between Russia, the US, and North Korea aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the game except in the radio broadcasts (which again, I never heard) and despite the Seeds going on and on about “the collapse” we never get any idea of what the collapse is until the end of the game. It’s not even a convincing depiction of a nuke going off! Just some burning trees and a few animals dropping dead as you make your escape with Joseph in tow and neither of you having so much as a sunburn. If this ending was what they planned from the start then they would have went all out, showing in graphic detail the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. How much of a gut-punch would it have been to see Nick Rye hug his wife and newborn daughter just before the skin is blasted off their bones like that scene in Terminator 2 that made me avoid mesh fences for two fucking years? Or Jess run one of her own arrows through her heart to spare herself an agonizing death? Or hell, Hurk, one of the few returning characters in Far Cry, desperately begging the player for help as his face melts off his skull? That would have hit players and hit players hard and people, myself included, wouldn’t be bitching about how out of nowhere and shit the ending is! And that’s to say nothing of the idea of North Korea wasting one of the handful of nukes they have on rural fucking Montana! Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, Ubisoft, how fucking stupid do you think we are!?

...okay, fair enough. But still!

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “Well, damn, that’s grim. Anyway, what’s the good ending like?”

That IS the good ending.

No, I’m not even kidding. Despite the end scenario being Doctor Strangelove by way of Deliverance (and no, that’s not me being snarky, the game references the movie by playing “We’ll Meet Again” during the final cutscene) that’s the good ending because you, the player, are still alive. The bad ending is that after you arrest Seed and see your friends and allies under the influence of Bliss, you’re given the option to let him go and walk away. You then then your Bliss-induced allies walk with Joseph peacefully into the church and then leave with the same three people, in which they get into a car and leave while chatting about getting the army involved and taking Seed out once and for all. One of them then turns on the radio, the song “Only You” plays, and a red haze takes over the screen just before the credits roll heavily implying that you succumbed to the brainwashing drug (which you’re exposed to several times in the game) and either attacked or killed the people you spent the time in the game trying to save. Either way, each ending renders your actions completely and utterly meaningless.

Why did they do this? Well, partially because the Far Cry writers really love the “There is no objective good or evil, everything and everyone is equally terrible” cliche and they assume everyone else does too, but once again I have no doubt in my mind that the ‘good’ ending wasn’t the original ending and was in fact a last-minute change to appease angry racists in order to not alienate what Ubisoft thinks is their core demographic. What a bucket of cocks.

Final Thoughts

Now despite the endings being complete and utter hot garbage that renders all your actions meaningless, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in Far Cry 5. The combat is satisfying, base jumping and flying around never gets old, the characters are great, and despite chickening out on the themes introduced it’s still a plenty serviceable story. It won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, and if you’re looking for some post-2016 return of the Nazis catharsis then I’d go with Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus instead, but there’s still plenty fun to be had exploring the beautiful wilds of Northwest America while gunning down religious nutjobs, hunting dangerous game, and completing side-quests from uprooting doomsday prepper bunkers to making a bull testicle cook-off to raise morale possible.

B-

A solid B-

#Far Cry #Far Cry 5 #Ubisoft #review #Nick Rye #Jess Black #Cheeseburger #Joseph Seed #John Seed #Jacob Seed #Faith Seed #testy festy

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ronniemars · 2 years ago

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White Wolves: A Cry in the Wild II | 1993 | dir. Catherine Cyran

#white wolves: a cry in the wild 2 #ami dolenz #mark paul gosselaar #amy o'neill #matt mccoy #david moscow #marc riffon

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liesandarbor · 7 years ago

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A Falling Star in Westeros Pt I: Analyzing Ashara Dayne

Part I of V in a collection of writings regarding the mysterious and ‘late’ Ashara Dayne, her potential effect on narrative, and compelling arguments for and against her fate. Part I explores House Dayne and Ashara's timeline during the Rebellion and other perspectives surrounding her character.

