#ASOIAF and GOT discourse

[melrosing]

it's impressive to me that jaime is simultaneously one of the most loved and one of the most hated characters in fandom

ehhh tbh I think it's quite typical that the most popular characters in fandom are also the most polarising, and to an extent Jaime is designed to get a mixed reaction. as ever though, there's always a difference between those who just don't care for Jaime and those who go out of their way to write bad faith analyses of his character. and i mean whatever lol, there are more egregious things than Jaime antis in the world but my god they are so boring. writing the worst meta on the Riverrun chapters that you've ever seen in your life whilst praising themselves for seeing through Jaime's redemption arc and only liking some good, upstanding child character or w/e

same ppl who say 'i LOVE brienne she's my FOURTH favourite character i NEED to PROTECT her! she deserves better than BRAIME stans!' and then they never post about her again except to say that a second, third, fourth and fifth time

[whateverthought]

It's tragic love. You just don't WANT not CAN'T like Rhaegar x Lyanna. You think life is white and black and that as long as Elia is not loved by Rhaegar you should find fault in their love.

Whats tragic about it? What did Rhaegar see in this little girl? The only nice thing he ever does for her is naming her "Love and Beauty" at a tourney. Which, depending on Lyanna's situation could have actually hurt her? If Robert Baratheon had been a jealous, abusive man, seeing another man show interest in her could have caused her problems. Hell, if her father was an abusive man, he could have called her a whore and punished her for just the Thought that she was with the Prince, who she never met.

Other than that? What else is there? Stealing her away in the night? Something that started a War and put her siblings in harm's way? He took her from her Horrible Betrothement and then what? Put her in a tower?

We do know Rhaegar was obsessed with his Family History and the Prophecy especially. We do know Elia couldn't give him anymore children, just one short. We do know he knew about the Ice and Fire part and its 'importance'. We also know Lyanna hated that Robert, her fiance/betrothed, slept around even though they were 'together'. And we know Lyanna had a strong moral compass, or belief in Right and Wrong.

Saying you KNOW what I'm feeling is crazy. It's not my Black and White View that's causing me problems, its the established characterization that I'm hung up on.

I don't care if Rhaegar Loved Elia, personally I don't have enough on these characters to care.

[jessescatorccio]

“every time a targaryen is born the gods toss a coin—”

[visenyaism]

nettles mention!! what do you think of the theory that she’s not a dragonseed and the real reason Rhaenyra tries to have her killed is tht post-dragonpit it would be disastrous if it got out that any plucky schmuck with enough meat can tame a dragon? the idea is that its weird to have Nettles killed for sleeping with Daemon when she’s fine working with Mysaria so there might be another reason

I like the theory that she’s not a dragonseed and just tamed sheepstealer through kindness and love (and sheep meat). but i don’t think the second half of that is true- Rhaenyra could have easily just used her power as monarch to create a different public narrative about nettles’ heritage to legitimate her being a dragon rider if she felt like she needed to. She knows how to do that. But she definitely wanted Nettles dead for being linked to Daemon. 

I think the reason she was fine working with Mysaria is because Rhaenyra is entrenched enough in the feudal syste to not see Mysaria as a threat because she’s of drastically lower status. Mysaria was lowborn, formerly enslaved, with a history of sex work and being a spymaster in the least savory part of the capital- all things that women get dehumanized for in the society that Rhaenyra was raised in. Mysaria isn’t like Rhaenyra- Rhaenyra is special, she’s valyrian, she’s the heir to the throne, and she’s a dragonrider. None of the things that ever happened to Mysaria because of Daemon would ever happen to her. She’s different, he would never abandon her to get put on a boat somewhere while he flies off to another person because power is pointing in a different direction.

But he did do that, and that’s where Nettles comes in. Daemon groomed Rhaenyra (and arguably also Laena Velaryon) as a teenager. Not arguing about that one, it’s pretty textual, go bark up a different tree. Daemon is into very questionably young dragonriders because he’s real into Valyria. Nettles is the last one in that pattern, and Daemon running off with this girl who ISNT valyrian and IS lowborn had to have been more of a betrayal for Rhaenyra psychologically.

Rhaenyra committed to a life with Daemon, he said he was going to fight for her, and it turned into a war that killed all but one of her children (all six of whom she had before she was 30) and a rapidly decaying claim on the power she sacrificed so much for. And when bearing this inhuman tidal wave of grief got to be a little too hard for her husband to deal with, he ran off on a probable suicide mission with a plucky and naive 16 year old dragonrider and left her and their son out to dry. This is a world-destroying betrayal and revelation to deal with for her, and she cannot deal with it, so she just decides to blame Nettles and try to get her killed. She literally cannot believe that her husband would do this to her, it has to be 16 year-old Nettles’ fault.

It’s a real gut-punch of a tragedy for both Rhaenyra AND Nettles that i think has more to do with power differentials and grooming and gender politics than it does our modern conception of romantic infidelity. It did not read as a valyrian dragonriders only political calculus psyop move to me but that IS just me

[crimeronan]

that post about unpleasant women in media made me need to make a venn diagram about cersei lannister, skyler white, and cdth hennessy. so i just learned how to use canva for the first time.

here are some reasons you might be able to hate 1 or 2 of these women without Necessarily being a misogynist. (you MUST hate male characters for the Same Exact Reasons, though.)

preemptive note: i am Aware this is imperfect and that there's more overlap and distinction than is presented here, ie cersei is arguably Also a textbook emotional abuser, cersei is also an unpleasant complainer, etc, etc, etc. just. play in this space with me. Pls.

jst. allow me to shitpost about my three favorite unpleasant women in any media ever. Observe.

[ilynpilled]

This kind of read still existing legitimately drives me up the wall. One of the worst things GoT has done is turn Brienne into such a one note character when it comes to her emotions which in turn birthed “Brienne being in love with a character who she had a very integral mutual dynamic with all throughout the series and crying about it??? uhhh good job reducing a strong female character!!” Like yall are just saying words. A female character having a love interest and a romantic arc does not reduce her. A “strong female character” being vulnerable and emotional is not counterintuitive. With a character as unconventional as Brienne a romantic arc is pretty cool actually. I am certainly not saying its underrepresented with female characters (it often frustratingly sidelines them in fact), but it is when it comes to characters like her. She is a young woman who yearns for intimacy and love in a world where she is ostracized and deemed unlovable for physical traits out of her control. Where women are valued for the physical attractiveness. She falls in love, and it is extremely scary for her, it is one of the main things we know about her. She IS a romantic heroine as well. And no, her lesson should not be: “dumb naive girl falling in love with pretty men?? do not do that let love and romance go and be a warrior who represses all of her desires for eternity or settle.” When she falls for Jaime she does not fall for a surface either. That is the point of their whole dynamic. Like it is not at all like with Renly, it is the opposite. She had a terrible impression of him based on preconceived notions and his actual behavior, she saw him at his worst, she was at the receiving end of the persona that became a part of him, until she watched him lay himself bare over time to her. She also is not delusional about him right now either. She knows him intimately, she knows all of his sins and his virtues. She does not trust easily, but she chooses to trust him. That is meant to be brave for her character. Renly was very much a safe and distant star for her. It was not true vulnerability, she never entertained the idea of truly having him. It was love from a comfortable distance. She craves that comfortable distance which is why she is trying to repress her very obvious emotions for Jaime. Jaime is gonna be a stage that is not that. A female character being in love with and having a connection to a male character is not inherently reducing her to a love interest. George dwells so much on Brienne and how her emotions work, it is complex and well written and an aspect of HER character. Within the framework of Brienne’s story Jaime is her love interest, not the other way around. Putting her into a box when it comes to how she should behave because of her “archetype” is the opposite of the point of her character. Personally, some of my favorite Brienne moments in the books is when she is being vulnerable, when she is falling in love and struggling with that. If you view that as dehumanizing for a character, I think you are out of your mind.

[barbreypilled]

*strums guitar* I love u bitch……..

I absolutely hated my previous disney villain concept art of her so I redid it but then my gd white pen was fully dried up. just pretend the solid black areas have some kind of detail

don’t tag as racebending

[whereserpentswalk]

The debate in the asoiaf community about weather Daenerys was a good person or not really misses the point of a lot of her arc, at least as of Dance with Dragons. She had the best intentions, and legitimately wanted to help the people around her, but she was still a foreign teenager whose main way of interacting with the world was though a conquering army.

The point was that she was a good person with good intentions and she still caused terrible things to happen. Because when your main way of enacting change is an army of conquest, extreme violence is the main thing you can do. A lot of the books are deconstruction of fantasy tropes using the mechanics of actual history, and a lot of her arc is specifically deconstructing the idea of a rightful heir type hero who can make the world a better place by conquering it.

The tv adaptation (at least in the last season) misinterpret her as some sort of dark lord figure, but she's not, she's what would happen if that Aragorn archetype was a real person in a world as complex as our own.