Naught Like a Tourney to Make the Blood Run Hot

"There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one." "Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure." "No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to visit them from time to time." -Bran II, ASOS

Fleeting recollections of Robert’s Rebellion hit the pages of A Song of Ice and Fire... and dissipate almost immediately. The blazing heat of romance between Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark casts a shadow throughout the plot, while secondary tragic romances fill in the cracks created by war, loss and rising tensions. 279 - 283 AC were complete blockbuster years: Westerosi A-Listers, action packed war scenes, and as we pry tape off corners and remove neatly laid packaging materials, we reveal a story that more than exceeds its genre’s expectations.

Where other authors retcon plots to accommodate twists and suspension of disbelief, (looking at you, Orson Scott Card), details planted by George RR Martin don’t scream ‘trickery’; he doesn’t cheapen the original package. Instead, each twist is organically grown, supported by established character motivations, and carefully precedented in the pages.

Through PTSD-riddled unreliable narrators, we hurdle into a tale of heightened catastrophe and romance. The ringing of steel, maidens in silk, heated urgency of young lovers linger in the air; and a bone-chilling refrain of death (promise me, she cried).

The kidnapping of Lyanna Stark remains the focus of the Rebellion, but in that story’s telling, we are introduced to several other key players. The most prominent establishing is offered up in A Storm of Swords. Where Martin builds the mystery surrounding Robert’s Rebellion in the first two books, Bran II offers us a deeper look at everyone involved:

"That evening there was to be a feast in Harrenhal, to mark the opening of the tourney, and the she-wolf insisted that the lad attend. He was of high birth, with as much a right to a place on the bench as any other man. She was not easy to refuse, this wolf maid, so he let the young pup find him garb suitable to a king's feast, and went up to the great castle. "Under Harren's roof he ate and drank with the wolves, and many of their sworn swords besides, barrowdown men and moose and bears and mermen. The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle, but when her pup brother teased her for crying she poured wine over his head. A black brother spoke, asking the knights to join the Night's Watch. The storm lord drank down the knight of skulls and kisses in a wine-cup war. The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf . . . but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench. -Bran II ASOS

Our first glimpse at Harrenhal players arrive through the eyes of Howland Reed, echoed in his daughter’s voice. From the Stark family to Yoren, Robert Baratheon to Richard Lonmouth, we find a vibrant distraction from the melancholy centerpiece: a beautiful, dancing maid with purple eyes.

The first daughter of an ancient Dornish house, Ashara Dayne materializes in and out of pages like stardust. A beautiful young woman with a seemingly brighter future, sent to the capital to further her station and serve her liege lords of House Martell. She ends in the summer sea, buried beneath rumors of a fatal tragedy; suicide, losing a child and brother in the war.

So, Ashara’s voice is taken from the narrative before readers chance to hear it. Instead, secondhand rumors from point of view characters detail her character. Where we search for a single grain of truth in Ashara’s story, theories and ideas tend to crop up out of nowhere.

The Mysterious Life of House Dayne

The family with strangely hued eyes and lineage supposedly dates back to the Dawn Age. Through various speculation and soft facts, the closest thing to a Dayne Rebellion family timeline I could create while deciphering Ned Dayne’s parentage was born (That theory is originally found at link, but for the time being, explanation helps this updated timeline go down smoothly).

**note: Gerold Dayne was left out of the table, due to lack of effect on Ashara and as a cadet branch of House Dayne. While we may get House Dayne exposition from him in The Winds of Winter, it is not likely his timeline of birth is relevant to this piece.