[liaa--qb]

do you think that team black Stans takes this hotd war topic too much And They are very much hypocrite ?? I was new in this fandom and stand with team black. I hate to say this many of them spoil whole fun on Twitter debate.I have seen their jealousy alot at Aemond getting more attention than some of their characters by audience.They made stories about him like he r@ped Alys.They would have hated daeron if he was there since first season lmao. What's your take on team black stans. Don't mistake me as a Aemond wife. I am against team green but admitting I kinda liked his character only as villian. Helaena is the only person I love in team green

EXACTLY ! This..... EXACTLY this.. see firstly m not a team supporter or stan here. I am just enjoying d show till it's tolerable😅. I just want a good show dat's it. I am not on Twitter thankfully, I am well aware what goes on there n you can hate Aemond all u want. He's a villian ofcourse 🙏🏻

Fire and blood was boring but show has chance to be better atleast though if they ever want to try😑... Regarding ur take , it's gonna be bit long now as I don't do this long stuff unless it's a fic😭

lemme tell the truth now.... ik many dumb ones are not gonna like it 😂

yes there are majority of hypocrite team black Stans who would make up these bullshits mainly with Aemond like "they gave Jace's qualities to Aemond, Aemond r*ped Alys". Jace's one was the most random 😂

bitch... like where you thought after reading the book n watching show that they gave Jace's qualities to Aemond 💀😭 ??? Where... I read the book too😂. My friends who actually introduced me to hotd who are book purists too , even they laughed on this theory when I told them.

" Jace and Aegon were adapted exactly the way they were in the books ! " It's a fact Listen I love Tom Glynn Carney too (like how can you not🥵) but sorry to those Aegon girlies who were just saying that they forcefully made Aegon a r*pist. He was like this in the book very much. They both were shown correctly how they should have been in s1.

Both green and blacks were given some good and bad shots equally in show. Bad n good shots for God's sake doesn't mean one is Angel and other one being devil. It's about writing or storyline regarding both teams. N this whole jealousy or hypocrisy towards Aemond of some team black stans is nothing but a childish stupidity to me and it's obvious that Aemond would get alot attention in show than many N y not ? 🤦🏻‍♀️

[ top 3 characters from both teams will get attention. Show will be divided into two teams from Team black it's Rhaenyra, Daemon , Colrys n (someone with corlys) who would be focused more N from team Green it would Alicent, Aegon, Aemond. Majority of Attention would be given to Rhaenyra, Alicent n Aegon as they are main 3 . It should be very much clear to every person who read the book , to me it was as I read only after watching the S1 trailer. Wasn't this very much obvious in the book. ]

Also Aemond never r*ped or assaulted Alys in the book. We never got inside of their relationship in book. He can in the show though🤷🏻‍♀️.... if makers want to. He took her as war prize which was very much common for every guy winning war.

Honestly Alys was far yrs older fucking powerful witch😭 she would eat Aemond alive be fr if she wanted to. She would have killed him way easily in starting itself . Yes there relationship was problematic n it was power imbalance both sides. They both were using each other. Aemond was clearly under her spell or either for her powers and so was Alys. Who was taking her best from Aemond's position whatever she could get from both sides.

If Grrm lit wanted to show that Aemond r*ped Alys he would have done it very well like he does this with his all other characters who were actually r@pists but he didn't. On the contrary side he wrote Aemond as evil goth twink who never wanted to scare the ladies at court n wore eye patch bcz of that😂. Same guy was making out with his floris and fell hard under spell of strong bastard witch calling her 'my lady !'

Let me clear that also Aemond not being a r@pist doesn't make him a less bad person either. He was a sadist tyrant n murderer psychopath in book. This is what made him a villian or bad guy. But the problem with some team black Stans is that they knew that audience will start giving him the ' typical Kylo ren' treatment which he's getting. ( Idk how one cannot see this coming after reading dance of d in FNB, it was very much predicted I knew it). They don't want to give any good points to any team green characters in their silly game. Like as if audience don't hype bad guys more than good guys😑.

Same way when same audience hyped Daemon more than Harwin then they don't have any problem but if audience likes Aemond n Daeron more than team black kids then their ass hate to see this n would write whole new made up reasons for not to like any team green member while cheering any other character which they like for same thing.

Funny thing is that many team black daemon lovers would write how he was right man, he killed all r*pist from city while this is the same daemon who fucks literally little girls who are prostitutes n loves it which is very much written in book. Ofcourse mysaria was with him since her childhood. As prostitutes have no other options. Taking prince like daemon and Aegon was better for their survival.

He is canon p*dophile in book but yes if Aemond is r@pist then Daemon's account of doing r@pe is way higher than Aemond even before when Aemond was born. Now why would those black Stans admit this ? 😂 never....... Believe me when I say that some of them are that level of jokers who would say that Maegor is good and daeron is bad just because he is from team green.

I really like daemon too n daemon had his bad qualities n good qualities both 🧡atleast I like the way he is . It clearly shows that some Stans they cannot even like or hate the character for what they are. They are dumbass kids watching some cartoon fight with two team. They just want to hate one team for any reason n like other team for any random reason

Mind you....many of them even hate Helaena unnecessary but same time would love Laena and for what ????🤡🤡

what I hated regarding Aemond in show :-

now things I accept that Aemond not killing Luce was very much wrong and I hated that too. Because it was not good for plot tbh for me. It's just messing up with already messed up world building. Aemond as a villian got a very much reason to Luce n y should he not ? now that's thing I genuinely think that was done wrong regarding Aemond's character, people hating it is very much justified because it very much makes luc's death stupid rather than sad.

But making up reasons like they gave everything to Aemond like they didn't made Aemond totally bad during drift mark scene as we get sympathy for rhaena n we understood her reason for being angry on Aemond atleast n Aemond insulting her. but in books it's lit Nyra's kids who were not minding their own business n Aemond was just beating them n throwing them far away from him instead of killing them with rock like in the show but ofcourse this wasn't visible to team black Stans. Because in the book honestly Aemond was very much correct during drift mark scene.

They removed viserys's taunting Aemond regarding dragon which was very important.

They showed Harwin beating Criston but we all know it was Criston who took both Harwin and Daemon easily and so many of I started to count regarding team green were done equally wrong.

just see the dumbness and hyporcrisy I once saw Darkling and rhys Stans saying bullshit about Aegon and Aemond 😂😂. Same Darkling who physically assaulted Alina, abused her. The one who gave little girls like Genya to get r@ped by the old hag king for his benefit n

the way LB wrote him I can very say that she hated him as well. And Rhys is whole another level bullshit 😂if started to write. They were not even a good written bad guys. These same idiots would typing whole ass reasons to like them. It's funny that Darkling supporters would hate Otto hightower as if they aren't the same thing 🤣. Otto slays more as compared Darkling.

many of them pretend to care about representation saying that 'Jace should not have Sara n it would hurt baela n would make her unwanted ' while same time giving thousand reasons of there was nothing bet Nettles and Daemon so that it would not harm their Daemyra. So many of them were happy when there wasn't any news regarding nettles. ( It's not only team black , many of team green stans r equally hypocrite here you asked me of team black )

[ride-thedragon]

NETTLES ASOIAF POLL RESULTS BREAKDOWN.

So, as I suspected, team black does like her a little less. 0 votes from team green is crazy but accurate if you keep up with the discourse. 4.9% is roughly 11 people, though, so it's not a massive increase. It's just a lot of the time the people who don't want her narrative adaptation as it is in the books tend to lean towards team black. Thank you all for your contributions and votes. I'll leave you with pie charts and calculations. I do think this was a large enough sample to apply to the general fandom, but outside of that, it is my moral responsibility to say that you shouldn't and that this was not research conducted. It was just me and my love of percentages.

These are all rough estimates from 224 votes within 24 hours:

Final overall Pie Chart

Like:

Team Black: 55 votes

Team Green: 48 votes

Team Neutral: 44 votes

Dislike:

Team Black: 11 votes

Team Green: 0 votes

Team Neutral: 5 votes

Neutral Towards Her :

Team Black: 36 votes

Team Green: 9 votes

Team Neutral: 15 votes

It's complicated:

Team complicated: 1 vote

[wardencallings]

Reentering my Game of Thrones era and it upsets me how people willfully misunderstand both Ned's and Catelyn's characters

[welcomefortune]

I’m sorry but the “you need to write fic that’s unproblematic so kids who read it don’t think Problematic Thing is okay” holds a lot less weight for me when someone writes for ASOIAF than when someone writes for children’s media. When I write for ASOIAF/GOT/HOTD I’m assuming that whoever is reading it has A. read/watched the source material and B. is an adult who can think critically. 11 year olds should not be reading ASOIAF fic period they are too young to engage with the material and I don’t think it’s on fic writers/fan artists to ensure their works are appropriate for young children if they are creating content in mostly adult spaces for adult media. I think if you write for Sofia the First and are asking ppl on Roblox to read what you wrote then yeah I do think you should be more careful in what you create because that’s media intended for young children in a space that’s dominated by kids. But if you don’t have the maturity to handle dark topics I don’t know how you can handle ASOIAF to begin with bc GRRM delves into darker material than 99% of fics and fanart I’ve seen.