***Mom/Dad are complete speculation- there is no canonical information in the books to go off besides Ashara’s semi-solid birth parameters, and the vague idea that the mom would probably birth their first son between the ages of 15-25

Mom and Dad Dayne: 230-240 AC Birth, 280-294 AC Death

For the Eldest Dayne to become Lord of Starfall, and Edric’s birth in 287 AC, the parents would die between 280-294 - allowing Eldest Dayne to act as Lord (betrothals/political moves for Edric and Allyria). If Allyria is the daughter of the Mom/Dad Dayne, they had to be alive 279-283 AC (see below). Birth dates are speculated from the latest birth dates for the Eldest Dayne, aging them 15-25 at Eldest Dayne’s birth and 33-43 at Allyria’s. This fits Mom Dayne to a similar age as Joanna Lannister and unnamed Martell mother, although that doesn’t denote canon. We may never get a clear view on the Dayne Parents in the narrative, although Elio Garcia confirmed we will at least find out more on the Dayne Family Tree in the future books.

*Note: Though unnamed in ASOIAF canon, a Game of Thrones Easter Egg names the Dayne father “Beric” - talk about Daddy Issues for Allyria, huh?

Eldest Dayne: 250-255 AC Birth (Lord of Starfall 287 AC - 297) 294-297 AC Death

With nothing to go on besides “Edric’s father was the Lord of Starfall until Edric was”, the Eldest Dayne clocks in at 10 or fewer years between Arthur and him. I speculate if someone were to create a betrothal for Allyria in 294 (which, if you hit the Ned Dayne Parentage theory, would make sense to bind the Marcher Lords to the Daynes, keeping behavior in line regarding the Fowlers) the Eldest Dayne was still alive - putting him 39-44 years old in 294 AC. If Ned Dayne is 7 in 294 AC, the Eldest Dayne would be around 32-37 when Ned was born. If Ned Dayne is the current Lord of Starfall, his father was Lord before him, even if brief. His father would be dead between 294-297 AC; something Ned seems to have come to terms with in ASOS, where he meets Arya in 299/300 AC. Four to six years later seems appropriate, as Ned would have gone off to page for Beric in 294 AC.

Arthur: 255-260 AC Birth, 283 AC Death

Not as much to decipher here, so I’ll give you a break:if Jaime Lannister was the youngest KG at 15, that indicates Arthur Dayne had to be at least 16 years old in 276 AC, if not older. Arthur was born, at latest, 260 AC.

Ashara: 260-265 AC Birth, 283 AC “Death” (speculated off of SSM, Rebellion timeline, and Martells visiting Starfall on their Marriage Journey (ASOS) )

In a 2002 SSM, Martin stated Ashara, if alive, would be in her thirties. Operating in Storm of Swords time, 299-300 AC, this puts her birth before 270 AC. 270 AC puts Ashara at 12 during the Tourney at Harrenhal; earlier than 260 AC puts her at 22+. A narrower age range would be appropriate at 260-265 AC. Following Oberyn’s notion that “a difference of five or six years is little enough.” (Tyrion X, ASOS) and his age being 16-17 at the time of their visit, Ashara was likely in her pre/early teens during 273 AC. Elia Martell was born about five to ten years before Ashara - logically, we can assume Ashara is born closer to 260-265 AC than 270 AC. Having Ashara born in 260-265 AC leaves her within the range of the ‘tragic teen romance’ role given to the Rebellion Ladies - any younger doesn’t quite fit.

Allyria: 279-283 AC Birth

According to AWOIAF, Allyria Dayne is the younger sister of Eldest, Arthur and Ashara Dayne. Allyria is betrothed to Beric Dondarrion in 294 AC. Betrothals generally occur for highborn young woman between the ages of eleven to fifteen, if not before the girl flowers (Lyanna at thirteen, Sansa at eleven, Myrcella at ten, Margaery thirteen/fourteen). Allyria was probably born about 279 AC earliest and latest 283 AC. She would currently be at oldest 21, and youngest 17.

Edric: 287 AC Birth, Lord of Starfall somewhere in 294-297 AC

"How long have you been Lord Beric's squire?" she asked, to take his mind from his misery. "He took me for his page when he espoused my aunt." He coughed. "I was seven, but when I turned ten he raised me to squire. I won a prize once, riding at rings." "I never learned the lance, but I could beat you with a sword," said Arya. "Have you killed anyone?" That seemed to startle him. "I'm only twelve." I killed a boy when I was eight, Arya almost said, but she thought she'd better not. -Arya VIII, ASOS

If Ned Dayne was seven when Allyria was betrothed (294 AC), he would have to be eleven turning twelve in 299 AC, placing his birth in 287 AC.

While Martin has slipped up with subtle details in the past - Jeyne Westerling’s hips, Tyrion’s majestic tumbling, Renly’s eye color, currency value, gender-changing horses - there’s reason to believe that these subtle details in the House Dayne plot are important. The family with a famed, apocalypse ending sword has to come into play eventually - like Martin has said, “you don't hang a giant wolf pack on the wall unless you intend to use it”. Logically, if they hold Dawn - and have held Dawn - House Dayne has a major part to play in the story to come. Why introduce Ned Dayne and Dawn lore, if not? And further, why introduce and consistently reintroduce Ashara Dayne?

She Who Treads on the Sea

Ashara Dayne’s Personal Timeline

“As to your speculations about Catelyn and Ashara Dayne... sigh... needless to say, All Will Be Revealed in Good Time. I will give you this much, however; Ashara Dayne was not nailed to the floor in Starfall, as some of the fans who write me seem to assume. They have horses in Dorne too, you know. And boats (though not many of their own). As a matter of fact (a tiny tidbit from SOS), she was one of Princess Elia's lady companions in King's Landing, in the first few years after Elia married Rhaegar. The rest I will save for the books.” (SSM)

If you found the Dayne rebellion timeline tedious, this next one is easier to digest. Poring over each minute detail in order to speculate ages… is not something you glance and ‘catch’. Actually, speculation of most Rebellion moments tend to be composed of exactly that. The true problem remains: we don’t know what Martin’s true canon is. Are the timelines off on purpose, or simply blurred from normal inconsistencies in narration? With the importance of House Dayne in the wars to come, I don’t see Martin leaving their mystery alone. Ashara’s personal timeline during the rebellion isn’t quite as complicated to keep track of, but with so little canon available, it’s a reasonable amount of information to absorb.

273 AC - The Martell visit

The Marriage Search

"Do you recall the tale I told you of our first meeting, Imp?" Prince Oberyn asked, as the Bastard of Godsgrace knelt before him to fasten his greaves. "It was not for your tail alone that my sister and I came to Casterly Rock. We were on a quest of sorts. A quest that took us to Starfall, the Arbor, Oldtown, the Shield Islands, Crakehall, and finally Casterly Rock . . . but our true destination was marriage. Doran was betrothed to Lady Mellario of Norvos, so he had been left behind as castellan of Sunspear. My sister and I were yet unpromised.”

-Tyrion X, ASOS

Elia and I were older, to be sure. Your brother and sister could not have been more than eight or nine. Still, a difference of five or six years is little enough. And there was an empty cabin on our ship, a very nice cabin, such as might be kept for a person of high birth. As if it were intended that we take someone back to Sunspear. A young page, perhaps. Or a companion for Elia. Your lady mother meant to betroth Jaime to my sister, or Cersei to me. Perhaps both."

-Tyrion X, ASOS

In a mighty Dornish exposition drop, Oberyn Martell gives more than us a few interesting moments to review. A few assumptions can be made from even the smallest of sentences. The Martell Marriage Search sent Oberyn and Elia to find proper and advantageous alliances in Westeros. While we know the eventual doom Elia’s marriage evoked, it is worth noting that their first stop was Starfall. Were Ashara born between 260-265, she would have been between the age of eight and 13 during the visit, with Arthur at least thirteen by this meeting. Oberyn and Elia were about 16 and 15 during the Martell Marriage Search, and more than likely within the five to six year age range of the Dayne siblings.

"What I did not tell you was that my mother waited as long as was decent, and then broached your father about our purpose. Years later, on her deathbed, she told me that Lord Tywin had refused us brusquely. His daughter was meant for Prince Rhaegar, he informed her. And when she asked for Jaime, to espouse Elia, he offered her you instead."