[strangesmallbard]

the opposite also. applies

[aegonette]

i know this has been said many times but it's so funny how many hardcore Arya stans despise Sansa when if Arya heard them talk shit about her big sis she'd beat the shit out of them

[mdccanon]

A Song of Ice and Fire is officially the most boring fantasy deconstruction I know.

He started this by asking, "Sure, Aragorn can defeat an evil army, but what is his tax policy?"

But the actual story is "What if Aragorn wanted to be king, but absolutely refused to produce legitimate heirs?"

Then he'd be an idiot that should be killed. Next question?

There is nothing interesting or compelling about the Baratheon and Velaryon succession crises. Hell, there is nothing interesting about that one dude and him kidnapping Lady Stark.

It is lackluster deconstructing fantasy tropes at best if the characters are only capable of making self-destructive choices and the entire plot is just them begrudgingly living their feudal lived, resenting every aspect of it. "Here, let me do the one thing that will get me killed and then spend the rest of my life complaining that life is so unfair. It's really commentary on society, if you think about it, if me acting purely in self-interest earns me so many consequences."

And then when fans just lose all patience with the characters, blame it all on them being half-mad from a prophecy they heard.

I originally praised Jaime, Ned, and Cersei as being well-written examples of the original premise and trying to live up to a fantasy archetype ideal in a world that punishes them for it. I accepted the Baratheon crisis out of solidarity to how it colored Cersei's dilemma. But then her storyline just becomes "she's jealous of younger women because of a prophecy." LOL, wut? Did she kill her friend back then, too?

None of these characters have ideas. None of these characters have vision. They just have butt-hurt feelings and sword skills. "Well, you see, Cersei is just so hateful that---" if she is so hateful, then how badly am I supposed to feel for her in the original dilemma that you put her in where the more she attempted to be a dutiful wife and aren't you typical grateful princess, the more she was punished for it? If you make Princess Peach a villain not because of what she went through but because you say that she was a bitch all along, what makes her dilemma of her children being illegitimate so compelling?

See what you did there? By being too edgy? By going too grimdark? Robert, Cersei, Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen. You give the three assholes the most story and the the two sweethearts are plot devices at best, to be killed for shock value, but you still want me to care on an intellectual, conceptual level that it's unfair for a woman to be pushed into this position in the first place by being the prize for a man winning a war.

But I don't care. Not even because Cersei is not a protofeminist who helps her in-laws, even though women helping women is rarely a plot point and it would have been interesting to see that happen -- not even simply because she's a bitch -- but because Martin took a caper story, a criminal fights to escape punishment for her crime, and stretched it across 5 books. And when the caper won, her story didn't end, even though according to Martin's own grimdark rules, she wasn't allowed to LEARN from her experiences and therefore couldn't add anything new to the story. Just... Continue to be a right bitch. Because Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen only existed to be plot devices in her story. No reason to let stories end so that this saga can finally reach a conclusion.

And now we have a new show about some chick who is supposed to be both a Rebel Princess but also legitimately want the throne, and I'm supposed to care that she spends 5 years resenting getting married while also believing her pussy produces Chosen Ones? And you want to try to buy my sympathy by implying that she's afraid of childbirth, but this story is about drama and bullshit and it's never going to be about addressing trauma, so when she finally does choose a husband you do a 10 year time skip to when she's already overcome her fear of childbirth. So how long do you think that I'm supposed to care about this person who has the nerve to complain that everyone thinks poorly of her for the minor crime of cheating on her husband when she wanted to be in the spotlight and does not understand that her unwillingness to play The game of thrones has put her in a position where literally no one trusts her motivations?

"B-b-but the inherent sexism in her children being considered illegitimate for the throne despite her parentage being irrefutable!"

Yes, let me cry a single crystal tear for this privileged imperialist who is being punished for violating laws she had no reason to violate, because of the conceptual unfairness of it all. That men would make laws to even the playing field of the biological control women have. In a matriarchal society, this woman passing someone else's grandchildren off as her mother-in-law's would still be a horrible crime.

But lemme feel bad because the technicality and context of the moment makes her actions -- well, still exactly as bad -- but as a woman, I should feel for her because her violations of trust are being presented through male fear of female selfishness...

Let me go find something actually interesting...

[unsearching]

can A Song of Ice and Fire pls replace harry potter as the extremely commodified fantasy series? its not written by JKR and is actually for an adult audience. i want a Westeros video game and theme park. give me useless shit i dont need with a Westerosi theme PLEASE. i wont buy it but someone for sure will.