-Tyrion X, ASOS

So why no Dayne match? If you subscribe to the Southron Ambitions theory by Stefan Sasse, you’ll already know and believe that the older generation of parent figures and players in Robert’s Rebellion (Rickard Stark, Hoster Tully, Jon Arryn, Tywin Lannister, Steffon Baratheon) were obsessed with finding politically beneficial matches for their children and family. The ruling Princess of Dorne, a long-time friend and fellow Lady-in-waiting to Rhaella Targaryen, Joanna Lannister, had her own plans that went awry; including a Lannister match.

Late 280 AC - Spring of 281 AC

King’s Landing: Lady-in-waiting

Rhaegar had chosen Lyanna Stark of Winterfell. Barristan Selmy would have made a different choice. Not the queen, who was not present. Nor Elia of Dorne, though she was good and gentle; had she been chosen, much war and woe might have been avoided. His choice would have been a young maiden not long at court, one of Elia's companions … though compared to Ashara Dayne, the Dornish princess was a kitchen drab.

-The Kingbreaker, ADWD

Elia Martell married Prince Rhaegar Targaryen in early 280 AC, in King’s Landing. They moved to Dragonstone after the wedding, and later in 280 AC, Elia had their first child, Princess Rhaenys. They presented the baby to King Aerys II and Rhaella after she was born. With the tourney right around the corner in the false spring, and Elia and Rhaegar both returning to Dragonstone after the tourney, we can assume that Ashara Dayne came to King’s Landing as a companion to Elia when they presented Princess Rhaenys to the royal family.

So, what exactly would the job description of Elia Martell’s lady-in-waiting entail? Historically, a court lady is someone of noble but lower social birth of their attended who acts almost like an assistant. A lady in today’s more feudal societies, such as Kate Middleton’s attendees, would find themselves tasked with acting like a social auxiliary, managing correspondences and helping entertain notable luminaries. In the feudal ASOIAF society, ladies participate in queenly pastimes; wardrobe care/dressing, highborn activities (needlework, riding, music), supervision over servants, and even as messenger for discreet communications. Overall, ladies at court offer friendship for a woman who can’t exactly go out and make friends with just any common human. (History Revealed, Lordsandladies.org)

If, as Barristan states, Ashara accompanied Elia to King’s Landing but didn’t stay long (The Kingbreaker, ADWD), then she probably wasn’t running around the castle playing hopscotch all day. Elia was bedridden for half a year after giving birth to Rhaenys. Had Ashara come to court when Rhaenys was presented - and stayed until the Tourney of Harrenhal was over - she would probably miss out on a lot of the normal lady-in-waiting activities; she may not have had a friendly and loving relationship as most would think with Elia. A 13-20 year old daughter, pulled from the sandy coasts of the summer sea to attend court and create opportunities for herself and her family ended up alone in a great keep, where madness, prophecy, and a hint of wildfire circled the royal family. Dornish weren’t exactly made to feel like welcome guests in the castle - the king refused to touch Rhaenys when she was presented to him (TWOIAF) and grew increasingly hostile and paranoid against Dorne and its allies as time went on. Aerys even went as far as holding Elia and her children hostage in the war to keep Lewyn and her family (and their armies) under control.

Like other girls who come to the capital with heads full of sparkling knights and ladies, King’s Landing probably wasn’t fun and games for Ashara. There truly isn’t textual basis in Ashara/Elia slumber parties, staying up ‘til 3 AM and braiding each other’s hair every night. Elia would have been at least 4-5 years Ashara’s senior, if not more. Her duties to Elia would have, more than likely, been tedious. Imagine walking into court each day, knowing exactly how the current king felt about your ethnicity and culture - even openly insulting his grandchildren and daughter-in-law. Aerys II’s court didn’t exactly sound like the songs; there was no romance, no fun.

Tourney at Harrenhal: Early/Mid Mid 281 AC

The crannogman saw a maid with laughing purple eyes dance with a white sword, a red snake, and the lord of griffins, and lastly with the quiet wolf . . . but only after the wild wolf spoke to her on behalf of a brother too shy to leave his bench.

-Bran, ASOS

The first night of the Tourney, a great feast was held. Meera Reed details the feast to Bran Stark, and we are posed on the walls of Harrenhal, watching Ashara Dayne dance with several dance partners - a white sword (Barristan Selmy or her brother, Arthur), a red snake (Oberyn Martell), the lord of griffins (Jon Connington) and the quiet wolf (Ned Stark) at the wild wolf(Brandon Stark)’s request.

Where Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell were present at the Tourney at Harrenhal, Ashara Dayne was not far behind. There to attend Elia (also seen in official art depicted by Paolo Puggioni in The World of Ice and Fire) - Ashara likely spent time comforting her after the public embarrassment of Rhaegar honoring Lyanna.

And that’s where Ashara’s timeline begins to trail off. Barristan states Ashara was dishonored at Harrenhal (“Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well.”- The Kingbreaker, ADWD), which plants the seed in our minds: Ashara had sex at the Tourney of Harrenhal, popped out a stillborn baby nine months later, and sequentially… threw herself off of a tower.

But that timeline doesn’t quite add up. Barristan says ‘soon after’ - which, left vague, could mean any number of days, weeks, or months, but certainly soon after in this text couldn’t mean one to two years. Whether this is unreliable narration, perspective change, or even just Barristan being clueless - it isn’t necessarily a new concept concerning him (Aerys/Joanna and Rhaegar exposition, intricacies of politics in Meereen, etc).

Elia almost dead; Ashara returned to Starfall: 282 AC

Jon Connington remembered Prince Rhaegar's wedding all too well. Elia was never worthy of him. She was frail and sickly from the first, and childbirth only left her weaker. After the birth of Princess Rhaenys, her mother had been bedridden for half a year, and Prince Aegon's birth had almost been the death of her. She would bear no more children, the maesters told Prince Rhaegar afterward. -The Griffin Reborn, ADWD

When the Tourney concluded, Elia and Rhaegar returned home to Dragonstone, where Elia would give birth to Aegon VI Targaryen, and Rhaegar would soon take to the road with companions before falling upon and ‘kidnapping’ Lyanna Stark (The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring, TWOIAF)

Drowning: 283 AC

"My father was Ser Arthur's elder brother. Lady Ashara was my aunt. I never knew her, though. She threw herself into the sea from atop the Palestone Sword before I was born." "Why would she do that?" said Arya, startled. Ned looked wary. Maybe he was afraid that she was going to throw something at him. "Your lord father never spoke of her?" he said. "The Lady Ashara Dayne, of Starfall?" -Arya VIII, ASOS

Words pause on the page; waters devour the first-born daughter of House Dayne. The news is presented to us through Cersei Lannister, Barristan the Bold, Ned Dayne and Catelyn Stark: Ned Stark slew Ashara’s brother (“They called him the Sword of the Morning, and he would have killed me but for Howland Reed.” - Bran III, ACOK), brought home her ancestral family sword (“Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall”- Catelyn II, ACOK), and she jumped off of the Palestone Sword Tower (“Her heart was broken”- Arya VIII, ASOS). Ashara is buried beneath the oceans of Planetos.

But why is she brought up so often as we travel through ASOIAF?

The Purple Herring: Why Does Someone Have to Die?

“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” - Edgar Allan Poe

Ashara Dayne exists as an abstract notion that no one has grasped in the books; a construct, a lady in a tower, in a song. Nothing to describe her varied accounts, no one holding the real truth - and those that do hold that truth, have been moved off of the pages.

What begins as a distraction from the truth, readers are led away from the mystery of Rhaegar and Lyanna; but Ashara’s story slowly devolves into its own tragedy. What is implemented as a Dornish scapegoat; valyrian features, purple eyes, a fake-out, in case the savior emerged more Targaryen than Stark, turns into a simple blame game.

While not the only herring to Jon’s parentage (see: Wylla, a serving woman from Starfall (Arya VIII, ASOS), as well as the Fisherman’s Daughter in Sisterton (Davos I, ADWD)), Ashara sits center stage as the most likely candidate. As a result, characters project failures, jealousy, and hunger for power on a dead girl with no voice, but sad, beautiful eyes.

Our first mention of Ashara splashes into an early POV during AGOT: a young woman finds what solace she can in being a sold pony, married to the Wolf in line for her father’s swords. Placing blame on a dead girl, Catelyn Stark escapes the shame of raising a child that wasn’t hers, and the pain of a husband who ‘cheated’.

That was the only time in all their years that Ned had ever frightened her. "Never ask me about Jon," he said, cold as ice. "He is my blood, and that is all you need to know. And now I will learn where you heard that name, my lady." She had pledged to obey; she told him; and from that day on, the whispering had stopped, and Ashara Dayne's name was never heard in Winterfell again. -Catelyn II, AGOT

A soiled Kingsguard member lays his feeling of failure at the foot of her grave. The girl he should have saved, too beautiful to live, becomes a place for him to rest his guilt; on the one who got away.

But Ashara's daughter had been stillborn, and his fair lady had thrown herself from a tower soon after, mad with grief for the child she had lost, and perhaps for the man who had dishonored her at Harrenhal as well. She died never knowing that Ser Barristan had loved her. How could she? He was a knight of the Kingsguard, sworn to celibacy. No good could have come from telling her his feelings. No good came from silence either. If I had unhorsed Rhaegar and crowned Ashara queen of love and beauty, might she have looked to me instead of Stark? He would never know. But of all his failures, none haunted Barristan Selmy so much as that. - The Kingbreaker, ADWD

The scorned queen, jealous and prideful, grasping at rumored straws in an attempt to overpower and wound our protagonist.

"How dare you play the noble lord with me! What do you take me for? You've a bastard of your own, I've seen him. Who was the mother, I wonder? Some Dornish peasant you raped while her holdfast burned? A whore? Or was it the grieving sister, the Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I'm told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?" -Cersei, AGOT

Ned allowing Ashara to be used as a herring for Jon's birth suggests that Ned knew to cover his bases. Of the three leading choices for Jon’s ‘parentage’, Ashara had the most to lose; and the most to give. With House Dayne abetting Rhaegar - and even the slightest notion of Ashara being a link in finding the Tower of Joy - Robert Baratheon could find Ashara guilty in the kidnapping of Lyanna Stark. While Robert was a merciful ruler where loyalty lay, (seen with Barristan), Ned couldn't risk that information leading Robert deeper - deeper being closer to Jon's true parentage ("I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Eddard II, AGOT).

If Ashara lived, she would have to live quietly, or risk her own safety. As long as the Baratheons (and their supporters) held the Iron Throne and the Rhaegar/Lyanna myth held firm, Ashara Dayne was always going to be found guilty, no matter her true allegiance, no matter what her actions were - and careful, cautious Ned Stark couldn’t risk that.

Let me pull you out of these thoughts for a moment. If you have a free browser tab to spare, throw this song on while you read. It’s scored well for this next bit, and I’ve come to find that mood music always improves the overall sensation when Ashara is involved. “Why does someone have to die?” by Philip Glass from the Hours is a personal favorite soundtrack piece.

The Hours plants the viewer in the lives of three very different women, yearning for something more, linked by a common denominator of fear and strife - much like the late females of the rebellion. Their stories eventually intertwine, and Philip orchestrates the emotion of the piece: the swell of sadness, the cascading melancholy notes, the strings vibrating to resonate what words can not. We turn towards the summer sea; the cool, pale marble of the Palestone Sword Tower against our toes. We are at once filled with anguish. As the waves sweep us away with Ashara’s ending, we ask the question: why does someone have to die?

Specifically, why Ashara?

Because that’s the way the song goes. As she plummets to the bottom of the ocean and her life decrescendos, Ashara is dying, because that’s what we as the reader are told happens. The recipe calls for it, no matter which way we bend the story, or which variable we change. The innocent and the lovers are the first condemned in romance’s fire and tragedy.

Like any journey, the one to the savior’s birth is laced with sacrifice and loss. The sad girl, hair billowing behind her, standing on the edge of a tower in songs, will always throw herself off of the tower. But is that the way it always goes, or is that the way that it is being written? Is the audience simply comfortable with what we’ve been told, or do we press to find something deeper?

Martin allows readers to enter the “tower” in A Storm of Swords, without having to tell us that it is Ashara’s.

“Why did she jump into the sea though?” "Her heart was broken." “Sansa would have sighed and shed a tear for true love, but Arya just thought it was stupid.” She couldn't say that to Ned, though, not about his own aunt. "Did someone break it?" -Arya VIII, ASOS

“He sang about some stupid lady throwing herself off some stupid tower because her stupid prince was dead.” -Cat of the Canals, AFFC

Threads dangle in front of our faces, but we can’t quite clutch them; precisely how Ashara has been dangled in front of us in the series. We are told to look. Look closer. Things are not what they seem.

The Rebellion drills the reader to examine the stories in our hands, to probe between lines, while perspective tells us to remember who we are watching the story through. Arya finds the stories and songs stupid, which can be easily empathized with- remember being young, before things were so intricately complicated, so delicately woven? The girl who needed to enter a literal house of black and white to learn that things aren’t always black and white has no clue just how complicated this situation could and could not be.

While war and tragedy waged on through the Rebellion, those innocently stuck on the losing side assumed the saddest position. Elia Martell, stuck in the capital with her children was unable to leave or protect them, despite having done everything asked of her; marry the crown prince, bear his children, say yes, yes, yes. Rhaella, lured home through storms to Dragonstone in the dead of night, finding a bitter end to the years of abuse endured at the hands of her brother-husband. Ashara, the poeticized and mysterious young woman with an uncanny gaze further perpetuates the princess in the tower trope scattered throughout the story. Sansa, Arianne, and even Ashara are all stowed in this “tower”, stripped of choice and agency, each with different fates awaiting them.

“The lady should go kill the ones who killed her prince. And the singer should be on the wall.“ -Cat of the Canals, AFFC

Were it that easy, wolf girl. Things are never quite that easy, a lesson driven home repeatedly in cause-effect scenario. In this moment, the girl with winter in her blood resembles the reader; rejecting the overtly romantic sounding layers, the true nature of the plot, and refusing to see past the words on the page.

The princess in the tower can’t just call the banners and go off to war for her ‘prince’. Where most see in a range of color, songs of Westeros don’t offer that generous of a view. Ashara Dayne had to “die” for the cause.

Interlude: Panning Offscreen

In a simple, clean move, every scrap of narrative food disappears off of the table before we can get too greedy. Where do characters with knowledge of every uninterpretable secret go? Off the screen. They die. They’re never introduced to the POVs that feed us. They disappear. If they know too much, they are displaced from the page, at least until it’s deemed safe. Their secrets lie in the air, whispering through each line. Promise me, we hear, as Ned Stark’s head rolls. The reader resonates for 4 more books on the true meaning of the room that smelled of blood and roses. Why did she throw herself into the sea? We teeter on the edge of a bittersweet tragedy, moments from breaking through. A pause. Ned Dayne flits between the chapters of ASOS, details are inched into our view, but our almost-exposition drop evaporates before it’s given away.

When he slept, he dreamed: dark disturbing dreams of blood and broken promises. - Eddard XV, AGOT

Thanks so much for taking the time to read, all! In part II, we're going to talk about the Tower of Joy (and the stigma of silence surrounding it), identity and hidden identity in Westeros, and compelling arguments against theories about Ashara as Quaithe, Septa Lemore, Brandon Stark's baby-mama and the-baby-swap.

#ashara dayne #asoiaf meta #ashara meta #house dayne #asoiaf

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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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